Staleek
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Joined: 6/1/2010
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quote:
ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
quote:
ORIGINAL: Staleek
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ORIGINAL: Greta75
I wonder how the french is gonna handle this. I mean I love how this guy practically went into the home of a Police chief just to murder him.
If they have any sense at all they'll drop the anti-Islamic laws they've instituted in the past few years and start shutting down hate websites and such.
The level of oppression which has been allowed to develop in EU nations, particularly France and Belgium, is a huge part of what's going on. It's helped to drive a wedge between Muslims and other demographics as well as giving the likes of ISIS an appealing message to impressionable youngsters.
That won't be politically easy though, especially with the hard-of-thinking public who will demand Muslims face even more harsh treatment and state-sponsored suspicion. Until politics is determined by intelligence and not by simple-minded bigotry this will only continue to decline.
It is impossible to see the Islamist thread being neutralised without dialogue. If this sounds appalling to those who favour military solutions, then they ought to realise that the best and most successful response to terrorism is a political strategy that aims to separate terrorists from their support base allied with security measures to destroy the terrorists' organisation and structure. So there really is no viable alternative to talking and listening.
That does mean addressing some valid issues that Muslims may have around discrimination and marginalisation in various countries of the West. It also means that there is an onus on Muslims to adjust to the culture of the country they reside in - there are many successful multi-cultural models so it can be done. These successful models simply couldn't work without input from both sides - so we need to acknowledge and accept that the vast majority of Muslims in the West, and their community leaders are denouncing IS as loudly and effectively as they can.
You are absolutely correct to point out that a pre-requisite for all the above is political intelligence. It won't hurt to remind those who resist this imperative - the blast them back to the Stone Age armchair warriors, Islamophobes, etc - that this approach is mandated on pragmatic as well as intellectual grounds. If the West wishes to develop a winning strategy, it doesn't really have a choice but to adopt this approach. Nothing else is going to work.
I agree, almost entirely.
Whilst the Muslims I've known personally in my life have all integrated pretty well they've all been, without exception, either colleages of where I work or guys I met at universty. But their families, particularly the older generation, seemed to have a harder time of it. Conservative Islam is a pretty insular and, to be fair, regressive culture at the moment. It was actually getting much better until all of this crap started. And as Belgium and France have demonstrated laws and civil restrictions specifically targeting a particular group is counter-productive. If you oppress people most will bow their heads and accept it, but a few will always hit back with as much force as they can muster. Another factor is that you're far less likely to get help from within that community. If the local police have stopped your mother in public and pulled off her Najib (which to some would feel like an act of assault) you'd be far less sympathetic to those who called for this and less likely to, for example, offer information to the authorities if you knew about something being planned.
Terrorism is like a sore - it won't get better if you pick at it.
One thing I differ with you on though - I don't think Muslim leaders can denounce things as loudly as they can.
http://www.m-a-t.org/
http://www.freemuslims.org/issues/terrorism.php
http://time.com/4112830/muslims-paris-terror-attacks-islam-condemn/
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/24/opinion/obeidallah-muslims-hate-terrorism/index.html
http://kurzman.unc.edu/islamic-statements-against-terrorism/
http://muslimsagainstterror.com/
http://abcnews.go.com/International/photos/muslims-unite-terrorisms-35280065
A lot try, do you ever really hear about it?
The common political narrative peddled by our mostly corporate and almostly overwhelmingly conservative media will simply not allow it. If a Muslim preaches hate there will be wall to wall coverage of him on Fox "news". If a Muslim calls for peace he will be ignored. Simple racism and bigotry are major reasons why but there are a number of factors that are involved quite outside of bigotry. For a start 24 hour news networks are all about ratings and advertising space - a Muslim preaching hate has a bigger "wow" factor for the uneducated masses than a Muslim drinking tea with some community leaders, especially if you can then cut to Benghazi.
Another major factor is that a lot of people simply don't want to be given facts, they want their biases affirmed. This is a very human trait, it's not nice to be told you are wrong about something is it? So, for example, an Al-Jazeera discussion offering context and nuance (such as this) actually becomes offensive to such people. An attempt to educate is a personal attack, and who would tune in to a station that is going to attack them? So again, ratings.
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While in France, Terrorist murders Police Chief and Wif... - 
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