[lit-ideas] Re: The de-islamization of Europe
- From: "Simon Ward" <sedward@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 20:45:19 -0000
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
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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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