Inside the Asylum

I was greatly surprised to read this story today:

Several anti-government militants were killed as a clash erupted in Kunduz province north of Afghanistan, German forces based in the province said in a statement received on Friday. The militants attacked the troops at 06:00 p.m. local time in Chardara district Thursday and troops returned fire, killing several insurgents, said the statement released by German Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). The troops would continue the operation until the area is cleaned up from militants, the statement stressed. Militants have intensified their activities in the relatively peaceful Kunduz province since the beginning of this year and it has conducted several attacks including roadside bombings so far.

Now call me a conspiracy theory nut if you like (Ed: you're a conspiracy theory nut) but after having found this story over at the Peoples Liberation Army Daily website, I thought I'd see if I could find it in any western media. So I did a google search for "German troops kill militants in Afghanistan" and strangely enough not one result on the first page links to a major western media source describing these events. Several Chinese news websites cover it, and at first I thought that Deutsche Welle and ABC news had got it ... but what do you know, DW's story is "German soldier killed in Afghanistan" and ABC news has "Taliban gunmen kill Christian aid worker in Kabul." OK, maybe(?) there is a time-zone issue involved here, giving the Chinese a head start on posting these stories, and western media will pick it up soon ... or maybe we have here a piece of typically crap western reporting in which the narrative only allows them to report bad news.
[Update] Enough time has now passed to confirm that western media is ignoring this story. The above mentioned google search still produces no results from western media. An alternative search "german troops in afghanistan news" reveals this story once (Chinese Xinhua news again) and lots of stories such as "German troops too fat to fight Taliban" (British Daily Mail newspaper) and other such negative reporting from western media. German troops in action killing militants? No, that's not newsworthy. German troops in Afghanistan drink 1.8 million pints of beer ... now that's something the world needs to know!

Earlier I made a passing reference to my parents' experiences in Israel and their contacts with Palestinian Christians. I asked them for details, and here's what I got. They had three memorable contacts with Palestinian Christians during their few weeks in Israel.

The first (which I already mentioned) came about after chatting with the elderly Palestinian female shopkeeper in the YMCA in Jerusalem (which is incidentally in East Jerusalem, the part taken by Israel in the 6 Day War.) She invited them to her church, which was a Greek Orthodox church for Palestinians, and its service was in Arabic. The church itself was within the complex that is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and there were 100+ people at the service.

The second was a talk they attended delivered by the rector of an Anglican church in Nazareth. The minister and congregation of this church are all Palestinian. The rector made an interesting comment: "don't call it the Holy Land. Call it the land of the Holy One."

The third was when they went to a different Greek Orthodox church that under circumstances I don't exactly understand, had somehow come to accept and be accepted by the Vatican, but which continued using the Greek Orthodox liturgy. This church was also in Jerusalem. The service was in Arabic, the congregation was Palestinian, and there were 100+ people there.

OK, yes this was in Israel which isn't normally included under the heading "Muslim world" but their experiences were all with Palestinian Arabs. It demonstrates the point that trying to align Arabs with "the Muslim world" is hopelessly simplistic. You can be Arab and not Muslim. Once again I ask: what Muslim world?

Thanks to Snake (I heard you were dead) for directing me to this story, in which Spengler makes a similar point to mine about India (only he did it first, dammit.) Spengler even suggested that Obama should have chosen India as the venue for his speech instead of Egypt.

By addressing the "Islamic world" from Cairo, Obama lends credibility to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and other advocates of political Islam who demand that Muslims be addressed globally and on religious terms - in contradistinction to nationalists such as Mubarak. Rather than buttress a loyal ally, Obama's speech undermines him on his home ground. That is a lose-lose proposition. There is a way to rescue the situation, which I now propose to Obama in good faith: change the venue to New Delhi.

Having just successfully logged in for the first time, I want to thank Dr. Strangelove for offering me this space, and thanks also to Filthy Stinking #9 for facilitating the process. I will probably be an irregular contributor for the next month or two, because professors on summer vacation are usually busy with research when they aren't busy vacationing.

I only want to say for now that (with all due respect to Marvel Comics, superhero movies in general, and Patrick Stewart) my name is not a reference to the founder of the X-Men. Rather, I derived the name from the Clark Gable film Comrade X, not that I'm claiming to look like Clark Gable. (Had to add that before someone asked!) It speaks to the fact that I am a professor at an American university, and find it safer to remain somewhat closeted politically. Openly professing "the politics that dare not speak its name" can make things difficult with tenure, and frightening without it.

Suggested by Prof X., we have Hanan Ashrawi, female Palestinian legislator, a Christian. What Muslim world?
It also reminds me of a story told by my parents from their visit to Israel. The Palestinian woman who was cleaning their room invited them to go along to her church for a service, which they did. It was all in Arabic, but she explained to them what was going on.

Is India part of the Muslim world? Why do people think that the Arab world is the center of Islam?

India is approaching 1.2 billion, and some time this century it will overtake China to become the largest nation in the world. Muslims only make up 13.5% of the population, but that still gives them something like 150 million people. (The Hindu majority massively outnumber them with about 830 million.) In fact, the only "Muslim" countries with more Muslims are Indonesia (with about 200 million believers) and Pakistan (with 165m). The next closest rival is Bangladesh (135m), then Turkey (71m). It's not until we get to 6th place that we get an Arab country, Egypt, with 70m, then there's Nigeria (64), then Iran (64m), and after that they drop down into the 30 millions or lower.

When only one of the top eight Islamic countries in the world (by population) is Arab, and since South Asian and East Asian Muslims considerably outnumber all Arabs, why should the Arabs be thought of as the center of the Muslim world (if there is such a thing)? Christianity may have started in the Middle East, but we hardly think of it as the center of the Christian world. Was Egypt a good choice for Obama's speech? Why did he concentrate on Middle Eastern issues, and fail to mention Kashmir? Why isn't India considered to be a Muslim country if Obama can make the absurd claim that USA can be considered a major Muslim country with its handful of millions?

This time it's not an individual but a religion: Mandaeism.
I don't for a minute pretend that I understand the Mandaean faith, but here are a few details: they practice baptism and revere John the Baptist, but for all that, they are certainly not Christians, and do not revere Jesus nor Muhammad. They seem to believe in a sort of Manichaean god of light and another equally powerful god of dark.

Until 2003 there were well over 50,000 of them in Iraq, possibly up to 70,000. Persecution led most of them to flee, and they're now distributed widely around the world. There are still Mandaeans in Iraq, but in much smaller numbers, and also a few in Syria, Jordan and Iran, but it's very difficult to count them. What Muslim world?

Tariq Aziz, foreign minister of Iraq (1983-1991), and deputy Prime Minister (1976-2001). Second only to Saddam Hussein, he often functioned as acting leader of Iraq while Hussein was otherwise engaged. He escaped the death penalty after the defeat of Iraq, but has been sentenced to 15 years in jail.

Yes, here we have another prominent member of what Obama calls the Muslim World. Except for the fact that Tariq Aziz is a Chaldean Christian, a branch of middle eastern Christianity that acknowledges the Vatican. What Muslim world?

I've decided I'm going to post a little series about certain people from the region Obama calls "the Muslim World." Here's the first.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali was born in Egypt in 1922. His father was Prime Minister of Egypt for 2 years. Amongst other positions, Boutros Boutros-Ghali served as Egyptian foreign minister. His most famous stint on the world stage was as UN Secretary General (1992-1997), and the only reason he wasn't re-elected for a second term was because of opposition from the Clinton administration, using the US's UN veto power to block him.

Yes, he certainly is a prominent representative of (what Obama calls) the Muslim World. Except for the fact that he's a Christian member of the Egyptian Coptic community, as was his father. What Muslim World?