Tag: 911

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IX-XI or XI-IX @ Kim Bach . Org: Go humanity! I’m your number one fan

Kim Bach . Org

Today marks the first aniversary of my final post on “this subject”. One month later I suddenly found my self “not being in Kansas anymore“. MOVING ON – or VIDERE (hat tip to my former boss)!!!

Here’s what I wrote on “the subject” (newest first!)

Moving on in a jiffy (RUF) – will we make it?

The human mind works in mysterious ways, and it’s what makes people build houses in the shadow of “Mount” Vesuvius which you just have to love.

Humanity will prevail, because we have such irrational minds and short memories/lifespans – but we’re also waking up – will we make it?

Right now I’m positive – the immense prosperity we’re experiencing – despite being at war – means that we have the time to think further than the next meal, and in places like Denmark – which is such a wealthy country – the environment is beginning to show signs that it’s recovering from the exploitation of the industrial revolution. A sign of the times is that the Danish Railroads (DSB) just announced, that they’ll get most of their electric from renewable sources (wind and hydro) – it’s quite amazing – now let’s get rid of the car, as we know it, in a jiffy (Danish RUF – pun intended). It’s so STUPID and DESTRUCTIVE to the environment to pack your own power-plant – and ALL talk about a car-bridge crossing the Kattegat Sea must cease, a high speed railroad OTOH – start building NOW!

Another sign of the times is that you can go for a swim in the inner Copenhagen harbour (“as long as”, in the eternal words of a harbour biologist, “you don’t take a bite from the bottom”), and that McDonalds now sells Fair Trade coffee!!!

Go humanity! I’m your number one fan!

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Am I doing what I’m doing because of 911?

Well the world didn’t end yesterday, the terrorists are holding their breath, the world shouldn’t however, something will happen again. ’nuff said.

Last week I asked myself a question. Would I be doing what I’m doing today if 911 hadn’t happened? It’s possible, but I think that it made me curious to learn more about the reasons behind, and since ignorance is the order of the day, I’ve been trying to swim against the tide.

Mjølnerparken neonsignI now have several Muslim friends, but that wasn’t the reason I started doing volunteer work in a predominately Muslim neighbourhood. It simply felt like the right thing to do, and I also wanted to come to terms with my limitless tolerance, that my friends criticised me of having, calling me naïve and even worse names.

One of the most important things that has happened as a result of my work as a tutor in Mjølnerparken, is that my friends no longer can claim that I don’t know what I’m talking about.

A few weeks after I started as a tutor in Mjølnerparken, I went on a trip to New York. In 2004 I travelled a lot, and most of the times I had a mission. The actual reason I went to New York, was to attend one of the Ladies First Tour dates, but on the night I arrived, I first went to a great musical, and even though it was late, I immediately decided to head downtown.

After a 30 minute walk, I’m obviously not scared – this being after midnight, and I’ve never been to New York before – was standing at Ground Zero at around 1 am, being the only human being around, but probably the most surveilled person on Earth, just looking around saying: “Det er så WTC sitet…Et stort hul i jorden som man kan se” “So that’s the WTC site…A huge hole in the ground”.

It was immediately clear to me that my trip to New York, was much more a pilgrimage to visit the place where it all started, than it was about attending the Ladies First concert (which was great with performances from Missy Elliott, Beyoncé and an impressive Alicia Keys).

Like I wrote several years ago, I find it amazing that there was so little damage. Yes the hole is huge, but the WTC towers were so immense that it’s really a miracle, that a huge part of lower Manhattan wasn’t destroyed, when the towers collapsed. This fact is part of the fuel for several conspiracy theories, and that’s understandable.

One of the most important lessons I learned during my visit to New York, was that the New Yorkers wasn’t exactly suffering, like I wrote yesterday. Another thing I felt on my body was the fact that the war on terror is also about revenge, and that New Yorkers seem quite paranoid.

I felt the paranoia when I went far out in the suburbs to attend the Ladies First concert, basically being the only white person in a venue with something like 5.000 people of colour, might not have been the smartest thing in the world to do, walking home through projects, picket-fenced homes and deserted shopping mall parking lots, was down-right stupid. There are no pedestrians nor street signs in a New York suburb, and I though that locating a train station would be easy, it wasn’t. Working back and forth on the outskirts of the city, I felt the eyes watching everywhere. You know, I even tried to hitch a ride when I was trying to reach the venue an ice-rink..No I was definitely not in Kansas anymore.

So am I doing what I’m doing because of 911? I’m not sure, but it most likely came into play on the subconscious level, because my work in Mjølnerparken wasn’t something that I was shopping actively for. I actually didn’t really grasp the concept of volunteer work until I was actually doing it.

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The Church doesn’t have Wi-Fi

The Church Doesn't Have Wi-Fi15 minutes to go…5 years since Mohammad Atta shouted Allah Akhbar and slammed into the WTC, focused on Jannah and the waiting virgins, and the Church doesn’t have Wi-Fi.

A selection of today’s headlines:

  • The Internet is evil because the terrorists are using it to co-create terrorism manuals.
  • The problems of the Middle East are bigger than ever, but who cares about the people of Lebanon.
  • Danish forces are engaged in Afghanistan and Irak, we’re good at killing people
  • Anders Fogh thinks that Denmark is weak when it comes to foreign policy…We need to do more! OMG!!! Denmark is the 51st State!
  • Documents with lab results from the police investigation regarding the terrorism case from Odense has been found laying around in the open!
  • RFID tags, great Big Brother is watching!
  • Oh it’s so sad for the poor New Yorkers that lost their business! Well others lost their lifes! As far as I could tell when I was in New York in 2004, the New Yorkers aren’t exactly suffering.

Who do you believe? Our media? Their media? Your media!

It’s time to take back what’s rightfully ours, our constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression.

Forgive me I have to pray, pray for humanity, the jury is still out, but are we going to make it? Only if we wake up!

WAKE UP!!!

And my keyboard switched to Arabic!

Amen!

SLAM!!!!!!

And because the Church doesn’t have WiFi, I can’t access the Sacred Texts Library, to meditate on Surat 2.112, I’ll have to write it down in my own words:

“He who worships his Lord and is a doer of good shall fear nothing!”

Alahu Akhbar…SLAM!!!!

Hey my cell-phone and Google to the rescue…Surat 2.112 al quran…Yielded this page:

The Birth of Islam

It started out with quotes from Al-Quran most of them hinting a violent side of Islam, with quotes like this:

Surat 9, Al Taouba, “Repentance; The Immunity-Dispensation,” verse 29:

[9.29] Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.

This means that Islam must conquer Jews and Christians, and if after being conquered they do not convert to Islam, then they must pay a tribute (head tax). You would either have to convert, or pay an “infidel tax.”

I was quite sceptical, what was the point? But I actually found the correct Surat 2.112 (my all time favorite quote from Al-Quran):

[2.112] Yes! whoever submits himself entirely to Allah and he is the doer of good (to others) he has his reward from his Lord, and there is no fear for him nor shall he grieve. ‏بَلَىٰ مَنْ أَسْلَمَ وَجْهَهُۥ لِلَّهِ وَهُوَ مُحْسِنٌۭ فَلَهُۥٓ أَجْرُهُۥ عِندَ رَبِّهِۦ وَلَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ ‎
balay’ man ‘Ê”aslama wajhahuw lil:ahi wahuwa muḥsinunm falahuwÊ” ‘Ê”ajruhuw Ê•inda rab:ihiy wala’ xawfun Ê•alayhim wala’ hum yaḥzanuwna (I hope this was correct, I’m not proficient in Arabic).

Surat 2.112 is as far from fundamentalism as you can possible get.

Then the text suddenly become much more interesting, and turns into a rather full historical account of the “Birth of Islam”. Very interesting indeed sitting in a Danish Church reading this historical account of the “Birth of Islam” on the 5th anniversary of 911 on a cell-phone using Google, including sentences rendered perfectly in Arabic script. This was not possible to do 5 years ago, there’s still hope for humanity.

BTW the bible quote of the day was from the Letter to the Galatians. Paulus basically says “remember: the ‘books’ aren’t written by men!”…Hmm…I don’t agree – the ‘books’ are inspired, spiritual and ‘eternal’, but they are indeed written by men.

LysglobeI lit all the candles in the “globe” in the Church and prayed some more for humanity. Too bad that the “bowl” with Bible quotes for contemplation were nowhere to be seen! But I welcome that this tradition has reached Denmark, I saw it in Lund 2 years ago, and actually I prayed for it to be adopted in Denmark. My prayers were heard it seems.

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History 101 (or 911): Connections!

Today was my regular day in Hjemmelektiehjælpen – private tutoring.

The 13 year old boy had an assignment where he was supposed to put into context World-war 2, The Battle for Dybbøl Mølle, Christian the 4th and 9-11 none the less. Phew! THAT triggered me!

The context was “what can you learn from history, and how do you avoid history from repeating it self” (or “man bliver klog af skade – great to hear such a phrase from a 13-year old), so “past in relation to future”. The boy was interested in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, Star Wars or Ronald Raygun’s wet dream), that’s the future! Well that wouldn’t have stopped Mohammad Atta was my point. And I also remembered the words (not literal) of Mikhail Gorbachew, “if they build it we’ll just throw a stone at it!”.

It actually turned out that the 4 historic event are more closely connected than you might expect. I didn’t discover this until I had made a history 101 (or 911) lecture, of history as I see it.

The US entered World-war 2 after Pearl Harbour, 9-11 was a new Pearl Harbour. 9-11 triggered the “war on terror” and that is somewhat akin to World-war 2, since it keeps provoking images of the “next Hitler”, learning from history eh’? Peace in our time?

Denmark lost Schleswig-Holstein after Dybbøl Mølle and it was the final nail in the coffin for the dreams of a Danish Empire, that Christian the 4 had.

Denmark regained some of the land lost after Dybbøl Mølle, as an indirect result of the peace treaty of Versailles, that eventually was a pivotal point in triggering World-war 2, since it left the German economy in shambles, resulting in the likes of Hitler coming out of the woodwork, some see the same happening today.

Everything is connected, as James Burke, one of my favourite authors, always points out.

Poor kid, he didn’t really get any homework done, but I ended up having a fantastic discussion with his mother. The view Muslims has of 9-11 is “somewhat different” from mine. They do seem to see a huge conspiracy, which is not as far fetched as it might seem. The truth has been a major casualty of the war on terror.

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America Supports You

America Supports You

To follow up on the NORAD Tracks Santa post, I decided to check out some of the related links on norad.mil site, and stumpled upon the “America Supports You” site. I had a flash-back to one of the promotional videos that are shown in the movie “Starship Troopers”. Scary indeed

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911 – En Dag Ikke Som De Andre

11-September-2001

Har i hørt det? ”Kongen” kommer hastigt ind af døren, hvad det er der er sket, vil han ikke sige- det er sådan han er- men han haster hen til et TV apparat i den anden ende af kontoret, som jeg først nu opdager at en flok er samlet omkring. Det fremgår at der er en brand i New York, folk siger at World Trade Center tårnene er, eller er ved at styrte sammen. Jeg er totalt lamslået, kan ikke orke at se mere, og går tilbage til mit skrivebord, det er åbenbart tydeligt at jeg er rystet, jeg siger ”Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God!” Maria spørger ”What happened? What happened?” Jeg kan først ikke svare, fatter mig endelig og siger ”They have bombed World Trade Center, and it has collapsed”. På dette tidspunkt vidste jeg ikke hvad der var sket, jeg gik udfra at der var tale om et bombe attentat som det i 1993, og at det i modsætning til den gang var lykkedes at få tårnene til at styrte sammen. At det der var sket var at nogle fly havde ramt bygningerne fandt jeg så ud af ved at se billederne af bygningerne med de gabende huller på Internettet.

Continue reading “911 – En Dag Ikke Som De Andre”