Good idea. And a good way to achieve that is help building the bridge rather that digging desperately to widden the gap out of fear.
And at the same time, maybe they could teach you a couple things too…Like how to be more tolerant of the people you live with.
Why is then so much of the Middle East fuelled by extremism of religion and tribalism?
Why has there been no reformation?
Am not saying they are all backward and ignorant on an individual basis, but on a comparison between both societies, what do you think?
Maybe plenty of Muslims are nice generous warm loving people, I still don’t want to see them eventually become the dominant religion and social order of Europe.
I don’t mind, I just don’t want to ever see them dominate Europe. I think thats a valid argument right there. Why should I have to think ‘well, yeah it was nice while it lasted, but its their turn now’ I don’t think so.
You don’t mind living with them, you just think that if they were in charge the country would move a couple of centuries backwards and civilization would be severely impaired. Not seeing the problem here?
I’d blame that primarily on the aftereffects of European colonialism, myself… you know, when Europeans went into Islamic countries and exploited them by using tolerance, freedom and democracy. :rolleyes:
If it bothers you that much, then I advuse you should devote your life to procreating, so that your your continent will be inherited by your own race.
What you fail to understand, Ryan, is that your kind of fears and worries are part of the problem, not of the solution.
Stop hiding under a rock. Try to look at real muslim people, rather than at the strawman you built in your feverish imagination.
It’s quite clear that you’re affraid. But it’s quite clear also that you’re affraid of a bogeyman which has very few to do with the social reality.
I see no problem in procreating 
Don’t you see a problem in a religious group mentality? You could say the same about Christiianity, but its not as bonded as Islamic society, where the success of the group matters more than the person. They might be the most wonderful people on Earth, and you might get along great, but they will always put their religion first and the society which does not fit in with Islam second.
Yes, and now you want those same people, who are pissed at us, to rule over us, still harbouring those same grudges those same resentments, but hey, its karma, and we all got to be tolerant of their predujices :rolleyes:
If you go on that way, we’re going to be soon in 100% agreement.
You just forgot “more acceptance of THEIR pratices and culture” (and no…their culture isn’t summed up by the hijab), “none of this segregation INvoluntarily enforced” and “more shunning of jingoistic bigots”
I can understand the fear of your world being supplanted. Afghanistan awoke in the clutches of an intolerant Taliban, and many people lost their world. To have that intolerance supplanted into your back yard I think is the greatest of Ryan’s concerns. To lose his world to a ‘soft’ invasion. An invasion by displacement.
Me? I’m more afraid that militant Moslems will get the bomb, (you know, the Bomb??) and use it for the glory of Allah, even though their religion is as or even more anti-violent than Xtianity (didn’t stop the Xtians from using it against the peaceful, attacking Shinto…).
Maybe their religion will continue to grow, and I am sure its proportions will be uncomfortable to some and intolerant to many.
One point Ryan brings up that pleases me is his suggestion for cultural interchange, cultural sharing. “Well, you are moving into our country, you have to do things our way. Oh, your religion forbids military service? Well, just for such conscientious objectors as yourself we have substitute, non-military, government service. We will take X years of your life, at military level pay, and you have to use your skills (or if you don’t have them we will train you) to serve this country you now call home. We will accommodate you, but you have to meet us half-way.”
Ryan if you take on Islamic absorbtion as an enemy, I say, “Know your enemy.” I’ve seen you have done some research, do more. You want to impress them of the benefits of our ways? Find out what appeals to them. Sell them our culture in a way they can pay for it in their own coin.
More than anything I would like to see a more united world. A world of tolerance, and acceptance, that goes both ways. As our world becomes smaller through advancemens in communications, tjhat dream becomes more possible. I doubt I’ll see it in my lifetime, but in our primative PCs of 20 years ago I never dreamed I’d see this level of communication in my lifetime.
The mayan calendar ends in 2012, the year I turn 65. I think I’ll be ready for the end of a lot of things, and planetary changes.
Good luck in achieving your goals peacefully.
S~<
Don’t you think I know that? Still doesn’t mean I want to see an Islamic dominated Europe or that I should tolerate it.
I’ve met Muslim people, they’re all nice and just like you and me on an individual basis, maybe some of the communities are nice as well, still again, doesn’t mean I should welcome or tolerate an Islamic dominated Europe.
The Bogeyman doesn’t have one billion adherants with many of them pissed at the West. So somehow the Muslim popualtion isn’t rising faster than the average european birthrate? How would you like to see a Muslim dominated Europe infringe your rights, you ability to interact, you being taxed for being a different faith, pressurising the community you live in to enforce laws you don’t want? It can happen, its a possibility.
Of course I do, I’m an atheist. I don’t think your view of Islamic society is at all realistic.
On what do you base this, exactly? Your problem may be the way you’re trying to turn this into a ‘my team vs. their team’ thing.
I said nothing about tolerating anybody’s prejudices. I think time and success allay prejudices like that, and I think your view of them is exaggerated. And I’ll be the second poster to tell you to cut this ‘us’ crap. This is YOUR problem, not mine. A Muslim United States is likely not in the offing, and some people’s attempts to make it a Christian country are more than bad enough.
Because it is basically, its extremist orientated Islam v.s Western Liberal Democracy.
So you never think that it could one day this immigration could become detremental to Western European society, ever?
The difference between Europe and America is we’re not nations of immigrants, we’ve been around longer and we have more Muslims in our society than yours, yes you’re right this is OUR problem, one that can repeat itself if it isn’t forewarned or even contemplated. A Muslim U.S might not be, but a Europe is.
Correct me if I’m wrong (American education and all…) but would this be the Reformation that led to thirty years of brutal, scorched-Earth religious warfare that depopulated great swathes of Europe? Shit, man, isn’t that what they’re going through right now?
I don’t agree with that. If anything, it’s Extremist Islam vs. The World. The nutjobs aren’t any more tolerant of secular non-western governments, and they don’t even like theocratic Islamic governments if they’re the wrong kind! As everybody has said, Islam is not the unified force you think it is. Like Christianity, there are different sects who often hate each other more than they hate anyone else. If anything, Islam may be LESS unified than pre-Reformation Christianity because there is no Muslim equivalent to the Pope.
I think there is a real, serious issue here. I just think your view of it is based on stereotypes and fear. The reality is that within a few years (I think it’s about 15), Islam will be the largest religion in the world. The population of the Western countries is at a peak or declining, and the developing world is going to take up a very large proportion of the world’s people. Islam is going to be a big influence on that. I don’t think this is the downfall of civilization, it’s just the future. However, given the problems we’re having with Islamic militants, it’s important to engage mainstream Islam and the developing world in general (let’s not forget that there are 800 million Hindus out there, and non-Muslim China is going to be a major force- still, Islam is growing and I don’t think Hinduism and Buddhism are so much). There has to be an active engagement between cultures here.
Yes, so you’ll have to adjust. So far I don’t think the reaction from Europe has been very good.
So?
Heh. Really I meant it’s YOUR problem, meaning you specifically. But that’s not really true in any case, as I think I say above there are larger issues at work here and they don’t only concern Europe.
Why must you use the term “developing world?”
This is politically correct semantic hogwash, an example of Orwellian doublespeak in action. The people you are referencing are NOT developing. They are not in the proccess of progress. They are in the throes of cultural and social regression. Reform movements are not sweeping the lands of our Muslim bretheren; progressive activism is crushed by dictators who have, by and large, popular support. Scientific advances are nowhere to be seen, and the treatment of women, that handy old gauge of social progress, is in the pits.
Call it what it is, for Christ’s sweet sake. It’s the third world: a world opposite from the fat, comfortable West and its cheerful optimistic naivete. A lean and hungry bantamweight who will fight to the death, as opposed to our Pilsbury Doughboy in the States, content to watch football and eat pizza all day.
A force to be reckoned with for sure, but “developing” in the manner of an infection, not a beautiful flower.
Proof, please.
Because I didn’t just mean the Islamic world, so that wouldn’t have worked. And it’s to the Islamic world you devote the rest of that paragraph. I do try to choose my words carefully.
The term is really outdated.
What world are you living in?
I was trying to make a point. If all you want to do is throw dumb stereotypes around, mission accomplished (although I’m sure you want to accomplish it a few more times).
I never said progress or development were smooth and pleasant. If I’d said “progressing” world, maybe you’d have a case there, but I didn’t.
The guy who sold you a falafel last week? Please, everything you’ve posted in this thread show that you only have a sketchy view of what a Muslim is like, and using argument in the old reacist way: “Some of my best friends are colored people” is not helping you out.
You’re 18 and while were not allowed to attack posters personally here, I do hope you grow up. You see, I’ve heard this kind of talk all my life. When I was 18, it was about those leeches from Yugoslavia and Poland, coming to our fair country, living off welfare, keeping goats in the living room and destroying our culture. I Rememeber when pizza and lasagna was exotic food, and when garlic and peppers (paprika) was a lot stranger than hummus or cous-cous is now.
And you know what - all those xenophobes were wrong. A lot of the people arriving here during the 50’s-70’s kept their ways and traditions, had a hard time getting integrated, mostly because it was hard for them to find good jobs. They cleaned houses, took away garbage, worked as janitors and in the most dangerous industries and was out of sight in the workplace for most of the natives.
But even if we didn’t give them the opportunity, their kids got it. About 13 per cent of the Swedish population are first or second generation immigrants. And a lot of those of Yugoslavian, Greek and Polish origin are now in their forties and have third generation kids. And these 2nd and 3rd generations are totally integrated. They speak the language fluently and without an accent. They have all adopted the mores, values and most traditions of their adopted country. And apart from having family names that are a bit strange, and being somewhat darker then us of the ‘original stock’, their is really no difference.
This comes from embracing them, giving them opportunities, and… well, corrupting them with our way of life.
[aside]I do think the money paid for the war in Iraq would have been better spent by giving all families there a microwave, a tv set and a satellite dish and letting them figure out for themselves why it’d be better to get rid of Saddam.[/aside]
Another aside:
This is as much of a myth as the renaissence. The Muslims weren’t driven out. Basically, they were never there, apart from a small elit in Granada, ruling the country, and a native population, paying lip-service, because it suited them. When Isabel and Fernando threw out the “boy king” Boabdil (he was 36 at the time), he didn’t have to move far, just to the southern side of the Sierra Nevada, some 30 kms from Granada, where he got a fiefdom in Las Alpujarras.
Why is this equally true of much of Africa? Because it has little or nothing to do with Islam.
Please, do tell me where you acquired your expert knowledge of Islam which you keep spouting at us.
Again, this idea of ‘being taxed for being different’. That does not happen ANYWHERE. Why would it happen here?
And there’s plenty of laws enforced at the minute that I don’t want. Because of a little thing called democracy. Maybe I should just orchestrate a coup, and then I won’t have to have any laws I don’t like?
BWAHHH HAAA HAAAAAH HAHHAHAAAAAAA…pure blooded celts (well, probably pre-celts, whoever they were), every one of us…
Fair enough, I was being hyperbolic. But it is important that the perception of a lost land to recover is present in the thinking of Islamist extremism. (The motivation behind the Madrid bombing was almost certainly more than just Aznar’s support for the Iraq invasion)