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Waseem Nikzad / AFP - Getty Images
Men prepare to pray during the funeral Monday of Nadia Sediqqi in Mihtarlam, Afghanistan.
JALALABAD, Afghanistan -- Unknown gunmen shot dead a senior female government worker on Monday, officials in eastern Afghanistan said, five months after her predecessor was killed in a bomb attack.
Violence against women appears to be on the rise in Afghanistan, which activists and some lawmakers blame on what they say is waning interest in women's rights on the part of President Hamid Karzai's government, claims he denies.
Nadia Sediqqi, acting head of the women's affairs department in Laghman province, was killed as she headed to work in the capital Mehtar Lam, said the provincial governor's spokesman Sarhadi Zwak.
"They shot her as she was getting into a rickshaw," Zwak said of the attack about 93 miles east of Kabul, adding that she worked without bodyguards -- a common situation for female government workers.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
EXCLUSIVE: US, NATO behind 'insecurity' in Afghanistan, Karzai says
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul condemned the attack.
“This attack, especially on Human Rights Day, shows that those who killed Ms. Siddiqi have no respect for human rights or the safety of the Afghan people,” it said in a statement.
Violence against women
Afghan women have won back basic rights in education, voting and employment since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001, but fears are mounting that such freedoms could be traded away as Kabul seeks peace talks with the group.
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More than 10 years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.
In a recent interview with NBC News, Afghan President Hamid Karzai denied that violence against women had been on the rise. Instead, he said, incidents of violence were being reported more today than in years past.
Newlywed beheaded for her refusal to become a prostitute
“You hear more of violence because there is more awareness of it today because there's more reporting of it today because there is more enforcement of the law against violence today ... not that violence has increased,” he told NBC’s Atia Abawi.
Still, a 2011 poll by the Thomson Reuters Foundation judged that Afghanistan was the most dangerous country in the world for women, beating on Congo and Pakistan.
Watch Atia Abawi's full, exclusive interview with Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai in which he discusses the "growing perception" that insecurity in the region is caused by the United States and some of its allies who "promoted lawlessness" and "corruption" in Afghanistan.
Predecessor also slain
Sediqqi had replaced Hanifa Safi, who was killed in July by a car bomb that her family blamed on the Taliban.
Women who pursue careers in ultra-conservative Afghanistan often face opposition in a society where often they are ostracized, or worse, for mixing with men other than husbands or relatives.
After 10 years of Karzai's rule, has life improved in Afghanistan?
Safi's son later told Reuters that authorities had ignored repeated requests for protection, echoing greater concerns that the safety of female government workers is not taken seriously by Kabul, despite commitments to better the rights of women 11 years into the NATO-led war.
NBC News' Atia Abawi, Akbar Shinwari and Reuters contributed to this report.
More world stories from NBC News:
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How awful that this brave woman has died, trying to make improvements for all females in her country. It is terrible the government ignored warnings about the risk she was facing.That women must work without the protection of body guards afforded to men, is simply ridiculous.It seems the government is doing this as a way to force women not to work, but to stay at home, and discourage the same rights given to men. We are so fortunate to have all the liberties and freedoms in America.
Surely we take these for granted. How many of us just don't understand what life is like, living in the most dangerous country in the world. I pray this wonderful woman will rest in peace and her loved ones are comforted. May women soon have greater freedoms.
Windancer,i would like to point out that there is an even larger picture to this than meets the eye.The afghanistan region has recent history of placing women in a 2nd class position and it's possible that calling it 2nd class might be a bit high at that!!As for the General male population,old habits die hard i am sorry to say.The government is mostly male and has the same problem but less excuses because they are educated.Then we have the Taliban which places the value of women below that of animal.Keep in mind also that the Taliban was also the ruling government before the current one in place.Are you seeing a trend here yet?I do believe it is possible that with American troops leaving soon that Taliban will return to power.The current government may be trying to make themselves look better in the Talibans eyes to avoid retaliation.In any event,even if i am wrong,Afghanistan is NOT in the 21st century when it comes to equal rights for women.Rights for women in the middle east have not improved much over the last 1000 years and probably won't for at least another 100..Sorry to be so wordy but,i guess you just have to be here and meet these people to understand just how backwards their thinking is to ours.
Once again the "men" of Afghanistan are out to prove to the rest of the world that they think themselves as little more than furniture and in order to feel superior to women they have to treat them as property. As soon as a woman starts acting as something more than some man's property, an evidently well armed group of "men" feel so threatened by this obviously superior person, that they feel they have to kill her to prove they are superior.
They are not more than frightened little children. (And that is a gracious description.)
The very fact that she lived so long is a big deal with Islamic Taliban of different labels around!
The poll must have ignored Saudi Arabia in the most dangerous place for females.
House of Saud has a mad Sunni seventh century despotic and bigoted ruler with 5000 princes and princesses. They have huge battalions of harems of girls and women assembled from all over the world.
Those very people are springboards for fast backward march of Islam to seventh century desert days and dangerous Sharia Laws and so on!
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are breeding and exporting their mad version of Sunni Islamic hating and killing machines like Taliban, al Qaida, MB, Salaffi, Wahhabi and other label ones all over the globe.
Afghanistan being the nieghboring nation to Pakistan will naturally be affected!
takenaka!!!!!!!!....................takenaka!!!!!!!!!...................Hello?!
Where you at!? C'mon man, another shooting here!!!!!! It won't be the same without your "BAN ALL GUNS" comment!!
Ugh....... Oh well. Maybe since it's not our country, you don't care in this case......
Even though many of the answers are well known, I just cannot help asking myself one question when hearing about things like this. What is wrong with these people???????
Ed, I think a shorter answer might be afforded to, "What is right with these people?"
I'm the eternal optimist trying to make lemonade from the lemons. Maybe, just maybe, if something is right, it is something that can be built on and made better. Sadly, I'm still having trouble finding any "right."
As always, I wonder who is really controlling the strings from behind the scenes. The easily led don't require too much mind control, and their morality index is abysmal. For a group that cites their religion as being so perfect, why are their morals so bad? Murder, rape, mayhem, child abuse and slaughter of women and children? That doesn't sound very moral to me. Someone is making money off all of this and gaining power, too. Wake up people, it may already be too late.
Creek Dog....dude...good post!!!
I am aware that all societies suffer from prejudice. But, I can't help but wonder where and how this deep rooted resentment toward women got its start. I mean absolutely no offense to our gay friends, neighbors, and co-workers. Respect for individual rights does lead to a happier more ethical and prosperous society. My question is how did such complete hate toward women in one society start and how did it grow to such prominance. These practices against women were in existence long before Islam, so that can't be blamed for the beginning of hate toward women . . just keeping it alive.
I feel that not giving them bodyguards is their way of making sure as few women as possible are in high government jobs. They know they have to allow them in since America and other westernized countries believe countries should not be sexist, but they are still very anti-women in their culture. If women have no protection, they will probably not go for the positions. We should put pressure on them to allow their women the same amount of guards as their men, otherwise its just lip service.
The Taliban seems fine with killing women and children. Cowards just want to keep their power.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. ??????
Islam!
Hey Karzai, you gonna blame this on Americans too?
Hamid Karzai is a joke of a leader. He continually takes bribes and makes deals with Taliban influences. He sits there like some humble bedouin all the while he steals from the countries coffers, which the US and it's allies have continued to build up. He blames the US for lawlessness yet does nothing to protect his own citizens. He is like every other male in the middle east and only fakes interest in helping women attain rights. He would be the first to place the yoke on women. Haimd Karzai will make the best possible deal for himself and Male Afghani's and the women will be worse then they were when the Taliban ran the country. Every woman in that country should make a concerted effort to leave that barren landscape and let the men contemplate a society without them. It's a choice, treat your women with respect and equality or learn how to self-please yourselves for eternity. Women, even Afghan women hold the power to bend men to their wills, they have simply not utilized their power into a force. It's coming, one way or the other.. These articles just prove the point that these Muslim men are scared of women gaining rights and intelligence. It also proves they are cowards to their god for not protecting their women. No respect for men stuck in the days of ancient lore.
I guess we can take comfort in broader news coverage.
Bush gave Afghan women basic rights......what has Obama done for them? Oh lover of women's rights...
This is politispeak that actually means "Afghan men have been pigs for many years, their behavior is just now being seen by the outside world."
I would call them barbaric swine, but that would be a gross libel of pigs!
I think that's one good thing to have come from the conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq.
These killers have no respect for woman...perpetuated by horrible parents!
to the Afghans, the American way of treating women as equals is just as alien as we view them treating their women like animals.I am not advocating or justifying anything here.Just pointing out their train of thought.I honestly don't understand how they can still be so backwards towards women but,what can one do about it?
Wolfhound .....For starters ... their government can apprehend her killers and bring them to justice by hanging them in the streets for all to see. Unfortunately that will never happen. Hell..... the killers are probably in the picture standing over her dead body and pretending to morn her death .....
PV without U.S forces in the area their government does'nt have the guts to really go against the Taliban.The people fear the Taliban and would give into them in a second if it were not for U.S forces.No kidding i see it everyday live in Kabul.i have never been able to figure out why these people won't fight the Taliban.No matter what you say or do they just won't do it without U.S forces covering their back.You just have to come here and see it for yourself to understand.
Let's put this into some sort of perspective; Women's rights, though they have been sorely lacking for centuries in these countries, have been becoming downright dangerous since organizations, such as those Jonathan mentioned above, have become common place in middle eastern countries, this is not an OLD ideal that is rearing it's ugly head, these are new views seeing the rise of women into positions of power as a threat.
Female leaders around the globe are the target of men who see the fact that in some cases they are being relegated to "sub" positions and women are taking the lead as a direct insult to their masculinity. The Taliban is an exageration of that viewpoint, but by far not the not the most extreme. Saudi Arabia is the most extreme. Women in SA aren't even allowed to drive a car, let alone given the responsiblity to act in positions of power. Young women there are stoned to death for percieved insults against the men in there families, this includes when a woman is RAPED. As if that is somehow the fault of the WOMAN.
I have the answer ....Give ALL women ....not just powerful ones....... ALL women in these nations an AK-47 with several magazines and teach them how to use them ......Then we will see who is oppressed.... problem solved.
Wolfhound27: The reason the people fear the taliban is because the Taliban don't fight with 'Political correctness' in mind like the the U.S. We are trying to fight a 'Clean' war which can't be done. We have to be More Ruthless than the enemy. Hell, we are putting our soldiers in prison for Peeing on dead Taliban. This Eleven years of fighting in this war has been a #@!%$#@$%#@ Joke. If we want to win we have to pull out all the stops or we will be there another eleven years.
People get the government they deserve. If they do not want to live under the Taliban, they have to step up and do whatever is necessary to make it happen, similar to what the Syrians are now doing to rid themselves of Assad. They can not rely on us to do their job for them. People do not appreciate what is handed to them the way they appreciate things they have to fight for. Karzai's recent diatribe is ample evidence of that. We need to get our boys out of there. Is Al Qaeda re-establishes training camps after we leave, we can hit them using carrier-based drones. We do not need troops on the ground there.
I am sorry to hear that Women's rights are not supported and that violence is allowed to prevail.
If we are going to beat superstition, we must resort to superstition. Read about General "Black Jack" Pershing who took care of Muslim uprisings by a variety of tactics including dipping their bullets in pig's blood, burying Muslim dead with a pig carcass and worse. It worked. Our own political correctness is the enemy.
Reservations. Take their country until they evolve. The Syrians are going to end up like the Egyptians and Libyans.
Sorry for the family's loss....But it real hard to give a $hit when they don't care....Bring our Troops Home Now...Phuckem
I get the sarcasms in most instances! For the rest, ther's nothing we'll be able to do about that situation, the next 1000years if we ourselves last that long...
its hard to get woman rights when your female neighbor thinks, or should i say was told by her male Islam, that she should have her head cut off.
All these men had moms, and its my belief that the most vial horrible woman raised this country to be what it is. It all starts with the horrific acts of woman against other woman in that country. Those woman are so mean to their families, they would murder their own female child over jealousy.
if these were good woman deep down inside their offspring would have a speck of decency but they don't, so I believe its the monstrous woman that keeps this horrific problem alive and still going. if we could just make them sterile...hmmm
this lady was different and they did her in...probably by another woman trying to make her spouse proud.
It would appear that Karzai is not supportive of human rights for all his people. Based on what happened to her predecessor she should have had at least as much, if not more, protection as other government officials. The fact that he refused her this and it led to her death, he should be held accountable. It may be time for the US to find someone else to lead Afghanistan when the US pulls out. Someone committed to the rights of all citizens.
Right now the only other contender for control of Afghanistan is the Taliban and we know how they treat women.After U.S troops pull out there will be little to stop the Taliban form taking power again.
"Violence against women appears to be on the rise in Afghanistan, which activists and some lawmakers blame on what they say is waning interest in women's rights on the part of President Hamid Karzai's government, claims he denies."
Karzai has looted enough of our tax monies; even his Presidential palace has to be gaurded by the US soldiers; can give nice lectures to the US and world on human rights, women rights and so on!
Karzai like most of the Islamic tin pot rulers shoved in a seat with different labels is getting ready for Paki Taliban rule!
He is ready to RUN!
Karzai will again demand from the British and European nations: give asylum and it is my natural right!
Look at the backstabbing and ungrateful Paki, Gen Mush, a close pal of Bush, Jr. He is Britain and his son is in the US!
None of the current Afghan governement reps will remain in Kabul after we pull out. They have all the money they need to relocate any where they want around the globe. They are not going to hang around to see what the Taliban and Al Qaida plan to do to them when they no longer have US skirts to hide behind.
The only ones who will be left are the ones who think what they have been able to accomplish under US occupation will last...There are actually a few there who have integrity. They won't last long when the Taliban moves back in.
Unless someone disarms the insurgents, eliminates Afghanistan as a safe haven for global terror, and stops the heroin trade, Afghanistan is still going to be a global cultural cesspool
To do so requires that the insurgents be routed out, the borders sealed to prevent both weapons and drug smuggling, all Afghan including its army be disarmed until they can be trusted, and the heroin crop burned so that it isn't used to fund terrorism or the Russian mob. (Heroin addiction is now a bigger problem in Russia than alcoholism.)
Solving that Afghan problem is going to take about 250,000 soldiers, a lot more money than the US has available, and a better logistical position than we have being 12,000 miles away.
The county that has the proximity, the resources, the cultural skills to properly deal with an insurgency, and the engineering skill to turn the Afghan economy from being dependent on heroin from SE Afghanistan to rare-earth mining in NE Afghanistan is their next-door neighbor China.
We need to turn Afghanistan over to a 250,000 UN Sanctioned Peace Keeping force from China. Is not only is a solution towards world peace, it is the only solution.
Besides, we outsource everything else to China. Why not outsource this war? And since China won the war in Vietnam, its time they won a war for us.
The back stabbing Karzai, wanting to cover his own behind by cozying up to the Taliban, has given increasingly more freedom for Taliban murderers to operate in Afghanistan. And we see the results everyday... shooting school girls and women leaders, kidnapping civilians and killing our soldiers. Karzai is the source of the problem but we continue sending him billions of our dollars and keeping him in business.
It is possiblw that Karzai is wooing the Taliban because when our troops are gone the Taliban will still be there.
"Probable" is a better word to use about Karzai wooing the Tallies....
Kind of sucks considering about 32 years ago, they were all screaming for our help for some sort of protection from Brezhnev's Bombers... And it took a party boy congressman (who actually had a conscience somewhere in there) to start the ball rolling....
As everyone knows, Pakis are Taliban's Godfathers.
In Pakistan, Malala case is common one. So stringent Sharia laws have to be exported to Afghanistan along with their Taliban.
Even now, for many in the US, Pakistan is a strategic ally!
For some, look: Pakistan has nukes!
I would like to ask them: can they tell which Islamic militants will get Paki nukes within a decade?
T.R sorry for using the wrong word i was trying to be nice about it.
The anus of the world where women are treated like slaves! They will NEVER come out of the stone age until they recognize and support women as equals.
If that is the case doug the afghans are going to be in the stone age a very long time indeed.They probably won't even try as long as the Taliban remains.Someday when the Taliban is eradicated they might actually make some progress but until that time the avg person over there is going to live in fear of angering the Taliban.An example similar would be,If we had let the Nazis stay in power in Germany after WW2.The People would have still been terrified by them.
so.... how to eradicate the Taliban is the question or is it how to eradicate Islam or any other so called religion that believes women should be kept under foot, ignorant and repressed?
My guess is one day soon the world will see Islam as a force as wicked and hateful as the Nazi's and that there will be a real fight to the death to eliminate it. I don't wish for any war but I see this one as inevitable and as horrible as it sounds it will be fought on the streets of the West as well, since Islam is with us here and as radical as overseas.
i have been a soldier all my adult life and i don't want war either.I have seen war and had my fill of it.Like any soldier with common sense, i can agree with you that evenually war will come.My only regret is that my generation was unable to finish the job and that the next generation or 2 will have to finish what we got pulled into.
over the line!!
.
Ah yes the rule book written by old men centuries ago to control the population mostly by making women the number one enemy in the book of rules.
Those old men feared the control of what a woman could do that a man could not, have common sense, and so making them the number one target and putting it in writing no less, was just good control on their part.
So killing a woman is really nothing to them. Why is the world still surprised and shocked at this.
Get out of there, get out now, don't look back.
Libertarian Party--2016
We need the libertarians to gain power or enough power to stop the current one party system we have in DC right now.
the second worst part is the loss of american lives and the borrowed money we have dumped into that pit!
the worst part of it all is the American lives and borrowed money that we have wasted on that pit by going in with kid gloves on and not really trying to win in the 1st place.You can't go into a fight and expect to win by playing mr nice guy with deep pockets.
10 years in this quagmire. Why are we there again?
What's Hillary doing about her sisters getting popped left and right? Tremendous losses for nothing.
Just another day in Afghanistan! I'm sure this didn't even make the news in their country, as it is acceptable there. Interesting that you don't see any women in the picture. They are probably afraid of being raped, shot, and beheaded if they show up to morn her. SOP.
actually it did make the news there but i can't read their language worth a hoot.
It would be nice if we could pull every single woman out of Afghanistan. (Take them all, old and young), and leave just the men behind to fend for themselves.
We could give their women a much better life.
And the men of that God forsaken country would have to clean up after themselves, feed themselves, do their own laundry and take care of everything else. They'd be so busy, they wouldn't have time to pray to Allah, they would emplode and the world would be better off without them.
Then the women could go back and start a new country, fresh and clean.
Just a dream, crazy I know, but what a nice dream.
I think that's an excellent idea! Of course they would probably form a new lower class of men who would serve those purposes. But they couldn't reproduce, so they'd be extinct within a couple of generations. I think you're on to something, Dan!
dan that's a heck of a thought but the women probably would'nt go back..on the other hand your idea might not be good for the goats and sheep there.plus you would have animal activists after you for thinking that up..
Nosense, farideh. Karzai is just a puppet, he doesn't have any real power.
Violence against women in Afghanistan is not increasing! The media is just reporting it more and more, so it appears the violence is escalating. Afghan men consider women as sub-human and property, and will readily kill a woman if they thing (through their hashish and opium induced stupor) that she has said or done anything they don't like. Nothing new here, just the mainstream media trying to create concern over an issue that has been ongoing for hundreds of years.
So, the fact that it isn't new news, is reason to ignore it instead of trying to bring it to light?
Send one of our drones over there with a spare a bomb... blow the country up and get it over with.... .does anyone think that this Bush fiasco isn't going to end badly with 4,000 dead and for what?.... other than the waste of trillions of dollars and countless American lives?....
i hate to say this but, if this were strictly a Bush fiasco then we would have pulled out four years ago...
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul condemned the attack. Boy that will set the Taliban on it's ear won't t? Notice in the picture that even at her funeral no women are present, only men? This country isn't worth the cost of the bomb to blow it up.
What are we still doing in this country?
in reality we are trying to find a way to prevent the Taliban from regaining power after the troops leave but so far no long term solution has been found.This is sort of like trying to cure a spreading cancer.Not to wory though.At ths poit we may be too close or in stage 4 so it's only a matter of time.
mathuin,
I agree with what you say about violence against women in Afghanistan, but it's not happening because of hashish, or opium. It's because of cultural backwardness and religious fundamentalism.
There is only ONE way to change this problem in these countries.
Allow all their women to leave. Let them immigrate. Offer sanctuary, and schooling for their kids. A new life, and no abuse. These men will change their tune FAST, if all the women are gone. Even if only half leave, it will change things.
Damn cowards to shoot a women.
A female as in a position of authority in Afghanistan ? That would be laughable ....if this news were not so tragic. What a bunch neanderthals .........
don't you think neanderthals is a little bit too high on the evolutionary scale for these brain dead should be extinct men?it's funny how most animal species are not this socially impaired.
Wolfhound ....I am afraid you may be correct .
I suspect that this was done by people over there who want to keep women serving as men's doormats. Maybe the Taliban, maybe not.
i'd bet my paycheck it was the Taliban..but i can't find anyone willing to take a sucker bet.
the current Afghan government does'nt have anything to gain by making a scene like this,The Taliban on the other hand gain recognition and creating terror in those they wish to control.
No matter what initiatives that are "planned" and underway, how the men of this region deal with women is a deep seated cultural situation. Until the boys have a major league epiphany (totally unlikely), this behavior will continue. Like the coward to shot the 12 year old little girl, they will try to and at times, succeed in snuffing out women. There is nothing anyone else in the world can do to prevent it ~ it has to come from within.
Those who give excuses that some are Zionist propoganda, I would like to tell that don't give the typical Muslim Trojan horses excuses, spins and excuses. We had enough of them.
We can't deny the realities right next door all over the world.
In 9/11, the biggest terrorist attack in the history of humans, Saudis and Pakis were main culprits.
Even in the US, with less than five percent Muslim population, peaceful marchers in Dearborn, Michigan, had taste of Muslim "love and peace".
The Islamic extremist Frankenstein monsters have started backstabbing big time the inventers of Pakistan, British, and the masters (US and allies) who kept them alive.
In most of the Islamic terrorism and plots in the US, Britain, Europe and other places, Pakis have a hand.
If the NATO forces are getting badly beaten in Afghanistan even after 11 years of war, it is mainly due to the ungrateful and backstabbing strategic ally, Pakistan.
Before followers of Islamic cult set their feet on Afghan and Paki regions, these regions were quite peaceful and prosperous.
Once the cancer of Islam gradually got control of the region, those regions have become raping, stealing, looting and killing fields.
In Afghanistan, Paki proxies Taliban did not even tolerate Buddha's statue in Bamiyan.
Many Paki areas and some Afghan areas have become breeding and exporting centers for illegal activities including drugs growing and trading and export of Islamic radicals and terrorists all over the world.
British invented Pakistan in 47 and Pakistan is supposed to be a pure Islamic nation. In Pakistan, it was massive genocides of minorities in between 48-50.
Percentages of Hindus and Sikhs were reduced from about 24 percent less than three years by rapings, stealing, lootings, terrorizing and killing on a massive scale.
Paki Islamic religious madness did not end there.
Sunni Pakis are after Ahmedias, Sufis (fake love and dance Islamic soap opera people), Shiites (20 percent), Hazaras, and Baloochs and other minority sects/tribes.
Shiites, Sufis, Ahmedias and other minority sects/tribes people are blown up while they pray in their mosques on Fridays. And even hospitals are bombed to kill those injured.
A Washington, DC based think tank Middle East Media Research Institute (www.memri.org) provides good details on what is going in Pakistan.
Great post Jonathan: thanks for the history lesson about that region and Afghanistan, that we all need in fact, to understand what's going on in this very troubling part of the world! It's all about culture and lack of wanted progress in order to preserve it! Only econmic progress changes cultures for the "better" and trying to instill a different mindset or changing the mentality by sheer political persuasion, never works with poverty stricken masses, without economic incentive. And even then it takes time, through the pains of trials and errors and sustained political will to fight the natural resistance of extremists opposed to secularisation of the system when religion is the building-bloc of that society as we see in the Mid-East, East Asia, and parts of Africa, for changes in mentality to take place in favor of a more open and even democratic system...We wont see it in our lifetime, and watch when we get out of there, for the resurgence of extremists like the Taliban to fill the vacuum. Good luck to the world for the Evil that's going to reign and spill all over!
Geraleve: Thanks a lot for appreciation.
Religion is opium of masses. For many Muslims, Islam has become a high dosage heroin!
Too much of anything is too bad.
Similarly, getting hung up too much on religion/cult is going to be counter productive and cutting one's own legs.