Manchester Arena incident - many reported dead

[bimble]

I have read plenty of islamist crap but all I have ever got from it is a headache, and a sense of despair that there's no way to reasonably or even rationally engage with such beliefs. Literally no way. This is why I consider it a waste of time, when we know this enemy, what do we plan to do? Protest? They don't care. Fight? That's what they want.

I'm starting to think like this too, and trying to change my behaviour accordingly. In my case it means not going on nazi websites, not trying to edify myself about the ideology there, because all that happens is I get depressed and frightened, which is no use to anyone. Trying to understand it is a sort of instinctive response but in the end not actually useful.

 

[J Ed]

This is very good from Malik

How did the left radicalism of my Manchester youth give way to Islamism? | Kenan Malik

It seems like you can trace other similar trajectories for young men from other backgrounds as well, though perhaps there you can see the transformation more through the disintegration of collective institutions rather than the replacement of secular collective institutions with religious collective institutions and their role or lack thereof.

Today’s angry young Islamists are not interested in the fight against austerity, the defence of the NHS or even in the struggle against racism. They are obsessed, rather, in showing solidarity with the peoples of Palestine and Chechnya and Syria. In an age in which anti-imperialist movements have faded and belief in alternatives to capitalism dissolved, radical Islam provides the illusion of being part of a global movement for change

As with the far-right, or even the increasingly myopic and unhinged centrist liberalism of the middle-classes, a lot of what drives Islamism seems to be an abandonment of the idea that things are ever going to get better for ordinary people.

 

[mojo pixy]

I mean the green book up on my bookshelf entitled ''Interpretation of the meanings of the noble Koran'' which was a gift from a very good friend. That book. I call that The Koran. If there's another book called The Koran, please enlighten me.

 

[Beats & Pieces]

I mean the green book up on my bookshelf entitled ''Interpretation of the meanings of the noble Koran'' which was a gift from a very good friend. That book. I call that The Koran. If there's another book called The Koran, please enlighten me.

Respectfully, I don't think there is any point. I do suggest, quite strongly, that there are some books that you could read to help develop and deepen your knowledge and understanding of the subject area.

 

[butchersapron]

This is very good from Malik

How did the left radicalism of my Manchester youth give way to Islamism? | Kenan Malik

It seems like you can trace other similar trajectories for young men from other backgrounds as well, though perhaps there you can see the transformation more through the disintegration of collective institutions rather than the replacement of secular collective institutions with religious collective institutions and their role or lack thereof.



As with the far-right, or even the increasingly myopic and unhinged centrist liberalism of the middle-classes, a lot of what drives Islamism seems to be an abandonment of the idea that things are ever going to get better for ordinary people.

It's not an abandonment. It's a deliberate planned attack on the way that we make things better. Materially and how we think about the same. We didn't abandon anything. The result might be disengagement from formal political processes, but not from giving a shit. We're winning despite their attacks.

 

[mojo pixy]

I'm starting to think like this too, and trying to change my behaviour accordingly. In my case it means not going on nazi websites, not trying to edify myself about the ideology there, because all that happens is I get depressed and frightened, which is no use to anyone. Trying to understand it is a sort of instinctive response but in the end not actually useful.

I get that, and I agree. As I've said this is something I've been reading about for quite a while and gave up because answers were not forthcoming. IME you can debate with nazis, I've scored two minor conversions over the years. I believe converting people away from IS would be still harder, but someone may one day find a way.

So yes, I change my mind. Maybe it's not a waste of time to learn, but don't approach it looking for a way to engage and argue rationally because my experience is that arguments are irrelevant in this matter. What God wants will always win, because it's what God wants. God decides when to punish and show compassion, and holy men are not to be argued with on pain of death. It's hard to even appreciate the utter absolutism, because most if not all of us have grown up in an environment where you're always allowed to question, at times even to disobey.

Also, afterlife. That's a whole nother angle. When you die you don't really die. I know a lot of people have this idea but not all of them act on it by killing themselves to get there quicker.

 

[J Ed]

It's not an abandonment. It's a deliberate planned attack on the way that we make things better. Materially and how we think about the same. We didn't abandon anything. The result might be disengagement from formal political processes, but not from giving a shit. We're winning despite their attacks.

I meant amongst ordinary people, that there has been an abandonment in the idea that things will ever get better or that another world is possible rather than neoliberalism as an elite project and ideology from the ruling class.

 

[butchersapron]

I meant amongst ordinary people, that there has been an abandonment in the idea that things will ever get better or that another world is possible rather than neoliberalism as an elite project and ideology from the ruling class.

Did that idea ever exist aside from it being provided by capitalism though?

 

[bimble]

I get that, and I agree. As I've said this is something I've been reading about for quite a while and gave up because answers were not forthcoming. IME you can debate with nazis, I've scored two minor conversions over the years. I believe converting people away from IS would be still harder, but someone may one day find a way.

So yes, I change my mind. Maybe it's not a waste of time to learn, but don't approach it looking for a way to engage and argue rationally because my experience is that arguments are irrelevant in this matter. What God wants will always win, because it's what God wants. God decides when to punish and show compassion, and holy men are not to be argued with on pain of death. It's hard to even appreciate the utter absolutism, because most if not all of us have grown up in an environment where you're always allowed to question, at times even to disobey.

Also, afterlife. That's a whole nother angle. When you die you don't really die. I know a lot of people have this idea but not all of them act on it by killing themselves to get there quicker.

Why do you think there are such a high proportion of converts amongst the people who we know of who have joined up to or committed attacks in the name of Isis? This absolutism is attractive, clearly, to people who grew up with none of it.

 

[mojo pixy]

Respectfully, I don't think there is any point. I do suggest, quite strongly, that there are some books that you could read to help develop and deepen your knowledge and understanding of the subject area.

Feel free to recommend something that has deeply informed your understanding of Islam and especially extreme jihadist versions thereof. If I haven't read it, I'd appreciate a bit of a catch up with something, since I'm now deeply engaged with the thread and could maybe do with some revision. I'll grab my green book and we can have a sing-song.

 

[mojo pixy]

Why do you think there are such a high proportion of converts amongst the people who we know of who have joined up to or committed attacks in the name of Isis?

I think that's a key point. Clearly something about the absolutism of certain interpretations appeals to a disaffected, disappointed, angry mind - if I do these things I'm doing things right, and if you don't (you being all the people I fucking hate in my life) then you're evil, terrible and deserve scorn, humiliation, punishment. I condemn you utterly, and I have divine justification. It's fucking awesome when you look at it.

I think the punishment aspect is a very important one in this brand of Islam. Maybe the most important actually.

 

[butchersapron]

Nothing to do with Islam though.

 

[mojo pixy]

Of course not, but there are verses about punishment to exploit...

Like there are in the Bible, but not many christians bother with that stuff any more. Some do, obviously, and we tend to see them and call them out for what they are. We find this distinction harder with muslims, somehow.

 

[mojo pixy]

massive generalisations, I know. Sorry. Tear it to shreds.

 

[Beats & Pieces]

Feel free to recommend something that has deeply informed your understanding of Islam and especially extreme jihadist versions thereof. If I haven't read it, I'd appreciate a bit of a catch up with something, since I'm now deeply engaged with the thread and could maybe do with some revision. I'll grab my green book and we can have a sing-song.

Certainly. As a very good primer I recommend starting with this:

Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices): Amazon.co.uk: Teresa Bernheimer, Andrew Rippin: 9780415489409: Books

It is highly readable, accessible, balanced, and wide ranging.

 

[mojo pixy]

Primer, right.

 

[bimble]

I think that's a key point. Clearly something about the absolutism of certain interpretations appeals to a disaffected, disappointed, angry mind - if I do these things I'm doing things right, and if you don't (you being all the people I fucking hate in my life) then you're evil, terrible and deserve scorn, humiliation, punishment. I condemn you utterly, and I have divine justification. It's fucking awesome when you look at it.

I think the punishment aspect is a very important one in this brand of Islam. Maybe the most important actually.

That's got to be a part of it, for sure. When reading about the young men who grew up secular (and were failed djs and smalltime gangters etc) before being drawn to this stuff I can't help but wonder about the importance of the attitude to women as well, the furious extremity of righteously putting women in their place. Very like that of the boys radicalised by the 'alt right' maybe but more extreme and with scripture to back it up.

 

[Beats & Pieces]

Primer, right.

It would certainly help anyone in respect of understanding the Qur'an (as a text or otherwise). Rather more so than a rendering by Abdullah Yusuf Ali - which I think may be the 'green book' on your shelf.

 

[Pickman's model]

I can't speak about the development of early Christianity, but the positivist approach to early Islam (exemplified by Renan), and the identification of 'Islam' with Arabia is problematic. There are a great many questions that exist, many for which we will (sadly) not likely be able to discover an answer.

Yeh. Well, as I say xianity emanated from Palestine and Islam from Arabia. Palestine was from whence the seeds of the xian faith sprang, as Arabia was for Islam

In any case neither faith native to these shores

 

[mojo pixy]

I can't help but wonder about the importance of the attitude to women as well, the furious extremity of righteously putting women in their place.

All the monotheisms are good for that though aren't they, because of the he-god thing they share. Like Christianity, Islam is explicitly open to all. Some churches exist where they do still preach fire and damnation obviously, and some sects have incredibly strict rules for male and female roles. The celibate, all-male priesthood lol. OK, not lol.

The Westboro bunch spring to mind, but I've known a few like that in real life - a lot of people here might remember the scouse bloke who used to hang around here and there in London shouting Don't be a sinner, be a winner! If you'd talk to him he'd do that thing of asking, Have you ever told a lie? Ever stolen anything? Then you're a sinner and only Jesus can save you! All that. Islam has that too, they used to be all over London but they're not allowed any more. Booksellers in Shepherds Bush, Edgeware Road, preachers at Hyde Park Corner. I don't imagine those kind of preachers preach there any more.

It would certainly help anyone in respect of understanding the Qur'an (as a text or otherwise). Rather more so than a rendering by Abdullah Yusuf Ali - which I think may be the 'green book' on your shelf.

If it were the only thing I'd ever read that might be a problem. Luckily it isn't, by quite some way AlhamduI'Illah. I'll look for the encyclopedia or something like it in the library next time I'm there, I might find something insightful on the way.

 

[mojo pixy]

A big thing is though, why don't christians suicide bomb? I say wait. They will.
(ETA: just occurred to me, the murder/suicide thing so beloved of the american school killer. That's close, IMO)

Meanwhile I think that suicide bombing is related entirely to the resources available to deliver the device. Suicide is taboo and punishable in Islam so you have to twist the bits about dying in war really hard to justify suicide bombing. Some preachers are clearly doing that though.

 

[bimble]

Oh yes - I remember him, oxford circus Are You a Sinner or a Winner man.

 

[DotCommunist]

suicide is a sin in christianity as well, you go to hell for it. Although I think the RC are the ones who make the bigger deal of that 'mortal sin'. I'd look up the references but cba, you all know how to use google.

 

[bimble]

Jews too, preserve life is (apparently) the number one thing. Notwithstanding all the smiting of course. Tattoos are a sin and suicide means you don't get buried with the faithful.

 

[mojo pixy]

Suicide became a mortal sin later (mid-period, let's say) in christianity. Certainly in Rome suicide wasn't taboo, it was considered honourable usually and the early martyrs were kindof suicides kind of. St.Augustine changed that.

 

[bimble]

Oh yeah. The jews of Massada topped themselves (and their wives and children) heroically rather than be subject to the Romans, and got to be Zionist heroes. Not sure how they square that circle.

 

[mojo pixy]

IDF take their vow on Masada don't they. Scary, proper scary.

 

[mojo pixy]

So, religion eh?

Great.

 

[bimble]

I didn't know that, the elevation of Massada as an iconic nationalist symbol quite recent i thought. Completely scary/ nuts yes.

 

[D'wards]

Charles Manson interpreted the White Album as a manifesto to start a race war.

"You ain't no Beatles fan, bruv"