There's an ancient Islamic custom: First you drink from the bottle, and then you throw it at those you got it from and blame them for all your troubles.
Subscribe To No Dhimmitude
Posts
All Comments
Thursday, August 25, 2005
It's the Real Thing
There's an ancient Islamic custom: First you drink from the bottle, and then you throw it at those you got it from and blame them for all your troubles.
The End of Eschatology as We Know It
Ah, the good old days in Chicago, Ill. when Muslims were under the public radar in America. Not so today, given that Chicago is high on the list of targets for a nuclear attack by jihadis determined to usher in "The Day of Revelation."``
Below we have four pieces on Islam in Chicago. The first is a lead on the demographic of Muslims and Middle Easterners in Chicago and its surrounding areas. The second details some of the Islamic leadership in Bridgeview, a Chicago suburb. The third piece, from 1999, tells a warm and fuzzy tale of Islam in Bridgeview. Finally, a clip on a visitor to Chicago, Abdullah Al Muhajir.
The point is that some Muslims feel comfortable with the idea of nuking a major city, killing indiscriminately its populations. It could be London, Stockholm, Cairo, or your home town. Islam is an equal opportunity killer.
We point out here consistently that Muslims are matters for the police, but Islam is a matter of concern to each and every person on the face of the Earth. Most people have no idea what's going on in their own communities, and if it takes a nuclear explosion in Middle America to draw their attention to it, then who are they going to retaliate against? It's our uncompromising opinion that we must shut out Islam from the Human experience, and we could do well insisting on law enforcement among our own cities even when there are voter-blocs at stake.
We have settled among us people who share a view of life that includes the celebration of the End of the World. Yes, some of them are fundamentalist Christians. But it's those among us who are Muslim, men and women dedicated to actually making it happen, and making it happen by causing mega-deaths in our cities who should be of some concern to us. It's past time to start some serious discussion with our community leaders to put a stop to the fascist ideology of Islam; a perhaps more to the point, to put a stop to the dhimmi attitude that all religions are bad, Christianity worse than all, and that Islam is just another harmless worldview held by a small minority, of whom a smaller minority yet want to nuke us. Let's stop pretending it's all relative. No, nuking Middle America is really a bad thing. Unless you're Jose Padilla, for example, or maybe the guy at the cafe, Bridgeview, Ill.
(For our Muslim readers we slipped in a bit of legal advice from CAIR-Chicago.)
March 9, 2005
By Ray Hanania
If you think the title of this column should be "covering Chicago's Arab and Muslim Community," it might explain the challenges Chicago's media continues to face.
The "Arab and Muslim Community" is not a "community" at all, but two very separate and very distinct communities; each has multiple levels of confusing political and social sub-terrains.
Arabs and Muslims are not the same. They are very different. They each are a part of the post-September 11th story or the ongoing Middle East conflict, but in significantly different ways.
In only a few occasions, do the two communities overlap.
This has probably been the single most important error the news media has made in covering the Arabs and Muslims.
There are about seven million Muslims in America, but only about 22 percent are Arab. Referring to the Arab community as Muslim or covering the Arab community in that religious context is wrong.
Half of the Arabs in America are Christian. And, in addition to the Arab Christians, there are another one million Christians who originate from the Middle East who are not Arab, such as Assyrians or Chaldeans. Assyrians speak Arabic but are militant in defining themselves as "non-Arab" and will tell you so.
[Much more at the following link.]
***
Bridgeview Mosque Foundation/ Hamas member Mohamed Saleh arrested with Howard U prof Abdelhaleem Ashqar on terrorism charges
August 21, 2004
MIM: After years of being under law enforcement scrutiny more proof of the obvious emerges revealing the Bridgeview Mosque Foundation's direct ties to Hamas. The BMF spokesman is Rafiq Jaber, the head of the Islamic Association of Palestine, which is the American wing of Hamas.
Which begs the question of how such a hub of terrorist activity in the Hamas stronghold of Bridgeview Illinois, is still conducting 'business as usual' and why Muhammed Hamid Khalil Salah is the only BMF associate who was arrested this week. Imam Jamil Said of The Bridgeview Mosque Foundation is a known Hamas leader. The BMF president Oussama Jamal , is a darling of the Chicago interfaith circuit, who apparently have no problems with his and Jamal's declarations at a post 9/11 community memorial service where he stated that he did not think Muslims were behind the 9/11 attacks, and that terrorism was a direct result of US support of Israel. Jamal used the event to bash Israel and cry to the media about how Muslims are suffering in the US.
------------------------------
Hamas activist Oussama Jammal owns a film company and recently won an award at the International Family Film festival in California.
At a post 9/11 press conference, in the presence of mosque spokesman Rafiq Jaber and Imam Jamil Said, Ousama Jammal stated the following: "How certain are we that it was Arabs who were behind it?" Suggesting that Americans look at the causes, he argued that despair and fear are at the roots of terrorism. http://www.washington-report
The Bridgeview mosque is known as a center of IAP, Hamas, and Al Qaeda activity.
The spokesman for the Bridgeview Mosque is Rafiq Jaber, the national president of the Islamic Association of Palestine. which is "considered to be a front group for Hamas operating inside the United States". http://www.worldnetdaily.com
Nabil Al Marabh, a suspected planner in the 9/11 hijackings attended the Bridgeview mosque. http://www.suntimes.com/terror
A member of the the Bridgeview Mosque Foundation, Mohammed Saleh, was the first American citizen to make the FBI's most wanted Islamic terrorist list .
The Bridgeview mosque has also been linked to the Holy Land Foundation, a charity which was closed down by the U.S. government for fund raising for terrorist groups. http://www.littlegreenfootballs
More of this story is available at the link below.
***
Islam thrives in Chicago
By Lola Smallwood, Chicago Tribune, October 15, 1999
On a recent Friday afternoon, men dressed in cotton robes and sandals, baggy jeans and tennis shoes, overalls and work boots, slowly packed into an unadorned prayer room illuminated only by the light of two narrow, rectangular windows inside the Bridgeview mosque.
Within minutes, there was no space even to kneel on the avocado-colored carpet. Worshipers spilled out of the main prayer area to the courtyard outside the mosque, unrolling beautiful Persian rugs to accommodate the crowd.
Many are immigrants. Many more are descendants of Muslim emigres who are swiftly building a strong Muslim-American community in the south and southwest suburbs--and taxing the capacity of the Bridgeview center.
"We are going through a transition where the growth is really among the youth," said Bassam Jody, a Tinley Park resident and president of the Chicago Mosque Foundation. "It's a case of children and grandchildren of Muslim immigrants coming up and spreading out to places such as Tinley Park and Orland Park."
Though it is unclear how many Muslims live in the southern part of the Chicago area, foundation officials said that on Islamic feast days, more than 5,000 Muslims have crowded into its mosque--built to hold 800 to 1,500 people.
And Friday congregational prayer draws some 2,000 Muslims.
Three small rental offices in Frankfort, Tinley Park and Bolingbrook serve as a place for Muslims to carry out salah, the required prayer, five times a day. But none of those locations offers Islamic educational or community programs.
However, on Fridays, men are required to attend congregational prayer, and most prefer to attend the Bridgeview mosque, officials say.
That has made conditions so cramped that officials recently announced intentions to build a new mosque in the nearby southwest suburbs by 2005. Though no definitive location or cost for the mosque is yet known, officials said about 15 acres of land would be needed to build the mosque.
The community's growth in the southwest suburbs reflects an explosion in the Muslim population throughout the Chicago area, which has risen from 50,000 to more than 350,000 in the last 30 years.
The growth is fueled by a continual stream of Muslim immigrants from places such as Yugoslavia, Asia, India, Africa and the Middle East.
However, a major force behind the numbers in southern Cook and Will counties is the emergence of second- and third-generation Muslim Americans.
"There was no community when I came here," said Salem M. Salem, 53, a Palestinian businessman who came to Chicago from Jerusalem in 1969.
Between puffs on a hand-rolled cigarette in the living room of his Oak Lawn home, he explained how he sent his small children back home to relatives to learn the principles and customs of Islam. They remained there for three years.
"Today you don't have to send children away," he said, as his two adult daughters, Nadia, 26, a Chicago lawyer, and Jackleen, 22, a University of Chicago graduate student, listened nearby. "The community is stronger. There are mosques, several schools. Children can be taught right here."
The migration of Muslim immigrants has traced an intricate pattern across the Chicago area since the late 1880s, said Asad Husain, president of the American Islamic College on the North Side.
During the early stages of migration, Muslims, many from the Middle East, settled in the predominantly African-American neighborhoods of Chicago's South Side. As they prospered, those immigrants who chose to remain in the U.S. sought better housing opportunities in nearby suburbs such as Burbank, Bridgeview and Oak Lawn, making the southern region one of the largest and fastest-growing Muslim communities in the Chicago area.
Elsewhere, Muslim communities also thrive today in northern suburbs such as Morton Grove, where Eastern European Muslims from Albania and Serbia have settled. In DuPage County, Muslims from India and Pakistan have put down roots in Lombard, Villa Park and other cities.
Still, early on, many Muslim immigrants saw the Chicago area as a temporary land of opportunity, and little was done until the 1980s to build up the community, Husain said. As late as the 1970s, it was the norm for immigrants who had come for jobs or educational opportunities to return to their native countries. But since then, there has been considerable effort to create a religious community.
The Muslim religion is based on the Koran--a prodigious text of revelations shown to the prophet Muhammad by God during the 7th century, followers believe.
"I think my generation wants to be defined as Muslim Americans and feel comfortable with who we are and where we're at," said Nadia Salem, who lives a block from the Bridgeview mosque with her husband, writer Ibrahim Abusharif, 40.
Besides the proposed mosque in the Bridgeview area, new mosques have been built or are proposed in Villa Park, Des Plaines and Chicago. Five Islamic-based elementary and high schools have opened since 1990, including two in Bridgeview.
And in some ways, the new generation has brought a certain nuance to the faith in Bridgeview. In recent years, Friday prayer sermons have been offered in English instead of Arabic. A new community center houses a Sisters Community--a religious network of Muslim women. And a youth center offers teens a place to hold discussions such as "Teens and Islam" or "Marriage in Islam" to educate youths on how to apply the religion to modern life.
Such outlets are particularly essential in American society, where the culture in many ways contradicts the laws of the religion, Muslim parents said. For example, premarital sex and even unchaperoned dating among adults is prohibited. Women are encouraged to be educated but required to stay home with small children unless the family is in financial trouble. And elderly parents must be cared for by their children--not in nursing homes.
Yet financing mosques and community centers isn't easy because the teachings of the Koran forbid Muslims from accepting or providing interest-bearing loans.
In fact, the $600,000 mosque that opened in Villa Park last year was completely financed through cash donations, said Abdul Hammed Dogar, board member of the Islamic Foundation in Villa Park.
"Islamic religion said exploiting the needy is sinful," Jody said. "We will take no loan. We will look to the business community and Muslim organizations to raise the funds."
http://www.islamfortoday.com***
Oh, just in case you're flying in to Chicago and you're having troubles with the local authorities, here's a tip for you.
http://www.cairchicago.org
IF THE FBI CONTACTS YOU:
American Muslims support strong law enforcement. We also treasure civil rights. Your right to be politically active and to hold different beliefs/views is protected by the Constitution. If you are visited by the FBI, remember:
1) You do not have to talk to the FBI. You have no obligation to talk to the FBI, even if you are not a citizen. Never meet with them or answer any questions without an attorney present. Refusing to answer questions cannot be held against you. It does not imply that you have something to hide.
2) You do not have to permit them to enter your home or office. FBI agents must possess a search warrant in order to enter your house. If they say they have a warrant, demand to see it before allowing them to enter. Even if they have a warrant, you are under no obligation to answer questions.
3) Never lie or provide false information to the FBI. It is better to refuse to answer any questions. Lying to an FBI agent is a crime. Contact CAIR for advice.
[We are not going to suggest that CAIR will lie for you.]
***
U.S. authorities capture 'dirty bomb' suspect
His associate captured in Pakistan, U.S. officials say
June 10, 2002 Posted: 11:47 PM EDT (0347 GMT)
| ||||
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Federal officials have captured a U.S. citizen with suspected ties to al Qaeda who allegedly planned to build and explode a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States, the Justice Department said Monday.
U.S. officials said Washington was the probable target of the plot. FBI Director Robert Mueller said the plot was in the "discussion stage" when the suspect, Abdullah Al Muhajir, was arrested. Mueller said the plot had not gone any further, to the knowledge of U.S. authorities.
Attorney General John Ashcroft said Al Muhajir -- who was born Jose Padilla -- was captured May 8 as he flew from Pakistan into O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois. Officials described the flight as a reconnaissance mission.
Officials said that when Al Muhajir arrived in Chicago, he declared having $8,000 but was found to have more than $10,000 in his possession.
In the weeks before he flew to Chicago, Al Muhajir was tracked flying between Pakistan, Egypt and Switzerland, officials said.
U.S. officials later said an "associate" of Al Muhajir had been arrested in Pakistan before May 8. It was not clear whether thisLearn more was the "associate" Ashcroft referred to when he said Al Muhajir was working with someone in Pakistan on plans to build a dirty bomb. (Full story)
A dirty bomb is a conventional bomb equipped with radioactive material designed to spread over a wide area.[More at link:
http://archives.cnn.com/2002
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Texico, Arabia
More than 40 percent of Mexican adults say they would move to the U.S. if they could, and 1 in 5 say they would do so illegally if necessary, according to surveys released yesterday by the Pew Hispanic Center.Surveys of 1,200 Mexican adults in February and 1,200 in May, conducted in their homes, show that Mexicans' rising education levels have not weakened the desire to live and work in this country.
More than a third of Mexican college graduates say they would come to the U.S. if they could, and more than 1 in 8 would do so even if they had to enter the country illegally, according to the surveys, the first of their kind.
"Contrary to what people might expect, the inclination to migrate isn't contained among Mexicans who are poor or poorly educated or with limited economic prospects," says Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington. "They're distributed across the whole breadth of Mexican society."
Mexicans' willingness to come is driven by a desire to improve their economic status and join friends and family already there, Suro says.
Despite improvements in the Mexican economy, "people with college degrees believe they have greater economic opportunities by migration to the U.S. - even illegally - than they would staying at home," Suro says. Mexicans are coming from richer, urban areas as well as poor, rural regions, he says.
More than half of Mexicans say they would be inclined to come if the U.S. established a temporary worker program.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.comWe're left with the burning question: If Mexicans want to move to the United States because of its obvious beneifts, then why shouldn't Americans, rather than have Mexicans come to America, take America to Mexicans so they can all have a share in it?
And why stop there? If America is good enough for Americans and Mexicans, why not take it everywhere? Indeed, why not take America to Sweden? Why not take it to any place a man can carve ot a home for himself, just like the Swedes did in Minnesota, just like the Mexicans did in Arizona?
We have argued many times on these pages that nation is a myth begun with the treaty of Westphalia, 1648; that nation is invalid on moral grounds; and that in practice it is nonsense to pretend that there are such things as natural boundaries that cannot be violated by the mass movement people resettling even against the will and wishes of the current residents.
We vbase our arguments on the "Melian Dialogue" of Thucyidides, ie. that the stronger will take as they please, and simple prudence dictates the best terms one can get in surrendering rather than in dying in a futile attemp to resist. We argue that William Walker, slave-trade advocate of Tennessee, moving to lands in Central America and conquering and imposing the manifest destiny of America, is a model for future expansion of American manifest destiny. We have argued that the meme of culture is developed and led by intellectuals, and that most people will follow the norms of culture uncritically, regardless of what it is. We have argued that the current state of culture and politics is as it has been for roughly 5,000 years of the Agricultural Revolution, fascist, and that it is the duty of the West to spread the revolutions of Modernity, of the Industrial, French, and American Revolutions across the face of the Earth regardless of the resistence from fascist privilege it meets.
If Mexicans want to live in America, let them: Take Mexico and make it America. Then let them have it. Let all of us have it. We will be one free people every where. Texas in Chiapas. Turn the tables by turning the mind to the unthinkable.
Muddling Through and Through
Conservative politician in Britain claims that Islam is like Nazism or Communism; a Muslim in Britain claims he will not allow the demonisation of Islam in Britain; and a British civil servant sums it all up famously be saying the matter needs further study.
If you're thinking, in moments of despair, of turning to the BNP as those who actually understand, from an extremist point of view if not from simple reason and clear observation of reality, to give you hope that at least someone 'gets' it, look at a response from a BNP supporter in the thick of war in southern Jugoslavia:
"A native Swede turned Muslim will kill you for the sake of Islam, and he will not spare you because you are Swedish. You cannot trust any Muslim, regardless."
Well I don't believe this. Yes his religion is telling him to do that. But there is a big difference. Like 70% of Muslims are Arabs, Iranians, and Turkish people. This is very bad and evil animals. Even if they were Christians they would act as they do today.
I think it's more in the genetics in humans. We the white Europeans (not Albanians, because they are the only no-white in EU) are very friendly people. We can not act in the name of Islam even if we were forced into Islam.
The only white people in EU which is Muslim are the Bosnians witch are Slavic (they were forced by the Ottomans), don't act as full-blooded Muslims.
***
The MoD pours tea and sympathy for Sacranie, the Guardian pours scorn all over anyone not far dhimmi enough to please bin Laden, and the Price of Wales is likely a closet Muslim.
Where does Britain go from here?
Cameron compares Islamist extremists to Nazis
Read his speech in full
Matthew Tempest, political correspondent
Wednesday August 24, 2005
Addressing the Foreign Policy Centre thinktank this morning, Mr Cameron encroached on the territory of his main rival, David Davis, with a speech devoted to "homeland security" and British values.
In it he warned that Islamist thinking has developed which, "like Nazism and Communism, offers followers redemption through violence".
"Just like the Nazis of 1930s Germany, they want to purge corrupt cosmopolitan influences."
"Jihadism feeds into the bewilderment, alienation and lack of progress felt by many in the Muslim world," he said, emphasising that "it often bewitches the minds of gifted and educated young men".
He also claimed that the west's failure to act in the 1990s fed Osama bin Laden's belief that it lacked the strength to defend itself.
"The lesson from all of this with respect to our presence in Iraq is clear. Premature withdrawal - and failure to support the Iraqi authority - would be seen as a surrender to militant Jihadism. Nothing would embolden the terrorists more."
...Mr Cameron supported the Iraq war, and today compared those "well-meaning" people calling for withdrawal of British troops to "assuage Jihadist anger" to the appeasers of the 1930s who allowed Germany to remilitarise the Rhineland and reoccupy the Sudetenland.
***
In the wake of the home secretary's announcement today on further deportations of extremist Islamic clerics, Mr Cameron also criticised the European convention on human rights.
He told BBC Breakfast this morning: "One of the things that is stopping us is the court cases under the European convention of human rights, that says that no matter how dangerous an individual is to the UK, if there is any chance of him being harmed when being sent back to his country of origin, you simply can't do it.
"I think as a country you have to have got to have the right to say to people who may threaten this country, I am sorry you can't come and we are going to deport you."
***
***
Muslim groups warn of radical backlash
Read the joint statement in full
Matthew Tempest and agencies
Tuesday August 16, 2005
A coalition of Muslim leaders today warned that closing mosques deemed extremist and banning radical Islamic groups could fuel a radical sub-culture in Britain.
Nearly 40 signatories, including the Islamic Human Rights Commission and the Muslim Association of Britain, said new measures outlined by the prime minister could lead to Islamic values being "demonised".
The leaders jointly issued a six-point statement in response to the government's response to last month's London bombings.
It said: "We fear that recent events are being exploited by some sections in society to demonise legitimate Islamic values and beliefs and hence consider it appropriate to make the following observations."
[Before they rush into self-justifications we would hope they'd explain what a legitimate Islamic value is. That question is neither born of ignorance of Islam nor of malice. Name a legitimate Islamic value and we'll agree to it if it's both legitimate and Islam rather than something universal, shared by all, and not at all "Islamic" in itself.
If, as seems more likely, the Muslims are excusing murder, then let them explain why it is a matter of demonisation to object to murder.]
The statement criticised the use of the term extremism, which it said had no tangible legal meaning and was unhelpful.
The joint statement argued that the right of people to resist invasion and occupation was legitimate and said that questioning the legitimacy of Israeli occupation was also valid political expression.
[Here we must interrupt to ask just what part of sending suicide/homicide bombers to Israel to bomb Mike's Place, a jazz lounge, and what part of sending mercenaries to other nations to fight against ones own country-men and government is legitimate? It goes beyond divided loyalty into treason. Taking up arms on behalf of declared enemies of ones own nation isn't, except in the warped minds of Muslims, legitimate. It is not "valid political expression" to anyone but an idiot or a mindless ideologue.]
The leaders also criticised the decision to ban the group Hizb ur-Tahrir, which is outlawed in Germany, and which Mr Blair specifically stated he intended to proscribe.
A proposal to ban the group was described as "unwarranted, unjust and unwise" and any disagreement with a political organisation should be expressed through debate, not censorship, the leaders wrote.
The statement, co-signed by Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain, read: "If it is suggested that any laws have been broken by any individuals or groups then this must be proven by due legal process.
"Criminalising the mere possession of certain opinions is the hallmark of dictatorships, not democracies."
The closure of mosques accused of "fomenting extremism" would amount to a collective punishment of the community, the statement warned.
It may "create fear" which could lead to "the very radical sub-culture which we all seek to prevent".
Finally, the Muslim leaders said plans to deport foreign nationals to countries known for human rights abuses was "abhorrent".
***
"However, we will not allow the demonising, devaluing or targeting of the concept of Islam which will we hold very dear."
The Home Office minister Hazel Blears also faced criticism today over the government's new anti-terrorism plans at the latest of the government's liaison meetings with regional Muslim leaders.
The minister for policing, security and community safety was in Leicester today, for a meeting with around 200 members of the Muslim community, where she was told the government's announced measures had the affect of putting an entire faith in the dock.
...Yaqub Khan, the general secretary of the Pakistan Association in Leicester, said: "I think the law on terrorism is making the whole Muslim community stand in the dock.
***
"I think there are lots of people who are opposed to Islam as a faith. This legislation is the type of legislation which has not even been introduced during war time."
"We will take the legislation through parliament and give it the proper scrutiny."
http://politics.guardian.co.uk
When the smoke clears, next time, we'll have to calmly assess our response. It's increasingly clear that we need someone better qualified to lead this war against fascist Islam and fascist dhimmitude than we have now. From here we suggest that would be you.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Freedom Under Attack
In the Islamic tradition of Salman Rushdie and and Theo van Gogh, radio show host Michael Graham has been fired from his job thanks to Islamic pressure group CAIR. The story, thanks to Rebecca at Jihad Watch, outlines the story. Following that is a letter from Hugh FitzGerald on organizing a boycott of the station that sacked Michael Graham. What? Will they kill the man next?
We urge you to forward this story to those you know. If you live within the listening area of WMAL, let the station know you don't want Hamas front-men telling you how to live and what you can hear on your radio. Pass the word. Whisper if you're afraid.CAIR Crows over Graham Firing
"CAIR Hails Firing of Michael Graham" from CNS, with thanks to Andy Bostom.
An Islamic civil rights group Monday praised the firing of a Washington, D.C., radio talk show host it criticized for claiming that "Islam is a terrorist organization."The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) welcomed Michael Graham's ouster from WMAL following his initial suspension without pay for controversial remarks against Islam.
"Just as Michael Graham has the right to hold bigoted views, so, too, does our society have the right to live free of hatred and incitement," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad in a statement.
"We are saddened that Michael Graham would not take responsibility for his hate-filled words, but we do welcome WMAL's action as a step toward reducing the level of anti-Muslim bigotry on our nation's airwaves," said Awad...
Posted by Rebecca at August 23, 2005 05:56 PM***
What can be done by way of getting not only the attention of WMAL, and its owners, but of all other stations? Appeals to morality or decency will not work. Economic damage can work. How can such economic damage be inflicted? Possibly by all those who are outraged making clear that those who continue to advertise on WMAL, whatever the program, will see their goods and services relentlessly boycotted. This could be announced by a group of listeners at a press conference -- that they will not tolerate this kind of censorship. At the press conference they can quote from Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira about the advice to strike "terror" into the hearts of enemies, and other useful passages (e.g., 9.29). Let the local news, let the newspapers, report. And report too on the boycott, and the urging of others to join that boycott.
Ozlam: What Man? What Booth?
Pay no attention to the man in the booth. I am the Great Oz!
Aren't we lucky? "We're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful minister of Oz. For the cause, the cause, the cause, the cause...."
Compare the number of mutilated Australians and the number of relatives who picked up family body parts from the aeroport due to the bombing at Bali to the number of Australians who'd remember the incident if you reminded them.
Ask the average Australian how he feels about the "religion of peace" adherents and their persecution of the Christian minister and deacon on charges of vilifying Islam in Queensland. Or, dare we ask, was it closer to home? It wasn't in Tas? No?
Oh, never mind. Long ago, far away. Not to worry. The prime minister is going to have tea with the Mossie lads and get them to sort it out fair dinkum, all this enthusiasm and what have you. All is well down under. Right, mate? ***
Summit leader's 9/11 'plot' theory
Trudy Harris
23 aug 05
ONE of the Islamic leaders meeting John Howard today suspects September 11 was a conspiracy and asks "why did 4000 Jews not show up for work" on the day of the attacks?
Abdul (Ray) Rahman Deen also says there were no black box flight recorders found in the wreckage of the World Trade Centre after hijacked planes were flown into the twin towers, killing thousands.
Mr Deen, who is a development officer for the Liberal Party, says it was therefore wrong to blame any group for September 11 "without full facts and evidence".
The comments are contained in a letter sent recently to the nine core members of the peak Muslim body, Australian Federation of Islamic Councils.
Mr Deen, whose family operates a demolition company in Queensland, issued a statement saying the comments were views expressed in the community about conspiracy theories, rather than his own.
Mr Howard said he was pleased Mr Deen had clarified the comments, but AFIC president Ameer Ali, who received the letter, disagreed with Mr Deen saying the comments in the letter were clearly Mr Deen's personal views.
"There are many people who believe this in the community. This a problem and one that we need to confront," Dr Ali said.
His comments are a severe blow to the 13 Muslim leaders arriving in Canberra for today's summit with the Prime Minister.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au
***
What is going on in Australia? Are they crazy? Yes, and so is most of the world. So, what is to be done? Maybe we should just give the Muslims what they want and get it over with so we can bury the dead and move on with our lives. But then there's Hitchens.
***
8 July 2005
***
8 July 2005
WE CANNOT SURRENDER
States which shelter these killers will know no peace
Kansas just ain't what it used to be, not like when I was a child. Why, I remeber when even Australia used to be in a state of jahalyyah, if you can imagine such a thing.
Von Herder, Race, and Dhimmitude
The evils of racism cannot occur without the prior theory of race. The theory of race has its original thinkers, and one of the more important of them is von Herder. It's important to us to know of him because of the fascist dhimmi Left fetish of "anti-racism." If we allow ourselves to fall into the word traps of "race" we are then caught in a dhimmitude-induced philobarbarism we'll find it difficult to extract ourselves from. When we accept the false premis of "Peoples" rather than people, cultural identity as opposed to men and women, gender as opposed to you and me, we fall into a trap of post-modernist fascism. Our first duty is thus to define our boundaries of discussion, and one of those excludes the falsity of race, another is identity based on culture. Both are fascist fallacies.
On the origins of the concept of race, and therefore racism, of culture, and therefore cultural authenticity, cultural imperialism, and c., we must look to von Herder. In the interests of fairness we provide the following excerpt from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
http://plato.stanford.edu:
Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803) is a philosopher of the first importance. This claim depends largely on the intrinsic quality of his ideas (of which this article will try to give an impression). But another aspect of it is his intellectual influence. This has been immense both within philosophy and beyond (much greater than is usually realized). For example, Hegel's philosophy turns out to be an elaborate systematic development of Herderian ideas (especially concerning God, the mind, and history); so too does Schleiermacher's (concerning God, the mind, interpretation, translation, and art); Nietzsche is deeply influenced by Herder (concerning the mind, history, and values); so too is Dilthey (in his theory of the human sciences); even J.S. Mill has important debts to Herder (in political philosophy); and beyond philosophy, Goethe was transformed from being merely a clever but conventional poet into a great artist largely through the early impact on him of Herder's ideas.
Indeed, Herder can claim to have virtually established whole disciplines which we now take for granted. For example, it was mainly Herder (not, as is often claimed, Hamann) who established fundamental ideas about an intimate dependence of thought on language which underpin modern philosophy of language. It was Herder who, through the same ideas, his broad empirical approach to languages, his recognition of deep variations in language and thought across historical periods and cultures, and in other ways, inspired W. von Humboldt to found modern linguistics. It was Herder who developed modern hermeneutics, or interpretation-theory, in a form that would subsequently be taken over by Schleiermacher and then more systematically formulated by Schleiermacher's pupil Böckh. It was Herder who, in doing so, also established the methodological foundations of nineteenth-century German classical scholarship (which rested on the Schleiermacher-Böckh methodology), and hence of modern classical scholarship generally. It was arguably Herder who did more than anyone else to establish the general conception and the interpretive methodology of our modern discipline of anthropology. Finally, Herder also made vital contributions to the progress of modern biblical scholarship.
***
Von Herder is one of the first, one of the most important thinkers on the subject of race as ideological stance. For von Herder, faced with French imperialism at a time when the German speaking people were politically disunited, his solution to French power ws to fall into Germanness as German language, the one thing Germans had in common with each other that they did not share with the French, the one thing that made the Germans exceptional, different from the rest of Humanity. For von Herder, German language meant German identity. And because the French Revolution was one of Modernity, a universalist movement, the German nation, exceptional, embraced the counter-Enlightenment, the feudal reaction of the past glories, the romanticised idiocies of some phantastic mythic time of German greatness.
Against the universality of the French Revolution Germans looked to their own fragmentary German communities as unique and valid in themselves, outside the great sweep of French Modernity, in reaction against it. Where there was rationalism in France, Germany became irrational. If people thought in the German language, as the Sapir-Worf Hypothesis puts it, they became German because they could be nothing else. And because language is not individual, as Wittegstein is at our pains to point out, and as is truly obvious, those who share a language share a culture unique to themselves, eg Germanness. To speak ones communal language, to be one of that culture, is to be seperate from others. To be seperate is to be better than those others who are invading ones own.
There is much to be said further on von Herder's ideology of the exceptional. It lead to the rise of the Nazis, and it lead to the rise of dhimmi fascist Leftism today. When all people are "peoples," then no one is a person. When people speak the same language but are not of the ruling group, as it were, they find other identities, such as the false coin of race to buy and spend in the marketplace of ideas. Von Herder is one of the founding thinkers of race, identity through nation, and of exceptionalism by relative difference.
Belwow we can see where some of this lead.
For an very brief outline of some aspects of the history of fascism, we turn to:
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~shaked/Holocaust/lectures/lec4.html
German Romanticism and Nationalism. Volkish Movement
*Romanticism, in reaction against the rationalism of the 18th century, was a movement in philosophy & the arts, & a set of attitudes, in the latter part of the 18th c., initiated in Germany and England; it glorified feeling, emotion, sentimentality & the special characteristics of the historic past.
German thinkers concretely formulated a romantic nationalism. In Germany, these ideas were expounded by Johann Gottfried von Herder,1744-1803, August Wilhelm von Schlegel, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and Friedrich Melchior Grimm - German folktales in Grimm's fairy tale, 1812-15. Herder, more interested in culture than in politics; most important contribution: conception of cultural nationalism; put together anthologies of traditional folk culture.
In Germany, nationalism went beyond the commonality of language & heritage." In Germany, sentimentality merged with patriotism to create a mystical concept of Germanness - the Voelkisch spirit. German citizenship was based on an obscure sense of commonality; Germanic blood & German soil created an innate ethos that could not be acquired. Only birth could infuse that volkisch spirit -German essence ... To be German-- truly German-- was not a mere matter of citizenship. ...Clearly, Jews could only pretend to be German; they were forever aliens."1
German nationalism burdened with a romantic quixotic aspect was founded by Johann Gottlieb Fichte. In 1807 -romantic nationalism; proclaimed German ethos to be the seedbed for human perfection; argued against Jewish emancipation. 1808: delivered series of 'Addresses to the German Nation,' rallied German-speaking people to resist French, & spoke of the superiority of the Germans. Anti-intellectual, anti-democratic sentiment woven into German fabric; destructive chauvinism.
So, in the 19th c., the Romantic 'Volkish' movement excluded the Jews as strangers and second-class citizens, because
- it exalted folkway and emphasized the purity of the national tradition;
- it evoked the image of a mythical golden past, with a supposed superiority;
- it produced an idealization of the Middle Ages with Christian knights.
Volkish thought attracted Germans frightened by modern age industrialization, urbanization, materialism, class conflicts, alienation. Movement appealed to farmers [and] villagers who regarded industrial city threat to native values; artisans small shopkeepers, threatened by big business; scholars, writers, teachers, students, saw in Volkish nationalism cause worthy of their idealism. Schools leading agents for dissemination Volkish ideas... Volkish thinkers glorified ancient Germanic tribes.
*German see themselves different from, better than English and French. Led them to see German culture as unique -innately superior in opposition to humanist outlook Enlightenment. Volkish held that the German people and culture had special destiny, a unique mission. Volkish thought widespread.
Following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, German hopes for national sovereignty were thwarted by the Austrian statesman, Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich. A period of reaction set in, and violent attacks against Jews occurred in many cities of Germany.
Growth of Racial & Political antisemitism. The "New Antisemitism." Biological Racism
Placing the nation above everything, nationalists accused national minorities of corrupting the nation's spirit; and they glorified war as a symbol of the nation's resolve and will. In the name of national power and unity, they persecuted minorities at home and stirred up hatred against other nations. In the pursuit of national power, nationalists increasingly embraced militaristic, imperialistic, and racist doctrines.
*Racism: belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others; discrimination or prejudice based on race. Division of people into races -black, white, yellow- a system of classification without value judgments. Race became racism when innate characteristics were assigned by pseudo-scientists to biological attributes=biological racism.
"Racists asserted that innate racial differences prevent Jews from assimilating with the superior culture of the host countries; ... the old religious bias fed this new strain of an old virus."9
Growth of Racial & Political antisemitism. The "New Antisemitism." Biological Racism
Schleunes: Racism in late 19th c. became an all-embracing doctrine for explaining human behavior, whether it was religious, political, cultural or economic.
Racial Antisemitism and the Aryan Myth
*In the 19th c., national-racial considerations supplemented a traditional, biased Christian perception of Jews & Judaism.
*However, whereas Christian anti-Judaism believed that through conversion, Jews could escape the curse of their religion, racial antisemites who used the language of Social Darwinism, said that Jews were racially stained and eternally condemned by their genes. Their evil & worthlessness derived from inherited racial characteristics, which could not be altered by conversion,' or expulsion.
"Social Darwinism, with its theory of natural selection ... in the late 19th century also provided a rationale for the new antisemitism. The social Darwinist notion of the struggle of races for survival became a core doctrine of the Nazi party after World War I and provided the "scientific" and "ethical" justification for genocide. Jews' destruction is a must." 10
"In a climate of fervent nationalism & jingoism, there were increasing allegations of Jewish 'cosmopolitanism' and 'clannish separatism.' Books & pamphlets appeared in France & Germany alleging that the 'Semites' were responsible for everything that was dark, ... menacing & destructive, whereas all that was pure, creative, heroic & good was the product of 'Aryan' influence. This biological view of human potential & moral worth was, in effect, a pseudo-scientific hotchpotch of the new racial, linguistic & anthropological theories, blended with the vestige of old religious hatreds and fears.
The Jews, it was argued, were racially incapable of improvement. No matter how hard they tried to be German - ... to convert to Christianity -no matter how great the impression of integration, the Jews were depicted as parasitic, scheming, manipulative & venomous, constantly plotting to 'take over' economic control of the state. ...
*Racial theorists - Those who developed theories, which were based primarily on opinions, prejudices, and non-scientific observation, to prove that one race was superior to another.
Racial theorists of the 19th century, were the first to confuse the term 'Aryan' -a linguistic term, with race. The term 'Semitic' also had a linguistic origin). The actual categories of Semite & Aryan were borrowed very loosely from the field of linguistics, in which these terms related to families of languages (and not to 'racial' groups).3
*Aryan - Originally, a term for peoples speaking the languages of Europe and India. Twisted by Nazis, who viewed those of Germanic background as the best examples of "superior," "Aryan race." ) As used by the Nazis, the term refers to a non-Jewish Caucasian, especially of the Nordic type.
***
The German Romantic movement of the late 18th and 19th centuries is essential to our understanding of the modern-day post modernist fascist dhimmi Left because it is a continuum rather than a new form of ideology. Fascsim didn't spring full grown from the leg of Zeus in the 1930, and it didn't die in the 1940s. It began as a clear political and social movment, as opposed to the general state of humanity since the first seeds of the Argircultural Revolution some 5,000 years ago, in the 1780, and it continues to this day.
In this day the Left is fascist, the continuation of fascism from 1945. what we assume is good and decent liberalism of the Left is often nothing but true fascsim, and one place we can look to discover its roots is in von Herder's exceptionalism of the Volk. When one group is special, then others ae special too in their own ways, maybe. And maybe special in ways that aren't very pleasant. When we break people into groups rather than people as individuals, we can create races, we can create communities, we can assign privilege. We'll come back to this topic over and over for the duration of this blog. For now we'll turn to one of our favorite historians.
Below is a review by a brilliant and, one might suggest, one of the few sensible historians of our miserable time. Our focus here is on comments regarding von Herder, and the extra detail should shed some light on the current moral/cultural relativist theory in the West. For reasons of reader fatigue we present only excerpts of this review.
http://www.sydneyline.com
Historiography and civilization
Keith Windschuttle
Washington Times
May 9 1999
While refugees from Kosovo stream across borders and talking heads in television studios debate the merits of the Serbian and NATO cases, one name unlikely to be mentioned as responsible for the current debacle is that of the German philosopher of history, Johann Gottfried von Herder. Apart from those who have studied the history of ideas in the late eighteenth century, Herder is largely unknown. Yet he deserves to be recognized as much as his later compatriot Karl Marx as an architect of many of the disasters that have befallen Europe in the twentieth century.
Herder was the man who originated two of the most influential concepts of the modern era: cultural relativism and self-determination. He said that people who constitute a language group, no matter how small and undistinguished, have their own culture which cannot be judged by outside standards and which are authentic in their own terms - all cultures are equal but different. He also argued that all unique cultures deserve to determine their own destiny -- every culture should form a nation.
Though Herder was a conservative, his ideas let loose on Europe the then radical concept of nationalism. Within a century, the wars of German unification were waged to enforce the idea that all German volkes must be affiliated to the German state. In the twentieth century the extension of this idea produced the First and Second World Wars. Under Hitler, its logic led to the extirpation of those who did not qualify as part of volk culture.
One of Herder's disciples was the great nineteenth century German historian, Leopold von Ranke, who, after reading a collection of medieval folk ballads, wrote a history of the people among whom they had originated, the Serbs, thereby inspiring the awakening of their national identity from its centuries-long domination by the Ottoman Empire. Though Serbian aspirations were subsequently curbed by the rise of the new empire of the Soviets, the collapse of Communism has seen their revival in the 1990s. Herder's romantic nationalism is today represented in the Balkans by the sinister euphemism of ethnic cleansing.
In North America and Western Europe, however, the historic track record of these ideas in fostering the most primitive kind of tribal hubris is blithely ignored. In our own societies, cultural relativism and self-determination remain inviolable, self-validating concepts from which the aura of innocence still shines. The past twelve months alone have seen them gain some remarkable endorsements. Canada, for instance, has just given one fifth of its lands to the Eskimos and the English Parliament seems determined to see Scotland become an independent nation.
Perhaps this is why, in his discussion of Herder's role as a philosopher of history in the book reviewed here, Donald Kelley in Faces of History: Historical Inquiry from Herodotus to Herder[1] feels no obligation to discuss his ideas critically nor to mention their disastrous consequences in central and eastern Europe. Indeed, Kelley toes the line of the prevailing Western intellectual establishment by defending Herder on these very grounds.
In Herder's time, the philosophes of the French Enlightenment made a clear distinction between those societies that had attained the higher plane of civilization and those who languished as barbarians. Herder's cultural relativism, however, would have none of this. There could be no barbarians since all cultures were authentic. As Kelley explains: "Herder's point was that in contrast to the civilization of scholars and philosophers, culture could involve the whole people (Kultur des Volkes) and so represented the best road to an understanding not only of history but also of human nature."
Today, there are very few Western historians who dare to use the word "civilization" because of the politically incorrect value judgement embedded within it. Almost none, however, would shy from the term "culture". Indeed, the field of "cultural studies", a combination of literary theory, criticism and ethnography, which owes its central ideas to the principles founded by Herder, has been the fastest growing area of the humanities in America in the 1990s.
***
Those of us who see his [Herodotus'] compatriot, Thucydides, as the first genuine historian, emphasise the latter's pains to get his facts right by using "only the plainest evidence", but especially by his efforts to distance himself from his own political system and religion. By attempting to report objectively on the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides took a profoundly revolutionary step for both himself and for the legacy his work has bequeathed. To look down, as it were, upon your society and become a critic of your own practice, is a characteristically Western notion and, indeed, one of the great strengths of Western culture-possibly even its greatest strength. We now take this notion-the attempt to be objective and self-critical, rather than subjective and self-defensive-so much for granted that we assume it is a perfectly natural thing to do, whereas to many other cultures it has long been something shocking.
Kelley, however, will have none of this. He adopts the position of the German hermeneutic theorist Hans-Georg Gadamer who claims that our use of language makes such self-awareness impossible. Kelley doesn't argue for this position, he simply asserts it, as if Gadamer's authority is sufficient to make it so.
***
[A] proper account of the Western historical tradition might have been used to show how this tradition contributed to the development of a genuinely civilised world view -- how it developed a distaste for ethnocentrism and racism and came to regard all human beings (though not all human cultures) as fundamentally equal, albeit equally flawed. Such an account might also have been critical of those theorists like Herder and his successors who rejected the Enlightenment in favour of the narrow-minded, tribal concepts of cultural demarcation, ethnic destiny and rule of the volk.
1. Donald R. Kelley, Faces of History: Historical Inquiry from Herodotus to Herder, Yale University Press, New Haven
***
Von Herder and other of the Counter-Enlightenment, are today the public intellectuals who form the public meme. And yet few know of them, what they wrote, or why we assume that their works are our opinions. The concept of race is one such idea most take as axiomatic: we are something that others are not.
For the Left fascist dhimmis, the Islamic world is something quite different in and of itself, equally valid for its own internality, ie. it's Muslim victims. To create a false identity of race or of other identity is to seperate people from Humanity, assigning some rights and others not according to accidents of birth and circumstance. If the is exceptionalism, there is no universality. If there is no universality, then of course Islam has a right to enslave its populations, and we must honor its expection to the universe of others. That, dear reader, is in our opinion, a fascist postion that we refuse to accept, based as it is on nothing at all but wind.
We will again return to this topic. It is essential that we see clearly the origins of fascism to see the Left as fascist, and thereby to decide if indeed we are fascists too.
On the origins of the concept of race, and therefore racism, of culture, and therefore cultural authenticity, cultural imperialism, and c., we must look to von Herder. In the interests of fairness we provide the following excerpt from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
http://plato.stanford.edu:
Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803) is a philosopher of the first importance. This claim depends largely on the intrinsic quality of his ideas (of which this article will try to give an impression). But another aspect of it is his intellectual influence. This has been immense both within philosophy and beyond (much greater than is usually realized). For example, Hegel's philosophy turns out to be an elaborate systematic development of Herderian ideas (especially concerning God, the mind, and history); so too does Schleiermacher's (concerning God, the mind, interpretation, translation, and art); Nietzsche is deeply influenced by Herder (concerning the mind, history, and values); so too is Dilthey (in his theory of the human sciences); even J.S. Mill has important debts to Herder (in political philosophy); and beyond philosophy, Goethe was transformed from being merely a clever but conventional poet into a great artist largely through the early impact on him of Herder's ideas.
Indeed, Herder can claim to have virtually established whole disciplines which we now take for granted. For example, it was mainly Herder (not, as is often claimed, Hamann) who established fundamental ideas about an intimate dependence of thought on language which underpin modern philosophy of language. It was Herder who, through the same ideas, his broad empirical approach to languages, his recognition of deep variations in language and thought across historical periods and cultures, and in other ways, inspired W. von Humboldt to found modern linguistics. It was Herder who developed modern hermeneutics, or interpretation-theory, in a form that would subsequently be taken over by Schleiermacher and then more systematically formulated by Schleiermacher's pupil Böckh. It was Herder who, in doing so, also established the methodological foundations of nineteenth-century German classical scholarship (which rested on the Schleiermacher-Böckh methodology), and hence of modern classical scholarship generally. It was arguably Herder who did more than anyone else to establish the general conception and the interpretive methodology of our modern discipline of anthropology. Finally, Herder also made vital contributions to the progress of modern biblical scholarship.
***
Von Herder is one of the first, one of the most important thinkers on the subject of race as ideological stance. For von Herder, faced with French imperialism at a time when the German speaking people were politically disunited, his solution to French power ws to fall into Germanness as German language, the one thing Germans had in common with each other that they did not share with the French, the one thing that made the Germans exceptional, different from the rest of Humanity. For von Herder, German language meant German identity. And because the French Revolution was one of Modernity, a universalist movement, the German nation, exceptional, embraced the counter-Enlightenment, the feudal reaction of the past glories, the romanticised idiocies of some phantastic mythic time of German greatness.
Against the universality of the French Revolution Germans looked to their own fragmentary German communities as unique and valid in themselves, outside the great sweep of French Modernity, in reaction against it. Where there was rationalism in France, Germany became irrational. If people thought in the German language, as the Sapir-Worf Hypothesis puts it, they became German because they could be nothing else. And because language is not individual, as Wittegstein is at our pains to point out, and as is truly obvious, those who share a language share a culture unique to themselves, eg Germanness. To speak ones communal language, to be one of that culture, is to be seperate from others. To be seperate is to be better than those others who are invading ones own.
There is much to be said further on von Herder's ideology of the exceptional. It lead to the rise of the Nazis, and it lead to the rise of dhimmi fascist Leftism today. When all people are "peoples," then no one is a person. When people speak the same language but are not of the ruling group, as it were, they find other identities, such as the false coin of race to buy and spend in the marketplace of ideas. Von Herder is one of the founding thinkers of race, identity through nation, and of exceptionalism by relative difference.
Belwow we can see where some of this lead.
For an very brief outline of some aspects of the history of fascism, we turn to:
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~shaked/Holocaust/lectures/lec4.html
German Romanticism and Nationalism. Volkish Movement
*Romanticism, in reaction against the rationalism of the 18th century, was a movement in philosophy & the arts, & a set of attitudes, in the latter part of the 18th c., initiated in Germany and England; it glorified feeling, emotion, sentimentality & the special characteristics of the historic past.
German thinkers concretely formulated a romantic nationalism. In Germany, these ideas were expounded by Johann Gottfried von Herder,1744-1803, August Wilhelm von Schlegel, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and Friedrich Melchior Grimm - German folktales in Grimm's fairy tale, 1812-15. Herder, more interested in culture than in politics; most important contribution: conception of cultural nationalism; put together anthologies of traditional folk culture.
In Germany, nationalism went beyond the commonality of language & heritage." In Germany, sentimentality merged with patriotism to create a mystical concept of Germanness - the Voelkisch spirit. German citizenship was based on an obscure sense of commonality; Germanic blood & German soil created an innate ethos that could not be acquired. Only birth could infuse that volkisch spirit -German essence ... To be German-- truly German-- was not a mere matter of citizenship. ...Clearly, Jews could only pretend to be German; they were forever aliens."1
German nationalism burdened with a romantic quixotic aspect was founded by Johann Gottlieb Fichte. In 1807 -romantic nationalism; proclaimed German ethos to be the seedbed for human perfection; argued against Jewish emancipation. 1808: delivered series of 'Addresses to the German Nation,' rallied German-speaking people to resist French, & spoke of the superiority of the Germans. Anti-intellectual, anti-democratic sentiment woven into German fabric; destructive chauvinism.
So, in the 19th c., the Romantic 'Volkish' movement excluded the Jews as strangers and second-class citizens, because
- it exalted folkway and emphasized the purity of the national tradition;
- it evoked the image of a mythical golden past, with a supposed superiority;
- it produced an idealization of the Middle Ages with Christian knights.
Volkish thought attracted Germans frightened by modern age industrialization, urbanization, materialism, class conflicts, alienation. Movement appealed to farmers [and] villagers who regarded industrial city threat to native values; artisans small shopkeepers, threatened by big business; scholars, writers, teachers, students, saw in Volkish nationalism cause worthy of their idealism. Schools leading agents for dissemination Volkish ideas... Volkish thinkers glorified ancient Germanic tribes.
*German see themselves different from, better than English and French. Led them to see German culture as unique -innately superior in opposition to humanist outlook Enlightenment. Volkish held that the German people and culture had special destiny, a unique mission. Volkish thought widespread.
Following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, German hopes for national sovereignty were thwarted by the Austrian statesman, Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich. A period of reaction set in, and violent attacks against Jews occurred in many cities of Germany.
Growth of Racial & Political antisemitism. The "New Antisemitism." Biological Racism
Placing the nation above everything, nationalists accused national minorities of corrupting the nation's spirit; and they glorified war as a symbol of the nation's resolve and will. In the name of national power and unity, they persecuted minorities at home and stirred up hatred against other nations. In the pursuit of national power, nationalists increasingly embraced militaristic, imperialistic, and racist doctrines.
*Racism: belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others; discrimination or prejudice based on race. Division of people into races -black, white, yellow- a system of classification without value judgments. Race became racism when innate characteristics were assigned by pseudo-scientists to biological attributes=biological racism.
"Racists asserted that innate racial differences prevent Jews from assimilating with the superior culture of the host countries; ... the old religious bias fed this new strain of an old virus."9
Growth of Racial & Political antisemitism. The "New Antisemitism." Biological Racism
Schleunes: Racism in late 19th c. became an all-embracing doctrine for explaining human behavior, whether it was religious, political, cultural or economic.
Racial Antisemitism and the Aryan Myth
*In the 19th c., national-racial considerations supplemented a traditional, biased Christian perception of Jews & Judaism.
*However, whereas Christian anti-Judaism believed that through conversion, Jews could escape the curse of their religion, racial antisemites who used the language of Social Darwinism, said that Jews were racially stained and eternally condemned by their genes. Their evil & worthlessness derived from inherited racial characteristics, which could not be altered by conversion,' or expulsion.
"Social Darwinism, with its theory of natural selection ... in the late 19th century also provided a rationale for the new antisemitism. The social Darwinist notion of the struggle of races for survival became a core doctrine of the Nazi party after World War I and provided the "scientific" and "ethical" justification for genocide. Jews' destruction is a must." 10
"In a climate of fervent nationalism & jingoism, there were increasing allegations of Jewish 'cosmopolitanism' and 'clannish separatism.' Books & pamphlets appeared in France & Germany alleging that the 'Semites' were responsible for everything that was dark, ... menacing & destructive, whereas all that was pure, creative, heroic & good was the product of 'Aryan' influence. This biological view of human potential & moral worth was, in effect, a pseudo-scientific hotchpotch of the new racial, linguistic & anthropological theories, blended with the vestige of old religious hatreds and fears.
The Jews, it was argued, were racially incapable of improvement. No matter how hard they tried to be German - ... to convert to Christianity -no matter how great the impression of integration, the Jews were depicted as parasitic, scheming, manipulative & venomous, constantly plotting to 'take over' economic control of the state. ...
*Racial theorists - Those who developed theories, which were based primarily on opinions, prejudices, and non-scientific observation, to prove that one race was superior to another.
Racial theorists of the 19th century, were the first to confuse the term 'Aryan' -a linguistic term, with race. The term 'Semitic' also had a linguistic origin). The actual categories of Semite & Aryan were borrowed very loosely from the field of linguistics, in which these terms related to families of languages (and not to 'racial' groups).3
*Aryan - Originally, a term for peoples speaking the languages of Europe and India. Twisted by Nazis, who viewed those of Germanic background as the best examples of "superior," "Aryan race." ) As used by the Nazis, the term refers to a non-Jewish Caucasian, especially of the Nordic type.
***
The German Romantic movement of the late 18th and 19th centuries is essential to our understanding of the modern-day post modernist fascist dhimmi Left because it is a continuum rather than a new form of ideology. Fascsim didn't spring full grown from the leg of Zeus in the 1930, and it didn't die in the 1940s. It began as a clear political and social movment, as opposed to the general state of humanity since the first seeds of the Argircultural Revolution some 5,000 years ago, in the 1780, and it continues to this day.
In this day the Left is fascist, the continuation of fascism from 1945. what we assume is good and decent liberalism of the Left is often nothing but true fascsim, and one place we can look to discover its roots is in von Herder's exceptionalism of the Volk. When one group is special, then others ae special too in their own ways, maybe. And maybe special in ways that aren't very pleasant. When we break people into groups rather than people as individuals, we can create races, we can create communities, we can assign privilege. We'll come back to this topic over and over for the duration of this blog. For now we'll turn to one of our favorite historians.
Below is a review by a brilliant and, one might suggest, one of the few sensible historians of our miserable time. Our focus here is on comments regarding von Herder, and the extra detail should shed some light on the current moral/cultural relativist theory in the West. For reasons of reader fatigue we present only excerpts of this review.
http://www.sydneyline.com
Historiography and civilization
Keith Windschuttle
Washington Times
May 9 1999
While refugees from Kosovo stream across borders and talking heads in television studios debate the merits of the Serbian and NATO cases, one name unlikely to be mentioned as responsible for the current debacle is that of the German philosopher of history, Johann Gottfried von Herder. Apart from those who have studied the history of ideas in the late eighteenth century, Herder is largely unknown. Yet he deserves to be recognized as much as his later compatriot Karl Marx as an architect of many of the disasters that have befallen Europe in the twentieth century.
Herder was the man who originated two of the most influential concepts of the modern era: cultural relativism and self-determination. He said that people who constitute a language group, no matter how small and undistinguished, have their own culture which cannot be judged by outside standards and which are authentic in their own terms - all cultures are equal but different. He also argued that all unique cultures deserve to determine their own destiny -- every culture should form a nation.
Though Herder was a conservative, his ideas let loose on Europe the then radical concept of nationalism. Within a century, the wars of German unification were waged to enforce the idea that all German volkes must be affiliated to the German state. In the twentieth century the extension of this idea produced the First and Second World Wars. Under Hitler, its logic led to the extirpation of those who did not qualify as part of volk culture.
One of Herder's disciples was the great nineteenth century German historian, Leopold von Ranke, who, after reading a collection of medieval folk ballads, wrote a history of the people among whom they had originated, the Serbs, thereby inspiring the awakening of their national identity from its centuries-long domination by the Ottoman Empire. Though Serbian aspirations were subsequently curbed by the rise of the new empire of the Soviets, the collapse of Communism has seen their revival in the 1990s. Herder's romantic nationalism is today represented in the Balkans by the sinister euphemism of ethnic cleansing.
In North America and Western Europe, however, the historic track record of these ideas in fostering the most primitive kind of tribal hubris is blithely ignored. In our own societies, cultural relativism and self-determination remain inviolable, self-validating concepts from which the aura of innocence still shines. The past twelve months alone have seen them gain some remarkable endorsements. Canada, for instance, has just given one fifth of its lands to the Eskimos and the English Parliament seems determined to see Scotland become an independent nation.
Perhaps this is why, in his discussion of Herder's role as a philosopher of history in the book reviewed here, Donald Kelley in Faces of History: Historical Inquiry from Herodotus to Herder[1] feels no obligation to discuss his ideas critically nor to mention their disastrous consequences in central and eastern Europe. Indeed, Kelley toes the line of the prevailing Western intellectual establishment by defending Herder on these very grounds.
In Herder's time, the philosophes of the French Enlightenment made a clear distinction between those societies that had attained the higher plane of civilization and those who languished as barbarians. Herder's cultural relativism, however, would have none of this. There could be no barbarians since all cultures were authentic. As Kelley explains: "Herder's point was that in contrast to the civilization of scholars and philosophers, culture could involve the whole people (Kultur des Volkes) and so represented the best road to an understanding not only of history but also of human nature."
Today, there are very few Western historians who dare to use the word "civilization" because of the politically incorrect value judgement embedded within it. Almost none, however, would shy from the term "culture". Indeed, the field of "cultural studies", a combination of literary theory, criticism and ethnography, which owes its central ideas to the principles founded by Herder, has been the fastest growing area of the humanities in America in the 1990s.
***
Those of us who see his [Herodotus'] compatriot, Thucydides, as the first genuine historian, emphasise the latter's pains to get his facts right by using "only the plainest evidence", but especially by his efforts to distance himself from his own political system and religion. By attempting to report objectively on the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides took a profoundly revolutionary step for both himself and for the legacy his work has bequeathed. To look down, as it were, upon your society and become a critic of your own practice, is a characteristically Western notion and, indeed, one of the great strengths of Western culture-possibly even its greatest strength. We now take this notion-the attempt to be objective and self-critical, rather than subjective and self-defensive-so much for granted that we assume it is a perfectly natural thing to do, whereas to many other cultures it has long been something shocking.
Kelley, however, will have none of this. He adopts the position of the German hermeneutic theorist Hans-Georg Gadamer who claims that our use of language makes such self-awareness impossible. Kelley doesn't argue for this position, he simply asserts it, as if Gadamer's authority is sufficient to make it so.
***
[A] proper account of the Western historical tradition might have been used to show how this tradition contributed to the development of a genuinely civilised world view -- how it developed a distaste for ethnocentrism and racism and came to regard all human beings (though not all human cultures) as fundamentally equal, albeit equally flawed. Such an account might also have been critical of those theorists like Herder and his successors who rejected the Enlightenment in favour of the narrow-minded, tribal concepts of cultural demarcation, ethnic destiny and rule of the volk.
1. Donald R. Kelley, Faces of History: Historical Inquiry from Herodotus to Herder, Yale University Press, New Haven
***
Von Herder and other of the Counter-Enlightenment, are today the public intellectuals who form the public meme. And yet few know of them, what they wrote, or why we assume that their works are our opinions. The concept of race is one such idea most take as axiomatic: we are something that others are not.
For the Left fascist dhimmis, the Islamic world is something quite different in and of itself, equally valid for its own internality, ie. it's Muslim victims. To create a false identity of race or of other identity is to seperate people from Humanity, assigning some rights and others not according to accidents of birth and circumstance. If the is exceptionalism, there is no universality. If there is no universality, then of course Islam has a right to enslave its populations, and we must honor its expection to the universe of others. That, dear reader, is in our opinion, a fascist postion that we refuse to accept, based as it is on nothing at all but wind.
We will again return to this topic. It is essential that we see clearly the origins of fascism to see the Left as fascist, and thereby to decide if indeed we are fascists too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
It it is a matter of numbers, and of determination. Are there not enough people willing, inside and outside of the WMAL listening area, who are willing to boycott every single one of the companies that advertises on WMAL? Everyone should be delighted to do so.
So who lives in Washington who comes to this site, and who is willing to organize, and announce, such a boycott? It costs nothing, after all. It costs only the intent to choose Goods & Services X rather than Goods & Services Y, Company A over Company B, all based on the fact that Y, and B, both continue to advertise on WMAL.
Posted by: Hugh