Ya, no one really cares, except for the people that want to know what kind of person Rushdie really is. As I've said before and you keep reinforcing this: you will never understand the reaction to Rushdie, unless youre from the countries that were being ruled over by people from the other part of the world.
Islam vs. the Western World: off-topic posts from a Religion thread
- Thread starter kks
- Start date
Like Saudi Arabia? That's a lame excuse for barbarism.
Like India, Pakistan and the others. Barbarism? I dont believe there was much barbarism at display.
I am reading your reasons for the reaction, posted right here. They are not difficult to understand. The book is really very, very offensive, therefore it is without literary merit and its banishment, even coupled with the threatening of its author, is something reasonable.arsalan said:
They are symptomatic of a serious problem with the intellectual influence of the Muslim religion.
We're not defending his book (except for Juan Cole and a few others who have read it). We're attacking the reaction to it. That treatment of that kind of a novel and its author, for the reasons given, directly threatens freedom of speech, and is a violation of important principles of political liberty and common civil decency in the Western intellectual traditions.arsalan said:
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As is his work tbh. The fact that the Moors Last Sighs controversy wasnt as well shown in the West or that we didnt see the books being burned in the West after the Rushdie affair means that a lot of people will forever see it as some sign of Islams intellectual deficincies.
Oh well, c'est la vie. No one here is supporting any killing and no one supports the threats. But is it understandable that a lot of people were pissed off? Ya. Just like its understandable that the Chinese got pissed at Zhang Ya for being offensive about an earthquake and made her life miserable. Decency goes both ways. If you dont respect other people, dont expect any respect back.
Understandable?? And you say you're not supporting the killings?? Just by saying that it's "understandable" is support it!!
Violence like the suicide bombings of that mosque in Pakistan is not ....for any reason.... "understandable"!!!
And so ....you can see how we sometimes feel that you're actually supporting the violence? Understandable?? That's implied support, regardless of what you say.
Baron Max
Theres a difference between understanding why people react the way they do and supporting it. I could take another crack at you for not having the analytical intelligence to make the distinction, but I wont.
The big difference is that in civilized nations of the world, the perpatrators are hunted down and brought to trial. In Muslim nations, it seems that the violence is just waved aside as "understandable" .....and so it goes, on and on and on.
Baron Max
Criminals are hunted down and captured in Muslim countries as well. The understandable part is why people resist foreign invasion. However, I think you may have gotten threads crossed. This was about the reaction to Rushdies novel, most of which was non-violent, and how it was understandable why countries that were colonised and oppressed reacted the way they did
It's got nothing whatsoever to do with colonization. Besides, if anything, the Muslims taught colonization to the Europeans, they did it first.
DiamondHearts
Registered Senior Member
You people really are cannot support more than one point at a time. Don't you realize that there have been hundreds of drone attacks against innocent Pakistanis by the US? Where is the criticism of that? How can you ignore the US purposely destabilizing Pakistan, a nuclear nation, by continually disrespecting its sovereignty. Pakistan won't stay in this situation forever, the army has already made in clear that air strikes against other provinces in Pakistan will result in a formal declaration of war and end of an alliance between Pakistan and America. Don't forget, Pakistan has nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver. If the US government keeps following the failed Bush formula of interference and blaming Muslim neighbors (to widen its wars) of its defeats against hardened resistance fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan, it will put itself into a situation where it will inevitably come out as the biggest loser. This isn't America's Vietnam, this is America's Afghanistan, and it will effect America just as it effected the Soviets.
The culture-war we're discussing does in deed involve a mutation of the colonialism/imperialism cycle. US militarization, interventionism, exploitation, and disruption has been at the heart of this conflict in our times.
The radicalization of the societies we're discussing has resulted from, and flared up in historical sequence with unwelcome foreign intervention and meddling.
History shows how such stresses upon any population have this radicalizing effect, that predictably results in radicalized elements of any society or belief system. There is a wealth of history to show that the same occurs in any distressed society. Because major religions cannot persist without encompassing the common human nature that carries them through time, there is no unique proportion of aggression or propensity to violence in any broad categorization of creed. Sifting through another people's beliefs or religion to look for a unique source of anger is an exercise in empty cultural vanity, and the denial and ignorance of the irreducible commonality of human nature.
The radicalization of the societies we're discussing has resulted from, and flared up in historical sequence with unwelcome foreign intervention and meddling.
History shows how such stresses upon any population have this radicalizing effect, that predictably results in radicalized elements of any society or belief system. There is a wealth of history to show that the same occurs in any distressed society. Because major religions cannot persist without encompassing the common human nature that carries them through time, there is no unique proportion of aggression or propensity to violence in any broad categorization of creed. Sifting through another people's beliefs or religion to look for a unique source of anger is an exercise in empty cultural vanity, and the denial and ignorance of the irreducible commonality of human nature.
Um, the people we are bombing are destabilizing Pakistan, they are an existential threat to it's government. Without interference, they would try to gain hold of power and nuclear weapons, and they are friends with Al Quida!
Al-Qaeda is not going to take over Pakistan. Neither are the mountain tribes. It is not the various and varied people whom we are bombing who are destabilizing matters. It is the bombings that are destabilizing- whether by drone or by suicide, such equivalent carnage accomplishes that self-same task of destabilization that DiamondHearts mentions above.
Juan Cole also expresses it better than I have in Obama's Domino Theory:
US power is going to get more and more anachronistic and self-defeating until we learn to recognize and overcome our manufactured fears. The same goes for "Islam vs. the Western World" which is another ridiculous construct that needs to be challenged whenever it is trotted out.
Juan Cole also expresses it better than I have in Obama's Domino Theory:
US power is going to get more and more anachronistic and self-defeating until we learn to recognize and overcome our manufactured fears. The same goes for "Islam vs. the Western World" which is another ridiculous construct that needs to be challenged whenever it is trotted out.
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DiamondHearts
Registered Senior Member
If anyone believes that Alkaeda is somehow representative of even a small portion of the Pakistani population, they are completely wrong. Those bombers who are attacking mosques, bazaars, and civilian neighborhoods are coming from Afghanistan. Just a month after the US 'lost' thousands of guns in Kabul, they ended up in the streets of Pakistan, with unknown assailants indiscriminately firing on civilians. This has never happened in Pakistan before. There is an organized effort by some foreign governments to destabilize Pakistan, Indian RAW agents were captured, and subsequently imprisoned, providing guns and bombs to the know vanquished Bugti separatists in Balochistan. Karzai himself has stated that India and Afghanistan should divide Pakistan between themselves, these may be threats, but when Afghan nationals tied to the Northern Alliance and Indian RAW agents are captured funding terrorists in NWFP, then this raises a number of issues. Furthermore, many of these rebels are hold American weapons, which were given to the Afghan collaborators in Afghanistan. Obviously, we have many questions and few answers.
Juan Cole is a genius. One of the best Western analysts of the region.
Agreed.
That's funny, Juan Cole metions that these various factions are not a threat, why? Because they have been contained with the help of US forces! That doesn't mean this is war on false pretenses, it means we need to do more to make sure we aren't attacked again by these people. I have always thought Iraq was the wrong war, but Afghanistan is the right one. We shouldn't let the competence of Bush distract us from the fact that Al Quida, the Taliban, and related groups are a real threat both to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
DiamondHearts
Registered Senior Member
Ofcourse, America always acts in the interests of Pakistan and Aghanistan. See: US Predator drones kill atleast 100 civilians a month in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2008, governments in both countries condemn attacks as counter-productive.
We are acting in our own interest primarily, but Pakistan and Afghanistan are in trouble too. Is it in Pakistan's interest to let those enemies within thrive in peace? Nope.