This is going to be quite the short demonstration. It will answer a grievance that I often encountered when talking to Muslim friends and accointances to the effect that, since World leaders are regularly outraged by the loss of less than 20 Westerners’ lives as the 50 that gathered in Paris on January 10th after the Charlie-Hebdo attacks but no one shows up to weep for 200 Pakistani students or 2 000 Nigerians and various wars thrown at them, they should conclude that Muslim lives are worth less, the basis of their grievance. Their reasoning is valid overall.
Specifics however run contrary to their assumptions. The three main ones are first, that in war and anti-terrorism, the targets are not Muslims but either nations or organizations, second that the attacks on Muslims are so numerous as to be common place and last that the attackers in most incidents are Muslims themselves. These conditions pre-existed before this Post and remain.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/02/egypt-jazeera-idUSL4N0VC18G20150202
Today however, as I had guessed yesterday but wanted official word of, we have judicial confirmation from a “perfect” source of the fact that Muslim lives are indeed worth less! Peter Greste an Australian reporter working for Al-Jazeera was released after 400 days in an Egyptian jail. He and his two colleagues of the same information channel were accused of having supported the Muslim Brotherhood of President Morsi which became a crime after the July 3 2013 military coup that deposed his elected government. Then today, another member of the trio, Mohamed Fahmy is on the verge of release because … he has dual citizenship with Canada and Egypt. The Canadian government would pressure all it can for its citizen making the trial a bad publicity stunt for the regime. Having Fahmy renounce his Egyptian nationality was the solution they found. Once solely Canadian, the problem can be sent back out and forgotten.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mohamed-fahmy-journalist-detained-in-egypt-could-be-released-within-hours-1.2942756
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/03/while-western-journalists-finally-walk-free-egyptians-are-left-to-rot.html
Talking of which there is the sad case of Baher Mohamed, the third wheel of the team. Baher is Egyptian. Not westerners either in part or in toto but simply Egyptian. No one will come to his defense and if Al-Jazeera insists which you know they will, the Egyptian government of al-Sisi will ask them not to meddle in their national business, politely or by ban. Considering that prison is temporary privation of the use of life and that over a long or life sentence, Baher is on track to one of the hundreds of death sentences handed out yearly by the regime, we can say that yes, the life of a Muslim is worth less than that of a westerner, poor Fahmy saving as demonstration. I don’t suppose he wanted to abandon his citizenship .
That has to be checked by our prior assumptions to be validated for good. The threat did come from a Muslim. The reporters’ case is quite common place *, thousands of other Muslims are jailed too. Officially, the fight is that of a State ( type of organization ) against terrorists as in the local Muslim Brothers, also a type of organization. And as governments are first and foremost concerned with holding on to power, they will keep doing so to Muslims in their own land because in the West, a whole set of laws and liberties would protect those Muslims much better including saving their lives ( no death penalty in most western civ lands, remember? ) and specifically protecting them because their right to practice their faith is attacked or worst, motive! It all relates to the particulars of Islam that I mentioned a long time ago and how Fiqh, from Iran to Saudi Arabia, has been instrumentalized by rulers not so concerned with the people’s well-being.
http://definitivelapseofreason.com/2012/09/15/islam-vs-the-united-states-or-simply-islam-vs-the-state/
Striking isn’t it? Because Islam has no clear directorate, the modern leaders have broken the link to the believers now seen as “simple citizens” but not provided with the resulting advantages you get in non-Confessional Western nations. Because these States have insufficient military power, they will keep being run over by either West ( Iraq ) or Islam ( Mali and Iraq too ). Because they want to retain power and forgot old ways that did not adapt to new rules, they attack those they can, you their people, mostly Muslims.
Apart from embracing the republican model, the best solution for Muslims wanting protection for fear of their lives might simply be to move to the West, as it was with East block folks in the last century. And in the West, there is another nifty tool of living together picked up from ecology : diversity ( as in bio-diversity ). I for one am glad some Muslims live with me under decent protection. I would find it sad to live in a world were they had gone extinct as the dodo or soon the tiger and rhinoceros. A feeling apparently not shared by the Muslims that govern!
Peace out, Tay.
P.S. It is also very much a case of freedom of expression as it was in Paris with Charlie!
* Cynicism would have one believe the Egyptian government to hand out death sentences so liberally mostly to free space in prison for those they want to prosecute next.
Definitive Lapse of Reason 