One of the more interesting features of Shiite Islam is the celebration by self flagellation of the martyrdom of Imam Ali. Iranian President Ahmadinejad gave a very interesting talk (follow the link below to the bottom) in which he accused the US waging wars in Africa, and of killing 60 million people in a single war in the last century, among other things. He also spoke of the Iranian culture of self-sacrifice and martyrdom, symbolized by the ritual of Ashura, and mentioned too in this WSJ piece by Leon de Winter.

Here is the page with the Ahmadinejad speech at the bottom.

UPDATE

We note on March 21 that the MSM have been publishing quite a few more bloody pictures as Muslims, um, celebrate, Arbayeen, via Reuters:

KARBALA, Iraq – Millions of Shiite pilgrims, some of them flogging themselves with chains, surrounded a shrine in the holy city of Karbala on Monday to commemorate the 40th and final day of symbolic mourning for the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson.

Links to the photos are here.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 20th, 2006 at 9:40 pm and is filed under art, culture, General, Left of Left, MSM, Religion, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.