DENIAL

They're under constant persecution;
they are just, really, innocent pawns.
In the great game of capitalism
and the incessant greed which it spawns.

Their hate and distrust;
to be fair, have their merits.
Feelings shared and opined,
by local peaceful clerics.

It was our oil interest,
And photos of Abu “Grahb”
That sparked all this hatred,
and the rioting mobs.

Those darn Danish Cartoonist
and the wealthy Zionist
are in cahoots with Neocon - Christians
and voracious Capitalist.

Car bombings and beheadings?
They’re really just crying out.
A place at the International Table
Is what this is all about.

We should just peacefully engage them.
Give the PLO their land.
Sever ties with all of Israel,
and secure rights for all of Islam

They have a right to be so angry.
They are Just in their cause for war.
It is such a small sacrifice for freedom.
Isn’t peace worth striving for?

When they say,
they ‘want the whole world to be Islam!’
They just mean,
that ‘we should all live in peace!’
If we give them the respect they deserve,
this peace will become a reality.

So, soon they will gain understanding,
and soon we’ll stand hand in hand.
Going forward as one in humanity,
is the desire of all denominations.

Islam: The World’s Ghetto

In modern societies there have always been pockets within these societies where crime, fear, and distrust run rampant. Ghettos were first designed to segregate Jews from other areas of European cities. In more modern times it has become a poor densely populated city district occupied by a minority ethnic group linked together by economic hardship and social restrictions.

As a result of these conditions, fear is a welcomed tool used by both the authorities and those who prey on the innocent. In the United States the police encounter resistance or no cooperation at all when investigating crimes in these ghettos because of the fear of those who live there and the threat of reprisals by those who commit the crimes. The people within these neighborhoods become prisoners within their own homes and the only way to survive is to remain silent.
In Mexico, the drug cartels have harvested fear to a point where even the free press is too afraid to speak out against their actions. Their communities are enslaved by fear and death and they can only look to communities in the United States and Europe and dream of how it is to live in relative peace.

Masters of this tactic, those even deadlier than the drug cartels of Mexico or the gangs in US ghettos are those within the Islamic faith who have hijacked their mosks and preach hate and violence under the threat of death and retaliation to anyone who would dare speak out. Violence has become synonymous with Islam. Across the globe, Islamic rebels, terrorist, and Jihadist have forced the believers of Islam to cower in their homes for fear that if they speak against these actions that they too will be the focus of this violence. Islam has become the largest ghetto the world has seen. The violence is world wide. Beheadings, burnings, and dismemberments are common place in many Islamic states. Torture, death, and indiscriminant violence is the tactic of those holding the reigns of Islam and the “peaceful’ believers of Islam look at the world just they do from the ghettos of Mexico and the US. They are aware that a peaceful existence exist, they just don’t believe that that existence is meant for them.

There are over a Billion believers of Islam in the world yet the Islamic world can’t produce a global condemnation of the violence being done in the name of their faith. We see global condemnation of issues that the gangs, thugs, terrorist, and anarchist of Islam have earmarked as being wrong, like the cartoons that depict Muhammad, a prophet of the Islamic religion in a distasteful way, but they can’t seem to condemn the beheadings, torture, and violence being done against women, children and innocent people around the world. They have even allowed these same violent men to define who is and who isn’t innocent.

The Islamic world is a ghetto, riddled with violence and fear. The good people of these communities have lost their ability to speak out. They have cowered into the dark corners of blame and justification allowing this mayhem to continue and there does not seem to be an end in sight.

In the days of old, ghettos were walled off, separated from other parts of society. The term, ‘out of sight out of mind’ was common place…in today’s global economy coupled the desire in the west to unite the world under the banner of humanity and the media’s desire to show all things violent we have no means of separating ourselves from this issue and they will not allow us to ignore it.

To the people of Islam I have this to say:

Hiding in the ghetto will only bring a temporary peace…and what is peace if it is enforced by fear?

Michael DiBartolo

Wake Up! The article says it all

"They want to know whether Muslims are extremists or not. Death to them and to their newspapers,"

says protester Mawli Abdul Qahar Abu Israra



BBC
Muslim cartoon fury claims lives

At least five people have been killed in Afghanistan as protests against European cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad swept across the country.

Two people died when protesters turned on the US airbase at Bagram - although the US has had no involvement with the images, which originated in Denmark.

Meanwhile in Somalia, a teenage boy died after protesters attacked police.

Iran announced it was halting trade with Denmark, as protesters pelted the Danish embassy with petrol bombs.

Police fired tear gas in a bid to keep back hundreds of angry demonstrators, some of whom attempted to scale the wall into the embassy compound. Earlier, the Austrian embassy in Tehran came under attack.

The violence follows attacks on Danish embassies in Syria and Lebanon over the weekend. The cartoons were first published in a Danish newspaper.

Tensions continue to escalate around the world:

· Norway demands compensation from Syria after its embassy in Damascus was set on fire on Saturday

· The Turkish and Spanish prime ministers make a joint plea for respect and calm in an article in the International Herald Tribune

· In Indonesia, protesters target the Danish and US consulates in Surabaya, the country's second largest city. Protests are also held in the capital, Jakarta

· Riot police in the Indian capital, Delhi, fire tear gas and water cannons to disperse hundreds of student protesters

· Shops and businesses across Indian-administered Kashmir close after a general strike is called in protest at the drawings

· In Thailand, protesters shout "God is great" and stamp on Denmark's flag outside the country's embassy in Bangkok, the Associated Press news agency reports

· There are protests again outside the European Union offices in Gaza, following demonstrations there last week.

'Test our feelings'

Hundreds of people took part in the morning demonstration in Afghanistan's Laghman province, in a second day of protests in the city.

Three people died when police fired on protesters after a police station came under attack, a government spokesman said.

Demonstrators shouted "death to Denmark" and "death to France". They called for the expulsion of diplomats and soldiers, who were sent by both countries as part of international efforts in the US-led "war on terror".


CARTOON ROW

30 Sept 2005: Danish paper publishes cartoons

20 Oct: Muslim ambassadors complain to Danish PM

10 Jan 2006: Norwegian publication reprints cartoons

26 Jan: Saudi Arabia recalls its ambassador

30 Jan: Gunmen raid EU's Gaza office demanding apology

31 Jan: Danish paper apologises

01 Feb: Papers in France, Germany, Italy and Spain reprint cartoons

04 Feb: Syrians attack Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus

05 Feb: Protesters sack Danish embassy in Beirut

"They want to test our feelings," protester Mawli Abdul Qahar Abu Israra told the BBC.

"They want to know whether Muslims are extremists or not. Death to them and to their newspapers," he said.

In Bagram district, a peaceful protest in the morning turned violent when around 300 "bandits and gangsters" tried to enter the US base, local police chief Mawlana Sayed Khel told the BBC.

A shoot-out with police left two protesters dead, and six police officers injured, he said.

Elsewhere, hundreds protested in Kandahar, Mazar-e-Sharif and the north-eastern province of Takhar. Some 200 demonstrators gathered outside the Danish embassy in the capital, Kabul.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai reiterated his condemnation of the cartoons and called on western nations to take "a strong measure" to ensure such cartoons do not appear again. "It's not good for anybody," he told CNN.

'Defending freedoms'

In the autonomous Somali region of Puntland, demonstrators marched through the port city of Bosaso, shouting anti-Western slogans and converging on the UN and international aid agency buildings.

A 14-year-old boy was reportedly trampled underfoot as police fired into the air to try and disperse an increasingly angry crowd.

Peaceful protests were held in several other Somali towns.

The cartoons first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September and caused outrage among Muslims, who consider any images of Muhammad offensive.

One of the cartoons shows Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban.

Newspapers across Europe republished the pictures last week, saying they were defending freedom of expression.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/4684652.stm

Published: 2006/02/06 18:59:21 GMT

© BBC MMVI