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In reply to the discussion: Many Liberals Defend Islam the Way Conservatives Defend Guns [View all]Yorktown
(2,884 posts)But Muslim is not an identity.
Ahmed X is a baker, 35 years old, center right politically, socially conservative, of Syrian origin, and is a Muslim in the sense he thinks 5 prayers a day will keep the hell away and thinks homosexuals are mud but holds no hatred for secular westerners.
Yusuf is 25 years old, just graduated, rather left leaning, of Albanian origin, and is sympathetic to violent jihad.
Only an anti-Muslim bigot or a Muslim supremacist would reduce them to their Muslim 'identity'.
But in both cases, they hold opinions which are problematic and generated by the ideology of Islam. In that sense, I feel the author of the original article has a point, Islam is an ideology generating problems.
In the same way that the root problem causing anti-"untouchables" apartheid in India is Hinduism.
In the same way homophobic bigotry in the US is largely Christianity-baesd.