"There is no compulsion in religion," (Qur'an 2:256) except when there is. And that time comes when the implementation of Sharia is strong enough to impose criminal punishments for the neglect of religious observances: i.e., when the time for the soft sell is over.
"Threats for breaking Morocco fast," from BBC News, September 18:
A Moroccan man campaigning to change the law banning eating in public during the Muslim Ramadan fast says he has received 100 death threats this week.
Radi Omar denied that his group was anti-Islam. "We are in favour of individual freedom," he told the BBC.
Six of his colleagues are in custody after planning to eat in public last Sunday and he demanded their release.
Mr Omar said they were being well treated but he assumed they were not being fed during the fasting hours.
The group, known as the Alternative Movement for Individual Freedoms (Mali), has more than 1,200 members on its Facebook site.
They planned a public defiance of the law at the train station in Mohammedia near Casablanca last Sunday but were dispersed by the police.
The protesters were prevented from eating and so should not have been detained, Mr Omar said, adding that they have not been charged.
Under Moroccan law, eating in public during the hours of daylight, when Muslims are supposed to observe a fast, can lead to a fine and up to six months in prison.
Other religions have periods of fasting for religious purposes...but none except Islam will physically harm you if you eat food and drinking water during the periods of fasting..and none will physically harm those people who are not of their religion for eating during the fasting times ...except for Islam...Islam celebrates its religion by seeking out people to harm...(even its own people)
"Radi Omar denied that his group was anti-Islam. "We are in favour of individual freedom," he told the BBC."
Mutually exclusive goals. You can't be for Islam and individual freedom in the same breath.
I visited Morocco (and wrote about it) three times across 2007/8 and found it a good place where religious diversity was accepted.
The people were friendly and you could see tangible signs of a modernising country led by a King very receptive to the fact that Morocco could and should be a much better place than it has been.
I left full of optimism.
Here's what I wrote:
"I went to Morocco for business last week.
Loved it, very nice place, great food and witty people but the best thing I’ve seen is the contrast between The Old and The New and it gave me great faith over the future of that country.
The Net Cafés I was using to keep in touch were full of young people, young girls in hijab, young girls with no hijab and boys of all ages all surfing the net. Couldn’t help peeping on the pages they were visiting and it was all about The West in all its shapes and forms. From U-tube to dating sites, from News channels to travel sites…all West…West, West and nothing but West. I peeped every-time and never did I see any one of those youngsters in an Islamic site. Good stuff I thought.
Put that together with what I saw in the streets and yes, the future looks good.
Starting from my airport contact…good-looking girl, pretty westernised in her dress and in her work attitude. “Good-good” I thought, “I wonder if”…well, every appropriate Italian man calculates his chances every time an eligible woman is around ;-) but she was married so my Italian flight of fantasy only lasted approx 3 seconds until I noted the wedding ring. Ah well. Drove off and was taken to a nice Riad (hotel) in which I checked in (and checked out as soon as my friend left. I like to be where I chose to be)
The small Riad/guest-house I was, had a window over the main square in Marrakesh and you could smell the food the street vendors were cooking. Delicious. My stomach decided it was time to go out. Got changed, got out and went to the medina….now I am not a man that likes to be pulled left-right and centre by bazaar sellers, hate it actually and a few of them had a short sharp answer to their insistence. “When in Rome, do like Romans do”…so, technically, I should have been more tolerant of their selling techniques but hey…I am the Roman and I am not known to be particularly patient as a man.
Eventually got myself some excellent fish food. Ridiculously cheap and very, very good. I liked that. I hate tourist’s rip-offs. Then again, who’s the tourist?
The bazaars were filled with rugs, carpets, and local tourist tack and fake good. An avalanche of fake goods. I wondered what Armani and Dolce&Gabbana, Nike and Reebok, Prada and Lewis thought of that but hey…all that stuff either comes from China, Italy or Chicago really so…someone’s winning anyway I thought.
Women always peep from the corner of their eyes at the Western man whom, I heard, is a “great catch” Muslim or not; apparently a lot (a lot!) of Moroccan women marry Westerners nowadays. Prime catch. Part-time, on the day, appearance-only conversion and et-voila`, we’re married.
Pity that 8 women out of 10 I saw are totally ugly. “Ah well” I thought “won’t get married in this trip then” I joked in my mind.
Still, it was dead easy to collect 3 email addresses and 5 numbers in 5 days. I guess that hunger for a decent man and a decent life is all-appealing in the land of the Berbers.
Once I managed to put the Italian in me away, I concentrated in what I was there for and in trying to take a note of something to put to the DL (DiscardedLies) lions so I continued to take mental pictures and notes.
I left Marrakesh and took a train to Casablanca. Would you believe it? 4 women in my train compartment. 4 women and me. Deadly risk girls. Still, a good way to understand that society better and deeper. Took photos and short videos of the train journey. Desperately dry lands, rocky scenery, peasants and towns where modernity never got into. I saw poverty, I saw completely covered women and I saw hunger.
The whole country seemed hungry to me. No, not hungry for food but hungry for growth. Hungry for freedom and hungry for advancement. I saw goodwill and to be honest I was never singled out for my all-too-evident Crucifix. It didn’t stop anyone from wanting to talk to me, my statement of faith attracted rather than rejected and I was pleased to see interest in it. I like to sport my Crucifix at times…I know Lord that vanity is a sin and it won’t get me anywhere fast but hey…allow me a few sins; I am a Christian after all.
Casablanca was dirty and sad yet its people vibrant and open. I saw more West there. I saw clubs, bars, women and seaside resorts. I also saw a lot of hijabs but probably not as many as we’d like to think. I recon half the women wear it and the other half just have no intention to but the best conversation I had was with this man, Saeed, who has two daughters and a great policy. He told me “I can close the door to the West and it will come into my house from the window. I close the window and it comes from the radio, I switch off the radio and it comes from the TV, I switch off the TV and it comes in from the computer, I switch the computer off and it will just crash the walls. So my policy with the West and my girls is simple: door’s open and I will just try to guide” I thought that was the only thing he could do by what I have seen. The place is being conquered day by day and it’s the young that are writing that page.
Saeed family is great although a bit too religious for my liking. I saw them praying and I saw the life-style but the best thing I saw is the unstoppable charge of the West and the realisation that things are changing.
I ate, I drunk and I mingled with that conservative family and I loved it. It was good to see “them” from inside. It only reinforced my absolute certainty that all we have to do is wait: Troy will fall…Troy is falling daily and nobody can stop it.
The best thing is…nobody seems to want to stop it.
The “war” is over and has been over for a few years; the Internet has won."
Diabolik:
What good news I hear from the Ummah often seems to come out of Morocco. Still, I would expect that in the face of further reforms, the true believers will eventually (and very soon) turn to violence, particularly against women. Here is another account from a young woman scholar - one of the best I've seen. It is a bit less sanguine:
"Moroccan Feminine Wiles"
http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/2008/oct/braasch.php
Epiphyte:
What a long and interesting read. I had a different experience from hers but I can see her view of things given a female standpoint.
She is right, women without hijab are treated badly but not Western women. I have seen timid and polite approaches to Western women, not the aggressive one she talks about...but then again, I repeat, me not being a woman might influence the way I see things.
The many Moroccan men I have come to know had Islamic simpathies but quickly put them away after realising I am a vociferous Christian who has a debate or two in himself. I actually had to restrain myself as, when alone in the hotel I would rehearse the conversations I had, I could hear myself being on the offensive, criticising relentlessly and casting a lot of doubts in their minds.
I think Morocco is changing for the better, I have great hopes for that land and when I moan inside of myself of the influence Islam is having in my old Europe, I also quickly need to be honest and remind myself that what we are doing to their culture, in their lands, is far, far more devastating. And rightly so.
I'm confused - why are members of the "religion of peace" always issuing death threats? Maybe someone can set me straight on that observation.
darcy...I'm surprised you "don't know"...probably it's because they always forget the word that goes between "of" and "peace"...eternal, eternal peace.
Like when you're dead.
You see now how long-term peaceful it is?
lol, Diabolik, I was being sarcastic!
I enjoyed your Moroccan travelogue btw, Diabolik.
Did you go to the beach in Tangiers?
I can just imagine sharia law replacing the laws of the the Western world.Non-Muslims would have to comply with the rules of fasting.McDonald's,Tim Horton's,Starbucks etc.would be closed during the fasting period.No freedom loving individual should want to live under Islamic laws.They are dictatorial, cruel and medieval.
darcy,
I know you were being sarcastic; so was I! I just thought I'd remind you, me and the readers that the peace our friends and usual suspects refer to is "eternal". How considerate of them to worry about my eternity.
No, I didn't go to Tangeri; I went there 3 times for a total of about 6 weeks and just loved it. I went to Casa(blanca), Marra(kesh), Rabat (I loved it), Safi, Agadir (very westernised), Essaouira (lovely) and other places.
Wherever I went, I only found welcoming people hungry for something different, hungry for enlightenment.
Yes, male attitude towards women were shocking but to be honest, women attitude to foreign men was not less shoking; I received marriage proposals regardless of my all-too-evident crucifix and if eyes could talk, I'd have been on the receiving end of many monologues from women with and without hijabs.
It paid something to my male pride but it also made me sad to see women semi-begging to be taken away from there.
The country is changing but it will take a couple of generations.
I seriously think that Evangelists are having the time of their lives converting muslims there.
Fasting my backside! Where I come from we call it "skipping lunch"
Darcy
Many years ago I happened to pass through Tangiers
I was not a pleasant experience
InfidelK9 - Why wasn't your experience in Tangiers pleasant?
Diabolik - Your travels through Morocco sound fascinating. The closest I have been to that part of the world is Italy. Which I loved so much! And, the home, of course, of the great Oriana Fallaci (Firenze).
Imagine having a slice of pizza as your last meal.
The fast of Ramadan is a misnomer. Muslims arise just before daylight so they can prepare for the day by stuffing their guts like a German sausage with the finest of food so they can walk around all day looking so pious and hungry. As soon as the sun sets in that muddy pool, they proceed to eat like starving hogs. During their so-called fast, they gain more weight, and spend more for food than anytime. There is NOTHING in Islam that is not a show and hypocrisy and phony.
SoundDoc- I have heard about this too. Not really a fast or giving up of anything giving up chocolate for Lent).
Ramadan is simply a rearranging of when you eat.
That is part of the religon, They cover every ugly thing and put perfume on it. Then ignore it and pretend its not there while secretly wishing the Jihadists will do more and more.
Diabolik wrote:
I think Morocco is changing for the better, I have great hopes for that land and when I moan inside of myself of the influence Islam is having in my old Europe, I also quickly need to be honest and remind myself that what we are doing to their culture, in their lands, is far, far more devastating.
.................
Diabolik, you seem like a thoughtful poster--in what way do you consider Western influence in Muslim countries to be "more devastating" than Islamization in Europe?
Is access to the internet and wearing Western clothing somehow "more devastating" than honor killings, torching cars and attacking police stations, assaulting Jews and gay people, the murder of Theo van Gogh, threats against outspoken politicians such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders, and the terror attacks in Madrid and the London Tube bombings?
Western influence in Morocco is not forced--it is not spreading by violence, but because many ordinary Moroccans--as you noted--are quite fascinated by the West and find much about it attractive.
Whereas, Islamization of Europe is spreading largely by violence and threat of violence, and is something that very few native Europeans--including yourself, I'd imagine--would welcome.
Gravenimage
The key word I used, devastating, is supposed to be read in terms of strenght and result of the action it implies.
The power of change our culture and ways have over their daily lives is devastating in terms of ruthless social colonisation. They dress like us, they trade more and more like us, it us they try to be like, like our societies.
I have seen western style advertising, faces of consumerism, I have seen Christmas threes and Christmas gifts, internet cafes with queues of youngsters. I have seen fashionable muslim women outfits.
Every little change, improvement, development, is a subtle implementation of an aspect of our culture at the cost of a previously existing one. Invariably, an Islamic one.
Devastating not in the I am sorry way, devastating as a force of change that is unstoppable.
Once you read that word in my post in that way, then you'll see that my view is that while we rightly lament their influence at home, we forget that we are winning away from home big times.
I like that and I am sure you like that one too.
Of course I agree with all you say; all I am suggesting is to remind ourselves that we are winning hands down a bit more often than we do.
Thank you for your clarification, Diabolik--I wasn't trying to give you a hard time.