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Subject: AANEWS for Friday, September 14, 2001
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 17:13:18 -0400
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A M E R I C A N   A T H E I S T S
#958 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 9/14/01
        http://www.atheists.org
  http://www.americanatheist.org
   http://www.atheistviewpoint.tv
    ftp.atheists.org/pub/atheists

----------------------------------------------------------
A Service of AMERICAN ATHEISTS
"Leading The Way For Atheist Civil Rights
And The Separation Of Church And State
-----------------------------------------------------------

In This Issue...
   * Evangelists blame Americans, demand prayer and revival
   * Stand fast with us!  Demand freedom for Dr. Shaikh, other
      victims of repressive Islamic blasphemy laws!
   * The Cowardice of the West -- a look back at the Salman
     Rushdie case, and a guide for the future
   * Link your group or home page to FLASHLINE
   * Resources
   * About this list...

   AS NATION GRIEVES, CLERICS BLAME, EXCORIATE AMERICANS
                          FOR BRINGING ABOUT BOMBINGS

               Prayer Bully Graham: "We Must Return To God"
                              Robertson: We Asked For It!

Sounding like cranky Muslim clerics, notable American Christian
preachers are excoriating Americans in the wake of Tuesday's terrorist
attacks for indulging in material pleasure and taking God out of the
classroom.

Televangelist Pat Robertson blamed women having abortions, along with
gays, lesbians and others for a national condition that somehow
precipitated the gruesome events that befell the country earlier this
week, as Islamic fanatics destroyed the World Trade Center in New
York, and part of the Pentagon in Washington, DC.

Others, such as Franklin Graham -- son of "America's preacher," Billy
Graham -- blustered that the attacks occurred because "we are a
Christian nation."  He commanded citizens to repent and "Get back to
God."  Public religiosity peaked today after President Bush declared
September 14 a "National Day of Prayer," which included services for
government notables at the National Cathedral in the capital.

* Pat Robertson, in a three-page statement released Thursday by his
Christian Broadcasting Network, chided Americans for insulting god,
and said that the nation has lost the protection of heaven.

"We have imagined ourselves invulnerable and have been consumed by the
pursuit of ...  health, wealth, material pleasures and sexuality...
It (terrorism) is happening because God Almighty is lifting his
protection from us."

Ironically, Robertson's web site includes advice on financial planning
and monetary prosperity, as well as a recipe for an "Age-Defying"
milkshake "filled with energy-producing nutrients."

Robertson added that Americans had defiled God by permitting abortion
and "rampant internet pornography."

                    "We must come back to God as a people."

Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition and a luminary on the
religious right for nearly three decades, also denounced the U.S.
Supreme Court for striking down prayer and other religious exercise in
public schools.  "We have a court that has essentially stuck its
finger in God's eye," he declared.  "We have insulted God at the
highest levels of our government.  Then, we say, 'Why does this
happen?'  "

Even more stunning remarks were made during yesterday's airing of his
popular "700 Club" program which is carried over the Fox Family
Channel network and other cable systems.  In an exchange with
Jerry Falwell, a prominent Pentecostal, the men discussed the
terrorist attacks from earlier this week.  Falwell insisted that "The
Lord has protected (American borders) so wonderfully these 225 years"
and that "since 1812, this is the first time we've been attacked on
our soil and by far the worst results."

"God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to
give us probably what we deserve," Falwell added.

Robertson then responded, suggesting that the events at the World
Trade Center resembled "the antechamber to terror.  We haven't even
begun to see what they can do to a major population."

The ACLU 's (American Civil Liberties Union) got to take a lot of
blame for this," Falwell responded.

Robertson:  "Well, yes."

In the course of the program, Falwell declared, "The abortionists have
got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked.  And
when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad."
He blamed "Pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the
gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an
alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of
them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in
their face and say 'you helped this (attack) happen.'  "

* Others, especially the nation's leading evangelicals, agreed with
Robertson and declared that the terrorism on American soil will bring
about a religious revival.  Robertson mused that the nation needs a
"prayer shield."  Eddie Smith of the Christian U.S.  Prayer Center in
Houston, Texas told reporters that he has been imploring Jesus for a
revival for the past four years, but said God told him it would "be
served to you on a platter of ruin."  Misidentifying the religious
nature of the terrorists' likely motivation, Rev.  James Merritt of
the Southern Baptist Convention called the destruction "Satan's
handiwork" and urged prayer for the victims.

* Local and national news reports indicated that clerics of all faiths
were scrambling to explain that traditional paradox of religious
faith, the "problem of evil" (Theodicy) or how an all-good God allows
such horrific tragedies to occur, and why, being all-knowing, He does
not take preventative action.  Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of the
trendy book "When Bad Things Happen to Good People," said only "We
should do what we can to help the afflicted."  More enigmatic was a
statement by Rev.  Michael Baxter, professor of moral theology at
University of Notre Dame, who said, "God is acting in all human
events, somehow mysteriously, and is acting in this, maybe to bring
about a kind of national repentance."

Meanwhile, Jamal Badawi, professor of Islamic Studies at St.  Mary's
University in Halifax, Nova Scotia expressed sympathy for the victims
and remarked: "It's just like any tragedy that happens without full
explanation.  Why do people have accidents?  Why do children die?  The
issue of the existence of evil in the world is intriguing and complex,
and there is no one simplistic answer."

For further information:

http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/islam3.htm
("Bombing the West, dispelling myths about the end of history," 9/14/01)

                                                              **

Update...

        STAND FAST WITH US AND JOIN SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 PROTEST
                 IN WASHINGTON TO DEMAND FREEDOM FOR DR. SHAIKH!
                     Let your voice be heard!  Endorse, join the
Sept.protest!

During this time of national tragedy, we must not cower or retreat in
the fight for human freedom.  Civil liberties, including the right to
protest and speak out on important issues, need to be affirmed and
preserved.  Fail to exercise that right, and, frankly, it will be
lost.  That is why we urge you to stand fast with us on September 22!

Nonbeliever, human rights and civil liberties groups will join
together on Saturday, September 22, 2001 in Washington, D.C.  to
demand freedom for imprisoned Pakistani Rationalist Dr.  Younus
Shaikh.  The action will include a 2:00 PM peaceful demonstration
outside of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan on
Massachusetts Avenue, and presentation of a printed copy of an on-line
petition supporting Dr.  Shaikh and other victims of other repressive
blasphemy laws.  Despite the tragedy of the past 48 hours, we are
proceeding with this peaceful, non-violent protest.

Shaikh, 46, was arrested in October, 2000 for violating Pakistan's
blasphemy statute which prohibits any questioning or unflattering
remarks concerning Islam and its prophet.  Earlier this month, he was
convicted and given the automatic sentence of death by hanging.  His
case is on appeal, but international pressure is needed to bring about
freedom and exoneration!

Signs and banners will be provided for this non-violent protest; or,
bring your own.

* JOIN THIS PEACEFUL PROTEST!  Visit http://www.free-drshaikh.org for
more information including location, travel directions and other
resources.

* All organizations -- Atheist, Humanist, Freethinker, other civic
groups as well (religious and non-religious) are urged to endorse this
important action!  Visit http://www.free-drshaikh.org to learn more!

* SIGN THE PETITION!  Join with thousands of others speaking out
against these repressive laws!  A copy of the on-line petition will be
presented to officials of the Pakistan embassy on Saturday, September
22.  Sing on at http://www.free-drshaikh.org

* Express your concerns in thoughtful letters to public officials.

WHAT: Peaceful protest to demand freedom for Dr. Shaikh

WHEN: Saturday, September 22, 2001

WHERE: In front of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan,
2315 Massachusetts Avenue, NY in Washington, DC beginning at 2 PM

For further information:  http://www.free-drshaikh.org

                                           **


    THE COWARDICE OF THE WEST: A LOOK BACK TO LESSONS
                      FROM THE CASE OF SALMAN RUSHDIE

( From the Editor)

We include in this edition of AANEWS a reprint of an article which
appeared 12 years ago in The American Atheist Magazine.  The piece
originally was published in Ketzebriefe 12, a periodical from the
(then) West German Atheist group, the Bunte Liste Freiburg.  It
concerned the case of Atheist novelist Salman Rushdie, who was
condemned under sentence of death or "fatwa" by the late Ayatollah
Khomeni for his book "The Satanic Verses."

Muslims throughout the world rioted in the streets and demanded that
Rushdie be presented to an Islamic court for execution.  Libraries,
bookstores and publishing companies were threatened.  Middle Eastern
states readily complied; in fact, India was the first nation to
prohibit publication and sales of "The Satanic Verses" because it was
"blasphemous" and insulted the Islamic superstition.  In the West, a
debate concerning civil liberties, freedom of conscience and religious
sensibilities ensued.  It was shocking to see so many clerics,
including Christians and Jews, who while denouncing the death sentence
against Rushdie, nevertheless wanted the book suppressed because it
"mocked" one of the world's major religious faiths.

The Rushdie case needs to be re-examined now, over a decade later, in
light of current developments.  One, of course, is the situation
involving Dr.  Younis Shaikh, the Pakistani physician who has been
convicted of blasphemy because he made unfavorable remarks concerning
Islam and its prophet, Mohammed.  We suggest that this case must
revive the often-ignored debate over whether the Islamic religion, as
a movement, can live in harmony within civil society in the Western
world.  Will "good" Muslims accept diversity of opinion, including
that which is critical and even hostile toward their religion?  There
is also the question of whether criticism of religion -- any criticism
-- should be excised and banned since it presumably "insults" the
beliefs of a particular group or sect.  We find this idea gaining
wider acceptance at both ends of the political spectrum, from liberals
who might see such criticism as "hateful," to conservatives who view
heretical opinions and questioning as corrosive to society and a "sin"
which questions the existence of a deity.

Another reason for bringing up the Rushdie case is because of last
Tuesday's horrific attacks on targets in the United States which has
claimed the lives of thousands of innocent people, all in the name of
a "Holy war" or Jihad.  Osama bin Laden, or a formation tied to his
al-Qaida guerrilla group is possibly responsible.  While not all
Muslims agree with his goals or methods, and Arab states selectively
denounce the terror, the fact remains that in the streets of many
capitals mobs are cheering on bin Laden and his associates as heroes
in a cultural and religious war against the West.  Israel and the
Palestinian question have become almost peripheral.  The confrontation
now, it appears, is partly between those who see Islam as a template
for human organization, and those of us who embrace instead an
enlightened secularism.  There are other dimensions here, of course,
but for us, the Islamic faith and its social organizations are matters
of grave concern.

As we observed yesterday, the cultural agenda of the Mullahs, with
their hostility to Western culture -- consumerism, materialism,
emphasis on individual rights and unfettered expression -- seems to
mirror a similar distaste of modernity often encountered with
Christian fundamentalists and even the Vatican.

So, we return to Rushdie.  We are not proposing a military war with
any particular country; indeed that effort may be both
counterproductive and wrong.  Nor do we suggest that individual
Muslims are "evil," or in league with bin Laden.  We do, however, warn
that the secularism and freedom have many enemies, from radical
Christian fundamentalism to authoritarian political creeds and, yes,
militant Islam.  After the essay, we give you several links for more
background on the Rushdie case.

                                                   **
Europe s reaction to the threats of Moslem fundamentalists was to
attempt to appease them, not to protect the rights of free expression
and free speech.  Is this an omen of intellectual repression to come?

                                                   **

At the time of the British Empire, an Indian maharajah complained to
the governor because the latter had prohibited the burning of widows
this, being an old custom should, after all, be kindly respected and
got the brief and probably quite effective answer, "We hang widow
murderers."

Since the Rushdie case this uncompromising attitude towards religious
barbarity, no matter of what color, obviously belongs to the past for
good.  Even more frightening than the Iranian order to kill Salman
Rushdie is the cowardice with which Great Britain and the entire West
are bending to the threats of the potential poet killers.  More
oppressive than the rabid appeals of the ayatollah   what could be
expected from him in the matter of freedom of speech is known, after
all   are the comments soaking with "understanding" given by the West
about this outrageous order by a foreign religious leader, to kill a
European citizen.

For the better comprehension of the extent of this super-soft
attitude, the following comparison may wing the reader's fantasy: What
would have happened if the order to kill had not come from Iran but,
about ten years ago, from the Soviet Union under Brezhnev, if the
victim had not been Rushdie but Solzhenitsyn?  What would have
happened if West European parties, sympathizing with the Soviet Union,
had organized mass demonstrations, had burnt the book The Gulag
Archipelago publicly, and had threatened to kill any publisher or
bookseller continuing to publish or sell the book?  What would have
happened if a pro-Soviet combat group had announced a proposed
assassination of the secretary of state of the United States as well
as bomb attacks on American civilian airplanes until the United States
government permitted the shooting of Solzhenitsyn?  Would there have
been in this case, too, "understanding" for the motives of the Soviet
leadership and the "being insulted" of the Soviet population?  There
is no question: From the proclamation of the state of emergency to
military retaliation, anything would have been acceptable to counter
this blackmail.

The cowardice of the West is the more apparent as its opponent in this
case is not a more or less well-armed great power but a regime that
has just barely escaped a military defeat.  Furthermore, only a few
years ago in the Falkland War, Great Britain had shown what a single
NATO state is capable of doing if it sees its interest threatened in
any part of the world.  A non-interventionist policy cannot be the
reason for the attitude of the West European governments: this time
they are the attacked and they have not only the right but the duty to
defend themselves and to protect Rushdie with all means.  This would
include, should Iran take to open violence, military intervention, of
which we approve as we have shown in the Falkland War if it serves
progress, for example the fall of a South American regime of torture.
We do not at all share the perverse underlying logic of the
pseudo-left that this is just "Imperialism" and "Eurocentrism."

It is, however, apparent even without open military exchange that the
West does not want to protect Rushdie efficiently, For if it had, it
would have protested when the Satanic Verses were prohibited in the
first several countries.  It would have particularly interfered when
on its own territory Rushdie's books were burnt by fanatic Moslems and
the poet himself was executed in effigy as was the custom in the
Middle Ages when one could not get hold of the heretic.  Instead of
the leaders of the pogroms being thrown into prison, thus preventing
further riots, they were encouraged to more rioting by the reverent
murmurings about supposedly "insulted religious feelings" and were
thus given state license for putting up the stakes.  After Khomeini's
order to kill, it should have gone without saying that the Satanic
Verses should have been published at the expense of the state.
Instead this was left to a few single persons with little
determination and even less means, who are furthermore much more
easily blackmailed and intimidated.  Instead of being hidden, Rushdie
should have been given an opportunity to speak for himself publicly,
particularly after the death threat, without, of course, any personal
risk.  Why were not radio and television put at his disposal to defend
himself?  Let no one say that a state such as Great Britain or West
Germany is not capable of defending any one of its citizens from the
attack of killer commandos!  Here the GSG 9 would have made sense for
a change.

The use of all the means of the state is not only absolutely necessary
for the protection of Rushdie but most urgent for another reason:
Khomeini's death order aims at a particular person and opinion, but it
aims furthermore fundamentally at freedom of speech, the protection of
which is a duty of the state and can only be granted or broken, that
is by the public power.  Anyone who, in the face of the monstrosity of
the call for someone's being killed because of his different opinion,
utters "understanding" for the rabble-rousers, thereby expresses his
basic agreement with the murderers and makes the victim the culprit
("Why, after all, did he write this book?").  With each kowtow towards
the "insulted religious feelings," the West sells out those values
that once distinguished the bourgeois states from the rest of the
world.  The greatest value of the achievements of the French
Revolution was that one could no longer be tortured, burnt, broken on
the wheel, or quartered if one held a different opinion than the
church.  For it is the particular feature of the freedom of speech
that anyone can utter his opinion without having to prove any
entitlement or having to justify doing it in this or that manner.  Any
opinion, differing from that of the government or the majority, most
of all any view contradicting that of the church, has a particular
right to protection.  This is, historically and logically, the essence
of freedom of speech.  This right, to which any human being is
entitled, was fought for in Europe over centuries and paid for by a
high blood toll.  If it is still valid today though increasingly
restricted by censorship and blasphemy legislation this is only due to
the beneficial late effect of the guillotine and the increasingly
diminishing commitment of the public to freedom of speech.  This right
was won by the European part of mankind just as the other advantages
that distinguish the bourgeois states from the Middle Ages and
present-day Iran.

As the Rushdie case shows drastically, who censors
never-mind-what-opinion clears the way to witch burning and lynch
justice.  This is the first thing the pogroms against Rushdie teach:
how short and inevitable the way is from censorship to the stake.

Who in the face of the order to kill Rushdie demands the latter should
carry the costs for his police protection himself (as can be read in
the American journal Spectator and a disgusting comment in the
Frankfurter Allgerneine Zeitung from March 3), gives Rushdie and his
successors to the hangman and furthermore pronounces them guilty.  The
up-to-now unimaginable then becomes possible again: that, because of
their opinion, heretics can be killed in Europe with the explicit
approval of the government.  This is the real and most frightening
meaning of the European reaction to Khomeini's death command.

There is finally the question as to why Salman Rushdie with his book
of all books has become the victim of this large-scale witch-hunt.  To
our knowledge for the first time in Islam, Rushdie has by his Satanic
Verses pursued the way the European heretics i.e., the early
enlighteners had taken centuries before him.  According to his own
statement, Rushdie wanted by his book to picture in a literary
fantastic form "the inner life of someone who has lost his faith."
His intention is comparable to many occidental pieces of art,
including doubtless world literature (as, for example, Gargantua and
Pantagruel by the French humanist Rabelais).  Compared to the heretics
of the early modern era, however, Rushdie finds himself in a much
worse position, as the bourgeois states cowardly and hypocritically
deny their own origin and prostitute themselves to their former mortal
enemies.  Not so imams and popes.  They plan for centuries and have
remained the same for centuries.  In the concerted action of the world
religions against the freedom of speech and the achievements of the
French Revolution, Iran has taken the role of the leading agitator and
acts with the support of all other religious leaders.  The death
command of Khomeini was given after prior consultation with the pope,
who now doesn't keep his approval to himself.

The Rushdie case is the first deadly serious test as to how much
freedom of speech means to the West.  If Rushdie is killed and thus
the first burning of a heretic takes place in Europe after two hundred
years, the West bears the full responsibility as it has omitted to
protect Rushdie with all means and with him freedom of speech!

For further information:

http://www.atheists.org/Islam
(includes numerous articles on the Rushdie case)

http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/rushdie4.htm
("Tehran paper threatens British airwaves over Rushdie," 7/21/99)

http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/rushdie3.htm
("In the name of Allah..." 9/30/98

http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/rushdie2.htm
("Iranians hint at reprieve for Salman Rushdie," 9/24/98)

http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/bishop2.htm
("Fearing freedom -- Pope, Rev.  Moon, Bishops blast America, Secularism,
individualism,"
11/30/97)

                                                      **

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                                                **

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                                                   **

                                    ABOUT THIS LIST...

AANEWS is a free service from American Atheists, a nationwide movement
founded by Madalyn Murray O'Hair which defends the civil rights of
nonbelievers, and addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.

You may forward, post or quote from this dispatch, provided that
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indiscriminately to news groups, boards or other outlets.  Edited by
Conrad F.  Goeringer, [log in to unmask]  Internet Representative








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