Does sharia law have anything to do with Islam?

[Metaphor]

A woman in Aceh province in Indonesia who committed the unspeakable crime of having a man who wasn't her brother or father in her house was raped by seven men, then paraded around town until, four hours later, she and her partner in crime were handed over to sharia police for the 'official' punishment to begin.

She is sentenced to be publically flogged by the sharia police, although because she fainted when brought onto stage, they'll delay the flogging until after she has had her baby. Presumably, they did not flog her while she was unconscious because what use is a flogging unless the physical pain is felt and the public humiliation is experienced, really?

I have some questions:

i) Do the actions of Aceh province in determining Yasmeen had committed the religious crime of khalwat have anything to do with religion?

ii) Does the prescribed punishment have anything to do with religion?

iii) Are Indonesians Arabs?

iv) Did 'the West' invade Aceh province and kill Muslims there?

 

[laughing dog]

Seriously, are you okay?

 

[Metaphor]

Seriously, are you okay?

Okay with what? Reading one more ridiculous defense of religion from people who are allegedly rationalists and freethinkers? Reading one more article from a journalist with the temerity to say it's surprising there aren't more attacks like the Hebdo massacre, how 'restrained' Muslims are, given 'the West's' treatment of Muslims?

No, I'm not okay with it. I'm not okay with people who engage in such dizzying mental acrobatics they'll blame everything but religion. I'm tired of being told that the things a religion teaches have no influence on the adherents of said religion. I'm weary of the collective delusional madness.

Even on the pastor stopping the gay funeral thread, I've been told, apparently in all seriousness, that homophobic feelings have nothing to do with the religion people are indoctrinated into that specifically teaches homophobic feelings.

It's a theatre of the absurd. The players are the absurd religionists with their hatred and violence, and the absurd enablers, who don't share the specific religious delusions but share a collective madness -- their own religious dogma -- that religion influences exactly nothing.

 

[none]

Yeah, Muslims doing the Muslim thing.
all this because she was with a man who wasn't a relative with her clothes on!
I guess they need more Islam/sarcasm

 

[Harry Bosch]

A woman in Aceh province in Indonesia who committed the unspeakable crime of having a man who wasn't her brother or father in her house was raped by seven men, then paraded around town until, four hours later, she and her partner in crime were handed over to sharia police for the 'official' punishment to begin.

She is sentenced to be publically flogged by the sharia police, although because she fainted when brought onto stage, they'll delay the flogging until after she has had her baby. Presumably, they did not flog her while she was unconscious because what use is a flogging unless the physical pain is felt and the public humiliation is experienced, really?

I have some questions:

i) Do the actions of Aceh province in determining Yasmeen had committed the religious crime of khalwat have anything to do with religion?

ii) Does the prescribed punishment have anything to do with religion?

iii) Are Indonesians Arabs?

iv) Did 'the West' invade Aceh province and kill Muslims there?

Clearly the US invasion of Iraq is to blame!

 

[Togo]

i) Do the actions of Aceh province in determining Yasmeen had committed the religious crime of khalwat have anything to do with religion?

Not a great deal. The enforcement of 'religious' laws is an exercise in public morality. The idea and indeed practice of moral police is today associated with Islamic countries, but has in the past been practiced in The US, UK, Switerzland, and several other 'western' countries.

ii) Does the prescribed punishment have anything to do with religion?

Not a great deal - they're mainly enforcing cultural taboos, although those taboos are expressed through the medium of religious laws

iii) Are Indonesians Arabs?

I don't know. They've been in constant trading and cultural contact with The Middle East for the best part of 4000 years though, since they lie on one the world's largest and oldest trade routes, the so-called Porcelan route, which runs from the east coast of Africa and the Middle East, through the straights, to China.

iv) Did 'the West' invade Aceh province and kill Muslims there?

Yes, the provinces was invaded several times by the Indians, the Dutch, and the English (several times), and was of course involved in World War II. It was also caught up in the Malaysia Civil War, which was largely a struggle between competing western interests, in which a great many citizens died.

 

[Perspicuo]

A woman in Aceh province in Indonesia who committed the unspeakable crime of having a man who wasn't her brother or father in her house was raped by seven men, then paraded around town until, four hours later, she and her partner in crime were handed over to sharia police for the 'official' punishment to begin.

She is sentenced to be publically flogged by the sharia police, although because she fainted when brought onto stage, they'll delay the flogging until after she has had her baby. Presumably, they did not flog her while she was unconscious because what use is a flogging unless the physical pain is felt and the public humiliation is experienced, really?

I have some questions:

i) Do the actions of Aceh province in determining Yasmeen had committed the religious crime of khalwat have anything to do with religion?

ii) Does the prescribed punishment have anything to do with religion?

iii) Are Indonesians Arabs?

iv) Did 'the West' invade Aceh province and kill Muslims there?

Clearly the US invasion of Iraq is to blame!

 

[fromderinside]

So there he was with his stick digging for turnips along side the US roadway built across his farm patch so they could kill bad guys in his neighborhood.

happens in Indonesia too yano. Only there it's government roadways being built across farm patches so stuff can be carried to markets and sold by Americans for obscene profits with none of it coming back to pay for the raped farms.

Yeah. Clearly.

 

[Metaphor]

At first, I thought "this is too ridiculous to respond to, Togo's having a lend". But I think you've sincerely responded to a series of questions meant to highlight the absurdity of the very answers you responded with.

Not a great deal. The enforcement of 'religious' laws is an exercise in public morality.

The rabbit hole gets ever deeper. Apparently there are no religious laws; they need to be in 'scare quotes'!

The idea and indeed practice of moral police is today associated with Islamic countries, but has in the past been practiced in The US, UK, Switerzland, and several other 'western' countries.

So deep in denial that you even have to change the usual term -- religious police -- to 'moral police'.

Not a great deal - they're mainly enforcing cultural taboos, although those taboos are expressed through the medium of religious laws

Oh, I see. So cultures can influence people to have terrible ideas, but religion doesn't.

I don't know. They've been in constant trading and cultural contact with The Middle East for the best part of 4000 years though, since they lie on one the world's largest and oldest trade routes, the so-called Porcelan route, which runs from the east coast of Africa and the Middle East, through the straights, to China.

This question should have tipped you off that I was presenting a series of rhetorical statements. Indonesians are not Arabs. Anything happening in Arab culture or in Arab geopolitical history will not explain the behaviour of Indonesian Muslims, although people try to explain away nearly all Muslim behaviour as due to bad things 'the West' did in the Middle East.

Yes, the provinces was invaded several times by the Indians, the Dutch, and the English (several times), and was of course involved in World War II. It was also caught up in the Malaysia Civil War, which was largely a struggle between competing western interests, in which a great many citizens died.

I see -- then it is all the West's fault.

 

[dismal]

I see -- then it is all the West's fault.

Well, to be fair most countries in the West were also invaded by Europeans many times so we should not be quick to lay blame.

 

[fromderinside]

I see -- then it is all the West's fault.

Well, to be fair most countries in the West were also invaded by Europeans many times so we should not be quick to lay blame.

If we exclude all Europeans bordering on Czarist Russia and Russia itself we get back to blaming the 'west'. Please tell me which of those eastern western countries (to rephrase an old bipolar struggle Khrushchev joke by a young Bob Newheart) invaded the 'western hemisphere outside of Europe (ie the Americas)?

American Psychiatrist here ".... doesn't matter it's the west's fault."

 

[EricK]

From http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/...ink-its-about-say-clever-people-2015011594451

WHATEVER the public believe things are about, they are actually about something else entirely, clever people have confirmed.

The clever people also revealed that the situation is a lot more complicated than everybody else is prepared to concede, or can probably imagine

Tom Logan, 37, a clever person who lives in London, said: “It is all about context. This morning I burned some toast. The knee-jerk response would have been to blame the settings on the toaster.

“However, when I put my initial emotional reaction aside, I quickly saw that my toast was part of a much wider global picture.”

He added: “My thoughts turned to the underpaid factory workers of China who had made the toaster, the mainstream media that – to serve the business interests of its paymasters – refuses to draw attention to their plight, the smug complacency of a consumer society that turns a blind eye to totalitarianism in return for cheap consumer goods, and the hypocrisy of western governments.

“Suddenly it was clear to me that while I could in no way condone the actions of the toaster, nor could I blame it for what had happened.

“No, the responsibility for the burning of my toast lies not with my toaster, but with all of us – especially you.”

 

[dystopian]

Yes, the provinces was invaded several times by the Indians, the Dutch, and the English (several times), and was of course involved in World War II. It was also caught up in the Malaysia Civil War, which was largely a struggle between competing western interests, in which a great many citizens died.

Aceh was never invaded by the English. They claimed it as one of their possessions in the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1824 which divided south-east Asia between British and Dutch spheres, but this was an entirely meaningless claim as they never had any control over Aceh and had never invaded it as far as I'm aware. You may be confused with the British seizing the conquests Aceh had made in the Malay peninsula. Aceh itself wasn't invaded by the Dutch until the 1870's, after the British stopped guaranteeing Aceh's independence due to the fact that they preferred the Dutch being in control over the French or Americans. I'm not sure where you're getting the idea from that Aceh was ever invaded by forces from India; there were Indian traders operating in the area when it was still called Pasai, but I don't know of any conquests or attempts thereat.

In any case, Aceh has always been a problematic region for the rulers; whether the Colonial Dutch or the Indonesian governments. Aceh, having been the first region of Indonesia to convert to Islam, rebelled against the newly independent Indonesia in the 50's over (among other things) matters of religious traditions, and there was an armed insurgency for independence from the 70's until 2004 as well; the refusal of the central government to allow Aceh to implement Sharia laws was a prime cause for this insurgency. Indeed, the insurgents referred to it as a holy war. Religion most certainly plays an important role in all this; just not the *only* role. The fact that the Indonesian government has made promises to Aceh that it's broken; and stands accused of human rights abuses in Aceh; is most certainly relevant too.

 

[Togo]

Yes, the provinces was invaded several times by the Indians, the Dutch, and the English (several times), and was of course involved in World War II. It was also caught up in the Malaysia Civil War, which was largely a struggle between competing western interests, in which a great many citizens died.

Aceh was never invaded by the English. They claimed it as one of their possessions in the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1824 which divided south-east Asia between British and Dutch spheres, but this was an entirely meaningless claim as they never had any control over Aceh and had never invaded it as far as I'm aware. You may be confused with the British seizing the conquests Aceh had made in the Malay peninsula.

Ah.. possibly. I was thinking of operating bases seized in WWII in an effort to resist Japan, and again during the fight against the communists in the Malay Civil war, but I'll freely admit that I'm fuzzy on the subject, and they may have been on the other side of the water.

Aceh itself wasn't invaded by the Dutch until the 1870's, after the British stopped guaranteeing Aceh's independence due to the fact that they preferred the Dutch being in control over the French or Americans.

Ok, I knew it was late, and wasn't trying to put them in any particular order. I hadn't realised it was quite that late though.

I'm not sure where you're getting the idea from that Aceh was ever invaded by forces from India; there were Indian traders operating in the area when it was still called Pasai, but I don't know of any conquests or attempts thereat.

Trading bases in the Medieval period. I got the impression that the Indians set up coastal ports by force on that side of the straight, but I was researching the history of Tamasek, which later became Singapore, rather than Aceh specificially. Certainly they wouldn't have pushed inland, but that's enough to count as invasion.

In any case, Aceh has always been a problematic region for the rulers; whether the Colonial Dutch or the Indonesian governments. Aceh, having been the first region of Indonesia to convert to Islam, rebelled against the newly independent Indonesia in the 50's over (among other things) matters of religious traditions, and there was an armed insurgency for independence from the 70's until 2004 as well; the refusal of the central government to allow Aceh to implement Sharia laws was a prime cause for this insurgency. Indeed, the insurgents referred to it as a holy war. Religion most certainly plays an important role in all this; just not the *only* role. The fact that the Indonesian government has made promises to Aceh that it's broken; and stands accused of human rights abuses in Aceh; is most certainly relevant too.

Interesting. I knew it was troublesome and rebellious, but didn't have the detail. I find it's fascinating to learn the detailed history of such areas, which always turn out to be far more complicated than originally anticipated. History and culture are rarely as simple as they first appear.

Or I guess we could insist on seeing the world as a two-dimensional cartoon, and insist that others try and disprove our simplistic caricatures of foreign places, rather than justifying them ourselves. But then why would anyone take us seriously?


Do you have any details of the period when Aceh wasn't yet part of Indonesia - I'm trying to get a feel for how the archipelego united and under what conditions, and how this effected the Malay penisula and the trade through the straight.

 

[dystopian]

Do you have any details of the period when Aceh wasn't yet part of Indonesia - I'm trying to get a feel for how the archipelego united and under what conditions, and how this effected the Malay penisula and the trade through the straight.

Well first of all, Aceh was part of 'Indonesia' from the start; but that's because Indonesia is an entirely modern invention. There's no historical basis for a united Indonesia, as it has always been a bunch of independent kingdoms. In 1945, civil war erupted in Aceh between those that supported the return of the Dutch colonial government and those that supported Sukarno in creating an independent Indonesia; the latter party in Aceh being a religious one). Sukarno and his followers, understanding Indonesia to consist of a bunch of disparate cultures and beliefs, wanted a secular, democratic, and tolerant government, but strong muslim factions (like those dominant in Aceh) have struggled either for independence or the creation of an explicitly islamic state of Indonesia ever since. There've been a number of regional struggles beyond just that in Aceh for independence, almost all of them (though there were strong communist rebels at one point too) heavily involving matters of religion. This in turn led Sukarno's government towards authoritarianism; eventually culminating in a strong nationalist dictatorship that aggressively sought to maintain order and secure "Indonesia".

We still controlled New Guinea; and maintained before the UN that the Papuan's who lived there were a distinct culture and ethnic group that should not be part of Indonesia. But the Indonesian government at the time was very aggressive about what it saw as its rightful territory: all of the former Dutch East Indies. When Indonesia failed to make its claim before the UN in 1957; Sukarno's government responded by seizing Dutch businesses and expelling all Dutch residents from Indonesia. The Dutch government then set up an autonomous local government with the intent of creating a fully independent state within the decade. An independent New Guinea recognized by the UN was unacceptable to Indonesia, so they started trying to militarily infiltrate the territory culminating in the Vlakke Hoek incident where the Indonesian navy tried to deliver a 150 soldiers to commit sabotage only to be caught by a Dutch frigate and resulted in a short disastrous battle for the Indonesians. This battle in turn brought the attention of the Soviet Union, which was the biggest supplier of foreign aid in Indonesia and which was politically on their side and was sending them so much hardware that the Indonesian navy became the 2nd largest in all of Asia. This in turn brought in the United States and other western countries, which supported the Dutch position but which were concerned what the consequences would be if the Soviet Union supported Indonesia that much and it came to war like Indonesia was threatening. Therefore, political pressure ultimately led the Dutch government to hand over New Guinea to the UN in 1962 and then to Indonesia in 63, under the condition that the local populace would be allowed a referendum on annexation. This referendum was held in '69, but this is widely considered to be a sham vote; and today there's an ongoing armed conflict demanding independence. But that's when Indonesia became "united"; though as one can tell, united mostly in name.

Ah, but I've gotten off-track. I guess you were asking about Aceh before it was part of the Dutch East Indies? From what I know it was a pretty minor power early on in terms of military; allying with both the Ottomans and the Dutch in their struggles against Portugal and the Sultanate of Johor (in modern day Malaysia). It's position did make it the dominant (but a fragile one) economic power in the straight though, at least until the Dutch East India company took Malacca in 1641 when that ended Aceh as a significant player. Previous to that Malacca (controlled by Portugal) was the main center of trade in the region for some time, although other regional powers started bypassing it entirely and the port's importance diminished. When the Dutch East India Company captured it (with aid from both Johor and Aceh), they let it fall even further since they were working to make Batavia (Jakarta) into the dominant center of trade and only wanted Malacca to keep it out of either Portugese or English hands. With Malacca gone as a major center of trade, Aceh went from being right on the most important traderoute in the region, to being more of a peripheral state as the straight became much less important.

After that they started losing territory but by the 19th century it had become quite rich again and more centralized (previously the Sultans held very little real power over local warlords); it apparently produced more than half the world's supply of black pepper. This is probably a big part of why Britain included Aceh as a protectorate in the 1824 that firmly divided the Dutch and British spheres in the region (Ultimately defining the modern states of Indonesia and Malaysia); an independent Aceh was probably seen as preferable to a Dutch Aceh, at least until the French and Americans came into the picture towards the end of the century.