Hey, kids! Let's play White Terrorism Bingo

You posted an article saying that we have to beat ISIS we have to recognize it is part of a global movement to impose religion. I disagree. I think to beat it we need to recognize that it functions largely the same way that any large organization functions, and the primary issues are how they recruit and where their money comes from. Their goals define why we would like to stop them, not how we are going to stop them.

The guy who wrote that article is the head of an organisation who’s primary goal is to counter extremist radicalisation, as someone who used to be one of those disaffected youths you mention it might be worth considering he knows what he’s talking about.

But forced conversion is not specific to Islam. It is the cornerstone of all evangelism. Islam and Christianity are the two biggest religions which preach that non-believers must be converted at all costs, at the peril of their “immortal soul”. That Christianity has itself violently spread through Europe and the Americas is hardly dishonest.

I think that religious doctrine, in this case, is not the central issue. Rather, it is being exploited. But that’s no reason to cherry-pick.

Forced conversion (and execution if not taken up), is real though, and it’s currently only really happening in Islam, the fact that it happened in the past in other religions is interesting, but not really relevant to our debate. I never even mentioned it, it’s only a tiny part of the doctrinal problems that still exist.

It’s funny that you mention cherry-picking, because that’s exactly what Muslims need to do more of, it’s what the other major religions have done much better in order to allow for the development of modernity. Islam has also done this of course - the great majority of Muslims don’t support the most obscene Salafist beliefs, but they still have a lot of work to do around the fringes and even in the mainstream (the vast majority of Muslims are homophobic, look at the PEW studies on this). I’ve no doubt they’ll get there eventually, it’s going to be painful until they do though.

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From the article:

And once we do that, we are then able to clearly identify the insurgent ideology that we must understand, isolate, undermine, refute, and provide alternatives to. It is precisely this distinction that I have spent the last few years advising Britain’s Prime Minister Cameron on, and I would like to think that is why Cameron corrected Obama on this very issue at the United Nations.

He talks about undermining, refuting and providing alternatives to an ideology. I did to. I said the alternative was jobs and social mobility. That’s a very good alternative to any extremist ideology. I’m not sure what alternative he is proposing since he never says. That’s kind of a big problem with that article, if you ask me. What is the alternative? How are we going to convince people not to blow each other up? Are we going to explain that blowing each other up is not a good thing to do? Because I’m pretty sure they actually kind of know that already.

The basic point - that we should clearly distinguish between Islam and “Islamism” - is an academic, not a practical one. People are seeing on the news that some Muslims killed a bunch of people in France in the name of Islam. It is not helpful if people blame Islam for that attack and turn against their Muslim neighbors. He thinks the best way to address this is by using two different samey-sounding words. Other people think it’s more helpful to say “That’s not Islam.” I don’t think the message is really all that different.

Maybe the author is actually very good in the area of deradicalizing youth, I wouldn’t know. Deradicalizing youth is a very laudable effort that will save some young people from being drawn into something they are better off avoiding. But how are the Paris attacks even vaguely consistent with the effort to get everyone to adopt Islam? They could hardly have been better calculated to get us to be angry at Islam, to hate Islam, to do anything but convert to Islam. It couldn’t have been better calculated to get air strikes aimed at their training camps.

That’s because that is what is useful to ISIS. It is useful to ISIS that young Muslims in France continue to be discriminated against and put in ghettos and be unable to find jobs. That gives them a recruitment pool. It is useful to ISIS if western powers strike back against them because it makes their funders see them as being effective. I’d put the odds that the leaders of ISIS give a shit about Allah at about the same as I’d put the odds that prosperity gospel televangelists give a shit about Jesus.

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Appeal to authority? Man, you were doing pretty well right up until that post - personally I’d delete it. Humb never said Nawaz didn’t know what he was talking about, she said she disagreed with him.

He talks about undermining, refuting and providing alternatives to an ideology. I did to. I said the alternative was jobs and social mobility.

It’s not enough though, not all terrorists (possibly even the minority in certain situations) come from disadvantaged backgrounds, many are well off and highly educated. The disadvantaged will of course also get swept up and used as cannon fodder, as has always been the case, so economic development is vital as well. If social deprivation was enough to explain terrorism then we’d see it everywhere, but you also need an ideology to harness it along with both real and/or perceived grievances, the ideology is also greatly important to the form the terrorism takes.

The basic point - that we should clearly distinguish between Islam and “Islamism” - is an academic, not a practical one.

I disagree.

People are seeing on the news that some Muslims killed a bunch of people in France in the name of Islam. It is not helpful if people blame Islam for that attack and turn against their Muslim neighbors.

Of course not.

He thinks the best way to address this is by using two different samey-sounding words. Other people think it’s more helpful to say “That’s not Islam.” I don’t think the message is really all that different.

They are different, one prevents the essential critical analysis of the dangerous ideologies that help foment radicalisation. I don’t think you’re quite aware just how widespread and unchallenged extremist ideologues are in the west (they’re very well funded form Saudi, and Qatar in particular for one thing), never mind the middle east and elsewhere.

But how are the Paris attacks even vaguely consistent with the effort to get everyone to adopt Islam?

They’re not, and nobody is suggesting that’s their motive.

It couldn’t have been better calculated to get air strikes aimed at their training camps.

That’s not a very good argument for not blowing up their training camps though. If an idiot wants you to do something, it might actually be the right thing to do, just not for reasons the idiot thinks. That doesn’t mean there aren’t good reasons for not bombing them, but their opinions on things aren’t particularly relevant.

It is useful to ISIS that young Muslims in France continue to be discriminated against and put in ghettos and be unable to find jobs.

True, these extremists preach ghettoisation regardless though, and of course it’s vital to counter bigotry as well as Islamism - which is why I keep saying we need to prevent right wing assholes from framing the debate. When the public see mainstream politicians and media outlets failing to address these obvious issues it will only drive them to the reactionary asshats.

I don’t think deleting parts of old posts is a good idea, I’m happy with what I wrote. Nawaz is worth listening to because he has the experience and the arguments to back that up.

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Now THAT was a great movie! They don’t make 'em like that any more.

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If by ‘good’ you mean the glaring mistake as early as the second paragraph, and the begs-the-question headline, then sure; it’s a good article.

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That headline is not an example of either of the definitions of ‘begs-the-quesiton’ (i.e. circular argument or rhetorical device), it’s merely a statement which the ensuing article argues for.

The three statements in the 2nd paragraph also seem to be perfectly cromulent (the WWIII comment at worst is a bit of an exaggeration, but not in anyway a glaring mistake).

2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Islamic Terrorism

You can be well(ish)-off, educated, and still “not belong”.

…don’t ask how I know…

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2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Islamic Terrorism

A post was merged into an existing topic: Islamic Terrorism

Attacks on women’s reproductive clinics are intended to instill fear in women’s reproductive health care providers and patients with the intent of making abortion services impossible to obtain, even if that wasn’t a service available at the targeted clinic. The very definition of a terrorist act - violence perpetrated with the intent of fomenting a change in policy. In this case, I believe it’s perfectly fair to call the perpetrator a Christian terrorist.

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I agree with both you and @gregmcph here. It is both true that: 1) Since “terrorist” is current a synonym for “no legal rights” we shouldn’t really be used that term for anyone and that “murderer” is preferable; and 2) There is an obvious double standard by which we will not call right-wing-American terrorism “terrorism” and refusal to call them terrorists (when we can’t really stop people from calling right-wing-middle-eastern terrorism against the west “terrorism”) is playing into a kind of racism.

It feels like a rock and a hard place to me.

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1 in 11 is quite high, if you are talking about 4%. That would actually be more like 1 in 25.

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Peace and prosperity? Possibly. Half Life 3? Crazed Utopian Dreaming.

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Math, my best subject, escapes me sometimes…thanks!

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I’m sorry to gloss over all of that but I have to ask, do you have a central point that you’re arguing here? This is too much and I don’t know where to start responding.

“Synonymous” means “identical in meaning” and is hence a reflexive relationship. Is control synonymous with religion?