I am 5 days behind on The Economist (i.e. last Friday’s has not yet been opened). Either my bowels are moving more quickly than usual (the magazines are generally stored in the bathroom), or else it’s been a productive week in other areas of endeavour. Anyhow, as I finished off last week’s edition this morning, I was taken with the style of the obituary, as often happens. The page on Alexander Haig (American General, White House Chief of Staff under Nixon, head of NATO, foreign policy spokesman for Reagan, etc, etc) closed with a sweet metaphor from the General’s book Caveat, riffed by the journalist…
“The [Reagan] White House was as mysterious as a ghost ship; you heard the creak of the rigging and the groan of the timbers and sometimes even glimpsed the crew on deck. But which of the crew had the helm? …It was impossible to know…
If someone evidently had the helm, General Haig saluted. If not, rather than let drift and uncertainty give any comfort to America’s enemies, he had acquired the habit of seizing the wheel himself.”
Grand sentiments, steely nerves, national business – all in a day’s work for the rich and powerful, I suppose. Even the little people like me can get dewy-eyed about this sort of stirring stuff, actual or fictional (as happened when I re-watched the ludicrous yet strangely charming cornfest that is Independence Day over lunch on Tuesday). But let’s be aware of the mythic and ideological guises of the state, the nation, human hierarchies, construals of enemies, and so forth. Let’s remember what really lasts, where the city with foundations comes from, who it comes from, and what really counts...
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Saturday, 30 January 2010
incomes in Britain
Found a fascinating article in the FT a few weeks ago that turned up again in this afternoon's tidy-up. All about the distribution of incomes in the UK.
"Middle class workers richer than they think", Tues 5th Jan 2010.
Based on 2007-08 prices, and also based on all people with incomes (whether pensioners, those on benefits, full-time and part-time workers).
Mean (average) weekly income per individual, £487 [=£25,342pa]
Median (central figure if you line them all up) weekly income per individual, £393 [=£20,436pa]
Mode (most common) weekly income per individual, c.£260 [=c.£13,520pa]
Other interesting facts:
A childless couple making £25,000 each are in the 87th percentile - i.e. only 13% of the population earn more. That means that most yuppie couples in Cambridge are unquestionably "rich" (especially given the rest of the world...)
Having a child means you need an extra 20% on your income to maintain a
similar standard of living.
47,500 people (the top 0.1%) make more than £350,000 per year!
More stats are available at www.ifs.org.uk/wheredoyoufitin, the people who did the hard work.
Saturday, 9 January 2010
In the Loop
Armando Iannucci’s acclaimed political satire. Three stars out of five, I think.
But ten out of ten for rudeness – it might have scored higher than any Tarantino for swearing and truly offensive insults…
Although it’s the right length In the Loop is less a feature film and more an expensive exercise in astonishment. Desperately sad, like The Office; every cell in my body cringes at how dreadful the characters are, and yet how true and real they are. Frightening as well as compelling, but not one to watch again.
Performances were pretty good, in that faux documentary way, but unfortunately all the drama ebbed away towards the end. Minister for International Development, Peter Forrester, was too much of a caricature by that point for us to care about his resignation or about the ‘clever’ plan of the odious spin doctor to have him fired instead. Even the prospect of war was not very compelling. Jaded viewer or poor drama? Maybe both...
But ten out of ten for rudeness – it might have scored higher than any Tarantino for swearing and truly offensive insults…
Although it’s the right length In the Loop is less a feature film and more an expensive exercise in astonishment. Desperately sad, like The Office; every cell in my body cringes at how dreadful the characters are, and yet how true and real they are. Frightening as well as compelling, but not one to watch again.
Performances were pretty good, in that faux documentary way, but unfortunately all the drama ebbed away towards the end. Minister for International Development, Peter Forrester, was too much of a caricature by that point for us to care about his resignation or about the ‘clever’ plan of the odious spin doctor to have him fired instead. Even the prospect of war was not very compelling. Jaded viewer or poor drama? Maybe both...
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
another stepchild?
What I didn't make clear just then is that I loved Verduin's book! On of those works I havn't stopped talking about since I read it, and I'm still working through and chewing over the implications for me personally.
As a friend said, "history with teeth". Very compelling, and enough to push anyone in a pacifist direction. For all thinking Christians with an interest in history and patience to get through some dated (but fairly elegant) prose, this is a must-read.
Shame it's so expensive. But if you see one in a second-hand bookshop snap it up.
As a friend said, "history with teeth". Very compelling, and enough to push anyone in a pacifist direction. For all thinking Christians with an interest in history and patience to get through some dated (but fairly elegant) prose, this is a must-read.
Shame it's so expensive. But if you see one in a second-hand bookshop snap it up.
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
Levtzion on the expansion of Islam
A wonderful summary of this is found in Nehemia Levtzion, ‘Towards a comparative study of Islamization’, in Levtzion, ed., Conversion to Islam (New York: Holmes & Maier, 1979), pp.1-23, reprinted as chapter I of the volume of Levtzion’s essays edited by Michael Abitol and Amos Nadan in 2007, four years after his death, and published by Ashgate under the title Islam in Africa and the Middle East: Studies on Conversion and Renewal.
Source Material on Conversion to Islam
From Muslim perspectives there are usually no written sources until a couple of centuries after Islam was established – historiography developed only after a class of litterati had emerged. The works are largely of legal import, which makes distinguishing fact from fiction tricky. (2) In areas where a written culture already thrived the arrival of Islam impoverished the region’s literary resources – as in Java in the 14th-16th centuries or among the Christian communities of the Middle East from the 7th century onwards. (3)
Travellers’ accounts (Muslim and Christian) provide some indications of Islam’s spread, but ew also need to look at name changes in places and populations, tax registers (3-4), and even at how the various Islamic legal schools influenced new areas of Muslim expansion (4-5). Accounts of dream-inspired conversions and oral tales of family histories may be a fruitful area of new research.
The Militant Expansion of Islam: The Role of the Nomads
Conversion as immediate reslut of conquest or political submission was limited to the Bedouins of Arabia and the Berbers of Maghrib, and a few minor cases. The political secession of the Arab tribes after the death of Muhammed was interpreted also as religious apostasy (ridda). The Berbers apostasized 12 times according to Muslim traditions, rebelling fiercely and compelling the Arab to withdraw from N. Africa several times. In other words, they were initially taken as submitting to Islam as religion as well as political force, such were the harsh measures used to ensure their complete submission [islam]. (6)
However, military conquest did not usually lead to immediate Islamization of populations. It did open the door to two factors that encouraged conversion in the longer term: colonization of lands by nomads, and the evolution of distintively Muslim government and institutions (7). The settling of Arab nomads in the Fertile Crescent took place after the establishment of Islamic government; the settling of Turkic nomads in Anatolia preceded centralised Muslim rule in that area and was therefore more violent and overall more thorough. In the Fertile Crescent conversion accelerated once non-Muslims were attracted to work in the Arab garrison towns (previously segregation and non-conversion were encouraged to preserve Arab-Muslim purity along with the tax base). The Balkans are an interesting blend – conquered by the Ottoman state with restricted nomad influx, they retained even more of their Christian character than the Middle East. (8)
Conversion under Muslim Rule
By no means enforced by the new rulers, but increasingly promoted by them. In Iran, the military elite converted immediately in order to retain their status; the bureaocracy converted after 150-200 years in order to keep their jobs. By the 11th century 80% of the population was Muslim. Many conversions were clearly motivated by economic and social pressures. ‘The process was aided further by the fact that once conversion to Islam took place, there was no backsliding.’ (9) [This is the particularly sinister move. Is it unique among religions to enshrine such a thing in law or to claim it to be an essential part of the faith?]
Initial liberal policies towards non-Mulism subjects, so as to use their skills in administration and scholarship, gave way to less and less tolerance as the proportion of Muslims increased and as the ulama gained more leverage over the governments. They exploited the Muslim masses’ resentment towards rich/influential non-Muslims and in times of crisis (war or famine) were able to capitalise on massacres and other persecuting measures to reduce the standing of the non-Muslims or to force them to convert (10).
Truly forced conversions were not as widespread as Christian sources claim, but more common than Muslims admit (11). Under the Seljuks, under the Mamluks, under the Ottomans (especially the devshirme system), under some Mughals (notably Aurangzib, 1658-1707) there were forced conversions (10). In general, the creation of the total environment that fostered the supremacy of Islam was the route that Muslim rulers generally took. (11)
The Encounter with Other Religions
‘In all cases of conversion from Christianity, Muslims had a political superiority, achieved by military conquest. The same was true in the case of Iran and parts of India. But in other aresa, in the further lands of Islam, Muslims were considered to be superior because of their literacy, magical and healing efficacy, and their wealth’ (11).
In Africa and Indonesia, Muslims infiltrated the syncretistic religions, while denouncing elements of their latitudinarianism, thereby gradually Islamizing the state and the society. (12) But in China, with neither military nor cultural superiority, the Muslims had to battle to survive – choosing to be Muslim in private but Sinicized in public.
In India there were conversions from all levels of society Islam did not particularly appeal to the dalits, instead it confirmed the power/status of the Brahmans, whether or not they converted. (13) In Iran, Richard Buillet argues, the lower classes tended to be attracted to sectarian Islam (or Zoroastrian revivals) since they had a lot to gain from overturning the status quo: the upper classes fought to preserve the orthodoxy that guaranteed their position, gaining increasing strength against the Arab dynasties and eventually able to reassert a Persian ruling dynasty. (13-14)
In West Africa being a chief and being a Muslim were not usually compatible, since conversion carried overtones of ‘clergy’ that struck at the chiefs’ self-esteem, even when large proportions of the populations had become Muslim.
Traders as Carriers of Islam
Beyond the nomads’ military reach the merchants took the message of Islam. The early garrison towns of the Middle East were a focus for trade as well as religion. ‘In Islam, migration to the town is considered meritorious because it is in the urban milieu that one can fully practice the Muslim way of life’ (15). Thus urbanization increased the rate of conversion to Islam. Interestingly, as Muslim traders moved around (with a very good reputation among other peoples), sustaining Islamic cultural links and joining up various Islamic groups, some chose to settle on the land, in the process becoming de-Islamicized as they were cut off from trade routes and urban centres (in Africa and China at least). (16)
Saints and Sufis as Agents of Islamization
Indigenous accounts of conversion to Islam hardly ever mention the traders so beloved of historians’ explanations. They focus instead on wandering saints who accompanied the traders (16). ‘The frontiers of Islam were extended not through the work of the learned urban ulama, but by the efforts of the rural rustic divines, many of whom were mystics and often also members of institutionalized sufi orders’ (17). They drew many non-Muslims who had not been able to get healing, etc., through their traditional religions. On Hausa Muslim says “without non-Muslims, Muslim scholars would starve”! (17)
Before the 10th century, conversion to Islam took place only in the lands ruled by Muslims. Growing trade in Central Asia initially spread Nestorianism and Manichaeism for only heterodox sects (Kharjis, Shi‘is and Isma‘ilis) propogated without state support. But once the sufi movement grew, from the 10th century, so Islam spread outside the borders of Muslim political control. The sufis also worked hard to Islamize populations newly conquered, such as in Anatolia, India and Sudan (17).
In Anatolia (conquest), Bengal (conquest) and Java (peaceful penetration) ‘Islamization was not so muh a process of individual conversion, but what might be described as a religious transmutation of the society, in which nearly the entire population became Muslim, or was assumed to be Muslim’ (18). [Which puts any given individual in a tight spot when it comes to declaring another religious faith. What is not assumed is not accepted...]
Communal and Individual Conversion
In Northwest India and East Africa conversion was more individual and piecemeal, since the local Muslims (Turks and Afghans; Swahili) retained a strong and proud ethnic-cultural difference from the non-Muslims. Conversion required the adopting of a whole new identity. Anatolia, Bengal, Java and West Africa were far more gradual and communal. (19)
The initial communal conversion of the Arabs and the Berbers required very strong measures to maintain, when the converts decided they weren’t really converts but had only offered temporary political submission! The Syrians and others in the Fertile Crescent tended to convert more slowly and individually, renouncing their former identity and kin completely upon conversion.
Reform or the Perfection of the Initial Adhesion to Islam
A.D. Nock differentiates “conversion” from “adhesion”. Islam, as a great prophetic religion requires “conversion”, but, ironically, its growth has depended on processes much closer to Nock’s “adhesion” (21). The exclusiveness was often toned down, demands on new converts were toned down, and only after Islam had gained a foothold did it ramp up the exclusivity and the prophetic critique of laxity. Groups convert to Islam over long periods, tending towards greater orthodoxy as reformist movements arise to purify the people’s faith. (21)
While accommodation to local cultures helps Islam to survive, espeically in the early centuries in a new area, reformist movements generally try to purge Islam of the syncretism, stirring up hostility from existing soft ulama (as in Senegal or Java, where many Muslims view their syncretism as a true Islam). (22) Reformist zeal is often accompanied by military will, however, and in West Africa as a result of the jihads of the 18th and 19th centuries new states were formed on the basis of their adherence to reformist Islam, challenging and replacing those Muslim kingdoms that were still engaged with the pre-Islamic heritage. Shari‘a became the law, and observance became the norm. (22)
Source Material on Conversion to Islam
From Muslim perspectives there are usually no written sources until a couple of centuries after Islam was established – historiography developed only after a class of litterati had emerged. The works are largely of legal import, which makes distinguishing fact from fiction tricky. (2) In areas where a written culture already thrived the arrival of Islam impoverished the region’s literary resources – as in Java in the 14th-16th centuries or among the Christian communities of the Middle East from the 7th century onwards. (3)
Travellers’ accounts (Muslim and Christian) provide some indications of Islam’s spread, but ew also need to look at name changes in places and populations, tax registers (3-4), and even at how the various Islamic legal schools influenced new areas of Muslim expansion (4-5). Accounts of dream-inspired conversions and oral tales of family histories may be a fruitful area of new research.
The Militant Expansion of Islam: The Role of the Nomads
Conversion as immediate reslut of conquest or political submission was limited to the Bedouins of Arabia and the Berbers of Maghrib, and a few minor cases. The political secession of the Arab tribes after the death of Muhammed was interpreted also as religious apostasy (ridda). The Berbers apostasized 12 times according to Muslim traditions, rebelling fiercely and compelling the Arab to withdraw from N. Africa several times. In other words, they were initially taken as submitting to Islam as religion as well as political force, such were the harsh measures used to ensure their complete submission [islam]. (6)
However, military conquest did not usually lead to immediate Islamization of populations. It did open the door to two factors that encouraged conversion in the longer term: colonization of lands by nomads, and the evolution of distintively Muslim government and institutions (7). The settling of Arab nomads in the Fertile Crescent took place after the establishment of Islamic government; the settling of Turkic nomads in Anatolia preceded centralised Muslim rule in that area and was therefore more violent and overall more thorough. In the Fertile Crescent conversion accelerated once non-Muslims were attracted to work in the Arab garrison towns (previously segregation and non-conversion were encouraged to preserve Arab-Muslim purity along with the tax base). The Balkans are an interesting blend – conquered by the Ottoman state with restricted nomad influx, they retained even more of their Christian character than the Middle East. (8)
Conversion under Muslim Rule
By no means enforced by the new rulers, but increasingly promoted by them. In Iran, the military elite converted immediately in order to retain their status; the bureaocracy converted after 150-200 years in order to keep their jobs. By the 11th century 80% of the population was Muslim. Many conversions were clearly motivated by economic and social pressures. ‘The process was aided further by the fact that once conversion to Islam took place, there was no backsliding.’ (9) [This is the particularly sinister move. Is it unique among religions to enshrine such a thing in law or to claim it to be an essential part of the faith?]
Initial liberal policies towards non-Mulism subjects, so as to use their skills in administration and scholarship, gave way to less and less tolerance as the proportion of Muslims increased and as the ulama gained more leverage over the governments. They exploited the Muslim masses’ resentment towards rich/influential non-Muslims and in times of crisis (war or famine) were able to capitalise on massacres and other persecuting measures to reduce the standing of the non-Muslims or to force them to convert (10).
Truly forced conversions were not as widespread as Christian sources claim, but more common than Muslims admit (11). Under the Seljuks, under the Mamluks, under the Ottomans (especially the devshirme system), under some Mughals (notably Aurangzib, 1658-1707) there were forced conversions (10). In general, the creation of the total environment that fostered the supremacy of Islam was the route that Muslim rulers generally took. (11)
The Encounter with Other Religions
‘In all cases of conversion from Christianity, Muslims had a political superiority, achieved by military conquest. The same was true in the case of Iran and parts of India. But in other aresa, in the further lands of Islam, Muslims were considered to be superior because of their literacy, magical and healing efficacy, and their wealth’ (11).
In Africa and Indonesia, Muslims infiltrated the syncretistic religions, while denouncing elements of their latitudinarianism, thereby gradually Islamizing the state and the society. (12) But in China, with neither military nor cultural superiority, the Muslims had to battle to survive – choosing to be Muslim in private but Sinicized in public.
In India there were conversions from all levels of society Islam did not particularly appeal to the dalits, instead it confirmed the power/status of the Brahmans, whether or not they converted. (13) In Iran, Richard Buillet argues, the lower classes tended to be attracted to sectarian Islam (or Zoroastrian revivals) since they had a lot to gain from overturning the status quo: the upper classes fought to preserve the orthodoxy that guaranteed their position, gaining increasing strength against the Arab dynasties and eventually able to reassert a Persian ruling dynasty. (13-14)
In West Africa being a chief and being a Muslim were not usually compatible, since conversion carried overtones of ‘clergy’ that struck at the chiefs’ self-esteem, even when large proportions of the populations had become Muslim.
Traders as Carriers of Islam
Beyond the nomads’ military reach the merchants took the message of Islam. The early garrison towns of the Middle East were a focus for trade as well as religion. ‘In Islam, migration to the town is considered meritorious because it is in the urban milieu that one can fully practice the Muslim way of life’ (15). Thus urbanization increased the rate of conversion to Islam. Interestingly, as Muslim traders moved around (with a very good reputation among other peoples), sustaining Islamic cultural links and joining up various Islamic groups, some chose to settle on the land, in the process becoming de-Islamicized as they were cut off from trade routes and urban centres (in Africa and China at least). (16)
Saints and Sufis as Agents of Islamization
Indigenous accounts of conversion to Islam hardly ever mention the traders so beloved of historians’ explanations. They focus instead on wandering saints who accompanied the traders (16). ‘The frontiers of Islam were extended not through the work of the learned urban ulama, but by the efforts of the rural rustic divines, many of whom were mystics and often also members of institutionalized sufi orders’ (17). They drew many non-Muslims who had not been able to get healing, etc., through their traditional religions. On Hausa Muslim says “without non-Muslims, Muslim scholars would starve”! (17)
Before the 10th century, conversion to Islam took place only in the lands ruled by Muslims. Growing trade in Central Asia initially spread Nestorianism and Manichaeism for only heterodox sects (Kharjis, Shi‘is and Isma‘ilis) propogated without state support. But once the sufi movement grew, from the 10th century, so Islam spread outside the borders of Muslim political control. The sufis also worked hard to Islamize populations newly conquered, such as in Anatolia, India and Sudan (17).
In Anatolia (conquest), Bengal (conquest) and Java (peaceful penetration) ‘Islamization was not so muh a process of individual conversion, but what might be described as a religious transmutation of the society, in which nearly the entire population became Muslim, or was assumed to be Muslim’ (18). [Which puts any given individual in a tight spot when it comes to declaring another religious faith. What is not assumed is not accepted...]
Communal and Individual Conversion
In Northwest India and East Africa conversion was more individual and piecemeal, since the local Muslims (Turks and Afghans; Swahili) retained a strong and proud ethnic-cultural difference from the non-Muslims. Conversion required the adopting of a whole new identity. Anatolia, Bengal, Java and West Africa were far more gradual and communal. (19)
The initial communal conversion of the Arabs and the Berbers required very strong measures to maintain, when the converts decided they weren’t really converts but had only offered temporary political submission! The Syrians and others in the Fertile Crescent tended to convert more slowly and individually, renouncing their former identity and kin completely upon conversion.
Reform or the Perfection of the Initial Adhesion to Islam
A.D. Nock differentiates “conversion” from “adhesion”. Islam, as a great prophetic religion requires “conversion”, but, ironically, its growth has depended on processes much closer to Nock’s “adhesion” (21). The exclusiveness was often toned down, demands on new converts were toned down, and only after Islam had gained a foothold did it ramp up the exclusivity and the prophetic critique of laxity. Groups convert to Islam over long periods, tending towards greater orthodoxy as reformist movements arise to purify the people’s faith. (21)
While accommodation to local cultures helps Islam to survive, espeically in the early centuries in a new area, reformist movements generally try to purge Islam of the syncretism, stirring up hostility from existing soft ulama (as in Senegal or Java, where many Muslims view their syncretism as a true Islam). (22) Reformist zeal is often accompanied by military will, however, and in West Africa as a result of the jihads of the 18th and 19th centuries new states were formed on the basis of their adherence to reformist Islam, challenging and replacing those Muslim kingdoms that were still engaged with the pre-Islamic heritage. Shari‘a became the law, and observance became the norm. (22)
Thursday, 23 July 2009
they're not all like Dawkins
As a recent book argues, God is indeed back. And one of the authors is an atheist! If I had the time, I think I'd enjoy reading this. Mark Greene seems to like it, and provides a neat summary here.
Check out the negative 'reviews' on amazon.com, though - one hasn't read it, one doesn't review the book but simply splurges briefly (mercifully) against religion, and one directs us to this further interesting site, worldvaluessurvey.org...
Thursday, 5 March 2009
Ellul fun
In the dying days of my work for the county council I had begun to read several things by Jacques Ellul – his books and some crit by other keenos. Ellul was an academic, an expert in medieval law, and a rare breed – a prominent French Protestant in a country that thinks of religion as dodgy and anything not Catholic as a weird cult! He was also something like an anarchist, in the technical sense.
Many of his works are online…
http://www.jesusradicals.com/library/ellul.php
And there is a ton of fodder here, too (the CD of back issues is very cheap)…
http://www.ellul.org/forum.htm
Many of his works are online…
http://www.jesusradicals.com/library/ellul.php
And there is a ton of fodder here, too (the CD of back issues is very cheap)…
http://www.ellul.org/forum.htm
What is going on?
In the world, and in my head...
Another old bit of paper swept away at the moving of a bookcase amid general shedding of bumph was some thoughts I had during the Cambridge Papers discussion of Colin Chapman’s response to Islamism and Islamic terrorism. Mostly fairly ignorant questions, they deserve some thought, and probably some attempts at answering by good, old-fashioned research one day!
What is their political goal, and to what extent does it involve gaining coercive powers over non-believers? [This really seems like the $64,000 question. Having read some very interesting essays on Islamic theology of law recently by meaty scholars such as Noth, Becker, Morony and Edelby I feel slightly closer to understanding this, at least in theory!]
Are there any Christians who want to capture the state? And what do they want to do with it?
How do postmillennial reconstructionists fit with Islam? What about postmillennialims in general?
Should the question of Islamism spur us to try to understand what the church’s relation to organised idolatries and false (eschatological) communities is? See Peter Leithart’s wonderfully provocative essay, Mirror of Christendom, on this.
Suffering victors… Muslims tend to measure triumph by expressions of power (as Colin Chapman pointed out, anger at the Crusades was fuelled by the fact they they lost so many battles to the barbarian Franks) but Christians don’t have to do that. Islam misses victory-in-suffering, but we have because our Lord has it. We don’t need to vindicate ourselves now, but Muslims do. [Or is that not quite accurate?]
Muslims have a good understanding of how to rule: Christians don’t. We know how to be in a minority, and how to be oppressed quietly, but they don’t!
A similar sentiment was expressed by the Syrian John bar Penkaye in the 8th century…
He promotes a particular view of the past which seems to say that Christians are better off if they are ruled by non-Christians, that Christians are ruined by peace and quiet and by the interference of Christian rulers in Church affairs. (p.16)
Michael G. Morony, ‘History and Identity in the Syrian Churches’, in J.J. van Ginkel, H.L. Murre-van den Berg & T.M. van Lint, eds, Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interaction in the Middle East Since the Rise of Islam (Leuven: Peeters, 2005) pp.1-33.
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
the 'state' majority versus the 'ethnic' minority?
It doesn't bring me any pleasure to note this ongoing tragedy in Turkey, the suppression of Kurdishness, but Aykol's blog is always interesting, and he is a wonderfully honest writer.
It's amazing how conspiracy theories, ethnic politics, innuendo and the like continue to swirl around each other.
It's amazing how conspiracy theories, ethnic politics, innuendo and the like continue to swirl around each other.
Monday, 29 September 2008
chess and politics
Nothing quite so serious as Garry Kasparov standing up to Dictator... I mean Prime Minister... I mean President...
I mean, you know, that guy who's in charge in Russia...
Putin. In this case it's the secret records of chess matches between Bush and Kerry in 2004 and now McCain and Obama in 2008.
I mean, you know, that guy who's in charge in Russia...
Putin. In this case it's the secret records of chess matches between Bush and Kerry in 2004 and now McCain and Obama in 2008.
Saturday, 7 June 2008
Zionism - the gloves are off
Now some might say that picking on a teenage girl because of her beliefs (specifically the belief that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah) is in some roundabout way, I don't know, discriminatory...
From Forward, the Jewish Daily newspaper. If it weren't so nasty, what these rabbis are saying would be funny. The remarkable inconsistency in how they define who is a Jew is bursting out from between almost every line of their texts. Buddhists with a Jewish mother - fine. Atheists with a Jewish mother - fine. Someone who dares to interpret the Torah in a different way from the rabbis, even if they have two Jewish parents and were born in Israel - sorry. You're not a 'Jew', certainly not for the purposes of participating in public life and supposedly shared cultural activities. How patriotic an Israeli citizen are you? - who cares?
How these people are not deeply ashamed of themselves is beyond me. Were the followers of Bar-Kochba considered not-Jewish because of their erroneous belief that he was the Messiah? Oh, they're all dead. How convenient. What about the followers of Sabbati Zevi? Were they 'Jews', or what?
Here are some of my embryonic thoughts on the religious definition of Jewishness.
It seems that the Zionist rabbis are very happy to play with a 'blood' definition of Jewishness, a 'cultural' definition and a 'religious' definition and are quite happy to play them off against each other when a young girl offends them by knowing a lot about the Bible and daring to appear in public.
From Forward, the Jewish Daily newspaper. If it weren't so nasty, what these rabbis are saying would be funny. The remarkable inconsistency in how they define who is a Jew is bursting out from between almost every line of their texts. Buddhists with a Jewish mother - fine. Atheists with a Jewish mother - fine. Someone who dares to interpret the Torah in a different way from the rabbis, even if they have two Jewish parents and were born in Israel - sorry. You're not a 'Jew', certainly not for the purposes of participating in public life and supposedly shared cultural activities. How patriotic an Israeli citizen are you? - who cares?
How these people are not deeply ashamed of themselves is beyond me. Were the followers of Bar-Kochba considered not-Jewish because of their erroneous belief that he was the Messiah? Oh, they're all dead. How convenient. What about the followers of Sabbati Zevi? Were they 'Jews', or what?
Here are some of my embryonic thoughts on the religious definition of Jewishness.
It seems that the Zionist rabbis are very happy to play with a 'blood' definition of Jewishness, a 'cultural' definition and a 'religious' definition and are quite happy to play them off against each other when a young girl offends them by knowing a lot about the Bible and daring to appear in public.
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
tiny Zionist interlude
Reams of fascinating stuff here at JewsagainstZionism.com. My heart goes out to these guys - their reasons for rejecting Jesus as Messiah are thin (as we can see by reading their FAQs, the section of questions from Christians that I have linked to). What complexity in the debate over cultural and religious self-definition there is! What remarkable stories are written in the newspapers, and how many shades of grey, or splintering, fragmenting shards of grey there are in Christian and Jewish life. Almost as many opinions as people!
Surely Christian Zionists need to do some more pausing for thought before the usual anti-Arab knee-jerking...
Surely Christian Zionists need to do some more pausing for thought before the usual anti-Arab knee-jerking...
Saturday, 17 May 2008
NTI political engagement (and post-)
Yesterday's seminar day in Sheffield was as superb as usual. The papers were on...
The complementary teaching of Romans 13 and Revelation 13 about the state
Dutch Calvinist approach to political engagement
Oliver O'Donovan's Desire of the Nations
Genocide in the Old Testament
We really got into some deep discussion, thinking hard about the practicalities of opposition to abortion in the UK, about the nature of a 'Christian State', about O'Donovan and how he's cleverer than all of us put together, about how the prophets were as "genocidal" as Joshua (e.g. Obadiah) but how the New Testament picks this up as being fulfilled in the discipleship of the nations (the destruction of the 'old man'?), and much more besides.
Whippets and flat caps were in abundance, but no breakfast-in-a-box this time (£2.50 from Sandwich Chez down the road from TC's house if you want to sample it) as leftover Bolognase was provided on toast. What other Bible college can do this!?
The complementary teaching of Romans 13 and Revelation 13 about the state
Dutch Calvinist approach to political engagement
Oliver O'Donovan's Desire of the Nations
Genocide in the Old Testament
We really got into some deep discussion, thinking hard about the practicalities of opposition to abortion in the UK, about the nature of a 'Christian State', about O'Donovan and how he's cleverer than all of us put together, about how the prophets were as "genocidal" as Joshua (e.g. Obadiah) but how the New Testament picks this up as being fulfilled in the discipleship of the nations (the destruction of the 'old man'?), and much more besides.
Whippets and flat caps were in abundance, but no breakfast-in-a-box this time (£2.50 from Sandwich Chez down the road from TC's house if you want to sample it) as leftover Bolognase was provided on toast. What other Bible college can do this!?
Tuesday, 6 May 2008
some anti-religious honesty
From Frank Furedi, here at spiked.com. He manages to keep his anti-religious animus off the table for most of the article and his analysis of the emptiness of the secular alternative is excellent (ultimately empty, and currently empty in the way politicians and other commentators are inhabiting and promoting it) - just a shame he doesn't follow this insight where it should lead him...
Wednesday, 9 April 2008
Constitutional fandango
Here in the UK we are endlessly deferring the question of constitutional reform, whether it's of the House of Lords or of the electoral system for the Commons. Clearly it is more important to deal with the mess of the lower house first, though of course MPs, when they bother, are more interested in tinkering with the upper house.
It's enough to make one despair.
In Zimbabwe we have just witnessed a remarkable election, the aftermath of which has seen the courts brought in simply to get the results published! The final paragraph of the Beeb's latest report makes depressing reading - the situation is darkly farcical at best.
Meanwhile in Turkey, the separation of powers has recently contributed to a constitutional crisis, with members of the judiciary voting to begin legal action against the executive (specifically, against the ruling party, recently returned at the polls with a significant majority) for violating certain constitutional principles. Zaman, a paper symathetic to the governing AK Party and its exceedingly moderate Islamism (which is really only an attempt to restrain the extremist secularism that has barricaded itself in certain corners of Turkish public life), is full of stories, which are well worth pursuing. They put the UK's constitutional and political weaknesses into perspective, they highlight the important principle that law is not ideoogically neutral (which Islam, at least, recognises, in contrast to the duplicitious thought-systems of Western liberal humanism and pluralism) and they teach the reader about a fascinating country.
It's enough to make one despair.
In Zimbabwe we have just witnessed a remarkable election, the aftermath of which has seen the courts brought in simply to get the results published! The final paragraph of the Beeb's latest report makes depressing reading - the situation is darkly farcical at best.
Meanwhile in Turkey, the separation of powers has recently contributed to a constitutional crisis, with members of the judiciary voting to begin legal action against the executive (specifically, against the ruling party, recently returned at the polls with a significant majority) for violating certain constitutional principles. Zaman, a paper symathetic to the governing AK Party and its exceedingly moderate Islamism (which is really only an attempt to restrain the extremist secularism that has barricaded itself in certain corners of Turkish public life), is full of stories, which are well worth pursuing. They put the UK's constitutional and political weaknesses into perspective, they highlight the important principle that law is not ideoogically neutral (which Islam, at least, recognises, in contrast to the duplicitious thought-systems of Western liberal humanism and pluralism) and they teach the reader about a fascinating country.
Saturday, 29 March 2008
a leftist blog
also worth a look.
Obselete it may be, it is certainly good at calling attention to folly in public life.
The atheist principles are quite well hidden, too (which is a good thing, as this post only exposes its author's ignorance regarding religions).
I have been reminded by recent travels that it is a wonderful freedom to cherish that we can examine opposing opinions (relatively) openly in this country. And how often we discover that monumental positions and generalisations hide the fact that there are surprising (and maybe shifting) areas of agreement between those whose labels make them opponents.
Obselete it may be, it is certainly good at calling attention to folly in public life.
The atheist principles are quite well hidden, too (which is a good thing, as this post only exposes its author's ignorance regarding religions).
I have been reminded by recent travels that it is a wonderful freedom to cherish that we can examine opposing opinions (relatively) openly in this country. And how often we discover that monumental positions and generalisations hide the fact that there are surprising (and maybe shifting) areas of agreement between those whose labels make them opponents.
a conservative blog
worth a look (if any blog is worth a look!)
Witty, generally calm tone, not afraid to call a spade a spade... Certainly provocative even when it seems a bit off.
Archbishop Cranmer lives again and is swashbuckling his way through modern British politico-religious life.
Witty, generally calm tone, not afraid to call a spade a spade... Certainly provocative even when it seems a bit off.
Archbishop Cranmer lives again and is swashbuckling his way through modern British politico-religious life.
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
Vantage Point
A surprisingly great film. Perhaps a little formulaic in its ending, and disappointing in not focussing on the real political issues or implications of the attempt on the life of the
Sunday, 10 February 2008
bus subsidies
bring out the best in people...
The Cambridge Crier (Feb 1, 2008,page 7) carries a story about how Cambridge residents will have to pay an extra £440,000 per year in Council tax [not actually such a huge amount per taxpayer, it has to be said!] because of a shortfall in money allocated for funding free bus travel for pensioners. This is a national scheme so it doesn't seem unreasonable for Whitehall to cough up [leave aside for a moment hesitations about state subsidies], especially from the perspective of a county with an unrepresentatively old and ageing population.
The city council has already forked out £943,000 to make the scheme work after the Government bungled the introduction of district-wide free travel which left thousands of Cambridgeshire pensioners stranded or forced to pay more to get into towns and cities.
Get past the Local Journalese and it does seem as though someone in London didn't do the math.
The Government claims it has given "sufficient fundin" for te scheme to work but that it did not "take explicit account of authorities' own views about the likely cost impact of the new concession".
Even allowing for the odd placement of the Local Journalese speech marks, that strikes me as a bit odd. Is the Government saying "There is enough money - we know that because we didn't listen to local authorities, and if local authorities don't have enough money it must be their fault"?
Hmm.
The Cambridge Crier (Feb 1, 2008,page 7) carries a story about how Cambridge residents will have to pay an extra £440,000 per year in Council tax [not actually such a huge amount per taxpayer, it has to be said!] because of a shortfall in money allocated for funding free bus travel for pensioners. This is a national scheme so it doesn't seem unreasonable for Whitehall to cough up [leave aside for a moment hesitations about state subsidies], especially from the perspective of a county with an unrepresentatively old and ageing population.
The city council has already forked out £943,000 to make the scheme work after the Government bungled the introduction of district-wide free travel which left thousands of Cambridgeshire pensioners stranded or forced to pay more to get into towns and cities.
Get past the Local Journalese and it does seem as though someone in London didn't do the math.
The Government claims it has given "sufficient fundin" for te scheme to work but that it did not "take explicit account of authorities' own views about the likely cost impact of the new concession".
Even allowing for the odd placement of the Local Journalese speech marks, that strikes me as a bit odd. Is the Government saying "There is enough money - we know that because we didn't listen to local authorities, and if local authorities don't have enough money it must be their fault"?
Hmm.
Monday, 7 January 2008
What is Turkishness?
Something so fragile that it needs protection in law, apparently. However, this looked like a promising reform. But actually the changes to Article 301 are cosmetic.
"Turkishness", "Turkish nation", "Turkish Republic", "State of the Turkish Republic"... whatever. Why it should any of these things be off limits for critical discussion? Don't tell me that all cultures are commensurate, equal, equally valid or that all cultural practices are neither here nor there.
"Turkishness", "Turkish nation", "Turkish Republic", "State of the Turkish Republic"... whatever. Why it should any of these things be off limits for critical discussion? Don't tell me that all cultures are commensurate, equal, equally valid or that all cultural practices are neither here nor there.
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