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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| 'God's Crucible' isn't up to the challenge |
| 2008-02-10 |
| Lewis sets out to show that the failure of what he calls "the jihad east of the Pyrenees" is "one of the most significant losses in world history." He argues that the Frankish defeat of the Islamic invaders at Poitiers in 732 and the subsequent poetic glorification of Roland's sacrifice to cover Charlemagne's retreat from his own incursion into Spain were "pivotal moments in the creation of an economically retarded, balkanized and fratricidal Europe that, by defining itself in opposition to Islam, made virtues out of hereditary aristocracy, persecutory religious intolerance, cultural particularism and perpetual war ... 'winning' at Poitiers actually meant that the economic, scientific and cultural levels that Europeans attained in the 13th century could almost certainly have been achieved more than three centuries earlier had they been included in the Muslim world empire." In other words, the West would be better off if it had been incorporated into an all-conquering Islamic empire in the early Middle Ages. OK. Still, it's fair to wonder why, if that's true, the West ended up with the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and the Scientific Revolution, and the Islamic world got chronic underdevelopment, a pervasive religious obscurantism, al-Qaida and the trust-fund states of the Arabian peninsula. It's also fair to point out that both the Muslim philosopher Averroes and the Jewish philosopher-physician Maimonides were sent fleeing by Islamic fundamentalists and not the Christian Reconquista. Moreover, the Carolingian incursion into Spain was a response to an invitation by Saracen grandees fearful of Abd al-Rahman's expanding hegemony. An impeccably democratic, humane scholar, Lewis has an understanding of the origins and failures of European civilization that far surpasses his knowledge of Islam. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #7 Still, it's fair to wonder why, if that's true, the West ended up with the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and the Scientific Revolution, and the Islamic world got chronic underdevelopment, a pervasive religious obscurantism, al-Qaida and the trust-fund states of the Arabian peninsula. It's also fair to point out that both the Muslim philosopher Averroes and the Jewish philosopher-physician Maimonides were sent fleeing by Islamic fundamentalists and not the Christian Reconquista. Moreover, the Carolingian incursion into Spain was a response to an invitation by Saracen grandees fearful of Abd al-Rahman's expanding hegemony. Let's not let facts get in the way of ideology, |
| Posted by: DoDo 2008-02-10 19:54 |
| #6 McZoid, ya' got a point, but 'ffraid 's not so simple. You need to knock off 3 pillars entirely, so Islam would not have enough to stand on. Islam and the cultural rules are mutually intertwined--after Islam's demise the cultural norms and customs would be still relatively unscathed. Your strategy has to take that into account. You'd need to provide a "replacement" belief system, but that won't take overnight. Maybe one needs to start from the replacement end and let it corrode the Islamic paradigm and when the prep work is at an advanced stage, then reach for the jugular. BTW, I have hunch that Mecca would be nuked, but not by us, rather by Islam adherents themselves, maybe shia. |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2008-02-10 19:08 |
| #5 AH: I have to disagree about Islamic survivability, with their Hajj gonzo. Jews accept Temple Mount as a social center. For the slaves of allah, the Kaba is their deity's portal to earth; its significance is supernatural. Muslims cannot and do not recognize any absolute sovereignty, other than that of their deity. And given that nature, Muslims believe that the creator of the universe would protect his portal. If it was destroyed, then the fear-based charisma that led the cult to flourish would abate. No Kaba; no Islam. Some regulars here still trust Muslims as partners in the GWOT. I don't. As I write a young Afghan is in jail awaiting a death sentence. His crime? He downloaded an essay on the human rights of women, and showed it to a single colleague. What is the problem of finding Islam in itself, as unconscionable? Why are Muslims no less repugnant than Nazis or Communists, or cannibals? |
| Posted by: McZoid 2008-02-10 18:12 |
| #4 Year 2oo8 is the YEAR OF RECKONING for the US, the West, the UNO + World i.e. GLOBAL DEMOCRATIC ORDER versus GLOBAL SOCIALIST ORDER, GLOBAL/NEW GIRL ORDER, .................@etc. even for my home island of Guam albeit I don't believe many Chamorros-Guamanians realize it yet, nor want to. ISLAM = RADIC ISLAMISM > AQ + Islamism is presently LOSING THEIR WAR IN THE ME as per Dubya-USA's LOCAL/REGIONAL-GLOBAL ENTRENCHMENT. AS LONG AS RADICAL ISLAM REFUSES OR OTHWERWISE FAILS TO ATTACK CONUS PER SE AS FOR ANTI-"GREAT POWER GEOPOL, IMO THE ONLY WAY THEN FOR ISLAMISM TO DEFEAT OR STOP US ME ENTRENCHMENT WOULD BE FOR THE SO-CALLED ISLAMIST "HIDDEN IMAM-MAHDI" ETC TO ACTUALLY MANIFEST HIMSELF, TO LEAD AND DESTROY US MILFORS = PRESENCE/DOMIN IN THE ME. OSAMA BIN LADEN and I helped to destroy the Soviet army in Afghanistan - the question at the moment is whether IRAN-CENTRIC/FOCII OSAMA + AQ IS PHYSICALLY ABLE, GIVEN OSAMA'S WELL-REPORTED HEALTH PROBLEMS, TO LEAD HIS OWN DESIRED "APOCALYPSE" = ISLAMIST versus NON-ISLAMIST "FINAL/DECISIVE" BATTLE IN IRAN, ESPEC NOW THAT THE THRESHOLD IS HERE??? DITTO FOR MOUD??? Bear in mind that by most theological descriptions, the so-called HIDDN IMAM-MAHDI will serve the interests of GOD/ALLAH + HEAVEN, NOTSOMUCH OSAMA, MOUD, Mohammed, or even ISLAM-ISLAMISM's - also bear in mind that, by definition, just as Islam = Radical Islamism's Messiah is manifest to "justify" Islam + lead same agz the non-Islamic World, BY DEFINITION/EXTENS THE "MESSIAHS/SAVIORS", ETC. OF NON-ISLAMIC WORLD FAITHS MAY ALSO MANIFEST TO LEAD/DEFEND THEIR OWN AGZ ISLAM AND THE ISLAMIC IMMAM-MAHDI??? Among other premises, then, the GWOT + OSAMIAN-MOUDIAN "APOCALYPSE" > CLASH OF FAITHS/MESSIAHS = WAR BTWN THE FAITHS/WORLD RELIGIONS. Iff the OSAMAIAN-MOUDIAN IMAM-MAHDI IS TO SAVE RADICAL ISLAMISM + ISLAMIC-ISLAMIST OWG GLOBAL AGENDA, then he must appear btwn now NLT 2010 WHILE US ENTRENCHMENT EFFORTS IN THE ME IS STILL WEAK ENUFF TO BE POTEN CHALLENGED = DESTROYED BY RADICAL ISLAMISM ONLY, espec given the post 2008, post-Dubya flux within the US NPE. AFTER 2008-2010 > the survival of the Radical Islamist agenda will depend more and more on MUTUALLY DESTRUCTIVE, "GREAT POWERS" CONFRONTATION, e.g. RUSSIA-CHINA's ANTI-US "WAR IS NOT ONLY POSSIBLE BUT DESIRED" SCENARIOS. By Russ-China's own accounts, ANTI-US 'DESIRED WAR" > RUSSIA = circa 2018, CHINA circa 2014 or as dependent on TAIWAN's actions. IOW, 2008-2010 > WORLD ISLAM + RADICAL ISLAMISM, INCLUDING ISLAMIC/ISLAMIST TERROR, WILL EITHER BE SAVED = "JUSTIFIED" AS A WORTHY DIVINE FAITH; OR ELSE DISCREDITED AS A DIVINE FAITH = DIVINE BASIS FOR TERROR. AND NOW YOU KNOW, VIRGINIA, YET ANOTHER REASON FOR "WHITNEY versus MADONNA" IN THE 1960's. MADONNA FANS > BEFORE MTV, GOD CREATED MTV [theme from Dragnet = STAR WARS Empire theme here] Where MADONNA = JOSEPHINE BONAPARTE BUUURPS, OWG-NWO + SUN/EARTH CHANGES, etc. FOLLOW. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-02-10 18:00 |
| #3 Racism masquerading as scholarship. |
| Posted by: ed 2008-02-10 17:28 |
| #2 "without some place to conduct Hajj, the Muslims will dump their murder cult" Nope, that wouldn't happen, any more than the destruction(s) of the Temple destroyed the Jewish religion. As far as the failure of what Lewis calls "the jihad east of the Pyrenees" being "one of the most significant losses in world history," where is H. L. Mencken now that we need him? He once wrote Here is something that the psychologists have so far neglected: the love of ugliness for its own sake, the lust to make the world intolerable. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2008-02-10 16:16 |
| #1 Islam set back humanity by hundreds of years. And we still pay the Muslim-Tax. Ergo: get rid of Islam. Nuke Mecca and Medina and, without some place to conduct Hajj, the Muslims will dump their murder cult. What exactly do we get from peaceful coexistence with the slaves of allah? That is the biggest bill of goods ever peddled. We couldn't defeat Communism militarily, because of the balance of terror. There is NOTHING to stop us from laying waste to the worst dreg on humanity, except our will to recognize a mortal enemy. |
| Posted by: McZoid 2008-02-10 13:37 |