““By viewing Muslims as a single interest group the government has failed to draw a clear enough distinction between angry Muslim opinion and those that would seek to inflict violence and terror,” they say.”

That should read (IMO) as “By viewing Muslims AS A GROUP has failed to do anything condusive, relevant and effective; and if anything, creating and singling out a specific group is only going to piss people off.” The above quote is similar to those who argue that “American Jews”, as one united group, single handedly drive US foreign policy….yeah, yeah, yeah. This logic rests on the premise that ALL Muslims automatically identify with and place their religion ahead of their politics, and that they automatically have strong opinions about what goes on in Muslim countries. By virtue of anything remotely Muslim about them (self identification, name whatever. BTW, lots of people who come from Muslim backgrounds but do not practice, or even consider themselves athiest….)

But I’m sure there are going to be some that say, “Well, D.I., terrorism comes from Muslims, and the Muslim ‘communities’ often forment, fund, and support terrorism, and terrorism is the new global threat like the Red Menance was…..” OK. So for the sake of consistency and going by the same logic, there are plenty of diasporas and religious groups that fund terrorism. Some Hindus in the US fund Hindu fanaticism in India, and look what happened in Gujarat. Hey, lots of Gujarati Hindus here. So I suggest that the government starts focusing on the “Hindu community.” If I am going to Gujarat, I hope airport officials pull me aside and interrogate me. I would applaud the FBI paying a visit to my parents’ home- after all, they go to the mandhir every week. If we’re going to assume that people’s religion have to do with foreign policy and political problems, let’s apply that to every group.

Thanks for the reference to the LA Times. There seems to me to be a bit of truth in the article. The intolerance of the Islamic State of ‘you name it’, to the religious practices of others is something that ought to be addressed. It is this lack of reciprocosity that probably underscores quite a lot of anti-Islamic sentiment. Do I not remember some, albeit misguided, Christian Missionaries, being stoned to death somewhere? Maybe I’m mixed up. But they do take the preaching, far less the evangelical aspects of other religions, as a challenge, to say no more than that.

[By the way, I tried to spell recipricity, (see - nine times now - that is not my sort of word), eight times. In the end, I copied and pasted from your post.

Postscript: I know you should never correct another posters spelling, and mines aweful and I deserve everything I get, but the word is 'reciprocity'. As I have iterated this at least ten times and never once got it right, this is as much a criticism about me as it is about Jai, whose insightful views on many issues should not be the subject of attack by any reciprocity fascists out there. And my address is a closely guarded secret too.

"Just someone clearing some neurons out of their brain, there; nothing to see. Well, madam, the gunk is quite strange, I suppose. I suppose he might have had a brain, once. Please move on."]

You’re correct in your points above. I was just commenting about the fact that the claims of the extremists concerning present & historical grievances against the Ummah — and, in the case of people like OBL, claims to territory such as Andalucia — could be responded to in kind, in the sense of a metaphorical “counter-suit”. Secondly, people who repeatedly use such matters, along with current events in the Middle East and Western foreign policy, to somehow claim “justification” of “Muslim rage” (in its most extreme form, manifested in Jihadi support & actions), can also have the finger pointed right back at them. William and I gave a couple of examples above.

Now, we would unfortunately not expect people in the first group to be reasonable or change their minds (although it would of course be nice if they did), but in terms of the second group, one would hope that considering the reverse scenarios would at least encourage them to think about the other party’s position and perhaps re-evaluate their own thinking. Grievances can run in both directions, as I mentioned earlier.

The following article (thanks to the News tab on Sepia Mutiny) also makes very interesting reading, and has some highly relevant points. I strongly recommend that other Picklers here check it out; it’s quite thought-provoking and is pertinent to the need for reciprocosity and correcting double-standards:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ibrahim5dec05,0,5108432.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

I think the response would be very similar to other people in imagined communities: denial, followed by trying to divert the topic on to their “own” suffering and then challenging the motives of those who bring up the subject.

Alongside that, there is now a taste(/media search for?) for violent rhetoric and threats to those who bring it up, and no doubt muckraking about their past or smears about their hidden agendas.

So depending on how it is done, people will get defensive. To avoid the defensiveness that comes from making veiled accusations, I would clarify the principles behind people’s appeals for their group’s human rights and check that they extend those principles to other groups as well. There are already vehicles for this – with Amnesty International, for example, or solidarity groups. If people calling for human rights spurn them, they are spurning their own professed cause.

Thanks for the response. I must admit I am nowhere near as politically astute as some of you guys.

I am looking and learning about all this and it is obvious there are broader issues. I feel I want to learn about them without jumping to quick blame or avoiding issues.

I Looked at your response to the Guru Nanak post. Thanks.

Very good point about Saudi Arabia and countries in the Gulf region — I hadn’t meant to omit those glaring examples.

You’re right about Christians in Pakistan too, of course; my original comments just referred to Hindus & Sikhs because most Indians here in Britain are from those religious backgrounds, but your own point is pertinent here too.

Regarding Devil’s Advocate scenarios, there are a few more examples I could give in order to respond to those who use Muslim “rage” about their co-religionists’ “oppression” overseas as some kind of rationalisation of extremist attitudes and actions here in the UK (ie. they “understand” the anger even though they’re not explicitly condoning it) — particularly if such excuses are made repeatedly whenever the subjects of I/P and/or jihadi terrorism arise — but I will let the conversation on PP develop further before I use those examples.

However, such people would do well to consider the situation if the tables were turned, considering that:

a) there are Muslim-dominated countries which are highly discriminatory against their religious minorities,

b) Brits from other religions could retaliate against allegations of indirectly supporting Western foreign policy regarding I/P, by theoretically holding Muslims en masse to account for not doing enough to temper the activities of their co-religionists overseas, if the “single united Ummah” concept is something they’re serious about,

and c) there are plenty of modern-day and historical “grievances” that Asians (and others) from a non-Muslim background could use to point the finger at abuses of power by the Ummah if they were so inclined. “Rage” and “anger” can be a two-way street.

(By the way, I responded again to your message about Guru Nanak’s visit to Baghdad on the other thread, just in case you missed that).

Devils advocate etc and inconsistencies are worth thinking about. Hindus are also discriminated against in Saudi Arabia and Dubai. There have been Sikhs asylum seekers fleeing Afghanistan. Also Christians are persecuted in Pakistan and Turkey.

People are keen to point out US policy. But it has become obvious that there are inconsistent Muslim voices also.

Thanks for your kind comments, but don’t go down the path I’m on. My head hurts!

It seems to me that we have to place democratic structures at the centre of our decision making. And that these democratic structures have to have the support of the general population in refereeing, if you like, between different interest groups. All interest groups should be viewed as lobby groups. The difficulty seems to be that government finds the word ‘partnership’ irresistible. Partnership is a different sort of relationship and removes the right of the democratic representative to decide something independently from the partner. Given the obvious competition between interest groups this is unsustainable. At least, that’s what I think, I think. As I said at the start, there are probably a lot more twists and turns in this before I’m really sure about anything. All comments gratefully received.

To continue I am not sure the of the logical connection you are making with the term rape. There have been no reports as yet of British soldiers committing rape in Afghanistan

im so fed up of communities it’s like the worst word ever. must be because im an antisocial loner or sth..h hhahh. doesn’t anyone else have a problem with the whole COMMUNity thing? it’s like – such a lot of unpleasant boxes, so much conformity. gah

In my book, a community is a group of people who all more or less know each other, and a community leader is someone who everyone in the community has shaken hands (or appropriate cultural equivalent) with.

Current usage differs, I am afraid.

heh – go on then = what sort of ‘real improvements’ are we talking about? the problem Afghanistan has had is they’ve too many soldiers for too f**ing long. You people are weird – you talk about rape on the one hand, and then you all lk about wanting to keep soldiers in countries. soldiers -fighting —> rape. oh silly me. we’re talking about ‘improvements’ not all the stuff that happens anyway.

honestly.

I’m going to play Devil’s Advocate. Hindus and Sikhs are highly discriminated against — dare I say “oppressed” — in modern-day Afghanistan, Uzbekhistan, Pakistan and apparently Malaysia these days too. Going by the logic of British Islamic extremists, would it therefore also be permissible for British Hindus and Sikhs to a) loudly desire the destruction of these nations for the oppression of their co-religionists, b) travel to these countries to fight against the oppressors in an armed struggle, and c) claim that “an attack against one is an attack against all”, and thereby proclaim that these nations are engaged in a War against Hinduism and a War against Sikhism ?

Devil’s Advocate, remember. But think about it.

Don – I was saying that ascribing motives and believing that different values are evil are what make a solution impossible. I think if people do not react to each other in such ways, they can come to solutions.

Porkchops? Smoked bacon? Too few prayer rooms at bus-stops?

We don’t need more gov’t action. We need to call the islamic community on the carpet and to ask ‘em why they can’t/won’t integrate and also to ask them why, in light of the Muslim world’s abject poverty and backwardness, why they look down their supremacist noses at much more successful non-Muslims?

Shit!

Just answered my own question!

‘That makes a solution impossible.’

Well, that abstract meander was worth it after all.