Posted on 04/04/2011 8:57:53 AM PDT by reaganaut1
... [P]ervasive negative attitudes toward Islam go far deeper into the American psyche even than these manifestations suggest, for contempt toward the religion of Mohammed is a foundational pillar of Western civilization. That it is unacknowledged only makes it more pernicious.
European Christian imagination jelled — as European, as Christian, and as imagination — around the mythic 732 triumph of Charles Martel over “infidel’’ Muslim forces in a battle near Poitiers, France. That may seem like an eternity ago and a world away, but still-powerful attitudes that show up in suspicions of widespread Muslim “radicalization’’ were generated then. In epoch-shaping chansons de geste celebrating Charles Martel, Islam was portrayed as nothing less than the anti-Christ. So resonant was its defeat, that Charles Martel was empowered as the effective founder of cohesive European social structures, with his lineage (through his grandson Charlemagne) extending even to present-day royalty.
Edward Gibbon famously shuddered at the thought that, but for Charles Martel, the Koran would be taught to the “circumcised’’ at Oxford instead of the New Testament. (It seems not to have occurred to Gibbon that, had the Poitiers battle gone the other way, Oxford, which dates to 1167, might have been founded years earlier — by, say, disciples of the great Muslim scholar Avicenna, who died in 1037.) From early on, Western civilization understood itself positively against the negative foil of Islam, a polarity that was institutionalized during the decisive centuries of the Crusades. That Christendom failed to liberate the Holy Land from infidel control only made permanent the fear and hatred of Islam.
Meanwhile, as is always true of bigotry, Europeans knew very little about actual Muslims.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Just kidding - I'm sure you and the people around you are NOT the least tolerant of conservatives...should I think of you as a bigot?
Thanks for your reply...hopefully you did not take it as an attack...just found your original point interesting given what I have been thinking....out of respect for others....I’ll drop this discussion point now....
**** — by, say, disciples of the great Muslim scholar Avicenna, who died in 1037.)****
I doubt it because not long after Avicenna’s death there rolled out of the Sudan Yusuf Ben Texum with a call to return to the fundamentals of Mohammedism, namely JIHAD!
His armies overthrew the moslem kiingdoms of North Africa and penetrated into Spain where they were stopped by EL CID.
“When men speak of you they speak of poets and scientists!
MAKE WARRIORS of your Poets!
Have your scientists make new poisons for our arrows!”-Opening lines from EL CID
Marin Luther was Martin’s little known older brother, who founded an ashram outside of Nuremburg and was burned at the stake for heresy.
I’m actually proud of the comments over there. People are waking up and getting educated.
I”ve been a Boston Globe reader my entire life yet won’t read a word written by this guy.
“Finally, here’s a wakeup call that will chill you to the core...”
Wow. I don’t think I have ever read anything so completely on-point about the forever-war we are right now engaged in... Thanks very much for posting and for giving me a bunch of books to read.
Thank you. But you may not thank me after reading the titles I’ve referenced. You’ll get an all too clear picture of the West’s will-to-suicide. The remedies for it are almost beyond contemplation.
Written by a history illeterate without a clue.
"As with people, so with what they have created. The world is modernizing, and so the arabs must. It would be shameful not to do so. Again, no standards are available to measure modernization. Nobody can be quite positive about its alleged but elusive benefits. Nobody can say where, how or why, past honor acquired present shame. Everywhere the Arab heritage, its cities and achievement alike, is either in ruins or monumentally preserved, in a kind of limbo that will neither die nor be reborn: a panorama of medinas, casbahs, souks or markets, mosques and minarets, citadels long since converted to museums. Around ancient cities lke Fez, Algiers, Tunis, Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, spread European-type developments, out into what lately was open country or desert. Like Pendar's conversations, these externals are to be interpreted at several levels.
There are unities, suggestive cultural detail --- neon lights in pink and chemical blues and green, or strings of colored lightbulbs sometimes profiling a mosque; cafes where men assemble at all hours without women. Honor is symbolized architecturally in triumphal arches of plywood blazoned with heroic military slogans; in the larger than life portraits of the country's powerholder in a martial or benevolent pose, his uniform bright with medals and badges, or perhaps all-wise in a civilian suit; in a massively laid out Liberation Square usually adorned with a statuesque but deteriorating tank and arrayed flags fraying in the wind...
...the Westerner steps out of a familiar hotel, around which stand other steel-framed and glass concrete buildings. In Dubai, the Internation Trade Center staged the The World Chess Federation championship in 1986. A National Gallery opened in Jordan in 1980, and a National Museum in Doha. Boy Scouts are to be found as far away as Oman. Kuwait has a skating rink and a stock exchange which notoriously crashed amid spectacular bankruptcies; Tunis has a Horse Racing Club and a National Library; Cairo has learned societies which issue publications in French and English; in Casablanca, a clinic pioneers sex-change operations; and it is possible to play golf in Dubai and Muscat or in Morocco in Rabat and Marrakesh, and to ski at Ifrane. Research councils have been set up in Damascus, Cairo, Riyahd, Beirut. Kuwait invests its petrodollars through an investment office. Saudi Arabia contributes to the International Monetary Fund, and a prize for Science commemorates King Faisal. Soccer was introduced into the Ottoman Empire as long ago as 1908, and the national teams of Algeria and Morocco reached the 1986 finals of the Wold Cup in Mexico City. Back in 1907 the Red Crescent Society was founded as a counterpart to the Red Cross. Inter-Arab organizations exist: such as the Arab League, founded in 1945 and which now has offices abroad and organized lobbies; the Fund for Arab Economic Development; and not least of all, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries.
The official or high-level visitor may hear that from time to time mobs have rioted and burnt down these hotels and casinos, night clubs, bars and cinemas. Are there not underpriviledged and discontented people everywhere, taking the law into their own hands? ...this reveals another level of meaning.The mobs burn down these buildings because they very well understand these symbols for what they are: the buildings have not arisen out of the demands of the society, they are facades, imitating the West in order to ward off the charge of being "backward" and "uncivilized." ... but there is no organic link between these buildings and themselves..."
The Closed Circle, David Pryce-Jones, 1989, pp 47-48
Sounds like liberals ran your Catholic school.
Sounds like liberals ran your Catholic school. In public grade school, we had one class where the teacher said Islam spread by the sword.
CANNOT POST THIS ENOUGH!!!
“As long as the Muslim population remains around 1% of any given country they will be regarded as a peace-loving minority and not as a threat to anyone. In fact, they may be featured in articles and films, stereotyped for their colorful uniqueness:
Nation % Muslim
United States 1.0%
Australia 1.5%
Italy 1.5%
Norway 1.8%
Canada 1.9%
China 2.0%
At 2% and 3% they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs:
Nation % Muslim
Denmark 2.0%
United Kingdom 2.7%
Germany 3.7%
Spain 4.0%
Thailand 4.6%
From 5% on they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. They will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature it on their shelves — along with threats for failure to comply. (United States).
Nation % Muslim
Switzerland 4.3%
Philippines 5.0%
Sweden 5.0%
The Netherlands 5.5%
Trinida and Tabago 5.8%
France 8.0%
At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islam is not to convert the world but to establish Sharia law over the entire world. When Muslims reach 10% of the population, they will increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions (Paris –car-burnings). Any non-Muslim action that offends Islam will result in uprisings and threats (Amsterdam - Mohammed cartoons).
Nation % Muslim
Guyana 10.0%
India 13.4%
Israel 16.0%
Kenya 10.0%
Russia 15.0%
After reaching 20% expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings and church and synagogue burning:
Nation % Muslim
Ethiopia 32.8%
At 40% you will find widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks and ongoing militia warfare:
Nation % Muslim
Bosnia 40.0%
Chad 50.1%
Lebanon 59.7%
From 60% you may expect unfettered persecution of non-believers and other religions, sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels:
Nation % Muslim
Albania 70.0%
Malaysia 60.4%
Qatar 77.5%
Sudan 70.0%
After 80% expect State run ethnic cleansing and genocide:
Nation % Muslim
Bangladesh 83.0%
Egypt 90.0%
Gaza 98.7%
Indonesia 86.1%
Iran 98.0%
Iraq 97.0%
Jordan 92.0%
Morocco 98.7%
Pakistan 97.0%
Syria 90.0%
Tajikistan 90.0%
Turkey 99.8%
United Arab Emirates 96.0%
100% will usher in the peace of ‘Dar-es-Salaam’ — the Islamic House of Peace — there’s supposed to be peace because everybody is a Muslim: Nation % Muslim
Yemen 99.9%
Afghanistan 100.0%
Saudi Arabia 100.0%
Somalia 100.0%
Of course, that’s not the case. To satisfy their blood lust, Muslims then start killing each other for a variety of reasons.”
– Leon Uris, “The Haj” Adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond’s book: Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threats
Certainly the final large sea battle that sealed the ambitions of islam's plan to conquer Europe, not sure about the best. The second battle of Vienna (1683) comes to mind as equally important for the salvation of Europe from the koranimals. But equally important are dozens of other minor and major clashes around the Mediterranean, and Eastern Europe. They all contributed to the ultimate stomping into the ground of the muslims delusional world conquest.
My favorite Book chronicling most, if not all the battles, large and small is Jihad in the West, by Paul Fregosi (1998), a book which, naturally, oil-money muslims attempted to ban from publication.
Some of the "minor campaigns" of resistance are fascinating, bloody and heroic."
My favorite obscure story is the youg Christian heroine, Amalda de Rocas Many versions exist, varying slightly in detail :
"...Amalda de Rocas, a Christian teenage girl who was captured by the Turkish armies that were sent to conquer Cyprus in 1570 for no other reason than that they were not Muslim. During the campaign, the Muslims slaughtered entire towns (after promising them safe passage) and captured about 2,400 children for transport back to the robust sex slave market in Islamic Turkey."
As was customary with every battle large or small, children were not killed by the muslims, but shipped to the Caliphate in Istanbul for sale on the slave market as sex slaves.
The 2400 children were sent in three ships, Amalda, 18, in one with 800 others.
Soon after setting out she managed to get to the powder magazine and lit part of her dress, threw it into magazine and blew everyone into the paradise they deserved. Another historical choice of death before dishonor.
My very Catholic aunt gave me (actually all the kids in my family) an illustrated book on the Crusades. I read if for pagentry and pictures, it was very, very interesting. However, in religion class the approach to Islam was fairly neutral, even though there seemed to be a lot of remorse about all the lost Christian shrines. In history class, they taught about conversion by the sword, but made it seem archaic, ancient history, like, “Who remembers that any more?”
I meant to say that the article at the link tells the story of Lepanto the best.
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