| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Jihad Watch | Robert Spencer | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog |  |
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Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald surveys the New York Times' (a.k.a. the New Duranty Times) "coverage" of the global jihad:
Read the absurd justifications by various editors at The New Duranty Times for their failure to exhibit the courage displayed by all sorts of European newspapers and print the Muhammad cartoons. The Duranty editors don’t even have the courage of many smaller American papers and campus newspapers. Make those editors of those papers the future editors of The Bandar Beacon (a.k.a. The Washington Post) and The New Duranty Times (a.k.a. The New York Times). And columnists at the NDT dutifully followed suit in this lack of courage. One example that sticks in mind and craw was Michael Kimmelman's indignation about the supposed offensiveness of those Danish cartoons, followed by some faint praise for the principle of free speech.There is Tom Friedman, who if he knew anything was supposed to know about the Middle East, and who made his name as a reporter. Yes, he was a mere reporter. He had and has no understanding of the men and events he reported on, because he was reporting without any reference to, or understanding of, what Islam does. He had and has no idea of how it affects everything, from the slight differences in position of Maronites and Greek Orthodox in Lebanon, to the behavior, often otherwise inexplicable, of the Alawite military caste that controls Syria and must simultaneously be alert to challenges from local Sunni Muslims, and yet at the same time is willing to promote the Muslim agenda with unusual ferocity. This is as if to prove that Alawites are, despite their worship of Miriam, plus islamiste que les islamistes. So he didn't understand Lebanon, and he didn't understand Syria. But he wrote a book, and won a prize for a book, on the war in Lebanon. And that is the book, and the prize, that won him his column, and his ability to pontificate on the entire world (about which he knows even less than he knows about Lebanon), and to play the officious fool at all sorts of settings, from Davos to the $45,000-per-lecture audiences of the innocent, who come to hear the world simplified and made plain to them, by simple-minded Tom Friedman, a monstrous product of The New Duranty Times.
And there is another columnist, Nicholas Kristof, who has described the mass murders in Darfur by Arab Muslims of non-Arab (black African) Muslims, but who appears to be constitutionally unable to understand why what is happening in Darfur is simply the expression of Arab supremacism that is part of Islam, for which Islam is a vehicle. He doesn't get it, or doesn't want to. He cannot relate the Arab looting, raping, and killing of black Africans, and their status in Arab Muslim eyes as inferior Muslims, not-conceivably-complete Muslims, because they are not Arabs, to the attitude of Arabs in Iraq toward the Kurds -- and the complete indifference of the Arab League to the Al-Anfal campaign of Saddam Hussein's Arabs carried out against the Kurds. Nor does Kristof manage to relate what is happening in Darfur to another example of Arab supremacism: the cultural and linguistic imperialism on display in Algeria against the Kabyles, or Berbers. Over the past decade or two they have been rioting in Tizi-Ouzou and elsewhere, demanding that the Berber language, Tamazight, be permitted in public places. Nor can Kristof relate any of this to the ruling Arab generals who run a stratokleptocracy (rule by thieving military) in Algeria, not unlike that of Mubarak, but with a greater infusion of French-trained technocrats and dipomats than the stolid Egyptian can call on.Unless and until Kristof begins to connect the Arab supremacism for which Islam is the vehicle, to what is happening in Darfur, he should not be taken seriously. And just why, his readers have a right to ask (and to be given his answer), do Egypt and Libya so strongly oppose any introduction of effective, i.e. Western, troops, who might actually put paid to the Janjaweed? For the Janjaweed is now apparently conducting their freewheeling murders over the border in Chad. But what are borders to the umma al-islamiyya? What are the borders for doing what one believes is God's work, which is to spread Islam, preferably by taking the loot of Infidels? If you have a lot of oil money flowing, then you don't have to resort to that -- but in the Sudan they are impatient, and can't wait for the oil revenues to flow. Full-fledged attacks on Infidels in southern Sudan have been temporarily halted because of Western pressure and interest and publicity. Jihadists have therefore sought a substitute, and the substitute at hand are those quasi-Muslims, those Muslims who, not being Arabs but mere blacks, cannot possibly rank as high, or be as good Muslims as any Arab on a camel can, shooting his rifle, smashing that baby's skull with the butt.
No, none of that has appeared in Nicholas Kristof's many anguished reports from Darfur. He cannot connect the Arab mistreatment of Darfur blacks to Arab mistreatment of Berbers, or Kurds, or any other non-Arab Muslims. He cannot make the connection, just as Tom Friedman cannot explain the absurdity of the "two-state solution" and other things about which he, Friedman, has been so excitably enthusiastic. That is Friedman: excitable, an enthusiast above all for whatever little title-shtick he comes up with -- "the world is flat" or "the lexus and the olive-tree" or... well, I have a good one for Friedman, but as he comes to this site to be horrified at what is said about him, I won't bother helping him out.
The New Duranty Times, The New Duranty Times.
Jock Whitney's Herald-Tribune, the Boston Evening Transcript that the son of the St. Louis furrier used as the title of a poem, and for that matter hundreds and hundreds of other newspapers have lived and then have died. So also magazines have lived and died: the North American Review, Judge, Hound and Horn, and thousands of others. Even Punch, the famous Punch that seemed as if it could not possibly sink, finally did -- glug, glug.
Ubi sunt? They ask that of men, and also of newspapers. And it will be asked, sooner than people realize, of The New Duranty Times.
Posted by Robert at March 13, 2006 11:34 AM
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I'd feel more respect for the MSM if it simply came out and said something like "Yes. We're scared." or "We don't want to furtther inflame matters when there are raving lunatics around."
The Boston Phoenix said something like that.
Fear (and not irrational fear) is obviously the real story why mild pictures of Mohammed are invisble but viscious anti-Jewish ones are shown on national TV.
Posted by: Raw Data![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 13, 2006 11:59 AM
OT but, fellow DW'ers, please, please, please flood the editor (email here) of the San Francisco Chronicle with letters challenging CAIR for the following article published today on the op-ed pages.
Dubai Ports Fallout
Islamophobia on the rise
Parvez AhmedPosted by: LisaMonday, March 13, 2006
The recent hysteria surrounding the approval of a Dubai firm to manage parts of several American ports demonstrates how fear of Islam, or "Islamophobia," can overpower rational discourse and harm our nation's true interests.
What would normally have been a routine business deal with a stable ally turned into a political fiasco that sent a "no Arabs or Muslims need apply" message to our partners in the Middle East and beyond.
Indications of how politicians from both major parties were able to exploit the Dubai ports deal appear in two new polls on attitudes toward Islam. These troubling poll results should serve as a wake-up call for all Americans who value our nation's traditions of religious tolerance and who seek to improve our sagging image in the Muslim world.
The polls, one by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the other by the Washington Post and ABC News, indicate that almost half of Americans have a negative perception of Islam and that 1 in 4 of those surveyed consistently believe such stereotypes as: "Muslims value life less than other people," and "The Muslim religion teaches violence and hatred." The Washington Post-ABC poll found that one-fourth of Americans "admitted to harboring prejudice toward Muslims," which, experts said, is "fueled in part by political statements and media reports that focus almost solely on the actions of Muslim extremists."
CAIR's survey also showed that the majority of Americans have little or no knowledge of Islam.
A majority of the respondents in CAIR's survey said they would change their views about Islam and Muslims if they perceived that Muslims condemned terrorism more strongly, showed more concern for issues important to ordinary Americans, worked to improve the status of women, and worked to improve the image of America in the Muslim world.
The results of both polls suggest that education is the key to decreasing anti-Muslim prejudice and that Muslims must do a better job of letting fellow Americans know what is being done to address their concerns.
CAIR and other American Muslim groups have repeatedly condemned terrorism of any kind. The "Not in the Name of Islam" public service announcement campaign, a fatwa against terrorism, and an online petition drive rejecting violence in the name of Islam are but a few examples.
Efforts are under way to increase the participation of Muslim women in American mosques. CAIR helped distribute a brochure, called "Women Friendly Mosques and Community Centers: Working Together to Reclaim Our Heritage," to mosques throughout the United States.
American Muslims have also worked to help build bridges of understanding between the United States and the Islamic world. American Muslim leaders recently took part in diplomatic initiatives during controversies stemming from the rioting in suburbs of Paris and the worldwide reaction to publications of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. A CAIR initiative, called "Explore the Life of Muhammad," offers free DVDs or books about Islam's prophet to Americans of all faiths.
In the past, educational and cultural exchanges promoting mutual understanding between the West and the Islamic world were viewed as a kind of frill, a nice undertaking if the resources were available. Today, such efforts ought to be viewed as long-term investments vital to the national security interests of the United States.
Islamophobia, like anti-Semitism or other forms of bigotry, should be of concern to all Americans. It was Islamophobia that prompted 44 percent of Americans surveyed in a 2004 Cornell University study to believe that some curtailment of American Muslim civil liberties may be necessary.
There is a silver lining to all this bad news. Those Americans who had a chance to meet with or interact with Muslims often tend to have more enlightened attitudes. Surveys repeatedly show that people who feel they do understand Islam are much more likely to view it positively.
Our nation's experiences since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, coupled with recent research, should spur American religious and political leaders to make fighting Islamophobia a top priority. Otherwise, we risk becoming stuck in a self-perpetuating cycle of mutual mistrust and hostility.
The best way to fight anti-Muslim prejudice and to prevent an often-predicted "clash of civilizations" is for people of goodwill in this country and around the world to open their houses of worship, homes and hearts to each other.
As the Quran, Islam's revealed text, states: "O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes so that you may come to know one another." (Quran, 49:13)
Parvez Ahmed, Ph.D., is board chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group (www.cair.com).
at March 13, 2006 12:20 PM
Btw, I'd like to address the underyling reason -- not to excuse it, of course -- why so many people left and right are blind to the dangers of Islam.
I think the simple reason is that the thought is so horrible, so depressing, for it means that in fact the Europeans are in big big trouble with we in the USA not far behind.
I think it's normal and human to want to deny and overlook and ignore potential problems. Consider how people live in flood plains. The dangers may be obvious but it's just so difficult to face realities. Consider how few Jews left Europe in the 30s. Many did but a great number figured it would just blwo over. (Not that the nations of the world were opening their doors to welcome them -- but that's another example of people not being willing to face realities: it's just such a scary thought.)
None of this is to be used as any sort of excuse but simply as cautionary words to those who are so proud of themselves for seeing the danger and so contemptuous of others for not yet being awake.
Posted by: Raw Data at March 13, 2006 12:54 PM
This is what Dr. Wafa Sultan said just the other day. Need we add more,
"The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations," she said. "It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat them like human beings. What we see today is not a clash of civilizations. Civilizations do not clash, but compete".
at March 13, 2006 1:33 PM
Interesting read, but not new to those who visit this site.
http://www.nysun.com/article/29025?page_no=1
The Voldemort Award
BY MARK STEYN
March 13, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/29025
This week's Voldemort Award goes to The New York Times for their account of a curious case of road rage in North Carolina:
"The man charged with nine counts of attempted murder for driving a Jeep through a crowd at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill last Friday told the police that he deliberately rented a four-wheel-drive vehicle so he could ‘run over things and keep going'."
The driver in question was Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar.
Whoa, don't jump to conclusions, the Times certainly didn't. As the report continued:
"According to statements taken by the police, Mr. Taheri-azar, 22, an Iranian-born graduate of the university, felt that the United States government had been ‘killing his people across the sea' and that his actions reflected ‘an eye for an eye.'"
"His people"? And who exactly would that be? Mr Taheri-azar is admirably upfront about his actions. As he told police, he wanted to "avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world."
And yet the M-word appears nowhere in the Times report. Whether intentionally or not, they seem to be channeling the great Sufi theologian and jurist al-Ghazali, who died a millennium ago but whose first rule on the conduct of dhimmis — non-Muslims in Muslim society — seem to have been taken on board by the western media:
The dhimmi is obliged not to mention Allah or His Apostle …
Are they teaching that at Columbia Journalism School yet?
A fellow called Mohammed mows down a bunch of students? Just one of those things — like a gran'ma in my neck of the woods a couple of years back who hit the wrong pedal in the parking lot and ploughed through a McDonald's leaving the place a hideous tangle of crumbled drywall, splattered patties and incendiary hot apple-pie filling. Yet, according to his own statements, Mr Taheri-azar committed an act of ideological domestic terrorism, which he'd planned for two months. He told police he was more disappointed more students weren't in his path in struck and that he'd rented the biggest vehicle the agency had in order to do as much damage to as many people as possible. The Persian car pet may have been flooring it, but the media are idling in neutral, if not actively reversing away from the story as fast as they can. Mr Taheri-azar informed the judge he was "thankful for the opportunity to spread the will of Allah", and it was apparently the will of Allah that he get behind the wheel of Allah.
Meanwhile, a new Washington Post/ABC poll finds that, in the words of the Post, "nearly half of Americans — 46 percent — have a negative view of Islam, seven percentage points higher than in the tense months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, when Muslims were often targeted for violence."
"Often" targeted? Want to put some hard numbers on that? Like to compare the "violence" Americans perpetrated on Muslims after the slaughter of thousands of their fellow citizens in the name of Allah with, say, the death toll perpetrated by Muslims annoyed over some itsy-bitsy cartoons in an obscure Danish newspaper? In September 2001, 99.99999% of Americans behaved with remarkable forbearance. If they're less inclined to give the benefit of the doubt these days, perhaps it's because of casual slurs like the Post's or the no-jihad-to-see-here-folks tone of the Times.
Ronald Stockton of the University of Michigan doesn't see it that way: "You're getting a constant drumbeat of negative information about Islam," he told the Post. By "negative information", Professor Stockton presumably means the London bombings, and the Bali bombings, and the Madrid bombings and the Istanbul bombings. But surely it's worth asking why in 2006 The Washington Post needs a man with a name like "Ronald Stockton" to explain Islam to us? The diversity bores in the media go out of their way to hire writers of color, writers of gender, writers of orientation. Yet, five years after 9/11, where's The New York Times' Muslim columnist? Where's The Today Show's Islamic weather girl? Why, indeed, are all the Muslim voices in the press broadly on the right — Amir Taheri in The New York Post, Stephen Schwartz in The Weekly Standard, Fouad Ajami in The Wall Street Journal?
If Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar is not a freelance terrorist, then what is he? Who is he? What's he thinking? In the absence of any explanatory voices from the Muslim community, all we have are the bare bones of his resume: He's a 22-year old UNC psychology major who graduated in December. And what's revealing is the link between Mr Taheri-azar's grievance and his action.
Take him at his word: he's upset about "the treatment of Muslims around the world" — presumably at the hands of Israelis on the West Bank, of the Russians in Chechnya, the Indians in Kashmir, the Americans in the Sunni Triangle and the Danes in the funny pages. So what does he do to avenge Islam?
He goes to the rental agency, takes out the biggest car on the lot, drives it to UNC and rams it into the men and women he's spent the last few years studying with and socializing with — the one group of infidels he knows really well.
How many Muslims feel similarly? Not many in America, perhaps - if only when compared to Europe: for all the multiculti blather, the US still does a better job assimilating immigrants than France or Germany. A recent poll found that 40% of British Muslims want sharia introduced in the United Kingdom and 20% sympathized with the "feelings and motives" of the July 7th London Tube bombers. Or, more accurately, 20% were prepared to admit to a pollster they felt sympathy, which suggests the real figure might be somewhat higher. Huge numbers of Muslims — many of them British subjects born and bred — see their fellow Britons blown apart on trains and buses and are willing to rationalize the actions of the mass murderers.
"East is east and west is west/And ne'er the twain shall meet," wrote Kipling. Obviously, they meet every moment of the day — the cabbie driving you to your appointment in Washington, the affable fellow at the corner store. But proximity isn't the same as understanding: Taheri-azar and that 20% of British Muslims think they know "the west" and they don't like it. By contrast, The New York Times and co insist they like "the east" but go to an awful lot of trouble to avoid finding out anything that would ruffle their illusions. The twain would never meet, said Kipling, "till Earth and Sky meet presently/At God's great judgment seat."
I'd rather find out before then. Five years after September 11th, it's astonishing how little we still know about the west's Muslim populations.
Posted by: Ben-Hur at March 13, 2006 1:45 PM
Poll of Danish Muslims
Quotes (Translation from Danish is mine):
"Below half of all Danish muslims does not approve of the violent reactions in the Middle East to the Jyllands Posten Muhammed Cartoons events. And 11 percent "have full understanding" for flag-burning, destroying of Embassies and boycotts of Danish goods, a new poll."
53 percent say that they feel more like muslims than Danes and 36 percent say they feel more like both a Muslim and a Dane. The rest feel more like a Dane.
"The survey was conducted in February from a representative sample of Muslim refugees and immigrants i Denmark."
Source:
Hver tiende danske muslim: OK til flagafbrænding
Jyllands Posten Offentliggjort 12. marts 2006 19:07 - opdateret 11:03
Quotes from the original:
"Under halvdelen af de danske muslimer tager klart afstand fra de voldsomme reaktioner, der har været i Mellemøsten på Muhammed-tegningerne. Og 11 procent har "fuld forståelse" for flagafbrænding, ambassadeødelæggelser og boykot af danske varer, viser en undersøgelse, som Catinét har lavet for Ugebrevet A4.
"Undersøgelsen er foretaget i februar blandt et repræsentativt udsnit af muslimske flygtninge og indvandrere i Danmark. Kun to procent siger i undersøgelsen, at de i den aktuelle situation føler sig mest som danskere, mens 53 procent føler sig mest som muslimer og 36 procent som både danskere og muslimer."
http://icevikings.blogspot.com/2006/03/poll-of-danish-muslims.html
Posted by: IceViking at March 13, 2006 2:19 PM
Hey JW people,
Check out this incredibly stupid column by Michael Scheuer. Here is a key passage:
"...the Bush administration, the Democratic Party and its Hollywood masters, and their Western European associates have confused -- assuming they ever knew -- the difference between liberty and license, and have made the controversy over the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad into a battle between the pure defenders of free speech and the evil Muslims of medieval mindset."
What has this guy been smoking? NEARLY ALL the support for Denmark is coming from the RIGHT. The fact that Billy Crystal was spotted at the Danish solidarity gathering is a drop in the bucket.
There's is much more. Here is the link:
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060312-101234-1382r.htm
Posted by: Andrei Rublev at March 13, 2006 2:49 PM
And another thing: Where the Heck did Sheuer get the idea that the Democrats were standing up for Denmark?
Maybe I should't be surprised to hear this from someone who equates Bin Laden to Abraham Lincoln!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A3J3QSQTGSU0TY/002-7786426-4526454?_encoding=UTF8
Posted by: Andrei Rublev at March 13, 2006 2:55 PM
Michael Scheuer has a pre-existing mental condition. The phrase "Hollywood masters" is the tell-tale sign. Take it from there.
Posted by: Hugh at March 13, 2006 4:05 PM
If you have the stomach to read the introduction to Friedman's "The Lexus and the Olive Tree," you will be exposed to the full extent of the man's pomposity, self-regard and puffed-up egotism (or should that be ergotism?).
He recounts how he gradually had to learn to think in as many as six dimensions in order to "understand the world."
What a maroon.
Posted by: Cato the Elder at March 13, 2006 4:06 PM
"he gradually had to learn to think in as many as six dimensions..."
-- from a posting above
Only six?
Posted by: Hugh at March 13, 2006 4:36 PM
Andrei -- great link to a revolting article!
The more I learn about Mr. Scheuer, that so-called "chief of the [CIA's] Osama bin Laden unit at the Counterterrorist Center" -- the more I understand why we were so catastrophically surprised on 9/11...
Mr. Scheuer states "The treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and Pol-i-Charki; the destruction of the Koran; the burning of dead Taliban soldiers; and now the defense of the Muhammad caricatures are doing what no Muslim leader has done: They are persuading Muslims to hate Americans for being Americans"
As if those examples, some of them completely false ("Destruction of Korans" for example) or completely inaccurate (it wasn't "America" after all who published the cartoons...) in any way emblematic of what makes Americans Americans. The ruinous acceptance of the same pretexts the Muslims consistently use to defame us and excuse themselves for their heinous behavior shows this man has no internal compass whatsoever. I also puts off an aura of one who might be unhinged. I have thought it from the first time I heard him speak in black silhouette, prior to his "outing"...
After 9/11, the first head which should have rolled: Bin Laden's...
Mr. Scheuer's may have been a suitable second.
Posted by: jsla at March 13, 2006 4:53 PM
It should have said:
"HE also puts off an aura of one who might be unhinged."
Ooops! -- I hope I don't put off an aura...
at March 13, 2006 4:56 PM
Mr. Fitzgerald, when are you going to write a book? And I do not mean that in a derogatory "Put your money where your mouth is" sense, but rather as an honest question.
It seems like you have an extremely informed and useful perspective to add to much of what we accept daily as history and fact and "the way things are."
Posted by: sologue at March 13, 2006 6:11 PM
As soon as I can get the money for a year's vacation or quasi-vacation -- just the two of us, me and my computer. Very romantic. We might even end up shuffling off to Buffalo. Any ideas on how to make that little dream come true?
Posted by: Hugh at March 13, 2006 6:22 PM
Hugh:
I don't think you have sufficiently grasped the new paradigm that Mr Friedman so explicitly lays out. The world is flat. In the future, your job could be outsourced to a muslim in India.
Posted by: GFB at March 13, 2006 7:49 PM
Hugh wrote:
"Michael Scheuer has a pre-existing mental condition. The phrase "Hollywood masters" is the tell-tale sign."
Of course! It's the joooooos!!!
JSLA wrote:
"As if those examples, some of them completely false"
Sheuer pulls the same crap in "Imperial Hubris". I had the "priviledge" of reading Hubris without
buying it (it was bought by my morally confused sister). Hence, the link to amazon.com takes you to two reviews written by me. I quote:
"Scheuer ... justifies (Bin Laden's) view with an egregious and often fictitious list of grievances (which includes America's purchase of Muslim oil at "below market prices"; pp xi. xviii, 210, 212, 258, American "support for Serbs against Bosnian Muslims"; p 130, Israel's ambition to "extend its borders to the Euphrates"; p 14)."
at March 13, 2006 8:01 PM
Andrey--
While we're at it, how's that picture of Christ Pantokrator you promised me a while back coming along?
Posted by: Hugh at March 13, 2006 8:13 PM
Mr. Fitzgerald... again, incredibly ironic, we'll pay the piper his jizyah as he dances on the walls of our Athens, destroying it piece by hard-won piece, but we will not lend a helping hand to the great tacticians who did everything they could to keep the enemy from our gates until we decided we were sick and tired of being free and powerful and invited defeat into our city.
What a shame.
Mr. Spencer seems to be an almost profligate writer himself... perhaps you could ask him how he manages to eat and write, or maybe he'd be so kind as to lend you some royalties? I can't think that you had absolutely nothing to do with the writing of the PIG. Or are you two completely disparate people who are united only on the internet when rousing the rabble (as we wise-folk currently appear to be)?
Posted by: sologue at March 13, 2006 8:22 PM
Sologue:
The word you're searching for is "prolific," although I confess to being "profligate" also.
While my admiration for Hugh Fitzgerald is immense, I must say that he indeed had nothing to do with the writing of the PIG. I write my own books. And I have been trying to convince him for quite some time to write his.
We are, indeed, disparate people.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
at March 13, 2006 9:02 PM
Oh, c'mon Robert. Tell them the truth. Tell them about your/my/our multiple personality disorder. They'll understand.
Posted by: Hugh at March 13, 2006 9:29 PM
I don't get why when people discuss Islamic atrocities in Sudan, they focus on Darfur.
The real Islamic Jiahd was against the Christians in the South, which was rather brutal and terribly under-reported.
Darfur, no matter how much people try, is no more the fault of Islam than the KKK was the fault of Christianity. UNLIKE the Islamic Jihad against the Southern kaafir, Darfur is only based on rascism, perphaps thinly beiled in religion, as the KKK. We should be focusing on the Southern Sudanese Jihad.
Posted by: Julian at March 13, 2006 9:49 PM
For those well-schooled in metaphysical conceits, The Lexus and the Olive Tree is horrenduous ab incipio.
Who needs to read further?
at March 13, 2006 10:01 PM
Darfur is currently in the news. The southern Sudan is not. Why? Because the southern Sudan has apparently fallen for this nonsensical "treaty" with the Arab Muslims in Khartoum, which treaty will be broken as soon as the Muslim side thinks no one is looking.
But there is another thing. The mass murdering in Darfur, by Janjaweed equipped and supported and supplemented (those helicopters) by the government, is a Jihad not against the Infidel, but against inferior Muslims. Why are they inferior Muslims? Because they are not Arab Muslims, and their presence gets in the way of what Arab Muslims want. It is the same with the Berbers and the Kurds, who have been lorded over by Arabs.
Islam is a belief-system that inculcates world-conquering ambitions in its adherents, or in many of them. It is also a belief-system that, despite its universalist claims and pretensions, requires ideally reading the Qur'an in Arabic, taking an Arab name and a pseudo-Arab identity, and looking to the mores of the Hijaz in seventh-century Arabia for a complete or compleat guide to behavior today. And Mecca remains the polestar or qibla to which Muslims are required to turn at least five times a day. And Arabs are told that they are the "best of people" precisely because the Qur'an was revealed to them, and in their language. It may be mostly nonsense (see Christoph Luxenberg, see Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, see John Wansbrough, see -- oh, go back to Mingana if you can), but it doesn't matter. If every third Pakistani is called Sayeed because he believes himself a descendant of the Prophet, that may be as comical as the black African in Joyce Cary's "Mr. Johnson" who believes himself to be practically an Englishman, but just try making fun of the idea.
Darfur shows that Islam is not so much universalist as, within that claim, the Arab national religion, the vehicle for Arab cultural, linguistic, and all other kinds of imperialism. The more this is realized, by both Infidels and by non-Arab Muslims who may choose to act on this disenchanting realization (and it may help to break the mesmerizing spell of Islam, put into brains early), the better for Infidels.
Posted by: Hugh at March 13, 2006 10:06 PM
Hugh wrote:
"While we're at it, how's that picture of Christ Pantokrator you promised me a while back coming along?"
Not surprisingly, Hugh seems to know quite a bit about the real "Andrei Rublev." As for me, I just ripped off the name from my favorite Tarkovsky movie!
at March 13, 2006 10:29 PM
This may be a naive question but have you tried to contact Kristof? I know that those NYT reporters can be very inaccesible but who knows...
He is, as you admit, anguished by what he has seen in Darfur --
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18674
-- and clearly he doesn't frame it quite the way you do.
But he comes awfully close to your position. No? The cleavage as he describes it is between Arab and non-Arab and while he doesn't explicitly describe it as a manifestation of Arab supremacism, that is the sense I got from his review:
"In Darfur, the cleavages between the Janjaweed and their victims tend to be threefold. First, the Janjaweed and Sudanese government leaders are Arabs and their victims in Darfur are members of several non-Arab African tribes, particularly the Zaghawa, Fur, and Masalit. Second, the killers are frequently lighter-skinned, and they routinely use racial epithets about the "blacks" they are killing and raping. Third, the Janjaweed are often nomadic herdsmen, and the tribes they attack are usually settled farmers, so the conflict also reflects the age-old tension between herders and farmers."
He may not be that far away from you in perspective. At any rate, I'd be awfully curious to overhear a conversation between the two of you.
Posted by: Raw Data at March 14, 2006 12:51 AM
We understand all right, Hugh. Like in the Sherlock Holmes story "A question of identity", the fact that you two never appear together, but that only one of you ever appears at all, says it all.
That's my impression of the big head from yesterday.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at March 14, 2006 4:19 AM
Thomas Freidman has become one of the most annoying and widely read authors of our time. Like many Americans, he wants to condense Islam into a palatable and simplified version that he can somehow agree with and find likable, in spite of it's many contradictions, none of which he understands because he is limited to only 6 dimensions. Islam is a multi-headed Medusaa of infinite shapes, dimensions,and threats and is constantly evolving into ever more threatening contradictions that are exactly designed to confuse and distract the likes of Mr. Freidman.Thank God for this blog and others like it. It is our only hope.
Posted by: tsweeney at March 14, 2006 6:43 AM
Mr. Spencer, I choose my words carefully (for the most part). Though "prolific" may in fact seem more reasonable at 1st glance, perhaps at 2nd glance you'd consider your writing to be "almost profligate" because not enough people are reading it, and thus you are wasting your time.
Of course, I don't really think you're wasting your time, I say such things in jest. What you are doing is noble and much appreciated and hopefully it is only a matter of time before Robert Spencer is a household name (I'm hoping and assuming that 'jihad' is a household word and concern at that point as well).
So many weeks on the NYT bestseller list and no major reviews or guest appearances to show for it... why does it always seem like there are so many people trying to bury this issue and hide it from everybody else?
Posted by: sologue at March 14, 2006 7:17 AM
“Any ideas on how to make that little dream come true?”
Thus, in the Hollywood spirit, the baseball dream – “Write it and they will buy.”
You once offered, although sarcastically, ‘The Meaning of Life’ as this weeks special. I’d love to read it, seriously.
Posted by: butterfly at March 14, 2006 9:46 PM
Okay, Monsieur or Madame Butterfly, I take the hint. The "secret of the universe" was not offered sarcastically. Such a secret will in fact be dispensed to those who chose to spend part of their allowance on a week-long course in How To Do Things With Words, which, if there is enough interest, will be given at a succursale of Secure Undisclosed Locationville. Interested?
Posted by: Hugh at March 14, 2006 10:28 PM
Monsieur please.
Forgive me Hugh; I assumed it to be sarcasm as it was used.
Interested? Yes.
An allowance well spent for a change.
at March 15, 2006 12:23 AM
Send an e-mail to RS.
Posted by: Hugh at March 15, 2006 9:25 AM
E-mail sent. No reply yet. Maybe I did not say the right thing.
Posted by: butterfly at March 16, 2006 7:02 PM
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