We don't need 'The War Against Terror' what we need is war against sectarianism

[Muslimwoman]

Hi Snoopy

So where do we draw the line, at what point do we allow the government to legislate our entire life? I agree there are consequences for others in our decisions and actions but should we not be permitted to make decisions and take actions that are not intended to harm anyone? I just worry that we are trying to legislate pegs of various shapes and sizes into a one size fits all round hole and if that happens I think we will lose one of the things that makes Britain Great, our diversity.

Salaam
MW

[China Cat Sunflower]

Originally Posted by MW

That was my point, we are currently lacking in great activists, people worthy of following in example.

But see... that's a function of fresh mythology. We're burnt out on the hero minting thing because we're now hip to mass media and jaded to the whole process. That's what postmodernity is. I mean, it's Eve and the apple all over again.

To the OP: It isn't about sectarianism, it's about tribalism. Specifically, the problem is that Middle Eastern countries have despotic regimes which have historically negotiated control of states by forging an alliance of graft with tribal control structures. The very nature of this process of cementing power ensures that only an absolutely ruthless strong-man can govern. I give you Sadaam, Mubarek, Musharef, Bashir, and that alphabet named guy from Iran who I can't remember how to spell his name. The power trade off between the house of Saud, for example, and the Wahabists comes to mind.

Chris

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by Muslimwoman

So where do we draw the line, at what point do we allow the government to legislate our entire life? I agree there are consequences for others in our decisions and actions but should we not be permitted to make decisions and take actions that are not intended to harm anyone? I just worry that we are trying to legislate pegs of various shapes and sizes into a one size fits all round hole and if that happens I think we will lose one of the things that makes Britain Great, our diversity.
Salaam
MW

Hi MW,

I'm agreeing with you regarding freedom and diversity, but there's the impossibility of trying to square all of the circles, given the diversity in the UK. So the answer to your questions is there isn't one; just constant tensions, compromises and adjustments...

bit vague that I know but I can't say "you draw the line .... HERE!!!"...shifting sands and moving goalposts and all that...

s.

[Muslimwoman]

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

Specifically, the problem is that Middle Eastern countries have despotic regimes which have historically negotiated control of states by forging an alliance of graft with tribal control structures.

Hi Chris

Whilst I think you have hit the nail on the head, I do not think our democratic western countries are paragons of virtue.
Look at the issue of arms in the USA. The people, in the free democratic elections, elect a congressperson that wants to ban arms. Yet 6 months later there has been a trade off with the gun lobbyists and suddenly the person you elected is voting, on your behalf, for the right to bear arms. My government is just as guilty of this, as are most western governments. I realise it is a different issue but trade off is a part of every nation, our countries all do deals in order to retain their power base. Then our governement have the nerve to say that we have a democratic system and they answer to the people - yeah right.

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

The very nature of this process of cementing power ensures that only an absolutely ruthless strong-man can govern. I give you Sadaam,

Would that be the same Saddam that the west placed into power, supported and then killed, along with the destruction of his country? At what point did the west try to implement democracy in Iraq? Imho, they did not and they actively assisted in creating the dictatorship, as it served their purposes at the time.

[Muslimwoman]

Originally Posted by Snoopy

Hi MW,

bit vague that I know but I can't say "you draw the line .... HERE!!!"...shifting sands and moving goalposts and all that...

s.

Hi Soopy

Correct, there is no set answer but we seem to be going from one extreme to the other. My Latin teacher used to bounce the wooden board rubber off my head and yet last year a local teacher was suspended for months and months for assaulting a child. The school and parents wanted him reinstated but it didn't happen. The great crime - two boys had locked a girl in a cupboard and stood in front of it. The teacher pulled one boy, by the arm, out of the way to open the cupboard. Hey presto, physical assault. When are we going to see that the answer tends to lie in the middle, it is wrong to bounce wood off kids heads but it is also wrong to stop a teacher from protecting a child. Why always react in a knee jerk way and go to the other extreme?

MW

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by Muslimwoman

When are we going to see that the answer tends to lie in the middle

Hi MW,

I am indeed an exponent of the middle way. Although the board rubber doesn't seem to have done you any harm, you're Latin seems excellent!

s.

[Muslimwoman]

Originally Posted by Snoopy

Hi MW,

I am indeed an exponent of the middle way. Although the board rubber doesn't seem to have done you any harm, you're Latin seems excellent!

s.

Hi Snoop

LMAO hey wouldn't you learn quickly if there was a board rubber stotted off your head every 5 minutes?? Amazing I ever learnt anything really.

MW

[China Cat Sunflower]

Originally Posted by Muslimwoman

Hi Chris

Whilst I think you have hit the nail on the head, I do not think our democratic western countries are paragons of virtue.
Look at the issue of arms in the USA. The people, in the free democratic elections, elect a congressperson that wants to ban arms. Yet 6 months later there has been a trade off with the gun lobbyists and suddenly the person you elected is voting, on your behalf, for the right to bear arms. My government is just as guilty of this, as are most western governments. I realise it is a different issue but trade off is a part of every nation, our countries all do deals in order to retain their power base. Then our governement have the nerve to say that we have a democratic system and they answer to the people - yeah right.



Would that be the same Saddam that the west placed into power, supported and then killed, along with the destruction of his country? At what point did the west try to implement democracy in Iraq? Imho, they did not and they actively assisted in creating the dictatorship, as it served their purposes at the time.

I think it's wrong to see this as an ideological struggle between East and West. Where ideology is employed it is ever the vehicle of agitation propaganda. Ideology on its own is nearly impotent. Where religious ideology is utilized as agitprop, some elements of the ideology are cherry picked to be emphasized, while others are deemphasized because they don't serve the larger goal. An easy example is the general deemphasis of the "love your enemies" ideology in Christianity. That bit doesn't work well. Same with all the stuff in the Islam against violence. It just doesn't work well as agitprop so it's pushed into the background.

I think what's going on in the Middle East is a people power revolution. Islam may be the vehicle, but the motivation is the people's dissatisfaction with the unjust and inequitable conditions in which they must live. It's a dangerous situation for the established state power structures, but fortunately for them, Uncle Sam has declared a "war on terror" to help prop them up. Of course they must remain beholden to us and our mega corporate patrons.

Power to the people, baby!

Chris

[Muslimwoman]

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

I think what's going on in the Middle East is a people power revolution. Islam may be the vehicle, but the motivation is the people's dissatisfaction with the unjust and inequitable conditions in which they must live. It's a dangerous situation for the established state power structures, but fortunately for them, Uncle Sam has declared a "war on terror" to help prop them up. Of course they must remain beholden to us and our mega corporate patrons.

Well imho the problem we have in the Middle East is that people are not being offered a third option. To us the west may seem a great place but others are not so convinced we have it right. To the people I know, democracy is just a nametag for the west (USA & UK specifically) and they strongly resist going down that road. The other alternative is corrupt, dictatorial regimes, which they are thoroughly sick of.

Someone needs to create a third option, a democratic system that is not labelled 'the west' but is seen as uniquely Arabic (and not delivered by Bush and his mob). I meet many young men who listen to hip hop, wear D&G knock offs and day dream about living in the west but when you suggest to them that their family could live in a western style society, if they embraced western democracy, you can see them physically recoil. They want the capitalism of the west but to retain their own moral standard, not have ours thrust upon them.

So someone needs to create some new buzz words, create democracy but call it something else. I know it sounds petty but people here resist the very thing they desire because of who is offering to deliver it. Would you want $1,000,000 if it was Satan offering it to you? Yes, you would no doubt want the cash but you are not daft enough not to recognise the nasty strings attached.

[China Cat Sunflower]

Well, I think we're seeing the evolution of a uniquely Islamic form of state and governance. Iran is in the lead, and it's obviously a painful and violent process. The whole Sharia utopia theocratic thing with its pan-Islamic flavor will have to be tried and eventually discredited, and it will take time. My eye is on Iran and Pakistan as a bellwether of progress. Iran because it is miles ahead on theocracy, and Pakistan because it has the best potential for establishing a stable secular democracy while retaining its Islamic identity.

Chris

[Muslimwoman]

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

Well, I think we're seeing the evolution of a uniquely Islamic form of state and governance. Iran is in the lead, and it's obviously a painful and violent process. The whole Sharia utopia theocratic thing with its pan-Islamic flavor will have to be tried and eventually discredited, and it will take time. My eye is on Iran and Pakistan as a bellwether of progress. Iran because it is miles ahead on theocracy, and Pakistan because it has the best potential for establishing a stable secular democracy while retaining its Islamic identity.

Chris

Hi Chris

Please don't wish Sharia law on anyone, not in it's current state. I think it has been tried and tested and found to be seriously wanting, as it is subject to the whims of whoever is in power at the time. Pakistan had to remove their Hudood laws, Afghanistan is going through a painful extraction period, we all know Saudi is actually run by money and not religion (religion is just used as a tool) and imho Iran is heading for another revolution (there are some serious changes going on in people's minds from what I read).

To be honest, in my view, the only solution for Iraq now is to place another dictator in power, for an interim period. It needs someone strong and perhaps even ruthless at times to get the country under control. Once that is achieved, the country could move slowly toward a more democratic system but it must be their choice of system. Something has to be done soon to stop the factions killing each other. Our countries now are both talking about withdrawal and if we do what will we leave behind, I find it hard to believe we have caused so much devastation and now want to cut and run. A totally devastated country with no workable political system and it ill be all our fault, well done the west.

Sally

[China Cat Sunflower]

I think you're right about a coming revolution in Iran. This is why I'm watching Iran with particular interest: to see how it transitions out of the Islamic revolution. Persians are way too smart to be held down like this forever. Pakistan has an interesting history of going back and forth between corrupt civilian administrations and military dictators. I'm extra interested in Pakistan because I was born there, but with the upcoming elections and recent events it will be interesting to see what happens.

I think that, in the longer view, movement, even violent movement is preferable to the stale status quo of an artificial stability. Sometimes one must wait for the old guard to die off, then endure the bloody chaos of the resulting power vacuum. This seems to be the case with Palestine at present.

When I consider that what really motivates the machinations of geo-politics is is the control of the planet's remaining natural resources, it's hard to see how the developing world can ever hope to have a real seat at the table with the big financial blocs of the U.S. and EU. What we have now amounts to a system of neo-colonialism. That's why we're now busy destabilizing and attempting to remake the ME. Perhaps democracy will eventually arise in the region, but that's not our goal. We're there to secure the oil before China gets its mitts on it.

Chris

[China Cat Sunflower]

It all boils down to this: for the capitalist model to work it has to keep expanding forever. The stock markets have to keep climbing, corporate profits have to grow indefinitely. Since there's no free lunch, the only real source of profit is the exploitation of natural resources. We got them free with the planet! In that sense it's really no surprise that the U.S. is the richest entity on earth since it is located on what was a vast, pristine continent only a couple of hundred years ago. What an incredible windfall!

The real impetus for globalism has always been the procurement of natural resources. But these resources are finite, and even under wise management demand exceeds availability. There are two ways to achieve global stability. One is to raise the standard of living of all the world's people so that they have a stake in establishing civil society and the rule of law out of self-benefit . We can't do that because it would reduce the supply of natural resources, and the resulting increase in consumerism can never out pace the inflation that higher demand and resulting higher prices would have on first world economies.

The other alternative is to do what we've done: pick ruthless dictators who can be bent to our will, make them and their cronies fat rich, and give them the tools to keep their people in line, suppressed and disaffected, poor and powerless, and most important- away from what we want. Right now our US government is engaged with its mega corporate partners in systematically destroying the middle class here in this country to wring out a teaspoonful of extra profit wherever it can be found. There's no way in hell they've got altruistic intentions for your pissant little nook of the globe if they're willing to cannibalize the consumer base here at home for a few extra nickels.

Chris

[Pathless]

Intelligent and insightful thoughts here. I'm reading with interest. Thanks for the mind expansion, y'all.

[Pathless]

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

It all boils down to this: for the capitalist model to work it has to keep expanding forever. The stock markets have to keep climbing, corporate profits have to grow indefinitely. Since there's no free lunch, the only real source of profit is the exploitation of natural resources. We got them free with the planet! In that sense it's really no surprise that the U.S. is the richest entity on earth since it is located on what was a vast, pristine continent only a couple of hundred years ago. What an incredible windfall!

The real impetus for globalism has always been the procurement of natural resources. But these resources are finite, and even under wise management demand exceeds availability. There are two ways to achieve global stability. One is to raise the standard of living of all the world's people so that they have a stake in establishing civil society and the rule of law out of self-benefit . We can't do that because it would reduce the supply of natural resources, and the resulting increase in consumerism can never out pace the inflation that higher demand and resulting higher prices would have on first world economies.

The other alternative is to do what we've done: pick ruthless dictators who can be bent to our will, make them and their cronies fat rich, and give them the tools to keep their people in line, suppressed and disaffected, poor and powerless, and most important- away from what we want. Right now our US government is engaged with its mega corporate partners in systematically destroying the middle class here in this country to wring out a teaspoonful of extra profit wherever it can be found. There's no way in hell they've got altruistic intentions for your pissant little nook of the globe if they're willing to cannibalize the consumer base here at home for a few extra nickels.

Chris

There are always more than just two ways, though. Between resource depletion and the sponsorship of ruthless dictators, there is a huge colorful arena of options.

I'm for the one that is marked "simplification" and "decentralization" and "communities." We've given immense and unprecedented power into monstrous entities, inhuman beasts: corporations. They and their riders, people so perverted by consumption and money-grubbing as to lose any standing they may have once had in the ranks of humanity (in my not-so-humble opinion), consume resources, labor, and energy of all sorts in a mad addiction to illusions. Decimating forests and enslaving people is termed "progress" and a blind devotion to materialism is funded under the name of "science." Status is measured in income. The people that participate, ever more compulsively, in this type of economic frenzy of capital gains are junkies. They've lost sight of what matters, lost the grip on their own physical and mental well-being, having sacrificed their own integrity and humanity for vanity and material gains. The disease is societal. It is a system-wide infection and a cancerous one that leaps from continent to continent, perpetuating itself with glamour and false promises that are always broken. Bloated bosses and cronies and whorish stooges sit on piles of refuse, stacks of wasted human potential, snug and shut up in offices and houses, pulling the steely venetian blinds closed and refusing to see. Refusing to see--and this is labeled "progress." It's not progressive at all! It is destructive, cannibalistic.

Grand schemes and plans for nation-building, propping up fake governments and imposing social strtuctures from the outside, as the U.S. has been trying to do with Iraq for the past 3+ years, is a futile, doomed endeavor. Putting a dictator in power is no soultion either. Sure, you could "stabilize" the region that way, but ultimately that is just a hopeless perpetuation of the problem. Yet I understand when people argue the other end of the spectrum: military withdrawal and "cut and run" leaves the region in "anarchy." I don't think it would be anarchy, though; it would be more like tribalism, I imagine: factions and city-states ruled by--yep--dictators and despots.

Or... or perhaps we are not giving the people enough credit. Perhaps they would organize themselves, armed only against outside invasion and exploitation. Perhaps this is just a fantasy in my mind, and the "sectarian violence" that we hear reported is very real and very divisive.

In any case, the whole scenario is one of colonization. The U.S., those old colonies that struggled for independence, have become mighty colonizers, energized by the adrenaline of war and the false pride of victory. We've still got WWII on the brain, don't we? Perhaps that is our biggest issue. We were the saviors of the world, the Nuclear Jesus of Apocalypse, bringing a bright new era of capitalism and crusades into the world. We're still on that trip, one that has turned into a dark fantasy of world-domination clothed in perversions of language, where our elected leaders consistently substitute worlds like "Freedom" and "Liberation" and "Peace-Keeping" for notions of dominance, colonization, and war.

So to me, there seems to be no hope or answer in the politicians; no ultimate revelation in a kingdom come that is imposed with mighty weapons and brow-beating. That's patriarchy, to employ a dry old word from the literature of feminism, and it seems to me that the approaches of the patriarchs are not up to the challenges of humanity at this point in time. We need to be able to cooperate and live together harmoniously, yet we are still, as a species, hung up with these ridiculous notions of competition, survival of the fittest, manifest destiny, and uber technological progress. As has been noted by several important (and overlooked) thinkers, our technology has now far outstripped our humanity. Rather than serving our needs, technology drives the tank, the car, the corporation. Its computerized mind calculates and possesses actual people with notions of ever-expansive infiinite power (as Chris mentioned in his critique of capitalism), corrupting the essence of them. They lose their humanity in their taste for power and false progress.

It's sad that we live in a world so long now dominated by this mentality of sacrifice, competition, and arrow-like progress. Sometimes it feels like it's hard to even find the time to soak up the sun, to appreciate a patch of red clover, to breathe and really breathe deeply to appreciate the chaos of smells always around us. This mentality of consumption and material entitlement makes us sick. It is sick.

I say simplify. Are there not enough activists around? Why is that? We've got to activate ourselves. What can we do? Such a question. So open-ended. A bazillion answers, and each of them not only valid but deeply important.