Posted by Fazhil:

In my view, from the past, fast into the future, Islam and the west have exhibited a disturbing incompatibility. The west looks at itself as 'the world', 'as civilisation' and looks down on Islam and all that is associated with it like backwardness. For instance, western cultures and values which preach freedom above all else (one can walk on the street half naked, its their right and all that kind of thing) has come to be accepted as appropriate for world order and Islam with its strong moral values and censorship of personal freedoms in favor of moral uprightness has been rubished as all backward.

I once read an article published in the Muslim World League Journal, October-November 1996 edition. In the article, titled 'Special edition: Islam and the west', former German diplomat Murad Hofmann was quoted saying; '…try to build a Mosque in France or Germany. Unless you are unusually lucky, after eight or ten years and having seized courts of justice for every step along the administrative process, you will probably win the permission to build your mosque - somewhere behind the rail road tracks or near the slaughtering house'. Whereas these remarks seemed extreme and far fetched in 1996, 14 years later in 2010, building of mosques is officially banned in Switzerland. Of course, only construction of minarets were banned, but what does it mean to ban smoke and allow fire.

The empty talk of multi-culturalism, coexistence, etc all suddenly disappears when it comes to letting Muslims freely practice their faith in 'the world', ie, Europe and America.

Today in Europe and America, you can be a neo-marxist, a non denominational mystic, believing astrologue, agnostic, or atheist and nobody will care. The old continent, formally nothing but catholic or protestant (either Lutheran or Calvinist) nowadays offers something for everyone, from Anthroposophy with its popular belief in reincarnation, to rather carnal satanic cults and to sects which try to enhance their religious awareness through drugs.

There is only one thing you should better not be - a Muslim. Modern pluralism and its seemingly limitless tolerance disappear abruptly in the face of Islam. Habits and practices which are easily and readily accepted from others suddenly become condemned as fanatic, primitive, unconstitutional and backward when coming from a Muslim. In the case of a Che Guevara, a beard is progressive but in the case of a Muslim, the same beard is reactionary. Mary (mother of Jesus) is never depicted without her hair covered but if a Muslim woman wears a scarf, she is evicted from school in France. It is ok for catholic nuns to cover their heads but when Muslim women wear their head scarves, the poor things are oppressed.

It is amazing how a new brand of abusive terms have been introduced into the English language to demonize Islam and Muslims and to portray terror and Islam as one and synonymous. It is some sort of new language in which journalists the world over have gained remarkable fluency.

Observing how western media report on terrorism and belligerence, it strikes you just how severe this disquieting phenomenon has become. Nobody ever thinks it appropriate to qualify Adolf Hitler as a 'Catholic dictator' or Stalin as an Orthodox Christian, nor was Franco ever described as a Catholic fascist or Dr. Karadjic as 'an orthodox Christian war monger'. If however anybody from the Muslim world, whoever, uses a weapon, even in legitimate self defence they instantly earn a new name of 'fanatic Muslim' even if they are an atheistic, communist, Baathist Arab or Christian Palestinian.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were never destroyed by a 'Christian bomb' but the devices being developed in Iran and Pakistan are definitely 'Islamic bombs'. Actually, certain derogatory adjectives like 'fanatic' and 'obscurantist' have been exclusively reserved to describe acts by Muslims and not the terrorist attacks by Christians in northern Ireland and Spain.

Such is my assessment of how the 'world' views Islam.

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