Religion
Related: About this forum"Sharpening Contradictions: Why al-Qaeda attacked Satirists in Paris"
Al-Qaeda wants to mentally colonize French Muslims, but faces a wall of disinterest. But if it can get non-Muslim French to be beastly to ethnic Muslims on the grounds that they are Muslims, it can start creating a common political identity around grievance against discrimination.
(SNIP)
The only effective response to this manipulative strategy (as Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani tried to tell the Iraqi Shiites a decade ago) is to resist the impulse to blame an entire group for the actions of a few and to refuse to carry out identity-politics reprisals.
Sharpening Contradictions: Why al-Qaeda attacked Satirists in Paris
And backing up the idea Muslims (in this case, Muslim-Americans) aren't interested in terrorism, here's a FAIR blog post highlighting Gallup polling on attitudes towards violence against civilians across religion-related groups. Muslim-Americans turn out to be the most unwilling to condone violence against civilians, regardless of whether that violence has government sanction (even more unwilling than atheists/agnostics/"nones" .
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)Recommended.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)A Muslim is a follower of Islam.
I was born and raised "Christian" but that's certainly not what I call myself today.
It's striking to me that we don't have another word for these people who are uninterested in religion other than the same word for those who are interested religion, Muslim-heritage is really awkward.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)The problem was solved long ago for the Jewish community, you can be a Jew who is not religious.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)What he says is this:
"most Muslims are not interested in terrorism"
"Most Muslims are not even interested in politics, much less political Islam."
"France is a country of 66 million, of which about 5 million is of Muslim heritage. But in polling, only a third, less than 2 million, say that they are interested in religion"
I agree that muslim heritage is awkward. This also comes up when one talks about Jewish people. Some identify only with the heritage and not with the religion.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)He is not the only one making the case that what is happening here is an intentional destabilization of the muslim/french relationship for the purpose of creating more potential recruits.
If that point is missed, they will win.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=...or%20the%20terrorists%20win
Jim__
(14,088 posts)People react out of fear. Fear of foreigners who look and sound different is easy to create, especially when you have no scruples about killing innocent people. Non-radical Muslims and non-Muslim citizens will have to make a strong and sustained effort to defeat such a tactic in the face of outrageous acts of violence against innocent people, acts specifically designed to drive people apart.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)non-muslims, than the muslims, imo.
There will certainly be a strengthening of anti-islamic sentiment from the forces in France that are already pushing that.
It is the non-muslims that need to make the strong and sustained effort to defeat such a tactic, imo.
It is not a good time to be a muslim or even look like a muslim in france.
Jim__
(14,088 posts)... the Charlie Hebdo killings.
I think that type of public reaction, by Muslims, against the radicals, helps a lot.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)I didn't mean to say that Muslims standing up against the radicals isn't important, only that we all share the responsibility.
Standing together will make the strongest statement.