Kuwait Times

Published Date: December 03, 2007
By Fouad Al-Obaid, Staff Columnist

One is genuinely intrigued by the recent demands of some Sudanese people to execute a teacher who was convicted of blasphemy for calling a teddy bear Mohammed. This must either be a joke or it actually is a joke!

Is Sudan trying to affirm its sovereignty by flexing its arm on a teacher that left her country? Is it even plausible to consider that a British teacher that went all the way to Sudan to try to teach Sudanese students a thing or two would want to be in such a compromising position willingly? Yet, she ends up being the victim of a rather twisted conspiracy plot fantasy by preying lashing mobs!
If it's not magic, it certainly seems like it. One is left to wonder whether Khartoum is trying to play hocus pocus with its Darfur situation. Are they trying to divert the world's attention from the atrocities that are committed in Darfur, all the long channeling the world's attention to the fate of a poor old aged British teacher? It's seriously hard not to laugh at how retarded some people might be. They perhaps think over there that they are advancing the Islamic cause by prosecuting an old women, yet
they may even be encouraging the ethnic cleansing that is deemed to be ongoing in Darfur.

It's funny how at the end of the day many of my fellow Muslim peers, claim that the West is out to get them (to an extent that can hardly be refuted!) Yet with the state of the current Muslim World, its rather hard not to be taken as a joke when one is to judge the actions and the rationale used to justify such actions!
A major claim that most Islamist have is their inherent desire to create a new Islamic empire that would stretch from Andalusia to Jakarta, from Bosnia down to the Indian Sub-continent. They once again have a hard time differentiating between history and religion. Islam is a noble religion and I think that no one can deny that. However history on the other hand, or better yet meta-history in which an epic-like story is created to justify defeat, is irrational.

The Islamic nation no longer exists for a couple of reasons, although you can ascribe a "lack of faith" to it. I would argue that the reasons as to why it crumbled are multiple; corruption, a lack of formal education, personal interests, lack of planning, and indeed a lack of leadership. The good news though is that there are remedies to such a problem. It's actually a rather simple idea, INVEST IN PROPER EDUCATION! With education, and I mean formal education, a country could funnel their money into school
s, universities, and institutes of higher technology rather than waste billions on armament and fight pointless wars.

With the development of education, a new generation is created: one armed for the modern day job market struggle, not the military one. It is no longer logical to fight pointless wars with thousands of battle deaths. There is no real compelling reason to engage in open warfare lest of course such an option is the absolute last measure in where a real threat of annihilation for a country exists, then perhaps we can discuss that. For even today's invaders are no longer interested in destruction as much as t
hey are interested in natural resources and new markets for their products, all of which require peace, stability, and cash none of the latter are off course to be found in refugee camps!

At this point, I call on my fellow Muslims, starting with those in Sudan, to please start thinking about the positive aspects that are present in the Quran. I call them to remember the reasons why we are here on earth, to build and improve this earth, to do well and prevent evil, and to be model citizens and not model international fanatics. May God lead us all to a straight path...
For thoughts and comments fouad@kuwaittimes.net