Report on intolerance in Europe

I could only find the press release of this paper (should be somewhere in this site but I can't find it) but it's informative enough anyhow:

Andreas Zick et al. European Conditions. Findings of a study on Group-focused Enmity in Europe. Amadeu Antonio Stiftung, 2009. (PDF).

The report includes data for 8 EU states (the four largest ones plus Poland, Netherlands, Portugal and Hungary).

Immigration:

• 50.4% think that "there are too many immigrants" in their countries. Oddly enough Portugal and Hungary are among the ones showing highest apportions of this xenophobic marker, only after Britain and Italy.
• 33.5% think that "because of the number of immigrants, I sometimes feel like a stranger". Again Hungary is strangely high considering that immigrants are few there.
• 48% think that "when jobs are scarce, [locals] should have more rights to a job than an immigrant". Again Eastern European countries are oddly high in this value.
  
• 30.7% think that "immigrants enrich our culture". In this case East Europeans are the ones who seem to welcome more the cultural input by immigrants, what somehow seems to contradict other variables.

Anti-Jewish sentiment:

• 24.6 % believe that "Jews have too much influence" in their country. Again East Europe is particularly high in this feeling (in spite of very few Jews living there).
• 41.2% believe that "Jews try to take advantage of having been victims in the Nazi era".
  
• 31% believe that "Jews in general do not care about anything but their own kind".
• 38.1% disagree with the idea that "Jews enrich our culture"

Anti-Muslim sentiment:

• 44.2% believe that "there are too many Muslims" in their country. Again Hungary is oddly high, while Portugal is low for this marker.
  
• 55.4% think that "Muslims are too demanding".
  
• 54.4% think that "Islam is a religion of intolerance".

Even if these figures seem high, there has been a clear drop in Islamophobia and an increase in Judeophobia in the last year, as Gilad Atzmon reports, probably triggered by the increased awareness of the macabre injustice that Israel is committed to.

Racism:

• 13.1% think that "preferably Blacks and Whites should not get married"
• 31.3% believe that "there is a natural hierarchy between Black and White people". Italy seems the country pushing down this racist belief, otherwise quite marked.

Sexism:

• 17.6% consider that "when jobs are scarce, men should have more rights to a job than a woman"
• 60.2% think that "women should take their roles as wives and mothers more seriously". This sentence is so ambiguous that can only indicate a relative trend in sexism, which is clearly stronger in the poorer countries of East and South Europe for both questions.

Homophobia:

• 42.6% disagree with the statement "there is nothing immoral about homosexuality".
• 52.9% disagree with the statement "it is agood thing to allow marriage between two men or two women".

The Netherlands is by far the most tolerant country in this aspect, while Poland is at the opposite extreme, followed by Hungary.

Overall there is a noticeable pattern of greater intolerance, sexism and xenophobia in Eastern European countries for nearly all values.

Iran heading to become the second agnostic post-Muslim country

After Albania, of course.

That is the impression I had in the past, as it is easy for me to compare the Iran of the ayatolahs with Franco's Spain. The totalitarian military-religious regime of Franco led to a Spain that massively deserted from religion and the army too. The reputation of such institutions has not recovered in 35 years.

Discussing with Iranians online, when this was still possible (they might be dead or imprisoned now for that, I have no way of telling), I also got that impression clearly: that Islam was not anymore a real force in Iran and that the young generation was uninterested or rather disdainful of religion. Some flirted with Zoroastrism (specially exiles in the very religious context of North America) but I don't really think it is any alternative.

But what has really confirmed me in that belief is reading to Eastern Kurdish activist Rahim Kaderi today at Gara with occasion of his visit to our little and similarly oppressed country:

... consider please that 70% of Iranians are now younger than 35 years. We knew from long ago that this was a time bomb for the regime but it is now when it is exploding. Imams have been complaining from some time now that the young ones do not go to the mosques. From being the "generation of the Revolution" that the theocracy hoped for, they have become in something radically opposed to the official religious and militaristic ideology. I understand that this is one of the main reasons behind the revolts and not the so much denounced "Western interference", which Teheran clings to stubbornly.

I don't think that it is an spontaneous revolt either because I see it as a very well organized movement, though I could not say who is behind. The West is only concerned about the Persian nuclear race, not human rights in Iran.

He is also hopeful that the political way will produce changes in Turkey. Not because it is what Turkey wishes for but because it will be reality which imposes itself: the reality of the existence of the Kurdish People.

Women rights law vetoed in Mali

Yet another discouraging setback by the fanatic ultraconservatives of this our planet: the president of Mali, Amadou Toumani Touré, has vetoed a law that recognizes more or less equal rights to men and women. Muslim groups had protested it.

The law acknowledged rights that are considered basic and normal almost anywhere that is not an ultra-machoist remain from the Middle Ages: it acknowledges that wifes are not slaves of their husbands but that marriage implies mutual loyalty and protection, it betters women's inheritance rights and marriage is not allowed in most circumstances below the age of 18.

Ironically one of the concepts that Muslims have protested most against is the recognition of marriage as a secular institution. I say ironically because, unlike in Catholicism and other Christian sects, marriage in Islam has always been a secular institution.

Apparently, President Touré was a strong backer of the new law, but, as it's happening with the estabilishment of public healthcare in the USA, a lot of misinformation and outright lies have been circulating confusing the matter, causing him to send the law back to parliament. Feminist groups, that had been campaigning for such a reform for a decade or more, are "discouraged" indeed.

Source: BBC.
.

The Muslim World in the Global Crisis

There's a pretty interesting article by Spengler at Asia Times Online on the very apparent lack of viability of Muslim states within the context of the Global Economic (not just "financial", whatever some say) Crisis (not just "recession" certainly).

While I don't know how accurate this guy may be in his catastrophic forecasts, his reasoning makes some sense certainly. He argues that countries like Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia and even Saudi Arabia area already economically unviable and in the brink of disaster. The case of Pakistan, with its huge mostly illiterate population and nuclear weapons, is certainly the most worrying maybe but the case is that all these countries have a very bad prognosis, with bankrupt or nearly bankrupt governments totally dependant on subsidies to the vast poor masses for mere survival, subsidies that they cannot afford anymore as The Crisis grips the global economy and makes everybody to keep a close watch of their ficnances, including international lenders and donors.

Spengler argues that many more "Somalias" are to be expected soon in the future all through the Muslim World and that Pakistan is very likely to be one of them. This concern is also reflected in other articles in the same magazine, for example, Seeram Chaulia (I'd think he's an Indian, right?) argues that Pakistan is the only state in the world that negotiates with a un on its own head and he calls for an international mandate (something that sounds like an impossible endeavour, specially considering the situation in nearby Afghanistan and Iraq, much less populated and with no nuclear arsenal, as well as the failure of Ethiopian "mandate" in Somalia - not to mention the most dubious ethics of such "international police" projects).

Certainly I don't think that such colonialist intrvetions are possible anymore, certainly not at such huge scale as would be needed in Pakistan and certainly not in a time when the masses are largely politicied and are the enemy any potential invader must fear the most. Guerrilla warfare has long demonstrated that military intervention is often just not viable and, when it is, it becomes incredibly costly. The successes of the tiny ill-equipped colonial expeditions of Cortes, Pizarro, Judar Pasha or, more modernly, the less known conquerors of India and Africa... are not anymore replicable. This kind of military invasions are something of the past and are generally bound to fail nowadays. Even Napoleon had to admit that his worst error was invading Spain, where he just got a costly and impossible to win guerrilla warfare (that's the origin of the word guerilla, by the way, Spanish term meaning "small war"). Today all or nearly all the world, and very specially the strongly ideologized Muslim countries, has extremely high possibilities of becoming another "Spain" (or Vietnam or Afghanistan...) for those who dare to intervene in them. Not any realistic solution at all.

Back to Spengler's article, he also claims to have reliable sources that suggest that the recent attack to Mumbai's center was not any suicidal action but actually a larger operation by at least 30 people with relatively high expectations of survial. Naturally he mentions that such kind of military activity are much more likely to draw better combatants than the merely desperate (and probably scarce) suicidal volunteers. He claims that the Indian authorities are hiding information on the assault precisely because some 20 attackers apparently managed to escape the police and military siege, a shame they just cannot assume publically.

He also ponders my favorite question in such situations "cui bono?" (I thought it was spelled "qui bono" but seems I was wrong): to whom does this benefit? But provides no clear answer.

Reviewing the Hadith in Ankara

Ref.: BBC: " Turkey in radical revision of Islamic texts".

This is pretty interesting. I am not fan of Islam, as I am not of other religions, specially "revealed" ones, but what is clear is that it is a large religion with many millions of adepts and a large influence in the World. It is also very controversial, not just because of political reasons but specially because of socio-cultural matters, specially those affecting women, that are too often in brutal contradiction with Human Rights and modern feminist thought. You can tink whatever of the term "feminism" but the case is that 100 years ago in most of Europe and America, women could not vote, handle their finances without their husband's approval and were the main suspect in case of rape. Without feminism our reality would not be much different from that of Saudi Arabia, really.

Well, the case is that now Turkish theologists are adressing are a very hot issue in Islam: the Hadith. The Hadith (also hadiths, in plural) are the traditions regarding Muhammad's life and preching that are outside the Quran. Much of it was compiled in diferent times and the shadow of possible falsehood has always fallen upon it, with different interpretations depending on schools an so on. Yet it's most influential in Islamic doctrine as well as in Islamic law (sharia).

Along history, Islam (not just the religion but the culture as well) has evolved from what some understand as a very progressive thought for its time (the early Middle Ages, the Dark Ages of European historiography, when feudalism, religious fanatics and warlords ruled everywhere, at least in Western Eurasia) towards a much more conservative ideology, often through borrowings from other cultures, specially after the sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols. For instance, most typical Muslim clothes for women are originally Byzantine. To worsen things Sunni tradition states that more recent texts overrid old ones - and more recent texts are usually more conservative in the Hadith.

Now these theologians of Turkey are adressing this hot matter in Ankara. They are trying to expurge the false from the true hadiths, those that are likely original relatios of Muhammad's life and teachings and those that are false additions. But they are also re-reading them in a more comprehensive light. This trhoughout revision has never been done in Islamic thought but is beleieved by many very necesary to expurge Islam of beliefs that are not authentic.

What will remain after this critical review? For sure the Quran will be untouched but the Hadith will be changed substantially. I understand it as a restoration of an old fresco that removes the dirt accumulated and shows again the original bright colors but I imagine that it will provoke many resistences in the most conservative and reactionary sectors of Islam.

It's interesting in any case.