Massive Muslim Protest in Bahrain Against Terrorism
"As tragic as the recent events in Iraq are, the silver lining is that it has brought to the fore the sectarian tensions in Bahrain and the need to resolve them before the situation gets out of hand. I hope that the civil and political societies make use of this momentum to achieve tangible and permanent changes."
Chan'ad BahrainiThese Incredible Pictures are from Montadayat.org
Wednesday, March 1, 2006
Chan' ad Bahraini on the massive unity protest in Bahrain after the Golden Mosque bombings:
It comes as no surprise that the recent sectarian violence in Iraq would have repercussions here in Bahrain. Both countries have a Shia majority but have been politically dominated by the minority Sunnis; and both countries are now trying to establish themselves as something that looks like a democracy.
Rather than stressing the victimization of the Shia, Shaikh Isa Qassem in his speech highlighted the solidarity between Sunnis and Shias.
And there were lots of people with placards (like the one below) and chanting slogans of "No Shia, no Sunni. All of us denounce the exclusivists(terrorists)"
Chan' ad Bahraini has much more on the significance of this protest.
Montadayat.org has many picutres from the massive protest here and here.
Irish Pennants shares his concern that, "We must not miss there are many Muslims that share our values."
Previously:
Iraqis Protest Against Terror
Iraqis Protest Terrorism as US Routs
Massive Muslim Demonstration Against Al Qaida!!
The World Reacts to Jordan's 9-11
Jordan Continues to Protest Al Qaida
Update: Freedom for Egyptians writes in:
The first banner reads: "The Islamic Secular Council". I do not know how Islamic and Secular at the same time, but nice.
The meaning of banner on the image before the last because I could not imagine literal translation says: It is not about being a Sunni or Shiite, we are ALL against "Takifiryia". This newly used word means the release and applying the extremist religious fatwas or opinions given by Al Qaeda terrorist leaders that calls for the destruction of killing of anyone that goes aganist their ideology that they claim pertains to Islam. Jim, I am only explaining here the idea but not translating the banner word for word. It is much shorter.
posted by Gateway Pundit at 3/05/2006 04:25:00 AM
18 Comments:
Another example of the complexity of the situation. The internet is probably going to keep this whole issue from being reduced to the Manichean good/evil dichotomy much beloved by lazy pundits and political operatives. I get great satisfaction from checking the Muslim blogs from time to time, and MEMRI site.
Peace to all.
That is a very deceptive headline as it leads people to believe that it was a demonstration against all terrorism. This seems to be a demonstration against the more specific sort of terrorism of muslim against muslim. Laudable no doubt but unless you have other evidence it doesnt count as muslims upset at Terror bombings in Israel, London, Madrid and the United States.
Are we reaching for examples of muslims protesting the sort of terror we are familiar with in the West?
Sadly I started out believing that such examples must exist only to be disappointed by every single example highlighted by those in the west searching for a pushback.
Pierre
This rally indeed only wants "unity" within Islam and doesn't want minority Shiites persecuted by majority Muslims, the case in most Muslim countries. Also, among the many pictures of the rally was a banner that caught my eye: "Yesterday they attacked our Prophet & today they attack [can't read it, but it's either "us" or "our mosque" or some such. The point is the banner is blaming the West (read "the U.S.") for the mosque bombing. Not sure I am heartened by the Bahrein rally. Anyone translate the various banners?
Color me unimpressed. I'll take Muslims Against Terrorism seriously when I see Muslims in the US and Britain, where no harm will come to them and under no coercion, take it to the streets.
Time is running out.
Yeah, what Pierre said.
Not a word about Muslim terror against infidels.
Heck, I'm FOR intramuslim terror if it keeps them off my back.
Well, unfortunately, the "best" (closest to explaining the past and predicting the future) analysis I have found states that the Muslims, as a people, do not accept the definition of "human" to include infidels.
Thus, we watch Pearle or Berg being religously, ritualistically beheaded, and subconciously recognize it as human sacrifice, they see only a minor wrong. Where we hear a Hamas terrorist's video goodbye extolling the need to "drink the Jew's blood" and find it congruent to canabilism, the Muslim "Street" extolls those same terrorists as Martyrs.
Muslims are very firm on human rights. They just don't include us in any definition of Human.
Most of these comments sound post-"tipping point". They are still them, we are still us, and it's still like us vs them, no matter how warm and snuggly they act toward each other.
It's going to take a long time, and a lot of work on the part of muslims all over the world, to win the hearts and minds of westerners like me.
I'm sceptical. Where are the signs against killing infidels? Of course as far as "Moderate Musulman" is concerned there are no innocent infidels.
How about cutting funds to Hamas?
How about recognition of Israel?
How about stopping vicious anti-semitism in goverment media?
I guess it is too much to hope for.
Typical moslem propoganda for the Western consumption. And why not, naive fools like Instapundit Reynolds and Hugh Hewlet are lapping it up.
I, too, want to see evidence that these Muslims are just as passionately opposed to the killing and terrorizing of Christians...and Jews...and Buddhists...and Hindus...and animists...and Bahais...and....
When a Coptic girl is kidnapped and raped in Egypt, there should be thousands of Muslims marching against this outrage. Likewise when a mullah advocates the killing of Jewish women and children. When a TV station broadcasts a dramatization of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, its offices should be surrounded by demonstrators demanding an end to defamatory incitement. When a mosque teaches contempt for Hindus and Buddhists its members should walk out. But I won't hold my breath waiting.
So... uh... where are the placards saying "Hamas doesn't represent us"?
Or maybe: "we reject all forms of discrimination. Near Eastern Christians, Mandaeans, and Zoroastrians are people too".
Oh! I know! "Down with terror! Down with jizya! We support separation of mosque and state"
Here's one for the pro-Palestinian crowd: "Near Eastern Jews out of Israel! You can all come back to your homes in Baghdad and Yemen, we're really sorry". At least it's not "into the sea".
Til I see more of that, I'm still yawnin'
Hi folks. I'm the guy that originally posted about the protest.
I would imagine that most of you would be much more interested in a protest that took place in Bahrain last year after the 7/7 bombings in London. Have a look:
http://chanad.weblogs.us/?p=396
Obviously, the turnout was nowhere near the size of last Friday's protest, but it's much more significant, since most you are trying to prove or disprove the existence of "moderate Muslims". The 7/7 protest was also significant in that it was organized and attended by both Islamists and secular folk.
Chan- Thank you for the link to last year's protest. You do an outstanding job!
Jim
You are a little too optimistic. Read what Ali of afreeiraqi has to say about this (from http://haloscan.com/tb/afreeiraqi/114164975402129850 )
~~snip~~
I just saw this post on Gateway Pundit about the demonstrations in Bahrain "against terrorism". Before looking at the pictures I was skeptic about the real nature of these demonstrations because I know that Bahrain has a She'at majority and I never heard of any demonstrations against terrorism there until the latest attack on the holy She'at shrine in Samarra.
When I looked at the pictures in the original Arabic site my suspicions were confirmed. ~~snip~~
~~snip~~
So, even She'at who have much more reasons to demonstrate against terrorism since it basically has a Sunni origin and targets She'at in many occasions, they don't react that much except when their religious symbols are desecrated. The reaction to bombing an empty building was a thousand times bigger than to attacks that killed hundreds of innocent She'at. Muslims in general don't care that much about human life and they don't value it as westerns do because they never had a life worth that much, and deaths for the most stupid and unfair reasons are very common to them, so why do you want Muslims to care about a few people killed in the US or Europe! There must have been a time during the life of each Muslim when they really cared but I doubt that they even remember that!
It shows faith on the part of westerns that they expect Muslims to revolt against fanatics but they miss that they're judging people who live a very different and much difficult life by the same standards they judge their own society. Muslims will only care about life when they get to have one.
~~snip~~
Oops, that trackback was supposed to be:
http://haloscan.com/tb/afreeiraqi/114164975402129850
Sorry, it won't come through for some reason. But if you go to afreeiraqi.blogspot.com, you can read his thoughts.
I'll agree that the 7/7 protest was more 'significant,' the significance being that it brought out a whopping 100+ moderates.
This later protest, in no way moderate but merely self-interested, was orders of magnitude bigger, which truly shows the relative influence of 'moderates' in Islam.
I sent an e-mail to Professor Reynolds suggesting that he and Gateway had been 'snookered.' He replied:
'Nah. The success of the Bush Doctrine is to make Islamic terror everybody's problem, not just ours.'
I would not characterize him as a 'naive fool,' but he sure is optimistic.
So, Chanad, I finally got a moment to read my daily newspaper and I find that there were THREE Muslim demonstrations the same day, all about the same size, the other two in Turkey and Pakistan.
In those two, the call was to 'hang cartoonists.'
Do the math: 150,000 or so Muslims thought it worth their while to give a shout out to the world, and the message I got was, 'Two to one, we want you dead, and the rest of us don't give a rat's ass about you.'
Roger, understood.
It's going to take a long time, and a lot of work on the part of muslims all over the world, to win the hearts and minds of westerners like me.
I get the distinct impression that muslims do not understand why they need to make such an effort.
At the end of the day, western militaries are still far more effective than muslim militaries. Eventually, the jihadis are going to do something that results in western militaries being ordered into action.
Would they prefer to be occupied by soldiers from a country that thinks muslims do not consider infidels to be people?
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