True that one does not need to go to Alaska to know it is cold. But it sure does help if one has experienced absence of heat to know what cold feels like.
I just find this debate lacking perspective.
Before I start, I want to say that I really do not like islamist extremists (as in hate them), and I have several issues with aspects within the religion of islam. I also feel that the secular or moderate muslims need to be more outspoken against their extremist counterparts. As for why they are not, I don’t know. I do not buy into the “silent acceptance” argument. That said, I will never judge a person simply for being a muslim. A persons actions are what matters.
Let’s take one quote from this thread, and use it as a baseline for what I mean lacking perspective:
The ones in other countries shooting each other to death at raves/weddings are really not my concern. What I am concerned about are the “immigrants” in W Europe and even here in the US that gang rape young girls and run sex slave rings.
Are these acts directly attributed to these people being muslim? I am 99.9% certain these actions are not attributed to these people being muslim. They are, however, attributed to the background of these people; cultural upbringing, values taught, gender roles in society and so forth. There are often vast differences between these traditional aspects of their life, and values taught through the study of Islam.
We are seeing some of the same issues here, with immigrants acting with little respect for our way of life, and our values. People who have said in interviews in newspapers that they feel norwegian girls deserve to get raped when they dress a certain way. But that has nothing to do with them being muslim, it has to do with them coming from a country with messed up values and little regard for other people. They have grown up in a society where the norm is to take what you want, dog-eat-dog. If you are weak, you do not survive.
The problem is that many in our society does not want to address this, for fear of being racist. I usually tell these people that the color of their skin has no bearing on this subject, their background does. Many immigrants or refugees are severly traumatized, and it is hard for them to integrate into a western, democratic, free society. For many the transition is too much, and they cannot handle the freedom in a normal manner or become a productive member of society. They opt for a different path. Many who are not granted asylum turn to crime in order to stay; one recent example was an african immigrant who stabbed and killed 3 random people on a bus a few weeks ago. His application for asylum had been denied, and he was supposed to sent out of the country the next day. He was muslim, but that was not the reason behind the killings; the reason was that he was severely traumatized from an upbringing in a war/conflict torn country, and had serious issues. When his application was denied, he did what he knew, and resorted to violence to achieve his goal.
Should we take pity in him for that? I don’t think so, I believe we shouldn’t let these kinds of people in, without certain measures in place to ensure that they won’t do stuff like this. Ideally we could screen people better, so that we only accept people who are not a possible risk to their communitites.
Another example of the naivety we see among the left here in Norway, is a story of two TV personalities who had two african immigrants break into their home. They were stripped naked, bound, and the burglars threatened to kill them. Everything was stolen. They said that after the initial shock, and after having given it some thought, they came to the realization that they deserved to be robbed. That Norway’s immigration policy was too strict, and that we failed with our integration efforts. “White mans guilt”.
We are also seeing an increasing trend of young muslim extremist males leaving for Syria (in particular) and other places of conflict (Somalia) in order to fight.
We also had a government for the last 8 years that, IMO, went out of their way to appease other cultures and religions (read as trying not to offend them). One example is a school district bannng the use of Santa hats for the school christmas party a few years back. The reason? They were afraid that it would appear that they were inconsiderate of other cultures and beliefs. It still happens as well, forgoing traditional celebrations in the name of integration.
I have been to three islamic countries, but only two over time; Kosovo and Afghanistan. The last country I’ve been to is Azerbaijan. There are vast differences between Afghanistan, and the two others, in terms of how religion affects day to day life. Kosovo is what I refer to as muslim light; they don’t eat pork and that is about it. In Azerbaijan I went to a bar and drank whiskey, and there were girls there, without any religious garb/attire. To ignore the fact that there are actual differences between the muslim countries, and how much of an influence islam has on day to day life, is intellectually dishonest (not referring to you).
Yes there are countries that are very strict, like Saudi-Arabia. There are also muslim countries across the entire spectrum, between the strict Saudi and the “liberal” Kosovo.
In closing, Id’ like to adress yet another statement here that also is off the mark:
Most Muslims aren’t terrorists.
But most terrorists are Muslims.
Remember that the person who commited the worst “lone gunman” act of terrorism throughout history is white, Norwegian and is named Anders Behring Breivik. He is a right wing extremist.
Yes, there are many terrorist attacks carried out throughout the world by muslim extremists. The majority, however, are directed at other muslims or muslim governments. Right wing and left wing attacks also fail to get the same amount of attention that muslim terrorism does. The last attacks by muslim terrorists against western countries are tha Boston bombings and the killing of the UK serviceman.
not a bigot either