| | Robert Winefield writes:
This weekend I will be playing cricket with and against more than a dozen blokes from Pakistan, most of whom are Muslims and all of whom are cheery, happy, fantastic people. This being the case, the idea that I had a hand in Steven Vincent's murder (because I have found these these guys to be great blokes) is offensive in the extreme.
Yes, Islam is a load of old cobblers. But not everybody adsorbs it's tenets to the same degree. Therefore the statement that "most Muslims are good people" is perfectly reasonable, rational, and - in my experience - perfectly true.
Any fair assessment would have to say most communists, nazis, klansmen, rapists, circumcisionists, voodooists, and Satan-worshippers are good people too. In a way.
The main issue here is ideology. The main issue here, for anyone semi-civilized, is precisely what these people stand for and advance, and who and what they support.
I think it's fair to say that only a handful of Muslims are truly appalled by, and in strong opposition to, 9/11. Yet virtually all Jews, Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists are. As far as Muslims being decent people -- at least on the surface, and while civilized Westerners are watching -- well, maybe the extremely Westernized, highly educated, middle class, non-practicing ones are. Plus a small minority of upper-crust Turks and Lebanese and Druse, and a smattering of odd perverse others.
For far the majority of Muslims today, Stalin and Hitler are heroes they look up too. America and Bush are utterly reviled. Osama, however, is secretly admired or adored by virtually the whole lot of them. Their hearts grow warm, and their eyes grow soft and wistful at the very idea of him. They tremuously yearn for nothing more than that this larger-than-life Islamic legend and Muslim folk hero strike yet again and "give the West what it deserves."
Maybe all you people with Muslim friends should look below the surface for a few nano-seconds. Let's keep it simple: Ask them what they think of Osama and 9/11. If you dare. Then feel the social awkwardness and embarrassment. Listen to them wax philosophical and ambiguous -- they who never do so otherwise. If anyone out there actually cares about TRUTH and the real nature of today's Muslims -- this will tell you all you all need to know.
As even the oh-so-lame Christian bible puts it: "All who have eyes, let them see. All who have ears, let them hear."
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