www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Islamophobia

A bit off topic:
My senior year in High School, back in the 90's we had an exchange student from the Canary Islands, his name was Jorge and he was Spanish. One day after he had said or done something unusual, which he did frequently, a student exclaimed, "Jorge, you're a moron!"
To which he yelled,
"I not Moron, I Cat-o-lic!"

A little levity for such a serious post.

Hey iconophile - I wanted to get back to you on this as I actually found a book by this woman at the library the other day and was looking through it.

She actually makes some sensible comments - one thing she points out is that, in the West, if someone disapproves of her lifestyle as a lesbian, the most they can legally do is say that they disapprove of her - whereas in Muslim countries, she could legally be put to death - one of the reasons she thinks exposure to/integration with Western culture is vital to save Islam from the fanatics.

If you're interested, the book is called " The Trouble with Islam [amazon.com] " and the author is Irshad Manji.

(also, to Dr Eric - lol!! )

Theist Gal,

I see your point. There is a certain clarity in Islamic teaching that we have let slip away. I see how we might learn from Islam. Thank you.

CDL

Some years back I happened to see a play set on one of the outer fringes of Western Europe. A sociologist said to one of the locals: "Oh, you're such a provincial!" The local responded "I am not! I'm a Catholic!"

An excellent answer - but I've been wondering ever since if the playwright realized just how good that answer is!

Incognitus

Incognitus,

Your anecdote is also funny!!!

Annie- Yes, Black Elk is a perfect example: the Dakota holy man who became a Catholic catechist.
Of course, the New Agers skip his later spiritual development.
In fact, this returns us to the topic: "Allah" was the Arabic term for the Creator God, the High God who was acknowledged but in practice was unknowable: most attention was payed to the tribal deities, just as in American Indian religion and virtually every other "primitive" religion.
What Muhammad did was call the tribes back to the Creator God and away from the polyteistic array of gods and spirits and idols.
God is God, however shadowed the perception of Him may be...
-Daniel

When every church onion dome has its cross removed and replaced with a crescent and the law of the land is placed under Islamic law. Until then, we can continue to take our Christian faith for granted, live like pagans, and fret over the horror of orthodoxy.

Joe

Iconophile,

That last post was brilliant!

Thanks!
-D

Dear Bob you said:

"Sufis cared for the grave of St. Demetri in Thessalonica and it was a worshipping point for Jews, Muslims and Christians. Then the Greeks destroyed old Thessalonica."

I say:

I don't know what you are referring to when you say the Greeks destroyed old Thessalonika. I have heard from my mother that during WW I there was a fire in the city, and she presumed that it was the Greeks that set the fire, because the Jews had no allegiances during the war. (Northern Greece seemed to be a mish mash of Bulgarians, so called Slavic 'Macedonians', Serbian and Greeks), but frankly I don't know Greek history well enough to answer that.

What I do know is that Thessanoniki was named for Alexander the 'Great's sister, and they were certainly Greek. The Slavs, Bulgarians, and Jews were late comers. Also, Saint Demetrius was in all probability a Greek saint.

It seems Bob, that you have certain prejudices. You mention Serbian nationalism, yet do not mention the destruction of all the churches and monasteries in Kosovo. Strange how all the world was offended by the destruction of the Buddhist idols in Afghanistan, yet where is the outrage over the present destruction of the mellenium Christian heritage in Kosovo?

Where is the horror over the Serbs fleeing for fear of their lives in Kosovo because of the Albanian Muslim terrorists? Remember, we went to war in order to protect these terrorists, and promised the Serb minority that they had nothing to fear. I can't help but feel that there is an agenda on the part of the Muslim Turks in that part of the world.

You keep mentioning Greece, and that they must leave the past behind, yet it was Greece that was the first country to help Turkey when the earthquake hit them. By the same account, it is not the Greeks that have been threatening Turkey by flying their jets over their waters for the past 15 years.

Considering that Greece had to absorb the people that left Istanbul pennyless during the pogroms of the past 40 years, and the Cypriots during the past 30 years, and the Alexandrian Greeks during the past 30 years, I find it strange that you would refer to what Greece might or might not have done 75 years ago during a war.

Again, I can't help but sense some kind of an agenda on your part.

Zenovia

Zenovia, there is no established cause for the fire that consumed Salonika. It may very well have been an accident.

When you used the word agenda, I think that's an understatement.

Andrew

Well, I don't think that I have an agenda, or more of an agenda, than anyone else who posts here.

You really should read the Mazower book on Thessalonika.

Old Thessalonika was destroyed by modern Greek development; there is no debate about this. This destruction includes the historic Jewish cemetary, all of the mosques an a good many Orthodox sites as well. That Muslims were expelled and Jews deported and their property sold off by corrupt officials to make room for the poor refugees and great profits for the officials hardly makes it better; it forms a strong indictment of Greek nationalism that many Greeks agree with today. Thessalonika is today a rather souless place. Its history proved that diversity works and that, "on the ground," we can be quite creative in our religious expression.

My point was that diversity makes things come alive and that nationalism, including Enosis, is fatal. If being anti-nationalist and trying to be consistent in my faith and politics is an agenda then, indeed, I do have an agenda. Guilty as charged!

I suppose that there is some kind of loyalty test here: one cannot say anything bad about nationalism or nationalists or critical of serbian nationalism without also saying something about Kosovo. So, for the record, for years and years I collected funds for Serbs in Bosna and Kosovo and Hilander, visited the region, sponsored a refugee family, did pro-Serb editorials, missed meals to support Serbs there, supported those paramilitaries and priests riding those tanks through Bosna and I still have some small role in Serbian politics. My grandmother was midwife to a Serbian community so I grew up with this stuff. I maintain my membership in SNF and love Serbian spirituality.

So what happened?

One day in Subotica I went into the Jewish synagogue there after having passed it scores of times. I went in with the town rabbi. It is much as it was in 1943 when the Jews of Subotica were deported--trashed--though pigeons make it their home now. It was built to accomodate 3000 people; there are maybe 12 Jews in Subotica now and their cemetary is desecrated by skinheads, the spiritual children of he ones who deported the Jews. The monument outside notes the loss of the community. And, you know, it hit me very hard that an unkind word or a racist remark can start a firestorm that ends in a death camp or a war and that each of us is responsible for this, individually and collectively. Three days previous I had been in Smederevo at a party and everyone there was in great agreement that the traitor Ljotic was just a really great guy. Serbian politics today rarely rises above that point. The Christ I follow had no enemies, was a Jew and took the side of the downtrodden and He expects better of me. Perhap this is also an agenda...

Be well.

bob r.

This is known as blame the victim. The people who have suffered under Islamic persecution it turns out are really responsible for "Islamophobia". That sounds like an agenda, just like it sounds like an agenda when western academics and historians tout the enlightened and tolerant Ottoman Empire where Jews, Christians and Muslims all lived together in harmony.

Every culture, nationality and religion has dark corners that we can peer in to. Islam however is a religion with violent conquest as a core principle. That is not "Islamophobia", that is reality. I would say people who want to whitewash that fact have an agenda.

Andrew

History is full of victims, some real and some self-imagined and some self-righteous. There is a disturbing trend among some sectors to never let go of victimhood for purely political reasons and to accord this some mystical or religious signifigance; people become Professional Jews or Professional Armenians, for instance, and their agendas always mirror the agenda of some government or political force. And this sometimes works out in America as second- and third-generation "ethnic" Americans imposing their values on history and their family's countries of origins: in their view there is only One Serbian Nation or One Italy or One Greece and there always has been and always will be. They remake history in their own images. But when they travel to these places they are often disappointed to find that people there have other problems than, say, Muslims or theology. And if they ever read history they are disappointed to find that their history is really intertwined with the histories of others.

Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sufis and others--let's not pretend or rewrite history to reflect that we never shared social space and that our subcultures and religions don't reflect one another to some extent. Given those historic foundations, we should be able to live together again, and this time as equals.

You know, I'm not questioning anyone's motives here, but I do have to wonder about people who cling to a victimhood which is either not their own or which might serve some political purpose. And I think that the First Nations peoples have given us some wisdom and a measuring stick: we should not speak in the name of our dead unless or until they have given us their permission.

Be well.

bob r.

Dear Bob,

You are right! People should forget the past, and go on to the future...that is unless the other side is continuing the actions they have committed in the past.

For instance, if the Nazi party was to rise again in Germany, and Jews were being persecuted again, then certainly people should be aware that things have not changed much.

Well, today all the churches and monasteries are being destroyed in Kosovo...and that should certainly be taken into account considering that the one's doing the destruction are Muslim Albanians. Also the Turkish jets are continuing to fly over Greek air space threatening the Greek islands, and that should certainly be taken into account. Actually it is, by the EU.

I for one, on hearing that the people in Eastern Turkey objected to having their chickens killed because of the bird flu, couldn't help but wonder if they were Kurds and therefore being left without sustenance.

I know though that there are politics at play and it is in America's interest to have Turkey in the EU. And Greece, because of the threats imposed on her by Turkey, invited her in. Yet Turkey insisted that she will not join the EU if Christianity was mentioned as a basis for European civilization. Now she said she will not join if France does not remove the Armenian genocide from her constitution. Excuse me!

Well maybe we should start removing all genocides ...including the Nazi one against the Jews, for as far as I can tell, any nation that is not willing to admit that it has committed attrocities, is perceiving 'itself' only as a victim. I guess in Turkey, it would be called a crime against 'Turkishness'.

As an example of what I am saying, my grandson went to Hiroshima and Nagasaki recently. In both places there were grand museums showing the horrors of what we did. In Nagasaki, there was also a run down small museum, placed there by the Korean government with pictures of the immense attrocities committed against the Korean people by the Japanese army. My grandson said that the Japanese students were in a state of shock. They were never told.

Well I heard that the EU has a new book out, which shows a more balanced view on the history of Europe. So far the only nation that has accepted it and has adopted it is Serbia. So much for 'victimhood'.

Zenovia