Perverse propaganda from a professional victim? Which highlights the huge gap between incompatible cultures.

First you impose yourself on incompatible cultures as Islam spreads with a stated goal to convert the world to a fundamentally flawed latter day Ideology created by men and men alone!

And having found sanctuary among patently despised Christian culture, instead of trying as others have done, to seamlessly blend in, endlessly complain about things you don't like about it!

The comparison between rape and having a headscarf removed simply beggars belief and a huge disservice to real victims of actual rape, which seems to be the speciality of gangs of muslim men, who wander once peaceful streets looking for a woman on her own.

You adroitly avoid examining what is wrong with your culture even as you seem to want to impose it and everything that is wrong with it on the entire world?

Alice, if it's so bad here there are a couple of mostly Muslim countries not all that far away you could choose to relocate to, if they'll accept you?

I'm sure we could raise the airfare in just days by passing that hat around; and then wave you and yours goodbye, with a grateful good riddance.
Alan B.

“The forcible removal of headscarves by strangers in public places, which Muslim women regarded as degrading as rape.”

Maybe it is values like these which make non-Muslims call for more enlightenment amongst Muslim women. Non-Muslim women should be challenging these values because they are inhuman.

When you equate the removal of a head scarf with the violence of being raped then you obviously have some issues about the dignity of the human body and everyone’s fundamental right to determine with whom they will have sexual relations. Rape is a complete violation of a basic human right which everyone has and that is why it is so traumatic.

The right to wear religious clothes is also a right but if that right is taken away momentarily then it should not be anywhere near as traumatic as rape. There is no fundamental right being denied. A fundamental right is one that everyone wants to protect and everyone wants to protect their right to control their own body. Only some people want to protect the right to wear religious headdress. It causes distress to Muslim women not because of some basic human right being violated but because of their emotional dependence on their religion. If they do not wear head scarves they are in violation of the rules of their religion and they are dependent on their religion. Dependence on religion leads to warped values and threatens to undermine all the good values that women in particular have fought to bring to the surface.

Muslim women are not down trodden because they are controlled by men – they are downtrodden because they are dependent on religion and it does not have to be that way.

She of Sweeping Statements (Alice) comes up this time with the one about "Western society" thinking that Muslim women are victims (of Muslim men). Western society as text books perhaps, Alice, but not the real, thinking people who make up the free-thinking Western society, which cannot be compared with your own narrow, medieval Muslim society.

Muslim women are not victims. Even the strident feminists in the West do not believe Muslim women are victims: they never utter a word on the subject of Muslim women (rather, concentrating on their Western brothers). And, they are apparently right to stay quiet; after all, Muslim women are always denying that they are victims, joyfully following the Koran and the Blessed Mohammed, by wearing bags on their heads and black sheets to cover their bodies.

Muslim women are just as culpable in the ridiculous oppressiveness of Islam as are the simple-minded, often vicious and dangerous, men. The few wimps in the Western society you refer to, Alice, are those who take the 'nice' easy way to vent their feelings by putting in a word for the 'poor women', instead of speaking the truth about the full horror of Islam. They are the same people who wail about drowings at sea, instead of being straight up, and saying we don't want Muslims endangering our physicality and our culture.

actually Western girls in the hands of those creating programs such as 'safe schools' will turn out to be greater victims than muslim women. Already multitudes have found out that the perverse degrading outcomes of secular humanism which promises freedom has only led to suicide, degradation and ultimately unhappy lives. Just watch some of the old feminist on Q&A and ask if you want your daughters turning out as bitter, twisted and nasty.

"Imperial feminism, approving Western imperialism in order to save other women, has a long history."

It's pure sophistry to misrepresent the concept of universal human rights as an example of imperialism. Those women who were stoned to death for 'adultery', or who were the victims of 'honour killings', or the atheists and Christians hacked to death for 'blasphemy' might have welcomed the intervention of imperialist Westerners.

It's hell here in Australia for Muslims with all those uppity Kuffars with their contempt for Islam and its toxic ideology. That said, I'd rather be a Muslim in Australia than a Christian in Turkey, or any majority Muslim nation.

ttbn,

"your own narrow, medieval Muslim society."

The late Medieval period in the West was one of the great ages of history, many of our modern institutions were developed during that period. One of the reasons for Islamic culture's primitive nature is probably that it has never experienced an equivalent of a Medieval period.

It's not christians invading Muslim schools and kidnaping teenage kids en masse to use and brutalise as sex slaves; but rather Muslim men who seem to believe the so called non believer is fair game? It's just too easy to ignore that, while concentrating on those few in our midst who remind us of Muslim men in terms of rigid intolerance.

And if Muslim extremists and their activities are making it too hot here, rubbish them rather than the long suffering host, who simply doesn't share your unhealthy attitude to what is beautiful in the eyes of the creator who made it and delivered it absolutely stark naked into this world.

There's nothing wrong with women who wear brief bikinis just the puritanical nut jobs who can't control their peckers!

We have a beach culture and freedom of dress! And that's how it was long before we took our disapproving medieval muslim migrants in, who want to change everything including a perfectly natural non obsessed healthy attitude toward women and their God created bits.

I've seen the full hijab and understand women as ugly as those who wore them, were ashamed of the creator's handiwork and felt compelled to cover it up.

Or were so blindingly beautiful and sexy that mere men would immediately lose all cognitive function and control and just go around raping everything in sight, including the occasional knotty lamp post?

Ouch careful honey, those ironbark splinters hurt more on the way out than when they went in! And a sure fire method of taking the "starch" out of the occasional (ouch, ouch) male member.
Alan B.

It basically boils down to a clash in cultures.
One that is a rich diverse modern and ever evolving culture.
The other is a religious based one who is trending to be less inclusive and less tolerant.

Would love to understand how many articles the author has written about multiculturalism tolerance in predominately Muslim countries? Perhaps she could link to a few......

Hi Mac

During the medieval period the Muslim world experienced flourishing arts, science and culture that surpassed anything in Christendom at the time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age

I agree with your points on “imperial feminism”, though. It seems to me that any of the questions that Hussain’s book complains are directed at Muslim women are legitimate. Muslim women and girls who are citizens of Western countries and run off to marry ISIS fighters do cause painful reflection. John Howard was right to say that some sections of the Islamic community hold attitudes towards women that are out of line with mainstream Australian society. And most western women would not agree that forcible removal of a headscarf is as demeaning as rape.

I see no evidence, either, that mainstream views fail to recognise the diversity among Muslim women. We know that the ISIS brides and terror sympathisers are a small minority, and that many Muslim women get the same freedoms and opportunities as Western ones. The problem is not that Westerners see all Muslim women as either victims or suspects. The problems is, some of them actually are.

Hi Rhian,

"During the medieval period the Muslim world experienced flourishing arts, science and culture that surpassed anything in Christendom at the time:"

Agreed, with qualifications. That's a generalisation that's not true for the entire period. By the later Middle Ages when Europe was about to experience the Renaissance, Islam's "Golden Age"was over. Muslims were very slow in adopting developments that reached them before the West, such as "Arabic" numerals, printing and paper. Europeans quickly assimilated these inventions and produced the world's most innovative and dynamic culture. Even supporters of the concept of Islam's Golden Age such as Prof Jim Al Khalili ( 'Pathfinders') acknowledge the religion's later stifling influence on science and technological development.

"John Howard was right to say that some sections of the Islamic community hold attitudes towards women that are out of line with mainstream Australian society."

Given the status of women in majority Muslim societies around the world, I'd claim that it's a very large percentage---unless by some miracle Australia has received the least misogynistic male members of the Ummah.

Indonesia is apparently the largest Muslim country in the world.

They oppress their women so much that they made one of them President not so long ago and I don't recall ever seeing her in a burqa or hijab.

Likewise, Turkey is a great place to go to see belly dancers.

Even in the 21st century, some people are unable to tell the difference between religion and culture. There are several secular states and a handful of sectarian ones and all of the latter have social restraints. Even the USA has religious zealots blowing up abortion clinics.

It would be easy for anyone to pick a Christian religion - particularly one of their (many) notorious cults - and generalise enough to make it representative of them all.

I suppose it comes down to whatever your personal motivation is, what prejudices you hide behind and your degree of intolerance.

rache,

(1) "Even in the 21st century, some people are unable to tell the difference between religion and culture."

Nonsense.

Religion is part of culture, it's produced by a culture. Do you think that religious ideology somehow floats above a society on little fairy wings and doesn't interact with or is not influenced by the society's culture. There are a hundred versions of Islam, so what?

(2) "They oppress their women so much that they made one of them President not so long ago and I don't recall ever seeing her in a burqa or hijab."

See the islamisation of Aceh.

More nonsense. Both India and Pakistan, very misogynistic countries had women as prime ministers, what does that indicate about the status of women?

"Turkey is a great place to go to see belly dancers."

(3) It's a great place to see Islamisation as well.

Do some research on Islam and its history.

Rache:

“I suppose it comes down to whatever your personal motivation is, what prejudices you hide behind and your degree of intolerance.”

It comes down to what Muslims say they believe in. This author believes that having a head scarf removed is a violation akin to rape. She says that many other Muslim women believe the same thing. It is not prejudice to disagree with that. It shows a very warped sense of values and has nothing to do with religion. A non-Muslim woman might well make the same statement about having her hat removed but it is just as absurd. What is under question is the sense of values and whether or not those values measure up to fundamental human rights which most western nations adhere to.

Muslims can have all the religion they like but religion should never over rule basic human rights and values. When a Muslim woman makes a claim such as this author has done then they should be challenged as to the humanity of such values. Everyone who so flippantly dismisses fundamental values should be challenged in the same way. It is not prejudice since everyone is treated the same. If Christians deny fundamental human values then they too should be subject to scrutiny.

The reality is that Muslims have themselves quite openly said that they do not value many things that should be basic to all human beings. They are entitled to their own set of values but if they live outside predominantly Muslim countries they are going to be challenged as to their humanity. That is the way we live and if they do not like being challenged then they are free to live in Muslim societies.

Here we have a Muslim woman who fled a male dominated Muslim society, to go and live in the western world that gives her all the personnel freedoms she will never get in a Muslim country, complaining about how nasty the infidels are to Muslim women.

It is all rather incredible.

If you love Islam girlie, go back and live in a Muslim country. The more Muslim it is, the worse it is for Muslim women. Unless they are like yourself, and they like being floor mats for Muslim men.

Your religion stinks. Almost all religions may be male dominated, but Islam takes the cake. It is a very violent and intolerant religion started by a genocidal paedophile, that treats women as minors and the property of men. If you are stupid enough to support it, you should have your head examined.

Where are you coming from here? Have you been associating with western lefties for so long that you think that reflexively attacking successful western societies as somehow evil, and always supporting the commissar, priest and mullah ridden failed states, is the fashionable thing to do? If so, could I suggest you keep better company?

If Islam is so bloody wonderful, why is every Muslim trying to flee the consequences of it and come to a western society? The most incredible thing about Islam from a western point of view, is how Muslims flee Islam only to support it in the western countries they flee to. It just goes to show how successful the mullahs have been brainwashing the lot of you.

Fifty years ago, people in socialist countries risked their lives jumping over the Berlin Wall to flee socialism, and those people became the most ardent anti socialists in the west. They hated the system which oppressed them. But now before the incredulous eyes of most westerners, we see Muslim people fleeing Islam who are Islam's greatest advocates.

Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo.

No wonder Muslim countries are so dysfunctional when there are supposedly intelligent people like yourself who obviously can not think straight.

Mac,

Unlike Christianity and other belief systems Islam and Judaism are law-giving religions. They dictate personal and social behaviour beyond other religions.

However Indonesia,Turkey and Pakistan and many other countries (including Iraq) may be Islamic States but are not fundamentalist sectarian states and that is the difference.

History?
According to the media one would think that the cruel oppression of women and plans for world domination have been rampant in the entire Muslim world for the last 1400 years under our very noses but that was not the case.

Islam was not seen as a threat to until the rise of political Islamic fundamentalism when somebody decided to replace the democratically elected leader of Iran with the once-deposed Shah that resulted in the revolution that ultimately installed the repressive Ayatollah. Until that time Iran was a natural ally with Israel because they were the other non-Arab state in the region and even developed missile systems together.

The rise of Saddam Hussein was also the result of a Western sponsored overthrow of a democratic regime and we all know how well that ended up for everybody.

Likewise the West were happy to deal with the Taliban until they reneged on the construction of some oil pipelines and wanted to hand Bin Laden over to an International court rather than directly to the USA.

Strangely, Saudi Arabia - the sponsor of much of the current violence - seems to have fallen completely off the world stage.

The loyalty of Muslim women is, by definition, to Islam. Their values are those of Islam - of the Quran and hadith. They blindly accept the hate, violence and discrimination inherent in their religion. When I see a Muslim, male or female, question that hate and violence, or when Islamic societies change so that they accept basic freedoms of speech and religion, equality of individuals (including those 'lower than animals non-Muslims, as stated in the Quran), and the total separation of mosque and state, THEN and only then can we assume that Muslims -- male or female -- can live in peace with us. Don't hold your breath.

As noted in previous commentaries, it is a given that Muslims coming to the West will criticize any their hosts because some of them dare to say the obvious -- that Islam has serious moral and ethical issues. They flee/move to the West and then work to bring the all the evils they left behind to their new homes.

Alice, you and your ilk seem strangely silent on the real atrocities inflicted on non muslim women in other countries?

If recent events in Northern Nigeria had been limited to the forced removal in public of headscarves and spitting. All those kids kidnapped by your muslim brothers could now be sleeping safe at night in their own beds instead of having to tolerate repeated real rape at the hands of medieval miscreants, who claim to be the real face and intention of Islam?

The removal of a headscarf is just not as serious as you make it out to be and pales into insignificance besides acid thrown in the face of non compliant muslim women by muslim men or the forced removal of the head that might even be wearing one.

Here I reiterate and include all your muslim brotherhood. If you don't like us or our customs and freedoms? LEAVE! We'll help!
Alan B.

rache,

"According to the media one would think that the cruel oppression of women and plans for world domination have been rampant in the entire Muslim world for the last 1400 years under our very noses but that was not the case."

Well, with some qualifications, that actually is an accurate generalisation of Islam and its history.
Europe was subject to continual Muslim attacks from the 7th century onwards, first the Arabs and Berbers then the Seljuks and Ottoman Turks. North African Muslim pirates raided Southern and Western Europe for centuries and enslaved about a million Europeans. The Ottomans attacked and occupied the Balkans and massacred and enslaved millions, they besieged Vienna in 1683. Then of course there's the genocidal islamic conquest of India by Muslim armies. The Muslim threat disappeared, temporarily, when the West become far too powerful to attack. So they were at our throats, not under our noses.

BTW, I'd agree that most Western 'interventions' in the ME have been disastrous, the invasion of Iraq was a war crime and I have sympathy for the Palestinians and their cause. However that's a seperate issue from deluding ourselves about the true nature of Islam.

Hi Mac

I think John Howard was speaking specifically about Australian Muslims. All of the Australian Muslims I know, male and female, accept gender equality and other values of our culture like democracy and separation of religion and state.

Hi Rache

I agree that we need to distinguish religion from culture, but in cultures where Islam is the predominant religion, that religion is often used as a reason for limiting women’s rights and freedoms.

This is not unique to Islam. For centuries bible texts were used to justify unequal treatment of women. In the Catholic Church, and some of the more fundamentalist protestant ones, they still are.

Ephesians 5:22-33
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.

1 Peter 3:1-5
Likewise, ye wives, [be] in subjection to your own husbands ….

1 Corinthians 14:34
Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be submissive, as also says the law.

1 Timothy 2:11-15
Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.

The only way anyone can tell if a women is a Muslim is the hijab!

And they will insist it's worn by choice and not as a submissive subservience to a religious directive? Well if it were, they would say that wouldn't they?

And one is not too surprised if a young Muslim woman leaves the house wearing the headscarf and upon entering a public amenity at say, a railway station, emerges minus the traditional dress and wearing makeup and revealing attire; and more common than some parents would know?

Surprisingly it does not turn the resident male population into gibbering idiots unable to control their reflexes!

Suggesting as a quite common outcome, a certain amount of quasi religious coercion in approved dress code.

And if that appears to be a result of paternalistic parental power?

One needs to remember these men were once boys having their approved beliefs and attitudes inculcated at their mother's knee!

Simply put,there is undeniable truth in the expressions, give me the boy and I'll give you the man! Or she who rocks the cradle rules the world? Or a teaspoon of honey attracts more flies than a whole barrel of vinegar!

Stop complaining about how your world has turned out and set about changing it; as some of your less brainwashed daughters are apparently already doing?
Alan B.

Hi Alan (and many others),

I don't understand this confected issue of the tearing off of a hijab. It happened once in Melbourne, by some half-wit (well, that's Melbourne for you), but I've certainly never witnessed it. I saw a pretty woman today in a nikab (the eyes !) and smiled at her but she didn't respond. Ah, youth, where have you gone ? I tried smiling at another pretty Malay or Indonesian girl in a hijab but she looked away. I mentally practised my Bahasa - 'Selamat siang, bagus, apa kabar ?' but had no opportunity to inflict it on her. Another fantasy down the drain.

As an atheist and post-Marxist, I have to believe that most believers, of any religion, are most likely fairly casual believers, they don't read their books (which may be in another language anyway) but go along with whatever is the convention, for the sake of peace and quiet, since only fools or charlatans could believe all of that rubbish. So leave Muslim women to wear what they like, it isn't hurting anybody else.

When I ever see anybody on the bus or in the street harassing a Muslim woman about her attire, I'll be the first to let you know.

Cheers,

Joe

How clever of you Joe to work out I'd already posted on this thread four times in one 34 hour period and therefore was denied the right of reply to your allegation

! The only confection on display here is the affected outrage over the Hijab or burka, neither of which are universal symbols of Islam!

Just symbols of the subjugation of women by their lords and masters!? With the more powerful the denials simply underlining and reinforcing a perception of a level of control or brainwashing?

Whereas in Christianity, given even more versions than occurs in comparative Islam; the Christian Cross features everywhere! Even so I'd prefer to be a Muslim in a christian world than a Christian having to tolerate the treatment meted out to christians in almost any part of the Islam world!

Oh that it could be limited to the occasional ripping from head of head covering and or being spat at!
Alan B.

Hi Alan,

Sorry, I don't know what you're on about in that first sentence.

Also sorry, what allegation ? That ripping off hijabs is so rare as to be a confected issue ? If I ever see it happening, I'll be the first to come to the woman's defence, no matter what the consequences. Seriously.

You've seen it happen ? Ever ? So what did you do about it ?

I'll repeat it slowly for you: " .... leave Muslim women to wear what they like, it isn't hurting anybody else."

Sorry for those multi-syllable words, Alan. Still, confect outrage if you wish, on OLO you're entitled to your opinion, no matter how cooked-up, that's the nature of OLO, and long may it be so :)

Cheers,

Joe

Loudmouth:

The author herself alluded to the removal of the headscarf. That is not really the point though. The point she was making was that such an act is or would be seen by some Muslim women as equal to rape in terms of violation. This shows a very distorted sense of human values. Muslim women are free to wear what they like and they should not have their head dress removed by strangers but to equate that with having a stranger violently enter the intimate regions of your body is just ridiculous.

A violation by rape is universally unacceptable – this is a fundamental value for all societies. The removal of a head dress is not a universal violation it is only a violation for a small minority of women. If a Muslim woman was given a choice between being raped and having her head dress removed which would she choose? We would then see how ‘equal’ the two things are.

It is the values of these women that are under question – not their right to keep their head dress on their heads. They do not have the same values as most women in western society. They seem not to value their own bodies if this example is anything to go by.

Hi Phanto,

Perhaps, in Cultural Studies or something similar, they run courses in how to confect an issue. First, put forward two Premises as if they are rock-solid, then draw a far-reaching Conclusion:

Premise # 1: That forced removal of the hijab is akin to rape, if not worse.

Premise # 2: That the forcible removal of hijabs is rife in Western countries.

Conclusion: That Muslim women are effectively being raped in countless numbers by having their hijabs removed. Western bastards !

As you suggest, Premise # 1 is probably not valid. Premise # 2 could easily be checked by any journalist worth her salt, but so far, doesn't seem to be valid either.

Hence the Conclusion is pretty much up the creek. But there is no doubt that it has its ideological uses, especially on the Opportunist Left and their mates on the Islamo-Fascist Extreme Right. Keep confecting, boys !

Joe

Hi Ms Aslan. Have you stopped beating the Kurds and Armenians today?

Ah yes Joe and commendable action as I myself would take if I witnessed any sort of ethnic based religious vilification. However I wonder if your gallantry would extend to stand up for a Nun having the crucifix yanked from her neck in downtown Cairo by a knife wielding Muslim screaming Allahu akbar?

And how do you feel about that symbol being banned as dress code in some of our Muslim schools or moves to ban Christmas as a holiday, or remove it from the calendar; or even ban department stores from the depiction of the nativity scene as window dressing.

Or how do you feel about Imams who claim Christian women are just meat to be used, or justifiably gang raped? Or is that just more confected outrage a you see it?
Alan B.

Hi Alan,

Of course, I like to think that I would defend a nun in Cairo from having her crucifix torn off, although I'm not likely to go to Cairo any time soon. Why is it that it's women who are the piss-easy targets ?

Of course Christians in Muslim schools should be allowed to wear their crucifixes, and Muslim kids in Christian schools should be allowed similarly to wear hijabs - I notice that Muslim kids at the local Greek school, St George's, are free to do so. No biggie.

People should be able to celebrate Christmas, Purim, Eid-al-Fitr, Holi, or chant 'Om' to their hearts' content. They have positive social roles, after all. I have no quarrel with shops or churches displaying the fabled nativity, even if they get birth of lambs slightly out of time, nor with shepherds washing their socks wherever they like.

As for the fascist utterances of moronic imams, I suggest that if any imam ever makes such outrageous remarks again, they be sued up hill and down dale for using their positions to incite, and/or certified and detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure, prior to deportation. Surely women find such vile remarks offensive, to the point of incitement ? If it is likely that such uncivilized views are common amongst men in the Muslim population, then we really are in troubler.

So thanks for re-visiting this topic, Alan.

Cheers,

Joe

It is encouraging to see that the overwhelming message in the responses in this thread is:

Islam is bigotry on steroids.

Islamophobia is not an irrational reaction but a proper attitude to something vile and dangerous, like a rattlesnake.

The official who first launched the term Islamophobia on the world is an Englishman called Mike Dobbins. Read what he wrote when he took the trouble to read in Islamic literature and the responses of Moslems to formal attitude surveys what Islam really is:
http://www.citizenwarrior.com/2015/04/mike-dobbins-gives-public-apology-to.htm

That URL should be

http://www.citizenwarrior.com/2015/04/mike-dobbins-gives-public-apology-to.html

I'd left off the l at the end.

Sorry.

Emperor Julian

Agreed. Those who accuse others of 'Islamophobia' are either Muslim apologists or arrogant ignoramuses who nothing about Islam and imagine that they're well-informed.

There are two main myths-
(1) That medieval Islamic societies were'tolerant' and (2) that the conflict started with the Crusades.

Hi Mac,

The Arabs/Muslims burst out of Arabia around 650 AD and conquered vast areas, almost non-stop until the eighteenth century. i.e. Islam had well over a thousand years, ruling over one of the biggest and most oppressive empires ever known. They had power for more than a thousand years, - plenty of time to develop whatever may have been progressive or positive in their doctrines, if it were there. H

But here's a couple of facts:

* when Islam conquered the Central Asian city of Merv, on the Silk Road, they butchered everybody. Everybody. Not that this was all that uncommon. The MOngols did much the same across Syria and later, Timur did the same in Babylon. So let's talk about Islam as a 'religion of peace'.

* the first printing presses in Europe were set up around 1450, and by 1500, a billion books had been printed. The first printing press in the Muslim world was set up in Istanbul in 1824. So let's talk about Islam as a civilization of culture, of refinement, of flourishing.

OR we could face inconvenient truths and sympathetically analyse Islam as a religion with its roots in tribal savagery, in which some bright spark came up with the idea of a book in which - since he could claim that it came from god herself/himself - not a single word was to ever be challenged, and therefore - brilliant - any criticism, modification, discussion was impossible, at the point of death.

So Islam has remained a dead thing for nearly 1400 years now, with nothing to contribute to the world except blind obedience - 'Islam' means 'surrender', after all - vile misogyny engraved in stone, and perhaps an inordinate love of goats.

How on earth the OppLeft could ever countenance sucking up to it is unbelievable, pure 100 % opportunism. Marx would be disgusted.

Joe

Hi Loudmouth,

Yes, Islamic societies were even slow to adopt innovations that reached them before the Europeans. As for Islam's 'Golden Age', it lasted only a few centuries and unlike the Renaissance, eventually reached a dead end.

I agree with your comments on today's 'Leftists', the old Left would have disowned them. They seem to have only one idea---Muslims are members of a race, so opposition to the toxic Islamic ideology is 'racism'.

Hi Mac,

I used to be a great fan of Malcolm X, Malik el-Haji el-Shabazz. At the end of Alex Haley's 'Autobiography', he goes to the Middle East and realises that Muslims are of all shades and ethnicities. Being very young and naive back then, I took this as a sure sign of how much more progressive Islam was than Western imperialism. Of course I was too simple to realise that it was a sure sign of how many parts of the world Islamists had invaded, and to a large extent, put to the sword as the 'religion of peace'.

So nowadays, Arab Muslims are a small minority, with perhaps as many or more Indian Muslims, Indonesian Muslims, African Muslims than Arab Muslims. And of course, many Arabs are not Muslim but have retained their Pre-Islamic Christian or Yazidi or Mandean beliefs.

It's interesting - make of this what you will - that DNA studies of Iraq, ancient Mesopotamia, find that the male Y chromosome is 80 %, overwhelmingly, Arab; but the female mitochondrial DNA is far more likely to be 'Persian' and Kurdish. I suppose frape, sexual slavery and polygamy have helped that along.

So there's nothing 'race'-oriented about Islam. Even in north Africa, a huge proportion of the population would call themselves Berber, or Copt, rather than Arab. Islam is a religion, with many sects and schisms, and like any religion, spawns all manner of ideologies, mind-sets of how to engage with the actual world. One day, the OppLeft will begin to understand that.

Joe