Saturday, November 10, 2007

Shia Hypocrisy

I have written a lot about the hypocrisy of the Arabs and I have given many examples, but I have never written about the hypocrisy of many Iraqi Shia.  I know I should not characterize an entire group of people as hypocrites, and when I wrote about "Arab hypocrisy" I should have written a disclaimer as I am doing now.  Those posts were emotionally charged and I wrote them after heated debate in which a few Arabs blogging from Western countries made some silly accusations about all Iraqi Shia and claimed (some of them still do this on other blogs) that the Iraqi Shia deserved what happened to them during Saddam's rule and they deserve what has happened to them since 2003.  Certainly not all Arabs think this way, and I should have noted this when I wrote about "Arab hypocrisy".  By the same token, not all Shia think the same way, and a few bloggers like Sheko Mako have already written excellent posts about this.  However, I think it's still important to point out the incredible hypocrisy of some Shia, so here it goes:

The Mehdi Army, supposedly composed of downtrodden Shia who were oppressed by Saddam's regime, have now for four years imposed their own form of oppression on fellow Shia by enforcing Sharia law, and by expelling and murdering innocent Sunni Arabs.   Historically the Shia have been persecuted by Wahhabis and many times have been mass murdered for their beliefs, for being "kufar" (sinners) because according to Wahhabis, the Shia have deviated from practicing the "true" form of Islam and are heretics worse than the Jews and Christians.   I  have always considered Shiism to be the more progressive branch of Islam because the Shia introduced the concept of temporary marriage (the Shia's version of dating) and the Shia pray three times a day (as opposed to five), combining two prayers with two others and thus making it more practical. So what have the Iraqi Shia done with their new found freedom since 2003?  Many of them have decided to enforce Sharia law in their communities, essentially suppressing freedom as it has been in Iran since 1980.  It is as if the fundamentalist Shia are trying to compete with their Wahhabi counterparts in enforcing their versions of Sharia, making a mockery of the Iraqi Shia's decades-old struggle for freedom and democracy.  Muqtada al Sadr, who is not even a proper cleric, along with his followers (many of them common criminals and former Fedayeen Saddam), have tried for four years now to impose their oppressive freedom-less laws on the Iraqi people.  How sad and embarrassing for the Iraqi Shia who wanted true freedom and democracy for so long.

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