Blue eyes

Notwithstanding its humble origins, Christianity became a triumphilist
religion. You can see this very easily by the sizes of the Churches, St.
Paul's in London, St. Peter's in Rome, Notre Dame in Paris, and so on. Apart
from their architectural beauty, they are manifestations of religious
fascism, reducing the individual to insignificance. In Spain each city
competed for the largest and most sumptuously decorated cathedral. If you
compare religious buildings around the world, synagogues are very modest,
while Churches have significant spires and Mosques have high minarets,
examples of phallic pretensions.
Islam has a distinctly repressive side, believing not only that it is the
superior religion, but that everyone must "submit" to it. Of the so-called
three major monotheistic religions, only Judaism is comparatively modest and
does not actively proselytize. The basis for the Western Judeo-Christian
ethical tradition, now represented in secular culture as the legal system
that governs us all, religious and non-religious alike, derives ultimately
from Judaism (while other aspects derive from the Greeks - such as drama -
and the Romans - such as civil administration).
But Islam retains a perverted form of political system, more akin to
Communism or Fascism than to Western norms. For example, although the
priests and the Church hierarchy up to the Pope were the purveyors of
Christian orthodoxy, there was always a parallel political or secular power,
that of the State, that existed separately from it. In the end this led to
the strict separation of Church and State found in the American political
system. In Islam there is no separation between religious and secular power,
and in totalitarian systems everything is political. It's true that there
are Islamic States that are considered to be secular, such as Egypt or
Syria, but they are dictatorships, in which individual rights are virtually
nonexistent, just as in the fascist system.
In Pakistan recently a man was accused of having sex with a young woman from
another tribe. A conclave was held of the elders of the two tribes with the
two families. In order to compensate the aggrieved tribe a girl (aged 14)
was chosen from the tribe of the alleged guilty man, and she was sentenced
to be raped, then and there, by men of the other tribe. She was immediately
taken into an adjacent room and gang-raped, within full earshot of the 500
or so people present, including the religious imams who decided the verdict.
The very unusual thing about this occurrence is that her family refused to
accept the "shame" of the verdict, went to court and sued the men of the
other tribe. This went to the highest court in Pakistan and eventually
Pres. Musharraf himself on behalf of the Government offered a financial
settlement (a bribe) to the girl. She rejected this, but instead asked that
the money be used to build a school in her village, where there was none.
Musharraf agreed, and two schools were built, one for boys and one for
girls. But, many people refuse to send their children to these schools
because they were financed by money that was paid to compensate for the
shame of the raped girl and her family.
You could argue that this is an example of "tribal justice" and has little
to do with Islam, except for the fact that it is apparently routine
punishment in Pakistan (this story comes from the BBC so it must be true).
And what about the cutting off of hands for theft, what about the prevalence
of female circumcision, what about suicide bombers, and beheadings and what
about the extreme hatred of Jews expressed openly in Muslim societies.
In Iran a film has just been shown on State TV called "Blue Eyes," in which
an Israeli politician covets the blue eyes of a Palestinian girl. He
arranges for her to be abducted and her eyes removed and transplanted in
him. Her father can only see the now blind girl by masquerading as a Jew.
This travesty of a film is not only absurd (you can buy blue tinted contact
lenses), but shows more about the pathological hatred of Jews in Islamic
Iran than it shows about the reality of Israel (where Arab children are
treated equally in our hospitals).
The larger question, now that the democratization of the PA and Iraq are
live issues, is whether or not Islamic societies can overcome these
"primitive" aspects of their culture and adapt to accept individual rights,
including women's rights, and the protection of minorities. Elections are
only the beginning of this process, that might take 50-100 years.
They are being given the opportunity. If they don't take it, then the
possibility of a "clash of civilizations" would seem more likely.