In Algeria, before the Arab invasion and conquest in the seventh century, the population was almost entirely Berber, and along with those who followed traditional Berber religious practices, a considerable Christian population (St. Augustine, he of Hippo, was a Berber) flourished. When the Arabs swept in, subjugating the Berbers, they brought with them an Islam that replaced Christianity. Even after many Berbers converted, they were treated by the Arabs as second-class Muslims, heavily taxed, and even enslaved. Islamization was accompanied by what we call “Arabization,” which was a complicated and lengthy process.
That word “Arabization” is usually used to describe the large-scale movement of ethnic Arabs into a non-Arab region, in order to change its demographic character. But there is another form of Arabization that does not involve a physical invasion; it consists, rather, in making non-Arab Muslims forget or dismiss their non-Arab identity, attempt to emulate the behavior of seventh-century Arabs, adopt Arabic at the expense of their own languages, and even assume Arab names, in order to transmute themselves into Arabs. And that is what happened over time to many Berbers, whose descendants are convinced that they are Arabs, and have always been Arabs.
The Arabs rule in Algeria with the conviction that while Muslims are, according to the Qur’an, the “best of peoples,” the Arabs are the “best of Muslims.” It’s not hard to see why they would be convinced of that. After all, the Arab sense of superiority flows naturally from the facts of Islam: Islam was made known to the world through Muhammad, an Arab, and in his language. The Qur’an itself was the setting down in Arabic of the message sent by Allah through his messenger Muhammad. The Qur’an should ideally be read, recited, memorized, in the Arabic of the seventh century original, and millions of non-Arab Muslims learn in their madrasas to memorize and recite a text whose Arabic words they cannot comprehend. When Muslims pray five times a day, prostrating themselves in zebibah-thickening prayer, they always face toward Mecca in western Arabia. Many non-Arab Muslims take on Arabic names and fake Arab pedigrees. All of this testifies to the superior position, despite the universalist claims made for the faith, of one people, the Arabs.
For the many non-Arab peoples who have suffered from this Arab supremacism, the example of the Berbers in North Africa is both instructive and heartening, and most relevant to the war of self-defense that now must be waged by the world’s Infidels.
Under the French, from 1830 to 1962, the Berbers in Algeria had actually been favored at the expense of the Arabs. Almost from the beginning of French rule, they were regarded as less fervently Islamic, and consequently as more “European,” than the Arabs. This view was fixed from early on. In the 1850s, Colonel Daumas, then head of Algerian affairs for the French government, wrote of the Berbers: “They have accepted the Koran but they have not embraced it.” And this French acknowledgement of the Berber difference continued right down to the end of the colonial period. In 1950, Eugene Guernier wrote in La Berbérie, l’Islam, et la Françe, of the Berbers: “Our [Berber] man is without contest a Mediterranean of the Occident; or better yet, he is an Occidental. The Berbers are part of the rational Occident in formal opposition to the Arabs. A French general in the 1950s wrote a well-received book arguing that the Berbers were, in fact, racially “Europeans.”
When Algeria became independent in 1962, and the French pieds noirs left en masse for France, the Berbers had much to worry about. Not only had they been favored during French rule, which meant the Arabs would now have it in for them, but simply by not being Arabs, they could expect mistreatment from their new Arab rulers, and mistreatment is what they got. The use of the Berber language, Tamazight, was suppressed, and even the most innocuous attempts made by the Berber elite to revive Berber culture were crushed by the state.
In 1980-81, open revolt began in the most heavily Berber region of Algeria, the Kabyle, the result of a decision by the Arab governor in Tizi Ouzou to ban a lecture on “Ancient Berber Poetry” by Mouloud Mammeri (a Berber linguist and author living in Paris). That was the last straw for Berber students; that the Arabs would not allow even a single lecture on ancient Berber poetry revealed the lengths to which they would go to suppress Berber culture and attempt to efface the Berber historical memory. Berber riots began in Tizi Ouzou, spread elsewhere in the country, and then even spread to France, where Berbers demonstrated in front of the Algerian Embassy. These riots showed that the Berbers were no longer going to quietly accept Arab domination. While those demonstrations eventually petered out, the rumbles of discontent continued, and one important Berber demand was finally met, after many delays, in 2002, when the Arab rulers of Algeria allowed the Berber language (Tamazight) to be taught in Berber-populated schools. And in February of this year, a further linguistic victory was announced: the Berber language was recognized as a “state language,” which means it can now be used on official documents.
Many Berbers are keenly aware that they have been subject over the centuries to forced Arabization, both in the obvious physical sense — Arabs moving into and claiming Berber lands — and, even more devastatingly, through the imposition of the Arabic language and culture, and suppression of Berber culture (language, art, music, poetry). One Berber intellectual expressed a widely shared sentiment: “It is time—long past overdue—to confront the racist arabization of the Amazigh [Berber] lands.” The suppression of the Berber language and culture and history is the most important part of this “racist Arabization.” And thus, the recent revival of Tamazight, the Berber language, is a major milestone in the attempt to undo Arabization.
Another good sign for the Berbers is the apparent willingness of the Arabs who run Algeria to finally recognize the true size of the Berber population. For decades, the Algerian government would insist that the Berbers made up somewhere between 10 and 20% of the population. But now even that government recognizes that the Berbers constitute 1/3 of the population, that is, 13 million out of the total of 39 million. There are some Berbers who claim that even this understates, and that 50% of the country is Berber. These numbers give the Berbers a firmer claim for a share of political power in Algeria.
In France, among the maghrebin immigrants, the Berbers (from both Algeria and Morocco, where the Berbers are more than 50% of the population) are said to constitute as much as 75% of the total. And their behavior in France (as in Algeria) is notably different from that of the Arabs. They are religiously much less observant; more of them have converted to Christianity or even become open freethinkers and “secularists.” And they resent the way they have, for some French government policies, been “counted as Arabs.” One example is the attempt to make Arabic the language of instruction for “children from the Maghreb” on the assumption that they are almost all Arabs, when most of them, in fact, are Berbers (in France they like to call themselves Franco-Berbers, while the Arabs call themselves “Arabs”) who, having fought so hard to obtain the right to be taught in Berber in their schools in Algeria, fail to understand why they must endure the paradox of having Arabic forced on Berber children in French schools. Here’s part of one Berber’s furious outcry:
“Une fois encore le colonialisme arabo-islamique tente de nous asservir, même en France, nous les franco-berbères. En effet, durant l’émission d’Yves Calvi c’est dans l’air sur France 5, le lundi 16 décembre 2013, comme d’habitude, Mme Dounia Bouzar, spécialiste maison de l’islam, tente de convaincre les téléspectateurs de France et de Navarre qu’il faut enseigner la langue arabe aux petits Français issus de l’immigration maghrébine. Une fois encore, avec la complicité agissante de la caste politico-médiatique, qui essaye de vendre son rapport sur l’intégration commandé par Matignon, les Franco-Berbères qui sont bien intégrés dans la patrie de Jeanne d’Arc, sont utilisés comme butin de guerre par les marchands de l’islam. Une fois de plus, l’impérialisme arabo-islamique montre ses dents pour intimider ceux qui ne sont pas d’accord avec sa vision hégémonique…”
“Yet again Arabo-Islamic colonialism tries to subjugate us, the Franco-Berbers, even in France. During the program of Yves Calvi of Monday Dec. 16, 2013, Madame Dounia Bouzar, as usual the house expert on Islam, tries to convince her television audience that the Arabic language should be taught to those French children whose parents are from North Africa. Yet again, with the frenetic complicity of the politico-media elite which is trying to peddle its report on “integration” requested by Matignon [that is, by the President], the Franco-Berbers who are already well integrated in the land of Jeanne d’Arc, are exploited as war booty by the merchants of Islam. Yet again, the Arabo-Islamic imperialism displays its teeth to intimidate those who are not in agreement with its hegemonic vision….”
The Berber resentment of the Arabs – and of that “Arabo-Islamic Imperialism” — reinforces, and is in turn reinforced by, antipathy for Islam. It is Berbers, not Arabs, who in France write for such anti-Islamic sites as Riposte Laique, and even make common cause with some on the so-called “far-right.” It is Berbers, not Arabs, whom the French security services have mostly relied on to help monitor the Muslim population. It is Berbers, both in the Kabyle region in Algeria, and in France, and not Arabs, who have been converting to Christianity in numbers sufficient to alarm both the Algerian government and Muslim clerics in France.
We, the world’s infidels, should recognize what more and more Berber intellectuals have come to understand: that the largest and most successful imperialism in the history of the world is that of the Muslim Arabs. In conquering many lands and peoples, the Arabs managed to convince those they conquered to acquiesce in, even to be grateful for, that conquest, and to convert to the conqueror’s faith, and many were happy to “become Arabs.” And wherever Islam took hold, Arabs enjoyed a religio-cultural superiority.
There are two types of pre-existing fissures within what can be called the Camp of Islam. We need to understand them in order to see what, if anything, we can do to widen and exploit them. One is sectarian, that which sets Sunnis against Shia, with the so-called “takfiris” – those Sunnis who have declared that the Shi’a are not even Muslims, but Infidels, with some even claiming that they are the “worst of Infidels” – being especially violent. We’ve seen the results of this 1400-year-old split in the executions of Shia in the territories controlled by ISIS, and also in the attacks on Shia markets and mosques and religious processions, in Iraq and Pakistan. In Pakistan, two Sunni terrorist groups, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba, even take the Shia population as their sole target. And in Afghanistan, the Shia Hazara were in danger of being wiped out by the uber-Sunni Taliban when the American invasion in 2001 rescued them from that fate. When the Americans finally leave this time, who knows what the Sunnis will then do to the Hazara? Could it be that the Persian Shia, emboldened by the way they snookered Obama’s negotiators on the nuclear project, might intervene in Afghanistan to support fellow Shia in Afghanistan? That’s a scenario devoutly to be wished.
Non-Muslims cannot do anything to fan the flames of internecine warfare among the two main Islamic sects, but they can at least refrain from trying to prevent it. If you have been brought up to believe that blessed are the peacemakers, and lions should always be made to lie down with any number of lambs, and you display a COEXIST bumpersticker on your rear fender, then ask yourself this: was the Iran-Iraq War, from 1980 to 1988, pitting Sunni-dominated Iraq against the Shi’a of Iran, a good or a bad thing from the standpoint of Infidels? It was, we should by now all recognize, a Good Thing that weakened, and preoccupied, both sides for eight years. Khomeini was kept busy with his enantiomorph in evil, Saddam Hussein. Just imagine what terrible things he might have done – having eight years more to work on his little science project, for example — had he not had to fight off an aggressive Iraq.
Yet after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, beyond the initial goals of capturing Saddam Hussein and destroying his regime, the Americans came up with another aim: stopping the sectarian warfare that followed the release of the Sunni despot’s iron grip. The Shia were not about to yield the power, political and economic, they now possessed; the Sunnis were not about to acquiesce in their loss of such power, and each side kept attacking the other. It was wonderful to behold. But our leaders, first in the Green Zone in Baghdad, and then in the corridors of power (watch out for those banana peels!), in Washington, were all for Getting-to-Yes conflict resolution, naively hoping that the Sunni and Shia would make up (after 1400 years), when those Washington apparatchiks should have been ruthlessly rooting for the permanent discord which, thank goodness, and despite their own best efforts, is what, instead of Yes, we got.
vivienne Leijonhufvu (@goldaleijonhufv) says
where the arabs got the idea they were above every one else astonishes me. They are so barbaric and filthy they defy all reason.
Peter Charles says
Mohammad said it is so, and they agree. It does not matter that the religion was made up by Mohammad to benefit Mohammad. get Mohammad gold, slaves, booty, women and an army. This is now the perfect book from the perfect man to be emulated in every way. If you disagree, no problem, you’ll simply be killed.
The solution to this should be obvious, beat them to the punch.
Shane says
They conquered many peoples and subjugated them, so they feel superior. Why the West has brought so many of these barbarians into their countries can only be explained by a death wish.
t. says
Muslims not Arabs, Shane. There were thousands, if not millions, of Jews and Christians all over the Arab peninsula, what is now Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sultanat of Oman and the Gulf states, in the time of Muhhamad, who for the most part already spoke Arabic but it was not them who felt superior because of speaking that language and started invading other lands to convert people to Arabic culture and language. It was Islam’s core belief system and ideology that did that.
Islam used Arabic and the Arab identity as part of its own and as a vehicle to assimilate and impose itself on other nations, lands and people of other ethnicity, and not the other way round, Arab culture was intrinsically supremacist and used Islam to conquer other peoples and imposing itself on them.
I agree with Hugh Fitzgerald that we have to know the fissures and subtleties that divide the Muslim world beneath the surface, so as to use them to defeat this great evil called Islam. I also find it important to know as much as possible about the history and progression of Islam and human civilization in general, as it helps open the eyes of many people to the truth and new possibilities, that which Hugh Fitzgerald contributes to through his many rich articles.
Nevertheless and unfortunately, the article above in certain phrases, looked, gave the impression or subtly pointed to Arab ethnicity and its presumed intrinsic supremacy and using of Islam for its imperialistic endeavors, rather than Islam, as the real core problem!
Here is a good example of a pure Arab:
Tarig says
From the Quran?
Gea says
Some Arabs are also Christians. They were polygamists who worshiped many gods in Mecca, and the chief god was Allah. Women had power, as Kadija, Mohamed boss and later wife demonstrates. As long as Kzdija was alive, Mohamed was just a nut case who heard voices. When she died at the age of 65 (he was 60) in 621, he went berserk and started his crimes, pedophilia, rapes etc…and had to flee to Medina where he continued as a war lord.\
Don’t blame Arabs fur Islam…it is the IDEOLOGY of Islam that is the root cause of terrorism.. Berbers were conquered by Islam and so were Spanish…and the long occupation left mark on their character, which probably resulted in Inquisition and conquistadors.
vivienne Leijonhufvu (@goldaleijonhufv) says
Yes I know Gea and indeed I have met a number of non Arab muslims one in particular comes to mind. A gentleman by the name of Mustaffa and his son age 6 Said in Egypt who indeed dealt on my behalf with an Arab Muslim Falucca sailor. The non-muslim Arab is a nation apart from the Muslim Arab. No insult or offense was intended. Sadly too many of today’s Muslims greatly influenced by the Wahhabi & Iranian version of ISLAM is far reaching. Persia was once a flourishing and might nation before Muhammed! Esther Queen of Persia is an excellent example who incidentally was Jewish/Hebrew.
Owen Morgan says
No, Gea, you’re totally wrong. This isn’t about the Spanish/Portuguese conquerors of the New World (or their English, Dutch and French competitors). This is not even about the Moorish (=Arab) conquest of Iberia, or the Portuguese/Spanish reconquista.
It absolutely is about the Arabs’ attitude to everybody else, starting, with the Berbers, in this article. I am summing up the attitude, not quoting.
“We have the power of life and death over you.”
The fact is that the Arabs had rampaged, uninvited, over vast areas of the continents adjacent to Arabia, imposing their entirely alien credo and lifestyle. Nobody can seriously pretend that muslim rule was welcomed by either men or women. Women had been treated badly for centuries in Greek, Macedonian, Roman and Byzantine society, but then the muslims arrived and made everything catastrophically worse.
People claim that there were Christian Arabs, before the invading Arab armies simply imposed Arabism, but where was that true? I can think of the Nabataeans, but that’s it. The Copts are Christians, without a doubt, but not Arabs. In everyday life today, they speak Arabic, but they adhere to their Christian beliefs, and their traditional language, used only in church today, is the last vestige of the language of the pharaohs (and the thing that helped Champollion decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics, the writing of a civilisation that today’s muslims would joyfully obliterate).
Before the Arab invasions, were Mesopotamian, Persian, or Cappadocian Christians in any way “Arab”? Were the Maronite Christians of Lebanon Arab? Hardly, they were Phoenicians. The Jews pretty obviously weren’t Arab. Please don’t start lecturing me about how badly Jews and Maronites were treated under Justinian and his successors (which they certainly were) and how they were supposedly so much better looked after under the Arabs (which they were not).
Jash says
Thank you for this very interesting article. I did not know the Berbers were so ethnically distinct and even had their own language.
The issue of Arabization and cultural colonization is a great point to bring up when talking to Muslims from places like Somalia, North Africa and the Indian subcontinent.
Carmel says
When I meet new Algerians , I always ask them , now ( for 10 years), if they are Berbers.Most of the time , I know it before they speak . Arabs have a dominant ,condescendant look with a smile in the face as if laughing at me .
What the article say is true . Berbers ,even after 1400 years , never are truly muslims. As soon as they come in my area , they stop going to the mosque and do Ramadan . They are much more easy going peoples, they are more Europeans , they respect more the peoples around them . Everything we hate about muslims, they don’t have it . Same for people of Morocco . Algerian born french artists are almost all Berbers. Idem with Moroccan . Berbers never really came Arabs . It is good news.
War Isnecessary says
Carmel, what you are saying is true. I am myself a Kabyle. Never went to a mosque in my life. I used to do ramadan at some point but secretely broke fast. Now living abroad, the only difference in my lifestyle is that I openly break fast (+the wider choice of bars in the city). I have always seen a problem with Islam, even embraced other forms of spirituality (pagan mostly) and have been an atheist since my teenage years. However, I will stress that we are not Europeans, we are Africans, no matter what skin colour we are and no matter how proficient we are at one or more European languages.
Donovan Nuera says
Very interesting article on a culture I only knew of just a little. I will have to read more about these issues. I had taken Augustine as my confirmation name before I read his works a few year later. 1600 years really has not dulled his spirituality and intellect. Too bad that part of the world is too dangerous to travel in at the moment. One day, though…
War Isnecessary says
Donovan I can assure you that you can safely travel to Algeria, go to the city of Annaba and visit both the ruins of the ancient city of Hippo and the Basilique St Augustin in the same area. But you are advised to look for information because last time I recall there were some works being done to the facade of the basilica.
Angemon says
Superb article, looking forward to part 2.
Kepha says
Interesting article. Come to think of it, most of the indigenous Maghrebi Christians I’ve run into have had Amazigh rather than Arab roots–and these are newcomers who left Islam. May God, using the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah and the Holy Spirit, bring more to confess Christ as did Augustine of Hippo (one of my heroes, btw).
Yet I still understand that it remains difficult for Amazigh people to leave Islam, no less than for Muslim Arabs.
I’m also curious about how they count people as Amazigh. Language, or proclaimed ancestry? There are similar issues in China and Taiwan. It surprised me that even Zhuang-speaking folk from Guangxi might identify themselves as Kejia/Hakka (客家). even though they could not speak that Sinitic Language; while people form Vietnam who called themselves Ngai would speak Hakka, and be surprised that Hakka-speaking folks from eastern Guangdong or north-central Taiwan could understand them (and I gather that the Viets classed them as some sort of hill tribe–even though they kicked them out along with the rest of the Chinese in 1978). Fluid identities?
War Isnecessary says
to answer your question on demographic census, they include the mother tongue and not proclaimed ancestry.
I would also like to stress that it is actually way easier for Amazigh people to leave Islam simply because families are more understanding. The greatest fear for anybody living in a muslim majority country is to be shunned by your family once you leave Islam, something unlikely to happen if your parents brought you up with a serious dose of secular values, regardless of whether they considered themselves muslims.
rubiconcrest says
Just learning about the Berber’s thank you Hugh.
Jack Diamond says
The greatest antipathy for Islam will always come from those who have lived among the Muslims and suffered them, which many in the West are starting to do, to their great dismay.
“Arabs are the most noble people in lineage, the most prominent and the best in deeds. We were the first to respond to the call of the Prophet.” Tabari IX:69 Arab supremacism is in everything Islam, the direction of prayer, the recitation of the Qur’an, the (Arab) names one gives one’s children, the reinvention of one’s history, the denial of one’s pre-Islamic history, “Arabization.”
and there is even a hierarchy among the Arabs:
“the Bedouins had always considered himself the elite of the Arabs, the true Arab. The Bedouin had been the original driving force behind Islam, for it was their men who had filled the ranks of Mohammad’s first armies and spearhead the Moslem conquests. The Bedouin owned no taxes, paid no landlord, recognized no borders…in the punishing desert a cruel culture evolved that matched the brutal dictates of nature…the Bedouin was thief, assassin, and raider and hard labor was immoral…the city Arab was considered of a lower order and the fellah who tilled the soil in the villages was the lowest of them all.”
–Leon Uris, “The Haj”
Hugh, as always, superlative.
Michael Brennick says
Very interesting, I’ve recently been in contact with an Algerian university student through a Youtube video I had posted. My video concerned an Irish language traditional singer, who was an important influence on the small Irish language region where both of my parents were born, The Algerian student was writing a paper on a Berber language poet and singer who had participated in the struggles referenced in this article. He was persecuted and killed by Arab supremacists. There apparently is a very keen Berber identity and language preservation movement in Algeria. The student was taking a West European minority language cultural figure (the Irish language traditional singer mentioned) and comparing and contrasting that experience with the Berber cultural/language movement.The student was Muslim, but very protective and proud of Berber language and tradition. This encounter made a very positive on me indeed.
jewdog says
I didn’t realize that the Berbers were so numerous. There is an interesting diorama and explanation on them in the Museum of Natural History in NYC, although it is, of course, just a gloss. The Jerusalem Post has had several interesting articles on the Kabyle region, which has pressed vainly for friendlier relations with Israel.
War Isnecessary says
There is a separatist political movement (M A K) whose leaders have numerous times made the claim to a normalise relations with the state of Israel if they ever came to power.
Jews from Algeria, Morroco and Tunisia also constitute a large number of initial migrants to Israel after its creation. Many of them were Jewish Berbers (Berbers whose ancestors converted some centuries ago or Jewish settlers who embraced the local culture).
Linde Barrera says
Thank you for another amazing article relating to the subjugation of an ethnic people due to Islam. ?
Herb Planter says
Thank you so much for this Huge. i loved it, was such an eye opener. I’ll be telling everyone “Remember the Berbers!” from now on. May Jesus keep you on the narrow path.
Herb Planter says
Thank you so much for this Hugh. I loved it, was such an eye opener. I’ll be telling everyone “Remember the Berbers!” from now on. May Jesus keep you on the narrow path.
charvak says
Excellent article Mr. Fitzerald. I have a strong feeling that Ahmed Merabet the Muslim cop killed in Charlie Hebdo attack was of Berber extraction. Islam simply hijacked the credit,
Lynn in Florida says
After 9/11 I took a class in Islam at the local community college. It was taught by a charming and attractive young Palestinian woman whose purpose was obviously to convince us that Islam is a religion of peace. She expressed horror that the Muslims of North Africa speak Arabic with such a heavy French accent that she had trouble understanding them.
War Isnecessary says
That is the exact same type of arab I despise. The North Africans speak arabic with a heavy Berber accent. We had a cultural heritage from the French colonisation and thus we are not ashamed to use french words in our common everyday language (just as you would find the same proportion of English language words used by Egyptians in their everyday vernacular). That your former palestinian college instructor was oblivious to this further demonstrates the hatred people from the middle east with heavy islamist inclinations have towards us. Although we understand them, they cannot and will not take the trouble to learn and understand us.
War Isnecessary says
I am an Algerian student. Atheist, non-violent yet non-pacifist. I thank you for this article.
I am indeed of Kabyle Berber decent. Never felt a muslim, an arab even less. To find your article on Jihad Watch (by chance) is a delight.
jorge says
the argument is flaw and racist in it self arab were the first victim of islam mohamed kill thousand of arabs destroy their church synagogue and pre islamic religion, islam is not the original religion of the arab, they were the first enemy of islam their city were conquer their sanctuary profane their priest kill woman turn to slaves and rape also arab is just a name for the semitic tribes of arabia peninsula, people dont understand that there is no arab race it was just a name of the tribes of arabia the race is semitic just like jews are semitic in other words the arabs are just the semitics tribe of arabia thats the confusion original jews were semitic tribes and live arabia and the levant ,also fake a race cant be supremacist one because arab are not a race and 2 because a race dont think only individual think islam is an ideology a culture created by one person to say that a race (that dont even exist ) is supremacist is like saying that german are racist but a german can be anything nazis are racist a race impossible the declaration is in itself racist and false also the Kurd are not from irak and Syria they are nomadic people that came from iran after the mongol conquest just as turks are not from anatolia also the bereber are semitic and also came from arabia but have different cultural tag by the way the great civilizations of ancient world were Semitics even the name of the continent europe come from Phoenician princess did I mention Greeks and roman are conected to the semitic people even in myths like troy or homes of many gods like hermes also thats the reason south of europe is different to north, people in Levant like lebanon israel have more genetic traits with people of greece and south italy please dont believe Hollywood 300 hahaahah
jorge says
however amasigh are not semitic if you want to know
LR says
t. says
July 22, 2016 at 3:11 pm
“Muslims not Arabs, Shane. There were thousands, if not millions, of Jews and Christians all over the Arab peninsula, what is now Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sultanat of Oman and the Gulf states”…
Thanks for your posts,’t’.
I ponder in frustration sometimes, about how culturally beautiful the ‘birthplace of civilization’ is, the ancient history, music, arts, literature etc., and how this evil, vicious ideology is so damn destructive to it’s own, and this world’s history.
I hope people will keep pressuring our western governments to support those writers, artists, secularists, ‘culture keepers’, etc., in the ‘Arab/Islamic/Iranian’ world imprisoned, tortured, and under death penalty.
Bless all those souls, who have already been killed for their bravery of speaking out for freedom, learning and the arts.
Barnaby says
What had been an interesting article descended into objectionable bigotry.