TEHRAN – An American Islamic studies expert says that the recent Qur’an desecrations in Europe under the guise of freedom of expression are being encouraged by Western oligarchs and their foundations.
What follows is the full text of the interview with the IQNA news agency.
IQNA: As you know, over the past month, the Holy Qur’an has been subject to acts of desecration by extremist elements multiple times in Sweden and Denmark. The sacrilegious acts have ignited the ire of the entire Muslim community across the globe. Several countries have summoned or expelled Swedish and Danish ambassadors. What is behind these recurring acts of sacrilege despite widespread international condemnation?
Barrett: These acts of sacrilege can be analyzed at different levels. At the most primal, spiritual level, they are demonically-inspired attacks on God, may He be praised and exalted. Such attacks are, of course, futile. Nothing a human being can do harms God in any way. So the misguided individual who kindles a fire to burn a book containing God’s final and best-preserved message to humanity is obviously not “burning God.” He is really just kindling hellfire for himself.
“Perish the hands of Abu Lahab, and perish he!
Neither wealth nor earnings will avail him.
He’ll kindle hellfire, that flame-father,
And his wife will haul the firewood
With a noose for a necklace.” (Surah Al-Masad, verses 1-5)
IQNA: Why do you think Western countries allow the desecration of holy scriptures such as the Qur’an under the guise of “freedom of expression”?
Barrett: Unfortunately, saying that Western leaders “allow” Qur’an burning is an understatement. In reality, they tacitly encourage it. To understand why, we need to descend from a spiritual analysis to a socio-political one.
The West is ruled by a plutocratic oligarchy. That is a fancy way of saying that the more money you have, the more power you enjoy. During the past 50 years, economic inequality has exploded and reached grotesque proportions. A handful of super-rich families and individuals have bought up all media outlets and politicians and now make all of the political decisions. The thin veneer of democracy is a meticulously-maintained illusion.
The official ideology of the Western oligarchy is liberalism, meaning that individual freedom is ostensibly the highest value. The question remains: freedom for whom to do what? When liberalism was gaining strength 250 years ago, liberals championed the freedom of the bourgeoisie to usurp power from religious establishments and aristocracies. As a by-product of that power grab, individual freedom of belief and expression was to some extent enshrined.
Today, liberalism is decadent. It pretends to champion the freedom of individuals to realize their most bizarre sexual and gender fantasies, burn holy books, and so on. Yet anyone who dissents from this demonic agenda is ruthlessly silenced. So much for freedom of expression!
Today’s decadent liberalism has become satanic and totalitarian. But what purpose do the unrelenting oligarch-funded attacks on religion, community, and family serve? It’s actually simple and obvious: The oligarchs are trying to build a pure plutocracy, in which money can buy anything, without any obstacles or restrictions from religion, family, and community.
So the oligarchs who rule the West promote Qur’an burning for the same reason they promote pedophilia and other forms of sexual perversion. These are attacks on religion and religiously-based family values. If religious people can’t defend their religion from blasphemy and sacrilege, and families can’t defend their children from wealthy pedophiles and gender lunacy, religion and family will lose whatever power they still retain, and super-rich people will be free to buy anything they want, including our children, our minds, and our souls. That is the world they want. And that is why the oligarchs fund Qur’an burning as well as less obvious psychological warfare against Islam carried out by their NGOs in concert with their intelligence agencies.
IQNA: Experts believe that these insults are due to the growth and dynamicity of Muslim movements worldwide and their economic, scientific, and cultural achievements. It seems that the West fears Islam. What do you think? What is the reason behind this intolerance towards religion?
Barrett: The Western oligarchs fear Islam for several reasons. First, it is the best-preserved religion, both in terms of the message it transmits and in terms of the number of people who practice it and are influenced by it. A clear example is the Ramadan fast, an arduous ritual practiced by more than a billion people worldwide. No other religion features so many people sacrificing so much comfort and convenience in service to their religious ideals.
Second, Islam’s worldview is coherent, rational, and far more satisfying than the materialism-based nihilism that ultimately underlies the liberalism of the Western bankster oligarchs. Islam matches human nature (fitra). It has a rich intellectual and cultural tradition. In short, Islam’s path to God is potentially very appealing, especially in a world that has lost faith in everything else, making Islam a potent rival to the false religion of the oligarchs.
Third, the Qur’an declares all-out war on usury, and the Western oligarchy is based almost entirely on the most extreme form of usury ever practiced on Earth: fractional reserve fiat currency issued by private bankers.
Fourth, the Muslim-majority lands are rich in resources, especially energy resources, which could be used to establish a less usurious or non-usurious economic system that would dethrone the Western oligarchs.
Fifth, the Muslim-majority lands occupy a critically important geostrategic position between north and south, and between east and west. The Islam that dominates these lands is a threat to the bankster oligarchs’ power, so they seek to eliminate it.
IQNA: What are the legal and human rights implications of this act of desecration, and how can they be addressed by the international community and the relevant organizations? What are the best strategies and practices to prevent and counter such acts of desecration and hate crimes?
Barrett: Unfortunately, the international community and its human rights organizations are dominated by the Western oligarchy, which as I have explained is an enemy of Islam (and of ordinary people everywhere and their families, communities, and religions). So we should not expect too much help from human rights organizations and the international community as currently constituted. While we should defend ourselves and our religion vigorously in international fora by exposing the hollowness and hypocrisy of the West’s approach to human rights, we should keep in mind that our real enemy is the plutocratic oligarchy, not the low-level dupes who are brainwashed into desecrating the Qur’an, or even the far-right organizations allied with them. Instead, we should be explaining to ordinary people everywhere that Muslims and ordinary non-Muslims share a common enemy and should be working together to create a new international community dominated not by usurious oligarchs but by representatives of the best traditions of our respective cultures.