steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) (01/20/86)
** In article <1052@ihuxk.UUCP>, yhl@ihuxk.UUCP (y levendel) writes: > I am surprised at the lack of credit that some article posters seem > to give to our common sense: now we are arguing that intolerance does > not originate from the Koran, the Old Testament or the New Testament, > and to morrow we will probably state that antisemitism does not exist. That does not follow. If I argue that intolerance arises from people, not books, I am not saying that all people are tolerant. > > Hundreds of thousands of jews had to leave the Arab countries without > any of their belongings in the same way palestinians had to leave > Palestine. To me that does not demonstrate mutual love!!! I am not > sure why some of us want absolutely to deny the Arab part of the hatred. I think what most people who post articles about Islam that try to cast it in a more favorable light (especially me) are trying to do is to counter the simplistic equation: Islam == Arab == Anti-Semetic The equation is not true in any of its parts. It might obscure the nature of the political situation in the Mideast. The equation certainly has provided some simplistic solutions on the net. One poster has suggested that Islam be eliminated from the face of the earth. Another posting (by the same person?) suggested that Islamic people should not be allowed to run governments. Another person postulated that there was something in the neurology of Arabic people that made them exceptionally vicious. The first part of the equation "Islam == Arab" would not be made by someone with even a passing knowledge of geography. There are 500 million Moslims on this earth, some of them are Arabs (semetic), some are black, some are Asians, and some are white. The Afghanistanis are Islamic, yet we support their battles for continued independence from Russia. Hugh Schonfield in "The Essene Odyssey," pps. 107-109 makes a case that the Afghanis were originally Jews who moved there after the dispersal in 70 A.D. and were later converted to Islam by the Mongols. The Sufi live in India, and they have influenced the Hindus. It is clear that the generalization is false. All Islamic people are not Arabs. Assuming transitivity, the equation also states that "Islam == Anti-Semetic." Numerous references have been posted showing that this is not the case. I draw your attention to "History of the Islamic Peoples," by Carl Brockmann where he recounts the history of the Jews in Spain. He tells the same story abstracted recently by Martin Minnow, that for 400 years the Jews lived in harmony with the Moslims. The books points out that ". . . in principle the Ottoman state [a powerful Islamic state] did not concern itself with questions of religion, it actually became an asylum of religious liberty for the Jews driven out of Spain and Portugal [by Christians] at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Around 1590 the ghetto in Istanbul already contained about twenty thousand inhabitants." p. 316. In "The Majesty that was Islam," by W.Montgomery Watt pps. 45-49, Watt discusses the status of Jews as "protected minorities" in the constitution of Medina. They were protected by law, and while they were relagated to a second class status, remember, Mohammad was a real person who wanted to create a situation where as many people as possible would convert to his religion. Besides, it was better to be alive and able to work and even be successful in Istambul than dead in Spain. As for "Arab == Anti-Semetic", if even a single Arab is not "Anti-Semetic" (meaning "anti-Jewish") then this generalization is false. I imagine there are even Arabs who think the establishment of an Israeli state is a good idea. There are Jewish Arabs. The two sets are not independent. I am especially interested in the discussion about "Arab Tolerance" becuase of the *form* of the argument. By making generalizations about huge groups of people some people have managed to convince themselves that they are thinking about the issues, when, in fact, they are managing to avoid thinking about them at all. Jean-Jaques Servan-Schreiber, in his book "World Challange" says that the heart of the conflict between Israel and its neighbors is that Israel's neighbors perceive Israel as an outpost of colonial powers. Israel went to war with Egypt as a surrogate of England and France over the Suez Canal in 1954. Since the canal "belonged" to England and France, the conclusion was obvious. The Mideastern people have a rich and ancient culture and did not like being "colonized" by Europe. Perhaps the conflict is another example of the impact of colonialism in the Third World and has nothing to do with religion at all. Religion is a handy excuse and a motivator, but it is the cause of the conflict? There is ample evidence that Moslims and Jews can live in harmony. Mohammad's word is sufficantly ambigious that it does not need to be interpreted in its most literal form. The Sufi have done a marvelous job at demonstrating this. If the cause of the problem is European colonialism, then the finger points right back at us. It is easy to explain away the situation by saying "Arabs hate Jews," and "Islam is a terrible religion." That kind of explaination has the satisfying quality that is absolves European culture of its responsibility in the situation. However, Europeans destroyed the social stuctures of North and South America along with killing most of the inhabatints. They completely destroyed the social structure of Africa. In short, European colonialism has caused widespread global problems of which the situation in the Mideast is just one. Were it not for the violent persecution of Jews by the Europeans, perhaps the necessity for a Jewish homeland would not be such a pressing issue. After all, Ferdinand and Isabella, Hitler, and many more famous anti-Semites were European. I do not know what can be done to improve the situation. I do know that I read a book every week or two (when I am working and do not have much free time) on the history of the world or about the people that live in it. I am beginning to get a glimmering of how many things the Mideast situation involves. For those of you who think that what I have written says "Arabs are just great and Europeans are horrible" read what I wrote again. There is no derth of people who can come up with examples of Arab intolerance (I certainly can), so I have just given the other side. The more I read, the more I realize that I have no way to make value judgements. I could, say, think up all the wonderful things Europeans have done that helped mankind and put them on a list. Then I could take all the wonderful things the Arabs have done that helped mankind, and put them on another list. Then I could make a list of all the horrible things Europeans have done, and put them on another list. Finally, I would make a list of all the horrible things the Arabs have done. Then, like St. Peter, I could assign the deeds weights and decide to admit European Civilization or Arabic Civilization to heaven or hell. But if I try I find that I am not capible of deciding the weights. Often I cannot even decide which list a deed should go on! Accepting others is a big step in understanding ourselves. We are all people doing the things that people do. Who are we, with our pathetic partial representations of the world, to decide what is right or wrong? If we expand our representations so that they are more complete and more accurately predict the world around us, then our decisions are more likely to have the effect on the world that we want them to have. I am not praising Arabs at the expense of Europeans. I am pointing out that none of us is perfect. For those of you who feel that it is important to catalog the evils of the Arabs and of Islamic civilization, what are you trying to achieve? Even if the Arabs are evil and Islamic civilization is terrible, what do you intend to do about it? The form of your arguments is much more revealing than the content. -- scc!steiny Don Steiny @ Don Steiny Software 109 Torrey Pine Terrace Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060 (408) 425-0382