First Hand Experience Living and Working in a Muslim Country
by John Alexander
Like many Westerners brought up in a democratic, liberal culture, I was
taught to respect other cultures and their value systems. Through
schooling, I was taught to treat all faiths with reverence even if I do
not share such beliefs. Many Western countries are now ³multi-cultural²
in the sense that because they are generally economically, politically
and socially successful, they have drawn migrants from most countries
of the world, including Islamic countries.
So it was with a great sense of anticipation and delight that I was
given a two year contract and a chance to experience an Islamic
country. I thought I would meet the real Muslims, not the ones branded
as terrorists by our biased media, get to know them, thoroughly enjoy
myself and enrich my ³inter-cultural² experiences.
Needless to say, in the two years I have lived in the Gulf, I have
found, to my dismay (believe me, I get no pleasure from writing this)
that many of the articles I have read on Faith-freedom and
Islam-watch.org and others, I have found to be generally accurate for
the following reasons:
1. 1. Muslims are generally narrow-minded and bigoted.
2. 2. Muslims are fanatical haters of Israel and the United States.
3. 3. Muslims truly believe they have the best religion in the world
and that the rest of the world should be Islamic.
4. 4. Muslims really do believe that adulterers should be stoned and
apostates killed.
5. 5. Muslims have a peculiar sense of right and wrong. A thing is
right if it is done privately but wrong if the transgression is made
public.
I can probably add more to the list. When you talk and interact with
Muslims on a daily basis, they seem on the surface to be quite
reasonable people. I have had delightful discussions with my colleagues
over coffee many times. Gulf Arabs generally are courteous hosts and
behave well in public. For example, I have never seen any graffiti or
gratuitous violence on the streets at all. I feel confident about
leaving my car door unlocked as I know the likelihood of being robbed
is very small. Of course, every Muslim country is different depending
on their economic and social level, but in the oil-rich Gulf states,
crime appears to be at a minimum when compared with some Western
countries, and law and order prevail. Perhaps this has something to do
with the immense oil wealth so that real grinding poverty has become
much less prevalent here than in other poorer Muslim countries.
With time though, I began to discern a darker side to Islam and what it
has done to the rationality or thinking of the people. For example,
when talking to a well-educated Muslim, one who has more often than not
been educated in the West, it is easy to be lead into a false sense of
security; that is, they are rational people like yourself. Not at all.
I know PhD professors who have lived in Western countries for many
years,who still insist that their wives must wear the niqab (ninja face
veil) and hijab (head scarf) in public. They insist that adulterers
should be publicly stoned and hands and feet chopped off and that
apostates should either be killed or at the very least, deported. When
hearing such primitive ideas and beliefs held by supposedly ³educated²
Muslim professors, my heart sank a thousand feet and my head started to
swirl. I began to ask myself: WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING IN THIS COUNTRY
WITH SUCH PEOPLE! I even started to doubt myself (being trained in the
Western tradition of self-doubting). I wondered if I was being too
sensitive, that I didn't understand the culture enough and that I
didn't have the right to judge them! I was confused but held my tongue
and kept working quietly away. But something was gnawing away inside of
me; something just wasn't right. I felt less and less comfortable
living amongst these people with such callous, medieval religious
beliefs. I even started to feel less safe and more fearful. I began to
sense that fear and control seem to pervade Muslim society and that
Muslims did actually live in fear and mistrust of each other, living in
some Orwellian world of self-censorship and over-regulation that
stifled thought and creativity There appeared to be a great schism
between the private and the public spheres; that you could do anything
you wanted in private as long as it was not revealed in public. It was,
to my mind, a hypocritical morality and way to live. Right and wrong
was only judged by whether or not it became a ³public² crime; this is,
if others found out about it outside the immediate closed family
circle. One of my Muslim colleagues explained it thus: If a man or
woman commits adultery, then as long as it is not revealed in public,
the adulterer can be forgive by Allah if the offender asks for
forgiveness. But if the adultery or crime becomes public, then he or
she has to be publicly punished. What hypocrisy and double standards I
thought! Why can't forgiveness be done in public as well? If Allah can
forgive a ³sin² in private, why not public? Another learned professor
told me that if a woman is raped, then her family cannot tolerate it as
it has brought shame and disgrace upon them and so, she must be killed.
What a mentality! The poor girl has been raped through no fault of her
own and so she must be killed because the family feels disgraced! What
if the poor girl wanted to live? What right has her family to kill her
thus in cold-blood?
Then I realised that even though these ³educated² Muslims, my
colleagues, are friendly and courteous on the exterior, they are able
to kill their own sister or niece if the rape is made public for the
sake of their family's honour. What rubbish is this? The conclusion I
came to is that their religion, invented by a madman, a thug and
terrorist like Mohammad, has twisted their minds, distorted their
rationality and squeezed humanity out of them. This was the only
logical conclusion I could reach. There is nothing wrong with the Arab
per se; they truly are courteous and hospitable people, but that is
only half of who they are: the other half, the flip side, is their
sinister religion Islam, which has made what appear to be ³nice²
rational people, potential irrational killers.
Islam is a fallacious religion that has produced misguided people over
many centuries. I have no doubt now that the reason why many Muslim
countries are so backward, poor and reactionary, is precisely because
of Islam. Islam is no friend to rationality, morality and humane
progress, but is rather their antithesis. Another 'learned² lecturer,
when discussing this point, even agreed with me about the backwardness
of Islamic countries and lack of scientific and technological progress.
At last, I thought, here is a Muslim who is starting to see reason.
However, my initial delight was short-lived. He then proceeded to turn
my argument on its head entirely by suggesting that Muslim countries
are NOT following true Islam and if they were, then they would be even
more successful than Western countries today! When I heard this I
almost fell off my seat. I wanted to run away and cry. What is wrong
with these people? Can they not see that it is Islam that is holding
them back? It is so obvious to everyone else. But talking to Muslims
about the deficiencies of Islam in a logical and positivistic way is
like trying to convince a drug-addict that what he or she is doing is
harmful. The addict answers back: So therefore we need MORE of the
drug, not less! We just haven't applied it correctly!
To conclude, I just want to say to the readers out there that I used to
think Islam was just like any other region, even believing the nonsense
that Islam was ³beneficial² and worthwhile and deserved respect. After
all, we have heard so much about the great Islamic past and the glory
of the Islamic civilisation while Europe was still a barbaric land. Oh
how the tables have turned now! There is no doubt in my mind that if it
wasn't for the fortuitous discovery of oil and the influx of billions
of petro-dollars of investment, foreign companies and foreign workers
into the Gulf, countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others would
have the economic development and stability of a Yemen or Somalia
today.
So next time when you meet a so-called ³rational² educated Muslim
studying at a Western university, befriend him or her. Don't be shy.
Offer him or her a coffee in the local cafeteria and while chattering
away amiably, ask him or her some incisive questions like: what are
your views on adultery or on those who wish to change their religion or
have no religion at all? on polygamy and women's rights? on wearing the
niqab and hijab? and on the Israeli-Palestinian question? etc. You may
find, if he or she is honest with you and doesn't try to duck your
questions, some very disturbing and reactionary answers.
http://www.nnseek.com/e/soc.culture.aus ... 3924t.html
First Hand Experience Living and Working in a Muslim Country
-
Persian_revenge
- Berichten: 782
- Lid geworden op: za dec 03, 2005 4:32 pm
- Locatie: Londonistan
