How to respond to Fatwas

Submitted by A.T. Halmay (Canada), Feb 14, 2014 at 16:03

Over sixty years ago when my wife was pregnant with our first-born, we walked to see a movie. She was a very pretty young thing but also very embarrassed about carrying a baby. Three young louts were coming up the sidewalk toward us and stared at my wife lasciviously totally ignoring me. I felt very protective about my wife and concurrently I felt it was an affront to me. Now I was about 5'9" and 133 lbs. while the rednecks were all considerably bigger than I was but I was overcome with rage and as they passed us I flung out my hip and knocked one of them right off the sidewalk, then continued walking without looking back. I felt like a panther and knew what I would do if I heard any noise behind me that indicated I was being attacked. I would concurrently duck and wheel around, grab his head and bring my knee up into his face and fling him toward his companions. I was ready to kill. They shouted at the fellow I had knocked off the sidewalk to kick my head in, etc., but he did nothing and neither did they.

I got the shakes later when I calmed down and realized what I had done and what could have happened to me but I felt good about myself because I had acted like a man. If there had been any men around among the leaders of all the free countries when the Ayatollah issued his fatwa, one of them would have attacked Iran or somehow arranged to have that madman assassinated - which is what should happen every time an aggressive Muslim issues any fatwas. The mice will play when the cat's away and sadly our world has a great shortage of cats these days.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".