DEUTSCHE WELLE: Cologne’s xenophobic assaults on Muslims are disgraceful. But DW's Shamil Shams feels that they just show how Germans feel increasingly threatened by a culture that is not compatible with their norms.
As a Pakistani journalist working in Germany, I have been very skeptical about the German government's decision to allow thousands of refugees into the country without much scrutiny of their backgrounds.
Of course, I am empathetic towards the plight of the people who are fleeing war-torn countries like Syria, who are facing immense oppression and violence at the hands of Islamic militants as well as President Bashar Assad. I understand their woes, the pain of losing their loved ones, their homes and livelihoods in a civil war that continues to ravage the once peaceful country.
But at the same time, I was sure that the migrants' influx would ultimately disturb the harmony and balance of German society. I feel that Islamic culture and European norms are not compatible.
Most Germans have responded to the refugee crisis with exemplary humanism. My European friends got angry when I warned them against Chancellor Merkel's migrant-friendly policy. I found it very naïve that many Germans believed that all Middle Eastern and South Asian refugees would conform to their way of life and values. I told my friends that their understanding of the Muslim world was limited and flawed. They didn't pay much attention to my arguments. » | Shamil Shams | Monday, January 11, 2016
Showing posts with label clash of cultures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clash of cultures. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Friday, February 14, 2014
Islam v. West? : 'Major Civilizations on Collision Course'
Watch full version here
Sunday, September 01, 2013
UK Investigates Porn DVDs Sent to Mosques, Fears Religious Strife
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Thursday, November 15, 2007
THE TELEGRAPH: Around 30 members of a Russian cult have shut themselves inside a remote cave to await the end of the world and are threatening to commit suicide if police intervene, officials and media said today.
"They have covered the entrance and refuse to come out and are threatening to blow themselves up," an official in the local prosecutor's office said by telephone.
"They threaten to detonate a gas tank and blow themselves up." Russian cult threatens mass suicide in cave (more)
Mark Alexander
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
EDITORIAL: Beheadings, lapidations, amputations, suicide-bombings, honour-killings, flag-burnings, effigy-burnings – Is there nothing to which these mentally-deranged, half-baked, quasi-pious people won’t stoop?
These misdeeds, of course, are carried out in the name of Allah and his prophet, the prophet Muhammad. Not in God’s name, you understand! But in the name of Allah, the false god, the false deity, in the name of Muhammad, the false prophet.
Muslims believe that Jesus was not the Son of God, for they believe that God begat not, and was not begotten. They believe that Jesus was a mere prophet – a man, like you and me. Further, they believe that Jesus was not crucified, despite plenty of historical evidence to prove that he was. To Muslims, Jesus was simply the penultimate prophet of Allah (not God), and although he was a fine man (and all that), He was inferior to the superior and ultimate prophet of Allah: Muhammad.
The West, in recent decades more especially, has embarked on a journey to liberate people. We have liberated women, bringing them away from the kitchen sink; and we are in the process of liberating homosexuals, bringing them away from the closet. We have given blacks rights, we have given women rights, and we are in the process of giving homosexuals rights, too.
Compare this situation with the deplorable state of women in the Muslim world, a world in which women’s lives count for nothing. They are mere chattels. They exist for the sexual pleasure of men. They have few rights, and even fewer chances of a decent life in this world. They must cover themselves up, and must not leave the home unless they are given permission to do so by their guardians: men!
If someone draws a cartoon of their beloved prophet Muhammad, then Muslims are up in arms. If a woman falls in love with a man that the family deems unfit for her love, then she is killed for the sake of honour. If a man happens to be homosexual (through no fault of his own – naturally God made him that way), then he is thrown off the nearest minaret to a certain death, or if he happens to live in Iran, then he is hanged on a rope. Whichever way it happens to be, it is a grim death.
You tell me how these two worldviews can be reconciled! You tell me how there can be a rapprochement! Fact is our two worlds are headed on two divergent and separate paths: The West is headed in the direction of light; the East is headed in the direction of darkness, even darker than the world they already inhabit!
Last year, we witnessed the furore over the innocuous drawings of the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in Denmark; in recent days, we have witnessed the furore over the knighthood of Salman Rushdie by Queen Elizabeth II. In Pakistan and in other parts of the Middle East, flag- and effigy-burnings are taking place. And those effigies are of no less a person than our beloved Queen! And they talk of wanting to receive respect. If they really want respect, then it is high time that they showed some!
The truth of the matter is this: Our two worlds are on two separate journeys. We, in the West, want to liberate people; they, in the Muslim world, want to place people in chains. So how can there be a meeting of our two cultures? How can there be a rapprochement? How can there be a coming together? There cannot be, of course.
That is why I say to you today that as sure as night follows day, there will soon be – nay have to be – a clash of these two cultures, ein Zusammenprallen. How can we expect anything else?
We are being led by incompetent fools! This is no time for prissy, pretty little leaders – leaders who worry more about their image than about affairs of state.
Today, we worry about green issues, we worry about whether people smoke or not, we worry about health issues (when, actually, people are unhealthier than they have ever been), and we worry about the ecology. We worry about all kinds of things; but we do not worry about what is important: Our civilisation!
To be candid with you, I would prefer to vote for a man who smokes, or for a man who has a lover, or for a man who is gay, as long as he is capable of getting us out of this mess with Islam, as long as he is capable of winning the culture war. He can puff away as much as he likes, he can screw himself to death. Just get us out of this mess with Islam!
Let’s get our priorities right.
It should be clear to all good-thinking people by now that there is no meeting of the East and West to be. We must fight for our survival. We must fight for our beliefs. We must fight for our values. As far as I am concerned, war is what they want, and war they will get. I am ready and willing and prepared to make the sacrifice. Are you? I hope your gun powder is dry. If it isn’t, it ought to be. There are tough times ahead of us.
©Mark Alexander
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Labels:
clash of cultures,
East,
rapprochement,
West
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