Artikel berikut ini mengungkapkan suatu tren yang cukup mencemaskan yang akhir-akhir tampak muncul di Amerika Serikat. Kelompok-kelompok ekstrem kanan Kristen tertentu mulai mengumandangkan permusuhan radikal & pembasmian (bertobat atau dibunuh) terhadap kaum Muslim, termasuk 6 juta Muslim di A.S. sendiri. Berkat kebebasan berbicara yang tidak terkendali, suara-suara ini bermunculan di media elektronik seperti Fox News dll. Sebuah buku diterbitkan berjudul "Why We Want to Kill You!", di mana orang Muslim digambarkan seperti Nazi.
Yang lebih mencemaskan ialah landasan emosional dari sikap seperti ini--yang tidak lain adalah ketakutan--dengan mudah tertuju kepada bukan hanya kaum Muslim semata-mata, tetapi juga kepada setiap kelompok lain yang dianggap & dirasakan berbeda dengan kelompok sendiri. Pikiran seperti ini mulai mencuat ke permukaan setelah serangan WTC yang lalu. Pelecehan secara terbuka terhadap Islam--dan secara implisit juga terhadap semua kelompok non-Kristen lain--tidak memungkinkan dialog dengan semua budaya non-Kristen. Secara implisit, semua orang yang tidak berpikir & tidak beriman seperti mereka dianggap salah, dan secara moral lebih rendah. Kekurangan-kekurang
Yang juga mencemaskan, propaganda ekstrem kanan ini telah merambah ke mana-mana, ke lembaga pendidikan Angkatan Udara, merasuk ke Partai Republik, mengotori cara berpikir di media massa. Seperti ditulis oleh Chris Hedges, wartawan pemenang hadiah Pulitzer, yang menulis artikel ini:
"These three con artists [ketiga tokoh yang ditampilkan sebagai contoh dalam artikel ini] are not the problem. There is enough scum out there to take their place. Rather, they offer a window into a worldview that is destroying the United States. It has corrupted the Republican Party. It has colored the news media. It has entered into the everyday clichés we use to explain ourselves to ourselves. It is ignorant and racist, but it is also deadly. It grossly perverts the Christian religion. It asks us to kill to purify the Earth. It leaves us threatened not only by the terrorists who may come from abroad but the ones who are rising from within our midst."
Begitulah, agama--ya, agama apa saja--tidak pernah menciptakan perdamaian di muka bumi ini. Perdamaian hanya akan tercipta--di dalam batin sendiri--apabila manusia mulai menyadari keserakahan, kebencian dan kegelapan batinnya sendiri, apa pun agamanya atau ketidakberagamaanny
Salam,
Hudoyo
Christian Right's Emerging Deadly Worldview: Kill Muslims to Purify the Earth
By Chris Hedges, Truthdig
Posted on February 12, 2008, Printed on February 12, 2008
http://www.alternet
Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem and Zachariah Anani are the three stooges of the Christian right. These self-described former Muslim terrorists are regularly trotted out at Christian colleges -- a few days ago <http://www.nytimes.
These men are frauds, but this is not the point. They are part of a dark and frightening war by the Christian right against tolerance that, in the moment of another catastrophic terrorist attack on American soil, would make it acceptable to target and persecute all Muslims, including the some 6 million Muslims who live in the United States. These men stoke these irrational fears. They defend the perpetual war unleashed by the Bush administration and championed by Sen. John McCain. McCain frequently reminds listeners that "the greatest danger facing the world is Islamic terrorism," <http://www.jpost.
The three men tell lurid tales of being recruited as children into Palestinian terrorist organizations, murdering hundreds of civilians and blowing up a bank in Israel. Saleem says that as a child he infiltrated Israel to plant bombs via a network of tunnels underneath the Golan Heights, although no incident of this type was ever reported in Israel. He claims he is descended from the "grand wazir" of Islam, a title and a position that do not exist in the Arab world. They assure audiences that the Palestinians are interested not in a peaceful two-state solution but rather the destruction of Israel, the murder of all Jews and the death of America. Shoebat claims he first came to the United States as part of an extremist "sleeper cell."
"These three jokers are as much former Islamic terrorists as 'Star Trek's' Capt. James T. Kirk was a real Starship captain," said Mikey Weinstein, the head of the watchdog group <http://militaryreli
The speakers include in their talks the superior virtues of Christianity. Saleem, for example, says his world "turned upside down when he was seriously injured in an automobile accident."
"A Christian man tended to Kamal at the accident scene, making sure he got the medical treatment he needed," his Web site says. "Kamal's orthopedic surgeon and physical therapist were also Christian men whom over a period of several months ministered the unconditional love of Jesus Christ to him as he recovered. The love and sacrificial giving of these men caused Kamal to cry out to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob acknowledging his need for the Savior. Kamal has since become a man on a new mission, as an ambassador for the one true and living God, the great I Am, Jehovah God of the Bible."
This creeping Christian chauvinism has infected our political and social discourse. It was behind the rumor that Barack Obama was a Muslim. <http://www.thebosto
The public denigration of Islam, and by implication all religious belief systems outside Christianity, is part of the triumphalism that has distorted the country since the 9/11 attacks. It makes dialogue with those outside our "Christian" culture impossible. It implicitly condemns all who do not think as we think and believe as we believe as, at best, inferior and usually morally depraved. It blinds us to our own failings. It makes self-reflection and self-criticism a form of treason. It reduces the world to a cartoonish vision of us and them, good and evil. It turns us into children with bombs.
These three con artists are not the problem. There is enough scum out there to take their place. Rather, they offer a window into a worldview that is destroying the United States. It has corrupted the Republican Party. It has colored the news media. It has entered into the everyday clichés we use to explain ourselves to ourselves. It is ignorant and racist, but it is also deadly. It grossly perverts the Christian religion. It asks us to kill to purify the Earth. It leaves us threatened not only by the terrorists who may come from abroad but the ones who are rising from within our midst.
Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter, was the Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times. He spent seven years in the Middle East and reported frequently from Iran. His latest book is American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.
© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet
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