The war for freedom on the streets of Stockholm

Thanks for being so brave. Bravery is the huge energy of fear turned inside-out. Fear can be turned into a huge new strength.

Well done, everyone!

I was following live video coverage from Swedish Daily Aftonbladet and from your Antifa/Expo opponents, creating a summary at the Dispatch web site.

Particular striking in the Aftonbladet video was that when the EDL event turned out to be civilized and sensible, the atmosphere peaceful and well protected by Swedish police, the reporter started drowning out the speakers with her own ignorant commentary - she obviously found it more useful for her viewers to get her underinformed opinion than letting them know what was actually being said on the spot.

Later, when the speakers kept making sense, their camera team went elsewhere, filming endlessly the rows of police cars protecting the demonstration from the Antifa crowd, and sending mindless vuvuzela noise. One interview with an Antifa activist came through quite well, in spite of the leftie pandemonium.

Then, after the EDL demonstration had ended, the camera team went back there. They did a short interview with Pamela, which was coming through clear and fine in bits - and in bits only! Strangely, her clear voice was drowned out by clips of vuvuzela noise. My guess is that a technician decided to add 'atmosphere' by dubbing in the archetypical Antifa reaction to what Pamela was saying.

A suggestion for similar events in the future: Have two guys with smartphones take turn recording the speeches and uploading them with the Vimeo app (or similar) by broadband, to go online immediately. It is a simple yet effective method to run circles around the MSM :)

Wow, so they let you LOONs out for the day and you could only manage to muster 80-90 LOSERs......tut, tut, tut :)

Is that it ? the so called worldwide anti-jihad movement spectacularly fizzles out, ROFLMAO

The Mohammedtroll is lying, I'll bet.

Faced with Ms Geller's statement that 'several hundred' people braved the thugs, versus the Mohammedtroll's claim that '80-90 losers' turned up, and bearing in mind that a/ Ms Geller was there on the scene and is perfectly able to count heads, and comes from a culture that values truth-telling, whereas b/ the foul-mouthed Mohammedthug is most unlikely to have been there, and comes from a 'culture' - Islam - that is rotten with lies and nonsense and boasting and Bullshit [technical term: see Harry Frankfurt's book 'On Bullshit', for more] from top to bottom, I am going to believe Ms Geller.

Anyway, maybe the real-life Order of the Phoenix, the public Resistance to Islam, looks small right now.

That doesn't mean it is going to *stay* small.

On page 222 (326 in the Arabic) of the earliest Muslim biography of Muhammad, Muhammad agrees with Abu jahl that those who do not follow Muhammad will be "slaughtered":

Abu jahl said to them: "Muhammad alleges that if you follow him you will be kings of the Arabs and the Persians. Then after death you will be raised to gardens like those of the Jordan. But if you do not follow him you will be slaughtered, and when you are raised from the dead you will be burned in the fire of hell." The apostle [Muhammad] came out to them with a handful of dust saying: "I do say that."

Skouti is a bigoted hater. Most others here don't hate. We're just a little critical is all, because, well, I know it's selfish of us, but we just don't want to be slaughtered by skouti and his pals, who hate us simply because we dare to criticize Muhammad. And we all know, don't we, how Muhammad responded when Muslims killed Muhammad's critics? Muhammad announced there was to be no punishment for those Muslims. Skouti knows that, but it seems skouti is so full of hate, he doesn't care about such things. He doesn't care about freedom of speech either, and what Islam is doing to that freedom around the globe, including now in parts of Europe and the U.S.

It seems that the journalists' trade unions in the global MSM are now institutionally opposed to free speech, and to criticism of Islam.

Apparently, the so-called 'Western' media has joined political forces with the Arab-Islamic media in campaigning for censorship of criticism of Islam.

I know you are becoming afraid, little skouti, but please don't run away. Stay and chat with me. LOL.

The HATER skouti seems to have run away with tail between legs. I'm sorry skouti, did I hurt your tender feewings?

I was listening to the Channel four News in the UK tonight when they mentioned this demo. They said the EDL was there, then went straight on to mention there was rioting and put up a picture to show rioting took place. The way it came over to me was the EDL were the rioters which is a load of rubbish. No wonder gullible people think that people opposing islam are racist, fascist scumbags with reports like this one designed to mislead people.

Now, why did skouti run away? Because like other Muslims, he really has no good answer when you concisely cite, with links, the core Islamic texts to him. We should all take a lesson from that.

easy traeh.......don't go spamming this shit site just to boost the hit count (poor spencer needs all the money he can get.....apparently he has to beg for it, LOL)

So turd boy, why didn't you turn up to support your LOONY TUNE masters ? :)

don't be shy now son

The very best wishes to you Robert and Pam and Tommy! Thank you so much for coming to Stockholm and holding your conference! I really regret I wasn't able to show up this time so I prayed for you guys yesterday. Please let me know if you are ever speaking in Helsinki, Finland. Heck, even if you are here, please tell me! I would love you make you guys a fine dinner! :-) :-) :-)

So weird, so peculiar, so very, very odd, that Muslims think we are "loony" or worthy of hatred because we don't absolutely adore their religion which tells them to hate, kill, subjugate us and which causes them to cheer whenever non-Muslims suffer at their hands. Could they possibly be genuinely surprised that some of us are not raring to become dhimmis and give up our daughters to them, and whatever else they demand?
What is it with their brains that they don't get it? Be our enemy, go ahead, you Muslims, but don't expect LOVE from us!

skouti ran away AGAIN?! Muslims apparently just find it too embarrassing to come here, because they seem to have no good answers when you ask them how they can support the core texts of Islam -- the totalitarianism of Muhammad's teachings. When faced with facts, they seem to have no good arguments.

"The EDL in Stockholm"

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-edl-in-stockholm.html#more

As Robert Spencer put it recently:

"Suicide of the Western Media.
"It's becoming clear that the MSM shares the hard Left’s taste for authoritarian controls on the freedom of speech."

http://pjmedia.com/blog/suicide-of-the-western-media/

I for one would think twice before taking part in this were I a Swede: if you were recognized chances are too big that you'd be branded an islamophobic, extreme rightwing, racist, hate mongering bigot for all to see. We saw it in full action in the 'Aftonbladet' the other day.
If you took more active part in person or by letters, chances are - and I copy this from a case I noticed in Denmark - that information about this from would be sent to your boss and your place of work by some self-declared anti-fascists or anti-racists, asking whether your employers were aware of your failings.

So none of you CUNTs bothered to show your faces to this shit event........too poor, too stoopid, or more likely too embarrassed to be associated with turds like spencer, geller and our very own TIT, tommy robinson

like I said........ YOU PUSSYS and that is all you will be

have fun, LOL :)

Allah retreats as Geller and Spencer advance the cause of truth...Truth to Allah is like sunlight on Count Drac'ullah...Allah hates a lot of things, but on the top of the list is truth...Allah runs from the truth like darkness fleeing the light...That's why Allah prefers moonlight, and explains why his book the Quran is a dark fairy tale...
In order to understand the Quran completely, it has to be read in the dark.

Swedes are not fighters, if they were they wouldn't tolerate the rape of their women in such large numbers. Women who have to dye their naturally blonde hair black so as not to be targeted by Islamic thugs. Even their queen accommodates those who plot to depose her and the royal family. Sweden is the model of a dhimminitude state bowing to her new rulers and welcoming them with open arms even though crime is being perpetrated on Swedish society at an alarming rate by Muslim invaders. It won't be easy waking them from their complacency.

Here is some footage of the rally in Stockholm:
http://sheikyermami.com/2012/08/05/robinson-spencer-geller-stockholm-august-4-2012/

skouti, reduced to vulgarity and empty taunts. Muslims just don't seem to have any substantive arguments, and skouti demonstrates it again and again.

Human Rights and Islam

Check out these bar charts from the international human rights organization Freedom House. The bar chart for the Middle East/North Africa -- the core Islamic region -- shows it to be the most unfree area in the world.

Islam also has a remarkable record on honor killings.

"Register now: SION to hold International World Freedom Congress to combat Islamic supremacist war against free speech on September 11, 2012"

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/07/register-now-sion-to-hold-international-world-freedom-congress-to-combat-islamic-supremacist-war-aga.html

I for one would think twice before taking part in this were I a Swede.

Indeed. Several of my friends have lost their employment due to their standing up for freedom and democracy, against Sharia and other ancient superstition. Just recently one was summarily dismissed from his job at the municipality after 17 years, due to unspecified "Incompatible views". The repression is picking up new methods, but the aim remains the same: To initimidate citizens from freedom to obedience.

I am guessing, since Roberta Moore, Leader of the Jewish division of the EDL, resigned there's been no more manifestations of fascism or anti-Semitism in the EDL? Otherwise, why would R. Spencer and P. Geller attach themselves to the organization?

1. It appears that Skuzzi--living right there in the UK--didn't bother to attend the event (just a hop, skip and a jump up the road).

2. Ignore her, and she'll stop posting.

In core Islamic texts, Muhammad says beat your wife, no questions asked

In Sunan Abu Dawud, a canonical hadith collection:

Book 11, Number 2142:

Narrated Umar ibn al-Khattab:

The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: A man will not be asked as to why he beat his wife.

AP and Reuters via YNET http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4264633,00.html

described the movement "far-right" while benign toward left.

pierce me that ynet turns another "far left" Haaretz like newspaper. I hope I'm wrong.

Skouti is definitely a Muslim living in a Western country, in other words a hypocritical parasite who believes in Sharia but doesn't have the guts to live in an Islamic Sharia country. Why are you living in a democracy if you are a Muslim Skouti? Are you too poor to afford the airfare as you say? Why do you follow the teachings of a mass murdering pedophile who married a 9 year old girl, a desert bandit who heard voices in his head even he said he didn't know where they were coming from? Pam Geller looking good too by the way!

@Skouti

>LOONs
> LOSERs
>turds... etc.

Besides thief, buffoon.

Please, don't feed the trolls, especially those with the verbiage of a pre-pubescent dolt; Res ipsa loquitur.

Folks, don't forget, there's an upside to the trolls.

... and especially those obvious and failed trolls with projection bias like Skouti. Nothing more pathetic than an internet tough guy http://bit.ly/dOJSoc

Love the way you turned the cameras on the "Media jackals"
Pity about those aggressive intolerant bigoted left wingers. I guess there always has to be some who will try and disrupt something good.

On page 672 (992 in the Arabic) of the earliest Muslim biography of Muhammad, he says

...kill those who disbelieve in God.

I'll never ever ever understand the liberal left and their alliance with Islam. They hate you and laugh at you when you come running to their defense. If the Islamic problem reaches critical mass in this world, and it looks like it will in the near future, I just wanna see the looks on their faces when they realize that they will not be spared. Why side with those that want to make you 2nd class citizens under sharia? It's insanity!

I'll never ever ever understand the liberal left and their alliance with Islam. They hate you and laugh at you when you come running to their defense. If the Islamic problem reaches critical mass in this world, and it looks like it will in the near future, I just wanna see the looks on their faces when they realize that they will not be spared. Why side with those that want to make you 2nd class citizens under sharia? It's insanity!

Dumbledoresarmy, you know that my thoughts and prayers are for SION, and that I stand with you in the ranks of that Chivalrous and Egalitarian Order of the Phoenix Redux. I salute you from afar 10,000 miles or more; I listen attentively to you, our Southern Oracle (and yes, we just viewed The NeverEnding Story.)

JCB

Skouti is fortunate that she lives in a democratic country that embraces an individual’s right to free speech. If she lived in an Islamic country governed by shariah law, I doubt she would be so outspoken, albeit badly outspoken, on a worldwide site.

Her diction, spelling and grammar are deplorable. A requisite for substantive criticism is to put proper words in proper places, e.g., Robert Spencer. Until Skouti learns to express herself in English, perhaps she should stop embarrassing herself by writing twaddle on the Internet.

The troll who has infected (yes, I would argue "infected" is an accurate term) this thread is particularly vile, stooping to crass ad hominem attacks and nothing more. Thanks to traeh et al. for responding as they have, showing in microcosm that the anti-jihad movement is possessed of intelligence, insight and high principle while the jihad movement has only hate, bile and exceedingly low principle to spew.

@Skouti:
Since you're so fixated on a certain female part,you obviously are in favor of FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION.
The only response that you deserve is a simple statement in your language"COOS UMAK"

Ah I see more of you SHITe have crawled out of the woodwork,LOL.

So tell me did any of you sad TURDS bother to turn up to support the "illiterate attention seeking whore" (great put down by weasel zipper)

How embarrassing for Spencer and geller, the global hate fest could only must 90 losers

Better luck next time LOONS :)

Ah I see more of you SHITe have crawled out of the woodwork,LOL.

So tell me did any of you sad TURDS bother to turn up to support the "illiterate attention seeking whore" (great put down by weasel zipper)

How embarrassing for Spencer and geller, the global hate fest could only must 90 losers

Better luck next time LOONS :)

In looking at that first picture, I do wonder what exactly is their stand, their postition, their opposition.

Perhaps, Robert, while you and Pam are there, you could invite one of them for a conversation--just to find out what their thinking is.

I think it would be interesting to have one of them express their views with one of the Iranian ex-Muslims.

It's unlikely--IMO--that a white, non-Muslim youth would know much about the subject vs a former Muslim.

Here is the "report" by Svenska Dagbladet, Sweden's largest paper. It is translated into English. You wouldn't know if it was Manchester United vs. Real Madrid.

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2012/08/stockholm-protest-and-politically.html

Guys, skouti is an ignorant, uneducated muslim lout living off welfare benefits in the UK.

He can't argue any substantive points because there's no "there" there - if you get my drift.

He doesn't have the intellectual means to do anything but spout low-brow, crude insults. He can't answer any of your points, so it's pointless to even address or respond to him.

Treat him as the mental-deficient that he is - pity the fool.

Always interested in these discussions but disappointing when someone has multiple posts on a single thread consisting entirely of obscenities and insults. It is not only a waste of space but sad to think that someone is so lacking in ideas. Well, at least skouti scuzzy did learn typing and knows how to connect to the Internet. Now, slightly off topic and on a positive note. We have all had it up to our ears about the ROP, islamophobia and "tolerance" of the intolerant that we see in the MSM.. But even the NYT lately has been running articles implying that Islamic fundamentalism is leading to flaws in society--for example, an article about a man in Pakistan who believes he can get a car to run on water and that the overall state of education there is so abysmal. Although there was a chirpy article about Syrian freedom figheter-terrorists needing to make bread, I have also seen other MSM articles indicating that the fighters are a coalition of Islamist and al Qaeda groups.

Always interested in these discussions but disappointing when someone has multiple posts on a single thread consisting entirely of obscenities and insults. It is not only a waste of space but sad to think that someone is so lacking in ideas. Well, at least skouti scuzzy did learn typing and knows how to connect to the Internet. Now, slightly off topic and on a positive note. We have all had it up to our ears about the ROP, islamophobia and "tolerance" of the intolerant that we see in the MSM.. But even the NYT lately has been running articles implying that Islamic fundamentalism is leading to flaws in society--for example, an article about a man in Pakistan who believes he can get a car to run on water and that the overall state of education there is so abysmal. Although there was a chirpy article about Syrian freedom figheter-terrorists needing to make bread, I have also seen other MSM articles indicating that the fighters are a coalition of Islamist and al Qaeda groups.

Sorry to double post. I guess one for the troll and one for the rest of us.

@Skouti:
Once Again: COOS UMAK!
The ONLY WHORES here are TROLLING WHORES!
Or in your language: TROLLING SHARMUTA(plural)

Bad breaking news:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/08/05/possible-injuries-after-shooting-at-sikh-temple-in-wisconsin/

We need to keep our heads cool. People are leaving Islam in their droves! Nearly six million left Islam in Africa over the last two years. And tens of thousands of Arabs, including Imams and Sheiks. Non-Arab Iranians are converting at a huge pace. Islam offers no assurance of salvation so it's a bankrupt religion and a political nightmare, full of chaos and division. A divided house cannot stand. The leftist fascist elite are using the terror of Islam to bring about their own insidious changes, like the patriot act etc. A Hegelian dialectic.

Re the Mohammedthug who has been so unpleasantly present in this thread.

Being unable to physically throw handfuls of human excrement at the najis kuffar here - something that Mohammedthugs have been known to do - he/ she/ It has settled for the verbal equivalent.

By their fruits you shall know them, as a True Prophet tells us.

LemonLime,

The way of thinking you've expressed above would make a mush of things that blinds one to precisely this difference: the Jews and anyone else could convert to become Muslims, and Muslims would more or less accept the new converts as Muslims; but if the Jews abandoned Judaism and converted to become Nazis, the Nazis would not accept the former Jews. Now why is that?

Ideological conversion of a Jew won't suffice for a Nazi, because Nazism is a belief in an inexpungeable subhumanizing physical difference between Jews and others. Nazism is a racial myth. Islam is totalitarianism of a different kind, where conversion is all that is necessary; racial mythology is not a central factor. Your way of thinking in a couple of comments above makes a hodgepodge of all this.

Nota bene: The fact that Islam and racism are myth, not science, doesn't change the fact that they are different kinds of myth and that the differences have real world consequences (e.g., Muslims accept converts from all groups, because Muslims aren't focused on a racial mythology; conversion is insufficient for Nazis, because Nazis are centrally focused on a racial mythology). It seems so out of character for you to elide distinctions and make an intellectual glop of things that I can hardly believe I'm understanding you correctly, but based on your repeated statements, it seems I am understanding you, and that there is no elusive method to the "madness" in your above comments.

You said,

When an ideology divides Mankind into Good People and Bad People, that is ipso facto racism.

So is communism fundamentally racism?

Both groups [Islam and communism] offer to their members and followers the agreeable sensation of belonging to a community of believers, who are always right, as against an outer world of unbelievers, who are always wrong. -- Bernard Lewis

To call every evil dualistic system "racism" makes for a night in which all cats are grey. I won't say I'm "disappointed," as you have said you are about my position, but I am perplexed to see you holding such views when you are usually so set on careful distinctions rather than a statement that looks a bit like it might be a yahoo war cry drowning out reason.

Addendum to LemonLime:

The distinctions I make in my 10:05 pm comment (immediately above) in no way mean to me that Islam is less bad than racism. Islam is certainly as bad as racism. So don't read any exculpation of Islam into my statement above.

I don't want to categorize people within a rigorous dogmatic construct, either -- so I test every spirit, and judge the tree by its fruits. That's my secret decoder ring, and traeh can decipher, too.

[The Gollem shtick I acted out with my little daughter's bling ring comes to my mind as I write this.]

P.S.:

Link to Sistani's website:

http://www.sistani.org/index.php?p=251364&id=48&pid=2132

I.e., the fact that by merely "reverting" to Islam, a Kafir can cease being najis, does not therefore mean that this hatred, fear and loathing of another class of humans (in the Muslim case, Kafirs) is not solidly racist.

It just means we have to have a little flexibility in our Box by which we define the term. The flexibility I'm calling for is not outlandish nor unwarranted; and I have yet to see any case made for rejecting it.

As far as I'm concerned, the Islamic doctrine of non-Muslims being najis seals the deal. To continue to insist, merely because the Islamic doctrine allows for a trans-biolotgical flexibility (converting to Islam erases the najis), that this cannot be "racism" is, I think, irrationally stubborn.

Ah. A most excellent retort, LemonLime. You have advanced the discussion. And I must say, I thought for a while you had closed your case, mainly because of the najis category. But having thought further, I still think you are wrong, even in reference to najis, and I will be interested to see if you can overturn my final objection.

But before we go on to najis, my lesser objections. You quoted two definitions of race. The first went along with my assertions about racism entailing a belief in some physical factors. But the second definition of race you quoted, you seem to be claiming is almost infinitely elastic:

2) A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution.

It's true the above is not strictly biological, but it is a physical definition, entailing physical proximity over time and all that goes with that, namely a somewhat limited circle of physical and genetic characteristics, and so on. Racial mythologies have historically been bound up with "soil locus" mythologies, i.e., a particular land and its particular soil treated as sacred and inseparable from the allegedly unique bloodlines of the people there. But there is nothing in either definition of race you quoted that allows that racism or race could be merely a belief in a common set of principles with no mythology of physical differences involved.

You make an excellent point, when you bring up the najis category in Islam, which designates non-Muslims as something like untouchable filth in a physical sense. You offer this as your key counterargument, I guess because it shows that there is indeed a (mythical) physical component to Islam's revulsion. You thus seem to acknowledge what I have been demanding from you, and now that you have supplied the demand, you declare Q.E.D., so to speak.

You thus acknowledge that racism as a mythical construct alleges a physical component. That was not something you agreed to previously. All you seemed to say was that, since race has no solid scientific basis, any system that divides people into good and bad can be racism.

When an ideology divides Mankind into Good People and Bad People, that is ipso facto racism.

By pointing to the najis category, you have finally made at least a prima facie case that you are right. I had forgotten about the najis category, since it is not front and center in the Islamic texts. Front and center one finds mainly ideological demands.

So you have made a prima facie case. The question that remains for me though, is whether the najis category is sufficient to show that Islam, in addition to being a totalitarian ideology, is properly considered identical to "racism." Islam has physical revulsion in common with racism, and divides humanity into two groups, one of which is taken to be physically revolting or unclean. That is certainly closer to racism than your earlier statement of racism.

When an ideology divides Mankind into Good People and Bad People, that is ipso facto racism.

But there's the rub to your new claim. The kaffir's physical difference -- his filthy najis character -- is not what makes him Bad.

The reverse is the case. The fact that he is Bad (refuses to say the Shahada), makes him najis filth. His sullied physical nature stems from a spiritual flaw, an ideological flaw. Racism, by contrast, in its most commonplace meaning, assumed by almost everyone who hears it, is the notion that spiritual flaws stem from physical ones. Thus again, I argue that Islam is spiritual totalitarianism, not racism.

Now, can you overturn that last objection? The only way you can, I think, is by rejecting the most common meaning of racism, the one that 99% of people will read into the word when you use it.

LemonLime,

I went to the "One Look" omnibus of dictionaries online, to check out the many dictionaries' definitions of "race." The first definition in virtually all dictionaries is in reference to physical or genetic characteristics. I think that supports my perception that if one speaks of racism today in the U.S., 99% of people will assume you are referring to some sort of alleged genetic or physical determinism on the basis of which some people are deemed good and others bad or less good. In the U.S. this typically takes the form: "Racists think that black people, due to various physical and/or genetic qualities, are mentally, spiritually, and physically inferior."

Even if you can massage the secondary definition you quoted (a definition that appears only in some, probably not most, dictionaries, and never appears as first definition) so that a part of that secondary definition might by some interpretations of the terms in the definition refer to some non-physical unity as the meaning of the term "race," that is a thin basis to support your criticism of me merely because I used the word "racism" with the most common meaning that people virtually always give it today. (I'm leaving out those who pretend racism means criticizing Islam -- I'm not talking about liars, but about the most common meaning of "racism" when the term is used in good faith).

Secondary meanings of "race" that are loosely or not at all tied to an alleged set of physical qualities might have been more literally intended a hundred or more years ago -- but in this day and age, when materialism, pop-science, biology, and physics more or less rule the assumptions of public discourse, the literal meaning almost all people intend by "race" is an alleged set of bodily qualities. Other meanings today are intended metaphorically. So your meaning of "race" is not only completely rare by comparison with mine, but even when used is today almost always meant as just a manner of speaking, a poetic turn of phrase, a quaint archaism, hyperbole, or the like. Whereas the physical meaning of race and physical determinism of racism are intended as the real and literal meanings -- even if they have no real scientific basis, and are actually just a myth.

You said,

I don't see why the physical revulsion has to be a generating cause of the racism or a constitutional foundation of its ideology; the mere fact of the physical revulsion believed, along with its sociocultural cultivation, suffices to make that belief system racist.

Whatever "racism" really is, my point is that 99% of people 99% of the time use the term to mean a kind of physical or biological determinism (even if they've never heard of the word, "determinism"). You can of course use the term in various literary, philosophical, or other esoteric ways based on familiarity with much less common, older, or obscure usages. But what I don't think you can reasonably do is express disappointment in someone who uses the term "racism" to mean what 99% of people mean by it, namely a type of group physical determinism. In that most common sense of the word, I was correct that Islam is not racism. When you announce that Islam is the worst form of racism -- and you do not specify that you are using the term "racism" in an unusual fashion -- the burden is surely on you for making a statement where your meaning is bound to be misunderstood in a way that produces a false result, namely the claim that Islam is some kind of physical or biological determinism. That is not what you mean, but that is how almost everyone will interpret you. I doubt you wish to be misunderstood.

I said,

"Racism, by contrast, in its most commonplace meaning, assumed by almost everyone who hears it, is the notion that spiritual flaws stem from physical ones."

I wouldn't say that Hitler's Nazism, for example, made that fine distinction: both the physical/genetic and the spiritual wickedness of Jews were rolled into one and fed into each other in the not-entirely-coherent mush of his ideologically articulated hatred.

I don't think I quite grant that there is no predominance of physical over nonphysical in Hitler's mush, but supposing I did grant it, nevertheless, the main meaning by far of "race" and "racism" today in the U.S. refers to physical factors and physical determinism.

I don't say you should not use "racism" to mean what you've meant. Maybe your usage is justified. But you can't be disappointed that I've simply used the term in a way that 99% of others will not misunderstand. Your usage is at any rate a quite rare one that, if no explanation is given, is bound to be misunderstood by most, who will substitute the most common meaning of the term for the meaning you intend.

traeh,

I suppose rhetorically I'd be willing to desist in using "racism" to describe Islam; philosophically, however, I remain unconvinced that race is necessarily reducible to modern natural science genetics and zoological taxonomy (with humans, of course, being one animal among the rest -- which raises the interesting peripheral question, are non-human animals, according to modern biologists, differentiated into "races"? If not, why not?).

To me, the mere fact of defining groups of humans on any basis, then targeting that group to inflict hate, oppression and violence on them -- while at the same time self-defining the "in-group" as not only superior, but supreme, is ipso facto racist. The definition of the "race" is not exclusively in the hands of biological taxonomy, but also in the hands of the ideologue who finds some need to inflict hate, oppression and violence upon some specific group. Islam then magnifies this to generalize the "out-group" as everyone who is not the "in-group".

At any rate, I realized today that a few years ago (back in 2009), I had argued for the use of a term to denote Islam's ideology with regard to all out-groups: Misoxeny. The only problem with this term is not that it's a coinage (in fact, it is a real word), but that it's a word not in common usage today. Whether or not it's pragmatic to use the word in our war of ideas, it still applies cogently. Rather than triggering the association of some physical or biological necessity, the term misoxeny is based upon a hatred of "the Other" which is not necessarily tied to such limitations. Misoxeny is a useful refinement of the much more common "xenophobia" -- useful because the hatred and loathing for "the Other" inculcated in Islam includes, but also goes far beyond, any mere "phobia".

Here's my brief essay on it from 2009:

Misoxeny

A word I thought I had coined, modelled after the word misogyny (from the Greek misos—hatred—and gune—woman: a hatred and suspicion of women in general). In my coinage, the ‘-xeny’ comes from the later Greek xenos—stranger, foreigner.

Actually, just today (28 November 2009), I found the word misoxeny in my hard copy of the Webster's 1913 edition.

Misoxeny means: a hatred and suspicion of strangers, foreigners, or any person or class of persons deemed to be ‘other’ or outsiders to one’s own group or culture.

While all cultures throughout history have traces of this pathology in greater or lesser degrees, along with its closely related pathology of tribalism, Islamic culture has cultivated misoxeny (and tribalism) to a degree and intensity and sophistication unparalleled among all other cultures all of history. More importantly, Islam is wired by its founding blueprint (the Koran and the Sunnah as well as the latter's equivalent in Shia Islam) to maintain misoxeny (and tribalism) throughout history and for eternity; whereas the four pillars of Western civilization—Graeco-Roman / Judaeo-Christian—contained the seeds for its ongoing progressive evolution by which it continues to transcend misoxeny (and tribalism) in favor of universalism.

There's also the interesting theory that Islam is a form of ancient Gnosticism that simply became, unique among all Gnostic sects, widespread in influence and power (through another feature unique among other known Gnostic sects -- militant expansionism).

One Gnostic theme that has been found by scholars is the notion of dividing Mankind into two "races" -- the race of Seth (the good guys) and the race of Cain (everyone else). The Greek used (and its Coptic variant) is genea which in that milieu (approximately 1st century BC to 1st century AD) meant "race, family, generation". It is the root whence we get words like "gene, genetic, genealogy" etc. Of course, that epoch was long before modern biology, and they didn't think the way we tend to think about "race, family, generation", assuming axiomatically that they are necessarily fit into a framework determined by modern natural science.

The main scholar researching this aspect of Gnosticism is Prof. Michael A. Williams. His seminal book, The Immoveable Race: A Gnostic Designation and the Theme of Stability in Late Antiquity, is the authoritative study on this.

http://books.google.com/books?id=RwrwgcHz1_MC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

However, as a summary of Williams' thesis puts it, Williams reflexively dismisses the modern racialism ostensibly inherent in the Gnostic idea:

Williams likewise takes up the question of "gnostic determinism": the oft-repeated modern assertion that the gnostics believed mankind to be strictly divided into different types (the spirituals, the psychics, the materials) or different races (the race of Seth, the race of Cain), and that the doctrinal upshot of such divisions was that each individual's potential for salvation was understood to be already determined at birth. Williams shows that this modern notion of gnostic determinism is not supported by the original texts. A careful reading of the sources shows that one is not "born into" the race of Seth: rather it is a status one may attain or earn. The race of Seth is more a spiritual community than a biological "race" in our modern sense.

http://www.necessaryprose.com/rethinking.htm

Notice that Williams mainly dismisses only the determinism implied by a racialism -- because these Gnostics, just as Muslims, allowed for a change or "conversion" that would wipe the slate clean of their "bad" race (the race of Cain) and induct them into the "good" race (the race of Seth). I don't see the determinism as synonymous with racism; I rather see the notion that it is a necessary part of the definition of racism as the categorical problem here. Just because a member of the bad lost race can change and join the Club of good guys by drinking their Kool-Ade, doesn't mean that Club's ideology of hating everyone in the out-group isn't itself otherwise indistinguishable from racism.

At the end of the day, we are disagreeing more on semantics than on substance.

I remain unconvinced that race is necessarily reducible to modern natural science genetics and zoological taxonomy (with humans, of course, being one animal among the rest -- which raises the interesting peripheral question, are non-human animals, according to modern biologists, differentiated into "races"? If not, why not?).

I'm not sure, but I gather "race," apparently an equivalent to subspecies, is no longer a scientific term -- it's an informal and somewhat ambiguous term to designate physical differences among human groups.

The definition of the "race" is not exclusively in the hands of biological taxonomy...

I agree, we are disagreeing on semantics more than on substance.

I can well imagine that the relation of physical and non-physical meanings, in the term "race," has undergone great changes over centuries and perhaps millennia. If we consider another word, "spirit," it now has a primarily non-physical meaning, but if you go back say a couple thousand years, apparently many languages used one word for both "spirit" and "air." So way back then, "spirit" had a meaning simultaneously physical and non-physical. Today, "fire," "air", "earth," and "water" all have for us only physical meanings, but by some accounts, it was not so say 2600 years ago in the time of the pre-Socratic Greeks. Then those terms all had an inner side related to non-physical qualities or human temperaments, as well as an outer side related to physical phenomena -- somewhat as the term "heart" still today has both meanings overlapping. We think of the heart as physical organ, but we don't yet fully separate that physical organ from the inner qualities of courage and love. That is a case where "original participation," as Owen Barfield called it, has not yet died out. Just as physical heart and non-physical heart today are not yet quite separate, long ago I suppose physical fire and inner spiritual fire, physical water and spiritual or temperamental "water," and so on, were not yet quite separate.

Positivists used to think, and perhaps still think, that the earliest human use of language was for purely physical things -- because the positivist assumes that matter is the starting point of everything, and then all else is merely derivative. After that starting stage of physical language, so one positivist story goes, humanity entered a mythological period when primitive poets used the physical terms as metaphors to develop secondarily a new poetic language of non-physical meanings. Owen Barfield, colleague of C.S. Lewis and the Inklings, argued that if you actually look at the history of language, you don't find it goes back to a purely physical stage as the starting point, rather you find that the further back you look, the more the physical and spiritual meanings have not yet been torn apart. Words more and more have simultaneously a physical and a spiritual meaning, the way "heart" does today, and the way "spirit" used to do long ago. So perhaps the word "race" at one time distinguished less between its physical and non-physical components. That may have been true fairly recently in fact.

Barfield talks about this stuff in a number of his books -- there is a very short and super-synoptic book called Saving the Appearances, which discusses changes not only in language but in awareness in general over the last three thousand years. He goes in more detail into language in Poetic Diction and History in English Words.

Well, this series of interchanges going back over the last few days has been a hard workout! Reminds me of that very extended debate we had a long time ago about whether or how the core of Islam could be considered divisible. Anyway, thank you!

Thanks traeh, I appreciate your interesting exchanges. I have more to say about some of your thoughts on language and symbolisms re physicalism and spiritualism, but have no time at present; and, if you may not know, Kinana of Khaybar has been whining so much about my supposedly baneful influence on JW, Spencer dove into comments literally from on high (while flying in a plane) to inform him that he would ban me (a "clown" in Spencer's terms) "ASAP". So we may not meet again in this forum. But you know where else to find me.

Sorry to hear that. Yes, I know where, and do stop by there periodically.