Junk for Code

Tsunami #10: some odd reactions

There have been some strange reactions to the tsunami.

An image:

Okay that is humour. Maye a swip at the tourism industry in Thailand.

This quote is different:

"I got truly upset about the tsunami only when I discovered I knew someone who died in it. Until then, I'd been shocked and fascinated. That, though, is the more normal reaction. How many people really can't sleep for worrying about starving Africans? How many more stay awake at the prospect of a dull lunch date or a looming villa holiday with dodgy friends?"

Harry Mount, from The Daily Telegraph, should go back to watching Murdoch Television.

There is more.

It gets worse. Here is some fundamentalist Islamic reasoning why it is God's wrath for sin' by Ibrahim Al-Bashar, an advisor to Saudi Arabia's Justice Minister. He argued on the Saudi Arabian/UAE Al-Majd TV channel that the sins of the affected countries caused the tsunami:

"Whoever reads the Koran, given by the Maker of the World, can see how these nations were destroyed. There is one reason: they lied, they sinned, and [they] were infidels. Whoever studies the Koran can see this is the result…

"Some intellectuals, philosophers, and journalists - may Allah show them the straight path – say this is the wrath of nature. Whoever is angry must have a soul and a brain in order to act out his anger. Does the earth have a brain and a body with a soul? They talk about the wrath of nature, or else they claim that what happened was due to a fissure in the depths of the earth, which the earth's crust could not bear. They connect cosmic matters.

"But who is the one that cracked it, split it, and commanded it to quake?! Why don't we ask that question? Who is the one that sent the wind? Who sent the floods? But they tell you that it was due to the ebb and tide, and that the barometric depressions are to blame. Who commanded them to do so?

"These countries, in which these things occurred – don't they refrain from adopting Allah's law, which is a form of heresy? Man-made laws have been chosen over Allah's law, which has been deemed unsuitable to judge people?! Whoever does not act according to Allah's law is a heretic, that's what Allah said in the Koran. Don't these countries have witchcraft, sorcery, deceitfulness, and abomination?"

Nor should we forget the right wing global warming sceptics who are saying that environmentalsit claim the tsumani was caused by global warming.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at January 10, 2005 10:52 AM | TrackBack