Columnist-Europe's Identity Crisis Fuels Rising Anti-Muslim Sentiment
http://www.aolnews.com/world/article...iment/19670466
I just got finished reading this article on AOL. Personally, I find some disagreement with the article as a whole. Because the European Far-Right despite some of it's recent successes electorally with some of it's rhetoric isn't a really great force in most European countries.
Secondly, from personal experience on a long-term visit to the UK in the summer of 2008. I observed attitudes and opinions towards Britain's immigrant communities(including the Muslim one) to be low-tension and nowhere near the media sensationalism seen in the US. With issues between England and other region's within the UK like Scotland and Northern Ireland being much higher in terms of what I observed, read, and heard. Even though since then the BNP has gained some seats on the local/European level. However, I haven't been back to Britain in over 2 years and I can't vouch for attitudes and relations in other European countries like France, Netherlands, Spain, or Italy.
Therefore, perhaps some of the members more familiar with this issue can provide some insight?
The intolerance of the tolerant
A good analysis of the situation in some European nations IMHO:http://www.opendemocracy.net/cas-mud...ce-of-tolerant
Opens with:
Quote:
The advance of populist anti-Islamic forces in the liberal bastions of northern Europe - Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden - appears to reflect a betrayal of these societies’ renowned social tolerance. But there is a more subtle logic at work, says Cas Mudde.
Ends with and can be read as a summary:
Quote:
The implication is that the recent rise of anti-Islam sentiment in northern Europe is proof neither of the end of tolerance in Europe nor the Europeanisation of ethnic nationalism. It is instead an outpouring of the intolerance of the tolerant, long (self-)censored by a political culture of anti-nationalism and conformity. The fact that (orthodox) Muslims can be opposed with a liberal-democratic discourse - rather than an ethnic-nationalist one - makes it at last politically acceptable (and increasingly politically correct) to express ethnic prejudice in these countries.
The summary posted above sounds differnet when...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
davidbfpo
accompanied by the preceding paragraph...
Quote:
The argument is twofold. First, after decades of secularisation, Islam is a (rapidly) growing religion that threatens the secular consensus by bringing religious issues back onto the public agenda. Second, (orthodox) Islam - and vocal Muslims - openly challenge local beliefs on gender equality and gay rights, which are regarded as fundamental aspects of liberal democracy in these countries. Hence, it is the tolerant liberal democrats who oppose the intolerant Muslims.
There is so much wrong with that article that I don't know where to start.
1. Is Islam and being a Muslim an "ethnicity" as it is understood today? (That particular question is a sore/sensitive point with me in particular given most people in my own country would classify me as a foreigner).
2. Does the article's final summarising paragrpah therefore propose that ethnci-nationalists and not liberals, should be opposing Islam?
3. Is being anti-Islamic tantamount to racism? What about Nazism? (In which case I'm a racist)
1 & 3. The problem with the descriptor "ethnicity" is that is has been appropriated by the Left, Liberals and other fifth columnists who use it in a manner that apporahces epsitemological "essentialism". When I was taught about Nationalism at University we used Anthony D. Smith's definition which descirbes ethnicity as a set of shared beliefs, cultural mores, language, symbols (mythomoteur) and a territory (not the supposed "race" one apparently belongs to). It has nothing to do with race. In fact Race itself is logically, epistemologically & scientifically false ( the UK police force or government now use "ethnicity" as a PC replacement for "race" but don't, for the life of you, try and tell them how wrong they are). One of the earliest uses of the word race was spanish wherein it denoted (and here's a something compatarive linguists and linguistic anthropologists will recognise) breeding (like its French cognate) and one could change ones race by changin one's religion. It was not an essentialist attribute. What the hell does that have to do with Islam? Are they born genetically predisposed to violence and domination or is it their system of belief? The same question was asked by people about Nazism (i.e., whether it was specifically a German disease). The attempt to muzzle any and all opposition to Islam/ism by labelling it racist merely helps our opponents cause. Why is it that we have to pussy foot around Muslims (which of course simply reinforces their own sense of superiority and infallibility).
2. Following from the above the fact that liberals rather than "nationalists" (another politically loaded term and in which camp I situate myself) have taken up the cause is precisely to undermine the banner being rasied by racist groups. Lets make it clear at the outset, Islam/ism is something that concerns a lot of people (and for very good reasons). The fact that politicians are tackling it should not detract from that fact. By that standard the "peace party" was more liberal than Churchill's war party (or course the analogy doesn't hold if you don't equate Nazism and Islam/ism as identical ...and you play the fiddle). Let me phrase it differently...is being anti-Nazi being anti-German/racist (assuming that Germans comprise a "race")? Is being anti-BNP racism against my fellow fairer skinned compatriots? Is being anti-Islamic the equivalent of racism against people with tan complexions (like myself) or dark skin? (notice how the descriptors "tan" and "dark" refer to aesthetic qualities rather than supposed racial/ethnic-as used by UK gov- essenntialist attributes). It is? Well, now then, how does one go about applying for political asylum?! (Where is another question altogether!
Looking back to go forward
The UK-based Quilliam Foundation has released a lecture given in 1990, at the time of the Salman Rushdie "affair":
Quote:
'Asian, British and Muslim in 1990', the transcript of a speech delivered by Iqbal Wahhab to Oxford University’s Asian society in the wake of ‘the Rushdie Affair’ in 1989.
The speech is remarkable for showing the surprising longevity of many of the issues facing Britain’s Muslim communities – indeed issues surrounding free speech, education, politics and identity, to name just a few, remain just as hotly debated and contested today as they were in 1990. The speech is also a useful reminder for policy-makers to avoid seeking short-term fixes that may do little to alter longer-term trajectories.
Wahhab, now chair of advisors at Quilliam, gave his speech amid a background that had witnessed the emergence of political advocacy in the UK framed specifically around issues pertaining to Muslims, and pertaining to Islam.
Link:http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/in...nt/article/716
Fuchs, brother you're fearing intervention tactics, not COIN tactics
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fuchs
COIN is not about the prevention of an insurgency, but about countering it.
FM you-know-which-one
Politicians at home must not think in COIN terms. That would equal thinking about suppressing citizen's discontent. It's about suppression.
NOT ACCEPTABLE!
I'll face anyone who uses the term "COIN" inflationary and thus helps to make it appear acceptable in a domestic environment, too.
COIN is too dangerous for domestic freedom and democracy.
It MUST NOT PASS THE RUBICON.
I admit a very heavy bit of baggage has been hung around the neck of COIN. Many think, as Fuchs appears to here, that it is about controlling a populace in order to preserve a government. This comes from the old school, virtually entirely obsolete perspective of COIN practiced by the British Colonial Empire, learned and employed by the US during it's own Colonial forays in the first half of the last century, and then codified in the Small Wars Manual by the Marines before WWII; and largely echoed in the current COIN manual
Back then, the mission was for a foreign power to suppress the will of the populace in order to sustain in power their puppet governments. Those governments sole function was to serve the interests of the foreign power and to suppress/control their populaces. For whatever reason, we have come to call that "COIN" and have rolled it into current doctrine and make it the name of the mission we are conducting places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
The problems are several:
1. The intervening/Colonial/external power is not doing COIN. Period. Only the host nation can do COIN. Call what those other guys are doing whatever you want, but don't call it COIN as it just confuses the matter and leads to wholly inappropriate roles and engagement.
2. The mission is now reversed. Pre-globalization the mission was in fact to keep a friendly government (one willing to support your interests over the interests of their own populaces) in power and to suppress any popular challenge to that relationship. Now with empowered populaces being far more dangerous than any tin-horn government is, the mission is to support the will of the people and to protect them from; help them drive the reform of, or help them remove such illegitimate despots. Friendly dictators can no longer control their populaces so whether we recognize it or not, the mission has flipped 180 degrees for the external powers who have interests to maintain in some foreign land. They can no longer simply ignore or help suppress the populace and rely on their relationship with these illegitimate leaders.
3. This means the COIN mission has changed for the Host nation well. To date it has been to simply suppress the illegal challenges to one's reign, and to rely on big, foreign, brother to help one do so. Control was a Verb rather than a noun. Now these government actually have to perform, they actually have to listen to their people, they actually have to provide good governance. COIN is no longer a campaign of oppression waged only once the populace goes violent to suppress that violence, COIN is now the day in, day out provision of good governance that prevents such organized, illegal challenges to governance from emerging in the first place.
So, in summary:
Only HN govt does COIN.
"Small Wars" mission is now 180-out from when the manual was written. Now it is to truly "liberate the oppressed" and to work to ensure that legitimate governance is in place; rather than the old model to work to keep illegitimate government in place.
It's a bold new world. Once we recognize that we'll like it better.
COIN is the mission for every government, everywhere, everyday. It is only when they forget that and act with impunity toward their own people, or allow some foreign power to co-opt their legitimacy that one has problems.
Or in old school terms for when insurgency exists:
Government = COIN; Populace = Insurgency
In new school terms when insurgency exists:
Government = Poor Governance; Populace = Counter-Poor Governance
The focus for that intervening external power who has interests to service must be on understanding the concerns of the populace, then focusing on working with the government to develop and adopt appropriate reforms to address the issues among the people that are being exploited by the insurgent organizations. Reconcile the issues, not the insurgent/insurgent organization. They can get on board or face the consequences of their actions.
