I believe that what Esposito is deliberately conflating is the notion of a formal national policy (a war, for example) that may injure civilians as a (militarily) unavoidable by-product, and a policy of trumping into a public marketplace with a bomb. I suspect whatever poll/survey he cites is not a side-by-side comparison where the topic is clear and the question/context for each group is identical.
IOW, the sort of pap where everyone “supports terrorism” because war is terrible and innocents are hurt and hey, sometimes you gotta go to war. So I guess I support violence against innocents.
While the fine points of difference may be debated elsewhere, the idea that the “general public” is much more likely that “Muslims” to support blindly-targeted violence against non-combatant innocents is patently ridiculous.
You of all people, with such a great reputation (at least by me) for precision of thought and fair-minded presentation of well-worded positions, should be less hasty, in my opinion, of promoting such nonsense.
So what’s the acceptable level of support or opposition to terrorism that a group you identify with must reach before discriminating against you and your group (regardless of your personal beliefs, or course) is justified?
Your basis for this assumption that Muslims are inherently more supportive of blindly-directed attacks at innocents than anyone else would be…?
Your viewing of the American people as waif-like innocents supporting with a heavy heart military action that may(!) injure(!!) civilians as an unavoidable by-product of war is monumentally naive. From War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War:
What’s patently ridiculous is your blind insistance that Muslims are obviously more supportive of blindly-targetted violance than “the general public”.
Well, I was thinking about a few discussions a few years back about the Red Cross not accepting blood donations from homosexuals. The thread I read here came down pretty solidly on the “not discrimination” side, considering only so much testing can be done and there was a above average risk of AIDS/HIV tainted blood. Would it really be crazy to apply the same thinking to immigration? If say, 80% of Afghans were “somewhat positive” towards suicide bombings, honour killings or some other practice abhorrent to us would it be wrong to just shut down immigration from there?
Allow me to flip the question - what’s the acceptable level of support to terrorism that a group you identify with must reach before you want to stop identifying with it? Or do something about it? It concerns me that there are large, well funded and growing schools of thought within Islam that encourage the spread of extremism(Salafist, Wahabbi or the Deobandi school for instance) that are well identified, but none that condemn those schools. This may be a function of my ignorance, and I request you to identify any that you know of if so. A similar previous question, to tomndebb, if I remember correctly, elicited only the name of some minor preacher somewhere.
FWIW, I would ask this of the followers of any religion, for they all have much to be ashamed of, but I do think Islam today is worse(better?) at breeding fundamentalists than the rest. And Islamic fundamentalists are worse than the others. Do you agree with that? If not then that 's the argument that’s primaryand the question of what ought to be done about it is a separate one.
Respectfully, if you know so little about Islam that you refer to the “Salafist, Wahabbi, or the Deobandi schools” you really don’t know as much about the subject as you seem to think you do.
That’s like saying “I think the Jews and the Hebrews of America too aggressively support Israel”.
Are you claiming that the Salafists and Wahabbi schools are the same? Because my reading leads me to believe that they are not. And the Deobandis most assuredly are not.
Specifically this in Wikipedia
“The movement is often described as related to, including, or synonymous with Wahhabism, but Salafists consider the term “Wahhabi” derogatory” and
“The vast majority of Salafis reject the label “Wahhabi” because they consider it unfounded and an object of controversy”
I said nothing about the Deobandis and don’t know much about them other than they’re from the Indian Sub Continent.
Generally speaking in the a Middle East the term “Wahabbi” is an insult suggesting people are followers of a religious figure, Muhammad Abd Al Wahabb from a few centuries ago. The implication being they’re engaging in idolatry.
Everyone I ever met called such considered themselves a Salafist and every Islamic scholar I’ve met referred to them as such, excepting of course the Daniel Pipes types.
On second thought I shouldn’t have taken a shot at Daniel Pipes because I believe he’s specifically referred to “Wahabbi” as a derogatory term for Salafis.
I’d be very curious to where you found this school that called themselves a “Wahabbi school”.
I knew the two were closely related, and the bit about Salafists not being wanting to be known as Wahabi threw me off. My bad. My point still stands though. I know of no large or influential schools of thought within Islam that are attempting to systematically counter the spread of Islamic extremism. If you’re aware of any, please tell me.
Identifying with it? Good question. Doing something about it? Who are you to assume someone hasn’t? Or that they are responsible for what others do?
It doesn’t disturb you that you know you may be ignorant and haven’t even bothered to check these facts yourself without feeling the need to ask me to do it for you?
Here’s a long, exhaustive list that took me seconds to find on Google:
Don’t you think you have an obligation to do a scintilla of research before making such accusations? Leaving aside their irrelevance and unfairness anyway.
For what?
Of course. So what? What’s that got to do with Muslims who don’t approve of terrorism?
I see no basis for your position. The claim was never that anyone supported “blindly-targeted violence against non-combatant innocents.”
Generally people respond to questions about the use of violence in the context of defending “their side.” Muslims may view it as defense against attacks on Islam just as the general public would view it in the context of defending against attacks on “America.” In either case, the number of people in the United States who are comfortable with killing off civilians as part of that “defense” seems to be higher among the general public than among Muslims as a group. (I do not recall any general outcry against the “surgical strikes,” (with their unfortunate habit of destroying wedding parties and funerals), until the idea that drones might be used against U.S. citizens arose and even now it is a muted protest.)
(Actually, I would say that the Tamils and the Russians would give “Muslims” a run for their money in that category.) However, even granting your claim for those Muslims living in Middle Eastern countries in the early 21st century, extending that claim to Muslims living in Europe and North America has simply not been supported by any facts in evidence.
I’ve found longer lists than that, but statements made by people condemning terrorist attacks don’t convince me that there’s a systematic attempt to reform or combat extremism within Islam. It’s anti-fundamentalism that I’m looking for, my post almost conflates the two(although I do make the distinction), so my apologies.
I don’t know that I said it has? My problem is with Islam as a system producing a higher degree of fundamentalist and extremist thought, which sometimes is associated with terrorism, often associated with poor outcomes for women, and in many countries(including Islamic ones) associated with poor outcomes for the average Muslim. Does this mean I think the average Muslim is a bad person? Of course not. Does this mean I think Islam has problems and they need to be solved? Yeah. To the extent that the best solutions would likely come from within Islam, yeah it has something to do with all Muslims.
I don’t know. I’d like to see more discussion of Islam and its tendency towards fundamentalism from level headed people. Not crazy nutters who anyone would feel safe in writing off. I think like other religions, but to an even greater extent, Islam has managed to get something of a pass. And not just because of the crazy people who’ll threaten to(and in some cases will) kill you for talking ill of Islam. It’s also because of this ‘You’re lumping all the Good Muslims in with the bad’. No, that’s not what I’m doing.
First of all, people generally don’t feel a pressing need to distance themselves from opinions they don’t hold and actions they didn’t approve being committed by people they don’t know.
Second, is there a “systematic effort to reform or combat” Ugandan gay stoners and head-hunting militias in Central Republic or north-east India within Christian society ? Is there one about those churches and Christian groups that encourage people to attack abortion doctors or throw molotovs at Planned Parenthoods, such as the infamous Army of God ? Was there one against the IRA ? What have *you *done to stop or reform those idiots lately ?
(BTW, the answer you’re looking for is “hell no, there’s even material support”)
Lastly, what are American Muslims supposed to be doing about screaming fanatics in Syria or Bangladesh, exactly ? Send them a strongly worded letter ? Even local moderates would have a hard time - walk with your Bible to the Phelps compound to explain, with cites, how wrong they are about Christianity ; see where that gets you.
Which is why moderates in fanatic-dominated countries tend to… emigrate. Or get killed, whichever happens first.
The “blindly-targeted” refinement I put in is really the whole point of my complaint of how you spun the point by pretending to juxtapose “similar” questions.
I suggest the general US public makes a distinction between killing civilians as a byproduct of targeting enemy combatants, and killing civilians without any consideration as to whether any enemy combatants were present at all.
I do not disagree that we (i.e., any given side in a conflict) are less likely to be careful about collateral damage occurring to the opposite side, and in that sense we are all similarly culpable, perhaps.
But the distinction drawn between Muslim populations as a whole and other broad groups (be they politically or religiously bounded) is the relatively high degree of support within the Islamic world for attacks targeted blindly with no consideration at all as to whether or not the target contains an enemy combatant. An example would be a bomb attack in a public place or a Twin Tower sort of attack.
When polls such as the Pew poll you cited look at that question in the Muslim world, the degree of support for that is astonishing. On the other hand, polls (such as the Gallup poll a few years back) that look at support for sometimes attacking civilians are conflating the notion of targeted versus untargeted attacks.
To juxtapose the two as “similar questions” as you did earlier is disingenuous and presents a pollyannish view of Islam not supported by reality. A remarkable number of Muslims do in fact support “blindly targeted violence against non-combatant innocents.” It’s difficult to even find polls getting at that specific issue in any general population, because the numbers would be so trivial. And of course most large polling organizations are very careful not to offend, so their eagerness to juxtapose that exact question in the same exact poll to Muslims and non-Muslims is understandably absent.
If you can give me the number 77 supporting reference from the Esposito book you cited, perhaps I can understand more precisely what his and your data point is.
Too bad then. Nobody owes you anything. Nobody in a religion is obligated to speak out to your satisfaction to prove they believe something.
Okay so far.
As long as you don’t blame a Muslim for the actions or beliefs of another, or lack of action. I’m responding in the context of the OP.
I don’t know. I’d like to see more discussion of Islam and its tendency towards fundamentalism from level headed people. Not crazy nutters who anyone would feel safe in writing off. I think like other religions, but to an even greater extent, Islam has managed to get something of a pass. And not just because of the crazy people who’ll threaten to(and in some cases will) kill you for talking ill of Islam. It’s also because of this ‘You’re lumping all the Good Muslims in with the bad’. No, that’s not what I’m doing.
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