The Brink of Madness

[scandium]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Back to the issue, what the west has successfully achieved is to widely delete it's cultural identity, it's "historical personality", and the one who has not cultural identity - cannot defend a culture against an aggressive opponent, because he has none.

You have this so backward its astounding. I encourage you to set aside, for a change, the Islam library and devote more of your reading time to history; if you do that you may eve realize that all of these Islamic cultural assimilation theories of yours are completely bogus and refuted by historical facts.

You talk about the "West and its cultural identity" - what cultural identity is that Skybird? Begin your reading in 100 BC (and please, when I say history, I mean history, don't begin here with biblical theology) and you will discover that your Western countries and that most of Europe, including your particular part of it, had at that time very little culture that still remains today (and this mainly in the form of various superstistions that are a hold over from the various forms of paganism that was the dominant form of religion in that era).

German culture, along with most other European culture, was imported from Rome (the Greeks and their culture, and their philosophies also play a tremendous part in shaping what you call "European culture") as centuries of warfare led to the settlement of parts of these regions as land grants to Roman nobles from a succession of Roman Emperors (as an aside, even the German word "Kaiser" is derived from the latin "Caesar").

By 306 A.D. Constantine's Roman Empire included what was then Gaul, the Germanic provinces, Britain, and Spain, and it was Constantine who first founded the Eastern Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire) and who was the first Emperor to truly embrace Christianity and begin to pave the road for this religion to become the official religion of what was to become the Holy Roman Empire. And to truly appreciate the scope of the Constanine's Roman Empire, the great city that was named after him, Constantinople, which was also his capital, remains today - though its now known as Istanbul, Turkey.

Constantine also had another important influence on your "European culture" when he laid the foundations for Feudalism by introducing serfdom there, where future generations, that had in this part of Europe always been larger nomadic, would now be tied to the land they were on and where trades and other occupations would become "inherited" - and this was to be the way in your "European Culture" for more than a millenium. And it was under Constantine that the pagan Germanic hordes were civilized and, forcefully, introduced to Christianity (this process was also taking place in the ME, or those parts of it which then were part of the Byzantine Empire).

Ironically it was Germanic invaders who, in the 5th century put an end to the Roman Empire (though the Byzantine Empire survived much longer in the east) and these and other events heralded the Dark Ages that followed - though Christianity would thrive, and in tandem so would the power of the succession of Catholic popes) while remants of Roman laws and customs would live on.

Meanwhile the Eastern Roman Empire would live on much longer and fare much better (the quality of life, pace of innovation and invention, academic study and scholarship all thriving) while your proud Europe stumbled and staggered through the Dark Ages and Midieval feudal societies that were no more than constantly warring theocratic dictatorships (though that is to kind to describe the quality of life enjoyed by the serfs, who mae up the bulk of the population, for whom life was incredibly harsh, arbitrary, brutal, and short).

That about about sums up the first 16 centuries of your proud "European" civilization, taking us from Ceasar to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century by the Ottoman Turks.

That is a brief crash course in the necessary foundation one must understand to appreciate the developments that were to follow as "European culture" was to soon come into its own with the dawning of the Enlightenment, the foundations of which again being part Roman part Greek, while in parallel what had formerly been the Byzantine Empire was to begin its own decline, 10 centuries after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, as the Ottoman empire began to exert its cultural influence over the Middle East and as the region became, increasingly a battleground between East and West.

the lacking knowledge of people who we are, and how we came here, and what historical events led our ancestor to perform like they did, and give us this place with these values and rights, an no others, leads to this loss of identity.

Precisely. Though its ironic that you fear so strongly other cultures while seeming oblivious to the fact that what you claim as your own "distinct" culture had long ago been shaped by the Romans and the Greeks rather than by the Pagan, barbaric Germanic tribes who are your ancestors.

In the main it was caused by the growing transfer and shifting of powers from regional/national politics to non-regional, international economical interest carriers, and the understanding of justice and equality of all men as a state were all qualitative differences and all regional cultural peculiarities are rejected and ignored, and in fact levelled to into one and the same cultural and intellectual flatland desert.

You guys had tried the former for centuries. And where did it get you? A millenium of feudal warfare and stagnation followed by 3 centuries of warfare between the great powers culminating in the two great wars. The EU and the UN may be deeply flawed institutions, but how many all out wars have you fought since the U.N. was created?

Westerners do not know anything anymore they would consider to be worth fighting for and defend it against external totalitarian demands.

Not true, we're (mostly) just not interested in turning back the clock to the time of the Crusades.

that they are told by their left elites that they also have an obligation to consider each and every man as of equal worth and value as their own culture, does not help to learn to see the difference between the attacker and the one who should defend himself - but refuses to do so.

What left elites? Look around you pal, the powers running the show on the international stage are hardly "leftist elites"

It is a vacuum Islam flows into, and that vacuum has intentionally been created by our economies demanding cheap labour workers (while ignoring the longterm cultural cost), and the political left (dreaming the dream of all-levelled indifference between all mankind that they mistake with Justice and equal rights for all).

Are you familiar with this phrase: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"? That is from the American Declaration of Independence. Are these your leftist political elites?

That, for a third point, Western state structures and constitutions are sharing a secular design (separation between state and religion), that is not shared in Islam, allows the latter to turn these secular laws against the West and push Islamic policies by hiding behind the laws that guarantee the freedom of religious practising. In principle Islam says: "it is our religion to try to rule you and overcome your culture and wipe it out, your laws prohibit you to resist us."

I don't care what you think their theology states, because the facts say otherwise. There are no Islamic theocracies anywhere in the West, nor have they invaded or conquered any of our countries. Meanwhile, on the other hand, what was formerly Palestinia is now Israel, a state conquered, occupied, and controlled by a Jewish government via direct intervention and support from the West; Iraq, what was formerly a fairly secular Arab state was invaded and conquered by the West, which maintains a 160,000 man footprint there and who the Iraqi puppet government is beholden too; Afghanistan was also invaded and occupied by the West, and Kharzai is likewise no more than a Western puppet; and now democratic Lebanon is being invaded, and occupied, by Israel with a greenlight from the West.

So the facts contradict your assertions completely - and this says nothing of the number of ME countries who remain in power with Western support and only so long as they remain pro-Western and do what we tell them to do. One unfortunate consequence of this relationship being the absolute hold these governments hold over their people and the repression exercised to maintain this grip, causing many of them to flee to the West - and this flight from Western theocratic oppression is the root of your thesis that the West is under seiege from "Islam" and in danger of being overrun by it?

Truly this is 1984. Eurasia is at war with Eastasia. It has always been at war with Eastasia. Now back to your regularly scheduled 2 minutes hate.