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Sethex posted:This view rests on the false notion that US foreign policy is influenced by Islam's features when I don't think that is an important factor. I don't think it's actually caused by Islam's features at all, though contemporary Islamic extremism is certainly making things worse. European (and post-European) Islamophobia is more than a millennium old. It also doesn't have to be about the American or European public directly, though they help. Senior foreign policy, military, economic and other elite figures are as moulded by these views as anyone else. And popular islamophobia certainly contributes to domestic oppression and alienation of Muslims. I think the OP actually has quite a sensible view of Muslims (he really hates Iran but doesn't see it as the avatar of Shiism any more than he does Israel of Judaism) but wanted to present two views to promote a debate and siphon it out of the ME thread. This is based on my reading him in the ME thread though, not the content of the OP.
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Jul 13, 2015 22:54
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Peel posted:European (and post-European) Islamophobia is more than a millennium old. Well, much of Europe's history has seen large swathes of it invaded and occupied by Islamic powers. It was only for the last two centuries that the tables were turned.
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Jul 13, 2015 23:59
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I don't know, if we count the Roman Empire as European we were invading occupying large swathes of the Middle East before they were. Also apart from Moorish Spain I'm not sure which large swathes you're talking about? The Ottomans in the Balkans? I guess that's a large swathe of Europe but it's also one that no-one in Western Europe ever really thinks about. It also didn't exactly wipe out Christianity in the area either.
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Jul 14, 2015 09:27
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MrNemo posted:I don't know, if we count the Roman Empire as European we were invading occupying large swathes of the Middle East before they were. Also apart from Moorish Spain I'm not sure which large swathes you're talking about? The Ottomans in the Balkans? I guess that's a large swathe of Europe but it's also one that no-one in Western Europe ever really thinks about. It also didn't exactly wipe out Christianity in the area either. I guess Sicily too. It scared the poo poo out of the pope at the time. Also Russia was occupied by the Golden Horde.
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Jul 14, 2015 09:31
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ToxicAcne posted:I guess Sicily too. It scared the poo poo out of the pope at the time. Also Russia was occupied by the Golden Horde. The steppe tribes also clobbered some Genoese colonizers and dicked around on the Lithuanian frontier, but in fairness, it's not like Ukrainian peasants are real Christians, or for that matter human beings.
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Jul 14, 2015 09:38
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ToxicAcne posted:I guess Sicily too. It scared the poo poo out of the pope at the time. Also Russia was occupied by the Golden Horde. Who only converted afterword, they were Tengrist and Buhdist when they clobbered eastern Europe.
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Jul 14, 2015 09:54
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MrNemo posted:I don't know, if we count the Roman Empire as European we were invading occupying large swathes of the Middle East before they were. Also apart from Moorish Spain I'm not sure which large swathes you're talking about? The Ottomans in the Balkans? I guess that's a large swathe of Europe but it's also one that no-one in Western Europe ever really thinks about. It also didn't exactly wipe out Christianity in the area either. If you are counting the Roman Empire as European (and to be fair, north Africa and the Levant were very important to early Christianity) then North Africa and the Middle East offered a large swath of land that was conquered by Islamic powers that helped create fear of Muslim expansion. I don't think its really constructive to use the concept of 'Europe' during the Middle Ages, it didn't really exist, generally 'Christendom' was more important and would have previously included places that were Christianized before the Muslim conquests, like North Africa or Syria. Places like Egypt and Syria still had a huge Christian population up to the end of the Crusades(a fair few still exist today!), even into the 15th century in Iberian nations like Castile and Portugal it would have seemed natural that the Reconquista wouldn't end in the Iberian peninsula but would extend into the Maghreb, the Spanish and Portuguese often attacked and captured major cities along the coast such as Tunis or Oran and the Crusader element was a major factor in Portuguese exploration, business and conquests down the African coast that began the age of discovery. khwarezm fucked around with this message at 10:56 on Jul 14, 2015 |
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Jul 14, 2015 10:37
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MrNemo posted:I don't know, if we count the Roman Empire as European we were invading occupying large swathes of the Middle East before they were. Also apart from Moorish Spain I'm not sure which large swathes you're talking about? The Ottomans in the Balkans? I guess that's a large swathe of Europe but it's also one that no-one in Western Europe ever really thinks about. It also didn't exactly wipe out Christianity in the area either. The Muslims invaded and occupied large swathes of territory previously held by a Christian empire. Why exactly doesn't this count? Because the Romans had taken it by force centuries before that? Why would that matter to Christians at the time of the Muslim conquests, and during the centuries that followed? I guess the Muslims had no cause to complain about the Crusaders or the Mongols, since they invaded and occupied the Middle East long before them.
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Jul 14, 2015 18:02
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There's still no reason to treat a nominally Muslim multiethnic empire like the Ottomans or Mughals any different from any other multiethnic empire. We know that premodern empires invaded stuff, that's a basic trait inherent to all of them, Islam or no, so how does them being Muslim constitute evidence of Muslims being especially warlike? What about the Spanish? The Russians? Britain remains to this day officially a Christian country, but their imperialism is unrelated to that?
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Jul 14, 2015 19:53
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I don't think the details of who did what when and whether it 'counts' in the 1400 or so years of conflict between Christian and Islamic societies really matters. Just that that history exists as a background to contemporary Islamphobia rather than it being a novel negative reaction to a religion Christendom and its successors suddenly discovered 14 years ago.
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Jul 14, 2015 19:58
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#radicalised is a hashtag where jihadists are explaining what "radicalized" them. it's fairly active and pretty interesting.
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Jul 15, 2015 01:05
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Volkerball posted:#radicalised is a hashtag where jihadists are explaining what "radicalized" them. it's fairly active and pretty interesting. Probably an enormous amount of bullshit one-upmanship too. Most psychopaths know to hide their psychopathy. Piousness is much more acceptable than bloodlust. TheImmigrant fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Jul 15, 2015 |
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Jul 15, 2015 01:35
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Volkerball posted:#radicalised is a hashtag where jihadists are explaining what "radicalized" them. it's fairly active and pretty interesting. Mind sharing some? I'm never getting on twitter.
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Jul 15, 2015 02:22
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TheImmigrant posted:Well, much of Europe's history has seen large swathes of it invaded and occupied by Islamic powers. It was only for the last two centuries that the tables were turned. For what it's worth, it was for less than one century that blaming an entire race for the actions of a handful of its members was widely frowned upon.
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Jul 15, 2015 02:51
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Cockmaster posted:For what it's worth, it was for less than one century that blaming an entire race for the actions of a handful of its members was widely frowned upon. It was also OK to not allow women to vote and punish people for homosexuality until very recent times, but now the Western world is over those they can lecture the rest of the world about their cultures' inherent sexism and homophobia. fspades fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Jul 15, 2015 |
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Jul 15, 2015 03:04
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fspades posted:It was also OK to not allow women to vote and punish people for homosexuality until very recent times No, it wasn't.
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Jul 15, 2015 03:14
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TheImmigrant posted:No, it wasn't. Yes, it was. We're talking about a religion that is more than a millenium old here. In that kind of timescale, events that happened in mid-20th century would be very recent.
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Jul 15, 2015 03:29
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fspades posted:Yes, it was. We're talking about a religion that is more than a millenium old here. In that kind of timescale, events that happened in mid-20th century would be very recent. A millenium of being wrong is still wrong.
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Jul 15, 2015 03:35
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I'm not confusing those goals, because they're actually the same. ISIS daesh are reactionary forces, reacting to social reform both in the muslim and wider world. The scholar you quoted doesn't acknowledge the conflict as a fundamentally political one, but rather as a rather minor technical problem of authority on scripture. "Well if there was a real Islamic authority to tell them to stop, then they would" Okay, but not every religion out there has a single body like that. There's no successful politicized protestantism that has the same pull as islamism does. That's not because 'they wouldnt do that', nor does that demonstrate any kind of 'inherent' superiority between the two, there are loving people of any faith out there who would try and pull that poo poo, if they could get away it. But they can't. Guess why? The 'radicalism' (actually a raise of reactionary militantism) would have happened, regardless of the dismantling of legal guilds. A single authority would be no stronger against the pull of corruption to authoritarian states than the structures that exist today (All it means is that, like the medieval papacy, it would play them off each for its own gain - but it would never, ever be free from corruption). This isn't a problem that can be solved with small technical solutions. The only thing that can save Islam, from being used in the way it is being used, is liberal secularism accepted broadly. Either secular politics subsumes all political activity within Islam, or it keeps suffering the same dysfunction over and over again. rudatron fucked around with this message at 10:03 on Jul 15, 2015 |
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Jul 15, 2015 05:01
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TheImmigrant posted:A millenium of being wrong is still wrong. Oh, Jesus Christ. You know perfectly well he was saying that it was considered OK, not that it was actually right. What is the point of this kind of pedantry, honestly?
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Jul 15, 2015 07:55
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Smudgie Buggler posted:What is the point of this kind of pedantry, honestly? A smug feeling of superiority, of course!
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Jul 15, 2015 09:50
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Smudgie Buggler posted:Oh, Jesus Christ. You know perfectly well he was saying that it was considered OK, not that it was actually right. What is the point of this kind of pedantry, honestly? I'm sure you believe that, son, and it is very gallant of you to come forward as champion for forums poster "fspades." Just the same, I've seen enough bankrupt relativism expressed on this forum, particularly regarding dear fetish peoples, that I'll wait for xir to clarify before believing it.
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Jul 15, 2015 11:46
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rudatron posted:I'm not confusing those goals, because they're actually the same. ISIS daesh are reactionary forces, reacting to social reform both in the muslim and wider world. The scholar you quoted doesn't acknowledge the conflict as a fundamentally political one, but rather as a rather minor technical problem of authority on scripture. "Well if there was a real Islamic authority to tell them to stop, then they would" Okay, but not every religion out there has a single body like that. There's no successful politicized protestantism that has the same pull as islamism does. That's not because 'they wouldnt do that', nor does that demonstrate any kind of 'inherent' superiority between the two, there are loving people of any faith out there who would try and pull that poo poo, if they could get away it. But they can't. Guess why? Fadel clearly acknowledges that the rise of radicalism is in part due to despotic rule in the Sunni Arab world. He states that explicitly in the article. Mohammad Fadel posted:When this normative vacuum is combined with the profound failure of the Arab state system to produce citizens willing and capable of cooperation in the context of a common political project, it should not be surprising that some Muslims take up interpretations of Islam and Islamic law that are apocalyptic in their scope and claims as an answer to the catastrophic failures of those states. quote:The 'radicalism' (actually a raise of reactionary militantism) would have happened, regardless of the dismantling of legal guilds. The genealogy of salafism, radical or not says otherwise. Central to it's genesis was criticism levelled at Sunnism during the 19th century from members of a newly minted public intelligentsia. These critics (al-Afghani, Abduh, Rida et al) generally saw Sunnism as responsible for the colonial domination of Muslim states and sought to overturn it in favour of returning to the original sources of the Islam. Their belief was that this 'back to basics' would produce a flexible religion capable of meeting the challenge of the West. Thats just mainstream salafi revivalism. If you want to look at the rise of puritanism and the precursor to al-Dawla, the Wahabbi/Saudi state only managed to consolidated power after almost 200 years due to a power vacuum left by the decline of the Ottomans. The removal of the madhabib created a space in which these forms of religiosity found little in the way of institutional opposition. quote:A single authority would be no stronger against the pull of corruption to authoritarian states than the structures that exist today (All it means is that, like the medieval papacy, it would play them off each for its own gain - but it would never, ever be free from corruption). The madhabib weren't a singular authority in any sense. At the time of colonisation there were four guilds operating at a variety of social levels across the Muslim majority world. The fact they were capable of disseminating and enforcing normative rulings in conjunction with the state is why the sort garbage radical groups are into couldn't gain traction. The reason you think that Fadel's point is a minor technical quibble is because you've assumed that liberal secularism would actually change the Muslim attachment to religion and therefore delegitimise religious movements from co-opting religious symbology. Contrary to your claim the history of Sunnism isn't recurring dysfunction that only liberal secularism can solve,. As Fadel points out Sunnism evolved out of a quagmire of sectarian and political violence and central to it designated parameters was a desire to limit the possibility of religion being invoke in the name of radicalism and sectarianism. Mohammad Fadel posted:Sunnism was historically a centrist tradition that rejected the messianism of Shiʿism and the unforgiving puritanism of the Khawārij. Its centrism, however, was not born of a kind of ad hoc reasoning that called on Muslims simply to take middle positions between extremes. It was a centrism based on firm adherence to certain moral principles, including rejection of armed rebellion combined with a refusal to recognize as valid the illegal conduct of rulers; a readiness to overlook moral shortcomings of individuals constituting the community, whether rulers or ruled, combined with an insistence on holding each person accountable before the law for their conduct, even if that accountability was deferred and only theoretical; a recognition of the superior piety and learning of some, and even the possibility that some people may receive particular spiritual favors from God, but a rejection that such distinctions could result in the suspension of the law. In short, the political theology of Sunnism was centered on the sovereignty of law and respect for authority (not power as such). Wez fucked around with this message at 12:49 on Jul 15, 2015 |
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Jul 15, 2015 12:06
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TheImmigrant posted:I'm sure you believe that, son, and it is very gallant of you to come forward as champion for forums poster "fspades." Just the same, I've seen enough bankrupt relativism expressed on this forum, particularly regarding dear fetish peoples, that I'll wait for xir to clarify before believing it. Playing stupid makes you look stupid.
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Jul 15, 2015 14:39
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TheImmigrant posted:I'm sure you believe that, son, and it is very gallant of you to come forward as champion for forums poster "fspades." Just the same, I've seen enough bankrupt relativism expressed on this forum, particularly regarding dear fetish peoples, that I'll wait for xir to clarify before believing it. I don't know what the hell you are on about, but I'm pretty sure you didn't understand my point. Here, this was the key word for understanding it: fspades posted:It was also OK to not allow women to vote and punish people for homosexuality until very recent times, but now the Western world is over those they can lecture the rest of the world about their cultures' inherent sexism and homophobia. It is extremely disingenuous to claim (as many have done) that Islam is the reason behind women's plight in the Islamic world, because women's subservience was the norm in nearly all of the planet until very recent times. Islam, as a living religion whose values are open to interpretation, might have been used (and still getting used) as a foundation for patriarchal social attitudes because it itself was shaped by patriarchal societies. To deny this and instead focusing on scripture as evidence of Islam's inherent sexism is to deny Islam's capability to change and puts you roughly in the same wavelength as Salafists. It also conveniently lets you ignore the very real gains made by Muslim women in modern history. But then the same people who do the above turns around and claim Islamic terrorism, a phenomenon that is undoubtedly modern and new, represents something timeless and at the core of Islam and we have to pretend Daesh are the exemplar of True IslamTM now and every other Muslim are fakers. This has nothing to do with a rejection of "relativism," it's simply the boneheaded rejection of history. For what it's worth, I believe Islam has some deeply disturbing features that's currently showing no signs of changing. I also dislike the tendency of some to solely blame imperialism for the problems Islamic societies have in the modern world. Ordinarily I would have no desire to defend Islam, but I would defend it from the stupidity that has become ubiquitous in the West in the recent decades. This kind of discussion benefits no one.
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Jul 15, 2015 15:33
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fspades posted:It also conveniently lets you ignore the very real gains made by Muslim women in modern history. Can you show any statistic or recent historical context demonstrating anything other than a strong negative relation between intensity of (islamic) religious belief and advancement of women's legal rights? (Not even getting into LGBTQ rights) fspades posted:But then the same people who do the above turns around and claim Islamic terrorism, a phenomenon that is undoubtedly modern and new, represents something timeless and at the core of Islam and we have to pretend Daesh are the exemplar of True IslamTM now and every other Muslim are fakers. This has nothing to do with a rejection of "relativism," it's simply the boneheaded rejection of history. I don't buy this argument at all. To reiterate; terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology. Willingness to use political violence to establish a religious state is the ideology. There is virtually no moral component to terrorism setting it apart from other forms of organized violence. Terror and violence against civilian populations is the essential core of all warfare. I think the average Daesh member would very much like it if he could turn back the technological clock a thousand years and fight for his faith with scimitar in hand instead of having to turn himself into a dehumanized living torpedo or (at best) spending most of his time huddled in a trench hoping an airstrike or mortar shell doesn't fall on his head. The scriptures are considerably more aggressive and prescriptive about calling for war against the unfaithful compared to the Bible (even OT). I do not draw any meaningful distinction between the religious wars which spread Islamic faith in the early years and the actions of Daesh today; they are the same phenomenon, with the same goal of establishing strict religious law. Historically speaking, the prohibitions against harming any noncombatants rang hollow then as well as now. So to reiterate my earlier point: social progress in the muslim world requires a proportionate amount of willingness to ignore the Qur'an and the words of religious scholars. Saying that things would be so much better if we only had more religious scholars and more authority in their hands strikes me as rather ludicrous. And trying to somehow rhetorically 'help' modernized muslims by claiming that they are more faithful and islamic than the radicals and terrorists is a fig leaf which isn't fooling anybody. The radicals and terrorists are willing to die, kill and terrorize for their (intepretation of the) religion is a powerful argument for the sincerity of their devotion to it. Moderate muslims can't match that level of devotion, and they need to admit to themselves that they shouldn't. Much like racism in America, until that part of the world has the conversation and a majority admits that there is such a thing as giving too much to Islam (HOWEVER you define it), any progress will be dreadfully slow. fspades posted:This kind of discussion benefits no one. Silencing tactic. Can we please stop deploying this one over and over in religion threads? These kinds of utilitarian arguments ring incredibly loving hollow in an obscure internet forum thread. Edit: Wez posted:The madhabib weren't a singular authority in any sense. At the time of colonisation there were four guilds operating at a variety of social levels across the Muslim majority world. The fact they were capable of disseminating and enforcing normative rulings in conjunction with the state is why the sort garbage radical groups are into couldn't gain traction. The reason you think that Fadel's point is a minor technical quibble is because you've assumed that liberal secularism would actually change the Muslim attachment to religion and therefore delegitimise religious movements from co-opting religious symbology. Contrary to your claim the history of Sunnism isn't recurring dysfunction that only liberal secularism can solve,. As Fadel points out Sunnism evolved out of a quagmire of sectarian and political violence and central to it designated parameters was a desire to limit the possibility of religion being invoke in the name of radicalism and sectarianism. Bolded for breathtaking orientalism. 'Don't you guys see, theocratic ideology is literally in their DNA, who are we to say it isn't *~right for them~*?' And I don't know about historically, but here in the 21st century where we're all actually alive and get to decide how history proceeds, Sunnism is doing a really lovely job of "limit[ing] the possibility of religion being invoke in the name of radicalism and sectarianism." Worse than any other religion on the planet, actually. At this point I'm pretty sure that 'more Sunnisim' is not the answer. Liberal_L33t fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Jul 15, 2015 |
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Jul 15, 2015 17:01
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Liberal_L33t posted:Historically speaking, the prohibitions against harming any noncombatants rang hollow then as well as now. So your point regarding this is simply that you don't think these dedicated Muslims, whom you seem to think have the most devotion to the truest form of the religion because they embrace the passages regarding violence as the cornerstone of their religion, will pay attention to the passages that say to limit or even prevent innocent deaths? Do you not see how you're really just arguing that one form of picking and choosing is correct (and thus Islam is violent) and one form is incorrect (so peaceful Muslims are only peaceful to the extent they are insincere about their religion). You're using a No True Scotsman to argue that all faithful Muslims are violent. At best you've bought into Da'esh's bullshit theology as much as any of their converts while rejecting the faith itself. You are as much a success for their propaganda and attempts to turn this into some apocalyptic conflict between Islam and 'the West' as those who leave home to fight for them. Liberal_L33t posted:So to reiterate my earlier point: social progress in the muslim world requires a proportionate amount of willingness to ignore the Qur'an and the words of religious scholars. Saying that things would be so much better if we only had more religious scholars and more authority in their hands strikes me as rather ludicrous. And trying to somehow rhetorically 'help' modernized muslims by claiming that they are more faithful and islamic than the radicals and terrorists is a fig leaf which isn't fooling anybody. The radicals and terrorists are willing to die, kill and terrorize for their (intepretation of the) religion is a powerful argument for the sincerity of their devotion to it. Moderate muslims can't match that level of devotion, and they need to admit to themselves that they shouldn't. Much like racism in America, until that part of the world has the conversation and a majority admits that there is such a thing as giving too much to Islam (HOWEVER you define it), any progress will be dreadfully slow. The point is that currently those who call for a more moderate approach, and I'm assuming here that peacful moderation would provide a more fertile ground for social change and progress than Mad Max religious warfare that currently is Syria, have had much of their moral authority neutered by the very secular and non-secular despots who sought to co-opt that authority. When the most influential speakers for your religion are toadying the words of the dictator and change their stances with the political winds it's not surprising that their religious devotion would be called into question. Also I really, really resent your interpretation that because they are willing to kill in the name of their religion that clearly their faith and devotion are stronger. People are willing to do a lot to defend their homes and pride, especially from a culture where there's still something of a warrior/honour based culture. Being willing to kill someone for insulting your wife doesn't somehow magically prove that you love her more than other people love their wives or are we going to argue that Stalin was a more devoted socialist than, sat, the Webbs because he was willing to tyrranise an entire nation and kill millions in the pursuit of the state he wanted while they restricted themselves to campaigning for social change and helping others? You strike me as someone who has started out with a very specific idea of what a religion has to be and how people sould show devotion to it and see proof of that in the current events in the Middle East. Would you apply that same reasoning to any other mode of life/thought? You seem happy to apply it to Christianity (hence the whole 'the West has only moved on insofar as we've abandoned religion' totally ignoring contributions to that progress made by religious figures whose worldview was inevitably greatly shaped by their religion) as well so I don't think you're some sort of Islamaphobe. I think you've got an extremely twisted and reductionist view of religion and you seem to want to apply it to a situation where your approach would lead to far more bloodshed and chaos.
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Jul 15, 2015 17:26
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Liberal_L33t posted:Bolded for breathtaking orientalism. 'Don't you guys see, theocratic ideology is literally in their DNA, who are we to say it isn't *~right for them? I'm Muslim you muppet.
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Jul 15, 2015 23:41
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You position the rise of reaction as due to a 'normative vacuum' - but why was it reaction that managed to occupy that vacuum, over anything else? Why did they believe a 'back to basics' approach was the best? The answer is because it had nothing to do with a 'normative vacuum', but because of the already existing, and deeply entrenched, conservative attitudes about politics and religion (and arguably gender & sexuality - see Qutb) in relation to the west (as expressed in its power structures). When a crisis occurs, the solutions to that crisis are always constrained and guided by the dominant ideology. But to tackle a deeper point: any serious historiography cannot assume that things such as 'normative vacuums' exist. History is based on raw political factors: production, control, interests, ideology. To claim that the problem is the lack of a paternal figures in the religious community has just as much substance as the claims that the roman empire fell due to decadence. It's all idealist bullshit. The infantilizing of groups like ISIS, "they're people who just need Proper Guidance in interpretation", is just a moralizing tale. Daesh knows what they're doing, they're a political actor, and they'd do it regardless of guilds - that is if they don't intimidate/horse-trade some of them into supporting them, in which case all your assumptions fall apart. Like I can't see these assumptions of yours as anything but special pleading to the uniqueness of Islam (which is not going to fly here). Mixing religion and politics didn't work before, it ain't gonna work now, doesn't matter which religion you choose. Ergo, secularism. rudatron fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Jul 16, 2015 |
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Jul 16, 2015 05:09
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Modern political militant Islam should be viewed, and dealt with, the same way as 20th century expansionist fascism. ISIS and friends are basically emulating the worst aspects of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Bonzai bombers and industrial scaled ethnic cleansing with a sick ideological framework underpinning it all.
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Jul 17, 2015 12:24
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So you're saying the way to deal with it is through the most destructive war in human history. Solid plan, duder.
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Jul 17, 2015 14:07
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bitey posted:“Islamophobia” is usually used to describe western anti-muslim bigots. What a waste of a perfectly good word. Islamophobia is mostly a dumb term because it's an attempt at making an "antisemitism, but against Muslims" word which could be used to shut up critics of Islam because they criticize Islam. In doing so, what it really does is replace "racist". Like, if someone says "death to all Arabs, they're nothing but savages" and you say "that's Islamophobic", you say that the bigoted message isn't racist, that it's not against Arabs, but that it's really against Muslims. In doing so, you establish two things: 1. Arabs (and Turks, and Persians, and Berbers, and so on) are defined by their religious obedience. What do you call an Assyrian, or a Maronite, or a Yazedi? A Muslim! They're Arabs, therefore they are Muslims, and them having a different religion is just a mistake on their part. What do you call an Arab who is atheist? A Muslim! Same thing! If some Dylann Roof type murders an Arab who isn't Muslim, it's still a crime of Islamophobia, not of racism. 2. The real victim here is Islam. Not people, but an ideology that they may or may not subscribe to. Most of the time, when you want to accuse someone of Islamophobia, it's more accurate to accuse them of racism. So do that.
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Jul 17, 2015 14:13
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Smoothrich posted:Modern political militant Islam should be viewed, and dealt with, the same way as 20th century expansionist fascism. ISIS and friends are basically emulating the worst aspects of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Bonzai bombers and industrial scaled ethnic cleansing with a sick ideological framework underpinning it all. You're right, the decentralized amorphous terrorist movement expanding into a power vacuum left by collapsing states is the same as two extremely strong, centralized states which started wars with other strong, centralized states
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Jul 17, 2015 17:24
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icantfindaname posted:You're right, the decentralized amorphous terrorist movement expanding into a power vacuum left by collapsing states Boy that doesn't sound like the first half of the 20th century at all
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Jul 18, 2015 01:44
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Not .... not really, no? Europe since the French Revolution has had strong states and brief, violent revolutions that change who runs the state. Russia was a strong state before its revolution and was a strong state afterwards, there was never any power vacuum. There was never a big tract of land with basically no government for people to set up camp in and throw poo poo at people from
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Jul 18, 2015 02:49
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Smoothrich posted:Boy that doesn't sound like the first half of the 20th century at all The Nazis were not a decentralised, amorphous terrorist movement.
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Jul 18, 2015 06:27
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Smoothrich posted:Boy that doesn't sound like the first half of the 20th century at all It sure doesn't. Especially in the case of Imperial Japan. The Germany example doesn't really stand up if you know anything more than the thirty second pop history take on Weimar Germany, but why pick at the details of that? Far easier to point out that by 1941, Japan had been the big dog in East Asia for fifty years or more.
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Jul 18, 2015 14:01
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Smudgie Buggler posted:So you're saying the way to deal with it is through the most destructive war in human history. They're the only plans that ever work.  EDIT: For about 50 years at least. 
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Jul 18, 2015 17:53
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icantfindaname posted:Russia was a strong state before its revolution and was a strong state afterwards, there was never any power vacuum lol Smudgie Buggler posted:The Nazis were not a decentralised, amorphous terrorist movement. Decentralization would have been disadvantageous to the Nazis then - it is often advantageous to Islamists now. And to re-iterate, ISIS is neither decentralized nor amorphous. They are geographically defined, with borders, a standing military, and secure territories.
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Jul 18, 2015 21:53
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Where were these so-called "moderate" Nazis?
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Jul 19, 2015 17:28
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