Sarab,
    I have been reading V.S. Naipal's  "Beyond Belief" and I must say that
whatever Islam may have been in the past and whatever we as Americans and
others want to believe it is at the present I do not think there is much
reason to trust it as tolerant of other beliefs or especially non beliefs
despite the media's continual attempt to portray it otherwise. Furthermore
the same danger lurks beneath the surface of all those monotheistic
religions Gore Vidal calls the "sky-god religions", and I agree with
Taslima Nasrim that fundamentalism in all of them grow from the same root.
It is not pleasant to recount their history of cruelty which they
rationalized as the mandate from their God, but it is dangerously foolish
to deny it.
    "Cave ab homine unius libri" and where is this danger today? Carlo has
just presented us with a fine study to show that those who said Pound's
Cantos were a guidebook to present day fascists were evidently wrong, but
that does not answer why Pound was and still is considered a dangerous
individual. Perhaps it is because he opposed the comfortable complaisance
of his age and caused and encouraged people to think and think differently
about the institutions and policies that enmeshed their lives as some  yet
do to this day. Someone once called him a sadist because he made men think.
He spoke out against war and the military-industrial complex and the
financial institutions which supported it. Bravo Ezra.

Charles


----------
>From: Sarab Nihal Singh <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: internet petition
>Date: Wed, Mar 20, 2002, 7:55 AM
>

> CAROL WROTE:
>
> First of all, one might say that Islam was virtually the inventor of
> religious tolerance, and for a thousand years while Jews were being
> persecuted in Europe the Islamic countries provided a place of refuge
> not only for Jews but for "hetetical" Christians. Most of whatever
> culture medieval Europe possessed they owed to the Arabs and Islamic
> culture. (Arabic numbers came from India, but it was the Arabs who
> introduced them to europe.)
>
>
> THE ABOVE IS THE MOST RIDICULOUS STATEMENT. ISLAM IS NOT AND NEVER WAS A
> RELIGION OF TOLERANCE. ASK THE 100,000 HINDUS WHO WERE KILLED EVERY DAY IN
> THE 14TH CENTURY AND BEYOND...
>
> CAROL YOU FORGET - THAT MR. MACHO MOHUMMED SENT A LETTER TO KING OF PERSIA
> SAYING : CONVERT OR DIE. IS THAT TOLERANT.
>
>
>
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