Yuki
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Post by Yuki on May 2, 2013 12:43:57 GMT
A friend asked me this question this morning: Is the view the western people have on the (Islamic) region too naïve? If yes, why? And here's my (relatively short) response: I don't think there's a monolithic view of the region in the West.. orientalists seem to have a sober and more or less accurate understanding of it.. the right wing wants to use the prevalence of the dark side of the religion (an unfortunate fact) in order to achieve its objectives: expel all immigrants, and "purify" their countries..
The left wing, supposedly the protectors of human rights and universal values, adopt the opposite view, and ignore the elephant in the room, preferring to retort the same cassette over and over about "Islam the peaceful religion", and how those who oppose Islamist agenda (sometimes generalized to all Muslims) are just islamophobic, xenophobic and the sort, ignoring the real problem and preferring the ostrich policy of burying their hands in the sand, than to face it.. their position probably comes from the naive notion that if the right wing says something, then the opposite of it must be true.. and the right wing unfortunately, given their principles and objectives, would be the first to notice a threat to the integrity of their "beloved nation", so, we would expect the right wing to adopt their position first, and the left to simply react to it..
What they don't realize is that in some sense they are being manipulated by the right, and falling into their trap (whether that was meant from the beginning or not), because as the problems caused by Islamists will grow, more and more people will become less immune to the right wing discourse...
So the left must sit down for a moment and define its own independent views based on a rational understanding of the situation, and not a mere emotional and childish reaction to the right wing discourse..
I've been dying for long to write a detailed article about the subject, especially that I'm in a unique position that a few people enjoy of having eyes on both sides, but I never got around to it for many reasons: 1/ I'm mostly busy (i.e. I have other priorities), 2/ I actually prefer to have feet on both sides not just eyes, so I can assess my ideas better (there may be other subtleties and categories I'm not yet aware of), 3/ I also prefer to do my own research into the subject more deeply, before I write about it.. But it's very frustrating to see this kind of idiotic statements from people who have no idea what they're talking about, and no first hand experience with Islam and Muslims living in the Islamic world..
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deej
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Post by deej on May 3, 2013 21:25:04 GMT
I'm not claiming to be an expert in the relationships between Islam and the west. However, it is not helpful to place all Muslims in the same boat just because some radicals in their faith may commit an act of terrorism. Such an argument and stereotype is racist, prejudice and discriminatory, thus fails to take into account the fact that most Muslims are moderate and law-abiding in following their faith, and that not all countries are the same in their beliefs, i.e. Arabs and Arabic for instance. There are extremists in all walks of life and in other religions. We wouldn't start calling all Catholics extremist if there were some radicals amongst them, so surely it has to be ridiculous to suggest that all Muslims are terrorists? The US and Britain have a lot to answer for this, especially the US with their rhetoric after 9/11, and the manner in which their media and politicians treat Islam as an enemy, as the other in the same way they did with communism. They are threatened by the whole idea of being loyal to an ideology rather than the more western approach of a nation state. What about the illegal wars the UK and US have participated in that defy the UN convention and ECHR laws in Iraq and Afghanistan? Such wars have cost the lives of innocent soldiers, many more innocent civilians and NATO themselves have been involved in acts of torture themselves. Take for instance the unforgiveable Guantanamo Bay where suspected terrorists who are supposed to have been released, cleared of charges live in atrocious conditions, or the US drone attacks as an easy alternative. The West have a lot to answer for themselves. I know I have a different view to many but I am a liberal.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on May 4, 2013 17:04:32 GMT
However, it is not helpful to place all Muslims in the same boat just because some radicals in their faith may commit an act of terrorism. Nor is it helpful to say that Muslims can never be terrorists, like that chick in the photo. It's a not a black or white issue. You don't realize that, because it's not affecting you directly. But let me put it this way: 1/ Terrorists are not some fringe group who are misinterpreting their religion, while the majority of Muslims have a liberal view of their faith. That is not true. In fact, terrorists are simply executing the orders of their religion literally and without question. They are also people who found themselves in a situation where they needed or had to execute those orders, or were made aware of them more than the average population. 2/ The majority of the Muslim population also executes the orders of the religion literally and without question.. when they are aware of them. In fact, most Muslims do not know much about Islam to begin with, except what they are taught at school, by their family, by society, and religious TV channels. And when they know something that does not totally suit their mood or preference (say, the ban on alcohol for example), they invoke all sorts of pretexts, rationalizations, and psycho-linguistic tricks to avoid the cognitive dissonance that arises from that.. something like an "Amtsprache" (stuff like "Allah is all forgiving", or "may Allah guide us to his path", etc), but it almost never involves a questioning of the literalistic character of the religious commandments, nor of the importance of executing each one of them.. 3/ The fact that the majority of Muslims are not terrorists therefore can be explained by the fact that they either a/ are not aware of the existence of verses and commandments inciting violence in Islam, or b/ have not been in a situation where they would be angry/afraid/mentally ill enough to perform a terrorist act. Terrorists (those who blow themselves up) are mostly, perhaps always, found among young males who are poor, with a weak education, who have failed socially, academically, and even romantically to a point where they only see salvation in the promised paradise. They basically have nothing to lose, unlike the majority of Muslims who have jobs, families, friends, ambitions, etc. Without those, terrorist leaders like Bin Laden would not find any fuel to burn. c/ They belong to a small Islamic denomination or new current which have fundamentally different approaches to understanding the sacred text. But those, I'm afraid to say, are only a minority. What I'm trying to say in short is, terrorists are not misinterpreting the faith, and terrorism unfortunately is not an isolated phenomenon in Islam, it's a direct consequence of its teachings. It means that most Muslims are not immune to it, and I've seen first hand how a lot of them sympathize with Muslim terrorists, or at least do not sympathize with the victims if they're not Muslim. This will not change by burying our heads in the sand and pretending there's no problem. It's like seeing clear symptoms of some disease and remaining in complete denial that it exists.. "no, no, it's just a normal rash, it'll go by itself".. well, it doesn't hurt to check the source of the problem just in case.. and the source of the problem for anyone who bothered to search is clearly in the history and the sacred texts of Islam, and the framework used to interpret them and use them for the daily lives of everyday Muslims.. What is needed right now, is a reform of the religion which would effectively isolate terrorists from the main body of Islam (this is not the case for now), and create a platform for other social and political reforms in the Islamic region that are virtually impossible to perform in the current situation. This is not just the responsibility of the West, but the West can play its part and leave the rest to the internal dynamics of majority Muslim societies. Left wing parties can for example stop ignoring demands of help or cooperation from freethinkers or atheists in the Islamic world, and waving them off as mere "Islamophobia" or "propaganda", and take them more seriously. It seems like it has become politically incorrect to say bad things about Islam or Muslims, even if they are correct or meant to be as such.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on May 13, 2013 11:09:55 GMT
Such an argument and stereotype is racist, Islam is a religion, not a race by the way.. Most Muslims are "moderate"? I'm not sure.. depends on how you define that term.. I'm not sure what you mean here.. Arabs could be Muslim, Christian, Jewish, atheists, etc.. I don't like to use that word anyway, it's difficult to define, confusing, and thus exploited for the benefit of one ideology or another.. People who are ethnically Arab (i.e. descendants of Ancient Arabs) are mostly located in the Arab peninsula (Saudi Arabia and surrounding countries).. the other regions in the so-called "Arab world" were Arabized due to Islamic conquests in the 7th and 8th centuries (and so was Spain for a long time until it was reconquered by Christians in the 15th century).. but the Arabization was gradual and not complete, and the regions kept many of their former cultural features, including people who speak languages other than Arabic, or its vernacular variations (languages like Berber, Assyrian, and Syro-Aramaic).. Yes. But Islamic terrorism is problematic because it's not condemned by mainstream Islam.. the liberal movement in Islam is still too weak.. 1/ I did not sat all Muslims were terrorists. If that were the case I'd be dead long ago, having spent all my life in an Islamic country. 2/ Catholicism and Islam are not the same.. not all religions are the same.. why do we hardly hear of "Buddhist terrorism", and never hear of "Jain terrorism"? It's because those two religions are all about peace and serenity, and their content is devoid of any commandments to violence or killing. That's not the case for Islam, and there are many instances in Qur'an, Hadith (Tradition), and Sira (biography of Muhammad), showing that. But it's not just about what's written in the books (we could say the same about Judaism, but there's hardly any "Jewish terrorism"), it's most importantly about how those books are interpreted, and how Muslims view their relationship with them (regardless of whether they follow them to the letter or not).. Indeed.. that didn't help the situation either.. which is why I think the West should take a rational stand, by supporting the good causes (those leading to a reform of Islam), and intervening only when necessary.. now many, even some atheists in the Middle East and North Africa, think there was some Western conspiracy to bring Islamic movements to power, especially after the intervention of the NATO in Libya..
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deej
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Post by deej on May 13, 2013 19:04:37 GMT
Islam is indeed a religion but there is nothing stopping anyone being racist towards an individual who is a Muslim or tarnishing a whole religion as the same because of racist prejudices, discrimination and stereotypes. For instance, Nick Griffin uses the fact a MINORITY of Muslims practice sharia law to tarnish the whole faith for his own ideologically racist agenda. It very much depends on the context. By your argument, anything said against Islam could be deemed acceptable.
By moderate, I mean they follow their faith, but are law-abiding and accept the rights of others to follow a different religion or cultural/social norm within society (multiculturalism). The minority of Muslims are extreme and terrorists. Muslims are not the only terrorists, anyone can be a terrorist.
How is Islamic terrorism not condemned by mainstream Islam? I'm sure most liberal, law-abiding, democratic Muslims would object to that statement. I would much rather there be an Islamic state in a country than some secular dictator who suppresses freedom of speech and kills his own protesting people.
I am not a Muslim btw.
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Post by Moose on May 13, 2013 23:35:11 GMT
Do you know Yuki's background?
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on May 14, 2013 0:10:06 GMT
Islam is indeed a religion but there is nothing stopping anyone being racist towards an individual who is a Muslim I think the problem comes first from stereotypes and assumptions some people make about those who have certain looks or come from certain regions. It is assumed for example that anyone who comes from the Middle East must be Muslim, which is not true: there are substantial Orthodox Christian minorities as well as other minorities like Jews, Baha'i, Zoroastrian, and non believers.. Islam has also been strongly associated with terrorism. Not all Muslims are terrorists obviously, but Islam is not peaceful or innocent as some people claim. As I said above, it's not a black or white issue, and the situation is actually more complex than that. Many individual Muslims are good, their religion is not.. that is, until the religion is officially reformed and the reform is recognized by the majority of Muslims. There's much richness in the history and tradition of Islam, but since the beginning of the 20th century, there has been a tendency to unify all (Sunni) Muslims under the same banner, and to consider that "there's only one true Islam". Certainly this diversity has not been completely lost, but it's not welcome by many, and anyone who professes beliefs that slightly differ from the majority may easily be considered a heretic or a "kafir". I've known that through personal experiences with people here (in Morocco), and experiences I read and was told about by others. Muslims are not all the same and Islam is not monolithic. There are ultra-conservative groups, other ones that are conservative, and a few moderate and liberal ones.. but it seems to me that the later are mostly fragmented and disorganized.. overall, I'd say that Muslims (in the whole world) tend to be quite conservative.. I don't know much about Nick Griffin apart from what I just quickly read on wikipedia, but I think the Western right in general makes many good points when it comes to Islam unfortunately, points that their opponents refuse to see on the naive grounds that "since they're the right wing, and are motivated by hate and xenophobia, then they must wrong".. one should separate psychological motivation from fact.. facts have to be assessed by themselves based on their truth value, not who said them and for what intention.. Sharia law is practiced in several Islamic countries, and most Muslims, according to stats (some of which I have posted in the previous EF forum), support it, partially or completely. It's one important point any future reform of the religion would have to tackle. No, it should be based on what's in the texts and their common interpretations, views of Muslims, and practices. That may be true for Muslims living in the West (to be verified). It's definitely not true for Muslims worldwide (in general). From what I can see, a lot of them are two-faced and opportunistic: they support multiculturalism, openness, and tolerance in Western countries, but they vote for extreme right wing parties (Islamists) in their countries of origin.. this is what happened in Tunisia for example.. This also stresses the difference between us, as far as this topic is concerned. In essence we may not differ much on our basic views of the universe and human society, but we were born and raised in different places resulting in two major differences (relatively to this topic): 1/ Personal experience with Muslims: you live in a place where Muslims are a minority, whereas where I live they are the majority. To you therefore Muslims would an oppressed group that needs to be tolerated and protected from hate speech, abuse, and other heinous treatments they would be subjected to if the Western Right had access to power. To me, Muslims are oppressors. They use their majority status to silence any form of dissidence or alternative thought. I often hear and read comments by Muslims stating that I and other atheists here must shut up and "respect" their views because they're the majority, in response to protests against laws banning free speech (if you declare your atheism publicly for example, you could go to prison for 6 months to 3 years), and other individual rights.. of course there's also support from other Muslims, but only a few.. This oppressive behavior is not accidental, but the roots of it can be clearly seen in the teachings of Islam, and how they are taught since childhood. 2/ The objective when addressing this topic: you are concerned that there's oppression and abuse against Muslims, and you would like to stress the fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, so they do deserve to be accepted in society and tolerated as part of its multicultural canvas. That is not my concern at all. I already know that Muslims are not all terrorists (as in, people who would blow themselves up or kill others in the name of Allah, or encourage others to do so). I have lived for 26 years in an Islamic country, and I have many friends here, many of which are Muslim. My main concern is how to help the Islamic region get out of its cultural crisis, of which terrorism is just one of many symptoms, and simply the culmination of the oppressive mentality that prevails in the region, as a consequence of Islam, how it is viewed, and how it is and practiced. This concern, by the way, is not out of attachment or a particular love for it.. I really couldn't care less, except that in the last two years I've started to realize that the future of the whole species is dependent on reducing the gap between developed and underdeveloped countries, many of which are Muslim countries. There's a huge potential there that is lost everyday, and would be recovered if the right conditions were to be met.. That's a general statement that ignores the specific details of Islam, its current reality, and its history. The minority of Muslim who become terrorists are not an accident of nature, they are nurtured inside a culture that encourages such behavior whether directly or indirectly. ... who only represent a small fraction among Muslims. An Islamic state (Iran, Saudi Arabia are good examples of what an Islamic state is) would automatically suppress freedom of speech and kill any dissidents and apostates like myself, or imprison them at least. You can see what's happening now in Egypt and Tunisia, where Islamist parties have the power.. Neither an Islamist state nor a secular dictatorship is good.. Sorry for not providing any references for my statements, as I'm a little busy now, but you can read and search for yourself anyway.. this is part of an episode of the Daily Show by Jon Stewart about the arrest of Bassem Youssef, who hosts a similar program (Al Bernameg) in Egypt, which is very popular right now (you can find episodes subtitled in English on youtube).. Bassem Youssef is an example of liberal Muslims, hopefully growing in numbers..
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Post by ming on May 14, 2013 1:59:24 GMT
As a Muslim, I consider myself conservative but tolerant. The same cannot be said for a minority of Muslims who, in the eyes of the majority of Muslims (at least in Bangladesh), cause terror, citing passages from the Quran out of context to justify their actions. In our opinions they are not true Muslims at all. Unfortunately it is this minority that tends to scream out loud and are therefore the ones most known. And I agree with deej when he says that it is for this minority group that followers of the entire religion are tarnished. Yuki, I don't your background but I would like to. I read your comment about responses to your atheism with interest. Right now in Bangladesh a political party is out there screaming, "All atheists must be hanged", etc., and the government also has arrested a few atheist bloggers though they were released yesterday. The majority of the citizens of Bangladesh oppose this movement, have no respect for the government and most political parties. During elections we have a "No vote" option and the majority select that option. I'd like to talk of one instance of my experience with the "West" with Islam. Following the Boston bombings and prior to the arrest of the suspect, an American on another forum said, quite openly, "I think it was the Arab Muslims" or words to that effect. They also said, "Sometimes I think the Middle East sends students to America solely for the purpose of causing terror." That is the kind of blanket generalization that the majority of (in deej's words) law abiding, moderate Muslims face in the West. As a South Asian I replied regarding my concerns about being mistaken for a Middle Eastern and then immediately looked at in fear while walking the streets of Boston. The original poster then said that would never be the case. However the very next day it was reported that a group of people beat up a Bangladeshi man thinking he was responsible, solely because he looked like a Middle Eastern Muslim.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on May 14, 2013 11:32:46 GMT
As a Muslim, I consider myself conservative but tolerant. The same cannot be said for a minority of Muslims who, in the eyes of the majority of Muslims (at least in Bangladesh), cause terror, citing passages from the Quran out of context to justify their actions. In our opinions they are not true Muslims at all. I don't know much about Islam in Bangladesh, but I checked this wiki page just to have a general idea.. it seems that Islam in Bangladesh had a great influence from Sufism, which means that it would tend to be more tolerant, focusing on love rather than fear. It's also sheltered from Arab cultural influence since Arabic is not spoken there, which means that the wave of Islamism, which swept through Arab speaking countries since the 80s of the previous century, would not reach it, or at least not as strongly. Ever since Saudis discovered their oil, they have invested a lot of money in building mosques, Islamic libraries, Koranic schools, and creating TV channels to propagate their version of Islam (Wahhabism which is probably the most extremist and anti-free-thought you can get).. I don't think people in the Middle East and North Africa need more of that.. in order to build a new civilization you need to invest in schools, scholarships, scientific research, museums, etc.. they do some of that but only in meager quantities as if it were something very secondary.. As for citing verses out of context, well, this argument can be used to rule out basically any commandment of Islam, because all of them were set in a particular context, which you may consider as partial and temporary.. it's on this ground that some scholars for example consider "hijab" (the headscarf) for women to be optional (mainstream scholars consider it mandatory though, and the ultra-conservative are for burqa instead).. And if you take Hadith into account, there are some straightforward commandments like: The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that I (Muhammad) am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: In Qisas for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam (apostate) and leaves the Muslims. Sahih al-Bukhari, 9:83:17 And: Whoever changes his religion, slay him. --Al Bukhari, 4:52:260 The subject is controversial, but most of the discussion is about the sort of punishment an apostate would deserve, and at which point they should be punished (simply for declaring apostasy, or only if they express their views and criticize Islam).. liberal Muslim scholars, like Olfa Youssef, are against punishment for apostasy whatsoever, but her views are in the minority as far as I can see.. This is the view of a scholar from Al Azhar University (usually considered a "moderate" institution):
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on May 14, 2013 13:52:49 GMT
Unfortunately it is this minority that tends to scream out loud and are therefore the ones most known. And I agree with deej when he says that it is for this minority group that followers of the entire religion are tarnished. I agree that fundamentalists tend to be very vocal, giving the impression that their views are the dominant ones among Muslims.. but to be honest I'm not sure if many Muslims have any views at all.. they may change their view on a subject depending on context, or simply follow general opinion.. I sometimes suspect that those who support Sharia mostly do so because they think they are expected to, not because they are convinced it's right.. but if that's the case, they should speak up and voice their opinion on the matter clearly, otherwise one would easily think that they're probably being complacent with the fundamentalist view, but too coward to act on it.. One of the reasons why they don't is that there's no general framework of thought that allows them to do so, which modernizes the religion and makes it clearly compatible with the 21st century. If this were to be achieved, fundamentalists and terrorists would be effectively isolated, and their voice would become truly a fringe voice, completely foreign to the message of the religion as it is viewed by the majority. This is not the case now: all I see is some individual and isolated efforts, apologetic statements (denying the problem instead of solving it).. Of course, the mentality of oppression and rejection (the underlying aspects of terrorism) exists everywhere, but in the Islamic world it's very much tied to religion.. it's part of cultural complex of which Islam is the core, and changing the way Islam is viewed and practiced by Muslims themselves is the key to changing everything.. Well, recently there was a fatwa issued by the Council of Islamic Scholars in Morocco (the only institution that can officially issue fatwas in the country), and it stated that any Muslim who leaves Islam must be killed. This created much controversy, but from what I saw most people here either supported it or did not comment. linkA few days after that a friend of mine had to hide when policemen came to question him (he wasn't at home fortunately), and he's still in hiding as we speak.. ( link) He's the one who showed his face on this video: That's a blatant generalization. Not all Muslims are alike, and the Middle East does not consists of Muslims only anyway. Well, I myself could be easily subjected to such treatment. Some people think they can know who you are simply by looking at the color of your skin and eyes.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on May 14, 2013 14:32:13 GMT
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Post by tangent on May 14, 2013 19:54:35 GMT
Oops
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on May 14, 2013 21:50:48 GMT
hmm.. they work for me.. :/
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Post by Alvamiga on May 15, 2013 7:24:13 GMT
The images return this error for me... "The page isn't redirecting properly Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete. This problem can sometimes be caused by disabling or refusing to accept cookies." It is trying to avoid linking them to another site, but instead goes to another image that also tries to avoid being linked. You can probably view them if you are already registered with the site and have recently visited it.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on May 15, 2013 8:20:26 GMT
There, fixed it..
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Post by tangent on May 15, 2013 12:00:16 GMT
Thanks, that was interesting. I presume where there was no mention of the general population, as there is in figure 14, that only Muslims were asked the question.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on May 15, 2013 13:26:49 GMT
Well, many of the questions concern Muslims only I think (the ones about prayer and sharia for example)..
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deej
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Post by deej on May 17, 2013 23:32:46 GMT
As a Muslim, I consider myself conservative but tolerant. The same cannot be said for a minority of Muslims who, in the eyes of the majority of Muslims (at least in Bangladesh), cause terror, citing passages from the Quran out of context to justify their actions. In our opinions they are not true Muslims at all. Unfortunately it is this minority that tends to scream out loud and are therefore the ones most known. And I agree with deej when he says that it is for this minority group that followers of the entire religion are tarnished. Yuki, I don't your background but I would like to. I read your comment about responses to your atheism with interest. Right now in Bangladesh a political party is out there screaming, "All atheists must be hanged", etc., and the government also has arrested a few atheist bloggers though they were released yesterday. The majority of the citizens of Bangladesh oppose this movement, have no respect for the government and most political parties. During elections we have a "No vote" option and the majority select that option. I'd like to talk of one instance of my experience with the "West" with Islam. Following the Boston bombings and prior to the arrest of the suspect, an American on another forum said, quite openly, "I think it was the Arab Muslims" or words to that effect. They also said, "Sometimes I think the Middle East sends students to America solely for the purpose of causing terror." That is the kind of blanket generalization that the majority of (in deej's words) law abiding, moderate Muslims face in the West. As a South Asian I replied regarding my concerns about being mistaken for a Middle Eastern and then immediately looked at in fear while walking the streets of Boston. The original poster then said that would never be the case. However the very next day it was reported that a group of people beat up a Bangladeshi man thinking he was responsible, solely because he looked like a Middle Eastern Muslim. A very good post Ming, one that I agree with. Thank you for sharing your own personal experience. It would be fantastic if the political establishment in Bangladesh could become more secular and a minority of extremists could accept the views of other people. The media, politician, pressure groups, security groups and a whole array of parties have built a climate of fear in the minds of so many Western people, especially citizens of the US, that they are going to be the victims of terrorists, when in fact that risk is very low, and the terrorist image is portrayed as the 'other' (the Muslim sadly, in the same way that the Soviet Union was). I remember the Oklahoma Bombings, the American public were convinced into believing that the perpetrators behind the attack were Muslims, when in fact it was a white supremacist! Don't want to go too academic but I would class fear of terrorism as a Moral Panic. It is worth looking up Stanley Cohen's Folk Devils and Moral Panics for a view on such a theory, Ulrich Beck's Risk Society, and the work of Dan Goddard who talks about how the US constructed a climate of fear amongst the US public to justify the war on terror and Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts etc...
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Post by spaceflower on Feb 10, 2015 16:42:56 GMT
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Post by Moose on Feb 10, 2015 21:58:31 GMT
I thought that Isis were Shi'ites though that is only going on the fact that the murdered Jordanian airman was sunni.
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Post by jayme on Feb 11, 2015 2:34:52 GMT
I thought that Isis were Shi'ites though that is only going on the fact that the murdered Jordanian airman was sunni. No, they are Sunni. But they will kill other Sunnis who disagree with their agenda.
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Post by Moose on Feb 11, 2015 20:15:38 GMT
Not good
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Feb 12, 2015 22:22:01 GMT
ISIS would consider anyone who doesn't follow their strict interpretation of Islam, or doesn't submit to the political regime they're trying to establish, as an infidel deserving death. They even executed members of other terrorist organizations who had pretty much the same ideology, just for not acknowledging their caliphate.
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Post by Moose on Feb 12, 2015 22:38:18 GMT
nutjobs
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Feb 12, 2015 22:38:20 GMT
The problem is not the existence of peaceful or violent people in any religious group or social community. It's obvious you'll find both anywhere you go, and only a bigot or someone who's too naive would paint a whole community as either completely violent or completely peaceful. It's a problem of frequency. Of how many people are prone to violent behavior or support such behavior as a solution to their problems. In the Islamic world this frequency is too high, compared to other religious communities, due to many factors, some of which are political (unstable regimes, failed democratization attempts for instance), but the mainstream interpretations of Islam play a big role as well. When you compare the agenda of Muslim terrorists and extremists you find an almost 1 to 1 correspondence with Islamic texts (Koran, Hadith, and Sira). Reading and watching what ISIS are currently doing in Iraq and Syria, is almost like looking through a gaping wormhole that suddenly opened into the 7th and 8th century, and seeing what Muhammad and his followers were doing back then, according to what Muslim historians themselves have recorded.
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