Earlier today, an Australian Judge told two Pakistani brothers to get lost with their extraordinary defense in a rape trial that their strict Islamic upbringing caused them to believe it was OK to rape teenage girls.
A New South Wales Supreme Court judge has rejected a claim by a Sydney gang-rapist that his strict Pakistani upbringing meant he did not know his actions were wrong.
Justice Peter Hidden has today sentenced two Sydney brothers, who can only be known as MSK and MAK, for a range of sexual assaults against two teenage girls at the brothers' home in Ashfield in 2002.
The brothers are already serving lengthy sentences for the gang-rape of two other teenage girls and MSK will now serve up to 28 years in jail, and MAK will serve up to 19 years.
MSK claimed his family's strict moral and cultural upbringing in Pakistan explained his offences, which has angered one of his victims, Tegan Wagner.
"This wasn't about culture, this is about abuse against women and the fact that they had the nerve to bring in culture to begin with just astounds me," she said.
Actually, it is all about culture. It is about the Islamic culture of violence and murder, proselytizing with utter impunity.The 'abuse against women' notion only comes to bear, when those barbarians begin to acknowledge that women have any rights in the first place; when they begin to accept women as equal human beings, which they of course don't.
Justice Hidden also rejected the claim, saying MSK would have been in no doubt that his actions were wrong.
Sure they knew rape is wrong according to every western law and according to our Judea/Christian belief and value system. Much more to the point though, they couldn't care less, don't give a damn. As long as their actions are sanctioned by Muhammad and the Qur'an, their conscience is clear. And that is what they are really saying.
Ms Wagner says she would have liked the jail terms to be longer but that they bring a difficult process to an end.
"The fact that they are behind bars is good," she said. "I would have liked to have a larger sentence for all the girls, I would like a larger sentence for all of us, but I mean, I'm ok with what was given."
Not that we needed any additional evidence that Rape, Murder and Pillaging form the core values of a "strict moral and cultural upbringing in Pakistan", but, I guess it is worth to hear it from the horse's mouth from time to time.
Unbelievable!
Shocking world wide statistics on the holocaust of women, given by one of my heroines Hirsi Ali in a great article published by The Herald Tribune. Thank you to Huan.
Linked @ Mudville Gazette. The Real Ugly American
OK, fair enough. He's not condemning 1 billion people, only trying to move us towards Islam is evil and out to get us. We see the world differently, and we shall let it go at that. My ancestor was hung as a witch, and I'm not about to go on witch hunts against an entire religion.
Posted by: nelle | Tuesday, April 11, 2006 at 07:03 PM
Nelle,
Let's address your point using a non-American source. I will also ensure that it is not a "Christian" one either. This is an pro-gay, anti-religion site. BTW, I think Guest has done a marvelous job providing the scholarly support of his well thought out and researched positions. I could never approach his scholarship, so let me try the low road and focus on actions. But before I follow your path again, let us be clear that we have continually focused on the "requirements" of Islam. I believe your focus has been elsewhere. Back to my interpretation of your approach to this topic.
from http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/homosexuality.html
Here are some quotes about the law and how it is implemented in Islamic nations.
------------
The verses from the Koran condemning homosexuality are much clearer than those that the Christians use. In all Muslim countries and all areas where the Islamic Sharia law is enforced homosexuality is strictly illegal.
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Islamists deny human rights to gays. An attempt by the United Nations to include gay people in anti-discrimination measures is being derailed by a coalition of Islamic countries. UN sources said that Pakistan, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia were doing everything in their power to stop the resolution. They hope to delay the vote long enough to kill it off entirely. Secretary of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association in Britain, George Broadhead, commented that all Muslim countries outlawed homosexuality, and the penalties for those convicted ranged from prison, flogging, execution by a variety of perverted methods – such as throwing the victim off a cliff or pushing a stone wall on to them. "The record of these countries on human rights in general is bad enough, but when it comes to gay human rights, they are disgusting"
----------------------
All Islamic schools of thought and jurisprudence consider gay acts to be unlawful. They differ in terms of penalty: The Hanafite school (currently seen mainly in South and Eastern Asia) teaches that no physical punishment is warranted. The Hanabalites, (widely followed in the Arab world) teach that severe punishment is warranted.
------------------
Al-Fatiha estimates that 4,000 homosexuals have been executed in Iran since their revolution in 1979. 10 public executions of homosexuals have been performed in Afghanistan by the Taliban army.
------------------
These [Abrahamic] religions are themselves immoral and evil in their attitude, causing hatred, bigotry, violence and oppression in the name of God.
------------------
I believe this last quote from this site sums up your opinion. I keep looking back through this post looking for the hate and bigotry you have seen here. I am not seeing it.
Guest is exceptionally clear on what he is and isn't saying. You keep using the intellectually dishonest strawman approach.
"...blanket and wholesale condemnation of 1,000,000,000...";
"It's to your conclusion, that Islam is bad, and by extension, so are those who are Muslim."
You set up an interpretation of someone's argument and then attack your own interpretation, never dealing with the actual argument of the other person. Even by focusing on the lgbt issues, what countries other than Islamic ones have death penalties for being lgbt? Remember that for it to be the law of the land, it is not just a small segment of the population that supports this punishment (unless that country is an intolerant dictatorship).
I want to be sure I am not guilty of the strawman approach. Where have I missed parts of your argument? I feel the underlying current that America is bad because you live here and your choices-situation are not universally accepted. From a sub-intellectual point of view, there is a difference from not being accepted, to being cast off of a cliff.
I have to agreee with Guest on individual Muslims. I have lived in the Middle East before. Even in the more tolerant Jordan, where I have been a guest in many homes and many Mensefs where I was the only westerner. I always knowingly took the three cups of welcome coffee and would have fulfilled the requirements. But for all of our similarities (and many were amazed at how my life echoed theirs), to them the law is the law. Honor crimes were listed on page 6 or 7 of the newspaper and the "crime" was punishable by a 20JD fine (much less than a speeding ticket). They were all good people and yet they believed most westerners were amoral. Of course, this may have changes since I was last there when the country was under the previous king. Even then it was dangerous for westerners in Zarqa as it was very fundamentalist. I have seen in reports that this has spread.
Sorry off topic again. Those who follow Islam are not evil. Do they frame the world as in conflict with those outside of Islam. Yes! By acccepting their view of the world as a valid perspective, how is that bigotry? I would have to say that discounting their stated beliefs, which they daily demonstrate are their true beliefs, is the patronizing bigotry that you accuse us with.
I want to make clear that many in islam are holding their personal Jihad in abeyance, but they cannot say that they will not move forward on it sometime in the future. Ask them directly. Some only feel comfortable in a non-violent proselytizing Jihad manner, but all must take part in Jihad. With us, or against us world view... Just because you are in conflict with another, does not make the other evil. I believe time and again, we have discussed and cited the conflict that is required by Islam.
Posted by: Patrick | Tuesday, April 11, 2006 at 07:46 AM
Nelle- just read your last comment. You insist on personalizing everything. Again, the issue is not MY interpretation of the Qur'an or of the Islamic religion- that is completely irrelevant, and I don't have one of my own. What IS important is the TRADITIONAL MUSLIM INTERPRETATION of their holy texts. I seem to have great difficulty in conveying this to you. If it were up to me, I should hold Sura 9 to be abrogated (mansukh); the problem, of course, is that according to universal Muslim consensus (ijma'), Sura 9 is the abrogater (nasikh). THIS is the problem- what 1,000,000,000 Muslims think about Infidels and Jihad, not what Guest at the Feast thinks about it.
And here is where we deal with empirical evidence: I challenge you to find one single work of Qur'anic tafsir that does NOT consider Sura 9 to be a late Medinan, abrogating revelation. I shall happily supply you with a list of several thousand which do hold this (there isn't one single Islamic sect that believes otherwise).
You ask "what makes Muslims different" from Christians; it is easy to answer that one: their beliefs. Christians believe in imitatio Christi. Well, last time I read the NT, Jesus didn't lead military campaigns to conquer the world, and did not command his followers to do so ("My kingdom is not of this world."); Muhammad did. Is that really so difficult to grasp?
Posted by: Guest at the Feast | Tuesday, April 11, 2006 at 02:29 AM
Sorry, all; I am on a different time zone, so I was happily asleep when this debate took off yesterday.
Huan, I was not in the least attacking you personally, but, rather, an ostrich-like, illogical, and dishonest ideology: Post-Modernism. My words were certainly impassioned, but I believe that they were directed entirely against a particular ideology, not against any Post-Modernist person, with the exception of Peter Singer, whose ideas are simply beyond the pale; he advocates murder, plain, pure, and simple.
I am also a bit puzzled by your reference to my "name-dropping;" I don't believe I have ever mentioned my personal connections with anyone. If by name-dropping you mean mentioning the name of authors, books, or public intellectuals, then I am afraid I must admit that I don't understand how anyone can hold a discussion about ideas or about evidence without referring to those ideas or that evidence (e.g. Abu Da'ud's Sunan)- and I am not a plagiarist.
Again, let us go to the heart of the matter: History is collective memory. The people who advocate the abandonment of collective memory are exactly on a par with those who would advocate that every individual cultivate amnesia, because his perspective is biased. Erasing one's past and one's memory on the individual plane would lead to a complete loss of identity; doing so on the collective plane is cultural suicide.
For, in the end, what do we mean by "diversity", and what is the point of "diversity" if it is not about the startling uniqueness of each individual and each culture? I revel in that, which is why I spend all my waking hours with medieval Muslims, wholly apart from whether they would have approved of me or not.
This relates to the whole question about historical objectivity. If by objectivity we mean that people should never do violence to the empirical evidence, and should build their theories and interpretations only upon this solid basis- we are in agreement. But if you mean by "objectivity" the complete abnegation of the individual- this is not only an obviously impossible standard, but also an undesirable one.
The great Middle East historian Albert Hourani once wrote (sorry for "name-dropping", Huan, but that is the way scholarship works- no plagiarism allowed!): "For there is some valid sense in which we can say that so-and-so is a good Marxist historian of a good Christian historian, while someone else is a bad one; and this does not simply mean that the good one has ceased to be a Marxist or a Christian and become something else, it means rather that he has been able to find in his being Marxist or Christian something of positive value for his understanding of history. A good Marxist historian would be one who knew how to use such Marxist concepts as that of class warfare in order to illuminate and not to distort the history of other civilizations than our own, and a good Christian historian would be one whose own faith and beliefs made it possible for him to discern, in other religions and the cultures which derive from them, not simply a rejection of the truth, but an inner consistency and value of their own."
And now back to the Islamic question: Nelle, you keep reducing this matter to the individual level, when what we are discussing is an ideology. Let me try to explain this again: do you agree that one can consider communism to be a pernicious ideology without being "bigoted" against communists? Can one consider modern "liberalism" or "neo-conservatism" pernicious and yet not be a persecutor of "liberals" or "neo-cons"? Certainly in my own personal life, most of my colleagues and friends subscribe to ideologies that I consider to be downright dangerous; does that make one a bigot?
I also fail to understand why numbers are relevant in this case. If there had been 1 billion adherents of Nazism, does that mean that one would have become a bigot by speaking out against that ideology? The Catholic Church enshrined anti-Semitism in much of its theology and historical interpretation until Nostra Aetate; does that mean that anyone who spoke out against Catholic anti-Semitism was a "bigot"? The Catholic Church changed.
What we Infidels are demanding- the American ones, at least- on the basis of what we believe to be a "self-evident truth" that "all men are created equal," is that Muslims solve Islam's bigotry toward non-Muslims the way the Catholic Church did with its past hate-filled attitude toward the Jews. Could you explain to me why that is an issue?
And, no, saying that "Islam is what any individual Muslim makes of it" is a position that the Muslims themselves would be the first to reject; Islam is NOT what anyone makes of it, it is what God instructed through the Prophet Muhammad in the Qur'an, the Sunna, and the standard and accepted interpretations of those documents by the process of ijma' (consensus of the believers). If a baptized Catholic comes to you tomorrow and says he doesn't believe in the Resurrection and the Immaculate Conception, he has every right to adhere to those beliefs, but certainly no right to call his theology Catholic (in fact, just a few hundred years ago he would have been burned at the stake for professing those beliefs openly).
I am sure that there are people out there who were born Muslim and perhaps define themselves as such, but if they disown Qur'anic and Prophetic injunctions in an ad hoc fashion, they are liable to a death sentence for apostasy. The fact that Islam has no church hierarchy does NOT mean that "anything goes."
Again, the problem is the ideology of the mainstream Islamic religion toward Infidels, not the "hijacking" of Islam by a few tens of millions of Muslims. We "infidels" have every right to demand from the Muslims that they disavow the hadiths of Bukhari, Muslim, et al stating that the time will come when every tree and every rock will call out, saying "O Muslims! There is a Jew hiding behind me; come kill him." This is a "Sahih" hadith; it is canonical.
Unless and until we stop trying to invent excuses for the mainstream Islamic religion, and keep ignoring the elephant in the room, the Western world stands in grave peril. Pretending this is not so will not make the evil go away.
Again, I am saying neither that "all Muslims are evil" (they aren't; and I probably know and am friends with far more of them than any other non-Muslim on this site), nor am I stating that "the Islamic religion is evil"- because it is not. What I am stating is that certain elements of the Islamic religion- the pure, classical, non-Hanbalite version- are indeed bigoted, expansionist, aggressive, and inimical to human rights, human life, and human freedom.
And now, of course, we come back to Alexandra's extremely apposite title of "Islamic Impunity." I have no doubt, Nelle, that when you encounter in history those same bigoted, aggressive elements manifested by Christians (kill the Jews; conquer the world; non-Christians should be slaughtered; death to anyone who apostasizes; death to homosexuals), they arouse the strongest, most vociferous condemnation on your part. And none of those values is to be found in the Christian Bible. When these same elements constitute, in contrast, a central, integral part of the Muslim foundational religious texts and traditional Islam, do you also consistently apply the same condemnation? Or are you like the British policemen, who let Muslim men beat and murder their womenfolk on the grounds of Multicultism? The Swedish Minister of Justice just announced that preaching "Death to the Jews" in mosques is not hate speech, on similar grounds. At a certain point, we in the West will have to decide if murder is always murder, or if some innocent children's lives are worth more than others...and that is really what it boils down to in the end.
Posted by: Guest at the Feast | Tuesday, April 11, 2006 at 02:20 AM
OK, not sure why I am back here, but... whatever.
Guest, you've entirely missed the point, this in favour of posting endless justification for what essentially is bigotry.
I've no issue with facts, with use of facts, with study, etc. I am a huge proponent of education. And in turn, I see the value in teaching history, it was one of two majors for me in school.
What I object to is blanket and wholesale condemnation of 1,000,000,000... based on your interpretation of the Quran. As an lgbt person in the US today, it would be easy to do this with Christianity... but I know better. Instinctively. Not every Christian is out to get me. Most are decent folk. What makes Muslims any different?
One can couch hate and bigotry in all manner of impressive writings and arguments, but more than anything, my idealism and optimism combines with humanism to see the danger in such blanket, stereotypical views. I'd rather spend my time bringing people together, than pushing them apart.
So no, my challenge is not to evidence, not to your scholarship, etc. It's to your conclusion, that Islam is bad, and by extension, so are those who are Muslim.
No, thank you.
Posted by: nelle | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 08:40 PM
NbN
Many, and I among them, believe that the current strife in the Middle East is really a war among Muslims to choose the direction of Islam in modernity. The fundamentalist would like to take things back to the caliphate days. Others do want to move forward as Christians have. Naturally this war has spilled over into the west. Why do you think the west was attack? Because of our values were seen as a contamination and threat to the fundamentalists? In some ways we have been a part of this war before we even knew it.
How long should we wait to see who will prevail? We waited too long already passively on the sideline. Since 911, partly with Afghanistan, more with Iraq, and largely with a policy of engagement and support of liberty and democracy we are nudging the moderate Muslims toward "enlightenment."
As I said, "It does not matter what Islam is beyond what any particular individual makes of it." This applies not just to what Muslims make of it but also what we want to make of it.
Posted by: Huan | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 06:23 PM
Huan,
"But anyone knowing anything about postmodernist would have recognized the essential arguments from post modernist against Westernism and for relativism mimicked within my post."
Maybe ;-)
"There are not 1.6 billion terrorists are there?"
No of course not. But, consider what Hermann Goering had to say and amplify it with religious fervor taught in the Qur'an.
The same argument can certainly not be made for the 2.1bn Christians on the basis of Religion for lack of support in Christian scripture.
Understanding the history and the teachings of Islam begs therefore the question, how long until 1.6bn Muslims are being 'enlightened' of core Islamic doctrine and precedent. The barometer remains to what extend voices of moderation and reform from within Islamic nations are having an impact....
Remember Jihad al-Momani, the editor of the Jordanian newspaper al-Shihan, who was sacked for publishing three of the 12 caricatures 02/02/06. His crime: He called upon his Muslim brethren to be reasonable and to put things into perspective:
Only 24 hours later Alexandra told us what awaits all those gentle people.
Those, who can not be radicalized, can, and if history has taught us anything, will be cowed into silence and passive resignation. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, history has also taught us, that it is no good to appease such aggression, as it will only spread faster if left unchecked.
Posted by: North by Northwest | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 05:08 PM
NbN
I think selective quoting is fraught with potential for abuse and mischaracterization. My quote in total is:
I recognized that Patrick thought I was a postmodernist and thought I was making a postmodernist argument. I made it clear in a follow-up post that i am not a postmodernist.
Yes, it would have been clearer to have stated :
But anyone knowing anything about postmodernist would have recognized the essential arguments from post modernist against Westernism and for relativism mimicked within my post.
If GatF had questions regarding the statement, he should have asked for clarification.
Funny thing is, i agreed with most of his post other than how he characterized postmodernist thinking. His fallacy was believing he could refute their ideation by pointing out that history as taught is objective and not up for debate.
But regardless, from a practical standpoint, Islam is what any particular individual make of it. Some certainly will use Islam as a cause for violence, some will use it as a guide toward a moral life, and some will use it to victimize Muslims. A Muslim can certainly choose to live in accordance with a secular democracy and maintain is faith as he sees fit. In all religions there are those who believe that any who stray one inch from dogma is a heretic. This however is a theoretical argument rather than a practical one. There are not 1.6 billion terrorists are there?
Posted by: Huan | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 03:46 PM
Huan,
I don't wish to drag this out here - it's not a big deal, really. Just to say, you've asked for this kind of response when saying:
"...it is that history as we know it is so riddled with western bias that it is worthless. In fact, the veracity of facts themselves become worthless beyond their subjective opinions, all of which are equivalent. It does not matter what Islam is beyond what any particular individual makes of it."
The last sentence surely warrants a rebuttal in the strongest form possible; 1.6bn Muslims, most of whom ignorant about the detailed teaching of the Qur'an (as most Christians are ignorant of detailed understanding of both old and new testament), getting along with their daily lives stand between your statement and those who are concerned for protecting our secular democracies the world over.
Posted by: North by Northwest | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 03:24 PM
@NbN
Let me restate again that I am not a postmodernist. I posed what a postmodernist would respond to his assertion that history is immutable. History is fraught with interpretation and after the fact assemblage. A postmodernist would certainly have issues with the history as taught. When coupled with relativism, a postmodernist could certainly dismiss it all. But as I am not a postmodernism, I find this comment:
lacking in both reason and logic, and certainly uncivil.
Posted by: Huan | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 02:53 PM
@AvM
sorry about that. just playing of the use of "assume."
@GatF
your name dropping amuses me.
Posted by: Huan | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 02:44 PM
Oops - meant to say "I'm not sure how..."
Also, I see that Alexandra has already removed what I thought was out of character for you Huan ;-)
Posted by: North by Northwest | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 02:44 PM
Huan,
"in your construction of the ad hominem"
I re-read Guest's comment carefully and nothing that was said arose from or appealed to emotions but instead from reason and logic. I'm nor sure how you perceived that Guest was attacking your motives or character, but instead solely your position. I think, the bar has been raised in terms of ATB's expectation of civility, especially from some of our Liberal friends. It follows, that we all should refrain from using inappropriate language.
Posted by: North by Northwest | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 02:41 PM
Guest
certainly post modernism has its intrinsic contradictions. but the basic tenet of postmodernism is that the modernist view of the world is tainted with westernism. as practiced postmodernism is even more contradictory than its absurd conclusions.
as to what my take of what post modernism is, it is not too far from the general philosophical take
a post modernist would certainly argue that your history as you portrayed it is tainted with westernism. and that any good or evil associated with westernism is inconsequential as it cannot be taken as the reference point in itself.
in your construction of the ad hominem, are you assuming, [deleted by ATB] that i am somehow defending postmodernism?
or are you defending yourself as a postmodernist? if so at least your lack of civility is consistent with your postmodernism.
with regard to Peter Singer, are you saying that he embodies postmodernism? the man is the movement?
btw, i consider him more a utilitarian than a postmodernist
Posted by: Huan | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 02:14 PM
Maybe we should remember that those who act as if 'no ultimate truth' exists, are firstly: biased themselves and secondly; they are defending their own ultimate truth.
Their ultimate truth, is that ultimate truth does not exist and they are willing to defend that 'truth' everywhere.
That's the ironic part of it all; without thinking about it, they make the same 'mistake' they accuse others of making.
Irony: Fun stuff.
Posted by: Michael van der Galien | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 01:59 PM
PS- I suggest you take a look at C.S. Lewis's "Abolition of Man." There are several logical fallacies in there, but it is nevertheless a great work.
Posted by: Guest at the Feast | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 10:42 AM
Huan, you make some extreme relativist, nihilist statements without support.
The problem with the extreme PoMo position you have presented is that it makes its own absolute judgments all the time without ever admitting it. For instance, to take PoMo to its logical conclusion: sacrificing one's life to save a young child is no better or worse than murdering a young child. Now, it is true that there are some consistent souls such as Peter Singer who do indeed come pretty close to this position- and yet, Peter Singer himself no doubt abhors racism when directed against black people (I qualified my statement none of the adherents of PoMo'ism seems to have the slightest difficulty with anti-Semitism or bigotry against whites)- despite the fact that, philosophically, one should be completely paralyzed and unable to make any judgments at all.
And, no, history is not "so riddled with Western bias that it is worthless;" what happened is that certain denigrators of Western civilization came along, did not like certain empirical facts (for instance, that British colonialism ended suttee, thugee, and female infanticide in India, or the fact that the West was so much more technologically developed than the other cultures with which it came into contact), and therefore decided to play ostrich. You can decide that "history is worthless," but only a fool refuses to learn from human experience, which is precisely what history is.
That whole PoMo pose you have just laid out is not only vapid, unfounded, and one of the most biased statements I have ever encountered, but it is also a poor excuse for ignorance and hiding from reality.
Posted by: Guest at the Feast | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 10:41 AM
Patrick
I am not a postmodernist even though i recognize postmodernist ideations.
Posted by: Huan | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 09:16 AM
Huan,
History is worthless? Wow. Please run with this a bit more.
As we discussed earlier, there will always be bias. The best we can do is to not build a house of cards. Interpretation based upon original source material is better than interpreting an interpretation of an interpretation...
In science, we need to "stand on the shoulders of giants" to see a little farther. In history, we try to seek confirmation from many different sources to build a complete picture. Even immediately right after an event, no two people saw it the same. You can ask any policeman about that. Now to say that this inability to clearly see exactly what happened in the past is only a western problem, interesting. How do you eliminate bias from history, or are you proposing that we just ignore all history?
Now I do accept your last statement wholeheartedly. All decisions are made by individuals. A group can influence individuals, but it still comes down to the individual who chooses to act one way or another. I would term Islam to be an enabler. The terrorists and militant islamicist are still responsible for their destructive choices, but if you want to break the trainwreck cycle of poor choices, you need to first rob the addict of his enabling support group. We all know people who are trainwrecks waiting to happen because of their personal financial or relationship outlooks. They are usually abetted by enablers. You can help them see their destructive tendencies, but they have a very poor success rate until they cut their ties with the enablers they hang out with. But of course, they will never change until they accept their failings and seek help to change. You cannot really force it upon them. So do we accept their destructive tendencies that effect many others and wait for each individual to seek growth, or do we keep a close eye on the enabling group as a whole and try to prevent its spread?
Posted by: Patrick | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 08:26 AM
Guest at the Feast,
It isn't that postmodernism revises history, it is that history as we know it is so riddled with western bias that it is worthless. In fact, the veracity of facts themselves become worthless beyond their subjective opinions, all of which are equivalent. It does not matter what Islam is beyond what any particular individual makes of it.
Posted by: Huan | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 07:52 AM
Guest,
I am the last person to be critical of other's typographical errors. I would never be able to cast the first stone...
I believe the whole PoMo fits into the "We do not see things as they are: we see things as we are." They are still trying to figure out what they believe, so nothing is off the table, regardless of emperical evidence. Moves toward the whole perception creates reality, or maybe they are trying to implement the doublespeak from 1984. Truth is what I say it is.
Posted by: Patrick | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 07:26 AM
Thank you, Patrick- and my apologies to all for the many typographic errors in my last post; I was writing in great haste.
The "Sunan Abu Da'ud" was of course written by Abu Da'ud al-Sijistani's, not by any mysterious Abu Sa'ud (initial "d" not an "s"- sorry, the two letters are right next to each other).
Posted by: Guest at the Feast | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 04:57 AM
As always Guest,
You lay out an unassailable position.
Bravo!
Posted by: patrick | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 04:12 AM
Nelle raised some issues that need to be dealt with: above all, the PoMo claim that the world is a nebulous jelly, there is no such thing as empirical evidence, and therefore any piece of research or claim is mere assertion and personal preference.
I apologize in advance for the historical disquisition, but since Nelle basically impugned my professional integrity, these charges must be addressed. I think one must never forget that Post-Modernism was a school of literary criticism; that is, they were DEALING WITH FICTION, not reality. History, on the other hand, is the building of a picture using pieces of empirical evidence. Now, if you do not believe that it is inherently more correct to assert that Charlemagne existed and was Rex Francorum, then our discussion is at an end; you are living in a fantasyv land, and do not allow reality to penetrate (I call this the Calvinist version of reality or history: just as Mother Teresa and Heinrich Himmler are equally damned in TULIP theology, so do the PoMo crowd claim that if one cannot arrive at the pure Platonic reality, then everything is equally false. This, however, is a false dichotomy: there can be gradations of truth, and something can be closer or farther removed from Truth in an absolute sense).
If, however, we can agree, say, that a man named Winston Churchill was indeed Prime Minister of a country called England during a period we term World War II, then we are dealing with history- we can verify claims, interpretations, and assertions on the basis of empirical evidence.
Now, to return to the question of the nature of the Islamic religion. Again, this has nothing to do with any given Muslim as an individual; we are talking about tht tenets of the religion to which he subscribes. Let us use only those sources which Muslims claim to bhe authoritative, and only Muslim interpretations of those sources- preferably, the interpretations hallowed and sanctified over the centuries, and used by all Muslim 'ulama'. It is incontrovertible fact that the very first literature in Islam was the "maghazi" literature- that is, writings about the military campaigns of the Prophet Muhammad. Probably the first surviving literature (from the early 'Abbasid period) are the various books of Jihad and Siyar- and, believe me, the Jihad they are talking about is not the newly-packaged-and-sanitized apologetics you are being fed by left-wing wishful thinking on your nightly tv. This is empirical fact, not a groundless assertion. Empirical fact can be checked- I suggest you go do so, Nelle, if you are having trouble with my credibility: go online to the Harvard or Princeton libraries and look up al-Awza'i, "Kitab al-Siyar" or 'Abdallah b. al-Mubarak's "Kitab al-Jihad." Find an Arab to translate them for you; they are all about killing Infidels and dying a martyr. I challenge you to find me anyone who can refute those facts; it cannot be done, any more than one could refute the fact that George W. Bush is legally President of the United States right now.
Again, let us take Sura 9 ("Repentance") of the Qur'an. Find me one single Muslim religiou authority who will NOT ascribe it to the very late Medinan period (thereby holding that it abrogates all earlier teachings regarding Infidels and jihad). I suggest you read this Sura; it is hate speech, pure and simple: "O you who believe, fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you, and let them see how harsh you can be;" "Kill the Polytheists wherever your find them, take them [as captives], besiege them, and lie in wait for them at every point of observation;" [polytheists=mushrikin; the same Sura goes on to explain this as anyone who "associates" anything with God; the Christians, obviously, are accused of "associating" Jesus with God; the Jews, bizarrely, are stated in the same Sura to hold that Ezra the Scribe "is the son of God," Christian-style] "O believers, do not take your fathers and brothers as friends, if they prefer disbelief to belief;" " Fight those among the People of the Book [=Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians] who do not believe in Allahd and the Last Day, do not forbid what Allah and His Apostle have forbidden and do not profess the True Religion, till they pay the poll-tax out of hand and submissively." Nelle, this is empirical evidence, and one would have to go into mental contortions, and ignore 1400 years of history and religious interpretive tradition not to be alarmed at the aggressive nature of these statements.
Michael, one needn't read the whole Qur'an; just pick up Sura 9 and read through it, and then supplement it with Abu Sa'ud's section on Jihad in his Sunan (he is one of the 6 canonical Sunni hadith compilers). I don't think al-Jalalayn, the classic work of tafsir (Qur'anic exegesis) has been translated into English, but ask an Arabic-speaking friend to sit and read through it with you, particularly the exegesis of this Sura. Then ask him what he believes about all that- again, Jalalayn and the other classical tafsir literature is what Middle-Eastern Muslims read in the schools; this is what they are being raised on, it is the teaching of their magisterium. The most respected Sunni religious leader in the world is Shaykh Yusuf Qaradawi (look him up on the web); I suggest you read through his work and then start arguing with him that you, Nelle, know that his interpretation of Islam is wrong. I state nothing that Qaradawi doesn't state even more violently and vociferously: Islam is about imposing God's rule on the world, as revealed through the Shari'a, and this is done through the twin duties of "al-amr bi'l-ma'ruf" within the Abode of Islam, and Jihad against the Infidel world ("the Abode of War").
Again, there is also scholarly work on the subject. Patricia Crone's "God's Rule," Reuven Firestone's "Jihad" and David Cook's "Understanding Jihad" are classic works. These are works that have not been refuted or rebutted by any empirical evidence.
I hope that answers your question, Nelle, about what constitutes a good historian; if it is still unclear to you, I should be happy to expatiate further. The answer is really quite simple: A good historian is one who forms his interpretations not on the basis of wishful thinking or ideology, but, rather, examines mountains of empirical evidence and reads all the relevant primary sources, and then draws his conclusions solely on the basis of those. In other words, the fact that a person has indeed drawn conclusions will tell you nothing about whether or not those conclusions are valid; you must examine the evidence he adduces in order to make that determination. I invite you to examine the overabundant evidence upon which I have based all of my statements, and I challenge you to refute it with the Islamic primary sources.
So, while you can assert anything you like about the future (i.e. that the religious leadership of the Muslim religion will suddenly renounce 1400 years of religious tradition), the past is not so pliant.
Posted by: Guest at the Feast | Monday, April 10, 2006 at 01:33 AM
Nelle,
I would like to thank you for discussing your opinions here on Alexandra's site. I know you are leaving because you think we deal in absolutes, however, if you read back through the thread, few people here ever deal in absolutes. We try to define our frame of reference and explore it with those who do and do not agree with us. I did a poor job this time. As you will see on other threads here, most try to cite their supporting documents and want dissenting opinions to bring their wealth of exploration with them. It helps our own beliefs mature. Mea culpa.
Enjoy your travels in the blogsphere...
Patrick
Posted by: Patrick | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 10:49 PM
Nelle,
I am sorry, I was willing to debate you until you threw in the US being after Iraq's Oil. You lost me there entirely.
Posted by: Patrick | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 10:26 PM
You leave out other parts of this puzzle. When we were so anxious to mire the Soviets in Afghanistan, offering clandestine support to the mujahideen, we were warned (my memory is vague, but perhaps by Benazir Bhutto) we were creating monsters that would haunt us in the future. A very prescient warning. In our zeal to make things nasty for them, we started to set in motion future events that would come back to haunt us.
And what have we done to show the world, and more specifically, the Islamic world we aren't there to get their oil? Has anyone - anyone - seen an accounting of finances for Iraq's revenue after we invaded? We know billions of American dollars are probably not accounted for, what of Iraqi money? Without showing the world their money went for their own needs, suspicion just grows. When we had no plan for what to do after the invasion... suspicion is added to frustration. When we torture, look for excuses to justify torture, when we exempt ourselves from world bodies to oversee such things... we look like we wish to do as we damn well please.
When Iran shows itself unwilling to do as we say, threats ensue, options are on the table, rumours even begin to float about using tactical nukes. And as mad as this might seem to us, how does it sound to them? Is Iran of one mind? Hardly. Had Bill Clinton played it a bit smarter, we might not have a major issue there now, but... the history with us is not good. I can't say as we can blame them, just as Americans aren't crazy about them, post hostage crisis.
So we play into the hands of extremists, giving them fuel to work with, to win hearts and minds.
In any case, my whole purpose for posting to this thread, and probably should call my time in it at an end, was to look beyond absolutes. They are no more of one mind and outlook than we are. We have our extremists, they have them. Both get a lot of attention, and hell... we have one in the White House.
It's been fun, thank you.
nelle
Posted by: nelle | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 09:57 PM
Nelle,
We have some fundamental differences here. I have to disagree that the US is the evil empire resonsible for the world's ills. It just isn't true. As with all hate mongering cultures, the reason your life is not as good as theirs is because "they" have stolen your just rewards. You would live better, but that evil ole bully has stolen all your wealth and is keeping you down.
If you are not responsibile for your failure, you can never be responsible for your success.
If you look at every failed society, or segment of society, you will find some evil people or evil spirits have taken their birthright. It isn't their fault their society has collapsed and refuses to become more productive. It was stolen from them. This abrogates their citizens from doing the difficult part of demanding change by their leaders and fellow citizens.
The US cannot even tax our own citizens. How can we reach down into every life throughout the globe and effect them? I have been to many countries and I just haven't seen the stamp of US rulership there. I have to tell you, it is arrogance that believes we as a single (no matter how powerful) nation can bully the entire world.
I have to tell you that I find your position unsupportable. America ignored militant Islam when it attacked the Marines in Beruit, in Khobar Towers, the Cole, the embassies in Africa. They got our attention on 9-11. President Clinton did not even consider them important enough when a nation offered UBL up for extradition. We ignored the wolf and he came to our door. The huntsmen have been loosed ensure the village is safe. That wolf is not just another dog. Pretending not to look at him will not make him go away.
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Because we have totally altered what America stands for and the world both sees this and senses it. We are the bully, the troublemaker. We are something to protect against. We operate with impunity, we do as we wish. We aren't part of the world, we consider ourselves it's ruler. We are the aberration.
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When in history did this ideal placement of the US take place? The world has never acknowledged the US as being some ivory tower of justice and opportunity that would never meddle in affairs outside of our own shores. What did Commodore Perry do? What was the purpose of the Great White Fleet? How did Hawaii become a state? Why do we still have a base in Gitmo? Prior to and during WWI we were barbarians to most of the world. After the end of WWII, when we shifted to a bipolar reality, at least half of the world hated us at any time.
You keep referring to hate of all the members of Islam, yet I cannot find anyone in this post espousing that. The strongest I have read is that Islam is toxic to life.
Voting only works in a democracy. If you live in an Islamic state, what does your vote (especially since you are not a member of Islam) count for?
Posted by: Patrick | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 08:19 PM
You cannot completely eliminate bias, we all have them. Me, you, everyone. But we work around them by recognising this fact and having many look critically at an issue. In this case, we all can look at it, even as casual observers. I cannot think of one example in history where an entire group was inherently bad. Religion is what those who follow it make of it. No more, no less.
Everything I understand about this world tells me blanket condemnations aren't worth the paper they appear on. It's simplistic, borders on prejudice (and in fact that really should be looked at in relation to this topic, I simply don't wish to go there now.)
Islam has been around for some 1500 years, Christianity for 2,000. There is commonality between the two, even as it ultimately unfurled in different directions. Within both you will find those who will cleverly use these belief systems to rally others to causes they are for, which is usually nothing more than a desire for power. We have such people, they have them.
And yes, my comments reflect bias. And yes, we are wise to look towards potential sources of trouble. But no source of trouble is as black and white as this condemnation of Islam makes it's followers out to be. There is more distrust towards us created by our own actions than by anything else.
When I was a young child, you would see images in National Geographic of people around the world, pictures taken in their homes, and not a few times with a pic of JFK in the background. Heck, I've seen one of those not many years ago. Think we'd see a picture of GWB? Why not? Because we have totally altered what America stands for and the world both sees this and senses it. We are the bully, the troublemaker. We are something to protect against. We operate with impunity, we do as we wish. We aren't part of the world, we consider ourselves it's ruler. We are the aberration. All of this feeds extremism elsewhere, gives them fertile ground to win over hearts and minds. We... are creating our own nightmares. Feeding them. And the more we say Islam is evil, the more they will seize upon these words and use it to win still more support.
Finally, what I said on voting is this. I obviously have strong opinion. You do. The OP does. In the end, we can debate and such, fine with me, but when we say you know nothing because I've studied a third of a lifetime, or I'm a prof and this is my field of expertise, etc... designed not to debate but to trounce, to say your opinion is meaningless... yes. We all get one vote. And that means the opinion of each and every one of us... counts. Equally.
nelle
Posted by: nelle | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 07:44 PM
Nelle,
How do you divorce any research of all bias?
Let us forget the research for one moment and go with the equivalence of the vote. If I say my goal is to wipe the great satan (America) off the map, haven't you discounted my vote when you patronizingly say, that isn't what he meant. When I validate my position by sending son after son on suicide bombing missions and tell you what my point of view is, do you not ignore my vote by saying that the intepretation is biased?
Ignore the research and the interpretation. It comes down to people stating what their goal is and then demonstrating their ardor in achieving that goal. If you continue to say it is a misunderstanding and education is lacking, you have discounted his world view and the validity of his beliefs because of your bias. You have just said that his vote doesn't count. One vote is equal to another?
Posted by: Patrick | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 06:20 PM
Nelle,
What is the solution? How will it be implemented?
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Patrick, the salary differential will not be explained away completely by the choices women make. There is too much out there showing inequities for this to be so. Is it a factor? Sure, but not the complete explanation.
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I do not know of anyone that has ever come upon a complete explanation. Unfortunately, I know more about statistics than I ever wanted to. Let us talk salary differential numbers. Let us compare men and women who work the same number of hours. If we target a specific industry, what number should we take? I assume you are citing the mean. As statisticians will tell you, the highs and the lows will skew your result and you should actually be referencing the mode (center most value in a rank ordering from top to bottom). Most salary differential articles usually cite the mean since it shows a larger delta than the modes. Not good science. Anyway, you have a very good point in talking about the differences in expectations of men and women at work. It is common to find large samplings of men who never take breaks from employment(no paternity leave here in america) and greatly exceed the 40hr work week. Not so for women in the same industry. So we can be comparing apples and oranges (could be dealing with a different distributions). Do I believe in some areas there still exists discrimination. You bet. Should it be stamped out? You bet. Do I believe men are the root of all evil. Sorry, I have to say no. I believe equal results at work should get equal reward. In a capitalistic society, it eventually levels out because those who bring the most wealth to a company are sought after, regardless of sex or race. The almighty equalizer in the religion of capitalism is the dollar. I cannot tell you how many times my mother was whisked away from one job to another because of headhunters offering more money-she always brought her projects and conversions in on time and under budget.
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When was the last time young men routinely worried and pondered their future, how they would balance family and career? Women in almost all cases do this. Certainly many men now make such choices later, through circumstance and evaluation... but it is not a norm looking forward in the abstract.
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I almost daily worry about the balance of job and family. I may no longer meet the criteria of young, but for my entire career, that has been a focal point of my constantly changing circle of friends. I have had the benefit of a mentoring program in my chosen profession, but the balance needed to live a healthy life has always been paramount.
Young men worried about their future? I could probably send you some of the offers that I get every week at school. Almost all of them are "targeted" scholarships and recruitment offers to meet goals (women and minorities...only about 5% of these offers are for just anyone (read white males)). I could read into this, but I don't. Those are the people the company is seeking to increase its bottom line. Should I scream racism? Sex discrimination? I think not.
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Want to empty a room of men? Men the v word. And if you wish to see them faint (they've alrady subsconsciously reached for their privates with the v word) talk on gender reassignment surgery.
Men are generally pressured not to talk on their bodies, how they feel physically and emotionally. The usual talk is exaggeration and sexual prowess. Oh, many men can and do, but too many are still hindered.
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Sorry to disagree on this with you, but within the Infantry crowd, you know all those testosterone fools that fight hand-to-hand and jump out of airplanes? The vast majority of my compadres did get vasectomies after the 2-3 children were born. I also do not recall many discussions on sexual prowess. Of course, compared to the Hollywood stereotype, the vast majority of the infantry is married with children and basically religious. You will never see a bigger group of buddies that have bonded acting like fools when they are inebriated. The amount of "I love you man!", "He's my brother!", hugging, and emotion does not support your proposal. You will see nary a dry eye when we mark the passing of our own. We have emotions, but they are for our families and friends, not for general consumption. We also talk about physical training plans and weaknesses of the body. We are constantly searching for ways to make ourselves and our soldiers physically and mentally stronger.
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In any case, the pressures are there. The pressure is on women to conform, and to defer to male authority. Women are still devalued in both obvious and subtle ways.
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That may be true in your circle, but my mother, sisters, and wife have NEVER deferred to "male authority". I cannot count the number of times that any "after work" event was dependent upon approval of "Household 6". In the military, the 6 call sign is reserved for the commander of the unit-the one with final say. How about my mother (born just prior to WWII)? After raising six kids and kicking my dad out of the house (Navy doctor) my mother did exceptionally well for herself in business before retiring. She wasn't looking for friends, but success in every endeavor she chose.
Heck, I don't even play the "Where are we going to eat game?" anymore. My wife may ask where I want to go, but will continue with the "where else" until I have selected the place, movie, etc. that she wants to go to.
True of the vast majority of my friends. No one I know wants a servant for a wife, they want an equal and a friend that will be with them for their whole life. In my circle, our usual number one goal is to finish our life married to the same person with the added dream of have kids that are good citizens and choose thier own path in the world. Making general, a certain salary, a boat... all come in a far second place.
BTW, What is your definition of feminism? Please expound for a bit before I try to touch that.
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I won't buy into the ignorance and condemn future generations to the resulting horrors.
... It would be too easy to blame it all on faith, instead of other human vices which shaped religion to it's desires.
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Most conflicts arise from those in power seeking more power. How they gain and keep that power is unique to each chapter in history. Most religions are not as explicit as islam is in the requirement to spread the faith by any means necessary. Some religions do not even ask to be spread. What other religion says that its adherents have not done their duty to their god until all of the world has been converted (by the sword if necessary) and only that religion and that religion's laws remain?
Posted by: Patrick | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 06:11 PM
My error... make that 1 billion, eh?
Posted by: nelle | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 05:35 PM
I'm saying deferring to someone who claims advanced knowledge, when that advanced knowledge is telling me the religion of 1,000,000 people is collectively of evil intent, I suspect there has been decided bias in the acquisition of that knowledge, and in review of the materials perused. I would doubt there was impartiality moving into the studies, or that certain things caught one's eye, whilst other things were left aside. That sort of thing.
You likely are well read, and likely indeed have spent much time with the subject. But you've approached it with bias, and that can negate about all that one learns if not careful, render it meaningless.
Posted by: nelle | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 05:34 PM
Nelle,
I am baffled by your statement. Are you saying, that there is no such thing as certainty in any knowledge? That in the end, everything is a matter of opinion, that facts are "in the end" always relative? Is what you say in relation to what is written in black and white, or in relation to the vast variety of degrees with which Muslims all over the world are practicing (or rather not) their religion.
Please clear this up for me, as I wouldn't want to think that you'd reserve a 'vote' for, say, the laws of gravity or that the world is round;-)
Posted by: North by Northwest | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 04:57 PM
I couldn't have said it better myself.
Posted by: Michael van der Galien | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 04:39 PM
Michael,
I am not a Koran scholar either. Actually, I have to admit here that I have not even made it all the way through one time. The parts from early in the prophets life do seem to have much that is good. Unfortunately, from the later part of his life, he overrules much of what is redeeming of this religion. I have accepted from the various sites espousing to be scholarly interpretations of Koran and most say what is newest is the true part and the earlier part should be set aside (where there is conflict). Like the quote you gave me earlier in another post. Couple this with the belief, that the Koran IS the word of Allah, not as is Christianity, it was just divinely inspired therefore we can expect some inconsistencies-man is a flawed vessel. However, this literal approach ensures that the militant Islamists are supported in what they say is the word of Allah and it cannot be open for interpretation.
I think the point of whether the Koran is agressive or not is moot. What are the actions inspired by it? Those who are inspired to do evil, should be dealt. Those who are inspired to do good and acts of charity should be welcomed into the fold of civilization.
Posted by: Patrick | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 04:22 PM
If you are a scholar, and I've no reason to doubt this, then I question what it is you seek in your studies. And what you wish to bring to the rest of us with what you 'find.'
I may be well versed in my work, in my own studies, interests, etc... that hardly means I am immune from error, from mistaken assumptions, from my own bias.
Usually when I encounter someone who talks down to me about what they 'know,' I like to remind them that in the end... we both have one vote.
Posted by: nelle | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 04:08 PM
Nelle, when did you last bother to pick up a book of hadith? Do you even know what the canonical works ARE, and have you read them? You are speaking out of wishful thinking, not on the basis of cold
empirical evidence.
Michael, there is a reason why no Muslim 'alim has ever condemned Bin Laden on the Infidel part of his ideology (as opposed to the takfir part): they can't, because the Muslim foundational texts- both the Qur'an (you needn't read the whole thing, just Sura 9, "Repentance," which according to the Muslims is a late one and therefore abrogates everything that came before it and the Sunna- support his position. To quote from one of the very first surviving books in Islam (Ibn al-Mubarak's "Book of Jihad"- and, yes, there have been thousands of those composed over the century, and they all mean Jihad of the sword, except for Ayatollah Khomeini's 20th century work): "Behold! God sent me [Muhammad] with a sword, just before the Hour [of Judgment], and placed my daily sustenance beneath the shadow of my spear, and humiliation and contempt on those who oppose me."Anyone interested in the subject of what one scholar has called "Muslim Man's Burden" should read David Cook's "Understanding Jihad" (University of California Press, 2005); his forthcoming book with Cambridge UP on martyrdom; Reuven Firestone's "Jihad" (Oxford University Press, 2000); and D. Tor's book "Violent Order" (forthcoming 2006, the German Oriental Society's Istanbuler Texte und Studien series).
You might also want to go to USC's hadith-in-English website and type in "infidels","Jews" or "Christians," or check out the translation of any of the canonical hadith works from your local university library, and see for yourselves what the Muslim primary sources actually say; this is always a better, more truthful method than simply adopting the nearest second-hand, baseless opinion that fits one's political leanings.
Posted by: Guest at the Feast | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 03:28 PM
Patrick, the salary differential will not be explained away completely by the choices women make. There is too much out there showing inequities for this to be so. Is it a factor? Sure, but not the complete explanation.
When was the last time young men routinely worried and pondered their future, how they would balance family and career? Women in almost all cases do this. Certainly many men now make such choices later, through circumstance and evaluation... but it is not a norm looking forward in the abstract.
Patriarchy does harm men by forcing them into narrow boxes. I am a transsexual, and prior to transition, back in another lifetime, had a vasectomy. Want to empty a room of men? Men the v word. And if you wish to see them faint (they've alrady subsconsciously reached for their privates with the v word) talk on gender reassignment surgery.
Men are generally pressured not to talk on their bodies, how they feel physically and emotionally. The usual talk is exaggeration and sexual prowess. Oh, many men can and do, but too many are still hindered.
When I crossed gender lines, the most amazing part of the crossing was the depth of friendship between women. It runs deep, with intracate layer upon layer. The closer the friendship, the more depth to the exchange. It is highly satisfying emotionally, and it took time for me to blow past the old taboos ingrained in me.
In any case, the pressures are there. The pressure is on women to conform, and to defer to male authority. Women are still devalued in both obvious and subtle ways. Look at what gets said about women running for office, versus men. Or about prominent divorces and those involved. About women in sport (and Title IX.) And the NY Times (you can practically set your clock to this) seemingly runs a twice yearly story on women leaving the workforce for home, and tangental stories on a rejection of feminism. Patriarchy wishful thinking, play it up, along with giving voice to the most exreme, so that we get feminazi labels for desiring gender equality.
Guest... no, it's not Islam. You are creating a bogeyman, imagery for something intangible, so we can point the finger and say "let's get them!" It is so much more complicated, and to continue on that path will lead us somewhere very very ugly, a path humans have too often chosen to follow. If it all gets ugly, it is our and their ignorance that has once again brought it on. I won't buy into the ignorance and condemn future generations to the resulting horrors.
Would you say that the west - perhaps the most aggressive of all parts of the world the last 200 years or more - is because of Christian belief? Or has Christianity been molded in such a way as to reflect other societal conditions and beliefs that collectively produce this result? Germany in particular modernised quite differently than the UK, and paid a horrid price for how it came to pass... so did the rest of Europe, unfortunately. I've just read a novel partially set in the 13th century (Labyrinth, of anyone has interest in reading it, a great novel) which has as part of the story the crusade against the people of the south of France by those of the north. Ostensibly because of the advent of a new branch of faith (led by the Bons Hommes) but in reality a land grab. It would be too easy to blame it all on faith, instead of other human vices which shaped religion to it's desires.
Posted by: nelle | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 02:30 PM
Guest. I am not a Koran-scholar, as everyone knows, thus I must rely on other people about what the Koran says. What I understand from multiple sources, even from the Dutch national intelligence agency, is that the Koran is not as agressive as some people make it out to be nowadays. What I understand is that, indeed, there are quite some agressive passages, but that Islamic terrorist organizations take them completely out of context and invent some sort of a 'cut and paste Koran' as the Dutch intelligence agency said.
Posted by: Michael van der Galien | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 01:59 PM
Guest and North by North West,
I am in agreement with you. The dominant group in Islam (the true believers) does frame this as a religious war and has been very up front about this for quite sometime. Their worldview has a very simplistic demarcation: Islam, not Islam. Were we to attempt to debate them, that is definately how I would address their concerns. As with any debate, I sought to frame my position in the terms Nelle has. But as she pointed out and you mentioned also, not all follow the strictures in Islam. From any discussion on decision theory, you end up with the truism that Individuals make decisions now. Groups do not make them. Decisions are not made in the future. Every time a mullah declares that some group of civilians must be slaughtered for the glory of Islam, every individual who took part made his or her own decision to carry out that demand. Those who heard the call and did nothing to stop it gave their tacit approval for their fellow muslims to represent Islam in this manner. Individual responsibility does not go away when you daily make a decision to "submit" to the demands of your theocracy. As a group or as individuals, they support this call to Jihad. If they do not, then they need to disassociate themselves from it entirely.
Now for the group perspective, when a preponderancy of evidence says a group makes the same decisions century after century, you can take a probabilistic view on what their decisions will be. Prejudice? You bet. Always right? Nope! Prejudice derives from your experiences in the past. If you burn your had every time you touch a pot of boiling water, you learn not to touch a boiling pot of water. It is a survival mechanism. The key is not to learn the wrong lesson. You should not refuse to touch all pots of water, just the ones that are boiling. Prejudice is a fact of the human condition. Our goal should not be to stamp out prejudice, but to learn enough about each subject to ensure we have learned the correct lesson. For me that lesson is: All who call themselves Islamic are not trying to kill every non-believer today. However, if the followers of this mosque say they are going to kill any westerners they find today, they probably will. I will take them at their word and I will not turn the other cheek, but try to prevent their success.
If I am risk adverse, I will make a protective error. You said you were going to hit me. You have hit me in the past. I hit you first. Was I guaranteed that you were going to hit me? Nope. If your hit would never hurt me, could I wait to respond only after you hit me? That is what we have been doing. When we get to the tipping point, Islam will have the ability to actually hurt us. So far, the hits have escalated from striking soldiers and embassies overseas, to killing thousands on on 9-11. Shouldn't we do something before he goes back to his house and gets a gun? We knew the house he was going to had a gun. We knew that he had been to the house before. We knew the owner of the house had used the gun before and neither one liked us. Should we wait until the gun is in the hand and it is pointing at our head before we react?
For decades we have pursued the other elements of national strategy (Diplomacy, Information, Economic Aid) to sway opinion. Almost surely we will eventually hit a tipping point and the hammer approach (Violence-Military)will be used. I have no doubt that it will only be after we are hit many, many times by the less effective Islamic hammer (until they get a nuke). It is humorous the number of "moderate" Islamic scholars who decry the evils of the terrosist and say this doesn't represent Islam while speaking the venacular, and then say something completely different in the language of the Mosque. My humor stems from the people who refuse to hear anything but the PR piece.
As an aside Guest, you are correct that there really is not a cogent history taught in schools these days. I am already biased about the effort by the TEA to socialize instead of educate our youth. That is why you see such an exodus from the school systems by those that can. There are plenty of forums on those issues.
Posted by: Patrick | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 10:04 AM
Thanks, N by NW. It seems that, now that we have jettisoned History from our school curricula in favor of "Social Studies," we are indeed doomed to repeat the past.
Now we can catch a glimpse of how Winston Churchill must have felt all those years, watching doom move closer while being denounced as the 1930s' equivalent of a "neo-con".
Posted by: Guest at the Feast | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 08:43 AM
Guest,
It's always lovely to see you. It is the very nature of the simplicity of this Truth you so clearly lay out, that makes it so controversial. Once you allow it to stand, even acknowledge it, there is no more wiggling room, no more shades of gray. It forces diplomats, politicians and every single individual in every religious camp to take a definitive stand.
And therein lies the hopelessness of the situation. It would take huge amounts of 'Zivilcourage', which, as we know only too well, is one of the rarest of all human characteristics.
Posted by: North by Northwest | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 05:22 AM
It seems to me that what Nelle and others are missing here is one fundamental problem: Islam as a religion. All of you keep talking about individual Muslims, but the problem is a religious ideology, not any given individual.
Yes, there are what you would call "good" Muslims- i.e. bad Muslims from the standpoint of the Islamic faith- Muslims who don't pray, don't pursue Jihad, don't veil their women, and are friends with Infidels in contravention of the specific Qur'anic injunction against this; but they are unrepresentative of the Muslim faith. I am sure that we all know baptized Catholics who do not follow the teachings of their Church- but that does not make the Catholic religion pro-abortion, pro-homosexual. or pro-extra-marital infidelity.
The issue for Western society is that Islam is an aggressive, arrogant, totalitarian religion that places as its goal, in all its normative works,from the Qur'an to the Sunna, through all the binding classical and modern works of interpretation, the conquest of the world and the subjugation of non-Muslims. This is what the not-so-practicing Muslims, at some point, are going to have to deal with honestly. And this is what, if the West had one single ounce of honesty and instinct for self-preservation, it should be asking all its Muslim so-called "friends" and "allies" to address once and for all.
Posted by: Guest at the Feast | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 02:53 AM
For some further reading into the nuclear family-homeschooling advantages, I recommend an interesting article in the Futurist.
"Education in America: The Next 25 Years," Irving H. Buchen offers an overview of how U.S. K-12 education will/should change by 2025. Trends and issues he discusses include decentralization (e.g., home schooling, charter and private schools, and electronic schools), performance evaluation (accountability), leadership, and a reconfiguration of the learning place. Starts on page 44, January-February 2003, Vol. 37, No. 1
You can also see some interesting disconnects between education and the results of education studies where ever you look. I hope you meant in your post education, not the current education debacle going on in our country...
As for a solution from education, the student seeks knowledge. The student must have and open mind. That is not happening. You mention the open mind requirement yourself. Now let us shift from an idealized world to a more pessimistic (or realistic, if you will) realm. The other option to education, is training. These two are not the same. In training, you get the acceptable response from an individual with a series of positive and negative reinforcements. The "student" need not "seek" the wisdom. Sometimes you have to settle for training (realist, not an optimist).
As to "...we teach generation after generation after generation to hate, simply to hate, knowing not a damn thing about the person they might kill." Wow. Who fits this profile in your worldview? I applaud you for citing your most recent book that you are using to inform your opinions. This disabuses me of that notion that you are simply repeating something you have heard. I may have read into what you were writing, but I get this usually from people who know the military the least (usually directed at the military). The people I have run into are generally the ones with the posters about no blood for oil and instead of peace signs, they have mercedes emblems. Well meaningindividuals, but they have not done any research. They generally parrot the ideas of others without forming their own. I know you do not fall into this category. Please try to narrow the field a little for me.
In another post here I cite the example of Carthage for another reason; however since it is at hand, it proves that violence does solve problems. It might be a poor solution, but you should never discard that tool if your opponent keeps it in his toolbag. I would agree with a more general believe that violence doesn't solve every problem. For those who like more concrete sayings, "When all you have is a hammer, every problem you find is just a nail." That is why I do support the full range of DIME (Diplomatic, Informational, Military, and Economic) responses for any problem our nation faces.
As a military, we are a profession that sees our job as the protectors of our nation. I will concede your point that I do hate terrorist that kill innocent women and children, just to kill innocent women and children. The vile act of targeting civilians is just so abhorrent to me, that I can feel no empathy to these terrorists. As to uniformed armed forces that fight in a manner to limit the pain and suffering of civilians that are in the war zone, those, I can never feel hate towards. Research a little and you will find that after the wars are fought, the militaries of both sides revisit battlefields together and share a poignant camaraderie. They feel no hate, but a brotherhood of people who have placed themselves between their homes and "wild wars desolation". (Yes, there is actually more than just one verse to our national anthem). Please clarify who the people who hate are. I may just be a little defensive here...
Posted by: Patrick | Saturday, April 08, 2006 at 11:00 PM
Sorry I didn't preview this before posting. Please forgive the typos.
Posted by: Patrick | Saturday, April 08, 2006 at 09:49 PM
Nelle,
I will agree with you on patriarchy being a bad thing if we can tighten the definition up a bit. Quite often the most fervent defenders of the "patriarchy" are the women within these societies themselves. Since you want to shy away from Islam, let us explore this with the tradition of footbinding in China.
There are many different legends as to its origins, however is is plainly clear that the society as a whole condoned it an had contests to see who could make their feet the smallest. The entire ritual was practiced within the women's community. Mothers bound thier daughters feet for many years trying to keep the feet of their daughters an idealized 4 inches. This resulted in usually all of the toes broken repeatedly and many YEARS of excruiating pain inflicted upon the poor children. Men also supported this practice as it announced their position in society as the woman with bound feet were almost helpless. It started amongst the wealthy and spread throughout society.
So where am I going with this? I want to agree with your position that any society who marginalizes their women and does not accord them equal rights is flawed at a fundamental level. How can any society function and progress when it ignores the contribution to half of its members? Any society that supports this type of discrimination will never meet its full potential and will always lag behind those who don't.
What I do not agree with is legislating equal rewards for all segments in society. Equal opportunities must exist for everyone. Those that earn it should achieve it. Please do not read into this next more controversial statement and please follow through with an open mind. Quite often there are cases of discrimination that cause the inequitites in society, yet quite often there are other reasons.
Let me give you my personal example. My wife was a psychology major from a very good institution (why I have received many an earful on all the evils ever done on women by men (and women) throughout time-we were dating at the time and I was a young Infantry LT). We married and I was stationed in Germany, so she did not pursue her graduate studies at that time. We were going to wait until we returned from three years in Europe. Children came and she decided not to re-enter the work force as SHE thought it more important to be there for our children. At the age both of our children were going to school full time, she sought to further pursue her education. However, about this time we started having problems with our children in the school system (both of us volunteered in the classroom as much as we could-she did more than I by a long shot). We could not get their needs met. After passing the required testing and experiencing years with marginal gifted programs (yes it was a school psychiatrist that tested him and put him in the top 1% across the board-he has been a member fo MENSA for years now) my wife suggested we homeschool. After 1 year of researching various curricula, we made the leap. She is quite happy in her full time job Homeschooling our children. We spend well over $7,000 a year on course material and private lessons to augment what we cannot teach ourselves. Her parents are both English professors and her brother teaches Art at a university also. I also teach the math and computer piece.
When she returns to Graduate school after the kids enter college, we know she will never reach the salary level I will. This was a choice she made and she is proud of her choice.
Many people initially look at us and their first instinct is the "Oh, You are homeschooling." with the accompanying disdain. What do you don, when your sone is reading at the college level, and yet the school system won't let him check out books at school from anything other than the 3rd grade shelf. Oh, by the way, students should only be able to check out one book at a time. If they let one student have more than one book, they would have to let others do that. Sorry I have digressed from my initial point and turned into a rant.
The choices we made (wife leaving the work force and becoming Lady of the Castle, such that it is, myself taking the responsibility of bread winner) lead us to certain consequences. My wife understands that that break in work history will haunt her later in life, but she is doing what she loves. I initially did not enthusiastically support this option until she had researched the option very well. I researched on my own and we agreed on her decision since she would do the lion(ess) share of the work.
Most people looking into my world, instantly fall into the mistaken belief that this is a result of a patriarchial mindset. It is not. Both of us understand equal opportunity does not result in equal rewards. We made a choice as a family (of over 14 years) as to what was important at the different stages of our life. We can do that because we will continue to be a family.
Posted by: Patrick | Saturday, April 08, 2006 at 09:35 PM
Well Patrick, we seem to agree yet again.
"The failure we have is implementing the punishment. The apologist bend over backward citing that he did not know the law, or his culture tells him that what he did is perfectly legal as there can be no higher law than Islamic law. Then they say we are the racists for applying the standards of the countries we are in to these poor ignorant people who know no better."
You are very right. I know that for quite a long while, those who killed out of 'family honor' would get lesser sentences in The Netherlands. That changed due to the high ammount of exposure of the misconducts of certain individuals. The judges used to say they took 'their culture' 'into account'. completely ridiculous of course: Those people now live in Western nations, they should adhere to Western laws. Like I said, luckily they changed that approach.
Friday the NRC Next (newspaper) had a very interesting article about former republican governor George Allen (Virginia). He criticized Europe and especially The Netherlands for our onesided approach: sure we need to adress problems and fight them, but we should not alienate all muslims simply because they're muslim. He made a very good point.
Posted by: Michael van der Galien | Saturday, April 08, 2006 at 03:10 PM
I do agree with the sentiment expressed by Michael, though would add that half of Muslims are women, and we need to remember they too have perspective...
but to the question asked, namely on patriarchy, patriarchy is more then general framework of society, it's not men specifically. Men can and are harmed by patriarchy, it forces them into narrowly defined boxes, where they feel obligated to say certain things, not let anyone too deeply into the realm of their soul, to act a certain way less they be deemed effiminate, etc.
But it harms women a great deal more, because it assigns power to men, and men have been in a position of domination for most if not all of recorded history. So if you are looking for where my point of view comes from, look towards this. How the history of an entire gender has been shoved aside, considered irrelevant to the stories and dates of glorious battles. This loss was reinforced, given form to me after reading The Red Tent, a wonderful novel that showed just what might be missing.
And it leaves us unbalanced as a society. We need to get it back in balance. I'm currently reading Sue Monk Kidd's Dance of the Dissident Daughter, which also talks on getting us back in touch with a devine feminine, which was also cast aside over the last 2,000 years, coinciding with the rise of Christianity... and Islam.
It is not either basic religion that is bad, far from it. It's how it is used and employed, what it is used to justify. There are things in the bible used to condemn, and there are other things in the bible simply ignored. Pick and choose what justifies your outlook. Stories are taken as the word of god (a convenient way to discourage challenge) stories by and large written by men, for the benefit of men. And we are expected to follow. No.
I will not buy into hate of others. These religions can also be of much good, and can be things of beauty, if people come to understand something is amiss if religious teachings say this group or that group are bad, this group or that should be subservient, etc. It should immediately raise suspicion.
My whole point is not to say Islamic areas of the world are utopias, I rant on stonings of women, of women sentenced for being rape, etc... loudly. But I don't connect it to Islam, to any entire peoples. It's the framework we allow to exist and live under... that too often oppresses all of us, tries to force us back in line if we try to step out of our assigned little box.
To condemn 1,000,000,000 people based on these things is to ignore so much else that is truly at the heart of the horrific stories there... and the nasty stuff women, lgbt folk, etc face here. We won't solve it by confrontation. You might prevail for a generation, but the ball bounces back the other way... and we teach generation after generation after generation to hate, simply to hate, knowing not a damn thing about the person they might kill.
This blindness exists with them, and it exists with us. The only way out is through education, more education, interaction, and open minds.
Yes, I am an idealist, and yes... an optimist. Some don't think much of that combination. Fair enough, but this is me, and this... a part of my outlook.
Thank you for asking.
nelle
Posted by: nelle | Saturday, April 08, 2006 at 02:36 PM
Michael,
I could not agree with you more on being blinded group affiliation. The change must come from within since we cannot root out the fanatics in each group, the group itself must. This is always a painful process, yet if you refuse to even address the fanatics within your own ranks, do you not condone it.
I was always taught as a leader, if you see something wrong going on and do not try to fix it, you have given tacit approval. What was once wrong now has your blessing and a new standard has been made.
We have seen some Islamic communitities in the US try to fight the rise of this fanatacism, Unfortunately, this is not propagated worldwide. That is why earlier I made a demarkation between Militant Islam and the rest (who are very quite on this).
I do think we are following your approach. We all agree on the first part (I believe) by saying those things they have done(rape, murder, etc), are against the law and they should be punished. The failure we have is implementing the punishment. The apologist bend over backward citing that he did not know the law, or his culture tells him that what he did is perfectly legal as there can be no higher law than Islamic law. Then they say we are the racists for applying the standards of the countries we are in to these poor ignorant people who know no better.
In any contest of wills, he who hesitates is lost. They will not blink first. They will not respect our laws, yet they demand we respect theirs even if we are not of their faith.
By all means, moderate muslims are welcomed into the fold and I have several friends who are. Some have expressed their dissatisfacation with their life back in their home country, and some cannot wait to return. Those that can't wait to return sort of shrug and say, I am not like those, but they will not bother me because I follow the laws. What can you do? Peace, or is it submission. In Islam, peace is Submission.
I will never submit. I will never live where my wife, daughter, or son must submit.
Now back to the question I have for Nelle: What is your worldview?
Posted by: Patrick | Saturday, April 08, 2006 at 08:57 AM