Posts by Juha Saarinen
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"That's kind of like saying that the illiberal and aggressive variants of Christianity are Catholicism and Protestantism."
Yes... and? You mean they aren't? Could've fooled me!
So how do you figure out which bits of Islam are OK and which isn't? It's kind of hard when even "liberal Islam" does not accept or allow homosexuality? Is there perhaps an islamic country that could serve as an example of tolerance and liberalism?
(Hmm, I feel I'm sliding out on thin ice here by referring to Wikipedia...]
I'm not going to second-guess what Osama would like us to do. Well, probably join his merry band of aggressive illiberals I suppose, because his imaginary friend in the sky is bigger than your one.
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"but to tar an entire world religion as some kind of fundamental threat to humanity is simply insane."
Couple of things here: why is it insane to tar an "entire world religion" as a threat to humanity? I don't think anyone's said Islam is a threat to all of humanity but it's arguably a threat to parts of it though - like Jews, gays, atheists, what few pagans there are left, women and each other. Oh, and the dhimmi as well.
Second, if the illiberal and aggressive "variants" of Islam are Sunni and Shi'a, as witnessed by recent monstrosities around the world, which ones are the liberal and peaceful ones? The Ibadiyah or the Kharijtes?
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Yes, there's that Cohen chap too who was sort of saying the same about the left.
I don't necessarily buy that neocons and their ilk have a distaste for Islam as such either. Why would they? Islam is illiberal and misogynist to the core. If it kept to itself without threatening various empire building efforts around the globe, said neocons wouldn't have anything bad to say about it.
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Sushi now with you, merc.
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The wahabists are one thing, but it's the wasabists who really get up your nose.
OK, I'm sorry. Couldn't help it.
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Ah ummm... James, no. That's not quite the accepted view of How Things Happened. It sounds more like your personal prejudices flowing through.
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"It's just that most Christian countries moved away from tribalism a while back."
Really? I'd say the scourge of nationalism which is just tribalism writ large still haunts Europe and North America. The British Isles is a case in point, and Catalunya, Navarra and Euskadi is another.
The good thing is that there are very few christian countries left. Secularity is good.
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"Here, I agree with you. Opposing the hijab ban is one thing - I don't think a government has the right to tell me what I can or can't wear on my goddamn head "
I don't want to Godwin myself, but how far would you take the above? Are you a fundie Voltairean or not?
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Well, in a sense it's no different from westerners expecting to have a beer with their BLTs and dress how they feel like in muslim countries.
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Humm, Che... that's not really material to the point, is it?
"The fate of the Shi'a as a target of government repression was sealed following the February 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. The Iraqi government, motivated by fears that revolution in Iran would spur its own Shi'a population to revolt, lost no time in mounting a repressive campaign.
At the end of 1979 and in early 1980, thousands of people were arrested in various towns and cities in central and southern Iraq, apparently on suspicion of supporting the Islamic revolution or for having links with the new regime in Iran. Many of these persons have since "disappeared" in custody and remain unaccounted for.
Others died under torture or were executed."
I don't doubt for a second that the US is more than willing to exploit sectarian tensions in Iraq, but let's not pretend they didn't exist until after the Gulf War.