Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
Few things offer surreal experiences as when Islam and the West interact—when 7th century primordialism encounters 21st
century relativism. Consider the issue of “interfaith dialogue.” In
principle, it is a decent thing: Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others
trying to reach a common ground and professing mutual respect. But what
does one make of the gross contradictions that emerge when a
human-rights violating nation calls for “dialogue,” even as it enforces
religious intolerance on its own turf?
Enter Saudi Arabia. Birthplace of Islam, the Arabian kingdom is also
the one Muslim nation that regularly sponsors interfaith initiatives in
the West—even as its official policy back home is to demonize and
persecute the very faiths it claims to want to have an interfaith
dialogue with.Back in 2008,
for example, in what was deemed an unprecedented move, Saudi King
Abdullah “made an impassioned plea for dialogue among Muslims,
Christians, and Jews,” going so far as to refer to the latter two as
“our brothers.” His stated goal was to develop “respect among
religions.” The Saudi monarch’s most recent initiative
reached fruition on November 26 2012, when the King Abdullah Bin
Abdulaziz International Center for Interreligious and Intercultural
Dialogue was launched in the Austrian capital, Vienna. According to its
own website, the center “was founded to enable, empower and encourage
dialogue among followers of different religions and cultures around the
world.” Lending international legitimacy to this Saudi gesture of
goodwill, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was among those who
attended the opening.
While all this ostensibly sounds well and good, consider the many
incongruities, the many absurdities—initially demonstrated by the simple
fact that Saudi Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Sudais, who was quoted praising
the Austrian-based center as proof that “Islam is a religion of dialogue
and understanding and not a religion of enmity, fanaticism, and
violence,” is also on record calling Jews “monkeys and pigs” and
Christians “cross worshippers.” Nor is he just a run-of-the-mill sheikh: he is the government-appointed imam of Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mosque in Mecca—Islam’s holiest site, where Christians, Jews, and others are routinely condemned and cursed during the prayers of the faithful.
But this is not surprising. Even the State Department’s most recent
internal religious freedom report on Saudi Arabia notes that “Freedom of
religion is neither recognized nor protected under the law and is
severely restricted in practice. The public practice of any religion
other than Islam is prohibited, and there is no separation between state
and religion.” And this is the key point: Saudi Arabia’s brand of religious
intolerance is not a product of the “Arab street,” terrorists, or mob
violence. It is institutionalized; it is enforced by the state itself.
In other words, religious intolerance is being implemented by the very
people who claim to want to have dialogue with Christians and Jews under
the umbrella of “tolerance” and “mutual respect.”In this context, what, exactly, do they wish to talk about?
Do they wish to talk about how the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia—yet
another top ranked Saudi religious official—declared that it is “necessary to destroy all the churches of the region,” basing his verdict on the commands of the prophet ? Do they wish to talk about how, despite promising to reform their school textbooks, the Saudi education system continues to indoctrinate Muslim children
with hatred and incitement, teaching that “Christians are the enemies
of the Believers” and that the “the Apes are the people of the Sabbath,
the Jews; and the Swine are the infidels of the communion of Jesus, the
Christians”?
Little wonder the imam of Mecca’s Grand Mosque uses such monikers—even as he gushes about the Saudi-sponsored Vienna-based
initiative for “dialogue.”Maybe they wish to talk about the 28-year-old Saudi woman, Maryan,
who, after converting to Christianity, had to flee the nation, and is
reportedly currently hiding in Sweden, even as authorities try to
extradite her back to Saudi Arabia to face the crime of apostasy,
which calls for the death penalty? Earlier Maryam had said that,
though she “was raised to hate Judaism and Christianity she has come to
love those religions since finding peace in Christianity.”
Do they wish to talk about how 35 Christian Ethiopians were arrested
and abused for almost a year, simply for holding a private house
prayer? Upon release, one of the Christians observed that “The Saudi
officials do not tolerate any religions other than Islam. They consider
non-Muslims unbelievers. They are full of hatred towards non-Muslims.” Or do they wish to talk about how just last December 2012, Saudi
“religious police” stormed a house in the province of al-Jouf, detaining
more than 41 guests for, in the words of the police statement, “plotting to celebrate Christmas”?Of course, the Vienna-based King Abdullah International Centre for
Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue does not wish to talk about
any of these instances of state-enforced religious intolerance.
Instead,
the purpose of the center’s existence is to deflect criticism from
Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries, and direct it onto the West.
This was amply demonstrated during the center’s inaugural symposium,
when Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the head of the Organization of Islamic
Cooperation, urged Western governments to enact laws countering
“Islamophobia,” because it “leads to hate crimes and as such, it
generates fear, feelings of stigmatization, marginalization, alienation
and rejection.” In other words, Saudi-sponsored “interfaith dialogue” is about
one-way tolerance, that is, pressuring the West to show “tolerance” to
Muslims by not criticizing them for persecuting others, which would be
portrayed as “Islamophobia.”
It still remains to determine which is more surreal, more
unbelievable: that Saudi Arabia, which tops the charts of state-enforced
religious intolerance, is sponsoring “religious dialogue,” or that the
West, including leaders of those religions whose adherents are daily
persecuted by Saudi and Muslim intolerance, are going along with the
gag—and all of them with a straight face. Raymond Ibrahim
