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Hope on the Islam Front
Two little pieces of what looks to me anyway like hopeful signs: that Europe is looking to Australia’s model for how to cope with immigration, and that there may be more atheist, agnostic or otherwise apostate Muslims than we know.
From Quillette, an interview with a Pakistani-Canadian Muslim writer, Ali Rizvi. A few good quotes to give the flavor:
Liberals have often squandered the opportunity to have an honest and morally responsible conversation about [Islam]. And by doing so, they left a void, which has been filled by opportunists from the far-Right, who want to have this dialogue in an irresponsible and xenophobic way.
Many freethinkers and disbelievers in the Muslim community who saw what happened to Salman Rushdie, even in the West, will think twice before coming out. Liberals are not supporting the people that they should be supporting, and they have compromised on their own values. That’s how terrorism works. They want to curb terrorism, but they’re not curbing it, they’re already victims of it.
But then, the Internet came around. Here in the West we use it mainly for sharing cat videos and we enjoy that, but for [Muslims in the Middle East], it is a window onto a world that they had no idea existed at all. These are people who are born and raised there, who didn’t go on vacation to the West like I did. Muslim youth globally are being more exposed to secular influences. They’re seeing Hollywood movies that are now uncensored, and they are thinking about these things, comparing them to their own life. And yes, the conservatives are very worried about this.
Rizvi sees the rise in extremism and terrorism not as signs of Islam’s strength, but of the opposite — its desperate attempt to prevent Muslims from drawing the obvious conclusions from what they can now know about the world.
I hope he’s right.
How, though, to hold the line on immigration into Europe long enough for the Muslim world to, at last, reform along Western lines? I could offer lots of inexpert advice (and have, in these virtual pages) but Gatestone reports something more practical in the works:
From Gatestone
Four years ago, the Australian government sparked criticism after it ran an advertisement aimed at discouraging asylum seekers from traveling illegally to the country. “No Way“, the poster read. “You will not make Australia home. If you get on a boat without a visa, you will not end up in Australia. Any vessel seeking illegally to enter Australia will be intercepted and safely removed beyond Australian waters”.
and:
Last year, EU officials came to Australia for help. At a recent summit, European Union member states agreed to copy the Australian model of turning back the migrant boats and sending them to third-countries, to centers there run by local authorities, on the model of the Manus Regional Processing Centre in Papua New Guinea, which was used to house migrants turned away from Australia. Italy is now looking to create similar reception centers on the southern border of Libya.
What do you think, Ricochetti? Reason for optimism or mere aspirins offered to a continent with a metastasizing cancer?
Published in Islamist Terrorism
Will do, Z…
Z, you know that @claire, is here on R>, right? How recently was this done?
I think it was from when she lived in Turkey, so a while ago.
But as I trawl through the internet some of the stuff that first popped up post Theo Van Gogh’s murder still seems relevant wrt how we approach things and why. Which is really what I found interesting in this interview. Perhaps a little meta, I don’t know.
“Meta”, Z? Transliteration, please/thanks…
I’ve got to sleep for a bit; I’ll be back later on. I can say that the earlier half was more helpful than the more directly political bits about halfway through til the end…G’night!
:-)
One of the more popular uses of meta today is for the meaning best described by the formula “meta-X equals X about X.” So, if we take the word “data” for our X, and add the prefix meta- to it, we get metadata, or “data about data.” A meta-text is a text about texts, metacognition is thinking about thinking, and a meta-joke is a joke about jokes. The self-reflection sense of meta has also given rise to the use of the word as a standalone adjective, where meta is used to describe something that’s self-reflective or self-referencing.
Or in this case, metaperception (of Muslims by the West). But I think it’s probably widely applicable.
Thanks much – I’m familiar with the prefix, but wasn’t quite sure of its referent. 😀
I hate to be that guy, but…
Western Sydney is full of Muslims, who have been known to terrorize beach goers on, among other places, Australia’s best-known beach, Bondi.
I have had heated arguments with my Aussie mother-in-law about immigration, and I admit she was right. But Australia may have bitten off more than it can chew a decade or more ago, so it may be too late.
Not to mention the meta-processes. Or the meta-enterprise, the enterprise about building enterprises. But I closed that company before the term really caught on.
You may be thinking of Cronulla?
I remember that, those were bad days for Sydney, bad days for Australia.
Cronulla was the incident that made all the world news, but there were incidents on Bondi that I recall well before Cronulla. Cronulla’s just more accessible via CityRail (now SydneyTrains).
Confirmation bias much? Actually I was thinking more about the 6th Pillar riot, the The Holsworthy Barracks Plot: A Case Study of an Al-Shabab Support Network in Australia, and the Terrifying legacy emerges from success of Operation Pendennis.
All famous beaches, yes.
When did the ‘Cronulla affair’ occur and what was the genesis of the riot?
The link is to a doco which is a good place to start.
Thanks Z-dawg but if you can’t bother to tell me then I can’t bother to ‘klick.’
I’ll just have to continue wallowing in my ignorance I suppose.
It’s a 50(?) minute doco with more information than I think I could reasonably give you in an answer that was respectful by not overly simplifying things. And the doco is just a starting point – Iow it’s one POV, not the only one.
and again I say if you can’t tell me then I am not going to do the research to try to figure out and then learn what it is that I am supposed to learn from what my POV (assuming I am allowed one of those. not as crazy as one might think) tells me are nothing more than CAIR funded propaganda films.
The other thing that is beginning to concern me is that I am not quite sure how many POVs (btw: when did this come into common usage) I am supposed to look at this issue from; but apparently, they are legion.
I did watch some of it, but it has a cookie-cutter feel: acted-upon Muslims, bad-actor Aussies, and aggrieved allies who’re “shocked that this could happen here.” Plenty of bloody hands/heads/clothing – almost lurid. For something that supposedly doesn’t happen often, situations like this seem to be favored for advancing a narrative in news coverage. (I’ll finish it, but I need to get some sleep.)
Fair enough.
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The other thing that is beginning to concern me is that I am not quite sure how many POVs (btw: when did this come into common usage) I am supposed to look at this issue from; but apparently, they are legion.
////
Well, don’t strain yourself, but perhaps try for two or three?
Here are two new POVs as well as a new concept and term for me but one that I fear we will all soon be learning more about than we ever wanted to know: Taharush Gamea or The Rape Game.
The first 20-30 seconds of this ~1 minute video are quite disturbing.
POV #1.
POV #2. (Published on May 30, 2018)
The Muslim Refugee Rape Epidemic: Coming to America? | Michelle Malkin Investigates
Simon, these are your own povs.
Also it’s my understanding that “taharrush game’a” is Arabic for “sexual assault by a group” (with an Egyptian accent. Otherwise is would be “jame’a”). The equivalent in English might be “gang rape”.
There is no English equivalent to what those sub-humans were doing to that poor girl in my first Point of View video. Sorry, did not interview her or the rapists for their POVs.
I say The Rape Game and you say tomato.
Actually you could not be more wronger but it is a neat trick to devalue the POV of the makers of those two videos.
Don’t “like” these at all, Simon, but thanks for posting them…
POV #3.1400 shocking years of Islam in 5 minutes
Actually the clip is just over 18 minutes.
@zafar this is not my POV, this is the brave young lady’s POV. Are any of her facts or opinions incorrect?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj8J62BqRMo
Actually I thought that the translation is ‘group harassment’ but any idiot knows that the interpretation is The Rape Game.
My POV: The Logic of Islam.
Please tell me where I am wrong.
Okay, so I thought I should practice what I preach (and perhaps lead by example?) and watch Brigitte Gabriel and Carl Goldberg with an open heart. Which I did. I enjoyed both videos – so thank you, @simontemplar – I wasn’t expecting to, but I did.
And with the caveat that I have no interest in defending Islam (gay marriage, remember? or is that me doing…..taqiyyah? Muaaahahahahahaha….) a few thoughts.
Brigitte was a fun speaker to watch. I am not that familiar with Muslim history, but I’m sure that the events she mentioned did happen (as far as we know), though I’m also sure that she didn’t mention any relevant events that were not “on point” (for eg the Tanzimat reforms of the Ottoman Empire). Wrt more recent history – ISIS wanted to be the Caliphate, no doubt, but most Muslims and all the Governments of Muslim majority countries were not persuaded.
Does that mean that most Muslims and all these Governments were: Bad Muslims!?
That would be a yes! according to Carl Goldberg, who I have to say was completely charming. (Especially that ‘does that make….sense?’ thing he kept doing.)
But of course I have to ask:
Why are the Koran and Mohammed’s life and sayings more authentically definitive for Islam than what Muslims do?
Goldberg doesn’t explain that convincingly, only asserts it. And if you don’t agree with his assertion (which I don’t, because historical [like all] memory is plastic, especially wrt religious individuals and events) then the rest of his conclusions don’t logically flow as authoritative or persuasive (if you aren’t already in the choir, I guess).
Another thing that struck me as important was his assumption that literal readings of scripture are more authentic, more truthful if you will, than an interpretation. (I wonder if that’s how he sees readings of Christian and Jewish scripture as well. ie literal = better = eg when the Bible says six days it means six days.)
Again – I don’t think that’s true. So much of scripture is allegory, and it’s deep meaning comes from that.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” is a profound statement about perception and language and what it means to be human (imho, of course), but it depends on allegory for it’s depth. It’s about more than a heavenly being with bullhorn. (Or perhaps that’s exactly who we are?)
But Goldberg nailed it re moderate Muslims being exposed as hypocrites of some kind or other when they repeatedly back off from critically discussing the Koran or Mohammad’s life and sayings. If they’re claiming to be reformers, what’s so reforming about those beliefs? Or if they don’t hold these beliefs, why are they pretending to?
So…merci. I enjoyed both videos.