Discussion(s) that will NOT be allowed here on this Forum.

[admin]

Hello all Members.

As an Administrator of this forum, I will like to notify all that as from now on NO Islam vs. Christianity or Christianity versus Islam or Muslim(s) versus Christian(s) or Christian(s) versus Muslim(s) discussion(s) will be allowed here on this Forum.

Thanks for your anticipated cooperation and very sorry for any discomfort or any inconvenience that this might cause.

Compassionate dictatorship!

[HUSNAA]

Salaam Admin
U are missing the point. We have to discuss issues like these, especially as this is the main theme in the world today; Islam and the West or how it is being perceived in the West. I think that the majority of the non muslims on this forum so far have shown a lot of maturity towards their discussions on Islam even if they tend to border towards cynicism and sneers at some times and I hope we muslims have shown the same sort of maturity. Your rules in the sticky rules thread are well and fine. But you shouldnt keep closing threads unless there is blatant display of hate, which I think is not apparent anywhere. Except that I would like Sammy to be a bit more guarded in his writeups.

[Dave_McEwan_Hill]

I agree with Husnaa completely on this issue. There have been a few very offensive posts on this topic but most have been responsible and respectful.
Even the very,very offensive posts show everybody how long a road has to be travelled before the whole world can be brothers - far less the whole of Nigeria!
Self examination is a very useful exercise and Nigeria should be looking at itself rather more thoroughly than it sometimes does rather than blaming outside influences for some very bad things that happen inside your borders.

However I also understand the pressures on Admin in this matter and would encourage everybody to frame their posts in such a way that they are not abusive to any person or any person's religion.
That way useful discussion can be had.
I repeat that the wrong battles are being fought.
Islam and Christianity have much more in common than they have to divide them. The challenge to them both is the growth of a Godless world.

[Jack Fulcher]

Hello all.  Everytime I read a post written by Dave Hill, I say to myself "Why can't you write like that?"  Dave has a way of boiling everything down into its essense, so that the important points can be seen.  And I agree with Husnaa - if we can't argue the life and death issues on this board, why even have it in the first place?  I came here the first time in 2003 because I was angry that anyone would consider executing a young woman because she had a child out of wedlock.  I blustered onto this board, probably sounding a lot like Sammy, and you were all very kind and hospitable, and explained your points of view and reasons you might want to enforce Shari'ah law on your neighbors.  While I was never convinced that these laws should be imposed, and feel today that women especially are harmed by their enforcement, I learned much about your culture and Islam, and I find myself defending Muslims to my friends when I might not have before 2003.  

This is the value of this board, to me.  Certainly the Amina Lawal controversy was heated and sometimes rude things were said, but we learned that we are all human and can talk with reason and sincerity about the issues that move us.

I will agree that Sammy's posts have made me cringe from time to time.  I've even suspected he might be some sort of agent provacateur working to discredit one side of the issue, but I doubt it.  However, it should be noted that most of the responses to his posts have called him insane or illiterate, which is unnecessarily uncivilized and rude.  Please be nice.

As for the Christian v. Muslim arguments, I'm mostly interested as an outsider.  I'm neither Christian nor Muslim, and I really don't see the world's conflicts in this way.  It's mostly a clash of cultures, not religions.  For instance, I have no idea what religion my neighbors practice, if at all.  They could be Jewish, Catholic, some Protestant denomination, Muslim, Sikh, or they could follow no religion.  I really don't know.  However, I suspect my next door neighbors, newly arrived from Japan, are Buddhist or Shintoist, or something like that.  I know that there are a lot of Muslims in my area (because the newspapers tell me that), and I know there's a mosque down the street, but I don't know who they are.

What I like about living here is that it's not important what religion a person practices.  And if someone does something disrespectful toward a religion, we don't have riots.  People might write letters to the newspapers, or circulate petitions, or have angry arguments at town meetings, but they don't drive over to their neighbor's place of worship and blow it up.  Good grief.  The worst thing that might happen is that some hoodlum kids get too drunk and bored one night and try to burn a church or temple or mosque, but the FBI gets involved and they end up in jail for a few years.  Can you imagine the Methodists blowing up a Catholic church here, simply because they're Catholic?  You don't hear about that because it's just not done here.  So can someone please explain to me how the Sunnis can justify killing a bunch of Shi'ites?  Or blowing up thier holy mosques?  That just seems unreal and absurd to me.  

Can you imagine any people here (Catholic, Protestant, Jewish) rioting over some insulting cartoons?  Certainly if you just look at the newspapers in the Middle East, you'll see many cartoons that are insulting to us (especially the Jews), but you don't see demonstrations or boycotts that result from them.  Just look at some back issues of al-Ahram out of Cairo and you'll see Jews depicted as eating babies or worse, but we don't boycott Egyptian products.

So I see this as a difference in cultures, since we have many Muslims here.  I guess I want to know how we're going to change people's minds regarding their reactions to insults.  If their solution is simply "don't insult us," they're going to be very frustrated since the rest of the world is embracing free speech and insults are an unpleasant by-product of such speech.  How can we convince them to stop hurting themselves by their overreactions?

Glad to see Admin finally let us know how he feels.  However, remember that a compasionate dictatorship is still a dictatorship, which is one of the most inefficient and dangerous ways to run a country.  Look at what Mugabe's doing to his.

Bye for now, friends.  Jack

[admin]

Glad to see Admin finally let us know how he feels.  However, remember that a compasionate dictatorship is still a dictatorship, which is one of the most inefficient and dangerous ways to run a country.

This is a Forum not a Country! Besides, this is not San Francisco man, here there is No good running Water - you have to get your own, No Clean Electric Power - you have to generate your own, No full functioning Security - you have to provide your own. Majority of people go hungry everyday - a hungry man is an angry man. What one says could or might get one in real serious trouble or worse here.

Low Per Capita Income Countries Never Remain Democracies.
Adam Przeworski of New York University (one of my Alma Mata), confirmed this truism by studying every attempted transition to democracy around the globe. He and his colleagues found that once a country passes $6,000 in per capita income it is virtually guaranteed to succeed in its transition to democracy. States between $3,000 and $6,000 have less than a 50-50 chance of staying democracies. And countries below $3,000 are almost bound to fail.

Nigeria's GDP per capita (where the setting on KanoOnline is) is US$853 per capita compared to US$22,093 for the UK, US$26,251 for Canada , and US$24,575 for Australia not to talk of USA, the richest Country on earth now. This does not bode well for the prospects of democracy in Nigeria and other countries like it, until and unless the GDP per capita reached at least $3000.

So whereis or whois the reality? San Francisco in the western coast of USA or Kano in Nigeria in the southern edge of the Sahara in Africa? I like us to keep our point of reference to Kano Nigeria hence KanoOnline. That is the reality as of now and as of KanoOnline...

[Dave_McEwan_Hill]

Haba, Admin don't think Jack meant to be controversial but you just gave him a good dose of bulala. nonetheless

You are perfectly correct in your analysis about democracy.The problem in Nigeria goes back to British rule which tried to impose a system of democratic government on Nigeria which Nigeria was not ready for.
All forms of democracy must evolve from the people. You cannot impose it.
America is finding this out in Iraq at the moment.

Three prerquisites of democracy as Britain might determine it are an incorrupt and incorruptible judicial system, an educated, honest and well paid civil service to administer the country and an economic condition which can adequately support the administration of government and justice.
It is doubtful if Nigeria has ever achieved a completely satisfactory condition in any of these areas and it would have been much better for Nigeria if traditional concepts of justice and rule had been allowed to naturally develop and evolve.

[HUSNAA]

 Good grief.  The worst thing that might happen is that some hoodlum kids get too drunk and bored one night and try to burn a church or temple or mosque, but the FBI gets involved and they end up in jail for a few years.    You don't hear about that because it's just not done here.  So can someone please explain to me how the Sunnis can justify killing a bunch of Shi'ites?  Or blowing up thier holy mosques?  That just seems unreal and absurd to me.  

You have hit the nail squarely on the head! So hoodlums get drunk and try to blow up  places of worship? Well welcome to our world!!! That is what keeps happening in Nigeria when ever you get these religions riots! Our hoodlums are drunk on poverty, drugs and idleness however. We have no FBI to speak of, but we have the SSS and other agents whose sole function is to try and keep down dissenting political voices. The Nigerian police threatened to go on strike about  two weeks ago because of the deplorable conditions of service that is their lot. There is no law and order and no security to speak of. Political murders are very common; the recent one on an innocent woman whose politician husband happened to disagree with some former cronies. So the potential to cause chaos lies in all societies, however, some societies have the framework in place to manage and prevent societal breakdowns like the USA for example. But unfortunately we do not. So think of religious riots issues more as societal problems than religious intolerance at least in Nigeria.

Why do Sunnis kill Shi'tes? As a muslim, it embarrasses me that this happens because it makes muslims a laughing stock and gives apparent justification to what the world sees the muslims as: intolerant fanatics. I put the blame squarely on Bush and Blair however. They should have let sleeping dogs lie. Whatever Saddam was, the Iraqis were much better off under his rule than they are now. Even if he was a dictator, one could survive dictators by keeping a low profile and waiting out their term. He did commit so many atrocities especially to the Kurds, but the Kurds were instigated to rebel against him thinking that the US will come to their aid against Saddam, and the US as usual let them down. I am not defending Saddam, all I am saying is that he may not have done a lot of what he did if he didnt have so much opposition. Who knows if Iraq could have undergone a peaceful transition if Saddam were to leave office under the  circumstance of a natural death? We will never know. America should have let sleeping dogs lie.

[mallamt]

Admin
I suppose this was a thread specifically for an announcement, I suggest admin closes this thread from contributions or else, it clouds and makes the announcement obscure.  I think the discussion being carried out whether challenging the admins position or just contributing on some of the issues raised by the announcement should be carried out in a different thread with the appropraite title.

[HUSNAA]

Salaam alaika mallamt or is deputy vice admin more appropriate? :D

[Dave_McEwan_Hill]

Exactly, Husnaa.
Of course the removal of "bad man" Saddam was a retrospective excuse for the invasion as the claims of Weapons of Mass Destruction were proved to be completely bogus.
"Bad Man" Saddam was put into power by US, of course, who knew he was a "bad man " but he was their "bad man".
As everybody now knows the real reason for the invasion was to grab control of Iraq's oil as "bad man" Saddam wasn't playing the puppet any more.
This is the reason now for the rhetoric against Iran - a small nation which has never invaded any other country and is unlikely to do so. Their president has made a number of unwise statements (true, nonetheless) about Israel so this is the excuse for building a case against Iran.
The real long term aim is control of Iran's oil and control of the oil that comes out of central Asia through Iran.
God help us all and may Bush and his cronies and Tony Blair and his puppets rot in Hell for the thousands of innocent people they have caused to die.

As Husnaa has pointed out - nobody lives forever.
Under "bad man" Saddam Hussein Iraqis had electric power, running water, schoolds and universities that operated better than in every other state in the Middle East, limited elections, a health service that worked better than any other state in the Middle East and good hospitals full of dedicated doctors. They also had a secular constitution that protected all religions and forbade religious intolerance or violence. Saddam routinely executed his opponents. They would have done the same to him had the positions been reversed but as Husnaa pointed out if you kept your head down you could go about your business in a well ordered society and wait for Saddam to die.
What is they have now?

[admin]

Admin
I suppose this was a thread specifically for an announcement, I suggest admin closes this thread from contributions or else, it clouds and makes the announcement obscure.  I think the discussion being carried out whether challenging the admins position or just contributing on some of the issues raised by the announcement should be carried out in a different thread with the appropraite title.

Thanks lets take this elsewhere. You can start another thread. So this is closed.