The hand-wringers about virulent Islamic fundamentalism ignore that it's been gaining traction in the past decade because it is perceived by many Muslims to actually be doing something to fight state-sponsored dehumanization of individuals.
In a grotesque affront to history and language, this dehumanization process has been overseen by totalitarians who call themselves "liberals," whether they manage public schools, universities, transnational corporations, international institutions, or propaganda operations for governments and the media.
The process has taken aim at both personal indentifications such as religion and national identities. Last night on the John Batchelor Show, Gregory Copley examined the role of the modern city-states in stripping people of their national identifications -- and the growing backlash here in the United States and around the world. Podcast title: With Trump, US Follows Brexit, Russia and China in Moving Away from “Urban-driven Globalism.”
From the introduction to the conversation at the JBS schedule page, which quotes paragraphs from Gregory's written analysis (probably at Defense & Foreign Affairs, which is behind a subscription paywall):
Monday 14 November 2016 ... Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs; in re: Sovereignty versus Globalism: "Strategic Ramifications of the Trump Presidency in the US, and the Expression of Something Wider and Deeper."
The great schism between urban-driven globalism and nationalism reached a significant milestone with the US election of November 8, 2016. The election inched the competition slightly back in favor of nationalism with the elevation of Donald Trump to the US Presidency.
[...]
"Significantly, two of the major US strategic competitors, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Russia, both already had a head start by virtue of their unambiguous commitment to nationalism. Perhaps, ironically, they had been the first to understand the failure of their earlier 'internationalist' and anti-nationalist ideological movements."
[...]The above photograph is from a BBC Magazine in-depth report Is Indonesia winning its fight against Islamic extremism?, December 19, 2015. The quote is from the Wall Street Journal's November 5, 2016 report, Hard-Line Strain of Islam Gains Ground in Indonesia, World’s Largest Muslim Country. As to where all this is leading in Indonesia:
BBC, November 14, 2016:
A two-year-old girl has died from injuries she sustained in an attack at a church on the island of Borneo in Indonesia.
Intan Olivia Marbun was severely burned after an attacker threw petrol bombs at a group of small children playing outside the church on Sunday.
Three other children were injured.
Police arrested a suspect after he was captured by local people following the attack.
The attacker has been identified as a militant linked to local extremists supporting the so-called Islamic State (IS) group.
[...]
Police say the attacker was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the word "jihad."
[...]********
I don't follow your logic. If Islamic fundamentalism is seen by Muslims to "be doing something to fight state-sponsored dehumanization of individuals" how can we "see where this is going" when the target of Muslim petrol bombs is children at a Christian Church?
ReplyDeleteIn what way are those children parry to any "state-sponsored dehumanization of individuals"?
In fact, the "dehumanization" phenomenon, while very interesting as an effect of what liberals do, looks to have no part in motivating the fundamentalists. That's just a mistaken view.
Rather, Islam views all infidels and their institutions, nations, and religions as filth (najis). Islam now properly understood, you can indeed say that you can see where that is heading when you see Christian children and churches being firebombed.
Col. Bunny, I might have fleshed out my discussion more but your observation was my point exactly, which was why I included the news report on the firebombing. These children weren't collateral damage in an ideological war; they were targets. So is that the Indonesian middle class' idea of fighting dehumanization -- a rhetorical question. But that's where it's led.
ReplyDeleteThis said, many Muslims are embracing their religion in a way they never did before. From the sign the young Indonensian is carrying, their protest -- at least among the educated middle class -- is not against another religion. Or rather the protest is against a 'Godless' religion of secularism enforced by the state, overseen by self-described liberals.
Their point is that if they have to be ruled by the state, they'd rather be ruled by the Caliph state.
However, the very strictures in Islam that you point out are unresolved even though many Muslims reject them. This leaves the door open for the kind of Muslims who murder innocents and the kind of Islam preached by the Saudis.
So Islam has a huge unresolved problem. But so does Christianity, the practice of which is quite methodically being destroyed by the very kind of 'liberals' that the young Indonesian Muslims are protesting.
See my post today, which features an important interview with the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. Here are a couple quotes from the interview:
"It seems as if political correctness is meant to limit Christians’ freedom to practice their faith."
"Western laws now clash with moral nature of man"
The interview was published the day after the mayor of an American city announced that the city had changed the name "Good Friday" to "Fall Holiday" to support cultural diversity.
These people are not playing; they want viritual robots for employees as a stopgap until the can use actual robots.
Almost a decade ago I predicted there would come a day when Rush Limbaugh and Louis Farrakhan linked arms in a desperate attempt to save their respective religious practices in America. I recalled the prediction the other day, when I came across a video of an interview Alex Jones (Info Wars) conducted within the past year with Farrakhan. The two were in remarkable agreement on several key points.