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Post by spaceflower on Nov 14, 2015 2:17:12 GMT
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Post by Moose on Nov 14, 2015 18:11:23 GMT
Horrendous . I simply do not understand the mentality of people who decide that maiming and killing fellow human beings in the name of an ideology is a good thing to do - or that it might win the approval of a deity, in the unlikely event that one happens to exist.
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Post by tangent on Nov 14, 2015 21:58:19 GMT
These people are using Islam as an excuse, they don't really believe they make a deity pleased. I think it has more to do with the rejection of Western ideology and American dominance. This all began when America started building dams in Afghanistan in the first half of the 20th century. No one in the Middle East cared two hoots about Western ideas before then (admittedly, a gross simplification).
Whatever you think of their religion, it's a terrible mistake to identify that with the millions of Muslims whose religion is peaceful. Incidents like this make me feel sorry for the typical Muslim. "Why don't you condemn the attacks," asks the reporter. "Because it's not my religion."
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Post by juju on Nov 14, 2015 23:11:06 GMT
My husband says IS is not Islamic, or even religious. He says it's just a death cult. I think he's right.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2015 9:35:43 GMT
I was shocked and feel a bit guilty about not changing my avatar on Facebook. However, I sometimes find it sad that these things only seem to touch people when they happen close to us. Doesn't mean I don't think it's horrible.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Nov 15, 2015 11:37:52 GMT
My husband says IS is not Islamic, or even religious. He says it's just a death cult. I think he's right. I think they are very much Islamic, too much actually. IS are just copying the practices and commandments that Muhammad and his companions enacted, as narrated by Islamic books (the Sira by Ibn Hisham, Tabari, Sahih Al Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, etc). Check the story of Umm Qirfa just as an example: I once joked with an Iraqi friend that IS may be an atheist secret plot to make people see, with their own eyes, how it used to be at the time of Muhammad, which many Muslims often idealize too much. Some Muslim apologists claim that these stories are not true, because they do not come from the Koran. But if you put these historical sources in doubt (and they certainly should be questioned and analyzed with the modern instruments of science), then you don't get to cherry-pick the lovely bits where Muhammad shows love and compassion either. This of course ignores the fact that the Koran itself is ripe with commandments of killing infidels, and mutilating wrong doers, and those who claim that those passages were only true in a certain context, should realize that their lame excuse (the real question is why these passages are in a supposedly holy book in the first place) can be used both ways: one can also claim that the peaceful passages were endemic to a specific historical context, and cannot be considered universal. In my opinion the core of the problem is 1/ Muhammad's sanctity, and 2/ the belief that the Koran is the literal word of Allah. If you're taught since childhood that Allah's word cannot be questioned (since it is literally authored by him, and not just inspired to humans who took liberty in the wording and style) and that Muhammad is immune to error and confusion, particularly as far as the revelation is concerned, then you will automatically believe that the Koran, in addition to some Hadith books like Sahih Al Bukhari, are true word for word and infallible. Add the discourse of a fundamentalist preacher calling for the demise of the infidels while citing passages from those very books, an identity crisis often suffered by second or third generation immigrants who can neither claim to belong to their forefathers' native countries, nor fully integrate into their home society, due to cultural isolation permitted by inadequate immigration and integration policies (this identity crisis is often exploited by terrorist organizations which provide a community and a purpose to these youth), and some love for danger and adventure, and the recipe for a new terrorist is ready. I cannot deny that Western policies in the Middle East were an important factor as well, as they created a power vacuum that IS and other jihadist organizations exploited to establish themselves, but how does that explain the thousands of fighters who joined IS from Morocco and Jordan, both very stable countries? How does it explain the murder of several Bangladeshi bloggers by Islamists, in an otherwise secular country? The Western support for the Saudi regime also fueled the wave of Islamization that started in the 1980s, with Saudi oil money being used to build mosques, Islamic libraries, and establish religious associations, TV channels, and websites, which helped spread Wahhabism, the Saudi version of Islam based on literalism and total rejection of secularism. A lot of people are getting the issue in the wrong way. This is not about blaming Muslims for terrorism. Pointing out the role of Islam in terrorism does not amount to blaming every Muslim for terrorist attacks. This is about asking Muslims to cooperate in defeating terrorism by 1/ admitting the role of their religious texts in the ideology of Islamic terrorists like IS or Al-Qaeda, 2/ breaking the double sanctity of Muhammad and the Koran, by accepting criticism and analysis of both without any threats or intimidation: "Christoph Luxenberg" had to use a fake name to publish his book The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran, which explores the origin of the Koran based on the historical, linguistic and cultural context of the time of its supposed revelation -- Salman Rushdie is still living under the threat of a fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini over Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses -- historian and writer Hamed Abdel-Samad constantly needs police protection since, and even before he published his book "Mohamed: Eine Abrechnung" (Muhammad: a settlement of accounts). These are not imaginary problems. There are people risking their lives to reform the Islamic world by criticizing its origins and the basis of its culture (just as Western thinkers did centuries ago, leading the Enlightenment and the Industrial revolution), while many in the Western left are busy shifting the blame and blocking any real discussion on the topic of Islam and its current issues (terrorism being only the salient tip of a very large iceberg). In short, these are the issues that have to be solved in my opinion to curtail the problem of Islamic terrorism: 1- Break the double sanctity of Muhammad and the Koran: Muhammad should be criticized like any other historical figure, and the Koran should be analyzed and re-interpreted using modern instruments, instead of the traditional methods that Muslim scholars still use. In general, scientific and literary inquiry into the origin of Islam and the Koran should not be met with refusal, intimidation, threat or punishment. And this should apply to both Muslims and non-Muslims, be they in the Middle East, Europe or anywhere. 2- Fix immigration and integration policies: yes, multiculturalism is great, but faith schools (Islamic or otherwise) and religiously inspired laws applied to a certain community only hinder their integration into Western society. In general, policies should reward individuals and communities who make an effort to adopt certain key traits and values (tolerance, freedom of expression, granting women their rights, etc), and discourage those who don't. Otherwise, if you want to preserve some features of your original culture which do not conflict with the values of your host country, by all means. 3- Fix Western policies in the Middle East: shortsightedness is somewhat endemic to political institutions, so telling Western politicians to stop supporting authoritarian regimes for short term gain may be a hopeless case (which is why I usually focus on the first two issues). My hope is that when we enter the solar era, oil will become less relevant and Saudi supported Islamism will crumble down as a consequence.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Nov 15, 2015 13:10:38 GMT
I was shocked and feel a bit guilty about not changing my avatar on Facebook. However, I sometimes find it sad that these things only seem to touch people when they happen close to us. Doesn't mean I don't think it's horrible. I've been feeling depressed about the news since yesterday morning. My brother, a cousin, and several friends of mine live in Paris, and I had to check on all of them to see if they were okay. Thankfully they all are, but I keep thinking that some radical measures have to be taken to stop that shit from happening again, in the form of a coordinated effort by individuals, communities, organizations and governments. Shifting the blame is only making the problem worse. There's no denying that Islamic texts and their literal interpretation are a factor. The fact that most Muslims do not engage in terrorist activities does not change anything, because there are obviously several factors involved. When I was in high school I remember when the teacher at Islamic Education class, told us that we didn't have to read the Sufi interpretation of some Koranic verses because it was "just rubbish", but had to study the mainstream Salafist interpretation only. Apart from the obvious problem that we were discouraged to study multiple interpretations of the same religious text within Islam, the fact that we had an "Islamic Education" class, instead of a general religion class where we would study different religions, and even their criticism by old and new thinkers, is also a problem. In many countries in the Islamic world, people are not exposed to alternative ideas, and their beliefs are never challenged. That, I think, is where the seed of fundamentalism starts, which mutates into violent application of the texts under some circumstances.
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Post by Miisa on Nov 15, 2015 15:13:23 GMT
Glad to hear your opinion on this as a (former) cultural Muslim. I tend not to say anything as it looks like whenever people who don't have that background try to say those things they so easily labelled as Islamophobes, or if they even try to enter the talk in any way it is seen as a kind of "Islamosplaining". But it is difficult to disregard the voice of cultural muslims on this in that manner.
IS get a lot of its funds from oil, I think? If so, we are all guilty of giving them financial support every time we fill up our cars. But will Big Oil let us start a "boycott oil" movement, or let it even get off the ground? Seems oddly quiet out there...
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Post by Moose on Nov 15, 2015 18:44:39 GMT
I was wondering last night why it is that the US has never gone into North Korea, to deal with the appalling oppression of the people in that country. If they/we can invade Iraq and Afghanistan then North Korea should not pose much of a problem and I doubt that even China would care enough to start a fight about it. It is a bit simplistic to say 'oil' but then it is the main reason that I can think of. The Middle East has resources that the West want. N Korea does not . Ergo, the fact that the North Korean people are probably the most oppressed in the world at this point in time does not seem to matter much.
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Post by juju on Nov 16, 2015 13:28:25 GMT
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Post by juju on Nov 17, 2015 8:45:44 GMT
Having read several articles now which echo your opinions, Greg, I agree that IS are fundamentalist and have taken Islam to it's extreme conclusion (in much the same way fundamentalist Christian groups do). What is worrying is the appeal this has for youth. Youthful zeal has always been a powerful weapon (Hitler, Mao etc) - I read a statistic (if true) that IS has a scarily high approval rating, especially with the young: www.rt.com/news/181076-isis-islam-militans-france/This being the case, I'm not sure how your first recommendation of desanctification could be implemented? Surely this kind of paradigm shift in attitude would be incredibly difficult to bring about? Even moderates might get defensive if they see a deliberate attempt to water down their religion.
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Post by Moose on Nov 18, 2015 19:17:11 GMT
I've never personally met a Muslim who agrees with ISIS and I know a fair few (not that I've asked all of them). That said, the Muslims I know are probably from a certain social class and I suspect - might be wrong - that ISIS appeals more to disaffected working class youths who feel that this country has nothing to offer them.
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Post by tangent on Nov 19, 2015 22:47:41 GMT
I think it might be a question of identity. The Western world, and America in particular, wants to convert the Middle East to its values and cause it to embrace its worldly culture. It promotes an ideology of freedom more fervently than any religion to the extent that free speech has become almost a god. North Africa and the Middle East are afraid of being subsumed by an ideology where they have no identity of their own. And they are rebelling against it and see ISIS as their champions.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Nov 20, 2015 9:02:04 GMT
Hey guys! I wrote a long comment in response to Juju and Steve, but the Internet monsters swallowed it. I'll come back to this later. What I can say briefly is that ISIS is the manifestation of a multi-dimensional problem (a problem that has many other manifestations and consequences most of which affect the Muslim world directly, but also the rest of the world indirectly). It's not just anti-Western sentiments, or just fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic texts, or just immigration policy. I understand that people like to blame one thing because it makes things simpler, but reality does not obey to our wishes or our personal agendas. I think the only way we can solve this terrorism issue, and other issues as well, is by using a well-informed long term strategy, based on cooperation and mutual understanding. I'll leave you with this interview with Maajid Nawaz, one of very few Muslims whose opinion on this matter I respect deeply.
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Post by juju on Nov 29, 2015 18:49:30 GMT
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Post by tangent on Nov 30, 2015 1:51:09 GMT
Excellent article, thanks juju.
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Post by kingedmund on Dec 1, 2015 5:39:23 GMT
That's very different and interesting. Not what I expected at all. Thank you.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Dec 8, 2015 23:37:15 GMT
Juju, your articles are really awesome and quite informative even to me. Thanks for sharing them! This being the case, I'm not sure how your first recommendation of desanctification could be implemented? Surely this kind of paradigm shift in attitude would be incredibly difficult to bring about? Even moderates might get defensive if they see a deliberate attempt to water down their religion. I see a sort of a circular argument here. The current situation came about precisely because these fundamentalist ideas went completely unchallenged during the process of education of Muslim youth, especially since the "Islamic awakening" in the 1980s. As in the example I gave of my high school "Islamic Education" teacher, educators (parents, teachers, media speakers, etc) in the Islamic world often promote a single view of Islam, closer to the Wahhabist kind, and discard other interpretations, not to mention other un-Islamic views. A lot of Muslims, especially in Islamic countries, grow up completely sheltered from any criticism of their faith, and thus tend to become highly sensitive to any slight dose of criticism to their religion, and develop a warped view of reality that uses Islam (or a certain version of it) as its only filter. Obviously, this condition, for the majority of Muslims, does not reach such extreme proportions, but for many of them it's a close approximation. Back to our question, the desanctification will obviously be deemed as brutal and "Islamophobic" even by moderate Muslims at the beginning, but as time goes, if this trend is allowed to continue, people will start to distinguish between constructive criticism and cheap insults. At the moment most people do not, and this is why people like Sam Harris and Bill Maher were labeled as "bigots" and "racists" even though their discourse, for those who understand enough about the Islamic world and pay attention to details, has nothing to do with racism or bigotry. Many liberals take the situation from a very narrow perspective, and often think only of its short term consequences. For example, they think too locally, when writers like Sam Harris are in fact speaking from a global perspective. So when they hear or read the word "Muslims", they understand "Muslims in my country/community", "my nice Muslim neighbors/coworkers/classmates". They also think of criticism of Islam as "offending to Muslims", which is a short-term consequence, without considering the potential long-term development of a tradition of self-questioning and critical thinking within Islamic communities, which they pretty much totally lack at the moment (let's not forget that Voltaire, Galileo, Bruno, to name a few, were all deemed as "offensive" at their time).
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Dec 9, 2015 0:29:46 GMT
I think it might be a question of identity. The Western world, and America in particular, wants to convert the Middle East to its values and cause it to embrace its worldly culture. It promotes an ideology of freedom more fervently than any religion to the extent that free speech has become almost a god. North Africa and the Middle East are afraid of being subsumed by an ideology where they have no identity of their own. And they are rebelling against it and see ISIS as their champions. This may have some truth to it, but it's a very incomplete picture I think. Most people in the Middle East and North Africa are angry at the West to a certain degree, even some of those who are secular. Most of them however, even those who are fundamentally religious, do not support ISIS, and many are against violence and terrorism in general, or turn to secular or pseudo-secular ideologies like Baathism (of which Saddam Hussein was one of the main leaders). And as far as converting others to one's values, I think Muslims in general tend to be a lot more fervent about that than Westerners. There's a sense of certainly among many, probably most Muslims, that at some point as the apocalypse approaches, Islam will dominate the whole planet. This idea in my experience is often latent and dormant in their subconscious, and only makes it to the surface on some occasions. Most Muslims, from what I know, are in fact quite passive about this prophecy (made by Muhammad in some hadeeths*), and believe that it will be fulfilled on its own by Allah's will. People like ISIS on the other hand believe it can only come about by force. Western values in any case are all about accepting as many views and lifestyles as possible, whereas other cultures, like Islamic cultures, are often pretty restrictive in what people can or should do with their own lives, or how they should think about a variety of topics. In this sense, I find Western values to be fundamentally superior to any other set of values that exist today or existed in the past. This will be deemed as totally outrageous and unacceptable by "cultural relativists", for whom all cultures are of equal worth, but in my opinion this is only true in the ivory towers of pure abstraction where these "cultural relativists" prefer to shelter themselves. In the real world, we have a compass by which to measure the worthiness of a system of values, which is based on biology. Our biological systems are programmed to love life and abhor death, to seek pleasure and avoid suffering. One could therefore consider that a superior set of values are ones where life and pleasure are maximized, and death and suffering are minimized. Freedom is a great value because it allows as many people as possible to exist and thrive without being ostracized or punished for having a view or lifestyle that is out of the "norm". You'd have to live in a community where this value is lacking however, to seize its true importance. * this one for example from Sahih Muslim (the second of the six most trustworthy Hadeeth books in Sunni Islam):
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Post by Yuki on Dec 9, 2015 1:12:46 GMT
This is an article about Molenbeek district in Brussels, Belgium, where several Jihadists linked to the Paris attacks and other terrorism incidents have grown up or lived for some time, written by someone who lived there for 9 years. It highlights several issues to which I alluded in an earlier post: inadequate integration and immigration policies, a culture of denial and PCness among some Western liberals, and the use of intimidation to block the discussion about issues related to Islam and Muslims, even when the criticism comes from people with insider knowledge and/or Islamic background, who are then deemed as "spies", "traitors", "lapdogs" (as Maajid Nawaz has been referred to by some "liberals" on some occasions), or "xenophobes", "racists", "bigots" if the criticism comes from a "white person". www.politico.eu/article/molenbeek-broke-my-heart-radicalization-suburb-brussels-gentrification/
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