Weren’t you the one claiming that economic success was not a valid measurement? Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and even Syria are quite prepared to embrace capitalism–even with its interest on capital. Do you have any evidence that Nigeria, for example, is experiencing its current turmoil as a reaction against capitalist values?
I am not aware of any Islamic support for xenophobia, for example. None of the countries I have just mentioned has a particular tradition of xenophobia. If they are moving away from the cultural violence of Nigeria, (as they certainly seem to be), where are we to find this “Islamic” issue?
Islam “took hold” of the entire Middle East–and led it to outshine Europe in education, arts, science, and tolerance for 900 years or so. The troubles we see, now, are nearly all rooted in the collapse of a central political empire, the intervention of colonial powers, and the Cold War. And the non-Islamic countries that suffered the same fates tend to suffer the same crises, today.
Marginal, yes, but influential beyond thier numbers, due to circumstances. When the country is divided as evenly as it is, the Republicans are utterly dependent on the Xtian right to deliver the one-issue voters: people who vote against abortion, for instance, regardless of the candidates stand on other issues.
The Falwell-Robertson Axis of Weevils may only represent 5% of the American public, but when more than half of us lazy chucklewits don’t even vote (don’t get me started!), that is enough to tip the balance.
As a result, the Bushistas have a big tab to settle, which they are trying to pay off with paltry measures like the “partial birth abortion” ban, as they have no hope whatever of reversing twenty years of social change by fiat.
As a person whose views are, shall we say, somewhat left of center, I hope for nothing more happy a circumstance than a charismatic, young, sexy, eloquent spokesman for the loony right to eclipse these smarmy old Baptists and lead a third party movement. Away from the secular Pubbies.
And there will be great weeping, and gnashing of teeth…
“overarching ideology of Islam provides a much more effective cloak for extremists than rival belief systems”
Evidence? I have already given the example of Sri Lanka where the LTTE has killed thousands of people in the last couple of decades on an island of less than 20 million people. So it would seem that Tamil ethnic nationalism is just as potent a tool of violent extremism as Islamic fundamentalism. Many similar examples can be given in Rwanda, Bosnia, etc.
As for the Christian right saying that they are not as powerful as the Wahabbis is very far from saying they are “marginal”. Besides AFAIK apart from Iran and Saudi Arabia, such powerful theological interference is not that common in major Muslim countries. Certainly not in Egypt,Syria, Iraq, Malaysia or Indonesia.
You might try reading my posts a little more carefully. I rejected the idea that economic growth should be taken as the sole indicator of a society’s health.
Point taken on their willingness to embrace some form of capital, but could you provide a cite on these countries’ willingness to allow interest? As far as I know, these countries still take strictures against ursury quite seriously, thereby necessitating the concept of “Islamic finance”–which is OK as far as it goes, but might still render these countries relatively uncompetitive versus countries that don’t have such requirements.
Again, you’re reading stuff into my posts that I simply didn’t say. I am not as familiar as I’d like to be on the Nigerian situation, but nothing I’ve seen so far contradicts my thesis that Islamic ideology provides cover for all sorts of extremism–be it anti-capitalist or ethnic in nature.
Send me a postcard from the holy city Mecca, next time you’re in town.
No argument here. But that was a time in which the Islamic world–and the Confucian world, and the Japanese world, and the Mesoamerican world–could afford to flourish in varying degrees of splendid isolation. What’s been happening in the past half milennium as all these cultures have been squeezed together on an ever-shrinking world stage?
Well, that’s one thesis. But if by “troubles” you mean endemic terrorism and widespread ethnic and factional murder, why don’t you see the same problems in the wake of the Spanish and Portugeuse empires in Latin America, or the Japanese/German empires in Northeast Asia and the Pacific?
One doesn’t exclude the other. But as you said yourself, that’s an incidence of ethnic nationalism. Could the Tamil Tigers use their nationalism as a cover to export terrorism anywhere outside of Sri Lanka, as al Queda have used Islam to carry their cause out to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, and elsewhere?
“One doesn’t exclude the other”
I think the point is that ethnic chauvinism has proved just as effective an ideological tool to motivate killings as Islamic extremist contrary to what you seem to be saying.
Your other point about the geographic spread of Islamic extremism compared to Tamil or Hutu chauvinism is correct which of course reflects the fact that Muslims are much more widespread. But since each corner of the Third World seems to have its own brand of extremist ideology that doesn’t make so big a difference .Also in terms of the human suffering created the number of deaths is far more important the geographic spread. So for example the Hutus killed 600,000+ Tutsis in a few months which was vastly more than all the Islamic extremists combined over the last few decades. In other words even without global reach the Hutu extremists killed far more people than their Islamic counterparts which seems to indicate that their ideology was even more violent.
So just because some Muslims extremists co-operate with each other or kill Westerners doesn’t , by itself , make them worse than other Third World extremists who often kill far more people. It just makes them more prominent in the Western media which ,in turn, gives people like you and Sam Stone the wrong impression that the Muslim world is uniquely violent or “dysfunctional” compared to the rest of the Third World.
How would you characterize ethnic chauvanism as an “ideological tool”? I had the impression that ethnic chauvanism was more of an unarticulated sentiment: “get off our land”. I submit that the danger of a true ideology like Islam is that it legitimizes and rationalizes otherwise unjustifiable ethnicity-based demands: “get off our land, you dirty heathen, in the name of Allah!” If the Europeans of the Middle Ages didn’t have a particularly combative interpretation of Christianity backing them up, for example, how could they have rationalized the naked pursuit of land and treasure represented by the Crusades?
And this could apply to any ideology from Volk und Fuhrer to “Proletarians of the World Unite”! But those belief systems have been discredited, and Christianity has been tamed by Western secularism for the most part–a few pockets of violence like Lebanon and the Ivory Coast notwithstanding. But Islam has the old fires still burning–and is there any global ideology left in the world with that kind of power?
Well, drawing an analogy with disease, let me ask you this: which affliction would you be more worried about encountering in your everyday life–AIDS, or the Ebola virus? Ebola seems to be much more virulent and deadly on an individual basis and (for the sake of argument) let’s say that it has killed many more people than AIDS. But because HIV is a rapidly-spreading, largely hidden virus with worldwide reach, it represents a much greater threat to world stability than extremely deadly, but extremely localized diseases like Ebola. By the same token, maybe the contained savagery of the Hutus shouldn’t be viewed as a threat quite on the level of a stealthy and worldwide infiltration of Islamist radicals.
But the dysfunctionality of the Muslim extremists lies in the fact to their reaction to the outside, largely Western or Westernized world. And for the reasons I gave above, I’d argue that they represent a much greater threat both to the West and to the native populations that they come to influence.
I am saying that societies and cultures grow through progressive stages and that the level of development has a bearing on how violence will manifest itself in any situation. Given that the European society from which the current North American society sprang is several hundreds of years old while the specific Nigerian culture that was forcibly created by colonial powers is much younger, it does not strike me as too far out of the ordinary that one can find murderous mobs of rioters from among the impoverished in Nigeria in 2002, just as one can find murderous mobs of rioters from among the impoverished in the U.S. in the late 1990s–and murderous mobs among the dominant population in the U.S. as recently as 1943). The difference of 100 years when comparing cultures or societies is similar to days among people.
By troubles, I meant an inherent instability, one manifestation of which could be terrorism, although there are other ways that such instability shows itself. The Ottoman Empire survived for hundreds of years and its collapse left an enormous void in the social structure of the entire region. The German and Japanese empires were mere interruptions of short duration in societies that had long histories of their own. As to the Spanish and Portuguese empires, the vast majority of the countries that they left behind are still struggling for various levels of stability–and Spain began retreating over 180 years ago. Do you suggest that Peru, Ecuador, Columbia, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Argentina have suffered no terrorism or disruption? Does Brazil stand out as a country in which massacres are nonexistent?
“I had the impression that ethnic chauvanism was more of an unarticulated sentiment: “get off our land””
You keep saying you have the “impression” or “it seems” without backing it up with any evidence. That seems to be your formula for making grand pronoucements about things you don’t know much about. Now why don’t you provide actual evidence that ethnic chauvinism isn’t an “ideology” and just a “sentiment” whatever that means?
“If the Europeans of the Middle Ages didn’t have a particularly combative interpretation of Christianity backing them up, for example, how could they have rationalized the naked pursuit of land and treasure represented by the Crusades?”
Your question answers itself: the “naked pursuit of land and treasure” is sufficient motivation. How did the Mongols, Vandals,Huns, Goths etc rationalionize their attacks on various civilizations? Are you seriously trying to tell me that religion is a necessary condition for the pursuit of “land and treasure”.
“let’s say that it has killed many more people than AIDS”
Ah but there is the crucial difference. Islamic fundamentalism hasn’t killed more people than other Third World ideologies so your comparison doesn’t apply. In any case I would say that the more dangerous disease is that kills more people.
“But the dysfunctionality of the Muslim extremists lies in the fact to their reaction to the outside, largely Western or Westernized world”
But apart from rare cases like the Taliban the Islamic world as a whole is not really much more closed to the West than the Third World as a whole. Many Arab countries, for instance, have been influenced by Western ideologies like nationalism. They trade with the West and many of their elite are educated in the West. Iranian film-makers like Abbas Kiarostami are celebrated throughout the world.How is the Islamic world in this respect worse than sub-Saharan Africa?
CHAUVANISM AND IDEOLOGY ARE NOT THE SAME THING, DUMBASS.
Main Entry: chau·vin·ism
Pronunciation: 'shO-v&-"ni-z&m
Function: noun
Etymology: French chauvinisme, from Nicolas Chauvin, character noted for his excessive patriotism and devotion to Napoleon in Théodore and Hippolyte Cogniard’s play La Cocarde tricolore (1831)
Date: 1851
1 : excessive or blind patriotism – compare JINGOISM
2 : undue partiality or attachment to a group or place to which one belongs or has belonged
Main Entry: ide·ol·o·gy
Pronunciation: "I-dE-'ä-l&-jE, "i-
Variant(s): also ide·al·o·gy /-'ä-l&-jE, -'a-/
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -gies
Etymology: French idéologie, from idéo- ideo- + -logie -logy
Date: 1813
1 : visionary theorizing
2 a : a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture b : a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture c : the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program One is an irrational sentiment, another is a systematic body of thought. Jesus H. Christ, is it really necessary for me to have to turn to a fucking dictionary to show you that you’ve confused two different ideas?
I apologize to the mods and acknowledge that the word “dumbass” is out of place, but God DAMN I hate it when people are deliberately obtuse.
{deep breath}
OK, now then . . .
No, but it often serves as a catalyst for otherwise latent tensions. Moreover, and more dangerously, ideology has the ability to unite otherwise unrelated pockets of tribal jingoism. Again, this is why al Quaeda cells can find a foothold in regions ranging from Indonesia to Afghanistan, whereas purely ethnic–not ideological–movements like the Tamils and the Hutus are stuck in their own respective corners of the world.
I don’t think you understood my analogy. Ebola:AIDS as Hutus:Radical Islam. I was arguing that even if radical Islam has not killed as many people, it still represents the greater threat to world stability.
But Western inspired movements like Nassarism are on their last legs, leaving a void for radical Islam to fill.
You raise good points regarding the Spanish and Japanese empires, and those were weak examples on my part. Nonetheless, I still hold the view that different regions of the world have undergone wrenching transitions on the same level as the former Ottoman empire without a violent, regionwide ideology inevitably arising to exploit that transition. Many references have been made in this thread to sub-Saharan Africa, where the different tribal societies have been upturned and raped at least as cruelly as anywhere in the Mideast. But why don’t we see upholders of the African cause crashing airplanes into North American buildings or blowing up tourist destinations in Southeast Asia? I’d submit that it comes down to a lack of a common ideology either uniting Africa itself or allowing its radicals to export their thought outside the region.
So to address the role of Islam: societies in transition provide fertile ground for radical ideologies to take hold, but a particular radical ideology cannot be said to be the inevitable result of a particular region’s historical background. When a worldwide ideology like Islam is injected into the region, this stands to spread its instability across the entire globe.
Doghouse,
“CHAUVANISM AND IDEOLOGY ARE NOT THE SAME THING, DUMBASS.” Sigh You are not very bright are you? Notice we are talking about ethnic chauvinsim. And notice that ethnicity is usually associated with “a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture” which is your own defintion of ideology.
In any case why is the presence of “ideology” so important. Even if the Hutu extremists didn’t have an ideology that doesn’t lessen the horror of the 600,000 people they killed. In other words a “sentiment” that kills hundreds of thousands of people is more dangerous than an ideology that kills tens of thousands.
“Moreover, and more dangerously, ideology has the ability to unite otherwise unrelated pockets of tribal jingoism”
Again if the total number of people killed by the united ideology is less than the different “tribal jingoisms” why is it more dangerous? Also the geographical spread of the “ideology” means it will receive more opposition. So precisely because Islamic fundamentalism has taken on the West means that it will fought harder and is therefore less likely to succeed making it less dangerous than various tribal jingoisms.
“I was arguing that even if radical Islam has not killed as many people, it still represents the greater threat to world stability.”
But AIDS is considered the worse disease because it has killed more than ebola. So your analogy makes no sense unless you can show that Islamic fundamentalism has killed more people.
“But why don’t we see upholders of the African cause crashing airplanes into North American buildings or blowing up tourist destinations in Southeast Asia?”
Perhaps because the US intervenes much more forcefully in the Middle East than it does in Sub-Saharan Africa?
Besides you still seem to have the curious notion that ideologies that kill Westerners are especially bad as if the lives of individual Westerners are worth more than their Third World counterparts. A more sensible criterion is the amount of suffering that an ideology produces, regardless of its location, by which criterion Islamic fundamentalism is by no means the worst. Not to mention the fact that the Islamic world is much more than Islamic fundamentalism. Even the problems of the Islamic world have often nothing to do with Islamic fundamentalism.
In any event the bottom line is that you haven’t shown that the Islamic world is any more “dysfunctional” than the Third World as a whole. All you have done is to define “dysfunctional” arbitrarily to fit the qualities of Islamic extremism better than other extremisms. When you get to make up your own defintions you can prove anything you like but I am not sure what the point is.
Well, it is certainly true that when Christianity was injected into most regions of the globe it brought instability.
Up until a very few years ago, we saw no Muslims doing this, either. It is not as though this has been a pattern of behavior throughout the history of Islam.
We are now looking at a specific group (al Qaida) that has been able to manipulate a few adherents to Islam (and provide funds to them) to begin a specific set of terrorist acts. Certainly al Qaida has effectively used their Islamist connection to recruit new members. I think it would be silly to deny that. bin Laden has been very effective in conveying his own religious zealotry in a message that resonates among some other Muslims. On the other hand, he has failed to bring the entire Muslim world to its feet to strive against the West; he has succeeded only in attracting a limited number of fanatics to his cause. He has the wealth and the organizational skills to enable him to wield that small group as a fierce weapon, but he been unable to get the Egyptians, Syrians, Iraqis, or even his own Saudis to rise up and cast off their “secular chains” and install true Muslim governments in their countres. I see no reason to project some inherent aspect of Islam onto that situation. We never saw Christians do the same things–but Christianity has never been in the position of being the single link across half the Third World. What in Christianity would have prevented a similar small group of zealots from recruiting members from quite disparate regions if the situations were reversed? If there was a leader out there with the funds and organizational skills to unite the various paramilitary groups to enlarge upon the limited terrorism of bank robberies and harrassment that they committed through the 80s and 90s, would we then say that it was an inherent aspect of Christianity to be violent in that way?
Oh, ethnic chauvinism! Ethnic chauvinism!! Of course! :smack: What was I thinking?!
I’m typing real slowly now, Cyberpundit, in case you miss anything . . . you have not shown a glimmer of understanding of the points I raised in my previous posts, and up to now I have ascribed this (rather charitably, in retrospect) to deliberate obtuseness. Now, I’m not so sure.
You are wasting my time if you’re not willing to try to understand what I’m writing, or–at the very least–stop putting words in my mouth for which you have no support whatsoever. “Lives of individual Westerners are worth more than their Third World counterparts” indeed.
But have it your way. I’ve never read Samuel Huntington or organizational theory and I’m simply making up definitions as I go along. More power to ya, Cyberpundit.
