Converts

NY times publised a reader's comment on may 19, 2005 which went on like -- Convert all Muslims and make them Cristians, so that they will learn to live in peace.

Convert them to Christianity and let them eat cake. This might well be a solution. Though I suspect that they, like other Christians, would then start squabbling about minor and irrelevant liturgical and theological differences; then the Shiite-christians would say that God told them THEY owned the oil wells, and the Suni-Christians would say, no they do above the Mosul parallel. Then the Texas-Christians would say, no God gave us all the oil, so it's ours, and the Kansas Christians would then begin talking in tongues, or some other form of ungrammatical English, et al... Being Christian, in other words, has nothing to do with peace. Look at Northern Ireland. Look at the history of Christianity. Whistle "National Brotherhood Week" under the shower...

What makes me giggle a little, of course, is that there is a terrific resemblance between the fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Moslems these days. All this fire and brimstone for the sake of some religious hallucinations, and at the bottom of it are the old motives: power, money, control.

So I propose: instead of converting the Muslims, let them fight it out, for this seems to be the much touted Armageddon that will bring peace to the planet. Those on the sidelines should always support the losing side (that is why America started selling arms to Iran as well as to Iraq in the 80s, so that the two countries could whack each other into oblivion). Once these two prosyletizing, colonial, power-mad groups have exhausted themselves, the world may finally have the peace and quiet to get on with more important pursuits, such as correcting the environmental problems we have, spreading the wealth a little, instituting universal healthcare, etc... Because most people, I suspect, just want to get on with life, raising their families, doing their work, enjoying some good times between the cradle and the grave, even making whooppee without some blue-nose peering into the gardenshed window. And this, throughout the ages, has been impeded by the constant interference of men with axes to grind, men with power-obsessions, men of extreme greed, men filled with hatred for anyone who is serene. They range from the Bishop of Lyon in the 2nd century AD to George W. Bush. And most, the overwhelming majority, mark my words, have been men.

And who suffers? The women and children and men who have better things to do than run around the planet destroying things, raping, pillaging, acting like unbalanced 10-year-olds.
Each time I read about some GI who has been knocked off in Iraq and is praised as a good family man, I wonder, then, what in earth he was doing on such an adventure. That is immorality itself. But I have digressed from the subject.

Sameer