Não interferência à Obama

A política da administração Obama de não interferência nos assuntos internos de outros países resume-se a não condenar a violência no Irão. Tomar o partido do presidente deposto das Honduras, segundo os critérios em vigor nos EUA - os critérios da esperança e da mudança -, não constitui interferência. O mesmo tipo de não interferência adoptada para lidar com o conflito israelo-árabe: nada exigir aos terroristas confessos do Hamas e aos terroristas tímidos da Fatah e impedir Israel de construir um metro quadrado que seja nos chamados colonatos - mesmo que seja para fazer um quarto novo para um membro recem-nascido da família - como se fosse essa a causa do problema, como se o conflito se devesse a uma disputa territorial e não à vontade expressa pelo Hamas de exterminar todos os judeus, sem excepção, da face da Terra e à indisponibilidade manifestada pela Fatah para reconhecer o direito à existência do Estado de Israel como estado judaico. Como disse a Melanie Phillips:

«It would be laughable were it not so serious that such a clown is in the White House, and at such a time.»

Via Hot Air.

O sermão no sopé das pirâmides - VI: Fjordman sobre Música

Como prometido, voltemos por alguns instantes ao infame sermão do Cairo do presidente Obama ao Mundo Islâmico, mais uma vez pela mão de Fjordman, desta feita para considerar as afirmações do presidente americano a respeito da influência da cultura islâmica na cultura musical do Ocidente, tema já aqui fugazmente considerado. Comecemos pelo discurso:

«Islamic culture has given us (...) cherished music (...).»

Fjordman contrapõe:

«As for music, Greek theory on the subject evolved from Pythagoras before 500 BC. The Church was the dominant institution in post-Roman Europe and drew on Greek philosophy and musical theory. Some elements of Christian observances may derive from Jewish tradition, too, chiefly the chanting of Scripture and the signing of psalms, poems of praise from the Book of Psalms. Christians integrated music into their liturgy. In the Western Church, Gregorian chant and the development of polyphonic music was valued as decoration, a concept central to medieval art and architecture. According to A History of Western Music, Seventh Edition, by Donald J. Grout, Peter J. Burkholder and Claude V. Palisca, “Polyphonic performance heightened the grandeur of chant and thus of the liturgy itself.” This gave rise to a musical tradition which led to Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. Nothing similar happened in the Islamic world, despite the fact that Muslims initially had access to much of the same material. I have described this in my essay Why Muslims Like Hitler, but Not Mozart.

Historian Bernard Lewis writes in The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years:

“Since Muslim worship, with the limited exception of some dervish orders, makes no use of music, musicians in the Islamic lands lacked the immense advantage enjoyed by Christian musicians through the patronage of the Church and of its high dignitaries. The patronage of the court and of the great houses, though no doubt useful, was intermittent and episodic, and dangerously subject to the whims of the mighty. Muslim musicians devised no standard system of notation, and their compositions are therefore known only by the fallible and variable medium of memory. There is no preserved corpus of classical Islamic music comparable with that of the European musical tradition. All that remains is a quite extensive theoretical literature on music, some descriptions and portrayals of musicians and musical occasions by writers and artists, a number of old instruments in various stages of preservation, and of course the living memory of long-past performances.”

(...) Many forms of music are banned in Islam. The Reliance of the Traveller by Ahmad Ibn Lulu Ibn Al-Naqib and Noah Ha Mim Keller has been formally approved by al-Azhar in Egypt, the highest institution of religious learning among Sunni Muslims. It quotes a number of ahadith, authoritative sayings of Muhammad and his companions which form the core Islamic texts next to the Koran, among them one which says that “There will be peoples of my Community who will hold fornication, silk, wine, and musical instruments to be lawful …” Another quote says that: “On the Day of Resurrection, Allah will pour molten lead into the ears of whoever sits listening to a songstress.” The scholarly conclusion is that “All of this is explicit and compelling textual evidence that musical instruments of all types are unlawful.” Another legal ruling says that “It is unlawful to use musical instruments – such as those which drinkers are known for, like the mandolin, lute, cymbals, and flute – or to listen to them. It is permissible to play the tambourine at weddings, circumcisions, and other times, even if it has bells on its sides. Beating the kuba, a long drum with a narrow middle, is unlawful.”»

Do referido ensaio, Why Muslims Like Hitler, but Not Mozart, destaque para esta citação de Charles Murray que procura dar uma ideia da importância da polifonia na música ocidental:

«Just as linear perspective added depth to the length and breadth of painting, polyphony added, metaphorically, a vertical dimension to the horizontal line of melody.»

Em suma: a música no ocidente desenvolveu-se a partir da herança hebraica e da cultura grega; o seu desenvolvimento foi marcado pela invenção de um rigoroso sistema de notação que lhe permitiu alcançar um nível de elaboração harmónica impossível nas tradições puramente orais. No mundo islâmico, a música é apenas tolerada, quando não é proibida. Ou seja, parafraseando o blogger Zartoist: a música sobreviveu apesar do Islão.

No recato de uma tarde de 6ª-feira

Via Hot Air, através de dois artigos distintos, ficamos a saber que o presidente Obama acaba de dar mais um passo na aproximação da sua política à do presidente Bush, no que diz respeito aos detidos na chamada guerra contra o terrorismo, mais uma vez tirando partido da calmia mediática típica de um fim-de-semana - ainda para mais com uma parte dos media entretidos com a morte de uma estrela pop e a outra parte a analisar as futuras consequências da legislação verde-morte aprovada recentemente pelo Congresso. Assim se confirmam duas tendências já aqui assinaladas: Obama governa para os media e em permanente campanha para a reeleição - a despeito das mais elementares regras da transparência - e não tem outro remédio, para não pôr a segurança dos EUA em maior perigo, senão aproximar as suas políticas, neste particular, das de Bush. Abaixo ficam excertos da notícia tal como surgiu na edição de sábado do The Washington Post, construída através de fugas de informação cuidadosamente vertidas pela própria administração, informação entretanto confirmada pela Associated Press:

«Obama administration officials (...) are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations. Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. (...) (...) The Justice Department has declined to comment on the prospects for a long-term detention system while internal reviews of Guantanamo detainees' cases are underway. (...) (...) In a May speech, President Obama broached the need for a system of long-term detention (...). (...) In his May speech, the president outlined five strategies the administration would use to deal with them: criminal trials, revamped military tribunals, transfers to other countries, releases and continued detention. (...) Three months into the Justice Department's reviews, several officials involved said they have found themselves agreeing with conclusions reached years earlier by the Bush administration: As many as 90 detainees cannot be charged or released. (...)»

O WP esclarece as razões pelas quais esses detidos não podem ser julgados nos tribunais comuns, e não é, pelo menos não é só, devido à suspeita de utilização de métodos coercivos de interrogatório:

«[H]alf of the cases, the officials said, present the greatest difficulty because these detainees cannot be prosecuted in federal court or military commissions. In many cases the evidence against them is classified, has been provided by foreign intelligence services or has been tainted by the Bush administration's use of harsh interrogation techniques.»

Abriu a caça ao pirata

Abriu a época de caça ao pirata. Já que as autoridades não os abatem, nem sequer umas anilhas de identificação ou uns emissores de rádio para futura localização lhes põem, há sempre uns bandidos mais poderosos dispostos a fazer em mar alto, longe do curto e flácido braço da lei, o que, para grande contrariedade sua, não podem fazer no quintal lá de casa. Quem pensava que, depois de ver bandos de selvagens armados a sequestrar navios de grande tonelagem e a arrecadar avultados resgates e as marinhas ocidentais a libertar alguns desses bandidos, já tinha visto tudo, enganou-se: a realidade da maldade e da estupidez humanas, com toda a sua crueldade, ultrapassa sempre as nossas piores expectativas; ajuda-nos, também, a nós, ocidentais, criados numa sociedade que poucos sacrifícios nos exige em troca de uma rara, na história da humanidade, segurança, a ter presente que o mundo é, e há-de sempre ser - a despeito dos sonhos idealistas de modificar a natureza humana, caída -, um lugar perigoso.

Não comprometimento

por Michael Ramirez, no IBD. Do mesmo autor.

O Grande Satã será sempre o Grande Satã

Ontem, no Jornal 2 da RTP, dizia-se que os mulás do Irão teriam optado por dirigir a sua fúria irracional para o Reino Unido, responsabilizando-o pela agitação que alastrou nas ruas de Teerão e de outras cidades iranianas, alegadamente porque, estando a Casa Branca ocupada por esse semi-deus que dá sermões islamofílicos chamado Barack Hussein Obama, não teria bases para atacar os EUA, país que é designado, há pelo menos 30 anos, pelos líderes político-religiosos do Irão pelo expressivo apodo "Grande Satã". Pois parece que não é bem assim. Segundo relata Mark Steyn na National Review - aliás, em concordância com o afirmado por Caroline Glick no artigo citado no postal anterior -, o supremo-líder da revolução iraniana, o aiatóla Khamenei, continua a dedicar uma assanhada antipatia aos EUA, aparentemente insensível às prodigiosas virtudes do actual ocupante da Sala Oval:

«(...)Ayatollah Khamenei said Obama’s “agents” had been behind the protests: “They started to cause riots in the street, they caused destruction, they burnt houses.” But that wasn’t all the Great Satin did. “What is the worst thing to me in all this,” sighed the supreme leader, “are comments made in the name of human rights and freedom and liberty by American officials . . . What? Are you serious? Do you know what human rights are?”»

Ou seja, a apresentadora do Jornal 2 e a editora de política internacional da RTP devem estar a falar de um outro país ou estão a utilizar os media americanos como única fonte de informação nesta matéria.

O Efeito Obama ou Os Cangalheiros da Democracia, segundo Glick

Caroline Glick analisa a esquiva dos media americanos em escrutinar as acções e as palavras do presidente Obama e em divulgar factos que ponham em causa as suas posições, nomeadamente na política externa. Entre outros aspectos, aborda a suposta influência de Obama na situação no Irão e no Líbano, esclarecendo que a derrota do Hezbolá se deveu, em larga medida, à orientação do Patriarca Cristão Maronita ao arrepio das lideranças políticas cristãs.

«(...) THE REAL OBAMA effect on world affairs relates to the US media's unprecedented willingness to abandon the basic responsibilities of a free press in favor of acting as propagandists for the president. From Cooper - who pretends that Obama's unreciprocated open hand to the mullahs is what empowered the protesters - to Newsweek editor Evan Thomas who referred to Obama earlier this month as a "sort of God," without a hint of irony, the US media have mobilized to serve the needs of the president. (...) Today the mainstream US media exert no such pressures on Obama. Earlier this month NBC's nightly news anchorman Brian Williams bowed to Obama when he bid him good night at the White House. On Wednesday ABC News will devote an entire day of programming to advancing Obama's controversial plan to nationalize health care. Its two prime time news shows will be broadcast from White House. Good Morning America will feature an interview with Obama, and ABC's other three flagship shows will dedicate special programming to his health care reform program. On the other hand, ABC has refused Republican requests for a right of reply to Obama's positions. The network has also refused to sell commercial advertising time to Republicans and other Obama opponents to offer their dissenting opinions to his plans. This media behavior has been noted by the likes of Fox News and the handful of other US news outlets that are not in the tank for Obama. But the repercussions of the Obama effect on US politics and world affairs have been largely ignored. (...) THE MOST IMPORTANT repercussion of the US media's propagandistic reporting is that the American public is denied the ability to understand events as they unfold. Take for instance The New York Times' write-up of Khamenei's sermon this past Friday in which he effectively declared war on the protesters. (...) The Times did not mention that Khamenei ascribed world events to a Zionist conspiracy which he believes controls the US. (...) Had the Times - and other major media outlets - properly reported Khamenei's speech, they would have made clear to their readers that he is not a rational thinker. His view of world events is deeply distorted by his hatreds and prejudices and paranoia. But then, if Times readers were permitted to know just how demented Khamenei's views of the world are, they might come to the conclusion that Obama's intense desire to sit down with him, and his constant pandering to Iran's "supreme leader" are ill-advised and counterproductive. They might come to the conclusion that it is impossible to achieve a meeting of the minds with a man who calls Americans "morons" and leads his subordinate government officials in chants of "Death to America," "Death to Britain" and "Death to Israel." And if they came to these conclusions, how could Obama be expected to affect anything? And Obama's power as president to change the world is not limited to Iran. As far as his media servants are concerned, his "mere election" is responsible for everything positive that has occurred in the US and throughout the world since last November. TAKE HIZBULLAH'S defeat in the Lebanese parliamentary elections two weeks ago. As far as the US media are concerned, it was Obama's speech to the Muslim world on June 4 that emboldened the Lebanese to back the anti-Syrian March 14 slate of candidates. Never mind that his speech - which refused to condemn Iran for its support for terrorism and its nuclear weapons program - actually strengthened Hizbullah's position by demonstrating that the US would take no action against its Iranian masters. As far as the US media were concerned, Obama won the election for Hizbullah's pro-Western rivals. Yet this is not true. According to actual electoral data, what swung the balance towards Saad Hariri's March 14 camp was Hizbullah-allied Christian leader Michel Aoun's failure to convince Lebanon's Christian minority to acquiesce to Hizbullah's takeover of the country. And Lebanese Christian voters did not reject Hizbullah because Obama is President of the United States. They rejected Hizbullah because the Maronite Christian Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir warned them on the eve of the election, "We must be alert to the schemes being plotted for us and thwart the intense efforts which, if they succeed, will change the face of our country." (...) In free societies, the media's primary responsibilities are to report current events to the public, place those events into an historical context to enable the public to understand how and why they occurred, and to present the public with the options for going forward. It is due to the media's historic role in maintaining and cultivating an informed discussion and debate about current affairs that they became known as democracy's watchdog. When media organs fail to fulfill their basic responsibilities, they degenerate quickly into democracy's undertaker. For an uninformed public is incapable of making the sorts of decisions required of free citizens.»

Lede todo o artigo.

Jihad global: Filipinas

A jihad é um estado de guerra permanente entre o Dar-al-Islam (a casa do Islão ou da Submissão) e o Dar-al-Garb (a Casa da Guerra), razão pela qual quase todos os conflitos armados actuais e inúmeros conflitos históricos, remotos ou recentes, envolvem o Islão, sempre que algum dos povos que com ele confina se lhe opõe. Um dos actuais palcos da jihad é o sul das Filipinas, onde as Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) combatem as forças governamentais filipinas, se dedicam à pia prática dos atentados à bomba contra alvos civis - mas "infiéis" - e à conquista de vilas nas mãos dos "infiéis" obrigando-os a fugir. Como é habitual quando se negoceia com os islamistas, os confrontos agravaram-se após as concessões feitas aos terroristas por parte do governo filipino, nomeadamente a autorização para a aplicação da sharia nas zonas onde os muçulmanos são maioritários. Este tipo de concessões, em lugar de pacificar os terroristas, enche-os de convicção de que a sua causa é justa e de que o seu poder é invencível, levando-os a intensificar as acções de agressão quer contra as forças da ordem, quer contra os civis "infiéis", situação da qual os recentes acontecimentos no Vale Swat, no Paquistão, são um eloquente exemplo.

Sarilhos de uns e sarilhos de outros VIII

Mulher é decapitada pelo pai alegadamente por se recusar a casar com o noivo escolhido por este. Se o homicida for julgado de acordo com a jurisprudência sunita, segundo as orientações do manual Umdat al-Salik, cuja autoridade e conformidade com o Corão e com a Suná é certificada pela "Universidade" Al-Azhar - o farol da sabedoria do Islão, como a ela se referiu Obama no infame discurso do Cairo - sairá em liberdade. Via Jihad Watch.

O sermão no sopé das pirâmides - V: Fjordman sobre Ciência

O inestimável Fjordman começa do seguinte modo o seu primeiro artigo dedicado ao infame discurso do Cairo do presidente dos EUA:

«US President Barack Hussein Obama’s speech delivered at Cairo University in Egypt on June 4 2009 contained so many half-truths, distortions or plain lies that it is almost impossible to deal with all of them adequately in a single essay. I will concentrate on the science part in particular here.»

Após fazer esta constatação, Fordman percorre algumas das supostas contribuições do Islão para a ciência e para a cultura universal. Em jeito de continuação do postal anterior, citemos apenas o que Fjorman diz acerca do estudo dos idiomas, da história, em suma, das civilizações pré-islâmicas após a imposição do Islão, começando pela questão dos idiomas:

«European scholars not only translated texts from Greek, and later from Persian and Sanskrit; they proceeded to explore and explain how these languages came into existence in the first place, which was far beyond what any Muslim scholar had even contemplated doing. Greek shares a common history with Persian and Sanskrit: They are all Indo-European languages, as are Germanic languages such as English. The Indo-European family is the largest and most influential language family in human history, and it all traces back to a single, hypothetical Proto-Indo-European language which must have existed thousands of years ago.

Between 1600-1200 BC you could find horse-drawn chariots in use throughout Eurasia, from the border regions of Shang Dynasty China via Egypt and Anatolia to Northern Europe. This corresponds to the period of the ancient Vedas and the emergence of Vedic Sanskrit in India. Peoples speaking Indo-European languages played a vital role in the diffusion of wheeled vehicles. The Proto-Indo-European language which has been reconstructed by leading European and Western linguists over the past two centuries contains words for a technological package which probably did not exist before 4000 BC, possible not even before 3500 BC. PIE must accordingly in all likelihood have been a living language in the fourth millennium BC.

It is likely that a very early form of PIE existed before 4000 BC and a very late form slightly after 3000 BC. Before 3000 BC, PIE was rapidly expanding geographically, probably aided by early forms of wheeled vehicles, and gradually broke apart into what would soon emerge as different Indo-European branches. Scholars J. P. Mallory and D. Q. Adams tell the tale in The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World:

“[I]ndividual Indo-European groups are attested by c. 2000 BC. One might then place a notional date of c. 4500-2500 BC on Proto-Indo-European. The linguist will note that the presumed dates for the existence of Proto-Indo-European arrived at by this method are congruent with those established by linguists' 'informed estimation'. The two dating techniques, linguistic and archaeological, are at least independent and congruent with one another. If one reviews discussions of the dates by which the various Indo-European groups first emerged, we find an interesting and somewhat disturbing phenomenon. By c. 2000 BC we have traces of Anatolian, and hence linguists are willing to place the emergence of Proto-Anatolian to c. 2500 BC or considerably earlier. We have already differentiated Indo-Aryan in the Mitanni treaty by c. 1500 BC so undifferentiated Proto-Indo-Iranian must be earlier, and dates on the order of 2500-2000 BC are often suggested. Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Linear B tablets, is known by c. 1300 BC if not somewhat earlier and is different enough from its Bronze Age contemporaries (Indo-Iranian or Anatolian) and from reconstructed PIE to predispose a linguist to place a date of c. 2000 BC or earlier for Proto-Greek itself.”

Before Islam, Greek was still a major language throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond, including in Anatolia or Asia Minor, now occupied by Turkish-speaking Muslims and called “Turkey.” Muslims have spent 1400 years wiping out Greek-speaking communities throughout the entire region, a process that has continued into the twenty-first century at the island of Cyprus, yet they now want credit for “preserving the Greek cultural heritage.” When the Ottoman Turks gradually conquered the Greek heartland, the Balkans and the Near East, they showed no serious interest in studying the culture and history of their new subjects.»

E prosseguindo para os estudos arqueológicos, ou para a sua inexistência, no Islão:

«As Bruce G. Trigger writes in A History of Archaeological Thought, second edition, “Serious archaeological work did not begin in Greece, however, until after that country’s independence from Turkey in the early nineteenth century.” Ibn Warraq explains in his well-researched book Defending the West why archaeology was invented by Europeans in the post-Enlightenment period. Muslims, despite the fact that they controlled the cradles of the most ancient civilizations on the planet, were indifferent or actively hostile to their remains. Austen Henry Layard, who was active in Mesopotamia (Iraq) in the mid-nineteenth century, recounts this story of Claudius Rich, a pioneer of field archaeology and British Resident in Baghdad:

“Rich learnt from the inhabitants of Mosul that, some time previous to his visit, a sculpture, representing various forms of men and animals, had been dug up in a mound forming part of the great inclosure. This strange object had been the cause of general wonder, and the whole population had issued from the walls to gaze upon it. The ulema [religious scholars] having at length pronounced that these figures were idols of the infidels, the Mohammedans, like obedient disciples, so completely destroyed them, that Mr. Rich was unable to obtain even a fragment.”

Following the brief Napoleonic expedition to Egypt around 1800, a new fad for ancient Egypt began in nineteenth century Europe. This took the local Muslims completely by surprise, as they could not understand why anybody would be interested in worthless infidel stones. The lavishly illustrated book Egyptian Treasures from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo elaborates:

“Initially the Egyptians were unaware of the motives behind the Westerners’ interest in what for them were simply stones emerging from the ground. A rumor then began to circulate that these stones concealed untold treasures. The inhabitants of the villages in the vicinity of archaeological sites began to attack statues, tombs, and temples in the vain hope of extracting jewels and precious objects. Soon, however, Egyptians came to realize that the foreigners were interested in the stones themselves rather than anything they were rumored to contain. While they did not themselves see the attraction of a lump of carved rock, they became masters in the search for and discovery of antiquities. When they were short of authentic relics they had no hesitation in producing fakes, so well made as to fool even the Egyptologists of the era.”

The French expedition to Egypt in 1798-1801 brought many scholars to catalogue the ancient monuments, thus founding modern Egyptology. The trilingual Rosetta Stone, discovered in 1799, was employed by the great French philologist Jean-François Champollion to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs in 1822. He made use of the Coptic language to achieve this. Arab and Turkish Muslims had controlled Egypt for more than a thousand years, yet had apparently never managed to decipher the hieroglyphs nor for the most part displayed much interest in doing so. Europeans did so in a single generation after they reappeared in force in Egypt, and they did so with the help of the liturgical language of the Copts, the Egyptian Christians, a direct link to ancient Egypt that the Arab invaders hadn't managed to completely eradicate.»

Voltaremos a este texto a propósito de um aspecto cultural específico, já aflorado nesta série: a música.

Uma videoteca do islamismo - There was nothing before Islam

O tempo anterior à conversão de um determinado território ao Islão é chamado "Os Dias da Ignorância", razão pela qual no Islão não há interesse pela história das civilizações anteriores à imposição do seu domínio, pelos seus idiomas, nem pelos achados arqueológicos, abandonados até à chegada dos europeus já perto do final do século XVIII.

O sermão no sopé das pirâmides - IV

Na caixa de comentários do postal Uma leitura crítica do Sermão - II, um leitor amigo alude a uma suposta dívida da arte ocidental para com a arte islâmica, assunto abordado pelo presidente americano no seu Sermão:

«Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation.»

No Faith Freedom International, Zartoist faz o seguinte comentário a este propósito:

«Someone who has really studied the history of interaction between the Greco-Roman civilization and, on the one hand, Hellenized Egypt and on the other, Pre-Islamic Persia, could make a good argument that Islam actually hindered the progress of civilization. All indications are that “the light of learning”, namely of Greek and Roman civilization, was already being preserved and would have been preserved, in the Middle East – especially in Persia – to the same if not a greater extent than it was after the violent Islamic conquest of the Persian civilization (a civilization that already had over a thousand years of fruitful interaction with the Greek-inspired civilizations of the West). It is also a fact that most of the scientific “innovation in Muslim communities” cited by Obama, from Algebra to Medicine, was the product of (mostly Persian) free-thinkers who were not believing Muslims – scientists like Omar Khayyam, Ibn Razi, and Ibn Sina – who only wrote their scientific treatises in Arabic (rather than their native Persian) on account of the Arab occupation of Iran. We do not call “Gothic architecture” Christian, do we? The great architecture of Iran, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, and northern India is no more “Islamic”. It is an amalgam of ancient Persian, Byzantine and Indian styles – one that was already arising during the Sassanian Persian Empire (which extended from India to Turkey). The only “Islamic” contribution to this architecture was to prohibit the incorporation of paintings – since depiction of human beings is forbidden in Islam. Incidentally, this stunted the entire development of painting in the sphere of Persian civilization, which had a rich tradition of pictorial art before the Islamic conquest and may well have developed it to the level of modern Europe. As for poetry and music, most of the great “Islamic” poets (again mostly Persians) were considered heretics by Islamic authorities, and music is prohibited in Islam as a vain “useless” activity. Poetry and music survived in civilizations such as Persia DESPITE Islam. A careful study of the history of Sufism will reveal its roots in attempts by persecuted pre-Islamic Gnostics in Persia and Egypt, to ensure the survival of their esoteric wisdom by exoterically cloaking themselves in Islamic garb. While many of them ultimately wound up believing their own dissimulation, scholars of Islamic law have never been fooled – that is why they executed Halaj and Suhrawardi, and why the poetry of no less a genius than Nizami (the Persian analog to Shakespeare or Spenser) is censored in Iran today!!!»

Um artigo a que havemos de voltar a propósito de outros aspectos do sermão.

Já se suspeitava

Já se suspeitava, não que Obama fosse Deus, nem sequer um deus, mas que os MSM (i.e. os main stream media), dos EUA e não só, consideram Obama um deus, ou Deus (não é claro). Uma confirmação desta suspeita chega-nos através de um video no qual Evan Thomas, director da revista Newsweek, discute com o pivot informativo Chris Matthews (famoso por ter dito que sentira um arrepio na perna quando entrevistara Obama) o sermão presidencial no Cairo, video proveniente deste artigo da Newsbuster. Via Hot Air.

Uma leitura crítica do Sermão - II

Também na National Review, Victor Davis Hanson chumba Obama "as a student of history". Mas, mais importante que as correcções que Hanson faz às imprecisões e às distorções do sermão, talvez seja o último parágrafo do artigo:

«President Obama, in elegant fashion, may casually invoke the means of politically correct history for the higher ends of contemporary reconciliation. But it is a bad habit. Eloquence and good intentions exempt no one from the truth of the past — President Obama included.»

Uma leitura crítica do Sermão

Na National Review, Alex Alexiev ensaia uma leitura crítica do discurso do presidente Obama "ao mundo muçulmano", aqui designado "Sermão".

«(...) It is now clear that the president is either unable or unwilling to come to terms with the nature of the radical Islamic threat to America and the West. To him, the problem is a few violent extremists, a “small but potent minority of Muslims”. (...) [T]he West is dealing not with a few militants, or even with terrorism as such, but with a murderous, totalitarian doctrine couched in Islamic terms that has already become the dominant idiom in much of the Muslim world and its diaspora communities. (...) It is an ideology that elevates violent jihad as a religious obligation for all Muslims, openly discriminates against non-Muslims and women, banishes democracy and secularism, and ordains the murder of apostates and homosexuals. This doctrine is preached today in tens of thousands of Salafi, Wahhabi, and Deobandi mosques and madrassas, and promoted by countless Islamist organizations, from the Muslim Brotherhood networks in America to the Taliban and its fellow jihadists in Pakistan. (...) Obama has seemingly chosen to act as an apologist for this ideology. There is no other credible reason for a man with an army of experts, researchers, and fact-checkers at his disposal to utter so many half-truths and outright falsehoods about what Islam is and what it is not. These include his touting ostensible Islamic contributions to music (an art form prohibited among the devout) and printing (regarded by the mullahs as the devil’s invention, and not available to Muslims until three centuries after Gutenberg), and his preposterous promotion of Saudi King Abdullah, ruler of the most religiously intolerant country on earth, as a champion of “interfaith dialogue.” More telling still are Obama’s historically inaccurate portrayals of Muslims as being at “the forefront of innovation and education,” and his blaming colonialism and the Cold War for their falling behind. In fact, Muslims have not been at the forefront of anything since ijtihad (reason) was declared un-Islamic ten centuries ago and replaced by blind obedience to reactionary sharia dogma, which, in turn, ushered in a cultural and intellectual stagnation that is yet to be overcome. Indeed, the greatest Muslim minds over the centuries, from Averoes and Avicenna to Noble Prize physicist Abdus Salam, have invariably been persecuted and declared apostates by the guardians of Islamic orthodoxy. While colonialism is a favorite Islamist whipping boy for all real or imagined ills visited upon the Muslims, it was the result, not the cause, of the inexorable decline of Islam as a world power and civilization that culminated in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century. Nor should it be forgotten that throughout most of its history, Islam has been a premier imperialist and colonialist power itself. (...) Mubarak (...) appointed the mullahs of Al-Azhar as the sole arbiters of what books should be published in or imported into Egypt. Predictably, anything that does not meet their medieval criteria is being censored, while books that discuss how many angels could be recruited for a war against Israel (120 million) are encouraged. (...) History teaches us that tolerating the intolerant and appeasing the unappeasable results in more conflict and bloodshed.»

Fica-se sem perceber se o presidente dos EUA é simplesmente ingénuo e ignorante ou se a sua actuação faz parte de uma estratégia bem articulada para facilitar a expansão do Islão.