Letter from America: My Response to Geert Wilders

In his website, Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician, posted an article – My message to Muslims, which deserve some response. Here below is my response to him.

Mr. Wilders,

In your message to Muslims you mentioned about your unpleasant experience visiting Egypt in 1982 as an 18-year old almost penniless student. Any wise person would have advised you not to undertake such a journey into a foreign land when you can’t speak the language of the people you visited and don’t have any local guide or acquaintance to help you, let alone being penniless. It was a stupid decision. And yet, as your first impression you were ‘overwhelmed by the kindness, friendliness and helpfulness of its people.’ Doesn’t it say a lot about the defining character of these warm-hearted people who in spite of their dire poverty and living under one of the worst despots of our time made you feel so welcome?

You were surprised to see how frightened people had felt when it was announced that the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was coming to visit Sharm el-Sheikh. Is it difficult to understand how this western puppet was perceived in his country?

You wrote, “It was a weird experience; Mubarak is not considered the worst of the Islamic tyrants…” Mubarak was a tyrant who did not follow the dictates of the Qur’an. If he had, he should have known that tyranny is one of the worst sins in Islam. [See my books - Islamic Wisdom, and Wisdom of Mankind - for many citations on this subject.] And yet, like a brain-dead moron who has learning disabilities, you equated the attitude of the Egyptian people towards Mubarak with those of “the 7th century Arabs … in the presence of Muhammad, who, as several verses describe, “cast terror into their hearts’ (suras 8:12, 8:60, 33:26, 59:12).” Bravo! What a discovery!

You may like to read my book – Muhammad: the Messenger of Allah – An Exposition of His Life for Curious Western Readers – (available in the Amazon.com) to judge how Muhammad’s (S) contemporary Arabs felt about him.

The poem below from poet Hassan ibn Thabit (R), an erstwhile ardent enemy of Islam, is sufficient to belie your allegations.

By God, no woman has conceived and given birth
To one like the Apostle, the Prophet and guide of his people;
Nor has God created among his creatures
One more faithful to his sojourner or his promise
Than he who was the source of light,
Blessed in his deeds, just and upright. (Sirat Rasulallah by Muhammad Ibn Ishaq)

As a diehard friend of Israel, you should know that one of the great Rabbis once advised a charlatan: “Don’t get too excited about the Talmud unless you are a believing Jew who leads a kosher life.” Any student of the tafsir and tawil (interpretation) of the Qur’an would likewise tell you that the Qur’anic verses are not to be cherry picked to suit one’s whims. They have a Speaker, an audience, time, place and context.

The verse 8:12 was revealed in the context of the Battle of Badr when the pagan (Mushriq) Arabs from Makkah came to attack the nascent community of believers in the outskirts of Madinah. In the said verse, Allah inspires the Angels saying: “When thy Lord inspired the angels, (saying): I am with you. So make those who believe stand firm. I will throw fear into the hearts of those who disbelieve.”

The verse 8:60, cited by you, likewise is all about making necessary preparations to defend against the attack of enemies. If it had not been for the defense of the faith put up by those early Muslims, there would not have been any Muslim today. The verse 33:26 and the preceding ones are about the Battle of Khunduq when a section of Jews living in Madinah violated their treaty of peaceful coexistence with Muslims and committed treason by aiding the Arab Mushriqs. It reads: “And those of the People of the Book who aided them - Allah did take them down from their strongholds and cast terror into their hearts.” They were punished for their treason.

Your reference to verse 59:12 again shows your dismal ignorance. It says, “If they are expelled, never will they go out with them; and if they are attacked (in fight), they will never help them; and if they do help them, they will turn their backs; so they will receive no help.” Here Allah is talking about the hypocrites amongst the Muslims who aligned themselves with the enemies of Islam. If a fight broke out, these hypocrites true to their innate nature would even abandon their clients.

So, I fail to see the connection of those verses in relation to how Egyptian Muslims felt about their tyrant ruler – Mubarak, who behaved like the Pharaoh.

They were terrorized by Mubarak, much like how the German Jews must have felt about the visit of Hitler and his Nazi henchmen to their cities.

During your visit to Cairo, you found the city dirty and its inhabitants poor compared to Israel. Your instincts told you that ‘it had something to do with the different cultures of Israel and Egypt.’ Comparing any Israeli city with a mega city like Cairo that is inhabited by more than ten million people is pure stupidity. In spite of all the wealth that America possess, a visit to any major city, including my own one in Philadelphia, would show gaping holes of poverty, crime and filth. There are places you won’t want or like to walk into and then there are places you won’t dare to drive through even during the daytime. There are many homeless people here in the USA who eat out of trash cans near restaurants and grocery stores. Never mind the high unemployment situation these days, even in the early 1980s while living in California I noticed such sad incidents first hand. If these be the reality inside the most powerful nation on earth, do these failings speak about American culture or some other more obvious indicators? I am sure Holland is not immune from such problems either.

If you are thinking about the economic aid that Egypt receives from the USA, you ought to know that the annual aid is equivalent to a per capita share of a meager $2.60 (2009) in a country with a Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) of $5,400 (in 2008). That is less than 0.05 percent. In contrast, the per capita share that Israel received from the USA – governmental and non-governmental - is more than a hundred times. While ordinary Egyptians remained jobless and hungry, the puppet regime of Mubarak was selling natural gas to Israel at less than a fair market value, let alone charging too little for use of the Suez Canal. It was simply too convenient to have this brutal and anti-people dictatorship stay in power, a process that was to continue for nearly three decades, thanks to the material support provided by Israel and other western governments. It does not take a genius to understand why ordinary Egyptians felt betrayed by the so-called bastions of democracy. Yes, there was that ‘conspiracy’ to keep Mubarak in power.

You mentioned that as a dirt poor traveler, you drank untreated water which caused diarrhea. You went to a hostel and rented a spot on the floor for two dollars a day. You complain about the miserable state of the hostel, but forget that at that paltry sum, you should have considered yourself lucky to have found a roof over your head. I doubt if you could rent anything for that cheap price in Holland. You audaciously complain: “Once Egypt had been the most advanced civilization on earth. Why had it not progressed along with the rest of the world?”

One can only pity a foolish penniless traveler like you who goes to visit a foreign country and then complains about his miserable condition! Granted that Egypt has not ‘progressed’ much, but can you honestly say that under similar conditions a visitor to your native Holland would have received better service? Whom are you kidding?
===-===

Mr. Wilders, for Egypt’s lack of ‘progress’, whatever that means, you lashed out at Muslims by quoting Winston Churchill, a British soldier and war correspondent for the British Raj who later became Great Britain’s Prime Minister. You quote Churchill as saying, “Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities – but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it… No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.”

Haiti is one of the poorest countries in our planet, and this in spite of her unmistakable Christian culture. Is Christianity to be blamed for her lack of progress? How about Ethiopia, Central African Republic, the Solomon Islands, Zimbabwe, Liberia and Congo – six of the ten poorest countries in the world - all with Christian majority population?

Well, such bigotry ridden words from the mouth of the foremost colonist of his time should not surprise anyone. Lest we forget, it was Churchill who as the Prime Minister starved millions of Indians to death in the Bengal famine of 1943. He brought this holocaust – arguably the first and the worst of the 20th century - upon these people and yet had a selective amnesia not to mention anything about this monumental crime in his self-serving six-volume memoir “The Second World War” for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. (According to Dr. Gideon Polya some 6 to 7 million people died in the province of Bengal and her contiguous provinces as a result of the famine that lasted from 1942 to 1945.)

The ‘man-made’ famine has long been one of the darkest chapters of the British Raj. In her book “Churchill's Secret War”, Madhusree Mukerjee, like a good problem-solving engineer, uncovered evidence that Churchill was directly responsible for the appalling suffering. Analysis of World War II cabinet meetings, forgotten ministry records and personal archives show that some of India's grain was also exported to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to meet needs there, even though the island wasn't experiencing the same hardship; Australian wheat sailed past Indian cities (where the bodies of those who had died of starvation littered the streets) to depots in the Mediterranean and the Balkans; and offers of American and Canadian food aid were turned down. India was not permitted to use its own sterling reserves, or indeed its own ships, to import food. And because the British government paid inflated prices in the open market to ensure supplies, grain became unaffordable for ordinary Indians. Lord Wavell, appointed Viceroy of India that fateful year, considered the Churchill government's attitude to India ‘negligent, hostile and contemptuous.’ “It wasn't a question of Churchill being inept: sending relief to Bengal was raised repeatedly and he and his close associates thwarted every effort,” Mukerjee wrote. “The United States and Australia offered to send help but couldn't because the war cabinet was not willing to release ships. And when the US offered to send grain on its own ships, that offer was not followed up by the British,” she added.

Churchill was a racist and a bigot. He derided Gandhi as a ‘half-naked holy man’ and once told the Secretary of State for India, Leopold Amery: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion (Hinduism).” The famine was their (Indians) own fault, he declared at a war-cabinet meeting, for ‘breeding like rabbits.’

In spite of his hostile remarks against Muslims, as quoted by Wilders, it is well known amongst researchers that he favored Islam over Hinduism. "Winston's racist hatred was due to his loving the empire in the way a jealous husband loves his trophy wife: he would rather destroy it than let it go," wrote Mukerjee.

As I have stated elsewhere these European colonizers – Dutch, British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Belgian, Russian and Italians – were inherently racists and bigots, as are today’s Zionists in Israel. The life of colonized people did not matter to them. By the way, in India, that famine of 1943 was not the only one that was man-made to punish her people. Mention must also be made of the Bengal Famine of 1769-1779 in which 10 million people were starved to death in a very systematic way, which was nothing short of genocide, by the English colonial administration. That was 1 in 3 amongst the population of 30 million dead, done with the intent of containing any future rebellion from able-bodied Bengalis. As noted by Amaresh Misra in his book “War of Civilizations: India AD 1857” an estimated 10 million people died in British reprisals for the 1857 Indian rebellion. Another 700,000 people of Orissa died in the famine of 1866.

So the hostile and unkind statement of a racist and bigot colonist against the colonized people should not be the litmus test by which the latter should be evaluated.
====-===

Mr. Wilders, you say that you do not hate Muslims, but feel saddened by ‘how Islam has robbed them of their dignity.’ What a discovery! To support this thesis, you mention the 2002 fire accident in Saudi Arabia where some 15 school children died. Obviously the action of the Saudi guard who refused to let these girls leave the school campus because they had not worn the headscarves is inexcusable and simply stupid. However, when you take this worst example to denigrate the faith of 1.6 billion human beings, it is not analysis, but shows paralysis of your intelligence.

You say that “girls are not valued highly in Islam; the Koran says that the birth of a daughter makes a father’s “face darken and he is filled with gloom” (sura 43:17).” There you go again. You cherry-pick a verse from the Qur’an to suit your evil thesis that ‘Islam is inhumane’. If you had studied the verse well, you would have known that this verse has everything to do with the Mushriqs of Arabia who not only didn’t like female children but would even bury them alive. In contrast, Muhammad (S), the father of 4 daughters himself, elevated the status of women giving them property rights. There are numerous Prophetic Traditions on this subject which you can read from my books. I shall quote below just three to prove you wrong.

Muhammad (S) said, “O Allah, I declare sinful any failure to safeguard the rights of two weak ones, namely, orphans and women.” [Nasa'i: Abu Shuraih Khuwalid ibn 'Amr al-Khuza'i (RA)]

A man came to the Prophet (S) and asked: 'O Rasulullah, which person of all people is best entitled to kind treatment and the good companionship from me?' He (S) answered: 'Your mother.' The man asked: 'And then?' He said: 'Your mother.' (The man asked:) 'And after her?' He said: 'Your mother.' (The man asked:) 'And after that?' He said: 'Your father.' [Bukhari and Muslim: Abu Hurayrah (RA)]

Muhammad (S) said, “One who brings up two girls right from their childhood till their maturity will appear on the Day of Judgment attached to me like two fingers of hand.” [Muslim: Anas (RA)]

As to your other comments about your personal beliefs or unbelief, I won’t waste my time trying to dissuade you. As far as Islam is concerned, suffice it to say that you have an abysmal ignorance and unfathomable hostility, and need to educate yourself and grow up, without which you will only ruin yourself. That is not a healthy attitude for a politician. Your comments about extremists also show your lack of knowledge of the Muslim world.

As a pin-headed racist and a bigot, you can claim whatever you like, but surely you are no lover of freedom and liberty. Your obscene xenophobia has shown that you are a curse to humanity, even to your own people. People with wisdom already discovered in you a Dutch reincarnation of Hitler against its Muslim inhabitants. You suffer from dementia, paranoia and hallucination and need a check with a good psychiatrist to treat your mental health. The sooner the better for all of us, including your evil self.

By the way, I don’t hate you, but hate your evil activities that divide our world into hateful camps. That is not the future that is desirable to any sane human being.

Foot Notes:

1. http://www.geertwilders.nl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1702
See this author’s article on the subject of tafsir of the Qur’an:

2. http://africa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/10658. For a very detailed analysis of the verses of the Qur’an, see Professor Mahmoud Ayoub’s masterpiece – the Qur’an and its interpreters.

3. See: http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-ten-poorest-countries... http://www.hottnez.com/the-10-poorest-countries-of-the-world/

4. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2031992,00.html

5. http://www.countercurrents.org/polya130611.htm

6.http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2031992,00.html#ixzz1QXSd k9 For an interesting reading on the 1770 famine in Bengal, from the vintage point of a colonizing administrator, see W.W. Hunter’s The Annals of Rural Bengal:

7.http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/f/fiske/john/f54u/chapter9.html

8. Ibid.

9. http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/3120

- Asian Tribune -