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[ by Charles Cameron — Kuwaiti Ramadan ad message: Let’s Bomb Hatred With Love ]
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At the time I’m writing this, the following video has received 2,298,068 views:

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One site posting the video commented:

As we know from the consumerization of Christmas, nothing seems to scream profits to large corporations like a religious occasion.

In this case, Zain is the large corporation, and Ramadan is the occasion for the video, which features Emirati pop star Hussain Al Jassmi.

Ramadan, the fasting month in which the Quran was revealed to Muhammad, is one of the five pillars of Islam. Zain is a Kuwaiti mobile telecom provider reaching across the Middle East and Africa.

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The text of the ad, icluding Al Jassmi’s lyrics, is as follows:

I will tell God everything …
That you’ve filled the cemeteries with our children and emptied our school desks …
That you’ve sparked unrest and turned our streets to darkness …
And that you’ve lied …
God has full knowledge of the secrets of all hearts.

I bear witness that there is no God but Allah.
You who comes in the name of death, He is the creator of life.
I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God.
The forgiving and forbearing who hurts not those who hurt Him.

God is Greater
Than those who hide what doesn’t show.
God is Greater
Than those who obey without contemplation.
God is Greater
Than those lurking to betray us.

God is Greater
God is Greater
God is Greater

Worship your God with love .. With love, not terror ..
Be tender in your faith, tender not harsh ..
Confront your enemy, with peace not war ..
Persuade others, with leniency not by force ..

Let’s bomb violence with mercy ..
Let’s bomb delusion with the truth ..
Let’s bomb hatred with love ..
Let’s bomb extremism for a better life ..

We will counter their attacks of hatred, with songs of love .. From now until happiness.

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There os an interesting comparison implicit here between the words of Christ:

You have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. You have heard that it hath been said, Thou shall love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.

and those of the Quran:

The Koran says in the subject of surrendering one’s right to exact vengeance from another, “Nor can goodness and evil be equal. Repel (evil) with what is better: then will he between whom and you was hatred become as it were your friend and intimate.” (41: 34) So the Koran holds forgiveness, forbearance, restraint, and turning a blind eye to abuses to be the higher ideal of a belief.

The text from which I’m quoting here, with the Quranic verse embedded in it, is by Abdullah bin Hamid Ali entited Islam and Thurning the Other Cheek, and includes a thoughtful comparison of Martin Luther King and Malcoom X.

I’m hoping to write up a fuller comparison between the Christian and Islamic doctrines, possibly for LapidoMedia, and will report back here.

A popular quote attributed to Ali ibn Abi Talib, fourth caliph of the SUnni, first Imam of the Shia:

Hate no one, no matter how much they have wronged you, live humbly, no matter how wealthy you have become, think positively, no matter how hard the life is, give much, even if you have been given little, keep in touch with the ones who have forgotten you, and forgive who has wronged you, and do not stop praying for the best of those you love.

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Blessed are the meek. Ramadan Mubarak.

[ by Charles Cameron — if hell exists — and we’re easily persuaded it does — best believe in paradise, too ]
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Bryan Alexander of Infocult headed his report, Earth opens campaign against Trump. Bryan has been following sinkholes around the globe for some time now, and has also been keeping a wary eye on Donald Trump, so the correlation wouldn’t surprise him, and he leaped to causation, with or without good reason.

Let’s take a look, first, at the hole itself:

It’s black, as though part of the world had been redacted for security reasons.

Sinkoles are not uncommon in Florida, and frequently feast on human habitations:

The City of Palm Beech is calm and carries on:

Sinkhole in front of Mar-a-Lago: A 4' x 4' sinkhole has formed on Southern Boulevard directly in front of… https://t.co/5xOpmJ8Y2v

— Town of Palm Beach (@townpalmbeach) May 22, 2017

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It takes the Washington Post to put the event in truly cross-disiplinary perspective, titling its article on the topic brilliantly:

Sinkhole forms in front of Mar-a-Lago; metaphors pour in https://t.co/pXmAxgtBTf

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 22, 2017

Indeed they did. Oliver Willis had the best reading of the Sign:

A sinkhole just opened in front of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate https://t.co/vlSlzzwBCP THE ORB DEMANDS SACRIFICE

— Oliver Willis (@owillis) May 22, 2017

The orb in question is the Saudi counterterrorism orb:

What Was That Glowing Orb Trump Touched in Saudi Arabia?, via @nytimes. Yeah Kristol https://t.co/LcCGx5giCm

— David Kalow (@daknycip) May 24, 2017

Bothing to do with Saruman, I assure you. But take a look at those eyes..

@KingSalman and @POTUS inaugurate The Global Center for Combatting Extremist Ideology in Riyadh. #RiyadhSummit pic.twitter.com/do6cFL7wBW

— Saudi Embassy (@SaudiEmbassyUSA) May 21, 2017

And FWIW, tthe orb’s direct impact on the pavement in Palm Beach is confirmed by Chad Fondiller:

The sinkhole began forming seconds after the Orb was touched. https://t.co/zBVio0ejjs

— Chad Fondiller (@ChadFondiller) May 22, 2017

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Some, like Conchita Leeflang, read the Sign more mundanely in terms of Trump‘s own rhetoric:

@owillis @Trumpnado2016 The Swamp is draining.

— Conchita Leeflang (@conchitaleef) May 22, 2017

That’s clever, but it doesn’t really explain this photo of the sinkhole alt-event now, does it?

What does that orb have to do with counterterrorism, BTW?

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This post is brought you by the folks who also brought you:

This tree was hit by lightning in Baldwyn, MS. It burned the inside. From @jkroxie pic.twitter.com/OKXNMZrmVi

— James Spann (@spann) April 22, 2017

[ by Charles Cameron — with application to paras from JM Berger & WIll McCants ]
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Two from Florida, both yesterday!

Really!

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The kid who converts from Neo-Nazi to Islam and then kills his disrespectful roomies makes for a brilliant & provocative case study, becaause it so confounds our usual expectations.

Consider. We are used to the idea of otherwise unexceptional people joining extremist groups, religious or political — we term the process “radicalization”. And under the banner of “countering violent extremism” we encourage people to leave violent extremist groups and fade back into the normal fabric of society — some become anti-extremist messengers, Kerry Noble and Maajid Nawaz being well known examples. And both coming and going, there’s the little matter of messaging — messaging for radicaliziation, messaging for deradicalization.

But converting from a far-right political ideology to militant Islam? What kind of process us that, and what kind of messaging is involved, or called for?

I want to focus in on this poor dumb kid Devon Arthurs because he offers an almost too-good-to-be-true instance of two significant ideas from two of our finest analysts.

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Let’s take Will McCants first.

McCants’ point is that every jihadist (and every extremist, by extension) is subject to a wide mix of drives, some more potent than others, but none of which should be viewed as the exclusive “explanation” for radicalization. As he writes in a gobbit that is now pinned to the top of his twitter-feed:

The disappoint stems from the desire to attribute the jihadist phenomenon to a single cause rather than to several causes that work in tandem to produce it. To my mind, the most salient are these: a religious heritage that lauds fighting abroad to establish states and to protect one’s fellow Muslims; ultraconservative religious ideas and networks exploited by militant recruiters; peer pressure (if you know someone involved, you’re more likely to get involved); fear of religious persecution; poor governance (not type of government); youth unemployment or underemployment in large cities; and civil war. All of these factors are more at play in the Arab world now than at any other time in recent memory, which is fueling a jihadist resurgence around the world.

If anyone elevates one of those factors above the others to diagnose the problem, you can be certain the resulting prescription will not work. It may even backfire, leading to more jihadist recruitment, not less.

That’s the general case: but you could hardly have a better instance of how sui generis the process is than our case of the young Neo-Nazi turned Muslim.

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Things get even more interesting, however, when we see how this case fits with a point JM Berger has been at pains to meke recently. In Extremist Construction of Identity: How Escalating Demands for Legitimacy Shape and Define In-Group and Out-Group Dynamics, JM expresses his growing sense that extremism should be studied as a category unto itself — that we should not limit our studies to such brands as “Islamic extremism” or “Right Wing extremism”. He writes:

More broadly, this paper is a first step in developing and testing the hypothesis that extremist group radicalisation represents an identifiable process that can be understood as distinct from the contents of a movement’s ideology. That is not to say that the content of an ideology is meaningless or unimportant. Rather, this research seeks to explore whether universal processes of radicalisation provide a more useful window into why identity-based extremist movements form in the first place and how they evolve toward violence.

In the case of Devon Arthurs we have someone who doesn’t only espouse one extremism, but two, in rapid succession. And thus it is plausible to say that it is not Nazism, nor violent extremist Islam, that attracts him, but extremism as such.

Thinking through our ideas about narratives in radicalization and derad with Arthurs as our instance, raises all sorts of questions: what messaging if any do the Neo-Nazis and Jihadists have in common? What message allows someone to slip from one camp in to the other? And what messaging would be an effectove counterbalance not to one ideology or the other, but to the general propensity for extremism?

All in all, this kid makes for a fabulous case study in the ease with which our assumptions can deceive us.

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Sources:

CBS News, Cops: Florida man kills neo-Nazi roommates over Islam disrespect

RawStory, FBI busts ‘Atomwaffen’ Neo-Nazi in Florida for making explosives

[ by Charles Cameron — ]
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Invocation:

Muggle, muggle, toil and trouble.

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Placement:

A great-great-..-grandson of Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab is seated between the Jew, Jared Kushner, and the Catholic, Steve Bannon.

On second thoughts, perhaps that’s an indication of interfaith solidarity..

[ by Charles Cameron — oh, but it’s just a backdrop ]
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When ABC News describes the room in which President Trump addressed King Salman of Saudi Arabia and the leaders of 50 Muslim nations in Riyadh this morning, they mentioned that it was “an ornate room that featured 11 chandeliers and six giant video screens.” Okay, but to my eye the scene was dominated by a great black and gold panel of the Kiswah [above], the ornate cloth, renewed once yearly, which covers the Kaaba in Mecca, the point in this turning world to which all Muslims turn in prayer, and around which they revolve in pilgrimage.

I spent some time searching for a decent press photograph or media mention of this Kiswah panel, without success — the chandeliers are clearly more important to media sensibilities than the veil of Islam’s most central shrine, to which all mosques are oriented.

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I am reminded of Tim Furnish‘s comment yesterday, pointing out that the Time magazine cover showing the Kremlin (below) had airbrushed out the crosses atop the onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral —

— domes which Time referred to, in a further display of ignorance, as minarets.

Why are we so appallingly oblivious to religious symbolism, when it plays so major a role in communicating meaning? What tells us more about a cathedral than the cross which surmounts it? Which more completely dominates that conference chamber in Riyadh — the colorful array of flags, or the great panel of the Kiswah mounted above them?

Why do we so consistently airbrush religion out of the picture?