Burqa as weapon

PARIS — President Nicolas Sarkozy declared Monday that the Islamic burqa is not welcome in France, branding the face-covering, body-length gown as a symbol of subservience that suppresses women's identities and turns them into "prisoners behind a screen." I have no problem with such a ban since each country has its own rules on which it tries to create a common basis where ethnic groups may interface with the rest: culture of the host country is to absorb the minorities and not other way round.
Think of nation as a family each member being part of the whole and with duties and rights. Most important is that each works for the common good. If we are visiting a family we don't arm-twist our hosts to serve our whims and fancies. Politeness is the duty of a guest that he doesn’t throw the routine of the family for his indulgence but conform to the general since he is there at the permission of the host. If religion has not taught him to simple courtesies of human beings he had better migrate to some wilderness and learn from the beasts. Perhaps he may improve and so will his religion in practice. Animals kill for their food and not for a dry as dust idea.
France has a long tradition and their culture is second to none. They cannot dilute their values for the few. How minorities may want to practice their own identities in the privacy of their homes is largely left to each.
Culture is not imposed from outside but subject to natural processes evolved over centuries. Strength of France derives from that.

Of course French are not angels or supernatural beings.
Islam has glorious Koran given to them, so the Moslems pride themselves. Islam however glorious cannot replace what was true to the French soil on which it grew as natural. Remember religion of the Semitic races, Judaism and Islam are given from above by an outside agency, and not something natural . So any nation being not supernatural but only subject to weak natures of humans would wish to keep its culture natural it is its rightful privilege.

When some cry intolerance and Islamophobia are the Islamic countries free from what they accuse others of? In case of UAE will they allow other religions freely practice their faith or carry visible symbols of faith as freely as Moslems are allowed in most parts of Europe?
2.
The number of churches being torched over a silly controversy in Malaysia is not as innocuous as it seems.
In Modern Turkey secularism is established by the constitution but the present trend of women to express their religious identity aggressively cannot be by some curious accident. There is a groundswell of radicalization in which some misguided imams from pulpits of the mosque are playing into the hands of terrorists who shall test the will and resolve of the secular government.

3.

I suspect that there is an insidious move to wear out the Western ideals by imposing some primitive aspects of Sharia law.If a believer,because religion has taken over his body, mind and soul,cannot think of his world or enjoy the natural pleasures that such a world and its uses provide it is like playing one stringed music. It numbs the senses and wearies others.

One who cannot be human because some dogma has got into his eyes like a splinter, he is blind: he sees nothing but the splinter. He like Don Quixote sees a windmill of one who doesn't pray as he does; and mistakes him for Iblis. Poor deluded creature! He needs cure. With such a mindset he sees his arid soul and thinks it is paradise.

World is not uniform anymore than human being are. For one who believes God as the creator of peoples and the earth such a variety should mean something. Of course desert has its beauty but to deny the lush verdure of one part the globe or craggy mountains and majestic peaks of another would mean one hasn't grown enough to see it all as blessings that are only given to the living. This is what excess religion robs one. The west lived somewhat similar in the Middle Ages. There were rascals who were mistaken for saints and who, their filth and grime they extolled as fitting tribute to God. There are still some vestiges of these in the Church of Rome. Thank God the west, majority of the believers have awakened from their drowsiness. If they do not share the craze of a Moslem believer for religion he ought not hasten damn them to perdition.

4.

In Islam it is forbidden for men or women wear the dress of opposite sex. Yet such a garb is one means adopted by terrorists to commit acts of terrorism. As long as Islam as a religion has not effectively prevented its followers from such acts in Europe especially in France the moral authority of Islam over secular non-believing countries must be considered as null and void.
Ok. One might say such misuse of burqa are isolated cases and not to be treated as general. Think of a plane as a metaphor for nation. Passengers are citizens,migrant workers,aliens, believers and non believers. One underwear bomber or a shoe bomber could put the whole plane in jeopardy. If one shot could kill the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and start WWI so shall an isolated incident work far greater misery for all who trust in the nation. WWI didn't end with one war. Nation's future is not to be left to chance or to inherent lapses in security. If a government allows these breaches in national security to be left for nation's enemies to do their dastardly crimes as they will, such government is enemy to its citizens.

benny

A Point to Ponder-Mahatma

If two laws of compensation and Deprivation are true opposite and equal, would it not mean that the strivings of the humankind shall always remain more or less static by such contrary forces? The fact that there are those who do not merey acquiesce to them as final and are willing to overcome odds against them we ought to consider them as the true pioneers who carry the civilization forward.
Such great souls speak for the entire species. Most of us work far below our full potentials. Where does that energy leftover go to?

*Great souls are those who cover our lapses or shortfall by their solid achievements. Mohandas Gandhi or Bapu as he is affectionately remembered by India was one such. He made non-violence an effective weapon and showed the world the path of Ahimsa. He showed to the world of violence against the growing stridency of fascism in Europe and military Jingoism of Japan a better path. Hitler was a bully and a mad man whereas Gandhi became a Mahatma.
benny

Hubris Strike Where It Will

As the disastrous term of President Bush’s in office grinds to a close there is nostalgia among the Republicans for the good old days. For them Ronald Regan has been the benchmark. Remember the Time cover of March 2007 where Reagan was shown weeping? President Bush would have revived Reagan legacy if he could. But synergy of persons and events that has touched on the media savvy President is not what Bush can do with. Unlike Mr.Bush Reagan was never in control of both houses of Congress. The actor turned President didn’t even have a 9/11 that could bring all the Americans to his fold. Luckily Reagan though mediocre as a person didn’t strike too far outside his ken in such reckless fashion as Mr. Bush did. Regan merely played on the assumption that there were two superpowers and he stayed at his job without rocking the boat too hard.
The office of the American President may be the most powerful in the world but even he is subject to events and energy supplied by so many. The Republicans who believe that the government is always the problem are like an ostrich that has its head buried in the sand. Fear and smear may help the party to some extent but running an Administration or fulfilling the best interests of the nation would require something else. Being the only superpower and with so much of delusions of grandeur the Bushies believed they were safe in their ‘bubble of reality’ and they could break or make other nations in their own likeness.
2.
President Reagan was in a way made by the media, (and they can make a man of straw seem all powerful) and Reagan rode the raves of the Press who were searching for quotes or style than substance. The same Press missed all along the disinformation spread consistently by the Bush administration leading up to the Iraq war recently admitted their lapses. In the manner big corporations run the Press we may discount their role in making the nation come up smelling like roses.
No nation can stand impervious to the hubris of their arrogance or misrule. I read that one in eight Americans is now living below poverty line while the filthy rich are let off with tax-breaks. Synergy of the common people can break even the most powerful nation. Government is not the problem but the greed of few.
benny

W8 D6- Judging Too Soon

Merely because one sets truth of action as one’s basis it does not mean that it is in harmony with all other life forms. If we study history it is amply borne out how power goes not to the good or wise (or those who are by nature and experience competent to lead a country) but to the ruthless, bad and throughly unscrupulous.
Leon Trotsky was far superior in intellect to Joseph Stalin but the wily Georgian was the great manipulator, who as the General Secretary had the Party in his hold. Intellect is nothing; neither is cleverness in the welter of cause and effect. Whether Bush was better than Al Gore or John Kerry doesn’t merit analysis here except the bad image of the Bush Presidency shall make it harder for the nation to regain confidence among the commonwealth of nations.
How one climbs to the top and another goes down may be predicted rather readily than the effect their governance would have on future. Presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 are still fresh in memory so I shall say President Bush won the race but was his presidency a success?
Much as I am disgusted by the Bush Presidency and the values he represents I cannot pass any judgment: success by our standards is an error. So is failure. Why you might ask. We judge too soon. We pass the verdict from a time-space scale those events, which are on a Time-Space framework. All that energy expended by America in terms of lives of its citizens, soldiers have to be conserved: conservation of energy is not mopped up or accounted for in a way we can with any degree of accuracy foretell. So shall we think what we can do to conserve our energy level and replenish our stocks?

benny