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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy Many Muslims Hate the West. (You probably won't read this post.)
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/08/05/why-many-muslims-hate-the-west/You won't read it, I know.
It's very long and a bit scholarly.
It starts at the dawn of what we call civilization and explains why and how humans began to gather together in groups.
And why we started to not get along.
I found it fascinating.
You want a quote?
OK.
"The issue of terrorist attacks on America has been so politically sensitive that most commentators have simply wrapped themselves in the flag and closed their eyes and ears. Yet, even in fairy tales, ostriches were never saved by burying their heads in the sand. It is not a good defensive posture and it wouldnt be wise for real-life Americans to behave like make-believe ostriches.
If we want to be safe rather than sorry in the dangerous world we now inhabit, we need to be clear-headed, logical and informed. Those characteristics do not arise from anger or impulsiveness. They can arise only from sober assessment of causes and intelligent evaluation of possible actions. Achieving these qualities has become ever more necessary because we face an uncertain and increasingly complex future."
'Clear-headed, logical and informed.'
Well, good luck to the U.S. populace on that.
But if you'd like to read a very good take on why we are where we are with terrorism now, this is your guy.
If we had an anchor gif, I'd put it here.
This will sink like an anvil.
Peace.
malaise
(269,022 posts)We'll kick it
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)and it makes sense. I'll read more in depth later, but I just wanted you to know that somebody looked at it.
malaise
(269,022 posts)Some are excellent
I've had the general knowledge of why they hate us.
And why we hate them.
But this guy just lays it all out there.
olddots
(10,237 posts)always have and always will .
KoKo
(84,711 posts)in GD's "Good Reads" Forum.
People take more time to read there. But, works for both forums, imho.
Let's put a little HUMANITY back into DU for those of us who care about what you have posted. Its been awhile since we've been able to do that.
[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]I have to save it for after work tonight or for tomorrow morning, but I did do some skimming and it does look fascinating.
Thanks for posting!
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Do we bow to a different treatment of women than we hold dear to our values or do we compromise in the interest of state security?
I don't know why this hasn't been raised by now in this thread...
trof
(54,256 posts)How do you mean this?
Women in 'society'?
Women's treatment historically?
I understand the inequities, bit not how you're relating this to this article.
I can be kinda dense, I know.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)is the point? Isn't it incomplete? Why isn't that included?
trof
(54,256 posts)I think he makes the larger point in including pretty much all of what we call humanity, regardless of gender.
I think his point, if he makes one in the larger scheme (and I think he does), is that our biases transcend gender.
Sure, that's part of the sub-culture.
But I think his main thrust is all encompassing.
Humanity.
No?
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)denbot
(9,899 posts)Polk takes a long view on western interference with Muslim states, and our continued suppression of states that defy our interests.
Gregorian
(23,867 posts)I already knew when Pinhead's dad invaded. I was vocal in the office, and felt really odd about it. Blood for oil. Come on, if you're greedy, at least pay for your commodities.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)Thanks for posting. I'm not sure if I agree with it all, but it's thought provoking.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)we're now using dictators to attack the group that spun off of the group we supported against one of those dictators that we used to like and another group we formed in reaction to another group we formed that used to fight us, and which hooked up with the generals of the dictator we used to like but then fought and another group we used to support against another dictator that we supported against that group, which even Israel likes now; this group partly grew out of another group we supported against another regime by means of another regime and we directly funded one leader and told to get more radical
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,719 posts)John McCain and Lindsey Graham, among others, ought to read it, too. Another good read on the topic is Louise Richardson's book, "What Terrorists Want."
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)but I didn't read the deputized link.
Solly Mack
(90,769 posts)Please post the next essay when it comes out.
Thank you!
malaise
(269,022 posts)A very good read
randome
(34,845 posts)Something that touches on the subject line. What you've included thus far isn't specific.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Everything is a satellite to some other thing.[/center][/font][hr]
seveneyes
(4,631 posts)And certainly #NotAllMuslims
George II
(67,782 posts)DhhD
(4,695 posts)preparing for war, promoting war, and living for war. Surely America will not support another Nazi warmongering Evil Empire, Powers That Be, and those of the MIC.
seveneyes
(4,631 posts)Fuck the fairy tales and those who use force to cram it down the eyes of others.
Fuck them all.
I knew somehow Islam would be all the West's fault. Never fails that some find some way to blame everything on the West. Even when the problem began 1500 years ago in a desert so removed from Europe that even the Roman Empire at its height didn't even bother with it. Yes, clearly this is all the fault of the West.
SunSeeker
(51,559 posts)That is sad indeed. Theocracies never end well, particularly for women.
Throd
(7,208 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)But religulous fundamentalism of ANY kind is completely immune to both clear-headedness and logic.
Trying to reason with true believers of ANY stripe is like trying to pound a strand of cooked spaghetti into a block of metallized hydrogen. Ain't happenin' McGee.
Greed and idiot religulous superstition (of ALL kinds) are literally killing the only planet we have.
Too bad, we coulda been a pretty good species. Plato, Socrates, Aeschylus and Sophocles, Imhotep and Hippocrates, Confucius, the Buddha; Bach, Mozart and Beethoven; Michelangelo, daVinci and Rembrandt; Gandhi, King and Mandela; Newton, Einstein, Bohr and Hawking.
But they weren't enough, not by a long shot.
uppityperson
(115,677 posts)tclambert
(11,087 posts)I had never heard that the Belgians killed 10 to 15 million Africans. Wow. Still, I think Europeans killing Native Americans might set the genocide record, if you count the smallpox.
sub.theory
(652 posts)Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" takes place in the Congo during the Belgian colonization and was inspired by Conrad's horror at the treatment of the natives. The book is essentially a blistering critique of colonization and who the savages are. That's where I first learned about what Belgian colonization had done.
It still doesn't justify the crimes of Islam and really has nothing to do with Islam even. I'm not sure why many in the left can't accept that Arabs (overwhelmingly Muslim) have done some horrid things in history just as Europeans have. Arabs have no clean hands at all when it comes to slavery and mistreatment of Africans.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)TygrBright
(20,760 posts)Although I think it's well-written and very worth reading, I think this sums up why it's not really very helpful:
Whats missing, both from the initial essay and from the discussion thus far, is the hidden factor of history: Patriarchy. All of the great monotheistic (personally, I prefer Abrahamic, as I think the monotheism is disputed among the parties themselves,) religions are intensely patriarchal.
All of the cultures, states, and nations that have grown from these religious roots are also intensely patriarchal. Imperialism is patriarchy manifest. Without the subjugation of fully half of the human species to the control of the other half, these religions lose control of their populations and respond with brutal fundamentalist movements and ideologies.
It is no accident that all of the Abrahamic religions fundamentalist sects are predicated on the dehumanization and vicious exploitation of women as domestic chattel.
Ignoring the rise of feminism and the drive for human rights and civil rights for women makes this analysis very two dimensional at best, and militates toward a highly flawed understanding of both problem and solution.
diffidently,
Bright
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)As a woman, I make no apologies for despising those idiotic, nonsensical, misogynistic religions which are all based on primitive mythology with no basis in reality. They have done untold harm throughout human history, and continue to do so.
Edited to say: Note I said I hate the religions, the belief systems. I don't hate all Christians, all Jews, and all Muslims.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)are the two biggest and most insanely destructive and successful, on their own lunatic terms, scams in human history. Time for both to be smashed to atoms and relegated to the dustbin of history.
They are killing the planet.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)Raster
(20,998 posts)Each thread seems to have one solid post of truth.
And this post is the one for this thread! Thank you.
artislife
(9,497 posts)Raster
(20,998 posts)Man's religions are man's creations.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)"In the beginning, Man created God; and in the image of Man created he Him."
Twas ever thus.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)"It is no accident that all of the Abrahamic religions fundamentalist sects are predicated on the dehumanization and vicious exploitation of women as domestic chattel.
Ignoring the rise of feminism and the drive for human rights and civil rights for women makes this analysis very two dimensional at best, and militates toward a highly flawed understanding of both problem and solution."
I suppose this is part of the reason why I summarily dismiss all religion as complete bullshit. (I have many other reasons, but we don't have all day here.)
Denying half of humanity their right to be fully human is not the mark of an advanced society. This is the case in any theocracy.
Response to TygrBright (Reply #30)
JTFrog This message was self-deleted by its author.
alphafemale
(18,497 posts)I have also recently started a conversation with a young man in Pakistan.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)cretinous arguments about "which nonsensical and idiotic bullshit fairy tale is "correct?"" is the ultimate act of madness.
I despair for our species.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)are in those UFOs. "No, we wish to speak with logical people, not those who think children's stories are true and organize their societies around them. Kindly go away."
daleanime
(17,796 posts)Herman4747
(1,825 posts)"Disbelievers are the Worst of Creatures" (Quran 98:6). This wicked god intends to torture disbelievers forever by burning them (Quran 4:56). So the hatred is not surprising.
SusanCalvin
(6,592 posts)and I can already see that it is an excellent explanation of human nature. Not as we wish it to be; as it is. I'm off to read the whole thing.
A Round Tuit
(88 posts)Now, having been consistently beaten (in the opinion of the author), it would tend to explain why the radical Muslim (as we now define a radical Muslim) feels the need to terrorize and commit mayhem to make his point.
Additionally, the author has no explanation for certain passages in the Koran that tend to legitimize the destruction of infidels by the true believer, but does postulate that the elevation of Jesus Christ to a God-like status or as the Son of God by Christians is an offense punishable by death, via the word of Allah as given to Muhammad. Also, the Jewish belief is complete rejection of Jesus, whereas, the Muslim religion recognizes Him as a prophet. Therefore, kill the Christian, for they are blasphemers and kill the Jews because they have no conviction of belief in Jesus at any level.
The author put a lot of words on paper, when, in my opinion, he could have summed it all up by simply stating the obvious: Muslims (at least those that admit to it) wish to kill us (the mostly Christian/Judaeo west) because they feel forever persecuted and consider us (again, the Christian/Judaeo west) to be blasphemers of the highest order, not the least reason being that the Christian/Jew does not recognize Muhammad and totally reject the Koran, other than to give it lip service in a halfhearted attempt at some sort of religious diversity.
My remarks are not attaching to anyone a status of being Christian or Jewish, it's just that in the eyes of the devout Muslim, any non-believer is fair game.
I do not judge, nor do I seek to invalidate what the author is saying, nor do I defend any mores of any religion.
I simply am expressing what I have taken away from the article.
I really could not postulate as to whether the author is supportive or dismissive of any particular religion. I did detect some bias, but it seems to be an overall bias, and I think he made an honest attempt to not show a particular bias.
But in my experience, most so-called scholarly over-worded writings such as this one can be boiled down to a couple of paragraphs, leaving it to the reader to attach their own observations and experiences and make their own conclusions.
Anyone seeking to put the missive forward as a "salve", so to speak, for any of the perceived wrongs by anyone on any side, as it were, is missing the point.
In fact, it inflames, rather than calms.
Just my opinion...your mileage may vary.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)tnlurker
(1,020 posts)happyslug
(14,779 posts)First. His Comment that Christians did not tolerate Islam is not true. Within a Generation of the Arab Conquest of Syria and Egypt, a Mosque was built in Constantinople, the capital of the "Nation" that had ruled Syria and Egypt for that previous 600 years. Such Mosques appear in other trading centers. Moslems were not only tolerated in Europe, but could travel without being harmed (except by thieves, but such thieves robbed anyone, not just Moslems).
As to the Jews, most Jews in Europe during the Dark Ages of Europe lived in the Rhine Valley under the protection of the Pope. The Pope REFUSED to permit any attack on the Jews. During the Black Death of the 1300s, when it was claimed that the Jews were spreading the disease for none of them were dying of it, the Pope pointed out, the Jews WERE dying at the same rate as Christians and thus could NOT be the cause of the Black Death. The Pope was ignored for people wanted a scrape goat and the Jews became it. This claim that the Jews were to blame would be used to attack Jews not only in the Rhine Valley but France and England. The Jews would end up moving to Moslem Spain and Central Poland after the Plague do to increase hostilities from the locals.
As to Moslem toleration of Jews in Spain, when it became clear that Spain would drive out the Moslem, Moslems would turn against the Jews. Moslems would tolerate Jews living among them, but not on any position of power. This Myth of Moslem tolerance of Jews and Christians appears to be just that, a Myth except in situations when the Christians were the majority, then the Christians were tolerated (Egypt is the classic case, while it was conquered by the Arabs in 634, it was still majority Christian as late as the Crusades, c 1200. Many Coptic church historians believe Egypt was Majority Christian as late as the 1600s, and some believe that to the case as late as 1800. The Crusades and then Napoleon's invasion caused the Egyptian Government to increase discrimination against Christians so that more and more people would convert to Islam. The Copts think they numbers are under reported by Egypt but they are at least 15% of Egypt's population to this day).
The biggest cause of hated of Islam by Europeans were the Slave raids starting around 650 AD. Those Raids tend to be ignored by historians for they explain a lot of the hatred of Islam, but that someone by sides Europeans were involved in the Slave Trade makes a lot of historians uncomfortable. Now the Arab Conquest, 634-750 had been a military conquest NOT a religious conquest. What I mean by that is increasing the wealth of the ruling elites of the Arab Empire was more important then converting people to Islam. This is reported by Islamic Scholars of the time period. The Arabs would take a City, if it was Christian convert its main Church to a Mosque, if it was a Iranian City Convert its Temples to a Mosque but the business community would be untouched for the early Arab rulers wanted the money such trade brought in not converts.
Side note: Yes, when the Arabs took Jerusalem the Arabs did NOT convert any church to a Mosque, but they took the Temple Mount, which they considered the most important place in Jerusalem. It is one of the few exceptions to the general rule of converting the main church to a Mosque (and Christians did the same, for the Church, Temple, or Mosque, was the FOCUS of the town and for that reason whoever took the town made that place his).
As the Arab Empire tore itself apart after 700 (The Arabs continued conquests till 750, but after the defeat of the Arab Siege of Constantinople in 700, the Empire started to fall apart), you see a shift from conquest to raiding. Southern Europe would suffer raids from North African. Some cities in the Dark ages were actually held by such Raiders for many years, before being driven out. Like the Vikings, who would start their raids about 800 AD, the main thing the raiders wanted were slaves. Rich people, if captured, could have their relatives buy their freedom, the poor had to suffer on in slavery. The Slaves would be sold in Constantinople or Baghdad (and this occurred even when Constantinople was a Greek Christian City and slaves were sold to people living in Western Europe).
These raids brought fear and hatred on the Raiders, both the Vikings AND the Arabs. Only after 900 and the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire and its adoption of Feudalism were such raids stopped (by the expedient, that if the land owner did not protect his peasants, he lost his lands to someone who would defend his peasants, that was the heart of true Feudalism and why a lot of peasants did NOT want it to go away for they were entitled to protection from their Feudal lord and if he failed to provide such protection, that was treason and grounds for the Feudal Lord to lose his lands).
Anyway, Islams toleration of Slavery continued for another 1000 years. Peter and Great and Catherine the Great attacked the Islamic States in what is now Southern Russia and the Central Asiatic Republics to end the slave raids such Islamic lands not only tolerated but profited by. Russia had serfs not slaves during the rule of Peter and Catherine and it was their duty to protect them, thus the wars against the slave raiders. The African Slave Trade were dominated by "Arabs" who sold Slaves to white slavers to resell in the New World after 1500 (The rationale was that since these people were NOT Christian when they were enslaved, they slavery was "Legal" in their home country, thus even conversion to Christianity could NOT freed a slave from being a slave).
Dark Age Christian Europe had a tremendous problem with Slavery, while Slavery was legal, it was rare in Europe. The Roman Tradition that one could sell oneself into Slavery did not survive the end of the Roman Empire. On the other hand, even in the Dark Ages, once a slave, you remained a slave, until freed, but a freeman could NOT become a slave in the dark ages except if captured by a non Christian ruler when he was NOT a Christian (Christian Rulers could demand ransoms but could NOT sell people into slavery, please note that was the rule, some Christian Rulers ignored it).
Thus in Christian Europe it was NOT legal for a serf to become a slave, for he had duties to his "Master" but the "Master" also had duties to the Serf, including making sure the Serf had housing, clothing and food (and once those were provided, they were no need to sell oneself into slavery as had been the practice in the Roman Empire). Thus it was hard for anyone, Christian, Jew or Moslem to become a slave in Christian Europe, hard but NOT impossible.
Yes, a lot of European hatred of Islam has to do with Slavery, just like a lot of African fear white men for the same reason. That Islam tolerated Slavery to a much higher degree then Christianity is ignored for it undoes the statement of the Tolerance of Islam as to Christians and Jews.
Please note modern Islamic Scholars have adopted the same rules as Christian scholars, Slavery was an evil institution but one that existed and could not be abolished till recent times. Thus Slavery is mentioned in the Koran and the Bible, but so is Murder. My point is both books had to accept the world as it was not some ideal world thus slavery had to be addressed. My point is it is a huge over simplification to say Islam was more tolerate of Christianity, then Christianity of Islam, for to do so is to ignore the fact Slavery was widely practiced in the Mediterranean World till recently and that practice was tied more to Islam then Christianity.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)nt
Response to trof (Original post)
Syzygy321 This message was self-deleted by its author.
Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)Hydra
(14,459 posts)But we went to war with them for ages, and there are 3 types of conquered peoples:
The ones who disappear
The ones who mostly disappear and the rest get blended in
The ones who successfully fight back
randome
(34,845 posts)The vast majority of fighting and atrocities is one flavor of Islam against another.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Everything is a satellite to some other thing.[/center][/font][hr]
bemildred
(90,061 posts)The second step is to inform ourselves. As the great Chinese strategist Sun Tzu wrote nearly 3,000 years ago, Know yourself. Know your enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.
Despite his admonition, even such statesmen as Napoleon (in the Spanish guerrilla war against the French) and Churchill (in the Greek guerrilla war against the Germans first and then the British) denigrated their opponents.
As Churchill said of the Andartes, they were just miserable Greek banditti. Churchill got away with his blindness because America bailed out Britains Greek policy with the Truman Doctrine.
randome
(34,845 posts)I don't see much 'rightness' in beheading thieves, stoning gays, subjugating women, any more than I see it in our home-grown Christian fundamentalists. I see a formless anger that looks for the nearest convenient outlet.
I don't believe, for instance, that Huckabee believes the shit he spews about gays. In his case, he needs counselling.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]No squirrels were harmed in the making of this post. Yet.[/center][/font][hr]
whatthehey
(3,660 posts)Is that it is easily toppled by analogous counterexamples, where victims of equivalent treatment have responded far more peacefully.
The genocide of the first American population has already been raised. Their descendants are far more prone to poverty, bias and the rest of the ills mentioned than the descendants of their oppressors, and yet there is no weekly bombing or execution or terroristic landgrab from today's Cherokee or Arawak. Mongols would no longer exist if the (typically seen as ruthless and authoritarian in the extreme) Chinese government extended the same response to past mistreatment as is blithely considered normal and nigh inevitable from today's Muslims here.
It's not European then American hegemony and economic ostracism that is at the root of current Islamic terrorism. The Muslim world has been on both sides of that hegemony before vis a vis the Christian powers in history, and has managed to more or less peacefully co-exist after the original Arab conquests, the Crusades, the Ottoman Empire, etc. Syrian Muslims were no more oppressed than Spanish Christians (which is to say hardly at all for most of the regime, barring a silly flareup now and then) under opposing rule.
What has changed is the nature of the religion itself. There are thousands of beautiful Muslim artifacts, made by Muslims in states ruled under Muslim law, over many centuries, depicting the Prophet. The idea that it is a capital blasphemy (indeed the idea that blasphemy is de facto capital) to show his image is a regressive relatively modern invention, as is the loss of the idea that "People of the Book", Jews and Christians, should be treated with decency and tolerance and allowed to practice in peace. Hamas currently calls for the slaughter of Jews as a matter of course
"Let me say, loud and clear, to our people in the West Bank: Dont you have cars? Dont you have motorcycles? Dont you have knives? Dont you have clubs? Dont you have bulldozers? Dont you have trucks? Anyone who has a knife, a club, a weapon, or a car, yet does not use it to run over a Jew or a settler, and does not use it to kill dozens of Zionists, does not belong to Palestine.
The conqueror Ummayad Caliphate in Spain, with far more power to achieve this aim had they shared it, instead allowed Jews freedom of worship, their own courts, and integrated them into the government bureaucracy. And lest anyone think this was because there was no military conflict too, they extended the same rights to the Christians who had been their military opponents.
Take away the recent (mid 20th C perhaps?) regressive fundamentalist version of Islam form these same people and you would get Turkey, not ISIS. The Ottomans too were utterly defeated by the West, but it's generally not from Turkey that we see sandpapering womens' faces, beheading atheists, and bombing Westerners. The difference is in sectarian lunatic theology given secular power, not in history with the West.
Throd
(7,208 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Egyptian fundamentalist called Sayyid Qutb are the principal sources of modern Islamic madness.
JCMach1
(27,559 posts)So Wahhabists are the original colonial blowback...
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Qutb was an interesting psycho - after traveling and studying in the West for two years he decided that the very existence of the West, especially the US, even as far away as it was, was an intolerable slight and affront to Islam. Pretty nasty racist as well and, needless to say, a truly Neanderthal sexist.
whatthehey
(3,660 posts)The alliance between al-Wahhab's group and the ibn Saud family extend back to the 1700s, and they had conquered the whole area before the Ottomans restricted them to one region. When the British became the big dogs, it was Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud who played nice with them and held back the Wahhabis, who naturally hated the British as much as any outsiders. The great dominance of the ulama stared really long afterwards in the mid to late 20th century, and this time the Saud family, which had massively intermarried with the descendants of al-Wahhab, were either uninterested in or unable to hold back their doctrinal theocratic and xenophobic excess that far predated the British.
JCMach1
(27,559 posts)to the Mahdi and other nativist Sufi movements... Sorry, but you are just wrong...
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)just us
(105 posts)There is and will grow a strong hate and resentment of the US and its rape of South and Central America.
It will be the fire that the "people" will use to strike back and take back their land and resources.
trof
(54,256 posts)You did go to the link and you did read the article.
Maybe it was the 'challenge' "You probably won't read this post".
I appreciate your comments.
Many of them caused me to actually 'think'.
That doesn't happen often, and I like it.
Thank you.
Wounded Bear
(58,662 posts)A good read, and something that should be taught in history classes all over America.
I knew most of this, at least in general. Wish part 2 was linked.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)They want the oil and now the deed to the real estate. For "empire," meaning their slimy selves.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Big reason right there.