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Islam Needs Paradigm Shift, Not PR, Says
Author
Gary Dale Cearley, author of book on the
birth of Islam, says Khatami was just a
‘PR man’; "we need action, not words,"
said Cearley.
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (PRWEB)
September 11, 2006 -- Gary Dale Cearley
didn’t think former Iranian President
Mohammed Khatami’s visit would, or even
should, change the ever tentative
relationship between Islam and the West.
“He’s an apologist in the philosophical
sense,” said Cearley, “But not in the
literal sense. Any sympathetic
intimation was followed up by explaining
why the West was at fault for Islamic
misbehavior, or ‘terrorism’ as it should
rightly be called.”
“For example Khatami gave the example of
the US hostages during the Iranian
Revolution,” Cearley explained, “He said
that he empathized with the hostages and
their families, but went on to explain
that it was a reaction to fifty years of
Iran being held hostage by the United
States. It is pure poppycock. Iran’s
government before the Islamic Republic
was independent and quite often went the
other direction of the United States.
Either their Islamic government had no
control of the situation, approved of
the situation, or even worse, was behind
the situation. To come back all of these
years later and give a speech at the
Council on American-Islamic Relations
claiming that the United States is fully
responsible for the kidnappings is
irresponsible of Mohammed Khatami.”
Cearley was happy that Khatami had
condemned the September 11 terrorist
attacks as an “atrocity” but believed
that even though Khatami said that
terrorists had done Islam “an injustice”
and that they would not go to heaven
this wouldn’t slow down the attacks
because Islamic governments are not
doing anything to change their thinking
and change their cultural
characteristics.
“Islamic governments are indirectly, and
sometimes directly, responsible for the
outcomes here,” said Cearley, “By
fostering intemperance you foster
injustice. These governments are not
teaching their children tolerance in
schools because in many cases they don’t
practice it themselves. They are leading
their youth by example. These people
must change their culture in order to
live with the rest of the world.”
There would be some who might think that
it is wrong for an American to tell
someone to change their culture but
Cearley disagrees.
“In America we used to own slaves and
burn witches,” said Cearley, “We changed
our ways of thinking. We changed our
culture. In America the natives of our
land couldn’t have citizenship in a
country they owned for centuries. Women
couldn’t vote or hold office in the
government that made decisions about
their own lives. But we have been
working on changing our culture. The
Muslim world needs this badly right now,
and until they get on this train,
terrorism won’t stop no matter how many
times Mohammed Khatami comes to give
speeches. Khatami needs to stress
dialogue and co-existence back home. Not
in America and the West. We have been
for it for decades. It is the terrorism,
the killing of innocent civilians, that
makes it break down.”
Gary Dale Cearley is an expatriate
author who has lived in Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam, for many years. His book, “Thou
Shalt Not Bear False Witness: The Truth
About the Vatican and the Birth of Islam”,
is a refutation of Jack Chick’s and
Alberto Rivera’s Vatican Islam
Conspiracy, which is also being
propagated by David Icke. It is
available on Amazon.com (Amazon.co.uk,
Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, etc.), Barnes &
Noble, and Books-A-Million. Gary Dale
originally hails from the small town of
Prescott, Arkansas. |
