Adil Basharat dies after being beaten by group- random act of violence or Racism?
Killed for being Pakistani or for being Muslim?
Boy injured in Deanshanger group attack dies BBC News.co.uk, via Islamophobiatoday.com,Nov. 21, 2010
A 16-year-old boy critically injured in an attack in a Northamptonshire village has died in hospital.
Adil Basharat, of Milton Keynes, was assaulted in Stratford Road, Deanshanger, at 1100 GMT on Friday.
He died in Milton Keynes General Hospital on Sunday morning. Police said they had received no indication that the attack was racially motivated.
and from Daily Mail BBC star's son sees friend, 16, stabbed to death outside school gates By Daily Mail Reporter 22nd November 2010
BBC radio presenter Liz Kershaw has spoken of her horror after her son's friend was beaten and stabbed to death.
Adil Basharat was assaulted at the gates of Kingsbrook School in Deanshanger, Northamptonshire, on Friday morning.
Kershaw said it was not the first time Adil had been targeted, claiming he had faced racist taunts in the past.
Four men have been charged with his murder. The teenager, from Milton Keynes, was with friends who could only watch on helplessly as he was attacked.
Victim: Adil Basharat was beaten and stabbed at the gates of Kingsbrook School in Deanshanger, Northamptonshire, on Friday morning. Four men have been charged with his murder
It is interesting to say the least that Islam and all Muslims are saddled with the collective guilt by the actions of a extremist minority of Muslims. If some Muslims are terrorists than the untutored non-Muslims argue that all Muslims are at root and heart evil nasty anti-Christian anti-Western Anti-American would be terrorists.
So if a number of Catholic Priests or protestant ministers are involved in child pornography and or the sexual abuse of children should all Catholic Priests and all Ministers and Pastors etc. be held accountable for the few. Or to put it more emphatically are all Christians potentially at least Pedophiles.
One can multiply these examples easily such as if some white Christian Americans are " White Supremacists" are we to conclude that most if not all White Christian Americans are fanatically racist.
Or if some Americans are Islamophobic believing that all Muslims are evil or potentially dangerous should we then conclude all or most Americans are Islamophobic. We would need overwhelming proof to make such a claim.
For instance some critics of Islam disingenuously argue they respect or love all Muslims but hate the religion. But it is by way of the religion Islam that Muslims define themselves as Christians also define themselves by their particular religious beliefs.
Should all Christians be saddled with the guilt of Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust/Shoah because the majority of those murdering the Jews were in fact Christians.
Should all Jews bare the guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus. Because the Pharisees of Jerusalem condemned Jesus to death does this mean all Jews then and throughout history should carry that guilt. Of course many Christians do not blame Jews for Jesus 's death .
According to various readings interpretations of the Passion Of Christ the role of the Pharisees can be characterized in several different ways. They can be characterized as merely being instruments of God who have a part to play in this religious drama. The Crucifixion of necessity must take place so Jesus can by his blood redeem humankind . Others would instead put the blame for Jesus' death on the heads of the Romans since the Pharisees did not have the authority to insist on the death penalty. In order to make their religion more palatable for the Romans instead the Jews were cast as the killers of Jesus.
But again if the entire event of Jesus arrest, trial, and crucifixion are predestined by God then neither Jews or Romans can be held responsible for the crucifixion. The other way to put it is that Jews, Romans and all of mankind is collectively guilty for Jesus' execution. To blame Jews or Romans would appear to miss the point of the story. This is all part of the arc of the story of Jesus' Life and death.
Spanish priest arrested with 21,000 images of child porn; what if he were Muslim? Islamophobia Today, Nov. 25, 2010
Spain was largely free of the high-profile child sex abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic Church in many European countries and the United States… until now. Even more men of the cloth are found to be involved in sexual child abuse. A Spanish Catholic priest was arrested with 21,000 images of child porn on computersin his church.
To be fair, it should be obvious that hoarding pornography of any sorts, especially children, is against the formal teachings of the Catholic Church. “If the accusation is true, this is something that hurts us deeply, that we sincerely regret and that we reject unreservedly,” the diocese said. Just because some criminals belong to a faith does not mean that faith endorses criminal behavior. Reasonably open-minded people can understand that.
But what if he were Muslim?
Expect no fairness from the anti-Muslim conflict-o-sphere. Child porn is a tenet of Islam, we’d be told. We’d see another repeat of the whole child bride fiasco, echoing again and again the tired “Muhammad is a pedophile” smear.
But was Muhammad’s marriage to the young but post-pubescent Aisha unusual for 7th century Arabia? Nope. As Colin Turner of the University of Durham Middle East Studies department points out:
A marriage between an older man and a young girl was customary among the Bedouins, as it still is in many societies across the world today. It was not unheard of in Muhammad’s time for boys and girls to be promised to each other in marriage almost as soon as they were born, particularly if the union was of direct political significance to the families concerned. However, such marriages were almost certainly not consummated until both parties had entered adulthood, which Arabs in the 7th century tended to reach at an earlier age than Westerners today. It is highly unlikely that Muhammad would not have taken Aisha into his bed until she was at least in her early teens, which was wholly in keeping with the customs of the day, and in context not in the least improper.
[Turner, C. (2006). The messenger. Islam: the basics(pp. 34-35). London: Routledge.]
But wasn’t Muhammad some sexual pervert that couldn’t control his libido? False. As Aisha herself testified:
Narrated Aisha: “The Prophet used to kiss and embrace his wives while he was fasting, and he had more power to control his desires than any of you.”
[Sahih Bukhari, Volume 3 Book 31 Number 149]
But wasn’t Muhammad a violent misogynist who beat women and children all day? Wrong again. As Aisha again testifies:
Narrated Aisha: “The Messenger of Allah never struck a servant or a woman.”
[Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 41 Number 4786]
عَنْ عَائِشَةَ، عَلَيْهَا السَّلاَمُ قَالَتْ مَا ضَرَبَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم خَادِمًا وَلاَ امْرَأَةً قَطُّ
Now, do these same anti-Muslim bloggers know (or care) that Christian sources record that Joseph married the Virgin Mary when he was 90 and she was 12? Probably not.
A year after his wife’s death, as the priests announced through Judea that they wished to find in the tribe of Juda a respectable man to espouse Mary, then twelve to fourteen years of age. Joseph, who was at the time ninety years old, went up to Jerusalem among the candidates…
[Catholic Encyclopedia, St. Joseph]
Will these same anti-Muslim keyboard warriors accuse Joseph of being a pedophile and Christianity of being a religion of pedophilia? Not likely. So what is at play here? As George Readings observed, “This attempt to aggressively apply a modern British definition of pedophilia to seventh century Arabia strikes me as a sign of severe anthropological illiteracy…”
Anthropological illiteracy indeed! But who has time for troublesome scientific principles and scholarly analysis if you rely on “closed information systems based on pretend information” and your anti-Muslim canards fit so neatly into your supremacist ideological view of the world?
Note: This article is part of our “What if they were Muslim?” series. In this series, we examine the double standards used by anti-Muslim activists when discussing religious extremism in Islam as compared to other religions. We reject using extremists of any religion to justify prejudice, stereotypes, and hostility towards all members of that religion. Period.
Example of islamophobia from Brad Schaeffer who compares the building of a Mosque at Ground Zero New York as equivalent to the Carmelite Nuns building a convent near Auschwitz. The death of 3,000 Americans does not compare to the genocidal murder of 6 million Jews. 9/11 took place in one day while the oppression and ghettoization of Jews was ongoing in Europe for at least a thousand years if we date the attacks on European Jews back to the first Crusade. Hitler was just taking the hatred and marginalization and demonization of European Jews to what he considered to be its logical conclusion that is the Final Solution.
And if we just stick to the Third Reich then the attacks on German Jews began in 1933, then ginned up in 1937 by the Nazis Action known as Kristallnacht and then moved to the Final Solution in 1941.
What most Westerners Europeans and Americans and Canadians refuse to admit to the fact that our respective governments did little or nothing to save European Jewry.
The allies refused to take in more Jewish refugees from 1933 to 1945 and in fact these governments set up blockades to prevent Jews trying to escape the ongoing slaughter in Germany and throughout Europe including Eastern Europe and the Pale in Russia. Christians in general were for the most part anti-Semitic though CNN, the History Channel or Fox News or other Media outlets promulgate the Big Lie that the reason for WWII was to save European Jewry which is historically factually nonsense. The Brits , USA, Canada and a hundred other nations refused to take in even one Jew. If these nations had been able to overcome their own anti-Semitism Hitler would probably never instituted the Final Solution since he believed that most nations were anti-Semitic and he was doing their dirty work for them.
Of course these days the anti-Muslim gang are busily rewriting history arguing that anti-Semitism is not a n indigenous European prejudice but in fact was promulgated and originated from the Middle East that is Muslims and Arabs .
This is just more nonsense Europeans had been discriminating against and ghettoizing and murdering Jews for centuries.
Even after the Second World War there were still many countries reluctant to take in Jewish refugees. For many their anti-Semitism continued even after the Shoah/Holocaust.
But these days it is not Jews but Muslims and Arabs and immigrants from outside the West who are now seen as different, dangerous as undermining Western Civilization and Christianity.
Schaeffer repeats all the racist incendiary tropes, cliches, and shibboleths in just a few lines to attack Islam and all Muslims.
In his view Islam and all its believers are guilty by association isn't this what was said about Jews if Pharisees killed Jesus deicide than all Jews carry that guilt (blood libel ) Since those who took part in the 9/11 terrorists attack were Muslims then he believes it is logical to conclude that all Muslims including Muslim Americans are at least untrustworthy or even potential terrorists.
So if some Christians are guilty of some great sin such as the Bloody Crusades , the pogroms against their fellow citizens who happen to be Jews or slaughtering Native Americans which by the way they are once again celebrating during "Thanksgiving" their holiest Holiday . But uberconservatives such as brad Schaeffer would argue America has never done wrong to anyone. In other words the Native Americans whom they slaughtered and the Africans who were enslaved had it coming. He might even have defended the actions of American soldiers who massacred whole villages in Vietnam as they did at at Mi Li or those Native Americans at Wounded Knee who were butchered men, women, children . America's Motto for several centuries was "The only good Indian is a dead Indian". Later it became interchangeable with the people of the Philippines, or the Cubans ,or the Iraqis or Palestinians, or Arabs or Muslims or the Pashtun.
So are all Americans to be held guilty for whatever crimes have been committed by its governments or by the US Military or by a group of private American either domestically or abroad.
Are all Americans to be held accountable for the policies of George W. Bush , Dick Cheney et al.Though of course there are those Americans who feel compelled to defend their government or their military no matter what. They see this blanket defense of their governments past and present as part of being patriotic.
Ground Zero Mosque Developer An NBC “Person Of The Year” Posted by Brad Schaeffer at Andrew Breibart Big journalism Nov 24th
It seems like just as the Ground Zero mosque controversy was receding, NBC has decided to stoke the flames of passion again by naming the project’s developer Sharif El-Gamal a “Person Of The Year“. Gee, NBC once again demonstrates how far out of touch it is with mainstream America? There’s a shock.
In a statement that just reaks of either pathological denial or cynical parsing, Gamal insists that “Not once have I held my faith accountable for the horrific events of 9/11. I am an American. I am an American who has a specific belief system, and my belief system, in order to be a Muslim you have to be a good Jew and a good Christian.” Whatever that even means.
( Note: he misses the point that what Gamal is saying is that Islam is a continuation of Judaism and Christianity and therefore all three traditions culminate in the Prophet Muhammad being the last of the Prophets of Jehovah/God/ Jaweh/Allah. For Muslims Christians and Jews must be respected because they are the "People of the Book" that is the Bible. Muhammad was given as it were the last chapters of the Bible. GORD)
...Personally, I don’t think being a good Catholic means I have to be a good Muslim or good Jew and I wouldn’t hold anyone else’s faith so accountable to mine. Still, his emphatic belief that Islam had nothing to do with 9/11 would probably come as a surprise to the men screaming “Alluhu Akhbar!” as they went full throttle in their blood-splattered cockpits and in the name of their Islamic god obliterated the lives of 3,000 innocent Americans that morning.
My aside;( Schaeffer is upset and angry and bitter that these men cried out to their God and tried to dress up their vicious crime by giving it a religious veneer. Yet he probably like other Christians sees nothing wrong with US soldiers calling upon their God as they butcher or abuse and torture Iraqis or Afghans etc. As General Boykin and Cheney & Rumsfeld Bush etc. believe their Christian God is more powerful than the God of Islam. Muslims would argue as Muhammad did that they were the same God who created the world and created Adam and Eve etc.
The other thing is that it is disingenuous and a matter of willful ignorance or just being unaware of the violence preached in the old testament-to enter a town and murder men, women and children including infants and to kill all the livestock to prove their loyalty and obedience to Jahweh .
In some cases the Israelites were told they could enslave whole peoples to put them to work and for the women to be used as concubines -of course these sections are dismissed or overlooked or are reinterpreted by most Christians and Jews. Of course in the USA there are literally tens of millions of American Christian Evangelicals who believe non-believers that is those who reject Jesus deserve death or at least be relegated to second class citizenship. GORD.)
A key ingredient to being taken seriously in any discussion is to at least appear to be in command of the issues at hand. Certainly if Gamal’s implorings that he is above all an American are to be taken at face value, then he should understand one of the cornerstones of our society is to show some respect for your fellow citizens and to avoid giving unnecessary offense. Heck, we in the non-grievance community are constantly reminded of this core tenet and are swiftly rebuked as racists, bigots and ignoramuses should we stray outside the narrow lines of p.c. sensitivities. If Gamal sincerely cannot understand why the mosque’s location is offensive, then perhaps his intuition about his country is a little less honed than he would like to think. Personally, I ain’t buying it.
As for Matt Lauer, the job of a journalist is to ask tough questions. So I’m hoping against hope that he had the intestinal fortitude to inquire about the radical Imam Rauf and his influence on the mosque’s message; about Pope John Paul II’s decision to move a convent away from Auschwitz despite its legal right to be there out of respect for the feelings of those most directly effected by that place and why Gamal cannot do the same; about why fanning the flames of resentment by placing the mosque so close to where so many died at the hands of Islamic fanatics is so vitally important to its sponsors; and how could Gamal possibly think his project coming to fruition will help Muslim-Western relations…or is that a goal he really cares about at all?
and so it goes,
GORD.
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