Kia ora Alan,
Saw your column on the Muslims, and just wanted a quick word with you as I would be horrified if I had written something as narrow as you just have and someone wouldn’t come pop and say,
‘Pssst. Mate. That’s all a bit bullshit mate’.
Regarding the thrust of your claim (based on a Youtube clip you watched) that Muslim’s are all a bit too up themselves to learn anything from anyone else and that their religion has warped everything they see and that we can’t negotiate culturally with them, I just wanted to raise a few points.
I think it’s admirable that you are attempting to reach out and understand, far too often many people cherry pick self affirming news on social media and buy into easy mainstream media stereotypes to gain ratings attention. Recently the GCSB was asked why they had spied on fellow trading nations to get Tim Groser a job at the WTO and the GCSB turned the question around and said that while they couldn’t talk about that, they could talk about extremist wives trying to get into a country we are currently help bomb. John Key immediately labelled these extremist wives as ‘Jihadi Brides’ and lo and behold we have everything focused on Muslims under the bed and not why our GCSB was spying to get John Key’s mate a job.
I do think however that there are some glaring gaps in your critique.
Firstly, your assertion that Muslims are too self centred as being the teacher kinda misses all those corrupt tyrannies that the West sponsor in the Middle East. I’m sure a religion that has a long tradition of education and scientific achievements does think a bit highly of itself, but I think ignoring the blood stains all over the Wests hands for empowering monsters and butchers for most of the 20th Century probably has a fuck of a lot more to do with the way extremism takes hold within the Muslim world than a middle class sense of superiority. The endless invasion of the Middle East by the West, the mayhem of the crusades, and the hypocrisy of CIA client states probably doesn’t help either.
Islam was light years ahead of Western science, the impacts of imperialism and occupation has had as much an impact as the bitter schisms between differing religious factions and different religions. Many extreme versions of Islam are either a direct blowback of American coups or a means of control of society by US client states.
Would we seriously judge a ‘Christian’ nation like NZ on the Klu Klux Klan in America or the Protestant/Catholic blood feud in Ireland? Of course not, and attempting to do it to all Muslims is equally ridiculous.
Some Muslims warped by extremism are righteously angry at the West – you want to understand Muslims, then understanding the negative hand our corporate interests in Oil have shaped that region would be a good start.
If we don’t want extremists attacking us in the West, then maybe the West should stop creating the environment for extremists to multiply.
Nice assessment of the current situation in the ME. I also notice that the conspiracy theory tinfoil hat callers on this issue have all but one or two disappeared.
As for this muppet Alan Duff who I never liked with the Maori bashing article for the NZ Herald is just a paid troll and should never be taken seriously.
Martyn, I think your piece misrepresents the tenor of Alan Duff’s column. You may not like what he says, but it by no means follows that he’s wrong. What’s said in the interview from which he quoted has the ring of truth about it: it goes a considerable way to explaining what we see worldwide with Islam.
I want to pick up on some of your points:
“your assertion that Muslims are too self centred as being the teacher…”
This wasn’t Alan Duff’s assertion, but that of the interviewee in the clip from which Duff is quoting. And said interviewee is Muslim, so we can assume he speaks from inside knowledge.
“Islam was light years ahead of Western science…”
That’s not so, as you’ll find out if you read up on the history of mathematics.
“Would we seriously judge a ‘Christian’ nation like NZ on the Klu Klux Klan in America or the Protestant/Catholic blood feud in Ireland? Of course not, and attempting to do it to all Muslims is equally ridiculous.”
These aren’t analogous to Muslim extremism. In the first instance, Christians from other parts of the world didn’t flock to the US to join up with the KKK. And it is just wrong to so characterise the Protestant/Catholic conflict in Ireland: that is political, not sectarian, and in no way resembles Islamist extremism.
There’s no doubt that Western meddling in the Middle East has created an apparently insoluble mess. However, none of that justifies Islamist extremism: in fact, political activism and revolutionary movements would be a much more logical response on the part of Muslim populations.
And the interviewee is right: Western values and ideas are indeed superior. This is the great paradox. We can’t airbrush out the crimes committed by the Western imperial project, but at the same time we must recognise the benefits brought to so many countries worldwide.
Correct on the maths. Algebra had some origins in Arabia (al-Khwārizmī “invented” Algebra which comes from the Arabic derivation Al Jabr) but maths remained largely stagnant in the Islamic world and the Enlightenment mathematicians of Western Europe were largely responsible for the explosive growth in the subject in the late second millennium
Always appreciate my factual statements being downvoted with no attempt at argument or rebuttal
There are a about 6-10 people on TDB that just downvote EVERYTHING. The network admins should see if these votes are consistently coming from the same users and ask them to respond (in words) on why they do what they do. If “trolling” is effectively their answer (which I suspect it is) their IPs should be blocked from voting on TDB (yes, “censorship”, ahhhh, “infringing on my rights”, ahhhh, “freedom of speech” ahhhh – yeah sorry but infringing on your “right” to be a wanker doesn’t count mate).
I disagree about banning people, but I am genuinely interested in the downvotes. It doesn’t bother me, but if my statement(s) is/are wrong then I’d like to know why. History of maths is something that interests me in any case.
I agree, Andy. I’m not a fan of banning, either. But I’d prefer it if the downvoters were to proffer a countervailing argument, or provide evidence that we’ve got historical matters wrong.
I’d add that calling commenters fascist and islamophobic is not an argument: it’s ad hominem.
>> “Islam was light years ahead of Western science…”
That’s not so, as you’ll find out if you read up on the history of mathematics. <> These aren’t analogous to Muslim extremism. In the first instance, Christians from other parts of the world didn’t flock to the US to join up with the KKK. <<
So we should judge christianity by the Crusades then, when Christians from other parts of the world flocked to the arabic world to join up with an extremist cultural genocide that set arabic society back hundreds of years? No. We shouldn't. Bomber's comparison with Northern Ireland is actually a better one, where religion is used as a recruitment and propoganda tool, and a cover for geopolitical agendas that ultimately have nothing to do with any of the religions involved.
So when you say:
"Western values and ideas are indeed superior."
…this is exactly the kind of fascistic cultural superiority complex that islamaphobes accuse Muslims of. Oh and by the way, if you want to know why I put "West" and "Western" in quotes, I highly recommend anthropologist David Graeber's essay 'There Never Was a West'.
Strypey: “this is exactly the kind of fascistic cultural superiority complex that islamaphobes accuse Muslims of.”
You have inserted two ad homs into the one sentence here. Insults don’t constitute a countervailing argument. And I don’t know what such an argument would look like in any case. It’s indisputable that Western values and ideas are superior, even though the behaviour of the West often failed to live up to the ideal.
I have no desire to live in a society where Muslim values pertain; judging by the numbers of Muslims fleeing to countries such as this one, many of them have the same view.
Here is a question for you.
Do you consider a culture where a woman has no rights, who cannot defend against rape, who cannot leave an arranged marriage (and will be killed for trying to do so), who cannot leave the house without being covered, the same, better, or worse than a society that attempts, at least, to give women equal rights under the law?
If you want to understand Islam then a good place to start is the Qur’an
It is quite a good article and refreshing to see someone step away from the PC pulpit for a minute and address the structural issues with Islam
Martyn, I think you need to improve your knowledge of history before making any further pronouncements on the Middle East or Islam.
A few pointers:
Don’t forget “the mayhem of the Crusades” happened nearly a millennium ago and their objective was to recover the Levant from Muslim invaders because of course Christianity was there before Islam. So rationally Muslims should have no grievance over this.
Whilst Islam was indeed ahead of Catholic Europe until about the 15th century, science and reason allowed Europe to stride ahead, leaving the Middle East the ignorant medieval backwater that it remains to this day. As soon as Vasco da Gama found a way around Africa to the far East, the whole place became largely irrelevant sandpit…until the discovery of oil.
Thus today, Middle Eastern Muslims tend to suffer from a massive chip on the shoulder having been variously thrashed in battle, colonised and generally humiliated.
Possibly the worst mistake we made in the Middle East was to ignore them. It was fashionable WW2 to allow colonies to have their independence but 50 years of history has shown that most instances of independence have failed miserably with the colonial governments being replaced by tyrants of various flavours. For the sake of maintaining the status quo with the USSR during the cold war we allowed these thugs to run their own patches when we should have held them to account and if necessary, intervened. Too little too late in my view.
bullshit Neo nazi look at your narrative of the Muslim empire’typical how white anglo-saxon babblers think that they’re articulate with their version of events piss off back to gaga land you idiot
“bullshit Neo nazi look at your narrative of the Muslim empire’typical how white anglo-saxon babblers think that they’re articulate with their version of events piss off back to gaga land you idiot.
Oops, Errol, going Godwin there! Insulting and name-calling isn’t debating or arguing. If you have substantive points to present, present away. But please desist from doing what you’ve done here.
Pfft. If I want advice on how to be an idiot, I’ll ask Andrew.
If it’s advice about Islam. I’m not going to ask Andrew.
And a word of caution, if it’s Foriegn policy advice about intervening in the Middle East. Defiantly not taking advice from a Cold War relic like Andrew
“And a word of caution, if it’s Foriegn policy advice about intervening in the Middle East. Defiantly not taking advice from a Cold War relic like Andrew.”
So:what’s your argument against the points Andrew’s made, Sam?
The point is that what he is saying is exactly what created IS in the first place.
Iv explained that in depth to Andrew before.
“what he is saying is exactly what created IS in the first place.”
Sorry, Sam, not clear. Which bit of what he’s saying?
Quick question.
What came first?
Andrew?
Or
ISIS?
I await your awnser
Sam, I really have no idea what you’re saying here. Can you elucidate, please?
New Year’s Eve in Cologne…we need to address the problem wherein Islam, and its teachings, are several centuries behind other cultures.
Andrew: “we need to address the problem wherein Islam, and its teachings, are several centuries behind other cultures.”
Muslims need to face up to these issues, to be sure. I’m not convinced that the West can do anything pointful, at least in the ME. But in countries such as this one, we can make sure that Western norms and values continue to prevail. No Western polity should allow Sharia law to be introduced; Muslim women should be encouraged to give up wearing the hijab or the burqa; Muslim men and women must be encouraged to accept the idea of women’s equality.
Western polities are secular and democratic; this is the path that the countries of the ME must ultimately follow.
So if Islamic terrorism is mainly a response to western imperialism, where are similar movements in say Sth America or Asia? Were they not victims of imperialism too?
You’re quite right, Armchair Worrier. Certainly there have been anti-imperialst movements in South America and Asia – and many of them have been pretty brutal. But as far as I know, none have sprung from religious extremism ISIS-style
Couple of things
Islam was far more scientifically advanced than the West – it’s focus on education helped this, it was until post 1600s and the pressures from the West that eroded that.
Also I think many again miss why the radicalism happens. Saudi Arabia uses their warped version of Islam to keep control of their population and America backs that. In Iran, the CIA coup helped the Shar come to power, the Shar killed all opposition so that only radical Muslims were left and the people there backed the only force that could fight back. Time and time and time again these radicals are funded by the West for our geopolitical interests.
Remove the righteous grievances and radicalism will fade. Blaming the religion and trying to claim that we can’t culturally connect in anyway simply builds the myth that Muslims are monsters who can never work with our values. If we believe that, the warmongers win.
Martyn, you’re talking rubbish again. A few key facts will show you’re wrong:
Whilst the Europeans were building telescopes and figuring out how to calculate the orbital paths of the planets, the sole telescope in Istanbul was destroyed because it was considered “Un-Islamic” by their Mullahs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul_observatory_of_Taqi_ad-Din
Similarly, a key factor in instigating the Enlightenment in Europe, the printing press, was banned from Islamic countries until 400 years after it was in use in Europe.
http://www.academia.edu/4093493/The_delay_of_adopting_early_printing_in_Muslim_countries_general_thoughts
Clearly the clerics were dictating terms in Islam and held back modernization under the rule of the Ottomans.
If you wish to read up on the subject, try this. It’s free online.
http://www.amazon.com/History-Conflict-Between-Religion-Science/dp/1503210022
Next, your point about the CIA causing the radicalization of Muslims is also incorrect, because modern radicalism started in the 19th century – well before the CIA came into existence and the USA was a major power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_fundamentalism
(look at the section titled ‘origins’)
It seems that either you’re totally ignorant of the history of the region or you’re deliberately twisting facts to suit your rather sad cause.
“Islam was far more scientifically advanced than the West – it’s focus on education helped this, it was until post 1600s and the pressures from the West that eroded that.”
Martyn, nobody disputes the fact that Arab scholars were active in the sciences. But in the Islamic world, there was no scientific revolution, no age of enlightenment. The Islamic golden age was ended, not by the West, but by a combination of factors including the Mongol invasion, political and economic decline, and a shift in emphasis toward religious knowledge.
The Fertile Crescent was the oldest and wealthiest centre of human civilisation, and Muslims turned it into a backwater all by themselves, without any outside help.
Remember that Persia and the Ottoman Empire were the pre-eminent powers in the Middle East: they certainly haven’t forgotten it in Central Europe! The Ottomans besieged Vienna in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the battle of Vienna was in 1683. That was when Austria was part of the Holy Roman Empire.
“In Iran, the CIA coup helped the Shar come to power, the Shar killed all opposition so that only radical Muslims were left and the people there backed the only force that could fight back.”
Iran under the Shah was a pretty secular society. I don’t think that’s what happened. As I recall, the Ayatollah had been exiled, and he returned to lead the revolution: not at all what the US wanted. The people had had a gutsful of the Shah’s corruption, however, so they turned to religious leadership.
This recourse to religious extremism hasn’t happened elsewhere in the world, where populations have shaken off colonial rule, or CIA-supported tyrants, which does suggest that there’s something singular about Islam.
Martyn, you may have a rose-tinted view of early Islamic science; and you provide no examples. I had long thought thought that one of the seminal contributions of Arabian science was the ‘discovery’ of the numeral zero: the thought the a symbol could represent the abstract concept of ‘nothing’ was in fact a step of quite stunning genius. However, in recent discussion with an Indian colleague, he tells me that this was actually a Sanskrit invention, as indeed are the numerals 0 to 9 that are the basis of our number system — so we should really speak of Sanskrit and Roman numerals, not Arabic and Roman, if we are to be correct. Oh well, a bit late now. But in truth, this was a stunning revelation (whoever made it); even more so, I think , than ‘infinity’ (a number 8 on its side).
While we’re at it, the Chinese were pretty smart with their abacus, in a sense, a forerunner of the digital computer. And they discovered some pretty amazing technology, in metallurgy, and explosives, millennia ago.
But the West (that’s us) did the best, once the enlightenment lit.
Credit where due . . . . .
I agree with you about Saudi Arabia and the Shar of Iran but you are way off base about Islam and science.
When medieval Muslim empires were scientifically advanced, it was not Western imperialism that halted it’s growth but their own religious leaders who were reacting to the rise of philosophy and science and the concern that it would eclipse theological knowledge.
Those religious leaders who opposed science won the political sway over those who disagreed.
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