Pointed Views

AsH - as you may have noted - practices freedom of speech and has given any comment received in my blog (except the inflammatory and vulgar) the oxygen of publicity. Ash will respond, whether they come from the pens (or rather, the mice) of  serious thinkers or serious cretins.

I am quite taken by 3 comments from my last posting.  They prefer to focus on the tendency for violence on the part of Muslims, and also  their impotency  and stupidity.  They also reflect a common belief that  Muslims have only got themselves to blame.  This is exactly the same argument when non-blacks decry the 'backwardness' of the blacks in UK and US.

As I have prepared quite a detailed riposte for the second and third comments, I think it deserves a posting of its own.  These comments  typify the usual  brickbats : made up of generalizations, snide innuendos and crooked thinking  thrown at Muslims - by non-Muslims  (and insecure Muslims) both in Malaysia and abroad.

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Thank you Anon 11 January 2015 at 02:06

( Quotes from the comments are in italics.)


1.  You may be right but remember these are the immigrants from Islamic countries to a non-Islamic country which received them wholeheartedly.

Well, there are also many non-Muslim immigrants who migrate to Muslim countries and who not only prosper, but are allowed to maintain their culture with very little hassle from the host-people e.g. Malaya and Indonesia.
Name me the non-Muslim countries that "received them (Muslims)  wholeheartedly",  that is unless they bring in lots of dosh and gold bars?   Have you read carefully Gai Eaton's piece in my last post? 
As a Muslim living in a non-Muslim country  (UK)  I have received more than my fair share of abuse from my non-Muslim white hosts and officials and non-white, non-Muslim British residents.  By the way, are you making this comment from personal experience?  If you are, then it must be because you look like an 'honorary white' and you're not a Muslim.


2.  ...... yearning the help from powerful secular countries specially the US and Europe.

If  your homes, schools, hospitals, libraries, transport and sewerage systems have been blown apart by missiles and bombs and AK 47s etc  by 'secular' USA and European countries wouldn't you pack up your bags and go to  countries that are safe simply because they are powerful?

3.  As for your mention of the Sunni-Shite conflict, of Saudi Arabia colluding with Israel : if only Middle East politics were that  easy to understand.   I recommend Andre Vltchek's article "Who should be blamed for Muslim terrorism"  in Counterpunch January 9-11, 2015.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/09/who-should-be-blamed-for-muslim-terrorism/  

Of course you may not agree with it but it should help to clear some of your naive and over-simplistic interpretation.

Furthermore Muslims do not have a monopoly of in-fighting.  I hope you have read enough history to figure out other examples (take only the 20th century) like the long drawn out conflicts between the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland (thousands killed) and between the same two groups in Rwanda (hundreds of thousands killed).  What about the 'secular' in-fighting like the Civil wars in pre-Mao China and the North vs South  Civil War  in what is USA today?

4.   Muslim should not be so stupid to counter the threat with violence. Allah do not need  those stupid extremist Muslim to kill to protect his name.

Ask the Iraqis, Afghanis, Gazans (Palestinians) and Bosnians and Chechnyans and Rohingyas if they suffered merely 'threats'  and tell them off for being "extremist" and "stupid"  when they refuse to turn the other cheek?    Ask any non-Muslim  believer or country how they would react  if they were subjected to the same terror.

Just a little correction here :  It's not Allah's name that is being protected.  Both the right-wing and  'liberal'  fascists are intent on making fun (and profit) out of the Prophet of Islam.

5.  The Jews are killed in millions ........ they use their brain to ask others to fight the Arabs as their proxy.

Do you fully comprehend the ramifications of your "suggestion"?  Firstly, it was the
European Jews who were killed in millions (and who hardly had the opportunity to ask anyone to be their 'proxies'), but it was the Israeli Zionist Jews who 'asked others ... as their proxy'.  To follow through your argument, should the  'stupid' Muslims 'use their brains' and get others to be their proxy?  Now, while the few suicide bombers and 'terrorists' do their own dirty work, the rest of  the Muslim population and Islam are punished and reviled on account of them.

Do listen through the Video attached and you may learn a  thing or two.


Okey dokey, that's one comment dried and dusted.

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Now for the next one:  Thank you "Said".

If the verb for referencing a comment  used the word "wrote"  instead of "said" ,  the commentator would have to find
a Malay-Muslim name that sounds close to "wrote".  Any suggestions anyone?  

1.  'Muslims have nobody to blame but themselves"  Only a non-Muslim would have the temerity and churlishness to believe that the Middle Eastern situation is the fault of Muslims alone.  A "Syed" certainly wouldn't.

2.  Middle East conflict is an Arab conflict that most Muslim mistaken it as a Islam vs the world conflict.  If the mahzabs can't even agree..... what do you expect.  World peace? 

According to your  interpretation  the bloodshed in the Middle East is an entirely Arab problem and construction and  should not affect the rest of the Muslim world.  In choosing  to separate issues of Muslim integrity and sovereignty  in the Middle East from the rest of  other Muslim countries and communities, you seem to imply that Muslims have no right to a sense of brotherhood with their suffering co-believers.   Shouldn't that also apply to HRH Prince Charles (and many others) who moan about the plight of  Christians in the Middle East?

Read :  http://anaksihamid.blogspot.com/2014/11/prince-charles-prince-among-some-men.html

What have the attacks on Gaza, the invasion of Iraq (twice by father and son) and Afghanistan, and  conflicts in  other non Arab Muslim territories, such as the razing of Bosnia and Chechnya, the Muslim struggles for autonomy in Southern Philippines, Pattani and the persecution of Rohingyas in Burma have to do with Muslims making a 'mistake' 

 Western countries do not  restrain their intervention when their Judaeo-Christian brethren are under threat or attack.  Most of the time they do not have to send in suicide bombers and undercover "liberators" - they have other means to teach these nations a lesson - and in the case of  Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and others in South America, they simply send in their boys and their bombs. 

Read : https://consortiumnews.com/2015/01/14/a-free-press-and-double-standards/ 


You must be familiar with  the First and Second  World Wars - tribal  wars in Christian Europe which dragged non-European and non-Christian countries outside of Europe into the line of fire - often as unhappy "proxies"!!

How grotesque! - to argue that the disunity of mahzabs  gets in the way of World Peace. It's tantamount to attributing the  present carnage in the Middle East to only the Muslims and absolving the Judaeo-Christian world of any culpability.

"World Peace"  is just a slogan for fluffy thinkers who are caught in the aura of John Lennon's 'Imagine' - a convenient tool that the powerful use to whitewash their "policing" of the rest of the world.  During the Cold War, the slogan was "The Free World".   

This reminds me of this interesting image/article from the Mail , on how the advertising world makes food look good.

Today the magic slogan is "World Peace" - and other 'look good, feel good'  concoctions like human rights, freedom of expression, multiculturalism, democracy,  free speech, free press - all used as vehicles for nefarious objectives. 

Liberal Political -Stylists  and Food- Stylists certainly have a lot in common!

3.  Like you I despair at the disunity of the Muslim world and closer to home, the Malay-Muslims of Malaysia.   Muslim brotherhood,  the unity of the Ummah, exists in  Islam and all the texts.  I leave it to our Islamic scholars, academics and professionals to chart the journey - to guide Muslims to maintain an equilibrium between our duties for  'Dunia'  and  'Akhirat'.

4.  As for the floods on the "East Coast of Malaysia" -  I think the people and authorities are doing a splendid job -  'kafirs' and  'non-kafirs' alike.   Surely, giving a hand to someone in need does not depend on the religious belief of the givers and the receivers.  Although sometimes one has to be careful of the hidden agenda of the givers who are out for 'saving souls for Jesus'.

By the way there is no "East Coast of Malaysia" - you must mean the east coast of Semenanjung/West Malaysia.  A true blue Anak Malaysia should know the difference.

Sorry to sound schoolmarmish - when you refer to 'harping on Free Palestine' - the verb 'harping' is an unfortunate choice of word.  To 'harp' is to talk or write persistently and tediously, to  nag, to complain.  Or maybe you are expressing what you actually mean - that the issue of a free Palestine for you  is tiresome and boring.   According to Mr/Ms Sai - "These people only have themselves to blame".

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I would have loved to use these comments when I was teaching Critical Reading in USM many years ago.  

                                                    The Power of Words and Knowledge.