Hundreds of women assaulted in German NYE celebrations

[bimble]

Maybe.. more relevant than 'non-muslim' is the idea that any woman who has sex before marriage is.. a slut, someone with no honour at all, someone incomprehensible even.
That's not singular to Islam but does possibly seem relevant here.

I once had a conversation with a young man who seemed honestly not to understand how it could matter to a Western woman who she had sex with, seeing as she'd already had sex, outside of marriage, so what's the difference etc.

 

[phildwyer]

Marx noted that the term which Islam itself employs to describe relations between Muslims and all non-Muslims is “harb”. “Harb” is the Arabic word for “War”. Islam defines its own community and nation as Dar el Islam (the Abode of Islam). It defines all non-Muslims and their territories as Dar el Harb (the Place of War).

Marx noted that Islam defines the state of hostility between Muslims and non-Muslims as permanent. (This hostility may be suspended by treaty – so as to permit non-violent relations. But such a suspension is only ever temporary and contingent. It does not, and cannot, remove the fundamental state of hostility that exists permanently between Dar el Islam and Dar el Harb, the state of war that exists between Muslims and non-believers.)

Marx cited particularly the Barbary pirates who had for long attacked Christian shipping and raided Christian coastal villages. He said that, although they were basically just pirates, within the framework of Islamic law, the corsair ships were “the holy fleet of Islam”.

Marx did so in order to explain that almost any act of hostility by Muslims against non-Muslims (saving those with whom there has been agreed a treaty to suspend hostilities) is, in Islamic law, legitimate, virtuous, and even holy.

Do you agree with Marx’s analysis? Can we use it as a point of departure to analyse events in Cologne?

According to Marx, all Communists everywhere in the world should consider themselves permanently at war with all capitalist states. That doctrinal truth did not prevent Communist and capitalist states from co-existing peacefully, nor did it prevent many individual Communists from inhabiting capitalist states peacefully.

Furthermore, according to Christian doctrine there can be no peaceful co-existence between Christianity and any other religion. Christianity has demonstrated this intolerance in historical practice far more often than Islam.

Nevertheless, Christian states have frequently co-existed peacefully with states organized around other religions. There is no inherent reason why the quotations you select from the Koran should have a different effect.

 

[bluescreen]

Maybe.. more relevant than 'non-muslim' is the idea that any woman who has sex before marriage is.. a slut, someone with no honour at all, someone incomprehensible even.
That's not singular to Islam but does possibly seem relevant here.

I once had a conversation with a young man who seemed honestly not to understand how it could matter to a Western woman who she had sex with, seeing as she'd already had sex, outside of marriage, so what's the difference etc.

That used to be a regular defence line in rape cases here in the UK. Complainant wasn't married or a virgin, ergo consent could be inferred.

 

[frogwoman]

Do you think that some imam in an eastern european village where islam is mixed in with traditional practices, has been assimilated for centuries and where its not unheard of to go straight from a mosque to the pub is going to be standing up and pronouncing takfir on everyone. I dont think they are, i mean in some places women only started covering their heads in this or the previous generation. I don't think those interpretations were commonplace across the muslim world until comparatively recently and they're much more to do with political conditions than people simultaneously opening the koran and going 'ahhhh yea so THATS what it says'

Somewhere like this Lithuanian mosque for example where women dress like this

The amazing survival of the Baltic Muslims - BBC News

 

[J Ed]

That used to be a regular defence line in rape cases here in the UK. Complainant wasn't married or a virgin, ergo consent could be inferred.

The virginity of a victim of rape or sexual assalt is still seen as very much an aggravating factor in the UK as well.

 

[Thomsy]

I agree that hate and contempt for women and non muslims could have been a big part in what they did, but in your earlier posts you seemed to be arguing that religious texts sanctioned it and its something that, every muslim grows up believing.

Frogwoman, I AM saying the religious text sanction it. Every Muslim grows up knowing it. Whether they believe it, or choose to act on it, is another matter, of course. Most Muslims just want to get on with life. But they can't escape the texts when the militants shove them in their faces - increasingly at gunpoint.

 

[bimble]

Frogwoman, I AM saying the religious text sanction it. Every Muslim grows up knowing it. Whether they believe it, or choose to act on it, is another matter, of course. Most Muslims just want to get on with life. But they can't escape the texts when the militants shove them in their faces - increasingly at gunpoint.

So.. you think the events of NYE were connected with Islamic militants in some way?

 

[frogwoman]

Frogwoman, I AM saying the religious text sanction it. Every Muslim grows up knowing it. Whether they believe it, or choose to act on it, is another matter, of course. Most Muslims just want to get on with life. But they can't escape the texts when the militants shove them in their faces - increasingly at gunpoint.

I am not convinced 'every muslim' grows up knowing it. The monday after the paris attacks i came into work and the muslim woman in my office was outraged about isis beheadings and was saying that beheading people was forbidden under sharia law. Obviously i know that due to saudi arabia etc, its all too frequently not. But i wasnt gonna argue. My point is that many muslims dont have any more knowledge of their religion than anyone else!

 

[bimble]

That used to be a regular defence line in rape cases here in the UK. Complainant wasn't married or a virgin, ergo consent could be inferred.

I think that sort of thing is where the real problem lies. Not saying 'Poor them, they didn't know any better', far from it, but. We've come a long way over here due to the last couple of generations of relentless activism by feminists, changes to the law and to perception.


Don't know much about Islam but I really doubt there was a fatwa announced like this one but saying God wants you to grope / rape the women of cologne'. New Fatwa permits rape of non-Sunni women in Syria

 

[frogwoman]

Plenty of muslims celebrate christmas as well and mohammed's birthday and according to salafism and especially isis thats not allowed. So not every muslim does know this stuff tbh. Its like saying that every jew knows that the talmud states jesus is boiling in excrement and that its gods commandment to spit on crosses, well ok if you say so but the first time i heard that was an antisemitic website and only much later did i discover some jewish extremists do actually believe this.

 

[ViolentPanda]

You are a comfortably off academic aren't you?

Nope, he's anything but.
Showing your prejudices again.

 

[Pickman's model]

You lose an argument, get shown up as ignorant of the matter in hand, and then try to threaten me with violence from the safety of your desk? You're a fine, brave fella.

i'm at a loss to see what other plunder there is - women's clothes, mobile phones, handbags, wallets: while just over the way there's a cathedral full of proper plunder.

i'll tell you what's ignorant: when you're asked for your answers to your questions and you can't give them; when you appear to think there is one islam when there are in fact many islams; when you say people conquered the station forecourt when they clearly did no such thing; and of course when you talk about plunder when frankly i'm not so sure there was plunder in the traditional sense of the word.

moreover and perhaps more seriously, you ascribe this sorry incident to islam. the best explanation i have heard for what happened in cologne, the one which is to me most persuasive, is that there are now large numbers of displaced young men in europe, far from home and without the usual societal or familial or indeed religious restraints on their behaviour. as such, they felt they had greater licence and exercised it in this appalling fashion. i really don't believe it had anything to do with islam. and nothing you have said has made me reconsider my position.

 

[Thomsy]

Do you think that some imam in an eastern european village where islam is mixed in with traditional practices, has been assimilated for centuries and where its not unheard of to go straight from a mosque to the pub is going to be standing up and pronouncing takfir on everyone. I dont think they are, i mean in some places women only started covering their heads in this or the previous generation. I don't think those interpretations were commonplace across the muslim world until comparatively recently and they're much more to do with political conditions than people simultaneously opening the koran and going 'ahhhh yea so THATS what it says'

Wouldn't disagree. When I first went to Cairo, uncovered hair was still common. Islam had been fading as the defining ideology.
Now pretty much every woman is covered. Now, or course, there has been an Islamic renaissance and a return to the text.

I can understand why people seek security and solace in Islam. But I think we have to examine its forms. What it actually says. Because those early, pristine texts are now at the forefront of the movement. The radicals are still a minority. But it is very hard to disagree with them because they can open the book and show you the words. And included in those words is the absolutely clear injunction that anyone who denies or disputes those holy words is apostate and must be killed.

 

[Thomsy]

i'm at a loss to see what other plunder there is - women's clothes, mobile phones, handbags, wallets: while just over the way there's a cathedral full of proper plunder.

According to the Islamic law of conquest, the religious buildings of the People of the Book (Jews and Christians are not to be violated.
However, I doubt that was relevant in this case. The plunder, as I said earlier, was the women.
Nor, as I said before, were the perpetrators motivated solely by the injunctions of Islamic law.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I'm not convinced how efficacious such things are. It seems to me that the basic premise is that men are barbarians who need to be educated on why it's bad to rape or sexually assault women. I think the reality is that most men would never sexually assault anyone, but there is a minority with a "don't give a fuck" attitude. I'm sceptical about whether going to a "consent course" will make them give more of a fuck.

I'm a bit "wtf" about consent classes, but I don't think that they proceed from an assumption that all men are barbarians. IMO the reason for them is much more quotidian and capitalist - to indemnify universities somewhat against suits from women raped on-campus - a problem in the UK, and a big problem in the US.

 

[frogwoman]

Yeah but my point is how many muslims actually follow it 100% or know about the religion? How many of them are rather gonna go 'yes but it doesnt really mean that' or 'its just a metaphor" or 'it was ok then but not now'.

Lol i was told things when i was a practicing jew about the religion and what god had taught, that were straight up lies, but the people telling me them absolutely believed them.

 

[Pickman's model]

According to the Islamic law of conquest, the religious buildings of the People of the Book (Jews and Christians are not to be violated.
However, I doubt that was relevant in this case. The plunder, as I said earlier, was the women.
Nor, as I said before, were the perpetrators motivated solely by the injunctions of Islamic law.

yes.however, i don't believe islam was a motivation at all. but this was no rape of the sabine women. no women were taken away. you're talking bollocks.

 

[Thomsy]

i'll tell you what's ignorant: when you're asked for your answers to your questions and you can't give them; .

I have answered every honest question. As you and everyone else reading this thread knows.

 

[bimble]

Wouldn't disagree. When I first went to Cairo, uncovered hair was still common. Islam had been fading as the defining ideology.
Now pretty much every woman is covered.

Over what period of time has that happened in Cairo?
I'm sure you probably know that a good Jewish woman is supposed to cover her hair too (only after marriage mind) to avoid being a temptress slut etc but that is not a very common practice amongst jews in say Manhattan.

 

[Pickman's model]

I have answered every honest question. As you and everyone else reading this thread knows.

the thing about the internet is i can go back and find out when you're talking bollocks:

 

[Thomsy]

i'll tell you what's ignorant:... when you appear to think there is one islam when there are in fact many islams.

Why misrepresent me? I have said there is one corpus of texts. The interpretation of those has varied a little over the centuries. And the degree to which the injunctions of Islamic law have been enforced has varied greatly over the centuries.
But as I have said before, the Islamic renaissance now finds form and political definition in the text. The mass movement is led by the radicals. They threaten you if you contradict their resort to the literal text - and cite the prescribed punishment for those who question those texts.

 

[frogwoman]

Over what period of time has that happened in Cairo?
I'm sure you probably know that a good Jewish woman is supposed to cover her hair too (only after marriage mind) to avoid being a temptress slut etc but that is not a very common practice amongst jews in say Manhattan.

I think that sort of stuff anecdotally is on the rise again tbh. As it is in the christian world as well.

 

[Pickman's model]

Why misrepresent me? I have said their is one corpus of texts. The interpretation of those has varied a little over the centuries. And the degree to which the injunctions of Islamic law have been enforced has varied greatly over the centuries.
But as I have said before, the Islamic renaissance now finds form and political definition in the text. The mass movement is led by the radicals. They threaten you if you contradict their resort to the literal text - and cite the prescribed punishment for those who question those texts.

yeh. please show me where these texts say that assaulting and robbing women is taking them as plunder then.

 

[J Ed]

Wouldn't disagree. When I first went to Cairo, uncovered hair was still common. Islam had been fading as the defining ideology.
Now pretty much every woman is covered. Now, or course, there has been an Islamic renaissance and a return to the text.

I can understand why people seek security and solace in Islam. But I think we have to examine its forms. What it actually says. Because those early, pristine texts are now at the forefront of the movement. The radicals are still a minority. But it is very hard to disagree with them because they can open the book and show you the words. And included in those words is the absolutely clear injunction that anyone who denies or disputes those holy words is apostate and must be killed.

I grew up in an area with a large Muslim minority, mostly of rural Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin and when I was younger it was fairly common to see groups of Muslim women without their hair covered or with their hijab around their shoulders like a scarf. I certainly never saw anyone in an abaya or niqab. It isn't like that anymore, it is quite rare to see Muslim women without hijab in a lot of areas and there are women who wear niqab. I think it's sad, a real step backwards.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I for one am glad you've appeared Thomsy.

Re-appeared.

I'm not sure why you think religious texts are the relevant thing here though. Especially as you've been living in the Middle East for years I'd be really curious to hear about what you learnt outside on the streets and chatting to women etc that you feel may have a bearing on this rather than what Marx thought of the Koran.

Because he appears to be intent on establishing a clear link between Islam and NYE, never mind that interpretations of Islam vary, or that it appears that some of the sex cases who attacked women on NYE in Cologne weren't Muslim. Stop trying to spoil the narrative, man!

Take for instance the old testament: Deuteronomy is all about how God wants us to smite every other tribe we meet, even unto their little children. Then Leviticus commands that 'the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and though shalt love him as thyself.

That's not the old testament, it's the Torah!

"At different times , and in the service of different needs, believers listened to different moral imperatives. Christians and Jews have looked to the Bible to justify slavery and to deem it evil, to condemn gay people to death and to ordain them as priests" [Kenan Malik - the quest for a Moral Compass]

Absolutely. Belief invariably conforms to the requirements of power.

 

[ViolentPanda]

it's always nice to stand out from the crowd

Not if volunteers are being called for!

 

[Pickman's model]

Not if volunteers are being called for!

rule #1: never volunteer

 

[irf520]

IMO the reason for them is much more quotidian and capitalist - to indemnify universities somewhat against suits from women raped on-campus

That I can believe.

 

[Thomsy]

moreover and perhaps more seriously, you ascribe this sorry incident to islam. the best explanation i have heard for what happened in cologne, the one which is to me most persuasive, is that there are now large numbers of displaced young men in europe, far from home and without the usual societal or familial or indeed religious restraints on their behaviour. as such, they felt they had greater licence and exercised it in this appalling fashion. i really don't believe it had anything to do with islam. and nothing you have said has made me reconsider my position.

I have clearly and repeatedly not ascribed it solely to Islam. As you must know.

There are many places in the world where staggering levels of sexual violence are being routinely inflicted by men upon women – South Africa, India, and on, and shamefully on.

But you tell me: what is it (apart from their sex) that distinguishes the collective relationship of ‘abusers’ and ‘abused’, of ‘rapists’ and ‘raped’, in the cases reported from Cologne, from Rotheram & Rochdale, and from within the territories of the Islamic State?

 

[irf520]

Wouldn't disagree. When I first went to Cairo, uncovered hair was still common. Islam had been fading as the defining ideology.
Now pretty much every woman is covered. Now, or course, there has been an Islamic renaissance and a return to the text.

More common in Turkey as well I believe since that tosspot Erdogan got into power.