Ugh, DU. The anti-Muslim sentiment here is getting to me.

[Igel]

132. CONTEXT.

It's not there, cali, for some people. And it's not there in the post when we read some responses.

DU has a rep for being anti-Xian. I'll start there.

Some people are apparently anti-Xian. They don't like Xians. "Look at the Xian idiot." Any religion, any faith just means "see the idiot." Put "Islam" in there, and you get "Look at the Muslim idiot." This isn't anti-Muslim. It's anti-religion. They form a little, loud group and when you put them in their box they're safe and inoffensive enough.

Some people are anti-fundie. If you're a good Episcopalian or Methodist you're fine. You're enlightened. "No merger of church and state" doesn't mean that we Xians don't have a duty to make the state clothe and feed the poor because "as you do to the least of these little ones, so you do to me." Yeah, there's a big internal conflict not that far from the surface, but that's okay. This carries over to other faiths. If you're a Buddhist killing Muslims because, well, you're in W. Burma then you're an idiot Buddhist and the Buddhists doing the killing and oppression are evil. Same for the Muslims who are doing the rioting. Etc.

These people go into a big box, and you have to read carefully. They so assume that it's clear that enlightened religionists of any stripe are perfectly fine--meaning "those that think essentially as they do"--that they use "Xian" or "Muslim" or "Buddhist" without qualifiers. When they say "idiot Muslim" they mean 'idiot" to restrict the set of Muslims to those they have in mind, not to be an attribute of all Muslims. This is especially true when you have a bare plural. "Muslims ...." That could mean "a prototypical Muslim," that could mean "some Muslims" or it could mean "all Muslims." "Cats like to kill mice" is true, but our cats don't kill anything. Perhaps the prototypical one does, perhaps most, but hardly "all." "Cats are mammals" is universally true--no animal cat fails to be a mammal.

But when it comes to other faiths, they really have a problem being judgmental--victims can't also be oppressors, and the US is the oppressor in chief. Some are old-school relativists and to condemn is to be racist. Others focus on the glass' being half full (nonsense--it's always full, just 1/2 full with water and 1/2 full of air!)--they only want to talk about the good X, whatever group X is, as long as it's not domestic politics or disputing. Others confuse "understanding" and "sympathizing" with "approving." If you condemn, you must not understand.

Then there are anti-extremists on DU, who have, for various reasons, overgeneralized. This can also be tricky. Every overgeneralization is different--sometimes the person knows it's an overgeneralization, sometimes he doesn't sometimes it's done in a fit of pique, sometimes it's looking at one group that's condemned in preference to another, possibly larger group that's just quiescent.

I'll use myself as an example. I'm often in what appears to be an anti-Muslim group. While I've had Muslim friends, most of the self-identified Muslims I've run into have been bigoted idiots. Take one group, in one several-month span of time. One was a friend (an Iranian Shi'ite), and we still get along just fine years later. One Sa'udi Sunni refused to shake my hand or sit near me because I was Jewish (I'm Scot-Irish Xian, thank you). Another Sunni, Pakistani, yelled at me that we didn't appoint him to some committee because he was Muslim and we're all racist Islamophobes (and slammed the phone down when I said we had appointed his fraternal twin, also a Muslim). I don't think all Muslims are paranoid and oversensitive. I think many are. I don't have a handle on the relative percentage, but believe it's not a truly small percentage. I tend to think that it's not old middle class Muslims that are like this, but from poor families who suddenly have more money and from rich or even middle-class families whose kids are seeking "authenticity." Thing is, there are a lot of poor Muslim families in the darul Islam.

I still think they were idiots because even after it was clear I wasn't Jewish and we had appointed a closely related Muslim, the Muslim students association still treated us like crap. Let's not even talk about the dozens of other intentional slights that we failed to notice--the request to speak that somebody failed to give us and we ignored, the funding request we denied for 90% of the money they needed for one event even though it's all the money we had for 200 student groups for the year. We're talking dozens of people. They were pretty much closed minded and couldn't bring themselves to admit that anybody in their group had been unreasonable. Everything was a plot against "the Muslims." Nobody wanted to insult a fellow Muslim at the expense of an outsider. Few openly defended those who were actively doltish. The defense of those who were wrong was passive, a mere refusal to discuss that they could have done anything wrong. However, when any of them were the victim of some slight, then there was a problem and most were actively involved in decrying the offense. These are traditionalists. They're not going to change. If anything, they're going to resist change. They're not a small percentage. They are loud.

However, this was one Muslim organization. A lot of Muslims I knew refused to belong to it. They couldn't get along with it. They were "moderate" in the sense of "not all that observant." To interact with it would be to face constant demands for conformity. In many cases I heard only in passing that so-and-so was Muslim, and that only because a major feast was happening. Rather like finding out "Steve" was Jewish, ham sandwiches notwithstanding, because he went to temple on Yom Kippur with his family ... after breakfast, of course. These were the Muslims that many unreasonably expect to denounce their fellow Muslims. They see no reason to do so, but ultimately it's from them that changes in Muslim society has to come. But when push comes to shove, mostly they still side with Muslims because there's this idea that there's only one Islam and the ummah is really important. Their quiet non-conformity with what the fundies want already creates more than enough tension in many societies.

This doesn't mean I'm anti-Muslim. I'm anti fundie in my own way.

But I also believe in treating people in appropriate ways. I found HCR's response on Wednesday to be horribly Eurocentric. It was said to others in Georgetown, other Western culturally enlightened observers. It's meaningless to most in Libya and Egypt. Unless you were educated in the West and know the West well it was drivel.

The Arabic translation should have read something like, "Today a US ambassador and three other Americans were killed for what is a right in this country--the right to say words without having the government come and throw you into prison, to harrass and torture your families for mere speech. The dead weren't responsible for offending Muhammed, and weren't Muslims. The film that's protested wasn't known to them, and they had nothing to do with it. Those who killed, those who burned and destroyed, insist on compulsion in religion, and in so doing deny that Muhammed spoke Allah's words and is his Prophet. They set themselves up as additional prophets and add to Allah's words, making Allah into a god of hate and Muhammed into a prophet of evil. They cannot be considered Muslims, for they shame Allah and his ummah far more than some obscure Christian in a far off country could. Muslims who support these miscreants should be embarrassed, bringing shame on the ummah and causing Allah to be defamed among the peoples of the world. The killing of the innocent, the trampling and destruction of others property, all based on a lie, cannot be held to be honorable. How can they be Muslims, if they kill and oppress those that are in your country by invitation, under the protection of the Muslims, and who have not taken up weapons in rebellion but only when attacked by those whose duty says they must be defenders? You are the best people but only if you preach what is right and condemn what is wrong. These preach what is right and condemn those who do no wrong."

If nothing else, it would make for an interesting news cycle.