Just as piece of quite pointless triva GBS's home, Shaw's Corner is a mere 15 miles down the road from here.

To a degree ns, I agree with you, the problem globalization is that it such a schizophrenic word, with a multiplicity of meaning recognised in the wiipedia defintion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization.

I am afraid that all too often when representatives of Buisness talk about the effect of Globalization they are talking about the exploitation of cheap labour in third world economies; providing local people with the prospect of a better live through employment in say the garment industry, only then to overnight pull that future away from them as the business is moved to the next more attractive nation. Here is but one example http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45303.

There is also the cultural imperialism aspect of the word, whether intentional or not, you have the ubiquitous nature of US brands like McDonalds, Starbucks, Pepsi, Coca Cola, Walmart etc. Unfortunately indiginous populations do not always help themselves in this matter. I over simplify, but in the Philippines there is this concept that anything imported is better than the locally made product. My wife still has this attitude and even when shopping in the UK she will check the label and reject the item if it says 'Made in the Philippines' (I would hate for her to look at the chips inside this PC )

Thus the question almost becomes do we want to be Americanised or Islamised (Arabised)? The answer is neither but sadly I fear we are inexorably creeping in this direction

Ns, why the apparent “failure to get through” to me at times? Let me see …

It could be that your writing style (sometimes like an existentialist on amphetamines); coupled with a distinct language barrier on my part; exacerbated by the fact that you have obviously studied Arabic/Muslim history/culture quite extensively (amongst other subjects) while I am a novice on the ME/Islam; compounded by a life-time of personal experiences – can, I admit, occasionally pose a tiny bit of a communication barrier.

Tongue-in-in-cheek humor aside for a moment; as a result, almost from the outset I have made it a practice to print out your posts so that I can read them more thoughtfully on paper. I then take some of your cultural and historical references and follow them through on internet sites such as wikipedia.org. While your Gestalt is obvious, your individual thoughts can get muddied despite my best attempts at fully understanding your words: Most especially when you let loose with a torrent of culturally specific names and terms.

In regards matters ME/Islam, I only have tentative hypotheses that I use primarily for keeping my thoughts organized. And that is all! You just keep posting away, my friend, and I will keep running to catch up. Your posts/observations are a treasure trove of otherwise unobtainable information.

Here are some points and my conclusions, to date.



This post appears to state that Sunni implies Persian implies Arab vs. Bedouin; with Arabs having the best claim (in their minds, at least) to representing “the real Islam” because the Prophet was also an Arab? (I really did not get the last Iran paragraph.)



It appears that your position is that the Wahaabi are really a political tool of the SAF? You also allude to the spread of SA/Wahaabi influence throughout the Muslim world. How is the accomplished (using petrol$, I assume); but exactly how?



Yes, this has always seemed quite obvious to me. How much of this fact is due to the particular Islamic dogma and how much is due to the larger Arab heritage/culture? Yes, this level of arrogance is quite pathological and dangerous, but it is a ravenous beast that must constantly fed both in times of peace as well as in times of conflict (that we are witnessing now). Day in, and day out, what does the beast feed upon?

On the topic of British politics and the “War on Terror,” bb, there appears to be two major points of controversy.

Toni Blair’s insistence on including the word “glorifies” makes sense to me as it directly takes aim at the most successful propaganda tool in the terrorist arsenal – the theme of martyrdom. To define the term “to incite terrorism” in typical "Western legalese" ignores the fact that this use of the term incite refers specifically to a Western culture in which ritual suicide/homicide has never been a major motivation to act; for which the law would have otherwise have needed to address and thus prohibit in its definition of “incite.” European/Americans have never been keen on ritual self-obliteration; much less taking countless innocent lives along with them in the process. The Islamic terrorists do not have our same values or prohibitions.

Then I read the following criticism in the Telegraph: “Where we disagree is how to differentiate between praise for a freedom fighter and encouraging people to murder others.” I find this criticism particularly weak, uncomfortably manipulative and extremely dangerous to a nation attempting to protect itself from these horrendous acts.

Let me paraphrase the definition of the term “freedom fighter” using full sentence quotes from Wikepedi.org which only differ in their order of presentation:

“Historically, people who are self-described "freedom fighters" tend to be called assassins, rebels, or terrorists by their foes. The term freedom fighter, while indicating favor of some political group, often does not reflect any actual political position of those fighting--central to this is a dispute over the meaning of freedom itself and whether a group in question can be said to actually fight for the purpose of establishing freedom. The ambiguity of the term freedom makes the use of the label freedom fighter particularly useful for propaganda purposes. Certain media agencies, notably the BBC and Reuters, aside from attributed quotes, refuse to use the phrase "terrorist" or "freedom fighter", or even more descriptive and neutral terms such as "militant", "guerrilla" or "assassin", to avoid the political repercussions of the use of such words.”

The writer’s use of the term “freedom fighter” merely exposes his position of either strong anti-Labour, or pro-Palestinian sentiments, or both. It is worse than an empty argument. By not criminalizing the critical incentive that has actually been successful in recruiting Islamic terrorists, it effectively strengthens their ability to strike again.

As to the issuance of ID cards, the first consideration that comes to my mind is that after the slaughter of 9/11 our government spent considerable resources to answer the question:” How did we let this happen?” One of the most significant determinants, it turned out, was the incredible ease of movement that the terrorist’s enjoyed simply because of their easy access to high-quality counterfeit ID. To the intelligence and criminal justice systems the terrorists were invisible.

But the true value of the program depends upon a great many factors all working together. I am curious as to whether Labour has addressed this implementation concern in substantial detail as I have not been able to find mention of it in the press?

Hello !

jd and bb, sorry for the headache, it's the amphetamines effects .

Ok, I have to clear some word I used here, i should have done it before, but it's never late

About 'arabs (as pronounced in arabic) , aaraab (as pronounced in arabic) and bedouins :
First, a mass-media compatible source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab wich shows the ambiguity of the terms. Conclusion : using this word is biased, politically correct or scientifically incorrect.

So when I was referring to real-arabs, beduins, arabobeduins (and sometimes to arabs), I was using the 'racial' definition.
In my opinion, this choice is pertinent, because it throws out "cultural" fuzzy and changing definitions, political definition (same problems), and auto-definitions (same problems, this time due to the mass-ignorance, the brainwashing and the fear to be marginilized). arabs are those from arabic peninsula, beduins are nomads while some arabs were sedentarian (as inthe emirates and yemen), and developped an original culture...
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The petro$ finances 'charity' and 'cultural' organizations for moslems. At their heads, we find politically correct intelligent guys that plays easily with democratic concepts (HR, equality etc..) but are hypocrites...

How to find this ? these ppl are the first to ask for rights for their community. However, they will accuse you by islamophobia (and trendy word, you're stuck with it know) or sometimes by cuktural right and tolerance-blah-blah if you ever try to criticise them...

So they have two faces, they market the islam (the one of those that finances and protects them morally ), their big problem is the 'image of islam' (and not the productivity or reform of islam), and they are specialists of complaints and laments

on the other side, they violently (from the language perspective, saying of a moslem that he is a heretic is very very violent and dangerous) reprimand the reformists (especially those that go very far or deep in reforms or revival or other islams) and their biggest nightmare is to lose the 'supremacy of islam' thesis : we have everything you need, and you need nothing outside islam.

They have also a spectacular selective memory , or 50% truth phenomenon : arabo-islamic civilization (meaning its VEHICULAR language was arabic, as is now english) => arabo-islamic (the arab race, so purely arab) => finally islamic civilization (no need to add arabs as they are all moslmes, forgetting about copts and christians, that becomes only arabs when needed). nad never talk about persia, shiites contribution, greek interaction, 'minorities' (kurds, berbers, druzes, ...) ...

Another example is the non-stopping complaint about the crusades and imperialism, forgetting the islamized moor attacks , the ottoman empire, etc etc. So from a childish perspective, who began the first. And worse, weren't NA , egypt and turkey christians ? (they really don't like that. once again, the absolute scientific thruth, call a cat a cat, stop playing with politically correct words and call things by its name...)

(Notice that nobody democratically asked them to represent them, and when there is a democratic process to vote for a representative, it is 99% biased by what good moslmes should or shouldn't choose etc etc no free will and fair choice inside)
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arab heritage IS the dogma. Everything outside and without can be fine, as it is the case with the 'heresies' as called by the arab aristicracy...
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generalizing is difficult. but I noticed mostly : complex.
superiority complex and hatered in SA (and those under influence) : we are the 'arabs', we have petrol, we are 'chosen ppl' (by opposition to the depraved west), we have a sacred land (mekka by the way belong to the pagan ritual that enriched and gave moral power the same tribes long ago ..the history repaets itself here ?), we are 1.5 billion (they include here shiaa...double standard), we are the last religion (the aothers are false) etc etc

inferiority complex and frustration, mostly in NA culture (jokes and day to day critiqaue), and old civilizations (lebanon for thos that don't identify as arabs, syria same thing, for ex). i think this behaviour is related to the fact that we re the loosers here, really. pl FEEL the injust domination, but cannot name it, or say it...and these countries are the most open the west, have very different cultural behaviours (for ex no polygamy, no stoning no honour crimes, no excistion, no call to murder, no violent discrimination against the atheists, obsession with the west developpement, deception with the local corruption etc etc . At least until the total arabization, liguastically and culturally, if no local counterpower from inside emerges at time).

everything else (i'm generalizing here !) is based on that. for ex : islamist in NA use the corruption and durable undrdeveloppemnt to ask for a more puritain country, we re not enogh moslem etc... in the other hand, islamis in SA will use the US invasion as an argument, or the treson of shiaa, to ask for more restriction and oppression.
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True. however, emirates, koweit, qatar, bahrein, and somewhat yemen are different : sedenrians, near the persian gulf => relationships with persia and india, long ago => slight cultural change, yet decisive as we can see the level of relative freedom, and order and acceptation of modernity and even critique in these countries compared to SA. (dogma, absolute monarchy)
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Never underestimate the power of the religious globalization, and the dominant culture that goes with it. In SE asia, this is amplified by the US secret services interventionism in the region to kill the nationalism (accompagned by a local kind of socialism), which had, and is still opening the doors to wahabism. I've read (but can no more find statistics about the eco progress in these countries, and was baffled by the fact the moslems are the poorest and the less productive, compared to chinese and indians. I'm not still sure of that i ll look for the source, because it reveals many fundamental things, especially that the short socialism movement had mangaed to attack the wealthy chinese and indians, and injustly redistribute it to moslmes. result (once again i need to find the source) : nothing changed after 25 years.

Hopefully, there is a national revival in the region (led by china model that is no more communist but nationalist-totalitarian). Let's hope that these ppls regain their cultural and religious TOTAL sovreignty. they have a great original civilization and they deserve it...
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As you pointed point out bb, technology is a powerful means of integration and progress. I only want to stress that real modernisation does not depend on technology, but on science. in fact, if you have science, you can invent technology, even revolutionnary technology, and also as a side effects modernise BRAINS (to understand, developp local order or adapt successfully existing models of social order for ex : Renaissance democracy). But if you have technology, can you do science ?

One example as an answer : If you know how to program a computer (programming : transforming an algorithm by the rules of a given programming language and issuing commands to a computer to compile it and execute it), does this mean that you will NECESSARY know how to :

-ASK the pertinent quetions, and INVENT the algorithm ?
-DEMONSTRATE the validity and then optimize the algorithm ?
-INVENT the tools (themselves more fundamental algos) to compile the program ?
-INVENT the mechanics behind the micro-electronics ? (the automate moel, AKA the computer) ?

obviously (as seen by living examples) : NO !

The technology is about HOW to USE.
the science is about HOW to FIND or INVENT.

PS: definition science : not in it's mass-mediatic politically correct definition of 'magical' knowledge that 'magically' resolves the problems of humanity, but in it's epistemological meaning :

the process of RECOGNIZING a problem => DEFINIG the problem (and the connected phenomenons) => APPLYING an existing model OR INVENTING a new model => TESTING the product (theory, demonstration, measure, statistics) by PROOFS (natural sciences, related to objective material reality) OR DEMONSTRATION (modelisation sciences, maths, logic, philosophy). if something fails, define the failure, investigate and REPEAT [:P]

As you can see, every step needed here relies on some SPECIAL CULTURAL characteristics, rarely found outside the greco-romano-germano world : courage (some questions are censored, varying level but never 0% censorship) ; honesty (give me one example of an "underdevelopped" country where some citizens AT LEAST can say some objective truths LOUD) ; transparency (did you noticed the top countries of corruption, and the lack of decisive and revolutionnary human progress, and scientific discoveries there ?) ; objectivity (yes the flying spaghetti can BE someday accepted as a religion in these "underdevelopped" countries, yet how much are able to accept the non-existence of god JUST as an HYPOTESE ?) ; order and precision, one thing after another (did you notice how every aspect of the problems are mixed toghther with the politically correct rant of socio-economico-historico-politico-geopolitico-blah-blah, yet none is able to focus on a GIVEN aspect, resolve it and attack the next one, waiting a divine 'magical' miracle to resolve ALL problems at the same time...)

The technology propaganda, because it serves both the case of underdev leaders and globalization priests, hides out more fundamental aspects of the problems. technology advanced countries will ALWAYS stay behind scientifically advanced countries...
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Yes ! and i want to stress that shiaa do not try to export their islam. ecepti n their historical areas (iraq, afganistan, syria, lebanon)



Perfectly correct.

One thing to say : islam as a religion is as 'weak' as all other religions, because of the inner nature of belief and faith, of the explanation of the OBJECTIVE world (laws in a real state-of-law come as a result of that), by using perfectly SUBJECTIVE methods (religio-centrism can never recognize full reason, even for the most spiritual religions).

So islamic religion cannot be a problem by itself.
50% of the problem comes from the LOSS of full exercie of reason in the Free World (that gave it its greatests civilizations, those that invented modern medicine, urbanism, physics, etc).
The other 50% of the problem comes from the empowerment of irratinality woldwide, as an emotional reaction (thus mostly animal and dangerous) to the 20th century problems and events.

One of these visible aspects of the "death and murder" of reason, science (spirit as i tried to define above), logic (in the maths meaning, not littrature one), by all anti-reasons professionnal casts woldwide (like politicians, demagogues, propaganda clerics, merchants that want us to 'just buy it', ...) is the MASS phenomenon :

-mass-deportations
-mass-murders and exterminations
-mass-media
-mass-schooling
-mass-emigration
-mass-art (for modern pop-art..,not to be confused with old folk, blues, jazz etc etc "local" pop-artS)
-mass-regionalism (EU, North-america, latin-america, araboislamic world etc)
-mass-destruction weapons

etc etc

One destructive result of the Mass is the ending of the individuality => originality => inventivy and humanity.

We all go to same schools, learn the same things, by the same methods, by teachers whose the education is similar, controlled by the same ministry of education, that respond to the same standars (immediate market for ex). We go back home to watch the same TV, even if different from channel to channel, its programs, news, presentation standards, and maket objectives are similar. Everyone on tv tells and repeats the same things, even if it contradics, we end up with no solution and not even a well defined problem. we read usually the same newspapers and best-sellers, watch the same movies that tell us (95%) the same story with different faces and languages. we seek the same things ($$$) to achive the same ideal (comfort) etc etc...

when there are particular cases, they are marginalized by the mass-media, mass-population, mass-economy, and end up disapearing...or exerminated culturally or even physically...

This mass-ideology serves the irrationnality, simply because it's a mass-phenomenon. Masses of population do not think, as the thinking process is absolutly individual or local, and populace end up following the trend or fashion. so, all mass-compatible religions (generaly the 3 religions from ME, the three claim being UNIVERSALLY TRUE and GOOD and culturally aggressive...), ideologies (human rights and it's democratically correct "with us or against us we will free you by killing you" [:P] as an ideology. As a philosophy, it simply fails, because it is more realistic, deep, and respectful), economy (globalization for similar masses, but also, not so strangly, communism as it is ALSO absolutly a mass-phenomenon), mass-stars (britney S and Snoop D. masterpieces of intelligence and fine arts...), and finally something more and more similar to a mass-govt (U.N ? ominopresent in ALL aspects, even educaton. PAX UN ?).

internet is a healthy singular phenomenon that have escaped (until now..) to this trend. However, it won't last, as the biggest conglomerate will begin to eat each other, and invent better tracability/speech control technologies (of course against the international-terrorism and mass-hate... ) and then change the rule of the game...Nostradamus predicted it ...
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iran have a nationalist persian (not even moslem) strong "kernel", that have seen what the US/UK have done to the democratically elected Mossadegh, and their most advanced country in the region, in order to ensure oil control. the revolution was not for religion but against tyranny (the shah, guardian of western-petro-interests). shiaa militantism was the only choice for traditional iranians (the ppl) to achive that. And then, the iran/irak war was "supported" once again by these same countries in order to destroy both of them. The ending result was that US (and it's friend SA that fear to lose its position in the region) was classified as "the great satan" by iranian clerical power, exactly as the US have done (religiously) with iran.

And yes jd, you're totally right about the leadership role that iran want to take away from SA. the biggest fear of iran are the sunna around his frontiers (including pakis and talibans, that deported of destroyed persian shiaa tribes in the region, and sunna iraqis). iran have something that sunna FEEL they haven't: intelligence and civilization. nothing can serve, from SA own culture to do anything useful or productive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Saudi_Arabia. the proof ? the most wealthy population is also the most illetrate by scientific criteria. SA ? poetry, litterature (arabic of course) , and ...religion. From iran own culture ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Iran , errr...look just at MODERN days iranian scientists and judge by yourself.

the hatred is real, also because SA have huge persecuted shiaa populations (this fact is censored worldwide, you'll never hear of them, to not hurt petro-love-felling...) that are natives, absolutly not immigrants, and are 4rd class citizens. The 2nd being some arabobedouins tribes that fought al-saoud and the 3rd beign the immigrants. SA also fears a shiaa 'revolution' inside, because shiaa have no interest in the arabity of the prophet and the underlying industry, and bring 'dangerous' ideas. There are many shiaa 'schools', those that governs in iran are the most sunna-politically correct, retaining specifically the rituals of the (disgusting) auto-flagellation (that mean they suffer from not beign able to protect Ali the Wise and his sons Hassan and Hussein, symbols of the continuity of legitimate 'spiritual' islam), against the khalifes ('artifical by koran criteria' and taboo for sunna, symbol of the continuity of the arabic tribes power, the tribes being Ummayades and Quraich). but the majority is much much 'radical' and 'heretic' (by the worldwide-powerful sunna criteria), rejecting hadith and ijmaa and replacing it by reason ('Alah gave us reason to use it', 'we don't care about the prophet as he is not a model acording to koran' , 'arabic has nothing sacred because god does not speak a human language' etc etc).

for the West in general, strategically, SA is not only petro-precious, it is also ideology-friendly because it has nothing 'intelligent' inside, is politically weak inside (the repression is a good proof of that) and will ALWAYS be dependant of the worldwide Powers. a puppet if you will...

At the other hand, iran/shiaa does not, mostly, encourage the international-islamism. it's model is more nationalist than expansionnist.
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unfortunatly, i think, and I hope i'm wrong, that nuclear energy (and better population education) is the only post-petrol option. nothing can replace petrol or uranium as the most effective (and destructive) energy sources . we will have much "fun" for the coming 50 years...
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If i'm correct, the modern day form of ritual suicide/homicide is the invention of sunni palestinian movements.

Shiaa (at least the most sunni-like school) also have a strong martyr ideology, but 'sacrifice', NOT homicide. As seen in iran/iran war, or the revolution, shiaa wore white 'kafan' (the textile used to bury the dead for moslems) preparing themselves to be killed by armed soldiers and gaz bombing.

the insane situation between IL and PL will not improve, but deteriorate. i'm perhaps pessimist but there is something in the history of this tiny land, that tell us : bloody tribal wars have been the absolute rule. no single 'humanist' exception. it's a question of 'kill or be killed' . everything the world will do will necessary be biased, partial and injust, for one ppl or another... in my opinion, if this war have happened before mass-media or even media existed, the proned-solution would be a mass-murder and deportation, as it was the case from the beginig, attested by 'sacred' books and objective history, for one ppl or another, and then the stronger 'rewrites' the history (mainly religious) to hide/change the facts and give himself religious legitimacy...What we see there right now and for these last 80 years, is the purest and real forms of ME ideologies at work...Imprialism is really nothing beside them...
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Right. once again, one problem caused by the irrealistic comparison of two civilizations (groso modo) that share NOTHING in their old and modern history/experience.
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yes bb. sad but true. north africans in their huge majority are of berber origin (even if some arabs, mosly brown have settled here). the biggest catastrophe for our nations is the mass-arabization, against rural 'naive' (idiot ?) populations that could only accept, believing that it would be 'intolerant' against our 'brother' arabs and injustified against our 'arabic' koran (beware, sunni concept !) to stick to berber language (and the values of it's culture, invisible from an outside western POV) . The 'wondeful' effects of that was a generation of 'frankensteins' that lost their local references, and could not appropriate well arabic references (because they don't exist ! arab egyptian <> arab lebanese <> arab from SA) . => only a religious radicalisation could serve to have a universal (comfortable) and powerful (the sat mass-media) referential. a lot of these radical leaders found refuge inside DEMOCRACIES ! and served as a trojan horse for the international islamists : they are at one time part of radical-international-wahabism (islam), and part of national-identifying populations, that cannot reject them, being themselves lost in a civilization that the cannot understand...adding to that, the ghetto life-style tends to amplify the most radical ideas, brought by 'those that have better knowldedge than us of our religion', and 'those that understand us against these individualist nations' etc etc

on the other side, iranians identify themselves, even in iran, as persian first, and then shiaa. Morover, NA and egypt refugees were mostly (95%) radicals persecuted by the arab-leftists, while iranians (and many pakis and copts) were progressits and democrats, even christians and zoroastrians , persecuted by the radical-islamism...

Failing to take into account these very simple and obvious fact for the immigration policy for refugees, is an unforgivable mistake against moderate (cultural and open minded) moslem populations, reformist moslems and national West countirs interests and CIVILIZATION.
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Yes. exacly bb. and here once again, i want to precise that arabian, when used to gain obedience is generalized to all (culture or language criteria, or even political like for sudan !) : we are ALL arabs; whether we accept it or not does not count, and the religion and international community cultural complicity (the 'arab' world, the 'arab' human right org, the 'arab'-islamic history as taught in western schools or in western documentary or in films etc) play the game of these ppl.

BUT, when it come to share powers (religious power, the only legitimate here), ONLY SA are arabs (this time it's true) [:P]. This is rarely said explicitly. but everything is done to keep recognizing this country as the absolute indiscutable source of everything related to the arabity (the language, the religion, the history, the 'glory' of the 'arab' civilization ,persian in reality, etc etc). when the ties are not visible (afgansitan, pakistan, india, SE asia), the 'arabs' are glad to remminds that there are arab sultans and highly venerated clerics in these countries etc... once again, iran turn them crazy because it is officially a persian shiaa state (everything hated by SA aristocracy and no way to get inside, except the sunna in the borders) and the 'proud' nation of civilization...
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by the way, i'm afraid i'll have much less time to post , but i've tried to show the inner mechanisms. The solution is always the intelligence, i think.

ciao and take care...