[lit-ideas] Re: The de-islamization of Europe

Ah Ha!

So Lawrence had absolutely no intention of making disparaging comments about 
Islamic culture at all. He was merely being informative. It's all beginning to 
make sense.

It's the Lit Ideas version of Fox News false questions. For example: 

Europe happy with Sharia Law?
Muslims scum of the earth? 

etc. 

No, Lawrence save your two fingers, don't bother replying...
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Lawrence Helm 
  To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 8:05 PM
  Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The de-islamization of Europe


  One of the frustrations of Lit-Ideas is trying to make sense of statements 
made by Leftists who reject logic, reason and . . . ahem . . . sense.  For the 
interested, one of the most puzzling aspects of what lead up to WWI was why 
Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Archduke Ferdinand and tipped over the first 
domino that led inevitably to all the horrors of WWI.  Gerolymatos provided 
some information that I hadn't heard before, and I thought I would pass it 
along to the Lit-Ideas folk.  

   

  Perhaps someone else can explain why this is interesting to Simon.  He feels 
that if I quote something from Gerolymatos that it ipso facto becomes mine and 
must be rebutted and or used to provide substance for some other form of 
attack.  I am nearing the point - here let me check . . . no, I've reached it, 
where I quit communicating with him.

   

  Lawrence

   


------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
On Behalf Of Simon Ward
  Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 11:45 AM
  To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The de-islamization of Europe

   

  Still at it then Lawrence. Let's see:

   

  1. Providing apologies for Serbian atrocities - it's understandable because 
they were given a bad time by those nasty Islamics. It was fine for them to 
beseige Sarajevo, Sebrenica was understandable, it was Mulsims they were 
killing. 

   

  2. That Romania and Bulgaria were once part of the Ottoman Empire has more 
bearing on their poverty than standing still under Soviet domination.

   

  3. Poland's OK because they're friends with the US. They're forward looking 
because they allow rendition flights. Polish economic migrants aren't working 
the fields in the UK.

   

  4. Revisionism is profitable given a conservative agenda.

   

  I don't piss on electric fences. If I'm unsure I give it them backhander 
(that way you don't grab hold).

    ----- Original Message ----- 

    From: Lawrence Helm 

    To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 

    Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 5:28 PM

    Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The de-islamization of Europe

     

    Simon, you sort of remind me of one of Will Rogers old sayings:  "There are 
three kinds of men:  The ones who learn by reading, the few who learn by 
observation, the rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out 
for themselves."  I am not just passing on the common view, the one you are 
presenting.  Gerolymatos book was intended to advance our understanding of the 
region.  He isn't just repeating the old information.  He is correcting it.  
You on the other hand are presenting the old information.  

     

    Gerolymatos quotes Samuel Butler who wrote, "It has been said that though 
God cannot alter the past, historians can."  Gerolymatos is bent upon 
correcting our understanding of the Balkans.  

     

    Nevertheless someone is mistaken, as you suggest, Simon.  Perhaps it is 
Andre Gerolymatos, the author of The Balkan Wars whom I have been quoting.  Or 
perhaps it is you, Simon.   Gerolymatos isn't an American; so I'm not going to 
stick up for him too much.  He holds the chair of Hellenic Studies at Simon 
Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.  So there you go - a Canadian.  
What can you expect?

     

    I mentioned Romania & Bulgaria as being under Islamic rule and breaking 
loose at about the same time as the Balkans; so they hardly comprise a 
significant difference although the Balkans exceed them in violence.  I'm not 
willing to accept that Poland is backward.  They are quite forward looking and 
bent upon removing all the vestiges of Soviet domination. 

     

    The Serbs borders were messed with over the years by the Ottoman Empire in 
a manner of speaking.  The truth is that the Serbs didn't have any borders but 
were submerged as serfs.  When they fought and achieved their independence that 
was a very big deal for them, but then Austria-Hungary decided to add them to 
their empire; which they determined needed a little beefing up.  They thought 
Serbia would make a nice addition.  The fatal visit of the Austrian heir 
apparent was on the anniversary of the day they lost a major battle to the 
Turks in the 14th century.  The Serbs consider that the day they lost their 
independence to the Turks, and now they are losing it once again - this time to 
The Austro-Hungarian Empire and this Austrian Prince and his bride Sophia have 
come to rub it in on the anniversary of the 1389 Battle of Kosovo.  It was 
intolerable, and Princip for one wasn't going to stand for it.

     

    Gerolymatos says that the Archduke Ferdinand probably wasn't guilty of the 
motives being ascribed to him by the Serbians.  He probably didn't read either. 
 On that visit to Sarajevo on a June day in 1914, Archduke Ferdinand pissed on 
their electric fence.  

     

    Lawrence

     


----------------------------------------------------------------------------

    From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Simon Ward
    Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 7:02 AM
    To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
    Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The de-islamization of Europe

     

    "We look at the Balkans and think they are the most backward part of 
Europe.  Why, we ask?"

     

    Why? Because you're probably mistaken. I'd say that some of the Eastern 
European nations are less well developed. Romania certainly and possibly 
Bulgaria and Poland. Obviously, there's a reason for that and if you like 
Lawrence you can ramble on about the backward nature of former communist 
states. We'll let you do that I'm sure.

     

    Simon

      ----- Original Message ----- 

      From: Lawrence Helm 

      To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 

      Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 6:20 AM

      Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The de-islamization of Europe

       

      My point had to do with current events.  We see the effects of European 
nations that have been under Islamic rule.  We look at the Balkans and think 
they are the most backward part of Europe.  Why, we ask?  They were under 
Islamic rule for 500 years and share some of the characteristics of a modern 
Islamic state, Andre Gerolymatos tells us in The Balkan Wars.  Why, that's very 
interesting, think I.  I'll pass that along to my friends on Lit-Ideas.  
Perhaps they will find that as interesting as I do. 

       

      And if, think I further, the Balkans with the benefit of being out from 
under Ottoman rule for more than 100 years have difficulty behaving like 
civilized Europeans, what chance does Turkey have (who used to be the Ottoman 
Empire)?  And what chance does Iraq have of achieving even limited Democracy?  
No doubt there are some Iraqi intellectuals who know these matters very well, 
but it seems an insurmountable task in this modern world as it seems always to 
have been to educate a society to such a degree that it will make the wisest 
decisions.  It would be wise, we think, for Iraq to become a viable democracy.  
Malaki seems to think so too, but the less insightful Arab in the street just 
wants us out of there - as does the less insightful American in some of our 
streets over here.  

       

      Lawrence

       

       

      -----Original Message-----
      From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Andreas Ramos
      Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 9:30 PM
      To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
      Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The de-islamization of Europe

       

      From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

       

      > "Over the course of the nineteenth century, one

      > Christian people after another in southeastern Europe threw off the 
shackles

      > of Ottoman rule without then being absorbed by a Great Power.

       

      Back up a few hundred years and ask the same question. After the Roman 
empire, Europe went 

      into decline from 600 AD to 1400 AD. In the same period, Arab world went 
through a long 

      period of significant achievements in the sciences, medicine, astronomy, 
and mathematics. 

      They were also important in philosophy, literature, and architecture.

       

      Lawrence probably thinks I'm being unamerican for not praising the 
medieval Saxons.

       

      My point is that civilizations rise and fall. The Arab world did very 
well for a while, and 

      the modern Western world has been doing well for a while.

       

      However, one won't know this from Lawrence's posting, in which he decries 
the Islamo 

      military occupation of Europe that was finally thrown off with the 
collapse of the Ottoman 

      empire in the early 1900s.

       

      By the way, Spain threw out the Muslims in 1492. 500 years ago. The 
Europeans waited another 

      400 years. Slackers.

       

      yrs,

      andreas

      www.andreas.com

       

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