Tuesday, March 14, 2006

I am not sure what I think of this

It seems to me that the people who gain the most from the growing distrust and hatred of all things Islamic is the terrorists themselves. As far as that is concerned people like Sadr are not exactly subtle.

But this site is definitely different. Is everything a game?

7 comments:

truepeers said...

Well, my quick look at this site suggests to me it is full of over-educated "MENAs" with a rather snobbish (not really mature, experienced) grad-school attitude to the politics they discuss. In other words, they don't see themselves as part of some historically well-bounded self-governing community, but rather as some kind of vanguard for the modernization of the Umma. They are at odds with the nation state and probably dream of some future when a moderate, sophisticated Umma has lots of weight to throw around in the bodies of world governance, using victimary politics to politely extort from the guilty and to chisel ever more at the sovereignty of western nations. My best guess is that these people are the product of wealth that has been acquired without industry or productivity, but through commercial and political gamesmanship.

Unknown said...

truepeers:

My God man, it was just an idle question.

never change.

truepeers said...

But it fits :)

truepeers said...

Dear eerie, it's true i went off half-cocked and if i've got you wrong i will apologize.

I never called you Arab dilettantes. No doubt I thought some of you (like me) are dilettantes. And I assumed you were mostly from the Arab world (you give your locations but not backgrounds: are you being intentionally ambiguous?)and this in combination with your apparently elitist, western university educations and (consequently?) imperial pre- or post-national gaze created some kind of impression, for what it's worth.

I only gave my quick take on your politics. No doubt, as I said, my quick look was not a fair sampling. If it's wrong, please correct it (you will gain a reader) and I apologize.

What is your general attitude towards nation states, to Israel and the US, and to the political role of the Umma?

truepeers said...

I'm sorry. I started off with a negative charge today, but i'm glad eerie that you threw some light on the matter. Now, it's time to read your blog and give it more serious thought.

ex-democrat said...

eerie: you also forgot that properly educated people aren't quite so full of themselves.

gumshoe said...

"A few of us are arrogant bastards, but that is mostly due to low tolerance for ignorance."

read that one a few times.