(Images from Thailandoutdoor.com and bermuda-online.org)
By guest blogger Robert Martin.
(For those who may not be very familiar with Britain's Sir Winston Churchill, he is considered one of the greatest men of the late 19th and 20th centuries. He was a brave young soldier, a billiant young journalist and foreign correspondent, writer and historian, an extraordinary politician and statesman, a great leader and England's Prime Minister in World War II. The Western World is greatly in his debt. He was also a prophet in his own time, predicting the Cold War with the U.S.S.R. He died on 24 January 1965 at the age of 90, and after a lifetime of service to his country, was accorded a State funeral.)
(He wrote this in 1918, drawing from his observations as a foreign correspondent.)
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia (rabies) in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries; improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.
"A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
"Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.
"No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step. Were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome."
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