The Need for Scapegoats in All Forms of Oppressive Regimes

[Leonardo17]

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I could not find another topic where I can post this so I’m going to post this here.
 
Many authoritarian regimes in the past like the Fascists in Germany or even the Soviets have oppressed the LGBTQ community. In Germany they were simply exterminated. In the Soviet Union you were mostly forced to hide it. I have learned that authoritarian regimes like and need this type of scape goats. They are in desperate need of some people they can present to their brainwashed mobs. Sometimes these are “Jews” sometimes these are “gipsy’s” in many cases these are “homosexuals”. In history these have been “heretics” or “witches”. For the last example they will simply modify the first letter of the word and then use this word like they were using it in the past and no one is going to object.
 
In oppressive regimes there is always this need to target some groups of people. And if anyone has any doubt on the fact that political Islam is just another chapter in this row of fascist regimes that were invented for the most part in the 20’Th century, just look at the way it works.
 
Here is a very nice example on the speech of The One who is the President for One More Week:
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/turkey-leader...46109.html
 
The issue here is this. Political Islam (as an ideology) has claims of cultural and religious identity (Just like fascism and other forms of populism). Yet before giving in to their claims I suggest that you do some research on Orientalism for instance. When I was in college I did study Orientalist painters like Eugene de la Croix for instance. Even in the beginning of the 20th century the Orient was seen by Europeans as this mystical realm that was visited by archeologists and treasure hunters like Max Mallowan or his wife Agatha Christie who became famous for her works like “Murder in the Orient Express”. Or the Howard Carter who uncovered the Famous tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922 (after which several archeologists had died leaving a debate behind them on whether the tomb was cursed or not.
 
Also, the orient was this realm of poetry, eastern philosophy and earthly pleasures that seemed very exotic to the European viewer. So I am going to share this picture by Eugene de La Croix called “The Women of Algiers”. These are women from a harem who are rather loosely dressed and are having a good time listening to some good live music, being served by their slaves and smoking some Hashish (the local version of Marijuana):


 
So it would not be an exaggeration to say that this was the reality of the era. Ottoman elites were known for their taste in all sorts of arts, heavy consumption of alcohol, a great sense of enjoyment for what we call “night life”. In fact the Greek music style called “Rembetiko” comes from Constantinople. The inhabitants of Istanbul or Smyrna of the 19’th / early 20th century really knew how to add some pleasure into their lives in every sense of the term.
 
And homosexuality was not that much of an issue at the time. I believe that homophobia in the East is a Western import product, directly copied and pasted from 19th century Christians doctrines. I am very sure of that because in Roman and Byzantine times we clearly know that there were emperors who were openly bisexual or homosexual. So when we came and took over the place after the 15th century, we didn’t really see a need to change that. You might want to check the novel called “Samarkand” written by Mr. Amin Maalouf on this issue. Medieval Muslim societies were not sexually repressive at all. All that was needed was some level of discretion.
 
I think it was with the Westernization that started to be felt after the 18th that mobs were beginning to start looking for some “infidel” targets in order to be able to show how pious and religious they are. But still, things kept happening and no one was really obsessed about these things.
 
So this hatred for homosexuality is relatively new and honestly, I don’t know where it comes from. In fact I do. I think it’s because political Islam is just another version of fascism and their target is the Kurds, the Alawi minority, Again Jews, Armenians, Greeks, “The West” (Direct import from Putinism and Maoism).
 
And in purely spiritual terms: There is this appeal (in all religions) for responsible sexual behavior. With some criticism of Homosexuality. But there is no open condemnation of Homosexuality in Islam. Yet were still called (If I am getting it correctly) to have a correct / responsible kind of sexual behavior (as heterosexuals and homosexuals). The way I understand it, we can be whatever we are but if someone starts living like Freddy Mercury and the Gay community of 80’s with a very exaggerated sexual behavior that is harmful to the individual (not in terms of AIDS but in terms of being completely submerged into superficial and purely physical relationships that are ultimately self-destructive) That becomes a problem, and there, the spiritual teaching is warning us.
 
Otherwise: We are to be tolerant toward people who are different. That’s the main point of all religions on earth. So there it is: Political Islam = Fascism. That’s my theory

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Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

Islam was invented in the 6th or 7th century. It didn't turn shitty in the 20th, it's always been that way. Famously, the biblical story of lot wasn't explicit enough, for them, in condemning the homosexers. They prettied it up a bit, made it more explicit, and the ink has been dry on that for some time. Ironically, you've confused post modern secular tolerance for the message of the religions it replaced.

That islamic dictators were (and still are) very often rule breakers is not an argument that the religion was kinder - it's a testament to the duplicity and decadency of the warlords who inflicted islam on their conquered lands. Pretty standard. Rules for thee and not for me. More broadly, tell me how you're different than the next nutter bitching about the great satan in your attempt to shove off the problems with islam itself as magic book describes it.... as late western imports?

[Belacqua]

In oppressive regimes there is always this need to target some groups of people.

This is not only true in oppressive regimes, though. It's very common for certain groups to be demonized in order to increase solidarity among more mainstream people. Hegel called it "negative identity." You define who you are according to what you are not, whom you hate, whom you would like to see gone from the face of the earth.

Americans need Russians to give themselves a common group identity. For a long time it was the Soviet Union, then it was Muslims for a while, and now it's Russia again. The propaganda war is in full swing to make China a scapegoat, once we get tired of hating Putin and forget about Ukraine the way we forgot about Afghanistan.

On this forum there are a few people whose hatred of religion seems to be a central part of their personality. Some people get pleasure from hating. 

When I was in college I did study Orientalist painters like Eugene de la Croix for instance. Even in the beginning of the 20th century the Orient was seen by Europeans as this mystical realm that was visited by archeologists and treasure hunters [...]

Orientalism of the modern type got up and running in early 19th century France. It was largely started by Napoleon, who conquered Egypt and slaughtered the inhabitants of several towns there and in Syria in order to prove his skills as a general, and exploit resources for France. He took with him a large team of artists and archeologists who kept in-depth records of the culture as they killed and colonized its people. The set of prints they published on their return is a great masterpiece.

Both Delacroix and Ingres, who in other respects were opposites, got a lot of mileage out of exotic and erotic scenes of harems. Fantasies of available slave girls and freer, non-European morals were partly male fantasy but partly true. If you read Flaubert's journals from his trip through Egypt, for example, he seems to have spent more time in brothels than gazing at monuments. 

There continues to be a strong tradition of mature men, who wouldn't define themselves as "gay," having boy lovers. It was well known that the warlords in Afghanistan whom the US wanted to support frequently kept boys for such purposes.

Just as some people insist on defining Christianity by pointing to its very worst examples, modern Americans often think of Islam as only and always terrible. They can do this by remaining ignorant of large parts of its history. There have been Islamic societies in which liberal learning and lifestyles were encouraged. There is nothing intrinsic to Islam that makes it like the Taliban, just as Christianity can be far better than its modern American bad examples. But demonizing and scapegoating make it easier to fund the war machine.


Up through the time of the Beat Poets, Northern Africa and parts of the Middle East were destinations for sex and drug tourism, including by many gay writers and artists. This has reportedly ended as more strict Muslim regimes discourage such exploitation. But it's a typical way for colonial powers to use "exotic" countries: take from them what you want (sex, drugs, oil, etc.) while declaring that they are backwards and uncivilized compared to us. 

[Anomalocaris]

The use of scapegoating is common to all form of repressive government because it is common to all forms of government.   It is common to all forms of government because it is common to all form of human society.   It is unavoidable in human society because no society can continuously deliver on such positive promises as might be required to maintain its cohesion over the long term, so it must find other ways to preserve the society in the face of disappointment by setting itself apart from others while increasing the perceived cost for its members of drifting away.   We see this with theocracies, we see this with rightwing dictatorships, we see this with communist government, and we see this with democratic forms of government..

[brewer]