Quote:
Originally Posted by Buster
I try to avoid using anecdotal evidence, where possible. But I also try to avoid assumptions where possible.
You made the statement that most Muslims feel the same (equivalent?) outrage to the average secular westerner over such terrorist acts. I don't see evidence to support this claim. There is certainly compelling evidence to counter the claim.
The interesting data point here is the following at least to me:
This data is from 2009, Pew global Attitudes Survey. It's good data.
Do you think that 3 in 10 non-muslims in Britain would say that suicide bombings can be justified? |
I don't know, but it would hardly surprise me. It wasn't that long ago when they had one of the most active terrorist groups in the world, the IRA. A bunch of white Christians. Things the IRA supporting areas had in common with the "radical muslims" of the west: high poverty rates, high unemployment rates, brutal treatment by the police force, lack of civil rights, general feeling of disempowerment...
It's important to note that the Muslim youth in the West have really only started to turn into terrorists AFTER the WTC strikes (which were done mostly by Saudi Arabians). This is when the West went insane over the Muslim threat and started their new "crusade against Islam" (as it's often described in Muslim countries). And started attacking pretty much anyone except Saudi Arabia.
After the WTC strikes the civil rights of Muslims have in many countries been ripped part and the already difficult situation of Muslim youth born into poverty has turned rather hopeless. Especially young Muslim men are having extreme difficulties getting jobs and apartments due to mistrust and flat out racism. Add to that numerous civil rights violations such as groundless arrests, travel restrictions, invasions of privacy by government agencies, house raid by the police etc, all resulting from terrorism investigations. Add to that the constant fear incited by growing nationalist / far right groups, and you have all the basic ingredients of radicalization. Which are pretty much the exact same ingredients as they were in Northern Ireland.
Distrust and fear of the local authority, social isolation based on religion, poverty, unemployment and general feeling of disempowerment and hopelessness. That's what creates radicals. Religion is just one ingredient, the actual teachings of the religion don't really matter and in fact religion can be completely replaced with political affiliation. (As shown by groups such as the Red Army Faction.)
Religion does enter into the equation, is it also did in Northern Ireland, but it has pretty much nothing to do with what any of the religions teach. (In fact when captured Islamic terrorists have been interrogated, it has been noted that they generally know almost nothing of the teachings of Islam.)
Many especially in the US fail to realize that there have been plenty of Muslims in Europe for centuries. While there obviously have been plenty of religious warfare between Christians and Muslims, it's really nothing special compared to the wars among Christian rulers. Immigrant muslims were not seriously considered a threat to public safety before the WTC strike, but their treatment after the attacks has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
People also tend to forget that Al-Qaeda was not nearly as "Islamist" as it's often portrayed in Western media. For example Osama Bin-Ladens "Letter to America" after the WTC strike listed
very clearly defined (and frankly not totally unreasonable) political goals as the reasons for the strike. AFAIK their political goals are still pretty much the same: they primarily want to drive the Western occupation forces out of the Muslim countries and overthrow oppressive Western backed governments (including Israel).
ISIS on the other hand is really it's own sick beast. As many by now know, even the Al-Qaeda consider them attrocious and have been fighting mostly against them.
As for the graph, you're reading such weird things from it. That graphy pretty clearly shows that where you live correlates much more with your attitude towards suicide bombings than your religion.
Btw, ISIS as a "nation" has suffered a long string of defeats and is essentially facing total defeat. This has mostly been achieved by various local forces (many of them Muslim), supported by US and Russian air forces. There's really not that much more to be done on that part, unless the West wants to start seriously arming one of the fighting groups over there.
As for these kinds of terrorist attacks done by Western born Muslims, I will come back to this point: they started to happen only after we started fearmongering and treating the local Muslims as the enemy and the police started taking away their rights. To me this is a pretty big hint as to what we could do to stop them from happening again.