Erdogan replaces teaching evolution with teaching jihad in schools

[Thanas]

It doesn't matter if a Turk in Germany thinks Erdogan is the greatest thing since yogurt and coffee. There is no Erdogan in Germany. There is no risk of Germany becoming a Muslim fundamentalist dystopia. A pro-Erdogan Turk in Germany is irrelevant and puny, no threat to the German political order. It is therefore not only unjust but useless to harass this particular Muslim for his beliefs on the grounds that they are 'opposed to Western culture' or whatever.

On the contrary, Simon, I do believe that the pro-Erdogan lobby in Germany is both a threat to political culture and to the political order. As events in the Netherlands and elsewhere have shown it does not take much to rile them up. And they are not an insignifcant number.

[Elheru Aran]

It doesn't matter if a Turk in Germany thinks Erdogan is the greatest thing since yogurt and coffee. There is no Erdogan in Germany. There is no risk of Germany becoming a Muslim fundamentalist dystopia. A pro-Erdogan Turk in Germany is irrelevant and puny, no threat to the German political order. It is therefore not only unjust but useless to harass this particular Muslim for his beliefs on the grounds that they are 'opposed to Western culture' or whatever.

To nitpick: On an individual level, you are correct. If however there happened to be a large enough population of pro-Erdogan German citizens of Turkish extraction, there is a non-zero chance of them supporting Erdogan-like policies within the German state. While harassing such persons is inappropriate, *opposing* this turn of society is certainly merited, as Germany is still a democratic state as far as I know, thus there is a possibility that enough pro-Erdogan German citizens of Turkish extraction could elect public officials from within their numbers.

...ninja'd by Thanas, well, I'll let it stand.

[ray245]

Well, there are multiple versions of secularism. The European one is exactly as you describe.

There is also what we can reasonably call a 'Far Eastern' version of secularism, in which the government continues to exist and lets different philosophies and religions flow through without too much trouble. Japanese governments did not, on the whole, have major problems with conflicts between (Shinto or Buddhist) 'church' and the state. The basic imperial structure of the Chinese state has been able to survive having several different waves of religious and quasi-religious belief systems pass through China, without major sectarian problems most of the time.[YES there are exceptions to this statement, some of them quite messy. Bear with me here; you know what I mean and I have an actual point I'm building up to]

And from what I know of, say, ancient Egypt or Inca civilization, in a real sense they were secular... in that there was a very powerful god-king who ran the government and refused to allow any religion other than "obey the god-king" to make significant laws. Which is a sort of demented mutant form of secularism, when you think about it.

True, but I'm pointing out that while those far eastern civilizations might be secular, it does not mean they accepted secularism as an idea. More to the point, those states tolerate different religion as opposed to being strictly secular. Even a number of European nations can't be called strictly secular, as some still have the presence of a state religion.

There's still quite an important difference between tolerating minority religion, which many Islamic countries have no problem with, and actually being secular. The American form of secularism which strictly separate religion and the state is not as common as you think it is. It's quite different from religious tolerance.

[YES this is an oversimplification, bear with me here]

What I'm getting at is that the idea "there is a government, and it functions without specific, constant reference to the principles of a single religion" is not in fact a uniquely Western idea. What it is, though, is a very very non-Muslim idea. It's an idea some Muslims have become willing to accept due to influences from outside the Muslim cultural sphere... but it is not an idea that would ever be likely to originate and flourish coming from within the meme-space of ideas native to Islam.

I'm arguing it's quite unique because there is a difference between tolerating religions ( which a wide variety of cultures and civilizations have no problem with, including Islamic civilizations) is vastly different from secularism. Being tolerant of other religion is within the Islamic sphere of ideas, with the Qu'ran basically telling people to live in peace with other religions.

But that is vastly different from what role religion should ( or should not) play in politics. This is something that has its roots in the western world, and it's not something that is common in the far east as well.

That's because I was making a point to which it is entirely irrelevant.

Muslims in Western societies* are a small minority and, realistically, always will be. There is no meaningful chance of Muslims in these countries restructuring the societies they live in to follow the Islamic theories of how government should work. The Muslims who live in these societies are therefore not a threat to the basic structure of the social order. Harassing them for their beliefs, even if those beliefs clash with Western culture, is an injustice.

You note that there are pro-Erdogan Turks in European countries (not counting Turkey). I reply, so what?

It doesn't matter if a Turk in Germany thinks Erdogan is the greatest thing since yogurt and coffee. There is no Erdogan in Germany. There is no risk of Germany becoming a Muslim fundamentalist dystopia. A pro-Erdogan Turk in Germany is irrelevant and puny, no threat to the German political order. It is therefore not only unjust but useless to harass this particular Muslim for his beliefs on the grounds that they are 'opposed to Western culture' or whatever.

The reason I'm bringing up the Turks in Europe is not because they will take over Europe or something like this, but they actually form a strong political bloc that has influence in Turkish election. Those who had dual-citizenship do vote in Turkish election, and they do have a direct influence on how much support Erdogan is getting back in Turkey. So no, you can't ignore them.

Articles like this shed some insight into Turkish-German relationship.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turke ... SKBN17K1T0

Ninjaed by Thanas.

Furthermore, even this version of your argument is at most a counter to a distorted version of what I actually said. You said "Moreover, it's also an issue if you lump all Muslims in Western countries as being "liberalised". There are those that remain more conservative, and I need to remind you that Erdogan is quite popular among many European Turks."

This was in reply to "These are, on the whole, Muslims who have accepted the separation of church and state. And who are heavily liberalized compared to their counterparts in places like Turkey or Malaysia (let alone Iran or Saudi Arabia)."

What you are missing is that I am speaking of a weighted average when I use words like 'on the whole.' This becomes fairly clear when you know what phrases like 'on the whole' mean and when you look at the context.

You are construing 'the bulk of this population is okay with living in a secular society' as 'literally every member of this population considers a secular society ideal.' So not only am I still correct to point out that it's pointless to harass Muslims in European countries because of the actions of political-Islam in Muslim countries... But your attempt to counter my statements along these lines is an entirely pointless nitpick based on a distorted version of what I'm saying.
__________________________

*(with Turkey being a borderline case that is in the process of leaving the group if it was ever in the group)

My issue is more centered on the assumptions you are making as opposed to the specificity of your sentence. I think you are misunderstanding my contention ( and using the word "all" is probably not correct). My issue is you seem to be making the assumption that simply by the virtue of living in a western secular state meant that the majority of Muslims would somehow magically be more secular. I find this to be a rather arrogant assumption you are think being exposed to western environment and ideas are enough to "convince" the majority of people.

I have an issue if you make the assumption that the majority of Muslims would become more secular simply by the virtue of living in the west. 61% of Turks in Germany voted for Erdogan's powers to be expanded. Turkish ministers were kicked out from Netherlands after trying to get votes from Turks living in Netherlands. I just don't think you can assume that Turks living in Europe are more liberal than Turks in Turkey just because they were exposed to a more secular, liberal form of government.

Even if you use words like "on the world" and "the bulk of the population", I still don't think this kind of thinking is necessarily true. You cannot import your American/Canadian experience to what is happening in Europe.

[Simon_Jester]

On the contrary, Simon, I do believe that the pro-Erdogan lobby in Germany is both a threat to political culture and to the political order. As events in the Netherlands and elsewhere have shown it does not take much to rile them up. And they are not an insignifcant number.

It seems fairly obvious to me that you're not worried about, say, a Muslim fundamentalist strongman taking over Germany. You're not going to see Chancellor Ersatz-Erdogan taking power any time in the foreseeable future.

So what do you consider to be the nature of the threat? Having a faction of people "riled up" does not in and of itself endanger the well-being of a country as a whole. It takes more than that.

I mean, from bitter experience I can say that if 30% of your population votes for a horrible idiot strongman, 29% votes for a sane candidate, and the other 41% stays home, you have a problem on your hands.

But if the chunk of the population backing that particular type of strongman is less like 30% and more like 3%, they're only a threat if they align with some other faction that can supply the other 27% of the population to support the strongman. In which case the real problem was never the 3% (foreign) minority, it was the 27% (native-born) minority.

To nitpick: On an individual level, you are correct. If however there happened to be a large enough population of pro-Erdogan German citizens of Turkish extraction, there is a non-zero chance of them supporting Erdogan-like policies within the German state. While harassing such persons is inappropriate, *opposing* this turn of society is certainly merited, as Germany is still a democratic state as far as I know, thus there is a possibility that enough pro-Erdogan German citizens of Turkish extraction could elect public officials from within their numbers.

Do you for one freaking second believe that I am trying to say "it's wrong to disagree and oppose people whose political values are at odds with yours?"

If not, I find your nitpick rather disingenuous.

Obviously normal political discourse can and should go on within a given country. The question is not whether or not political discourse should go on and opinions should be expressed. The question is whether there is actually a systematic danger of "political Islam takes over the secular government and converts it into an Islamic government," which is what this entire line of conversation was about in the first place. That, specifically, is simply not a realistic threat in Western countries.

I am saying no more than this, and I am saying no less than this. If you want to nitpick by saying "but something different than the thing you're talking about could still happen," that is not a nitpick. That is an attempt to change the subject onto new ground. Ground that happens to be more favorable for being worried about the influence of Muslims, by talking up things that small ethnic minorities plausibly CAN do, while shuffling aside the point that there are things they CAN'T do.

Now, I'm willing to debate the point "but Muslims with fundamentalist leanings might elect a few officials!" But only as long as we're prepared to recognize that there is a huge gap between something like "Dearborn, Michigan elects a conservative Muslim mayor and state congressman" and "Muslims are a destabilizing threat to the American political order."

[I picked Dearborn, Michigan because it's a place in a specific Western country that has a very large Muslim population, not quite a majority as far as I know but at least within shouting distance of being one]

---

Well, there are multiple versions of secularism. The European one is exactly as you describe.

There is also what we can reasonably call a 'Far Eastern' version of secularism, in which the government continues to exist and lets different philosophies and religions flow through without too much trouble. Japanese governments did not, on the whole, have major problems with conflicts between (Shinto or Buddhist) 'church' and the state. The basic imperial structure of the Chinese state has been able to survive having several different waves of religious and quasi-religious belief systems pass through China, without major sectarian problems most of the time.[YES there are exceptions to this statement, some of them quite messy. Bear with me here; you know what I mean and I have an actual point I'm building up to]

And from what I know of, say, ancient Egypt or Inca civilization, in a real sense they were secular... in that there was a very powerful god-king who ran the government and refused to allow any religion other than "obey the god-king" to make significant laws. Which is a sort of demented mutant form of secularism, when you think about it.

True, but I'm pointing out that while those far eastern civilizations might be secular, it does not mean they accepted secularism as an idea. More to the point, those states tolerate different religion as opposed to being strictly secular. Even a number of European nations can't be called strictly secular, as some still have the presence of a state religion.

There's still quite an important difference between tolerating minority religion, which many Islamic countries have no problem with, and actually being secular. The American form of secularism which strictly separate religion and the state is not as common as you think it is. It's quite different from religious tolerance.

What I'm getting at is that the idea "there is a government, and it functions without specific, constant reference to the principles of a single religion" is not in fact a uniquely Western idea. What it is, though, is a very very non-Muslim idea. It's an idea some Muslims have become willing to accept due to influences from outside the Muslim cultural sphere... but it is not an idea that would ever be likely to originate and flourish coming from within the meme-space of ideas native to Islam.

I'm arguing it's quite unique because there is a difference between tolerating religions ( which a wide variety of cultures and civilizations have no problem with, including Islamic civilizations) is vastly different from secularism. Being tolerant of other religion is within the Islamic sphere of ideas, with the Qu'ran basically telling people to live in peace with other religions.

But that is vastly different from what role religion should ( or should not) play in politics. This is something that has its roots in the western world, and it's not something that is common in the far east as well. [/quote]If you've even been paying the slightest bit of attention to what I said, instead of mutating into a broken record, you know that my point is that Islamic culture does not naturally tend to place a wide gap between religion and politics.

I assume you do not intend to debate this proposition.

My other claim on this subject is that there are many parts of the world where wide gaps between religions and politics DID emerge naturally. Not impossible-to-bridge gaps, but gaps. Kings who may listen to priests but do not automatically obey them. Kings who routinely 'shop' among the available religions. Democratic governments where none of the political parties pay more than lip service to any specific religious institution.

Do you debate this proposition? If not, why are you still arguing with me about this?

If so...

You can come up with some no-true-Scotsman definition under which these are not 'true' secular societies, but that is dodging my point. It is not as though Western society is the only place that ever came up with "the priesthood doesn't run the government." This is a common de facto state of affairs throughout the world. It is not something Europeans thought of uniquely in the past few centuries, even if Europeans were for a while more inclined to trumpet it to the heavens as an important thing than, say, the Chinese.

By contrast, the Muslim world comes about as close as any place in the world throughout history to embracing "the priesthood runs the government," to the point where there is at most a very blurred distinction between a Muslim 'cleric' and a Muslim 'judge.'

That is my point.

Please clarify whether you actually disagree with it, or whether this is just a time-wasting exercise in "but if I stop to agree with Simon, my e-peen will fall off!"

That's because I was making a point to which it is entirely irrelevant.

Muslims in Western societies* are a small minority and, realistically, always will be. There is no meaningful chance of Muslims in these countries restructuring the societies they live in to follow the Islamic theories of how government should work. The Muslims who live in these societies are therefore not a threat to the basic structure of the social order. Harassing them for their beliefs, even if those beliefs clash with Western culture, is an injustice.

You note that there are pro-Erdogan Turks in European countries (not counting Turkey). I reply, so what?

It doesn't matter if a Turk in Germany thinks Erdogan is the greatest thing since yogurt and coffee. There is no Erdogan in Germany. There is no risk of Germany becoming a Muslim fundamentalist dystopia. A pro-Erdogan Turk in Germany is irrelevant and puny, no threat to the German political order. It is therefore not only unjust but useless to harass this particular Muslim for his beliefs on the grounds that they are 'opposed to Western culture' or whatever.

The reason I'm bringing up the Turks in Europe is not because they will take over Europe or something like this, but they actually form a strong political bloc that has influence in Turkish election. Those who had dual-citizenship do vote in Turkish election, and they do have a direct influence on how much support Erdogan is getting back in Turkey. So no, you can't ignore them.

No, the Turks can't ignore them. Turks voting in a Turkish election to support a Turkish leader is nobody's business but the Turks', as long as no local laws are violated in the country where those Turks happen to live.

Even if such local laws are violated, then so far as I can determine, that is going to be a minor inconvenience, not major trouble. It does not, in the grand scheme of things, matter enough to be worth constant political distress over.

Furthermore, even this version of your argument is at most a counter to a distorted version of what I actually said. You said "Moreover, it's also an issue if you lump all Muslims in Western countries as being "liberalised". There are those that remain more conservative, and I need to remind you that Erdogan is quite popular among many European Turks."

This was in reply to "These are, on the whole, Muslims who have accepted the separation of church and state. And who are heavily liberalized compared to their counterparts in places like Turkey or Malaysia (let alone Iran or Saudi Arabia)."

What you are missing is that I am speaking of a weighted average when I use words like 'on the whole.' This becomes fairly clear when you know what phrases like 'on the whole' mean and when you look at the context.

You are construing 'the bulk of this population is okay with living in a secular society' as 'literally every member of this population considers a secular society ideal.' So not only am I still correct to point out that it's pointless to harass Muslims in European countries because of the actions of political-Islam in Muslim countries... But your attempt to counter my statements along these lines is an entirely pointless nitpick based on a distorted version of what I'm saying.

My issue is more centered on the assumptions you are making as opposed to the specificity of your sentence. I think you are misunderstanding my contention ( and using the word "all" is probably not correct). My issue is you seem to be making the assumption that simply by the virtue of living in a western secular state meant that the majority of Muslims would somehow magically be more secular. I find this to be a rather arrogant assumption you are think being exposed to western environment and ideas are enough to "convince" the majority of people.

This assumption which you attribute to me is a hallucination on your part. You are attacking a fictional strawman created by your own imagination.

My assertion is not "transplanting a given Muslim from a Muslim country to a Western country will (magically) make them more secular." That is some random thing you made up.

My assertion is "the average opinions of Muslims in Western countries are, on average, statistically speaking, more secular than the corresponding average opinions of Muslims in Muslim countries."

Do you actually disagree with this statement? Or is this yet another case of "but if I agree with Simon my e-peen will fall off!"
____________________________________

Please note, I did not say "Turks in Germany." I said "Muslims in Western countries."

I am sure you can cherrypick a specific minority of Muslims in some specific Western country that is a counterexample. I neither know nor care which minority in which Western country. Maybe Turks in Germany actually are slightly more religiously conservative on average than Turks in Turkey. It is largely beside the point, and I regret having ever even allowed myself to discuss such details. They are irrelevant, because they would not invalidate my point.

[Thanas]

On the contrary, Simon, I do believe that the pro-Erdogan lobby in Germany is both a threat to political culture and to the political order. As events in the Netherlands and elsewhere have shown it does not take much to rile them up. And they are not an insignifcant number.

It seems fairly obvious to me that you're not worried about, say, a Muslim fundamentalist strongman taking over Germany. You're not going to see Chancellor Ersatz-Erdogan taking power any time in the foreseeable future.

No, not the chancellery. Local elections however are a different thing.

So what do you consider to be the nature of the threat? Having a faction of people "riled up" does not in and of itself endanger the well-being of a country as a whole. It takes more than that.

We just had a million+-population-city being devestated by rioting caused by as few as 2000 leftwing extremists. If you do not think Erdogan or his backers can mobilize that number then I think you do not realize the scope of it.

I consider the nature of the threat being heavily conservative and nationalistic turks taking over local administration in some areas. As well as rioting in the worst case. And strategic voting to influence politicians, as well as mass campaigns of intimidations, violence and threats to stop anybody criticizing Erdogan. The last are already in full effect. Google what happened to the Turkish-born members of parliament who voted in favor of recognizing the Armenian genocide.

[ray245]

If you've even been paying the slightest bit of attention to what I said, instead of mutating into a broken record, you know that my point is that Islamic culture does not naturally tend to place a wide gap between religion and politics.

I assume you do not intend to debate this proposition.

This I am perfectly fine with, and I am not challenging you in this regard.

My other claim on this subject is that there are many parts of the world where wide gaps between religions and politics DID emerge naturally. Not impossible-to-bridge gaps, but gaps. Kings who may listen to priests but do not automatically obey them. Kings who routinely 'shop' among the available religions. Democratic governments where none of the political parties pay more than lip service to any specific religious institution.

Do you debate this proposition? If not, why are you still arguing with me about this?

If so...

You can come up with some no-true-Scotsman definition under which these are not 'true' secular societies, but that is dodging my point. It is not as though Western society is the only place that ever came up with "the priesthood doesn't run the government." This is a common de facto state of affairs throughout the world. It is not something Europeans thought of uniquely in the past few centuries, even if Europeans were for a while more inclined to trumpet it to the heavens as an important thing than, say, the Chinese.

By contrast, the Muslim world comes about as close as any place in the world throughout history to embracing "the priesthood runs the government," to the point where there is at most a very blurred distinction between a Muslim 'cleric' and a Muslim 'judge.'

That is my point.

Please clarify whether you actually disagree with it, or whether this is just a time-wasting exercise in "but if I stop to agree with Simon, my e-peen will fall off!"

I think you are quite confused over what am I actually disputing with you. My contention isn't with you about whether non-western societies can embrace or come up with a non-religious form of governance on their own. It's about secularism being a radically different concept from freedom of religion.

A country can tolerate other religions while acknowledging a state-religion and grants the state religion with more influence on politics over others. On the other hand, secularism meant that all religions are to be equal in the eyes of the government and rejects the role of religion in politics. Those are two very different philosophical ideas that cannot be confused and lumped together as a mere "no-true Scotsman" fallacy.

My disagreement with you lies in how you see freedom of religion and secularism. You see them as the same thing. I don't.

No, the Turks can't ignore them. Turks voting in a Turkish election to support a Turkish leader is nobody's business but the Turks', as long as no local laws are violated in the country where those Turks happen to live.

Even if such local laws are violated, then so far as I can determine, that is going to be a minor inconvenience, not major trouble. It does not, in the grand scheme of things, matter enough to be worth constant political distress over.

They might not something to be worth distressing over in Europe, but it is worth distressing over in Turkey. If the majority of European Turks voted for Erdogan by a far larger margin than the Turks back in Turkey, then it is a concern for Turkey.

And if this continues to be a trend as opposed to a mere hiccup, then that means Erdogan can have a far easier time dismantling Turkey's secularism.

This assumption which you attribute to me is a hallucination on your part. You are attacking a fictional strawman created by your own imagination.

My assertion is not "transplanting a given Muslim from a Muslim country to a Western country will (magically) make them more secular." That is some random thing you made up.

My assertion is "the average opinions of Muslims in Western countries are, on average, statistically speaking, more secular than the corresponding average opinions of Muslims in Muslim countries."

Do you actually disagree with this statement? Or is this yet another case of "but if I agree with Simon my e-peen will fall off!"
____________________________________

Please note, I did not say "Turks in Germany." I said "Muslims in Western countries."

I am sure you can cherrypick a specific minority of Muslims in some specific Western country that is a counterexample. I neither know nor care which minority in which Western country. Maybe Turks in Germany actually are slightly more religiously conservative on average than Turks in Turkey. It is largely beside the point, and I regret having ever even allowed myself to discuss such details. They are irrelevant, because they would not invalidate my point.

On what basis did you come up with something like "the average opinions of Muslims in Western countries are, on average, statistically speaking, more secular than the corresponding average opinions of Muslims in Muslim countries."

Is there actually any informed, peer-reviewed study of this by reputable academics, or are you basing it on your own personal assumptions? How on earth do you measure the average Muslims in Western countries are more secular than the average opinions of Muslims in Muslim countries?

Is the average Muslim in Germany more secular than the average Muslim in Indonesia? Nevermind the fact that Muslims in Indonesia are vastly different from Muslims in Saudi Arabia.

If there is some actual scientific study that proves that average Muslims in western countries are more secular than Muslims in Muslim countries, I will concede my point. However, because you've yet to do that and provide us with any citations. It just make it seem like you are pulling things from your ass.

I brought up the issue of Turks in Germany and Europe because they are a counter-example to your claim. It's not beside the point unless you can prove that the Turks in Europe are very different from your average Muslim in Western countries.

Lastly, Simon, I simply fail to understand why you want to dismiss the Turks in Europe when the thread title is about Erdogan. It might have shifted to the wider Islamic world, but talking about the Turks in Europe is on topic.

[Thanas]

I brought up the issue of Turks in Germany and Europe because they are a counter-example to your claim. It's not beside the point unless you can prove that the Turks in Europe are very different from your average Muslim in Western countries.

They are somewhat different because for example the Iranians are very secular and less religious (no doubt because most of them fled the Ayatollah and were educated people). The Turks stand out because sadly most of them were very uneducated when they came here and from the most rural, conservative areas in Turkey.

[ray245]

They are somewhat different because for example the Iranians are very secular and less religious (no doubt because most of them fled the Ayatollah and were educated people). The Turks stand out because sadly most of them were very uneducated when they came here and from the most rural, conservative areas in Turkey.

Oh, I agree. But Simon seems to think the differences lie in whether they are living in western countries vs Muslim countries as opposed to the variation within the Islamic world. And given that Simon is a Canadian-American, his point of view will be quite different because Muslim in the American continent are generally quite self-selecting and usually belong to the upper-middle class.

Someone who is Muslim and moved to Michigan is far more likely to be fine with western secularism and liberalism than Turks who moved to Germany for work.

[K. A. Pital]

We just had a million+-population-city being devestated by rioting caused by as few as 2000 leftwing extremists.

Sorry I didn't notice, I thought it was the usual rioting in Hamburg, was it not? Or was it more dramatic because, duh, G20?

But this aside, I agree with you on the key point, that Erdogan and his goons are dangerous, and not just in Turkey but in any country with a sizeable presence of his supporters.

[Simon_Jester]

On the subject of the magnitude of the danger posed by Islamic fundamentalists in Western countries...

Suffice to say that my underlying point is that they are much less of a danger to the nation at large, not no danger to anyone anywhere in the country. A riot by two thousand people that causes, say, ten million euros in property damage is a problem, but it is a very different level of problem than Turkey is experiencing from dealing with the same ideology.

My original point was as follows:

Now, saying "not all Muslims!" is very relevant in the context of preventing oppression of Muslims in Western developed societies. These are, on the whole, Muslims who have accepted the separation of church and state. And who are heavily liberalized compared to their counterparts in places like Turkey or Malaysia (let alone Iran or Saudi Arabia). They are just plain not the problem, and harassing them for their religion or what co-religionists do elsewhere in the world is a gross injustice.

I stand by this statement, and as far as I can determine no one has invalidated it.

By cherrypicking specific Muslim groups it is possible to find Muslim minorities in Western countries that are as bad as their cousins back home- but present in much smaller minorities. A 1% minority of Turkish hicks in Germany is a much smaller problem for Germany than a 20% minority of Turkish hicks in Turkey is for Turkey. It would also be possible to find Muslim minorities in Western countries that are less bad than their cousins back home.

Morever, just willingness to cooperate in secular politics and governance, absent active efforts to turn to political Islam and take over the national legal system, is itself "more liberalized" than many Muslims in Muslim countries, as the direct experiences of people in places like Syria, Turkey, and Malaysia are proving even as we speak. The bar for "a lot more liberalized than the average Muslim in a Muslim country" is not a high bar, to put it mildly. There are historical reasons for that, too, which I ahve already discussed.

The cumulative effect is that while there may be specific, localized problems caused by Muslim fundamentalists in Western countries, they are caused by only a specific portion of those Muslims. They do not justify generalized harassment of literally all Muslims. And they are extremely small problems compared to things like "our country is sliding back into the Dark Ages" as in Turkey or "crazed slaveholding theocrat warlords are fighting a civil war for control of our country and they seem to be winning" as in Syria.

The Muslims in Western countries may be 'a' problem, or some of them may be. But they are not 'the' problem, in the sense of being a massive ongoing crisis or threat that demands the kind of action advocated by some on the right. Or the kind that 'centrists' can get into by slowly coming to equate the actions of the most unlikeable and obnoxious Muslim in their country with the actions of ALL the Muslims in their country.

THAT was my original point.

[ray245]

On the subject of the magnitude of the danger posed by Islamic fundamentalists in Western countries...

Suffice to say that my underlying point is that they are much less of a danger to the nation at large, not no danger to anyone anywhere in the country. A riot by two thousand people that causes, say, ten million euros in property damage is a problem, but it is a very different level of problem than Turkey is experiencing from dealing with the same ideology.

My original point was as follows:

And my point was some of the Turks in Germany and Europe can be a problem for Turkey itself. Those people still have their voting rights, and they are a significant political voting bloc in Turkish elections.

So if the conservative Turks in Germany became the key voting bloc that can decide elections in Turkey, then they can easily make Turkey worse. Imagine a pro-Trump voting bloc existing in Canada and helping him win re-election and radically expand the President's powers at the same time.

Now, saying "not all Muslims!" is very relevant in the context of preventing oppression of Muslims in Western developed societies. These are, on the whole, Muslims who have accepted the separation of church and state. And who are heavily liberalized compared to their counterparts in places like Turkey or Malaysia (let alone Iran or Saudi Arabia). They are just plain not the problem, and harassing them for their religion or what co-religionists do elsewhere in the world is a gross injustice.

I stand by this statement, and as far as I can determine no one has invalidated it.

By cherrypicking specific Muslim groups it is possible to find Muslim minorities in Western countries that are as bad as their cousins back home- but present in much smaller minorities. A 1% minority of Turkish hicks in Germany is a much smaller problem for Germany than a 20% minority of Turkish hicks in Turkey is for Turkey. It would also be possible to find Muslim minorities in Western countries that are less bad than their cousins back home.

Morever, just willingness to cooperate in secular politics and governance, absent active efforts to turn to political Islam and take over the national legal system, is itself "more liberalized" than many Muslims in Muslim countries, as the direct experiences of people in places like Syria, Turkey, and Malaysia are proving even as we speak. The bar for "a lot more liberalized than the average Muslim in a Muslim country" is not a high bar, to put it mildly. There are historical reasons for that, too, which I ahve already discussed.

The cumulative effect is that while there may be specific, localized problems caused by Muslim fundamentalists in Western countries, they are caused by only a specific portion of those Muslims. They do not justify generalized harassment of literally all Muslims. And they are extremely small problems compared to things like "our country is sliding back into the Dark Ages" as in Turkey or "crazed slaveholding theocrat warlords are fighting a civil war for control of our country and they seem to be winning" as in Syria.

The Muslims in Western countries may be 'a' problem, or some of them may be. But they are not 'the' problem, in the sense of being a massive ongoing crisis or threat that demands the kind of action advocated by some on the right. Or the kind that 'centrists' can get into by slowly coming to equate the actions of the most unlikeable and obnoxious Muslim in their country with the actions of ALL the Muslims in their country.

THAT was my original point.

And my point is that you are generalizing Muslims in the west. They might be more liberal, but this isn't necessarily true all the time. At the same time, some of them could hold dual citizenship and have significant influence in their Muslim majority nation.

You're relying on the idea that living in the west will "liberalize" those people from a more conservative country. In my personal experience, that's not very true. Some people harden their personal stance after spending time living in a more western liberal nation.

[houser2112]

I stand by this statement, and as far as I can determine no one has invalidated it.

By cherrypicking specific Muslim groups it is possible to find Muslim minorities in Western countries that are as bad as their cousins back home- but present in much smaller minorities. A 1% minority of Turkish hicks in Germany is a much smaller problem for Germany than a 20% minority of Turkish hicks in Turkey is for Turkey. It would also be possible to find Muslim minorities in Western countries that are less bad than their cousins back home.

Morever, just willingness to cooperate in secular politics and governance, absent active efforts to turn to political Islam and take over the national legal system, is itself "more liberalized" than many Muslims in Muslim countries, as the direct experiences of people in places like Syria, Turkey, and Malaysia are proving even as we speak. The bar for "a lot more liberalized than the average Muslim in a Muslim country" is not a high bar, to put it mildly. There are historical reasons for that, too, which I ahve already discussed.

The cumulative effect is that while there may be specific, localized problems caused by Muslim fundamentalists in Western countries, they are caused by only a specific portion of those Muslims. They do not justify generalized harassment of literally all Muslims. And they are extremely small problems compared to things like "our country is sliding back into the Dark Ages" as in Turkey or "crazed slaveholding theocrat warlords are fighting a civil war for control of our country and they seem to be winning" as in Syria.

The Muslims in Western countries may be 'a' problem, or some of them may be. But they are not 'the' problem, in the sense of being a massive ongoing crisis or threat that demands the kind of action advocated by some on the right. Or the kind that 'centrists' can get into by slowly coming to equate the actions of the most unlikeable and obnoxious Muslim in their country with the actions of ALL the Muslims in their country.

THAT was my original point.

And my point is that you are generalizing Muslims in the west. They might be more liberal, but this isn't necessarily true all the time. At the same time, some of them could hold dual citizenship and have significant influence in their Muslim majority nation.

You're relying on the idea that living in the west will "liberalize" those people from a more conservative country. In my personal experience, that's not very true. Some people harden their personal stance after spending time living in a more western liberal nation.

It seems that you are making Simon_Jester's point for him. If they're living in the west and not causing problems here, then they are "liberal" as far as we're concerned. If they still retain voting rights in their home country, and are "conservative" there, then they are causing problems there. They may as well be two different people, for all the effect they're having in the west. All we're doing is insulating them from the effects of their decisions.

[ray245]

It seems that you are making Simon_Jester's point for him. If they're living in the west and not causing problems here, then they are "liberal" as far as we're concerned. If they still retain voting rights in their home country, and are "conservative" there, then they are causing problems there. They may as well be two different people, for all the effect they're having in the west. All we're doing is insulating them from the effects of their decisions.

And that's quite a biased western viewpoint to take. We in a thread talking about the decline of secularism in Turkey, and yet you are talking as if anywhere outside of the west doesn't matter.

Your "there" is "here" for a number of users in this forum.

[Simon_Jester]

Ray, you seem to be zig-zagging all over the place, with the sole constant being disagreement with whatever I'm saying at the moment.

My original point was,

[Muslims in Western developed societies] are just plain not the problem, and harassing them for their religion or what co-religionists do elsewhere in the world is a gross injustice.

You have taken this and devoted thousands of words to calling me out on it. Because for some reason it is just not okay for me to say that there is a difference in magnitude between the problems caused by political Islam in Muslim-majority countries (which are large) and those caused by political Islam in Western countries where Muslims are a minority that has to accommodate its own minority status and accept compromise (where the problems are relatively much smaller).

And I am saying this because I am very familiar with Islamophobia among Westerners, people who will talk about abuses committed by Muslims in Saudi Arabia or Malaysia or Pakistan or Turkey as a reason to abuse, disrespect, or drive away Muslims in Britain or France or China or the US. I think that's wrong.

Why is this so much of a problem for you?

I really am having a hard time not just defaulting to the assumption that you continue to disagree with me more because you're afraid your e-peen will fall off if you stop, than out of any actual attempt to communicate something useful by contradicting what I said.

[ray245]

Ray, you seem to be zig-zagging all over the place, with the sole constant being disagreement with whatever I'm saying at the moment.

My original point was,

[Muslims in Western developed societies] are just plain not the problem, and harassing them for their religion or what co-religionists do elsewhere in the world is a gross injustice.

You have taken this and devoted thousands of words to calling me out on it. Because for some reason it is just not okay for me to say that there is a difference in magnitude between the problems caused by political Islam in Muslim-majority countries (which are large) and those caused by political Islam in Western countries where Muslims are a minority that has to accommodate its own minority status and accept compromise (where the problems are relatively much smaller).

And I am saying this because I am very familiar with Islamophobia among Westerners, people who will talk about abuses committed by Muslims in Saudi Arabia or Malaysia or Pakistan or Turkey as a reason to abuse, disrespect, or drive away Muslims in Britain or France or China or the US. I think that's wrong.

Why is this so much of a problem for you?

I really am having a hard time not just defaulting to the assumption that you continue to disagree with me more because you're afraid your e-peen will fall off if you stop, than out of any actual attempt to communicate something useful by contradicting what I said.

And my contention was never with that particular point of yours. I agree with you that Islamophobia is becoming out of control in the west. I agree that there are many people being overly paranoid about Islam.

My contention with your argument is you seem to generalise Muslims in the west as somehow being more liberal by default. You argue that Muslims in the west are more secular or more liberal than Muslims living in a Muslim majority country. Some Muslims can be more religious and conservative than their counterparts in Muslim countries. Just because some country is majority Muslim doesn't make them less secular than Muslim communities in the western world. Even if you do average them out, you still don't have anything to prove this is true. I am perfectly willing to accept this as true, but you need to cite some actual study instead of your personal experiences.

By what metric could anyone use to say Muslim minorities in Europe is far more liberal and more secular than Muslims in Malaysia? How do you measure and compare the two different communities? I simply don't think you can say something like Western Muslims are liberal, eastern Muslims( where they are the majority) are conservative without providing some actual legitimate study of some kind.

Moreover, I am annoyed with you because you seem to ignore the fact that some of the issues in Turkey itself are caused by Erdogan supporters in Europe. I think you are being overly concerned with the problems in the west at the expense of those living in the Muslim majority countries.

I don't think you can create some sort of artificial divide between Muslim communities in the west vs Muslim communities in Muslim majority countries. You'll end up creating a false narrative because you lump people into neat little boxes when the reality is far more nuanced than that.

[Thanas]

On the subject of the magnitude of the danger posed by Islamic fundamentalists in Western countries...

Suffice to say that my underlying point is that they are much less of a danger to the nation at large, not no danger to anyone anywhere in the country. A riot by two thousand people that causes, say, ten million euros in property damage is a problem, but it is a very different level of problem than Turkey is experiencing from dealing with the same ideology.

Almost two thirds of Turks from Germany voted for Erdogan and in favor of his nationalism. If you are saying they are "not the problem", which where your words, then you are just flat-out wrong.

[Simon_Jester]

And my contention was never with that particular point of yours. I agree with you that Islamophobia is becoming out of control in the west. I agree that there are many people being overly paranoid about Islam.

My contention with your argument is you seem to generalise Muslims in the west as somehow being more liberal by default. You argue that Muslims in the west are more secular or more liberal than Muslims living in a Muslim majority country. Some Muslims can be more religious and conservative than their counterparts in Muslim countries. Just because some country is majority Muslim doesn't make them less secular than Muslim communities in the western world. Even if you do average them out, you still don't have anything to prove this is true. I am perfectly willing to accept this as true, but you need to cite some actual study instead of your personal experiences.

Well, I can start off with this, from the Pew Research Center. This compares countries with large Muslim populations (Russia being an exception). With two exceptions, every European and Central Asian country shows lower support among Muslims for making sharia the official law of the country than is found in any Asian, African, or Middle Eastern Muslim country.

One exception is Lebanon, a famously tolerant and diverse Middle Eastern country where support for sharia as the law of the land is low.

The other is Russia, where support among Muslims is relatively high. The question was modified to ask if sharia should be the law of the land in Muslim areas, which would tend to have the side effect of raising regional separatist sentiment, as in places like Chechnya. Unsurprisingly, support for sharia law as the law of the land is relatively high among the geographically concentrated Muslim minorities of a country where Muslims have fought ongoing insurgencies in an attempt to secede from the dominant (very non-Muslim) government and gain independence.

Now, this only addresses countries where Muslim populations are relatively large (in Europe, that's basically Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovinia, and Russia). But it's a good starting point. We will note that, for example, support for sharia as the law of the land among Malaysian Muslims is 86%, one of the highest on the chart.

Notably, the poll finds that support for actual sharia law is low in Turkey; this leads me to infer that there are a lot of Turks supporting Erdogan who don't want or don't expect him to go full fundamentalist.

...

Scrolling down the page further, we see some analysis of what the sharia advocates want, and there is a conspicuous difference. Note the table that discusses regional breakdowns in how many Muslims think the law should support execution of apostates who leave Islam, for instance- very popular in some regions, very unpopular even among pro-sharia Muslims in other regions (like European Muslim countries).

The linked article comments in passing on a survey done of Muslims in the United States, but I acknowledge your point about Muslims in Europe perhaps being different than those in the US. So I don't consider that enough to close the discussion entirely- but that's all I'm doing this minute

...

Now, I am quite happy to continue analysis of all this, and bring up more sources and follow their conclusions where they lead me. For example, I can look for more blunt numbers on the Muslim minorities in Western countries that lack a native Muslim majority or large minority of their own. But I'd like to ask, first, if anything I've brought up so far leads to any questions or comments I might want to address ahead of time. If not, I can go on.

Comments?

[AGAIN, TO BE CLEAR, I AM NOT SAYING "I REST MY CASE." THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE POSITION PAPER OR PROOF OR ANYTHING OF THE SORT. IT IS THE FIRST HALF OF ONE.]

By what metric could anyone use to say Muslim minorities in Europe is far more liberal and more secular than Muslims in Malaysia? How do you measure and compare the two different communities? I simply don't think you can say something like Western Muslims are liberal, eastern Muslims( where they are the majority) are conservative without providing some actual legitimate study of some kind.

Well, the study I linked uses support for instituting sharia law, which in my opinion is a good proxy for religiously conservative political Islam. A Muslim who wants sharia rather than a secular law code is, by definition, a supporter of political Islam.

Within that envelope, we can look for the severity of punishments and their views on other questions like women's rights. Someone who thinks sharia courts should rule on inheritance issues but not be able to sentence someone to death for leaving Islam can reasonably be said to be "less conservative" or "more liberalized" than someone who does think sharia courts should be able to sentence apostates to death.

Moreover, I am annoyed with you because you seem to ignore the fact that some of the issues in Turkey itself are caused by Erdogan supporters in Europe. I think you are being overly concerned with the problems in the west at the expense of those living in the Muslim majority countries.

I am treating the specific case of "Turks in Germany and Europe in general" as one of many subsets of a broader issue, and trying not to conflate the subset with the general case.

Given that political Islam seems comparatively weak in Turkey, specifically, it may well be that support for political Islam is higher among Turkish expatriates in Europe than it is in Turkey- that is to say, higher than twelve percent. But this would be an exceptionally special case.

---

Almost two thirds of Turks from Germany voted for Erdogan and in favor of his nationalism. If you are saying they are "not the problem", which where your words, then you are just flat-out wrong.

Before I address this in more detail I would like to ask for clarification. This is purely a request for a fact, and not an attempt to debate your position- because I cannot debate without possession of the fact.

"Almost two thirds of Turks from Germany" voted for Erdogan during what election or referendum? In what capacity? What were they voting on, in other words? I'll need to know which vote you mean, in order to look for numbers and arrive at a meaningful conclusion.

[ray245]

Well, I can start off with this, from the Pew Research Center. This compares countries with large Muslim populations (Russia being an exception). With two exceptions, every European and Central Asian country shows lower support among Muslims for making sharia the official law of the country than is found in any Asian, African, or Middle Eastern Muslim country.

One exception is Lebanon, a famously tolerant and diverse Middle Eastern country where support for sharia as the law of the land is low.

The other is Russia, where support among Muslims is relatively high. The question was modified to ask if sharia should be the law of the land in Muslim areas, which would tend to have the side effect of raising regional separatist sentiment, as in places like Chechnya. Unsurprisingly, support for sharia law as the law of the land is relatively high among the geographically concentrated Muslim minorities of a country where Muslims have fought ongoing insurgencies in an attempt to secede from the dominant (very non-Muslim) government and gain independence.

Now, this only addresses countries where Muslim populations are relatively large (in Europe, that's basically Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovinia, and Russia). But it's a good starting point. We will note that, for example, support for sharia as the law of the land among Malaysian Muslims is 86%, one of the highest on the chart.

Thank you. My main disappointment is that it excludes Western Europe. In part, it's hard to call countries like Russia as part of the Western liberal world. Of course, Muslims in Western Europe could certainly be even less in favour of sharia law than places in Russia.

However, I would like to highlight some data in this study, such as the percentage of Muslims who find democracy and freedom of religion to be positive. For example, Southeast Asian Muslims showed a slightly higher support for democracy over strong leaders than Southern-Eastern Europe. On the other hand, the support for freedom of religion is almost the same throughout all the regions, with the exception of the Middle-Eastern region.

At the same time, I think it's also difficult to make the claim that being in a Muslim minority country like in Southern/Eastern Europe is enough to make them more secular. The study itself seems to suggest this is due to whether Islam is being officially favoured that influenced the population's views.

Notably, the poll finds that support for actual sharia law is low in Turkey; this leads me to infer that there are a lot of Turks supporting Erdogan who don't want or don't expect him to go full fundamentalist.

...

You've made an earlier claim that western Muslims are heavily "liberalised" compared to their counterparts in Turkey, where in actual fact this study seems to suggest the opposite. Turkey is one of the places where support for sharia law is the lowest, easily comparable to southern-eastern Europe.

Do you see why I had a big issue with your generalisation? I've brought up Turkey and the Turks in Europe because recent voting trends meant that it's dangerous to make a simple generalisation that living in the western world will lead to certain populations becoming more "liberalised". Similarily the same applies to Lebanon with lower support for sharia than Muslims in Russia.

Scrolling down the page further, we see some analysis of what the sharia advocates want, and there is a conspicuous difference. Note the table that discusses regional breakdowns in how many Muslims think the law should support execution of apostates who leave Islam, for instance- very popular in some regions, very unpopular even among pro-sharia Muslims in other regions (like European Muslim countries).

The linked article comments in passing on a survey done of Muslims in the United States, but I acknowledge your point about Muslims in Europe perhaps being different than those in the US. So I don't consider that enough to close the discussion entirely- but that's all I'm doing this minute

...

I'm fine with that. Although I must point out that even within Mulism majority regions, there are significant difference as well. So you must not lump Muslim majority regions together.

Now, I am quite happy to continue analysis of all this, and bring up more sources and follow their conclusions where they lead me. For example, I can look for more blunt numbers on the Muslim minorities in Western countries that lack a native Muslim majority or large minority of their own. But I'd like to ask, first, if anything I've brought up so far leads to any questions or comments I might want to address ahead of time. If not, I can go on.

Comments?

[AGAIN, TO BE CLEAR, I AM NOT SAYING "I REST MY CASE." THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE POSITION PAPER OR PROOF OR ANYTHING OF THE SORT. IT IS THE FIRST HALF OF ONE.]

Going back to my original point as to why I had a major disagreement with you, I think you need to avoid categorizing Muslims into Western Muslims vs non-western Muslims. The study that you cite shows there is a significant difference among Muslims population in Muslim-majority countries as well. There is a difference between a 27% and a 72% ( regarding those that want the death penalty for apostasy ). In other words, you need to avoid using a western-frame of reference in grouping Muslims.

Well, the study I linked uses support for instituting sharia law, which in my opinion is a good proxy for religiously conservative political Islam. A Muslim who wants sharia rather than a secular law code is, by definition, a supporter of political Islam.

Within that envelope, we can look for the severity of punishments and their views on other questions like women's rights. Someone who thinks sharia courts should rule on inheritance issues but not be able to sentence someone to death for leaving Islam can reasonably be said to be "less conservative" or "more liberalized" than someone who does think sharia courts should be able to sentence apostates to death.

See above.

I am treating the specific case of "Turks in Germany and Europe in general" as one of many subsets of a broader issue, and trying not to conflate the subset with the general case.

Given that political Islam seems comparatively weak in Turkey, specifically, it may well be that support for political Islam is higher among Turkish expatriates in Europe than it is in Turkey- that is to say, higher than twelve percent. But this would be an exceptionally special case.

---

And I don't think you can treat the Turks in Germany as a mere subset. In part, this is because the majority of Muslims in Germany are of Turkish origin. I believe this is the case in the Netherlands but I might be wrong. More importantly, treating them as an exceptionally special case is going to be problematic because you'll end up undermining your arguments. The Germans and the Dutch are concerned about the Turks in their country because Turks are the majority Muslim population in their country. So you cannot easily dismiss them as a statistical anomaly in the media. Your "narrative" will fall flat and be rejected.

[Simon_Jester]

Thank you. My main disappointment is that it excludes Western Europe. In part, it's hard to call countries like Russia as part of the Western liberal world. Of course, Muslims in Western Europe could certainly be even less in favour of sharia law than places in Russia.

The study I cited totally excludes Western Europe, and I will be happy to address that later, at a more convenient time.

As I said, the portion I've written is the first half of my efforts; I have yet to carry out the second half. But I can get to it. Okay?

However, I would like to highlight some data in this study, such as the percentage of Muslims who find democracy and freedom of religion to be positive. For example, Southeast Asian Muslims showed a slightly higher support for democracy over strong leaders than Southern-Eastern Europe. On the other hand, the support for freedom of religion is almost the same throughout all the regions, with the exception of the Middle-Eastern region.

At the same time, I think it's also difficult to make the claim that being in a Muslim minority country like in Southern/Eastern Europe is enough to make them more secular. The study itself seems to suggest this is due to whether Islam is being officially favoured that influenced the population's views.

Uh... I think there's something important you don't know about geography and demographics. Discounting Russia, which is a special case because it originated as a massive empire that conquered a very diverse population in Central Asia, the three countries listed in Europe are Albania, Kosovo, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. All three of those countries were Ottoman provinces for roughly 400 years and were heavily converted to Islam.

The population of Kosovo is 95% Muslim, a higher proportion than in, say, Syria. Higher than Egypt, if the numbers I just casually looked up are correct. In Albania, the religious breakdown of the population is roughly 60/20/20 Muslim/Christian/Other. In Bosnia-Herzegovina it's about 50/45/15.

These are not, to put it mildly, countries where Muslims are a tiny minority. They are, however, 'Western' countries. Their 20th century political history has been defined by struggles among Western ideologies (particularly communism and fascism), not the ideologies that arose in the Muslim world (dominated by anti-colonialism).

Now, you would be totally correct to point out that we can't make a generalization about "Western Muslims" just by looking at Kosovars, even if Kosovars live in a country that is proportionately more Muslim than Egypt or Syria or Bangladesh. I accept that and will address the question of Muslim minorities in Western countries later, once I can find satisfactory data. I just want to clarify that the study I cited IS talking about majority-Muslim countries, with the exception of Russia. Those other three European nations were not selected randomly.

You've made an earlier claim that western Muslims are heavily "liberalised" compared to their counterparts in Turkey, where in actual fact this study seems to suggest the opposite. Turkey is one of the places where support for sharia law is the lowest, easily comparable to southern-eastern Europe.

My intent was to make a claim that Muslims in Western countries are liberalized compared to their counterparts in the Muslim world as a whole, not Turkey in particular.

I fucked up by even including Turkey on the list of countries I used as examples, which I did in the fifth paragraph of this post. You will note that I mention Turkey only in passing as one example on a longer list. It did not belong on that list.

Turkey is the most 'Westernized' Muslim country I can think of, assuming the Muslim countries in Europe such as Albania don't count. After the fall of the Ottomans, the country was immediately taken over by an extremely forceful secular reformer who tried to artificially reshape the country along Western lines- Kemal Ataturk. It is a measure of just how successful Ataturk was, and how relatively cosmopolitan many Turks were after centuries of ruling a broad international empire that spanned most of the eastern Mediterranean, that Ataturk's work in keeping religion out of government is only now starting to fall apart.

Do you see why I had a big issue with your generalisation? I've brought up Turkey and the Turks in Europe because recent voting trends meant that it's dangerous to make a simple generalisation that living in the western world will lead to certain populations becoming more "liberalised". Similarily the same applies to Lebanon with lower support for sharia than Muslims in Russia.

Your statement that I am claiming "living in the Western world will lead to certain populations becoming 'liberalized' " is a fabrication. I did not make this assertion. You are attributing cause and effect, where I merely observed correlation.

Please acknowledge this, and do not make this assertion about my position again.

Scrolling down the page further, we see some analysis of what the sharia advocates want, and there is a conspicuous difference. Note the table that discusses regional breakdowns in how many Muslims think the law should support execution of apostates who leave Islam, for instance- very popular in some regions, very unpopular even among pro-sharia Muslims in other regions (like European Muslim countries).

The linked article comments in passing on a survey done of Muslims in the United States, but I acknowledge your point about Muslims in Europe perhaps being different than those in the US. So I don't consider that enough to close the discussion entirely- but that's all I'm doing this minute

...

I'm fine with that. Although I must point out that even within Mulism majority regions, there are significant difference as well. So you must not lump Muslim majority regions together.

I will damn well make general statements about Muslims in Muslim-majority nations, if those statements fit the facts. It does not fit the facts to say "all Muslims believe and want the same things" or "90%-plus majorities of Muslims in all Muslim countries want religious courts to execute apostates" or some such thing. It does, however, fit the facts to say "in a great many countries with long-established Muslim majorities or large minorities, the Muslims tend to support the imposition of sharia law as the new national legal system, to govern themselves if not to govern non-Muslims."

Going back to my original point as to why I had a major disagreement with you, I think you need to avoid categorizing Muslims into Western Muslims vs non-western Muslims. The study that you cite shows there is a significant difference among Muslims population in Muslim-majority countries as well. There is a difference between a 27% and a 72% ( regarding those that want the death penalty for apostasy ). In other words, you need to avoid using a western-frame of reference in grouping Muslims.

There is a difference in what is desired, but it is irrelevant to what I've been saying.

You can lump together "Bernie Sanders supporters" as a category, even though there are large difference of opinion among the Sanders supporters. Some of them might support drug legalization, for example, while others do not. Some might favor tax increases on the rich, while others do not. There can be other very significant difference in detail between the positions of two Sanders supporters, or groups of Sanders supporters.

But the category "Sanders supporters" still physically exists and has meaning. And I am not somehow 'lumping them together from a Republican perspective' or whatever by claiming that the category exists.

Well, the study I linked uses support for instituting sharia law, which in my opinion is a good proxy for religiously conservative political Islam. A Muslim who wants sharia rather than a secular law code is, by definition, a supporter of political Islam.

Within that envelope, we can look for the severity of punishments and their views on other questions like women's rights. Someone who thinks sharia courts should rule on inheritance issues but not be able to sentence someone to death for leaving Islam can reasonably be said to be "less conservative" or "more liberalized" than someone who does think sharia courts should be able to sentence apostates to death.

See above.

I stand by my statement.

Advocating the use of sharia law in place of secular law is the definition of political Islam. Within the broad current of political Islam, there are many issues that can be debated. Not all members of political Islam agree on, say, the morality of divorce or of polygamy. They do not agree on whether converting away from Islam should be punishable by death. They do not agree on whether non-Muslims in the country should be compelled to pay the jizya tax (I can say this with total confidence, even though it was not covered by the study).

However, all of these people who disagree? They are still all adherents of political Islam. Just because they disagree about exactly how to implement sharia law, or what sharia law says, is not enough to make "political Islam" anything other than a relevant sociopolitical category.

I am treating the specific case of "Turks in Germany and Europe in general" as one of many subsets of a broader issue, and trying not to conflate the subset with the general case.

Given that political Islam seems comparatively weak in Turkey, specifically, it may well be that support for political Islam is higher among Turkish expatriates in Europe than it is in Turkey- that is to say, higher than twelve percent. But this would be an exceptionally special case.

And I don't think you can treat the Turks in Germany as a mere subset. In part, this is because the majority of Muslims in Germany are of Turkish origin. I believe this is the case in the Netherlands but I might be wrong. More importantly, treating them as an exceptionally special case is going to be problematic because you'll end up undermining your arguments. The Germans and the Dutch are concerned about the Turks in their country because Turks are the majority Muslim population in their country. So you cannot easily dismiss them as a statistical anomaly in the media. Your "narrative" will fall flat and be rejected.

Do you not know what 'subset' means?

I am making an argument that applies regarding many countries. Germany and the Netherlands are at most two of them. I am making an argument that involves the situation at many future times; Turks being a majority of Muslims in Germany and the Netherlands is not necessarily a permanent condition. It may well be that twenty years from now, Syrian refugees and their descendants will be the dominant share of Muslims in one or both of those countries. Or Muslims from still other countries, such as Iraq or Egypt.

While a specific test case may not fit a general pattern, it is not somehow ignorant, stupid, bigoted, or foolish to try and perceive general patterns, rather than simply drowning oneself in a sea of individual test cases. The existence of an occasional isolated tree, while true and relevant does not disprove the observation 'trees usually grow in forests,' and acting as though it does is a good way to live in a condition of enforced ignorance about both forests and trees.

Now, I have more to say on this and will say it later. But for now, I would just like to point out that when I originally posted about this, I was making broad statements. I will stand up for my right to make broad statements, so long as they are not incorrect in broad. The existence of specific cherrypickable examples does not refute a general pattern, not when the pattern can be shown by statistics.

...

AGAIN, just to make this extremely clear, I fully intend to more specifically address the question of Muslim demographics in Western countries where they are a small minority among a large Christian/atheist population, as in Germany and the Netherlands. I will even specifically address the Turks-in-Germany question. I am not doing so now, because I expect it to take time and energy of a sort that I don't happen to have right now. But I will.

If you wish to accuse me of ignoring this subject yet again, please wait until after I have had a chance to put together the work I am now describing.

[Thanas]

"Almost two thirds of Turks from Germany" voted for Erdogan during what election or referendum? In what capacity? What were they voting on, in other words? I'll need to know which vote you mean, in order to look for numbers and arrive at a meaningful conclusion.

It was the referendum in Turkey about extending his powers into a dictatorial position in order to enact his nationalistic and anti-democratic agenda. 63.1 % of those Turks living in Germany who were eligible to vote voted in favor of Erdogan having his powers extended.

Remember this was after the coup, after the breakdown of institutions, after the widespread purges, after the support for islamic states, after the (ongoing) war crimes against the Kurdish minorities, after the crusader rhetoric against the west, after he tried to suppress debate in Germany by using libel laws.

I don't know how much of a clearer expression of anti-democratic feelings and hardline conservatism you can get short of people going outside and chanting "we love Erdogan". (They are also doing this btw but those demonstrations have been heavily limited by the state).

[ray245]

The study I cited totally excludes Western Europe, and I will be happy to address that later, at a more convenient time.

As I said, the portion I've written is the first half of my efforts; I have yet to carry out the second half. But I can get to it. Okay?

Yeah sure, don't mind waiting.

Uh... I think there's something important you don't know about geography and demographics. Discounting Russia, which is a special case because it originated as a massive empire that conquered a very diverse population in Central Asia, the three countries listed in Europe are Albania, Kosovo, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. All three of those countries were Ottoman provinces for roughly 400 years and were heavily converted to Islam.

The population of Kosovo is 95% Muslim, a higher proportion than in, say, Syria. Higher than Egypt, if the numbers I just casually looked up are correct. In Albania, the religious breakdown of the population is roughly 60/20/20 Muslim/Christian/Other. In Bosnia-Herzegovina it's about 50/45/15.

These are not, to put it mildly, countries where Muslims are a tiny minority. They are, however, 'Western' countries. Their 20th century political history has been defined by struggles among Western ideologies (particularly communism and fascism), not the ideologies that arose in the Muslim world (dominated by anti-colonialism).

I am aware of that. However, I am referring to them because some of those countries like Kosovo only became independent states fairly recently. So they've been part of Muslim minority countries for a while.

And when you wrote Western, I was assuming you are referring to the "liberal west", such as Western Europe and etc.

Now, you would be totally correct to point out that we can't make a generalization about "Western Muslims" just by looking at Kosovars, even if Kosovars live in a country that is proportionately more Muslim than Egypt or Syria or Bangladesh. I accept that and will address the question of Muslim minorities in Western countries later, once I can find satisfactory data. I just want to clarify that the study I cited IS talking about majority-Muslim countries, with the exception of Russia. Those other three European nations were not selected randomly.

Sure, I'll wait for the study.

My intent was to make a claim that Muslims in Western countries are liberalized compared to their counterparts in the Muslim world as a whole, not Turkey in particular.

I fucked up by even including Turkey on the list of countries I used as examples, which I did in the fifth paragraph of this post. You will note that I mention Turkey only in passing as one example on a longer list. It did not belong on that list.

Turkey is the most 'Westernized' Muslim country I can think of, assuming the Muslim countries in Europe such as Albania don't count. After the fall of the Ottomans, the country was immediately taken over by an extremely forceful secular reformer who tried to artificially reshape the country along Western lines- Kemal Ataturk. It is a measure of just how successful Ataturk was, and how relatively cosmopolitan many Turks were after centuries of ruling a broad international empire that spanned most of the eastern Mediterranean, that Ataturk's work in keeping religion out of government is only now starting to fall apart.

True, but this is a thread about Turkey. I was annoyed because you seem to include Turkey and other more "liberal" Muslim majority country as part of your generalisation of Muslims outside of the west.

Your statement that I am claiming "living in the Western world will lead to certain populations becoming 'liberalized' " is a fabrication. I did not make this assertion. You are attributing cause and effect, where I merely observed correlation.

Please acknowledge this, and do not make this assertion about my position again.

Because you didn't really provide any citation to back that up earlier. I've encountered a fair share of people who believe that Western liberal ideas are more than enough to enlighten anyone automatically after they spent time living in the "west". If you're not one of them, then I apologise for that. But the way you talk about this issue did give me a strong first impression that you're having a rather arrogrant liberal western attitude.

I will damn well make general statements about Muslims in Muslim-majority nations, if those statements fit the facts. It does not fit the facts to say "all Muslims believe and want the same things" or "90%-plus majorities of Muslims in all Muslim countries want religious courts to execute apostates" or some such thing. It does, however, fit the facts to say "in a great many countries with long-established Muslim majorities or large minorities, the Muslims tend to support the imposition of sharia law as the new national legal system, to govern themselves if not to govern non-Muslims."

And statistics is only one side of the picture. Certain communities have different levels of influence and impact on how outsiders perceive certain groups. For example, Americans Christians might only represent a certain percentage of the total Christian population worldwide, but they have a far larger influence on how Christianity is perceived worldwide.

The Turks in Europe might not be the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Europe, but that they can have a far bigger influence than their numbers would suggest. If the pro-Erdogan crowd in Europe is far more organized and disruptive to everyone's lives in Europe, then they become the "face" of Muslims in Europe even if they only represent a fraction of society.

So if you make a generalization and dismiss certain groups as a mere statistical anomaly, you'll end up with a story that doesn't reflect why inter-faiths relationships are breaking down in Europe.

There is a difference in what is desired, but it is irrelevant to what I've been saying.

You can lump together "Bernie Sanders supporters" as a category, even though there are large difference of opinion among the Sanders supporters. Some of them might support drug legalization, for example, while others do not. Some might favor tax increases on the rich, while others do not. There can be other very significant difference in detail between the positions of two Sanders supporters, or groups of Sanders supporters.

But the category "Sanders supporters" still physically exists and has meaning. And I am not somehow 'lumping them together from a Republican perspective' or whatever by claiming that the category exists.

And among Bernie Sanders supporters, different "factions" have influence that isn't proportional to their numbers. Bernie Sanders factions that are more active in campaigning are going to be more representative than others. For example, the "face" of the average Bernie Sanders supporter is young, middle-class or lower, college-educated or college student. Yet there are supporters that belong to the rural, industrialized region that might be deemed "Trump-land", blue-collared workers. Some who voted for Bernie in the primaries might end up voting for Trump.

So labeling Sanders supporters into a coherent political group is just as useless as labeling western Muslims into a coherent group. It could very well be true that most western European Muslims are more liberal, but that doesn't mean that the smaller, ultraconservative Muslim communities that campaigned actively cannot become the overall "face" of Western Muslims in the news.

I stand by my statement.

Advocating the use of sharia law in place of secular law is the definition of political Islam. Within the broad current of political Islam, there are many issues that can be debated. Not all members of political Islam agree on, say, the morality of divorce or of polygamy. They do not agree on whether converting away from Islam should be punishable by death. They do not agree on whether non-Muslims in the country should be compelled to pay the jizya tax (I can say this with total confidence, even though it was not covered by the study).

However, all of these people who disagree? They are still all adherents of political Islam. Just because they disagree about exactly how to implement sharia law, or what sharia law says, is not enough to make "political Islam" anything other than a relevant sociopolitical category.

And the variation of "political Islam" can be different enough to be a huge deal. Look, take the Western world as an example. The US is supposed to be more secular than say Denmark. But on the other hand, Christianity has a far more direct influence on politics in the US than Denmark.

Some versions of "political Islam" will be deemed as being more acceptable to the West than others. Calling for the implementation of Sharia law to settle marital disputes are going to be more acceptable than calling for the death penalty to be implemented. Hence grouping all adovcates of sharia law together is not a helpful sociopolitical category.

Do you not know what 'subset' means?

I am making an argument that applies regarding many countries. Germany and the Netherlands are at most two of them. I am making an argument that involves the situation at many future times; Turks being a majority of Muslims in Germany and the Netherlands is not necessarily a permanent condition. It may well be that twenty years from now, Syrian refugees and their descendants will be the dominant share of Muslims in one or both of those countries. Or Muslims from still other countries, such as Iraq or Egypt.

While a specific test case may not fit a general pattern, it is not somehow ignorant, stupid, bigoted, or foolish to try and perceive general patterns, rather than simply drowning oneself in a sea of individual test cases. The existence of an occasional isolated tree, while true and relevant does not disprove the observation 'trees usually grow in forests,' and acting as though it does is a good way to live in a condition of enforced ignorance about both forests and trees.

Now, I have more to say on this and will say it later. But for now, I would just like to point out that when I originally posted about this, I was making broad statements. I will stand up for my right to make broad statements, so long as they are not incorrect in broad. The existence of specific cherrypickable examples does not refute a general pattern, not when the pattern can be shown by statistics.

Look, I am not saying your statistics must be wrong. I am arguing that even if this is true, it's not an entirely useful way to look at things. There is a reason why I believe some subset cannot be dismissed as a mere subset. As I mentioned above, not all groups are equal in terms of political influence. Some groups are better organized, connected and more active in politics than others. This is when statistics start to break down in terms of usefulness.

Is the Erdogan crowd vastly different (i.e more conservative) from the majority of Western European Muslims? Sure, I can certainly accept that and do believe this is true to some degree. But if the Turks in Germany and Europe are far, far more active in politics than your average Muslim, then they become the public face of Muslims in Europe. Whoever makes the loudest noise becomes the "representative".

"Broad" statement like yours is not being conducive to the issue at hand. It might technically be true, but it might not reflect why some people are concerned with Turks in Europe. You seem like someone who is quite unfamiliar with the situation in Europe and especially in Germany.

AGAIN, just to make this extremely clear, I fully intend to more specifically address the question of Muslim demographics in Western countries where they are a small minority among a large Christian/atheist population, as in Germany and the Netherlands. I will even specifically address the Turks-in-Germany question. I am not doing so now, because I expect it to take time and energy of a sort that I don't happen to have right now. But I will.

If you wish to accuse me of ignoring this subject yet again, please wait until after I have had a chance to put together the work I am now describing.

Sure, no problem.