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That's why faith healers are the most dangerous crooks. And claims of medical miracles by mainstream religions harmful.
I cannot comment on his English as it is not my mothertongue. But I could not read anywhere that he wanted an entire population to be wiped out through violence, hence he did not advocate genocide. What he said, I think, is that fighting terrorism it may be ethical to kill not only the person who pulls the trigger, but the one encouraging the terrorist murder. Did Bin Laden shot everyone himself, in his life?
And yes, there is a lot of religious texts that have content inappropriate for 21st century. Then why use them as moral example? If the Koran or the Bible are used by fundamentalist as a moral book, the problem is in the believer... and the book.
In case you've been told all over your local news Charlie Hebdo are not very different from hate press, you can hear it straight from the horse's mouth that there is no hate in their words.
Frankly, you are in a perfect position to do that research yourself. If you are such a supporter of Harris, checking his sources (if there indeed are any...) or going through his theorys with a critical eye, is something you can do. Its a pretty cheap tactic to demand that its your counter debattants job to dig up all the information. You are in a perfect position to do so yourself...
The thing about Harris is that he is a classic intellectual -- he is not an expert. His theories are derived from logic, reason and general impressions. However research and establishing facts and a greater understanding of the subject, is of lesser importance to him. If he indeed does research, its usually only to find the facts that support his original interpretations. Harris' logic and reason isn't necessarily bad, however its a problem when his impressions about the middle east are inaccurate.
One of his major missteps was during a debate program when he proclaimed that the zionistic idea of a jewish state in Israel were established for religious reasons. Its not true. The Zionistic movement was established by Theodor Herzl in the 19th century for purely political reasons. Religion has later been injected into the conflict for sure (on both sides) but it was not the underlying factor behind the zionistic movement. When you are a self proclaimed expert on war in the Middle East, not knowing the origins of its most central conflict, is pretty embarrasing. But its only one of many examples. Inaccurate statements about the middle east, usually generalyzing on behalf of millions of muslims, is the norm with Harris. He has also stated that religious beliefs is the main motivation behind Al Qaida. Again, its simply inaccurate. Osama Bin Laden stated social and political issues as the main reasons behind his violent actions.
I would be far more willing to agree with Harris if it wasn't for the fact that his statements are so hostile. When you proclaim that "millions and millions of muslims are part of a death cult", its not only a matter of inaccurate generalisation. Its unecessary harsh statements that in fact can stimulate to racism.
One fact that does need to corrected at every opportunity and I struggle to establish why it is so hard for people to work out: Islam is NOT a race, it is a set of ideas. Anyone who gets side tracked on the race issue has either not worked that out yet (it really is very simple) or is pushing the debate into a more sensitive area in an attempt to avoid a genuine debate.
Logic and reason is a good thing. However logic and reason based on ignorance and false information is not. On the contrary it can be very dangerous. Its as simple as that...
Word definitions are really not the main issue here...
No, that sounds too much like Islam, Judaism, Christianity.
Viewers of the very cartoons they were annoyed about. :))
This surely means that the Jihadists have had a hand in the
Promotion of them, so by their law should ALL kill themselves.
( if only )
Ultimately this is a cultural war. It's based on how people innately define themselves. How they associate themselves......and who and what they are most comfortable with.
It takes education and intellectual rigour to rise above cultural biases and preferences that have been bred since birth. On both sides. That is possibly too much to ask for in developing countries with little opportunity and young populations. Hence we instead have hatred where we should have understanding and compromise. Some have said the problem is not economic. I disagree. It's a combination of economic, cultural and educational. All aspects must be addressed to solve this issue.
This is a masterpiece of scare mongering, not recommended for the faint of heart. Sage Huntington can make you groan inside: omg, tomorrow there will be a massive conspiracy between the democracy-hating Sinic and Islamic civilizations (whatever that means) to destroy our democracy, civilized society and freedom and push us back to the Dark Ages. Don’t you see how they’ve already started infiltrating the US government with an African Muslim communist called Obama? And hapless America will heroically fight that struggle against evil and oppression until the end of time and come out gloriously victorious. But before that, we need to fight terror, terror, terror and build more aircrafts, missiles, military bases and bomb the shit out of them if necessary. I’m sorry I can’t pass this test of valor and courage, before this apocalypse happens, I’d rather drive to Mars. A rather depressing thought.
So much for the ranting. Now the serious stuff.
Samuel Huntington laid out his analysis of conflicts in the Post Cold War world in his article in 1993:
It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future
He divides the world into 8 major “civilizations”: sinic, western, orthodox Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Japanese, Latin American, African, and basically says that in the future, when the age of ideology is over, the cultural and civilizational rifts will be the main cause of conflicts. The only way the West can survive is to get stronger both militarily and economically and ally with civilizations sympathetic to itself to fight against the rise of Islamic and Confucian countries (i.e China).
This line of argument has some major flaws. First, it defines civilization as an all-encompassing and monolithic concept and ignores all the interaction and diversity within one culture. How would you define Islamic civilization? Islam of Saudi Arabia? Indonesia? Iran? Dubai? Similarly for all the rest.
But more importantly, often I find this kind of confrontational mind-set rather dangerous. It takes conflicts out of context and strips them of their much wider and more complex socio-political backdrop and reduces them to over simplistic terms of “us vs. them”, “cultural differences” or “civilizational faultlines”. But I never believe in such things, I never believe that people have enough time sitting on their ass and hating another group just because their culture and religion are different. If people fight, that must be for a reason, often one group are conquered or oppressed and resist, otherwise, economic reasons such as land, exploitation or resources. Invoking jealousy or ethnic hatred to explain conflict is a chauvinistic and foolish way of looking at it. The Vietnamese did not hate the Americans because the Americans drove cars and watched tv while the Vietnamese slogged behind buffalos. The Palestinians don’t hate the Israelis because the Israelis have swimming pools and have nuclear warheads. The Afghans hated the Russians not because the Russians rode tanks and had an empire. It’s never about jealousy, all about conquest, oppression, injustice and subjugation. Aren't these legitimate things to hate?
Conflicts are always about the conqueror and the dominated, about power and oppression, never so much about ideology or ethnic hatred. And if there’s an element of ethnic hatred, it often has a lot to do with the way the power structure was distorted to favour a group to oppress another during the colonial period. Need I say any more about Algeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Lebanon, Iraq, Bosnia? But then again, don’t take my word because I might be oversimplifying things as well.
I find Huntington’s idea dangerous also because it represents a primordialistic world view, in which people are inherently and inevitably different, therefore, conflicts are unavoidable. Once you talk about something grand and presumably rigid and static in this case like civilization and culture as an innate part of human nature and as causes of war, you’re heading for a dead end. If people are inherently irrational, antagonistic, confrontational, aggressive, then what’s the point in preventing war and addressing political issues underlying them? That’s it, we’re doomed.
So let’s put all this in context because it’s the last thing this book would ever do. After the end of the Cold War, America came out as the sole superpower. So people started asking: ok, now the Russians are gone, why don’t we reduce our military budget and invest more in education, healthcare, aid to the third world, technology, infrastructure? Why do we need this half a trillion dollar military budget when we have massive social problems at home in this most advanced industrialized country? So America needed to invent something to replace the Russians to justify all that. Shush, it can’t be about the humongous profits for the military industrial complex, it can’t be about defending our corporate interests overseas. So voila, that must be the clash of civilization. America is perpetually at war with other rival civilizations, especially Islam. The paradigm of the West vs. the Rest never changed. Gone with the Russians, in with the Muslims. That’s why we need $500b in military spending (6 times the second largest, China, and the Pentagon squeaks) and 700 military bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt, Djibouti, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the list goes on.
After 9/11, this book rocketed in influence because now obviously, the Islamic world is waging war against America. The real civilization clash IS happening. How scary indeed. Huntington even declared:
"It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power” and hate people “who are convinced of the universality of their culture and believe that their superior, if declining, power imposes on them the obligation to extend that culture throughout the world."
But the attack led by a group with a couple of thousand members (or say, even a million, still 0.1% of total Muslim population) against a country with a population of 1/4 of the “West” is defined as a civilizational war. Very representative huh? Some of them are Saudi, er but let’s forget that for a moment because that’s our closest friend in the region, although rather nasty bastards…
So yes, Huntington would easily dust off his hands and say this has nothing to do with US foreign policies in the Middle East at all. They hate us because we love freedom, democracy and we’re more civilized than them. Because this pre-renaissance backward fanatical people hate progress and are jealous of us living in our first world luxury. This rhetoric has been parroted again and again and again by Emperor Bush and his friends to justify his increasingly militant approach in the ME. Oh, there’s no limit to chauvinism and ignorance in this world.
Truly, I’d be rather upset if Americans buy this lie. The idea of CoC obscures the real grievances and frustration of people in the Middle East at many decades of American dominance in the region. Let’s remind ourselves that America is great friends with the despots of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Israel, the PLO (rather a rocky friendship), the mujahedeen (who gives a shit about Islamic fundamentalism if all we cared about was to kick ass the Russians out of Afghanistan), Jordan and a long time ago, Iran and Iraq. And many other friends that torture its citizens under US auspices (politics jargon: extraordinary rendition). Could anyone still say it has nothing to do with politics at all?
Finally, is it just me or anyone else that finds the idea of a respected professor writing such provocative arguments seemingly not to mitigate the problem but to aggravate it, to defend “our” superiority at all cost, rather disturbing? Is this honest and balanced historical analysis or is there a hidden agenda behind? I’m not good at conspiracy theory, but mind you, this guy’s book in the 1960s advocating stable dictatorships to achieve economic development over troublesome democracies also had great influence on US foreign policy in Africa and Asia. No wonder why America loved some dictators and overthrew a couple of trouble makers. Expert on democracy and civilization indeed.
When I see how the world is unfolding right now, I see that people are behaving in exactly the way he predicted, along civilizational and cultural lines. They may deny it. They may attempt to ignore it. However it is painfully obvious to me...and the unfortunate results are also painfully obvious and apparent. The world is becoming more divided post-Soviet Union along somewhat primitive cultural/religious lines, because there is no idealogical foe to otherwise bind us.
That is precisely why when The EU started dicking around with Ukraine (a so called cleft state according to Huntingdon) it was pretty obvious that Russia would react. If these idiots had read the book (and I'm sure some of them have) they would have realized that Russia had no choice but to react. So the question then is, did they do this intentionally to antagonize Russia, given their reaction was obvious?
These are the kinds of issues that have become clear to me after having read this book.
Some of the simplistic debate on this very thread follows along the cultural and civilizational lines that the book foretells.......and that is not a good thing at all.
I wish it was not so. However understanding that culture binds people in very primitive ways (beyond intellect in many cases) helps to understand how reactions can occur and to correct for obvious biases. Look at the divisions on the Security Council for instance. Straight down cultural lines.
As I said, I believe eduction, economic well being, cultural understanding and diversity are the key to elimating these problems. Somewhat naive perhaps, but I think it's the only hope. Education in particular.
That's why I'm the biggest believer in open societies but I also insist on integration into these societies. If you can't integrate, you're not welcome IMO because you will only inevitably nurture differences rather than similarities..
This debate has gone a little beyond the Charlie Hebdo massacre in the 12 pages.
Yes, on that note, they apparently were. What about the Jewish shoppers though? Was their crime blasphemy? Or their culture?
The Crimea war is sadly a reflection of the first one in motives, only the European nations did not go for a war this time as it would profit nobody. the EU was not dicking around they were trying for an economic cooperation something that did not please Putin and his Russian Oligarchs, not about cultural divide but sheer maritime power [open harbor during the winter] and political power from Russia, who is anything but a large economical player in dire need of western currency. I guess they read Orlando Figes book about the Crimean war and decided that the conflict would be a waste of time and resources. And Russia has not been all that positive about the previous sovjet nations that wanted to step away from Russian control. Oekraine is no diffferent than all previous former Sovjet internal "civil conflicts". The Russian used the old cuckoo's chick tactic, defeding their own. That is about power and nothing cultural about it.
If anything the Western colonial world failed miserably in their post colonial period when they divided nations and created nations, peoples and such according their so called superior cultural motives and hence laying the seeds of a lot of war.
The debate about religion in the east is much like in our west about power and with power comes money. And we all know how attractive power is for the love of money, keeping people stupid and/or unschooled so that they will accept the word of their leaders, etc.
In the last decade there was a law against blasphemy made in Ireland, and guess who was the driving force behind that law, you know it was not the Islam.
This book states in careful wording that The west has the superior culture, that is were I wanted to throw up.
The terrorist who took hostages told them that because they paid taxes, they were doomed because it showed the supported France attacking ISIS.
Not apparently. The murderers shouted they had avenged the Prophet. Plain and simple. The Jewish shoppers were murdered because they were Jewish. Because Islamism is also antisemitic.
Very existence, is enough to annoy them.