In The 1989 News

In The 1989 News Little Richardjohn - 118th post - 22 Sep 2004 18:42
Does a person who supported the fatwha against Salman Rushdie deserve to be under suspicion in the current political climate? [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: In The 1989 News Hans Upp - 1st post - 22 Sep 2004 18:49
Anyone who supported any fatwha against anyone is a nasty piece of work.
It is remiss of any news programme to fail to remind its audience about such support. [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: In The 1989 News Little Richardjohn - 120th post - 22 Sep 2004 18:58
But this was 15 years ago, and what if the person also said that Muslims must obey the laws of the land they live in? [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: In The 1989 News Hans Upp - 2nd post - 22 Sep 2004 19:11
The fact that someone wants to see another person murdered for writing a book is in no way diminished by saying that murder should be done outside of this country.
Incitement to murder is wrong, full stop! [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: In The 1989 News Little Richardjohn - 122nd post - 22 Sep 2004 19:16
Yes I know it's wrong. But should this person be under suspicion now.
And if it was wrong 15 years ago, why wasn't he arrested then? [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: In The 1989 News Hans Upp - 3rd post - 22 Sep 2004 19:37
I don't make the rules!
Maybe if he and everyone else in this country who supported a fatwa was arrested for incitement to murder, we wouldn't be in the mess we are in to day, but you can't put the genie back in the bottle now. [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: In The 1989 News Little Richardjohn - 125th post - 22 Sep 2004 19:53
The reason I ask is because at the height of the Rushdie affair, the tabloids were outraged that this member of the Socialist Islington Intellectual Chattering Class was granted police protection.
The money would have been better spent on hospitals, schools and all the other things that Wapping couldn't care less about.
The general centre-right feeling then was that Rushdie was an obvious trouble maker who had it coming. He called himself an artist but wrote unreadable books and swanked about with Harold Pinter and Melvyn Bragg as if he was born here.
Let him stew in his own juice. That was the general feeling from The Mail down.
The Sun's main trouble maker of the time would have simply thrown him to the wolves.
Funny how things change. [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: In The 1989 News Old Holborn - 1433rd post - 22 Sep 2004 20:22
Meanwhile, our prime minister invited Pinochet to tea. I saw our current PM shaking hands with Gadaffi the other day...... [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: In The 1989 News Hans Upp - 5th post - 22 Sep 2004 20:54
I don't think we were aware of the threat of Islam to the West in those days. [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: In The 1989 News Little Richardjohn - 127th post - 23 Sep 2004 11:09
We were definitely aware of the threat to one writer, who was seen as being disrespectful to a religious diety, and who, according to many, deserved to be killed..
The right wing columnists of the day knew exactly the danger Rushdie was in. His predicament was a very useful warning to other upstart left wing writers.
And the Back-Brain media loved it.
'Why should we spend taxpayer's money defending he life of this Indian intellectual who hates Our Dear Maggie.?'
That was the equation. If he'd been some toadying Calcutta sweatshop millionaire donating money to the Conservative party, he would have been treated very differently by the press.
But Rushdie didn't support Thatcher. Indeed, he was seen as being part of a genteel conspiracy to get rid of her, and was therefore disloyal and therefore his life was worth nothing. That was OUR Fatwha on him.
The huge Anti-Satanic Verses march through London was one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen. All the news media were there. How didn't we know?

re: In The 1989 News Ambiguity - 20th post - 22 Sep 2004 19:11
Little. Surley the US has the right to deny anybody entrance to their country, [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: In The 1989 News Cahen_k - 886th post - 22 Sep 2004 20:17
Hans
Noun 1. fatwa - a ruling on a point of Islamic law that is given by a recognized authority
So what is your problem?
Would any Catholic who supported a pronouncement by the Pope be under suspicion? [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: In The 1989 News Rod Lee - 64th post - 23 Sep 2004 09:29
yes if involved incitmnt to kill [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: In The 1989 News pagan paul - 56th post - 22 Sep 2004 19:20
The Salman Rushdie affair was when I like many others decided that we didn't want the religious fundamentalists to gain political power in our country.
Since then the Tory and Labour governments have flooded our country with third world immigrants who have alarming religious views - not only the muslims - have you heard some of the christians? Absolutely beyond the pale the lot of them.
UNderlying all of this is the sad realisation that some people in the UK support and encourage islamic terrorism. This is something we need to face up to and take action on.
Refusing to give state funding to islamic schools would be a very good start - let alone licencing "islamic" banks. [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: In The 1989 News Little Richardjohn - 123rd post - 22 Sep 2004 19:25
Would you be in favour of removing special assistance from ALL religious schools? For removing religion from schools altogether.
I would. [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: In The 1989 News Cahen_k - 887th post - 22 Sep 2004 20:25
pagan
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Is this sarcasm? Where do these christians come from?
The bulk of the immigrants in to the UK came in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
And how does licencing 'Islamic' banks affect the security of this country?
Paranoia! [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: In The 1989 News Little Richardjohn - 126th post - 23 Sep 2004 10:49
It's partly about economic theories.
Compound interest is the key thing - allright, ONE OF the key things that enables capitalism to keep growing, which it must do or die.
A system which does not place the borrower under the same pressure creates an alternative economic community which does not need to grow, and which is therefore not reliant on capitalism at all. And the bigger it gets, the more markets and investment capital it denies to capitalism, causing it to grow more slowly until it is basically choked to death.
True, such a system wouldn't offer the same rewards as capitalism, but it is a very stable economic basis for a society. Feudalism lasted over a thousand years in Europe and was the same sort of system. So the chief benefit is security, which enables long-term small-scale communities to endure and flourish. Communities in which everyone knows their place and elders are respected and tradition with a capital T is the judicial system.
The cultural effects of this are unpredictable, but in general terms it's probably safe to assume that the society it created would be fairly static (I'll try to re-phrase that at some time) or a closed system of some kind, and would favour a dominant ideology which reflected that quality. Namely something fairly authoritarian and unchanging - like a religion.
That's the theory. [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: In The 1989 News Cahen_k - 890th post - 23 Sep 2004 11:56
I am not an economist or a social theorist. However it seems that you are apprehensive of some economic structures that are not 'capitalistic' or 'usury' based.
Would you therefore also be against 'communist' 'nationalised' based industrial/ commercial/ social groups?

Do you really feel that creating 'islamic' banks would undermine the capitalist society when, in fact, a great deal of the Arab oil revenues are invested in the West? And I would think that the bulk of the Muslim community in the UK are well and truly locked into the capitalist ethos.
Is this just another 'muslim bashing' exercise?
After all the Christian Church was against usury and has compromised its moral stand as with so much else.
BTW: I am neither Muslim nor Christian but am attracted by the idea of creating societies that are not subject to the 'dynamism' of 'usury' based economies and the consequent 'dog eat dog' 'consumerist' 'boom and bust' atmosphere that is upheld as inevitable and the price to pay for the benefits of the society we live in.
A great many would like to live in small communities and some of the rich are able to escape to it. [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: In The 1989 News Little Richardjohn - 130th post - 23 Sep 2004 13:57
Let's not forget that we're talking about fundamentalists here. They are certainly against investment in American Banks. In fact, it is partly Osama Bin Laden's experiences of US financial promises which led him down the path he's taking us down. .. (check to shub - Ed.) Fundamentalist Islam is very suspicious of dealing with Mammon, I thought that was a given. They are prepared to use it when they need to, of course. But if a self sufficient Islamic power bloc were to emerge. They would have no need of it and could then, for instance, sell their oil at whatever price they wanted, and produce as much or as little of it as they felt like (again), because a strictly hierarchical, monolithic, basically non-industrial society in which life is cheap (and merely a fleeting stage on the road to Paradise) has no need for large oil reserves.
Think what that means to a capitalism with a voracious appetite for raw materials of every sort.
If we were to alter in some way. Put capitalism on a diet, or give it a stomach-bypass or something, we could compete better with the growing attractions of Feudalism in a world with dwindling oil reserves.
But we don't seem keen to do that. We prefer to alienate the very peoples we should be ameliorating by dropping bombs on them and violating some of the most sacred icons of their belief-system.
Which would you choose? A loan which cost you money, or one which didn't?
I don't think you seriously intend to accuse me of Muslim Bashing? This is as academic as I can be given my own barely adequate grasp of the theories involved. Search Engine time I think. 'Usury+New Islamic Banks' perhaps? [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: In The 1989 News Cahen_k - 894th post - 24 Sep 2004 10:55
Little Richard
[This is an amended post. The previous one was not acceptable as it might offend. It was only the Mods I criticised for not advising of deletions!]
I am aware of the Muslim concept of Ummah and their notion of doing away with usury and the banking system and introducing gold/silver currency. [There was plenty of it on the Muslim Topic board] and all will live in small communities with local amirs etc under the palms... A sort of religious marxist simple life. And as realisable as Communism.
Mind you there is reason to believe that the American Capitalist [d-gs] are very nervous of alternatives to capitalism and were instrumental in de-stabilising those countries in South America who attempted Communism and might have made it work and will destabilise any further societies that raise such possibilities...
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Hardly possible. There are too many nation states and tribal loyalties. Recall how difficult it was for Nasser and Syria to form a bloc in the 1950s or 1960s? And unless there is a figure of the stature of Khomeini emerging among the Sunnis there is very little likelihood of a Caliphate and Ummah.
Mind you anything is possible.. But the Caucasus has yet to extricate itself from the Russian/US presence, the Kurds to group [bits of Syria, Turkey, Iraq], The Shia/ Sunni rivalry..Israel...China...Japan... India.... OHs Jewish gene
Ah well. I am seventy in December....!
As you say just theorising/ dreaming.. w'nking [All in the Mind] :-) [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: In The 1989 News Little Richardjohn - 133rd post - 24 Sep 2004 12:10
On such theories, dreams ... - worlds are turned, Bloom.
The premise of the argument is not the EXISTENCE of a self sufficient Islamic power bloc, but on the PROMISE of such a state to an increasingly alienated section of the Muslim world.
All propaganda is 'dreams', and this is a propaganda war above all else.
So it's not about whether Ummah is technically feasible (is capitalism?), but whether enough people believe in it to disturb the western economic system and keep the blood flowing. I think it's fairly safe to say that it's having that effect already.
And as for the Great Leader, it would only take Bin Laden to fly to Mecca one year for the pilgrimage, and all hell would break loose. It would make Lenin's arrival in St Petersburg and Khomeini's return from Paris look like the Young Conservative's Daytrip to Hadrian's Wall. Combined. Unlikely? Sure. As unlikely as two planes flying in to the WTC at the same time.
The question of the relevance of The Nation State in a digital global economy is another debate entirely, but surely the growing call for Islamic self-determination underlines the failure of the nation state as a civic model in the first place. What you see as an obstacle is actually fuel to the fire (MixMet - sorry). And the tribal/sectarian divides you mention are hangovers from a past which Al Qaida is trying to escape from. That is exactly their Unique Selling Point, the return to a cleaner cultural Identity, one untarnished by rapacious Western values. A Year Zero, in fact.
Whatever else it is, theirs is a new vision of Islam. (another bedsit 'dream' at some point.) Jeeves would have recommended examining the psychology of the individual in this case, but I don't suppose George Bush reads much P.G. Wodehouse.
It might even be a re-manipulation of the Koran on the scale of the Protestant Reformation - not of course that it will lead to a subsequent Elightenment, merely to more war and slavery.
Either way, it does seem that we agree that the concept of an independent Islamic economy does pose a theoretical threat to western consumer capitalism. especially when you consider that none of the clumsy geopolitical realignments you mention are necessary for half of, say, Birmingham's bank loans to be interest free in ten years. It isn't about arid battlefields under the blazing sun Carruthers. It's about the clash of values across the world. On your doorstep, which is why we're all paying attention to this war in a way we didn't to Vietnam, Israel '67, or any other crisis I can remember. [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: In The 1989 News Cahen_k - 901st post - 24 Sep 2004 15:29
Little Richard
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Really! I am retired and therefore may not be aware of and feeling the effects. My perception is that most Muslims and States have bought into the Capitalist ethos.
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I believe that a Caliph would have to be a Spiritual authority [similar to the Pope]. I do not think that Bin Laden fits this mantle. Or has a following among the majority of Muslims.
It is also interesting to note that the Caliphate was not taken up by the Ottomans...
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To the purist nationalism is as much anathema as usury. Nations are 'ego' writ large as is the adulation of sports figures or pop idols, film stars. It is an affront to Allah.
It is not a 'new' vision. It is a hearking back to the initial message/ simplicity of early Islam that has been distorted or corrupted.
Much like the marxists who portray their creed as essentially 'christian living in common'.
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Sorry I don't agree that this is the thin edge of the wedge. If the banks are successful I don't see them having much of an impact on the UK economy or the financial system of the West. And if their loans are attractive they will be taken up by the rest of the population and all should be successful including the banks. Just like any industrial or commercial enterprise. [I am not an economist, as I've already said. Perhaps one who is can clarify or put an alternative view].
Nothing to be apprehensive about. Just interesting to see how the cookie crubles and new forms emerging.
There is a certain resilience in the human race. Be it the Great Depression or the Plague. [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: In The 1989 News Little Richardjohn - 138th post - 24 Sep 2004 16:21
What do you mean, it's not a new vision? The clear message is The Western Madmen have been making fools of us for centuries and humiliating our entire culture. It's time we stood up like men. Is that so difficult? It's the rallying cry of ALL revolutionary movements. You have nothing to lose but your chains? It doesn't matter that it's hearking back - it is about eradicating Western influence. Which for Al Qaida's target audience, is very new.
The puppet nations are despised by the fundamentalists, with some justice. So what's your problem? Bin Laden isn't promising a tinpot nation but an empire. A super state. If you're going to tell lies, tell big ones. (not YOU)
As for the loss of investment capital, the facts that the banks advertise in order to compete with each other over .25% interest points shows how they might worry about a bank that charged none. I would like to know why they wouldn't be worried about that.
As I understand you, you are saying that compound interest, as practised since the Renaissance, has been a complete con or waste of time and plays no significant role in the development or survival of capitalism?
Do you own a credit card?
Bin Laden only has to be as spiritual as necessary. The need for the right ecclesiastical qualifications would be totally swept aside by the realpolitic of the event. He would be a leader promising dignity, that is all that would matter. He may or may not have the overt or covert support of the majority of Muslims, we have absolutely no way of knowing. But he has enough to do what he's doing AND to keep countries like Pakistan under constant threat of mass insurrection. If he was to stage this stunt, he would certainly enlarge his following and throw down the gauntlet to the house of Saud to capture or kill him. In a weird twist, he would be offering himself as a hostage. And would the Saudi army do anything, at the tomb of the prophet? I simply can't see it. They would know when they were beaten. It would be like finding money in the street.
Islam's new role as a political force raises the question of whether it's a religion that happened too late or a political movement that happened too early. It doesn't seem to sit easy in either hat.
All that's obvious now is that it is, in whatever manifestation, a global force, and if all you have to say is: it'll be all right, don't worry.. then god help all of us.don't worry.. then god help all of us.