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It begins Saturday in Istanbul.
What a galere.
There is "Lord" Ahmed, fresh from Khartoum, no doubt expecting to be basking in gratitude from the non-Muslims of Great Britain, for though Al-Bashir had decided to free Gibbons before Ahmed and his traveling companion (a Muslim woman, not married to Lord Ahmed, whom some fellow Believer should not forget to punish for her crime) arrived.
There is the hysterical, ex-nun Karen Armstrong, who needs no introduction, and who believes that Muhammad's essential function was that of Peacemaker. She apparently still has not figured out that she really must reread the Qur'an, and then find out all about the Hadith (and how their "authenticity" has been ranked to Muslim satisfaction) and the Sira -- for Aisha, the Khaybar Oasis, the decapitation of the Banu Qurayza, the murders of Abu Afak and Asma bint Marwan are just of the few of the things that Armstrong forgot to mention, much less to comprehend, in her guide to nothing and nowhere, Islam: A Short History.
There is the crazed antisemite Norman Finkelstein, for whose parents -- Holocaust survivors -- we must feel sorry. About him nothing more need be said except that at such gatherings one completely lunatic Jewish person is de rigueur, and apparently Israel Shamir was otherwise occupied.
There is Tariq Ramadan, about whom see Frere Tariq, a book-length study of his soft-voice taqiyya (but listen for the hiss underneath at all). He is determined to make sure that the confusion and fog of war continue while Muslims make themselves as comfortable as possible in the Lands of the Infidels, settling in for the long haul and the demographic conquest that, if nothing is done, is assured. It is Tariq Ramadan who promises a new Islam, a "European Islam" that he carefully never defines. He never explains what that "European Islam's" canonical texts will look like, or how they will differ, those texts and then those tenets of Islam, from the Islam we have all seen, and grown correctly to fear, in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iran, Pakistan, indeed everywhere in the Muslim lands, among all those Muslims who take their Islam seriously -- which is to say, almost all of them, though they are very good at finding westernized, plausible, smooth-talking representatives to fan out to the capitals of the West to deny, obfuscate, and sometimes, in their own persons, to offer a false view of Islam. Think of jolly Prince Bandar, offering the port and cigars, joking with everyone from James Baker to Colin Powell about "a little corruption" in Saudi Arabia, implying that they were all men of the world, weren't they, and besides, Saudi Arabia had its ruling class, and America had its ruling class as well -- and Islam never came up, the primitive belief-system of the Al-Saud, and of the country they named after themselves. It was overlooked, and still is being overlooked, in dealings with Saudi Arabia.
There is John Esposito who no longer disguises, even in the name of his fiefdom, with his henchman John Voll and others of that unseemly ilk, the Arab money that he takes in such quantities. Years ago, toiling in the humble vineyards of Holy Cross, and merely an apologist for Islam, not the Big Entrepreneur he has become today, Esposito found his first sugar daddy in a rich Lebanese contractor, an islamochristian. Now he has progressed to the stage of cutting out the islamochristian middleman and going directly to the Saudis, and has renamed his institute after the one with the facial tic and the big-hearted -- what he wouldn't do to protect the image of Islam -- wallet.
Lean, mean, jogging John. I can see him lapping the hippodrome, as he skips some morning -- or is it the afternoon -- session? Or perhaps he'll find a track right by the Bosporus, but they're not being put up in the Ciragan Palace, you know, and perhaps security will prevent his usual jog. That's okay for John -- there's the hotel's Western-style exercise room. He can't miss his exercise, even if he does not have time to find out, doesn't want to find out, what all the Western scholars of Islam knew before the Great Inhibition set in. Even if he does not have time to read Snouck Hurgronje or Henri Lammens, or several dozen other Western scholars of Islam who studied and wrote before Said and Orientalism, he has time for his daily exercise and ablutions. Why study Islam any more at this point? He knows what he has to say, and how he has to say it. It’s the same thing, over and over again. Oh, it’s true that he had to put that little word “jihad” into a new, post-9/11 edition of his The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? because he had mentioned it, in passing, only once in the first edition. But otherwise, it’s the mixture as before, for the Apologist By Appointment To The Court Of The Guardians Of The Two Noble Sanctuaries.
They do have their work cut out for them, don’t they? What with the condemning to death of Abdul Rahman in Afghanistan, the man who attempted to convert to Christianity, and the killings not of mere Jews or Christians (in the West we can ignore that more readily) but of Buddhists in southern Thailand, and the blowing-up of the Bamiyan Buddhas, which raises the whole matter of non-Muslim statuary and other art under Islam. Where did it all go, the Greco-Bactrian artifacts of Afghanistan, and the Buddhist stupas all over Central Asia, and the ancient libraries of Mandaean manuscripts burned up by Muslims in “liberated” Iraq? The contents of those khutbas calling for such destruction are now brought to our attention by the marvelous monitoring and translation services of MEMRI, which monitoring and translation services are making Muslim Arabs extremely nervous -- for now we Infidels can eavesdrop on them as we never could before.
Most of the conference participants are Turks. The conference organizers must be disappointed that the only non-Turks who would show up were people of the distinctly low Armstrong-Finkelstein-Esposito level, exhibiting various predictable signs of mediocrity or madness or cupidity. The most famous of the Turks who is announced as coming is the present Prime Minister of Turkey. Recip Tayyip Erdogan. It was Erdogan who famously said that “the minarets are our bayonets, the domes our helmets, the mosques our barracks.” The French scholar of Islam, Anne-Marie Delcambre, found the phrase so telling that she chose to end her useful short study, “L’Islam des interdits,” with that quote from Erdogan, that demonstrates that mosques are not peaceful places of contemplation and private worship, but places from which war is made on the Infidels. "Les minarets sont nos baionnettes, les coupoles nos casques et les mosquees nos casernes.” It was Erdogan who never denounced the Turks who described American soldiers as behaving like “Nazis.” Yes, we all remember how the Nazis handed out candy and soccer balls to little Jewish children, don’t we? And how the Nazis also spent a trillion dollars trying to establish the conditions of good government and prosperity, building those schools and hospitals in Jewish areas all over Europe? Erdogan also stood for that vicious movie, with the American soldiers depicted on screen as those same Nazis, aided by a Jewish doctor who harvests organs for the American market from innocent Iraqis murdered by those American “Nazi” soldiers. It was Erdogan who in 1974, as Andrew Bostom discovered, directed and played the leading role in Maskomya, a play put on in Turkey in the late 1970s, the very title being an acronym for “Masons-Communists-Yahudi [Jews]”, and full of the usual anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
Then there is the outwardly respectable -- he was chosen to be Secretary-General of the O.I.C. -- Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu. He wears a suit and a tie. He is soft-spoken. He considers himself to be an historian of science, of “Islamic” science. Should we find anything objectionable? Well, here is how Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu described the status of dhimmi endured by Christians and Jews under Muslim rule (and by Zoroastrians and Hindus, if they were lucky, and treated as honorary members of Ahl al-Kitab, the People of the Book). He helpfully explained, in a recent address to an audience of American Infidels, that the “privilege of becoming a protected minority via an act of dhimmiship was given only to the followers of a prophet to whom a sacred book was revealed.” So that status of deliberate humiliation, degradation, and physical insecurity (for a Muslim mob or a Muslim ruler might decide to revoke this “protected” status at any point, for all kinds of reasons -- an entire community could be made to suffer if one person did not come through with the Jizyah, or otherwise misbehaved according to the Muslim view) is described by this “historian” as a “privilege” given to a “protected minority.”
And what’s more, Ihsanoglu attempts, slyly, to describe these Christians and Jews in Islamic terms, almost claiming them for Islam (just as, according to Muslims, everyone is born a little Muslim, and only falls away from the True Faith later on). He describes them as being lucky to be treated as dhimmis, which was only possible because, like Muslims, they are “the followers of a prophet to whom a sacred book was revealed” -- thus likening Moses and Jesus, quite inaccurately, I’m afraid, to Muhammad. Muhammad received his message over 23 turbulent years of scribes and -- who knows? -- possibly scribal error. I won’t bother to deal with Ekmeleddin Ihsnaoglu’s idea of what constitutes objective history, but he is one more Muslim who has no clear idea of Western standards in such matters. His last book, reviewed by the bizarre Ziauddin Sarkar in the pages of “Nature” (how that was allowed is another story), was basically not a history of Ottoman science, or “Islamic” science, but an attempt to explain why such things as the clock did not develop in the East but only in the West. You see, since the early clocks were not sufficiently accurate for Muslims to rely on them for knowing when it was time for prayers, they did not think it worth using them, or trying to improve them. Such explanations do not satisfy intelligent readers, but raise more disturbing questions about the Muslim mindset than Dr. Ihsanoglu apparently realizes.
No doubt clever secular Turks, in Turkey and abroad, know many of the names of the people showing up at this dismal event. Perhaps one of them, in the know, will write in to tell us about the others in the same galere, which I would name as the S.S. Naufragium, except that I’ve already used up that name several times, in describing the Bush Administration’s folly in Iraq, and its taking-on-water ship of state.
Posted by Hugh at December 5, 2007 8:05 AM
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at December 5, 2007 8:41 AM
Ayn Rand had a great phrase that described people like Armstrong and Esposito---"second handers."
Posted by: JSobieski at December 5, 2007 8:43 AM
Re: There is the hysterical, ex-nun Karen Armstrong, who needs no introduction, and who believes that Muhammad's essential function was that of Peacemaker.
They bring the peace of mass murder and cultural suicide-as they did in India. The more one reads that history, the more one realizes how Islam is a violent-predatory enemy of indigenous cultures. It must dominate.
All of history is the pattern of invasions and the subduing or displacement of some lately "indigenous people", "indigenous culture". Often this results in the genocide of the "indigenous people". (Istanbul is part of that pattern.) Every people on earth are part of the pattern. The peddlers of the shame-game would have folks believe the pattern is unique to Western Europe. That is a lie. It's the pattern everywhere.
Islam (BTW, unlike the British) has never really demonstrated any real respect for "indigenous cultures". What the Muslim Arab-Persian invaders did to the Hindu culture of India is a warning of what Islam will do to an indigenous culture, indigenous people. Islam has created a sectarian Ireland in India (with nukes), as the Indian Paks, the people of Bangladesh, and Indian Muslims bow to the Arab gas station and menace Hindus. India would have been better off if Islam had never darkened their door. Fear of Islam is rational. India suffers today on account of Islam.
Mujhammed was no Jesus, Karen.
Posted by: Frank at December 5, 2007 8:49 AM
I have given some thought as to why the Brits generally (but not always) tended to respect indigenous cultures. I think the reason is that their empire was rooted in their relationship to the sea and therefore their Imperialism tended to be based on trade, on commerce. They did not have a strong ideological, "religious" component of their Imperialism. That stands in contrast to Spain and the Arab Empire. The rationalization ("religion") for the destruction of indigenous cultures was embedded in Spanish and Arab Imperialism.
Islam is the engine of Arab Imperialism and was invented by "the best people" to make non-Arabs bow to the gas station. It wrecks indigenous cultures, from India, to Sudan (where Negro Africans pretend they are Arabs), to Europe, etc. Islam has no respect for indigenous cultures and is based in Arab racism. The Brits were no great shakes, but their Imperialism looks like happy bunny time compared to Arab-Islam-Imperialism.
Posted by: Frank at December 5, 2007 9:14 AM
Wonderful!
Sounds like a real wankfest of likeminded Infidelo-phobes!
But meet 'Lord' Ahmed, Baron Ahmed, of Rotherham:
Always eager to help when it comes to screwing their host country out of funds to help the ummah along, those ‘British Muslims’…
Good cop, bad cop routine. Are we all suckers?
http://sheikyermami.com/2007/12/04/lord-ahmed-baron-ahmed-of-rotherham/
at December 5, 2007 9:23 AM
I have come to the conclusion that Islam should be studied as part of an Imperialism Studies program. It is probably the most lethal Imperialism-rationalization-system invented and indigenous cultures should fear it.
There seems to be two forms of Imperialism: one is commercial at its root, and the other is ideological-"religious" at its root. The later tends to a plunder-Imperialism (Spain, Arabs, Nazis, e.g.). The commerce rooted Imperialism will tend to respect indigenous cultures more than Islam style Imperialism. Islam is lethal to indigenous cultures. It must dominate.
(BTW, America is very much like Britain in its Imperialism. It is primarily a commercial based-sea-power based empire. However, I think Americans are not happy with our imperialism and see it as a danger to democracy at home. Empires and Republics don't mix. It's one or the other.)
Posted by: Frank at December 5, 2007 9:35 AM
Here is a interesting response to and article. This proud individual justifying punishment for Gillian Gibbons lives in USA!!!!.
http://www.hindu.com/2007/12/05/stories/2007120553621002.htm
Ask any person belonging to any religion how he or she would feel if an animal is named after an object or a person of his or her religious devotion. It is just that incidents related to Muslims are exaggerated so that the hatred against Islam and Muslims grows to the advantage of those who have an agenda against them.
Let us not use the words religious sensitivities in parenthesis to save the likes of Gillian Gibbons from learning about them the hard way.
Basheer A. Khan,
Garden Grove, California
at December 5, 2007 9:45 AM
Frank-
Really fascinating comparison of British and other imperialisms. Only Leopold of Belgium ever attained the brutality of Islamic imperialism and relatively briefly. Ahhh, Belgium.
Posted by: poetcomic1 at December 5, 2007 9:46 AM
A star-studded convention, to be sure. But, what I'm wondering is: who are the psychologists and psychiatrists who will be addressing this "phobia" from the lecturn?
What? No psychiatrists? No psychologists?
Islamophobia can't be a phobia, then, in the clinical sense of what makes a phobia a phobia.
Hmm... That makes this conference sound less legitimate than scuba divers getting together to discuss hydrophobia (if there was a convention on that one, I missed it), skydivers talking about acrophobes (missed that conference, too), or world travelers pondering the vagaries of agorophobes.
Which Islamophobes will be in attendance? I mean, if there's no one there to be helped to overcome this horrible, irrational fear, why talk about it, unless all of the members are planning to hang out a shingle afterward?
Talking about other people's phobias does little to alleviate them, even when they are true phobias.
Posted by: Abscedere at December 5, 2007 10:31 AM
Norman Finkelstein has his problems, being a fanatical antizionist, but he is neither a "crazed antisemite" nor (as he's been described elsewhere) a "disciple of David Irving". (He has said nice words about Irving, as have a number of perfectly respectable historians.) These distinctions are important, and should be observed.
That said, I'm looking forward to reading more about his, Armstrong's, and Esposito's contributions to the conference. I'd say that the biggest nutjob among the is not Finkelstein but Armstrong.
Posted by: Karl Pov at December 5, 2007 11:18 AM
Don't forget William Baker, the "scholar" who thinks every Jew who arrived in Palestine after the beginning of the British Mandate in 1917 should decamp to his country of origin. See
http://greenspiece.blogspot.com/2007/12/confab-and-creepo.html
Posted by: Papa Whiskey at December 5, 2007 11:34 AM
"Don't forget William Baker, the "scholar" who thinks every Jew who arrived in Palestine after the beginning of the British Mandate in 1917 should decamp to his country of origin".- Papa Whiskey
Much of the double standard on this is rooted in the big lie that Imperialism is only a Western European phenomena. Actually, West Europe came late to the game. And the commercial based nature of British Imperialism is/was far more preferable to these ideological-"religious" plunder imperial-isms of Nazis, Spain, Arabs, Turks, etc.
Arab-invented Islam has no respect for indigenous cultures. Muslims (if they applied their pretended pure standard honestly) should be required to get out of Kosovo, Istanbul, etc. The truth is that Jews have more historic claim to Israel as the original "indigenous people" than Arabs.
The big difference between the West and Islam in this matter is that the West has become very self-critical of these rationalizations for swiping other folks real estate. They take advantage of that. Meanwhile, Islam is still self-righteous and has not yet faced the truth re its criminal role (India, e.g.) in history.
Israel originally belonged to the Jews. They are the original indigenous people-(especially the Jews there from the Mideast and North Africa).
(BTW, soon the Serbs will be saying "Next year in Kosovo" as the Jewish people have said "Next year in Jerusalem" for so many years.-LOL)
We have to get beyond this shame-game bullshit hustle played by Arabs and other Muslims and critically analyse Islam for what it is: it is a cover for Imperialism. They should be held to their pretended standard-especially Arabs.
at December 5, 2007 12:14 PM
Why doesn't it occur to the Fink and Armstrong types to say that Muslim invaded places such as Kosovo or Istanbul should be returned to the Serbs and Greeks? but they will say that Israel should be returned to the "Palestinians".
The reason is that we have been sold a big lie that only Western Culture-civilization(especially the sea nations of West Europe)have been imperialistic. The attack on Israel's right to exist, in part, is based on acceptance of this hustle that pretends that Islam is not a very vicious cover for Imperialism, that only the West does such things.
Why shouldn't Turks be required to get out of Istanbul and return it to the Greeks? Why not? Why should we pretend that Imperialism is only a West European phenomenon? Why shouldn't Arabs-Persians and other Muslims pay reparations for the invasions of India and the creation of a sectarian nightmare there? Why don't the Muslim Arabs return the original temple to the Jews? They took it from them and put a Mosque there. Return the temple ground. Why not?
Posted by: Frank at December 5, 2007 1:09 PM
"Why shouldn't Turks be required to get out of Istanbul and return it to the Greeks? Why not? Why should we pretend that Imperialism is only a West European phenomenon? Why shouldn't Arabs-Persians and other Muslims pay reparations for the invasions of India and the creation of a sectarian nightmare there? Why don't the Muslim Arabs return the original temple to the Jews? They took it from them and put a Mosque there. Return the temple ground. Why not?"
But how far back do we go? Maybe something was a Christian church or a synagogue first, but before then it may well had been a Visigothic temple or something else. Should we give all of these structures back? I don't think it's practical.
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at December 5, 2007 1:28 PM
"Arab-invented Islam has no respect for indigenous cultures."
Neither did the Christians, when they came to the New World and all but annihilated its original inhabitants.
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at December 5, 2007 1:28 PM
Frank:
I don't think it is accurate to say that the U.S. commercial activity in the world today can properly be called "imperialism." For one thing, there is no annexation of territory. For another, as you hinted at, commercial exchanges are culturally non-judgmental. The principle behind commerce (and capitalism) is to serve the customer--to find out what he needs from you, and what you need from him, and make a trade. Of course, there are individual actors who will behave poorly in this regard. But in general, putting the customer in charge, and making every effort to please him, is not imperalism.
I am not saying that what the U.S. is doing is absolutely good. Commercial transactions are inherently amoral (note, I did not say immoral). So, for instance, if the indigenous "culture" demands bribes to get things done, then, to an international businessman, those "fees" just become another cost of doing business. Also, if the indidgenous "culture" satisfies its contracts using slave labor, disguised or otherwise, that abhorrent situation is often overlooked by the international businessman, or else somehow rationalized as an unfortunate temporary tragic circumstance that will disappear naturally as economic progress is made.
After the Cold War, the United States, as the last one left standing in a horrific century-long world-wide brawl, had a choice to make. The first (conservative) was to substantially pull back from the world and finally start taking care of chronic problems at home, or (liberal) stay engaged everywhere internationally to make sure that yet another expensive and tragic brawl did not start growing out of some newly festering resentments. For better or worse, but not for imperial reasons at all, she chose the latter.
In my view, it is immoral to prop up the Mohammedan Slave Empire. It is immoral to do anything, commercially or otherwise, to delay the decay and death of that hideous and unreformable ideology called Islam.
With respect to Dar al-Islam, we must respect their "culture." That is to say, we must respect the Islamic unwavering commitment to the enslavement of our own people and to the complete erasure of our civilization. Therefore, U.S. commercial policy as enforced by our government--as well as all other policies, namely, military (except for occasional short duration disarming raids), political, and especially immigration--should be based on absolute quarantine of the Islamic world--that is, this is one clear case when being judgmental is required.
The remainder of the world we (the U.S.) can trade with as friendly economic partners. But we should never feed the Islamic crocodile. In this qurantine effort, our "allies," as well as Russia and China, will gleefully undercut us. But we need to stick to principle, and publicly ridicule as immoral those who would trade with the devil, and clearly explain to them (including the Muslims) why. Let the civilizational betrayers suck in the Islamic poison--maybe some day they will come to their senses, too. For now, we in the U.S. need to protect our nation, or soon we won't have one.
In summary, we should be conservative and uncompromising with respect to the Islamic world. In the long run, our nation cannot afford not to. On the other hand, we can be liberal and accomodating with respect to the rest of the world.
Abscedere: "What? No psychiatrists? No psychologists?"
Where are the Western psychiatrists and psychologists studying Islamic dysfunctional behaviors? What massive sources of hostile and perverted material are the Koran, the Hadith, and the Sira, not to mention all the present day behavioral manifestations of the Example of Mohammed.
The "cult behavior of Islam" would make a great regular news segment, say on the nightly O'Reilly cable broadcast. O'Reilly could interview a psychiatrist every night, just as he now regularly interviews a body language expert--using current news video clips as specimens. The first Islamic psychiatric analysis segment could discuss Teddy Bear hatred. Blowing up statues of Buddha could be another. Minarets, as phallic symbols, another. The possibilities are endless.
at December 5, 2007 1:44 PM
"Neither did the Christians, when they came to the New World and all but annihilated its original inhabitants."
-- from a posting above
The Leyenda Negra dies hard, especially among those given to passing briskly along the historical cliches of the age, that so often remain unexamined. Neither the British nor the French in North America "all but annihilated the original inhabitants." As for the Spanish conquistadores, they too did not "all but annihilate" the original inhabitants, and could not have if they had tried, so vast were the territories, and so relatively small their numbers. Disease did kill a great many, but that was not part of a deliberate campaign of extermination. Many atrocious crimes were committed in the Spanish colonies by the Spanish. But they did not "annihilate" the locals, and they certainly did not commit those crimes as Christians, according to Christian doctrine.
Powerful figures in Spain itself spoke against the mistreatment of the Indians. Aside from the well-known Bartolome de las Casas, the most effective were those legal theorists and scholars, called by Samuel Johnson the "good doctors of Salamanca," who invoked Christian doctrine to declare that such mistreatment was a violation of their natural rights, of God's law. See Vitoria, see Suarez.
at December 5, 2007 2:46 PM
The early settlers did treat the Indians horribly however unlike Roobar's Muslim buddies we have tried to make it up to them.
One could never say that about Muslims. Just ask the Zorastrians in Iran... oh wait you can't. Roobar's buddies drove them out just like the Jews.
Posted by: waltc at December 5, 2007 2:49 PM
Frank says: The Brits were no great shakes, but their Imperialism looks like happy bunny time compared to Arab-Islam-Imperialism.
Thanks, Frank, we like to think so. Our empire was based on commerce, at which we excelled; not military, at which we sucked; established piece meal in 'a fit of absence of mind'. For some time now we have been trying to tell you guys over the pond, that actually, like you in the world today, 'we're the good guys'. It's taken you 200+ years to recognise this, but hey, no hard feelings.
It's tough being masters of the world, everybody hates you.
Posted by: devorgilla at December 5, 2007 3:55 PM
RoobartSbunsar-
The problem, as I've noted, is a universal problem. You prefer to do the infantile finger pointing thing ("you bad too-see" "Our side pure-you bad"-LOL).
All of history is the record (everywhere) of invasions and the subduing, the destruction of indigenous cultures, indigenous peoples (the Huns in Europe, the Turks at Istanbul, the Arabs, Spaniards, etc.) Even the the Aztecs were attempting to anhilate the Toltecs when the Spaniards arrived in 1519.
The West has become very critical and self-critical re these rationalization systems for Imperialism. However, Arab-invented-Islam shows no self-criticism with regard to their Imperialism. For example, the Islamic invasions of India have created a sectarian nightmare there. Hindu India has suffered and continues to suffer because of the Muslim destruction of their culture. Hindu India would have been better off if the Muslims had left them alone.
As long as we keep finger pointing, the beat will go on. It's time for critical analysis of Islam- which is the engine of Arab Imperialism.
Posted by: Frank at December 5, 2007 5:37 PM
"Arab-invented Islam has no respect for indigenous cultures."
Neither did the Christians, when they came to the New World and all but annihilated its original inhabitants.
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at December 5, 2007 1:28 PM
"You bad, too....See."-LOL That's the essence of your "argument". What infantile nonsense.
Roobart-you are not very bright. You missed my point.
at December 5, 2007 6:09 PM
devorgilla-
Thank you for your kind words. The Brits really behaved better than most Imperialists in history. The Arabs were atrocious in their disrespect or "indigenous cultures". Maybe the love of money is not the root of all evil.
Posted by: Frank at December 5, 2007 6:22 PM
""You bad, too....See."-LOL That's the essence of your "argument". What infantile nonsense.
Roobart-you are not very bright. You missed my point."
Infantile nonsense--then who, precisely, exterminated the Natives? In this particular case, it wasn't the Muslims.
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at December 5, 2007 6:38 PM
Arab Imperialism (somewhat like the Nazis, and Spain in the New World) was/is a plunder imperialism. Islam has to dominate and destroy indigenous cultures. Generally, but not always, the Brits (like the Dutch) tended to tolerate anything that did not interfere with commerce. In general (but not always) they respected indigenous cultures.
Posted by: Frank at December 5, 2007 6:43 PM
As regards the practices of Western 'christian' empires versus the standard practice of The Empire of Islam - two non-Western voices deserve to be heard. See 1. Lamin Sanneh, who is West African, an apostate from Islam to Christianity. See Sanneh's "Translating the Message"; "Whose Religion is Christianity? - The Gospel Beyond the West", also "Disciples of All Nations". Then see 2. V S Naipaul.
Both Sanneh and Naipaul draw attention to the singular ferocity and singlemindedness with which Islam Arabises its converts and destroys - and inculcates contempt toward - their pre-Islamic languages, history, art, and culture. Naipaul acknowledges that Christianity never went so far. Sanneh studies in detail the perennial impulse toward translation, of Christian missionaries, which tends to 'indigenise' the Christian faith, promoting the survival of languages and culture. The new societies that arise contain much from the pre-Christian world, actively preserved or charitably permitted.
Even the European past shows this very clearly. Irish Christians preserved the pagan literature of pre-Christian Ireland, even where they disapproved of it! Greek Christians preserved and copied the writings of the pre-Christian Greek thinkers and poets. English Christians wrote down 'Beowulf'. Latin Christians copied and re-copied Virgil and Tacitus, Petronius and Suetonius, even Ovid; Icelandic Christians preserved the weird, wild, pagan world of the sagas.
At the heart of Christianity, written into its deep structure, is the Jewish worldview which permanently subverts and calls into question the myth of Empire. Babel in the negative, Pentecost in the positive, both militate against the drive to dominate, devour and homogenise.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at December 5, 2007 6:50 PM
RoobartSbunsar-
You don't get my point. Arab-Persian-Muslim destruction of the Hindu culture in India was no different than Pizzaro in Peru. I'm not trying to assign blame in this universally atrocious human behavior. Don't you see that this is universal problem-a human problem? Instead, you try to assign blame. It's infantile. Let's go beyond the-blame-shame-game. The destruction of the indigenous Hindu culture in India by Muslim invaders is the same thing as what Pizzaro did in Peru. And it's the pattern of history everywhere-on every continent.
We have have to stop the "we pure-you bad" game. It's infantile. Islam is no different-it's just another rationalization system for imperialism and the destruction of indigenous cultures.
Posted by: Frank at December 5, 2007 6:55 PM
Frere Tariq and that 'European Islam' which he carefully never defines.
Yes, and that 'European Islam' needs a 'moratorium' on stoning, according to the slick & sly Tariq Ramadan, he said it in his TV debate with Sarkozy.
Quite a piece of work, this jihad ape. But no matter how they package it, the madness seeps on through....
Posted by: sheik yer'mami at December 5, 2007 7:32 PM
Frank,
Your point is silly. What exactly is your point?
You say we must get rid of "we pure - you bad". Hmmmmm. Well, that would mean keeping people from discerning good from bad.....in any and every aspect of human life. Your desire to get rid of "we pure- you bad" means getting rid of human thought and opinion. Follow the logic, that's where it leads.
No, no. The REAL issue is not "we pure-you bad". The REAL issue, as you said, are rationalizations for imperialism and the destruction of indigenous cultures.
And that is what Hugh and others here are trying to get you to understand. You are the one missing their point, and their point is this:
There is NOTHING in Christianity that necessarily leads to imperialism, or that necessarily inspires or commands Christians to use force against non-believers, or destroy indigenous cultures deliberately through violent, oppresive means.
So, even if Christians are taught "we pure - you bad", that in and of itself gives them no right, by logic or by their own religious laws, to use violence to spread their faith, to biuld empires, or destroy indigenous cultures. A belief in one's superiority over another does not necessarily lead to violence or oppression towards the inferior one.
Unfortunately, in Islam there are commands to use violence in order to spread Islamic law around the globe, hence creating an Islamic Empire.....which is essentially an Arab Empire.
So, let's review:
1) "we pure - you bad" does not necessarily lead to violence, imperialism, or destruciton of indigenous cultures.
2) The real problem is rationalizations that inspire imperialism, violence towards outsiders, and destruction of indigenous cultures. (as you said)
3) Both Christianity and Islam foster "we pure - you bad" notions within its followers...which is not alone sufficient for inspiring violence
4) Islam has clearly posited commands for Muslims to use violence to create an Islamic empire....as well as the example of Muhammed who did the same.
5) Christianity has no such commands for believers to use violence to spread Christian law and create a world-wide Christian empire.
There's a clear and big difference there....a BIG difference.
at December 5, 2007 7:43 PM
RoobartSbunsar-
You begin with your desired conclusions and then defend them. And you will respond with the Bababouie-Islamophobia nonsense when things don't go your way. ("We good-you bad-bababouie, bababouie, Islamophobia, bababouie..") You need to be right all the time. And when you are proven wrong-you don't accept it, but become malicious and want to degrade the person who has facts that contradicted you.
Posted by: Frank
at December 5, 2007 7:57 PM
vashine-
I don't disagree with you. It is true that there is nothing in Christ's teachings that points to supremacism and I think Christ was right that we must take the log out of our own eye before we can remove the speck from our brother's eye. (One has to totally disregard the teachings of Jesus to behave as Pizzaro (who had a lot of logs in his eye)did in Peru. However, if Pizzaro had been a Muslim, he would have had gobs of verses in the Quran to justify his behavior. There is indeed a big difference.)
Christ condemned deception-hypocracy and said deception comes from the "evil one". He never condemned sinners, but he sure did kick-ass with hypocrites. It's the hypocritical "we good-you bad" attitude which blinds us to the our universal sinfulness. It goes to the hardest teaching of Jesus: we must abandon all deception. It's a tough teaching.
Posted by: Frank at December 5, 2007 8:30 PM
"No, no. The REAL issue is not "we pure-you bad".
vashine
Sorry. I stand by what I said. It's the Pharisee in us that has us blind. It's the deception, the hypocracy, that is the root of so many human problems-and it leads to violence. We must get rid of our inner pharisee. Maybe Jesus will start we me on this because I too have an inner Pharisee. That's not good.
Posted by: Frank at December 5, 2007 8:48 PM
I don't think there is any hypocrisy in resisting, fully and completely, the Islamisation of the West.
We Westerners have done enough self-criticising, even while we bring medical and technological advances to the world.
The last thing the West needs right now is to turn inward for yet another round of self-criticism. We've done that already, enough. We've even taken it too far.
We know our faults. We know our faults and our strengths enough to know that yes, we are part of a morally superior civilization and that Islam is not only backwards and sick, but violent and dangerous.
Interacting with lesser cultures doesn't necessitate violent conflict. But interacting with lesser cultures that demand your submission to them, at the point of a sword, gives us every legal and moral right to use force to defend our nations.
And no, we don't need to be fully aware of or apologetic about our own faults before pointing the finger at Islam. We know enough, we know plenty to point the finger at Islam. And there's not one bit of hypocrisy in it.
I don't think you're talking about deception. We are imperfect are we not? Only Jesus can clean us of our imperfections, including all deceptions. We can and should try to abandon those deceptions we are able to recognize, but our inherent imperfection renders us unable to perfect ourselves, or to abandon all deception. ONly Jesus and the Holy Spirit can do the perfecting, no?
This is why I don't think you're speaking of deception. I think you're speaking of perfection.
I think you are trying to say that we should somehow completely avoid being hypocrites while we battle Islam. I think that stems from a desire to see perfection in waging our war against Islam.
You want to avoid hypocrisy by abandoning all deception about ourselves. Only then can we fight Islam without being hypocrits, correct?
Yet, as I have said before, we are imperfect and we cannot perfect ourselves, so that self-criticism you wish for us Westerners to engage in will be never ending. Thus, we can never, in your eyes, point the finger at Islam because that would be "hypocritical", and thus we would be engaging in some sort of childish "we pure - you bad" game that you find is a cause of violence.
So, you're really hung up on this whole "inner Pharisee" thing being a cause of violence. I didn't know that telling others to eat healthy while I have McDonalds every day actually causes me to break out in violence against others. Wow, I'll be sure not to be hypocritical anymore.
You're hung up on this hypocrisy thing for some reason and I have no idea why.
I think it's some desire to see our side be perfect, which will never happen.
You also seem insistent upon placing some of the blame of this conflict on the West's "hypocricy".
That is dangerous and sounds suspiciously like liberal guilt to me. It is also a ridiculous request in light of the period of self-criticism the West has already gone through and in light of the vicious nature of Islam.
Just a few questions to clarify more of your thought:
How much more self-criticism must we engage in before we Westerners are allowed, in yours eyes, to point the finger at Islam?
Does it matter whether or not we are fully aware of our own shortcomings before defending ourselves properly from an obviously backwards, violent, oppresive ideology that we are superior to?
How are we to be completely non-hypocritical while fighting Islam and Muslims when the Bible and God say we are imperfect, to the point of never even being able to recognize and fix our imperfections (hence we will ALWAYS, on some level, be "hypocrits" while fighting Islam?
Since we can never be perfect, do we then have any right to fight Islam and Muslims? Or does such "hypocrisy" render our cause "not a good thing"?
If hypocrisy is not completely avoidable, yet we still have the moral high ground and right to fight back Islam, then why all the fuss about "hypocrisy" if it's so obvious Islam is bad and we have a right to fight it and point the finger?
Posted by: vashine at December 5, 2007 11:45 PM
"I'd say that the biggest nutjob among the is not Finkelstein but Armstrong."
Yes , bit of an Hobson's choice , which one will be worse? Of course there's no real choice when discussing a delusion from within the delusion.
at December 6, 2007 12:30 AM
"Disease did kill a great many, but that was not part of a deliberate campaign of extermination."
Slavery and sujugation of Indians by even the first explorers such as Columbus was common place but let us proceed to a period some centuries later. A period when disease was greater understood so that in North America , during the 1800's Small pox was able to be deployed as a deliberate weapon against the indigenous Indians of the mid-west. So was genocide the intent? See Howard Zinn , see Ward Churchill.
Posted by: David Xavier at December 6, 2007 12:42 AM
"See Howard Zinn? See Ward Churchill?"
You must be kidding.
Look, Ward Churchill's claims have been ripped to shreds by so many people that it hardly is worth repeating here. Besides, I need my beauty sleep.
Here's just a bit, from a lengthy piece by Guenter Lewy that can be found on-line, and is worth reading in full:
"A second, even less substantiated instance of alleged biological warfare concerns an incident that occurred on June 20, 1837. On that day, Churchill writes, the U.S. Army began to dispense "'trade blankets' to Mandans and other Indians gathered at Fort Clark on the Missouri River in present-day North Dakota." He continues: Far from being trade goods, the blankets had been taken from a military infirmary in St. Louis quarantined for smallpox, and brought upriver aboard the steamboat St. Peter’s. When the first Indians showed symptoms of the disease on July 14, the post surgeon advised those camped near the post to scatter and seek "sanctuary" in the villages of healthy relatives.
In this way the disease was spread, the Mandans were "virtually exterminated," and other tribes suffered similarly devastating losses. Citing a figure of "100,000 or more fatalities" caused by the U.S. Army in the 1836-40 smallpox pandemic (elsewhere he speaks of a toll "several times that number"), Churchill refers the reader to Thornton’s American Indian Holocaust and Survival.
Supporting Churchill here are Stiffarm and Lane, who write that "the distribution of smallpox- infected blankets by the U.S. Army to Mandans at Fort Clark . . . was the causative factor in the pandemic of 1836-40." In evidence, they cite the journal of a contemporary at Fort Clark, Francis A. Chardon.
But Chardon's journal manifestly does not suggest that the U.S. Army distributed infected blankets, instead blaming the epidemic on the inadvertent spread of disease by a ship's passenger. And as for the "100,000 fatalities," not only does Thornton fail to allege such obviously absurd numbers, but he too points to infected passengers on the steamboat St. Peter's as the cause. Another scholar, drawing on newly discovered source material, has also refuted the idea of a conspiracy to harm the Indians.
Similarly at odds with any such idea is the effort of the United States government at this time to vaccinate the native population. Smallpox vaccination, a procedure developed by the English country doctor Edward Jenner in 1796, was first ordered in 1801 by President Jefferson; the program continued in force for three decades, though its implementation was slowed both by the resistance of the Indians, who suspected a trick, and by lack of interest on the part of some officials. Still, as Thornton writes: "Vaccination of American Indians did eventually succeed in reducing mortality from smallpox."
To sum up, European settlers came to the New World for a variety of reasons, but the thought of infecting the Indians with deadly pathogens was not one of them. As for the charge that the U.S. government should itself be held responsible for the demographic disaster that overtook the American-Indian population, it is unsupported by evidence or legitimate argument. The United States did not wage biological warfare against the Indians; neither can the large number of deaths as a result of disease be considered the result of a genocidal design."
If Ward Churchill is a guide to nothing and nowhere, Howard Zinn is at least a cut above. But he is still an overstater and a misstater. I do enjoy, and agree with, his denunciation of malefactors of great wealth -- a permanent problem in this country, though hardly unique to us, but that is not enough to make one overlook, and forgive, the tendentious rest of what he offers.
For textbooks on American history, nothing surpasses the "American Republic" (2 vols.) by Morison and Commager. I have heard that the later editions have had the prose simplified for the current crop of semi-literate students, or perhaps the book has been judged too difficult despite the rewriting, and is no longer being adopted in courses. Everything is going to hell in a handbasket, of course, but what else can one expect when what is offered up as "education" is confused with mere vocational training, and furthermore, when the curriculum so often reflects a tender solicitude for those who have no business being in college in the first place, combined with an indifference to the superior, but often bored, student.
Ward Churchill? Howard Zinn? How dumb do you think I am?
Posted by: Hugh at December 6, 2007 1:08 AM
"Why doesn't it occur to the Fink and Armstrong types to say that Muslim invaded places such as Kosovo or Istanbul should be returned to the Serbs and Greeks? but they will say that Israel should be returned to the "Palestinians". "
My educated guess is that they're whoring themselves out for petrodollars.
Posted by: Gary Rosen at December 6, 2007 3:51 AM
Hugh-
Ward Churchill is a perfect example of a guy dominated by his inner pharisee. Imagine some Caucasian guy pretending he is an American Indian? It's real Jim Nutter stuff-and it's amazing that he was not nailed earlier on this. He's a complete fraud.
Deception alters perception. It blunts the mind's capacity to think precisely and logically and to see truth and falsehood. So the deciever is the first victim of deception. This RoobartSbunsar and folks like Fibrahim Hooper are practically retarded in terms of ability to admit truth and discuss matters logically. Deception ruins the mind as it becomes a habit of thought.
Posted by: Frank at December 6, 2007 10:32 AM
Look at the program, and you will find Finkelstein is still listed as "professor" and his cv still lists him as teaching at De Paul University. His "contribution" is typically inane, arguing that it is "understandable" that Arabs deny the Holocaust, since the Israelis themselves deny their "holocausts" and the U.S. does the same.
Posted by: hetongzhi at December 8, 2007 7:29 AM
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