ETERAZ

Well, Zion I was going to say

 I have a lot of respect and admiration for any woman on this web site that will debate the men. You have to be tough to have a discourse with the men when it comes to religion and politics

Not a lot of women will debate the men on the religion and politics blogs

solh va doosti/paz a vosotros/paix et amitié

ناتاليا

Q uibbles

Q:
'It's exactly the same story in the East. One side has to power to make 5 Billion people worship a brand liek Nike or Coca Cola. The other side is only reacting in a miniscule way, crowding around western rejectionsim as an instinctual cultural preservation attempt, a very human response that naturally elevates non-western cultural traditions as a way of preserving identity. This, in a nutshell is what's behind the rise of Islam in the post-colonial era.'

So how do they make people worship Coca Cola?
Advertising evil power of course. You see that is what is so bad with the free market. It lets people choose and that is of course very bad. For one thing, it gives people the chance to advertise and compete and each person decides. You see?
Now in response to this you can be like the dumb Japanese who learn to improve themselves by the chance that free markets give them, and go from the time Japs were ridiculed in all media forms back in the 40s to now where their cultural heritage and mythology has formed a major portion of world market, like Anime movies and Gmes. The same goes for Hong Kong, Korea, post WWII Germany, India and Bollywood now China is coming around. That is why their youth noe suffer such horrible lives.
On the other hand, normal people who have high IQ , like Islamist (improving on their Leftist path finders) instead do the natural thing and react in minuscule ways, like bumping air planes full of people to buildings full of people, attacking embassies, taking people hostage and cutting their necks in front of camera or blowing themselves up in streets and buses. That's because they are so normal and smart, you see. That is why their youth live in such paradises.
Makes a lot of sense.
(Funny how much it sounds like the official "world view" (or better yet "excuses" ) of ideologues of IRI and other Islaimist outlets, isn't it?)

Also,

A dramatic increase in Islamic thought and understanding that Zion encourages everytime she says that Islam is an inferior religion (Which she has said several times)...everyone please leave Zion alone: Look Western stuff is better, superior...blah blah blah

I have expressed grave reservations about Islam, but that has nothing to do with eastern or western conflicts. For instance I have a deep respect for and interest in Zoroastrianism, which still has so much to teach us all.
You could do better than that Q.

-----
Natalia,
I wouldn't take Q's usual endless outpour of baseless ranting seriously if I were you. He has tried hard to "disclose" me. I have deliberately left the likes of him in darkness about my background, nationality and yes, gender.
Let Q be. He is always such an amusing source of fun, if you know how to deal with him.

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!

Zion is a woman?! All this time, I thought Zion was a guy.

Solh va Doosti (paz a vosotros)

paix et amitié

Nadia

To 77, why do you have to be so hostile?

I read your 3 sentences and agreed with you for the most part. Why the hostility? On the other hand did you understand my point?

You say technology is the only difference, but don't you see that the mass media technology is essential to it? It's a key part, of being a totalizing condition. Can you really even have "occidentalism" unless you have this essential element? Can you even call it a "counter" "-ism" if it's not dissemeniated to the masses with ruthless efficiency?

to Q

Blah blah blah. Please read my post properly instead of the usual knee jerk reaction reading a whole lot of drivel into my post.

orientalism versus occidentalism

Dear anonymous77, it is far too easy to simply reverse the argument and make it all equal, but that is moral relativism.

No doubt, you are correct that there is such thing as 'occidentalism' which is just as dehumanizing and reductionistic. However, in it's very essence, Said's orientalism critique is very conscious of power structures and media dissemination. Orientalism is riding the most powerful and effective dissemination medium, that is western cultural output, any 'Occidentalism' doesn't have such an advantage and if you really think about, most of the harmful effects are minuscule unless it's totalizing.

It's not "occidentalism" that bombards the world's TVs, radios, cinema, internet and print media, it's Orientalism. Assuming a reduced model of two dimensions, there is absolutely no way that people in Iran, for example, aren't aware of it's semiotic influence even in their own society. But how many people in the west are exposed to Iranian media? Iranian stereotypes or Iranian cultural output?

Saying that Orientalism and Occidentalism are equal is like saying anti-white sentiments in the Native American community is "harmful". Sure, understanding of the "white man" and European colonizers was inaccurate and lead to demonizations, but is there any contest between what the "harm" that this caused versus the genocidal eradication of the native American culture that American manifest destiny and white supremacy caused? It's not even a contest.

It's exactly the same story in the East. One side has to power to make 5 Billion people worship a brand liek Nike or Coca Cola. The other side is only reacting in a miniscule way, crowding around western rejectionsim as an instinctual cultural preservation attempt, a very human response that naturally elevates non-western cultural traditions as a way of preserving identity. This, in a nutshell is what's behind the rise of Islam in the post-colonial era. A dramatic increase in Islamic thought and understanding that Zion encourages everytime she says that Islam is an inferior religion (Which she has said several times).

Thank You sadegh for these wonderful videos.

everyone please leave Zion alone: Look Western stuff is better, superior and western people understand and can solve problems on behalf of Easterners even better than they themselves can. People like Zion, know what's best for Iran, better than most Iranians. Her ideas for what Iranians should do with Iran is just superior to what Iranians themselves can come up with. So obviously, when someone comes along and questions these assumptions, and dares to say something simple like: maybe we should treat them as equals in thoughts, rights, and determination, she calls that person a terrorist enabler. Whoever doesn't embrace western culture is a dangerous terrorist, a "threat" that must be killed/bombed/fired/driven out of town.

Is she saying there is no Western terrorism? Of course not! She's just saying Western terrorism is more excusable! It's much more narrowly defined, it's always done by people with good intentions and ultimately, it's not even a problem because western culture can control it. Easter terrorists, just like everything else eastern, is more evil. It's that simple.

What's so hard to understand about this position?

Programmer Craig: "Colonists were reacting to Indian aggression"

LOL!

I've been a fan of Said for a long time, but

there is also a phenomanon called "Occidentalism", which has very similar human psychological roots.
It's the thought-process of single-strand-identity for quick and easy classification.
The difference lies in technological advantages, including weapons, after the Age of Enlightenment in the Occident.

Debate

I see that the discourse continues. With my post it brings the tally of comments to 106.

I hope that at least some common ground was found by some on the thread. Maybe a little better understanding of each others perspectives on the topic. Most definitely a mutual respect for each others views. :o)

Best to all,

Solh va Doosti (paz a vosotros)

Natalia Nadia Alvarado-Álvarez

Mr. Craige

The Indians of course were not a monolithic group and some tribes became players in the French-British power struggle in North America. I'm not going into atrocities committed against the American Indians; it's well documented and rightfully labeled as genocide. One small example of it is the destruction of Buffalo, which was a stated policy of the US government because it was perceived as the life line of the native Americans (see an article on this in the July edition of Harper’s magazine). The murder raids I refer to were the ones committed by the Comanche and the Apaches in the West against the vanguards of White settlers. This is not to romanticize the native Americans or even take sides but simply state the facts of history. How is it related to the topic of this post? My point was that all-out war is not something practiced by the Palestinians alone. Again not justifying it or take sides. I think we need to respect certain principles during wars, revolutions or insurgencies. The French-Algerian war was another example of a conflict that became very ugly, both sides committed atrocities even though both sides were not equally morally culpable. Let’s face it, the Algerians did not occupy French soil and colonize it; it was the other way around. The question for me has always been at the end was it worth to gain independence by any means? Did the process somehow not alter the soul of the new nation? Could the struggle be handled differently? Had the French done what the British finally did in India with less vitriol and bloodshed perhaps (the Brits did their own atrocities in India too) the result would have been different. Again, let’s be clear: the French were brutal occupiers and especially towards the end became extremely brutal. Very complicated situation that requires its own space. The Algerian struggle influenced struggle in the rest of the Third world and worth revisiting. By the way, going back to the original part of this: the British also imported the Irish and the Scottish (poor lower class ones) to fight against American gentry especially in the South in exchange for granting them land during the American revolution, so the dirty tactics were used by the Brits too.

Welcome Back

Mehdi-Palang,
Israel is a democratic country. When people disagree they form parties and speak out and try to win in the next elections. Problems don't accumulate for people to be forced to nag about it in a website.

I have already linked to well written and well researched artciles on the subject. Can't you read either?
If you do, here,
I link to it one more time:
//www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.p...
//www.writersreps.com/feature.cfm?FeatureID=2...
//cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/glosses/w...

to Anonymous-Today

I like your call for Zion to write a coherent article which puts Said's work into question.  If he really wants to "inform" us on the unspeakable harm that Said's work has done to the "free world" by "poisoning" the well of reason, with regards to the Palestinian-Isreali conflict, then he will write a well resourced article.

 BTW I like your "mount Zion" piece because I too have found Zion to be an immobilily self-righteous person.  On this website, one can find Iranians of all walks bending over backwards to verbially bash Iran's government and cultural practices, however I have yet to find an analogous Isreali website which offers the same style of self-criticism.  (If you know of one Zion, please share... because I would love to fill the role which you play here on our site there on the Israeli site.)

Anonymous-today

Why is it that you keep ignoring what I have said over and over again? My main argument has been that Said's discourse has had its most harmful effect on the academic atmosphere of the West in its relation to freedom seeking struggles that are engaged in the non Western lands were the oppression is waged by their own cultures. Instead it has contributed to bring about a culture of histerical opposition towrads anything that can be connected to the West in non-Western parts of the world under the false premise that "Orientalism", interpreted as a colonialist tool, is the dominant and in many cases the only mode of relation existing between East and West which has to be constantly condemned. How many more times must I repeat this?

Among other things it has contributed to the meaningless anti-Israel attitudes in ME studies and religous studies, humanities and other factions of the academia, by automatically projecting any support of Israel's struggle for existing as a free and democratic state, and anything related to Israel and her formation, into that of the colonialist and "orientalist" practice.

There is nothing strange or artificial in stating this, since he himself had repeatedly admitted that his entire thesis has been largly motivated by his "palestinian" identity and personal "experience".

It is funny to read you talking about name calling and foam at mouth behavior. Just read your comments, just read this last one, once again to see which one of us engage almost entirely in personal attacks without providing any arguments.
I also truly wonder why people like you become so enraged if and when I refer to someone else, in this Said, in not so friendly terms. Why do you behave as if I have insulted your honor?

And dude, read what I write and then get on on your vitriol. It was not Ben-Gurions' arms, he was the prime minister and ordered the ship carrying them to be bombed. Irgun was an organization and had means of supporting itself. The point is that all that became the government of Israel has the official policy of opposing Irgun and its tactics. That includes all major Zionist intellectuals, poets, scientists and sympathizers around the world.

And just keep excusing murder and fascism. Never give that up, OK? God forbid.

Anonymous-today

That was a good comment. But, I have to disagree with you. I'm not going to get into the IRA or the PLO, but I'll talk about ancient history instead:

The American Indians also conducted murder raids against White
settlers. They wanted to drive them off their land at any cost.

The American Indians engaged in large scale "murder raids" 200 years before settlers started moving westward, and it had nothing to do with land. It had more to do with teh government of France paying them to murder English colonists. (Check French and Indian War)

//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War

Since tomorrow is the 4th of July, I'll copy paset an exceprt from teh US Declaration of Independence here (under "grivances"):

//www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/revolutio...

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured
to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian
Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction
of all ages, sexes and conditions.

Thomas Jefferson wrote that in 1776, when the colonies consisted of a tiny strip of land along the East coast of present day America.

There were atrocities aplenty on both sides, but it's wildly inaccurate to suggest the American Indians were only "reacting" - they were responsible for unprovoked aggression as often as not. In fact, I could make a better argument that for the first 200 years it was the colonists who were reacting to Indian aggression.

Zion's mental masturbation

Ok, I'm breaking my own word. Zion, you need to sit on a block of ice as we used to say in my old Tehran neighbourhood. Your "are you talkin' to me?" routine is a riot. You have obviously made this speech once too often. Apparently asking for evidence and rational conversation rather than the usual slandering and presumptions and mud slinging is too much. You did not address any of my points but isolated one statement. Good for those who condemned Jewish terrorism in Palestine. No need to say at least some of those who condemned those acts were doing so because Jewish terrorists were targeting British interests and were probably politically on the right. But there were also those who defended those acts, after all where did the money to buy Ben-Gurion’s arms come from? My own position is that indiscriminate targeting of the civilians on both sides (including the so-called “collateral damage”, house bulldozing and deliberate collective punishment by the IDF) is ugly and dehumanizes both sides but I'm neither an Arab nor a Jew and I don't know how I would react if my family were dispossessed of their land and ruled over by a powerful and often brutal army. The American Indians also conducted murder raids against White settlers. They wanted to drive them off their land at any cost. The Whites of course were brutal and were hell bent to subdue the Indians at any cost. You can find examples of an all out resistance in many other societies where the vanquished have initiated an all out war against their masters, e.g. the Irish conflict. As to your hysterical attack on post-colonialist studies and its relation to Said’s work, well that’s an ideological impasse that we can’t overcome. I’m not a "post-colonialist studies" groupie but there are valuable lessons to be learned from legacy of post-colonialism just as there are valuable lessons from Said’s work on Orientalism. Are they the sacred infallible texts? No. Now drawing a line from Orientalism to the Jews being victimized takes quite an imagination. Here is the challenge if you have the chutzpah: Write a coherent article free of name calling and foam-at-the-mouth sloganeering and show us the connection you have implied. And this time I’m really done here.

Natalia

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't being sarcatsic when I said those were great quotes! I may have misunderstood your purpose in publishing them here, and if so I apologize.

programmer craig

 programmer craig: It's not a good sign of things to come when the "person" you are trying to come to terms with is bragging and speaking proudly of the harms he has done you, is it?

Never in any of the comments/articles/blogs that I have written have I said or expected Iranians or any other ethnic group for that matter to make a truce with people that take joy and pride in harming others, so much so  that they brag about it. It is illogical.

In the following quote, it says "when at all possible". It is not possible to make peace with a braggart and mad person.

"True repentance means making amends with the person when at all possible."

                                  -Lawana Blackwell

All that I have asked is to keep objectivity about things. It is the only way to move forward as a people and a Nation.

PS Natalia

Those are great quotes. I've been saying for a long time that the only way to avert a war between the US and Iran is for somebody to start trying to make amends for past transgressions. Seeing as how the folks that seized the US embassy in 1979 are treated as revolutionary icons in the IRI, it seems like they, at least, have not even reached the "repentance" stage. It's not a good sign of things to come when the "person" you are trying to come to terms with is bragging and speaking proudly of the harms he has done you, is it?

Or did you have something else in mind when you put up those quotes? Some generic non-supportive reason? Personally, I think spouting platitudes is a waste of effort when there is no intent to put ideas into play.

programmer craig

I added the following as a sarcastic way of expressing how so many on this web site are ready to label people just about anything. Instead of focusing on what really matters.

Disclaimer: The author of this comment does not at this time support any specific poltical group or ideology.

I am happy to read that my sarcasm was not lost on you.

Solh va Doosti

Natalia

Natalia

Disclaimer: The author of this comment does not at this time support any specific poltical group or ideology.

You sure about that, Natalia? Seems to me you do an awful lot of "opposing" for somebody who doens't support anything in particular...

.............

                          -Henry Ward Beecher

                                  -Lawana Blackwell

                                             -M. R. Vincent

Oh dreaded words of blasphemy

Did I blaspheme against the post-colonial post-structuralist holy truths again?
Did I insult the sanctity of the sacred new prophet?

Sorry for having an opinion and expressing it.

What should I do now to repent? Repeat your decrees about "occupation", Western colonialism", "racism"...?

Nothing to add after our lies and usual excuses are debunked, do we now?
This is getting really boring.

hahahahaha

"mount Zion"

I almost fell out of my chair.

Disclaimer: The author of this comment does not at this time support any specific poltical group or ideology.

I think you can't read

I made the mistake of thinking I could reason with you. "Said contaminated the academia of the free world." No evidence, throwing around cliches like free world, blah, blah, blah. just decrees from mount Zion. Forget it, dude. There is no use arguing with your likes.

Lies and Twists

Didn’t Zionists’ supporters in Europe and America call those acts legitimate acts of resistance?

No they didn't. Terrorist attacks and methiods of Irgun were always condemned. Ben-Gurion even had a ship carrying missiles for Irgun bombed to prevent it from delivering them because of Irgun's tactics. It is also true that most Irgun targets were British military officials, even in teh King David Hotel bombing, it was chosen because it was the British military base. nevretheless they were always condemned for their methods and their attacks. Remember the idiot who blew an Arab bus a few years ago? Everyone in Israel condemned him as a terrorist. The army wouldn't even give him a burial. No one tried to excuse his actions by calling it a reaction to constant Arab terrorrism and blowing up buses. NO ONE.
That is the difference. This is what Said and his pals were never able to do. They disagreed with the methods, but had to always give excuses for it. He did condemn arab regimes, partly also because he saw them as western stooges. What he wanted was a smart arab system that could conduct the fight smartly. That was his main disagreement with all the sh*t going on in Arab politics. (He did condemn Arab regimes, but it is interestingthat he didn't talk about Iran that much. Not his concern, really. As I said, after all he couldn't blame the West and Orientalists for what the Islamists in Iran were doing. He didn't talk much about Chinese situation, Tibet or Soviet Union, especially the Asiatic "oriental" parts either. What a surprise! As Sadegh admitted, none of these interested him that much.)

None of this however had much to do with what I said. Can't you people read? I didn't say the Islamists used Saids ideas, though they did. My argument is that Said has contaminated the free world academia , got it or do you want me to repeat this again? the free world, by setting up an ideological twisted discourse which has resulted in diminishing the will and influence of the free world to stand by the oppressed among Jews, arabs or Iranians who struggle under Islamofascism since it is not a direct Western issue, a different culture and such attempts are interpreted as "orientalism". It is only the real or imaginary crimes by the West or Israel that should be and actually are condemned and spoken of and most importantly acted upon. This is no co-incidence. This is the way this discourse has been set up.
Capisci?

(and don't act as if Arabs back in 1940s were all innocent who knew nothing of terrorism and bloodshed. There were pogroms against Jews and massacres of Jews in Jerusalem and elsewhere in that area back in the early thirties and even before that. Also, if you haven't heard of the mufti of Jerusalem and his gangs, and his close alliance with the Nazis, go read about it. I have also posted videos describing the affair.
Stop the excuses and the lies and twists. It only shows how morally bankrupt you are.)

Zion

Said did not advocate ethnic cleansing as some intellectuals in other countries have done, say Kardic in Bosnia. He did not advocate a 'pure' concept of Arab-ness or even Palestinian-ness. He was not an advocate of power; as a matter of fact he consistently criticized Arab dictatorships and challenged Arab intelligencia. Therefore your broad unsupported generalizations are slanderous. True, some Islamists have used his arguments against Western coverage of Islam and people of the Middle East to advocate nativist and reactionary politics but to attack Said for this is like blaming a doctor whose honest diagnosis sent a patient into wild hysteria. I wish you write an article (perhaps you can co-authored it with your friend Fred who made another broadside about Said and Ale Ahmad) and show us exactly what in Said’s arguments has advocated Islamic fundamentalism or helped it along the way. As to your point about Said’s saying that act of terrorism may be understandable: your moral absolutism is a tad too rich, Zion. Haven’t you heard of Irgun or the Stern Gang? Don’t you know that Jewish terrorists fighting against the British and against the Arabs practically invented modern day terrorism in the Middle East? Don’t you know that it was the Jews who inspired by European anarchists introduced car bombing in the middle east (soon to be picked up by the Arabs)? Didn’t people die when Jewish terrorists bomb the King David Hotel? Didn’t Zionists’ supporters in Europe and America call those acts legitimate acts of resistance? I guess it all depends what side of the fence one is located, isn’t it? Shouldn’t dispossession and brutal occupation engender some of the same sentiments on the other side? I suggest you read Shlomo Ben Ami’s book Scars of War, Wounds of Peace or watch his debate with Ken Finkelstein on YouTube. Mr. Ben Ami pretty much confirms that Jews engaged in ethnic cleansing and that the Arabs were vanquished long before the so-called war of independence in 48. Of course he shrugs it off as C'est la guerre but is honest enough, maybe because he is now in the academia, to admit the foundation of state of Israel was on dispossession of its native Arab population

Anonymous-Today

Every environment has its own features and its soft spots. The academic milieu of the West is not prone to such stuff anymore.
Anyways, there are different ways to harm, and Said's way is much worse than any of this. He disagreed with the methods and perhaps even ideologies of such fascists, but he always, always, excused it away with the usual mumbo about the inevitable response of the victims. By contributing to the formation of an entire discourse whose practical effect has been to automatically excuse, if not justify, such vile forms of fascism. How would have the constant excusing of Nazis for past injustices done to Germanic people sounded?

This is for each person to decide, but for me the culpability of those 'intellectuals' who deliberately set up a discourse which has poisoned the intellectual atmosphere of the free world to such an extent that has managed to drain the resolve of free men and women and to hinder their resolve to stand against injustice no matter where it is inflicted and to make them embarrassed to voice their rage against oppression in another culture by labeling them as 'racist' or 'orientalist', is much worse. That is why the free world today is consciously much more indifferent to murder of innocent Israelis, the injustice against innocent arabs oppressed by their own culture, or the torture, murder and violent oppression of Iranian freedom loving women and men, and is lulled to instead focus on ideologically charged rants and vagaries of Western eternal culpability and inherent inhumanity and similar nonsense. Issues that have been forged in a big part by the specifically created discourse of such academicians.
I see these kind of humanist and neat figureheads ultimately more to blame than those psychopaths who commit the actual physical torture and murders with much more immunity now by only adopting a few nice sounding anti-West slogans, thanks to such the atmosphere created by the former group.

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

In any case, the link I put here is to show what a real agenda to demonize a people looks like, To give you a base of comparison. . The real one.

Interesting.........

I don't recall writing your name on the title of my comment.

Is it a guilty conscious talking?

                                         -Euripides

Natalia

I am addressing the Islamist/leftist apologists here, not ordinary Iranians.

How about you just mind your business for a change, and stop making a total fool of yourself?

To all the haters

Listen to the video clips. Said's message is actually common sense. His vision is far from the vulgar version that some posters here have presented. His study of orientalism is comprehensive and documented. He never meant it as a blunt object either but as a work in progress. And listen to the last part of the clip 4. Here is a man who advocates co-existence, tolerance and understanding between Jews and Arabs, Moslems and Christians. It's by attacking people like Said, by boxing out moderates and seculars by extremist Zionists and consecutive Israeli governments who negotiated with the Palestinians in bad faith that the HAMAS and other Islamists gained edge. Where was the last time we heard of Hanan Ashrawi and people like her? They have been marginalized to a large part because they couldn't get results from negotiating with Israel.

Also, Said was hated by the right wing Zionists because he was an articulate advocate of Palestinian cause and not some swarthy looking inarticulate terrorist type. Ironically, he was hated so much because he didn't, as he would say, fit the orientalist image of what a Palestinian advocate should be.

Your regime?

One day people will learn to  differentiate between a government and the people ruled by that government.

Solh va Doosti

Natalia

Disclaimer: The author of this comment does not at this time support any specific poltical group or ideology.