The Failure to Convert Jill Carroll to Islam
January 7, 2006 was just another day in Baghdad. Insurgents attacked busy streets. People were murdered. Others were taken hostage. The US would not have paid attention, except that on this day an American was one of the kidnapped.
And not just any American. Jill Carroll, a young, innocent-looking freelance reporter. Her smiling photo in the news tugged at our hearts just as much as the video her captors released, twenty-three days into her ordeal, of her weeping.
Recently I read her 11-page piece on the Christian Science Monitor detailing the kidnapping and the hostage situation and was stuck by one thread.
Her captors repeatedly tried to convert her to Islam. On her second day she writes,
This idea of forced conversion is laughable. Carroll may have found the path to Islam on her own if she had not been kidnapped. Or not. But if she had converted as a hostage, or even now, the circumstances would call into doubt the legitimacy of her faith. As she said, "no pressure" and "free will" are ridiculous labels to attach to a person being held at gunpoint.
Yet, this is exactly what we’ve done to Iraq. Jill Carroll is the personification of the failure of the practice of Gunpoint Democracy. You cannot go in, hold a country hostage, install a fundamental change and think it’s valid and acceptable. It was not chosen freely by the people, it was forced on them.
It is odd to think that my freedoms and civil liberties have been set loose to rape the people living in another country. I guess it doesn’t matter how much liberty the US sends over, it cannot be accepted in the condition it was presented. The fact that it has been approved by the government doesn’t imply that it is a valid conversion.
Eighty-two days after the kidnapping Jill Carroll was released. Her public perception of the people in Iraq has not changed. And she has not converted. And neither has Iraq.
~Lila Schow
Because Responsible Citizens Clean Up After Their Government
http://goodusgov.org/
And not just any American. Jill Carroll, a young, innocent-looking freelance reporter. Her smiling photo in the news tugged at our hearts just as much as the video her captors released, twenty-three days into her ordeal, of her weeping.
Recently I read her 11-page piece on the Christian Science Monitor detailing the kidnapping and the hostage situation and was stuck by one thread.
Her captors repeatedly tried to convert her to Islam. On her second day she writes,
I tried to listen to Abu Ali's lesson attentively as he translated complicated Koranic Arabic into more basic Arabic he thought I could understand. He was very pleased that I showed interest in learning. He kept saying there was no pressure, no pressure in Islam, that they were forbidden from forcing people to convert. True acceptance must come from a free will.
They'd kidnapped me, and they all had guns ready to kill me, but, oh no, no pressure there. I falsely assured him that I felt no pressure. I have always been interested in learning about Islam.
This idea of forced conversion is laughable. Carroll may have found the path to Islam on her own if she had not been kidnapped. Or not. But if she had converted as a hostage, or even now, the circumstances would call into doubt the legitimacy of her faith. As she said, "no pressure" and "free will" are ridiculous labels to attach to a person being held at gunpoint.
Yet, this is exactly what we’ve done to Iraq. Jill Carroll is the personification of the failure of the practice of Gunpoint Democracy. You cannot go in, hold a country hostage, install a fundamental change and think it’s valid and acceptable. It was not chosen freely by the people, it was forced on them.
It is odd to think that my freedoms and civil liberties have been set loose to rape the people living in another country. I guess it doesn’t matter how much liberty the US sends over, it cannot be accepted in the condition it was presented. The fact that it has been approved by the government doesn’t imply that it is a valid conversion.
Eighty-two days after the kidnapping Jill Carroll was released. Her public perception of the people in Iraq has not changed. And she has not converted. And neither has Iraq.
~Lila Schow
Because Responsible Citizens Clean Up After Their Government
http://goodusgov.org/
Labels: gunpoint democracy, iraq, jill carroll
posted by Lila Schow at
12:00 PM
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