Islam, gays, Finns Party and human rights

Yup. Even the Greens think Islam is a problem, and it’s a central leftist party.

Max Mannola (councilor from Vantaa) wrote it at 2013, but this is so current topic, I want to show it to both liberals and conservatives.

I own only the translation. Original text you can read here.

yhdistykset.vihreat.fi/armon.v…

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There would be enough to talk about Islam night from Ajankohtainen Kakkonen (it’s a Finnish broadcasting) for a long time. As long as the recent gay night.

Especially the most sentating part loosened lots of opinions here at US floor. The young amim of Mosque of Mellunmäki Abbas Bahmanpour had to reference to Sharia law’s heel to homosexuality. It is condemning, and it says the punishment is death from homosexual action. This he had to say in live broadcast. To mitigate the punishment unexperienced imam didn’t got anything else than four witnesses for the punishment is difficult to find, unless the act isn’t done e.g. in the middle of the market place, which he explained with laughter.

Did he support the punishment himself? If he opposed it, he could’ve said something else, e.g. ”However, such judgments should not be imposed on anyone today” or ” God condemn if he condemns it, it is not human affair”.  At least I got the image that would’ve supported it himself. In hand voting though, should Sharia law allowed in Finland, only the teacher of the Muslim home, Ahmad Fadil, raised his hand.

Anyway, Bahmanpour’s attitude towards human rights altogether was that the definition of ”human rights” may change, but Allah’s word doesn’t. As if human rights don’t necessarily have the right to sexual orientation in future? Director of research of Patmos foundation Juha Ahvio (who isn’t really positive towards gays, according to other researches) also reminded the organization of Islamist countries, OIC, didn’t sign the Declaration of human Rights by UN, but made their own instead:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_De…

It turns out from the link there have been deleted the right to change religion (from Islam to other religion) and getting married irrespective of religion (a Muslim woman can’t marry another faith man) from human rights. Other punishments aren’t allowed except the ones included in Sharia law (like whipping, ambutation or death penalty). Even though OIC isn’t religious organisation, it relies on Sharia Law completely. Could we, however, compare what the position on human rights is, for example, with the EU, the OECD or the Council of Europe?

Simon Elo and Olli Immonen, the debaters from the Finns Party were the only ones who said the clear objection for death penalty for gays. Many other politicians were left to hope for a negative reaction against the Sharia law. Heidi Hautala at least crystallized wisely the practitioners of different religions should gather to ponder how to get rid of these inhumane punishments. For other politicians, one wondered where the reactions were.

In my opinion, Simon Elo asked justly is it so only the Finns Party was defending gays’ right to live? Why the others were quite? Was it because they kept not accepting death penalties for gays as a foregone conclusion? But it still should’ve been said out of loud! The harder the proposal, the more it needs objections, they were even said because of the shape, the attention or the loose points.

Of course, the Finns have a constant negative attitude towards the development of the rights of homosexuals. Still, the question of life and death is many degrees serious than question of the right of gender neutral marriage or women’s right to Islamist covering dressing. I don’t see that the fact the True Finns defend gay rights in life (as surely most, if not all Finns) would in no way morally impose on them to drive gay rights in other situations. It’s good even in this cause gays’ rights are defended.

It is true we don’t know how the other debaters reacted to Bahmanpour’s words immediately after them, because the camera showned only Bahmanpour and Elo sitting next to him. It is true that the program has lots of debaters and so little time, and these who don’t want to ”waste their time” for saying foregone conclusions. But still! In my opinion, the referrer of the Sharia law and his potential family members got too low, also by A2's suppliers.

It was really tasteless behavior from Bahmanpour try to mitigate his steep utterance refereing difficulty to find four witnesses. It was also tasteless to blame Elo for his cold reaction to women’s covering dressing. Didn’t the imam understand how offensive his heel to his own religion is to the whole group of people who have done nothing bad to him? Didn’t he understand how relatively small a thing the right to desired dress is, compared to the right to life?

In my opinion, it was justified from Finns Party to express its opinions out of loud in the situation like that, whatever their motives are. It can of course be thought that they have found easy layouts, but so what? In my opinion, the thing is so serious it shouldn’t remain silent. I think it was scandalous how they were blamed islamophobic in follow-up situation, they just expressed the opinion most of the Finns have. The homosexual act doesn’t deserve death penalty, and no punishment, no matter what religion representative demands.

In political conversations, it’s found lot of phenomenon if we talk about two bad things, A and B, where A is obviously bad and B isn’t nearly as bad, majority focuses on criticizing B, because A doesn’t need criticizing when all oppose it. It still would be good t criticizers of B remember to say some words about A against bigger evil to avoid post-graduate problems.

Therefore, I think it’s wrong to always guilty nationalism and let the Islamists go easy. Islamist is a person, who wants Sharia law to Finland with all horrors. Islamism can be compared to Facisim and Nazism, if it strives to oppress people, banning other religions and body omissioning some human groups, as already mentioned above. In my opinion, the ideal like that sounds really dangerous and it can case more hate crimes than nationalism.

After a statement on this kind of TV, in principle, one weekend, some of the Muslim youths could attack some of the gays they knew and make them violence. It’s just as likely that some "nationalist" gang could invade immigrants after a "blog" of "racist" or "Islamophobic" has appeared ...

(I don’t really believe in the likelihood of any kind of attack in itself, neither does it seem to happen in Finland, fortunately, I just emphasize that they are equally probable, and if you demonize the second principle, one has to be demonized for another, totally irrespective of whether another is due to widespread religion and the other.)

Islam isn’t same as Islamism. Except if we take belligerent verses from Koran too seriously. Even in Islam, there are useful or harmless appropriations to peaceful people, like in any other religion. A good faith at its best contributes to building peace and reconciliation between people and making people understand the concept of holiness. A good faith can also provide an invaluable consolation in difficult situations of life and give direction to follow. A good faith creates a communion, from which the individual gets strength. I believe this also applies to the peacefully interpreted Islam.

All practitioners of religion should know how to question their lessons, at least the most warlike and most violent parts of it, don’t blindly obey the scriptures. God has given us sense and He wants we use it. That’s how I believe. So it is very difficult for me to understand what makes people keep the scriptures unmistakable? Can’t they just pick up all the good philosophies and leave violence to the scrapbook? What is the point of believing that they are the Word of God as such, so that nothing should be removed or added?

In Africa, gays are oppressed in the name of Christianity. Uganda may become a Christian country which judges gay to death.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_A…

So far, all countries or areas like that are Islamic (Mauritania, North Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, parts from Somalia and Muslim States of Nigeria).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wor…

In Uganda, the problem has begun from American fundamental preachers who have lobbied for death penalties. How badly they have misunderstood the message of their religion, which is based on mercy and love. Condemned statements about homosexuality are actually the most important reason why I don’t believe in the infallibility of the Bible.

In my opinion, the Finns Party would be more believable party, if they defended gays also then, when their enemy or opposer isn’t Islamic facet. Many are disturbed by the fact that the True Finns themselves fall into the (infidelity) of (Christian) religious writings in the argument against the gender neutral marriage law. Don’t the True Finns want at all to be better than fundamentalist Muslims except in the absence of gossip or killing gays?

Perhaps for the reason above, the True Finns’ replies from the Islam night weren’t received very warmly by other speakers. On the other hand, many reactions and assurances would have been needed from these others. First of all, Muslim scholars assure that the Islamic faith doesn’t require the death penalty for gays, that is, the resignation from the violent part of the doctrine. Second, from other politicians, assurances that the violent Sharia law doesn’t get acceptance in any form. To be honest, we have to say clearly no to evil. Heidi Hautala's dialogue between different religions against violent punishment would be very necessary.

The attached link worried, too. It’s good to hope that participants in this seminar aren’t really "normal" practitioners of religion they believe to be. However, there are pretty much of them in the video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvk3kj…

Muslims, you would say straight words to your extremist fundamentalists! Don’t wonder if someone’s afraid of Islam, fix Islam to way there’s nothing to fear about! Moderate and tolerant Muslims, who are the majority fortunately, you are in the key role; raise your voices against the conservatives! What matters in the holy books isn’t essential, but how the doctrines do are implemented in practice so that we in the modern world can all live in peace!

All scholars of modern religions should be able to upgrade their deeds from the horrors, the death penalty, the impunity and the intolerance in general. They’re not God’s words. Indeed, there is a world-wide gathering of peace and human rights builders of all religions, according to Heidi Hautala's proposal, to think about the laws of the religions by making sense!

– Max Mannola