Is Donald Trump the ISIS candidate?

No, I don't mean that Donald Trump is a supporter of ISIS.  But he is certainly doing just what ISIS wants.  His attacks on Muslims bolsters ISIS's claim that the West is at war with Islam.  The more Trump rails against Muslims in general, he helps recruit disillusioned or disaffected Muslims to join ISIS or to carry out attacks in the West.  The more attacks, the more people like Donald Trump will over-react.  The more over-reaction, the more recruits and the more attacks.

The only counter to a vicious cycle is a virtuous cycle.  Probably the best tactic is to out-Qur'an ISIS, especially considering some of their camps don't even have copies of the Qur-an.  Consider that few in ISIS even know "...and you should forgive and overlook: Do you not like God to forgive you?” (Qur’an: Surah 24, v. 22)

There really are only two religions

What? You think there are dozens of major religions and thousands of sects within them.  That may be true when you consider that many people believe in a long list of do’s and don’ts that are peculiar to their particular “religion”.  But if you look beyond the creeds and admonitions, you will find that are only two basic belief systems: generosity to others and narrow systems of “we are right and you are wrong”.  And all the major religions have many generous believers and far too many hateful believers.

In the third and fourth centuries there were major fights over what the exact natures were of God and Christ.  Often these fights were more political than religious, often depending on the belief of the current Roman Emperor.   Those who didn’t hold the right belief could be exiled and have their writings burned.

These persecutions of others in the name of Christianity continued through the centuries and into this century.

We have Torquemada, Grand Inquisitor of Spain, who set out to rid Spain of “heretics”, generally meaning Jews and Muslims.  He was more merciful than some of his predecessors; he didn’t torture suspects without the testimony of at least two witnesses of “good nature”.  John Calvin was instrumental in the burning of Michael Servetus at the stake along with his books.  His crime: denying the Holy Trinity.  The Ku Klux Klan upheld “Christian morality” by bombing black churches, killing innocent children.

On the other hand, we have many examples of Christian generosity.  The Quakers were very active in the anti-slavery movement.  Florence Nightingale tended to the wounded and dying in the Crimean War.  Mother Theresa cared for the dying in India.  Martin Luther King, Jr. called for non-violent resistance to segregation and other maltreatment of blacks and others.

Islam has been called a religion of peace, but human arrogance has subverted it, just as it subverted Christianity.  Muhammad had not been dead long before his followers started bickering over who was his rightly heir.  If I’m reading the Wikipedia entry on Sunni-Shia correctly, Sunnis believe the leader of Islam is selected by consensus and Shias believe the leadership is inherited by descendants of Muhammad.  There are many more differences, many similar to the Protestant-Catholic split in Christianity.

Just like with Christianity, many wars have been fought between these two groups over the centuries.  Meddling from “Christian” powers has exacerbated these differences in the last hundred years, opening the old sores of the Crusades.  We have Muslim-Muslim violence and Muslim-Christian violence.  Shias blow up Sunni mosques and Sunnis blow up Shiite mosques.  Sunni Saudi Arabia doesn’t want Shiite Iran to gain to much influence and Iran doesn’t want Saudi Arabia to gain much influence.  Into this antagonism is thrown the wild card of Daesh (aka Islamic state).  Daesh shows about as much mercy as did the “Christians” mentioned above.

An interesting aspect of the Koran are the injunctions to have proof for your knowledge.  This may be why in the Dark Ages of Christianity, Arab mathematics and science were making great strides.

I didn’t have time to check it out thoroughly, but some say that Islam means peace.  Google Translate didn’t give me this, but a Wikipedia entry on Islam did say that Islam comes from the trilateral root s-l-m.  One of these words is “salaam” for peace.  Hm,  close to the Hebrew “shalom”.

Charity, especially to the poor, is one of the five pillars of Islam.  The word for charity is zakat, which also means purification.

One Islamic charity is the Red Crescent, the equivalent of the Red Cross.  I haven’t read much about it recently, but it has been active in disasters.

Two well-known Muslims who come to mind with a more peaceful outlook are Malala Yousafzai and Muhammad Yunis, both Nobel Peace Prize laureates. 

Malala is the young Pakistani girl who was shot by terrorists who didn’t think girls should be in school.  Fortunately for her and many others, she survived the attack.

Muhammad Yunis is the founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.  The Grameen Bank provides low-interest, small loans to the poor.  These loans have allowed many people to start small businesses to support themselves.

We often think of Buddhists as being pacifists.  “One’s mind should be free from hurting or harming others” and several other sayings.  Unfortunately, down through the centuries, Buddhists have been involved in wars and killing.  Think of the “King of Siam”.  The news has recently had many stories of Buddhist rioting against Muslims.  Of course, the Taliban didn’t help by destroying Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, this is not a new phenomenon.  The first Muslims killed by Burmese were in the 11th Century.  In the 17th Century Muslims who fled India after losing a war of succession were killed after a dispute with a Burmese pirate king.  Some modern Muslims have fled Burma to Thailand where they have been put in several refugee camps.  There are also reports that the Thai military towed boatloads of Muslims out to sea and left them there.

Fortunately, we have Buddhists like the Dalai Lama.  A refugee from his own country, he still manages to be cheerful and work to promote peace.  He too won a Nobel Peace Prize.

If I put a damper on your Christmas cheer, I’m sorry.  But remember that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of the “Prince of Peace”.  I hope that the examples I gave of people of different faiths working for peace will give you hope for a brighter future.  With our help, the religion of generosity will prevail.

Also in the Reader Weekly, 2015-12-24 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/12/24/6439_there_really_are_only_two_religions

Do we reap what we sow?

 History is filled with “what ifs?”  What if the Normans hadn’t invaded England?  What if Columbus hadn’t sailed across the Atlantic?  What if England had included the colonies in Parliament?

We really don’t know how much different actions would have gotten quite different results.  Several authors have written speculative fiction describing outcomes quite different from actual history.  One example is an author who wrote several books on what if the South had won the Civil War.

I don’t really know how things would have turned out if only…, but bear with me as I join the speculators.

Lincoln went to war against the Confederacy because he felt that an un-United States would have left the States open to foreign intervention.  It wasn’t so much that he wanted to free the slaves, but the South did fear the North taking away its slaves.  Lincoln did take away the slaves, but that left so much resentment that “blacks” still are treated as second class citizens in much of the South, to say nothing of the murders committed against blacks in the South (and in the North too).

If the South had successfully seceded, with or without a war, would the slaves eventually be freed?  Probably not.  For example, textile mills in New England would be eager to buy slave-picked cotton from the South.  And manufacturers in the North would be eager to sell all kinds of labor-saving machinery to the South.  Would that machinery be more efficient than slaves?  Thereby reducing the market in slaves?  We really don’t know.

In Europe empires grew to embrace many people of quite different languages and interests.  The empires in turn were distrustful of each other and made treaties with “friendly” empires to protect themselves against “unfriendly” empires.  They thought a balance of power would create a balance of peace.  Then “one leg of the chair” collapsed.  With a single assassination, one group of empires felt the need to attack another group of empires.

If there had been an alliance of all the nations of Europe to settle disputes in a more peaceful manner, would there have been “The War to End All Wars”?  We do know that most of those countries are now at peace with one another.

But at the end of World War I, some victors wanted to punish the losers.  This punishment had two different serious consequences.

In Europe, the injustices perceived by the Germans led to the rise of Adolph Hitler.  Millions died because they were “other” and millions died because of the wars Hitler started.  Consider that not all these deaths were caused by Hitler and his Japanese allies.  The number of innocent people killed in the fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are far greater than the number of people killed in a decade of “Islamic” terrorism.

In the Middle East the Ottoman Empire was broken up willy-nilly without any consideration for the people of the various countries created.  Then oil was discovered and buying countries wanted to make sure they had stable supplies.  It didn’t matter what the form of government was or the what the wishes of the people were.  The buyers supported non-democratic leaders with nary a blink of an eye.  In fact, if a democratic leader tried to change oil contracts to be more beneficial to his country, the buyers sought to overthrow him and replace him with an autocrat.  Remember Mosaddegh and Reza Pahlavi?  Is it any wonder that the ayatollahs took over and had so much animosity to the U.S.?

Then George W. Bush and company decided that they had to do something about Saddam Hussein because of 9/11.  How many Iraqis died because of this war?  It was far more than had died in any number of terrorist attacks before.  And the easy victory that the Bush administration predicted resulted in chaos that still hasn’t settled down either with a stable democracy or a firm dictator.

Into the vacuum came equally hard-nosed militants who believed Allah was on their side.  I find it strange that Allah isn’t booming down from heaven the same message to the rest of us.  And strange that God isn’t booming the same message that George W. Bush received.

All of this religiosity seems to ignore the more gentle wisdom that is in both the Bible and the Koran: do unto others as you would have them to do you, blessed are the peacemakers, the sins of the fathers are passed on to the sons, yea unto the seventh generation, and many more.

“Yet it is in fact militarization that is the cause of the problem in the first place.” - Ben Norton

If you have an hour to spare, read Ben Norton’s “Our Terrorism Double Standard: After Paris Let’s Stop Blaming Muslims and Take a Hard Look at Ourselves”, Salon, 2015-11-14 at
http://www.salon.com/2015/11/14/our_terrorism_double_standard_after_paris_lets_stop_blaming_muslims_and_take_a_hard_look_at_ourselves/ The article doesn’t take an hour to read, but you will want to read many of the related articles in the sidebar.

After the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush is infamously quoted as advising Americans to “Go shopping.”  I think it was a misguided attempt to ask people to act normally.  My advice to Americans after any of these catastrophes is “Go vote”.  Too often the militant vote and the peacemakers stay home.

Also published in the Reader Weekly, 2015-11-19 at
http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/11/18/6257_do_we_reap_what_we_sow

Bombs only lead to more bullets

In response to the attacks in Paris, many countries are ready to bomb more ISIS territory even more than they already have.  This may work against standing armies, but will it work against a constant recruiting machine that uses the bombing to show how "Islam is under attack."

Put another way: drone bombers create more drone soldiers.

A much better strategy would be dropping leaflets with Koranic verses of charity and forgiveness.  Just like some "Christians" select verses from the Bible to justify punitive actions against those that disagree with them, there are "Muslims" who select verses from the Koran to justify their punitive actions.  Just like many real Christians select verses from the Bible to lead a life of charity, there are Muslims who select verses from the Koran to lead a life of charity.

What would be the costs of millions of leaflets of Koranic verses of charity versus the costs of hundreds of bombs?  Being bopped on the head by a dropped book may change a lot more minds than being bopped on the head by a dropped bomb.

God, civility, and the Golden Rule

Some letter writers to the Duluth News Tribune have recently been calling for God in our lives to solve many of our problems.  Torquemada, the Spanish Inquisitor, believed in God, and he had thousands murdered because they didn’t believe as he did.  The Puritans believed in God, and they had dozens murdered because the innocent victims would not admit to being witches.  Plantation owners believed in God, and they kept slaves who they would whip for whatever cause.

The problem with a belief in God is that too many “believers” are very selective in what they believe.  Too many ignore a central tenet of monotheistic and other religions.

“Do not unto your neighbor what you would not have him do unto you; this is the whole Law; the rest is commentary.” – Hillel, a Jewish teacher in the first century, B.C.E.

“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” – Jesus of Nazareth, Matthew 7:12

“...and you should forgive and overlook: Do you not like God to forgive you? And Allah is The Merciful Forgiving.” _ Qur’an (Surah 24, “The Light”, v. 22)

"What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others." – Confucius

“One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him." – Plato’s Socrates (Crito, 49c)

You can find many more variations and sources of the “Golden Rule” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule.

What these religious and ethical variations call for is for us to be part of communities.  These communities are at neighborhood, city, national, and world levels.  They are as informal as holding a door for a stranger at a public building or as formal as churches and civic associations.

Unfortunately, many of us don’t act as if we are in some of these communities.  We walk out of our houses to our car on the street or in the garage and drive somewhere else without even seeing a neighbor.  We don’t bother to shovel our sidewalks because we don’t use them, completely ignoring all the footprints in the snow.  As we drive we are focused on thoughts elsewhere, whether in our heads, on our radios, or even on our cell phones.  We drive over crosswalks without even looking for pedestrians.  We drive through red lights ignoring any traffic or pedestrians waiting at the cross streets.  We race through parking garages without headlights and without watching for vehicles backing out.

Our first try at building communities should be to consider doing unto others what we appreciate others doing unto us.  Do we want to walk on clear sidewalks?  Do we want other drivers to be attentive to vehicles around them?  Do we want drivers to be attentive to us as we cross a street?  Do we want other drivers to wait for us to back out of a blind spot?

If we start with these small changes, maybe we can look at how we treat others in a larger context.  Do we talk about public employees as “they” or do we consider them our neighbors.  Did “they” make a patch on our street, or did a city crew make the patch?  Did “they” plow our street, or did an overworked city plow driver make our street more drivable?

Remember that the Good Samaritan of the Book of Luke was an “other”.  To build communities, we need to be open to including the “other” as our neighbors.

Some nuggets found while cleaning my desktop

"The Future Depends On What The Meaning of 'Was' Was", Dr. Naif A. Al-Mutawa, Huffington Post, 2011-05-17

Al-Matawa considers how Arabic culture has been held back because the Arabic of the Koran is used as the teaching language. This language is effectively a second language to many students who speak modern Arabic. He compares today situation to when Rome kept all the liturgy and detailed knowledge in Latin, which few people in Europe spoke.

"The 'Cheney Brigades': A Second Chance for War Advocates to Fight", Doug Bandow, Huffington post, 2011-06-04

Bandow said these brigades would be available for advocates of war, who like Cheney missed their chances to serve in other wars ("I would have obviously been happy to serve if I had been called.")

War hawks who aren't the first to volunteer are often the first to accuse others of being "slackers". Consider the tarring, feathering, and lynching of Olli Kinkonnen in Duluth, Minnesota in September, 1918. The "Knights of Liberty" took credit this. Shouldn't "Knights" be on the battlefield instead of in the safety of an anonymous mob?