What we are seeing in Egypt is counter-revolution pure and simple, military hardliners who are going to be friendly with Israel and the US, and are committing gross human rights abuse.
Western backed counter-revolution is going to be sweeping back across the Middle East; do not be distracted by the words of the West, watch the deeds. It will of course be in the name of secularism. There is an important correlation between what is happening in Turkey and Egypt. I made myself unpopular when I pointed out what the media did not tell you, that behind the tiny minority of doe-eyed greens in the vanguard of the Istanbul movement, stood the massed phalanxes of kemalist nationalism, a very ugly beast. “Secularism” was the cry there too.
Cannot keep your fangs hidden for long can you?
Why do you assume Arsalan is “white” and lives in this country?
Throughout the debate you have conflated “Islam-ism” with extreme Wahhabi school of thought that in fact are a reactionary off shoot bent on perpetuation of the current status quo; the Saudi/Qatari/Kuwaiti/Bahraini ruling pederasts to be kept in power, with the help of the “religious leadership” misinterpretation of Islam, aided by the fire power of their sponsors the Western political carpetbaggers.
Fact is you should know that “Islam-ism” or political Islam is not the Wahhabi schools’ philosophy, yet you insist on conflating Political Islam and the reactionary Wahhabi doctrine as one and the same, hence your constant references to “jihadists”, “taliban”, “ISI inspired taliban”, etc.
Arsalan is only reacting to the hatred towards Muslims, and interference in their affairs that is so matter of course and taken as granted entitlement of the outsiders. This can be to any impartial observer.
I should clarify something, even though previously I couldn’t be bothered.
What race am I?
I will start with what I am not.
I don’t belong to the white, black or asian race.
I am me. One Person.
Who do I share my race with?
About 7 billion people.
The Human race.
As someone that believes in a creator, that created mankind from a single pair, (not many racial pairs).
I believe I am one of the children of Adam, or Bani Adam, and so are the 7 billion other bags of flesh I share this planet with.
When I mention race, it is an attack on racism. I think that is obvious to everyone. Because only one person indicated it was something other than that, and I don’t think that person was being honest in that confusion.
Something I want to clarify to everyone. I don’t recognise the words Islamism/Islamist.
There is the arabic root word s l m, (to submit, he submitted past tense).
When refering to a person, that has done this, we add the letter m, infront. Muslim. When refering to the system, it is Islam.
So there is no room for words such as Islamist, because a person that believes in Islam is a Muslim. Islam is the system, so there is no need to indicate a system by adding an ist at the end.
Something I want to clarify to all the non-Muslims here.
When it comes to “the extreme wahabi school of thought”.
I don’t recognise the term.
The word Wahabi is only used as an insult in the Muslim world. No one lables themselves Wahabi.
There are four Sunni schools of thought. Hanafi, Shafi, Malaki and Hanbali.
The word Wahabi can be used as an insult to someone who follows muhammad ibn abdul wahhab a 18th century Hanbali scholer that helped the Saudi family rebel against the ottoman(who were Hanafi) Khilafat.
So to make a conection between the followers of the 3 other schools with Wahabi is ignorant beyond belief. I would say, it is lying to fool the ignorant. If the word Wahabi can be used for anyone, such a person would regard the Taliban, the brotherhood and any other group that are commonly labeled as Islamist to be heretics.
To use it for someone that believes in the re-establishment of the Khilafah is beyond dishonest. Remembering that it was the followers of muhammad ibn abdul wahhab that rebeled against the Ottoman Khilafah and established the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
This is one of the reasons why I used the word lying, and not mistaken.
More hot air and absolutism. Goodness me. This political psychosis is what we in ‘the Muslim communities’ (however one wants to define that) are dealing with. Everything in the posts above comes straight from the mouths of Sayyib Qutb and Mawlana Maududi, only sort of… mass produced like plastic toys. It’s like a cross between the Manson Family and Peter Pan. It is an abrogation of thought. They have no idea how bizarre they sound, and how bizarre they would’ve sounded 40, 70, 100 years ago in majority Muslim countries. Ah, the irony!
However it sounds. And whether 70% + of the population voted the way they did because they picked up a copy written by Qutb or Maududi, they did vote the way they did.
I don’t believe they did, because under mubarak both authers were banned and people would go to prison for a very long time for the crime of being caught with one of their books.
You know this, so I don’t believe you are being entirely honest with that statement.
More likely, they want to be ruled by Islam because they read another book that wasn’t banned in Egypt, even under Mubarak. The Quran.
You may have voted different. But they voted for what you call “political psychosis “. political psychosis is what the majority of the population want to be ruled by it is there business.
But be honest 40, 70, and a 100 years ago. People didn’t decide, lets abandone the Islamic ruling system and follow the enlightened white men.
The French and then the British invaded Egypt, and imposed their way of life on Egypt.
The mentality you talk of that existed in the not too distant past wasn’t by choice, it was imposed by guns, bombs and torture. Just as this coup isn’t by choice, it is by guns,arrests and torture.
What did the French, The British, Nasir, Sadat and Hosni do to people that wanted their rule to be replaced by Islamic law?
The same applies to the rest of the Muslim world.
And before the French, Arabs invaded Egypt and imposed Islam on the people there.
Arsalan, don’t pull that self-righteous bullshit on us about the innocence of muslims in their own brutal political ambitions and proselytizing. You muslims accuse each other of heresy and treason, and claim the high ground of divine purity for your own sects, but what you all have in common is you call yourselves muslims. You are what you say and do and you can’t blame others for it – they didn’t put words in your mouths, they didn’t swing the swords that you wield to slaughter your enemies – you did.
Before the arabs it was the romans,etc. And the UK is nothing but German tribes and others invading the BRitish Isles. Every nation has come from some place else.
Re-read the context of what was said.
What was meant was westernisation was alien, and came from an external source. An invasion.
Islam is the natural state of Muslims.
It was said in Suhayl Saadi
17 Jul, 2013 – 7:47 am
Where he stated “bizarre they would’ve sounded 40, 70, 100 years ago”. Well that golden age of westernisation he talks about was imposed by force. And people are now returning to what they once were.
My point was, what was removed by force is coming back by choice.
And the westernised minority are confused between supporting the western slogan of democracy or support the imposition of the ways of the west by continued dictatorship.
Because during dictatorship, they said, “why can’t we be democratic like the white man”, but when there is a free vote, and the people vote for the most Islamic parties the army and the imperialists allow them to, they scream for dictatorship to save them from the results of democracy.
I am not being self rightious at all. What I am stating is westernisation was imposed, it wasn’t by choice. And the return of Islam isn’t being imposed by some external choice, that is what is by choice.
The hypcrits that want to claim they believe in democracy when they really believe in facist dictatorships that imposes ways of other nations on people who do not want it, but insist they are calling for what those people want.
Just to clarify I haven’t even mentioned my sect or school of thought, let alone say it is the best. The people I am saying were democractically elected and choosen by the egyptian people, aren’t even people I agree with.
What I am saying, the election has shown they are the people the egyption people agree with.
If your statements refer to what you read from me, I am confused on what gave you that idea.
Not that it has anything to do with the democratically elected government being removed by the army being democracy. The brotherhood are not secterian. They don’t belong to one particular sect or school of thought.
But come to think about it. I don’t know many Islamic political parties that are secterian at least not the ones that want a unification of Muslim lands in to a large Islamic state.
Secterianism stands in the way of this aim in the same way racism and nationalism would.
That is why I mentioned, to contect groups like MB to the Saudi state is so idiotic, and when said by people who know better, it is a lie.
Arsalan, I’m not going to try to sell you, or anybody else, ‘democracy’ because I’m not a true believer. Although it is my default preference in the absence of anything better. But I will put forward the idea of realpolitik, which basically doesn’t give a shit about what people want, unless of course, they have the power to achieve their objectives.
With that in mind, you can want anything you like, including the formation of an Islamic state anywhere you want. Achieving what you want is another matter.
As you know, muslims can faithfully use any means necessary to advance an Islamic agenda without apology. What you should also understand is, non-muslims can similarly use any means to advance their own agendas and not owe anybody an apology for it.
So I guess I would like to ask is what do you hope to achieve, either personally or for Islam, by posting comments on this blog? You don’t need our approval, after all.
The Saudi state is happy to export money, guns and personnel for Islamist paramiliatries but/ because they don’t want them on thie own soil, as they would be a threat to the Saudi monarchy. It’s an old deal that goes back some decades. Same with the UAE. To deny that Saudi Arabia/UAE actively support Islamist paramiliatries and their political wings across the (especially, but not exclusively, Muslim) world is surely to fly in the face of the evidence.
Actually, I don’t agree with what the Egyptian Army has done. I think that again they have stopped the people taking power. But the Muslim Brotherhood and the IMF, together, have proved their uselessness in meeting the needs of the people of Egypt. That is why, having voted the Muslims Brotherhood in, the many millions of Egyptians rose up and kicked it out of government. The IMF remains in power, though, sadly. Ideally, the Egyptians will rise up again and boot out the IMF and its new proxies too (as did Argentina in the late 1990s).
Ideas do not adhere to a single group in time or place, they never have.
There is nothing ‘fundamental’ or ‘original’ or ‘authentic’ or ‘traditional’ about Islmaic Fundamentalists, though they claim all of these attributes. Islamism as we know it today is a thoroughly postmodern phenomenon – largely defined by what the Islamists would term ‘Western’ parameters – and is the product of a crisis of modernity in Islamic societies.
So what adjectives would you use, Suhayl, to comprehensively describe Islamic Fundamentalists, if they can indeed be described?
Absolutist, supremacist, exclusivist, oppressive, lobotomising, postmodern… [these are the polite adjectives]
Postmodern: Like everyone, they pick and choose and magnifiy and contract. But the difference is, they deny they are doing it, claim absolute truth for their interpretations and then fix their specific interpretations so that these interpretations cannot be questioned. They claim to sit outside of history, when it is clear that they are a product of history. They then oppress anyone who dares to question them. In Muslim counties, they kill those who dare to question them. This suggests both the insecurity of their interpretations and the nature of their concepts of power and governance.
We see how they discourse on this blog. – not just now, at this juncture – but for years, the same slogans, the same bellicosity, the same need to view the world as black and white, to address politics in theological terms. That is emblematic. These are educated people – and many are educated people – but they have closed-down their minds. Islamism is an urban, middle class phenomenon. In these respects, it resembles a cult phenomenon; the Manson Family, writ large.
I agree with all of that, Suhayl, but I don’t understand how you see these descriptions as not being a natural part of religion. All religions evolved by political processes – “evolution by political selection”, Darwin might have called it. And the past is replete with primitive, brutal violence which also infused its scriptures, edicts, culture etc.
Can any religion, which by definition claims authority from invisible forces, be anything other that an anachronistic stone chained to our ankles as we try to stride into a future of enlightenment?
Good point, Jemand. Yes. I certainly think that religion and politics should be kept separate.
Jemand – Censorship
I would say that is exactly what they are doing in the non-white world. Not just the Islamic world.
Whether it is latin America, Asia or Africa.
The key difference here is we are talking about ruling Muslim countries by Islam. And what others are talking about is ruling Muslim countries by secularism.
No one is talking about ruling non-Muslim countries by Islam.
This thread is about a party winning an election in egypt and the millitry removing them. Some people support the army take over and are hypocritical enough to claim to believe in democracy.
I think if we are honest.
Democracy doesn’t come in to anyones equation.
I’m just not hypocritical enough to say it comes in to mine. While that people who belive in dictatorship when democracy results in something a little more Islamic than what is here and now, claim to believe in democracy.
I call them liars. They should call themselves secularists instead of pretending to believe in democracy.
When it comes to you saying democracy is your default setting.
Does that only apply when people want what you want?
Or does it equally apply to the situation in egypt?
What am I doing on this forum to result in world wide islamic revival?
Well nothing much. I’m not part of any group. So to be honest with you, I’m just wasting time. My spelling is rubbish, and writing here and in other forums about cooking and fish does help me improve it.
I don’t really believe in any means necessary. Just a coup.
But getting something in to context here.
We are not talking about a fanatical fundamentalist like me getting in to power. Not someone that wants a world wide islamic state that covers as many muslim majority countries as possible.
I wasn’t the one that won the election.
Who won the election was the Muslim brother. a group that would pretty much rule by the system that exists there now. No Islamic law being impossed any where other then bans on Hijab and beards being lifted for government employees.
But even that is too much Islam for the people that support the army.
So this isn’t about the unreligious being forced to obey religion. It is about the religious being able to practice their religion freely.
SS the saudi state is the American state. They support who America tells them to support. And stand against who America tells them to stand against.
But to claim they support the brotherhood, and that is what we are talking about on this thread.
Is a lie.
Because the brotherhood are executed in Saudi, arrested and tortured in UAE. And both countries gave the Egyption army a hole heap of money when the army did the coup. And the Americans gave the egyption army f16s.
When it comes to the ability to rule?
Just how long have they been ruling?
How many months?
And how many more would it take for the country to feel the difference?
SS
You know as well as I do that this has nothing to do with the MB obeying the IMF too much.
Why?
Do you think the army that replaces them, the general that rules now who was Honsi Mubaraks right hand man. Do you think they will obey the IMF any less or much more than the brotherhood?
So don’t play games.
It wasn’t the egyption people that removed the brotherhood. It was the army.
It takes 70% of the population more time to change their minds then straight after the election. You sure the demonstrations against them contained something other than the 30%?
SS
You say all this when it is the secularists who have just done all the above?
Not just “Just”, but have been doing it during the many years they have ruled.
Just as you call a army coup, the will of the people. you use the words that should be reserved for the secularists, who support dictators for the people who just won the election?
So I just have one word for that:
Hypocrisy!
The westernised elite share this view. Honsi and the General that has just replaced him.
These are the same words they would use for the people they rule “Absolutist, supremacist, exclusivist, oppressive, lobotomising, postmodern… [these are the polite adjectives]”.
You believe religion and politics should be kept seperate. But I repeat the elections prove the vast majority of people in Muslim countries don’t agree with you.
Is it because they are :
“Absolutist, supremacist, exclusivist, oppressive, lobotomising, postmodern… [these are the polite adjectives]”.
While you are the enlightened one?
Are you sure these words don’t apply to you?
What kind of a baseless assertion is this?
Has the author researched and picked this little gem from Selective Memri?
Denounciatios abound, a clear lack of understanding of the Muslims evidently need not get in the way of a goodly diatribe.
Given the freedoms that are to be held so sacred, could there be a slight matter of freedom of choice concerning the synthesis of a political doctrines from Islamic perspective? Although given the appalling record of the West in suppressing the minorities (other than certain minorities, that evidently can do no wrong) specifically the Muslims and blacks. Is it not an extension of such an unsavoury status quo that forbids the political aspirations of the Muslims?*
– – –
Politics And The English Language By George Orwell revisited, the term of “Muslim Fundamentalist” denotes a pejorative contextualization; reactionary, backward, retrograde construct, etc. Although curiously there has never been much of Jewish Fundamentalism bandied around, instead they are referred to as Orthodox Jews.
* No sophistry and evocation of the tired and worn out bones of the Austrian Painter sporting a Moustache are to be accepted.
Arsalan, no I don’t wish democracy for everyone, just me, for my benefit, for the time being. Although I might advocate democracy for certain situations where I believe it to be worthwhile. Democracy for Egypt? Only if people want it and if it will provide an enduring improvement to their lives. They have to work it out for themselves. If they want an Islamic state, then they can fight for that too.
“No one is talking about ruling non-Muslim countries by Islam.”
Well sorry, but plenty of people do, including Hizbut Tahrir – although you say they don’t talk about that. Remember, Arsalan, Islamic countries were once non-Islamic countries and we know that Islam came to dominate their lands not by democracy but by migration, invasion and conquest. Let’s not pretend that non-muslims have enjoyed the same rights in those Islamic countries as their muslim compatriots. And they certainly cannot practice lifestyles that are offensive to muslim sensibilities.
. . . .
Muslim Fundamentalists vs Ultra Orthodox Muslims – Yes, that sounds different.
You see? As long as they are pampered and indulged here, they are fine. As soon as one questions their core views, there is an onslaught of vitriol. It is to be expected. This is how their political philosophy plays out, in practice, in every Muslim country today. It is the worst thing that has happened to Muslim societies in recent times.
“In Muslim counties, they kill those who dare to question them.” Me.
One recent example, among many:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmaan_Taseer
Another recent example, among many:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahbaz_Bhatti
We saw what Islamism/Islamist rule did to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Do people want that? No, I think in general people tend to want “bread, justice, freedom”, probably in that order. Islamism has proved that it cannot be the answer to the problems of these countries. In every case, it has just made the problems worse. In Iran, the mullahs continued some of the better things the Shah had instituted, like mass education and so on and that is good. But we are talking here largely about Sunni Fundamentalism, which is by far the dominant form.
I wrote that the current rulers of Egypt are unlikely to defy the IMF, but you three wise men are not interested in reading what I write, you are interested only in denunciation.
And inferring that I derive my ideas from suspect websites is amusing. I do not have to derive my ideas from the web, or from what some cult leader tells me to think. I can think for myself – it is permitted.
In any case, are the three of you not behaving here a little like members of a cult?
Jemand – Censorship Improves History
And I know you and others don’t believe in democracy. The problem I have is with people who claim they do, when all they want is democracy when people agree with them and dictatorship when they don’t.
The people of Egypt have stated what they want in an election. And elections failed, democracy failed. And now it should become clear to them democracy is no way to change a state. But I don’t want them to take up arms against each other to achieve the change.
A clean bloodless coup is a much better alternative.
And no, HT, or any other group are not trying to establish an Islamic state here.
You should try going up to them and asking them instead of taking the word of the ropert murdocks tabloids.
They are not having secret meetings with british generals to do a coup. They are not hording weapons to do a revelution.
Any man that thinks they are is a fool.
They are working for change in certain Muslim countries.
If you want to translate that in to, “well if they take power in a Muslim country, maybe they will take power in some more, and unify them in to a great big country, that will take over this one and make me grow a beard” as they are working to implement Islam here, that is a stretch of the English language that I would say crosses the line between truth and falsehood.
I don’t accept what you say about the Islamic state in the past. Some Muslim countries treated non-Muslims very well, others not so well. But when compared to how European countries of that time treated their citizens of other religion, there is no comparison between the best of the European nations with the worst of the Islamic ones.
There was no Spanish inqusition in the Muslim world, when a nation was taken over by Muslims there was no extermination of the sort the native americans suffered.
So there is no comparison. We need no lessons from you on how to treat minorities.
SS, how Zionist!
How racist!
You talk like someone that responds to a Black man wanting equality by stating, “you see what you lot are like, in some far off country that you have never heard of someone of your skin colour stole my grandmother purse!”
How can I put this in words even you can understand?
OK, I will give it a try.
We are talking about an election in Egpyt being where the winners 70% vs 30% were arrested for the crime of winning the election.
And you give the example of two Pakis, in Pakistan being killed by other pakis?
What conection do they have with the Muslim brotherhood?
That is such a Zionist argument.
You sound like Karimov, when he boils people alive.
Isn’t that the argument he uses?
“but they are evil, look at what they will do when they take power”
Or the Zionists who always insist whenever they stop killing palistinian babies a new holocoast will happen.
Now, instead of building proper schools for the children of the poor that would produce what those inspired by Islamic thought are capable of achieving, they built so-called madressahs which churned-out suicide bombers.
Instead of building a resistance movement of thinking people, it spews out clones intent on killing themselves and as many others as they can.
So-called mujaheddin and Taliban – wholly negative development for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Iraq: Islamists of all shades killing civilians, and for what? Religiously pure enclaves. De facto apartheid. And the same people criticise Israel for this?
Somalia: enough said. Not even a state any more. No justice, no security, no bread.
Mali: Blood and death.
Syria: Oceans of blood.
Libya: Where is Libya, now?
Saudi Arabia: Ask the call girls of Knightsbridge.
Bradford: Just look at Bradford. Is this what we want for people of Pakistani origin in Britain? Ghettoisation of body and mind.
What exactly has Islamism achieved? Name one single invention it has generated. Name one single health or education statistic that has been improved by this cult of Sunni Islamism.
They dream of a restored Caliphate (what, more call-girls?), and dwell on the glories of the Mediaeval Arab empires, yet at the same time deny the achievements of the rationalists which resulted precisely in this high point of Islamicate civilisation.
This debate is interesting to me for what is not being learnt about other people’s views, rather than what is. I beg the forgiveness of Passerby and Fedup for using a previous conversion as an example; I recall that last year we had a discussion that followed similar dynamics, that time on how to achieve a peace settlement between Israel and Palestine.
Newer readers following this debate may wish to read it, since there’s a lot of prose but very little elucidation about what some key interlocutors actually wished to say. It starts with my comment here, and after some to-and-fro, I ask some direct questions about good Israeli people/NGOs.
Reading from there, it is interesting that the responses (such as this) dance in the wind, and absolutely, steadfastly, repeatedly refuse to answer key questions.
Now, one could retort that my questions were a derailing tactic, a pouring out of treacle to ensnare the hapless. However, it’s unlikely to be deployed here for a left/liberal cause – aren’t most people pro-Palestine here? Am I not myself pro-Palestine? Really, it seems that then – and now – my purpose was to rescue views that I felt had dropped off the end of the left and wrapped around to the hard (religious) right.
Passerby/Fedup/Cryptonym/Arsalan – I don’t mean to impugn you here, since I believe you write with sincerity even when you’re dodging every question put to you. I hope also that, when I speculate about the psychological processes that are at work (on both sides) it is not taken to be a rudeness. In a sense, it’s rather a defence of your position: you detect (perhaps at a subconscious level) that there is a huge inconsistency in your views, and so you attempt with great vigour to avoid confronting that issue (even to yourselves, perhaps?).
Arsalan, my primary example would be that you say the Brotherhood won the election. I agree, and you’ll notice I’ve never disputed that. My point (which I made repeatedly) was that the electorate/citizenry changed their mind, and the demonstration is a show of that. My view (which I am willing to change if you cite evidence) is that if there was an election in Egypt tomorrow, the Brotherhood would lose by a long margin.
(For what it is worth, if there was an election tomorrow and the people voted the Islamists in again, I would respect it. But, that would be hugely inconsistent with the demonstrations – I think the citizens are fed up and want a change of government.)
So, I think that’s the first thing you need to ask yourself. Now, it might be that you regard elections = good, demonstrations = bad. Well, alright, although you appear to be in favour of the first wave of demonstrations that ousted Mubarak? You could counter than Mubarak’s government was illegitimate (I agree) but how many people need to demonstrate against Morsi for you to concede that new elections would be necessary?
A third internal inconsistency, which is related, is your view that Egypt should get an Islamic government at any cost. I guess this is speculation on my part, but it is a reflection I hold in good faith. If Egypt were to vote tomorrow, and chose a secular left-wing leader, would you respect the result? Presumably the basis of electoral legitimacy is that, if an uprising leads to a new vote, then the new result overturns the old one?
A forth thought-inconsistency is that Suhayl and I are firmly on record of opposing neoliberalism, Western propaganda, and all that stuff. I am fully in favour of freedom of religion, and have said so many times. Even in this very thread I refer to Tony Blair as a criminal. But neverthless we are dismissed as Murdoch stooges and fascists, even though Murdoch stooges and fascists would never say the things we do. Another inconsistency for you to think about.
You are welcome to come back to me of course, though this post is more a philosophical commentary about the debate rather than another attempt to further it.
Final point, to all supporters of Islamic governance here. On the links I supplied earlier, one of the interesting things about the discussion is that key contributors favoured arming the Palestinians to the same degree as Israel, but were very coy about this view. Reading between the lines, I think Cryptonym was in favour of moving the whole of Israel to a new location. Now, would it not be better to make those views known with great clarity? It was rather as if the opinion-holder didn’t like their own conclusions, and the same is happening here: rather than elucidate what one’s view is, and discover honest disagreement, there’s a great deal of going around in circles.
As I say though, the discussion isn’t pointless even if key protagonists don’t come forward as much as they might. Both sides can learn from the behaviour of both sides! Apologies for the amateur philosophising and psychoanalysis – nevertheless I think it offers insight.
A key point I forgot to note on my last post: the discussion from last year is perhaps indicative of a mindset that refuses to accept the possibility of the good Jew. Thus, the newborn Jew cannot be good, the Jewish human rights worker fighting for Palestine cannot be good, the Jewish monitors of the IDF cannot be good, the young Jews refusing to do national service on grounds of conscience, they cannot be good either.
This is either an interpretation of religious text that has been taken out of context (to such a degree that acknowledging the possibility of the good Jew is an offence towards God?) or the distorting effects of hatred magnified over a long period of time. Either way, another item for introspection.
What the fuck are you talking about Shah and his “Education program”? That wanker was far too preoccupied with whoring around with whore masters flown to Tehran from; Paris, London, New York, as per William Shawcross ( the Islamic Fundamentalist!!!!!).
Today Iran boasts if not a university in almost every town at least a college of further education in every town, and the population of graduates and post graduates are growing exponentially. The attained literacy levels of ninety five percent of the Iranians, the remainder five percent are the older population whom shah educated! In fact shah presided over sum total of fifteen universities, and in a token effort towards education at primary and early high school levels, he orderd the conscription into national service (two years duration) of those with a high-school diploma to be turned out as teachers and sent to villages in an outreach program of education.
If you don’t like Islam that is your choice, however to take up a liberal position and then sink your fangs in; ” what some cult leader tells me to think”. This kind of reference to an official world religion is the stuff of hysterical denunciations of Islam by the ziofuckwits.
Perhaps it should be clarified that imagination and thought are two different processes. In the attempt of indictment of the Islamic societies Salmaan Taseer is shot by his own security guard Mumtaz Qadri presumably his own body guard, because supposedly the guard did no agree with Taseer’s opposition to blasphemy laws in Pakistan. This “evidence” is considered to be reflective of the “Islamic Societies” and their intolerance in the face of “free Speech”. (a single individual who could have been affected by many factors; Taseer had Musharraf connections)
Further the case of Shahbaz Bhatti assassination .[5] Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility (the Taliban Movement of Pakistan) clearly a Wahhabi affiliated group that in all probability are a creation of ISI (Inter Service Intelligence) of Pakistan.
However we the “cult members”, cannot see the error of our ways in the lousy examples of intolerance forwarded. Perhaps we the “cult members” ought to be listening and reading Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, clear examples of “solid unbiased” sources of data (I should cocoa in a cultist way).
In rebuttal of the above examples, it is pointless to troll the net for examples of intolerance and bigotry, because the fora on the net are filled with hate and bile that is being poured on all things Islamic, along with racist murders, and bombings of the mosques, and a constant attack on the rights of the minority Muslims, and Immigrants in UK and the West in general.
Although the “enlightened liberals” on this board and elsewhere, have little time for others who wish to live their lives based on their moral and traditional imperatives that could include religious elements as decreed by Islam. The Fundamentalist Atheism has spawned the most grotesque attacks on the traditions and sensibilities of others and deems it permissible to dictate to all the only permitted dogma; politics and religion should be kept separate.
If you wish you keep these separate, go ahead and do so, that is your choice. The only trouble is politics are religion, and religion is politics, regardless of the demarcations that are supposed to exist. The delineation of dogma from dogma is indeed a farcical endeavour.
Thank you all for the conversation so far. Very interesting.
It seems to me that Arsalan’s arguments are being somewhat misconstrued. Islamic is not at all the same Islamist.
I think this lady is saying pretty much the same thing as Arsalan?
http://mycatbirdseat.com/2013/07/40235-freedumb-and-democrazy/
@Xander, thanks. The author of that piece is rejecting US dependence and hegemony, certainly, as I do also. She’s not saying anything particularly new.
But contributors here I think are embracing a kind of religious blindness that is extremely dogmatic, the psychological processes of which I tentatively explored yesterday.
@Fedup – the atheist movement has very little in common with the US imperialism and neoliberalism that we both despise. In fact, aggressive capitalism feeds on extreme versions of religion, whether it is the Christian fundamentalism espoused by the violent right in America, or Islamic fundamentalism that you seem to be endorsing. It is capitalism’s inhumanity that causes the desperate and the oppressed to seek out increasingly irrational “solutions” to their woes, and – like mass hysteria – it spreads.
I see this process at work where even the wealthy and the privileged in the US become religious (religious observance for political expediency aside, of course). Thus, even the comfortable are afflicted by witnessing the inhumanity of the system in which they live, and increasingly they turn to invented spiritual entities to help salve what they see (even if they helped further the inhuman system themselves, paradoxically).
There is, of course, no such thing as “fundamentalist atheism”. The atheist movement now is, after years daring not speak its own name, is gingerly coming out of the closet. The counter-reaction, from religious oppression that has had an easy time of it throughout The Enlightenment, shows that atheists are doing something right.
The incongruity remaining for me is that, as I discuss things with religionists here – insofar as it can be called an exchange of views! – is that I may be inadvertently causing you to hang onto your religion all the tighter, which for me is a spectacular own goal. But, that would require secularists to remain silent in the face of fundamentalism, which isn’t an option.