2012-08-22
The Second Conversation
There’s the kind of conversation I prefer to have; and then there’s the kind of conversation we sometimes have to have.
If you’re like me, you prefer to exchange ideas with reasonable people who generally share a similar worldview, even if you don’t always agree on the details. You enjoy working through the questions of premises, logic, and values that make up a civilized debate.
But there’s another kind of conversation going on. It’s the conversation that’s imposed on us by people who don’t believe in the free exchange of ideas. If you’re used to being able to speak and argue freely, you might be caught off guard, because free speech is something we can easily come to take for granted.
This is a conversation that calls for less subtlety and more nerve. It’s a conversation where you have to be willing to tell people exactly the thing they don’t want to hear. In this kind of conversation, success is measured not by how much approval you win from other people, but by your willingness to speak even when others disapprove. ...
Read the rest at Media Tapper.
If you’re like me, you prefer to exchange ideas with reasonable people who generally share a similar worldview, even if you don’t always agree on the details. You enjoy working through the questions of premises, logic, and values that make up a civilized debate.
But there’s another kind of conversation going on. It’s the conversation that’s imposed on us by people who don’t believe in the free exchange of ideas. If you’re used to being able to speak and argue freely, you might be caught off guard, because free speech is something we can easily come to take for granted.
This is a conversation that calls for less subtlety and more nerve. It’s a conversation where you have to be willing to tell people exactly the thing they don’t want to hear. In this kind of conversation, success is measured not by how much approval you win from other people, but by your willingness to speak even when others disapprove. ...
Read the rest at Media Tapper.
2012-08-16
"This book is the source of all evil, and the real catastrophe."
Nonie Darwish at American Thinker:
Could this be the real Arab Spring? This is huge! The Muslim world does not have to blame Pastor Terry Jones anymore for burning the Quran or non-Muslims for desecrating it. They are now in shock over seeing a YouTube post of an Egyptian young man doing the unthinkable on camera: tearing up the Quran and putting it in the trash. ...If your Arabic is rusty, go to the post for a translation of what he's saying. Hint: It isn't "Allahu akbar."
2012-08-14
No Men Allowed at Daycare Center
Mail (UK):
A children's play centre has barred fathers from attending with their children and is now facing an investigation by equality watchdogs.
Kids Go Wild is believed to be the first such play centre in the country to introduce a ‘women only’ policy – which also bans boys over the age of nine.
Bosses at the centre, which opened less than a fortnight ago, claim the policy was instigated for ‘cultural reasons’ and was in the interests of the ‘predominantly Asian’ local community. ...
Quote of the Day
From Eric Allen Bell at Facebook:
Why are civilized countries in the West having to pour money into "helping" Islam to be less savage? Have we seen a return on this investment? Why do we set the bar so low for this group? Why is it our responsibility to foot the bill to help train "moderate Imams" when it would make more sense instead to enforce our laws, concerning treason and sedition?Amen.
2012-08-08
New Piece in Media Tapper
I've had the honor of being added to the list of contributors to Media Tapper. My first article is here:
Jihad, Counter-Jihad, and Why You Should Care
Jihad, Counter-Jihad, and Why You Should Care
2012-07-27
Hard Questions for the Obama Administration
What is the capital of Israel?
Journalist: "Could you just give us an answer?"
Will the Department of Justice permit free speech?
Rep. Trent Franks (AZ): "Here's my proposal. I'm asking you to answer a question."
Journalist: "Could you just give us an answer?"
Will the Department of Justice permit free speech?
Rep. Trent Franks (AZ): "Here's my proposal. I'm asking you to answer a question."
Economist on Jews
The Economist's David Landau finds the world's Jews "alive and well":
Then there is Landau's visit to "a non-Orthodox synagogue in suburban Connecticut", no doubt not far different from the one I attended as a young person. Landau surmises that its members
Never mind, let's get back to the Jews.
But wait - did Landau say something about "anti-Semitism, which is rising again"? But I feel so free, prosperous, and unthreatened!
Maybe a look at the comments will help clear things up:
JUDAISM IS FLOURISHING, both in Israel, where 43% of the world’s Jews now live, and throughout the Jewish diaspora. The Jews as a nation are flourishing too. Israelis, for all their problems, are the 14th-happiest people in the world, happier than the British or the French, according to a recent global happiness report commissioned by the UN. In the diaspora Jewish life has never been so free, so prosperous, so unthreatened.Well, that's sure good to know. The writer duly treats of the Jewish experience in America and elsewhere; of Hitler's program of extermination that wiped out one-third of the world's Jews, and of Zionism, which after the experience of Nazi Germany "was vindicated, at least in its own eyes".
Then there is Landau's visit to "a non-Orthodox synagogue in suburban Connecticut", no doubt not far different from the one I attended as a young person. Landau surmises that its members
like most Israelis and diaspora Jews, would tell pollsters that they support peace and two states. The atmosphere there on a recent Sunday could hardly have been more civilised. Jews, Christians and Muslims munched hot dogs and coleslaw together before setting out to clean up the neighbourhood park. The rabbi spoke words of appropriate interfaith inspiration. In the library the synagogue staff had spread carpets on the floor for the Muslims to pray.Landau's account of the interfaith event (not much different, I expect, from the one I attended in Oregon a few years ago) is short on details. What was said by the speakers? How many of the Muslim attendees called for recognition of Israel by the Muslim world? What was the map, exactly, and what did the boys' comments mean?
In the corridor outside this temporary mosque, two Muslim schoolboys read the Israeli declaration of independence: “We extend our hand of peace and unity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples.” It was displayed alongside a map of the region. “No Gaza,” one noted. “No West Bank either,” his brother added. A synagogue warden explained later that the map was “biblical, not political”.
Never mind, let's get back to the Jews.
The prevailing political sentiment in Jewry today is of aggressive defensiveness, a curious amalgam of victimhood and intolerance. Dissent about Israel is discouraged and often gagged outright. Among British Jewry, some 300,000 strong, “a positively McCarthyite atmosphere has been created,” says Jonathan Freedland, a political columnist. “People are frightened to say what they feel.” In America “honest discussion about Israel is largely shut down,” notes Arnold Eisen, a historian and chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, a rabbinical school in New York. “Some rabbis will speak their minds…but people don’t want to fight and there is a disinclination to argue about Israel. The right says you’re giving aid and comfort to the enemy if you say anything critical about any Israeli policy.” Given Israel’s power and diaspora Jewry’s strength and influence, that seems paradoxical.Well, I'm sure I can manage an intelligent comment on this, if only I can get past my aggressive defensiveness, victimhood and intolerance, nationalism and xenophobia.
Resurgent religious faith is deeply caught up in this. Nationalism, xenophobia and Judaism blur and merge. Jews find themselves out of step with most of world opinion, which heightens a widespread sense of apprehensiveness. Iran’s threats and nuclear pretensions provide a focus for these feelings. Diaspora Jewish leaders insist that Israel is misunderstood. They attribute criticism to anti-Semitism, which is rising again.
But wait - did Landau say something about "anti-Semitism, which is rising again"? But I feel so free, prosperous, and unthreatened!
Maybe a look at the comments will help clear things up:
The real disgrace is the existence of "israel". "israel " is in fact the apex of colonisation , founded on a myth of a peopless land perpetuated in an ever increasing occupation. ... The similarities between "israel" and Nazi Germany are startling.Alive and well, indeed.
Judaism is enjoying an unexpected revival.Is this good news or bad one?In advanced scientific era people are returning to religion that mean some thing wrong with scientific advance.I have on objection Jews are embarrassing again to religion.My only request to Jews please abandoned your old psyche which teach you " An eye for eye and tooth for tooth'"this revengeful motto poured too much blood in the world. ...
Im not even gonna bother commenting on this "hebrew appreciation piece" since everything critically to orientals would be deleted.
2012-07-18
Armed Patron Foils Robbery
Awesome. Wizbang has the video, I'll just let you go over there and take a look.
And notice how FAST those guys took off! Notice too that the 71-year-old Williams was - to all appearances at least - outnumbered and outarmed. (The second intruder was carrying "a bat or something".) Henderson, who carried the gun, claims it wasn't loaded, and that his accomplice, Dawkins, was injured by broken glass when he smashed a computer monitor. (Real geniuses, these guys.)
But the thing that stands out most for me is the element of surprise.
Here's more on Henderson and Dawkins:
OCALA - The Internet cafe patron who shot and injured two men as they tried to rob the business will likely not face any criminal charges.
“Based on what I have seen and what I know at this time, I don't anticipate filing any charges,” said Bill Gladson of the State Attorney's Office for 5th Judicial Circuit. ...
Samuel Williams, 71, who fired the shots, has a concealed weapons permit, according to the Sheriff's Office ...
And notice how FAST those guys took off! Notice too that the 71-year-old Williams was - to all appearances at least - outnumbered and outarmed. (The second intruder was carrying "a bat or something".) Henderson, who carried the gun, claims it wasn't loaded, and that his accomplice, Dawkins, was injured by broken glass when he smashed a computer monitor. (Real geniuses, these guys.)
But the thing that stands out most for me is the element of surprise.
Here's more on Henderson and Dawkins:
Hours after his release from the hospital, Henderson, who talked about the pain he feels in his buttock and hip, said the plan was to “barge in, get the money and leave.” He said “he never expected anyone to be armed.”And I'd say the video bears that out.
Well, that's one way of looking at it.
Ha'Aretz:
Apart from the fear of other attacks abroad, yesterday's events are worrying because of the region's increasing lack of stability. Assad's regime hangs in the balance, Iran is allegedly responsible for killing Israelis abroad, and Israel is approaching decision time on the Iranian nuclear threat. In view of all this, the chances that this summer we'll be able to focus on the social protest and on drafting the ultra-Orthodox are dwindling.Yup, I'd say that's probably a safe bet.
Honor Killings: Not Exclusively Muslim - But Overwhelminly So
Phyllis Chesler: 'Although the overwhelming majority of honor killings worldwide occur within Muslim communities,[1] one would not know this by reading the mainstream media. Fearful of being labeled "Islamophobic," the American press has given only glancing attention to the widespread, honor-related ritual murder of Muslim women in the Middle East and South Asia while treating periodic honor killings among Muslim immigrants in the West as ordinary domestic abuse cases. ...'
Read the rest at the link.
Read the rest at the link.
2012-07-12
Courage and Desolation: "Where the West Ends" by Michael J. Totten
"Where the West Ends" is, at least superficially, a travelogue about the region straddling eastern Europe and western Asia, during the period from 2006 to 2012. The book is divided into four sections covering the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Black Sea. It's roughly the same region covered by Robert D. Kaplan about ten years earlier in Kaplan's book "Eastward to Tartary". But "Where the West Ends" is more personal, and it is astonishing. At times it surreally reminded me of China Mieville's novel "The City & the City".
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Probably most of us are guilty of throwing around terms like "the West" and "the Middle East" without really thinking too hard about what they mean, or where those places begin or end. If you want to understand what "the West" is, read this book to learn where it is, and where it is not.
There is a persistent feeling of loneliness in this book. It is the loneliness of communities cut off from one another and from themselves; but it's also the loneliness of certain individuals who refuse to be confined within the communal walls that are assigned to them.
There are harrowing stories of violence and cruelty, such as Berisha's tale of the expulsion of the Albanians from Prishtina and the ravaging of Krusha e Vogel. There is Ukraine's memory of the Stalinist "hunger plague" of 1932-1933. But there are also stories of courage and kindness, and of hope.
Three themes emerged for me as I read "Where the West Ends". There is the image of the lonely liberal, surrounded by a sea of increasingly hostile and violent factions. There is the conflict between old traditionalism and new fundamentalism. And there is the improbable eruption of pro-Americanism in the strangest places.
The Serbian film writer Filip David is one of those lonely liberals; so is the half-Serbian, half-Bosnian Predag Delibasic, who takes pride in having declared himself variously a Jew, a Muslim, and a Yugoslav - and claims that nonexistent nationality to this day. Perhaps the loneliest, though, is Shpetim Mahmudi, an Albanian Sufi mystic who must watch the gradual encroachment of foreign-backed Arab islamists on the grounds of his religious compound. His story is tragic.
It also points to something important about religious conflict in the Muslim world: that the conflict is often not - as Westerners sometimes imagine - a case of Western modernity threatening to extinguish Islamic tradition. Rather, it is instead a direct attack on centuries-old, evolving religious traditions by well-armed, well-financed followers of a comparatively recent fundamentalist sect. It is ancient moderation versus newfangled fanaticism.
It should not be news that there are places in the world where America is not well liked. Serbia is one of those places, as attested by the Belgrade taxi driver's curt greeting to Totten at the beginning of chapter 2. What's a better-kept secret, though, is that there are places that are enthusiastically pro-American. "Where the West Ends" visits some of those places: Iraqi Kurdistan, Albania, Georgia, Romania.
Taken as a whole, this book presents a spectrum of individual and communal relationships: nation-states new and old, enclaves and exclaves, secessionist and occupied zones, segregated and integrated communities, and individuals struggling - with varying degrees of success - to behave with dignity and decency amid environments calculated to breed brutality.
What we're left with is an admiration of the courage it takes to succeed. The Georgians in chapter 9 have watched Russian planes burn their forests and bomb their villages. They are angry with Russia, but they do not hate Russians. And Delibasic, at the end of chapter 2, says, "I don't hate anybody" - not even the general who commanded the prison camp where he was once confined.
Still, forgiveness is sometimes born of proximity. In the course of a conversation with a Romanian researcher about that country's Communist past, Totten is reminded of a militant in another place who said, "[They] don't live here … they live over there, so I don't have to forgive them!"
One final note: The values and traditions that we cherish in the West are by no means assured of continuance. "The West" is an abstraction that exists in space and also in time. If in the title you replace the word "where" with "when", the book is also a warning.
The book ends with an unforgettable scene of desolation. Read the book all the way to the end, to understand why the chilling final pages capture a part of Europe still haunted by many ghosts.
UPDATE: Thanks to Michael Totten for the link!
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Probably most of us are guilty of throwing around terms like "the West" and "the Middle East" without really thinking too hard about what they mean, or where those places begin or end. If you want to understand what "the West" is, read this book to learn where it is, and where it is not.
There is a persistent feeling of loneliness in this book. It is the loneliness of communities cut off from one another and from themselves; but it's also the loneliness of certain individuals who refuse to be confined within the communal walls that are assigned to them.
There are harrowing stories of violence and cruelty, such as Berisha's tale of the expulsion of the Albanians from Prishtina and the ravaging of Krusha e Vogel. There is Ukraine's memory of the Stalinist "hunger plague" of 1932-1933. But there are also stories of courage and kindness, and of hope.
Three themes emerged for me as I read "Where the West Ends". There is the image of the lonely liberal, surrounded by a sea of increasingly hostile and violent factions. There is the conflict between old traditionalism and new fundamentalism. And there is the improbable eruption of pro-Americanism in the strangest places.
The Serbian film writer Filip David is one of those lonely liberals; so is the half-Serbian, half-Bosnian Predag Delibasic, who takes pride in having declared himself variously a Jew, a Muslim, and a Yugoslav - and claims that nonexistent nationality to this day. Perhaps the loneliest, though, is Shpetim Mahmudi, an Albanian Sufi mystic who must watch the gradual encroachment of foreign-backed Arab islamists on the grounds of his religious compound. His story is tragic.
It also points to something important about religious conflict in the Muslim world: that the conflict is often not - as Westerners sometimes imagine - a case of Western modernity threatening to extinguish Islamic tradition. Rather, it is instead a direct attack on centuries-old, evolving religious traditions by well-armed, well-financed followers of a comparatively recent fundamentalist sect. It is ancient moderation versus newfangled fanaticism.
It should not be news that there are places in the world where America is not well liked. Serbia is one of those places, as attested by the Belgrade taxi driver's curt greeting to Totten at the beginning of chapter 2. What's a better-kept secret, though, is that there are places that are enthusiastically pro-American. "Where the West Ends" visits some of those places: Iraqi Kurdistan, Albania, Georgia, Romania.
Taken as a whole, this book presents a spectrum of individual and communal relationships: nation-states new and old, enclaves and exclaves, secessionist and occupied zones, segregated and integrated communities, and individuals struggling - with varying degrees of success - to behave with dignity and decency amid environments calculated to breed brutality.
What we're left with is an admiration of the courage it takes to succeed. The Georgians in chapter 9 have watched Russian planes burn their forests and bomb their villages. They are angry with Russia, but they do not hate Russians. And Delibasic, at the end of chapter 2, says, "I don't hate anybody" - not even the general who commanded the prison camp where he was once confined.
Still, forgiveness is sometimes born of proximity. In the course of a conversation with a Romanian researcher about that country's Communist past, Totten is reminded of a militant in another place who said, "[They] don't live here … they live over there, so I don't have to forgive them!"
One final note: The values and traditions that we cherish in the West are by no means assured of continuance. "The West" is an abstraction that exists in space and also in time. If in the title you replace the word "where" with "when", the book is also a warning.
The book ends with an unforgettable scene of desolation. Read the book all the way to the end, to understand why the chilling final pages capture a part of Europe still haunted by many ghosts.
UPDATE: Thanks to Michael Totten for the link!
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