by strangegrey » Fri Apr 13, 2007 1:40 pm
The whole Islamist thing is a VERY complicated issue. I'm actually in the middle of taking a class on the religion right now...and over the course of the past semester, I have changed my mind on this more times than I care to admit. Very complicated and complex a problem.
To look at it from the hard-line stance (that most to the right have taken), of stating there's X-number of extremists here and abroad and we need to iradicate this problem, and show force and etc, etc, etc....Is missing the fact that the religion is tremendously complex...and the religion is deeply seated in social/political world of the middle east.
To look at it from the softer stance (that the left has taken)....is equally naive, as it is quite easy to assume that since Islam itself is born from Christianity and Judaism...and that, in making that assumption, Christians/Jews share a value system with Muslims.
There are hard numbers that are at-best very educated guesses on the proportions of Islamist-Extremist muslims that are hell bent to kill non-believers....I've seen everything from 10-20% of Muslims worldwide (which, given the number of Muslims worldwide, renders a very scary number). There just aren't as many Christian extremist out there. To try to excuse muslim extremism by stating there's equal number of christian extremists isn't really that smart. Christian schools of thought have not taken on terrorism as a tool to get their point across (the very small percentage of abortion clinic bombers excluded)....where as some muslim schools have.
However, having said that above...I often question the above 'percentage' issue. It's way too clean and easy for people to come out and say "Hey, there's X number of muslim's bombers out there and we have to GET them!"...and the motivation for sowing such an idea falls very much in line with the agenda of this administration. I'm not entirely convinced that 911 went down as we are largely lead to believe...I think Michael Moore is full of horseshit...but I also think something REALLY fucking stinks in Denmark, with the story we've been shoveled about 911. If there's even a hair thread of proof that 911 isn't entirely and completely a muslim extremist plan that slipped through the cracks of our intelligence network.....
...then you can't trust anything that you read about Muslims in pop culture.
Even, if it's all at face value....this entire Muslim problem/issue (and this thread with it) could be argued and absolutely dragged through the pits of hell before any of us could even come up with a wet dream of a solution to the problem.
Heck, it might be better off to stick to plain old Black and White racism and leave the 'brown' out of this...because these types of discussions *always* get ugly.