[lbo-talk] Re: Return to the dark ages/Well Done!

[EverYoung Global Intellectual Enterprises]

The article is scholarly and full of historical facts.
Why is it that the war between faiths is bulging at this period of
history--why didn't it surge in hitherto? The crucial quesdtion needs to be
answered in a scientific sociological context.
Capitalism is rotten to its core in all the fields of
socio-politico-cultural aspects. Capitalism/imperialism is in the gravest
crisis ever. It must die or fight the Third World Idiotic War. That is what
it is doing. It is fighting the Third Idiotic War--not outright, but
Chapterwise. Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Afghan wars were the preamble to the Third
Idiotic War--the first chapter of the war is being written currently in
Iraq. The chapters to follow will be Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan, India,
China... The arrangement of the chapters will be according to the
circumstances.
The root questions will remain unanswered as ever. Why are Muslims the
backward-most, ignorant-most... community in the world? Why are they still
in the feudal and pre-feudal epochs in social history with capitalism and
imperialism grafted thereon in a horrid mess?... And hence what is their
real crisis? Professionalism and secularism comes from the development of
capitalism. It is the world-trade that crowned the West with triumph over
the feudal and pre-feudal non-sense. Iraq remained under embargo for more
than a decade. Western bosses are the ardent enemies of industrialisation in
the East/South--naturally, for how can they afford to lose their income and
profits?
Islamic word as well as the third world is in a devastating chaos therefore.
The bourgeoisie, feudal lords and warlords can't understand anything about
what is going on in the world and what the demand of the time is. How to
survive and progress is hardly their concern;. they are ritualists and
status-quoists. They just cling to the wealth and positions they have
amassed or robbed from the public--and are akin to the dogs of the US
bosses, that shower crumbs of bread on them.
Ramesh Bhat
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sujeet Bhatt" <sujeet.bhatt at gmail.com>
To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2006 7:34 PM
Subject: [lbo-talk] Return to the dark ages


> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1875582,00.html
>
> Return to the dark ages
>
> By drawing on medieval poison about Islam, the Pope has boosted Muslim
> fears of a new crusade
>
> Soumaya Ghannoushi
> Tuesday September 19, 2006
> The Guardian
>
> The Pope's response to the anger his statements sparked in the Muslim
> world was more offensive than the statements themselves. He apologised
> not for what he said, but for Muslims' failure to grasp the intended
> meaning.
>
> That the Pope should have quoted from a Byzantine text on Islam is
> hardly surprising. The line of continuity between Emanuel Paleologos's
> conception of Islam - quoted in the papal speech - and Benedict's has
> never been severed. The massive body of terms, images and narratives
> on Islam which the church inherited from the middle ages survives
> intact. There, Islam is depicted as a false creed propagated through
> violence and promiscuity, with Muhammad as scoundrel, magician,
> heresiarch, and precursor of the anti-Christ.
>
> Though Constantinople's Latin enemies shed few tears over the loss of
> two-thirds of its territories to Muslims in the seventh century, they
> did much to ensure the survival of its literature on Islam. Between
> the 11th and 14th centuries, this was used by the church's propaganda
> machine as it strove to arouse crusading fervour across Christendom.
> The Reformation further developed this literary corpus and ensured its
> transmission into modern Europe. In a 17th-century Christian text,
> Muslims are described in the most chilling of terms. They are "poison,
> scabies, venomous snakes ... the dogs in the church".
>
> Even if this metaphorical language has retreated in favour of the
> profane language of reason and subjectivity, its structural
> foundations remain. Islam is still perceived as the other, the
> embodiment of evil. Only in this context can we make full sense of the
> Pope's statements, and indeed of much of what is said today on the
> subject of Islam. We must defend freedom of expression, but freedom of
> expression should not be used as a disguise for the incitement of
> hatred of other races and religions.
>
> It is ironic that the Pope, who stresses the unity of reason and
> faith, which he uses as proof of Christianity's superiority over
> Islam, has inherited this formula from Ibn Rushd, or Averroes, the
> Andalusian Muslim philosopher. It was on the basis of this Rushdian
> equation that the medieval church could reconcile itself with
> Benedict's beloved logos.
>
> The Pope speaks much of religious tolerance in his lecture.
> Unfortunately for him, the church's historical treatment of its
> religious others has been marked by violence and aggression, against
> pagans, Jews, heretics and infidels alike.
>
> Not a day goes by without calls to reform Islam being raised-a mission
> which Pope Benedict XVI has declared impossible. Perhaps it is time to
> make the same demand of Catholicism and its infallible head. It
> certainly needs to introduce dramatic reforms to its terrifying
> conception of Islam, its prophet and followers. Rather than
> apologising for the church's bloody legacy against Muslims in the dark
> years of the Crusades and Reconquista, the Pope has chosen to twist
> the knife in the old wound. He has driven the gulf between the two
> faiths even wider. He has again pitted the cross against the crescent.
>
> The Pope's statements have done much to convince Muslims from Tangier
> to Jakarta that an open war is being waged against them on three
> fronts: political, military and religious. The pontiff should not be
> surprised that his words generated such strong responses in a Muslim
> world seething with rage at being dragged back to the age of
> colonialism and civilising missions. Who is to convince Muslims now
> that the west is not waging a crusade against them, in an alliance
> between Bush and Benedict, between the powers of the temporal and the
> sacred?
>
> · Soumaya Ghannoushi is a researcher at the School of Oriental and
> African Studies, University of London, specialising in medieval
> Christian literature on Islam soumayak at hotmail.com
>
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