What do al-quieda actually want?

Certainly is. Attaturk is "Father" of the Nation, and the original "Young Turk".
Islam, like Christianity, is an aggressive expansionist monotheist religion. That said Muslims and Jews lived alongside each other in relative harmony for many hundreds of years. Hatred, fear and distrust of Christians was one thing they shared.
Atrocities and incredible barbarities have been committed and still are in the names of the Prophet and Jesus. Does this make the religions themselves bad, or the people who perpetrate these crimes bad...
I'm planning to become the first deMissionary to Africa and hope to bring all those excellent animist beliefs "back home". My tree spirit needs a new home; it's kind of cramped in the boot of the Skyline.

 

Graham C and Joel,

Yes, Turkey is technically a secular state but the vast majority of it's citizens are Muslims so in the sense that almost everyone I met there was a Muslim it is a "muslim" country for the purposes of this discussion. It's prime minister Recep Erdogan is also the leader of the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AK) which won a landslide victory in the 2002 elections.

Michael.

 

merlin, here are some quotes from your earlier posts:

I don't see how the above can be interpreted any other way than that you view all Arabs (ie, the race of Arabs) as "people with nothing but hate in their minds", full of "hatred of the western ideals", "incapable of living peacefully" and having a "hatred of Judaism".

You're not singling out extremists or talking about a minority you're making fairly strong derrogatory comments about an entire race as if those things were intrinsic properties of that race. I call that racism.

Then about Islam:

You're clealy trying to portray Islam as a religion based on violence and that violent "holy war" against non-muslims is an integral part of the religion. Those kinds of completely incorrect views (often repeated by such bastions of tolerance as the Daily Mail) unfortunately do a great deal of harm to the reputation of Muslims and it's not surprising that a many Westerners have an image of all Muslims as violent, potential terrorists at heart.

The term Jihad has now been so massively misrepresented in the West that there really is little hope of getting most Westerners to understand it's true meaning which is about the struggle with one's inner self. Literally, it means, "exertion" or "to struggle". It means spiritual warfare, to battle with one's own demons in order to give oneself over to God, in order to place oneself in "the arms of the wind". It's aim is very similar to the path to "enlightenment" sought by Bhuddists through meditation. The term has unfortunately been grotesquely perverted by some extremists to include a "holy war" against infidels.

In answer to your questions, I don't know which post you are referring to but if it's the quote about the history of Islam then, no, it is not factually correct, as I've just pointed out above. You talk about "stating historic facts". You know as well as I do that it's very easy to make "historic facts" take on whatever slant you want them to. It's very difficult indeed to write a truly unbiased account of any historical event. I've no doubt that you could find any number of anti-Semitic websites which have a "factual" history of the Jews and Judaism that would portray Jews in a very poor light indeed without actually making any statements that were factually incorrect. The thing is, it's the whole truth that counts, not just the bits that support your argument.

To your other question "Why butcher 14 year old Buddhists in the name of faith ?", it's not really particularly relevant to this discussion. The vast majority of wars in human history have been about faith and religion. People kill other people in the name of faith. It happens all the time (sadly). It's not really constructive to the discussion to pick out one emotive example that happens to be about Muslims killing Buddhists.

Michael.

 

Sid & Coke, I didn't dispute what you posted nor did I call you a racists (or try to imply it). As Ian has pointed out, Saudi Arabia is run to the lines of a particularly unpleasant and extremist version of Islam which is utterly unrepresentative of Islam as a whole. So, saying "Muslims tolerant? Try taking a Bible to Saudi mate" isn't helpful.

In the same way I wouldn't say "Catholics tolerant? What was the Spanish Inquisition all about then?" because that's not really representative of Catholics as a whole.

Just to add, I am not a follower of any organized religion. I find the idea of organized religion unhelpfu, not to mention that organized religion has been the major cause for large majority of the significant wars in human history.

My parents are both Quakers and my personal spirituality has elements of Quaker, Bhuddist and Hindu beliefs. One of my core beliefs is in pacifism and non-violence (which are both central to Quakerism and Bhuddism).

Michael.

 

Michael,

But you are sadly mistaken. Next time you are over, I can introduce you to a racist if you like, my best friend's brother in law. His beliefs and attitudes shock me to the core, genuinely scary. He is a racist Michael. If you are branding me alongside him and his ilk, then you yourself are guilty of gross generalisation.

You state that my recollation of the origin of Islam is not historically correct, but give me no expalnation as to why, nor do you offer me an alternative. It was a simple question really. Was Muhamed a military leader and statesman? Surely you can answer that without offending anyone Michael!

You also repeatedly tell us of the tolerance and understanding in the Muslim community. Could you give me some examples of this tolerance of other faiths and their respect for human rights?

You see, from where I am sitting, it just seems that the only people being shown tolerance and understanding by many in the Muslim community are the Terrorists and armed militia that according to your logic, the vast majority of the muslim world want shot of!

 

This in response to posts containing the following...



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I did not state that the Islam is evil, indeed it is the islamists that are the danger, being a minority sect of one large faith.
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I have visited Malaysia and was deeply impressed. I was also recently in a predominently Muslim area of Thailand and experienced nothing but kindness, indeed I am corresponding with a delighful person from Pattani who is a Muslim.
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If the subject of this post had been the human rights behavior of the United States and Western powers my comments would have been equally vitriolic, hopefully backed up by factual evidence. Would this also be racist or would you agree with me that the behavior described was unacceptable ? If as I suspect, your views would have been along similar lines to those posted in this thread concerning Islamists, then it is you who is the racist not I.

 

Both of you have good points. I could think of many incidents where other countries have been more then tolerant of Western irresponsiblity. Lets move the debate in a different direction.

It seems since some one suggested here that some wars are started in the name faith it apply to all conflicts.

Does everyone here really think so? From all the history books I read historians rather believe the real reason for any war in history that has been initiated by kings, religious leaders and warlords motivated by hunger for wealth, land and power. It has never been about defending one faith or some noble cause. They may manipulate the population into believing they are about to sacrifices themselves for an noble cause but the people who have the money to built and organise an army are purely motivated by a coolly calculated desire to gain more wealth then they already had.

The other type of war seems to be racially motivated. One group of people try to kills off another group. However, after further analyse you still find the real motivation is one group/race think their means of livelihood are undermined by the other race. In other words they still fought for food, land, natural resources or trade.

 

The Ottoman Empire was a multi-Ethnic and muti-religious empire that lasted for about 400 years.
Zoroastrians have lived in modern-day Iran for over 2,000 years (admittedly, they've kept a low profile for the past several hundred years). Up until the 20th century, Muslims and Jews lived alongside one another in communities all around the Mediterranean. Coptic Christians, too in places like Egypt and the Lebanon.
The 20th century saw the breakdown of many social, religious and economic systems in Arabia and North Africa. Fundamentalist religion seems to fill some of resulting void for many people.

 

Thanks for that Joel. Our company accountant is in fact a Zoroastrian from Pakistan, one of the world's oldest surviving faiths I suspect.

What would you put the rise in fundementalism down to out of interest? Would it be the result of western culture spreading and if so, would you expect a rise in racisism across Europe given the spread of Muslim culture here over the past 50 years?

 

merlin, I think we have a misunderstanding. I don't think that you are a racist at all; I just said that some of the things you said were racist remarks. I know I've said similar things myself - it's all too easy to fall into the trap of making negative generalisations about a group of people who's only connection is their ethnic background and/or religion.

I have no problem with criticising terrorists of any origin - as I said I have a fundamental belief in non-violence and I don't think violence is a way to achieve anything. Terrorist is an emotional and loaded term though. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

What I do have an issue with is people using the actions of a minority of extremists to brand a whole race or religion with.

The vast majority of Muslims do want nothing to do with the terrorists and extremists but it's a bit naive to ask, for example, why ordinary Iraqis aren't getting off their backsides and helping the Americans. For a start they're probably scared shitless of both sides (the Americans and the extremists).

In WWII only a tiny minority of French people took part in the resistance movement against the occupying Nazis - that doesn't mean that most of the others didn't despise them just as much.

Michael.

 

Another good point. I always wonder why no one ask these same questions. If Spainish really don't like their local terrorists why they don't root them out long ago? If the Irish don't like their own terrorists why don't they do anything to remove them? Indeed why ordinary Europeans don't get off their backside and help solve their own terrorists problem themselves?

 

Wolfgang,

I see it that a good number of citizens in areas such as the Basque Country or Northern Ireland are/were in fact sympathisers, whilst others were simply too scared to get involved due to the mafia like operations of the terrorist networks.

In either case, the situation is only likely to be resolved through outside intervention IMHO, and whilst I accept with great sadness that a number of innocents will be casualties of such action (although less than we might think given that a proportion of so called innocent civilians must be sympathiseres), in who's interest is it to leave a country and it's people under the control of an organised crime syndicate?

If people live in fear, maybe the only way to get them to give up their tormentors is to make them even more fearful of the consequences of not doing so. What a sad world we live in

 

Not wishing to start an argument about Northern Ireland, which will be a very long thread, but outside intervention (the arrival of British troops) was the major reason for the resurrection of the IRA, prior to which it had been virtually dormant for decades (it'd even sold all its weapons to the Free Wales Army). Far from resolving the problem, troops exacerbated it. Much as in Iraq, the arrival of troops increased support for military counter-action from ordinary people who wouldn't previously have countenanced supporting terrorism.

-- Ian

 

Ian, I also do not intend to start a lengthy argument, but, from one who comes from Northern Ireland and who was actually there when it all happened (I was actually in Derry in August 1969 when the Army moved in), the arrival of the British Army was not actually the cause of the resurrection of the IRA. The Army came in to prevent attacks by the "Loyalists" on the Catholic communities, following the explosion in Derry over the traditional Apprentice Boys' parade - the old area of Belfast where I lived was pretty well burnt out. The IRA was virtually nowhere to be seen - in fact the taunt in the Nationalist community was "IRA - I Ran Away". (Some IRA men actually did defend some areas of Belfast with some antique weapons). In general, the Catholics welcomed the British Army as saviours and gave them cups of tea, etc. And the first Brtitish soldier to die died at the hands of Loyalist gunmen.

It was later that a combination of Republican anti-British sentiment, intimidation and heavy-handedness on the part of the British Army (like most armies, not trained for this sort of thing at all), brought about the rise of the Provisional IRA (to be distinguised from the Dublin-based Marxist-leaning "official" IRA) and their depiction as freedom fighters in the tradition of Pearse, Connolly and the Easter Rising. In Ireland, it's so easy to make martyrs - one of our more unfortunate national characteristics.

If you want to know more about it all, Peter Taylor's brilliant book "Provos" is required reading.

 

Hi Merlin,
If I knew the answer to that I'd be raking in the cash as a talking head on TV news every night
I think the West has an awful to do with the breakdown of the traditional order, but that it's not the only cause.

 

Tones, I completely agree with you. I was giving the edited version, but I don't have any disagreements at all with your longer account, and am very familiar with the events surrounding the Battle of the Bogside. The point remains that, without the presence of the British army, the Provos would never have gained any kind of popular support for a military strategy. Without the IRA's campaign, unionist terror groups would, in turn, never have gained any support either. Intervention can cause more problems that it solves, Merlin seemed to have missed this point.

-- Ian

 

An interesting thought, and always a fun game to play with the benefit of a) hindsight, and b) no responsibility.
You could be right (and I would agree that lots of mistakes were made), but you no more than I can say what would have happened had Wilson not sent the army in.

 

Of course, no-one knows what would have happened if the army hadn't been sent in, but it isn't purely a hindsight game. There was an argument of principle to be had at the time, and it was had. For example, although Tones is right that many in the Bogside welcomed the troops, thinking they would protect them from the sectarian B Specials, a minority didn't, and didn't welcome them at all (Eamonn McCann and Bernadette Devlin the most publicly visible, neither of them supporters of the Provos, incidentally).

McCann in particular seemed to be acutely aware of what would follow, and wrote about it very presciently at the time, without the benefit of hindsight. Similar arguments are happening now in relation to Iraq, it's a shame they were so muted in the run-up to war.

-- Ian

 

I wonder about the News reporting of IRA incidents in the 1980s.

I was between 8 and 18 in the 80's, so I wasnt really into the news so much.. more into video games, sport and lusting after girls

Even so, I seem to remember the IRA always being refered to as terrorists, and no other points of view being pushed. British army violence never seemed to make the headlines in the same way, and if it did, it was always an 'accident', and always defended to the hilt.

For those a little older than me who remember the news from the period better than I do, - was there a greater reluctance to criticise the government position back then?

It seems today that we can be openly critical of the government's stance on Iraq.

Maybe the war in Iraq was just less politically popular amongst the people? Or was journalism of the period less inclined to criticise government policy?

 

the fact that the situation at the time was referred to as 'the troubles' shows what a bunch of lying wankers the media are and also shows why i try to avoid the news and therefore being pumped full of government propaganda.
cheers


julian