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JM Berger’s latest, 2

Friday, April 21st, 2017

[ by Charles Cameron — rushing to keep up with the prolific JM ]
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JM Berger sets his latest work in context:

Extraordinary!

Posted in analytic, Charles Cameron, IS, ISIS, JM Berger, recommended reading | Comments Off on JM Berger’s latest, 2

JM Berger’s latest, 1

Friday, April 21st, 2017

[ by Charles Cameron — JM’s sustained attack on Christian Identity and ISIS ]
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JM on his latest piece:

I’ve kept those first three tweets in Twitter form becaue they include graphics. JM’s series continues on twitter, but here I’m reformatting it as regular prose for ease of reading:

The paper is first in a series aiming to develop a framework to study extremism as a phenomenon crossing ideological boundaries.

The framework I’m presenting is derived from a grounded theory approach, using Christian Identity as a starting point. The paper traces how Christian Identity emerged from a non-extremist precursor, and what that says about identity and group radicalization. It also offers new (and probably controversial) definitions of extremism and radicalization, seeking to address a serious gap in consensus. Finally, it offers some ideas for counter-messaging and deradicalization derived from the framework.

The next in the series will apply the framework to ISIS propaganda with concrete notes on how the framework informs counter-messaging. I’m ultimately asking what ISIS has in common with Christian Identity, and what that tells us about each and both.

An important approach, IMO.

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JM Berger’s latest, 2 will present his accompanying overview of recent work in the field.

Posted in Charles Cameron, christianity, IS, ISIS, Islam, islamist, JM Berger, network theory, theory, Uncategorized | Comments Off on JM Berger’s latest, 1

Annunciation, framed

Monday, April 10th, 2017

[ by Charles Cameron — the war of content and context, Coptic / ISIS version ]
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You are in a museum of the fine arts. You may recognize the painting is of the Annunciation.

You are in a church. The angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will bear a son, and call his name Jesus:

He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

You are in a war zone: see, as much as you can see.

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The photographer is in the war zone, catches a glimpse of the art, and takes the photo.

The returning devotee, I’d suggest, grieves the impact of war, pierces through and beyond it with his or her devotional gaze.

Posted in art, Charles Cameron, christianity, cognition, cognitive dissonance, egypt, IS, ISIS, Islam, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Annunciation, framed

Cherry blossom season 02

Sunday, April 9th, 2017

[ by Charles Cameron — cherry blossoms and kamikaze, Palm Sunday and istishhad ]
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It’s cherry blossom season, it’s Palm Sunday. Blossoms fall, while temporary followers of Christ — they’ll abandon him to crucifixion later in the week — celebrate Christ’s arrival in Jerusalem strewing palm leaves at this feet.

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In the upper panel, Japanese self-sacrifice with intent to kill Americans:

The Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka (“cherry blossom”) was a purpose-built, rocket powered human-guided anti-shipping kamikaze attack aircraft employed by Japan towards the end of World War II

Kamikaze pilots — the term translates to “divine wind” — drew strong associations between the transience of cherry blossoms and their own lives.

From WIkipedia:

The names of four sub-units within the Kamikaze Special Attack Force were Unit Shikishima, Unit Yamato, Unit Asahi, and Unit Yamazakura.[22] These names were taken from a patriotic death poem, Shikishima no Yamato-gokoro wo hito towaba, asahi ni niou yamazakura bana by the Japanese classical scholar, Motoori Norinaga. The poem reads:

If someone asks about the Yamato spirit [Spirit of Old/True Japan] of Shikishima [a poetic name for Japan] — it is the flowers of yamazakura [mountain cherry blossom] that are fragrant in the Asahi [rising sun].

From Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers:

As Hayashi entered the military and struggled to come to terms with death, he came to identify himself with cherry blossoms. In a letter to his mother, he laments his fate: the cherry blossoms at the Wo?n-san Base in Korea, where he was stationed, have already fallen, and yet the time for his sortie has not come. To his younger brother he writes from the Kanoya Base: “Cherry blossoms are blooming and I am going” (90). Hayashi consciously draws an analogy between himself and the fl owers; their falling signifi es the time for his death.

Other people also used the metaphor of cherry blossoms to refer to Hayashi. A poem written by his mother after the end of the war contains the idiomatic expression the “falling of my son,” applying the word conventionally used for the falling of cherry petals to the death of Ichizo¯. Hayashi’s friend Hidemura Senzo¯ laments that “Hayashi’s youth is fallen,” like cherry petals, but adds: “Peace arrived but not the peace you wished to bring through your sacrifi ce; it is only in the miserable aftermath of defeat.” Hidemura concludes, “Beauty appears in a sensitive vessel and life is short” (143–47).

See also: Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko (2002). Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms: The Militarization of Aesthetics in Japanese History.

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In the lower panel, the face of a child killed in the ISIS-claimed suicide bombing of a church in Egypt this Palm Sunday, following an earlier ISIS announcment that they would be targeting Egyptian (Coptic) Christians.

ISIS Claims 2 Deadly Explosions at Egyptian Coptic Churches on Palm Sunday

TANTA, Egypt — Islamic State suicide bombers attacked two Coptic churches in Egypt on Palm Sunday, killing at least 40 worshipers and police officers stationed outside in the deadliest day of violence against Christians in the country in decades.

The militant group claimed responsibility for both attacks in a statement via its Aamaq news agency, having recently signaled its intention to escalate a campaign of violence against Egyptian Christians.

The first explosion occurred about 9:30 at St. George’s Church in the Nile Delta city of Tanta, 50 miles north of Cairo, during a Palm Sunday Mass. Security officials and a witness said that a suicide bomber had barged past security measures and detonated his explosives in the front pews, near the altar.

At least 27 people were killed and 71 others injured, officials said.

Hours later, a second explosion occurred at the gates of St. Mark’s Cathedral in the coastal city of Alexandria. That blast killed 13 people and wounded 21 more, the Health Ministry said.

The patriarch of the Egyptian Coptic Church, Pope Tawadros II, who is to meet with Pope Francis on his visit to Egypt on April 28 and 29, was in the church at the time but was not injured, the Interior Ministry said.

See also:

‘God gave orders to kill every infidel’ ISIS vows to massacre Christians in chilling video<

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The joyous palm leaves of Sunday, greeting Christ‘s arrival in Jerusalem, will ritually and symbolically turn to ashes later in the week, as the adoring crowd turns vicious and demands his crucifixion.

Posted in Charles Cameron, christianity, Doublequotes, egypt, IS, ISIS, Islam, japan, nature, shinto, suicide bombing, tao, Uncategorized, Zen | 1 Comment »

Muslim Abu Walid al Shishani, also Trump’s hair

Friday, April 7th, 2017

[ by Charles Cameron — also critique of jihadist fatwas — with hat-tips to Pundita & JM ]
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Pundita posted a photo today under the heading Al Qaeda celebrating Trump for bombing Syrian air base:

She got the image from the collection here:

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The image Pundita posted is of Muslim Abu Walid al Shishani, and those aren’t actual wigs, they’re photo-enhancements — here’s the original photo, from a research site “documenting the involvement of Russian-speaking foreign fighters in the Syrian conflict”:

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Reading that site’s material on Shishani, I came across these very interesting paragraphs, with their unadorned descritption of how young jihadists misuse jihadist scholars and their rulings. From Nohchicho’s Interview with Muslim Shishani:

Alhamdulillah, in Syria there are a lot of great scholars who have a sea of knowledge, and when you ask them a question of any difficulty, they explain it so beautifully and distinctly, giving ayats, hadith and the history of the Companions, that there is no doubt. But I also noticed that these scholars are very far removed from what is actually happening here. They don’t participate in the activities of the jamaats, even when they are part of them. They are not aware of the subtleties of the jamaats’ programs, they mainly deal with questions of nikah [marriage], divorce and such matters. The main issues of the jamaat get solved by the students of these scholars. [The scholars] get remembered only when a jamaat needs a fatwa to legitimize its questionable actions.

The situation gets presented like this: Sheikh, I’m in the desert, I didn’t eat a thing for many days. There are pigs not far from here, and if I don’t eat their meat, then I’m going to die. What should I do? And of course the Sheikh gives an affirmative answer. And then they ask that he announce it publicly so that others don’t reproach them, and then they start using this fatwa even when they just get hungry. And the whole problem is that the Sheikh isn’t up to speed with what is really going on.

Having gotten to know the scholars and the situation, I realized one thing: if you want to know the truth, then ask the scholars the scope of the Sharia in the particular case, where Allah’s pleasure is, and stick to it as far as possible within your situation. And a scholar’s fatwa basically depends on how you present your situation to him. It depends on your conscience.

When we ask Sharia questions to a fighter, military questions to politicians, and political questions to Sharia experts, we will always run into mistakes. But if we learn to ask questions to specialists in their relevant fields, and if these experts don’t get into issues outside their competence, then it’s going to be easier for us to reach the truth.

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I’d welcome any info about Muslim Abu Walid al Shishani’s affiliation — Junud al-Sham, if that still exists? AQ? ISIS? This is the first time I’ve run across him.

Posted in al qaida, Charles Cameron, donald trump, IS, ISIS, JM Berger, photography, photoshopping, pundita, russia, syria, trump, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Muslim Abu Walid al Shishani, also Trump’s hair

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