The abyss of hatred

Tarek Fatah pointed out (at Facebook) a speech by a Kuwaiti professor daydreaming about an anthrax attack in the US that would kill 300,000 people in a few minutes. I did some googling, and found a MEMRI follow-up item quoting ‘a number of prominent liberals: Kuwait University professor Ahmad Al-Baghdadi and columnist Ahmad Al-Sarraf, both of whom are Kuwaiti, and the Jordanian-American author Shaker Al-Nabulsi.’ They all think Professor Anthrax’s views are disgusting.

The guy is actually Dr. ‘Abdallah Al-Nafisi, a prominent Islamist. Depressingly, his doctorate is from Cambridge. Salman Rushdie is another alumnus of Cambridge. They seem to have taken away different things.

Kuwait University professor Ahmad Al-Baghdadi had this to say:

Frankly, I am very happy with Dr. Al-Nafisi’s lecture, since it makes clear to all the terrorist orientation of the [Islamist] religious organizations, and affirms what I and other liberals have written about this terrorism, and which everyone says is an exaggeration. Here is their ‘Dr.,’ publicly and without fear delivering threats about killing Americans…It is clear that membership in an [Islamist] religious organization leads to the continual deepening of the abyss of hatred for others – even if this member holds 50 doctorates.

That’s exactly it you know. That’s why the thugs in Swat (and the thugs in Somalia and the thugs in Iraq and so on and so on) are so horrible to contemplate – it’s this wallowing in hatred. It’s this enthusiastic embrace of hatred, and its consequent luxuriation in violence. If there’s anything we know about human beings, it’s that – that hatred and a love of violence are the worst thing, and are not to be embraced. That is not what we hope for from reformist or moral or inspirational people. It is the very opposite of what we hope for.

7 Responses to “The abyss of hatred”