Looks like this web log won’t be moving out of Blogger after all. Geocities will be charging fee for FTP service and I won’t pay anything for that service. Oh well, it seems that I have to stay here a little bit longer. I have to get out from Blogger because I found out that Blogger’s servers are quite unreliable at times. The University of Michigan’s servers will be more reliable.
Moving on the world news…
India is suffering its worst civil unrest in this new millennium. It is sad to see the Muslims and the Hindus are killing each other just because they are having different religions. History has told us that the Muslims and the Hindus can’t get along very well. The greatest manifestation is the separation of British India into two single entities, India and Pakistan. Mahatma Gandhi regretted this but it was necessary to prevent what is happening in Gujarat at that time.
India, one of the giant of Asia and I want nothing but its success for I believe in the Japan’s Asia for Asia.
I just want to see peace, not war. It hurts me even more when I saw a picture where a Muslim man stood in the middle of a Hindu mob, begging for his live. I hope he received mercy from the Hindus.
While the Hindus are doing what they are doing, certainly the Muslims will retaliate. Nobody will just sit down and see their brothers and sisters being burnt to death. I will certainly not but an eye for an eye makes the whole world goes blind. Truly, the solution to this could only be one thing – secularism, a state where religion plays no important roles in the executive administration. This word is one of the most misunderstood ideas in the Muslim world.
Secularism is not bad for Islam or for any other religion. Of course, I would dream the era when the Islamic Civilization ruled supreme to return. The greatness of another Alhambra or Baghdad would be the best thing to see. Unfortunately, the world is becoming smaller and smaller, allowing everyone to meet everybody; ideas and beliefs clash. Only secularism allows a peaceful interaction between different ideologies.
Secularism doesn’t mean religion is not acceptable to any kind of social life. I believe a belief in God is necessary to maintain some social order but the freedom to believe freely without being discriminated must be allowed. Only through this, peace can somewhat be attained.
This notion doesn’t clash with my idea of restricted freedom. I believe in restricted freedom of expression and secularism does this best. However, my view of secularism doesn’t book a place for Turkey’s style. I don’t believe in Turkish secularism for it is restricting the very freedom for different societies to interact with one and another freely.
For India, secularism might the answer to its woe. Its ruling party is an Hindu-biased party and this must be the fuel that is burning hatred among its people although I can certainly see some restrains in that party in enforcing Hindu-styled state.
It’s sad to see the world is suffering from hatred.
It’s sad to see Ann Arbor is snowing again. Sigh…
