Friday, May 31, 2013

Love Our Land or Leave

"Government Angreizi aur Jihad is an Urdu booklet written in 1900 by Hadrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmadas, the Promised Messiah and the Founder of the Ahmadiyyah Muslim Jama‘at. In this booklet, he refers to the Holy Qur’an and the ahadith (sayings) of the Holy Prophet Muhammadsa in order to explain the true nature of the Islamic concept of jihad.

The author points to the peaceful nature of the Islamic faith and explains that Muslims resorted to defensive war early in their faith’s history only after suffering thirteen years of brutal oppression. Divine permission to retaliate was granted for the specific purpose of self-defense, to punish aggressors, and to uphold freedom of conscience."

Munir-ud-Din Shams
Additional Vakil-ut-Tasnif
London, March, 2006

This seems to be the justification all three Abrahamic religions have for continuing to kill our brothers, sisters, and babies, "They did/do it to us." Is this not the time to finally put an end to retaliation by one generation for the persecution of a previous generation?

My grandmother used to have a saying when we children were fighting, "I don't care who started it; I'm finishing it." Who among us has the authority and willingness to stand on the battlefield and say, "I'm finishing it," even at the threat of his/her own death. I thought that Jesus had done this, but Christians continue to kill in the name of "Christ." This says to me that they don't actually follow Jesus as their "Christ."

It is so much easier to hate those who are different than we are than it is to learn about them and decide how we can live, in peace, as neighbors. It takes great respect to do this. I can't imagine that a Muslim woman would be happy to visit a nudist colony, nor have one next door to where she was bringing up her children.

This does not necessarily mean that there is anything intrinsically wrong with nudism, but it does create stress for imparting her values in rearing her young. For this reason, in multi-cultural society, parenting takes great commitment to one's own beliefs and very close bonding and monitoring of one's children. In the United States of America, we have been working this out for a couple of centuries.

We have a saying by Robert Frost, "Good fences make good neighbors." The same could be said for solid walls. We live in nuclear families, that presumably, share a set of values. We have the right to offer hospitality only to those who will adhere to our values on our property. We do not have the right to dictate what our neighbors do in their own homes, unless it is infringing on our own property or rights.

The United States of America, long ago, adopted a language as our common language. We have a set of rules prohibiting any one religion from setting the rules for our nation, even though there are many who have attempted to apply their own religion to the law of the land. It is time that all in the United States of America insist that we focus our energies on living our values in our own homes and minding our own business when other "children" want to fight.

The United States is our home with our set of values, which includes multi-culturalism and freedom from religious oppression. Those who break our laws should not be welcome in our home, as guests or otherwise. This is our home where we live by the laws of the land. Love our land by obeying our laws or leave.