Suggested Answers to the Short Quiz

[johnkarls]

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Suggested Answers to the Short Quiz

Question 1

Was Nelson Mandela the “heart and soul” of South Africa’s throwing off the yoke of White MINORITY Rule?

Answer 1

Yes.

Question 2

Was Nelson Mandela incredulous at the American Civil Rights Movement’s success in the 1960’s in achieving the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965?

Answer 2

Yes.

Question 3

Was Nelson Mandela’s incredulity based on disbelief that a racial MINORITY could achieve such results?

Answer 3

Yes.

In a sense, Nelson Mandela’s incredulity is itself incredulous!!!

After all, as will be discussed below, the purpose of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) of which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was President from its founding in 1957 until his assassination in 1968 -- was to use the moral authority and organizing power of Black Churches to conduct NON-VIOLENT civil rights protests.

And Nelson Mandela was no stranger to Christianity!!!

His parents, Royal Members of the Thembu Tribe, were devout Methodists.

As a result of which Nelson Mandela attended Methodist schools for 17 years from age 7 through his years at the University of Fort Hare.

It is interesting that Nelson Mandela only believed in the POWER OF THE MAJORITY, and was completely oblivious to the POWER OF APPEALING TO CHRISTIAN MORALITY.

Question 4

Who called religion “the opiate of the masses”?

Answer 4

Karl Marx.

Question 5

Did Karl Marx call religion “the opiate of the masses” out of frustration over trying to get the proletariat to overthrow the bourgeoisie on this earth -- when they were focused, instead, on “laying up for themselves treasure in heaven”?

Answer 5

Yes.

Question 6

Was Karl Marx’s real quarrel with Christians who are not only enjoined to “lay up for themselves treasure in heaven” but also to “turn the other cheek”?

Answer 6

Absolutely!!!

After all, Karl Marx was only attempting to foment revolution in Christian countries whether the Catholic/Protestant countries of Western Europe or the Orthodox countries of Eastern Europe.

Question 7

Who famously said that “Islam has bloody borders”?

Answer 7

Samuel Huntington, Harvard’s Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor and Director of Harvard’s Center for International Affairs.

Question 8

Was that statement made by Samuel Huntington, Harvard’s Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor and Director of Harvard’s Center for International Affairs, in his famous (some would say infamous) 1993 Foreign Affairs article entitled “The Clash of Civilizations?” which he expanded into a book entitled “The Clash of Civilizations and The Remaking of World Order” (Simon & Shuster - 1996)?

Answer 8

Yes.

Question 9

Have “wise acres” attempted to disprove Prof. Huntington’s thesis by examining COUNTRY borders, most of which are nothing more than “figments of the imaginations” of long-departed colonial masters?

Answer 9

Yes, several “wise asses” have attempted to disprove Prof. Huntington’s thesis with their “studied ignorance” of focusing on meaningless “figments of the imaginations” of long-departed colonial masters.

Question 10

Is it true that many, if not most, wars (by number, if not necessarily by importance such as so-called “World Wars”) over whatever historical period one cares to examine since the advent of Islam in the Seventh Century – have been between Muslims and adherents of other religions (Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.) regardless of whether there were any colonial “borders” separating the warring parties?

Answer 10

Yes.

Indeed, the so-called Arab Empire which lasted only four centuries was conquered first by the Seljuk Turks who swept into the Middle East from Central Asia in the mid-1000’s and promptly “went native” in terms of language, dress, customs, inter-marriage, etc., in what is now modern-day Iran.

And the Seljuk Turk Empire stretching from the Atlantic across Northern Africa through the Middle East to India was itself conquered by the Ottoman Turks who swept in from Central Asia in 1299, though they did not capture from The Eastern Roman Empire (aka the Byzantine Empire and aka The Greek Empire) until 1493 its capital Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) which the Turks made their capital.

[The Ottoman Turks in 1299, of course, would not have recognized their “blood brothers” whom they were conquering and who had “gone native" 250 years earlier.]

HOWEVER, THE IMPORTANT POINT HERE IS THAT FOR MORE THAN EIGHT CENTURIES THE TURKISH EMPIRES (WHETHER SELJUK OR OTTOMAN) -- JUST LIKE THEIR PREDECESSOR "ARAB EMPIRE" FOR FOUR CENTURIES -- CONQUERED TREMENDOUS DOMAINS “AT THE POINT OF THE SWORD” --

1. Up through the Balkans all the way to Vienna, 270 miles “as the crow flies” NORTHEAST of Venice [think Shakespeare's Othello (aka Verdi's Otello), the captain of the Venetian fleet fighting the Turks] – the Turks were finally defeated in The Battle of Vienna in 1683; and

2. Up through Spain/Portugal to occupy Southern France – the Turkish Empire was not finally defeated until The Battle of Grenada in 1492, though its citizens were not expelled from the Iberian Peninsula until 1609.

Accordingly, it would be fair to compare the wars between The Turkish Empires and Christian Europe AS COMPARABLE TO WORLD WAR I, both in terms of geographical extent and the number of European countries involved!!! AND CERTAINLY IN TERMS OF DURATION SINCE THEY LASTED MORE THAN EIGHT CENTURIES!!!

After all, all of the so-called Crusades were launched BY THE VATICAN against the Turks between the time the Seljuk Turks swept into the Middle East in the mid-1000's and the fall of Constantinople (1453) to the Ottoman Turks by mobilizing European Christian nations to relieve military pressure against Constantinople (although all of the Crusades, except one, went to The Holy Land because liberating The Holy Land was “an easier sell” for The Vatican which realized that military attacks ANYWHERE against the Turks would relieve military pressure against Constantinople).

BTW, a good trivia question re The Crusades??? Who was Saladin, the Commanding General of the Turkish armies fighting against many of The Crusades, all of which were launched against the Turks by The Vatican???

Answer – Saladin was a Kurd!!! [NOT an Arab, as most attendees of American cocktail parties assume.]

Though perhaps it is sadistic to play on the historical ignorance of Americans!!! After all, how many of them know that --

1. Following its “high water mark” of occupying The Balkans (which are as large a land mass as Western Europe) as far as Vienna Austria and occupying Spain/Portugal into Southern France, the Ottoman Turkish Empire became known as “The Sick Man of Europe” because it was no longer “growing by leaps and bounds” like the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch Empires.

2. Indeed, the Ottoman Turkish Empire losing Egypt was a sad tale – starting with the Suez Canal being built in 1869 by France and Egypt, with the Ottoman Turkish Empire being forced by financial hard times to sell its 50% stake to the British in 1875. To protect their investment in the face of local unrest, France and Britain sent warships to Ottoman-ruled Egypt in 1882 and, when that show of force failed to quell the disturbance, Britain invaded and captured Egypt from the Ottomans and made it a British colony.

[Another good piece of trivia was how the Suez Canal gave rise to the term “POSH” which means luxurious. In the days before air conditioning, Brits wanted to be shielded from the heat of the sun when traveling to/from their colonial “Jewel in the Crown” (aka India) giving rise to the phrase “Port Out, Starboard Home” or POSH.]

3. However, the now-truncated Ottoman Turkish Empire still encompassed the Middle East until the Ottoman Turks joined World War I on the “wrong” side of Germany and The Holy Roman Empire (aka The Habsburg Empire) WHICH WAS TRIGGERED BY THE ASSASSINATION OF THE ARCHDUKE FERDINAND WHO WAS "HEIR APPARENT" TO THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE and was defeated by the Brits (think Lawrence of Arabia).

4. The Ottoman Turks were permitted by the World War I victors to continue to occupy what is now modern-day Turkey, which The Ottoman Turks promptly “ethnically cleansed” of Armenians (most of whom fled to Soviet Armenia which was a member of the USSR until 1991) and Greeks. Greece had closed its borders to the Greeks living in Constantinople, the former capital of The Eastern Roman Empire aka The Byzantine Empire aka The Greek Empire, so the Greeks of Constantinople and the rest of modern-day Turkey had to flee to Soviet Georgia, home of Joseph Stalin, from which Stalin forcibly sent them (now numbering 5 million) to Kazakhstan (along with 10 million Russian city dwellers) to become farmers following Stalin's disastrous attempt to collectivize Russian farms in the 1930's during which Stalin had killed more than 10 million Russian peasants.

5. The rest of what remained of the Ottoman Turkish Empire AFTER SIX CENTURIES OF RULE was divided by the World War I victors under the guise of the League of Nations into FIVE NEW COLONIES (delicately called “protectorates” by their new colonial masters) with the NEWLY-MINTED COLONIAL BORDERS creating modern-day Lebanon and Syria which became French colonies (aka “protectorates”) and creating modern-day Iraq, Jordan and Palestine which became British colonies (aka “protectorates”).

6. On July 26, 1956, Egypt decided to nationalize the Suez Canal JUST 8 DAYS AFTER ACHIEVING FULL INDEPENDENCE FROM BRITAIN as a result of which France and Britain invaded Egypt on October 29, 1956.

[Thereby proving that U.S.-based companies are NOT the only companies in the world that commandeer the FREE USE of the armies/navies of their home countries!!!]

7. Israel joined France and Britain because (1) Egypt had blockaded in 1953 the Straits of Tiran at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba leading to the Israeli port of Elath which, following the Egyptian seizure of Suez, meant Israel had no access to the Indian Ocean, and (2) under Egypt, Fadayeen terrorist camps flourished in Gaza.

8. President Eisenhower pulled out all the stops in calling a halt to the invasion for a variety of reasons including (1) his disgust in trying to condemn the Soviet Union crushing the 1956 Hungarian Revolution while France and Britain were engaged in a similar action in Egypt, and (2) Soviet threats to rain nuclear missiles on Britain, France and Israel. Although Britain and France vetoed resolutions in the U.N. Security Council, Eisenhower took the issue to the U.N. General Assembly which created the first U.N. Peace-Keeping Force. Eisenhower also threatened Britain and France economically to force submission (which was effective since neither had fully recovered from World War II despite American foreign aid to rebuild in the form of The Marshall Plan).

BTW, just so the reader has NOT forgotten Harvard Prof. Samuel Huntington’s thesis that Islam has “bloody borders” with EVERY RELIGION, we should not forget that –

1. Islam pushed against the Hindus of “The Sub-Continent” (aka India) carving out Pakistan and Bangladesh (the old East Pakistan on the other side of India);

2. Pushed against the Buddhist nations of South Asia, leaving Malaysia and Indonesia majority Muslim; and

3. Pushed south into Sub-Saharan Africa leaving, for example, Nigeria majority Muslim. Indeed, some of Islam’s most “bloody borders” in recent decades have involved the fighting in Sudan which did not end with the creation and secession of South Sudan.

4. Indeed, THREE OF THE WORLD'S FOUR LARGEST MAJORITY-MUSLIM NATIONS lie outside the old Turkish Empires (whether Seljuk or Ottoman) –- (1) Indonesia, (2) Nigeria, and (3) Bangladesh – all of which rank among the world’s TOP EIGHT countries by population.

[So endeth today’s history lesson. Sorry for such a long digression. But sometimes American ignorance of history becomes just too much to bear!!! After all, the British public has a decent knowledge of history!!!]

Question 11

Was the most recent of the many occasions on which we studied Islam our 12/31/2017 meeting for which our focus book was “Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali?

Answer 11

Yes.

Question 12

BTW, were Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s formative years spent as a Black-African Muslim in Mogadishu Somalia? Did she have to flee The Netherlands where she had become a prominent politician due to Fatwās to kill her for allegedly becoming an Islamic apostate because she had campaigned against "honor killings" ON DUTCH SOIL of Muslim women (Islamic Law requires all Muslims to kill apostates)? Did she enter the equivalent of the witness-protection program in the U.S. until surfacing as a Fellow at the Belfer Center of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government? AND PERHAPS MOST INTERESTINGLY, has Ayaan Hirsi Ali been married since 2011 to Niall Ferguson who was Harvard’s Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History 2004-2016, who was a Scot educated at Oxford though he taught at both Cambridge and Oxford before coming across the pond AND WHO, MOST IMPORTANTLY, is the author of one of our Proposed Focus Books “The Square and The Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook” (Penguin Press 2018)?

Answer 12

Yes – Yes – Yes – Yes.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in 1969 in Somalia and raised in 4 Muslim cultures in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya. After genital mutilation, etc., she fled to Holland to escape an arranged marriage.

After university in Holland, Hirsi Ali became a leader of a new political party protesting Holland’s supposed “liberal” policy of permitting the free practice of religion in general, and Islam in particular -- especially with regard to its non-liberal treatment of women including HONOR KILLINGS ON DUTCH SOIL.

[Quite a few countries in the European Union follow the practice of letting Islamic communities, in effect, SECEDE FROM THEIR HOST COUNTRIES AND FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION -- by letting such communities be ruled by Islamic Law enforced by Islamic Courts, utterly UNINFLUENCED by the laws of the host country.]

Although Hirsi Ali's new party swept to power, its leader Pym Fortuyn was assassinated two weeks before the election by Radical Muslims. Famous Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was also assassinated by Radical Muslims because he had made a documentary film about Hirsi Ali and her political views. Stabbed to Theo van Gogh’s chest was a letter to Hirsi Ali that said in effect “you’re next.” As a result, Hirsi Ali fled in 2004 to the U.S. into the equivalent of the “witness protection program.”

Question 13

Did Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s “Heretic” explain that the heart of Islam is “World Conquest as the result of VIOLENT Holy War”? That the Quranic “peace verses” always cited by Islamic apologists come from the Prophet Muhammad’s Mecca period during which he and Islam were floundering, while the “Sword Verses” come from Muhammad’s later Medina period when Muhammad and Islam were flourishing as a result of military conquests, many of which Muhammad led personally?

Answer 13

Yes – Yes.

Question 14

And did Hirsi Ali explain in “Heretic” that all 4 main schools of Islamic Jurisprudence and all 25 approved Islamic interpretations of the Quran agree in general that any statements in the Quran that are inconsistent with later Quranic statements ARE ABROGATED and, in particular, the “peace verses” cited by the Islam apologists ARE ABROGATED by the “Sword Verses”?

Answer 14

Yes – all 4 main schools of Islamic Jurisprudence and all 25 approved Islamic interpretations of the Quran.

Question 15

Is all of this (Questions 1-14) helpful, if not essential, to understanding the difference between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.?

Answer 15

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 16

After all, didn’t Martin Luther King Jr. begin his career in 1954 as the Pastor of the Dexter Avenue BAPTIST Church in Montgomery AL?

Answer 16

Yes.

Question 17

And was it NOT until 1957 that he (with others) founded the “Southern CHRISTIAN Leadership Conference” (SCLC) of which MLK was President from its founding 1/10/1957 until MLK’s assassination 4/4/1968?

Answer 17

Yes.

Question 18

Was the purpose of the SCLC to use the moral authority and organizing power of Black Churches to conduct NON-VIOLENT civil rights protests?

Answer 18

Yes.

Question 19

Meanwhile, had Malcolm Little (aka Malcolm X) joined The Nation of Islam while in prison 1946-1952 (age 21-27) and quickly become one of its most influential leaders?

Answer 19

Yes.

Question 20

Following his release from prison and for more than a dozen years thereafter, was Malcolm X the public face of The Nation of Islam advocating black supremacy, black empowerment, and the separation of black and white Americans -- publicly criticizing the SCLC-led civil rights movement for its emphasis on non-violence and racial integration?

Answer 20

Yes.

Question 21

Does our author, Prof. Peniel Joseph, chronicle how Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. influenced each other and came to have surprisingly-similar views?

Answer 21

Yes.

Question 22

Was Malcolm X assassinated in NYC 2/21/1965? Do rumors still persist regarding who/what was behind the shooting (including the Federal Government whose FBI had surveilled him for many years for supposed links to communism)?

Answer 22

Yes – Yes.

Question 23

Was Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated 4/4/1968 in Memphis TN?

Answer 23

Yes.

Question 24

Was MLK also surveilled by the U.S. Government (the CIA in his case) for supposed links to communism?

Answer 24

Yes.

Question 25

Does Prof. Peniel Joseph argue that the promotion of MLK as a hero while ignoring Malcolm X, is nothing more than mainstream-media propaganda aimed at keeping to the present day, the civil rights movement as Christian and non-violent?

Answer 25

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 26

Would Black America have been much better off abandoning MLK’s Christianity and embracing the Islam of Malcolm X?

Answer 26

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!