Another pointless benighted god-soaked horror out of Pakistan. Dawn reports:
An enraged mob beat a Christian couple to death and burnt their bodies in the brick kiln where they worked on Tuesday for allegedly desecrating a copy of the Holy Quran, police said.
It’s a book. A book. Allah didn’t touch it, Mohammed didn’t touch it. It’s just a book, made in a factory. It’s not a reason to kill people. It’s not a reason to beat people to death.
“A mob attacked a Christian couple after accusing them of desecration of the Holy Quran and later burnt their bodies at a brick kiln where they worked,” local police station official Bin-Yameen told AFP.
“Yesterday an incident of desecration of the Holy Quran took place in the area and today the mob first beat the couple and later set their bodies on fire at a brick kiln,” he added.
Note that the cop starts with the bogus “crime” and says it actually happened – which I don’t believe – and refers to it as “desecration” of the “Holy Quran” – which is magical bullshit. It’s an insensate manufactured object. Only after urinating in the well does the cop say the mob murdered the two people.
The victims were only identified by their first names, Shama and Shehzad, and were a married couple.
Pakistan’s brick kiln workers are often subject to harsh practices, with a study by the Bonded Labour Liberation Front Pakistan estimating that 4.5 million are indentured labourers.
Maybe Pakistan should turn its attention to the exploitation of laborers instead of religion.
Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive issue in the country, with even unproven allegations often prompting mob violence. Anyone convicted, or even just accused, of insulting Islam, risks a violent and bloody death at the hands of vigilantes.
So, what do we learn from that? Don’t ever go anywhere near Pakistan. It’s not safe.
And yet, people act shocked and offended if you suggest that religious belief can be dangerous. The idea that the mere suggestion that the ‘desecration’ of a mass produced and not particularly inspiring book is more offensive that the murder of unique and irreplaceable human beings with thoughts, feelings, loves, hopes and dreams is just staggering. It’s not even as if we can lay this kind of horror solely at the feet of Islam, even if it is the more common religion in the present; we don’t even have to look back a century to see the same behaviour from most of the world’s other religions, nor even a decade in some cases.
I don’t care what other people believe, but if you’re committing murder over your beliefs, you’re going horribly wrong. This is not remotely acceptable behaviour from a mature, intelligent species.
People have been saying that for decades. And there’s a word used to describe those people: racists.
“Mass produced”? “In a factory”? Blasphemy!!! /snark
Trouble is, in a situation like this, the mere suggestion or allegation that ‘blasphemy’ has been committed is enough to drive the seriously faithful wild.
No wonder Pakistan is such a basket case economically and politically.
Yes, the desire to not be brutalized for your religious beliefs (or lack thereof) is a desire best described as racism.
In fact, racism is the reason I avoid the many fundamentalist churches and businesses in my area, many of which openly broadcast their hatred of various groups, several of which I belong to. Never mind that it’s not their (white, in this case) skin color I fear; it’s their fanaticism, which has been known to turn violent. Actually, one of these churches is my community’s voting site (yay, North Carolina!), and I’m so afraid of going there, even if just to act out a civic duty, that I’ve been forced to absentee vote.
@carbonfox:
No, no, you’re not allowed to explain your prejudice. You’re not allowed to justify with reference to, y’know, facts.
But in any case, it’s not racism if the targets of your prejudice are white, because no matter how poor, uneducated, unhealthy or otherwise socially disadvantaged they are compared to you, they have structural privilege.
Look, if you don’t understand a concept like privilege, it’s not a shame to ask someone to explain it to you. However, making fun of it just makes you look stupid and puerile.
Anyway, my sixty-something former director works in Pakistan (and Tajikistan, Kurdistan, etc.) on women’s health projects quite often. Sometimes her husband even joins her, though not always. But of course, it is terrifying not safe, and she dies every time. White people who don’t know anything, feel free to freak the fuck out.
Doubting Thomas (#3) –
You’ve just hit on the perfect solution. Convince muslims that mass producing korans on printing presses is blasphemy. Convince them that they should only be reproduced by hand.
That should slow of production by about 99%, even with madrasas working night and day in sweatshop conditions. And remember, they discourage the education of women, so the number of people available to work will be low. They’d probably have to start educating women to read and write to keep up production, and then things would get really interesting….
“Wait, that’s what it REALLY says, not what the imam claimed…?”
I’ll bite. Explain to me how racism against white people is exactly as bad as all other racism.
(Because elsewhere on FTB I’ve had it explained to me, in great detail, why getting confused between Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg is NOT racist, but getting confused between Samuel L. Jackson and Lawrence Fishburn IS racist. And why getting confused between Jeff Daniels and Jeff Bridges is NOT racist, but getting confused between Chris Rock and Chris Tucker IS racist).
Look, fuckhead, if you don’t fucking understand something, that pretty much means you don’t get to dictate the terms of what you don’t fucking know.
I’m certainly not claiming racism against whites is as bad as racism against everyone else. But I can see your confusion since,
…you obviously have chosen to remain ignorant in the face of patient explanation.
Even here the ‘privilege’ police manage to shoe-horn their way into the mix. Pakistan is a corrupt, gangster-run, theocratic hell hole. Any pretense of ‘alliance against terror’ or whatever is hideously mistaken. Yes, Hitler was a very bad dude, but Stalin was never really an ally against him.
Trying to derail the issue of Pakistan’s moral and political corruption by ‘brown-washing,’ turning thugs and killers into ‘poor little dears’ oppressed by colonialism, usually followed up with some anit-Israeli horseshit to whip up the righteous fervor. This is why the West is seen as weak and corrupt.
Because we are.
And here comes sonofrojblake’s dumber cousin. I brought up privilege because that’s the concept fuckhead above was talking about. If you don’t like it, well, let me serve you up a hearty helping of ‘fuck yourself dumbshit.’
‘Privilege police’. Christ, you can call me the police when I’m beating you to death with a fucking truncheon, you pathetic, whiny shithole.
Hey, I’m perfectly happy to solve the problem by fitting all of Israel in your house. The only reason Israel is where it is is because of religious mythology, but you won’t touch that with a ten-foot pole will you, you authoritarian taint-licker.
Yeah, and that’s the fault of the left, is it? How did those American elections turn out, by the way? Did the US get the pro-science, pro-realism Senate it’s been begging for all this time?
Exactly. Soft racism to the rescue!
Hey, I’m perfectly happy to solve the problem by fitting all of Israel in your house. The only reason Israel is where it is is because of religious mythology, but you won’t touch that with a ten-foot pole will you, you authoritarian taint-licker.
Israel is the best thing to happen to the entire MENA region since its conquest by Rome. Judea was a Roman province and Jews have lived there for at least three millennia.
Arabs and indeed many Muslims absolutely hate Israel because its very existence puts the lie to everything they believe in. They also hate Israel because every time they look at the place, they are reminded of just how backward and idiotic their culture/religion is.
This latest atrocity from Pakistan, and there are many, just reinforces the image of the entire Islamic world as a study in utter human stupidity.
I’m not even sure what claim you’re trying to make, though I hope if you’re an American who’s not full-blooded First Nations, you’ll fuck right back to wherever your ancestors came from.
Finally we move on to human stupidity, a topic you’re personally acquainted with. I was wondering if there were a single subject you actually knew something about.
I understand that’s why homosexuals hate Christianity, too. We’re going to the same mind-reader, I think.
Madame Lecroix, on Canal Street, right? She’s divine.
Arabs and indeed many Muslims absolutely hate Israel because its very existence puts the lie to everything they believe in.
Surely you don’t really believe that? Because you’d have to be made of solid collapsed stupidium to believe that, and I don’t see how a signal would be able to get out of your computer and onto the internets, because of the gravity-warp sucking effect of all that stupid in one place.
Um… no. The opposite of that in fact. I *get* why the one thing (confusing two physically similar black actors of a similar age who play similar roles in similar films) is racist, but the other (confusing two physically similar white actors of a similar age who play similar roles in similar films) isn’t. I didn’t at first, it was explained to me, and I understand. (Incidental to the understanding of that explanation was the additional understanding of the critical difference between (a) being racist and (b) being a racist. I am sincerely grateful for both of these lessons.)
You (apparently disingenuously) implicitly offered to explain it again, or possibly to explain something else, but when asked, instead you fucking fucking something fucking fucking something else with . So apparently it IS a shame to ask. /shrug/.
Well, then, that’s good. So, did I misunderstand the paragraph of yours I quoted in my comment 7? The one that starts with “But in any case, it’s not racism if…” Because I read that as sarcastic. If you weren’t being sarcastic, then I’m a huge asshole (that’s generally the case regardless) and I owe you a apology.
In short, yes, if you’re white, you enjoy some structural benefits, all other things being equal, that non-whites do not. Are we in agreement on that point? If so, I’m really sorry for jumping all over you and I’ll shut up now.
While I’m not sonofrojblake, I for one read that quoted comment as ‘not sarcasm’, and was immediately confused as to why you got angry.
I had specifically mentioned their white skin color to point out that racism cannot be the reason that I am afraid of the fundamentalists in my community (who have uttered threats). Of course, with people not shielded by pale skin color, matters get complicated since so many fools use the religion as shorthand for and as a thin veil to justify racism. I’m sure it’s in theory possible to fear the actions of a minority of certain minority religions only for that, but in practice racism is inevitably mixed in. Looking back, my comment was hasty and off-the-mark, so I apologize for being uninformed and reactive.
I understand that’s why homosexuals hate Christianity, too. We’re going to the same mind-reader,
You’re not up to speed…you live in the past.
http://opechatesgays.com/