Hundreds of women assaulted in German NYE celebrations

[frogwoman]

I know apostates etc often have problems with their families but I know several women who don't wear the hijab etc and dont have those sorts of problems, or did at first but have worked them out. It really depends on how the person sees themselves, whether they see the religion as central to their lives, whether they think it should have some sort of political role, and don't forget there are Christians who go apeshit if their kid marries a Jew, Muslim or whoever or converts to a different religion. I know that Islam says some appalling stuff about women but not everyone follows those bits tbh. In Judaism it says that disobedient sons should be stoned to death and that anyone who says something bad about another Jew should be cast out of the community but fairly few Jews actually obey that.

 

[Idris2002]

I see you've come around to pretty much the same interpretation as I was proposing earlier. 'Hooliganism' by 'a networked shower of criminal bastards' is a pretty fair description IMO for what the available evidence suggests.

One point of difference though, where I think you're stretching a fairly weak point. I don't think that e.g. a bunch of cops could seriously be described as having an "intense, over-riding fear of being seen as racist" by anyone familiar with cops. There may be a few people who have such a fear, but I seriously doubt that many of them are coppers.

They may *talk* that way in the same way as a kipper prefaces a racist comment with 'I know you'll call me a racist for saying this but ... <says some racist shit>'.

Relevant and similar case from New York, 2000 (and one that doesn't involve Muslims or asylum seekers):

Puerto Rican Day Parade attacks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Pickman's model]

anyone who says something bad about another Jew should be cast out of the community

there'd be something of a diminution in the jewish community if that was the universally upheld

 

[frogwoman]

there'd be something of a diminution in the jewish community if that was the universally upheld

Lashon Hara

it's a serious sin

 

[Idris2002]

There was no easy or regular mass civil mobility. (Only mass military mobility.)

Apart from all those religious pilgrimages and stuff. And all the trade, like.

During the crusades, Muslim Tunisia happily traded grain with Christian Sicily - something that had been going on between those parts of the Mediterranean world from Roman times onwards. Do you think it was carried over the sea by Aladdin's genie?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Relevant and similar case from New York, 2000 (and one that doesn't involve Muslims or asylum seekers):

Puerto Rican Day Parade attacks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yep.

One key difference in the present being the extensive far-right social media campaign pushing the 'liberal cover up of refugee rape gangs' meme that preceded the NYE events by roughly four months. If you use Google's custom date range to exclude the NYE events from your search, you can pretty clearly see the point in early September when that campaign kicks off.

Until NYE witness reports started circulating the day after, it was pretty much confined to a list of sites that look like Anders Breivik's bookmarks folder, but when it did go mainstream, the far right echo-chamber was already at full blast and they'd been practicing their talking points on each other for months.

 

[Pickman's model]

Apart from all those religious pilgrimages and stuff. And all the trade, like.

During the crusades, Muslim Tunisia happily traded grain with Christian Sicily - something that had been going on between those parts of the Mediterranean world from Roman times onwards. Do you think it was carried over the sea by Aladdin's genie?

it's wicked to mock the afflicted

 

[treelover]

Taffboy, I would agree with you entirely… if the events in Cologne were the heart of the problem.

But the problem isn’t there.

As noted earlier in the thread, Erdogan is urging Muslims in Europe NOT to integrate.

Last week the organization of British mosques rejected the governments incredibly weak proposal for the oversight of UK madrassas.

A parallel network of state institutions – schools, mosques community councils, an alternative system of personal law and lawcourts, etc. – is being erected. Institutions of cultural reproduction – for the reproduction of a culture which aspires to independence and even supremacy, and which is uniquely equipped for the struggle to obtain those things.

We’ve used the term “multiculturalism” for thirty years. I think we will shortly discover that it was always just a synonym for “sectarianism”.

But I think you are certainly right about one thing: the state will assume more powers to police the cultural boundaries, and most people will support them as they do so.

that is very worrying, all institutions are now regulated, Scouts, Guides, etc.

 

[Idris2002]

it's wicked to mock the afflicted

But it's also great gas altogether, so it is, he typed, while munching on a raw potato.

 

[campanula]

The Algeria I visited in 1979 was hugely different to the Algeria of the 90s. Presumably, the texts and teachings of Islam did not change fundamentally, but uptake and interpretation certainly did. As we are seeing apparently everywhere - some weird attempt at suppression in a period of scarcity or anxiety - I don't know but it does seem that piety and a need to relocate responsibility to a higher authority seems very prevalent...and this is manipulated by elites - such as the unedifying sight of US pray-ins and prayers (Cruz inparticular but more or less mandatory on the Right) in the public domain. Personally, I admit to finding many Islamic attitudes towards women to be frankly odious but there is, so far, not really any comparison between a public groping and being stoned to death. We are not facing a religious apocalypse anytime soon so to concentrate on this factor as a major trend on NYE is a bit simplistic...but still has some utility in a broader debate regarding multi-culturalism, human rights, tolerance and those scary 'isms' which are easy to get tangled up in (since i truly can see immense global diasporas whether through war, climate, loss of resources etc.)....but fail to see how to locate the issue of religion (any religion) within wider policies of toleration, especially in a society where church and state are separate..

 

[Thomsy]

There are many Islams and many schools of Islamic jurisprudence. Rooting around in the texts to say that this stuff is inherent, always present in Islamic Societies is a blind alley. If so, why don't most or even many Muslims behave in this way? And there is always the 'outside' of older tradition or of those imported from cultural contact. A picture of Islam as static, monolithic and bound in time has been building over these last few pages and it aint necessarily so...

Hi Pale King.

* ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslims’ are not the same things.

* There are five schools. Only. They agree on all the essentials we have discussed here. To dispute any of those essentials risks denunciation as apostate (takfiir). The penalty for apostasy is death. The gates of ijtihad – personal interpretation of the law – were famously slammed shut centuries ago.

* “Rooting around in the texts to say this stuff is inherent is… a blind alley.” Agreed. Do you understand, though, that every Islamist is spending their spare time rooting around in the texts and declaring the stuff inherent?

* The “outside” of “older tradition” or of those things “imported from cultural contact” is utterly and unequivocally denounced by the Quran, the Prophet, and the Islamist radicals. Such things are termed “Jahiliyya” – things from the age or place “Of Ignorance”. Modern radical Islam denounces such accretions and tries to enforce the ban with violence.

* People are not static. The fundamentals of Islam – I contest, and Islam teaches, and every Islamist claims, and Muslim scholars claim – are static. Literally. Eternally. The Quran was not ever created. It is ‘ghrayr khalq’, Uncreated. It existed with Allah before all time and all things.

* “Why don’t most or even many Muslims behave in this way”?
If you mean as per Cologne, you will have to look through the thread for some of the longer answers given. Simple answer, of course, is that most Muslims are fundamentally decent humans.
If you mean: how can the militants come to define their wider community? It requires only that everyone else is too complaisant, too complicit, too busy or too scared too oppose them. Same as always
In sectarian conflicts, the militants always define their community.

 

[campanula]

'the ideas of the ruling class are, in every epoch, the ruling ideas' then?

dunno why this is all black and bold?

 

[frogwoman]

If you look at any Salafist type stuff though you'll find that they are constantly criticising people for celebrating stuff like the prophet's birthday or Christmas or thinking that homosexuality is fine. So clearly they are pushing back against trends in Islamic thought that, while it may not be part of a particular official school, is widely believed in the Muslim community? Salafism seems to have originated from Saudi Arabia and become widely influential there, but there are loads of people who practice the religion in a more tolerant way, and in a way that the Salafists would think puts them outside of the faith. Really orthodox jews often don't believe that the reform jews are following the religion properly or even they are infidels. Just because the Salafist view is the one that's closest to the texts it doesn't mean that it's the 'right' one or that everyone grows up believing that it is. I don't want to defend the religion here because there's loads of stuff I don't like about it but not every Muslim believes the Saudi/ISIS interpretation do they?

 

[The Pale King]

Hi Pale King.

* ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslims’ are not the same things.

* There are five schools. Only. They agree on all the essentials we have discussed here. To dispute any of those essentials risks denunciation as apostate (takfiir). The penalty for apostasy is death. The gates of ijtihad – personal interpretation of the law – were famously slammed shut centuries ago.

* “Rooting around in the texts to say this stuff is inherent is… a blind alley.” Agreed. Do you understand, though, that every Islamist is spending their spare time rooting around in the texts and declaring the stuff inherent?

* The “outside” of “older tradition” or of those things “imported from cultural contact” is utterly and unequivocally denounced by the Quran, the Prophet, and the Islamist radicals. Such things are termed “Jahiliyya” – things from the age or place “Of Ignorance”. Modern radical Islam denounces such accretions and tries to enforce the ban with violence.

* People are not static. The fundamentals of Islam – I contest, and Islam teaches, and every Islamist claims, and Muslim scholars acknowledges – are static. Literally. Eternally. The Quran was not ever created. It is ‘ghrayr khalq’, Uncreated. It existed with Allah before all time and all things.

* “Why don’t most or even many Muslims behave in this way”?
If you mean as per Cologne, you will have to look through the thread for some of the longer answers given. Simple answer, of course, is that most Muslims are fundamentally decent humans.
If you mean: how can the militants come to define their wider community? It requires only that everyone else is too complaisant, too complicit, too busy or too scared too oppose them. Same as always
In sectarian conflicts, the militants always define their community.

Hi Thomsy.

-Only five, eh? Still a few then! Sorry but I don't accept your broad brush characterisation of their level of agreement on the 'essentials'.

-Depends what you mean by Islamist - a lot of these guys who act in the name of political Islam aren't exactly devout.

-It doesn't matter that 'outside' imports are deemed to come from 'the place of ignorance' - people still absorb and pay attention to these ideas and use them to gain critical distance on their own tradition. You think every Muslim does just what they are told? People aren't like that.

-I don't mean either. You have presented a particular view of Islam which I think is restrictively narrow. And people are not automata. They do not do what they are told. They engage in blasphemies and suchlike just for the hell of it. I have met many impious Muslims, no doubt you have as well.

...I don't mean this post to come off as terse, just wanted to get a quick reply in before the thread moves on....

 

[irf520]

The gates of ijtihad – personal interpretation of the law – were famously slammed shut centuries ago.

I don't think that's entirely true for the Shia. Each Shia follows the interpretation of the law provided by a mujtahid, so not a personal interpretation but at least one provided by a currently living person which therefore has the potential to evolve.

 

[frogwoman]

It also doesn't explain why many Muslim countries and states only started becoming rabidly fundamentalist a few years ago rather than always being like that.

 

[The Pale King]

It also doesn't explain why many Muslim countries and states only started becoming rabidly fundamentalist a few years ago rather than always being like that.

Quite so - and the disappearance of the previously large Communist movements in many of these countries (Afghanistan for example). Zizek is right I think when he quotes Walter Benjamin here to the effect that "every rise of fascism bears witness to a failed revolution"...

 

[Pickman's model]

It also doesn't explain why many Muslim countries and states only started becoming rabidly fundamentalist a few years ago rather than always being like that.

everybody's dancing to the rhythm of the reggae sound
no one wants to be left out, everyone's around

 

[irf520]

If you look at any Salafist type stuff though you'll find that they are constantly criticising people for celebrating stuff like the prophet's birthday or Christmas or thinking that homosexuality is fine. So clearly they are pushing back against trends in Islamic thought that, while it may not be part of a particular official school, is widely believed in the Muslim community? Salafism seems to have originated from Saudi Arabia and become widely influential there, but there are loads of people who practice the religion in a more tolerant way, and in a way that the Salafists would think puts them outside of the faith. Really orthodox jews often don't believe that the reform jews are following the religion properly or even they are infidels. Just because the Salafist view is the one that's closest to the texts it doesn't mean that it's the 'right' one or that everyone grows up believing that it is. I don't want to defend the religion here because there's loads of stuff I don't like about it but not every Muslim believes the Saudi/ISIS interpretation do they?

One of the problems is the Saudis have more money than they know what to do with and they spend a lot of it building mosques and madrassas all over the world which then push their malignant version of Islam.

 

[frogwoman]

I read Will mcCants' book about ISIS and in it he says that while some parts of the Quran etc do place a lot of emphasis on jihad and hatred of non Muslims, when Muslims started to settle in countries where Islam was tolerated or where the country had been stable for years and years, the aspects of these teachings were dropped as they were no longer relevant, and more peaceful ones were emphasised. So clearly there are many mosques and communities which still emphasise these peaceful aspects. A lot of Muslims will tell you jihad is just a struggle rather than an actual war. Their interpretation might be wrong according to what the text actually means but tbh who cares? It's better that than taking it literally

 

[Idris2002]

everybody's dancing to the rhythm of the reggae sound
no one wants to be left out, everyone's around

Al Capone's guns don't argue.

frogwoman the Koran and the Bible are the same: they include everything, and its opposite.

 

[Thomsy]

I know apostates etc often have problems with their families but I know several women who don't wear the hijab etc and dont have those sorts of problems, or did at first but have worked them out. It really depends on how the person sees themselves, whether they see the religion as central to their lives, whether they think it should have some sort of political role, and don't forget there are Christians who go apeshit if their kid marries a Jew, Muslim or whoever or converts to a different religion. I know that Islam says some appalling stuff about women but not everyone follows those bits tbh. In Judaism it says that disobedient sons should be stoned to death and that anyone who says something bad about another Jew should be cast out of the community but fairly few Jews actually obey that.

Hi Frogwoman.

I understand what you are saying, and I agree with much of it. But I can't agree that it is just a question of how ‘the individual’ sees his religion, or politics or identity. It is often a question of how the broader community – or even just the radical elements of that community – see it.

I gave a personal example earlier. My ex was Iranian. She was guilty of four offences: as an apostate, an atheist, having relations outside marriage, and having relations with a non-Muslim man. All bear the death penalty in Islam. If we had gone to the Muslim world, the state would have pursued those offences. If not the state, her own family would have killed her. If her family refused, the people in the street would have done it. If the neighbours had not, some militants would.

I mentioned before that we decided not to travel in the Islamic World. But we felt safe here.

Twenty five years on, England is changing. Would we be safe if we lived together in, eg Bradford?
Does that matter?
In future, do you think it will become easier or more dangerous to move there?

Of course there is a solution. If we were still together, she could return to Islam, I could convert to Islam, and we could get married. Then we would be safe anywhere. Is that the solution?

(Sorry FW, that last was rhetorical/general, not hurled at you!!!)

 

[Pickman's model]

Al Capone's guns don't argue.

frogwoman the Koran and the Bible are the same: they include everything, and its opposite.

but also when govts see a threat they often become increasingly reactionary and authoritarian be that expressed as in this country or as it's expressed elsewhere

 

[Thomsy]

-It doesn't matter that 'outside' imports are deemed to come from 'the place of ignorance' - people still absorb and pay attention to these ideas and use them to gain critical distance on their own tradition. You think every Muslim does just what they are told? People aren't like that.#
... You have presented a particular view of Islam which I think is restrictively narrow. And people are not automata. They do not do what they are told. They engage in blasphemies and suchlike just for the hell of it. I have met many impious Muslims, no doubt you have as well.

Hi again, Pale King. Didn't sound terse at all. Far from it - but thanks for asking!

I agree with you entirely about people's ability to change. The trouble - as I posted above to Frogwoman - is that the militants are increasingly defining what is halal and what is haram. They are doing it with the Quran in one hand and a knife or an Ak47 in the other.

It's not that Muslim societies have never changed. They have, in significant regards. Watch an Egyptian film from the sixties. It's all flesh and big hair and racy tales. The streets aren't like that today in Cairo. A couple of years back, I saw two girls in 'tightish' jumpers walk down a Cairo street with every young man literally shouting in their faces, till I actually stepped in and came to blows with one of them. Those things didn't used to happen.

All Arabs smoke. The place has probably left me with lung cancer. Try and find a cigarette now in Raqqa.

 

[Idris2002]

till I actually came to blows with one of them.

Yes, Thomsy. That actually happened. I believe you. Yes.

 

[Thomsy]

Sorry - double post.

 

[bimble]

I mentioned before that we decided not to travel in the Islamic World. But we felt safe here.

Twenty five years on, England is changing. Would we be safe if we lived together in, eg Bradford?
Does that matter?
In future, do you think it will become easier or more dangerous to move there?

Of course there is a solution. If we were still together, she could return to Islam, I could convert to Islam, and we could get married. Then we would be safe anywhere. Is that the solution?

I can't think of a single upbeat cheery argument to make that all go away.
You'd be ok in Bradford for a while though, surely, seeing as the law that governs Bradford does not sanction stoning people to death.

 

[Thomsy]

Yes, Thomsy. That actually happened. I believe you. Yes.

Pathetic answer.

 

[J Ed]

Yes, Thomsy. That actually happened. I believe you. Yes.

Eh, I've gotten in fights over men groping women I was hanging out with in a boring town in the Midlands it seems eminently more achievable in Cairo.

 

[Idris2002]

Pathetic answer.

You're a Walter Mitty who does Daesh's work for them. You're a fucking useful idiot for the Daeshbags who want to destroy the grey zone. And you're telling me my answer is pathetic?