ofREH

Imagine you are a teacher, in a one room schoolhouse. You only have one student and that poor child is dimwitted.

There you are, at the head of the class, pointer in hand, chalkboard behind.
The dimwit sits in the center of the room, bulging from the small desk because of being held back and is clearly much older than should be for this class.

Your mission is to somehow get though to this pitiful creature, with heavy brow, low ears and dull eyes.
Your mission to explain the inexplicable, to someone lacking the capacity to comprehend even the simplest of terms.

You are the learn-ed, the instructor. The purveyor of truth and enlightenment.
I, am that student.
Your task daunting, I wish you luck.
let us begin…

Riddle me this, Professor.

You detest religion, of any stripe. While you make meager and halfhearted boasts of wanting to protect the right to practice it, let’s be honest, you’d prefer to see it abolished. You think it base and, though a suitable opiate for the masses, we as an evolved species would certainly be better off free of it’s bonds of ignorance and superstition.
Karl Marx said so and, dadgummit, that fella was about his business.

Except for Islam.
Somehow Islam escapes your scrutiny.
You’ve never met a Muslim you didn’t love or feel the need to protect.

This is the inexplicable part, so pay close attention…

While I cannot see past the fact that 98% of all terrorist acts are conducted by Muslims, you obviously can, and do.
But the part of this lesson that should earn extra credit, that really has this student wrinkling his heavy brow with consternation, the super duper paradox and where you must earn your frightfully low wage, is how, just how, you ignore every other professed tenet of Islam that runs afoul of your learn-ed ideology.

How is it, with convenient “What would Jesus do” quips, “the horror of the crusades” and, “those child molesting devil priests” at your ever ready disposal and on quick draw…you somehow skim past  homosexuals tossed from high-rises? How do you ignore the espoused position on Women in Islamic countries and culture? How, exactly, do you rationalize child brides, stolen from their villages in Africa and sold into slavery, genital mutilation, honour killings?   For such an imbecile, I’m curious.
With the Hijab as a constant reminder of the subjugation and second class citizenship of Women, how does one conjure a defense for those that insist on it, Men and Women alike?
If, that “one” is you.

At the head of the class, constantly bleating on about the “war on Women”, square that for me, will ya?
Cuz, I’m kinda struggling here.

See, I at least I get that religion, unchecked, can be very dangerous.
I get that my Church in past centuries is guilty of horrific crimes against humanity.
But not this century, Son. Or even the last.

This century, not only have we to counter those that would see us, the infidel, wiped from the face of the earth but we get you in the bargain, willing to completely ignore the red tide of extremism, out of some noble quest to discourage, what, profiling??

Listen, I’m probably going to fail your class, again. Another big fat F on my report card because, for all your efforts, I still don’t get it.
Because, I would call for an old timey crusade tomorrow. I would condemn every Muslim that remains silent, unwilling to finger their extremist, Jihadist buddies.
I would opt for turning every third century Islamic shithole into a glass parking lot.
Inshallah.

Here, switch with me for a sec and take this seat.
Class, repeat after me…
“Islam is a religion of peace”
Again.
“Islam is a religion of peace”

Class dismissed.
You’re an idiot.