Green Energy
Linked via Matthew Yglesias, a good concise post on why the phrase "The Muslim World" should be dropped. Consider:
Exactly. Every time you use the phrase "The Muslim World" you're implicitly conceding an argument that has not been won. Don't let Islamists call it "their" "world" - which ownership is what the phrase connotes.
I'll go one further and say that all of the following usages should cease:
The Arab World. Do we speak of "the White world"? What we call "the Arab world" contains a lot of places with significant numbers of non-Arabs. Should they be expelled for being non-Arab in the supposedly "Arab" world? Or second-class citizens? No and no. The real answer is that it's not "the Arab world" in the first place. Races don't get to own/operate their own exclusive "worlds". Or they do, but we have a name for it when it happens....
"Muslim Country". What the heck is a "Muslim Country"? A country in which a majority of the people are Muslims? So what? There are plenty of countries in which the majority of people are Christian, but we don't call them "Christian Countries". This usage tacitly plays into the hands of people who would like to think that the moment they get 50%+1 of the country converted to [Religion X] - or even if they merely seize the reins of government from a minority position - some sort of switch is flipped and it immediately becomes a "[Religion X] Country". Why would we concede that at all?
Arab Land. Is the land "Arab"? What does that even mean? This plays into racialist cleansing ideology. (If it's "Arab Land" then one presumes non-Arabs don't belong on it at all, in any capacity, at least not without the say-so of "Arabs"....) In reality there's just land, and certainly some land is controlled by governments that are majority Arab. But that doesn't make it "Arab" land.
All of these tiny, innocuous-seeming, conventionally-used phrases actually embody complex arguments about human organization, governance, and ownership that (a) are controversial if not downright evil, (b) have not been won or even argued successfully at all by the people who would like their implications to gain widespread acceptance, and indeed (c) feed and serve only the ideology of our enemies.
I wish we'd stop conceding these arguments a priori.
- The Obama Administration's Muslim Doctrine?
From Will at The Other News: America’s Arab comeback.AMMAN -- Without much fanfare, the past few months have seen no anti-American demonstrations and no burning of American flags across the Arab world. Arabs seem increasingly willing to accept -- and...
- Recommended Reading
If you're not a regular visitor or a subscriber to the web site Sons of Apes and Pigs, I recommend that you add the site as one of your sources of information. Here's an excerpt from a recent posting there: ...Can any Muslim from the Ummah circulate...
- Why The West Will Never Understand The Motivations Of The Arab World
Israel has every right to exist as it does, the land of "Palestine" was never not populated by Jews, they were just held down as dhimmis as they were in the rest of the Arab world. Sorry Dar al Islam, just like in "al-Andalus", sometimes those you have...
- Storm Track Disinformation: Islamic Grievances - The More Things Change, The More They Remain The Same
From The Gathering Storm This was a Fatwa issued by by Haj Amin al-Husseini In the name of Merciful and Almighty God. I invite all my Moslem brothers throughout the whole world to join in the Holy War for God, for the defense of Islam and her lands against...
- Diplomacy Of Fear - The Muslim Way
Many liberals like to decry conservatives for what they call the "politics of fear." This means that neocons like to use fear as a battering ram of sorts to spook people into voting for them, specifically fear of terror. There may or may not be merit...
Green Energy
On "Lands" And "Worlds"
Linked via Matthew Yglesias, a good concise post on why the phrase "The Muslim World" should be dropped. Consider:
Lumping diverse people into one box harms U.S. national security interests. First, as Khanna points out, it reinforces the “archaic Islamist fantasies” of Osama bin Laden and other global terror groups. The United States really shouldn’t be in the business of doing the intellectual heavy lifting of its enemies.
Exactly. Every time you use the phrase "The Muslim World" you're implicitly conceding an argument that has not been won. Don't let Islamists call it "their" "world" - which ownership is what the phrase connotes.
I'll go one further and say that all of the following usages should cease:
The Arab World. Do we speak of "the White world"? What we call "the Arab world" contains a lot of places with significant numbers of non-Arabs. Should they be expelled for being non-Arab in the supposedly "Arab" world? Or second-class citizens? No and no. The real answer is that it's not "the Arab world" in the first place. Races don't get to own/operate their own exclusive "worlds". Or they do, but we have a name for it when it happens....
"Muslim Country". What the heck is a "Muslim Country"? A country in which a majority of the people are Muslims? So what? There are plenty of countries in which the majority of people are Christian, but we don't call them "Christian Countries". This usage tacitly plays into the hands of people who would like to think that the moment they get 50%+1 of the country converted to [Religion X] - or even if they merely seize the reins of government from a minority position - some sort of switch is flipped and it immediately becomes a "[Religion X] Country". Why would we concede that at all?
Arab Land. Is the land "Arab"? What does that even mean? This plays into racialist cleansing ideology. (If it's "Arab Land" then one presumes non-Arabs don't belong on it at all, in any capacity, at least not without the say-so of "Arabs"....) In reality there's just land, and certainly some land is controlled by governments that are majority Arab. But that doesn't make it "Arab" land.
All of these tiny, innocuous-seeming, conventionally-used phrases actually embody complex arguments about human organization, governance, and ownership that (a) are controversial if not downright evil, (b) have not been won or even argued successfully at all by the people who would like their implications to gain widespread acceptance, and indeed (c) feed and serve only the ideology of our enemies.
I wish we'd stop conceding these arguments a priori.
- The Obama Administration's Muslim Doctrine?
From Will at The Other News: America’s Arab comeback.AMMAN -- Without much fanfare, the past few months have seen no anti-American demonstrations and no burning of American flags across the Arab world. Arabs seem increasingly willing to accept -- and...
- Recommended Reading
If you're not a regular visitor or a subscriber to the web site Sons of Apes and Pigs, I recommend that you add the site as one of your sources of information. Here's an excerpt from a recent posting there: ...Can any Muslim from the Ummah circulate...
- Why The West Will Never Understand The Motivations Of The Arab World
Israel has every right to exist as it does, the land of "Palestine" was never not populated by Jews, they were just held down as dhimmis as they were in the rest of the Arab world. Sorry Dar al Islam, just like in "al-Andalus", sometimes those you have...
- Storm Track Disinformation: Islamic Grievances - The More Things Change, The More They Remain The Same
From The Gathering Storm This was a Fatwa issued by by Haj Amin al-Husseini In the name of Merciful and Almighty God. I invite all my Moslem brothers throughout the whole world to join in the Holy War for God, for the defense of Islam and her lands against...
- Diplomacy Of Fear - The Muslim Way
Many liberals like to decry conservatives for what they call the "politics of fear." This means that neocons like to use fear as a battering ram of sorts to spook people into voting for them, specifically fear of terror. There may or may not be merit...