Jordan Peterson: Gender Pronouns and Free Speech War

Seppo Ilmarinen said:
I saw Danish documentary "Behind The Veil Of The Mosques" few days ago on TV, which shows hidden camera material from eight different Danish mosques, where all the clerics seem to be like minded pathological fanatics, who very least advise Muslims against Danish laws while promoting their version of Sharia law. I thought it would be quite unlike if Danish intelligence operatives and/or other similar government forces wouldn't have a clue what's going on in there, yet they let it run this way. Maybe there's similar thing going on, where some mosques in Europe are being intentionally infiltrated with radicals connected and controlled by Western intelligence agencies. This would be quite expected way to throw flames into anti-Muslim agenda. It's also known that some mosques in Europe are financed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia:

_http://www.thelocal.dk/20140619/denmarks-first-real-mosque-opens-bankrolled-by-qatar
_http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-21/saudi-arabia-funding-extremist-islamist-groups-germany

More than that, I think most mosques in western Europe were either started by the Gulf petro-kings, or existing mosques and Islamic networks were taken over by them.

A case in point:

The Saudi origins of Belgium’s Islamist threat

WaPo said:
...the inroads made in Belgium by the more conservative, orthodox brand of Islam espoused by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This is the consequence of actual policy. In 1978, the Saudi-backed Great Mosque of Brussels opened its doors; the elegant building and land where it sat had been a gift by Belgium’s then-king to his Saudi counterpart a decade prior.

It became the seat of Islamic activity in Belgium. A 2007 leaked U.S. diplomatic cable, published by the anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks, detailed how the Saudi Embassy in Brussels has continued to provide Korans to myriad mosques in the country and help pay for the upkeep of the structures. Saudi Arabia also invested in training the imams who would preach to a growing Muslim diaspora in European countries, including in Belgium.

Observers say the Salafist dogma of the Saudi-funded clerics active in many mosques in Belgium stood in contrast to the traditional beliefs of the mostly working-class Moroccan and Turkish immigrants who first arrived in the country in the 1960s and 1970s.

“The Moroccan community comes from mountainous regions and rift valleys, not the desert. They come from the Maliki school of Islam, and are a lot more tolerant and open than the Muslims from other regions like Saudi Arabia,” George Dallemagne, a Belgian politician, told the Independent last year. “However, many of them were re-Islamified by the Salafist clerics and teachers from the Great Mosque. Some Moroccans were even given scholarships to study in Medina, in Saudi Arabia.”

See also: Petro-Islam, the contention that "petrodollars have had a significant effect on Muslim beliefs and practices."
 
obyvatel said:
Similar dynamics happen for various modern ideologies ending in "isms", which Peterson points out frequently. The difference, imo, is that in case of religion-centric ponerization, it is easier to justify actions through appeal to a transcendent authority which makes it more difficult to bring individual accountability and responsibility into the picture.

For sure, as has been noted often enough, most of the large scale evils of this world have been fueled by one ideology or another, secular or religious. Scape-goating some transcendent authority for human responsibly is rather popular, mainly because taking full responsibility for oneself and one's actions is a daunting for many, if not most, people. In essence, learning to take responsibility in this way is what the 'Work' on the self is all about. Peterson suggests that individual responsibility and responsibility by the individual for the good of society at large (to the extent one is able) is the only way society (or the human race) can survive. Or perhaps more accurately, when large numbers of people in any society or on the planet shirk that responsibility (for one reason or another, often due to times of widespread insecurity across the board) and instead project it on to some power or in to some ideology, is when things go really kaflooey.
 
[quote author=whitecoast]
"Religion" these days in western culture usually is quite a trivial point of disagreement between people. Some people are Christians, some are Buddhists, Jewish, or Hindu but they all vote the same and believe in the same sort of human rights, and (usually) all believe in the official scientific worldview, UNLESS they are on different sides of the political spectrum, or have some more unique views (like those here). Religious differences (aside from minor theological differences nobody appears to care too strongly about) just seems to come down to differences in personal prayers, and different rituals for rights-of-passage, marriages, and funerals.
[/quote]

Yes, that may be the general state of affairs in a multicultural western society but things are different in other parts of world. I can share my experience in South East Asia, where most of the Muslims are converted to the faith as a result of Islamic imperial campaigns in the distant past.

Yes, like others, non-radical followers of Islam in general want more opportunities and amenities and access to resources. There is however a tendency at least among some sizable sections of Muslim population to prioritize their collective religious identity over and above social and economic needs, when they are living in a non-Muslim majority nation. My experience showed that a relatively moderate follower of Islam will refuse a secular education which would provide more economic and social opportunities in a multicultural society in fear of becoming an apostate. Many refuse to sing the national anthem of the land they inhabit since the anthem venerates the land and that is apparently not in keeping with the religious dictates of Islam ( or so they say, I do not know enough to judge if it is true). Religious schools called madrassas (perhaps petro dollar funded) teach outdated information and brainwash young minds, preparing them as future tools for nefarious agendas.

As far as some of the new Muslim majority nations that have sprung up in the 2nd half of the 20th century, there is an internal struggle between the radical elements and the more progressive elements for control of state policy, especially regarding the "church vs state" separation. Foreign powers do exploit such a situation to suit their geopolitical objectives. Moderate Muslim voices asking for greater thinking and analysis as opposed to blind faith are routinely killed by non-state actors (if interested look up Bangladesh blogger murders on the web). Minority communities which are few in number face significant challenges.

I think the lack of clear separation between religion and politics as well as a malnourished or non-existent civil society keeps at least some Islamic societies from progressing towards developing a wholesome system which can deal with the complexity of the modern world. The challenge of developing a wholesome system to cope with the complexity of the modern world exists in all cultures but Islamic society in general is perhaps behind most others in this respect. Yes, western powers have exploited and created conditions which are more favored towards radicalism. And this is the reasoning used by right wing elements within Islam to perpetuate their own power structures. Those voices within Islam which call for reform stress the importance of not blaming western powers for the state of affairs in Islamic society and call for more responsibility within the community. Those are the voices that need to be strengthened and provided a platform to reach more and more people rather than cleric apologists justifying how the religion is a religion of peace - osit.
 
Niall said:
Seppo Ilmarinen said:
I saw Danish documentary "Behind The Veil Of The Mosques" few days ago on TV, which shows hidden camera material from eight different Danish mosques, where all the clerics seem to be like minded pathological fanatics, who very least advise Muslims against Danish laws while promoting their version of Sharia law. I thought it would be quite unlike if Danish intelligence operatives and/or other similar government forces wouldn't have a clue what's going on in there, yet they let it run this way. Maybe there's similar thing going on, where some mosques in Europe are being intentionally infiltrated with radicals connected and controlled by Western intelligence agencies. This would be quite expected way to throw flames into anti-Muslim agenda. It's also known that some mosques in Europe are financed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia:

_http://www.thelocal.dk/20140619/denmarks-first-real-mosque-opens-bankrolled-by-qatar
_http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-21/saudi-arabia-funding-extremist-islamist-groups-germany

More than that, I think most mosques in western Europe were either started by the Gulf petro-kings, or existing mosques and Islamic networks were taken over by them.

And it's not only mosques. In France, Qatar has literally been taking over the "banlieues" - poor urban suburbs where most of the Muslim population is concentrated - funding "projects" for the "youth".

_http://www.france24.com/en/20120925-france-qatar-fund-invest-suburbs-business-economy-controversy-fears-muslim-unemployment

Qatar pours cash into France’s troubled suburbs
Latest update : 2012-09-25

Months after it was announced Qatar was financing a fund to economically reinvigorate France’s disadvantaged suburbs, the French government has said it also plans to pour cash into the project, which has already sparked much controversy.

It’s a tale of Qatari riches, disadvantaged French communities, politics and public image. The French government announced earlier this week that it would contribute to a fund to economically reinvigorate the country’s disadvantaged suburbs, or “banlieues” as they’re known in France. While on the surface the decision may seem unremarkable, the fund, which was initially to be financed entirely by Qatar, has been dogged by controversy.

The story began in November 2011, when ANELD - a French minority advocacy group comprised of elected officials from the country’s suburbs - approached Qatar’s ruler, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, with the idea to create a fund for business projects and proposals submitted by banlieue residents.

FRANCE'S TROUBLED SUBURBS

According to Leila Leghmara, vice-president and treasurer of ANELD, the small but oil-rich Gulf state had long expressed an interest in France’s disadvantaged areas, where youth unemployment can reach beyond 40 percent.

Qatar, which already has a number of investments in France and owns the world-famous Paris Saint Germain football club, offered 50 million euros for the project. When the news that the Gulf state was coughing up cash for France’s suburbs broke, it sparked a brouhaha among left and right-wing groups.

After protracted wrangling, during which the very purpose of the fund was threatened, President Françoise Hollande’s government decided to tackle this political hot potato once and for all.

Hollande’s minister of industry and growth, Arnaud Montebourg met ANELD’s members and stated that the government would also invest in the project, making it a joint French-Qatari fund.

While Montebourg has yet to give a clear indication of how much money the government plans to put up, Leghmara said the minister told ANELD that the project would total at least 100 million euros, roughly half of which would come from French funding.

‘Trojan Horse of Islamism’

At the heart of the controversy surrounding the fund lies widespread French suspicions over Qatar’s soft-power intentions in France’s disadvantaged banlieues, home to a significant number of France’s estimated 4-6 million Muslims.

“There’s something going on. Nothing is free, that’s for certain,” French Middle East expert Karim Sader told FRANCE 24. “We’re tempted to link the funding for the suburbs to Qatar’s Islamist leanings, given the country’s role in financing the Arab Spring revolutions and the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Over the past few months, Qatar’s role in the Arab Spring has raised eyebrows in Arab and Western diplomatic circles. Critics note that the Gulf emirate has been pushing the envelope. Qatar’s support for Islamist groups – including the Muslim Brotherhood and Libyan Islamist factions – have rung alarm bells across the international community.

Pointing to these Islamist ties, Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s far-right National Front party, immediately attacked the project on Monday, calling it a “major political mistake”.

“Arnaud Montebourg has shown that our country is indeed up for sale to oil monarchies who support radical Islam and jihadism across the world,” Le Pen wrote in a statement titled, “The Trojan Horse of Islamism”.

Members of the country’s political left also expressed discomfort with Qatar’s role in the project. Nicolas Demorand, director of the left-leaning French daily Libération, questioned the country’s motives for investing so much money into the suburbs in an editorial article published on Monday.

“Even if Qatari diplomacy works the circuits that define the modern world - those of finance, mass media, sport and entertainment, as well as the arts and academia - it is in no way a philanthropic enterprise (..) Therefore to see Qatar land in the French suburbs as a stand-in for a cash-strapped French Republic merits serious examination,” Demorand wrote.

Others, however, have viewed Qatar’s involvement more as an embarrassment for the French government.

“What’s interesting is that here is a state that is financing a project that is supposed to be [France’s] prerogative,” Sader told FRANCE24. “Our old countries are in crisis, and are no longer able to sustain a welfare state.”

An imperfect compromise

ANELD’s Leghmara agreed that Qatar’s involvement seemed to highlight France’s own failings, though also emphasising the benefits that Qatari funds would bring to communities starved of investment.

“We received hundreds of project propositions after we announced the creation of the Qatari fund. We can see that there is a real desire – one that the government couldn’t answer. It’s a kind of failure of the Republic. Both left- and right-wing parties have failed in the suburbs,” Leghmara added.

Faced with a sluggish economy and mounting youth unemployment, the French government’s decision could be viewed as a compromise designed to appease its left-wing and right-wing critics who warned that the Qatari-financed project would grant the wealthy Gulf emirate inordinate influence in France.

According to Leghmara, it’s also a calculated attempt at controlling not only the fund’s image, but also, in part, its execution.

“If the project were exclusively funded by the Qataris, it would be easier for people to say it is an attempt to introduce fundamentalism to these communities. Montebourg knew that, and thought it would be easier for people to accept a French-Qatari fund. The French government’s involvement also means that they have more control over the project and how the money is used,” Leghmara said.

See also: Qatar Financing Wahhabi Islam in France, Italy, Ireland and Spain
_https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2833/qatar-financing-wahhabi-islam-europe
 
obyvatel said:
Yes, that may be the general state of affairs in a multicultural western society but things are different in other parts of world. I can share my experience in South East Asia, where most of the Muslims are converted to the faith as a result of Islamic imperial campaigns in the distant past.

What you shared about how it is in South East Asia is very different to my experience with the majority of Muslims I know in a non-Muslim majority country in western Europe. It is actually the complete opposite. Though there are smaller groups of people who are exactly as how you described. It depends on a lot of factors on why they have such resistance or incapability to integrate. It is also mostly youths from those families (though not all of them), at least in western Europe, who are groomed and brainwashed in mosques such as those mentioned above.
 
Adaryn said:
And it's not only mosques. In France, Qatar has literally been taking over the "banlieues" - poor urban suburbs where most of the Muslim population is concentrated - funding "projects" for the "youth".

_http://www.france24.com/en/20120925-france-qatar-fund-invest-suburbs-business-economy-controversy-fears-muslim-unemployment

Qatar pours cash into France’s troubled suburbs

...which carries on where the CIA and Mossad left off:

The CIA radicalized French Muslims

The decision of the Central Intelligence Agency to fund, train, and arm Afghan mujaheddin fundamentalists against the Soviet Union and the socialist government of Afghanistan in the 1980s led directly to the radicalization of French Muslims. It was the CIA’s support for the mujaheddin assistance network known as “Al Qaeda,” or the “database” as revealed by the late British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, that facilitated the expansion of Saudi Wahhabist influence over Muslim communities not only in France but around the world.

Saudi Arabia was the chief source of money for the mujaheddin support network, which later was transformed into the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Al Qaeda, the Islamic State of the Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and various other jihadist groups from Morocco to Kashmir and from the Philippines to Trinidad.

The CIA’s support for Wahhabist- and Saudi- directed and influenced Muslim groups also helped eclipse the left-wing, secular, and socialist loyalties of most of France’s Muslims. Working class Franco-Muslims, especially those from North Africa, were always committed to the French Communist and Socialist parties. In the 1960s and 70s, French Muslims not only supported the French Communists and Socialists but also identified with the left-wing and socialist principles espoused by such North African liberation leaders as Algeria’s Ahmed Ben Bella and Moroccan Istiqlal Socialist leader Mehdi Ben Barka. During the 1980s, when the CIA strove to eliminate support for pan-Arab socialism in the Middle East and worked to crush socialism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere, the French Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (External Documentation and Counter-Espionage Service, SDECE) and its successor, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE), worked with the CIA to harass Ben Bella who was living in exile in France.

In 1965, the SDECE worked with the CIA and Israel’s Mossad on behalf of Morocco’s King Hassan II, to kidnap Ben Barka, who lived in exile in France. Ben Barka’s body was never found but Moroccan opposition sources revealed that Ben Barka was decapitated in a manner befitting the CIA-supported ISIL and delivered to Hassan in Rabat in a suitcase. The rest of Ben Barka’s remains were supposedly encased in cement and buried outside of Paris.

The CIA has admitted it maintains 1,800 documents on Ben Barka but it has refused to release them on national security grounds. Ben Barka’s links to Cuba’s Fidel Castro and other Third World leaders made him a primary target for elimination by the CIA.

The corporate media refuses to admit that from the 1960s to the 1980s, French Muslims were more secular and further to the left than the majority of French Jews.

'Left' here meaning what it used to mean, not today's identity politics garbage.

Socialist President Francois Mitterand, who ruled France from 1981 to 1995, rewarded his party’s Muslim supporters by appointing pro-Arab ministers, including Michel Rocard, Jean-Pierre Chevenement, Claude Cheysson, and Lionel Jospin. Mitterand was also on friendly terms with the North African presidents who were the heirs of their nations’ pan-Arab socialist independence movements: Habib Bourguiba and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia who governed under the mantle of the Neo-Destourian Socialist Party, and Algeria’s Chadli Benjedid, the successor to Algeria’s National Liberation Front (FLN) founding fathers.

The CIA’s support for Islamic fundamentalists, ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood battling Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt and Hafez al Assad in Syria, to the North African jihadists who were used as a recruiting ground for the mujaheddin army in Afghanistan, resulted in the steady radicalization of the Arab Muslim diaspora in Paris, Marseilles, and other French cities.

It was not until 1989 that the issue of French school girls wearing the hijab came to a head. Saudi- and Wahhabist-led fundamentalism soon swept across France’s Muslim communities and the once dependable Muslim base for the French Communists and Socialists was lost with many young Muslims living in the poor working class banlieue (suburbs) outside of Paris refusing to participate in French elections. Other French Muslims, witnessing the rise of the neo-fascist National Front and the rightist lurch of the conservative heirs of Charles De Gaulle, including Nicolas Sarkozy, continued to support the Socialists.

However, many Muslims became alarmed at the increasing anti-Muslim stance of some leaders of the French Socialist Party, including the present Sarkozy clone, Socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls. In the 2012 second round French presidential election, 93 percent of Muslim voters cast their ballots for the Socialist candidate, Francois Hollande. Sarkozy garnered 79 percent of the Catholic vote with Hollande winning only 21 percent. French Jews also voted overwhelmingly for Sarkozy.

The dirty little secret overlooked or ignored by the corporate media is that even though the CIA’s and DGSE’s support for jihadists in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen have continued the radicalization of French Muslims, particularly the youth, French Muslims continue to be the major bastion of support for French socialism and secularism.

French Jews, on the other hand, have supported jihadist Arab guerrilla movements. Bernard-Henri Levy, a supposed French leftist who supported Charlie Hebdo, has served as an intermediary between Libyan and Syrian jihadists and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. French Jews like Levy have had no problem backing jihadist-linked groups against Arab socialist leaders like Syria’s Bashar al Assad and Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi. Other French Jews have buried the hatchet with the once anti-Semitic fascist National Front and now support the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim platform of Front leader Marine Le Pen.

Forces loyal to Sarkozy have often committed false-flag operations in France as a way to stir up tensions between French Muslims and non-Muslims. This was very apparent in 2006 and WMR was the first to report on the operations in our October 26, 2006 report:

“WMR has received an eyewitness report to French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy’s operations to stir up violence in the Paris metropolitan area’s largely Muslim suburbs (banlieues). Sarkozy is running for president in next year’s election. On September 25, a police caravan used the right bank of the Seine’s Quai des Celestins as a staging area for an assault on the Tarterets banlieue in order to ‘rough up’ the locals. Several hundred police were press-ganged into service for the attack. Only a few arrests were made in what amounted to a psychological warfare operation. The pre-planned police assault was in retaliation for an earlier attack on two police officers in Tarterets. WMR has learned from French intelligence sources that assaults on police are also staged by Sarkozy and his supporters who have totally infiltrated the domestic intelligence service, the DST, and are now found in increasing numbers in the DGSE, the foreign intelligence service.”

In October and November 2005, arson attacks, especially on parked vehicles, spread across France, including to areas that had very few, if any, Muslim residents, but where Sarkozy needed political support. Thousands of vehicles were burned. On November 10, 2006, WMR also reported on Israeli involvement in the rioting on behalf of Sarkozy, who has Jewish parentage: ” . . . the rioting in France also involved, according to information presented in a new book in Germany, elements of Mossad’s special warfare Metsada and LAP—Lohamah Psichlogit—(psyops) units.”

In 2006, WMR also reported on Sarkozy’s involvement with the banlieue rioting:

“Interior Minister and presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, who is supported by pro-right wing Israeli (Likud/Netanyahu/Olmert) factions in France, coordinated and continues to coordinate the paying of agents provocateur to engage in violence in the predominantly Muslim banlieues of Paris and other cities. The November 2005 riots spread from Paris to Rouen, Lille, Nice, Dijon, Strasbourg, Marseilles (where Mossad’s Branch C, also responsible for Paris and London, maintains a large station), Bordeaux, Rennes, Pau, Orleans, Toulouse, Lyon, Roubaix, Avignon, Saint-Dizier, Drancy, Evreux, Nantes, Dunkirk, Montpellier, Valenciennes, Cannes, and Tourcoing.”

In 2012, the “lone wolf” Mohamed Merah incident preceded by a few weeks Sarkozy’s failed attempt to win re-election as president. WMR reported:

“Mohamed Merah, a 24-year old Muslim French citizen of Algerian descent, was identified as the gunman who committed the terrorist shootings of several people, including three Israeli-French school children at the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, along with their Israeli-French rabbi, in what is now being referred to by the neocon media as the ‘French 9/11.’ [Ed. note: the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher are now being called the French 9/11, as if the 2012 incident never existed]. French special warfare and tactics (SWAT) police shot and killed Merah after a stand-off at the man’s Toulouse apartment.

“Merah, who was armed with a small arsenal that included an Israeli-made Uzi, a Colt .45 pistol, a Sten gun, and a shotgun, also stands accused of shooting to death at point blank range a French Muslim soldier on March 11 and two more French Muslim soldiers on March 15. In the March 15 attack, Merah seriously wounded a black French Antillean soldier. Sarkozy’s popularity, which had been plummeting amid France’s economic crisis, has risen, with the mercurial French president presenting himself as the only person who was able to bring together French Jews and Muslims during a time of grief over the attacks that struck both communities. Sarkozy, in the 2007 campaign, presented himself as the only law-and-order candidate who could defeat the ‘Muslim threat’ posed by the arson attacks and drew support from France’s racist far-right by calling young Muslim rioters ‘scum.’”

Sarkozy has all but announced his intention of running for the French presidency in 2017. The French have an appropriate saying when it comes to the repeated fausse-bannière or false flag, operations: “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” (the more things change, the more they stay the same).
 
obyvatel said:
Yes, that may be the general state of affairs in a multicultural western society but things are different in other parts of world. I can share my experience in South East Asia, where most of the Muslims are converted to the faith as a result of Islamic imperial campaigns in the distant past.

Were Islamic conversions in SE Asia done by force? I don't think so:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Southeast_Asia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spread_of_Islam_in_Southeast_Asia

Note also that the first orders there were Sufi.

Also:

http://islamtoday.berkeley.edu/Islam_SoutheastAsia

Scholars still debate the means by which Islam came to Southeast Asia, with little direct evidence available to support any particular theory. There is general agreement however that conversion happened peacefully and followed the path of the trade networks linking the region with South Asia, China and the Middle East, in which Muslim traders and traveling preachers or holy men from these regions served as the main means of transmission. This connection to the sea means also that Islam made its initial impact and took root most extensively in the archipelagic region of Southeast Asia, in modern-day Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

The time frame for conversion to Islam in Southeast Asia is also uncertain. Although archeological remnants, such as tombs, exist from earlier periods, Islam only becomes more obviously prevalent in Southeast Asia after the 13th century, when it becomes an integral factor in the emergence of new kingdoms or sultanates founded along the important maritime trading routes.

'General agreement', of course, can be spectacularly wrong.

I point this out because 'Islamic' and 'imperial' don't really seem go together, at least not in the sense we mean when we speak of US or European imperialism.
 
Niall said:
obyvatel said:
Yes, that may be the general state of affairs in a multicultural western society but things are different in other parts of world. I can share my experience in South East Asia, where most of the Muslims are converted to the faith as a result of Islamic imperial campaigns in the distant past.

Were Islamic conversions in SE Asia done by force? I don't think so:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Southeast_Asia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spread_of_Islam_in_Southeast_Asia

Note also that the first orders there were Sufi.

Whether or how much conversions were forced I do not know. Depends on which historians one reads. My point in bringing up the point was to show that the majority of people following the Islamic faith in SE Asia did not arrive there from the Arabian peninsula. If I were to speculate, I would say systemic social injustice in the form of caste system in the Indian subcontinent may have caused a number of conversions. Another reason would be plum employment and other economic opportunities which opened up when new rulers of a different faith took over.


[quote author=Niall]
I point this out because 'Islamic' and 'imperial' don't really seem go together, at least not in the sense we mean when we speak of US or European imperialism.
[/quote]

I use the term "imperial" in the sense of acquisition of territories with military force. I do not know what revisionist histories are out there these days but the "generally accepted" history of SE Asia and the Indian subcontinent chronicles successive military campaigns culminating in a pan Indian Islamic empire which lasted until the British colonialists.
 
Back to the crazy - another university sets out to "enlighten" its employees re the realities faced by those who aren't of heterosexual orientation and its "privileges":

MARSHALL UNIVERSITY HOSTS TRAINING ON ‘HETEROSEXUAL PRIVILEGE’

First there was a slew of classes on white privilege
, now there’s a new flavor of privilege workshops. Marshall University in West Virginia will train employees about “heterosexual privilege” next week in an effort to better accommodate the college’s LGBTQ community.

“Our society is geared toward traditional heterosexual roles and relationships, and as a result there are certain privileges that heterosexuals in traditional relationships are afforded that they may take for granted that others in the LGBTQ community may not have,” Morgan Conley, a mental health specialist for the university, told Heat Street.

The Student Counseling Center will present its heterosexual privilege session on Tuesday as part of a bigger Safe Space training for faculty and staff. To illustrate heterosexual privilege, the university will ask employees to participate in a “Privilege for Sale” exercise.

“People attending the training will be broken into groups and have a list of privileges that heterosexuals typically have but that others in the LGBTQ community may not have, and they will only be able to select a few of those privileges,” Conley said. “The group has to collectively agree and then explain why they picked what they picked and why they didn’t pick others.”

One such privilege, she explained, is that cisgender people can, without fear, use the bathroom associated with their identified gender.

Attendees will also learn about LGBTQ vocabulary and how to avoid “language mistakes that make people uncomfortable,” the associate dean of student affairs told the Parthenon, Marshall University’s student newspaper.

The goal, Conley said, is to increase faculty and staff’s awareness about what LGBTQ students may face on campus so the university can foster a more inclusive community. The training is optional.

_http://heatst.com/culture-wars/marshall-university-hosts-training-on-heterosexual-privilege/

Right below this article is a Gender Identities quiz in which I scored 6 out of 10 correctly (I just guessed for several of them) > "Not bad but you can do better!". Oh, brother! Wait - am I allowed to say that?!!! What if my brother no longer identifies as a male sibling and I've offended his sensibilites and infringed upon his right to feel whatever gender mix he thinks applies to him/her/it?!!! Is "it" allowed?!!! I'm so confused!!!

For sure we have entered either a new timeline/reality/world where everything that was once completely normal is now mandated to be questioned as to its legitimacy as normal. And it's not at all hard to see where this is heading - the normalization of pedophila.

Check the pot - the frog is boiling!
 
obyvatel said:
My point in bringing up the point was to show that the majority of people following the Islamic faith in SE Asia did not arrive there from the Arabian peninsula. If I were to speculate, I would say systemic social injustice in the form of caste system in the Indian subcontinent may have caused a number of conversions. Another reason would be plum employment and other economic opportunities which opened up when new rulers of a different faith took over.

As I understand it, Islam was spread to India directly by Arabs from the ME (Caliphates) .
 
Joe said:
obyvatel said:
My point in bringing up the point was to show that the majority of people following the Islamic faith in SE Asia did not arrive there from the Arabian peninsula. If I were to speculate, I would say systemic social injustice in the form of caste system in the Indian subcontinent may have caused a number of conversions. Another reason would be plum employment and other economic opportunities which opened up when new rulers of a different faith took over.

As I understand it, Islam was spread to India directly by Arabs from the ME (Caliphates) .

That possibly seems correct about the conversions. Here is a little on this as a snip:

http://lostislamichistory.com/how-islam-spread-in-india/

Buddhism, which was once very popular in the subcontinent, slowly died out under Muslim rule. Traditionally, when people wanted to escape the caste system, they would move to the major population centers and convert to Buddhism. When Islam became an option, however, people began to convert to Islam instead of Buddhism, while still leaving the caste system. The myths of Islam violently destroying Buddhism in India are simply false. Buddhists were tolerated under Muslim rule and no evidence exists that shows forced conversions or violence against them.

Wandering teachers also had a major role in bringing Islam to the masses. Muslim scholars traveled throughout India, making it their goal to educate people about Islam. Many of them preached Sufi ideas, a more mystical approach to Islam that appealed to the people. These teachers had a major role in bringing Islam to the masses in the countryside, not just the upper classes around the Muslim rulers.

Did Islam Spread by Force?


While some claim that Islam’s huge population in India is a result of violence and forced conversion, the evidence does not back up this idea at all. Although Muslim leaders replaced Hindu kings in most areas, society was left as is. Stories of forced conversion are very few and often not credible enough to warrant academic discussion.

If Islam spread through violence and warfare, the Muslim community today in India would exist only in the areas closest to the rest of the Muslim world. Thus only the western part of the subcontinent would have any Muslim population at all. What we see instead is pockets of Islam throughout the subcontinent. For example, Bangladesh and its 150 million Muslims are in the far east, separated from other Muslim-majority areas by Hindu lands in India. Isolated communities of Muslims exist also exist in western Myanmar, central India, and eastern Sri Lanka. These communities of Muslims are proof of Islam spreading peacefully throughout India, regardless of whether or not a Muslim government existed there. If Islam spread by force as some claim, these communities of Muslims would not exist.
 
Joe said:
obyvatel said:
My point in bringing up the point was to show that the majority of people following the Islamic faith in SE Asia did not arrive there from the Arabian peninsula. If I were to speculate, I would say systemic social injustice in the form of caste system in the Indian subcontinent may have caused a number of conversions. Another reason would be plum employment and other economic opportunities which opened up when new rulers of a different faith took over.

As I understand it, Islam was spread to India directly by Arabs from the ME (Caliphates) .

It is generally accepted that Arabic people had established trade with the Indian subcontinent before the birth of Muhammad. So there was cultural interaction between Arabs and Indians since pre-Islamic days. After the birth of Islam, there were waves of military expeditions/invasions from the north western regions of the Indian subcontinent. Initially, these invasions were mostly for plundering wealth. But over the centuries, the expeditions penetrated deeper into the heartlands and the first Sultanate was established in the city of Delhi around the 12th century. The growth in the number of followers of Islam in the Indian subcontinent is again generally understood to follow the increasing consolidation of territory and political power on part of the Turkish heritage Sultans and then the Mongol heritage Mughals. The Mughal empire lasted until the British colonialists established themselves politically in the Indian subcontinent in the latter half of the 18th century. The correlation between the consolidation of political power by the Islamic conquerors and the rise in the number of followers of Islamic faith is expected since in those days no new religion could make large scale in-roads into a population without royal patronage.


Here is a link to a short excerpt from Will and Ariel Durant's "The Story of Civilization", chapter "The Moslem Conquest of India" chronicling early conquests by the Sultans in case anyone is interested.
_http://tarekfatah.com/the-muslim-conquest-of-india-from-will-durants-classic-11-volume-story-of-civilization-2/
 
obyvatel said:
It is generally accepted that Arabic people had established trade with the Indian subcontinent before the birth of Muhammad. So there was cultural interaction between Arabs and Indians since pre-Islamic days. After the birth of Islam, there were waves of military expeditions/invasions from the north western regions of the Indian subcontinent. Initially, these invasions were mostly for plundering wealth. But over the centuries, the expeditions penetrated deeper into the heartlands and the first Sultanate was established in the city of Delhi around the 12th century. The growth in the number of followers of Islam in the Indian subcontinent is again generally understood to follow the increasing consolidation of territory and political power on part of the Turkish heritage Sultans and then the Mongol heritage Mughals. The Mughal empire lasted until the British colonialists established themselves politically in the Indian subcontinent in the latter half of the 18th century. The correlation between the consolidation of political power by the Islamic conquerors and the rise in the number of followers of Islamic faith is expected since in those days no new religion could make large scale in-roads into a population without royal patronage.

That's my understanding of it too. The bulk of conversions on the Indian subcontinent took place via Turkic invasions from around Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Again though, I don't know to what extent we can say that that was the result of something specifically 'Islamic'. I suspect it's more a case of those Turkic-Mongol tribes invading India... because they wanted to invade India - not because they were 'Muslims'.

However, at the end of the day, history shows that they were Muslims, so any pillaging, plundering and genocide by them during Sultanate India is rightly associated with that religion.

Now, if we're taking Muslim armies forcing conversions as our standard, then Indonesia gives us a problem. No Muslim armies reached there, yet 87% of its population today is Muslim - compared to just 15% in India. Shouldn't those stats be the other way around if 'the sword' is 'the driving force'?
 
I think one of the problem about the history of Islam is that there are many Islams, both in space and in time. It is not a monolithic bloc, despite what the Islamic mythology claims (which became de facto the general view in the West as well). There is the proto-Islam from Mohammed to Uthman, The Arab Empire in Damascus, then the "non-Arab" empire in Baghdad, with different regional variations. For at least two centuries, Islam knew many transformations (with the famous episodes of burning all the copies of the Quran under Othman and El hajjaj) until it was so widespread that the Hadith had to be invented in order to introduce new judicial elements, and when this was widespread enough the so-called jurisprudence had to be invented.

On the political side it became as a spectacular wave of conquest with the collapse of the western part of the Byzantine empire (for example Syria and Egypt who where Christian with a lot of Jewish-Christian tension) and the Persian empire (especially in the West (Iraq) which was Christian and Jewish). The military conquest was nothing new because the whole region was already in war (Byzantium had just recuperated Large areas from Persia in the Middle-East). Also, these were strange times, right after Justinian's plague and the catastrophic events back then.

In the beginning Islam (this name appeared later under the first empire, the movement was called something like "the exiles" in reference to the biblical Exodus probably, and "believers") was like a revivalist monotheism with a mixture of tribal customs (so of which survives the first reforms under the empire) and it offered the populations of the conquered areas a new means to climb the social ladder after the collapse of the previous elite: by converting you're automatically part of the "community" (Umma). The first administrators of the empire were mostly Christians. So it is true that the spread of Islam in the first centuries was by military expansion, but the massive conversions was a complex process involving many different aspects.

Just as a note, which one of the earliest incidental non-Muslim references to proto-Islam is called "Doctrina Jacobi" by a certain Palestinian Jew who was forced to convert to Christianity in Carthage, a text dated to 634 AD:

When the candidatus was killed by the Saracens, I was at Caesarea and I set off by boat to Sykamina. People were saying "the candidatus has been killed," and we Jews were overjoyed. And they were saying that the prophet had appeared, coming with the Saracens, and that he was proclaiming
the advent of the anointed one, the Christ who was to come.

There are lots of fascinating early texts in the literature (this one copied from "Seeing Islam
as Others saw it" by R. G. Hoyland) but I think this subject is more suited to a different thread.

Edit: Clarity
 
Niall said:
Again though, I don't know to what extent we can say that that was the result of something specifically 'Islamic'. I suspect it's more a case of those Turkic-Mongol tribes invading India... because they wanted to invade India - not because they were 'Muslims'.

However, at the end of the day, history shows that they were Muslims, so any pillaging, plundering and genocide by them during Sultanate India is rightly associated with that religion.

Now, if we're taking Muslim armies forcing conversions as our standard, then Indonesia gives us a problem. No Muslim armies reached there, yet 87% of its population today is Muslim - compared to just 15% in India. Shouldn't those stats be the other way around if 'the sword' is 'the driving force'?
This reminds of school history lessons and some history books I read recently. If we look history of most of the states in India, it tend to be different. Every body is fighting with each other every 2 or 3 generations. Hindu king vs Hindu king , Muslim king vs Hindu king. Even the Muslim king with Muslim king on occasions.

why India didn't convert to Islam en masse is a interesting question, I think. These incursions happened over the centuries part by part and mainly for wealth. Obviously lot of resistances from Hindu kings. Hindu kings ruled(or controlled) people with lavish temples and architecture that accumulated lot of wealth that propagated religion. This is the main reason Muslim invaders even bothered to think about India.

What I read is, these Muslim sultans found it to be easy to control people instead of antagonizing the people over religion conversion by putting Muslim bureaucracy. Obviously many converted to Islam for what ever the benefit it afforded to them. Added to the mix is some secular Muslim emperors like Akbar and some of their popular secular Muslim bureaucrats. Well, There is always controversy whether Akbar is secular or not, Aurangzeb is really bad for Hindu's or not, depending up on the party, but general consensus is some sultans are secular. Even to today in rural and urban India, there are pure Muslim area's and Hindu area's, the arrangement seems to suit their religion convictions. Often, Vote bank politicians from both sides stir up these differences for their possible electoral gains.
 
Back
Top Bottom