Muslim protest protestor...Too much?

[Ninjahedge]

http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/wichman.asp



I think the last line in the piece is too much.



"Like talking to your wife or kids".



I say he is entitled to his opinion, and if others are allowed to protest, so is he, but I do not think he thought this out before he sent it, and now he is being a weasel.

(Old news, I know, but relatively new on Snopes)

[milleniumcab]

It is wrong to assume all muslims are fanatics, as it is to assume all christians belong to the right wing with extreme views..

The world did not badmouth Christianity for what Hitler did to Jews..What this small segment of Muslims doing should remind every peace loving person in the world is that it is the FANATICISM that is the #1 enemy of Humanity, FANATICISM of any kind...

[Ninjahedge]

Aside from the basic generalization that was used in the letetr MC, was he right in saying what he did?

Is it right for someone to protest the protestors who are protesting about OTHER protestors making cartoons?

[Jake]

Perhaps these organizations should start taking responsability for Muslims as a group, if they want to protest the abuse of Muslims as a group.

I find this completely ridiculous, because whenever something bad is done by a Muslim they say "not all muslims blah blah blah" but when a Christian says something about A Muslim they say "omfg, you insulted our peoples and our prophet you infidels!"

The fact that there are also NO Christian student organizations in Muslim countries (with a handful of exceptions) is also notable IMO.

It has become so taboo to say ANYTHING negative about people other than white christians that we've completely lost sight of simple truths. Next time an American is beheaded (which is quite often) we should take a few million people, fly to EVERY Muslim country regardless of the degree of blame (as the Muslim protesters did) and protest.

BOTTOM LINE:

A Muslim Student Organization should be for people who want to peacefully practice their religion as Americans (or Canadians, or wherever they live), it should absolutely NEVER be a lobbying group for murdering scumbags which it often tends to be.

[Ninjahedge]

I find this completely ridiculous, because whenever something bad is done by a Muslim they say "not all muslims blah blah blah" but when a Christian says something about A Muslim they say "omfg, you insulted our peoples and our prophet you infidels!"



Um, I see where you are going with this jake, but the statements are not directly comparable.


The thing is, the second part is a generalization applied to everyone. Both of their statements are asking for the word "muslim" to not mean "Terrorist" or "radical".

It is a very sticky issue between free press, human rights, and respect for others.

There is no way to write laws about this that would not short change one of the groups.

[milleniumcab]

Aside from the basic generalization that was used in the letetr MC, was he right in saying what he did?

Is it right for someone to protest the protestors who are protesting about OTHER protestors making cartoons?

I have no problem with someone practicing free speech.. He has every right, in my opinion, to say whatever he wants.. But, I think, for such an educated person to show that kind of emotion and use such generalization is quite wrong.. We must first familirize ourselves with the culture of the people we are protesting against and try to understand why they are so angry with the Danish Cartoons, before we call all muslims fanatics..

[ablarc]

Perhaps these organizations should start taking responsibility for Muslims as a group, if they want to protest the abuse of Muslims as a group.
Not too much to ask.

It has become so taboo to say ANYTHING negative about people other than white christians that we've completely lost sight of simple truths.
This is the line where political correctness joins hands with religious fanaticism --a peculiar coalition made possible by the fact that both are substitutes for truth and thought.

.

[Jake]

well those simple truths are that he is not wrong....all those events listed by him really took place AND they were carried out on religious grounds.

Another truth is that the Danish cartoons story is bullshit, come on, really think about how much people give a shit about some Danish newspaper's cartoons, and what do we get? Global protests as if the world was ending.

[milleniumcab]

well those simple truths are that he is not wrong....all those events listed by him really took place AND they were carried out on religious grounds.

Another truth is that the Danish cartoons story is bullshit, come on, really think about how much people give a shit about some Danish newspaper's cartoons, and what do we get? Global protests as if the world was ending.

What you might find BS, as an ignorant American, is really the biggest problem in America. IGNORANCE...Read, read and read some more before you make a comment about something as deep as Danish Cartoons...

If it wasn't for your kind , this world would be a much safer place... BUSH would not be running the show...

Sincerely...

[milleniumcab]

well those simple truths are that he is not wrong....all those events listed by him really took place AND they were carried out on religious grounds.

Another truth is that the Danish cartoons story is bullshit, come on, really think about how much people give a shit about some Danish newspaper's cartoons, and what do we get? Global protests as if the world was ending.

What you might find BS, as an ignorant American, is really the biggest problem in America. IGNORANCE...Read, read and read some more before you make a comment about something as deep as Danish Cartoons...

[ablarc]

What you might find BS, as an ignorant American, is really the biggest problem in America. IGNORANCE...Read, read and read some more before you make a comment about something as deep as Danish Cartoons...
I just got through reading the Koran. I found exhortations to violence on almost every page --most of it directed at the infidel.

If it's minimizing anti-Islamic sentiment you want, milleniumcab, you have the wrong prescription. I'd advise you not to tout the public reading of --at least-- the Koran. If five minutes of this book were read daily on the evening news, public opinion would certainly grow dramatically more anti-Islamic.

Since that's certain, the American public shows great moderation on the subject; you could quite easily chalk that up to ignorance.

Meeting your criteria for enlightenment at least partially, milleniumcab, I feel compelled to speculate that either you haven't actually read the Koran yourself, or perhaps you're moslem.

[Jake]

yes the "people like me" do often throw out racist unsupported arguments BUT noone on this board or in this country will call ANY of the actions mentioned in the letter as "just."

Maybe you can explain to me exactly what the big deal was about the cartoons? There was a huge thread on this and there's many reasons but how can you possibly compare that "us westerners" drew an insulting cartoon to "you muslims" BEHEAD OUR PEOPLE on TV?????!

Muslims are NOT beheaded on NBC (or in fact at all) in America.

Muslim leaders are NOT murdered here.

Fewer mosques have been attacked in America than in ANY Muslim country.

Muslims are NOT oppressed here by any laws.


For those reasons "us ignorant westerners" are BETTER, tha's right, read BETTER, people than you "peaceful muslims" I don't care about whose culture, history and so on is better but the simple fact that we've moved past blowing up our supermarkets and schools makes us a GREATER society than your average muslim country.

[ablarc]

^ Not politically correct, and not nicely put...but substantially and substantively correct.

[milleniumcab]

I was brought up as a muslim but I am not religious..

[quote=ablarc]I just got through reading the Koran. I found exhortations to violence on almost every page --most of it directed at the infidel.[quote]

I looked up the meaning of INFIDEL, and it means " a person who does not believe in God or any of his messengers and JIHAD is war against INFIDELS".. The Koran recognizes Christianity and Christ, also Judaism and Moses. So my interpretation of that particular passage is that Christians and Jews CAN NOT be INFIDELS. Then again I am somewhat educated and can make up my own mind about what I read.. Most people who live in muslim countries are not as lucky and they will believe anything their local leaders say, religious or otherwise..



[quote]If it's minimizing anti-Islamic sentiment you want, milleniumcab, you have the wrong prescription. I'd advise you not to tout the public reading of --at least-- the Koran. If five minutes of this book were read daily on the evening news, public opinion would certainly grow dramatically more anti-Islamic.

Since that's certain, the American public shows great moderation on the subject; you could quite easily chalk that up to ignorance.[quote]

My post was not so much about minimizing anti-Islamic sentiment but minimizing ignorant interpretation of different civilizations and their culture..And the American people can be ignorant about many different subjects, not just Islam and it's teachings.. If I offended anyone, I am sorry but I feel this is true..

[ablarc]

My post was not so much about minimizing anti-Islamic sentiment but minimizing ignorant interpretation of different civilizations and their culture..And the American people can be ignorant about many different subjects, not just Islam and it's teachings.. If I offended anyone, I am sorry but I feel this is true..
I doubt you offended anyone. Your call to be informed applies to all of us. But after we've informed ourselves and found Pol Pot, our duty to extend the benefit of the doubt evaporates.

You also don't seem to have taken offense. :) I attribute that to this:

I was brought up as a muslim but I am not religious..
Not being religious makes a person much harder to offend. It's good to be hard to offend; it shows you have inner peace and self-confidence, and don't need the crutch of a religion to be whole.

I have to tell you: a person like me, raised in the values of a liberal democracy, finds the Koran appalling to read: backward, vengeful, violent and (in spite of claims to the contrary) full of hate. It makes it easy to explain those very traits in practicing moslems. Every page of that book tells me that it's the extremism that's orthodox, and moderation like yours represents the deviant minority. It's not what Mohammed wants from you. He wants militancy and aggression. It's on every page.

[milleniumcab]

yes the "people like me" do often throw out racist unsupported arguments BUT noone on this board or in this country will call ANY of the actions mentioned in the letter as "just."

Maybe you can explain to me exactly what the big deal was about the cartoons? There was a huge thread on this and there's many reasons but how can you possibly compare that "us westerners" drew an insulting cartoon to "you muslims" BEHEAD OUR PEOPLE on TV?????!

Muslims are NOT beheaded on NBC (or in fact at all) in America.

Muslim leaders are NOT murdered here.

Fewer mosques have been attacked in America than in ANY Muslim country.

Muslims are NOT oppressed here by any laws.


For those reasons "us ignorant westerners" are BETTER, tha's right, read BETTER, people than you "peaceful muslims" I don't care about whose culture, history and so on is better but the simple fact that we've moved past blowing up our supermarkets and schools makes us a GREATER society than your average muslim country.

I don't really want to make this into an argument about civilizations or culture or religion...That is not my intention..
We need to understand that most people in the Middle East are uneducated, poor and live in their closed and tribal societies. Some chose and some were forced to live in such manner.. Their religion, whatever that maybe, burried deep within their culture and their culture is everything to them...The only thing the Danish Cartoons accomplished is that undermind the efforts of reasonable people trying to close the rift between western world and the muslim world.. They knew exactly how some of the muslim population would react to the cartoons and they went ahead and published and republished them... These poeple are fanatics in their own views and have their own agenda, that is to put a greater rift between,shall I say, West and East..
And when you come out and say "What is the big deal", the publishers of the cartoons have accomplished their goal..Unfortuanetly what may not be a big deal to us is a huge deal to those muslims who in most part participated in peacefull protests.. But only the unrully and dispicable protests by the FANATICS was mentioned in our media, which is ruled by Sensationalizm..

[milleniumcab]

Every page of that book tells me that it's the extremism that's orthodox, and moderation like yours represents the deviant minority.

I must disagree.. Most muslims, even ortodox ones, live in peace and do not take the extremist views of the fanatics. It is the extremism that represents the deviant minority.. Unfortunately, that extremism have taken a religion, which has the same TEN COMMANDMENTS as the Bible and the Tora, for a ride...

[milleniumcab]

ONe more Thing ablarc..:).. Maybe this is not the right place but will you tell me how you highlite the section of a post before you comment on it, multiple times like you did.....
If you notice I tried the same thing couple of posts ago but wasn't successful..:o

[ablarc]

It's true that the overwhelming majority of American Muslims aren't extremists; after all, that's related to why they're here at all. It's also true that to varying degrees majorities of most Islamic countries are not violent extremists.

It's also true that most who profess Christianity don't really practice it in their daily lives as its founder intended. In real terms, to do so would force them to refuse military service and renounce most aggressive behavior and turn the other cheek. This is extremely difficult for most people to do, for it entails severe penalties from others and from the government; so most people don't. This makes them not really practitioners of Christianity as envisioned by Jesus Christ.

Similarly, most Muslims try to avoid violence because they don't want to be killed and they don't hate enough to want to kill others. But a strict --or even a casual-- reading of the Koran reveals that such people are not devout practitioners of Islam. Islam is militant, indeed military; its founder was a warrior who personally conquered as much territory as Alexander the Great.

If you take the Koran literally, the extremists are devout and mainstream; those who don't join them are lukewarm and insufficiently devout. That's not me speaking; you'll find it on nearly every page. Can we be surprised at the products of such a religion?

I pray that Muslims would lose their devotion and become slack practitioners, but the momentum seems to be in the other direction.

Islam is squarely mired in the Dark Ages, and freedom from its tenets is the surest path to social and economic progress in a part of the world that sorely needs it. Muslims are held down by their religion. Only by not practicing it --like you, milleniumcab-- is emancipation possible and emergence into the light of some degree of freedom: spiritual, economic, social and political.

As Salman Rushdie has pointed out, Islam is the enemy of the unfortunate inhabitants of the lands it dominates.

[ablarc]

ONe more Thing ablarc..:).. Maybe this is not the right place but will you tell me how you highlite the section of a post before you comment on it, multiple times like you did.....
If you notice I tried the same thing couple of posts ago but wasn't successful..:o
millenium cab: use the "Quote" button. Then you can dissect into parts the post of the person you're quoting, interspersing your own comments. You must close each segment of the quote with "[/QUOTE]", and preface each subsequent fragment of the quote with "[QUOTE=ablarc]", or whoever else you may be quoting.

[Jake]

"Make war upon such of those to whom the Scriptures have been given as believe not in God, or in the last day, and who forbid not that which God and His Apostle have forbidden, and who profess not the profession of the truth, until they pay tribute out of hand, and they be humbled. The Jews say, 'Ezra (Ozair) is a son of God'; and the Christians say, 'The Messiah is a son of God'. Such the sayings in their mouths! They resemble the sayings of the Infidels of old! God do battle with them! How are they misguided!..He it is who hath sent His Apostle with the Guidance and a religion of the truth, that He may make it victorious over every other religion, albeit they who assign partners to God be averse from it." (Sura 9:29-33).

[ablarc]

^ You can find literally hundreds of other verses urging the same.

Literally.

It's a Muslim's God-given duty to oppose the infidel.

[Jake]

Right, I just thought that maybe it was supposed to be that "infidels" were polytheists and that somehow Christians didn't qualify as infidels (as some have claimed) but that passage clearly defines it.

[ablarc]

Elsewhere, the Prophet points out that Christians are polytheists because they refer to the Trinity. Three Gods or one God in three parts: either way it's anathema and abomination.

[milleniumcab]

Only education and economic progress will change the attitude of those people.. For centuries, they have been underprivileged in their own land by forces of greed.. That greed was and still is driven by oil..

Only thing any human being really needs in life is dignity.. Once you take that away from them, they stop being reasonable and start looking for ways to compinsate.. There comes the religion into play..And as it has been proven, then things get ugly..

Now if we can somehow give them back their dignity, we will see great improvements in the way they perceive us..

[ablarc]

Only education and economic progress will change the attitude of those people.. For centuries, they have been underprivileged in their own land...

Only thing any human being really needs in life is dignity.. Once you take that away from them, they stop being reasonable and start looking for ways to compinsate.. There comes the religion into play..And as it has been proven, then things get ugly..

Now if we can somehow give them back their dignity, we will see great improvements in the way they perceive us..
That would make them less Islamic. So, dignity is the enemy of Islam...

Not hard to see why Islam is the enemy of dignity.

[milleniumcab]

So, you are saying that a person with dignity can not be a religious person..I disagree.. I know plenty of people who are religious and have dignity..

But one must have the opportunity to have both.. In the U.S. , we have that opportunity but there they struggle to put food on the table.. It is not their religion stopping them from having dignity, it is the greed of others controling their homeland resources..

That would make anybody turn to the fanatics who are good at brainwashing others with imperfections about their religion..

[ablarc]

So, you are saying that a person with dignity can not be a religious person..I disagree.. I know plenty of people who are religious and have dignity..
Exploring this issue can lead us into weighty philosophical discussion or a can of worms.

A shorthand synopsis: some folks say the only proper way to practice religion is to take its dictates verbatim at face value. This is called fundamentalism, and in my opinion it does indeed rob you of dignity, whether it's Christian or Muslim, because you become a babbling fool.

If you accept that you owe your religion unquestioning obedience (which is what religion insists!), then anything less is not really practicing that religion. You may have your dignity but you're not truly religious.

In the U.S., we have that opportunity but there they struggle to put food on the table.. It is not their religion stopping them from having dignity, it is the greed of others controling their homeland resources..
I hear this all the time and I'm not convinced. Bin Laden never struggled to put food on his table and it's his country's royal family that really controls the homeland's resources. There's prosperity in that country, and the sons of that prosperity are in the front ranks of the terror.

In Saddam's Iraq there was plenty of greed controlling homeland resources but it was home-grown. It kept the people poor and the elite in palaces.

Kuwait and the other gulf states are simultaneously prosperous and supply-depots for terror recruits.

Yemen, Syria and Somalia aren't controlled by outside interests and they're mostly poor...on and on...

A country that almost has it together is Tunisia, but it's also the least fundamentalist, i.e. the least Islamic, the least religious.

That would make anybody turn to the fanatics who are good at brainwashing others with imperfections about their religion..
Fanatics brainwash with the perfections about their religion, not the imperfections. They read scripture accurately, precisely and literally. Their appeal lies in literal and undistorted reading of scripture, not distortions ("imperfections"). Read a little Koran to see what I mean; bin Laden has it right.

A problem that afflicts all religions is that they were cooked up in times when folks had less knowledge and were more...here's an unpopular word...primitive. A literal reading of Genesis forces you to reject evolution.

"There is no interpretation of scripture." That's a quote from the Bible, and you'll find the same thought in the Koran.



Makes you wonder why folks need religion. You can be good without it. Matter of fact, it might be easier without it.

Dignity? Self-reliance.

.

[milleniumcab]

I do not have any more constructive comments for this thread as long as ablarc is the only one responding to me...:(...It is not right for two minds that are actually working pretty much the same way to go nuts trying to enlighten each other..

So.........
I'll give it a break, a while, to see whether anybodyelse can put a few cents into this thread..:)..

[ablarc]

^ Very moderate of you. (Now if we could only get such measured responses from the Imams.)

[ZippyTheChimp]

Jehovah's Witnesses
Tibetans
Hasidic Jews

Are they fundamentalists?
Do they have dignity?
Do they accept other cultures?

[ablarc]

Jehovah's Witnesses
Tibetans
Hasidic Jews

Are they fundamentalists?
Do they have dignity?
Do they accept other cultures?
Sound-bite question with a complex answer. (Though a simple answer is expected to emanate from the question, I suspect. :))

Jehovah's Witnesses are fundamentalists. They carry themselves with dignity and wear neckties when proselytizing. I don't know how they are when watching TV. Their required missionary zeal suggests that they accept the members of other sects, but would rather accept them into the fold, at which time they are no longer members of another culture. Does any missionary accept the culture he's trying to convert ...as anything beyond a subject for conversion? He may not wish to put it to the sword but he does wish its members' core beliefs to change. By definition.

Tibetans come in many flavors, including irreligious. Most of them (mighty reluctantly) accept Chinese culture. The Dalai Lama's followers, being Buddhists, welcome all cultures (except Chinese culture, of course. ;)) The ones in orange robes project great dignity.

Hasidic Jews. Hard to say if they accept other cultures; depends on your definition of "accept." They are fundamentalist to a fault, adding numerous words of man (scholars) to the word of God. Do they have dignity? Not when waiting to be rescued from stranded gondolas.

.

[Jake]

Do they have dignity? Not when waiting to be rescued from stranded gondolas.

Hilarious, ablarc, I read they called 911 saying they were children and needed to be rescued right away. Meanwhile actual children needing help had to wait for hours.

I'd like to say that all 3 of those groups move to places where they seek acceptance, whereas fundamentalist Muslims move to the places they hate the most.

[lofter1]

From farce ^ to tragedy ...

What can anyone do when dealing with minds like this???

Somali World Cup viewers killed

RAW STORY / BBC (http://rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.bbc.co.uk%2F 2%2Fhi%2Fafrica%2F5150118.stm)
5 July 2006

Two people are reported dead after Islamist gunmen in central Somalia opened fire in a cinema where people were watching a banned World Cup match.

The cinema owner and a young girl were reportedly killed by militia loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts, who seized control of parts of Somalia last month.

The courts have introduced Sharia law in areas under their authority, including a World Cup broadcast ban.

Somalia has had no effective central government since 1992.

According to reports on a Somali news network, gunmen arrived to close down the cinema in the town of Dhuusa Marreeb in central Galgadud district, where a crowd had gathered to watch the Germany-Italy World Cup semi-final.

Some of the football fans began to protest and according to reports, the gunmen fired in the air in an attempt to disperse them.

When this failed, shots were fired at the demonstrators and two people were killed.

The Islamic courts have introduced Sharia in areas under their authority.

This has included in some parts a ban on cinemas and on broadcasts of World Cup games because they have carried advertisements for alcohol.

The courts have taken control of large parts of Somalia, introducing a level of civil administration and justice which the country has not seen for the past 15 years.

Story from BBC NEWS

© BBC MMVI

[ablarc]

The courts have taken control of large parts of Somalia, introducing a level of civil administration and justice which the country has not seen for the past 15 years.
Ain't that the truth!

For fifteen years Somalia was nominally an anarchy, but nicely held together by informal governments of local tribal elders. A central government was unnecessary because Somalia had basically reverted to its pre-colonial governance.

Now there's a new form of imperialism: Islamic Imperialism --and it brings with it government-sanctioned murder of civilians to appease a bloodthirsty and entirely imaginary God.

[ZippyTheChimp]

For fifteen years Somalia was nominally an anarchy, but nicely held together by informal governments of local tribal elders. A central government was unnecessary because Somalia had basically reverted to its pre-colonial governance.Where are you getting this from?

Relatively stable clan rule has existed only in the north. The south (where Mogadishu is) has been wracked by tribal violence since the government of Siad Barre collapsed.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Sound-bite question with a complex answer.Not really complex, but I figured you would be hard pressed to reconcile the answer with...
So, dignity is the enemy of Islam...

Not hard to see why Islam is the enemy of dignity.

So instead, we get two groups that have sartorial dignity, and a third that may be dignified when it is not afraid.

[ablarc]

Where are you getting this from?
The Economist.

Relatively stable clan rule has existed only in the north. The south (where Mogadishu is) has been wracked by tribal violence since the government of Siad Barre collapsed.
Yeah, and now the whole country will be subject to killer Imams.

Some government.

[ablarc]

So instead, we get two groups that have sartorial dignity, and a third that may be dignified when it is not afraid.
Sartorial dignity is better than no dignity at all. The third group also has sartorial dignity of sorts. Forgot to mention that.

Can I help it if you picked three groups that have so much of their dignity vested in clothes?

Is there a lesson in that?

[ZippyTheChimp]

The Economist. Got a link to the info?

Yeah, and now the whole country will be subject to killer Imams.

Some government. Non sequitur to the point that Somalia has been
nicely held together by informal governments

[ablarc]

...a third that may be dignified when it is not afraid.
Everybody on that gondola was afraid. Not everybody reacted as those folks did. If your God is there to protect you, you don't need to lose your dignity.

Seems like a good illustration that the bigger deal you make about adherence to religion's rituals, the less you can be trusted to do the right thing in a pinch.

I'd say that could be a good general rule of human behavior --even if you can find exceptions.

[ZippyTheChimp]

I do not have any more constructive comments for this thread as long as ablarc is the only one responding to me.Maybe now you can understand why some threads get little participation, unless you like to tap dance.

[ablarc]

Got a link to the info?
Find it yourself. I gotta go pray. :)

[Ninjahedge]

Maybe now you can understand why some threads get little participation, unless you like to tap dance.

Wait a sec, we are allowed to reply?

[ablarc]

^ What are you guys talking about?

[Jake]

I came across this when looking for NYC landmark pics, on a website for "lighting a candle" for 9/11 victims someone posted about 10 of these messeges:



Name: INAM ULLAH
I pray for my ALLAH that ALLAH distroy All USA communities without Muslims
Amin somma Amin
http://www.nycfoto.com/911/candle.php?start=10

Now it would be stupid but somewhat understandable if this was on some militant site, but come on, a 9/11 victims site???? Nice job scumbag.

Now tell me exactly why we even sell computers to these people?

[milleniumcab]

Holly S**t, What the h**l am I doing living on UES. I got to find a place in a muslim neighborhood...:D :D :D

[Transic]

It's true that the overwhelming majority of American Muslims aren't extremists; after all, that's related to why they're here at all. It's also true that to varying degrees majorities of most Islamic countries are not violent extremists.


I wouldn't be so sure. The last two trips I took to Costco (both in Brooklyn and Queens) I noticed that more and more of them shopping in them. I guess it's from the fact that both stores are right close to where they mostly concentrate but I was taken aback at how rapidly their population has grown just in the last 5 years. Then you have these thugs out in Jackson Heights calling themselves the Islamic Thinkers who gather on the streetcorner spewing their hate. Nobody else wants to deal with them.

All it takes is for a population to achieve a critical mass and trouble starts, like in the UK. I'm afraid we may be in for an intifadah soon in one of the outer boroughs. And I bet that the person(s) who burned the flags at Bay Ridge the other day is a Islamofascist in training. The media is silent on who the perpetrators might be. I see trouble ahead.

[BrooklynRider]

I think the trouble comes more from isolation of communities - voluntarily or not. I'm a pretty progressive, liberal guy. I find religion the antithesis to freedom and democracy. I have strong faith in a higher power or life force or whatever you want to call it. Religion has nothing to do with god. It is about control and divisiveness.

I'm tired. Dont flame me.

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

I personally think that's true about Islam followers being well integrated into US society.

When you compare Germany France Holland or even the UK and other countries, we are doing a pretty good job.

There are extremists in every religion. Lets keep them at the edges.

Heres one extremist I found recently on the web

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2453217212869715744&q=farting+preacher

[ablarc]

I pray for my ALLAH that ALLAH distroy All USA communities without Muslims
Only mental illness or religion can make people hate this much.

[Jake]

CNN

Landmark al Qaeda trial collapses

Judge: 'Islamic Sharia law permits jihad against occupiers'


Saturday, July 8, 2006 Posted: 1854 GMT (0254 HKT)

SAN'A, Yemen (AP) -- The trial of 19 alleged al Qaeda members had been designed to showcase how serious Yemen was in the fight against terror. But the Islamic militants, accused of plotting to assassinate Westerners and blow up a hotel frequented by Americans, were all acquitted for lack of proof, the presiding judge ruled Saturday.
Prosecutors had failed to provide "adequate evidence that the defendants were plotting attacks against foreigners or planning to assassinate Americans in Yemen," the verdict said.
Critics say the decision points to the Yemeni president's bid to win the radical Islamic vote ahead of elections in September.
Several of the defendants did confess to having been in Iraq to fight U.S. troops there and had Iraqi stamps on their passport, the court heard. "But this does not violate [Yemeni] law," the judge said.
"Islamic Sharia law permits jihad against occupiers," he said.
Mohammed al-Maqaleh, an expert in Islamist affairs who frequently appears in Yemeni media, described the verdict as a "shock."
"The judiciary is collaborating with the Islamist extremists and this verdict is politicized," al-Maqaleh said on the telephone. He said it was another sign that President Ali Abdullah Saleh was trying to drum up support from Muslim radicals ahead of the coming presidential elections.
Saleh has long-standing ties with Islamic militants, who have stood by the administration since the 1980s. They sided with his northern government in the 1994 civil war and the successful battle against secessionists from the secular south.
Saleh has announced he will again run for president, breaking earlier promises to step down after 28 years at the helm of this impoverished Arab nation.
In defiance to Saleh, five Yemeni opposition parties have chosen Faisal bin Shamlan, a prominent businessman and former Cabinet minister, to challenge him. Bin Shamlan has spoken out against al Qaeda and won respect for denouncing corruption.
Osama bin Laden's family originally came from Yemen, which was long regarded as a haven for al Qaeda.
But the country, which was the scene of the October 2000 suicide bombing against the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors, joined America's war on terror after September 11 and waged a crackdown on militants.
Muslim extremists remain popular, and the four-month trial of the suspected terrorists often produced elements of a farce, as an at-times raucous crowd followed heated discussions between the defendants and the judge.
All but one of the alleged militants have denied the charges, several stating they were arrested simply because they had fought in Iraq. But one defendant, Ali al-Harthi, acknowledged in court that he had returned home to perpetrate jihad, or holy war, against Americans in Yemen.
From behind the bars where they stood clad in blue prison uniforms Saturday, the 14 Yemeni and five Saudi defendants greeted the verdict with cries of "Allahu akbar" (God is great).
Families received the decision with cheers and claps. Some burst into tears.
"This [verdict] is a change for the judiciary in Yemen," said Ali al-Kurdi, one of the defendants. "It is fair, something unusual."
Al-Kurdi, from Yemen, has spent three years in Afghanistan in the '90s and was charged with being linked to al Qaeda, authorities said.
The state prosecutor appealed the collective acquittal, and the defendants were brought back to their cells at the intelligence services' jail where they have been held for more than two years.

[ablarc]

^ That's what you get for foisting elections on these folks. ;)

In many places, the Islamists will come to power through elections and other legitimate means, like the guy in Germany.

Then they'll abolish elections, like the guy in Germany.

[lofter1]

Well, after all, elections (as we've come to learn) can be incredibly confusing, time consuming and costly.

[milleniumcab]

Only mental illness or religion can make people hate this much.
That , I agree with totally.. But we have to realize that MENTAL ILLNESS in a free society will express itself much differently than in a closed and religious society..

[ablarc]

That , I agree with totally.. But we have to realize that MENTAL ILLNESS in a free society will express itself much differently than in a closed and religious society..
You'll never get rid of the mental illness, so I guess you have to try to get rid of the religion --or at least tame it so it doesn't drive people to murderous manifestations of the insanity it enshrines. Until that happens we have to live with and survive its global menace.

[lofter1]

Muslims in Europe:
Economic Worries Top Concerns About Religious and Cultural Identity

Few Signs of Backlash From Western Europeans

Pew Global Attitudes Project (http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=254)
Released: 07.06.06

Navigate this report

Summary of FindingsAbout the Pew Global Attitudes Project (http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?PageID=839)
Methodological Appendix (http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?PageID=840)
Questionnaire (http://pewglobal.org/reports/print.php?PageID=841)

Summary of Findings

Muslims in Europe worry about their future, but their concern is more economic than religious or cultural. And while there are some signs of tension between Europe's majority populations and its Muslim minorities, Muslims there do not generally believe that most Europeans are hostile toward people of their faith. Still, over a third of Muslims in France and one-in-four in Spain say they have had a bad experience as a result of their religion or ethnicity.

However, there is little evidence of a widespread backlash against Muslim immigrants among the general publics in Great Britain, France, Germany, and Spain. Majorities continue to express concerns about rising Islamic identity and extremism, but those worries have not intensified in most of the countries surveyed over the past 12 months; a turbulent period that included the London subway bombings, the French riots, and the Danish cartoon controversy.

http://pewglobal.org/reports/images/254-2.gif

Opinions held by Muslims in Europe - as well as opinions about Muslims among Europe's majority populations - vary significantly by country. No clear European point of view emerges with regard to the Muslim experience, either among Muslims or in the majority populations on many issues.

Most notably, France shows no signs of a backlash in response to last year's riots. In fact, a counter trend seems to have emerged with slightly more French people saying that immigration from the Middle East and North Africa is a good thing than did so a year ago. The French public is also more inclined this year to say that Muslims living in France want to adopt French customs - a view held by an overwhelming majority of Muslims in France. Nor do German and British publics express any increase in negative views of immigrants - although, unlike the French, they are not more positive toward immigrants this year. Meanwhile, the Spanish public's view toward immigrants has grown slightly more negative over the last year.

http://pewglobal.org/reports/images/254-2.gif

But in Britain worries about Islamic extremism are intense among both the general public and the Muslim minority population as well. Concerns about the problem rose markedly this year among the general public. And worries about extremism within the British Muslim community are greater than in France, Germany, and Spain.

The survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project was conducted in 13 countries, including the United States, from March 31-May 14, 2006.1 It includes special oversamples of Muslim minorities living in Great Britain, France, Germany, and Spain.

The poll finds that Muslims themselves are generally positive about conditions in their host nation. In fact, they are more positive than the general publics in all four European countries about the way things are going in their countries. However, many Muslims, especially in Britain, worry about the future of Muslims in their country.

The greatest concern among Muslim minorities in all four countries is unemployment. Islamic extremism emerges as the number-two worry generally, a concern shared by Western publics as well as Muslims in Egypt, Jordan, and Pakistan.

http://pewglobal.org/reports/images/254-4.gif

The decline in the importance of religion, adoption of modern roles by women, and influences of popular culture upon youth are generally lower-ranked concerns. Overall, British Muslims express the greatest level of concern about the issues tested.

The majority of European Muslims do not see many or most Europeans as hostile towards Muslims. But substantial numbers of Muslims do perceive such hostility. This belief is most widespread in Germany, where more than half of both Muslims and the general public see many or most Germans as hostile toward Muslims. At the same time, however, German Muslims are the least likely to report personal experiences with discrimination.

German Muslims are also far more inclined than those elsewhere in Europe to see new immigrants as wanting to be distinct - 52% take this view - and German nationals overwhelmingly (76%) share this view. In contrast, in France, 78% of Muslims say that Muslims there want to adopt French customs, though 53% of the general public feels that French Muslims want to remain distinct.

http://pewglobal.org/reports/images/254-5.gif

European Muslims show signs of favoring a moderate version of Islam. With the exception of Spanish Muslims, they tend to see a struggle being waged between moderates and Islamic fundamentalists. Among those who see an ongoing conflict, substantial majorities in all four countries say they generally side with the moderates.

Most French and British Muslims think women are better off in their countries than in most Muslim countries. About half of German and Spanish Muslims agree, and very few think women actually have it better in most Muslim countries. Moreover, most are not concerned about Muslim women in Europe taking on modern roles in society (although substantial minorities worry about this).

Religion is central to the identity of European Muslims. With the exception of Muslims in France, they tend to identify themselves primarily as Muslim rather than as British, Spanish, or German. In France, Muslims are split almost evenly on this question. The level of Muslim identification in Britain, Spain, and Germany is similar to that in Pakistan, Nigeria, and Jordan, and even higher than levels in Egypt, Turkey, and Indonesia. By contrast the general populations in Western Europe are far more secular in outlook. Roughly six-in-ten in Spain, Germany, and Britain identify primarily with their country rather than their religion, as do more than eight-in-ten in France.

Americans, however, split about evenly on this question: 42% say they first think of themselves as Christians versus 48% who think of themselves primarily as Americans - a divide close to that found among French Muslims.

http://pewglobal.org/reports/images/254-6.gif

Muslims in Europe are most sharply distinguished from the majority populations on opinions about external issues - America, the war on terrorism, Iran, the Middle East.2 European Muslims give the United States lower favorability ratings than do general publics in Europe, and in particular, they give the American people lower ratings. The war on terror is extremely unpopular among minority Muslim populations - German Muslims register the highest level of support, at 31%.

While Iran is viewed unfavorably in Western Europe and the United States, it receives very positive marks from British and Spanish Muslims, while French and German Muslims are divided. European Muslims take a much more positive view of the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections in January than do the majority populations, and perhaps not surprisingly, they are also much more likely to side with Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In general, European Muslim opinions on external issues are quite similar to those expressed in predominantly Muslim countries.

About This Report

The report's detailed findings are presented below. A description of the Pew Global Attitudes Project can be found at the end of the report, along with a summary of the survey's methodology and complete topline results.

Little Anti-Muslim Backlash

http://pewglobal.org/reports/images/254-7.gif

Despite concerns about an anti-Muslim backlash in the wake of a string of highly publicized events involving Muslims living in Europe - subway bombings in London, controversy over Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad, rioting by Muslim youth in France - most Muslims living in Europe do not feel that most or even many Europeans are hostile toward people of their faith. Indeed, European Muslims are, in general, more satisfied with national conditions than are the general publics of these countries.

Substantial majorities of Muslims living in the European countries surveyed say that in the last two years they have not had any personally bad experience attributable to their race, ethnicity or religion. In France, however, where riots last fall pitted Muslim youth against French police, 37% of Muslims report a bad encounter, while in Britain 28% report being the target of discrimination.

Muslims in Spain are the least concerned about European anti-Muslim sentiment - fewer than a third (31%) say most or many Europeans have hostile attitudes compared with 64% who see only some or very few as hostile. In Great Britain, 42% of Muslims judge that many or most of their European hosts are unfriendly, while in France, 39% of resident Muslims share that view. Only in Germany does a narrow 51%-majority of resident Muslims view most (22%) or many (29%) Europeans as hostile.

In some of the European host countries surveyed, the general public agrees precisely with these assessments. In Great Britain, 40% of the public sees most or many of their fellow countrymen as hostile to Muslims compared with 42% of British Muslims taking that view; in Germany, 63% of the larger public agrees with the 51% of Muslims who see most or many of their hosts as hostile. But in France a considerably larger number among the public (56%) see substantial hostility toward Muslims than do Muslims themselves (39%). And in Spain, nearly twice as many in the overall population (60%) see most or many Europeans as hostile to Muslims as do Spanish Muslim, only 31% of whom share that view.

One of the biggest perception gaps exists in Nigeria. There 28% of Christians say most or many Europeans are hostile toward Muslims, compared with 50% of Nigerian Muslims who believe this. Muslims in the Mideast and Asia judge European hostility to be considerably more widespread than do European Muslims. As many as 63% in Egypt, 61% in Pakistan, 57% in Turkey and 50% in Jordan say that most or many Europeans are hostile to Muslims.

Immigrants Mostly Still Welcome

The poll finds little evidence of a general rise in anti-immigration sentiment. With the continuing exception of Germany, majorities in the European countries surveyed say it is a "good thing" that people from the Middle East and North Africa came to work in their countries.

http://pewglobal.org/reports/images/254-8.gif

These levels of acceptance are essentially unchanged from those recorded a year earlier. However, in France a somewhat greater percentage now call such immigration a good thing, while in Spain a somewhat smaller percentage say it is good.

Germany is the outlier in this regard with only 34% of Germans calling immigration from the Middle East and North Africa a good thing compared with 59% who deem it a bad thing. However, Germans are no more welcoming to those migrating from Eastern Europe; only 36% call such immigration a good thing.

Across the board, immigrants from Eastern Europe are no more and no less welcome than those from predominantly Muslim countries. In Great Britain, Spain, and France, as in Germany, the numbers among the general public calling immigration from Eastern Europe a good thing are virtually identical to those expressing approval of immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa.

More European Muslims approve of immigration from the Middle East and North Africa into the country where they now reside than do the general populations of those countries. Among Muslims in Great Britain, fully 75% call such immigration a good thing; in France, 83% and in Spain, 85%. Germany again is the exception, with Muslims there splitting 42%-46% on the good-bad question, although the 42% of Muslim approvers is still significantly higher than the 34% of the general public that agrees with that judgment.

Concerns About the Future

Although most European Muslims are satisfied with the general direction of the countries they live in, large majorities are still concerned about the future of Muslims in their country. British Muslims are the most concerned - eight-in-ten (80%) are at least somewhat concerned including about half (49%) who are very concerned. French Muslims follow closely behind in their anxiety, with 72% saying they are either very (38%) or somewhat (34%) concerned. The numbers of Muslims very concerned about the future are somewhat lower in Germany (28%) and Spain (30%) although substantial majorities in both countries say they are at least somewhat worried as they look ahead.

http://pewglobal.org/reports/images/254-9.gif

Of the issues tested in the survey, unemployment is the biggest concern of European Muslims, with majorities in the mid-50% range in France, Germany and Spain and a 46%-plurality in Britain saying they are very worried about joblessness. In addition, between a quarter and a third of the remaining Muslim samples express at least some concern on this issue.

Muslims in Britain emerge as the most worried on every other issue tested, with 45% very worried about the decline of the importance of religion among their co-religionists, 44% very concerned about the influence of the secular culture (movies, music and television) on their youth, and, to a lesser but still leading degree, the adoption of modern roles in society by Muslim women (22% very concerned). Elsewhere in Europe these issues - especially the emergence of women - engender intense concern among relatively few Muslims.

http://pewglobal.org/reports/images/254-10.gif

In fact, not only is the entry of women into modern roles of little or no concern to most European Muslims, it is apparently welcomed by many. About six-in-ten British and French Muslims, and about half of German and Spanish Muslims, believe the quality of life is better for women in their countries than in most Muslim countries. In all four countries, the share of Muslims saying women in their countries are worse off is less than 20%. Muslim women in Europe are slightly more likely than men to see the quality of life as better for women in their country than in most Muslim countries. However, in Spain Muslim women were considerably more likely than men to believe this.

Extremism among European Muslims is a common source of worry among Muslim minorities in Europe. In particular, Muslims in Great Britain are very concerned. As many express concerns about this (44%) as are very worried about unemployment. Extremism is of somewhat less concern in France (30% very worried), Germany (23%) and Spain (22%), although in all these countries more than four-in-ten Muslims say they are at least somewhat concerned.

(Continued in next post)

[lofter1]

Pew Global Attitudes Project (cont'd)

Muslims in Europe:
Economic Worries Top Concerns About Religious and Cultural Identity

Blending In

http://pewglobal.org/reports/images/254-11.gif

Most Europeans doubt that Muslims coming into their countries want to adopt their national customs and way of life. Substantial majorities in Germany (76%), Great Britain (64%), Spain (67%) and Russia (69%) say that Muslims in their country want to remain distinct from the larger society.

Fewer French, but still a 53%-majority, agree. However, the percentage of the general public in France that believes newly arrived Muslims want to blend into the French way of life has increased significantly since last year.
In the 2005 survey only 36% of the French public said that Muslims want to adopt the French way of life while 59% said they want to remain distinct; now 46% say adopt, 53% say remain distinct.

For their part, Muslims in France, Great Britain, and Spain are substantially more likely than their general publics to say that Muslims want to adopt the customs and way of life of the country into which they immigrate. Indeed, nearly eight-in-ten French Muslims (78%) believe this.

Again, Germany is different: Only 30% of German Muslims think Muslims coming into that country today want to assimilate - most say they want to be separate and most Germans agree.

http://pewglobal.org/reports/images/254-12.gif

Islamic Identification

Perceptions of the strength of Islamic identity among Muslims have changed little over the year. Substantial majorities in both Western Europe and the United States continue to believe Muslims in their country have a very or fairly strong sense of Islamic identity.

European Muslims' perceptions largely match those of the general public, with the exception of Germany. While 84% of the German public sees Muslims having a strong Islamic identity, only 46% of Muslims living in Germany agree.

As to whether that sense of Islamic identity is increasing, strong majorities among the general publics in Great Britain (69%), France (68%), and Germany (72% - up from 66% in 2005) say that it is (as do 69% in India and 56% in Russia). In Spain, however, only a 46%-plurality sees an intensifying Islamic identity - a view shared by Muslims in that country.

Muslims in Great Britain, however, are the most likely of all groups sampled to see a strengthening of Islamic identity with fully 77% agreeing.

http://pewglobal.org/reports/images/254-13.gif

In France and Germany, by contrast, the proportion of Muslims who see Islamic identity intensifying (58% and 54%, respectively) is smaller than among the general public.

European Muslims who think Islamic identity is growing tend to consider it a good thing. This is especially so in Great Britain, where 86% say the perceived intensifying trend is a good thing, and Spain where 75% agree.

Most Westerners (as well as Indians) strongly disagree. Among those in the French general public who see Islamic identity on the rise, 87% call it a bad thing; in Germany, 83% say so; in Spain (82%); in India, 78%.

For those in the United States, Western Europe, Russia and India who see growing Islamic identity as a bad thing, the primary concern cited is that it may lead to violence. However, many are also worried that it may keep Muslims from integrating into the larger society. For Muslims in Germany who see growing Islamic identity as worrisome, concern about retarding integration is paramount for 58%, while fewer than one-in-five worry about violence. Among French Muslims, concerns are spilt between violence (40%) and integration (45%). In most countries, an attendant loss of freedom tended to be of lesser concern.

http://pewglobal.org/reports/images/254-14.gif

For guidance on religious matters, Muslims in Europe, as well as in most of the larger Islamic world, turn to their local Imam, as well as to national and international religious leaders. Local religious leaders are especially consulted in Nigeria, where 64% of Muslims see them as the most trustworthy source of guidance; in Indonesia, where 60% do so; and in Pakistan and Great Britain where more than four-in-ten Muslims do so. The only countries in which large numbers - about one-in-four - turn first to religious leaders on television are the two Arab countries, Egypt and Jordan.

Self-Perceptions

Large percentages of Muslims in Europe say they think of themselves first as a Muslim rather than as a citizen of their country. The tendency is strongest in Great Britain where 81% in the Muslim oversample self-identify as Muslim rather than British, while in Spain 69% do so and in Germany 66%. In sharp contrast, Muslims living in France are far less likely to identify first with their faith rather their nationality. While a 46%-plurality identifies first as a Muslim, a nearly equal 42% see themselves as primarily French, while an additional 10% say both equally.

The levels seen in Britain, Spain, and Germany are comparable to those seen in most of the predominantly Muslim countries surveyed. In Pakistan, 87% primarily identify as Muslims; in Jordan, 67% do so. In Nigeria, 71% of Muslims see themselves as Muslims first, whereas a smaller 53%-majority of Christians primarily identify with their faith.

http://pewglobal.org/reports/images/254-15.gif

In Turkey a slight 51%-majority now self-identifies as Muslim rather than Turkish, although this is a substantial rise from the 43% who did so in 2005. Among Muslim countries in the survey, only in Indonesia does the public split 39%-36% between primary national and religious identity, with 25% selecting both equally.

By contrast, Christians in European countries overwhelmingly self-identify with their respective nationalities rather than with their faith. And in India, fully 90% of the public self-identifies as Indian rather than Hindu.

Indeed, among non-Muslim nations, the United States is the outlier in terms of religious self-identification with the public closely split on the question of primary identification. Fully 42% of U.S. Christians say they think of themselves as Christians first rather than as Americans, compared with 48% who self-identify primarily as Americans; an additional 7% say both equally.

http://pewglobal.org/reports/images/254-16.gif

Concern About Islamic Extremism

The poll found no overall rise in concern about extremism among the general publics of nations with Muslim minorities. The percentage of the general public very worried about Islamic extremism was greater this year in the U.S., Britain, and Germany; however, it was unchanged in France and considerably lower in Spain and Russia.

Germans are the most concerned about rising Islamic extremism in their country with 82% of the general public saying they are very (40%) or somewhat (42%) concerned. However, concern was nearly as high a year ago when 78% of Germans expressed such concern including 35% who then said they were very concerned.

Great Britain, however, has seen an increase in worries about Islamic extremism over the last year, with 77% of the public now saying they are very (42%) or somewhat (35%) concerned. Strikingly, these concerns are largely shared by Muslims living in Britain, among whom 43% say they are very concerned and 26% say they are somewhat concerned.

In France, despite that country's recent experience with riots, worry about Islamic extremism has remained essentially stable over the last year (76% of the public is at least somewhat concerned including 30% very concerned). And in Spain and Russia, such concerns have declined considerably.

As in Great Britain, most Muslims in France and Germany are also worried about extremism. However, Muslims in Spain are divided on this issue, with 46% expressing at least some concern and 49% expressing little or no concern.

http://pewglobal.org/reports/images/254-17.gif

By contrast, in the predominantly Muslim countries of Egypt, Pakistan, and Jordan large majorities (68%, 74%, and 69%, respectively) are very or somewhat concerned about the rise of Islamic extremism in those countries. And in India, with its substantial Muslim minority, 85% of the predominately Hindu public expresses such concern, essentially the same number as did so last year.

In Nigeria the level of concern is somewhat lower - a small majority (54%) of the public worries about Islamic extremism there. Muslims in Nigeria are significantly more likely than Christians to be concerned about Islamic extremism.

Consistent with these concerns, majorities or pluralities of Muslims in Britain (58%), France (56%), and Germany (49%) believe there is a struggle in their country between moderates and Islamic fundamentalists. Again, Spanish Muslims differ from their European counterparts, with a majority (65%) saying they do not see such a struggle, a view they share with 60% of Nigerian Muslims.

http://pewglobal.org/reports/images/254-18.gif

In all four European countries - and especially in France - those who do see a struggle heavily side with the moderates. In Nigeria, however, Muslims split evenly on this question.

Riots & Protests

Awareness of last year's riots in France is relatively high among both the general publics and Muslim minorities in Western Europe, ranging among the general population from 91% in Germany to 78% in Spain and among Muslims from 86% in Germany to 63% in Britain. In Japan, 89% had heard the news.
Those who had heard about the riots were less numerous in the United States (55%) and in the Muslim world. In Turkey, 61% had heard about the riots, in Jordan 47%. But awareness levels in other Muslim countries ranged downward from 35% in Egypt, to 23% in Nigeria, 18% in Indonesia and 11% in Pakistan.

By and large, European Muslims - irrespective of their views about the riots per se - say they are sympathetic to the youths from immigrant and working class suburbs in France who felt frustrated by their place in French society. Muslims in Great Britain are most sympathetic (75% so indicate) followed by those in France and Spain (63% of Muslims in both countries).

http://pewglobal.org/reports/images/254-19.gif

In Germany, however, more among the general public (64%) express sympathy than among the predominantly Turkish Muslims in that country, 53% of whom say they sympathize with the frustrations of French youth.
In general, Western publics are divided on this issue - only 37% of the Spanish public sympathizes with the French youth.

And despite more positive French views on many related issues this year, only 46% of the French general public takes the side of the country's alienated young.

Regarding publication of cartoons featuring the prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper, the most common way in which people heard about the controversy that ensued was through television, although in Nigeria people were more likely to hear of it via radio or through family and friends.
Few in any country mentioned a church or mosque or the internet as the source of their awareness.

http://pewglobal.org/reports/images/254-20.gif


Notes 1The principal countries surveyed for this report were Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Turkey, Nigeria, India, Russia, and the United States, with most of the findings coming from the four western European countries. In addition, a few findings are presented from China and Japan.

2For more on the opinions of Muslims in Europe on these issues, see the table "Views of European Muslims Compared to Those in Predominantly Muslim Countries" at the end of this report.

COPYRIGHT PEW RESEARCH CENTER

[Jake]

15% of Pakistanis oppose Iran having nuclear weapons???????

wow

[milleniumcab]

^ It is not surprising at all...85% are uneducated and therefore can not form an informated opinion..

[Transic]

There is a bit of sugarcoating on the part of Pew in the way they've reported certain results. For example, they say that the certains about Islamic extremism in Western countries "remain unchanged." What they don't say is that those concerns (if you believe the surveys) remain high. And it should be noted that the anti-Americanism among Muslims extends to the people, not just the government, as the politically-correct types want to convey.

In truth, I don't know how it's possible for The West and the ummah to peacefully co-exist.

[milleniumcab]

^ Once again the education comes into play. The kind of Antiamericanism among muslims will depend on how educated they are. It will be against the government among the educated and against all among the uneducated..

[Jake]

^ I'm not sure if that's entirely true. If you look at the profile of a typical suicide bomber or terrorist they tend to be very well educated and come from affluent families. Many fundamentalists attend some of Europe's elite universities (heh, talk about irony).

[milleniumcab]

^ If you look at the history of muslim opinion of America in different muslim countries, you will see that it has diminished with the actions of our government in recent years..You and I did not have much to do with that and I really believe average educated muslim can differentiate between the governments' action and it's citizens..

The fanatics or the fundemantalists are a different story...They come from all walks of life..Their brains are washed off with empty promises and fulfillments..As far as they are concerned they are purified as muslims and the rest are sinners..It is virtually impossible for them to make up their own mind about anything..

What has been published in our agenda-driven, sensationalist media doesn't tell me and shouldn't tell you any typicality of them..I don't think it is right to generalize about the suicide bombers and the fundemantalists and say they are typically educated..

[JMGarcia]

Speaking of agenda driven sensationalist media, seen any of the mid-east news sources? ;)

[ablarc]

Speaking of agenda driven sensationalist media, seen any of the mid-east news sources? ;)
Do they show beheadings?

[milleniumcab]

Speaking of agenda driven sensationalist media, seen any of the mid-east news sources? ;)
No, I haven't..And I don't think they are any different than our media. They all have their agendas.

[milleniumcab]

Beheadings of people only proves that those who are doing the beheadings
are stuck in dark ages and prefer that they stay there.. You can go back and find a time zone where these kind of brutal acts were common in all civilizations.

[Transic]

Is a Muslim takeover a real possibility? What nerve!

More Muslims Arrive in U.S., After 9/11 Dip

By ANDREA ELLIOTT (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/e/andrea_elliott/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
Published: September 10, 2006

America’s newest Muslims arrive in the afternoon crunch at John F. Kennedy (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/john_fitzgerald_kennedy/index.html?inline=nyt-per) International Airport. Their planes land from Dubai, Casablanca and Karachi. They stand in line, clasping documents. They emerge, sometimes hours later, steering their carts toward a flock of relatives, a stream of cabs, a new life.

This was the path for Nur Fatima, a Pakistani woman who moved to Brooklyn six months ago and promptly shed her hijab. Through the same doors walked Nora Elhainy, a Moroccan who sells electronics in Queens, and Ahmed Youssef, an Egyptian who settled in Jersey City, where he gives the call to prayer at a palatial mosque.

“I got freedom in this country,” said Ms. Fatima, 25. “Freedom of everything. Freedom of thought.”

The events of Sept. 11 transformed life for Muslims in the United States, and the flow of immigrants from countries like Egypt, Pakistan and Morocco thinned sharply.

But five years later, as the United States wrestles with questions of terrorism, civil liberties and immigration (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/immigration_and_refugees/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) control, Muslims appear to be moving here again in surprising numbers, according to statistics collected by the Department of Homeland Security (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/homeland_security_department/index.html?inline=nyt-org) and the Census Bureau (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/census_bureau/index.html?inline=nyt-org).
Immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia are planting new roots in states from Virginia to Texas to California.

In 2005, more people from Muslim countries became legal permanent United States residents — nearly 96,000 — than in any year in the previous two decades.

More than 40,000 of them were admitted last year, the highest annual number since the terrorist attacks, according to data on 22 countries provided by the Department of Homeland Security.

Many have made the journey unbowed by tales of immigrant hardship, and despite their own opposition to American policy in the Middle East. They come seeking the same promise that has drawn foreigners to the United States for many decades, according to a range of experts and immigrants: economic opportunity and political freedom.

Those lures, both powerful and familiar, have been enough to conquer fears that America is an inhospitable place for Muslims.

“America has always been the promised land for Muslims and non-Muslims,” said Behzad Yaghmaian, an Iranian exile and author of “Embracing the Infidel: Stories of Muslim Migrants on the Journey West.” “Despite Muslims’ opposition to America’s foreign policy, they still come here because the United States offers what they’re missing at home.”

For Ms. Fatima, it was the freedom to dress as she chose and work as a security guard. For Mr. Youssef, it was the chance to earn a master’s degree.

He came in spite of the deep misgivings that he and many other Egyptians have about the war in Iraq and the Bush administration. In America, he said, one needs to distinguish between the government and the people.

“Who am I dealing with, Bush or the American public?” he said. “Am I dealing with my future in Egypt or my future here?”

Muslims have been settling in the United States in significant numbers since the mid-1960’s, after immigration quotas that favored Eastern Europeans were lifted. Spacious mosques opened in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York as a new, highly educated Muslim population took hold.

Over the next three decades, the story of Muslim migration to the United States was marked by growth and prosperity. A larger percentage of immigrants from Muslim countries have graduate degrees than other American residents, and their average salary is about 20 percent higher, according to census data.

But Sept. 11 altered the course of Muslim life in America. Mosques were vandalized. Hate crimes rose. Deportation proceedings began against thousands of men.

Some Muslims changed their names to avoid job discrimination, making Mohammed “Moe,” and Osama “Sam.” Scores of families left for Canada.

Yet this period also produced something strikingly positive, in the eyes of many Muslims: they began to mobilize politically and socially. Across the country, grass-roots groups expanded to educate Muslims on civil rights, register them to vote and lobby against new federal policies such as the Patriot Act.

“There was the option of becoming introverted or extroverted,” said Agha Saeed, national chairman of the American Muslim Task Force on Civil Rights and Elections, an umbrella organization in Newark, Calif. “We became extroverted.”

In some ways, new Muslim immigrants may be better off in the post-9/11 America they encounter today, say Muslim leaders: Islamic centers are more organized, and resources like English instruction and free legal help are more accessible.

But outside these newly organized mosques, life remains strained for many Muslims. To avoid taunts, women are often warned not to wear head scarves in public, as was Rubab Razvi, 21, a Pakistani who arrived in Brooklyn nine months ago. (She ignored the advice, even though people stare at her on the bus, she said.) Muslims continue to endure long waits at airports, where they are often tagged for questioning.

To some longtime immigrants, the life embraced by newcomers will never compare to the peaceful era that came before.

“They haven’t seen the America pre-9/11,” said Khwaja Mizan Hassan, 42, who left Bangladesh 30 years ago. He rose to become the president of Jamaica Muslim Center, a mosque in Queens, and has a comfortable job with the New York City Department of Probation.

But after Sept. 11, he was stopped at Kennedy Airport because his name matched one on a watch list.

A Drop, Then a Surge

Up to six million Muslims live in the United States, by some estimates. While the Census Bureau and the Department of Homeland Security do not track religion, both provide statistics on immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries. It is presumed that many of these immigrants are Muslim, but people of other faiths, such as Iraqi Chaldeans and Egyptian Copts, have also come in appreciable numbers.

Immigration from these regions slowed considerably after Sept. 11. Fewer people were issued green cards and nonimmigrant visas. By 2003, the number of immigrants arriving from 22 Muslim countries had declined by more than a third. For students, tourists and other nonimmigrants from these countries, the drop was even more dramatic, with total visits down by nearly half.

The falloff affected immigrants from across the post-9/11 world as America tightened its borders, but it was most pronounced among those moving here from Pakistan, Morocco, Iran and other Muslim nations.

Several factors might explain the drop: more visa applications were rejected due to heightened security procedures, said officials at the State Department and Department of Homeland Security; and fewer people applied for visas.

But starting in 2004, the numbers rebounded. The tally of people coming to live in the United States from Bangladesh, Turkey, Algeria and other Muslim countries rose by 20 percent, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data.

The uptick was also notable among foreigners with nonimmigrant visas. More than 55,000 Indonesians, for instance, were issued those visas last year, compared with roughly 36,000 in 2002.

The rise does not reflect relaxed security measures, but a higher number of visa applications and greater efficiency in processing them, said Chris Bentley, a spokesman for United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of Homeland Security.

Like other immigrants, Muslims find their way to the United States in myriad ways: they come as refugees, or as students and tourists. Others arrive with immigrant visas secured by relatives here. A lucky few win the green-card lottery.

Ahmed Youssef, 29, never thought he would be among the winners. But in 2003, Mr. Youssef, who taught Arabic in Egypt, was one of 50,000 people randomly chosen from 9.5 million applicants around the world.

As he prepared to leave Benha, a city north of Cairo, some friends asked him how he could move to a country that is “killing people in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he recalled. But others who had been to the United States encouraged him to go.

He arrived in May 2005, and he found work loading hot dog carts from sunrise to sundown. He shared an apartment in Washington Heights with other Egyptians, but for the first month, he never saw his neighborhood in daylight.
“I joked to my roommates, ‘When am I going to see America?’ ” said Mr. Youssef, a slight man with thinning black hair and an easy smile.

Only three months later, when he began selling hot dogs on Seventh Avenue, did Mr. Youssef discover his new country.

He missed hearing the call to prayer, and thought nothing of unrolling his prayer rug beside his cart until other vendors warned him against it. He could be mistaken for an extremist, they told him.

Eventually, Mr. Youssef found a job as the secretary of the Islamic Center of Jersey City. He plans to apply to a master’s program at Columbia University (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/columbia_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org), specializing in Arabic. For now, he lives in a spare room above the mosque. Near his bed, he keeps a daily log of his prayers. If he makes them on time, he writes “Correct” in Arabic. “I am much better off here than selling hot dogs,” he said.

Awash in American Flags

Nur Fatima landed in Midwood, Brooklyn, at a propitious time. Had she come three years earlier, she would have seen a neighborhood in crisis.

Hundreds of Pakistani immigrants disappeared after being asked to register with the government. Thirty shops closed along a stretch of Coney Island Avenue known as Little Pakistan. The number of new Urdu-speaking pupils at the local elementary school, Public School 217, dropped by half in the 2002-3 school year.

But then Little Pakistan got organized. A local businessman, Moe Razvi, converted a former antique store into a community center offering legal advice, computer classes and English instruction. Local Muslim leaders began meeting with federal agents to soothe relations.

The annual Pakistan Independence Day parade is now awash in American flags.

It is a transformation seen in Muslim immigrant communities around the nation.

“They have to prove that they are living here as Muslim Americans rather than living as Pakistanis and Egyptians and other nationalities,” said Zahid H. Bukhari, the director of the American Muslim Studies Program at Georgetown University (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/g/georgetown_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org).

Ms. Fatima arrived in Brooklyn from Pakistan in March with an immigrant visa. She began by taking English classes at Mr. Razvi’s center, the Council of Peoples Organization.

She has heard stories of the neighborhood’s former plight but sees a different picture.

“This is a land of opportunity,” Ms. Fatima said. “There is equality for everyone.”

Five days after she came to Brooklyn, Ms. Fatima removed her head scarf, which she had been wearing since she was 10. She began to change her thinking, she said: She liked living in a country where people respected the privacy of others and did not interfere with their religious or social choices.

“I came to the United States because I want to improve myself,” she said. “This is a second birth for me.”

[lofter1]

Is a Muslim takeover a real possibility? What nerve!

If the numbers add up isn't that the basis of democracy?

[ablarc]

If the numbers add up isn't that the basis of democracy?
Yeah, but that doesn't mean you have to be in favor of it.

If the numbers add up to another right wing Republican president you have my permission, lofter, to dispprove. ;)

[lofter1]

I wasn't approving or disapproving of a "Muslim takeover" ...

Just kind of amazed at the comment: "What nerve!"

If one doesn't like the direction in which things are going the answer is not to deny the rights of others, but to organize and make sure your side prevails.

[Transic]

And what if it is politically incorrect to say so?

[lofter1]

To say what?

[HoboSapian]

well those simple truths are that he is not wrong....all those events listed by him really took place AND they were carried out on religious grounds.

Another truth is that the Danish cartoons story is bullshit, come on, really think about how much people give a shit about some Danish newspaper's cartoons, and what do we get? Global protests as if the world was ending.


Well you would have to be very thin skinned to protest so fiercely over a stupid cartoon. You dont see "Dub-ya" for example, asking for the head of the "New York Times" editor to be stuck on a pike for people to spit on, everytime they publish a sketch mocking him.

[Ninjahedge]

But what would happen if they did a cartoon of GWB "mounting" Jesus?

You have to compare similar situations. I do not agree with the level of outrage either, but I have seen people get into fights when someone insults the others religious figures in many religions.

[lofter1]

You dont see "Dub-ya" for example, asking for the head of the "New York Times" editor to be stuck on a pike for people to spit on, everytime they publish a sketch mocking him.

Our leaders are far more sophicsticated than that ...

They seem to follow the maxim "Don't get mad, get even":

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thenewswire/archive/ap/nyt%28culturebase.net%29web.jpg

huffingtonpost (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eat-the-press/2006/09/10/new-york-mag-bu_e_28985.html)
9.10.2006

New York Magazine runs a big cover story next week on the beleaguered New York Times, bane of the Bush Administration for its stories on NSA spying (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.html) and secretly-reviewed bank records (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/23/washington/23intel.html). Joe Hagan gets more details on the fateful December 5th* meeting at the White House where Bush had summoned the Times brass — consisting of executive editor Bill Keller, publisher Arthur Sulzberger and Washington Bureau Chief Philip Taubman — to prevail upon them not to publish the warrantless-wiretapping exposé. According to Howard Kurtz in WaPo, those meetings were supposed to be off the record (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/25/AR2005122500665.html); but in the NY Mag story, Keller reveals to Hagan many previously unpublished details of the meeting, including the fact that Bush warned Keller that, if they published the story, the NYT would bear responsibility if there was another attack:
"The basic message," recalls Keller, "was, 'You'll have blood on your hands."http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eat-the-press/NYT-NYM-Keller-thumb.jpg

[Transic]

Well you would have to be very thin skinned to protest so fiercely over a stupid cartoon. You dont see "Dub-ya" for example, asking for the head of the "New York Times" editor to be stuck on a pike for people to spit on, everytime they publish a sketch mocking him.

It's amazing how there are so many who don't see that so many are coming from countries which have a long history of hostility towards us (or anyone not them for that matter), who regard their social system to be superior to all else, let alone consider the possibility of major disruptions in the future.

And our government is helping it along. My goodness. :rolleyes:

[lofter1]

What do you ^^^ suggest ?

[Jake]

Do people still read the Times? I was under the impression that the Post is a more respectable paper these days.

"Proof" you say? NYT is selling assets left and right as readership has been dropping rapidly. Stock hasn't had an up months in ummm...years.

file this under "Right wing extremist attacks the Times' objectivity"

haha :D

[milleniumcab]

Well you would have to be very thin skinned to protest so fiercely over a stupid cartoon. You dont see "Dub-ya" for example, asking for the head of the "New York Times" editor to be stuck on a pike for people to spit on, everytime they publish a sketch mocking him.

You are comparing apples and oranges...

We have to try to change the muslims' way of thinking and their way of life in order to make them more tolerant...Those "stupid cartoons" are a step backward in that struggle..And our government's drastic actions overseas, Middle East in particular, are not helping either...

[Transic]

Yes and then we get accused of trying to impose our values on them. Of course, it could all just be a transference thing.

As for suggestions, curtailing those student visas for certain countries would be a start. That's how the AQ 19 got in (at least many of them).

[HoboSapian]

"But what would happen if they did a cartoon of GWB "mounting" Jesus?

You have to compare similar situations. I do not agree with the level of outrage either, but I have seen people get into fights when someone insults the others religious figures in many religions." -Ninjahedge

You only have to look on the internet to find images similar to that and worse (Jesus farting, Jesus burping, Jesus adorned in bling, Jesus yelling obsenities, Jesus copulating with a mule, the list goes on) and unless I have missed something few people seem to care about it. These days you will find more people concerned over therapeutic cloning than what some newspaper printed about Jesus and his sexual relationship (or lack thereof) with Mary Magdeline. So to compare apples with apples then, take for example the Davinci Code and the public reaction of christians and non christians. By the same token how would muslims and non muslims react if a movie were presented on mohammed, or that mohammed was not a prophet of god but an ordinary man with the power to brainwash. You only have to look at the reaction of muslims when "The satanic verses" were published by Salman Rushdie to get a good idea of typical muslim reaction.

[ablarc]

You are comparing apples and oranges...We have to try to change the muslims' way of thinking and their way of life in order to make them more tolerant...

So to compare apples with apples then, take for example the Davinci Code and the public reaction of christians and non christians...You only have to look at the reaction of muslims when "The satanic verses" were published by Salman Rushdie to get a good idea of typical muslim reaction.
I think you are both right.



Here's an illustration: http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10640

Where are the burning cars?

Where are the fatwas?

.

[Ninjahedge]

You only have to look on the internet to find images similar to that and worse (Jesus farting, Jesus burping, Jesus adorned in bling, Jesus yelling obsenities, Jesus copulating with a mule, the list goes on)

Is Jesus copulating with the leader of the US?

You have to keep it on the same level. You also have to weigh it against a certain scale.

First of all the religion in thee areas that protested the cartoons is a bit more devoted, to put it nicely. Some of this devotion coming from people who have very little but their religion in their lives.

Second, the press is very repressive there. There is a law in their religion that forbids their religious figure from being drawn, nevermind lampooned. SO I can see where they would get mad. Do I agree with the level they take this? No, but I can see where they are coming from.

Third, these cartoons were deliberately distributed by agents to get a reaction. Most muslims that protested have probably never even SEEN a danish newspaper in their lives, but with the big push for recruitment, radical faction leaders are looking for the most inflamatory recuritment material available to get these people willing to give their lives for them, under the false claim that they would be fighting for their god.

All you have to do is go to a Pat Robertson or similar congressional gathering and show that picture of Jesus and a Donkey to see a similar reaction.

I would bring a few bodyguards if you ever think of being able to come home in one piece however...

and unless I have missed something few people seem to care about it. These days you will find more people concerned over therapeutic cloning than what some newspaper printed about Jesus and his sexual relationship (or lack thereof) with Mary Magdeline.

It al depends on who you talk to. Comparing it to the US in general is difficult, but start talking to the radical religious right in our own country and see what reaction you get.

So to compare apples with apples then, take for example the Davinci Code and the public reaction of christians and non christians. By the same token how would muslims and non muslims react if a movie were presented on mohammed, or that mohammed was not a prophet of god but an ordinary man with the power to brainwash. You only have to look at the reaction of muslims when "The satanic verses" were published by Salman Rushdie to get a good idea of typical muslim reaction.

Were you not here to see the protest by those groups? The call for it to be removed, not advertised? The only thing differerent in the US is that the entire country is not CONTROLLED by these religious figures. Otherwise we could have had the same book-burning like episodes we have had in communities that were evidenced with figures as recent as John Lennin.

Hell, even then we were more diversified than a lot of these empoverished nations in the middle east!

So although you may be comparing Apples to Apples, it helps when you also put them in the same context. An apple to a man without teeth is not the same as to the rest of us.

[lofter1]

GUYS WHO LOOK LIKE JESUS


http://www.nancyburson.com/images/NEWJESI.JPG


Composite


BACK (http://www.nancyburson.com/jesus/jesus1.html)



http://www.nancyburson.com/jesus/jesus_fr.html (http://www.nancyburson.com/jesus/jesus_fr.html)

[HoboSapian]

"Were you not here to see the protest by those groups? The call for it to be removed, not advertised? The only thing differerent in the US is that the entire country is not CONTROLLED by these religious figures. Otherwise we could have had the same book-burning like episodes we have had in communities that were evidenced with figures as recent as John Lennin.

Hell, even then we were more diversified than a lot of these empoverished nations in the middle east!

So although you may be comparing Apples to Apples, it helps when you also put them in the same context. An apple to a man without teeth is not the same as to the rest of us". -NinjaHedge

Protest is one thing, and you would expect people to protest over something so controversial, at least in some parts of the world. I actually live in Australia and I dont recall any substantal "protesting" of the "DA Vinci Code", people talked about it, some condemned it others thought it was interesting, but I dont recall anyone giving a hoot enough to take to the streets and voice theyre disgust or praise. In any case I'm sure the protests over the Davinci code in the US would have been far less volatile when comparing a similar text like "The "Satanic Verses" (which I feel is equally controversial to muslims) in the middle east.

I did not see the protest/s you speak of so I will ask you, were there any number of assassination attempts on the author or the publishers? Were there angry mobs armed to the teeth ready to storm Dan Brown's press conference? I mention this because it was that level of response when "The Satanic Verses" was published and indeed the images of Mohammed. The two texts from both sides are in fact put into context the only difference is the genre of the literature (i.e film vs novel). On one side you have christians denouncing a book which questions the story of Jesus and on the other you have muslims denouncing a book which questions the story of Mohammed. But in they're case they(the muslim fanatics) would condemn any text or literature which even vaguely or remotely questioned mohammed's teachings....then they would shoot you.

[lofter1]

Personal offense ratcheted up a notch (or three) ...

Bumping Into Boundaries in a Land of Tolerance

NY TIMES (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/13/books/13grim.html?_r=1&ref=books&oref=slogin)
By WILLIAM GRIMES
September 13, 2006

Books of the Times
MURDER IN AMSTERDAM
The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance.
By Ian Buruma.
278 pp. The Penguin Press. $24.95.
There are two murders in “Murder in Amsterdam.”

The first took place on May 6, 2002, when an animal-rights advocate, for obscure reasons, gunned down Pim Fortuyn, a charismatic politician with a populist program combining law-and-order conservatism, opposition to immigration and gay liberation.

About a year and a half later a young Dutch Muslim of Moroccan descent, incensed by a film critical of Islam, shot the filmmaker-provocateur Theo van Gogh dead in broad daylight. As a parting gesture, he pinned a manifesto to the twitching body with a knife. It was all, as the prime minister of the Netherlands put it, “un-Dutch.”

Well, perhaps more Dutch than it seemed, Ian Buruma proposes in his shrewd, subtly argued inquiry into the tensions and resentments underlying two of the most shocking events in the recent history of the Netherlands. For one thing, both killers traveled to the crime scene by bicycle. More seriously, both murders represented the sort of highly pitched moral confrontation that could be regarded as a Dutch specialty. The killings were, in a sense, “principled murders.”

Mr. Buruma writes ,“It is a characteristic of Calvinism to hold moral principles too rigidly, and this might be considered a vice as well as a virtue of the Dutch.”

Mr. Buruma has made a career of examining foreign cultures, usually Asian, in books like “God’s Dust: A Modern Asian Journey” and “Inventing Japan.” The murders of Mr. van Gogh and Mr. Fortuyn took him to an unexpected place, his own country.

Mr. Buruma grew up in The Hague, but the country to which he returns in this book is virtually unrecognizable to him, transformed by large numbers of Muslim immigrants from Turkey and Morocco. The multicultural experiment, despite the government’s liberal immigration policies and lavish social services, has not gone well, and Mr. Buruma wants to find out why.

There is no single answer, he discovers, as he sits down with social workers, historians, politicians and writers, some Dutch, others immigrants or the children of immigrants. There are, however, promising avenues to explore, and this he does, economically and suggestively. He traces the evolution of the Netherlands from a sleepy, racially homogenous country to a multicultural haven for immigrants, many Muslim. He also delves into the personal histories of the victims and their assassins, trying to expose the social fault lines that led to murder. The connecting theme is immigration and its discontents, felt by guests and hosts alike.

The improbable Mr. Fortuyn tapped into deep public anxiety over immigration, globalism and national character. Personally outrageous, he hurled abuse at the smooth face of Dutch liberalism, ridiculing its tolerance for Islamic cultural practices that conflicted with social freedom.

Mr. van Gogh, a social gadfly who once described himself as the national village idiot, made a point of offending Islam, just as he made a point of offending the political establishment and anything else within reach: he once called Jesus “that rotten fish from Nazareth.” He miscalculated when, with the Somali immigrant Ayaan Hirsi Ali, he made “Submission,” a film in which lines from the Koran on the role of women were projected onto naked female bodies.

The Dutch, Mr. Buruma writes, savor irony, and perhaps because their political establishment is so dull, enjoy the politics of outrage. This taste is not shared by the country’s Muslim immigrants. “This was the crowning irony of his life,” Mr. Buruma writes. “Van Gogh, more than anyone, had warned about the dangers of violent religious passions, and yet he behaved as though they held no consequences for him.”

Dutch by upbringing, Mr. Buruma manages to pick up on nuances and historical threads that other writers might easily overlook. He maintains that the argument over immigration cannot be understood without seeing the long shadow of World War II and Anne Frank.

Questions of national identity, race and tolerance bear heavy freight. “Never again, said the well-meaning defenders of the multicultural ideal, must Holland betray a religious minority,” Mr. Buruma writes.

That minority seethes.

In particular, the offspring of poor, often illiterate Berbers from Morocco have fared poorly in the Netherlands, and Mr. Buruma, with great finesse, explores the sense of displacement and cultural alienation of Muhammad Bouyeri, Mr. van Gogh’s killer, and other young Muslim men drawn to Islamic fundamentalism. For the products of rigid tribal societies, Dutch freedom has often proved to be oppressive, and here Mr. Buruma suggests that Islam might not be the main point.

“More important,” he writes, “was the question of authority, of face, in a household where the father could give little guidance, and in a society from which a young Moroccan male might find it easier to receive subsidies than respect.”

Mr. Fortuyn had a simple solution. Foreigners who did not subscribe to Dutch values should leave. Enlightenment absolutists like Ms. Hirsi Ali and Mr. van Gogh turned apoplectic at any efforts to appease or accommodate Muslims on, say, gay rights or women’s rights, and they were not alone in their fears.

“I find it terrible that we should be offering social welfare or subsidies to people who refuse to shake hands with a woman,” a left-wing feminist tells Mr. Buruma.

Two murders have left the citizens of two cultures, living in the same country, staring at each other across a gulf and wondering how to move forward. Mr. Buruma is not sure, and at the end he disappears in a puff of rhetorical smoke. With the battle lines drawn, he expresses the fond hope that reason and moderation will prevail on both sides. The sentiment falls sweetly on ears tuned to that particular frequency. The question is how to transmit it to a fanatic on a bicycle.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[Ninjahedge]

Protest is one thing, and you would expect people to protest over something so controversial, at least in some parts of the world. I actually live in Australia and I dont recall any substantal "protesting" of the "DA Vinci Code", people talked about it, some condemned it others thought it was interesting, but I dont recall anyone giving a hoot enough to take to the streets and voice theyre disgust or praise.

There were protests an calls for it to be removed from theaters. I heard about it for a month before the opening. I heard the same for the one where Jesus sleeps with Magdalane or something (I forget which one that was).

The only difference here is that when you are in a different social situation where you have something to LOSE if you take thnigs too seriously, you are less inclined to go out and kill someone for a movie.

In any case I'm sure the protests over the Davinci code in the US would have been far less volatile when comparing a similar text like "The "Satanic Verses" (which I feel is equally controversial to muslims) in the middle east.

Yep, but that does not prove your point that we are somehow better than them at our core. Take our people, remove secular rule, and strip them down to poverty and see what kind of response you get to things that go against their savior.

I did not see the protest/s you speak of so I will ask you, were there any number of assassination attempts on the author or the publishers? Were there angry mobs armed to the teeth ready to storm Dan Brown's press conference?

You are pushing it to the extreme again and saying that just because the protests did not reach the scale that protests from other areas had for the cartoons, that somehow they are totally different.

Again, context is important.

I mention this because it was that level of response when "The Satanic Verses" was published and indeed the images of Mohammed. The two texts from both sides are in fact put into context the only difference is the genre of the literature (i.e film vs novel).

You also have to take into account that his novel was not only depicting their prophet, but badmouthing it. Read up on Scientology and see thjeir responses to critics and reporters who have tried to reveal their pyramidal secrative cult structure and you will see death threats, career changing accusations, calls, people following the reportes around.

On one side you have christians denouncing a book which questions the story of Jesus and on the other you have muslims denouncing a book which questions the story of Mohammed. But in they're case they(the muslim fanatics) would condemn any text or literature which even vaguely or remotely questioned mohammed's teachings....then they would shoot you.

No, "they" wouldn't. You are grouping the entirety of the muslim population into one group. That bigotry is one of the reasons we are in this mess (bigotry on both sides). Not all muslims would threaten you or try to kil you, just as 95% of them would not hurt you for any other reason than anyone else on this world would.

Again, I urge you to look into the hangings, burnings and other things that were done to people IN OUR OWN COUNTRY to people that did not "fit in" with the mainstram for one reason or another.

The only thing saving is is our religious diversity, our secular government agencies AND our law enforcement.

Take those away and we are human just like the rest of the world and certainly capable of taking things out of context and to the extreme....



Oh, BTW, just so you get a little perspective on religious "devotion" in our own country....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_EKHK1C2IE

Pretty F'n scary.

[lofter1]

China paper suspends cartoonist for drawing Hu crying

REUTERS (http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2006-09-14T060541Z_01_HKG85712_RTRUKOC_0_US-CHINA-CARTOON.xml&src=rss&rpc=22)
Thu Sep 14, 2006

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A newspaper in southern China has suspended a cartoonist after he drew a weeping Chinese President Hu Jintao, a Hong Kong newspaper reported on Thursday.

Depicting national leaders in cartoons is considered politically incorrect in China, although it is periodically done without repercussions, the South China Morning Post said.

But artist Kuang Biao's cartoon of a teary-eyed Hu replying to a letter from the daughter of a university professor who died from overwork aged 48 was regarded by mainland censors as unacceptable, the newspaper said.

The Guangzhou-based tabloid News Express, which published the drawing on Monday, suspended Kuang in what he considered a pre-emptive move to protect him from further punishment from the central propaganda authorities, the Post said.

"It's a gesture by the newspaper to show that action has been taken against their wayward journalist," the Post quoted Kuang as saying. "Sometimes in China, a good offence is the best defense."

Kuang is being allowed to draw for other publications under a pseudonym, it said.

China's official Xinhua news agency announced rules on Sunday requiring foreign media to seek its approval to distribute news, pictures and graphics within China. International rights groups denounced the regulations as an attack on freedom of information.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

[ablarc]

The only thing differerent in the US is that the entire country is not CONTROLLED by these religious figures.
That's quite a big difference all by itself.

And anyway, it's not the only thing different.

Bet you can think of others.

[Ninjahedge]

That's quite a big difference all by itself.

And anyway, it's not the only thing different.

Bet you can think of others.

Yep, but I am trying to trace major contributing factors and fundamentals.

Don't be a skootch. :p

[lofter1]

Muslim fury grows at Pope's speech

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2006/09/popeeffigy_700x405.jpg
Muslim activists burn an effigy of Pope Benedict XVI during a protest in Srinagar, India.

dailymail.co.uk (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=405238&in_page_id=1811&ico=Homepage&icl=TabModule&icc=NEWS&ct=5)
15th September 2006

The furore over comments made by Pope Benedict about the Islamic concept of Holy War continues to grow. Today British Muslims joined in, fiercely criticising his remarks.

The pontiff was accused of falling into "the trap of bigots and racists" with the comments he made on a visit to Germany.

• Muslims must do more to integrate, says Archbishop (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=405192&in_page_id=1770)

Last night Vatican officials were scrambling to defend the comments, saying the Pope had never intended to offend Muslims.

During a speech, he quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor who said the prophet Mohammed had brought "things only evil and inhuman".

But Britain's Ramadhan Foundation, a youth organisation based in Rochdale, reacted angrily to the comments, comparing the Pope unfavourably to his predecessor John Paul II.

In a statement it said: "If the Pope wanted to attack Islam and Prophet Muhammad teachings he could have been brave enough to say it personally without quoting a 14th century Byzantine Christian emperor.

"The late Pope John Paul II spent over 25 years to build bridges and links with the Muslim community. He showed the world that its perception of Islam was false and that we are peace-loving people.

"The Ramadhan Foundation is disappointed that the current Pope has not followed the example of his predecessor; it is essential in today's world that we link together and encourage a wider understanding of our different faiths, celebrating our religious differences is essential in a ever expanding world."

Muhammad Umar, chairman of the foundation, said: "This attack on Islam and Prophet Muhammad by Pope Benedict is recognition that he has fallen into the trap of the bigots and racists when it comes to judging Islam on the actions of a small number of extreme elements."

The Pope's speech quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and an educated Persian on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the Pope said.

"He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached'."

Benedict described the phrases on Islam as "brusque", while neither explicitly agreeing with nor repudiating them.

Pakistan's parliament condemned the "derogatory" remarks today and demanded an apology. The country's foreign ministry said they were "regrettable" and claimed they would encourage violence.

Vatican spokesman the Rev Federico Lombardi issued a statement defending the speech after Pope Benedict returned to Rome. "It certainly wasn't the intention of the Pope to carry out a deep examination of jihad (holy war) and on Muslim thought on it, much less to offend the sensibility of Muslim believers," he said.

He insisted that the pontiff wanted to "cultivate an attitude of respect and dialogue toward the other religions and cultures, obviously also toward Islam".

But Turkey's top Islamic cleric Ali Bardakoglu asked Benedict to apologise and made a string of accusations against Christianity, raising tensions ahead of a planned papal visit to the country in November.

He said he was deeply offended by the remarks and called them "extraordinarily worrying, saddening and unfortunate".

The 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference, based in Jeddah, Saudi