(Insert Title Here)
Everneo said:
Whatever may be his intention, discussing the topic, instead of getting into debate of mutual accussations, would be more helpful for muslims in removing hatred. Post-PM era broughtforth more open minded muslims to post here and it helped to understand that the silent majority in muslim society is not as stereo-typed as percieved earlier.
Fallacious, I think. Whatever people's opinions of Proud Muslim, I find it quite ironic the degree to which he is still affecting Sciforums. I find that in order to agree with the above paragraph of yours, I must presume that all cross-cultural comparisons have as their greatest potential the fizzling effect that occurred whenever PM questioned the basis for prejudice or judgment. In the end, I cannot pretend that all people perceive the issues as simplistically as the issues PM responded to, nor as simplistically as many of his responses to those issues.
It's analogous to saying that we shouldn't take a wounded person to the hospital in an ambulance because PM, driving the ambulance last time, swerved on a curve and smashed into a tree.
So only if we pretend that we are every one of us whatever person we dislike the most at Sciforums does it make any sense to throw out the comparative examination.
Which is why it seems so fallacious an idea to me.
PM was exactly doing this. Ask a difficult question, he would post everything from KKK to 'JewNN', Error in Bible to calling your prez "Bush", no matter which country you come from. He got fed up with that, it seems.!
See ... I didn't have any problems asking him tough questions. He gave some decent answers on occasion and could also be seen by his answer to retreat into reconsideration of certain points.
And it's part of a trend I've long decried among American discourse; the idea being that Americans are never happy. In 1988, Dukakis was mistrusted by the people because he was too calm, too dispassionate to be accessible as president. In 2004, Howard Dean met his political end because he showed passion. In the middle we get uncreative, prepackaged dreck like Gush/Bore and Berry/Kush. (That latter sounds like dope.)
In the War on Terror, a similar pattern has emerged. Islamic values are often considered so foreign to Americans that the inaccessibility of discourse frightens people. At the same time, among the complaints about Zacarias Moussouai's ramblings in court, as well as Osama bin Laden's words when addressing the West, is the idea that these people are "too Western." This isn't a problem for Americans unless they want it to be. In the end, someone who attempts to speak the common language of the people is mistrusted for not being genuinely scary enough for being inaccessible. I mean, after all else, I would think people would be capable of understanding that when Osama spoke to Muslims, he spoke in terms he thinks they will understand, and when he spoke to the West, he used terms intended to be accessible to us; after all, what would be the point of threatening us if we didn't understand that we were being threatened? (That, incidentally, is something the Spaniards used to be really good at.)
PM's habit as you've described it wasn't much different from right-wing radio or television. Calling people Jews and Christians despite other identity politics? I'm very surprised and even a little disappointed that so many people around here were incapable of understanding that. It's no different what PM was doing calling an American atheist a Christian or Jew than what we in the US do when we call a mass-murderer an "Islamist." It's like "Christian America" is good enough for folks who are pushing against homosexuality or abortion or free speech, but not when a Muslim points out the faults of that heritage.
The real problem seemed to be that for some reason or another, people chose to be thoroughly irrational and unsympathetic to their fellow human beings. What I mean by this is a general political truism. Two people can make express themselves identically incorrectly, and if one is on "our side" and one is on "the other side," that group of "we" generally tends to lend its sympathies to the person "we" identify with, and lends scorn toward "our" opposition.
I mean, look at you and me, for instance ... I'm making the argument that the topic poster is doing the same thing that you find unreasonable. That's the point. The topic poster is not prepared to undertake some aspect of the comparative. Whether that's a general and prejudicial fear that we're all of us as stupid as some imagine PM to be or ... um ... well, whatever ... I object to suspending the comparative from the discussion as it leaves relatively nothing to discuss but what key the hallelujah chorus will sing in. What, does the first person to post narrow or unreasonable content in an argument get a free pass?
Surely, Surenderer, knife, Bruce, Sufi and others talk some reason, though you cannot entirely agree with. This team could make a considerable change in the attitude here. We should not presume that nothing is going to happen in that front.
I hadn't realized there was a team. I wasn't paying close enough attention.
(What? I was probably high.
)
Okay, okay.
I just saw a topic the other day calling one of those folks PM. Lots of posts, Islamic ideas ... must be the same person. Something like that. That's a challenging climate for any "team" to come into. It might become that any fierce advocate of Islam may be dismissed as just the latest incarnation of PM. I would hope not. He's nearly canonized at Sciforums as it is. Let's not deify him, especially in hatred.
I did not know that. In any case a discussion would expose their true expectations.
I have a very poor opinion of Frontpage. Can you tell?
That condemning presumption aside, however, no, a discussion would not expose their true expectations because at some point, in order to illustrate the nature of or device behind a given sleight of concept or, in the case of some of Frontpage's articles, an outright lie,
we must necessarily invoke the comparative.
Thus, in a discussion lacking any aspect of the comparative as per the topic poster's request, the only aspects apparently available for discussion are either a hallelujah chorus or hair-splitting. At no point are the veracity of the author's judgments
or the poster's recommendation that we ought to learn from this article within the bounds of consideration.
You'll notice that I haven't even discussed the actual content of the topic article yet. Because there's nothing to discuss. I just nod and say, "Whatever. If you say so."
There's plenty to discuss if the article has a comparative context available to consider. Short of that, it's pretty much religion.
You have someone in mind. But historically, muslims were manipulated by their own unscrupulous elements, in the name of quran and god. Starting from first fitnah to politically ambitious medival 'jihads' upto current islamists (the term immediately push some into aggressive mode, i know).
If you knew your comfort of excess was at the cost of someone else's basic human dignity, would it bother you?
It bothers me some. Had I the solution I would be leading the world forward instead of fretting about it in my corner.
But you're right. The West is blameless isn't it? Muslims did it all to themselves, and all the West ever did was reap the fruits. It's not like, oh, say, the American government, endorsed by its people, went forward and supported the overthrow of elected leaders in the Muslim world, or prop up dictators who victimized their own people--e.g. aided and abetted the unscrupulous elements you note--or supported the displacement of large groups of people for reasons that don't stand up to the test of time. It's not like the US ever did any of those things, eh? The Iranian people only elected Mossadegh because they didn't actually want him and preferred being victimized by the Shah--thank you so much for reminding me of what I'd forgotten. And those Iraqis. They never stood up to take on their leader only to find promises of support evaporating and the government specifically allowed by an American general to fly the helicopters that would cut down thousands and quash that uprising. It's not like the US took Saddam Hussein's Iraq off the terror-sponsor list in 1982 in order to provide it with some of the very goodies which the Iraqi people so eloquently begged their unscrupulous leader to deploy against them. Indeed, I had forgotten about that. Thank you so much for schooling me in matters of reality! And what can I say about those poor f@cking Palestinians? They never should have invited the Jews to come and beat the holy living f@ck out of them. They have no right to complain! How stupid I've been to forget all this, Everneo. Because you've so clearly reminded me that the only bad people in the world are Muslims.
I mean, what the hell is so offensive to anyone about the fact that Muslims are human? This exclusionary regard is
sickening. Oh, heaven help them! Not! They're humans, and they're Muslims, which means that anything anyone does to hurt the Muslim world is actually something the Muslims do to themselves? Kind of like that "stop hitting yourself" bully-gag?
Perhaps I am askew if I find a sudden deviation in one's regard for human beings stemming from some obscure Us vs. Them classification that justifies the suffering of that group unsettling at least.
As a mostly-white American, some things my white American brethren have tried to teach me which I reject:
• All injustice against blacks is and always has been the fault of blacks
• All injustice against women is and always has been the fault of women
• All people who deviate from the herd deserve whatever arbitrary misery the herd chooses to inflict--after all, while we are better than the animals, this is the way of nature and who are we to argue?
• All people who are not Judeo-Christian deserve to be discriminated against.
These are, of course, limited arguments from limited segments, and nor do I attribute any of these to anyone in this topic, but I do hope you see the pattern. Look, as far as I'm concerned, Muslims are Muslims, and they're no worse for Al Qaeda than Catholics for the IRA, the Protestants for the British, Europeans for the French, Or Australians for ... um ... er ... How about I skip to Canada? Or Canada for the beer? (I hope you realize I'm still trying to take all this with a grin.)
But
please don't pretend the Muslims were alone in creating their misery.
Good debate, but unyielding fight.
Aldous Huxley, in 1925, wrote that the British had no need for history. Not as a factual declaration, but as an observation of what seemed apparent. What he meant by it was that an oppressed people, e.g. the Irish or the Kosovars as Huxley included, tend to look back to history in search of ideals and glorified values. When a people becomes accustomed to being higher on the food chain, they tend to forget about those times in their history when they were not.
And look at Americans. How much of what we discuss as obvious stuff to argue about was actually included in discussions of world events before 9/11? Few people cared that the US propped up a dictator until it was time to go to war, and then the war party sought to keep it that way. Few people understand that the Taleban not only carried the explicit endorsement of Washington, D.C., but Clinton and Bush both gave them millions in the drug war. Few people knew or cared before 9/11 that the US trained and supported combatants in Afghanistan. In the face of the demons We the People allowed or encouraged our leaders to raise, we turn to history in order to further demonize the demons. Suddenly, having its nose bloodied, America looks to history in order to sputter and rage.
Not a directly relevant response, I know, but it sets the stage for the next part:
It is not monolithic empire. From Wahabi Saudi to liberal Turkey, the spectrum is wide. More than 50% of muslim majority countries already came out of medival mindset and on the way of progress.
I agree it's not monolithic empire. Rather, I'm referring to the perspective from the top of the ladder as compared to somewhere down below. When a primarily Muslim culture stands with the same security and comfort as our American watered-down Christian culture, then we will have a more direct comparison.
Till the west treats certain muslim countries as cows to milk natural resources and allied with their corrupt regimes for their own strategic interests , islamists will have a cause and accuse the west as having double standards
Actually, I need to ask for a little clarification on this. I'm just not sure I'm reading that first part ("
Till the west treats certain muslim countries as cows to milk natural resources") correctly.
In this unbalanced political struggle their refuge and fallback support is Islam & quran where they could pick lines to boost their morale and strength.
And I'm curious about your treatment of "unbalanced"--what is the nature of that imbalance? At present, my confusion between those issues forestalls any response.
Why the muslims need them in a politcal struggle ? Why the sh@t ? Can't they really unite with such economic strength and 1.5 Billion voices and become formidable modern day economic force ?
First, a question that seems an aside, but does come into play:
Why do we treat issues in the Muslim world as purely religious--are Muslims exempt from human foibles like, oh, politics?
The reason I ask is because while you ask about the political struggle, you don't seem to be accounting for its effects. Tyrants of all varieties come to power and purge the clerics, the intellectuals, and the artists.
There is a theory afloat, and one that is reasonable because it rests in history: there is a coincidence between the rise of Islamic-based extremism as we know it in recent years and the fall of Communism. With "educated" voices of moderation decimated by cruel regimes, the people tend to sink into one or another pseudo-fundamentalist idea, whether it be party or church or nation or whatever.
Ataturk, Khomeni ... I'll avoid Godwin's Law.
Imagine America if the guests on Springer were among the educational elite because they actually made it
to high school. As Americans, within their comfort, have educated themselves, a flowering of tolerance occurred. Presently we're in a utilitarian crisis whereby our educational system is forfeiting the tools that bring that tolerance, but I'm not about to pretend that I would be the pacifist I am if I grew up in Iran or Iraq.
Where there is less formal education, there is more violence. Where the rational reasons are not part of the everyday debate, superstition and innuendo reign.
When I was eight, I was learning syntax, grammar, arithmetic, art, and community values. I was not learning how to throw a grenade, shoot to kill, or build Molotovs. I'm thirty-one. I still don't shoot, have never thrown a grenade, and I finally built and threw a Molotov when I was 16. Why did I build and throw a Molotov when I was 16? For a history class video report. It's a far different experience. I was raised on a different conflict-resolution paradigm, and one which required the luxury of implementation. While American children are also taught that they must accept the violence visited on them, that rule is legitimately intended for their protection in much the same way Solomon is wise for proposing a baby be cut in half. This is a far different condition from one where violations are routine and people are expected to not defend themselves. In America, where violence is supposed to be the aberration, I can simply back up and hold out long enough for the herd to intervene. When missiles are coming out of the sky and tanks are rolling through the streets, it seems to me a bit different. I survived all the punches of my classmates as many or most of us have. However, I've
never had to survive missiles and artillery and thick rifle fire. Anyone can yell at a cop, but there's never been a tank rolling down the street for me to throw a stone at. My schools had books, and electricity, and running water, and the miracle of HVAC. My streets are paved and quiet.
I have a hard time figuring what it is that people can't or won't grasp about the idea that education and security provide better options.
An American example: In Newt Gingrich's House of Representatives, a 33% reduction in youth street crime was not justification for the government's involvement in crime prevention. Seriously ... all anyone did was open up some basketball courts and give high-risk youth a place to go in the middle of the night. Midnight basketball was a godsend, but yeah, there was a fair question whether San Jose's (I forget which city, actually) gang problem was worth federal intervention. However, a point that still stands is that given a choice, those youth chose alternatives to violence.
The inside of an American high school--especially some of the recently-built ones--is something that some Muslim children born today will never see even if they live to die of natural causes.
Lacking the same conditions, the same foundation, how can we possibly expect a people to respond to stimuli according to our standards?
The symbolic is what holds broken communities together. As it strikes after the intuitive and the emotional, the symbolic can have a stronger hold than the rational, which requires greater effort and refinement, as well as a stronger and more complex foundation.
Starting from ones own backyard is the best way to have a clean environment.
I reiterate that it's tougher to do when you've got neighbors who are perfectly willing to turn your backyard into a rubbish tip whether you want it or not.
One of the things that non-Christians find frustrating about Christians in American politics is that often, the infidels in a debate come to know the Bible better than the Christians. I know it sounds strange, but the Christians are prone to faith declarations while the skeptic seeks pure or even excessive rationalism. There are days, such as in discussions of the Book of Genesis, that I wonder if a Christian and I are reading the same Bible inasmuch as one of us might be reading a LaHaye novel; in other words, it's not a matter of KJV or RSV or NASB or NIV, but one of what simple words mean. What they're telling me about the passage seems to be nowhere in the passage itself. It's an issue of "critical reading." People of faith don't read their works of faith critically in that sense. Perhaps in another context they do, such as how to best glorify God according to this or that passage, but .... I've grown up around a Judeo-Christian experience. It's easier for me to keep up with the Christian apologists. Sometimes I outpace them. It's taking a while for me to build my Quranic analysis.
I'm wondering, as an American, about my own community backyard. Instead of fighting a War on Terror, we should be waging a jihad against our own corruption and spiritual malaise. I recognize your point that defenders of Islam ought to wage a jihad against the corrupters, but if I had access to Osama freaking bin Laden, don't you think I would have done something about it by now even if only to get people off the backs of my good and decent Muslim neighbors in the world?
I think it would do the Islamic community in general much good to find a way to let the world see the inner workings of the decision-making progress. The fault isn't necessarily with the Quran, but rather in the priorities bestowed on any one person within the ummah in this era of jihad. Seriously ... take away the colleges and the cable TV and the internet and the thousands of bookstores and air-conditioned cars for driving in some cases less than a block (I didn't believe the scene from
L.A. Story was anything more than a joke, but ... 'tis true, 'tis true) and so on and so forth ... look at the things which allow Americans at least and the West in general the
luxury of more complex address of conflict. Take all that away and, as
Hypewaders has essentially pointed out elsewhere, Americans would act the same.
Most of the problems in the Islamic community are
human problems. Admittedly, some of the complications are unique to Islam, just as some American problems are unique to our Judeo-Christian heritage as well as some to our growing humanist heritage. And I do think that would become more apparent if certain vital deliberations among the ulema or other body were more open to the public. Whether or not this is doctrinally possible is its own story, and perhaps some of our Muslim neighbors here at Sciforums can comment on that.
As I look back through this, how important is the sense of comparison? What's left to say without it?
You know ... it's not like the topic article is worthless. The author shows some genuine aspects, and I don't doubt his perspective is molded by his fine education. But where I disagree often comes at a foundational level. I question certain paradigms underlying that fine education as I question the paradigms underlying all American education. I'm not as thoroughly cynical about it as my criticisms of the public schools generally suggests. I'm quite cynical about history in America, but merely skeptical about the significance of the idea that schools are factories for conformity. While this is not the exclusive or even primary presumption of public education, the idea still carries much weight. However, by the time you get to where the author is, those issues can be set aside, and we're left nitpicking whether or not comparative contexts are fair considerations for doubting one's perspective of history.
If we revisit the part of the article you cited, and set aside my concerns about Frontpage's definition of a frank discussion, I'm still left with the idea that we cannot have a frank discussion of the issue if we start from a presupposition that decapitations are "sacred" in Islam. Especially if we set the condition, as the topic poster has, that comparative contexts are taboo.
I'm stopping here. I owe a few words to others, as well.
As you can tell, there are a couple of things that obviously aren't making much sense to me, but hopefully we'll get that all figured out.
Note: There have been, already, several small edits to the original post; I apologize for any confusion that might bring about. It is, unfortunately, a sad result of the number of necessary and unnecessary interruptions to the composition process occurring throughout.
