From: People For Peace
Voices of Justice for Peace
Regional News
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2012
Something very big is going on in the Muslim world and this is not about an inflammatory film on Prophet Mohammed, it is the war against US President Barrack Obama.
[imgag] White House
[imgag] Pres. B. Obama
The Muslims hate Obama for having used diplomatic pressure to oust the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, clearing the way for the Islamic radicals, led by the Muslim Brotherhood, to win the subsequent parliamentary and presidential elections.
Their argument is based on the fact that using the rhetoric of democracy Obama allied himself in Egypt with the democracy protesters. Yet when there were equally massive demonstrations in Iran a year and a half earlier, aimed at ousting the regime of the mullahs, Obama urged caution and restraint. He refused to embrace the protesters.
Although this could be explained as reflecting Obama’s unshakeable commitment to democracy, but this commitment they say was absent during the massive popular demonstrations in Iran in 2009. Then Obama stayed out, even praising the reaction of the Iranian Supreme Leader, and eventually the democracy movement was crushed.
Similarly in Syria, Obama has shown himself clearly reluctant to get involved, providing only modest support to the rebels even in the wake of a massive military crackdown and tens of thousands of casualties.
In 2009 when Obama traveled to Cairo to deliver apologetic speech to Muslims they say, he did not only invite the banned Brotherhood leaders to attend but deliberately snubed Mubarak, who was neither present nor mentioned.
In the speech they say Obama blamed Mideast hostility toward Israel and the West on “colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims.” He also vowed to withdraw U.S. troops from Muslim lands and push for creation of a Palestinian state, proclaiming that the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.
The Muslims were angered by Obama’s action in 2009 to appoint a Brotherhood-tied Islamist — Rashad Hussain — as U.S. envoy to the Saudi-based Organization of the Islamic Cooperation, which works closely with the Brotherhood.
Hussain did not only travel to Egypt shortly after his appointment to meet with the Brotherhood’s grand mufti, but also the Secretary of State Clinton lifts visa ban on Egyptian-born grandson of Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna. Tariq Ramadan, a suspected terrorist on the U.S. watchlist, the Muslims claim was warmly received in Washington.
The protest was extended to Nigeria on Saturday where tens of thousands of people protested in Nigeria’s second city of Kano, burning images of Barack Obama and stomping on the American flag to denounce an anti-Islam film made in the US.
A crowd that included men, children and veiled women stretched for several kilometres (miles) through the city, the largest in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north, condemning the film. They shouted “death to America, death to Israel and death to the enemies of Islam.
The demonstration was organised by the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, a pro-Iranian group that adheres to the Shiite branch of Islam. Some pictures of Obama were set alight, while others were dragged through the dirt and stomped on by protesters shouting “enemy of Islam.”
American and Israeli flags were also defaced and Iranian flags were waved in the air as the group marched towards a palace owned by the Emir of Kano, the top religious figure in the region.
Protester Husseini Ibrahim claimed that the “blasphemy” in the film regarding the Prophet Mohammed is “like an invitation to war. Nigeria’s 160 million people are roughly divided between a predominantly Muslim north and a largely Christian south, and Muslim-Christian tensions have often led to deadly confrontation.
Kano was the site of the deadliest ever attack by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram, blamed for more than 1,400 deaths in Nigeria since 2010. The group killed at least 185 people in the city in January in a series of gun and bomb attacks.
White House officials on Friday asked You Tube to review an anti-Muslim video cited as fueling violent protests worldwide, but according to The New York Times, the Google-owned site doesn’t have any intention of taking it down.
Messages to YouTube, and Google, which owns the site, were not immediately returned Friday. On Wednesday, a YouTube spokesperson said the video “is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube.”
YouTube’s Community Guidelines “encourage free speech” and “defend everyone’s right to express unpopular points of view,” but they disallow “hate speech” — defined as “speech which attacks or demeans a group based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, and sexual orientation/gender identity.”
YouTube has blocked the video in Egypt and Libya, and the government of Afghanistan has taken steps to block YouTube entirely. However, it’s still accessible elsewhere in the world as of Friday afternoon. Proxy software can allow access to the video in countries where it’s blocked.
The video is allegedly a 14-minute trailer for a full-length film and has been blamed for inciting unrest in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere.
This is not the first time Muslims have been angered by America. A controversial Florida pastor who staged another Koran-burning ceremony to protest about the imprisonment of a Christian clergyman in Iran is also on the spot.
Terry Jones caused international outrage and violent protests when he filmed the burning of the Islamic holy book last March, set several copies of the Koran on fire.
During the ceremony, where Jones became a ‘judge’ in a ‘trial’ of the Koran, he demanded the release of Youcef Nadarkhani, an Iranian pastor who was jailed for converting from Islam to Christianity.
The church’s website said that a few people left the building as the Koran, which had been soaked in kerosene, was set alight. An image of the Muslim prophet Muhammad was also burned.
The Pentagon had earlier implored Jones to reconsider burning the holy book arguing that the lives of American soldiers fighting abroad could be put at risk.
Recently there was uproar over Pope BenedictXVI’s speech, an inflammatory remark about Islam. The problem began when the pope travelled to Bavaria for six days of speeches and celebrations in and around his hometown, he wasn’t expecting controversy.
His statement hurt the sentiments of Muslims. Muslims demanded the Pope retract his remarks in the interest of harmony among different religions of the world. The leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Mahdi Akef called for an apology.
A statement on the organization’s web site said the pope’s remarks “threaten world peace” and expressed surprise “that such remarks come from someone who sits on top of the Catholic Church which has its influence on the public opinion in the West.”
Leaders from Turkey to Indonesia made similar criticisms, and the Vatican was forced to try and explain the comments. A statement from the pope’s chief spokesman, the Reverend Federico Lombardi, said the pope wanted to “cultivate an attitude of respect and dialogue” toward other religions “and obviously also toward Islam.” Lombardi added, “What is important to the pope is a clear and radical rejection of the religious motivation of violence.”
“It was certainly not the intention of the Holy Father to do an in-depth study of jihad and Muslim thinking in this field and still less so to hurt the feelings of Muslim believers,” Lombardi said in a statement.
The protests are taking place when the question of whether Jesus got married is emerging. According to new papyrus fragment Jesus got married to Mary Magdalene. The fragment contradicts the theory of the theologian known as Clement of Alexandria around 200 A.D. that Jesus did not marry.
Resources about the fourth-century papyrus fragment available here are images of the fragment and a translation of the text; information (in question-and-answer format) about the fragment; and a draft of Karen L. King’s article about the gospel papyrus.
[imgag]
The Muslims hate Obama for having used diplomatic pressure to oust the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, clearing the way for the Islamic radicals, led by the Muslim Brotherhood, to win the subsequent parliamentary and presidential elections.
Their argument is based on the fact that using the rhetoric of democracy Obama allied himself in Egypt with the democracy protesters. Yet when there were equally massive demonstrations in Iran a year and a half earlier, aimed at ousting the regime of the mullahs, Obama urged caution and restraint. He refused to embrace the protesters.
Although this could be explained as reflecting Obama’s unshakeable commitment to democracy, but this commitment they say was absent during the massive popular demonstrations in Iran in 2009. Then Obama stayed out, even praising the reaction of the Iranian Supreme Leader, and eventually the democracy movement was crushed.
Similarly in Syria, Obama has shown himself clearly reluctant to get involved, providing only modest support to the rebels even in the wake of a massive military crackdown and tens of thousands of casualties.
In 2009 when Obama traveled to Cairo to deliver apologetic speech to Muslims they say, he did not only invite the banned Brotherhood leaders to attend but deliberately snubed Mubarak, who was neither present nor mentioned.
In the speech they say Obama blamed Mideast hostility toward Israel and the West on “colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims.” He also vowed to withdraw U.S. troops from Muslim lands and push for creation of a Palestinian state, proclaiming that the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.
The Muslims were angered by Obama’s action in 2009 to appoint a Brotherhood-tied Islamist — Rashad Hussain — as U.S. envoy to the Saudi-based Organization of the Islamic Cooperation, which works closely with the Brotherhood.
Hussain did not only travel to Egypt shortly after his appointment to meet with the Brotherhood’s grand mufti, but also the Secretary of State Clinton lifts visa ban on Egyptian-born grandson of Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna. Tariq Ramadan, a suspected terrorist on the U.S. watchlist, the Muslims claim was warmly received in Washington.
The protest was extended to Nigeria on Saturday where tens of thousands of people protested in Nigeria’s second city of Kano, burning images of Barack Obama and stomping on the American flag to denounce an anti-Islam film made in the US.
A crowd that included men, children and veiled women stretched for several kilometres (miles) through the city, the largest in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north, condemning the film. They shouted “death to America, death to Israel and death to the enemies of Islam.
The demonstration was organised by the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, a pro-Iranian group that adheres to the Shiite branch of Islam. Some pictures of Obama were set alight, while others were dragged through the dirt and stomped on by protesters shouting “enemy of Islam.”
American and Israeli flags were also defaced and Iranian flags were waved in the air as the group marched towards a palace owned by the Emir of Kano, the top religious figure in the region.
Protester Husseini Ibrahim claimed that the “blasphemy” in the film regarding the Prophet Mohammed is “like an invitation to war. Nigeria’s 160 million people are roughly divided between a predominantly Muslim north and a largely Christian south, and Muslim-Christian tensions have often led to deadly confrontation.
Kano was the site of the deadliest ever attack by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram, blamed for more than 1,400 deaths in Nigeria since 2010. The group killed at least 185 people in the city in January in a series of gun and bomb attacks.
White House officials on Friday asked You Tube to review an anti-Muslim video cited as fueling violent protests worldwide, but according to The New York Times, the Google-owned site doesn’t have any intention of taking it down.
Messages to YouTube, and Google, which owns the site, were not immediately returned Friday. On Wednesday, a YouTube spokesperson said the video “is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube.”
YouTube’s Community Guidelines “encourage free speech” and “defend everyone’s right to express unpopular points of view,” but they disallow “hate speech” — defined as “speech which attacks or demeans a group based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, and sexual orientation/gender identity.”
YouTube has blocked the video in Egypt and Libya, and the government of Afghanistan has taken steps to block YouTube entirely. However, it’s still accessible elsewhere in the world as of Friday afternoon. Proxy software can allow access to the video in countries where it’s blocked.
The video is allegedly a 14-minute trailer for a full-length film and has been blamed for inciting unrest in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere.
This is not the first time Muslims have been angered by America. A controversial Florida pastor who staged another Koran-burning ceremony to protest about the imprisonment of a Christian clergyman in Iran is also on the spot.
Terry Jones caused international outrage and violent protests when he filmed the burning of the Islamic holy book last March, set several copies of the Koran on fire.
During the ceremony, where Jones became a ‘judge’ in a ‘trial’ of the Koran, he demanded the release of Youcef Nadarkhani, an Iranian pastor who was jailed for converting from Islam to Christianity.
The church’s website said that a few people left the building as the Koran, which had been soaked in kerosene, was set alight. An image of the Muslim prophet Muhammad was also burned.
The Pentagon had earlier implored Jones to reconsider burning the holy book arguing that the lives of American soldiers fighting abroad could be put at risk.
Recently there was uproar over Pope BenedictXVI’s speech, an inflammatory remark about Islam. The problem began when the pope travelled to Bavaria for six days of speeches and celebrations in and around his hometown, he wasn’t expecting controversy.
His statement hurt the sentiments of Muslims. Muslims demanded the Pope retract his remarks in the interest of harmony among different religions of the world. The leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Mahdi Akef called for an apology.
A statement on the organization’s web site said the pope’s remarks “threaten world peace” and expressed surprise “that such remarks come from someone who sits on top of the Catholic Church which has its influence on the public opinion in the West.”
Leaders from Turkey to Indonesia made similar criticisms, and the Vatican was forced to try and explain the comments. A statement from the pope’s chief spokesman, the Reverend Federico Lombardi, said the pope wanted to “cultivate an attitude of respect and dialogue” toward other religions “and obviously also toward Islam.” Lombardi added, “What is important to the pope is a clear and radical rejection of the religious motivation of violence.”
“It was certainly not the intention of the Holy Father to do an in-depth study of jihad and Muslim thinking in this field and still less so to hurt the feelings of Muslim believers,” Lombardi said in a statement.
The protests are taking place when the question of whether Jesus got married is emerging. According to new papyrus fragment Jesus got married to Mary Magdalene. The fragment contradicts the theory of the theologian known as Clement of Alexandria around 200 A.D. that Jesus did not marry.
Resources about the fourth-century papyrus fragment available here are images of the fragment and a translation of the text; information (in question-and-answer format) about the fragment; and a draft of Karen L. King’s article about the gospel papyrus.
[imgag]Papyrus fragment: front. Karen L. King 2012
[imgag] ancient doc. & translation
What Karen King revealed on Tuesday was a tiny papyrus fragment with Coptic script on both sides. On one side the fragment includes about 30 words on eight fragmentary lines of script. The New York Times described the fragment as “smaller than a business card, with eight lines on one side, in black ink legible under a magnifying glass.” The lines are all fragmentary, with the third line reading “deny. Mary is worthy of it,” and the next reading “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife.'” The fifth states, “she will be able to be my disciple.”
The papyrus fragment, believed to be from the fourth century, was delivered to Professor King by an anonymous source who secured the artifact from a German-American dealer, who had bought it years ago from a source in East Germany.
As news reports made clear, the fragment is believed by many to be an authentic text from the fourth century, though two of three authorities originally consulted by the editors of the Harvard Theological Review expressed doubts. Such a find would be interesting, to be sure, but hardly worthy of the international headlines.
The little piece of ancient papyrus with its fragmentary lines of text is now, in the hands of the media, transformed into proof that Jesus had a wife, and that she was most likely Mary Magdalene.
The thread that ties all these texts and arguments together is the 1945 discovery of some 52 ancient texts near the town of Nag Hammadi in Egypt. These texts are known to scholars as Gnostic literature. The texts present heretical narratives and claims about Jesus and his message, and they have been a treasure trove for those seeking to replace orthodox Christianity with something different.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
People for Peace in Africa
Tel +254-7350-14559/+254-722-623-578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
Peaceful world is the greatest heritage
That this generation can give to the generations
To come- All of us have a role.