Please Rush to Read This Link
The New York Times magazine has published an article, The New Berlin Wall, which I consider to be very important. I urge you to follow this link immediately (it will only be free on-line this week,) print it out (it's long) , and read the article in its entirety.
The article is about Muslims in Berlin. Muslim enclaves are growing utterly parallel to mainstream German society, and many are expanding in their separation from and hatred of German (ie. modern) society. (However, 70 percent of incoming Muslim immigrants immediately sign on to the priviledges of the country's welfare system). To many Germans, who had simply been ignoring the issue in efforts to be positive, accepting and multicultural, their wake-up call came when the murder of a Muslim woman by her own brother was publicized. The reason it was publicized was that other Muslims went on record for supporting the brother for his atrocious act.
I am reminded of early reports of Hitler, and concentration camps. I'm not saying this tyranny is as organized as the Nazis, and I'm not exactly claiming we've got WWIII on our hands. But the situation is deeply, deeply serious, and a lot of us are oblivious and tuning this out. Also, I will remind you that Islam has not yet had its reformation, and that offensive Jihad is a commandment of Islam. Mohammed was a soldier, not a pacifist.
A lot of liberals are so swept up in their (very reasonable) hatred of George W. Bush and our own fundamentalists in the US that they are not able to comprehend that Islamic fundamentalists are even worse. Liberals don't seem to want to take on the seriousness of the problem of having accepted Muslims into the Western world, only to have many of them hellbent on violently destroying the very society they fled to. We are seeing this pattern not only in Germany, but in France (with the recent violent riots) and England (with their lovable little home-grown terrorists). Even Canada had Muslims who were trying to install disgusting Shariah law in its land, and this came very close to happening. They claimed that Shariah law, which allows women to be the" property" (aka slaves) of men, should be permitted because Shariah is their Muslim " culture". (It probably is their culture, and dispicable at that. )
Secondly, lots of liberals are so bent on accepting, including and helping those they see as the "Other" that they neglect to identify a system of violent tyranny.
And that, my friends, is what we've got on our hands when we look at many (or most - possibly even all) traditional, isolated Islamic communities. And the problem is only spiraling towards more and more fundamentalist (read violent) positions.
Please read the article if you care about people and the world around us, and viewing the world with clear-eyed, paradigm-shifting honesty.
posted by Lizzie @ 11:17 AM
8 Comments:
The way you talk about "Muslim fundamentalist" being worse than "our fundamentalist" seems hasty and/or reckless. We're warned rightly I think to be cautious of conflating creed and culture. If a "Reformation" reforms only creed and doctrine, I'm not sure thats decisive about how evangelical or violently confrontational the people of a religion are. There's economics and context. When it's highly impractical to go crazy, and life's not so bad as it is, people tend not to go crazy, says the common wisdom, and that's so no matter what scriptures are floating around the community.
At the "Towards a New Enlightment" conference I was at a few weeks ago, a panel of (formerly) Islamic speakers gave a presentation on the realities of the threats of fundamentalist Muslim culture today. Each of the speakers were from Muslim communities- Pakistan, Iran, Bangladesh, etc. One of the brave people on the panel speaking had led- LED- the fight to prevent Shariah law from getting established in Canada. If it weren't for him and I believe about 50 others, it almost certainly would have happened. Another panel member, an Iranian woman who is committing herself to publicizing the horrors of the Islamic fundamentalist world, had 16 death threats on her life that very weekend that she was speaking.
The reason I bring up these people is because they are experts on the cultures and communities I'm referring to, and they are partly where I got my information. After they spoke, someone went up the microphone, and said "Yes, but wouldn't you agree that our fundamentalists are just as dangerous."
And one of the speakers (I don't remember her name, but I can find it for you), answered:
"Obviously you haven't been listening to anything we've been talking about today..."
What I'm trying to say is the notion that Muslim fundamentalists as worse, much worse, than Christian fundamentalists is not my idea. Its the urgent, urgent message that, under threat of their lives, professional Muslim intellectuals are trying to convey.
I understand that you weren't at that conference, and that the American (and probably European) press doesn't write about this very much. But this is precisely why I'm writing about it now. And it's why I'm urging people to read The New Berlin Wall story.
One of the things that the story points out is that often the violent Muslims come from middle class families. This is significant. Because then "economics" can't be claimed as the underying problem. The 9/11 terrorists were largely middle class, and (I believe) these guys who murdered their own sister were, too.
Context doesn't really explain things, either. I know that there are specific differences, but what the hell? In the course of something like six months, we've got bombings in England, riots in France, and, among many other things, a murder of a sister by her brothers in Germany, simply for acting German. There is a commonality here, and that is tribalistic honor cultures hating the modern societies they live in.
I'm not really educated enough to write about this, that's why I'm trying to refer readers to the magazine article. I think I'll try to look for more writing and more links about this new topic.
But all in all, this is what I mean by "paradigm-shifting". We liberals here are so accustomed to resenting our fundamentalists that we are missing the horrendous threats of even more violent fundamentalists. That doesn't eliminate the fact that we have been lied to about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that these wars been exectuted in a sloppy and unconscionably incompetent manner. But ie shouldn't allow the wars to let us dismiss other horrible realities, as well.
Sorry: I didn't mean to give you so much to defend. You did remind me of something important with your point about participation from the middle class, but aside from the fact that you are better informed than me, I think our main difference is nomenclature and really a point of rhetoric as we wage the cultural war of words. Even if every muslim in the world wanted to kill me personally and even if they all rationalize this desire in terms of the same line in the Koran, I might wish them to appreciate that it's not their "creed" that motivates them. There are probably other pertinent lines in the Koran. "Keep your damn creed! But put down that grenade" In everyday speech, the ancient European crusaders and the Inquisitors were "of the same religion" as Desmond Tutu. If it's easier to turn the Koran to terrorism than to turn the Old or New Testament to terrorism, isn't that sort of an academic point? At the least, I think it's a politically imprudent point to argue. Those muslims telling you "our crazies are worse than yours" do not go on to say "And therefore from now on I do not consider myself a muslim"
Your point about culture over creed is excellent. I have lots more to write about this but I'm just exhausted. Where did you hear this? I think you mentioned you were taught it, but in what context? Anyway, it's a really great point that also gives me some hope.
Murky, thank you for your wise and intelligent comments.
One of the people quoted by Miss Lizzie and who took part in one of the "Towards New Enlightenment" conferences is MIss Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Not only Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a former Muslim, she is actually a well known Islam basher in the Netherlands. She has on record and publicly called the prophet of Islam, Mohammed, a tyrant and a pervert. She has also called Islam a "backward religion".
More over, miss Ali claims that she defends the rights of "Muslim women". Imagine someone claiming to defend the rights of Jewish people by insulting Judaism as a whole, and by calling Moses a tyrant.
People like Miss Ali have suffered so much that they turned their suffering into hate and anger. We can understand their sufferings and we can sympathize with them, but their vilification of an entire people is dead wrong.
I hope that we agree that people who were victims of their father's molestation are not justified to turn their anger towards all men or all fathers.
Lizzie seems to confuse (just like the article does) constructive criticism of certain traditions within certain communities and scapegoating their religion as the primary cause of any crime committed within these communities.
Honor crimes do occur among Arab Christians but they are unheard of in the biggest Muslim country in the world: Indonesia.
Issuing "death threats" is not exclusive to "Muslim communities" as Lizzie has implied.
Edward Said, the American-Palestinian Columbia University professor has received numerous death threats against his life and his family. His office at Columbia Univ was once set on fire. His crime? He was an outspoken defender of Palestinian rights, his own people. (Said was also a Christian).
Does this mean that New-Yorkers are crazy fundamentalists who burn professors offices and issue death threats because the same professors defend their people's rights?
It is ok to listen to the horrific stories of ex-Muslims and even Muslim-bashers among them but let's not forget that they only represent themselves.
My other comment is directed at the owner of this blog who wrote:
"...Also, I will remind you that Islam has not yet had its reformation, and that offensive Jihad is a commandment of Islam. Mohammed was a soldier, not a pacifist."
This is an overstatement. Reformation of Islam is another loose term that is used as a boggy man. Islam is not a centralized religion except maybe for the Shia.
When you wrote that "offensive Jihad" is a commandment of Islam, I would like to see examples.
I might suggest Bin-Laden's own words:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/worldview/story/0,11581,845725,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2455845.stm
For what I can read, Bin-Laden keeps talking about "fighting back" and about "getting even", and about "as you bomb us, we will bomb you".
Mohammed was a statesman, not just a soldier. In fact, as far as religion is concerned, he resembles a lot Moses.
As far as history is concerned, it is only a decade ago when Western civilization colonized half of the globe by the use of force. This of course happened after "Western religion" was reformed, and after "Western nations" enlightened themselves.
After WWII, a great number of Western nations re-reformed themselves again, and finally renounced colonialism or any form of forceful interference in foreign "backward" lands.
Except for one: The United States of America. Not too long after WWII, the US launched a bloody war in "backward" Vietnam in which about 3 million Vietnamese were killed. The war was only ended because of US casualties: 65,000 vs 3 million.
There are many Americans who still defend the atrocities committed in Vietnam (napalming villages, etc), and there are of course others who condemn it.
After Vietnam, there were other bloody adventures in South America.
Then came the Middle East.
The Enlightened government of America openly and publicly declared (and still does) that the "backward" Middle East is a "vital interest area", a strategic area to be "defended" by force if necessary. This does not refer to its "backward" people, but rather to their oil.
I really suggest that you take a good look at your so-called enlightened world.
For a starter, I recommend reading a collection of declassified documents including many of the CIA's immoral and unethical operations in foreign lands:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/index.html
It is straight from the horse's mouth.
Regards.
There are many Americans who still defend the atrocities committed in Vietnam (napalming villages, etc), and there are of course others who condemn it.
I am sure precious few people defend atrocities per se. I think many people do argue that it was reasonable and moral choice at the time, given the information that the decision makers had bothered to obtain, to wage war in Vietnam. Some smaller number will argue that it was the right choice at the time, and some still smaller number (notably not including former war chief Robert MacNamara) will say it was right at the time and it would have worked too but for those trouble-making hippies. And then there are a lot of hot heads who say all kinds of things without thinking too hard about what they're saying.
I think "backward" is a provocative word that can make the Vietnam hawks look more arrogant than they tended to be. I doubt any imagined their military and political and economic agenda as about culture. I imagine many decision makers had no lack of respect for sampans and rice noodles. I also don't think they saw the north Vietnamese as nationalists either. I think initially they saw them as being in the thrall and in the palms of communist imperialist foreigners--and that anyway that's where Vietnam was headed if the North Vietnamese won. If anybody would have viewed the Vietnamese as backward it was Mr Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao.
Karim wrote:
Mohammed was a statesman, not just a soldier. In fact, as far as religion is concerned, he resembles a lot Moses."
Well, I don't honor or respect Moses, either. In fact, the entire old testament seems to "value" simply following the will an of angry, jealous, erratic, punishing God. Not so impressive to me.
"I really suggest that you take a good look at your so-called enlightened world.
For the record, Karim, I'm not saying my society has achieved enlightenment. I think we have a good constitution, that presumably helps us to come closer to enlightenment than places that don't have a constitution, or don't have a constitution that, for example, gives rights to everyone, or that separates of state and religion. However, having a constituion and living up to it are different things. And of course, these days, in the US many seem to be disregarding our constitution and moving back towards the dark ages.
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