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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWho Should be Blamed for Muslim Terrorism?
A hundred years ago, it would have been unimaginable to have a pair of Muslim men enter a cafe or a public transportation vehicle, and then blow themselves up, killing dozens. Or to massacre the staff of a satirical magazine in Paris! Things like that were simply not done.
When you read the memoirs of Edward Said, or talk to old men and women in East Jerusalem, it becomes clear that the great part of Palestinian society used to be absolutely secular and moderate. It cared about life, culture, and even fashion, more than about religious dogmas.
The same could be said about many other Muslim societies, including those of Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt and Indonesia. Old photos speak for themselves. That is why it is so important to study old images again and again, carefully.
Islam is not only a religion; it is also an enormous culture, one of the greatest on Earth, which has enriched our humanity with some of the paramount scientific and architectural achievements, and with countless discoveries in the field of medicine. Muslims have written stunning poetry, and composed beautiful music. But above all, they developed some of the earliest social structures in the world, including enormous public hospitals and the first universities on earth, like The University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco.
The idea of social was natural to many Muslim politicians, and had the West not brutally interfered, by overthrowing left-wing governments and putting on the throne fascist allies of London, Washington and Paris; almost all Muslim countries, including Iran, Egypt and Indonesia, would now most likely be socialist, under a group of very moderate and mostly secular leaders.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/09/who-should-be-blamed-for-muslim-terrorism/
Nuclear Unicorn
(19,497 posts)tblue
(16,350 posts)kentauros
(29,414 posts)Otherwise, there'd never be any upheavals.
JustAnotherGen
(31,681 posts)The article linked to is very well written - but I'm inclined to write to counterpunch and ask them to take another step back in time.
I had a hell of a conversation with my dear friend Arnaud last night. How I met him is knd of funny - he's 85 now - still devastatingly handsome and has lived quite the life on the French Riviera. Born and raised in Ramatuelle - you can imagine the stories he has to tell as a child of war and the occupation. He's also extremely honest about what his country his. Most important - a historian of his Var.
This article - in light of this weeks events in France - doesn't go back far enough or address the concerns of the elderly men sitting in the bar tabac. The Barbarian/Franks who created that culture and country - not saying any other country (US, Great Britain, UN, Israel, etc etc) . . . Their descendents wre eating tarts and hot cocoa with brandy in it yesterday morning and saying this was revenge for Poitiers.
The crusades, Charlegmagne - the continued dismissal of the Muslim world and the modern resentment of Muslim immigrants- this is much older in Europe (take us completely out of it - the " messaging of the far right in country is what drives this) and steeped in the development of countries in Western Europe than we probably realize.
Watch Marine Le Pen - look at what her father tweeted the other day. Look at her statements and party's approach to "sending all their money to Belgium". She's tapping into xenophobism, nationalism, etc etc. We've seen this before. It's like the propaganda they gave my great grandfather to keep him in the trenches in WWI - that stuff about the Germans cutting off the right hands of Belgian children and the Belgian parents "holding out their arms to let them do it".
What the old man knows? It's going to get really ugly in Europe. If she wins in 2017 - and I believe she can - it's got the potential to be very ugly for Muslims in France.
What the poor, disenfranchised Muslim young man in the suburbs doesn't know - is that the poor Christian Frank/Celt/Italian young man in the small towns anf the provincial is being fed pablum of hate blaming the Muslims, the EU, the Americans, the Germans, the Belgians for all of their ills.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)Last edited Sat Jan 10, 2015, 03:07 PM - Edit history (1)
Muslim Monsters." Retaliation and blowback can take many years to come to fruition, so many that, when they do, the 'first cause' is often forgotten. (Some of the responses in this very thread are a case-in-point.)
JustAnotherGen
(31,681 posts)I always love discussions with you because you have an execellent way of turning around all sides of the puzzle cube!
It took how many years from the Dreyfus affair to the Vélodrome d'Hiver round up in Paris?
My first post on the thread was to bring back the Paris attacks to their rightful place. There are big issues in the middle east - but this conflict in France . . . It's a North African / French colonial issue. And those people in France might take their sweet time - 44 years - and Muslims will still be outnumbered by non Muslims in country.
You can't look at the issue of Muslims - poor, disenfranchised, marginalized in France -
Without considering the Far Right - and how effective they are in their propaganda.
And I have an icky sick feeling the Far Right there are more than happy to let the Jews take the hits to get what they want.
We are in the age of genocide. We've had one already in this century - Sudan. The world does nothing when countries turn against their inhabitants for WHAT they are. And men like my friend Arnaud are literally dying off. He saw his boyhood friends disappear. He knows precisely what this political climate in France can lead to.
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)I hadn't really thought of the exclusive-to-France angle. What you say makes a lot of sense.
Behind the Aegis
(53,823 posts)Violet_Crumble
(35,954 posts)The article you posted includes it in a list of countries that aren't secular....
Jakarta. Indonesia is not a Muslim country and any efforts to turn it into one must be resisted, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Wednesday as he accepted an award for statesmanship.
Yudhoyono said that Sukarno, Indonesias founding president, had explicitly declared that Indonesia was a secular country and not an Islamic one, and that this basic tenet of the republic must be upheld.
We have to protect this. My fear is that there are changes, pushes and thinking that tend toward turning this country into a non-secular one. Secularity is final, and this is an important legacy that we have inherited from Sukarno and the other founders of this republic, Yudhoyono said at the Sukarno Center in Gianyar, Bali, where he was awarded the Sukarno Prize for championing humanity and democracy.
The president said he continued to study Sukarnos teachings for insight into how to address Indonesias modern-day challenges.
I dont just respect what was done by this great leader, but also how his thoughts are still relevant in answering the questions we continue to face today, Yudhoyono said.
http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/keep-indonesia-secular-yudhoyono-urges/
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)The Muslim Terrorists are to blame for Muslim Terrorism.
m-lekktor
(3,675 posts)and use their religion as justification. Removing the religious element of this mess is being intellectually disingenuous and acknowledging it is NOT bigotry for fuck sake. Religion is NOT above criticism.
PeaceNikki
(27,985 posts)Look at what Saudi Arabia is doing to a liberal blogger critical of Islam. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/world/middleeast/saudis-begin-public-caning-of-blogger-first-50-of-1000-blows-are-administered.html?referrer=
It's the same ideology involved in the Paris attack. A religion is not just a set of texts but the living beliefs and practices of its adherents.
Rage and condemnation dont do the job, nor is it helpful to alienate the millions of Muslims who dislike whats being done in the name of their religion. Many of them immediately condemned the attack on Charlie Hebdo, in tones of anguish particular to those whose deepest beliefs have been tainted. The answer always has to be careful, thoughtful, and tailored to particular circumstances. In France, it will need to include a renewed debate about how the republic can prevent more of its young Muslim citizens from giving up their minds to a murderous ideologyhow more of them might come to consider Mustapha Ourrad, a Charlie Hebdo copy editor of Algerian descent who was among the victims, a hero. In other places, the responses have to be different, with higher levels of counter-violence.
But the murders in Paris were so specific and so brazen as to make their meaning quite clear. The cartoonists died for an idea. The killers are soldiers in a war against freedom of thought and speech, against tolerance, pluralism, and the right to offendagainst everything decent in a democratic society. So we must all try to be Charlie, not just today but every day.
Some text from: http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/blame-for-charlie-hebdo-murders
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)I don't think any reasonable person would have a problem with Wahabbi bashing.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)Glengoolie
(39 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)Paris, 1988 a group of extremist, right wing Christians offended by the ideas in the Martin Scorsese film 'The Last Temptation of Christ', attacked the movie theater showing the film to a crowded audience with fire bombs. There were many people burned, some severely.
Who was to blame for that? The criminals who set other human beings on fire because they were 'offended' by an artistic portrayal of their holy figure. That's what I think. Same thing as the criminals who murdered others human beings with guns because they were 'offended' by an artistic portrayal of their holy figure. Same thing, same blame.
JustAnotherGen
(31,681 posts)LostOne4Ever
(9,267 posts)zappaman
(20,605 posts)Igel
(35,191 posts)If you go back 100 years you have a different set of people you interact with.
It's like my parents who insisted everybody in Europe spoke English because every European they'd met in the US spoke English. Well, d'uh. You're not going to venture much in the US in the 1950s and 1960s--when their impressions were formed--if you don't know some English. Moreover, most world travellers at the time were well-heeled and well-educated.
Said was Xian and had a slightly warped view of things (always did, his writings always necessarily always will, but politics dictates I say he was objectively unbiased and ideologically neutral, hence pure). And we romanticize the past, remembering what we want or reconstruct, picking and choosing facts. When I had a couple of immigrant language teachers in 1976-77, they each had their own stories. One said how wonderful it was growing up--everybody was happy and prosperous. She was in her teens in a landed family during the Russian civil war, her father was White. She said how the peasants were happy and all healthy, and they'd visit them on Sundays in their happy hovels; now it was miserable there. The other said how horrible it was when he was growing up, everybody was poor and miserable. He was on the losing side in the Spanish Civil War, a recent college graduate and his demeanor said his family was neither miserable nor poor. The third remembered a happy, prosperous childhood before his family had to flee Cuba because of Castro, who, he believed, was installed by outsiders.
We romanticize and misremember the past through the lens of the present.
Go back 100 years in Syria and you have two distinct layers of people. Felaheen and workers, and those who had an education under the colonialist rulers. Who do you think Said and old timers are likely to remember? Go to 1920s Palestine and you have the first intifada. Groups of felaheen attacking Jews, but also good nationalists with Western training speaking to Westerners in Western terms of national independence. The felaheen would be riled up by nationalists and by imams working with nationalists. Who gets represented in the media? Those we can identify with or those who make the nationalists look bad? Arafat continued this tradition, and Saddam latched onto it late: Speak two varieties of language, secular to one group and religious to another.
The past is (not "was" secular because those who wrote the history and report on it are secular. Society hadn't been radicalized across religious lines, to be sure, but the poor were still fairly marginalized. Those likely to be silly fundies were poorly educated, dirt poor, unable to do much more than wave hoes and rakes. They may have killed Jews in the first intifada; they may have killed thousands of Xians in Aleppo in Syria in the 1850s when the Xians whooped the Ottoman's collective ass. But those were all things we didn't notice much in the West. Our interpreters--the Saids of the day--chose not to interpret it because it didn't advance their cause. (Sorry, that's cynical: They didn't mention it because it failed to get through their confirmation bias and ranking as to what news was important and what news wasn't.)
What happened besides some radicalization? Mass literacy and more empowerment. That changes cultures without changing cultures. The Russian Revolution was great and glorious--and the leaders aghast when the culture changed. Russian grammatical norms were altered; what was considered couth and proper changed. The old norms were reinstated in some ways, new norms were allowed, but Russian culture went from being what you see in the middle and upper class in the 19th century to being what the lower classes had in the 19th century. Except now it was the ruling classes that acted uncouth and unenlightened--even if they could read and head large organizations. Russian has two words for "education": One involves upbringing and civilizational standards; the other involves training, being taught to read and do math, construct a valid syllogism. This is a common distinction in European languages. You could be well-bred and illiterate, a gentleman in the raw; or ill-bred with a gymnasium certificate, a trained chimp. Nouveau riche had their criticism not just because they failed to use the right fork eating their salads or danced wrong.
America seemed to not have this distinction. Early on it didn't have it, not much. But by 1850 it was there. American English is different from many European languages like American culture was. Standard English wasn't too much above much daily English. Now it's getting that way as the two diverge, as dialects move away from the standard and as social change and contact effects produce changes in colloquial English. American cultures were the same way: We assimilated peoples and took bits of their cultures into the mainstream. When that didn't happen, there were tensions. The American education system resulted from those tensions: It was to make the bulk of immigrant offspring into "middle class"--not just in the ability to decode text and do arithmetic but also in terms of values and mindset. To some extent it worked--one kind of value judgment was considered superior by many to another. That stopped. Some layers of American society (high and low) didn't have such aspirations, whether in language or values.
You take those layers, the barely educated portion of society from 100 years ago and suddenly give them the trappings of education without changing their mindset and you get a lot of the Moral Majority (and other American eccentricities). You also got a lot of radical revolutionaries. Their moral and ethical principles come from ignorant imams or self-righteous preachers, corrupt officials or vain celebrities; self-styled secular messiahs. They're easy to manipulate and brainwash, even as they solve differential equations at a technicum or design software to speed-sell securities for hedge-funds, or sling hash or work as masons.
The late 1900s and early 2000s have seen the rise of the proletariat and fellaheen. It was ugly in the 1790s, it was ugly in the 1920s and 1930s. It was ugly in Muslim societies when it happened in the 1920s and 1850s and before. But you only see it if you think, "What don't I know and where could I learn about it?" Because as has often been pointed out, the great unwashed masses don't often figure in official histories. And when you get politicized histories that try to glorify the great unwashed masses--under Mao, under Brezhnev, under Chavez, under Zinn--they tend to be a lot less smellier and unwashed than they actually were.
Throd
(7,208 posts)Marr
(20,317 posts)The more this type of thinking becomes socially taboo, the more we grow up as a species.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)Saudi Arabia as he first state sponsored Wahabbism really benefited from oil exports and an ally with the United States who gave them protection combined with the oil exports they invested into spreading Wahabbism and you're seeing its effects today.
ISIS is Wahabbi, Al-Qaeda is Wahabbi, Bin Laden is Wahabbi, House of Saud is Wahabbi, oil kings in the Arabian peninsula are Wahabbi. it becomes pretty simple on who to blame but there's blood on others hands as well & more complex issues at play.
Hutzpa
(11,461 posts)every thing that goes wrong around the world is his fault.
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)I'm sure people decide to become terrorists for a multitude of reasons - religious, cultural, political, personal. I can understand why they might be pissed off at the West for decades of meddling, exploitation and warfare, but what I don't fully comprehend is the conflict between Sunni and Shia, why they're killing each other.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)Nouri al-Maliki was selected to be the first Iraqi prime minister in 2006 by the CIA & US Government. He was a notable Iraqi Shia political leader during Saddam Hussein's regime in the 1970s who was living in exile in Iran.
He turned out to be a very bad choice. Most of the government was Shia which was understandable given the majority Shia population but that isn't what the problem was.
From a Sunni perspective, they had reasonable concerns that he was allowing the Shia militias to grow (sectarian violence fought between the sides and tit-for-tat kidnapping that's been going on for years and still going on in these newer conflicts)
--
Does Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki have the political spine to deal with Iraq's No. 1 problem the Shi'ite militias? There's a growing suspicion in Baghdad that he does not. Having promised, for the umpteenth time, to crack down on the sectarian death squads wreaking havoc on the Iraqi capital, the prime minister promptly turned around and castigated U.S. forces for doing precisely that. The Iraqi leader claimed that a predawn raid Wednesday on a militia stronghold by U.S. and Iraqi soldiers had been conducted without his approval, and said such attacks would not be repeated.
<snip>
For the beleaguered residents of Baghdad, this has become a familiar Green Zone farce. Beholden to the very militias he has vowed to crush, the increasingly hamstrung prime minister has forced U.S. troops guarding the city to don kid gloves when dealing with the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to the radical Shi'ite leader Moqtada al-Sadr, which has been blamed for much of the sectarian violence that kills an average of 100 Iraqis a day. And there is palpable frustration among U.S. soldiers patrolling the streets of Baghdad that every time they strike against the Mahdi Army, they are publicly scolded by the Iraqi prime minister. "Every time he does one of these about-turns, he makes the Madhi Army stronger and the government weaker," says a Western diplomat in Baghdad. "And of course, it drives the [Americans] up the wall."
Moqtada al-Sadr commands enough seats in the Iraqi parliament to topple the prime minister, which is what makes his Mahdi Army untouchable. Still, few in Baghdad doubt that the Mahdi Army is conducting a campaign of organized violence against Iraq's Sunnis. TIME has uncovered evidence of a Mahdi Army program of ethnic cleansing designed to drive Sunnis out of mixed neighborhoods. As a member of a Shi'ite Islamist party himself, al-Maliki dares not incur the wrath of his own community. The last Iraqi leader who tried to face down al-Sadr, former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, paid a heavy political price in two general elections following his authorization of U.S. forces to smash the Mahdi Army in the summer of 2004, Allawi has been soundly defeated. That cautionary tale is not lost on al-Maliki.
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1550694,00.html?cnn=yes
That was 2006
Then he started conducting raids of Sunni politicians which left them one of the dead
BAGHDAD Iraq's prime minister ordered an investigation on Tuesday into a violent government raid in Diyala Province earlier in the day that left one provincial official dead and another under arrest. His rapid response reflected fears that the raid, reminiscent of the sectarian attacks once carried out regularly by Shiite-dominated security forces, could inflame sectarian tensions in the fragile province.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/world/africa/20iht-20iraq.15446434.html?_r=1&
The highest ranking Sunni politician was brought up on terrorism charges which certainly reeked of a political prosecution, I think Turkey eventually granted him asylum.
Malikis government issued charges against Hashemi on the eve of the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops in December, causing a political crisis in the fragile national unity government. Hashemis Iraqiya bloc, the main alliance supported by Sunnis, announced a boycott of the cabinet and parliament.
However, most of Iraqiyas lawmakers returned last month, easing the crisis, and many of Iraq's political commentators say the affair ended up strengthening Malikis grip on power.
The Interior Ministry in Baghdad has said it has formally requested the Kurdish authorities hand over Hashemi to stand trial in Baghdad. Kurdish Deputy Interior Minister Jalal Kareem told Reuters on Thursday the regional government had yet to receive any such request.
Hashemi says the charges against him are political, and he will not return to Baghdad to face them because the courts are biased. He has offered to stand trial in Kirkuk, a part of Iraq where Kurds and his fellow Sunni Arabs hold sway.
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/03/16/201083.html
Yet another Sunni politician was raided and arrested -- Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki told demonstrators on Wednesday to stop their protests or face government action, contending that the protests were being hijacked by groups to harm the national interest. Demonstrations against his Shiite-dominated government erupted on Dec. 21 after a raid by security forces on the office and home of the Sunni finance minister, Rafie al-Issawi, and the arrest of 10 bodyguards. Last week, thousands of Sunni Muslims took to the streets again, blocking Iraqs main road and trade link to Syria and Jordan. Mr. Maliki told Iraqi state television that some of the protesters demands were legitimate, like calls for jobs. But he added that the government had been patient long enough, and that protests should not continue indefinitely. In a statement from his office on Wednesday, Mr. Maliki said that the enemies of the political process, the armed terrorist groups and the remnants of the former regime were being given a chance to infiltrate the demonstrations, threatening national unity.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/world/middleeast/iraq-maliki-demands-that-protesters-stand-down.html?_r=0
Which sparked protests which started out as peaceful with demands such as Sunni participation in the new government.
(This letter is from a Marine addressed to Kerry right before the shit hit the fan)
Fallujah is currently under siege once again. You have stated that US troops will not be sent back to Iraq to assist in the current siege, but you have agreed that the US should send weapons to the Iraqi government. I am writing to implore that you do everything within your ability to stop shipments of US weapons to Iraq, whether they are sold, gifted, or loaned. Arming an oppressive regime so that they may better crush a popular uprising is not in the best interest of Americans or Iraqis.
During that 2nd siege of Fallujah we killed thousands of civilians, displaced hundreds of thousands, destroyed nearly the entire city, and brought immeasurable loss and hardship upon those poor people. Since then I have devoted my life to raising awareness about the suffering I helped create in Fallujah, and to assisting Fallujans in their struggle with a public health disaster and ongoing repression.
I feel a moral obligation to do whatever is within my power to help these people who I once hurt. But I was not a lone actor in Iraq. I had the support of a nation behind me and I was taking orders from the worlds most powerful military. The 2nd siege of Fallujah was not exceptional; rather it was symbolic of our militarys conduct in Iraq and the way that our mission impacted the lives of Iraqis. Our war and occupation took so much from them. It resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions displaced, permanent environmental contamination, and a new repressive regime that most Iraqis regard as begin more brutal than that of Saddam Hussein. This is the legacy of Americas involvement in Iraq. The least that we can do at this point is to end our complicity in their suffering.
The current violence in Fallujah has been misrepresented in the media. The Iraqi Ministry of Interior asserted earlier in the month that al Qaeda had taken over half of Fallujah and the media parroted this assertion. However, journalists who have done serious investigations into this assertion found it to be false. The uprising in Fallujah is a popular uprising, not one lead by an international jihadist group. The Iraqi government has not been attacking al Qaeda in Fallujah. Their assault has been indiscriminate, killing dozens of civilians and wounding even more. Many of these deaths have been documented by human rights organizations within Fallujah.
I know that the US plans to send further shipments of Apache attack helicopters and Hellfire missiles. If we continue to send weapons to the Iraqi government, we will be further complicit in this violence. Iraqis have long known the Maliki regime to be brutal and repressive. This is not a regime the US should be sending weapons to. Some of your colleagues in Congress have voiced this same concern.
http://5pillarsuk.com/2014/06/16/post-saddam-era-the-oppressed-sunnis-of-iraq/
This is where ISIS comes in who follow the Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam. Sunnis don't view the new government as legitimate and they have plenty of good reasons to feel that way. However, they have significant differences, ISIS is protection against the Shia militias and they tolerate them given the current situation in Iraq. Also many Sunnis have also fled as well as thousands of other refugees since ISIS started their campaign.
There was obviously conflict before all that which is probably why the new prime minister (there also was the elimination of the Ba'th party (also Sunni) but don't know too much about) but here is a great opportunity to mend fences, build better lives, and a better future and he just blew it.
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)Speaking of Wahabbism, it's despicable that the Saudis are our "allies." There is a strong streak of hypocrisy in US foreign policy.
JI7
(89,172 posts)but it is more like The Door vs Christianity. They're both Christianity.
The church promotes belief in the historicity of the Gospel narratives, an orthodox Christian understanding of Jesus and The Trinity, Original sin, a pro-life stance to abortion, and an Evangelical belief in the Great Commission. The church advocates creationism, and rejects evolution, and claims that speaking in tongues is evidence of Baptism in the Holy Spirit. The fellowship also advocates loyalty and obedience to positions of authority in the church,[6] originating with Wayman Mitchell (Senior Pastor of the fellowship) and the Board of Directors, and on an advisory level. The Prescott church council was also formed to ensure similar practice and doctrine were advocated in all churches within the fellowship. However some fellowship churches state the belief in "The Sovereign Autonomous Government Of The Local Church",[7] which both fit together as part of the overall authority structure.[8] The church also teaches that salvation can be lost because of sin.[9] Potter's House also hold strongly to members paying their tithe and that tithing proves the faith of the Christian, provides finances for the operation of the local church and enables the believer to receive God's blessing.[10] One of the Potter's House distinctions in their doctrine and practice is their discipleship program where they exercise a method of shepherding which would resemble elements of the Shepherding Movement. Doctrinally evangelical, pretribulationist, and sola scriptura. They also believe in Premillennial eschatology. Drinking, tobacco, television and movies are prohibited amongst its ministers.[citation needed] The church also believes in divine healing and some of the lead Pastors have frequently done a healing crusade, as well as praying for the sick in their services.[11][12]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potter%27s_House_Christian_Fellowship
A far from perfect example but it cuts closer to the real issue.
alphafemale
(18,497 posts)If any group ever had an ongoing just and legitimate and continuous grievance against an oppressor? The brutal genocide of a people and the continued corralling of them on the sourest of earth should qualify.
There has been no real thing approaching terrorism, called an uprising in the lexicon of the day, since Broken Knee. Which was heartbreaking in its futility. And maybe even that was not even really terrorism since it was against a standing army.
So why is there no terrorism from the Native Nations? Do they understand the futility?