Islamic Barbarism - Honor Killings

Sigh indeed, Lusatian, and good to see you've started posting once in a while again ... do more of it, OK?

In line with your concern there is the matter of female genital mutilation, and, of couse, the issue of the general disenfranchisement of women characteristic of many Islamic societies, Benazir Bhutto notwithstanding. The answers are plain, but not easy; education, opportunity, and empowerment through universal sufrage within a democratic civil infrastructure. I figure we've got a few generations to go before we get there.

I urge you to read Bernard Lewis, this is an excerpt online: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/90sep/rage.htm

Why so many Muslims deeply resent the West, and why their bitterness will not easily be mollified

by Bernard Lewis


The online version of this article appears in two parts. Click here to go to part two.

IN one of his letters Thomas Jefferson remarked that in matters of religion "the maxim of civil government" should be reversed and we should rather say, "Divided we stand, united, we fall." In this remark Jefferson was setting forth with classic terseness an idea that has come to be regarded as essentially American: the separation of Church and State. This idea was not entirely new; it had some precedents in the writings of Spinoza, Locke, and the philosophers of the European Enlightenment. It was in the United States, however, that the principle was first given the force of law and gradually, in the course of two centuries, became a reality.

If the idea that religion and politics should be separated is relatively new, dating back a mere three hundred years, the idea that they are distinct dates back almost to the beginnings of Christianity. Christians are enjoined in their Scriptures to "render ... unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are God's." While opinions have differed as to the real meaning of this phrase, it has generally been interpreted as legitimizing a situation in which two institutions exist side by side, each with its own laws and chain of authority -- one concerned with religion, called the Church, the other concerned with politics, called the State. And since they are two, they may be joined or separated, subordinate or independent, and conflicts may arise between them over questions of demarcation and jurisdiction.
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This formulation of the problems posed by the relations between religion and politics, and the possible solutions to those problems, arise from Christian, not universal, principles and experience. There are other religious traditions in which religion and politics are differently perceived, and in which, therefore, the problems and the possible solutions are radically different from those we know in the West. Most of these traditions, despite their often very high level of sophistication and achievement, remained or became local -- limited to one region or one culture or one people. There is one, however, that in its worldwide distribution, its continuing vitality, its universalist aspirations, can be compared to Christianity, and that is Islam.

Islam is one of the world's great religions. Let me be explicit about what I, as a historian of Islam who is not a Muslim, mean by that. Islam has brought comfort and peace of mind to countless millions of men and women. It has given dignity and meaning to drab and impoverished lives. It has taught people of different races to live in brotherhood and people of different creeds to live side by side in reasonable tolerance. It inspired a great civilization in which others besides Muslims lived creative and useful lives and which, by its achievement, enriched the whole world. But Islam, like other religions, has also known periods when it inspired in some of its followers a mood of hatred and violence. It is our misfortune that part, though by no means all or even most, of the Muslim world is now going through such a period, and that much, though again not all, of that hatred is directed against us.

We should not exaggerate the dimensions of the problem. The Muslim world is far from unanimous in its rejection of the West, nor have the Muslim regions of the Third World been the most passionate and the most extreme in their hostility. There are still significant numbers, in some quarters perhaps a majority, of Muslims with whom we share certain basic cultural and moral, social and political, beliefs and aspirations; there is still an imposing Western presence -- cultural, economic, diplomatic -- in Muslim lands, some of which are Western allies. Certainly nowhere in the Muslim world, in the Middle East or elsewhere, has American policy suffered disasters or encountered problems comparable to those in Southeast Asia or Central America. There is no Cuba, no Vietnam, in the Muslim world, and no place where American forces are involved as combatants or even as "advisers." But there is a Libya, an Iran, and a Lebanon, and a surge of hatred that distresses, alarms, and above all baffles Americans.

At times this hatred goes beyond hostility to specific interests or actions or policies or even countries and becomes a rejection of Western civilization as such, not only what it does but what it is, and the principles and values that it practices and professes. These are indeed seen as innately evil, and those who promote or accept them as the "enemies of God."

This phrase, which recurs so frequently in the language of the Iranian leadership, in both their judicial proceedings and their political pronouncements, must seem very strange to the modern outsider, whether religious or secular. The idea that God has enemies, and needs human help in order to identify and dispose of them, is a little difficult to assimilate. It is not, however, all that alien. The concept of the enemies of God is familiar in preclassical and classical antiquity, and in both the Old and New Testaments, as well as in the Koran. A particularly relevant version of the idea occurs in the dualist religions of ancient Iran, whose cosmogony assumed not one but two supreme powers. The Zoroastrian devil, unlike the Christian or Muslim or Jewish devil, is not one of God's creatures performing some of God's more mysterious tasks but an independent power, a supreme force of evil engaged in a cosmic struggle against God. This belief influenced a number of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish sects, through Manichaeism and other routes. The almost forgotten religion of the Manichees has given its name to the perception of problems as a stark and simple conflict between matching forces of pure good and pure evil.

The Koran is of course strictly monotheistic, and recognizes one God, one universal power only. There is a struggle in human hearts between good and evil, between God's commandments and the tempter, but this is seen as a struggle ordained by God, with its outcome preordained by God, serving as a test of mankind, and not, as in some of the old dualist religions, a struggle in which mankind has a crucial part to play in bringing about the victory of good over evil. Despite this monotheism, Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, was at various stages influenced, especially in Iran, by the dualist idea of a cosmic clash of good and evil, light and darkness, order and chaos, truth and falsehood, God and the Adversary, variously known as devil, Iblis, Satan, and by other names.


I echo Timber. Not being patronizing...just being hopeful

Lusatian tell everyone how you really feel. How you advocate genocide of Arabs and Muslims.

See, your case for their barbarism would severely be mitigated in effect if you disclose your penchant for it.

Hypocrisy is ugly, you advocate barbarism far greater than any you have mentioned herein.

Any quotes from Lusatian to bolster your point Craven? Or are you excluded from the task unlike us mere A2K mortals?

Well, panzade, perhaps a brother knows more about his brother than "mere A2K members"?

(At least, it could be :wink: )

It could be Walter. Like Craven said:"Hypocrisy is ugly"

As in posts on A2K? No. Lusatian and I usually do not communicate through Able2Know.

But you can ask him, and if he answers thruthfully (see, there's a bit of a cover up going on, he says the proletariat shouldnt know), he will readily admit that his qualm isn't barbarism per se, but rather barbarism on the part of "the other side", his own barbarism he's fond of. Kinda heavy on "big stick" and "copious amounts of the stick's use".



What task do you speak of? I was addressing my brother, who knows what I am talking about and doesn't need me to provide citations.

Lusatian is Craven's brother? Wonder what it's like in that family.

A remarkable family...'tis
However, since we didn't know the relationship..I was merely pointing out that you're a stickler for quotes and sources. In retrospect...I came across rather glib. Didn't mean to.

He bit me.

Oh well, then it's pretty much like my sister and me. And you would think at our age. . .

Quotes and sources are useful when you wish to establish the basis for veracity, but I was addressing the source of the quotes and he knows full and well of the veracity of my claim.

I imagine him sheepishly looking downward and chuckling... "Well yes, I do fancy a genocide or two, before lunch. If adroitly applied of course."

I'm just ribbing him on his one-size-fits-all genocide solution. he knows what I'm talking about.

Ah...well...a quick peek into the dynamics of the de Kere family.

You have a squishy liberal sister? And there's biting going on? Do tell.

And what were you DOING when he bit you?

I second that urging with all of my might. That is hands down the best, most complete and easiest to understand explanation for "why they hate us" I have ever read. Please follow Panzade's advice and READ IT!

Thank you very much Panzade. That piece reaffirmed some of my deepest convictions. I can ill imagine how someone with such a clear understanding of the problems can close with such naive advice on the solution... but his explanation is second to none. Thanks again.

that thought has gone through my head a time or two. when i used to come home on leave, my brothers and sisters used to sit around and talk about quatum theories, fission versus fusion, etc. i would just grab a beer and go sit in a corner and talk to myself.

anyway, back to the topic......

Same here. Our politics are so completely opposite it's hard to believe we grew up in the same house. Arguing with Craven reminds me of her in many ways... and I'm not just talking about his femininity.

Old Craven just likes to blow smoke and cry wolf to avoid actually having to condemn uncivilized savages of being uncivilized savages. I don't think it does much harm to avoid passing judgement, but it would be nice if my brother of liberal inclination (very liberal), would condemn an enemy or two. Thinking back I don't think I've ever heard him come out decisively about an issue. Perhap's he's too afraid to be polarized. Perhaps he feels that he should be for an issue before being against it. LOL (Kidding)

(Perhaps if the World Court, United Nations, European Union, Pan-American League, and French Polynesian Alliance, after a recount of course, all came together and declared the suicide bombers, the beheaders, the body mutilators, and the terrorists in general "uncivilized" he may then concede the point. Of course, perhaps not.)