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How a fierce Internet Troll is reigning in the Muslim bovver boys

By Dan Byrnes (posted 23-9-2012)

Dear Internet Pals, By which I mean, people interested in the Internet as a complicated set of communications systems with a cultural impact. And I suspect this letter is going to become as long as it needs to be.

Unprecedented

Two black swans

Since 11 September 2001, life for Muslims around the world has suffered at least two black swans. One was Western-World reactions to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York. Second has been publicity about the movie clip, Innocence of Muslims, and about protests against the availability of the clip on You Tube. There seems to be nothing the Islamic World can do about this second black swan, except to learn to live with it. (Their complaints about the first Black Swan Event are probably much more valid.)

What is needed here first is humour about human nature, and last of all we need worries about Theology. One of the things that is happening is that many people around the world are now examining and re-examining their assumptions about at least some of the issues. But probably, not enough hot-headed Muslims are examining their own assumptions, and their failure to do so I predict will turn out tragic around the world.

So this article/letter is about assumptions about a lot of topics, basically. Consider, that the much-protested case of the Danish cartoons about The Prophet, seen as offensive when they appeared, did not go viral on the net as they might have done. They merely became infamous. But what the Danish cartoons did, along with the case of Salman Rushdie being given a fatwa for his novel, The Satanic Verses, is to demonstrate that hot-headed Muslims (a minority) are quite willing to be quite intimidating when they feel there will be a murmur against Islam, The Prophet, or Allah.

(Behead those who insult the honour of The Prophet – placard at Sydney riot, Saturday 15 September. As held up by a young child who has a mother (widely seen on Australian TV news photographing this cute child) who later turned herself into the police claiming her English was very bad, enough said, doh. It was later reported, if we can believe it, that she did not know what the word ¨behead¨ means in English. I guess she could not guess.)

Is this behead-the-blasphemer a response straight out of a medieval-times textbook, or is it due to today´s Muslim feelings about blasphemy and similar spiritual crimes? Another question. At this juncture, would Muslim countries be well-advised to dismantle all their Blasphemy laws, because probably, what their governments need today are more secularists, agnostics and atheists, people who can adopt more flexibly-working attitudes, people who are not obsessed about religion in backward-looking ways. Not intimidated by outspoken Mullahs and Ayatollahs, hmm. Well, when in doubt, ask Waleed Aly, a moderate, Melbourne-based commentator on matters Muslim in Australia, and reliable.

The rise of The Internet Troll

Seeing TV news of the Saturday Sydney riot 15 Sep, one of my computer-nerd Australian friends was taken aback, and the following Sunday found the offending movie trailer on You Tube, and decided that the fact the clip was there, available, and so offensive, and having such a spectacular effect world-wide, was the work of an Internet Troll. Actually, this Internet Troll is in fact a small consortium of anti-Muslim activist weirdos in only-in-America, but for the purposes of argument we here regard the Troll in the singular.

If we go-google on Internet Trolls, we soon find that the gurus on Wikipedia will mention about six kinds of Internet Trolls, each of them operating somewhat differently. Some use pre-emptive strikes, some use more subtle clever reverse-psychology approaches, all are confrontational and a lot of hate-speech is expended. Internet Trolls are mostly interested in causing mischief, distributing a wide variety of hate speech, disrupting happily-operating chat groups, bringing attention to themselves, and enjoying the discomfort they cause for people who are unwise enough to take them seriously. What Internet Trolls do with ongoing conversations is throw-in-an-ugly, then stand back and watch the fun.

The standard Net advice on what to do about Trolls is: DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS. Ignore them. Do not give them attention. Take no notice of their views. Starve them of the oxygen of publicity. (Oxygen of publicity, a term apparently invented by Margaret Thatcher, of all people!)

And what are the Muslims protesting this insulting You Tube movie, the trailer for Innocence of Muslims doing? All innocence indeed, they are feeding the Troll, making it more famous. And in fact, declaring not a war between good and evil, or a war about Honour of Islam vs an Internet Troll, but inadvertantly declaring a war of Islam versus the Past, Present and Future of Islam. All this is unprecedented. This Internet Troll has become world-famous in less than two weeks, because it went viral on the Internet. Neither the Danish cartoons nor The Satanic Verses went viral, not quite like this, although both contribute to the current Troll 2012 problem. (Thank you, and yes, I have read The Satanic Verses, following a prolonged argument in about 1990 with the computer-nerd friend who made the above observations about the Internet Troll now at work with such devastating effect.)

What the Internet Troll has done is declare international cyber-war on The Muslim Bovver Boys Internationale, who have finally reached their use-by date; while moderate Muslims everywhere, who understand human stupidity, sigh and try to get on with their lives.

A postive project for concerned Muslims?

Today´s Muslims could easily enough do themselves a favour. Rebuild the Hejaz railway. An idea to build it was first suggested in 1864, when the Ottoman Empire still enjoyed glory days. Work on this Hejaz (or, Hedjaz) rail line had intended it to run from Instanbul (Constantinople) to Damascus (Syria) to Medina and Mecca, to the holy places. Work however ceased during the interruption of World War One, especially due to guerilla attacks led by T. E. Lawrence. The railway had been intended to have many purposes, but a prime purpose was to make life easier for pilgrims to Mecca. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the rail line was not re-opened south of the border of Jordan/Saudi Arabia. An attempt to re-open it was made in the 1960s but was ruined by the 1967 Six Days War. Plans have existed from time to time to extend this and other rail lines to connect Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, maybe even Israel, and various other regions.

Muslims today would be far better off assisting redevelopment and extension of this rail network than reacting to an Internet Troll who will keep them in a state of frothing rage – as long as they let him annoy them.

So now, let´s look at what happens with some assumptions about any of this

<1>Is Islam monolithic?: No it is not. It seems a highly decentralized religion, subject to no central authority concerning dogma, emphasis, cultural persuasion, cultural identity, precise beliefs, and is somewhat unstable, unpredictable and hydra-headed because of this. Within the Islamic World, a great many beliefs get about which well-educated Muslims, senior commentators, insist are not from proper Islamic teaching. In particular, a lot of beliefs about jihad (renewal), particularly violent jihad, which are prevalent, are not recognised as valid by many senior Islamic clerics, not that their remarks seem valued by the Western World´s press corps. However, because Islam is best transmitted by the Arabic language, Islam is given considerable cultural coherence with an Arabic-Middle Eastern bias.

<1a> Islam has hardly been monolithic in Sydney (see front page, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 Sep 2012). Where, and this smacks of Australian multicultural originality, Muslim spokespeople after their emergency meetings have spoken against the violence of the Saturday 15th riot and recommended that there be NO more protests about the movie. What they mean is, Do Not Feed The Troll. But in so doing, they have broken ranks with their international counterparts, the Herald says, as protests continue around the world.

So I take it, that the Sydney Muslim spokespeople have realized the real nature of the problem, and that the best response is: Do Not Feed The Troll. It seems that internationally, a great many Muslims are not so sophisticated, wise or realistic. There is nothing that Muslim groups can do about this Internet Troll except to be mature enough to ignore it for the pathetically immature insult that it is. Is this a matter of: Islam on a learning curve? Learning about how to use the Internet more wisely? One hopes so.

Otherwise we may be seeing the birth of an ugly war about symbols. Angry but not necessarily dangerous anti-movie protests have been held in Afghanistan, the Algerian parliament, Australia (Sydney), Bangladesh, Belgium (Antwerp), Casablanca, Denmark (Copenhagen), Egypt, France (Paris), Gaza (Palestinians), Germany (Dortmund), Pakistan, Indonesia, India (especially Kashmir), Iran (where clerics are especially annoyed), Japan (involving 300 Muslims living in Tokyo), Kenya (Mombasa), Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia (peaceful), Maldives Islands, Nigeria (Jos), Sri Lanka, Turkey, Somalia (Mogadishu), Sudan (Khartoum), United Kingdom (London), Yemen. And in Malaysia (peaceful). Multi-faith protests against the movie and in support of religious tolerance (in Norway, in Brazil), are more rare and are receiving far less news coverage. There have been no protests in Saudi Arabia or United Arab Emirates. France has temporarily closed its official offices in 20 countries.

The problems of the hot-heads

It is also possible that they suffer from merely a maladjusted, teenager-sense of gang-control of territory that they fear their gang does not control at all, which would in fact be a correct perception that they happen to resent.

<2a>Sydney Morning Herald (19-9-2012) has an opinion piece from a less-than-insighful Muslim-commentator PhD student in Melbourne, Mohamad Tabbaa. Mr Tabbaa worries about the angry Muslim youth who turned up aggro at the last-Saturday Sydney riots, misunderstood poor dears that they are, they are being interpreted without context. They prefer to identify as living in a global Muslim community, have not bought the liberal delusion of individualism, and have been sold-out by their spokespeople, who apparently have capitulated to the powers-that-be in Australia about acceptable perceptions of Muslim identity and ways of Muslim life in Australia. Mr Tabbaa even agrees that these young Muslim men betray whatever is their message by the way they express it (which is perfectly correct), but wonders fruitlessly, what if no one listens enough to them? (They? Who have nothing useful to say about the rest of Australia!)

Where Tabbaa fails to ask: listen to them, about what? If they feel rootless in Australia, that is their problem, no one else´s, and it should not come to the attention of the police or indeed of anyone else. Whether they feel a pointless solidarity with suffering Muslims around the world or not, this is the price these rootless young Islamic men pay in Sydney – they have no one to talk to, not even their own spokespeople, because of what they choose to identify with. Mr Tabbaa feels we need to speak to them, rather than about them. Maybe good advice in the therapeutic sense. But would they care to hear a lecture from the present writer about the marginalised condition or feelings of many Irish-Catholics in parts of Australia for a century or more? A little slice of history?

Probably, not, since these alienated young men have no capacity for empathy anyway, and possibly less cultural curiosity. And if they cannot or will not listen, have no sense of history, they have no way to learn about anything useful in modern Australia. They are self-declared failures already. If they cry ¨God is Great!¨, what they really mean, is: I am less than a flea in this country, and I resent it deeply.

<3>Intimidation/Physical violence?: Around the world, are Muslim gangs of protestors being intimidating? Well, yes they are. But problems arise as their efforts at intimidation (trying to curtail the activities of insulting blasphemers) become conflated with issues of free speech, history of the rise of democracy, the limits of free speech, World History since say the rise of the Ottoman or Mughal empires, issues about post-colonialism since 1945. Many issues right now are about of the best kind of manners to use when religion is discussed, levels of violence to be applied, discussions of non-violence as issues are debated. And so on, a lot of blah blah blah.

What is noticeable as we consider this unfortunate facet of Islamic culture around the world is that intimidatory gangs in one country do not complain about or deplore the negative activity of any of their intimidatory Muslim brothers in other countries (who might for example be harassing Christians). They become a world-wide gang with similar interests and have no interests in free speech. What they want is extra dominance. Calls for Sharia Law to be applied in Western countries are not uncommon. One wonders, how can people who make such calls not realise how utterly alien Sharia Law would be to anyone who grew up in a western democracy! Such ideas are not actually thinkable! At least, not in Australia.

<3a>Free speech: I was rather surprised/pleased when netsurfing for this letter to encounter a US blogger who was seriously examining his assumptions about these matters. He had to recognise that finally, yes, he was ¨an American free speech absolutist¨. He fully recognised that free speech might have different and lesser-valued roles in different countries, especially Islamic countries. In comparison to which, he was an American free speech absolutist, so he was willing to mute his own opinions a little for the sake of better understandings. It is a good phrase to consider, because it appears that the hotter-headed anti-blasphemy Muslims are a different kind of absolutist. They are non-free-speech absolutists. And unlike our conscience-searching US friend here, they are not afraid to be intimidatory.

In which case <3b> the original attitude of the Muslim elders of Sydney seems healthier. They seem to be consciously trying to excise the intimidatory gangs out of the debates. A laudable approach (doubtless because they know what their young men have been thinking since the Cronulla Riots in Sydney a few years ago.) It is hardly unknown by now that Muslim youth in western countries are psychologically vulnerable to the syndromes of alienation. Oddly enough, the second-generationers of them seem to suffer more from alienation in a new country than their parents did. The cause may be quite simple. They do not yet have children to bring up, to cherish, to nurture and to teach about life. And they are not encouraged to marry out.

If only this healthy Sydney-Muslim-outlook could be adopted internationally, so that the nastiest aspects of the debates could be left to the anti-Mulsim Internet trolls (who are not real people with fists and ability to light fires), and not to the pro-Muslim intimidatory trolls who are active in gangs in so many cities around the world.

In which case, it might seem that a very old cultural factotum in Islamic cultural life in many countries is undergoing change – the willingness of Islamic clerics to use militias, gangs of motivated men, to help enforce their interpretations of Islam in their particular society. Use of such gangs has been going on for centuries. It has almost never been challenged in or by Western democracies since 1945, and probably not challenged by Muslim clerics in many countries. Now it is being challenged. Politically incorrect as it may not be to mention it candidly.

And this is not a spiritual question at all, it is a merely a question of policing the deploying of a certain kind of social power, a question of questioning the hypocrisies of imposing seeming public virtue. There is no future for anyone in the social effect of gangs of intimidatory ¨religious men¨ rampaging around in a society. (Such as with the Muslim sex police who patrol the social activities of kissing young men and women in Aceh in Indonesia. They are simply publicly-sanctioned little piss-ant voyeurs with nothing more serious on their mind than perving on the impropriety of young people people kissing, like, who cares? Except perhaps the kids´ parents?).

And on reflection, in the longer run, it might be worth all the current furore and the forebearance of all sane observers, if the Islamic World pauses long enough to ponder their long-term use of intimidatory gangs, then to draw attention to their de-centralized interpretations of Islamic possibilities in various countries, and to insist that debates for the future shall be consigned to the more civilized (less physically violent) domains of discourse.

God forbid that any central body for the regularization of Proper Islam and its beliefs should occur anywhere else than in, Mecca!? Or that, internationally, Muslim clerics will not consider any such idea anytime soon. To the chagrin of moderate Muslims across the world, intimidatory gangs and jihadis have meant that Islam as a World Religion has come to be seen as feral. If Muslim clerics will not impose discipline, it is simple, the rest of the world will have to do it – and the rest of the world may be much less gentle than those who understand the in-house problems of the World of Islam.

<4>Maturity: CNN lately has a think-piece by a writer on Middle Eastern topics who is a US Muslim, dated 22 September 2012, headlined, Protests as mindless as anti-Islam film. And around the world are questions arising about why World Muslims are not thinking more of disasters in Syria. Undeniably, one of the most basic themes in the more responsible sort of Internet comment on the issues from all sorts of countries and from many Muslim-influenced commentators, and/or their critics, is that everyone involved needs to grow up. Especially the more hot-headed Muslims, and of them, the younger ones. Gee, we have been insulted, so we must take on the rest of the entire world – is not exactly a mature response.

Certainly, the Internet Troll, who only grows in size the more we speak of him, needs some maturity. So do the intimidatory gangs of Muslim hot-heads, and any Muslim clerics egging them on. US embassies or any other official or unofficial arms of US influence, world wide, have nothing to do with the work of the Internet Troll. Until Muslim hotheads begin to learn this, the present furore seems set to continue.

The Maturity issue has a further downside to it as well, the search for excuses for the expression of existing resentments. A good many websites can be found asserting that issues such as free speech, blasphemy, religious tolerance or lack of it, are merely being used as excuses for violent activity by Muslim protesters motivated by anti-Americanism, anti-Westernism or more specific grievances. There is enough truth to this for it to be repeated, and enough exaggeration to make any reasonable person scarily cautious about what they read.

For people who feel they are religious, there are all sorts of affronts to be encountered in life. For Christians, a single remark from the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung is perhaps an affront. His father was a clergyman. Jung once remarked that adherence to organised religion is a defense again ¨real¨ religious experience. The idea is that anyone who has had a deep and real religious experience will have a rather loose attitude about organised religion, because they have discovered the difference. But we know that in Islam, the Sufi movement takes care of people of this persuasion. And that Sufis are frowned upon by the Islamic establishments. What more needs to be pointed out about this?

<5>Multiculturalism: Multiculturalism is not under dire threat, certainly not in Australia, but it is being stretched and things could snap. Multiculturalism is being somewhat challenged. Stretched by less-than-tolerant Muslims who are also overly ambitious, and perhaps culturally and temperamentally unsuited to the subtleties of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism in any particular country where this quite novel and modern approach to tolerance of cultural diversity has been adopted is usually not universally popular, this should be realised. (And there are many countries where it has not been adopted.) However, Multiculturalism is not coping well with the challenges issued by the anti-Prophet Internet Troll discussed here, partly because the Internet by definition is international. (As the reader will find by using any choice phrases from this article as a basis for a google search.) I find, that where Multiculturalism is successful, its success is often seen as a local achievement (and hopefully, a local enjoyment). Around the world, Multiculturalism has its own problems of the think global-act local variety; part of both the strengths and the weaknesses of Multiculturalism.

Numbers

Maybe because of political correctness in many countries, Multiculturalism has also been reluctant to talk in public about the issue at issue here – which is, tendencies to intimidation, threats of violence (more so, jihad) and;

Blasphemy

<6a>History: All these issues, free speech, democracy, religious history, have their histories. The netsurfer responding to this article can already find on Wikipedia a history of the whole fracas arising about The Innocence of Muslims. (The page in question was being updated with remarkable speed! No one can know who was updating it!) There are currently no excuses for ignorance about any of these issues, except perhaps, the issue of failing to understand a language one did not grow up with.

In the history of Christendom, Catholicism has had to cope with apparent heresy and blasphemy at least since Martin Luther appeared, the man who inspired The Reformation. Catholicism has also fought and lost debates with scientists and astronomers; Protestants with a different response pattern took on scientific innovations with enthusiasm, bothering little about the theological implications of scientific theory (until US protestants invented the word ¨fundamentalist¨, that is). The Islamic World has never quite admitted that it has fought or won or lost these kinds of struggles, and so has never admitted the sort of to-and-fro its educated Muslims have experienced.

Therefore, at least as we find today´s gangs of intimidatory Muslim young men and the back-yard Imams/clerics who egg them on, fundamentalist Islam moves around in various kinds of intellectual voids; ignorant, lost as to modern knowledge and how to act on it, condemned to learn only from the bookish, medieval past of an outmoded Islam which is conditioned to respond to issues in ways drawn from times centuries away which might legally be less than subtle. So that in Northern Nigeria right now, a violent Islamic separatist group wants to abolish all forms of modern Western education, and despises western democracy. Which is Boko Haram, founded from 2002. Otherwise known as Jama´atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda´auati wal-jihad, or, People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet´s Teaching and Jihad. Muslim resistance in the areas affected goes back to problems with the British from 1903. These Nigerian Muslims do not seem to be fast learners about anything.

Back to the Internet Troll

Conclusion: Whether this is the beginning of the end for the International Muslim Bovver Boy remains to be seen. Of all the things to happen, and how paradoxical it is, internationally, public feelings about a major world religion, Islam, and how to handle its hot-heads, have been handed back to well-mannered people all around the world by an extremely bad-mannered and highly-offensive Internet Troll working from only-in-America California. Well, maybe, when the fuss has died down a bit. If the fuss does die down. And whether or not the fuss dies down probably relies on the speed at which a great many people around the world grow up.

Spiritually for the world, what this furore is going to achieve is almost zilch as to enlightenment, spiritual enrichment or shared religious tolerance. Culturally, what this furore might be going to do is get rid of the more intimidatory aspects of the promotion of Islamic life all around the world, in whichever country. Perhaps the question has become more a cultural question: can Islamic life survive so prominently in either Islamic or Western countries, when it can no longer intimidate? Myself, I think not.

There have been deaths, but as long as one can cope with a little cheerful blasphemy here and there, such as for Christians, the Monty Python movie The Life of Brian, all that has happened is that the intimidatory aspects of Islamic culture, anywhere in the world, have been well and truly challenged by just one determined Internet Troll.

All we have to do to defuse this Troll is to ignore him. And if we cannot defuse him because of our continuing strong feelings about the problem of Blasphemy, he will continue to bother us. This could go on for as long as the Internet exists. Can the intimidatory Islamists last the distance? I think not, mostly because they will all slowly grow up. Of course, whether or not one thinks that the intimidatory aspect of the promotion of Islam stems from the time of The Prophet, or sometime later, might bear on one´s reading of the relevant histories. Part of which I fear in early Islamic history is what is in The Satanic Verses. In which book there is nothing new for the history of Islam.)

Whoever put the fatwa on Salman Rushdie was just another of the same old Islamic intimidatory gang. The intimidation goes on. From Iran, the bounty on the head of Salman Rushdie has just been increased! These boys just do not let up!
Cheers, etc
ps: Aspiring Muslim critics of this website item will please note that so far it carries no illustrations. If they reply, they will please be kindly well-advised not to tempt fate in cyberspace.

Various reaction around the world: Some brief notes

One of the main world reactions seem to be to regard Muslims with derision because so many of them find it so hard to come up with a better-quality conversation than Death To The Infidel. It might also be noted that Muslim protesters have an uncanny liking for menacingly producing strange conspiracy theories about how and why an insult to islam has been produced and promulgated, if it has been produced and promulgated.

The USA has been delivered an ultimatum by protestors in Lahore, Pakistan: It must criminalise blasphemy or lose its consulate, which would be rendered unfunctional. (website: tribune.com.pk 17-9-2012)

In Pakistan a young Muslim man protesting about Innocence of Muslims died due to inhaling fumes from American flags being burned. His name was Abdullah Ismail. He died in Mayo Hospital in Lahore, where about 10,000 people has protested the offensive film. (Reported by 21-12-2012) One of the protest leaders there claimed the film had been produced with the backing of the US establishment and said the film´s producers/directors should be hanged. He also wanted his government to support jihad against countries which support attacks on Islam. Various other protesting Pakistanis attacked a press club because their protest was getting insufficient news coverage. In Karachi, hundreds of protesters battled police while trying to reach the US consulate. However, Pakistan has also seen several quite peaceful protests.

As a pro-free-speech statement, conceivably ill-advised,the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has published several cartoons lampooning The Prophet. This issue of the magazine sold out very quickly, but its website was down rather soon as well. The magazine published something similar in November 2011 and had its Paris offices firebombed. The French government has enhanced security. French embasssies, consulates, cultural centres and schools in about 20 countries will be closed for a few days ¨as a precaution¨. (Reported by about 19-12-2012)

In USA the satirical website theonion.com has published an absurdly obscene cartoon lampooning four world religions, depicting Moses, Jesus, the Hindu Elephant God Ganesha and Buddha, with the observation that this bad humour has not yet lead to anyone´s death.

The movie trailer Innocence of Muslims was uploaded to You Tube by June 2012 (some say 1 July), presumably in English. It seems that few took any notice of it until someone dubbed it into Arabic for a You-Tube version, and so far few have asked when this translation was made, or by whom it was made. Concerns about the clip were not expressed till September 8 after the Arabic version was broadcast on Saudi-state-owned Salafist TV station Al-Nas, which transmitted signal to an Egyptian state-owned satellite network Nilesat. (Salafist means, fundamentalist-Wahabist, a distinct strand of Islam promoted from Saudi Arabia.) Protests began by 10 September in Egypt and spread to Libya. (Uncannily close to the anniversary of 9/11 in the USA.) (Website: www.worldaffairsjournal.org by date not given)

The infamous Danish cartoons: ¨The cartoons that shook the world¨, were published by Jyllands-Posten in September 2005. (They were not especially well-done or even funny!) The cartoons satirized both The Prophet and ¨the cultural hypocrisy that attends any debate about freedom of speech where Islam is concerned¨. Controversy about the cartoons did not arise until January 2006. Meaning that it took Islamic agitators four months to organise publicity stunts protesting the cartoons. In December 2005, a delegation of Danish imams had met in Cairo with Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa and others, carrying the offending cartoons plus other claimed evidence of anti-Islamic mischief from the West. A second delegation visited Beirut with a similar protest mission. In early December 2005, The Organization of the Islamic Conference held a summit in Mecca, considered some of such claims, and recommended the criminalization of any defamation of Islam and its values and condemned the use of freedom of expression to defame religions. Previously, the world Muslim population knew little of the existence of the cartoons. The later violence associated with protests about the Danish cartoons ended with the deaths of 139 people worldwide. (Website: www.worldaffairsjournal.org by date not given)

23 September: TV News: A publicity stunt? A Pakistani politician has personally placed a bounty on the head of the persons in the USA responsible for producing/distributing Innocence of Muslims. Death is threatened. However, there is no mention of whomever translated the clip from English into Arabic. One wonders, in the circumstances, if the Pakistani politician in question should not be quickly arrested by police agents of various international courts, c/- some UN directive, if not by agents of his own government. Hmm. The Internet Troll is to be executed. But the plain fact is, the Internet cannot be beheaded.

Lost Worlds' Loose Ends - Things to get back to one day

Lost Worlds usually has a list of loose ends to attend to. One project has been with preparing new information on "Vikings" – that project had a hard disk accident in 2004 and still hasn't recovered. Maybe a new instalment of that will appear one day? Nothing else much besides regular update is outstanding just now - This page is mostly reserved for longer articles which come the website's way. Enjoy! - Ed

The Case for
ZERO POPULATION GROWTH

By Eric Scott, Tamworth, NSW Australia (Recvd May 2008 - Ed)

What an amazing two years we have just spent!  At the beginning of this year [2008], looking back at 2006, I found myself feeling quite encouraged. 

How on earth could I say that, with world news dominated by disasters, pestilence, wars and brutality on every continent and gross examples of the depravity to which the human race can descend? 

Well, It seems to me that 2006 was the year that it suddenly dawned upon the world at large (both us ordinary folk and, more importantly, our elected governments) that we really do have to do something to overcome the effects that our generation of greenhouse gases are causing and to limit our overall ill-treatment of our environment.  Yes, I know that in recent years there have been many upraised voices warning us of these very facts, but from my observations it seems that 2006 saw, at long last, most of the voices of doubt quashed.

And then there was 2007!  The scientific community hit high gear with their instruments of measurement and prediction -- honing, correcting, reassessing -- conducting the processes that good science uses.  Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that we had a major election in Australia this year. 

Hey!  Don't laugh.  Both sides of the house were more or less forced to address the emerging problem, and fight about it in the media.  The result was that the realities began to sink into our collective consciousness.

The sad thing about this whole climate business is that it has taken something like 30 years to overcome our wretched human trait of denial. 

Denial might indeed be part of our species' protection mechanism, but in a modern society it is a "blue pencil" nuisance more often than not, and perhaps in this case a nuisance potentially fatal to our race!

Oh, we are very good at denial!  Anything that turns up in our too-hard basket or is contrary to our fondest beliefs, usually receives the determined gaze of our blind eye.

Believe me, I am not trying to castigate human beings for the past 30 years: far from it.  If that was the case, I should have to apply the cat-of-nine-tails to us human beings for nearly the past 300 years. 
One brave soul in the days of England's "Dark Satanic Mills" actually dared to raise the spectre of global pollution when he observed the filthy clouds of effluent pouring from the new factory chimneys and into the rivers - and that was in the early days of the Industrial Revolution nearly three centuries ago!  His name I can't recall -- I plead a "senior moment" -- but, what a shame we didn't start to think about remedial action, instead of laughing at him.

Allow me now to dare to suggest to you that we can not afford another 30 years before we deal with the equally serious problem that faces this planet -- THERE ARE JUST TOO MANY OF US!  This fact, coupled with our brilliant technology, is the primary reason we are facing the daunting proposition of climate change. 

*Climate change is but a serious symptom of the primary disease.* Another aggravating human trait is that no matter what the problem, we invariably treat the symptom and not the cause.  We also have an annoying habit of not looking at the total picture.  Think I heard this described in the other day by a Professor of something or other as our not having a "integrated approach."  Whatever you call it, at this point in our evolution our very survival may depend upon our gazing intently at the total picture and conducting a determined integrated approach.

The key element in our being able to control and hopefully reverse the disastrous effect we are having on our climate, is *ZERO POPULATION GROWTH.*

I might mention here that Professor Tim Flannery has been rabbiting on about the need for population control, perhaps for more than 30 years.  (Good on yer, Tim.)  At one stage, it was his estimation that the continent of Australia could sustain a population of 7 million. Oooops! Too late!  In 1950, when I came from England to this lovely place (and, I suppose, became part of the Aussie part of the world problem) Australia's population had already grown to 9 million.  What are we now?  Over twenty one million !!

Some years ago I heard one of our past prime ministers suggesting that we needed a population of 44 million souls!  Why he thought 44 and not 45 I have no idea, but at that time I thought him to be heading towards cuckoo land.  (Sorry Malcolm: I know you tried hard.)  Past Prime indeed.

Let me offer you my reasons for believing that global zero population growth (ZPG) is absolutely essential for the survival of the human race.

Consider the somewhat corny metaphor of our beautiful blue planet Earth as being a bucket, with us human beings and all the other creatures of the world drawing from it everything we need to live, exist and play with.  What is special about this Blue Bucket is that it constantly replenishes itself.

After a very shaky start on the road of evolution, we human beings began to prosper.  We heeded the advice of the various religions that sprang up and populated away merrily, no doubt enjoying ourselves immensely as we did so.  It didn't matter.  Being such a contrary lot, we squabbled and fought and killed each other off in quite a ubiquitous and spectacular fashion, and as a consequence our population grew in rather a tardy manner.  Also, every now and again, dear old Mother Nature decided we needed a plague or three to trim us down a little, and there was not a lot that we could do about it.

Our Little Blue Bucket was more than able to supply our every whim.

Then we discovered that if we tried very hard we could take from our bucket the various materials that would help us kill each other off more efficiently.  Wonderful stuff, these metals.

Our technology had also began to sully the contents of our bucket but it could still handle it.

But we human beings had also discovered that if we stopped emptying our chamber pots on the heads of unsuspecting passers-by, and instead chucked the contents in the nearest river, fewer of us contracted nasty diseases and died.  More importantly, we discovered that if we messed around with a few chemicals, we could prevent and cure a whole host of nasty beasties that had beleaguered our population since Adam was a boy.

Being inventive types, we spent 100 or so years mixing, matching, manipulating, mangling and mutating our chemicals so that we soon had the beasties on the run.  So, copulating onwards, there were even more human beings to draw from our Blue Bucket, and we were now beginning to crowd out the other creatures that needed their share.  We didn't worry too much.  Other creatures were not all that important (or so we thought) and anyway, we needed their habitat and we were _more_ important.

We made progress.  We found that by improving our tools we could indulge in our passion for fighting with one another without killing as many of us as before. (Well, mostly only those who were not fighting.)

Now the voracious crowd drawing from our Beautiful Blue Bucket was becoming immense.  The other creatures of the world were having one hell of a problem.  Not only were we taking their living space, but we rather enjoyed eating some of them.  And Eureka!  Our tools with which to catch them were becoming magnificently efficient.  For example, we could descend upon the bountiful seas, draw out tonnes and tonnes of the inhabitants to eat until the populations were decimated, then move on to another area and do the same again.  We humans demanded more and more!

An area like the east coast of Tasmania which produced copious quantities of scallops that provided culinary joy to both locals and visitors could be pounced upon by our floating machines, packed in factories and transported by flying machines to all corners of the earth ... (sorry) .... all corners of The Blue Bucket. No wonder scallops have become somewhat scarce there.  But we didn't worry.  Some of us were making a lot of money for a while.

Now, I am pleased to say, more and more of us are realising that our world is under terrible tension and persistent pressure.

Did I hear someone somewhere saying "so you would like us to return to the dark ages?"   P-er-lease!  I want us to look at the "Total Picture" as it is now and look for solutions to the agony that Mother Earth is presently suffering, particularly the burgeoning problem of there being too many human beings on this planet.  I want us to seek an "Integrated Approach" to the very many difficulties that we face if we are to correct the problem.  Fair dinkum!  If there was a higher species than us on this earth, then they would describe human beings as a plague.

Last century in Australia, we decided that we would be terribly clever and divert towards agriculture and the generation of hydroelectricity, massive quantities of water from our beautiful rivers, which had been regularly causing us much inconvenience by flooding.  Hey ... we would create great amounts of cheap energy and have good quality food, feed the world and ourselves, and make "a dollar".

And so 50 or 60 years on, and ....  Whoops ... who would have thought it -- in many rural areas arable land was being rendered useless by a rising water table which was bringing salt to the surface and ruining perfectly good land.  Decimation of our rivers and an inability to deal with a protracted drought was also a result, as was the decimation of the habitat of the creatures that lived on, in and around the rivers.  A little late in the day, we reluctantly realised that those creatures effect our own interaction with and use of the environment, and they are inconveniently essential to the preservation of an environment in which we can survive.

It is surely absolutely ridiculous to make attempts to reduce the impact that each and everyone of us makes on our environment, and at the same time allow an increase in the number of us making that impact.

Every extra person will need food.  Oh yes?  "They" say that it is possible to feed everybody in the world now.  Well, we are not doing a very effective job, are we?  Global warming is causing changes in what we grow and where we grow it.  Not a good climate (pardon the pun) in which to consider allowing (even encouraging) an increase in the number of human beings.

Every extra person will need water.  Do I need to say more?  We are noticeably short of this particular commodity now.

Every extra person to join us will need to be housed.  Okay -- every two extra people -- although recent statistics show that more and more of us in Australia are choosing to live alone in houses in which we rattle around! Strange though it may seem, all of the bits and pieces that constitute a home as we know it, require the use of energy to obtain, process, transport and fashion.  And even in our (hopefully) more thermally efficient future housing, most of our extra people will demand some degree of air-conditioning ... more greenhouse gas emissions when we need fewer.

Every extra house will need some land on which to be built ... self-evident of course, but as the suburbs creep out, so the serious farmland retreats, and you may recall that with increasing salinity the available arable land on which to produce food has also been retreating, even if we had the water to grow it. 

(Yes, I do know that in our part of the world the drought will pass, but the prognosis is for there to be far less rainfall then we have been used to in past years.)  I wonder if in the future we will require to import more and more food.  Oh dear, more transporting, more ... you guessed it.

Every extra person to join us will desire to have toys.  Now here is a point for controversial discussion.  Most of us, I suspect, make regular visits to "El Cheapo Stores", "Coleworths" or "Happy Charlie's Bargain Basement" and end up leaving with a few items we need and truckload of items that we don't.  This little activity is a thumping great two-edged sword, believe me!  Sure, every one of these items that we purchase and don't really require, helps nations like China to develop, and themselves to consume more and release more greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. Not only that, every one of these items we don't really need has had to be transported halfway across the world because it was made in a low labour cost country. This perhaps might not be too undesirable if these unneeded items were not likely to end up as landfill within a year or two.

Then there are the necessities for this modern life ... the "his" and "her's" cars ... and the real toys, the boats, the multiple TVs, the home music systems, the computers, etc, etc, etc. When you think about it, the more of us there are, the more our Blue Bucket will be asked to provide. 

But we are already drawing more than it can continue to give. That doesn't make much sense, does it?  Each extra human being will require more electricity, more food, more goods, more services and will be adding more to the generation of greenhouse gases whilst we are now urgently trying to reduce them.  That doesn't make much sense either.

The least that we should be attempting is to hold our world population steady.  In the Australian context, with our water supply almost certain to reduce in the next few years, our arable land perhaps reduce in area and our sustaining a high standard of living/consumption, Zero Population Growth is essential. Right now!

There is a myriad of problems and objections to overcome, and most of them are not to do with the science, but many of them are to do with the attitudes and traditions of us human beings - and necessitate the urgent changing of our attitudes. We ignore the need for ZPG at our peril.  The slogan "populate or perish", in vogue in the 1940s, is no longer viable.  The slogan should now be "if we populate, we perish."

CULTURE

There are many groups in Third World countries where the begetting of children has understandably been considered essential for the caring of the parents in their old age.  The disgustingly high infant mortality rate has meant that the more children one has, the better.  Before we change the culture, we have to change the cause.  Not easy.  It must be said that the world is now making progress in the lowering of infant mortality in these countries, and I can think of very little that is more desirable than this.  However, it must be accompanied by attempts to change the culture so that we don't have a sharp increase in population.  I believe that at the moment, world population has stabilised and may even be slightly declining.  How it is declining doesn't bear thinking about!

GOVERNMENTS, TAX, PUBLIC SERVICES AND SIMILAR UNDESIRABLES

Our beloved leaders in government have these past few years come to recognise that there is a looming problem with the ageing and stabilisation of the Australian population. 

The latter bit I am suggesting is desirable and it we should continue to encourage.  The solution to this "problem" was suggested to be to encourage people to have a child each for mum and dad and one for the country.  (Sorry Peter -- you had been a bloody good national treasurer, but you didn't think this one through.) Unfortunately, this would be a very, very short-term answer.

All these beautiful bouncing babies will eventually require more of the aforementioned goods and services and toys and houses and ........... get my drift?  As they too, in time, will become older and require even more young taxpayers to pay for their care, the problem will never go away -- mathematicians have a name for this type of equation -- I'm not sure what it is, but I am sure it has the word "recurring" in it.

I really can't suggest what the answer that particular conundrum is, but there has to be one which does not involve more people!  Better brains than mine are sure to be able to come up with one.

To demonise the word "growth" is only necessary in terms of population. I am sure economists could discover a path we could take to allow a stable population (that is a two legged population, not a four legged one) to exist happily in Australia.  You never know, with no population growth, we might even eventually catch up with our pressing need for hospitals, schools and public transport.  I acknowledge that it probably would be harder and take longer, but better that then the drama of population escalation and massive climate change.

MAJOR RELIGION

Then there is major religion, and what a minefield that is!

The Roman Catholic Church still insists that the practice of contraception is "not on". If it is part of the "go forth and multiply" instruction or not, I am not qualified to say, but I can suggest that "Himself" would not be silly enough to say it today. Such an exhortation is horribly out of date.  It might have made great
promotional sense 2000 years ago, but it certainly is not appropriate for this day and age.  Unfortunately, in many of the poorer countries of the world the utterances of that church are regarded as "the inviolate word of God", and it would require an embarrassing about face by the Boss Man in Rome to effective a change that would help our beleaguered earth survive.  It could be suggested that it is an insult to the Roman Catholic God that that we believe he/she would wish us to continue to copulate away merrily, willi-nilly. (Oooops .. poor choice of  word there, perhaps.)

Abstinence?  Get real!  God/Allah/Jehovah/Great Architect of the Universe/Whoever did a pretty good job of creating the impulse for men and women to get together in a cuddly mode, and I feel rather glad he/she/it did.

I am even less qualified to pontificate (interesting choice of word, there) on the Muslim religion, but it appears to me that the Muslim male is a pretty macho individual, where the fathering of children is pretty important to the maintenance of his ego, let alone anything else.  Somehow I can't hear the mufti in the mosque saying at prayer "steady on lads, our earth needs fewer Muslims."

THE BUILDING INDUSTRY

I expect that one of the greatest opponents of Zero population growth would be the building industry.  I can hear the bleating about loss of jobs, already.  Maybe there would be; maybe there wouldn't.  We need to apply the "C" word -- CHANGE.  Of course, the change in the building industry would not be immediate.  The stopping of growth in population would not be sudden. I can see that major builders would turn towards replacement of major buildings rather than the building of new ones.

Local builders would probably do likewise, and also renovations.  I won't argue that there would not be any shakeout or reduction in numbers: that happens with all industries and has happened as long as there has been industry.  At the end of the 19th-century, the massive horse industry moved into rapid decline (and with it the village blacksmith) when the dreaded internal combustion engine burst upon us. 

In historical terms, that change was almost instant.  (Note the "C" word, again.)

Take the example of the recording industry in which I have had 40 years personal experience.  In the 1950s it was a big deal for any music artist to make a record.  With the advanced technology, in the 2000s around the world, all of the middle sized recording studios and a great number of the large ones had gone out of existence and it seemed that every man and his dog had a recording studio in his lounge room or bedroom.  All the dedicated audio people who ran these studios certainly didn't commit suicide or whither up and blow away. They changed.

I suggest that most industries would be significantly impacted by a Zero Population Growth policy.  Most wouldn't disappear. They would change.

  I admit that change is a very uncomfortable necessity, and human beings don't like it one little bit.  However, if we are to seriously and swiftly address climate change and avoid a catastrophe which is already on the march, then we will have to change -- a huge amount of what we do, and a huge amount of what we believe.

BIG BUSINESS

Of course, we must not forget Big Business.  The mantra of big business is "grow the bottom-line" come what may.  That wasn't a bad attitude 100 years ago.  It was one of the prime causes of the high standard of living which we enjoy in the western world.  I guess the way big business went about it was decidedly dodgy, but that is different subject altogether.  In the year 2008 our earth can not sustain an uncontrolled increase in the production of things we don't really need, nor of the human beings that want them.  I have always challenged the correctness of the business cliche "grow or go backwards."  Perhaps it should be "change with the times or go backwards."  At any rate, it will have to change whether we like it or not.

Just in case you were thinking that such a change is an absolute impossibility for business, let me remind you that halfway through the last century many of the country towns had a fairly slow moving increase in the populations and had privately owned shops and corner stores which quite satisfactorily gave their owners a steady income -- in many cases a very good income.  A good tradesman in his own family business could eventually employ people.

At the smalltown/city level there is an obvious dichotomy.  On the one hand we rejoice in a gentler life then we could enjoy in the metropolis, whilst on the other hand we seek greater population.  As anybody ever thought to ask why we need a greater population?  I think I know the answer that would come from real estate agents and builders and business, but what about the rest of us?  Are we so well off for services in these small towns and cities that we have a surplus for any new citizens?  (For those who would raise the refugee debate -- forget it!  I said "ANY new citizens.")

Sorry to be such a spoil sport, but we really do need a major change in our thinking.

You know, I have a strong suspicion that the pressure to change will not come from our leaders -- will not come from our business people -- will not come from the movers and shakers in our society -- but will spring from the grassroots -- that's us!  All through history, major changes have been instigated by ordinary people like us who eventually recognise the need for a change that will not come without pressure being brought to bear on those who purport to lead us.

I fervently hope that it won't take us another 30 years for the "penny to drop", because by then it will very likely be too late. 

My best wishes to you, where-ever you live ...
Eric Scott, Tamworth (Australia).

Dilemmas for Islam today

Lost Worlds: Some Christmas reflections 2006: This website has never before reflected-in-public at Christmas, sat down and thought, wondered more deeply. Usually at Christmas we are busy socializing. But this year's disgust with Muslim clerics around the world, especially Sheik Hilali at Lakemba Mosque, Sydney, has made us sit down, pore over collections of newspaper clippings, and ponder various conversations and readings the year brought us. Unfortunately, a great deal could be said, far too much, that is just one of the problems. The main problem seems to be this, and it's a paradox, more so for Muslims. If Islam, a religion of submission to God's will, is going to survive as a religion, and even more so if it is to survive as a religion, as is claimed, of peace, then it is going to have to submit. It is going to have to submit, not to God, but to the dictates of men, via some kind of democratic process. Perhaps, many Muslims will see this as impossible, or intolerable, intolerably paradoxical, more so if they interpret Islam as a theocratic religion. However, the ugly fact is, that if Muslims allow themselves to become too radical, too fundamentalist, too vehement, they are all too easily induced to kill. The non-Muslim world, obviously, is not interested in this unfortunate tendency.

The obvious way out of the dilemma would seem to be, that the religion is adjusted somewhat, presumably by Muslim clerics, obviously, those who are best fitted for the task due to their intimate knowledge of Islam What is likely to happen if Muslim clerics fail to undertake this task, and see the paradox through to its logical conclusions and outcomes? Presumably, “the war on terror” will go on in some form or other. That is, Muslims will either stop killing, or the rest of the world will punish them by one means or another, till some kind of submission is accomplished. This could easily become a kind of realpolitikal interpretation of the situation. It is all too easy to see the world situation 2001-2006, in just this way. But quite simply, the world is not interested in a religion which fails to discourage violence, to vehemently discourage violence. And only Muslim clerics can discuss this openly, in a candid way. For anyone else to mention it, feels almost embarrassing, embarrassed that it might be said, embarrassed that it have to be said. So, there, it's said: the conclusion is, that one way or another, Islam is finally going to have to submit to democracy. And why would this be in the least surprising? Christianity did it!

We may as well say some things we happen to think and number some of them as we go. (1) Around the world, Muslim clerics need re-education. They are supposed to be in charge of a religion, but if we believe newspapers, all around the world, and chronically, Muslim people are simmering or boiling with unhappiness. Some of the unhappiness is due to present or past exploitation of various countries by the major western powers, it is true, but those are questions more secular than religious. Some of the unhappiness seems to arise from a self-inflicted victim mentality.

Where do Muslim clerics fit in, or fail to fit in? In Europe, Australia, Canada and the USA, some Muslim migrants seem happy enough, some are unhappy, alienated, it is fear they will become terrorists. Here, just imagine, if all around the world, we found that Chinese people, either new or old arrivals, were restless, unhappy, on the verge of becoming terrorists. But around the world, Chinese people are not unhappy, and mostly they cheerfully get on with their lives. And yes, they aren't Muslims. So it rather seems the case, that the way Islam is being presented by Muslim clerics is due for a sea change, both in Middle Eastern countries and in the West. Interpretations of Islam evidently need a re-think if faithful followers of the religion are to become happier. One problem seems to be that Muslim clerics remain very prickly and defensive about criticism of Islam, or how Islam is presented. If Christian clerics, Catholic or Protestant, were as defensive about their religion, or as provoked by neglect of the religion, they would all have died of depression decades ago. That is, Islamists seem to be worried about the survival of their religion.

Why would this be? It's possible to think of several reasons. One is that Islam, as a religion, seems to be excessively dependent on the use of the Arabic language. The Prophet delivered his view in Arabic; The Koran is written, it is said, very beautifully, in Arabic. (And Sheik Hilali delivered his objectionable sermon in Arabic) The question is, does Arabic cross over well into the modern world, dominated as it tends to be by English, French, German, Chinese, Japanese? It seems, Arabic travels rather badly. Unhappy Muslims in the West seem almost to suffer from a strange kind of involuted reverse racism – they heed religious instruction delivered from an Islamic-Arabic point of spiritual altitude. But does this in itself become a kind of linguistic racism? Views about God, about The Deity, have been delivered in every language on earth since time immemorial, what is so special about Arabic for religious discussion?

In the 1960s, and not without internal debate and controversy, the Catholic Church decided to abandon its traditional reliance on a dead language, Latin, for the conduct of its religious services, The Mass, Benediction, and so on. (There are still old-fashioned dissidents about this religious decision from The Vatican – and the father of actor Mel Gibson is one of the most famous of such dissidents. Protestant Christianity from inception, was always taught in the ordinary language of any country where it was adopted.) And so, Catholic priests use the language of the country they happen to be working in. Let's hear the teaching of Islam, then, in Danish, German, French, English, in Indonesian, not in Arabic! But who would supervise any such language revolution?

Here is another problem. Islam is a decentralised religion, its chief authority is a book, The Koran, not any group of men, and certainly not any group of both men and women. There is no central body, widely recognised, globally-recognised, which has the duty of properly interpreting Islam, which can be criticized if the purity of the religion is abridged. This leaves Islam open to multi-interpretations, which is exactly the problem that the religion has today. Only responsible Islamists, or clerics, can take care of this problem. So far, Muslim clerics show no signs they are aware of any such problem – if they do not centralise their authority on the teaching of Islam, the religion risks being fragmented. It already is fragmented, especially between moderates and non-moderates. Quite frankly, this website is going to declare its own war on non-moderate Muslims, and quite frankly, most of the world fails to care about the views of non-moderate Muslims, so they are simply going to have to wear any unhappiness they feel; it's their problem, not my problem.

Here's a language problem for everyone to consider. In Arabic, the word “jihad” means “holy war”. But is there a word in Arabic for two easy words which are easy to conceive in English, an unholy war? In the sense of a war being unjust, ill-conceived, sinful to be part of? (In Britain, it is widely thought that the first British-Chinese Opium War was an unjust, an unholy war.) If Arabic has a word for a holy war, does it have a word for an unholy war? If not, why not? This throws into relief, then, a fresh view about jihad, today, and the word we find is used far too often around the world, never mind who uses the word. Today, is it realistic to consider the conduct of a holy warm anywhere, for any reason? And no, it isn't. Today, the world is such, that the very idea of a holy war, a concerted crusade about religion, is just plain nuts.

In the West, the Iraq War, or the war resulting from the US invasion of Iraq, is widely regarded as unjust, ill-advised, based on bad information and decision-making, insanely expensive, we may as well call it an unholy war. Why would a holy war, conducted asymmetrically, or conventionally, be any less insane? So here is the problem that non-moderate Muslims have in too many parts of the world – the word jihad has become obsolete, it is no longer possible to conduct a holy war. So why on earth is the word jihad even being used? Modern attitudes, politics, economics, communications and technology resemble the very idea of conducting a holy war, untenable, impractical, plain impossible, and obviously, plain unwinnable. This is partly why Western observers tend to think that non-moderate Muslims are cloaking merely secular, or political aims, in Islamic religious language and imagery, which is outdated. If the US war in Iraq is ill-advised, so is the very idea of jihad. So basically, if anyone today is speaking of jihad, they are obviously out of touch with reality. (What is the Arabic word for an unholy war? Are suicide bombers engaged in an unholy war?)

We think, suicide bombers, anywhere, are profoundly insane, the terribly insane fruit of a Muslim Fundamentalist Death Cult, they are not legitimate followers of Islam. From which, we conclude, If Muslims can't see these factors at play in world affairs, what can they see? It seems to us, that Islam also presents a holistic outlook. We rather fear, that the state of the world today is such that a holistic religious outlook is simply untenable. Concentration on any such holistic outlook only creates extra stresses and strains when that outlook conflicts, as it inevitably well, with non-holistic outlooks, the outlooks of most of the world, in the West, in India, the Russias, and in China. Oddly enough, the Ancient Egyptian religion of the pharaohs was holistic, and theocratic, and it embraced views of proper life on either side of the grave. The religion of Ancient Sumer (Mesopotamia, Iraq) was far less theocratic, more pluralistic, In ways, Islam is similarly holistic, theocratic, precisely why it is conflicting with Western outlooks. This is also a reason why, maybe consciously, maybe unconsciously, Muslims feel that Islam is under threat. The deep-lying, holistic elements and assumptions underpinning Islam are indeed under threat from the West.

But this is not deliberate on the part of Westerners, and oil supplies are merely an economic aspect of the puzzles – these are differential matters of philosophical evolution. Our views of the world have become so complex, and sometimes so contradictory, partly due to the wild onrush of technology, the ways technology is hooked unequally into economic activity in different parts of the world, that a holistic outlook simply cannot survive. So to the extent that an interpretation of the purity of Islam is at issue, any holistic aspects of the interpretation will remain at risk. So the keepers of Islam have problems – if the holism of their religion is under threat, as it is, what will they do by way of adjustment? For there is an even worse problem confronting our world, our entire planet, and a holistic outlook is not going to help any of us with challenges to come.

That is climate change, global warming. If climate change becomes severe, as it threatens to do, any effort we make to apply a holistic outlook about ways of life, ways of being spiritual, about ways to converse with and relate to God, are going to be contradicted by nature, if by no other set of influences. In this sense, and more so in the longer term, it matters not if Islamists think that the West is decadent to the point of representing a widespread moral, economic, social and spiritual disease. An enormous number of Westerners think much the same, for any variety of reasons. (Catholic popes have been routinely warning about excessive materialism since after the end of World War Two. University people, newspaper writers, in the West have been worrying about excessive consumerism for this writer's entire lifetime – there is nothing new in the least about the need for criticism of Western decadence, so why do Islamists think they can contribute anything extra?) But if climate change persists, all this is going to change anyway, say in 50 years.

Meaning, if Islamists feel that Islam is under threat, things will get worse before they get better. If climate change becomes really severe, an enormous number of people are going to remain challenged by two main threats – the need to survive economically, and resisting the aggression of other people equally feeling threatened by changes in nature. This time, resort to religion is going to solve fewer problems, since we know this is not a matter regarding God, it is simply the planet undergoing changes, some of them caused by humanity. Humanity cannot be predicted to behave well in such circumstances. So this website also wishes to know, what do gatherings of Muslim clerics propose to recommend in the likely event of serious problems arising from climate change? Issue a fatwa against Mother Earth for her misbehaviour? Conduct a jihad against Mother Nature? Yes, indeed, it is high time a few Arabic-Islamic words here, fell into disuse. Islam is a religion which is having trouble adjusting to modern-day realities.

No amount of discussion of the role of God in the conduct of human affairs is going to change the severity of any climate-change situations. And the role of God in the conduct of human affairs brings us to the issue of Sharia Law. On the futurism page of this website is a copyright-free image of a man in space, made available years ago by Microsoft for users of one of its operating systems. What should be the spaceman's relationship be with God, and with Sharia Law? Does the question not sound a little unrealistic? One wonders if a Muslim cleric asked this question, will the spaceman will provide his own answer? And so what should be the answer be for areas of territory on the surface of Planet Earth? Islamic Sharia Law was first propounded when it was not even thinkable that a man might float in space. ...- Ed

Meanwhile, below is the most idiotic email this website received during 2004! It was dated 16-11-2004... and LW hopes it was a prank! "Hello, I am a student of history. My question is this; Is there any evidence to suggest that the Egyptian pyramids were artificial mountains/ mountain ranges which were used to support sophisticated ecologies?"

Below may be some new items for upload to Lost Worlds' pages in due course

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