We maintain that the ‘Clash of Civilisations’ is not only inevitable but imperative.
– Hizb Ut Tahrir (as quoted by the Daily Ablution)
And there we have it: something that a radical Islamic group has said that I totally agree with.
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If they WANT the clash, perhaps the way to defeat them is to deny them the possibility of getting it?
EG
And your breed of ‘civilisation’ takes what shape, exactly?
Let’s roll.
Really EG, if it was down to people like you Britain would have never fought WW2, we would have been ruled by Nazis, then Commies and now Islamofacists.
Freedom isn’t a god given right, its something we have to fight for and will continue having to fight for if we want to keep it.
“Denying them the possibility” of a clash of civilisations is akin to denying a bus the possibility of running over you,unless you get out of the way it is going to happen.
Well if they want to let us know where and when to make it happen I’m sure we can oblige them. All I see so far is a bunch of sulky girly-man muslims. When the bombs of allah go “phut” instead of “bang” they hitch up their skirts and run out the door.
I feel insulted.
Pete_London – Well said!
Wimpy Boris has a bit of a robust piece in this week’s Speccie. He brings forward some very good points, although overall, I don’t know that it is very well argued.
Excuse me. Forgot the link. (Link)
If I hear just one more Leftist (or Moslem) intoning the mantra, ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ I shall scream.
This clash has been inevitable for decades and Britain has been absurdly stupid by importing the raw materialfor the conflict, meaning that we (like the French and the Dutch)
are going to have to fight it on our own home ground, as well as in the wider world.
Has anyone thought that these idiots might have made a mistake and they tried to detonate their stash? Having cleansed ther sinuses witha peroxide based explosive.
It would be a good idea if this side of the clash actually realised that it was one in the first place. Instead of responding to “we want to f***ing kill you” with killing them first we respond by offering counselling and conferences.
G Cooper – How interesting that the Germans, when they were an economic giant, handled the importation of Turks so much more intelligently. “Guest workers” meant: come here, make money, which we will be more than happy to allow you to take home with you (because you will be going home) or send home in the meantime, enjoy the privileges of our civilised country, and then do us a favour and bug out. Even today, there are grandchildren of original guest workers who have not been accorded citizenship. I find this very intelligent First sign of trouble: out. The Germans foresaw a clash of cultures.
But the Brits and the Dutch went into it like a lolloping, unthinking puppy after a ball. Or thinking that their civilisations were so superior, how could anyone not be dead keen to join them.
France went in for the Muslims for a different reason: they thought that they could manipulate a situation where they would have hegemony over les deux rives de la Mediteranée. Of course, it didn’t work out that way because the Algerians and Moroccans refused to stay on their bank and wanted to live on the French bank. Visas! Visas! OK. That was a political dream that went wrong, a situation that France is well-accustomed to by now.
But the northern European nations, bar the smart Germans, are the fools. And that now includes Sweden and Norway, infested with people from the Stone Age – but smart enough to get the European good life at no cost to themselves.
I know nothing about Spain. But I do know the Germans were very smart and very prescient.
Verity – Good Points.
The Danes seem to have turned their attitude around.
I didn’t address the Danes because I have no idea what they’re doing. I doubt very much that any “liberal” Scandinavian nation will have “turned their situation around”. My guess, they’re waiting for Britain to do something and then they’ll join in. They’re very brave people, but there are only 4m of them.
The Dutch, don’t know. Very, very strange people. Their ancient and world famous port of Rotterdam – I think, without Googling it – it is the world’s fourth largest – is now 49% Islamic. How did they allow this to happen?
But the fact is, they did. Don’t count on the Dutch.
Just a point Verity but removal of those guest workers is one hell of a job isnt it?The last time the germans had “a cunning plan” for this kind of thing the rest of us had to come up behind them and smack them about abit, till they came to their senses.
RAB – You seem to be a bit of a dhimmi and intentionally misunderstood not only my post, but everyone else’s posts.
Please go and visit The Guardian and the BBC where you will find thoughts more to your taste.
Statism is truly an Hydra, ancient and terrible in all its manifestatons, of which the theology undergirding the concept of the all powerful Caliphate is only its latest permutation. Perhaps we were too complacent, after defeating fascism and marxism, in thinking that there would be no more dragons to slay.
Even though this religious fanaticism seems to be something recently formulated, in fact it is an echo of the same ancient philosophy that deified the Pharoah or the Emperor of Japan. It is the marriage of church and state, in which the individual is sacrificed on the altar of divine revelation, as interpreted by whatever group of thugs can grab the reins of theocratic power.
But this clash does not necessarily mean that violence and death is the only method of resolving the issue. Of course, there will be attacks and responses, as we have seen for decades, but only recently recognized as warfare. The crucial confrontation will be between the idea of surrender to oppression, and the revelation of liberation.
Modern western culture is pervasive, and threatening, around the world. Pervasive because it is geared to responding to what people actually want, even when the powers that be say they shouldn’t have it. And, thus, it is a direct threat to cultures which only admit of one possibility, one course, one idea, one leader, one prophet, one book, one volk.
Repeatedly, we have seen the corrosive effect of the culture of choice when it insinuates itself into the barren landscape of the culture of repression. That is why the statist must try so desperately to prevent the spread of books, plays, satellite TV, radios, computers, and, above all and the base of all, ideas. In the final analysis, it is ideas which the theocrats, and Dear Leaders of wharever stripe, actually fear.
In the closet of all their nightmares lives the scariest boogieman of all—the idea that individuals may choose the course of their lives as they see fit, for their own purposes. It is this single, explosive concept, which has disposed of Sun Kings, and Emperors, and Fuhrers, and General Secretaries, and Presidents-for- Life. Now it has set its sights on the Mullahs, and they know, deep down they know, that their people will move toward it as a flower turns to the light.
We have been told many times that the Arab or Middle Eastern mentality is attracted to strength, and despises weakness. So, who is truly strong, and who is weak? The mullahs who fear even the sight of an independent woman will send them and their followers into an uncontrollable frenzy of sin, or the free man who recognizes and accepts his wife and daughter as equal and independent actors with their own lives to live?
The theocrats know if they don’t build walls, and blow up whatever they can get to on the other side, the tidal wave of modern liberal western culture will wash over them just as relentlessly and powerfully as the recent tsunami washed across Sumatra. They live in fear, hiding in darkness.
Free men and women walk together in the sunshine, knowing the world truly belongs to them.
The only way we can lose is by forfeit.
This seems to be an argument with as many sides as a very itchy hedgehog with an itchy spine. So why not add in another argument: Why not send them all home to the Muslim countries, tell ’em to stay there, and let the current “oh those extremists are sooo bad” muslims sort ’em out?
“Clash of civilisations”? Only one side in the coming battle is civilised, and it ain’t Islam.
Bring it on, boys. Bring it on.
Cultures always clash. May the better elements of clashing cultures win.
Bloody well said Veryretired, bravo.
I saw this in the on-line Times and thought it may be relevant Return to Inquisitiveness
Later
Gengee
It would be a good idea if this side of the clash actually realised that it was one in the first place. Instead of responding to “we want to f***ing kill you” with killing them first we respond by offering counselling and conferences.
That’s because the other side is so flipping incompetent at this kind of thing that western cultures who think of ‘war’ as a highly-organized industrial-age mass-destruction kind of thing don’t even recognize what’s going on.
Seriously. The other side’s biggest success thus far was blowing up a whopping 4 airplanes and knocking down two skyscrapers- when a westerner thinks of a war, they expect a level of destuction several orders of magnitude higher than that- and that’s a small war. A big war involves destruction like what happened at Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, et multiple cetera. The crap the jihadi types are inflicting on us isn’t of sufficient magnitude to convince most westerners that it’s a threat to our existence.
Once the jihadis pull off something on a scale that convinces the west that militant islam is a threat to our existence, they’re going to find out that those decadent, corrupt western cultures all have advanced degrees in waging war, and that the reason we stopped fighting with each other isn’t because we’re weak, or cowards- it’s because it was a choice between peace or extinction.
Clash of cultures? Can we really dignify a load of chavs claiming disability benefit whilst stealing each other’s 72″ plasmas to watch Big Brother on as a culture?
Rosignol has a point, but you can’t defeat a terrorist enemy by conventional military means. This was learned successfully by the British very shortly after the start of the Malayan Emergency in 1948, was learned too late by the Russians in Afghanistan and has never yet been learned by America.
The enemy in this case is not a defined state with a formal army, which is the type of enemy western militaries are designed to fight. The enemy is an insurgent who owes allegiance to no state but to a higher principle. Destroy and occupy all the states you want, you still will not defeat this enemy because you have not affected that to which he is loyal.
It’s possible, as we have seen, to make bombs from readily available components and household chemicals. Unless you plan to prohibit the manufacture and supply of weedkiller, sugar, bleach, batteries, copper wire, petrol and drain cleaners you will never remove the ability of the insurgent to make effective bombs, not even if you occupy ever single Moslem state on the face of the planet.
The answer is political, moral and social, not military.
EG
Rosignol is correct. This isn’t a major WAR, it’s small, guerilla war agains a receding species of nuts. I don’t think it’s life threatening, I don’t think the Islamist fundamentalists are going to take over the world; they surely want to, and dream about it, and preach it, but they are powerless, they are few, and their threats are’nt to be taken literaly. Those 49% of muslims in Rotterdam are perfectly willing to live the good westernized life, and aren’t probably even religious. It is only a small bunch of nuts among them that cause the trouble. It’s not a cleash of civilizations, but a clash between civilization and a gang of barbarians.
That doeas not mean there is no threat, and nothing needs to be done to combat it. It’s not either a total WAR or total submission. You need to do what is required in this case – hunt down the extremists, their preachers, their funders and promoters, kill them, jail them, and let normal people go on with their lives.
A greater threat to Western civilization is the leftist-tranzi-multiculty-welfare ideology. That is eroding Western civilization from within, and is much more powerful. But that is another topic – except for the fact that it is to a great degree Western Welfare that encourages muslim immigration in the first place, and, by exempting them from the need to earn a living, enables their extremist activities. The multiculti mentality also prevents us from doing what needs to be done against the barbarians.
What Jacob said. Well, most of it anyway.
EG
Racist claptrap from Verity – she’s the one from the stone age.
I’d rather have my many friends who are British citizens of Turkish descent in this country than I would her. Most of them are more civilised, better educated and contribute more to this country than she ever will.
” will never remove the ability of the insurgent to make effective bombs…”
Insurgent ? EG, you work at the BBC ? Insurgent agains what ? Against Tony Blairs pro EU policies ?
No, these are nihilist, barbarous murderes, not insurgents.
“The answer is political, moral and social, not military.”
Again BBC talk. Root causes….
When your life is threatened, you need to do what it takes to protect it – the most immediate measures being military and police actions. Later, you can maybe indulge in your pet “moral and social” activities, if you survive.
From the Merriam-Webster legal dictionary:
It’s quite possible to use the word without working for the BBC.
You ask, insurgent against what?. Well, surely the non-Moslem world. Isn’t that the point, that they do what they do (nominally) because we are not Moslem?
Yes, but they are insurgent nihilist barbarous murderers.
I’m not suggesting we don’t. We need, as you say, to track them down, catch them and apply justice. What we DON’T need to do – because it will achieve precisely nothing – is to go to war with Moslem states. I take you can see the difference here?
EG
They have just shot a man at Stockwell station. He was shot as he tried to get on the train by police.
Shot, or shot dead?
As much as a bomber would deserve the latter, having someone in condition suitable for interrogation would be quite useful.
HJHJ writes:
“Racist claptrap…”
Islam isn’t a race. It’s a choice people make.
Like spouting Gruaniad/BBC platitudes. That’s a choice, too.
rosignol asks:
“Shot, or shot dead?”
An eye witness claims he was forced to the ground and shot dead.
Good.
“This is my weblog. It’s an outlet for all those things I think NEED to be said…”
Did you really need to tell us about a crappy overpriced meal in a restaurant thousands of miles away?
On the subject of the Fat Duck restaurant – I drive past this very regularly on the way to my rowing club (the Fat Duck is very near the Thames at Bray). I’m sure it’s very good indeed, but do you know what? I’m glad I never stop to try it because I’m on my way to do something far more fun – rowing (with some great people who couldn’t care less about whether I could afford a posh restaurant). Sometimes I follow this with an excellent pint in the club bar and some bar food. I can assure you that I’m having far more fun than you are.
You’ll be much happier in life if you do what you really enjoy and to hell with trying to impress others with what you can afford.
Stated by: HJHJ on February 9, 2005 10:29 PM
An eye witness claims he was forced to the ground and shot dead.
Hm. That sounds rather different from the sort of thing I’d expect English coppers to do- or even LAPD. Generally speaking, once the suspect is on the ground, the most cops can get away with is a beating.
Has the SAS been sent to guard the metro, by any chance?
EG,
Your defense of “insurgent” is wrong. Insurgent is usually used in the sense of opposing some unjust, or oppresive rule. Those who use “insurgent” in this context mean to convey some sympathy for their subject. At least they try sound neutral and to avoid moral clarity and moral condemnation. That’s typical multiculti, and dead wrong.
Part of the “moral and social” solution to the problem is to make our moral position very clear, and not to obfuscate it. It’s not just morally wrong to murder 56 random, innocet people, it is monstrously wrong. And we must say so loud and clear. Instead of calling these people “insurgents” so as to entice more young people to join in the “heroic struggle” and become martyrs and objects of worship among their peers – we must condemn them in unambigous terms. At least: murderers.
Words have meanings, and we should try to use the correct words. It’s the commies (to take one example) who tried to destroy the West by corrupting it’s terms in calling communist states “people’s democracies” instead of the correct term “bloody tyrannies”. We must not collaborate in adopting their terminology – we must use our’s.
What we DON’T need to do …. is to go to war with Moslem states.
Well, sometimes you need to. Take for example the Berber Sultans who were harboring pirates in the 17 or 18th century.
rosignol writes:
“Hm. That sounds rather different from the sort of thing I’d expect English coppers to do- or even LAPD. Generally speaking, once the suspect is on the ground, the most cops can get away with is a beating.”
The same source says a man was pursued by three “plain clothes policemen” (sic) who, once he was on the ground, shot him five times from close range.
Normal rules of engagement seem to have been suspended. Which sounds about right.
In your opinion, with which I respectfully disagree. I have used the word in a perfectly reasonable manner in accordance with its accepted meaning. If you wish to impute to it a different and subjective meaning, that is, frankly, something for you to deal with and not me.
And beyond “do what you want” what IS the moral position of the west, exactly?
Yes, it is wrong to murder, to cause explosions, and so on. But deeper than that, what is the moral standpoint of the west, upon what is it based, and why?
By which you mean, of course, yours. Words do indeed have meaning, and dictionaries are most useful in discovering that meaning. “Freedom fighter” is a loaded and biased term. “Insurgent” is not, or perhaps is but only in the minds of the tinfoil hat brigade who are conviced the BBC is on a conspiratorial mission to restore the Caliphate.
But this is not the 18th century, the problem is not the same, the causes are not the same and the solutions are not the same either. If they were, it would be easy. They aren’t, and it’s difficult. Simplistic “bomb the wogs” solutions don’t work because that has nothing to do with the nature of the problem.
EG
Euan Gray writes:
“”Insurgent” is not, or perhaps is but only in the minds of the tinfoil hat brigade who are conviced the BBC is on a conspiratorial mission to restore the Caliphate.”
You don’t require a “tinfoil hat” to wonder what the BBC is up to when it goes back and re-edits footage of events two weeks ago, excising the word “terrorist”.
Rosignol,
Not information and what has been put out so far is contradictory, the SAS are trained to finish off with a shot into the medulla oblongata to stop all body movements. Five shots seems more like police.
GCooper,
Verity was talking about Turkish people, as she said quite clearly. Can’t you read?
You and Verity have, somewhat implausibly, claimed in the past that you are libertarians. Are now saying that your libertarianism doesn’t extend treating people equally regardless of religion?
You are no libertarian. A nasty, prejudiced authoritarian, more like.
HJHJ
Please just go away. You are just a rather common garden-variety troll sitting on a bridge surrounded by billy goat owners. We are not impressed by your ability to insult anyone and it jujst denigrates the post for anyone else wishing to read though it.
Must a slow day at Waitrose. HJHJ, you are boiling mad.
I like the idea of the five shots.
Five shots seems more like police.
British police, perhaps. In the US, once shooting starts, cops tend to keep shooting until the magazine is empty. Heaven forbid that one of the police is sufficently out of sync that he’s still firing when the others run out, as this will cause the others to re-load and resume fire- LAPD is somewhat notorious for this.
EG wrote,
Possibly the most effective and fascinating counter-terrorism campaign ever mounted was initiated by the German police from 1974 onwards against members of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang, where they analysed how people paid for use of utilties (gas, water electricity etc.) and established trends for the entire West German population. By slimming down payments for all these utilities to cash only settlements and identifying the fluctuations in occupation of the properties, they were able to clearly identify ‘safe houses’ used by the terrorists and at the start of 1974 swooped upon a number of houses in Frankfurt and West Berlin arresting at least 6 notable BM terrorists and whole raft of lesser helpers and assistants. This they repeated at regular intervals throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s and that method was also used very successfully in Northern Ireland and on the UK mainland throughout the IRA campaign, as well as being credited by the French for being able to completely rout Action Directe.
Julian Taylor – that’s interesting.
BTW, a thought just occurred. It might be that the reason the police blew five bullets into the terrorist although he was down was, they didn’t know whether he had a bomb about his person. If he did, and were not completely disabled – i.e., dead – he would have grabbed the opportunity to detonate it.
Julian:
I’m not sure I want to see HJHJ go. I can’t wait to see his reaction when the Islamofascists try to make the Olympic lady beach volleyballers play in Hefty bags (er, burkas).
Julian Taylor – So anyone who disagrees with you should go away. You are a really tolerant fellow aren’t you – not to mention a very inelegant insult thrower? Just like that nasty racist Verity, and GCooper. Go way yourself if you don’t like my posts. As I said, Verity’s post was clearly racist in that she propsed treating people differently (worse) just because of their racial origins – that is the dictionary definition of racism.
I’m sure some psychiatrist could give us an insight into how Verity manages to combine her intolerant authoritarian instincts with a mysterious obsession with Waitrose. That’s not to say that Waitrose isn’t a very nice supermarket – on the rare occasions I go to a supermarket, it’s the one I choose.
Verity wrote,
Reuters state that “Another man spoke of a strange smell that seemed to be coming from a smoking bag on the train.” Maybe he had something nastier in his backpack than just a bomb.
Nice grouping though, I shall certainly raise a few to those 3 officers later on.
HJHJ – I see you’ve changed your email address (again). It was @waitrose before.
Interesting that Verity seems to relish so much the fact that someone has been shot dead.
The police may well have done the right thing in the circumstances, but at the time of posting we don’t know who this person was. It’s possible that they mistakenly got someone entirely innocent (which is not necessarily to criticise the police – they sometimes have to make split second judgements). Mistakes have happened before.
We just don’t have enough information yet and Verity’s blood thirstiness is inappropriate.
verity writes:
“HJHJ – I see you’ve changed your email address (again). ”
Let’s be grateful for small mercies. At least this time he’s confined his ravings to a single name. So far.
Yes, G Cooper. At least he hasn’t brought his imaginery playmates, all of whom share his obsessions and speak in his tone of voice, with him – yet. I wonder what the economist Bollo thinks of all this?
Enough of the ad hominim crap.
to quote HJHJ “Are now saying that your libertarianism doesn’t extend treating people equally regardless of religion?”
Isn’t that attitude the cause of the whole terrorist problems in the West, the idea that we must treat people equally even when they are not equal.
The West has mixed together cultures and peoples that not only aren’t equal, in some cased they actively hate each other. Multi-culturalism has created this problem, the world would be better if people who wanted to live a certain way did so in country A, and people who wanted to live another way lived in country B, Multi-culturalism has mixed al these opposing views together and has created chaos, and this is just the begining, welcome to Britain the new Balkans.
If I invented a new religion that suggested killing none believers you wouldnt argue for treating me ‘equally’ (nor if a member of the BNP did), and certainly shouldn’t. So why argue for it when it comes from other cultures? couldn’t be something to do with the multiculti obsession could it?
EG,
“Yes, it is wrong to murder, to cause explosions, and so on.”
Enuff said ! No “buts”.
But deeper than that, what is the moral standpoint of the west, upon what is it based, and why?
You need some course in western philosophy ?
How about the right to “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness ” for starters ?
Or do you wish to insinuate that maybe the Islamist posses some superior (or comparable) moral stanpoint which serves as basis for these atrocities ???
No, I think this is too simplistic a view. Morality is not about “this is wrong, period” – it is about “this is wrong, and here are the reasons why it is wrong.”
Well, for starters, that’s not a philosophy, it is a statement of an assumed right. Philosophy is where you explain the justification for assuming the right.
Western moral philosophy has a great many inputs, but the most important is arguably the synthesis of classical Stoicism with Jewish moral and theological thought, which as come down to us in the form of Christianity as it was modified by the Roman state in the fourth century. This tradition underpins most of the rest. The problem for the west is that non-Islamic religious view of morality is sneered at by the intelligentsia, and that any view of a western morality other than a selfish anything goes tends to be seen as divisive, elitist or old fashioned.
There is a view that sees Islam as as superior to the moral vacuity of the contemporary west. As I have commented before, I feel that the majority of people, whilst not necessarily wanting to be told what to think, nevertheless seek some form of external moral guidance. I know it is perfectly possible to derive a coherent secular morality from first principles, but most people can’t do it. In a similar way, most people aren’t interested in politics, but do know what sort of society they want even if they are not able to articulate it in so many words. They tend to look to leaders, whether spiritual or political, not for instructions but more for affirmation of their basic beliefs.
The problem – and I think it is a deadly serious problem – for the west is that it is not offering any such affirmation. Drug use, prostitution, abortion, divorce, homosexuality, selfish hedonism – none of these things are remotely frowned upon by the cultural opinion formers in the west. Whether you approve or disapprove of any of these things is not material, what matters is that the “official” cultural position appears to be not to have a position. Any lifestyle is acceptable.
This results in a culture that is seen by some as empty and devoid of moral guidance. If you consider this from the point of view of people brought up within a strict Moslem culture, the west does indeed appear by comparison to be decadent, corrupt and immoral. What is there in this contemporary west to persuade someone with a profound moral view of the world to change that view?
There is no alternative morality on offer in the west any longer. How can we expect anyone to shrug off their existing uncompromising moral code in favour of ours….when we do not have one to offer? Is it really surprising that a certain element of the Moslem population sees the harsh brand of fundamentalist Islam as attractive? Is it not easy to see that when firebrand mullahs speak to them of the degeneracy and decadance of the west, even the open-minded might look about him and concede that the man has a point? And is it not, therefore, unsurprising when the Moslem heeds the call to jihad, because everything else the mullah has told him really does seem to make perfect and obvious sense?
EG
Oh dear Verity – my email address is exactly the same one I have always used. Nothing to do with Waitrose. I can only assume that you are schizophrenic – probably one and the same person as GCooper (who, implausibly raves insanely, just like you, everywhere and yet accuses reasonable people of raving) and that you somehow imagine that everyone else is the same, hence your ridiculous assertions. Still, I suppose it’s easier than constructing a coherent argument. So is racism, come to think of it, hence its attraction to you.
Dave, what I’m referring to is the law. The alternative to the law treating everyone the same is to have some person ‘in authority’ deciding what laws are applicable to whom – the Nazis adopted this principle. Hardly libertarian. Of course, you are (and should be) treated differently if you transgress the law, but this should depend only on which law you transgressed and how badly – nothing else.
No HJHJ, Laws can be wrong. You can’t hold something up and say Law is Law as if we can’t question it.
I don’t propose ‘some person’ in authority decides what laws are applicable to who. A democratic government should decide laws, and they should do so based on reality not some abstract concept of equality, which is one big attempt of delusional moral equivalence.
There is a big difference between race and religion, you can’t choose your race, religion is a choice.
Btw: some persons ‘in authority’ already do decide which laws are applicable to whom, such as the way gypsies are able to get away with building on land other people can’t.
Ho chi minh has been in contact via my ouigee board. He says ‘good luck fighting against an ideology with guns!’. Maybe he has a point. If the west wants to fight religious fanaticism, perhaps we should start by making democracy work properly, by having a totally secular state which says ‘believe what you like, but you won’t get any special treatment and neither will the many people who believe differently from you’, by promoting self-reliance and punishing criminals etc.
In short, by making ‘our’ ideology the most attractive.
Yeah, there will always be a few fruitcakes who will want to blow things and people up, but we should be directing our resources at making ‘our’ society better, freer and richer rather than trying to stamp out the few fruitcakes by oppressing everyone.
Didn’t we have a recent fatwa against ad hominem posts?
The problem will come from the backlash in western society,not against Islam but against liberalism and the uncertainties it brings.There will be those who object to the perceived degradation of society, the chavs and the welfare scroungers as someone put it.What if a religion came along that would remedy all this? What if Islam were to be seen as the saviour of corrupt Western society.
We have a long way to go in this and the outcome is not at all certain.
I remind people again of the words of President Bush after 9/11: “This is a war that may take longer than our lifetimes.”
Peter, when chavs start blowing people up, I will start worrying about them. I suspect the trend towards secularism is so far past the point of unstoppable than I am not going to fret about that scenario all too much.
And as an unrelated point, just to remind everyone, as GCooper noted, I have issued a fatwa against ad hominim attacks. I will start deleting comments if I have to and that would be a pity.
Any lifestyle is acceptable.
This results in a culture that is seen by some as empty and devoid of moral guidance.
You jump here from topic to topic. ” Any lifestyle is acceptable.” is ok with me, as a MORAL principle (as long as you don’t hurt other people). It does not follow that the culture is “empty and devoid of moral guidance”. Moral guidance is more about what you should not do to others (like murder, fraud, theft), than about the life style you chose for yourself. I hold that all peaceful lifestyles might be acceptable, though not all are morally equal. I am not for murdering people because I don’t approve of their life styles, like Islam preaches. I don’t accept criticism of some lifestyles as a pretext for adopting a murderous ideology.
The Western society may be lacking in many ways, also in morals, and be far from perfect. It does not follow that extreme Islamism is better or “understandable” by any criterion whatsoever. So, your trying to be understanding and broad minded toward these atrocious acts is not justified. In the end, no matter what shortcomings western life styles have – Islamist life styles are worse by far.
Murder, and incitement to murder, for whatever reason, are totaly and absolutely wrong. There is no ambiguity about this, and we should say so without appending any “but”s to it.
I think it is reasonable to say that’s certainly how the Islamist feels.
Pace Perry, I don’t agree the trend of secularism is past some point of no return. Things change, often in surprising ways. There is no doubt that the secular liberal west has brought many great advances in prosperity, technology and so on, and it is quite true that the same society dominated by an oppressive religious outlook would not have come so far. But.
Another thing that changes is the moral nature of society. Sometimes it swings toward a prescriptive morality, sometimes to a laissez faire lack of morality. I think it has indeed swung a long way towards laissez faire and I think it will swing back, just as it has before. My point is that the west does not offer anything in the way of meaningful morality, but Islam does. The morality of Islam is harsh, but it is powerful and this, coupled with the weakness of the western morality, is the danger. Many people I have spoken to – Moslem, Christian and atheist – have made the same point: their standards may be odd and even brutally harsh but at least they have standards.
Islam will not defeat the west on the battlefield, but it is possible that it can defeat it in the hearts and minds of the people. Therefore, I contend, it is unwise to write it off as a backward brutalism.
EG
Dave, I’m a bit mystified about what your point is.
Yes, some laws are wrong. Did I say that laws shouldn’t be questioned?
You say: “There is a big difference between race and religion, you can’t choose your race, religion is a choice.”
Agreed. Can I ask what this has to do with ‘equality under the law’?
Yes, I concede that some laws are inconsistently applied to different parts of the population. This is undesirable.
There is some serious confusion in this thread about the nature of morality, and the purpose of a widely held moral code by members of a society. A few comments about these issues.
From time immemorial, morality was dictated by whoever had assumed a leadership role in a particular culture. Thus, Egyptian morality revolved around the Pharoah and the priests, other cultures has codes promulgated by various god-kings or prophets.
Hammurabic, Mosaic, Roman, Papal, Napoleonic, Mayan, Islamic, socialist, fundamentalist, Confucian, and the list goes on. Thousands of cultures—thousands of moral codes—some required human sacrifice, some approved cannibalism, most all approved slavery until recently, but the common theme, contrary to dewey eyed romantics claim of the golden rule, was that they were dictated by an authority which could not be challenged.
As an isolated tribe of a few hundred in some remote jungle might have an all inclusive code of behavior and belief, with every possible situation circumscribed by a web of taboos against and requirements for, so the theocratic Islamofascists attempt to graft the strict moral codes of small tribes and villages onto a world culture.
They are not the only ones who wish this, of course, but they are the ones at this point who have declared war on anyone outside their “tribe”. If one does not agree to live in the Caliphate and abide by its rules, the punishment is death.
I have heard the complaint that western culture is devoid of moral principles all my life. Invariably, it is stated by someone who is offended by the fact that everyone doesn’t abide by their strict code of rules. These rules are often religiously based, but may also be secular, as are the rigid marxist cultures, or the morality of the deep green or animal worshipper.
In all cases, the complaint is that we enjoy ourselves too much, and don’t deny ourselves enough in deference to this or that deity, or the needs of the volk, or the requiements of the Party, or the earth, or nature. Always, the focus of morality is somewhere else, in the “other”, never in humans in and of themselves.
Are there many examples of behavior and belief in western culture that are gross, debauched, desolute, and uncultivated? Yes, of course. Contrary to the criticism usually levelled against it, this is not a sign of immorality, but rather a sign of a minimalist set of basic principles which is fitting for a world culture, not a closed village or small paternalistic clan.
Even in the west, this conflict is still being played out. There are any number of sects, religious and secular, which would love to impose their itemized list of rules about everything people do, say, or think. It is only the necessity that they convince their fellow citizens to agree in an open debate that prevents even more lunatic damage than has already been done.
A moral code which demands it be imposed on all by a few, and prohibits any discussion or debate is, in fact, the bankrupt and immoral code which we face in this conflict.
In a 21st century world, it is the moral position which states that others may live their lives as they see fit, with certain minimal constraints, that is legitimate. It is the code that claims it may control everything for everyone that is debased.
HJHJ: Can I ask what this has to do with ‘equality under the law’?
Sure, your race is not a choice and therefor the Law should treat different races equally no questions asked, unless there is a very specific problem (such as being at war or something).
Religion is a choice based on faith and moral values, the Law should not treat all religions the same it needs to judge differently based on what those values are.
I think its rather childish to hold up our hands and say “everyone is equal” without considering whether or not that is actually true.
Dave, you have a point. Is Voodoo, and all its derivatives, equal to Christianity? Buddhism? Judaism? No. It’s horrendous.
BTW, could we get rid of this much-promoted notion that islam is just the latest of the Abrahamaic tradition? Bullshit. It rejects Judaism – calling Jewish people sons of monkeys and pigs – well, I guess that’s familial, depending on your family – and calling for their deaths. Let us rid ourselves of these sly words. They are not the last religion in the Abrahamaic tradition because they are not in the Abrahamaic tradition. Just because they’re from the same neck of the woods as Judaism and Christianity doesn’t give them territorial rights as a more advanced form of these two sophisticated and interrelated faiths.
It is appalling the way that the Aztec community has been denigrated and sidelined,of all the faiths surely the one most related to Bomberdom.Somewhat like High Anglican to the low church.
Is it not much better to dispatch those chosen for sacrifce atop a splendid step pyramid with all due ceremony rather than,the prosaic blowing them to pieces on a London bus?
Too many of the old traditions have disappeared in Blairs Nu Britia,let us welcome the colourful Aztec traditionalist to our shores they can but enrich our deaths.
Peter, given that the Aztecs used to sacrifice, by cutting the still beating heart out, two or three people every day (more for special occasions), it might be quite a good idea to import a few traditionalists and point them at Muslim self-imposed ghettoes. Tony Blair would react like a chameleon placed on a plaid. Tee hee.
Verity,
Interesting you should mention Tony,”All things to all persons”Blair,but the Aztec priest used to flay the skin off victims and wear it. Sound familiar?
God luck fighting against the Great Satan, period.
And I’m not talking about the armed forces, either (although that’s a no-win situation right there).
I’m talking about fighting against Western culture, Western values and Western attitudes.
All the fundamentalist Islamists HAVE is violence, because they’ve already lost the battle of the minds.
Remember, just before the 9/11 hijackers set out, they spent the night at a strip joint.
The West has mixed together cultures and peoples that not only aren’t equal, in some cased they actively hate each other. Multi-culturalism has created this problem, the world would be better if people who wanted to live a certain way did so in country A, and people who wanted to live another way lived in country B, Multi-culturalism has mixed al these opposing views together and has created chaos, and this is just the begining, welcome to Britain the new Balkans.
“How interesting that the Germans, when they were an economic giant, handled the importation of Turks so much more intelligently. “Guest workers” meant: come here, make money, which we will be more than happy to allow you to take home with you (because you will be going home)”
Well, the Arab nations do the same too with Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Nepali and Filipino workers.
As for Clash of Civilsation. Nothing new in that. Hasn’t it always been around?