The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> hold on there fella.....

hold on there fella.....
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Wednesday, March 28 2012, 1:03:14 (UTC)
from *** - *** - Windows XP - Mozilla
Website:
Website title:

"In his book, The Rule of Empires (2010), Timothy H. Parsons replaces the myth of the civilizing empire with the truth of the extractive empire. He describes the successes of the Romans, the Umayyad Caliphate, the Spanish in Peru, Napoleon in Italy, and the British in India and Kenya in extracting resources."

...you know, all this criticism of Christianity and now of Christian "extractive" empires, while true and well deserved, has a sneaky component of smearing Islam along with the Christians...because you know, "all religions are pretty much alike" and so, by "extraction", so are all empires...except they are NOT! This is arrow all over again.

..this is very similar to Christian embarrassment over the genocides, and the one true Holocaust, that only they have committed who are now trying desperately to say to the Muslim Turks, "you do too!!!" No...the Turks did NOT.

The examples cited here, all Christian but one, did indeed enrich the mother-empire at the expense of those who got extracted...Rome was wealthier and more ornate than any of the places it extracted from...as was Britain, as was Spain and France...they all stole from the extracted to enrich themselves....but I don;t recall Mecca or Medina being built up into Londons or Romes or Madrids or Fontainbleus....seems to me they remained pretty dusty and humble....The Ummayads made the lands they conquered and ruled RICH...they built THERE...they used the resources to benefit the people who HAD the resources...the others robbed and took the loot home.

Hitchens and Harris, as much as I appreciate what they have to say about Christianity, seem to me to be doing it primarily so they can attack Islam, as if Muslim countries aren't being attacked enough, I mean actually ATTACKED. And, including the Umayyads with those other Christian empires, like they were all the same criminals, isn't quite kosher.



---------------------


The full topic:



***



Powered by RedKernel V.S. Forum 1.2.b9