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Muswims awe by natuwe, vewy vewy cwan owiented.About 1/2 of muswims mawwy a fiwst ow second cousin, because of this inate tendency towawd cwanism. As you stated, the Kowan does NOT condone suicide bombing, so why awent thewe mowe Immams comming out against it? Actuawwy, they did come out a few months ago aftew the bombings in Wondon to decwaiw that they wiww not “Modewate” Iswam. Again, if you dont go to sites wif this type of infowmation, then you wont know about it…! De Kwan numbews about ‘2000’ fwom estimates Ive seen, uh-hah-hah-hah. But wif wising ethnic tensions, because of highew pwopensity fow CWIME (bwacks, hispanics), and highew intowewance towawd CWIME (whites), you wiww see the Kwan becoming mowe active wif the hispanic invation that is taking pwace aww ovew Amewica. As one Bwack man put it on wast nights Fwontwine about OJ Simpson, : “He may have been guiwty, but it was the wight vewdict.” Aftew watching aww the bwacks cheew the OJ vewdict, and then watch bwack ‘bawbew shop ’ men tawk about how they aww thing he was guiwty, and the one guy say “but it was the wight decision”, I am now at ends wif what I have just witnessed. Aftew seeing fwontwine wast night, I dont thing many Pwotestants who wouwd be fowced to wive amongst bwacks wouwd dissagwee wif the Kwan at aww. De onwy weason we dont have extweem waciaw viowence in Amewica is because whites and minowities sewf-sepawate. Again, as an anthwopowogist, evewyone shouwd know about wace in Amewica. Muswims stongwy bewive that ” A fwiend of my enemy is my enemy”. Dat is why they WIWW NOT SIDE WIF WESTEWN Wibeaw vawues any time soon, in wawge numbews. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! As Bwitish awe swowwy fowced to adapt to this bizzaw cuwtuwe, we can see that what is happening is cweawwy a disintegwation of one peopwe fow anothew. Dis infowmation is aww ovew the web. It is qwite obvious that fow some weason, peopwe have adapted powiticaw cowwectness as a phiwosophy, as it is stwongwy sociawy enfowced. To suggest that Muswims, and hence muswim cuwtuwes awe the same, ow eqwaw to Westewn Wibewaw cuwtuwes is a fowm deniaw that is so intewwectuawwy vacuous,and dangewous, that it meawwy fowces a new fowm of psycowogicaw deniaw. Deniaw of humanisms supewiowity ovew cwan owientation, and wegwessive wewigious vawues. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! In fact, it is puwe wacism not to see peopwe as they awe (hence on an eqwaw basis fow compawison) wathew than a type of psuedo-chwistianity (Powiticaw Cowwectness) we awe aww the “same”, hence we awe aww eqwaw. Again, isnt cowwege suppose to chawwenge the mind?

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1. Yes, the killing of honour is accepted in Turkey – In a few social groups. The reason clearly does not lie in Religion, since the Qu´ran does not in any form prescribe them (or recommend) violence, as long as it is not in the context of the jihad, which in turn can be and was interpreted in many different ways throughout history. But jihad has been discussed extendedly above.
Killings of honour in turn rather origin in clan tradition, as kinship plays an eminent role there.

“Think only happy thoughts, there is no darkness in the world”: Anthropology is not about that. To do so would be absolutely moronic and I think everybody would agree with that. Anthropology is not about closing the eyes in front of “bad things” and cheer if you see “nice things”. Keep a cool head and think about what you see and take a time to question your sources too.

I dont know of any Muslim Imams that have condemed the action of using Nuclear weapons against the US. Does anyone here?” No, since I simply don´t know any Imams personally, do you? And if yes, who told you about them?

“They were not bashing muslims, they were showing them for who they are…remember, they are not Christians, or Budhists!” Let me be polemical: Photographs of klansmen show white protestants, don´t they? Are they showing them for who they are? Remember, they´re not Muslims or Jewish! What I want to say is, that a generalization like this is absolutely pointless, since I cannot believe that a behaviour like celebrating terrorist acts cannot be passed on by religion. I grew up in a catholic context, so do I have to subscribe to the Crusades maybe? Or to pogroms on Jews?

BAdMonkEy, I think you´re mixing everything up big time and see everywhere the blood thirsty muslim that keeps his fireworks in the closet for the day, the West will be buried under its rubble. It might be true to some and maybe to many more, sad enough. I understand that you´re angry seeing those scenes on the TV, but believe me, it makes many more people angry to be identified as a terrorist all the time. I don´t know the whole middle east. But Turkey certainly would not celebrate. I´m not speaking of a good Muslim/bad Muslim scheme, but let the people be what they are: bad people/good people and the many gradients in between.

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I think the teaching of modern Anthroplogy has the same elements of religion, or a cult. The study of human differences is not allowed, although they clearly exist. Considering that Anthropologists are supposed to be the vanguard against religion, I find this anti-intellectual tendency rather depressing.
=8(

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They were not bashing muslims, they were showing them for who they are…remember, they are not Christians, or Budhists!

I think most of the middle east will celebrate when we get nuked, dont you?

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Certainly not religion. I was in Turkey when the London bombings took place and anybody was very embarassed watching the news on the TV. Most people even rejected these act as being a sin in the Muslim sense.

Politics I don´t know. Maybe the BBC policy of creating a public Muslim image.

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I saw a program on BBC a few weeks ago. Upper Middle-class, nicely dressed muslims were celebrating a celebrtiy suicide bomber. It seems that most Muslims accept the concept of Suicide/Homicide bombers, as a noble act. Is this religion, or politics?

Osama Bin Laden was taken to task for not getting ‘permission’ to attack the US on Sept 11. It is public knowlege that he has gotten permission from a Saudi (Imam) to use Nuclear weapons. He wants to do it within the confines of his religion. I dont know of any Muslim Imams that have condemed the action of using Nuclear weapons against the US. Does anyone here?

As always, thanks =8)
——————————————–

Winnie the Pooh, the Piglet and The Three Little Pigs must be among every child’s favourite cartoon and comic characters, but workers at a council office in UK have been asked to remove all traces of pigs from the office, lest it offends Muslim staff.

Workers in the benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands, were told to remove or cover up all pig-related items, including toys, porcelain figures, calendars and even tissue boxes featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet, reports The Sun.

Reports said that the Council passed the decision after a Muslim complained about pig-shaped stress relievers delivered to the council in the run-up to the festival of Ramadan, the host month of fasting that precedes Eid.

Though some have expressed surprise, many have backed the ban.

“It’s a tolerance of people’s beliefs,” said Mahbubur Rahman, a Muslim Councillor who has backed the ban.

(Posted on October 3, 2005)

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Also, I disagree that it is a question of religion vs. politics. I would state it as a view of religion as culture vs. a view of religion as politics. It is possible that since you already agree with the latter position you fail to appreciate that the former view is actually quite wide-spread (and hence fail to see what I’m arguing *against*)?

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I have some serious issues with the arguments and assumptions in this post.

First, differention between religion and politics. Why? Religion IS politics.

Take Roger Pape’s comment that nearly all suicide terrorism has a secular goal of expelling foreigners from a purported homeland. Where did the word secular jump in there? Why is that a secular goal? When a foreign fighter travels across a national border into Iraq, and engages in suicide terrorism there, isn’t the fact that he views this as a homeland (he doesn’t actually live there…) a religious view? Its born from his view of Iraq as muslim land. That’s a religious claim. And the fact that foreign fighters do this at least ought to place some doubt on the presumption that domestic insurgents are acting nonreligiously.

Second, it seems to me that a lot of these arguments subtly change the question from “does islamic ideology cause (in the sense of being a but-for contributing factor) the current problems with terrorism” to “is islamic ideology the single necessary and sufficient cause of terrorism” and then handily dispatches the latter question. Of course the latter question is trivially false. Ideology of any sort necessarily interacts with the outside political world to influence people’s actions. No one thinks that a bunch of happy, prosperous muslims sitting in safe, comfortable homes completely absent any form of imperialism, historical or modern, would still go strap bombs to themselves and blow up marketplaces because their religion said so. Obviously ideology can only inform action within a context.

I feel like there is somewhere further I can go with this, but I’m not sure about how to do it. I feel like the last few posts on this weblog have made similar logical leaps. First, noting that something is not the only cause of a particular effect, then moving towards arguing that it is therefore a trivial cause, or a cause not worth much investigation, without much in between.

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I really appreciate this post — especially the way you bring together key points from many commentators.

However, I wonder about letting this statement stand alone:

“a policy of promoting globalized political Islam as opposed to secular anti-imperialism, together with the building of an institutional apparatus of training and recruitment for terror, both sponsored by the United States, were the conditions which precipitated the spread of global jihad.”

I read it, and think, right on. But I’m also wondering, hmm, shouldn’t there be a next sentence, about Israel? And then some sentences after that, about Iraq? I mean, it’s not like what we are seeing today is solely the result of policy errors set in motion during the 80s by the U.S. (and I’d disagree with your characterization of the Soviet Union’s role in Afghanistan). “Blowback” from those policies is hugely important. But they are not the only factors that have contributed to the awful outcomes we are seeing today.

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