rfmcdpei: [BRIEF NOTE] Dhimmitude

Randy McDonald (

rfmcdpei) wrote,
@ 2004-01-02 18:26:00

[BRIEF NOTE] Dhimmitude
You know, it would be really nice if certain periodicals stopped referring to Bat Ye'or as an expert on Islamic cultures when it's fairly clear that she doesn't know what she's talking about; or, rather, that she seeks to misrepresent the facts.

(As if Maghrebin and Turkish immigration to western Europe in the 1960s and 1970s was not a simple labour migration but rather part of a plot by European and Arab elites to Islamize Europe. As if, since the oil shock, there has been unrestricted immigration to western Europe. As if the experiences and effects of Muslim immigrants in western Europe in the early 21st century differ in kind, or even in number, from the experiences and effects of southern and eastern European immigrants in the neo-Europes in the early 20th century.)

UPDATE: I go into more detail, beginning here.

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	robertprior 2004-01-02 03:58 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah, well, her background makes it pretty likely that you won't be getting an unbalanced viewpoint. (Reply to this)(Thread)

rfmcdpei
2004-01-02 06:18 pm UTC (link)

If I've parsed your sentence correctly, you're arguing that she's giving a balanced viewpoint.

I disagree strongly, inasmuch as her personal experience relates directly to the mutual population exchanges which followed the establishment of Israel. This doesn't discount her take on the Arab world; I do think, however, that I am justified in being skeptical about the broader applicability of her personal experiences. One might as well conclude, based on the experiences of a Palestinian Arab expelled as a youth from Haifa, for instance, that Israel is a Crusader state and that the West is inherently anti-Muslim. Her background doesn't disqualify her, but it doesn't make her particularly reliable, either.

Her work on minorities in Islamic civilization is, insofar as it goes in a historical sense, accurate. It never was a fun thing to belong to a religious minority, whether in Christendom or in dar al-Islam. A case can be made that, although it wasn't by any means close to the standards of modern secular societies, it was nicer to be Jewish or Christian in Muslim societies than it was to be Jewish or Muslim in Christian societies. This, so far as I know, is uncontroversial.

Bat Ye'or's particular problems, though, come when she applies her theories to the present. Many of her perspectives lean towards the conspiratorial. For instance, in an article for National Review

After the Yom Kippur War and the Arab oil blackmail in 1973, the then-European Community (EC) created a structure of Cooperation and Dialogue with the Arab League. The Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD) began as a French initiative composed of representatives from the EC and Arab League countries. From the outset the EAD was considered as a vast transaction: The EC agreed to support the Arab anti-Israeli policy in exchange for wide commercial agreements. The EAD had a supplementary function: the shifting of Europe into the Arab-Islamic sphere of influence, thus breaking the traditional trans-Atlantic solidarity. The EAD operated at the highest political level, with foreign ministers on both sides, and the presidents of the EC — later the European Union (EU) — with the secretary general of the Arab League. The central body of the Dialogue, the General Commission, was responsible for planning its objectives in the political, cultural, social, economic, and technological domains; it met in private, without summary records, a common practice for European meetings.

Doing a google search, however, only gives less than a thousand cites for "Euro-Arab Dialogue." Of the first ten, three relate directly to her work. The EAD, in short, seems to be given vaster importance.

Even if you place the EAD within a context of a broader European/Arab dialogue--say, identifying it as iconic--her claims are problematic. Bat Ye'or statements about its effectiveness are wildly overblown, complete with talk about the overwhelming of indigenous European perspectives by Arab-Islamic perspectives, a mass Muslim immigration continuing to the present, and Arab economic dominance over Europe. None of these statements are substantially true. Indeed, Arab states have complained that, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, they have firstly been marginalized relative to central Europe, and secondly that they have been marginalized by the European Union's new hermetically sealed southern frontiers.

Finally, the evidence is that Bat Ye'or is making her argument to score very specific political points, including full and unequivocal suport for American and Israeli policies, and the demonstration of European opinions as being based not in fact or legitimate interpretation but rather by bigotry (and a bigotry imposed illegitimately from abroad, at that):

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	robertprior 2004-01-03 07:48 am UTC (link)
	If I've parsed your sentence correctly, you're arguing that she's giving a balanced viewpoint. No, you parsed the sentence correctly. It's just that I didn't right it correctly. I meant to write: "Well, her background makes it pretty likely that you won't be getting a balanced viewpoint." Sorry for the mistake. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rfmcdpei 2004-01-03 08:33 am UTC (link)
	Hardly a problem. Besides, I needed to expand upon my initial statemnet--my thanks for giving me the opportunity! (Reply to this)(Parent)

rfmcdpei
2004-01-02 06:18 pm UTC (link)

Over 50 years ago the Shoah was the response to Zionism. Today, diaspora Jews and Israel would do well to foresee a possible vengeful reckoning after Saddam Hussein falls and Arafat is marginalized — an Arafat, who was courted by the EU, which greatly increased its funding to the Palestinian Authority after the Oslo Accords of 1993, without adequate controls. [. . .] This complacent attitude has scandalized many European friends of Israel, who are much more numerous than the EAD censorship organs and the Euro-Arab terrorist networks would have us believe. Yet the majority of Europeans, who are not antisemitic, are totally unaware of most of the EAD's policy, since its key deliberations are unrecorded.

I can go on, but this gets the main points against Bat Ye'or, I believe.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

taem
2004-01-02 05:35 pm UTC (link)

Of course, you are talking about the freaking Jerusalem Post. Seriously, it really is one of the worst newspapers for blatent, massive bias I've ever read. It's matched only by that Palestinian newspaper, whose name I've forgotten, and the paper published out of Simon Fraser University. Whose editorials claimed, among many things, that Lord of the Rings clearly showed Tolkien's strong anti-Christian bias. Mmm, I'm sure it did, Simon Fraser. That would of course explain his devout Catholicism. O definitely.

Idiots.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	rfmcdpei 2004-01-02 05:56 pm UTC (link)
	They said Tolkein was anti-Christian? ::blinks:: (Reply to this)(Parent)

	(Anonymous) 2004-01-05 11:18 am UTC (link)
	In some ways, Bat Ye'or's rhetoric is an almost exact parallel to the Zionist-conspiracy garbage that comes out of the Middle Eastern press - if you substitute "secret Arab control of Europe" for "secret Jewish control of the United States," it's practically word for word. Jonathan Edelstein (http://headheeb.blogmosis.com) (Reply to this)(Thread)

	rfmcdpei 2004-01-05 05:04 pm UTC (link)
	Comme les extrêmes se touchent, again. It'd be funny, almost. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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