# Well, well ... has Tony Blair become a delusional Islamophobe bigot like me? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 22, 2011, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-well-has-tony-blair-become-a-delusional-islamophobe-bigot-like-me/568595 "2011-01-22T20:12:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-well-has-tony-blair-become-a-delusional-islamophobe-bigot-like-me/568595/141 "2011-01-24T17:47:37Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I assumed it was “Taqiyya”, the word he was “admonished” for in post #89. Eh, you’re right. I’d forgotten about that. For those unaware, “Taqiyya” is a Shia practice which allows Shia Muslims to conceal their religious beliefs for their own safety which many Islamophobes have made into something really sinister. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-well-has-tony-blair-become-a-delusional-islamophobe-bigot-like-me/568595/142 "2011-01-24T17:59:32Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > So Iran has no problems in Sistan or Khuzistan or in Kurdish area where tens of thousands of Iranians soldiers are not engaged in IS Duties? Furthermore Iran does not have a large security apparatus which is engaged in clamping down on any dissent. Tell me, does the Iranian opposition have rallies? Or is Iran even allowed an opposition? > > And what political leader from Pakistan has been executed since the fall of the Shah, Bhutto was before the Shah’s fall. > > Stick to what you actually know (which on evidence seems to be quite a lot) and not what you have heard second hand > > So kindly refrain from pretending you have knowledge on the subject when you clearly do not and I meant to type “assassinated” not executed. As for Khuzistan and the Khurdish areas, yes Iran has seperatist movements, but they’re hardly much of a threat(in fact Turkey, the UK, and Spain have far more problems with independence movements) and Iranian government has far more control over those areas than Pakistan has over their’s. Anyway, considering how many of Pakistan’s governments have collapsed over the past few decades I’m not sure how you can possibly think that Khamenei is in more danger of falling than Pakistan’s current government. Honestly, and this isn’t meant as an insult, I’m genuinely curious why you’re so sure that Pakistan is more stable than Iran because whatever problems Iran has, Pakistan’s seem far more serious as Musharraf can attest to. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-well-has-tony-blair-become-a-delusional-islamophobe-bigot-like-me/568595/143 "2011-01-24T18:01:41Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > For those unaware, “Taqiyya” is a Shia practice which allows Shia Muslims to conceal their religious beliefs for their own safety which many Islamophobes have made into something really sinister. Use of the term a brilliant bit of cherrypicking and facilitation of confirmation bias. If you express extreme beliefs then you’re one of them, and if you express moderate ones you’re a liar. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. It’s a fantastically dishonest tactic. The problem is, **Valteron** actually appears to believe it. Reminds me of another poster here, from a while back, called **Gum** , who was similarly paranoid. No amount of honest discourse will persuade him because he appears to be in the realm of delusion. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-well-has-tony-blair-become-a-delusional-islamophobe-bigot-like-me/568595/144 "2011-01-24T18:02:34Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > … (a) disease is not genocide, but an unfortunate result of biology. Native Americans had no immunity to many diseases from the old world and those diseases would have decimated them when the two worlds came in contact regardless of religion. I think this is a fair point. Although the motivation of the Conquistadores was rather dressed up in religious terms derived from the infamous Reconquista (and its charming oppression of non-Christians). > [@](#): > > (b) The Catholic Church [opposed](http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Paul03/p3subli.htm) the establishment of slavery in the Americas. It seems to me that the Catholic clergy opposed slavery to the extent it got in the way of conversion. It is not as if the Church had a great record of opposing slavery as such, or opposing forced conversion or torturing to death non Christians (Ahem Reconquista, Inquisition) > [@](#): > > (c) Many Native Americans who were victims of aggression were Christians. For instance, the most famous example of expulsion in the USA was the Trail of Tears, and the Cherokees who were forced to move to Oklahoma were Christian. Isn’t that rather besides the point? The Americans clearly didn’t consider them ‘real Christians’ worthy of brotherhood etc. > [@](#): > > (d) I am told over and over that America was definitely not ever intended to be a Christian nation and that we’ve quite certainly had a secular government from the start, so how can government policy be blamed on Christians? This seems to me besides the point, I don’t see that Der Trihs blamed the American government as such (although even if he did, it doesn’t hold that it’s not an example of Christians doing bad if, as was clearly the case, some ideology ostensibly deriving from or referencing Christianity motivated actions). ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-well-has-tony-blair-become-a-delusional-islamophobe-bigot-like-me/568595/145 "2011-01-24T19:56:20Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > The indigenous North Americans suffered massive population loss due to European disease and warfare. The Europeans, on a number of occasions, expressed the desire to convert those people to Christianity as a reason to invade the continent. “Christian” societies were in the habit of removing children from their parents to raise them in “Christian” schools as late as the 1950s. I have always thought this was a distinctly Anglo-Saxon practice. Did it occur in Latin America as well (I mean during the colonisation. I know various dictatures in Latin America used it with the children of killed political opponents)? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-well-has-tony-blair-become-a-delusional-islamophobe-bigot-like-me/568595/146 "2011-01-24T20:09:06Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > I have always thought this was a distinctly Anglo-Saxon practice. Did it occur in Latin America as well (I mean during the colonisation. I know various dictatures in Latin America used it with the children of killed political opponents)? Mass slaughter and Christianization in the Americans was practically invented by the Spanish Empire. If anything, the English - not the “Anglo-Saxons” - learned the tricks of the trade from the Spanish. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-well-has-tony-blair-become-a-delusional-islamophobe-bigot-like-me/568595/147 "2011-01-24T20:16:04Z")
No, I meant taking the children in settler/Christian families. It is a specific practice. I’m not certain the Spanish used that one, hence my question. It was used regularly in Anglo-Saxon countries though (I mean by that the Americas, and Australia. Not certain about New Zealand). ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-well-has-tony-blair-become-a-delusional-islamophobe-bigot-like-me/568595/148 "2011-01-25T02:28:22Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > If I wanted to nitpick I could complain that **Der Trihs** used “genocide” as a verb when it’s actually a noun. On more substantial issues: (a) disease is not genocide, but an unfortunate result of biology. Native Americans had no immunity to many diseases from the old world and those diseases would have decimated them when the two worlds came in contact regardless of religion. (b) The Catholic Church [opposed](http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Paul03/p3subli.htm) the establishment of slavery in the Americas. (c) Many Native Americans who were victims of aggression were Christians. For instance, the most famous example of expulsion in the USA was the Trail of Tears, and the Cherokees who were forced to move to Oklahoma were Christian. (d) I am told over and over that America was definitely not ever intended to be a Christian nation and that we’ve quite certainly had a secular government from the start, so how can government policy be blamed on Christians? There are several instances in which we have documents by the participants regarding the spread of smallpox by distributing infected blankets among them. However, most the the genocide was carried out through actual conquest and warfare, (hence my inclusion of the word warfare), or by depriving through warfare the indigenous people of lands needed for farming in the East or hunting among the nomads of the West. The Catholic Church was not a major player in North America outside Mexico, (and you specified the continent, not the hemisphere). That the native peoples often converted to Christianity hardly changes any statement by Der Trihs. That the U.S. is not a Chrsitian nation does not change the fact that the European invaders in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico were Christian and they often carried out their various activities under a banner of proselytization and conversion. I agree that the statement from Der Trihs is extremely broad and is open to challenge on various points, but as a generaliztion it is still holding up pretty well compared to your attempt to simply deny it. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-well-has-tony-blair-become-a-delusional-islamophobe-bigot-like-me/568595/149 "2011-01-25T02:41:21Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > There are several instances in which we have documents by the participants regarding the spread of smallpox by distributing infected blankets among them. I don’t think it’s wrong to use the term genocide to describe what happened to the Native Americans, but I thought the stories of Europeans deliberately infecting Native Americans with smallpox-infected blankets had been discredited. Didn’t the Germ theory of disease never even get developed until the late 19th Century? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-well-has-tony-blair-become-a-delusional-islamophobe-bigot-like-me/568595/150 "2011-01-25T02:50:50Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > I don’t think it’s wrong to use the term genocide to describe what happened to the Native Americans, but I thought the stories of Europeans deliberately infecting Native Americans with smallpox-infected blankets had been discredited. Cecil [wrote a column](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1088/did-whites-ever-give-native-americans-blankets-infected-with-smallpox) on the subject as it happens. > [@](#): > > ``` > P.S. I will try to inocculate the Indians by means of Blankets that may fall in their hands, taking care however not to get the disease myself. As it is pity to oppose good men against them, I wish we could make use of the Spaniard's Method, and hunt them with English Dogs. Supported by Rangers, and some Light Horse, who would I think effectively extirpate or remove that Vermine. > > ``` > > On July 16 Amherst replied, also in a postscript: > > ``` > P.S. You will Do well to try to Innoculate the Indians by means of Blanketts, as well as to try Every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race. I should be very glad your Scheme for Hunting them Down by Dogs could take Effect, but England is at too great a Distance to think of that at present. > > ``` > [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Didn’t the Germ theory of disease never even get developed until the late 19th Century? They had some ideas on how to spread disease long before the Germ Theory; the idea of using contaminated things to spread disease is very old. Using catapults to toss rotting carcasses into a besieged city in hopes of starting a plague for example. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-well-has-tony-blair-become-a-delusional-islamophobe-bigot-like-me/568595/151 "2011-02-03T10:17:23Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > That is interesting, because it is the Blair government that allowed massive Muslim immigration to Britain in the past. The increasing demands for Sharia law in Britain, the no-go areas in British cities where infidels dare not set foot, home-grown terrorists like the shoe bomber, the growing resistance movements like the English Defence League and its counterparts in Europe, are all the result of politically correct potliticians in the past 20 years who insisted that anyone who dared to say that Islam was not just a religion like the others were ignorant bigots. What do you suppose changed old Tony right around 180 degrees? I’d like to point out that this poster has apparently crossed over from some dystopian alternative universe UK and that little or nothing stated here as fact are anything else but the standard wild rantings of our own tiny group of fascists. ---
**Author:** ![bannerrefugee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c68b51/32.png) [@bannerrefugee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bannerrefugee)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-well-has-tony-blair-become-a-delusional-islamophobe-bigot-like-me/568595/152 "2011-02-03T11:44:55Z")
Is there any mention of the Shaw or the the 1953 coup in this thread at all? I searched it and could find no mention of Shaw or the year. Seems like that would be pretty important. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-well-has-tony-blair-become-a-delusional-islamophobe-bigot-like-me/568595/153 "2011-02-03T12:05:54Z")
Yes, it’s mentioned. Search for “Shah”. Or just read the whole thread. ---
**Author:** ![bannerrefugee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c68b51/32.png) [@bannerrefugee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bannerrefugee)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-well-has-tony-blair-become-a-delusional-islamophobe-bigot-like-me/568595/154 "2011-02-03T12:13:07Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Yes, it’s mentioned. Search for “Shah”. Or just read the whole thread. MMM Yes I see that and why it is hard to find. ---
**Author:** ![bannerrefugee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c68b51/32.png) [@bannerrefugee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bannerrefugee)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-well-has-tony-blair-become-a-delusional-islamophobe-bigot-like-me/568595/155 "2011-02-03T12:19:47Z")
The same 4 hits I got with Shaw. Thanks for the digression. The dope at it’s finest And still no discussion of it. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-well-has-tony-blair-become-a-delusional-islamophobe-bigot-like-me/568595/156 "2011-02-03T13:14:22Z")
I honestly don’t understand what your point is. You asked if the Shah or the 1953 coup had been mentioned in this thread. I said “yes”. There are also mentions of the Shah and the coup in other current threads, most notably in the “[Will Egypt Have an Iran-Style Revolution](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=595150&highlight=shah)”, “[Ronald Reagan’s Legacy](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=595150&highlight=shah)” and "[Will Tunisian revolution inspire actions in other nations"](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=593136&highlight=shah) threads. Are you saying we should be mentioning it more? Less? Differently? If there’s something you feel we’re not covering, you are of course welcome to either mention it yourself in a relevant thread or start a whole new thread. Cursing the darkness may be more satisfying than lighting a single candle but it still leaves you in the dark. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-well-has-tony-blair-become-a-delusional-islamophobe-bigot-like-me/568595.md?page=7)