Tea Party Adds Anti-Islamic To List Of Characteristics
Though this does not surprise me in any way, it still saddens me. It surprises me a bit that after everything else that the tea baggers have done and said I would feel anything but resigned to the knowledge that this group is based only on the lowest common denominators. Simply put, there is not a great deal of overly educated people in the Tea Party. This political season has made that very clear to all.
And yet the anti-Islamic character of the teabaggers is disturbing. The vile nature of so much rhetoric in the nation about Islam should make us all feel uncomfortable. After all, so much of it is predicated on false and misleading ‘facts’ about the faith that the majority of the world believes in. Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism in the numbers of believers. Once again the Tea Party is on the wrong side of history.
So this news story is one that I find disturbing. Sad.
Tentative links are developing between supporters of the Tea Party movement in the United States and right-wing fringe groups in Britain that are opposed to what they call the “Islamification” of Europe.
The movements are not formally aligned, but the relatively new English Defense League – which warns that Islamic fundamentalism will soon engulf Britain – is seeking guidance and inspiration from some U.S. figures taking a similar stance.
The British activists are less drawn to the anti-tax, anti-big-government Tea Party message and more attracted to elements taking an active stance against the spread of Islam, like Rabbi Nachum Shifren, a long-shot Republican candidate for the California state legislature who plans to visit England next week in a trip sponsored in part by the English Defense League.
The trip was organized by Roberta Moore, an English Defense League activist who has formed a “Jewish division” of the group. She said the rabbi will speak at an Oct. 24 rally in London.
“He plans to speak about the dangers of Islamification both in this country and in America,” Moore told The Associated Press. “He will talk about the issues we have with immigration and the danger of Sharia law coming to the UK. We have the same objectives as the groups in the USA, and we want to exchange information and work with them.”
what is the favorite color of the tea party?? white for sure they are hate mongers, supposedly educated but just think of them selves , they want there country back?? yeah right back to the 1960 s when no civil rights and would even want no woman to vote either, besides taking away medicare except for them selves and also social security,they follow like sheep people like glenn beck who is ultr rich and just makes things up as he talks and calls everybody a nazi but he is the one who really is, ohbama YESSS
Patrick,
I have no problem, nor should anyone, of better understanding any religion.
What I have issues with is the debating of issues that are not grounded in facts, but are falsehoods spread as facts. That is not fair to those who are following Islam, and it is not fair to those who are seeking to better understand the religion.
For instance, mass conversion to Islam did not take place by the sword. In fact, it as after for political or social needs that land and peoples were taken over that the idea of Islam spread.
The first mosque was built in Medina, and history shows that Muhammad did not pit Jews agaisnt those who professed to follow the ways of Allah. I make point of that as the line you use is “the first islamic mosque was built on lands conquered from Isreal”. Medina, which was originally Yahtrib, was the place Jews moved to when fleeing oppressors. That there are those who have used Islam over the years to pit Jews vs. Islman is obvious. But the heart of Islam does not create that divison.
Same is true for Christians and those of the Islamic faith. When Muhammad goes back to Mecca and cleans out the Kaba of all the idols of the time and smashes them he retains only one thing from that site. A picture from the time of Jesus and Mary. The view of Muhammad, and much of the Islamic world has all the faiths as part of the continuing story of God. Those who follow Islam just see the Koran as the final part to that story. For those who try and pit the religons against each other for poltical purposes are no better than those who seek to bastardize the beliefs and followings of Muhammad into what we all too often see in world events these past years….decades.
I have long thought, and agree with those who know far more than I ever will about religion and history, that Islam is going through its own reformation. We know how bloody, long, and eventful the first one was, and there is no reason to suggest this one that is taking place inside Islam will be any different.
There have always been….from the day Muhammad died, vested interests that wanted to modify the true underpinnings that Muhammad had preached. (The world would be far better had he actually written down in his life all that was spoken and experienced.)
Take women for instance. When he see the brutal way the lady who had her ears and nose cut for some bizarre reason (made Time cover) people think this is the law of Islam being applied. NO, in fact it is not.
There is nothing, for instance that mandates women wear veils. Muhammad makes a comment for those wifes of his who are always being observed in his home, that was the first mosque, and to allow them privacy as so many people came to his place, and therefore had them wear the head garment. Nothing was ever said about women the world over wearing the veil….until others after his death made changes.
There is tons I do not know about my religion. I have very limited knowledge of those who follow Buddah. I have come to learn some about Islam as I love the Middle East culture and history.
But what I see from many since 9/11 is a truly misguided way of looking at Islam, and demonizing it. Some do it for political purposes, some do it for religious purposes. Both are wrong, and lead those who have no other knowledge base from which to get a clear understanding a most upside down notion of the religon.
I knew a guy for a while who came to UW-Madison from UAE. He was gay and not allowed to show any sign of that back home. We had long talks and he was resigned to finishing his studies and going back home to get married and live a life of lies and underground hook-ups. Though he knew who he was inside, that severe code of conduct that was so ingrained had not chance to allow the real guy to live life. He had no role models…no Ellens or such to make that kiss on national TV and move the country forward. So yeah, I think about those like him who live in places far from me, and ways I never want to.
But that is as much a political matter as a religious one. We have Christian leaders who would kill gay people too. Uganda’s anti-homosexuality attempt that would have used the death penalty for gay people living HIV/AIDS was very much front and center this past year. When it comes to anti-gay rants it is not contained in one region or under one religion.
In the end this all comes down to education. What makes the difference between those would cast a stone at women in Iran for some ‘sin’ vesus people who practice Islam in Sheboygan? Same religion but practived here against the backdrop of a more diverse and upwardly mobile society, democratic institutions, education and opprotunites that lift.
What I want to see is a more civilized dialouge about Islam and ways to inform rather than inflame when it comes to this worldwide religion.
The idea that the beliefs of a particular religion should not be debated, praised, ridiculed, and made the subject of public attention is silly and anti-intellectual. Islam condenms homosexuality, reduces women to posessions, and is a religion which spreads itself IN PART through conquest (for example, the first islamic mosque was built on lands conquered from Isreal). Islamic capitals refuse missionaries from other religions or tax them simply for holding other beliefs. Here, one can mock and ridicule Christianity without regard to the consequences, but to mock the tyrany of Islam–even slightly–is to invite Fatwa, rioting, and death. These ideas are Anti-American at their core. And while it is not likely that America will bend to sharia tyrany anytime soon, there are different circumstances in europe where immigrant populations have sometimes resisted assimilation. Compounding the problem is the weak cultural identity of european nations who would sell their cultural souls for some false moral highground. Ask europeans like Rushdie or the Dutch cartoonist if there is cause for concern.
I certainly do not understand the politically correct double-think one must engage in to in one post express so much outrage that Obama will do nothing for the gay community in America and yet turn with such moral apathy toward the islamic world. Don’t you feel any connection to members of the LBGT community hiding and fearing in the Islamic world where theocratic laws crush them with far greater and more sinister pressure than in the West? And isn’t there the implication underneath all your claims about the “false and misleading ‘facts’ ” the almost racist acknowlegement that we can expect no better from islam? Would you be happy if Isreal prsecuted women, gays, and lesbians the same way?
Finally, the word majority suggests that more than 50% of all religious people are muslims. I certainly doubt that. Even so, how would that put tea partiers on the wrong side of history. Most people in the world would like to be free of religious tyranny.