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| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
I don't think it's a case of not "wanting" strong leaders in times of peace and prosperity, but rather that such a quality becomes less important in the minds of voters once the threat is seen off. In such periods, I would argue that the economy and other factors such as health-care and education are more important to the voters and these factors (especially the latter two) are probably traditionally seen as strengths of more liberal-minded politicians. |
I'll buy this.
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
That wasn't Saul's contention and it wasn't really mine either. Having said that, I do believe that nationalism - especially in its more jingoistic, exclusivist guises - is rarely a particularly "enlightened" philosophy. There is nothing wrong with taking pride in one's society, or in how that society acts, but nationalism tends to manifest itself more as the unquestioning, religious worship of a nation and the abstract symbolism associated with it rather than as the considered pride in one's nation's place in the world. It is, once it gets to this stage, the belief in the superiority and precedence of one's own nation above all others, and it removes the ability of individuals to objectively question the activities the nation undertakes. In this regard, I would contend that this blind worship is almost certainly contrary to the ideals of Enlightenment: the Enlightenment preaches an ethos of questioning, of fact and of logic, all of which are the natural enemies of the sort of nationalism I'm talking about.
I may have a rather extreme perception of what "nationalism" means, but I do think - now that you've brought it up - that it is not an attitude that can be easily reconciled with the ideals of the Enlightenment or of the political philosophies (liberalism, social equality, democracy etc.) that the Enlightenment facilitated. |
You do have a more extreme perception of nationalism that I have. I see it simply as the philosophy that from knowledge about the nationality of a group of people one can justifiably infer traits of this group. Your definition seems to incorporate ethnocentrism as well. Anyway, I seem to recall that Vesa was both enlightened and nationalist? At least I have friends (well, one friend) with a nationalistic agenda, yet also a fairly deep knowledge of history, culture, and critical philosophy.
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
There's nothing wrong with rebuking Islamic dogmatists, but from what I've seen in Australia (I can't speak for the situation in Europe) anti-muslim sentiments reach far further than just the extremists. Earlier this year, some 5,000 Australians draped themselves in Australian flags(A) (there's that nationalism again) and went trolling along the beaches of Sydney to find anyone of Middle-Eastern appearance they could to beat the shit out of(B). Much of mainstream public opinion suggested that they were at least somewhat justified in resorting to these sorts of measures. Since the bombings in London, there has been talk (including from those in the highest levels of government) of banning hijabs(C), of deporting Muslims with dual-citizenship who break the law(D), of discriminating amongst those wishing to enter the country on the basis of religion (i.e. banning Muslim immigrants)(E), of banning Islamic literature(F), of forcing immigrants to "assimilate" into "Australian culture" (G)and so on. Now do these strike you as particularly "enlightened" ideas?(Q1) Are these sorts of attitudes really targetting only the extremists, or are they targeting all Muslims indescriminantly?(Q2) |
Answer to Q2: Of course they are targeting Muslims indescriminately.
Answer to Q1: A seems silly, but harmless. B and F are stupid and counter-prodctive. C depends on the situation: In Denmark there was some situation with a Muslim woman who wouldn't show her face to a photographer in order to get her drivers license. When she was denied the license, there was talk about this in effect was a ban on the religious dress. That sort of ban I find quite ok. A general ban, which just outlaws the dress everywhere and everytime, is not enlightened. D depends on the crime. We expel people who commit severe felonies like rape and murder, and I support that. I don't give a shit if the perpetrator is Muslim though. Really bad behaviour and citizenship elsewhere should imply deportation no matter your personal beliefs. E sounds like a stupid litmus test. I'm in favour of countries being allowed to select the immigrants that they deem more suitable to live in the society, rather than selecting them at random. In both cases people gets turned away, and I'd rather that those who stay will fit into society with a minimum of effort. Experience tells us in Denmark that Islamists generally do not fit well into our society, and actively obstruct integration. G depends on what "forcing" and "assimilation" means. Shooting people for not farming crocodiles would seem bad, yet withholding support for people refusing to learn English seems like a good idea.
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
I'm not going to defend the religion of Islam, much less the Islamic fundamentalists, but I will make a point of defending Muslims. People need to be treated based on how they act, not based on what they believe, and we shouldn't judge the entire population of muslims on the actions of those who dwell on the fringes of the faith. These fringe-dwellers are the ones we have every right to target (and should be tagetting - though preferably not under the guise of nationalism) and we have to ensure that those who are innocent are not discriminated against either in a legal or social context. In the swell of anti-islamic sentiment in the west, many people seem to have forgetten this. |
Agree. Notice that I said anti-Islamism and not anti-Islam.
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
Muslim extremists will continue to try to attack western targets (and security needs to be tight to protect against this) but the threat is grossly overstated. This is not a "war" or a "clash of civilizations", it's the entire western world against a few insane idiots. They do not have the power to challenge the west, no matter what sort of weapons they get their hands on, so for western governments to exploit fear by pretending that we're really under any sort of significant threat from these people is spurious to say the least.
The only people are a threat to western civilization are the people running it. The only people who have the potential to threaten our "values" or our "ways of life" are those who have - over the past 4 or so years - introduced "anti-terror" legislations of varying degrees of severity, that have signed away freedoms and liberties central to western culture and that, in some cases, took decades or centuries for us to acheive. It's nothing but populist fear-mongering and I think it needs to be recognised that it is these people - not "muslims" - who pose the greatest threat to everything we hold dear about the societies in which we live. |
You're assuming that the only thing people are fearing is terror. Personally, I could be labelled as an Islamophobe, but not because I fear terror. I fear Islamism as an ideology the same way I fear Nazism and other facsist philosophies. And, like it or not, Islamism is definitely the facsist group with most adherents today. And their tactics of mixing appeals to tolerance with extreme intolerance and violence (the non-terrorist kind) seems to be working. I have limited time, so I'll only give a few very recent examples (some are from blogs, so gloss over the opiniated parts - the facts reported are still scary):
In the Muslim world:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060328...g_down_on_blogs
http://jimmys-corner.blogspot.com/2...as-stylish.html
http://forfreedominpictures.blogspo...-march-8th.html
http://www.newkerala.com/news2.php?...llnews&id=35166
http://seneferu.blogspot.com/2006/0...an-gazette.html
In the US & Canada:
http://jsteele.redstate.com/story/2006/3/30/151428/269
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/entertai...918&p=y78yz66z4
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/...he_danish_.html
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/web...d_to_Riots&only
http://www.proteinwisdom.com/index....og/entry/20082/
In Europe:
http://www.expatica.com/source/site...&story_id=28926
http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/22731.html
http://dailyablution.blogs.com/the_...study_how_.html
http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/23191.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...9/nsharia19.xml
http://agora.blogsome.com/2006/03/2...l-naser-khader/
http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/23212.html
And for good measure, here is a round-up of the events that lead Jyllands-posten to provoke Muslims:
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=032706D
and an op-ed that raises valid questions, I think:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-e...00253-3900r.htm
I think there are *far* to few of these guys:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-e...84827-8739r.htm
In Denmark, the people in Democratic Muslims (founded by Naser Khader, who is the target of several death threats), who share similar ideas as Jasser, have been very active the last two months. Consequently, the leading members have recieved death threats, been subjected to spitting, and labelled as rats etc. by other muslims. Yesterday, in an excellent column (EDIT: found it in English), one of the members said:
| quote: | My religion is threatened in this country.
Not because I am a part of a Moslem minority in a Christian country. Not for lack of Mosques. And not by the Danish People’s Party and their stereotypical depiction of Moslems.
My religion is threatened by people who claim to belong to the same faith as I do. Threatened by organisations such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir and by people such as Ahmed Akkari, Abu Laban and Raed Hlayhel who all claim to work to spread the word of God. In reality, they’re working towards another goal entirely - to control what other Moslems should believe, think and do.
Some Moslems in Denmark have accepted the Danish Imams’ words and take strong exception to Naser Khader. They think he has sold out the Arab cultural heritage and that he’s shed Moslem values to become accepted by the Danes.
But what few Moslems in Denmark understand is that Naser Khader more than any other works to ensure that we qua Moslems are seen as assets and aren’t looked down upon as a problem in Denmark.
Is it really so heretical when Naser Khader dares say that to achieve that, we Moslems must embrace Democracy and Freedom of Speech and that it must mean that we reconsider some things in our cultural and religious background.
Lately this had some inhuman consequences for Naser Khader and his family. Some fanatical fellow Moslems have tried to threaten him into silence because they would rather not have other Moslems critically analyze the context in which our religion is seen.
But it’s time that we - the great silent majority of Moderate Moslems in Denmark - let our voice be heard and take our watch as champions of Democracy. We can’t let Naser Khader carry that burden by himself.
Because what we are witnessing at this moment in Denmark, of all things resembles most an inquisition, one which doesn’t leave out much from the horrors the unorthodox thinkers of the Christian world had to go through during the Middle Ages. In the year 2006, Moslems who don’t approve of authoritarian Islam are condemned as heretics with no right to call themselves Moslems.
Many of those who like Naser Khader champion the idea of integration of Islam and Moslems are marked by co-religionists as bad Moslems. But how did we freethinking Moslems allow this to happen?
“Read!”, was the first word of God which was revealed to the prophet Muhammed in the 7th century. But what we as Moslems do in the 21st century is the direct opposite.
Instead we turn off our brains and let ourselves be dictated to by people who call themselves religious scholars and who claim that only their interpretation of Islam is the right one.
What they omit to say out loud is that they have another agenda: to transform our religion into a political movement. The French documentary about the Danish Imams proved to be a frightening example of that.
As Moslems in Denmark we have a unique opportunity which isn’t given to our Brothers and Sisters in most of the Islamic world. We have every opportunity to get an education. For free. We’re even being paid to educate ourselves.
There is therefore no excuse in Denmark for not using the opportunities we have to seek knowledge. Here we are allowed critical questions and here we have a constitutionally secured right to speak our mind.
If we don’t use that opportunity - well, we’ll be doing the opposite of what god dictated to us. And that makes our future prospects frightening.
Not only will that entail that we as Moslems close in around ourselves, isolate ourselves from the society in which we live and passively let ourselves be led in chains back to the Dark Ages. It will also entail that we increasingle will be hated because of the words and actions which are practiced in the name of Islam without protests from us.
Naser Khader has long been a single lighthouse, leading the way in the dark, while many of us who either came by ourselves or are descendants of those who came here looking for a better life for too long have acted as if Democracy and Freedom are a matter of course which places no demands on our persons.
But its time for us Moslems to choose sides. Do we want to live in this country with all that that entails of Freedoms, opportunities and Rights - or do we really want that the intolerance, the dictatorship and the limitation of the personal freedom which we have left must also be part of our lives in the country we’ve come to?
If the latter is the case, we must take the consequence and go home the the poor neighborhoods, the refugee camps or the persecution which most of us left but which many - of both the first and the second generation - apparently have a tendency to remember in a softer light.
But if the former is the case, if we as Moslems really want this country and its principles, we’ll have to wholeheartedly and unambigously say, in a way which will leave noone in doubt, that those who speak for intolerance and fundamentalism have only a small following among Moslems in Denmark.
I clearly remember my time at the University of Cairo in the 1980s. Then there was also a small group of Islamists who tried to terrorise all of us who had an ordinary, relaxed attitude to the religion. Islamists crashed parties, destroying everything because there was music and dancing. Young men and women who were seen holding hands were beaten, humiliated and portrayed as amoral. And those who who dared criticise the actions of the Islamist students were beaten brutally.
At the end of the 80s and the start of the 90s, the Islamists took to more drastic measures. Primitive nail-bombs in the metro, in cafés and outside schools in Cairo.
Innocent children, women and men were were killed and mutilated. They were almost all of them Moslems. But for the Islamists, the goal sanctified the means and the killing of innocents was the price to pay to overthrow the ‘infidel’ governments of the Middle East in favor of the ‘true’ Islamic state.
In the years following, the Islamists’ fight was escalated to a head-on confrontation with the intellectuals who dared speak out against them. The chairman of the Egyptian parliament was mowed down with a machine gun. He had worked dilligently to modernise the Egyptian divorce laws, which had till then been run by the Sharia principle.
The aging Egyptian nobel prize winner of literature, Nagib Mafouz, was stabbed in the street. He had dared speak against fundamentalism in his hard-hitting columns.
The writer Faraq Fouda was shot dead outside his office. In books and in a debate programme he had dared suggest seperating church and state in Egypt.
The argument the Islamists made in all three cases was that they were apostates or bad Moslems who deserved death for their heretical thoughts.
We, the majority, who opposed the Islamists strongly, chose to stay silent. We bowed our heads and went about our lives out of fear of suffering the same fate. But we were many who had clouded consciences because we didn’t speak up in time.
While the Islamists were spewing hate, violence, fear and chaos, their organisations ran and organised a number of charities, free clinics, feeding the poor, school projects in blighted neighbourhoods and more. Projects which helped where the government failed and created an enormous amount of goodwill among the poorest and least educated.
But Islamism always has two faces - a mild and caring one which claims to be the protector of the poor and the true guardian of Islam and another, which in ideological phrases open to interpretation preach hate and violence, murder for the infidels and the overthrow of existing society.
That is why it is uncanny to see that the same methods employed by the Islamists in the Middle East in the 1980s and which were used to spread terror in the United States, in Madrid and in London are also being used by Imams here in Denmark.
They’re speaking with forked tongues - on one hand, the impression is conveyed that all they want to do is help those who can’t help themselves. On the other, thunderous hate speeches and calls for defending the Prophet, Islam and the Moslems in terms that by the wrong kind of people can easily be seen as a call for Holy War and killings, securing the high status of Martyr.
But the most uncanny thing is that the same unwillingness to stand up and protest this abuse of the religion which I saw in the Egypt of my youth, is predominant among the majority of Moslems in Denmark today.
The Imams who went to the Middle East with the single purpose of arousing the wrath of the Islamic World under cover of defending the Prophet have too long been allowed to be seen as representing the Moslem majority and portray all who disagree with them as deviants.
Naser Khader and the people who’ve supported his union of Democratic Moslems are generally spoken of by these Imams and their supporters as bad Moslems, as rats, as apostates, even atheists who one should warn one’s children, friends and co-religionists against associating with.
To be an apostate is one of the worst things to be in Islam. Something which is comparable to a brand, which gives every true Moslem the right to murder the apostate. So accusing the protesting moderate Moslems of being apostates is a method which makes most keep their protests low profile.
Several members of Democratic Moslems have received death threats, have been spit upon by Moslem ‘brothers’ and have been threatened to be excluded from their Moslem communities if they don’t distance themselves from Naser Khader and the cause he champions. And in the long run, the most dangerous thing about the Muhammed crisis is the consequences it will have for how we as Moslems associate with each other and our fellow Danish citizens in the future.
It’s hard to explain to people who haven’t lived in the Middle East how liberating it is to live in a country such as Denmark. A country where you’re free to say whatever you like, read whatever you like, act however you like, believe whatever you like and join any organisation or party with no repercussions for your life, career or family. But some seem to want to deny us Moslems that right and therefore we must now stand together and denounce these Men of Darkness.
The vast majority of us, the almost 200,000 Moslems in Denmark, have a relaxed and moderate attitude to our religion. Most of us have been passively observing during the Muhammed crisis, many have - rightly so - felt offended by the cartoons’ defamation of the Prophet. But few have realised that it isn’t the caricatures but those who have wielded them as a lever who threaten our religion.
It time for us to choose our sides. Will we as Moslems silently keep accepting that a herd of power-hungry people have taken Islam and the World as fearsome hostages? Or do we want to take back our religion and our right to practice it and live in peace and harmony with the surrounding world?
Our Prophet is not diminished by a handful of caricatures. But we are diminished and crippled as human beings by the hate the fanatics have tried to instill into us as a consequence of the cartoons.
The tone of the immigration debate may be hard and degrading. But have we ourselves done enough to abolish the stereotypical image of Islam as a religion of hate and the image of Moslems as people who have no wish to integrate into and much less accept the West which is persecuting us?
To become accepted and integrated in this country first and foremost demands that we as Moslems must stop pretending we are victims. Though we may be the victims of prejudices, they are prejudices which some Moslems by their behaviour have helped create and they are prejudices which all the rest of us with our passivity and lack of protests have helped keep alive.
The image of Moslems we thus help solidify is far worse than anything the Danish People’s Party have ever said.
To do well in Denmark has as a precondition that the rules of the land are supported - to educate yourself and play an active role in the community and the debate and to not only take from, but also give something back to society.
And to do that, you can’t just watch from the sidelines when someone tries to reintroduce the abrogation of our personal freedom and our freedom of speech which I think all of us left behind with a sigh of relief in the countries we once considered home.
There’s only one solution for us Moslems — use the first words that were revealed by God to the Prophet: Read! Study, be critical and take exception to those who abuse Islam.
And get out of your couch, participate actively in the Democracy because it’s not something that is just given to you along with your Danish passport. Support Naser Khader as the man who is guarantor of us and our children living as an accepted and appreciated part of this country in the future. Help make sure that our children in the future with pride in their voices can say that they are Moslems.
As Moslems we have to loudly insist that religion for us is also a personal matter between ourselves and our God. It’s not the job of any earthly being to go around with a ruler, measuring who are bad and who are good Moslems.
That measurement only God can make on the day of judgement, where all of us will answer for our deeds. |
Last edited by trancaholic on Apr-04-2006 at 07:18
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