Timbuktu desecrated

[Gob]

Islamist militants, swinging pick-axes and shouting God's praise, have destroyed ancient tombs of Muslim saints in Mali's fabled city of Timbuktu, sparking international condemnation.



The rampage of destruction in the UNESCO designated world-heritage city comes after three months of unrest in Mali's remote desert north, which has raised fears of a new Islamist extremist haven in west Africa.

Ansar Dine and other Al-Qaeda-linked militant groups have imposed strict sharia law since sweeping across northern Mali in the chaotic aftermath of a March 22 coup in the capital, Bamako.

"They have raped Timbuktu today. It is a crime," said a source close to a local imam in Timbuktu, known as the "City of 333 Saints".

Witnesses said the Islamists, who regard shrines as idolatrous, had destroyed the tombs of Sidi Mahmoud, Sidi Moctar and Alpha Moya.

In addition to three historic mosques, Timbuktu is home to 16 cemeteries and mausoleums, according to the UNESCO website.

A spokesman for the group, Sanda Ould Boumama, vowed: "Ansar Dine will today destroy every mausoleum in the city. All of them, without exception."

Alissandra Cummins, the chair of UNESCO's executive committee, said: "This is tragic news for us all.

"I appeal to all those engaged in the conflict in Timbuktu to exercise their responsibility - for the sake of future generations, spare the legacy of their past."

Mali's government in Bamako denounced the "destructive fury", comparing it to war crimes and threatened action on the national and international level.

Former colonial power France condemned "the systematic violation of these places of reverence and prayer" and appealed "for an end to this violence and this intolerance".

A witness said that early Saturday morning, about "30 fighters of Ansar Dine moved towards the mausoleum of Sidi Mahmoud" in the city's north.

"Some had guns. They did not shoot. Then they started shouting 'Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!' (God is greatest! God is greatest!) And with pick-axes and hoes, they started to break down the mausoleum."

The Ansar Dine spokesman suggested Saturday's action was in retaliation for a UNESCO decision on Thursday to put the World Heritage site, a cradle of Islamic learning founded in the fifth century, on its endangered list.

"God is unique. All of this is haram (forbidden in Islam). We are all Muslims. UNESCO is what?" he said, declaring that Ansar Dine was acting "in the name of God".

UNESCO's general director, Irina Bokova, confirmed that Islamist militants from the Ansar Dine group had destroyed three sacred tombs in Timbuktu, declaring in a statement that "there is no justification for such wanton destruction".

Witnesses in Timbuktu said that the gangs had destroyed the mausoleum of a saint whose 15th century tomb was already desecrated in May by members of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb, another of the groups in control in the north.

The UN cultural agency said its decision to place both the town and the nearby Tomb of Askia in Gao on its List of World Heritage in Danger "aims to raise cooperation and support for the sites threatened by the armed conflict".

[liberty]

It is just another kind of truth that you are not capable of understanding, infidel.

[Gob]

Update;

Islamist rebels occupying the ancient city of Timbuktu in Mali have vowed to smash every mausoleum, in the face of international protests.

A spokesman for the Ansar Dine group, Sanda Ould Boumama, said it would "destroy every mausoleum in the city - all of them, without exception".

The centuries-old shrines to Islamic saints, revered by Sufi Muslims, are regarded as idolatrous by the group.

Six mausoleums have been reportedly been destroyed this weekend.

Three were smashed on Saturday, and a further three on Sunday, local sources told international news agencies.

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, described the destruction of the mausoleums as a "war crime", the AFP news agency reported.

"My message to those involved in these criminal acts is clear: stop the destruction of the religious buildings now. This is a war crime which my office has authority to fully investigate," she said, according to AFP.

Mali's Culture and Tourism Minister, Diallo Fadima Toure, urged the UN to take action to stop "crimes" against her country's architectural treasures.

Ansar Dine, which has ties to al-Qaeda, seized northern Mali in March, in tandem with ethnic Tuareg rebels.

However, the alliance between the two groups has frayed and the Islamists now say they control the territory after driving out their former allies.

[loCAtek]

Much like they did in Afghanistan;




"They have effectively erased all evidence of our Buddhist past," a senior museum official told AFP at the now shuttered building in the capital Male, asking not to be named out of fear for his own safety.

"We lost all our 12th century statues. They were made of coral stone and limestone. They are very brittle and there is no way we can restore them," he explained.

"I wept when I heard that the entire display had gone. We are good Muslims and we treated these statues only as part of our heritage. It is not against Islam to display these exhibits," he said.

Five people have since been arrested after they returned the following day to smash the CCTV cameras, he said.

The authorities have banned photography of the damage, conscious that vandalism of this kind which echoes the 2001 destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan by the Taliban is damaging for the nation's image.

Is this a sign of the rise of a new Taliban?

[dgs49]

If one were to postulate that all of the man-made strife in the world be the fault of one gang of whacked-out Muslims or another, directly or indirectly, one would be about 75% correct.

Not that all Muslims are bad people - far from it.

But it's worth sayin'.

[rubato]

One won't mention that the Catholic Church destroyed the entire written literature of the Maya people because they said it was 'heresy'.

yrs,
rubato

[loCAtek]

Well, that was largely done Bishop Diego de Landa; and he was not directed by the Church;

Inquisition

[edit] Suppression of the Maya





Diego de Landa burning Maya cult images and codices. Mural by Fernando Castro Pacheco
After hearing of Roman Catholic Maya who continued to practice idol worship, he ordered an Inquisition in Mani ending with a ceremony called auto-da-fé. During the ceremony on July 12, 1562, at least forty Maya codices and approximately 20,000 Maya cult images were burned.[1] These actions earned Landa a controversial place in the history of the Christianization of the Americas.

Landa's Inquisition showered a level of physical abuse upon the indigenous Maya that was viewed as excessive even by other members of the church such as his predecessor as Bishop, Francisco de Toral.[2] Scores of Maya nobles were jailed pending interrogation, and large numbers of Maya nobles and commoners were subjected to examination under cruel and excessive forms of torture.[3] The violent methods of Landa's inquisition made many Maya flee into the forests to avoid further abuse.[4]


Some contemporary observers were troubled by this widespread use of torture. Crown fiat had earlier exempted indigenous peoples from the authority of the Inquisition, on the grounds that their understanding of Christianity was "too childish"[citation needed] to be held culpable for heresies. Additionally, Landa dispensed with much of the extensive formal procedure and documentation that accompanied Spanish torture and interrogation. When Landa received direct orders from the Viceroy through the Governor of Yucatán Francisco Velázquez de Gijón he retaliated by accusing the governor of abusing the Indians himself, of being an immoral man and a bad Christian and having had an extramarital affair with another man's woman.[5] This sparked a conflict between the ecclesiastical and secular authorities of Yucatán which resulted in the Governor being ex-communicated by Landa, and being replaced in 1577.[6]


...



Legacy

A controversial figure in the history of the Christianization of Central America Diego de Landa is at once reviled for his cruelty and for his destruction of invaluable historic materials about Maya culture and valued for his personal contributions to the study of the same.





Image of the page from Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán, in which de Landa describes the Maya alphabet, which was to prove instrumental in the mid-20th C. breakthrough in Maya hieroglyphics decipherment.
Landa’s Relación De Las Cosas De Yucatán is about as complete a treatment of Mayan religion as we are likely to ever have.[17] While controversy surrounds Landa’s use of force in the conversion process, few scholars would debate the general accuracy of his recordings. Allen Wells calls his work an “ethnographic masterpiece”,[18] while William J. Folan, Laraine A. Fletcher and Ellen R. Kintz have written that Landa‘s account of Maya social organization and towns before conquest is a “gem.[19]” Landa’s writings are our main contemporary source for Mayan history,[17] without which our collective knowledge of Mayan ethnology would be devastatingly small.[20] While Landa might have exaggerated some claims to justify his actions to his accusers, his intimate contact with natives and all around accuracy in other fields heavily implies his version of events has at least some truth in it.

Ironically, historian John F Chuchiak IV has suggested that the result of Landa's fervor to exterminate the traditional Maya religion in fact had the opposite effect and is partially the reason why Maya religion is still alive today in the Yucatán. He argues that Landa's excesses caused the secular authorities to remove the Franciscans' right to take disciplinary measures against idolaters while still leaving the Maya under the care of the Franciscans' cathechization. Chuchiak suggests that the revocation of the Franciscans' "rights" to administer punishments to idolaters was an important factor in the survival of Maya religion to this day.[21]



Wiki

So, we can blame the whole Mayan Calender Ending on 2012 Apocalypse, on him.

[dgs49]

I am absolutely STUNNED. Rubato has managed to find an anti-catholic aspect in a thread that had absolutely nothing to do with the catholic church.

What a creative mind that boy has. He is truly a piece of work.

[Lord Jim]

Rubato has managed to find an anti-catholic aspect in a thread that had absolutely nothing to do with the catholic church.

Wow...

Let me show you something....

It's my shocked face...

[Sean]

I am absolutely STUNNED. Rubato has managed to find an anti-catholic aspect in a thread that had absolutely nothing to do with the catholic church.

What a creative mind that boy has. He is truly a piece of work.

That's pretty low Dave considering that rubato's post was a response to your crack at Muslims...

[rubato]

Catholics complaining that Muslims have destroyed culture ? (and if you read any of the stories you would have read about local Muslim groups who are outraged by this and trying to repair the damage).

Can you say, pathological lack of self-knowledge? Stunning.



yrs,
rubato

[loCAtek]

The conquest of Mexico was not done by, or for the Catholic Church. The Spanish Inquisition, and it's tactics, was an arm of the Spanish Monarchy;

The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition (Spanish: Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición), commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition (Inquisición española), was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval Inquisition which was under Papal control. The Inquisition was originally intended in large part to ensure the orthodoxy of those who converted from Judaism and Islam. This regulation of the faith of the newly converted was intensified after the royal decrees issued in 1492 and 1501 ordering Jews and Muslims to convert or leave.

Various motives have been proposed for the monarchs' decision to fund the Inquisition such as increasing political authority, weakening opposition, suppressing conversos, profiting from confiscation of the property of convicted heretics, reducing social tensions and protecting the kingdom from the danger of a fifth column. [nothing about profiting the Church]

The body was under the direct control of the Spanish monarchy.

Wiki

If anyone has a right to pissed off about the loss of Native Meso American culture, that would be me; but I am aware that ire is reserved for the Conquistadors, not the Church.

[Sean]

Or you could highlight other bits of that passage lo which show that the Spanish Inquisition had everything to do with Catholicism.

The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition (Spanish: Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición), commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition (Inquisición española), was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval Inquisition which was under Papal control. The Inquisition was originally intended in large part to ensure the orthodoxy of those who converted from Judaism and Islam. This regulation of the faith of the newly converted was intensified after the royal decrees issued in 1492 and 1501 ordering Jews and Muslims to convert or leave.

Various motives have been proposed for the monarchs' decision to fund the Inquisition such as increasing political authority, weakening opposition, suppressing conversos, profiting from confiscation of the property of convicted heretics, reducing social tensions and protecting the kingdom from the danger of a fifth column. [nothing about profiting the Church]

The body was under the direct control of the Spanish monarchy.

[Lord Jim]

Or you could highlight other bits of that passage lo which show that the Spanish Inquisition had everything to do with Catholicism.

Or we could re-argue for the umpteenth time the whole history of "man's inhumanity to man" going back to the dawn of human civilization....(and even a bit before that...)

Oh wait...

That's what we are doing....

[loCAtek]

As already posted;

Various motives have been proposed for the monarchs' decision to fund the Inquisition such as increasing political authority, weakening opposition, suppressing conversos, profiting from confiscation of the property of convicted heretics, reducing social tensions and protecting the kingdom from the danger of a fifth column. [nothing about profiting the Church]

In other words, the Monarchy twisted religion to gain control, but wasn't told by any religious figure to do so. Kinda like Al-Quada is doing now ...?

[Gob]

As already posted;

Various motives have been proposed for the monarchs' decision to fund the Inquisition such as increasing political authority, weakening opposition, suppressing conversos, profiting from confiscation of the property of convicted heretics, reducing social tensions and protecting the kingdom from the danger of a fifth column. [nothing about profiting the Church]

In other words, the Monarchy twisted religion to gain control, but wasn't told by any religious figure to do so. Kinda like Al-Quada is doing now ...?

Who decided who were the heretics, if not the church?

her·e·tic   
1. a professed believer who maintains religious opinions contrary to those accepted by his or her church or rejects doctrines prescribed by that church.
2. Roman Catholic Church . a baptized Roman Catholic who willfully and persistently rejects any article of faith.
3. anyone who does not conform to an established attitude, doctrine, or principle.

[Lord Jim]

Strop, I will stand shoulder to shoulder with you against any man who dares to rise to call you a "heretic"...






You're not a heretic, you're a heathen; anyone can see that....

[Gob]

[loCAtek]

Who decided who were the heretics, if not the church?

Obviously, King Ferdinand II (who influenced King Henry VIII, his son-in-law) did not heed the church, but made his own faulty determinations of what benefited him most. King Henry his protoge, would later simply drop all pretenses.

The main architect behind the Spanish Inquisition was King Ferdinand II.


The completion of the Reconquista was not the only significant act performed by Ferdinand and Isabella in that year. In March 1492, the monarchs issued the Edict of Expulsion of the Jews, also called the Alhambra Decree,[2] a document which ordered all Jews to either be baptized and convert to Christianity or leave the country.[3]
Ferdinand forced all Muslims in Castile and Aragon to convert, converso Moriscos, to Catholicism, or else be expelled. Some Muslims that remained were mudéjar artisans, who could design and build in the Moorish style. This was also practiced by the Spanish inquisitors on the converso Marrano Jewish population of Spain.

Wiki

What would be falsely claimed as acts of the Church, were actually machinations of the greedy, powerful elite.

[loCAtek]

King Ferdinand II felt he was completing the Reconquista- the reclaiming of the 'Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim kingdoms collectively known as Al-Andalus.' The Reconquista wasn't about religion per se, but about repelling the foriegn invaders of Spain, who happened to be Islamic ...as well, as gaining significant power and territory for Ferdinand.

Some folks mistook that to fuel thier own religious fanaticism, like Bishop Diego de Landa ...but that shouldn't be misrepresented as faith.