Political Islam

[SoyElTurco]

Those of you that can value an intelligent lecture will appreciate this:

The Battle for Hearts and Minds

The RAND report can be found here.


It's an hour long but it's worth it.

Tell me what you think. I think you guys could find certain things useful. If you have any questions, let me know.

[garod]

Re: Political Islam

Have you got any connection with Fettullah Gulen?
Cause this thread is like his propaganda!

[SoyElTurco]

Re: Political Islam

Have you got any connection with Fettullah Gulen?
Cause this thread is like his propaganda!

well. did you listen to it?

and fetullah gulen has completely different propaganda. and you're armenian right?

and anyway, the thread is under the "Intellectual" section. so i guess this thread is appropriately placed in that section.

I just want to know what you would think after listening to a lecture like that.

[gmd]

Re: Political Islam

I read some of the Rand report. Which of the 4 groups do you identify with and how do you view the group's description within the report, if you have read it?

[SoyElTurco]

Re: Political Islam

gmd:

I pick and mix from the radical and scirptural fundamentalists and the conservative traditionalists.

I don't take anything from the secularists and reformists. Except maybe some reformist traditionalist ideas might be okay - but I'd be very careful about them.

Did you listen to the lecture?

[gmd]

Re: Political Islam

As I indicated no I have not listened to the lecture.

Here is an article for you. I have pasted the portion I think relevant to this thread. I was interested in the author's conclusion regarding a new financial system for the world. What is your view on his conclusion and how would such a view be reconciled with Turkey's current economic structures?

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JK21Dj06.html

...
The real solution is to deal with the actual underlying capitalistic model that legitimizes such behavior. We must recognize now that, as with the communist system before it, capitalism has proven to be a failure. The world must now search for another model to govern its finances.

We have this in Islam. To summarize, in an Islamic economic system, the gold standard is compulsory, thereby preventing the generation of unsupported paper currency. In addition, Islam does not permit the various aforementioned capitalistic trading practices as undertaken by current day banks, which are effectively bringing down the Western economic system. Moreover, unlike a man-made system, the principles in Islam (the sharia) are unchanging; therefore Islamic rules will remain in effect no matter what the situation.

[Anonymouse]

Re: Political Islam

As I indicated no I have not listened to the lecture.

Here is an article for you. I have pasted the portion I think relevant to this thread. I was interested in the author's conclusion regarding a new financial system for the world. What is your view on his conclusion and how would such a view be reconciled with Turkey's current economic structures?

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JK21Dj06.html

...
The real solution is to deal with the actual underlying capitalistic model that legitimizes such behavior. We must recognize now that, as with the communist system before it, capitalism has proven to be a failure. The world must now search for another model to govern its finances.

We have this in Islam. To summarize, in an Islamic economic system, the gold standard is compulsory, thereby preventing the generation of unsupported paper currency. In addition, Islam does not permit the various aforementioned capitalistic trading practices as undertaken by current day banks, which are effectively bringing down the Western economic system. Moreover, unlike a man-made system, the principles in Islam (the sharia) are unchanging; therefore Islamic rules will remain in effect no matter what the situation.

Islam's insistence on commodity backed currency is a positive thing and something the West has forgotten and should re-institute.

However, in general, Islam's culture has been anti-free market which has not allowed much of the Middle East to undergo a similar industrial revolution as occurred in more secular societies like England, which has been one of the biggest benefits of mankind which allowed it to break from the Malthusian cycle and traditional feudal relations. Here is something a famous Austrian economist, von Mises, said about Islam:

"The religion of Islam has not changed since the days of the Arab conquests. Their literature, their philosophies continue to repeat the old ideas and do not penetrate beyond the circle of theology. One looks in vain among them for men and movements such as Western Christianity has produced in each century. They maintain their identity only by rejecting everything foreign and ‘different,’ by traditionalism and conservatism. Only their hatred of everything foreign rouses them to great deeds from time to time. All new sects, even the new doctrines which arise with them, are nothing more than echoes of this fight against the foreign, the new, the infidel."

The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality (Libertarian Press, 1972, pp. 81-82):

"In dealing with the liberty issue one does not refer to the essential economic problem of the antagonism between capitalism and socialism. One rether points out that Western man as different from the Asiatics is entirely a being adjusted to life in freedom and formed by life in freedom. The civilizations of China, Japan, India, and the Mohammedan countries of the near East as they existed before these nations became acquainted with Western ways of life certainly cannot be dismissed as barbarism. These peoples . . . brought about marvelous achievements inthe industrial arts, architecture, in literature and philosophy and in the development of educational institutions . . . . "

"But then their effort was arrested, their cultures became numb and torpid, and they lost the ability to cope successfully with economic problems. Their intellectual and artistic genius withered away . . . . Their empires disintegrated. Their citizens lost vigor and energy and became apathetic in the face of progressing decay and impoverishment."

"The reason [for all the cultural and economic decline] is obvious. The East lacked the primordial thing, the idea of freedom from the state. The East never raised the banner of freedom, it never tried to stress the rights of the individual against the power of the rulers. It never called into question the arbitrariness of the despots. And consequently, it never established the legal framework that would protect the private citizens' wealth against confiscation on the part of the tyrants. . . . To the sons of the people all roads toward personal distinction were closed but one. They could try to make their way in serving the princes. Western society was a community of individuals who could compete for the highest prizes. Eastern society was an agglomeration of subjects entirely dependent on the good graces of the sovereigns."

[Armanen]

Re: Political Islam

Their empires disintegrated. Their citizens lost vigor and energy and became apathetic in the face of progressing decay and impoverishment."

Sounds a bit like what is occurring in the so called "west".

[Anonymouse]

Re: Political Islam

Sounds a bit like what is occurring in the so called "west".

Bingo was his name-o.

[jgk3]

Re: Political Islam

So the notion of the state being the opposite of the economy finally starts making sense to me. At least when the economy gets closer to free market mechanics.