In US, children starting at age 8 learn to respect coaches and referees, and more importantly learn that it's just a game. They experience shaking hands with the opponent after the defeat. Replace this people who think soccer is their only chance to a comfortable life who are told to respect the referee at age 18 and this is what you get.
This sort of blindness to facts seems to be common for GOP "bigshots". I don't think they are idiots. I don't think Romney cannot see himself what is written in this article. It's just that they genuinely have no interest in the rule of law or justice in Middle East but they cannot say so. They just don't care but they cannot admit it.
What is angering me is that everything that is said in this article has been said by hundreds of times by hundreds of people and confirmed by tens of humanitarian organizations, yet Romney can go so low to insult Palestinian culture to look pretty to his Jewish donors.
I remember the day! It was ten years ago, Justice and Development party won the elections. Starting the very next day, men came out to streets with Ottoman swords. Yes! That was the day Turkish men became 14 times more violent towards women overnight!
Physical war against islamdom has ended. So what? From now on, we are going to see Iran being presented as a threat to Middle East and superpowers will have their new excuse to continue exploitation of Middle East.
It is not Islam which divides the into Dar-al Islam and Dar-al Harb. It is the Islamic scholars who divided the world for the purpose of making the shariah laws clear muslims should abide. I think this division is understandable when one thinks of the political reality of those times. Nobody wasn't really interested in living on a foreign land. However now millions of immigrant muslims live in USA and they don't see themselves Dar-al harb.
Bill, I think you are confusing what qur'an teaches and how scholars interpreted islam.
Jihad is a multifaceted word pretty much like "to fight": one fights against racism, one fights against hunger, one fights against enemy, a mafia boss fights against law enforcement. But the unjustified examples of fighting doesn't make us believe that fighting is evil. On the other hand, we keep telling young generations to fight for what they want in life!
Muslims are supposed to fight the "greater jihad", which is the struggle to ones self as defined by the messenger.
I disagree with "The Qur’an also uses the term in the sense of “holy War” against infidels".
Qur'an orders believers to fight physically against those who threaten their existence. This is defined as the "lesser jihad" by the messenger. The whole idea of jihad is pretty well explained in the Qur'an but for reasons most of us are aware of, this hasn't been very well presented to western societies. It is usually described out of context by cherry-picking the verses ordering fighting against non-believers but leaving out following verses that suggest patience if they surrender as they may come to believe later.
I cannot believe how none of the so-called major news network don't cover the drought in Somalia. The Haiti earthquake was followed by thousands of news stories and celebrity action. Somalia is just forgotten in this part of the world.
There is one thing about Turkish journalists that amazes me: most supports an ideology or a political party but none acknowledges this publicly. There were ones who supported coups and worked to make them happen, and 'democratic' ones who didn't have the guts to even criticize coups even after many years. One journalist even claimed that "it was in their genes" to support coups: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=8216yes-we-did-have-a-pro-coup-thought-in-our-genes8217-2011-05-18
I believe Turkey won't embrace a real democracy until the "elite" among the journalists, artists and even professors, who supported army takeovers, are gone for good along with the "elite" generals who actually planned those takeovers. I agree that AKP, in particular PM Erdogan, is a bit intolerant towards critical views but they are nonetheless the ones who contributed most to carve the way towards a more democratic Turkey.
"We will never know if the FIS might have evolved into a parliamentary, democratic party, as later happened to the Justice and Development Party of Turkey, the leaders of which had been Muslim fundamentalists in the 1990s."
I don't know much about the FIS but I can tell a bit about the Justice and Development Party (AKP). They didn't have fundamentalist tendencies but 'the now leaders of AKP were a part of such a group'. They separated from that old hard-line group and won the first elections with an overwhelming majority. I can now tell you for sure that AKP is the best thing that had happened to Turkey after her founding.
I totally agree with the suggestion that bad decisions make things worse than. If AKP was suppressed in 2002 in Turkey, things might have gone worse and the country could have been more open to groups with violent ambitions. At the end of the day, isn't it what one would do if you do not let them do it the honest and democratic way?
In US, children starting at age 8 learn to respect coaches and referees, and more importantly learn that it's just a game. They experience shaking hands with the opponent after the defeat. Replace this people who think soccer is their only chance to a comfortable life who are told to respect the referee at age 18 and this is what you get.
This sort of blindness to facts seems to be common for GOP "bigshots". I don't think they are idiots. I don't think Romney cannot see himself what is written in this article. It's just that they genuinely have no interest in the rule of law or justice in Middle East but they cannot say so. They just don't care but they cannot admit it.
Oh my God! You know a pop video has gone truly viral when Juan Cole posts about it on his blog. This song (hopefully) can now disappear in peace.
I feel anger in this article.
What is angering me is that everything that is said in this article has been said by hundreds of times by hundreds of people and confirmed by tens of humanitarian organizations, yet Romney can go so low to insult Palestinian culture to look pretty to his Jewish donors.
Satire alert!
I remember the day! It was ten years ago, Justice and Development party won the elections. Starting the very next day, men came out to streets with Ottoman swords. Yes! That was the day Turkish men became 14 times more violent towards women overnight!
In a world free of zulm, as impossible as it sounds!
Physical war against islamdom has ended. So what? From now on, we are going to see Iran being presented as a threat to Middle East and superpowers will have their new excuse to continue exploitation of Middle East.
It is not Islam which divides the into Dar-al Islam and Dar-al Harb. It is the Islamic scholars who divided the world for the purpose of making the shariah laws clear muslims should abide. I think this division is understandable when one thinks of the political reality of those times. Nobody wasn't really interested in living on a foreign land. However now millions of immigrant muslims live in USA and they don't see themselves Dar-al harb.
Bill, I think you are confusing what qur'an teaches and how scholars interpreted islam.
Jihad is a multifaceted word pretty much like "to fight": one fights against racism, one fights against hunger, one fights against enemy, a mafia boss fights against law enforcement. But the unjustified examples of fighting doesn't make us believe that fighting is evil. On the other hand, we keep telling young generations to fight for what they want in life!
Muslims are supposed to fight the "greater jihad", which is the struggle to ones self as defined by the messenger.
I disagree with "The Qur’an also uses the term in the sense of “holy War” against infidels".
Qur'an orders believers to fight physically against those who threaten their existence. This is defined as the "lesser jihad" by the messenger. The whole idea of jihad is pretty well explained in the Qur'an but for reasons most of us are aware of, this hasn't been very well presented to western societies. It is usually described out of context by cherry-picking the verses ordering fighting against non-believers but leaving out following verses that suggest patience if they surrender as they may come to believe later.
The damage has been done. This is yet another reason for arab people, as newt puts it, to hate American intervention in Mideast.
Great article Prof. Juan but unfortunately your voice is not strong enough to fix the damage done.
I cannot believe how none of the so-called major news network don't cover the drought in Somalia. The Haiti earthquake was followed by thousands of news stories and celebrity action. Somalia is just forgotten in this part of the world.
There is one thing about Turkish journalists that amazes me: most supports an ideology or a political party but none acknowledges this publicly. There were ones who supported coups and worked to make them happen, and 'democratic' ones who didn't have the guts to even criticize coups even after many years. One journalist even claimed that "it was in their genes" to support coups: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=8216yes-we-did-have-a-pro-coup-thought-in-our-genes8217-2011-05-18
I believe Turkey won't embrace a real democracy until the "elite" among the journalists, artists and even professors, who supported army takeovers, are gone for good along with the "elite" generals who actually planned those takeovers. I agree that AKP, in particular PM Erdogan, is a bit intolerant towards critical views but they are nonetheless the ones who contributed most to carve the way towards a more democratic Turkey.
What I don't understand is how the US can still unconditionally support Israel's unjustified actions in the name of "its right of self-defense".
http://vayetech.info/blog/?tag=research-congressional-statements-on-flotilla
I bet the statements won't much differ after the audacity of hope.
"We will never know if the FIS might have evolved into a parliamentary, democratic party, as later happened to the Justice and Development Party of Turkey, the leaders of which had been Muslim fundamentalists in the 1990s."
I don't know much about the FIS but I can tell a bit about the Justice and Development Party (AKP). They didn't have fundamentalist tendencies but 'the now leaders of AKP were a part of such a group'. They separated from that old hard-line group and won the first elections with an overwhelming majority. I can now tell you for sure that AKP is the best thing that had happened to Turkey after her founding.
I totally agree with the suggestion that bad decisions make things worse than. If AKP was suppressed in 2002 in Turkey, things might have gone worse and the country could have been more open to groups with violent ambitions. At the end of the day, isn't it what one would do if you do not let them do it the honest and democratic way?