Quote from: Alyssa M. on March 11, 2009, 12:35:42 AM(or maybe that's just me spouting my extremist moderate agenda again....)

Haha. No, I agree 100%. Forgive me if it sounded like I was attacking you. Pretty-much every foreign power that has something to say about that mess is using it to their own ends, and on small scale really it's no different from the old cold-war situation where either side would back one group in a local war towards their own ends. The fanatic religious groups that back either side add a scary dimension to it, but still, both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs are being used shamelessly in all of this.

Mina.

True, but unlike the Cold War the sides aren't in balance and then there are the US vetoes of so many UN resolutions.

Posted this elsewhere but it's worth keeping in mind -

Abd' Allah bin Amar bin al-Aas reported Allah's Messenger Muhammad (pbuh), as saying:

"My people (Ummah) will undergo and experience all those conditions which were suffered by the Children of Israel in a manner of resemblance in which a shoe of a pair resembles the other shoe."

(From Tirmidhi)

And -

Rana Kabbani compares this new anti-Islamic sentiment to anti- Semitism, and concludes that:

I would even be so bold as to argue that there has been a transfer of contempt from Jews to Muslims in secular Western culture today. Many Muslims share this fear: indeed, one has written that 'the next time there are gas chambers in Europe, there is no doubt concerning who'll be inside them'. (A Letter to Christendom, p.11)

http://tinyurl.com/37xyxr

I wonder if the UN resolutions would have made any real difference, they have not made much impact in the past.  And it wasn't Europe that built the chambers, it was only the Germans for some pretty unique historical reasons.

Maybe it was only Nazi Germany that built the gas chambers but Europe has a long history of anti-semitism. Countless pogroms all over the place. When Ferdinand and Isabella "reconquered" Granada, the last Muslim stronghold of al-Andalus in 1492 it was the Jews who got expelled or forced to convert first.

Quote from: imaz on March 11, 2009, 06:52:02 AMTrue, but unlike the Cold War the sides aren't in balance and then there are the US vetoes of so many UN resolutions.

At the moment that is true, but as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation gains power and influence, it's sure to start balancing that influence again. China and Russia both have strong ties with Iran for example, and considering China's continued support of oppressive regimes in Africa - Sudan and Zimbabwe for example, They would happily destabilise a region if they thought it would benefit them, and the people be damned. Iran has observer status in the SCO, as does Pakistan, and Iran applied for full membership last year. China and Russia also both have strong ties with a number of other Middle-Eastern countries.

I've read a few opinion pieces that say the SCO was basically responsible for the closure of the US' bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and as far as I understand they have quietly blocked the US and NATO in other areas as well. So yeah, there's alot of power-play going on behind the scenes, and Middle-Eastern powers are developing some powerful friends of their own.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organization



Mina.

When Ferdinand and Isabella "reconquered" Granada, the last Muslim stronghold of al-Andalus in 1492 it was the Jews who got expelled or forced to convert first.

In that case it was strictly pleasure before business I'm afraid.  The Spanish have a long history of anti-Semitic actions, though I'm not sure why.  Sort of like Russia, every 20 years needed or not.  And indeed most of the American Jewish immigrints have one of those two backgrounds, either Sephardic Jews (beginning in 1654, exiled from Brazil, Portugal and Spanish mostly) and the later flood of Ashkenazic Jews from Poland, Russia and Germany. 

In Europe, I think that the Jews were always seen - until recently - as 'the other' in general.  They were always the group out that never fit into the nationalism of the 17th and 18th and 19th Century Europe.  That was never the deal in the US, where being much simpler people, we had a much simpler 'other' and that based 100% on race, religion never factored into it, and interestingly enough, many slaves were Christians at some point (though often not upon arrival).  Many American Jews pay some sort of preference for Israel, but that support is a cultural deal, as they don't really view it as the "Promised Land" that being much more LA, NYC, and Chicago in reality. 

I think a lot of that comes from the faux nationalism that was an artificial construction in a lot of Europe.  A huge part of being French, or Spanish, or Irish was being Catholic, a huge part of being a 'real Englishman, or woman' was in the Church of England.  And that European nationalism was all about a circular logic of belonging.  To be a part of France you had to be French, to be a real part of England, you had to be English.  To be a part of the real America you only had to be here and be in business.  A very different kind of construction of belonging for sure.

I know that when outsiders look at the US they see the money, and they focus on the money, and they think we are money happy, and they are right.  But what they miss is that the money is only really a symbol, a means of expression, and what America really loves - and I mean REALLY LOVES, and what really makes America, is work, business.  Because all work in America becomes its own form of commerce.  Sometimes I think the motto of the United States should be "Make money from your hobby."  Really.

I've traveled part of the world, and I've lived most of my life in a very cosmopolitan place and I've known people from all over and if I had to sum up the entire American deal it would be this, "everywhere else people work to live, in the US people live to work."  And that worked out very well for the Jews in America, they seemed to love to do business too - and since, as was so once so perfectly stated, "The business of America is business" they fit right in.  So from the beginning they were never much of an 'other' nature to their presence.

But the Spanish had it in for the Jews, I think largely because it was no secret that the Spanish Jews liked it under Islam better than under rather severe Spanish Catholicism (and its important to see the European Catholic Church as several different churches and not a monolith, so the Spanish Catholic Church was its own very unique and different beast) so to a degree you sort of go after the traitors in your midst first.  And considering that the very first thing the Spanish did after kicking out the Moors was to form the Spanish Inquistion, perhaps the Jews had a point.



They would happily destabilise a region if they thought it would benefit them, and the people be damned
Hell, all god's children would do that if they could.  I can't think of anyone who's hands are clean of that. 

Quote from: mina.m->-bleeped-<-ie link=topic=57152.msg358397#msg358397 date=1236774729
At the moment that is true, but as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation gains power and influence, it's sure to start balancing that influence again. China and Russia both have strong ties with Iran for example, and considering China's continued support of oppressive regimes in Africa - Sudan and Zimbabwe for example, They would happily destabilise a region if they thought it would benefit them, and the people be damned. Iran has observer status in the SCO, as does Pakistan, and Iran applied for full membership last year. China and Russia also both have strong ties with a number of other Middle-Eastern countries.

I've read a few opinion pieces that say the SCO was basically responsible for the closure of the US' bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and as far as I understand they have quietly blocked the US and NATO in other areas as well. So yeah, there's alot of power-play going on behind the scenes, and Middle-Eastern powers are developing some powerful friends of their own.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organization



Mina.

Very interesting, this looks like a positive step towards creating a better balance in this world.

Thanks for the link

@ imaz:

I don't know if it's a positive thing - power blocks are IMO always a bad thing, but yeah, from the POV that NATO led by the US needs to be balanced, I suppose.

Mina.

Quote from: mina.m->-bleeped-<-ie link=topic=57152.msg358418#msg358418 date=1236782334
@ imaz:

I don't know if it's a positive thing - power blocks are IMO always a bad thing, but yeah, from the POV that NATO led by the US needs to be balanced, I suppose.

Mina.

Well, just need ASEAN to join and then my bets are hedged... A foot in both camps!

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Post Merge: March 11, 2009, 11:13:28 AM

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Quote from: tekla on March 11, 2009, 08:12:09 AM
When Ferdinand and Isabella "reconquered" Granada, the last Muslim stronghold of al-Andalus in 1492 it was the Jews who got expelled or forced to convert first.

In that case it was strictly pleasure before business I'm afraid.  The Spanish have a long history of anti-Semitic actions, though I'm not sure why.  Sort of like Russia, every 20 years needed or not.  And indeed most of the American Jewish immigrints have one of those two backgrounds, either Sephardic Jews (beginning in 1654, exiled from Brazil, Portugal and Spanish mostly) and the later flood of Ashkenazic Jews from Poland, Russia and Germany. 

In Europe, I think that the Jews were always seen - until recently - as 'the other' in general.  They were always the group out that never fit into the nationalism of the 17th and 18th and 19th Century Europe.  That was never the deal in the US, where being much simpler people, we had a much simpler 'other' and that based 100% on race, religion never factored into it, and interestingly enough, many slaves were Christians at some point (though often not upon arrival).  Many American Jews pay some sort of preference for Israel, but that support is a cultural deal, as they don't really view it as the "Promised Land" that being much more LA, NYC, and Chicago in reality. 

I think a lot of that comes from the faux nationalism that was an artificial construction in a lot of Europe.  A huge part of being French, or Spanish, or Irish was being Catholic, a huge part of being a 'real Englishman, or woman' was in the Church of England.  And that European nationalism was all about a circular logic of belonging.  To be a part of France you had to be French, to be a real part of England, you had to be English.  To be a part of the real America you only had to be here and be in business.  A very different kind of construction of belonging for sure.

I know that when outsiders look at the US they see the money, and they focus on the money, and they think we are money happy, and they are right.  But what they miss is that the money is only really a symbol, a means of expression, and what America really loves - and I mean REALLY LOVES, and what really makes America, is work, business.  Because all work in America becomes its own form of commerce.  Sometimes I think the motto of the United States should be "Make money from your hobby."  Really.

I've traveled part of the world, and I've lived most of my life in a very cosmopolitan place and I've known people from all over and if I had to sum up the entire American deal it would be this, "everywhere else people work to live, in the US people live to work."  And that worked out very well for the Jews in America, they seemed to love to do business too - and since, as was so once so perfectly stated, "The business of America is business" they fit right in.  So from the beginning they were never much of an 'other' nature to their presence.

But the Spanish had it in for the Jews, I think largely because it was no secret that the Spanish Jews liked it under Islam better than under rather severe Spanish Catholicism (and its important to see the European Catholic Church as several different churches and not a monolith, so the Spanish Catholic Church was its own very unique and different beast) so to a degree you sort of go after the traitors in your midst first.  And considering that the very first thing the Spanish did after kicking out the Moors was to form the Spanish Inquistion, perhaps the Jews had a point.



They would happily destabilise a region if they thought it would benefit them, and the people be damned
Hell, all god's children would do that if they could.  I can't think of anyone who's hands are clean of that.

I guess that American obsession with business is very hard for us Europeans to understand and vice versa.

Catholicism in Spain does indeed have a chequered history, Franco's form of Fascism is sometimes defined as National Catholicism as opposed to Fascist Italy's National Corporatism and Germany's National Socialism.

As regards the expulsion of the "Moors", after 800 years of Islamic rule very few of them could be considered ethnically not of Spanish origin. 800 years is a staggeringly long time, from today it would be back to 1209, uprooting a culture after such a long time was a great tragedy.

Of course the same thing happened in Sicily, under Islamic rule for approx 280 years. The last Muslims were exiled to Lucera di Puglia where they were slaughtered on orders of the Pope in the year 1300.

Personally it is my opinion that if Islam had remained in Spain we would have avoided many of the problems of the centuries that followed. The great divide of "us and them" separated by geography would not have happened and colonialism might have taken a different path if at all.

And no, I don't mean you would all be speaking Arabic by now!

I guess that American obsession with business is very hard for us Europeans to understand and vice versa.

Yeah I know, its very different as I said, its about not being defined by who you are, or what you are, or who your parents are, but by what you do more than anything else.

It seems like what is missing is a recognition of the primal importance of the political hegemony in medieval, renaissance and pre-modern and modern Europe of Catholicism first and foremost and then the same primacy in various countries of various Protestant churches.

From 413 or so onward to 1525 -- over 1100 years -- Europe was the Church. Borders ebbed and flowed politically speaking and people came and went, but the unifying factor was Catholicism. No, it wasn't a world religion dspite the name. But, it was was a European religion and at the same time the one thing that brought together the continent from Sweden to Spain and from Ireland to Hungary.

The first discriminatory laws against Jews, particularly rabbis were promulgated by Theodosius the Great in the 390s. And he, not Constantine, made Catholicism the state religion. Yet, in less than 100 years his legacy was only carried forward from Byzantium/Istanbul. In the West there was an entirely different legacy.

The huge shock to Europe wasn't there when Belisarius undid the various East Goth and Vandal kingdoms for Justinian. The hugest shock to Western Europe came with the overthrow of the West Goth kingdom in Spain and the inroads made by the Ummayads into present-day France until 732 when Carolus the Hammer defeated them at Tours near Poitiers.

Soon Muslims held Sicily and the Balaerics and in Asia Minor most of what we now call Turkey to pretty much the walls of Byzantium. I think, perhaps, you'd want to imagine a grand conquest like one you had never thought possible and the "threat" remain under the Seljuks and later the Ottomans down to basically the mid-1600s when a coalition defeated the Ottoman Army at Vienna for the final time.

Back to Spain. There were good and regular political interests among the monarchs of what became Navarre, Leon, Castile, Aragon and, later, Portugal to "reconquer" the Iberian Peninsula. After all, at the various inceptions they were small and very poor kingdoms that ruled over mostly various Cantabrian and Pyrenees enclaves while Al-Andalus held the fertile and flatter and richer portions of Iberia. Yet, the tiny Christian kingdoms held one trump that Al-Andalus did not: the political and social power of the Papacy and its effectively only educated and competent infrastructure on the continent outside of Al-Andalus.

The monarchs of Christian Iberia (much like the dictators in Africa and South America under the anti-communist banner of the Cold War) found some value in mounting their fights for richer territory in the clothing of a "return to Christian hands" of the Iberian Peninsula.

They succesively became Defenders of the Faith and the Sword Arm of God as they pursued fealty to the Papal state that overlay every political entity in Western Europe. We have nothing comparable to that today. Papal legates had real power to withdraw communion from kings and peoples should their directives not be fulfilled. The power was used and usually the kings and emperors of Europe demurred.

In addition the Pope could grant indulgences and preach crusades and crusaders from Germany to Norway from England to Hungary and all points between would come to serve the various Iberian monarchs when necessary. The various politcal entities of Al-Andalus could not cope with the manpower or the fanaticism thus engendered except for very short periods of time. By 1238 the political map of Spain and Portugal was in fact about the way it is currently. Al-Andalus existed, but as a fief of the Castillian monarchy.

Aragon had turned it's face away from the Peninsula and instead toward the Balaerics, Sicily and southern Italy where much the same sort of "re-conquest" took place.

By 1212 at Navas de Tolosa and by 1215 at Muret the extermination of Jewish and Muslim cooperation with the Christians had been decided: there would be none. Innocent III and his successors with the aid of St. Dominic instituted policies whereby Jews and Moors were expressly offered conversion, exile or death: first in the Toulousain and then in Iberia. The ostensible reason was the extirpation of the Cathar heresy, but under Montfort and then under St. Louis and Blanche of Castille fewer hertics were wiped out than there were Jewish merchants and lenders and Muslim scribes, lawyers and merchants sent into exile.

The policy was transplanted to Iberia where it was met with approval by monarchs and commons alike. The Inquisition as such began in the 1230s as an official institution of the Church. It was mainly overseen by the Dominicans.

And so it goes.

The effective working together of all three religious during the Caliphate of Corboba between 929 & 1031 was overthrown with the fall of that Caliphate to some rather fundamentalist North African Berbers who had often formed the fighting arm of the Muslim kingdoms and Caliphates in Iberia. At that point both Christians and Jews tended to be excluded for the next 75 years from the goverment and administration of Al-Andalus. Except for a few more "liberal" areas (Catalonia and Toulouse) the same thing happened across Iberia. The hatreds and the political machinations were set-up long ago.

Nichole

Quote from: tekla on March 11, 2009, 12:13:48 PM
I guess that American obsession with business is very hard for us Europeans to understand and vice versa.

Yeah I know, its very different as I said, its about not being defined by who you are, or what you are, or who your parents are, but by what you do more than anything else.

Only if what you do happens to be a worthy, money-making pursuit - that's the impression one gets anyway, looking in from outside.

Mina.

Quote from: mina.m->-bleeped-<-ie link=topic=57152.msg358459#msg358459 date=1236792789
Only if what you do happens to be a worthy, money-making pursuit - that's the impression one gets anyway, looking in from outside.

Mina.

Really? Some of our more famous and revered "business" people have been crooks and charlatans par excellence, Ponzi-schemers and outright criminals and liars! What we deem worthy is how much money they make and how effectively they assert their will to power. Why do you imagine that Ayn Rand is still held up as a sane and good political scenarist over here?



Forget the "worthy." If you make money you are worthy over here: that is all that ever makes one worthy in our national psyche.

Nichole

Quote from: Nichole on March 11, 2009, 12:38:16 PM
Really? Some of our more famous and revered "business" people have been crooks and charlatans par excellence, Ponzi-schemers and outright criminals and liars! What we deem worthy is how much money they make and how effectively they assert their will to power. Why do you imagine that Ayn Rand is still held up as a sane and good political scenarist over here?

Forget the "worthy." If you make money you are worthy over here: that is all that ever makes one worthy in our national psyche.

Well you know I didn't wanna be all confrontational and stuff.

Mina.

Quote from: mina.m->-bleeped-<-ie link=topic=57152.msg358466#msg358466 date=1236794025
Well you know I didn't wanna be all confrontational and stuff.

Mina.

Well, ya know, you weren't. But you also sounded as though you missed the entire American point. We started with that Calvinist notion that god shows his elect by how much wealth they exhibit through their hard-work.

That's only gotten more magnified over the past four centuries until today we make up the "hard-work" and rely on just the money-making!

Forget the "worthy." If you make money you are worthy over here: that is all that ever makes one worthy in our national psyche.

I think that is true.

That's only gotten more magnified over the past four centuries until today we make up the "hard-work" and rely on just the money-making!

I don't think that is.  Not always at least.

It is a myth, and really quite false, that there is a hatred of Islam in the West today of anything like the sort that produced the inquisition, the pogroms, and the Holocaust.

The West basically supports Muslim democracies or Muslim countries moving toward democracy -- Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, Kosovo and Bosnia -- to the extent they are democratic, the West supports them and tries to encourage them to be more so. Of course, we're mixed up badly with the Saudis -- they've got us by the gas nozzle -- so cynical short-tern national security sometimes takes priority, But basically the West doesn't care about your religion as long as you don't force it on others, you let people vote, and you're not funelling money to terrorists.

And, yes, sometimes that makes the West hypocritical.

~Alyssa

Quote from: Alyssa M. on March 11, 2009, 11:48:09 PM
It is a myth, and really quite false, that there is a hatred of Islam in the West today of anything like the sort that produced the inquisition, the pogroms, and the Holocaust.

The West basically supports Muslim democracies or Muslim countries moving toward democracy -- Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, Kosovo and Bosnia -- to the extent they are democratic, the West supports them and tries to encourage them to be more so. Of course, we're mixed up badly with the Saudis -- they've got us by the gas nozzle -- so cynical short-tern national security sometimes takes priority, But basically the West doesn't care about your religion as long as you don't force it on others, you let people vote, and you're not funelling money to terrorists.

And, yes, sometimes that makes the West hypocritical.

I would agree for the most part, except that I would replace the word "democratic" with the word "market economy". The "democracy of the free market", so to speak.

Mina.

Quote from: Alyssa M. on March 11, 2009, 11:48:09 PM
It is a myth, and really quite false, that there is a hatred of Islam in the West today of anything like the sort that produced the inquisition, the pogroms, and the Holocaust.

The West basically supports Muslim democracies or Muslim countries moving toward democracy -- Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, Kosovo and Bosnia -- to the extent they are democratic, the West supports them and tries to encourage them to be more so. Of course, we're mixed up badly with the Saudis -- they've got us by the gas nozzle -- so cynical short-tern national security sometimes takes priority, But basically the West doesn't care about your religion as long as you don't force it on others, you let people vote, and you're not funelling money to terrorists.

And, yes, sometimes that makes the West hypocritical.

~Alyssa

Sorry but I totally disagree. There is considerable Islamophobia in the West, more even perhaps among the general population than among governments themselves.

The West supports Pakistan? The West has destroyed Pakistan which is living with the after effects of US covert support to the mujahideen during the period of Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the attempts to buy power and influence through massive corruption.

If Syria and Egypt are democratic I'm the Pope...

As for the Saudi government, they are an utter disgrace, I cannot put into words how despicable I find them.

Indonesia... shall we start by remembering that Suharto's regime gained power through a military coup backed by the US. In the purge that followed between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people with Communist or left wing leanings were murdered. Unforgivable, plain and simple.

Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan have been destroyed or seriously damaged by western interventionism. Algeria is in mess as the West backed a coup against the democratically elected FIS. As for Palestine ...

I would recommend a book by William Blum entitled "Rogue State" that details how The West and the US in particular has intervened, manipulated and coerced around the world for the last 100 years or so in an attempt to crack open markets. Let's be honest, "democracy" is an excuse, nothing more: All international policy is geared towards securing resources and maximising profits.

Mina.