We must listen to our better angels.

Three men, acting under their the dictates of their chosen interpretation of Islam, kill 12 people.

But to point this fact out is AUTOMATICALLY an attack on ALL Muslims?

Recognizing that MILLIONS of Muslims - not ALL, but MILLIONS, believe that anyone who no longer subscribe to the Islamic faith should be put to death means you are saying that ALL Muslims believe that?

Nope. I'm not buying it.

Unfortunately that is not what is happening, even here and it IS dangerous and irresponsible to blame an entire group of people for the actions of a few.

That would be why other people blame the whole US for the actions of our selected president bush?

and people here insisting I can't pass judgement on anything because I lived as an American under the Bush administration?

You've said what I was thinking.

considered a useful debate tool.

I do fully get the danger of Islamaphobia:


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2901874/Revenge-attacks-retaliation-begin-Mosques-come-fire-guns-grenades-France-kebab-shop-near-Muslim-temple-blown-up.html#ixzz3OGktsUia

Your statement if fair but, statistically, it could easily support the idea that the vast, vast majority of Muslims are as good and peaceful as anyone else.

I said Islamophobia is bigotry.

Whats a "small" number? 5%? 80 Million?? 15%? 240 million??? There ARE no small numbers.
17 of the bottom 20 countries with anti-women laws and anti-gay laws, etc, are Muslim.

As do I, by the way. The Muslim religion is about where Christianity was back in the 15th century, prior to the rise of secularism in the age of enlightenment.

But don't take my word for it. Go read some http://www.reddit.com/r/exmuslim and have a look to see what real life people growing up under that religion think.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

Time for Muslims to INSIST on an enlightenment. I'm not Christian so those arguments that try and lay the crusades at my feet fall on deaf ears.

is blamed, all of us, for the 'Crusade' led by George 'I get my advice from heavenly father' Bush. Like it or not, what is being done here regarding Muslims, is being in that part of the world regarding Americans. So while you may not like to be included, you are, just as so many Muslims do want to be included with those fanatics, ARE.

It really doesn't matter, when it comes to the kind of irrational thinking that blames entire groups for the actions of a few, whether you like it or not.

Which is the point.

Do you deny that the enlightenment for Christianity had to come from the Christians themselves? Non-Muslims can't make that decision for them. It HAS to come from the inside and the moderates (which I do believe account for the majority of Muslims) need to take hold and decide these murderers do not represent them and not only that, but are actively showing the world what Islam IS NOT. Or is it your position that Islam doesn't need an enlightenment? That would be an entirely different story.

by irrational thinkers who do not differentiate between those who OPPOSE our policies towards the ME and Bush's assault on Iraq. To those irrational thinkers we are all to blame, you, me and everyone who lives in this country. And to those irrational thinkers, we are all Christians on a Crusade to destroy them.

Note the use of the word 'irrational'.

Thankfully it appears there are people on every side of this who are not irrational enough to blame everyone in this country for Bush's crimes, or everyone in the Muslim world for the crimes of THEIR fanatics.

the attackers would want us to do. That, in itself, should give us all pause to think."

Thanks for the OP, sabrina 1.

I'm not afraid of the religion. I loathe it.

It is a nice touch to use a liberal term about sexual orientation to shield a backwards theology that approves the execution of gays as a matter of course.

Islamaphobia as a term isn't just offensive as hell to this gay man, it's silly.

Whenever someone comes runnin along screaming Islamaphobia! my first thought is, "Oh god, now what did the fundamentalists do?"

When I learn of a massacre, my first thought isn't to knee jerk defend the poisonous ideology that spawned it.

We understand this with the right-wing. But say Islam, and some people on the Left instantly lose fifty IQ points. Tiresome.

to be honest, but that's how it reads to me.

Unless there was a Reformation supporting the equality of LGBTers, women, and other religions in the Islamic world that I totally missed.

There is a burgeoning progressive Muslim movement that originated here in the US. They have a hard battle ahead of them, but it is one well worth supporting.

But at present, they are much a minority. They have a thankless task before them, and they're very brave to be out there doing what they're doing.

If you think that, I mean. I have, and found that women eg, are totally opposed to the fundies and seem to do whatever they want. Some are religious but not judgemental. And surely you know there are many Muslims who are Gay.

I found them to be very similar to Christians here. Some are moderate, others fundamentalist, NONE are in favor of killing people for no good reason.

I am of the belief that like Europe and this country which is still struggling with Gay Rights especially our fundies, Muslims will evolve, especially the younger ones, over the next few decades, so long as they are not constantly dealing with oppression and wars etc. That tends to keep people in a state of insecurity and clinging to religion or other ideology for security.

Your (conveniently) anecdotal evidence notwithstanding. I've lived in Europe. If you think contemporary Islam is spawning social liberals left and right, I don't know what to tell you. It's a fantastical denial of reality.

Progressive Muslims have it the worst, because they risk losing their communities, their families, and more when they speak up in favor of liberal ideals. They are not treated well and are often shunned or worse.

I live bear S.F. and know several gay Muslims. Every single one of them moved here because they are abjectly terrified of their families finding out. See? I have anecdotes, too.

Islam may evolve. A minority are trying to evolve it against some mighty resistance. But pretending it's on the same level as contemporary Christianity is madness. As a gay man, I can travel to any Christian nation in the West and feel fine. Can't say the same for Muslim countries. What's difficult to understand here?

since the 70s the US has been pushing the Muslim world further and further to ultra-Salafism, broken only by periods of support for crackdown by dictators

Most of them have widely varying degrees of agreement/disagreement with what the Church teaches (and even those teaching are subject to change). The same applies to Muslims, Jews, Hindus, atheists, etc.

I was raised Catholic. My whole family and many friends are Catholic. No one raises an eyebrow when I go to town on the Church. But say a word about Islam in a left-leaning space, and it's like you farted at a cocktail party.

Any religion with 1.6 billion followers has many different people within it. Especially with no central authority.

However most of the Islamic world is tribal, tribal in a way that is alien to us in the West. In a lot of the Islamic world, who you are related to determines everything. Help your family, hurt those not related to you. The central obligation is to your family, your cousins, distant cousins, the tribe. You do something bad? Your family and tribe defend you to outsiders, then give you tons of shit at home for putting them to the bother. Your brother gets murdered, find the guy who did it and kill his brother, failing that some cousins. Collective responsibility, collective culpability.

This family and tribe (and to a further end a co-religionist) system of responsibility and obligation is alien to us. I think the widespread inbreeding in the middle east creates this mindset, but that is only an opinion. Most tribal cultures have widespread cousin marriage but there is a chicken and egg thing going on. Long and short, Much of Islam is alien to is and poorly understood. They like the way they are and are not changing. We should get used to it.

I draw the line when this tribal mindset with its backward social views attempts to alter the post-enlightenment West.

I think a baseline for liberals should be to fight for liberalism on our home turf. If we cannot do even that, we are lost.

I don't care what language someone speaks, or their culture, or their skin color. To enter the West, we should require a simple respect for democracy and liberal values of expression, equality before the law, and due process. I don't think it's bigoted or racist to hold this view.

I honestly think it's common sense, but there seems to be a mighty show otherwise.

I would not, and will not, live any other way. Yet we do not enforce our cultural norms in the West, in the name of multiculturalism. Within a three wood of my house is the largest mosque in the city of Chicago. They cause no harm and do not care that there is a bar across the street. If, and it is a big if, they start trying to enforce their cultural norms, then that is when the pushback begins.

It's hard to have this conversation in America, because most Americans see American Muslims, who by and large adapt and assimilate to our culture. I grew up in the south burbs and spent time in Bridgeview, where the people were very nice.

But Europe is something else entirely. There, the fundamentalist impulse is brazen, and laws are manipulated (under the guise of speech codes) to subvert rights. I could never imagine an American imam saying the kinds of things a British one feels free to air. Not without significant social backlash.

But I think a lot of American liberals think the situation in Europe is as peaceful as Muslim immigration to America, and have American Muslims in mind when discussing the European situation.

It goes both ways too. While we don't always live up to it, mainstream American culture respects our "melting pot" cultural imagery, and while ethnic/racial/religious relations aren't without (often significant) strife, our national identity is tied to our civic institutions instead of any particular ethnic or religious group. Meanwhile much of Europe is still struggling to get beyond its history as a collection of ethnic nation-states, so immigrants have a much harder time assimilating there, even if they desire to.

Plus, the UK and especially France are still dealing with baggage from the colonial era. Justifying colonial domination of Algeria by telling them that they are full and equal French citizens, and then herding them into highrise tenement ghettos for a couple generations when they try to take advantage of that citizenship, you're going to get some pretty pissed-off people that will be attracted to extremist ideology.

Never looked at it that way, but you're right.

I don't get this blind spot on the left. We should oppose conservatism and fundamentalism at every turn.

and get slammed for it regularly here. But only with Islam. It's the only thing that for some ridiculous reason gets a pass among many liberals.

I'm happy with the straightforward words anti-Muslim bigotry, though I think Islamophobia is no more silly than xenophobia.

From the SPLC's Extremist Files:

Anti-Muslim bigotry is just fine as terminology.

As for the rest of it, it's amusing. It tries to compare peaceful American Muslims (who are awesome and should be treated equally and with respect), with the Islamic world as a whole, which is generally not a fun place for anyone who isn't a straight Muslim male.

It basically paints Islam as a blushing, misunderstood innocent instead a conservative religion that gives birth to some disturbing ideologies (which we have ample proof of on our nightly global news).

Denial is a powerful thing.

Norway's attack was an internal one (equivalent to the Oklahoma City bombing in the USA): An attack against fellow citizens by a right-winger with bogus "grievances". What Breivik's grievances may have had something to do with Muslims, but.. so what. HE is the one who caused so much damage & sorrow. The only thing 'Islamophobic' about it originated from the terrorist himself. Norway's enemy in the 2011 attacks was the far right.

The attack in France (equivalent to 9/11 attacks) was perpetrated by outsiders (Muslims, in this case) who took advantage of the relative openness in Western society.

I don't get the connection. At all.

for some other group, one we generally like. Let's say WOMEN. Imagine that the Norwegian killer hated WOMEN and that there was a growing number of people like him who targeted WOMEN in Europe. But in general not everyone agreed with this group.

So, to get people angry at WOMEN, he launches a terrorist attack in Norway angry that Norway welcomes WOMEN.

His goal is to scare Norwegians into ending their support for WOMEN.

That could have happened. But it didn't.

Norway decided not to give him what he wanted and give in to the fear he had hoped to instil in them.

Keep thinking 'Muslim = Women' so we can try to make the connection.

Now, a few WOMEN in France commit a heinous crime against innocent people.

And people are reacting with anger and some with hatred towards WOMEN in general. Not JUST the criminals, but ALL WOMEN.

So where the Norwegian Killer failed to turn people against WOMEN in Norway, the WOMEN in France appear to be succeeding.

The article is asking that France do what Norway did, not allow the acts of a few criminals to turn them against WOMEN in general.

Absolutely.

They want to punish those who show disrespect to their belief system and feel that their belief system provides them with the justification to commit murder. This should be obvious by now, as we've seen it too many times.

This was not political. Brevik's actions were. Comparing the two makes no sense.

Would you like us to provide the passages from the Quron or Haddiths?

will have do much better than that, this is not Fox.

Previous posters pretty much covered everything important. The question is why do you disagree?

I was under the impression they were French citizens.

so why would there by backlash against muslims if the shooter wasn't even one!

guns or Jesus. They only care about people and civil rights. That's unAmerican!

I knew people who died on that terrible day.

I've read Prisms post on this thread, and I get that point of view. I really do. But Prism might also keep in mind that after the Norway attacks there were backlashes at Muslims here before we even knew who the killer was. Not many, but they happened. Had it actually been the work of Muslim extremists, I think it would have gotten uglier. I don't think we would have gone nuts as a nation, and I think we would have gotten back on track, but there are disturbing undercurrents all over Europe. As there are in the U.S.

I think the take away message from the article is that these are dangerous times in Europe. Have been for a while now. Most of us are trying to keep our heads on straight, not giving in to the propaganda wherever it might come from, and trying to convince others to do the same. And for the most part, I think we're succeeding. For whatever that might be worth...

I think the most valuable lesson Norway learned is that we mustn't keep a lid on things too much. Try to have an open and honest debate, at long as we try our damnedest to keep things in perspective. Doesn't always work, and it gets ugly at times, but for the most part it seems to have at least elevated the discussion somewhat.

I have spent only 10 days in Norway, and all that in Trondheim.
My strongest impression and take a-way about your country, aside from the smoked salmon, was the level-headed sanity of the people I met - every one of them.

In a speech denouncing the Islamic extremist group ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) and the “hate-filled rhetoric” of Islamic extremism, AUTHOR Salman Rushdie warned that the world must come to grips with what he called “a new age of religious mayhem” perpetrated by Muslim fanatics.

U.K. news daily The Telegraph reported that Rushdie was ADDRESSING the audience at the PEN/Pinter Prize lecture, where he was honored for his achievements in literature. His 1989 book The Satanic Verses was considered blasphemy by hardline Muslims and as a result, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa on Rushdie’s life, meaning that by the dictates of the Muslim faith, the AUTHOR must be killed.

Rushdie spent several years in hiding from zealots and fanatics who were out to silence him. Now, he said in his speech at the British Library on Sunday night, he sees young British Muslims being seduced by what he called “jihadi-cool” and worries that they will be used as foot soldiers to the nascent ultra-extremist movement forming in Syria and its neighbor Iraq.


http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/salman-rushdie-slams-islamophobe-label-its-right-to-be-hostile-to-extremism/


“A word I dislike greatly, ‘Islamophobia’, has been COINED to discredit those who point at these excesses, by labeling them as bigots,” he went on. “But in the first place, if I don’t like your ideas, it must be acceptable for me to say so, just as it is acceptable for you to say that you don’t like mine. Ideas cannot be ring-fenced just because they claim to have this or that fictional sky god on their side.”

“In the second place,” he said, “it’s important to remember that most of those who suffer under the yoke of the new Islamic fanaticism are other Muslims.”

the Saudis and Bahrain, the UAR, Uzbekistan, and we supported Saddam for decades.

Our support for these rulers, makes it impossible for the people themselves to deal with them.

I've really never been all that impressed with Rushdie. He has his opinions.

The word isn't mine, but it's interesting how people object to pointing out bigotry regardless of the words used to describe it.

Since he has actually been on a terrorist hit list I think he is a little more qualified to talk about the threat then you. This publication mocks everyone and everything. But when Christianity or Judaism is the target of their PENS this doesn't happen.

hold every Muslim on the planet responsible for those horrific murders, that's your choice.

I KNOW I am not responsible for Bush's criminal murder of over one million Iraqis, or for the torture and destruction of their country, for the four million refugees forced to flee the horrific violence he reigned down on innocent men women and children.

I strenuously opposed it, and did all that was possible to do to try to stop it.

But I'm sure there are people who lost loved ones, babies, mothers, their homes or suffered through the torture of our war criminals, who sees all of us in America, this 'Christian nation' and blames all of us. That of course is irrational, but there will always be people who just lash out and blame everyone.

For me it doesn't matter, I know I am not responsible for the War Criminals who committed those crimes.

And I know that not all Muslims are responsible for THEIR criminals either.

The people who suffer the most from Islamic extremism are Muslims themselves.

Women who can get murdered over a dress code. People can be executed for be gay in some majority Muslim countries.

I see images of Muslims who stand up against stuff like this. I applaud them. I am sure there are many who are too scared too which is perfectly rational.

who are responsible for their laws. Our Government needs to stop supporting them. If they had no support, the people would have a better chance of toppling them.

See Bahrain eg, protests have been going on there for years. The rulers have beaten and jailed them on a regular basis.

I have so much admiration for some of their protesters who have been thrown jail, tortured and threatened, yet as soon as they get out, after several years in many cases, they are right back on the streets protesting the draconian system they are forced to live under.

But WE are supporting those rulers, they are among our closest allies.

It is shameful.

we also fund the Saudi's who turn around and give the money to the Wahabists who plot terror attacks against us.


Seems pretty counter-productive to me.


Why we need to end our oil addiction. It's three for the price of one.

It's good for the economy, environment and national security and the same time.

Look at his experiences as a professional shit-stirrer though:

Writes a book where he compares Indira Gandhi to a child-eating demon. Result - sued

Writes another book that is a thinly-veiled criticism of Pakistan's military dictatorship. Result - book banned in Pakistan

Writes another book that is extremely critical of Thatcher's UK, which also contains an unflattering depiction of the early days of Islam (inside an entirely subjective frame - the Jahilia sections of The Satanic Verses are dreams from the viewpoint of a character that is undergoing an extreme personal crisis) - Result - Death threat pronounced against him by Khomeini, who was not just some random nutter, but the ruler of Iran, and one of the most prominent religious authorities within the Shia world. Subsequently upheld by many clerics across the Islamic world, and has never been rescinded. Meanwhile the other insulted party gave him both police protection, and went to bat for him diplomatically.

Book banning and getting sued for a metaphorical depiction in a fictional book are already pretty extreme by Western standards, but they aren't even in the same ballpark as a death threat and blood money promises by a head of state.

the consequences he expected came to pass. I couldn't get through the book that got in all that trouble, for a while.

I have respect for the protesters in Bahrain, who are not leaving their country despite the torture and prison and even death they face for daring to try to speak out against their tyranical government. Rushdie is a businessman, he made lots of money by coming to the West with his story. But the people in Uzbekistan risked and got death for their efforts to change things in their country.

He knew the West would eat up the controversy and he knew he would be protected.

Shit stirrers don't change things, they just shit stir. And some of them make lots of money doing it.

I don't know if the people of Bahrain will succeed in changing things, but they are courageous people and maybe eventually the power of the dictators there will be broken.

Or the people of Uzbekistan. To try to speak out in that country means being tortured to death and having your body left on your family's doorstep. Or protesting publicly resulted in genocide. And yet, we send our tax dollars to Karamov to keep him in power.

As I said, I've never seen why I should be overly impressed with Rushdie. I am impressed with the people who lost their lives in Uzbekistan and in Bahran and in Iraq when we were supporting their dictator. And in Egypt where hundreds lost their lives to another dictator we supported. And then their revolution was stolen from them.

Lots of heroic people in many of these countries. But we don't hear about them here, because the people here might begin to wonder 'why are we supporting these monsters'?

and not by where he stands on some sort of axis of dedication to protesting.

My point was simply that his opinions about the more intolerant and violent factions within Islam are born of personal sacrifice and harm done to him, and IMO not worth casually dismissing.

Calling Rushdi a shit stirrer and implying he was manipulating his way into getting death threats to sell more books. Really? Well, that post certainly tells me everything I need to know about you.

Murders in Norway committed by a right-wing, anti-immigration type to (somehow) keep more immigrants out
Murders in France committed by radical, religious nut-job types to avenge a perceived slight to their chosen religion

Not at all comparable

presented. Bigotry is bad no matter who the targets are. Norway did not give in to fostering hatred and fear for Right Wing morons or take advantage of the word 'terror'.

The correct comparison is "France shouldn't stop having satirical newspapers that make fun of, among other things, Islam just like Norway didn't stop allowing muslim immigrants."

The comparison and the point are non-sequiturs.

morons think? The society as a whole is far more important than having some temporary satisfaction. The more mature point is to not allow them to affect society at all. Your point is a small one. I prefer Norway making the larger and more important point.

A killer is out of society and he has nothing to show at all for his crimes.

men, women and children who had done nothing to us. 70% of Americans supported that brutal invasion. I'm happy to say I was among the 30%. Who or what was responsible for the torture and the destruction of an entire nation, the 4 million refugees who are still living in refugee camps in Jordan and Syria because their country, a once modern, fairly well of nation, is totally destroyed?

People in the Eastern part of the world, and many in other parts of the world, blame Christianity.

Can't really blame them because from they are they don't much about this country other than we invaded and brutally murdered, yes it was murder, hundreds of thousands of human beings.

We don't know much about their countries. But I remember when Bush sent one of his women Reps to the ME to talk to Middle Eastern women. She was lecturing them on our superior western culture and how they might avail themselves of it.

This 'diplomatic' trip was based on the US belief that all Muslim women were repressed and needed us to rescue them.

As it turned out, those women were better educated than the emissary sent by Bush. They politely explained to her that they were quite happy with their lives, their families and their careers. Yes, they had careers, some were doctors, lawyers etc.

It was embarrassing to say the least. The sheer ignorance of even our supposed leaders about other cultures and the assumption that our way of life is the best in the history of the world.

I hope they are more tolerant than we are, because we sure have destroyed their lives, their careers, their families, their homes for the foreseeable future.

I was one of the lone voices in my surroundings to fume against the idiotic invasion of Iraq.

Partly because I know the muslim world and knew it would do more harm than good to all.

But that gigantic mistake by GW is a point in time. The fact Islam is destructive is a constant.

The Quran is supposed to be the literal word of God.

The 'literal word of God' says to kill blasphemers, gays, apostates, adulterers, etc.

muhamad boxed his followers in a corner.

the only thing keeping the religious freaks down was a brutal dictator. So the dictator is the better option. Lesson learned.

I thought the Iraqi people were victims we were going to help. So now they are 'freaks'? Are you saying we deliberately toppled the government of Iraq in order to free the 'freaks' so they would be free to commit violence around the world?

Your comment makes no sense to me. Could you explain it?

in support of the war in Iraq because intelligent people convinced me that after sadaam was overthrown, it would be the religious freaks that would take over. And that's exactly what happened. Should have left the dictator in place to deal with them. Is that clear enough?

But it's also irresponsible to pretend Islam as a set of ideas played no role. Do either and you're giving the radical Right leverage.

Thanks.

You're welcome.

that Islam's teachings are partly to blame for this massacre?

Doesn't matter what the user manual says, except as it relates to that.

Thanks.

topic. Islam is to blame. No, it is not. If that were the case there would be a violent World War taking place at the moment with one sixth of the world's population against the rest of us.

I wonder why a vast majority of Muslims are NOT murdering people? Why hasn't Islam caused all of them to go on a murderous rampage against the rest of the world? There are enough of them to really do some damage, if they were so inclined.

In fact for them, when these murderers commit these horrific crimes, it places THEM in danger.

See the retaliations against French Muslims which have already begun since this terrible tragedy occurred.

K&R