There was an abominable attack against people inside mosques in New Zealand. The perpetrators explained they created violence, to lead Jihadists in turn to be more violent, amplifying the initial violence, until apartheid ensues, and all Muslims go back home (never mind that some of the “Muslims” went to the “West” precisely because they couldn’t stand Islam anymore; moreover many of the worst Jihadists are “Western” converts to Islam, as the final battles of the Islamist State showed).
The idea of the assassins in New Zealand then is that the “Great Replacement” of “whites” by “Muslims” would stop, once the violence level is high enough.
That there is a “Great Replacement” is a fact, but the cause is not Islam per se. We have seen that story before, namely when the plutocrats took power in the Roman Republic: the population of Italy collapsed. It doesn’t have thus to do with Islam, but with the replacement of democracy by plutocracy, and the discouragement which then possess the subjugated masses…
Bringing violence in, amplifying it, could work, it has worked many times before, except if everybody knows the game, because then everybody goes meta on the game, and the game changes to a meta form, another game. All the more that, in this case, this is the ultimate form of game, where people become game and get killed… thus motivating all participants (that’s all of grown-up humanity) to become much more involved and smarter.
I have been there. Magnificent. I recommend visiting Isfahan, one of the world’s most spectacular cities. An occasion to ponder the history of iran, at the time of Shah Abbas…. And why, ultimately, didn’t work… Thus why a more democratic society is intellectually, thus physically, superior…
Earlier in the week, the relevant authority in Pakistan called me all sorts of names and asked for my site to be shut down (supposedly that was partly one; I would be interested to know how many islamofascist countries obeyed…) Clearly, civilization is having a problem with debating ideas.
Some Mosques are among the world’s most beautiful buildings, and should be religiously preserved, just for that. In the name of the religion of the most beautiful art. Although Islam administered countries didn’t contribute to civilization as much as Islamophiles claim, they played a positive rle, be it only, irony of ironies, by preserving a significant part of the Greco-Roman inheritance found in the regions the Jihadists had invade.
The basic Islam ideology was the fruit of Muhammad’s life. Said life was entangled with Christianism and Judaism. Muhammad actually met his first wife thanks to some Christian whom he had met in Christian land, next to (then Christian administered and occupied) Jerusalem. Later, a cousin of theat first wife, who was one of the most famous and proselytizing Muslims in Arabia, suggested to muhammad that his visions in the desert were those of the Archangel Gabriel, talking in the name of the (Judeo-Christian) god. As there were difference between what Muhammad thought he heard and the practice of Christians and Jews, he endeavored to set them right in a set of revelations, the Recitation, the Qur’an.
Muhammad had other agendas too, and became a confirmed caravan raider, after being a caravan trader for his wealthy business woman of a wife. He was well aware of the fragile state of Rome and Sassanid Persia after a long exhausting war between these two. He declared that was the best time to attack in 1,000 years, after 12 centuries of Greek and Persian domination. So attack he did: he led a huge army into Roman territory… but the Romans refused combat and withdrew. Muhammad went back to Mecca, and mysteriously died, traditionally age 62 (but his real age may have been very different).
At Muhammad’s death, the first two “Successors”, the first two “Caliphs”, Abu Bakr and Omar, conspired to tweak or select much of the Qur’an. Aisha, Muhammad’s child-bride was involved in this too: confronted by Omar about the disappearance of some verses in the Qur’an, she claimed that she had hidden them under a bed, but, unfortunately, a goat had found the verses, and eaten them. Omar was a notorious mysogenine, and Aisha was notoriously free-wheeling (with Muhammad’s benediction).
Muslim warriors (Jihhadists) were promised to sit next to god if they died fighting for Islam. Under Abu Bakr and Omar, in a few years, the Muslim army destroyed Persia, and conquered Syria, Palestine and Egypt. The military expansion of Islam took all by surprise, and, within a generation, Islam had the largest empire on Earth ever. Ultimately, the Greek Fire of the Roman Navy prevented the fall of Constantinople. A circumnavigation around the Mediterranean subdued North Africa after a long and terrible war. The conquest of Spain, though, was rapid.
Then three Muslim invasion of France in quick succession failed, with huge Muslim defeats in Toulouse (721 CE), Poitiers (732 CE), Narbonne (748 CE). its army annihilated, the Umayyad Caliphate in Damascus fell (750 CE), and was replaced by the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad… which, ultimate irony, was Iranian controlled…
The next irony: Baghdad fell to the Mongols, and their Frankish, Georgian and Armenian allies.
In the following 13 centuries, more than 100 variant of Islam evolved. Some have really nothing in common: Black African Sunni Islam could have women not just with naked heads, but naked torsos, and free exhibitionist mentalities commensurate to their minimal clothing… While in some Arab countries, women could be killed, just for having interacted with a non-Muslim male.
My family is half from Africa, and I spent my childhood among “Muslims”. Except those Muslims had nothing to do with the bigots now presented as “Muslim”, who are anxious to impose their “Sharia”. Those a bit familiar with Muhammad know well that the Sharia, much of it established well after Muhammad’s death, doesn’t reflect Muhammad’s mentality. Although Muhammad had something against civilization as organized by Romans and Persians, he was not sexist, considering the circumstances: he apparently gave Aisha the discretion upon her sexual freedom, although they were married (she was still a teenager). When the bishop of Alexandria offered him a Christian female slave of great beauty, he loved her immensely, all the more as she gave him his only son (who died of disease, a few months before his father). Clearly, if one espouses Muhammad anti-sexist spirit, women shouldn’t be legally worth half of what men are worth, etc. Sometimes following the letter condemns the spirit.
Greco-Roman polytheism didn’t force the masses to practice it. Christianism and Islamism (differently from their origin, Judaism) forced those who practiced other beliefs to become Christian, or Muslim, or then subjugated and exploited them. Hence Christians and Muslims eradicated all religions… except Judaism, which, being their root, proved harder to extricate…
Enough with all this cretinism. How do we mitigate it?
It is alarming that countries, such as Pakistan, which practice the enforcement of a particular superstitious religion, are allowed to be considered in good standing at the United Nations. Instead, they should be condemned and having various privileges removed. Democracies and the organizations and corporations originating from them should be forced to make cooperation with various fascisms increasingly difficult.
Secularism is the way. The alternative is war. In the case of Pakistan, it means thermonuclear war. Before we come to that, we should debate.
Meanwhile, let’s protest against dictatorship, as millions of Algerians are presently doing. There the demonstrators don’t hesitate to tell the truth: the present FNL dictatorship was put in power by… France. More exactly what one should call the French presidential dictatorship of De Gaulle, then in power. Referendums had been conducted in Algeria, during the dusk of Paris colonial rule. The will of the Algerian people, long neglected, was then clearly expressed:Algeria wanted democracy, a Republic… And that will was violated by the powers that be, in power then in Paris (acting on behalf of the influences behind the French throne, and some came from the world of finance, Washington, Moscow…).
Paradoxically, the racist De Gaulle thought he could separate France and Algeria. Forever. That was naive on his part (or then his racism was out of rational control). Instead, we ended with the Great Replacement, because the same logic which exploited Algeria all too long, exploited France in turn… Whereas Algerians reacted with a demographic explosion, France, and Europe reacted with the opposite. That, again, is nothing new: we have many historical examples, of both effects, that’s how populations get replaced. And there is a logic underneath, it should be debated… because, nowadays, the weapons are bigger, and the going down, not as placid…
Patrice Ayme
Patrice Ayme's Thoughts 