what is violence?

WHO defines violence as the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation. Others define it as the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy.

Can we still talk of violence if it doesn’t involve physical force? In which way should words be considered violence? Should the courts treat words as we would physical assault? I ask this because of this comment

calling on the public to desist from any form of violence against women, whether online or offline.

Daily Nation, 14th September.

Is this As per the 2018 law, a person found guilty of cyber-harassment is liable for a Sh20 million fine or imprisonment of not more than 10 years reasonable?

Is violence counterproductive?

The last 10 or is it 12 days have seen violent protests in most cities in the US of A and in some other cities around the world following the police killing or is it murder of George Floyd and there have been arguments about whether the violence is really useful?

I have seen a post that calls the violence immoral and ineffective. Immoral because the destruction of property of bystanders and ineffective because it will not earn the demonstrators any sympathies.

Should the demonstrators adopt only non violent means to achieve their ends?

I want to suggest here a unpopular opinion. That violence seems sometimes to work & its only downside is that it costs lives & property. Independence was warn in many places because of sustained violence against the colonial authorities. America has mastered the art of spreading violence all round ( cloaked in spreading democracy).

What do you think? I am not asking you to support violence but only to comment looking at history if there are situations where violence has led to progress? How can the same be achieved without resorting to violence?

Of young men and mayhem

If the economist is to be believed, young men, to be tamed should have work and wives

Why men want to rape?

This is a discussion going on here that I know being an emotive issue should result in some deep thought.

I suggest one reads why men want to rape and if you have time to read The Myth of Monogamy: Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals and People

I am interested in your views.

 

On the riots in the Arab world

Allow me, my friends to digress from our bible study and add my two cents to the tensions in the Arab world following the screening and distribution on YouTube of a low-budget, badly acted clip of a badly done movie that has resulted as of last count the death of the American ambassador to Libya,

A protester reacts as the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, is seen in flames. I need convincing that this in any way portrays peace!

embassy staff and at least 12 or more people from around the globe. In most places the embers have stopped but in others there are still war cries from all over the place. Most Muslims and non-Muslims have been quick to assert that these are actions of only a minority of the Muslims and thereby do not represent Islam, but other than the denouncing of these acts by the supreme leader from Saudi Arabia, most of the Muslim leaders have remained conspicuously quiet on the issue that can only be construed to mean one thing; they are complicit!

The verse below is an extract from the Qur’an, where the Muslim faithful is told explicitly that there is no greater sin than stopping people from believing in Allah, and there is no problem with doing anything abhorrent as long as it serves the course of Islam. It establishes here that if anything serves Islam it is good and if it doesn’t it is evil. This verse is written after the Muslims raiders had violated a sacred principle in the period of antagonism between idols in Ka’ba and Quraysh trading centres and the incessant raids muslims claim were led by their prophet and on being questioned about the violation of the sacred practice this is his response,

They ask you about the sacred month – about fighting therein. Say, “Fighting therein is great [sin], but averting [people] from the way of Allah and disbelief in Him and [preventing access to] al-Masjid al-Haram and the expulsion of its people therefrom are greater [evil] in the sight of Allah . And fitnah is greater than killing.” And they will continue to fight you until they turn you back from your religion if they are able. And whoever of you reverts from his religion [to disbelief] and dies while he is a disbeliever – for those, their deeds have become worthless in this world and the Hereafter, and those are the companions of the Fire, they will abide therein eternally.

Surat Al Baqarah 2:217

no wonder the muslims in Egypt, Libya, Sudan and elsewhere find no qualms with taking lives. If this is what religion teaches, then by all means we must remove it from the public sphere!

Many more qualified commentators on the issue of the apparent propensity of Muslims to go on rampage whenever an image of the prophet they don’t like appears somewhere, have opined that we must continue to offend them till such a time that they will come to the realization that violence is not a solution. The muslim must realize, his faith prohibits him/her from depicting Mohammed in any form, but that prohibition does not apply to those who do not subscribe to their faith. When Dan Brown wrote the Da Vinci Code, which was later adapted to a movie, I have no recollection of anyone being killed for it except the book and movie being banned in several places [though am not sure it stopped anyone interested from watching or reading the book]. Am not giving anyone a license to go out of their way to look for disaster, but that Islam must be ridiculed and criticized just as other world religions are or else we suffer the risk of being gagged on what we can say, draw or think about their faith and this is fundamentally a suppression of freedom of speech which most of u cherish.

The Muslim has an option if faced with such depictions about Islam to walk away from it. Nobody forces them to watch the movie or see the cartoon, why can’t they just roll their eyes and move on? Is that too much to ask of them?

Am going to need a lot of convincing that Islam is a religion of peace!

The end of my rant!