More -- and more of the same -- on this story. In addition to being inherently unjust, the sharia-driven blasphemy laws are a handy way to exact a punishing and disproportionate revenge for unrelated grievances. "6 killed in Pakistan as Muslims burn Christian homes," from CNN, August 1:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Six people were killed in Pakistan on Saturday when Muslim demonstrators set fire to houses in a Christian enclave and fighting broke out, local police said.
Police said Muslims were enraged over an alleged desecration of pages in the Quran at a Christian wedding last Saturday, and held a rally to protest. The Quran is the Muslim sacred text.
You cannot have a stable society, and therefore, you cannot have a peaceful or prosperous society, where angry mobs can gather and wreak such havoc on a hair trigger without regard to evidence, and with a sense of entitlement to ensure second-class citizens "feel themselves subdued" (Qur'an 9:29). Or more generally, a sense of entitlement to "honor."
The Muslims went to the Christian community in Gojra City, 160 kilometers (100 miles) southwest of Lahore, and burned 40 to 50 houses. Muslims and Christians exchanged gunfire.
Police said efforts to settle the concerns with dialogue so far have failed.
On Thursday, 15 Christian houses in the region were also torched.
Pakistan is predominantly Muslim but has a small Christian community.
Meanwhile, police in Islamabad reported Friday that an al Qaeda member thought to be involved in several attacks was arrested.
Bin Yamin, a senior police official in Islamabad, identified the suspect as Rao Shakir Ali.
Police believe he was involved in strikes on targets such as the Danish Embassy, a rally of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chauhdary, police, and a hotel.
The suspect is a resident of Sargodha, which is 165 kilometers (about 100 miles) northwest of Lahore and has a house in Rawalpindi that has been used to facilitate insurgent acts, police said.
This article and subsequent articles on the same event, provoked a good deal of discussion at the time: much of which I copied and kept.
So: for the benefit of posterity, here is what I kept.
As usual, I will divide it up into sections, and restore it.
Here goes, with part one.
GRAHAMR said – (quoting) “The Muslims went to the Christian community in Gojra City, 160 kilometers (100 miles) southwest of Lahore, and burned 40 to 50 houses. Muslims and Christians exchanged gunfire."
There are Christian fighters now???
Lovely. Just goes to show, people don't take abuse lying down.
Now how can we support them without triggering a massacre...
-MOBAMAD replied to GrahamR - Mail bullets. :-D
NAPALM said - .....yes, the religion of brotherly love, peace, harmony, and good will to all men, no matter who they are..........Say what?
-MOBAMAD observed to NAPALM - So long as they are muslem.
OUTOFCONTEXT said - I hate to say I told you so, but see my post here:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027084.php#IDC...
DEUSVULT said - Thats the excuse this week......
What will be the excuse be next week?
The violence of Moslems never ends.
UNDHIMMI said - There has to be meaningful sanctions placed on countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Egypt (the worst offenders) if this is ever going to be tackled. The issue is as much around police complicity and lack of political will, as it is around the frothing-mouthed, Pitchfork Bearers for Allah.
Discourage tourism in Egypt ($12bn+ per year revenue) and withhold aid in all three and something may change - until then - no chance.
TOAST & MARMALADE said - "Lets face it....Muslim supremacism and the violence and intimidation that goes with it will never end.........we all know what the solution must be to keep the civilised world free and moral."
Original comments, part two.
HUGH (Hugh Fitzgerald) said - 'This story was announced on the BBC, less than an hour ago, by the egregious Julian Marshall, thus: "religious riots" resulted in the death of six Christians in Pakistan
Tiens. Not madded Muslims running amok against inoffensive Christian villagers.
No. Not at all.
For Julian Marshall, and for the BBC, and for all the world-wide audience of the BBC World Service, the blame was to be put on "religious riots."
How can they stand themselves at Bush House? And how can the British public continue to allow itself to endure this, and to keep forking over the Licensing Fee that supports this sinister organization?'
WELLINGTON said - Sharia is evil. It's that simple. What isn't simple is that there are those Muslims who think you can have Islam without Sharia. Putting aside whether this is possible, there are plenty of Muslims who do want Sharia and they will kill or maim fellow Muslims, and of course non-Muslims, who resist its implementation.
And even Islam without Sharia still is possessed of many troubling features, the intense admiration for Islam's profoundly disturbing founder being just one of them.
The bottom line is that Islam is pretty much pathological all around and it can't be fixed. It can only be discarded.
-TOAST AND MARMALADE told Wellington - Islam will continue to rise again if only discarded.........destroyed ....would be a better word.
-EPISTEMOLOGY replied to Wellington - Dear Wellington, I couldn't agree more. To the point. "The bottom line is that Islam is pretty much pathological all around and it can't be fixed. It can only be discarded."
We have to get rid of that fascist ideology. The idolisation of a mass murderer, paedophile, robber and contract breacher is really beyond the pale. Free the world!
-ALASKAN INFIDEL observed - I used to be one of those that believed, or at least tried to believe that islam could be redeemed, changed to omit the violence that it's leaders promote with such relish and regularity.
Despite the best efforts of brave muslims who risk death for attempting such change, I have come to the conclusion that the koran prohibits such change. As the koran is the root of the growth, there is no chance of removing the poison from the fruit of that growth.
The violence that is in the koran cannot be removed without destroying the foundations that islam is built upon. So be it.
MAXPUBLIUS said - This is pure Islamonazism. A Muslim-style Kristallnacht pure and simple. That sense of superiority and entitlement to destroy those they deem unworthy.
Kristallnacht, remember, started when Nazified Germans rioted after a Jewish teenager who had lost everything assasinated a German Nazi official in Paris.
Nazified or Islamized people will use anything as a pretext to put their mania on display by breaking, smashing, raping and murdering.
-OUTOFCONTEXT replied to MaxPublius - Some say "Islamonazism" is a redundancy. I say it's a meaningful and appropriate emphatic. Good choice of words.
-EPISTEMOLOGY replied to MaxPublius - In a certain way "Islamonazism" is a redundancy, but on the other hand it's a realistic term, describing the reality of past and modern Islam.
-IPSOFACTO said - What is wrong with the much shorter "NAZILAM"?
-IPSOFACTO added - "And what was the reactions from the democracies to the Nazi Cristal Night 10th November 1938?
Diplomatic protest notes and nothing more. Only the US acted more strongly by recalling its German ambassador. The reaction from Germany was to refuse the protests claiming it was an internal matter. 6 weeks earlier Chamberlain had made his agreement in Munic with Adolf Hitler and less than a month after the Cristal Night France signed a treaty of friendship with Germany.
I would not be surprised if BBC just reported that some "religious riots" had taken place in Germany.
So don´t expect too much now when the Muslims (as usual) target the Christians!"
Original comments, part three.
YOM AL JUMAH {Muslim or pseudo-Muslim troll, said} - Muslims in the UK are much more relaxed and prosperous in the UK. This could not happen over there....please do not read too much into this ...you have nothiung to fear!
-PULSAR replied - The Muslims razing 50-60 Chrisitan houses and attacking with automatic weapons certainly sounds like fear being introduced by the Mulims..."you have nothing to fear"......would you same the same thing if Christians began attacking and razing Muslim homes and mosques in the UK?
Islam is promoting a religious war and sooner or later they will get it....
-ALASKAN INFIDEL told PULSAR - 'You are exactly right. And the shame of it is, there are untold numbers of muslims that long to be free of islam who will be caught up in that war and will be forced to choose a side, when freedom is all they really want.
'islam is a trap and damned hard to escape when you are surrounded by spies, as every aspect of your life is judged by islamic standards by the muslims that live along side you.
A customer who lived in Saudi Arabia for years, told me of conversing with the Saudis he worked with regarding islam and it's restrictions.
They indicated that they would love for their wives and daughters to have greater freedoms, but that islam would not allow for that and that the government and islam were inseparable.
They told of the endless scrutiny of their neighbors and those that they pray with 5 times a day. Any deviation from the norm was immediately noted and judged.
Given a choice, people will choose freedom over slavery every time. The problem is...many are unaware of the existence of freedom. If islam is good at anything, it's brainwashing.'
-BASEBALLMAVEN told PULSAR - Yep, that's how the crusades started--defending against Islam...
-DJRZ told YOM -- Yeah. That's what you would WANT them to think, isn't it?
"nothing to fear" you say. Those are the words that should raise the hair on the back of one's neck.
. . . that and the endless stream of stories about "asian(s)" attacking women, churches, police, gays, and on, and on.
-ALASKAN INFIDEL remarked - Indeed...that little "nothing to fear" comment definitely caught my attention.
Particularly since it is the opposite of what I am seeing with my own eyes.
How many victims of people with bad intent heard those same words before the lights went out?
-ANONAMUSTAFA told YOM AL JUMAH - 7/7
-MOBAMAD told YOM AL JUMAH - 9/11
-KARSHI KHANABAD said - Well, Yommy baby, pardon this dhimmi kafir infidel for observing that your brothers in Pakistan (meaning "The Land of the Pure") who perpetrate these atrocities against people who don't worship the same as you Muslims are nothing but BLOODY SAVAGES!!"
Your `peaceful' U.K. Muslims are nothing but bombs with as yet unlit fuses.
-PULSAR told YOM AL JUMAH - 3/11
-JETCAL told YOM AL JUMAH - "Yom;
The fact that it happens is enough. Plus you choose to overlook the headlines in the rest of the world where many Muslims have since moved."
Original comments, final part.
NOTOSHARIAH said - Well, I've been on the website of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference before now and, you know, there is NOTHING about attacks by Muslims on Christians. You would think an organisation for Islamic nations would be concerned to do all it can to stop such revolting attacks in its member states. But no. It does not.
MAXPUBLIUS said - Contrary to what the semi-educated elite think, Third World ethnic rioting is not tit for tat when Islamists are involved. Almost always it is Islamist instigated with genocide or forced conversion or migration of the non-Muslim side as the goal.
PATHOSLOGOS said - (quoting) "Police said Muslims were enraged over an alleged desecration of pages in the Quran at a Christian wedding last Saturday, and held a rally to protest."
- Throwing temper tantrums will get you nowhere...so what's the next step? Murder, of course. It makes logical sense--to those with severe psychopathy.
I honestly think Muslims are either extremely brainwashed or possessed. How does one go through this process of demoralization? Where does it start? Maybe...with a book called the Qur'an.
-SORROW replied - Actually, it was just a pretext for an attack.
PAUL said - Muslim hypersensitivity points to only one possible thing: Their faith is weak. If they were confident they had the truth they would operate from a position of confidence, not desperation. Their responses would be commensurate to any alleged offense. They would be willing to persuade through reason.
I suspect it hearkens back to the rejection of Ishmael. Rejection, deserved or not, can become a festering wound until it is resolved. These people need Christ, in whom they will find the acceptance they crave.
Until then, any rational being recoils at the fundamental absurdity of killing and maiming because the pages of *a book* might have been disrespected. It's like we're dealing with grossly missocialized 13 year-olds here - and that's probably pretty close to the truth.
Dear Lord, grant deliverance from this satanic bondage, and give Your people strength and security.
NAKAL said - Sunni Pakistanis massacre other Sunnis and Shia, so who is suprised they massacre Christians and behead Jews ? Muhammad Ali Jinnah's experiment in creating a homeland
for Indian Muslims 60 years ago is a dismal failure, unlike the partition of British Mandated Palestine which produced a successful Israel and a wimpy Jordan. I
ndia should never have been partitioned and Indian Muslims should have all migrated to Arabia and the Gulf region where they would end up doing most of the construction work (which they do now anyway).
I hope those Pakistani Christians continue to hold crosses and shove them in the faces of Muslims in Pakistan.
JETCAL said -(quoting) "Police said Muslims were enraged over an alleged desecration of pages in the Quran at a Christian wedding last Saturday, and held a rally to protest."
- Okay, maybe it did happen...but I find it VERY difficult to believe that a Non-Muslim in that land of peace and tranquility known as Pakistan would be stupid enough to do something like that.
However, on the other hand, I am quite willing to believe the hordes of tribal culture Muslims would believe a fictional tale.
PAUL said - One further thought. As Undhimmi mentions, there must be a response if this is going to stop.
One thing we can do is contact the embassies of nations when these atrocities are committed. Pakistan's is at: Embassy of Pakistan 3517 International Court NW, Washington, DC 20008 Phone: 202-243-6500 E-mail info@embassyofpakistanusa.org
Mention that if the nations are going to cooperate toward peace and mutual prosperity, there is going to have to be respect for our Christian brothers in their lands. It's only basic human decency.
NOTOSHARIAH said (quoting) - "Pakistan's small Christian minority has periodically been targeted since Pakistan became a US ally in the so-called War on Terror."
From the BBC.
Are they saying the Christian minority were never targeted before 9-11???
Dishonest reporting.
GYMGAL said - "Meanwhile, police in Islamabad reported Friday that an al Qaeda member thought to be involved in several attacks was arrested.
This is the guy they suspect killed Daniel Pearl
http://www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/2009/0...
Which is GREAT news."