Debate: Does the Islamic community in the West have a culture of victimisation?

Great Debates
1

I was reading a Guardian piece on the three schoolgirls who had traveled to Syria to join IS, now the parents of those teenagers are demanding an apology from the Metropolitan Police due to their perceived or actual mishandling of the case.

But what struck me was the sense of incredulity from the commenters on the article of the fact that the parents of said teenagers are willing to blame everyone except themselves for what has happened, but my question is, is there a culture of victimisation in Islamic communities, or is it something in between or is there not a culture of vicitmisation. because this accusation is brought up alot and there’s never really been a sort of consensus on it.

2

How are you defining “culture of victimisation”?

3

I’ve been amazed by how often I hear the Crusades cited as evidence that western civilization oppressed Muslims, yet I never hear any similar conclusions drawn from the countless Islamic invasions of Europe and other places over the centuries.

As for the story the OP linked to, we’re apparently expected to believe that these parents had no idea that their own children were about to take off and join ISIS, but they would have known if only the police had kept them better informed. I may not be a perfect parent, but I’m fairly confident that if one of my kids is about to run off and join a terrorist group, I’ll spot a few of the warning signs.

4

I think the parent’s objection was that the police stated had warned the families that a ISIS contact was reaching out to their children. Actually

So sure, the parents likely missed some cues that their children where about to run off to a war zone and revel in nihilistic carnage - you’d think that would be something to worry about all the time. :dubious: The police however might have known that 15 year old girls really aren’t the best means of communication to parents when it comes to their secret plans to run away.

5

Not that I’ve noticed.

And, in fact, they are victimized, they are subject to bigotry, they are talked about as if they’re all a bunch of terrorist murderers. A little of that goes a long way, and enough will make anyone somewhat paranoid–except it’s not paranoia when people really are out to get you.

Or as my racist uncle put it many years ago: “Those coloreds are always complaining about something.”

6

My loose definition would be that they’re being ‘persecuted’ by a state security apparatus that paints them all as a potential 5th column.

In regards to the letters being sent to the schoolgirls, it turned out that another school goer had already gone to Syria before they did.

But again, with the example of CAGE who tried to write the narrative of Jihadi John being a persecuted individual who was inadvertently driven to chopping heads off because M15 wouldn’t leave him alone, whilst omitting his attraction to radical Jihadism, that seems a prime example of blaming someone else for their own problem.

7

Europe has a long, proud and distinguished history of marginalising and putting down minorities. Hey we had threads here where Europeans spoke about how bad Roma were no so long ago.

A distinction must be drawn between Europe and the US. In the US, “muslims” and frankly most other minorities (European Jews are safely dead, or immigrated to the US/Israel for the most part) can never be anything but outsiders, no matter how many generations they live there. This is not the case in the US, where despite major problems, the average individual is nothing but an American with weird background.

8

Parents don’t want to believe their children are criminals. Even when the evidence is clear they’ll deflect and blame others. Not their sweet little angels.

9

Considering how many rich people consider themselves victims I’m not sure which if any communities don’t have a “culture of victimization”.

10

Just a perception- the sense of victimization is often higher among Muslims who were born and raised in the West than among their immigrant parents who actually had more reason to complain.

That is, if a Pakistani named Pervez moved to London in 1970, barely speaking English, he probably endured some genuinely racist name-calling and disrespect. But hey, he was HAPPY to be in England, where he had a chance to make a decent living and move up in the world. He worked several jobs, made a little money, opened a fish & chips shop, and became a success. When his son Salman was born in 1980, Pervez undoubtedly thought Salman would do even better. Salman grew up in a nice house, went to good schools, got a degree at a good college.

Similarly, when Ahmad moved from Egypt to New Jersey in 1970, he heard racist slurs (“towelhead,” “camel jockey!”), but he was happy to be in America, where he’d have a chance to make something of himself. He worked hard, made a little money, and opened a thriving chain of dry cleaners. When his son Ali was born in 1980, Ahmad figured Ali would have the best of everything. Ali had a nice house, went to nice schools, got a degree at a good college.

Pervez and Ahmad were Muslims, of course, but only tepidly religious. They didn’t go to the mosque very often, were lax about daily prayers, didn’t keep halal fastidiously, and they didn’t raise their kids to be particularly religious, either.

By any measurable standard, the immigrant Dads WERE more oppressed, more insulted, more victimized than their sons. But you know what? Their sons, who had far less to complain about, feel and resent their own small experiences with racism a lot more than their Dads did.

Their Dads didn’t expect Utopia in the West. They just expected life to be better than it had been at home. and it WAS! So, why weep? Sure, we’re outsiders now, but our kids will be as English/American as all the other kids.

But maybe it WASN’T that smooth. Maybe Salman sees that, despite his good looks and good grades, the cute blonde infidel girls won’t go out with him. Maybe Ali finds out that, despite his wholesome All-American demeanor, classmates still regard him as a foreigner.

And that makes them MAD, in a way that overt racism didn’t make their fathers mad.

To steal a line from Chariots of Fire, young Muslims born in the West may feel as if, “They lead me to water, but they won’t let me drink.” Relatively small slights feel a LOT bigger to them than greater ones their parents endured.

11

Interesting. But IME, first generation immigrants tend to be more overtly religious. Moreso then their countrymen who stayed behind and oftentimes more than what they had been back home. Perhaps religious is not the right word…adhereing to traditions maybe more accurate. There is nothing like living as a foreigner to feel your otherness.

Pervez and Ahmed, want to hold on to their traditions. They will teach their kids those traditions. But so far from home they tend to become more and more “idealised” and perhaps extreme than what was the norm at home. Which they teach their children. Who when they go to the “old” country are shocked to see that it has moved on. Pervez and Ahmed don’t really care about the society of their adopted country as they still think of themselves as foreigners and since they son’t spend much time at home, they don’t care much about home as well. Their kids, born and raised overseas, have differet assessments.

12

All “communities” do.

We’re all a bunch of whiny sissies with our panties in a bunch.

13

Well, actually the problem starts with defining that “Islamic” community. I was born Muslim (but I’m a liberal and an atheist by choice), and, growing up in Egypt’s middle-class, no one ever defined themselves as Muslims, even when a grave international event was taking place (such as the invasion of Iraq), neither I nor anyone I knew protested it at a mosque after a prayer or looked at it from a religious perspective, but rather a political one.

However - and I do blame the West for this - after the 9/11 attacks in the US, the Western powers in general have mobilized in order to look for moderate Muslim leaders with whom to cooperate, trying to put an end to militant Islam and generally any remaining extreme interpretations of Islam in the mainstream. Therefore, the entire populations of the Middle East were reduced to being ‘Muslims’, even though they may be secular, or even disbelieving in any god altogether. And consequently, those Middle Eastern communities residing in the West - also labelled Muslims - have inherited this term and some have even started adapting to it, as if it reminded them of a lost identity that they needed to hold on to in the post-9/11 world which focused the world’s attention - and sometimes hatred - on these communities.

But still, when you’re talking about ‘Muslim’ communities in the West, are you talking about every Muslim, regardless of their ethnicity, such as Muslim African Americans, Venezuelans, French and Sub-Saharan citizens? Or does the term only refer to those from Middle Eastern origins (regardless of which generation they are)? And does the term refer to a young Egyptian man who parties and drinks, an agnostic Moroccan air stewardess, a Pakistani mosque Imam, an indifferent Indian video game developer and an elderly Turkish man who keeps a conservative household all the same?

I guess if you’re talking about victimization, then yes, conservative adherents of any religions living abroad are always complaining about something; we can’t slaughter this cow; we can’t pray in the middle of a street at a busy intersection at noon, or something else. But care should be taken when defining exactly who those ‘Muslims’ are, and whether or not they’re Muslim in the first place.

14

Actually, Muslim/Arab citations to Western oppression of Muslims/Arabs date to more recent events than the Crusades, such as 19th century colonialism, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the San Remo Conference, forcing soldiers from colonized countries to fight with Allied armies against the Axis in the Second World War, the UN resolution to divide Palestine, the subsequent establishment of Israel, the Suez Crisis and the subsequent tripartite attack on Egypt, the massacres committed in Algeria, the unconditional support of Western powers to Israel at the UNGA and the Security Council, the unapologetic abstention from condemning Israeli war crimes at the Security Council for crimes against humanity and the use of prohibited weapons, and the subsequent vetoing of any resolution to that effect, the invasion of Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq, the drone strikes in Pakistan and the unconditional support and aid offered by Western governments to autocratic Muslim heads of state before, during and after the Arab Spring.

15

I THINK I’ve established on this board that I’m more than willing to condemn certain aspects of Islam. If anything, many here have called me a bigot or Islamophobe.

So, take this for what it’s worth: there is nothing INHERENT in Islam that makes its adherents insanely violent. Never mind the (many) perfectly nice, perfectly ordinary Muslims I know and work with, whose kids my son plays with. That’s all true, but it would be to easy to dismiss that as the equivalent of saying, “Why, some of my best friends are Muslims.” It would sound patronizing, at best.

But… in historic terms, Islamic violence has been fairly rare for centuries. From the decline of the Ottoman Empire until the creation of Israel, I think the Islamic world was mostly pretty damn peaceful! In recent memory, most Muslim world leaders were intellectual, secular socialists like Nasser in Egypt and Jinnah (who liked a good Scotch) in Pakistan.

And, if you’d looked at Muslim countries in, oh, 1900, you’d have found that most Muslims had a live-and-let-live philosophy regarding their Christian and Jewish neighbors.

So, even though I’m quick to identify Islamic terrorism when I see it, and to mock those (like the President) who try to deny it, I ALSO know it’s absurd to say (as some do), “The Muslims have always been violent fanatics” or “The Muslims and the Jews have been killing each other for centuries.” It’s not TRUE! A LOT of what’s gone wrong in Islam is mighty recent.

16

That SOUNDS very logical, but it’s not always true. A generation or two ago, you’d have found that mosque attendance in the Middle East wasn’t all THAT high. Certainly not as high as you’d expect IF you’d assumed everyone in the Middle East was a religious fanatic.

Tepidly observant Muslims were as common in Pakistan and Egypt in 1970 as “A & P Catholics” (people who show up at church twice a year, for Ashes and Palms) were in my parish at that same time.

17

They aren’t demanding apology for their handling of the case. They are demanding an apology because the they released a misleading statement about them:

18

The Turks were committing plenty of atrocities against their Christian Slavic subjects in the late 19th century. You also had the forced conversion of pagan Nuristan around the same time. About a hundred years earlier, Tipu Sultan in southern India wasn’t exactly known for his kind treatment of Christians either.

19

I don’t want to go off-topic, but “Call follows Met police’s retraction of statement which apparently rejected families’ claim they had not been told that friend of missing schoolgirls had gone to Syria in December” has to be one of the most confusing headlines ever written. I’ve read it three times and I’m still not sure what’s been said and who’s upset about it.

20

Agreed. What actually happened appears to be:

  • The families said “No one told us their best friend had gone to Syria. We would have kept a much closer eye on them if they had.”
  • The Met (the London police) said “They are lying! We told you their friend had gone to Syria”
  • It transpires they had not told them. The school sent a letter home WITH THE CHILDREN THEMSELVES:smack: which shockingly never reached them.