Wafa Sultan

[SigniferOne]

A heroic woman saying on Al Jazeera everything that needs to be said to the Arab world (even if Bush is afraid to):

http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.a...050wmv&ak=null

[Miraj]

Thats really really old dude.

[Carach]

Thats really really old dude.

doesnt matter, its still relevant and the woman is so right within the first minute.

Actually what she says is beyond argument tbh, anything opposing it really is just people with heads in the sand.

Christian crusader's slaughtered thousands of jews and muslems on their way to the holy land (before they even got there).

sorry mate but thats a bit of a pathetic argument to make (although people still make it nonetheless as its one of the few 'comebacks' - a weak one at that).

What the woman says is that what we have now is a clash of opposites, a culture that belongs to the 21st century, and another that belongs in the 14/15th. (which if you didnt realise was the middle ages, when the crusades occured in response to muslims jihadding and massacring christians in the east)

Do not play the muslims as the good of the middle ages greek, thats a terrible midunderstanding of history you have there when it was much more 'grey' if anything.

Besides, that was from the middle ages, which should be irrelevant to today (as it is with christianity, which is absolutely nothing like what it was in the medieval era), however it isnt irrelevant for islam, as they still act exactly as they did since their creation - violence. (i dont mean every muslim is violent, i mean the religion itself is still violent and the majority of its followers believe in its violence) - this is the poitn the woman tries to get across, the middle east's laws are still crude (and medieval) in nature, still violent, still absolutist and so forth. The west is rational, democratic, and has human rights (which as said in the video, the majority of the middle east completely ignore).

The education in islamic countries of the middle east is also nothing short of Indoctrination, breeding an entire generation to hate the west and everything it stands for - do you see such things going on in the west?

Ask yourself why islam has such a huge extremist backing, and why all those moderates there are supposedly about are doing nothing to get their house in order, and even go so far as to blame the west for islam's extremism.

-- oh and i almost forgot (the vid reminded me), its not just christians that we are talking about here in this 'debate' either. How come muslims are destroying buddhist temples and statues, murdering their priests? Buddhists are some of the most peaceful on this planet, why are they being attacked in this way (and only by muslims).

Its a disgrace, and i really cant believe people can defend islam so readily. The facts show everything, and theres a lot of people in this forum and in the world in general (as there was before hitler started ww2) who are putting their heads down a hole and refusing to believe there is a problem.

[SigniferOne]

I just discovered it. Plus, this sort of thing can never be too old.

[Miraj]

I just discovered it. Plus, this sort of thing can never be too old.

She makes some valid points, but sometimes she just over-exaggerates things waaaay overboard, in typical Arabic style. But overall I agree with her and her ideas.

[SigniferOne]

What part is exaggeration?

[Miraj]

What part is exaggeration?

Well she goes far into a black-and-white apporach to Muslim Savagery and Western wonderfullness. She has properly identified a PART of the problem: the fact that we Muslims are indeed stuck in the mentality of an era long gone and that we can't seem to move on towards progress. But she goes overboard in trying to portray the West as the pinnacle of all that is good. I live in the west and have lived in the Muslim world, I know thats not true.

But as a Muslim I understand WHY she goes overboard. Its pretty much something you have to do in Arabic "debates". Logically clear and sound arguments aren't given much weight in Mid-East dialogue (kind of like America) and sometimes you have to hit the complete extreme (ie YOU SUCK AND THOSE OTHER PEOPLE RULE) to get a point across. Being moderate around extremists never really works, so she has to yell down and say some pretty factually questionable things to get the greater point of Muslim backwardness across. She's essentially trying to shame her fellow Arabs when she talks like that - its a common method in the culture.

[SigniferOne]

Okay, in what sense does she portray West as the pinnacle of all that is good? She is merely saying that the Middle East is now, right now, living in a primitive medieval mentality. People are stoned, primitive mysticism abounds, women are slaughtered on sight if they have their ankles visible (in Saudi Arabia, and previously in Afghanistan before American intervention), and many other horrific things are committed. The way to solve these problems is to acknowledge them. And the only person with the courage to state these problems was a woman. But look how bravely she fights and argues those lunatic Imams on TV who yell at her and accuse her of being a heretic? She's a real hero.

[Denny Crane!]

What you can't argue with is she really succeeds in making the people who come on to disparage her look like savages, I don't doubt it is an accurate reflection of them. Though not of the entire muslim world, just a fairly large part of it.

Peter

[sephodwyrm]

Though not of the entire muslim world, just a fairly large part of it.

Most Muslims are too poor and too impoverished to care.
That's the best conclusion about it.

[Denny Crane!]

Most Muslims are too poor and too impoverished to care.
That's the best conclusion about it.

Yup and easily or readily radicalised just like the poor christians in Africa. Says something about poverty and religion though. Neither are good.

Peter

[SigniferOne]

Another gem from Wafa Sultan:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=R_QeHdtOsCA


"Why does a young Muslim, in the prime of life, with a full life ahead, go and blow himself up?

"In our countries, religion is the sole source of education, and is the only spring from which that terrorist drank until his thirst was quenched. He was not born a terrorist, and he did not become a terrorist overnight. Islamic teachings played a role in weaving his ideological fabric, thread by thread, and did not allow other sources - I am referring to scientific [secular] sources - to play a role.

It was these teachings that distorted this terrorist and killed his humanity. It was not the terrorist who distorted the religious teachings."


... amazing and brave woman. Let me see the Islamofascists try to behead her now! Let me see them try!

[Denny Crane!]

The opposition brings up a good point. It is the west that is responsible for the greatest tragedies of our time. It is the greatest powers in the west who store thousands of nuclear warheads.

Not disparaging wafa sultan but he brings up some compelling points.

Pete

[SigniferOne]

The opposition brings up a good point. It is the west that is responsible for the greatest tragedies of our time. It is the greatest powers in the west who store thousands of nuclear warheads.

Not disparaging wafa sultan but he brings up some compelling points.

Pete

I don't get your point. The West is always fighting with itself, and there are the bad people and the good people, within the West. The bad people were acting tough, so the Good people ganged up on them and kicked their butt, and dropped a nuke on them so they would understand who's boss. I wish we would've nuked the Nazi's also. And so let me get the straight, you're trying to draw a moral parallel between struggles within the West against itself, and between crazed medieval lunatics who will kill everyone and everything? Nuclear weapons, contrary to what you may be thinking, are not some immorally horrible vice of the ages. It is a tool, just like a gun. It's who uses it, and for what purposes, that matters. We did not nuke free England; we nuked totalitarian crazed Japan fueled by Western factories.

The crazed lunatics we are fighting now will nuke free England, and will nuke free United States.

[Garbarsardar]

I don't get your point. The West is always fighting with itself, and there are the bad people and the good people, within the West. The bad people were acting tough, so the Good people ganged up on them and kicked their butt, and dropped a nuke on them so they would understand who's boss. I wish we would've nuked the Nazi's also. And so let me get the straight, you're trying to draw a moral parallel between struggles within the West against itself, and between crazed medieval lunatics who will kill everyone and everything? Nuclear weapons, contrary to what you may be thinking, are not some immorally horrible vice of the ages. It is a tool, just like a gun. It's who uses it, and for what purposes, that matters. We did not nuke free England; we nuked totalitarian crazed Japan fueled by Western factories.

The crazed lunatics we are fighting now will nuke free England, and will nuke free United States.

Do you always judge morality by the outcome or this is a one-time thing?

The "bad people" would have been the "good people" had they won the war; furthermore some "good people" turned into "bad people" after the war (Soviet Union) some "bad people" into "good people" like Von Braun who after bombing London with the V2 boosted the space program of the US, oh and what about the German (west) administration during the cold war? Were they "bad" as ex-nazis or "good" as anti-communists?

How about the "good" people that collaborated with the Nazis in the extermination of Jews in "good" countries like France, Greece or Belgium?

This simplistic view of history is another proof that we need the past to understand the present and that contextual thinking without historical perspective is one of the horrors that plague modern political thought and action.

[Denny Crane!]

I don't get your point. The West is always fighting with itself, and there are the bad people and the good people, within the West. The bad people were acting tough, so the Good people ganged up on them and kicked their butt, and dropped a nuke on them so they would understand who's boss. I wish we would've nuked the Nazi's also. And so let me get the straight, you're trying to draw a moral parallel between struggles within the West against itself, and between crazed medieval lunatics who will kill everyone and everything? Nuclear weapons, contrary to what you may be thinking, are not some immorally horrible vice of the ages. It is a tool, just like a gun. It's who uses it, and for what purposes, that matters. We did not nuke free England; we nuked totalitarian crazed Japan fueled by Western factories.

The crazed lunatics we are fighting now will nuke free England, and will nuke free United States.

In the video that you yourself posted Wafa Sultan clearly and undeniably puts the cause of violence in the middle east both past and present on the religion of Islam. She starts on suicide bombings and goes back in time to muslim conquests.

So in her view Islam=violence.

The professor as an antagonist quotes western violence, and the rather startling amounts of it both in past and present whether it be nuclear, slavery, imperialism or genocide.

So how is the west different to Islam? If violence occurs both in the west and in Islam and has done for centuries then why is Islam singled out as the cause for violence.

and between crazed medieval lunatics who will kill everyone and everything?

Ah not like those logical nazis, that still have wide ranging support today (see the BNP thread, hell see stormfront forums). Or the communists who almost brought about a nuclear holocaust. No they were and are nice rational thinkers.

Peter

[JP226]

It is the greatest powers in the west who store thousands of nuclear warheads.

and yet it is the "east" who is more than willing to use them...

[Tom Paine]

and yet it is the "east" who is more than willing to use them...

And we get the idea from the so many nuclear weapons the East have used so far...:hmmm:

[JP226]

And we get the idea from the so many nuclear weapons the East have used so far...

no... don't act so high and mighty and open your ears. Listen to them, for once.

[Tom Paine]

no... don't act so high and mighty and open your ears. Listen to them, for once.

If we wish to look at rhetoric I will refer you to 80s American rhetoric from Reagan... evil empire and all that. Very much the same sort of thing...