Tuesday 10 February 2015

Cole: Still on Islam and threat to Peace (2)



  • Tuesday, 20 January 2015 00:00
  • Written by Patrick Dele Cole


WHAT kind of Islamic State would be established in Syria, Iraq, and Nigeria – if we take the pretension of the radicalized Islamists seriously?

   Moslems go about announcing that their states are Islamic.  No other nation declares itself Christian or indeed described them as a Christian State with the exception of the Papacy. (Israel declares itself a Jewish State, which maybe one of the reasons peace is elusive).  Other nations – Brazil, Chile, the U.S., Canada, Australia, etc – have never described their countries as Christian States. They are fundamentally secular states, as we declared in our own constitution.  The oath the President and the Governors swear to is that of a secular state.  When Presidents and Governors swear to a secular state, any deviation from this ought to be an impeachable offence. The Government must withdraw from State sponsored religions as the unwise support of sponsoring pilgrimages to Rome, Lourdes, Mecca and Jerusalem.  Performing pilgrimages is a personal effort to worship God or Allah as one wishes. The Ijaws worship Akaso, a woman, a goddess. I think it would be ridiculous to ask for Government support to worship Akaso or Ikenga, or Shango or Ogun or Orunmila.  Moslems must themselves lead the fight against extremism.  No one else can. That extremism and fanaticism give them a bad name; not Mr. Cole’s inability to understand the fundamentals of Islamic doctrine.  

   Some Moslems claiming a long-term view and strategy – the growing number of Moslems in the World – have led to the belief that Islam is destined eventually to rule the world.  There are extant maps of the future of the world and Islam showing Islam being practised in every country North of the equator in Africa; Islam is supposed to conquer the rest of the Middle East, including India, Philippines, the Koreas, large chunks of China and throughout Polynesia; of course Indonesia, Fiji. These Islamic visionaries see an end of India and even China; the new world Islamic map includes all of the Slavic countries – Serbia, Slovakia, Bosnia, nearly all of Russia with the exception of Moscow and Leningrad. These maps are supported by suspect statistics of the growth of Islam based on birthrates, wealth, etc; and its eventual world conquest.  I think it is superfluous even to comment on such lunacy and idiocy.      

    ISIS the other day killed 125 women who said they would not marry radicalized Islamists. The list goes on, one atrocity piled on another by Moslems, in the name of Islam, against other people indiscriminately. I would expect all decent people to condemn unreservedly these atrocities. It has nothing to do with what I understand in Islam. It has everything to do with denying common humanity and human rights. Wherever these are trammeled, everyone should be outraged. Islam or Christianity can never provide a cover for such bestiality.

For the record, let me repeat my view that Tony Blair and George Bush, Obama, Cameron and Holland should be brought before the World Court for war crimes against Iraq and Afghanistan and against Libya. I have also suggested that such a court should be able to impose punitive damages against aggressor nations who go to war merely because they have the capabilities. The war against Iraq was presumably because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.  It had none.  Hans Blitz, the UN envoy, sent to check this could find none.  The war against Libya was unjustified by any measure of international law – the consequences were foreseeable. Obama, Cameron, Holland bear a heavy responsibility in removing Ghaddafi admitted to be a dictator.  But to do so on the flimsy grounds pronounced – a war of liberation and democracy by Eastern Libyan forces – were bunkum.   The place had been left to ruin by the West and they bear a responsibility for it.    

   What ISIS is now doing is compounding an already complicated situation bringing in the toxic concoction of radical Islamism to an issue dying and ripe for political solution. The proponents of Islam have a fundamental problem of rethinking a credible and lasting solution.

  The Amercians will leave, so will the rest of the West.  What is the political solution? What will Moslems do?  The evidence is pessimistic.  

• Concluded
• Dr. Cole (OFR), a former Nigeria’s Ambassador, 
wrote from Lagos.


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