Jan 20, 2008, New York Daily News:
Shi'ite Muslims at the al-Khoei Islamic Center in Queens prepare to flagellate themselves during a procession marking the festival of Ashura.
Ashura is a 10-day event marking the death of the Prophet Mohammad's grandson and revered saint, Iman Hussein, in Iraq 1,300 years ago.
Although condemned by many Muslims, the practice of self-flagellation among the Shi'ite during the Ashura is meant to express the pain Muslims felt on the day of Iman's death.
The practice of self-flagellation is commonly done with long chains tipped with sharp blades, which are used on a person's back....
... but some will also strike themselves in the head.
Although self-flagellation is a painful and bloody act, Shi'ites believe it to be a statement against violence.
The event, which takes place around the world, is painful both physically and emotionally to those who take part in it.Lawrence Auster:
Remember the photos the other day at Atlas Shrugs of the Ashura parade on Park Avenue, with the huge black banners (they seemed three stories high) symbolizing Shi'ite Islam, and the similarly huge white banners marked with red representing blood? That event involved no actual self-flagellation, no bleeding, but it did involve men standing on street corners ritually beating their chests while others looked on. I guess that's an example of Muslim "assimilation" in America: No people covered in blood, just crowds of bare-chested Muslims beating their chests on Park Avenue.Atlas Shrugs:
However, it turns out that this "assimilated," bloodless version of Ashura was just for Manhattan. Out in the boroughs, the Shi'ites are doing the real thing, as reported in today's New York Daily News. In a photo in the print version of the News, we see, at an Ashura festival in Queens, a barechested Mohammedan holding a long curved knife and with his back covered with blood. The online version of the News has a photo gallery of seven photos of the Queens Ashura "observations." They are weird, gross, and alienating, but the photo in the print version is the bloodiest.
This is happening in New York City. In the United States of America. And it's been brought to you, NOT BY LIBERALS, NOT BY TED KENNEDY, NOT BY BILL CLINTON OR GEORGE BUSH OR JOHN MCCAIN, BUT BY EVERY ONE OF US WHO HAS ACCEPTED THE NON-DISCRIMINATORY IMMIGRATION OF MUSLIMS IN THIS COUNTRY FOR THE LAST FORTY YEARS.
So there I am, with two of my little infidels in tow, dashing across town to hit Carnegie Hall. It seems Red has to have a classical concert in the bag for a report due tomorrow. I love these mandates, the kids as an impetus for some culchuh for a change. So imagine my surprise to stumble upon a sea of black down Park Avenue against a backdrop of loud Muslim prayers blaring over loudspeakers, no less. We were running late and I didn't have a picture card in my camera but Red said, "ma, there's a Staples down the block, you've got to get this". It was surreal ...
You get what you vote for.
2 comments:
Compare this "barbaric ritual" to the devotions of Roman Catholics in the Philippines on Good Friday -- who whip themselves, carry body sized crucifixes, and even stage crucifixions. Not your typical watered down Sunday morning American Christianity exactly -- and yet it provides the way for those Catholics to relate themselves, their universe, and their God to each other. Ditto for the Shi'i. I find the bloody aspects of both distasteful, not something I'm likely to do to myself; but I wish we Christians would incorporate Matam (chest beating) on Good Friday. After all, when I attended 'Ashura on Park Avenue the Shi'ites passed out handouts---you might not have gotten those---and someone did their homework: physical expressions of grif are HIGHLY biblical -- the Old Testament possesses poignant examples.
Who is right? America's secular and Protestant culture, where religion is just as neatly packaged and shiny as a product for sale; or for those for whom religion and daily life are not distinct?
Never mistake "followers" with a religion. Barbaric rituals are of followers (and that not being all of them), NOT religion. Sometimes a group of individuals demise, desecrate a religion and should not be considered the actual religion. Anonymous, so too with Catholics or any other religion, society, community, country, nation and their followers, citizens, people, as individuals who follow wrong ideas like sheep, instead of focussing on what the real and true religion or ideas in their society are. I have four family members who have been raped and murdered through the years, and am not blank minded enough to consider judging a NATION or a SOCIETY for what a few of its "followers", "individuals" have done. Please consider the INDIVIDUAL as apposed to the true religion, society or nation of the same group. They are not of the same idea or thought for sure and should be judged INDIVIDUALLY. (this beating is against the preachings of ISLAM by the way). I am not muslim, however, I know it well. Eg: do not hate a scorpion, maybe fear it and understand it as fear of the unknown, then study it from all aspects and angles, considering, that you as a human could learn from a scorpion and respect it for what it is not so? Don't mistake hate for fear. Also, focus on the individuals, rather than the whole nation, group, religion. SAd if we were all impudent and were not intelligent enough to see the real situation.
I am just another individual like you.
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