Speech That We Hate

When Professor Gunaratna, from the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore, asked US Under Secretary of State Richard Stengel why the US could not take a tough position on radical websites and social media messages, he was probably thinking of ISIS videos of beheadings. Furthest from his mind, and that of Teo Chee Hean who was also one of the panelists, must be the grassroots leader who made his plans quite clearly on Facebook about genital mutilation of a precocious child.

Like the ISIS monsters who carried out acts of violence while invoking praises of their higher entity, Jason Tan alias Cookie Tan saw no wrong in stringing the blemish of a religious leader and destructive phallic intent in one same sentence. How do these deviants come up with their sick ideas?

The Ku Klux Klan justified the killing of blacks with a story from the Old Testament (Book of Numbers, Chapter 25): While the Israelites are staying in Moab, some married lovely Moabite women. But when they started to worship their god, Baal, Moses is told that he needs to impale all the chiefs of Israel. Phinehas, son of Elezor, rushes into the tent of an Israelite who married a Midianite woman, and pierces husband and wife with one spear, right through the stomach. Apparently, this makes God happy again, so he stops the plague that he has been pouring down on the people. The New International Version (NIV) account reads like this:

So Moses said to Israel’s judges, “Each of you must put to death those of your people who have yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor.”
Then an Israelite man brought into the camp a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the tent of meeting. When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear into both of them, right through the Israelite man and into the woman’s stomach. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped; but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.
The Lord said to Moses, “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites."

It's not fully established that the grassroots leader is a church going Christian, or what kind of bedtime stories his parents read to him. One thing is clear, religious extremists come in all shades and guises. Just try to avoid being tarred with the same feather.  Stengel's Parthian shot is worth repeating, "Social media is a powerful tool for them, but it should be an even more powerful tool for us."