Sharia, we don't like it; Rock the kasbah! Rock the kasbah!

[jumpy]

sorry, a bit of a bad rip off on the lyrics to an 80's pop song...


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4967108.stm


In an old testament eye for an eye sort of way I can understand this... but it's just another level illustrating the brutality and barberism of certain beliefs- as far as I can see they've swapped the terror of feuding warlords for something as equally gross: Sharia Law. It's horses for courses I know; Somalia ain't the UK, but tbh if that's the case, looong may it remain so. This also brings into question (for me at any rate) the attitude of those who live under such rule when they move to the UK, for whatever reason; such a fundamental divide between law has to be an issue for some when trying to reconcile integration into another culture with such differing and open western values.

[Skybird]

Isn't that the same continent where they will have elections soon, in Kongo? Sending civilized German soldiers being raised in a humanistic tradition into a place where child soldiers have fought wars, 14 year old hormon-driven teenagers raped and mutilated women, shot with automatic weapons on adults? i wonder if our soldiers are prepared to shoot on children, if they eventually come under fire.


Another one of these dilletantic attempts of Western politicians to proove how wonderful they are. Reminds me somehow of the failure at Srebrenica. Behind the stage, Potsdam is said to be extremely unhappy with this Kongo mission, to put it mildly.

[DeepSix]

Originally Posted by jumpy

...as far as I can see they've swapped the terror of feuding warlords for something as equally gross: Sharia Law....

Yeah, seems like more and more crowds are "catching a whiff of that crazy Kasbah sound...." Very disturbing, IMO.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Isn't that the same continent where they will have elections soon, in Kongo? Sending civilized German soldiers being raised in a humanistic tradition into a place where child soldiers have fought wars...

You mean like this?:



Or (to be fair)

[Skybird]

I thought more of things like this:

[Type XXIII]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Isn't that the same continent where they will have elections soon, in Kongo? Sending civilized German soldiers being raised in a humanistic tradition into a place where child soldiers have fought wars, 14 year old hormon-driven teenagers raped and mutilated women, shot with automatic weapons on adults? i wonder if our soldiers are prepared to shoot on children, if they eventually come under fire.


Another one of these dilletantic attempts of Western politicians to proove how wonderful they are. Reminds me somehow of the failure at Srebrenica. Behind the stage, Potsdam is said to be extremely unhappy with this Kongo mission, to put it mildly.

"Isn't that the same continent..."?

Aren't you from that continent with the dictator Lukashenko? Or the Sicilian mafias?

What does the election in Congo have to do with the situation in Somalia, other than that both countries are parts of Subsaharan Africa and tormented by civil war?

[August]

Originally Posted by Type XXIII

What does the election in Congo have to do with the situation in Somalia, other than that both countries are parts of Subsaharan Africa and tormented by civil war?

I think you answered your own question there sport...

[Type XXIII]

Yes, because they're all the same bunch down there, right? No regional or cultural differences in a region that consists of 40-some national states, covers an area comparable to that of Canada and has a population of almost 700 million.

On a more serious note:

While there are some similarities to the conflicts, there are at least as many differences.

Besides, this thread was about Sharia law being introduced in parts of Somalia. I have a hard time seeing that happening in DR Congo, as less than 10% of the population there is muslim.

[Skybird]

What is your problem, XXIII ?

There is genocide taking place in Sudan and Darfur, there is barbarism in the same region, there is tribal wars in Somalia, there is barbarism in Kongo, and in many other places thoughout Africa. The continent is medically ill, politically a critical mass of potential, or low-intensity (and sometimes high spiking) warzones with unlimited living time. Sharia is on advance in many parts of muslim-influenced Africa. Children are forced to fight as soldiers from the north to the south, from the west to the east, in the past and/or in the present and forseeable future. There are so many hotspots that it needs quite ome time to find a bigger-than-medium region where they have no armed conflict. And I even do not mention starvation, corruption, high crime, civil war factions controlling diamond and uranium mines, erosion of farmland, decreasing sweetwater reservoirs, and epidemic deseases, especially AIDS.

All I say is that the boy's example is far from unique in Africa. It is very common that children do kill in Africa, in many, many regions throughout the continent. Much of Africa is hell. And i said that it is stupid to send 400 troops into a country bigger and much more wild then Germany, where they can be confronted with a situation that 14 year old boys in the middle of their puberty are opening fire on them, and that these troops may be hesitent to deal with such a situation adequately like they would do if their enemies would not be little boys (who sometimes already have commited murder, mutilation, rape). There is not much as dangerous as a group of marauding, pubescent juveniles, being raised in a place of violence and barbarism, that have an automatic weapon in their hand and the feeling of being invincible in their hormon-controlled mind. If you think that is not a reality in many places of Africa, then you really need to learn some things about that place. Scholl-Latour's "Afrikanische Totenklage" is a good start for reading, next continue with "Die Ökonomie der Gewalt" by Münkler, included in "Die neuen Kriege".

There is violance and bloodshed and unimaginable barbarism throughout the continent, nothing more and nothing less do I say. I think of much of it as the land of the living dead.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Isn't that the same continent where they will have elections soon, in Kongo? Sending civilized German soldiers being raised in a humanistic tradition into a place where child soldiers have fought wars, 14 year old hormon-driven teenagers raped and mutilated women, shot with automatic weapons on adults? i wonder if our soldiers are prepared to shoot on children, if they eventually come under fire.

If you want to see if they are ready to shoot kids have them spend a year with the Rochester Police Department.

Seriously what you just described sounds a heck of a lot like my hometown. Every year we get dozens of dumb ass kids dead because they thought they could take on the cops with a gun or a car or both. In ’03 we had 58 murders, 86 rapes, over a 1,000 robberies and over 300 arsons in a city of only 210,000. Some NATO peace keepers might be a good addition to the city.

http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime....ester&state=NY

[Abraham]

Originally Posted by Skybird

There is genocide taking place in Sudan and Darfur, there is barbarism in the same region, there is tribal wars in Somalia, there is barbarism in Kongo, and in many other places thoughout Africa. The continent is medically ill, politically a critical mass of potential, or low-intensity (and sometimes high spiking) warzones with unlimited living time. Sharia is on advance in many parts of muslim-influenced Africa. Children are forced to fight as soldiers from the north to the south, from the west to the east, in the past and/or in the present and forseeable future. There are so many hotspots that it needs quite ome time to find a bigger-than-medium region where they have no armed conflict.
And I even do not mention starvation, corruption, high crime, civil war factions controlling diamond and uranium mines, erosion of farmland, decreasing sweetwater reservoirs, and epidemic deseases, especially AIDS.

Skybird nicely sums up the political situation in much of sub Saharan Africa (excluding the Southern tip of Africa). And the agressive spread of Islam is certainly one of the conflict-causing problems, because it demands the religious, cultural and social submission of all, which is opposed by many Christian and animistic Africans.
As an example of imposing sharia: Many of us will remember the Nigerian woman who was to be stoned to death for committing adultary, had gotten pregnant and just had to wait out her pregnancy.
Sharia would be much more convincing if men who committed adultary had their balls cut off.
But Islam, being a primitive, male dominant, tribal religion in this aspect, will blame women for arousing sexual desire in men* and will demand from them to cover themselves from top to toe - in a hot climate, mind you!
Male dominance and lack of respect leads to such measures, usually disguished as a measure to "protect" women against the bad instincts in (other) men, just as male dominance and lack of respect leads to rape and domestic violence, in which cases the women are also often blamed for "causing" the sexual desire or the anger.
And of course the women are constantly brainwashed that suppressing their femininity and being submitted to their spouses (and the rest of the male part of the family) is the way to please Allah...

Question: Have these men ever heard on individual responsability?


* As was by the in the past done by Christanity, Judaism and many other religions.