Boreal

REMEMBERING UZZA

If Islam Was Explained to Me in a Pub 

A Bad Case of Dogmatic Distress

Johnny MacDonald, host of the popular public affairs television show One-on-One with Johnny MacDonald, walks into his favourite pub. It’s a slow night. At one end of the bar Gerry and Bob are listening to Archie, the bartender, tell a joke. Just above, and to the side of where they are sitting, is a large television screen, the sound is off.

It’s Johnny’s first visit to Maxies since he was shot outside the television station where he works. Cane in hand, he limps up to the bar. Archie interrupts his joke to greet him and shake hands.

Archie: Johnny, how are you? How have you been? It’s been a while. Sit down. I’ll get you a beer. Coors Light, right?

Johnny: Not tonight. Make it a scotch; no ice, no water. Dalwhinnie if you've got it. And, if you don’t mind, I’ll just stand.

Archie: Does it still hurt?

Johnny: What do you think!

[Just then, the news comes on and there is Johnny walking out of the hospital.]

Archie: Hey Google, sound on!

Niqab-Wearing Newsreader: Johnny MacDonald, the well-known host of One-on-One with Johnny MacDonald, was released from hospital this morning. As we reported last week, it was while walking home, after hosting a series of controversial interviews about the breakup of Canada, when he was shot by a distraught viewer who, the police say, was suffering from a severe case of Dogmatic Distress Syndrome or DDS. The immediately identifiable cause of his distress was a discussion of a religion’s impact on the breakup. The exact cause of the distress we cannot disclose as it would violate the shooter's privacy rights.

The producers of One-on-One with Johnny MacDonald have already profusely apologized to MacDonald's assailant for any suffering the opinions expressed by the unusually thoughtless host of One-on-One may have caused.

The police, while praising Johnny MacDonald's aggressor for relieving his distress without actually killing Mr. MacDonald, would like to remind viewers that the law now provides harsh penalties for those who would deliberately or even inadvertently cause a believer to experience a traumatic religious episode.

If it’s not too much trouble, if you are experiencing dogmatic distress because of something said or written about your religion, please call the police and let the law deal with the cause of so much pain and discomfort.

Archie: Hey Google, sound off. I will never get used to someone reading the news with their face covered.

Johnny: The trailblazer who ushered in the era of in-your-face marketing of your extremist point of view, as an anchor of a mainstream media newscast in North America, was a Canadian woman. In an interview following her performance on Toronto CityNews in 2016, she gushed: “It feels really amazing to be the first hijabi (sic) reporter in Canada, but I certainly hope I’m not the last." And she wasn't, and the hijab gave way to the niqab, the face-covering veil, and so it goes.

Archie: What do people who have to read lips do? I know they have captioning on most stations but what if you meet one on the street and you want to ask for directions or something?

Johnny: You can usually gauge the depth of a believing woman's faith by how much of her neck, face and hair she leaves uncovered. A woman who covers it all, except for her eyes, is an extremist in every sense of the word; a religious extremist, but an extremist nonetheless. Such women will normally be accompanied by a male guardian in public who will tell you where to go. Better to trust your GPS.

Archie: How did we go from fighting extremists to giving them the keys to the place?

Johnny: We basically surrendered to the extremists when we allowed them to dictate the terms under which they would take the oath of citizenship, such as taking the Oath incognito^[1]. Where do you draw the line after that?

Archie: I get it, and one thing led to another as it always does. What about you? Will you be going to prison?

Johnny: No, not this time. As a first offender I will only have to pay a large fine and make another public apology expressing regret for any dogmatic distress that anything I said during The Interviews may have caused.

Archie: Exactly what was it that pissed off the guy who shot you? We thought it might be because you called the Holy Alliance of Muslim Municipalities the “HAM Alliance.”

Johnny: I should not have referred to the Holy Alliance of Muslim Municipalities by its acronym H. A. M. M., but that is not why I was shot.

Archie: So what was it?

Johnny: At one point during my talk with the Ayatollah I said that my first impression of Islam was that it was the creation of a child-like mind. That Islam had a child-like quality about it; a child’s certainty in having absolute knowledge of the world around him; a child’s intolerance of others who won’t play the game by his rules^[2].

Archie: And the Ayatollah agreed with that?

Johnny: Yes. He said Allah values children, their innocence, their uncorrupted, simple, unsophisticated view of the world.

Archie: So, what was this guy’s problem?

Johnny: He felt that I insulted the Prophet Muhammad with my reference to a child-like mind.

Archie: That’s it? And he almost killed you for that! You were not making fun of his beliefs; you were not insulting his invisible friend!

Johnny: No, I wasn't, but he thought I was making fun of God's acclaimed last and greatest spokesperson, and that is just as bad, if not worse. Remember the Cartoon Protests?

Archie: Who doesn’t! I remember seeing really angry people marching in the streets of London, of all places, carrying signs demanding that anyone who mocked or insulted Islam be butchered on the spot^[3].

Johnny: And no one intervened...

Archie: Are you saying that is how we went from prosecuting people who threatened other people, who tried to murder them, to praising them?

Johnny: Not long before the cartoons were published, the London subway and a bus were bombed, killing 52 people and injuring more than 700.

Archie: Are you saying the two are related?

Johnny: In the minds of British legislators at the time, they had to be. Following these deplorable events, the British Parliament, despite a plea by an alliance of Muslims, Christians and others^[4], saw to it that criticism of the Book which inspired the slaughter, or the man who claimed to have been charged with making its content known to mankind, was at your peril. It could not of course, at the time, butcher Islam's detractors as the protestors demanded, but it could silence most of them with threats of fines and imprisonment by making any criticism of Islamic scriptures  ̶  the Koran and what the Prophet said and did  ̶  the equivalent of hate speech.

Archie: But this so-called hate legislation did not stop the most dangerous hatred of all, did it?

Johnny: Hate legislation, where a religion like Islam is concerned, is a Faustian bargain at best. It is a bargain that the State makes with those who see criticisms of their Faith as justification for murder. The State will silence the critics with fines and threats of imprisonment if the believers will put away their guns, knives and bombs. These laws have nothing to do with stopping the spread of hatred and everything to do with the appeasement of the enemies of freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

Archie: So they made a deal with the devil. What else is new?

Johnny: As human beings we have a right, and as citizens of a democracy, an obligation, to express an opinion on issues affecting our lives and the lives of our countrymen and women. That right, that obligation includes, must include questioning religious dogma.

Archie: You got that right! You know what I mean.

Johnny: Of all human endeavors, religion has the greatest potential to change our lives for better or for worse. By giving all citizens the freedom to question the authenticity, the relevancy, the meaning and application of religious dogma, we guard against the worst.

Archie: And our idiot politicians did the exact opposite!

Johnny: Rather than tackling the worst head-on, the politicians in Britain, and other countries which followed suit, accepted the fundamentalists’ argument that a lack of respect for Islam was at the root of the indiscriminate slaughter of men, women and children.

Archie: Criticism of the Prophet and his damn book was the excuse, not the cause, everyone knows that.

Johnny: Then, except for the believers, not many people read the Koran and almost none the many equally incendiary sayings and example of the Prophet. Definitely not the politicians who voted crippling legislation into law, which allowed Islam to spread its message almost unopposed.

Archie: Like I said: bloody idiots!

Johnny: This Munich-like surrender to religious intolerance also proved that terrorism works, and that rewarding aggression, like at Munich, only encourages more of the same, as other Western countries who adopted the British approach to combatting Islamic extremism soon discovered.

Archie: But we overcame Munich.

Johnny: We will not overcome our surrender to a new generation of fanatics, a capitulation which effectively neutered the most effective weapons against the spread of religious tyranny: freedom of expression and freedom of speech. This surrender is what has brought us to this point where we have religious vigilantes enforcing compliance with the new limits on freedom of speech and the craziness that is DDS.

Archie: But this guy who shot you was not a vigilante, was he?

Johnny: I don't know, but the police can't take the chance that Islamists who would like nothing better than to be martyred by cops will not seek revenge if they don't treat a co-extremist right. And, they know he has the DDS defense to fall back on if they arrest him, so why risk your life for nothing?

Archie: No wonder the cops fell over themselves to praise the guy who shot you.

Johnny: Just like the rest of us, they are afraid. Just like the media which masks its fear of offending the followers of the Religion of Truth by having hijab- and niqab-wearing women, of the now ubiquitous faith-in-your-face newscast, deliver the news if Islam is even remotely part of the story.

Archie: Religion of Truth! Who says?

Johnny: Allah, that’s who^[5]!

Archie: Who am I to argue with that guy? So, what's left to talk about now that words have joined sticks and stones as stuff that will physically harm you, that won't get you in trouble with the law or the faith full?

Johnny: Weather, sports maybe...

Archie: So, Johnny, nice weather we're having. Did you catch the game last night?

Footnotes

[1]

The governing Liberals have withdrawn a legal effort by the previous Conservative government to persuade Canada’s top court to strike down lower judicial rulings that allowed women to wear the niqab at citizenship ceremonies… The case centred on a lawsuit by Zunera Ishaq, a devout Muslim woman who moved from Pakistan to Ontario in 2008.

Ottawa Citizen, November 16, 2015

[2] Where the adolescent, the child in Allah is most evident is in the Marcel Marceau-like charades He demands from people to whom He has granted a favour; for example, Zachariah to whom He has granted a son..

3:38 Thereupon, Zachariah prayed to his Lord saying: “Lord grant me from Your Bounty fine descendants. Indeed You hear every prayer!”

3:39 Then the angels called him while he was at prayer in the sanctuary, saying: “Allah bids you rejoice in John, confirming a word (Jesus) from Allah, a master, chaste and a Prophet and one of the righteous.”

3:40 He said: “Lord, how will I have a son, seeing I have been overtaken by old age and my wife is barren?” “This is how Allah does whatever He pleases,“ He replied.

3:41 He said; “Lord give me a sign.” Allah said: “Your sign is that you will not speak to anybody for three days, except by signs; and remember your Lord often and give praise evening and morning.”

***

In the Koran, a child's unthinking cruelty becomes a deliberate act of destruction which seems to give the perpetrator a great deal of satisfaction. Even in revelations about the cities He has destroyed, you can hear the boy in Allah talking and exulting in His annihilation of the men, women and children they sheltered.

During a normal day, i.e., morning or afternoon, even in the Prophet’s time, children played, and adults worked, or were busy with more important things, from making love to making war. Yet, it is people at play, children, whom Allah brags about killing in revelation 7:98; and like children might say or do, He schemed to make their obliteration come about.

7:97 Did the people of the cities feel assured that Our punishment would not come upon them at night while they were sleeping?

7:98 Or did the people of the cities feel assured that Our punishment would not come upon them during the day while they were playing?

7:99 Or did they feel secure against Allah’s Scheming?

For none feels secure from Allah’s Scheming save the losing people. An omnipotent, omnipresent god does not need to scheme to get His way, but a child, an adolescent often does.

***

Older men's preference for whom they choose to be intimate with and why can be a sign of their emotional growth. A discussion between Muhammad and a travelling companion may be an indication that his behaviour, even when it came to sexual relationships, was that of an adolescent. Remember, as you read the following, that Muhammad was in his fifties.

Narrated Jabir bin Abdullah:

I was with the Prophet in a Ghazwa (Military Expedition) and my camel was slow and exhausted. The Prophet came up to me and said, "O Jabir."

I replied, "Yes?"

He said, "What is the matter with you?"

I replied, "My camel is slow and tired, so I am left behind."

So, he got down and poked the camel with his stick and then ordered me to ride. I rode the camel and it became so fast that I had to hold it from going ahead of Allah's Apostle.

He then asked me, “Have you got married?"

I replied in the affirmative.

He asked, "A virgin or a matron?"

I replied, "I married a matron."

The Prophet said, "Why have you not married a virgin, so that you may play with her and she may play with you?"

Jabir replied, "I have sisters (young in age) so I liked to marry a matron who could collect them all and comb their hair and look after them."

Bukhari 34.310

[3]]

Muslim protesters march towards the Danish embassy in LondonMuslim protesters march towards the Danish embassy in London Ottawa Citizen, Saturday February 6, 2006.

[4]]

We recognize that a free society must have the scope to debate, to criticize, proselytize, insult and even ridicule belief and religious practices in order to ensure that there is full scope – short of violence or inciting violence or other criminal offences - to tackle these issues.

From a plea by an alliance of Muslims, Christians, humanists and secularists urging the British Parliament to reject legislation limiting the rights to criticize religious beliefs and traditions.

[5]]48:28 It is He Who sent forth His Messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, that He may exalt it above every other religion. Allah suffices as Witness..