How we remember Shoa and other atrocities

[NorCal]



I'm not holding it against the muslims, I'm saying that its crazy to suggest that the muslims are/were persecuted. that line of reasoning is about an inch from holocust denial, people like to say "well, waht happened to the jews really wasn't anything worse than what happend to X" and use that to try to erode the facts of the holocust.
historically speaking, islam, and arabs, came from the arabian pennisula. in the 7nth century, they spread out to north africa, to the levant, to persia, to the rest of the gulf. they did so with violence. they did use what we would call enthic cleansing today. the difference between that and christianity is that the "empire" of islam was exactly equal to the "church" of islam. the leader of the army and the state was also the leader of the religion, for almost all of the expansion.
honestly, what's frustrating with these conversations is that its not like we are talking about something that isn't documented. for 50 bucks, an amazon account and 8 hours of time, you can know the history of the muslim conquest, too.

Look, I'm not talking about holocaust denial. That is an issue for idiots.

My problem is with your version of the history, which in turn was a reaction to FLMM's suggestion that Islam somehow was an invader/foreign in the ME.
I'm not even slightly ignorant of the history of the Arab conquests. And frankly your suggestion that I need to spend 8 hours on Amazon and IS suggestion that "you bring the facts" is asinine.
Speaking of facts, the HOLY Roman Emperor was also the leader of the armies and held a position of authority and leadership with the Church, albeit not the Pope. OH, wait, that was and is the Church of England, where you had the head of the Church, Gov., and military all rolled up into one. You know, the same England/Holy Roman Empire that are responsible for two of the greatest PAX's in history, both of which you love to reference as examples civilization/leadership/human advancement. Throughout history it has been commonplace for individuals to hold military/political/religious power. Why do you seem to find fault with the Muslims for the same history?

anyway i have a lot more to say but my kid needs my attention.

 

[dfagdfsh]

what? the holy roman emperor (do you mean during.. rome? or much later?) did not hold religious authority equivalent to the caliph...

 

[nootje]

I'll just add a couple of tidbits, but don't really want to get involved. This topic is a bit too heavy to safely participate in a discussion.

re: crusades, they were a lot more horrific than most are willing to admit. Cannibalism when they ran out of food, torching cities when conquered and generally not even abiding the meager code of conduct for war at the time.
But I dont see how the crusades fit in a discussion about the shoa.

re: Islamic conquest, most of this was small scale war against a regions ruler, who once conquered or fled, was replaced by an Arab regent. This would necessitate the regent to work with the local aristocracy as they didnt have their own army to rely on(really, read up on it, especially northern africa was conquered by a very small army). Muslim rule tolerated other faiths, but made them second class citizens. Depending on where you lived, this life could be as normal as could be(for the time). Persecution wasnt really in their books. It certainly didnt involve mass slaughter as a general rule. But, to get ahead you would need to become a muslim, which could take 100s of years for a region (approx 200 for spain, with a conversion rate in the 70% effective, 90% for the books.

re: the comparison between jews in the 1800s and muslims now, of course it doesnt add up. One has been traditionally used as a scapegoat for governmental or societal failure, and the other is only now being pushed in that direction. Ironically, the existence of the first group and what happened to them will prevent the second to attain that position.

re: eugenics, this wasnt unique for germany. Sweden practised this in some form untill the seventies (sterilising mentally handicapped etc.), and other countries conducted experiments to "enhance" their population too.

And I stand behind the four points about the uniqueness of the holocaust submitted by teger. The institutionalization of the whole thing is what makes it scary.

 

[NorCal]



yes, and I guarantee that there are a couple of people who have read my posts above, and are thinking "that ******* jew, he thinks that his people are so special, and he doesn't care about all the other genocides that we jsut as bad that have happened. who is **** is GT to suggest that I read about history? I know all about history, I know that a lot of jews were thrown into prison in wwii, it was just like Gitmo, so why should I read any more about it?"

if this is a reference to me go *************.

 

[globetrotter]



There's not a lot of difference between what happened to the Jews and what happened to other repressed minorities (blacks, Muslims, etc) up until the Holocaust. The Holocaust changed the equation, and as an event is fundamentally different than anything that came before and has occurred since.

not to be a whinning *****, but I'll tell you what I think the main difference is:

the jews were a minority in dozens of geopolitical units, across 3 continents, for about 2,000 years (depending on how you define jews) and were steadily subject to persecution, without ever being on the top. aside from that, the justification changed every time. much of that persecution was from the soveriegn, or often from the people supported by the sovereign. the persecution was often violent.

the closest thing that you might find would be the roma.

I would argue that in almost every other case persecution was a matter of a specific time and place, or a situation where differnt groups shifted their positions in society.

Edit: To preempt some replies wherein someone posts about Kosovo, or Rwanda or the Congo...
What was different about the Holocaust:
1. The perpetrating nation was not simply a modern state, but was literally the center of culture (or Kultur) in the word -- from about 1870 to 1930 Germany was the center of education, science and progressivism in the world.
2. The mechanization and systemization of the Holocaust is unique.
3. The Germans were not simply content to exterminate or expel the Jews within their own borders, their plans, which were in many ways fulfilled, involved seeking out of all of the Jews in Europe and the World and either isolating or murdering them.
4. The justification for the Holocaust was more than ideology or propaganda, it was underscored with widely-held 'scientific' conclusions that had been researched and proven.

I'd agree with all of these points. I've argued most of them in the pages of SF over the years.

 

[NorCal]



what? the holy roman emperor (do you mean during.. rome? or much later?) did not hold religious authority equivalent to the caliph...

sigh
of course two different people that lived a continent and hundreds of years apart where not identical but the combination of religion/military/ and politics has been common across history and cultures.

 

[dfagdfsh]

scientific racism is really, really fascinating.

 

[nootje]



what? the holy roman emperor (do you mean during.. rome? or much later?) did not hold religious authority equivalent to the caliph...

In The eastern roman empire hè did unify The head of state with that of The church. Interestingly, this position was pursued but not attained in The same matter by The later tsars.

Forgive The spelling, iphone isnt used to dutch and english together..

 

[globetrotter]



if this is a reference to me go *************.

why would you think it is a reference to you?

 

[dfagdfsh]



sigh
of course two different people that lived a continent and hundreds of years apart where not identical but the combination of religion/military/ and politics has been common across history and cultures.

Huh? My point is that the Caliph in the early Muslim states was invested with a level of religious authority that did not exist in the "Holy Roman Emperor", whose title was as much an acknowledgement that the Emperor's authority came from god (divine right) than a statement of the Emperor's role within the Christian Church. You are also confusing the Roman Emperors who were Christian, and the Holy Roman Emperor, which was a title conferred by the Pope which existed in some form from about 600 - 1300 AD. The latter category had very little religious authority, while the former (which I'm referring to in the first sentence of this post), had much more.

 

[dfagdfsh]



In The eastern roman empire hè did unify The head of state with that of The church. Interestingly, this position was pursued but not attained in The same matter by The later tsars.
Forgive The spelling, iphone isnt used to dutch and english together..

The Emperor in the East was not the "Holy Roman Emperor" (which is somewhat beside the point), and while they did have religious authority, it wasn't the same as in the caliph: there was still a separate institution (the Church) that represented religion.

I don't even know why we're discussing this though

 

[globetrotter]



My problem is with your version of the history, which in turn was a reaction to FLMM's suggestion that Islam somehow was an invader/foreign in the ME.

the "middle east" is an area that is far wider than the continental US, and frankly might cover more territory, I am not sure. when Mohamed made his first migration, what is now known as the ME included several cultures, maybe 10-15 distict cultural and racial groups, from berbers to nubians to persian etc. the arabs came out of arabia and conquered the rest of the territory. if you want to look out of the ME, of course they poured into parts of eastern and western europe as well.

that doens't make them evil, or differnt from other empires, but being that it is a religion, it does give good justification for people to have been scared of islam, and it does give perfectly good justificaiton for the wars that followed.

when the spanish catholics persecuted muslims, or the balkan orthodox, or even the french catholics, it wasn't because they thought that they drank the blood of children, it was because they had good reason to fear them and consider them enimies.

I'm not even slightly ignorant of the history of the Arab conquests. And frankly your suggestion that I need to spend 8 hours on Amazon and IS suggestion that "you bring the facts" is asinine.

sorry, I don't think so. how many books about this period/colllege courses have you read/taken? not knowing something isn't something to be embarressed about, not wanting to learn is.

Speaking of facts, the HOLY Roman Emperor was also the leader of the armies and held a position of authority and leadership with the Church, albeit not the Pope. OH, wait, that was and is the Church of England, where you had the head of the Church, Gov., and military all rolled up into one. You know, the same England/Holy Roman Empire that are responsible for two of the greatest PAX's in history, both of which you love to reference as examples civilization/leadership/human advancement. Throughout history it has been commonplace for individuals to hold military/political/religious power. Why do you seem to find fault with the Muslims for the same history?
anyway i have a lot more to say but my kid needs my attention.

in niether case were they the pope, they were effectivly secular leaders that took a religious tittle for political purposes.

and I am not faulting Islam, I am pointing out the diffence.

for most of the existance of islam, islamophobia wasn't irrational - it was no more irrational that a western african being scared of slavers or for a muslim in the balkans to be scared of "romans" - these were perfectly reasonable enemies to be scared of

 

[globetrotter]



scientific racism is really, really fascinating.

I think of it as almost magical thinking, because on the one hand you are talking about science, on the other hand you have to discount a lot of real science.

 

[NorCal]



Huh? My point is that the Caliph in the early Muslim states was invested with a level of religious authority that did not exist in the "Holy Roman Emperor", whose title was as much an acknowledgement that the Emperor's authority came from god (divine right) than a statement of the Emperor's role within the Christian Church. You are also confusing the Roman Emperors who were Christian, and the Holy Roman Emperor, which was a title conferred by the Pope which existed in some form from about 600 - 1300 AD. The latter category had very little religious authority, while the former (which I'm referring to in the first sentence of this post), had much more.

im really not. just trust me on that.

 

[NorCal]



sorry, I don't think so. how many books about this period/colllege courses have you read/taken? not knowing something isn't something to be embarressed about, not wanting to learn is.

More than a few.

Honestly, beside your assumptions, where are my facts wrong? All I said was that Islam was native to the ME, for some reason you took that to mean that I believed that Islam was native to the entire ME as well as the rest of N.Africa, the Horn of Africa and so on.

I'm not even sure why you're making a lot of these points and what there relevance is. For example the fact that Egyptians before the Arab expansion had an ethnic population that was not majority Arab? OK, why is that relevant? It only is if somebody claimed that the Arabs- and Islam-had always been there as a majority, but no one did.

I guess you could claim I'm wrong about the role of religion in the expansion, but all I've pointed out is that the close relationship between politics and religion up to and including leaders holding dual roles is not unique to Islam.