VVVVery interesting, but not funny. So how many generations/suicide bombers will it take to Americanize them?

Hmm...Sounds like a good conversation piece at least.

'Consider that Muslims in England have quite un-self-consciously demanded that a pub near a Mosque be shut down as offensive to their religion - in spite of the fact that the pub had precedence by six hundred years! Or that they demanded the right to broadcast the prayer call on loudspeakers in London, while it is illegal to have a church at all in the Saudi Kingdom.'

Yeah...I think that drawing these kinds of relationships-relating the policies of the Saudi kingdom to Muslims in England...it might have some validity if these are Saudis in England-it's just stupid. As for the kind of weird beliefs, distinctions between myth, the belief that Churchill was Jewish-I think the latter can be seen through the lens of the Palestine conflict, the former can be compared to the stupid shit that people beleive everywhere outside the first world, and I wonder if you couldn't find similiar patterns in Africa or elsewhere.

Fantastic fuking link. Thanks for Tuesday, Vas!

Yeah...I think that drawing these kinds of relationships-relating the policies of the Saudi kingdom to Muslims in England...it might have some validity if these are Saudis in England-it's just stupid.
That'd make sense if he was condoning the Saudis, and not Muslims as a whole. He references the Kingdom because he has the most first hand experience there, but since the Muslims he reference in the England are immigrants there, for the most part, it works.

Nice informative article.
Most westerners don't, and won't ever, understand this about what's been ignited in the middle east :
Completely alien cultures abound on earth (and Islam is a fukin' biggie), dedicated to ideals that most of us can't even fathom, and don't want to.

I do agree with the whole concept of 'inshallah' and shoddy maintenance. Bahrain looked like shit and so do their automobiles. At least the Hispanics outside Home Depot are looking for work. Drive around Bahrain on a Tuesday and you'll see men on every corner just sitting around smoking.

Our civilization is destroying theirs. We cannot share a world in peace. They understand this; we have yet to learn it.



Another culturally-imposed blindness we have is the notion that everybody can get along with enough good will. There is absolutely no evidence to support this and a great deal to oppose it. Can the subjugation of women coexist with Western Civilization with Western media ubiquitous throughout the world? Can a pluralistic and tolerant society be governed by Islamic law? Can a modern economy exist where interest is forbidden and many forms of business risk-taking are considered gambling, and thus forbidden? Can a society that educates its young men by a process of rote recitation produce critically thinking, technically educated men to build and operate a modern economy? Can you even teach elementary concepts of maintenance to a people who believe that anything that happens is inshalla (As God wills it)? To compete, or even just survive in the world they must become more like us and less like themselves - and they know this.


I've been saying this for years, and it doesn't necessarily apply only to the situation in the middle east. Hence the reasoning that sometimes a good ass-kickin' is the best remedy.

This article was remarkable for me in that it was the first bit of reasoning I'd encountered that actually made the argument that 'it's us, or it's them' seem even remotely credible.

I read this, mebbe just understanding will werk. Nah! There is a lot of hatred here, maybe our kids can solve this. We can't.

The more I read about any of this, the more I'm convinced that nobody-in the international domain- is willing to leave their 'values' at the door and negotiate-which is precisely what is needed. All of this emphasis on 'Islamic Law', which no one can properly define-or has made the effort to read about-, the fundamentalism, etc. is new, and is coming out of the context of the end of colonialism in the middle east. Oil in the middle east is a new geopolitical fact as well. I think all of this generalization about Arabs- as a coheseive, singular society with cohesive, definable problems is racist. There are multiple interpretations of islamic law, there are a huge variation of cultural norms from one country to the next.

'educates its young men by a process of rote recitation'

Catholic school?