Charlie Hebdo shootings & retaliation

[orestes]

Charlie Hedbo from a French perspective.

[Jinsai]

Yes, it is... right in front of you, the vast majority of Western Muslims are not carrying out terrorist attacks or harassing non Muslims or leaving to join foreign conflicts

It's not that the majority needs to be actively involved, or even in support. The Pew research poll from 2013 had little to say about the variance of beliefs of western Muslims, but when even 5% of surveyed US Muslims are willing to admit in a poll that they believe suicide bombings in defense of Islam are sometimes acceptable... Overall, the results from the survey were interesting.

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/t...-about-sharia/

Charlie Hedbo from a French perspective.

Part of what definitely sparked a knee-jerk reaction regarding the content of the paper (at least for me) was actually due to images being passed around that were made to look like Charlie Hebdo covers, when in fact they were mockeries of the covers backed by some really extreme and intolerant views.

[Hazekiah]

[Hazekiah]

[Sutekh]

It's not that the majority needs to be actively involved, or even in support. The Pew research poll from 2013 had little to say about the variance of beliefs of western Muslims, but when even 5% of surveyed US Muslims are willing to admit in a poll that they believe suicide bombings in defense of Islam are sometimes acceptable... Overall, the results from the survey were interesting.

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/t...-about-sharia/

They're OK but the context of daily life and the levels of illiteracy in the regions surveyed are so different to that of the west that it can't really tell us a great deal about the probable beliefs of Western ones.

If the question just how many Western Muslims do support militancy/fundamentalism/terrorism, again the answer is a minority, simply because most Western Muslims are observably getting on with their lives and not committing terrorist acts or living fundamentalist lifestyles

Another indicator is that groups like al muhajiroon/islam4uk, hizb ut tahrir etc enjoy very small, fringey followings packed with weirdos - they never have large followings, or support from communities.

On the whole the UK is attacked by dissident Irish republicans far more often than Islamists, but you don't see people demanding reassurance from Catholics. I just fear people getting carried away with the hype and ultimately doing exactly what extremist groups want them to do

[Jinsai]

I'm just not sure I see the solution Maher is suggesting here. There is a distinct possibility that he'll be riling up segments of liberal Westerners to stand up against aspects of the Muslim faith which are incompatible with progressive values. The problem is, people frequently aren't that smart about the way they rally together around these sorts of concepts, and this outpouring of liberal outrage could just end up turning into incoherent fox-news style rabble bullshit. At that point, it would seem likely that Muslims living in Western liberal societies would feel less inclined to consider the philosophical values of liberalism, and instead just feel more offput.

80+% of the muslim world lives in theocratic Islamic societies. These are also the areas of the world which will enforce Sharia law, and also are the primary recruitment grounds for extremists. Western Muslims are already naturally more liberally inclined than people living in places where voicing certain liberal beliefs alone could get you in serious trouble.

I just don't know how helpful it is to point the finger at the religion and say that it's especially violent, and that people need to conform their religious beliefs to comply with Western values. That doesn't seem like a very likely way to win people over to your argument.

They're OK but the context of daily life and the levels of illiteracy in the regions surveyed are so different to that of the west that it can't really tell us a great deal about the probable beliefs of Western ones.

A pew research poll of Muslims living in the United States in 2006 found that a minority opinion (that was still alarmingly high) was supportive of suicide bombings in defense of Islam. It also found that this opinion was more prevalent among younger Muslims.

I know, research polls can be deceiving, and are never a truly perfect accurate portrayal, but still, this is not coming from an obviously biased source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_i...de_bombing.png

[green]

Yes, it is... right in front of you, the vast majority of Western Muslims are not carrying out terrorist attacks or harassing non Muslims or leaving to join foreign conflicts

Why doesn't that prove anything?


And when you say "no, it's not", do you mean that scenario is not right in front of you? So the majority of Muslims around you are carrying out terrorist attacks and enforcing strict sharia, and all that stuff I said about Millions of Muslims being deemed apostate enemes by fundamentalist Sunnis is not true?

The argument is for Muslims world wide to condemn these acts publicly, which they haven't. So what are you even talking about?

[Sutekh]

How could a billion people possibly condemn something as one voice (as someone pointed out, especially when they are split so many ways and are ultimately not in any practical way a monolithic entity), - who would speak for them? And do you expect literally every single one to participate? Do you think there is any realistic possibility of that happening

I'm just wondering what the scenario you would require would actually look like. Like if white people had to apologise for all the empires, slavery, genocide etc... how exactly would we go about doing that? get everyone in each country to sign something, then get the leaders of every country to then present their country's apology to some kind of arbiter. The notion is a little bit absurd. And in any case what worth would it have - how would you know they weren't lying? Terrorists and their sympathisers tend to keep things on the down low

As for what I'm talking about, I'm saying the fact most of them don't participate in this stuff can be taken as a sign they reject it

Various Muslim community groups issue condemnations of terrorism... various Muslim communities are in fact targets of terrorism by fundamentalists, so you can assume they are against it.

Again if statements by community leaders and individuals aren't good enough, what would be good enough?

[Jinsai]

Looking to the perceived attitudes or beliefs of Western Muslims is a distraction when Saudi Arabia, our supposed ally in the Middle East, is enacting what we would rightly identify as extremism as common law. The Saudi government can issue a statement condemning the murders in Paris, but it of course cannot defend the content of the offending publication, or insist that they respect their right to mock topics which they hold sacred. The hypocrisy would be too blatant. The truth is that if Charlie Hebdo was a publication actually operating in Saudi Arabia, the government would have probably had them executed.

It's hard to take any sort of conciliatory gesture from Saudi Arabia seriously when, in the wake of these attacks in Paris, they continue with the scheduled lashing of Raif Badawi. His crime was blogging for universal religious acceptance and liberalism.

[Magtig]

Re: Muslim condemnation of extremism
For what it's worth I ran across this today: Here's How Arab Newspapers Reacted to the #ChalieHebdo Massacre - Anonymous

[icecream]

First off, while yes, muslims are still very obviously a minority in France, at over five million they have the largest Muslim population in western Europe. By comparison, the Jewish population in France is around half a million. While Catholicism is still considered the largest religious demographic in France, of the 45 million people who identify as Christian, less than 2 million consider themselves practicing believers. This is where it gets tricky. When it comes to the population with the largest number of religious believers adhering to a particular faith, it would actually seem that Islam could be considered the dominant religious belief.

The dominant majority in France is by and large secular non-belief. The original bans on the burqa were related to wearing it in schools. Alongside this ban was a restriction against wearing a cross or a yarmulke. The restrictions on wearing it in public are prohibited by the form which completely covers the face. The law would seemingly prohibit any form of complete facial covering. This is ridiculous, of course, because even if you believe that the nature of the burqa is in some ways oppressive to women as a concept, people should be allowed to dress however they please.


There is an obvious fundamental difference. The institution of slavery is essential to the discussion there. We've moved on quite a long way, and it took a lot of time, and racism is not dead in this country. One thing that is now commonly understood to be unacceptable are outrageous demonstrations of racism. The expression of it has largely moved into more subtle, subversive, and maybe even unwitting examples. We have come a long way, and we've done it without repealing the first amendment. We allow people to say awful things.



I can't claim to be familiar enough with their content to necessarily disagree. A cursory google image search does show them lampooning pretty much everything.



But you cannot satirize the Saudi Arabian government from within Saudi Arabia. That's pretty much what this man Raif is being publicly whipped for. When you look at the things he was saying, it was generally inclusive, tolerant stuff. You could not publish anything remotely close to Charlie Hebdo in Saudi Arabia. Now we're getting people insinuating that they shouldn't even publish this sort of stuff in France.



It varies. In the UK, intolerant speech is illegal. In Germany, there's a touchy aspect regarding anything that has to do with Naziism... for obvious reasons. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who believe these restrictions serve a valid purpose.

On my phone so I can't split the quote

1.) I'm not saying repeal the first amendment or eliminate free speech. Just there is a boundary between satire and hate speech. Free speech should have its limits, I.e the harm principle. Minor point, we haven't come a long way. The steriotyoes in the comics are still used to describe African Americans today. It's no different to make horrible cartoons about Muslims using negative stereotypes.

2.) From what I have read online the content inside the magazine is tailored to a far right audience. In the most recent issue there was an interview with a author who wrote a book about Muslims taking over France.

3.) Exactly, that's why it's effectice to use satire to criticize the Saudi government. It's dangerous and he is brave in doing so. Now reverse that for a moment. Imagine a more powerful segment of society attacking a minority group with satire. A group of people already mistrusted in society. That isn't satire but xenophobia, in my opinion.

[Jinsai]

1.) I'm not saying repeal the first amendment or eliminate free speech. Just there is a boundary between satire and hate speech. Free speech should have its limits, I.e the harm principle. Minor point, we haven't come a long way. The steriotyoes in the comics are still used to describe African Americans today. It's no different to make horrible cartoons about Muslims using negative stereotypes.

The US has come a VERY long way with regards to what is generally acceptable in comic portrayals of minorities (not just african americans) since the civil war, and to imply otherwise is simply absurd. Racism still exists, but we don't have blackface minstrel theater anymore for starters. Racist declarations in humor aren't taken lightly anymore either. Ask Michael Richards (remember Kramer) how that worked out for him...

Regarding your second point, simply drawing a cartoon impression of the prophet of the Muslim faith is not a celebration of Muslim stereotypes.

2.) From what I have read online the content inside the magazine is tailored to a far right audience. In the most recent issue there was an interview with a author who wrote a book about Muslims taking over France.

The more I look into it, the more I'm convinced that there's been a really shoddy initial representation of the content of the magazine. Contrary to earlier assertions that the magazine especially focused on mocking Muslims (and used sparse portrayals of other groups as a fallback alibi), that seems very much to not be the case. The majority of the covers mock political figures, and they seem to take turns making fun of various religions. To insist that one single religion be exempt from mockery is not asking for respect, but special treatment with the insinuation that your ideas are more precious than others.

Regarding the book by Michel Hauellebecq, the AUTHOR is being ridiculed on the cover of the latest issue (the one that came out right before the attacks). The cartoon on the cover portrays him as a seemingly drunk wizard making silly comical predictions. It wasn't an interview, and even if it was, it's presumptuous to assume that an interview is a blanket endorsement.



Either way, it's hard to see that image as particularly flattering.

I've seen some people run to some really wild conclusions about the content and nature of Charlie Hebdo. I've taken the stance from the start that the nature of their media is, in the larger discussion, relatively unimportant. Still, maybe it's time to actually counter these claims I'm running into, where I've seen the magazine compared to the Westboro Baptists or storm front. France's laws against hate speech would not allow either of those groups to exist in France.

3.) Exactly, that's why it's effectice to use satire to criticize the Saudi government. It's dangerous and he is brave in doing so. Now reverse that for a moment. Imagine a more powerful segment of society attacking a minority group with satire. A group of people already mistrusted in society. That isn't satire but xenophobia, in my opinion.

We do make fun of religious minorities. I didn't see anyone trying to shut down The Book of Mormon, and the only people trying to suppress criticism or mockery of Scientologists are the Scientologists.

What Raif was blogging about (which almost got him the death penalty) was not even really satire, but the endorsement of basic human rights and religious tolerance. He's brave, but the punishment is outrageous. If someone published openly mocking cartoons akin to the controversial Hebdo ones IN Saudi Arabia, that would be brave but it would also be suicide.

[allegro]

But Saudi Arabia is Mecca and their rules are very strict and all Muslims know this. That's not necessarily the case in all other Muslim countries, but in Saudi Arabia, yeah, it's Mecca, very religious. Not Taliban extremist, but religious.

I know Westerners who lived in Saudi Arabia for business and they stayed indoors every Friday because that was public punishment day. That's just the way it is. And not just religious violations, we're talking hand-removal of robbers, etc. And the crime is a lot lower, there.

But continuously bringing up Saudi Arabia in relation to these Charlie Hebdo terrorists makes zero sense to me.

No, Saudi Arabia is not a center of human rights. No, they do not believe in liberal speech that goes against Islam or the Saudi leaders and doing so is severely punished and everybody there knows this. A Twitter comment against the government or Islam can land you in prison. Everybody there knows this, the laws and punishments are written.

Freedom House rates Saudi Arabia a 7 on a scale of 1 to 7, 7 being the least "free." https://freedomhouse.org/report/free...a#.VLIR3HrnbqB

But, Saudi Arabia has never been a proponent of terrorism. And what happened in France is terrorism.

And when I said "poke the bear," I didn't mean the bear is the average Muslim or Islam; the bear is the extremist terrorist martyr like these guys who killed the people at Charlie Hebdo.

The editor of Charlie Hebdo had received threats, he said he would prefer to die than live like a rat.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ry?id=28057120

[Jinsai]

But continuously bringing up Saudi Arabia in relation to these Charlie Hebdo terrorists makes zero sense to me.

No, Saudi Arabia is not a center of human rights. No, they do not believe in liberal speech that goes against Islam or the Saudi leaders and doing so is severely punished and everybody there knows this. A Twitter comment against the government or Islam can land you in prison. Everybody there knows this, the laws and punishments are written.

Saudi Arabia has never been a proponent of terrorism. And what happened in France is terrorism.

Everyone THERE knows this, I don't think a lot of liberals I speak to are actually aware of the way our "allies" in the middle east tend to punish people for blasphemy, or for saying things like "all religions are equal." Constantly I hear things like "it's just a few extremist radicals." A theocratic Islamic state that enforces strict sharia law may not openly endorse forms of terrorism to be a generally supportive environment for recruitment into radicalized groups. Bin Laden was from a wealthy Saudi family. If we're not going to address or acknowledge the treatment of people in countries that are our allies, how do we even begin.

[Sutekh]

Saudi Arabia is terrible and our policy towards them remains a joke - their abominable treatment of their people aside, they basically kickstarted the Wahhabist movement, which along with a thinker called Sayyed Qutb is basically responsible for the wave of militant fundamentalism that has arrived in tandem with the Islamic revival. KSA funds the promotion of Wahhabism by setting up and managing Madrassas throughout the world that basically brainwash kids into fundamentalism.

The ironic thing is that under such an extreme interpretation of Islam, the KSA monarchy/government end up being deemed Takfir by many of the fundamentalists they create - as KSA allows American military bases in the Arabia - for a fundie, the whole peninsula is just as sacred as Mecca/Medina and this is a serious insult

[allegro]

Everyone THERE knows this, I don't think a lot of liberals I speak to are actually aware of the way our "allies" in the middle east tend to punish people for blasphemy, or for saying things like "all religions are equal."
Constantly I hear things like "it's just a few extremist radicals." A theocratic Islamic state that enforces strict sharia law may not openly endorse forms of terrorism to be a generally supportive environment for recruitment into radicalized groups. Bin Laden was from a wealthy Saudi family. If we're not going to address or acknowledge the treatment of people in countries that are our allies, how do we even begin.

15 of the 19 Sept 11th terrorists were Saudi citizens. I've discussed this New Yorker article in another thread. I fucking hate Saudi Arabia. But do we have any direct ties to the Saudi government related to the France attack? Sure, I guess you could assume that all roads lead to Mecca, but not really. Hamas operates on its own with its own agenda. Hezbollah has its own agenda. Al-Qaeda has links to the people IN Saudi Arabia and money FROM Saudi Arabia, but that's it. Al-Qaeda is reportedly pissed at ISIL for stealing the spotlight and is reported to have used this France incident to get the spotlight back. Al-Qaeda reportedly ordered the Charlie Hebdo attack, and Al-Qaeda has always been linked to Saudi money but there is no proof that it is linked to the Saudi government. There are a LOT of very rich religious people in Saudi Arabia. And the US Gov't in in bed with the Saudi Gov't, in order to keep some of our Risk pieces there.

I don't know how any so-called "liberal" person can be so unaware of Saudi Arabia's human rights violations. They must be "liberal light" and not keeping up with any Amnesty International news. Although, shit, "60 Minutes" has done pieces on Westerners moving to Islamic countries and being thrown into jail because they aren't aware of strict Islamic laws.

Like Dubai, Westerners are moving there in droves because rap stars think it's cool, except ... http://m.ibtimes.com/dubai-safe-fema...others-1354317

[Sutekh]

Video released by Kosher supermarket hostage taker in which he pledges allegiance to abu bakr and ISIS, and says he was working in tandem with the Charlie Hebdo shooters

[orestes]

Read this New Yorker piece yesterday, which is only illuminated by participants in today's rally in Paris.

[allegro]

Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, speaks out:

http://rt.com/news/221343-hezbollah-...arlie-offends/

[allegro]

Read this New Yorker piece yesterday

Wow, great article!!

The U.S., the U.K., and France approach statecraft in different ways, but they are allies in a certain vision of the world, and one important thing they share is an expectation of proper respect for Western secular religion. Heresies against state power are monitored and punished. People have been arrested for making anti-military or anti-police comments on social media in the U.K. Mass surveillance has had a chilling effect on journalism and on the practice of the law in the U.S. Meanwhile, the armed forces and intelligence agencies in these countries demand, and generally receive, unwavering support from their citizens. When they commit torture or war crimes, no matter how illegal or depraved, there is little expectation of a full accounting or of the prosecution of the parties responsible.

[botley]

I think linking these extremist groups to one particular government is a mistake. Yes, the Saudi government is horrible in many ways, and Western imperialism is certainly a motivating factor in agitating violent reactions, but when you stir religion and social identity into the pot, it's not just a case of "follow the money" and pin the blame there.

I thought that this response was really interesting, in that it tries to get at the real root problem behind what turns young troubled people towards recruitment to extremist factions. This is clearly the part of the fight that we in the West have failed to make significant inroads to understanding and combating, and it is far more nuanced than mere retaliation.

[orestes]

People who call for retaliation aren't familiar with blowback.

[Jinsai]

I think linking these extremist groups to one particular government is a mistake.

I'm just linking the different ways that ideologies are being implemented to manipulate. The people who go on these suicide martyr missions are pawns. They are probably true believers, but they're being indoctrinated into a version of the religion twisted to elicit the "appropriate" response. When I bring up strict sharia theocracies like Saudi Arabia, it's obvious that the religious laws are being strictly enforced to prohibit the exchange of ideas which don't really benefit the interests of ruling oil sheiks. Liberalism and concepts like equality generally don't. It may be just a distraction, but it seems like it sets the backdrop for extremist recruitment, and in many ways it's a blueprint for control and manipulation.


You read the life stories of the people manipulated into being the martyrs in these recent attacks, and they sound like they were lost people in really desperate circumstances. It's the exact kind of person that can be malleably turned into a "true believer." The attacker involved in the assault on the market was already a violent criminal, and he was recruited by extremists in prison. The other two were under the instruction of that Alwari extremist imam in Yemen. I guess the biggest mystery to me is what his motivation was. What do the people programming these pawns want or hope to achieve?

I'm not saying one particular religion is to blame. Any religious ideology or belief system can be twisted to achieve horrifying ends. I do think ignoring the religious factor is a mistake though, even if I think the way that people like Bill Maher are addressing it is overly simplistic and potentially damaging. It's easy to say "bah, I'm an atheist, and all these religious nut jobs are insane, and the culprit here is clearly religion."

[allegro]

I thought that this response was really interesting, in that it tries to get at the real root problem behind what turns young troubled people towards recruitment to extremist factions. This is clearly the part of the fight that we in the West have failed to make significant inroads to understanding and combating, and it is far more nuanced than mere retaliation.

That IS really interesting and, you're right, everybody focuses on the wrong thing but completely overlooks this and, in doing so, are totally failing.

We know that there are -- one-fourth of our planet is Muslim, 1.6 billion people. Sixty-two percent of that number is under the age of 30. And that is a really important number for us because those are the Millennials.

Those are the young people who have grown up in a post-9/11 world. These are young people who have grown up with the word Islam or Muslim on the front page of the papers online and offline since Sept. 12, 2001. And this has significantly impacted the way in which they think about themselves.

And so when I talk about the generations of Muslims in different parts of Europe, whether you're a fourth generation Brit who happens to be Muslim, whether you are a second-generation you know Belgian, it doesn't -- these experiences for this generation -- these generations of millennials is very different from their parents and their grandparents before them.

And I say this because when we as government, for example, were having conversations about Muslims around the world after 9/11 you will remember that we were looking primarily at places that are Muslim majority countries.

We were looking at Afghanistan. We were looking at Pakistan. We're obviously looking at the Middle East, all unbelievably important. But what we all tend to do, and should not do, is to dismiss areas of the world in which people just sort of simply forget that there are Muslims that live there.

And the point is that a Muslim living in Paris is as Muslim as a Muslim living in Kuala Lumpur. And the conversations and the ideology that is present in the world that comes from the extremists preys upon these generations of young people no matter where in the world they are.

Because Europe is a place, obviously, with free borders that absolutely celebrates, as they should, the importance of diversity of expressions, and the freedoms that we hold dear to us. It actually also is an opportunity for those to be able to move around intellectually and physically in a space that allows those that are moving toward extremist thought to be able to do that comfortably.

So when we think about what happened here this week, this tragic event that happened in Paris, it has not happened in a vacuum. I mean the first -- I mean the first time that we began to really think about how a conversation in a place like the U.K., for example, in 1989 with Salman Rushdie, could impact the way we think about foreign policy in the world, obviously the fatwa against him.

But let's also be clear. The things that we are learning from this kind of event, whether it was the fatwa in 1989 all the way through the Danish cartoon crisis, the Teddy-Bear-Gate (ph) that happened with the British teacher in Somalia who named her teddy bear -- the teddy bear in the class of children was named Mohamed. And you will remember that became a very tragic and very complicated situation during the Bush administration.

The video -- film that was made by the Californian, you know the film that the Obama administration says was responsible for the rioting and eventually the devastation in Benghazi and the killing of Ambassador Stevens.

You see all of these kinds of events in which extremists are using and pushing forward this idea that there is one way to be Muslim. It's their way. And anything that moves away from that is not allowed.

And so when you see that diversity of thought that is pushed forward in art forms, and in this case unfortunately you know the use of a pen in a cartoon or whether it's a film or whether it's a song or whether it's a comic book series. You will see the same kind of repercussions.

So when you ask the question, Jon, how do we think about this, there are a couple things that have to be said. First, we have to absolutely understand that Europe matters, that what's happening with Muslims in Europe matters.

How they think about themselves. How they view themselves as Muslim, as they navigate through a crisis of identity, which is something that I saw firsthand right in the context of the Danish cartoon crisis.

Right after you know that crisis the United States government, you know we did -- we were not prepared in 2006 when the Danish cartoon crisis happened to say that something that happened in Copenhagen was going to have an effect on a life in Kabul.

And clearly, sadly, it's 2015. We obviously know that everything matters everywhere, right. But at that point our government didn't know.

And I will tell you what happened. Indeed we decided to get to know Muslims in Europe better. And the State Department created the position as the senior adviser to the assistant secretary, which I was honored to be able to serve as.

But what it allowed me to do was to travel on behalf of the United States government to meet Muslims all over Europe and talk to them about what it meant to be Muslim in Europe. And the conversations were very clear and distinctive that this crisis of identity was pulling them in directions where they were asking themselves things that their parents couldn't answer.

And so where did they go to get answers? They went to Sheikh Google. They went to places at that time they thought could help them understand who they were.

And it absolutely relates to what we are seeing on our screens over the course of the last couple of days. These young kids that were -- well they're not young now. So they're in their early 30s. But as they -- in their 20s as they began to be a part of this demographic that I'm talking about, were saturated with narratives that were saying that you don't belong.

And I will say this is not distinctive. It is not surprising to see that kind of identity crisis move in a direction where they find the appeal of a narrative by extremists to be something that they wanted to take to the next level.

PANDITH: Right. Yes. So I mean, Jon, look, everybody, no matter who you are, whether you're male or female, you know what faith you are or a background I mean every teenager goes through a who am I and what's my purpose in the world kind of thing. It's not unique to a particular faith. That's not what I'm saying.

But when you think about what happens to a young person who is seeing images, seeing words, Islam, Muslim, all day, every day, online and offline. This generation is experiencing something that is truly profound. And it is very complicated for them to navigate through.

And so when you ask about an age, you know when we were looking at this right after the Danish cartoon crisis and I was doing the work in Europe, I was seeing this as young you known as 15, 16, 17 onward.

Where people were asking questions -- I remember a conversation I had with a young woman in Denmark who was a teenager. And she -- I was talking to you know 50 or so young kids who were Muslim. And we were sitting in a room chatting about the experience.

They'd all been brought up in Denmark. They all obviously spoke Danish and they saw themselves as Danish.

And this one girl said you know my imam tells me that I'm not a Muslim. And I said what do you mean? And she said look at me. And so all the kids in the room and I, we looked at her. And I couldn't understand what she meant.
And she said -- you know I said I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean. She said look at me. I'm looking at her again. I still don't get what she's talking about.

And then she says look at me. And she points to her T-shirt and her jeans. And she says my imam tells me that if I dress like this I'm not a real Muslim.

And I said, well who's your imam? And it was an imam that came from outside. It was a foreign imam who didn't speak Danish, of Moroccan descent, who came from a village in Morocco and didn't have any context about what these kids were going through growing up.

That's an extreme example. But it's an important one. It's this kind of identity conflict that they have that they don't have the ready answers.

And if you fast-forward, that was around 2007, 2008, 2009. You fast-forward to now and all these kids you know with the push of their finger are getting answers from the loudest voices online to tell them what they -- how they must dress, what they must do, what they must eat, how they must look to be a real Muslim.

And it is you know, I think for many policymakers and others you can dismiss that. I think that you know wow, this is some sociological thing that's taking place and it has no bearing on foreign policy.

But guess what? It is these generations that are growing up in the post 9/11 world that are most important to us.

As I said, 62 percent of 1.6 billion people are under the age of 30. They're digital natives. They're connected, and the narratives that the extremists are pushing out matter to them.

[Sutekh]

Good bit of writing by Zizek as usual
http://www.newstatesman.com/world-af...nate-intensity

[Khrz]

Sorry, bit of drift there, but I feel like I owe an apology to @allegro and @Sutekh ...

This week has been a mess. It still is, more than ever, as everyone in France and beyond is trying to understand, interpret, analyze and in many case appropriate those events.

Guys I'm sorry I lashed out that way.
While you were commenting in a dispassionate way, the issue was very emotional for me. I should have recognized that while I was still able to be part of an intelligent debate. That didn't give me any right to twist your words and intentions in such a manner, and the way I quit the debate was unwarranted and disgraceful.
Neither of you had been insulting or aggressive, you both calmly tried to actually understand the context and climate in which those attacks took place, and as I said to Sutekh in PM, I wish I had been able to argue with you in a similar manner.

[allegro]

Hey, no apology necessary, @Khrz ! You live there, I understand what it must be like since we Americans went through the same thing back on Sept 11th. It is very emotional, indeed.

[Deepvoid]

Yes, it is... right in front of you, the vast majority of Western Muslims are not carrying out terrorist attacks or harassing non Muslims or leaving to join foreign conflicts

I would add that Indonesia which has the largest Muslim population condemned the attacked and his not a hot bed for terrorists like Yemen, Syria and Iraq.
On the other hand, you have a smaller country like Morocco who snubbed the march in Paris due to the cartoons of the prophet.

When the Vatican was hit by the pedophilia scandal, did you have every single clergy speaking out against the Vatican? No.

[Khrz]

^ I don't see every western politician apologizing every time a drone inadvertently bombs the shit out of civilians either. #notallwest.

On the other hand, you have a smaller country like Morocco who snubbed the march in Paris due to the cartoons of the prophet.

And honestly I don't blame them. They actually came even though they didn't attend, probably because showing your union with so many international official always looks good politically, but also maybe because they thought it was a sort of rally against violence, in defense of tolerance ?
Which it was, yeah, but it was also a whole lot of other things. People were marching against terrorism, for the freedom of the press, in defense of secularism, for the republic, for the dead (who would laugh their ass off or facepalm hard, hard to know now)... And more, and less honorable. It was a gathering of the people most of all, everyone coming from his own perspective. The technical term is "clusterfuck" I think.
So yeah, I can't blame them for refusing to associate themselves with people who don't respect their values, I find it fair and understandable. I doubt they were aware that such displays would happen.

[Deepvoid]

I fucking had to read right wing publication in Canada such as Sun News and make the mistake of commenting against people who pretty much advocate bombing all Muslims into oblivion. Never again.
My center-left political views are apparently the reason why the world has terrorist attacks.

It think it's sad that through events that affect all of us, we come together to find solutions that make sense.
The reality is that you cannot eradicate Muslims from the face of the earth. You cannot make Islam disappear. You need to fight fundamentalists and radicalization. I am all for that.
But calm the fuck down about blaming all Muslims.