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"Racist bullies like those who drew those cartoons for Charlie Hebdo
and reactionary Islamic fundamentalist terrorists actually rely on
each other. They would find it much more difficult to exist if the
other side didn't.”<br>
<br>
Yes yes yes. A good article which makes this point is this from
Juan Cole:<br>
<br>
<a
href="http://www.juancole.com/2015/01/sharpening-contradictions-satirists.html">http://www.juancole.com/2015/01/sharpening-contradictions-satirists.html</a><br>
<span style="font-size:16.0pt"><br>
</span>some quotes -<span style="font-size:16.0pt"><br>
</span>
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Al-Qaeda wants to mentally colonize French Muslims, but faces a
wall of disinterest. But if it can get non-Muslim French to be
beastly to ethnic Muslims on the grounds that they are Muslims, it
can start creating a common political identity around grievance
against discrimination.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
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This tactic is similar to the one used by Stalinists in the early
20th century. [...] For the unscrupulous among Bolsheviks–who
would later be Stalinists– the fact that most students and workers
don’t want to overthrow the business class is inconvenient, and so
it seemed desirable to some of them to “sharpen the
contradictions” between labor and capital.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
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Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, then led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
deployed this sort of polarization strategy successfully in Iraq,
constantly attacking Shiites and their holy symbols, and provoking
the ethnic cleansing of a million Sunnis from Baghdad. The
polarization proceeded, with the help of various incarnations of
Daesh (Arabic for ISIL or ISIS, which descends from al-Qaeda in
Mesopotamia). And in the end, the brutal and genocidal strategy
worked, such that Daesh was able to encompass all of Sunni Arab
Iraq, which had suffered so many Shiite reprisals that they sought
the umbrella of the very group that had deliberately and
systematically provoked the Shiites.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
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The only effective response to this manipulative strategy (as
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani tried to tell the Iraqi Shiites a
decade ago) is to resist the impulse to blame an entire group for
the actions of a few and to refuse to carry out identity-politics
reprisals. </blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
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<p>We have a model for response to terrorist provocation and
attempts at sharpening the contradictions. It is Norway after <a
href="http://www.juancole.com/2011/07/when-extremism-learns-to-blow-things-up.html"
onclick="_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article-int',
'http://www.juancole.com/2011/07/when-extremism-learns-to-blow-things-up.html',
' Anders Behring Breivik']);"> Anders Behring Breivik</a>
committed mass murder of <a
href="http://www.juancole.com/2011/07/white-terrorism-in-norway.html"
onclick="_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article-int',
'http://www.juancole.com/2011/07/white-terrorism-in-norway.html
', ' Norwegian leftists']);"> Norwegian leftists</a> for being
soft on Islam. The Norwegian government launched no war on
terror. They tried Breivik in court as a common criminal. They
remained committed to their admirable modern Norwegian values.</p>
<p>Most of France will also remain committed to French values of
the Rights of Man, which they invented. But an insular and
hateful minority will take advantage of this deliberately
polarizing atrocity to push their own agenda. Europe’s future
depends on whether the Marine LePens are allowed to become
mainstream. Extremism thrives on other people’s extremism, and
is inexorably defeated by tolerance.</p>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 1/10/15 6:58 AM, David Johnson via
Peace-discuss wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:003301d02cd5$1c3ed380$54bc7a80$@comcast.net"
type="cite">
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt">A posting on a list-serve I am on
that I thought you might find interesting.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt">David J.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt">“ I agree with the condemnation of
both the racist imagery of Islam as well as of all religious
fundamentalism, Islamic and otherwise. It also seems to me
that we can't make sense of this situation without some
review of history. Why did these brothers who apparently
were responsible for the attack on Charlie Hebdo turn to
Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism as a means of
expressing their anger against Western imperialism's
interventions in the predominantly Islamic world? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt">First there was the increased role
of these reactionary forces - especially al Qaeda - in
Afghanistan, mainly through the support of the CIA and their
counterparts in Pakistan, in the struggle against the Soviet
Union's role in Afghanistan. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt">Islamic fundamentalism also got a
huge boost with the rise of Khomeini to power in the late
'70s. That occurred through the triumph of
counter-revolution in a revolutionary situation, following
the fall of the Shah. That counter-revolution involved a
classic case of the role of Stalinism, through the Tudeh
Party.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt">At the same time, we saw the
collapse of the Soviet Union and the decline of an
independent role of the working class.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt">I remember when I was in Egypt
getting lectured by a guy who was clearly some sort of
fundamentalist about how the United States government
"hates" muslims. When I replied by outlining all the crimes
of the US government against non-Muslims (Native Americans,
African people, Latin Americans, Vietnamese, etc. as well as
workers in the USA), and that it had nothing to do with
hating Muslims per se, this guy was caught up short. At the
end of the conversation, he commented that I had "entered
into his head." (I was later told that that means more or
less that I'd made a serious impression on him.) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt">But on a wider scale, who is there
to put this sort of perspective forward? Does the
"representatives" of the US working class - the labor
leaders? Don't make me laugh.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt">The other point is this: Racist
bullies like those who drew those cartoons for Charlie Hebdo
and reactionary Islamic fundamentalist terrorists actually
rely on each other. They would find it much more difficult
to exist if the other side didn't.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt">John<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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