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March 31, 2004
Support for Lord Carey from the Islamic world....
Support for Lord Carey's lecture in which he criticised Islamic and Christian fundamentalism, comes from a writer in the Pakistan Daily Times. I found this link through An Englishman's Castle, for which much thanks, Tim.
Ironically, the main thrust of the Daily Times article is about the objections to a statue of a wild boar which was removed from a park in Derby during WW2 and which it was recently proposed should go back. Since WW2, of course, the city has seen a huge influx of Muslim folk from the Indian Sub-continent who now feel that this statue would be a "racist insult" to their faith. Sort of bears out exactly what Lord Carey was on about. No progress can be made if such emphasis is going to be constantly placed on matters of no consequence at all.
Taken with the arrest of six young men and confiscation of a large quantity of potentially explosive material, this rather sums up the problem of such fundamentalist interpretation of everything. The six are British by birth, education (if such it can be called), and Muslim. One of their "friends", speaking on early morning news, stated that, "as long as you ignore or refuse to accept the demands of Al Qaeda, you can expect them to continue the struggle." In short, and I hope that Mr Blair and his coterie of luvvies were listening, Al Qaeda intends to bomb the West into submission and impose Islamic fundamentalism upon us by whatever means they can find.
The tragedy is that the vast majority of Muslims in this country do not support this, or the organisation which claims to be fighting a "holy" war on their behalf, and this sort of lunacy is not going to improve relations for anyone. Equally ironic is the fact that many also privately agree with Dr Carey, but feel they cannot openly say so, lest they incur the wrath of their radical bretheren and neighbours.
The debate will no doubt run and run. Let us hope that the sane, intelligent, and honest voices of both sides prevail.
Posted by The Gray Monk at March 31, 2004 09:05 AM
Comments
I was pleased to see the report that the Muslim leaders have written to every Mosque urging them to fight terror - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3586565.stm - it appears that moderate muslims are finally getting the message about the need to distance themselves from extremists other wise they will all be tarred with the same brush.
Posted by: Tim at March 31, 2004 03:51 PM
Indeed, but it has, sadly, but predictably, met with some rather negative responses from those one would hope would have known better.
Posted by: The Gray Monk at April 4, 2004 09:39 PM