Homo Sapiens: Searching for Rationality and Moral Consistency  

R.Y. Alam
2006/03/30

Part One: Boycotting the Fruit of the Infidel Mind 

Just as the right to free speech in Europe was the fruit of fierce political struggles during the 18th Century, so the liberation of human reason from superstitious thinking, arose from challenges to the power of the Church. These challenges which questioned dogma central to Catholicism such as the virgin birth, the concept of transubstantiation, and the existence of free-floating angels, demons and the devil, culminated in a plethora of books and pamphlets, published by brave, freethinking individuals, throughout Europe during the 17th Century.

Thus, in the West, human reason, freed from the shackles of blind superstition and autocratic authority, was at last able to begin the adventure of exploring the social, moral and material Universe and its laws: the Dark Age of Medieval Europe was brought to an end. It was out of the vortex of social, political and philosophical challenge and protest, that both free speech and science emerged for both, are the fruit of the same basic impulse: to inquire into the nature of reality, without fear or favour.

To the Muslims of the world, who have participated in, or endorse by their silence, the protests concerning the cartoons depicting Muhammed bin Abdullah, and who are engaging in the boycott of Danish goods, this is an appeal from the heart: please, please demonstrate your rationality and capacity for logical consistency. After all, it is this capacity for rationality, together with the refusal to fall into the inconsistency of a double standard of morality, which separates us humans both from animals, and your average bully, despot, tyrant and psychopath.

For those Muslims outraged about the cartoons of Mohammed bin Abdullah, who are engaging in violent protest, calling for the murder of the Danish artists, and the boycotting Danish goods, we wish to suggest - your boycott is incomplete! Rejection of western secular and aesthetic sensibilities is not enough. For moral and intellectual consistency, secular scientific achievements must also be avoided if not completely rejected.

So Muslims of the world, unite. After all, it does seem that what you venerate and pay homage to, is not the beauty of human reason discovering its reflection and its resonance in the vast multiplicity of forms and forces interplaying in our Universe, but an individual! Mohammed bin Abdullah you say, as the founder of Islam, who you Muslims wish to venerate as the perfect role model for all human beings, for all time. Instead of each human soul, wrestling with the moral and practical issues of the day, you Muslims believe your path to the good life can be achieved by merely emulating Muhammad’s example in all matters. So please, boycott the cartoons, sick product of the infidel mind, but don’t forget to also, boycott western goods invented and developed by the same, irreverent, freely speculating, infidel mind.

So, for example, no more flying in airplanes - try instead to locate that horse with the face of a woman, which you believe, Muhammad bin Abdullah used to visit his 7th layer of heaven. No more microwaves and gas cookers and air conditioners - use the heat of firewood, and hand held fans - they were good enough for your Prophet, and his Allah in His infinite Wisdom, did not think otherwise. You don’t like images of the human form? No more TV, DVD’s and whatnots. No more phones and cameras too. Cars, motorbikes, bicycles - why do you use them when your Allah’s Prophet got by on camels? Even in emergency situations, when he was raiding the caravans of the infidels of that time, he did not call for a Ferrari car to get him out of trouble, or machine guns to see to the Kaffirs. Newspapers and the internet for the dissemination of facts, ideas, and information and opinion? Well, your Prophet and his God found writing on dried bones, leaves and bits of parchment good enough. To the rich Muslim intellectuals and other such elites, don’t come to the West for medical treatments using the latest infra scan and pharmaceutical developments - instead, stick to black mustard seeds 9and prayer) as recommended for all maladies by your esteemed Prophet.

But perhaps the most significant sacrifice that moral and intellectual consistency demands from Islam and Muslims is that they stop taking the benefits of Western secular education. If the Muslim viewpoint is that the entire God-less /Allah-less West is a heaving mass of vile kaffir corruption, why, then do Muslim elites send their offspring to Western universities? Universities comprise the cornerstone of secular learning and freedom of expression; to accept their benefits is to accept these core values. As the protests about the Danish cartoons have culminated in calls by Muslims that free speech is something to be ring-fenced or derided in its totality well then, the entire edifice of Western education must also be rejected.

So dear Muslims, in the name not of beneficence or mercy but in the name of the defining characteristic of Homo sapiens, demonstrate your rationality and capacity for logical consistency.

If the complete boycott of the fruits of the infidel mind proves impossible, then Muslims must cease their pious, self-righteous protests and threats directed at the rest of the world’s moral, spiritual and aesthetic sensibilities. The energy thus wasted should be used more wisely to thoroughly untangle how we have come to arrive at the present lamentable lack of moral and intellectual consistency in the Muslim nations and cultures. In this exploration, the West’s crucial role in forging the present-day reality - the growing popularity of suicidal bombing, along with the impending spectre of civil war in countries with large Muslim minorities, must also be acknowledged.

Yaz103 at hotmail dot com