Five questions non-Muslims would like answered

I've just spent a few unproductive hours today trying to have reasonable conversations in the right-wing bloggyspear. I'm worn out on this shit. (I was trying to establish a baseline where nobody would call anyone else unpatriotic or treasonous, but it wasn't working.) I don't know who Dennis Prager is, but he sounds like a dick.

"Dear Muslims, it seems to me that your religion is intrinsically evil. Please prove that I am wrong."

http://media.salemwebnetwork.com/SWN/WNTP-AM/LocalImages/Personalities/Dennis%20Prager.200.tn.jpg

and as if there were Christian-based terror groups around the world

But apparently Dennis Prager is the voice of the other 5 million.

DAER Mr. PRAGER (If that is your name),

The CIA?

"I have muslim friends."

(x-post)

see, i think this threw the thread off course from the get go, because it simply isn't true - the media portrayal seems, in fact, almost 180 degrees the opposite of this. but i would like answers to his questions too, even if they are of the 'we are doing this, you are not paying attention, and actually christians are just as bad, etc' variety (and i am not saying these replies would be any less valid).

as an irish catholic (nominally) i wouldn't appreciate being asked to answer for the actions of the IRA or other such groups- i don't see myself as representing any of their beliefs, and vice-versa.

what i'm trying to say is why should ordinary muslims have any more opinion (or indeed one that is any more valid) than anyone else? leave them out of it.

There is no way to answer a question like "why are you so quiet?". A response such as "we [assuming that there is a hypothetical 'we' that could respond, which there isn't] aren't being quiet, we're doing ______ about it" can be countered with "well, I haven't heard about that stuff ... it's still too quiet for me" and voila, Prager has constructed an irrefutable point for himself by hiding behind his own fuzzy logic.

Only #3 and #5 can even be answered in theory, IMO.

Why does the epithet 'Crusader' have such currency in the Middle East, designating the hated, imperialist Nazarenes but it is conveniently forgetten that up until 1689, Muslim armies were constantly harassing Christian states from the Byzantine Empire, Egypt and parts of North Africa to Spain to France and to Austria? Isn't there just a tad bit of self-serving selective memory going on here?

The real idiotic thing here is that these sorts of questions are their own answer -- it's precisely because of bullshit like this, which lumps "Muslims" together as some sort of hiveminded entity and then asks them questions. And as a result, the idiotic questions here don't allow themselves to take into account any of the answers that come from beyond some fucked-up notion of Muslim responsibility for the actions of all Muslims (coming from a guy whose government can try and pass responsibility for e.g. Abu Ghraib to just the people who did it!). He sets up a bullshit parallel about torture, asking Muslims to apologize for people they didn't elect or ask for on the same terms Americans might apologize for their elected government. He asks, really gallingly, why Muslim countries aren't "free countries" -- he asks this of the people who aren't free! Like they have to answer for their lack of freedom! And even more bizarrely erases the fact that Christians in the west have propped up and encouraged that lack of freedom! He asks why atrocities are committed and threatened by Muslims in the name of Islam -- would he ask, similarly, why atrocities are committed in Africa in the name of freedom, or in South America in the name of freedom?

There are questions here that are worth thinking about, god yes, but this is the most idiotic way of asking them -- a way of asking them that actively works against the possibility of getting dialogue or answers. This is baiting and generalization and a weird form of, well, "religionism," essentially -- asking a ridiculous number of people within a ridiculous number of beliefs and cultures to account for issues that have nothing whatsoever to do with them. And everyone would see that much more easily if he'd pointed the questions somewhere else, say: "Why are Africans so quiet? Why were none of the killers in Rwanda white? Why are African nations so poor, and why do they have such shitty governments? Why so many massacres and genocides over there?"

In the end the question boils down to one question, which is something like:

Q: "Hey Muslim world, why do you have such complicated and dramatic and kinda fucked-up politics? Is it because Islam is evil?"
A: "Well no, I mean I guess it's kinda that we have really 'strong' religion but then we also have oil wealth, which is a weird combo, and then because of the oil everyone else starts meddling up in here, playing pawns with different regimes and such, which has been a little fucky, like in Iran, and then also they created a new country some decades ago in some sensitive land, which pissed some people off and has been generally touchy. Okay, thanks, catch you later."

the media do the same with every stigmatized ethnic group - they find the worst among them, and hold them up and say, 'well what are you people doing about this guy'? how many muslims are living in the states and why should they have to answer for someone else's government?

Funny way to put that. It seems that there are folks who eagerly await the Apocalypse, and vote accordingly.

But what precisely is all this talk of "protest" asking for? What are these Muslim anti-terrorism protests meant to accomplish, exactly? In this guy's questions it seems like he's asking it for his own purposes -- i.e., "I am this close to writing all Muslims off as evil, so somebody better stand up and prove he's not." That's a ridiculous, baiting request to have. It's doubly weird because he points to one of the things that complicates that request: most of the nations he's talking about aren't "free" ones: citizens have trouble voicing opposition to their governments and their religious radicals both, in part because the two are at odds. In a lot of spots, the entities that produce that religious extremism are some of the only viable horses in the game, and so it's unsurprising that people don't feel as much call to actively tear them down; they're doing too much for them on the other end.

When was the last time you saw a major protest in a major Muslim dominated city against the idea of a religious war against non-Muslims?

Amman, Jordan. Last Thursday.

this happens quite a lot, you realize that right?

haha xposts

So what do you guys think should be done about jihadism and other radicalisms in the Muslim world? One of the main causes for terrorism. Those very people who find it so easy to bash the Christian Right and the Catholic Church are so reluctant to criticize radicalism in the Muslim world(which evidently is a far greater threat to the world). Do you think the radicalism would suddenly vanish as soon as there is a Palestine state and/or/if the US leaves the Middle East entirely?

No.

also 'jihad' has so many meanings, doesn't it mean 'righteousness' or 'self-improvement' on its most literal level?

I see various people on this thread who are reluctant to oversimplify radicalism in the Muslim world, or to imagine that the entirety of Islam might answer for its most extremist pockets, but nobody who's reluctant to criticize radicalism.

gypsy mothra: im not american. and i cant possibly understand how you could get the idea that that's my position. it's far from it.

A: Hitler was a bad man with a blonde goatee.
B: Actually Hitler had a brown mustache.
A: I can't believe you are taking Hitler's side.

Or, worse:

A: Did you hear about that carjacking on Martin Luther King Blvd?
B: Yeah, scary.
A: Well, what's Darnell from accounting going to do about that?
B: Why should he do anything?
A: Why are you defending carjacking???

agreement with mcveigh on fighting the big gov ethos?

its not all or nothing, terrorists are powerful because their views take root in popular opinions, not extreme opinions. they apply extreme solutions to them

Terry: I'm basing that on polls that were done a couple of years ago and as far as I can remember the question was about support for Bin Ladens cause, so yes that would include what you mentioned. But would you still answer yes if you were genuinly against terrorism?

Laters.

it's probably comparable, as terry suggested, to the people who support people who bomb abortion clinics.

Jihad means a 'spiritual war' but most people interpret that as meaning an inner struggle of spirit, some people take it literally as an actual war. Some christians have problems interpreting the Bible figuratively and not literally too you know.

It doesn't list the raw data, unfortunately.

it is very important to keep in mind – and perhaps hard to understand for cultural outsiders - that iranians expatriates are very suspicious of participating in organized political action outside of the regular political process.

first of all, they are from a regime that n during it’s most west-friendly period, you could charitably call “anti-democratic” (if not authoritarian, or autocratic)

secondly, they watched their broad-based cultural revolution (encompassing both the aggrieved working class and the middle-class left) get hijacked by the mullahs, who scared them into the west.

and a third thing – “sophisticated” (meaning educated and/or wealthy) iranians in the west are often rather contemptuous of iranians who remain in the middle east. while they are generally sympathetic to “the view on the arab street” (my bad, that is the “arab st” that takes in iranians and kurds and turks and afghans and pakistanis) they feel about as responsible for the actions of the muslim extremists as japanese-americans did for the actions of hirohito – they have washed their hands of them, as it were.

Dear Banana Nutriment,

Here in benighted Portland, Oregon I attended several mass rallies against the impending War in Iraq in early 2003. Not only were the majority of the attendees above the age of 30, but a large contingent were above the age of 50. I was 48 at the time. My wife was 53.

When last I spoke to my mother, who is 80 (last Friday) she expressed her regret that her duties in attending to my father, who was in quite ill health at the time and has since died, prevented her from attending such rallies. She expressed the her profound concern that the USA is becoming more and more fascist under BushCo.

Do not over-generalize about the people who are concerned about the state of the USA and its policies of power-seeking. They come from all age groups.

And even more bizarrely erases the fact that Christians in the west have propped up and encouraged that lack of freedom!

Many people like to incorrectly lump "Christians" together as some sort of hiveminded entity.

(Yes, there are all sorts of terrorists in India, but they don't have international goals, just domestic goals, it seems, excluding the Kashmir issue, which regardless is a pretty standard typical border conflict that just happen to be divided along religious lines but is not part of some broader "death to the infidel!" campaign.)

(Answer - to my own question and probably most of Prager's lame questions: because India is a representive democracy, whereas most Muslim countries are not, their governments either leaving the population feeling rootless or powerless or, most maliciously, manipulating public rage to deflect anger from those in power to the outside world.)

1. How are you this evening?
2. Who is this lovely lady on your arm?
3. How does it feel to be nominated?
4. What's next in the pipeline for you?
5. Who are you wearing?

there are muslims nominated for tomorrow's country music awards?

which is why ignorance like Dennis Prager's piece is so frustrating. And even once you get some handle on the complexity of the situations

again, this leads me to question the view of Christianity in the west. Ignorance about Christianity can be frustrating. Why are many people in the West not reluctant to oversimply it? The same could be said about any personal belief or system of thought such as people who are concerned about the state of the USA. It's bad to oversimplify them as tie-died hippies.

i think it's pretty obvious that the majority of american soldiers serving in iraq are christian

this may be true, but saying something along the lines of "Why are most Christians not protesting occupation of Iraq. They must support all the killings and difficulties that arise from it." is just as bad as Prager.

I'm not sure exactly how to put it, but looking at the situation replacing another culture's prominent religion with your own culture's prominent religion, would you responed the same way?

most christians i know do protest it.

yeah, i was gunna say...