Muslim, the Jews of the 21st Century

[DainBramaged]

Just like I remember the ignorant talking about Jews when I was growing up, those same people now refer to those 'Muslins' with the same disparaging words. Last night at the local Shop Rite with a liquor store inside (had to think about this before I posted, having woken up a few minutes ago) this asshole with an anti-Obama 'keep the change' bumper sticker (and more) on his dilapidated 90's Ford Taurus (why do they seem to own Taurus' here) started yelling at two Sikhs walking to their car and from what I could understand his rage was that they were 'Muslins' who should leave 'his' country. My sweetie would not let me confront him, but that's OK. The two 'Muslins' he hated drove away in a BMW. And I'm sure he didn't get the irony.


I remember Hasidic Jews being yelled at like that when I was growing up in NJ in the 50's and 60's, and now, anyone with 'that Middle Eastern look' is the focus of racial hatred by the ignorant Whites among us. Unless we are invaded by Aliens, I don't think we as a Country (or as a planet for that matter) are going to end this hatred for those we know little or nothing about and who are different from 'us'. It's as if we are in the beginning stages of the new Crusades. And I think it's attributable to the Republicans more than anyone.




:popcorn:

[Kurska]

1. "by the ignorant Whites among us" What does that mean?

I've heard just as vile anti-islamic sentiment come from black aswell as white, I don't think any race has a corner on the market of being ignorant.

[GodlessBiker]

2. It appears that there are those who, when attacking racial hatred, nevertheless use race...

as a way to divide people.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

3. I know both well, its a seriously flawed comparision

[proteus_lives]

5. +1000

[Violet_Crumble]

7. I know both well and it's definately not a flawed comparison at all...

The way Muslims are talked about in the US is reminiscent of the way Jews were talked about in Nazi Germany. There are some people even here at DU who will deny black and blue that bigoted things aimed at Muslims are actually bigoted at all, and usually they'll claim that the Muslims have done something to deserve it.

Maybe you'd like to try to explain why you think it's a flawed comparison? I know I for one would be interested to see what you and others who agree with you have to say on the subject...

[Name removed]

8. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Igel]

4. "Beginning of the new Crusades"?

Does that mean that the centuries of Muslim expansionism and imperialism, forced conversions and relocations of occupied peoples, are about to come to an end so that the West/Xianity/etc. are going to try to mount a counter offensive?

(Perhaps you had the same history teacher I had in high school. There was Byzantium, a horribly corrupt and evil state. Then, the next day, virtuous and pious Muslim states existed from central Spain through N. Africa to SE Europe and included Malta and pieces of Sicily, all of the Middle East and into NW S Asia and guaranteeing equality and freedom for all. This happened spontaneously and was Just and Right, so that when there were attacks on them it was somehow unjust--whether the horrible Reconquista without a preceeding Conquista, or Crusades to take back parts of the ME that hadn't actually ever been lost. We focused on the evils of the Crusades, not even mentioning the fath.)

[Behind the Aegis]

6. The Jews are the Jews of the 21st Century.

Some things never change.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[McCamy Taylor]

10. True, if by that you mean they are the scapegoats for the oligarchy.

African-Americans and Latinos are also scapegoats in this country. And Jewish people are still scapegoats. The oligarchy has a lot of sins to spread around. And ain't it grand when they can divide and conquer the oppressed, the way they have divided and conquered Muslims and Jews. Whole lot of wealthy WASPs laughing all the way to the bank.

[McCamy Taylor]

11. Word of warning. Be careful when you steal someone's "victimhood".

Some folks, victimhood is all they got.

[WinkyDink]

25. Your quotation marks are supremely offensive to the point of vile.

[alcibiades_mystery]

32. Ayup

:thumbsup:

[old mark]

12. Sadly, there are still quite a few who hate jews - usually the same ones

who hate muslims, even in our "post racial society."

mark

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Douglas Carpenter]

14. I suggest you meet some real live Muslims who are just ordinary people, living ordinary lives

and are certainly not gleefully advocating the slaughter of anyone. They are just ordinary people living ordinary lives just like the vast majority of Jewish people are not the conniving, money-grubbing demons concocted in the imagination of 1930's anti-Semites.

[Scatterheart]

17. Am I right to assume then

that you are denying that Islam, the religion itself, is inherently misogynistic and profoundly homophobic?

[Douglas Carpenter]

18. if taken literally, so is the Old Testament and many other ancient religious works

The Bible, the Torah, the Talmud and the Koran all have some pretty shocking stuff in them, if one was to take it literally.


but are the vast majority of Muslim people - especially those living in America hateful of anyone? Of course not. I have lived most of my life around lots of Muslim people and they are definitely aware of my sexual orientation and have always been treated with dignity and respect.

A great deal of classic anti-Semitic ravings emphasize material from the Talmud to paint Jewish people in the most negative light. But were these selective quotes from ancient Talmudic writings representative of how Jewish people actually think and feel? Of course not.

[Scatterheart]

19. I'm not making excuses for those other religions, either.

And as an intersexed person, I have endured more than a fair share of put downs from Muslim individuals. It happened just yesterday on my morning bus commute, in fact, so for you to broadbrush followers of a bigoted religion as meek, gentle people who only half-heartedly believe what they are preached, simply because YOU havent experienced any ill-will from them, is just idiotic.

[Douglas Carpenter]

20. one can find anecdotal negative experiences from any group

this is the same reasoning on why some people don't like African-Americans, Jews or even gays.

[Scatterheart]

21. Glad to know discrimination I've faced is merely "anecdotal."

Curious to know, too, that the one intersexed Muslim woman I've known was routinely beaten by her peers and teachers in Saudi Arabia all through her childhood and disowned by her family before she eventually fled to the US. But I suppose since people like us are just tainted biological freaks, such treatment was deserved and justified. That culture seems to think so. But again, such experiences are merely anecdotal, and should be ignored.

[treestar]

34. If you object on that ground, then don't blame every Muslim for

the actions of any one Muslim, as you are doing.

Yes, Saudi Arabia is a terrible place, but it doesn't mean we get to treat Muslims as substandard people when they live here.

[Scatterheart]

22. dupe n/t

.

[Douglas Carpenter]

23. frankly, as I am sure you must know, intersexed people are going to have a hard time

in the vast majority of places in the world - the Muslim world is hardly unusual in that matter. In fact the Philippines and perhaps Thailand and perhaps a few other places like Tonga are about the only societies I am aware of that accepts intersex people outside of major population centers.

You have every right to be angry with the world for being so narrow minded. I'm sure your life would be have been most unpleasant growing up in Western Pennsylvania in the 1960's. I'm sure it would be most unpleasant in much of America today. When I grew up there, liberals thought gay people should be locked up in mental hospitals while conservatives thought gay people should be locked up in prison. Times have changed for most gay people, but for intersex people I am sure the improvement is significantly less. In the Middle East, enlightenment on these issues lags well behind the West. I don't doubt that a country as conservative as Saudi Arabia would not be very enlightened on the whole matter.

[Scatterheart]

24. And their conservative religion doesn't help things.

Islam, as a religion and belief system, should be offensive to anyone who has any conviction in their progressive beliefs. The degree to which one tolerates a belief system that is widely used to justify the murder, torture or oppression of women, gays, lesbians, intersexed individuals or any other human being, directly corresponds with the degree to which you tolerate such behavior. I have NONE.

[Douglas Carpenter]

27. there are approximately 1.3 billion Muslims in the world and they are not going away

and very few of them are ever going to abandon their religion. It is sure madness to promote a state of permanent hostility and dangerous beyond comprehension and to do so can only bring catastrophe on the whole world.

The caricature of Muslim people is no more realistic than racist caricatures of black people or anti-Semitic caricatures of Jewish people.

Unfortunately this whole issue is complicated by the reality that many Americans have essentially a cartoonish, if not deeply bigoted picture of the whole Middle East. Some people seem to have the impression that the whole of Arab and Islamic world is like a cross between the Talaban and Disney's Aladen.

That whole view of the Middle East is delusional and simply conforms to a Western fantasy. It is no more a picture of reality then to imagine Africa as a place where savage native cannibals dance around a fire while cooking their white captives. In fact Africa today almost certainly has far more human rights abuses and the treatment of women is almost certainly worse than in the Middle East regardless what religion dominates in whatever country. But this is not the story that some would want to promote.

I have in fact lived in the Middle East approximately half my life and yes, I do know something about. I have seen with my own eyes the changes and the progress that have been astounding over the past decades. I am even vain enough to be grateful that I have at times and in very small ways done what I could to improve things in this part of the world.

Throughout most of the Arab and much of the Muslim world woman compose more than 50% of University students and are rapidly evolving into the majority of the professional class. There is still a long, long way to go even in the most modern part of the Arab and Islamic world - but it is still a far, far cry from how thing were only two decades ago and a farther cry what many Americans imagine.

Even in a country as strict as Saudi Arabia the local media now criticizes the government and even the religious authorities. I would agree that the criticism is restrained by western standards. But it far exceeds anything people once imagined would ever be possible.

Almost all Muslim women like Muslim men - even the most liberal and western educated - are still religious and would not welcome the help of those who claim concern for them while advocating contempt and hostility toward the faith that the hold dear.

Those who are genuinely serious about wanting to improve the human rights situation in the Middle East should support the good work of organizations like Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch and they absolutely must oppose the kind of belligerent and confrontational policies that only strengthen the hands of fundamentalist and weakens the hands of liberal and democratic forces.

[Scatterheart]

30. So because human rights abuses are worse in Africa

we should downplay the "lesser" abuses against women, gays and others in a region of the world that has VASTLY more wealth and influence on the world stage? LOL.

[Scatterheart]

31. Dupe. Damned cell phones n/t

.

[Douglas Carpenter]

33. absolutely not, I don't believe anything of the sort.

There are religious crazies in America who now pretty much dominate the Republican Party and there are the neoconservatives who are bent on promoting a permanent American war in the Middle East and I believe they must be stopped or America and the whole world will experience a catastrophe beyond imagination. The religious crazies believe they must help facilitate the battle of Armageddon in order to usher in the second coming of Christ. This is not a small marginal group of kooks. This is a group who are to a large degree now calling the shots in the Republican Party while their allies the neoconservatives work out the details.

Diffusing tensions with the Arab/Islamic world, supporting moderate and democratic forces in the Middle East and supporting the good work of human rights organizations is an absolute necessity or else a nightmare will likely unfold before our eyes before the end of the decade.

[Violet_Crumble]

15. And I always find it strange

to hear liberals making excuses for why it's acceptable to be bigoted towards Muslims, Jews, Christians or any other religious group. I know many Muslims and not one of them 'gleefully advocates the slaughter of gay, lesbian and transgender people'. I'm an atheist myself, and most religious folk are okay. If they leave me alone, I'll leave them alone...

[IndianaGreen]

16. Actually, Palestinians are in the role of the Jews of the 20th century

:popcorn:

[WinkyDink]

26. Deleted.

I get myself riled up at my "fellow" Democrats.

[rucky]

28. What does that make the Jews?

[WinkyDink]

29. Despised by "liberals", apparently.

[NNN0LHI]

35. Every time my mother catches a cold or her allergies act up she swears the "Muhammadans" are ...

... spraying something in the sky to make her sick.

Big Fox news watcher and elderly. Bad combination.

She was convinced Saddam was going to send drones over here too.

Don