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From: mokhtar@ubc-vision.UUCP (Farzin Mokhtarian)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: islam
Message-ID: <1020@ubc-vision.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Aug-85 17:41:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-visi.1020
Posted: Wed Aug  7 17:41:08 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 8-Aug-85 00:09:09 EDT
Organization: UBC Computational Vision Lab, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 45

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After reading a long article on islam by Mr. Martillo, one who is not "disposed"
to believing him might feel "overwhelmed" by all of his "facts" and obscure
"references" that he uses to "prove" whatever point he chooses to make and
what's more:
you are expected to understand his profound hatred for the whole of islam and
all muslims because some of his ancestors suffered at the hands of a group of
muslims. After all, who wants to argue with a guy whose family has a long
history of being oppressed? Who wants to tell him that his hatred for all
muslims is unjustified and unfair? That would be equivalent to "taking sides"
with the "other side". 
  
But if one digs thru his "facts", one finds nothing more than quotes from a
carefully picked bunch of extremists who can be found in just about any culture 
and any religion. How about if I give you a horrible picture of christianity
by giving you a nightmarish picture of the dark ages, the holly wars, the
popes who controlled the kings, the witch-burning ... . History will give me
all the "facts" I need. That will only give a picture of the "past" of
christianity. Complete that with a picture of the "present" of christianity
by a few examples given to us by the likes of Falwell. True, he doesn't have
"obvious" political power like Khomeini yet. Not yet.

But he doesn't just hate those who oppressed jews. His hatred is very calculated
and very pointed. He doesn't hate christians who have far excelled muslims in
jew suppression (if numbers are important at all). But ofcourse, his family
was in Libya. He speaks from experience. But even those jews who do have the
experience of living thru Hitler's Germany only blame Hitler and a few select
people around him. The nation which carried out his horrible plans suddenly
gets back its innocence once the terrible leaders are gone and their culture
becomes a much nicer culture. 
  
Obviously Mr. Martillo wants peace in the middle east. He just doesn't believe
that muslims and muslim culture are worthy enough to support peace. After all,
how can you lay the foundations of peace with some barbaric states? Aren't his
numerous, long articles intended to make this point clear? If that is so, why
don't we stop analyzing the other side's beliefs and start talking about the
"actions" that each side (state of  israel  and  arab states around it) have
taken towards peace in the middle east?
  
  Farzin Mokhtarian
  ubc-vision!mokhtar
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