Your list of the purported “Muslim World” nations leaves out, for instance, India, which has the third largest Muslim population of any country in the world, and which contains nearly 10% of all the world’s Muslims.
Your list also omits Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, and many other African countries which together contain about another 10% of the entire global Muslim population. Not to mention all the European countries, which contain 3% of the world’s Muslims but a disproportionate share of Muslim influence and radical political movements.
It simply makes no sense to apply a categorical label like “Muslim World” to a collection of nation-states that not only contains many non-Muslims but also leaves out more than 1 in 5 Muslims in the global population. It would be like lumping together Southern Europe and Latin America and deciding to call that the “Catholic World”.
I only listed nations that recognized Islam as their official religion. When a country declares a national religion it takes on a higher level of meaning within the fabric of that country’s society. To suggest that these countries do not self identify as Muslim is beyond any level of discussion.
Your sentence only proves that you do not feel the need to use language reasonably. There is not a hint of xenophobia in my post, unless your definition of “xenophobia” is so loose as to be useless.
Magiver already took care of most of this for me. The term “Muslim World”, like any term referring to an enormous group of people living in a complex world, can have multiple meanings, but no reasonable interpretation of the phrase will invalidate my first two claims. If you want to know more about the Muslim World you could start at Wikipedia or just Google the phrase.
Generalizations of some kind are inevitable in conversations about millions or billions of people. Focus should be kept not on avoiding generalizations completely but on understanding where they apply and where they don’t, and to what extent they really describe what they purport to.
Of course Muslims like to have sex; people like to have sex. Whether or not Muslims are reproducing at a rate faster than the Chinese or Indians (I assume you refer to the citizens of China and India, not those who have emigrated) depends on what countries you look at, but the numbers for some Muslims countries are astounding. Some are not so astounding, and others are even kind of low. But this is not quite important, since I do not believe that Muslim birth rates globally or in Western societies are a problem in and of themselves.
RickJay pointed out that Muslim countries tend to grow, population-wise, at the rate you’d expect given their economy. But that just brings forth the question “how do the economies of Muslim countries tend to perform?”
How am I supposed to respond non-sarcastically to this sarcastic statement? It frankly is rational to make that sort of distinction. You are obviously Hell-bent on portraying me as a bigot because you just can’t believe that there could be other reasons for why I hold the beliefs that I do.
It’s never rational to assume that a group of people is fundamentally different from oneself or one’s own group or to hate them blindly. It certainly is irrational to assume that other people think this way, however. Your blind, blasé multiculturalism is leading you to see hatred where none exists.
Although it should be obvious to anyone that Scott Roeder and Islamic terrorists should be locked up, what I was responding to is the first article’s basic thrust:
Wilders see a problem with extremist Muslims. He goes on to blame an entire group of people, utilizing logic such as there being no moderate Muslims. So Wilders is blaming Muslims for a subset of the West’s/Holland’s problems. While doing this, he puts himself in the position to be violating the law of his country. The result: he’s on trial, but according to the logic of the article he is not on trial for his behavior, he’s on trial to appease the Muslims. So once again its the Muslim’s fault. I view that as some twisted screwed up logic with an origin in xenophobia.
As for your second question: The Bith Shuffle makes a distinction between Islamic terrorists and the general degradation of our culture if we just allow Muslims in. He acts as though the latter is rational, which it isn’t and has never been the case in any country where individuals who happen to be Muslim are immigrating to.
But that’s a strawman argument. Nobody’s disputing that certain countries “self identify as Muslim”. What’s disputed is whether it’s meaningful to speak of a “Muslim World”:
A list of countries that have adopted Islam as their official religion is not a meaningful answer to the question “Where is the ‘Muslim World’?” In fact, the inadequacy of your list in accounting for the varieties of Islamic experience only illustrates Inbred Mm’s point that there IS no “Muslim World”.
If you could explain that to the Islamic extremists who think in terms of a “Muslim World” that would be great. You can start with Al Queda and work your way down the line.
Well, I would say that it is a mistake to analyze the threats emanating from the Islamic world under any sort of uber-Islamic rubric, mainly because every attempt at pan-Islamic political ideology has fallen apart in the past (see, e.g., pan-Arabism or East & West Pakistan). There’s no reason to assume that cultural, political or economic differences, or simple resource fighting is any less potent now than in the past.
Yes, there was an ignorant group of Islamic terrorists arrested in my home state for a plot to blow up a mall. And there was an ignorant Islamic terrorist who tried to blow up an airplane in the state next to me. And there was an ignorant Islamic terrorist who tried to smuggle a car full of explosives across the Canadian border. I could fill this page with examples of ignorance that needs to be fought starting with the all the Muslims who support Bin Laden and the 9/11 attack.
No, I am not trying to imply anything like what’s in your first question. Political correctness? What’s next? Multiculturalist? I’ve said absolutely nothing that is politically correct. Islamic extremism isn’t a problem to me at all. Islamic extremist terrorists are a distinct problem and may our drones blacken the skies above Pakistan/Afghanistan until the worst of those threats gives up their terrorism. I really don’t like militant fundamentalists and although funadamentalists tend to make me uncomfortable, they are often quite nice. For example, this one guy from the Muslim World was so nice to me and showed me his Hajj video and everything the last time I was in the Muslim World.
I don’t believe Iran is a threat to a vast majority of Western powers. Iran is weak.
As far as the rest of what you had to say, the subject of the thread is xenophobia toward Muslim immigrants, not militants. This thread would be a non-debate if that were the case.
I only worry about people who turn their words into action, our legal system is also fully equipped to handle these individuals, as well as the legal system of every country on the planet except for maybe 1 or 2.
I don’t care about calculations made from opinion polls. You did happen to notice that there is a huge amount of variation in opinion concerning Americans in the vague, illusory Muslim World.
Also, I will give you a hint as to where I was: I was in the Muslim World!!
Oh thank-you, I’m a multiculturalist. That’s as meaningful as the Muslim World. Also, please don’t put words in my mouth, I didn’t say you were xenophobic. I know nothing about you. I do know that your baseless assertions are the types of terms and concerns expressed by those who are xenophobic or xeno-anxious (for lack of a better term off the top of my head). Unless I was mistaken, this was the subject of the thread.
Your statement that really bothered me, the idea that our culture will be degraded by taking on Islamic values is something I at first misread, and I apologize for my reaction to it. Of course, it is mind-numbingly obvious that if we take on the values of a different culture then our culture will change. Its silly to ponder whether the USA or any European country will just up and adopt Islamic values.
I would not argue that attitudes towards women and homosexuals are deplorable throughout much of the world.
The fact that people are breeding at various rates throughout the world has little to do with the future demographics in the USA or EU, or anywhere else but where the babies are being born.
All of these things are definitely much worse than your own ignorance, or perhaps it was simply confusion, about conflating certain nations that have Islam as their official religion with a generic entity labeled “the Muslim World”. However, your ignorance happened to be here at hand in the thread I was reading, so that’s what I fought.
He is not assigning the motivation, the terrorists are themselves. On 9/11 we were attacked in the name if Islam. McVeigh didn’t do anything in the name of Christianity. (You yourself posted a quote showing that he was NOT religious, though he was a Christian). The Muslim terrorists advertise their motivation. Does “Allah akbar” ring a bell? This is a gaping blind spot in your thesis.
Again, McVeigh and Muslim Terrorist X are similar in that they both are terrorists. But they differ in a few important ways:
McVeigh was pretty much a lone nut (excepting his one accomplice), without a cadre of people hoping to duplicate or surpass his actions. The Muslim extremists who were involved in 9/11 have hordes hoping to duplicate their efforts.
(Forgive me for repeating this) The Muslim extremists invoke the Islam in their attacks. McVeigh did NOT do this.
Based on this, I think you need to simplify your research. First I’d ask what specific group you are trying to compare to Muslim Extremists. Is it white guys? Or is it Christian extremists. If it’s the former, McVeigh is game. If it’s the latter, he’s not. But even if it is white guys, I think you have to demonstrate some correlation between being white and being a terrorist. No?
I don’t think the Ruby Ridge Waco stuff goes to your thesis about terrorists. Those people were isolationists. I’m not saying that it not a bad thing, just that they do not pose the same threat as terrorists. And this discussion is about terrorism.
Also, if you’re really trying to assess the respective levels of threats, I don’t think you can ignore attacks overseas. I think you have to include all attacks by Muslim terrorists on Americans. I think it’s fair, for purposes of this discussion, to leave out attacks like those in London, Spain, and Bali.
In the interest of us understanding each other, can you answer these question I posed to you earlier? I know you want to do research to answer more accurately, but surely you have an idea. What would be your best guess?
how would you apportion the threat coming from the two groups we are discussing? (50-50?)
Yes, the Muslim extremists invoke Islam in their attacks. That should not reflect on the great majority of Muslims/Islamists who are peaceful and do not wish to terrorize anyone.
It is good to remember too that not all people from the countries listed are Islamists.
Why don’t some of you find out what some of the individuals are like before you form your opinions? How would you like to be judged as if you were a Tony Alamo? This man lived not very far from my neighborhood too. He had a business in downtown Nashville. He was a terrorist, but he wasn’t Islamic.
Nope. Shodan explicitly refused to acknowledge that some of the terrorism emanating from Muslims is politically based rather than religious based. While some Muslim terrorists do use, such as al-Queda, do use religious ideology, some don’t and some use religious language but cease their terrorism when political objectives are reached. If you don’t know this, how can you claim to have any expertise on the subject of Muslim terrorism?
For example, since you want to include overseas attacks, the Sunnis were attacking Americans in Iraq. Then the so-called “Anbar awakening” happened in which we negotiated with the Sunnis and made payments to them (and, IIRC, you and Shodan trumpeted this as evidence of US success in Iraq). If the motivation behind Sunni attacks were solely religious based, then how can payments and political negotiation have ameliorated them? Obviously the attacks were either not religiously based or were some combination of religion and political motivations.
McVeigh was a lone nut–except his one accomplice. Seriously, you can’t even be non-contradictory in simple factual statements. But whether or not you want to believe it, there is a loosely affiliated domestic terrorist threat, much in the way that various Islamic extremists are loosely affiliated. Which is why the FBI put out that report last year (until the Republicans screamed and made them retract it).
Ok, let’s break it into 2 categories – non-religious white guys and religious white guys. But I didn’t claim that whiteness is some condition which causes terrorism. All I am claiming is that white guys are responsible for a lot of domestic terrorism, and that for some reason, they get a pass when they commit terrorism.
So, killing LEOs based on political or religious ideology doesn’t constitute terrorism anymore? Perhaps you should put out a definition of terrorism that excludes them, because I don’t see it.
If we include overseas attacks, do I get to include Latin America? How do you want to define communist terrorists such as FARC? Am I supposed to include attacks on the military carried out during war as well, or only attacks on civilian infrastructure? Do I include things such as kidnappings?
I already answer this upthread. I’ve offered to research the issue if we can agree to definitions. Why won’t you put out a definition of your own, so that we can narrow it down?
Islamists are by definition part of political movements (Islamism), and in such cases it is extremely hard to distinguish between religious and political terrorism, so it is disingenuous to split hairs over this.
More than disingenuous, it is also dangerous, its goal usually being the alarmist manufacture of Islamophobia. This simplistic need to focus on Muslim terrorists alienates mainstream muslims and hinders the formation of common ground.
Muslim does not equal Islamist. Muslim does not equal terrorist. Islamist does not equal terrorist. That’s right: the fact that Islamism is utterly distasteful does not mean Islamists have to be terrorists. If you are anti-abortion, are you necessarily going to kill people who work at an abortion clinic?
However, most terrorists of a Muslim background are Islamists. To them, politics and religion are one and the same thing. Whether it is because of ignorance or legitimate conviction, they are committed to political philosophies and strategies that necessarily incorporate religion. Terrorism is typically an expression of political grievances (legitimate or not) and stems from political causes. Religion simply makes a convenient conduit for recruitment, motivation, and justification.
Take the wars of any given period, add up the dead. Who killed the most people? What does it mean? Does the heinousness of the number 1 spot somehow make number 2 on the list any better? Of course not. Both are tragic.
Trying to establish that terrorism of a muslim nature is somehow worse than other forms of terrorism is a cover used to spread fear of muslims and those tired old generalizations that damage inter-cultural relations. Terrorists are the ones who provide simple answers to those who crave simple answers; on this board you would expect some more depth.
By the way, to all the people who still bring up this point: the reason you saw scenes of some Palestinians dancing in the streets after 9/11 is that these were the most dramatic images available and it is the nature of news to report such. You saw short clips of people who were happy and assumed this was the overall opinion of the “Muslim world” regarding the 9/11 tragedy.
That’s even worse than forming an opinion of all Americans based on the anti-abortion terrorism perpetrated by a few and the disgusting psychos who excuse such crimes (without actually committing them). It may lead you to self-satisfying moments of righteousness, but nothing of substance, and very little that approximates fact.
No, actually it’s the same definition - if someone commits terrorism in the name of a religion, he or she is a religious terrorist. Muslim extremists act in the name of Islam. They are therefore Islamic terrorists. McVeigh did not act in the name of Christianity. Therefore, he is not a Christian terrorist.
This is as silly as it was the last time you posted it.
People die in the US from cancer, and from bee stings. But everybody seems to give those bumblebees a pass. I wonder why they aren’t worried about the actual threat.