Please! Anti-War does not equal pro-Islam!

[Dianarama]

Hello everyone
Although I am strongly opposed to the war in Iraq and have been protesting it since the very beginning, I find that I don't want to attend some of the events because I feel they are confusing the issues, by lumping things together, so that you can sometimes find yourself marching out in support of an issue you were not even aware was under discussion, or that may seem entirely besides the point.
For example, a recent anti-war activist was handing out flyers that said "protest the war in Iraq - defend the Muslim community" in advertisement of the protest yesterday.
This does not reflect my motivations for opposing the war and so I didn't go. This kind of thing has been happening a lot recently. In fact, lately I have been noticing some very weird alliances between factions that should categorically have very little in common: although cross-coalition politics is a great improvement on party politics, I find it distasteful when people such as socialists who would never in a million years protect and defend say, the catholic church, are coming out in support of a faith that is just as oppressive an institution in the world, and has a great many more advocates of extreme violence amongst its devotees.

At least the bloomin' catholics have some kind of image of divine femininity (albeit one who never * but can still breed) but the muslim religion has nothing except rules for controlling women. I don't ultimately care what religion or none, anyone adopts, but I don't want ANY of them having political power and I don't want my opposition to the war in Iraq to get defined as an effort to "protect the muslim community". Of course hate crimes, racist attacks and counter-attacks are bad and I'm against those too. I am all for having a dedicated rally just to focus on this issue. But the community I am most interested in protecting is that one with no name, no central ideology, no religion and no political affiliation, that is, the unsuspecting citizen who is just trying to get on with their * life and doesn't want to get blown up on a bus on their way to work, or have their wedding bombed because it happens to be taking place in their homeland which happens to be Afghanistan, the little kid who gets orphaned by war, the dumb-ass patriots who give up their life for a bunch of nonsense and the public that sheepishly gives their support to all this nonsense because they've been frightened to death. I'm talking about the general human community. And there's also another community that never gets talked about: the animal, plant and marine life community that is getting poisoned, exploded, burned to death, destroyed etc. while all this * is happening. I am much more interested in protecting the wildlife community, if we're going to get specific, than the muslim community.

With all this politically correct haste to not get branded a racist or whatever, people with a much more politically sophisticated awareness are kowtowing in a really disgusting ass-licking kind of way to islam. I have studied comparative religion and am very interested in the religious impulse in humans and think that some of the finest and best expressions of humanity take root in this, but some of the most atrocious and worst actions also arise from, or at least are justified by, religious viewpoints. I honestly believe that islam is a mostly negative force in the world although there are obviously some in it that interpret it in the highest and most beautiful noble way - the exact same thing can be said about catholicism, hinduism, and judaism. I have read large portions of the koran and the thinking, and perhaps more importantly the life, of Mohammed and it is very clear to me that this man was a warrior, a general of armies, a political opportunist and a polygamist whose last wife was 9 years old when he married her (he was either in his 50s or 60s at the time). He advocated the killing of jews and made hundreds of contradictory statements so that even his followers cannot figure out if he was for or against war, loved or hated women, and so on.
I am disturbed every time I see a woman walking through the streets of London, the cultural capital of the Western world, wearing a * tent with an eye-slit. I do not want to defend this practice. In fact I don't want to see it in this or any other country! I am a woman and as such cannot see anything positive in the islamic view, treatment of and position of women. Some very brave ex-islamic feminists have been risking their lives to speak out about the essential rot at the core of islam. The new Iraqi constitution is a joke that only further consolidates these hideous tribal superstitions, and supports the murder of women who have broken the rules, or even just been accused of it ("honour killings" a disgusting euphemism) and does not address any of the fundamental human rights issues endemic to the muslim treatment of women.
It reminds me of when I was living in San Francisco and you couldn't go to any blasted' rally whatsoever without the "Free Mumia Abu Jamal" (an African American radio personality who shot and killed a policeman and has now got thousands of people believing he is a political martyr prophet messiah demigod etc.) contingent coming out wiith their frickin' banners
SO - can we please have some anti-war, pro-peace events that do not muddy and muddle the issues! I'm happy to march for Palestine, or not march for Mumia Abu Jamal some other day, but the reasons for opposing the war have to be made very clear and they have to relate to the events that set things in motion. Lying about WMDs and trying to link Saddam Hussein to 9/11 are the two main beefs, so let's stick to those folks!
Thanks
Diana "I want to know what I'm marching for" Trimble