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The war between cultures

22 comments on The war between cultures

The war between cultures

: I keep coming back to the thought that the war between cultures — between Islam and the West — will come first to Europe instead of America. See the fight over Muslim women’s head scarves in France. See the murder of Theo Van Gogh after he made a film about the oppression of Muslim women in Europe. And see this week’s Spiegel cover: “Allah’s daughters without rights.” The experience of Muslims in Europe is different and in greater contrast than here and that will cause greater conflict.

22 responses to “The war between cultures”

  1. Hope Avatar
    Hope

    One of the most ethically diverse and one the most tolerant (in terms of religious freedom) societies in world history was the Ottoman Empire. It is an irony that the great secularizing, pro-Western Ataturk left his nation far more demographically Muslim and yet more westernized when he died in 1938 than it had been when he had been born in what is now Greece.
    And it has been the Muslim leaders of Malaysia who have made their country far richer than communist, atheistic Vietnam or the heavily Christian Philippines.
    One can have some sympathy for European Muslims who are appalled at what they see of cultural decay in Amsterdam.
    Hope
    http://humorhangout.blogspot.com/

  2. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    It’s not Islam vs. the West. Perhaps “Islamic extremism,” but not Islam.

  3. Hope Avatar
    Hope

    Michael: Could you be more specific about what form of Islam practiced in which countries you would consider “extreme”?
    Hope
    http://humorhangout.blogspot.com/

  4. Debbie (U.S. Navy Wife) Avatar
    Debbie (U.S. Navy Wife)

    Don’t forget that the Germans are now nervous about Islam and are attempting to force Imams to only speak German in the mosques. Apparently, they were preaching racist and hateful things.

  5. HA Avatar
    HA

    Hope,
    One of the most ethically diverse and one the most tolerant (in terms of religious freedom) societies in world history was the Ottoman Empire.
    What a bunch of leftist, myth-making crap. The Ottoman empire was a corrupt, oppressive, slave-holding, racist theocracy. Have you heard of the Armenian genocide? And what happened to the Greeks of Constantinople and Anatolia? Hint, think genocide. Do you know what a “dhimmi” is? And the Arabs weren’t exactly happy under Ottoman rule either. By Ottoman standards, the old Jim Crowe South is a model of ethnic diversity and religous tolerance.

  6. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    Hope – Islamic extremism cannot be tied to any particular nation. But, some Islamist extremist groups on the State Department

  7. Mumblix Grumph Avatar
    Mumblix Grumph

    Jeff, I had the first post on this earlier…was it deleted? Did I step out of line?

  8. Hope Avatar
    Hope

    HA–A leftist? Moi? Au contraire.
    Actually, it was far easier to live free of oppression for Jews, say, in the Ottoman Empire in say 1878 than it was to try to do in the Russian one and easier in Istanbul in 1939 then in Germany or Austria.
    Yes many Armenians died in 1915. But the Armenians took Turkish Muslim lives via roving armed bands and that is never mentioned. The Greeks were forced out of what is now Turkey after the Greek government launched a disastrous (for Greece) invasion of the Turkish heartland in the early 1920s and were soundly thrashed by the superior generalship of Ataturk, who was simply trying to create a Republic and fend off a foreign invasion. The Arabs may not have been happy under Ottoman rule but they have experienced ruthlessness under the French and under Arab-led regimes.
    Thank you, Michael, for the details. The trouble is, nearly all of the groups you mention have some justification for opposing the governments of the countries you mention. Muslims have legitimate grievances in parts of the Philippines. Algeria’s hard-line fundamentalists were robbed at the ballot box more than a decade ago (that is the trouble with democracy—fundamentalists can win elections). Hezbollah had a right to try to eject Israel from Lebanon. The government of Uzbekistan is incompetent and autocratic. Egypt’s ruling class is corrupt and huge amounts of aid are wasted and so forth. As an American woman who values her freedom, I have no great love for Islamic extremists. But you can’t kill every single one of them, however hard we might try.
    Hope
    http://humorhangout.blogspot.com/

  9. Dan Avatar
    Dan

    So, 9/11 didn’t truly involve Islam vs the West?

  10. Dimitar Vesselinov Avatar
    Dimitar Vesselinov

    The Global War of the 21st Century
    “Networked organizations, infrastructure disruption, and the emerging marketplace of violence. An open notebook on the epochal war of the 21st Century.”
    http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/
    How can we describe this new kind of war?
    Features:
    – law vs. corruption
    – order vs. disorder
    – civil society vs. organized crime
    – accelerating change vs. static decline
    – hierarchy vs. networks
    – units vs. swarms
    – power vs. weakness
    – post-industrial tecnology vs. industrial tecnology
    – globalization vs. traditional values
    – creativity vs. diligence
    http://divedi.blogspot.com/2004/11/global-war-of-21st-century.html

  11. nadz Avatar
    nadz

    hope – cultural decay in amsterdam? this arab-american doesn’t think so – holland is a model for free speech and tolerance, two things that islamic extremists are declaring war on. i think dutch culture is great and thriving…
    muslims in the netherlands have a right to retain their culture, as long as it does not conflict with the dutch values of free speech, women’s rights, etc.

  12. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    Hope: “The trouble is, nearly all of the groups you mention have some justification for opposing the governments of the countries you mention.”
    I never questioned anyone’s justifications. I haven’t even criticized their methods. ALL I AM SAYING is that you can’t claim that there’s some broad cultural struggle between Islam and The West (whatever that is). Some would argue its a struggle between extremism. I’m more likely to explain it in way similar to Dimitar’s description above.

  13. la Avatar
    la

    From my imperfect knowledge of history, it seems that Muslims and Christians (with some exceptions that prove the rule) have never liked each other much and have always been fighting in one way or another. This is just the latest installment in a long, long, conflict.

  14. HA Avatar
    HA

    Hope,
    HA–A leftist? Moi? Au contraire.
    I have a suggestion. If you wish to deny your leftist credentials, I would advise against doing so en francais. ;-)
    Regardless of your own political persuasian, the myth of a tolerant Ottoman empire is of leftist origins. The “best of all possible worlds” is always one other than our own. The real world tends to compare unfavorably to mythological utopias.
    Perhaps the Ottoman distopia was more tolerant than Medieval Europe, Czarist Russia and Nazi Germany. But that isn’t saying much.

  15. Catherine Avatar
    Catherine

    Nadz – That seems to be the problem. What Pim Fortyn was trying to open a discussion on before his murder was how the muslim community treats Dutch gays and Dutch women (cursing at women in short skirts, low riders). The violent don’t appreciate Dutch civil liberties.
    I think the problem here with the multi-cultural ideas is that we have all (most) been taught that in the end we are all human beings so ethnicity, different forms of worship, customs shouldn’t matter. We are all one big “world” family. However, that has not translated outside of Europe and the Americas and that can be a deadly assumption. For too many, there are islamic fundamentalists and everyone else. Everyone else deserves death.

  16. nadz Avatar
    nadz

    catherine – i couldn’t agree more. i’ve lived in the middle east for years, where gender equality is still a long way away. however, there are also many tolerant and easygoing people who wish that arab societies were as open as western ones.
    the problem seems to be that while some muslims in europe have that attitude, there are also many conservatives who not only refuse to integrate, but also want to make european societies fit their conservtive views. many of these european and american muslims are even more conservative than those in the middle east, which could be a reaction to living in a very liberal ,open environment. my attitude is, people should be open to ethnic differences, but not when they go against core values of equality and free speech.
    i’m just fed up of people being forced to tolerate the intolerant.

  17. Rachel Avatar
    Rachel

    I have to agree with HA on this one. For one, the Otooman Empire required higher taxes for those who refused to convert to Islam. Second, the Ottomans were vicious (but so were the ones they were fighting). Third, the Armenian Genocide occured during the reign of Abdul Hamid around 1895, followed by the “independent” Yound Turks around 1918. Ataturk’s relationship with the Armenians was more political. He wasnted to negotiate land settlements with Russia so “up the Armenians.”
    I don’t know about the “leftist” agenda in terms of the Ottomans, but they had a mixed moral rule, just like other countries.

  18. Yo Avatar
    Yo

    “One can have some sympathy for European Muslims who are appalled at what they see of cultural decay in Amsterdam.”
    WOW. That’s really fucking sick. So their emotions justify murder? Again, totally sick.

  19. Kat Avatar
    Kat

    Muslims have destroyed every culture they’ve taken over.

  20. Hope Avatar
    Hope

    HA: I don’t see what language one speaks has to do with one’s politics. Chirac is a right-wing (at least by French standards) politician, not a left-wing one, for instance.
    Actually, the leading defenders of the Ottomans in the British political establishment, such as the Tory prime ministers Disraeli and Lord Salisbury, had impeccable conservative credentials. The leading Ottoman basher of the 19th century and champion of the Bulgarians and, later, Armenians, was the Liberal prime minister, Gladstone.
    Rachel: who was less vicious than the Ottomans? The Crusaders? The British and the French in the 19th century? Could you be more specific?
    Yo: your wording is, obviously, coarse and I don’t recall endorsing murder. That’s not something that I generally do. You are probably capable of more reasoned discourse. But one never knows.
    Nadz: open drug use, euthanasia and a high tolerance for pornography are features of Dutch life that upset people, not all of whom are Muslim. It isn’t bigoted to point such things out.
    Kat: could you be much, much, much more specific? Blanket condemnations of an entire religious tradition require a little evidence, if you please.
    Hope
    http://humorhangout.blogspot.com/

  21. lindenen Avatar
    lindenen

    “And it has been the Muslim leaders of Malaysia who have made their country far richer than communist, atheistic Vietnam or the heavily Christian Philippines.”
    Malaysia is completely dependent on the work of its ethnic Chinese for its economy. Ethnic Chinese who are not Muslim. Without them, Malaysia would be just another shithole.

  22. Hope Avatar
    Hope

    Hello, Lindenen. That is a very good point but a gross exaggeration. You could just as easily say that the Chinese were only able to do as well as they did because of the patronage of the British colonial overloads. Ironically, some of the shrewdest leaders of Malaysia have been Malays (e.g., Mahathir) who blasted their fellow Muslim Malays for their supposed shiftlessness. But it is very unfair to ignore what the non-Chinese elements part of Malaysia has been able to accomplish. Your contemptuous dismissal of the non-Chinese parts of the developing world is telling. No wonder Muslims feel aggrieved. The mostly Muslim-leadership of Malaysia took a country drained by colonialism, ravaged by war between competing colonial powers (Japan and Britain), beset by a primarily Chinese-led communist insurgency and, in the face of Western indifference, created a fairly prosperous and quasi-democratic nation and prevented pogroms against the Chinese. Not bad.
    Hope
    http://humorhangout.blogspot.com/