I know this is serious business but the article below sounds like it came from the Onion. I guess it’s the now accepted usage of the term hooligans and this statement:
“Football hooligans communicating over the internet have spoken of the need to put aside partisan support for teams and unite against Muslims.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1529009,00.html
So, it’s not OK to brainstorm, but it’s OK to be a hooligan? 
Sounds like a sure fire method of recruiting more Muslim-extremist wackos to me. When will people learn, the best answer to violence is peace?
When all the “others” are dead? 
Well, the uneasy inference to me is that hooliganism is the last arena for the visceral words and actions of men who feel protective of their nation (no matter if you agree with what that conception represents). Just like in this country, I don’t find the soothing words of our leaders, Bush or Blair, to assure us the Islam is the religion of peace, etc. to really be that appropriate. Very controversial, but there ya go.
To me, it feels like many in our nation would rather die in a dirty bomb attack rather than face the messy task of actually racially profiling and examining the Islamic threat within the country and its a very bad feeling to have. I don’t think the hooligans are fettered by such concerns.
[insert flaming icon here]
Editing to add a line from an editorial in this morning’s Knight-Ridder paper, on the subject of the British-born bombers:
“What has become abundantly clear is that we can no longer afford to maintain the politically correct fiction that Islam is not the problem. While there are millions of devout, law-abiding Muslims – and we deplore the attacks targeting Pakistanis that have occurred in England since the bombing – it is an undeniable fact that Islam the religion is infected with an extremist faction that threatens our way of life.”
– Contra Costa Times editorial, July 15.
This is nearly incredible, coming from this paper, which spouts the diversity, multicultural, special treatment stuff all the time and has for years. They are right of Bush on this one.
Verrry interesting.
I don’t think I can agree with the sentence from the Times editorial as written.
If you change a few words, though, I think it really is true…
It should read: “It is an undeniable fact that religion is infected with extremist factions that threaten our way of life.”
Islam the religion isn’t the real problem–violent fanaticism is, and I think it’s found in more religions than just that one.
–James
Well, I work for the University of Colorado system, so “football players” and “hooligans” just seem to go together naturally.
The difference are major Reform movements. Islam continues to be a medieval religion and is practiced that way, uneasily mixing with the modern world. Judaism, Christianity even Hinduism have all undergone vast changes over the centuries, even if fundamentalists practitioners remain. The call for reform is coming from within Saudi Arabia and it’s heartening to me.
Islam is at war with the world in at least 12 places globally and no amount of cultural relativism and equivocation can change that sobering fact. From its eruption in its origins to different times in history, the Western-based reality we live in was shaped by those who put up a bulwark againt Islam, in France and in Central Asia. Charles Martel is famous, but the Khazars, who held back the Muslims from entering Europe from the East are less known and in fact, assimilated into various cultures. I believe its the weakening belief in the West of its own values and the rise of cultural relativism, well-meaning as it is, that has allowed the fires of Islam to be stoked around the planet. People quite easily blame Israel and oil dependance as the causes, but does that account for Islamic insurgency in the Phillipines, in Malaysia, in Kashmir, and the continued persecution of animist and Christian Africans? Not really.
It just is what it is, not what some prosaic vision indicates.
I can agree with most of if not all of what your saying Weekenders. After awhile those “isolated incidents” become a bit much and that “small minority” of fanatics does not seem so small anymore. There is a problem within Islam and it distresses me to see that most Muslim advocacy groups have thrown all their energy against racial profiling rather than at reforming their religion.
But I can’t agree with declaring War against Islam as the Hooligans have done. Change has to come from within Islam. I’ve often heard Muslims on the radio, in letters to the editor etc. distance themselves from the terrorists and then continue with “but…” and various things about the evil Jews and how they deserve everything they get. People who blow themselves up on buses may be in the minority but I’d wager that the people quietly cheering them on from their living rooms is larger than many would suspect.
The bald facts of the matter is that western, nominally “christian” nations have fought more wars and killed more people over the past couple of centuries than has Islam.
Intra-christian warfare is just “conflict” to us*, whereas intra-islamic warfare gets reported as religious war.
Christians, animists, Hindus and Buddhists are being killed and enslaved in the various hot spots around the world, such as Phillipines, Kashmir and Sudan. It’s more than intra-Islamic and it certainly is religious war, at least on their part. Even in Iraq, the US went in to depose a secular Socialist leader who is hardly a “good” Muslim but are portrayed as “Crusaders,” as though the point was to wipe out Islam. I do understand that there are sacred sites in Iraq, for what that is worth, but you still have to stretch the point to claim that its a Western attack on the Faithful.
And, On the Moor, I didn’t mean to suggest I was agreeing with the hooligans and their methods and I did mention reform from within.
ok - I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know a lot about Islam. I mean, I know the basic tenents - but not what all the factions are (of course, it’s mind boggling to try and keep up with all the Christian factions!).
And, I am definately against “profiling” - however…
What I don’t understand is IF the “main” groups of Islam are not the fanatics that are committing these atrocities - why aren’t they (the main groups) at least not going out of their way to have the fanatics identified and prosecuted?
Take the abortion fanatics in this country that bomb clinics, target doctors, etc. I think that the “mainstream” Christians look on such behavior as criminal (I know I do) and would definately turn over someone like this to the authorities to be prosecuted.
Heck - you can even take the same argument to the “problems” in inner cities in this country. When there is a shooting, the police often times can’t get any cooperation from the witnesses. Supposedly it’s because of retaliation - but if people would WORK to get these thugs off the streets - there would be no worries of retaliation. Instead, it’s the same cry of “profiling” and the police are damned if the do and damned if they don’t.
Amen!
I know what you’re saying about Muslims Weekender, but, as a Christian I have to deal with the fact that whilst Jesus preached peace, Christians have gone all over the world beating and killing people who dont follow Christ! To me none of these people were or are Christians (how can they be if they dont follow Christ’s teachings?) but I know many non-Christians just see what “we’ve” done as proof that religion causes wars. Most Muslims do not want to make the world believe Islam by force, if they did there would already be a Muslim world - Western world war. But just as I have to take any opportunity to try and combat those “Christians” who have perverted Jesus’ message of peace, so all Muslims everywhere must make clear their total, unconditional rejection of the violent actions now being taken in their name.
As for the religion as the cause for most wars argument, wake up! Oil land, religion, tribalism, racism, politics, ideology and many other things have been used as excuses for the hatred that causes war.
Yup… anything that can be used for power can abused by those who seek power. REligions are just one of the power trips that have played a heavy hand throughout history.
As for actually following the teaching of Jesus VS the practices of the reigion known as “Christianity”, Jesus did NOT teach war, and there are no "unless"es in the 10 Commandments.
Christians, animists, Hindus and Buddhists are being killed and enslaved in the various hot spots around the world, such as Phillipines, Kashmir and Sudan. It’s more than intra-Islamic and it certainly is religious war, at least on their part.
That’s the superficial way to look at it, and it’s easy to think so.
The war in Sudan, for instance, is easy to understand, right? It’s nasty northern muslims warring on peaceful soputhern christian animists.
Not so fast. The engine driving that conflict has very little to do with religion. The real source of conflict is climate change. The Sahel (the margins of the Sahara) is drying and turning to desert as a direct result of:
As a result, populations are on the move all across northern and equatorial Africa. Where they collide, wars start. Drought and famine have this effect irrespective of religion.
That’s the real context for the war in the Sudan. Viewed in this light, it’s suddenly not so obviously about anything intrinsic to Islam. In all three factors I listed above, western greed and overconsumtion is the engine, not religion.
~~
So we should spend some time looking in the mirror before we patly announce that muslims are violent savages engaging in religious wars.
Sorry, that’s bull pucky. Islam was spread through the mid-east on the edge of the sword, and as was mentioned above, they very nearly did manage to storm into Europe. The tragedy in the Serbian/Croatian/etc states with Muslims fighting Christians were the border of those wars, and the people there became Muslims by force, not choice. The spread of Islam was stopped by huge (for the time) bloody wars. Muslims were held back, but not defeated.
I won’t waste space completely copying s1m0n’s post but it is bang on. There are significant populations who have progressed little if at all socially and economically from a thousand years ago. That some (not all) of these areas are Muslim is not the sole defining characteristic. Many of these backward areas are Catholic. Simply throwing money at them now would be no good. They need to advance culturally to the point where every point of contention is no longer responded to instantly with bloodshed and revenge. We have only barely come out of this sort of behaviour ourselves, and it is only because we have the financial wherewithal to be able to afford such a luxury as to sit back and ponder big-picture morality without worrying about being murdered or robbed or imprisoned every other day.
There is definitely a threat under our noses. For whatever reasons, right or wrong, there is a cultural bias towards violence in the countries that currently purport to be Muslim. That’s why they can still produce such large numbers of suicide bombers. And this is not intra-Muslim conflict (which still remains and is brutally violent and widespread). It is no longer an intra-mideast conflict. It is now in the heart of the West, downtown London even, by people living in England, but still raised in culture that applauds violent retribution at any perceived slight or transgression, regardless of any particular religion.
djm
So people who were born in this Country, grew up in this Country, and have lived in this Country all their life are now prepared to wipe each other out in the name of Religion?
This all sounds very familiar to me…
Maybe if the Army of a foreign power was brought in and told people where and when they could go about their daily business things might improve…
Then again, based on past experience, maybe not.
Slan,
D.
No. Born in that country. Raised in another culture.
We have nothing to compare. We in an occidental culture have always had loose nuts acting out on their own. We have individuals who are susceptable to being influenced to violence, but these are individuals, not hundreds and hundreds. We do not have organized schools on how to be a suicide bomber (e.g. Hamas). Our culture does not support whatever attitude or outlook is required to get such a mass response to a call for such primitive behaviour.
I believe this is a cause for concern. I do not have a magic bullet solution. I am not declaring any group of people to be evil. I am simply saying that we are shocked to see this behaviour coming out of our own backyards, but this behaviour is almost everyday in the countires from which these cultures come from. It is too common, if you take my meaning.
djm
Well, there is more context, such as the centuries long encirclement and forced conversion of animist Africans to Islam. Is that reaching far back enough?
I agree that, for example, in the Sudan, those factors you mentioned are specific to the most recent conflict. But if you study the history of Africa, you can practically draw a graphic representation over time to show the forced conversion of the continent from the outside in. Countless cultures have been wiped out, purity of various tribal groups and nations has been destroyed.
If one were to apply the standards of Western environmentalism, which value diversity, to the human family, then the greatest tragedy is in Africa, not North America, no matter how many people hyperfocus on the last five hundred years here, as opposed to the last 1400 years in Africa.
The sword of Islam has obliterated discrete tribes all over Africa, enslaved men, raped women and changed the basic nature of the people there. And this preceded the evil Western colonialism. Many of the slave sellers in Africa were ready to do business with the evil Europeans when they caught on to the slave trade because they were already trading them to other Islamic countries and empires. Not all slavecatchers were Muslim, but many were.
No culture is innocent, I am not saying that. But I do contend that Westerners focus overly on their own sins while the same types of genocide continue elsewhere in the name of Islam. And as pointed out in the thread, it’s come to the West too and Westerners seem too sheepish about the relative values of their own culture, because of guilt or whatever, to find it worth defending.
I have mentioned it before, but the fact that amplified Islamic calls to prayer are allowed in a suburb of Detroit five times a day while the ACLU is scrubbing crosses off of every public building in the US is but an example. I know it made a huge stink, but I respected the French for banning religious symbols across the board, instead of bowing to the Muslims while damning ourselves, as happens in other Western countries.