Depth Psychology of the Riddling Community

The riddle was originally a sacred game, and as such cut clear across any possible distinction between play and seriousness.

-- J. Huizinga

There seems to be a riddle

behind all riddles

which we have not yet guessed.

-- Northrop Frye

The depth psychology of paleontology

Re the heated debate over what happened to dinosaurs (and other life-forms) at the K-T boundary:

All this might seem to be the huff and puff of scientific debate, but what has surprised me is the vituperation with which the arguments have been prosecuted .  … It is a curious parallel  that the supposed violence of the Cretaceous end  is matched by the violence of the twentieth-century exchanges. … There is a degree of outrage here which is out of proportion to the stimulus. … I can suggest something darker and more subconscious as a reason for the anger:  this is the apocalypse.

-- Richard Fortey, Life (1998), p. 252-3

That gnawing sense that there is something here that does not lie on the surface, is examined at length in our essay:

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-psychology-of-meteorology.html

The Manchurian Kanzlerin

As Europe continues to stand paralyzed  in the face of the inrushing human tide, all an observer Stateside can do, is to wonder why they let it come about.

A percipient essay in today’s Die Zeit -- a prominent newspaper, and long among the cheerleaders of the Gutmenschen narrative, but at last having second thoughts -- analyzes the psychology of the Kuschel-klatscher:

Ich und mein Syrer

Nach dem ersten Begeisterungsschock herrscht eine merkwürdige Angespanntheit in Deutschland. Das hat einen Grund: Die Flüchtlinge sind immer noch da.

Von Nina Pauer

http://www.zeit.de/2015/41/fluechtlinge-hilfe-deutschland-integration

As for what motivates Merkel, it is anybody’s guess.   In her public appearances, she continues to offer calm and lucidly worded defense of a disasterous policy, with no intimation that she might ever change her mind.   (One must at least admire her composure, in the face of increasingly strident public criticism, and anguished appeals from her own party ranks.)  Personally, I suspect that her background as a pastor’s daughter may be in play;  but many are much less charitable.   Some posit an Atlanticist Conspiracy, and claim that she is taking orders from her American masters.  (If so, someone should alert those American masters.  Why the US should desire its European allies to descend into chaos, is never explained.)  

The most exotic of the Verschwörungs-theorien  is that the DDR-born Chancelloress, under the code-name “Erika”,  was an agent of the Stasi (indeed, a great many East Germans were, to one extent or another) and that -- wait for it -- she is still faithfully carrying out a long-ago-hatched Communist plan for the destruction of the West.

(Such, mutatis mutandis, is the plot of the classic Cold War novel, twice filmed, The Manchurian Candidate.  The eponymous protagonist is a sleeper agent -- though unwitting -- and his controller is his imperious Mutti  who, come to think of it, looks a lot like Angela Merkel.)

“Wir schaffen das …  Wir schaffen das … “

Well.  It is tempting to pursue that plotline satirically, as we have done with so much else.  But this is all too real, and inching towards tragedy (while, impassive on Olympus, the gods look on).    So if you’re hankering for some good old conspiracy-mongering, I refer you instead (though my heart is not in it) to our extensive files on …

The Riemann Conspiracy

(I earlier observed, that the self-satirizing antics of the Republican Presidential candidates  put credentialed satirists such as ourself  out of work.   But neither can we satirize a tragedy.)

[Update 18 Nov 2015]  Terror and Satire:  a contrary view.
http://www.focus.de/kultur/kino_tv/terrorismus-satire-in-terrorzeiten-ist-alles-erlaubt_id_5093192.html

Abschaffung Deutschlands: Qui prodest?

Notes towards an essay on "Ecstatic Defeatism".

[Dies ist bei weitem kein ordendlicher Aufsatz, sondern nur eine Tafel, worauf ich Zitaten und Gedanken kleben kann.]

Das ist alles nicht ganz neu.

Die angestammte Sprache  mag aufgegeben werden, es mag sich nicht einmal eine bemerkliche Sprachmischung vollziehen, dafür wird eine fruchtbare Kulturmischung nicht ausbleiben.    Unter allen großen Völkern der Erde  entnationalisiert sich keines so leicht  wie die Deutschen und, da die “vagina gentium” auch heute noch diesen Namen verdient, in solchen Maßen. 

--  Hugo Schuchardt,  (1884), in Leo Spitzer, ed., Hugo Schuchardt-Brevier (1921; 2^nd edn. 1928), p. 348

~

Ferner hätten die Parteien schuld,   

erst, zum Beispiel während der Schleicher-periode, durch das große Ungeschick ihres Manövrierens,

dann durch die Schwäche und Feigheit, mit der sie ihre Vernichtung hinnahmen:  ja, wohl gar noch eilten, sich selber zu vernichten,  bevor man sie dazu zwang.

--Golo Mann, Deutsche Geschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (1958; 1992), p. 798

Contemporaneous with that, was the baffling phenomenon of “premature” French defeatism in the face of a resurgent Germany, an enigma of mass psychology.

After all, they had won the last war against Germany  (albeit with a late assist from the Yanks);  moreover, throughout the ‘twenties and even into the ‘thirties, France had considerably superior military means, which they constantly undervalued (as William Shirer consistently emphasizes -- and marvels at -- in his magisterial The Collapse of the Third Republic (1969)).

True, there were a few active partisans of Germany in France, even after the rise of Hitler;  yet France’s abject capitulation -- by degrees, over years -- was not the result of any conspiratorial Fifth Column.   The whole nation took psychological shelter in what we may term the “Maginot fantasy”.   Not as that lesson of military history is commonly misread (for which see here).   Rather, at the same time  the country told itself that it was safe behind its cosy walls -- it yet refused to complete the fortificaions.  It is as though your house had three walls and a stout oak front-door with many locks, but nothing behind.   The French might call it a psychose;  we shall be content with “cognitive-dissonance” (anglicè, “doublethink”).

The elites followed suit:

There are always people willing to throw good money after bad, and the situation became that Germany was  in reality  expanding its armament industry  by new borrowings.  The potential enemies of Germany in the next war -- France, the small succession states, Great Britain, and even Soviet Russia -- were financing the effort that Germany may make some day to destroy them.  The process reached its most extreme phase when, in December, 1934, the Bank of England granted a $3,750,000 credit to Germany in order “to facilitate the mobilization of German commercial credits”, i.e., so that Germany might have means to meet old debts -- and build airplanes that can cross the English Channel in seven minutes.

-- John Gunther, Inside Europe (1938 revised edition), p. 100

Notice that that was published in 1938 -- thus, without benefit of hindsight.  (Gunther’s whole book is both prescient and brilliant.)

Far-sighted

More on the shadow-play of German reparations  here:

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2014/09/parallel-lives-protracted.html

~

For over four years now, I have been following (and blogging about) the increasing  Überfremdung and Völkeraustausch that threatens Europe.   And marveled at the relative lack (until quite recently) of coverage (other than edulcorated coverage) in the European MSM.   Nor is it simply a matter of out-of-touch elites or a media conspiracy of silence:  for all those governments, from Sweden to France and Germany, who have been fomenting the inflow, and turning a blind eye to the spread of no-go zones, were popularly elected.   When Italy used its coast guard, not to guard its coast, but to serve a tax-funded water-taxi for illegals, an American could only marvel.   Then, when Merkel had her Mother-Theresa-epiphany, and conjured up an ingathering of all the wretched of the earth -- nebenbei tossing the Schengen agreement  unceremoniously onto the compost-heap of History --  her grand gesture evoked hundreds of giddily euphoric Milchmädchen & Teddybärschenker at the Bahnhofs, literally applauding the intruders like some victorious invading army, or perhaps the Beatles.   What are we to make of all this?

I still don’t understand it.   But increasingly (in the Readers’-Comments columns) we see similar expressions of bafflement by Germans themselves.  “I feel as though I have strayed into the wrong film,” one wrote.  “Is this really happening?”

~

The nation itself has as much right to nationhood as the fractional minorities have to autonomy -- to put it mildly.  You cannot follow the practice of self-determination to its logical extreme  without reaching an absurdity -- that the state itself is sacrificed to its minorities.

-- John Gunther, Inside Europe (1938 revised edition), p. 103n

[Update 28 October 2015]  A nice, tidy, non-intergalactic, non-Illuminati conspiracy-theory:

Assange: WikiLeaks vorliegende Depeschen zeigen Plan zur strategischen Entvölkerung von Syrien und EU-Flüchtlingskrise

„Gegner des Landes initiieren eine strategische Entvölkerung, um so die kämpferischen Kapazitäten der Regierung zu beschränken. Es ist vor allem die Mittelklasse die aus Syrien flieht. Ingenieure, Manager, Angestellte, da sie über die notwendigen Sprachkenntnisse, Geld und Verbindungen verfügen. Genau diese Berufsgruppen braucht man, um einen Regierung am Laufen zu halten.“
http://www.rtdeutsch.com/35254/headline/assange-wikilekas-vorliegende-depeschen-zeigen-plan-zur-strategischen-entvoelkerung-von-syrien-und-eu-fluechtlingskrise/

~

Possibly in the back of the minds of the ecstatic defeatists:

The decadent civilizations of the past  were not saved by their philosophers, but by the influx of simpler peoples  who had centuries yet to live  before their minds should be ripe for despair.

-- Joseph Wood Krutch, The Modern Temper (1929) (Conclusion)

[Update Dec 2015] See
http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2015/12/germany-welcomes-migrants-to-its-bosom.html

Deutschland schafft sich ab

Circa twenty years ago, after the Berlin Wall had fallen, and the two halves of Germany were being painfully reassembled, the New Jersey-based company Franklin Electronic Publishers, where I worked as Editor-in-Chief, hosted two executives in lexicography from the venerable Langenscheidt company.   I picked them up at their hotel near my home in Princeton, and drove them to our headquarters in Mount Holly.   On the way, I asked them about the affect of Reunification on the German language.

To my surprise, they were not especially interested in the question.   More surprising was the reason :  in their estimation, the German language, far from being strengthened by the new political accession of fellow-speakers, would recede more and more from use, and eventually go the way of Danish.   And to my astonishment (particularly coming from German bilingual-lexicographers, for whom their language, and the desires of foreigners to learn it, is meat and drink), this prospect left them curiously indifferent.

By most of the Gutmenschen of today’s Europe, such acedia (misconstrued as sang-froid) in the face of the expected inevitable, would be reckoned admirable.   But I found it strangely troubling.

Nota bene:  The unreferenced expected inheritor of the German-language mantle  was English.  Little did they imagine that, in some now-conceivable scenarios, it could one day be Arabic.

*

Falls Sie im Doktor-Justiz-Sammelsurium

weiterblättern möchten,

Bitte hier klicken:

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/search/label/Deutschtum

*

With comparable astonishment, the world now beholds Germany’s self-dilution, quite possibly leading to self-dissolution. 

Apart from the dissolution of the Soviet Union, this might be the beginnings of the most significant geopolitical (voire, demographic -- which ultimately trumps all else) development in our lifetimes.

To all this, I shall have no comment.

In part, because it’s not principally my battle (though I care about this deeply).

In part, because hardly anyone reads this blog anyway (nor is politics  really its brief; vielmehr, Theologia Mathematika).

But principally, because there is already abundant intelligent and impassioned commentary from Germans, and from all who care about Germany -- nay, Deutschtum überhaupt.  -- Not, however, in the pages of the MainStream Media, which has long been gurgling with Gutmenschenschwärmerei.   Rather, in the lengthy and well-reasoned readers’ comments, on sites like Telepolis or Die Zeit (in the latter case, massively contrary to the bisounours editorial line.)  [Later, I hope to append a selection of these.

Kurz gefasst:

Apart from Thilo Sarrazin’s monster bestseller, from which I have borrowed the title of this post, consult:

Hurra, wir kapitulieren! Von der Lust am Einknicken ist ein 2006 erschienenes Buch von Henryk M. Broder, das einerseits die Haltung der Regierungen Europas gegenüber Islamisten, andererseits die angebliche Zurückhaltung und Selbstzensur der intellektuellen Linken Deutschlands gegenüber dem Islam scharf und auf polemische Weise kritisiert. 

-- https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurra,_wir_kapitulieren!

Hurra!  Wir kapitulieren !!!

~

Interlude:    Die Deutsche Sprache schafft sich ab

Using my wife’s tablet, I attempted to bring up DeutscheWelle.  It brought up only the English-language site.  I specifically added “.de”; stubbornly, it changed that to “.com” and re-presented the English site.  So I went to the German Wikipedia and clicked on the link labeled “Offizielle Webpräsenz”:  it too brought me to the English site!

Well, maybe that’s just the tablet.  It has recently introduced a dumbed-down version of news.google.[…];  I was able to revert to the original presentation on the English version, with a few clicks,  but these didn’t work for the French and German.

So I tried it on the MacIntosh:  same deal.

Ultimately I found the real site by having bookmarked an article, back when you could still get to it easily, and from this clicked through to: http://www.dw.com/de/themen/s-9077.  [That is just today’s;  I never was able to pull up a permanent German homepage.]

[Weiteres zum Thema hier.]

~

In Deutschland herrscht  “helpers’ high” (a.k.a. “Sommermärchen”,  “Glückswelle”, & “Willkommenshysterie”).   It is a strange phenomenon.  At the Bahnhofs, ecstatic welcome is extended to Germany’s future (and partly present) gravediggers.    This euphoria is hailed in all of Germany’s mainstream media, and nay-sayers are smacked with the “Nazikeule”.

Our genes stopped working.

Could you replace us please?

(We left the key  under the mat.)

The reasons for all this, surpass my understanding. 

The madness of crowds.   So was ist in Mitteleuropa schon passiert, zur Lebenszeit Freuds und Jungs;  aber weder dieser noch jener  hat das Phänomen  richtig zu bewerten gewusst.

For now, we’ll simply cite a sharp-eyed reader’s comment:

Und wehe es argumentiert jemand dagegen. Er wird zwar nicht als
"Volksschädling" bezeichnet, aber sehr ähnlich behandelt.
Stigmatisiert wird er, ausgeschlossen, erhält Redeverbot und ist
sozial ausgeschlossen vom kollektiven Glücksempfinden.

Und 1933 in Deutschland und 38 in Österreich war es sicher ähnlich.
Diese zermürbenden Parteistreitereien waren plötzlich weg, alle im
Gefühl der glänzenden Zukunft geeint.

Wir erleben ein Massenphänomen.
Wir erleben Politik der Gefühle.
Wir erleben Faschismus in einer ganz unerwartenden Form.

http://www.heise.de/tp/foren/S-es-ist-staatliche-Selbstdestruktion/forum-295835/msg-26943272/read/

~

Superb:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_8kc19DL70&app=desktop

[Update 23 Sept 2015]

Swimming in the river of humanity are shady characters, too, admitted criminals, ISIS sympathizers and a couple of guys from Fallujah, one with a fresh bullet wound, who when asked their occupation seemed confused.

“Army,” said one. His friend corrected him. “We’re all drivers,” he said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/migrants-are-disguising-themselves-as-syrians-to-gain-entry-to-europe/2015/09/22/827c6026-5bd8-11e5-8475-781cc9851652_story.html

[Update 8 Oct 2015]  Mum's the word:

http://www.thueringer-allgemeine.de/startseite/detail/-/specific/Polizisten-bei-Festnahme-in-Fluechtlingsunterkunft-in-Ohrdruf-angegriffen-793516962

Dieser Artikel kann nicht kommentiert werden.

[Nov 2015] "With Open Gates":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0hD7IffTJs


Allgemeines zum Thema:
http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2015/04/autolytic-empathy_30.html

[Update 9 January 2016]

Travelers’ phrasebook

Enjoy your stay in Germany !

[Update Juni 2016]

http://www1.wdr.de/nachrichten/ruhrgebiet/bin-laden-leibwaechter-klagt-gegen-abschiebung-100.html

Seit 2006 hat der Verfassungsschutz Sami A. im Visier. Er soll enger Vertrauter von Osama Bin Laden gewesen sein und zu seiner Leibgarde gehört haben. Die Stadt Bochum wollte ihn bereits mehrfach in sein Heimatland zurückschicken. Am Mittwoch (15.06.2016) hat das Verwaltungsgericht Gelsenkirchen entschieden, dass er nicht abgeschoben werden darf.

Asymmetric Warfare

For long, in places like Iraq and Nigeria, Christian churches have been burned (sometimes with the Christians inside), by Sunni Moslems.   Only belatedly, and mutedly, has there been much reflection of this in the mainstream media.

But by way of balance, let us point out, that there have also been several burnings and bombings of mosques, and places of Muslim pilgrimmage.  Only, again -- not by Christians, but by Sunni Moslems (the victims being Shiah).

François Hollande admonishes us, not to “faire l’amalgame”.  Mais parbleu!  l’amalgame se fait d’elle-même.

[Update 4 Feb]  And now Boko Haram is getting into the act, broadening their depredations by burning now  not only churches, but mosques as well (the other day, in Cameroon  -- nearly a hundred worshippers were fried inside).

Jordan pilot murder: Islamic State deploys asymmetry of fear

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31129416

~

The most outrageous desecration against Islam so far, was the 1979 attack on the Grand Mosque of Mecca, the holiest site of all.  And once again, it was  not Christians who did this -- it was Muslim tribesmen from the Nejd, in KSA.

Naturally this caused outrage among Muslims worldwide.  And they manifested their fury by … burning U.S. embassies (in Pakistan and Libya).

That incartade was by no means atypical for the Muslim world:  striking  not at the actual perpetrators, but at the handy Christian Whipping-Boy.  Thus:  in  Lebanon 1977, after the assassination of Kamal Jumblatt, the Druze massacred every Christian in the Chouf that they could get their hands on.  Revenge?  Not exactly, since it wasn’t the Christians who killed him.  (Syrian intel, apparently.)  Footnote:  Traditionally, and as late as 1975, the Chouf was fifty-percent Christian.   Now, many pogroms later …. less than one percent.

~

[Update 6 February 2015]  Having perhaps borrowed from Da`esh the art of slaughtering even fellow-Sunnis, now Boko Haram -- quick learners -- have discovered the pleasures of beheading:

Forced marriage, slavery and imprisonment are vital institutions in its way of life. And casually meted-out death — by shooting or beheading — is the punishment for men who refuse to join.

Boko Haram fighters returned from combat and grew furious at the sight of elderly men talking peacefully under the shade of a neem tree, so they simply opened fire on them.

“They started distributing property so that people would follow them,” said Hauwa Abubakar, recalling that Boko Haram gave out biscuits, rice and spaghetti that its fighters had looted from Bama’s market.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/world/africa/boko-haram-refugees-recount-brutality-and-random-killings-in-nigerias-north.html?_r=0

For more on Muslims oppressing Muslims (and again in this case, fellow-Sunnis), cf. this newly updated essay:

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2014/09/isils-caliphate-gender-aspect.html

 

Nor is the oppression of Muslim women by Muslim men  a matter only beyond our borders -- would that it were:

Nearly 507,000 women and girls in the United States could be at risk of female genital excision [owing to] an increase in immigration from countries where the practice is common, including Egypt, Ethiopia and Somalia.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-female-genital-excision-20150206-story.html#navtype=outfit

An increase ?!  Have we learned nothing from the disasters that this sort of immigration has been causing in Europe, where an actual civil war over the issue is no longer out of the question?

 

[Update 7 February 2015]  After years of looking the other way while Christian communities were decimated throughout much of the Third World, the New York Times belatedly twits the Indian Prime Minister for doing the same:

What will it take for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to speak out about the mounting violence against India’s religious minorities? Attacks at Christian places of worship have prompted no response from the man elected to represent and to protect all of India’s citizens. Nor has he addressed the mass conversion to Hinduism of Christians and Muslims who have been coerced or promised money.

Recently, a number of Christian churches in India have been burned and ransacked.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/opinion/modis-dangerous-silence.html?_r=0

Hear hear.  Unfortunately, the long trail of such violence has gone little  noticed in the actual news pages, the harumphing being reserved for the editorial page, which nobody reads.

[Update 31 March 2015]  Recently, ISIL slaughtered over a hundred worshippers in two mosques in Sanaa (the capital of Yemen), most of them Huthis (who are Zaydi Shiites), but some Sunni were reportedly among the dead as well.  So, how does ISIL justify attacking mosques?  The answer comes in the new edition of their magazine Dabiq (issue #8, just releasted):  ISIL doesn’t call them “mosques”, but:  “Huthi temples”.

[Update 18 July 2015]  Once again, the Muslim faith has been lethally desecrated, with many dead, this time on the occasion of the Eid al-Fitr, the breaking of the Ramadan fast.

And once again, the perpetrators are fellow Muslims:  Boko Haram in Nigeria, ISIL in Iraq.

[Update 19 July 2015]
The Asymmetric Warfare Group, based somewhere in Delmarva
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-army-isis-watchers-20150718-story.html#navtype=outfit

“And in the red trunks ….”

(This is a deep subject, and I don’t have time.   I had hoped to retire by now (65), but certain events on the planet dictate that I not abandon the post.  So, this-all is just from what hours are left to me (and what time is left to me), what-between a full-time job, and now-necessary Eldergent naps.)

Anyhow:   A persistent undercurrent of the Ferguson events, events which by no means (contrary to some hopes and expectations) have yet burned themselves out (for they are fed by deeper fires than mere politics -- deeper even  than race) is a battle between:

In the blue trunks (at least, as perceived by the red trunks): a collective Superego;

and  in the red trunks :  a collective Id.

(And yes, yes, truly to make the case, would require more research and analysis than I can offer; sed -- eppur’ si muove, so throwing this out there, food for thought.)

What is largely missing at street-level  is the referee, a responsible adult Ego. 

Thus, consider merely the aspect of Anonymity.

Fact:  An officer, name not yet revealed, in the context of a physical confrontation, shoots a teen, evoking outrage from the teen’s cohort.

Fact:  As a result of this, death-threats are directed to-whom-it-may-concern.   Whoever he may be, he and his family are now in danger of their lives.

Fact:  Accordingly (here simply being responsible, the Ego in control) the authorities decline to reveal his identity as yet.

Fact:  This refusal causes further outrage among the subalterns.

Fact:  Despite all the certainties on each side, the facts of the confrontation remain obscure.   The officer might have committed an indictable crime; he might not;  he might even have been doing a dangerous job  courageously.  We still don’t know.

At this point, a certain band of self-righteous activists endeavor to smash this outrageous anonymity  and ferret out the identity of the officer.   Self-sure that they have found it (“Mr. A”), they broadcast this around;  Mr. A is now in danger for his life.

Only, it turns out that, so far from being the officer in question, Mr. A is not even a police officer to begin with.  The vigilantes just screwed the pooch.

Irony of ironies:  The group that perpetrated this call themselves …. Anonymous.

Sequelae:  They do not apologize, nor reveal their identities.  Nobody learns anything from this.  Indeed, the Id never listens;  the Id never learns.

For a further example of our split selves  collectively battling their own id, try this:

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2012/12/word-of-day-pre-commitment-latest-update.html

~

[Update 5 October 2014] An incident yesterday evening in Saint Louis sharpened the sense of underclass resentment at symbols of high culture  rather than pragmatic pushback against institutions of coercion:  Ferguson protestors interrupted a concert at Symphony Hall.

This reminded me of a tactic espoused by community organizer Saul Alinsky:

“I suggested that we might buy one hundred seats for one of Rochester's symphony concerts. We would select a concert in which the music would be relatively quiet. The hundred blacks who would be given tickets would first be treated to a three-hour pre-concert dinner in the community, in which they would be fed nothing but baked beans, and lots of them; them the people would go to the symphony hall--with obvious consequences.”

― Saul D. Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals (1946)

At the time I read this (ca. 1971), I was living in Berkeley, and hanging out with radicals myself.   But I remember feeling queasy at the self-congratulatory tone of this passage, in the context of the book.   That is not organizing the working-class for its world-historical mission;  rather it is simply stirring up the Id-pot, bringing toxins to the bubbling surface.

Saul Alinsky, summoning up

what ‘twere best left at the bottom of the pot

For another cautionary tale about summoning the forces of darkness, consider this:

On the Psycho-theatrics of Beheading

~

Another caveat.

At the symphony intervention, the protestors trotted out the golden oldie “Which Side Are You On”.   Fair enough, only:  Before you go down that road, best to check the balance of forces.   If, by means of repeated provocations, you force people to choose sides, you might find that you are badly outnumbered.

It is just that with-us-or-against-us strategy that is so worrisome about ISIL.   Like Dubya after 9/11, they are pugnaciously forcing people to sign up with one side or the other:  and by the very psychodynamics of that motion, will cause the sides  further to diverge.

In the case of the takfiris, if they “love death more than you do life” (as they boast), and figure that a billion Muslims onboard is pretty good odds, plus they’re looking forward to the End Times in any event,  that strategy could even make sense.  Armageddon mon amour!   More constructive projects  require more nuanced tactics.

.

The Islamic State : 9/11, 2014

(1) The President’s Address to the Nation

President Obama began his speech last night dismissing the IS as “neither Islamic nor a State”.   His speechwriters were no doubt winking at one another over this evocation (for them that have ears to hear) of the old chestnut about the HRE -- “Neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire” -- or those bumper-stickers from the 'eighties, "The Moral Majority is Neither".    And for public consumption, it may have been the prudent thing to say.   But for those who actually need to understand what makes the ISIL tick, the quip is unhelpful, because false.   It somewhat recalls the chorus immediately after 9/11 2001, to the effect that the kamikazes were ‘cowardly’, which was plainly false on the face of it.   It was comforting to believe,  but tended to lull folks into imagining that striking back at these … ‘poltroons’, would be a cakewalk.    Anyone who took that seriously must have been startled by the tenacity and ferocity of their response.

[A note on public rhetoric:   The principle difference between these two mischaracterizations of our adversaries, reflects the differences in Presidential temperament between Bush the Lesser and Barack Obama:   Bush was being dysphemistic, and Obama -- not all listeners will have caught this aspect -- euphemistic, at pains not to tar the Ummah with the same brush he was obliged to use to Paint It Black with respect to ISIL.]

First, the simpler issue.  They are not (yet) a full-fledged ‘State’, to be sure (not that that in itself is any great accolade; look at North Korea), though they do have one city (Raqqah, on the Euphrates -- a "city-state", if you will) which has been under their jurisdiction for one year, where they have been busily administering the law and insuring that the donkey-carts run on time:  that is more than you can say about a number of entities that, by courtesy, are designated “States” (albeit “failed” ones), such as Somalia or RCA.   You might call it (only History can ultimately judge) a “not-(yet)-successful State”.  But a State, of sorts, it is.

Now, I am not on their side and not simply trying to be “fair” here.   To understand them, and to predict their next moves, we need to suss out their motivations and mechanisms.   And, for the heritage Muslims among them (Western converts are another matter entirely), their status as a “State” -- or as we may say, as a state of things and not merely a movement -- is subjectively essential.   This party or that party, that group or this, may be good bad or indifferent in various ways;  but there can only be one Caliphate, and that utterly changes the eschatological dynamics.

Next, the thornier, religious issue,  where a rational analysis  risks, just as back in 2001, in the face of those who cried “Cowards!”, a vituperative and possibly violent response, though in the present case  from the diametrically opposite quarter.   Nor shall I, chary of incurring any wrathful anathema, speak plainly in this very public place;  but simply urge you to go watch the Mosul khutbah of al-Khalîfah Ibrahîm, and see if this (stellar) predicatory performance  makes any sense, in terms of what you have been led to believe.

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyzEVBAc8S4

For a striking piece of journalism, unparalleled in both execution and access, I cannot too highly recommend the documentary by Vice News (unfortunate branding, that; onomastic advice available free of charge):

The Islamic State

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUjHb4C7b94

Two things about this video will strike you, even if you don’t understand a word of Arabic, even were the subtitles absent:

 (1)  The penitential sincerity of the prisoners, about to be well-whipp’t, might be doubted as coerced;  but the spontaneity of the young boys, reveling in the Raqqa adventure, is impossible to stage.   Further,  I suspect that the penitence actually is genuine, in a sort of Darkness-at-Noon dynamic.

 (2)  The whole set-up -- all of life, it would appear -- is overwhelmingly masculine, exclusively male.   Even among the children, those in attendance are always boys.  Where have the women and girls all gone to?   The only time we glimpse a woman -- in a street-scene, as we do a ride-along with the Hisbah (the morals police) -- is from behind, and for the briefest instant, just enough to see that she is veiled (she then moves off-camera).   Meanwhile the men, apparently quite relaxedly (though this scene could technically have been staged) chat, the ISIL guy directing the wayward citizen to acquire a different kind of fabric for his wife’s veil, and to admonish her not to lift her abaya as she treads the dusty streets, since “we can see underneath”.

Watch that, and ponder what it is that we are up against.

[For more about the gender aspects of the Caliphate, click here.]

[Historical footnote:  That original adage about the HRE  was itself only half-bright.  For, to understand its inner historical nisus, you have to realize that what it strove to be was indeed both Holy, and Roman, and an Empire.]

Clio takes the long view

(Philo)logical footnote:

The proposition that no true religion advocates the killing of innocents, is open to two logico-linguistic escape-hatches.

(1)  The classic “No True Scotsman” maneuvre.  (Thus, any religion that does advocate this, is no true religion.  -- The chief mufti of KSA has taken the same tack as Obama on this.)

(2)  One must pose the ever-relevant Clintonian Question:  in this case, “It depends upon what the meaning of 'innocent' is."   If the label is refused to those who profess a doctrine other than the received one (as has happened throughout history), the proposition becomes vacuous.

And though the fires of Lichfield have died down for a time, the matter is of more than archival interest:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam

And with slightly different emphases:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasie_im_Islam

[Further historical footnote]  I casually described the Hisbah as the ISIL “morals police”, having in mind the Saudi المطوعين‎ muṭawwiʿīn ; but really, the fellow didn’t act like those sober-sided cane-wielding enforcers.  And indeed, I just now stumbled across a reference to a closer historical precedent, the “Muħtasib, a kind of inspector of morals and markets, who inherited the functions of the Byzantine agoranomos” (Bernard Lewis, The Political Language of Islam (1988), p. 7).   This is spot-on;  as the same clip that showed the guy admonishing a husband about the wife’s garb, depicted him quizzing a butcher about the relative prices of beef and lamb.

(2)  Concentric theatres

It has been plausibly observed, that the IS tide will not be turned back  merely by Canute-like injunctions, but will require “boots on the ground”.  -- True:  But whose boots?  Are the Yanks the only ones with boots, and the guts to use them?

A modest proposal:  The boots should be supplied by those actually threatened by the IS;  in order of immediacy and level of threat:

(1) Iraq and Syria

(2) KSA

(3) Lebanon and Jordan

(4) Britain and France

(5) other Western European countries

(6) other Arab Muslim lands

(7) territory not currently Muslim, but once under Muslim rule (as, al-Andalus)

and only thereafter, and finally

(8) the United States

(There is, of course, the minor matter:  Wo ist denn Palestina/Israel einzustufen?  But that exceptional state we shall leave hors concours.)

[Update 14 September 2014]  A concurrent opinion from this morning’s Washington Post:

Some terrorism experts have questioned Obama’s decision to open a multi­year campaign against the Islamic State — also known as ISIS or ISIL — citing concern that it is being driven more by psychological factors and fear than by evidence that it can significantly harm the United States.

“The American public has come to equate ad­vances in the Middle East by this one group, ISIS, with the danger of another 9/11,” said Paul Pillar, a former deputy director of the CIA’s Counter­terrorism Center.

Pillar said that the Islamic State is following a playbook that is in many ways the opposite of al-Qaeda’s and that making the group the target of a U.S.-led campaign risks turning its focus toward the United States.

“For them to seize and maintain territory is a major digression from terrorist operations in the West, rather than a facilitation of such operations,” Pillar said.

U.S. strikes can certainly degrade the organization, but “there will be a revenge factor,” he said. “The killing of the two captive journalists was depicted by the group explicitly as retaliation for strikes that had already occurred.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-intelligence-agencies-remain-uncertain-about-danger-posed-by-islamic-state/2014/09/13/23245e84-3aa6-11e4-bdfb-de4104544a37_story.html

And this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-islamic-state-threat-is-overstated/2014/09/12/acbbebb2-33ad-11e4-8f02-03c644b2d7d0_story.html

(3) The mythical “Moderates”

One thing everyone can agree on -- Republicans, Democrats, hotdog vendors and Yazidi devil-worshippers -- is the wonderful wisdom of arming, training, grooming and celebrating  The Syrian Moderates.  Only … Who might these exactly be?

The most assiduous pursuants of the Mythological Moderates  have chosen louche bedfellows, beginning with the Vulcans  who hitched their little red wagon to the whore and hoaxster Ahmed Chalabi (along with his trusty[not] sidekick “Curveball”), and down to our day with the pitiful relic  John McCain.

The Senator held hostage (though unaware of the fact)

What is never mentioned in these media love-fests, and what the journalists are too lazy to ask, is,  Which groups precisely did you have in mind, sir?

Time was, ISIL itself might have qualified.   Next most potent:  the ANF (al-Nusrah Front -- uh-oh, those guys are al-Qaeda!).   Next, the Ahrar al-Sham, a Qatar-backed group (as was the ISIL earlier) -- which, however, just got (as the saying goes) “decapitated”, when fifty of their top guys, meeting all together in a basement, got whacked.  (Why so many leaders, inadvisedly, in one place at one time?  One report suggested they had gathered to settle the strategic question, Shall we cease opposing, or even join with, the ISIL. Uh-oh...)

 

In short, the debate, once again, is proceeding on a dismally low intellectual level.  It is as though speaker after speaker mounted the podium to proclaim his undying support to the (unspecified) “Good Guys” (stormy applause).

Additionally, bear in mind that, even if such “Moderates” could be found (hiding under a bed somewhere, or moodily sipping espressos in Paris cafés) -- We already had over a decade to “train” allegedly moderate Iraqis, and allegedly moderate Afghanis, at the end  with very little to show for it.  And that was with a full-court-press.   Why would a smaller-scale training program, in any case probably largely to be farmed-out to the Saudis and Qataris (who have their own agenda [**] ), be any more effective?
(At least it will be an efficient use of resources, since many of the same trainers who earlier formed and funded the ISIL -- now unemployed -- can be recycled as trainers of "The Moderates".)

[Update 13 Sept 2014]  French Syria-expert Frédéric Pichon makes the same point:

Quant à la Syrie, il me semble illusoire de compter sur les rebelles dits modérés, qui travaillent souvent côte à côte avec Al Qaida sur le terrain, pour servir de relais au sol.  … Après trois ans de vaines tentatives, l'Occident n'a pas réussi à identifier sur le terrain des rebelles sûrs qui pourraient servir de relais à une action sur le terrain.

http://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/2014/09/12/31002-20140912ARTFIG00321-syrie-etat-islamique-les-grands-defis-de-la-coalition-occidentales.php

This observer also throws cold water on the puppet-play being waged in Washington, to wash its hands of any Iranian assistance:

Malgré toutes les précautions prises par Washington pour intégrer les pays arabes sunnites, cette coalition incluera de fait l'Iran dont le rôle est déjà déterminant en Irak dans la lutte contre l'Etat Islamique: Qassem Soleimani, le commandant des troupes d'élite iraniennes Al Quds, est en Irak et se bat au côté des forces irakiennes - soutenues et armées par les États-unis. Cela constitue un obstacle politique majeur pour l'après-guerre.

[**] Footnote to the assertion that the Saudis here have their own agenda;  again Pichon:

Les dirigeants saoudiens prennent part à une coalition contre l'Etat Islamique alors qu'un sondage récent révèle que près de 90% de la population du Royaume soutient l'organisation terroriste.

[Update 12 September 2014]  Ah, now here’s an interesting development:

An alliance of rebel groups bashed out a “non-aggression” with IS pact on Friday.  The alliance on the rebel side was made up of four distinct groups, among them the US-backed Syria Revolutionary Front.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/civilians-and-islamic-state-ship-out-raqqa-ahead-syria-airstrikes-1804911802

Not sure what this "Syria Revolutionary Front" is, exactly;  they appear not to rate a mention in Wikipedia.   Anyhow, don’t count on them rallying to smash the ISIL, or your eggs will be in a fragile basket.

The USG, searching for a Syrian moderate 

As for Turkey, since it has suffered an influx of refugees from the chaotic land on its southern border, and since the ISIL has threatened to target Ankara over the closing of the Ataturk Dam, you would think thay they would be a mainstay of the US-organized action;  but no such luck:

La Turquie, maillon faible de l'alliance contre l'État islamique

[Update, 17 September 2014]  This morning, NPR happily prattled about working only with “vetted” Syrian oppositionists -- “vetted by the C.I.A.”

Did the C.I.A. also “vet” Chalabi, and Curveball, who (in league with the Vulcans) lured us into Iraq on phoney intel?  Did it vet Humam al-Balawi, of F.O.B. Chapman ill-fame?

[Update, 23 September 2014]

One Syrian rebel group supported in the past by the United States condemned the air strikes on Tuesday. Harakat Hazm, a rebel group that received a shipment of U.S. anti-tank weapons in the spring, called the airstrikes  “an attack on national sovereignty”.

www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/23/al-qaeda-plotters-in-syria-went-dark-u-s-spies-say.html

[Update 7 October 2014]  Now this:

Equipping the Free Syrian Army got off to a rocky start. Sources in Turkey told me this summer that one brigade tried selling American-supplied TOW anti-tank missiles to Jabhat al-Nusra for $25,000 this year.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/07/opinion/barfi-kurds-isis/

I.e., the al-Nusrah Front -- a/w al-Qaeda.

Having popped that bubble, our commentator then blows one of his own:

For the operation to be a success, Washington should enlist the support of a group it has spurned: the Syrian Kurds.

This, at the very moment that, in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane, they are getting their butt crushed, despite American air support!

[Update 17 Oct 2014]  And now this:

From the start, President Obama’s Syria policy has foundered because of a gap between words and deeds. And he’s done it again. Having declared that the aim of U.S. policy is to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State, Obama now finds himself pressured to escalate military action in Syria. This is a path destined for failure. In fact, the administration should abandon its lofty rhetoric and make clear that it is focused on a strategy against the Islamic State that is actually achievable: containment.

Escalation in Syria cannot meet American objectives and is almost certain to produce chaos and unintended consequences. The central reality is that Washington has no serious local partners on the ground. It is important to understand that the Free Syrian Army doesn’t actually exist. A Congressional Research Service report points out that the name does not refer to any “organized command and control structure with national reach.” The director of national intelligence has testified that the opposition to the Bashar al-Assad regime is composed of 1,500 separate militias. We call a bunch of these militias — which are anti-Assad and also anti-Islamist (we hope) — the Free Syrian Army.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-obama-needs-a-containment-strategy-for-the-islamic-state/2014/10/16/925d9bf2-556e-11e4-892e-602188e70e9c_story.html?hpid=z3

To coin an epigram:  the "Free Syrian Army" is neither free, nor Syrian, nor an army.

(4)  Political linguistics:  What to call the Caliphate

Our earlier essay, “ISIL vs. ISIS”, offered a thorough examination of the competing (Western) acronyms for what in Arabic is al-Dawlah al-Islâmiyyah fi-l-`Iraq wa-l-Shâm, from the perspective of historical linguistics.   The newer name, IS tout court, resolves the acronymic conundrum, and moreover is inoffensive in itself, since it sounds like simply a short-form of ISIS/ISIL -- though in origin it is not that, but rather a sort of “lengthened” designation in terms of their envisaged AOR -- now not onomastically laid out, but surely encompassing the whole of the Islamic oecumene, and probably much more besides.   But it is easy for a Westerner to remain unconscious of that latter fact, and think of the IS as just one more terrorist group among many.

The matter becomes considerably knottier when we realize that the real story here, and what will motivate coming events, is not a change of name, but a (proclaimed, purported) change of essence:  from a mere jihadi ‘group’ (an entity whose ontological status the IS itself now dismissively minimizes) to that of a caliphate -- or rather, The Caliphate, since unlike a kingdom or an emirate, there can in principle be only one such thing at a time, and its reach wraps the whole of the globe.   A comparable ideal held for Christendom, back before the schisms, when the Church was not merely Catholic (now merely the proper name of a confession, like Presbyterian or Orthodox) but catholic -- ‘universal’ in its original sense.

The geopolitical and even eschatological claims  of such an entity, are enormous, and difficult to come to grips with, for those who have forgotten history.

The caliph Harûn al-Rashîd,

graciously receiving a humble embassy from Charlemagne

 

So, setting aside the comparatively minor kerfuffle over “ISIL vs. ISIS”, what do we call the, er, … “Caliphate”.   Do we use the word, or would that represent a significant legitimation?

For now, those with enough awareness to realize what the problem is, are taking a leaf from Frankie Lee:

“Eternity?” said Frankie Lee
With a voice as cold as ice
“That’s right,” said Judas Priest, “Eternity
Though you might call it ‘Paradise’”
“I don’t call it anything”
Said Frankie Lee with a smile
“All right,” said Judas Priest
“I’ll see you after a while.”

(And indeed, they will be seeing us, not that far down the road.
 This very Sunday, maybe.) 

Here you can witness the French wrestling for the mot juste:

Reconnaître la qualité d'État au Califat autoproclamé fin juin, à cheval sur l'Irak et la Syrie, serait lui accorder une existence officielle. Pour le moment, aucune appellation commune n'a donc été retenue.

http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2014/09/12/01003-20140912ARTFIG00286-l-embarras-des-occidentaux-pour-nommer-l-etat-islamique.php

(Which means: "We don't call it ... anything.")

The French, it turns out, are having qualms, not only with the edgy 'Caliphate' designation, but even with 'The State' (which Obama likewise deprecated in his address).  That very informative article goes on to present an elegant solution which has now been adopted by the French leadership -- call it by its Arabic acronym Dâ`ish  (داعش), which the group itself despises:

En France, c'est Laurent Fabius qui, à l'Assemblée nationale, s'est livré à une mise au point sémantique: s'il utilisait auparavant l'expression «État islamique», le ministre des Affaires étrangères préconise désormais l'appelation «Daech». «Vous avez parlé d'un prétendu “État islamique”: permettez-moi de revenir, un instant seulement, sur cette expression, a-t-il dit, mercredi, au Palais Bourbon. Le groupe terroriste dont il s'agit n'est pas un État. Il voudrait l'être, il ne l'est pas, et c'est lui faire un cadeau que l'appeler «État». De la même façon, je recommande de ne pas utiliser l'expression “État islamique”, car cela occasionne une confusion entre l'islam, l'islamisme, et les musulmans. Il s'agit de ce que les Arabes appellent “Daech”, et que j'appellerai pour ma part “les égorgeurs de Daech”!»

Depuis quelques temps, le président de la République, François Hollande et le ministre de la Défense, Jean-Yves Le Drian, utilisent également la terminologie «Daech».

This, then, would be the dysphemistic name for the Caliphate, the way the jihadis spurn the term Saudi Arabia (with its blasphemous dynastic claims) and refer rather to the Âl Salûl.

An alternate dysphemism has been suggested by the “«Dar al-Ifta», que le Guardian décrit comme une autorité religieuse à l'intérieur comme à l'extérieur de l'Egypte, dépendant du ministère de la justice Égyptien. Dar al-Ifta demande aux occidentaux d'appeler l'État islamique «Séparatistes d'al-Qaida en Irak et en Syrie», soit SQIS.”

That has a certain charm, especially if the members of the SQIS organization are accordingly designated SQISlings.

[Update 15 September 2014]  In his entertainingly satirical French-language commentary,

   http://www.medi1.com/player/player.php?i=6083548

Fouad Laroui (our favorite Franco-Morocco-Dutcho  radio feuilletoniste) comes up with a hit-parade (pronounced EET-pah-RAHD) of dysphemisms:  for the ISIL,  the “IS-no-good” (pronounced EEZ-no-GOOOD); for Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi (the Caliph Ibrahim, to those who acknowledge him as such), “EEZ-no-GOOOD sa-barbe-à-poux”; for the faux-caliphate, the “califarfelu”, for which the adjective is “califarfelutique”.

Additionally, he makes the same allusion to the HRE epigram that I did;  les beaux esprits se rencontrent.

[Update 17 September 2014]  Amy Davidson’s lucid essay on the ISIL quandary, including its rhetorical/linguistic aspects, heads off this week's New Yorker.

[Update 19 September 2014]  In light of yesterday’s events in Sydney … The order of vulnerability listed above  remains valid;  but the overall level of threat is now further elevated.  Further, the practical distance beween adjacent levels may well be compressed, given the potential for the face-off between civilizations to go global rather quickly.  For an analysis, see here:

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2014/09/on-psycho-theatrics-of-beheadings.html

[Update November 2015]  Some clear-eyed commentary, not gulled by the "neither Islamic nor a State" meme:

"Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It"

Der algerische Publizist Kamel Daoud stellt nach einer Gegenüberstellung des "Islamischen Staats" und des Königreichs Saudi-Arabien nüchtern fest, dass die Ansichten des einflussreichen saudischen Klerus sich nicht grundsätzlich von der Ideologie der Terroristen unterschieden. Beide basierten auf dem Wahhabismus, einem messianischen Radikalismus aus dem 18. Jahrhundert. "One might counter: Isn’t Saudi Arabia itself a possible target of Daesh? Yes, but to focus on that would be to overlook the strength of the ties between the reigning family and the clergy that accounts for its stability — and also, increasingly, for its precariousness. The Saudi royals are caught in a perfect trap: Weakened by succession laws that encourage turnover, they cling to ancestral ties between king and preacher. The Saudi clergy produces Islamism, which both threatens the country and gives legitimacy to the regime. (...) All of which leaves one skeptical of Western democracies’ thunderous declarations regarding the necessity of fighting terrorism. Their war can only be myopic, for it targets the effect rather than the cause. Since ISIS is first and foremost a culture, not a militia, how do you prevent future generations from turning to jihadism when the influence of Fatwa Valley and its clerics and its culture and its immense editorial industry remains intact?"

(New York Times vom 21.11.2015)

.