[lbo-talk] Diaspora Identity Politics and Multicultural Imperialism

[ravi]

At around 11/5/06 12:52 pm, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> On 5/11/06, uvj at vsnl.com <uvj at vsnl.com> wrote:
>
>> All divine religions share and respect one word, and that is
>> monotheism, or belief in a single God and no other in the world."
>>
>> I suppose Judaism, Christinity and Islam alone are _'divine'_
>> religions!:)
> 
> Monotheists have no monopoly over discrimination against religious and
> other minorities.  To take just one example, whatever Baha'is face in
> Iran, it's not comparable to the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat and the
> state complicity in it and attempt to cover it up:
> <http://hrw.org/english/docs/2002/04/30/india3885.htm>.
> 
> Whatever real grievances Iran's ethnic, religious, sexual, and other
> minority communities have will be magnified thousands of times, and
> where real grievances are not enough, imagined ones will be invented
> to augment them.  That's where identity politics -- especially
> diaspora identity politics -- becomes the most useful to imperialists.
> <...>
> 
> Ahmadinejad can't prevent that from happening -- and no one can -- but
> he ought to make efforts not to give any ammunition to imperialists
> and, where possible, try to do counter-hegemonic diaspora identity
> politics.
> 

Hegemonic diaspora identity politics? Whatever that means, that's what
you get from UVJ's comment? All I get is a semi-humorous (see the
smiley?) attempt to question that old new religion (Christianity, Islam)
sneering attitude based on the nonsensical reasoning that their
monotheism is somehow more sophisticated than pantheism, etc.

Ahmadinejad can prevent "this" from happening by just not making stupid
sly remarks about "divine religions". Simple.

And come on! Pointing to Gujarat is hand-waving of not just an
irrelevant but a dangerous kind, since UVJ did not suggest that Hinduism
does not discriminate against other minorities. I think India (and
Hindus as you seem to be implying) can hold their record up against Iran
(of today) without shame, any day!

If Ahmadinejad and others desire "solidarity" they would do best to
pepper their missives with lesser pot shots at other religions and peoples.

	--ravi

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