New Study: Islam plays a greater role in radicalization than previously thought - Page 4 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14831009
ArtAllm wrote:Well, there is another option: Commies, Islamists and the stupid American Sixpack, who has to fight the "enemies of democracy", are all just pawns in the hands of Grandmasters, who are playing a global chess game, and they win because there is a controlled confrontation and people are killing each others.

Like an owner of a casino, who always wins as long, as there are people who play against each other.


I find your anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to be boring and irrelevant.
#14831012
It's very common in Europe (mainly in Germany and Sweden). They believe they are importing Muslims because the liberal Jews, on because Holocaust guilt but in fact those who import them are as antisemites as they are. They don't know nothing about European Middle East policy. European economic interests in the Arab world required a lax and complacent policy toward the Muslim immigrants streaming into Europe.
Last edited by noir on 07 Aug 2017 18:39, edited 2 times in total.
#14831015
Pants-of-dog wrote: always find it amusing when people confuse editorials with actual news articles. You do realise that what you cited is an opinion piece and not an objective analysis, right?


Who was confused? No one posted any confusion, are you psychic or just imagining things again?

Pants-of-dog wrote:But let us pretend for a second that it is right. If communists are also Islamists, then the US was supporting communism when it supported the Islamists during the cold war. Which means that either the US was wrong back then, or this guy is wrong now.

Which one?

Another POD logic fail.

Communists aren't Islamists and prior to their comprehensive defeat they would have felt very snooty and superior about rival radical ideologies like Islam, calling it primitive etc. However after things started going downhill for them and crucially the USSR experiences total systemic collapse while Islam is still kicking around making waves, then things look different. Islam now looks like the boss and communism the no hoper loser cult. Nobody loves a loser, even losers.

It's like a football fan whose preferred team just keeps losing all the time, sooner or later they will get tired of that and start looking to back a winning team. Relative to communism, Islam is winning.

The US supported the Muhajadeen in their fight against the soviets for the same reason they supported the Tibetan resistance against the Chinese comunist-imperialists. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend".
#14831043
Oxymandias wrote:@SolarCross

But Islam isn't a political ideology, it's a religion so it only talks about cosmology. This is why there's Islamic socialism, anarchism, communism, libertarianism, etc.


No religion has ever lacked a political side, and Islam least of all. Politics is asking who are our enemies and who are our friends, what shall we do to both and what rules do we live by. Islam has pretty clear ideas as to who are the enemies and who are the friends, and has clear rules for both. Islam is very much a political ideology at the same time as it is a religion.

Science is the only "ideology" that supposedly concerns itself exclusively with cosmology and even then almost never in practice.

Syncretism is no proof that Islam isn't a political ideology.
#14831049
SolarCross wrote:Who was confused? No one posted any confusion, are you psychic or just imagining things again?


Sorry, but are you saying that you intentionally cited an opinion piece?

Because I was giving you the benefit of the doubt.

Another POD logic fail.

Communists aren't Islamists and prior to their comprehensive defeat they would have felt very snooty and superior about rival radical ideologies like Islam, calling it primitive etc. However after things started going downhill for them and crucially the USSR experiences total systemic collapse while Islam is still kicking around making waves, then things look different. Islam now looks like the boss and communism the no hoper loser cult. Nobody loves a loser, even losers.


So, which Communists are supporting Islam?

As far as I can tell, this has never been the case.

It's like a football fan whose preferred team just keeps losing all the time, sooner or later they will get tired of that and start looking to back a winning team. Relative to communism, Islam is winning.


Instead of spending time writing analogies, you could actually mention some Communists who support Islamists.

The US supported the Muhajadeen in their fight against the soviets for the same reason they supported the Tibetan resistance against the Chinese comunist-imperialists. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend".


And how did that work out for them? Remember 9/11? Using US foreign policy as a way of arriving at logical conclusions does not seem like a good idea.

The enemy of the enemy is not my friend. He is simply the enemy of my enemy. Whether or not he is my friend or enemy depends on other things.

-----------------

I just reread the OP and noticed that the study is not based on interviews with 29 people. It is based on 29 interviews. So the sample size can be a lot smaller.
#14831071
Pants-of-dog wrote:Sorry, but are you saying that you intentionally cited an opinion piece?

Because I was giving you the benefit of the doubt.

Pofo is 99% opinion pieces, you are no different, maybe even a little worse, since when is an opinion piece verboten? Anyway the facts that were the basis of the analysis were universally uncontroversial, so it wasn't as if it was an opinion piece that invented dozens of new genders or pretended that white skin equals evil as in the sort of trash you like.

Pants-of-dog wrote:So, which Communists are supporting Islam?

As far as I can tell, this has never been the case.

Whenever Islam comes under some criticism for anything from burkhas to suicide bombers the apologists that come out of the woodwork to push back against that criticism are predominantly of the left including communists. Not exclusively of course besides the Islamists themselves there are some who aren't overtly leftists who will white knight for poor oppressed beheading and bombing Islam but there is a notable preponderance of leftists in with the apologists. You have done it yourself and unless you are completely lacking in self awareness you know you have.

So that is a phenomena that begs an explanation. My hypothesis is that when communism lost the cold war and in particular took some of their defeat at the hands of Islamists there is natural tendency for those who backed the losing side to switch or a least feel sympathy for a similarly totalitarian ideology which has demostrated more win ability, which in this case would be Islam.
#14831078
@SolarCross

1. Islam basically says that the form of government depends on the circumstance of the country. Basically government is a tool and different tools are meant for different situations. This opens the door for exploration of different types of governments.

2. No, it isn't at all. Political ideologies are ideas for the governance of society. The thoughts of a political ideology of another ideology is only part of the picture and isn't even that much of an issue given that political ideologies are just a collection of ideas that can be molded and changed.

3. Science and politics are just as intertwined as religion and politics. Science has it's own politics. Science isn't completely objective most of the time and many have different hypothesis and different theories with different types of evidence with each scientist bringing his own criticism to the table.

4. If Islam was a completely political ideology there wouldn't be syncretism at all since when Islam dips it's toes into politics it is often incompatible with libertarianism, anarchism, communism, and socialism.
#14831086
@SolarCross

So? That's just an excuse to not link to hard evidence. I don't care about if 90% of PoFo is opinion pieces, there's no reason why you can't be in the 10% or do you think of yourself so lowly? Furthermore your absolute aggressive-ness towards POD for simply asking for evidence shows that you don't have any hard evidence to base your claims on.

Your hypothesis is not a hypothesis, but an assumption. You combine all communists together into one unified entity as you usually do with whatever ideology you're against (that's laughable at best) and then you make the assumption that every single communist along with leftists defend Islam every single time and then assume every single communist in the world's motive for defending Islam.

You're basically saying that all the communists in the world that have defended Islam all have one single motive and all the communists in the world are all united under one flag.

Are you fucking kidding me?

(Also communism and socialism are very broad ideologies that consist of many different sub-ideologies. Also if your definition of communism is anything that came out of Marx's mouth than I would have you know that Marx's communism is about decentralized factories owned and run democratically by workers with each of these factories and communes working together cooperatively based on their common interests. Now I don't agree with everything Marx says, but I cannot resist the temptation of calling someone out for their bullshit)
#14831116
@Oxymandias
Oxymandias wrote:1. Islam basically says that the form of government depends on the circumstance of the country. Basically government is a tool and different tools are meant for different situations. This opens the door for exploration of different types of governments.


This in no way contradicts that Islam is a ideology with a (strong) political aspect. Sharia is a system of law that is directly derived from Islamic holy texts. There is no possibility of any belief system with prescriptions pertaining to law to be anything other than a political ideology. Why even deny that? Just to gainsay me?

Yes Islamists might play around with a form of an almost western style democratic republic as in post revolutionary Iran or operate within a more tried and tested structure that westerners recognise as a absolute monarchy as with Saudi Arabia and the United Emirates but if Islam is shaping the substance of the law in both then it is completely disingenuous to say that Islam is apolitical.

Oxymandias wrote:2. No, it isn't at all. Political ideologies are ideas for the governance of society. The thoughts of a political ideology of another ideology is only part of the picture and isn't even that much of an issue given that political ideologies are just a collection of ideas that can be molded and changed.


You contradict yourself. If political ideologies are ideas for the governance of society then Islam is nakedly a political ideology. Does Islam have nothing to say on dress codes, monetary exchange, conduct of warfare, proscribed behaviours etc? Exactly, Islam has plenty to say on how society should be governed. Why is this fact even a problem for you? If you are pro-Islam on any level to posit that Islam is deficient on the important subject of politics that is also to condemn Islam as inadequate as a religious philosophy.

Oxymandias wrote:3. Science and politics are just as intertwined as religion and politics. Science has it's own politics. Science isn't completely objective most of the time and many have different hypothesis and different theories with different types of evidence with each scientist bringing his own criticism to the table.


I agree here. The mission of science is to understand the universe just as it is, which in itself is an apolitical goal, but it is impossible to delve into the mysteries of the universe, retrieve knowledge and publish that knowledge without becoming entangled in politics because the that knowledge has real world consequences from atom bombs to whether Darwin natural selection should be taught in public schools. Even science cannot avoid the taint of politics so how can you claim Islam as so separate?

Oxymandias wrote:4. If Islam was a completely political ideology there wouldn't be syncretism at all since when Islam dips it's toes into politics it is often incompatible with libertarianism, anarchism, communism, and socialism.


Yes it is definitely possible to play syncretism with political ideology, have you never heard of national bolshevism? Islam has a strong message that scarcely needs an external filler so while do see that playing syncretic games with other political ideologies like anarchism or communism is possible it is unlikely to bear any particularly infective fruit that you couldn't have by staying pure and avoiding syncretism.
#14831120
@SolarCross

Sharia law was something created after the death of Muhammed as an interpretation of the legal system of the time of Muhammed. Therefore it is extremely loose and often times isn't necessary. Sharia has traditionally been set by local authorities rather than a central authority. This is also why the Ottoman Empire and the Allies had such a hard time turning the Middle East into nation states. The Ottoman Empire itself had a system where Sharia was only placed on certain individuals if they wished. Basically Sharia isn't necessary and isn't even mentioned in the Quran nor the hadiths, it was created independent of them.

It depends on what you define as "governance of society" as the term is very loose. Based on your definition all religion and science would be considered "governance of society" and therefore a political ideology. Religious philosophy is an oxymoron given that religion is something completely different from philosophy. A religion may start out as a philosophy, but then becomes a religion. My problem lies in the implications of your statements. Furthermore I am not pro-Islam at all. Considered what I have said about Islam before I find that statement hilarious.

Both religion and science have the same goals, they just accomplish those goals through different processes and with results. Islam is an attempt to create a better understanding of the universe based on what was at the time, the best current understanding of the universe (Christianity). Also it seems you have a very simplistic definition of politics. My point isn't that consequences of science is political but that the process of science is political. As someone who has done scientific research, I will have you know that it is very easy to screw up doing science and that often times you can get any result you want from the tools we have today. Furthermore there is no meaningful way to verify the results as even meta-analysis is flawed in some way. Therefore the only thing that exists then is politics.

This is because Islam talks about only cosmology but it does not use a specific process like science but is fantasy. Because of this it doesn't run into the same problem science has which is good intentions but by going through the process finds that many things are infallible. Since Islam is fantasy, it doesn't fall into that trap and stays with the intention of finding out more about the universe throughout. I will have you know that I believe that Islam certainly has some political elements in it and to say it doesn't is foolish but I don't think it's a political ideology since it deals mostly with cosmology and only touches on politics.

However Islamic anarchism, libertarianism, communism, and socialism exist with very good justifications for them that can be found in Islamic texts. If Islam is a political ideology and therefore has an extremely strong message, then it would be impossible for these things to exist with justification for them. This is because Islam is cosmological and leaves alot of politics out so people can fill in the blanks.
#14831128
Pants-of-dog wrote:I find your anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to be boring and irrelevant.
@ArtAllm never forget that POD only replies to people whose arguments he respects. POD doesn't consider my arguments worthy of response (or so he claims), but he honours you with his comradely criticism. ;)
#14831135
SolarCross wrote:PoFo is 99% opinion pieces, you are no different, maybe even a little worse, since when is an opinion piece verboten? Anyway the facts that were the basis of the analysis were universally uncontroversial, so it wasn't as if it was an opinion piece that invented dozens of new genders or pretended that white skin equals evil as in the sort of trash you like.


I am getting a bit tired of explaining the most basic and simple rules of debate.

Opinion pieces are not factual and objective and are not trying to be. Studies and news articles are trying to be objective. The former are simply arguments written by other people. The latter are the data with which arguments are supported.

Whenever Islam comes under some criticism for anything from burkhas to suicide bombers the apologists that come out of the woodwork to push back against that criticism are predominantly of the left including communists. Not exclusively of course besides the Islamists themselves there are some who aren't overtly leftists who will white knight for poor oppressed beheading and bombing Islam but there is a notable preponderance of leftists in with the apologists. You have done it yourself and unless you are completely lacking in self awareness you know you have.


So I am the communist supporting Islam?

I have no idea how many times I have repeated this but here it is once again, because you are apparently confused:

I do not support Islam or Islamists.

I do not support Islam or Islamists.

I do not support Islam or Islamists.

I repeated it three times so it would sink in.

I support freedom of religion. Or to be even more clear and specific, I point out that the rules of western society support freedom of religion.

In other words, the very culture you are supposedly defending from the evil Muslims supports the idea of freedom of religion, and it would be nice if you guys could have some logical consistency.

So that is a phenomena that begs an explanation. My hypothesis is that when communism lost the cold war and in particular took some of their defeat at the hands of Islamists there is natural tendency for those who backed the losing side to switch or a least feel sympathy for a similarly totalitarian ideology which has demostrated more win ability, which in this case would be Islam.


This is stupid. You have not named a single Communist who supports Islam. So this phenomenon that supposedly begs an explanation seems to be non-existent.
#14831146
@Pants-of-dog

Actually these guys want to turn the West into the Middle East, they want to go back to "the golden age" of misogyny, racism, strong government, unprotected capitalism, and poverty of the 1900 - 1980s. This is why you see these people calling themselves "culturally christian" or whatever. The only reason why they dislike Islam and "backwards savage Islamic Arab culture" is because they don't possess the self-awareness to see that Islam and "savage backwards Arab culture" are basically the things they want with the exception of the unprotected capitalism part.
#14831383
Pants-of-dog wrote:I am getting a bit tired of explaining the most basic and simple rules of debate.

So don't.

Pants-of-dog wrote:I support freedom of religion. Or to be even more clear and specific, I point out that the rules of western society support freedom of religion.

In other words, the very culture you are supposedly defending from the evil Muslims supports the idea of freedom of religion, and it would be nice if you guys could have some logical consistency.

You don't seem to understand the intended meaning of "freedom of Religion". It was referring to the Judeo-Christian belief and Christian denominations. It did not include "pagan religions" or freedom to worship the devil or other so-called gods or to promote "doctrines of demons".

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0304/p ... 30_04.php3

HalleluYah
Praise the Lord
#14831405
Hindsite wrote:So don't.


Well, then you can explain how editorials and articles differ to SolarCross.

You don't seem to understand the intended meaning of "freedom of Religion". It was referring to the Judeo-Christian belief and Christian denominations. It did not include "pagan religions" or freedom to worship the devil or other so-called gods or to promote "doctrines of demons".


I doubt it. This seems like your usual trolling.
#14831411
Pants-of-dog wrote:Well, then you can explain how editorials and articles differ to SolarCross.

I made a simple reply to your statement:
You: "I am getting a bit tired of explaining the most basic and simple rules of debate."
Me: "Then, don't."

I am not interested in explaining anything to SolarCross.
Besides, he has not asked me to explain such things.
I was only interested in explaining "freedom of religion" and giving you simple advice.
#14831486
Oxymandias wrote:@noir

Furthermore,



This was written by Gilbert Achcar, a professor of Development Studies at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, and he argues that historical narratives often over-emphasize collaboration and under-appreciate progressive Arab political history, overshadowing the many dimensions of conflict between Nazism and the Arab World. He accuses Zionists of promulgating a 'collaborationist' narrative for partisan purposes. He proposes that the dominant Arab political attitudes were 'anti-colonialism' and 'anti-Zionism,' though only a comparatively small faction adopted anti-Semitism, and most Arabs were actually pro-Ally and anti-Axis (as evidenced by the high number of Arabs who fought for Allied forces).


You're probably right. There was limited success amongst the Shia. During the war, Ayatollah Khomeini denounced the “Hitlerite ideology” (maram- i Hitleri) as “the most poisonous and heinous product of the human mind.”

Source: David Motadel Islam and Nazi Germanys War

Excerpt
Spoiler: show
On the whole, opinions expressed
in the public sphere were quite diverse— refl ecting the heterogeneity of the
societies in the region— ranging from fascination and sympathy to con-cern and contempt. Yet, what ever their views, the vast majority showed no Islam and the War in North Africa and the Middle East
[ 109 ]
reaction to Berlin’s calls for religious violence and revolt. It is, moreover,
striking that the Islamic slogans of Germany’s propaganda also had little
resonance in religious circles and among the leading ‘ulama— as a broad-
sketch view quickly reveals.
Among the listeners of Radio Berlin in Iran is said to have been the
young mullah Ruhollah Musavi, in the holy city of Qum.215 Every eve ning,
Musavi, who had a radio set built by the British manufacturer Pye, appar-ently hosted numerous mullahs and seminary students who came to his
house to listen to Zeesen’s Persian ser vice. Mullah Musavi, who later be-came known to the world as Ayatollah Khomeini, seemed little impressed
by the German program. In 1942 he published the tract Kashf al- Asrar
(The Revealing of Secrets), his fi rst po liti cal statement, in which he not only
agitated against the antireligious polemics of the Pahlavi state and called
for rule on the principles of Islam but also raged against oppressive regimes
more generally, denouncing the “Hitlerite ideology” (maram- i Hitleri) as
“the most poisonous and heinous product of the human mind.” 216 Some
other younger clerics had more pro- German leanings, most famously the
ardent anti- imperialist Ayatollah Abu al- Qasem Kashani, whose father, the
late Ayatollah Mostafa Kashani, had died fi ghting British troops in south-ern Iraq during the jihad of the First World War, and who, in 1943, was
arrested for pro- German activities by British authorities.217 The conserva-tive clerical establishment in Iran, however, abstained from politics, re-signed to their seminaries.218 Prominent clerics such as Ayatollah Muham-mad Husayn Burujirdi, who shortly after the war emerged as the sole
marja‘- i taqlid, the highest religious authority in Shi‘a Islam, preached po-liti cal quietism.219 Outside Iran, too, Shi‘a authorities remained cautious.


The Shi‘a ‘ulama of Najaf and Karbala was not, unlike during the First World
War, united behind Germany.220 In early 1940, Amin al- Husayni, then in
Baghdad, tried to persuade some of the Shi‘a leaders of southern Iraq to
endorse his jihad, approaching the se nior clerics ‘Abd al- Karim al- Jaza’iri
and Muhammad Kashif al- Ghita, who had both played prominent roles in
Iraqi politics during the interwar years.221 While al- Jaza’iri gave short
shrift to the Palestinian mufti, Kashif al- Ghita was more receptive, issuing
a fatwa with a call for holy war against the British Empire, which was also
announced by Yunus Bahri on Radio Berlin on 13 February 1940— though
with little effect.222 No major Shi‘a uprising broke out during the war. The
Germans had little more impressive to record than some graffi ti: in early Muslims in the War Zones
[ 110 ]
1942 a German diplomat reported that in both Beirut and Damascus the
slogan “Hitler, the successor of ‘Ali” had appeared on the walls, scrawled
by Shi‘a rebels or possibly by German agents.223
In the Mashriq, German propaganda received a mixed reception.
#14831489
Hindsite wrote:the Judeo-Christian belief

Only certain Judeo-Christian beliefs were tolerated.

America's true history of religious tolerance. wrote:While it is true that the vast majority of early-generation Americans were Christian, the pitched battles between various Protestant sects and, more explosively, between Protestants and Catholics, present an unavoidable contradiction to the widely held notion that America is a "Christian nation."

Image

Philadelphia's Bible Riots of 1844 reflected a strain of anti-Catholic bias and hostility that coursed through 19th-century America.

Oxymandias wrote:Ingliz, I would like you to clarify your relationship between yourself and Islam.

There is no relationship.

I am an atheistic Marxist. There is no God and the concept of God is nothing more than a pathological indicator of man’s alienation in an immoral society.

Emile Durkheim wrote:Society is the father of us all.


:)
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