"Matt Menge" <mspmenge@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:54127431-8637-4ee4-82d5-8b6c363037a3@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Apr 5, 1:26 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
<snip> ...
>> It would be easy to confuse xenophobia with Islamophobia. In fact I
>> suspect that is going on all the time.
> Look, I will be the first to admit that I probably have a little
> paranoia going. But as far as I can tell there is nothing you can do
> to get rid of paranoia. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
You are not alone. "What could the western world do differently?"; taken
in
the context that the United States is the de facto leader of the western
world as its sole superpower. Here's my five cents worth with heavy doses
of
déjà vu!. (I wonder if the illustrious moderators will find this relevant
to
Islam <G>)
According to the irrepressible and masterful American historian, Richard
Hofstadter, "paranoid" incor****ates:-
<Quote> ...
The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms-he
traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders,
whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of
civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point. Like religious
millenialists he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the
last days and he is sometimes disposed to set a date fort the apocalypse.
...
We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer,
since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but
by his fantasies as well.
<Unquote> ...
Perhaps then, part of the answer is covered in the insightful; "Terrorized
by 'War on Terror' - How a Three-Word Mantra Has Undermined America"
article, by Zbigniew Brzezinski, and his outright declaration; "Enough of
this hysteria, stop this paranoia", see this link for the full, sad and
sorry, story:-
http://www.wa****ngtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/23/AR2007032301613.html
<Snippet>
In the meantime, the "war on terror" has gravely damaged the United States
internationally. For Muslims, the similarity between the rough treatment
of
Iraqi civilians by the U.S. military and of the Palestinians by the
Israelis
has prompted a widespread sense of hostility toward the United States in
general. It's not the "war on terror" that angers Muslims watching the
news
on television, it's the victimization of Arab civilians. And the
resentment
is not limited to Muslims. A recent BBC poll of 28,000 people in 27
countries that sought respondents' *****sments of the role of states in
international affairs resulted in Israel, Iran and the United States being
rated (in that order) as the states with "the most negative influence on
the
world." Alas, for some that is the new axis of evil! ...
<End snippet> ...
Does this partially fulfill the bill? What do you think? Does it highlight
what the west or America needs to think and do differently?
Regardless of this international relations insight from this expert
pundit,
the problem stems from the pessimistically, down in the mouth, and
intellectually lowering tone of Samuel Huntington's "Clash of
Civilizations"
thesis. This thesis was picked up by the melodramatic "conservative"
media,
Christian-right doomsayers, and the politically influential neocon bloc,
as
its inevitable 'apocalyptic vision', to replace the previous #1 bogeyman,
the USSR and the Soviet Bloc. This simply encouraged and revitalised the
most primitive mythical fears, in the population at large, against Islam
and
Muslim beliefs. This attitude and sentiment was of course forewarned by
Georgi Arbatov's in his prescient quote: "We are going to do something
terrible to America - you will no longer have an enemy." As Huntington
goes
on to further relate: "Communists are to be replaced by Muslims".. "It is
now the line separating the peoples of Western Christianity, and on one
hand, from Muslim and Orthodox peoples on the other."
For another aspect, that fleshes out the bones of this decaying "clash of
civilizations" corpus, reflect on this lengthy and illuminating article:
"The Collapse of Globalism: and the Rebirth of Nationalism", by John
Ralston
Saul, Harper's Magazine [March 2004]. See this article on the "Global
Policy
Forum" link:-
http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/define/2004/03nationalism.htm
<Quote>
We have scarcely noticed this collapse, however, because Globalization has
been asserted by its believers to be inevitable--an all-powerful god; a
holy
trinity of burgeoning markets, unsleeping technology, and borderless
managers. Opposition or criticism has been treated as little more than
romantic paganism. It was powerless before this surprisingly angry god,
who
would simply strike down with thunderbolts those who faltered and reward
his
heroes and champions with golden wreaths, If Globalization has seemed so
seductive to societies built upon Greek and Judeo-Christian mythologies,
perhaps the reason is this bizarre confusing of salvation, fatalism, and
punishment. Transferred to economics, in however jumbled a manner, these
belief systems are almost irresistible to us.
The British and French empires had vaunted and defended their power in
similar ways from the late nineteenth century on; that is, just as they
began to collapse. And as the various nineteenth-century nationalisms
declined into ugliness, their sup****ters increasingly transformed them
into
a matter of race.
Inevitability is the traditional final justification for flailing
ideologies. Less traditional--and a sign of inherent weakness--is the
extent
to which Globalization was conceived as old-fa****oned religiosity. ...
That the power of the nation-state was on its way out, to be replaced by
that of global markets. That in the future, economics, not politics or
arms,
would determine the course of human events. That freed markets would
quickly
establish natural international balances, impervious to the old
boom-and-bust cycles. That the growth in international trade, as a result
of
lowering barriers, would unleash an economic-social tide that would raise
all ****ps, whether of our Western poor or of the developing world in
general. That prosperous markets would turn dictator****ps into
democracies.
That all of this would discourage irresponsible nationalism, racism, and
political violence. ....
In summary, global economic forces, if left unfettered by willful man,
would
protect us against the errors of local self-pride, while allowing
individual
self-interest to lead each individual to a better life. Together, these
forces and self-interests would produce prosperity and general happiness.
In
a society where Christian dogma had been so dominant until so recently,
how
could people of goodwill not be attracted by this good news--by these
promises of personal redemption? And if you add to all of this a multitude
of new, technocratic market methods--well, then, the cycles of history
would
be broken, setting us on a permanent, inevitable course. In the words of a
particularly naive believer, history would die. History was already dead.
<Unquote> ...
Add to that William Blums's adage from "Rogue State": "No matter how
paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually
doing
is worse than you imagine."
How many Muslim respondents do you think fit the stereotypical profile of
the mythical Muslims depicted in the media, or the demonising "Islamophobe
Book Club", and over on the "Apocalyptic Blogosphere"? Can you show one
post
that comes close to the 'bogeyman' profile?
However, the fact is, the public at large is preoccupied with conspiracy
theories about "mythical" and "imaginary" Muslim beliefs and Islam. But
this
hostile antipathy towards Islam and Muslim beliefs has existed for 1,400
hundred years or so. How should we interpret this in the light of America?
Perhaps, this old quote, excerpted from: "The Paranoid Style in American
Politics", by Richard Hofstadter, Harper's Magazine, [November 1964] might
assist:-
<Quote> ...
In American experience ethnic and religious conflict have plainly been a
major focus for militant and suspicious minds of this sort, but class
conflicts also can mobilize such energies. Perhaps the central situation
conducive to the diffusion of the paranoid tendency is a confrontation of
opposed interests which are (or are felt to be) totally irreconcilable,
and
thus by nature not susceptible to the normal political processes of
bargain
and compromise.
The situation becomes worse when the representatives of a particular
social
interest-perhaps because of the very unrealistic and unrealizable nature
of
its demands-are shut out of the political process. Having no access to
political bargaining or the making of decisions, they find their original
conception that the world of power is sinister and malicious fully
confirmed. They see only the consequences of power-and this through
distorting lenses-and have no chance to observe its actual machinery.
A distinguished historian has said that one of the most valuable things
about history is that it teaches us how things do not happen. It is
precisely this kind of awareness that the paranoid fails to develop. He
has
a special resistance of his own, of course, to developing such awareness,
but cir***stances often deprive him of exposure to events that might
enlighten him-and in any case he resists enlightenment. We are all
sufferers
from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted
not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as
well. ...
<Unquote> ...
Excerpted from: The Paranoid Style in American Politics By Richard
Hofstadter. Harper's Magazine, November 1964, pp. 77-86. Fuller picture at
this link:-
http://nationalism.org/patranoia/hofstadter-paranoid-style.htm
These are just a few things that the western world could do much
differently.
--
Peace
--
The "men of culture", with their developed faculty of reasoning, tend to
"give the hysterias of war and the imbecilities of national politics more
plausible excuses than the average man is capable of inventing". [Reinhold
Niebuhr]
Zuiko Azumazi
zuiko.azumazi@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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