[whataretheysaying] Mary Madigan: Religious imperialism

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Posted by Mary Madigan:
Religious imperialism
http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1182103177.shtml


   At Michael Totten's, Noah Pollak describes [1]Iran's victory:

     Gaza has fallen to Hamas, but not just to Hamas: the group is the
     newest member of Iranâs growing portfolio of allies, clients, and
     proxies, and thus its victory was also a triumph for Iranâs policy
     of manifest destiny in the Middle East.

   Jeha at Jehasnail describes the [2]Islamist revolution: Khomeiniâs
   True Heirs

     Iranâs Revolution is no mere socio-political phenomenon, and its
     goals are not limited to one country.

     Its goals are clearly stated in the constitution as "Framing the
     foreign policy of the country on the basis of Islamic criteria,
     fraternal commitment to all Muslims, and unsparing support to the
     freedom fighters of the world" ..

     ...And who are those freedom fighters? Well, simply all those whose
     freedom is beholden to the views of the leader of the "Umma", a
     "just and pious person", who is in charge until the return "of the
     Wali al-'Asr".

   We're currently seeing the benefits of allying with and tolerating
   'pious' Islamism in Afghanistan, Gaza, London, Thailand and Lebanon.
   The [3]tactics they use in war (burning girls' schools, beheading
   hostages, using civilian shields, slaughtering innocent civilians by
   the thousands) tell us all we need to know about their political
   goals:

     The army has again charged that the militants were using the
     civilians still trapped inside the camp as human shields.

     "The Fatah al-Islam gang has used mosques and some humanitarian
     centres inside the camp to launch its attacks, stock its weapons
     and booby-trap them," the army command said.

     "They have also attacked civilians after using them as human
     shields in order to incite public opinion, particularly Muslim, in
     a cheap and brazen way."

   Islamism is defined as [4]"a set of political ideologies holding that
   Islam is a political system, not just a religion. Islamism holds that
   Islamic law (sharia) must be the basis for all statutory law of
   society; that Muslims must return to the original teachings and the
   early models of Islam; and that western military, economic, political,
   social, or cultural influence in the Muslim world is unIslamic."

   Current events have shown us that an Islamist government is
   grotesquely brutal when compared with nearly every other form of
   government.

   Brutality is just one aspect of Islamism. There's also the cultural
   stasis that results from the combination of [5]Imperialist Faith +
   Politics.

   In his post True Believers, Jeha notes that the Islamist group
   Hezbollah is evolving from an Islamic-revolutionary group into a mix
   of Millenarian/Cargo cult.

   In Afghanistan, London, Thailand, in the Palestinian areas of the
   Middle East we're seeing a similar (de?-) evolution.

   If I were given a choice of living under A) a military dictatorship B)
   a monarchy or C) democratically elected Islamism I would choose A or
   B. Civilization, progress and knowledge can be irrevocably dismantled,
   and like the Catholic-led governments of the Dark and Middle Ages,
   Islamism is the perfect storm that can do it.

   Islamists are bloody-minded cultists, but they're not stupid. They
   know that liberal democracy is a viable backdoor entrance to an
   Islamist theocracy. Promoters of liberal democracy as a cure-all for
   terrorism, oppression and the heartbreak of inequality need to look at
   the examples of Gaza and Lebanon's Tripoli. It's not working.

References

   1. http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001467.html
   2. http://jehasnail.blogspot.com/2007/06/legacy-systems.html
   3. http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/intense-battle-rages-around-lebanon-siege-camp/2007/06/02/1180205580570.html
   4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamism
   5. http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1181582767.shtml