We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

[ghost]

An interesting article. Nothing that hasn't been said before, but well worth repeating.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-we-need-to-stop-being-such-cowards-about-islam-894361.html

[MacGuffin]

We could invade a couple of countries if you like.

Oh wait...

[Sally]

Strikes me as a particularly British/European crisis of political correctness. I don't really understand where the cowardice came from, especially considering the English propensity to deride and ridicule everyone and everything. I guess I could chock it up to my Post-Empire Post-Blitz Traumatic Stress/Inferiority Complex theory....

Seems like a question of assimilation more than anything.

[Ferrus]

Although the stated views of 'cowardice' are more associated with a certain elite perspective.

[erm]

Islam sucks.





I don't feel very brave:(

[nittanylion302]

Ahh, the struggles of assimilation...

[Madrigal]

The other reason is more honourable, if flawed. There is very real and rising prejudice against Muslims across the West. The BBC recently sent out identically-qualified CVs to hundreds of employers. Those with Muslim names were 50 per cent less likely to get interviews. Criticisms of Islamic texts are sometimes used to justify US or Israeli military atrocities. Some critics of Muslims – Geert Wilders or Martin Amis – moot mass human rights abuses here in Europe. So some secularists reason: I have plenty of criticisms of Judaism, but I wouldn't choose to articulate them in Germany in 1933. Why try to question Islam now, when Muslims are being attacked by bigots?

But I live in the Muslim majority East End of London, and this isn't Weimar Germany. Muslims are secure enough to deal with some tough questions. It is condescending to treat Muslims like excitable children who cannot cope with the probing, mocking treatment we hand out to Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism. It is perfectly consistent to protect Muslims from bigotry while challenging the bigotries and absurdities within their holy texts.

This conflict is grossly understated. Islam became a major target again since the beginning of this new century, when the US appointed itself to redesign the middle east through war and occupation. Is it "not the time" to criticize the influence of religion in society and law? Anytime is "the time," but how can it be done?

I think the progressive stance to take on the social and legal influence of Islam in the Middle East is, first of all, to fully support resistance against US imperialism in the Middle East and the military defeat of the occupation. An empowered people that achieves independence from an imperialist agressor will be infinitely more prepared to tackle their oppressors at home. A people that is subjected to genocide, humiliation and defeat would be in worse conditions to fight for their freedoms.

Iraq was not controlled by a "fundamentalist" muslim party under Saddam, though US invasion has incited greater religious fanatism in the region. Religion will crumble under the weight of socialist revolution, not a US military boot.

People have to be responsible in the way that they target the religion and culture of an oppressed nation. Expecting to live in a world where criticism can be exchanged with no regard for the consequences or the correct order in which you should deliver your attacks, is a stupid petty bourgeois fantasy.

[Sally]

I just don't understand why a World Power would change its own customs and laws to accommodate the conflicting views of an immigrant minority population.


The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, was criticised earlier this year when he called for greater recognition of Sharia in British civil legislature, a view that was echoed recently by the Lord Chief Justice Phillips.

^From this article about Sharia law in England (http://www.religionnewsblog.com/22006).

Likewise the question of what gets published. What are the British afraid of? Retaliatory terrorist attacks? Train explosions? Maybe accommodation is paying off in terms of Sharia law becoming more liberal... It just seems like a counter-intuitive strategy for a dominant culture to have.

[Ferrus]

This conflict is grossly understated. Islam became a major target again since the beginning of this new century, when the US appointed itself to redesign the middle east through war and occupation.
Although actually it is really only the logical result of orientalist fantasies that go back a good 200 years.

[Sally]

This conflict is grossly understated. Islam became a major target again since the beginning of this new century, when the US appointed itself to redesign the middle east through war and occupation. Is it "not the time" to criticize the influence of religion in society and law? Anytime is "the time," but how can it be done?

I think the progressive stance to take on the social and legal influence of Islam in the Middle East is, first of all, to fully support resistance against US imperialism in the Middle East and the military defeat of the occupation. An empowered people that achieves independence from an imperialist agressor will be infinitely more prepared to tackle their oppressors at home. A people that is subjected to genocide, humiliation and defeat would be in worse conditions to fight for their freedoms.

Iraq was not controlled by a "fundamentalist" muslim party under Saddam, though US invasion has incited greater religious fanatism in the region. Religion will crumble under the weight of socialist revolution, not a US military boot.

People have to be responsible in the way that they target the religion and culture of an oppressed nation. Expecting to live in a world where criticism can be exchanged with no regard for the consequences or the correct order in which you should deliver your attacks, is a stupid petty bourgeois fantasy.

My reaction was the same as yours at first, but I think it's less a question of The West vs Islam than it is a question of specific policies in specific Western countries contradicting themselves; ie, censorship.

[nittanylion302]

People have to be responsible in the way that they target the religion and culture of an oppressed nation. Expecting to live in a world where criticism can be exchanged with no regard for the consequences or the correct order in which you should deliver your attacks, is a stupid petty bourgeois fantasy.

I agree with most of your post but I take issue with this part. Criticism of an ideology shouldn't engender death of the criticizer. That's no way to have a debate.

[Trimble]

Criticism of an ideology shouldn't engender death of the criticizer. That's no way to have a debate.

I think several dead Al-Jazeera correspondents would agree with you fully!

[intpgolfer]

1. Unlike the other animals - we know we are going to die.

2. That leaves a big unknown - with a lot of unanswered questions

3. The questions allow our fellow man to explain things to us

4. Christian, Islamic, Budist, Political etc. leaders are more than willing to sanctify the elimination of threats to their incomes.

a. in America antii-abortion ministers counsel the untimely deaths of doctors
b. in Afganistan over half of all women in jail, are serving 20 years for being raped

5. Religions best work lies in trying to keep the world from changing too quickly - allowing change - but in moderation. When change or Religion cannot be moderate - you can bet the leaders soon become wolves - and the wolf does not care how many lambs he is up against.

6. It is our good fortune that successful revolutions can only occur in the mind - all the other's - are simply murder.


NOTE: I am betting on the minds of the muslim and christian followers.

[Nancynobullets]

Strikes me as a particularly British/European crisis of political correctness. I don't really understand where the cowardice came from, especially considering the English propensity to deride and ridicule everyone and everything. I guess I could chock it up to my Post-Empire Post-Blitz Traumatic Stress/Inferiority Complex theory....

Seems like a question of assimilation more than anything.


Great Britain is a nation experiencing a crippling identity crisis. Whearas countries like the USA have a healthy patriotism that binds them together, outwardly patriotic Englishmen are rare.
Instead of being proud of England's many achievements as a nation at the front of progress longer than any other, we are made to feel ashamed of our history because we WERE an empiracal nation. We conquered half the world, then we gave it back, and now half the world hates us. So how can we feel proud of ourselves?
Add to this the abandonment of our countries official religion, plus the intrinsic culturel wobbly stool that is England-Wales-Scotland and Ireland, and you have a divided, uncertain nation.
So in walks Islam, a religion DESIGNED to spread itself. And while GB's liberal culture worked great for most other minorities--homosexuals, Poles, Blacks--it was not prepared to guard against a culture about as accepting and tolerant as a crocadile with tooth ache.
And so they get away with it. Because to stop them, we would have to become more right-wing than we are prepared to go. Because to stop them we would have to become like them.

So that is my view on it. Sorry if I sound like a bigot. You should know I am accepting of nearly all cultures.

[Sally]

Great Britain is a nation experiencing a crippling identity crisis. Whearas countries like the USA have a healthy patriotism that binds them together, outwardly patriotic Englishmen are rare.
Instead of being proud of England's many achievements as a nation at the front of progress longer than any other, we are made to feel ashamed of our history because we WERE an empiracal nation. We conquered half the world, then we gave it back, and now half the world hates us. So how can we feel proud of ourselves?
Add to this the abandonment of our countries official religion, plus the intrinsic culturel wobbly stool that is England-Wales-Scotland and Ireland, and you have a divided, uncertain nation.
So in walks Islam, a religion DESIGNED to spread itself. And while GB's liberal culture worked great for most other minorities--homosexuals, Poles, Blacks--it was not prepared to guard against a culture about as accepting and tolerant as a crocadile with tooth ache.
And so they get away with it. Because to stop them, we would have to become more right-wing than we are prepared to go. Because to stop them we would have to become like them.

So that is my view on it. Sorry if I sound like a bigot. You should know I am accepting of nearly all cultures.

It just seems like it shouldn't be that difficult to draw the line. This is legal. This is illegal. So that people can publish whatever they want and practice whatever religion they want, but, for hypothetical example... vigilante justice? Not ok. If your religion proscribes vigilante justice, that's too damn bad.

But I guess that's my USA-bred tendency toward over-regulation, whereas Britain has historically relied on culture to dictate behavior, which is brilliantly efficient when your culture isn't undergoing an identity crisis. ...Hmmm.

[Nancynobullets]

It just seems like it shouldn't be that difficult to draw the line. This is legal. This is illegal. So that people can publish whatever they want and practice whatever religion they want, but, for hypothetical example... vigilante justice? Not ok. If your religion proscribes vigilante justice, that's too damn bad.

But I guess that's my USA-bred tendency toward over-regulation, whereas Britain has historically relied on culture to dictate behavior, which is brilliantly efficient when your culture isn't undergoing an identity crisis. ...Hmmm.


It is not too difficult to draw the line between lawfull and unlawfull. Talking of your example, suicide bombers are definetly not lawfull, so the police try to track them down before they attack. But to be truly effective at combating extremism, they would have to raid mosques known extremist preachers use. Can you imagine the jihad when pictures of british police raiding a mosque came out? It would just make matters worse.

Building mosques IS legal--by liberal laws--as long as they follow the correct guidelines. But the British locals dont like it. It is a bit grating to see great monuments of a religion you never believed in spreading faster than starbucks.

I year ago I watched a program called "Make me a Muslim". It was about several British following Islam for a month or so. At one point in the program, one of the leading Muslim preachers basically said Britain was undergoing a moral degredation, which is probably true. But he then went on to state that Islam was the answer, that it would put Britain on the right path.
Man I raged at that one. Morality should be achieved by reflection, not beaten into you by religion.

Sorry if im ranting. =(

[Sally]

I year ago I watched a program called "Make me a Muslim". It was about several British following Islam for a month or so. At one point in the program, one of the leading Muslim preachers basically said Britain was undergoing a moral degredation, which is probably true. But he then went on to state that Islam was the answer, that it would put Britain on the right path.
Man I raged at that one. Morality should be achieved by reflection, not beaten into you by religion.

Sorry if im ranting. =(

I agree that extremist religion is not the cure for what ails you, and I wonder if it's a question of cause vs symptom... What attracts people to religious extremism within the UK?

...Like in the US, I suspect that Christian fundamentalism would not be the powerful force it is today if the economy and public education had actually been healthy and growing for the past forty years instead of the reverse. [Or if there were a genuinely humanist religion to counter capitalist decay... but for some reason humanist principles rarely survive the transition to popular understanding.]

And with the mosques, there ought to be a better way to handle it. Maybe train specialists (who aren't armed and wearing intimidating uniforms) to investigate. Suicide bombing is problem for the Muslim community as well as the native population; there ought to be ways to work together.

There's still something really off about a minority having so much power to disrupt a country. But I guess in light of a) British cultural conservatism b) post-colonial immigration policies coupled with c) current pro-neo-liberal military and economic policies, there's bound to be some (a lot of) tension.

And if it all goes to hell at least there's some poetic justice to England feeling the effects of colonialism where it hurts. :ph34r:

[Yasir]

Today a man widely known to be undeserving even by our very low third world country standards has become the President and Chief of All Armed Forces in Pakistan.

Ask anyone here and they are angry not with him or with the Taliban who have literally captured (entirely) the only good tourist city we had, but with the US because the US decides who gets to be President here. Directly. Polictics are pretty basic here. Its a power game and whoever has the nod of the US has the support of our American trained Army/security agencies and the billions required to buy a couple of hundred members of Parliament gets power. The people dont even blame the corrupt politicians because if they hadnt taken the massive bribes (discretionery development grants that dont get spent on development or audited) someone else would have and the politicians have families too and are only human.. Plus if you dont play ball, court cases appear out of thin air and you are arrested or worse tortured or killed.

I fear. The battle is not about ideology. It never is. Not in todays world. Its about money and in that regard I admire, respect and applaud the way the US has played its hand. I would have done the same if I may be so immodest. I am also sure that since I totally trust the neocons or powers that be to be both capable and competent, they will win. I only have to figure out how to join their ranks and not be among the millions whose life or death means nothing and who will continue to lapse in apathy, poverty and disease.

Any suggestions?

[eyebyte_atWork]

I have had many conversations with co-workers who are muslins - and I have repeatedly been very pleasantly surprised at how the dynamics work in Islam. Especially in regards to how people relate to each other.

I have nothing bad to say about Islam as a belief system.