Western guilt blinds us to the nature of Islamic extremism
NCfan
Posts: 945
This piece absolutely nails it!!!!!!
Life and Death
Western guilt blinds us to the nature of Islamic extremism.
BY SHELBY STEELE
Sunday, August 27, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
The simple back-and-forth of war can create the illusion that both sides have a legitimate point to make even when this is not so, and it is clear that Hezbollah's cause has greatly benefited from war's "equalizing" effect. This Shiite militia seems to have known that merely fighting Israel would gain legitimacy for its cause. A cease-fire would make it a "partner" in peace. The Goliath Israeli military would make it a David whose passion proved the truth of its cause. But amid all the drama of this war there has been very little talk of exactly what Hezbollah's cause is.
And, of course, it is not just Hezbollah's cause. There is Hamas, one more in a family of politicized terrorist groups spread across the Muslim world. Beyond these more conventional groups there is the free-floating and world-wide terrorism of groups like al Qaeda. In Europe, there are cells of self-invented middle-class terrorists living modern lives by day and plotting attacks on modernity by night. And around these cells there is often a nourishing atmosphere of fellow traveling. Then there are the radical nation-states in league with terrorism, Iran and Syria most prominent among them. From nations on the verge of nuclear weapons to isolated individuals--take the recent Seattle shootings--Islamic militancy grounded in hatred of Israel and America has become the Muslim world's most animating idea. Why?
I don't believe it is because of the reasons usually cited--Israeli and American "outrages." No doubt Israel and America have made mistakes in the Middle East. Certainly, Israel was born at the price of considerable dislocation and suffering on the part of the Palestinians. And yes, there will never be a satisfying answer for this. Yet every Israeli land-for-peace gesture has been met with a return volley of suicide bombers and rockets. Palestinians have balked every time their longed-for nationhood has come within grasp. They have seemed to prefer the aggrieved dignity of their resentments to the challenges of nationhood. And Hezbollah launched the current war from territory Israel had relinquished six years earlier.
If this war makes anything clear, it is that Israel can do nothing to appease the Muslim animus against her. And now much of the West is in a similar position, living in a state of ever-heightening security against the constant threat of violence from Islamic extremists. So here, from the Muslim world, comes an unappeasable hatred that seems to exist for its own sake, a hatred with very little actual reference to those it claims to hate. Even the fighting of Islamic terrorist groups is oddly self-referential, fighting not for territory or treasure but for the fighting itself. Standing today in the rubble of Lebanon, having not taken a single inch of Israeli territory, Hezbollah claims a galvanizing victory.
All this follows the familiar pattern of a very old vice: anti-Semitism. The anti-Semite is always drawn to the hatred of Jews by his own unacknowledged inadequacy. As Sartre says in his great essay on the subject, the anti-Semite "is a man who is afraid. Not of Jews of course, but of himself." By hating Jews, he asserts that his own group represents the kind of human being that God truly wants. His group is God's archetype, the only authentic humanity, already complete and superior. No striving or self-reflection is necessary. If Jews are superior in some ways, it is only out of their alienated striving, their exile from God's grace. For the anti-Semite, hating and fighting Jews is both self-affirmation and a way of doing God's work.
So the anti-Semite comes to a chilling place: He easily joins himself to evil in order to serve God. Fighting and even killing Jews brings the world closer to God's intended human hierarchy. For Nazis, the "final solution" was an act of self-realization and a fulfillment of God's will. At the center of today's militant Islamic identity there is a passion to annihilate rather than contain Israel. And today this identity applies the anti-Semitic model of hatred to a vastly larger group--the infidel. If the infidel is not yet the object of that pristine hatred reserved for Jews, he is not far behind. Bombings in London, Madrid and Mumbai; riots in Paris; murders in Amsterdam; and of course 9/11--all these follow the formula of anti-Semitism: murder of a hated enemy as self-realization and service to God.
Hatred and murder are self-realization because they impart grandeur to Islamic extremists--the sense of being God's chosen warrior in God's great cause. Hatred delivers the extremist to a greatness that compensates for his ineffectuality in the world. Jews and infidels are irrelevant except that they offer occasion to hate and, thus, to experience grandiosity. This is why Hezbollah--Party of God--can take no territory and still claim to have won. The grandiosity is in the hating and fighting, not the victory.
And death--both homicide and suicide--is the extremist's great obsession because its finality makes the grandiosity "real." If I am not afraid to kill and die, then I am larger than life. Certainly I am larger than the puny Westerners who are reduced to decadence by their love of life. So my hatred and my disregard of death, my knowledge that life is trivial, deliver me to a human grandeur beyond the reach of the West. After the Madrid bombings a spokesman for al Qaeda left a message: "You love life, and we love death." The horror is that greatness is tied to death rather than to achievement in life.
The West is stymied by this extremism because it is used to enemies that want to live. In Vietnam, America fought one whose communism was driven by an underlying nationalism, the desire to live free of the West. Whatever one may think of this, here was an enemy that truly wanted to live, that insisted on territory and sovereignty. But Osama bin Laden fights only to achieve a death that will enshrine him as a figure of awe. The gift he wants to leave his people is not freedom or even justice; it is consolation.
White guilt in the West--especially in Europe and on the American left--confuses all this by seeing Islamic extremism as a response to oppression. The West is so terrified of being charged with its old sins of racism, imperialism and colonialism that it makes oppression an automatic prism on the non-Western world, a politeness. But Islamic extremists don't hate the West because they are oppressed by it. They hate it precisely because the end of oppression and colonialism--not their continuance--forced the Muslim world to compete with the West. Less oppression, not more, opened this world to the sense of defeat that turned into extremism.
But the international left is in its own contest with American exceptionalism. It keeps charging Israel and America with oppression hoping to mute American power. And this works in today's world because the oppression script is so familiar and because American power cringes when labeled with sins of the white Western past. Yet whenever the left does this, it makes room for extremism by lending legitimacy to its claim of oppression. And Israel can never use its military fire power without being labeled an oppressor--which brings legitimacy to the enemies she fights. Israel roars; much of Europe supports Hezbollah.
Over and over, white guilt turns the disparity in development between Israel and her neighbors into a case of Western bigotry. This despite the fact that Islamic extremism is the most explicit and dangerous expression of human bigotry since the Nazi era. Israel's historical contradiction, her torture, is to be a Western nation whose efforts to survive trap her in the moral mazes of white guilt. Its national defense will forever be white aggression.
But white guilt's most dangerous suppression is to keep from discussion the most conspicuous reality in the Middle East: that the Islamic world long ago fell out of history. Islamic extremism is the saber-rattling of an inferiority complex. America has done a good thing in launching democracy as a new ideal in this region. Here is the possibility--if still quite remote--for the Islamic world to seek power through contribution rather than through menace.
Life and Death
Western guilt blinds us to the nature of Islamic extremism.
BY SHELBY STEELE
Sunday, August 27, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
The simple back-and-forth of war can create the illusion that both sides have a legitimate point to make even when this is not so, and it is clear that Hezbollah's cause has greatly benefited from war's "equalizing" effect. This Shiite militia seems to have known that merely fighting Israel would gain legitimacy for its cause. A cease-fire would make it a "partner" in peace. The Goliath Israeli military would make it a David whose passion proved the truth of its cause. But amid all the drama of this war there has been very little talk of exactly what Hezbollah's cause is.
And, of course, it is not just Hezbollah's cause. There is Hamas, one more in a family of politicized terrorist groups spread across the Muslim world. Beyond these more conventional groups there is the free-floating and world-wide terrorism of groups like al Qaeda. In Europe, there are cells of self-invented middle-class terrorists living modern lives by day and plotting attacks on modernity by night. And around these cells there is often a nourishing atmosphere of fellow traveling. Then there are the radical nation-states in league with terrorism, Iran and Syria most prominent among them. From nations on the verge of nuclear weapons to isolated individuals--take the recent Seattle shootings--Islamic militancy grounded in hatred of Israel and America has become the Muslim world's most animating idea. Why?
I don't believe it is because of the reasons usually cited--Israeli and American "outrages." No doubt Israel and America have made mistakes in the Middle East. Certainly, Israel was born at the price of considerable dislocation and suffering on the part of the Palestinians. And yes, there will never be a satisfying answer for this. Yet every Israeli land-for-peace gesture has been met with a return volley of suicide bombers and rockets. Palestinians have balked every time their longed-for nationhood has come within grasp. They have seemed to prefer the aggrieved dignity of their resentments to the challenges of nationhood. And Hezbollah launched the current war from territory Israel had relinquished six years earlier.
If this war makes anything clear, it is that Israel can do nothing to appease the Muslim animus against her. And now much of the West is in a similar position, living in a state of ever-heightening security against the constant threat of violence from Islamic extremists. So here, from the Muslim world, comes an unappeasable hatred that seems to exist for its own sake, a hatred with very little actual reference to those it claims to hate. Even the fighting of Islamic terrorist groups is oddly self-referential, fighting not for territory or treasure but for the fighting itself. Standing today in the rubble of Lebanon, having not taken a single inch of Israeli territory, Hezbollah claims a galvanizing victory.
All this follows the familiar pattern of a very old vice: anti-Semitism. The anti-Semite is always drawn to the hatred of Jews by his own unacknowledged inadequacy. As Sartre says in his great essay on the subject, the anti-Semite "is a man who is afraid. Not of Jews of course, but of himself." By hating Jews, he asserts that his own group represents the kind of human being that God truly wants. His group is God's archetype, the only authentic humanity, already complete and superior. No striving or self-reflection is necessary. If Jews are superior in some ways, it is only out of their alienated striving, their exile from God's grace. For the anti-Semite, hating and fighting Jews is both self-affirmation and a way of doing God's work.
So the anti-Semite comes to a chilling place: He easily joins himself to evil in order to serve God. Fighting and even killing Jews brings the world closer to God's intended human hierarchy. For Nazis, the "final solution" was an act of self-realization and a fulfillment of God's will. At the center of today's militant Islamic identity there is a passion to annihilate rather than contain Israel. And today this identity applies the anti-Semitic model of hatred to a vastly larger group--the infidel. If the infidel is not yet the object of that pristine hatred reserved for Jews, he is not far behind. Bombings in London, Madrid and Mumbai; riots in Paris; murders in Amsterdam; and of course 9/11--all these follow the formula of anti-Semitism: murder of a hated enemy as self-realization and service to God.
Hatred and murder are self-realization because they impart grandeur to Islamic extremists--the sense of being God's chosen warrior in God's great cause. Hatred delivers the extremist to a greatness that compensates for his ineffectuality in the world. Jews and infidels are irrelevant except that they offer occasion to hate and, thus, to experience grandiosity. This is why Hezbollah--Party of God--can take no territory and still claim to have won. The grandiosity is in the hating and fighting, not the victory.
And death--both homicide and suicide--is the extremist's great obsession because its finality makes the grandiosity "real." If I am not afraid to kill and die, then I am larger than life. Certainly I am larger than the puny Westerners who are reduced to decadence by their love of life. So my hatred and my disregard of death, my knowledge that life is trivial, deliver me to a human grandeur beyond the reach of the West. After the Madrid bombings a spokesman for al Qaeda left a message: "You love life, and we love death." The horror is that greatness is tied to death rather than to achievement in life.
The West is stymied by this extremism because it is used to enemies that want to live. In Vietnam, America fought one whose communism was driven by an underlying nationalism, the desire to live free of the West. Whatever one may think of this, here was an enemy that truly wanted to live, that insisted on territory and sovereignty. But Osama bin Laden fights only to achieve a death that will enshrine him as a figure of awe. The gift he wants to leave his people is not freedom or even justice; it is consolation.
White guilt in the West--especially in Europe and on the American left--confuses all this by seeing Islamic extremism as a response to oppression. The West is so terrified of being charged with its old sins of racism, imperialism and colonialism that it makes oppression an automatic prism on the non-Western world, a politeness. But Islamic extremists don't hate the West because they are oppressed by it. They hate it precisely because the end of oppression and colonialism--not their continuance--forced the Muslim world to compete with the West. Less oppression, not more, opened this world to the sense of defeat that turned into extremism.
But the international left is in its own contest with American exceptionalism. It keeps charging Israel and America with oppression hoping to mute American power. And this works in today's world because the oppression script is so familiar and because American power cringes when labeled with sins of the white Western past. Yet whenever the left does this, it makes room for extremism by lending legitimacy to its claim of oppression. And Israel can never use its military fire power without being labeled an oppressor--which brings legitimacy to the enemies she fights. Israel roars; much of Europe supports Hezbollah.
Over and over, white guilt turns the disparity in development between Israel and her neighbors into a case of Western bigotry. This despite the fact that Islamic extremism is the most explicit and dangerous expression of human bigotry since the Nazi era. Israel's historical contradiction, her torture, is to be a Western nation whose efforts to survive trap her in the moral mazes of white guilt. Its national defense will forever be white aggression.
But white guilt's most dangerous suppression is to keep from discussion the most conspicuous reality in the Middle East: that the Islamic world long ago fell out of history. Islamic extremism is the saber-rattling of an inferiority complex. America has done a good thing in launching democracy as a new ideal in this region. Here is the possibility--if still quite remote--for the Islamic world to seek power through contribution rather than through menace.
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Comments
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I think I spotted a splash on entry, which would mean he didn't nail it.
I like reading your links as to view what it must be like to believe all these things. Some I can take and some I can't. It may just be an ability. Who knows?
Why when these stories get posted that America and Israel have to be mentioned in the same breath? But, can never be doing any bad or wrong?You've changed your place in this world!0 -
even flow? wrote:I think I spotted a splash on entry, which would mean he didn't nail it.
I like reading your links as to view what it must be like to believe all these things. Some I can take and some I can't. It may just be an ability. Who knows?
Why when these stories get posted that America and Israel have to be mentioned in the same breath? But, can never be doing any bad or wrong?
"Over and over, white guilt turns the disparity in development between Israel and her neighbors into a case of Western bigotry. This despite the fact that Islamic extremism is the most explicit and dangerous expression of human bigotry since the Nazi era. Israel's historical contradiction, her torture, is to be a Western nation whose efforts to survive trap her in the moral mazes of white guilt. Its national defense will forever be white aggression.
But white guilt's most dangerous suppression is to keep from discussion the most conspicuous reality in the Middle East: that the Islamic world long ago fell out of history. Islamic extremism is the saber-rattling of an inferiority complex. America has done a good thing in launching democracy as a new ideal in this region. Here is the possibility--if still quite remote--for the Islamic world to seek power through contribution rather than through menace."
Keeping score can be useful, but at this point in the history of the Middle East it will only continue a never ending cycle of violence to do so. This is the author's point. Afterall, she did admit that Israel and the US have made many mistakes in the Arab world.
But it would be much wiser to identify root causes and goals of the opposing factions. And through recent devlopments, it has become quite clear that radical Islam is an empty ideology that only leads to death and destruction. They have no goals, other than to oppose the West. If there are any others, I would be very open to hearing them.0 -
Radical Islamic extremeists have the goal of being left alone by the West and Israel. There's no ideology involved here. If you want to understand why there are Islamic terrorists attacking us, you should listen to them, and not some college professor. It's not rocket science.0
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Saturnal wrote:Radical Islamic extremeists have the goal of being left alone by the West and Israel. There's no ideology involved here. If you want to understand why there are Islamic terrorists attacking us, you should listen to them, and not some college professor. It's not rocket science.
Not to support this article, but what is going on with this post? Have you listened to these "Islamic Terrorists"???
HEZBOLLAH CHARTER
"Our primary assumption in our fight against Israel states that the Zionist entity is aggressive from its inception, and built on lands wrested from their owners, at the expense of the rights of the Muslim people. Therefore our struggle will end only when this entity is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no cease fire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated."
OSAMA BIN LADEN
"I'm fighting so I can die a martyr and go to heaven to meet God. Our fight now is against the Americans."
You think that "leaving them alone" will end this conflict? Considering that their claims against us are not limited to our actions but rather our existence, I think you're the one who isn't listening.0 -
farfromglorified wrote:You think that "leaving them alone" will end this conflict?
No. I'm saying that Israeli and Western interference in the region is the cause of the conflict. It has nothing to do with anti-Semitism, inferiority complexes, or whatever else the author suggested. It's not complicated.0 -
Saturnal wrote:No. I'm saying that Israeli and Western interference in the region is the cause of the conflict. It has nothing to do with anti-Semitism, inferiority complexes, or whatever else the author suggested. It's not complicated.
Ok. I have some questions then.
Can you explain when this conflict began? Can you identify the "interference" you speak of? Finally, would it be your contention then that if this "interference" ended, so would the conflict?0 -
*cough* Bullshit *cough*
Islamic Extremism is our fault.I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire0 -
Ahnimus wrote:*cough* Bullshit *cough*
Islamic Extremism is our fault.
Who is "our"?0 -
That piece pretty much sums up my theory of the situation.0
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Ahnimus wrote:*cough* Bullshit *cough*
Islamic Extremism is our fault.
I don't agree. I will agree that some of these bungled wars like Iraq have made Islamic extremism worse, but they were not the original cause.0 -
First, I just thought I should mention that when I say "radical Islamic extremists", I'm talking about terrorists from that region. I'm not talking about the general religious extremism in the region.Ok. I have some questions then.
Can you explain when this conflict began? Can you identify the "interference" you speak of? Finally, would it be your contention then that if this "interference" ended, so would the conflict?
The conflict I'm talking about is terrorist activity against the U.S. (we'll stick with the U.S. since that is my main concern being an American) that is carried out by Al Qaeda and other groups originating from the Middle East region.
The conflict with Al Qaeda is the result of many interferences: mainly our massive support for Israel, but also the 1991 invasion of Iraq, the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This was the conclusion of the 9/11 comission, and it's basically my conclusion as well.
It's too hard to tell whether our conflict with Middle Eastern terrorists would end if we stopped interfering. Conflicts escalate and mutate over time, so you never know what will happen. However, I certainly think it would be worth a try.0 -
I thought several lines in this article were laughable, not least this one:
"If this war makes anything clear, it is that Israel can do nothing to appease the Muslim animus against her. And now much of the West is in a similar position, living in a state of ever-heightening security against the constant threat of violence from Islamic extremists. So here, from the Muslim world, comes an unappeasable hatred that seems to exist for its own sake, a hatred with very little actual reference to those it claims to hate."
If you honestly believe that Israel has done everything possible to appease Muslims, including Palestinians, then you're fucking baked. Israel has repeatedly offered nothing more then tokenism to the Palestinians. Take Camp David, an example that right-wing Americans and Israeli's love to hold up as an example of Palestinian implacability. Only problem is that that agreement would have seen "Palestine" completely at the mercy of Israel both geograpically and economically. Colin Powell said you "can't have a Palestinian state carved up into a thousand pieces". Oh well, so much for Camp David. So much for offering Palestinians everything under the sun.
Another line questions the motives for war, and the animosity toward the U.S. and Israel. Come now, are people really that stupid (?), or are they just hopelessly ignorant of Middle East affairs over the last 50 years or so ? They mistrust and fight b/c they have been treated like shit, lied to, been subjected to double standards, taken advantage of, pitted against one another, and generally been fucked over for generations now. The source of much of that shit has been the U.S.. So what's so hard to understand ? And still, to this day, we lie about Iraq and start an arguable civil war there. In case no one has noticed, Iraq is worse now than its been in the last 4 years. Oh well, who cares right ?
Americans better get it into their heads - you can't go around the world and do your fucked-up bidding without some price being attached. You can't offer unconditional to some parts of the world, while you simultaneously treat other parts like shit. People notice, for example, that Israel gets more in U.S. gov't aid than all of Africa combined. Look it up. And last time i checked, large parts of Africa were MUSLIM. You fuckling reap what you sow.
I'm not hear to suggest that Muslims are innocent of certain charges, b/c they certainly are not. But this writer makes a joke of, and trivializes to an unbelieveable degree, the actions of the U.S. and Israel. A reluctant recognition of some of America's faults won't cut it. 99.9 % of Americans wouldn't live for 10 minutes the way that Palestinians have had to live for 50 years.0 -
I think the correct title should be, "Western Ignorance Of Middle Eastern Culture Blinds Us From The Reality of the Region". We are so easily lead by our leaders and our local newsroom editors and are too fucking lazy to look at the reality of the Middle East is. We're okay with the illusion that it is force fed us... images filled with loony suicide bombers, blowing up shit for no reason other than they hate our freedom. Because what's there to hate? All we ever do is good things... we are not bad people and there is no reason for anyone to hate us. Therefore, they must hate us for no reason. We are so Ameri-centric and so full of ourselves, that we cannot imagine anyone not wanting to be like us.
This ignorance is going to bite us in the ass. Take a look at the 5 year old you are sending off to kindergarten... he/she is going to have to face the consequences of our 'Spreading Democracy' in the Middle East as a nuclear armed Iran/Iraq Shi-ite state threatens the rest of the region. We are so ignorant... we never saw the possibility that this hatred for us may lead them to Democratically elect people that hate us. Just give them a Wal-Mart and they will be free... it worked for us.
The conflict in Israel/Palestine has nothing to do with this grandeous big picture and anti-semitism. It's about land... land that both see as Holy according to their own scriptures. The only reason we have our noses in it is because we need the fucking oil.Allen Fieldhouse, home of the 2008 NCAA men's Basketball Champions! Go Jayhawks!
Hail, Hail!!!0 -
Chicken and the Egg.reborncareerist wrote:I don't agree. I will agree that some of these bungled wars like Iraq have made Islamic extremism worse, but they were not the original cause.Come on pilgrim you know he loves you..
http://www.wishlistfoundation.org
Oh my, they dropped the leash.
Morgan Freeman/Clint Eastwood 08' for President!
"Make our day"0 -
Saturnal wrote:First, I just thought I should mention that when I say "radical Islamic extremists", I'm talking about terrorists from that region. I'm not talking about the general religious extremism in the region.
Ok.The conflict I'm talking about is terrorist activity against the U.S. (we'll stick with the U.S. since that is my main concern being an American) that is carried out by Al Qaeda and other groups originating from the Middle East region.
Cool.The conflict with Al Qaeda is the result of many interferences: mainly our massive support for Israel, but also the 1991 invasion of Iraq, the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This was the conclusion of the 9/11 comission, and it's basically my conclusion as well.
It's too hard to tell whether our conflict with Middle Eastern terrorists would end if we stopped interfering. Conflicts escalate and mutate over time, so you never know what will happen. However, I certainly think it would be worth a try.
Ok, some questions:
1) You say that the conflict would not necessarily end if the interferences do not. How does that work considering your previous statement:
"Radical Islamic extremeists [sic] have the goal of being left alone by the West and Israel"
If those extermists truly only wish to be "left alone", why would they continue this conflict if that wish was granted? Wouldn't additional wishes be required to continue the conflict?
2) You say that this conflict is caused by our interferences. What do you say about their interferences? Al Qaeda and similar groups directly interfere or have interfered with Russian interests, Israel's interests and now American interests. How come our interferences justify their aggression or existence, but their interferences cannot justify ours?
3) You say "there's no ideology involved here". Yet these "interferences" have happened throughout the globe without a similar result. We are not fighting extremists from Panama, Columbia or other nations in similar situations despite very similar "interferences" there. If ideology is irrelevant, what accounts for these differences?
4) By suggesting that America/Israel is the root cause behind suicide bombings and other violent acts by Islamic Radicals and suggesting that it would be "worth a try" to end our interferences, you obviously believe that America/Israel has a choice to change their behavior. But at the same time you seem to suggest that Islamic Radicalism is a determined reaction to our behavior. Do Islamic Radicals have no choice in their violent behavior? If they do have choice, isn't that choice and their failure to turn their backs on violence primary in their complicity as a violent entity in the exact same way that our choices are primary in our own complicity in these events? In short, can you please explain how your argument does not require Islamic Radicals to be reactionary zombies without free will?0 -
Cosmo wrote:I think the correct title should be, "Western Ignorance Of Middle Eastern Culture Blinds Us From The Reality of the Region". We are so easily lead by our leaders and our local newsroom editors and are too fucking lazy to look at the reality of the Middle East is. W.
Arab media is 10x worse than american media. AL Jazzera is a propaganda station yet the people of the islamic world eat it up. The reality of the middle east is that the jews are right and the muslims are wrong...its pretty simpleAmerica...the greatest Country in the world.0 -
I couldn't grasp the whole article, but I will say this:
Western guilt doesn't blind me to anything. In fact, I have no guilt. I WOULD have guilt if I was an extremist who had killed somebody, though, because I believe killing is wrong and there is NO excuse for it.The only people we should try to get even with...
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.0 -
Those of you who hate this article by Shelby Steele would also hate his other writings. Personally, I think there's a lot of truth to what he has to say about guilt and how it plays a role political "action."And you ask me what I want this year
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
Cuz I don't need boxes wrapped in strings
And desire and love and empty things
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days0 -
I linked this article a while back, but I think it's relevent to this thread so I'll repost.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/16/op...&oref=s login
Muslim Myopia
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By IRSHAD MANJI
Published: August 16, 2006
New Haven
LAST week, the luminaries of the British Muslim mainstream — lobbyists, lords and members of Parliament — published an open letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair, telling him that the “debacle” of both Iraq and Lebanon provides “ammunition to extremists who threaten us all.” In increasingly antiwar America, a similar argument is gaining traction: The United States brutalizes Muslims, which in turn foments Islamist terror.
But violent jihadists have rarely needed foreign policy grievances to justify their hot heads. There was no equivalent to the Iraq debacle in 1993, when Islamists first tried to blow up the World Trade Center, or in 2000, when they attacked the American destroyer Cole. Indeed, that assault took place after United States-led military intervention saved thousands of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo.
If Islamists cared about changing Iraq policy, they would not have bothered to abduct two journalists from France — probably the most antiwar, anti-Bush nation in the West. Even overt solidarity with Iraqi suffering did not prevent Margaret Hassan, who ran a world-renowned relief agency in Baghdad, from being executed by insurgents.
Meanwhile, at least as many Muslims are dying at the hands of other Muslims as under the boots of any foreign imperial power. In Sudan, black Muslims are starved, raped, enslaved and slaughtered by Arab militias, with the consent of an Islamic government. Where is the “official” Muslim fury against that genocide? Do Muslim lives count only when snuffed out by non-Muslims? If not, then here is an idea for Muslim representatives in the West: Go ahead and lecture the politicians that their foreign policies give succor to radicals. At the same time, however, challenge the educated and angry young Muslims to hold their own accountable, too.
This means reminding them that in Pakistan, Sunnis hunt down Shiites every day; that in northern Israel, Katuysha rockets launched by Hezbollah have ripped through the homes of Arab Muslims as well as Jews; that in Egypt, the riot police of President Hosni Mubarak routinely club, rape, torture and murder Muslim activists promoting democracy; and, above all, that civil wars have become hallmarks of the Islamic world.
Muslim figureheads will not dare be so honest. They would sooner replicate the very sins for which they castigate the Bush and Blair governments — namely, switching rationales and pretending integrity.
In the wake of the London bombings on July 7, 2005, Iqbal Sacranie, then the head of the influential Muslim Council of Britain, insisted that economic discrimination lay at the root of Islamist radicalism in his country. When it came to light that some of the suspects enjoyed middle-class upbringings, university educations, jobs and cars, Mr. Sacranie found a new culprit: foreign policy. In so doing, he boarded the groupthink express steered by Muslim elites.
The good news is that ordinary people of faith are capable of self-criticism. Two months ago, 65 percent of British Muslims polled believed that their communities should increase efforts to integrate. The same poll also produced troubling results: 13 percent lionized the July 7 terrorists, and 16 percent sympathized. Still, these figures total 29 percent — less than half the number who sought to belong more fully to British society.
Whether in Britain or America, those who claim to speak for Muslims have a responsibility to the majority, which wants to reconcile Islam with pluralism. Whatever their imperial urges, it is not for Tony Blair or George W. Bush to restore Islam’s better angels. That duty — and glory — goes to Muslims.
Irshad Manji, a fellow at Yale University, is the author of “The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim’s Call for Reform in Her Faith.”And you ask me what I want this year
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
Cuz I don't need boxes wrapped in strings
And desire and love and empty things
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days0 -
know1 wrote:I couldn't grasp the whole article, but I will say this:
Western guilt doesn't blind me to anything. In fact, I have no guilt. I WOULD have guilt if I was an extremist who had killed somebody, though, because I believe killing is wrong and there is NO excuse for it.
Question: Would you kill someone in order to save your life, or the life of a loved one? Say, as in self-defense?MOSSAD NATO Alphabet Stations (E10)
High Traffic ART EZI FTJ JSR KPA PCD SYN ULX VLB YHF
Low Traffic CIO MIW
Non Traffic ABC BAY FDU GBZ HNC NDP OEM ROV TMS ZWL0
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