A curious problem with discussing Islam online

The number of threats to freedom of speech online seems to increase daily; far more than I can reasonably blog about here, on a blog dedicated to patristics and manuscript studies.  So I try to discuss only really important stuff.  By chance I came across this post, which contained the following statement:

My video IS classified as hate speech. At least, that’s what thousands of Muslims said whilst flooding YouTube with constant “flagging.” In case you haven’t yet heard, there are actual online Muslim networks that exist solely for this purpose. The minute anything even remotely critical of Islam pops up online, thousands of members are notified and are commanded to flag, spam and utilize comment suppression techniques that ultimately result in the video’s removal and permanent banning of the user. The frightening part is that their “Denial of Service” tactics are devastatingly effective, extremely covert and easily mobilized.

Is this right?  Is all online discussion of Islam taking place under an unreported threat of this kind of intimidation?

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95% of UK ISP’s implementing censorship machinery

From slashdot.org:

“The UK government stated in 2006 that they wished to see 100% of UK consumer broadband ISPs’ connections covered by blocking, which includes” — but is not limited to — “images of child abuse. 95% of ISPs have complied, but children’s charities are calling for firmer action by the government as the last 5% cite costs and concerns over the effectiveness of the system. According to Home Office Minister Alan Campbell, ‘The government is currently looking at ways to progress the final 5%.’ With a lack of transparency in the IWF list, firm government involvement, and blocking that only ‘includes’ (but may not be limited to) images of child abuse, it looks like the writing is on the wall for unfiltered, uncensored Internet connections in the UK.”

It will soon be 100%, it seems, with the IWF – an unelected quango – deciding which sites may be accessed from the UK.  No-one wants child porn on the web, of course.  But child-porn is the excuse, not the reason.  What this gives the establishment — not even the elected government, for heaven’s sake! — is the power to block sites they don’t like, without appeal or control or, indeed, even our knowledge.

Now that the establishment has a list of sites which every ISP is blocking, how long before entries in it are added for political reasons?  That sites which are (e.g.) seen to be politically incorrect are added?

I give it two years at most.

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Agapius on a boat

I’m still translating the world history of the 10th century Arabic Christian writer Agapius.  I’ve just come across this:

This sea contains also on the coast of Persia a gulf which is called the Persian Gulf;  its length is 1,400 miles, its width at the beginning is 500 miles and its end is 150 miles.  Between these two gulfs is the country of Hedjaz and Yemen;  the distance between the gulf of Aylah and the Persian Gulf is 1,500 miles.

Today we encounter Arabs determined to rename the Persian gulf as “the Arabian sea.”  But here is evidence that in the Middle Ages they had no such qualms.

He also mentions Britain!

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New Department of Syriac at Mardin University

I learn from George Kiraz on the Hugoye list of a newspaper announcement that Mardin University in Eastern Turkey is to create a department of Syriac studies.  Apparently Oxford University is the only other university in the world with such a department.   The university is based in the middle of the remaining Syriac-speaking population, which makes it a natural place for such study.  This is good news! Let’s hope that they hunt for books in the region and publish texts which have escaped the attention of researchers.  Who knows what may sit on rural shelves, awaiting attention?

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Persepolis tablets and US law courts

There is a curious story here, and elsewhere on the web.  Currently some cuneiform tablets from Persepolis were loaned by the Iranians to a US museum.   Some people in the US, related to people killed in Iranian-organised bombings in Israel in 1997, and of the US marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, have filed a lawsuit demanding “compensation” from the state of Iran.  The Iranians naturally declined to appear in any such lawsuit, so this court gave judgement against them.  The plaintiffs are now demanding that the tablets, Iranian state property, be seized and sold off so that they can get “their” money. 

I doubt that I am the only one who feels really angry about this.

It is hard to understand how any US court would suppose that it has jurisdiction over a claim such as this, between two — or three! — nation states.  But then like many people I have little faith in the US justice system. I am told that Britons find these courts unwilling to rule against US citizens, and that in their law-suits, justice takes second place to inflicting injury on your enemy.  

I found that reports of the case in the Iranian media did not mention the Beirut bombing, only the Jerusalem one.  This makes it a question of an Iranian attack on an Israeli target being adjudicated in a US court as if it was a property dispute in Minnesota.  Again, what jurisdiction do they have?

Finally how does the US benefit from destroying the chance of any loans of artefacts from any nation against which some group of its citizens may feel ire?  In the Arab world there is a general perception that US policy is shaped by Jewish groups, even to the detriment of US interests.  The Iranian articles made this link here too. 

In this context I can’t avoid remembering that, when Sir Walter Scott was found to be accidentally responsible for the debts of a publishing firm, and made arrangements to pay all of the money due by stages, only a Jewish firm refused to take part in the settlement.  Knowing that no-one in Scotland wanted this well-loved figure in prison, they deliberately started to harass him and began proceedings to imprison him, believing (correctly) that the other debtors would ensure they were paid, even if everyone else had to wait.  This lawsuit would seem to be of a similar nature; to get the money, perhaps from the US government, by threatening to damage massively the international reputation of the USA.

It’s a dirty, nasty law-suit, from some dirty, nasty people.  The judge who allowed it should be fired.  The law firm involved should be struck off.  At least some of the plaintiffs need to be prosecuted for vexatious litigation *.  No-one should get money for this.  The US government should have the guts to come down very hard here; in the interests of us all. 

In war, no questions of compensation arise between the combatants, except as the spoils of war. For there is no real doubt that an undeclared war is being fought between Iran and the West.  The choices for action seem to be to either make this war much more uncomfortable for the Iranians — invade Iran, or whatever –; or to endure the constant Iranian attacks and pretend they don’t matter; or else to make peace, although I doubt the Iranians want to do this.   But whatever option is chosen — and this is not the place to decide –, petty and hateful rubbish like trying to sell the Persepolis tablets is not the answer. 

* No doubt some of the plaintiffs are honest but mistaken people, of course.

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Biblia Patristica now online

Want to know where a verse of scripture is referenced in the Fathers?  The answer has always been the Biblia Patristica volumes.  These are now embedded in BIBLIndex, and so accessible to us all.  Well done, chaps!  (Thanks to Ben Blackwell for publicizing this).

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More letters of Isidore of Pelusium

27. (1.27) TO THE PALACE EUNUCH PHARISMANIUS.

I understand that it is said that you are interested in the divine books and that you make an appropriate use of their testimonies in every circumstance, but that you are a covetous man, furiously grabbing for yourself from the lives of others.  I am extremely astonished that this assiduous reading has not blessed you with the divine love, a love which should have modified your former behaviour, something which not only prevents us from desiring the goods of others, but further prescribed us to distribute our own goods.  So, when you read, understand, or, if you do not understand, read!

36. (1.36) TO THE PALACE EUNUCH ANTIOCHUS.

Since you unroll the sacred books and, so it is said, you are very attached to reading them, you must know the history of the admirable Daniel:  upright in the middle of floods of error, he would not undergo the fate of the prisoners, not even to take his share of common meals, even when they did not happen to make unclean those who touched them.  And since not only you are the servant of the imperial power but that you direct it as you want, hurry up and make effective again the justice which has fallen into a state of weakness or rather which is moribund:  you will thus find the court of justice benevolent to you, even if for an hour the idea does not often come to you, blinded as you are by the vain spectacle of grandeur.  

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Another letter of Isidore of Pelusium

323 (1.323). TO CYRIL, ARCHBISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA.

Many scriptural testimonies, many patristic speculations set forth with certainty the true doctrines of the Incarnation of the Lord, even if this mystery exceeds what we can think or say about it.

The true God, who reigns over all things, was really made man without undergoing change in what He was, and in assuming what He was not, being the only Son (of/in two natures) without beginning or end, new and eternal: you cannot deny it, when you have, on these subjects, going in the same direction, many assertions of our holy Father, the great Athanasius, a man who went into these divine realities which are beyond our nature.

 

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Interesting letters of Isidore of Pelusium

I’ve been reading the account of Isidore’s letters given by Quasten in volume 3 of his Patrology, pp.180-185.  Quasten is a treasure.  He tried very hard to give an interesting picture of each author, and also to find all the English translations for them all.  I have spent many happy hours reading and re-reading his pages, searching out translations that I could put online.

He discusses various letters.  Most of them sound as if a translation would be nice!  Here are some that he lists (after Migne, book. letter no):

  • 3.65 and 2.3 discuss and affirm the value of secular learning.
  • 5.133 discusses his “principle of unaffected elegance” in writing.
  • 2.25 and 1.174-5 are addressed to the Prefect Quirinius, on behalf of the city of Pelusium.
  • 1.35 and 1.311 are to the emperor Theodosius II (and translated elsewhere in these posts)
  • 4.99 refers to the Council of Nicaea.
  • 1.102 and 2.133 rebut the Manichaeans.

Isidore’s interpretation of the bible has earned high praise in the past:

  • 4.117 rejects allegorisation.
  • 2.195, 2.63, 3.339 condemn the practise of seeing the NT everywhere in the OT, as liable to bring genuine messianic passages under suspicion.
  • 2.63 and 4.203 tell us that the OT is a mixture of prophecy and history, and not to confuse the two.
  • 3.335, 1.353, 3.334, 3.31, 1.67, 3.166, 4.142, 1.139, 4.166 all deal with the literal meaning of scripture as it bears on the Arian dispute, following the Antiochene method of interpretation.  Indeed 1.389 tells us that he saw the Arians as a real danger.

He also gives spiritual advice:

  • 1.129 and 1.287 advocate voluntary poverty and abstinence, but only if all the commandments are practised.  Asceticism is not enough.
  • 1.162 reminds his reader that it isn’t enough to follow the lifestyle of John the baptist; you must have his spirit too.
  • 4.192 and 1.286 promote celibacy, but without humility, he says, it is meaningless.

One group of his letters are addressed to Cyril of Alexandria.  Another group outline the lamentable history of the wealthy man Cyrenios, who bought the governorate of Pelusium, banned anyone from seeking refuge in a church, and then set out to make money by taking bribes in lawsuits.

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Asterix, manuscripts, and the Bibliothèque Nationale Français

In Asterix and the Normans, the Gauls encounter the Normans, who know no fear but would like to.  They are invited to listen to the village bard, the aptly named Cacafonix.  After his first number, the Normans look pained.  “By Thor!” says one; “By Odin!” another; “Bite on the bullet!” says a third.  A few more numbers, and they run!  Recommended, actually, this one.

What brought this on, I hear you cry?  Well, I want to get images of a manuscript of the History of the Arabic Christian historian, Al-Makin.  The British Library let me down when I ordered some from them, so I’ve asked the BNF in Paris for help.  The invoice arrived today.  For Ms. Arabe 294 and 295, total number of pages 648, the price is going to be…. 234 euros!  OUCH!

I’ve paid it anyway.  I have to have it to progress.  But this is serious money.  Each page costs 26c from the first ms and (mysteriously) 36c from the second.  But of course it hardly costs that much to make these copies. It certainly doesn’t cost a different amount for each of the two halves! Greed, I fear, is responsible for this bill. And all these images, I suspect, will be low quality monochrome. It’s enough to make any digital camera owner spit!

I know that I have banged on about this before, but this is serious stuff.  The medieval manuscripts are the raw stuff of scholarship on all ancient texts.  If we can’t access the dratted things — and a bill of 234 euros per manuscript is no different to refusing access, for most people — then we can’t work.  This is particularly bad for unpublished texts, which means most of Arabic Christian and Syriac and Armenian and…

The fact is that these institutions are making money off this.  Come on, you scholars; clamp down on it!

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