Violence is used in celebration just as it is used in most aspects of the Islamic Culture. For almost 30 years, the Shiite minority in Iraq were prohibited by the Sunni regime of Saddam Hussein from performing some traditional Shia Rituals. One of these rituals is the ceremonial self-flagellation during the “Day of Ashura,” which commemorates when the grandson of Mohommad, Hussein, foolishly rode to his doom in the battle of Karbala.

Now that the US has deposed Saddam, Shiites are free to celebrate again. Christians and Jews celebrate their holy days without needing a blood transfusion. Not the Moslems- they cut themselves and beat themselves with clubs to remind them that they are bound to a religion by BLOOD. Behold a celebration by followers of the Religion of Peace.

From the Stars and Stripes Here:

UMM QASR, Iraq The chanting began well after dark and grew gradually. Then under the glow of Umm Qasr’s newly restored streetlights, the men came into sight dancing down the dusty street, leaping and striking themselves on the back and forehead with sticks.

“We will never forget Hussein,” the men chanted.

They had come to praise not Saddam Hussein but another Hussein whose name had not been celebrated in such a fashion for decades.

“This is the first day of Shiite freedom,” said Ali, one of several awed townspeople gathered on the dark roadside to watch the unusual ritual. “This is the first time anyone is confident enough to do this.”

For the first time in what residents said was nearly 30 years, the majority Shiite Muslims of southern Iraq commemorated Ashura in Umm Qasr. The Shiite self-flagellation ritual commemorates the killing in A.D. 680 of Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and a man venerated as a martyr.

Practice of the religious ritual, long discouraged by Saddam’s minority Sunni regime, has been punishable by death, residents said.

Why would anyone want to be a member of a religion that required you to enact the final scene in the movie Carrie?

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