Harry’s Place

This is the son of a close friend.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/29/mumbai-tajmahalhotel

When Mumbai has been reduced to a headline and a slogan, the ramifications of that night will still be with them, for the rest of their lives, physically and emotionally. And they’re the lucky ones, still alive, and with the support of western medicine, a western level of income and close family support. God help the people mown down at the railway station, the poor of Mumbai.

It’s NOT about Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq, Afghanistan or any other excuse other than they are Muslims who take the extreme positions of the Koran against infidels, non-believers, apostates and Jews as permission to kill them.

However, where the extra depravity at killing children or mutilating and torturing hostages comes from I can’t understand. My mind doesn’t go to those depths.

Everyone has some moral compass. A belief or an idealogy that defines what behaviousr are acceptable. Communists do things because they believe in Communism, same with Buddhists.

What is THEIR moral compass? We must assume its Islam.

The news that this murdered Jewish man belonged to the extreme anti-Zionist Satmars is further evidence that indiscriminate race-hate is the factor in this appalling crime.

… indiscriminate race-hate is the factor in this appalling crime

The Times of London thinks that they attacked the Mumbai Habad center because those jews act clubby and exclusionary.

We should remember some of the details of the attacks before they become just “one of those things”. In time, a short snappy title will condense all the horror and suffering into a short hand used in news articles, editorials, and ultimately conspiracy theories. Abstracted from the reality it represents, the shorthand makes it easier to discuss the atrocity without having the blood and fear distracting you.

That’s a perfectly natural and appropriate process though, isn’t it? The human mind should not be endlessly dwelling on the blood and guts of wars and tragedies around the world. It’s not healthy. After awhile these incidents go into a different compartment of the brain where it turns into a fact of history rather than something that is very current and in your face. You can of course continue to access it, but it’s never quite the same. Otherwise we’d be stuck in never ending depression.

Fuck Caroline Lucas.

The real sinners are the victims in according to Seth Freedmann on the Guardian CIF.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/02/israelandthepalestinians-mumbai-terror-attacks

We’ve only been exposed to information about what’s going on in the world for about 100 years, so it’s a very new thing in human evolution. Our brains were not deigned to know about people being wiped out all over the globe on a daily basis; a death in the village was about the worst thing that could happen. That’s why most people are not really interested in international politics and would rather vote on X factor than in a real election.

Mike; ‘We’ve only been exposed to information about what’s going on in the world for about 100 years’

- that’s absolute rubbish. What has changed is the speed at which we’re receiving the information.

Is Mike Benji ’storm in a teacup’ in disguise?

Mike: time to evolve then. You might want to make excuses for idiots who see everything in simplistic terms. Judging by you link this would appear to be your shtick. However G-d or evolution gave you a brain and now is your opportunity to use it.

Mike,

That’s a perfectly natural and appropriate process though, isn’t it?

Yes. But we are all too quick to move on these days. I’m not calling for Lady Diana-style mawkishness.

Maven,

Everyone has some moral compass. A belief or an idealogy that defines what behaviousr are acceptable. Communists do things because they believe in Communism, same with Buddhists.

What is THEIR moral compass? We must assume its Islam.

As an atheist my moral compass is drawn from my life experience (probably including some indoctrination from Sunday School) and what I wouldn’t like done to myself or those I love - not because of an overwhelming ideology. The Muslim people I know and work with probably draw their morality from Islam in part, as well as undergoing a similar process we all go through in life. The number of them who feel the need to go and murder people at train stations as an expression of their morality I can count on the fingers of no hands.

As has been noted the terrorists are being denied a Muslim burial. You really ought to do some reading around the subject of Islamism, and its political development. At the moment your analysis is incredibly simplistic to the point of bigotry. When you say Islam, what do you mean? Do you mean all interpretations and versions of Islam, or are you suggesting that all Muslims follow the faith as Syed Qutb felt it should be, or as Bin Laden/Ayman al-Zawahiri would like it? If so, then you have the same “them and us” mentality they have and would like you to have as well.

Our biggest allies in the war against these people should be Muslims themselves who have disproportionately victims of Islamists throughout the past twenty years.

To be fair to Mike j.r. I think he mangled his url in his comment and he doesn’t really represent BIBLECOLLEGEONLINE.COM.

Ah - I thought it was it bit wierd Neil.

You really ought to do some reading around the subject of Islamism, and its political development

UTTER BOLLOCKS!!!! You are of the school “You just don’t understand Islam”. I DON’T WANT TO UNDERSTAND ISLAM!!! I don’t care about Islam. All I care is that some Muslims take the Koran and Hadith’s as their moral compass and permission to KILL!

That is ALL I need to know because that is all that threatens me/us.

I know enough about the development of teh Koran to know that Part A is all peace and light and part B, know as the Meccan and Medina part is all about Mohammed as Warlord and his discovered hatred of Jews and anyone else who won’t submit to being a Muslim. In that part its OK to kill an infidel unless he repents and converts to Islam. Of course, the boundaries, conditions and reasons to kll are wrapped in flowery language with many translations but the effect is Mumbai.

All we need is for teh Muslim Community to say they don’t support terrorism by stating that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organisations and then we know they are real rejectionists of terrorism.

Wow, didn’t realise I was linking to that. How did that happen? One missing letter and it goes to a totally different site. Strange. Well that showed me.

I wasn’t making accuses for anybody, I was going off on a tagent about the human state of mind really.

Excuses.

Maven,

Again, you are ranting. Might I suggest you go away and read some books?

The Looming Tower by Laurence Wright.

Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman.

That is ALL I need to know because that is all that threatens me/us.

Then you are a fucking idiot. Because modern day Islamism is more than Islam, and until you realise that you will continue to rant in your delusion that Muslims are some sort of Zombie infection waiting to destroy mankind. Fear is obviously the mother of ignorance, as well as violence.

Maven’s point is exactly correct: However, where the extra depravity at killing children or mutilating and torturing hostages comes from I can’t understand. My mind doesn’t go to those depths.

What is THEIR moral compass? We must assume its Islam.

If it is not Islam, what is it? And why should we assume they don’t understand their own religion, a topic which probably consumed their attention for a long time?

We need to reject Islam as unequivocally and with the same scorn and contempt as we do the other odious Fascist belief systems and stop soft-soaping, contextualizing it etcetera. I’m sure there were plenty of terribly nice Nazis, that doesn’t mean that Naziism isn’t intrinsically nasty and dangerous or Fasicst or that we not should avoid equivocating tosh like this…

When you say Fascism, what do you mean? Do you mean all interpretations and versions of Fascism, or are you suggesting that all Fascist follow the ideology as Benito Mussolini felt it should be, or as Adolf Hitler/ Joseph Gobbles or Himler would have liked?

.

So it is with Islam.

We need more former Muslims.

I find it necessary once again to disagree with Maven and Paine. Islam contains texts that are opprobrious but also texts which have a strong anti-racist message. Like the other religions it doesn’t have a consistent story to tell. the question of what threads in traditional islam show a way out of the nihilism of violent jihad is an important question to ask. It is worth repeating the observation that violent jihad is not a traditional facet of many islamic cultures and it has been influenced by european fascism and nazism.

Maven,

Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman.

But he learns so much more by listening to hours of rightwing US talk radio daily.

geez, between Maven, Seymour Paine, JP, Morgoth, Alcuin and Nearly Oxfordian, many of these threads are getting swamped by right wing loons, who’s contributions are mostly about essentalising Muslims, venting about Islam and ranting on related topics

if they were resident in North America they’d probably be digging bunkers, loading up on guns, ammo and dried food for the “coming Apocalypse”, whilst practicing their survivalist skills in near by forests :)

And why should we assume they don’t understand their own religion, a topic which probably consumed their attention for a long time?

Apply this thought to the Christian LRA in Uganda then.

To me all religion is poison, but battles need to fought sensibly. Is the Islam of the majority of Muslims a threat to security? No. So why put their backs up by forcing them into a them or us situation. Again, that is what the extremists wanted to happen post-911. They were disappointed. Most Muslims have not risen up in support of global jihad, and support for Al Qaeda has been falling. Which is why Maven’s uninformed ranting is so counterproductive and wrong.

….more ex-Muslims like Council of Ex-Muslims, Maryam Namazie

“if they were resident in North America they’d probably be digging bunkers, loading up on guns, ammo and dried food for the “coming Apocalypse”, whilst practicing their survivalist skills in near by forests :)”

I was among the first of HP’s right-wing loons, I like to think. I would have participated more fully in this thread, but I’ve been busy digging.

geez, between Maven, Seymour Paine, JP, Morgoth, Alcuin and Nearly Oxfordian, many of these threads are getting swamped by right wing loons, who’s contributions are mostly about essentalising Muslims, venting about Islam and ranting on related topics

Modernity, I have posted about five times in the last week, and most of those were basically “me too” posts. One was a delicious little pop at Liberals which the Ur-Liberal here, Gene (ostensibly), deleted.

Your complaining is out of order, old sausage. Unless of course, you hold the position that *any* criticism of murderous theism is verboten. Which does appear, given your track record, to be your position. Which disqualifies you (or should do) form participation in any serious debate in the Space Age.

I was among the first of HP’s right-wing loons, I like to think.

Nah. We had rightwing loons here when the Harry’s Place comments box was still a gleam in your eye.

j.r., you are correct that Islam contains many contradictory messages. Unfortuantely, as I understand it, its message can be broadly divided into two parts: Medina and Mecca verses. The Meccan verses are of a we-can-all-get-along type stuff, not offensive, written when Mohammad was in a militarily inferior position. However, the later verses, written after the capture of Medina, when Mohammad was in a strong position, are quite different, full of Jew hatred, expell all but Muslims from Arabia, etc. And as I understand it, Islam holds to the principle of abrogation, wherein the later verses trump earlier ones.

This is quite convenient for Muslims because they can point to these earlier lets-play-nice verses and declare that it is a peaceful religion, but in fact, the later ones are what are operational.

Now, even in a rosy scenario, in which Muslims embrace the peaceful message, we still have a problem: Because the hate-filled later verses are always there. What happens? Do you just hope they forget about them? If half your religious texts say Kill the Jews, what do you do?

The issue comes down to this, in my mind: what do we do about a religion which poses a serious threat to the rest of the world? Do we pretend to ignore the threat? Do we hope that it goes away by itself? Do you pretend (like David T seems to) that the mass of Muslims is basically the same as other people and it’s only the religious fanatics we have to worry about?

Nah. We had rightwing loons here when the Harry’s Place comments box was still a gleam in your eye.

I claim dibs as the Ur-Rightwing Loon. 2002 I think it was, back in the days of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-As-He-Had-More-Pseudonyms-Than-The-Universe-Had-Numbers.

Fuck me. That’s Six Years.

“Fuck me. That’s Six Years.”

Lord help us.

HP didn’t exist in 2002

Oh. Checked the archives. It did. Oops.

In the UK, we should, for starters, stop dealing with Muslims as a block, tell their unelected, self appointed spokesmen and Imams to take a hike - and while we’re about it stop importing frothing Imams and ban Saudi Funding.

Stop giving these talking head fascists sound bytes, stop interviewing them, ignore them….pretty much like happens with the BNP.

We should avoid dealing with Muslims through the prism of their Islamic identity; that’s been a huge mistake. That only encourages them to identify with the Fascist ideology of Islam; rather deal with them as individuals, or as trade unionists, constituents and so on…just like we did the Germans after the war.

Treat them as people, like everyone else and stop this special treatment.

Peterthehungarian, Seth Freedman says nothing of the sort.

Might I suggest you go away and read some books?

Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman.

You can do whatever floats your boat but they mean fuck-all to me. Like I said and I’ll say it again:-

I don’t care what Islam is. I am NOT interested in comparitive religions or a pissing contest between religions. All I care is that there is a terrorist threat by Islamist Terrorist and it kills people, often in barbaric ways. I don’t need to understand it any further than when it is a danger to me. I am interested to know how to stop it

That is ALL I need to know because that is all that threatens me/us.

Then you are a fucking idiot. Because modern day Islamism is more than Islam, and until you realise that you will continue to rant in your delusion that Muslims are some sort of Zombie infection waiting to destroy mankind. Fear is obviously the mother of ignorance, as well as violence.

I KNOW that most Muslims aren’t Zombie Islamic Terrorists. I have no argument with ordinary every day Muslims.

Now let me point out how fucking stipud YOU ARE - pratt!

Look at the majority of threads at HP in the last thre months. Note that they are concerned with villifying Muslims. Note how they are calling Muslims names. See how Bungle is abused and villified.

Why?

BECAUSE THEY AREN’T EVERY DAY ORDINARY MUSLIMS!!! They are Islamists who support Terrorism and in some cases Antisemites. Why don’t you recommend your books to David T, who is doing a fantastic job BTW.

Neil D, you do NOT have any moral superiority over me and I submit I am longer in the tooth and much wiser than you think. I could take you for breakfast. I will bet that more people support me than you over this.

Don’t take my sense of humour and easy going nature to suggest I’m a pushover or a fool. You don’t actually know me. All you know is what I write and how I choose to write it.

OK? Got it?

Why don’t you recommend your books to David T, who is doing a fantastic job BTW

Because David gets it and is very precise.

You are not.

OK Geniuses Neil D and Gene

You recommend:-

The Looming Tower by Laurence Wright.

Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman.

Obviously you have both read them - haven’t you?

Its a bit like a doctor saying “Here take this”.

Well, if you are both genuine chaps instead of just piling-in on abuse you will be able to complete the following.

“Dear Maven, you should read these two books because by the time you have read and understood them (as we have) your attitude will have changed. Instead of believing ……………… you should now be able to believe ……………………. instead!”

You both might remember I am somewhat an expert in NLP and to a degree the ideas of how the precise use of grammar and the construction of a sentence might better convey meaning. By asking you to state what you THINK I believe I can check whether you really understand what I have written (or are just motivated by malice). To complete the second blank is to state your own beliefs and then I will determine what YOU believe if these book represent it. Unless I know how I might change then what is the purpose of throwing book titles at me.

Since the purpose of ANY advice is to effect change (think about it) then what Change do you think will come about by reading these books.

Any failure to provide an honest answer will simply demonstrate you don’t actually mean what you say but are acting out of some perceived pseudo-intellectual superiority.

I’m calling your Bluff. You can put up or shut up. My guess is you’l just insult me again.

Don’t play me for a fool, OK?

Logan3 was pretty much the archetype HP right-wing loon. the rest of you are just very bad imitations.

“Instead of believing ……………… you should now be able to believe ……………………. instead!”

I think that the first dotted line is hard to complete, because, as Neil D says, you are not precise. You use words carelessly and in one message you accuse Islam, in others Islamism. In some instances you seem to distrust every single Muslim, in others you relate only to Islamists.

Regarding the second, I have read Paul Berman’s book. I think I would complete the dotted line as follows: “that the Western World can win the battle of ideas with the islamists, because the Western World’s liberalism is as attracting to Muslims as Islamism can be.”

You both might remember I am somewhat an expert in NLP and to a degree the ideas of how the precise use of grammar and the construction of a sentence might better convey meaning.

So given that expertise, how come you can’t make precise use of grammar and the construction of a sentence to better convey meaning?

Is the Islam of the majority of Muslims a threat to security? No

And so we ignore them and let them get on with their lives and rightly so.

That just leaves a minority then, Ten gunmen can kill 200 in Mumbai.

Five (or is it 7) can kill 3,000 in New York.

They may be a minority but with guns and bombs they sure can kill a lot.

You seem to be forgetting that I am not one of those who feels a need for ordinary Muslims to apologise for terrorism in their midst because I know they abhor it as much as we do.

Are you advocating that Muslims read some books to better understand Judaism? (Not necessary)

We need to reject Islam as unequivocally and with the same scorn and contempt as we do the other odious Fascist belief systems and stop soft-soaping, contextualizing it etcetera. I’m sure there were plenty of terribly nice Nazis, that doesn’t mean that Naziism isn’t intrinsically nasty and dangerous or Fasicst or that we not should avoid equivocating tosh like this

I can’t support this at all. Muslims have every right to follow and practice Islam. We are only interested in stopping terrorism that comes from their communities.

So, how does that square with: “What is THEIR moral compass? We must assume its Islam.”? Your first comment.

I think that the first dotted line is hard to complete, because, as Neil D says, you are not precise. You use words carelessly and in one message you accuse Islam, in others Islamism. In some instances you seem to distrust every single Muslim, in others you relate only to Islamists.

Well, I can’t be responsible for your subjective interpretation or anyone else’s unless we are in the same room and I have an opportunity to dynamically state the same things in different word to elicit in you the understanding I meant to convey.

I accept an axiom that “The meaning of a communication is defined by the response it elicits” in that respect I’ve failed in my communication but given an opportunity to directly converse with any of you and the opportunity to place my words into easier to understand modalities I might have done better.

So, let me define my meanings as best I can:-

Muslim - a follower of Islam

Islam - a religion

Islamist - someone who follows Islam for a political purpose and who may want Shariah Law and/or a Caliphate

Jihadist - someone who takes part in the ’struggle’ and I use it in teh context of violent rather than political Jihad.

Koran - the Book of Islam

Hadith’s - Mohammed’s commentary (maybe a bit like The Talmud)

I do NOT distrust ALL Muslims.

I am ONLY concerned with Islamists (as is HP) and Jihadists who create terror.

A single set of books, Koran and Hadith’s are read by both ordinary Muslims and terrorists but they come to different conclusions.

I don’t need to understand Islam to understand an AK47 in my face or a suicide bomb on my bus.

BTW - its not for you to comment on my dotted lines because my post wasn’t to you. It may be that Neil D and Gene don’t have any problem with them. Its all to do with language, projection and subjective interpretation.

It needs to now be explained why HP carries many articles about the Islamists in our midst and carries villification of them but Neil D and Gene think that the only opinions that are valid are those of themselves and David T.

Anyway, we’re off subject. “Maven” is the subject of this debate.

So, how does that square with: “What is THEIR moral compass? We must assume its Islam.”? Your first comment.

Referring to Islamist Terrorists who use the compass one way and ordinary Muslims who use it another way. So, how come the compass points in a different direction depending on who’s holding it?

Well, the same could be said of The Talmud. For Orthodox Jews the Talmud is more literal than to ‘everyday’ Jews who couldn’t care less about it (except where The Talmus has influenced Judaism culturally. Jews don’t read the Talmud and go out and prepare buckets of boiling excrement.

We can al see the difference between Anjem Choudray and Lord Ahmed and yet they both read the same Koran

So, how does that square with: “What is THEIR moral compass? We must assume its Islam.”? Your first comment.

Referring to Islamist Terrorists who use the compass one way and ordinary Muslims who use it another way. So, how come the compass points in a different direction depending on who’s holding it?

Well, the same could be said of The Talmud. For Orthodox Jews the Talmud is more literal than to ‘everyday’ Jews who couldn’t care less about it (except where The Talmus has influenced Judaism culturally. Jews don’t read the Talmud and go out and prepare buckets of boiling excrement.

We can al see the difference between Anjem Choudray and Lord Ahmed and yet they both read the same Koran

So given that expertise, how come you can’t make precise use of grammar and the construction of a sentence to better convey meaning?

You can ONLY comment on the interaction between my words and YOUR understanding. All you can verify is that YOU don’t find my language precise enough. So, I lost an audience of One!

“So, how come the compass points in a different direction depending on who’s holding it?”

Well, if you don’t know this, then why did you pompously write: “What is THEIR moral compass? We must assume its Islam.”?
If you don’t know how they get different interpretations from the same religion, the religion itself doesn’t become an explanation, and your argument is simply nonsense.

“BTW - its not for you to comment on my dotted lines because my post wasn’t to you.”

It is not for you to read and answer my comments either, isn’t it?

Its always good to give a third party reference http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/david_aaronovitch/article5269730.ece

“You can ONLY comment on the interaction between my words and YOUR understanding. All you can verify is that YOU don’t find my language precise enough. So, I lost an audience of One!”

If only everything would be solved by solipsism.

*could be solved*

It is not for you to read and answer my comments either, isn’t it?

Yawn!!!!!

I think I’ll duck out of all this because suddenly I’ve become the subject.

I think Maven comes across as an unhinged ranter.

Although he is correct.

The Muslim violence we see globally comes straight from the Koran and Hadith not from modern writers like Qutb. To paint Islamism as a modern phenomenon is to whitewash Islamic history.

Qutb and Zawahiri are doing what many devout Muslims have done throughout history. Look to the example of Mohammad and read the Koran literally. Nothing more, nothing less. They are honest men of faith.

From the earliest days of Islam Muhammad used the Koranic demonisation of the infidel, threats of hell, promises of paradise and military might to build an empire.

Islamic conquest carried on for centuries. It only really stopped when Western military might eclipsed the Ottoman Turks in the 1’st World War.

There has been a few decades where Islamic societies have stagnated so much that they do not have the military might to launch a traditional imperial Jihad.

Unfortunately through the use of modern guerrilla warfare, suicide bombings and the anger caused by past and present military humiliations a core of traditional Muslims have found a way to carry out a jihad in the absence of a serious military presence.

Basically the same religious ideology Mohammad used to inspire his troops to conquer lands, the Ottomans used to legitimise the slave trade and their imperialism.

Well guess what, modern Islamists use it to galvanize their constituency and legitimise their violence.

There is nothing really new about Islamism accept it’s subversion of liberal democracies and the type of warfare they use.

Islamists are not a wacky fringe but the traditional core who have adapted to the world they find themselves in.

Where I disagree with Maven is he talks as if the way to deal with Islam is to treat Muslims as some kind of fifth column.

Actually the best way is to encourage secular and moderate Muslims to force reform on Islam from the inside just like we forced reform on European Christianity.

I used to sound just like Maven

“why don’t Muslims condemn the Jihadis” “It must be because they secretly agree with them and they are engaged in Taqqiya when they say the violence has nothing to do with Islam” Blah blah blah!

On this diatribe we should seek to distance ourselves from the BNP.

I think the reason why moderates are not speaking up is NOT because they quietly support the jihadis but because to challenge the Islamists is to openly challenge a literalistic reading of the Koran.

In other words they will ultimately be challenging the Koran itself and not only does this shake their own faith it can lead to the ultimate of penalties of being branded an apostate.

Best to keep your head down..

The best way we can help Muslims get over the problem of Islam’s intrinsic militancy is to create an environment that allows the ex and reform minded Muslims to speak their minds.

This means jettison multiculturalism as a dogma, promote equality under the law and demolish the apologetics of the anti-imperialist left wherever we find them.

I appreciate that some posters might be slightly right-wing, smart and don’t vent, but it is rather tedious when discussing complex matters to hear the same old essentialist nonsense which litters any HP thread remotely related to Muslims, Islam, Mosques, the Middle East, etc from the above individuals

and the wider problem is that the discussions become dominated by these venting extremists like Maven, and other intelligent posters cease to comment, until threads largely become the deserts of a few decidedly deranged ranters

I suspect that’s why the overall quality and diversity of many threads has dropped

if you are in any doubt about what I have said, look back at the pre-US election posts and how JP, Maven, etc called Obama every name under the sun, from closet commie to closet Muslim, and a lot of nonsense in between.

it is a politics of immature ranters, who ruin otherwise topical and interesting threads, with their venting

if this trend continues then HP will soon have the level of debate that passes at Lenin’s Tomb, but instead of moronic SWPers complaining about “Zionists” etc, you’ll have JP, Maven and Co going on about Islam, Muslims, etc with the same old repetitive nonsense that makes the Daily Mail** seem informed by comparison.

—
** For overseas readers, the Daily Mail is the most right wing national newspaper in Britain, which supported the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s, and periodically panders to every form of prejudice and xenophobia when the opportunity presents itself

It is a newspaper only fit to be used at the bottom of a bird cage.

“Look to the example of Mohammad and read the Koran literally. Nothing more, nothing less. They are honest men of faith.”

So you mean that a Muslim who wants to go back to religion just buys the Koran at Amazon, goes to his home, reads it, understands it “literally”, and then puts on a suicide belt?

Isn’t it obvious that every Islamist has an Iman whom he respects and who provides his own interpretation regarding what is important and what is not in these days? That Islamism and jihadism is a collective endeavour?

neil D, Maven

you see I think you are both right. Now how can that be?

Well Neil D I would agree with you that it is wothwhile learning about the intricacies of Islam, the faith, its scriptures, schools and schisms, its historical trajectory from a whirlwind of messianic conquering supremacy followed by collapse and entrechment even before reaching its greatest extent, its long decline followed by its invigoration first by the Ottomans (followed by decline) and then in a creative tension and reaction to a light and short lived temporary touch by colonialism, the creation of a radicalised modernist fundamentalism in reaction to modernity.

I do that, because that is how I approach the world, and I have a head start on Islam and Islamism first by attraction and then by repulsion through experience, including narrowly surviving an islamist bombing, shooting and firefight targetting foreigners in Yemen.

Yes I know what it is like to hide in rubble and to attempt to staunch the flow of blood from dying innocent, elderly German, tourists, whose dying agonies were all the more pitiful because of the banality of such cruelty, as pointless as my hat trying to keep vital bits inside.

Everytime one of these islamist terror incidents happens I have flashbacks. Its called PTSD, what my great Uncle from the great war who dived under tables if cars backfired, called ’shell shock’.

And I feel some rage and hatred against the dehumanised walking weapons who do this for the Glory and the fury of God.

You see Maven is also right in two specific ways (and I do not often agree with Maven about much but I am able to disagree with him and him with me without considering that he is outside of a normal distribution curve for debatingreasonableness);

1) yes their moral compass is oriented to their understanding of Islam (which it is rather presuymptuous of you to assumeyou understand as an atheist who considers all religion poison).

I can recommend to you as essential reading ‘Fury for God’ by Malise Ruthven an arabist and islamic schollar who recognises that while we must always differentiate Islam from Islamism, this is a task of some precision as the two are eternally connected.

The Koran can be read as a how ro manual of terror and it is important not to be in denial about this .

2) Maven has a perfect right to refuse to ‘understand’ Islam or any religion. Multicultural tolerance does not require an immersion in the folk ways or religions of others, just a mutual respect and tolerance and sharing of civic space.

The people I have seen die at the hands of Islamism, bewildered in pain, their lives snuffing out being overwhelmed by the meaningless, cruel, intentionally brutally sadistic, terror of it all, didn’t know what had hit them, nor did they have to.

Their friends and relatives and co-survivors are under no requirement or compulsion to understand how people they saw as people could attempt to slaughter them like animals.

Like Maven they are perfectly entitled to refuse to understand, wanting only the senseless terror to stop.

Now I must stop writing soon as I am beginning to shake but it is important that my words remain clear and do not appear too emotional (though I understand this is so, I often wonder at the orientalising and infantalising projections as to why ‘we’ must remain cool and reasonable to understand their ‘passion’).

If I might suggest a further reason why most in the West are so unqualified and ill-prepared to deal with this murderous revolutionary political theology.

It is the religion bit.

I have never come across a westerner, following a conventional form of Christianity (and that includes most but not al charismatics and evangelicals), no matter how ostensibly religious who is not capable of a secular mode of thought.

Even those who will speak in tongues on a Sunday can still come out of Church, realise they have a flat tyre and call a Garage without deploying even a moment of supernatural thought or recourse to a metaphysical explanation.

Even in monasteries and religious communities in the West most are capable of at least harnessing this cognitive mode to speak to an outsider.

This, compartmentalised consciousness, with a distinct secular space, is not the way of life of those embedded in a pre-modern experience of religion.

Islam is as much a way of walking , talking, eating, dressing, defecating, abluting, praying and fasting and seeing the world as ‘just so’ as it is about any mode of thinking.

It is orthodoxy and orthopraxy, despite many attempts from within Islam there has not emerged a durable ‘figurative narrative of Islam’ as a compartmentalised religious package, a metaphoric auxillary to secular existence and the experience of modernity.

Many Muslims by necessity and ingenuity have developed this dual consciousness but they are not helped by their spiritual leaders who see this as moral depravity and apostasy.

On this site I have long wondered whether it is only Morgoth and myself who have experienced complete submission of the ego to a greater spiritual force.

Now this experience of union with Godhead is patented and trade marked by the Abrahamic revealed religions.

Each has a central theological motif of Unicity of Godhead and salvation through revealed truth, as opposed to rational theology, the determination of free will or charismatic experience, the experience of religious truth through mystical practice or the insights of adepts.

Islam however largely rejects any truth but tawhid (unicity) and this is abolute.

Jihadis specifically and Islamists in general are defined as much by their theology as by their politics, they are after all united in their revolutionary theopolitics.

If people who were around remember, at HP we used to have our very own female soft Islamist commenter’ bikhair’.

Yes she was a moderate, not that many people noticed as so many of her comments seemed quite barkingly extreme rather than mainstream (normative is relative after all) doctrinal Sunnism.

I used to try to engage her in debate, if I showed awarenes and sensitivity to her faith she accused me of evil attempts to manipulate her by playing with her heart (it is not right that an infidel should be allowed into the heart), most people just mocked her mecilessley or thought she was a racist fake or a BNP mole, because they refused to actually listen to what she wrote, because to do that you would need another theological, ontological framework, another cognitive place to park your brain.

Anyway this is not a religious site and generally I do not use this mode here, so to cut to the quick before people who try to understand Islam but whose eyes glaze over at the first hint of religious dogma, she once revealed one of the truest and most diagnostic of insights into Jihadist thought (which she was opposed to) that i have ever come across.

When asked how she would identify an extremist Islamist or a potential Jihadi, unlike the Guardian who leaked MI5’s report that said Jihadis are unidentifiable because they are indistinguishable from ordinary Muslims (its extraordinary what the Guardian will say to ostensibly protect, while actually imperilling ordinary Muslims) she said;

‘I would ask them about ‘tawhid’, what do they understand it to be?’

I realised she was on to something and I have thought about it and studied it for for several years. I am pretty confident that I too could identify at least an apologist for Jihadi violence this way.

Or rather there are two kinds of apologists, passive denialist Muslims, and active dissembling Islamist apologists.

Incidentaly, or rather consequentially, unicity is the enemy of diversity, religious pluralism and interfaith dialogue.

It is no surprise then that an undercover journalist can discover murderous theology being preached in Mosques in the UK today, ‘its not murder wots being preached its scripture’

details via haaretz:

Asked what was different about the victims of the incident, another doctor said: “It was very strange. I have seen so many dead bodies in my life, and was yet traumatised. A bomb blast victim’s body might have been torn apart and could be a very disturbing sight. But the bodies of the victims in this attack bore such signs about the kind of violence of urban warfare that I am still unable to put my thoughts to words,” he said.

The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: “Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again,” he said.

An insightful take on Neil D’s apologetics.

You really ought to do some reading around the subject of Nazism ( Islam), and its political development. At the moment your analysis is incredibly simplistic to the point of bigotry. When you say Nazism (Islam), what do you mean? Do you mean all interpretations and versions of Nazism ( Islam) or are you suggesting that all Nazis ( Muslims) follow the faith as Hitler (Qtub) felt it should be, or as Geobbels/Eichman ( Bin Laden/Zawahiri) would like it? If so, then you have the same “them and us” mentality they have and would like you to have as well.

And do you seriously think there are different versions of Islam’s Mein Kampf in circulation, versions promoting hemp clothing, vegan cuisine and which praise Jews?

I wonder, is you middle name ‘Little Mary Sunshine’?

Cuz when it comes to Islam raining down attacks on innocents, you just wear a smile for an umbrella, don’t you?

Would it interest you to know that at the entrances to some Muslim ghettos, self-imposed Muslim ghettos, in India, one sees not the flag of India flying, but rather that of Pakistan?

Care to speculate on the significance of that?

Islam can be anything you want it to be, but you can fully expect it to always be aggressive and territorial.

Sectarian strife in the Balkans, sectarian strife in Thailand, sectarian strife in the Phillippines, in Indonesia, in Nigeria, in India, in Egypt and elsewhere…and all of it involves the same ONE common denominator.

But hey! Let’s show everyone how urbaine and cosmopolitan we are by ‘nuancing’ that sole common denominator.

Niel D musters the balls to ’squint’ islam squarely in the face.

Impressive.

mettaculture

Powerfull testimony, and a very well though out argument.

I am a little confused as to what exactly you mean by tawhid (unicity), or how this concept differs from Judaism’s understanding about the unity of G-d. As such I can not say if, this Islamist understanding of tawhid is responsible for much of their violence.

To follow up Yossi’s comment - what answer to the question of “what is tawhid” would point to Islamist ideology?

“Islam is as much a way of walking , talking, eating, dressing, defecating, abluting, praying and fasting and seeing the world as ‘just so’ as it is about any mode of thinking.

It is orthodoxy and orthopraxy,”

To follow up my previous post, and Rebecca’s question, I would add;

Your description of Islam I selected above, would describe Judaism too. As such how does such a description aid our understanding of why Islam has produced Islamism?

I must say I didn’t get Mettaculture’s post at all.

Dang Mettaculture good comment.

‘its not murder wots being preached its scripture’

Precisely. There was little revealed in Undercover Mosque that isn’t just simply quoting of the Quran or mainstream Islamic interpretations… It’s scary when people deny things that are self-evident.

And I hope best intentions to all Muslims all around the world who take the path of human decency, which is the majority of course.

Read it twice Fabian, I did.

I remember bikhair. She was for stoning of adulterers, yet somehow she seemed somewhat peaceful in her faith and against terrorism. For my mind brought up in a secular christian based british identity this I could never really understand. Still can’t, I do try, though…

Mettaculture, I remember seeing a sufi ceremony and feeling touched by an expression of universal love that was more undiluted than anything I have encountered in religion before or since. Reading your eloquent piece above I felt that perhaps I could locate the singlemindedness of violent jihad as representing the (inevitable?) horrible flip side of this love. Is that anything like what you are referring to as Tawhid?

I would imagine tawhid (unicity) was one of the ways al-Ghazali (?) and Ibn Tamiyya, shut the doors on doubt which perhaps had serious implications for the development of Islamic societies.

It may be that one of the features of Islamists and their ilk is their direct and live links to people like Ibn Tamiyya.

why don’t Muslims condemn the Jihadis” “It must be because they secretly agree with them and they are engaged in Taqqiya when they say the violence has nothing to do with Islam” Blah blah blah!

I have said several times that I don’t need Muslims to march against Jihadis and I don’t need them to tell me they hate the Jihadis. I know those things and accept them.

What I want to hear, if they reject all terrorism, is that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist groups and I want them to ‘out’ all the jihadis they suspect may become terrorists.

I do note that Jihadis and ordinary Muslims read teh same books so I merely ask why they come to different conclusions. How come Anjem Choudry is different from Lord Ahmed is they are both Muslims. These are rhetorical conundrums that perhaps I don’t need an answer to.

A fine summary - http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=210920&title=mumbai-tragedy

mettaculture, what a good post. Trying to seek the balance of understanding both sides.

I admit I am an arrogant debator and I do owe something to the American culture I love and the right-wing neo-con radio hosts. I admit I love listening to Michael Savage and Mark Levin and I know that 99% of you would hate them. I guess Gene loves Alan Colmes.

You may think I have a black heart. You don’t know what is in my soul.

You may think I have a black heart.

YOU are meant to have a black heart?

I am Set Incarnate apparently, according to many commenters.

modernity:

“”"I appreciate that some posters might be slightly right-wing, smart and don’t vent, but it is rather tedious when discussing complex matters to hear the same old essentialist nonsense which litters any HP thread remotely related to Muslims, Islam, Mosques, the Middle East, etc from the above individuals”"”

You are absolutely right.

the fact is that they seem to be managing to channel the commenters in the direction that pleases them, and often away from the core of the post.

as you say:

“”"and the wider problem is that the discussions become dominated by these venting extremists like Maven, and other intelligent posters cease to comment, until threads largely become the deserts of a few decidedly deranged ranters”"”

Without meaning to say that I fit in the category of intelligent posters, the fact s that nowadays I hardly comment here, and I usually only do it when comment boxes don’t have many comments or if I feel like reacting to something interesting that other readers post. Sometimes I start writing a comment and then think ‘what for’ and erase it…

based on my experience as a blogger I would say that there are some means to go against this tendency. the general tone of comments set a dynamic, but once that dynamic is set it becomes difficult to change it without using more drastic measures.

I see that there is an increasing tendency to close comment boxes here, that is what I call a drastic measure, but a more efficient one would be to limit the size of comments, no need to post the old testament to get to a point.

other is that us readers avoid being dragged into certain kind of dialogues, because that is what these people are looking for. once again, a short reply usually does it better.

and finally, erasing some more aggressive comments should not be a taboo.

this is my opinion, I respect the criteria set by the blog administrators, so I hope they take this as a constructive feedback.

RE:
geez, between Maven, Seymour Paine, JP, Morgoth, Alcuin and Nearly Oxfordian, many of these threads are getting swamped by right wing loons, who’s contributions are mostly about essentalising Muslims, venting about Islam and ranting on related topics.

well put, but don’t forget John Pee.

So odd to be considered right-wing; as far as I can tell, there’s nothing right-wing about me. I do however see Muslims for what they are, believers in a hate-filled, murderous, Nazi like ideology and for that I oppose them.

Maven,

You’re first comment in this thread contains the line with reference to the terrorists:

What is THEIR moral compass? We must assume its Islam.

Can you not see how lines like that are condemning of all those who follow Islam, since you fail to differentiate between differing interpretations or be precise about who or what you are talking about. In an interesting book review by Max Rodenbeck an important point is made:

Twenty-five years into Islam’s fifteenth century, the faith is again in a state of unusual ferment. Its many would-be reformers are again pushing in opposite directions. Across the extremely broad Islamic spectrum, the same essential split can be found between humanists and literalists, or, to frame the rivalry in a more modern way, between what the Dutch historian Rudolph Peters has categorized as those who would subordinate Islam to “progress” and those who would subordinate progress to “Islam.”

Quotation marks are appropriate, because the very breadth of the Islamic spectrum renders difficult the adoption of a common vocabulary.

When you say Islam, it is not clear at all who or what you are talking about. When you say Christianity, do you mean only Christianity as it was set down in the Old Testament and Gospels, or what Christianity actually has become in its various flavours.

And being called an apologist by John P I take is a compliment, as well as being inherently amusing given the nature of the post it resides under.

I agree with Mod, Sarah and Vildechaye. This site deals a lot with Islamism in its various aspects, and that’s fine. David T knows a lot about it, it is useful to have information about it in one place and to follow developments, so I wouldn’t say limit the number of posts on it. And of course the terrible events in Mumbai had to be posted on even if the usual suspects turn up and spit their bile. My suggestion would be certainly to keep posting on Islamism but only open the comments occasionally. How much of any value gets added by the commenters on Islamism? Almost nothing. If anyone has any relevant information they can email it and it can be included in the main post or another post.

That’s my suggestion. I’m sick of the racket these Muslim bashers make.

Neil D: Can you not see how lines like that are condemning of all those who follow Islam, since you fail to differentiate between differing interpretations or be precise about who or what you are talking about.

If we were talking about whether the emphasis should be on methodical study of the Bible or baptism, your point makes sense because the consequences of one side or the other are not going to result in my getting murdered.

But in the case of Islam, one side believes mass murder is OK and the other side believes..what? That it’s often not OK? That’s something quite different. We know generally what one set of Muslims, fundamentalists, believe, What does the other side believe? How do they finesse the Medina sura? Why would they NOT follow what Mohammad says and kill Jews?

That’s my suggestion. I’m sick of the racket these Muslim bashers make.

Not as much racket as the sound of 3000 dead on the morning of 9/11 - victims of *your* way of thinking.

And, Neil, one more thing: Even if a good thinking Muslim doesn’t believe, for one reason or another, that mass killing is OK, his/her religion certain sanctions it, so it is a very tiny step to take from being a loyal citizen of, say, Great Britain, to one plotting mass death.

Yossi UK

Ah this is what I love about this site at its best, one cannot remain unchallenged for long.

Indeed many of the same observations about orthodoxy and orthopraxy could apply to orthodox Judaism as well.

I remember we had a very constructive in depth discussion, after I had provoked you on your personal tolerance and empathy for homosexuals which you held alongside a devout conviction that for reasons of Gods not entirely made clear, penetrative anal sex between men must result in the death penalty.

Well the short answer to your question is that a Salafi or a Jihadi and most Islamists (unless like Bubnglawala they have learned to equivocate before the media) would not reach for the empathy and understanding but would rather reach for the rocks or the noose to do Gods work.

They would not engage in a complex hermeneutic approach to exegesis as you have reasoning that the death penalty would only apply to jews, who decided not to leave the faith or Israel, engaging in demonstrated anal penetration, in Israel after the coming of the messiah and personal rule by him, and the rebuilding of the synagogue in jerusalem.

I found this convoluted but charming and saw how you could maintain a fidelity to your orthodoxy and to the norms of the wider society in which you live as a religiously apart community.

I engaged in speculation as to how orthodox Jews could do what traditionalist and Islamist Muslims found so hard.

I suspect (though I am not well informed about Judaism) that as much of your hermeneutics comes from the Rabbinical talmudic tradition of the early middle ages, that reason and peaceful co-existence were already hallmarks of Rabbinical Scholarship.

Diagnosing Jihadism depends on an understanding of doctrine and a cross examination looking for doctrinal beliefs but also evidence of empathy (for Kuffar), extreme fatalism and a deep aversion to theological speculation, argument or reason.

In the way that I know you are orthodox by the way you do not write the complete name of G…d unicity in Islam is the most uncompromising monism.

The troublesome sects particularly from the hanbali tradition (but also maliki) of which Salafi is the best known and most powerful of austere froms, how God is referred to (and the 99 good names of allah) are the literal starting point.

Allah is uncreated, indivisible, transscendent and immanent but insensible and incapable of perception or use of comparator or metaphor.

So you ask where is God? (a Christian might say everywhere a Sufi might say in my heart)

What is God ? (for an Islamist he has no attributes no face no hands crucially not Good or Evil but source of all that is created, evil has no independent existence, so a Jihadi in doing what he does to please God is bnot committing Evil or shirk).

Can you get closer to God how?

Can you communicate with God?

How do you worship God, please him?

How do you dress so that it pleases God (there is an exact length for Salafi Jihadis somewhere below those three quarter length microfibre fashion trousers but way above a full length trouser in fact it is mid calf as Muhammad PBUH wore)

How do you put on your trousers…etc etc (actually all very important and believe it or not believed to stem directly from doctrinal notions of tawhid) etc etc

What is wrong/forbidden before God?

What must a person do to be Good before God?

Does this make them a good Muslim?

Who is a Good Muslim? (give examples of jurists, sufis, shia etc implaccable hostility to Shia as heretics is a good clue).

What can you do in life to influence events, bring about change? (looking for views on free will/fatalism).

What is gods plan/ wish for human beings?

What is displeasing to God?

How should you deal with the Kuffar?

Who is a bad/false muslim (give examples for jihadis the list is very small this is key as it is the act of takfir or declaring an opponent a non-muslim that is the hallmark of Islamism).

How do you know they are in error or false Muslims or fallen into monotheism or shirk?

What should be done with a false Muslim who does not live according to the laws of God ?

Who in the Muslim world is a bad leader and not a good Muslim? (give examples Hosni Mubarak bad etc).

What should happen to a ruler or Muslim country that has fallen into ignorance (jahaliyyah)?

Who do you think are good muslims?

Who do you believe tells the truth about Islam (examples of jurists).

What are your favourite websites for information on Islam?

In short what one would seek to do is to discern whether there is an extreme textual literalism regarding the Sunnah and Sharia, in association with a rejection (fear and hatred) of pluralism especially muslim, a willingness to declare whole swathes of Muslim people and societies non-Muslim, an indifference to the plight of non-muslims and an aversion to non-Muslims bordering on the obsessional.

In Islamism the doctrinal wars are all about tawhid, shirk Jahaliya and takfir.

These two articles are from wiki but quite good as an intro.

In short all theological schools in islam that see religious truth as being revealed but unclear or hidden thus requiring analogy, reason or personal experience (such as the mystical practices of Sufis to move beyond the doctrine of unicity to experiencing oneness with God

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athari

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawhid

I must say the diagnostic quality of doctrinal views of tawhid has been noticed in the security world (but I doubt the British one they are too busy engaging Muslims to engage their brains)

But the concept of one God still contains some remnants of the elements of ignorance. Some people imagine that He has a body as men have, and is in a particular place. Some believe that God came down to earth in human form; others think that God, after settling the affairs of the universe, retired and is now resting. Some believe that it is necessary to approach God through the media of saints and spirits, and that nothing can be achieved without their intercession. Some imagine God to have a certain form or image, and they believe it necessary to keep that image before them for the purposes of worship.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/intro/islam-salafi.htm

Tawhid as a signifier of Jihadism even appears in the name of a jihadi group in Iraq: monotheism and holy fighting’ (sounds like a Kung Fu film about jesuits in China but still)

The terrorist group’s full name, Jama’at Al-Tawhid Wa’al-Jihad, tells us that they represent Islam, that they understand what the Qur’an teaches, and that they are following Muhammad’s example. Their common name means: “Monotheism and Holy Fighting.”.
Tawhid and Jihad’s objective is to establish an Islamic state in Iraq. Their goal is thus identical to that of the Shi’ite clerics who now control Iraq’s government, notwithstanding that Tawhid and Jihad is a Sunni organization.

http://www.prophetofdoom.net/Islamic_Clubs_Tawhid_and_Jihad.Islam

In the world of competitive Islamism the battle often rages around the issue of Tawhid. On this site even Saudi Salfis are considered too liberal who have fallen into shirk (sinful rejection of tawhid by apparently using reason. This is a theological abomination for revolutionary Islamists who reject all reason and all forms of hermeneutic exegesis.

http://www.salafipublications.com/sps/sp.cfm?secID=TAW&loadpage=displaysection.cfm

So that is my little brief outline of a Jihadi profiling proforma. Not that I am expecting a call from a nice man at the foreign office anytime soon, they prefer to spend their time and money sending senior members of the bar to Syria to collaborate on ‘human rights training in exchange for knowledge of how to integrate Sharia into civil law’ (I will post on this in due course I am not joking)

“What is THEIR moral compass? We must assume its Islam.

Can you not see how lines like that are condemning of all those who follow Islam, since you fail to differentiate between differing interpretations or be precise about who or what you are talking about.”
Not really. Take Ayman al-Zawahiri. A highly intelligent man, who
has meticulously studied the Islamic texts. Who gave up a promising
career as a medical doctor to follow his religious calling.
He would undoubtedly say, his moral compass is Islam.
And who are you to say he´s wrong about that?

they had executed a six-year-old

Executed?
One of the reasons to object to BBC weasel speak is that it creeps into the general language and perverts all our speaking, and thinking.

I suspect what they were actually describing was an act of unprovoked murder.

What is THEIR moral compass? We must assume its Islam.

Can you not see how lines like that are condemning of all those who follow Islam, since you fail to differentiate between differing interpretations or be precise about who or what you are talking about. In an interesting book review by Max Rodenbeck an important point is made:

Neil D, have I not used analogies like “the compass points one way for ordinary Muslims and another way for Islamist Jihadis. How come they both interpret the same Koran And Hadith’s differently?

Have I not posed that Anjem Choudry and Lord Ahmed are both Muslims who follow the Koran and yet have two different outlloks.

Hence, the compass remains Islam - since that is the name of the faith but I have made it clear that the compass seems to point in different directions depending on who holds it.

I have then used the analogy of The Talmud which many Islamists have used to try and suggest that all Jews follow it, and hence lie. I have then stated that while the Talmud may exist not all Jews choose to adhere to its wackier and way-out proscriptions. That doesn’t stop us saying that the moral compass of Jews might be Judaism - which is really an evolved Jewish Culture and Tradition which is rooted in the Old Testament and Talmud.

I have said so many times that I know ordinary Muslims aren’t supporters of terrorism.

I still add one test though. Let them state that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorists.

I’m puzzled. The Koran is supposed to be absolute. There can be no interpretations - surely?

But then I don’t have to understand Islam. I don’t have to care about Islam. I just care that Muslims use their interpretation of The Koran to justify hatred of Jews and Terrorism.

I don’t need to read a book on engine design or the laws of combustion and aspiration to know how to drive my car.

Of course I meant “I just care that SOME Muslims use their interpretation of The Koran to justify hatred of Jews and Terrorism

…Were this a CIF thread, I imagine that many of the more rational commenters here would lay blame for the wingnut lunacy in evidence on a) the Guardian; b) the moderators and c) the general nastiness and racism of CIF commenters and the site/paper itself. In fact, the same would go for every other internet boobyhatch, from Lenny Lenin to LGF.

Although that doesn’t apply to all websites, does it?

There is one unique website whose threads are routinely infested with wingnut racists for other, super-special exceptional reasons - usually We deal with controversial issues or We don’t moderate comments.

Funny how that works, isn’t it?

On this site I have long wondered whether it is only Morgoth and myself who have experienced complete submission of the ego to a greater spiritual force.</i.

and we both got better. ;-)

Reference this to the thread about Bungle above.

We rightly condemn Bungle and his record on Antisemitism. He’s a main player at MCB who represent Muslims in the UK (allegedly). I assume they all follow The Koran.

So, can we assume Bungle’s moral compass derives from the Koran?

Is Bungle representative of all Muslims? No!

Hence we are acknowledging that there is one Koran and one Hadith and yet Bungle is as Bungle does. I’ll bet he isn’t calling for a denouncement of terrorism. He can’t. He supports Qaradawi who supports suicide bombing.

How come Qardawi, head of European Fatwa Council and leader in Koranic Jurisprudence is able to use HIS moral compass to say that its ok to suicide bomb women and children.

I think the arguments mad against me have a big dilemma to face. It does not compute!

I have to disagree Incidentally. On the sites you mention the posters are on stage offering the microphone to the commenters and they’re all singing along together while here the posters are singing one song while the commenters, who have blagged their way into the gig, are singing something completely different and drowning the sound out with their raucous howls. Those of us who have come along to hear the band get disgruntled.

Incidentally, Incidentally, are you the Rodent?

As my first witness I call “Anjem Choudary” http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/023747.php#comments

Your Honour, the defence rests!

Maven,

you like Jidadwatch? why not stay there?

HP is a bit lefty and less hysterical than those barking mad right-wing blogs which you seem to adore, you’ll feel right at home there and we’ll won’t miss you

please, do us both a favour?

and if you could take JP, alcuin, field, Nearly O, Seymour Paine and Morgoth along with you, then it would be much appreciated

Jihadist preachers cannot be dismissed, neither as fools, who
have misunderstood Islam, nor as hucksters, who are in the
religious business for their own gain.
We have to assume, that their interpretation of Islam is,
at least, plausible.

Not much more to say after a rather exhaustive and heated debate.

geez, between Maven, Seymour Paine, JP, Morgoth, Alcuin and Nearly Oxfordian, many of these threads are getting swamped by right wing loons

Apart from the brainless slur at the end, I am complimented by the company you attribute to me. In the Maven/Neil D conflict, I have to side with Maven - without the histrionics. Neil D - The New Testament (viz. Christianity) abrogates the Old Testament. But its core remains the two Great Commandments - the latter of which is the Golden Rule. Alone of all the great faiths, Islam absents itself from the Golden Rule in favour of the discriminatory Sharia.

anonymoose - are you the Anonmoos, late of ARI? If so, then well met.

Islam - a religion

Islamist - someone who follows Islam for a political purpose and who may want Shariah Law and/or a Caliphate

Not quite. Islam is a Deen - Arabic for system, and it includes faith, politics, law, hygeine and diet. The Law component is the most problematic, and it is this that subjugates, discriminates and enslaves.

As for Islamist, the problem with this is that it is not a concept that comes from Islamic scholars, it is a euphemism constructed by Western apologists in a sad attempt to give the moderates a way to disown the extremists. It doesn’t work because moderates are already confused by the necessity for doublethink in order to hold the conflicting views of Mohammed as both a murderous bandit and a role model of the perfect man without blowing a fuse.

mettaculture - brave post (first one). Respect.

Shmuel Melanie alluded to the evidence of torture in Mumbai, quoting the same article yesterday as you do. If anything trashes the ludicrous grievance hypothesis of the likes of Caroline Lucas and the Guardianistas, it is this ghoulish desire to carry out Koran 9:52 : “Allah will torture them at your hands“. They do so with relish, as they have done for 1400 years.

What is my take on all this? Human nature has a light and a dark side, and the dark side is a deep abyss indeed. Most religions play to the light side, with Christianity (as bequeathed to us by Paul) the most noble, imho. But then it got politicised by Constantine, and only extricated itself from politics since Luther. Islam (as in the Koran of Medina) is the naked politics of conquest and power. It harnesses the dark side, justifying the most horrific behaviour with the goal Utopian mirage of the perfect state under the Caliph, and the puerile lure of a cosmic brothel.

Communists, such as Brecht, Sartre and Eagleton also accept that innocents may need to be murdered for the “greater good”. When any doctrine, any ideology or any principle is placed above the lives of innocent dissenters, it is fatally flawed, both morally and practically. Such are all totalitarian systems: Fascism, Communism and above all Islam. No system is worth that, and if Freedom and Capitalism leave human society the confused, messy, unfair, contradictory thing that it has mostly been throughout History, then that is its glory, not its shame.

Islam cannot be accommodated, it must be fought. That is not “Muslim bashing”, because Muslims are the first victims of Islam, enslaved to its ridiculous dogma by habit and fear. To release a Muslim from his faith is the greatest kindness you can do to him.

For what it’s worth, I like HP just the way it is. Warts and all.

I’m sick of the racket these Muslim bashers make.

Seconded, wholeheartedly.

Metta, I was sorry to read about your experience of violence. You will never get over it, you will only learn to live with it. I am sure you know that, but do remind yourself when it may help. Best wishes to you.

Alcuin: what a load of self-important horse manure. I guess some people just have to demonize their foes in order to sleep better at night. Imagine thinking that the religion of Paul “it is better to marry than burn” is inherently better than Islam, when for most of its 1,300 years, adherents of Islam were for the most part far better behaved than their Christian counterparts (see my references from the Jewish Historical Atlas on another thread-I believe, “one law for all”.

Like most here, I have a big problem with radical Islamists and detest the Left for being so cozy with them. But slandering a great religion and its 1.2 billion adherents, or patronizing them with statements like “Muslims are the first victims of Islam, enslaved to its ridiculous dogma by habit and fear. To release a Muslim from his faith is the greatest kindness you can do to him.” I would like to see you make that statements to many of the Muslims I meet every day here in vancouver, who work hard, want the best for their kids and are trying to make a living, just like the rest of us.

funny thing is, 40 years ago, when Pan-Arab nationalism was in the ascendant, you barely heard boo about the perils of Islam. Today, of course, the situation is different, but idiots like Alcuin feel they have to distort and rewrite history just to score an additional point. Which is how their heroes on right-wing radio and TV operate.

Vildechaye, habibi and modernity blog thank you for refuting the all Muslims are terrorists ranters like Maven, etec.
Sarah Franco, you may be right about the need for editing or deleting of extremists comments.

Back to original subject of this thread. Christopher Hitchens has a very good column about the need to support India as a secular democracy battling the Islamic Extremists nutured by the Pakistani ISI. Read “Our Friends in Bombay: We must stand by our most important ally”* at http://www.slate.com/id/22057/?from=rss

*Hitchens explains why Bombay should be referred to as Bombay and not by its current official name of Mumbai, the name of a Hindu goddess that Hindu chauvinists chosen to rename Bombay for several years ago.

Ah sorry, I messed up the Slate address, try:
http://www.slate.com/id/2205710/?from=rss

Modernity

I don’t quite agree with you. I mean i detest a lot of the splenetic, ranting and purging that goes on about Muslims, mostly from the right, but that simply gives us an opportunity to show how one can, should, and must offer a damning critiq of islamic theo-political totalitarianism that is not anti-Muslim hatred.

Compared to trying to discuss these ideas on an allegedly left wing site, where there is no hope you get shut down for even saying the word Islamist (I have stopped commenting at CIF because my posts are always deleted.

Incidentally the first time I came across the term Islamiste was in the 1970s used by revolutionary Iranian Khomeniites.

iIhad always presumed the term to be French as islamic theo-politics were already well discussed then in France (remember khomeini’s exile was in Paris and ‘gauche caviar’ pomo types like Michelle Foucault were fawning all over the Ayatollah.

The word is French but I believe it is a translation of a farsi term.

Certainly it was always a term used by Islamists themselves (Tariq Ramadan is a notable Francophonic example) with no negative overtones.

The fact that the term is now being resisted by British Islamists, in the last little while I have heard it condemned by Selma Yaqoob and Maqbool Javaid is amusing and ironic but evidence that we are beginning to have some success in exposing the extremist militant Islamic theopolitcs behind ‘community representatives’.

Islamists are targetting the term because they are very jumpy about Islamo-fascism and seek to argue that anyone who uses the term Islamist is anti-Muslim (well they would wouldn’t they)

I am happy to stop using Islamist ( I often use variations on Islamic Political theology, Islamic theo-political totalitarianism, Islamic theo-political fascism etc) but there is a quid pro quo.

islamophobic will have to go as well.

Indeed its use is in serious decline since some of us just laugh when the term is used and refuse to be bound by such a nonsense portmanteau that seeks to restrict free speech about religion as if it is some kind of racism.

I suspect the decline is also influenced by the structural and semantic similitude between islamophobe and Islamofacsist a critical exchange could easily progress so;

‘Isalmophobe’,

‘no Im not you Islamofascist’

‘yes you are you filthy Islamophobe’

No im not you disgusting islamofascist’

‘islamophobe’,

‘Islamofascist’ etc etc

try doing this a few times and like a tonguetwister you actually mix them up.

That is absolutely no good at all for the aggreived who need a power, stopping, word to close all debate as beyond the pale so as to avert all criticism.

I have never really liked, or used either term but I must admit that the use of islamo-fascism has provided a pleasing symmetry that has banalised a term attempting to portray a unique mode of oppression that aggrieved Muslims wished to claim for their own.

I am rather pleased about this and the professionally aggreived now have to call me anti-Muslim to which I have all manner of rebuttal phrases.

My current favourite is ‘how dare you, you have absolutely no idea who I had sex with last night’

A Lebanese friend of mine assures me that I am a Houmus Queen.

habibi

Thanks for your kind words.

Yes I didn’t know that as a risk taking young man who rather put himself in the line of fire a few times (all in a worthy cause) that the real effects of these things are felt years later.

But I have seen friends and colleagues who were so strong and resilient suddenly collapse from too much horror and grief.

Do you know the BBC reporter Orla Guerin? who has recently been in Goma in Congo. I can barely look at her face I know that face, I know that place.

I’m not into comparing injustices but Gaza would seem like a picnic after witnessing ethnic slaughter Congo war lord style.

She needs to be given a break, a close friend of mine was a Dr in the refugee camp in Goma and every dawn she would try to remove, for health reasons, the tortured remains of bodies hung up ‘pour encourager les autres’ the militias usually stopped her.

Anyway I have also seen wonderful examples of humanity.

My life was saved by an ‘iraqi central heating engineer’ (who probably played a role in the bombing in fact, the world is a complicated place) and other Yemenis some I barely knew smuggled me to a safe hiding place for a few days (where I listened to a lot of Natacha Atlas and talked and laughed and talked (and chewed Qat) endlessley with friends who went out after curfew lifted to sope things out, get me a secure route out, and get supplies

So the upside is that I feel very confident that in despising Islamism, I am following the best example of my Arab and Muslim friends.

When I read some commenters fantastic projections of the barbarity of the Muslim world, I am also sad that they know nothing of its charm, its sensuous grace, hospitality and genuine concern that many people show for the actual person that you are rather than an abstracted entity for whom no-one really feels any neighbourliness, that is so common in our atomised lives in the West..

Its funny but although I often allude to this incident in an oblique and satirical way, i have never talked about it in this much detail.

I know why its the Mumbai slaughter. Its what I had to learn is a trigger event that re-engages the PTSD.

So I am sorry if I am ventilating a little too personally but itis a part of a therapeutic technique I learned in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which along with ecstasy seems to be one of the better treatment modalities.

Ecstasy would be OK but ever since I saw the Absolutely Fabulous sketch where they were partying alone in their living rooms I have had a morbid fear of having a rave in the living room in front of my bewildered pets.

You’re one cool cat, Metta. :D

I agree with you, Boogski, Metta is a good person.

RE: That’s my suggestion. I’m sick of the racket these Muslim bashers make.
Not as much racket as the sound of 3000 dead on the morning of 9/11 - victims of *your* way of thinking.

That’s rich Morgoof: Abusing the deaths of 3,000 innocents by attributing those deaths to “his” way of thinking, when it had nothing to do with “his” way of thinking, but rather, with how those murderous islamist/jihadis think.

Next you’ll be telling us how “liberals” like me and others here at HP are to blame, when our anti-Islamist bona fides are every bit as strong as yours — without giving up on essential human decency.

in short you’re an a*hole.

In Morgoth’s defense, he does condemn all religious nonsense more or less equally.

HP is a bit lefty and less hysterical than those barking mad right-wing blogs which you seem to adore, you’ll feel right at home there and we’ll won’t miss you

So, I am to denied my contribution to Liberty by telling you something you may not want to hear.

I think that if you ask people like MPAC UK, MCB and most of the people outed by David T they would call HP a nest of Zionist neo-cons” (or Ziocons is the current word).

The strength of your “bit lefty” outlook will be measured by the brillaint destruction of all arguments and points made by people who you say are ‘barking mad” and ‘right wing’ by your own synthesis of what those people do.

All I did (silly sausage) is google for something, spot an article on Jihad Watch with a video (which I could have linked-to) except they happened to have a written commentary that was an aid to the person interested enough to look.

Its a classical defamation to attack the messenger rather than attend to the message. Jihad Watch in linking to something it finds offensive is no different to Socialist Worker doing the same.

If HP is ‘a bit lefty’ doesn’t that mean you all love The Guardian, Independent & Ch4 - and yet I see LOTS of damning arguments and threads against people who are ‘lefty’ to different degrees, more than in Masonry!

Aren’t the Greens, SWP and Respect a ‘bit lefty’?

Vildechaye, habibi and modernity blog thank you for refuting the all Muslims are terrorists ranters like Maven,

I invite you to substantiate that lie. I have clearly and on almost every occassion distinguished “ordinary Muslims” from Jihadist Islamists and Terrorists.

Frankly you are stupid, mis-informed or simply a liar if you tag me with your statement. Back it up or butt out and apologise.

So I am sorry if I am ventilating a little too personally but itis a part of a therapeutic technique I learned in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which along with ecstasy seems to be one of the better treatment modalities.

You are on the right track. I once treated a British soldier from NI who had PTSD flashbacks. The best way IMHO is to seek out someone with NLP skills =, who is essentially a Cognitive Therapist and ask for a Swish. You need to go from Trigger A to response C instead of Trigger A to Response B. Response B being your PTSD event.

Good Luck. It can be done quite easily. Being under the influence of a drug at the time of therapy might not be the best idea.

“Neil D, have I not used analogies like “the compass points one way for ordinary Muslims and another way for Islamist Jihadis. How come they both interpret the same Koran And Hadith’s differently?”

Then it is not in any sense a compass, and you are writing nonsense when you write “What is THEIR moral compass? We must assume its Islam.” This is so basic, that it really is not use to talk about it.

“That doesn’t stop us saying that the moral compass of Jews might be Judaism - which is really an evolved Jewish Culture and Tradition which is rooted in the Old Testament and Talmud.”

You idiot! you just closed the circle of idiotic essentialism all by yourself! You have just legitimized antisemitic ideas just as we could all predict. When an antisemite says that I and every Jew think “Jewish”, what do you think it means? Oh, you stupid stupid man. It was all nice and dandy when you accused Muslims of following the “compass” of Islam (even though, as it points to different directions it could never have been regarded as a compass except by racists like you). Now you have done it for the Jews.
Well done, Maven. Well done! I applaud you.

mettaculture,

I do, with fondness, remember our previous debate, and yet again, I must offer my praise to you, for your very well-written posts.

Your description of Tawhid was clear, and I feel I now understand enough to comment in slightly more depth.

Most of what you described, still applies equally to Orthodox Judaism. And as such is probably not completely sufficient to explain the phenomena of Islamist violence.

We too believe in a non-corporeal, infinite, indivisible, and ultimately unknowable Deity, who is the sole and only cause of all creation. Everything stems from Him, and depends on Him constantly for it’s existence, in effect He is the only true reality.

I think I can see some subtle differences, but again, as I am not an expert in Islam, I can not truthfully confirm that they are indeed such.

Judaism lays a great deal of emphasis on the compassion and love of G-d, and as a basic teaching informs us that existence, creation and ultimately ourselves were created and are being sustained, due to G-d’s love for us. He is our Father as He is also our Master and Ruler.

Humans have been given free will, and so are able to defy G-d and sin. But we are bidden to be compassionate and understanding of the transgressions of others, while helping them to leave them behind and return to sanctified behaviour. We are not in general terms meant to act as G-d’s policemen.

The punishments laid down in the Torah, are to be carried out only by a legitimate court, against those transgressors who openly rebel against the prohibitions of the Torah, in full knowledge, and acceptance of the iniquity of so doing, and who are fully cognizant of the repercussions. And as mentioned before this legal system can not exist until that future time, when the Anointed King rules over the People of Israel.

This world-view, does not stem from the Rabbis of the middle ages, although of course they wrote about it at length, but is found in the Talmud, and derives from the written Torah and the other works of the Tanach.

I think that in the case of Islamism, there is a belief that it is the duty of the faithful, to actively spread the rule of G-d over all mankind, and anyone who stands in the way, becomes an enemy of G-d and must be removed.

Islam of course is a universal faith, in that it’s revealed “truth” the Quran, is seen as applying to all mankind. And so the Islamist, attempts by any means, some by persuasion, others by force, to bring the law of the Quran into a sovereign position over the world’s nations, starting with those that are nominally Muslim in make-up.

In this Judaism differs. Although we accept that G-d is the G-d of all mankind, and that all mankind is obligated to serve and obey their creator, the vast majority of the Torah applies only to Jews.

We certainly do not have a belief that we must spread the rule of G-d over all the dwellers of earth. We leave those matters to G-d Himself, after all, He doesn’t exactly need our help :-)

I feel that I have delved unnecessarily into Jewish philosophy, which was not the topic of this thread, and for that I am sorry, although I hope that this has shown some subtle differences that may shine some light as to why Islamisim has given birth to so much violence.

Thanks to Metta and YossiUK, in particular, for some of the most intelligent and interesting commentary and analysis om this thread that this site has hosted

and if you could take JP, alcuin, field, Nearly O, Seymour Paine and Morgoth along with you, then it would be much appreciated

Do you have shares in companies that make Echo Chambers or something, Modernity?

Metta - the book NOW!

I suppose it would be ideal if once someone made a post, all the responders could say, “Wow, great post.” “Yes, I second that. Great post.” “I totally agree.” “100%, great great post.” “Yes, my thoughts exactly, exactly, exactly.”

That’s rich Morgoof: Abusing the deaths of 3,000 innocents by attributing those deaths to “his” way of thinking, when it had nothing to do with “his” way of thinking, but rather, with how those murderous islamist/jihadis think.

Thanks vildechaye. I was scratching my head wondering how my good liberal ways of thinking could equal murderous theocracy. It’s Boredgoth’s mindset, which does not discriminate between shades of thinking, so that anyone to the left of him is a crazed commie, and anyone not a vehement atheist is a deluded fool. No-one could ever call him nuanced.

BTW it’s “her” rather than “his”.

May I suggest Gudrun Kramer’s ‘Anti-Semitism in the Muslim World - a critical review’ in Die Welt Des Islams 46/3

Yossi UK

I applaud your modesty, but must congratualte you, nontheless, on the precision and insight of your analysis.

You have put your metaphorical finger exactly on the points of difference.

Free will. Compassion, love, kindliness to others, humility before G-d and a refusal to abrogate h-s power and authority for your own presumptuous idea of h-s ends.

I should stress quite clearly that these features are not absent in Islam (though the concept of free will and a rational theology that are analogous to some Christian and |Jewish traditions are mainly to be found in the Shia tradition and though present in earlier times in Sunnism have been largely expelled or reduced to a marginal influence, though interestingly Sunniism retains a very strong historical memmory of the expulsion of such heretics).

But in the area of Jihadis theology and islamist militant theopolitics that is soemthing of a fusion of maududism Muslim Brotherhoodism and Wahabi Salafism we find an almost total abscence of what we could call the gentle side of G-ds grace.

Very much Jihaidsts see tnem selves as Allahs stormtroopers on earth his army and police, judge jury and executioner.

In fact Jihadism could be described as slipping further and further out of the control of even the most radical clerics, as the radical version of the doctrine of jahaliyyah (pre or non-Muslim ignorance that is still with us even in the heart of Muslim lands and some ‘Muslims’) extends it allows for militants to become their own ministers before G-d.

(this does have parallels with radical non-conformist protestants though they tended to become pacifists not violence here we see one of the clear differences between a litteral unmediate focus on the text of the New Testament vs the Sunnah).

If you search the internet with variations of the term Tawhid and Takfir you will get a sense of this radical theology.

The terrorists in Mumbai chanted ‘Allah-hu Akh’bar’ before killing their victims according to many eye witnesses.

This is of course an old cry in islam though it is given a new intensity in militant circles.

If you look back in HP archives to beggining of Nov where David T links to You tube footage of UK demonstrations (involving maqbool Javaid) you will see that the angry delivery of each speaker (and thi is absolutley characteristic of militant islamist gatherings);

Is routinely punctuated by a violent rhythmn of synchronised chants of ‘alah-hu Akh’bar’.

You can also hear the word ‘Takfir’ used to terminate each chant.

This is the hallmark of the Takfiri Jihadi and is the truly novel theological departure for militant islamists that has direct political significance.

Takfir is the process of investigating and determining a Muslim’s piety and declaring them a non-Muslim.

Given that this declaration is the ultimate sanction in islam and can result in their death as they become a heretic or apostate, whether this can be done at all and if so by whom is a tremendous controversy in Islam.

The orthodox consensus is that no ordinary Muslim can declare another non-Muslim.

(various traditions allow for various kinds of Jurist decision making processes if this should be allowed).

So the rather obvious point and this is what ‘bikhair’ alluded to so long ago is that the Jihadis with all their bluster and swagger and violence are in conventional terms, heretics of the worst order.

Any clerical justification they do receive seems to come from the nastiest and most marginal clerics (except a few in the Gulf states typically in Saudi Arabia and Qaradawi).

It seems to me that rather than demanding the complete deconstruction of the Koran into a purely metaphoric text or demanding the abrogation of the most troublesmoe parts;

that a far more real world acheivable target of declaring the Takfiris Takfir, is easy. In other words surely (unless governments still feeel they can use islamists as proxies) heavy persuasion should be placed upon the most prominent and mainstream Muslim jurists to declare the jihadis and their dwindling number of terroist crank spiritual leaders non-Muslims and to ‘execommunicate’ them from the Muslim faith.

This task would be very much easier (and there are signs in Saudi Arabia that such a process is begginning) if it were not for the western pseudo leftists who keep on granting the Jihadis a degree of political legitimacy.

For Arab and Muslim regimes who may not want Islamists in their countries the leverage that such a collaborationast block in the west gives them with western governments would be impossible not to resist.

Mettaculture,

Thank you for your kind words, and thank you for you last post, one of the best concise explanations on the outlook of the Jihadists.

To a certain extent, I come away with a sense of optimism from what you have written, and assume that as time progresses, and as the Jihadists slip further and further away from mainstream Islam, the quicker their demise will come about.

I have always been an enemy of over simplification, coupled with generalisation, (although I am no doubt guilty of it myself from time to time).

I am uncomfortable when I hear the view that Islamist terror is due to “injustice” or because of legitimate “grievances”, a view often spouted by pseudo leftists, who to my mind, simply project their own personal gripe, onto the Islamist, who of course is motivated in large part by his religious world view. (Believe it or not, after September 11th, I heard on a radio debate, a person suggesting that the reason why the Islamic world was “angry” with America was due to America not taking seriously climate change!!) To be honest I think that some liberal westerners use terrorists as ideological hired thugs!

I am also uncomfortable when I hear the view that as the Quran says this or that negativity when read literally, it must mean that all Muslims want to go out and kill people. I myself have been victim to this sort of thinking by Non-Jews who assume I must be a vengeful person, as the written Torah says “an eye for an eye”. The selfsame people, look incredulous when I explain that traditional Judaism has never understood this literally.

There are many factors within our liberal societies that prevent a clear understanding of the phenomena of Islamist violence, the main ones being a lack of interest in studying the matter in depth, a desire not to offend, and to my mind the most prominent, an inability to understand the religious mind.

Voices like yours, are vital, as you provide a clear, reasoned, and knowledgeable discourse. And without wishing to drown you with compliments, you have an honesty about the way you debate, that I greatly admire. You seem committed to understanding the truth of the subject in question, and not to simply defend your position for the sake of ego.