The far-right and anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders is heading for a massive parliamentary election victory. It's one of the biggest political upsets in Dutch politics since World War II and one that is bound to send shockwaves through Europe.
It’s no different than Christianity, except they don’t believe Jesus was the son of God. The people following the religion are just as varied as Christians. Some people are fundamentalists, while others are extremely liberal, and consider themselves merely spiritual and call themselves christians.
It’s an interesting one this. My wife’s mum is Iranian and my brother in law is Pakistani and I’ve heard (so take this with a metric tonne of salt) that families that emmigrated from middle Eastern cultures are often much more strict that those who didn’t.
This is simply because the community in the country the emmigrated to is much smaller and more isolated so doesnt allow views to slowly shift as easily as in a large group where you can more easily find like minded people if there’s a point you don’t agree with.
But like I said, I’ve only heard this so maybe it’s bs, I’ve never visited either country myself so it’s literally just another’s opinion. But I found it interesting and it made me think a bit more about how hard it must be to feel like you belong in a country different than your origin. Obviously we (the west, generally speaking) have the benefit of seeing comfortable Christians in comfortable situations who are able to more easily challenge the traditional beliefs, but I wonder whether a typical Christian family who emmigrated to a non Christian country a generation or more ago would be more strict as a rule.
In the larger context, it appears to me that the author is arguing that when there are bad faith actors in a larger group, it becomes the responsibility of the larger group to denounce the actions of the fringe.
It is not the same as saying the whole is responsible for the actions of the few.
This isn’t a novel idea in our society.
-We expect all Catholics to denounce the actions of pedophile priests, and if they don’t, we do view them as part of a systemic problem
-We expect all white people to denounce racist behaviour when other white people do it, and if they don’t, we do view them as part of a systemic problem
-We expect all men to denounce mysogonistic and sexually predatory behaviour when they see other men do it, and if they don’t, we see them as part of a systemic problem
If I were to take any issue with the original post, it seems to imply that the broader community IS silent on extremism. I don’t think that this is actually true. I think that the media systemically dampens the voices of Muslim people, EXCEPT when they have extremist sound bytes, which causes an incorrect perception of the general Muslim sentiment.
So, that is where the error is.
NOT with the idea that it’s the responsibility of anyone in any group to call out bad behaviour within their group… But that they don’t appear to believe that it is happening.
We don’t expect all Catholics to do that. No. In fact, we don’t care if they do that. Denouncing. A simple verbal response means nothing. We expect them to take action to stop what’s going on. And make effort to keep it from happening again. I don’t care if they denounce it ever. As long as they take steps to make sure it doesn’t happen.
It’s nice to have people denounce racist behavior. But what would be nicer is if people simply just didn’t tolerate racist behavior and didn’t associate with people who behave in a bigoted or racist fashion. I don’t care if they denounce it. So many people do that and then never make any steps towards distancing themselves from it. Actions speak louder than words.
And again no we don’t expect all men to denounce mysogyny, etc etc etc. We expect people on the whole not to support it and not to further it.
If you are in a room with a pedophile, a racist, or a misogynist. People will generally laud you for coming to the victims defense. No doubt. But if you had nothing to do with it. Don’t share the the offending viewpoints of the offender. Never have made any actions to give anyone any indication that you might. You don’t need to say anything. And pretending that people do is pretending that the whole group is responsible for it when they aren’t. That would be like saying all conservatives everywhere need to. Constantly apologize for the thousands of people murdered at the hands of far-right extremist constantly there. I think that they should take some culpability from it and perhaps work to change their culture a little bit. But I don’t expect or want them to apologize for it necessarily. I would rather they actually take action to keep it from happening.
Oh hey, look everybody another person over generalizing that thinks an entire group of people is responsible for what a few people do.
It’s not a few…
The majority simply hold views that aren’t compatible with western modern views. Being gay is a sin, women’s rights aren’t valued, etc.
An excellent example of this is Draw Muhammad day.
Here’s some fun reading.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_people_and_Islam
It’s no different than Christianity, except they don’t believe Jesus was the son of God. The people following the religion are just as varied as Christians. Some people are fundamentalists, while others are extremely liberal, and consider themselves merely spiritual and call themselves christians.
I think Christianity is the same backwards blight on humanity as Islam. They’re equal in their hatred of the ‘others’.
And it’s really the same problem…it’s not ‘some’ Christians that hate progressive values…it’s ‘most’.
For the love of fucking God, we just outlawed abortion.
So don’t pretend any of the ultra religious are good for us as a people.
It’s an interesting one this. My wife’s mum is Iranian and my brother in law is Pakistani and I’ve heard (so take this with a metric tonne of salt) that families that emmigrated from middle Eastern cultures are often much more strict that those who didn’t.
This is simply because the community in the country the emmigrated to is much smaller and more isolated so doesnt allow views to slowly shift as easily as in a large group where you can more easily find like minded people if there’s a point you don’t agree with.
But like I said, I’ve only heard this so maybe it’s bs, I’ve never visited either country myself so it’s literally just another’s opinion. But I found it interesting and it made me think a bit more about how hard it must be to feel like you belong in a country different than your origin. Obviously we (the west, generally speaking) have the benefit of seeing comfortable Christians in comfortable situations who are able to more easily challenge the traditional beliefs, but I wonder whether a typical Christian family who emmigrated to a non Christian country a generation or more ago would be more strict as a rule.
The majority of people in the Netherlands aren’t religious, though. The same goes for some other European countries.
I wasn’t really making a statement on the article so much as the specific comment I responded to.
That’s not at all what they said.
Directly quoting
youthem fromyourtheir previous comment.In the larger context, it appears to me that the author is arguing that when there are bad faith actors in a larger group, it becomes the responsibility of the larger group to denounce the actions of the fringe.
It is not the same as saying the whole is responsible for the actions of the few.
This isn’t a novel idea in our society.
-We expect all Catholics to denounce the actions of pedophile priests, and if they don’t, we do view them as part of a systemic problem
-We expect all white people to denounce racist behaviour when other white people do it, and if they don’t, we do view them as part of a systemic problem
-We expect all men to denounce mysogonistic and sexually predatory behaviour when they see other men do it, and if they don’t, we see them as part of a systemic problem
If I were to take any issue with the original post, it seems to imply that the broader community IS silent on extremism. I don’t think that this is actually true. I think that the media systemically dampens the voices of Muslim people, EXCEPT when they have extremist sound bytes, which causes an incorrect perception of the general Muslim sentiment.
So, that is where the error is.
NOT with the idea that it’s the responsibility of anyone in any group to call out bad behaviour within their group… But that they don’t appear to believe that it is happening.
We don’t expect all Catholics to do that. No. In fact, we don’t care if they do that. Denouncing. A simple verbal response means nothing. We expect them to take action to stop what’s going on. And make effort to keep it from happening again. I don’t care if they denounce it ever. As long as they take steps to make sure it doesn’t happen.
It’s nice to have people denounce racist behavior. But what would be nicer is if people simply just didn’t tolerate racist behavior and didn’t associate with people who behave in a bigoted or racist fashion. I don’t care if they denounce it. So many people do that and then never make any steps towards distancing themselves from it. Actions speak louder than words.
And again no we don’t expect all men to denounce mysogyny, etc etc etc. We expect people on the whole not to support it and not to further it.
If you are in a room with a pedophile, a racist, or a misogynist. People will generally laud you for coming to the victims defense. No doubt. But if you had nothing to do with it. Don’t share the the offending viewpoints of the offender. Never have made any actions to give anyone any indication that you might. You don’t need to say anything. And pretending that people do is pretending that the whole group is responsible for it when they aren’t. That would be like saying all conservatives everywhere need to. Constantly apologize for the thousands of people murdered at the hands of far-right extremist constantly there. I think that they should take some culpability from it and perhaps work to change their culture a little bit. But I don’t expect or want them to apologize for it necessarily. I would rather they actually take action to keep it from happening.
Awesome, so you’re taking an even STRONGER stance on the responsibility of everyone in those communities.
The author of the original post, by my read, was suggesting that same responsibility should exist in the Muslim community.