Between Asgard and the Western ParadiseBetween Asgard and the Western ParadiseBetween Asgard and the Western ParadiseBetween Asgard and the Western ParadiseBetween Asgard and the Western Paradise
Traditions, Culture, Spirituality, and more…
Traditions, Culture, Spirituality, and more…Traditions, Culture, Spirituality, and more…Traditions, Culture, Spirituality, and more…Traditions, Culture, Spirituality, and more…Traditions, Culture, Spirituality, and more…
As the old Tin Pan Alley song goes, “it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out…at the old ball game,” but it’s not striking out that nine-year old Jericho Scott, of New Haven, Connecticut is worried about. Despite being one of the best pitchers in his league, he’s been banned from the game. As if that weren’t enough, officials from the Youth Baseball League of New Haven has disbanded Scott’s team, and re-distributed the players among the other squads.
The reason: Jericho Scott is too good at pitching, with a fastball that tops about 40 miles per hour (64 kph). Even though this is an average pitch for baseball players of that age group [1], the league claims that the hitters from the other teams just can’t keep up, and some people feel that it’s unfair. In this case, that person happens to be one of the league’s administrators. Jericho’s coach pointed out that Jericho had reportedly snubbed an invitation to join the defending league champion, which is sponsored by an employer of the said administrator. Jericho’s own team was 8-0 and on its way to the playoffs when Jericho was banned from pitching. Note that no effort was made to put Jericho into a higher league.
The league says that there are many beginners in the league, and that fast pitches may frighten or damage the self-esteem of other players. Peter Noble, the league attorney said that “main purpose [of the league] is to promote sport. Those two statements taken in conjunction, though are pure nonsense. In sport, there are winners and losers, there is difference in ability, and competition gives people the ability to gauge progress. However, people have allowed political correctness to interfere with a proper competition. One might recall the Kurt Vonnegut short story Harrison Bergeron, in which excellence was banned by law. This incident is fairly reminicent of that story.
Maybe the NBA needs to make jumping too high a foul. Or, perhaps the FA in England should start giving Peter Crouch red cards for being too tall and kicking the ball too hard, so they can keep up with the Americans. Or, more preferably, the Youth Baseball League of New Haven can allow Jericho to play ball again.
Among critics of Islam, there few voices more prominent than the revisionist Irshad Manji, followed by Wafa Sultan, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Calling themselves “refuseniks,” Hirsi Ali, Manji and Sultan have been praised in the media for their virulent denunciations of Islam and the Prophet (SAW). They are regarded as “brave women” who are fighting oppression and marching bravely forth toward the so-called democratic-atheistic values of the West. At the same time, each of them has a unique aspect which endears them to the politically correct: Manji is a lesbian feminist; Sultan is allegedly a modern, scientific psychiatrist and secular humanist; Hirsi Ali is an atheist, and a black woman to boot. Those features alone endear them to the media as overaged poster-children who are innocently speaking out for human (and civil) rights.
Furthermore, as the media would have us believe, it is these three women, despite denouncing Islam at every turn, who have now been regarded as the only legitimate voice of “moderate” Islam despite being atheists and secular humanists. Under the pretense of dialogue, they have released books such as Infidel, The Trouble with Islam Today, and The Escaped Prisoner; When God is a Monster. Their true aims here are confrontational from the start. Such books cannot be considered to be scholarly in the context of 1400 years of Islamic philosophical development, when they selectively quote a few out-of-context Hadiths, then skip ahead to the modern age and connect the hadith to the events of the modern world. Furthermore, we should ask why — if Muslims and Christians are deemed unreliable sources for atheism — can an atheist such as Ali who opposes all religion unconditionally truly comment without bias on a faith which centers itself upon tawhid, the Oneness and Uniqueness of Allah?
It is in the West’s criticism of Islam, where the Left-Right paradigm is of no use to us. I believe this is the same reason for some of the West’s hatred of China: in both cases, the “guilty” party refuses to give in to the prevailing ideas and degeneracy of the West. China - save for the indigenous minorities who make up 8% of the population, is far from being multicultural or politically correct in the Western sense, and has a sense of pride in Chinese culture. Islam refuses to succumb to liberalism in its native land the same way Christianity went down in Europe. The anti-Muslim sentiments of the likes of Manji, Sultan, and Ali, even their non-’Muslim’ counterparts such as Oriana Fallaci, Christopher Hitchens, and former Marxist David Horowitz, are not based on any kind of support for Christiandom, the Sacred, or any higher ideal, but based on liberalism and humanism. Furthermore, the Freudo-Marxist values which they wish that Muslims would replace are as foreign to Europeans as they are to the Middle East. All this means that the leftists who criticize Islam are little more than hypocrites. They’ve criticized Islam for being imposing and ‘barracks-like,’ yet have no problem imposing harmful bidah which would have detrimental effects on the Muslim ummah.
Has Allah (SWT) not said: “This day I have perfected your religion for you, completed My favor towards you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion”? Islam does not need reform, for the very purpose of reform is to make something better. Perhaps if these so-called ‘reformers’ knew this, they would not be so opportunisitic and deceitful in denouncing the religion of 1.2 billion people.
There will always be an incontrovertible struggle between the two worlds of becoming and the world of being, between the world of change and stability, and between tradition and modernity. The sworn enemy of modernity has throughout history been the brilliant religious scholars and people who valued Tradition above all else. The cultural struggle lies not in the fact that Islam is cruel, but that the modern world is corrupt. The clash of civilizations is a battle between decadence and order, and today, it is Islam must now step up to the front lines of this struggle, as the vanguard of Traditional ideas.
If the Olympics were in Israel — and note that I do say if, for obvious reasons, how would the media react? Since Israel is considered an important strategic ally of the United States, I would not hesitate to say that the representation of different events would be much more positive. Below, I’ve given a few examples, intended as satire and for entertainment purposes only, to illustrate how the a portion of the media might portray some of the so-called scandals thus far.
China: “Chinese government officials went through desperate measures and deliberately altered and falsefied the video of the fireworks in the opening ceremonies, misleading millions of unaware viewers across the world.”
Israel: “Israel’s computer engineers, graphic designers, and other artistic technicians were able to use advanced technology to re-create the impressive fireworks display during the Opening Ceremonies, thus allowing the world to partake in enjoying another aspect of Israeli creative ingenuity in the field of CGI technology. Dedicated experts used advanced CGI techniques to re-enhance the original footage, for a spectacular end product.”
China: “Communist Chinese officials stripped a young girl of the opportunity to sing, while forcing another to lip-sync to enhance the government’s reputation.”
Israel: “Israeli organizers decided to allow a more creative and artistic interpretation of last night’s singing of ‘Hava Nagila’. In a last minute decision, a compromise was reached by the Olympic Organizing Committee, which allowed Deborah Goldstein to stand in for the voice of Ilana Silverberg. Many news agencies around the world are praising this change, as it allowed both girls to be recognized for their immense talent.”
China: “Children were forced to dress in native minority costumes to legitimize China’s brutal repression in Tibet”
Israel: “Israel made further steps toward promoting world peace by featuring Orthodox Christians and Muslims in their opening performance. Actor Henry Rosenthal, who portrayed a Palestinian said, ‘This is a great opportunity to tell the world that there are no human rights problems in Israel.’ Commentators noted that authentic Orthodox Christians and Muslims could not be secured for the performance due to concerns over terrorism.
China: “Stands were filled with fake spectators because of the effectiveness of human rights activists to boycott the Games”
Israel: “The Bureau of Sports and Recreation, which helped the Israeli Government organize the Olympic Games, generously donated thousands of tickets to local Israeli Jews, including the children of Holocaust survivors, to allow them to come and glimpse a portion of one of the world’s greatest sporting events. Original ticket holders, unfortunately, could not attend because of the threat of Islamic terrorism, which the Israeli government is attempting to deal with.”
China: “China brutally cracked down on pro-democracy activists in Tiananmen square just hours before the Olympic Games, and threw out native Chinese activists in an effort to suppress dissent.”
Israel: “Israeli security forces peacefully removed potential terrorists waving Palestinian flags from the Olympic Complex. Also, because of security concerns, some anti-Israeli reactionary elements, including the so-called “Palestinians” were evacuated and strategically re-deployed to England and the United States for the duration of the games. This move was made for their own safety. Free speech will still be allowed, in designated “Public security zones” during the games, however, as long as it conforms with Israeli Law.
China: “Chinese government officials forged passports and issued them to underage children to illicitly gain more gold medals in the Olympic Games”
Israel: “Israel’s top sporting agency, in conjunction with the Israeli government, recently provided clear, updated, and unmistakable evidence that their gymnasts are not underaged. Uriel Pollack, a representative of the sporting agency in Israel urged viewers of the Olympics that this was not an issue. Abraham Foxman has also supported the Israel gymnasts, saying that further questioning of the Israeli competitor’s ages would constitute anti-semitism.”
Recently, those in the English-speaking world, particularly America, have been hearing about the supposed “aggression” of the Russians against the Ossetians in the Republic of Georgia. In the opening hours of the Olympic Games, the controlled American media took no time to denounce both Russian P.M. Vladimir Putin and President Dimitriy Medvedev, saying that the Russian Federation has reverted to “Stalinist” tactics.
Ethnic conflict in the region goes back to the days of the Soviet Union, where the ad-hoc Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic was created in 1918. Despite the existence of the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast, an enclave of ethnic Ossetians within the GSSR, tensions continued to rise. South Ossetians increasingly felt sympathetic with their counterparts in North Ossetia, but the South Ossetians were not able to secede from Georgia after Georgia gained independence. In November of 2006, South Ossetians voted in a referendum regarding the region’s independence from the Republic of Georgia. An overwhelming majority of the region’s 70,000 people voted in favor of independence. Many Ossetians took Russian citizenship as Georgia refused to recognize the referendum.
The American media, however, conveniently omits historical data. Perhaps even more shocking, they also omitted stories of Georgian troops who destroyed Tskhinvali, a city of 100,000, killing over 2,000 Russian citizens. In general, the American media has been overwhelmingly and unquestioningly pro-Georgian, not even questioning the Georgian government’s censorship of “pro-Russian” sources. At a time when the same media coverage criticizes China over lack of media transparency, they hypocritcally defend Georgian media censorship. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006 severely damageing Lebanese civil infra
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