France's crackdown on Romas continue, hundreds deported

[bigbadwolf]

More on what we've been discussing:

Although according to Sarkozy in France, Berlusconi in Italy and the militarized neo-fascist Jobbik Party in Hungary the danger is more from the Roma people (also called Gypsies), more often than not it’s those scary Muslims who are seen as the most menacing threat. Yes, we better watch out! Switzerland had its referendum against minarets, bleached-blond rabble-rouser Wilders won third place for his “Hate Islam” party in the Netherlands and now bar-room battlers in Germany are being called upon to struggle against the Turks and any or all of their Islamic fellow-religionists.

 

[darmanad]

Racism and racists should be condemned. If any government, any party, or individual engages in it, they should be outed and vilified for it. No question about that. It may well be that the manner in which the French administration is dealing with the Roma constitutes racism if it can be shown that the Roma are suffering from a unique or differential application of law (which I have yet to read).
Being born a Jew, I more than most, am sensitive to the issue. Throughout history political demagogues have used race and the ostracism of the "other" to gain popular support. BBwolf's linked articles speak to this phenomenon. Maybe it's naive to hope that the free and open exchange of ideas and issues facilitated by the www in contemporary society will prevent repetition of these kinds of political travesties.

I believe the Tea Party is a disaster waiting to happen. It's based upon a fraudulent anti-government ideology and leimotifs contrary to just social policy and governance including a heavy dose of that good old time religion. Propitiously, the GZ mosque issue has allowed the TP to coalesce around its ostracism of Muslims as a way of building momentum.

However, before we condemn all intolerance of the "others" and all criticism of other belief systems, we should examine those belief sytems and what ideas they actually contain. Tolerance of intolerance is evil. Simply because a bizarre group like the TP rallies around the opposition to GZ and Muslims in general does not, ipso facto, mandate a moral person to embrace Islam. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. The same may be said of the German, Sarrazin. I have not read his book, but I would not demonize him as a racist for that part of his thinking that is critical of the intolerant, homophobic, misogynistic, supremacist belief system that is Islam.

My opposition to Islam, often registered here, is based upon the content of that belief system, not upon an irrational fear of the other and certainly not upon any faith-based religious intolerance per se. I'm an atheist. Having all my adult life considered myself liberal, e.g., for a more equitable distribution of wealth, anti Vietnam war, marching with MLK, pro-Great Society, pot smoking, long haired Legal Aid lawyer in a latino barrio, anti-Iraq war, etc, I find myself having to confront uncomfortable truths about the nature of Islam, not to mention lots of acquaintances who think I have gone nuts. I 'll spare you a reiteration of the basis of my position (an audible sigh of relief from some), but I'm importing an entry from another thread that talks about the search for moderate Islam. Some may find it interesting and topical.

p.s. Whether or not there exists a jewish gene, in point of fact the Jews in Nazi Germany were demonized on the basis of race, an immutable trait. It made no difference to the Gestapo if one had converted to another faith, disavowed all things Jewish and promised never to say a prayer again. It was off to the camps and ultimately the gas chamber. Islam is not a race and Muslims are not confronted with the same obstacles and threats. The Arabs in Gaza have more genetic material in common with the Jews in Sderot than they do with their coreligionists in Iran. Practioners of Islam simply need to alter the tenets of their professed belief system to avoid the vilification of contemporary society. Like Tawfik Hamid suggests in the piece below.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...pinion_LEADTop
Tawfik Hamid, a former member of the Islamic radical group Jamma Islamiya, is an Islamic reformer and a senior fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. He is probably the most scholarly re Islam of all the panelists. Note what he has to say.

Read this commentary on the symposium.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/09/th...r-ibrahim.html

 

[bigbadwolf]

More on Herr Sarrazin can be found here, with Helmut Schmidt now lending him his support. An excerpt:

Now Thilo Sarrazin has published a book, Deutschland schafft sich ab (Germany Does Away with Itself), which warns in dire terms that, unless German women hurry up and have more children, the country will be overrun and ruled by Muslims in a matter of decades. He claims that there are such things as Jewish genes, which he praises, and Turkish genes, which are responsible for the lower intelligence rates. Most leaders of the Jewish Congregation objected to any such references to "Jewish genes" and were highly critical, but some members joined in attacks against the Muslims.

This is "racialist" in the technical sense that an argument is being made for inherent race/ethnic differences. The same kind of argument was advanced by the Nazi ideologues with regard to Jews. Just sayin'.

With regard to the Tea Partiers, there's a good essay by Christopher Hitchens:

In a rather curious and confused way, some white people are starting almost to think like a minority, even like a persecuted one. What does it take to believe that Christianity is an endangered religion in America or that the name of Jesus is insufficiently spoken or appreciated? Who wakes up believing that there is no appreciation for our veterans and our armed forces and that without a noisy speech from Sarah Palin, their sacrifice would be scorned? It's not unfair to say that such grievances are purely and simply imaginary, which in turn leads one to ask what the real ones can be. The clue, surely, is furnished by the remainder of the speeches, which deny racial feeling so monotonously and vehemently as to draw attention.

The Tea Party phenomenon is white nationalism that dare not speak its name. And so the use of euphemisms like calling Obama a "socialist" or "moslem" by people too coy to say they resent him for being a negro and that his blackness adds to white social and economic insecurity. Not saying I like Obama (quite the opposite). Just commenting on the racial tension.

 

[bigbadwolf]

Islam is not a race and Muslims are not confronted with the same obstacles and threats. The Arabs in Gaza have more genetic material in common with the Jews in Sderot than they do with their coreligionists in Iran. Practioners of Islam simply need to alter the tenets of their professed belief system to avoid the vilification of contemporary society.

This is not correct. The religion of the Jews was used against them but this was just veneer -- the animosity had a racial basis. Evidence for this was when European Jews tried to assimilate, converted to Christianity, tried to blend in unobtrusively. Didn't work. The Dreyfus affair convinced a great number of them of the futility of trying to assimilate and the need for a separate homeland. Hitler and his gang were just more honest about the racial animosity and took it extremes with state genocide. Virulent anti-semitism is part of the North and East European DNA. Even today Polish football fans taunt other fans by shouting "Jews to the gas chamber!" A few years ago an Italian (non-Jewish) acquaintance of mine was driving around in Lithuania and stopped to ask a peasant lad for where a restaurant or food shop might be found; the lad took a look at his scraggly beard and replied, "We don't feed Jews here."

The same holds for the moslems. It serves the American state to arouse anti-moslem animosity because it wants to conduct resource wars in the Middle East -- control of oil and gas, and the pipelines to transport them. If by some miracle, the moslems there converted to some other faith, some other excuse for animosity would be found. Reminds me La Fontaine's story of the wolf and the lamb:

A lamb was quenching its thirst
In the water of a pure stream.
A fasting wolf came by, looking for something;
He was attracted by hunger to this place.
—What makes you so bold as to meddle with my drinking?
Said this animal, very angry.
You will be punished for your boldness.
—Sir, answered the lamb, let Your Majesty
Not put himself into a rage;
But rather, let him consider
That I am taking a drink of water
In the stream
More than twenty steps below him;
And that, consequently, in no way,
Am I troubling his supply.
—You do trouble it, answered the cruel beast.
And I know you said bad things of me last year.
—How could I do that when I wasn't born,
Answered the lamb; I am still at my mother's breast.
—If it wasn't you, then it was your brother.
—I haven't a brother.—It was then someone close to you;
For you have no sympathy for me,
You, your shepherds and your dogs.
I have been told of this.I have to make things even.
Saying this, into the woods
The wolf carries the lamb, and then eats him
Without any other why or wherefore.

Reminds me that when it was -- surprise, surprise -- discovered that Iraq had no WMD, the reasons for invasion became, er, to remove a cruel dictator and "restore democracy." Remnds me that when the Pentagon itself insists there are not more than 100 Al-Qaeda agents in Afghanistan, the president keeps insisting that the forces are there to, er, root out Al Qaeda.

 

[gunt86]

Virulent anti-semitism is part of the North and East European DNA.

Wow! if that isn't a racist statement, i don't know what is!!!

Even today Polish football fans taunt other fans by shouting "Jews to the gas chamber!" A few years ago an Italian (non-Jewish) acquaintance of mine was driving around in Lithuania and stopped to ask a peasant lad for where a restaurant or food shop might be found; the lad took a look at his scraggly beard and replied, "We don't feed Jews here."

I suppose this hatred of Jews just came from absolutely no basis? It would be far more interesting to find out where this attitude started, don't you think? Perhaps there is something to it, or perhaps there is nothing. But it is worth exploring. Funny how when Jews don't like having other groups in 'their' country (Israel), it's seen as perfectly fine. But when Europeans suggest similar things about their own countries, it's racism.
The least racist places on the planet are in Europe and North America!

 

[gunt86]

Racism and xenophobia exists EVERYWHERE, but in South America, the governments actively protect their immigrants, their rights and don't deport them. They give them freedom of movement and dignity.

LatAm governments don't even protect their own citizens. Go to Bolivia and see what color of skin corresponds with the biggest houses and fanciest cars....It's the most extreme of all LatAm, but the story is the same in all LatAm. The trouble is that the racism is not even thought of as racism, it's just accepted as the way things are. Sure they are free to move around from one side of the road to the other, but don't even think about trying to get legal title to their land!

 

[bigbadwolf]

Funny how when Jews don't like having other groups in 'their' country (Israel), it's seen as perfectly fine. But when Europeans suggest similar things about their own countries, it's racism.

Zionism and Nazism have common roots in the Volkisch movements of the 19th century.

The least racist places on the planet are in Europe and North America!

Hehe, that's a good one. Anything to back up this naked assertion?

 

[darmanad]

Wow! if that isn't a racist statement, i don't know what is!!! I suppose this hatred of Jews just came from absolutely no basis? It would be far more interesting to find out where this attitude started, don't you think? Perhaps there is something to it, or perhaps there is nothing. But it is worth exploring. Funny how when Jews don't like having other groups in 'their' country (Israel), it's seen as perfectly fine. But when Europeans suggest similar things about their own countries, it's racism.
The least racist places on the planet are in Europe and North America!

I'll give you first dibs on this asshole other than to observe he obviously is ignorant of the fact that 20% of the citizenry of Israel are Arabs and they enjoy the full panopoly of civil rights the same as their Jewish brethren with minor exceptions like they are not subject to the military draft.

p.s Is there a typo somewhere? You said I was incorrect when I said Jew hatred in Nazi Germany was race based and then you proceeded to say it was race based. Islam is NOT a race. Iranians have very little in common genetically with their Arab co-religionists, and then there are the Somalians, Thai, Indonesian which have no Arabic genetic characteristics. Where do the Malaysians. Pakistani/Afghani and Chechnyans fit in there racially speaking?
pps. With respect to the oil grab, is it really based upon anti-Muslim ideology? There are a lot of contrary facts .
ppps. It appears you replied before I finished typing this.

 

[gunt86]

Zionism and Nazism have common roots in the Volkisch movements of the 19th century.

It goes much further back than that and it is much much more complicated than that.

As for Europe and North America being the least racist places, why don't you tell me of a large region of the planet that is less racist!

I'll give you first dibs on this asshole other than to observe he obviously is ignorant of the fact that 20% of the citizenry of Israel are Arabs and they enjoy the full panopoly of civil rights the same as their Jewish brethren with minor exceptions like they are not subject to the military draft.

Oh, it's you. the jewish child molester trying to tell some far fetched lies about the number of arabs in israel (not counting the occupied territories of course as that is not israel is it......)

 

[bigbadwolf]

It goes much further back than that and it is much much more complicated than that.

Pray enlighten us then. Put some concrete new information or ideas into the discussion.

As for Europe and North America being the least racist places, why don't you tell me of a large region of the planet that is less racist!

You're answering a question with another question. You made the claim, not me. Why don't you provide some corroboration for an otherwise naked assertion?