Showing posts with label muslim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label muslim. Show all posts

Monday, December 01, 2008

Worth Reading After Mubai

Found this excellent post, long but worth the read. Especially in light of this weeks fascist attack in Mubai, which revealed an incompetant and ineffective security state in India. And again the focus was a centre of world capital, a business centre, the countries capital, and home of the Indian bourgoise, a major centre of tourism, just like New York was. And Mubai like the Twin Towers has been a repeated target of fascists.
This article was published after 9/11.

THE SHOCK OF RECOGNITION: Looking at Hamerquist’s ‘Fascism and Anti-Fascism’ by J. Sakai
Fascism is rapidly becoming a large political problem for anti-authoritarians, but perhaps moving up so close to pass us that it’s in our blind spot. Fascism is too familiar to us, in one sense. We’ve heard so much about the Nazis, the Holocaust and World War II, it seems like we must already know about fascism. And Nazi-era fascism is like all around us still, ever-present because Western capitalism has never given fascism up. As many have noticed, eurofascism even crushed has had a pervasive presence not only in politics, armies and intelligence agencies, but in the arts, pop culture, in fashion and films, on sexuality. For years thousands of youth in America and Europe have been fighting out the question of fascism in bars and the music scene, as a persistent fascist element in the skinhead subculture has been squashed and driven out by anti-racist youth–but come back and spread like an oil slick in the subterranean watertable. It feels so familiar to us now even though we haven’t actually understood it.
While the scholarly debates about “classic” 1920-30s eurofascism only increase–and journalists like Martin Lee in his best-selling book, The Beast Reawakens, have sounded the alarm about eurofascism’s renewed popularity –existing radical theory on fascism is a dusty relic that’s anything but radical. And it’s euro-centric as hell. Some still say fascism is just extreme white racism. For years many have even argued that no one who wasn’t white could even be a fascist. That it was a unique idea that only could lodge in the brains of one race! Others repeat the disastrous 1920s European belief that fascism was just “a tool of the ruling class”, violent thugs in comic opera uniforms doing repression for their capitalist masters. Often, both views overlap, being held simultaneously. So we ‘know’ fascism but really we don’t know it yet. Once reclothed, not spouting old fascist European political philosophy (but the same program and the class politics in other cultural forms—such as cooked-up religious ideology), fascism walks right by us and we don’t recognize it at first.
As fascism is becoming a global trend, it’s surprising how little attention it has gotten in our revolutionary studies. Into this unusual vacuum steps Don Hamerquist’s Fascism and Anti-Fascism.(2) This is an original theoretical paper that has in its background not only study but fighting fascists and racists on the streets.
In this discussion of Hamerquist’s paper we underline three main points about fascism:- That it is arising not from simple poverty or economic depression, but from the spreading zone of today’s protracted capitalist crisis beyond either reform or normal repression;
- That as fascism is moving from margin to populist mainstream, it still has a defined class character as an ‘extraordinary’ revolutionary movement of men from the lower middle classes and the declassed;
- That the critical turning point now for fascism is not just in Europe. With the failure of State socialism and national liberation parties in the capitalist periphery, in the Third World, the far right including fascism is grasping at the leadership of mass anti-colonialism.
Fascism has shown that it can gather mass support. In many nations the far right, including fascism, has become a popular oppositional force to the new globalized imperialism. In many countries the far right has replaced the left as the main political opposition. It doesn’t get more critical than this. This stands the old leftist notion about fascism on its head. It isn’t just about some other country. Without a serious revolutionary analysis of fascism we can’t understand, locate or combat it right here. And if you don’t think that’s a serious problem, you’ve got your back turned to what’s incoming.

The modern islamic rightists, who began in 1927-28 with the founding of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, took religious ideological form but were started as a political movement against British neo-colonial domination. They were backed not by workers or peasants but by the middle-class bazaar merchants and traders. The core of the islamic rightists from the beginning were not theologians but young men who had middle-class educations as scientists and technicians (like today’s Mohammad Atta who supposedly led the 911 attacks), and who used assassinations and trade boycotts. One trend within this broader islamist political movement developed fascist politics and a definite fascist class agenda. The fact that everything is explained in religious ideological terms doesn’t change the fact that their program and class strategy fit fascism perfectly. Perhaps that’s the real “fundamentalism” that they have.(5)
Throughout the Muslim world, from Saudi Arabia to Egypt to Turkey to Pakistan, Western imperialism has helped maintain militarized neo-colonial regimes that have looted and deadended society. They have destroyed local subsistance economies of self-production for use in favor of globalized export-import economies. The number of the declassed, those without any regular relationship to economic production and distribution, keeps growing. The lower-middle classes keep losing their small plots of land, their small market businesses, their toehold in the educated professions. These are men who are threatened with the loss of everything that defined them, including the ability of patriarchs to own households of women and children.
This is the class basis of today’s pan-islamic fascism, which demands a complete reversal of fortune. Revolutions where today’s Muslim elites shall be in the prisons or the gutter and the warriors of fascism shall be the new class ruling over the palaces, mosques and markets. They are more than national in scope just as all revolutionary movements have been. Because they are in a fluid war of undergrounds and exile, striking from abroad, of retreating from savage military repression in one nation to concentrate on breakthroughs in another nation. And to them, the world citadel of globalization in New York was not an innocent civilian target but a fortress of an amoral enemy.
The key thing about them isn’t that they’re following some old book. It’s that they’re fighting for State power just like everyone else in the capitalist sinkhole. They upfront want to rule, to not work but get affluent and powerful as special classes alongside the bourgeoisie, to hold everyone else underfoot by raw police power. Whether it’s christianity or islam or whatever they claim to be following, these are definitely political movements.


SEE:
terror state/state terror
The Spectacle of War on Terror
The War Against The Metropolis
War and the Market State
World On Fire-Who Sells The Matches
India Is Now A Capitalist State

Hinduism Is Fascism
Unemployment Breeds Terrorism

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Saturday, December 22, 2007

Ezra's Petard

Well it looks like the defunct Western Standard, which is now only a blog online, has been hoisted by its own petard.

Western Standard's apology averts Islamic protest
Canada.com -
CALGARY -- A protest planned for Friday afternoon in Calgary to condemn alleged violent and racist postings has been cancelled after an apology from the Western Standard magazine.
Islamic group drops complaints against local mag Canoe.ca
Magazine apologizes for 'hateful' blog comments CBC.ca


The problem is that former publisher and now guest commentator Ezra Levant's Anti-Muslim rants encourage intolerance and hate speech as being so called freedom of speech in opposition to political correctness.

He no longer is publisher of the Western Standard, he no longer has a column with the Calgary Sun. But he seems to have gotten a job as commentator on Mike Duffy. Guess CTV is trying to keep up with CBC.

Ezra is a provocateur and nothing else. He comments to inflame. And then his followers use his excess's to justify their ignorant racist outbursts. Ezra is the problem, as much as those who comment on his rants.


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Saturday, November 17, 2007

One Free World

I came across this media post from Jason Kenney's office;

The Honourable Jason Kenney, Secretary of State (Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity), will speak tomorrow at the One Free World International Conference in Winnipeg.

"Our government is committed to supporting the values of freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and human rights," said Secretary of State Kenney. "This conference reminds us that pluralism is a part of Canadian identity."

One Free World International is a human rights organization based in Toronto that focuses on the rights of religious minorities around the world and promotes tolerance, understanding, and respect for diverse religious beliefs. It is dedicated to assisting through awareness campaigns, seminars, and active human rights programs.
Kenney of course is in his new position as "Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity" (formerly he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister for Multiculturalism) in order to gain support for his party in ethnic and immigrant communities.

Communities that in the past have been the base for the Liberal party. The Conservatives quickly applied the politics of opportunism when they picked up the ball the Liberals dropped when it came to dealing with the Chinese Head Tax.

Choosing Kenney for this post is ironic considering that he views Canada through Republican glasses.

The addition of Canadian Identity to the former Multi-Culturalism Secretariat is conservative code for the end of the Liberal endorsed notion of multiculturalism, including the idea of bilingualism and bi-culturalism. Instead the Conservatives endorse the idea of two solitudes. And the rest of us can assume one of two national identities; English or French Canadian.

Contrary to the apparently benign and laudable goal of international human rights and religious freedom for 'diverse religious beliefs' the One Free World religious sect that he addressed are only interested in the oppression of Christians in Muslim countries. They throw in communist countries as an after thought. When they use the term 'Anti-Semitism' it means Islam.

This is an Anti-Muslim sect that Ezra Levant would feel comfortable addressing. The fact that the Conservative Government lends them any credence shows that Muslim bashing is now part of their New 'Canadian Identity'. As was clearly shown by their political red herring; veiled voting.


WINNIPEG – “A lot of people don’t know this, but there is one Christian being persecuted every three minutes, worldwide,” said Rev. Majed El Shafie, president and founder of One Free World International (OFWI) El Shafie Ministries. “Even in Canada, antisemitism has risen by 61 per cent.”

“We’ve helped people, case by case, who are being persecuted,” said El Shafie. OFWI works to help people in at least 13 countries around the world, “mostly in Muslim and African countries, and China and North Korea – Muslim and Communist countries.”

From Nov. 2-4, OFWI is hosting a conference in Winnipeg, on the Price of Freedom. It will be at the Eternity Centre (1111 Chevrier Blvd.), is open to the public, and is free of charge (donations will be accepted).

The main focus of the conference will be “about the persecution happening around the world,” said El Shafie.

The next film El Shafie is working on is about Afghanistan.

He said, “I sat down with Afghani officials and asked them about the Jewish and Christian communities there. They looked right at me and said ‘there are none.’ It is pure lies.

El Shafie said “the [Hamid] Karzai government is corrupt, and Karzai is one of the biggest snakes I’ve ever met. The only way we should be dealing with him is if he starts improving conditions for the people.”

One Free World International | El Shafie Ministries

Our primary focus is on combating the persecution of Christians and anti-semitism and we assist all those whose religious freedom is threatened, regardless of their beliefs. OFWI is based on and guided in its work by Christian principles. It does not endorse the religious beliefs of those on behalf of whom it advocates, but is uncompromising about promoting their right to hold and exercise those beliefs. OFWI’s goal is a world in which people are free to choose, retain, change, and express their religious or non-religious belief system in accordance with their conscience, without fear and with full equality and dignity, while fully respecting the corresponding rights of others.

SEE:

A Union the Conservatives Like

Fraser Institute Racists



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Saturday, October 20, 2007

Ezra Says Gay Bashers Are Muslims

So like Brave Sir Robin from Monty Python's Holy Grail, Ezra LeRant took on two women regarding 'reasonable accommodation' on CTV's the Verdict. As an aside like E Talk, and other CTV info-tainment shows this too is modeled on American TV with Paula Todd being a Canadian clone of CNN Headline News; Nancy Grace.

Ezra was the show's token bigot.

Muslim women are seen wearing a hijab. (AP /Anjum Naveed)

The Verdict: Oct. 18, 2007

Paula Todd and various guests looks at whether Canada is a country of bigots.

The Verdict: Oct. 18, 2007 18:30

A country of bigots? 9:42



Paula Todd proved herself an incompetent mediator let alone host. Unable to designate time to each speaker, she complained when her women visitors responded to Ezra, simultaneously from two different cities. Thus she ended up giving motor mouth LeRant more time than either of them.

What is interesting in this little discourse was that Ezra suddenly became the voice of liberal, feminist, gay, progressive values against the two women guests,
Shaina Siddiqui representing Canadian Muslim and a reporter Manon Cornellier from Le Devoir, whom he accused of being promoters of just the opposite.

Ezra whose Western Standard is the right whingnut voice of Social Conservative Christian, Homophobia, racism and sexism was saying we should not let Muslims into Canada because they come from countries that oppress women and gays.

Gays being male, you see as liberal as Ezra has become he made no reference to lesbians. Ezra stated that Muslims coming to Canada are rabidly anti-gay thus implying that they would not only oppose Gay rights, something he and his ilk do as well, but would promote violence against gay men.Funny thing is that gay bashers in Canada and the U.S. or those who kill gay men have not been Muslims but rather White male Christians.

When that tact didn't work he claimed that Muslims from Africa wanted to bring the tradition of female genital mutilation to this country.
The veil

18 Oct 2007
by Ezra Levant
I was on CTV's The Verdict tonight, talking about "reasonable accommodation". That debate is framed as a discussion about all immigrants but, as with so many other euphemisms, it's actually about Muslim immigrants

I would have liked to have had more time tonight, and our segment was difficult with three panelists in three different cities, but I enjoyed the chance to be the lone voice all night arguing against one-way multiculturalism, and I enjoyed trying to smoke out the facts beneath the euphemisms -- pressing on issues like women's rights, gay rights and freedom of speech, issues that were once the domain of liberals, liberals who now stand gagged by their own soft bigotry of low expectations of Muslims -- they refuse to call out racist, sexist, anti-gay Muslims where they're do so in a flash with white Christian men.

Shahina Saddiqui was the CAIR-CAN rep tonight -- she was the one who tried to get the Jews of Winnipeg charged with hate crimes last year for watching a movie about Muslim terrorism. Of course, the cops laughed Saddiqui out of the police station -- that sort of thing doesn't quite work in Canada, yet. Saddiqui's left quite a track record of illiberal statements out there, including one that she tried to disclaim on the air tonight -- a comment five years ago explaining away female genital mutilation.


Now Ezra's tactic was to slander his opponents, while trying to talk over them. It's an old tactic of his. Say something outrageous, over generalize, and keep talking.
Suddenly Ezra is a defender of women and gay rights. This is the latest tactic of the right when attacking Muslims, to appear to defend liberalism and pluralism, when in fact they hate gay rights and feminism. But hey any argument will do when you wish to attack and belittle your opponents with a straw man.

In fact Ezra was in good company this week when fellow travellers on the extreme right in Calgary protested Veiled Voting. And that is what has set off this latest round of phony debate. Just as dual citizenship was a phony issue used by the right to attack Lebanese Canadians the issue of veiled voting which is a non-issue is being used to smear those who immigrate here from Muslim countries.

All this was caused by the recent debate in Quebec, and Ontario, over reasonable accommodation. After failing to raise enough support for their racist campaign against dual citizenship after the Israeli attack on Lebanon, the right in Canada has embraced the cause of the little town of Herouxville as their own to attack Muslim immigrants.

Suddenly the very nature of Canada as a nation of immigrants is called into question by the Pure-Laine of English and French Canada, as if they too were not immigrants. This of course is the residue of being a colonial country founded by two imperialist powers, who now claim to be 'founding peoples'. Forgetting as Ezra and others on the right do, that in fact Western Canada existed as Native land whose take over was through immigration sponsored first by the Hudons Bay Company and then the CPR and the Canadian State.

Immigrants to Western Canada faced similar racist attacks at the turn of last century and the reasonable accommodation they were offered by the Canadian State was internment or the Head Tax.

And that is what this debate is all about; reasonable accommodation. As we accept more refugees and immigrants from Muslim countries with religious and social practices different from ours there is the need to adapt. It is not as Ezra and the right wing would define it as acceptance of illegal practices such as female genital mutilation, rather it is the right to have for instance in washrooms in public institutions foot baths for religious abulations. Or having food choices available at public institutions. But foot baths and food choices are less threatening and a rather benign request than using red herrings like female genital mutilation, or the fact that homosexuality is banned and punished by the death penalty in countries like Iran.

Of course homosexuality was also banned and punished by the death penalty in Christian countries until the end of the 19th Century. But that point is overlooked by Ezra and his ilk.
The earliest record of someone receiving the death penalty for homosexual acts in what would become a part of the United States was in St. Augustine, Florida in 1566 when a man was executed by the military. The United States maintained the death penalty for convicted "sodomites" until about 1779 when Thomas Jefferson proposed that Virginia drop the death penalty for the crime and replace it with castration. Some states have revised the punishment for sodomy over the years, and some states and localities have passed laws protecting those who commit homosexual acts. The Revolution in France brought an end to criminal laws regarding sexual activities in 1810 under the Napoleonic Code. England abolished the death penalty for acts of homosexuality in 1861.

In fact it is really rich of Ezra to defend homosexual rights while his publication and the organizations he associates with denounce the Homosexual Agenda in Canada. Ted Byfield is a regular columnist in the Western Standard and like the rest of his clan are active in opposing gay rights.

Reasonable accommodation is a legal term, which Paula Todd failed to explain fully to her audience before she began her interviews. And it is a Supreme Court ruling that came about due to Christian sects demanding the right not to work on Sunday/Saturday due to their religious beliefs. It arose out of a labour based grievance over work scheduling. It is now enshrined in labour as well as common law and says that there must be a reasonable attempt to accommodate workers due to religious beliefs, or due to disabilities, etc., as outlined in provincial and federal human rights acts.

The Supreme Court of Canada rules that Central Alberta Dairy Pool discriminated against Jim Christie by failing to accommodate his need to be absent from work on April 4, 1983 (Easter Monday) in order to respect his faith in the tenets of the World Wide Church of God.

Mr. Christie was an employee of the Dairy Pool who became a prospective member of the World Wide Church of God in 1983. The Church recognizes a Saturday sabbath and ten other holy days throughout the year. Members of the Church are expected not to work on these days. Mr. Christie asked his employer for permission to take unpaid leave on Tuesday, March 29 and on Monday, April 4, 1983, because both of these days were holy days in his Church. He was granted leave for the Tuesday but denied leave for the Monday because Mondays were especially busy days at the Dairy Pool. Milk that arrives at the Dairy Pool on weekends must be processed promptly on Mondays to prevent spoilage. When Jim Christie was absent on Monday, April 4, without permission, his employment was terminated.



Now one would think even Ezra the lawyer would know and understand that, but of course he only became a lawyer to become a politician, like Harper who is not much of economist, Levant is not much of a lawyer.

Ezra like his compatriots on the right ignore what reasonable accommodation really means in law, in order to continue to raise the fear of the other, in this case Muslims, overwhelming White Christian British/French Canada. In this he is no different from the fascist ilk like Paul Fromm.



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Sunday, May 06, 2007

HIJABS AND HABITS

Expressing our oppression as women in solidarity with our sisters. And since this call for solidarity comes from a Catholic there is no difference between the hajib and the habit. Both are symbols not of liberation but of patriarchy.


I am calling out to every woman in this world who, regardless of her ethnic origin, religious background or even sexual orientation, will recognize my voice as female, feminine, and therefore will feel and acknowledge the resemblance, the sorority. I am calling on to you my sisters because some of us are suffering today and I believe that we, as loving sisters, must show them we will not turn our backs on them. Muslim women are indeed women like us, mothers, daughters, and sisters. The most common thought when a Muslim woman is seen wearing a Hijab (headscarf) is to assume that it is a sign of oppression and that this woman is not free of her own choices. Yet in the “Western” world (of what I know myself from France and Canada) wearing a Hijab is certainly a very difficult and courageous act because it is the visible and unmistakable sign of a religion that has become synonymous with terrorism since the 9/11 attacks. But “terrorism” has no race or religion. The Muslim community, Islam, have nothing to be forgiven for. The actions of some people cannot justify the generalization of a whole group. I think History has proven this point many, many times. People from my father’s family have perished in concentration camps during World War II along with Jewish people, communists, homosexuals, and many other oppressed groups rejected solely because of their existence. This situation is not different. As human beings we cannot accept this injustice: we cannot condemn and reject Muslims on account of their nature. I was raised a Christian and as such I will address the Christian community, in particular the Catholics. Oh my sisters and brothers I am asking you, for the love of Jesus (peace be upon his head) himself: who is the good Christian? who is the good Catholic? I will tell you. The good Catholic is the one who hid his Protestant neighbours on the night of August 24, 1572 at Saint Barthélémy, France. An estimated 70,000 Protestants were killed in France, 3,000 in Paris. Yet a lot survived because good Catholics extended their hands to their Protestant brothers and sisters. The same good Catholics, good Christians, saved their Jewish neighbours from deportation during World War II. The good Christians today, I have no doubts, will reach out their hands onto their Muslim brothers and sisters.
All I am asking of you is to follow my lead in a peaceful and symbolical gesture: let us wear a Hijab for a day. Let us show our solidarity and love for our Muslim sisters who choose to wear it every day, not as a sign of oppression, but as a sign of courage and honesty.

Nuns should wear the habit

After reviewing A Nuns Habit, which lists poorly devised reasons for not wearing the habit, I feel encouraged to write on the subject. In short, my opinion remains that all religious sisters and nuns should wear the habit of their respective orders. No longer should these women, who have given their lives to the service of God and the Church, be dressing like laypeople. It is time to return to the ancient practice of wearing a distinct habit - this is not fulfilled by wearing laypeople's clothing!

The habit inspires women to leave their lives and gives themselves to God. The same is true for men who are inspired by the garments worn by priests and monks. To enter a religious order, one does not just experience a change of heart and soul, rather, there is also a change in the physical realm. For example, many religious orders require the women to adopt a new name when they become a nun in addition to wearing the habit.

See:

Spot The Contradiction





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Muslims and Christians Refuse To Play Ball


Hmm, I wonder if it was because the women priests wouldn't wear hajibs.

A soccer game bringing Muslim imams and Christian priests "shoulder to shoulder" on a field in Norway was cancelled Saturday because the teams could not agree on whether women priests should take part.

See:

Witches Play Mullahs To A Draw



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Wednesday, May 02, 2007

A.J. Toynbee

One of my favorite historians who was influenced by Spengler and Ibn Khaldun. His critique of WWI blaming the harsh politics of repatriations on the rise of Nazism remains controversial.

A.J. Toynbee
Toynbee's approach may be compared to the one used by Oswald Spengler in The Decline of the West. He rejected, however, Spengler's deterministic view that civilizations rise and fall according to a natural and inevitable cycle.He expressed great admiration for Ibn Khaldun and in particular the Muqaddimah, the preface to Khaldun's own universal history, which notes many systemic biases that intrude on historical analysis via the evidence.

Toynbee's ideas have not proved overly influential on other historians. Comparative history, to which his approach belongs, has been in the doldrums, partly as an adverse reaction to Toynbee. The Canadian economic historian Harold Adams Innis is a notable exception. Following Toynbee and others (Spengler, Kroeber, Sorokin, Cochrane), Innis examined the flourishing of civilizations in terms of administration of empires and media of communication.

Toynbee, Arnold Joseph, 1889-1975

Arnold Toynbee: Pro-Arab or Pro-Zionist?
Israel Studies - Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 1999, pp. 73-95
Indiana University Press Israel Studies 4.1 _________________________________________________________________ Arnold Toynbee: Pro Arab or Pro-Zionist? Isaiah Friedman * Zionist Dialectics _________________________________________________________________ In the late forties, Toynbee acquired the reputation of being a passionate Arab protagonist and a fierce opponent of the State of Israel; by his own admission he became known as a "Western spokesman for the Arab cause." But during World War I and its aftermath, he was less than sympathetic toward the Arabs. He was greatly disturbed to note that the Syrians, contrary to assurances made by Hussein, as well as by al-Faruqi, remained loyal to Turkey and "their conscripts fought dutifully on her side . . . their leaders are too prudent and the people too peaceable to allow them for a moment to contemplate rising in arms." Early in the War, he ascertained that, in the Turkish Asiatic provinces, there was only "a veritable cockpit of nationalities so mutilated that they have never even achieved that [kind of] unity which is the essential preliminary to a national life." By 1917, when the general Arab uprising had failed to materialize, he concluded that they had no "national consciousness. There are Arabs in name who have nothing Arabic about them but their language--most of the peasants in Syria are such . . ." This view was not unique. The official Handbook prepared in 1918 to guide the British delegates to the Peace Conference gave the following description: The people west of the Jordan are not Arabs, but only Arab-speaking. The bulk of the population are fellahin; that is to say, agricultural workers owning land as a village community or working land for the Syrian effendi.

But, it must be born in mind that liberal democracy
and socialism-communism, irrespective of their differences, are not absolute opposites. They are branches of the same spiritual tree. This was, for example, claimed by Spengler and Karl Popper, the two otherwise so different thinkers. Not only that A.J. Toynbee, on his part, shared this opinion, but even he saw in the Russian communism the means of westernization of those parts of the world which are hardly accessible to the western civilization in its original form. The true negation of both liberal democracy and communism is Islamic fundamentalism, which is also an imperialism of high style. It personifies a militant, expansionistic nature of the prophet Muhammad's religion. Therefore, the names "Islamic fundamentalism", "Islamic imperialism" or even "Islam in its authentic form" are equally justified.

According to British historian Arnold Toynbee the decline and fall of
great empires was caused by routine and the lack of creativity among social
elites.
On the one hand, those societies lacked a shared vision of the future
– on the other they failed to hammer out generally acceptable values that
could contribute to social stability and lend to a shared identity. Growing
internal divisions led to the demise of authorities and the erosion of the
elites’ control, whereas institutions complied less and less to the needs of
the real social and economic situation. Institutional inertia and the
inability to make strategic choices intensified the systemic incoherencies
that manifested themselves in escalating conflicts of interest, the
particularism of various groups, and the loss of steerability over the system
as a whole.

See:

Ibn Khaldun 14th Century Arab Libertarian

Oriental Origins of Post-modernism


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