Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA03925 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 23 Apr 2002 19:17:31 +0100 Message-ID: <001101c1eaf3$b2e21cc0$caa3eb3e@default> From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be> To: <kennethvanoost@myrealbox.com> Subject: Fw: Bush's War on Terrorism Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 20:20:54 +0200 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
----- Original Message -----
From: Kenneth Van Oost <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be>
To: <kennethvanoost@myrealbox.com>
Sent: Saturday, April 20, 2002 3:19 PM
Subject: Re: Bush's War on Terrorism
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Grant Callaghan <grantc4@hotmail.com>
> > The Afghans, the Iranians, the Saudis have all engaged in this behavior
> and
> > are promoting it as the way of God. If other muslims don't believe in
it,
> > that doesn't make it less of a real threat from those who practice and
> > promote it. Not all muslims want to crash airplanes into our buildings,
> but
> > that doesn't mean we don't have to watch out for those who do. The new
> > "word of God" as preached in all the schools sending people to fight in
> the
> > war against Americans may not be the "true" word of God, but it is the
> word
> > against which we have to defend and protect ourselves. Call it what you
> > will. It is out there in the muslim community and it is growing in
> > popularity. Al qaeda members came from America, Britain, Pakistan,
> Arabia,
> > Malaysia, Yemen, etc., etc. It's not just in muslim countries where
this
> > new gospel is being preached. If they weren't out to kill us, we could
> > probably ignore it. Since they are, we can't.
>
> Hi Grant, Lawrence and all,
>
> If this is true and I think it does, than the reason why Islam attacks the
> US
> and others, has to be found within the individual and not as mush in the
> religion as a whole.
> I can (for)see reason(s) why it seems that the recent new words of god
> are particular translated as attacking the US but I can 't see why in the
> same
> token the words of the prophet has to be ' replaced ' by those of
violence,
> bombing and suicide- attacks.
> Why thus, if Islam is an inherent violent religion ( like we assume) or
> doesn 't
> in its application avoids the use of it, is this than a thing of recent
date
> !?
>
> There has been IIRC in the past troubles and some local conflicts were
> confined to Islam- another religious contrast, but not untill now on such
> a massive and destructive scale. So what changed their attitude !?
>
> To my mind, ( and this is something I already described upon this list)
> minorities [ alleged ones and others] has to stop seeing ( or thinking of)
> themselves as ' victims '.
> This is probably, according to Isaiah Berlin, and I go along with his rea-
> soning, " a psychological phenomenon which goes automatically together
> with the liberation from foreign government/ ruling_ some sort of natural
> reaction upon the repression or the humiliation of a society/ community
> with national characteristics. "
>
> Berlin writes here about nationalism, but we can easily transpose his
> words to what seems a very important ingredient of Islam today, namely
> ( the use of) violence. Althought, we must not sweeping generalisations.
>
> " The kind of nationalism we see within [ the Muslim] community is maybe
> as mush a form of social or class- struggle than it is a pure natural need
> for recognition, which creates an atmosphere wherein man prefers to be
> ruled by those of the same group/ religion/ class or nation ( even if this
> leads to extremes) than to be paternalised_ how good the intentions were!"
>
> And thus, by the still continiously interference ( in one way or another)
of
> the US and Europe, Muslims are getting more and more frustrated and
> turn eventually to violence to get their message across.
>
> IMO, this means that the US, by applying its so called universal laws of
> freedom, equality and order upon others misjudged, like many before,
> the feeling which is inherent to the humanrights_ each of us is unique and
> we all like to be treated as such. The US, misunderstood this feeling and
> by the application of world- connecting systems ( like recently globalisa-
> tion) disregarded the interests of the individual, who in the end always
> wants respect for his/ her personality, way of life, needs, ideals,
etc....
>
> The protest of those individuals takes than one extreme form and than a
> more rational way, as long those apposed will bend.
> In poor or ex- colonial aereas, very often such a struggle takes on the
> form of a nationalistic need for recognition. It could be that this turned
> into a need for religious recognition...in the way that what connects the
> Muslim- world is not a political nationalism but a religious one.
> ( this implies the notion that the Muslim- world is on a lower ladder than
> ours, but this is/ was not my intention, but it is debatable)
>
> The Muslim world is a world in transition, political and religious. They
> may protest against what we call freedom and democracy, but the ways
> by which we transpose those upon others are equal used by those apposed
> to them. In terms of their own interest they use the technologies and per-
> fect those.
>
> What the outcome of the transition might be is difficult to pin point, but
> in either way, like I said before, we need to help them to help ourselves
> without being paternalising in any way or sense. And they have to under-
> stand this as such !
>
> Regards,
>
> Kenneth
>
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