Pro-Multiculturalist Proselitism through Pseudo-Constructs

[FadeTheButcher]

Edit note:

Thread subject title changed to appropriately reflect the attempt of trolling and as an example of false constructs about fantastic tales of tolerance and cohabitation being used to infiltrate the idea of multi-culturalism.

Mynydd.


Spain's Islamic era can teach us plenty about tolerance

http://www.citizen-times.com/cache/a...al/72183.shtml

My recent trip to Spain has prompted some thoughts about our post-Sept. 11, 2001, relationship to the Islamic world. A wonderful book, "The Ornament of the World" by Maria Rosa Menocal, had excited my interest in Spain's medieval Islamic period, and I had to see the relics of that beautiful culture for myself.

The highlight of my visit was the awe-inspiring Cordoba mosque. Now a Christian cathedral, it is so vast that its mysterious Islamic flavor still dominates. This immense space, the equivalent of about four city blocks, reflects the best in the religious tradition of Spain's Islamic rulers.

The structure's history symbolizes the universality of the human need to connect with the divine. The Islamic - and now once again Christian - edifice rests on and incorporates the remains of a Roman temple which had been converted into a Christian church by the Visigoths who ruled that part of Spain until they were defeated by the invading Muslims in the 8th century.

The mosque's dominant feature is a forest of horseshoe- shaped arches of alternating red brick and white stone which define and separate the aisles. They go on and on, seemingly into an endless space. Standing in the midst of them, one is caught up in the timelessness and universality of the spiritual impulse, deeper than any specific religious tradition.

The experience recalled my visit to the only living mosques I've ever entered, in Indonesia. The tall, open architecture, punctuated by columns, filled with kneeling worshipers, shoeless to show respect for the space and the God beyond it, evokes a sense of calm and peace that is quite extraordinary in contrast to the dominant idea we have of the Muslim religion, based on political events of the past several years.

It is often difficult to reach beyond those events to recognize the human, and even religious, bonds that connect us to the best in the Islamic tradition. In this respect, perhaps we can learn something from Spain's experience.

The other great remnant of the Islamic Spanish culture is the Alhambra, the collection of palaces, gardens and fortresses that stands high above the city of Granada. The buildings' open style, peaceful spaces and still-working fountains, Muslim hallmarks, reflect the style and underlying philosophy of the architecture of the mosques themselves.

More important than the remains of the buildings is the culture they recall. In Islamic Spain adherents of all the three great Western religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - coexisted under a government that recognized their common biblical foundations. The Islamic system protected and gave each a place in the society as a whole - a place more tolerant by far than that accorded Jews and Muslims in the succeeding Christian era, dominated by the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition.

As Menocal notes, "This was the chapter of Europe's culture when Jews, Christians and Muslims lived side by side and, despite their intractable differences and enduring hostilities, nourished a complex culture of tolerance ... it found expression in the often unconscious acceptance that contradictions ... could be positive and productive."

The era ended in 1492, with the Spanish Christian monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand conquering the Alhambra, the last Muslim stronghold, and also expelling the Jews from Spain (as well as financing Christopher Columbus's journey of discovery).

Some Jews remained, perhaps as many as half the total number, along with an Islamic remnant, both being required to convert to Christianity. But, for the Jews at least, as contemporary Spanish writer Antonio Munoz Molina notes, "those who stayed behind ended up as alien in their homeland as those who left ... scorned not only by those who should have been their brothers in their new religion but also by those who remained loyal to the abandoned faith."

Thus, Molina demonstrates, present-day Spain continues to struggle with a past characterized by a diversity that its Christian rulers spurned 500 years ago. The Muslim issue has again become one that must be dealt with, and not only in terms of the terrorist threat demonstrated so tragically in last spring's train bombings that killed 192 people.

Spain currently has an active Islamic population, reaching close to a million, whose needs the Spanish authorities realize they must consider. Spanish Prime Minister Zapatera has called for "an alliance of cultures" between the West and the Islamic world, to isolate the violent fringe.

In 2003 a new mosque was opened in Granada to serve the city's estimated 15,000 Muslims. It was financed in large part by a United Arab Emirates sheik, to show, in the aftermath of Sept. 11, he reportedly said, "that Islam is fundamentally moral rather than political in nature." At the opening ceremony Granada's deputy mayor expressed the hope that the mosque would promote the religious tolerance that characterized the city in the past.

This event was far from free of controversy. The mosque's construction was delayed for years, partly by the opposition and lawsuits of local residents. And since the March bombings, many Spaniards have been even more nervous about the increasing numbers of North African Muslim immigrants, since the main suspects in the bombings are Moroccans. Others, however, recognize the importance of a dialogue with moderate Muslims. Spaniards' ambivalence is currently being played out in the trial of suspected terrorists, at which the former and current prime ministers are testifying.

From the point of view of an ordinary traveler, it appears that the understandable nervousness in the wake of the March bombings has not resulted in a paranoid anticipation of repeated terrorist acts. And the tourist industry at least is more than happy to highlight the magnificence of the remains of Spain's Islamic past.

Back home, I keep thinking of Spain's experience, contemporary and historical, in all its complexity, and realize that, for better or worse, we're all in this post- Sept. 11 world together - Christian, Muslim, Jew and, yes, secularist.

And the only way to genuine peace and security, and freedom from fear, is through tolerant acceptance and appreciation of our differences and mutual encouragement of the best in all our traditions. We could do far worse in this respect than imitating Spain's Islamic era at its best.

[Turbamulta]

LOL, the myth of the three "Spanish" cultures in Stirpes. During the XIXth Century, the Romanticism developed an imaginary islamic Spain where all was perfect, and all peoples lived in harmony. But this is not true. The reality is that in the islamic Spain, was not multicultural, nor tolerant, the History of the islamic Spain is the History of an almost uninterrupted war of eight centuries in a multiracist environment full of hatred; is the History of Christian revolts against the muslim government, jewish raids against the Christians, muslim attacks on Christian kingdoms to enslave their populations. Only under the dominion of the "horrible" Inquisition were Spain, at last, a peaceful and happy country.
The current politicians use this stupid romantic myth to try to convince us of the benefits of the multiculturalism, but was refuted since decades by serious historians, like Ricardo de la Cierva or Serafín Fanjul.

[Waarnemer]

LOL, the myth of the three "Spanish" cultures in Stirpes. During the XIXth Century, the Romanticism developed an imaginary islamic Spain where all was perfect, and all peoples lived in harmony. But this is not true. The reality is that in the islamic Spain, was not multicultural, nor tolerant, the History of the islamic Spain is the History of an almost uninterrupted war of eight centuries in a multiracist environment full of hatred; is the History of Christian revolts against the muslim government, jewish raids against the Christians, muslim attacks on Christian kingdoms to enslave their populations. Only under the dominion of the "horrible" Inquisition were Spain, at last, a peaceful and happy country.
The current politicians use this stupid romantic myth to try to convince us of the benefits of the multiculturalism, but was refuted since decades by serious historians, like Ricardo de la Cierva or Serafín Fanjul.

Do you have any internet source for that?

[Anarch]

Uh... why is tolerance worth learning about? Integrity is healthier

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by TseBbe

Do you have any internet source for that?

I do, and not just internet sources for it. The post is a trolling/baiting, and we've found out that this "Abandon All Hope" is actually FadeTheButcher. I will deal with this post later on today on the C.O. (Camara Obscura) forum.

In the meantime the thread is closed.

[Menydh]

Thread re-opened.

First of all, the audience should know that FadeTheButcher ("Abandon All Hope here) is a rural Alabaman who, incredible as this may sound, believes that he has the key to world problems. So when someone puts a mirror in front of him he gets mad about it. As in this case that he came here to troll.

Now he is shunned and allowed to post only on C.O., but not in the area reserved for normal people. He should have been banned for trolling, more so if we take into account that Stirpes is a board for Europeans, which he is not.

Anyway. Let's deal with the issue of the "convivence". As with most slobs, it is not all surprising that he has come with this article written by who knows who (probably another American, one who has just traveled abroad for the first time and with the typical inability to understand anything not too simple), and drops it here as if it was the ultimate revelation.

In contrast, we will see what Prof. Serafín Fanjul, Chair of Arabic Literature at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and an expert in History and Literature of the Arab World, has to say about the "tolerance" and "convivence" in Islamic Spain in his book Al-Andalus contra España. La Forja de un Mito (Al-Andalus vs Spain. The Forge of a Myth).

For brevity sake, I will include an excerpt of the presentation, by Prof. M.A. Ladero Quesada, member of the Royal Academy of History of Spain. But I'll continue with more if required.

"The Arabs --writes S. Fanjul near the end of the book-- nurse and feed an image with respect to Spain which is completely unreal, which they populate with inexistant mosques and poetical fantasies of Al-Andalus."[/i] And some want to make us Spaniards believe that there was a convivence and a cultural symbiosis through the medieval century and until the expulsion of the Moriscos, when in reality there was a predominance of the motives and factors for continuous confrontation, "antibiosis", mutual ignorance and disregard for each other, and the forging of hostile and deformed images of each other, all that during a time plenty of fights and battles since the day of the Islamic invasion of Hispania. The author reviews nine hundred years of history although he stops especially in the period of the Moriscos, in a XVIth century in which, despite the official banishment of Islam, neither this time was a moment for a cultural and social approaching or or fusion.

We are not trying to deny the evidence that there were many and notable elements of communication of the intelectual culture --most often of Hellenistic origins--, of agrarian and craft techniques, of the material life or of the administration from Al-Andalus towards the kingdoms in the North and, in the intelectual terrain towards Western Europe in general especially until the XIIth century; but one thing are these unconnexed and isolated aspects coming from a different structure or socio-cultural system, and a different thing is to state that there was a mixed sytem in which everyone lived together in harmony.

So Fade, just ask for it and I'll start quoting parts of the book. This is one scholar reviewing the work of another scholar. Not some American slob who has seen four monuments differents to the castle of Disneyland and thinks he now know better. He might, sure. He knows better than 99.99% of Americans, you included. But there is no merit in that.

[Menydh]

See.. the myth of the tolerance is used by leftists and other multi-culturalists (included American multi-culturalists such as the thread starter) to promote pro-Islamic, pro-Judaic and pro-immigration views in Spain. The starter of this thread, FadeTheButcher, has a record for being a grey individual who constantly changes his views on things and tries to force these supposed changes of mind on his board members. Most suspicious.

Anyway, I'll include another article, this time by an Hispanist American Historian, which may help understand this all a bit and leave the thread here for a while. After that, I'll start a new thread on the area about Islamism and will merge it all there under a new subject title.

Groetes.

[Anarch]

The starter of this thread, FadeTheButcher, has a record for being a grey individual who constantly changes his views on things and tries to force these supposed changes of mind on his board members.

Fade A) has declared he's not coming back, B) is actually pretty consistent with his views, rarely changing his entire outlook. Then, I suppose you haven't really noticed the traits that change often as opposed to those that don't.

[Menydh]

The article deals with the myth of the tolerance in the Al-Andalus. If anyone wants to speak of yet another myth of supposed tolerance and cohabitation in the Christian kingdoms, we can start analyzing the expulsion of the Moriscos and the conditions they lived in prior to the expulsions, citing authors like Dr. Gregorio Marañón and escalating from there to a wide range of medievalist historian academicists like the most reputed Prof. Claudio Sánchez Albornoz.

These are academic sources of much reputation, as opposed to what Fade has delighted us with, more American-style trashing on the internet.

The myth of the tolerance of of the cohabitation of the three cultures (Christianity, Islam and Hebrew) has been utilized by Jews and multi-racialist and multi-culturalists leftists. It is no surprise then that FadeTheButcher has utilized it too.

[Posts merge and edit notes:

The article The Fantasy of Al-Andalus has been split and moved to a new thread: The Fantasy of Al-Andalus

Notice that the spreader of the myth of the convivence with Islam (the starter of this thread) is the owner of the Occidental Disease blog and forum.]

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Anarch

Fade A) has declared he's not coming back

I understand that. For someone who has no solid argument to offer, it must be difficult to debate outside his own terrain where you can take all kind of advantages.

B) is actually pretty consistent with his views, rarely changing his entire outlook. Then, I suppose you haven't really noticed the traits that change often as opposed to those that don't.

I admit that after every metamorphosis, he tries hard to stick to his new constructed image. I would call that professional travestism.

Note: I suppose that you haven't notice other traits in him which should be analyzed with much interest.

Never mind. I'll be moving this thread soon to the Islamism section as planned since it is of no purpose here as he will not be contesting it. The thread offers a good example of pro-multi-culturalism contested and countered properly.

That, after I take care of his other post about Italy, which I will delete shortly afterwards for being of no relevance as we will see.

[Waarnemer]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

...We are not trying to deny the evidence that there were many and notable elements of communication of the intelectual culture --most often of Hellenistic origins--, of agrarian and craft techniques...

So the arabs did nothing more than keeping and saving the knowledge the 'stole' from the greek/byzantine world?

[Menydh]

Basically. And most other knowledge (i.e. non Hellenic) was not Arab either, but Persian which they 'stole' after they invaded the region.

The start of the islamicisation in Spain took place in 711 AD, and Mahomed's Egira in 622 AD. Mecca was only surrender to Islam in 630 AD.

Which knowledge could have developed a nomadic tribe of goat herders from the Arabian Peninsula in such small period of time? Right after taking over Arabia they started expanding through modern Iran and Iraq through the East, and Egypt and Lybia through the West.
In 711 AD, when they were called in to help a rebellion in Hispania, they had not yet finished conquering the Berbers of North-Western Africa.

No much time to develop anything and, if you have ever met an Arab, not genetically disposed to evolution either.

[Graeme]

It is difficult for anyone from a country free of muslim domination to understand the dislike the descendents of the occupied have for muslims, and their camp followers. What did the muslims do in Malta? They forced their language onto us to the point that we forgot our prior languages of Greek and Italian. They changed all our place names, they forced Islam onto us, they set us back to a very primitive level of being serfs and servants and they built nothing of any substance.

Yes it is true that the muslims, Arabs is rather incorrect to call these mostly North African converts to Islam, did acquire through conquest the knowledge still left in Alexandria, Baghbad, Persia, India and China but these muslims did not really use much of it.

[ewald steiner]

Fade the Butcher appears to be an islamist, a student of islam or a newly convert to islam. His writing and propaganda style is overworn and trite, eulogizing and pouring panegyrics on the mythical tolerance of islam. Islam conquered lands and forcibly converted populations on the pain of death and destruction, I am trying to figure out where tolerance in such deeds is to be found. Today the armies of islam are conquering again, this time travelling in airplanes, with suitcases,extended family members and exploiting the naive and blind tolerance of the invaded territories.

The fault does not lie with them nor with our stars but with us. They are doing what they were born to do. Their secret weapon is our unmitigated tolerance.