Sry for not quoting the all post, but I'm typing from my phone...
Hey, no problem. I think most people here would thank you for not making my posts appear twice.
You say that non-muslims actions contribute to the problem. What Danes have done, other than drawing some cartoons, what Germans did, other than making a poll?
What made you think I blame anyone for cartoons or polls? Polls are nothing, you're the one who brought them up. Cartoons is pretty broad, but I get what you're going for, and while those cartoons aren't my cup of tea, I would not want to see those stopped. In fact, if you poke around for the thread where we discussed Charlie Hebdo, I made this abundantly clear over many pages. More clear than anyone wanted it to be made. But, if you're interested in my feelings about them, go for it.
Do you think then we will be able to draw MO or mock Islam as we would like? Meaning to treat Islam just as we treat any other religion? Wouldn't be better to not even publish these kind of polls or to draw those cartoons, to just be silents, just to not contribute at all?
Of course, draw Mohammed, mock Islam. Knock yourself out. I won't necessarily be joining the rudest of them, but the burden should be squarely on Muslims to condemn violent retaliation and to take the high road out. I'm not a fan of the provoked tiger analogies, or anything that implies that we should treat Muslims like children or animals and only handle them carefully.
This is a whole other tangent, nhbh, but I hope you get my point. You're bringing things totally irrelevant to the discussion into this, and they're things I think you and I probably agree on, anyway.
About the part that terrorists should be blamed for their actions, yes they should, but how many of them would have been terrorists if they wouldn't have been feed with the wrong ideology? I do know that it is not by accident that the vast majority of religious terrorists come from Islam.
We've talked about this so many times before, nhbh, but you never once have answered me. If it's the wrong ideology, then why isn't everyone who has been fed this ideology becoming terrorists?
I'll stop filling the space with me chattering on about the reasons I've observed. I'll just ask you to explain this to me, because you've never endeavored to adequately address this point. Perhaps because there is no way for you to say it without that defeating admission that there is more to it than religion?
And yes I'm dismissing your hopes because are not based on anything serious. Almost all Islamic world is radicalising but you are seeing people waking up...I have no solution and I have no hope. If things will be going like this maybe some far right nuts will come in power and who knows how will end up. But I think that the most likely scenario will be that we will become the next refugees.
Well, don't take this the wrong way, nhbh, but I can't say there's much credibility to your words or your opinion on this particular matter. You are thoroughly an outsider, and I suspect you've never tried to look in. You're not in the position to be knowing what is going on in mosques, in communities, in these undercurrents. Where are you getting this very accurate, based-in-reality data that radicalism is increasing at a faster rate than people are becoming more secular-minded?
The situation indeed looks grim from Western news, from your observations as an outsider, from your interactions with people who are just as afraid and hopeless as you are, who also don't know what to do with this situation or how to interpret it. And people are panicking in large part now because, in past years, the poverty and the plight of the people in these countries, or people displaced by these wars and this violence, have mostly been something they can ignore. They're unused to refugees at their doorstep. They're unused to every damning piece of evidence that the Muslim world is barbaric being a click away (and you're old enough to know by now, nhbh, that we seek out the worst and ignore the best), and unused to the world's problems becoming something they have to look at in the eye. Now, they're having to deal with diversity and a very difficult problem on their own soil. And they're thinking the world is going to hell and the Muslims are invading and you know the whole song and dance, nhbh.
I'm sorry to hear that you feel hopeless. Honestly. It is incredibly daunting. It is rough to try to be optimistic (more to follow—coming for you again, asbie), but times are changing. We just need to play our cards right and be part of the process. It'll take a long time, it'll take a lot of understanding, a lot of control, a lot of education, and a lot of mercy.
I can't convince you to get behind us, and that's totally fine. But, nhbh, even if you think we don't have a snowball's chance in Hell, I do think you're a decent enough person and you wouldn't mind being wrong on this one. I will ask, however, that if you don't want to support us, at the very least, don't get in our way. It's not that I don't like talking to you, nhbh, and I generally like when we have the occasion to have these discussions and put opposing viewpoints together to hopefully help buffer the truly harmful attitudes from people in your camp, but hey. This doesn't need to be harder than it is.
So keep being hopeless if that's all you can do, and I'll keep coming to challenge your inflammatory words that even you couldn't imagine can do anything an ounce of good. You'll contend that nothing we do will do an ounce of good either, but, you know, on that point we're not in agreement. No hard feelings. And...I still think we could've been friends.