Recent posts

#1

Off the Record / Re: Indian Elections 2024

Last post by Razgovory - Today at 07:41:15 PM

Based off my experiences with one Indian guy (so yeah. He could just be a werido) Islam as the foreign invaders religion certainly seems to be key to the hate.
I remember a few times he spoke about how great things were in ancient India, free love peace and glory, until the fire nat... Muslims invaded.

I get the feeling that some of it might be displacement of some of the post colonial inferiority complex about the UK since English and other colonial introductions are so core to India they can't really be challenged nor would it be wise to.
Islam on the other hand is a far safer target to bash.

So it's just more decolonization stuff?

#2

Off the Record / Re: Israel-Hamas War 2023

Last post by Razgovory - Today at 07:35:59 PM

Yeah, there has been quite a bit about this.  Many, many peeps.  Keep in mind CAIR is a somewhat dodgy organization.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/california-muslim-leader-warns-about-polite-zionists-drawing-rebuke-from-adl/

California Muslim leader warns about 'polite Zionists,' drawing rebuke from ADL
Activist Zahra Billoo tells pro-Palestinian conference to monitor 'Zionist synagogues'; Anti-Defamation League calls speech 'vile, antisemitic, conspiracy-laden garbage'

. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA — A Muslim civil rights attorney and activist is drawing criticism, including accusations of antisemitism, from local and national Jewish organizations after a November 27 speech.

Zahra Billoo leads the San Francisco office of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

In her speech, which drew attention after excerpts were republished by the Israel-advocacy website Israellycool on Dec. 2, she asked attendees gathered at a pro-Palestinian conference in Chicago to focus on not only extreme right-wing forces, but also "polite Zionists," including the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Federations, Hillel and "Zionist synagogues."



"When we talk about Islamophobia, we think oftentimes about the vehement fascists," Billoo said.

"But I also want us to pay attention to the polite Zionists. The ones that say, 'Let's just break bread together.'"

"They are not your friends," she said.


In the speech, delivered at an annual conference of American Muslims for Palestine, Billoo described a well-funded campaign to bolster Islamophobia around the world and an interconnected network of Zionist-supporting organizations working to harm Muslims.


She also repeated a false claim, one that circulates among some left-wing activist groups, that "police officers in the United States who kill unarmed black men, women and children are trained by the Israeli military."

A number of Jewish organizations offered harsh criticisms of her comments, saying they echoed antisemitic tropes of Jewish power and control.

The ADL's national director Jonathan Greenblatt issued a searing rebuke, calling the comments "textbook vile, antisemitic, conspiracy-laden garbage attacking the mainstream US Jewish community."

The San Francisco-based office of the Jewish Community Relations Council also excoriated the speech in a statement, calling it "antisemitic and deplorable, seeking to divide and besmirch efforts at cooperation and coexistence."

The incident illustrated the political chasm that separates many mainstream Jewish organizations from pro-Palestinian Muslim activists on the subject of Israel, even as they may agree on other political issues such as gun control, immigrant rights and combating racism.

The statements were also a rebuke of not only right-wing, pro-settlement religious Zionism, but also more moderate Zionist views widely held in the American Jewish community. According to a recent Pew survey, roughly 8 in 10 American Jews say they feel a connection to Israel and that it is an important part of their Jewish identity.

Billoo said during the speech she does not support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Allah has promised us victory," she said.

Billoo, a member of CAIR since 2009, is a celebrated civil rights attorney with a law degree from UC Hastings who appears in television news interviews and newspapers.

Over the last 12 years she has helped pursue civil rights lawsuits against Southwest Airlines, Abercrombie & Fitch and the US Justice Department, and has won accolades for her work. She has also partnered with a left-leaning Jewish group for at least one 2019 event.

In 2016, a few weeks after Donald Trump was elected president, Billoo posted on Facebook, "He's going to do to you Muslims what Hitler did to the Jews."

In 2019 Billoo became one of a handful of Women's March organizers who either left or were removed from organizing roles amid claims of anti-Israel animosity and antisemitism. Her removal came after criticism from the ADL and others stemming from a 2015 tweet in which she wrote: "I'm more afraid of racist Zionists who support Apartheid Israel than of the mentally ill young people the FBI recruits to join ISIS."

Billoo and the national office of CAIR did not respond to a request for comment.

In the end, CAIR supported her https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/cair-supports-member-that-said-zionist-synagogues-behind-islamophobia-688510

#3

Off the Record / Re: Football (Soccer) Thread

Last post by FunkMonk - Today at 07:00:34 PM

Desperately resisting the urge to post about Arsenal vs Chelsea

#4

Off the Record / Re: Lost books

Last post by grumbler - Today at 06:38:24 PM

In that vein, Mark Twain's memoirs.  Oh, wait!....

#5

Off the Record / Re: Indian Elections 2024

Last post by grumbler - Today at 06:36:41 PM

Although the areas once ruled by Muslims are also the areas with a large Muslim minority - so it could just be bigotry against a minority in your area.

Yes, and that would work against the "homegrown versus foreign" argument.

But there's an argument there is a north-south divide which I've seen made and the BJP's heartland is the north (and I suppose where Muslims ruled sort of depends on when you look at it). Although I've also read pieces arguing against that divide really being a feature. So I'm not sure.

I don't know, either.

I would point out that "Hindu nationalism" is unlike any other religious nationalism, because not even Hindus know what Hinduism is or believes.  It is by far the most amorphous religion in the world, with no consensus on whether the world is real, the gods (or God) are real, whether other people are real, or pretty much anything else other than a common belief in an ineffable "ultimate reality" called Brahman, and the existence of "sparks" of Brahman trapped in matter, which are the atman of every living thing (every living thing that is not an illusions, that is).  Jainism is just an extremely ascetic form of Hinduism, when it comes down to it, and Hinduism stretches from that ascetic boundary to an extremely hedonistic boundary o the other side, where sexual pleasure is a religious duty.

SO I think that the BJP and Hindu nationalism are politically-manufactured artifices that really don't stand up to the least bit of actual religious examination.

#6

Off the Record / Re: Indian Elections 2024

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 06:25:40 PM

That should be easy to test.  Just compare anti-Muslim sentiment in the areas of India that were once ruled by Muslims to the same in areas never ruled by Muslims.

Although the areas once ruled by Muslims are also the areas with a large Muslim minority - so it could just be bigotry against a minority in your area.

But there's an argument there is a north-south divide which I've seen made and the BJP's heartland is the north (and I suppose where Muslims ruled sort of depends on when you look at it). Although I've also read pieces arguing against that divide really being a feature. So I'm not sure.

#7

Off the Record / Re: Indian Elections 2024

Last post by grumbler - Today at 06:16:40 PM

I get that am I'm suggesting they're lying.  That at least in part the reason they feel animosity towards Islam is because it was the religion of the conqueror.  The religion of the tax collector, of the judge, of the punisher.  that if, as in Indonesia, a couple Gulf merchants had shown up and told them about this great religion that helps you stop drinking so much, they would not feel the same animosity.

That should be easy to test.  Just compare anti-Muslim sentiment in the areas of India that were once ruled by Muslims to the same in areas never ruled by Muslims.

#8

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 06:00:58 PM

It was St George's Day wankers. Tommy Robinson and Laurence Fox holding a rally for about 200 supporters from what I saw.

There will also be the bigger official celebration by the Mayor at the weekend.

Edit: Also on that and following up from Duncan Robinson's excellent Englishness piece from this time last year - I thought this was interesting given the discourse over the same period:

#9

Off the Record / Re: Israel-Hamas War 2023

Last post by Admiral Yi - Today at 05:56:52 PM

Got to love the double standards continuing to be at play from some.
Endlessly pressing how bad anti semitism has gotten yet the rise in islamophobia?
Not a peep.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-anti-muslim-incidents-hit-record-high-2023-due-israel-gaza-war-2024-04-02/

We peeped the Vermont attack.  At least one peep.

#10

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Josquius - Today at 05:56:48 PM

In other news seems there was a random fascist march in London today about.... Something? Not clear what.