tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640441812647446166.post8538320684751373033..comments2024-03-28T04:26:49.354+00:00Comments on Tony Greenstein's Blog: An Open Letter to Lauren BoothTony Greensteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14300640929161205370noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640441812647446166.post-44844370098624118652011-05-30T23:11:57.682+01:002011-05-30T23:11:57.682+01:00Evildoer
I'm not sure who Max is, but I think...Evildoer<br /><br />I'm not sure who Max is, but I think you have taken my comments out of context.<br /><br />You say that 'if a Muslim produces a faith based argument that strikes you as bad, you should criticize it.' I agree. However faith based arguments operate within the limited space of the religious texts, Hadith etc. Or Bible and so on. In practice you can justify anything, good or bad, from religious texts.<br /><br />I don't think that the argument that religion is not rational is essentialising either religion or rationality. Of course there is a history to the development of rationalism through Spinoza, JS Mill, Bentham, Darwin or Marx. Marx is particularly valuable on this.<br /><br />But it is not essentialising religion, merely a statement of the obvious viz. that faith and reason are diametrically opposed.<br /><br />I'm sorry if you misunderstood me. I don't believe that Booth or anyone else is a reactionary because they are a Muslim, although conversion does suggest that there is active choice to reach for the dark side. If you look back I also compare her conversion to Islam with Tony Blair's conversion to Catholicism, another religion of the medieval.<br /><br />BUT as Ireland demonstrated, Catholicism can also be progressive in certain circumstances and I have no doubt the same can be true of Islam, as it was in Bosnia and has been in Albania and indeed in much of the Middle East prior to the incursion of imperialism.<br /><br />I deliberately describe Booth as an Islamist because I believe she tends towards Political Islam which definitely is reactionary.<br /><br />But I certainly reject the ideas of the 'clash of civilizations' of Huntingdon that there is something inherently reactionary in Islam. Islam has deliberately been made reactionary or being used in that way, consciously by both Israel and the USA.<br /><br />The Koran was a product of the 7th/8th centuries. It reflected a pre-capitalist age. When you look back and consciously try to reproduce that you get Iran and its barbaric rulers, or Saudi Arabia. Just as Israel is moving in much the same direction. But that is not inevitable it is how religion is used in the modern era to prop up elites. In that sense Islam is no more reactonary than the majority of Christianity.<br /><br />I hope I've made this clear because my original article may have not been clear but I didn't intend the meanings you have given it.Tony Greensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14300640929161205370noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640441812647446166.post-88455119159589009802011-05-30T21:19:36.430+01:002011-05-30T21:19:36.430+01:00I stand with Max. Lauren Booth is one of many not ...I stand with Max. Lauren Booth is one of many not too sharp pencils in our drawer who cheer for anything that sound remotely as a blow against Israel, even when it is in fact a service for Zionism, as Atzmon's ravings are.<br /><br />But.<br /><br />Your statement about religion is not "criticizing religion". If a Muslim produces a faith based argument that strikes you as bad, you should criticize it. A generic statement that religion is not rational is not "criticism." It is an act of essentializing both religion AND rationality, and bullying people for being different. <br /><br />Booth may be a Muslim and she may be a reactionary. And the two may even be connected. If you want to establish that. You are welcome. But a generic assertion that booth is a reactionary because she is a Muslim is no different than what Atzmon does when he asserts "Jewishness" as the root of Zionism. You of all people should understand that. <br /><br />Furthermore, defining Islam as inherently retrograde (13 centuries ago) is participating in a racist and colonialist discourse. Modern European thought, including its secularist strands, is rooted in intellectual traditions that are thousands of years old. Rationalism is itself a spiritual tradition that includes its own prophets and martyrs (Socrates, Spinoza, etc.) who were very much keen on the divine. If you think rationalism and faith don't mix, you are ignorant of your own intellectual history.<br /><br />Furthermore, putting Islam on a lower plane, outside the flow of time, reproduces the intellectual strategies of white European Christian suprematism, the consciousness of colonial aggression, which is unfortunately having a great comeback because of current imperial interests in the form of Islamphobia. It is very sad that you play this particular racist game, which, by the way, is exactly Atzmon's game as well. You owe an apology. <br /><br />Of course, everything else you say is true.Evildoerhttp://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640441812647446166.post-50853881904938283752011-05-23T14:52:12.464+01:002011-05-23T14:52:12.464+01:00I am an atheist and therefore I criticise religion...I am an atheist and therefore I criticise religion, all religion. In certain circumstances religion can co-exist with radicalism as with the liberation theology which of course the church establishment vehemently opposed, as per John Paul II. But there is no such tradition in modern times, that I know of anyway, in Islam.<br /><br />The development of political Islam in the Middle East, a reaction to be sure to imperialism, has been a setback to anti-imperialism and as in Iran has led to a bloodbath of the left and workers movement. Just as in Saudi Arabia a medieval feudal regime uses Islam as its ideology.<br /><br />But even with liberation theology there were problems. With Islam as per Booth and co. it is definitely regressive and taking her shilling from the Iranian regime compounds that. Islam has introduced sectarianism into the Palestinian movement and has nothing to offer but further division.Tony Greensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14300640929161205370noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640441812647446166.post-90589414404663957492011-05-23T07:37:05.485+01:002011-05-23T07:37:05.485+01:00Tony,
I generally support your politics, but canno...Tony,<br />I generally support your politics, but cannot support your attacks on religion. Latin American liberation theology has been responsible for some of the more encouraging political mobilizations of this century. Should we just wave them off because they were mobilizing "religiously"?jewbonicshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17179220313237449896noreply@blogger.com