I'm calling us out on our islamophobia.

[Kukulofori]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=324

This thread is fucking bone-chilling.

I made a thread a few days ago about sharia socialism (http://www.revleft.com/vb/has-there-ever-t113486/index.html), and in all but maybe one or two replies I got a strong feeling that their understanding of Sharia was slightly less than an american third grader's understanding of communism.

This is absolutely horrifying and discriminatory and we should seriously be doing something about this.

Islam is NOT crazy brown people clinging to a doctrine of pure evil. Let's try to educate ourselves on what it is, hm?

[*Viva La Revolucion*]

I'd like to know what Islamophobia actually means. Is it being critical of the Islamic doctrine? Or is Islamophobia being discriminatory towards muslim people? Or both? I don't like making sweeping generalizations about groups of people, but I'll always defend the right to criticize a religion because that's freedom of speech and thought, not racism.

[Kukulofori]

If you're attacking the Islamic people, that is Islamophobia.
If you are using what you learned of Islam from a short BBC news report saying that women can't drive in Sharia law, that is Islamophobia.
If you are making things up on the spot as an excuse to say bad things about brown people, that is Islamophobia.
If you are blaming the Islamic people or beliefs for 9/11, that is Islamophobia.

if you have valid critiques of the religion itself, keyword valid, well-researched, and not made up by Western imperialists, that is not islamophobia.

Dig?

[Led Zeppelin]

Well first of all, Islam as a religion is abhorrent and has been used by Mullahs and other "divine people" to oppress and exploit people throughout the world, specifically the Middle-East.

But there is a flip side to that. In the West Islam is very often identified with a certain type of ethnicity, and as a result with a certain type of appearance. There is a reason why people think I'm a Muslim. Is this racism? Well, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes people just think that since you're from a predominately Muslim area of the world, there's a good chance you might be Muslim, so they ask.

Other times they label you as a Muslim so they can attack you or connect other negative connotations to you because you certainly must be socially backward, connotations such as "wife-beater" or "towel head" for example.

I'm sure mass media and movies such as the inherently racist Not Without My Daughter (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102555/) have nothing to do with that...

You seem to be referring to the religion itself though. In that respect it would be pointless to call me a "Islamophobe" since that would require you to put "phobe" behind all existing religions when referring to me.

How about we leave it at "atheist".

[Stand Your Ground]

If there's people being racist on here they should be banned.

[Steve_j]

Well first of all, Islam as a religion is abhorrent and has been used by Mullahs and other "divine people" to oppress and exploit people throughout the world, specifically the Middle-East.

But you could argue in the same sense that Communism as an ideology is abhorrent and has been used by leaders and other revolutionaries to oppress and exploit people throught the world, specifically in the USSR, China or Cambodia.

[Led Zeppelin]

But you could argue in the same sense that Communism as an ideology is abhorrent and has been used by leaders and other revolutionaries to oppress and exploit people throught the world, specifically in the USSR, China or Cambodia.

Sure, if you believe that's what communism as an ideology was/is about.

I personally don't, and neither did Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky etc.

I pity the persons who would have to defend those expressions of "communism", but you can find some of them around on this forum. To them you may have had a good point.

As for that being what Islam is about:

Skeptics Annoted Quran (http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/index.htm)
Hodud (Punishment prescribed in religious law) (http://learningpartnership.org/en/resources/legislation/nationallaw/iran)

That is not to say that there isn't room for "interpretations" (hypocrisy), but I wasn't referring to that. I know there are many self-described Muslims who are more liberal in their views, just as there are Christians who are so. That doesn't disprove the fact that they believe in a non-existent deity and that their religion is used to dull the senses of the people (among other things), and as a result perpetuates their exploitation and oppression.

[Pogue]

Huh? I don't understand what this is about?

[Rjevan]

Huh? I don't understand what this is about?
The OP seems to think that people here are spreading Islamophobia and discriminating Muslims.


Islam is NOT crazy brown people clinging to a doctrine of pure evil. Let's try to educate ourselves on what it is, hm?
Who says these kind of things? I have never seen anyone here, spreading Islamophobia. Islamophobia is (at least here in Western Europe) used as a populistic tool by right-wing extremist parties who stoke fears of people by claming that "the Arabs" come to Europe in order to take over "our countries, our jobs and our wives", according to our beloved friends from the right either "peaceful by outnumbering the European birth-rates by far, while the white people are dying out" or "through actively destroying our European culture and values and gaining more and more influence in the state and private life, while native whites have to fight for their rights and fear for their safety" and so on. If anybody here would argue that way he/she should be banned immediately as racist, fascist and reactionary.

But people here, including myself, argue againt Islam as religion, not against people who believe in Islam. Islam is just as reactionary as Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and any religion on this planet. I know that we have some religious communists on here but in my opinion communism and religion contradict and exclude each other. Religion is used by the ruling class to keep people down and provides them with hope on a better afterlife, as long as they obey the rules. Whatever the primary intentions of people (assuming that they existed) like Jesus, Buddha or Muhammed were, their teachings are used as oppresive and harmful tools which caused and are still causing much suffering and opression and therefore they must be abolished.

So being against Islam as religion has nothing to do with Islamophobia as it is used by the "Christian land in Christians' hand" fascist scumbags or was used by the Bush government. Also these four points you mention above, "If you're..." - every single one gets answered with "Doesn't apply for me" and I'm sure they don't apply for anybody here. No leftist has any interest about spreading ignorance and hate against Muslim minorities but the religion Islam is that bad as any religion.


But you could argue in the same sense that Communism as an ideology is abhorrent and has been used by leaders and other revolutionaries to oppress and exploit people throught the world, specifically in the USSR, China or Cambodia.
Cambodia was never and in no way socialist or communist, I have never met any communist who seriously supported Pol Pot. And for the USSR and China... I guess I'm one of the people LZ is talking about. :p
But I have no intention to start a new "Was the USSR genuine socialist or a degenerated workers' state/state capitalist system"- tendency war, if anybody feels the desire to read about these arguments he/she is free to search one of these numerous threads and go through it.

The main difference between communism and any religion is that communism aims to create a new society, where everybody is equal, etc. while religion claims that one or more god(s) have enlightened somebody and sent him as saviour to bring the divine rules to humanity and if these rules are obeyed people will get immortal in the afterlife or are reborn or whatever and if they dare to revolt against the existing hierarchy they will burn in hell. So religion causes unequality, hierarchy and intolerance (see Calvin's theories about divine predestination for the first point, for the second point just think about the clergy in medieval times and for the last one... I'm sure nobody will have problems to find one of the many many examples for this) in order to "grant" people a better "life" after their death while communism struggles for a better world and equality in this life. Of course communism can be abused and was abused but it has in no way that many opressive, ingorant and hierarchical elements as all religions have.

[gorillafuck]

The only post I found that I think was offensive is the one by marxistcritic

[SoupIsGoodFood]

I guess I'm Islamophobic..I disagree with it but its there freedom to believe in it, as long as they don't impose it with me through sharia socialism.

[ls]

All religions are equally abhorrent and very simply: disowning religion is NOT the same as racially hating the majority of people that believe in said religion.

[Kukulofori]

But if you don't know shit about the religion, then it's using percieved differences that you're completely uninformed on to attack a group of people.

hey there 1930s europe.

[gorillafuck]

But if you don't know shit about the religion, then it's using percieved differences that you're completely uninformed on to attack a group of people.

hey there 1930s europe.
Only one person made any references to suicide bombers and shit (which is despicable) but besides that it was basically people saying they hate Islam as a religion (and even clarifying that they don't hate Muslims). Which is fine, Islam is an oppressive religion.

[Kukulofori]

Opressive to whom? On what grounds?

[ls]

Opressive to whom? On what grounds?

On the grounds that it restricts people's freedom to do what they wish (as long as they don't encroach upon the liberty of others).

I think it's fair to say that the qur'an is often taken out of context (same like the books that largely "define" other religions), many of the Muslim folks at school felt wronged for instance when someone would take a photograph of them, like it was their fault even though it's obviously ridiculous.

That kind of restrictiveness is just ridiculous, unfortunately it's widespread too (please don't tell me otherwise, this is in London in the UK where there is a high amount of Muslims).

That is just one example, there are many others but I think that is a strong example.

[Plagueround]

Opressive to whom? On what grounds?

On the same grounds that all religions are considered oppressive by most communists. I'll agree it is definitely disturbing to see supposed communists take the rather reactionary stance that Islam is a more violent religion than Christianity, as it reeks of western chauvanism and ethnocentrism. (That doesn't mean, however, that I'll support the sexism, elitism, and violence that any these religions manifest in their more dogmatic or distorted forms.)

As far as "Islamophobia" is concerned, I almost feel it's the wrong term to use in the first place, as it implies the entire culture is explicitly tied to Islam, which it is not. This of course means that while it is the dominant religion in the middle east and many countries are associated with it, when people are attacking the dress, attitudes, ethnic characteristics, lifestyle, etc. of the region and its people..they are being racists, not Islamophobes.

[RHIZOMES]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=324

This thread is fucking bone-chilling.

I made a thread a few days ago about sharia socialism (http://www.revleft.com/vb/has-there-ever-t113486/index.html), and in all but maybe one or two replies I got a strong feeling that their understanding of Sharia was slightly less than an american third grader's understanding of communism.

This is absolutely horrifying and discriminatory and we should seriously be doing something about this.

Islam is NOT crazy brown people clinging to a doctrine of pure evil. Let's try to educate ourselves on what it is, hm?

there's a difference between being a right-wing reactionary Robert Spencerite who votes Geert Wilders and supports the war on terror because they have a colonialist and racist view of what Muslims are (Which is what I would categorize an Islamophobe as) and thinking basing government off a religion founded in the 7th century, which doesn't have a very good track record in respecting the rights of women, atheists, Muslims that converted to atheism, Bahais, Zoroasterians, gays, etc etc, is an incredibly stupid idea. Not to mention completely rooted in identity politics.

I hate how you can be labelled an Islamophobe simply because you hate Islam just as much as any other religion as opposed to those reactionary hypocrites who hate Islam when their religion is just as bad. It's like you're just trying to cop out of any serious criticism of your precious belief system, which you have been told your entire life is the truth.


But if you don't know shit about the religion, then it's using percieved differences that you're completely uninformed on to attack a group of people.

hey there 1930s europe.

hey there godwin's law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_Law).

[Salabra]

if you have valid critiques of the religion itself, keyword valid, well-researched, and not made up by Western imperialists, that is not islamophobia.

Dig?

How about Qu'ran, Sura 4, Verse 23:

Men have authority over women because allah has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because allah has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them, forsake them in beds apart, and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them. Surely allah is all-knowing and wise.

Translated by "Western imperialists"? No, by Tariq Ali, Pakistani-born ex-muslim with at least a claim to Marxism.

I will happily shoot any bearded-brick-with-dangly-bits (or woman-in-a-pretty-headscarf) who tries to tell me how I must behave, simply because I wear my genitals on the inside!

[Salabra]

And, yes, the same goes for christians, jews, hindus, confucianists or ultra-orthodox golgafrinchans (or their secular counterparts) who believe that women, gays, people of different ethnic groups, "non-believers" etc, are "less than equal."

[gorillafuck]

Opressive to whom? On what grounds?
Women and LGBT people, mostly. On the grounds that it places women below men, and that it asserts homosexuality is "wrong".

[Salabra]

...suicide bombers...

Individual terrorism is a sad substitute for revolutionary action by the oppressed class.

As a matter of fact, it spits in the face of the oppressed by encouraging them to rely, not on their unified power, but on "superheroes" who will "deliver" them from their oppressors.

[RedRise]

As a matter of fact, it spits in the face of the oppressed by encouraging them to rely, not on their unified power, but on "superheroes" who will "deliver" them.

I have to agree on that one, but personally I don't think religion and politics should come anywhere near each other. People should be able to believe in whatever they want, but can we keep running a country a separate matter? I mean, I think we've all seen enough examples of a peoples religion stuffing up state matters and becoming the oppressor - whatever that religion is. I mean, England pretty much ended up with a civil war over wether they were protestant or catholic. I don't think any state or country should be affiliated with any religion.

[gorillafuck]

Individual terrorism is a sad substitute for revolutionary action by the oppressed class.

As a matter of fact, it spits in the face of the oppressed by encouraging them to rely, not on their unified power, but on "superheroes" who will "deliver" them from their oppressors.
The way you quoted me makes it look like I'm saying Muslims are suicide bombers. I was actually criticizing the one person who did perpetuate that stereotype.

[Salabra]

The way you quoted me makes it look like I'm saying Muslims are suicide bombers. I was actually criticizing the one person who did perpetuate that stereotype.

Profoundest apologies, comrade — I know you didn’t mean that. So, corrected!

Only one person made any references to suicide bombers and shit (which is despicable) but besides that it was basically people saying they hate Islam as a religion (and even clarifying that they don't hate Muslims). Which is fine, Islam is an oppressive religion.

Individual terrorism is a sad substitute for revolutionary action by the oppressed class.

As a matter of fact, it spits in the face of the oppressed by encouraging them to rely, not on their unified power, but on "superheroes" who will "deliver" them from their oppressors.

[marxistcritic]

Islamaphobia is not racist. If anything, it is just anti-thiest. Theres nothing wrong with that, is there?

[ls]

Islamaphobia is not racist. If anything, it is just anti-thiest. Theres nothing wrong with that, is there?

Not based on the widely-understood perception of the term: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamophobia

[Devrim]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=324

This thread is fucking bone-chilling.

I made a thread a few days ago about sharia socialism (http://www.revleft.com/vb/has-there-ever-t113486/index.html), and in all but maybe one or two replies I got a strong feeling that their understanding of Sharia was slightly less than an american third grader's understanding of communism.

This is absolutely horrifying and discriminatory and we should seriously be doing something about this.

Islam is NOT crazy brown people clinging to a doctrine of pure evil. Let's try to educate ourselves on what it is, hm?

I didn't try to discuss the subject on your thread as I really don't think that RevLeft is a place where you could have an intelligent discussion about it. Nevertheless, just as Christianity produced primitive communist sects so did Islam. This does not mean that Islam today, just as Christianity, is not totally reactionary.
Devrim

[marxistcritic]

Not based on the widely-understood perception of the term: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamophobia

Islam is backwards, insane, and sexist. Most religiouns are. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a guilty white person and trying to sound polite.

[mikelepore]

but I'll always defend the right to criticize a religion because that's freedom of speech and thought, not racism.

And also because, to quote a concise proclamation by Bill Maher: "Religion is stupid."

[ls]

Islam is backwards, insane, and sexist. Most religiouns are. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a guilty white person and trying to sound polite.

All religions are, not most. I don't know if you even clicked on that link, but if you did you must realise that the term means something quite different to what you are saying.

[Merces]

Threads like these provide enough proof on Islamic insecurity and intolerance.

[marxistcritic]

All religions are, not most. I don't know if you even clicked on that link, but if you did you must realise that the term means something quite different to what you are saying.

I did, I agreed with some of it, but disagreed with other parts.

[Kukulofori]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gprdhpAFFfw&NR=1

Found a decent piece on this.

For other evidence, find any serious work on antisemitism in Europe in the 1930s and replace "jew" with "arab" or "muslim".

[Raúl Duke]

For other evidence, find any serious work on antisemitism in Europe in the 1930s and replace "jew" with "arab" or "muslim."

:confused:

Evidence of what?
I don't think that counts as actual evidence of anything (i.e. changing old evidence of anti-semitism so to fabricate "evidence of "islamophobia" is not evidence).


"arab" or "muslim"

Arab is not the same as Muslim

[Jazzratt]

Arab is not the same as Muslim

I'm going to expand this point a little because it's often something people bring up if anyone has the gall to critisise islam. The tactic is basically to imply another person is racist by associating their legitimate attacks on religion with an attack on an ethnic group. I imagine it must be really quite insulting to non-muslim arabs as the implication is that all arabs must be islamic, as if they don't have the same enlightenment as us westerners who can become atheist or whatever.

[Kukulofori]

Westerners conflate the two. I'm well aware that there are muslims that are not arab and vice versa, but racist westerners just see scary people with veils or turbans on camels. Same story with jews.

[Black Sheep]

:cursing:
Islamophobia is the islamists' favorite word and straw man accusation of those criticising islam and accusing it for the disgusting medieval racist fundamentalist huge load of crap it is.
I dont give a shit if someone accusses me of being an 'islamophobe'.

I could be accussed of being a fascistophobe, cappie-phobe and stuff like that.I could be accused of discriminating against fascists, against proponents of the free market and neoliberalism.I dont give a shit.

My thesis against the above AND against islam is justified and until you can counter the anti-islamic (anti-religious and anti-theist) arguments, you can shut the hell up.

Am i discriminating against a group of people's ideology? Yes, i am, because the ideology itself promotes irrationality, sexism,racism and chauvinism, and is a barrier to the revolutionary left.

Am i discriminating against the proponents of the ideology itself?I dont know, but maybe i am. After all, we all in here discriminate in some way against hardcore cappies, CEOs of corporations which engage in criminal acts against the workforce and humanity, we discriminate against fascists with 'terrible language' and views, but they are justified.
The problem is that you,who accusse me of an islamophobe, you are the discriminating one, because you assume that i criticise islam not based on its theist ideas & elements, but on a racial basis.You become victim of the way of thinking you fight against.

The real problem is that we place religion on a high altar, claiming with no justification that it deserves better than the other things we combat (capitalism, fascism, etc).

Noone would accuse an antifascist of discriminating against BNP members or neonazis.However, the 'islamophobe' stupid accussations are sadly brought up.
What the fuck, revleft!?

also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4FpTvp0tgs&feature=channel_page

[Salabra]

Westerners conflate the two. I'm well aware that there are muslims that are not arab and vice versa, but racist westerners just see scary people with veils or turbans on camels. Same story with jews.

Just as you rightly say that we should not lump all muslims together as "scary," so you should not lump all "Westerners" together as "racists."

Most of us who post in RevLeft have said, over and over again, that it is the RELIGION that we are criticizing, not the people, and most of us have also said, over and over again, that we criticize ALL religions for the same reason - because they are relics from the past that should have been swept into the dustbin of history a long time ago, because they are inherently oppressive, both to their adherents and (in some cases) to the people with whom they come in contact, and because they hold the masses of the planet in chains of ignorance and prevent human advancement.

[Janine Melnitz]

And, yes, the same goes for christians, jews, hindus, confucianists or ultra-orthodox golgafrinchans (or their secular counterparts) who believe that women, gays, people of different ethnic groups, "non-believers" etc, are "less than equal."
Yes yes I agree! Anything written in a three-digit century is probably a tiny bit patriarchal and following it is a bad idea, we all agree. "All religions are reactionary" yes. Yes!!! But not all of them are the favored targets of the Western bourgeoisie and not all of them are linked by newspapers with other scary words every single time they can and not all of them inspire thread after thread after million-paged fucking thread on RevLeft.

When you quote a bit from a holy book that (gasp!) says men should be in charge, you're not telling anyone anything new and you're not saving RevLeft from a tide of Muslim conversions -- what purpose, then, does this impartial, even-handed criticism serve? Whose purpose?

Individual terrorism is a sad substitute for revolutionary action by the oppressed class.

As a matter of fact, it spits in the face of the oppressed by encouraging them to rely, not on their unified power, but on "superheroes" who will "deliver" them from their oppressors.
Sorry, this is idiotic. It is nonsensical. Suicide bombers are obviously part of a unified movement -- without such behind you it'd be hard to go through with it. I get what you're saying about class, it's a tragedy that most national liberation movements lack class analysis, but using a rote criticism of "individual terrorism" as if this were just a really surprising number of Unabombers who happen to share the same area code is absurd.

I mean, is your problem that they literally do these things singly? Would you rather suicide bombers used the buddy system? Or are you suggesting that the reason the Palestinians haven't rounded up a proper army and stormed Israel is that they just didn't think of it? How intimate is your knowledge of the situation on the ground where these tactics have been used? Do you honestly think that working-class movements have a monopoly on (or even much distinction in) military tactics? mind/boggle

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Sorry, this is idiotic. It is nonsensical. Suicide bombers are obviously part of a unified movement -- without such behind you it'd be hard to go through with it.
That's simply untrue. Was Timothy McVeigh part of a unified movement? Does everyone who kills themselves need a mass movement in order to go through with it? Palestine is a special case, but in places like the USA or UK, suicide bombers can only be part of small conspiratorial groups, not an open and democratic mass movement.

I get what you're saying about class, it's a tragedy that most national liberation movements lack class analysis, but using a rote criticism of "individual terrorism" as if this were just a really surprising number of Unabombers who happen to share the same area code is absurd.

You obviously don't understand why people oppose vanguards, so it's no surprise you can't understand criticism of the vanguardist tactic of suicide bombing.

FWIW, would this quote be considered islamophobic?
"The great values of the ruling class (the fatherland, family, religion, school, barracks, churches, mosques and other rottenness) make us laugh. Joyously we piss on their tombs."

[Janine Melnitz]

That's simply untrue. Was Timothy McVeigh part of a unified movement? Does everyone who kills themselves need a mass movement in order to go through with it?
Yeah, I guess I didn't clarify that I meant having this happen on any significant scale required blah blah; that at any time a single nutter might be capable of doing anything, and that this is qualitatively different from suicide bombing as a tactic employed by a large number of ordinary people...I didn't clarify these points because I thought they were obvious, the former from the context of the discussion, the latter from common fucking sense.

You obviously don't understand why people oppose vanguards, so it's no surprise you can't understand criticism of the vanguardist tactic of suicide bombing.
Wow!!!! I'm sorry I wasted the word "idiotic" on Salabra, who actually seems pretty smart. Tell me, what is the Leninist concept of the "vanguard" and how does it relate to suicide bombings?

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Yeah, I guess I didn't clarify that I meant having this happen on any significant scale required blah blah; that at any time a single nutter might be capable of doing anything, and that this is qualitatively different from suicide bombing as a tactic employed by a large number of ordinary people...
But in the main suicide bombing doesn't happen on any significant scale, it's not a tactic employed by a large number of ordinary people.


Wow!!!! I'm sorry I wasted the word "idiotic" on Salabra, who actually seems pretty smart. Tell me, what is the Leninist concept of the "vanguard" and how does it relate to suicide bombings?
The Leninist vanguard is an enlightened elite claiming to act on behalf of the class, not the class acting for itself. Suicide bombers are an enlightened elite acting on behalf of whatever cause, not the class acting for itself.

[Janine Melnitz]

pee in a lung
pee in a lung

pee in a lung
pee in your dad's lung

[Janine Melnitz]

Fuck me, I've turned a thread about Islamophobia into one about suicide bombing

[Kukulofori]

Good job!

[War Cry]

Fuck me, I've turned a thread about Islamophobia into one about suicide bombing

See how easily that happens.


This point has been repeated over and over again, but it's worthwhile. All of the major religions currently in practice (Christianity, Islam, Mormanism, Judaism, Catholicism, Hinduism, and Buddhism) are oppressive in some way and carry out punishment in their own way.

These religions are usually:
1.) Homophobic
2.) Patriarchial
3.) Classist insofar as they teach all people that their place in life was ordained by a "god/dess," thus killing any revolutionary potential because that would be going against God.

Islam isn't any different. I think that the spark of Islamophobia happens in mainstream culture by the idea that Islam is somehow more "savage" and "oppressive" than the more prevelent western religions. I think it also happens when people start translating Arab into Muslim. Those two things are not intrinsically linked.

By the way, whoever said that this person was wrong to lump westerners & racists together first of all, doesn't have a grasp on basic sentence structure and second of all, is trying to conduct a reverse racism attack, which is just silly. This person should be able to call westerners racists. We sort of are. Some of us are working pretty hard not to be, but hey. We arn't perfect.

western (adjective) racists (subject/noun). Basic sentence structure. You could easily say western non-racists.

The other problem is the linking of Islam with suicide bombers which we've already somehow referenced. I think we all know this, but I just wanted to state for the record that every religion referenced above has both conducted mass genocidal wars against an ethnicity or religion they disagreed with and has also had outlier extremists of the religion conduct random "terrorist" attacks. That's just for the record.

For the next few sentences, I'm going to assume Kijuna is Muslim. It wasn't clearly stated, so I'm not really sure.

All of us non-muslim white folks should probably pause for a second and ask this question. Hey Kijuna, how exactly do you feel like there has been discrimination against Muslims on this board, and what can we do to make that not happen?

As opposed to all of us non-muslim white people telling the Muslim that the discrimination doesn't exist.

[Il Medico]

Islam is backwards, insane, and sexist. Most religiouns are. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a guilty white person and trying to sound polite.
I kinda of agree with your first statement. Although I wouldn't call any belief system "insane", no matter how much you disagree with it. And are you saying that anyone who isn't an anti-theist is a guilty white man? Please clarify, otherwise I'll be forced to take that statement on it's face value and label it ridiculous.

Anyways, Islamophobia is not just an anti-theistic belief, but rather a hatred and fear of Muslims. (and really anybody who looks 'Arab") These beliefs are held mostly by American Christians, and conservatives (i.e Obama is a uncover Muslim). There are two sides of this and it would be good if we separated the two. One is hatred of Muslims, and the other is not liking Islam. The former is bigoted and the latter is not.

[gorillafuck]

Although I wouldn't call any belief system "insane", no matter how much you disagree with it.
Why not?:confused:

[Janine Melnitz]

I can't speak for him, but personally I think the language of "mental illness" is entirely inadequate to political questions. People talk about the third reich as a "mass psychosis" -- this is complete mystification, it covers up the actual forces behind Nazism (not to mention the obvious falsity -- visit a psych ward sometime and ask yourself how many people there would make good civil servants). "Extremists" on the left like ourselves are dismissed as crazy, etc. Even if you're dealing with someone who's legitimately mentally ill, if they're talking (halfway coherently) about politics I'd say their personal issues are beside the point.

[RevolverNo9]

:ohmy:

So much on this thread is shameful.

Apart from the fact that half the people who have posted don't seeem to know what Islamophobia is (it's not being critical of Islam per se, it's the oppression of Muslims...) it's horrible watch an endless stream of oh-so-revolutionary teenagers proving how oh-so-radical they are by laying into religious belief and the people that believe in them... It may be easy to rage against religion. It takes more care and thought actually to think about your criticism, to remember that no religion has an essence, that the content of religious practices and values have to be constructed and reproduced historically in vastly diverse contexts, that thoughtless ranting flows into the discourses that legitimate the oppression of what (in the UK at least, and probably across Europe) is the most persecuted section of conteporary society.

What the hell is something like this doing on a supposedly leftist site?:


:cursing:
Islamophobia is the islamists' favorite word and straw man accusation of those criticising islam and accusing it for the disgusting medieval racist fundamentalist huge load of crap it is.
I dont give a shit if someone accusses me of being an 'islamophobe'.

I could be accussed of being a fascistophobe, cappie-phobe and stuff like that.I could be accused of discriminating against fascists, against proponents of the free market and neoliberalism.I dont give a shit.

That 'Islamophobia' is constructed as a defense by Islamists, and that Islamism is analagous to fascism, are lines pushed by such revolutionaries as Hitchens, Cohen, Aaranovitch and the other Eustonite 'decents' - I can't believe I'm reading this here! Fuck that, it could be Melanie Philips. And 'medieval'!?! You know nothing about either the middle ages nor modern Islamism, which you should know is a thoroughly modern, twentieth-century product.

This is depressing, if not entirely surprising.

[Trystan]

I've read the Koran and it is a disgustingly violent and misogynistic book, like the Bible. Like the Christians who assassinate doctors, the Muslims who massacre innocent people by blowing themselves up, are the true representatives of their religion, if we are to take their holy books literally. Am I Islamophobic? If Islam is what you find in the Koran, then maybe I am.

[Janine Melnitz]

the Muslims who massacre innocent people by blowing themselves up, are the true representatives of their religion
On the occasions when people who do happen to be Muslim use tactics like this, do you think it's because their enemies eat pork?

Don't answer that question if your response is something about "democratic values", "intolerance", "hating the freedoms" etc.; run for public office instead. You're wasted here.

[Trystan]

On the occasions when people who do happen to be Muslim use tactics like this, do you think it's because their enemies eat pork?

Don't answer that question if your response is something about "democratic values", "intolerance", "hating the freedoms" etc.; run for public office instead. You're wasted here.

Whatever they do it for - it is completely unacceptable. US and British actions in Iraq and Afganistan are no excuses for murder. These wars may have led many Muslims down the path of extremism, but anyone who possesses a conscience should know that killing innocent people is wrong. These scumbags who fly planes into buildings and blow themselves up (often deliberately taking other Muslims with them, as in Iraq) have no right to act like victims.

So I'm some kind of right-winger now, I suppose? Well, since you asked, doctrinal Islam is indeed antagonistic towards democratic values, freedom in general. I take it you haven't been following events in Iran?

Run for public office? Me? Funny, because you sound like a typical politician; full of shit and evading the real issue.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Apart from the fact that half the people who have posted don't seeem to know what Islamophobia is (it's not being critical of Islam per se, it's the oppression of Muslims...)
But legitimate criticism of Islam per se is labelled as islamophobic, so it's no wonder that people get confused.

It takes more care and thought actually to think about your criticism, to remember that no religion has an essence...
No religion has an essence, so we have to judge it by the way its followers behave in the real world. By those criteria, Islam (just like Judaism and Christianity) is sexist, homophobic, anti-working-class and generally fucked up.


That 'Islamophobia' is constructed as a defense by Islamists.
It's not an either-or thing. Muslims are genuinely oppressed (by something that you could call Islamophobia if you want), and 'Islamophobia' is also constructed as a defence by Islamists to shield themselves from criticism. I think anti-semitism's real, but I also think it's used illegitimately by Zionists for the same reasons.

And 'medieval'!?! You know nothing about either the middle ages nor modern Islamism, which you should know is a thoroughly modern, twentieth-century product.

I don't think there were primmos before the 20th century either, but it doesn't make their ideas any less reactionary.

On the occasions when people who do happen to be Muslim use tactics like this, do you think it's because their enemies eat pork?
What point are you even trying to make here? I do think that there's a reason why the overwhelming majority (not all, but the vast majority) of suicide bombers are religious muslims. The belief in an afterlife makes martyrdom more appealing that it is for an atheist, and the ingroup/outgroup mentality of monotheistic religion makes it easier to justify mass murder of unbelievers. I'd think that was pretty obvious.

[Janine Melnitz]

no excuses for murder[...]extremism[...]conscience
Knew I'd left some out, thanks.

So I'm some kind of right-winger now, I suppose?
I'm sure you're to the left of Obama, as are most liberals.

[Trystan]

Knew I'd left some out, thanks.

I'm sure you're to the left of Obama, as are most liberals.


Oh! Ouch! He called me a liberal! Oh no!

Well, I ain't no liberal. I ain't an apologist for fascists either. :)

[Trystan]

:ohmy:

So much on this thread is shameful.

Apart from the fact that half the people who have posted don't seeem to know what Islamophobia is (it's not being critical of Islam per se, it's the oppression of Muslims...)

Translation: half the people who have posted don't seem to accept my definition of Islamophobia.




That 'Islamophobia' is constructed as a defense by Islamists, and that Islamism is analagous to fascism, are lines pushed by such revolutionaries as Hitchens, Cohen, Aaranovitch and the other Eustonite 'decents'

The Eustonites are wrong about many things. Here, they are correct.

[Janine Melnitz]

I do think that there's a reason why the overwhelming majority (not all, but the vast majority) of suicide bombers are religious muslims.
So do I, but my explanation starts with what countries they're from (are the majority Dutch Muslims? Mexican Muslims?) and their material circumstances.

ingroup/outgroup mentality
Seriously? You have a problem with this "mentality"? You're saying so on a forum with an "Opposing Ideologies" board? If you're struggling against someone, fucking of course they're part of the "outgroup".

Let's take this out of the abstract; one country famed for its "terrorism" is Palestine. Within Palestine live Jewish and Christian minorities. They have not been rounded up, they have not been "blown to bits", they actually live about as well as most Palestinians can hope to, and are protected by the government from attacks by bigots. Do you think, maybe, possibly, the "outgroup" that's targeted by what small attacks Palestinians can muster is not defined by religion?

[Pogue]

I think some people on this forum need to hang out with Muslims more to dispel the myth of either sinister terroists or moronic precious victims who need to be patronised.

[Holden Caulfield]

^ thats a fair point, I was told by several members of the SWP to stop organising student meetings in a pub because it might offend the muslim student in our group who does not drink. This is a patronising attitude I think, and is over sensitive. Needless to say I didnt listen to them as the guy in question is a good friend of mine who often comes to the pub with me (although he doesn't drink anything)

[Janine Melnitz]

^ thats a fair point, I was told by several members of the SWP to stop organising student meetings in a pub because it might offend the muslim student in our group who does not drink.
:huh:

I was about to ask Pogue what he was talking about as I hadn't seen any "patronizing" in this thread. All I can say about your SWP folks is holy shit.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

So do I, but my explanation starts with what countries they're from (are the majority Dutch Muslims? Mexican Muslims?) and their material circumstances.
There's no need to get reductionist (and there have been suicide bombers from Western countries the UK, let's not forget). There are plenty of countries where material circumstances for the vast majority of the population are horrible; but not all those countries produce suicide bombers.


Seriously? You have a problem with this "mentality"? You're saying so on a forum with an "Opposing Ideologies" board? If you're struggling against someone, fucking of course they're part of the "outgroup".

Yes, of course it's sometimes necessary to use violence against the bourgeoisie and their agents (including Leninists, naturally). But socialist and anarchist ideologies usually don't justify mass murder by defining vast swathes of the population as inferior; religious ideologies do.

Let's take this out of the abstract; one country famed for its "terrorism" is Palestine. Within Palestine live Jewish and Christian minorities. They have not been rounded up, they have not been "blown to bits", they actually live about as well as most Palestinians can hope to, and are protected by the government from attacks by bigots. Do you think, maybe, possibly, the "outgroup" that's targeted by what small attacks Palestinians can muster is not defined by religion?
Yes and no. It's certainly not defined by a class analysis. And even if the target of the attacks isn't affected by religion, the form those attacks take can still be.

[Pogue]

You see it from alot of individuals. Whole ideas of needing to 'defend Muslims' as if they can't defend themselves. Certainly we eneed to oppose the culture of Islamaphobia but they are not helpless victims. Or treating them like clueless objects who either need to be protected from sexism with regards to women and the hijab on one side or from Islamaphobia if you dare criticise the religion on the other. Basically a whole culture of looking outside in on them and taking a predjudiced view of them one way or another. I have Muslim friends who joke about whether or not they plan to blow up the bus when we get on together because they think the whole culture towards Muslims is shit. Just ask their opinions rather than speculating and being either insulting (I don't think anyone here really is) or patronising. For example, ask a woman how she feels about wearing a veil. Get their opinions on it rather than being part of the group outside looking in. When I want to know a Muslim's opinion on Islamaphobia or their religion I ask them and judge it from there.

[Janine Melnitz]

There's no need to get reductionist
People often mistake materialism for "reductionism", but of course you are reducing political phenomena to religion and ignoring the larger social context from which they come.

socialist and anarchist ideologies usually don't justify mass murder by defining vast swathes of the population as inferior; religious ideologies do.
Stop talking in abstract banalities. I asked a question about a concrete and specific situation (are attacks by Palestinians religiously motivated) after giving significant reason to believe they weren't, and the best you could do was "Mm yes and no, maybe, they could be." Talk about something real or shut the fuck up.

insulting (I don't think anyone here really is)
Really? Two people here are sincerely arguing that Islam is to blame for TERRAR. Who's being patronizing?

[Pogue]

That would fit on the insulting side of the argument and you'd need to quote for me excactly what they said for me to judge. Its not patronising.

[Janine Melnitz]

Okay, I thought you were saying that there were people in this thread on the patronizing side, and was all "wut" cos I hadn't seen any. Don't feel like quoting Trystan's and The Ungovernable Farce's arguments; they're in the most recent posts

[The Ungovernable Farce]

People often mistake materialism for "reductionism", but of course you are reducing political phenomena to religion and ignoring the larger social context from which they come.
Nope. I think people are discontented because of political phenomena and the larger social context in which they emerge, but the specific form that they use to express their discontent is affected by other factors, including religion. Acknowledging that things are influenced by more than one factor = living in the real world, not being a reductionist.

I asked a question about a concrete and specific situation (are attacks by Palestinians religiously motivated) after giving significant reason to believe they weren't, and the best you could do was "Mm yes and no, maybe, they could be."
Yes. Things are complicated. Palestinian suicide bombers are motivated by religion and by other factors. If you just try to take one factor and ignore the rest, you'll end up with a simplistic mechanical explanation that doesn't fit the facts. I'm sorry that reality's so complicated, but it is.

[RevolverNo9]

Oh dear...


No religion has an essence, so we have to judge it by the way its followers behave in the real world. By those criteria, Islam (just like Judaism and Christianity) is sexist, homophobic, anti-working-class and generally fucked up.Er... well if you cannot discern a religion's essence than how do you propose to judge it by a single set of essentialised practices??? Is Liberation Theology or the worker-priest movement anti-working-class? Were the most radical religious groups of the German fifteenth-century and the English sixteenth-century simply sexist? Are all politicised Muslim women in modern Britain expressing a sexist religion?

You simply can't reduce religion in this way - you're reproducing that religion's own dogma. So saying 'Islam' is x, y and z is virtually meaningless, as its meaning, its values and practices have to be actively constructed at a particular time and at a particular place. That is exactly why these things can change radically amongst people of the same religion.



It's not an either-or thing. Muslims are genuinely oppressed (by something that you could call Islamophobia if you want), and 'Islamophobia' is also constructed as a defence by Islamists to shield themselves from criticism. I think anti-semitism's real, but I also think it's used illegitimately by Zionists for the same reasons.Err, the difference being that anti-semitism has been misued by sections of society that are in power - the Zionists and their imperialist sponsors. There is no parallel with Islamophobia.

The problem is you are failing to contextualise any of this...




And 'medieval'!?! You know nothing about either the middle ages nor modern Islamism, which you should know is a thoroughly modern, twentieth-century product. I don't think there were primmos before the 20th century either, but it doesn't make their ideas any less reactionary.Sorry you totally miss my point. The suggestion is hardly that anything produced in the C20th is immune from being reactionary. However the utter ignorance of remarks like 'Islam and Islamists are so medieval' betrays several assumptions and prejudices. Chiefly and most dangerously, it gives the picture that Islam is some sort of ahistorical belief and movement, and that Muslims are determined by ahistorical, innate cultural and religious norms. The reality is the opposite: these movements are historically constructed and modern Islamist movements marks a real break with the ideas and politics of the past. It also suggests that Islamism is homogenous, when what is perhaps most striking about it is exactly how incredibly diverse it is. Islamism is not one thing, and where transnational homogeneity exists it has been as a result of the involvement of American intervention (as with the construction of Al-Qaeda). As with Islam, Islamism cannot be defined by many of the 'essential' beliefs and practices abscribed to it - they vary wildly.

That's why its hugely important to challenge the kind of rubbish like this said about Islam or Islamism. It breeds wrecklessly dangerous misunderstanding.

From 'Trystan':




Originally Posted by RevolverNo9 http://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../showthread.php?p=1502966#post1502966)
So much on this thread is shameful.

Apart from the fact that half the people who have posted don't seeem to know what Islamophobia is (it's not being critical of Islam per se, it's the oppression of Muslims...) Translation: half the people who have posted don't seem to accept my definition of Islamophobia. Ha! Well since half the people posting here are exhibiting quite shameful attitudes on the matter I guess its not surprising they don't accept 'my' (accepted) definition of Islamophobia. You should be like a good little Eustonite and deny that the term has any real meaning, given that Muslims clearly don't suffer particular oppression - in fact it is that beared nation of terrorists who are oppressing us, the liberty-loving white guys of the north, right?



The Eustonites are wrong about many things. Here, they are correct.Well I think if you're happy to have those words up in quote marks that's all that needs to be said really!

[Janine Melnitz]

Nope. I think people are discontented because of political phenomena and the larger social context in which they emerge, but the specific form that they use to express their discontent is affected by other factors, including religion.
Right, and that's common sense, and it's also obvious that material circumstances are of primary importance, given the relative paucity of Canadian religious terrorists (or indeed Cuban religious terrorists who claim to act on behalf of their Canadian brethren).

You might be right that suicide tactics require religious belief -- I hope not though, as unlike Ayn Rand I consider sacrifice to be rather noble. You're obviously, ridiculously wrong about religion having any necessary or even marked relationship to "killing innocents".

Anyway, you continue to speak in generalities and passed over in silence the "talk about something real" part. You're making serious claims -- back them up. If your next post is just bland assertions with no reference to specific cases I think I'm done.

[Devrim]

Within Palestine live Jewish and Christian minorities. They have not been rounded up, they have not been "blown to bits", they actually live about as well as most Palestinians can hope to, and are protected by the government from attacks by bigots.
Most Christians in Palestine are actually Palestinian Arabs.
Devrim

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Right, and that's common sense, and it's also obvious that material circumstances are of primary importance, given the relative paucity of Canadian religious terrorists (or indeed Cuban religious terrorists who claim to act on behalf of their Canadian brethren).
But there are also oppressed countries that haven't spawned suicide bombers. Tibetan Buddhists generally don't carry out suicide attacks, and Irish Catholics have carried out bombing attacks but not suicide ones. Does that mean they're less oppressed?


You might be right that suicide tactics require religious belief -- I hope not though, as unlike Ayn Rand I consider sacrifice to be rather noble.
Obviously not, that's not what I'm saying, since there have been secular suicide bombers. I just think that religious belief makes the use of such tactics much more likely. Besides, talking about suicide bombing is beside the point - I'm not that bothered about people killing themselves, I'm more concerned about them killing large numbers of other people.

You're obviously, ridiculously wrong about religion having any necessary or even marked relationship to "killing innocents".
I think it's one of many potential contributing factors.

Anyway, you continue to speak in generalities and passed over in silence the "talk about something real" part. You're making serious claims -- back them up. If your next post is just bland assertions with no reference to specific cases I think I'm done.
What specific cases? If you want me to find a case of a Muslim with no material problems whatsoever carrying out a terrorist attack just because they're a Muslim, that's obviously nonsense and I'm never going to find it. I could give examples of situations where religious people with material problems carried out suicide bombing attacks, but what would that prove?

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Er... well if you cannot discern a religion's essence than how do you propose to judge it by a single set of essentialised practices??? Is Liberation Theology or the worker-priest movement anti-working-class?
Are liberation theology or the worker-priest movement anywhere near the mainstream of Christianity, tho?

Were the most radical religious groups of the German fifteenth-century and the English sixteenth-century simply sexist?
Again, the most radical. You make no attempt to deny that the vast majority of them were simply sexist.

Are all politicised Muslim women in modern Britain expressing a sexist religion?
Maybe, maybe not. Why do you have to keep on throwing in qualifiers like "all politicised"?

You simply can't reduce religion in this way - you're reproducing that religion's own dogma. So saying 'Islam' is x, y and z is virtually meaningless, as its meaning, its values and practices have to be actively constructed at a particular time and at a particular place.
Right. So what you're saying is, we have to judge it by the way its followers behave in the real world. Thank you for repeating what I just said.


Err, the difference being that anti-semitism has been misued by sections of society that are in power - the Zionists and their imperialist sponsors. There is no parallel with Islamophobia.

The BNP aren't in power either. Does that mean they can't spread myths, or that we shouldn't criticise them when they do?


Sorry you totally miss my point. The suggestion is hardly that anything produced in the C20th is immune from being reactionary. However the utter ignorance of remarks like 'Islam and Islamists are so medieval' betrays several assumptions and prejudices. Chiefly and most dangerously, it gives the picture that Islam is some sort of ahistorical belief and movement, and that Muslims are determined by ahistorical, innate cultural and religious norms. The reality is the opposite: these movements are historically constructed and modern Islamist movements marks a real break with the ideas and politics of the past. It also suggests that Islamism is homogenous, when what is perhaps most striking about it is exactly how incredibly diverse it is. Islamism is not one thing, and where transnational homogeneity exists it has been as a result of the involvement of American intervention (as with the construction of Al-Qaeda). As with Islam, Islamism cannot be defined by many of the 'essential' beliefs and practices abscribed to it - they vary wildly.

That's why its hugely important to challenge the kind of rubbish like this said about Islam or Islamism. It breeds wrecklessly dangerous misunderstanding.
Right. It's a modern, historically constructed, reactionary movement.

[ZeroNowhere]

If you are using what you learned of Islam from a short BBC news report saying that women can't drive in Sharia law, that is Islamophobia.
I find it intriguing that thinking that women can't drive under Sharia Law is equivalent to fear of Islamic people. Or perhaps fear of the religion, whatever that should mean. I would think it would be more likely to make somebody dislike the religion, which is not equivalent to fearing it. I dislike 'Atlas Shrugged', I do not fear it. I would fear being forced to read it repetitively and such, but that's different from fearing the book itself, or Ayn Rand.


If you are blaming the Islamic people or beliefs for 9/11, that is Islamophobia.No, it's a claim about history and the cause of 9/11 that can be disputed empirically, but saying that it somehow translates into 'fear of Islam' (does saying that xians bombing abortion clinics, for example, is influenced by their xian beliefs translate into 'Fear of xianity and/or xians'?) is rather silly.

[RevolverNo9]

The Farce:





You simply can't reduce religion in this way - you're reproducing that religion's own dogma. So saying 'Islam' is x, y and z is virtually meaningless, as its meaning, its values and practices have to be actively constructed at a particular time and at a particular place.
Right. So what you're saying is, we have to judge it by the way its followers behave in the real world. Thank you for repeating what I just said.


Well you stated that, but then simply went on to say that Islam, Judaism and Christianity are x, y and z. So clearly you still need to be called out on this one...




Er... well if you cannot discern a religion's essence than how do you propose to judge it by a single set of essentialised practices??? Is Liberation Theology or the worker-priest movement anti-working-class?

Are liberation theology or the worker-priest movement anywhere near the mainstream of Christianity, tho?

... as exhibited here - what do you mean by the 'mainstream'? It seems we're back to an 'essential' Christianity, whereas in fact a Christian movement that diverges from a particular instutional orthodoxy (Roman Catholic) is no less 'Christian' (otherwise you'd have to make other judgements - is reformed Protestantism 'less' Christian than Roman Catholicism??) That Liberation Theology is more subversive doesn't make it 'less Christian' - unless you reproduce the dogma of particular orthodoxies and say the Christianity is 'x, y and z - these South Americans are diverging with these points, therefore they are not properly Christian'. This is particularly pertinent considering that Liberation Theology has been a mass movement.




Were the most radical religious groups of the German fifteenth-century and the English sixteenth-century simply sexist?

Again, the most radical. You make no attempt to deny that the vast majority of them were simply sexist.

You're missing the point twice here. Firstly you assume that qualifying a religious group somehow makes it less relevant to characterising that religion - you continue to assume that particular orthodoxies express that religion's essence. Secondly I didn't say 'the most radical Christians'... I was talking about the most radical in their whole society. The radicals of the fifteenth and sixteenth century expressed themselves religiously. Of course the majority of society was sexist and whatever else - but it was not atheists or secularists, but avowed Christian radicals who first expressed and tried to live sexual equality in England (with the Diggers being the most prominent example).

And in Germany, the Peasants' War was a mass uprising - the cry of the leading radical, the Anabaptist Thomas Munzer was: 'All things are in common!'



Are all politicised Muslim women in modern Britain expressing a sexist religion?
Maybe, maybe not. Why do you have to keep on throwing in qualifiers like "all politicised"?

Why do I insist on qualifying!? Because you will only characterise religions by single abstractions and, refusing to admit real diversity, insist them to be ahistorical, abstract and homogenous.




Err, the difference being that anti-semitism has been misued by sections of society that are in power - the Zionists and their imperialist sponsors. There is no parallel with Islamophobia.

The BNP aren't in power either. Does that mean they can't spread myths, or that we shouldn't criticise them when they do?

What a crude mistake! We're not talking about 'in government', we're talking about the reality of power relations. Facists are oppressors and are actively engaged in the oppression of ethnic minorities, at this moment Muslims above all. Muslims are not oppressors but constitute what is in Europe undoubtedly the most persecuted and oppressed section of our whole society. That you attempt to conflate this issue with first the abuse of anti-Semitism by Zionists and then the ideas of fascists is, to be generous, highly misguided.



Right. It's a modern, historically constructed, reactionary movement.

Not necessarily. And its not one movement.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Well you stated that, but then simply went on to say that Islam, Judaism and Christianity are x, y and z.
If x is the things that practising Muslims do, y is the things that practising Jews do, and z is the things that practising Christians do, I stand by that.

... as exhibited here - what do you mean by the 'mainstream'?
I mean the mainstream. It's not difficult. The practices accepted as legitimate by the majority of practising believers.

It seems we're back to an 'essential' Christianity, whereas in fact a Christian movement that diverges from a particular instutional orthodoxy (Roman Catholic) is no less 'Christian' (otherwise you'd have to make other judgements - is reformed Protestantism 'less' Christian than Roman Catholicism??)
When most Christians don't accept it, then it becomes less Christian, unless it embodies that essential Christianity that neither of us believe in. I could proclaim atheism to be a vital part of Christianity, but that wouldn't make it so - not because it contradicts the "essence" of Christianity, but because it contradicts the lived experience of Christianity.

That Liberation Theology is more subversive doesn't make it 'less Christian' - unless you reproduce the dogma of particular orthodoxies and say the Christianity is 'x, y and z - these South Americans are diverging with these points, therefore they are not properly Christian'.

And again, Christianity is the sum of the meanings, values and practices constructed by Christians. Liberation theology diverges from these, so it's disingenuous to present it as being representative of Christianity.


You're missing the point twice here. Firstly you assume that qualifying a religious group somehow makes it less relevant to characterising that religion - you continue to assume that particular orthodoxies express that religion's essence.
I continue to assume that a religion is the sum of the meanings, values and practices constructed by its followers, yes.

Muslims are not oppressors but constitute what is in Europe undoubtedly the most persecuted and oppressed section of our whole society.
Now who's being simplistic? I can't be bothered in getting into whether Muslims, Roma, or disabled transvestites on smack are more oppressed (although, being serious, I think there's a serious case to be made for the Roma). I agree that Muslims are a persecuted and oppressed section. But it would be absolutely idiotic to claim that that means that Muslims cannot also be oppressors.

Not necessarily. And its not one movement.
Where is Islamism not reactionary?

[Black Sheep]

:ohmy:
What the hell is something like this doing on a supposedly leftist site?:

Islamophobia is the islamists' favorite word and straw man accusation of those criticising islam and accusing it for the disgusting medieval racist fundamentalist huge load of crap it is.
I dont give a shit if someone accusses me of being an 'islamophobe'.

I could be accussed of being a fascistophobe, cappie-phobe and stuff like that.I could be accused of discriminating against fascists, against proponents of the free market and neoliberalism.I dont give a shit.

That 'Islamophobia' is constructed as a defense by Islamists, and that Islamism is analagous to fascism, are lines pushed by such revolutionaries as Hitchens, Cohen, Aaranovitch and the other Eustonite 'decents' - I can't believe I'm reading this here! Fuck that, it could be Melanie Philips. And 'medieval'!?! You know nothing about either the middle ages nor modern Islamism, which you should know is a thoroughly modern, twentieth-century product.

This is depressing, if not entirely surprising.
I was merely pointing out that islam, the religion, is criticism and bashing worthy.

And whenever that happens, the islamists scream and hell about islamophobia, intolerance and stuff. That is all.

Of course some people go through the back alley, and use that criticism as an excuse/entry point for race-based criticism.This doesnt mean that we should back out from our genuine criticism because some take advantage of it for their own purposes.

[Bad Grrrl Agro]

If you're attacking the Islamic people, that is Islamophobia.
If you are using what you learned of Islam from a short BBC news report saying that women can't drive in Sharia law, that is Islamophobia.
If you are making things up on the spot as an excuse to say bad things about brown people, that is Islamophobia.
If you are blaming the Islamic people or beliefs for 9/11, that is Islamophobia.

if you have valid critiques of the religion itself, keyword valid, well-researched, and not made up by Western imperialists, that is not islamophobia.

Dig?

What if you're criticizing ALL monotheistic religions? Would that be islamophobic? I tend to think all dogmatic and rigid religions are kind of idiotic. I take the same attitude toward Christianity and Judaism as I do Islam.

[Revy]

Wherever Sharia law is applied it ends up with similar effects. The Taliban, Saudi Arabia and Iran do not just draw their policies out of a hat they get them directly from Islamic law.

Certainly, Muslims are a marginalized and discriminated minority and we should defend them. But I don't think we should act like Islam is special and somehow less deserving of criticism than Christianity.

[ls]

FWIW, would this quote be considered islamophobic?
"The great values of the ruling class (the fatherland, family, religion, school, barracks, churches, mosques and other rottenness) make us laugh. Joyously we piss on their tombs."

No rebuttal of this by anyone I see, eh typical.



MANIFESTO OF THE ARAB SURREALIST MOVEMENT, 1975:

With disgust we shove aside the dregs of survival and the impoverished rational ideas which stuff the ash-can-heads of intellectuals.

1) We incite individuals and the masses to unleash their instincts against all forms of repression - including the repressive "reason" of the bourgeois order.

2) The great values of the ruling class (the fatherland, family, religion, school, barracks, churches, mosques and other rottenness) make us laugh. Joyously we piss on their tombs.

3) We spit on the fatherland to drown in it the fumes of death. We combat and ridicule the very idea of the fatherland. To affirm one's fatherland is to insult the totality of man.

4) We practice subversion 24 hours a day. We excite sadistic urges against all that is established, not only because we are the enemies of this new stone age that is imposed on us, but above all because it is through our subversive activity that we discover new dimensions.

5) We poison the intellectual atmosphere with the elixir of the imagination, so that the poet will realize himself in realizing the historical transformation of poetry:

a) from form into matter;

b) from simple words hanging on coat racks of paper into the desirable flesh of the imagination that we shall absorb until everything separating dream from reality is dissolved.

Surrealism is nothing but the actualization of this surreality.

6) We explode the mosques and the streets with the scandal of sex returning to its body, bursting into flames at each encounter - secret until then.

7) We liberate language from the prisons and stock markets of capitalist confusion.

http://libcom.org/history/surrealism-arab-world :cool:

[Salabra]

What purpose, then, does this impartial, even-handed criticism serve? Whose purpose?

OK, so I've missed this.

Kijuna (now Koukoulofori) asked us to criticize Islam from within — I did.

I could have quoted the babblings of several prominent Australian muslim clerics (“unveiled women are like meat left out in the sun, uncovered, which the cats can eat”), or the anti-woman actions of islamic governments around the world — but that would have been seen as pandering to anti-muslim racism.

I would have been quite as prepared to quote from the misogynistic and homophobic sermons of the roman catholic archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, or any cleric from any religious persuasion.

What and whose purpose does it serve? It serves to remind our comrades that pandering to anybody who claims the inspiration of an invisible friend is misguided and dangerous.


So much on this thread is shameful …
This is depressing, if not entirely surprising.

And this just shows what shameful tailists some of our “comrades” are. They are supposed to be marxists — did their edition of the Critique of Hegel… omit “Religion is the opiate of the masses”?

I will criticize Islam but defend muslims [from the capitalist state and its ideologues], just as I will criticize the government of Israel but defend jews [from National Action (one of several Australian equivalents of the BNP)] — some of us can do both, although we are accused of racism by both muslims and jews.

Oh, so sharia law is “a thoroughly modern, twentieth-century product.”? And I suppose that a movement that says, “you can march ... at the back ... behind the beardies ... and dressed in a black tent with an eyeslit” is “progressive”and “revolutionary”?


Right. It's a modern, historically constructed, reactionary movement.

Right!

[Bad Grrrl Agro]

OK, so I've missed this.

Kijuna (now Koukoulofori) asked us to criticize Islam from within — I did.

I could have quoted the babblings of several prominent Australian muslim clerics (“unveiled women are like meat left out in the sun, uncovered, which the cats can eat”), or the anti-woman actions of islamic governments around the world — but that would have been seen as pandering to anti-muslim racism.

I would have been quite as prepared to quote from the misogynistic and homophobic sermons of the roman catholic archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, or any cleric from any religious persuasion.

What and whose purpose does it serve? It serves to remind our comrades that pandering to anybody who claims the inspiration of an invisible friend is misguided and dangerous.



And this just shows what shameful tailists some of our “comrades” are. They are supposed to be MARXISTS - did their edition of the Critique of Hegel… omit “Religion is the opiate of the masses”?

I will criticize Islam but defend muslims, just as I will criticize the government of Israel but defend jews — some of us can do both, although we are accused of racism by both muslims and jews.

Oh, so sharia law is “a thoroughly modern, twentieth-century product.”? And I suppose that a movement that says, “you can march ... at the back ... behind the beardies ... and dressed in a black tent with an eyeslit” is “progressive”and “revolutionary”?



Right!


Muslims are not a race, Jews are not a race, they are just of a religion. I personally have no problem with someone having their own religious views. I have a problem when people of those religious views try to force it upon others. I like spirituality as a personal thing, not a dogmatic spear thrown into the heart of liberty of those who don' subscribe.

11th commandment: keep thy religion out of politics and thou shalt not fuckin' force it upon thy neighbor!

[Pol Pot]

half of my family are Muslims, and in respect to their culture you cannot accept them to accept your standards I respect that.

[LOLseph Stalin]

I'm not an Islamophobe. Why? I hate all religions equally on the grounds that they're oppressive. Look at a religion like Hinduism for example. Which caste you're reborn into apperently depends on how you performed in your last life and of course there's the bottom caste which is oppressed and ignored by everybody else. They're forced to do the worse things in society nobody else will do on the grounds that it's "spiritually unclean".

[zimmerwald1915]

Opressive to whom? On what grounds?
Islam is opporessive to Muslims. Like any dogmatic religion (or any dogmatic ideological schema, really) its function is to make taboo certain realms of thought and to prohibit certain actions. That alone, apart from whatever "badness" non-Muslims may or may not attribute to the commended realms of thought and the commanded actions, and apart from any actions Muslims may commit towards each other or towards non-Muslims, makes it oppressive.

EDIT: grammar

[Pol Pot]

Islam is opporessive to Muslims. Like any dogmatic religion (or any dogmatic ideological schema, really) its function is to make taboo certain realms of thought and to prohibit certain actions. That alone, apart from whatever "badness" non-Muslims may or may not attribute to the commended realms of thought and the commanded actions, and apart from any actions Muslims may commit towards each other or towards non-Muslims, makes it oppressive.

EDIT: grammar

I view religion as personal choice. When you choose it you are not opressing yourself lol. Although I would support that system in which you cannot force your own children into a religion and they can only join when they are adults.

[gorillafuck]

I view religion as personal choice. When you choose it you are not opressing yourself lol. Although I would support that system in which you cannot force your own children into a religion and they can only join when they are adults.
It's hardly a choice if you believe you'll go to Hell/Jahannam and burn for an eternity if you don't practice it.

[zimmerwald1915]

When you choose it you are not opressing yourself lol.
In point of fact, this is exactly what you are doing. The oppressed collude in their own oppression every time they make concessions to the ideology and dogma of the ruling class.

[Devrim]

Religion is of course reactionary, whichever one it maybe. I think though that there is a propensity to criticise Islam in particular and then back it up by saying that we criticise all religions. This tendency can verge on the edge of what seems like pretty nasty racism at times. A good example would be the English anarchist group 'Class War' burning a hook-nosed effigy of Mohammed.

In the press of our organisation in a Muslim majority country, I don't think we have ever run an article specifically on Islam. Nor do I feel the need to at the moment.

I am not sure whether the propensity to attack Islam on here comes from a reaction to the near apologism that you see for it from some leftists or something else.

Devrim

[marxistcritic]

I kinda of agree with your first statement. Although I wouldn't call any belief system "insane", no matter how much you disagree with it. And are you saying that anyone who isn't an anti-theist is a guilty white man? Please clarify, otherwise I'll be forced to take that statement on it's face value and label it ridiculous.

Anyways, Islamophobia is not just an anti-theistic belief, but rather a hatred and fear of Muslims. (and really anybody who looks 'Arab") These beliefs are held mostly by American Christians, and conservatives (i.e Obama is a uncover Muslim). There are two sides of this and it would be good if we separated the two. One is hatred of Muslims, and the other is not liking Islam. The former is bigoted and the latter is not.
What I was saying is that if you defend such things as islam, you are either ignorant, nuts, or guilty.

[Lyev]

In my opinion, there isn't a discussion about this. All organised, Abrahamic religion should be seen as oppressive, especially because from the left, as communism is secular, right?

However, the followers of a religion should have the freedom to worship whoever the hell they want, as long as it doesn't impede on anyone else's freedom. Surely that's end of it?

In the case of Sharia law stopping women driving well IMO that should be held against the Saudi government because there's plenty of Islamic states, yet they're the only country to stop women driving. It shouldn't incite prejudice in individual Muslims.

[Coggeh]

In my opinion, there isn't a discussion about this. All organised, Abrahamic religion should be seen as oppressive, especially because from the left, as communism is secular, right?

However, the followers of a religion should have the freedom to worship whoever the hell they want, as long as it doesn't impede on anyone else's freedom. Surely that's end of it?

In the case of Sharia law stopping women driving well IMO that should be held against the Saudi government because there's plenty of Islamic states, yet they're the only country to stop women driving. It shouldn't incite prejudice in individual Muslims.
In Saudi Arabia women may not drive as you said.But in Bangladesh and Pakistan, they can. And of course as there is no reference to motor vehicles in the Koran, the decision as to who can or can't drive them has been made by (male) Islamic scholars.The problem in many ways is not the religion but the cultural domination of males in those countries .

[Salabra]

half of my family are Muslims, and in respect to their culture you cannot accept them to accept your standards I respect that.

My partner is a Moroccan jewish woman — one of her uncles suggested that we two should be stoned. We have an evangelical christian church several hundred metres along the street, some of whose members would like to burn us at the stake.

I don’t accept their standards either — and I will not let any such standards become the “norm” in any world in which I would want to live.

I honestly don’t give a fat rat’s arse what people believe in the privacy of their own basements — what matters is what those people say in public, how they act in public, what they teach their children, and how that coincides with the interests of the proletariat.

Sadly, many religions — and especially the abrahamic ones (judaism, christianity, islam) — have an unfortunate tendency not to be happy unless they are remoulding societies in line with their own sad worldviews.

This is something that I would expect any respectable socialist/communist party to come down on “like a tonne of bricks,” as the saying goes.


The People’s Ministry of Education will not allow any citizen to teach, or be taught, any set of beliefs and values which claims that an imaginary being, or beings, has, or have, gifted the possession of absolute truth to its adherents, nor that its adherents have the sanction of said imaginary being, or beings, to discriminate against, or otherwise diminish the dignity or humanity of, any other citizen on the grounds of “race,” ethnicity, skin colour, gender, sexuality, age, ability or any other criterion, including non-adherence to that set of beliefs and values.
The People’s Ministry of Culture will not permit the continuance of any traditional custom or cultural usage which, claiming the sanction of an imaginary being, or beings, threatens the physical or mental health of any citizen (including, but not limited to, the physical mutilation of children and young people, female or male), or which discriminates between citizens on the grounds of “race,” ethnicity, skin colour, gender, sexuality, age, ability or any other criterion, or which diminishes the dignity or humanity of any citizen, or which inhibits the full and free participation of every citizen in the life of the community on equal terms.

If that offends anyone’s muslim comrades, jewish comrades, christian comrades or galaxian orthodox comrades, so be it — however progressive it may once have seemed, religion (like capitalism) has become a drag on human development and should be swept into the dustbin.


I think though that there is a propensity to criticise Islam in particular and then back it up by saying that we criticise all religions.

…

I am not sure whether the propensity to attack Islam on here comes from a reaction to the near apologism that you see for it from some leftists…

A valid point, against which we all must guard — some of us, however, do criticize all religions.

I criticise the segregation (or, in some sects, complete exclusion) of women in judaism, or the misogynistic violence sanctioned by some passages in the Tenakh, the Hebrew bible — not to mention the policies and actions of the Israeli government — and get labelled anti-semitic. I have fought bitterly with any number of christians, including priests, ministers, pastors etc over homophobia and forced conversion — as well as the proposals of the crazier christians to teach “intelligent design”/creationism in schools — and been labelled anti-christian.

It really is about time, as an earlier poster said, that we stopped pussyfooting around and treating people’s belief in invisible friends as exempt from criticism. Yes, I’ve heard all the arguments about how oppressed people articulate their alienation through religion — I admit the validity of those arguments, but, unlike some “socialists,” I won’t actually stop there and try to incorporate religion into Marxism, much less label religious expression as “progressive” and “revolutionary.” I would conceive my task as a Marxist as offering a materialist and historical explanation of people’s misery and a programme for improving their conditions in this world, not pandering to their hopes for pie-in-the-sky in an assumed “next world.”


.The problem in many ways is not the religion but the cultural domination of males in those countries .

Sadly there are very few countries where men are not culturally dominant — but we’re working on it!

[Janine Melnitz]

It really is about time, as an earlier poster said, that we stopped pussyfooting around and treating people’s belief in invisible friends as exempt from criticism
Right, but who here is doing this. (Honest question, I might have missed it, having been blinded by what I'd consider more serious idiocies on the "other side".) It's possible that some on this site (and certainly true that some leftists off it) are "oversensitive" to attacks on one particular religion due to the current ideological climate; is this terrible? Is this of any critical importance? In the nineties people would go on and on about how "PC nuts" were the new gestapo, and tell tales of excessive or dumb behavior as "proof" that concern about racism/sexism/etc. was horribly oppressive. Even if these stories were true (many weren't, but we've all met overzealous dummies), they were I'd say obviously unimportant, much much less important than the struggles of which they could rightly be called excesses, and certainly no credible threat to anyone's "freedom of speech". It's very hard, when leftists angrily and loudly defend their inalienable right to criticize Islam against some imaginary PC police or terrifying horde of mullahs, to see them as very different from people complaining about "feminazis" or something.

[Revy]

The problem is not Islam but Islamism. We should not act like we are against Islam. I would also oppose rhetoric against Christianity too. It's the fundamentalists, the religious conservatives, the people that try to push their oppressive religious "values" into laws.

This thread was started by someone excessively accomodating of Islamism, to the point they asked about "sharia socialism" in a serious manner. Never mind that Sharia law, applied literally has resulted in oppressive and barbaric policies toward women, gays and non-Muslims.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Nothing wrong with criticising Islam, just as there's nothing wrong with criticising Christianity. But if you start foaming at the mouth about "the Muslims taking over Europe" or some other such rot, then you're either an ignorant dipshit or a racist.

[Dr Mindbender]

To me its a vicious cycle. The right wingers accuse the left of being pro-islam, to which sets a precedence of needing to seem like we're needing to distance ourselves.

I think it's necessary to make a point of being equally critical of all religions without crossing any boundaries that would class us as prejudiced.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

To me its a vicious cycle. The right wingers accuse the left of being pro-islam, to which sets a precedence of needing to seem like we're needing to distance ourselves.

I'm not so sure myself. To me it seems that plenty of leftists go the other way as well.


I think it's necessary to make a point of being equally critical of all religions without crossing any boundaries that would class us as prejudiced.

I think the best approach can be summed up as: "people deserve at least a minimum of respect, but not ideas". The world's billions(?) of Muslims cannot possibly all be complete monsters - that's a ludicrous proposition. But certain ideas and messages within the Koran are indeed monstrous.

[ls]

The world's billions(?) of Muslims cannot possibly all be complete monsters - that's a ludicrous proposition. But certain ideas and messages within the Koran are indeed monstrous.

Well no, not particularly.

Same for all the key books of religions.

Our media constantly paints the qu'ran out to be monstrous in comparison to the bible, it's important we mark out that not every Muslim adheres to the qu'ran in the same way whatsoever, it's the same for the bible/christianity too of course.

[Sarah Palin]

I think the best approach can be summed up as: "people deserve at least a minimum of respect, but not ideas". The world's billions(?) of Muslims cannot possibly all be complete monsters - that's a ludicrous proposition. But certain ideas and messages within the Koran are indeed monstrous.

There's also many crazy ideas in the Bible. Religious texts are the most violent in literature.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Right, but who here is doing this...Even if these stories were true (many weren't, but we've all met overzealous dummies), they were I'd say obviously unimportant, much much less important than the struggles of which they could rightly be called excesses, and certainly no credible threat to anyone's "freedom of speech". It's very hard, when leftists angrily and loudly defend their inalienable right to criticize Islam against some imaginary PC police or terrifying horde of mullahs, to see them as very different from people complaining about "feminazis" or something.
I can't speak for the situation in the US, cos I'm not particularly familiar with the left groups there, but it's certainly the case that the largest left group in Britain recently spent several years attempting to form a doomed alliance with Islamic leaders on the basis of toning down any socialist principles that might offend religious sensibilities, such as support for gay rights or abortion. And it was only this year that socialists criticising Hamas (as well as the IDF) on anti-war demos were physically confronted and had their placards removed and destroyed. I do think this is a problem.


Our media constantly paints the qu'ran out to be monstrous in comparison to the bible, it's important we mark out that not every Muslim adheres to the qu'ran in the same way whatsoever, it's the same for the bible/christianity too of course.
Yup. I've heard the Qu'ran is actually not that bad (as batshit crazy religious texts go) and certainly a lot less bad than the Bible, and that it's the hadiths (which not all muslims follow) that contain the really awful stuff. But I've not read it myself, so I dunno for sure.

[Malakangga]

hey,what the hell. Islam is great,guys

[Lyev]

Yup. I've heard the Qu'ran is actually not that bad (as batshit crazy religious texts go) and certainly a lot less bad than the Bible, and that it's the hadiths (which not all muslims follow) that contain the really awful stuff. But I've not read it myself, so I dunno for sure.

It's funny that people might say the Qu'ran is worse than the Bible-
If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. [Leviticus 20:13]

The thing these religious fundamentalists need to bear in mind is that these religious texts were written a good 2000 years ago, if not more, and should be taken as such.

[Salabra]

...It’s possible that some on this site (and certainly true that some leftists off it) are “oversensitive” to attacks on one particular religion due to the current ideological climate; is this terrible? Is this of any critical importance?

It is — when those who are “oversensitive,” as you put it, defend every belief and custom equally.

I would defend the right of Muslim schoolgirls to wear the hijab in the face of the French (or Australian, or US) bourgeoisie and their mouthpieces, who use religion as a tool to fragment the proletariat — but I would also defend the right of those schoolgirls who wish to do so to take off the hijab when they get to school without being reported to “dad” by brothers who follow them around, keeping watch on their behaviour. I would also defend their right to talk to boys not of their own family on the schoolbus, as well as their right not to be sent back to Jordan to get married, because Uncle Ahmed needs to be married to a citizen to get a visa — and their right not to be punished, or even murdered, because they have “shamed the family “ by refusing to go.

Flamewar in 3…2…1. Yes, I know other cultures also endorse the murder of those (especially women and gays) who “cross sexual boundaries,” but my point is that not every “custom” or traditional belief is worth keeping — and that some should definitely be stamped out.

The task of “socialists” is to defend the adherents of all religions — not the religion itself — AND at the same time undercut the hold that religious mumbo-jumbo has on those adherents. There are many strategies to do this — but they all start with a revolution, one of whose “planks” is the full and unconditional (and voluntary) integration of all humanity as equals in a socialist society.


It’s very hard, when leftists angrily and loudly defend their inalienable right to criticize Islam against some imaginary PC police or terrifying horde of mullahs, to see them as very different from people complaining about “feminazis” or something.

*I*, for one, am not trying to be “even-handed” or impartial — “neutrality” is a myth whose purpose and effect is to keep the oppressed from getting angry over their oppression.


I can’t speak for the situation in the US, cos I’m not particularly familiar with the left groups there, but it’s certainly the case that the largest left group in Britain recently spent several years attempting to form a doomed alliance with Islamic leaders on the basis of toning down any socialist principles that might offend religious sensibilities, such as support for gay rights or abortion. And it was only this year that socialists criticising Hamas (as well as the IDF) on anti-war demos were physically confronted and had their placards removed and destroyed. I do think this is a problem.

This wouldn’t be the same crowd that reckons that the USSR stopped being communist in around 1924 (and that therefore it deserved no support not only during the Cold War but even through the 1930s and WWII), would it?

/me snorts in a most unladylike — but very revolutionary — fashion.


There’s also many crazy ideas in the Bible. Religious texts are the most violent in literature.

Yes, let’s start quoting the bible, the torah, the dharmashastras of hinduism or the Analects of Kong Fuzi (Confucius). To quote from the texts of any religion is possible, but, in the end, fruitless — none are more than excuses for perpetuating oppression and injustice.


[from the “Why are Trotskyists so Hated thread]


Fine words, Bobkindles, especially for one who claims that the hijab can be “...a symbol of liberation...” (a quote from your contribution to the Islamophobia Thread in Discrimination)

… I think this aspect of the hijab is further affirmed by the fact that, when the right to wear the hijab has come under attack, as has been the case in many European countries, Muslim women have responded aggressively, asserting themselves as political subjects. For example, when the French government proposed a law to ban the wearing of the hijab in 2004, mass demonstrations occurred, involving women raising slogans like “not our fathers nor our husbands, we chose the headscarf” and “neither forced nor downtrodden … In a climate of widespread hostility towards Muslim communities in European countries, backing these struggles and defending the religious rights of Muslims is a vital necessity for socialists.

When minorities are excluded — or used as cheap labour and then discarded, as in the case you mention — they often retreat into “custom” and “tradition.” This further alienates them from the wider society, in a vicious circle. As Marxists, our task is surely to break this circle, not feed into it.

When people feel under threat (as muslims feel when confronted by both imperialist depredation and the sellout policies of their own ruling classes), they often take comforting refuge in “tradition.” As Marxists, our task is to defend their interests, without endorsing every little tidbit of backwardness just because “it gives them reassurance.”

Please note that I was civilized enough not to ask whether you also supported the “religious rights” of some muslims to have their daughters’ genitals cut to pieces.(1 — Read the footnote before you start a flamewar)

(1) The practice of female genital mutilation transcends all class, national and religious bounds. In areas where it is the norm, it is so not just for the women of the bush but for those from the elite petty bourgeoisie, professional government bureaucracy and intelligentsia as well. All women in northern Sudan are infibulated, yet the practice has been anathema among the southern peoples. Among every religion on the continent — coptic christians, muslims, animists, the “black jews” of Ethiopia, both catholic and protestant converts in Nigeria — there are peoples that persist in female mutilations. Moreover, it is practiced in Burkina Faso among tribes with both patriarchal and matriarchal cultures.

[Janine Melnitz]

It is — when those who are “oversensitive,” as you put it, defend every belief and custom equally.
Who. Is. Doing. This.

Flamewar in 3…2…1. Yes, I know other cultures also endorse the murder of those (especially women and gays) who “cross sexual boundaries,” but my point is that not every “custom” or traditional belief is worth keeping — and that some should definitely be stamped out.
Seriously? You think taking a stand against honor killings is a dangerous, controversial move on this site? You think it even needs saying, much less in boldface?

What's weirdest about you bringing it up is that at the end of the same post you yourself explain why this doesn't even have anything to do with the "critique of Islam" -- that violence against women (however ritualized or dressed up) can hardly be put down to theology, whatever the latter's real faults may be.


It’s very hard, when leftists angrily and loudly defend their inalienable right to criticize Islam against some imaginary PC police or terrifying horde of mullahs, to see them as very different from people complaining about “feminazis” or something.
*I*, for one, am not trying to be “even-handed” or impartial — “neutrality” is a myth whose purpose and effect is to keep the oppressed from getting angry over their oppression.
Good lord it took me half an hour to even construct a hypothesis as to why you thought this response made any sense. Do...do you think I'm objecting to anger and loudness?? No dude: I'm suspicious, in this case, of its motivation, as of course there is no Islamist Gestapo, no PC police, to crush the Anti-Theists' God Given Freedoms of Speeches (any more than there were feminazis credibly threatening to send Rush Limbaugh to Dachau) -- just a few instances of silliness on the part of people doing their best to counteract this season's justifications for murder and empire. Getting all pissy, in the face of such harmless silliness, about your Right and Duty to "criticize Islam", no matter what the political context -- this is what I find dubious.

[Salabra]

Who. Is. Doing. This.

Well, apparently quite a few contributors to this thread (see The Ungovernable Farce’s post earlier, and Holden Caulfield’s to name just two) are aware of left-wing groups attempting to sell themselves as the “defenders of Islamic minorities” by watering-down/glossing-over “any socialist principles that might offend religious sensibilities, such as support for gay rights or abortion. And it was only this year that socialists criticising Hamas (as well as the IDF) on anti-war demos were physically confronted and had their placards removed and destroyed.”

Of course, this may not be the case in the milieu in which you move — these “left-wing groups” are, after all, British, and “Trots” to boot — but it certainly occurs here in Australia.


Seriously? You think taking a stand against honor killings is a dangerous, controversial move on this site? You think it even needs saying, much less in boldface?

See above. Apparently “culture” and “religious rights” trump socialism for some leftists.


Good lord it took me half an hour to even construct a hypothesis as to why you thought this response made any sense.

I was merely making the point that I do not claim to be “neutral.” You will note that in all my posts, I have made it clear that I defend muslims from the capitalist state — defending them in a socialist one depends, as I said earlier, on what they say, how they act and what they teach their children.


No, dude

Is this your Tendency’s version of “comrade”?


…just a few instances of silliness on the part of people doing their best to counteract this season's justifications for murder and empire.

Do you regard defending muslims from the capitalist state or from US imperialism as “silly” — or have I once again misread you to score “smartypants points”? I will say it again — I defend muslims (or jews, or the galaxian orthodox) against targeting by the capitalist state, I do not defend the religion (or any other) from anyone.

If these people’s efforts to “counteract this season’s justifications for murder and empire” are “silliness,” shouldn’t you be trying to at least work with them in devising a method to do it better?


Getting all pissy, in the face of such harmless silliness, about your Right and Duty to "criticize Islam", no matter what the political context — this is what I find dubious.

What *I* find dubious is the proclivity of the some on the left to be uncritical in defence of their causes (especially when those causes involve people who are oppressed), however dubious the ideology — religion/”ethnicity”/nationalism/biologism — the oppressed use as a basis for “liberation.” To hark over to another thread, I would have joined the Red Army in 1941 to defend the USSR, but that wouldn’t have stopped me criticizing Comrade Stalin, the re-sanctioning of the orthodox church or Great Russian chauvinism.

I denounce the racist “islamophobia” of the “war on terror” as vociferously as you do. I will not support the establishment of sharia courts (to decide matters of “family law”) — or jewish beit din, or christian “courts of faith-based arbitration” either — as some of our “comrades” do.

[Janine Melnitz]

And it was only this year that socialists criticising Hamas (as well as the IDF) on anti-war demos were physically confronted and had their placards removed and destroyed.
Uh, sounds about right to me. "Criticizing" Hamas at an anti-war demo? Opportunist at best.

Do you regard defending muslims from the capitalist state or from US imperialism as “silly” — or have I once again misread you to score “smartypants points”?
Wow, you sure did, though I won't speculate on the reason this time. No -- Holden's story about SWP folks going "Oh, no, alcohol! Offensive!!" on hearing that a Muslim comrade was happily volunteering to meet at a bar, I think anyone would agree that this is silly, and my point was that such "excesses", if annoying, are hardly a grave problem; every struggle has its excesses; these are harmless ones.

I will say it again — I defend muslims (or jews, or the galaxian orthodox) against targeting by the capitalist state, I do not defend the religion (or any other) from anyone.
Sure, and compromising your dedication to e.g. LGBTQ issues so as not to offend religious sensibilities (if this has in fact been happening in Australia or the U.K. -- I've heard talk to this effect, but it's a serious charge) is certainly gross opportunism. However simply not doing that -- and opposing sexual bigotry really doesn't require references to any holy book -- is different from playing Dick Dawkins and pretending that "criticisms of Islam" occur in a political vaccuum, cannot themselves be functionally opportunist (I'm not actually talking about youhere, but addressing the general topic of the thread, what goes on in the Anti-Theist group etc.).

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Uh, sounds about right to me. "Criticizing" Hamas at an anti-war demo? Opportunist at best.

Criticising an armed force at an anti-war demo? I think most people would be able to deal with that concept. You see, to me, being anti-war means you're against a war. If you want to call a "support one side in the war" demo, that's fine, but don't call it an anti-war demo. So do you actually support physically censoring socialists calling for internationalist positions? Before you accuse me of being a closet Zionist or some similar idiocy, the placard in question read "No to the IDF, no to Hamas" on one side, and "Solidarity with workers, women and the left" on the other.
Oh, the messes that lefties tangle themselves into...

[Janine Melnitz]

Criticising an armed force at an anti-war demo? I think most people would be able to deal with that concept.
I'll assume you're not against "armed forces" generally, but that's sure how this reads.

You see, to me, being anti-war means you're against a war.
Sure, and if Hamas at this time had been leading conscripts across the border or raining white phosphorous on Israeli cities, "criticisms" of them might have anything the fuck to do with an anti-war position. There are real criticisms to be made of Hamas, of its ideology, organization etc., none of which make sense in or are relevant to that anti-war protest.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

I'll assume you're not against "armed forces" generally, but that's sure how this reads.
I'm not a pacifist, but I am against all nationalist armies. I didn't think this was a new position for a socialist to come up with.


Sure, and if Hamas at this time had been leading conscripts across the border or raining white phosphorous on Israeli cities, "criticisms" of them might have anything the fuck to do with an anti-war position. There are real criticisms to be made of Hamas, of its ideology, organization etc., none of which make sense in or are relevant to that anti-war protest.
But it's ok for them to attack Israel with nice weapons, as long as they don't use the nasty ones? And I repeat, since you seem to be embarrassed to state your position on the issue: do you actually support physically censoring socialists calling for internationalist positions?

[Devrim]

Please note that I was civilized enough not to ask whether you also supported the “religious rights” of some muslims to have their daughters’ genitals cut to pieces.(1 — Read the footnote before you start a flamewar)

(1) The practice of female genital mutilation transcends all class, national and religious bounds. In areas where it is the norm, it is so not just for the women of the bush but for those from the elite petty bourgeoisie, professional government bureaucracy and intelligentsia as well. All women in northern Sudan are infibulated, yet the practice has been anathema among the southern peoples. Among every religion on the continent — coptic christians, muslims, animists, the “black jews” of Ethiopia, both catholic and protestant converts in Nigeria — there are peoples that persist in female mutilations. Moreover, it is practiced in Burkina Faso among tribes with both patriarchal and matriarchal cultures.

I just wanted to comment on this. As the poster recognises this is a practice not restricted to Muslims, but is a general African custom (I believe, but am not sure that it also exists in some parts of Arabia). It is also not a custom that is practised by all Muslims and there is nothing at all Islamic about it.

So why is there talk about 'religious rights'?

Devrim

[Module]

Generally speaking I don't see how one could claim religion is separate from 'custom'. Whatever group of people practicing whatever kind of 'custom', surely all should be looked at consistently. What god, or tradition, they justify such custom with should be irrelevant.

[Janine Melnitz]

But it's ok for them to attack Israel with nice weapons, as long as they don't use the nasty ones?
Why the fuck do you think the weapons enter into it? The war being protested in this case had nothing at all to do with Hamas "attacking Israel". Do you actually buy into the Israeli line that Hamas "provoked" the most recent attacks? Do you think a socialist Palestine would suffer less aggression from Israel? Again: until Hamas actually makes war (this is why I talked about invasions etc.) rather than simply resisting aggression, criticisms of it are of zero relevance to anti-war efforts.

Ugh and because I know you'll willfully misread this as being about "who started it": no; read again.

And I repeat, since you seem to be embarrassed to state your position on the issue: do you actually support physically censoring socialists calling for internationalist positions?
I don't actually believe you're stupid enough to think I'm ignoring this due to "embarrassment". I think, instead, that you're disingenuous enough to believe you can score points by claiming that, since I reject your own idealist conception of "internationalist positions", I am against internationalism.

Maybe not, though; maybe the big issue for you isn't the positions in question, but "physical censorship" of any sort. Of course I'm not against "physically censoring" reactionaries and opportunists. Or "non-physically" censoring them either, whatever that would entail (maybe banning reactionary "socialists" from RevLeft?). I made that obvious a couple posts ago; I didn't think it needed reiterating.

[Korchagin]

Islamophobic propaganda is the most dangerous threat facing western society today. Unless a most merciless struggle against this poison is conducted, pogroms against Muslims would be carried out. Just recently, a Muslim woman was brutally murdered in Germany because she dared to exercise her right to wear a headscarf. The failure to resolutely combat Islamophobia would amount to tacit approval for the activities carried out by reactionary groups and enemies of the people. Everything must be done to express sympathy for Muslims in the most emphatic manner.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Maybe not, though; maybe the big issue for you isn't the positions in question, but "physical censorship" of any sort. Of course I'm not against "physically censoring" reactionaries and opportunists.
You see, I'm a fan of skillful sleight-of-hand, and this is just gold. You say that you're in favour of censoring reactionaries, a fairly reasonable position, and then throw in "opportunists" - a swearword used by socialists against other socialists. Apparently the way to settle arguments in the socialist movement isn't through debate, but by forcibly preventing those who you disagree with from being able to speak. I think that the SWP's Respect alliance, and its various other popular fronts, are deeply opportunist, but that doesn't mean I think I'd be justified in attacking their paper sales, that's clearly indefensible. It's made even better by the fact that you've been banging on and on about how censorship doesn't exist, like so:

Right, but who here is doing this... It's very hard, when leftists angrily and loudly defend their inalienable right to criticize Islam against some imaginary PC police or terrifying horde of mullahs, to see them as very different from people complaining about "feminazis" or something.


Who. Is. Doing. This.
There is no Islamist Gestapo, no PC police, to crush the Anti-Theists' God Given Freedoms of Speeches (any more than there were feminazis credibly threatening to send Rush Limbaugh to Dachau).
An incredibly disingenuous question when you readily admit that, if you see criticism of Islam as being "opportunist", you'd be happy to act as the "Islamist Gestapo". You're an embarrassment.

[Devrim]

I think that the SWP's Respect alliance, and its various other popular fronts, are deeply opportunist, but that doesn't mean I think I'd be justified in attacking their paper sales, that's clearly indefensible.
I think that it was anti- socialist and anti-working class. I think that to be oppurtunist suggests that you are on the side of the working class in the first place.
Devrim

[Salabra]

...Just recently, a Muslim woman was brutally murdered in Germany because she dared to exercise her right to wear a headscarf...

Any revolutionary party with which I would wish to be associated would react to such disgusting racism with all the power it could muster.

It would also react just as powerfully to defend those women in Afghanistan who had acid thrown in their faces for not wearing their headscarves.

[Muzk]

Mmmh... I think that the hate on the islam comes from seeing 'children' on the streets talking bullshit.
Or maybe a part of it through the american 'Boohoo every muslim ist a terrorist'

Everyone takes his religion as he wants it now-a-days. Noone really follows the bible anymore, they just think what they want, to feel better or whatever.
The same with muslims, of course NOT EVERY MUSLIM is a jew-hating terrorist willing to bomb a random place.

Isn't that the cause of all this racism bullshit? Generalization and false stereotypicial propaganda? Subjective point of view?

[Janine Melnitz]

It's made even better by the fact that you've been banging on and on about how censorship doesn't exist
"Censorship exists" whenever one person interrupts another in mid-sentence. This isn't a politically significant example of "censorship", though, and neither is an isolated squabble over a placard (unfortunately -- I'd rather such demonstrators weren't given a chance to bring their bullshit to the demo in the first place, and whine about it later).

An incredibly disingenuous question when you readily admit that, if you see criticism of Islam as being "opportunist", you'd be happy to act as the "Islamist Gestapo". You're an embarrassment.
Right, except we weren't talking about Islam, idiot, we were talking about Hamas. And what do your quotes of me have to do with that topic? Let's use context to try and find out:


It is — when those who are “oversensitive,” as you put it, defend every belief and custom equally. Who. Is. Doing. This.
This has nothing to do with actively spreading Zionist lies about Hamas "attacking Israel".


It really is about time, as an earlier poster said, that we stopped pussyfooting around and treating people’s belief in invisible friends as exempt from criticismRight, but who here is doing this.
This has to do with discussions on religion, not public demonstrations about political entities.

You're right, though: if the topic were Islam, if e.g. the placards had read "NO TO MUHAMMAD" instead, I'd find that even more grossly opportunist (and bizarrely irrelevant to the demo) and deserving of censorship. My sentence above could as easily read "This has to do with discussions[...], not public demonstrations". A placard isn't an argument, it doesn't invite "debate" -- pro-war and anti-war demonstrators don't march from opposite sides of town to a park where they can cooperatively build a podium so as to exchange ideas. A demonstration, if it has any use at all, is a political act, an assertion of unified will in which placards are means of its articulation. Taking an intra-left debate outside of leftist fora and into the streets is sectarian at best -- and ideas that, on RevLeft or in an IRL meeting, would deserve criticism rather than censorship (for example, a moron's thoughtless parroting of Israeli talking points) take on much more practical importance in the context of a political demo (let alone more substantial political acts).

[Janine Melnitz]

I think that the SWP's Respect alliance, and its various other popular fronts, are deeply opportunist, but that doesn't mean I think I'd be justified in attacking their paper sales, that's clearly indefensible.
I think that it was anti- socialist and anti-working class. I think that to be oppurtunist suggests that you are on the side of the working class in the first place.
Devrim
This is a little silly maybe? Opportunism is already anti-working class, in that it means (intentionally or no) allying with/working for the bourgeoisie. This (like most political questions) has nothing to do with what an organization is "in the first place" and everything to do with what it actually does, right now.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

(unfortunately -- I'd rather such demonstrators weren't given a chance to bring their bullshit to the demo in the first place, and whine about it later).
What would you prefer?

Right, except we weren't talking about Islam, idiot, we were talking about Hamas.
Right. Cause talking about Islamism is completely irrelevant to a discussion of Islam.


This has to do with discussions on religion, not public demonstrations about political entities.
You know full well that religions have no meaning or "essence" beyond the ways they manifest themselves as "political entities".

A demonstration, if it has any use at all, is a political act, an assertion of unified will in which placards are means of its articulation.
Right. Like having "NO TO THE IDF" placards at an anti-IDF demonstration.

Taking an intra-left debate outside of leftist fora and into the streets is sectarian at best
What, like when demonstrators took pro-Hamas slogans into the streets?

-- and ideas that, on RevLeft or in an IRL meeting, would deserve criticism rather than censorship (for example, a moron's thoughtless parroting of Israeli talking points).
You think "NO TO THE IDF" is an Israeli talking point?

This is a little silly maybe? Opportunism is already anti-working class, in that it means (intentionally or no) allying with/working for the bourgeoisie. This (like most political questions) has nothing to do with what an organization is "in the first place" and everything to do with what it actually does, right now.
I agree that Devrim is being a bit pedantic, and that the important point here is still the fact that it's disgusting to call for censorship of internationalist positions at anti-war demonstrations. But surely if opportunism means anything, it means abandoning your (anti-bourgeois) principles, so if an organisation doesn't have any (anti-bourgeois) principles in the first place it can't be said to be opportunist?

[Devrim]

This is a little silly maybe? Opportunism is already anti-working class, in that it means (intentionally or no) allying with/working for the bourgeoisie. This (like most political questions) has nothing to do with what an organization is "in the first place" and everything to do with what it actually does, right now.

No, it isn't a little silly at all. One wouldn't call the US Repubkican or Democratic parties opportunist. It implies that the group you are revering to has a working class agenda. I don't think that the SWP and their communalist friends do.

Devrim

[Devrim]

I agree that Devrim is being a bit pedantic, and that the important point here is still the fact that it's disgusting to call for censorship of internationalist positions at anti-war demonstrations. But surely if opportunism means anything, it means abandoning your (anti-bourgeois) principles, so if an organisation doesn't have any (anti-bourgeois) principles in the first place it can't be said to be opportunist?it is not about 'being pedantic'. The SWP is an anti-working class pro-imperialist party, and the peace demonstartions were turned into pro-war demonstrations.

You might think that calling on workers to take sides in capitalist wars is 'opportunist'. I think it puts them in the same camp as the so-called socialists who supported the First World War.

Devrim

[Janine Melnitz]

What would you prefer?
Uh if I had the secret for keeping soi-disant socialists from fucking up political activity I'd probably have told someone and we might have something like a real, global communist movement already.

Right. Cause talking about Islamism is completely irrelevant to a discussion of Islam.
Irrelevant to a discussion about anti-war politics when the Islamist entity in question hasn't engaged in warfare. We've been over this and you chose to ignore it the first time, apart from dittoing the IDF's excuses for war.

What, like when demonstrators took pro-Hamas slogans into the streets?
Yeah, pretty opportunist (if they claimed to be socialist at all), but hardly to such a serious degree since, of course, this was taking place in England, not Palestine.

You think "NO TO THE IDF" is an Israeli talking point?
Ya bru thats totely wut I ment :thumbup1:

Are you suggesting that someone can't say a correct thing and a dumb, reactionary thing on the same placard? Placards are pretty big!

But surely if opportunism means anything, it means abandoning your (anti-bourgeois) principles, so if an organisation doesn't have any (anti-bourgeois) principles in the first place it can't be said to be opportunist?
Well given your placard quibble above I feel the need to point out that this abandonment of principles is, in all cases of opportunism, partial -- that there actually exist people/organizations that fall somewhere between Makhno and Bill Clinton, even if they objectively do more good for the latter camp.

But yeah: while the SWP could be on the same road that Labour was ages ago (I have no idea, not being that deep into what's happening over there) I didn't realize Devrim was claiming more than this, that the SWP is straight up a bourgeois party in the same sense that Labour is today. This seems silly on the face of it; I wouldn't even say it about the CPUSA with their pathetic Democrat tailism, let alone a party that still openly calls for revolution etc. My criticism of that "in the first place" stuff was because I misinterpreted it as meaning "They were fatally compromised from the beginning" (sort of silly, since origins or whatever aren't really of interest) and not "They don't, and never have, had anything to compromise and are, in fact, exactly the same as the parties who actually have the support of the bourgeoisie" (i.e. the industry-controlling class, not just the occasional eccentric rich person or their disaffected-student children), which is just ridiculous.

You might think that calling on workers to take sides in capitalist wars is 'opportunist'. I think it putscthem in the same camp as the so-called socialists who supported the First World War.
What, these folks? (http://www.marx.org/archive/lenin/works//1915/dec/x01.htm) Opportunism, by my definition (and the one I thought was pretty established in communist circles), isn't the minor error you seem to think I'm talking about (in that case why would I defend "physical censorship"?).

[Devrim]

What, these folks? (http://www.marx.org/archive/lenin/works//1915/dec/x01.htm) Opportunism, by my definition (and the one I thought was pretty established in communist circles), isn't the minor error you seem to think I'm talking about (in that case why would I defend "physical censorship"?).

I think that opportunism was what led them into social-chauvanism. However, they are not the same thing. It would make sense today to talk about the British Labour Party as being a social chauvanist party. It clearly is. It would make no snese to refer to them as opportunists. That would imply that there was something socialist about it.


But yeah: while the SWP could be on the same road that Labour was ages ago (I have no idea, not being that deep into what's happening over there) I didn't realize Devrim was claiming more than this, that the SWP is straight up a bourgeois party in the same sense that Labour is today. This seems silly on the face of it; I wouldn't even say it about the CPUSA with their pathetic Democrat tailism, let alone a party that still openly calls for revolution etc. My criticism of that "in the first place" stuff was because I misinterpreted it as meaning "They were fatally compromised from the beginning" (sort of silly, since origins or whatever aren't really of interest) and not "They don't, and never have, had anything to compromise and are, in fact, exactly the same as the parties who actually have the support of the bourgeoisie" (i.e. the industry-controlling class, not just the occasional eccentric rich person or their disaffected-student children), which is just ridiculous.

Yes, I am saying that the SWP is a bourgeois party. Also I would say that the CPUSA is. In our opinion all parties that call for workers to participate in capitalist wars are.

Devrim

[counterblast]

The definition of "Islamophobia" (according to the author of this topic) is already consistent with the definition of "racism".


The word itself seems to pass beyond racism to the point of being apologetic for a religion that is anti-woman, anti-queer, and opposed to all forms of absolute human independence.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Uh if I had the secret for keeping soi-disant socialists from fucking up political activity I'd probably have told someone and we might have something like a real, global communist movement already.
Yup, the fact that we still have capitalism is totally because of the fact that some socialists don't take sides in nationalist wars.


Irrelevant to a discussion about anti-war politics when the Islamist entity in question hasn't engaged in warfare.
Lolwut?


Are you suggesting that someone can't say a correct thing and a dumb, reactionary thing on the same placard? Placards are pretty big!
I do think that it's misleading to take part of a message out of context. Saying "FUCK OBAMA" is different to saying "FUCK OBAMA AND THE REPUBLICANS, FOR INDEPENDENT WORKING-CLASS ACTIVITY"

[Janine Melnitz]

Yup, the fact that we still have capitalism is totally because of the fact that some socialists don't take sides in nationalist wars.
WHICH I TOTES ADVOCATED LOLLLLL jesus


Irrelevant to a discussion about anti-war politics when the Islamist entity in question hasn't engaged in warfare. Lolwut?
I'm not shocked that you've lost the thread, given how much it's been dragged out by your non sequiturs and misreadings. A normal person would have a hard time following this, let alone someone who can't seem to make sense of a single paragraph.

I do think that it's misleading to take part of a message out of context. Saying "FUCK OBAMA" is different to saying "FUCK OBAMA AND THE REPUBLICANS, FOR INDEPENDENT WORKING-CLASS ACTIVITY"
Ughhh. I already covered why this isn't analogous, why the "context" that's important here is that it's an anti-war demo and that "NO TO HAMAS" makes about as much sense in this context as "NO TO MUHAMMAD" or "NO TO THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE", and therefore serves no purpose other than to reassure everyone that you agree with the Zionist line about "extremists on both sides" etc. (which you've confirmed with your ridiculous talk about Hamas "attacking" Israel). Do you have anything new or are we done?

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Ughhh. I already covered why this isn't analogous, why the "context" that's important here is that it's an anti-war demo and that "NO TO HAMAS" makes about as much sense in this context as "NO TO MUHAMMAD" or "NO TO THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE", and therefore serves no purpose other than to reassure everyone that you agree with the Zionist line about "extremists on both sides" etc. (which you've confirmed with your ridiculous talk about Hamas "attacking" Israel). Do you have anything new or are we done?
I don't think you're likely to understand internationalism any time soon, so I think we're done. By the way, if Hamas weren't fighting a war, then why did they declare victory?

[Salabra]

Ughhh. I already covered why this isn't analogous, why the "context" that's important here is that it's an anti-war demo and that "NO TO HAMAS" makes about as much sense in this context as "NO TO MUHAMMAD" or "NO TO THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE", and therefore serves no purpose other than to reassure everyone that you agree with the Zionist line about "extremists on both sides" etc. (which you've confirmed with your ridiculous talk about Hamas "attacking" Israel). Do you have anything new or are we done?

Comrade Lenin said some very wise things, one of which can be paraphrased as “Keep repeating yourself until your interlocutor understands you.” So I will take his advice and say again that I would physically defend HAMAS from the Zionist state, but I would not give one skerrick of political support to this reactionary pack of clerical nationalists. In fact, I would take every opportunity to “diasaffect” the workers of the Middle East from their misleaders toward proletarian revolution.

[Janine Melnitz]

Salabra I know for a fact that we've disagreed in this thread but I cannot for the life of me remember how :thumbup1:

Edit: Oh wait we might disagree right here on the idea that a NO TO HAMAS sign, in England, is a political blow to Hamas rather than an opportunistic echoing of the local ruling-class rhetoric, hmmmm

[Salabra]

Salabra I know for a fact that we've disagreed in this thread but I cannot for the life of me remember how :thumbup1:

Edit: Oh wait we might disagree right here on the idea that a NO TO HAMAS sign, in England, is a political blow to Hamas rather than an opportunistic echoing of the local ruling-class rhetoric, hmmmm

No, we disagree because I do not think it incumbent on leftists to refrain from political criticism of any organization or group just because the organs of the capitalist class are also criticizing it, provided that the leftists are also prepared to physically defend that organization or group from attacks by the organs of the capitalist class, or its proxies (e.g., the BNP in this case).

(You will note that I have rephrased your “local ruling-class” — I would not have defended Solidarność from the Jaruszelski government in Poland, nor the mujahadin from the PDPA)

[Devrim]

So I will take his advice and say again that I would physically defend HAMAS from the Zionist state, but I would not give one skerrick of political support to this reactionary pack of clerical nationalists.


I do not think it incumbent on leftists to refrain from political criticism of any organization or group just because the organs of the capitalist class are also criticizing it, provided that the leftists are also prepared to physically defend that organization or group from attacks by the organs of the capitalist class, or its proxies

I don't quite understand what all of this talk of 'physically defending' HAMAS means. According to your profile, you live in Australia. How are you going to 'physically defend' HAMAS from the Israeli state?

To me this sounds like the Trotskyist notion of military support, which actually has nothing to do with the military at all, and is completly political. I think that the support that you give them is completly political also.


Edit: Oh wait we might disagree right here on the idea that a NO TO HAMAS sign, in England, is a political blow to Hamas rather than an opportunistic echoing of the local ruling-class rhetoric, hmmmm

I think that it would be completly opportunistic for communist to hold different positions in different countries.

Devrim

[Janine Melnitz]

Right, except I'm not talking about "holding positions" (e.g. laying out your position on Hamas in your party paper or whatever), as I said earlier (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1520922&postcount=119) ("a placard is not an argument"); it's not opportunist to acknowledge that a sentence's function can change radically depending on the context in which it's "spoken". A joke about someone's skin color would be as innocuous as a joke about their height in a non-racist society. As you said, a leftist in the UK is in no position to "physically" defend Hamas; the only people in the UK who can have any "physical" effect on Hamas' fate (or indeed that of Palestinians generally) are the bourgeoisie, for whom public opinion about Hamas is important to their current propaganda campaign.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Right, except I'm not talking about "holding positions" (e.g. laying out your position on Hamas in your party paper or whatever), as I said earlier (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1520922&postcount=119) ("a placard is not an argument"); it's not opportunist to acknowledge that a sentence's function can change radically depending on the context in which it's "spoken". A joke about someone's skin color would be as innocuous as a joke about their height in a non-racist society.
So you agree that you were being ridiculous earlier when you tried to paint the "NO TO IDF, NO TO HAMAS" sign as repeating Israeli propaganda?

[Janine Melnitz]

Nope, that's actually the opposite of what I said! I do admire your continued, heroic efforts at reading comprehension though. Get right back on that horse!

Edit: Okay, I'll help. When you talk about "context", you're speaking intra-textually, like an exceptionally myopic literary critic. The context I'm trying to point to is political, social, because these are political statements, yeah? NO TO HAMAS in England (in an anti-war protest, where Hamas has not actually gone to war, except in the prevailing narrative fed out by Israel and its transnational supporters) would only be analogous to "a skin-color joke in a non-racist society" if England were a "non-Zionist society". The bit of my quote that you posted would only imply what you're claiming it does if England's ruling class were not Zionists.

[Devrim]

The context I'm trying to point to is political, social, because these are political statements, yeah? NO TO HAMAS in England (in an anti-war protest, where Hamas has not actually gone to war, except in the prevailing narrative fed out by Israel and its transnational supporters) would only be analogous to "a skin-color joke in a non-racist society" if England were a "non-Zionist society". The bit of my quote that you posted would only imply what you're claiming it does if England's ruling class were not Zionists.

I think the idea that HAMAS 'has not actually gone to war' is a bizarre one. Is war something that has to be formally declared like back in the 18th century? Using that criteria, I don't think Israel went to war either.

Of course though Israel had 'gone to war', just as they did in the Lebanon a few years previously. If one reads the Arabic langauge statements put out by HAMAS and Hizbollah in those periods, it is very clear that they considered themselves to be in a war.

Even if they hadn't, I suppose that most people in the world would regognise that carrying out military opperations is generally synonomus with being in a war.

I think that the placard 'NO TO IDF, NO TO HAMAS' has the correct political orientation, and personally find the way that the leftists have turned anti-war demonstrations into pro (particular sides in a conflict) war demonstrations, is something that revolutionaries are right to criticise.

Devrim

[Comrade Akai]

Hey guys, I'd just like to point out that I'm a Muslim, so if you've got any questions I'll happily answer.

I'll try to clear up as much misconception as I can, and I'll tell you everything I know. Please keep it civil, remember that we're all on the same side here.:)

[The Ungovernable Farce]

NO TO HAMAS in England (in an anti-war protest, where Hamas has not actually gone to war, except in the prevailing narrative fed out by Israel and its transnational supporters).
Have you noticed the fact that Hamas claimed victory? That, to me, would suggest that they, at least, thought they were fighting a war.

[Janine Melnitz]

Is war something that has to be formally declared like back in the 18th century?
No, just the opposite, I'm talking about actual military aggression -- which is why I didn't think Farce's ridiculous "Why did Hamas declare victory then?!?!!?" deserved a response the first time. Pomp and bluster on Hamas' part has nothing to do with it -- as for "considering themselves to be in a war", well yeah, they are being targeted and putting up what defense they can. Finding oneself "in a war" is not the same as making war. However reactionary Hamas is, assigning them any responsibility for Palestine's invasion is rather fucking perverse. As I said before: do you think a socialist Palestine would be better-treated by Israel?

The attacks on Palestine being protested in this case were not provoked by any attacks on Israel. Hamas has not made any attempts on what Israel pretends is its rightful territory. To talk as if this were a problem of "aggression on both sides" is a regurgitation of Zionist propaganda.

[Raúl Duke]

Wasn't this a thread of the alleged-relevant "islamophobia" of revleft?
(Personally, using the strict definition, I don't care if revleft has "islamophobia"...revleft should equally be against all organized religions. In the racist or in the "christianity/judaism/etc religion is better then islam" sense, then yes that's something to oppose. But I doubt most people in the forum are against islam/religion in that sense.)

What's all the talk about Hamas has to do with it?
Or are you now equating opposition to Hamas as "islamophobia"
and then equating "islamophobia" with racism towards middle-easterners?

[Janine Melnitz]

If you'd read the thread, you'd know the inane "against all religions" point has already been made ad nauseam, and how we ended up here

Not that I blame you for not reading it but I'm fucked if I'll recap

[Jazzratt]

If you'd read the thread, you'd know the inane "against all religions" point has already been made ad nauseam, and how we ended up here

I've yet to see you come up with a response to the (apparantly) "inane" argument. So far you've only thrown back facile exceptionalism and other specious half-arguments.

[black magick hustla]

better[/I]-treated by Israel?


I honestly think they would be treated about the same. Hamas has a remarkable history of murdering their political opponents, so I would imagine that organizations that are not pro-hamas would not be in very friendly terms.

[Raúl Duke]

If you'd read the thread, you'd know the inane "against all religions" point has already been made ad nauseam, and how we ended up here

Not that I blame you for not reading it but I'm fucked if I'll recap

I have read the whole thread.

Whether you think it's inane or not doesn't matter...not many people are interested in opinions.

What they're interested at this moment if you were able to validly refute that point.
In which case, if I were to take Jazzratt's statement, no.

[pastradamus]

"Islamophobia" is a bullshit word, coined by people defending a bullshit religion (not that any religion isnt bullshit IMO). When one questions christianity does that make them a christianophobe? Of course not because all religion is complete dingleberry.

Religion is an Improvable system of false docterines used to exploit people by appealing to their imagination and offering them false hope in return for total obediance to the status quo.

Islamophobia is the stupidest phrase ever coined. It is false and hollow. It is also sometimes used to couple the middle eastern ethnic groups with a set religion which is a vain attempt from the propagators of this idiotic word to couple it with something as harsh as racism. "Islamophobia" is not Racism or discrimation. Islamophobia is an Invented, Hollow and utterly meaningless word.

[Janine Melnitz]

I've yet to see you come up with a response to the (apparantly) "inane" argument. So far you've only thrown back facile exceptionalism and other specious half-arguments.
I've yet to see anyone else in this thread treat political questions strategically rather than as opportunities to apply rote, moralistic formulas to concrete situations. Someone who can only think in such formulas would of course try to comprehend my arguments as something similar, e.g. "exceptionalism".

Whether you think it's inane or not doesn't matter...not many people are interested in opinions.
You obviously are, if you'd rather "take Jazzratt's statement" on my posts than read them.

Okay, fine, to recap: political theory is not Mosaic law. A political stance is not a universal principle, a mantra to be repeated in all circumstances, but a subjectively-motivated response to a specific situation. The "subjects" in this case are western leftists; their situation is one where the bourgeoisie are eager to use anti-Islamic sentiment to bolster their imperialist projects. If you ignore this situation, if you disregard the social context of what you're doing, you're not engaging in politics, you're spouting moralistic homilies as lame as any cleric's.

Saying you "attack all religions equally" in this situation is like a white comedian defending a racist joke by saying he "attacks all races equally". Formally, this may be the truth -- but one can only give "equal" weight to insults against white and black people if one ignores structural inequality.

(This is an analogy, which necessarily implies a lack of identity between the two terms. Please don't go "But religion ain't like race cos of x y z" -- these dissimilarities are beside the point. The point is that in both cases the significance of one's remarks depends on social context.)

People in non-Islamic countries who get indignant about the idea that their right to criticize Islam is being unfairly assaulted are (1) playing the same "pretend to be an embattled minority" game that rightists and religious zealots are so fond of and (2) pretending to act on "principles" divorced from any social context.

My first post in this thread, incidentally, began with an affirmation that all religions are reactionary, so I'm hardly saying that all criticisms of Islam are. This itself would be a lame assertion of idealist "principles" rather than political analysis. But all criticism serves an end -- an end, it seems necessary to add, not found in the intentions of the critic but in the social situation into which these criticisms are introduced. To what end have the anti-Islamic "critics" in this thread brought up, unbidden, such topics as genital mutilation (admitted in the same post to be nonreligious), suicide bombing and the mythical "attacks on Israel" recently used as an excuse for invasion?

And if you're genuinely mystified as to how Hamas came up: people of your own moralistic "anti-theological" persuasion keep bringing it up, as an example of the dire threat of Islamism. Most recently, it's been claimed that people who boldly criticize Hamas in the comfort of anti-Islamic imperialist nations are doing something of similar significance to Palestinians (or people in pro-Hamas nations generally) doing the same; that saying NO TO HAMAS in contexts (e.g. that anti-war protest) where one's opinion of Hamas is utterly irrelevant has any political utility, serves any end other than echoing imperialist sentiment.

[Salabra]

I don't quite understand what all of this talk of 'physically defending' HAMAS means. According to your profile, you live in Australia. How are you going to 'physically defend' HAMAS from the Israeli state?

To me this sounds like the Trotskyist notion of military support, which actually has nothing to do with the military at all, and is completely political. I think that the support that you give them is completely political also.

Apart from the fact that my condition barely permits me even to “physically defend’’ myself these days, it seems we have reached a terminological impasse, comrade. I have repeatedly stated that I see HAMAS as a clerical-nationalist and thoroughly reactionary organization — how I can be assumed to be giving it “political support” (i.e., championing its programme) when I identify myself as a communist is beyond my admittedly limited comprehension. To quote a well-known Australian, “Please Explain?”


I think that it would be completely opportunistic for communists to hold different positions in different countries.

Devrim

Well put.

[Janine Melnitz]

I think that it would be completely opportunistic for communists to hold different positions in different countries.




Well put.
Uh okay but when you're done patting each other on the back for having the same opinion could either of you respond to what I'm actually saying (i.e. not "Never criticize Hamas if you live in France")?

[black magick hustla]

Okay, fine, to recap: political theory is not Mosaic law. A political stance is not a universal principle, a mantra to be repeated in all circumstances, but a subjectively-motivated response to a specific situation. The "subjects" in this case are western leftists; their situation is one where the bourgeoisie are eager to use anti-Islamic sentiment to bolster their imperialist projects. If you ignore this situation, if you disregard the social context of what you're doing, you're not engaging in politics, you're spouting moralistic homilies as lame as any cleric's.

Actually, there are certain principles one must take for granted when being a communist. We are not nihilists, and what sometimes differs communists from liberals or social democrats are unwavering principles. If everything is "relative" concerning our principles, there is no point of calling yourself something, like a communist, at all. I am sorry if you consider this lame, but people as "lame" as us that were political minorities and disagreed completely with the "political climate" were the ones that opposed the first two world wars and we will do it again.




And if you're genuinely mystified as to how Hamas came up: people of your own moralistic "anti-theological" persuasion keep bringing it up, as an example of the dire threat of Islamism. Most recently, it's been claimed that people who boldly criticize Hamas in the comfort of anti-Islamic imperialist nations are doing something of similar significance to Palestinians (or people in pro-Hamas nations generally) doing the same; that saying NO TO HAMAS in contexts (e.g. that anti-war protest) where one's opinion of Hamas is utterly irrelevant has any political utility, serves any end other than echoing imperialist sentiment.

This is why instead of saying "no to Hamas", you say "no to Hamas, no to the IDF". Saying just "no to the IDF" defeats the whole political purpose, which is not only preventing this war in the "local context" - but doing it from a global perspective which is a rejection of all sides of wars. If IDF is only particualrly bad, and then there are good sides, it defeats the whole idea of a communist outlook.

[Salabra]

Uh okay but when you're done patting each other on the back for having the same opinion could either of you respond to what I'm actually saying (i.e. not "Never criticize Hamas if you live in France")?

Well, what you seem to be saying is that “in the current political situation” (your words from several posts back), muslims — particularly those living in capitalist countries — are such a besieged group that any criticism of their beliefs is beyond the pale, a criticism of them as people, and a capitulation to the racist anti-muslim blatherings of the capitalist media and tacit approval of attacks upon them by the capitalist state.

To re-iterate, I agree that muslims in Western countries are marginalized — in many cases they were brought in to be used as cheap labour and then discarded when economic circumstances changed — and that they retreat into “custom” and “tradition” as a solace against what they perceive to be a hostile society. But, as I have already said, it is surely the task of Marxists to break this circle, not feed into it.

When people feel under threat (as muslims feel when confronted by both imperialist depredation and the sellout policies of their own ruling classes), they often take comforting refuge in “tradition.” Once again, it is the job of Marxists to defend their interests, without endorsing every little tidbit of backwardness just because “it gives them reassurance.”

[Janine Melnitz]

Well, what you seem to be saying is that “in the current political situation” (your words from several posts back), muslims — particularly those living in capitalist countries — are such a besieged group that any criticism of their beliefs is beyond the pale
Naw, I'm saying that the ends that can be furthered by the same text differ according to circumstance. In imperialist, non-Islamic nations, there are circumstances in which criticism of Islam can serve productive ends. These circumstances are less common than in Islamic countries, though, due to a combination of their amenability to Islamophobia and their irrelevance to most real problems that criticism within these bounds (linguistic, geographic etc.) can effectively deal with.

[Janine Melnitz]

If everything is "relative" concerning our principles, there is no point of calling yourself something, like a communist, at all.
Huh, I wouldn't have pegged you for a moral realist, but I hardly ever look at the philosophy board or wherever you'd be likely to post about this sort of thing. Anyway, yeah, obviously we disagree here!

I am sorry if you consider this lame, but people as "lame" as us that were political minorities and disagreed completely with the "political climate" were the ones that opposed the first two world wars and we will do it again.
Haha wut. Do you think Lenin opposed the second international's opportunism because of some universalizable notions about war or whatever? War is good for some capitalists; it is bad for us (that is, if we are proletarian). When I talk about subjective stances, mind, I don't mean the whims of an individual -- one's subjectivity is socially conditioned, and understanding that one's own interests are social interests is necessary for the very existence of political thought. This broader, social consciousness is nonetheless subjective and is impossible to universalize as long as society is divided into classes with contradictory interests.

Saying just "no to the IDF" defeats the whole political purpose, which is not only preventing this war in the "local context" - but doing it from a global perspective which is a rejection of all sides of wars. If IDF is only particualrly bad, and then there are good sides
Yeah hold up there hoss I never said Hamas was on the "good side" and did say that pro-Hamas placards at that same protest were also opportunist.

[black magick hustla]

Huh, I wouldn't have pegged you for a moral realist, but I hardly ever look at the philosophy board or wherever you'd be likely to post about this sort of thing. Anyway, yeah, obviously we disagree here!

Hardly a moral realist. If I call myself a communist is because I defend certain principles. moral antirealism is not the same as moral nihilism. What I was arguing is that if you dont really have principles, but just wave around depending on the political climate, then it makes no sense to label yourself. I was nor arguing that ethical principles exist as some sort of platonic forms.



Haha wut. Do you think Lenin opposed the second international's opportunism because of some universalizable notions about war or whatever? War is good for some capitalists; it is bad for us (that is, if we are proletarian). When I talk about subjective stances, mind, I don't mean the whims of an individual -- one's subjectivity is socially conditioned, and understanding that one's own interests are social interests is necessary for the very existence of political thought. This broader, social consciousness is nonetheless subjective and is impossible to universalize as long as society is divided into classes with contradictory interests.

I am not "universalizing" anything. In the mind of many "second internationalists", there was probably the idea that it was politically useless to oppose the war. Nothing would be accomplished by opposing the war, therefore it made more sense to engage in social patriotism. This is what happened in WWII, except it was much worse, because the counterrevolution and the stalinization of the comintern was complete.



Yeah hold up there hoss I never said Hamas was on the "good side" and did say that pro-Hamas placards at that same protest were also opportunist.
Yeah, but I still think placards that say "No to IDF" just by themselves doesnt bring anything new or insightful or communist to the table. In the mind of an ordinary person, it simply means some states are good and other are bad, in this case IDF being bad. If someone says "No to IDF and Hamas", an ordinary person might scratch his head and think what is the meaning of such a statement.

[Janine Melnitz]

In the mind of many "second internationalists", there was probably the idea that it was politically useless to oppose the war. Nothing would be accomplished by opposing the war, therefore it made more sense to engage in social patriotism.
Yeah, and this was due to either a misinterpretation of the facts on the ground or (much more likely for most individuals) a subjective position that wasn't that of a proletarian, for whom war would, at very best, bring deeper impoverishment and oppression. Material analysis and class consciousness -- "principles" don't enter into it.

Yeah, but I still think placards that say "No to IDF" just by themselves doesnt bring anything new or insightful or communist to the table.
A placard isn't the latest publication by Verso books; it's not supposed to be sexy and new; it's supposed to articulate the protestors' collective will. This was a protest against a war (which I would say is a pretty darn "communist" position). The war was started and escalated by the IDF and nobody else. "No to IDF" is thus a pretty good slogan.

In the mind of an ordinary person, it simply means some states are good and other are bad, in this case IDF being bad. If someone says "No to IDF and Hamas", an ordinary person might scratch his head and think what is the meaning of such a statement.
And this imaginary "ordinary person", assuming that they are ordinary by virtue of being immersed in bourgeois ideology, would immediately conclude that it meant something already conveniently omnipresent in liberal discourse: that the unfortunate and dreadful violence of the invasion was the result of "extremism on both sides".

[black magick hustla]

Yeah, and this was due to either a misinterpretation of the facts on the ground or (much more likely for most individuals) a subjective position that wasn't that of a proletarian, for whom war would, at very best, bring deeper impoverishment and oppression. Material analysis and class consciousness -- "principles" don't enter into it.

Actually, principles have everything to do with it. The simple idea that the social order is reprehensible is a moral position. You might argue that it is all "self-interest" (although the value judgement of self interest being preferable is an ethical judgement by itself), but durruti didnt spent his life in exile out of just "self-interest", certainly his life would have turned better if he just had closed his mouth and lived quietly with his family. I am not arguing revolutions are composed of priestlike moral ascetics, but that people who call themselves communists and do militant work, which probabilistically, will at the end of the day, probably bring to them more harm than anything positive, are deeply moral people. I don't generally like to use the term "proletarian" when referring to views because its a little deceiving, because certainly in WWI most "proletarians" were siding to their respective nations.



And this imaginary "ordinary person", assuming that they are ordinary by virtue of being immersed in bourgeois ideology, would immediately conclude that it meant something already conveniently omnipresent in liberal discourse: that the unfortunate and dreadful violence of the invasion was the result of "extremism on both sides".

I don't think it makes sense from the communist viewpoint to make a narrative out of "who is to blame". However, I don't think it is necessarily 100 percent incorrect. Certainly, the hamas gutless rats that hide in damascus, who are probably fucking prostitutes away from their wives, ordering people to shoot almost harmless sugar powered rockets into israel aren't particularly helping either. If it helps, the icc generally uses the slogan (against all sides, for workers' revolution).

[Janine Melnitz]

Actually, principles have everything to do with it. The simple idea that the social order is reprehensible is a moral position. You might argue that it is all "self-interest" (although the value judgement of self interest being preferable is an ethical judgement by itself)
That's fine, we can talk about "morals" being socially mediated forms of subjectivity in another thread and we'll probably agree more often than not. It has nothing to do with my criticism here of abstract moralizing that treats manifestos and slogans like the book of Deuteronomy. You're quibbling...

but durruti didnt spent his life in exile out of just "self-interest"
...and ignoring what I said just a post before the one you're now responding to. I'm not conceiving of subjects here as the atomistic individuals of bourgeois economics who without exception conceive of their "interests" in terms of how many cars they have.

in WWI most "proletarians" were siding to their respective nations.
Wherever this has been true, it's explicable as a lack of material analysis ("class consciousness" does not mean "the current prevailing opinions of a given class"; at the very minimum it is their tendency to see things from the perspective of that class. This hardly precludes ideological blindness to their situation, or simple factual mistakes).

I don't think it makes sense from the communist viewpoint to make a narrative out of "who is to blame".
I disagree.

However, I don't think it is necessarily 100 percent incorrect. Certainly, the hamas gutless rats that hide in damascus, who are probably fucking prostitutes away from their wives, ordering people to shoot almost harmless sugar powered rockets into israel aren't particularly helping either.
So, confirmed, some people here actually believe Israel's claim of being "provoked" and think it's useful to scold the people being killed (politely only targeting their most reactionary element, just as drug dealers and Archie Bunker are used as excuses to scold the west's poor) -- "It's nonsensical to make a narrative out of 'who is to blame'...but you guys are to blame. At least partly. Come on, stop hitting yourselves."

[spiltteeth]

If anyone here is really an equal opportunity atheist and "fights all religions" there's a hilarious thread in chit-chat with funny pics of Jesus.
Start another thread with funny pics of Mohammed, you can find a pic of him on google pics or pm me and I'll send you one, then use your interweb skillz to skewer him with dildos and such.
Anyone got the balls to manup and stand behind their beliefs while ridiculing other peoples?
You can even start a free wordpress web page with the pics to fight religion!

[Jazzratt]

If anyone here is really an equal opportunity atheist and "fights all religions" there's a hilarious thread in chit-chat with funny pics of Jesus.
Start another thread with funny pics of Mohammed, you can find a pic of him on google pics or pm me and I'll send you one, then use your interweb skillz to skewer him with dildos and such.
Anyone got the balls to manup and stand behind their beliefs while ridiculing other peoples?
You can even start a free wordpress web page with the pics to fight religion!

You're even more moronic than Melintz and that says something. Please fuck off.


So, confirmed, some people here actually believe Israel's claim of being "provoked" and think it's useful to scold the people being killed (politely only targeting their most reactionary element, just as drug dealers and Archie Bunker are used as excuses to scold the west's poor) -- "It's nonsensical to make a narrative out of 'who is to blame'...but you guys are to blame. At least partly. Come on, stop hitting yourselves."

It really doesn't matter if Israel is "genuinely" provoked as they claim or not. The rocket attacks, such as they are, do provide them with convienient corroborating evidence. Though that's really quite irrelevant as "who is to blame" isn't what we should be asking as communists and we certainly do not need to give our 'support' to any pack of nationalists, especially not those that are inspired by reactionary ideas like religion.

[ls]

If anyone here is really an equal opportunity atheist and "fights all religions" there's a hilarious thread in chit-chat with funny pics of Jesus.


Start another thread with funny pics of Mohammed, you can find a pic of him on google pics or pm me and I'll send you one, then use your interweb skillz to skewer him with dildos and such.
Anyone got the balls to manup and stand behind their beliefs while ridiculing other peoples?
You can even start a free wordpress web page with the pics to fight religion!

You should be skewered with meatballs, wordpress, pictures of jesus, mohammed and clay dildos. Then shot.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

You should be skewered with meatballs, wordpress, pictures of jesus, mohammed and clay dildos. Then shot.

You have style.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

If anyone here is really an equal opportunity atheist and "fights all religions" there's a hilarious thread in chit-chat with funny pics of Jesus.
Start another thread with funny pics of Mohammed, you can find a pic of him on google pics or pm me and I'll send you one, then use your interweb skillz to skewer him with dildos and such.
Anyone got the balls to manup and stand behind their beliefs while ridiculing other peoples?

Already (http://www.muhammaddressup.com/) done (http://www.jesusdressup.com/), old chap.

[OneNamedNameLess]

I was actually thinking we should start a ridiculous pictures of Mo thread. I even mentioned it.

Why is this thread so popular? I think Pastradamus summed things up beautifully.

[Janine Melnitz]

we certainly do not need to give our 'support' to any pack of nationalists, especially not those that are inspired by reactionary ideas like religion.
Which I never said we should, dipshit. I even made a single post summarizing and reiterating my position, and all you can do is attack one I haven't taken and call me "moronic". Jesus.

Why is this thread so popular?
It isn't -- a couple people keep saying the same things, I keep pointing out that I've made arguments against these things, everyone ignores these and repeats the same fucking inane things. It is kind of tiresome!

[Salabra]

In imperialist, non-Islamic nations, there are circumstances in which criticism of Islam can serve productive ends. These circumstances are less common than in Islamic countries, though, due to a combination of their amenability to Islamophobia and their irrelevance to most real problems that criticism within these bounds (linguistic, geographic etc.) can effectively deal with.

Hang on! These sentences seem contradictory as they stand — unless you omit the “than.” If you do, you are saying what I said, but claiming that criticism of islam is illegitimate in islamic countries because it may feed intoislamophobia as well as being irrelevant to “practical problems.” (Why should a muslim in a muslim country fear that criticism of islam — presumably by other muslims in that or another islamic country — will provoke islamophobia in their own countries?). If you don’t omit the “than,” you are still saying what I said, but this time following it up with the conclusion that criticism of islam is even more necessary in islamic countries — and then the rest of your sentence does not follow.


Anyone got the balls to manup and stand behind their beliefs while ridiculing other peoples?

Does that include Janine and I, who have no “balls” with which we can “manup”? :lol:

[Janine Melnitz]

In imperialist, non-Islamic nations, there are circumstances in which criticism of Islam can serve productive ends. These circumstances are less common than in Islamic countries, though, due to a combination of their amenability to Islamophobia and their irrelevance to most real problems that criticism within these bounds (linguistic, geographic etc.) can effectively deal with.
Hang on! These sentences seem contradictory as they stand — unless you omit the “than.” If you do, you are saying what I said, but claiming that criticism of islam is illegitimate in islamic countries because it may feed intoislamophobia
Whoa whoa whoa whoa. What? No. Re-read what you quoted, I'm saying the opposite of this, and "than" has basically the opposite function to the one you're claiming for it. I mean, you know what "than" means...weird, I'm totally confused as to how you got confused!!! The stuff about "amenability to Islamophobia" etc. was about non-Islamic nations. Buh sorry


Does that include Janine and I, who have no “balls” with which we can “manup”? :lol:

Oh, you know, he was like, speaking metaphorically, Salabra. Your metaphorical balls, y'know, the ones that make you a real person. :rolleyes:

(Honestly, everyone assumed I was male as "R. Lafonte" even though "R." could be anything of course. Now that I've switched to a Ghostbusters character people seem not to know what to think, which is fine by me I guess -- I'm not giving any reason to make either assumption.)

[The Ungovernable Farce]

(Honestly, everyone assumed I was male as "R. Lafonte" even though "R." could be anything of course. Now that I've switched to a Ghostbusters character people seem not to know what to think, which is fine by me I guess -- I'm not giving any reason to make either assumption.)
The fact you had "man" in your title always led me to read you as male. Although I suppose that's kind of unjustified, since I don't actually think you're president of anywhere, and I remain agnostic on the subject of your elegance.

[Devrim]

Naw, I'm saying that the ends that can be furthered by the same text differ according to circumstance. In imperialist, non-Islamic nations, there are circumstances in which criticism of Islam can serve productive ends. These circumstances are less common than in Islamic countries, though, due to a combination of their amenability to Islamophobia and their irrelevance to most real problems that criticism within these bounds (linguistic, geographic etc.) can effectively deal with.

Does this mean that you feel that myself and Leo (another revleft poster) are completly free to make critcisms of Islam as we live in a country which is officially 99% muslim?

Devrim

[LeninKobaMao]

Hamas and Israel are both just as childish and idiotic as each other.

[Salabra]

Oh, you know, he was like, speaking metaphorically, Salabra. Your metaphorical balls, y'know, the ones that make you a real person. :rolleyes:

I don’t have metaphorical balls — I find offensive the implication that courage (or even “real personhood”) is supposed to be predicated on the possession of testicles.

For several thousand years, women have been regarded as a subset of men, although “defective” or “incomplete,” and language has reflected this (If you really want to be bored shitless, I will write you an essay on the topic). Some of us are not flattered by the subtext of “you’ve got balls,” i.e., "hey, you're brave — you're almost one of the boyz”).

FWIW, I don't like something “naff/pathetic” being referred to as either “gay” or “lame” either.

But this thread is not about linguistics.

[bricolage]

Hamas and Israel are both just as childish and idiotic as each other.

But completely different in terms of wealth, military capacity, international standing and historical legacy.

[Jazzratt]

Not intending to drag this even further offtopic, but I think JM agrees with you sal, I think the eye roll and the OTT "real person" comment gave it away (I don't think I've heard that from the most fervent misogynist).

Generally I've found it best to stick with "guts", I tried "ovaries" once and the reception was... less than warm (http://www.revleft.com/vb/sexisti-t76676/index.html?t=76676&highlight=ovaries+jazzratt).

[Salabra]

Not intending to drag this even further offtopic, but I think JM agrees with you sal, I think the eye roll and the OTT "real person" comment gave it away (I don't think I've heard that from the most fervent misogynist).

Indeed. My tirade was, however, intended for the original poster of the "balls" comment.


Generally I've found it best to stick with "guts", I tried "ovaries" once and the reception was... less than warm (http://www.revleft.com/vb/sexisti-t76676/index.html?t=76676&highlight=ovaries+jazzratt).

Wise man!

[Tyrlop]

I can't understand when people say that Islam is oppressing,
Muhammad was actually quite feminist, he and islam changed alot of stuff that made the women more free, then they had been before. But compared to now it is outdated, just keep in mind that there where big changes back then.

[Devrim]

I can't understand when people say that Islam is oppressing,

Maybe if you lived in an Islamic country, it would help you to understand.

Devrim

[Salabra]

Hamas and Israel are both just as childish and idiotic as each other.


But completely different in terms of wealth, military capacity, international standing and historical legacy.



He isn’t talking about comparative numbers, realpolitik or the weighing of social forces to create a truly revolutionary situation in the Middle East. He’s talking about which group of reactionaries is more pathetic — the imperialist reactionaries who claim that 3 000 years ago their invisible friend gave them unquestionable squatting rights over the piece of land they currently occupy, or the clerical-nationalist reactionaries who claim that their invisible friend thinks all humans are equal, but some (the male ones) are more equal.

It’s not meant to be a political analysis — it’s a wonderful dash of cold water to the heated imaginations of those romantics who think that wearing a hijab or a keffiyeh is a “revolutionary” statement or that shar’ia law is as “progressive” as The Communist Manifesto.


Hey guys, I'd just like to point out that I'm a Muslim, so if you've got any questions I'll happily answer.

I'll try to clear up as much misconception as I can, and I'll tell you everything I know. Please keep it civil, remember that we're all on the same side here.

A “communism” that embraces
Men have authority over women because allah has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because allah has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them, forsake them in beds apart, and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them. Surely allah is all-knowing and wise (Qu'ran, Sura 4, Verse 23).
is a very strange brand of communism indeed — and certainly not one *I* want anything to do with (see posts #19, #81, #93 et al).

[The same applies to a “communism” that has room for
Let a woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over a man, but to be in silence. (1 Timothy, 2:11)]
A “communism” that resiles from fundamental principles such as gay rights and abortion out of fear of offending a group of bearded geriatrics (whether in turbans or mitres, taqiyat, zucchetti, or kippot) is not to my taste either.

My communism is the communism of The Internationale (No saviour from on high delivers) not the communism of the takbir (allahu akbar = god is great).

We are most definitely not on the same side — as you will find when the bearded geriatrics who claim to interpret the mind of your invisible friend point out to you that my communism is blasphemous and that it and its adherents have no place in the world.

[revolt4thewin]

Hamas and Israel are both just as childish and idiotic as each other.

Indeed they both are to fight over a patch of blood stained sand that no other nation really wants. Though the oil is the only thing of value.

[proudcomrade]

I find that people who throw out the "racism/bigotry" comeback to any criticism of a culture of non-Westerners, to be very reactionary themselves.

All cultural practices are not automatically equal in value and good ethics. Frankly, there is an absolute right and wrong in some instances, even from a totally secular perspective.

Women are being violently and cruelly oppressed in the name of Islam. Dissenters are getting stoned and beheaded in the name of Sharia in the twenty-first century. This is absolutely and unequivocally wrong, and I could not care less how liberal anyone on this board mistakenly thinks me for saying so. I am not frequently prone to agreeing with liberals on much of anything whatsoever; however, I do have to hand it to them on this one. It is easy enough to make snarky eye-rolling criticisms of all human-rights questions being "bourgeois" when one does so from an armchair, not to mention a position of white, male, youthful Western privelege, in a country where there are likely no bloodbaths going on right outside the rubble of what was your house.

Innocent civilians are getting unjustifiably killed in the name of Islam just as much as innocent Muslim civilians are getting unjustifiably killed by imperialism; and neither of those last two is any more acceptable than the other. Among civilians not responsible for military- or governmental-level wrongdoings, an Israeli life equals a Palestinian life equals an Iraqi life equals a US life equals a Sudanese or Rwandan life in terms of basic human value in itself. Thus, while I do support revolutionary war, I do not support terrorism against random targets. No Communist worth his or her salt will treat the violent taking of life flippantly.

Meanwhile, every time I see an innocent Muslimah, a grown adult woman, fearfully scurrying around her local streets in a burqa, I am filled with rage against the misogyny. If that makes me "racist" or "liberal", then, so be it. And I say this as someone who has repeatedly traveled to Morocco, had Albanian and Lebanese friends, and has nothing but respect for those Middle Eastern brothers and sisters who do not practice or condone these atrocities.

[BobKKKindle$]

Women are being violently and cruelly oppressed in the name of IslamWomen have also been oppressed in the name of feminism, as we can see in Afghanistan, where, in spite of the invasion being justified as a mission to liberate women from the oppression of the Taliban, they continue to suffer oppression at the hands of the various sections of the Northern Alliance as well as the Afghan government, both of which command the support of the occupying forces, not to mention the fact that the deaths of male relatives has resulted in women being forced to care for children without personal or financial support, with significant numbers of women (120,000 of them according to the Ministry of Narcotics, and the number is growing) turning to opiates in order to deal with their situation, whilst the literacy rate for women remains below 50%. In the same country, in the 1980s, we also saw women and indeed the whole of the Afghan population being oppressed in the name of revolutionary socialism due to the invasion of the Soviet Union, which resulted in more than one million civilian casualties. The point here is that an ideology or faith being used to justify the oppression of women or any other group does not give us reason to believe that the ideology or faith in question is inherently reactionary and can only ever be used to support oppression. I find that when people like Salabra quote the Koran and then say that Islam is oppressive because the Koran says that men are inherently superior to women, they are being too simplistic, as they never think about what the term "Islam" actually means when they dismiss it as a reactionary ideology. We all know that Marx described religion as "the opiate of the masses" but what he also said is that religion is "the sigh of the oppressed creature", and this characterization was intended to convey that whilst religion has and can be used to create elaborate justifications for oppression in the interests of the ruling class, it can also, under certain circumstances, be used by oppressed populations as a means of articulating their oppression and strengthening their collective struggles against it, especially when religion is their most immediate cultural and moral context. This is why religion has historically played such a key role in peasant rebellions, and, in any case, something being written in the Koran does not accurately reflect the way that many (indeed, most) Muslim men and women go about their lives, including their attitudes towards sexuality, and men's attitudes towards gender equality, in the same way that the vast majority of Christians do wear clothes made from different fibers despite it being forbidden to do so in the Bible, and do not all believe that homosexuals should be put to death, despite that being authorized in the Bible.


Meanwhile, every time I see an innocent Muslimah, a grown adult woman, fearfully scurrying around her local streets in a burqa,What is wrong with wearing a burqa, exactly? You seem to be assuming that a women who wears a burqa must be doing so because she's been forced to and not because she's made a choice, but the fact of the matter is that the burqa has frequently been used by women, acting as political subjects, in a way that is liberating - during the Algerian War of Independence it was used to physically conceal weapons, such that women played an integral role in the liberation struggle, and whenever the French state has threatened the right of Muslim women to dress as they please, the burqa and the hijab have both featured prominently as symbols of resistance, with women using slogans like "not our fathers or our husbands, we choose the headscarf", and "neither duped nor downtrodden". I would say that in the context of the War on Terror and rising Islamophobia it's important that leftists don't side with the state against Muslim women, and the Muslim community as a whole, by condoning the restriction of religious dress, the restriction of the construction of mosques, and so on.


Though the oil is the only thing of value. Putting aside your stance on Hamas, there is no oil in historic Palestine to my knowledge.


to any pack of nationalists, especially not those that are inspired by reactionary ideas like religion. Don't you think it's slightly simplistic, in terms of how we go about understanding political motivation and behaviour, to suggest that Palestinians are subject to religion, and, as a result, are "inspired" to join or support Hamas? This seems to be to characterize Palestinians (and indeed all who participate in national liberation movements) as people who are unable to recognize and act on their own interests, indeed, as people who are so unable to recognize where their interests lie, that they blindly give up their lives. It makes them the objects, not the subjects, of history. I think that if we want to understand national liberation movements and adopt a progressive position on the national question then we need to start with the material conditions that exist in territories like Palestine and think about why someone might join or support an organization like Hamas without resorting to a simplistic narrative of people unthinkingly accepting whatever they're told. We also need to be conscious of internal differences within organizations like Hamas, between the grassroots and leadership, and avoid characterizing the entire organization as a homogeneous mass comprised entirely of dangerous and irrational fanatics, however much you may dislike some or all of the things it does. The contradictory role that ideas and movements can play is especially present when religion is involved - you only need to look at the role of churches in the Civil Rights struggle to see that.

[proudcomrade]

Women have also been oppressed in the name of feminism...What is wrong with wearing a burqa, exactly?

I'm not even dignifying this with an actual response.

[counterblast]

Women have also been oppressed in the name of feminism, as we can see in Afghanistan, where, in spite of the invasion being justified as a mission to liberate women from the oppression of the Taliban, they continue to suffer oppression at the hands of the various sections of the Northern Alliance as well as the Afghan government, both of which command the support of the occupying forces, not to mention the fact that the deaths of male relatives has resulted in women being forced to care for children without personal or financial support, with significant numbers of women (120,000 of them according to the Ministry of Narcotics, and the number is growing) turning to opiates in order to deal with their situation, whilst the literacy rate for women remains below 50%.

I really cannot see how feminism relates to ANY of these problems.

[BobKKKindle$]

I really cannot see how feminism relates to ANY of these problems. There are many Muslims who, being told about women in Afghanistan being stoned to death for adultery, would doubtless ask what that problem has to do with Islam, because they don't believe that enforcing a conservative sexual morality in the most violent way possible has anything to do with their faith, in the same way that many liberal Christians would deny that their faith has anything to do with being anti-choice. The usage of feminism to justify colonialism is relevant because it shows that there's never such a thing as an essentially liberating or oppressive discourse - all ideologies can be manipulated to serve different purposes and class interests, hence the undesirability of talking about "Islam" as if there exists a single body of beliefs and practices that we can view as a correct representation of what Islam is. It's not as if the manipulation of feminism to justify colonialism is the only example of feminism playing a reactionary role, as bell hooks also points out that the feminist project of criticizing and eventually abolishing the family was resisted by black women who saw the family as a refuge from the racism of a white-supremacist society, including the racist attitudes of white women. An obvious response to these issues is to say that where feminism (or any other ideology) has been used in these ways it's not actually feminism at all because this usage comes into conflict with feminism's core principles and the beliefs of most feminists, but this introduces the dilemma of how we go about defining ideologies, and whether we have the right to exclude someone from "membership" of an ideological group which they see themselves as a member of just because we, as partial individuals, do not believe that their beliefs and practices match up to what we have interpreted as the principles of that ideology.


I'm not even dignifying this with an actual response. Which really says a lot about your ability to think beyond the confines of your immediate cultural context and appreciate the decisions and agency of Muslim women.

[Vanguard1917]

What is wrong with wearing a burqa, exactly? You seem to be assuming that a women who wears a burqa must be doing so because she's been forced to and not because she's made a choice, but the fact of the matter is that the burqa has frequently been used by women, acting as political subjects, in a way that is liberating - during the Algerian War of Independence it was used to physically conceal weapons, such that women played an integral role in the liberation struggle, and whenever the French state has threatened the right of Muslim women to dress as they please, the burqa and the hijab have both featured prominently as symbols of resistance, with women using slogans like "not our fathers or our husbands, we choose the headscarf", and "neither duped nor downtrodden". I would say that in the context of the War on Terror and rising Islamophobia it's important that leftists don't side with the state against Muslim women, and the Muslim community as a whole, by condoning the restriction of religious dress, the restriction of the construction of mosques, and so on.

There is a lot wrong with what the burqa -- the garment which covers the woman wearing it from head to toe, so that no part of her body is visible to the outside world, including her face -- symbolises.

You're right that we should not condone attacks on religion by imperialist states, and that we should fully oppose them. But you'd be making a substantial mistake if that led you to at the same time to condoning what is in the main a symbol of women's oppression.

We should be against Western attempts to enforce 'freedom' in Afganistan and elsewhere. But that's not because we don't want freedom in Afghanistan and elsewhere; it's because we recognise that the West is having a detrimental impact on the prospects for freedom abroad, including the right of women to be free from the despicable humiliation and subordination which they often face in places like Afghanistan -- places in which backwardness is primarily the consequence of Western imperialism.

[proudcomrade]

Which really says a lot about your ability to think beyond the confines of your immediate cultural context and appreciate the decisions and agency of Muslim women.No, it really says a lot about my patience toward deliberately obtuse behavior on the part of sexist white First World-dwellers. Read Vanguard's answer very attentively; you need to hear it.

Negrep just in: BobKKKindle$: "indeed, white boy."

Stay classy, dude. Private messages are the ultimate in bravery. Especially when they come from a "global moderator", RevLeft's answer to the chief of police, only combined with your fifteen-year-old nephew.

[BobKKKindle$]

There is a lot wrong with what the burqa -- the garment which covers the woman wearing it from head to toe, so that no part of her body is visible to the outside world, including her face -- symbolises.This is a description of what the burqa does, but it doesn't tell me anything about why it's bad for a woman to cover up her entire body. I could just as easily argue that miniskirts are oppressive on the grounds that they lead to women exposing their legs and potentially a lot more for all the world to see, but without me explaining why the exposure of a woman's legs is bad, this wouldn't be a credible argument in favour of miniskirts being oppressive. From the political activity of Muslim women it seems that the main forms of oppression they experience are not wearing religious garments, be it as a result of direct pressure, or tacit pressure in the form of social standards and expectations, or a free choice to do so (the latter two are of course to interlinked to some extent, depending on your views about our ability to escape the standards of the community into which we are born, and the desirability of doing so - in any case it is hard to see the distinction between Muslim women wearing religious garments because they have been taught from an early age that is what they should do, and women from other backgrounds wearing miniskirts and tank tops because that is often how young women are depicted in popular culture) but the ongoing discrimination they experience as Muslims, as well as the forms of oppression that involve all women, such as being deprived of their reproductive rights, being made to accept the burden of domestic labour whilst men pursue projects outside the home, the favoritism displayed towards men in academic and work environments, and so on. It is around these issues that the left should be organizing and I find it hard to understand what being oppossed to the burqa would mean in concrete terms if not supporting state action. Your position also does not give much of an indication of what leftists should do in countries where restrictions have already been imposed on what Muslim women can do, as in Turkey, where until recently (correct me if I'm wrong - I think it was removed, although the law might still be in place as I don't follow Turkey closely) it was illegal for women to wear the hijab inside universities and other public buildings, with the result that many devout women were deprived of a university education. In these and other circumstances it seems obvious to me that the left should always demand the removal of restrictions where they currently exist, but if you view the burqa as oppressive, whilst also being oppossed to state intervention, you might encounter a conflict of priorities.

It's worth pointing out that women in Iran are required to wear the hijab, and yet Iran also has one of the highest rates of female university participation at undergraduate level - surely evidence that the prevalence of religious garments does not tell us much about the broader opportunities that are available to women, and their position within society.


on the part of sexist white First World-dwellers.Would you care to tell me what is sexist about anything I've said, or indicative of a first-world attitude, whatever that means? I actually find your reference to the first world interesting, because it's surely in the first world (I don't like to use that term myself for technical reasons - but never mind) that attacks against the rights of Muslim communities are most acute, given the political context. The question that we have to face is, which side are you on? Are you going to line up behind the state in supporting attacks on the right of women to wear what they like, along with all the pseudo-feminists, or are you going to stand in solidarity with the Muslims who are increasingly branded terrorists and the targets of physical attacks, as well as legal attacks on their rights?

PS you give the patronizing answer you gave before, which basically amounts to a refusal to engage with the issues, don't be surprised if you get neg-repped.

[ls]

Women have also been oppressed in the name of feminism...What is wrong with wearing a burqa, exactly?

Nothing in and of itself if the woman in question completely freely chooses to wear it, but there is a careful line between women being directly forced to or facing serious persecution, the communities they are part of asking them to otherwise causing them distress in more discreet ways and then their true free choice to do so. We must be careful not to downplay or erode any one of these factors, doing the latter plays straight into the hands of racist Western anti-islamists and the former plays, perhaps not so directly, but nonetheless into the hands of people who want to maintain islam in its current state, which we as leftists clearly should not want, no religion deserves defence except against specific anti-religious and/or racist persecution and that doesn't make me a foaming at the mouth atheist, I think it's simply common sense.

I'm willing to admit a lot of atheists are chauvinistic idiots themselves and that religion isn't quite the massive problem it's made out to be, but it still is a problem and downplaying that will achieve nothing.

[Vanguard1917]

This is a description of what the burqa does, but it doesn't tell me anything about why it's bad for a woman to cover up her entire body. I could just as easily argue that miniskirts are oppressive on the grounds that they lead to women exposing their legs and potentially a lot more for all the world to see, but without me explaining why the exposure of a woman's legs is bad.

You really need me to explain why the burqa is in the main a symbol of the subordination, degradation and oppression of women?



the ongoing discrimination they experience as Muslims, as well as the forms of oppression that involve all women, such as being deprived of their reproductive rights, being made to accept the burden of domestic labour whilst men pursue projects outside the home, the favoritism displayed towards men in academic and work environments, and so on


Yes, and the burqa is a product of this wider degradation of women.



was illegal for women to wear the hijab inside universities and other public buildings, with the result that many devout women were deprived of a university education. In these and other circumstances it seems obvious to me that the left should always demand the removal of restrictions where they currently exist, but if you view the burqa as oppressive, whilst also being oppossed to state intervention, you might encounter a conflict of priorities.



Again, it's one thing to oppose state attacks on religious freedoms, but something altogether different to provide apologism for religious backwardness (there's nothing wrong with the burka, etc.)

I fully support the right of women to wear burqas in public buildings; but that does not for one moment mean that i support what the burqa represents.

[Orange Juche]

If you are blaming the Islamic people or beliefs for 9/11, that is Islamophobia.

If I blame Islamic beliefs, that is Islamophobia? Have you actually looked at some of the crazy-evil shit in the Quran?

[bcbm]

Women have also been oppressed in the name of feminism, as we can see in Afghanistan, where, in spite of the invasion being justified as a mission to liberate women from the oppression of the Taliban
We should be against Western attempts to enforce 'freedom' in Afganistan and elsewhere. But that's not because we don't want freedom in Afghanistan and elsewhere; it's because we recognise that the West is having a detrimental impact on the prospects for freedom abroad, including the right of women to be free from the despicable humiliation and subordination which they often face in places like Afghanistan -- places in which backwardness is primarily the consequence of Western imperialism.

come on bob, you're far too smart to believe that "feminism" or a desire to free anyone had anything to do with why the coalition forces invaded afghanistan.

[ls]

come on bob, you're far too smart to believe that "feminism" or a desire to free anyone had anything to do with why the coalition forces invaded afghanistan.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/womens-lives-worse-than-ever-786752.html


In a report this month the chairman of the International Development Committee, Malcolm Bruce MP, said: "There is a dangerous tendency to accept in Afghanistan practices which would not be countenanced elsewhere, because of 'cultural' differences and local traditions."

That's trying to say Westernism, if you like, is correct and treats women equally whereas terrible practices in Afghanistan treat women terribly, always have done and always will unless the great Western troops teach the uncivilised sewer dwellers how to act properly. It's obviously using women as just another propaganda tool in order to "teach" the world "how things are" in Afghanistan, it's pretty disgusting and denying that it's used in propaganda is just silly. I don't think Bob really said that Western forces invaded Afghanistan in the name of feminism, but denying that it's used as propaganda in favour of the invasion since it's happened is.. well I've just shown you one of the thousands of Western pieces proving what I've said.

[bcbm]

i'm not denying its use as propaganda, but i think there is a difference between propaganda and actual reasons and so to say that "feminism" is somehow responsible for the worsening of conditions in afghanistan seems silly to me. feminist-sounding arguments may have been presented (long after the invasion was planned out), but they have nothing to do with why troops are actually there. women in afghanistan aren't worse off because the coalition forces wanted to free them from the taliban in the name of feminism, they're worse off because the coalition forces are an occupying army interested in pacifying the country for western interests, women and everyone else be damned.

[ls]

i'm not denying its use as propaganda, but i think there is a difference between propaganda and actual reasons and so to say that "feminism" is somehow responsible for the worsening of conditions in afghanistan seems silly to me. feminist-sounding arguments may have been presented (long after the invasion was planned out), but they have nothing to do with why troops are actually there. women in afghanistan aren't worse off because the coalition forces wanted to free them from the taliban in the name of feminism, they're worse off because the coalition forces are an occupying army interested in pacifying the country for western interests, women and everyone else be damned.

But no one said troops are there in the name of feminism, you just put that bit in there yourself.

[bcbm]

But no one said troops are there in the name of feminism, you just put that bit in there yourself.


Women have also been oppressed in the name of feminism, as we can see in Afghanistan

this to me implies feminism has something to do with why the country is occupied. given that most of the coalition countries were throwing money at the taliban while they were executing women in soccer stadiums, i don't see how this could be the case.

[Plagueround]

It’s not meant to be a political analysis — it’s a wonderful dash of cold water to the heated imaginations of those romantics who think that wearing a hijab or a keffiyeh is a “revolutionary” statement


I don't know much about wearing hijab as a revolutionary statement, but isn't the keffiyeh typically more of a "solidarity" statement against the racist and generalized depiction of middle eastern countries as a bunch of backward terrorists? That seems to be the sentiment I've encountered from both those wearing them and those decrying them.

I kind of wish the left wore eagle feathers or Shawnee head scarves or something out of solidarity when the U.S. was handing out medals of honor for shooting us. :(

[ls]

this to me implies feminism has something to do with why the country is occupied.

I sincerely doubt that BK implied exactly that, you're exaggerating quite a lot.


given that most of the coalition countries were throwing money at the taliban while they were executing women in soccer stadiums, i don't see how this could be the case.

And even if BK is saying that they invaded in the name of feminism, 'in the name of feminism' does not mean it = real feminism, it's obviously propaganda, people are quick to forget what regimes have been funded by who.

[bcbm]

I kind of wish the left wore eagle feathers or Shawnee head scarves or something out of solidarity when the U.S. was handing out medals of honor for shooting us.

then you just would've ended up with a bunch of hipsters wearing them in stupid colors and diminishing any political content.

...i'm going to go awkwardly thumb my purple and yellow keffiyeh now.

[bcbm]

I sincerely doubt that BK implied exactly that, you're exaggerating quite a lot.

i don't think he's suggesting it was the only reason, but the implication seems to be that feminism has something to do with why the coalition forces are there and why conditions are what they are and i don't think this is the case at all.


And even if BK is saying that they invaded in the name of feminism, 'in the name of feminism' does not mean it = real feminism, it's obviously propaganda, people are quick to forget what regimes have been funded by who.

i think saying it isn't "real feminism" but instead only propaganda (which i agree with and elaborated on a few posts ago) means that feminism has nothing to do with why the country is occupied and nothing to do with the plight of women in afghanistan. so why bring it up?

[ls]

i don't think he's suggesting it was the only reason, but the implication seems to be that feminism has something to do with why the coalition forces are there and why conditions are what they are and i don't think this is the case at all.

Doubtful going on his record of advocating things like banning insults he feels are discriminating against women, although I feel that's going too far myself, I don't think what you've said represents what he's said at all.


i think saying it isn't "real feminism" but instead only propaganda (which i agree with and elaborated on a few posts ago) means that feminism has nothing to do with why the country is occupied and nothing to do with the plight of women in afghanistan. so why bring it up?

Because there is supposedly 'feminist' Western propaganda which is used to smear the people of Afghanistan in a racist, western-centric, disgusting and hypocritical manner.

[bcbm]

how do you interpret his statement about feminism oppressing women in afghanistan then? because some propaganda that supposedly (!) exists might call itself that? i'm just really not sure what you're trying to argue here.

[ls]

how do you interpret his statement about feminism oppressing women in afghanistan then?

This one?
Women have also been oppressed in the name of feminism, as we can see in Afghanistan


because some propaganda that supposedly (!) exists might call itself that? i'm just really not sure what you're trying to argue here.

That capitalist westerners have used 'feminism' to attack the Afghanistan people in a chauvinistic manner, that's how I interpret his post. And he is correct.

[bcbm]

given that you keep putting feminism in quotes, you seem to be suggesting it isn't really feminism being used to attack or justify anything, but some misappropriated feminist arguments. sure some of the people who launched the war said it would liberate women (i don't think it was ever argued that was a main purpose), but i think we can all see through this and so i don't see what feminism really has to do with any of it.

[ls]

given that you keep putting feminism in quotes, you seem to be suggesting it isn't really feminism being used to attack or justify anything, but some misappropriated feminist arguments. sure some of the people who launched the war said it would liberate women (i don't think it was ever argued that was a main purpose), but i think we can all see through this and so i don't see what feminism really has to do with any of it.

So do you honestly think BK is saying feminism is all bourgeois and inextricably tied to racist Western practice? Please..

[bcbm]

i don't think either of us is understanding the other and i don't really give a fuck enough to keep going in circles.

[Salabra]

“What is wrong with a burqa exactly?” — Bobkindles


I'm not even dignifying this with an actual response.

Damn good answer — Bobkindles of course doesn’t have to wear one!

And he has just proved his tendency to be lickspittles of clerical reaction as well as of its own bourgeoisie.

Lenin and the Bolsheviks fought against this sort of thing — the SWP cosies up to extreme medievalism under the guise of “solidarizing with the oppressed.”

I call the SWP what it is — a bourgeois reformist party!

[The Ungovernable Farce]

I don't know much about wearing hijab as a revolutionary statement, but isn't the keffiyeh typically more of a "solidarity" statement against the racist and generalized depiction of middle eastern countries as a bunch of backward terrorists? That seems to be the sentiment I've encountered from both those wearing them and those decrying them.

A very minor side issue, but I'd say the wearing of the keffiyeh is typically more associated with Western lefties trying to associate themselves with a thoroughly Orientalist vision of idealised heroic Palestinians (utterly unencumbered by any confusing factors such as class or gender) who represent "the Resistance" to capitalism/imperialism, thus nicely distracting from their inability to contribute anything to the class struggle in their day-to-day lives. That, plus as bcbm says it's been hella recuperated by hipsters to the point where it barely has any political symbolism whatsoever.

Sorry, did that sound *****y?

[Merces]

Islam is the new imperial dog in the world today.

I find it odd individuals here attacking religion but protecting Islam and its intolerant and racist ideologies?

[Devrim]

A very minor side issue, but I'd say the wearing of the keffiyeh is typically more associated with Western lefties trying to associate themselves with a thoroughly Orientalist vision of idealised heroic Palestinians (utterly unencumbered by any confusing factors such as class or gender) who represent "the Resistance" to capitalism/imperialism, thus nicely distracting from their inability to contribute anything to the class struggle in their day-to-day lives. That, plus as bcbm says it's been hella recuperated by hipsters to the point where it barely has any political symbolism whatsoever.

Sorry, did that sound *****y?

I wear a Keffiyeh (it is called Puşi in Turkish). I actually bought a new one the other day (I only wear them in the winter and then tend to lose them over the summer) on the way to a picket line because it is freezing and my ears were so damn cold. About 25% of the strikers were wearing them too.

Devrim

[Wanted Man]

I wear a Keffiyeh (it is called Puşi in Turkish). I actually bought a new one the other day (I only wear them in the winter and then tend to lose them over the summer) on the way to a picket line because it is freezing and my ears were so damn cold. About 25% of the strikers were wearing them too.

Devrim

So, you are either a western lefty trying to associate with an Orientalist vision of the heroic Palestinian struggle, or just a hipster. Which one is it going to be? ;)

Seriously though, I think with the keffiyeh, it's kind of like with the Che shirt: a lot of people in the west, left-wing or otherwise, wear them regularly without much of a fuss, but there are always some more "enlightened" comrades who are enraged at capitalist co-optation of "rebellious icons" and are therefore violently opposed to wearing them. Personally, I think it's what we call a storm in a glass of water.

[Devrim]

So, you are either a western lefty trying to associate with an Orientalist vision of the heroic Palestinian struggle, or just a hipster. Which one is it going to be? ;)

I'd like to portray myself as a really cool person and 'hipster' though actually I have poor taste in clothes, and I am just someone whose ears get cold in the winter.

Devrim

[bcbm]

So, you are either a western lefty trying to associate with an Orientalist vision of the heroic Palestinian struggle, or just a hipster. Which one is it going to be? ;)

keffiyehs are out this season, having been replaced by more traditional scarves.

[Leo]

Seriously though, I think with the keffiyeh, it's kind of like with the Che shirt

actually here its quite a normal, casual thing to wear, considering its a traditional kurdish thing.

[Wanted Man]

actually here its quite a normal, casual thing to wear, considering its a traditional kurdish thing.

I did say "in the west", in response to the "*****y" argument by The Ungovernable Frace.

[desperadoy]

All religions, when followed word-for-word, are destructive. Maybe Buddhism is an exception, because there are no commands, only guidelines. However, in my opinion, people should be free to believe in what they wish, but practice in private.

[cska]

All religions, when followed word-for-word, are destructive. Maybe Buddhism is an exception, because there are no commands, only guidelines. However, in my opinion, people should be free to believe in what they wish, but practice in private.

Errrm. There is no such thing as a religion called Buddhism. There is the Buddhist philosophy though. Anyways, I agree that people should be free to believe in what they wish, but practice in private.