Befuddled multiculturalism once again displays the inequality and prejudice at its core. From the Los Angeles Times, with thanks to Paul:
WASHINGTON – At the U.S. prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, everyone gets a Quran, but no one gets a Bible.
Saifullah Paracha, a 58-year-old former Pakistani businessmen with reputed ties to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, has been in U.S. custody since 2003. Like the other inmates at Guantanamo, he has a copy of the Quran. But he also wants an English translation of the King James Version of the Bible.
That’s a funny turn of phrase. Does that mean he wants a KJV, which is in English after all, or a KJV rendered into modern English? And why a KJV at all, rather than an Urdu or modern English translation? Has he somehow fallen under the influence of those Protestant groups who believe, in defiance of all the evidence (and please don’t argue about it here) that the King James Bible is the only reliable English translation?
Paracha believes that because the Bible is one of the scriptures accepted in Islam, he is entitled to a copy to read in his small wire-mesh cell. But after his lawyer shipped him a Bible, along with two volumes of Shakespeare, prison officials confiscated the package.
Paracha’s American lawyer filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, demanding that Paracha be given the Bible and copies of Hamlet and Julius Caesar. The government responded that certain books are kept from prisoners because they could “incite” them….
Yes, the Bible is likely to incite him in a way that the Qur’an never could. That’s why there are so many Bible-quoting terrorist groups around the world today, and not a single one that justifies violence using the Qur’an. Oh, wait…
A recent government lawsuit filed in response said none of the more than 500 prisoners is permitted any special treatment.
Does that mean that none can receive anything from outside? No other books? And his lawyer didn’t know this?
And government lawyers said Paracha has not shown that the practice of his religion, Islam, has been “substantially burdened” because he does not have an accompanying copy of the Bible.
Certainly it’s true that if Paracha did get his Bible, he would likely encounter numerous Muslim fellow inmates ready to explain to him, in line with traditional Islamic doctrine, that what he was reading was not the real thing, but an untrustworthy document thoroughly corrupted by Jews and Christians to reflect their false teachings.
They also argued that letting Paracha have a Bible would set off a “chain reaction” among the other 170 detainees.
Is it 500 or 170? Anyway, yes, they might all request Bibles, and where would we be then? They might turn into…(gasp)…Christian fundamentalists!