Islam, perhaps the world's most intolerant and violent religion, has struck again. In Indonesia yesterday Muslims marched against another faith, but this time it wasn't Atheists, it wasn't Christianity, it was one of their own sects.
"About 2,000 people have gathered in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, to protest against a minority Muslim sect, the Ahmadiyya community."
The only difference between mainstream Islam and the Ahmadiyyads? The latter have an extra prophet, and to the Islamo-fascists of the region (according to the BBC) "They see the Ahmadiyya's beliefs as a threat to mainstream Islam - and many see a vote for pluralism as a vote for Western-style secularism".
Islam, perhaps the most powerful religion in the world at present, has admitted its own fragility. So threatened is it, by this minority sect in an Islam-dominated region, that it feels obliged to kill it off as soon as possible. There is no reason for this reaction, the Ahmadiyya community has not struck out against mainstream Islam, and even believe in the supremacy of the prophet Muhammed.
But, sadly, this is a very typical religious stance. Religions throughout history have acted ferociously against anything which proposes a truth other then their own, even if the new truth is more reliable and reasonable then the older one. That the Ahmadiyyads have no more basis simply makes them an easier target then those such as Galileo.
Mecca Time
For some reason this rings strangely in my ears, much like the song "It's Chico time". Muslims have jumped upon yet another aspect of science that they find particuariliy interesting, suggesting that Mecca, rather then Greenwich, should be the center of the world's time system, insisting that the only reason GMT is used is due to British Imperialism.
Well... they're right. The only issue being that it has been a century since Britain was an Empire, and, quite frankly, no one cares anymore. GMT is a useful time-framing device, and centers on western Europe. Although western Europe may not be the center of the world anymore, it certainly was, and continues to arguably be the foundation of democracy in the present world.
Mecca, by contrast, is worldwide recognised as being not only the center of the most violent and lethal faith on the globe, but also in Saudi-Arabia, the avatar of the sharia law.
China strikes back
China, in typical heavy-handed style, has struck back against those who dared support its new inklings of democracy and freedoms. Just as everyone began to take its side against the Tibetan rebels interrupting the non-political Olympics, China has began a program to help "re-educate " the misunderstood rebel province.
It's the scene from every communist-based antagonist film/series/book, when the misunderstood civilians must be shown the error of their ways, and the righteousness of the path they should follow.
Or of course they could choose miserable imprisonment, torture and death.
This has produced a swing in my opinion of China, a nation I truly believed was beginning to swing back towards the west and away from Maoism. Sadly it seems, rather then that, it is becoming more stubbornly set in its ways. With its populace having been under communist government for about sixty years now, it seems they have forgotten what freedom is like. Gone are the rebels of Tienanmen square, instead the fanatical student support harassing Tibetan protesters and threatening western shopping centers, protesting angrily against western bias on the news they aren't even allowed to hear about in China itself.
With every step forwards economically, China seems to take two back.
