The day before the Ides of March

THE WRITING IS ON THE WALL

I am one of those curious people who ask questions, doubts the answers, and then, like a dog with a bone as someone once described me, I dig for my answers.  I have also found that after every proverbial honeymoon, comes the dirty dishes and the mangled toothpaste tube.  As much as all of us love having guests, their honeymoon with us usually does not go beyond the weekend.  Their snoring is annoying, and they leave a mess in the bathroom.  And as for fish in the refrigerator--after three days it stinks. In other words, reality is a rude awakener.  The same holds true for analyzing, questioning, and thinking; after the introduction to a topic, I have to dig in.  Explore some more.  Find the truth. 

So what is my bottom line?  I love America.  I hate fascism.  I am threatened by Islam.

My friend said start a blog.

I said there are a zillion blogs.  Why another?

My husband said that I need to blog because I am bright, reasonably well read, and a decent writer.  "After all," he said, "you have been exploring Islam for years.  You have something important to say."

Another friend commented, "Don't you remember?  When we were watching the Towers go down in the college snack bar, you said it was Bin Laden."

Yes, I did.

And those around said, "Bin Laden?  Who?"

I remember years ago when I was teaching a freshman writing class, I brought an article from Time Magazine that showed a picture of Afghani women clad in burkas.  The Taliban had restricted women to their own segregated dirty hospital where they were dying.  They had neither a box of band aids nor a handful of aspirins. Also some of the women had been brutally punished for wearing white anklets.  White socks.  The ultimate is Western debauchery and and salaciousness.  I was stunned by the article, short as it was, and thought that it might provoke an interesting discussion that would lead to a writing topic.  But my students kept shaking their heads.  White socks?  It was surreal.  Forget about band aids and aspirins.

That day began my digging for information.  What was going on in a country where women were flogged and stoned?  Who were these Taliban?  How did Islam produce such brutal zealots? Didn't Islam create alegebra and the gorgeous Moorish arch? I remembered seeing the Prophet Muhammad and Moses on the carved relief in the Great Hall of the United States Congress.  In my naivete I thought that Muslims followed the Ten Commandments. Didn't Islam mean peace?  I know a teacher told me that in grade school.

I started digging for information and to this day haven't stopped.  I have found answers to those questions and a hundred more that I didn't know how to ask then. I searched the Web.  I bought books.  I read newspapers.  Then I decided to read the Muslim Holy Book.  Any half-decent researcher wants to go to the primary source, and in college I had to find primary and secondary sources to write a paper. Footnotes gave support to a thesis.

Yes,  I have found answers in The Holy Qur'an-- an Arabic text with English translation and commentary by Maulana Muhammad Ali. As a respected Koranist with a world wide reputation, Ali has written several important works on Islam. Convinced that I had a reliable translation, I read it from cover to cover, slowly, very slowly.

Yes, I have found lovely prayers, but I have found something very vicious in the Koran.  My readings have illuminated its hate and bigotry that is supported by Muslims  right now in our 21st century. For a Muslim, Islam is an immutable religion, the ultimate perfect religion; therefore, nothing in its orthodoxy is false. That was hard to swallow.

I kept talking and writing emails to my friends about my concerns. I had a private soapbox with my emails. My cousin told me I had become obsessed with Islam. She feltsthere were so many other politcally important issues.   I suppose I could put my passion into supporting a sports team or becoming a gourmet cook.  But I can't. I have found out too many details to sit quietly and make a quiche.   If I am obsessed, so be it, but I am justifiably scared that Islam will dominate the world, unless we prevent it.  No, I am not scared to death, but I don't intend to die before I have written what must be written.

Obviously that world obsessed can give you the wrong impression.  So allow me to defend my normalcy, my emotional equilibrium.

I am a middle-aged American woman who earned a graduate degree. My teaching career has spanned private and public schools and higher education. That is the resume part.  Who I am is a living, breathing woman one who can laugh at herself, enjoy a great joke, even at my own expense; who adores animals, especially elephants, and feeds squirrels, birds, and even those damn crows; who lives with an adoring and talented husband, an old dog rescued from Arizona, and a grumpy cat; who grinds her own coffee almost every morning, and loves crossword puzzles. Occasionally I write poetry and paint a canvas.  I avoid ironing. (Do I dare say with a passion?)

Yes, I am passionate, and like a mother defending her children, I am not afraid to flex my muscles.

So what is my issue?

I love America.  I hate fascism.  I am threatened my Islam.

I loathe those who wish to destroy Western Civilization and America.  I abhor their prejudice, hatred, and bigotry under the guise of their merciful and compassionate Allah.  Furthermore, I understand how political correctiveness and multiculturalism has made us mummies, afraid to utter one word of criticism, as we must be universally kind and accepting.  We have new words for criticism these days: bashing, dissing, Islamophobe. We whisper our concerns to one another in private for fear that raising our voices would put us in the same living room as Archie Bunker.

What else should I tell you?  I do not embrace jihad, the subjugation of women, men or children, suicide bombers, beheadings, floggings, gang rapes, honor killings, stonings, or the Arabic taqiyya--lying for the good of Islam.

I embrace religions that can make space in the world for others to worship without bombing mosques, churches, and synagogues.

I relish dialogue without fearing a fatwa.

To quote the author Brigitte Gabriel:  "Those who stick their heads under the sand, make a target of their behinds."  My arse will not be sticking up in the air.

I don't want yours to be sticking up either.

So I intend in my annoying obsessive way, like a pebble in your shoe or a fly in your soup, to continue to let you know what I learn, where I learned it, and how I learned it.  You don't have the time, but I do.

Most of you work full time, maintaining homes, caring for children, running to the grocery store, mowing lawns, working out in gyn, walking three miles a day for your health. You worry about your taxes, shop in a mall, have coffee at Starbucks, and watch football every Monday night.  You read your emails and pay your bills. Of course you are tired.  Down time is guarded with a vigilance.  "Just let me alone.  I am tired, and I want a bubble bath." 

I understand.

But here I am with the time to obsess about my country; I wear my patriotism on my sleeve, and just like the men and women in our military, I would die to protect this land.  America is certainly not perfect; but I don't know of anyone queuing up to live in Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Iran, Lebanon,Yemen, or Saudi Arabia. I don't even know anyone who wants to live in Turkey where separation of Mosque and state exists. Yes, America certainly is a work in progress.  That is exactly it;  America moves toward the light.  It does not hide behind a state controlled press; it is not shrouded in darkness or a mental burka.  For hundred of years, Americans have struggled to make this country a good and decent place to live because passionate people have demanded, among many issues,  the separation of church and state, the right for women to vote, and equal treatment for  all under the law.  We have failures, but we publish ours.    We are free people with a free press.

So I have the freedom to tell you that if you unwrap the paper around Islam, you will find that the  fish is stinking.  The white paper wrapper must come off. 

My passion it to alert you to the danger of Islam--than danger that is it to you.  To your family. To your descendants.

That is why on the Ides  of March I have begun my blog.

I l

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Comments

[Rick Richman]

Welcome to the blogosphere. This is a very auspicious beginning.

You might find it interesting to read Anne Lieberman's great account of her first year as a blogger.

http://www.jewishpress.com/page.do/16246/Truth%2C_Terrorism_and_the_Times_%2D%2D_My_First_Year_As_a_Blogger.html