Writes Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was the subject of a film and of a note pinned to the murdered body of the film's director, Theo Van Gogh.
“The immigrants’ culture was being preserved at the expense of their women and children and to the detriment of the immigrants’ integration into Holland.”...
Death threats have since driven Ms. Hirsi Ali to the United States....
This is a pity. As a politician, she focused Dutch minds on a subject they steadfastly ignored.
Here is her "brave, inspiring and beautifully written" memoir:
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75 comments:
a real gutsy lady who speaks the truth as she sees it.
"a real gutsy lady who speaks the truth as she sees it."
Well said, except I don't think you need to qualify it.
The truth as she sees it fortunately happens to be the Truth, like, the actual truth.
Take it away, John:
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'
...the Quran is not a holy document. It is a historical record, written by humans. . . . And it is a very tribal and Arab version of events. It spreads a culture that is brutal, bigoted, fixated on controlling women, and harsh in war." ditto for the Bible - replace Arab with Judeo-Christian.
A brave woman.
Is there someone (female) comparable in the States? I don't think so.
Madison Man: She is in the United States now. That means something.
True. It's noteworthy that freedom protectors come here from overseas.
rsb said...
"...the Quran is not a holy document. It is a historical record, written by humans ... And it is a very tribal and Arab version of events. It spreads a culture that is brutal, bigoted, fixated on controlling women, and harsh in war. ditto for the Bible - replace Arab with Judeo-Christian."
Compare The Koran, Sura 9:5 ("Slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush") with The Bible, Matt. 5:43-45 ("You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven"). Yep, no difference there. Kill your enemies, love your enemies, what's the difference really.
MadisonMan said...
"True. It's noteworthy that freedom protectors come here from overseas."
The reason she came here was under threat of death from people who have no doubt read the passage from the Koran quoted above.
Adam L said...
"a real gutsy lady who speaks the truth as she sees it."
Well said, except I don't think you need to qualify it.
How about: "a real gutsy lady who speaks the truth when she sees it."
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a marvellous woman. Incredibly brave and devoted to her cause of revealing the ugly truth about the way women are often treated under Islam.
The fact that supposedly 'free and civilized' nations are letting her basically be run out of the country by death threats from vicious Islamic thugs is an embarassment to us all.
If you ever want an example of someone *actually* willing to 'speak truth to power', she is it.
Vogue ran excerpts of her memoirs last month and I was really drawn in. Looking forward to reading the whole thing.
I wish she'd run for office HERE.
Agreed.
BTW, have the feminsting-type blogs taken note of her? Is NOW even aware of her existence Hollywood celebs marching down the Washington Mall, fists raised in defiance of Islam?
In addition to being brave, she is strikingly beautiful as well.
I'm asking this in all seriousness: when's the last time an American public figure had to flee this country to avoid a genuine risk of being murdered for his or her beliefs?
This is in some ways a violent country, but I can't think of when that has *ever* happened here. Has it?
I don't know if it's fair to exclude people who were murdered for their beliefs---like, say, MLK. After all, they simply suffered the misfortune of not getting out in time.
Fen, I can't speak for feministe, but Crooked Timber, a lefty and, though that's not its focus, feminist blog, was very hostile to Ali. Most leftists, at least in Europe and in academia, are very sympathetic to Islamic extremism, on the grounds that it's the only viable anti-Western movement around, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
MadisonMan wrote:
A brave woman.
Is there someone (female) comparable in the States? I don't think so.
Don't forget Wafa Sultan, or here for a news piece about her and the transcript. It's better to watch the video (the first link), however.
I don't know if it's fair to exclude people who were murdered for their beliefs---like, say, MLK.
*slaps head*
Good point, quite a few Americans were murdered for advocating civil rights. Dunno where my brain was when I asked for examples.
Her message is that a return to a demand for a large degree of assimilation into the norms and values of the host society, which used to be the classic American demand and bargain, should be what we REQUIRE of other cultures which wish to come as immigrants into our societies.
So who gets to decides the "norms and values of the host society"? Are they written down somewhere? Heck, you and I probably wouldn't even agree on the top five "Christian values" let alone what the norms and values of a host society that is multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic, of different faiths. Where 12% of the population is descended from people who didn't even come here voluntarily and another 2% are the remnants of the original people of this country, of whom up to 95% were killed by imported diseases, and of those who were left, were pushed of their native lands or slaughtered.
It's #24 at Amazon.com. I wonder if it's being taught at any of our women's studies departments in America.
And when the Europeans colonized most of the globe, did they feel the need to assimilate to the norms and values of the societies they invaded? Why didn't the British ever assimilate in Africa or India? Or the French in Algeria or North Africa?
Maybe we just need to recolonize all these countries to teach these wogs manners again.
Freder Frederson said...
"So who gets to decides the 'norms and values of the host society'"?
It isn't always necessary to define the complete perimeter and precise contours of the norms and values of the host society; I don't have to tell you everything that is acceptable to American cultural norms to determine that certain specific cultural practices are beyond them. You presumably wouldn't disagree that turning a blind eye to the murder of apostates is acceptable.
None-the-less, the simple answer, of course, is that the majority gets to decide what are the norms and values that are enforceable by law, and the First Amendment offers no protection to practices that are beyond the pale.
Eek! I mean unacceptable.
Fred -- Are you seriously contending that the English did not colonize India to a large extent? Do you know anything about the place?
What I am saying is that the British did not assimilate to the "norms and values of Indian society". Quite the opposite, they slapped a veneer of British Society on the subcontinent. In fact they didn't assimilate to the norms and values of any society they colonized, they either set up a mini-Britain to rule over the "uncivilized" natives or merely displaced or eliminated the natives.
Just like we have not assimilated to the norms and values of American society. We have transplanted a fundamentally English (or at least mostly Western European) society on the American Continent. Disease had already taken care of most of the society, but we either forced whoever was left off the land, and if they didn't leave fast enough, we killed them. That is hardly assimilating to the norms and values of the society.
Multi-culti idiots like him refuse to acknowledge America is a continuation of 5,000 years of Western culture.
5000 years. Give me a freaking break! The Arabs, who you despise so much may have a claim to 5000 years of culture. But the west? The "West" destroyed Rome and then the Church destroyed the cultures that destroyed Rome. At best "Western Culture" is 1200 years or so old, although it was able to steal a lot from the bones of Greece, Rome and the Arabs.
So who gets to decides the "norms and values of the host society"?
The host society does.
Are they written down somewhere?
They're written down in many places -- including in the laws of the nation in question.
The Muslim behaviors Ali spoke out against are, for the most part, illegal in Holland (e.g. forced marriage and child abuse). What Ali is getting at is that, rather than saying "oh, that's just how they do things in Backwardsistan", the Dutch should be saying "well they should fuck off back to Backwardsistan, then".
Many western societies simply lack the courage of their post-Enlightenment convictions, and are unwilling to say "that is wrong, even if your culture thinks it is right". The legacy of colonialism and racism has made people reluctant to admit that some cultures are, in fact, morally and ethically inferior to our own.
Where 12% of the population is descended from people who didn't even come here voluntarily and another 2% are the remnants of the original people of this country
I can't imagine why it's relevant that most black Americans are descended from people who didn't come here voluntarily. We aren't making them stay. If they'd rather be in Africa they're free to go.
Nor is it clear why it matters that other cultures used to dominate the territory of the United States. There isn't a piece of real estate on the face of the Earth that hasn't changed cultural hands countless times. Heck, the population of the British Isles lives in a culture imposed on their ancestors by invaders from mainland Europe, but you don't hear them pining for the days of the Druids much.
they slapped a veneer of British Society on the subcontinent. In fact they didn't assimilate to the norms and values of any society they colonized, they either set up a mini-Britain to rule over the "uncivilized" natives or merely displaced or eliminated the natives.
It isn't clear why it would have been good for an evolving democracy to assimilate to a collection of rigidly stratified dictatorial monarchies. It was probably for the best that it worked the other way around.
Nor is it clear why you need scare quotes around the word "uncivilized" when describing people who burn innocent women alive.
The legacy of colonialism and racism has made people reluctant to admit that some cultures are, in fact, morally and ethically inferior to our own.
Well, perhaps Europeans are more keenly aware than us Americans that Western "culture" has been responsible for more death and destruction over the last 500 years than another culture in the history of mankind (and heck that doesn't even count if you don't believe or accept blame for the mounting evidence that European diseases wiped out up to 95% of the population of the Americas before we made it more than a few miles inland). They can certainly look back on the past one hundred years and the two most destructive wars in human history and the genocides inspired by western thought and wonder what the hell we have to boast about.
Nor is it clear why you need scare quotes around the word "uncivilized" when describing people who burn innocent women alive.
Oh, and we have never burned innocent women alive. You do realize that the British were burning witches well into the 18th century?
Sorry, England executed its last witch in 1684 (which means we were still executing witches after England since the Salem Witch trials--where 20 were executed--was in 1691). But Poland executed the last witch in 1792, and witch executions continued in South America until the church banned them in 1830's.
"Nor is it clear why you need scare quotes around the word "uncivilized" when describing people who burn innocent women alive."
So should I put scare quotes around a "civilization" that would allow 35,000 women and children (and not even uncivilized African or Asian, but honest to God Europeans) die of disease and starvation in concentration camps in South Africa during the Boer War (where btw the term "concentration camp" was coined).
Freder Frederson said...
"[T]he British did not assimilate to the 'norms and values of Indian society'. Quite the opposite ... they colonized, they either set up a mini-Britain to rule over the 'uncivilized' natives or merely displaced or eliminated the natives."
Hirsi Ali is raising the red flag that this process of colonization is precisely what is happening in Europe today. Psst - d'you think it's only happening in Europe?
I swore I would not ever bother to respond to Freder's rants, but I can't let this one drop. Freder doesn't make the correct distinction between immigration, which is what we are willing to allow into the US and colonization, which is what the English did in India. In the case of immigration, the society accepts people from other lands who want to join the prevailing culture and assimilate. Colonization is the transplanting of a culture from the mother country onto new lands with the intent of replicating the mother culture, not assimilating into the Host. England colonized America and India. America accepts immigrants. The Muslim world is colonizing Europe and wants to colonize America. We need to make it clear that we will accept legal immigrants, but send colonists packing.
OT: Revenant said... We aren't making them stay. If they'd rather be in Africa they're free to go. I loved a line in one of the Clancy novels (Executive Order, I think) that places a black Army officer in Africa as an Attaché. He makes a comment about what a hell hole it is and says something like, "don't tell anybody, but compared to this place, South Alabama is a paradise, I'm glad my ancestors were put on the boat"
I note in passing that you have chosen to make your home in the West, which you abhor, and not in Saudi Arabia or Cuba or North Korea.
Interesting choice of countries. Let's see, the Saudi Arabian Royal Family was put in place by the British (didn't you see Lawrence of Arabia) and maintains power only because of us. And both Cuba and North Korea base their societies on Western philosophies. Whether you like it or not, Marxism and communism are just as much part of Western Civilization as Adam Smith.
Freder Frederson said...
"England executed its last witch in 1684 (which means we were still executing witches after England since the Salem Witch trials--where 20 were executed--was in 1691)."
It's a good job you're here to remind us just how uncivilized western society once was. Meanwhile, modern islamic societies are paragons of civilization - where they continue to stone to death homosexuals and 13 year old rape victims.
Islamic culture is so stunningly progressive and civilized compared to ours, in fact, that feminist scholar Phyllis Chesler has termed its enlightened treatment of women "gender apartheid" and "femicide." Chesler, The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for Women's Freedom (2005). Islamic culture is one in which women are "seen as inferior, contaminated, and dangerous. Human sacrifices are necessary on a regular basis to purge the group's sense of permanent shame ... [and thus a woman] lives her life under [the] communal death threat [of] the honor killing." Chesler, at pp. 142-3; and where female prisoners are routinely "raped on the eve of their executions by guards who alleged that killing a virgin was a sin in Islam ... [while other guards] say that they rape the unmarried virgins so that they will be barred from heaven." Id. at 57.
One of the crimes against humanity Chesler recounts is the sentencing of a fifteen year old girl by a Pakistani judge. The girl was sentenced to be gang raped. Were that not horrific enough, can you imagine what terrible, ghastly crime she must have committed to merit such a sentence? Well, her ten-year-old brother was raped by their tribal elders you see. Obviously, the only way to mitigate the family's shame was for the sister to pay the price of that shame. Tell me again how our culture is equal to such barbarians. Tell me again how we would be wrong to impose our cultural standards on such people. Tell me again how America is not better than such monsters.
Chesler speaks directly to you in the very context of this thread, Freder: "I am not in favor of colonialism [but] I am in favor of feminists learning from history when it comes to women's freedom [and] [w]hether we like it or not, some of the consequences of capitalism, Christianity, and colonialism were very positive for Third World women, just as some consequences were very negative."
Id. at 106.
I for one welcome our new, more civilized, overlords that Freder would consign us to life under.
I for one welcome our new, more civilized, overlords that Freder would consign us to life under.
Well, of course I have been very careful to play Ann Althouse here and have never said any of the horrible things you accuse me of. Just pointed out facts and posited questions. Why on earth would you ever believe that I don't think that Western Civilization is the highest achievement of mankind and is superior to all others on the face of the earth. I never said it wasn't. You must all be lunatics to infer such things from my posts. I'm so misunderstood. I was merely using the socratic method.
Did I do good Ann?
Fred- As if you haven't disagraced yourself enough already, now you add to it by a cheap (and patently false) shot at our hostess. Class act.
You know nothing about the history of Saudi Arabia is you believe that the House of Saud was not completely indigenous to the area. By your logic, Khomeni and Bin Laden are Western and the Taliban because they have accepted Western aid.
Give me a freaking break, of course the House of Saud is from the area, but they owe their kingdom and their wealth to being put on the throne by the British after World War I to secure the oil supplies (as were the governments in Iraq and Iran).
Below is Fred's version of the Socratic Method:
And where in the quoted sections is there a statement of tolerance for the things Ms. Ali is criticizing or statements that are untrue?
All I see is provocative statements about western civilization. Some indisputable facts and some other points but are open to debate (like exactly how devastating, but not the fact of, the waves of plagues that swept through the Americas from 1500--1700 were), but are well supported by current research.
Where did I say we should embrace multi-culturalism? Where did I say I was not appalled by honor killings or stonings or using rape as punishment or revenge? So many of you are all for using torture, summary execution, collective punishment and the tactics of so-called less civilized people against our enemies. But if the people whose tactics you are so eager to adapt want to live among us, you are suddenly appalled by their behavior. What gives?
It was all just dirt and water. There were no politics there. Nothing.
What on earth are you going on about? The British were aces at exploiting local politics and picking the right horse to back. Of course they chose the House of Saud as the faction to back when it came time to deal the final blow to the hated Ottomans. How you got from what I wrote that the British magically created the House of Saud out of the sand of the desert is beyond me.
Simon said..
Tell me again how our culture is equal to such barbarians. Tell me again how we would be wrong to impose our cultural standards on such people.
This makes no sense! How can we impose our culture on barbarians?
now you add to it by a cheap (and patently false) shot at our hostess.
Yeah, find me an instance where she actually states an opinion on anything of substance. Usually she just makes snide insulting remarks about Democrats and fawns over Republicans--but usually just about peripheral issues (e.g., apparently she likes Mitt Romney because his wife's name is Ann and he speaks in short sentences). But she'll sure let us know exactly what she thinks about American Idol or some other pointless reality show.
Freder Frederson said...
"Yeah, find me an instance where she actually states an opinion on anything of substance."
http://bloggingheads.tv/video.php?id=174&cid=836
NL - I don't follow. By "barbarian", one usually understands "a person in a savage, primitive state; [an] uncivilized person." That is, without civility, not incapable of it.
Do you realize that you are having fun by insulting and baiting people? That's perverse and wrong.
I thought that was the whole point of this blog.
In case no one has noticed, the problem with acknowledging anything Freder says is that the conversation immediately becomes all about Freder. And Freder likes that - it ruins whatever slim hope there was for a rational conversation. (It is also why Freder is not welcome at many blogs like Volokh.)
Sure, his comments are outrageous. They are intended to provoke and are quite successful. If you like playing his game according to his rules, by all means play, but realize that almost everyone else has stopped looking and don't give a rat's a** what Freder did or didn't say.
This should have been an interesting subject, but it is far too late for that now. How sad, because Sean pointed towards an interesting aspect of this fascinating, heroic woman's story. People like Freder would prefer you not know about it. Thus, the successful diversion of the topic.
Well, perhaps Europeans are more keenly aware than us Americans that Western "culture" has been responsible for more death and destruction over the last 500 years than another culture in the history of mankind
Western society has been responsible for basically everything important that's happened to the world for the last few centuries, so small wonder that a lot of death and destruction makes the mix. But your claim is still highly questionable, as this page makes clear. The record-holding regional culture for death and destruction during the last 500 years is, in fact, Asia.
Furthermore you're ignoring the fact that I said "are inferior", not "have always been inferior". That Western societies used to engage in regular bouts of mass murder is interesting, but not relevant to the present. In the present, virtually all of the butchery and savagery is carried out by non-Western cultures. Genocides by Western cultures account for less than 20% of 20th century fatalities and less than 1% of the fatalities of the last 50 years.
So yeah, 500 years ago there wasn't a lot of difference between a western nation and a Muslim one or African one. Today, on the other hand, the former are generally enlightened democracies and the latter are largely the same backwards mass-murdering dictatorships they were 500 years ago -- only with better technology and more money, thanks to Western advances.
They can certainly look back on the past one hundred years and the two most destructive wars in human history and the genocides inspired by western thought and wonder what the hell we have to boast about.
First of all, those were the "two most destructive wars in history" solely in absolute numbers -- small wonder, given how populous and advanced Europe was compared to the rest of human society throughout history. In terms of percentage of population killed they didn't even come close to being the most destructive wars of the *century*, let alone human history. World War II killed around 3% of the population of Europe at the time. The historical rate of death by violence for humanity is roughly an order of magnitude greater than that.
Secondly, Communist China killed more people during the 50s and 60s than were killed by all Western nations in both World Wars combined. So if, as you suggest, Europeans are wracked with self-hatred over how murderous their forefathers were, they really ought to wake the hell up and realize that, as murderous as their forefathers were, the rest of the world is worse.
of course the House of Saud is from the area, but they owe their kingdom and their wealth to being put on the throne by the British after World War I
Meanwhile, back in reality, King Al-Saud conquered the country himself. The British had been supporters of the Hashemites, but the Hashemite dynasty lost the war with the Saudis. The British were doing nothing more than recognizing the reality on the ground when they acknowledged the rule of the Saud family.
In other words, you might as well say that the United States "put Mao on the throne" when we recognized Communist China. The war was over, and the victor was clear. Pretending otherwise would simply have been silly. I suppose you could argue that the British failed to wage war on Ibn Saud in order to keep their guy in power, but that'd kind of clash with your anti-colonialist message, now wouldn't it. :)
Simon-
We should always be trying to export our Bill of Rights, and our justice system everywhere, I just don't think you can impose our culture on people that don't want it, or are at least open to it.
NL: I wholeheartedly agree with that idea about the Bill of Rights, but there definitely days when I'm not convinced exporting our justice system is a bright idea ;-)
This makes no sense! How can we impose our culture on barbarians?
The Romans managed it, and they didn't even have TV. :)
I surely learn a lot by reading these comments.
NL - in the abstract, I'd agree, but when you have a culture so rotten to the core, so thoroughly and pervasively misogynist, I'm not much worried about excessive delicacy in breaking the back of that culture.
You want to know what I really think? As someone who has lived in England (and whose parents and brother live there now) and Germany and this country, Ms. Ali's assessment of the situation (and there is no doubt that what happened to her is terrible and that she is an extremely brave young woman) is wrong. She is wrong about the tolerance of the Dutch--it is a false tolerance. And you, especially Cedarford, are wrong about what ails Europe and how to prevent it here.
Europe has a problem with its minorities because it refuses to assimilate them, while in this country, we do a pretty darn good job of it, eventhough you lament the impending Islamification of the U.S. Every generation we complain that the most recent immigrant group isn't assimilating. The Italians, Poles, Chinese, Irish are all living in their own neighborhoods and won't adopt the norms and values of our society. I live in Louisiana, there are parts of this state where people who had in this country for generations spoke only Spanish or French until very recently. Lawrence Welk, born in North Dakota, spoke German as a youth and did not even learn to speak English until he was 17.
European societies, for all their feigned tolerance, are still extremely xenophobic and insular. Their immigrant communities by and large are steered into concentrated ghettos where they are denied full participation in society. There are generally no or very weak laws prohibiting discrimination in housing, employment and certainly no attempts at anything akin to affirmative action.
What Cedarford is actually recommending is we be more like Europe, not less.
It is also why Freder is not welcome at many blogs like Volokh.
I got banned from Volokh once when I disagreed with Kopel, their most thin-skinned and least honest commentor. I appealed to Eugene and he reinstated me. By that time I was already posting under a different pseudonym from another IP address and continue to use that one over at Volokh. Can you guess who it is? The only other site I have ever been banned at is RedState, and that doesn't even count. They ban everyone who doesn't toe the party line.
Freder,
You sound like someone who just got an A in World History 101 and 102, the Chomsky and Zinn version, where all the problems of the world started when the West invaded all those primitive, yet morally superior tribal lands populated by childlike, Gaia-loving creatures, soon to be killed by smallpox-infested blankets; and all the problems of the ME started in 1917, when the British divied up the primitive, yet morally superior...
Conquering and reconquering have gone on since the beginning of time--but only Western cultures have done anything to assuage their sins and elevate the dignity of the human being. And one of the reasons that the US and India are doing well is because they adopted wholesale British law and institutions, not just their "veneer." Iraq hopefully will one day do the same. So until your side can come up with a better alternative (Communism is a failure, BTW, and not just because the US thwarted its development) your argument has no credibility.
Sorry for feeding the troll...
Caucasians of the fertile crescent some 8 to 10Kbp, and then the first rise of cities, considerable social stratification and specialization, and soon the birth of written language, along the Tigris and Euphrates – and then the first rise of an alphabet, which in representing the sounds of instinctually easy to learn oral language rather than far more numerous ideas or whole words, was vastly easier to learn and master. Yes the Arabs share this part of our heritage with us. But Africans, for example did not, or not much.
Man, where did you learn your ancient history. The people of the fertile crescent are basically the same people who live there today, a mix of Assyrians and Persians. True, many "Arabs" are descended from nomadic tribes that lived around the great civilizations of Assyria and Babylon, one of several (including India, South America, China) areas where agriculture and civilization independently evolved. But to claim that they were "caucasian" is true only if you are lumping man into the three meaninglessly broad racial classifications of old. The Egyptians were as "African" as the Zulus and their Empire often included the darker skinned Nubians and sometimes the Nubians even became the predominant faction.
As for Western Civilization being the progeny of Greece and Rome, that is simply untrue. Rome most certainly built its empire on and owed its greatness to Greece. But Rome collapsed, both from internal strife and from barbarian tribes from the north and east. Most of the achievements of the Roman Empire were lost for years (e.g., we didn't rediscover the secret of concrete until the 18th century). The religion of Rome and Greece, and of the northern Europeans who brought the Roman Empire down were brutally suppressed by the Christian Church. Only after all vestiges of Rome and Greek culture were eliminated did we revive the parts about it we liked (e.g., the architecture, the militarism, and the nice myths). Certainly, even today we don't want to follow Greek or Roman sexual mores.
So who gets to decides the "norms and values of the host society"? Are they written down somewhere? Heck, you and I probably wouldn't even agree on the top five "Christian values" let alone what the norms and values of a host society that is multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic, of different faiths.
Don't act so foolish. They aren't written down anywhere. Nevertheless, this hasn't prevented immigrants to the US from assimilating comfortably for hundreds of years.
The issue is that a very large portion of Muslim society living in 'western' nations wants to completely reject their countries laws and instead live under Sharia law.
They aren't interested in adopting & influencing the norms and values of their new country, unlike all other immigrants. That's the problem.
And when the Europeans colonized most of the globe, did they feel the need to assimilate to the norms and values of the societies they invaded? Why didn't the British ever assimilate in Africa or India? Or the French in Algeria or North Africa?
Are you unable understand the difference between invading armies looking to establish colongy and immigrants looking to establish a new life?
Of course, if you are suggesting we treat all Islamic immigrants as invading armies and send our soldiers to kill them as soon as they step off the ship, maybe your analogy would make some sense.
Otherwise, you bringing up invading European armies is pointless and foolish.
As for Western Civilization being the progeny of Greece and Rome, that is simply untrue.
If you are unable to comprehend the very real and important ways that western civilization has been founded upon ideas and concepts from Rome and Greece, you simply fail at history.
Where do you think our very system of governance, adopted by virtually every other country in the western world, comes from? Perhaps the Roman Republic or Grecian Democracy?
Let's see, the Saudi Arabian Royal Family was put in place by the British (didn't you see Lawrence of Arabia)
Suddenly Feder's poor grasp of history makes complete sense.
The mechanisms were many and included the media. Especially popular entertainment. Movies and then also television. Before that popular novels.
Yep, black people were all maids, porters, and janitors (and they were happy, always smiln' and singn' and dancn'). Italians and Irish were all mobsters. Businessmen were all white. Women stayed home and raised the kids. Nobody had sex and even married couples slept in twin beds. Everyone smoked and had a couple of martinis before dinner.
Life was perfect.
Where do you think our very system of governance, adopted by virtually every other country in the western world, comes from? Perhaps the Roman Republic or Grecian Democracy?
Umm, aside from the fact that you are giving our founders way too little credit, our democracy, other than the terms we use to describe it and the buildings we tend to use to house it (and not even always, check out the Louisiana State Capitol--it departs from the typical neo-classic architecture and is instead art deco), has very little in common with either Greek democracy (which tended toward true direct democracy) or the Roman Republic (which was more representative but where very few people were actual "citizens" of Rome). Even our system of law, which is mostly based on the English common law is not based on Roman law. Again Louisiana is the exception since its law is based on the Napoleonic Code which did try to emulate and revive the Roman concept of law (which had indeed somewhat survived in Europe, although by Napoleon's time it was a hopeless muddle).
A twin bed is not two beds.
True, but "twin beds" is plural and I guess I should have said "twin twin beds" or "two twin beds" but I thought the point was obvious.
I remember as a child watching Get Smart. Before Max married 99, I distinctly remember that he had a double or queen bed in his bedroom. After he and 99 married, they had another scene of his bedroom (nobody was in bed mind you) and suddenly there were twin beds. Even at the age of 7 or 8, I thought that was incredibly lame.
Where do you think our very system of governance, adopted by virtually every other country in the western world, comes from? Perhaps the Roman Republic or Grecian Democracy?
And at the same time you are giving our founders too little credit, you are giving our system of governance too much credit. Most other democracies have adopted a parliamentary system of government, not our Republican form. Look it up.
He gets half of what he says factually wrong and then just moves on blithely to the next distorted set of facts.
But of course statements like this are just accepted without question:
"The issue is that a very large portion of Muslim society living in 'western' nations wants to completely reject their countries laws and instead live under Sharia law."
And dewave is completely wrong about our system of governance. It is not adopted by "virtually" every other western country. Far from it. Yet if I weren't here to correct him, who would?
There is a definite double standard. Some of you can make outrageous claims and completely distort history and facts and never get called on it. I miss one fact or go overboard a little and suddenly I am factually wrong "half" the time and distorting facts while you blithely claim that the English, Romans, Greeks and the Assyrians are really the same people sharing an uninterrupted legacy of ever advancing civilization.
Maybe dewave can give us a short explanation how our democracy is like those of Greece and Rome and which other countries use our system of governance.
And dewave is completely wrong about our system of governance. It is not adopted by "virtually" every other western country.
Please list the non-democratic western nations. Demonstrate that they comprise a significant proportion of the west.
Also, since you seem adamant in denying the democracy of greece or the roman republic as the source of the founding fathers inspirations, please point to the democracies and republics they were *actually* inspired by. Zimbabwe perhaps? Maybe Mongolia?
Freder appears to take issue with my statement that
The issue is that a very large portion of Muslim society living in 'western' nations wants to completely reject their countries laws and instead live under Sharia law.
Are you not aware of the poll of Mulsims in Britain showing that 37 per cent of those aged 16 to 24 would prefer to live under Sharia law? Wouldn't you agree that's a very significant portion of the population?
And Britain is supposed to be a bastion of acceptance and tolerance and multiculturalism, so I would expect Muslims there to feel far more welcome and accepted than say other places.
Unless of course, the whole multicultural model doesn't work?
Please list the non-democratic western nations.
Sorry, I thought you meant a Republican democracy, not the vague concept of democracy in general.
If all you meant is that the founders were inspired by Greek and Roman "democracy" and that virtually every other Western nation is some form of representative democracy, well then, duhh.
I thought you were making a more substantive point about the actual structure and workings of government, not just broad brush concepts.
Complete hogwash of the sort taught by worst African American studies “scholars”. Yeah they’re both on the same continent but the principal geographic barrier between Africa versus Europe and the Middle East was the Saharan desert. North Africa was part of a frequently intimately interacting Mediterranean world.
Not really, more like the rift mountains. Of course the Alps isolated Northern Europe just as effectively. During Roman times the Druids, Goths, or Picts were just as uncivililized as the tribes of Southern Africa. The point is that those of us of Northern European stock have no more claim to the the achievements of ancient Egypt or Babylon than the Zulus do. When they were inventing writing, both our ancestors were still chasing game with stone tools.
If all you meant is that the founders were inspired by Greek and Roman "democracy" and that virtually every other Western nation is some form of representative democracy, well then, duhh.
It no doubt seems obvious and natural to you now in hindsight, but I don't think you're crediting how unusual it was at the time. There were no representative democracies in the west at that time. None.
What do you think led the founding fathers to look to greece and rome to model their new form of government on? Why not some other nation? Why greece and rome particularly if they didn't view themselves as consciously carrying on some of the traditions of representation from those civilizations?
There was a very real sense in Europe of continuing on the legacy of Roman Civilization, and I'm not *just* referring to the Catholic church, though one could argue that if the dominant religion in an area saw itself as 'carrying on the torch' from Roman times then so did the rest of the area.
The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor roman nor empire, but the choice of name was not simply some bizarre coincidence
Just like we have not assimilated to the norms and values of American society. We have transplanted a fundamentally English (or at least mostly Western European) society on the American Continent. Disease had already taken care of most of the society, but we either forced whoever was left off the land, and if they didn't leave fast enough, we killed them. That is hardly assimilating to the norms and values of the society.
I agree with this completely, by the way. The colonists had zero interest in assimilating into the American Indians culture. They basically destroyed that culture and replaced it with their own, and now the European norms and values are American norms and values.
However, the colonists were not immigrants: they were invaders. The fact that the colonists did not assimilate into the already existing culture applies to the Islamic situation in Europe only if you think the Islamic peoples moving into European countries are also invaders: and as such, should not be welcomed, but repelled with deadly force (as the Indians tried to do, but did not have the strength for).
I don't think that's a particularly helpful viewpoint.
There was a very real sense in Europe of continuing on the legacy of Roman Civilization, and I'm not *just* referring to the Catholic church, though one could argue that if the dominant religion in an area saw itself as 'carrying on the torch' from Roman times then so did the rest of the area.
But the Church--out of which Western Civilization really evolved--has always had a love-hate relationship with the Roman Empire. It loved its technological achievements and its final adoption of Christianity. But Rome was kind of harsh on Christians early on and even today Christians don't like the decadence of Rome and Greece and love to point to them as examples as what happens to societies that accept sexual promiscuity and homosexuality.
But to claim that they were "caucasian" is true only if you are lumping man into the three meaninglessly broad racial classifications of old. The Egyptians were as "African" as the Zulus
Taken together, those are two really funny sentences. Lumping them into an overbroad group of light-skinned people would be wrong... so let's lump them into an overbroad group of dark-skinned people instead. The statement "Egyptians were as African as the Zulus" is no more accurate than the statement "Egyptians were as Caucasian as the Swedes".
Unless you meant "African" in the sense of "living in Africa"... in which case the Boers are also "as African as the Zulus".
The Egyptians are a mixture of Hamitic caucasion stock that admixed with all the white ethnics of the Mediterranean Basin with a significantly lesser admixture of Semite, Niholtic African, and Black Sudanese stock.
The Egyptians are or were? Because the people who live in Egypt today are quite different than the Egyptians that built the pyramids.
Regardless of who or what their genetic heritage is or was, my point was and is that Northern Europeans have no closer a genetic heritage with the people of ancient Egypt or Assyria than the native peoples of Southern Africa. And since I am 1/4 Indian with a grandfather from Bombay, I am sure I have a greater genetic claim to the great ancient civilizations of both the Tigris and Indus Valleys than your lily-white ass.
I'm pretty convinced he is right, because Freder appears to be brainwashed enough by "angry Lefty studies" to reveal himself as a traitor to his country and civilization.
I'm a traitor to my country and civilization? Do you even know what the Constitution says? Just the other day you were advocating the use of torture, summary execution, and collective punishment. If any of these are values of a civilization you country you hold dear, then you're right, I want no part of it. But you know what, it sounds more like the kinds of things that Ms. Ali was objecting to.
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