Multi-culturalism boon or bane?

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by inked

GW, the parallel is the PUBLIC intent, which, as I understand it, is precisely what is contested - in both cases. Possibly, I misunderstand, however, I think I do understand the feelings generated (rather like the Pope in the matter of the convent).

Just gonna say, no idea what convent you're talking about.

But more to the point, I think these are different senses of public in discussion here. When I speak of a public building, I mean public in a political or philosophical sense, i.e. pertaining to the state itself, rather than to private persons. I think you are talking about the intent or understanding of intent of the people who are involved in the situations, who are still private persons.

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by inked

Interesting idea, BJ. Does it apply to Haggia Sophia - now a Muslim conquered cathedral cum redecorated museum?

But the guys in Cordoba ... http://www.christiantoday.com/articl...ar+Religion%29

So, do Muslims adopt Western standards of live-and-let-live or is such tit-for-tat a one-way street just for the West?

Hmmm...................................

You link to a post which points out that Christians are refusing to allow Muslims to worship in what was once a mosque, and compare that to a former church/mosque which is now a secular museum where nobody is allowed to hold prayer services (except for this)

Use of the complex as a place of worship (mosque or church) is strictly prohibited.[26] However, in 2006, it was reported that the Turkish government allowed the allocation of a small room in the museum complex to be used as a prayer room for Christian and Muslim museum staff.[27]

So, if your argument is that Christians are being more intolerant than Muslims, you're making a good point.

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

You're certainly right about the Hagia Sophia; its loss was a travesty, and Turkey will not have any real human rights credentials until the Patriarch of Constantinople is able to worship freely, and until laws restricting the election of the Patriarch are abolished.

No-one is allowed to worship in the Hagia Sophia, as it's a national Turkish museum. How is its loss a travesty - or are you referring to when you guys ransacked it in 1204 and stole everything that wasn't nailed down?

Are you saying it should be returned to the Christians? - according to inked's link, the Muslims at Cordoba aren't going anywhere near that far; they're just asking for a little ecumenical tolerance.

And it should need no reminding how many Christian churches are built on the holy sites of other religions- should they all be handed back to their original owners?

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

No-one is allowed to worship in the Hagia Sophia, as it's a national Turkish museum. How is its loss a travesty - or are you referring to when you guys ransacked it in 1204 and stole everything that wasn't nailed down?

Are you saying it should be returned to the Christians? - according to inked's link, the Muslims at Cordoba aren't going anywhere near that far; they're just asking for a little ecumenical tolerance.

And it should need no reminding how many Christian churches are built on the holy sites of other religions- should they all be handed back to their original owners?

The pillage by the Catholic Crusaders was also a travesty, and they also made it into a Catholic cathedral, but at least they only held it for some sixty years. After that, the Orthodox were able to use it again. Not to say that it shows any good will on their part, but at least they failed.
When the Turkish invaders captured Constantinople, they pillaged the church and converted it into a mosque, and it has been a mosque or a museum for the past 650 years.
This was the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch, and the single most important part of Orthodox cultural heritage and architecture. We are not just talking about any old church that has been turned into a museum, we are talking about the center of Eastern Orthodox structures. It constitutes, with the other policies of the Turkish govt., the subjugation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. If a Xtian state had sacked Mecca, turned the Kaaba into a church, secularized, and converted it into a museum, it would be a crime against religious expression. The same situation is found here, only now it is the Xtians who are being oppressed, which no-one seems to take seriously.

For myself, I'm not trying to correlate this to Park51. It's simply a different issue on which there is something to say. I support the building of Park51, even if it were a mosque; religious freedom, 'nuff said.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

And it should need no reminding how many Christian churches are built on the holy sites of other religions- should they all be handed back to their original owners?

Yes. The poor Pagans have grown very impatient these last 2,000 years or so. And while we are at it lets hand back all those holidays that they coopted as well. Merry Saturnalia!

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I thought it was the birth of Sol Invictus.

[Insidious Rex]

That too. And the Goths and the Norse are still grumbling about the hijacking of their Yule Holiday tradition. But hey at least they kept the tree part. And dont give me any lip about Martin Luther starting that!

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Just gonna say, no idea what convent you're talking about.

In 1984 some Carmelite nuns established a convent on the grounds of Auschwitz. A lot of Jews objected, there were some confrontation between Jewish groups and the Catholic Church in Poland, but the issue was eventually resolved by the Church setting up an information and prayer center incorporating a coven on some property just outside the camp.

This is a Jewish source, but appears to be pretty even-handed:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/...2_0_01611.html

But more to the point, I think these are different senses of public in discussion here. When I speak of a public building, I mean public in a political or philosophical sense, i.e. pertaining to the state itself, rather than to private persons. I think you are talking about the intent or understanding of intent of the people who are involved in the situations, who are still private persons.

Yea- we seem to be talking a little at cross-purposes (like what else is new? )

I think Gwai is right, inked, that what you are comparing is the the publicly stated motives of those in favour of the mosque and the flag respectively, and their opponents attribution of darker reasons for their actions.

"The people who want to build the mosque say they're doing it to promote reconciliation, but they really are promoting Muslim triumphalism."

"The people who want to fly the Confederate flag say they want to honour the war dead, but they really are promoting white supremacy."

Whereas we've been using 'publicly' in the sense of displays by governments on public property- and hence state-sanctioned (the flag) -versus private buildings on private land (the mosque).

So a person could say "I absolutely support their right to build the mosque there, but I think they shouldn't."

Likewise, if the Sons of the Confederacy or anyone else wants to fly a Dixie flag on their own property, I support their right to do so, regardless of my suspicions about their motives.

(In the case of Georgia , the state senator who sponsored the addition of the battle flag to the state flag in 1956 admitted in 2003 that he and his fellow legislators did so as a message of defiance on integration and he supported its removal.)

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

When the Turkish invaders captured Constantinople, they pillaged the church and converted it into a mosque, and it has been a mosque or a museum for the past 650 years.
This was the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch, and the single most important part of Orthodox cultural heritage and architecture. We are not just talking about any old church that has been turned into a museum, we are talking about the center of Eastern Orthodox structures.

......
We all have centers...

"The Great Mosque of Cordoba placed its importance amongst the Islamic community of Al-Andalus for three centuries. In Cordoba, the capital of Al-Andalus, the Great Mosque was seen as the heart and central focus of the capital. " -"Legacy of Muslim Spain", quoted in Wiki

It constitutes, with the other policies of the Turkish govt., the subjugation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Don't know much about this- could you expand a little?

If a Xtian state had sacked Mecca, turned the Kaaba into a church, secularized, and converted it into a museum, it would be a crime against religious expression. The same situation is found here, only now it is the Xtians who are being oppressed, which no-one seems to take seriously.

It would have been a crime, which happened 650 years ago. Just as many others have happened over the years. What with the controversies and deaths caused by disputes over Ayodhya, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the Preah Vihear Temple, the Dome of the Rock etc I'm inclined to let sleeping dogs lie.

Of course I'm the wrong person to ask on this, as my concern with various Godhouses is strictly limited to the aesthetic/historical.

[The Gaffer]

For those who see an important distinction between Islamophobia and racism, the British police and government disagree:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/au...nce-league-ban

Formed less than a year ago, the English Defence League has become the most significant far-right street movement since the National Front. The Guardian spent four months undercover with the movement, and found them growing in strength and planning to target some of the UK's biggest Muslim communities

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2...ague-uncovered

(Note the warning re: language. It is pretty shocking stuff.)

[Gwaimir Windgem]

GM: Turkey refuses to recognize any of the official titles of Ecumenical Patriarch, or any aspect of his office reaching to the larger Orthodox world, referring to him only as "Patriarch of the Phanar" (which is a small church-heavy neighbourhood in Istanbul); since Turkey only recognizes the patriarch as leader of the Greek minority in Turkey, Turkish law mandates that the patriarch be a Turkish-born citizen. This narrowly limits the field of selection, particularly since the Greek population of Turkey is in steady decline (*cough* pogroms *cough*). It is practically impossible for foreign clergy to get permission to work and live in Turkey to support the patriarchate.

Affecting the Orthodox, though broader in application, is the demand that all religious education be controlled by the state, which lead to the closure of the EP's seminary forty years.

Anyone who actually believes in the separation of church and state, and not simply in the secularization of the state (which the phrase is often used to signify) must agree that such measures are oppressive.

Gaff: 1) Can't speak for the British govt., but I know that the American one, at least, has always tended to try to hammer things into pre-set categories, rather than trying to approach them as they are in themselves. 2) I must have missed something, but I didn't see where the Home Secretary called the EDL racist; the only one's I saw using that word were the Guardian. The govt line seemed to be that the march was going to be banned because it was liable to "spark public disorder."

Certainly, however, when they were screaming obscenities at "Pakis," and when they get people talking about blacks, that is racism pure and simple. When they get the guy saying he believes in freedom of religion, gay and lesbian rights, and women in the workplace, which Islam opposes, there the issue is not racial but ideological.

[inked]

Ah, tolerance, the famous Islamic tolerances of Spain! Yes, rather,

http://bigjournalism.com/abostom/201...lls-for-islam/

well.

It would seem that the Islamic concept of tolerance is not the equivalent of the "Western" idea, wot?

And the row about the Park51 mosque is genteel, by comparison with Cordoba and the current "hardliners" of dhimmitude as tolerance.

[The Gaffer]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

I must have missed something, but I didn't see where the Home Secretary called the EDL racist; the only one's I saw using that word were the Guardian. The govt line seemed to be that the march was going to be banned because it was liable to "spark public disorder."

Certainly, however, when they were screaming obscenities at "Pakis," and when they get people talking about blacks, that is racism pure and simple. When they get the guy saying he believes in freedom of religion, gay and lesbian rights, and women in the workplace, which Islam opposes, there the issue is not racial but ideological.

Thanks for taking the time to watch the video! Ha! I bet you're the only one who did

No, but this is politics, no-one is ever going to say that. Well, you might hear a Labour politician doing so, but not the Conservative Home Secretary. However, the British government recognises that racial tensions are at the heart of this protest, and therefore banned it.

I don't honestly believe that you are taken in by the fig leaf of the "freedom" argument either. These are not people who are otherwise champions of lesbian rights or equal opportunities. They are people who have these extreme, race-based views, and a sense of outrage at being besieged by an alien group. That is what brings them together in this EDF organisation.

Personally, I think it is essential to uncover these sorts of views and call out the racism in them. If we don't we end up with a form of dehumanised collective view of Muslims and Muslim countries.

Whoops! Too late!

[Gwaimir Windgem]

As for the freedom argument, I don't agree with it, but it does seem to me a credible concern one might have. Christopher Hitchens is pretty much an Islamophobe (deny the word as he might) for those reasons. One of the impressions I got from the video was that these are not all the same people with the same motivations. It seemed to me that it's not as simplistic as, for instance, the KKK in the States; even the Guardian video (and in my experience, the Guardian standard MO is to promote a one-dimensional absolutist liberalism) talks about how the success of the EDL shows that it's not only the standard far-righters who have serious misgivings about Islam, but there are many disparate motivations at work.

But really, if the government gives other reasons for banning it, and does not say it's racist, I don't know what else I can say.

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by inked

Ah, tolerance, the famous Islamic tolerances of Spain! Yes, rather,

http://bigjournalism.com/abostom/201...lls-for-islam/

well.

It would seem that the Islamic concept of tolerance is not the equivalent of the "Western" idea, wot?

And the row about the Park51 mosque is genteel, by comparison with Cordoba and the current "hardliners" of dhimmitude as tolerance.

It's certainly not the equivalent of the modern post-Enlightenment Western concept of tolerance, no.

But in comparison with Christendom at the time, Islam under the Ummayads and even later, was more tolerant, yes.

After all, when the Almohades, a group of fundamentalist tribesmen from the mountains of Morocco, conquered Spain in 1147, the great Jewish philosopher Maimonides had to flee.

Where did he take refuge? Among the kindly and tolerant Christian nations? No, he went first to Fes, and finally to Cairo, where he ended up as official physician to Saladin- somehow the idea of being a Jew in Christendom during the Crusades didn't appeal to him.

And of course the next chapter of the history of religious tolerance in Iberia is - The Spanish Inquisition.

Compare the treatment of Jews and Muslims under the Reconquista with the treatment of jews and Christians under Muslim rule:

During the Islamic administration, Christians and Jews were allowed to retain their religions by paying a tax (jizya). Penalty for not paying it was death: It was considered as an attack on the supremacy of Islam, and since the tax was for protection from outside invasions, refusal to pay was considered to weaken the empire. Attitudes towards dhimmis were variable, as well. During the time of the Almoravids and especially the Almohads some were treated badly, in contrast to the policies of the earlier Umayyad Caliphs and later Emirs.[citation needed]

The new Christian hierarchy demanded heavy taxes from non-Christians and gave them rights, such as in the Treaty of Granada (1491) only for Moors in recently Islamic Granada. It expelled the Jews. In 1496 the Alhambra decree under Archbishop Hernando de Talavera dismissed the Treaty of Granada and now the Muslim population of Granada was forced to convert or be expelled. In 1502, Queen Isabella I declared conversion to Catholicism compulsory within the Kingdom of Castilian. King Charles V did the same to Moors in the Kingdom of Aragon in 1526, forcing conversions of its Muslim population during the Revolt of the Germanies.[4] These policies were not only religious in nature but also effectively seized any wealth of the exiled.

Most of the descendants of those Muslims and Jews who submitted to compulsory conversion to Christianity rather than exile during the early periods of the Inquisition, the Moriscos and Conversos respectively, were later expelled from Spain and Portugal when the Inquisition was at its height. The expulsion was carried out more severely in Eastern Spain (Valencia and Aragon), due to local animosity towards Muslims and Moriscos where they were seen as economic rivals by the citizenry. A major Morisco revolt happened in 1568, and the final Expulsion of the Moriscos from Catilan in 1609, and from Aragon in 1610.

Because some Muslims and Jews shared ancestors in common with some Christians, it was difficult to expel all of those with any non-Christian ancestors from Castile or Aragon. However the Crowns, with the techniques of the Christian inquisition, had supposed success in killing, imprisoning, or expelling the converso "Moriscos" and Marranos. Those descended from Muslims or Jews practicing at the time of the Reconquista's close were perpetually suspected of various crimes against the Spanish state including continued practice of Islam or Judaism, and and any survivors were finally all expelled by the close of the next century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconqu...and_Expulsions




And before the Muslim conquest:

The Arian Visigoths were also tolerant of Jews, a tradition that lingered in post-Visigothic Septimania, exemplified by the career of Ferreol, Bishop of Uzès (died 581).

In 589, King Reccared converted his people to Catholicism. With the Catholicization of the Visigothic kings, the Catholic bishops increased in power, until, at the Fourth Council of Toledo in 633, they took upon themselves the nobles' right to select a king from among the royal family. Visigothic persecution of Jews began after the conversion to Catholicism of the Visigothic king Reccared. In 633 the same synod of Catholic bishops that usurped the Visigothic nobles' right to confirm the election of a king declared that all Jews must be baptised.

So now that we've established the Muslims in Spain were more tolerant than the Christians who ruled before and after them....

[GrayMouser]

I should add, that was then, this is now. Islam is far and away the least tolerant religion in the world today, and in many places, like Malaysia, is going backward.

I saw a very poignant series of photos of Kabul in the late 50s. Nurses in
Wesern uniforms looking after male patients, teen-age girls in pleated skirts, bobby socks and saddle shoes buying rock'n'roll albums in a record store, the university campus with male and female students sitting and chatting together- at most some of the female students had loose scarves over their heads. Sure, those were urban elites, but still....

[GrayMouser]

Though this would be hilarious, if it wasn't actually revealing of the way this is being played:

The gang at the Fox News morning show demands we 'follow the money' to find out where the funding for the community center is coming from.

On "Fox & Friends" yesterday, the Republican network continued in its campaign to destroy the reputation of Faisal Abdul Rauf, the head of the Park51 project that Fox News used to find unobjectionable. As part of the shameless smear, "Fox & Friends" is "following the money trail," asking questions like, "Where is this money coming from? ... This guy has questionable ties."

Former Bush administration official Dan Senor appeared on "Fox & Friends" and pushed a fairly specific angle: "The Kingdom Foundation, which has been a funder of Imam Rauf in the past, the Kingdom Foundation, so you know, is this Saudi organization headed up by the guy who tried to give Rudy Giuliani $10 million after 9/11 that was sent back. He funds radical madrassas all over the world." Brian Kilmeade added, "And he funds this imam."

Somehow they neglect to mention the name of "the guy" doing all this evil stuff.

Luckily the Daily Show steps in and takes Fox's advice to follow the money trail. The evil terrorist-supporting financier turns out to be....

Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal.

The second-largest investor in Fox News, after the Murdoch Family.
Gee, I wonder if that's why they couldn't bring themselves to say his name.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/arc..._08/025354.php

So,
-'this guy' is responsible for using his money to spread radical Islamic fundamentalism.
- he gets part of his money from from Fox News
-Fox news earns money from advertisers
-advertisers push their products on Fox because people watch it.
Therefore, if you watch Fox News you are contributing money to spread radical Islamic Fundamentalism- according to Fox News themselves

Remember, every time you turn on Fox, another madrass gets built..


http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mo...t-company-trap

And millions of Fox viewers will sit there and nod and say "see, that proves it, it's being financed by evil Muslim extremists", and Fox and the Prince will laugh at them all the way to the bank.

[The Gaffer]

I saw that programme: it was great. "Stupid or Evil". Heh. Both.

If only Satire hadn't already died a thousand more deaths since Kissinger.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Oh, Fox . . . I remember when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert presented for the Emmys a few years ago, they were announced with the words, "Ladies and Gentlemen, these two men have done for fake news what the Fox News Network has done for fake news!"

[Comic Book Guy]

Guardian standard MO is to promote a one-dimensional absolutist liberalism

As someone who reads the Guardian nearly day, believe me when I say that this statement is entirely false!