I'd like to see Musharraf's plans to overcome the force of literalism within the Islamic community -- if he has any. From Pakistan Link, with thanks to Kemaste:
RAWALPINDI: President General Pervez Musharraf Friday called for promoting true face of Islam as an enlightened, moderate and forward-looking religion to overcome obscurantism and extremism and to steer the Muslim world out of the current turmoil...."The Muslim world has to reject extremism and go for socio-economic development but at the same time the West must resolve political disputes affecting Muslims with justice and help in addressing the root causes of extremism including poverty and illiteracy, other than political deprivation and human sufferings". However, the President clarified that enlightened moderation does not amount to Westernization of Muslim world. "We will modernize within our values"....
"We have to transform and change the mindset-the vast majority in Pakistan is moderate but needs to assert itself, we have to get rid of extremism and let enlightened Islam prevail." "We have to fight terrorism-crush extremism and militancy, bring harmony and promote enlightened Islam". Pakistan, He said, can be a source and fountain head of enlightened Islam in the Muslim world and in this respect informed the Muslim scholars of the immediate and long-term steps to counter extremism.
"We have had great success and have caught more than 600 terrorists we do not want anyone fanning and financing extremism and terrorism in Pakistan-and we will continue this campaign".
On sectarianism, he said, all segments of society should play their role in stopping the elements stoking sectarian hatred through misuse of loud speakers and distribution of hate material.
The gathering included leading scholars from the United States, Canada, Holland, Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Those, who spoke on the occasion, appreciated Pakistan's efforts in dealing with the challenges facing the Muslim world and said the international community greatly values the contributions of Pakistan and President Musharraf in this regard.
The true face of Islam is extremism. One only has to carefully study the Koran and ahadiths to understand this point. However a state of war is understandably very tiring and draining on a society. Moderation is a hoped for state, but one can not call it "true Islam."
If Musharraf and others wish to depress the extremist influence, they should eliminate the madrassas and Islamic universities that teach nothing of use that can help raise the population out poverty and only exhort them to jihad.
The old adage "Give a man a fish and he'll for a day; teach him to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime" is certainly appropriate for this situation.Muslims themselves are responsible for their own well being, for creating jobs and industries and should not look upon the West for this service. Get wealthy Muslims to open their pocketbooks and spend some of that easily-gotten petro money to create industries and jobs and social services that aren't charities. That's where how they will create and find justice.
"...it looked like about 1/2 had 'extremist sympathies' (refused to blame Arabs for 9/11 et alia). And polls in Pakistan seem to show at least 60% are quite radical. And Muslim scholars, like Mustafa Akyol have had the courtesy of admitting (tacitly) that a majority of Muslims are 'in play' as far as 'extremist' (read Jihadist) sympathies are concerned."
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/003904.php
"In Pakistan, a friendly allied country at the Musharraf-Bush level, flat-earth clerics who educated the Taliban leaders have refused any reform of the madrassas, the Koranic schools that inculcate the fundamental belief that America and Israel are the new crusaders hell-bent on destroying Islam. They proselytize a great apocalyptic war, the War of Armageddon that will end in the Muslim conquest of Rome and all of Europe, and later America too. Some 750,000 young Pakistanis are presently in 11,000 madrassas where they are taught that jihad is the noblest of human endeavors."
'General Hamid Gul, a former Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence chief who hates America with a passion, boasted that a greater Islamic caliphate was fast approaching, one that would marry the oil riches of Saudi Arabia with the nuclear weapons of Pakistan, "which could then deal with America on an equal footing."'
http://www.grecoreport.com/radical_islam_rising.htm
------------------------
"The Muslim world has to reject extremism and go for socio-economic development but at the same time the West must resolve political disputes affecting Muslims with justice and help..."
Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah. Here is simply another Islamic hidden suggestion that somebody else needs to do what is right.
Global historical Islam simply does not, and cannot do what is right on it's own without accusation, blame, whine, deception, bullying, and violence.
Global historical Islam simply does NOT police itself. Historically, the rest of the world has had to police Islam.
You who are now following Islam need to question it, not only because you know in your heart it is false, but out of sheer common sense.
------------------------
Pakistan is a nuclear-armed country. Now what do you think would happen if even a small asteroid, say 50 meters hit that country?
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/
regarding the statement: "all segments of society should play their role in stopping the elements stoking sectarian hatred through misuse of loud speakers and distribution of hate material"
i was under the impression musharef is a dictator. cannot he just make these things happen? is this just lip service? does this not hint to us all that underneath it all, musharef's quasi-kemalism is potentially on a collision course with islamic extremism?
The image of Islam was further damaged when a Islamic leader in Canada used a public TV show to declare that "All Israelis over 18 are valid targets for murder by suicide bombers" and he has yet to be charge for spreading hate or inciting
violence against a minority group.
What's even worse is the University he works at ruled he made a mistake and apologized for it so he won't be fired for his personal view outside the University.
Muslims in Canada are DEMANDING Shariah-Law for their disputes in a Court of Law,imagine the DEMANDS they'll make once our Liberal Government approve Shariah. I do not get the impression that Islam is Peaceful and Tolerant,I do see the average Muslim as intolerant and if Islam isn't defined by the collective behaviour of Muslims then Muslims have nothing to do with Islam and Muhammed.
Musharraf's son is enjoying Western political, economic, intellectual and social understandings and freedoms, as an accountant in Massachusetts. Perhaps he can begin to read the Qur'an and hadith and sira, read them and ask himself if he thinks, truly, there is anything -- just a little something -- that might cause those who take seriously these canonical and immutable texts, to hate Infidels, and to blame them for anything. And he might also, in his daily life, begin to wonder if just possibly there is something about Islam -- aside from its ban on most art, music, and the free and skeptical inquiry that makes science possible -- that stunts the mental growth, that encourages fatalism, that discourages individual initiative or indeed individualism of any kind with its unwavering emphasis on the collective, the community, the umma al-islamiyya, so that the "poverty" within Islam can be seen as the result of Muslim doctrine, and far from being the "root cause" of murderous hostility toward all Infidels -- Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Confucians, and a thousand other forms of belief and unbelief -- the rout cause are these texts, and the tenets of Islam themselves.
Musharraf has been treated with kid gloves by the Americans. That he thinks he can still spout such nonsense, and that people are still going to take this seriously, and not to come to regard him, in this taqiyya, as objectively furthering the Jihad -- thus identifying him as part of the problem, for part of it he most definitely is -- shows that he has not been dealt with sharply enough. Capturing Bin Laden is trivial, compared to de-nuclearizing the Muslim world, including Pakistan. The Pakistani economy can easily be destroyed by Western actions -- for the brother Arabs seem in no hurry to supply the tens of billions of dollars that Pakistan would need to survive -- and Musharraf, and all around him, should be made aware that all measures, and all weapons, will be employed to get not his compliance in sending some Pakistani troops running around, with a great huffing and puffing, in Waziristan, but in other, far more important matters.
Musharraf is a shameless hypocrit who denied any Pakistani government or military knowledge of Dr. Khan's nuclear weapons technology sales. The Muslim world lags behind not only because of its adherence to a totalitarian ideology that attempts to pass as a religion, but because that ideology is used to keep the masses subservient and because of the ridiculously high birthrate, something the Chinese and Indians figured out some time ago, but the Muslim world has not.
""Musharraf "urges need to overcome obscurantism and promote true face of Islam""
The true face of islam...what exactly is that? Is it the barbarism of Mohammads 7th century reign? Is it the barbaric laws against freedom of thought (e.g. blasphemy laws) in Mushariffs dictatorship. Or as Mushariff is no doubt trying to imply it is a humane Islam. Well Mushariff we in the west have been waiting 1400 years for a humane Islam to show its face and it hasn't done that yet. When a humane islam does appear for the first time we will be able to work that out for ourselves...we won't need a dictator to dictate that to us.
This is a truly sad, sad, nation and people.
When i was at school all the pak/bangla kids used to sing the praises of the arabs and islam.
They simply did not accept that the arabs despise non arab moslems.
they would wear their sillt PLO arab scarves, shout hate against the jews/indians etc.
however when you asked them why do the arabs forbid the marriage of a non arab moslem man to an arab woman, they would go into denial.
If this moslem solidarity rubbish is so great, why does OBL and his mob not care much for the kashmir issue, it is mentioned only occaisonally.
the arab interest in the paks is A/the paks have a professional army, that will do their dirty work, remember Bllack september, pak trrops commanded by a brigadier zia (remember him)
B/ the paks have nuclear devices.
what an absolute inferiority complex they have.