From: Ken Arromdee <arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Re: A non-Muslim scholar on Islam & Rushdie/Civilized West
Followup-To: alt.atheism
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 19:31:56 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.

This is starting to get a bit afield of atheism.  On the other hand, questions
of inherent religious tolerance or intolerance are at least somewhat on-topic.

[I agree. Followups directed out of alt.atheism.moderated - Tony]

In article <gate.RkaRPB1w165w@mantis.co.uk> RBNXHS@rohvm1.bitnet writes:
>> I *HIGHLY* doubt he is non-muslim.  I have heard this claim used by
>>muslims many times to make them appear unbaised.
>  Dave is a very typical case of people suffering from paranoia.
>  This is a serious mental disease. A person suffering from this
>  kind of mental disorder starts doubting others' views, notions,
>  statements without even checking. ...

It's not possible to make a diagnosis of paranoia based on a usenet posting.
Ever.  No reputable psychiatrist would ever make such a decision; that would
be maplractice.  It's like hearing someone say over the net that they coughed
yesterday and concluding they have lung cancer.

But accusations of mental illness for news posting are chilling, not because of
possible misdiagnosis, but because historically, mental illness has been an
excuse for imprisonment.  Imprisonment of people because of their politics or
religion--which gets back to the Rushdie issue, except that the punishment is
not imprisonment, but death.

>In a modern context, how would Jews feel if in the name of creative
>imagination the memory of the Holocaust and its victims, like
>Ann Frank, were distorted or denegerated?
>> The jews probably wouldn't buy the book, or buy books from stores
>>that carried it.  This is a decent and civilized action.
> Oh ya, we have been witnessing the actions of *civilized* Israelites
> in the occupied Palestine for quite some years, especially during the
> Intifadah|  The legitimate rights of the Palestinians to live in
> their homeland have been continually denied, their elected represen-
> tives killed by the Mossad (the paid terrorists of the state of
> Israel), their leaders maimed ....

Notice the trickery here:

Ask the question about how Jews would feel if someone would write insulting
books about the Holocaust.  But if anyone replies, you can instead shift the
conversation to claim that Jews are not civilized people because you don't
like Israel.

If you refused to accept an answer that assumes that Jews are civilized, why
did you ask the question in the first place?  Isn't it a bit unfair to say
"Well, even Jews would want to kill someone, if they denied the Holocaust",
get the reply "no, Jews would not", and then reply to that that it doesn't
matter since Jews are barbarians anyway?  If you thought that Jews are
barbarians, you can't argue in the first place that it must be civilized since
Jews would do it.  (Even though that argument turned out to be wrong.)

Or consider this: if the first poster _did_ say Jews _would_ kill a Holocaust
denier, would you _still_ have said that Jews aren't civilized people?

>The West has always (since its colonial period) put on a double
>mask of hypocrisy. It tries to appear as a *civilized* nation,
>but I seriously doubt if it ever understood the very meaning of
>"civilization."

If so, why is it the West wants Rushdie to stay alive, while you want him dead?
Deflecting blame is great for propaganda, but it's not _us_ who want to kill
Rushdie, even though he's said lots of uncomplimentary things about the West
too.

>This understanding is not merely mine but has
>been shared in the past by great minds of the 20th century, including
>Mahatma Gandhi, Jumo Kenyatta, Nkruma, and Nelson Mandela.
>And your paranoid views have simply strengthened my understanding.

I am curious as to whether any of the above would want to kill someone for
writing an insulting book.  I highly doubt it.
--
I am of course experienced in teaching and have read the writings of Socrates.
    -- Ed Nilges

Ken Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!arromdee; BITNET: arromdee@jhuvm;
     INTERNET: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)