NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/alt/atheism/24090

Text File | 1992-12-21 | 3.1 KB | 61 lines

Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Path: sparky!uunet!munnari.oz.au!bruce.cs.monash.edu.au!monu6!yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au!darice
From: [e-mail] (Fred Rice)
Subject: Re: Monitored by islam (repost)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (Usenet system)
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 04:09:04 GMT
Lines: 49

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Brian Cash) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]>,
>[e-mail] (Fred Rice) writes:
>|>
>|>2. The "monitoring" organized in soc.religion.islam is primarily for
>|>countering misinformation about Islam that floats about the net in
>|>various newsgroups (including this one).  Many non-Muslims are very
>|>poorly informed about Islam.  The shocking thing is, they *think* that
>|>they know a lot about Islam.  They don't even realize how misinformed
>|>they are.  This organized "monitoring" by Muslims is simply an attempt
>|>at improving this situation, i.e. so that if some incorrect or
>|>misleading "information" about Islam is posted by some person who knows
>|>no better, the correct information can be pointed out.  The facts are,
>|>in many western countries, Muslims suffer a lot of discrimination.  This
>|>is one attempt at reducing unjustified anti-Muslim prejudice in the
>|>community.  Some of this misinformation is spread by people who do so
>|>out of political motives, i.e. when it helps their political cause to
>|>have an unfavourable public view of Islam.  The Zionist movement is one
>|>movement that has used, and still uses, these tactics.  (The
>|>"scholarship" of Bernard Lewis is an example of this -- see, for
>|>example, Edward Said's book _Orientalism_.)
>|>
>|>Although I have no connection to this "monitoring" drive, I fully support
>|>it.  How could anyone who supports the spreading of the truth about a
>|>subject (in this case, about Islam) be against this?

>This message brought to you by the Ministry of Truth.
>Remember our motto, "it isn't True until we say so!"

No, it's because one would expect Muslims to know a lot more about Islam
than your average non-Muslim.  Also, since many Muslims suffer because
of anti-Muslim discrimination due largely, or at least in part, to
misunderstanding of Islam in the community, Muslims have an interest in
spreading knowledge of what Islam is *really* about.

Enough said.

 Fred Rice
 [e-mail]

==================================================================
=   A poor man said to a rich one:                 =
=     `All my money goes on food.'                 =
=     `Now that's your trouble,' said the rich man. `I only      =
=   spend five per cent of _my_ money on food.'             =
=                                                     =
=                -- Idries Shah, _The Magic Monastery_         =
==================================================================