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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2005 8:29 am Post subject: Muslim anguish, Western condescension |
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| Asian Times wrote: |
Muslim anguish, Western condescension
By Spengler
Why do Muslims riot over alleged desecration of the Koran? For the same reason that Christians used to riot over alleged desecration of the Host, the wafer that when consecrated becomes the body of Jesus Christ, according to Catholic belief. For Muslims, the Koran is not a holy book, like the Christian Gospels or the Jewish Torah, but the incarnate presence of Allah on Earth, dictated to the Prophet Mohammed word-for-word by the Archangel Gabriel. It is not prophecy, but the presence of divinity, as a number of commentators have observed, including this one (The crescent and the conclave, April 19, 2005).
Under the rubric Muslim anguish and Western hypocrisy (Nov 23, 2004), I observed that Christianity once killed apostates as a matter of routine, an action defended in retrospect by Catholic theologians such as Michael Novak as appropriate to the times. Western commentators condemn the guards of the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for desecrating the Koran, while regarding Pakistani or Afghan Koran rioters as primitives. Condescending Westerners should look more closely at their own history. [1]
Host-desecration riots by Christians in 1298 led to an estimated 100,000 deaths in Germany and Austria, starting with the execution by fire of the entire Jewish community of Rottingen. Enraged Christians killed 3,000 Jews in Prague after a priest carrying a consecrated Host wafer was sprayed by sand. Other killings took place in Rome in 1021, Strasbourg in 1308, Posen in 1399, Silesia in 1451, and so forth. Medieval Jews, to be sure, were less likely to have tortured a consecrated Host than Marine guards were to have flushed a Koran down the toilet, and historians agree that the charge was a fabrication. [2] Christian sensitivities, nonetheless, were just as bloodthirsty as in today's Pakistan.
Worshipping divine incarnation in a book, to be sure, has quite different implications than worshipping the incarnate presence of God in bread and wine. Textual criticism becomes heresy as a matter of course. And without the sort of textual criticism that busied the Christian reformers at the turn of the 16th century, it is odd to speak of an Islamic reformation. A book in whose very words God reveals his presence must remain stuck in time like a fly in amber.
Muslim violence over desecration of the Koran is not uncommon, as a matter of fact. According to the Nigerian Christian journalist Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo:
In December of 1994, a Nigerian Christian trader, Gideon Akaluka, was accused of tearing pages out of the Koran in the northern city of Kano. Muslim youths launched an attack on him. He was rescued by the police and locked up in Bompai prison. On December 26, 1996, Muslim groups stormed the prison, pulled Akaluka out and beheaded him. They hoisted his head on a pike and paraded through the streets of Kano.
On December 12, 2001, a Nigerian Christian truck driver, Saint Moritz, was reversing his truck near a fruit market in Kano. His truck accidentally ran into an area occupied by a Koranic study group. As students fled, one dropped his Koran. The truck trampled on a copy of the Koran. Muslim groups pursued the man. He ran to a police station. Mobs stormed the police station, overpowered the few cops on post and dragged the man to the street. They beat the man unconscious. He later died in a hospital.
No one, of course, is accused of desecrating a consecrated Host any longer, so Catholics have no one against whom to riot. Few Catholics, for that matter, still believe that the wafer really turns into the flesh of Jesus Christ (according to a 1992 Gallup Poll, only 30% of American Catholics polled clearly expressed this belief), and therefore are unlikely to riot even if someone really were to desecrate a Host. Unlike the skeptical Catholics, Muslims actually believe in the divine character of the Koran, and thus have something to riot about.
It now seems clear that some of the Guantanamo guards did abuse copies of the Koran, even if they did not, as Newsweek reported, flush one down a toilet. It would be surprising if US interrogators never resorted to Koran abuse as a technique for breaking down the will of prisoners. Like sensory deprivation, psychotropic drugs and physical stress, desecrating the Koran may be an effective interrogation technique. That does not make the practice any less deplorable, but the fact that it is likely to be quite effective in destroying the morale of Muslim prisoners increases the probability that it will be applied on occasion.
Two things explain the effectiveness of Koran desecration as a means of breaking Muslim morale. The first is that the Koran hosts Allah's incarnate presence, so to speak. The second is the peculiar importance of success to Islam. Unlike Christianity or Judaism, worldly success is the ultimate testimony of Islam; the muezzin calls, "Come to prayer. Come to success!", and its emblem is the crescent, a symbol of secular growth, as opposed to the cross, a symbol of renunciation of worldly things. As I wrote in Horror and humiliation in Fallujah (April 27, 2004),
The West cannot endure without faith that a loving Father dwells beyond the clouds that obscure His throne ... The Islamic world cannot endure without confidence in victory, that to "come to prayer" is the same thing as to "come to success". Humiliation - the perception that the ummah cannot reward those who submit to it - is beyond its capacity to endure.
Abusing the Koran is the equivalent of abusing Allah himself, and tells the Muslim prisoner that his god is powerless to avenge insults. Again, I do not condone such things, but merely observe that an effective weapon is more likely to be put to use. As I wrote in "Horror and humiliation in Fallujah:
Radical Islam has risen against the West in response to its humiliation - intentional or not - at Western hands. The West can break the revolt by inflicting even worse humiliation upon the Islamists, poisoning the confidence of their supporters in the Muslim world.
The ultimate in American condescension is the "Muslim World Outreach" strategy exposed by US News and World Report on April 25. [3] As David E Kaplan reported:
Although US officials say they are wary of being drawn into a theological battle, many have concluded that America can no longer sit on the sidelines as radicals and moderates fight over the future of a politicized religion with over a billion followers. The result has been an extraordinary - and growing - effort to influence what officials describe as an Islamic reformation.
Attempting to engineer an Islamic reformation may be the silliest initiative in foreign policy in the history of the world. The theological department of the Central Intelligence Agency will not persuade Muslims to loosen their grasp on the living presence of Allah on this Earth. In its tragic encounter with Islam, the West cannot help but inflict humiliation.
The Koran desecration affair, with its parallels to medieval Christian violence, reinforces the conclusion I drew in my November 22 essay:
Jews and Christians had centuries to accomplish the transition from public and political religion to private and communal religion, whereas circumstances press moderate Muslims to do this on the spot. The two older religions did so under duress, chaotically, and with limited success. Whether Islam can make such a transition at all remains doubtful.
Notes
[1] See for example Kenneth Woodward, "Newsweek and the Koran" in The Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2005, p A14.
[2] According to Wikipedia, "Host desecration is an anti-Semitic myth similar to the blood libel myth. It started in late 13th-century England and France (a century after Christians started making blood libel accusations against Jews), where it was claimed that Jews would steal consecrated Host wafers and torture them. According to the Roman Catholic dogma of transubstantiation, a consecrated Host wafer becomes the flesh of Jesus, so it was believed that Jews would steal and torture these wafers to reenact the crucifixion of Christ."
[3] "Hearts, Minds and Dollars" by David E Kaplan, US News and World Report, April 25, 2005. |
I believe Spengler is saying that perhaps some commentators should be a little more tolerant of the mote in Islam's eye. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2005 9:27 am Post subject: |
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| Abusing the Koran is the equivalent of abusing Allah himself, and tells the Muslim prisoner that his god is powerless to avenge insults. |
If everything happens as Allah wills, then...? (I know nothing at all about the role of free will in Islam.)
And why can't Allah take care of revenging himself?
I've been wondering about this for some time. This is the first attempt at an explanation that I've read. I wish Spengler (or someone else who understands) would say more about it. |
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Gwangjuboy
Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Location: England
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| Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2005 5:31 pm Post subject: |
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He call Westerners hypocrites for labelling the rioters "primitive" but offers up no evidence except something from over 500 years ago,
| Quote: |
| Host-desecration riots by Christians in 1298 led to an estimated 100,000 deaths in Germany and Austria, starting with the execution by fire of the entire Jewish community of Rottingen. Enraged Christians killed 3,000 Jews in Prague after a priest carrying a consecrated Host wafer was sprayed by sand. Other killings took place in Rome in 1021, Strasbourg in 1308, Posen in 1399, Silesia in 1451, and so forth. Medieval Jews, to be sure, were less likely to have tortured a consecrated Host than Marine guards were to have flushed a Koran down the toilet, and historians agree that the charge was a fabrication. [2] Christian sensitivities, nonetheless, were just as bloodthirsty as in today's Pakistan. |
So the Muslim rioters are doing something today, that Christians were doing 500 years ago. Doesn't really bolster the writer's contentions does it? |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2005 5:39 pm Post subject: |
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Funny what you happened to notice from the article. A more 'left-wing' reader might have a problem with this:
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Abusing the Koran is the equivalent of abusing Allah himself, and tells the Muslim prisoner that his god is powerless to avenge insults. Again, I do not condone such things, but merely observe that an effective weapon is more likely to be put to use. As I wrote in "Horror and humiliation in Fallujah:
Radical Islam has risen against the West in response to its humiliation - intentional or not - at Western hands. The West can break the revolt by inflicting even worse humiliation upon the Islamists, poisoning the confidence of their supporters in the Muslim world. |
I forget if you speak Japanese or not, but this sums it up perfectly:
������С |
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Moldy Rutabaga
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea
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| Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2005 7:37 pm Post subject: |
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Trash. Absolute trash. One wonders who is worse; the pseudointellectual who wrote this prattle, or the newspaper that printed it.
Saying that Christians are no better because they committed similar atrocities, oh, 800 years ago or so, is a weak comparison. Of course those actions were not right, but some more recent evidence would help make the argument.
The west and Christians are not the same thing. Christianity includes non-western believers throughout history; the west has been (and is, increasingly) non-Christian. Its actions cannot be blamed entirely on the church, nor its accomplishments.
Saying that westerners humiliated Muslims by mocking their holy book and therefore deserve death and destruction is foolish and a circular argument. Why should I die? Because you abused the Koran. But why should people who abuse the Koran die? Because abusing the Koran is an act that deserves death. 'We' fall over ourselves to apologize for not treating their holy writ with respect. Do 'they' do anything whatsoever to atone for cutting westerners' heads off on videotape? Don't we attach maybe a little value to this action? Humiliation. Bullcookies.
Ken:>
Last edited by Moldy Rutabaga on Tue Jun 07, 2005 9:11 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2005 8:11 pm Post subject: |
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Funny what you happened to notice from the article. A more 'left-wing' reader might have a problem with this:
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| The West can break the revolt by inflicting even worse humiliation upon the Islamists, poisoning the confidence of their supporters in the Muslim world. |
Humiliating Islamists is a legitamite tactic in the fight against Islamists. On the other hand, humiliating Muslims, which is what is involved when you desecrate their sacred objects, is another matter entirely. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2005 9:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| So the Muslim rioters are doing something today, that Christians were doing 500 years ago. Doesn't really bolster the writer's contentions does it? |
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| Saying that Christians are no better because they committed similar atrocities, oh, 800 years ago or so, is a weak comparison. Of course those actions were not right, but some more recent evidence would help make the argument. |
Let me spell it out for you guys. Islam is 600 some years younger than Christianity. That means Islam is still approaching the age when Christianity had its Reformation. So the talk of Islam and modernization needs to take place in this context.
BTW, 600 years ago, Christianity and Western civilization were bound hand in hand.
| Spengler wrote: |
| Jews and Christians had centuries to accomplish the transition from public and political religion to private and communal religion, whereas circumstances press moderate Muslims to do this on the spot. The two older religions did so under duress, chaotically, and with limited success. Whether Islam can make such a transition at all remains doubtful. |
The question is whether or not Moderate Islam will prevail. Those ranting against the author should consider whether or not he actually condones the rioting. I think it is clear he does not, considering he puts his focus on whether Islam can reach a reformation or a renaissance.
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| Saying that westerners humiliated Muslims by mocking their holy book and therefore deserve death and destruction is foolish and a circular argument. Why should I die? Because you abused the Koran. |
Show me where the author or anyone in this thread said that. Seems like you are putting words in the author's mouth. |
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funplanet
Joined: 20 Jun 2003
Location: The new Bucheon!
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| Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 4:41 am Post subject: |
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Muslims deserve no apologies any more....every time you apologize, they see you as weak and take advantage of you....
it's time to say, "sorry mohammed, we ain't apologizing for jack shit. stop fucking around with us or we are going to kick your ass all the way back to the stone age.....eh, wait a sec. you are in the stone age." |
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Moldy Rutabaga
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea
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| Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 5:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Show me where the author or anyone in this thread said that. Seems like you are putting words in the author's mouth. |
Yeesh-- two bad posts I've made in one day. You are correct. Many of the people in his article believe in this sort of sentiment, but the author does not explicitly say he agrees with it. My bad.
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| Islam is 600 some years younger than Christianity. That means Islam is still approaching the age when Christianity had its Reformation. BTW, 600 years ago, Christianity and Western civilization were bound hand in hand. |
But systems of faith are not people; they don't have puberty or mid-life crises at the same time. Islam operates in a world of web pages, printing presses, and rocket ships. Medieval Christianity did not. The point is that comparing the mistakes of Christians eight centuries ago and the mistakes of Muslims now isn't relevant. Secondly, I agree that at the time Europe was thoroughly Christian; my argument was that the west and Christianity isn't simply the same, because Christianity is a world religion. It was founded and practised by non-westerners for centuries before Europe was proselytized.
Ken:> |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 8:59 pm Post subject: |
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| funplanet wrote: |
Muslims deserve no apologies any more....every time you apologize, they see you as weak and take advantage of you....
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1 billion people are like that? wow, pretty amazing. |
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Gwangjuboy
Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Location: England
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| Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 9:41 pm Post subject: |
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1 billion people believe that these sentences are the words of God.
"Forbidden to you are...married women, except those you own as slaves." (Surah 4:20-, 24-)
"Believers, do not approach your prayers when you are drunk, but wait till you can grasp the meaning of your words..." (Surah 4:43)
"Seek out your enemies relentlessly." (Surah 4:103-)
"Try as you may, you cannot treat all your wives impartially." (Surah 4:126-)
"The Jews and Christians say: 'We are the children of God and His loved ones.' Say: 'Why then does He punish you for your sins?" (Surah 5.1)
"Believers, take neither Jews nor Christians for your friends." (Surah 5:51) "The God will say: 'Jesus, son of Mary, did you ever say to mankind 'Worship me and my mother as gods besides God?' 'Glory to You, 'he will answer, 'how could I ever say that to which I have no right?" (Surah 5:114-)
"Believers, when you encounter the infidels on the march, do not turn your backs to them in flight. If anyone on that day turns his back to them, except it be for tactical reasons...he shall incur the wrath of God and Hell shall be his home..." (Surah 8:12-)
"Make war on them until idolatry shall cease and God's religion shall reign supreme." (Surah 8:36-)
"If you fear treachery from any of your allies, you may fairly retaliate by breaking off your treaty with them." (Surah 8:51-) "...make war on the leaders of unbelief...Make war on them: God will chastise them at your hands and humble them. He will grant you victory over them..." (Surah 9:12-)
"It ill becomes the idolaters [non-Muslims] to visit the mosques of God..." (Surah 9:17)
"Fight against such as those to whom the Scriptures were given [Jews and Christians]...until they pay tribute out of hand and are utterly subdued." (Surah 9:27-)
"It is He who has sent forth His apostle with guidance and the true Faith [Islam] to make it triumphant over all religions, however much the idolaters [non-Muslims] may dislike it." (Surah 9:31-)
"If you do not fight, He will punish you sternly, and replace you by other men." (Surah 9:37-)
"Prophet make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home." (Surah 9:73)
"Believers, make war on the infidels who dwell around you. Deal firmly with them." (Surah 9:121-) |
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flakfizer
Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.
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| Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 10:04 pm Post subject: |
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I would like to comment on the idea of comparing actions from 500 years ago to the actions of today. I saw someone say that the Bible was misused to justify the crusades. I'd like to point out that at the time of the crusades, the Bible had not been translated into numerous languages as it is now, and that a very small percentage of people could read at all, anyway. This made the people ripe to be misled by corrupt church leaders who were in bed with corrupt political leaders. One reason Luther translated the Bible to German was because he felt the Church had become corrupted with not-so-biblical teachings. The modern era is much different in this regard. Almost anyone who wants to can afford, and read the Bible or the Koran or whatever (unless you live in an intolerant country that will not let you obtain such). So, I'm not sure that misuse of the Bible was the culprit during the crusades as much as it was misuse of power. It would be very difficult to justify anything violent using New Testament scripture, especially in these days when anyone who wants to can read it in context for themselves.
Someone (Kuros, perhaps) mentioned that Islam is not as old as Christianity and therefore deserves a few hundred more years to adjust to modernity (or something along those lines). This is a very odd line of thought as some have mentioned. It is interesting that the Koran texts more closely rememble the Old Testament of the Bible than the New Testament. I always thought it strange as Muslims consider Jesus a prophet. It seems like chronologically the teachings went like: Hate those whom I hate. Destroy your (My) enemies. etc. (OT) to "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Turn the other cheek. etc. (NT) Back to; hate those whom I hate, destroy your (my) enemies. etc. (Koran)
Does anyone know the reason for this? Anyone know why the teachings of Jesus didn't seem to impact Islam very much though he is considered a prophet? |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 10:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Moldy Rutabaga wrote: |
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| Show me where the author or anyone in this thread said that. Seems like you are putting words in the author's mouth. |
Yeesh-- two bad posts I've made in one day. You are correct. Many of the people in his article believe in this sort of sentiment, but the author does not explicitly say he agrees with it. My bad.
| Quote: |
| Islam is 600 some years younger than Christianity. That means Islam is still approaching the age when Christianity had its Reformation. BTW, 600 years ago, Christianity and Western civilization were bound hand in hand. |
But systems of faith are not people; they don't have puberty or mid-life crises at the same time. Islam operates in a world of web pages, printing presses, and rocket ships. Medieval Christianity did not. The point is that comparing the mistakes of Christians eight centuries ago and the mistakes of Muslims now isn't relevant. Secondly, I agree that at the time Europe was thoroughly Christian; my argument was that the west and Christianity isn't simply the same, because Christianity is a world religion. It was founded and practised by non-westerners for centuries before Europe was proselytized.
Ken:> |
Everybody has gut reaction posts, but not everyone has the courage to admit it and step back and reassess their position. I think in your second post you've brought up a good objection, echoed by flakfizer:
| flakfizer wrote: |
| Someone (Kuros, perhaps) mentioned that Islam is not as old as Christianity and therefore deserves a few hundred more years to adjust to modernity (or something along those lines). This is a very odd line of thought as some have mentioned |
It's true that religions aren't people, but I would say it is true that Western religions (I'm not ready to comment on Buddhism or any other Eastern faiths) have started primarily as public and political religions and only after much time and struggle have turned into private and communal religion. Islam is certainly still more of a public and political religion than Christianity and Judaism now are, although certainly there are recent events and current organizations which suggest that neither are Christianity and Judaism entirely private and communal, nor can there be said to be a clear line between public and private and political and communal.
It doesn't help matters that the modernity Islam is supposed to adjust to grows primarily out of Western Europe. Some are demanding that the Islamic world accept a civic system separate from Islam in the same way that America and Europe today keep their religion and government separate. It is interesting that you mention the world of printing presses, and then talk of web pages, Moldy Rutabaga, because the Christian Reformation (and its counterpart the Inquisition) occurred precisely around the very time that the mass production of written words became possible. Different people used this power in different ways, some to liberalize (by means of the Reformation, which affected a change even in the Catholic church) and others to react (by means of the Inquisitions and book burnings). Perhaps the same oppurtunity for modernization may be present in Web pages, for even as Jihadists use the internet to communicate and organize their resistance to 'Crusader' influence, they are using tools alien to the traditional society the Koran and especially the Hadiths.
I think that you are quite right, it's difficult to say today that the West and Christianity are the same thing. But how difficult is it to distinguish today's Arab-Middle East from the religion of Islam as practiced there? I think Spengler's comparisons to Christianity so many years ago, before the Reformation and before the West truly accepted modernity in the outgrowth of the Renaissance are relevent because of these points. Yes, it is true that Christianity was never limited to Europe and Islam has more reach than simply the Middle East. But, Christianity dominated Western Europe 800 years ago in an analogous way that Islam dominates the Middle East today, both were public and political faiths. |
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flakfizer
Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.
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| Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 3:17 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
[
It's true that religions aren't people, but I would say it is true that Western religions (I'm not ready to comment on Buddhism or any other Eastern faiths) have started primarily as public and political religions and only after much time and struggle have turned into private and communal religion. Islam is certainly still more of a public and political religion than Christianity and Judaism now are, although certainly there are recent events and current organizations which suggest that neither are Christianity and Judaism entirely private and communal, nor can there be said to be a clear line between public and private and political and communal.
. |
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by, "public and political." If I understand you right, then I would say Christianity did not start out "primarily as public and political," at all. Many followers of Jesus were indeed very surprised that he was not a "polical" messiah as most of them had assumed. He did not come to redeem Israel in the way they had thought. When he left, Rome still controlled Israel. Christianity may have become public and political after Constantine "converted," but it didn't begin that way. |
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bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 4:29 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| even as Jihadists use the internet to communicate and organize their resistance to 'Crusader' influence, they are using tools alien to the traditional society the Koran and especially the Hadiths. |
The tools may be alien, but the method (i.e Jihad) is not. |
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