Charlie Hebdo, Don't pretend your new issue does not disrespect Islam

[BainsBane]

342. No, they have denounced Islam, not specific practices

Last edited Sat Jan 17, 2015, 01:35 AM - Edit history (1)

To do the latter would require taking time to learn something about the many different religious traditions and peoples that comprise Islam. People have denounced Islam and you have called sickening the very idea that I suggest we respect all peoples. You find it sickening because you have proclaimed "Western culture" as "inculcated by our government and media" as superior. That is a culture of capitalism and war. That is a corporate culture that benefits the few at the expense of the many. That is what is inculcated by our media, the media that has taught you it's acceptable to proclaim yourself superior based on a mere accident of place of birth, religion, and racial-ethnic identity.

For me the question is do we respect ethnic, religious, and racial minorities. You have make clear that you do not, and that when I suggest we think about respect for others who are not part of the dominant culture, you in a previous post call that "sickening." You are very pleased with your European cultural superiority, the kind that has resulted in far more war, deaths and murder than any Muslims have ever contributed. But that's okay because we are the superior people. You show a notion of Western civilization that dropped out of currency among educated people some thirty years ago. Colleges no longer even offer classes on Western civilization because they recognized how narrow and racist the concept was. It's a bit alarming for me to see views I thought died out some half a century ago, particularly by people who claim to be liberals or Democrats, a party that depends on support from Americans of a broad array of cultural backgrounds, not just Western European.

I'm glad you're so pleased with your cultural superiority. You can pat yourself on the back for that culture producing one of the highest murder rates in the world, existing in a constant state of war, reintroducing torture into international relations, and waging war after war in the name of the cultural superiority you so proudly proclaim. Apparently hundreds of thousands of murderers at the hands of superior Western governments is better than a handful by the culturally inferior Muslims who have the audacity to worship a God rather than money. More people will die this year from guns that in all the Islamic terrorist attacks in history. But those deaths are okay because they are the product of a superior culture.

With the exception of tribal peoples, we all descend from immigrants. Yet for some reason you have decided the only culture that is "ours" is that which comes from Europe. We also have Muslim immigrants who are American. We have Muslim families who have lives here for centuries. Yet you have proclaimed it is your Western cultural heritage that makes us (presumably America) what we are. You are wrong about that. We are equally indigenous, African, Hispanic, Asian, Arab, Ashkenazi, and countless other cultural contributions. Most educated people know and embrace that. They do not proclaim the "Western" European aspects to be the superior or defining elements because they have been educated to learn about the many cultures that make up America. The cultural right, however, does not. My ancestors may have all come from the British isles, but I live in a community with Somalis, Arabs, Iranians, Kenyans, Mexicans, Guatemalans, Hmong, Vietnamese, and peoples of countless other ethnic and national origins. All of those influences make up "our" culture. My culture is not the exclusionary, ethnocentric "West" that you proclaim superior. It takes influences from that as well as the other residents of my city, state, region, and country. Europeans are not even the ethnic majority in the US anymore, yet you have decided that "your culture" as "inculcated by the media" is superior. I disagree.

I do not find respect for the multivaried fabric of my community to be "disgusting." It is the absence of respect, the racism and cultural ethnocentrism evident in the refusal to consider them as part of this culture that I find deeply troubling. All cultures have strengths and weaknesses. To proclaim Western culture so unequivocably superior is a view based entirely on FAITH-- faith in ego, power, and might--rather than knowledge.