Islam is What We Make It - Don't Let Them Win

The BBQ Pit
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This was going to go on to Testy’s thread (best of luck to you), but it got closed as I was writing it, if a Mod wants to edit out my profuse F-bombing and move it to GDs feel free, but for now I hope most of the Dopers who posted on Testy’s thread give this a read:
Any extensive ideology can be used to just about any ends; it’s pretty hard to place accurate objective judgments about which ones are more or less predisposed to violence.

That being said, Islam is particularly volatile (not that any other religion isn’t) and can be easily interpreted to back violence and terror – this interpretation isn’t necessarily the correct or proper one, but it’s one that’s being embraced. Terrorism in the name of Islam is occurring on an international scale, an international scale which is greater in terms of total kills than any other religion in the present generation.

For a long time Christianity would have held this dubious mantle, today Islam does. That doesn’t make either one less a “religion of peace,” even the spiritual leader of freaking Hezbollah publicly condemned 9/11, and although many other average Muslims were less than sympathetic following it – they weren’t the only ones.

Islam isn’t the enemy – terrorism is. By attacking Islam and Muslims in general we’re giving the terrorists’ violent interpretation legitimacy, which only helps them. The ideology is a coincidence, of course Islam can and is being used to justify violence, but that doesn’t necessarily etch a Islam as a violent ideology any more than any other ideological justification to violence changes the inherent character of that ideology. An ideology’s nature is malleable; it’s created by our collective perspective.

Attacking the terrorists as Muslims gives weight to the terrorists’ take on the ideology - if the KKK were attacked for being “Christians” instead of “worthless fucking murdering bigots” that would lend weight and give legitimacy to their sick interpretation of Christianity and excuse their actions as being pardoned by their religion. The more people who call Islam the root of terrorism, or focus on the terrorists being Muslim instead of “worthless fucking murdering bigots,” the more the terrorists win; the more legitimacy their interpretation of Islam gains – they want to excuse their actions through Islam and by attributing their actions to Islam we’re allowing them to do just that.

Terrorists are worthless fucking murdering bigots, by characterizing them as Muslims instead of as worthless fucking murdering bigots we are aiding them by giving them a mask to hide behind – their twisted ideology, and hardening that mask. By labeling them for what they are, without their ideological mask, we destroy their ideological credibility, strip it of any legitimacy - and our perspective then makes Islam a religion of peace, and makes the terrorists nothing but worthless fucking murdering bigots.

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I thought Islam was what Gabriel dictated to Mohammad?

People use “-ism” and “-ology” to justify their actions all the time. It doesn’t make them right.

PS I fully believe that if the leader of Hizbollah ever said Islam is a religion of peace (I don’t know that he has) in his head were the thoughts: “And as soon as all the Jews are dead we’ll have all the peace we ever wanted.”

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The text of any religion, or ideology for that matter, can be placed out of context, misinterpreted, etc. Hence all the ideologically backed violence in world history - people are gonna find excuses to kill other people when it benefits them.

I didn’t make any claims about rightness, just trying to give another perspective to the current situation and debate.

I’m sure Sheik Fadalallah (or something like that, I just remember it sounds goofy) of Hezbollah wants to exterminate the Jews, just as Popes have wanted to exterminate the Moors - doesn’t make their respective religions inherently violent or peaceful.

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sivispacem, I’m not exactly sure where you’re going with this. Is this some sort of plea for tolerance in the “Islam good, terrorism bad” vein? I’m not trying to be snarky, just a little confused. Are you concerned that most Americans associate Islam with terrorism and therefore conclude that all Muslims support terrorism? If so, I can see your concern, but there’s not too much that can be done about it. Education could help, I suppose. But you have to understand that the urge to generalize is well-nigh irresistible among most humans; it just makes thinking about the world so much easier when everything is monochromatic. Not that this is right, but in a situation like this, concepts of right and wrong are extremely relative.

It’s unfortunate indeed that almost all forms of religion eventually get dragged into the theatre of war. And in the grand tradition of theatre, you need plenty of smoke and mirrors. Islam is providing a handy baffle in the campaign to eliminate terrorism. And many people conclude that Islam must be the cause of that terrorism when it is in fact just a good excuse for the terrorists themselves and a nice neat identifier for Americans. Religion is a great way to justify whatever horrible thing you think up to do to your neighbors. Best of all, it can be applied indiscriminately with both sides convinced of their moral righteousness and their divine duty to stamp out Those Other People. God(s) are perfect and they’re always right. If god(s) are on your side (and why wouldn’t they be, since you’ve been so faithful to them all these years) then by extension you are also perfect and always right, and nothing you do is applicable to any sort of moral judgement. Of course it’s right and okay- god(s) want you to do this. (It helps if you’ve got a bunch of writings which can be handily interpreted to suggest just this.) It’s the perfect, fool-proof, self-reinforcing justification system. And anybody who doesn’t believe it is obviously not on your (and your god(s)’) side, and so deserves all the hurt that’s coming to them.

The problem is not any specific religion, or even religion in general. The problem is human nature. And the tendency of some to abandon critical thinking skills when they’re given an easy out. Possibly also humans’ ingenious abilities to subvert absolutely anything to their own ends. (We are nature’s tool-users after all.)

Religion is also a great way of distinguishing Us from Them. As we all know, it is never okay to do anything bad to Us; We Are Us, and We certainly don’t want to be harming Ourselves, do We? But it’s perfectly okay to do something bad to Them. After all, They’re not Us. And just look at Them, anyway, with Their funny clothes and Their incomprehensible language. Look at the all the weird stuff They do. I can’t believe They’re eating that! Savages. None of Us would do something like that. And wouldn’t the world be a much better, a much more peaceful and productive place without Them hanging around messing stuff up all the time? It’d be a lot better if it were just Us. If We could only get rid of Them, surely all Our lives would improve. Is this not justified? Is it not Our duty to help Ourselves? Would We not be terribly remiss if We did not seize this opportunity to finally rid the world of Them to pave the way for more of Us?

You see where I’m going with this, and how frighteningly easy it is to fall into the common trap of painting with too wide a brush. So to reiterate, Islam good, terrorism bad. Any questions?

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I have met people of the islamic faith many times ( I live in Manchester) and no matter how many idiots blow up themselves in the name of allah, there are always a million people more who are kind, generous and friendly…don’t let them make us judge a billion people of that faith.

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sivispacem.
Thank you for your kind thoughts, they are greatly appreciated and I agree with many of your points. Obviously, I feel strongly about this, much more so than I did last Sunday.

I think much of the reason that Islam is seen as supporting terror is the perceived lack of condemnation of terrorist activities by the remainder of the Islamic world. This could be due to the non-heirarchical nature of Islam and/or the language barrier that is usually present, but most Westerners see the Islamic terrorists on television but hear little condemnation from the remainder of the Moslem world and see very little action. There is also little perceived lack of outrage (by other Moslems) that a group of murderous thugs have hijacked their entire religion and claim to speak for it.

The other issue is; What kind of Moslems are we talking about?
Are we talking about the modern, sophisticated Muslims of Egypt, Jordan, and North Africa?
Or are we talking about the ones I see around Riyadh, the tribal-oriented types with ultra-short thobes and a foot of scraggly hair hanging off their chins? The ones who claim to live by the most true interpretation of the holy Quran.

The Moslems of the world tend to be dumped into an undifferentiated pot by Westerners. This is completely unfair, but the remainder don’t seem to object. There does not seem to be a vocal group (of Moslems) damning the Wahabi for their excesses, their xenophobia and racism. Somehow, the message that the Wahabbi are not typical needs to be sent. Someone needs to let the world know that the Wahabbi are about as typical of Muslims as Fred Phelps and Pat Robertson are of Christians.

Anyway, thats my rant for the day. :slight_smile:

All the best.

Testy

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Great OP sivispacem, I heartily agree with the sentiment.

IMO, people will always look for justification for their actions and if you need to justify acts of terrorism, then in most religions there will have been something written at some point which puts God (Allah, whatever) behind you. What better justification could there be? Now, not only are you right, you are righteous.

This could be why religion and terror always seem to be so closely linked; of course I could have it back to front - religious people could interpret the teachings of the religion as ‘go out and kill such-and-such a group of people’.

The only logical conclusion to this train of thought is this: religions don’t make terrorists, people make terrorists and use religion for their justification. I don’t know why Islam seems to be the excuse for so much of the terrorism as opposed to, say, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism etc - but as it is, it’s easy to see why ‘Islamic’ acts of terror are labeled as such, whereas the KKK are just bigoted fuckwits.

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Thanks for the feedback guys!! And Testy, I’d reply that you shouldn’t be asking what kind of Muslims we’re talking about, but what kind of person. The ideological claims should be wholly ignored and not factor in at all to our perception of a group or their actions - lest we allow them to use their ideology as a shield or give their twisted views weight. Terrorists are murders and nothing else. Someone being Muslim just tells you he believes he’s following some form of Islam, and the label of Muslim shouldn’t bring any preconceptions or notions along with it.