Islam: a Comment from a Reader

A few days ago we received word from a reader that was posted as a Comment to one of our news items. It's an excellent point of view; and an excellent opportunity for us to restate some of our positions on Islam.

Our reader wrote:
"Muslims are the only religion that respect Christos, we are the only people who admire Virgin Maria. My Quran said 'Virgin Maria best woman all over the world'. Muslims did not go to bomb Iraq and kill children, to Bomb Afganistan, to Bomb Vietnam, To Bomb Yugoslavia. My Quran said 'you will find the most friendly are christian'. We are all human, I do not agree with what some muslims are doing but I disagree as well with what many christians are doing in the name of the christianity."
http://cyprusindymedia.blogspot.com/2010/03/blog-post_24.html?showComment=1269613606777#c8071712710276029299


Since the Comment was addressed to me personally, I'd like to take the initiative in responding on behalf of our Editorial Collective.

There is a global class war going on that is currently ripping up the planet, generating deaths and casualties on the physical plane, with more than a million and a half Arab and Moslem people killed in this decade. This imperialist war is also raging on the ideological plane and in the realms of propaganda. Those of us who are spiritually oriented also understant that beyond being an expression of modern class struggle, the war is also a war on the spiritual planes. But it's the ideological plane that defines the current phase: we are living through the cruelest and most despicable Crusade War against Islam in history.

The people of Islam and the Arab world are being targeted and exterminated with radioactive weapons, with conventional weapons, with chemical bombs, with starvation, by blockade, by destruction of the civil infrastructure and by the most fierce and poisonous ideological campaign ever. It has succeeded in demonizing Islam in the eyes of the West, making Muslims an "easy target". People in the fake christian countries of the West are not very upset morally with the total war that their Governments and Corporations are waging against Muslim and Arab people. The demonization of Islam has been mostly successful in that sense, enabling the war criminals who own and operate the global Empire to continue on their Crusade without much opposition from inside their own countries.

We find this intolerable.

From its very inception, the Cyprus IndyMedia Collective has expressed an appreciation for Islam and an embrace of the truth that is found in the core all spiritual paths and we embedded that within our founding papers - please see the section titled "Politics of the Spiritual realms":
The Short Statement
http://cyprusindymedia.org/The_Short_Statement-KaliMerhaba.htm

Please see also various positions and analyses we have published over the years that show clearly our ideological, political and spiritual assessment of Islam's position in the globe's current state of affairs:

Cyprus: No Troops to Lebanon
http://web.archive.org/web/20071119025112/http://english-cyprus.indymedia.org/newswire/display/230/index.php
(The above link responds slowly, please give it a little time.)

Islam is a Religion of Peace
http://cyprusindymedia.blogspot.com/2010/01/islam-is-religion-of-peace.html

Death by Robot versus Universal Love
http://cyprusindymedia.blogspot.com/2010/01/death-by-robot-versus-universal-love.html


And since our reader had addressed me specifically, I'd like to add a few of my personal writings that I think convey a complex, unconventional and multifaceted appreciation of Islam on various levels. I may not qualify as a good muslim, nor as a "good anything" by the criteria of most religions, but I believe that my contributions to the quest for a spiritually meaningful collective social and political liberation, when seen through the eyes of those who are defending Islam, are genuine. And probably of some value to at least some spiritual seekers and freedom fighters.

Here, an exploration of the role of religious concepts and sentiments within the process of the struggle for political liberation, and some specific features of Muslim theology correlated with Socialism:
Easter and Global Revolution
http://cyprusindymedia.blogspot.com/2009/04/easter-and-global-revolution-2.html

This article is an exposure and exploration of some of the anti-Moslem anti-Arab propagandists who operate spreading hatred and poison within the world of alternative science:
In Dialogue: On the American College of Orgonomy
Special to Paranoia Magazine
http://cyprus-org.net/In-Dialogue-American-College-of-Orgonomy.html
The events of September 11 were cleverly used to stir up hatred against Muslims all over the world. Within the United States there are thousands of people active within the Truth Movement, a movement aimed at exposing the complicity of some elements of the US ruling class and of the US Government who together with the "unknown" terrorists who carried out those terrible acts succeeded in generating enough hatred against Islam to numb and stupefy people in the countries of the West so as to accept a new modern Crusade. Here's a small sample of my participation in that movement:
Butchery of Islam and the new Crucades
http://wtcdemolition.com/blog/node/1217#comment-11723

An overview of the United States in 2008 in its role as "Mother of All Oppression", with a focus on gay and lesbian rights, and US murderous hostility against both its own people and against the artificial enemy it created in the people of Islam:
What the Hell is wrong with the US?
http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/85134/index.php
also at:
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/12/petros-us-pathetic-in-area-of-human.html

We used to say "The Pope Smokes Dope!" - I wish it were true. Instead, here he is seen maligning the Prophet and giving ideological justification to the Crusades:
The Crusades, here and now
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Universal_Life_Church/conversations/topics/1887

Comments on an article titled "War News - Invasion/Islammunist Revolution" which was aimed at spreading more hatred against Islam.
"It is meant to create an atmopshere in which it seems natural to be killing anyone connected to Islam and communism. The simple picture painted by this article is that we are all wombs of terror, and that we should be eradicated. Many of us are communists and moslems, and also supporters, friends, sympathizers..."
Worse than Fascists
http://archives.lists.indymedia.org/imc-eastern-mediterranean/2002-October/000274.html

"That's why we speak of Resistance to the war, not just Peace. Resistance on all fronts by all means is the inescapable reality in which millions of people have been trapped now in the Arab and Islamic worlds due to the compliance of the Western populations with the Imperial death machine."
Imperial Propaganda
http://web.archive.org/web/20061101184110/http://hamilton.indymedia.org/newswire/display/1171/index.php(The above link responds slowly, please give it a little time.)

And finally an article commemorating Yasser Arafat, a leader who seemed to have a good understanding of the role of the three main populations "of the Book", meaning those who follow Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and their participation in the liberation process:
Eternal Peace and Victory
YASSER ARAFAT Remembered and Honored
http://www.indymedia.org.il/article/2008/11/yasser-arafat-remembered-and-honored


Petros Evdokas, petros@cyprus-org.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Photo:
Muqarnas dome, Hall of the Two Sisters, Alhambra palace, Granada, Spain, 1354–1391.
Please click on this to see a full scale reproduction in all its glory:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsAr9X6YddoCjILbNIHrgAYi2CQAUhBNSEl7lrYnrrwv9-BKTtAucWNBF4z64dGItMGS9eBrWqRtzzudYwUQzuij-8gncuwDvG2mmYdOkK3sXcAplUjzhzq4i50V9ZCDyNBIe3xXhO91Ef/s1600/islam,Hall-of-TwoSisters,Alhambra.jpg