Re: [Caml-list] Jihad

[Elan <rebol@techscribe.com>]

Mark Wotton wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 7 Nov 2001, Eric Newhuis wrote:
> 
> > A quick note on my potentially offensive style...
> >
> > I am sincere.  The term fits my personal experience with
> > ObjectiveCaml.  It is jihad, i.e. "struggle".  I am sorry if others
> > may take issue with my use of metephor.
> >
> > My intentions were never to offend.  And I will not retract.
> 
> On a purely practical level, you may be well advised not to use religious
> terms. The perception of functional programmers is already that we're all
> crazed zealots: using religious terminology doesn't help that at all.
> 

I disagree that Jihad should not be used because it is a religous term.
I believe that adopting metaphors from all over the cultural scene
(including religion) is perfectly legitimate. 
Jihad is a bloodthirsty warcry for the indiscriminant murder of innocent
victims. This definition of Jihad is not theologically derived from the
Quran, it is politically defined by those terrorist groups who are
responsible for the assassination of former Egyption president Anwar
Sadat, for the murder of moderate Muslims in Algeria, whose throats are
routinely slit in attacks on their villages (must be quite a struggle),
of Christian worshippers in a church in Pakistan, of Sikhs and Hindu in
India, and let's not forget the most recent victims in the World Trade
Center. Bin Laden's version of Jihad includes the kidnapping of Ugandian
children, who are forced to serve as slaves on his farms in the Sudan. 

If these acts of Jihad happen to coincide with your experience of
programming in OCAML, Eric, then I recommend you rapidly switch to
binary.

To use "Jihad" as a metaphor for something that has nothing to do with
mass murder is not offensive. It is ignorant.

Elan
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