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Showing posts with label Ottoman Empire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ottoman Empire. Show all posts

Monday, 23 July 2018

My defensive war on Secular Koranism on two fronts on the Luke Ford Show




I did not manage to explain why the Ottoman Empire declined before I was interrupted and accused of being off topic. 

I could have made more quickly the point that once you are invaded, conquered and colonised by an imperial power, you cannot afterwards give a good representation of your race and religion.  


I certainly did not even get round to mentioning the Sykes-Picot Agreement, though I did allude to the Eastern Question and the Crimean War.   


In diplomatic history, the "Eastern Question" refers to the strategic competition and political considerations of the European Great Powers in light of the political and economic instability in the Ottoman Empire from the late 18th to early 20th centuries. Characterized as the "sick man of Europe", the relative weakening of the empire's military strength in the second half of the eighteenth century threatened to undermine the fragile balance of power system largely shaped by the Concert of Europe. The Eastern Question encompassed myriad interrelated elements: Ottoman military defeats, Ottoman institutional insolvency, the ongoing Ottoman political and economic modernization programme, the rise of ethno-religious nationalism in its provinces, and Great Power rivalries.

The most insoluble and dangerous topic of European diplomacy during the 19th century acquires a broad name - the Eastern Question. It refers to the danger posed by the weakness of the Ottoman empire, with the sultans in Istanbul proving unable to control the vast empire assembled by their more warlike ancestors.

The intrinsic danger in the Eastern Question is not the internal threat posed to the sultans. It is the risk of war between the western European powers (Britain, France, Austria, Russia and subsequently Germany) as each nervously tries to ensure that none of the others gains any advantage from the potential crumbling of Turkey.

The greatest fear in western Europe is that Russia, Turkey's nearest neighbour, will continue the process (begun successfully during the 18th century) of expanding south in the Black Sea region and will possibly even reach Istanbul - a gateway of immense strategic importance between the Balkans and Asia.

Russia is closely involved in the two Balkan liberation movements of the early 19th century, in Serbia and Greece. Russian imperial ambitions in this area benefit from a cloak of idealism. The majority of Christians living under Ottoman rule are Orthodox rather than Catholic. As the leading Orthodox power, Russia can claim a natural right to their protection - a fact recognized by Turkey in the 1774 treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji.

The weakness of the Ottoman empire (a state described by the tsar Nicholas I in 1844 as 'the sick man of Europe') provides constant opportunity for western involvement. And the presence of Christians offers a permanent pretext to take an active interest in Turkish affairs.

To add to these other elements, there is one all-important means of achieving power in the region. It derives from the geographical features linking the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. A narrow strait, the Dardanelles, gives access from the Aegean to the sea of Marmara. Another narrow strait, the Bosphorus, leads on past Istanbul and into the Black Sea.

Warships can pass through these channels only by agreement with Turkey or by controlling the banks on either side. Yet the freedom to do so is a major strategic advantage. The Straits become the military and the diplomatic focal point of the Eastern Question.


The Sykes–Picot Agreement known as the Asia Minor Agreement, was a secret 1916 agreement between the United Kingdom and France, to which the Russian Empire assented. The agreement defined their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in Southwestern Asia. The agreement was based on the premise that the Triple Entente would succeed in defeating the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The negotiations leading to the agreement occurred between November 1915 and March 1916 and it was signed 16 May 1916. The deal, exposed to the public in Izvestia and Pravda on 23 November 1917 and in the British Guardian on November 26, 1917, is still mentioned when considering the region and its present-day conflicts.

The agreement allocated to Britain control of areas roughly comprising the coastal strip between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan, Jordan, southern Iraq, and an additional small area that included the ports of Haifa and Acre, to allow access to the Mediterranean. France got control of southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Russia was to get Istanbul, the Turkish Straits and Armenia. The controlling powers were left free to determine state boundaries within their areas. Further negotiation was expected to determine international administration in the "brown area" (an area including Jerusalem, similar to and smaller than Mandate Palestine), the form of which was to be decided upon after consultation with Russia, and subsequently in consultation with the other Allies, and the representatives of Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca.

The agreement effectively divided the Ottoman Arab provinces outside the Arabian peninsula into areas of British and French control and influence. In the Levant, it was initially used directly as the basis for the 1918 Anglo–French Modus Vivendi which agreed a framework for the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration. More broadly it was to lead, indirectly, to the subsequent partitioning of the Ottoman Empire following Ottoman defeat in 1918.


17:30

Luke Ford:

I don't see anything to admire in Islam in the last 600 years, like what exactly in Islam over the past 600 years, is superior? I just don't see in any way in any direction how Islam has produced any societies that are superior to what Northern Europeans have produced, I don't see a country of high IQ Muslims. Islam is overwhelmingly a low IQ religion, like why on earth would we want to imitate a backward, savage, primitive low IQ religion that's never come close to producing the First World Glory of Western civilisation. I just don't see any impressive Islamic civilisation in the last 500 or 600 years that is superior to what Europeans have produced.

My answer begins at 18:45.

I say patriarchy is the very least Islam would provide that would set things right again in the Western matriarchy.

Luke Ford interrupts and demands that I cite the glories of Islamic civilisation though he previously admitted at http://thevoiceofreason-ann.blogspot.com/2018/06/interview-with-richard-charles-edmonds.html that he has never visited a Muslim country.

CK:

There is a wealth of difference between looking at a people you don't like and a book you will never read. The reason why these people that you don't like who are invading the West, as you perceive it, is simply because they haven't been following their own religion in the same way that Christians don't follow their own religion which suggests that you do need to follow the basics of your religion in order to protect yourself against your internal and external enemies. The very least of it is to have legitimate children and properly parent them. Even just one generation of not doing it properly means you let in all kinds of toxic ideas like feminism, transgenderism, gay marriage etc that opportunistically enter your body politic which are hard to remove. 

LF:

You are not answering my question about Islamic civilisations over the past 600 years that are superior to what white Europeans have produced. I just don't see it. I just don't see any Muslim country with a collection of high IQ Muslims. There isn't even a high IQ Muslim civilisation. 

CK

But they have declined. They have come and gone. If you think in terms of a race, obviously the West is in front and Islam is behind, but we have to ask ourselves why they fell behind.  

LF:

Because they marry their cousins [just like the European royal families] and they create primitive, barbaric, low IQ backward civilisations where they ... 

CK:

The biggest one is the Ottoman Empire and so we have to find out why the Ottoman Empire declined, because it is the biggest representation of an Islamic empire and they apparently, closed the Gate of Interpretation so they ossified the interpretation of the Koran and basically didn't allow any innovation but that was a decision made purely by the Ottoman Empire and not contained within the Koran itself, so when you deliberately distort clear instructions, I suppose you should expect to suffer. In the West now we are supposed to have free speech but everywhere the government and politicians say "You can't say this, it's hate speech, go to jail!" and nobody seems to be able to fight against this. We have so many lawyers but we ...  

[muted by LF] who continues:

Dennis, I haven't seen anything in Islam in the last 500 years to admire apart from their willingness to make their group triumphant. Aside from that, I don't see anything in Islamic civilisation that I want to admire.

Dennis Dale:

I don't want to trash them, but it's ridiculous. The greatness of the Ottomans was in the 12th and 13th century. They inherited a great civilisation, maintained it for 3 or 4 centuries and it started to fall apart. The Ottomans are basically a secular empire [Dennis Dale here confuses the Ottoman Empire with the Republic of Turkey established by Kemal Ataturk who established a secular republic after he won the Turkish War of Independence in 1923 and ended the Caliphate in 1924 sending the Caliph into exile] and that becomes sclerotic and can't even survive after WW1. Why would we trade down, Claire? And she keeps telling us that these Muslims that keep coming in, they're not real Muslims. 

CK:

I'm not saying they're not real Muslims, and I'm not saying your're trading down. I'm saying that all the rules that you find in the Bible - in the Old and New Testament - you have a clearer version of it in the Koran.  


LF:

How is the Koran compilation of laws clearer or more valuable than what we have elsewhere in the Bible?

CK:

The Koran guarantees religious freedom. quran.com/2/256  This is not something that Muslims emphasise because they don't believe in it themselves but there it is, it's in the book.  

The other thing is that it could give us the constitutional right not to be taxed more than a flat rate income tax of 20%.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khums  This would prevent the state from expanding and creating a parasitic class.  

quran.com/24/2 prescribes the 100 lashes punishment for those convicted of extramarital sex. It doesn't shilly-shally around saying those guilty of fornication won't get to heaven as the New Testament does.  

http://www.bible.ca/ef/expository-1-corinthians-6-9-20.htm

The New Testament is too vague. 
1. Those who practice sin shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
2. You have been washed, sanctified and justified from such sin.
3. Don't be brought under the control of anything outside Christ.
4. The body is for the Lord, not fornication.
5. You are in the body of Christ and at one with Him, so you should not be one with a harlot.
6. We are commanded to flee from it.
7. It is sin against the body.
8. You are the Temple of the H.S.
9. "For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fornication#Judaism

The Old Testament is ambiguous about fornication.
The Torah explicitly forbids adultery. All women were expected to be virgins upon marriage. In the case they were found not to be by a betrothed husband, the punishment was death if the man to whom she married was not the man to whom she lost her virginity. Also if a man and a virgin had sex prior to marriage, then they were forced to marry.

To quote two sources, "The Torah does not outlaw it—as it does many other types of sexual relationships—and the child of such a union is not considered a mamzer (illegitimate). Nonetheless, marital sex is considered ideal, and premarital sex is traditionally not approved of. The negative attitude toward premarital sex, to a large degree, reflects the overwhelmingly positive attitude toward sex within marriage." Likewise, "The only limits placed on sexual activities in the Torah are prohibitions against adultery and incest. In Biblical times, a man was not prohibited from having sexual relations with a woman, as long as it led to marriage. The Bible never explicitly states a woman and man may not have sexual intercourse prior to marriage; therefore, no sanction was imposed for premarital sex, but it was considered a violation of custom."

Despite the fact it is not condemned in the Torah, Orthodox Jews are opposed to premarital sex.

Dennis Dale:

You pay a price if you mould people into a rigid set of rules. There is a price to be paid for that. We've gotten away with a liberal set of rules for a long time because we didn't let in low IQ third worlders to take advantage of it. We're this soft, nice, intelligent white people observing a liberal society things can go pretty well. Things can go bad: there's degeneracy, but it's nothing as bad as when you start letting in people who are relatively savage like you see the Muslim rape gangs in Europe and you're telling me they're not real Muslims because they don't really read the Koran. There are people really trying to define these rules as you say: Muslim scholars. That's Ground Zero of civilisational destruction as I see it. That's where they noted everything: you can't have an imagination, you can't have personal ambition, you can't advance, you can't have curiosity about the natural world. Everything dies in Islam because it has to be forced into these rigid rules that you talk about. 

CK:

If they want to follow these ossified rules [in the Hadith] fine, but we don't have to. We don't have to accept their ossified interpretation. We can interpret it in the way that we see fit because they don't have the copyright on it. I keep being accused of saying to white people "Trust these brown Muslims, bring them into your country, let them interpret the Koran for you," but that's not at all what I am saying. I'm saying "Read it, interpret it yourself in a way that suits you, and just acknowledge that you are more likely to follow these rules if they are clearly stated. [Muted by LF.]

Sunday, 17 June 2018

Claire Khaw interviews Luke Ford, Richard Edmonds explains what's wrong with the government, Secular Koranism attacked and defended



From 3:30:

CK:

Have you ever seriously considered Islam and if so, why did you reject it?

LF:

I have never seriously considered Islam because it has never produced anything admirable. There is no Islamic country that I would like to live in. It is overwhelmingly a low IQ religion. The intellectual achievements of Islam are pitiful, the state of the Islamic world is so pathetic, there's just absolutely nothing at all that I find attractive about Islam.  

CK:

Do you think it could be anything to do with Western imperialism and the Sykes-Picot Agreement?

LF:

Not substantially. It is like saying that the struggles of blacks is the fault of non-blacks, the struggles of Jews are primarily the fault of non-Jews or the struggles of any people are the fault of outsiders. Muslims are responsible for their own destiny, their own countries, their own culture, their own religion, for everything they have failed to achieve. That's on them. If they were dominated by outsiders, it just shows that they were weak, and I don't see anything impressive or admirable in Islam. Where in the world today is there an Islamic society that I would want to emulate? I just don't see what Muslim immigrants contribute to Western civilisation. I am open to it, if people can tell me concrete empirical reasons for why the West has benefited from Muslim immigration, I am very much open to it, if people can point to me why Islam has led to thriving civilisations somewhere that I might have missed. I am open to it if someone can show me scientific, medical, economic, social events that should be the envy of the West, then I am open to it, I just don't see anything. I only see squalor and wretchedness and primitiveness and backwardness and ignorance and typical dysfunciton of low IQ societies. 

CK:

Have you ever visited a Muslim country?

LF:

No, I haven't, I can't even think of one that really excites me to go and visit. In my childhood aged 6 or 7 we went through a lot of countries, but name me a Muslim country that you think is worthy of admiration and has something to teach us in the First World. 

CK mentions Turkey and the Ottoman Empire.  

LF concedes that it has done reasonably well. It has a per capita GDP of US28,000 a year, a total GDP of over two trillion so it's a very powerful government in that part of the world and asks what the Turkey would have that the West might want to emulate.  

CK mentions Erdogan and suggests there could be something to be said alpha male leaders or even dictators who are properly in charge compared to childless clueless here today gone tomorrow weak leaders who have no long term plan and are not in charge. 

LF says he hadn't thought of it like that and conceded that dictatorship has many advantages over democracies. He is not a fan of democracy and Turkey has great apricots. 

CK asks if he might like to visit one day for a holiday?

LF says he does not have a strong inclination. He assumes there is "savagery, barbarity and danger and who would want to get stuck in some Turkish justice system".

CK notes that he is thinking of himself as a drug smuggling European in Midnight Express.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Express_(film)

LF does not deny this and admits he would rather visit a Western First World country. Although Turkey is quite cheap, there is much less likelihood of an outbreak of extreme Muslim violence in a country that is not Muslim. 

CK asks if he has never wanted to see the pyramids in Giza, Egypt. 

LF admitted to having had a "mild desire" to visit Egypt when he was in Israel. 

Wednesday, 7 March 2018

Hizb ut Tahrir equate nationalism with evil and then refuse to answer my questions - because I am neither a man nor a Muslim?


Taji Mustafa says:

Can you guess the answer to this question?


Can you guess the answer to this question?


Can you guess the answer to this question?

But how will they spread the message of Islam by arrogantly refusing to engage in any discussion?

These unfortunate Muslims who want a Caliphate seem to be as lost as everyone else talking to each other in their own echo chambers disdaining to discuss anything with outsiders.

www.hizb.org.uk/media/press-releases/lost-khilafah-nationalism-must-reject-get-khilafah-back/

http://www.hizb.org.uk/viewpoint/disease-nationalism-continues-tear-world-apart/

From the 19th minute
Abdul Wahid talks about the degeneracy of the Ottoman Empire. He claims the success of the military invasion of Turkey would not have been successful but for "the evil of nationalism affecting the Arab world". He calls Mustafa Kemal "the ugly face of Turkish nationalism".

He mentions the Treaty of Sevres and Lausanne, but does not mention that Turkey supported the wrong losing side in WW1 ie Germany.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman%E2%80%93German_alliance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Sèvres
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lausanne

He does not mention the Eastern Question.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Question

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_man_of_Europe

Can Muslims Reopen the Gates of Ijtihad?

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2017-09-26/study-finds-saudi-government-still-tolerates-hate-speech

37:37
Abdul Wahid:

Bernard Lewis is the Islamic scholar beloved by neocons.

Taji Mustafa wants Assad destroyed and says an Islamic financial system would be fairer for the poor and poor nations. He has not heard of adverse possession in English law, clearly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession

http://quillette.com/2018/02/19/one-state-delusion/ makes a lot of things on Western foreign policy and

Yahya Nisbet denounces nationalism and peppers his speech with so many Arabisms in an ostentatious Arabic accent that he must think his Arabisms will get him to Janah more quickly. It is just annoying for non-Muslims who want them to understand whatever they are saying quickly, but what the hell do they care as long as they can wear their piety ostentatiously on their sleeve?

QUESTIONS I HAVE EMAILED TO HIZB UT TAHRIR TODAY

1.  Does Hizb ut Tahrir believe it can just abolish the nation state and live in a global Muslim village without engaging in debate with non-Muslims?

2.  Is HT confusing nationalism with Western imperialism?

3.  Is it impossible in your minds to separate nationalism from Western imperialism?

4.  First, tribes must be able to form a city-state before it can form a nation. Do you disagree?

5.  Secondly, a city-state must control its surrounding territory before it can become a nation. Do you disagree?

6.  Thirdly, a nation must be able to successfully conquer territories outside its own borders to become an empire. Do you disagree?

7.  Jews were a tribe of wandering former slaves who through following Judaism conquered enough territory to become a kingdom. Do you disagree?

8.  Islam was what first united the Arab tribes which then enabled Islamic imperialism. Do you disagree?
   
9.  Ummah also means nation in Arabic. Would you agree? http://www1.cbn.com/onlinediscipleship/what-is-the-muslim-understanding-of-%22ummah%22%3F
   
10.  Nationhood is a natural aspiration for all those who live in a defined piece of territory.  Would you agree?

11.  Apparently, HT are Muslims who want to abolish nation states and borders who cannot understand that uncontrolled immigration upsets the locals. Such denial and naivete is not a secure basis upon which to embark on a global Caliphate. Would you agree?

12.  HT seem to think nationalism is some wicked modern Western imperialist invention, apparently ignorant of the fact that the Jewish revolts against the Romans of the second century was also a form of nationalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism#History Would you confirm that this is indeed the position of HT on nationalism?

13.  We all have to start somewhere. Individuals exist in bodies, and countries as nation states. To call nationalism evil is to call the nation state evil, which makes about as much sense as denouncing individuals for necessarily existing as a physical being inhabiting a human body. Would you agree? https://www.facebook.com/claire.khaw.92/posts/1845229085551716?comment_id=1846060515468573&reply_comment_id=1846861275388497&notif_id=1520365865757713&notif_t=feed_comment&ref=notif
   
14.  The Ottoman Empire ended because it could not reform itself before it was dominated then divided by the European powers. Was this because the Gate of Interpretation was closed?  https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3114/muslims-ijtihad

15.  God if He exists is a nationalist. http://Quran.com/3/104  is conclusive evidence that God approves of nations who promote their national interest by following His laws. Would you agree?

16.  It is surely possible to defend the national interest without descending to xenophobia. Why do Muslims, like liberals and the left, assume nationalism is synonymous with evil? We all live in nation states, so why should we as loyal citizens not defend the national interest or expect our political leaders to do so?
   
17.  en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectification_of_names is a philosophy of calling things by their proper names or things will go awry. If you mean the policies of divide and rule used by Western imperialism, call it that and don't confuse it with nationalism. Is this a subject you are prepared to discuss?
   
19.  Do you really think a transnational Caliphate can spontaneously come into being without first establishing an imperialistic Islamic State? If so, please explain your reasoning.

20.  Will you be ignoring my questions because I am neither male nor Muslim?

​@WoodStoneAndSteel asks about the lolcows of the world

2:00   Incorrect diagnosis Chaste women 3:00  Political economy Abolishing no fault force 5:00  Socialising 6:00  Disposable relationships 7...