Most people who believe in a religion believe that their religion is perfect. I’ve met people from various faiths that think their religion is the best one to follow (hence why the follow it) and that it’s perfect. How come when a Muslim believes so it points to extremism?</p>
<p>When you say the word extremist, it implies that intolerance, hatred, oppression, etc. You can love your religion and believe it has no flaws without being extremist. I fail to understand why being so religious would mean extremism.</p>
<p>But why are you expecting moderate Muslims to bear the brunt of what the extremists do? Your point is about as silly as expecting all the (say) Methodists to step forward and “admit that Christianity is not perfect” every time the Westboro Baptist Church does something ugly. Everyone with half a brain understands that the WBC is a nutso faction and doesn’t hold the Methodists or the Lutherans responsible for denouncing them or kicking them out of the Christianity club. I don’t see what’s so difficult about applying the same concept to radical Islamists bent on evil versus everyday Muslims who just about their daily lives.</p>
<p>"Zoosermom’s statement that non-Muslims are unwelcome and harassed is simply not true in my area, hence why I’m interested to see if she can back up her assertion. "</p>
<p>My boss is a Pakistani Muslim whose family now lives near London (extended family - parents, aunts, cousins, not his wife who lives with him in the US) . He was in London in the late winter because of a family death. The relative lived either directly in or right outside of Whitechapel and all of the female relatives who are either obviously not Muslim or who don’t cover their hair were harassed. He returned to the US with a family mandate to begin the process to move the remaining relatives,out of the area, which is where they had originally immigrated to, because it is so completely overrun by aggressive young Muslim men with too much testosterone and too much time on their hands because they have no jobs. Now, again, this is a large extended family of Muslims being chased out so they are clearly not paranoid racists.</p>
<p>“But why are you expecting moderate Muslims to bear the brunt of what the extremists do?”
I think it is a futile hope that other Muslims can do something to stop the violence. They can’t and are usually the first targets.</p>
<p>Again the point is that one doesn’t have to be violent to be extremist. If you believe that Islam is perfect then you are the fuel that promotes extremism. I’ve admitted in post #26 that Christianity is not perfect. If you can admit Islam is not perfect then we can dialogue in the intelligent manner of moderates.</p>
<p>I don’t think the difference in treatment between Japanese-Americans and German-Americans during World War II had anything to do with who declared war and when. I think it had to do with xenophobia, which (again, in my opinion) is playing too large a part in our thoughts about Muslims. Because Muslims are different from “us,” they are all the same, and they are all suspect. Just like the Japanese were. Germans were more like “us,” just like, say, Irish Catholics are–so we don’t assume that all Catholics, even Irish Catholics, are supporters of the IRA.</p>
<p>All that being said, Muslims can protest too much. There is a much bigger segment of the Muslim community that is tending toward extremism right now than there is in the Christian community. That is a problem for Islam, and it isn’t being addressed adequately. In my opinion.</p>
<p>I know of no one who believes their religion is perfect. I’ve never even heard of that idea. It can’t exist in Judaism, for example, because there is no possibility of perfect rendering of God’s commandments, no possibility of perfect understanding. There is, in contrast, to Islam a direct announcement of doubt and ambiguity which human beings must resolve. There is plenty of finger pointing and name calling between Jewish sects - and some claims that x is not Jewish and the like - but other than a few wackjobs I can’t think of any way or any claim of perfection or even possible perfection. I always go to one of my favorite idiotic statements: the head Shas rabbi, an old man, said that Israeli soldiers die because their mezuzahs at home aren’t perfect. Interesting approach with roots in the Bible but also weird because soldiers will die and it’s backwards to say that relates to mezuzahs instead of bullets. But it embodies the inherent notion that there is no perfection knowable within creation.</p>
<p>BTW, I agree with boomting about the EDL. There is a long tradition of anti-intellectual, anti-rational mob-ism in Britain. The last century saw more than a few, including the black shirts and of course the football hooligan movement (which it really was). Class structure? Maybe. Something in the water? Beats me.</p>
<p>And one of my favorite comments about the attack was highlighted by The Economist: Ajmal Masroor, a telegenic imam-cum-broadcaster-cum-budding politician of Bangladeshi origin. “If you dislike Britain so much…why don’t you just hand your passport over and leave? And if you dislike the policies of the government…participate in the electoral process, stand for election.”</p>
<p>Problem is those words mean nothing to religious zealots who believe in Islamic control. That is why the discussion of what moderates should say and what they should do has a limit: the zealots listen to their version of God, not to what other people who disagree might believe.</p>
<p>I think part of the problem with Islam is that it is so connected with tribal cultures in which violence and male dominance are pervasive. That is inevitably going to conflict with western culture where those traits are not considered desirable. Unfortunately, at least at the micro level the person who is willing to be violent will achieve some measure of power and control when the other party will not defend itself, and the religion the violence is wrapped in is only tangentially important.</p>
<p>@zoosermom - Ah, so exactly what bored and unoccupied young men the world over do, but with a Muslim twist. I remember teenagers in the (very white) village that I grew up in hanging around the local shop, trying to act hard and giving abuse to people who passed (including giving abuse to one friend of mine for being a ‘goth’). Upon being challenged, however, they backed down very quickly. I would imagine that, when challenged, the young men who you refer to would do exactly the same thing. </p>
<p>Now, should the teenagers from the village I grew up in be seen as representative of the whole village? Of course not. No one liked them and as a tiny minority of oiks they didn’t represent the views of other people in the village. </p>
<p>To say that people are “not welcome” in an area, I think it takes far more than a few young men running around making trouble as every generation before them has done. In this instance, the actions of those who you describe have their root causes in economic conditions and lack of opportunity rather than religion, it’s just that it happened to have manifested itself in a quasi-religious way.</p>
<p>I don’t understand the constant calling for Muslim moderates to denounce violence. They have no audience among the zealots. Here is an example. This is a Salafist preacher in Tunisia, Sheik Kamel Zarouq. You can’t read this and think some moderate will influence him. </p>
<p>’‘I would like to declare loud and clear that the Al-Nusra Front, Ansar Al-Sharia, Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq, and the mujahideen in Somalia, in Mali, and in Algeria – we all stand united against the enemies.’’</p>
<p>… Our goal is to support the Islamic nation, to support our religion, to elevate the shari’a, and to spread the law of Muhammad. Our goal is to pull the nations out of darkness and into light. Our goal is to instate the shari’a, and regain Andalusia and Jerusalem.’’ </p>
<p>… ‘‘The Prophet Muhammad said: “Rome shall be conquered.” Rome will be conquered in our days. This is the age of the Muslims. Gone are the days of secularists and of democracy. We are looking down upon them. We are looking down upon them from above. They are beneath us.’’</p>
<p>Boomting, bored young men all over the world do not burn cities or behead other citizens. Personally, I think it is more culture than religion, but that is simply my OPINION. You unintentionally make my point. It is because so many are so afraid of offending the barbarians’ delicate sensibilities that they remain unchallenged and this emboldened.</p>
<p>I don’t know if I’m suckered into seriously considering an Onion-like story, or fooled by a deliberately inaccurate account, but there are reports that the Stockholm police are not intervening when cars are set on fire to not antagonize the mob; a meter maid was spotted issuing parking tickets for the gutted cars.</p>
<p>The moderates actually are opening themselves to the violence advocated by the zealots. I followed some of this violence last year during a visit to my grandparents in Europe. A mosque in Brussels was torched, the leader killed, and the attackers were none others than members of the Sharia4Belgium group (linked to the UK beheading, fwiw.) The Muslim community in Brussels is openly divided between the groups that have sought a peaceful integration and assimilation (and an end to the xenophobic discrimination) for decades and the extremists who want to impose a more stringent religious law. Considering that Brussels’s Muslim population reaches about 30 percent with several communes (districts) with a majority population of immigrants and their (now Belgian) descendants, this issue has become a great cause for concern. </p>
<p>To put things in perspective, Belgium protects both freedom of education and freedom of religion. </p>
There is no perfect understanding or rendering of God’s will in Islam either.
Most people do believe that their religion is perfect. However, those same people usually believe that no one can practice the religion in a perfect way. When a Muslim says Islam is perfect, it doesn’t mean that they don’t believe that Islam can be practiced perfectly. Similarly, when some Jews say that there is no perfect way to execute God’s commands, I’m sure they’re not all saying that Judaism, the religion itself, is flawed.</p>
<p>So, going back to my original point, people from many faiths believe their religion to be perfect, and it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re extreme.</p>
<p>
I mentioned this before, but I think it bears repeating. Only 20-25% of Muslims live in the Middle East. Even then, there are a few places in the Middle East that are quite progressive, and I’m sure there are Muslims who live in less modernized areas who don’t like the tribal culture but are afraid to speak out about it.</p>
<p>I know that generalizations can’t be avoided in any discussion. There are always exceptions. But ignoring three quarters of a population is no longer a generalization, it’s misleading.</p>
<p>
I think what boomting is saying is that bored, young men all over the world enjoy and take part in abusing and harming others. The difference with Muslim men, it seems to me, is that they have a larger oppurtunity to create more harm. Most bored, young men would be likely be willing to latch onto an organization that would make them feel superior, reagardless of how horrendous it can be to other human beings, but they don’t get that oppurtunity, because those organizations don’t exist for all demographics. </p>
<p>
I don’t think anyone is worried about offending fanatics. I don’t know one person who would hesitate to denounce extremists except for the extremists themselves. The only thing people who do indeed censor themselves with (at least those I know- you may have a different experience) is that they don’t want to end up offending normal, everyday Muslims or their religion in what they say regarding the extremists. I quite admire that. You can denounce exteremists and their beliefs without denouncing Islam as a whole- which is how other Muslims are able to denounce extremists so easily.</p>
<p>My opinion is the European multi-cultural model is broken and was always a bad idea. It’s easier to compare the US method: come here and you’re American. You join the culture and you are accepted as American. Lose the accent and you’re no longer a hyphenated American if you prefer that.</p>
<p>Europe based immigration on the twin idea that people coming in aren’t like them and that people coming in will want to stay like they were. In other words, move to Belgium or Sweden or the UK and you aren’t Belgian, Swedish or British and you don’t want to be either. It’s a sort of dual relegation that’s been overwhelmed by the sheer number of immigrants. It is, to me, an essentially racist system that fit a world with fewer immigrants and immigrant communities you could keep out of sight. </p>
<p>Example: until the Maastricht Treaty in the 90’s, you almost couldn’t become a German citizen if you weren’t an ethnic German. This meant 3rd generation Turks born in Germany were not German citizens but some sort of guest. I’m not picking on Germany; citizenship exclusion laws were not solely German. The treaty forced citizenship law revision but it left the old system in which Muslims from Algeria or Africans from Senegal aren’t and really can’t be French and Indonesians can’t really be Dutch and so on. (Though the French have tried more than most other European countries.) </p>
<p>This has been an example of unintended consquences writ large: to protect their native cultures, the European model of immigration was to keep the immigrants a separate people living in and among the natives and that has led to tremendous conflict between these peoples and the natives as numbers have changed. Ooops. The European system is both a racial/ethnic hangover of identity and a reaction against the melting pot idea of the US. It was driven in part by European disdain for the American lack of “culture” and lack of “place” - really rendered well in French by terroir. Ooops. They didn’t want to surrender the specialness of being Norwegian and yet wanted to welcome immigrants … but only in a number sufficient that they would not actually be numerous. Ooops.</p>
<p>Contrast the US. For all the hideous talk about Hispanic/Latino immigrants, I doubt most people could distinguish the next generation or two of these immigrants from any other American. That’s the model: come here, be one of us and pretty soon you’ll be talking about your “heritage” while watching football as your kids date people from other “heritages”.</p>
<p>@Lergnom Goodness… Your comment is exactly why I wanted to leave the US and go to Europe for college. Do you see no value or beauty in such a wonderful thing as diversity? It exposed you to other idealogies and teaches you that different people exist. These differences have value. They’re precious.
If they some at the price of some conflict, so be it. The societies of peaceful coexistence and being exposed to different cultures outweigh the cons. And it is possible for such a society to exist without the conflict. It’s a shame that people resort to arguing, and don’t realize that.</p>
<p>I won’t say that I don’t think my background is especially unique compared to others. Everyone thinks that. Being ethnocentric is inevitable. But there is something so wonderful in diversity that Americans don’t seem to have an understanding of. God forbid that someone must assimilate and be exactly like everyone else to be accepted by others.</p>
<p>The rest of the world has good reason to see America as a lack of culture and place. The only thing that seems to uniquely define it is it’s material goods and financial oppurtunity. Cultural values are more important than that. The American people are also incredibly friendly oftentimes, but you can’t see that from a distance. </p>
<p>I once read a short story by an African American. She was recalling an evening she spent listening to jazz with a white friend. While the white friend said simply, “this is nice music,” she couldn’t believe that he wasn’t feeling the same emotion and ecstasy and passion that she was feeling when listening to the music of her heritage. It struck me, because it reminded me of how I feel when I listen to certain Eastern music, especially Indian music.
By telling people to assimilate, you may be asking them to give up more then you think.</p>
<p>I am not sure how the example in paragraph 2 refers to all the countries listed in the first paragraph. You take the example of a country that has aggressively sought to “move” its immigration problems by deporting unwanted foreigners to its neighbors, and then applies it to say … Belgium. While it is true that the Turks were accepted in Germany as “gastarbeiters” their children could obtain a German residence and nationality. One issue that might lead to some confusion is that Germany does NOT allow its citizens to maintain a second nationality is that second nationality is a non-EU one. In so many words, “Germans + Turk” cannot be maintained once one turns 23. Fwiw, the immigration of Turks started around 1961. See <a href=“http://www.iuee.eu/pdf-dossier/12/rXNHUsicpVwS6Cd7AQHA.PDF[/url]”>http://www.iuee.eu/pdf-dossier/12/rXNHUsicpVwS6Cd7AQHA.PDF</a></p>
<p>However, back to Belgium, the reason that there are so many second and third generations immigrants (and mostly Muslims) can not be chalked to the lack of welcome or benefits. Mexican immigrants (legal or not) would be floored by the availability of benefits extended to immigrants in Belgium. Refugees and asylum seekers can make a declaration for citizenship after two years of residence in Belgium. Only the dire economic conditions of the past decade have brought a slight curb to the massive benefits that foreigners could obtain, including generous or free health care, free education, social benefits that include a series of substantial payments for children, and most importantly a generous system of unemployment and social assistance (which has been a major source of income for immigrants and a major drain of the public coffers.) The current conflicts that plague Belgium, Sweden, France, Denmark, and other countries is not one of welcome and integration. It is a conflict based on the rejection of the Western traditions and lifestyles by the same people who were once admitted with open arms and wallets, and took advantage of ultra-liberal social and fiscal policies. And that is a major difference between the European and US immigration policies and results. </p>
<p>Here’s a quick visual help. Next time, there is a soccer game between nations such as Germany, Belgium, France, or the Netherlands, take a close look at the rosters, and identify the ethnic origins of the players. It speaks volumes!</p>
<p>Exactly. It would be like Reform Jews advocating that women be allowed to pray at the Western Wall and expecting that the ultra-Orthodox who don’t currently want that to happen are going to think - well, gee, our Reform brethren think it’s a good idea, so golly gosh, they have a point, we’d better modulate our stance. Likewise, it’s a special kind of naive to think that moderate Muslims have any influence or power over the radical Islamists who are bent on doing evil.</p>