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Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald explains the reasons why jihad is being fought in Thailand:
The Thailand jihad keeps escalating, with continuing Muslim attacks on Buddhist monks, schoolteachers, farmers, and policemen in the south. The grievances of those Muslims are not about jobs and "poverty"; they are about the Thai being non-Muslims. That is their crime. And for that they must pay. They have no right, as Infidels, to rule over Muslims. It is wrong, it is unnatural, it is an offense against Allah, and his people. It cannot be tolerated. That is the view. Sometimes it is explicitly expressed, sometimes it is expressed in veiled terms, sometimes it is denied. But it is there. It cannot be otherwise.In school one learned, in world history, that "Buddhism disappeared from India, but moved to China." A mysterious statement, that, but no one thought to inquire further. Now we know: Buddhism disappeared from India because of the Muslim invasion; the mass destruction of Buddhist temples and statuary, and the smaller number of Buddhists (as compared to Hindus) account for its disappearance. Had Muslims conquered China, Buddhism would have disappeared there as well.
It is important to remember that the Bamiyan statues were only the last of tens of thousands of statues destroyed, over hundreds of years, by Muslims in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, in what is present-day Pakistan, Kashmir, and India, in Malaysia, Indonesia (600,000 Chinese murdered by Muslims in the 1960s, massacres described as being directed at "Communist fifth-columnists" when in fact it was a Jihad directed at a non-Muslim minority), and now in Thailand with these attacks on Buddhist monks, temples, and believers -- all of this should remind us that Jihad should not be thought of as an attack on the West, but as an attack on all non-Muslims. What unites the Coptic caretaker at the Patmos Center in Egypt, the Episcopalian bond trader, the Assyrian and Armenian Christian women shot dead in Baghdad, the Italian monks killed in Algeria, the Hindu peasants slaughtered in Kashmir and in India, the Buddhist monks killed in Thailand, the Christian Pakistanis killed in hospitals, schools, and churches, the Orthodox held hostage in a Moscow theater, and....you can fill in the list yourself -- is one thing: the ideology of Islam, as it relates to the Unbeliever. There is no "war of ideas" (pace the moronic Tom Friedman); there is simply the ideology of Islamic jihad.
But of course you won’t often hear that from those waging this jihad. Instead, they will, as they always do, point to various egregious provocations by non-Muslims. So here, for the jihadist on the run, is a short list of reasons they can invoke for beheading Buddhists in Thailand. In fact, there are 10,000 reasons why Thai Buddhists are being murdered by the local Muslims:1) The American forces have not punished those Rafidite dogs, the Shi'a, for treating Sunni prisoners badly.
2) The American forces in Iraq serve pork products to the troops.
3) That Danish newspaper. Those cartoons.
4) The Israeli refusal to give advice to the "Palestinians" about how to make proper use of the greenhouses (now destroyed).
5) The Israelis not preventing the "Palestinians" from destroying those greenhouses -- knowing full well that that was likely to happen.
6) The refusal of the Dutch Parliament to remove Ayaan Hirsi Ali from its ranks.
7) The refusal of the Dutch Parliament to allow local Muslims to punish Ayaan Hirsi Ali for apostasy, which is in effect preventing one religion, Islam, from dealing as it has every right to deal with those it considers its own members, and over whom Muslim courts should and do have jurisdiction.
8) The refusal of the Canadians in Ottawa to allow Muslims to be governed by Shari'a courts.
9) The cruel and completely baseless prosecution of the entirely innocent Sami al-Arian in Florida.
10) The cruel and completely baseless deportation of the entirely innocent leader of the largest Ohio mosque, Fawaz Damra.
11) The cruel and completely baseless attacks on the arrangements, the funding, the people behind or supporting the building of the Boston Mosque.
12) The cruel and completely baseless attacks on Islam by apostates from Islam such as Ali Sina and others at www.faithfreedom.org, none of whom have any right to remain free from just punishment as apostates.
13) The nasty word -- "racaille" -- uttered by Nicolas Sarkozy, Minister of the Interior, in France.
14) The complaint by the Spanish nuns in Granada that the muezzin's electronically-enhanced wail five times a day, from the gigantic mosque that was built on the height overlooking the nunnery, has been made so deliberately loud as to destroy their ability to function.
15) The refusal of the Italian state to remove all crosses from all public places everywhere in Italy, as was justly demanded by the head of the Islamic community, Adel Smith.
16) The refusal of the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera to fire Magdi Allam, an Italo-Egyptian, for his negative remarks about the Muslim Brotherhood.
17) The refusal of the University of Geneva to renew the temporary contract of Tariq Ramadan.
18) The refusal of the head of the Christian Party in Norway to cease to express sentiments sympathetic to the state, and people, of Israel.
19) The insistence of the government of Great Britain of observing a Holocaust Day ceremony, and not including Muslims as victims of that crime which they, the Muslims, regard as greater than any other -- Islamophobia, and the support which it engenders for the criminal founding of the criminal state of criminal Israel.
20) The insistence of the German state of Baden-Wurtemberg on adding certain questions for Muslims wishing to obtain citizenship.
Numbers 21 through 10,000 -- you make the list yourself. There's plenty of material.
Posted by Robert at January 9, 2006 7:26 AM
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And almost entirely unreported, in the USA at least.
DISLOYAL NYTIMES DISLOYAL WASHPOST DISLOYAL CHITRIB DISLOYAL LATIMES
Anybody heard how poor Natalee Holloway is doing? That date-rape murder story is only in its 138,000th hour of coverage on the Wahhabi-franchised FoxNews. Thailand is on what, its 5th or 6th minute of coverage. Although I could be overestimating.
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at January 9, 2006 9:40 AM
Wow Hugh!!! well said!!!
Someday, you have to speak about the mosque that is planned in Seville Spain
at January 9, 2006 10:25 AM
I noticed that no one ever mentions the fact that.
1. Thailand doesnt have any troops in Iraq
2. Thailand never supported the US in Iraq
3. So why the Jihad....
Because the Buddhists and NON Muslim...
Because there will only be peace
when
Islam the religion of Pieces reigns supreme over the world...
when Islam the religion of Butchers kills all the non muslims
when Islam the religion of genocide wipes out all the jews..
when all Christians are DEAD and america is in flames...
Then there will be islamic pieces err... peace throughout the world as there wont be anything left...
Posted by: jingoist at January 9, 2006 11:27 AM
This is the second time the writer has said 600,000 Chinese were killed in the sixties in Indonesia and this is the second time I'm going to say: hogwash. I wrote a quick response to it on Indonesia News.
And as for numbers 1 through 20 I'd say about zero of them apply to Thailand. It's a localized problem, so far at least there is no foreign involvement, or I'd say, external causes or justifications.
Posted by: patung at January 9, 2006 11:27 AM
There goes the one counterfactual to Samuel Huntington's "Bloody Borders of Islam" hypothesis.
Posted by: Kepha at January 9, 2006 11:32 AM
Patung, I read your piece in Indonesia News. So far, neither you nor Hugh has provided evidence for your assertions. Would you like to be the one to rise above unsubstantiated assertions?
Posted by: Dr. Pepper at January 9, 2006 11:58 AM
"And as for numbers 1 through 20 I'd say about zero of them apply to Thailand. It's a localized problem, so far at least there is no foreign involvement, or I'd say, external causes or justifications."
-- from a posting above
That, of course, is exactly the point that the poster missed. None of those things has to do with Thailand at all. Each of them is a grievance felt by some Muslims somewhere or other. That's the point. The grievances here or there are merely local expressions of a general inability to tolerate rule in a society, a country, a civilization, where Islam does not call the shots and where Muslims do not rule. So any attempt to thwart Islam, that is any attempt to resist Muslim demands for this or that, any punishment that one attempts to mete out to those who promote Jihad in certain ways (Fawaz Damra, Sami al-Arian) and, indeed, the mere attempt to enforce the law, is cause for Muslim outrage, grading instantaneously into Muslim rage, and then into -- well, all sorts of things.
The failure to understand the entire point of the posting is itself understandable on the part of this particular poster, who would wish us not to connect any dots between the local expressions, here and there, set out in numbers 1-20 with another 9,980 to go (and even that would not exhaust the list, if we were to include the last 1350 years of history), which can all be explained by the same theoretical model -- the model which includes the passages, in Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira, that cause Muslims to believe
d1) Islam is the only true faith and adherents of other religions deserve at best treatment as dhimmis -- that is, to be subjugated to a state of permanent humiliation, degradation, and physical insecurity
2) that Islam should cover the globe, for the entire world belongs to Allah and to the best of people, the Muslims, and even within the Muslim world, especially to the Arabs, who gave Islam to the world, and also the best of men, Muhammad, uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil, whose every act and every saying, as collected in the authoritative Hadith, provide that model for all mankind.
3) Infidels have no right to oppose the spread of Islam. They may be invited to become Muslim.If they refuse, it is the duty of all Muslims to support, in whatever way makes sense, Jihad -- the struggle to extend the reach and power and might of Islam.
4) Muslims have a duty to support Jihad. They can do this in different ways. Sometimes they need only support others in the community who are actively participating in Jihad, sometimes they are obligated to participate themselves.
5) Infidels who resist Islam, or its spread, after having been invited to accept it, can be attacked, and can be killed.
6) Infidel laws may temporarily have to be accepted as applying, but this is only a temporary acceptance. Ultimately, no Infidel laws can conceivably be permitted to have effect over Muslims in the Infidel lands. Since those Infidel lands will necessarily and by divine right, fall into the lap of the Muslims.
As for the 1965-67 massacres, the 600,000 victims were all supposedly "Communists" -- an acceptable excuse, apparently, for mass murder back in those days. Many of them clearly were not. All of them were ethnic Chinese, Christians and Confucians. We are asked to believe that Islam had nothing to do with it. I agree that at the time the outside world, and the American government, blandly allowed itself to believe that Islam had nothing to do with it. In the same way, we are asked to believe that the massacre of 200,000 East Timorese Christians by the Muslim Indonesians was merely a matter of putting down a local rebellion, and there was nothing "anti-Christian" about it. Again, I refuse to believe this, and so do the East Timorese who remain.
As for those who may have survived the massacres of 1965-67, one would like to find out whether they have left testimony. Were the cries always the equivalent of "down with Communism"? Or were there other cries, as people were stabbed, shot, burned to death -- those Chinese peasants, traders, small merchants?
What, for example, has Walid said about that -- what was the role of the Muslim youth group with which he was associated at the time? Any involvement? Sukarno, a so-called "secular" Muslim, was in charge -- does this mean that Islamic hostility, Islamic hatreds, had no part in this? J'en doute.
Posted by: Hugh at January 9, 2006 12:06 PM
Here is a little something I found, on a website for Indonesian Muslims, in which a poster deplores Abdurrahman Wahid's admission, and apology, in an address in 2000 in which he admitted to the role of the Islamic group to which he himself belonged, for its participation in the so-called "anti-Communist" -- i.e. anti-Chinese, anti-non-Muslim Chinese -- pogroms of 1965-67:
"On a morning television show on March 14, [2000] President Wahid asked for forgiveness for the 1965-67 massacre of suspected members of the banned Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI), and for the role of his own organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, in the killings. He also called for repeal of a 1966 decree, TAP MPRS No.XXV, that instituted a pattern of discrimination against families of suspected PKI followers down to the third generation. The President's call, however, was greeted with noisy street protests from some Muslim groups and, in August, the MPR set aside the proposal, leaving the 1966 decree in effect." [Human Rights Watch]
Here is the Muslim poster's comment, also telling:
"There is outward and obvious attempts on the Chinese citizens part to attack Islam at its very foundations and they will not be satisfied until Indonesia is a communist country. Meanwhile it is just a matter of time when Indonesia will yet again see another President unless M'bak Megawati steels to the challenge of her position just like all Muslims the world over are having to do under international pressure and the George Bush initiated War on Muslims."
So it's those diabolical Chinese, with their "obvious attempts" to do what? "To attack Islam at its very foudnations and they will not be satisfied until Indonesia is a communist coungry" -- see how the poster, and "Patung" above, conflate what they consider to be "attacks on Islam" with necessarily being a "communist." Why, there's no difference. And those sharing that view, that mental condition, no doubt had no difficult massacring "Communists" in 1965-67 because those "Communists" were held to be "anti-Islam."
And why were they "anti-Islam"? Well, because they ate pork. Because they held festivals that had nothing to do with Islam. Because they engaged in ancestor worship. All sorts of things that Overseas Chinese practiced everywhre.
But do it in a Muslim country -- and you are "anti-Islam" and then, should it be soothing to disguise that animus as being against "Communism" (in 1965-67, you couldn't go wrong, with the American government, the major trainer and supplier of the Indonesian military for decades, if whatever you did was described as being an attack on an internal "Communist" threat).
No, there was a large dose of hatred of the non-Muslim Chinese, and those massacres, on that scale, were not about "Communism."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
at January 9, 2006 12:32 PM
Patung, I read your response in the Indonesian News. You write It was a kind of jihad, but one not directed at Buddhists, or Chinese, but largely at non-orthodox, non-devout, Muslims, the famous “abangan” social group.
I have heard similar arguments made about the Islamic jehadists in Kashmir (from where I come), i.e. that the jehadist movement is directed as much or more against the 'peaceful' muslims than against oher religions or ethnic groups. This is all hogwash. The jehadists aim first and foremost is to rid their lands of all non-muslims, i.e. infidels. They have (and continue to) announce their intentions to do so quite openly. Of course these jehadists don't take kindly to whatever little dissent there is within the muslim ranks either... but that is a secondary issue. The bottom line is that there is a common ideology in all the 'indigenous' jehadist movements across the globe, i.e. one which is clearly driven by the Koran, the Hadiths and the Sunna.
Posted by: Razdan at January 9, 2006 12:49 PM
sheik yer'mami, the riots, and rapes, of 1998 were definitely targeted against Chinese people, that is a separate issue.
As for 1965/66. Yes it was anti-communist of course. I've mainly looked at how it played out in East Java. In Surabaya a committee was formed to oversee the liquidation of the PKI, the Communist Party of Indonesia. It was composed of:
the Nahdatul Ulama, the Catholic Party, the Sarekat Islam Party, the Indonesian Protestant Party, and a military affiliated party. Christians were very actively involved in the slaughter, the Catholic youth group in particular was murderous. Now, if you go to a Catholic church today in Indonesia you will notice the majority of worshippers are ethnic Chinese, - something to bear in mind.
Out in the villages in East Java the main issue was over land. The PKI had won over much of the peasantry by their land-reform actions, they encouraged peasants to take land unilaterally. 1965 was the chance for those who resented this to settle scores. The Chinese minority had nothing to do with this, they didn't farm, they were shopkeepers.
Class and religion issues (intra-Islam) had much more to do with it than ethnic ones although there was some intra-Javanese tensions, between north coasters (devout Muslims) and south coasters (slacker Muslims). And yes there were killings of Chinese but I am certain this constituted a minority of the total.
I will get around to posting about this in further detail on my blog, it needs research and references as Dr Pepper said.
Posted by: patung at January 9, 2006 1:07 PM
Can't wait.
Posted by: Hugh at January 9, 2006 1:12 PM
"No, there was a large dose of hatred of the non-Muslim Chinese, and those massacres, on that scale, were not about "Communism." "
So now it's a "large dose". Now it's not 600,000 chinese massacred. Wer'e getting there.
at January 9, 2006 1:18 PM
"Can't wait."
Yes, sometimes it's better to wait, get your facts straight first, etc, before making I-heard-it-from-someone-and-it-confirms-my-prejudices-so-it-must-be-right statements.
Posted by: patung at January 9, 2006 1:22 PM
jingoist wrote:
"Because the Buddhists and NON Muslim...
Because there will only be peace
when
Islam the religion of Pieces reigns supreme over the world...
when Islam the religion of Butchers kills all the non muslims
when Islam the religion of genocide wipes out all the jews..
when all Christians are DEAD and america is in flames...
Then there will be islamic pieces err... peace throughout the world as there wont be anything left..."
No, there wouldn't be peace just yet. If the entire world were islamic, there would be nobody to feed them, nobody to sustain them, nobody else's wealth to plunder, nobody to kill, except each another. If that circumstance were to happen (and I don't believe for a minute that The Almighty would allow it in His universe), the hideous, unnatural creature of islam would devour itself.
Posted by: Infidel33 at January 9, 2006 2:16 PM
"Now it's not 600,000 chinese massacred."
-- from a posting above
Why do you write that? I didn't retract the figure of 600,000 Chinese.
Nor did I retract, either, that while these were mass murdering was directed "only" at members of the Communist Party, that the Muslims were eager to express their own hatred, part-race hatred but mostly hatred of the Chinese pork-eating ancestor-worshipping Infidels, and that therefore to seek to explain it away as occuring under the "secular" Sukarno just won't do.
Look again at what I posted above, and especially at what Wahid said, when he apologized "for the role of his own organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, in the killings. He also called for repeal of a 1966 decree, TAP MPRS No.XXV, that instituted a pattern of discrimination against families of suspected PKI followers down to the third generation. The President's call, however, was greeted with noisy street protests from some Muslim groups."
Why protests just from Muslim groups? Why not those murderous Catholic groups the poster in question tells us existed and played such a prominent role -- with no evidence supplied whatsoever -- in the mass killings of 1965-67. (It's taking him a while, apparently, to come up with that evidence -- but as I said, we'll wait right here for it, and be happy to write an article about the whole matter of the mass murder of the Chinese in Indonesia in 1965-67 just as soon as he presents his evidence that Islam had nothing to do with it).
Let's all wait for this evidence from one "Patung" who appears very interested in protecting Islam, and Indonesian Muslims, from any suggestion that they have ever behaved murderouslly toward non-Muslims, precisely becasue they are non-Muslims.
And for those who wish to go back into the works of the great Dutch scholar Snouck Hurgronje, look at one of his books, translated and available in English, "The Acehinese." When it comes to Islam and the attitudes toward non-Muslims, nothing changes. The behavior remains, and in some cases a good record of that behavior -- especailly in modern times, when it has been harder to rewrite history or efface the evidence. The record remains -- but only for those who care to look into that record, and refuse to accept the usual transparent apologetics.
Posted by: Hugh at January 9, 2006 2:36 PM
Being of a mathematical bent, I hate to get so
specific. Anywhere there are mohammdans in a
nonmohammadan society, you can expect a jihad.
It may take some time, depending on their numbers, and how tough the humans are against the mohammadan
incursion, but it the threat will always be there.
Ship them all out.
at January 9, 2006 2:54 PM
Then where is your evidence for 600,000 chinese killed?
Was anyone else killed, besides Chinese, and how many?
You seem to object to my using a pseudonym. One of the men who did the first Bali bombings lived about 10 mins' drive from where I, and my family, currently reside. Excuse me if I dont use my real name.
Of course Muslim groups were involved, who said they weren't? The NU Ansor group was probably the worst. Some of them indeed saw it as jihad. I merely pointed out the involvement of Christians to show you it is not as simple as you wish it to be.
Who on earth said Islam had nothing to do with it? Not me. Not the whole story though. As for writing my own take on the matter I was thinking of something a little more thoughtful and worked-out than some copy and paste jobs here.
Posted by: patung at January 9, 2006 3:40 PM
Patung:
Posting #1:
"[Hugh writes that] 600,000 Chinese were killed in the sixties in Indonesia and this is the second time I'm going to say: hogwash. I wrote a quick response to it on Indonesia News.
And as for numbers 1 through 20 I'd say about zero of them apply to Thailand. It's a localized problem, so far at least there is no foreign involvement, or I'd say, external causes or justifications."
In other words, Patung Postiing #1 says: 1) 600,000 Chinese victims in 1965=67 massacres of "Communists" -- "hogwash." 2) Local conditions explain Muslim attacks on Thai non-Muslims. Nothing to do with Islam, as the original article suggests in its reasons #1-20.
Patung Posting #2, after other posters have referred to later pogroms in Indonesia against non-Muslim (as opposed to those Chinese who both take local names, and also pretend, or perhaps really do, accept Islam, and thus hope to become exempt from the anti-Chinese Infidel hostility) Chinese, casually admits to that:
"sheik yer'mami, the riots, and rapes, of 1998 were definitely targeted against Chinese people, that is a separate issue."
Then, still in Patung Posting #2, he tells us that "[a]s for 1965/66. Yes it was anti-communist of course." This apparently constitues the "proof" we are seeking for its "anti-communist" nature -- the statement that it "was anti-communist of course." Then we are told, without evidence presented, that a whole host of Christian groups were deeply involved in those "anti-Communist" massacres:
"the Catholic Party, the Sarekat Islam Party, the Indonesian Protestant Party, and a military affiliated party. Christians were very actively involved in the slaughter, the Catholic youth group in particular was murderous."
All the more curious, then, that Patung should tell us that the Chinese today are to be found in such numbers in the local Catholic churches. Yet they seem not to be in the mosques. Now why would that be? Wouldn't it make sense, if they had been put upon by murderous "Catholic youth groups" not to mention the "Indonesian Protestant Party" as well as the quickly-slipped in "Sarekat Islam Party," that they might never have become Catholics at all, but remained ancestor-worshipping, pork-eating practiioners of whatever beliefs have sustained the Chinese -- and quite well, apparently -- for a few thousand years?
Then we are told that the massacres were really not so much about "Communism" as about land ownership, and attempts to redistribute the land, apparently aided by the Communists. And this had nothing to do with the Chinese but was, rather, according to the confused version of Patung (confused in that it is guided by the need to 1) deny that the Chinese were the main victims and 2) that Islam had something important to do with the killing of those entirely non-Muslim Chinese by Muslims and 3) that Christians were doing much of the killing, including a Protestant Party and a Catholic youth group described as especially "murderous."
But this mass murder of, according to Patung's Posting #3, between 1/2 million and 2 million victims, the whole thing was really an "intra-Islam" affair -- his exact description. But if it was "intra-Islam," then what's all this business of ascribing such a significant role to Christians, to the Protestant Party and to that "murderous" Catholic youth group? Was it an "intra-Islam" affair as you say -- you know, one more example of that famous "civil war within Islam" we keep hearing about, and that is supposed to make us think that Muslims are always mainly attacking other Muslims, and never those Infidels -- or wasn't it?
And now we come to Patung Posting #3, when all sorts of things become clear. First, he uses an alias because he lives close to a Muslim terrorist. My, my -- shouldn't this fact alone tell us something about how Jihadists operate, and the fear instilled in such a person? And then he suddenly, having been unable to answer the article itself in any coherent fashion, but rather incoherently (on the one hand, it was not directed at Chinese, on the other hand there were Chinese victims but they weren't the main point, and in the end it has become an "intra-Islamic" dispute but in a previous posting it could not have been merely "intra-Islamic" if some of the main participants in doing the massacring were Protestants and "murderous" Catholics.
By his last confused posting -- what happened to that promise to present us with the irrefutable evidence of Christian participation in the 1965-67 massacres? (we want that, we need that) -- he suddenly changes his tune. Notice that he know says in a tone of injured innocnence that he never meant to deny the Islamic role in the massacres (well, there it is, at long last):
"Of course Muslim groups were involved, who said they weren't? The NU Ansor group was probably the worst. Some of them indeed saw it as jihad."
Okay, there it is: Muslim groups were involved. One of the worst was a group called "NU Ansor [i.e. "Ansar: or army]. Now why do you think the "NU Ansor" had not even been mentioned in Patung Posting #1, when he listed all the groups he thought were involved in the massacre, yet here he offers the name, and what's more, calls them "one of the worst." How is it that in his posting of 1:07 P.M. there is no mention of the "NU Ansor" but suddently, in his posting of 3:40 P.M. about two and a half hours later, he has experienced Recovered Memory and the name "NU Ansor" has just come to him, and so too has come to him the understanding that yes, "of course Muslim groups were involved" and "some of themn indeed saw it as jihad."
As for the 1968 massacres in Kuala Lumpbur of 20,000 Chinese and Indians by local Muslims -- not relevant. As for the attacks in Singapore that led to the Chinese and Indians of Singapore deciding to leave the Federation of Malaysia -- not relevant. As for the long history of Muslim attacks within Indonesia on non-Muslims -- not relevant. As for the attacks on Hindus in Bali and elsewhere, and Christians in the Moluccas, East Timor, and elsewhere -- not relevant.
No, the massacres of the Chinese were: 1) the work of all sorts of groups, but Patung somehow forgot that the NU Ansor was involved until his final posting, only after someone had had the bad taste to "cut-and-paste" remarks by Abdurrahman Wahid himself about the role of a Muslim group in those massacres, and then had the further bad taste to report that the unto-the-third-generation punishment of "Communists" (code, in the main, for certain Chinese) was noisily supported by "Muslim groups" who did not want that law repealed.
The backtracking, the admission only upon being caught, the confused explanations (Christians involved, yet at the same time "intra-Islamic" ), the dislike of having to deal with people who might actually bring up unpleasantnesses hard to explain away (sheik yer'mami being particularly dogged, and hard to shake, with his knowledge of other attacks by Muslims on non-Muslim Chinese and Indians).
Well, I will wait for one thing and one thing only. The description of the "murderous" role played by Christians -- and not of a few "islamocrhistians" seeking only to preserve their own lives by pretending to go along with Muslims running amok against Infidel Chinese -- in the 1965-67 massacres.
"Bring your proof, if you be truthful."
You recognize that line, "Patung," don't you?
at January 9, 2006 6:05 PM
You say 600,000 chinese were killed. How do you know this?
Was anyone else killed, besides chinese? How many?
I said:"In Surabaya a committee was formed to oversee the liquidation of the PKI, the Communist Party of Indonesia. It was composed of:
the Nahdatul Ulama, the Catholic Party, the Sarekat Islam Party, the Indonesian Protestant Party, and a military affiliated party."
Ansor is the youth wing of Nahdatul Ulama, see above. I don't know, it's kind of hard to talk to you. Once again I mentioned the involvement of Christians to show that it was not entirely a Muslim affair. I never said Chinese were not killed, never said Muslims were blameless.
Oh and again, You say 600,000 chinese were killed. How do you know this?
Was anyone else killed, besides chinese? How many?
Posted by: patung at January 9, 2006 6:28 PM
My inability to access certain scholarly articles on the 1965-1967 period are delaying my response, but you will get it.
In the meantime, a few questions:
Why did Muhammadiya declare a Jihad?
Why in 1967, as the violence ended, was the practice of Confucianism banned by the victor in the whole affair, Suharto (who probably was in on the supposed coup in the first place, and may have arranged everything in order to come to power)? You know -- Confucianism that is practiced only by the ethnic Chinese? The ban was ended only in January 2000 by Wahid?
The figures range between several hundred thousand and 1.5 million. You know perfectly well that when I gave a figure of 600,000 Chinese I surely knew that others had been killed as well. It is like someone accusing Hitler and the Nazis of killing Jews during World War II, but that hardly implies that Hitler and the Nazis did not kill a great many other people as well.
Much more will be offered, as soon as I can get access, as I said, to certain scholarly articles that, at the moment, are not accessible.
So please keep returning to this site, Patung. I want to continue this discussion.
Meanwhile, those two questions above -- one about the declaration of Jihad by Muhammadiya, the other about the banning of Confucianism, which would hardly seem to have much to with Communism, unless "Communism" is used by some as short-hand for non-Muslim Chinese.
Posted by: Hugh at January 9, 2006 10:29 PM
Well, looks we're no further along than where we were at the beginning -- both Hugh and Patung making unsubstantiated assertions.
It's a good thing Jihad Watch isn't a peer-reviewed scholarly journal.
Posted by: Dr. Pepper at January 10, 2006 12:47 AM
"You know perfectly well that when I gave a figure of 600,000 Chinese I surely knew that others had been killed as well."
No, you never said this before, just that 600,000 chinese were murdered, you never mentioned that anyone else was killed. You focus on one thing, presumably because it fits in with your overall argument, and ignore what doesn't fit in with it.
Posted by: patung at January 10, 2006 3:49 AM
Quote Hugh: Why did Muhammadiya declare a Jihad?
Quote Me: Some of them indeed saw it as jihad.
Confucianism and other signs of chinese culture were banned. There has always been much hostility to the chinese here, never said there wasn't. The Suharto regime did tend to wrap it up in fear of China and communism, Suharto though was no Islamist. Buddhism though was not banned and remained an official religion.
Posted by: patung at January 10, 2006 4:35 AM
What's at stake here is that Hugh's vision is at the other extreme, opposite the PC extreme that sees no Islamic jihadism in any conflict; Hugh's extreme would move our strategic responses into a configuration that ignores, and therefore will be unable to exploit through Realpolitik, the attenuation of Islamic jihadism here and there (but of course not everywhere) due to sociopolitical complexities -- since, in Hugh's vision (and in that of his zealous followers), no such mitigating complexities exist.
Posted by: Dr. Pepper at January 10, 2006 10:53 AM
I looked at one of the primary materials for study of the events as they occurred in east Java here. It has some relevance to this discussion. The eye-witness mentions chinese stores being ransacked but for him the key thing is communism, and obliterating it. He makes mentions of "excesses" by "religious groups". For those with a little knowledge of Indonesia, and the place of the chinese within society here, it will be clear that the victims of said excesses are Javanese (semi-Muslim) peasants.
Posted by: patung at January 10, 2006 1:32 PM
"I looked at one of the primary materials for study of the events as they occurred in east Java here. It has some relevance to this discussion. The eye-witness mentions chinese stores being ransacked but for him the key thing is communism, and obliterating it..."
-- from a posting above
If "Indonesia News" is your idea of a trustworthy source -- I looked at this yesterday, again, and dismissed it, yet again, in my search for serious studies --- then we are not going to have much of a discussion. You know perfectly well that the coup that led to Suharto's taking power itself led to all sorts of other disruptions, and that, just as within the context of World War II as conducted by the Germans, they also found time to mass-murder 6 million Jews (and others, such as gypsies), that the disorders of that period -- about which there is so much distortion and confusion, and in which the C.I.A., or some of its agents, hell-bent on "getting rid of Communists" who might be a "fifth column for Communist China" and in those days still seeing Islam as a "bulwark against Communism" -- as the Indonesian military understood perfectly -- then of course in that context, one could also exploit the opportunity to kill large numbers of Chinese, not because they really were "Communists" but because, in the end, they were non-Muslim Chinese. And that is why both of the questions I asked you -- and your grudging admission (not mentioned in any of your previous posts) that yes, Muhammadiya had declared a Jihad, and so there were at least some Muslims who believed that that is what they were involved in, and a Jihad is not declared on Muslims, but on Infidels, and my second question -- about the immmediate banning, after the violence was over, of Confucianism, received no direct response from you, who instead started talking about Buddhism.
I'm looking for real scholarly material, on a period that everyone agrees was full of houses of mirrors and deception -- for example, what role did Suharto play in the original coup? Was it all a set-up by Suharto himself? You know perfectly well all of the various explanations that have been offered, and even today -- who knows what really went on among those generals?
But keep coming here -- and eventually when a friend who has access to all sorts of data bases and banks that I do not, provides me with the magic entry, I will post the results here.
Posted by: Hugh at January 10, 2006 9:20 PM
"Indonesia News" is not the source you fool. I almost can't be bothered with you.
I'll give you one of the examples from the primary source I cited:
In the Paree (Kediri) area there is a village in which the lurah [village headman] and Ansor together took the initiative to protect the [PKI] peasant farmers—who were only taggers-on—by giving them badges as members of Ansor or NU. They were gathered together, and coincidentally, there happened to be an operation by the military and Ansor going on. Seeing many people gathered together, the soldiers and Ansor asked the lurah who all these people were. The lurah, nervous and panicked, responded that they were PKI.Before he had finished speaking, every one of the approximately 300 people was killed, and their families were not permitted to remove their bodies so that they were buried where they lay.
Probably took them about 5 minutes. That's 300 dead peasants, on one paddy field, in one little village, in one regency, in one province. Not a chinese in sight. Obviously things like that happened elsewhere. I shall continue looking into the area on "Indonesia News", feel free to post your comments there if you disagree with my interpretations. ;)
at January 11, 2006 10:49 AM
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