How to improve your society: The Taliban top ten.
How it could be done. | The Taliban way. |
1. Make friends with 14 year old boys. | Blow up 14 year old boys. |
2. Get an education. | Kill girls who try to get an education. |
3. Help eradicate polio. | Kill foreign aid workers who come to help eradicate polio. |
4. Increase understanding by talking to those who practise other views of Islam. | Kill those who practise other views of Islam. |
5. Be tolerant of minorities and other religions as Mohamed was. | Murder followers of other religions. |
6. Help people with mental illness. | Get mentally ill people to blow themselves up, and others. |
7. Prosecute the American state for killing civilians through drone strikes. | Kill far more civilians yourselves than your enemies do. |
8. Eat great Lebanese food. | Murder a great popular Lebanese chef and his customers. |
9. Cure cancer. | Make better bombs. |
10. Redevelop your country. | Murder anyone helping to redevelop your country. |
And the Al Qaeda way: get all your followers except your leaders to blow themselves up and ensure the hate carries on generation after generation. Don't talk, kill anyone who disagrees with you. Show your God is great by killing rather than show your God is great by great peaceful achievements.
A hero 14 year old boy Aitaz Hassan died in Pakistan in January 2014 stopping a suicide bomber attacking his school, saving hundreds of the lives. (Some reports say Aitaz was 15 or 17). According to Al Jazeera a 'Sunni Muslim' group claimed responsibility.
Malala Yousafzai, a 15 year old Pakistani school girl, became a hero around the world for standing up to the Taliban for the right for girls to be educated. They tried to murder her on 9 October 2012 because she defied their backward anti-education tyranny.
Taliban terrorists killed Lebanese chef and restaurant owner Kamal Hamade in an attack on his tavern in Kabul, 17 January 2014.
The Taliban are also intent on killing those who come in peace to help babies in Afghanistan and Pakistan. thehindu.com has reported that 33 health workers and their security have been killed in Pakistan since 2012 for trying to eradicate polio. (21 January 2014). The gunmen think nothing of murdering women. The actions of backward 'religious' bigots in Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan condemns children and their families to misery. The brave health workers who try to help are heroes.
I was very critical of Benazir Bhutto because of the widespread corruption under her Government, with credible reports of nepotism by other family members. This was after of course being optimistic with great promise at her first victory. The nepotism continued after her death. Her final book Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West appears to be a genuine and heartfelt attempt to promote a better way. It was published posthumously after her murder in December 2007. It shows a way forward for Pakistan to lead the Islamic world – to emerge into a modern tolerant and progressive state that values diversity. As visionaries have always wanted. Bhutto rejects the view of "the world as one in which a clash of civilizations is necessary or inevitable" (Zakira) and states wise words for all of us "It is so much easier to blame others than to accept responsibility ourselves."
The review by Fareed Zakaria in the New York Times (6 April 2008) is an excellent analysis.
An 8 year old boy got the message right. Eight year old Martin Richard was killed in the Boston Marathon bombing in April 2013. A year before in primary school he had made a sign: 'No More Hurting People, Peace'.
Addition 21 August 2014. I should have added Boko Haram to this list. Boko Haram means "Western education is forbidden" (BBC news website). Much Western learning is based on learning from the Islamic world. Therefore much Western education is based on learning from the Islamic world. Much learning from the Islamic world was based on learning taken from the Classical world, the Greeks and Ancient Rome. Perhaps via Byzantium. So much learning in the Islamic world was based on learning from the Western world. Therefore "Western education is forbidden" means much education is forbidden, which means ignorance is feted. Boko Haram means "what complete idiots".
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