Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Big_Bird]

I'm always very interested in this guy's take on things. He always seems to me to be one of the few rational voices in times of hysteria. Here's what Uri Avnery has to say on the latest hooha sparked by the Rat Singer.

For the full article, click here: http://www.avnery-news.co.il/english/index.html

[Kuros]

That's your chosen defense of Islam? That right now, Islam is acting less extreme than Christians at other moments in history?

I can think of much more worthy efforts to defend Islam.

[Big_Bird]

[Boodleheimer]

[Kuros]

[Junior]

[ddeubel]

Let's not forget the near past -- the holocaust.

As every Jew must, we must not forget . And especially the fact/feature of it being a crime complicit and undertaken through and by Christians on another group.

Scream as much as you want, it is a fact. Whether the good Christians like Bonhoffer or the bad ones like Mussolini, they all had a part........doing nothing was/is not an excuse.

Let's not forget the holocaust...........

DD

[laogaiguk]

[Junior]

C r * p.

The Spanish inquisition was carried out by catholics. in the yes of most protestants, catholics are not christians, you have to remember.

The crusades were fought in self defence, in response to attrocities carried out on, and persecution of Christians. Christian lands were being forcibly islamized and stolen. They responded.

The holocaust?R U nuts?? U telling me Hitler and the nazis were christians? This is absurd.

Muslims protected Jews for 50 generations????Hahahaha

[Atassi]

No educated response Junior? All you can do is hope that readers believe you. You've never shown any good sources to back up what you say. You deny the Muslims protected the Jews? Just so you know, many Jews do readily talk about this fact. I've met them.

And Junior, Catholics are not Christians? Let the members of this board decide whether they are Christians or not.

[Leslie Cheswyck]

Toleration indeed.

One of the most telling practices which questions the view that the Ottoman Khilafah was a Golden Age as far as religious minorities were concerned was the forced recruitment of Janissaries, which started in the 14th century. '... they forcibly took male children of the enslaved Christian families (mainly Greeks. and later also Armenians Bulgarians, Albanians and Serbs), and brought them up in special camps They conditioned them to become fanatic Turks and relentless killers to their own people. These children would grow up to believe that their father was the Sultan and that if they were to die in battle they would go to heaven. Thus, because of this New Army, or Janissaries, (Yeni-ceri in Turkish) the Turks continued to pursue their conquests.' [8]

Ottoman forces would raid Christian villages, and kidnap boys, who were then brought to Constantinople as slave-soldiers, and forcibly converted to Islam. They were banned from intimate relations with women, except when they attacked an enemy town or village, at which point they could pillage and rape for three days. This continued until 1700, after which membership became hereditary, and finally ended with the abolition of the Janissaries, after a rebellion. Other Christian children were kidnapped into slavery as palace officials, eunuchs and concubines. It is practices like these that have left dark memories in Balkan peoples and Armenians about the long years of Muslim rule.

These practices could have become normative in Western Europe as well if the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683 had been successful. Again, this cannot be construed as 'defensive' jihad: it was an unprovoked act of aggression. The actions of Ottoman forces as the attack on Austria began demonstrated what Europe could expect if the Khilafah managed to extend its borders over the rest of Europe. Members of the Ottoman forces 'burnt villages, enslaved the women and children, and the men fit to work. The sick and the old they decapitated. They sacked the churches and trampled the crucifixes into the ground.' [9] They engaged in 'burning, raping, killing, enslaving...' [10] It should be remembered that the Muslim army was commanded by the Grand Vizier himself, Kara Mustafa. It is difficult to see how such behaviour could be considered as attracting people to Islam.

Discrimination against Christians continued throughout the centuries of the existence of the Ottoman Khilafah. An example of this is found in the peace treaty ending the Crimean War of 1854-56. The War began as a squabble between Russia and the Ottoman Khilafah. Peace was restored by the Treaty of Paris in March 1856. Usually attention is given to Britain and France's imposed clause that banned Russian warships from the Black Sea. Less attention is focussed on Article 9 of the Treaty, which obliged the Ottoman Khilafah to recognise equality among its subjects 'without distinction as to religion or race'. This demonstrates that the Ottoman Khilafah was indeed engaged in such systematic discrimination. Rather than honouring the treaty, the Khilafah passed a decree the same year requiring non-Muslims to obtain a permit from the Khalifah himself to build or repair their places of worship. Effectively, this meant a continuation of the principles of Islamic law, and a circumvention of the Treaty of Paris.

Not only was Christian liberty under the Khilafah limited, Christian dignity was also frequently disregarded. Until the time of the Great War and their ethnic cleansing in 1915, Armenian Christians dressed their young girls as boys to prevent their rape or kidnap (or both) by Ottoman Muslims. In fact, any child was in danger of being kidnapped. A typical example of Ottoman Muslim contempt for Christians is supplied by a consideration of the burial-permit issued by a qadi (Muslim official) in 1855 for a deceased Christian: 'We certify to the priest of the church of Mary, that the impure, putrefied, stinking carcass of Saideh, damned this day, may be concealed underground.' [11] Undoubtedly, Muslims would regard such sentiments made in regard to a Muslim corpse to be bigoted and insensitive; they should not be surprised that Christians would react similarly, and find it difficult to credit that the Khilafah was indeed a Utopian regime.

http://www.mylinuxisp.com/~jrlaw/islam/massacres_of_the_khilafah.htm

[Atassi]

Leslie Cheswyck, I think the sources are questionable, but I don't doubt some of the things that happened. The Ottomans were not especially keen on being as tolerant as the rulers before them. These occurences all happened in Eastern Europe. I am familiar with some reports that new Muslims there had difficulty when ruled by the Christians of the time. To fully judge what happened, we need a complete sequence of events to look at. What you reported here is not something that Muslims would support (kidnappings, rapes, and the like are not permitted in Islam).

Also, this takes place quite a while after the crusades happened. We all know how bad those were.

[Junior]

[Leslie Cheswyck]

Um, yeah. The old "questionable sources" ruse. By the way, the "...continuation of the principles of Islamic law" means that non-Muslims were at the mercy of their Muslim overlords, forced to pay the jizya ... or be killed.

[Atassi]

No, I say that when you provide sources that most here would have a hard time trusting.