Love a Muslim: Seattle version

[JayB]

Taking a 400-level course entitled "Islam" this summer quarter--taught by a professor who is a secular Turk, I'm told. Should be interesting.

 

Might be interesting to ask him to comment on this series of photos of the graduating class at the university of Cairo.

 

1959

 

1978

1995

2004

 

[ivan]

more cowbell?

[G-spotter]

Why the proportion of women in the graduating class is increasing?

[j_b]

Whatever garb they wear, there are paradoxically many more women today.

[j_b]

Why don't you ask your teacher about islamic fundamentalism and policy blowback?

[prole]

Why don't you ask your teacher about islamic fundamentalism and policy blowback?

 

Yes, the photos above would provide an exciting game of pin-the-tail-on-Egypt's-secular-Left. Gets harder as the years go by. The Iran edition is fun too!

[JayB]

Why don't you ask your teacher about islamic fundamentalism and policy blowback?

 

By the looks of things in Cairo and everywhere else in the Muslim world, ground zero for "blowback" seems to be in the Middle East itself.

 

Hopefully the knowledge that traces of it are visited on effect on Westerners who exercise their rights and liberties in a manner that the violent Muslim fringe don't care for is consolation enough for them to endure the steady encroachment of sharia law on the freedoms that their grandmothers could largely take for granted.

[JayB]

Why don't you ask your teacher about islamic fundamentalism and policy blowback?

 

Yes, the photos above would provide an exciting game of pin-the-tail-on-Egypt's-secular-Left. Gets harder as the years go by. The Iran edition is fun too!

 

Anwar Sadat is not available for comment.

[j_b]

Why don't you ask your teacher about islamic fundamentalism and policy blowback?

 

By the looks of things in Cairo and everywhere else in the Muslim world, ground zero for "blowback" seems to be in the Middle East itself.

 

because you call our involvement in perpetual war and the patriot act nothing?

[j_b]

SO, what happened to the Muslim world between 1978 and 1995?

[ivan]

Why don't you ask your teacher about islamic fundamentalism and policy blowback?

secular or not, i'd be wary of speaking to any turk

 

'least that's what this guy would say

[j_b]

1979: Iranian revolution to overthrow a bloody US puppet installed in a coup against a democratic government that wanted to nationalize the oil resource. Eventually hijacked by the Islamic fundies.

 

1980-1987: Financing and arming of Muslim extremists and warloads in Afghanistan because they killed the commies. They would eventually return to other Islamic countries to spread the faith.

[JayB]

The more pertinent question is what happened between 1959 and 1978, IMO.

 

The concentration of political and economic power via the "Pan Arab Nationalism" model and socialist central-planning gave birth to a repressive kleptocracy that routed secular rivals and either: left militant Islam as the only outlet for dissent, or dispensed patronage to Islamists in an effort to cultivate popular legitimacy.

 

Sooner or later that Frankenstein monster will destroy its creators and the Islamists will make even more effective use of the repressive apparatus than the nominally secular elites that they've displaced. Iran writ large.

 

Don't think the populations ruled in this manner'll enjoy the experience any more than the Iranians have, but they'll surely have ample time to reflect on it.

[prole]

The more pertinent question is what happened between 1959 and 1978, IMO.

 

The concentration of political and economic power via the "Pan Arab Nationalism" model and socialist central-planning gave birth to a repressive kleptocracy that routed secular rivals and either: left militant Islam as the only outlet for dissent, or dispensed patronage to Islamists in an effort to cultivate popular legitimacy.

 

Sooner or later that Frankenstein monster will destroy its creators and the Islamists will make even more effective use of the repressive apparatus than the nominally secular elites that they've displaced. Iran writ large.

 

Don't think the populations ruled in this manner'll enjoy the experience any more than the Iranians have, but they'll surely have ample time to reflect on it.

 

Mohammed Mossadegh is not available for comment.

[ivan]

so, it's not the religion of middle easterners that's the problem, its the people themselves?

[JayB]

1979: Iranian revolution to overthrow a bloody US puppet installed in a coup against a democratic government that wanted to nationalize the oil resource. Eventually hijacked by the Islamic fundies.

 

1980-1987: Financing and arming of Muslim extremists and warloads in Afghanistan because they killed the commies. They would eventually return to other Islamic countries to spread the faith.

 

So...muslim extremism was a phenomenon unknown to the wider world before the Afghan war? Might be news to Sadat, let alone the folks who traveled there from all points in the Middle East to participate in the jihad, like...Bin Laden.

 

This notion of yours that anything that happens in the Muslim world is simply a reaction to Western provocation of some sort of another, and hasn't been driven by any endogenous factors within their culture is a surprisingly provincial and neo-colonial framework for a committed post-modern, relativist, multi-culti posterboy like yourself to view the world through. Tisk tisk.

 

Ditto for your notion that none of the dynamics at play in the Middle East could have roots that extend back in history to any point before there was any meaningful American involvement in the region.

[JayB]

The more pertinent question is what happened between 1959 and 1978, IMO.

 

The concentration of political and economic power via the "Pan Arab Nationalism" model and socialist central-planning gave birth to a repressive kleptocracy that routed secular rivals and either: left militant Islam as the only outlet for dissent, or dispensed patronage to Islamists in an effort to cultivate popular legitimacy.

 

Sooner or later that Frankenstein monster will destroy its creators and the Islamists will make even more effective use of the repressive apparatus than the nominally secular elites that they've displaced. Iran writ large.

 

Don't think the populations ruled in this manner'll enjoy the experience any more than the Iranians have, but they'll surely have ample time to reflect on it.

 

Mohammed Mossadegh is not available for comment.

 

Nasser, Quadafi, Assad, Hussein, etc.

 

Plenty of larger forces in the region that lead to the same outcome without any US involvement.

 

Strange how the squishy multi-culti types can't fathom a set of internal dynamics in the non-western world that shape and drive their history other than US meddling.

 

Skipped the history courses and went straight for the pomo-word games, eh?

[prole]

so, it's not the religion of middle easterners that's the problem, its the people themselves?

 

Believe it or not, this is actually an improvement over the "Islam as a hardwired-for-violence timebomb" narrative he used to promote.

[rob]

This thread sucks. Way too coherent, and why is this shit still on topic?

 

Fuck all y'alls.

 

 

[prole]

Mohammed Mossadegh is not available for comment.

 

Nasser, Quadafi, Assad, Hussein, etc.

 

Plenty of larger forces in the region that lead to the same outcome without any US involvement.

 

Strange how the squishy multi-culti types can't fathom a set of internal dynamics in the non-western world that shape and drive their history other than US meddling.

 

Skipped the history courses and went straight for the pomo-word games, eh?

 

Given that the nation-states led by the politicians you mentioned didn't even exist as such prior to their births, much less the post-colonial pressures and conflicts that came to bear on them, your argument for a hermetically sealed Middle East floating relatively freely of the world-system is absurd on its face.

[billcoe]

Given that the nation-states led by the politicians you mentioned didn't even exist as such prior to their births, much less the post-colonial pressures and conflicts that came to bear on them, your argument for a hermetically sealed Middle East floating relatively freely of the world-system is absurd on its face.

Fail: nothing a quick re-read of Jayb's post won't fix though there Prole.

[prole]

Why don't you lay it out for me there, big guy?

[JayB]

Mohammed Mossadegh is not available for comment.

 

Nasser, Quadafi, Assad, Hussein, etc.

 

Plenty of larger forces in the region that lead to the same outcome without any US involvement.

 

Strange how the squishy multi-culti types can't fathom a set of internal dynamics in the non-western world that shape and drive their history other than US meddling.

 

Skipped the history courses and went straight for the pomo-word games, eh?

 

Given that the nation-states led by the politicians you mentioned didn't even exist as such prior to their births, much less the post-colonial pressures and conflicts that came to bear on them, your argument for a hermetically sealed Middle East floating relatively freely of the world-system is absurd on its face.

 

The key question for you here is whether or not your conception of the "World System" allows for factors other than an omnipotent CIA pulling the strings from afar to have any impact on history.

 

I'm sure the folks at Langley would be flattered, but it's still odd for a chap like you to continually assert that the folks that you imagine yourself as some kind of paterno-ideological benefactor for don't have any traditions, cultural imperatives, etc of their own that shape their history.

 

 

 

 

[ivan]

Fail: nothing a quick re-read of Jayb's post won't fix though there Prole.

i would never equate the words "quick" "read" n' "jayb"

[JosephH]

Ah, so do I have it right then - your basic assertion is, absent any provocation, the states, sects and tribes of Mideast always have and will act with widespread, systemic violence against far-flung non-muslim individuals and states purely as a matter of broader cultural friction and internal rivalry?