It’s time to address the root of the problem with Muslims and what it means for us and our varṇāśrama project. Current troubles with ISIL in Iraq don’t really matter here, it’s just the latest metastasis of the old cancer, as the west would say. They are a bit exaggerating, though.
Islam has been around for a lot longer than modern liberal democracy, it has never been on a truly defeated side of historical battles but they survived through colonialism. Liberal democracy is a baby by comparison and it never had even a slap on the wrist, let alone an existential battle for survival like, say American Indians or communists in Russia and Cuba, or colonized India.
If we are talking about cancer silently destroying the entire humanity liberal democracy would be a much better fit than Islam – it spreads quickly and it’s irreversible. It demands more and more liberties to add to their never-ending list.
Their current drive to redefine marriage is a perfect example – turns out we don’t even have a proper definition of what marriage is, never thought we would need any – it was for men and women to unite for the purpose of procreation, everybody assumed. First the liberals assaulted the notion of procreation, they liked sex for pleasure without any sense of duty or responsibility. If pleasure is the sole criteria, why restrict it to one assigned person only? So adultery has become decriminalized and they invented the “open marriage” for the more adventurous types. Then they thought – why restrict pleasure to the opposite sex only? So they invented gay marriage.
Even ten years ago most people would scoff at the idea but the recent string of court victories allowed “liberals” to speak of it as a god given law that the humanity discovered like we did gravitation or electricity. Now, when they want to demonstrate other societies’ backwardness they say things like “they haven’t discovered gay marriage yet, what primitives!”
I put liberal in quotes in the previous paragraph to differentiate them from political class, political conservatives are no better, by criticizing liberals I’m not endorsing Republicans nor do I subscribe to Republican or Tea Party criticism, I’m trying to speak from the POV of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
I say liberal democracy is irreversible because one look at that bunch and it’s obvious they are not going back on any of their issues. Advocates of gay marriage are not going to give up their newly won right, women are not going to defer to their husbands on all matters and feminists are not going to give up their right to vote or their right to education and career, that’s not even open for discussion.
I say liberal democracy is a malignant growth because it literally kills – without procreation they would just die off like a hopeless branch of evolutionary tree, if they love their evolution so much. They are not meant for survival, probably because they made pleasure as their overriding criteria and put rights over responsibilities.
Not only would they die off but their habitat would be overrun and taken over by more resilient species – and here comes Islam, the fastest growing religion in the world. Somehow people who want to rediscover their lost connection to God turn to Islam, even in the west.
It’s understandable that they are not seeking God in their present western culture but the fact that they ignore Christianity should say something about prospects of that hopelessly corrupt religion, too. I mean it appears that Christians exist for the sole purpose of blessing whatever crazy ideas liberals throw up for public consumption. Divorce? Approved. Abortion? Approved. Gay marriage? Approved. Why would anyone seeking refuge from the liberal madness turn to Christianity?
Well, there are still Catholics but that branch is for pedophiles, no? It would take a while for the Catholic church to restore the image it deserves [on the strength of their philosophy].
I should also note that in Russia Orthodox Church is doing very well, Islam doesn’t even come close. Their image is untainted and they are firmly against all liberal innovations.
It’s not to say that Christianity is absolutely useless, only to say that it’s useless for the purpose of curbing liberal cancer. Even terminally sick patients need medical care and, spiritually, Christianity is their treatment. Physical therapy for the paralyzed cannot be compared to training for a marathon but it’s still useful. Thank Christians for dealing with the liberals no one else would touch with a wooden poll.
Anyway, the problem with Islam is that it tries to nourish and defend the still healthy tissue from the cancer of liberalism. It stands in the way of unrestricted growth of the west. It needs to be said that liberal democracy and its accompanying economic model can satisfy their appetite only by expanding, their internal sources of growth will never be enough, they need to take over new pastures, and if Islam stands in their way it needs to go.
They’ve made deals with most Arab rulers who do not follow Islam in any meaningful sense and happily transfer resources extracted from their countries into western banks but where this arrangement is not possible, comes the war, or regime change, or both.
Geopolitics aside, Muslims can’t live in the modern world, they either need to convert to consumerism or die. They can’t legally live the life they had been living for centuries and which is prescribed in their scripture, I mean polygamy here. Their Islamic financial system is incompatible with the modern, interest based one. They have invented “Islamic banking” in response but its reach is insignificant, it’s not a solution.
Most importantly, however, is that they can’t keep their women in their traditional roles anymore. They can’t have them wearing burkas, hijabs or niqabs, in places like France it’s against the law and they would require to uncover themselves in public offices. I say it’s the most important restriction because degradation starts with women, as we know from Bhagavad Gīta. If they can’t keep their women chaste, if they allow them to explore their sexual power over random men they meet in the streets, their whole society will eventually crumble. Cancer starts there.
So it’s not really a Muslim problem, it’s a problem with preserving religiosity in the modern age. Muslims are the target only because they are the last ones standing, and there are a lot of them to appear as a mighty force or a worthy opponent for the all-conquering west.
If we, the ISKCON, were in the similar position we would be attacked with the same ferocity. Just look how arranged marriages are condemned equally regardless of underlying religion, actually Indians seem to suffer from that criticism the most.
India is also a secular country, atheists are in charge there, they make all the important decisions and religion has been successfully excluded from the public sphere, lip service not withstanding. Impersonalism pervading modern Hinduism is not an enemy of the west, too, in a way they are spiritual cousins, so there’s less confrontation with pushing liberalism in India.
Buddhist countries elsewhere in Asia are either insignificant, like Bhutan or Sri Lanka, or have been co-opted long time ago, like Japan or Taiwan. In fact, in Thailand there’s a long festering Muslim insurgency against “Buddhist occupation”. Buddhists there must appear as absolutely godless, infidels of the highest rank, as they flooded the traditionally Muslim region with alcohol and prostitution and turned it into a stomping ground for fallen Muslims from Malaysia.
Another feature of Islam and Muslim way of life is that it’s remarkably close to ours and I don’t have time to explore this aspect today, I’ll stop here.
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