“The Distinction between People and Ideologies” – Excerpts

Some of you may have already read this post from Atanu which he published in early Feb ’10. In this deeply thought-provoking and remarkably forthright post, Atanu explained his views on Islam (strong) and discussed related issues including that of Islamic terrorism. He has been kind enough to allow me to post excerpts on my blog (added emphasis is mine). Without further ado,

*** Excerpts from The Distinction between People and Ideologies by Atanu Dey ***

…my claims that Islam brainwashes people to become terrorists and suicide killers is supported by evidence. Just open the newspaper any day of the week. Do people turn into killing machines as a result? Evidently so. Once again read the papers.

Check the statistics. TheReligionofPeace.com reports that for the week Jan 30 — Feb 05 2010, there were 29 Jihad attacks, which killed 210 people and left 716 critically injured. It reports that since 9/11/2001, Islamic terrorists have carried out more than 14,793 deadly terror attacks. They don’t report a death toll since 9/11/2001, but it must be over 100,000 dead. For the month of January 2010, it is 683 dead and 1,251 critically injured.

These statistics cannot be accurate. They may be under-estimates or over-estimates. It does not matter, really. The story they tell is undeniable.

…Yes, you can counter with many instances of great Muslims. But then you are not arguing against me, in that case. You are arguing against someone who claims, “There are no good Muslims.”

…My point is that Islam preaches hatred towards infidels. That’s all. I have never claimed that every Muslim has been brainwashed by Islam to be a killing machine. I have never claimed that all Muslims are terrorists. People who read into my criticism of Islam a generalized hatred towards all Muslims are likely projecting their prejudices onto me.

…Now Sriram, you wrote about “abolishing 30% humans overnight”. Why? Can’t you distinguish between an ideology and groups of people? Sure Islam is an inhumane ideology. But Muslims are born into it. They do not choose to be bound by Islam. They have no choice in being Muslims. Islam demands death for apostates. Even if they wanted to, Muslims cannot escape from Islam. Your position that 30% of humans be “abolished” is hateful and dangerous. Not a good thing, not a good thing at all.

…Allow me to quote from an old post which dealt with the Nov 26-29th 2008 Islamic terrorist attacks on Mumbai. This I wrote for people like Sriram:

PS: And now I would like to very politely suggest that all those who believe that they have read in what I have ever written that I am calling for violence against Muslims, that they should get their effing heads out of their collective behinds and read what I actually wrote. I am against Islam — an ideology — not Muslims — a collection of humans. If you cannot distinguish betwen the two, you should get yourself some remedial reading courses at your local high school. Furthermore, if you are misconstruing what I wrote as a diatribe against Muslims, perhaps it reveals your subconcious hatred of Muslims. Take a deep breath and ask yourself if you harbor ill-will against people merely because they are different. If you do, perhaps you subscribe to the Islamic doctrine of labeling people without justification.

…I think uncritical acceptance of bad ideas lies at the core of pretty much all human misery. Economic distress is itself a consequence of bad ideas. India is poor because of bad ideas. OK, so now I quote myself extensively:

Religious insanity should be ridiculed as strenuously and as frequently as one can. . .

. . . the Guardian.co.uk reported that (as of Feb 17th, 2008), “180,000 demands to remove images of the Prophet” from the Wiki page on Muhammad have been made. I assume that these were followers of Islam who made that demand. Islam forbids the depiction of Muhammad because it could lead to idolatry — that is worshiping of Muhammad — and Islam calls for the death of all idolaters.

Yes, the followers of Islam if they so choose should not depict Mohammed or any other living creature. But demanding that non-Muslims follow the dictates of Islam is patently idiotic, and ridicule and derision should be heaped on attempts at controlling others.

…To which, one person named Alpana wrote, “However I find it very strange that you fail to find it offensive when the same thing happens in your own country esp. by the goons of your favourite party:” She included a link to some protest about Delhi University text books by the BJP.

I wrote in reply —

Alpana…I think that your attempt at equating Islamic global terrorism with the idiocy of bunch of hooligans is stupid and lacks a sense of proportion and decency.

I don’t know what motivates the self-loathing in you that compels you to come to the defense of Islamic terrorism by reducing it to a minor inconvenience…

Shame on you and your fellow travelers. India would not see so many dead from Islamic terrorism but for the cover that the likes of you provide. You are the “moderate” face that encourages the “tiny minority of extremists” to terrorize the world by trivializing their terrorism.

….All religious ideologies are not created equal. They differ naturally because they were created by different people under different geographical and historical circumstances. Religious ideologies are contingent and don’t have any absolute existence, unlike say the ideology of the theory of gravitation. If you did the right inferences from observation, you would arrive at the same theory of gravity as someone who lived in a different land at a different time.

The major monotheistic ideologies were born in the Middle East and they share the same lineage.

…But they are not equally vicious. The Jewish god is a monomaniacal savage but he does not command Jews to go out and kill the others. His world is restricted to the Jews and how he controls them. The Christian god is a much meaner god. He created a hell for non-believers and instructed his followers to go out and either convert or kill those who don’t follow him. A few hundred years later, the Islamic god upped the ante and instructed its followers to basically kill everyone who refuses to submit to him until the entire world is enslaved to him.

The sequence of origination ensures that the ideology which came later had the opportunity to revile the earlier one(s). Islam labels Jews and Christians monkeys and pigs; Christianity condemns Jews for having the blood of their savior on their hands. There is a progression of increasing violence in the three monotheistic ideologies.

…What distinguished monotheism from other religious ideologies is that it is supremacist, exclusivist, and triumphalist. That attitude finds it most extreme expression in Islam — it claims it is perfection in every sense, no other ideology can be permitted to exist, and it will ultimately conquer every human for eternity. The non-monotheist religions are cautious and hesitant. Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism all claim to be correct but also make allowances that there are multiple ways and that different people will see the world differently. They are willing to accommodate other points of views, and other ways of living. But to the ideology of Islam, there is only one way and if you refuse to willingly submit to the dictates of Islam, you have to be subjugated and if need be, annihilated.

…Let me elaborate on why I think religion matters and why more importantly the ideology of Islam matters to India’s development.As I have said before, all ideologies are not created equal. Some are benign and can be safely ignored.

…The ideology of Islam matters to today’s India and it has done so for around a thousand years. Will Durant, an American historian summed it up this way. “The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in History. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex order and freedom can at any moment be overthrown barbarians invading from without and multiplying within.”The partitioning of India was based on that ideology of Islam. The Muslims of colonial India voted that they cannot co-exist with non-Muslims because their ideology did not permit that. The creation of Pakistan (and subsequently of Bangladesh) was the direct and unavoidable result of Islamic ideology. Thereafter, the constant state of war that exists between the three fragments can be reasonably traced back to the Islamic ideology of dividing all humanity into the land of Islam and the land of the kuffars.

…Being in a constant state of war with Pakistan is without doubt one of the reasons that India is miserably poor. I should hasten to add that it is not the only reason…As the on-going conflict with Pakistan is religiously motivated — just like the partition of India was — I find it hard to evade the conclusion that India would have been much better off if it did not have to contend with Islam.

So now for the objections that prompted this essay. I agree that stupid people vandalizing property because of some offense they have taken is a matter of concern. But that is bad people doing bad things. None of the Indic ideologies (Jain, Buddhism, Hinduism) lend the least support to violence against people merely because of what they believe in or profess. I would worry about it but I would not lose my sleep over it. It is neither urgent nor important in the overall scheme of things.

…I know that I have a bias which reflects my personal history and upbringing. For instance, I am a non-Muslim and therefore my view of Islam is that of an outsider — an outsider whom Islam considers to be a little less than filth. As I was born to Hindu parents, I am a Hindu. As a Hindu I am quite familiar with the faults of Hindu society and I am critical of any bits of the ideology that is irrational and stupid. Fortunately, Hinduism is flexible enough that you can pick and choose the bits that appeal to you and reject the rest with nary a thought. For instance, I like the ideas behind the idols — the symbolic representation of the gods — even though I am not a theist.

…I have spent the last two hours writing this because I have had it up to here with the pseudo-secularists blaming the victims for the harm that is ideologically motivated and is unacceptable in a civilized society. I realize that it will not make me popular with that crowd because what I wrote will stick in their craw since they cannot factually refute any of the statements I made above. Their position is generally a fine mixture of illogic and ignorance — the antithesis of what I stand for.
..So Ms Alpana, yes, India can break up in a civil war. It is quite possible. But to understand the likely cause, I would refer you to the previous break which was in the making for centuries but happened around 60 years ago. Examine the causes and it may give you a clue about the next one.

Here’s a post (Tragedy and Farce — Part 2) from Dec 2008 which I wrote following the Islamic terrorist attacks in Mumbai starting Nov 26th.

…Islam is a totalitarian ideology. It literally means submission and that submission is to a man who lived in 7th century Arabia and who determined that all have to submit to the will of his god, Allah, and that he was the one who was entrusted with the task of conveying the wishes of his god for the rest of humanity for all times and all places. As an ideology, it is inimical to humanity’s primal drive: freedom from dictation from above. As far as it goes, Islam was a perfect instrument for winning in tribal conflicts of 7th century Arabia. But the world is temporally and spatially much bigger than 7th century Arabia….Every act of Islamic terrorism currently undertaken in justified on two incidents: Godhra riots and Babri masjid. Anyone will grant that destroying a mosque is damnable; and so are the roits that killed innocent Muslims and Hindus following the Islamic terrorism of burning innocents on a train. But how long can every act of Islamic terrorism be justified on those two incidents?

…But then can Godhra and Babri masjid be used to justify the thousands of temples that were destroyed in India over the last thousand years? Can they be used to justify the killing by the millions that Islam unleased on non-muslims in India over the centuries? Are there any statutes of limitation on the revenge that will be extracted for these two acts? When will be non-muslims in India finally have paid fully in terms of innocent blood, sweat and tears for these two acts of wanton violence and destruction?I am far from done on this line of enquiry. But before I close this post, two additional points. First, the concluding paragraphs from an opinion piece (Is Yoga Bad for You?) by a Pakistani commentator, Irfan Hussain, writing in The Dawn…

…Irfan Hussain leaves the reader to make up his or her own mind on the ultimate cause of the distress of Muslims in India and around the world. I am convinced that it is Islam. Muslims, in my opinion, are also victims of Islam as much as the rest of the world. That is the unvarnished truth and in all likelihood expressing that view publicly is not too good for my health. It is just an opinion but in today’s world, it is not safe to do so. This is significant. I can voice my opinion on what’s wrong with capitalism, or socialism, or communism, or nazism, or whathaveyou and people who disagree with me will call me all sorts of unkind names but only Islam will call for my beheading. Which brings me to the other point that I want to make before I conclude this piece.

Islam does not allow dissent — not just to its own adherents but also to non-muslims. Its supremacist and triumphalist doctrine essentially says that it has to subjugate the rest of humanity eventually, and if that means the total and complete annihilation of the non-muslims, so be it.

…But as I said before, to me it appears that Muslims are as much the victims of Islam as the rest of the non-muslim world. (Some wit noted that Pakistan is a victim of Islamic terrorism; the first to die in a suicide bombing is a Pakistani.) I am not against Muslims for the simple reason that I have nothing againt random people I have never met. I can only like or dislike people for what they have done to me, not just because they subscribe to some ideas or ideology, however kooky and senseless it may be.

…And that is the point: non-muslims don’t wish any harm to Muslims merely because Muslims believe in Allah. But Islam does declare in no uncertain terms what Muslims are required to do to infidels. Hindus — such as yours truly — are not even classified as dhimmis — those who can buy protection from their Muslim overlords because they are the “people of the book.” I am to be killed outright if I refuse to submit to Islam.

…To the candle burners: there’s illumination required where the sun doesn’t shine. Stick them up there please.

If this has whetted your appetite, go read it in full…

and don’t miss the comments.

Related Posts:

Why the “War Against Terror” cannot be won by guns alone

Sharia does not permit us to lay down arms…

On Deoband Fatwa, Jihadi Roots and Terrorism

Make no mistake. This is WAR.

Will the Darul Uloom now declare war on “Islamism”?

Ten reasons why the war on Islamist terror is ineffective

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