A Quote by Ibn Warraq

Abolitionism did not find positive response in Africa as it did in Western societies and cultures. — © Ibn Warraq
Abolitionism did not find positive response in Africa as it did in Western societies and cultures.
Now, the United States' response, the western response to this is a continuation of the appeasement that was started back in the '50s with Eisenhower when Iran seized western oil companies. The Americans, the British, and the Israelis, as I remember, launched an attack to try to reclaim it and - or at least the British and the Israelis did and Eisenhower vetoed it.
There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.
It's wonderful to find cultures that are historically still intact, as opposed to a lot of Western cultures which seem to me to be slowly dying, stuck in celebrity illness or stupidity.
In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions: 'When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence?'
You have so much responsibility because when you're in the kitchen, it's not just food, it's where the food comes from, what you did with production, what you did it with human interaction, and how you did it with different cultures. Food becomes a mark of activism.
The greatest number of drug addicts are to be found in Teheran and in Karachi, not in the West. Not in New York believe it or not. It's the same with the roles of slavery, racism and imperialism in the world. These institutions were present in other cultures. However, it was Western civilization which did something about slavery, about racism and voluntarily dissolved its empires leaving behind a very positive legacy of institutions not to mention buildings and roadways.
Being from a minority culture, I realised the importance of looking at non-Western cultures in a positive way.
It is one of the perceptual defects of Western government and press to assign Western-style motives to what people do in non-Western societies, as if these are universally relevant.
On the future of the U.S., or of Western civilization in general, I tend to be quite pessimistic. I would say that today I see most of the symptoms of societies on the brink of collapse, not just in the U.S., but in the tightly interconnected societies of Western civilization - now essentially world civilization.
No, Islam did not free African-Americans from slavery, not in Africa and not in Europe or America. Evangelical Christianity did that.
Why did Africa let Europe cart away millions of Africa's souls from the continent to the four corners of the wind? How could Europe lord it over a continent ten times its size? Why does needy Africa continue to let its wealth meet the needs of those outside its borders and then follow behind with hands outstretched for a loan of the very wealth it let go? How did we arrive at this, that the best leader is the one that knows how to beg for a share of what he has already given away at the price of a broken tool? Where is the future of Africa?
Did either the nonexistent or the measured response after a series of attacks on Americans the past decade - in Lebanon, Africa, Saudi Arabia, New York, and Yemen - suggest to our terrorist enemies that it was wrong and unwise to kill reasonable and affable people, or did the easy killing imply that self-absorbed and pampered Lotus-eaters would not much care who or how many were butchered as long as it was within reasonable numbers and spread out over time?
We usually forget that apart from making a living on this earth, human beings live in societies and these societies have cultures. It is only through having cultures that mankind on this earth has an ordered and meaningful life. Music and drama are two of the many important manifestation of a culture. They are important because they represent the expressions emanating from the power of human artistic creativity
We've been able to record the music of cultures that did not have recording, and thus preserve it. But there is also a negative aspect to this and that is the effect of the intrusion of the West on such cultures.
I looked at all friends, and did not find a better friend than safeguarding the tongue. I thought about all dresses, but did not find a better dress than piety. I thought about all types of wealth, but did not find a better wealth than contentment in little. I thought of all types of good deeds, but did not find a better deed than offering good advice. I looked at all types of sustenance, but did not find a better sustenance than patience.
Another view is Western companies chartered in societies that believe in this kind of censorship shouldn't be carrying water for societies that do.
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