It's the 75th anniversary of the Nazis burning books.

I get the feeling some Australians would be happy to burn the Koran.

The creation of "the other" as enemy suits the ruling elite's purposes. It divides the working class and diverts them away from the economic and political struggle against capital.

Pauline Hanson's greatest support came from the middle class and lumpen proletariat, as well as less unionised and more rural workers on the outskirts of regional towns.

Howard defeated Hansonism by incorporating it and was helped by the political naivety of the hansonites and the fact that labour and capital are not polarised at the moment in Australia in the way they were in Germany in 1928 and onwards. This means the middle classes can't at the moment unite in Australia against big capital and big labour in the way the German middle classes did around the Nazis in the late 1920s and early 1930s. This was before the ruling elite saw its chance to smash the defensive organisations of the workers movement (such as labor parties, Communist parties and trade unions) and thus drive wages down and restore profit rates.

While being anti-Islam covers a multitude of sins, it seems to me to express that fear of the other that the Nazis used to great effect to mobilise many in the German population to support them and which enabled them to carry through their assaults on the working class and then on Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies and the like.

There is a poem by a 19 th Century German poet which says basically that those who start by burning books will end by burning humans.

Keyser,

I assume you can direct me to your responses to these questions, which is what you should have done in the first place. I accept that you shouldn’t have to answer the same question one hundred times, but it is simple thing to point to previous responses to the questions I asked.

I think it very interesting that you should use the surah describing the fall of societies immediately before you say “ In a way, they (Australians) feel safe because of the quantity of water which surrounds this country, so they feel fortified behind this great body, it gives them a feeling of security. But the reality is, the land belongs to God, not to them, and if those foreigners, whom they fear as migrants are not permitted to enter as migrants, they will come as settlers, in numbers so large that they will not be able to process them, hold them, or stop them. What will they do then? If these foreigners who are restraining themselves, because they see a legal hope, that they can come to this vast mainly uninhabited land for whatever reason, are told that there is no longer a legal way to come here, what will they do?”

Is there any connection there is or that just a misunderstanding.

In response I might ask you what you think might happen when the majority of Australians start to feel as though our laws are being ignored and our way of life is under threat. I think the French are beginning to get to that point with their “youth” problem.

Passy,

Who are these people who want to burn all the Korans? You have merely created a straw man. Your, and others, unwillingness to accept that those who are criticising radical islam are not criticising all muslims speaks volumes. Seems you think all muslims are radical islamists. Or else you are deliberately obfuscating to fit your own highly rigid viewpoint. I suppose it must take a lot of contortion to be able to see everything in terms of “Class”.

viking13, you are understandably confused.

>>There is a world of difference between the treatment of Jews leading up and during to WWII and the alleged "ill-treatment" of Muslims.<<

My references to the uncanny similarity of the Pipes' rabble-rousing and that of Oswald Mosley had nothing to do with their target, merely the process by which they pursue their quarry. Mosley targetted Jews; Pipes targets Muslims; the methodology, which is to whip up one's audience's prejudices using inflammatory rhetoric, is identical.

It is irrelevant to me whether the target is Jewry or Islam. Being secure in my lack of religious bias, I tend to see these aspects more clearly than rabid religionists. I feel obliged therefore to point out that these tactics, employed equally enthusiastically by Oswald Mosley and Boaz Pipes, indicate a high level of hatred on the one hand, and desperation on the other.

In the 1930s, Britain was still recovering from the economic impact of WWI, and was deep in recession. The "average working man" was faced with a constant struggle to find work, and then to earn enough to support a family. By providing a convenient (economic) target, Mosley was able to engender considerable hatred against his chosen enemy.

Today, those Christians who feel threatened by Islam adopt the same tactics, quoting obscure texts and demonizing entire countries in order to fan the flames of their hatred.

(The biggest irony of course is that the Islam they fight against shares many of the goals of fundamental christianity: subservience of women, an insistence upon female chastity and so on.)

Pipes is just another rabble-rouser, using the same tactics as many before him: half-truths, obfuscation and blind prejudice.

In my last post I left out,in a mental lapse, the tasty bit.
Here is the zinger.

Mustafa asserts that "despite there being no consensus on what it means to be Western or Muslim...many Muslims, including myself, have no qualms about being Muslim and Western". Indeed, Mustafa may not have any "intellectual qualms" about committing this intellectual "felony" for which PAUL. i. put the handcuffs on him. But if he was offered PORK what would he be, more Muslim or less Western or vice versa? And whatever the choice he would knock off his own proposition.

Mustafa, like so many other educated Muslims, Waleed Ali is another one, make an intellectual mockery of their own education and of themselves.

http://daringoutlook.blogspot.com

Good old Neville_Pericles:)

He can always be relied on to speak from ignorance of both Islam and Christianity.. as evidenced by this little gem.

<<Today, those Christians who feel threatened by Islam adopt the same tactics, quoting obscure texts and demonizing entire countries in order to fan the flames of their hatred.>>

IGNORANCE of CHRISTIANITY. Is demonstrated in the above, by not realizing that Jesus spoke with great compassion AND with stern rebuke.

Math 23:33 "THE STERN REBUKE"

"You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? 34Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town.

<<11:20 Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. 21"Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!>>

MATT 11:28 "THE LOVING WELCOME" "Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"

Jesus clearly condemned the ideas of his 'enemies' and he even condemned THEM... as long as they retained that willfully ignorant attitude.

IGNORANCE OF ISLAM. Pericles shows how little he knows about this faith also, by claiming the verses I often quote are 'obscure'.

But does that accord with: "may Allah destroy them" ? (Jews and Christians who believe in the Son of God) from 9:30

Neville_Pericles... the verse I cited is not obscure, it is KEY.

It is so ABSOLUTELY key, that is defines the 'line' between Islam and Christianity. "Did God reveal Himself in Christ..the Son"

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a 1000 times "Do not associate partners with Allah" (the sin of Shirk) It is ALSO the one sin which cannot be forgiven in Islam. Thus.. it is KEY not obscure.
Neville P also is 'sloppy'... claiming we write off entire 'countries' .. HUH?
No Pericles, its about ideas... you know...those things which sent millions to gas chambers.. 'ideas'.

After reading the koran I have concluded that GOD EXISTS. (Take note BOAZ and other God botherers)

God exists and has a marvellous sense of humour.

Who else but a DIVINE COMEDIAN could create a group of sentient beings and then get them to believe that this is the creator of the universe speaking?

"[5.33] The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement,"

Islam is a tragicomedy.

It is a comedy because the sight of grown men and women trying to make sense of the product of the febrile imagination of a seventh century psychopath is inherently funny. Imagine the mental contortions necessary to reconcile the following with what we now know about human physiology.

[86.6] He is created of water pouring forth,
[86.7] Coming from between the back and the ribs.

Yet Islam is also a tragedy. Many of those self same men and women are prepared to kill for their "faith." And many do.

It is the terrible seriousness with which Muslims take KORANIC CLAPTRAP which makes Islam simultaneously funny and deadly.

If you think the koran is bizarre try the ahadith. Here is a mild example:

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamental ... pp1_2.html

Mustafa, contempt for Islam is NOT racism.

Islam is a belief system. EVERY belief system, every system of thought, every theory including but not restricted to agnosticism, atheism, Buddhism, capitalism, Christianity, communism, Darwinism, democracy, fascism, general relativity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Marxism, Nazism, political correctness, secularism, socialism, Sufism, Zionism and Zoroastrianism is A LEGITIMATE target for critique, analysis, satire and scorn.

The critic is under no obligation to abide by anybody's definition of fairness or to take account of the feelings of the faithful.