Vice Pays Homage to Virtue!

Sir Winston Churchill, perhaps the greatest leader in British history, said, "The British nation is unique in this respect. They are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst." Ever since the British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared his support to go to war against Iraq's Saddam Hussein and since committing British troops to the coalition forces, contrary to the typical and predictable British attitude of apathy and self absorption, the extreme liberal British press has been beating the drum of ill tidings, in character to Churchill's unfailing assessment.

Added to its incessant gloom and doom depiction of the effort to bring democracy to Iraq and the Middle East, the far left liberal press has been on witch hunt to advance the popular Arab and Muslim sentiments of equating the desire and effort to bring democracy and individual freedom to the Middle East as another Christian Crusade, led by George Bush and Tony Blair, both of whom are Christians. I have wondered about the motives of the British press, in its hypocritical quest to discredit Blair by his association with George Bush, a “born again Christian”. I have come to the conclusion that strife and hatred sometimes create strange bedfellows and induce self-destructive tendencies. This appears to be the case here; the far left liberal British press and political Islamists, both hate Christianity and wants it completely stamped out of England, Europe and the whole world, hence their unholy alliance.

The spin on Blair’s statement in an interview with THE INDEPENDENT, published on March 4, 2006 proves my point. THE INDEPENDENT wrote, “Tony Blair has proclaimed that God will judge whether he was right to send British troops to Iraq, echoing statements from his ally George Bush.” The article went on to spin Blair’s statement, in an attempt to discredit the Prime Minister. They must be saying to themselves, aha! He finally said it'. It is abundantly clear that they have been waiting for this time, now it has finally come and they are going to make the most of it. Alas, it is only to their inevitable peril.

It is said that in the eyes of skepticism, words become redundant. That may be so, but does common sense also have to become redundant? It is apparent that the liberal British press mirrors the general sentiment of the British people, afraid of the Muslims in their midst, afraid of the Islamic fundamentalists, who are ever so willing to commit suicide, create chaos, just to destroy as many innocent lives as possible. Muslims in Britain sensing this fear, as a predator senses the aura of fear emanating from its prey, are increasingly flaunting the symbolic power of their lethal weapon (suicide bomber regalia, etc.) and newfound power over the "infidels" —fear and uncertainty, of exploding buildings, trains, buses and airplanes. The suggestive conducts of those protesting the cartoon of Prophet Mohammed on the streets of London recently is a clear indication.

Feeling exposed and construing Tony Blair's support for the war as an open invitation to Islamic terrorists, the British press has been trying to discredit Prime Minister Tony Blair, by seeking to create the impression that his action on Iraq was directed by his Christian faith, absurdly implying that Blair and Bush are engaged in a religious war against Islam and against Muslims. But, I am comforted in knowing that a little over half a century ago, Britain was also gripped by fear of the Nazis, but one man was brave enough to rouse the latent courage of the British people, who built bridges with their bodies to beat back the evil that came knocking on their doors and steamed-rolled their tranquil towns and cities.

Prime Minister Tony Blair knew the British press has been on his case, right from the start of this war. Unfortunately, despite being aware of the trick questions the far left liberal British press has been incessantly fielding to entrap him, Blair failed to learn from Jesus’ experience with Pontus Pilate just before Jesus was crucified. Pilate asked Jesus the trick question, "Are you the king of the Jews?" Jesus knowing Pilate’s motive for asking the question replied, "Are you asking this on your own, or have others told you about me?"

Someone once said that hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. Such is the notion of standing for something and yet not wanting it to come about. One cannot claim to want freedom for all people, yet hinder the efforts that will bring it about. How can anyone speak from both sides of the mouth—take refuge in the protective arms of good virtue, yet deny the essence of good virtue. It is akin to eating an apple and denying its existence or insisting that it is beef or something else. Such is the attitude of the far left liberal British press to Christianity and such can only be for no other reason except mischief or malice.

When I hear people castigate the idea of freedom for every person, regardless of place or position; I wonder what they would offer in its place. Those who engage in witch hunting to discredit George Bush and Tony Blair, by taking issue with their faith, as to castigate their desire to see freedom come to all people, are blinded by their hatred and antagonism to Christianity. It is really not about Bush and Blair; it’s all about Christianity. But these protagonist of existentialism and antagonist of Christianity must remember that the very idea of freedom for all is a Christian virtue, a virtue founded on truth—another Christian virtue. “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Remember that? This is because it is the truth that makes one free.

It is in the truth that one is declared free or innocent, just as an accused person is declared free in the truth of his innocence, just as a person in bondage is set free in light of the truth of his humanity, and just as a person who is afraid of the unknown is liberated by the knowledge of the none existence of the very thing he feared. “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Remember that one too? This is because someone has to bring the truth to those who lack freedom that they might then have freedom. Look at the Iraqis, they are learning things they never could have imagined, doing things they never knew they could do—choosing who will rule them and saying what they would like to say. That is freedom and someone had to bring it to them. Democracy works and it should not matter whose idea it was or where it originated.

True freedom derives from truth itself, because true freedom can only be freedom in the truth. Indeed, there is no freedom without truth. True freedom is not found in doing what one likes, but in doing what one ought. The former is illusory, superficial, and fails to recognize the whole truth about the essence of humanity. To that extent, Bush and Blair are doing what they ought in Iraq, while the far left is cheering for the status quo—oppression and stagnation. They are the “do nothing bunch.”

No one, not even the most rabid liberals, who have become quite famous as antagonists of Christianity, can point to one thing that Jesus Christ ever said or did that is not to the benefit of all people, yet they seek to discredit Blair on his account. The problem the liberals have with Christianity is that they want and enjoy freedom, not the truth that underlies it. But freedom must have fidelity with truth, if it is not to become bondage. One may have the freedom to sniff heroin, but in the addiction that follows, one losses his freedom, ends up in bondage and quickly discovers that he never had the freedom he thought he had in the first place.

Obviously, the state of collective irrationality that the far left has found itself is in keeping with the essential postmodernist principle—the rejection of the very idea that language actually refers to something or signifies an actual existing thing, and the belief that the act of speaking gives reality (meaning and substance) to things and ideas, and that language is not a pure description of reality, hence the spin, the lies, and more lies—essentially whoever shouts louder or longer, regardless of what is being said. This consciousness is of course founded on the profusely divergent ideas of multiculturalism. It is a war of words, and words have power—the power to guide or misguide, the power to set the mind and body free or take them captive. The power of life and death lies in the tongue, the Bible says.

Under the guise of tolerance, the over zealous liberals have clearly shown that they are anti-Christian. In fact, Christian bashing has become a favorite pastime of the enforcers of multiculturalism and the Political Correctness horse traders; hence their convenient attacks on Bush and Blair. It is quite clear that multiculturalism and political correctness have become tools for persecuting Christians in Western societies.

All through time, Christians have been taken advantage of, persecuted and pushed aside, because of the very essence of Christianity – love (even for their enemies), peace, forgiveness, and justice. The notion of Christians as wimps that would readily turn the other cheek repeatedly and endlessly to be slapped on, has led Christian haters everywhere to essentially bully Christians, expecting no consequence or retribution. Yet they never fail to exhibit their wimpiness when it comes to Muslims, of course for obvious reasons.

In their growing disdain for Christians and apparent fear of Muslims, the left is catering to Muslims, in essentially promoting Islam by constantly making excuses for Islam and Muslims, while vigorously deriding Christianity and Christians. Clearly the application of the constitutional injunction of separation of church and state has become covert attack on Christians. They are ever willing to bend the rules, even abandon them for Muslims, but ever willing and eager to use the law to marginalize Christians. Of course, this is understandable, given that they scared to death by a few Muslims in the midst, but they have nothing to fear about Christians, except a troubled conscience inspired by the moral imperatives Christianity bears.

In their unrestrained and almost maniacal zeal to get at Christians, the far left Western media have shown that they will go to any length to do so, even if it means dubiously promoting Islam. Their ill fixation on Christianity is nothing short of a suicidal tendency. It is indeed a perilous premise.

Malcolm Muggeridge, in The End of Christendom, wrote "A strange thing I have observed over many years in this business of news gathering and news presentation is that by some infallible process media people always manage to miss the most important thing. It’s almost as though there were some built-in propensity to do this. In moments of humility, I realize that if I had been a correspondent in the Holy Land at the time of our Lord’s ministry, I should almost certainly have spent my time knocking about with the entourage of Pontius Pilate, finding out what the Sanhedrin was up to, and lurking around Herod’s court with the hope of signing up Salome to write her memoirs exclusively. I regret that this is true. Ironically enough, as the dramatization of the public scene gains impetus, so we move farther and farther from the reality of things and become more and more preoccupied with fantasy".

A Perilous Premise

The apparent inability of the West to understand the motivation of Islamic extremism and terrorism, the lack of will, and the absence of any coherent and effective idea for dealing with the intrinsic problem of the diametrical nature of Islam to the Western ideals, is baffling. What is even more troubling is the doctrine of appeasement (excuses on behalf of Islam by western leaders) that is emerging in response to Islamic terrorist attacks, threats, and apparent intimidation of the West, whereby European leaders have elected to appease Muslims rather than engage them in honest and constructive dialog to transform the fundamental ideology that breeds hatred and inspires unspeakable acts of cruelty. This response is eerily reminiscent of the tepid response to the rise of Nazism, not too long ago.

To most Islamic leaders, perhaps, many Muslims, Islam is still at war with the Christian Europe, "crusaders", as the Islamic extremists and terrorists like to portray the West. Hence, efforts by the West to establish democracy in the Middle East are viewed as Christians invading Islam. To the West, this is a paradox, but to many Muslims, this is clearly an attack on Islam. After all, democracy being another ideology is invariably in competition with Islam. Moreover, democracy originated in the West, the land of the "crusaders", all the more reason for jihad, hence, the mind bugling and most gruesome killing of innocent Iraqis by Islamic extremists and terrorists to stop democracy from taking root.

The incredulity that is at display over the fact that the London suicide bombers were home grown terrorist, is at best, naïveté and at worst, acute denial. The idea that assimilation is politically incorrect has led to the self-isolation of Muslims in European society and has encouraged the hostility towards the West that has emerged. Moreover, the added notion that life in the West is too good an alternative, and will inevitably dissuade and change the mindset of fundamental Islamists and terrorists, weaken their resolve to carryout the biddings of "Islamic holy edicts" ("fatwas") issued by clerics and regarded as the very word of Allah, is a perilous feel good notion.

Contrary to the expectations of the West, surveys continue to show that many western educated Muslims and Muslims dwelling in Western societies, including naturalized citizens and their descendants, are very resentful of the West. Their diatribes and incendiary comments are clear signs of danger that have gone unheeded. In the name of Islam, many of them have indeed taken up arms against their adopted Western countries and actively seek their destruction.

As they have shown, there is no question that Islam does not allow ijtihad (free play of the intellect - independent or innovative thinking) and qiyyas (analogical reasoning). After all, what is the need for those, if the only thing that matters is taqlid (imitation) of an act that took place in A.D 622 and A.D. 630. In Islam, the fundamental duty of each member is to submit to Allah and whatever Allah demands of him or her. Frequently, the "demands" that Allah makes of Muslims seem to be the unquestioned demands that Islamic clerics have presented, by way of fatwas (or holy edicts), which they issue to Muslims. Many of these fatwas are essentially calls to one "religious war" (jihad) or another, such as has been with Israel, and now is in Europe and America.

According to an article in the New York Times, about a year ago, by a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institute, who happen to be of the Islamic persuasion, "Many religious and community leaders were convinced that Islam would manifest itself in its truest form in this country. Some even proclaimed that one day America would be an Islamic state." In 1983, in a speech marking the dedication of an Islamic Center in Stockholm, Sweden, an Islamic leader declared, "In the next fifty years, we will capture the Western world for Islam. We have the men to do it, we have the money to do it, and above all, we are already doing it."

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, both regarded as American allies, have committed to fund the spread of Islam in America. Saudi Arabia has for decades funded the Madrasas in Pakistan and Afghanistan that have been the breeding ground for most Islamic extremists and every Islamic terrorist that has attacked the West, from 9/11 to 7/7. This perilous and borderless new army, primed on unbelievably warped ideology, has taken aim on the West and has committed to destroy its essence. They have all come to the belief that the greatest weakness the West has is its civil liberties, hence they have committed to employ the same to carryout their agenda. Is any one truly surprised at what is happening? The Prophet Mohammed said, in this world there are only two houses, "the house of Islam and the house of war." The admonition in this is for Muslims to take the sword to non Muslims (the infidels) as he did in A.D 622 and A.D. 630. In Islam, tolerance of views that do not stem from Islam is an oxymoron. Tolerance of non Islamic views is as non existent in Islam as the word compromise is non existent in the Arabic language.

This is now emerging in Denmark, France, and all over Europe —countries where freedom of expression and tolerance have been the hallmarks of the society, and on account of which, Muslims from all over the world, in spite of their intolerance and propensity for violence, have been welcomed into these societies. Now, these values that are the essence of these societies are increasingly on the run, essentially being exterminated. A situation where Europeans would lose their ability to speak freely in their own country, for fear of being assassinated by Muslims, is no longer a thing to be imagined, it is now a stark reality.

Consider the fact that any citizen, even leaders in these societies, who says anything that Muslims don't like, is marked for death. In the Netherlands, Members of parliament who have been marked for death for their speech, fearing for their lives and the lives of members of their families, in light of the murder of Theo Van Gogh and terrorist attacks, are now practically living under house arrest and in exile in their own country for fear of their guests. What an irony, an irony that is eerily reminiscent of the Trojan horse.

As Muslims showed today in London and all over Europe, in the manner in which they are protesting the publication of cartoons about Prophet Mohammed, their value for freedom is only exploitative, only when it serves their purposes. They are destroying the freedom that enabled them to become part of these societies and they are using the freedom they seek to destroy, to achieve that end. Their expression of free speech is in incendiary statements like “Behead the one who insults the prophet,” “Butcher those who mock Islam,” “Be Prepared for the Real Holocaust,” and the sporting of suicide vests, yet they are unwilling to respect the right of others whose expressions are totally innocuous. These are not “Islamic extremists” voicing these terrorist threats in the name of free speech on the streets of London and all over Europe, or are they? The very fact that they are able to express these extreme views nullifies the grievance they have over the expressions of others, which they protest.

(Originally posted on November 8, 2005, reposted on February 8, 2006 and on March 3, 2006)

"House of Islam and House of War"

The fact is that Islam is a religion that has mainly been advanced by violence and intimidation, from Prophet Mohammed's Hijra in A.D 622 and A.D 630, through Islamic expansion by the Ottoman Empire, to present day Wahabism, notably Al Qaeda and Taliban. It is important to remember that the very essence of Islam precludes it from coexisting with any other religion, particularly Christianity or perception of it. The fact that any Muslim who converts to Christianity in most Islamic countries would be killed or run out of town is a reminder. The notion of coexistence, let alone assimilation is antithetic to the Islamic empowerment; the notion that Allah gave Mohammed Islam to rule over all other religion.

Hence, every country on planet earth with a significant Muslim population is either an Islamic state (intolerant and undemocratic) or has Islamic groups fighting to make it (or portions thereof) an Islamic state. It is interesting that European states and recently Canada have facilitated the laying of the essential foundations for the same to become of their societies in the future. In the name of multiculturalism and political correctness they have put the future of their children and grand children in serious jeopardy, as they have essentially ensured that their children and grand children will inevitably have to deal with Islamic extremism in their societies.

To understand the motivation of Muslims in Western societies it is important to remember a little bit of history. Following Prophet Muhammad's example—his violent triumphant return to Mecca in A.D. 630 and the establishment of the Islamic empire in AD 634, Muslims have conquered and imposed Islam on lands stretching from the borders of China and India to Spain's Atlantic coast. All of these conquered lands were compelled by force to embrace Islam, and as a result many (if not all) have become Islamic states. In his book Islam and the West, historian Bernard Lewis notes, "For almost a thousand years . . . Europe was under constant threat. In the early centuries it was a double threat—not only of invasion and conquest, but also of conversion and assimilation. All but the easternmost provinces of the Islamic realm had been taken from Christian rulers, and the vast majority of the first Muslims west of Iran and Arabia were converts from Christianity. North Africa, Egypt, Syria, even Persian-ruled Iraq, had been Christian countries, in which Christianity was older and more deeply rooted than in most of Europe. Their loss was sorely felt and heightened the fear that a similar fate was in store for Europe." Well, that fate is now on the verge of certainty, as indigenous Europeans are gripped by apathy and complacency, while Arab immigrants and immigrants from Islamic countries are on the march to take over Europe for Islam.

In 1801, two months after the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson as president, Tripoli (now Libya) which was compelled by the Ottoman Empire to become an Islamic nation, nearly two and half centuries prior (1535), declared war on the United States because the Americans had refused to pay tribute to raiding Arab corsairs. The ambassador from Tripoli had explained to Jefferson in Paris in 1786 that Muslims considered such raids their duty according to both the Qur'an and the Hadith, and that they were therefore bound to wage attacks (jihad) on all who refused to acknowledge Muslim authority.

In December 2002, a leading Sunni sheik, Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, in a fatwa posted on the website http://www.islamonline.net (in response to a reader's question), wrote of the "signs of the victory of Islam," citing a well-known Hadith: ". . . The Prophet Muhammad was asked: ‘What city will be conquered first, Constantinople or Romiyya?' He answered: ‘The city of Heracles will be conquered first'—that is, Constantinople. . . . Romiyya is the city called today ‘Rome,' the capital of Italy. The city of Heracles [later to become Constantinople] was conquered by the young twenty-three-year-old Ottoman Muhammad bin Morad, known in history as Muhammad the Conqueror, in 1453. The other city, Romiyya, remains, and we hope and believe [that it too will be conquered]."

Sheik Al-Qaradhawi went on to say "This means that Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror and victor, after being expelled from it twice—once from the South, from Andalusia, and a second time from the East, when it knocked several times on the door of Athens." He qualified his statement thus: "I maintain that the conquest this time will not be by the sword but by preaching and ideology . . ." (Source: Vancouver Independent Media, http://vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/23883.php).

Following in Prophet Mohammed's footsteps, many Muslim zealots, such as Usuman dan Fodio, an Arab (Fulani) Nigerian, utilized the established Islamic practice of taqlid ("imitation") to ruthlessly establish the Sokoto Caliphate in northern Nigeria. Usuman, as Prophet Mohammed before him, established Islam in northern Nigeria, by putting the indigenous Hausa people to the sword, in much the same way the Abbasid rebel al-Bukayr had done in the eighth century. In Degel, before their migration, dan Fodio orchestrated an oath of allegiance to galvanize his followers and motivate them to wage jihad against their enemies. He invoked the memory of the prophet Muhammad's own migration in 622 (hijra) that had been preceded by an oath his allies had taken to wage jihad by his side, an oath remembered in Islamic history as Second Aqaba and still invoked today, by Islamic extremists all over the globe, under the inspiration of Osama bin Laden and Abu Mussab al-Zakawi.

According to Mervyn Hiskett, "By appealing to ‘tradition,' Usuman made it clear here that he intended to appeal to taqlid (‘imitation') alone, and, that he disdained all use of ijtihad, or, ‘free play' of the intellect. That is to say, innovative thought or independent thinking were forbidden. But, he went further in also ruling out any place for qiyyas (‘analogical reasoning'). In so doing, Usuman paved the way for appeals to jihad based on revelation and on religious authority."

Much of the Qur'an (the hadith) is based on tradition—imitation of Prophet Mohammed's views, actions and conducts. We know today that the invocation made by dan Fodio and many others of that era, are being repeated today by Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaida. The notion that because extremist Muslims are in the minority, therefore majority of Muslims do not share their overall goal is a perilous premise. We must not forget that in their days, Mohammed and dan Fodio were supported by a few but highly motivated and dedicated people, as is Osama bin Laden and Abu Mussab al-Zakawi in present time.

The great commission for Christians is to make disciples of every nation through love; the great commission for Muslims is to conquer the world for Islam through Jihad. As many Christians are merely standing on the sidelines and not in the forefront of that commission, but would rejoice over a world where people of every nation are made Disciples of Christ, so would Muslims who are not necessarily in the forefront of the great Islamic commission, as it is carried on today, should the world become “conquered for Islam” by Islamists, through their Jihad.

Some Europeans like to engage in the perilous feel good notion of meaningless self-assurance, by arguing that the Islamic expansion ended in the 17th century or buying into the glib claptrap mantra that Islam is a religion of peace. Look around you, all over world, wherever there is a significant Muslim population, tell me what you see? Do you see peace and tranquility, do you see freedom, or do you see Islamic totalitarianism or the drive to establish it? For these Europeans, history has no relevance. They forget that the drive for Islamic expansion was not voluntarily ended by Muslims, who had sought to conquer the world for Islam, nor because Islam had undergone a progressive change, which inspired it to become more amenable. Indeed, Islam has remained virtually unchanged since then and so are the sentiments of that era, as we see even today in the deep desire to re-establish the Caliphates and in events around the world. The fact is that age of Islamic expansion was ended by the Western response to it. But, Muslim leaders through the ages have not given up on that drive. They have been waiting for the right time and the right opportunity. Don’t forget that every Muslim believes that Islam is superior to any other religion or any other ideology, for that matter, including democracy.

Many of them believe that the time has come, considering the unprecedented decline of Christianity in Europe and the Aristippulian consciousness that has gripped Europe. To them, Christianity, the old enemy that stood in the way of worldwide Islamic domination, has been weakened, and is virtually no more in Europe. Some even believe the “war” for Europe is already won .You see it in the attitude of Muslims in European societies. To them America is the final frontier for Islamic expansion.

Muqtedar Khan, an Islamic scholar, whom I have quoted elsewhere, wrote in his article, published in the New York Times on September 7, 2003, “Muslims in America. American Muslims. The difference between these two labels may seem a matter of semantics, but making the transition from the first to the second represents a profound, if somewhat silent, revolution that many of us in the Muslim community have been undergoing in the two years since Sept. 11.” He wrote further, “On its face, this shift would seem to threaten the very core of Muslim identity and empowerment. After all, in the decade before the events of Sept. 11, Islam was one of the fastest?growing religions in North America. Mosques and Islamic schools were going up in every major city. Groups like the Council on American?Islamic Relations and the American Muslim Alliance established chapters in nearly every area with a Muslim population.” He lamented the decline in the growth of Islam in America since the events of September 11, because “both sources of Islam’s growth—immigration and conversion—are now in jeopardy” as a result of the passage of the USA Patriot Act and anti-terrorism measures.

Khan also wrote, “Because we took our American citizenship for granted, we did not acknowledge its value and virtues. But now it is imperiled, the overwhelming desire of many Muslims is that America remain true to its democratic and secular values.” The question is, will Muslims in Western societies truly embrace democracy and those “secular values” and work to make inroads into their homelands for the same to take root. Or will their attitude to the West remain as smoke and mirror, cloak and dagger

Can America be all things to all people?

Is America still a highway of freedom or has she become a “Pimps’ Paradise”?

To the extent that a pimp is one who facilitates sexual relationships between one woman and many men; men who, of course, have only exploitative interest in the woman, and to the extent that the woman, being exploited is made to be and do whatever each man wants of her; the woman becomes all things to all men. Some people may argue that the woman is equally exploiting the men that take momentary possession of her, but that is hardly the point to be made in the context of this subject or the preceding allegory.

One could also argue that for the most part, if not always, none of the men who take momentary ownership of the woman cares about her and none of them would value the real essence of her womanhood, as to treat her with respect. When she becomes used up, perhaps ravaged by all the diseases deposited in her by all the wayfarers that passed though her gates and drank from her well but never gave her any care, she is abandoned— like a dry well, like a plagued city or like a sunken pirate vessel.

For another allegory, perhaps I could also borrow an excerpt from Theodor Billroth’s description of statistics, which implies that a woman ought to be a mirror of “purest virtue and truth”, not a whore to “use as one pleases”. Likewise, American must be the same thing to all people—a country founded on individual equality and the freedom of each individual, a freedom that remains in fidelity to the truth enshrined in the essence of freedom itself.

America the idea and the America country, symbolized by the motto “E pluribus Unum” (Out of many, one) can not long endure as long as that providential idea of individual equality and outpost of freedom is increasingly marginalized by a substantive shift towards a position that is clearly antithetic to what the founders envisioned, a situation that could be equally described as “Out of one, many”; as each one and each group seeks to make America a profusely “multicultural society”, whether or not the culture is diametrical to the essential American ideal and whether or not the “freedom” that is exercised has fidelity to the essential truth of freedom.

As America continues on the path of becoming all things to all people, as she is remade in the many images of all that pass through her gates and drink from her well, she continues to lose a sense of her deeper self and continues to die a slow death of self-forgetfulness. As one group demands that the truth about the cast system that holds some people as untouchables be expunged from American history books, just because it is an embarrassment, hence offensive to them. In complying with their demand and to the extent that these are Americans who uphold the cast system, albeit outside America, the cast system, indirectly and by extension becomes one of America’s cultures.

There is another group demanding that freedom of speech be curtailed or suspended when it comes to issues concerning their religion, particularly with unsavory tendencies, such as the oppression of women. To them, any speech that questions such tendencies or practices inspired thereby; constitutes an insult to their religion, hence an offense to them. In complying with their demand too, and to the extent that they too are “Americans”, who support the oppression of women and violence against dissenters, albeit in far away lands, such oppression of women and violence against dissenters, indirectly and by extension becomes one of America’s multi-cultures.

There are as yet many more groups. Some deny the foundational principle for the declaration of America’s independence, the principle that also inspired the American Constitution. They believe that all men are not created equal, that they themselves are superior to others, a view that brought America so great a shame. They seek to redact the truth of that shame from America’s consciousness. Some seek to expunge the truth about life from the American conscience. Some deny even the basic concept of law. Some deny the essential nature of man and woman, and the natural imperatives that demand their union and the attributes thereof—attributes that under guard the stability of society and human perpetuity.

As yet, there are others who reject a common unifying language, instead seek a multi-lingual society as the vehicles of multiculturalism. Other “Americans”, remain citizens of many nations, to them patriotism holds a marginal value. And there are yet many more, over two hundred groups, each with its own demands on America, groups who should be transformed rather than transform the essential nature of America. Hence, America the melting pot of peoples and cultures has become America the salad bowl of peoples and cultures—all in the same bowl but separate.

For America to remain an inspiration to the world, which until America came into existence and hitherto has not seen anything like America the country or America the idea—a beacon of hope and inspiration for freedom, America must not forget her true self, by becoming all things to all people. America must remain the same thing to all people.