A fight, a fight, a Muslim and a White

I remember growing up in 70's as a kid and seeing people walking around wearing 'Ayatollah Assahola' T-shirts.

So from the moment I was born in the United States in the early seventies, I was already being conditioned to view these people as the enemy and the bad guys.

All throughout my life, especially in the media, I feel there is this constant bombardment of suggestions to prop them up as the enemy - that is, the darker complexion Arab / Muslim. I am born neither of White European Christian descent nor Arab, Muslim or dark complexioned, so I grew up impartial to the entire charade. In the news, I never understood all the hoopla about why they were such a threat.

I am not really a 'religious' person in the conventional sense, and I do see a problem with allowing extremist religious views affect law and government more than *reason*, but that is another topic.

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What I wanted to bring attention to in the ATS community is how long the fighting has been going on between these two lineages of people; in particular - The White Roman Catholic Christian Europeans vs the darker complexioned Muslims.

I was astounded to see how far back the history went, which explains a lot about the emotional tone in these modern times. The history goes back over a thousand years..

It probably goes back even earlier, but one of the earlier accounts -

Battle of Yarmouk
en.wikipedia.org...

.. took place in "636, ..along what is today the border between Syria and Jordan, south-east of the Sea of Galilee. The result of the battle was a complete Muslim victory which ended Byzantine rule in Syria. The Battle of Yarmouk is regarded as one of the most decisive battles in military history, and it marked the first great wave of Islamic conquests after the death of prophet Muhammad, heralding the rapid advance of Islam into the then Christian Levant."

Byzantine = eastern half of the Roman Empire (Roman Catholic Christian)

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Other notable accounts of conflicts amongst these groups are:

The Crusades -
en.wikipedia.org...

and the Muslim Conquests -
en.wikipedia.org...

It was not always the case that the Muslims were in the compromised position they are today but at times had the upper hand -
"..the Muslim conquests.., began with the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the 7th century. He established a new unified polity in the Arabian Peninsula which under the subsequent Rashidun (The Rightly Guided Caliphs) and Umayyad Caliphates saw a century of rapid expansion of Muslim power.

They grew well beyond the Arabian Peninsula in the form of a Muslim empire with an area of influence that stretched from the borders of China and India, across Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, Sicily, and the Iberian Peninsula, to the Pyrenees."

From Wikipedia Crusades article - "Some historians see the Crusades as part of a purely defensive war against the expansion of Islam in the near east; some see them as part of long-running conflict at the frontiers of Europe.. The Byzantine Empire was unable to recover territory lost during the initial Muslim conquests under the expansionist Rashidun and Umayyad caliphs in the Arab–Byzantine Wars and the Byzantine–Seljuq Wars; these conquests culminated in the loss of fertile farmlands and vast grazing areas of Anatolia in 1071, after a sound victory by the occupying armies of Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert. Urban II sought to reunite the Christian church under his leadership by providing Emperor Alexios I with military support.

Several hundred thousand Roman Catholic Christians became Crusaders by taking a public vow and receiving plenary indulgences from the Vatican. The Crusaders came from various feudal kingdoms of Western Europe.."

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This article, though maybe partial, points out a some of the history: www.cbn.com...

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The battle continues..

I hope that human civilization can get past these primitive times and into better days. I hope that we can rise above these tribes of monkeys fighting.

Instead of implementing speculative religion, I hope that we can all stand upon reason as our common ground.

a reply to: nOraKat

My husband always says talking to an Arab you would think the crusades had only ended at 5 o'clock yesterday, and for many Christians the Muslim conquests were just yesterday also.

I prefer to look past all that, and hope for a better future. One where we can decide to let bygones be bygones and realize we are all just people trying to get by in life.

I think if we started looking at the average of both parties we would realize our likeness is on the other side of that line. Governments and extremists on both sides don't want us to see that, but I think if they are against it, then we should be all the more for it!

a reply to: nOraKat
I suspect at the same time they were walking around chanting "death to America" and "America is the Great Satan" in their Islamic countries.
Apparently, even when the Americans armed the Mujehadeen against the Russians in Afghanistan some understood the irony that they took American weapons, and then chanted anti-American slogans.
I wouldn't feel too bad, and radical Islam has members of all races.

a reply to: OpinionatedB

The crusades only went to prove that religious fanatacism is the worst mistake mankind can make.

You would think after 3 crusades and then the moors pushed into Europe there would be more of a mixed race between them.....us. After the fighting is over there is the celebrating, but then the church made the rules on sex...

a reply to: nOraKat

I think I can speak a little on this. When in college I had a group of Saudi's that I knew and though pleasant,they did have issues with America.They told me then that there was a lot of things that our government wasn't telling the public about what we were doing in other countries around the world.

Now mind you these weren't radicals in any sense of the word.They were just regular Saudi men that came over for an education here. But they made it quite clear that our government was a problem for everyone. After being there for about a month and a half,the Iran hostage situation broke out,oh boy.They out right refused to talk about it(I didn't blame them).They were in a bad position to have to deal with the hatred that was going on in the country.

I later looked it up on the internet to find out what the deal really was and saw that thanks to our government and CIA we had back in the 50's help disgrace a democratically elected president from office in Iran with pamphlets full of lies. He wouldn't play like we wanted to so he had to go. Then to really fix things we put the Shah of Iran in to torture and kill people. You know,the supposed reason we took out Sadam Hussein after the excuse of WMD fell through.

My point is that we are pretty much hated over the entire world,not just the middle east.They like our money,but wish we would stay home due to our governments way of dealing with the rest of the world.I guess since we can't make things work here,we'll concentrate on making them work somewhere else.Yeah,right.

originally posted by: nOraKat


I am born neither of White European Christian descent nor Arab, Muslim or dark complexioned, so I grew up impartial to the entire charade. In the news, I never understood all the hoopla about why they were such a threat.


What I wanted to bring attention to in the ATS community is how long the fighting has been going on between these two lineages of people; in particular - The White Roman Catholic Christian Europeans vs the darker complexioned Muslims.



The battle continues..

The "White Roman Catholic Christians" engaged in many wars with White non-Catholics in Europe. As well the "Dark Complexioned" Arabs fought many wars among themselves. The element of race always comes up when different races are fighting for whatever reason but it doesn't look like either side is very picky.

a reply to: OpinionatedB

for many Christians the Muslim conquests were just yesterday also.

For many Christians in the Middle East, it isn't only yesterday, it is today also.

Wow 700 years of fighting and it all comes down to a 'Ayatollah Assahola' T-shirt.....

I think we are making progress...

a reply to: Xtrozero
And he is an Ass-hola, at least the Sunnis think so about the Shi'iites.
Or not?
And never mind the poor Ahmadiyya Muslims.
Is there peace between them?

There have been some very interesting books about the history of Islam in the Middle East out recently. What you have to remember is that there is a bafflement amongst many Islamic scholars as to how the previously backwards Christian parts of Europe suddenly became so strong. Before anyone starts to object we WERE backwards and there's no point in denying it. Algebra came from the Muslim world, some of the best doctors and surgeons came from the Islamic world, much of our philosophy was influenced by it. Ottoman armies almost captured Vienna twice. And then all of a sudden they stagnated and the West overtook them.
This is a very complicated subject, but I think that part of it might be the fact that the West had the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, and the East didn't.

a reply to: AngryCymraeg

What does backwards mean here anyway? Europe and the Roman and Greek influence? Talk about medical influence on Europe!

originally posted by: Logarock
a reply to: AngryCymraeg

What does backwards mean here anyway? Europe and the Roman and Greek influence? Talk about medical influence on Europe!

Not as advanced as the East. We had the Dark Ages - they didn't!

originally posted by: AngryCymraeg

originally posted by: Logarock
a reply to: AngryCymraeg

What does backwards mean here anyway? Europe and the Roman and Greek influence? Talk about medical influence on Europe!

Not as advanced as the East. We had the Dark Ages - they didn't!

It looks like they missed out on the age of reason and enlightenment eventually.

But back to the question....how did those backward azzed Europeans come on so strong? Were they really puzzled by this? Sounds like ethnic arrogance. What? Did they fancy themselves on par with the Roman empire?

originally posted by: Logarock

originally posted by: AngryCymraeg

originally posted by: Logarock
a reply to: AngryCymraeg

What does backwards mean here anyway? Europe and the Roman and Greek influence? Talk about medical influence on Europe!

Not as advanced as the East. We had the Dark Ages - they didn't!

It looks like they missed out on the age of reason and enlightenment eventually.

But back to the question....how did those backward azzed Europeans come on so strong? Were they really puzzled by this? Sounds like ethnic arrogance. What? Did they fancy themselves on par with the Roman empire?

As I said, this is a very complicated subject. Why did the Ottomans do so well in Eastern Europe whilst the Christian kingdoms fought off the Muslims in Spain (just about the only success before the Reformation)? The Reformation seems to have been a key moment for the West. The East on the other hand despite its trade routes, its natural resources and the fact that there were no barbarian invasions, seems to have reached a peak (science, the arts, military matters) and then stagnated horribly. Why? Was it the influence of the Ottomans? The lack of a Reformation? It's a very, very complicated subject - and not one that has any easy answers.

The conflict between the East and the West started around 500 BC when Persians and the Greek fought many wars and after the fall of the Greek empire it transferred to the Roman empire which also fought for almost 400 years off and on with the Persian empires (Parthians,Sassanid) then later on after the conquest of Islam with the Safavid empire....Of course it didn't end there and the crusade took place followed by the British empire's total distablizing of the remaining Empire right up to 1979 when the revolution took place in Iran....And yess,, it continued with Iraq(west)Iran(east) wars followed by a massive propaganda campagne against Muslims particularly in the greater Iranian territories....Now a days it is about the nuclear issues and the Israel's whining which keeps the fuel going....I am afraid centuries from now it will still be the main reason governments spend money and fight just to justify their short comes....So this is been going on for almost 2500 years.

Yes, its a strange world, I learned something new yesterday, I had NO idea, that Lenin, was secretly taken back to Russia, ( Czars ), given 12 million cash to start a revolution, I knew he started the revolution, i didnt realize that the germans were doing it , to literally stop the russian front during ww 1, and it worked. What im getting at, is that all these countries are in bed with eachother, and have been for a very long time. it is playing one poplution of humans against another, to acheive a certain outcome, by persuasion, power, or death., Crazy, And the only man to come and greet Lenin, when he got off the train, in St. petersburg, was none other than Joseph Stalin. I mean it literally all falls into place when you start looking back at the real history

a reply to: Dimithae

I had a very similar experience (back in the 80s) working with guys from Iran, Iraq and Pakistan . They were fine people and I was welcome in their homes, as were they in mine, but they had big issues with the US gov't.

Muslims ----> stonings, subjugation of women, thursdays (google: muslim thursday) and Honor Rapes.

all i need to know.. wouldn't mind taking them all out. dont care what else anyone has to say in defense of them.

a reply to: HanzHenry
Are you saying you wouldn't mind killing all Muslims ? So you're saying you'd like to take out my mom, my children... ??
Seriously ?!? Sick f*##

I take this a serious threat.
Be careful what you say drone.