28 January 2017

A lone protest

Last week 7,000 people "inaugurated resistance" to the Trump administration in Albany NY. The President's new policy on refugees would seem to be just the thing those people meant to resist, but spontaneity may be in short supply among them. The one sign of protest I saw in an admittedly limited survey of Albany on an admittedly colder day was this man standing at a corner of Lark Street and Madison Avenue. Perhaps others gathered elsewhere, but I'll have to watch the local news to find out. This fellow told me he'd been standing there for about an hour when I asked to take his picture. Because it's a busy intersection, people occasionally bring signs there. On Election Day, an older gentleman was on the opposite corner holding a "Fight Racism" sign. Such gestures seem futile, but there's an indisputable courage in those who stand alone at such times, when protest isn't a carnival but a lonely vigil, when it's the thing to do not because publicity says so, but because your own conscience does.
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would say this is a text-book case of idiocy. Apparently this person does not realize that the founder of islam was extremely anti-semitic. The koran, in sections, rails against the "evil" jews. If he were placed in a muslim country, they would not extend him the same courtesy.

January 31, 2017 at 6:56 AM
Anonymous said...

Quran (5:51) "O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people."

Any muslim who befriends a non-muslim is acting against the instructions of allah, as written in the koran. So if a muslim calls you friend, either he is not a faithful muslim, (so why bother pretending)or he is practicing taqiyya. Or, possibly, he has simply never bothered reading the holy scripture of the religion he is an adherent of.

February 1, 2017 at 12:18 PM
Samuel Wilson said...

Another possibility is that, like many Christians and Jews, this theoretical person has read the scripture but has decided for himself which parts to take seriously. That does make him a bad Muslim in the eyes of fundamentalists, but fundamentalists in any of these faiths have no exclusive right to say who the good or bad believers are.

February 1, 2017 at 2:57 PM
Anonymous said...

It isn't a matter of an individual's "interpretation". It is a matter that such things are in the holy scripture, period. Which means there will ALWAYS be those who choose such interpretations and a nation has a sovereign right to decide whether it should allow such ideas to flourish, or if such ideas should be, as far as possible, banned.

I would also add that, whenever there is a question of interpretation of scripture, the major deciding factor should simply be: what did the religion's founder do on such an occasion. And we already know what mohammed did in most such occasions. He murdered. He raped. He forced conversions. He robbed, plundered and looted. He raped a 9 year old child and muslims are PROUD of this fact. He had absolutely no problem with breaking treaties and oaths he had made. He was a liar, a charlatan, a thief. I will not argue that christians and jews have done the same things muslims have done, one can not claim, with any honesty, that jesus endorsed lying, stealing, murder or rape. Although he did preach that slaves should know their place and treat their master with respect, he never condoned his followers taking or owning slaves. And he certainly never raped a 9 year old child, nor would he have condoned such actions among his followers.

As far as I am concerned, non-muslims should have every right to do to muslims what their koran commands they do to non-muslims.

February 2, 2017 at 12:14 PM

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