New era of anger management

The term anger management commonly refers to a system of psychological therapeutic techniques and exercises by which one with excessive or uncontrollable anger can control or reduce the triggers, degrees, and effects of an angered emotional state.

This (and more) is what Wiki has to say on this fascinating subject. I have stressed the word “one”. The meaning is clear – the whole procedure is geared to take care of an individual, who may have some issues with outbursts of anger (rage).

Some people took the idea further, aiming to apply it to a whole bunch of people. In this case, all followers of Islam. Quite a big bunch, I can tell.

When the Qatari Islamic scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi called for a Day of Rage this Friday in response to Pope Benedict XVI’s remarks about Muslims, it might have sounded like a call for street violence.

Violence? Mr al-Qaradawi and violence could not be further apart! The fact that the scholar supports suicide bombing is just another aspect of his specialty, which is anger management. After all, what is better than suicide bombing in both expressing anger and cooling off?

But if there is trouble Friday, and there could well be, it will not be because of language but because of what some people choose to do after they have answered the call for “Yaum al Ghadab.”

Definitely not, if there is trouble it will be, as usual, due to misinterpretation of peaceful teachings of the learned scholar, his colleagues and Kuran. Continue reading the ABC article, it is so full of it, it fairly squeaks. Just to mention this:

A day of rage does not mean a day of jihad (war), added Gerges.

I distinctly remember long passages on jihad explaining to us, infidels, that jihad is not a war, but a peaceful conquest of souls… Now it is a war again. Some people will bend every which way to explain the unexplainable and to justify the unspeakable.

But back to anger management and Wiki:

In modern society, anger is viewed as an immature or uncivilized response to frustration, threat, violation, or loss. Conversely, keeping calm, coolheaded, or turning the other cheek is considered more socially acceptable. This conditioning can cause inappropriate expressions of anger, such as uncontrolled, violent outbursts or misdirected anger, or, at the other extreme, repressing feelings of anger (or lacking them altogether) when those feelings would be an appropriate response to the situation. Also, anger that is constantly “bottled up” can lead to persistent violent thoughts or nightmares, or even physical symptoms like headaches, ulcers, ohypertensiveon.

We certainly don’t want the Muslim folks to bottle up their anger and develop headaches, ulcers, or hypertension. So here comes a proposal that takes our learned Mr. al-Qaradawi’s idea one step further. And what a step!

We propose that from now on, one hour every day, one day per week and one week each month be allocated for rage. Different activities will be associated with each of this three periods:

1. The Rage Hour will be dedicated to beating life-size effigies of various enemies of Islam by a baseball bat. This activity will be performed at the place of work/study/hiding in a cave from various authorities.
2. The Rage Day will consist of various outdoor activities, such as shouting “Kill the infidels!” and other exciting slogans, running around waiving guns, shooting in the air, burning the effigies (see item 1) that became unusable.
3. The Rage Week will be spent in a fun and sporty exercise “Hide The Infidel”. An infidel, kidnapped for the purpose, will be hidden by one team in a place of its choosing and the other team’s mission will be to find him (her). During the week the infidel should be transferred to several different places without the other team noticing. At the end of the Rage Week the infidel will be allowed to go, but not before converting to Islam.

We are confident that this system will be able to resolve most of the residual anger issues. In special cases and upon a dispensation from a trained Imam, a permission to vent the anger in a more direct way shall be given to the person in question. An explosive belt and a secluded location will be provided for the ultimate in anger management.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews