It’s not about religion, but about secular power
Published:
January 9, 2015 at 11:50am
All oppressors behave in the same way. The ideology they use as a guise may be religious or political, but it remains just a guise for their desire for secular power.
The political prisoners of China and, now in the news, Cuba should have made that obvious even to those who know no history.
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A good post by Mel Hart:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150108/blogs/dont-let-them-win.551076
The core motivation of the people at the very top of these structures might not be religious (or ideological for that matter). However, these are the vehicles they use to gather widespread support.
The various leaders may be as secular as any of us at heart, but that guy blowing himself up among his perceived enemies must surely believe the ideological crap.
North Korea and China are officially atheist but it doesn’t stop them being the worst and bloodiest dictatorships since Stalin’s Soviet Union, which incidentally was also a “religion-free” state.
Of course they are not atheist. What is North Korea other than a Kim religious cult? What does orthodox communism mimic most closely if not a religious state?
I think there is religious element. Why are most democratic and free states Christian or have a Christian past? Why are most if not all Islamic states undemocratic and illiberal?
[Daphne – There most definitely is no religious element except in a negative sense (antipathy towards religious control). The most democratic states in Europe were the last to become Christian and they never truly embraced it, having it coexist with Nordic paganism instead. Their cultural inclination towards democracy has its historic roots in their historic social organisation. The least democratic states in Europe are also the most Roman Catholic. It might be a coincidence, but I don’t think so. It was resistance to the hegemony of Rome that helped breed democracy because it engendered resistance to oppressive authority in all forms.]
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150109/world/updated-hostages-taken-at-paris-kosher-supermarket-one-wounded.551207
In the context of terror attacks then, what use is that power if they’re dead (as is the fate of most terrorists who carry out an attack)?
[Daphne – Another ‘groan’ moment. The people who blow themselves up or who commit murders such as these and end up in prison are not the ones after power. They are the foot-soldiers, pawns in the hands of those who lead them and use them. Are the petty dealers on the streets, who end up in jail, the ones who are making millions by trafficking cocaine from South America? No: those are invisible.]
Yes, obviously. But what is their personal motivation for being quite happy to die?
It certainly makes no difference to them how much power their leaders gain after their death. They must have some belief that what they are doing will reward them personally.
They believe that my great-aunt, a virgin, is waiting for them in heaven.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150109/world/updated-hostages-taken-at-paris-kosher-supermarket-one-wounded.551207
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/africa/bodies-littered-on-the-streets-after-boko-haram-attack-on-baga-1.2059373
Those who are keen to associate religion with violence are, more than anything, keen to associate religion with irrationality. But that’s an irrational argument in itself.
I totally agree with you that it is all about secular power but I prefer to carry a big stick at the same time.
http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/01/07/hannity-clashes-radical-imam-anjem-choudary-following-charlie-hebdo-terror-attack
“We are God’s unwanted children? So be it! ”
They happened to have been influenced by Saudi Salafi doctrine and they use the language of Islam and the justifications of the Takfiris to acknowledge and express it. It is not only they who are God’s unwanted children.
I do not agree with you here, Daphne. You make the assumption natural for a Westerner, that religion and secular power are separate spheres of human interest.
This separation, however, is only a recent idea and it does not really exist in Islam. Secular power, government and religious doctrine are all part and parcel of the Islamic world view.
There is no concept of heavenly kingdom. It is in the here and now that jihad must be waged so as to conquer the dar al harb (house of war, i.e. non-islamic lands) and convert it to dar al islam.
This is all in the Qur’an, along with the basics of the concept of taqiyya (dispensation to lie and deceive during the waging of jihad, amongst other situations).
The fact that a lot of Muslims are moderates and have somewhat adapted to western ideas does not mean that the violent passages have been erased.
The fundamentalist Muslims may be viewed as abhorrent by many, but they are, in their view, following Islam the way it was intended. Indeed the way it has been practised for hundreds of years. Many moderate Muslims who would never themselves carry out acts of terrorism have publicly supported the Paris attacks in the social media.
The Malta Imam el Sadi (who by no stretch of the imagination has ever been referred to as “radical”) has condemned the Charlie Hebdo massacre, and yet this same imam has been publicly calling for Sharia law to be implemented in Malta for years.
Guess what the punishments for blasphemy and apostasy are in sharia law.
Have no doubt if these people were to become the majority they will impose their beliefs on us.
[Daphne – Freedom of worship is in an inalienable human right and Malta is a signatory to the European Convention of Human Rights independently of its membership of the European Union, where freedom of worship is guaranteed.]
We would not be free as they are presently and under our way of life.
[Daphne – See above. Also add the fact that the reason ‘they’ are in Europe in the first place is because ‘they’ prefer it here. There is no human being on earth, unless he or she has Stockholm Syndrome, who prefers captivity to liberty. Don’t confuse a desire to control people and hold them captive with a desire to be controlled and held captivity. You are considering only the thoughts, words and deeds of those who seek to control, and not of those who are controlled.]
I asked Daphne many times what is wrong in our country to learn from for example UK or France? Do you know that there are sections of UK using Sharia? Or no go areas for whites in France?
[Daphne – I do indeed wish we would learn from Britain and France, but in other ways. They guarantee freedom and democracy because they won it through centuries of pain and bloodshed. They didn’t have it handed to them on a plate as we did in Malta. That is why our appreciation for democracy is so scant compared to theirs. Nobody appreciates what they haven’t worked to obtain.]
Is that what we are aiming for? Why? Tell me where integration worked or happened?
[Daphne – That’s an odd thing for a Maltese person to say, Malta being the perfect example and one of the earliest ones. You only have to look at our faces. The United States of America was a phenomenal success – a melting-pot of all sorts that went on to become a super-power. You are using the Nazis’ argument of the 1930s. Take care. If some people refuse to integrate into society, then blame them and not an entire group because they represent nobody but themselves. Almost all the trouble, murders, drug dealing, violence and so on in Malta is caused by Maltese. Individuals are the problem, not groups.]
In my opinion Europe should offer asylum and protection on condition that when their countries become normal again they go back…including children born to them.
[Daphne – That is a terrible thing to say. People are people. What is your solution (I use that word advisedly) to the Maltese people who contribute nothing to society, freeload off others and commit crime?]
That way I do not think Europeans have to fear being taken over – remember Europeans have low birthrate and they are the opposite.
[Daphne – Your difficulty is that you think in terms of Us and Them. There are different Uses and Thems. In a democratic environment, one group does not get to oppress another by virtue of being in the majority.]
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150109/world/saudi-blogger-flogged-50-times.551216