You have it backwards, Schills

Submitted by sara (United States), Jul 4, 2012 at 17:33

Schills, you say:"Your own statements cut against your analysis that Islam is the problem. You wrote, "[t]he fact of the matter is, first Israel and Jews were used as a unifying hate and motivator by many Arab rulers to deflect the hardship they experience under such regimes."

What is cutting against what? So there were (relatively) secular rulers and then there were Islamist ones and Islamist doctrine, and so on, so?

"Look at the history of the region. Arabs took up nationalism precisely because they saw establishment Islam as being non-confrontational and appeasing. "

What is your evidence of this?

It was not until Islamists took nationalists and socialist rhetoric and placed an Islamic veneer on it that they began to draw support. You are looking at the rhetoric and taking it as fact. I am looking at the facts and seeing that the rhetoric does not correspond to them.

I rather think it the other way round. You are using rhetoric as fact and analyzing theories. I am looking purely at the facts. I am very familiar with Islamic rhetoric and bluster, grandiosity and bluffing, because in Arab culture the facade is all that matters, not the realities underneath. It is a deeply corrupt and mendacity laden culture, where honor killings, bravado and tribal chest beating are admired and condoned. You keep skipping over this crucial point I am making, that the failure to recognize the deep cultural and value differences are the greatest impediment to getting along and potential peace.

"I still wonder if you would allow nationalists and secularists to participate in elections, and if so why? Given their use of anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic, anti-Western rhetoric and that they are the genesis of much of the narrative used by Jihadists why allow nationalists and socialists to participate in elections but not Islamists?"

First of all, what does 'you would allow' mean? How would I allow anything? I think I am more laissez-faire than you, with your theoretical intentions of imposing democracy on non-western cultures. Am I missing something here? It is a given that the rhetoric is what it is, see my previous post.

Second, here is the root cause of your misunderstanding. You have it quite backwards. The Jihadists are wagging the dog with their Quranic quotes and fire and brimstone jihad talk, not the other way round. Any politician knows that rule number one is play to your base and echo what they want to hear. The source is, and has always been as it always will be, the Quran and Islam.

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