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I am attending a wedding tomorrow, of the daughter of a school friend (the other daughter is my god daughter), and this got me thinking about Muslims and Muslim weddings, which are, or so I have been persuasively told, not like our weddings.
When we marry, we marry outside our family, and our weddings are thus gatherings involving and uniting two families, and what is more two families who probably had nothing to do with one another until the bride from one and the groom from the other brought them together. Our marriage customs are, in the patois of the anthropologists, “exogamous”. We marry outside the clan.
Muslims, on the other hand, by custom, marry within their own clans, and a Muslim wedding is thus a gathering of and a celebration of just the one family, together with its various friends and hangers-on. Arab marriage customs are “endogamous”.
As one of my favourite intellectuals – a French anthropologist called Emmanuel Todd, known to the Anglo-Internet mostly for his bizarre opinion that the Euro-economy is racing ahead of the US economy, but better than that at anthropology, trust me – puts it, in his brilliant book (which fully lives up to its amazingly confident title) The Explanation of Ideology:
From Morocco to Pakistan, from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan, a single family form dominates, its unique trait being preferential marriage between paternal parallel-cousins. Typical of the Muslim world and not simply of the Arab one, this characteristic can be observed in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and among Berbers of Algerian or of Morocco. …
This does not apply to all Muslim societies, because Islam conquered some non-endogamous societies on its perimeter in its early time of military supremacy. But it does apply to the Muslim heartland.
Here in the West, alliances and cooperative ventures that go beyond mere clan membership are commonplace. You may not like, for example, the Labour Party, but at least its upper echelons are not confined to people who are all related to one another. Yet Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, to take one particularly famous example, was ruled by a clan all of whom lived in one town, and old habits die hard.
One result (among many) of this peculiar fact is a society in which them and us remain permanently divided. Islam, in Islamic minds, is irreconcilably divided from the rest of us, and similar them/us divisions afflict Muslim society itself. We in the West indulge in plenty of themming and ussing, so to speak. I am, after all, doing it in this posting. But the Islamic version of this habit is now, I think it is fair to say, far more absolute.
This could have been a very, very long posting, but I will keep it short and just say that I think this explains a lot.
Since Hollywood studio bosses are famously averse to ‘downbeat endings’ for their movies, perhaps it was their clandestine intervention that resulted in this script change:
Kidnappers in Iraq have handed two French journalists to another group said to be prepared to free them, one of the men’s editors told the BBC.
The second group, said to be from the Iraqi opposition, is “in favour of releasing them”, Charles Lambroschini, Le Figaro deputy editor, told BBC News.
France’s foreign minister said earlier that both men were alive and well.
The kidnappers had linked the men’s fate to France’s move to ban Islamic headscarves from schools.
No, probably not the handywork of Hollywood executives but a rather surprise ‘ending’ nonetheless given the grisly fate that has been meted out to just about every other hostage in Iraq.
If (as it appears) these two men are to be sent back home to their families in one piece, then I am very pleased. There are plenty of people in this world to whom I bear an extraordinary degree of ill-will but these two French hacks are not among them. However, I find myself unable to dismiss the question of whether there ever really was any risk that they would end up six inches shorter.
When Hamas, Hezbollah and a bevy of otherwise insanely violent Caliphascists are falling over themselves to denounce the kidnappers and call for the hostages release, you know that this is not business as usual. There could be any number of explanations, but the sudden materialisation of a ‘caring, sharing’ side is, I submit, the least likely of them.
Events may overtake this and I may yet be forced to recant, although that is hardly an important matter. But, until then, the impression I have formed is that this was not so much a hostage crisis as an elaborate pantomime.
Perhaps it is merely a case of grabbing whoever is conveniently to hand. Or perhaps not:
A group calling itself The Islamic Army in Iraq says it is holding the two men – Christian Chesnot of Radio France Internationale and Georges Malbrunot of Paris daily newspaper Le Figaro….
Arab TV station al-Jazeera showed a video on Monday in which both men, speaking in English, called for the law banning headscarves to be overturned – and for French people to demonstrate for its repeal.
A group calling itself The Islamic Army in Iraq says it is holding the two men – Christian Chesnot of Radio France Internationale and Georges Malbrunot of Paris daily newspaper Le Figaro.
Arab TV station al-Jazeera showed a video on Monday in which both men, speaking in English, called for the law banning headscarves to be overturned – and for French people to demonstrate for its repeal.
Of course, the only way to prevent this kind of thing happening again is for the French to change their misguided and interventionist domestic policies.
[P.S. Why were they speaking in English, I wonder?]
A smart and thought-provoking blogger I have recently come across, Perry Metzger, who seems to hail from the anarcho-capitalist bit of the libertarian intellectual universe, does not like the way this blog has supported the military ouster of Saddam Hussein. Now, of course another certain Perry (de Havilland) of this parish thinks rather differently.
Metzger asks how it is that folk who are so ardently opposed to the State can possibly countenance the use of force, including appropriation of wealth via taxation, to topple another regime deemed to be dangerous. Well, it is actually quite easy to answer that question in my view. First of all, not all libertarians believe a free society can exist without a minimal state, including one with the ability to provide external and internal security, which may include the need to take out violent and hostile foreign regimes.
Second, the supposedly sacred libertarian principle that thou shalt not initiate force against another is not very useful when it comes to judging whether regime X or Y poses your country a particular threat or not, and whether action of a Bush-style pre-emptive sort is justified and perhaps even more important, whether it is prudent. Good people will and do differ a lot about that.
Such disagreements cannot in my view be arbitrated solely by referring to abstract moral principles – although principles are of course crucial – but have to be also judged on events, by weighing up the possible consequences of an action or taking no action. In fact, taking no action and adopting a purely reactive approach to defence will also have consequences, not all of them necessarily good ones. There is no easy way to say which approach will always be better. So even two ardent libertarians who read a situation in the Middle East, say, could differ on fine points and end up having precisely the sort of heated debates we get in the comments sections.
I have changed my mind on so many aspects of the current war in Iraq that my head will probably explode at some point. At one point I felt the whole affair was a dumb mistake and we would have been better off leaving Saddam in his palaces and let things run on awhile. But regardless of what I thought about facts on the ground and the news reports I read, I honestly do not feel that appeals to higher tenets of libertarian theory really ever decisively swayed my mind about the particulars one way or the other.
It appears that Sadr and his Islamo-fascist militia will be allowed to slip away from the Mosque of Ali in Najaf without further harm. Even if they are indeed disarmed (yeah, right) before they withdraw, the fact their organisational infrastructure will be left intact calls into question the whole point of opposing him in the first place.
It seems to me that there are really only two sensible ways to see this:
Either conclude that following a policy of using force to confront Islamic extremism is too bloody to stomach, leading inevitably to adopting a policy of withdrawal from wherever Islamic terrorism threatens modern global civilisation…
…or conclude that once a decision to use force is taken, it will be followed through robustly and ruthlessly with the intention of killing fundamentalists leaders like Sadr and ideally as many of his hardcore supporters as is practical as well.
In reality I expect neither clear conclusion will be reached in the corridors of power in Washington DC (and do not get me going about the buffoons who run the Foreign Office) and a middle-way fudge that is already being offered up in the established media will be the perceived wisdom as key elements of the political classes work to keep the world safe for Sharia, legally enforced burquas, clitoridectomy and judicial amputations.
Surely the best way to ensure the survival of a tolerable regime in Iraq is to fill the graveyards with as many Islamic extremists as possible. If that policy is not acceptable, then surely one has no business using force to begin with as it seems perverse to kill people unless you are willing to do so for a damn good reason… either fight a war or do not, the middle way just gets you the worst of both worlds: you are hated for the people you kill and held in contempt for the people you would not kill.
The opportunity was there to turn the mosque of Ali into a funeral pyre of Islamic political aspirations. Today was the very last chance to do exactly that but it looks like the opportunity will drift away by this evening.
What a pity.
Looks like the US is playing hardball and refusing to compromise with the Islamists in Iraq. All to the good, I suspect.
The best chance for a reasonable long term political settlement in Iraq will come when Moqtada al-Sadr and as many of his supporters as possible are dead. Getting there will require resolve in the ongoing attrition battle but if the casualty numbers are even close to accurate, then things are going as well as can be reasonably expected in such a grim business.
The fighting in Iraq has flared up again and most of the people getting killed appear to be Islamists, which is just fine by me. I cannot but wonder if the Islamists thought that if they just kept on slugging away, the Brits and US would just fold up and slink off, leaving them to impose an theocratic ‘paradise’ on Iraq. The fact that Moqtada al-Sadr is offering a return to a truce is both a good sign and an excellent reason to do nothing of the sort but rather escalate efforts to kill him and his supporters.
I suspect that is indeed what is going to happens and moreover I think that the US and UK governments will stay the course regardless of who wins the elections in the USA. Seeing Iraq ‘go Islamic’ would be too much even for the dismal Kerry to want to have happen on his watch. Likewise for the Tory party in Britain, should they somehow miraculously contrive to defeat Blair at some point in the future. Come to think of it, that is yet another reason not to bother voting next time: the hard decisions have already been made and the course is now set. The politics become even easier if another Al-Qaeda ‘leaker’ like September 11th gets through on either side of the North Atlantic.
The equally dismal Bush already did the heavy lifting in Afghanistan and Iraq and now it is just a case of taking on targets of opportunity. As for the Brits, I doubt any future Tory government would be any better or worse regarding the on-going hollowing out of Britain’s fading military capabilities, so no real choices are on offer there either.
The West, well the Anglosphere bits at least, will continue to oppose Islamists like Al-Qaeda for the foreseeable future regardless of the supine predilections of the Guardian, Independent and New York Times reading classes and it does not much matter whose face is on the portraits in the US and UK embassies.
Although not in the mainstream news as much as the story deserves, the thus far peaceful (from the student side at least) Iranian intifada is alive and well. Unfortunately the same can not be said for some of its members. The Mullahcracy continues to visit violence and imprisonment upon such supporters of liberty.
In response, some of the imprisoned are carrying out a hunger strike to gain international attention for their plight.
Several alarmed European MPs, such as, Andre Berry, Paolo Kazaka and Helmut Markoff have expressed their public support and expressed concerns on the fate of the strikers and the persistent rights abuses in Iran. Mr. Berry has written a public letter for the attention of the German FM by asking him to intervene due to his close relationship with the ruling mullahs.
My cynical side wonders if one who has a ‘close relationship with the ruling mullahs’ would help the students for reasons other than a belief in democracy and human rights.
Nah. These are civilized and nuanced European leaders.
How many of you grew up playing ‘RISK’? Yes, I see a bunch of hands up… no less than I would expect from a bunch of Samizdata readers. So… with everyone’s mind now in the proper context, I give you the before and after maps of the middle east and central asia created by American Digest.
Many of us have had this image in our minds as we wrote on the current world war over the last few years, but many in the general public have failed to put this together. This is not their fault. It is in the nature of headline news to lose connectedness betwixt events separated in time and space. Afganistan is one story, now fading; Iraq is another story; the war on terrorism is yet another story. Except they are not.
Let us imagine for a moment we are military attache’s from Epsilon Eridani. We know nothing about human politics. We have not evolved for religious belief. But… we do know our warfare. We know our tactical and strategical levels.
Now look at the map from before. Look at the map afterwards. Can anyone imagine a better move to more thoroughly disrupt one’s enemy?
I certainly can not.
The Government of the Philippines, like the Spanish government before it, has stared into the face of evil… and capitulated.
They are pulling their troops out of Iraq to appease terrorists and keep head on shoulders of one of their citizens. One can make many arguments pro and con about the decision they, as a sovereign nation, have made. I am not going to fight those one way or the other. I merely wish to point to consequences which will almost certainly follow hard on the heels of their decision.
Unlike Spain, the Philippines have not bought even a temporary respite by their action. They have a local flock of Islamist nutcases to worry about in Mindanao: the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The MILF operate far to the south of Manila perhaps… but perhaps not far enough. This home team watches television, reads newspapers and follows the internet just like every other revolutionary group on this planet.
MILF leaders will already be pondering tactical changes. How much might they accomplish by kidnapping a few high profile persons? Would al Jazeera be willing to send a camera crew that distance for a beheading? How far will the government cave in? The government in Manila has made its choice. Now they must live it.
Actions have consequences.
I suddenly find myself writing more and more about the Middle East.
Kidnappers demand less corruption.
Only in Palestine…
You may remember this sad incident in the opening days of the Iraq Campaign: a US Patriot battery engaged and shot down a returning British Tornado. The official report on the incident is finally out:
IFF failure led to destruction of RAF Tornado
A Royal Air Force (RAF) Board of Inquiry investigating the destruction of an RAF Tornado GR.4A by a US Army Patriot missile during the March 2003 invasion of Iraq has concluded that the aircraft’s identification friend-or-foe (IFF) system had failed. However, it also criticised the missile-classification criteria used by the Patriot system, and the US Army’s Patriot rules of engagement, firing doctrine and crew training.
[Jane’s Missiles and Rockets – 28 June 2004]
If any of our readers has a link to a pdf of the original report – if such exists – I would be happy to include it here.
Editor: Kudos to Julian Taylor for the link to the MoD pdf file.
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