Subject: A visitor of ValueWalk shared an article with you. I read this article and found it very interesting, thought you would enjoy. The article is called India Targeted China With Nuclear Program, Not Pakistan and is located at http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/08/india-nuclear-for-china-not-pakistan/ It is an different slant on the conventional views about the regionand worth a read. Editor
Although one may argue that hate crimes against Palestinians is nothing new, but recent hate crimes in Israel against Palestinians and its own minority has taken a more menace turn. Mr. Netanyahu is doing for Israel what General Zia did for Pakistan. With Mr. Netanyahu’ blessings the ultra orthodox are gaining strength and moderates are dwindling. This trend is also affecting the political discourse in USA where Mr. Netanyahu is openly leading the Republican party in opposition of Iranian nuclear deal. The article below in NYT describes the disheartening response from liberals in Israel against recent hate crimes. ( F. Sheikh)
TEL AVIV — “This isn’t everyone,” my son said Saturday as we stood on the steps of the Tel Aviv City Hall, in Rabin Square. “There are more people coming, right?”
It was already 9 p.m., an hour and a half past the official opening of the anti-violence, anti-incitement demonstration. He’s not even 10 yet, but he’s already seen that square full of people demonstrating for less important causes and he’s sure that, as in every good Western, the cavalry is on the way, that tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of citizens horrified by the terrible events that occurred in Israel this week will be thronging the square. How is it possible that fewer people would come to demonstrate against the murder of children and innocent people than to demonstrate against the high cost of housing or the halt to building in the settlements?
The next day, Sunday, the newspapers reported that there were “thousands of demonstrators,” the word “thousands” designed only to conceal the empty spaces in the square. Skilled photo editors produced pictures for the front pages that made the relatively small crowd appear huge. That sad effort to enlarge the size of the demonstration was not a result of hidden political motives, but of a collective sense of shame.
Because the embarrassing truth is that a demonstration against two hate crimes — the firebombing on Friday of a home in a Palestinian village, which killed an 18-month-old boy, and the stabbing of six marchers on Saturday in Jerusalem’s Gay Pride Parade, including a 16-year-old girl who later died of her injuries — did not get many people out of their homes, definitely not in this especially hot, humid August. And that truth is not a pleasant one for anybody.
I’m old enough to remember Rabin Square, when it was still called the Kings of Israel Square, full of demonstrators on many occasions. I remember, as a teenager, hundreds of thousands of people railing against the Lebanon War after the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982 and a crowd so full of hope at the demonstration for the peace agreement, after which Yitzhak Rabin was murdered in 1995. I remember it full of men in their knitted skullcaps demonstrating against the disengagement, and the eager young people singing at the demonstration for social justice. But today it’s half-empty. Where are all the people who filled it then?
Master and Slave:
According to Hegel, each possesses half of freedom: power to exercise it, and insight into its value. As a paradigm of this relationship he took the philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius and the slave philosopher Epictetus who taught him to be free.
Page 212 THE OXFORD ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY edited by ANTHONY KENNY
Epictetus (c. AD 55-135) The most influential teacher of Stoicism of his time, Epictetus was born a slave in Asia Minor. He was given his freedom around the year 68, but was banished from Rome by Diocletian around 90. He was lame for much of his life. It is known that he was extremely popular, respected, and lived a life of utmost simplicity, in accordance with Stoic doctrine. His teachings or Discourses include an emphasis on submissiveness, humility, and charity, but also upon the ability and duty of a person to mould his or her character in the effort to achieve self-government and independence of external circumstance. [THE OXFORD DISCTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY]
Note: Philosophy encourages you to acquire freedom thru intellectual empowerment. All organized religions impose limitations on human intellectual freedom. All organized religions ostracize free thinkers.
Posted by: nSalik (Noor Salik)
Shared by Tahir Mahmood
An article from NYT
ISTANBUL — On June 29, Turkey’s 12th Gay Pride Parade was held on Istanbul’s crowded Istiklal Avenue. Thousands marched joyfully carrying rainbow flags until the police began dispersing them with water cannons. The authorities, as has become their custom since the Gezi Park protests of June 2013, once again decided not to allow a demonstration by secular Turks who don’t fit into their vision of the ideal citizen.
More worrying news came a week later when posters were put up in Ankara with a chilling instruction: “If you see those carrying out the People of Lot’s dirty work, kill the doer and the done!” The “People of Lot” was a religious reference to gays, and the instruction to kill them on sight was attributed to the Prophet Muhammad. The group that put the posters up, the so-called Islamic Defense Youth, defended its message by asserting: “What? Are you offended by the words of our prophet?!”
All of this suggests that both Turkey and the Muslim world need to engage in some soul-searching when it comes to tolerance for their gay compatriots.
Of course this intolerance is not exclusive to either Turks or Muslims. According to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, Turkey scores slightly better on measures of gay rights when compared with some nearby Christian-majority nations such as Russia, Armenia and Ukraine. Indeed, Turkey’s secular laws don’t penalize sexual orientation, and some out-of-the-closet L.G.B.T. icons have long been popular as artists, singers or fashion designers. Among them are two of the most popular Turkish entertainers of the past half-century: The late Zeki Muren was flamboyantly gay and the singer Bulent Ersoy is famously transsexual. Their eccentricity has apparently added to their popularity.
But beyond the entertainment industry, the traditional mainstream Islamic view on homosexuality produces intolerance in Turkey toward gays and creates starker problems in Muslim nations that apply Shariah. In Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan or Afghanistan, homosexuality is a serious offense that can bring imprisonment, corporal punishment or even the death penalty. Meanwhile, Islamic State militants implement the most extreme interpretation of Shariah by throwing gays from rooftops.
The hostility of many Muslims toward homosexuality has little basis in the Quran.