Good and Evil do not come with labels

Good and Evil do not come with labels

I started to write this at the weekend when the ban came in. It's now the first of February and thankfully the things that I wanted to be said have already been said by the likes of Amber Judd etc. I'll add my voice anyway.

I don't speak for any other Muslim than myself. I converted in 2005, I was completely indifferent to religion prior to that point and I'm still pretty chilled out about it, but after 12 years I identify with and understand Islam pretty well I think. I feel I am a Muslim, let's put it that way.

Us Muslims you know, vary from country to country. Moderate Muslims (like me) from countries such as Indonesia differ from Muslims in Saudi Arabia about the same as a Catholic differs from a Mormon. You can't lump us all into one group. Got that?
You get good and bad Muslims of course, but you get good and bad Christians. The Muslims I know, they want the same thing Christians want, the same thing everyone wants, to life a good happy life.
They chat to people on facebook.
They meet their friends and hang out.
They have all the same hopes and dreams as everyone else.
They know the difference between right and wrong.
They have modern, progressive ways of thinking.
They are not defined by their religion any more than your standard man off the Western street may or may not define himself as a Christian.

I would also like to point out what a red herring Sharia Law is. The far right like to point at it and say that all Muslims want to push Sharia Law onto the world. That's bollocks. I don't for sure. The majority of Muslims don't care, they follow local national laws like everyone else. And where Sharia Law is used, as often as not is does good, helping women divorce abusive husbands for instance.

Another red herring is headscarves. Now, I don't know about all Muslim nations and all Muslim women, so I can only base this observation on the Muslim women that I know. They do not choose to wear a head scarf because they care what men think. Like most women of any religion they choose how they dress based on what other women might think! The head scarf is a choice taken by the women by themselves. Trends in headscarf use come and go. Also, I know women that are so used to wearing headscarves they feel uncomfortable going outside without one on. Rather like going out without trousers on I imagine, and no one wants that.

Forget the extremists, I don't know any, but from your average sampling of Muslims you may find the occasional  one that will argue for a certain way of behaving or a certain way of doing things, but is that any different from a Christian expressing the opinion that people should live life by the Bible?

So, moving on, I like America, I like it's history, I like how it mostly tries to be a good moral nation. I like your literature and your culture. You are honestly a good bunch.

This Muslim Ban though, it doesn't make you look good. People are now aware, as it has been said  already by politicans and pundits, that by putting into place this hasty and ill-conceived ban you have  played straight into the hands of ISIS and other extremists. They must be delighted!

Are you bunch of fannies in the White House right now really that dumb? Or are you trying to spark off a religious war? In a situation like that even moderate peaceful Muslims would become your enemy. What then? Round them up into camps like the Japanese Americans in World War II? Think it through. Unless you already have and this is what you want of course in which case these words are obviously wasted.

To end then, if you really wanted to make America safe, you would not marginalise the 3.3 million Muslims in your country. Whether you like it or not, Islam is a world religion and is here to stay.
We are not your enemy.

In case you are not aware of this fact, 15,000 Americans were killed in shootings last year. Don't you think that's rather a large number? Wouldn't that make any rational person think that something should be done? I'm sure the 2nd Amendment is important to Americans, but maybe some sort of check on people just to be sure they are not mentally ill? What's the measure here? Americans are ok about being killed by other Americans but not by foreigners?

Well, we know there is no political currency in that direction eh? There are no votes in tackling gun control. There are lots of votes in victimising the strange and the foreign though. Truth and logic are just not a factor.

This is the politics of anger, fear and ingorance. At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law here, who else do we know that rose to power on the back of that?

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Uhh one last thing...

Some Fox News chap (Hannity was it?) said something along the lines of home owners have a right to have a lock on their front door, it is a crime to fit a burglar alarm etc etc. OK, then, to follow that analogy through; what if the person at your front door is a cold and hungry child? You leave them outside to die on your doorstep? Think about it, honestly, imagine going on national TV and saying something like that.