NBC News Tries To Explain and Existentially Excuse Why Islamists Want to Destroy Everything

February 2nd, 2013

NBC News Tries To Explain and Existentially Excuse Why Islamists Want to Destroy Everything

Posted by: Barry
Published on February 2nd, 2013 @ 08:09:05 pm , using 612 words,

Posted in Events and Issues: Credible Resources

Conservative Refocus By Barry Secrest

When I read the NBC headline, I thought we would get a rather severe intellectual treatise on the extremes of fundamentalist Islam:

Why extreme Islamists are intent on destroying cultural artifacts

Instead, silly me, we got what almost seemed as an article seeking to somehow explain and excuse the islamists for trying to destroy pretty much everything associated with any culture outside of their own.

Missing, from their list, was the Islamists taking down of the Twin Towers, as a cultural icon, or maybe that’s just a little bit too deep for our savant anti-original thinkers in the world of NBC (nothing but Communists).

Regardless, please read on and try to ignore the note of whimsy with regard to an apparent NBC affectation for Islam, even as it compares the excess of Islam with the more ancient traditions of Christianity and Judaism and its excesses, as if their meaning, for the modern day, speaks to the sins of our western tradition cro-magnon forefathers as if it happened last week in the international news section.

So easy a caveman can do it….

By Ian Johnston, Staff Writer, NBC News in LONDON – They have destroyed the iconic Buddhas of Bamiyan, smashed down the fabled “end of the world” gate in the ancient city of Timbuktu and even called for the destruction of Egypt’s ancient pyramids and the Sphinx.

Extreme Islamist movements across the world have developed a reputation for the destruction of historic artifacts, monuments and buildings.

This week, officials confirmed that up to 2,000 manuscripts at Mali’s Ahmed Baba Institute had been destroyed or looted during a 10-month occupation of Timbuktu by Islamist fighters. Some experts have compared the texts to the Dead Sea Scrolls.

To many in the West, such actions are simply wanton vandalism. However, experts say the thinking behind it is actually part of a wider tradition of rooting out idol-worship and superstition found in Christianity and Judaism as well as Islam.

French and Malian troops have retaken control of Timbuktu from Islamist rebels. In the ancient city, much damage has been done, thousands of priceless manuscripts have been destroyed. Tim Ewart reports.

Usama Hasan – an Islamist for about 20 years, who now works to counter extremism at the U.K.’s Quilliam Foundation – said most Muslims had “a kind of tolerant attitude” and a “live-and-let-live” approach toward such things.

“Mainstream Muslim thinking tends to tolerate these historic artifacts,” he said. “Even if they don’t agree with the superstitions, they don’t want to provoke the community and don’t see it as a big deal.”

But Hasan said he understood the mindset of those condemned as cultural vandals “very well” as he “used to subscribe to it.”

He said that during his Islamist days he would say things like: “Yes, let’s destroy the pyramids when we take over Egypt.”

“It’s very sad. You lose all that cultural heritage, music, history, art, ancient books. If they (Islamists) don’t agree with what’s in them … they seem to think it’s OK to burn these books,” he said. “If you’re not Muslim or don’t subscribe to the same narrow interpretation the militants do, they will oppose everything you do and do so violently if they need to.”

Hasan said there were a number of stories explaining how the Sphinx lost its nose, but one account suggests that a religious figure in the 14th century, Saim El-Dahr, tried to get rid of it.

“There was a common belief that the Sphinx had some power over the level of the River Nile … he wanted to smash the locals’ superstitious belief in the power of the Sphinx and tried to destroy it,” he said.