I don’t follow the goings on in that part of the world closely, because it’s fucking depressing, but I keep hearing how the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful, wonderful people. OK, fine. Why aren’t any of them in charge of shit? It seems like that part of the world is completely dominated by horrible people and people even worse than the horrible people they just overthrew. If 99% of the population is good and peace-loving, how have these dickhead war-mongers come to dominate everything in the region? Why aren’t the nice people taking over? Are they even trying?
I am angry about the Paris attacks, and about the Syria situation, and ISIS, but I’m also just baffled. I do believe most of the people over there are good people. I just don’t get how the bad minority has gotten so powerful that it seems like the good people just have to flee the entire Middle East instead of telling them to fuck off. Surely there is power in numbers? Why isn’t that working?
In the early 20th century South, only a very, very small percentage were in the Klan actively murdering and terrorizing blacks. However, a much larger percentage of the South supported the Klan–even openly cheering their activities. A larger percentage of Southerners quietly supported this stuff, not out and about cheering, but okay with it. Then some simply didn’t care about the terrible stuff happening in the South to blacks. Then some may have disliked it, but feared speaking out because they didn’t want to anger friends and neighbors and get ostracized. And then you had only a small minority that were willing to say “this is wrong, and we need to work to put an end to it.”
The issue with the larger Muslim world is the large numbers who aren’t terrorists but who are openly supportive of terrorists, the larger number who are okay with it but aren’t super big vigorous supporters of it, and etc. Day to day most people around the world are more or less good, but just like the Jim Crow Deep South a hateful ideology that only has a small number of activists have enough support in the rest of the community (and enough of those who don’t support it who do not speak out against it), that it’s a true Muslim cultural problem. It cuts across nations, ethnic boundaries, and economic status. When we’ve seen terrorists come out of rich, comfortable gulf states, OECD countries that have permissive policies towards Islamic immigrants, and even thousands of people from Southeast Asian countries with majority-Muslim populations but governments that have historically been very moderate, the simple reality is there is something rotten in the wider body of Muslims worldwide. It’s by no means a majority, but it doesn’t take a majority for it to be a systemic, wide ranging problem in the religion.
I’ve read articles by Muslim authors who decry that their religion has been hijacked by these people. But unlike the Jim Crow South which could to some degree be “fixed” by external intervention by the Federal government and even State governments slowly coming around, Islam is a global religion and there is no authority figure with respect by any significant swathe of the religion.
When democratic elections are held in the MENA region, don’t Islamist groups tend to do poorly? If so, that shows a lack of support (at least for living under an Islamist regime). However that doesn’t translate into not supporting Islamists striking out at governments you feel are hostile to you.
I have no idea about the answer to your question. Supposedly part of the problem is that there is a lack of more moderate methods of protesting corruption and abuse in the MENA region by the government, so the only ones left are radical options like Islamism.
But no idea. It seems in neither Syria or Iraq are there enough people who want a peaceful government without ethnic strife to make that a reality.
I don’t know about popular elections, and it also comes down to what you mean by “Islamist.” We actively opposed democracy in countries like Iran because we had a good idea of what democracy there would look like (basically the hardliner religious government they have now.) Islamist isn’t the same as terrorist, in any case. Arguably Erdogan’s party is an Islamist party trying to change secular Turkey, but not into a terrorist-supporting jihadist government by any means, just one that “incorporates Muslim values.”
Thousands and thousands of jihadists have joined ISIS from Southeast Asian countries that have majority Muslim populations and government with Muslim elected leaders and etc, not countries where Muslims are at all marginalized. Countries that are actually pretty moderate. Why is this? These aren’t people that have been displaced by war in Syria or who feel the effects of bigotry in Europe. Like I said, this jihadism crosses lots of boundaries that people try to use to explain it. It’s clearly not a matter of lack of economic development, lack of political power, etc–because we have jihadists coming from countries where those things aren’t true.
If you travel in most middle eastern countries the individuals will indeed be wonderfully friendly and hospitable to you. Yes they are “good” people, but they really do not have the same value system as the west. Take a look at the PEW polls on islam:
In the middle east:
•74 percent of people surveyed want Sharia law.
•87 percent say a woman must obey her husband.
•only 33 percent say a woman should have the right to divorce
•51 percent think western culture is a threat to morality
In Egypt: 29 percent of people say suicide bombing in defense of islam is sometimes justified. In Palestine it’s 40 percent.
And of those that want sharia law in the middle east:
•over 40 percent of them believe the death penalty should the punishment for Apostasy (eg changing to any other religion from islam).
•over 40 percent of them believe stoning should be the punishment for adultery
So from what I can see, if we define “good guys” as those that want a democratic western friendly secular state with a separation of church and state and religious freedom, they are the minority of muslims in the Middle East.
Our Presidents and other leaders will always tell us that the great majority of Muslims are innocent of any support for extremism, are moderate, are non-violent, and so forth. As President Obama put it after the Charlie Hebdo murders, “No religion condones the killing of innocent people.” This is what’s called political correctness. It’s something that’s said for political reasons, not because the speaker really believes it.
But if folks listen to politically correct speech too much, they can gradually lose sight of what’s true and what’s false. In truth, it’s not the case that all but a tiny fraction of Muslims support peace and democracy. If that were true, more of the Middle East would be peaceful and democratic. There are some Muslim countries that are better than others, where you won’t get murdered in bizarre ways for adultery or homosexuality or apostasy or blasphemy. But there are far to many where you will.
Today, the Frankenstein creators of US foreign policy could reflect just a little on the ISIS monster they gave life to.
It was probably a good idea to leave the simplicity of ‘good guys’ and 'bad guys behind with the old black and white cowboys and injuns. The real world is more nuanced.
Well, Syria is in a state of civil war - we all understand civil war as most countries go through that.
The complicating factor with Syria is that an awful lot of countries, neighboring and not so neighboring, want to influence that outcome. The longer it has gone on, the more complicated it becomes. It has become a proxy war for many geo-political, religious, historic and opportunist reasons.
At this point, pretty well every external party involved is an ally of an enemy.
In relation to Paris, it’s another reminder that some people don’t like being used in others’ proxy wars - events in Paris are as related to events in Aleppo as they are to events on Greek beaches (dead, washed up bodies of children).
But you know what, lets send some more weapons, a few more ‘advisers’ and bomb the shit out of something because these people need to learn western countries have the power to do shit. And it always, always works so well.
While we tend to focus on incidents where terrorists attack westerners, we should remember that their main targets are domestic. If you’re an average Muslim and you speak out publicly in support of something like having elections or giving equal rights to women or peaceful co-existence with Israel, you’ll be targeted as an example by some group like ISIS or Al Qaeda or the Taliban or the Muslim Brotherhood or the Revolutionary Guard or the CPVPV or the Savak or Hamas or Hezbollah. So the average Muslim learns to stay quiet.
On another board it was pointed out that this is the latest step in a war 1500 years old. It’s just been quiet the past 100 years or so due to the utter dominance of Europe, which is now weakening.
As much as it might sound insightful, what happened last night wasn’t because the wrong team occupies Jerusalem.
By far the biggest factor in the cause of last night was the unilateral war the USA waged on Iraq. So the answer will obviously be to blow more shit up.
Uh, one of the main talking points many many islamic extremist groups get upset about is indeed US / Western support for Israel, which does currently occupy Jerusalem.
I realize some people want to believe that everything that happens in the world, good or bad, happens because America did it. But that’s not true. Other countries have their own agendas and sometimes America is just sitting on the sideline.
If somebody in Iraq was mad about the 2003 invasion, why would they be attacking France? The more likely explanation is this goes back to Syria’s history as a French colony. Maybe somebody in ISIS thought they’d look good by attacking the old colonial overlord.
It’s far more likely that :
a) its because France joined the coalition in attacking ISIS / Syria just a month ago
b) Paris is a “softer” target easier to get people and weapons into than the UK and the US. Once you get into any Schengen visa area country there are no border checks at all within the EU except from mainland to the UK.
first most of us muslims do not live in the middle east, hundreds of millions of us, and most of us live in peace and in peaceful countries.
there is a specific tension around the middle east, and really it is the levant.
what does an ordinary person do in the face of radicals with the kalashnikov? The Syrian situation began with peaceful demonstrations and then the regime opened fire and it has degenerated into the war of the radical clans between the radicals of the regime and the radicals of the antis.
the very evolution of the situation in the Syria shows your expectation to be very naive.
Where do you get this idea? I no of no source that indicates that any great numbers of southest asian muslims are in any way engaged with the DAESH.
What is not true is your assertion about the southest asian muslims. There is not any data I know of that says anything like this
that is ridiculous. there is no war 1500 years old.
Where were all the good, tolerant, peace-loving Germans in WWII?
Answer that, and you’ll have a good idea why tolerant, peace-loving folks in the Middle East tend to be invisible. When you’re living next door to people who think tolerance is an evil thing you get cautious about saying anything.
Keep in mind, too, that millions of the more tolerant, peace-loving folks from the Middle East moved out over the past century, that’s why, despite publicized incidents, violence in the Muslim/Middle Eastern communities in “the west” tend to have a lot less violence than hot spots in the MENA region. The “good guys” moved to a better neighborhood where they and their children were less likely to be caught in the cross fire.