Our Swedish correspondent LN points out the following comment (the original is in English) by one Arash Sedighi on Lars Vilks’ blog entry for today. All the emphasis in these passages was added by me:
I hope you read this Lars Vilk- - - - - - - - -
the most intresting thing about this whole Mohammed issue is what it reveals about European psyche and mentality. Firstly, the way in which the classic: “This is a free country with freedom of speech so can all you protesters please shut up”-mentality has survived from colonial times amazes me. What does it mean when the Swedish Prime Minister comes out and says “We do not want to interfere politically in what is published”? And here comes the second issue which all of you Europeans seem so fond of. The whole Jewish-Muslim dichotomy which you have concurred up to legitimize your actions is creative but insulting. For Muslims the Jewish example is one way to illustrate the hypocracy in Western mentality. The way in which you allow certain things to be common sense, like perpetuating Jewish stereotypes and sometimes (but rarely) other racist material, but the way in which Mohammed and Islam has fallen under political correctness and therefore there to be challenged. Why do we not challenge our perceptions of the Holocaust or “the Jews” ?
Everything is political. And Politics is man’s relationship with Power. Some however are closer to power than others. Muslims, and really all non-white/non-male/non-heterosexual people in the world, have since the beginning of Western hegemony been represented, spoken for and rationalised by their subjects. The West divided state and church and began its quest to do so in other places, saw a mosque called it a church and has been dividing since. This form of ethnocentric criticism of the Other is most visisble in the western liberal feminism and it’s criticism of Third World countries (or rather non-Western countries). This ideology assumes the issues facing women as the same, shared experience of women is said to be represented by White heterosexual middle class women, i.e. boredom in the household, man as the enemy holding the woman down, keeping her in the house etc…What all forms of Western colonial mentality (and western liberal feminism is one part of it)ignores is the way in which They in fact are the enemy of many non-white women, western imperiailsm is the most common enemy, not male oppression (husbands are often allies in the struggle against imperialism).
So for you, Lars Vilks, to assume that you are acting rationally and according to the fundamentals of democracy and freedom of speech is something we (non-Westerners) have heard since the dawn of Western hegemony. Islam is not the same as Christianity, it is only in the West which the word Religion has clouded imperialist minds. Islam has been, and is still today one of the very few alternatives which exists on fields outside of Western hegemonic spheres. For you too challenge the way in which Muslims see their religion (or lack of sarcasm which you call it) is therefore not new to us. It is the good old ‘mission civilatrice’, as the spread of ‘modernism’, ‘secularism’, capitalism and other sisms which you, the West, once in a while decide needs to spread.
You right to do so is there, and our right to protest is here as well. But we are not fighting on equal terms, you have the Archers of the Empire and the Cavalry of Neo-Colonialism on your side guarded by the Assasins of Representation. We are the army of the Wretched, with pitch forks and daggers, larger in number but stand no chance. Please Lars Vilks, remember this. Read some Chandra Mohanty, Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o. Empatize with us, realise what you are doing. You Art itself might not mean what you think others misrepresent it as. But you Art is not empty, it does not exist in a vacuum but it is like slave ship which in itself in not racist, your Mohammed as a dog is loaded with the cargo which continues hundreds of years of oppression and misrepresentation.
thank you for your time
Arash
Unveristy of London
Now let’s look at the highlighted phrases:
- Everything is political
- relationship with Power
- Western hegemony
- ethnocentric criticism of the Other
- Western colonial mentality
- struggle against imperialism
- hundreds of years of oppression
Do these sound like they were drawn from the Koran?
One detects the discordant themes of PoMo deconstruction in these catchphrases. The post-colonialist theme music could be taken directly from Edward Said, and it’s no surprise to see Frantz Fanon’s name in there. The other authors mentioned — Chandra Mohanty, Albert Memmi, and Ngugi Wa Thiong’o — are singers in the same choir, the revolutionary/anti-imperialist/feminist/Marxist medley that has become all too familiar in West for the last forty years or so.
But nothing in particular about Islam. Interesting…
Arash Sedighi is almost certainly an Iranian. Arash is a famous figure out of Persian mythology, and is often used as a first name, and “Sedighi” is a common surname in Iran. A Google search on the name turns up a student representative in the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, and, interestingly enough, there is more than one reference from the southern Swedish town of Malmö.
An SOAS connection would make sense, given the anti-colonialist jargon in Mr. Sedighi’s comment.
And it also makes sense that he is coming at Lars Vilks from a Leftist perspective. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Lars Vilks is a traditional Left-Socialist, who by his recent actions has betrayed his co-religionists in the Church of the Left.
Mr. Sedighi’s comment should be considered a call from a fellow Marxist to return to the fold. Just a friendly warning, man-to-man.
It’s not clear what part Islam plays in this. Maybe it’s the muscle; the designated enforcer of leftist orthodoxy, called in to help persuade an apostate to reconsider.
But it’s also another indication that the Left and the Islamists are good buddies, the closest of fellow travelers.
Previous posts on this topic:
The Swedes Narrowly Avert Their Own Motoon Crisis
Modoggie #2
The Prophet as an Obedient Retriever
That Doggone Mohammed
Swedish Muslims Will Exhibit the Modoggies
Lars Vilks Dogged by Death Threats
Modoggies Make it into the Swedish MSM, But…
Oh, No! It’s Happening Again!
Sweden Gets Sent to the Woodshed
An Ironic Rondellhund
Now We Know Who’s Behind the Modoggies
Swedish Muslims Form Anti-Free Speech Committee
Pakistan Objects to the Modoggies
The OIC is Barking Now
A New Modoggie Protest in Örebro
Swedish Flags are Burning
19 comments:
One thing this post demonstrates is the ease with which deconstructionist dialogue can turn on supposed allies in the battle against 'cultural hegemony'. The attack on feminists and defenders of pseudo-free speech and the representation of islam as a crushed minority without rights demonstrate that this mentality will literally do anything to win an argument. It's a very childish way of thinking, swapping from one argument to another as long as you can keep the other off balance and prove some sort of point.
Further one we see mor subtle things. The adoption of objectivity, long hated by the postmondernist deconstructionist crowd, in the phrase "But you Art is not empty, it does not exist in a vacuum but it is like slave ship which in itself in not racist, your Mohammed as a dog is loaded with the cargo which continues hundreds of years of oppression and misrepresentation." The art is, in this argument, objectively evil, not merely subjectively perceived as such by certain groups.
Language is debased by such people. I have a hard time believing I managed to survive three years of this stuff at university.
And of course there's the usual talking point of the jews, who are behind everything. The mixture of islam and marxism is a terribly dangerous thing to behold, but in many senses it hasten's islam's own demise. Whilst islam is monolithic and inexorable, marxism is fractious and bombastic, and prone to flights of fancy. It is like the feet of the statue Daniel perceived in his vision of the kingdoms to come; clay and iron mixed but not melded, appearing whole until examined closely, and liable to fall apart if you poke it in the right place. We just need to find that place, one country at a time.
The alternative critique is to say, yes we want Western Hegemony in Western Lands at a minimum. Since Muslims and Leftists intend to institute polygamy and "Big Man" rule with Big Men like Castro keeping all the women in a harem. Or perhaps Ghengis Khan who has as his male descendants 8% of men in the places he ruled.
That Western Hegemonists understand quite clearly that Feminists, Leftists, and Muslims plan a society somewhere between Idi Amin's Uganda and King Faisal's Saudi Arabia. Big Men, Princes, courtiers, and women in harems exercising power. And that We Western Hegemonists will fight the Left quite hard to prevent that goal.
I'm too tired to figure all this stuff out. Basically, I'm sick of muslims (all of them) and I'm sick of leftists (all of them, too). Can we put them all together in a big walled city and sit on the top of the wall and watch what happens?
Catchphrases!
Get your reheated crypto-Marxist catchphrases!
Formerly used by such revolutionary luminaries as the Red Brigade! And the radical chic-est Black September members!
Juicy, fluff-filled hegemony, two for a dollar!
Get yer spicy-hot Running Dog Lackies of the Zionist-Colonialist Conspiracy!
Only used once in an East German STASI prison!
Hubba-hubba-hubba!
Oppressed classes, 2 for a quarter, 10 for a buck!
Barely-used vituperatives!
All-purposed condemnations, one-size kills all!
Adaptable to any veiled-tyranny posing as Absolute Liberation!
Anarchists, unite!
Yowzah, yowzah, yowzah!
Sure sounds like a declaration of war to me.
Arash Sedighi has has a fair command of English and an excellent command of gibberish. He/she has managed to incorporate the vast majority of liberal buzz words/phrases into a post that says absolutely nothing of any value.
Arash Sedighi is blowing smoke.
This is off topic, and I apologize in advance...
This evening Fox news air the 10 year memorial service for Princess Diana. It was filmed at a chapel in London.
Along with a large number of royal family and other British diginitaries, there was a very large assortment of very old British flags adorning the chapel on both sides. The collection of flags was quite varied, of obvious historic significance and truly very interesting. The close up detail on several flags showed that many of the flags were very okld and some were nearly threadbare.
For anyone interested in western history and culture the service was extremely touching and very tastefully done. Fox stated the service will be shown again Sunday at 8:00 PM.
The service was filled with priceless hymns, starting with Be Thou My Vision....
My question is this: the flags were so interesting. Some looked to be original Union Jacks with the cross of St. George overlaying the cross of St. Andrew. Can anyone shed some historical light on those particular flags on display in the chapel?
He's right unfortunately. We wanted to teach everybody how they shoul live. As the result, aliens stay in London, in the universitiy, and teach us how WE should live. Instead of improving aliens by inviting them in our countries we should better take care of ourselves.
Given it's the Guards chapel they're likely to be regimental standards that were used in places like waterloo and battle flags representing the various wars we've been in.
The cultural-Marxist critique makes some sense when it comes to imposing Western values on oriental lands, a live and let live argument.
But it makes no sense when they are seeking to impose Islam upon the West itself, as here.
Of course it's not supposed to make sense, it's supposed to fill the West with self-loathing in order to destroy it.
archonix - I've noticed before in other contexts that feminists, or at least women, come at the very bottom of the cultural Marxist hierarchy of status among victim groups. This often causes genuine feminists distress when they find that eg they're supposed to support OJ Simpson (black) over his murdered ex-wife (female). Then they either knuckle under or can end up being cast out of the Sisterhood.
vol-in-law-
"The cultural-Marxist critiques make some sense when it comes to imposing Western values on [O]riental lands, a live and let live argument."
As if every Western value is valueless and every non-Western value should be valued, just because they're non-Western?
As the British officer in 19th century India replied to those Hindus who were trying to continue the practice of "sutee" (throwing widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands) and who insisted:
"It is the practice of our culture":
"You do it. And then I will erect a scaffold next to every pyre and hang the culprits... because it is the practice of my culture."
Moral relativism is trumped by human decency and basic human rights.
Slavery is an evil, no matter how much a "culture" or "religion" (Islam at present) approves of it.
The opposition to such evils is not something that needs to retreat in the face of some opportunistic and intimidating sloganeering by future crypto-tyrants, whether "Marxist" or "Jihadist".
I'll take the Western concept of human rights over any "oriental" or other vision of the world.
No shame.
No guilt.
Guys like this Arash Sedighi are just a pain in the ass.
profitsbeard:
"As if every Western value is valueless and every non-Western value should be valued, just because they're non-Western?"
No, just that they should be allowed to (eg) commit suttee in their own countries, but not to come over here and do it.
"I'll take the Western concept of human rights over any "oriental" or other vision of the world."
Me too, but preferring my own, superior, culture, and being willing to fight to defend it here in the West, doesn't mean I have to fight to prevent other people from practicing their own, inferior, cultures in their own godforsaken parts of the world.
I think it's right to say that eg Saudi Arabia is an evil, horrible place with reprehensible practices, but that doesn't mean we're obliged to invade Saudi Arabia and try to turn it into a decent liberal western democracy.
I think the Iraq war was undertaken in good faith, making such an attempt. I think though that far more harm than good has come from that attempt, and it would have been better not to do so. I also think that the West's position is now week, and a policy of separation and containment of the Muslim world is a better bet than attempts at transformation. I also think that "You do your own (horrible) thing, we'll do ours" is both morally supportable and practicable, while the alternatives aren't.
We may not be obligated to reform Saudi Arabia, but it is suicide to keep financing it.
This means we have to stop using oil. Nothing else will do.
engineer-poet:
"This means we have to stop using oil. Nothing else will do."
I think you're right - nuclear energy helps, but uranium is a limited resource. Smaller, more fuel-efficient cars help. Ethanol helps, though making it reduces food production, so it's a trade-off.
It is interessant to quote Sultan Galiev: (I think it was at the Second Komintern Congress, in 1919 in Petrograd)
It is necessary to substitute the dictatures of ocidental metropoles by the dictature of proletary (colonised) nations over ocidental metropoles.
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