Terror Attacks In Brussels

[Fonz]

The problem is that you're basically sidestepping major issues within the Islamic world by going down this road. Whatever problems other cultures may have, we are seeing devastating terror attacks on European soil coming from radical Islamists. Pretending it has nothing to do with Islam is ridiculous. Sure, it has nothing to do with peaceful Muslims in the West who condemn terror (as most do), but to suggest that it's completely separate from Islam is just wrong given that we've had issues in the UK with Muslims being lured by ISIS or supporting ISIS online.

Nobody's saying it has nothing to do with Islam, just that the views are not held by the majority of the Islamic community, meaning it doesn't justify islamophobia or keeping all the ebil Mooslems out or whatever the right-wing solution is. It's the same relation between any religion and any group of its radical/fundamentalist believers. I didn't deny the human rights violations either, I just linked them to political Islam and theocracy, as the study by the CFR did. I believe in universal human rights, just not in racism.

It's also ridiculous because the attacks on European soil have mostly been perpetrated by Europeans. Stu's original post was basically saying it was Muslims' fault that ISIS was killing them. Surely you can see how f*cked up that is?

Edited March 23, 2016 by Black_MiD

[Abel.]

 

 

1. If you have this stance on muslims, I'm assuming you have this stance on every religion? 2. As every religion has violence ripe throughout its teachings and every religion at one point or another has supported murder/rape in the past. There is no denying that. 3. There are countless groups/societies/communities that partake in destruction and fear mongering, not just muslim extremists.

 

And the reason ISIS are killing muslims is not about distance, distance isn't an issue or they wouldn't be able to continue attacking various western countries. They kill their own people for not sharing the same violent views as themselves, they see peaceful muslims as 'fake' or that they don't believe strongly enough. To instil fear that they will do that to their own, imagine what they will do to us.

4. Every religion/organisation in the world has been a part of something horrific, it's important not to lose your head when faced with such things. Nothing good can come of convincing yourself muslims in general are dangerous.

 

 

1. No, just the incredibly violent and repressive ones where abhorrent views are widespread.

 

2. Violent holy books and history don't matter, what matters is the actual interpretation, implementation and practice now.

 

3. Does the existence of other such societies mean we can't condemn Islamic ones? Do I only condemn the Islamic ones? No I don't.

 

4. How does other religions or organisations having been part of horrific things, change anything?

 

I'll make the same analogy that I've made before. There is a child that acts out a lot, and it causes a lot of very serious problems for the child, for the parents, and for other people. Parent 1 highlights these problems and says the issue needs to be addressed. Parent 2 just says "Other children also act out though. Children in history have acted out. Stop picking on the child!" and doesn't want to actually address the problems the child has.

 

This is what it feels like. People won't address the clear obvious issues which exist. They'd rather not acknowledge anything or do anything, they just shout at you for bringing the problem up.

 

Don't get me wrong, I fully understand your stance on it.

I didn't reply to cause an argument, just my way of explaining another point of view of the situation.

 

There are other religious groups that do commit atrocities in this day and age, but they get no coverage in the media. There are nutters in every religion and yes, it's more prominent at this moment in time within islam, but my point is that neither side will win nor will they lose because both sides of the 'terror' argument are infected with hatred and a lack of understanding. The fighting will continue and will be worsened by brewing anger.

 

I've already seen people change their stance on muslims, not in a rational way but in a 'no, they need to go away or die' way <<< and that is exactly what we shouldn't be doing.

Other religions committing terrible acts seems relevant to me because there is so much more hate aimed at muslims whereas there is barely any hatred towards other religions that are also STILL doing awful things.

 

 

 

Bigotry is never justified, but anger is seen towards Islam in the West because radical Islamists in various guises have been declaring war against the West for decades and have spent the last decade actually committing devastating attacks against the West. There have certainly been radical Buddhists and Hindus, but they've not been actively engaged in attacking the West so it's natural that less anger is directed against them from Westerners. Like I said, bigotry is never justified and I do feel for the young woman you mentioned, but to suggest that other groups aren't the subject of hatred is simply untrue. There has been a wave of terror against Jews in Israel since the end of last year, Jews were targeted specifically after the Charlie Hedbo massacare at a kosher supermarket in Paris, you've got the Toulouse murders, the list goes on. Any kind of bigotry is bad but don't tell me it's "just Muslims" bearing the blunt of it.

 

 

 

MiD: You're well informed and have interesting things to say, mate, but to compare the US to the likes of ISIS is categorically false. ISIS has actually made it its guiding mission to attack the West, exterminate Shiites, Yazidis, Druze and other "heretics" and seeks to force Christians and Jews to be second class citizens. The US has committed some very, very questionable acts, and perhaps some terrible acts, as part of its foreign policy. Sometimes this was purposeful, often it was due to oversight. The point is that there is no comparison here, at all. The attacks on European soil, by the way, have generally been committed by born-Muslims who have lived in heavily Islamic communities. The 7/7 bombings were committed jointly by born-Muslims and homegrown converts, so it's definitely an issue, but it's not a case of random Europeans suddenly turning to radical Islam. I'm not sure where Stu tried to blame Muslims for ISIS attacking them--if he did I apologise for skimming over it as that's simply untrue. Shiites aren't to blame when ISIS blows up one of their ancient shrines, murders all the men in their village and enslaves their women, nor are Sunnis to blame when they get flogged for not praying "properly". At the same time ISIS did not pop up in a vacuum--it used to be Al Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate and is part of the global phenomenon of radical Islam.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Failure

[Mister Kay]

Who is the perpetrator? The man or the mask? We strip him off his delusion and there will be nothing left with him except his face, his life expression.

 

We may make it humanly possible to find and kill all the radical islamists but we still wouldn't counter the problem: the ideology. To kill an ideology, we need to propose another. As long as we have aversion for terrorist attacks, there will be forces that manipulate our need to not have it.

[sreyazsec]

 

 

 

1. If you have this stance on muslims, I'm assuming you have this stance on every religion? 2. As every religion has violence ripe throughout its teachings and every religion at one point or another has supported murder/rape in the past. There is no denying that. 3. There are countless groups/societies/communities that partake in destruction and fear mongering, not just muslim extremists.

 

And the reason ISIS are killing muslims is not about distance, distance isn't an issue or they wouldn't be able to continue attacking various western countries. They kill their own people for not sharing the same violent views as themselves, they see peaceful muslims as 'fake' or that they don't believe strongly enough. To instil fear that they will do that to their own, imagine what they will do to us.

4. Every religion/organisation in the world has been a part of something horrific, it's important not to lose your head when faced with such things. Nothing good can come of convincing yourself muslims in general are dangerous.

 

 

1. No, just the incredibly violent and repressive ones where abhorrent views are widespread.

 

2. Violent holy books and history don't matter, what matters is the actual interpretation, implementation and practice now.

 

3. Does the existence of other such societies mean we can't condemn Islamic ones? Do I only condemn the Islamic ones? No I don't.

 

4. How does other religions or organisations having been part of horrific things, change anything?

 

I'll make the same analogy that I've made before. There is a child that acts out a lot, and it causes a lot of very serious problems for the child, for the parents, and for other people. Parent 1 highlights these problems and says the issue needs to be addressed. Parent 2 just says "Other children also act out though. Children in history have acted out. Stop picking on the child!" and doesn't want to actually address the problems the child has.

 

This is what it feels like. People won't address the clear obvious issues which exist. They'd rather not acknowledge anything or do anything, they just shout at you for bringing the problem up.

 

Don't get me wrong, I fully understand your stance on it.

I didn't reply to cause an argument, just my way of explaining another point of view of the situation.

 

There are other religious groups that do commit atrocities in this day and age, but they get no coverage in the media. There are nutters in every religion and yes, it's more prominent at this moment in time within islam, but my point is that neither side will win nor will they lose because both sides of the 'terror' argument are infected with hatred and a lack of understanding. The fighting will continue and will be worsened by brewing anger.

 

I've already seen people change their stance on muslims, not in a rational way but in a 'no, they need to go away or die' way <<< and that is exactly what we shouldn't be doing.

Other religions committing terrible acts seems relevant to me because there is so much more hate aimed at muslims whereas there is barely any hatred towards other religions that are also STILL doing awful things.

 

 

 

Bigotry is never justified, but anger is seen towards Islam in the West because radical Islamists in various guises have been declaring war against the West for decades and have spent the last decade actually committing devastating attacks against the West. There have certainly been radical Buddhists and Hindus, but they've not been actively engaged in attacking the West so it's natural that less anger is directed against them from Westerners. Like I said, bigotry is never justified and I do feel for the young woman you mentioned, but to suggest that other groups aren't the subject of hatred is simply untrue. There has been a wave of terror against Jews in Israel since the end of last year, Jews were targeted specifically after the Charlie Hedbo massacare at a kosher supermarket in Paris, you've got the Toulouse murders, the list goes on. Any kind of bigotry is bad but don't tell me it's "just Muslims" bearing the blunt of it.

 

Of course it's not just muslims suffering, I have not once said anything like that. I state that innocent muslims lose their lives because no-one seems to care about that. People in western countries often ignore the suffering of others, especially when the others are so culturally different and that is why so many people support exiling all muslims.

 

All I see mostly is people going on racist rants about how muslims want to destroy the west and that's the biggest deal in the world, but no-one realises they have almost succeeded in destroying their own country and their own people.

I also mention it to prove a point that extremists are not out to just get us like everyone seems to believe. Once people recognise the suffering of others then there will not be a need for me to point out the obvious.

Edited March 23, 2016 by ceszayers

[Spider-Vice]

So delete my post and I'll keep posting it back. This is a false flag, most likely funding by CIA black ops, same as 9/11. ISIS is trained, funded and armed by USA. Wake up people, this is designed to strike fear in the population so you all agree to let the government spy on you and take away your civil liberties.

 

 

Apologies for the sh*tpost but seriously...

 

 

As for the attacks, well, something really was wrong with the authorities because it just slipped past them. But still, condolences to all of those who suffered and their families, it does increase the fear a little bit all over Europe... It's the 2nd time in a measly 4 months.

[Abel.]

 

 

 

 

1. If you have this stance on muslims, I'm assuming you have this stance on every religion? 2. As every religion has violence ripe throughout its teachings and every religion at one point or another has supported murder/rape in the past. There is no denying that. 3. There are countless groups/societies/communities that partake in destruction and fear mongering, not just muslim extremists.

 

And the reason ISIS are killing muslims is not about distance, distance isn't an issue or they wouldn't be able to continue attacking various western countries. They kill their own people for not sharing the same violent views as themselves, they see peaceful muslims as 'fake' or that they don't believe strongly enough. To instil fear that they will do that to their own, imagine what they will do to us.

4. Every religion/organisation in the world has been a part of something horrific, it's important not to lose your head when faced with such things. Nothing good can come of convincing yourself muslims in general are dangerous.

 

 

1. No, just the incredibly violent and repressive ones where abhorrent views are widespread.

 

2. Violent holy books and history don't matter, what matters is the actual interpretation, implementation and practice now.

 

3. Does the existence of other such societies mean we can't condemn Islamic ones? Do I only condemn the Islamic ones? No I don't.

 

4. How does other religions or organisations having been part of horrific things, change anything?

 

I'll make the same analogy that I've made before. There is a child that acts out a lot, and it causes a lot of very serious problems for the child, for the parents, and for other people. Parent 1 highlights these problems and says the issue needs to be addressed. Parent 2 just says "Other children also act out though. Children in history have acted out. Stop picking on the child!" and doesn't want to actually address the problems the child has.

 

This is what it feels like. People won't address the clear obvious issues which exist. They'd rather not acknowledge anything or do anything, they just shout at you for bringing the problem up.

 

Don't get me wrong, I fully understand your stance on it.

I didn't reply to cause an argument, just my way of explaining another point of view of the situation.

 

There are other religious groups that do commit atrocities in this day and age, but they get no coverage in the media. There are nutters in every religion and yes, it's more prominent at this moment in time within islam, but my point is that neither side will win nor will they lose because both sides of the 'terror' argument are infected with hatred and a lack of understanding. The fighting will continue and will be worsened by brewing anger.

 

I've already seen people change their stance on muslims, not in a rational way but in a 'no, they need to go away or die' way <<< and that is exactly what we shouldn't be doing.

Other religions committing terrible acts seems relevant to me because there is so much more hate aimed at muslims whereas there is barely any hatred towards other religions that are also STILL doing awful things.

 

 

 

Bigotry is never justified, but anger is seen towards Islam in the West because radical Islamists in various guises have been declaring war against the West for decades and have spent the last decade actually committing devastating attacks against the West. There have certainly been radical Buddhists and Hindus, but they've not been actively engaged in attacking the West so it's natural that less anger is directed against them from Westerners. Like I said, bigotry is never justified and I do feel for the young woman you mentioned, but to suggest that other groups aren't the subject of hatred is simply untrue. There has been a wave of terror against Jews in Israel since the end of last year, Jews were targeted specifically after the Charlie Hedbo massacare at a kosher supermarket in Paris, you've got the Toulouse murders, the list goes on. Any kind of bigotry is bad but don't tell me it's "just Muslims" bearing the blunt of it.

 

Of course it's not just muslims suffering, I have not once said anything like that. I state that innocent muslims lose their lives because no-one seems to care about that. People in western countries often ignore the suffering of others, especially when the others are so culturally different and that is why so many people support exiling all muslims.

 

All I see mostly is people going on racist rants about how muslims want to destroy the west and that's the biggest deal in the world, but no-one realises they have almost succeeded in destroying their own country and their own people.

I also mention it to prove a point that extremists are not out to just get us like everyone seems to believe. Once people recognise the suffering of others then there will not be a need for me to point out the obvious.

 

 

ISIS is much more concerned with killing local Shiites and building their state I'll grant you, but Al Qaeda was virulently anti-Western and the legacy of their policy continues. Selfish though it may sound, people are generally more emotionally affected by suffering when it happens in their country or near them. I definitely agree with you on fostering empathy for others, but we need to be realistic here: When Westerners feel threatened in their own country, you're going to see more of a response. Israel has been suffering a terror wave for months and nobody cares. Israel suffered constant suicide bombings during the Second Intifada which only abated once the security barrier was built (which the world condemned) and Israel launched campaigns going deep into the territories (which the world also condemned). Like I said, people care more about what's happening near them, sad as that may be.

 

 

 

Also this is what you said:

 

 

 

Other religions committing terrible acts seems relevant to me because there is so much more hate aimed at muslims whereas there is barely any hatred towards other religions that are also STILL doing awful things.

 

 

I took issue with it because Charedim in the West (visibly orthodox Ashkenazi Jews) do literally nothing wrong to the wider community (indeed they barely interact with it) but are facing attacks:

 

http://www.timesofisrael.com/ultra-orthodox-jew-stabbed-in-possible-anti-semitic-attack-in-milan/

 

http://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-teacher-stabbed-by-anti-semitic-gang-in-marseille/

 

http://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/brother-of-toulouse-killer-to-face-judges-over-attack/

Edited March 23, 2016 by Failure

[Eram]

@Max - No one talked about bribes afaik. Suspicion of blackmail against someone with full access was what was said.

 

Now, I'm no rocket scientist but I suspect that any government with just a slight suspicion on something like that would probably order the facility to evacuate just in case, no harm done and better safe than sorry (those assh* les do tend to have access to some amounts of explosives, ya know?).

Can you even imagine the impact that some (even if minor) successful attack on it would have?

 

Again, I'm not saying that's what happened (though it was said by some with far more knowledge than any of us), but surely you can't deny that something out of the ordinary made them do it.

[acmilano]

My condolences to victims.Unfortunatly,this become too often and continue. Hopefully it will end one day.but for now future for the World looks grim.

[Fonz]

MiD: You're well informed and have interesting things to say, mate, but to compare the US to the likes of ISIS is categorically false. ISIS has actually made it its guiding mission to attack the West, exterminate Shiites, Yazidis, Druze and other "heretics" and seeks to force Christians and Jews to be second class citizens. The US has committed some very, very questionable acts, and perhaps some terrible acts, as part of its foreign policy. Sometimes this was purposeful, often it was due to oversight.

I didn't mean to compare the US to ISIS of course, just to show that its actions have been extremely destructive and in some cases genocidal. It was a response to the claim that the US hadn't acted out of hatred for other nations, as it clearly has. Obviously a state and a radical militia aren't comparable and I didn't mean for it to be an actual analogy. And of course there is a huge problem with theocracies in general.

 

I'm not sure where Stu tried to blame Muslims for ISIS attacking them--if he did I apologise for skimming over it as that's simply untrue. Shiites aren't to blame when ISIS blows up one of their ancient shrines, murders all the men in their village and enslaves their women, nor are Sunnis to blame when they get flogged for not praying "properly".

Absolutely agreed.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Black_MiD

[sreyazsec]

 

 

ISIS is much more concerned with killing local Shiites and building their state I'll grant you, but Al Qaeda was virulently anti-Western and the legacy of their policy continues. Selfish though it may sound, people are generally more emotionally affected by suffering when it happens in their country or near them. I definitely agree with you on fostering empathy for others, but we need to be realistic here: When Westerners feel threatened in their own country, you're going to see more of a response. Israel has been suffering a terror wave for months and nobody cares. Israel suffered constant suicide bombings during the Second Intifada which only abated once the security barrier was built (which the world condemned) and Israel launched campaigns going deep into the territories (which the world also condemned). Like I said, people care more about what's happening near them, sad as that may be.

 

 

 

Also this is what you said:

 

 

 

Other religions committing terrible acts seems relevant to me because there is so much more hate aimed at muslims whereas there is barely any hatred towards other religions that are also STILL doing awful things.

 

 

I took issue with it because Charedim in the West (visibly orthodox Ashkenazi Jews) do literally nothing wrong to the wider community (indeed they barely interact with it) but are facing attacks:

 

http://www.timesofisrael.com/ultra-orthodox-jew-stabbed-in-possible-anti-semitic-attack-in-milan/

 

http://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-teacher-stabbed-by-anti-semitic-gang-in-marseille/

 

http://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/brother-of-toulouse-killer-to-face-judges-over-attack/

 

Ah I understand that, it's human nature to protect your land/your home, your people. About the specific groups who do just genuinely want to annihilate the west and reinvent it in their image, that is why I was very negative about islam for a long time, before seeing how things were in predominantly muslim countries. How dangerous those countries could be.

 

I haven't seen much about that side of things, thank you for showing me.

There is so much going on, it's hard to be able to focus on it all, especially with clashing opinions from every corner.

 

 

Edited March 23, 2016 by ceszayers

[El Dildo]

Brussels is where the EU meets, right? Maybe it was symbolism. A message to Europe.

you're correct of course.

 

the bombs in the train station were aimed specifically at the EU.

that portion of the station is used by party members to get to work.

[GTA_stu]

Snip

 

I'm listing a poll where significant numbers of people people want to stone people to death for being unfaithful and kill people for leaving a religion, and you reply with a piece that talks about how Muslims adopt Sharia in a general spiritual sort of non harmful way and how it helps with governance. Your own links also talk about incredibly poor people with little education, and Islamists being a draw for them, and then at the same time you're kinda dismissing the idea that widespread extreme beliefs exist.

 

You also quoted something that talked about (paraphrasing) "In various nations 90-95% wanted free speech in political social and and economic areas" and one of those nations was Egypt. Yet literally a few paragraphs down it states a majority in Egypt want Sharia as the only source for legislation and law, and it's also where a majority want to stone adulterers to death.

 

Then you try draw parallels between the views of Muslims, and views of Americans. 46% of Americans wanting the Bible as a source, that could mean literally anything. I imagine most are thinking along the lines of the 10 commandments and that Western law already uses Christianity as a source. 42% of Americans and Iranians want religious leaders to have direct roles in writing a constitution. Ok, but religious leaders in Iran and America, and the constitutions they would draw up, would be on completely different levels. An American one might at worst involve gay marriage and abortion being illegal, an Iranian one would involve hanging gays, public floggings, stoning adulterers etc. The comparison is nowhere near.

 

Americans are not more dangerous than Muslims. You're talking about the USA, a state, and comparing it with the religion of Islam which is a bit messy to say the least. I mean if Islam had had the unrivaled power and ability of the American super power post WW2, I don't think the world would look like it does right now. I think it would look 10x worse. For pretty much everyone involved.

 

We can still talk about cultures and societies in a general sense, just because there are great differences doesn't mean we can't. We can talk about Western civilization and it doesn't matter that we have lots of different religions, countries, cultures, languages etc, it can still essentially be condensed. Muslim society or culture does exist in this condensed manner too. And in this condensed manner we can say it is rife with issues that set it apart from other societies and cultures. I don't see what's so hard about that.

 

You can say anything is too diverse or too large to quantify as one thing otherwise. Somalia has issues. No no Somalia isn't a monolith there are peaceful areas. Ok then Mogadishu has issues. No no because this area does and this area doesn't and there are lots of different individuals. Ok then, this neighbourhood run by Al Shabab is. No because this house blah blah. You can go on and on. Muslims have enough in common to group them together in a very general sense. Let's not pretend they don't.

[Gay Tony]

The fact is Islam is generally influencing far more of these problems than any other group. "Muslim culture" tends to represent the definition of everything leftists stand to oppose (tolerance, for one thing). Which is why it's such a laughable (if it weren't so dangerous) hypocrisy.

 

If you point out the blatantly obvious all some people will be inclined to do is point out intolerance and "bigotry" from Europeans.

[Eram]

@Mid & Stu - Somewhere in the middle, there's where you'll find me.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Eram

[Fonz]

I'm listing a poll where significant numbers of people people want to stone people to death for being unfaithful and kill people for leaving a religion, and you reply with a piece that talks about how Muslims adopt Sharia in a general spiritual sort of non harmful way and how it helps with governance. Your own links also talk about incredibly poor people with little education, and Islamists being a draw for them, and then at the same time you're kinda dismissing the idea that widespread extreme beliefs exist.

 

You also quoted something that talked about (paraphrasing) "In various nations 90-95% wanted free speech in political social and and economic areas" and one of those nations was Egypt. Yet literally a few paragraphs down it states a majority in Egypt want Sharia as the only source for legislation and law, and it's also where a majority want to stone adulterers to death.

Yes, I noticed. It's most likely an issue of different samples leading to conflicting views, even though other CFR articles cite Pew Research Center. But at last you're willing to admit that poverty and a lack of education are main factors, rather than "Muslim culture". And I did acknowledge the problems with theocracy which are obviously real, as do the populations of several of those countries (e.g. the Arab Spring).

 

Then you try draw parallels between the views of Muslims, and views of Americans. 46% of Americans wanting the Bible as a source, that could mean literally anything. I imagine most are thinking along the lines of the 10 commandments and that Western law already uses Christianity as a source. 42% of Americans and Iranians want religious leaders to have direct roles in writing a constitution. Ok, but religious leaders in Iran and America, and the constitutions they would draw up, would be on completely different levels. An American one might at worst involve gay marriage and abortion being illegal, an Iranian one would involve hanging gays, public floggings, stoning adulterers etc. The comparison is nowhere near.

Cool deflection, but the poll was about the percentage of Americans who favored religious influence in laws. The earlier study ties up with this, especially with Sharia not being a cohesive body of law. Of course Iran being a theocracy is more likely to involve fundamentalism at at institutional level, though this is a political issue.

 

Americans are not more dangerous than Muslims. You're talking about the USA, a state, and comparing it with the religion of Islam which is a bit messy to say the least. I mean if Islam had had the unrivaled power and ability of the American super power post WW2, I don't think the world would look like it does right now. I think it would look 10x worse. For pretty much everyone involved.

I actually wasn't comparing the two, but cool straw man, again. But it's helpful that you imply Islam is a destructive force, rather than referring to it as Islamic fundamentalism. 23% of the world's population is Islamic, by the way, so it's probably better to look at what the world actually is, rather than ethnocentric projections, especially since your beloved West played such a huge part in f*cking up the lives of millions of people.

 

We can still talk about cultures and societies in a general sense, just because there are great differences doesn't mean we can't. We can talk about Western civilization and it doesn't matter that we have lots of different religions, countries, cultures, languages etc, it can still essentially be condensed. Muslim society or culture does exist in this condensed manner too. And in this condensed manner we can say it is rife with issues that set it apart from other societies and cultures. I don't see what's so hard about that.

Both are extremely poor concepts deliberately put together (or opposed) to justify a specific ideological narrative. That's precisely why it gained popularity after Samuel Huntington came up with his sh*tty clash of civilizations thesis, and why it has no relevance in political science. Also because personifying millions of people in their leadership, which often exerts brutal dictatorial control opposed to popular will, is a simple-minded way to analyze or even begin to understand a culture, and this is without even taking into account the intricacies of each culture and plurality. There isn't even a universal understanding of Islam, yet you want to talk about "Muslim culture", disregarding massive sectarian divides that take culturally, as well as politically, divergent characters.

 

You can say anything is too diverse or too large to quantify as one thing otherwise. Somalia has issues. No no Somalia isn't a monolith there are peaceful areas. Ok then Mogadishu has issues. No no because this area does and this area doesn't and there are lots of different individuals. Ok then, this neighbourhood run by Al Shabab is. No because this house blah blah. You can go on and on. Muslims have enough in common to group them together in a very general sense. Let's not pretend they don't.

This is an enormous fallacy. Firstly, "umbrella" religious communities are transnational and secondly, they're often extremely sectarian, so that a broad analysis of them (including one like yours, which doesn't even recognize a difference between Islam and Islamic extremism) is basically meaningless outside the context of far-right think tanks, for whom Muslims are basically all the same. The analogy makes zero sense.

The fact is Islam is generally influencing far more of these problems than any other group. "Muslim culture" tends to represent the definition of everything leftists stand to oppose (tolerance, for one thing). Which is why it's such a laughable (if it weren't so dangerous) hypocrisy.

 

If you point out the blatantly obvious all some people will be inclined to do is point out intolerance and "bigotry" from Europeans.

I don't understand this comment. Nobody is apologizing for human rights violations, just criticizing the opportunistic "indignation" over them when they can be used as justifications for racism (and the hypocrisy when these people fail to recognize their own "culture"'s shortcomings). This seems to be about the so-called "regressive left" that is so talked about these days, but which doesn't actually exist at all. The only regressive people are those who want to reduce an extremely complex issue to a "clash of civilizations" to justify their ethnocentrism. This comes from people who only care about sexism or harsh punishment when it's perpetrated by Muslims, but fully support the death penalty and say feminism is unnecessary, PC etc. Believing in fundamental human rights is recognizing the crimes wherever they occur as the problem, not using it to complain about foreigners. Feigned indignation is worthless.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Black_MiD

[sivispacem]

Belgium is only in the middle of the blue banana, what's the worst that could happen?!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Banana

Let's ignore the fact that the most calamitous nuclear disaster in history, something basically impossible to replicate in terms of severity in the Western world due to the fact we build our reactors with actual containment vessels, only resulted in the direct deaths of 50-odd people and the indirect deaths of somewhere between a couple of hundred and a couple of thousand, shall we?

[860]

The French government Twitter account posted a picture of a woman looking at a smart phone with the Belgian flag in the background. How brave! What a powerful message! Take that you terrorists.

 

 

 

[Flachbau]

Kinda reminds me of this:

 

 

 

[sivispacem]

I'm pretty sure that posting drawings to show solidarity with Belgium isn't literally the only thing that the French government are doing in response to these events.

 

Seriously, what the f*ck else do you expect a government to be using their social media accounts for after an event like this?

[860]

Posting images other than that of a woman staring at a smartphone. There's nothing wrong with sending a message to the people through social media, but that's just a sh*tty message.

[El Dildo]

yeah they should've posted f/ckin bombs and missiles and stuff

 

#BRUXELLES #FAWKYEAH #SUCKITISIS

 

[860]

"There are only two extremes to choose from, no middle ground."

[sivispacem]

Posting images other than that of a woman staring at a smartphone. There's nothing wrong with sending a message to the people through social media, but that's just a sh*tty message.

Really?

So when you reposted

 

You weren't in fact inferring governmental inaction by quoting a third-rate reality TV star and noted closet racist woefully underqualified to speak on the subject who said pretty much exactly that.

[Jehannum]

The best argument that I can come up with is that absolutely no good person or majority of the Muslims would not be Muslims in the first place if the religion was envisioned as ISIS have it, or if it was violent in anyway, period.

 

"The best argument" that you can come up with is not even a comprehensible sentence.

 

Religion IS the problem. It was always the problem, and will always be the problem.

 

It has taken human beings nearly two thousand years to rationalise Christianity to the point it is no longer used as a source of tyranny. Islam will be a much harder challenge. It doesn't have the overriding message of forgiveness. It doesn't have a touchy-feely New Testament. It doesn't have Thou Shalt Not Kill, except with a codicil.

[dice]

Religion, or extreme islam in this particular case, is used as a tool to influence desperate masses of people to achieve political gains. If islam wouldn't exist they'd would simply find other ways to convince people into achieving their goals, like their enemy being untermensch or something similar

Edited March 23, 2016 by dice

[LincolnClay]

Another terrorist attack? I feel sorry for the families of the victims. This must be a hard time. RIP to all of the victims. I don't see why they just keep killing innocents so often. It's just plain evil.

[sivispacem]

It doesn't have the overriding message of forgiveness.

This is fundamentally inaccurate I'm afraid, as is the general idea of this kind of activity being directly attributable to religious belief.

 

It's worth examining the kinds of perpetrator we see in these attacks and contrasting with the kinds of perpetrator commonly involved with politically motivated violence. The similarities are rather striking. Both have a propensity towards histories of petty criminality. Both are from overwhelmingly impoverished and often ostracised backgrounds. Both typically express views of betrayal or mistreatment towards society in general, and the scapegoating of personal or social ills. Very little distinguishes the actions of a violent jihadist from those of a more conventional spree killer.

 

As for the specific comment quoted above, the underlying tenet of Islamic theology is mercy. Decent, if brief, discussion here http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/the-islamic-notion-of-mer_b_795275.html

 

The sad truth is that violent Islamism has been able to perpetuate in the West through a combination of unhealthy suspicion, paranoia and latent antiestablishmentism. The latter is a huge but poorly understood factor in all this which I, and others believe goes some way to explaining the huge uptick in the number of radicalised recent converts, often from the prison system, who have been implicated in many of the attacks in Europe.

 

There's blame for all sides; many Western nations have created the environment for anti-government/anti-Western/anti-social sentiments to fester by creating impoverished effective ghettos for North African and Middle Eastern migrants to live in. Poverty and the lack of social mobility are enormous drivers in all sorts of radicalism, it's not like it's a poorly understood phenomenon. The importance of events like Western involvement in conflicts in the Arab/Muslum world is massively overstated IMO; its a usefully rallying cry and something cited by many extremists as a driving factor but these individuals seldom resolve to involve themselves in Salafist Jihadism on the pure basis of these actions. There's almost always some kind of underlying societal resentment which drives them into the arms of extremism.

 

Jihadi organisations have become incredibly skilled at playing on disenfranchisment with society as a recruitment tool, offering what seems like a coherent narrative that many perpetrators either aren't educated enough to dispute, or simply don't want to. Much of it rides of clever scapegoating- tell a disenfranchised young man whose been told all his life that he'll never amount to nothing because he's poor, or uneducated, or undesirable, that he can amount to something by striking back at a system that he believes victimised him and it's not surprising you see the results you do.

 

It's the responsibility of everyone in society to work together to counter radicalisation. The pervasive hostile attitudes created by the downward spiral of violence simply make the problem worse.

[Jehannum]

The underlying tenet of Islam is obedience, not mercy. In any case, an omni-powerful god should not need mercy. To spare a punishment he invented for a sin he invented is no kind of mercy.

 

The three 'Abrahamic' religions all share this quality. Our Western society has, slowly, using reason, science and so on, tempered the worst of Christianity. This has not been the case with Islam. If Christianity were unreformed, followed to the letter of the Old Testament, it would be incompatible with the Western way of life, our personal freedoms. It's easy to pick out the references to stoning adulterers, homosexuals, etc. By what authority do we choose to ignore such verses?

 

In my country there have been so-called Trojan Horse schools formed to indoctrinate the children of Muslims. All science, music, art revolves around the Koran. I remember seeing a poster on a classroom wall: "Music made by stringed instruments is haram". So: no symphonies, no orchestras, no pop, rock, or folk music. Some of the children at a school where I worked were not allowed to draw people, flowers, animals because, apparently, the Koran forbids it. These schools were made and run by middle class teachers, parents and governors - not by some underprivileged underclass.

 

Any organisation or common goal that unites those whom you say without it would have simply been thugs, villains and murderers into a group with a unified purpose is surely a bad thing. When that common goal is also shared by educators, lawmakers, and "community leaders" it is surely even worse.

[sivispacem]

The underlying tenet of Islam is obedience, not mercy

Islamic scripture would disagree with you there. Now, the argument about whether or not religion as an institution (generally, that is) is a manifestation of control which demands obedience is a separate one, that I'm inclined to agree to some extent.

 

The three 'Abrahamic' religions all share this quality. Our Western society has, slowly, using reason, science and so on, tempered the worst of Christianity. This has not been the case with Islam.

This is an argument that's very compelling- the lack of a clearly defined enlightenment era in the Islamic world. But at least some of the blame for that state of affairs is the subjugation of most of the Islamic world by external powers. It's not something intrinsic to the religion, but more a consequence of historical circumstance. And it's worth noting there are a great many moderate voices, past and present, in Islamic jurisprudence.

 

In my country there have been so-called Trojan Horse schools formed to indoctrinate the children of Muslims. ...These schools were made and run by middle class teachers, parents and governors - not by some underprivileged underclass.

You're conflating two different things here. The fact a great deal of the Trojan horse allegations turned out to be unfounded notwithstanding, religious conservatism is not synonymous with Salafism and radicalism is not synonymous with Jihadism. The attempt by hardliners to subvert the education system are worrying, and certainly something that a coherent counter-radicalisation policy needs to address, but these individuals are not the suicide bombers or mass shooters we see targeting civilians in Europe. The demographic trends around violent Islamism are very clear.

 

Any organisation or common goal

This is a straw man, because the "common goal" isn't actually shared. Pretending there's no technical distinction between the goals of a suicide bomber and the goals of an ultra-conservative Muslim doesn't really make much sense. There's a degree of connection between them but they're hardly synonymous.

 

And all this continues to ignore the fact that none of the above applies to the vast majority of Muslims in the West. People seem to neglect entire swathes of Islamic thought like Sufism when they construct these attacks on the religion as if it were one monolithic entity. Violent extremism targeting Eurooe is isolated to a small sub-group of Salafist Sunnis.

[sreyazsec]

One more thing I will add, don't use Katie Hopkins as a reference. She is one of the worst human beings to grace the face of the earth.
Her opinions and political views are based solely upon her upperclass lifestyle and not having to deal with real situations that the rest of us deal with.
She's a racist, classist and overall selfish and ignorant little woman.

If you use her voice to back your argument, your argument loses credibility.

Edited March 23, 2016 by ceszayers