"Xi Jinping is one of the architects of this spiritually coated authoritarianism. Mao Zedong regarded prerevolutionary China with contempt. But Xi’s regime has gone out of its way to embrace old customs and traditional values. China scholar Max Oidtmann says it is restricting independent religious entities while creating a 'Socialist core value view,' a creed that includes a mixture of Confucianism, Daoism, Marxism and Maoism.... The Chinese internet is apparently now rife with attacks on the decadent 'white left' — educated American and European progressives who champion feminism, L.G.B.T.Q. rights and such.
Vladimir Putin... has long associated himself with religious philosophers like Ivan Ilyin and Nikolai Berdyaev. In an essay for the Berkley Center at Georgetown University, Dmitry Uzlaner reports that the regime is casting itself as 'the last bastion of Christian values' that keeps the world from descending into liberal moral chaos.... [M]any of the so-called Christian nationalists who populate far-right movements on both sides of the Atlantic are actually not that religious.
They are motivated by nativist and anti-immigrant attitudes and then latch onto Christian symbols to separate 'them' from 'us.'... The pseudo-religious authoritarians... act as if individualism, human rights, diversity, gender equality, L.G.B.T.Q. rights and religious liberty are just the latest forms of Western moral imperialism and the harbingers of social and moral chaos.
Those of us on the side of Western liberalism have no choice but to fight this on the spiritual and cultural plane as well, to show that pluralism is the opposite of decadence, but is a spiritual-rich, practically effective way to lift human dignity and run a coherent society."
He criticizes what he detects to be pseudo religion then urges us to use pseudo religion spirituality against that pseudo religion. Who can draw the line between real and fake religion? There are, I think, many religious people who question within their own mind whether their own religion is truly sincere. I tend to think these would be the most sincere ones.
One way to try to draw the line between real and fake is to look at whether religion is being used to manipulate and control people, whether it's a matter of worldly power. Then you can criticize everyone who uses religion in politics, but then what can you say about Brooks's idea of fighting "their" religion with the "religion" of the West, full of individualism, diversity, gender equality, and L.G.B.T.Q. rights? You're making religion out of the things you like in this world, and that's exactly what makes you look insincere.
But Brooks isn't claiming his liberal wish list is religion. It's a religion substitute — something that gets into the place in the human mind where religion resides in people who are religious. It's what's "practically effective," tarted up as "spiritual-rich." (Yes, he wrote "spiritual rich," not "spiritually rich." I have no idea why. It sounds like a description of music! Take my hand, precious Brooks.)
पोस्ट्स
४८ टिप्पण्या:
"individualism"? Aren't you a bit behind the curve? Conformity is what is in now, conform or be blacklisted, err, I mean disappeared, oh wait, that's wrong, they are calling it "cancelled". now.
"Who can draw the line between real and fake religion?
One way to try to draw the line between real and fake is to look at whether religion is being used to manipulate and control people, whether it's a matter of worldly power."
Now do Islam!
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of apartheid, Deng Xiaoping’s reforms in China, a set of values seemed to be on the march — democracy, capitalism, egalitarianism, individual freedom.
In my fantasy world, Brooks doesn't use this as a throw away line in his intro, he explains how these ideas -- democracy, capitalism, egalitarianism, and individual freedom -- are incompatible in fundamental ways, and how that can explain a significant part of liberalism's weakness when confronted by competing ideologies of the left and the right.
I wish Joe would find God. The left is bringing in Satanists to help them fight to keep abortion for whomever wants one, whenever they want one. SATANISTS. LEFTISTS. The same people now.
Brooks definitely didn't feel "spiritual" about staying with the woman who converted to his religion and who bore his children when a hot young "assistant" showed up.
A religion is a problem for a totalitarian government, because the religion provides to the population an alternate focus for loyalty. On many issues, the population can say that the government's orders conflict with the religion and therefore must be disobeyed.
A person who wants justifications to disobey his totalitarian government therefore is attracted to the religion. For example, that is why the Roman Catholic Church was so popular in Communist Poland.
In some ways, our role of the totalitarian government is being played by the growing globalist government, which wants to control everyone in every way. In this new situation, religion continues to provide an alternate focus for loyalty and therefore a justification for disobedience.
Pluralism? No one is more self-righteous and intolerant than modern western Progressives. No one is more interested in finding and punishing heretics.
I'm confused. When is wanting to maintain your cultural traditions ok (resistance to cultural imperialism/misappropriation) and when is it "nativist and anti-immigrant"?
Humans are need machines, and their needs evolve toward those that are most durable in that the need is sincere, its hunger is most acute, and its insolubility is difficult to perceive. And so we collectively evolve toward spiritual needfulness.
I don't think David Brooks invented insincere religion, nor dictators either. It's as old as religion.
I do think that expecting insincere religion to give the same emotional benefits as real religion is silly. You can get the Santa Claus level, and that's about it.
[M]any of the so-called Christian nationalists who populate far-right movements on both sides of the Atlantic are actually not that religious. They are motivated by nativist and anti-immigrant attitudes and then latch onto Christian symbols to separate 'them' from 'us.'...
Questions raised - how the hell would David Brooks know what is motivating any of these people? Who does he refer to when he says "so-called Christian nationalists?" How does he know that any of these (so-called) people are not actually that religious? Is this really nothing but a strawman argument? Why should we trust a writer who identifies as religions "a mixture of Confucianism, Daoism, Marxism and Maoism" - did he just let slip that the left views Marxism, Maoism, socialism and communism as religions? Was David Brooks correct when he wrote last week that "[t]he categories we use to describe our thinking are messed up?" Why do people still read (and believe) anything published in the NYT?
David Brooks writes of "L.G.B.T.Q. rights and religious liberty" as if they were part of series of related items, things that went together, like "salt and pepper" or "peaches and cream."
As applied by the modern dominant culture, they are definitely not. LGBTQ "rights" are a truncheon used by the left to dominate and intimidate, to deny religious liberty to anyone who fails to show the sort of submissive acceptance and respect they demand. It's a one-way street: they can show absolute contempt for the views of the religious, like Piss-Christ, but the slightest sign of resistance against them brings down vicious retribution, such as that suffered by Christian baker Jack Phillips.
It's not like David Brooks doesn't understand this, either. He's just the polite, sophisticated New York Times guy who acts as respectable cover for the left's storm troopers.
Is Mr. Brooks on his knees when examining the crease in a man's pants?
"The Chinese internet is apparently now rife with attacks on the decadent 'white left'..."
Well, is it or isn't it?
This whole theory needs to be put back in the oven to bake a little more.
A better theory is that Brooks still has a job only because he makes it easy to point and laugh at "conservatives" with wacky ideas.
I have read Christian writers from time to time, and some of them say it is not so much a matter of having faith, as praying for it. I think sometimes evangelicals make it a matter of will: have faith! have faith!
Do social conservatives have a view of the Bible that is more or less "correct," whether literal or not, whereas social progressives are actually against what the Bible stands for? Now this interests me. John Locke may be the single thinker who most influenced the U.S. Founding and Constitution. His treatises on government are largely commentaries on the Old Testament, "proving" that the text does not support what the conservatives of the day were saying. Locke sets out to demolish the patriarchy, suggesting that any human man is foolish to set himself up as a king or the "ruler" of a family. He says any adult can choose to become a parent, biological or not, the biological parent-child relationship may be more likely to include "tenderness," but this may not be altogether a good thing, and he favours birth control and liberal divorce. It seems quite likely that he was actually questioning the ultimate Patriarch, the God of the Old Testament, and indeed offering a kind of Socratic commentary on the Ten Commandments. Contrary to "thou shalt not kill," for example, Locke may hesitate to argue for a right to kill (depending on circumstances), but he certainly comes close to saying there is a right to expose, or not nurture, a helpless human being. This is of some relevance today, I would think.
Is it true that if individuals are encouraged and educated to identify their rights, and probably the ways in which they have been victimized, they are likely to become more just and loving, since it will be logical to recognize the rights of others? Leaning toward conservatism, I would say this is kind of unlikely.
The funny thing is that years ago (decades?) I used to love reading David Brooks. I thought he had unique views on things and an enjoyable way of writing about it. That really was a long time ago.
There are many articles being written now about the new revolution going on in Xi's China. The 'next phase' or the next Great Leap to Somewhere. It's as if those reporting are surprised to find that a totalitarian communist regime, having taken in the wealth of the world, is now looking to firm up their totalitarian communist ways. Are people really surprised at what's going on in China and trying to put names to it?
I have to bring in the old coach, Dennis Green, one more time: "They are who we thought they were." Thank you, Coach.
As for David Brooks. He states, "Christian nationalists who populate far-right movements on both sides of the Atlantic are actually not that religious. They are motivated by nativist and anti-immigrant attitudes and then latch onto Christian symbols to separate 'them' from 'us.'..."
The Professional Left has a consistently wrong view on nationalism. As if holding pride in one's nation is a bad thing, a sign of other bad things and a sure notation of person being religious (usually Christian), far-right (because you can never be just 'right', it's always far-right, even to so-called Conservative opinion writers apparently). But lets clear this one thing up because it really pisses me off and it's so lazy of these 'thought leaders'.
Being for your country, or what they would call a nationalist, does not mean you are anti-immigration. It might mean you are anti-illegal immigration, but that's an entirely different thing now, isn't it? But its a thing those on the Left and the Northeast version of the Right, do not get. Not at all.
Nationalism is not a Christian thing. It is something many people of all faiths and non-faiths feel. And we're not all far-right. Why...some of us even eat quinoa and don't have any Nazi tatoos. And Christians, like all religious people, come in many packages. Some are more, some less religious. And there are so many ways to be a Christian. But to think you can know, from your desk in New York, what a Christian person who loves America thinks? Well...that's the height of hubris.
David Brooks has a cartoonish view of the world and the people in it, pretending to know what is in the minds of others and to know the motivations of those he barely comprehends. But he has the credential of sophistication, earned by looking down his nose.
Xi's program to combat cultural corruption in China is in the news lately. it started a long time ago.
I Googled "people must fill religious void" and found this headline from 2013 on the first page: Xi Jinping hopes traditional faiths can fill moral void in China: sources
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-politics-vacuum/xi-jinping-hopes-traditional-faiths-can-fill-moral-void-in-china-sources-idUSBRE98S0GS20130929
A quote: “In China, religion must serve the state".
What is truly new or novel here?
Ah, the folly of trying to figure out what the hell Creased Pants is trying to say and then arguing against it.
"They are motivated by nativist and anti-immigrant attitudes and then latch onto Christian symbols to separate 'them' from 'us.'"
"Nativist" attitudes! The horror! Those people think their own culture in their own place with its own history is worth preserving!
"The pseudo-religious authoritarians... act as if individualism, human rights, diversity, gender equality, L.G.B.T.Q. rights and religious liberty are just the latest forms of Western moral imperialism and the harbingers of social and moral chaos."
And the pseudo whatever have a point. Why isn't it attempted imperialism? Brooks doesn't even try to argue against it.
"Those of us on the side of Western liberalism have no choice but to fight this on the spiritual and cultural plane as well, to show that pluralism is the opposite of decadence, but is a spiritual-rich, practically effective way to lift human dignity and run a coherent society."
Good luck!
Althouse: "There are, I think, many religious people who question within their own mind whether their own religion is truly sincere."
From the Althouse theorem that many people don't believe what they profess to believe it doesn't follow that many religious people question whether they are sincere.
"You're making religion out of the things you like in this world, and that's exactly what makes you look insincere."
It's the will to power all the way down. But so it is for Putin and Xi. They just recognize it in their adversaries.
"It's a religion substitute — something that gets into the place in the human mind where religion resides in people who are religious. It's what's "practically effective," tarted up as "spiritual-rich.""
Brooks doesn't even address that "liberalism" has been superseded by progressivism. The left repudiates individualism and diversity and religious liberty. They don't care if you find progressivism spiritual rich. They don't care about a "coherent" society. Which adds to the chaos. Which is useful.
None of this is new. For much of a millennium, from at least Charlemagne through the Holy Roman Empire, European rulers went to the Pope for his confirmation of their right to rule. The Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire didn’t even have that much separation between church and state. Up until 1945, and the detonation of two nuclear devices, the Japanese Emperor reigned by divine right.
This may not be the specific application of the topic that the writer was essaying, but it relates. The main thought the Althouse post evokes in me is this: It takes a special blindness to live in this universe and NOT believe in a higher power than man. Just took at its vastness, for one! Without the belief in a higher and better power than mankind, one's perspective on life is unmoored. Then it drifts dangerously. If man alone is the measure of all things, then every form of human weakness can be recklessly indulged -- the irrational, vindictive and brutal sides of our imperfect natures. As mortal God-kings often demonstrate. But with a healthy respect for the higher power, we are helped to see things from a broader perspective, and thus we can know our limits and recognize the excesses that would be our undoing. If we try.
The Chinese Communist Party is communist in name only. It is hardly even socialist and hardly even a party. It is simply an an undemocratic authoritarian government with features that are more corporate-fascist than anything else. It's totalitarian impulses are horribly real and serious, but they are not grounded in anything really relating to Marxism.
As a small child at my John Bircher parent's knees, the filthy commy Rusisan and Chinese misuse of demi-religious "cult of personality" was well understood and easily explained.
If your "religion" placed - in order of precedence - first, your personal relationship with God; second,the maintenance and preparation of yourself, your soul, for eternal life; and last, altruism or obligations to other people, then you were in a legitimate religion. Note that there is no "state" or "society" involved.
If precedence placed the 'state" or "society" or any collective group above your own soul's well-being, and demanded sacrifice of self for the supposed good of others, it was a false religion, a cult, or a bunch of commie bastards like Kruschev and Mao led.
Easy peasy. God, self, others: actual religion. State, others, self: commie bastards.
As a small child at my John Bircher parent's knees, the filthy commy Rusisan and Chinese misuse of demi-religious "cult of personality" was well understood and easily explained.
If your "religion" placed - in order of precedence - first, your personal relationship with God; second,the maintenance and preparation of yourself, your soul, for eternal life; and last, altruism or obligations to other people, then you were in a legitimate religion. Note that there is no "state" or "society" involved.
If precedence placed the 'state" or "society" or any collective group above your own soul's well-being, and demanded sacrifice of self for the supposed good of others, it was a false religion, a cult, or a bunch of commie bastards like Kruschev and Mao led.
Easy peasy. God, self, others: actual religion. State, others, self: commie bastards.
David Brooks is a fool. People who read David Brooks for any deep insights into anything are also fools. He probably was, once upon a time, worth reading, but those days ended a long, long time ago when he started taking checks from the NYTimes.
This post brought to mind this very lengthy quote from Freddy Pearlman’s beautifully written, Against His-story:
[The Ancient Greeks] know that their gods are dead, that the Temples are empty. When they listen to a recitation of Hesiod’s description of the age when gods mingled with men, the listeners concentrate on counting the strophes in Hesiod’s lines.
Darius must wish the Persians who listen to recitations of Zarathustra’s visions would learn to concentrate on meter and verse. Darius’s own cynicism surely helps him recognize that the Greeks are becoming something we call Secular, and he surely thinks them unique in this, for he cannot know that distant Chinese are at that very moment hurling themselves into a similar secularism.
The Greeks still make, or pretend to make, sacrifices and offerings to their gods; they don’t kill and plunder for the sake of killing and plundering. But when they go to their Temples and shrines, the Greeks do not concentrate on gods, even dead gods. They concentrate on the lines, forms and colors of the roofs and columns.
How is this possible? The old Phoenicians couldn’t bear to live without their dead Baal, they couldn’t bear to see themselves as mere merchants of purple and ivory.
The Greeks can bear this no better than their mentors. They dread the thought of a new Hesiod describing a sixth generation made of no metal whatever but of wine and olive oil stored in clay vases. They speak of everything except the wine and olive oil and the slaves who harvest, squeeze and store the olive oil and the slaves who harvest, squeeze and store the juices. No, they do not think themselves merchants of wine and olives. They think themselves expert judges of lines, forms and colors, even those on the outside of the vases.
The Greeks are what we call Connoisseurs of Art. They’ve performed the feat of transferring the Temple’s activities to the Agora. They’re able to do this because few of their Temple’s activities came from their own past; many come from Phoenicia and never had much meaning for the Greeks.
When they’re through ransacking the Temple, they’ve forged activities that no longer have any connection to their own or anyone else’s past. What to all others is the sole reality loses all its reality among the Greeks. The great enactments are reduced to Drama, the shrines to architecture, the visions to Painting and Sculpture. The externalization of visions becomes Art; the internal probings become Philosophy; the sharing becomes Rhetoric.
Adding to Mike Sylwester’s comment at 6:49 am –
Helmut Thielicke (1908-1986) was a German Lutheran theologian and pastor. Living under the Nazi regime, he spoke out against it and was disciplined (though not to the extent of being imprisoned). He survived and wrote extensively about how religion and the state should interact, especially in Volume 2 of his Theological Ethics.
Under most governments a Christian is obligated, he says, to obey the laws as commanded in Romans chapter 13 of the New Testament. But, if a governing authority begins to demand total loyalty, then the situation for the believer is one of Revelation 13, the Beast, who opposes God. In such a case, the totalitarian government has lost its legitimate role and may be opposed. Thielicke says this may require the believer to submit to martyrdom. In this he moves away from Luther’s position that lower authorities may band together to overthrow a tyrant. He and Luther would agree with the almost universal view among Christian theologians that God alone is owed the highest loyalty.
Congradulations to ALthouse for trying to make sense of David Brooks' latest blatherings. Brooks' wife is an observant Jew and his son was/is in th IDF. It'd be nice if Brooks somehow wove that into his analysis, it'd make his claim to be on the side of indiviudalism and liberalism more believable and interesting.
The real question is, why now? Why after Brooks' pushing for bad trade deals with the Chicom's and cheerleading their rising economy at our expense, is he suddenly playing the "Look out for those Chinese Totalitarians" card? When have the Chicoms ever believed in liberty, gay rights, or social liberalism? The answer is never. Even before Mao, China never believed in social liberalism. Its not how East Asian societies are built.
Because of its capital letters, "L.G.B.T.Q." stands out in blocks of text, and should be written something like "elgeebeteacue" so it doesn't garner unwarranted attention.
People read David Brooks? He's always been a pathetic preppy fratboy desperate to be liked by the cool kids.
No one is more self-righteous and intolerant than modern western Progressives. No one is more interested in finding and punishing heretics.
@Bob Boyd, that needs to be in all caps and bold.
My answer to the Progs requires only one finger.
@mikee: that was worth saying twice.
Brooks shed all of his principles years ago. Do you think there are locked doors and guards between his office and the dirty masses below? Of course there are. The Times is so nativist about the privilege of occupying the space of the Times that nobody may enter the building without prior permission and proper I.D.
David Brooks found his messiah, and it was Obama. Brooks worships him to this day.
Althouse LLR's agreed with Brooks about the "magnificent" obama, who soared over all of us like a "lightbringer" and who instinctively knew he was smarter than anyone else anywhere.
Even Hunter!
How can Brooks write an entire column on authoritarians and religion and not mention Islam even once? The Taliban and the ayatollahs are both religious and authoritarian. Is it pseudo-religion? You tell me, David Brooks.
Drago...Ain't that the truth!!!
"When they listen to a recitation of Hesiod’s description of the age when gods mingled with men, the listeners concentrate on counting the strophes in Hesiod’s lines." from a comment above at 9:07.
Oddly enough, the name Hesiod comes up in the post I put up at 9:27 (before reading this comment)
But Brooks isn't claiming his liberal wish list is religion. It's a religion substitute — something that gets into the place in the human mind where religion resides in people who are religious. It's what's "practically effective," tarted up as "spiritual-rich." (Yes, he wrote "spiritual rich," not "spiritually rich." I have no idea why. It sounds like a description of music! Take my hand, precious Brooks.)
I'm shocked that no one yet has brought up Chesterton: When a man stops believing in God he doesn't then believe in nothing, he believes anything.
Brooks appears to be a classic example. But I know many others.
I don't believe in God, and I don't believe in "anything". But I do know a lot of people who have that "religious need", and when they don't get it filled from a church, they do end up embracing far more lunatic beliefs to substitute.
Look at the number of "global warming" true believers who talk about our "offenses against Gaia!"
Look at the people hiding at home from Covid, despite having two "jabs", always going out with their holy (and wholly worthless, in most cases. Is it a properly fitted N95 mask? Do you refrain from touching it? Do you refrain from touching your face? No? Then your "protection" is a joke, about on the same order as touching a holy relic) masks.
Since God won't protect them, "Science" will, if only they follow the proper religious observations.
(CDC: You have a 1 in 5k chance, per day, of catching Covid if your'e fully vaccinated.
If your'e under 70, you have a less than 1% chance of doing anything more than getting a cold for a week or so if you do catch Covid and are "fully vaccinated")
Some (many?) people desperately need "religion" in their lives. We'd all be far better off if they'd go with one of the real "traditional" religions, and not the modern fruitcake ones (including all the State worshiping ones, on both sides of the aisle)
But Brooks isn't claiming his liberal wish list is religion. It's a religion substitute — something that gets into the place in the human mind where religion resides in people who are religious.
What we need is a way to manipulate people without appealing to their rationality!
I agree with Brooks that Western liberalism is under threat; I disagree on the source of the threat. I see the threat coming from illiberal elements within liberalism itself. By 'illiberal elements' I mean people on the left who are hostile to dialogue, ambiguity, individualism, and limited government, among other liberal things. I think Western liberalism is a precious worldview, and I only hope it doesn't disappear in my lifetime.
Mike Petrick: Thanks for making clear that the Chinese Communist Party isn't truly communist, nor even a true Scotsman. While I agree that the Party fails to follow the ideals of communism, I must for the record add to your remark that historically, the end of every attempt to establish communism has been mere totalitarianism, similar to that seen in China. In the case of Chinese Communists, they founded a nepotistic, kleptocratic, parasitical 90,000,000 strong "Communist Party" that lives atop the Chinese population like ticks on a dog. So let's agree that Chinese Communism is bad, and perhaps we can also agree that all communism becomes bad.
Brooks begins with a reflection on what he thought the future would be like on September 10, 2001.
He finds that it didn't turn out as he expected and then he says, "The 21st century is turning into an era of globe-spanning holy wars at a time when the appeal of actual religion seems to be on the wane."
Then he encourages his educated, secular friends to fight the good fight - not against the unmentionable people waging holy war (who don't seem to me to be waning religiously), but instead against the pseudo-religionist authoritarians in China and Russia and Idaho.
He's afraid of the Jihadis and so seeks out an easier target.
Lloyd W. Robertson:
Contrary to "thou shalt not kill," for example, Locke may hesitate to argue for a right to kill (depending on circumstances), but he certainly comes close to saying there is a right to expose, or not nurture, a helpless human being.
Compare:
Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive
Officiously to keep alive.
That's Arthur Hugh Clough, "The Latest Decalogue," from the mid-19th c.
Thank you May. That was interesting, and I'm going to have to think about it for a while
I've thought about this in the past. My general conclusion is people who want power and have few scruples will use whatever is available to gain power. If that means embracing a religion then so be it. Inventing a religion tends to be a more difficult task so it is rarely the option unless you are playing a very long game, but the power hungry will co-op or tweak existing religions to serve their purposes.
Religion is always a problem for the power hungry as it is typically one of the power centers that they have a great deal of trouble controlling, even if the religion is friendly to them. Power in state generally falls into three (3) categories:
1. Force. The military, the police, the courts. The ability to force you to do things. Governments usually have a monopoly or near monopoly on this as a matter of course and the question is how centralized and overbearing it will be.
2. Economy. The acquisition, manufacturing, and distribution of goods and services. Controlling the army means little if you cannot feed them and pay them, not to mention equip them, and there is a point where the population will stop tolerating being deprived. This is why socialism and communism is so popular among tyrants, as it gives them control over this category. The fact that the large majority are awful at managing it usually means little in the short term.
3. Information. The media, education, and, yes, religion. You may be able to force the population to do things and control their access to resources, but this does not (necessarily) instill any loyalty. Keeping the boot on the face is a lot easier if the face approves. Governments can take over the media and education easily enough, but religion typically will only compromise so far. There's a reason why communist countries endorse atheism and then try to replace it with devotion to the state.
@mikee -- Yes we can agree on that, no question.
Communism never starts well, and always ends worse. Always.
Never cared for Brooks, whatever he was peddling at any moment. NPR used to have him on as the conservative voice against Mark whatsisname Shields(?). Maybe they still do--neither one saw deeper than the latest trend or thought more broadly than the latest buzzword.
I'm bemused by all the discussion of real religion, spirituality, etc. Mostly because I discovered fairly early on that I don't have much of a spirituality gland. The closest I get to what I think people are talking about when they talk about God and all that is in the enjoyment of great music.
One reason I easily prefer Chinese atheism over Islam is that in Islam music is suffered to exist, at best; the Chinese have recognized the greatest achievements of Western culture and seek to emulate or exceed them. In that basis alone, they can beat up on Muslims all they want, and if a showdown comes between them I know who I support.
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