SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Young people riding in vehicles smashed cars and store windows in suburban Sydney late Monday, a day after thousands of drunken white youths attacked people they believed were of Arab descent at a beach in the same area in one of Australia's worst outbursts of racial violence.
Sunday's attack -- apparently prompted by reports that Lebanese youths had assaulted two lifeguards -- sparked retaliation by young men of Arab descent in several Sydney suburbs, fighting with police and smashing 40 cars with sticks and bats, police said. Thirty-one people were injured and 16 were arrested in hours of violence.
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Horst Dreizner said a car had rammed into his denture store and he feared the violence would escalate. ''Personally, I think it is only the beginning,'' he said in a telephone interview.
Read the whole thing here. Not good. A thousand years of darkness may be upon us. I tend to agree with Horst Dreizner. I think there is a big incompatibility between Western and Islamic cultures, and whenever you have the two living close together, you are going to have violence. Of course that's not to condone it; and perhaps its cynical of me, but Western Civilization seems to be clashing more and more with Islamic Civilization more and more and more. If you think my assessment is overly pessimistic or cynical, here's a question: how do you stop it? And before you say something like "integrate!" or "educate!", you must realize the massive complexities of integrating communities, and you must realize that segregation is the natural order of things. Integration is unnatural. That is, of course, not to say that it is undesirable, but just that left to their own devices, people like to live near people who are like them. And overcoming natural inclinations such as those is not easy. A thousand years of darkness.....
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7 comments:
WB+,
On a purely sociological level, I see your point. Segregation is much easier to deal with than integration. However, shouldn't we ask towards what ends does segregation serve? If we wish to share Christ's Gospel with the Muslims, segregation would be utterly counterproducive and perhaps even flare up the tensions that already exist. I.e. when even further estranged from each other, the sides may react even more violently when encounters do occur. In addition, I can't see Christ himself embracing segregation. Nor Paul for that matter. Theirs was much more of an "enter into and convert" mentality. Am I wrong? Finally, could you elaborate the 1000 years of darkness phrase? It seems to me that violence between Western culture and Muslim culture has been raging basically since the 7th century. That would make for 1,400 years of darkness, plus whatever else is to come. Ah WB+, always so dramatic in your predictions. I would love to hear your thoughts further on the matter.
Faithfully,
LG+
P.S. Looking forward to egg nog and welcoming our Lord's coming with cheerful hyms and pipes ablaze.
My point isn't that people should be segregated by race or ethnicity. My point is that THEY ALREADY ARE so segregated. I mean America congratulates itself for its civil rights triumphs (Viva Rosa Parks! etc.), and the North loves to look down its nose at the backward South; but look at New Haven. How many blacks live on St. Ronan? How many whites live on Dixwell? I don't even know where the Puerto Ricans live, but its somewhere around here presumably, and not in my neighborhood. And its the same story in Paris and (I presume) Australia. And that story is only natural. If you were an immigrant to France from Algeria, would you rather live among people whose (lack of) religion and language were totally foreign to you (even supposing you could afford it), or among people who spoke your language, shared your religion, and came from your native land? The choice would be simple for me. I mean, if for some reason I had to move to Saudi Arabia, and I had the choice of living among other American immigrants, or living among Saudis, I wouldn't hesitate for a moment.
So my point isn't that segregation is great. I rather think it actually contributes to the problem. But if integration is the answer, or even a part of the answer, there are huge obstacles to overcome to achieve it. We haven't even achieved it in America, yet we're probably one of the most integrated nations in the world.
Oh... "a thousand years of darkness". Right. Islam and the West have been in conflict for centuries, its true. But the conflict has, until now, been mitigated by technological, geographical, and demographical impediments. There are more practicing Moslems in France now than there are practicing Christians. And roughly equal numbers of practicing Moslems and church-going Anglicans in Britain.
And now the stakes are much higher since we fight each other no longer with sticks and swords, but with guns and molotov cocktails and airplanes and anthrax. And organizing resistance (or terrorism, depending on your perspective) is easier than ever what with the internet and email and cell phones.
Put all of these ingredients together in a pot, stir in the religious and cultural differences that have always been (and remain) there, wait for resentment to boil, and before long, you've got a thousand years of darkness on your hands.
Consider the only (culturally) western country in the world more hated by Muslims (generally) than America: Israel. It looks to me like they've got two options, both of which are pretty hideous: war, or apartheid. It won't be long before there will be more Palestinians in that land than Jews. Then the Palestinians will clamor for citizenship, and give up trying to form an independent nation. Once they are citizens, they can simply vote the "Zionist entity" into nonexistence. But if a Palestinian state is created, I don't see much hope of the anymosity between Israel and Muslims abating any time soon. It is bound to flare up into open conflict sooner or later.
I just don't see many prospects for peace between the West and Islam. All the indicators point toward a pot that is starting to steam and will, within our lifetime, I'll wager, be at a rolling boil.
But: may we be delivered from such an end. And may Moslems be delivered from their bondage and blindness, and brought to the light and freedom of the Prince of Peace.
WB+
You're right on. The demands definitions and permissions of Islam are incompatible with Western culture. "Demands" because Islam requires submission of all to the will of Allah and all other values are subordinated. "Permissions" because lying, theft, killing and such is "righteous" behavior when employed to bring about submission to the will of Allah. "Definitions" because such concepts as "truth" or "morality" or "justice" or "fairness," or "love," etc. are viewed subjectively only in self-promoting Islamic terms. Thus Mohammed could make a peace treaty with the city Kuraish when couldn't defeat them, then come back and slaughter them all once he built his troop strength. Allah demanded their submission or death so the treaty was no longer valid once Mohammed had the means to achieve it. Thus a garage mechanic in Herzliya can work with his employer harmoniously for 19 years and a restaurant worker in Jerusalem for eight years then suddenly kill their employers and go on a mad rampage killing as many Jews as they can find until subdued. Hebron was a peaceful town with a Jewish majority "harmoniously" integrated with the Arab minority from the 1800's until 1929 when suddenly the Arabs arose and murdered all the Jews that didn't flee and took their property. That's why Hebron has been a predominantly Arab town since. Same thing happened with Jews and others in Syria, in Iraq, in Iran, in Ethiopia, in Sudan, in the Philippines, in Indonesia and on and on. No, integration is anathema to Islam. Ain't gonna work. I too see a bad moon rising.
WB+, and DDX, You are both right, but can't you be a little more joyful??? As Julian of Norwich said, when you realize what it means to be in Christ, ..."all manner of thing shall be well with thee." In Him there are no "bad moons rising." Sr. Scholastica
WB,
Perhaps you need to be to the Islamic world what the Inclussive Worshipper was to the seminary Inclusive hegemony. Convert to Islam, and follow Christ. It will be great!
Incidentally, did you know that Mohammed's first wife was a Christian and that her father was a cleric? The catch: they were Nestorians. All Mohammed learned about Jesus was wrong. No wonder there is so much difficulty doing 'inter-religious dialogue'. The gospel according to Islam is based on heresy. Imagine there was a world without heterodoxy.
Anyway, it is advent. I don't buy the thousand years of darkness hypothesis. "The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it." (Jn 1) That's my story and I'm stick'n to it.
Brain
p.s. - by 'darkness' I don't mean Islam. I mean what you mean: violence, discord, segregation, exclusion and embrace...whatever
... I think we are discounting the inclusive worshipper Muslims in this conversation- Im not kidding- there are are plenty of bad Muslims who are thus good, conversational humanists, relatively. A liberal, secularized, homosexual Muslim is a great friend of our culture. Surely there are plenty of them. Historically, they have been hard at work- consider Ghazzali. This sounds whiny I know, but I think it may be ineffecient to be overly-general. (Let's just hope that the Muslims havent all decided that its reasonable and politic to equate "Christian" with "ECUSA," for instance.
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