My Future and Islam - (An opinion that is drawing fire)

My Future and Islam (An Opinion)

 

The future belongs to those who take it and make the most of what it offers. Mahatma Gandhi said that “the future depends on what you do today” or in other words, how you create it in your world. This is a vague but important statement with all that is going around us today. Putting such quotes into content and context without sounding full of fear, it is difficult to predict what our future really is or will become.

Our president so eloquently stated something during his speech at the United Nations something I fear to be a calling of the wrong sorts. It is what I believe a strong message to so many who do not live here….yet and how they can change the future of our world. Our freely elected president said, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. Yet to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see when the image of Jesus Christ is desecrated, churches are destroyed, or the Holocaust is denied.”

I don’t know what prompted President Obama to say this but I fear it might have been a subtle hint of things to come. He also said, “Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.” Together, we must work towards a world where we are strengthened by our differences, and not defined by them. That is what America embodies, and that is the vision we will support.”

Now, I am not a Muslim, a Jew or a re-born Christian. I am a simple man – a human being with a rational brain. In my time, I have seen racism come and go, extremism up and down and hate and anger sideways and vertical. I have always held on to the hope that I would never be biased or prejudiced in my heart or mind against anyone who I could call my friend or my fellow man.

I have fought a wrongful war and realize that between war and peace stands a thin line of justice and injustice, equality and inequality and good versus evil. I have witnessed apathy and radicalization. I have seen our nation’s leadership step up boldly to face the enemy or apologize to them for what we had done. In a sense, I have seen politics to be confusing and contradictory in nature and practice.

Although I am not here to preach or theorize to you the politics of our government, I am here to tell you I worry about our future. I am certain that I do not stand alone with this worry about our forthcoming fate as the world spirals downward towards hell in hurry and spinning out of control. I am certainly aware there are good and evil forces at work that either embrace or deny the religions around us with a special emphasis on those who are Muslim and practicing Islam for their beliefs.

I see no evidence they are not like us and should keep in mind where there are different cultures, there are different practices or customs to observe and to maintain.

But I cannot lie and see that part of me which has detected a large part of the Muslim populations that are not like the rest of us. Whatever I may express or show concern for is all moot if they agree that we can live in harmony and together face the daily strife with their synagogues, their mosques and their churches.

However, being in good mind and good spirit, I fear there will be more than plenty who will want to carve out their own domain, with the protection of our government and establish their own way of life that contradicts our values today. I can see we do not align with their values or their laws and am concerned that we submit our natural laws for Sharia Law that they prefer and preserve over any other law. I believe this will impact the average non-Muslim person in a bid to maintain their own personal values, their own personal beliefs and their own freedoms.

Specifically, I worry about losing our hard fought Bill of Rights as well as our Ten Commandments. I worry that the country will again be divided and become two separate entities like the North and the South did back in 1860’s. Most of all, I fear the “us versus them” ideology will create conflict and war amongst us and perish all of us forever.

When I think of Islam and their values, I can’t seem to engage in dialogue where we find common ground on such values other than the love for mankind and all men being created equal. Other than praying to a supreme god, we differ in many values and practices that divides us as a house would with family members at odds with each other. Even the word ‘equal’ distinguishes the rights between men and women and so often, the child.

How can we fix this paradigm this is soon upon us? How will the influx of 200,000 Syrian refugees [or more] impact our societal standards and statutory compliance as they clash with other regulations already written and followed by the newly welcomed refugees? It is with certainty they will all try to settle in a part of the lands where they be together – this is where they will carve out their will and create a third state of their own.

Using the very same constitutional rights to possess and be armed for self-defense or protection – they could establish their own regime, government or regulations to live there where the government has chosen them to live, just like they did when they re-located the Native Americans on their trail of tears but gave them empty and condemned waste land while I fear, these newcomers will acclaim lands fresh with green lush water-filled troughs and nothing like we gave our Native brothers and sisters.

Do we start by tagging them as liberal, moderate or progressive Muslims and what does that mean other than they are not extremists or radicalized? How does this impact on our society as it stands as the perception is our government’s efforts to accept them with open embraced arms and allow them to function spiritually and physically as if they were in their own land from where they fled from. I don’t expect them to apologize to us for our practices and I don’t expect to apologize to them for our beliefs or cultural upbringings.

Regardless, I see a potential clash and it will be our children who suffer the most as their sensitivities and vulnerabilities depends on the truth being spoken but the truth has been hidden so well for so long, it is now dangerously missing from our daily prayers and spiritual souls.

How will this impact our intellectual or individual capacities –as well as our economic and national security wellness or soundness? Although it sounds silly to say it out loud, it does play a part in our social lives how our technologies are fabricated and for what they are used for relies on the good versus the evil. This conflict in culture is anything but academic and much more complex than one can pretend it to be.

Today, we are dealing with conflict and extremism – something that won’t go away any time soon. We condemn those of 9 /11 and basically use terms like jihadist, an Islam fundamentalist or extremist etc. interchangeably and arguably those words can be wrong at any given time but the difficulties to identify those words with the past cannot be forgotten.

I know they do not mean the same thing but words can hurt when misspoken and the odds are you will offend someone or a group at that moment the tongue slips out the wrong words. Perhaps, we will start it off with a crawl before we can walk together. Perhaps we will end up with a brawl before we love each other.

Time will tell but for me to not worry is unreasonable and unacceptable. There are signs that our world wants to abandon the Constitutionality of our nation and conform to a new order or new world where the rules will change drastically and universally giving up all that we have today. I decline to participate in this new order – I decline to give away my rights for the birth of a new world that will never live in harmony, no matter how many dreams there are by our visionary leaders, there will always be conflict and war amongst us.

Even the crusades have taught us that lesson and we should avoid paying the price of freedom again for a cause that does not benefit our nation’s foundation and standards. According to the same Pew Hispanic Center study as of March 2005, the undocumented U.S. population had reached 11 million or more, including more than 6.5 million undocumented Mexicans, which is around 60% of all illegal or unauthorized immigrants. There are others but their numbers dwindle as they learn to blend in within society. I would prefer we settle their issues, concerns and residence before we take on more in our plans to shape the future.

One can argue that we are today a melting pot of more foreigners living within our borders and I say to you, these strangers and newcomers have adapted and obeyed to our laws, culture, practices and stand together on almost everything we value and choose to do so to escape oppression and condemnation because they wanted to be free like us and share what we can together.  If they [Muslim] come here, and they will, they should conform to our laws, our societal practices and our standards – they must pledge their allegiance to our nation and no other power that exists on this Earth.

Anything less is unacceptable and a refusal to conform any less than what is required by our laws is a potential conflict that will end up in annihilation of mankind and it begins with an offensive phrase of words before the swords are drawn and the bombs are released once again, only this time, it will be on our hallowed ground and not a foreign nation or soil like in the past – We are today standing on shifting sands of time and space and the survival of the human race.