From the heart of a Muslim - Tawfik Hamid

"I am a Muslim by faith.... a Christian by spirit....a Jew by heart....and above all I am a human being." Dr. Tawfik Hamid.

Dr. Hamid is an Egyptian scholar and author opposed to Islam fundamentalism.

http://www.tawfikha mid.com/

I was born a Muslim and lived all my life as a follower of Islam.

After the barbaric terrorist attacks done by the hands of my fellow Muslims everywhere on this globe, and after the too many violent acts by Islamists in many parts of the world, I feel responsible as a Muslim and as a human being, to speak out and tell the truth to protect the world and Muslims as well from a coming catastrophe and war of civilizations.

I have to admit that our current Islamic teaching creates violence and hatred toward Non-Muslims.

We Muslims are the ones who need to change. Until now we have accepted polygamy, the beating of women by men, and killing those who convert from Islam to other religions.

We have never had a clear and strong stand against the concept of slavery or wars, to spread our religion and to subjugate others to Islam and force them to pay a humiliating tax called Jizia. We ask others to respect our religion while all the time we curse non-Muslims loudly (in Arabic) in our Friday prayers in the Mosques.

What message do we convey to our children when we call the Jews "Descendants of the pigs and monkeys".. Is this a message of love and peace, or a message of hate?

I have been into churches and synagogues where they were praying for Muslims. While all the time we curse them, and teach our generations to call them infidels, and to hate them.

We immediately jump in a 'knee jerk reflex' to defend Prophet Mohammed when someone accuses him of being a pedophile while, at the same time, we are proud with the story in our Islamic books, that he married a young girl seven years old (Aisha) when he was above 50 years old.

I am sad to say that many, if not most of us, rejoiced in happiness after September 11th and after many other terror attacks.

Muslims denounce these attacks to look good in front of the media, but we condone the Islamic terrorists and sympathise with their cause. Till now our 'reputable' top religious authorities have never issued a Fatwa or religious statement to proclaim Bin Laden as an apostate, while an author, like Rushdie, was declared an apostate who should be killed according to Islamic Shariia law just for writing a book criticizing Islam.

Muslims demonstrated to get more religious rights as we did in France to stop the ban on the Hejab (Head Scarf), while we did not demonstrate with such passion and in such numbers against the terrorist murders.

It is our absolute silence against the terrorists that gives the energy to these terrorists to continue doing their evil acts. We Muslims need to stop blaming our problems on others or on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. As a matter of honesty, Israel is the only light of democracy, civilization, and human rights in the whole Middle East .

We kicked out the Jews with no compensation or mercy from most of the Arab countries to make them "Jews-Free countries" while Israel accepted more than a million Arabs to live there, have its nationality, and enjoy their rights as human beings. In Israel , women can not be beaten legally by men, and any person can change his/her belief system with no fear of being killed by the Islamic law of 'Apostasy,' while in our Islamic world people do not enjoy any of these rights.. I agree that the 'Palestinians' suffer, but they suffer because of their corrupt leaders and not because of Israel .

It is not common to see Arabs who live in Israel leaving to live in the Arab world. On the other hand, we used to see thousands of Palestinians going to work with happiness in Israel , its 'enemy'. If Israel treats Arabs badly as some people claim, surely we would have seen the opposite happening.

We Muslims need to admit our problems and face them. Only then we can treat them and start a new era to live in harmony with human mankind. Our religious leaders have to show a clear and very strong stand against polygamy, pedophilia, slavery, killing those who convert from Islam to other religions, beating of women by men, and declaring wars on non-Muslims to spread Islam.

Then, and only then, do we have the right to ask others to respect our religion. The time has come to stop our hypocrisy and say it openly: 'We Muslims have to Change'.

Tawfik Hamid

Let it go, if it needs to go

All these days of struggle
hardly had a chance to fight against
having a polite state of mind
always had let it go, if it was to go
does that mean that i dont have the fighting spirit in me
what's the point in fighting for something
which is not destined to be there for you.
doesn't that mean that im the man of no determination
cosmic law is confusing me
Im meant to be someone who I ought to be
and not who I need to be

If that is the case
where should i go
where should I head to
jump in to the woods and be alone
throw away all social pleasure
for nothing to be stable in this funny world
and none to be in the same status
can't i just get along with something
which has always been offered to me
rather than fighting for something
which I very well deserve.

We all know where we came from
But do not know where we are going,
until we realise why we are here for
one should be lucky to have pain in his life
for this to be realised
and for me, the pain is a funny joke
which has been a part of my life


Of all the people who have marked the pages of history
some have to leave so that the pages get rewritten
over, over and over again
Nature and time being the best teachers
it takes a bit of time to understand
why such things keep happening in a similar fashion

Treating life as a trading business
accounting all births as income
and deaths as its expense
If all the people who came here,
Decided to stay here in this land,
Where is the place for all of us to live?
If this is the time to say bye to this world
pretty well say it quick and
Let it go, if it needs to go.

War crimes in Sri Lanka

A leading United Nations expert called yesterday for a war crimes inquiry in Sri Lanka after his investigation concluded that a video showing soldiers summarily killing Tamil prisoners last year was authentic.

In a damning report citing top scientific experts, Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings, dismissed the Sri Lankan Government’s claims that the footage shown by Channel 4 had been fabricated. He urged Colombo to allow UN experts to investigate “persistent” allegations of war crimes in the final stages of its three-decade civil war.

“In light of these conclusions and of the persistent flow of other allegations concerning alleged extrajudicial executions committed by both sides during the closing phases of the war,” Professor Alston wrote, “I call for an independent inquiry to be established to carry out an impartial investigation into war crimes.”

Professor Alston said that the best option was for Sri Lanka to co-operate and invite in UN investigators as part of an independent commission of inquiry. Human rights officials told The Times that Sri Lanka would be given an ultimatum to co-operate or face more decisive action.

The appointment of a commission would allow the UN to begin gathering forensic evidence required for an investigation or even future prosecution. There is already grave concern over the degradation of evidence in the nearly nine months since the conflict ended. No independent observers have been allowed into the former battle zone since May.

Sam Zarifi, the Asia-Pacific director at Amnesty International, told The Times: “Once again the available evidence has indicated that serious human rights violations and possible international crimes took place, and the Sri Lankan Government has to allow an independent inquiry. Now that the security situation has stabilised there’s no excuse left.”

The Sri Lankan Government vehemently denies that its military committed war crimes during the final offensive against the Tamil Tigers which obliterated the rebels last May.

Last month, however, the former army chief turned presidential challenger, Sarath Fonseka, lent further credence to allegations of war crimes when he said that Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the Defence Minister, ordered that surrendering rebels should be killed rather than taken prisoner as the conflict drew to a close.

Sri Lanka avoided censure by the UN Human Rights Council in May last year after recruiting foreign allies to defeat a Western-backed resolution condemning its conduct during the offensive. Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, was roundly criticised for failing to take a harder line with Sri Lanka. Mr Ban said last night he was giving detailed consideration to appointing a Commission of Experts on alleged atrocities in Sri Lanka.

The 15-nation Security Council has the power to refer Sri Lanka to the International Criminal Court but Professor Alston said he doubted that would happen “given the constellation of political support Sri Lanka has”. That was an apparent reference to China, which has veto power on the council and is Sri Lanka’s most powerful ally and key investor.

Professor Alston began his investigation into the execution video after the Sri Lankan Government first dismissed it as a fake. It eventually caved in and conducted its own inquiry, only to arrive again at the same conclusion.

The UN investigation, carried out by three experts in video technology, ballistics and pathology, systematically demolishes Sri Lankan claims that the footage was faked and upholds the findings of The Times’s investigation of the footage last month.

The video of the alleged battlefield executions, which was broadcast on Channel 4 in August, shows a naked man, bound and blindfolded, being made to kneel.

Another man, dressed in what appears to be Sri Lankan army uniform, approaches from behind and shoots him in the head at point-blank range. “It’s like he jumped,” the gunman laughs. The camera then pans to show eight similarly bound corpses.

Sri Lanka denied claims that the video was shot in January last year by soldiers using mobile phones, saying that it had been “established beyond doubt” that the footage was fake.

The UN report concluded that “most of the arguments relied upon by the Government of Sri Lanka to impugn the video have been shown to be flawed”. The experts “found no evidence of breaks in continuity in the video, no additional video layers and no evidence of image manipulation”.

Peter Diaczuk, a firearms expert, “concluded that the recoil, movement of the weapon and the shooter, and the gases expelled from the muzzle in both apparent shootings were consistent with firing live ammunition, and not with shooting blank cartridges”, as the Sri Lankan investigation claims.

Daniel Spitz, a pathologist, “found that the footage appeared authentic, especially with respect to the two individuals who are shown being shot in the head at close range. He found that the body reaction, movement, and blood evidence was entirely consistent with what would be expected in such shootings”.

“Together, the reports by these experts strongly suggest that the video is authentic,” the report concludes.

*-courtesy www.voicetamil.com

Betrayal Outburst

The Wind is blowing hard
money is draining quick
relations splitting out
don't know what to do
asking for favour
from people who can be fooled
clever was his thinking
but also was so cunning
might jump out of problems
will never from the judgement
he who is thinking at heart and brain
will get back those into his vein
trailing the old faith
punishment will be severe
if it takes more time
as the world is coming to an end
moral of men's life going so cheap
people could do anything for their living
killing their own mothers
pimping their children for money

what else they wouldn't do
just to keep their life better
man, i haven't known anything like this
until i was betrayed by him
im not anymore willing to think
as i believe in the nature's will
Tamils getting slaughtered in Srilanka
and those who lost lives in Iraq
also the souls which passed away in Palestine
I should be happy for what im having
wealth and trust might be lost
but definitely not the hope
after all those betrayals
yes Im out of them
I do have my own way
showing them that they are my foot
dusting them to the floors
warning them of the curse
will never enter into their doors
don't know God still exists
if He does, these people should never persist
leaving it to the time's answer
saying my last prayer
Im walking on my own way
towards the spiritual growth
these things aren't real
running after people and money
but the soul is so pure
such things can't even come near
im not in any danger
as my Master would give me shelter
no matter what so ever happen
i will be there in His heaven.

Wish I had powers....

Is there anyone to question these men ?



The Great Sri Lankan army. Look what there are doing under peace keeping mission.



This says all about the Sri Lankan army. If they can do this kind of things in Haiti under UN supervision,
Imagine what they can do to Tamils. Many sinhala ppl will still deny this. Many rape cases in Sri Lanka are still unhanded. Why? Their intention is to fight LTTE and save Tamils? Who is going to save the Tamils from this Army?