Save Kiana Firouz
Kudos to Richard Morgan for bringing this to my attention and kicking up some noise himself. I don't have time right now to blog in-depth, but I'll hopefully be able to add my voice properly in the next day or two. But as it is, this is important enough that I felt I should post the basics right away. From Coilhouse blog:
Kiana Firouz, 27 years old, is an outspoken Iranian LGBT rights activist, filmmaker, and actress. When clips of her video documentary work featuring the struggle and persecution of gays and lesbians in her country were acquired by Iranian intelligence, agents began to follow Firouz around Tehran, harassing and intimidating her. She fled for England where she could safely continue her work and studies.
She plays a starring role in Cul de Sac, a documentary film produced in the UK about the condition of lesbians in Iran, and based heavily on Firouz’s own life story. Directed by Ramin Goudarzi-Nejad and Mahshad Torkan, the movie will premiere in London in a few days. Since the trailer was posted on YouTube in December 2009, Cul de Sac has attracted global media attention, with thousands of views. Apparently, some of those views included members of Ahmadinejad’s puppet media in Iran. They know who Firouz is and what she stands for. They may want her to come back to the country she was born in to answer for it.
Britain has rejected her plea for refugee status, meaning she could be deported any time. Again, from Coilhouse:
In Iran, the punishment for lesbianism involving mature consenting women consists of 100 lashes. This punishment can be applied up to three times. After a fourth violation of Iranian law, a woman convicted of “unrepentant homosexuality” is finally executed by hanging, often publicly, in front of a howling mob.
Do I even have to say any more than that right now? Here's the petition to try and stop her deportation.
Kiana Firouz, 27 years old, is an outspoken Iranian LGBT rights activist, filmmaker, and actress. When clips of her video documentary work featuring the struggle and persecution of gays and lesbians in her country were acquired by Iranian intelligence, agents began to follow Firouz around Tehran, harassing and intimidating her. She fled for England where she could safely continue her work and studies.
She plays a starring role in Cul de Sac, a documentary film produced in the UK about the condition of lesbians in Iran, and based heavily on Firouz’s own life story. Directed by Ramin Goudarzi-Nejad and Mahshad Torkan, the movie will premiere in London in a few days. Since the trailer was posted on YouTube in December 2009, Cul de Sac has attracted global media attention, with thousands of views. Apparently, some of those views included members of Ahmadinejad’s puppet media in Iran. They know who Firouz is and what she stands for. They may want her to come back to the country she was born in to answer for it.
Britain has rejected her plea for refugee status, meaning she could be deported any time. Again, from Coilhouse:
In Iran, the punishment for lesbianism involving mature consenting women consists of 100 lashes. This punishment can be applied up to three times. After a fourth violation of Iranian law, a woman convicted of “unrepentant homosexuality” is finally executed by hanging, often publicly, in front of a howling mob.
Do I even have to say any more than that right now? Here's the petition to try and stop her deportation.
Labels: Signal Boost
posted by Hal Duncan | 10:39 pm
22 Comments:
Signed.
This kind of shit seems to be going down all the time here in Germany - people being sent "home" to certain death, just because they are not considered "proper" political refugees for some obscure reason. It's pretty much the most appaling thing a supposedly enlightened society can do, sending someone - anyone - to a place where she or he is severely discriminated against for her or his sexuality, gender, ethnicity ... It becomes even more appaling when some twisted argument of cultural relativism is made to downplay the crimes the governments of many countries commit against LGBT people.
I really, really hope this deportation will be stopped.
Signed.
But surely to be more effective that petition should be on the No 10 Downing street petition system?
(Of course, then I wouldn't be able to sign it, but the new government have already said they want to stop deporting gay people, if I remember correctly.)
Madeline Ashby (A Canadian: long live the international community) attended me to this, and of course I signed the petition.
It is appalling: a lot of effort is going into stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons (while the west, and my country in particular, was instrumental into helping Pakistan to get the A-bomb, as it was politically useful at the time), while the political refugees of a system we think is bad should go back home, because that's *also* politically convenient.
And still politicians woner why people don't trust them: they want consistency from their voters, while not practicing what they preach.
Sometimes I think we should only allow politicians in office that are willing to let a family member accompany a sent-back refugee. To show that they *really* think it's OK to send someone back.
Oh please all of a sudden Hal you are all upset about the barbarity, abuse and oppression and murder of homosexuals in the Muslim world. This is the first time you have ever had anything to say about the horror of life for homosexuals in Iran (or am I wrong?), and it's not just Iran, it's the whole Muslim world, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq (where death squads have been organised to kill homosexuals in the chaos of the Iraqi conflict, yes I know the BBC didn't mention it, surprised?), Gaza, North Africa, Pakistan etc. If you have ever condemned what goes on in these countries re their persecution of homosexuals I missed it. Hey I will be glad to admit I am wrong and apologise on this front to you if you can show me where you have ever mentioned this topic, the barbaric persecution of homosexuals in the Islamic world, in any public sphere that is, including your published writings.
Ahmadinejad had several male homosexuals hanged in public, including teenagers, several years ago (there are photos of this, of the boys crying as they are led to execution) and has infamously remarked that there are no homosexuals in Iran, that it is a Western decadence. No I don't remember a fuss from the Guardian and the BBC neither. Maybe your "liberal" news media are part of the problem here, you think? Where did you say anything about it Hal? Did you not know? Relying on your usual useless leftwing cultural relativist and moral relativist news media for "the news"?
You have written so much about Matthew Sheppard, both in your writings and on the net, yet the elephant in the room that is the war against homosexuals in a large swath of the world that happens to be Muslim, including in so-called moderate Muslim countries like Jordan and Turkey, you have had nothing to say until now, as far as I know.
In fact there is only one tiny country in the Middle-East where gay men and women have their rights protected by law and where gay men and women have their own bars and 'scene' just like they do in NY and London and Munich and LA and San Francisco etc. Only one nation where no-one looks twice at gay men and women showing affection in public in this nation's major metropolis, it's just like many parts of London and NY, Toronto, Paris and Stockholm in that respect. Or at least the non-Muslim parts of London and Stockholm and Paris (oh wait I'm not allowed to say the obvious, that makes me a racist/prejudiced apparently). Guess which country that is Hal? Here's a clue, it's the only one that is not a Muslim nation. The one nation that many liberals and liberal homosexuals at that seem to have an endless animus against. Nothing seeming about it.
to be continued...
Until liberal homosexuals in the West start giving real attention and focusing real outrage against Islamic regimes and authorities that oppress, vilify and murder homosexuals even, it's hard to take them seriously. Outrage once in a blue moon is not good enough, it's a start but really it's not good enough.
Read writer Bruce Bawer, an American homosexual living in Norway on how life has deteriorated for gays (including their physical safety) in Europe under an ever expanding homophobic Muslim reach. A lot of what he recounts is based on his own homosexual circle's experiences. Makes for scary reading. Very scary. No you won't read about it in The Independent and The Guardian, gee what a surprise (sarcasm). Bawer left the US mid-west because he was tired of the narrow-mindedness and homophobia from Christians, he even wrote a book about it. He went to live in Amsterdam (and later Oslo) and his experiences there with the growing Muslim immigrant population and the native Dutch appeasement made him long for his days back in the mid-west with Christians, which was far more pleasant. I doubt The Advocate has ever featured Bawer (hey maybe, hope I'm wrong), he's a bigot don't you know for pointing out unfashionable truths that don't jive with lala multiculturalism. That's after all what most of his liberal detractors call him, a bigot for standing up for gay and human rights against extreme homophobic Islamists in the West. World turned upside down.
OT - Saw 'A Single Man' the other night, an interesting film, all very stylish, set in '62 in LA (well it is directed by Gucci's Tom Ford, so its stylishness is to be expected). Colin Firth's performance though is what stands out, he is excellent.
Lawrence: To use your own phrase: oh, please. This is not me suddenly becoming "all upset about the barbarity, abuse and oppression and murder of homosexuals in the Muslim world." This is a brief entry about a needless deportation being carried out because of UK xenophobia. It's a heads-up for readers on a single case which speaks to the anti-immigrant pressures at home rather than a focused comment on the systematic brutalities of Islamic states abroad. You're bitching about how I don't talk about the bee in your bonnet, and on the basis that I tangentially stepped into that terrain? And with such charm, such politesse! Dude, you're an awesome spokesman for your cause!
Have I ever made much comment on the particularities of homophobic brutalities in Islamic states? No. But have I ever made much comment on the particularities of homophobia as emergent from any specific political regime? I mean, do I ever really focus on the policies of this government or that?
No, where I talk about specific examples like Shepard (or Gerald Allen's bill) it's almost invariably because that's the sort of small town homophobia I grew up with, the nasty underbelly of purportedly "civilised" regimes. The homophobia to be found in any nowhere town, whether it's in the Mid-West or Central Scotland. The Section 28 I had to live with or a moronic analogue of it advanced by some Alabaman senator. Hey, look! I'm addressing the kind of homophobia I've lived through myself, that facet of the small town mentality I find all too familiar. Holy shit! Who would have expected that?!
And when I do go beyond that? Go look at the entries linked under "Dionyus vs Pentheus" and you'll see that my focus is still generally on my own turf, my home front -- art and literature.
So: a response to the agitprop rhetoric of the "homosexual agenda"; responses to two personal attacks -- a fly-by commenter and a piece of hate-mail; various responses to a fellow writer's homophobic bullshit regarding GLAAD and Syfy; attacks on segregation in the media as evidenced in Hollywood movies; numerous commentaries on the conflict between art and morality, both "liberal" (see the cultural appropriation posts) and "conservative" (see the profanity posts).
Hmmmm. A queer writer writing about the intersections of queerness and morality in the domain of the arts rather than playing geopolitical pundit? What a shocker! Why, it's -- it's like a biologist who supports animal rights addressing the ethics of animal testing rather than the fur industry! What an outrage!
And if you read the numerous and lengthy commentaries that do focus on monotheistic religion, weighing into it on the basis of its philosophical and psychological underpinnings, man, I would have thought my views on theocratic regimes born of zealous homodoxy would be blindingly fucking obvious. Like everything from "On Blasphemy" down in that list of links isn't an attack on the very core of Islam as a belief system? Like that entry itself doesn't start with a defense of the notorious Danish cartoons.
If you don't like the more abstract approach I take, go and read some other blog. If it's not out there, go and fucking write it. Do not come here and project your bitter bullshit image of a Straw Liberal onto me, just so you can bitch about "political correctness" and "lala multiculturalism". You don't know shit about my opinions on Israel's commitment to gay rights or the incipient anti-semitism attached to infantile moralists who just happen to be of the pro-Palestine left-wing persuasion; so don't assume I fit some pigeonhole of a leftist you want to take swipes at.
And do not, for the love of fuck, try and pull that "oh wait I'm not allowed to say the obvious, that makes me a racist/prejudiced apparently" shit here. When you're in the middle of spewing your bile in a blog comment, whining about how you're "not allowed" to spew your bile is just laughable.
Hal we could go back and forth here forever but really we are both busy men and have better things to do...
You do misunderstand me though when you write:
"And do not, for the love of fuck, try and pull that "oh wait I'm not allowed to say the obvious, that makes me a racist/prejudiced apparently" shit here. When you're in the middle of spewing your bile in a blog comment, whining about how you're "not allowed" to spew your bile is just laughable."
I don't consider you to be of that type that hypocritically calls somebody prejudiced for pointing out unpleasant facts that don't jive with multiculturalism. However there are a lot of such folk on the left side of the political spectrum, esp in the UK and I include gay liberals. That's whose hypocrisy and selective
'hear no evil see no evil' approach I was mocking. I should have clarified that though. I actually don't lump you with them, I should have stated that. I do however think that if we are going to condemn homophobia it has to be applied universally, even if it is only the Western experience growing up in nowheresville and not the experience of a Syrian homosexual growing up in Damascus that one relates to and understands better. Especially in this day and age given Islamic encroachment in the West, Europe and the UK in particular. This 'Islamic problem' is no longer on the other side of the world, it is now a Western problem too.
Let's face it though, the failure of gay liberals in the West to remotely address (with a few exceptions like Bawer, hence his contempt for his fellow "liberals" and vice versa) the horror of life for gays under Islam and Western appeasement to homophobic Muslims in the West is a very real one. It is a hypocrisy that is damning, it is a hypocrisy IF gays in the West are going to be politically vocal.
The silence is deafening Hal, not just from gay liberals but from liberal feminists too. The same hypocrisy is at work re their deafening silence on oppression of women, the burqua, honour killings and genital mutilations in the Islamic world while crying over corporate glass ceilings and the like. Worse than silence, some of them have engaged in outright apologetics and justification for Sharia and the oppression of women, notably Naomi Klein recently. I will gladly engage in fundraising for moron Klein's (and others like her) one-way ticket to Saudi Arabia or Iran myself along with the Queers for Hamas folk.
Just one more comment, re your comment that I quote above esp this part:
"When you're in the middle of spewing your bile in a blog comment, whining about how you're "not allowed" to spew your bile is just laughable."
This is a straw-man, it has nothing to do with what I wrote at all. Clearly if one calls out the hypocrisy of the Left (straight or gay or whatever) re homophobia AND the like in Islam one is routinely called racist - that is what I was harping on about. The examples I could give would fill a book, it is a pervasive knee-jerk insanity in our society and it is there at the highest levels of govt and in the universities and media etc.
I never said I was "not allowed" to say things, although actually there is a lot of censorship in the media for example, and I wasn't referring to you and your blog personally but the Guardian reading class as a whole. Hence your straw-man. Like I said you misunderstood me somewhat, perhaps my own fault to some degree.
Talking about straw-men, Lawrence:
If you form a coherent critique of the homophobic and anti-Semitic ideologies and politics promoted by Islamist governments, organisations, or movements like Hamas, I believe Hal would be the last leftist accusing you of racism. Have you read any of his books? Or even a few more posts on this very blog?
I can see where you're coming from. I am myself apalled by most forms of cultural relativism, especially if they are used to justify violence against lgbt people, women, jews or anyone else who is not deemed worthy to be part of a specific collective. I am apalled by leftists who consider the criminals of Hamas or the Iranian government to be their natural allies because they are "objectively anti-imperialist" or some bullshit along those lines. Who don't take their clearly articualted anti-semitism seriously and keep claiming that it is just a reaction to Israeli politics. What bullshit - if people like Ahmadinejad deny the Holocaust, if organizations like Hamas clearly state their goal of killing as many jews as possible, they are clearly nothing but fucking anti-Semites, and that's what I'll call them. I am appalled by people that seem to be thinking in categories of cultural collectives an who think that it is okay if people are discriminated against, as long as this is justified by the "culture" they are living in.
However, I'm also appalled by governments who supposedly hold up at least some ideals of tolerance and individual freedom, but then suddenly and conveniently forget about them. There's no cultural relativism in calling attention to the shit the British government is pulling. No one is saying: "And there we see that the UK is just as bad as Iran for queer people". It is certainly not.
Sorry, I'm not expressing that very well - I'm not used to political discussions in English ... Just wanted to say: Not every leftist is an apologist of all the shit that happens in "non-western" countries.
"I never said I was "not allowed" to say things..."
"oh wait I'm not allowed to say the obvious..."
Not a Straw Man on my part, Lawrence. It's a 100% accurate representation of your words -- which is to say, a fucking quote -- that I'm responding to.
And if it has little to do with your argument... so fuck? When someone comes out with the "I'm not allowed to say what I am in fact saying right now," damn straight I'm going to throw in a couple of sentences at the end of my main response to point out that bullshit.
I actually don't lump you with them, I should have stated that.
Really? The derision wasn't aimed at me from that very first "Oh please"? So why did you offer to apologise if I could jump through your fucking hoops, show you where I've talked about the bee in your fucking bonnet, and thereby prove that I'm not another liberal homosexual apologist worthy of your scorn, the scorn expressed throughout your comments and aimed directly at myself in phrases like "oh please," as mentioned, and in carping/hectoring such as "Where did you say anything about it Hal? Did you not know? Relying on your usual useless leftwing cultural relativist and moral relativist news media for "the news"?"
Don't fucking come to my blog and insult me, then try and weasel out of it with "I didn't really mean you" either.
Hal you really have that Scottish abrasiveness down pat.
As for the quote of mine:
"Or at least the non-Muslim parts of London and Stockholm and Paris (oh wait I'm not allowed to say the obvious, that makes me a racist/prejudiced apparently)"
Actually as far as the Left goes, generalising of course, yes it's true enough, one is not allowed to say this, and if one does one is branded a racist. When I write "I'm not allowed" I am referring to the PC Left as a whole, that's what I meant and that's what I mean - nothing more, nothing less. It's true enough. You give that quote of mine the least charitable interpretation, giving it a meaning I did not intend - I'm not allowed *by you* - in order to bash me on the head with it. I would call that the principle of malicious reading. There is something called the principle of charitable reading, which is or was considered de facto (and thus should go without saying), even when it comes to argumentation with people, especially when it comes to argumentation and disagreements.
When I write facetiously "I'm not allowed", my snideness is directed at the Western Left in the main, and in the UK it is really dreadful.
Obviously I erred when I wrote above, "I never said I was "not allowed" to say things." I never bothered rechecking what I wrote, had forgotten exactly what I wrote. However like I said above and repeat again, "I wasn't referring to you and your blog personally but the Guardian reading class as a whole". I indeed wasn't referring to you IN THIS INSTANCE as I explain above, and a charitable reading of my quote confirms it as I expand on above. Hal though chooses to give it a meaning I did not intend.
As for the other remarks of mine you quote:
"Where did you say anything about it Hal? Did you not know?..."
Yes unlike the above "I'm not allowed..", that was directed at you personally of course. And you didn't say anything about it, and the homophobic violence in Muslim communities as far as I know (sorry but talking about your contempt for monotheistic religion and the homophobia in that regard does not cover it at all - in fact that is part of the multicultural relativism I am mocking). And who do you rely on for the news? Not the useless BBC and the Guardian and The Independent and the like?
Whilst I write above that I don't lump you with many on the Left who are guilty of what I accuse them of, fact is you wouldn't know how bad it is with the international (and British) Left and the extent of their appeasment and worse with Muslim radicals going by those news sources, and in fact those leftwing news sources actively promote this appeasement and worse on the other hand, both by whitewashing Islamic radicalism around the world including in the UK and by justifying and apologising for this radicalism. It's not just these news sources, it is prominent and vocal Leftists on both sides of the Atlantic. It is an ugliness and absurdity that infects the mainstream Western Left as a whole (and hardly just the Left, conservatives too). See British journalist Nick Cohen's book 'What's Left' for a critique of this. Cohen doesn't even go far enough.
I write above "and in fact those leftwing news sources actively promote this appeasement and worse on the other hand", just cross out "on the other hand", doesn't make sense there.
OK continuing...
Sorry Hal but the Left as a whole has no credibility (any more than George Bush and Blair, but they are no longer in power) and that is not something I would ever know about from your end.
Hal you have been politically vocal, both in your writings and on the net esp when it comes to conservatives, George Bush and Iraq (which is fair enough). So then if you are going to be politically vocal as a gay man and death squads targeting gays in Iraq are not something that is given the time of day by you (probably because you are relying on your useless media for the news), then getting all sensitive about my snide remarks is laughable.
I could actually be far more critical of you than you realise Hal (and the Left as a whole far more so) but we are all human beings, and we are all seriously flawed. He who is without sin and all that...
Lawrence:
You know what I find really bizaare? Your notion that you are a victim of a "pc police" that doesn't allow you to articulate your opinions without branding you as "racist" reminds me of people here in Germany who claim that they are not allowed to articulate their opinions on Israel, because surely then they would be branded as anti-Semitists. Usually, these people then go on to spew all kinds of hate against Israel, its citizens and the "international Jewish lobby", proving in the process how little they know about Israel and Palestine. If you point out to these people that their babbling about an "international Jewish lobby" actually has a history as one of the most ugly elements of anti-Semitic ideology, they immediately claim that they are being branded as anti-Semitists, regardless of the fact that you have only told them: "Hey, wait. Just think a minute about what you are saying. Think. That's exactly what the Nazis were saying about Jews. Shouldn't that make you rethink your position?"
Sorry, I'm digressing. What I'm trying to say is: Just because someone tells you that are are talking bullshit, and that this kind of bullshit is best charaqcterised by calling it racist, sexist or anti-Semitic, that doesn't mean that they are "branding" you. If you feel branded, you probably have a problem with practising open political discourse. That's a shame, because it rather seems that you have something to say. But instead of saying it, you prefer to cast yourself in the role of the victim of the "pc police".
Yes, there are leftists who think it's okay if homosexuals are beaten to death by the government in Iran. They think so because they consider Iran as being a force opposed to "the west", and "the west" to them is capitalism and pretty much the devil incarnate. That's some fucked up logic, and it just proves that these people no nothing about capitalism or about the history of Islamism and Islamist homophobia - since political Islamism is a historically relatively new phenomenon, which is closely associated with capitalist modernization and not opposed to it, and homophobia is pretty much a Christian import into most countries with muslim majorities, but one that took root all to well ...
That's not cultural relativism, by the way, along the lines of "hey, the traditionally Christian cultures are just as bad as the traditional islamic ones, so who are we to judge?" - I'm all for judging. What I can't stand is people who are absolutely free to articulate their positions and judgements claim to be the victims of some kind of censorship. You are not the victim of some leftist pc police. If you want to criticise certain leftists for their appeasement politics towards political islamists, you're free to do so. And if someone calls you a racist for it, this someone might very well be an idiot (or she or he might be making a valid point - I'd have to know more about your position to be a judge on that ...), they are not branding you, they are just giving an opinion on what you're saying. You're free to reject this opinion. You won't have trouble finding a job or passing borders because they called you a racist. You won't be attacked on the street because someone called you a racist. So don't act as if you were a victim.
Of course, I meant "these people know nothing" and not "no nothing" in the post above.
Jakob guess we will have to agree to disagree on some things. I think we are at risk of talking past one another here and I think misunderstandings remain.
However one thing. Jakob you write:
"since political Islamism is a historically relatively new phenomenon, which is closely associated with capitalist modernization and not opposed to it, and homophobia is pretty much a Christian import into most countries with muslim majorities, but one that took root all to well ..."
I really think you are wrong here. Political Islamism is not a new phenomenon at all (it is as old as Islam itself, Islam is by its nature and dynamics theocratic) and homophobia is not solely or even predominantly a Christian import into Islam. Like I say we will have to agree to disagree but I think Jakob you need to research Islam more. This touches on the problem of Islam and the Western Left (well the West as a whole really) and what I consider the Western Left's wilful ignorance of Islam and its associated desperate revisionism of Islamic dogma and history. Actually this is all a very interesting and important subject. Perhaps something we can debate about another time, and with cooler heads.
Well, I agree to disagree. Of course you can find passages in the Quran that seem to prove the inherently expansionist and xenophobic character of Islam - like that one about the stones that will cry out if a jew hides behind them, infamously quoted by Sayyid Qutbs "Muslim brotherhood". But you can also find passages in the Quran that call for tolerance and critical inquiry of authority. (In fact, you can find reports by brtish colonial officals who are apalled by the tolerance towards homosexuality found in the arabic world. I'd have to look up who and where that was, exactly ...). Islam is just as self-contradictory as pretty much every religion. The fact that the reactionary elements of this religion have become dominant has a lot more to do with the success of the Egyptian Muslim Bortherhood in the 1920s and 1930s. And the Muslim Brotherhood was directly inspired by the rise of fascist regimes in Europe. They formulated most of the principles of current political Islamism, among them the rejection of "western decadence", the militant anti-Semitism, but also the will to use modern technology and organizational structures in their Jihad. In short, they were an inherently modern movement, even though their ideology and rhethorics were anti-modern (which is pretty much the self-contradiction at the heart of fascism). The Muslim Brotherhood was extremely succespful in exporting their ideology into the rest of the islamic world.
Look at Iran: The insurrection against the Shah was a fight for modernization as well as one for the imposition of a strict theocracy. Mind that I'm not saying that the modernization was the "good" part and the theocracy the "bad". I'm saying that political Islamisn is an ideology that is specifically "designed" to integrate the use of modern organisational structures and technologies into an anti-modern ideological framework. The fact that Islam provided the broader religious framework for that ideology is pretty much a historical coincidence, albeit one with serious consequences.
Jacob this is an interesting discussion but an amusing thing (I think) is that you believe yourself to be above and beyond the petty stultifying PC stuff on the Left. However I think there is more than a fair bit of PC denial in your commentary on Islam. I originally got my info on real Islam from a Lebanese ex-Muslim apostate. I was horrified by his assertion that Islam is inherently radical and fundamentalist. Most ex-Muslim apostates say the same thing, it's why they are apostates (and if in the Muslim world they had better keep quiet about it). Not wanting to take his word on it alone, I did the research (now heavily censored and actively lied about in the Western academy and media, not in the past in the academy but certainly the last few decades) and indeed Islam is inherently radical and fanatical. There are moderate Muslims (millions of them), but Islam is not moderate.
Yes Islam like Christianity and Judaism is full of contradictions. However the more pleasant parts of the Qur'an are in the early part of the book, not the later parts. So what? No it's not so what since there is a principle of abrogation in Islam in which the later parts cancel out/abrogate the earlier parts of Qur'an if these parts contradict one another, and the latter which then take precedence. Islam once again has always been political - check up on the Caliphate and its meaning, all Muslim schools of thought are emphatic on this point, that mosque and state cannot be seperated. Sharia law - intrinsic to Islam is blatantly political/theocratic.
Despite the PC lies in the Western media, political Islam did not begin with the Muslim Brotherhood, it began at the birth of Islam with the prophet Mohammed himself. Pretending otherwise is the kind of revisionist whitewash I am mocking. It ignores the reality of Qur'an, Hadith, fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), Sunnah as a whole - in other words the facts about Islam, and that little something called the history of the Muslim Empire/Jihad and its dynamics, inseperable from the Muslim faith itself.
oops sorry for misspelling your name Jakob (I am so used to the English spelling of names, that it's kind of automatic when typing). If a name is not Anglo I so often misspell it.
As you mentioned, Lawrence, Hal's blog is probably not the right place to continue this discussion - I feel a little bit bad about dragging it out as it is ...
I would offer to move this to my blog, but frankly, I think I know who these discussions go: I know a few people who share your position, and I just don't get it. To me, it seems reductionist, willfully ignorant of the complex history of Islam, a-historical, born from a desire to invent a clear demarcation where it is not possible to draw one. And I definitely don't see how I would be taking part in "whitewashing" Islamism by pointing towards it's roots in European fascism ...
By the way, it makes little sense to characterize a religion as "radical" and "fundamentalist" in itself - both terms say something about how people or groups of people relate to a religion.
You are welcome to come over to my blog to continue the discussion (just post something under the latest entry, I will then create a new blog post), but I'M afraid the discussion will become pretty tiresome soon ...
Yes Jakob you are right, it's not fair to Hal to go on and on here on this subject. It would be fine to continue this subject on your blog, although it would have to be very intermittant as I don't have all the time in the world and I'm sure you are very busy too. Still we should 'pick up' on this debate, even if not right now so to speak, but in the near future.
Have taken note of your blog...
You are in Berlin, that's interesting, since the changing dynamics of that city touches on what I am talking about, that is the references I make somewhere above when writing about the rapidly changing social dynamics of many European cities like London and Paris (and what it means to gays and Jews for that matter). Berlin is certainly included on that front.
till later
Lawrence
Getting back more on-topic, just thought I would pass this on since I have just been made aware of it, and it touches on what I am talking about.
Guess which is the only country that has been banned from having a float at the Madrid Gay Pride Parade? Naturally the news source here is NOT the liberal nor the equally irrelevant gay media but a conservative news-site (can we all agree on what a joke the gay media is? does anybody read it, pay much attention to it, well I guess it just follows from the MSM as a whole) http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/nothing-to-be-proud-of-madrids-gay-pride-parade-bans-israel/
As one of the commentators at the link puts it, wonder what the gay delegations from Gaza, Saudi Arabia and Iran are planning to do? Spain is disgustingly anti-Semitic (worse than most of Europe which is saying a helluva lot) though so their predictable hypocrisy and absurdist bigotry-that-pretends-it's-not I saw coming a mile off.
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