[2/10 update: I answer The Editors in an update here]
From Islam Online:
Danish Muslim leaders warned on Saturday, February 4, of grave consequences if copies of the Noble Quran were burnt in a rally planned by Danish extremists to protest Muslim anger over cartoons mocking Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
“All hell will break loose, if those extremists burn the Quran,” Raed Halil, the head of the European Committee for Defending Prophet Muhammad, told IslamOnline.net over the phone from the Danish capital Copenhagen.
“A female member of a racist party circulated a message calling for burning copies of the Noble Quran in Saturday’s march,” he said.
Halil said the message incited young Danes to burn the Muslim holy book in retaliation for the burning of Danish flags by angry Muslims across the world and the boycotting of Danish products.
The extreme-right grouping Danish Front was to start its own march at 2:00 pm (1300 GMT) in Hilleroed, northeast of Copenhagen.
The 12 cartoons, first published last September by the mass-circulation Jyllands-Posten and then reprinted by several European dailies, have caused an uproar in the Muslim world and drawn a new cultural battle over freedom of speech and respect of religions.
Incensed Muslims have demonstrated against Denmark, burnt its flags and boycotted its products, while several Muslim ambassadors have been recalled in protest.
[all emphases mine]
Note the bolded text, because it draws clear (if to be expected) lines of demarcation between the actions of the rival “protest” groups:
The Danish protesters are “extremists” from the “extreme-right”—many of them members of a “racist party”—while those Muslims outraged by the publishing of the cartoons in the first place (who “protested” by burning flags, firebombing embassies, and—even here, through a spokesman, issuing active threats of “grave consequences” and promises that “All hell will break lose” should counterprotests seek to address “Muslim anger”) are mere victims of some minor misunderstanding in the “new cultural battle over freedom of speech and respect of religions.”
That last bit of spin is key, because it not only shows the force of a cynical Islamic identity politics still trying to write itself in strokes that aren’t quite so obvious [update: this story seems to fit well with the thesis that the “outrage” is part of an identity politics strategy]– but it also highlights the dilemma western proponents of identity politics have (and always will have) to face: namely, the point at which the necessary clash of soft, boutique mulitculturalism and the kernel beliefs of identity politics groups threaten to erupt into something much larger than a minor disagreement that can be fixed with a bit of superficial policy manipulation. Which is why even now you have Kos commenters contorting themselves into positions of self-righteous progressive onanism that are a wonder to behold—suddenly, free speech is not a universal right worthy of the crafting of puppet heads and the defacing of Starbucks’ windows, but instead is a culture-specific gift that needs to be filtered through the religious precepts of the culture of the Other. Unless, of course, that “Other” happens to be, say, Evangelical Christians. In which case, such extremists MUST BE SHOUTED DOWN with free speech.
Pretzel logic, clearly—and the dilemma that is at the root of an incoherent philosophical system that favors the sociology of group identity over the universality of individual rights. Ironically, George Bush, each time he argues that freedom is universal, is acting in a manner far more progressive than self-styled progressive activists.
Again: note the crux of the debate, as framed by the voices for Muslim protest, and take care to listen for the broad-stroked rhetoric—usually this kinds of gambit is more carefully crafted by those who have, through years of experience, perfected its vocabulary, cadence, emotional appeals, and key words—of the “tolerance” movement, the justifying force that cynically underpins all identity politics:
“The 12 cartoons … have caused an uproar in the Muslim world and drawn a new cultural battle over freedom of speech and respect of religions.”
Translation: “Free speech is good so long as it tolerates our right, as an identity group, to dictate which free speech is authentic and allowable. Otherwise, y’know, we get to torch shit.”
But of course, freedom of speech—reduced (for purposes of this debate) to its core, animating mandate and protection—is PRECISELY the ability to look religion in its pious face and flip it the bird. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to criticize religion, just as freedom of religion is supposed to protect the rights of the religious not to have their religion established for them by a government—a counterbalancing right that is lacking in theocratic states and in religions where pluralism is denied legitimacy.
But this lack of balance between the freedoms—rather than being exploited by the west to make its case for free speech and its necessity as the guiding principle of liberalism—is instead being exploited by neophyte identity politicians in the Muslim world, who have learned to play the victim card so quickly that our own State Department has bought into their affected outrage at victimization and religious “intolerance.”¹
Somehow, it seems to escape those raised on westernized Orientalism that by calling the intolerance of intolerance “intolerant,” they have reduced the concept of tolerance itself to a cruel semantic joke—the idea being that groups formed around cultural similarities, once they have honed their group message and excommunicated the dissenters—own the narrative. Outside criticism is therefore inauthentic—always tainted by the gaze of the Other, and so only to be considered secondarily (if at all) as a valid critique.
From there, it is a short journey to asserting the absolutism of a cultural paradigm—and this happens necessarily where universality (or, for postmodernists, social contracts that rely on the trappings of what is metaphysically untenable) is surrendered to competition between identity groups over primacy of “rights” in the global sense.
This battle over the Danish cartoons highlights all of these philosophical dilemmas (which I have argued previously are the result of certain linguistic misunderstandings that are either cynically or idealistically perpetuated); and so we are brought to the point where this clash of civilizations—which in one important sense is a clash between theocratic Islamism and the west, but in another, more crucial sense, is a clash between the west and its own structural thinking, brought on by years of insinuation into our philosophy of what is, at root, collectivist thought that privileges the interpreter of an action over the necessary primacy of intent and agency and personal responsibility to the communicative chain—could conceivably become manifest over something so seemingly trivial as the right to satirize.
One regret I have is that this battle should have been fought and won in favor of intentionalism and individualism inside our own western universities years ago; instead, the victory went to our progressive academic collectivists, whose fidelity to PC culture, identity politics, free-speech zones, tolerance training courses, et al manifested themselves in a “tolerance” culture that now has the goverment looking inside individuals’ heads (hate speech, hate crime) and effectively chilling all speech by defining tolerance in an Orwellian sense of tolerating only that speech which is so bland and banal that it is unlikely to offend anyone. And now we might be forced to battle with guns and chemical weapons and fissile material rather than with confidence in our own intellectual rigor and rectitude.
The idea of liberal democracy was NEVER about such nonsense—nor was it ever about balkanizing into identity groups who, by asserting a self-defined narrative, could claim an authenticity that put them beyond criticism.
So yes, the clash of civilizations has begun. But, to fall back on a useful cliche’, we have seen the enemy, and he is us (too).
[editor’s note: this post is a follow-up to an earlier and more detailed post on the subject]
(h/t Allah)
related: See Michelle Malkin, Stop the ACLU (“Danish embassy set ablaze”), Danish Cartoons (via the Corner and Craig C), Reason (via Brian T), Wretchard (via Terry Hastings), The Boston Globe, and ABC News (via Craig C)
See also, Rick Moran, “At War with Modernity”; additional thoughts from Dave Price, Neil Stevens, Bill Ardolino, and Jawa Report, whose “Marx, Communism, Totalitarianism; Muhammed, Islam, Terrorism” touches on many key aspects of the debate. An excerpt:
Many of us would like to think that Islam is just another religion. That sentiment comes from a good place. Most Americans want to believe that about our fellow Americans. In fact, I would argue that America has always had a national ecumenical spirit. But such thinking is also ignorant of Islam as it is, and not as it should be. I would like Islam to be just another religion which asks only for the soul of the Muslim and not his political fealty, but that is not the case.
Rusty defends the State Department (and both a pragmatic and practical case can be made for such a defense) while taking several conservative bloggers to task for what he essentially sees as an attitude of strained equivalency that leads to a form of apologia that is, at its heart, precisely what I’ve noted identity politics relies upon.
See also, TacJammer, who writes:
We are in the midst of an ongoing struggle, culture against culture, and there is no guarantee of victory. But fight we must, in big ways and small. Some of us can don a uniform; many of us have done so in the past. Most do other things, making their own individual stands right where they are, not surrendering to the ideologies of fear or tolerance of evil, but by living the lives of free men and women and exercising dearly held freedoms.
Including the freedom of speech.
In this, I don’t care how you vote, nor does it matter what church you attend, or not. I don’t care whether you’re red state or blue, pink or green. If you value your freedom to make choices, to live your life as you see fit, respecting the rights of others, even though you disagree on some or many things… if you will not surrender your fundamental liberties merely to save your own skin, and will not submit to dhimmitude, then stand.
More: thoughts from Dr. Sanity. And Dean Esmay responds to Rusty at Jawa Report, while Sobek Pundit believes he’s found a flaw in my thesis—one that is addressed, obliquely, by Karl Maher, who wasn’t even aware he was doing so.
****
¹I want to stress here that I am most interested in the structural philosophy underlying this ostensible “clash of civilizations”; I recognize that there are often pragmatic reasons for individual acts of compromise and conciliatory action. But when those acts become a philosophy unto themselves—and it is western liberalism that is modifying or finessing its core beliefs in order to get along—then I think we’ve reached a point of serious concern. As a real world example that doesn’t single out the failures of activist progressivism, I would suggest that foreign policy realism, today most prominent in the entrenched bureaucratic thinking of the State Department, suffers from similar philosophical difficulties
²It is important to distinguish between the pointing out of—and the protesting against—what some may see as needless provocation, and what others might characterize as effective, pointed political speech. Hell, Ted Rall teaches us that every day. Nevertheless, the potential rhetorical force is in the eye of the beholder, which is why we don’t hold back fair criticisms simply out of fear of giving offense. The restrictions we put on free speech arise out of practical concerns, one of which should not be the threat of intentional violence by those who disagree with the substance of a critique that is not meant as an act of instigatory violence. Re: the necessity of provocation, see Christopher Hitchens (h/t IP)
I guess it all comes down to what Robert E. Howard said when he created the character of Conan the Barbarian:
“Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing”.
To most “civilized†post-Enlightenment Westerners, Islamic Law (mainly based on the Hebrew Old Testament) is straightforwardly barbaric and repulsive in itself- see Hegel, Renan and other mainstream 19th century European thinkers who have contributed to shaping our view of Islam and the Orient.
It’s sad to see this kind of cultural stereotyping still persists to that day, on both side of the cultural/religious divide for that matter: that hapless Danish cartoonist is as backward as his Saudi censors and probably views them as fanatical fools; whereas they’re probably utterly convinced that a second-tier Scandinavian newspaper must be part of some “Occidental Masonic conspiracy†designed to destroy Allah and his beloved bearded vicar!
But it wasn’t always so Manichean: ironically, throughout the Middle-Ages and until the 18th century, many libertine Western aristocrats and free-thinking philosophers were actually attracted by Islam precisely because they viewed it as a more rationalist and modern faith than Christianity: after the defeat of Napoleon’s republican “Grand Army†and the return to power of the rightwing Catholic kings of France, several of Napoleon’s revolutionary generals choose to move to Cairo and some even converted to Islam.
But this was then…the times have changed and two hundred years of fanatical Wahhabi activism boosted by Saudi Arabia’s immense oil revenues, compounded by France and England’s brutal colonial practices in the Middle-East and North Africa, and America’s unwavering backing of Israel’s war crimes have succeeding in tilting the Mohammedan collective psyche towards a very reactionary interpretation of Islam, which in many ways is simply a natural defense reflex albeit an obscurantist and backward one…
Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion states: “To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts. Whatever draws or presses another is as much drawn or pressed by that otherâ€Â.
Prescient words in many ways…
Nothing wrong with identity politics, as long as everyone in society accepts the basic norms of Western democracy.
Which most people in Western Europe and North AMerican believe in.
There is plenty wrong with identity politics as a systemic imperative, which I’ve been at great lengths to discuss over the last several years. If you have specific critiques, I’m interested to hear them.
It won’t take much to reveal cililization as the veneer it is. One city, somewhere, getting killed. Nuke? Chem? Bio? It don’t matter.
One city dead, and jubilant celebration in the streets of the muslim world, and just watch as the civilized west “goes medieval on their asses”.
The Hindus will probably help, or at least the Sikhs will. They have no illusions as to the long-term results of ignoring this shit. The Moghuls cured ‘em of that.
Me? I’m digging a hole.
Excellent as usual Jeff.
btw, after reading Rick Moran’s description of you, I am under the distinct impression that he is more in bloglove with you than I am.
brokebackbloglove?
I can’t help that eerie feeling that we’re approaching an “Edward Grey” Moment – “the lights are going out all over Europe, and we shall never see them lit again in our lifetimes.” It’s that point when prescience is no longer prescient, when the handwriting on the wall is so undeniable that such a formulation is just stating what everyone already knows to be true. I hope it’s just from reading too much Dalrymple and Derbyshire, coupled with the pessimism that seems to come with the baggage of studying history.
Geez.
Victorino,
, compounded by France and England’s brutal colonial practices in the Middle-East and North Africa, and America’s unwavering backing of Israel’s war crimes have succeeding in tilting the Mohammedan collective psyche towards a very reactionary interpretation of Islam, which in many ways is simply a natural defense reflex albeit an obscurantist and backward one…
Uh, no. That has been the standard interpretation for a few centuries at least. That’s the biggest reason why the West has progressed in every way while they haven’t.
I can just picture you as an Islamic scholar during the Crusades or colonialist days, explaining how they are the fault of the forcible (and yes often brutal) Islamic expansion into Europe and the Christian response is defensive.
Except, of course, you’d have been killed for saying that, which is sort of the point of all this.
This is the sort of idiocy that makes the internet so great–I would have to search extensively to find a moron of such exquisite caliber in the real world, but here, they virtually come to you.
Two things. Identity politics necessarily means that you group as racially as any eugenist and regardless of the merits of that group’s reasoned arguments. You are black, white, whatever, and that’s that, QED, therefore you must hew to the party line or be cannibalized.
Identity politics are classical tribalism, but in another word, illogical.
The other, you mouth-breathing knuckledragger, is this: Not everyone accepts western norms…because of identity politics no less.
Mojo – you reminded me of my Uncle Harvin there at the last (for the visually-inclined, think of a fellow that looked like a Southern-Fried Eddie Albert). I still remember him back in 1973 laying out his plan for when the Cold War got hot (which, thankfully, it never did). “I’m gonna dig me a hole and leave a shovel next to it. Why? So the next fella comes along, he can dig him a hole.”
(Harvin had an eccentric sense of humor – as a former WWII Marine lieutenant, he had a basement full of memorabilia, including a defused Japanese grenade. One of his favorite gags was to take a visitor downstairs, show him/her the grenade, explain that they exploded after eight seconds – then pull out the pin. A lot of sadistic hilarity then ensued.)
mojo, I take a crumb of comfort from the knowledge that I’m not alone in thinking that this thing might lead where I think it might lead.
Can I borrow your shovel?
Unless Ali Hassan Achmed ibn Martin Luther pops out of the woodwork soon, we will all learn exactly what a billion dead people look like.
Bastards.
TW = “major”. It is a time of major stress.
I don’t think you can put too fine a point on how antithetical to reason that identity politics are.
You neither need a logical argument to join the identity group nor does the identity group need to argue its policies based on logic alone, much less its guiding philosophy.
Identity politics are to Reason what soap is to hippies; Kryptonite.
Jeff,
The Danish protestors being discussed in the article are right-wing extremists. In fact, they are Neo-Nazis.
The DNSB, by the way, is Denmark’s Neo-Nazi party.
And here:
So Islam Online writes an article on planned Koran burning by an extremist neo-Nazi group, and you consider calling these people “extremists” and members of a “racist party” to be some sort of spin? Did you even look to see who the Danish Front is before writing this post?
I would be interested in examining the root causes of this philosophical crisis in Western liberal thought. There was an abandonment of the core values (liberty and inquiry) and an embrace of increasingly bizarre fringe offshoots, like the identity politics that are today so grossly omnipresent.
Was there a historical event that made the foundational values seem untenable, and so people honestly abandoned them? Was it simply a taste for novelty? I really don’t know.
Mescaline, CSNY, and the death of the author.
They killed the author? Those bastards!
Seriously – innovations in hallucinogens did take place around the same time. Maybe all those acid trips really DID rewire the brain – only not in a world-peace-and-flowers kind of way.
To Wahhabist Islamic fundamentalists from Londonistan to Karachi, “humanism†and “idolatry†are primitive pagan sins that must be combated by all means- and that includes the beheading of “infidels†and other Shariaa-compliant niceties such as autodafes and suicide bombings…
Ironically, the main role model for these fanatical fools is not their own medieval Arab prophet Muhammad, but rather ancient Semitic heroes such as Moses who fought “the decadent/civilized Egyptians armies with a small group of Bedouin believers/guerillas†and Sicarii-in-chief Simon Bin Giora who believed that it was a “believer’s religious duty to kill infidels, collaborators and their childrenâ€Â
See wiki link below for more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicarii
Eventually, secular Roman generals were left with no choice but to massacre them en masse:
”When Albinus reached the city of Jerusalem, he bent every effort and made every provision to ensure peace in the land by exterminating most of the Sicarii.” [Josephus, Jewish Antiquities (xx.208)]
I’ve been wading around over at Kos – had to go to Page 2 to get to this story, which is incomprehensible to me. Over 500 comments, many of the first 100 or so of them (that’s as far as I got) non sequiturs, jokes, or arguments over whether one commenter or another is a troll; but most who have anything substantive to say are supportive of the Danes. A few seem to believe that re-publishing the cartoons is “Fire!” in a crowded theater and therefore free speech no longer applies. The phrase “common sense” is thrown around quite a lot in these comments. And then there’s this one:
So s/he has reinvented the scapegoat but believes that s/he is taking a principled stand. Huh.
Interestingly, the diary itself gave background that I missed on the cartoons themselves: evidently they were part of a contest sparked by an author’s inability to get children’s book on Mohammed illustrated, because no artist was willing to do the work. Sensing a story, the newspaper offered the Danish editorial cartoonists’ union the opportunity to draw Mohammed as they each saw him, and (of forty cartoonists solicited) the twelve cartoons were the result.
And eventually we get to this:
…which certainly shows that some posters over there haven’t forgotten who they really are, in spite of all efforts to “educate” it out of them.
TW: I could get to like some of them.
I don’t want to speak for Jeff, “Llama School,” but his point wasn’t that the right-wing groups weren’t right wing groups, it was that the Islamofascist Splodeydopes were being portrayed as benign victims of a cultural misunderstanding while no such punches were pulled for the right-wingers. I would think that someone with even minor reading comprehension skills would have gotten that.
These idiots all deserve each other.
Ditto what CraigC wrote. The problem, Llama, is the clear double-standard at work, evidenced by the political spin being practiced which defines “acceptable” and “unacceptable” speech.
Islamists can spout hateful nonsense, burn down embassies, and threaten entire populations with death; they can speak anti-Semitic hate with impunity and torch synagogues; they can threaten the civilized world with nukes and state that the Holocaust never occured; and through all of this, they will have Western apologists either consciously or unconsciously showing them deference. But the same deference is never shown for the hate group(s) borne from other countries, usually Caucasian and/or Christian in nature. Let’s call a spade a spade, and stop giving deference to one group because of soome warped view of “tolerance”.
It’s demonstrated in innumerable ways within the States. Consider the NAACP chairman Julian Bond recently making tired comparisons of the GOP to Nazis, and not hearing a peep about it in the media. All that was reported were his safer comments on race relations and political battles; all of them pure rhetoric, but nothing compared to the fighting words they didn’t report on. If a high-profile Republican made similar comments, it’s easy to guess that s/he’s be toast today.
It’s the double standard at play. Maybe that’s why this cartoon fiasco may be a good thing. The Islamsts must either face the music and join the world community, or go to war with it. I’m praying for the former.
TO: Jeff Goldstein
RE: Interesting Post
I have on disagreement….
The ‘progressive’â€â€what a misnomerâ€â€faculty members have not ‘won’ the engagement. They merely have primacy, for the moment.
In due time, reality will catch up with them, as it does with all of us. Then, their posturings and images will all be for naught.
As one such progressive had a poster at her desk, “Image is everything.”
I applied a caveat….
“Except where the tread meets the road.” The point being is you can have a construction paper tire on the wheel of your car, but if you have to actually driver your car, it isn’t going to work.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. The collapse of the progressive agenda is going to be rather painful. For everybody. But…that’s what you get when you ignore reality.
On the subject of linguistic jiu jitsu – someone remind me how it was that a group of socialists (as in National Socialist Party), with dreams of social engineering on a grand scale – which seems to more in harmony with the core tenets of thought for big government ‘take care of them from (before) diapers to the grave’ ‘liberals’ of the ‘progressive’ left – have become the poster nightmare depictions of ‘the far right‘?
How the hell is anyone supposed to even have a rational disucssion of political thought, when the labels have essentially been put blindly into a hat, then pulled out to be awarded by the lottery of purely utilitarian desire?
Progressive? Oooo, that one sounds good, let US use it! Everyone likes progress…
I have to agree with mojo.
Iran or some terrorist group gets nukes and nukes a city. One city. Anywhere in the world. CNN and other major news networks broadcast videos of Muslims celebrating in the streets.
Think about it.
The reason anyone in the Muslim world still draws breath is that we are civilized. We have the technology to kill every one of them in a time span of a few months. Europe and America are so far in advance of these medievalists technologically it’s no contest. They are alive because the rest of the world has compassion and restraint.
So think about it. Restraint goes out the window. The west, the Hindus, and possibly even the Chinese go into the Muslim world and industrially slaughter it’s population with carpet bombing, nukes, and maybe even chemical/biological agents.
A billion dead? Two?
This is what scares me about this whole thing. I don’t want to see this happen. I think once we woke up from the rage-induced nightmare the guilt complex and other consequences would last millenia, not to mention the residual radiation.
Oh well. If this is what it takes for humanity to learn about the danger of dogmatic thinking, militarism, appeasement, etc. then so be it. Maybe we need to learn this lesson before biotech and nanotech really mature.
Has anyone had a look yet at Simon Jenkins’ Orwellian opinion piece in The Sunday Times, where not only accuses the Danish cartoonists of committing the “crime” of subjecting the poor oppressed Muslim minority in Europe to religious humiliation, but goes on to warn that any such further outbursts may lead to official censorship laws? I’m still peeling my jaw off the floor.
“I would be interested in examining the root causes of this philosophical crisis in Western liberal thought. There was an abandonment of the core values (liberty and inquiry) and an embrace of increasingly bizarre fringe offshoots, like the identity politics that are today so grossly omnipresent.”
Well, western liberal thought is by definition experimental, and some experimentswork out better than others. That, and Nietzsche.
“Was there a historical event that made the foundational values seem untenable, and so people honestly abandoned them? Was it simply a taste for novelty? I really don’t know.”
The popularity of the 19th century Catholic church despite the almost ridiculously illiberal Syllabus of Errors (1864) went a long way toward severing the Enlightenment from its own religious roots, with results progressively more grotesque, despite the brightest of hopes, culminating in Auschwitz, leaving the confidence of the west shaken and vulnerable to subversion by eastern tribalism (via the KGB, among others).
Oh, nice.
Once again, the trail of villainy leads us to the twentieth century’s greatest monster, David Crosby!
That was irony, right?
Let me break it down a little more.
These Danish protestors are extremists from a racist party. But Jeff puts these quotes in the context of spin. (See the beginning of the next paragraph, where he says that “that last bit of spin is key”; providing evidence that he also considers the earlier bits as spin as well.) However, it’s clear that this isn’t spin at all. The Danish Front are violent Neo-Nazis, and referring to them as “extremists” from a “racist party” is no sort of spin.
Contrary to what Jeff claims, “Muslims outraged by the publishing of the cartoons” are not equal to those “who “protested” by burning flags, firebombing embassies…”. There are plenty of Muslims that are against this violence (see this CAIR editorial, for example).
All Muslims are not violent, all Muslims are not terrorists, all Muslims do not support terrorist agendas, Al Qaeda, firebombing embassies, etc.
Jeff then says that the Islam Online article frames the article such that these outraged Muslims as “mere victims of some minor misunderstanding”. If you equate the outraged Muslims with the firebombers, then this framing would understandably be absurd. But it’s a very different situation if the outraged Muslims aren’t those that are offended, but not resorting to violence.
***
CraigC and Brian,
I don’t see any evidence of political spin being used in the Islam Online article that Jeff linked and quoted. Maybe there’s evidence somewhere else…if so, then use that. As for Islamists spouting hateful speech and using violence to attain their goals, yes, there are some that do that, and they’re racist morons. But is there really a problem of “Western apologists…showing them deference”? There might be the occasional moron who thinks this is ok, but for the most part, anti-Semitic hate speech, denial of the Holocaust, and similar things are considered to be reprehensible regardless of who does it.
Maybe there’s a videogame out there you can play that would make you learn it?
“UN ACTION 2006!”
Five hundred levels to get through, and the kicker is you don’t have to accomplish anything to win.
I have no idea what to say to that, Llama. The point makes itself. If you can’t see it, it’s your problem, not mine.
And I’m just a little tired of the “All Muslims are not violent, all Muslims are not terrorists, all Muslims do not support terrorist agendas, Al Qaeda, firebombing embassies, etc.” trope.
To quote Neal Boortz:
Muslims fly commercial airliners into buildings in New York City. No Muslim outrage.
Muslim officials block the exit where school girls are trying to escape a burning building because their faces were exposed. No Muslim outrage.
Muslims cut off the heads of three teenaged girls on their way to school in Indonesia. A Christian school. No Muslim outrage.
Muslims murder teachers trying to teach Muslim children in Iraq. No Muslim outrage.
Muslims murder over 80 tourists with car bombs outside cafes and hotels in Egypt. No Muslim outrage.
A Muslim attacks a missionary children’s school in India. Kills six. No Muslim outrage.
Muslims slaughter hundreds of children and teachers in Beslan, Russia. Muslims shoot children in the back. No Muslim outrage.
Let’s go way back. Muslims kidnap and kill athletes at the Munich Summer Olympics. No Muslim outrage.
Muslims fire rocket-propelled grenades into schools full of children in Israel. No Muslim outrage.
Muslims murder more than 50 commuters in attacks on London subways and busses. Over 700 are injured. No Muslim outrage.
Muslims massacre dozens of innocents at a Passover Seder. No Muslim outrage.
Muslims murder innocent vacationers in Bali. No Muslim outrage.
Muslim newspapers publish anti-Semitic cartoons. No Muslim outrage
Muslims are involved, on one side or the other, in almost every one of the 125+ shooting wars around the world. No Muslim outrage.
Muslims beat the charred bodies of Western civilians with their shoes, then hang them from a bridge. No Muslim outrage.
Newspapers in Denmark and Norway publish cartoons depicting Mohammed. Muslims are outraged.
When I start hearing average muslims denouncing this crap….well, no, I take it back. When I start hearing average muslims denouncing this crap, I’ll know they’re lying for tactical purpose. Ever hear of the “hudna?”
The last graf was mine.
Wonderful piece, Jeff.
I notice your separation of anti-semantics, as well. :D
All the average muslims I know are…. well, I.. .I don’t know any. I don’t even know what the demographics of the average muslim is. Is he indonesian or south asian?
But this one got Insta-linked. Heh.
Actus, I happen to know quite a few people who I suppose could be called “average muslims,” although most of them are very Americanized. To a person, they’re very nice. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them if it came down to a choice between islam and their adopted country. Sorry, that’s just the way it is.
Actus is just trying to start a fight. He’s trolling. You’ll note he’s added nothing of substance in any of the comments he’s made tonight, merely done his best to start an argument on matters other than the topic.
It may truly be the end times, I agree with actus.^^
Adam Ierymenko –
Don’t let actus bother you with that snide little shot.
You came a little too close to labeling one of his core tenants, ie – appeasement, as one the dangers which threaten to bring on a war of racial extermination.
I happen to agree with you that the path we are currently on could result in just such an earth-scorching conflict. Further, I believe that the childishness of people like actus makes such a conflict much more likely.
Very thoughtful comment.
If you don’t stay on “top” of these acti…
You think that’s the average muslim? Someone who is very americanized? Or do you mean an average american who is muslim?
It happens every day. Ever read what the prophet wrote about HOV lanes? Like the hudna is only a tactical cease fire, so is the HOV lane for when you want to pass and get away with it.
Actus, why should CraigC have to know any “average” Muslims at all? If the “average” Muslim is a decent guy, by definition, most of the Muslim world should be utterly revolted by many of the horrid acts of terrorism other Muslims have done in their name, in the name of their religion, and in the name of their Prophet. And we already know that when something bothers Muslims, they aren’t exactly shy about expressing their feelings. So why, as Boortz notes, is there “no Muslim outrage” for acts of horror orders of magnitude more bloody or appalling than the juvenile antics of some cartoonists?
I freely admit that I don’t know anyone from Denmark. But I can guess that the “average” Dane is a lot more tolerant than the “average” Muslim. I know this because even as Danes have watched Muslims around the world insult their country, hurt their compatriots abroad, and burn their embassy, Arab embassies in Copenhagen remain secure, mosques stand, Muslims continue to live safely amongst Danes, and it’s the Danish cartoonists who have to go into hiding in their own country.
The collective actions of Danes reflect well on their society: peaceful, tolerant, and civilized. The collective actions of Muslims reflect the opposite: quick to anger, intolerant of other views, indifferent to the suffering of unbelievers, blasé about the most unspeakable crimes done by Muslims to unbelievers, and dogmatic enough to expect even non-Muslims in non-Muslim lands to observe their religious taboos.
Actus, go pick your fight among people who don’t have better things to do.
What it all comes down to is this: Free speech for me (Muslims) and hate speech for thee ( everyone else).
He wants to hear one say something. I’d like to know who this average muslim is so I can be on the lookout for what they are saying.
Nice try, but CraigC didn’t say he wanted to hear one man say anything. He wanted to hear “average Muslims”—plural. In other words, he wanted, like I do, the allegedly peaceful, tolerant, and civilized Muslim mainstream start demonstrating that they are civilized and denounce, say, the murder of second-graders in Beslan at least as loudly as they denounce Danish sketches of their precious “prophet.” So far, nothing of the sort has happened. Until it does, the logical conclusion is that, their spokesweasels’ claims to the contrary, Islamic society at large is neither tolerant nor peaceful, and the alleged “extremists” do, in fact, represent them very well.
CraigC had a good point, and your childish—not to mention inaccurate—parsing of his words doesn’t address or mitigate it.
Congratulations on the Instalanche, Jeff!
Turing = when, as in I’ll get one of those when…
Perhaps it’s easier for Actus to dwell on semantic quibbles regarding the “average” muslim than to embrace some cold, disturbing realities. That might require facing the possibility that some enemies can’t be litigated or pandered away, that some opponents are not content with expressions of good will and tolerance, no matter how loudly or sincerely trumpeted. The next few years, perhaps even the next few months, may present us with some hard choices. It’s understandable that this is a terrifying prospect, and that those unable or unwilling to face that fact would retreat to name-calling and sparring over peripheral concerns. Childish, but understandable.
As an addendum to CraigC’s Boortz post:
I read the following quote somewhere on the internet a couple of years ago in response to Bush’s insistence that Islam is a religion of peace. I think it’s becomming more evident as we go. “A moderate muslim is one who watches his more radical brother murder innocents, and does nothing.”
CraigC,
Have you ever done any research to see if there actually was Muslim outrage about these things stated in the Neal Boortz quote?
For example, Boortz said “Muslims fly commercial airliners into buildings in New York City. No Muslim outrage.” Really? What about this? Or this? All you have to do is Google something like “Muslims denounce 9/11” and find loads of Muslim outrage. You can quote Boortz, but he’s throwing out crap without evidence to back it up.
That’s not so much “outrage” as it is, “writing a letter.”
I can write some testy letters, but their impact doesn’t compete with firebombing an embassy.
Actually Actus, the average US muslim is African American. And to tell the truth, I was surprised to learn this too; I thought Pakistanis were the largest, but they’re a distant second (24%, mostly from nations formerly known as “British India”).
I also thought Persians would be second, but they’re fourth (3.6%), behind Arabs (12.4%). There are around 1200 mosques in the US, and acccording to CAIR, 71% of their members “feel that the Qur’an and Sunnah should be interpreted with consideration of its purposes and modern circumstances.”
And as to CraigC’s point, think of it this way: American Muslims essentially find themselves in the same political situation that white people found themselves in the 50’s and early 60’s. Back then you had a small minority of white people torching black churches, doing the whole wear-the-bedsheet thing, lynchings, etc., until the early sixties when a majority of white folks in this country decided that they were tired of apologizing for these assholes, disowned them politically, and passed laws to protect black folks from them. And it was agonizing for them.
Currently, moderate muslims find themselves in the same boat. They have a kinship to these assholes, and the assholes show no signs of coming around, and they face the agony of having to do the right thing. Personally, I don’t envy them for a minute, but they need to pick up the pace a bit…
yours/
peter
Sorry, but Craig C is right.
You can’t just google some obsure article that maybe 15 people actually read and say, “See there is muslim outrage against these acts.” We have not seen large scale demonstrations by substantial numbers of muslims protesting this barbarism anywhere.
Additionally, it seems that this entire shitstorm may have been manufactured by radical muslims with the deliberate intention of inciting a major cultural clash. Read this over at Captain’s Quarters, <a href=”http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/006271.php” target=”_blank”>
As the article states, the original cartoons were published last October. The article goes onto to also state that,
The author correctly observes that
The radical muslims have been getting their unwiped asses kicked on the battlefield and in the realm of ideas. In desperation they are trying to incite the great mass of muslims, the so called muslim street. Those folks (the ‘street’
have no love of us or our culture and they will rise if they see weakness on our part. Conversly, they will remain not rise if we are resolute.
States like Syria and Iran have dangerous internal instabilities and are only too happy to foment faux outrage if it diverts everyone’s attention from the real problems.
Our greatest weakness at this point is ourselves. On the one hand we have those so blind or curdled with a metastasized BDS, that they will do rhetorical backflips rather than admit that maybe they were wrong. On the other hand we have those who would be only too eager to rush headlong into the trap of hate being laid by the radical muslim elements and thus enrage and they hope, mobilize the entire muslim world.
I’m no expert, I’m just some hick in Alaska, but it seems that by being resolute about freedom of speech and religion, by championing individual rights instead of collective rights and by showing that we are not afraid and will not be coerced or intimidated by barbarism, that this little shitstorm will subside. Just like the alleged koran flushing incidents at GITMO. In addition we need to get the truth out there for all to see.
Unfortunately, it is our own media and the ‘progressive’ elements in the west that are helping
the barbarians by continuing to stoke the fires with wall to wall coverage and with the soothing words of appeasement.
If western civilization falls, it won’t be because we lost the battle of ideas, or lost on the field of battle. If we loose, it will be because we gave up our freedoms to barbarism for the short term security of being the last sheep that the lion eats.
Sorry, here’s the link to the CQ article.
I’ll take that one, Llama School. But first, let’s be precise in our wording. Let’s cut with the abbreviations, which are convenient for some: A Nazi is a National SOCIALIST. Let’s repeat: National SOCIALIST.
Sidebar: why is it that when Russians call themselves SOCIALIST (as in Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics), left-wingers in America call them Communists. And when Germans call themselves SOCIALIST (as in German National SOCIALIST Party), left-wingers in America call them Fascists and right-wingers.
There were two truly fascist regimes in Europe around the time of the National SOCIALISTS. The Italians, who invented the word (whose leader, Mussolini, tried to withhold all of his Jews from Hitler), and the Spanish, under Franco, (who also tried to hide all of his Jews from Hitler), the National SOCIALIST.
On the other hand, Stalin’s – a SOCIALIST (or Communist if you’re trying to pretend there’s no blood on the hands of the left) – last purge was aimed at Jews.
Arabists have long held SOCIALIST views, including, but not limited to the B’aathists in Iraq and the B’aathists in Syria. Racism is not a right-wing thing, despite exhortations of left-wingers who want to pretend there’s no blood on their hands.
The very same left-wingers who have pushed identity politics all this long time. Are you prepared to tell us that those who have pushed identity politics are not at the core of racism? Identity politics are founded on the shifty soil of racism. That’s why Jeff is right in saying that one does not need reason to believe in race identity. It’s as farcical as racism: and both are products of the left.
What, for example are the three cudgels of left-wing thought: Race, Class, Gender. We can add religion to that if you’d like (or anti-religion when it’s suitable). What makes you think those sorry, ugly weapons only work for the betterment of all?
My thoughts here. If anyone cares. Because, when you come right down to it, it’s SATURDAY NIGHT.
The idea of the “moderate Muslim” is a myth.
In the US for example, 80% of the Mosques are Wahabbist-funded, and as a result predictably spew hatred and religious bigotry, particularly anti-Semitism, and jihad rhetoric.
Black Muslims and the Nation of Islam are in the same boat. Louis Farrakhan makes racist and anti-semitic and pro-jihad statements all the time. The Nation of Islam is by DEFINITION racist, since Whites and Asians and American Indians and Indians and Pacific Islanders can’t join.
After 9/11 the response from CAIR and other Muslim groups was … complaints about stereotyping. Meanhwile terrorist plot after terrorist plot involving Muslims in this country has been broken up.
Actus has so bought into this article of religious faith in the idealized, victim-always “Other” that can do no wrong (it’s pathetic Volk-Marxism at it’s lamest) that he doesn’t understand that Islam itself is the enemy of all writers, painters, musicians, artists, free thinkers, and anyone interested in the life of the mind.
ALL one has to do to understand this is look at any Muslim country. Even South Korea has produced along with world-class companies, products, patents, scientific discoveries, and innovations, world-class cinema. The Muslim world has produced not a SINGLE patent, scientific discovery, world-class company, product, or intellectual, cultural, or artistic achievement since the early 1200’s. THAT alone should speak for itself.
Muslims are the enemy, and will remain the enemy, until such time as Muslims put their faith “in a box” where it is a matter for personal and very PRIVATE faith and belief or informing personal decisions, like most Buddhists, Christians, Taoists, Confucianists, Hindus, and Animists do.
Shoot, I lost my entire post because the letters in that dumb box are so hard to read. The bottom line, though, is that unless we can read minds and hearts, or unless there’s a consistent penalty for using words opaquely, the text itself is all we have.
What he heck is that word in the box anyway? It looks like eithere “shame” or “theme” but about all I can do is take a guess.
(Apparently it was neither. Sheesh, what a pain!)
This one looks like “other,” but I’m half expecting another confrontation with imprecision.
Come to think of it, if there were a consistent penalty for using words dishonestly (masking or misrepresenting one’s intent), and there were a reasonable probability that violators would get caught, we’d be pretty much living in Eden wouldn’t we?
OK, now what’s in that dumb box? Looks like “bring.” But again, I’m just guessing.
Well shit, that’ll teach me to have a life. But in any event, thanks you guys for making the points I would have made had I been here. Very well done, especially E. Nough and Tim P.
So “outrage” has to come in the form of a street protest, otherwise it’s not outrage? Look at Eric Rudolph, who bombed a series of abortion clinics in the South. This outraged many Christians, who cleary don’t support this kind of extremist, terrorist activity. But Christians weren’t protesting in the streets against this thing. So by your logic, Christians weren’t outraged by these acts?
As to the poster who says that “Muslims are the enemy”, your inability to differentiate between radical Islam and Islam is just playing into the radicals hands. If the public thinks that all Muslims are “the enemy” (as opposed to radicals like Bin Laden) and start treating them that way, then moderate Muslims would have to defend themselves, and then things would escalate into a broader group of Muslims vs. those against them. Which is exactly what the radicals want.
For the record, I submit the following Images of Mohammad from history to modern day from European and Islamic Lands
NDS (Not Dhimmi Safe)
Here
Finding what the average muslim thinks isn’t just a matter of semantics. It seems quite important, actually.
Blogs are here. Ready to be fucking serious about this shit.Iran won’t be just like North Korea. No it will not. Check back with me during the world cup this summer.
Oh dear god no. All theocrats are capable much, much wrong.
You know, you make this too easy, Llama. Who said street demonstrations were the measure of outrage? If this crap were really against the basic tenets of islam, there would be lots of muslims expressing that, in writing, in speaking, in all kinds of forms. But they’re NOT, are they? A few normal people in a sea of lunacy don’t mean SHIT, dude. And remind me again about all the Christians who made death threats and chanted obscene, violent slogans after “Piss Christ.” Oh, that’s right, didn’t happen.
Do you know anything about islam and its origins, about its certifiably insane founder, about the anti-female, anti-human, anti-thought, anti-semitic, totalitarian tenets that are basic to this “religion?” Or are you just talking out your ass because you want to seem like you’re “inclusive” and oh-so-nuanced and sophisticated?
You’ve got “facetious” down to an art, Actus. Denial, though, is something that is perfected by practice, so I’m told. Maybe it’s better in the long run to face nasty truths head on, even if they interfere with World Cup scheduling. I sincerely mean that. What, if anything, are you sincere about?
European Muslims ought to study history. Europeans have killed more people in the past thousand years than any other group. Europeans make Muslims look like anemic little pantywaists when it comes to mass killing.
Muslims should read up on how the French crushed the Secret Army Organization (OAS). Essentially, the French cops turned into highly efficient and remorseless death squads. Why? Because the future of France was at stake.
Also, Muslims need to realize that all European countries have amazing counterterrorist units, and unlike the U. S., there’s no Posse Comitatus Act. Europeans have no qualms about using their armed forces to restore order.
We may see the spectacle of missile strikes and tank rounds being fired in Paris, Copenhagen, and London before this is over. But it will end, and the Muslims will rue the day that they ever started this stuff.
Scratch a European and you’ll find a Celt, a Gaul, a Visigoth, a Vandal, and a Viking. Right now, they’re asleep.
But they’re waking up.
Maybe the way out of this is to edit the script these fanatics are reading from.
Using the full panoply of Western computer/special effects/cinematic technology (I’m sure Karl Rove would donate his network of orbital mind-control satellites to the project), wouldn’t it be possible to stage some sort of apparition (the Muslim equivalent of the second coming) and have an appropriately awe-inspiring VR avatar of their deity tell these people sternly to CHILL THE F*CK OUT!
Then, just to make sure he got his point across, Allah 2.0 could level Damascus, Tehran, Mecca, etc. before reascending to heavens amidst the adoration of the archangels, and leave behind a new edition of the Koran which emphasizes the “love your neighbor” thing a bit more than the “…but if his daughter leaves the house unveiled, cut her head off for me” part.
If the technology isn’t quite there yet, wouldn’t it be more worthwhile to invest in it, rather than, say, producing Ethanol from switch grass?
To be sure, some of them wouldn’t buy it. We only need to convince a large enough minority that a bloody religious war within Islam breaks out, in which we then arrange for “divine intervention” on behalf of the reformed Muslims. Lightning bolts from the sky and that sort of thing. The Old Testament is full of creative ideas.
Otherwise, this incident with the cartoons makes it hard to see how the Muslims will ever be reconciled to the modern world.
Jeff: “…tolerating only that speech which is so bland and banal that it is unlikely to offend anyone.”
You got this part wrong. The ‘progressive multi-culti’s’ won on campus’. Therefore, it’s what they consider to be bland and banal speech that is tolerating. Suggesting that men and women are different, like Laurence Summers, President of Harvard, gets President Summers a progressive fatwa. Anyone to right of John Kerry gets offended on a daily basis by the speech tolerated on campus’. What they don’t get, is to respond.
You would need to include religious Jews and the state of Israel in this comment. They were being targeted long before Christians became the target. As usual, the Jews are the miners’ canaries (hattip to Dennis Prager) of the world.
Remember the ‘Piss Christ’? Any brave progressives out there willing to showcase their artistic edgeyness and do a ‘Piss Muhammad’?
Because after all, according to the article in Wikipedia;
“”Piss Christ” is also said to highlight the humanity of Jesus. While some see the submersion of the crucifix in urine as debasement of Christ, some supporters see it as an illumination of Jesus’ connection to man. They contend that “Piss Christ” reminds viewers of the most basic and biological functions that made Christ human and the fact that during the crucifixion, Jesus would probably have voided his bowels; therefore reinforcing the connection between Christ and man”
Perhaps it’s time to show the connection between Muhammad and man.
Go to http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/freespeech1 to sign a petition in support of Denmark.
I present plenty of articles showing “Muslim outrage” to 9/11. I’m told by a poster that articles and press releases are not enough…there need to be “large scale demonstrations”. And by the way, this crap is against the basic tenets of Islam. The killing of innocents is forbidden in Islam, unless you subscribe to the more radical forms. And notice that we’re not seeing any riots or embassy burning in the more moderate Muslim nations, like Turkey or Afghanistan.
And again, this same argument can go against Christians wrt the abortion clinic bombings in the South. “If this crap were really against the basic tenets of Christianity, there would be lots of Christians expressing that, in writing, in speaking, in all kinds of forms. But they’re NOT, are they? A few normal people in a sea of lunacy don’t mean SHIT, dude.” Come on…no one would make this argument against Christians, and it shouldn’t be made against Muslims.
Serrano did receive death threats (again, research your claims). There weren’t mass protests at the time, but a) people didn’t put “Piss Christ” on the front of the New York Times and then urge it to be published in papers across America and b) there are more extremist Muslims than there are extremist Christians.
Who cares?
Who cares? Abortion at least has to do with flesh and blood people, not paper, not cartoons. No equivalence.
Troll over to Kos lately? They make it. Often.
Who cares? Muslims seem to actually deliver on their threats, if you ask people from Bali to Baghdad. Who would you rather be, Serrano or Rushdie, or Van Gogh?
Who Cares?!? Christian extremists could outnumber the Muslim ones 10 to 1–for every Murrah building you have a Khobar Towers, Cole, embassy bombings, Beirut, German disco and 9-11, not to mention a Munich or intifada. At present, “Muslims” ‘outlethal’ “Christian” extremists so much that numbers harldy matter at all.
One Bin Laden = entire American KKK and European Neo-Nazi movement.
[Jeff here. A visit from the Neo Nazis yielded a long bolded pile of confused nonsense, so I’ve edited down to its essentials and left them for your pleasure]:
Unless you’re looking organised judaism in the eye and flipping it the bird of course. Imagine the tantrums we’d be hearing from gawd’s chosen perpetual crybabies if those cartoons ridiculing the muslim faith were adjusted as necessary and targeted toward judaism.
[Jeff’s response: And don’t forget lawsuits! Kikes are nothing if not litiginous. But what you probably wouldn’t be seeing from the perpetual Hebe crybabies were threats to blow up European cities. We prefer getting blown by your women and, y’know, mixin’ up the race juices, instead.
We’re lovers, not fighters.
Except for the Israelis. Five minutes in a room with which you’d be soiling your camo survival gear and getting urine all over that iron cross tattoo on your pale and trembling inner thigh]
By now.
But the definition of “innocents” is pretty slippery. It excludes, for example, Iraeli infants.
Actually, I’ve heard that argument made many times. And the reality is that the majority of anti-abortion Christians have made it clear that the bombers are violating their religion, not practicing it. In contrast, the voices against Islamic extremism are few, far between, and low-key.
One of the most idiotic statements I’ve heard from Muslims is that they spend so much time telling non-Muslims how peaceful Islam really is, they haven’t got time to confront the extremist Muslims. What a load of crap. Confront the extremists—and win—and we’ll be convinced. Keep lecturing us while you ignore the extremists, and we’ll (justly, IMHO) conclude you don’t really mean it.
There was a newspaper story recently about a Chicago-area mosque being taken over by radicals. A truly moderate Muslim was fighting the take over. By his own admission, he was the only one resisting.
Fascinating, innit, how the anti-semites and the left are once more on the same page.
Vercingetorix,
I was responding to the arguments put forth by other posters (e.g. that the lack of visible protests = no Muslim outrage, or that Christians never made death threats against Serrano, etc.). As for me, none of those points excuses the actions of the radical Muslims that have done these things. BUT the original commenter (and others) have been confusing Islam with radical Islam, and my point is that they are not the same thing.
There is no such thing as “radical islam.” There is only islam the way it was founded and intended to be practiced, with jihad as its central tenet, and with anything that advances that cause being permissible, including lying, false treaties, and killing infidels. muslims who don’t follow its tenets aren’t practicing it the way it was intended to be practiced.
There’s an old joke among black folks about a certain type of white guy. The line is, “He wouldn’t burn a cross on your lawn, but he might stop to toast a marhmallow on it.” Until I see muslims denouncing this barbarity, I’m going to assume that describes them perfectly. But we won’t see that, because they understand their “religion” prescribes it. They’re just content to sit by and let others do the dirty work.
Islam is not the same as radical Islam.
Sounds reasonable. But, again, who really cares? Islam is also a political ideology (unequivocably, via the sharia) and not just a religion. Criticism of politics is fair game, including religious politics even of Christian groups and most certainly of our Muslim brethren.
You don’t have to be a Rhodes Scholar to point out that the wackadoodle Islamists nutters of al Qaeda are ignoring a great deal of the Koran by bombing Mosques, that they are not ‘good’ Muslims, if they are Muslim at all. Yet large percentages of Muslims are sympathetic to them even to 9-11, and to attacks on infidels in general.
Westerners, infidels, secularists, followers-of-the-cross have precious few defenders among Muslims. We must do all of the work on our behalf, like the complaints about the Iraqi Army.
Until the moderates stand up, we can’t count them, or on them.
Till DeGaulle came in and showed them wrong.
My fear of theocracy and hate. Basically I think just like we managed to civilize the south and the terrorists there we will manage to do it with the rest of the world, but one bit at a time. It took 100 years to do it to a part of our own country. Its going to take a while to reach the rest of the world.
Llama School:
I think you’re missing the point. Those (of us) who believe that this post was correct in it’s intent believe primarily that “mainstream” or “average” is not the same as “not-radical.” I.e. “radical” == “average” in terms of Islam.
In a similar way, we all (should) know that ‘hudna’ means “temporary strategic ceasefire” and not a Western-style permanent peace. Similarly “killing innocents” is modified by the largely incompatible definitions of “innocent” between the Western conception and the Islamic conception. Again, I use Islamic in the way that represents the “average” Muslim that we see rioting.
I, and I think many many others, would absolutely LOVE to believe that we’re wrong that “average” and “radical” aren’t the same—that there are, somehow, millions of ‘silent majority’ Muslims out there who don’t get camera time. It beggars belief, however, to suggest this with no real evidence. You can cite letters, but when the overwhelming numbers appear to be in support of violent/destructive rioting any time an Imam suggests it needs to happen, there’s just no equivalence.
As others have noted: sure the Crusades were bad, but why were Muslims at Vienna’s Gates? Everyone has black marks in their history, those of us who do not ascribe to a ‘blame-me’ approach realize that, but go further and say “ok, our history has bad things in it, where do we go from here?” Victomology—and the Palestinians especially, if not the Arab/Muslim ‘street’ as a whole—say “you have bad things in your history, and while you might not have done any of it, you owe us everything, and had better be sorry about it all your life.” It’s an attempt to capitalize on the honesty of people admitting (historical) guilt vs. people never admitting anything.
Additionally, having not had massive Christian-based riots in any place in the last several decades (probably centuries) vs. the common-place occurence of Islam-based riots on a semi-annual basis provides all the counter-example to your arguments.
I (we?) wholly and categorically deny the equivalence of a few Christians sending death letters or bombing abortion clinics with the regular large-scale rioting and embassy-taking (up until Carter, an Act of War), or systematic government-funded (Hamas) suicide bombing operations.
If you continue to believe that there is any sort of equivalency between the two, then I just don’t know what to tell you—you’re dead wrong and no apology about the apparently peaceful, vastily minor “non-radical” Muslim population can counteract the constant news of “radical” (average) Muslim incitation to violence and riots. As CraigC indicated: the oftenness of Muslims killing, say, children alone, vs. any other “ethnic” group is astounding. And the absolute lack of street-demonstraints AGAINST jakartan thungs beheading (christian) school girls, or Beslan Terrorists blowing up school kids is huge that sucking sound drawing any protestations to the contra into the blackhole of reality.
Okey dokey. Let’s assume that.
But the fact that “regular” moslems are NOT forcefully condemning “radical” moslems makes them complicit with the violence.
Period.
Evil done in the name of religion tars ALL religions and is destructive to all religions. To commit evil in God’s name is really what the commandment ‘taking God’s name in vain’ is about.
Where are these “moderates?” As a commenter at Ace’s pointed out, there are 1.3 billion muslims in the world. If “most muslims are moderate,” that would be at least 650 million. You’d think you’d have quite a display of “moderation” from that size population. The silence is deafening.
Robert:
re: historic evolution of radical antinomianism and nihilism.
Your question is difficult answer for the fact that it’s hard to establish a stable definition of these critiques. Some evince radical skepticism, while others are radically anti-skeptical, many make relativistic claims but most imply a situatedness which undermines relativism. Another confounding factor is that their adherents have a habit of adorning themselves with allusions and referents from the sciences, mathematics, linguistics, and epistemology. So it’s often tricky to determine where the cant ends unless you’re familiar with the underlying references. I suspect that this is deliberate.
Theory and Reality by Peter Godfrey-Smith provides a very accessible, and even handed, intro to these issues IMO. You also might check out Science and Subjectivity by Scheffler. Or just browse Blackwell’s site -http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/subject.asp?subj=RA&site=1 .
New petition to counter all the pro Islam/anti-Danish ones.
http://www.petitiononline.com/bingo12/
Please sign the on-line petition against the British Muslim terrorists who were on the streets of London yesterday.
Muslim signatories especially welcome.
There, at least, Actus, I would agree with you. The template of our Reconstruction experience, including the numerous mistakes and missed opportunities culminating in its abandonment in 1877, has a lot of potential value for policy-makers here.
Who knew…..the helplessness felt on 9/11……now if a cartoon can do this much. . . . . . . . . . . the window sticker I put in my car window, bombtop cut round,. . . . . . . . . with “Get Real” written on the forehead does it for me.
Boy, you really like to find straw men to rail against, don’t you? So who are these people that are excusing the Islamic world’s reaction to the cartoons? Why, Kos commentators! Yes, whom we all know are the nucleus of progressive thought (no offense to any Kos commentators here, just exaggerating to make a point). Never mind that Kos, Atrios, Firedoglake and every other progressive blogger that I saw condemned the riots. No, as long as some leftie somewhere espouses an idea, they ALL must agree with it. Now, I know you all are writing something like “Well, but xxxblog wrote ‘Yes, but the cartoons were offensive…’ “ So what, one can acknowledge their offensiveness and impropriety and still argue for their publication. And realize that trying to understand why people are rioting and burning buildings doesn’t necessarily means you’re going all soft and PC on us
How about Juan Cole?
I have no idea who zen_less is even talking to. I mention a few w/in the progressive ranks who are having difficulty reconciling free speech and an identity politics that promotes an Orwellian form of “tolerance”—in addition to taking issue with both the State Department and foreign policy realists (and some conservatives) for doing same—but the gist of posts have to do with a structural understanding of sociopolitical organization based around a philosophical impulse dependent on a faulty linguistic understanding. So, uh, I don’t believe I’m the one torching straw men here, zen_less.
But just in case your are interested in another progressive excusing the Islamic world’s reaction to the cartoons, try Steve Gilliard.
Indeed:
QED, actus.
Huzzah! It’s the Jews! It’s always the Jews!
The comparison to the Sicarii makes perfect sense. . .although I clearly missed the point at which George Bush took a brief time-out from fucking his sister and his cupbearer Ganymede to replace the Ka’aba in Mecca with a marble statue of himself. Also the point at which he conquered Mecca and turned it into a U.S. territory under the rule of an American viceroy. . .the point at which he also conquered Jerusalem, and proceeded to strip the mosaics off the Dome of the Rock and sell them for scrap, before drawing large humorous pictures of animals all over the walls. . .and the point at which he imposed crippling taxes on the peasant farmers of these new American territories, rendering them little better than serfs (indeed, the Sicarii and Zealots had a great deal in common with the popular revolt during the French Revolution–and, dude–that means that Robespierre and the Terror were the Jews’ fault too! Ingenious!). . .but other than that, Vicky? Your historical comparison? Spot. Fucking. On.
K,
If the average Muslim is rioting in the streets, we wouldn’t see hundreds of Muslims in the streets…we’d see millions of Muslims (remember, there are about one billion Muslims). If we see 10,000 Muslims engaging in violence after the protests, and let’s say that one million Muslims support this; that’s still only 1/1000th of all Muslims. You can’t make any claims about the “average Muslim” based on the embassy burnings. It’s nonsensical.
Darleen,
Regular Muslims are condemning these actions. Here’s one example, in an editorial by CAIR. You can’t ignore this…moderate Muslims are condemning the violent response. It’s not their fault that people aren’t listening to this response.
CraigC,
Lack of visible street protests doesn’t mean that Muslims aren’t against the violent response. The lack of visible street protests in the South after the bombings of abortion clinics doesn’t mean that Southern Christans are pro-abortion bombing. This is such a really simple point, that’s just being ignored so that people can paint the average Muslim as a radical Muslim.
A non-rhetorical question:
How many mosques’ leaders are condemning the riots and calls for muslim violence and how many are inciting the same?
Because I am perfectly willing to admit that there are plenty of ‘lapsed’ muslims who rarely, if ever, attend a mosque all over the world. But it sure looks like there are a lot of mosque leaders involved with these riots in Britain, the rest of Europe, Syria, Iraq, etc. I’d hate to have to call ‘lapsed’ muslims the “average”, because I don’t see how a religion could possibly be reformed by a bunch of ameteurs.
Mosque leaders are an important component of this. If my pastor started ranting about Jews killing Christ then I would leave, before he ever (even NEVER) got to the part about attacking Jews today. Such a nutjob wouldn’t have a church to run, and he’d get to walk his ass around Venice Beach begging for food and ranting with the rest of ‘em. Meanwhile we hear constant reports of wahabist-funded mosques throughout the western countries where hate, intolerance, and violence are PREACHED to what we can only guess are “average” muslims. Leaders like this don’t belong in front of groups of “average” worshipers in American society. “Average” muslims should be the ones doing “average” things in protest such as abandoning radical leaders and turning such nutjobs and their Saudi funding into pariahs.
Secondly the comparison to abortion clinic bombers is plainly wrong. The simplest reason there was no massive condemnation was because everybody (Christian, Jew, atheist -> Americans) clearly believed that the bombings and murders were wrong and against the law. If it actually was such a sensitive and perhaps questionable issue (as perhaps some Law & Order writers might have us believe) then there would have been calls from the enlightened oligarchy for vocal condemnations to arise from churches all across the [southwest of NY] country, based on the assumption that the backward evangelicals would need to visibly prove their lack of ideological complicity. There were no calls for condemnation because nobody really believed it to be necessary, no matter how much they might snicker about the cousin-fucking hicks while out for drinks on a Saturday night.
Meanwhile, I can find plenty of reports on radical mosques that are decently (if not well) attended. I can see plenty of nutjob imams in Reuters riot pictures from this weekend. I can find plenty of quotes from various muslim ethinic/religous councilmen/spokespeople that warn of violent consequences to insulting their religon.
On the one hand, all of this could be due to “average” muslims supporting and believing in “radical” Islam. On the other hand it could all be funded by oil-rich Arab dictators. Either way, a GWOT or GWO-Radical-Islam sure seems like a good idea to me.
Adam Ierymenko,
The MSM will do their best not to broadcast those scenes, just like they did not show the people jumping out of the WTC. They will use that old LLL PC chestnut of “being sensitive”. Unfortunatly for them they are no longer the gatekeepers of information-they just don’t realize that.
And I love how the LLL’s are tying themselves into knots trying to defend the actions of the Islamists. Everyday and in everyway they are showing themselves to be what I have known them to be all along. Seditionists and supporters of Islamofacism and terrorism. They are the enemy within, the fifth column. Unfortunately for them in the situation that Adam described most of the people in the west will see them for that, too.
IMHO what we are seeing is the last scoops being dug out of the grave of the politics and policies of the “1968’ers” in Europe and the Anglosphere. It was shot in the head in New York on a bright September morning in 2001 and has been on life support ever since. It is time to pull the plug, let it die and bury it alongside it’s parents Marxism and Maoism and it’s sibling anti-Americanism. The shrill, shrieking sound we are hearing out of it’s worshippers are little more then vain attemts to resuscitate it. For they know that if it dies they have nothing left.
I will issue fatwa on any moderate muslim. Moderate muslim is not muslim. There is no moderate muslim without head cut off.
As a christian I am not covered under the rules of the Quran; I’m an infidel and do not know about the prohibition of images dealing with Mohammed. Muslims should not care about what I do. I should be allowed to be saved by Allah and not the tolerant Islamists who are bent on wiping all non-believers/infidels off the face of the earth.
Llama School:
Again, I—and many others—would LOVE to believe that you’re correct in saying that it’s not a relatively large size of Muslims who are doing the rioting. However, as per the Guardian, it seems to be more:
20,000
not to mention organized.
(Yet) Again—I’d love to believe you. I just see no proof that, as you argue, it’s a very vocal minority which is doing all of this.
Yet further, you’ve not addressed hudna nor the difference in the way Islam and the West treat the term ‘innocent.’ Yet further, weren’t founders of CAIR found to be supplying the terrorist networks with money? Would that not taint CAIR, entire?
[…] begone. We have no use for you. Updates, 4Jan06 1. Don’t miss Jeff Goldstein’s post, Identity Politics, Free Speech, and the Future of worldwide Liberalism, 2: a follow-up. [If, as Lileks once said, Bill Whittle is the Kirk and Steven Den Beste the Spock of the […]