Hugh Fitzgerald has often written here about the Arab supremacist aspect of Islam, which manifests itself most notably today in the jihad in Darfur. Now Berber leader Belkacem Lounes has registered a protest against that supremacism as recent expressed by the loony Libyan Qaddafi. "Berber Leader Belkacem Lounes: 'There Is No Worse Colonialism Than That of the Pan-Arabist Clan that Wants to Dominate Our People,'" from MEMRI:
Belkacem Lounes, president of the World Amazigh Congress, wrote an open letter to Libyan leader Mu'ammar Qaddafi in response to the latter's March 1 speech in which he denied the existence of a Berber or Amazigh [1] people in North Africa. In his letter, dated April 10, Lounes protested Qaddafi's statements, saying that the 30 million Amazigh living today in North Africa cannot be ignored. He added that the Amazigh had played a central role in the fight against European colonialism, but that since independence they had been oppressed by the "internal colonialism" of pan-Arabism, which he labels an imperialist ideology. Lounes stated that it was archaic to consider diversity a danger, and calls on the North African governments to commit to democracy and human rights.The following are excerpts: [2]
"What Worse Offense to Elementary Rights is There Than Denying The Existence Of a People?"
[...]
"You claim that Amazigh civilization disappeared due to 'a century of drought in North Africa'… It is difficult to imagine that you are unaware of the existence of 30 million Amazigh-speakers living today in all of the countries of Tamazgha [i.e. North Africa]…
"You let it be understood that the Amazigh are supposedly an invention of colonialism! What colonialism is capable of creating a people ex nihilo, with its language and traditions that go back several thousand years? How could colonialism have done this - given that when the first foreigner arrived on North African soil, he found that the Amazigh had already been there for a long time?...
"How to explain these contradictions and the brutal return to this desire to negate a tangible history and reality? You even denied the evidence, when you assured us that the Amazigh problem did not exist in Libya. But… the Libyan Amazigh, like Amazigh elsewhere, face ostracism, exclusion, and discrimination of all kinds…"
[...]
"We like to think that colonialism no longer exists… But there is no worse colonialism than internal colonialism - that of the pan-Arabist clan that seeks to dominate our people. It is surely Arabism, in that it is an imperialist ideology that refuses any diversity in North Africa, that constitutes a betrayal and an offense to history, truth, and legality.
"Even the Muslim religion has been put into the service of these projects of Arabization and domination. The Amazigh queen Dihya was the first, 14 centuries ago, to have understood this colonial strategy - which is why she declared to the Arabs who came to attack her kingdom: 'You say that you are carrying a divine message? Fine then, leave it here, and return whence you came'... [4]
"In principle, it is the responsibility of every head of state to protect, respect, and promote the rights of his people. The challenge of establishing a culture of dialogue and friendship among civilizations and peoples requires a merciless struggle against all acts of intolerance, racism, and discrimination.
"Thus, we expect the Arab heads of state in North Africa both to abolish the policies of negation and exclusion of the Amazigh people and to [show] much more ambition regarding human rights. It is with respect to the recognition of the Amazigh people and its inalienable rights that the sincerity of the governments and their will to build peaceful societies will be measured…
Islam is an Arab Supremecist Cult!
from Anwar Sheikh
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate/kafir.html
"One can easily say that Islam has been designed to induce respect and love for Arabia. There are express commands of the Prophet, which state that a person is not Muslim until he loves him more than his own father and mother. The idea is that people must be weaned from their own nationalities and motherlands, and attached firmly to Mecca.
To ensure the superiority of Arabia the prophet, Mohammed took the following steps:
1. When Adam was evicted from paradise, he came to Mecca where he built the first house of God.
2. For the purpose of imposing Arab psychological superiority on non-Arab Muslims, he decreed that they must prostrate five-times- a-day facing Mecca.
3. A Muslim must not defecate himself facing Mecca. It is a blasphemous act in view of the sanctity of Mecca.
4. When Muslims die, they must be buried facing Mecca, which is the guarantee of their salvation.
5. To make sure that the Arabs enjoy economic opulence, the Prophet made Hajj as obligatory ritual for his followers. It is a pilgrimage to Mecca.
The Amazigh people need to work together with the Copts, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Baluchis and all other people groups whose national identity been obliterated and whose independence has disappeared under arab imperialism.
Unfortunately, had the queen to whom he refers known what was coming down the pike with islam, perhaps she wouldn't have been so polite and instead would have had them forcibly removed.
I'm guessing that the European "colonial powers" didn't assert that the Amazigh were no longer extant.
THe people prospered under European colonalism....they just did not realize it...
....Now it appears they see the error of their ways....since the Europeans were booted out, their lives have steadily gone down the sewer...
Hope the PC barrier is coming down.
Arabism, the islamic supremist ideology is being exposed.
http://www.express.co.uk/blogs/post/156/Patrick%20O%27Flynn/2007/04/30/5835/Hate+poverty%3F+Then+get+a+job
May 2, 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6611661.stm
Tuesday, 1 May 2007
Guinea's dirty dancing backlash
By Alhassan Sillah
BBC
Men in Guinea's capital have begun attacking women who they accuse of doing the popular buttock-swinging Wolosso dance from Ivory Coast.
READ ON
Teenagers wearing skirts or hipsters, associated with Wolosso, which partly expose their buttocks and midriff have been stripped naked and beaten up.
The attacks follow a performance by an Ivorian Wolosso group last week.
The provocative dance is considered by many in the mainly Muslim West African country to be pornographic.
READ THE WHOLE THING THEN THINK ABOUT HIP-HOP AND ALL YOUR FREEDOM?
The destructiveness and cruelty of Islamic conquerors has been well documented throughout the centuries-- not only by such peoples (or victims) as the Berbers of North Africa but by peoples spread across much of Asia and sub-Saharan as well; in the 1960s, something like 5 million Biafrans were massacred by Nigerian jihadists (a number of casualties unmatched by even the Vietnam war; the slave trade in western Africa was carried out over the centuries largely by Arab Muslims who usually sold their 'commodities' to Europeans who then shipped them across the Atlantic to plantations in the Caribbean and North America). The cruelty of the likes of Tamarlane and the Shahs of India among numerous other Islamic jihadist leaders is well-remembered even by Muslims across southern and central Asia.
Hundreds of millions of people have been murdered by Islam's jihadist warriors over the centuries (a high percentage of them in the Indian subcontinent), a record unmatched by any other entity organized by humanity. What a distinction!
Now, although Arab supremacism is often cited as being a primary component of the Islamic 'religion,' it should be remembered that the destruction of Christianity in Asia Minor and jihad rampages across much of eastern Europe after 1000 AD were carried out not by Arabs but by Turks who were (and largely still are)of Mongol descent--in fact, the Mongols for several centuries controlled the Arabian peninsula, as had in (much) earlier times Babylon and India.
It is therefore not entirely true that Islam is the product of Arab cultural imperialism; true, the Arabs used Islamic ideology to spread Arab culture; but then there were the Mongols who used Islam in the same way that the Arabs did. The Javanese Muslims are doing this in Southeast Asia today. Islamic ideology itself is the culprit; islam's moon-god, al-lah is not Arabian in origin but Mesopotamian.
We can say this: Islamic ideology is an extraordinary tool that can be used to colonize and destroy any and all civilizations (and in fact is always used this way; this is apparently what it was designed to do).
Tamazgha, my lost country
Tamazgha, land of the free people,
Kahena El Dahyan, my queen mother
jew and woman
who fought the arab invasion
in the eighth century
My Amazigh name, Arous, Benarrous, Benarroch
lost in centuries of wars
intolerance
in my country
where christians, jews and pagans
lived and believed by each other
Rise my Amazigh people
from the ruins of Rome
the intolerance of Islam
the decay of Europe
Rise my Amazigh people
and teach tolerance to this world
where the forgotten are the right
where the lost stone
leads the light
Rise Kahena, Queen of jews and Amazighs
Raise for your memory
this new world in this new millennium
demands justice for all that is called past.
Kahena was the legendary Amazigh queen. She was a Jew, and she stood off the Arabs for years. They had to bring all their soldiers from Byzantium to defeat her.
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/author.asp?AuthorID=1172
"Men in Guinea's capital have begun attacking women who they accuse of doing the popular buttock-swinging Wolosso dance from Ivory Coast"
...it is clear the Guinea men do not know how to have fun and enjoy life....
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,269595,00.html
Florida Man Sues to Halt Mosque Construction, Claims Terrorism Ties
May 2, 2007
AP
MIAMI
A man fighting the opening of a mosque in his suburban neighborhood filed a lawsuit Tuesday to try and halt construction, a move derided by Arab leaders as anti-Muslim.
READ THE WHOLE THING
even the lib's can't hate this guy??
He certainly can cite the numerous Mosques that have been proven to harbor terrorists and where undercover cameras have caught the clerics preaching violence, as well as the numerous reports by our military who are shot at by persons inside of mosques......I wish him well...
For the reason of the human mind only understanding simplistic terms, most of the above is completely incorrect in real terms. The only portion which is correct is what the Berber, Mr. Lounes was trying to state.
As far as Sudan being a Pan Arab supremacist when the Sudanese are not Arabian is one of many problems in people lumping Islam together or calling Islam an Arab surpemacist religion.
While it is true the sons of Ishmael were the low self esteem fathers violently imposing Islam on all peoples by force, there is nothing Arab about Persians, Indonesians, Egyptians, Afghani, Pakistani, Bengali or even Libyans.
It could just as easily be stated it is a Persian supremacist movement as their Islamocommunist faction is leading the violent thrust throughout the world making bases in Venezuela to Cuba with their main driving force being communist Russia and China.
One has to understand the entire visage of north Africa for the peoples there are not Negroid by genus, but a people infused by some of the most dominant and vasal cultures in the world.
Carthage for example was founded when Phoenicians were exiled during the exile by Assyria of the 10 northern tribes of Israel. Dan for example is linked to Carthage, Spain Tarshish, Greece along with Benajamin in Spartan influence and the Tuatha de Danan of Ireland.
Great infusions of Roman, Black African slaves, White European slaves in raids, Assyrian and Phoenician all mix with the Middle Eastern bloodlines to Turks who are the sons of Esau form what is the northern African peoples.
The area was home to Jews who fled the Romans as Carthage was a like people base to great Christian belief until the Islamic invasions which Mr. Lounes speaks of forever subjected the region to what has only been lessened by Spanish and French colonialism with a strong affection for the Anglo schooling of the leadership.....to which Ghaddafi's own son is educated by.
What Mr. Lounes does though is what many in the west do as Mr. Victor Davis Hanson wrote of last week in terming everyone of there as "those damn people" they do not like.
Ghadaffi still has his grand Caliph plan sometimes calling himself "Arab" and in most cases referring to himself as an African. Saddam Hussein entertained the same ideas after Ghadaffi went into hiding when Reagan and F 111's blew up his bedroom. Before him Nasser of Egypt was the one who blew the dust off of the Caliph.
In noting above, none of the people are Arabs, but instead are Libyan, Chaldean Babylonian and Egyptian. Yet each entertained their 2 foot square space upon earth as supreme.
There is huge problems in the naming of the sons of Ishmael as Arabs upon all Middle Eastern peoples. For one glaring example is the stupidity of naming Palestinians as a race when the people of Gaza are historic Philistines and the West Bank are neo Syrians who were brought in by various empires beginning with Assyria to settle captured lands.
As an example most will equate, in the Bible you will remember the Judeans loathed the Samaritans. The Samaritans were vasal peoples from the east brought in by Assyria and Babylon to settle the lands of Israel.
Perhaps it is just easier for people to term things like Arab supremacy and go on, but those same short cuts are the ones which created this entire mess as borders were drawn lumping Kurds in with Turks or borders drawn where immigrant Judeans were having dumped into their historic homeland neo Syrians from the east to offset their immigration into Judea.
Right now in this world, the greatest problem with Islam is European educated, European socialist communist installed governments and European armed Muslims.
This hybrid of Islamocommunism or Islamofacism is not Arab in nature. It is a mule and until people start defining exactly what it is instead of lumping it all together only more problems are going to be created by ignorance.....and the world can not afford this any longer as nuclear, chemical and biological weapons are on tap for the next phase.
"The idea is that people must be weaned from their own nationalities and motherlands, and attached firmly to Mecca"
All the more reason to support Tom Tancredo’s option of threatening to retaliate against Mecca if a nuke is detonated on U.S. soil.
Even if the jihadist perpetrator is from Pakistan, the Saudis as well as every other muslim in every other country, bear an overwhelming responsibility to do their utmost to STOP the jihadist, no matter what country he hails from, from committing such acts.
Berbères, libres et fiers de l'être
PAR BELKACEM LOUNES *
Qui sont les Berbères ? Les Berbères constituent le peuple autochtone d'Afrique du Nord, présent depuis la plus haute Antiquité dans cette région. Aujourd'hui il subsiste une trentaine de millions de berbérophones occupant des territoires plus ou moins vastes, répartis sur une dizaine de pays : Maroc (Rif, Atlas, Sous), Algérie (Kabylie, Aurès, Chenoua, M'zab), Tunisie, Libye, Egypte (oasis de Siwa), Canaries, et le pays touareg découpé par les frontières de six Etats (Niger, Mali, Mauritanie, Burkina Faso, Libye, Algérie). Alors que l'appellation «berbère» qui vient du latin barbarus, est le nom donné par les Romains à tous les peuples qui leur étaient étrangers, les Berbères se désignent eux-mêmes par le terme d'«amazigh» qui signifie «homme libre».
Du VIIIe siècle avant J.-C. jusqu'au XIXe siècle de l'ère chrétienne, les Berbères ont eu à faire face à de nombreuses invasions (phénicienne, romaine, vandale, byzantine, arabo-musulmane, ottomane, française) qui se sont toutes déroulées dans la violence pour imposer la domination des conquérants.
Peuple méditerranéen et saharien, les Berbères constituent le substrat ethnique et socioculturel de l'Afrique du Nord auquel sont venues s'ajouter les composantes juive, européenne et arabe. Réputés pour leur hospitalité légendaire, les Berbères n'ont jamais livré bataille en agresseurs mais toujours en résistants défendant farouchement leur liberté et refusant de vivre sous domination. De tous les peuplements étrangers venus s'établir sur les terres berbères, seuls les juifs ont su vivre en harmonie avec les populations autochtones, partageant en partie leur mode de vie, parlant leur langue et les influençant en retour.
Sur le plan religieux, les Berbères ont toujours été pluriels : après avoir connu l'animisme et le paganisme, ils ont subi l'influence du judaïsme, du christianisme et de l'islam. Mais ces religions n'ont pas été adoptées de manière orthodoxe, elles ont toujours été adaptées à leurs coutumes et à leur mode de vie propres. Ainsi, le droit berbère, dit «azref», contrairement au droit musulman, est tout à fait indépendant de la sphère religieuse. Le Berbère est donc par essence laïque et égalitaire.
Après avoir consenti le plus lourd des sacrifices dans la lutte pour la décolonisation de l'Afrique du Nord, les Berbères se retrouvent aujourd'hui à vivre une situation inédite de «colonisation interne» qui n'a rien à envier à la colonisation d'hier. Par la négation de leur existence, par la falsification de leur histoire, par les interdits qui frappent leur expression culturelle, par la persécution implacable pouvant aller jusqu'au crime, comme c'est le cas en Kabylie, les Etats nord-africains mènent une politique ethnocidaire qui vise à effacer toute trace de berbérité encore vivante. A l'évidence, cette politique découle du rattachement artificiel de ces pays au monde arabe moyen oriental et son corollaire : une seule langue, l'arabe, et une seule religion, l'islam. Conformément à ces options fondamentales, les gouvernements de ces pays mettent un zèle particulier à poursuivre le processus d'arabisation entamé il y a plus de quatorze siècles, sous couvert de l'islam. Et l'amalgame entre la langue arabe érigée en langue «sacrée» du Coran et la religion musulmane est sciemment entretenu afin de culpabiliser les Berbères musulmans et de les empêcher de s'opposer à l'arabisation, véhiculée par l'islam. Au besoin, les mosquées, l'école, les médias publics et la presse panarabiste s'emploient à cultiver le mépris et la haine des Berbères réfractaires à l'idéologie dominante, les présentant comme des sauvages bons à «civiliser», c'est-à-dire à arabiser ou des antimusulmans, des mécréants qu'il est légitime de combattre.
Au fur et à mesure qu'ils prennent conscience de ces stratagèmes, les Berbères reprennent confiance et s'organisent dans tous les pays où ils vivent, pour défendre leur droit à l'existence en tant qu'identité, en tant que peuple.
L'immigration berbère en France est l'une des plus anciennes puisqu'elle remonte à la fin du XIXe siècle. Elle répondait à la fois aux besoins de mobilisation des soldats en période de guerre (Première et Seconde Guerres mondiales) et au déficit de main-d'oeuvre, notamment dans les secteurs de l'industrie et du BTP. On estime actuellement l'immigration berbère à environ deux millions d'individus, contribuant en toute discrétion à l'épanouissement économique, scientifique, artistique et sportif de la France. Il est utile de rappeler par exemple que Edith Piaf, Mouloudji, Daniel Prévost, Isabelle Adjani, Zidane et bien d'autres personnalités de tous horizons, sont le fruit de cet apport berbère.
Les Berbères ont naturellement retrouvé dans les fondements de la société française, les valeurs essentielles sur lesquelles repose leur propre société : démocratie, liberté, laïcité, équité. Ils n'ont donc pas eu de difficultés majeures à adhérer au modèle républicain d'intégration, tel qu'il leur a été proposé.
Aujourd'hui tout le monde reconnaît que ce modèle a échoué, ou du moins connaît une grave crise dont les symptômes sont le malaise social qui sévit dans les banlieues et la montée du communautarisme que d'aucuns affirment même qu'il est encouragé, au moins par laxisme, par ceux-là mêmes qui sont censés le combattre. Ainsi, les Français d'origine non européenne ne sont plus considérés comme des «citoyens français» comme l'exigerait le principe de l'intégration républicaine, mais plutôt désignés par rapport à leurs origines réelles ou supposées. Les citoyens français d'origine berbère découvrent alors avec étonnement qu'ils sont «arabes» ou d'«origine musulmane», ce qui est à la fois insensé, stigmatisant, ignorant de la réalité berbère, à moins que ce ne soit par volonté de l'occulter ?
La France va plus loin dans l'abandon de ses valeurs modernes, notamment la laïcité, lorsque, prétendant organiser l'islam de France, elle ne fait en réalité qu'encourager l'islam en France. Elle l'a fait en créant le Conseil national du culte musulman qui ne représente que ses membres et ses imams dont la plupart sont aux ordres de puissances étrangères. Tout se passe par ailleurs comme si la France ne faisait que relayer ici les politiques d'arabisation en oeuvre dans les pays d'origine.
En tout état de cause, la très grande majorité des deux millions de Berbères de France ne se définit pas par rapport à une éventuelle religion, qui ne serait d'ailleurs pas forcément l'islam, mais par rapport à leur identité propre. De même, ils ne se reconnaissent nullement ni dans cette politique française à courte vue, ni dans ces organisations artificielles abusivement qualifiées de «représentatives» d'une «communauté musulmane» inventée pour la circonstance et dont les chiffres sont exagérément gonflés.
C'est dans ce contexte de grave crise des valeurs républicaines que les Berbères de France sont amenés à s'interroger sur leur place dans la société française, sur leurs revendications d'être considérés comme des citoyens à part entière et sur leurs valeurs identitaires et culturelles qu'ils souhaitent mettre au service de la République des Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, Laïcité et des Droits de la personne.
* Président du Congrès mondial Amazigh.
PLEASE NOTE ESPECIALLY THIS SENTENCE:
"la très grande majorité des deux millions de Berbères de France ne se définit pas par rapport à une éventuelle religion, qui ne serait d'ailleurs pas forcément l'islam, mais par rapport à leur identité propre."
In English:
"The vast majority of the two million Berbers in France do not define themselves in terms of religion, which in any case would not necessarily be Islam, but in terms of their own [Berber] identity."
It would be especially intersting to know if Mr. Lounes is *muslim* at all. It seems most liekly he is either an atheist/agnostic/secualr humanist, along the lines of Ibn Warraq, or maybe even a closet christian. Needless to say, huge numbers of Amazigh are muslim in the same sense that George Soros is jewish or Bil Maher is catholic or uptown New Yorkers are christian, that is, only in the loosest sense of the word.
What's tragic is that their conversion is a result of the same ideological changes that affected all other African victims of colonialization. That is, descendents of slaves in America, living among CHristian americans, converted en mass to Christianity as did many black africans in Liberia, Ghana, Congo, Rwanda and Ivory Coast; even though they remained agaisnt the imperialism of the Europeans they over time would inevitably adopt their religion and in many cases become even more devout followers than their colonizers. Likewise, in the conquest of even more imperialistic Arabs, the natives being colonized would ultimately gravitate towards the religion of their occupiers and at times display even more islamic intolerance then the arab masters, even when they loathed the ideoligies their occupiers stood for. That's why some Amazigh, like the moroccan Almoravids, became even mor ereligously intolerant then arab muslims. Likewise, in Egypt, 90% of the descendents of Christian Copts became to view themselves as staunch arab muslims.
The obvious question, of course, is where is the Western leadership in paying attention ot these movements away from islamist arabism in the middle east? Why haven't none of them taken note of the AMazigh movements in Algeria and Morocco that are encouraging militant secualrism, genuine, not faked, *reform* in islam and islamic societies and in some cases open conversions to Christianity? Where is the prtoection and support granted to Copts trying to keep their religous heritage alive, or the Black africans in Darfur, Nuba and SOuthern Sudan? Within the ISlamic world, peoples are often expected to tow the line about how the West is hated because they are somehow too *harsh* with the muslim states and too soft with Israel. But I imagine, if you would ever get oppurtinities to secretly talk, in secluded areas, with activists, would-be apostates, genuine reformers and the more intelligent members of islamic societies, including but certainly not limited to Amazigh, Copts, Assyrians and even the more intelligent and aware arabs, the reasons for their fustration with the West involve us being so weak and wimpy with regards to arab-islamic leaderships that crush reform and democratic movements. If we really wanted to win the *hearts and minds* of those in the islamic world whose *hearts and minds* we actually should be trying to win, we would start viewing the leaderships of Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Libya and Saudi Arabia as enemies of civilization and humanity. We will probably never see large genuine *reform* movements or those of religous minorities, or apostasy movements within the islamic world, other than the most courageous of individuals who most likely will just get themsleves jailed or killed, as long as we unconditionally aid military leaderships in the interest of phony **stability**.
So, I was still owndering if theyre is anyway the millions of readers here and in other anti-jihad sites could find a way to assemble, or at least form large enough groups to get the message across to Presidnet Bush and COngress that we've had enough of them treating arab-islamic depsots as **allies**.
Re; "Hugh Fitzgerald has often written here about the Arab supremacist aspect of Islam, which manifests itself most notably today in the jihad in Darfur".
The comments of "Himself" on this matter have caused me to think a great deal about this pattern in history. Religion-ideology again and again provides the rationalization for the conquest, the subduing and often the extermination of some lately "indigenous people". Hugh has often said that Islam is primarily and at its essence "engine of Arab Imperialism". He is right.
Religion-ideology provided the same justification for the destruction of "indigenous cultures" by the Aztecs (of the Toltecs, etc.), the Spaniards (of the Aztec), the Manchus in China, the Arabs in India and Spain, The Turks at Constantinople, the subjugation of the American "Indians" (who were busy killing each other) by the English and others in North America.
However, nothing beats Islam (especially Arabs)for self-righteous, unapologetic imperialism, the will to dominate and destroy "indigenous cultures". Arabs are the most unapologetic racists and imperialists in history. They beat every other group in the lack of shame on the matter.
A few previous posts that mention the Berbers and ethnic fissures within Islam between Arabs and non-Arabs:
#1.
I would like the Administration to explain why it thinks, as Secretary Rumsfeld said today, that Iraq resembles Germany and Japan after World War II, and South Korea after the Korean War, not only in the likelihood of being a coherent, stable, well-run nation-state, but in being that coherent, stable, well-run nation-state, will help further the interests of the United States.
Post-war Japan no longer had an Emperor-Divinity, but the Hirohito who wore a Mickey Mouse watch and was happy to have that Divine Wind taken out of the sails of the Japanese ship of state. Post-war West Germany became a useful instrument of Western policy, and a contributor to the Western defense that, like Japan, was important during the Cold War. South Korea, after the Korean War, ditto. But Kodo was discredited; Nazism was discredited; Communism in South Korea did not need to be discredited -- one had only to look at what happened in North Korea.
In Iraq, Islam is not discredited. And it is Islam that gives rise to the Jihad, and to the succession of despots, and attitudes of the peoples over whom those despots rule, who are naturally aggressive, naturally inclined to put their oil revenues into armaments as well as into all the other instruments of Jihad, including support for mosques, madrasas, armies of apologists both Muslim and non-Muslim, Western hirelings often chosen from the ranks of former diplomats and government officials who can use their prestige and seeming disinterestedness ("Committee for the National Interest" and that sort of thing) to push a pro-Saudi or pro-Arab or anti-Israel or soft-on-Islam line, sometimes out of conviction, or a mixture of convictions (anti-Americanism and antisemitism will do nicely in Europe, antisemitism of either the left-wing or right-wing variety, does better in the United States).
Tell us again why it is better to move heaven and earth, and keep American troops in Iraq, in order to prevent civil war, or to keep it contained, rather than to allow the secartian fissures to widen, and to hope that that fissure remains, creating a permanent fault line between Sunni and Shi'a, and that there are repercussions both in Iraq, as men, money, and materiel from both Iran and Sunni Arab states flow in, and in the wider world of Islam, as Shi'a in Lebanon, or in al-Hasa province of Saudi Arabia, or in Yemen, or Pakistan, or Bahrain, inflict blows on, or have blows inflicted on them, Sunnis among whom they live.
And tell us again why it is simply out of the question for the Administration to support the notion of an independent Kurdistan, that might serve to attract Kurds in Syria and Iran, and be used (if necessary) as a tool with which to force Turkey to be better behaved toward its old American ally which it has not been treating properly -- for only the Americans can put a limit on Kurdish territorial ambitions so that they do not extend into eastern Anatolia. And that free Kurdistan would raise the issue of Islam as a vehicle of Arab supremacism, and of Arab cultural, linguistic, and economic imperialism. Berbers in North Africa (and in France) may find the Kurdish outcome inspiring, and one capable of provoking thought on the whole nature of Islam. Since 80% of the world's Muslims are non-Arab, one way of weakening the camp of Islam is to simply allow the truth about Islam, as that carrier of an Arab supremacist ideology, be discussed more openly -- particularly in Indonesia (Pakistan is probably a hopeless case, given that its inhabitants have Islam and only Islam to fall back on; Indonesia can still be saved).
Tell us again why the exploitation of these natural-occurring sectarian and ethnic fissures, so as to weaken, divide, and demoralize the camp of Islam, this makes no sense. Tell us why instead the policies of this administration, which have consistently revealed a failure to comprehend both the nature of the larger menace of Islam (of which Iraq was only a local example, and not even the most important one, Iran always being the more dangerous of the two, and now Iran is in danger of slipping by unchecked, because the American governemnt is so focussed on Iraq, and has 140,000 hostages to Iranian retaliation within reach of Iran's army and, even within Iraq, Iranian agents and Shi'a collaborators, ready to wreak vengeance on the American soldiers should any attack be launched on Iran's nuclear facilities). Tell us why you keep insisting on parrroting phrases about a "war on terror" when the world-wide Jihad, particularly in Europe, is not limited to terror, which is not even the most effective instrument of the many available to promote the spread of Islam. Tell us again why the $450 billion -- climbing inexorably -- that has been spent or committed for expendure to date in Iraq and Afghanistan, would not have been better spent, in combatting the Jihad, if it had all been put into energy projects (solar, wind, nuclear, hydrogen, ethanol, whatever you can possibly think of) and mass transit, and energy conservation measures. Would that $450 billion not have stopped the flow of vast sums to the Arab and Muslim states who make up almost the entire membership of OPEC? And would not that put an end to the use of the "wealth" weapon that is the main instrument, along with demographic conquest and Da'wa within Infidel lands, of the Jihad?
Tell us why you cannot figure out a way to exploit, instead of shying away from -- possibly for fear of being blamed for creating (which is nonsense, and easily shown to be nonsense) the deep divisions, ethnic and sectarian, that long predate the arrival of the Americans, the appearance of Saddam Hussein, and Ba'athism, and the existence of modern Iraq, and go back to the earliest days of Islam, when the Sunni-Shi'a split began, and the Arab supremacism at the core of a pretend-universalist message was initially fashioned, and made permanent.
Tell us again.
Be specific. Answer every question raised.
[#Posted by: Hugh at March 14, 2006 10:52 PM]
#2.
"Even accepting Mr. Fitzgerald's conceit of "Iraq the tarbaby" (which I don't -- not yet!) I also would like to see him descant (just once) on the possible and probable BENEFITS which will and have accrued to us from our actions in Iraq. Can he honestly state that there have been none? that there will be none?
I would find such a position incredible."
-- from a posting above
On more than one hundred occasions I have stated the benefits to Infidels brought on by the invasion of Iraq.
To wit:
1) Removal of an aggressive Muslim ruler who had King-of-the-Arabs fantasies, with a more recent admixtgure of new-found piety (commissioning the largest mosque in the world, a Qur'an calligraphed using his, Saddam Hussein's, blood, etc.)
2) Searching for evidence of, and distrupting all plans and personnel connected to, weapons of mass destruction.
3) By destroying the Sunni despotism, making inevitable the transfer of power to the Shi'a who make up 60% of the population, whether they choose to remain in Iraq, and control it from Baghdad, or separate, and control a Shi'a state that will inherit the only port, and more importantly, all the oil outside the Kurdish regions. Once Saddam Hussein's regime was removed, the result was foregone -- Iraq would inevitably be controlled by the Shi'a who would never again yield to the Sunnis. And just as inevitable, and foreseeable, was the Sunni reaction to loss of power, which was to insist that such a loss not be permitted. Whether one's resistence took the al-Zarqawi form of denying the "Muslimness" of Shi'a, and calling them Rafidite dogs, or a milder version, in which they were not treated as Infidels but merely as inferior Muslims who had no right to rule (that should remain a Sunni prerogative) the Sunni-Shi'a conflict became inevitable. It has not been encouraged, in the slightest, by the Americans, who have made every effort to diminish it. That has been not the only, but the most egregious, of their errors.
4) By destroyiing the Sunni despotism, making much more likely the creation, out of the already autonomous Kurdish region in the north, an independent Kurdistan. That independent Kurdistan would be a permanent threat to Syria and to Iran, where the local Kurds would find the example appealing. It would also raise the consciousness, and possibly increse the clamor for autonomy or more, by other non-Arab Muslims, such as the Berbers in the Kabyle. And any Berber-Arab hostility would have salutary effects. Muslims in Indonesia and Malaysia who have been starting to notice how little they have in common with the Gulf Arabs, and how Islam appears to be a vehicle of Arab cultural and lingustic (and other kinds) of imperialism, would also be heartened by the example of an independent Kurdistan. 80% of the world's Muslims are not Arabs; if their resentments of Arab attitudes, the requirement of taking an Arab name, of reading the Qur'an ideally in Arabic, of looking to 7th century Arabs as models for all time, outside of all conceivable context, can be encouraged and harnessed, that would be a good thing for Infidels.
1, 2, 3, and 4 were all accomplished back in 2003. There was no need to stay later. But the Americans have stayed, at a cost of some $200 billion more. That might have gone a long way toward promoting nuclear, solar, and wind energy, and conservation.
No real gains have been made for the Infidels since late 2003. It has become a tarbaby. We are stuck to it because we don't know how to get out, how to phrase it, how to explain to ourselves and others that remaining no longer makes sense, makes the very opposite of sense, and what is more, gets in the way of other, much three much more important matters: Iran's nuclear prooject; the islamization of Western Europe through Da'wa and demography; diminishing Muslim oil and gas revenues which constitute the "wealth" weapon of the world-wide Jihad.
Iraq is not and will not be a model of anything for the Sunni Arab states. If we want victory, or the fruits of the victory we achieved, but did not recognize, more than two years ago, we need to leave Iraq, and allow Iraqis to be Iraqis, which is to say, to immediately descend into internecine strife, that will come whenever we leave in any case. Allow Sunni and Shi'a to fight for power, and attract outside aid on both sides. While the Arabs are battling, let the Kurds, with some Western military and dilomatic aid, make their move -- for them it is now or never.
There. I have now descanted, as you requested, on the "possible and probable BENEFITS which will and have accrued to us from our actions in Iraq. " and to that query -- "Can he honestly state that there have been none?"-- I have answered, possibly a hundred times, and will again here, that the main benefit so far has been that of assuring ourselves about weaponry and getting rid of the dictator, because of what he might have done. That was accomplished long ago, more than two years ago.
All the other "BENEFITS" (I'll stick to your majuscular, just for the fun of it) are now in posse, not in esse. They will accrue only if we leave. We will not obtain them as long as we stay. We cannot afford to stay. Not for the army's sake. Not for the budget's sake. Not for the sake of civilian morale, for almost everyone has seen that Iraq has become a farce except for trhe Adminstration and its diehard supporters who prefer not to analyze, but to stick by their man.
Has Iraq been worth the close to $400 billion, and possibly much more (once one factors in continuing costs in replacing degraded equipment, and in supporting wounded veterans, and in rebuilding the civilian army to its prevous size and quality)? No. It hasn't. But if it descends into real internecine warfare, and if that warfare does attract men, money, materiel from both Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran (distracting both for a time) then it may have been worth it.
Just.
[Posted by: Hugh at February 21, 2006 11:30 PM]
#3.
So it is the Daring Dozen. Dozens of other dozens come to mind. The Twelve Tribes. The Twelve Tables. The Twelve Days of Christmas. "The Twelve Who Ruled" -- R. R. Palmer's classic study of the Committee of Public Safety (headed by Robespierre).
Unseemly and undue interest in the background -- racial, religious, ethnic, sexual -- of a writer, or a journalist, or of anyone who puts observations and thoughts memorably to paper, is for most purposes silly. That hasn't kept the practice out of American classrooms and, especially, university lecture halls.
But in this case one can make a few observations. There are both Infidels and ex-Muslims, and those who might -- we do not know for sure -- describe themselves as "cultural Msulims" or "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslims. The Infidels include the editor of Charlie-Hebdo, Phillipe Val, and the Maronite commentator on world affairs, Antoine Sfeir, and the author of "Frere Tariq" (a study of Tariq Ramadan that the trustees of Notre Dame, and those who oversee Scott Appleby at the Kroc Center, would do well to read), Caroline Fourest. There is Bernard-Henri Levy, who turns out to be not as silly on Islam as one might have expected him to be.
And then there are the adamantly and open ex-Musliims, or those who are ex-Muslims in name only, or very close to it. There is Ibn Warraq, originally from Pakistan. There is Irshad Manji, of Pakistani parentage. There is Salman Rushdie, originally from India. There is Taslima Nasreen, from Bangladesh (or if you are in a Kiplingeque pukka sahib mood, and like your local color, Bangla Desh). There is Mehdi Mozaffarri, from Iran. And Maryam Namazie, from Iran. And Chahla Chafiq, from Iran.
Notice anything? Not a single Arab in the list of ex- or almost ex-, Muslims.
Is this accidental? I think not. I think that the hold of Islam on Arabs, which is partly a result of filial piety, not to one's parents but to all of Arab history, for if Islam is declared to be unpleasant, Islam is not a great repository of civilization it has been taken to be but rather a source of intellectual disarray and civilizational decline wherever it conquered, then that "gift of the Arabs" is not so much a gift, but a poisoned chalice. How many of us, if we were told not only that slavery is a great evil, and the corruption of the Gilded Age a great evil, and the crazed Dickensian laissez-faire capitalism to which some would have us return pell-mell, a great evil, could agree to all of that, and yet bristle, if we are told that from first to last, American history has been an uninterrupted series of horrors. And of course it hasn't.
But in the case of Islam, the more one studies the few centuries of what is described as High Islamic Civilization, the less there seems to be there, and the more one realizes that the same dozen names -- Avicenna, Averroes, and so on --keep being repeated, and the same large claims made which, upon investigation, turn out to be considerably inflated, and the same absence of high achievement in so many areas of art, and the absence of music, and the decline, rather quickly, of literature in Arabic (as opposed to the literature in Persian, which was often not a result of, but in defiance of, the spirit of islamization and of linguistic arabization).
Why does this matter for laying out a strategy of self-defense? 80% of the world's Muslims are non-Arabs. They can be made more aware of the use, by the Arabs, of Islam as a vehicle for cultural and linguistic imperialism. Kateb Yacine, the most famous Berber writer, understood this perfectly, and so do some other Berber intellectuals. The Kurds, in a free Kurdistan, may come to see that the mistreatment that they have suffered at the hands of the Arabs can be explained not merely as the result of an individual (Saddam Hussein), but of the same mistreatment, even mass murder, now being inflicted on the black (i.e. non-Arab) Muslims of Darfur, and the linguistic imperialism that for years prevented the Berbers of Algeria of being able to freely use their language, Tamazight.
There is a natural division between the o'erweening Arabs and the put-upon non-Arabs, forced or encouraged to take on Arab names, fake Arab identities, even claim a false, Arab genealogy (all those "Sayeeds" running around Pakistan). They are encouraged to look to the customs and behavior of seventh-century Arabs (or at least what is attributed to seventh-century Arabs). They are encouraged to forget their own pre-Islamic heritages and histories. They are encouraged to do the bidding, political and otherwise, even when it hurts them, of the Arabs who are the "best of peoples" (see the Qur'an), for it is to them that the Qur'an, uncreated and immutable, was given, and in their language.
You can learn a lot from that list. You can begin to figure out the lines of attack to divide and demoralize those who would impose the very totalitarianism that those authors decry, on all of us. For in the view of the Believer, "Islam is to dominate and is not to be dominated."
[Posted by: Hugh at March 1, 2006 02:28 PM]
#4.
While the piece above, written by an American serving in Iraq, is labelled a "pessimistic" assessment, it would be more accurate to call it a "realistic" assessment. The fact that it has been put up at a website ordinarily an unshakeable supporter of the war may be that one swallow that doesn't make a spring, or it may mean that at long last, the swallows of more ruthless common sense are now winging their way back to all kinds of mental Capistranos. For Victory, Rightly Understood, Stands Shining Before Us, if Only We Get Out. When you hear dire predictions of "chaos" and "catastrophe," be sure to ask "but whose chaos" and "whose catastrophe?" The goals of the Administration have successively been whittled down. The "democracy" is not true democracy, but Shari'a-limited, and so the merely one of purple-thumbed head-counting, which the Shi'a Arabs will gladly support (and dutifully vote exactly as they are told by their leaders) because they constitute 60-65% of the population, and the Sunni Arabs remain resentful of, because while they "know" that they are the "largest" group in Iraq they also "know" (i.e., obscurely realize) that in fact they constitute less than 20% of the population, and to regain power, and then to hold onto it, will require mass intimidation, through terrorism and economic sabotage, of the Sh’[a. Just as Muslims were quite capable of believing that 1) the Mossad and the C.I.A. were behind the World Trade Center Attacks and 2) Bin Laden achieved a great thing, did something wonderful, against the Infidels with those World Trade Center Attacks which, however, were committed by the Mossad or the C.I.A., so are the Sunni Arabs capable of understanding that they really do constitute 19% of Iraq's population but at the same constitute 42% of it and are, they believe, the largest group, the group entitled to rule.
I have written about this hundreds of times. We have our Victory in Iraq. The Bush Administration just fails to recognize it, because that Victory is not the “victory” that the Bush Administration has set out, and never swerved, from wishing to achieve – a “victory” that makes no sense. The real Victory, the one that makes perfect sense, was achieved long ago, and made certain at the end of 2003 when Saddam Hussein was seized. The time to start removing troops was at the beginning of 2004, and to have them all about by the end of that spring. No dreams of American bases safely tucked here and there into the comforting fabric of Iraq, no fabulous xanadu of a $595 million dollar Embassy (let’s see what they thought they were going to build in their sheer craziness – can we have a picture please?), no Iraq the Light Unto the Muslim Nations, no bringing "democracy" to "ordinary moms and dads" in the Middle East, none of it. Just a sober understanding that the instruments of Jihad are many, that the threat is world-wide (and most dangerously shown in the accelerating islamisation of the advanced societies, the cultural heart of our civilization, without which the United States cannot survive in more than a physical sense, the lands of Western Europe, and that we must exploit, wherever and whenever we can, the fissures within Islam or the Camp of Islam.
There are ethnic fissures: in Iraq the Arab vs. Non-Arab Muslim battle is between Arabs and Kurds (in North Africa, and especially Algeria, it is between Arabs and Berbers). It is the Kurds, who now see their opportunity for independence, who can help provide an example, if they are successful, of a non-Arab Msulim people throwing off the Arab yoke, and in the effort to do so, the understanding will spread, among the 80% of the world’s Muslims who are not Arabs, that Islam has always been, and always will be, despite its universalist pretensions, a vehicle for Arab linguistic, cultural, economic, and political imperialism.
Even more obviously present in Iraq is the main sectarian fissure within Islam, that at between Sunnis and Shi’a. This split dates back to the first century of Islam, and those who, like the inimitable Dinesh D’Souza, claim it is “merely” a “political” rather than a “religious” split appear not to realize that the religious and the political are one within Islam, for as Bernard Lewis never tires of repeating (the same Lewis whom Dinesh D’Souza claims to have read with such attention, needing no other authority), the doctrine of “render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s” is an idea that permits the sundering of political and religious authority in the Christian West, an idea that makes no sense to Muslims, or in Islam. The Shi’a having a long history of enduring, over many centuries, at times only contumely and discrimination, and at times the persecution and murder, at the hands of the Sunnis. In the history of modern Iraq, it has been mostly persecution and more recently, murder.
And finally there is the clear economic division between Haves and Have-Nots. The oil-rich Arabs lead lives of such luxury and languor, the result of an accident of geology, not of any industry or enterprise on their part, and this is in contrast to the impoverished state of those Arabs and other Muslims who do not possess that oil bonanza, and who, being Muslims, are incapable of the kind of enterprise and energy that the developmentr of modern econmies require. For inshallah-fatalism inhibits economic activity. Look at any country where there are significant numbers of bothMuslims and non-Muslims: look at Malaysia, and which group is responsible for economic development in that country, or at Indonesia, or at Lebanon, or at Nigeria. Look at the massive exploitation of the welfare states of western Europe, not by “immigrants” in general (not the Chinese, not the Vientamese, not the Hindus) but by one specific group: Muslims, and not in this or that country alone, but in every Infidel land of Western Europe, no matter what its history or current political setup, or benefits offered. Despite the fact that the oil-rich Arabs and Muslims have been the beneficiaries of the greatest transfer of wealth in human history, far far outreaching anything received by all the colonial powers through all the years of colonialism, amounting since 1973 to ten trillion dollars, it is not they, but we the Infidels, who have somehow become responsible, or who have allowed ourselves, in a moment of distraction or semi-dementia, to think that we somehjow should be responsible. For supply money and goods and services of all kinds to the non-oil-endowed Arab and Muslim states, and the conditions of such foreign aid, the way in which those receiving it take it as by right, and show not gratitude but continued undisguised hostility to those giving them that aid, and the way in which the givers of such aid do so with such alacrity, such an eagerness to please, and with such fear of cutting or diminishing such aid lest the beneficiare are angered, and begin to behave in a manner still more hostile to the donors who have been trying, tugging at their metaphorical forelocks, to comply in every why with what those recipients of aid demand. For the implication is always, as the Infidels fearfully see it, that if they don’t then those Muslim recipients will do them harm, or even more harm than they now do them. Yes, those Infidels convince themselves, we’d better not stop that aid to those inculcated to hate us by their own sacred texts, and one can almost hear, in the background, the aposiopetic threat of Neptune in the Aeneid, Book IV, when the God of the Sea shakes his triton and offers a dire warning, the “Quos Ego…” so carefully attended to in many a third-year Latin class. What we should be doing is not only cutting all aid to members of the Camp of Islam (and spending that money on efforts to alert the peoples of the West to the theory and practice of Islam), but publicly embarrassing the Arabs and Muslims, by pointedly making clear that the poor members of the Umma should be seeking whatever aid they need from the rich members of the Umma, given that the Umma al-Islamiyya is the only community, for Muslims, that counts, and where all that blague and blah about “social justice” should be duly noted, and the loyalty of rich Muslims to poor ones – yes, why isn’t Saudi Arabia, why aren’t the Emirates, why isn’t Kuwait, really sharing the wealth with the rest of the “Arab Nation” or the “Umma al-Islamiyya” – should be put to the public test.
Iraq presents us so clearly with two of those three main fissures. Those two are, for the thousandth time at this website, the sectarian and the ethnic fissures within the Camp of Islam that long pre-date our entry to Iraq -- pre-date the founding of the American Republic, in fact, by a thousand years. We need do nothing to "encourage" those fissures. We have in fact done everything we can to prevent them, to engender a spirit of sweet reason and compromise that shows how little we comprehend the belief-system of Islam, which nowhere inculcates the spirit of sweet reason adn compromise, but everywhere quite a different view of the universe, in which peoples are divided between Believers and Unbelievers, the rightful victors, and the rightfully vanquished. But of course, our leaders haven't bothered, or are incapable of finding advisers able to explain to them, what Islam's tenets, and attitudes, and atmospherics, are all about. Such people exist -- you can find a few of them right at this website. The government might have saved American taxpayers a cooll $500 or $600 or $700 or $800 billlion, had it chosen to listen to such people and to begin to fashion policies based on some understanding of the need to identify the instruments of Jihad (and stop focussing on this "war on terror"), and to render them less effective, and to cease the obsessive and obsessed attempt to make Iraq something it never could have been, and had it been, had that goal been achieved, it would have worked against the Infidels, and promoted only unity within the Camp of Islam.
It is not, however, too late.
Victory, rightly understood (as being defined as any acts which weaken, by demoralizing, or dividing, and using up the resources and attention that might otherwise be devoted, directly or indirectly to Jihad, the Camp of Islam) Stands Shining Before Us. It has been before us for several years. But Victory, in one of those seeming paradoxes, can only be achieved If Only We Get Out.
[Posted by: Hugh at April 3, 2007 12:03 PM]
The Berber people need to grasp the same concept of innate freedoms that freed the West.
Then throw off the shackles of Imperialistic Islam and return to their more individual, noble roots.
Islam is an alien graft that parasitizes the host until nothing is left but the graft.
In every sense of that word.
The Arabs were particularly brutal and genocidal in India, and yet their descendants, the "indigenous people" in Pakistan, bow to Mecca. It would be like the descendants of Jewish victims of the Holocaust bowing to Nazi Berlin. It's bizarre. Nothing beats Islam as a cover for Imperialism, and it still is, at its essence, Arab Imperialism.
Hugh's comments on this matter are particularly thought provoking and insightful. Arab Imperialism is much more stealth than British, Turkish, Manchu, etc. Imperialism. Islam has often absolutely destroyed "indigenous culture" and often is a "god sent" justification for genocide, as well as the destruction of non-Arab cultures and peoples (Darfur Negros, Indians, Persians, etc.).
Islam is very similar to the "Manifest Destiny" style doctrines that are behind all Imperialism. "The best people" here are the Arabs.
How can it not be Arab imperialism when the conquered countries ALL take up arabic? Dress in arabic dress? Pray in the direction of Arabia?
If those people were acting western it surely would be called western imperialism.
And completely OT
This is a funny religion story. I've never heard of this before. I thought Kwanza was the last made up religion. I think we should start a new one, too!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_spaghetti_monster
Expose Islam for what it does today, that so many today, decry Christianity for doing so long ago.
A Muslim must not defecate himself facing Mecca.
Yeah, I know. But see, I got this really nice GPS a couple of weeks ago and am now constantly aware of the direction to Mecca. And almost all commodes have plenty of space on the either side, so that sitting at an angle you can cover as much as 260 degrees of direction, the remaining 100 degrees blocked to the back by the toilet itself. The best would of course be a custom built master bathroom with a plush Kohler unit angled just so.
flowerknife_us-
The truth is that those who committed crimes in the name of Christ were about as Christian as Hitler, who hated the teachings of Christ, privately called Christianity "the Jewish Christ Creed, with its pity ethics". The Beatitudes of Jesus are the core of true Christian belief. The teachings of Jesus are as far from Muhammad as heaven is from hell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatitudes
"A man fighting the opening of a mosque in his suburban neighborhood filed a lawsuit Tuesday to try and halt construction, a move derided by Arab leaders as anti-Muslim."
When this goes to court, the man should tell the Judge and Jury the he is indeed anti-Muslim because of the havoc Muslems have wrecked on the world for the last couple generations, and that there is every reason to believe that his neighborhood be less safe with the introduction of a Mosque into it.
To prove his case, he should call as witnesses people as knowledgeable as Robert Spencer to quote Islamic scripture to the court, showing that his fears are not unfounded.
The cross examination would be facinating.
mmemo to Borg:
Islam ceases to be Arab imperialism when people other that Arabs use this ideology to conquer and enslave other nations in the same manner that the Soviets did under the guise of Communism. Islam is being used by the Turks, Persians, and Javanese people today in such a way; all of these ethnicities are predominantly Muslim, yet non-Arab, and engaged in Islamic holy war against the unbelievers.
We can see that you haven't read Islamic history very carefully. If you had you'd know that
The Ottoman empire in Turkey was founded by Mongols. Turks are NOT Arabs, their lineage is primarily Mongolian (with a smattering of Middle Eastern). Turkey was once of course Greece and Christian and today it is neither.
You would also have realized that Iran isn't Arab either. Yet Iran is also Islamic. And it is still a major world jihadist player in spite of it being non-Arab.
"A muslim must not defecate himself while facing mecca"
I don't know about that, but my brother told me of many that defecated themselves while facing the business end of his & his battalions tanks...does that count?
lol
Today it is 30 million Amazigh. Tomarrow 30 million Anglo's? Yestersay Lebenese Christians, today Jews tomarrow the French. Next Germans, then Americans .... whom will they deny next. Watching your neighbor being murdered is certainly safe untill it is your turn.
'You say that you are carrying a divine message? Fine then, leave it here, and return whence you came' - Amazigh queen Dihya
The wisdom of our predecessors never fails to astound me!
pyth-
Islam is being used by the Turks, Persians, and Javanese people today in such a way; all of these ethnicities are predominantly Muslim, yet non-Arab, and engaged in Islamic holy war against the unbelievers.
I realize their ethnicities didn't change. How can you change your genetics? They ACT like their arab master, Mohammad. THAT is what makes it arab imperialism. Second hand, but still arab mode. PAID for and encouraged by arabs.
You don't call it arab imperialism because the genetics aren't arab. I am calling it arab imperialism because the methods are arab. The results are arab. The money for the mosques is arab money.
The Ottoman empire was founded by mongols? Their lineage is primarily Mongolian?
The Ottoman empire was founded by Osman. Was he a mongol? Tamerlane was a mongol. A mongol ruler does not make the people mongol.
Muhammad I restored the Ottoman Empire. Muhammad II captured Constantinople in 1453 and subjugated Anatolia as far as the Euphrates. Suleiman I the Magnificent completed the Ottoman expansion and the empire reached it's peak.The ruling class was mad up of two rival elements - Muslim Turkomans, Arabs, and Iranians, who together constituted the Turkish aristocracy that dominated the Ottoman system during the 14th and 15th centures and Christian prisoners and slaves, recruited, converted, and educated trough the famous devshirme system.
The population of Turkey is descended in part from ancient Hittites, Phrygians, and Assyrians and also from Greek, Persian, and Roman immigrants; Turkish culture, as well, is an amalgam of these influences. Muslim Arabs and Crusaders, along with many others, have added to the ethnic complexity of the country. The arrival of nomadic Turkish tribes in the 11th century AD placed the distinctive stamp of Turkish language and culture on the population.
I found the posts about the Berbers and about Queen Kahena El Dahyan fascinating. Reading a bit more about her valiant fight against the Islamic Arab troops it turns out that she and her army were eventually defeated in the battle in Tabarqa (around 702 AD). The defeat of the troops of Dahyan is partly due to treason by Khalid, a young Arab person that the queen had saved and adopted according to the ancient Berber custom of anaïa (“protection”). Made a prisoner, Queen Dahyan was decapitated, and her head brought to the caliph.
Is anybody from our government taking any history lessons here?
Turks are not "sons of Esau." The Edomites were assimilated into the Jewish people centuries before the commencement of the common era with their mass conversion to Judaism under King Alexander Yanai. Rabbinic legend associates Esau with Rome, stating that some of Esau's descendents were among the early settlers of that city. "Esau" or "Edom" are usually associated with a materialistic approach to life, and in some Jewish circles became metaphors for the Roman church and the Christian European oppressors of the Jewish people.
pythagoras wrote:
"Islam ceases to be Arab imperialism when people other that Arabs use this ideology to conquer and enslave other nations in the same manner that the Soviets did under the guise of Communism."
I beg to differ
A rose by any other name is still a rose.
Muhammadans prey on the dumb and desperate. They get a one-way ticket into the cult of muhammad (MHRIHF) and then they become "honorary" Arabs. They do everything they can to be like their Arab masters. Learn Arabic, take Arabic name, eat,shit,walk,talk,fart like an Arab. Always paying tribute to Arabia and Mecca.
What else can it be called. I
Ynkedoodl2
My point exactly.
Borg:
Not only have you oversimplified this issue, but I can not agree with you for a technical reason: The temporarily-Islamic Mongols and presently-Islamic Turks were out for themselves and not the Arabs. When the then-Islamic Mongols looted Asia, Muhammad made a nice cover, but these conquerors kept the loot for themselves, and let Arabia slide into temporary oblivion while they did it.
As for the Arabs, if they were as 'dumb' and 'desperate' as you claim, tell me how did they manage to gain control of half the known world? These awful people managed to slaughter hundreds of millions of people; whatever adjectives you might to wish to apply to them, 'dumb' and 'desperate' do not quite cover it!
Islam's origins are Mesopotamian and for that reason Islam is not really "Arab" culture--the Arabs haven't any culture of their own as all they ever really did was steal from other cultures. But at least the Arab Muslims lacked the originality to come up with the horrors that are Islam (what they lacked and still lack is the intelligence to get rid of this horrid, homicidal ideology).
Islam's Mesopotamian ancestry can be gauged through the following:
--The Islamic moon-god for example is Mesopotamian in origin and has been known variously as Marduk, Sin, and Baal (the root of the world Beelzebub) among many other names.
--A mosque was excavated at Hazor, Israel and was found to be over 3000 years old which proves Muhammad was NOT the originator of Islam! (although the Arabs definitely put their own spin on it).
--Many chants used by Muslims presently originated in Sumeria tousands of years ago (I learned that on THIS website).
--The Arabian peninsula was once a territorial possession of Babylon's which held it for many centuries.
--Islam's calendar follows the moon as did the Babylonians' calendar.
Islam is justly condemned for its horrendous lack of respect for human life and other cultures. However conquering and bloodshed were a way of life in the ancient world. Don't you remember the Romans' gladiator shows at the Colisseum and Cirdus Maximus, and Rome's brutal conquests across the Mediterranean including that of Israel? Islam is a leftover fromt he ancient world that needs to be laid to rest ASAP.
Pythagoras, I find it amusing that you put the blame on the Islamic culture to its supposedly 'pagan' past when the blame really should be put to one and only one thing, Muhammad and his psychotic revelations. This is more than borne out by the various Hadiths which seem to show a pre-Islamic culture that was far more tolerant than the one that it was replaced by (i.e. Islamic culture)
Didn't you say that it isn't the Arabs? Dumb and desperate was ynkldoodl's words to describe those the arabs sucked in. I would include unfortunate victims and those unlucky enough to be in their path. I was agreeing with his point about their immitation of arabs.
And, no, I don't remember the gladiators...I'm not that old...
:)
Islam is a leftover that needs to be laid to rest.
Amen to that.
Pythagoras:
It's very simple:
Judaism is the national religion of the Hebrew people.
Islam is the national religion of the Arab People.
Just as Yahweh calls the Jews, The Chosen People.
So Muhammad had his sock-puppet Allah declare the Arabs the best of all people.
Just as the Jews regard the Torah as dictated by Yahweh, ditto the Muslims re: The Koran and Allah.
Muhammad was impressed enough by the Jews to rip them off. Plagiarism is the best form of flattery.
You Jews pray 3 times a day, said Muhammad. So we Muslims to prove we are superior pray 5 times a day. Na-na-na-na-na!
You Jews wear Yarmulkas, We Muslims wear Kuffis.
You Jews only fast one day a year (Yom Kippur or Tisha B'Av, if your super orthodox) but we Muslims FAST A WHOLE MONTH.
You Jews turn to pray in the direction of Jerusalem (because Israel is God's Promised Land)
but
We Muslims turn to pray to Mecca.
On and on and on.
Islam is a malevolent and prosletizing form of Judaism for retards.
=========
Islam does prey on the dumb and desperate. Check out how they build their mosques in ghettos. What semi-intelligent adult would buy all that alla-cadabra nonsense?
Pythagoras,
The fact that the mosque in Hazor was on a 3000 year old site doesnt indicate that Islam is 3000 years old. It is very common for sacred sites of one supercedent faith to be built upon the ruins of another, or even be located in the same building. This not unusual.
Also, the Arabian Peninsula was never controlled by the Babylonians. The peninsula produced surplus populations that frequently spilled out into the surrounding areas and added fresh infusions of genetic material.
desertdawg:
Forget the lecturing, pal.
Serge Trifkovic in THE SWORD of the PROPHET mentions the mosque at Hazor; his professional opinion was it is basically the same cult we see as Islam.
Islam contains many elements of much older religious elements (including its moon-god allah) and practices which ARE well over 3000 years old (if not 4000 years old). As mentioned the ancient world was so full of conquering and mutual cultural theft there is little originality to speak of.
The Arabian Peninsula most certainly WAS controlled by Babylon (it controlled most of the Middle east actually). I have discussed this with Arabs (non-Muslim incidentally).
Furthermore, the Arabian peninsula is and historically has been one of the most sparsely populated areas on the Asian continent; there is hardly a population 'surplus' to speak of (although due to its lack of arable land that cold be debated). That would be like calling Turkmenistan a teeming metropolis.