More Muslim Marvelousness? Or More Radical Muslim Marvelousness?

Great Debates
1

It seems that that the sole Christian member of the Pakistan government (Minister for Religious Minorities) was killed by gunmen in Islamibad. Did this non-Muslim owe people money? Did he sleep with someone’s wife? Or was he killed for his religious affiliation? Or possibly because of his religious affiliation and the fact that his advocating for moderation ran afoul of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.

Well, we do have a clue:

So, More Muslim Marvelousness? Or More Radical Muslim Marvelousness? Can this be attributed to the same strain of radical Islam that blows up innocent women and children? Or does it point to a conflict with Islam more generally. I think it’s somewhere in the middle. I don’ think Islam necessitates people kill others for blasphemy, but just the fact that these laws exist is problematic for a civilized society. And when you combine this latest incident of barbarism with other killings of the same sort, I don’t see how one can give Islam a complete pass.

Thoughts?

2

Are you under the impression this guy was executed for breaking the law? The Taliban and Al Qaeda murdered him because they support the blasphemy laws, and they’ve killed other officials for the same reason. They’re the problem, not Muslims as a whole.

3

Yes. An impression you seem to share: (bolding mine)

It’s not that black and white. It is a matter of degree. Which is what lead me to the OP and the questions asked.

4

Sure - it was a quest of intellectual discovery for you.

Out of interest, do you know when England got rid of its blasphemy laws?

5

No. If you have an answer, perhaps you can share it. Also, if you could also supply the date of the last time a person was killed for running afoul of them, that, too, would be helpful. Just so we get the full picture and make sure that what you’re bring up is relevant.

6

Well given that this person wasn’t killed by the government for running foul of blasphemy laws, I don’t really see the relevance of that.

July 2008, by the way.

7

I know why he was murdered. Your OP made it sound like you believed Bhatti was executed by the state for violating Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. He was not. He was murdered by Al Qaeda and the Taliban because he wanted those laws to be repealed. Your link notes that a few months ago they murdered a Muslim politician who also opposed the blasphemy laws.

I don’t think so.

So: A Muslim politician and a Christian politician who opposed Pakistan’s blasphemy laws were murdered by Islamic terrorists who oppose the Pakistani government. I don’t think it’s sensible to blame this on Muslims when it’s clear who pulled the trigger.

8

I didn’t ask you to provide a cite for the killing done by the government, just that someone was killed with blasphemy as the reason. Nice try, though.

I’ll continue to wait for your answer. Just so the part that you did answer enjoys the benefit of relevance.

9

No you didn’t. You asked for the last time a person was killed for running afoul of the law, not for committing blasphemy.

And where is your indication that this policitican was killed for running afoul of the blasphemy law, as opposed to proposing the blasphemy law is abolished? It is even what your cite said.

10

Well, I never said anyone was killed by the government. I even said “gunmen” more than once and provided a link to the article. But, given your clearer understanding of my OP now that you’ve read it more carefully, what part of this quote of yours do you retract, if any? And why?:

It seems completely factual to me.

Huh? They were killed by Muslims (perhaps radical). They pulled the trigger. More than once. and they explained why they did it.

11

Nope. See Post 5. I said “running afoul of them”. “Them”, clearly refers to “blasphemy laws”. Like I said, see Post 5.

Criticizing the blasphemy laws is in and of itself running afoul of the blasphemy laws. This was explained in the first paragraph of the article.

12

Oddly enough, from my work with blasphemy laws in other Islamic countries, I have not seen this as being the case there. I’d need a tad more than a single line in an article from a commentator I have never heard of on a self proclaimed right wing website to accept that it is the case in Pakistan.

It may well be, but forgive me for not having the same degree of faith in the expert on Pakistani law they apparently got to write said article.

Even if it is the case, the indication appears strongly this person was killed for supporting the repeal of these laws. These private groups have no power to punish an individual for breaching the law, even if supporting their repeal is considered a breach.

13

You implied (and I’m guessing it’s by accident, since you seem to understand the article) that he was killed because he violated those laws:

“Or possibly because of his religious affiliation and the fact that his advocating for moderation ran afoul of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.”

I don’t retract any of it. I hope you realize how misleading the wording in the OP was, however. That’s what I was commenting on.

You’re not reading very closely here. It does not make sense to blame this on Muslims collectively. We know exactly which terrorists did this. What matter of degree are you perceiving here?

14

A reminder for magellan01.

15

No…he didn’t. He ran afoul of members of AQ and the Taliban. He wasn’t killed due to the laws, he was killed due to some terrorists who decided to do what terrorists do best…kill people who disagree with them in the vain hope of changing their minds by turning them off.

The entire basis for your OP is in error.

It can be attributed to the fact that terrorists kill people who disagree with them, and Islamic terrorists kill people based on what they feel are religious issues concerning supposed or real Islamic law. So…these terrorists killed someone for opposing a law they feel concerns Islam. It’s really no more complicated than that. It’s not like AQ or the Taliban actually need an excuse to whack people…they do it all the time for no other reason than to instill terror.

But, you see, this guy wasn’t killed because of the laws. He wasn’t killed because he blasphemed. He was killed by terrorists who disagreed with what he was doing (i.e. criticizing those laws) and who resorted to violence and killing, since that’s what terrorist do.

I have no idea how often the actual law gets invoked or that people in Pakistan are executed for blaspheming, but the article you linked too doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what you actually want to discuss from what I can tell. Are blasphemy laws bad? Well…yeah. No doubt. Does the fact that AQ and the Taliban killed someone for criticizing them show anything? Not as far as I can tell.

I don’t see how you can look at what a terrorist organization does and equate that to giving Islam a pass or not giving it a pass. There are a lot of things done IN THE NAME of religion that really have little or nothing to do with the religion itself. A lot of things that Muslims take for granted as being part of Islam are actually pre-Islamic cultural things that have been brought back due to recent fundamentalist leanings…sort of similar to fundamentalist Christian practices that actually have little to do with church doctrine.

As it happens, I DO think that blasphemy laws are silly, and if they actually invoke them often and exact a death penalty for them then I certainly do not give the governments who enact them a pass…nor the fundamentalist religious types who advocate them. However, like I said, AQ and the Taliban don’t need any excuses to kill people or terrorize the population. Just because THEY think that what they do is in the name of some cause or religion doesn’t make it so.

-XT

16

You know, once upon a time in this country it was decided that society sucked. Racism was the order of the day, and women didn’t have the same rights as men.

Did the good liberals of the time run around warning us that we must not condemn all of society for these wrongs? That not everyone was involved in lynchings and that most men still treated women well?

No, it was decided that society itself was at fault and had to change.

Now, given that the ills inflicted upon not only those outside the Islamic faith but commonly within it as well, are much more repressive, brutal and sexist than was ever the case in American society of the fifties and early sixties, why is there not an even greater outcry from American liberals for change within Islamic societies?

And why do American liberals who excoriate the Bush administration for torturing three Iraqis, not find the routine lashings of women objectionable enough to condemn Islamic societies who practice it? Surely being lashed with a whip 80 to 100 times for the offense of getting raped is worse torture than waterboarding? (Not to mention that it doesn’t even make sense - other than to make sure that if you’re raped you keep your mouth shut.)

And why are American liberals not outraged at the forced marriages, honor killings and stonings that are routine widespread in many Islamic countries.

Why is it that American feminists are not outraged and calling for Islam to cast off these horrid practices against women? And why isn’t the “individual freedoms” crowd making fun of and agitating for the end of Islamic restrictions on moral behavior?

And why were the shootings of Medgar Evers, MLK and the church bombing that killed four young black girls held by liberals of the time to be symptomatic of American society of the time, but the assassination of a Christian government Minister in Pakistan is attributable only to the actions of the men who killed him?

In other words, why was pre-counter-culture American society at fault for the ills that occurred within it, but Islam is not at fault for the ills that occur within it?

17

What makes you think they don’t? They do. Liberals condemn oppression in other countries just as they do here.

Of course what they don’t do is what people like you and the OP want; pretend that Christianity, white people and America are somehow innately morally superior.

18

When did you become an expert on what liberals say and don’t say? There is plenty of condemnation of these sorts of things. It is probably true that American liberals are more focused on protests in their own society than in other societies.

You’re comparing apples and oranges. Islam isn’t a culture. The comparison would be between either Islam and Christianity or American society and Pakistani society. Any society that has blasphemy laws has severe problems, but let’s put the blame for this shooting where it lies: with the people who did it. Making overly broad generalizations, which you’re doing and the OP also did, makes it more difficult to isolate the problems and deal with them specifically.

19

When was someone prosecuted under these laws for the last time?

20

July 2008 what, villa? Got a link?