Kulturkampf in the Making

I am not, by any means, an expert on the Middle East. I did take some college courses with a group of Mideast people, and I had the extreme misfortune of spending nine months in Saudi, but that's it.

I guess I'm familiar with the history of Islam, and I think of the times when the Muslim world was the world of Haroun al-Rashid, Omar Khayyam, and Sala-ed-Din, and the Muslims were probably the most sophisticated and civilized people on the planet.

And the Muslims remember those days as well, because the thousand-year-removed flowering is all they have now: memories of a time long past. The Iraqis, Syrians, Persians, and Egyptians have a history to look back on, but both they and the malevolent hicks of the Arabian Peninsula who just happened to be squatting on immense reserves of oil can see that their culture is failing and, given the competition with Western-style democracy, will fall into Karl Marx' infamous dustbin.

Which is why so many of them want to kill us all off.

I don't for a minute believe that the latest wave of Islamofascism is engendered by anything except their hatred -- not for what we've done, but who we are.

The majority of the Muslims are either Islamofascists or those who, by their silence, have placed themselves in the Islamofascists' camp.

They want nothing more than to make shari'a the law, not of the land, but of the world. Here is a snapshot of their culture today:

A woman is property, to be murdered if, by committing the crime of being a rape victim, she "dishonors" her family.

They commit -- as we speak -- genocide against the black animists in the Darfur region of the Sudan.

They routinely pronounce fatwas saying that ritual beheading of the innocent "infidel" is acceptable if it gladdens the heart of a holy warrior, and none of the other Muslims will take issue with that.

They realize that, in the marketplace of ideas, that they cannot win, and rightfully believe that the big danger to them is not George Bush and his Apaches, but Jennifer Lopez and VH-1.

They know that the only way they can keep their weltanschauung is to engage in a battle with the West that will result, not in a victor and vanquished, but in the victor and the extinct.

'Usama bin Laden knows this, but Bush doesn't. He considers Muslims as Methodists with another hymnal, and routinely calls on the vast majority of "good" Muslims to rise up against the Islamofascists....

...and none of them, except for the Western puppets, do so.

Atahuallpa ignored Pizarro, Moctezuma ignored Cortez; Nicholas ignored Lenin; they paid for their stupidity with their lives and their culture.

Darius or Xerxes could have snuffed out the Hellenes had they tried, but by the time they got around to realizing the danger they were in, Salamis had sent them on their millennial downward spiral.

The Phoenicians considered the barbarians of the peninsula to the north to be nothing but hicks; those same hicks burned Carthage to the ground, and plowed it under with salt; they later built the greatest empire in the ancient world.

History is replete with wealthy and powerful cultures who overestimated the danger from the untermenschen; they're, well, history.

We are in that same position right now. We are facing, not a war against a country or even a war against "terror".

We are fighting a "kulturkampf" -- a culture-war -- with not just the Islamofascists, but with Islam itself.

One culture will survive.

Which one do you choose?

You can believe whatever you want to believe.
I believe just like there's sane and good christian people who will not share your thoughts, there are sane and good muslims who don't hate anybody too. But I guess you are ready to "kill em off" preassuming they'd do the same to you.

I keep coming up to these "Best muslim is a dead muslim" threads which really hurt me and force me to come down to the posters level.
Peace.

So my cultural choices are between VH1 and JoLo, and Islam? Man that sucks, it's like trying to choose a US president.

How about a choice between 158 Satellite channels or Forced prayer?

Interesting post. It's refreshing to hear someone use a nice un-PC word like untermenchen.

Re: the culture war taking place. I completely understand what you are saying. Europeans are becoming Americanized, too - which isn't a good thing these days. Obesity, prioritizing time in the office over family, eating disorders, gun violence etc.....are influencing many abroad for the worse.
Our mass marketing is a weapon in itself.

That being said, however, the untermenchen you, umm....mention
don't offer a very appealing alternative, culturally. Especially for women.
I'll chose the US.

It's a shame the French and Germans don't take over though, no?
Chic clothes, great wine and no speed limits for all

[edit on 12-9-2004 by bushblows]

[edit on 12-9-2004 by bushblows]

I love these final solution posts. Always hinting at how we have to kill, destroy, or wipe out all of ( insert RACE / CULTURE / RELIGION here ).

You just don't have the nads to say "Kill all Muslims now."

I'll leave you with the question the people who start these threads can NEVER answer, not once in about 20 of these threads:

Ok, I agree there's a problem. What do we do now?

Bushblows says:

"...the culture war taking place. I completely understand what you are saying. Europeans are becoming Americanized, too - which isn't a good thing these days. Obesity, prioritizing time in the office over family, eating disorders, gun violence etc.....are influencing many abroad for the worse. Our mass marketing is a weapon in itself."

The commonalities between the United States and the EU, I propose, are far more important than the differences. Our disparate subcultures fight it out fairly, as it were; the Euroopeans allow the Americans access to their markets and vice versa. Despite the rather disappointing shown by the French in their occasional (and futile) efforts to ban non-French culture, we share the idea that we should be allowed to pick and choose what is best for ourselves.

American marketing is probably more effective than European marketing, but then why has Airbus Industrie mades such tremendous inroads to the Orient's commercial aircraft market -- at the expense of Boeing?

While I decry a lot of American (and European, for that matter) culture, we welcome other cultures with open arms; consider American mosques, Yu-gi-oh, Sushi, etc.

The French are not killing us to protest EuroDisney (although some of their hotheads might want to); nor are the Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Pakistanis, etc;, all of whom espouse different cultures and religions from most of us.

The only culture that I see reacting with violence to ours is that of the Islamists, be they in the Arabian Peninsula, Persia, the Fertile Crescent, or Indonesia.

"It's a shame the French and Germans don't take over. Chic clothes, great wine and no speed limits for all

"

And trade my Ford pickup in for a Citro�n? Bite your tongue, sir!

Plus �a change, plus c'est la m�me chose.

taibunsuu says:

"You just don't have the nads to say 'Kill all Muslims now.' "

Well, I am a Westerner; I find the idea of killing anyone except in self-defense as repugnant.

If I cannot make a case that we must eliminate Islamofascism as a means of saving our own culture, I certainly won't push it. Unfortunately, what I am seeing is murderers and thugs killing non-Muslims because they're non-Muslims, which is kind of like genocide, as it were.

"Ok, I agree there's a problem. What do we do now?"

I don't know. I don't have all the answers (although I may someday when I'm older and wiser).

One thing I'd like to see (after we extricate ourselves from that insane Iraq adventure, which we should never have inovlved ourselves in the first place) is to tell anyone that if they do not choose to turn over murderers of Americans who have taken refuge in their country, we will consider them as accessories and will go after them as well.

But again, perhaps it's my youthful naivete -- I don't have all the answers. Absolute knowledge has eluded me, rare as that might seem on these fora.

I see it like this.

Once almost all american whites were uncomfortable with blacks. Nearly none of them wanted to co exists with black people. I am not sure on the percentage. But for sake of argument let me put it like this. 90 % did not want to coexist with blacks and 10% joined the KKK and 1/4 of the kkk actually comited violent acts against blacks. So Most white Americans looked the other way mostly or did not care because most had a discomfort being around blacks but most were not "evil" and most did not commit haneous crimes. Yet they didnt persue chaging the evil ones.

Now the way I see it Arabs hate others PERIOD and the same rules apply. Only 1 % of them are actually evil and willing to coimmit haneous crimes but the rest of the Arab poplulation really does not care if non Arabs are being hurt because in general their culture is failing and incompatible with ours. They fear change as anyone would just as most whites did years ago and I guess some even today.

We either isolate ourselves or force them to change in order to have prolonged world wide peace. We must all become free and have a willing ness to accept others as they chose to live and not how we would have them live. Untill we do this the world will have terrorism faught under many different religions and beliefs.

Education is the best way to propagate freedom in the world. We may have to remove some Arab world governmentsin order to make sure the population is taught something more than a religion of hate. They actually believe we are "evil" because we treat our women with respect (at least when we have clothes on ). They are uncivilized and wish to remain so and also wish to convert us back to the same. We on the other hand want to expand our minds and civilizations beyound pety religious doctrines.

Basically believe and live your life your way as long as it does not prevent me from living mine my way. If you can do that then your ready for peace on earth.

That's a fair statement, Xeven; I can live with that.

Well hardship and oppression is the fuel for religious faith. It's what people fall back on when they have no other alternatives.

Iraq was very secular under Saddam, who was modeling himself after Nasser. I'm not sure what the overall mood is now, but many of the insurgents seem to be following the cleric, Sadr. Iran also was much more secular. The oppression of the Shah gave people motivation to turn to Khomenei.

Afghanistan was simply a social nightmare. That country was so wrecked it fell back into the stone age with the Taliban.

If a country is to be peaceful and secular, the country has to have safety, and opportunity.

Oppression, constant danger, and a dirth of hope seed and sustain the social environment in which religious fanaticism prospers.

And the Muslims remember those days as well, because the thousand-year-removed flowering is all they have now: memories of a time long past. The Iraqis, Syrians, Persians, and Egyptians have a history to look back on, but both they and the malevolent hicks of the Arabian Peninsula who just happened to be squatting on immense reserves of oil can see that their culture is failing and, given the competition with Western-style democracy, will fall into Karl Marx' infamous dustbin.

What exactly is western style democracy ? Thier culture is not failing, if we keep observing it through the lenses of ethnocentricity, then, yes, they're quite some years behind our societal advancments, but do remember, The Islamic world has not had as much time to evolve as the Western world has.

Which is why so many of them want to kill us all off.

I don't for a minute believe that the latest wave of Islamofascism is engendered by anything except their hatred -- not for what we've done, but who we are.

The majority of the Muslims are either Islamofascists or those who, by their silence, have placed themselves in the Islamofascists' camp.

They want nothing more than to make shari'a the law, not of the land, but of the world. Here is a snapshot of their culture today:

A woman is property, to be murdered if, by committing the crime of being a rape victim, she "dishonors" her family.

Kill us for who we are ? If this was truely the doctrinal instinct of Islamic peoples, then you and I would not be typing this very message. That's an absurd statement backed only by light of recent event's and ignorant dogmatism towards the Islamic faith. Mulsims are not passive poseurs, waiting with idle hands to strike infidels.

Your snapshot of thier culture is very singular, it's ignorant and holds no merit. The Islamic culture, mind you, subsequently has a myriad of sub-cultures ranging all over the Middle East. Geo-Cultralism: every Islamic nation is quite different than thier brothers and sisters.

Women are not treated like Property in Islam, in fact, women in Islam were given more rights then men 1400 years ago. What you speak of is once again; filtered CNN dogmatism. Women, were only given equal rights 70 years ago in the west, and still, to this day, are not fully equal in all respects. The Hajib, to some women, is a sense of power, not a tool of opression.

They commit -- as we speak -- genocide against the black animists in the Darfur region of the Sudan.

They routinely pronounce fatwas saying that ritual beheading of the innocent "infidel" is acceptable if it gladdens the heart of a holy warrior, and none of the other Muslims will take issue with that.

They realize that, in the marketplace of ideas, that they cannot win, and rightfully believe that the big danger to them is not George Bush and his Apaches, but Jennifer Lopez and VH-1.

They know that the only way they can keep their weltanschauung is to engage in a battle with the West that will result, not in a victor and vanquished, but in the victor and the extinct.

'Usama bin Laden knows this, but Bush doesn't. He considers Muslims as Methodists with another hymnal, and routinely calls on the vast majority of "good" Muslims to rise up against the Islamofascists....

...and none of them, except for the Western puppets, do so.

Western Puppets? I would take that back, you obviously don't know much about the different Sects of Islam, and what constitutes a true Muslim in this world. Since when should average everyday Muslims feel obligated to speak out against fanaticsm in thier faith ? Have the Christians of this day apologized for the Crusades ? Have the Hindu's of this day apologized for the massacare of Muslims on India's Independence?


George Bush and Miss lopez, are a danger to the entire world

We are in that same position right now. We are facing, not a war against a country or even a war against "terror".

We are fighting a "kulturkampf" -- a culture-war -- with not just the Islamofascists, but with Islam itself.

One culture will survive.

Which one do you choose?

Culture ? We are not fighting a war against a culture. What do you call Muslims born and raised in American, Canada and the Great Britian ? Culturaly idoctrinated fanatics out to kill the world ?

One culture will not survive, if history is dictate to the perpetual survival of mankind, one would notice, that it was not the meek, nor the powerfull who inherited this green Earth, but those who simply chose to cooperate.

Look at what you're saying...

Deep

Deep, I fear I find your response disingenuous at best. Permit me to respond to some of your comments:

"The Islamic world has not had as much time to evolve as the Western world has."

Then how do you explain the fact that -- only three hundred years after the Hegira -- they were ahead of Christendom in medicine, language, mathematics, and overall culture? It's not that they 'didn't have as much time to evolve'; it's that they devolved.

"Kill us for who we are ? If this was truely the doctrinal instinct of Islamic peoples, then you and I would not be typing this very message. That's an absurd statement backed only by light of recent event's "

No. if it were not for Charles Martel at Tours and Don Juan at Lepanto we would not be typing these messages. And I hardly consider Tours at AD 732 and Lepanto at AD 1571 as "recent events".


"Islamic culture, mind you, subsequently has a myriad of sub-cultures ranging all over the Middle East. Geo-Cultralism: every Islamic nation is quite different than thier brothers and sisters. "

I consider your use of the term "brothers and sisters" to be interesting -- and singularly apropos. Because it doesn't matter if you are Sunni or Shi'a, if you are singularly infected by Wahhabism or not -- the bottom line is that NO Islamic leader that I am familiar with, whether the Grand Mufti of Mecca himself or a simple Imam in Java, has come out against the fascists who use their religion as an excuse to murder innocents.

To me, that means one of two things: either these religious leaders don't care that their religion is being perverted, or they agree with the tenets of the "faith' that these same murderers preach.

"Women are not treated like Property in Islam, in fact, women in Islam were given more rights then men 1400 years ago."

Exactly. it is apparent to me that, in the treatment of women anyway, as in mathematics, medicine, and military tactics, the Islamic culture has devolved.

"What you speak of is once again; filtered CNN dogmatism."

I lived in the Mideast for nine months and in Iran for almost that much more; how long have you lived in a Muslim country?

"Since when should average everyday Muslims feel obligated to speak out against fanaticsm in thier faith ?"

Well, I can think of a lot of people here who speak out against people whom they consider to be perverters of their faith; most Christians are aghast at the teachings of Christian Identity.

But I am not talking about the "average everyday Muslim": I'm talking about the Muslim leaders; the Imams -- -- the people you would think have a moral obligation to defend their faith and instruct the Faithful in the true meaning of the Qu'ran.

Unless, of course, these Muslim leaders agreed with the murderers or do not chose to take them on.

"One culture will not survive, if history is dictate to the perpetual survival of mankind, one would notice, that it was not the meek, nor the powerfull who inherited this green Earth, but those who simply chose to cooperate."

Tell that to Atahuallpa and Mocterzuma and the city fathers of Carthage after the Battle of Zama.

Originally posted by Off_The_Street

NO Islamic leader that I am familiar with, whether the Grand Mufti of Mecca himself or a simple Imam in Java, has come out against the fascists who use their religion as an excuse to murder innocents.

It could be that they're not entirely convinced that 9/11 was a spontaneous demonstration of 19 guys' love for Allah and hatred of the Great Satan. I know I'm not. But just for the sake of educating you on a point you're not familiar with, I'll post some quotes I found in about 10 seconds in newspapers after googling 'muslims condemnation 9/11':

---

The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia summarized that, "...hijacking planes, terrorizing innocent people and shedding blood, constitute a form of injustice that cannot be tolerated by Islam, which views them as gross crimes and sinful acts."

--

"We at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), along with the entire American Muslim Community, are deeply saddened by the massive loss of life resulting from the tragic events of September the 11th.

American Muslims unequivocally condemn these vicious and cowardly acts of terrorism."

---

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), along with other Muslim organizations throughout North America, today condemned the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington and offered condolences to the families of those who were killed or injured.

---

Organization of the Islamic Conference, Doha, Qatar. October 10th, 2001: (representing 56 Muslim nations)

"These terrorist acts contradict the teaching of all religions and human and moral values."

---

Iran's Ayatollah Imami Kashani spoke of a catastrophic act of terrorism which could only be condemned by all Muslims, adding the whole world should mobilise against terrorism.

---

The head of al-Azhar in Cairo, one of Sunni Islam's highest religious authority, said attacking innocent people was not courageous, but stupid and would be punished on Judgement Day.

--

In Lebanon the spiritual leader of the Shia guerrilla group, Hezbollah, called the attacks "barbaric acts".

He added even though Muslims were opposed to the American Government because of its support for Israel, the American people should not be blamed.

---

Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan:

"Those who perpetrated this horrendous act have lost their humanity and had become like wild beasts with only one thought in mind, to devour their prey."

---




Remember, you cannot summarize an entire religion / population / culture and all the individuals within it, ever. Any effort by a government, politicians, organization, or pundits to do so has a hidden agenda masked by the lies and stereotypes.

Think for yourself in all matters and way judgement with your own mind.

Taibunsuu, my apologies for not answering sooner; sometimes these fascists I work for actually expect me to work when I should be doing more important things like hanging out here and debating .

Your point is well taken about Muslims condemning the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon, but you yourself say that the reason is that it ��could be that they're not entirely convinced that 9/11 was a spontaneous demonstration of 19 guys' love for Allah and hatred of the Great Satan.�

I agree. Most Muslims polled by the Zogby polling organization (and James Zogby founder and president of the Arab American Institute -- see www.aaiusa.org... ) did not believe that the 9/11 attacks were done by Arabs; a majority of them believed that the whole thing was a Zionist plot set-up.

So their comments regarding the hijacking are not necessarily aimed against those 19 people, but are, in many cases, against the Jews who, as we all know, were behind everything that went wrong that day.

But my point is not whether they sent their condolences to the Americans for the 9/11 attacks; the point is that they have not seemed to condemn the wave of homicide bombings (often against rival Shi�a or Sunni sects and their respective mosques), kidnapping of others and publicly beheading them on TV; asking captured civilians in Saudi if they were Christians or Muslims, and then killing the Christians; murdering Russian schoolchildren in Ossetia, and so on.

The international Muslim leaders cannot play hopscotch with these issues; they know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the murderers in these cases are Qu�ran-quoting self-described Muslims, and their response, if any, is strangely muted.

One of the things that separates Muslims and Conservative Christians from the more �liberal� or �humanist� versions of Christianity (or Baha�i) is that the former, both Muslims and Christians, have a finely honed sense of innate good and evil.

While the average American Episcopalian or Unitarian Universalist or Baha�i might quibble about whether something contrary to their respective holy books is really �bad�, such is not the case with Islam and Conservative Christianity. If something is wrong, it is wrong.

If this is the case (and one doesn�t need to be a theologian to recognize this) then why aren�t the Muslim leaders speaking out against what is obviously wrong?

Unless, of course, such murder and terrorism is not wrong in their book.

Taibunsuu, you seem to be quite the expert in Islam; perhaps you should provide us with the appropriate Suras that either condemn or exculpate the doers of such deeds.

That way, we can decide for ourselves just why it is that the Muslim leadership seem strangely silent on the excess carried out in the name of Muhammad (PBUH) and of Allah, the Merciful and Compassionate.

Meanwhile, I reiterate my comment in my first post: The majority of the Muslims are either Islamofascists or those who, by their silence, have placed themselves in the Islamofascists' camp.

I have not lumped the majority of Muslim leaders in with the other al-Qaeda and similar gangs' supporters; they have done it themselves.



[edit on 14-9-2004 by Off_The_Street]

last week i posted a question on another thread along the lines of "what positive contributions has islam and muslims in general made to the civilized world since about 1200 ad."
Any one care to answer?

OMG

An intelligent debate between two individuals who have clearly-stated opinions and views, and no personal insults! I must be dreaming....



[edit on 14-9-2004 by Pyros]

A few Muslim Organizations spoke out against 9/11 and terrorism, true.

But that is as far as they went. Words of condemnation. Rather like the UN condemning Israel for its actions, but never acting upon them. Empty words that are forgotten after a few days.

Truth be told, the Muslims are either too scared, or they silently agree with what is being acted upon in their faith.