Stop fretting over religious sensitivities. We must push hard against Islamists

[AniThyng]

@Simon

One thing being Malaysian has thought me is that "islamophobia" is not eliminated simply by being familiar with and living in a literal secular-Islamic state like Malaysia (70% or so Sunni Muslim). Many non Muslim Malaysians have for one reason or another adopted attitudes that can be easily construed as anti Islam or "islamophobic" ( while still having Muslim friends as individuals, mind. " I have black friends " is not unique to white people...)

[Flagg]

Ray, I don't care who the author is. I don't care that me seeing right through you is causing you to have a tantrum. You can cry foul all you want.
The thread title alone is easily translated as "PC sucks, waa!"

It's not my problem that you can't tell the difference between Muslims and Islamists. The fact that you are judging everything by the title of the article alone speaks volume about you.

The title of an article says everything, idiot. And at least I hold actual positions rather than being a passive-aggressive little shit. But keep pretending, dude. Keep pretending.

[ray245]

The title of an article says everything, idiot. And at least I hold actual positions rather than being a passive-aggressive little shit. But keep pretending, dude. Keep pretending.

So you're admitting you didn't even try and read the article? The person who came up with the title is a Muslim activist. Is she being passive-aggressive as well?

[Flagg]

The title of an article says everything, idiot. And at least I hold actual positions rather than being a passive-aggressive little shit. But keep pretending, dude. Keep pretending.

So you're admitting you didn't even try and read the article? The person who came up with the title is a Muslim activist. Is she being passive-aggressive as well?

I never said the article was, I said you are. And I don't care that it's written by a Muslim.

[Flagg]

It's clear to me that Ray has as much sense of nuance as a rock, so consider this my exit from the thread.

[Simon_Jester]

Okay, but if he's going to make Malaysia-specific arguments or Singapore-specific arguments, he should say that they're specific to Malaysia or Singapore. And say that they're informed by Malaysian conditions. Because Malaysian conditions are very different from the ones that exist in the US or Europe. Rather than prattling about conditions in a country he doesn't know and how "we" for some nebulous we need to "take a stand" against a problem he doesn't comprehend.

Given that this is a UK article in a UK newspaper written by a UK activist talking about the problems in the UK, why should anyone assume we are talking about America as the main reference point?

Radical Islam is far less of a problem in the US compared to Europe, with far less Americans joining ISIS than Europeans. It is true that Americans have far less to fear from domestic Islamist terrorist than Europe. But at the same time, American politics do have a heavy influence on shaping the discourse on Islamophobia in Europe.

That then chains directly into my next question.

How many individual Muslims are we talking about here?

Hint, if 10000 Muslims "radicalize" out of a population of, say, ten million... that can add up to a lot of terrorist attacks. But it's still one in a thousand of the total population. If the other 99.9% of Muslims are NOT radicalized into becoming terrorists, that indicates that whatever strategies are being used to prevent radicalization are working. They're not working as well as we might wish them to, but they're working.

You can't just say "some Muslims in Country X become terrorists, so Country X's strategy for preventing radicalization is a failure," any more than you can say "sometimes places in Country X get struck by lightning, so Country X's strategy of using lightning rods is a failure." And you certainly can't say "the lightning rods are a failure, so we should all dress up in big suits of metal armor and stand out in the rain on top of tall mountains, yelling insults at the thunder-gods."

Stop using words like 'some' and 'too many' and start using numbers, and it may throw your arguments into much better perspective.

You want numbers? Sure. Let's take the numbers of westerners joining ISIS.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03 ... -for-isil/

USA: 150 official counts. Total population of USA is 321 million, which means roughly 0.00000004% of them are radical enough to join ISIS.

You're doing percentages wrong, but I'm not going to worry about that. What I'm going to do is compare your figures to the total Muslim population of the respective countries.

The US has roughly 3.3 million Muslims, so 150 people is about 0.005% of the Muslim population.
The UK has roughly 2.8 million Muslims, so 760 people is about 0.027% of the Muslim population.
France has roughly... anywhere between two and six million practicing Muslims, it's hard for me to find an answer, because the French government isn't allowed to gather precise statistics on the question. So 1700 people is about 0.03% and 0.09% of the Muslim population.

Wow, what a massive epidemic of radicalization. How frightening it must be, to live in a country where less than 0.1% of the population of an ethnic minority that is itself a single digit percentage of the population is violently radicalized. They must be on the brink of imposing sharia law any minute now!

Notably, France (which is worst-off here and which has the largest Muslim minority) also has a famously poorly-assimilated population of North African Muslims. People who have been discouraged from integrating into French culture and who live in slums. Gee, I wonder if that might be part of the problem? Because that doesn't sound like the kind of thing the left would have encouraged the French to do, nor does it sound like the kind of thing the UK's left wing would encourage Britain to do.

Saying the subject is complex does not grant you automatic free cover to prescribe your own non-solution 'solution' of "getting tough" as though that would somehow cut through all these complexities you so vaguely ramble about. "Getting tough" on a complicated problem rarely makes the problem better.

Is imposing more restrictions on radical Islam preachers "getting tough"? You do realise that there are many radical preachers in Europe that are effectively funded by foreign countries like Saudi Arabia and the other rich gulf states?

How are you going to tackle problems like this?

The point is that a complex problem will have a complex solution. Things that you might (or might not) call 'toughness' may well be called for in some places. Things you would might call 'softness' or 'fretting' will DEFINITELY be called for in other places.

By choosing to adopt the specific tone and stance you have on the issue, you are acting in a a certain way. A way that gives people cause to think you deny that.

While the Muslim Council of Britain perfected the art of issuing press statements, it did nothing to push back on such poisonous teachings. For 10 years, my organisation Inspire, in an attempt to build resilience to extremism in Muslim families, taught theological counter-narratives to extremist ideology. The response I heard from hundreds of Muslim mothers was the same. No one has taught us this before and no one has taught our children it either. What was apparent is that the weak “community” defence system would not be able to hold back the tidal wave of extremist propaganda.

Is supporting organisation that tries to teach a theological counter-narrative "getting tough"?

I would argue that it is not- but failing to support such an organization is not "fretting over religious sensitivities," it is simply stupidity.

I can accept that this may just be an article with an incredibly unfortunate title, which you chose to copy verbatim because, um... you like being the focus of controversy?

[ray245]

I never said the article was, I said you are. And I don't care that it's written by a Muslim.

Even if I really was true( and I dispute that), you've yet to show any willingness to talk about the actual article. Instead, your issue is with me posting a seemingly controversial topic title.

You're doing percentages wrong, but I'm not going to worry about that. What I'm going to do is compare your figures to the total Muslim population of the respective countries.

The US has roughly 3.3 million Muslims, so 150 people is about 0.005% of the Muslim population.
The UK has roughly 2.8 million Muslims, so 760 people is about 0.027% of the Muslim population.
France has roughly... anywhere between two and six million practicing Muslims, it's hard for me to find an answer, because the French government isn't allowed to gather precise statistics on the question. So 1700 people is about 0.03% and 0.09% of the Muslim population.

Wow, what a massive epidemic of radicalization. How frightening it must be, to live in a country where less than 0.1% of the population of an ethnic minority that is itself a single digit percentage of the population is violently radicalized. They must be on the brink of imposing sharia law any minute now!

Notably, France (which is worst-off here and which has the largest Muslim minority) also has a famously poorly-assimilated population of North African Muslims. People who have been discouraged from integrating into French culture and who live in slums. Gee, I wonder if that might be part of the problem? Because that doesn't sound like the kind of thing the left would have encouraged the French to do, nor does it sound like the kind of thing the UK's left wing would encourage Britain to do.

Who said anything about implementing sharia law? I'm aware that the number of people who actually joined ISIS is a tiny number of Muslim populations in the West. My point was to make it clear that not every European nation are similar to the circumstances in the US.

The point is that a complex problem will have a complex solution. Things that you might (or might not) call 'toughness' may well be called for in some places. Things you would might call 'softness' or 'fretting' will DEFINITELY be called for in other places.

By choosing to adopt the specific tone and stance you have on the issue, you are acting in a a certain way. A way that gives people cause to think you deny that.

My point was never about completely rejecting the current approach. I've never said it's wrong for people to point out the vast majority of Muslims in the West aren't radicalized. I'm of the view that there needs to be more direct engagement against Salafists and Islamists in public discourse. I'm arguing that there needs to be a way of distinguishing the difference between Muslims and extremists like the Salafists/Islamists by more people on the Left.

I would argue that it is not- but failing to support such an organization is not "fretting over religious sensitivities," it is simply stupidity.

I can accept that this may just be an article with an incredibly unfortunate title, which you chose to copy verbatim because, um... you like being the focus of controversy?

Read the article. Sara Khan's point is there seems to be an element of confusion, especially by the media in not being willing to engage and critique known Islamist preachers. She's talking about the UK media giving free airtime to a known supporter of Sayyid Qutb and asking him how to tackle Islamic extremism because "fretting over religious sensitivities" result in people being unable to tell apart the difference between a Muslim and an Islamists.

What I am commenting further upon is my view that the confusion between Muslims and Islamists is helping to fuel Islamophobia. Islamists tends to dominate the public perception and discourse in the West. So it seems that many people think that all Muslims are effectively Islamists, when this isn't necessarily true.

Is her title very click-bait-ish? Yeah, but her argument is actually very nuanced. You can blame me for doing a horrible job representing her position, but you should at the least read the article in full as opposed to relying on me to quote and highlight every little paragraph. She is basically saying we need to be able to critique and confront the Muslim version of Westboro church.

[Simon_Jester]

You're doing percentages wrong, but I'm not going to worry about that. What I'm going to do is compare your figures to the total Muslim population of the respective countries.

The US has roughly 3.3 million Muslims, so 150 people is about 0.005% of the Muslim population.
The UK has roughly 2.8 million Muslims, so 760 people is about 0.027% of the Muslim population.
France has roughly... anywhere between two and six million practicing Muslims, it's hard for me to find an answer, because the French government isn't allowed to gather precise statistics on the question. So 1700 people is about 0.03% and 0.09% of the Muslim population.

Wow, what a massive epidemic of radicalization. How frightening it must be, to live in a country where less than 0.1% of the population of an ethnic minority that is itself a single digit percentage of the population is violently radicalized. They must be on the brink of imposing sharia law any minute now!

Notably, France (which is worst-off here and which has the largest Muslim minority) also has a famously poorly-assimilated population of North African Muslims. People who have been discouraged from integrating into French culture and who live in slums. Gee, I wonder if that might be part of the problem? Because that doesn't sound like the kind of thing the left would have encouraged the French to do, nor does it sound like the kind of thing the UK's left wing would encourage Britain to do.

Who said anything about implementing sharia law? I'm aware that the number of people who actually joined ISIS is a tiny number of Muslim populations in the West. My point was to make it clear that not every European nation are similar to the circumstances in the US.

Then your point is an irrelevant piece of trivia.

The worst possible case for France is that 0.1% of their practicing Muslim population went off to join ISIL. Not their total population, their Muslim population, specifically, which is itself much less than 10% of their population.

So when we actually use numbers on this, even in worst case scenarios where we go out of our way to assume the statistics lead to the worst plausible conclusion... It's not an 'epidemic' or any of the words some people like to use. If we use more reasonable statistical approaches, things look even less bad.

If literally your entire point in saying what you've been saying is "France and Britain are not the US, they have more of a problem with radical Islam..." Well, you're right. Instead of having ONE Muslim out of every twenty thousand members of their Muslim population become violently radicalized, they have SIX Muslims out of every twenty thousand become violently radicalized. Gasp. Shock. Horror.

The important thing there is not comparing 'one' and 'six.' It is the 'out of every twenty thousand' part.

Whatever Britain and France are doing to prevent radicalization, even if it is only "be nations with a First World economy," it's working. It could maybe be working better, but it's working.

---

*Statistical note: basically, there are between two and six million Muslims in France. Which makes up between, oh, three and nine percent of the population. But it's the "two million practicing Muslims" number that gives us a scary high figure for the number of French Muslims that joined ISIL, and correspondingly that makes practicing Muslims about 3% of all people in France.

The high-end estimates of six million (which include many Muslims that are not highly observant of the religion) give us a figure more like 10% of the French population... but correspondingly, they lower the rate at which French Muslims became radicalized, down to a number closer to that of the UK- around 0.03%.

The high end estimates are frankly more comparable to those of other countries, since they include all Muslims and not just the most conservative and religious ones.

The point is that a complex problem will have a complex solution. Things that you might (or might not) call 'toughness' may well be called for in some places. Things you would might call 'softness' or 'fretting' will DEFINITELY be called for in other places.

By choosing to adopt the specific tone and stance you have on the issue, you are acting in a a certain way. A way that gives people cause to think you deny that.

My point was never about completely rejecting the current approach. I've never said it's wrong for people to point out the vast majority of Muslims in the West aren't radicalized. I'm of the view that there needs to be more direct engagement against Salafists and Islamists in public discourse. I'm arguing that there needs to be a way of distinguishing the difference between Muslims and extremists like the Salafists/Islamists by more people on the Left.

And yet, you chose the most trollish possible way of opening this debate and introducing your point.

What was your motive in doing so?

Do you literally have the self-awareness of a rock? Are you incapable of comprehending the effect your words have on others?

If so, perhaps you should lay off this topic, and leave it for other people who know how to communicate with other humans.

---

Read the article. Sara Khan's point is there seems to be an element of confusion, especially by the media in not being willing to engage and critique known Islamist preachers. She's talking about the UK media giving free airtime to a known supporter of Sayyid Qutb and asking him how to tackle Islamic extremism because "fretting over religious sensitivities" result in people being unable to tell apart the difference between a Muslim and an Islamists.

What I am commenting further upon is my view that the confusion between Muslims and Islamists is helping to fuel Islamophobia. Islamists tends to dominate the public perception and discourse in the West. So it seems that many people think that all Muslims are effectively Islamists, when this isn't necessarily true.

Is her title very click-bait-ish? Yeah, but her argument is actually very nuanced. You can blame me for doing a horrible job representing her position, but you should at the least read the article in full as opposed to relying on me to quote and highlight every little paragraph. She is basically saying we need to be able to critique and confront the Muslim version of Westboro church.

I would like to explain something to you, personally, first.

There is a category of argument I've heard described as "motte and bailey" debating. It's named for a type of castle common in medieval England. As a debate tactic, it is a form of the "bait and switch" fallacy, and it is named for the following reason:

Suppose you have a large area of desirable land that you want to defend against raiders. You can't build a big fortress around the whole area, but you CAN build a log fence around it and dig a ditch. This is the 'bailey.' Then, in the middle of the fenced-in area, you build a small fort called the "motte," which is difficult to attack and well defended, like a small castle- but much cheaper than an ordinary castle.

Now, you spend most of your time benefiting from your possession of the bailey. But if you are attacked by a force that can break through your fence and capture the bailey, you retreat to the cover of the motte. The motte is hard to attack and easy to defend, and allows you to rain down arrows on the attacker until they get discouraged, leave the bailey, and go away.

For some examples of how this works in actual debating practice:

The religious group that acts for all the world like God is a supernatural creator who builds universes, creates people out of other people’s ribs, parts seas, and heals the sick when asked very nicely (bailey). Then when atheists come around and say maybe there’s no God, the religious group objects “But God is just another name for the beauty and order in the Universe! You’re not denying that there’s beauty and order in the Universe, are you?” (motte). Then when the atheists go away, they get back to making people out of other people’s ribs and stuff.

Or…”If you don’t accept Jesus, you will burn in Hell forever.” (bailey) But isn’t that horrible and inhuman? “Well, Hell is just another word for being without God, and if you choose to be without God, God will be nice and let you make that choice.” (motte) Oh, well that doesn’t sound so bad, I’m going to keep rejecting Jesus. “But if you reject Jesus, you will BURN in HELL FOREVER and your body will be GNAWED BY WORMS.” But didn’t you just… “Metaphorical worms of godlessness!” ...

...Proponents of pseudoscience sometimes argue that their particular form of quackery will cure cancer or take away your pains or heal your crippling injuries (bailey). When confronted with evidence that it doesn’t work, they might argue that people need hope, and even a placebo solution will often relieve stress and help people feel cared for (motte). In fact, some have argued that quackery may be better than real medicine for certain untreatable diseases, because neither real nor fake medicine will help, but fake medicine tends to be more calming and has fewer side effects. But then once you leave the quacks in peace, they will go back to telling less knowledgeable patients that their treatments will cure cancer.

Now, Ray245, the part I'm saying to you personally is that what you just did looked a LOT like a common class of motte-and-bailey argument used by the right. This is why people reacted negatively.

The bailey here is "Muslims are lousy, we need to stop being oversensitive about them, there's an epidemic of out-of-control radical Muslim groups." The motte is "but I'm only talking about the radicals!"

Unfortunately, the extremely provocative title of the article, combined with some of your specific comments, PLUS your dismissal of specific examples of 'liberal Islam' in action...

This added up to create the impression that this was what you were trying to do. That you were making a (failed) attempt to generate agreement for the 'bailey' argument of "Muslims are lousy, Western society as a whole should yell at Muslims more." And when challenged, you seemed as if you were falling back into a highly defensible 'motte' of "extremist Muslims are lousy, regular Muslims and non-Muslims need to learn how to pick them out of the Muslim mass and defend against them better."

Maybe that wasn't your intention all along- but next time, don't pick a thread title calculated to push buttons.

[Shroom Man 777]

IDK about what ray's on about but this thread DID have a lot of posts that touched on the reasons why the non-conservative, more-or-less progressive elements of society are having a hard time articulating critique of Islamism.

[Simon_Jester]

This is true.

[ray245]

Then your point is an irrelevant piece of trivia.

The worst possible case for France is that 0.1% of their practicing Muslim population went off to join ISIL. Not their total population, their Muslim population, specifically, which is itself much less than 10% of their population.

So when we actually use numbers on this, even in worst case scenarios where we go out of our way to assume the statistics lead to the worst plausible conclusion... It's not an 'epidemic' or any of the words some people like to use. If we use more reasonable statistical approaches, things look even less bad.

If literally your entire point in saying what you've been saying is "France and Britain are not the US, they have more of a problem with radical Islam..." Well, you're right. Instead of having ONE Muslim out of every twenty thousand members of their Muslim population become violently radicalized, they have SIX Muslims out of every twenty thousand become violently radicalized. Gasp. Shock. Horror.

The important thing there is not comparing 'one' and 'six.' It is the 'out of every twenty thousand' part.

Whatever Britain and France are doing to prevent radicalization, even if it is only "be nations with a First World economy," it's working. It could maybe be working better, but it's working.

---

*Statistical note: basically, there are between two and six million Muslims in France. Which makes up between, oh, three and nine percent of the population. But it's the "two million practicing Muslims" number that gives us a scary high figure for the number of French Muslims that joined ISIL, and correspondingly that makes practicing Muslims about 3% of all people in France.

The high-end estimates of six million (which include many Muslims that are not highly observant of the religion) give us a figure more like 10% of the French population... but correspondingly, they lower the rate at which French Muslims became radicalized, down to a number closer to that of the UK- around 0.03%.

The high end estimates are frankly more comparable to those of other countries, since they include all Muslims and not just the most conservative and religious ones.

Look at my earlier point if you have problems understanding why I even brought it up was because people are using the US as a default template. The US with its own self-selective migration policy that generally tends to favour those in the middle-class and above. The demographics of Muslims in the US cannot be easily compared to the demographics in Europe.

Second, I've also pointed out in my earlier posts that this is about the perception of Muslims and Islamists that fuelled Islamophobia. The perception that it's 4-5 times more likely for a Muslim in Europe to become radicalised compared to a Muslim in the US is a frightening thing for many people( regardless of whether they have any logical reasons for doing so.)

And yet, you chose the most trollish possible way of opening this debate and introducing your point.

What was your motive in doing so?

How exactly is it trollish? It will be trollish only if I deliberately talked about Muslims as a whole as opposed to Islamists. It's not my problem that people assume are confused over the difference between Muslims and Islamists.

This is a forum founded on the mockery of stupid people, with a history of mocking Christian fundamentalists. Why is saying things like we need to push hard against Muslim fundamentalists considered trolling?

Do you literally have the self-awareness of a rock? Are you incapable of comprehending the effect your words have on others?

If so, perhaps you should lay off this topic, and leave it for other people who know how to communicate with other humans.

Perhaps I'm not being effective my communicating currently. But, I think the reason people felt so triggered in this thread is due to people's lack of understanding between over words like "Islamists".

Even a simple Google would have given you the meaning of the word: "an advocate or supporter of Islamic militancy or fundamentalism." And somehow I'm a horrible person for agreeing with the view that we need to push hard against Islamists.

I would like to explain something to you, personally, first.

There is a category of argument I've heard described as "motte and bailey" debating. It's named for a type of castle common in medieval England. As a debate tactic, it is a form of the "bait and switch" fallacy, and it is named for the following reason:

Suppose you have a large area of desirable land that you want to defend against raiders. You can't build a big fortress around the whole area, but you CAN build a log fence around it and dig a ditch. This is the 'bailey.' Then, in the middle of the fenced-in area, you build a small fort called the "motte," which is difficult to attack and well defended, like a small castle- but much cheaper than an ordinary castle.

Now, you spend most of your time benefiting from your possession of the bailey. But if you are attacked by a force that can break through your fence and capture the bailey, you retreat to the cover of the motte. The motte is hard to attack and easy to defend, and allows you to rain down arrows on the attacker until they get discouraged, leave the bailey, and go away.

For some examples of how this works in actual debating practice:

I'm aware of what is a motte and bailey, thank you very much.

Now, Ray245, the part I'm saying to you personally is that what you just did looked a LOT like a common class of motte-and-bailey argument used by the right. This is why people reacted negatively.

The bailey here is "Muslims are lousy, we need to stop being oversensitive about them, there's an epidemic of out-of-control radical Muslim groups." The motte is "but I'm only talking about the radicals!"

Except the thread title explicitly refers to Islamists, NOT Muslims. This is what gets on my nerves. My argument and Sara Khan's argument is that Islamists are getting a disproportionately influential voice because we are too sensitive to understand the difference.

Find me the quote in which I ever said Muslims is lousy. I said we need to be less sensitive towards Islamic fundamentalists. That's a big fucking difference.

Unfortunately, the extremely provocative title of the article, combined with some of your specific comments, PLUS your dismissal of specific examples of 'liberal Islam' in action...

No. Read my post. My issue is not that they are wrong to create more liberal mosque and have female imams. My issue is I am extremely skeptical that this is somehow a real pushback against Islamists and Salafists. The liberalisation of religion ( especially Christianity) in the West did not occur simply because there was a gay bishop in the 60s. I'm skeptical that the notion of a liberal mosque will be the catalyst of major change within Islam.

Would the thread be less provocative if I spell out what Islamists means?

This added up to create the impression that this was what you were trying to do. That you were making a (failed) attempt to generate agreement for the 'bailey' argument of "Muslims are lousy, Western society as a whole should yell at Muslims more." And when challenged, you seemed as if you were falling back into a highly defensible 'motte' of "extremist Muslims are lousy, regular Muslims and non-Muslims need to learn how to pick them out of the Muslim mass and defend against them better."

Maybe that wasn't your intention all along- but next time, don't pick a thread title calculated to push buttons.

I'm saying western society should challenge Islamists ( or Islamic fundamentalists) the same way western society mocks Christian fundamentalists groups like Westboro church. Without being willing to call out Islamists for their beliefs as being actively harmful to any society, you end up with people like you Simon and Flagg that seems confused about the difference between Muslims and Islamists.

The very fact that you seems confused over the two different terms is why I think the current approach is not working. When liberals/left is confused over the difference between Islamists and Muslims, what makes you think those on the right are any better in making the difference between the two?

I said in an earlier post that Islamophobia is fuelled by the very poor understanding of Islam in the West. One would assume that after 15 years of fighting against Islamists, people in the West would get a better understanding of some basic terminology.

IDK about what ray's on about but this thread DID have a lot of posts that touched on the reasons why the non-conservative, more-or-less progressive elements of society are having a hard time articulating critique of Islamism.

And the thread was pretty much derailed by Flagg( that seems to admit he didn't read the article) and Dragon.

[ray245]

Jonathan Pie (yes, I know his show is satirical) is able, to sum up my point in a much more coherent fashion.

[Dragon Angel]

And the thread was pretty much derailed by Flagg( that seems to admit he didn't read the article) and Dragon.

lol, I was just going to continue watching but since you mentioned me I'd just like to say you are literally everywhere, dude. I have no confidence you have an idea of what contexts you are speaking in, and given your conversations here I don't believe having a conversation with you would be at all productive. It's hard for me to derail a thread where you cause the event it gets derailed by. "I'm sorry, but this train was derailed because it allowed me to drive ludicrously fast beyond the speed limit! It's all the accelerator's fault!"

[ray245]

And the thread was pretty much derailed by Flagg( that seems to admit he didn't read the article) and Dragon.

lol, I was just going to continue watching but since you mentioned me I'd just like to say you are literally everywhere, dude. I have no confidence you have an idea of what contexts you are speaking in, and given your conversations here I don't believe having a conversation with you would be at all productive. It's hard for me to derail a thread where you cause the event it gets derailed by. "I'm sorry, but this train was derailed because it allowed me to drive ludicrously fast beyond the speed limit! It's all the accelerator's fault!"

I'm not the one confusing Muslims with Islamists.

[Flagg]

And the thread was pretty much derailed by Flagg( that seems to admit he didn't read the article) and Dragon.

lol, I was just going to continue watching but since you mentioned me I'd just like to say you are literally everywhere, dude. I have no confidence you have an idea of what contexts you are speaking in, and given your conversations here I don't believe having a conversation with you would be at all productive. It's hard for me to derail a thread where you cause the event it gets derailed by. "I'm sorry, but this train was derailed because it allowed me to drive ludicrously fast beyond the speed limit! It's all the accelerator's fault!"

I actually conceded and left the thread yet he keeps bringing my name up. He's just trolling trying to get people to argue against his Islamaphobe bullshit at this point.

[Bernkastel]

Ray, you do realise Islamist is also a term that gets used by the Islamaphobe crowd as a way of pretending they aren't talking about all muslims, right? Because they are just talking about the bad muslims, those dirty islamists, not all muslims. Of course, Islamaphobes tend to see Islamism as being a core part of Islam, so a Muslim and a Islamist are basically the same thing to them.

Also, as a British person, I'd say a big problem is not that of being soft on radical preachers, but of convincing Muslims that they aren't all viewed as being a short distance away from becoming Islamist terrorists and will suddenly one day murder a bunch of people. Admittedly, a lot of British anti-terror policy does take that form, so that would need to be changed first. That's why "not all muslims", at least in regards to Britain, does get repeated. Anti-Terror policy as a response to that could be summed up as "Yeah, but we'll just be safer if we do act as though all muslims are potential terrorists/recruits".

[Shroom Man 777]

That's why "not all muslims", at least in regards to Britain, does get repeated. Anti-Terror policy as a response to that could be summed up as "Yeah, but we'll just be safer if we do act as though all muslims are potential terrorists/recruits".

Even Shrub paid lip service to that.

Like I said, the reluctance of the progressives - or at least people more liberal than Genghis Khan - probably stems from some vague recognition and acknowledgement of in-group/out-group dynamics, power dynamics, separation-marginalization/normalization-assimilation dynamics, etc. Even if the actual articulation isn't there yet, even if the internalization isn't in a good enough degree.

[Flagg]

That's why "not all muslims", at least in regards to Britain, does get repeated. Anti-Terror policy as a response to that could be summed up as "Yeah, but we'll just be safer if we do act as though all muslims are potential terrorists/recruits".

Even Shrub paid lip service to that.

Not to summon a lightning bolt and cause hell to freeze over but Bush 2 was really outspoken about not stigmatizing all Muslims as terrorists. In fact I don't recall nearly the same level of outright public hatred and vitriol against them (barring the few months after 9/11) until he left office. It was kind of a Nixon in China thing since Obama had no credibility on that front with the wingnuts.

[AniThyng]

That's why "not all muslims", at least in regards to Britain, does get repeated. Anti-Terror policy as a response to that could be summed up as "Yeah, but we'll just be safer if we do act as though all muslims are potential terrorists/recruits".

Even Shrub paid lip service to that.

Like I said, the reluctance of the progressives - or at least people more liberal than Genghis Khan - probably stems from some vague recognition and acknowledgement of in-group/out-group dynamics, power dynamics, separation-marginalization/normalization-assimilation dynamics, etc. Even if the actual articulation isn't there yet, even if the internalization isn't in a good enough degree.

I wonder shroom if you've ever noticed Malaysian Muslim politicians subtly hinting that we should stop criticizing Islam lest it cause people to...act out...

Nice harmony we've got here, would be a shame if we had to... prevent... provocation.

[Flagg]

That's why "not all muslims", at least in regards to Britain, does get repeated. Anti-Terror policy as a response to that could be summed up as "Yeah, but we'll just be safer if we do act as though all muslims are potential terrorists/recruits".

Even Shrub paid lip service to that.

Like I said, the reluctance of the progressives - or at least people more liberal than Genghis Khan - probably stems from some vague recognition and acknowledgement of in-group/out-group dynamics, power dynamics, separation-marginalization/normalization-assimilation dynamics, etc. Even if the actual articulation isn't there yet, even if the internalization isn't in a good enough degree.

I wonder shroom if you've ever noticed Malaysian Muslim politicians subtly hinting that we should stop criticizing Islam lest it cause people to...act out...

Nice harmony we've got here, would be a shame if we had to... prevent... provocation.

See here's the issue. Any theocratic state will tend to do that. It's not just Muslims.

[ray245]

I actually conceded and left the thread yet he keeps bringing my name up. He's just trolling trying to get people to argue against his Islamaphobe bullshit at this point.

Since when did you even conceded? You just pretty much said I'm too stupid to worth your time. I mentioned you because you are the one that pretty much responsible for the confusion Simon have. You're the one flame-baiting me.

Ray, you do realise Islamist is also a term that gets used by the Islamaphobe crowd as a way of pretending they aren't talking about all muslims, right? Because they are just talking about the bad muslims, those dirty islamists, not all muslims. Of course, Islamaphobes tend to see Islamism as being a core part of Islam, so a Muslim and a Islamist are basically the same thing to them.

I know. Which is precisely why I am arguing that Islamophobes are exploiting the confusion many non-Muslims have in their rhetoric. In addition, the fact that the author of the article is highly unlikely to be an Islamophobe should make it quite clear to everyone in this thread.

If a Muslim activist is prohibited from using the term Islamists because the Islamaphobe crowd is abusing that terminology, then we really aren't doing much to tackle Islamophobia.

Also, as a British person, I'd say a big problem is not that of being soft on radical preachers, but of convincing Muslims that they aren't all viewed as being a short distance away from becoming Islamist terrorists and will suddenly one day murder a bunch of people. Admittedly, a lot of British anti-terror policy does take that form, so that would need to be changed first. That's why "not all muslims", at least in regards to Britain, does get repeated. Anti-Terror policy as a response to that could be summed up as "Yeah, but we'll just be safer if we do act as though all muslims are potential terrorists/recruits".

Hence the need to drive home the distinction between Islamists and Muslims. I'm saying it's the lack of understanding by the general public in the West about Islam that allows Islamophobes and Islamists to dominate the cultural war.

I think most people outside of America are pretty clear that churches like the Westboro church aren't representative of the average Christian in America. The reason why this message is clearly understood by so many non-Americans is that Americans themselves do not shy away from criticizing and mocking the WBC out of fear of offending them.

[Flagg]

It's clear to me that Ray has as much sense of nuance as a rock, so consider this my exit from the thread.

And I would still be out of the thread but you keep namedropping me. But it's cool, I reported you.

[ray245]

It's clear to me that Ray has as much sense of nuance as a rock, so consider this my exit from the thread.

And I would still be out of the thread but you keep namedropping me. But it's cool, I reported you.

All I did was to say why I think the thread got derailed in response to Shroom.

[AniThyng]

Even Shrub paid lip service to that.

Like I said, the reluctance of the progressives - or at least people more liberal than Genghis Khan - probably stems from some vague recognition and acknowledgement of in-group/out-group dynamics, power dynamics, separation-marginalization/normalization-assimilation dynamics, etc. Even if the actual articulation isn't there yet, even if the internalization isn't in a good enough degree.

I wonder shroom if you've ever noticed Malaysian Muslim politicians subtly hinting that we should stop criticizing Islam lest it cause people to...act out...

Nice harmony we've got here, would be a shame if we had to... prevent... provocation.

See here's the issue. Any theocratic state will tend to do that. It's not just Muslims.

Well sure, and I'm sure we can namedrop a few of those too, e.g. Nigeria and China (for an areligious example). And we can debate about how Christianity is really just as capable of such suppression. I think it's the flip side of the answer to the question of why the site picks on Christianity and not other religions - in a western context one is much more likely to be oppressed (in a social sense) by Christianity than by Islam. And Muslims are themselves trapped in that they cannot call out issues with Islam without taking it from both ends - from other Muslims who will consider them deviants or misguided etc and from Rightists who will use them to push their own anti-islam agendas, and then from liberals, for giving said rightists the ammunition.

As we just saw here, really.

[mr friendly guy]

Looking at this thread, people seem to switch between Muslims, Islamist and Jihadists like they are the same thing. Needless to say, it just makes debating about Islam problematic for the left and the right because they are both going to conflate the terms. The right when they talk about Jihadists and terrorists, they are going to conflate it with all Muslims (I am sure we have all seen examples). The left when they conflate Islamists with terrorists and Jihadists, and then poisons the debate when people point out there is a high proportion of Islamists within the Muslim population of <insert country here> which is troubling. The left then just strawmans this argument and goes "you say all muslims are terrorists." (Cenk Uygur I am looking at you). This thread just proves my main point.