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posted by janrinok on Thursday April 19 2018, @12:31AM   Printer-friendly
from the oh-good-stronger-copyright-laws-/s dept.

French president challenges 'inward-looking nationalist selfishness' in Europe:

Emmanuel Macron has outlined his vision for the future of the European Union in Strasbourg. The 40-year-old, who secured the French Presidency in May on a pro-EU platform amid a populist surge in the bloc, delivered his highly anticipated speech to over 700 MEPs in the European Parliament on Tuesday.

Macron challenged "inward-looking nationalist selfishness" amid populist sentiment in the bloc and pushed for a more united and reinvigorated Europe. "Nationalism will lead Europe into the abyss. We see authoritarianism rising all around us," he said. "The response should not be authoritarian democracy but the authority of democracy."

Macron also sought to tackle the "poisoned debate" on migration, proposing the creation of a European programme that could subsidise local authorities which host and integrate refugees.

In a speech which touched on a range of issues, Macron recommended that copyright law be tightened to protect artists' "genius" and reiterated his support for tougher environmental legislation.

Meanwhile, Macron wants to "reform" Islam:

Speaking alongside the flag-draped coffin of a police officer killed in a terrorist attack in southern France, President Emmanuel Macron last month lay blame on "underground Islamism" and those who "indoctrinate on our soil and corrupt daily." The attack added further urgency to a project already in the works: Macron has embarked on a controversial quest to change Islam in France — with the goal of integration but also preventing radicalization.

He has said that in the coming months he will announce "a blueprint for the whole organization" of Islam. And those trying to anticipate what that will look like are turning their attention to Hakim El Karoui, a leading voice on how Islamic traditions fit within French culture.

It's hard to miss that the man who appears to have Macron's ear on this most sensitive of subjects cuts a similar figure. Like the president, El Karoui is an ex-Rothschild investment banker with an elite social pedigree who favors well-tailored suits, crisp white shirts and the lofty province of big ideas. The latest of those ideas is this: that the best way to integrate Islam within French society is to promote a version of the religion "practiced in peace by believers who will not have the need to loudly proclaim their faith."

Also at BBC.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Thursday April 19 2018, @02:20AM (15 children)

    by looorg (578) on Thursday April 19 2018, @02:20AM (#668809)

    Somehow I doubt any significant muslim authority is going to take reform advice from a catholic, being the president of France won't score any browny points either nor will having been a banker for the Rothschild family. He could anoint his own mufti and that still would not matter. Their reformation will have to come from within, not proposed by the west. But that probably will never happen since the Quran is without fault, its the actual word of God and not stories retold by others, and so to change it would destroy its foundation. What they might need is a good ol' holy-war where they just kill off all the crazy, short of that there wont be any changes.

    As far as his ideas for Europe he can just go and suck down some escargots.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @02:43AM (14 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @02:43AM (#668817)

    Christian reformation will have to come from within, not proposed by the outside. But that probably will never happen since the Bible is without fault, its the actual word of God and not stories retold by others, and so to change it would destroy its foundation. What they might need is a good ol' holy-war where they just kill off all the crazy, short of that there wont be any changes.

    I guess I'd better start packing up for the Crusades. Wouldn't want the Inquisition to brand me infidel, after all. Man, the last five centuries of Christian non-reformation have been, uh, wonderful. please don't burn me at the stake

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @03:07AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @03:07AM (#668827)

      Those Buddhist monks sure told those Christians how to let go of their karma!

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday April 19 2018, @05:15AM (1 child)

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 19 2018, @05:15AM (#668872) Journal

        Citation needed. (yes, I know cases of Buddhism violence, but I'm not aware about violence against Christians)

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        • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday April 19 2018, @08:13PM

          by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 19 2018, @08:13PM (#669269) Journal

          I'm not aware of any either, but if you thing that it hasn't happened, I think you're being unreasonably believing of Buddhists being faithful to their religious principles.

          That said, Buddhists have a much more consistent record of avoiding violence than any other faith of which I am aware. OTOH, many Samurai were Buddhists. (I've never understood that one.)

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    • (Score: 1) by tftp on Thursday April 19 2018, @05:24AM (2 children)

      by tftp (806) on Thursday April 19 2018, @05:24AM (#668876) Homepage
      You think the Catholic church got changed from outside? Like some conqueror stormed Vatican and hanged the Pope above fire until he announces these changes? Not like the Church changed itself trying to catch up with social and scientific developments?
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @08:15AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @08:15AM (#668930)

        No, I'm saying the *exact opposite*. Church did some horrible things "in the name of God", and Bible is considered the literal and immutable "word of God", but in the end the Christianity reformed from the inside.

        I've replaced a few words to show parallels between Islam and middle-ages Christianity, and show that the exact same "that probably will never happen" bullshit could've been said about the Christianity as well, a few hundred years ago. Yet here we are.

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by pTamok on Thursday April 19 2018, @09:44AM

          by pTamok (3042) on Thursday April 19 2018, @09:44AM (#668958)

          Bible is considered the literal and immutable "word of God"

          Not by mainstream Christians. The Bible is believed to be inspired by God, but written by many (fallible) human beings, which explains why you can find many mistakes and contradictions in it. God's word is revealed through a distorting fog of human interpretations, which change over time (it isn't immutable). If we were to find an original text of one of the Gospels for example (archeologists find things unexpectedly every so often, and you can do things like carbon-dating, textual analysis etc to demonstrate good provenance), it would be sure to differ in the details with current Gospels, and would therefore inform current thinking. It makes Christianity flexible in its beliefs, which is a good thing.

          Islam has the dogma of textual immutability, and the Koran being the actual, unchangeable word of God. Thus, if you find an old Koran which differs with the current one, it is a big deal. One of the key points in the history of Islam is the gathering together of texts of the Koran not long after the death of Mohammed and a process of defining which were the correct ones, to remain unchanged for eternity, which took place under the Caliph Uthman ibn Affan [wikipedia.org]. There is still room for interpretation of the text, and argument over associated hadiths (sayings and actions of Mohammed that are not the Official Word of God, but given heavy weight). Islam has no central authority defining meaning - effectively each imam has their own theology, but there are well-known differing schools of Islamic jurisprudence, as detailed in the Amman Message of 2004 [wikipedia.org]. Islam is not as monolithic in its details in the way many non-Muslims believe. While there are many Wahhabist Muslims, there are also others, and you can see a kind of rough equivalence to the state of things in Christianity: many Christians are Catholic, and regard the Pope in Rome as rather important, but there are other Christians who utterly reject that idea - like Protestants and Orthodox Christians.

          Even if a text is immutable, there is much room for interpretation. The USA has the Supreme Court as the ultimate backstop to interpret the Constitution - which is well known text that is difficult to change. The Supreme Court Justices are called upon to interpret the text, and there are differing schools of thought - there are those that look at what they believe to be the original intent of the writers, those that see ambiguities and vagueness in the writing as a deliberate means of allowing differing interpretations in the future, those that think the text should be read literally, and many other nuanced approaches. Such are Muslim interpretations of the Koran and other teachings. There is unlikely to be full agreement on the details about what is right, even if the text itself is unchanged and unchangeable.

          It is no doubt possible to disagree with and pick holes in what I have written above, but the broad tenor is, I believe, correct.

    • (Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @06:27AM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @06:27AM (#668896)

      You say "since the Bible is without fault, its the actual word of God", but no, Christians do not believe that each and every word is set down perfectly by god. There are many translations, and mostly we don't even have the original text.

      The Koran is seen as literal text from god. God made Mohammed say stuff, and then god guided the people who wrote it down. Every word is perfectly accurate, straight from god. If you dare question this, it becomes the duty of every moslem to kill you.

      So the situations are fundamentally different. Islam is immune to reformation.

      • (Score: 1) by pTamok on Thursday April 19 2018, @09:56AM (4 children)

        by pTamok (3042) on Thursday April 19 2018, @09:56AM (#668964)

        WIth regard to Islam and the Reformation, I would gently encourage you to read and reflect upon this article:

        Why Islam doesn’t need a reformation [theguardian.com]. I don't think I would wish the consequences of such a reformation on people.

        Rather than a Reformation, I would fervently wish for an Age of Enlightenment [wikipedia.org] that this time doesn't end with a bloody revolution.

        • (Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Thursday April 19 2018, @06:45PM (3 children)

          by PocketSizeSUn (5340) on Thursday April 19 2018, @06:45PM (#669220)

          I fervently disagree. Islam does need a reformation, among a long laundry list of the faults in is core tenets is in Muslim / Non-Muslim power balance. For a Muslim, the Non-Muslim is a strictly lesser being with lesser rights and lower status. This is a fundamental problem that cannot be solved without a significant and real reformation. Yes there is a wide range of among Muslims from liberal to conservative, however the vast majority are conservative and becoming more polarized, extreme and growing in numbers, simply because the overwhelming interpretation of the Quran is that the conservative and radical groups are acting as dictated by Mohammed and the liberals and moderates are not. Without a reformation liberal and moderate Muslims have no basis to defend their action/in-action. The most liberal of Islamic adherents are Sufi. Sufism and Sufi persecution has been ongoing and increasing more violent.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufism [wikipedia.org]
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Sufis [wikipedia.org]

          Muslim intolerance can only be reformed from within. Unfortunately as there is no central governing authority in Islam there is no realistic model by which an Islamic reformation can occur.
          At best you can have Summits of influential Imams agree to some reformations but there is no requirement or expectation that other Imams will adhere.
          This is complicated when it is governments like Saudi/Iran that are backing these conservative Imams to maintain power there is little reason to expect any such Imams to agree to any reformation that does not consolidate their power. Without those Imams participation any Summit of Imams is simply not workable, no matter how much liberal and moderate Muslims would like to see such a reform.

          • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday April 19 2018, @08:25PM

            by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 19 2018, @08:25PM (#669276) Journal

            Not really. All they need to do is recognize that "Allah" isn't a name, but a description in a particular language. And that "god" is the same description in another language. Then any believer in a god would, by following the tenets of their faith, be a Muslim. This would render the particular characteristics of the god, such as how it should be worshiped, matters subject to argument and mutual toleration.

            If I have the prayer correctly is goes something like "la illah Allah", which I would translate into English as "the god is God". Since this is a tautology, few would argue with it. (OTOH, I don't understand Arabic, so I may have garbled it...but I don't think so. But perhaps it should be "the god is The God".)

            With this reformulation, agnostics would become "seekers". Those to whom knowledge of God has not yet been revealed. And atheists and materialists would be those who have mistaken the visible signs of God for God. And seen as sincere devotees with shallow minds.

            So, in principle, no reformation is needed.

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          • (Score: 1) by pTamok on Friday April 20 2018, @07:39AM (1 child)

            by pTamok (3042) on Friday April 20 2018, @07:39AM (#669548)

            One slight problem is that what you see as faults are regarded by many (not all) Muslims as the correct state of things. Of course non-Muslims are lesser beings, just as some (not all) Crusaders believed Muslims to be no better than animals, or settlers of the American West regarded Indians as nuisances to be exterminated, or plantation owners regarded black-Africans as less-developed than non-black people, and certainly not equal. Changing such mindsets is not an easy or short process.
            The trouble is, reformation may not mean what you think it means. The (Protestant) Reformation was a result of informed protest against certain practices of the Roman (Catholic) Church and can be characterised as a call for a more conservative or fundamentalist approach - to an extent Wahhabism is a successful reformation of the Islamic faith along the same lines. The roots of the Protestant Reformation lie partly in Lollardism, where John Wycliffe (among other things) regarded the veneration of saints as idolatry. Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792 CE) regarded (among other things) the veneration of saints as idolatry...
            One of the points the Protestant Reformation covered was the reaction against having a central authority, so lack of a central authority does not prevent reformation.
            Calling for a reformation of Islam along more liberal lines, especially if you are a non-Muslim, is unlikely to gain a great deal of traction. The Protestant Reformation ended up with the 30-years war [wikipedia.org], concluded by the Peace of Westphalia (1648). To an extent, you can see the conflicts between Shia and Sunni Muslims as an analogue of the same process.
            This is why I suggested earlier than working for an Enlightenment may be a more constructive approach. If you can persuade people that their quality of life will be improved if they follow certain practices, you have a good chance of getting your message acted upon. The method used by many religious practitioners is to get people to accept privations in their 'earthly life' in exchange for an unevidenced promise of a better life after death. Giving people what they regard as a viable alternative to that pact could work wonders in the long term.

            • (Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Friday April 20 2018, @05:27PM

              by PocketSizeSUn (5340) on Friday April 20 2018, @05:27PM (#669721)

              Of course non-Muslims are lesser beings

              It is dictated by the Quran, so technically it is all Muslims. Do all Muslims act that way? Of course not. I spend half of my time in Muslim majority countries but I don't run around with blinders or an overly optimistic understandings of what is going on around me.

              The method used by many religious practitioners is to get people to accept privations in their 'earthly life' in exchange for an unevidenced promise of a better life after death. Giving people what they regard as a viable alternative to that pact could work wonders in the long term.

              Firstly privations in their 'earthly life' is not a part of any Muslim sect. That is only exists as a Christian (New Testament) ideal. Islam is very much an eye-for-an-eye dog-eat-dog world view.

              And yes, economic abundance can be seen as a general correlation to religious moderation. However you should understand that the basis of the moderation is simply a lesser need to impose religious law on others for self enrichment and entitlement and not a general softening of core beliefs.

              I am not at all opposed to religious faith of any kind, I am however opposed to religious law, in all forms. The core tenets of the Quran require Sharia Law and that is the reform that needs to happen. Not the sophist 'Allah' is just another name for 'God' so we are all Muslims, it is divorcing Sharia from the Quran. IMO that can only start when Saudi doesn't need Sharia to 'stomp on it's people', which is likely to happen some time after their oil runs out.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by TheRaven on Thursday April 19 2018, @08:51AM (1 child)

      by TheRaven (270) on Thursday April 19 2018, @08:51AM (#668939) Journal

      But that probably will never happen since the Bible is without fault, its the actual word of God and not stories retold by others

      This is not true for most Christian sects. Mainstream branches of Christianity (i.e. anything that accepts the decisions of the First Council of Nicaea in 325) believe that the Bible is 'inspired' by God, but is fallible because it was translated by the mind of man. In contrast, Islam teaches that the Qur'an is the literal word of God (who, apparently, can't speak any language other than Arabic), dictated by an angel and memorised by Muhammed. Translations of the Qur'an into other languages must be referred to as 'interpretations' and are not considered canonical.

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      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday April 19 2018, @08:06PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 19 2018, @08:06PM (#669264) Journal

        Sounds like the exact same decision to me. "Only the original can be considered valid. All translations are suspect." is the decision in both cases.

        The only problem is, Arabic is still a existing language with native speakers, and they think they know what the words the read today meant when they were written 16 centuries ago. OTOH, they also acknowledge that the existing Koran is a disorganized patchwork of fragments that were pieced together during the Caliphate. A pity they don't understand what that means about the meaning and understanding of each fragment (i.e. that each fragment was originally embedded in a larger context which has been lost). Well, some of them do, but you won't find them being fanatical.

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