The Islamophobia split on the left.

[onejayhawk]

Oh well. It depends what you're thinking of, I suppose.

I can't remember the last time a Christian was burned at the stake for heresy. Which is the kind of thing I was thinking of. That, and being thrown to the lions.

Of course, Muslims haven't been martyred that way either, for a long time. It's just that they seem to blow themselves up, and fly planes into buildings, with the express aim of martyrdom, on a regular basis. Behaviour which seems to be missing from the Christian community. (Not that it shouldn't be missing, I hasten to add.)

Still, maybe you count Americans soldiers being repatriated in body bags as a form of martyrdom too. I wouldn't know.

Or maybe you're thinking of Iraqi Christians who seem to be being persecuted for no good reason, I'll admit.

But don't let's dwell on this subject over much.

People are dying. How do you dwell on that "over much"? ISIS has been killing Christians. This is well documented.

China has a long history of supressing religion, particularly those with western ties. Before Mao died, Christians tended to disappear. During the early post-Mao period, things improved. I know someone who attended a service in Peking 1986. The church was standing only, 7 services on Sunday, and overflowed into the street. Quick and dirty estimate about 7000- 10,000 worshipers.

Then came Tiananmen Square. Christians were target of much of the post massacre fall out. Again, the church was forced underground. At this time, it is not as bad as it was, but it is hazardous to worship openly.

J

 

[CavLancer]

May God bless them...and what a thing, to suffer for Christ. So much suffering in this world anyway, this would be worth it.

 

[Ayatollah So]

I think you'd find that they mostly come from middle class backgrounds, while the leaders are almost exclusively rich.

It seems pretty variable to me. Sure, the 9/11 group was middle class. But the Madrid bombers seem to have been petty criminals before they "got religion":

A few days after the attack this individual told police in a taped telephone conversation that he harbored strong suspicions about a man named Jamal Ahmidan, alias “El Chino”. El Chino is another Moroccan petty drug dealer and Zouhier had put him in contact with a gang from Asturias (a region of northern Spain) suspected of smuggling, among other things, explosives originally intended for mining activities.

Second, religion is a matter of identity as much as it is as a matter of adherence to a particular code of values. Arguably more so. Most Muslims are not religious. They are Muslims because their parents were Muslims and they follow the religion because it is part of their ethnic identity not because they follow a particular ideology.

That goes double for the perpetrators of "heroic" violence: they tend to be new to being deeply religious. Or pseudo-deeply, should we say?

Scott Atran is the author of Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood and the (Un)Making of Terrorists:

Dr. Atran: Right. So if you take, you know, these polls if you put any credence in them, like the Gallup and Pew polls, you find that about 7 percent of the Muslim world has some sympathy for bin Laden. That's about 100 million people out of 1.3 or .4 billion Muslims in the world. But then if you look who actually is willing to do something violent, you find that it's an extremely, extremely small number of people. But when you look at — of those thousands out of the 100 million who actually do anything, you find that the greatest predictor — it has nothing to do with religion. The greatest predictor is whether they belong to a soccer club or some action-oriented group of friends.

Ms. Tippett: Right.

Dr. Atran: In fact, almost none of them had any religious education whatsoever. They're all born again, sort of between the ages of 18 and 22. So if it's not religious inculcation, if it's not religious training, if it's not even religious tradition, what could it possibly be? And again, it's first of all who your friends are. That's the greatest predictor of everything.

Source for the above

I agree. I notice that Islamic Fighters are more motivated by a search for meaning than poverty or despair.

... which is exactly what Scott Atran says.

 

[AdamCrock]

Free Religion FTW ! It's the best civic in civ 4 imho and when I am secretary general of the UN I always vote for it - I treat nonUN countries likes barbarians because they are barbarians - look at ISIS and You'll see - barbarians , simple , solution ? - simple nuke the bastards !!! (if it were up to me anyway)

 

[luiz]

You need the poor to be the footsoldiers of radicals. Bin Laden certainly wasn't poor, neither was Che Guevera. Both felt out of place in their relative societies and brought other "educated/rich" members to lead the gullible. Both were despicable people. This isn't about victimization of terrorists, its just acknowledging why they can come to be.

Al Qaeda's early leadership was made up of people who were well off. Not unlike almost every communist movement in the Americas. There is no doubt this is a level of the equation too, but without examining their fuel sources, you know the conditions on the ground, its not enough to simply point to these leaders.

Well as some other people said, people join terror groups in search for meaning. It's a venue for hateful, violence-prone individuals. And the leaders are made of the same material as psychotic dictators. I really don't think poverty has anything to do with it.

As someone who has lived side by side with deep poverty, I can safely say that the notion that poverty breeds terrorism or even radicalism is false. Poor people want money, not the dictatorship of the proletariat or a new caliphate.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Like bin Laden, that poor billionaire, or the engineers and doctors that orchestrated and carried out 9/11. The leader of ISIS has a doctorate.

Even the suicide bombers in Palestine more often than not come from middle class, college educated families. Nope, extremism is not a poor man's disease.

The leaders are generally not the ones with bombs strapped. The ability to control information to such an extent and indoctrinate people with nonsense is what allows that extremism, and there is no denying that poorer regions with flimsy governance otherwise are more conducive to setting that up. You can do it anywhere, but it's easier to do it on larger scales given the conditions.

It's not unlike other times in history where one or another religion has been wielded like a tool for control in some convoluted fashion. That kind of indoctrination really isn't comparable to sane followers of any faith.

 

[luiz]

The leaders are generally not the ones with bombs strapped. The ability to control information to such an extent and indoctrinate people with nonsense is what allows that extremism, and there is no denying that poorer regions with flimsy governance otherwise are more conducive to setting that up. You can do it anywhere, but it's easier to do it on larger scales given the conditions.

It's not unlike other times in history where one or another religion has been wielded like a tool for control in some convoluted fashion. That kind of indoctrination really isn't comparable to sane followers of any faith.

Several suicide bombers have college degrees. Several have studied for years in Madrassas or the likes and are highly educated individuals. And I don't have to keep reminding everybody that the 9/11 team (which were suicide bombers as well, not masterminds) was composed of college educated middle class guys.

 

[Esmer]

This is one of the Left's most important controversial topics in Western European countries with highly visible Muslim minorities. While many Leftists will still choose to awkardly dodge the issue there are more and more thinkers and newspapers who see the need for a decidedly secular-leftist criticism of Islam, so at to not leave the field (and the votes) to the traditionally xenophobic Right, which demonizes both Islam AND immigrants in general.

My personal view is that while ethnic prejudice against people of foreign background is always wrong, Islam itself as a vast set of ideas and values is very problematic, and large parts of it are incompatible with fully integrating into European societies.

 

[Old Hippy]

This is one of the Left's most important controversial topics in Western European countries with highly visible Muslim minorities. While many Leftists will still choose to awkardly dodge the issue there are more and more thinkers and newspapers who see the need for a decidedly secular-leftist criticism of Islam, so at to not leave the field (and the votes) to the traditionally xenophobic Right, which demonizes both Islam AND immigrants in general.

My personal view is that while ethnic prejudice against people of foreign background is always wrong, Islam itself as a vast set of ideas and values is very problematic, and large parts of it are incompatible with fully integrating into European societies.

you've identified 2 problems.
what does this achieve? except say to people already in the west that your thoughts are wrong, it has no effect in other regions, the way to integrate Muslims in western society, something that was well under way before 9/11, is to tell them your problematic, and incompatible to European societies, I actually think we need less criticism of Islam especially by newspapers, because if you follow their line of thinking, something needs to be done with what people are thinking, and that is very dangerous territory to muddle with,

 

[luiz]

you've identified 2 problems.
what does this achieve? except say to people already in the west that your thoughts are wrong, it has no effect in other regions, the way to integrate Muslims in western society, something that was well under way before 9/11, is to tell them your problematic, and incompatible to European societies, I actually think we need less criticism of Islam especially by newspapers, because if you follow their line of thinking, something needs to be done with what people are thinking, and that is very dangerous territory to muddle with,

It's not about telling them what to think, it's about being intellectually honest enough to criticize some of their stances. I mean, the Left in general is pretty comfortable criticizing certain strands of Evangelical Christian thought, is it not? And rightly so, I might add. Why can't it criticize Islamic thought?

Part of living in a free society (Western or not) is being able to take criticism, even harsh criticism. And also being able to criticize anything. There should be no sacred cows.

 

[Old Hippy]

It's not about telling them what to think, it's about being intellectually honest enough to criticize some of their stances. I mean, the Left in general is pretty comfortable criticizing certain strands of Evangelical Christian thought, is it not? And rightly so, I might add. Why can't it criticize Islamic thought?

Part of living in a free society (Western or not) is being able to take criticism, even harsh criticism. And also being able to criticize anything. There should be no sacred cows.

I'm just asking what does it achieve...
most of it is only headline grabbing, not genuine criticism, I happy to critise Christainity,it is where I come from, but if I was a practicing Muslim what benefit is there for anyone in telling me my thoughts and beliefs are wrong and just worst than proper thoughts and beliefs, we both know people just do not listen to that sort of criticism, it establishes a them and us divide, and if people are saying nuke Muslims,( which the are) well, I would not go quietly into the night.

It seems to me people care more about sacred cows than the fact that endless waffling on the subject is probably, maybe, just possibly, one of the causes of people turning to extreme ideologies in the first place, is it because of Islam or the fact that we marginalize Muslims with continuously telling tham they are wrong, with big headlines every day.
thats my criticism anyhow...

 

[Esmer]

you've identified 2 problems.
what does this achieve? except say to people already in the west that your thoughts are wrong, it has no effect in other regions, the way to integrate Muslims in western society, something that was well under way before 9/11, is to tell them your problematic, and incompatible to European societies, I actually think we need less criticism of Islam especially by newspapers, because if you follow their line of thinking, something needs to be done with what people are thinking, and that is very dangerous territory to muddle with,

The people themselves aren't problematic. A large part of the ideas and values are - especially the ones that concern legal matters. Take for example, the three following thoughts:

Depiction of certain religious figures should be forbidden by the law in general.
Apostasy from Islam should be punishable by death in general.
Homosexuality should be forbidden by the law in general.

Are those values that all Muslims believe in and consider non-negotiable? By no means. They are, however, undeniably part of Islam as a whole. And they are, at the same time, incompatible with European societies.
So yeah, we have to make it clear - from a secular, humanist and leftist point of view - that there are large parts of Islam that Muslims will simply have to abandon if they are to consider themselves fully integrated members of society.
There are a lot of good thoughts and social values in Islam. I disagree however, with the notion that all the nasty stuff somehow isn't part of Islam, or that "the extremists just got it wrong" (The "death penalty for apostasy" thing, for example, is not an extremist position. It is the stance of most important islamic scholars and the majority of the population in most Muslim countries).
And I also disagree with the notion that European societies have to adapt themselves, abandon some of the liberties that were already achieved, and meet somewhere in the middle with the tenets and values of Islam.

 

[Esmer]

I'm just asking what does it achieve...
most of it is only headline grabbing, not genuine criticism, I happy to critise Christainity,it is where I come from, but if I was a practicing Muslim what benefit is there for anyone in telling me my thoughts and beliefs are wrong and just worst than proper thoughts and beliefs, we both know people just do not listen to that sort of criticism, it establishes a them and us divide, and if people are saying nuke Muslims,( which the are) well, I would not go quietly into the night.

It seems to me people care more about sacred cows than the fact that endless waffling on the subject is probably, maybe, just possibly, one of the causes of people turning to extreme ideologies in the first place, is it because of Islam or the fact that we marginalize Muslims with continuously telling tham they are wrong, with big headlines every day.
thats my criticism anyhow...

No offense, but your reasoning doesn't make much sense to me. It's like saying:

"Criticizing White supremacism and racism will only make White supremacists and racists feel bad and make them become spiteful and stubborn, so it's better not to criticize those things at all."

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Several suicide bombers have college degrees. Several have studied for years in Madrassas or the likes and are highly educated individuals. And I don't have to keep reminding everybody that the 9/11 team (which were suicide bombers as well, not masterminds) was composed of college educated middle class guys.

None of these were the leaders of their organization, though. I haven't followed each of their backstories, but I suspect more of them than not attained their indoctrination before attaining degrees and training, and then received the training to that end.

Not everyone has identical motivations of course, but the important thing is to set someone's frame of mind down that path and how readily one can find large enough number of people to do it.

 

[Old Hippy]

Are those values that all Muslims believe in and consider non-negotiable? By no means. They are, however, undeniably part of Islam as a whole. And they are, at the same time, incompatible with European societies.
So yeah, we have to make it clear - from a secular, humanist and leftist point of view - that there are large parts of Islam that Muslims will simply have to abandon if they are to consider themselves fully integrated members of society.

and our experience with Christains is that they will not, so your starting point is Muslims will not become a fully integrated part of society...

There are a lot of good thoughts and social values in Islam. I disagree however, with the notion that all the nasty stuff somehow isn't part of Islam. And I also disagree with the notion that European societies have to adapt themselves, abandon some of the liberties that were already achieved, and meet somewhere in the middle with the tenets and values of Islam.

so you don't listen to Muslims saying we are moderate and want to live in this society by its laws, as good citizens of the UK or Australia...which is pretty much all the rest of us have to do, because they secretly want to do nasty stuff, again not a good starting point for integration of Muslims into Western society

who said European societies have to adapt themselves, if anything they should actually practice the liberties they keep talking about.
if the European values have any value they will be picked up by Muslims, but starting from you must have freedom of thought, and Muslims must change because they are wrong, will not in my experience work to integrate people into society...

 

[warpus]

if the European values have any value they will be picked up by Muslims

People generally stick to the things they were brought up with and find alien ideas from other cultures.. well, alien. They tend to stay away, even if these ideas "have a lot of value".

Especially if it means going against religiously inspired customs and ways of thinking.

 

[Esmer]

and our experience with Christains is that they will not

But that's not true; Christianity manifests itself in Europe today totally different from how it manifested intself in Europe 500 years ago.

so you don't listen to Muslims saying we are moderate and want to live in this society by its laws, as good citizens of the UK or Australia...which is pretty much all the rest of us have to do, because they secretly want to do nasty stuff, again not a good starting point for integration of Muslims into Western society

Again, you keep saying that I'm accusing Muslims, when what I accuse is Islam itself. If the citizens in question don't practice the nasty stuff of their religion in the first place, then what problem is there? None. If you truly live a moderate interpretation of Islam, you should have the right to enjoy equal rights like everybody else (and by "moderate" I truly mean "moderate" - no tip-toeing around the apostasy part.)

I mean, what do you propose? Should we just pretend all the bad stuff isn't in the religion, when it clearly is?

To repeat an earlier point of mine - even if the Left chooses to to avoid the issue in public out of respect, tolerance, political correctness, call it what you will, the Right most certainly will not.

if the European values have any value they will be picked up by Muslims

Dude, I'm totally not OK with moving to another country or seeking refuge there and then "deciding" wether you are going to respect its values or not. Mentally accepting the values of your new home should be a given.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

See Grafito, the way forward towards a more peaceful society is explaining to moderate Muslims they are doing Islam wrong and pointing out the really good parts of the Koran. This is where we leftist atheists failed with Christians. We forced for instance women rights on them, but instead we should have pointed to the many passages in the Bible which discuss the place of women in society, tell them to live accoording to those rules and tell them to gtfo our (or your) country.

Instead we had to be our own bleeding hearted selves and drag them kicking and screaming along with the rest of society.

 

[Old Hippy]

But that's not true; Christianity manifests itself in Europe today totally different from how it manifested intself in Europe 500 years ago.

I will not bother to dredge up issues about homosexuality but 2013 seems relavent here, nor will I drag up Christains roiting outside movie house and art galleries, as that is about 15 years old, but google Harry potter or monty phyon, or pissed christ

www.theguardian.com › World › Anglicanism

Sep 20, 2013 - Anglicans have appointed the UK and Ireland's first female bishop. ... The Anglican churches in Ireland, Wales and Scotland have the power to appoint female bishops, but Ireland is the first to do so

Again, you keep saying that I'm accusing Muslims, when what I accuse is Islam itself. If the citizens in question didn't practice the nasty stuff of their religion in the first place, then what problem is there? None. If you truly live a moderate interpretation of Islam, you should have the right to enjoy equal rights like everybody else (and by "moderate" I truly mean "moderate" - no tip-toeing around the apostasy part.)

thats just a rehash of love the sinner hate the sin argument from recent gay rights issues, you can accept muslims and work together , or you start with we accept you but you do know that you are wrong and foolish don't you, it depends if you want intergration into western culture or not.

I mean, what do you propose? Should we just pretend all the bad stuff isn't in the religion, when it clearly is?

To repeat an earlier point of mine - even if the Left chooses to to avoid the issue in public out of respect, tolerance, political correctness, call it what you will, the Right most certainly will not.

and the right has been busy telling us how evil Islam is,and how misguided Muslims are for about 15 years, the result is that the biggest recruitment tool for extremists is western media, your alienated and hated, just look at your local paper....

the left is not avoiding the issue, it just see the issue differently

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I mean, what do you propose? Should we just pretend all the bad stuff isn't in the religion, when it clearly is?

To repeat an earlier point of mine - even if the Left chooses to to avoid the issue in public out of respect, tolerance, political correctness, call it what you will, the Right most certainly will not.

Do you propose I visit my Muslim neighbours tonight with a Koran with the appropriate passages bookmarked, and tell the family that if they mean to be a proper Muslims, they are doing it quite wrong?