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Apparent Islamic Terrorism Strikes Sydney
An anonymous reader send this link to a developing situation in Sydney, Australia, being reported on via live feed at the Guardian, and covered by various other news outlets as well. According to CNN's coverage, "CNN affiliate Seven Network said that at least 13 people are being held at the Lindt Chocolate Cafe. It published a photograph of people inside the cafe holding a black flag with Arabic writing on it. The flag reads: "There is no God but God and Mohammed is the prophet of God."
From The New York Times' coverage: The police have shut down parts of the city’s transport system, and closed off the mall area. They would not confirm how many people were being held hostage inside the cafe, nor whether those inside are armed.
Local media reports said that the airspace over Sydney had been closed and the famed Sydney Opera House evacuated. Television images showed heavily armed officers with their weapons trained on the cafe.
"There is no God but God and Mohammed is the prophet of God."
Well, they got the first 4 words right.
I'm skeptical of the peaceful nature of a religion founded by a warlord; but at this stage we don't know that it's not some nut-job who is trying to capitalise on the ISIS popularity.
(I'm writing from one of the buildings currently in lock-down because of this situation)
Two men claimed to have walked into a bar. Only one had the bruises to prove it.
There are about 500,000 Muslims in Australia.
1 of them is committing this crime.
...if the gunman turns out NOT being mentally deranged.
Too bad the major news networks are probably airing this from every angle, live. I bet the jihadis know how to use TVs too.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Once the western world abandons the middle east, then this shit will stop happening. Sigh, when will we ever learn.
Sorry to hear this unfolding :(
An unarmed populous is easier to terrorize. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia When being armed is illegal (or restricted to the point of being nearly that), only the bad guys will be armed in such situations. Waiting for the police to come save you is often an ineffective endeavor.
You dignify the human waste who perpetrate such idiocy by calling them "terrorists".
They are much more likely to be some loser who has no idea what else to do with
their miserable piece of shit lives, so they decide to do bad things.
Calling them an asshole is much more likely to be accurate. Calling them a terrorist
gives them more credit than all but a tiny fraction of such scum remotely deserve.
Learn? Learn? LEARN?
Crack open a book sometime. Islam has been trying to take over the rest of the world pretty much since the day it was founded. Liberal fantasies about Western colonialism are flatly contradicted by the entire rest of history. From Charlemange to Dracula the rest of the world was actively under siege.
This is just the next chapter in a very long history that's not pretty if you actually bother to pay attention to it.
Being able to ignore their oil really wouldn't change the situation all that much.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I know that sometimes on Slashdot, we get 'stuff that matters,' but can't we at least talk about the police drones involved in the situation? Or even that Uber is reportedly charging users a minimum $100 to get out of Sydney CBD. At least attempt to make it seem relevant please?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Islam is a peaceful religion, that's why followers just went out of their way to do this. And in Canada we had two terrorist attacks(one in Quebec), and another on Parliament Hill in two days.
My interpretation is that Islam is just like any other religion. A bunch of people who think their religion wants them to be perfectly nice and peaceful, and a bunch of others who think it demands they cleanse the Earth of non-believers.
If you followed the attacks in Canada you noticed that the attackers were recent converts to Islam. Their attacks weren't motivated by Islam, they were motivated by ISIL's culture of terrorism and enabled by whatever personal demons caused them to jump headlong into a new religion. Islam is just the language that ISIL uses to communicate that culture.
I stole this Sig
I love it when people say Christians did things just as bad as the mooslims, and bring up the Crusades. The Crusades were IN RESPONSE to the mooslimmss terrorizing the entire middle east, northern Africa & southern Europe. The Crusades were a DEFENSIVE action. http://gatesofvienna.blogspot....
As a former Muslim who lives in western country:
1. Islam is not a peaceful religion, and to believe so you must either be a Muslim or a very naive person. Peaceful Muslims exist of course, but simply because they do not follow Islam strictly enough.
2. Conservative western politicians who make use of terrorism to their own political benefit are not much better than the terrorists, in that both sides have no problem using people's safety to advance their own agenda. Typically they are also the ones that support wars worldwide.
Some people consider it a "hate site" for some reason
It contains facts that doesn't fit with their world view.
Om, nomnomnom...
Look man, even Bush said, "The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam.....Islam is peace." He was something of a warmonger, but even he realized that you shouldn't go to war against an entire religion. The enemies are easy to recognize, they're the ones who are trying to kill us, no matter what religion they profess.
Seriously, when you're more irrational than Bush, it's time to stop and think if you have a problem in your head.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
And is EXACTLY the same as Christianity.
Both are religions that base their entire structure around "we are the one true correct path and all others are wrong". Both have been used to dominate other populations.
That said religion is just a tool to control the masses. It is no different to other ideologies in that case.
TL;DR no, it should not have been translated, but whomever decided to had some damned reason or another, so you'll have to ask that person to see if this was justified.
It's an interesting question, and I'm on both sides of the fence. God and Allah are both the God of Abraham, spiritual head of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
"God" in western Christianity seems to be nameless, with the generic "god" becoming a proper name. We capitalize the word because there is only one god, and that is the god to which we refer by "God". Same with the difference between "his grace" and "His grace", only "his" is not a name.
But you suggest God is a proper name. It's more of a convention than a proper proper name, but whatever.
Why is the Muslim god called Allah?
A better question is, why would a Muslim and a Jew worship differently, have different beliefs, and want to blow each other up?
It is not the same God. There is your answer.
The Muslim God spoke through Muhammad - and the followers are Muslim. The Christian God spoke through Jesus - and the followers are Christian. The Jewish God spoke through Moses, without further distillation.
The worship of Allah is not the worship of the Christian God. The worship of the Jewish Lord is not the worship of either one.
Yes, it is the same God, but not the same religion. All 3 refer to the same God of Abraham, but God is not Allah because the followers are not the same.
If you are a Copt, dominated by Arabic culture, the proper translation is probably "There is no God but God," because this is very definitely not Allah. But clearly the second half, "Mohammed is the prophet of God," tells us that this is Allah, not God.
"Allahu akbar" does, in fact, mean "God is great" to both people. That is, if I translate for you so you can understand, it means that my God, who is also your God, is great. The key is in how you use translation. Do you mean that you literally translate without regard for idiom? Because most people don't do that. If I translate as "Allah, who is the God of these people but also in many ways the god of Christians and Jews, is great" it gets wordy, leaves lots of holes for questions and disagreements, and generally is worthless.
It is much closer in meaning and sentiment to say "God is great." It is not "God who hates Jews is great" or "God who thinks America is the Great Satan is great." It means "God of our faith is great", and is more clearly translated as you said.
Now to the quote in question: "There is no God but God and Mohammed is the prophet of God." Should that mean Allah instead? As I read it, it does in fact exclude the Jewish God and the Christian God, specifically because it excludes other prophets. BahÃ'Ã is out because they recognize many other prophets in addition to the one claimed in the quote. Mormonism obviously as well.
So this is the God of Muhammad, which can be summed up easily by saying "Allah" instead of God. Of course, this is redundant since the quote says that directly.
Since the quote comes from CNN, which cites Seven Network, we must consider whether Seven Network was right in translating it the way it did. I'm not going to go into the complexities of deciding who your audience is and whether you want to slant the news or appear unbiased, or whether someone put this much thought into the translation. Because they probably didn't. And no one cares by this point. And unless you majored in another language in preparation to be a translator, with formal education, the subtleties would be lost.
The choice is always to color someone's perceptions or avoid coloring - there is rarely neutral ground. So finally your question: Should Allah be translated to God? The answer of course is sometimes. Not in this case.
It's not the World Trade Center, and it's not Bali. It's a single cafe and a maximum possible body count than your typical school shooting in the US (which can hardly hold the news media's attention for more than a week any more).
This news wouldn't have made it out of Australia (if even NSW) if it weren't for the Islamic bogeyman angle.
Both of the people were mentally ill. Bibeau, the homeless Ottawa killer, had a history of violence, drug addiction, and mental instability, including 12 convictions in Quebec between 2001 and 2011 for crimes including drug possession, impaired driving, weapons offences, assault causing bodily harm, theft, and possession of break-in tools, which started long before he converted to islam.
Rouleau, the Quebec killer, had been taken to a psychiatric hospital by his father, but they couldn't keep him when he said he wanted to leave. He had drug problems, had to be in a special school for kids with discipline problems when he was younger, his personal life had fallen apart, his business had failed and last year at 24 he turned to islam, looking for something to cling to where he wouldn't feel like an inadequate failure, and was attracted to the extremists on the net and in the media.
Most people are able to make the distinction between a nutbar using a religion as a smokescreen to their using violence to escape their own failures or shortcomings, and the majority who peacefully practice that same religion. This applies equally to muslims, christians, atheists, or whatever your personal preference or poison.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
IRA and Russian speaking Ukrainians are fighting for political freedom, not for a "God" (BTW, in Ukraine we are supporting the bad guys). As for "Timmy", I'm not fluent enough in English to know what you're talking about.
Islam is becoming a serious problem.
An anecdote... One of my friend is Muslim. He's really not a fundamentalist. His wife is not wearing a hijab, he shave every morning (not sure about his wife) and he drinks alcohol from time to time (although he refuse to eat pork and he celebrate Ramadan). When there was the terrorist attacks because of Muhammad drawings, he said he was against violence. But... he also said he understood why people who were angry about those drawings decided to use violence. He consider our society do not respect Islam, so violence is a normal outcome.
This point of view is shared with the vast majority of Muslims. That's the problem.
Calling them an asshole is much more likely to be accurate. Calling them a terrorist gives them more credit than all but a tiny fraction of such scum remotely deserve.
I've often had that same thought. Calling them "terrorists" is really glorifying them, at least in the eyes of the impressionable. They are thinking "hey - I want to be a brave terrorist just like him!" All news headlines should refer to them literally as "assholes" or "losers". Then watch how many people now are going to say "hey - I want to be an asshole and a loser just like him!".I don't think quite so many would want to emulate that behaviour.
And is EXACTLY the same as Christianity.
No, it really isn't.
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,
For you will be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard.
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
Christianity advocates persuasion and being an example. "Fundamentalist" christianity is actually very peaceful. That doesn't prevent very unpeaceful people from trying to commandeer a philosophy's good reputation and use it for to try to conquer others, but those types of people will use anything they can get their hands on.
What's a terrorist act?
Are we counting the US drone program when they blow the shit out of a civilian wedding? Do we count the ~1,000,000 people the US killed in Iraq? Or the hundreds of thousands of kids they killed with sanctions?
Liberty.
I'm hopeful that someday we all can learn to peacefully cohabit this planet, and maybe even stand up for and protect each other.
Some people use religion as an excuse to hurt or kill, while others use it as inspiration to improve their own and others' lives. I think it has more to do with the person than the religion.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
I'm still talking about the list of attacks. That is a summary of facts. I've randomly sampled some of the attacks some time ago and none of them was made up; all of them happened. It's not a "soundbite" or a "pre-baked conclusion" "made to look factual" that a policeman was beheaded by Muslims for religious reasons on this December's first day, BBC reports on it. And if the authors of that web site indeed only "cherry-picked" some of them, as you insinuate, I'm not sure I want to see the rest.
At this point in history, arguing that perhaps religion doesn't make people utterly stupid really sounds almost like arguing that perhaps the Earth is hollow.
Ezekiel 23:20
Sorry to hear this unfolding :(
An unarmed populous is easier to terrorize. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G... When being armed is illegal (or restricted to the point of being nearly that), only the bad guys will be armed in such situations. Waiting for the police to come save you is often an ineffective endeavor.
Australia's gun laws are what has prevented this person from having an assault rifle. He's armed with a small single barrelled shotgun. Having more armed people will ensure that more incidents like this will occur and a lot more often.
And I am an Australian. Our gun laws have prevented things like this as criminals cant get easy access to guns.
We are not terrorised here I can assure you.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Oh, by the way, the Breivik argument is just hilarious. He's the one guy who tripled Norway's homicide statistics for one year. That alone should tell you something about Norway. And the fact that Breivik is even newsworthy after three years when something like six acts of Muslim religious violence on average end up with death daily really drives my point home. The same week that Breivik killed 77 people, Muslims around the world killed at least another 95 (just for religious reasons, mind you - that's what we're counting here). But one Breivik is newsworthy only because it's such a rare occurrence. Norway doesn't have low homicide rate because it's Christian - it really isn't, it has a low homicide rate because it's not chock-full of crazy brainwashed wackos.
Ezekiel 23:20
But that isn't your argument.
Your argument is that Islam is inherently violent (which is what the site you linked to is trying to say). Dont try to change the argument to all religions because you've been proven wrong (you want a list of attacks, the IRA did over 10,000 bombings on its own).
Extremism is bad and causes people to do irrational things. Your brand of extremism is as bad as any other.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Moving the goal posts means you've lost the argument.
You said it yourself, this guy trippled Norways yearly homicide rate in 3 days. How many of the Muslim incidents you allude to occur in war zones or countries that have an open revolution? Most of them. It's like saying all Christian nations are unsafe by Colombia as an example. The difference between us is that I can recognise BS and you cant.
Norway is an extremely safe country and a rational one. The way Norway picked up and carried on After Breivik is a shining example to us all. No fear mongering or revenge wars.
But where are the extremist Islamic attacks in Norway... at least one per week please.
And this makes you a xenophobe.
Which was the point of my argument, you aren't interested in the truth, you're interested in things that agree with you.
Now here's the kicker, I'm an Australian, I live in Australia and I know a hell of a lot more about this than you do considering how biased and inaccurate your sources are.
This guy is simply not right in the head. It's not that he's a Muslim that caused this, its the fact he's mentally ill. He's already lost 5 of his hostages (they escaped out the back door) he's that incompetent. This is more an indication of Australia's failing mental health care than the rise of Islamic extremism.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Well we know it wasn't the US or everyone would have whipped out a 44 magnum and the running gun battle consuming the entire suburb would still be going on.
You jest... but in Texas, we have over 800,000 concealed carry permit holders... and gun battles don't break out, well, ever between them...
And I notice that they don't try this stuff here either...
You would be hard pressed to walk into a busy Starbucks here without a dozen people carrying guns, the terrorists wouldn't have hostages, they'd have a fight on their hands, and frankly they are cowards anyway, so they won't do that here.
Can I just think that taking orders from your invisible imaginary friend is a case for a shrink, no matter what you call him?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Aside from the fact that Christians did exactly the same when they reconquered the Iberian peninsula, and aside from the fact that in that time Muslim societies were far more liberal than any Christian society (Jews usually fled to Muslim countries from Christian countries), would you mind explaining why no bloody crusade ever went west to Spain, but all East to Jerusalem?
The crusades were the product of a fanatical Christian society, with the motivation of paradise for the soldiers and spoils of war for the commanders. They sacked, plundered, raped anything between Europe and Jerusalem, and that includes Costantinople that at the time was Christian. Which was expected of any serious army at that time. The pretext for war was the "liberation" of Jerusalem, and the real drive was a combination of poverty, ignorance, greed and religion. So the crusades were pretty much the ISIS of the second millenium.
Do read up some history lest you spout more of such nonsense.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
This is what you get when you're short-sighted with your immigration policy
When they have the numbers, they will be up to their mischief
Look around the world, you'll see that this is not a new phenomenon -
They will first DOMINATE - becoming a very vocal minority
Then they will INTIMIDATE - and call anyone who disagree with them "racist" or "hater" and everything their opponents do as "hate speech", "hateful acts"
... and ultimately...
They will SUBJUGATE - the Middle East, Pakistan, Iran, North Africa, and so on, used to be places where the number of non-Muslims were larger than Muslims
Now?
In Pakistan they burned two Christians alive in a kiln
In Iraq / Syria they cut off the heads of Christians
In Northern Nigeria they kidnapped over 200 young girls and forced them to converted into Islam and then married them to much older Muslims
... and so on, and so forth
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Calling them an asshole is much more likely to be accurate. Calling them a terrorist gives them more credit than all but a tiny fraction of such scum remotely deserve.
I've often had that same thought. Calling them "terrorists" is really glorifying them, at least in the eyes of the impressionable. They are thinking "hey - I want to be a brave terrorist just like him!" All news headlines should refer to them literally as "assholes" or "losers". Then watch how many people now are going to say "hey - I want to be an asshole and a loser just like him!".I don't think quite so many would want to emulate that behaviour.
Well, the problem with that is that the people involved don't call themselves "terrorists" in the first place, and they certainly don't care how the Western Media label them.
In their eyes, they are freedom fighters, holy warriors, God's Special Forces, or whatever.
A bit of name-calling really isn't going to stop them.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I thought that the "cowards" were the ones that felt that they NEEDED to carry guns everywhere that they went ?
So the hostages in Australia are brave and the police outside with guns are cowards?
Funny how when something like this happens, the first thing everyone does is call the guys with the guns.
I carry a gun so I don't have to call anyone, I'm already there.
Well we know it wasn't the US or everyone would have whipped out a 44 magnum and the running gun battle consuming the entire suburb would still be going on.
You jest... but in Texas, we have over 800,000 concealed carry permit holders... and gun battles don't break out, well, ever between them...
And I notice that they don't try this stuff here either...
You would be hard pressed to walk into a busy Starbucks here without a dozen people carrying guns, the terrorists wouldn't have hostages, they'd have a fight on their hands, and frankly they are cowards anyway, so they won't do that here.
The "terrorists are cowards" meme is absurd. Whatever their misguided reasons, someone who is prepared to risk death or lengthy imprisonment for a cause is not a physical coward.
The mistake is categorising courage as an absolute moral good. You might be a brave soldier and a Nazi paedophile, but the bravery itself doesn't make you a good person if you are also raping and murdering children.
Saying that a terrorist has physical courage does not mean you are endorsing their beliefs or actions.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it