Why Do They Hate Us? Playing Soccer With Severed Heads

A few days ago, a friend sent me a link to a YouTube video that turned my stomach. It showed some Pathans (Pashtuns, Taliban, take your pick) with several severed heads that they displayed by holding them by the hair, then they dropped the heads and kicked them around like soccer balls, giggling and laughing as they did so.

My first reaction was of utter disgust, I turned it off. Then I replayed it and paused it at different points and thought about it and suddenly I no longer saw animals, fanatical brutes doing inhuman things to their victims, I saw something entirely different; I saw a worldwide problem that gives life to such.

The people holding the severed heads were no older than children, they giggled in a childish way when they kicked the heads around…they WERE  children! These children were doing horrific things, probably shutting their minds to the reality of what they were doing, but doing them in order to be “In”, to belong to their group, rather than to risk being “Out”. The scene was not much different from a school bullying scene where the bullies do the bad things, a few kids join them to be among the ‘in” crowd and others remain silent because they do not wish to stand out or, to be rejected. The fact that they were Muslim, had nothing to do with the matter, they had been manipulated and controlled by the fanatics, they were no different from the child soldiers of Congo, Liberia, Angola and Uganda for whom the entire “Civilized” world shows compassion and care and whom the entire “Civilized” world wants to reform and rehabilitate. But these were kids that the entire “Civilized” world wants to kill in any way they can, utilizing Drones, special Forces and even the armed forces of the host nations (Pakistan, Afghanistan etc.,) to slaughter them with impunity…”in order to keep the world safe” they say.

How did these children come to such a state of affairs and what can be done for them?

Our involvement in “Islamist Killings out there”

I got up to an easy day this morning, had tea and my best-in-the-world cereal that I made myself and was looking forward to an easy day…

 

Then I logged on to my computer.

• Sunday morning bomb at Christian church in Pakistan kills at least 75  PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A suicide bomb attack on a church killed at least 75 people as parishioners left the building Sunday, officials said, in what is the biggest attack on Pakistan’s Christian community in many years.
  Women and children were among the victims of the attack, which took place as a morning service was drawing to a close. The rapidly-rising death toll reached at least 75 within hours of the blast….
• Islamist gunmen hold hostages in Kenya siege, 59 dead  (Reuters) – Islamist militants were holding hostages on Sunday at a shopping mall in Nairobi, where at least 59 people were killed in an attack by the Somali al Shabaab group…and more than 175 taken to hospitals…

This is sickening news. Religious fervor is so strong among Muslims, especially over the past few decades, that we Muslims feel it is justified to kill anyone who strays off our own tight, boundaries. Such targets are not only Christians and other non-Muslims, such targets are expanding to internecine slaughters as well where people who regard themselves as the most Muslims among people, are killing everyone within their reach, as a way of safeguarding and spreading Islam.

Imran Khan, Pakistan and Malala Yusufzai

 Malala Yusufzai is just a little girl, barely 14 years old. At eleven, she became a poster-child for the movement for educate girls in Swat Valley, in Pakistan and simultaneously, she became a hated figure by the religious fanatics in the region who are associated with the Taliban-style of thinking.

Early this month, the schoolbus she was in, with other girls was stopped by some bearded people, one entered and demanded to know who Malala Yusufzai was. As she rose to identify herself, the man shot her in the head and neck and departed.

Left for dead, Malala lived. She was rushed to a local Hospital, later to a military hospital and then to Britain where she is showing signs of recovery.

The world erupted with sympathy for the poor and very brave girl, women, young and old started to sport signs saying, “I am Malala”. People condemned the action of the killers, demanding action against “The Taliban”.

Recently, people appear to have taken advantage of the anti-Taliban sentiments to attack Imran Khan,

Thoughts on Muslims arrested in Florida

“Florida Imams Arrested for Aiding Pakistani Taliban” http://www.cnbc.com/id/43037173?par=RSS

“The imam of a Florida mosque and his two sons, one also a Muslim spiritual leader, were arrested on Saturday on charges of financing and supporting the Pakistani Taliban, U.S. official said.”

Like most Muslims, when I first read this news, I was stunned, “Not another one!” I thought to myself…Imams at that! I read that the imam exulted when he heard the news of five US soldiers killed in Afghanistan and said he wished they were 50,000 more and I was completely disgusted, “Put him in the deepest hole you can find!” I thought to myself. I wanted to hide my face before someone might ask me what I thought about the three arrested in Florida, what could I possibly say to them?

It took a day before I was able to think clearly and not react and reject the Florida three out of conditioned reflexes. Six people, including these three, were charged with, ““supporting acts of murder, kidnapping and maiming in Pakistan and elsewhere” carried out by the Pakistani Taliban“.

We need to calm down and not join the group-think of condemnation simply because the accused are Muslim and we represent the institutions of “Freedom and Democracy” that no right-thinking person should abandon. Group-think seldom results in Justice being served, but group-think often results in egregious miscarriages of Justice as