What, you thought NSI was bad enough already?

[unixronin]

Just to make sure everyone knows they suck, NSI just pulled the plug on a site a Dutch film-maker is using to promote a film critical of Islam.  Because, you know, "it might violate Network Solutions' Acceptable Use Policy'.  Because God er, Allah forbid he should say that a religion that effectively enslaves women, and seeks to enslave or kill all non-Muslims, is an enemy of freedom.

(Besides, they're afraid Islamic extremists might send them more complaint letters.)

Comments

[jmkelly.livejournal.com]

I don't know, Islamic sects are not my area of expertise. I know at least one Muslim couple around here (Berkeley) who seem to treat each other as equals. According to Karen Armstrong, many of the misogynist practices we identify as Islamic were imported from other societies, including medieval Christian societies. The positions of women in early Britain, classical Athens, and medieval Germany, for three random examples, indicate to me that while women have certainly been oppressed for millenia, it hasn't been just Muslims doing the oppressing. In modern times, comparing gender status across societies is a tricky thing -- compare the status of women in Afghanistan, Indonesia, Japan, and Mexico and tell me what you come up with.

Similarly, the Crusaders' siege and capture of Jerusalem in 1099 can hold its own among history's acts of barbarity. And let's not forget the ideologies not usually counted as religions, e.g. imperialism, communism, nazism, and capitalism, which have turned billions of people into either converts or corpses. California Indians got hit with both kinds, one after the other: first the Franciscan missionaries, then the gold miners and the government they set up.

It seems to me that when it comes to identifying those who oppress women and kill those who disagree with their point of view, anything beyond "male humans" is needlessly problematic and subject to endless qualification.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

The positions of women in early Britain, classical Athens, and medieval Germany, for three random examples, indicate to me that while women have certainly been oppressed for millenia, it hasn't been just Muslims doing the oppressing.

Very true. However, when I look around the world, I see the west trying to improve, and I see most of the fundamentalist Islamic regimes that come to power immediately setting the clock back a thousand years.

Similarly, the Crusaders' siege and capture of Jerusalem in 1099 can hold its own among history's acts of barbarity.

Indeed. I didn't specifically mention the Crusades, but I sort of, well, hinted above. ;) (The Albigensian crusade is another shining example, too; entire villages of men, women and children burned at the state for the sake of the Church's power er, I mean, their immortal souls, and if a few innocents got mixed in with them, well, better the stake than risk letting a dissident oops, I mean sinner go, right?

[dammit, premature post]

It seems to me that when it comes to identifying those who oppress women and kill those who disagree with their point of view, anything beyond "male humans" is needlessly problematic and subject to endless qualification.

Actually, I think that's at the same time an overgeneralization and overly specific. There have been cruel and bigoted female rulers and female-led regimes in history too — when women have managed to reach the peaks of power, they've frequently proven to be just as capricious and just as willing to kill anyone who crosses their path in the name of power as men. I think it's probably more accurate to say "Humans who have the mindset to seek out and acquire power over groups of their fellows are frequently ready and willing to oppress those groups to keep it."