Wednesday, September 15, 2010

The Australian Army and Terry Jones

This is in response to an article from an Australian site. It is subtitled "Five Muslim men planned an armed terrorist attack on a Sydney army base to further the cause of Islam by killing as many people as possible, a Supreme Court jury heard today" http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/five-muslim-men-planned-attack-on-nsw-army-base-supreme-court-told/story-e6frf7kx-1225920754487

"The plan was that five or six men armed with high powered weapons would enter the Holsworthy Army Base and fire at and kill as many people as possible before they were either killed or overwhelmed. They planned to use weapons that could fire at least 60 bullets.

"On trial are Saney Edow Aweys, 26, Mr Khayre, 22, Abdirahman Mohamud Ahmed, 25, and Wissam Mahmoud Fattal, 33,and Nayef El Sayed, 25."

". . . the men believed Islam was under attack from the West and that Australians and the Australian government were oppressing innocent Muslims in Afghanistan. They were also upset that another man had been convicted of terrorist acts in this country.

“'The Crown case was that this was to advance the cause of Islam'"

"As they were planning the attack members of the group exchanged texts and messages and had conversations, some of which were secretly recorded and would be played in court.

"Before the trial commenced, Justice Betty King warned the jury that the trial was about the alleged commission of a criminal offence, not about Islam.

“'The Islamic faith is not on trial,' Justice King said. 'It isn’t about being a Muslim.'"

COMMENT: Notice the last line. Justice King may be telling the Prosecution that it is going to have trouble making its case because "it is not about Islam." It would seem that King has sabotaged the Crown's case which was that the plot "was to advance the cause of Islam."

King is surely wrong if the only thing that allowed these plotters to be caught was their search for an imam that would declare a fatwa for them. It is like our police having to get a search-warrant before they can break into a house. They can probably find a judge willing to sign it if they try hard enough. This is our legal system, and what the five plotters were involved in was the Islamic legal system. How, Justice King, can this possibly not be about the Islamic faith?

What we have in the world is something very like what I have faced in some discussion groups, namely the difference between a radical view (Leftism) and one that purports not to be radical (Liberalism). The separation between the two isn't clear. Neither is the separation between Radical Islam and Moderate Islam clear. I don't blame Terry Jones for dispensing with the differences. Except for a few Muslims in nations where Islam is not the predominate force, Radicals and Moderates sound the same. Why should it be incumbent upon Terry Jones to discern the difference when the Moderates won't provide him (or any of us) with any help in discerning a difference? Why shouldn't we treat Radical and Moderate Islam as a unified ideology?

Well, the Lib-Leftists will say, the Moderates haven't killed anyone. Yeah, I know. Neither did Charlie Manson. But the teaching kills. Who is it that says something like, "gosh, I don't know why he all of a sudden got up, got his guns and killed a bunch of people? He was such a moderate." This is the "Sudden Jihad Syndrome." The "Moderate Teaching," if it were really moderate shouldn't produce young men subject to this Syndrome.

If there really were a difference, if something like a "Moderate Denomination" were to arise within Islam, then let it produce a "statement of faith" that denounces the teachings of Sayyid Qutb and other Islamists. Let it declare a commitment to leaving Liberal Democratic governments just as they are. Let it encourage its members to integrate into these non-Islamic societies, and let the members of these denominations be loyal citizens.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I found this comment worrying in the extreme. But then I read a Guardian piece about a woman called O'Donnell and I calmed down a bit. Lawrence isn't that extreme. He's getting there, but he's not that bad.

Comment from one of the Guardian readers:

I don't understand: if masturbation is forbidden how come there are so many wankers in the republican party?

Now you have to understand the context. O'Donnell thinks that masturbation is sinful because it involves lust. Also, the Guardian has Brit readers and we like nothing more than a bit of smutty comedy. Further comments married her dislike of masturbation with the the fact that O'Donnell is 'a damn fine bit of skirt' - so much so that ...

Well anyway, what was I saying? I'll read the title again - sounds very Monty Python ...