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Post by janggut on Dec 8, 2009 18:24:51 GMT
The politics of the minaret Abdus Sattar Ghazali | Dec 7, 09 11:59am In a referendum on Nov 29 the Swiss voters approved a ban on the construction of new minarets on mosques. Under Switzerland's system of direct rule, the referendum is binding. Switzerland's 400,000 or so Muslims, most of whom come from Kosovo and Turkey, are legally barred from building minarets as of now.
Anti-immigrant, right-wing People's Party - the Union Démocratique du Centre (UDC) - had launched the initiative for referendum, which passed with more than 57 percent of the vote. The outcome says a lot about how Western Europeans feel about the growing number of Muslim immigrants, who live as second-class citizens for all practical purposes.
To borrow Tariq Ramadan, a prominent Swiss Muslim scholar, the Swiss majority are sending a clear message to their Muslim fellow citizens: we do not trust you. (Ironically the UDC has in the past demanded Tariq Ramadan's citizenship be revoked because he was defending Islamic values too openly.)
Tellingly only four of Switzerland's 150 mosques have minarets, and none are used for the call to prayer because of strict noise-pollution rules. Hence, it is only a tiny fraction of the Swiss population which regularly encounters the sight of a mosque minaret. So what were the real motives behind the most dramatic move any nation has made to limit the visibility of Islam?
The campaign posters as well as those who have promoted this ban, indicate that Europe is in the throes of an Islamophobic trend gathering pace. Posters featured a woman wearing a burka with the minarets drawn as weapons on a colonized Swiss flag. The claim was made that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Swiss values.
Not surprisingly, anti-minaret agitators pointedly referred to a poet once quoted by Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan: "The mosques are our barracks...the minarets our bayonets." Erdogan made the allusion long before he took national power, and it landed him in jail.
The niqab (scarf) and the minaret issues have been regularly used to stoke the flames of hatred and fear against Muslims throughout Europe in recent times. Earlier last month, France considered whether to bar Muslim women from wearing full-face veils, sparking a heated debate in which one French politician described burqas, the head-to-toe veils worn by some very devout Muslim women, as "walking coffins."
The government issued a recommendation against wearing burqas, but stopped short of an outright ban.
Growing power of Islamophobia
Tellingly, the Swiss referendum coincides with the rise of far-right parties across Europe. According to John Esposito, professor of religion, international affairs and Islamic at the Georgetown University, the stunning Swiss vote was really not all that surprising, considering the growing power of Islamophobia.
In both Europe and America right-wing politicians, political commentators, media personalities, and religious leaders continue to feed a growing suspicion of mainstream Muslims by fueling a fear that Islam is a threat.
In last June's European elections, the British National Party got its first two seats in the European Parliament. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders' Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom, PVV) grabbed the second place in the Netherlands' Euro poll.
Around Europe a ragbag of extremist parties, united by a vehement nationalism that singles out minority groups as a growing threat, scored in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Romania and Slovakia.
As Tariq Ramadan said, the political parties, in Europe as in Switzerland have become cowed, and shy from any courageous policies towards religious and cultural pluralism. It is as if the populists set the tone and the rest follow.
Already right-wingers in Italy, Denmark and the Netherlands have called for similar measures, and others are likely to be encouraged by the success of the Swiss People's Party.
Dutch deputy Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom has suggested that they will be following the example of their Swiss compatriots and pursuing a ban on mosque minarets in the Netherlands.
Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of the radical-right Austrian Freedom Party, and Marine Le Pen, vice-president of France's National Front, have also welcomed the Swiss result which points to the possibility of religious and political extremism spreading further in Europe.
And the Swiss vote will certainly give heart to politicians in Italy who are resisting mosques in frankly nativist terms. They include Roberto Maroni, Italy's interior minister, who is a senior figure in the anti-immigrant Northern League. Its leaders hailed the Swiss result and called for a similar ballot in Italy.
Anti-Muslim feeling is strong in many Italian cities, such as Genoa where critics of a mosque project held a candle-lit protest on Dec 1.
Ignoring the new reality
Walter Wobman, leader of the Swiss People's Party that promoted the referendum, said the group will now fight to ban the burqa as well as to institute a law against forced marriage. It may be pointed out that the People's Party first wanted to launch a campaign against the traditional Islamic methods of slaughtering animals but was afraid of testing the sensitivity of Swiss Jews.
To quote Esposito again, the far right persistently refuses to face a 21st century reality: to acknowledge and accept the fact that many Muslims are integrated citizens and that Islam is now a European religion, and, in fact, the second largest religion in many European countries.
The seven-million strong American Muslim community has received the ban on Minarets in Switzerland with alarm and dismay. The referendum is seen as part of a recent disturbing trend in Europe to restrict the religious freedom and self-expression of religious and ethnic minorities, notably of Muslims.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) urged President Obama to repudiate the decision of Swiss voters to deny Muslims in that nation the same religious rights granted to citizens of other faiths.
"Our nation's silence on this flagrant denial of religious freedom would send a very negative message throughout the Muslim world, which must improve its own record on religious rights."
The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) is troubled that Swiss voters have succumbed to the intolerance and fear mongering of the Swiss Party. "The decision to ban mosque minarets is an act of religious discrimination and intolerance, as it targets Islamic places of worship and denies Swiss Muslims the freedom to build their house of worship using their preferred architectural style."
The Swiss vote raises the question whether the values of human rights, civil liberties and democracy - upheld so preciously by the European nations - are practiced as reverently as they are preached?
By voting to ban this right, it is Swiss - and Western - values which become poorer and less meaningful. This is a setback for strategies to bring Islam into the European mainstream.
ABDUS SATTAR GHAZALI is the executive editor of the online magazine American Muslim Perspective.
************************************** taken from the Malaysian news portal, Malaysiakini.
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Post by janggut on Dec 8, 2009 18:27:05 GMT
The Pathologisation of Muslims As Everything That is Wrong With Europe
By Farish A. Noor ~ December 3rd, 2009. Filed under: Syndicated Columns.
The recent ban on the construction of minarets for mosques in Switzerland - passed by a majority of Swiss citizens mind you - is symptomatic of something that is far more disturbing in Western Europe today. The first decade of this century has witnessed the rise of a new wave of extreme right-wing politicians and political parties across Western Europe, some with scant regard for ideological consistency and coherence, with the sole purpose of mobilising the masses against the perceived ‘threat’ of foreigners in general and Muslims in particular.
But historians will note that these developments are neither new nor unique. After all, Europe has continually been through such prolonged instances of moral panic and mass hysteria when it had to face the fact that it was and is part of a bigger world where other cultural and religious possibilities exist, and where alterity can one day arrive at your doorstep. Looking back to the 19th century we recall the bad old days when Western Europeans were panicking at the thought of the dreaded ‘yellow peril’, and where fear of the massive and sudden migration of Asians - notably Chinese - led to a backlash that expressed itself through the stereotypes and cliches of Asians as devious and perfidious Orientals who would stop at nothing to eat up your property and sell opium to your children. Then came the recurrent fear of Indian, Africans and of course Arabs.
The present climate of fear over and about Islam and Muslims is therefore something that comes in the train of a long history of Othering the Other, and casting the other as alien, strange, exotic and sometimes potentially malevolent and dangerous. Except in this case we are talking about a Western Europe where Muslims have become part of the social fabric and where Muslim settlement dates back to the post-war decades of the 1950s, with the migration of Indians, Africans, West Indians and North Africans to the continent.
For a host of reasons, the success and failure of the various immigrant communities in Europe has been uneven. While some communities have successfully climbed up the social-economic ladder, others have lagged behind. Compounding the difficulties are the prevailing stereotypes that make up the normative structure of racialised capitalism and post-colonial race-relations. Arabs in the West suffer particular abuse and racial stereotyping in this regard, for the media and popular culture continue to present them as ghetto-bound misfits and pathologically violent maladjusted figures who stand out in bold relief against the domesticated background of multicultural society. Until today, the perception remains that Arabs in particular are prone to violence, domestic abuse, misogyny and a host of social ills that seem to point to the primordial past of Europe that Europeans wish to forget. Cast in that light, Arabs seem to be framed as the figures of defeat and failure, as if the Enlightenment project itself could not go that far and could not ‘rescue’ these people who are beyond redemption, due to their culture and religion.
But hang on… Since when are individuals determined essentially and totally by culture, history or religion? And why is it that in the case of Arab-Muslims in particular there is no latitude given to free will, agency and the potential for self-transformation?
A vicious cycle seems to have been created by this dialectic between stereotypes and limited opportunity structures: Arabs are seen as incompatible with the West and whatever the latter stands for, and as such are less likely to be given the chance to succeed and reinvent themselves. I sadly note that in all the years that I taught in Europe, I did not have a single Arab-Muslim student to supervise at Masters or Phd level. The stereotype has become a self-fulfilling prophesy.
It is against this context that the ban on minarets and mosques in Switzerland has to be understood. Coming at a time when Dutch politicians like Geert Wilders are calling for a re-think over the place and belonging of Muslims in Holland; all of this bodes ill for Europe’s own perception of itself and its place in the world. If Arab Muslims in Switzerland (as in Holland, France, Germany and elsewhere) fit in less today, perhaps these politicians ought to ask themselves what they have done - or not done - to give these people the same opportunity structures they expect and demand for themselves?
Europe’s multicultural project seems to be failing, but that is not because European Muslims cannot fit in or refuse to do so. The one thing that none of these right-wing European politicians want to admit or address is the institutionalised modes of racism and discrimination that have led to the marginalisation of communities that yearned to belong but were told that they did not. Until that is addressed, banning mosques and minarets will do little or nothing to solve Europe’s own troubled conscience as it seeks to define its multicultural project anew.
**************************************** taken from the blog, The Other Malaysia (http://www.othermalaysia.org)
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Post by The Sonar Chicken on Dec 8, 2009 18:41:31 GMT
Wow, I read a little about the banning of the mosque thing. Ironic that if they banned an important symbol of say... Christianity, all hell would break loose. Yet at the same time, they expect Iranian/etc. women to want to be "saved" by the West but at the same time, don't want to encourage interaction from Muslims with the rest of the Europe/America. And at the same time, they seem to want to ... discourage their own people from interacting with Muslims too. Just look at what USA did to all those gay soldiers who were very well-versed in Arabic and Islam. Ah well, at least it's just a "ban" and not some "mass slaughter". It's not the right thing to do, of course, but at least no one is dying for it. As in: no "witch trials", "no forcing women into caged helmets or chastity belts and so on", etc. And on the other hand, it is not like Asia is any better either. We're all just so "fragmented" with the richer countries trying to impose their beliefs onto the poorer ones, with "much of south korea" pretending that "N korea doesn't really exist" and so on. I guess it shows that humans are just terrible at getting along.
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Post by The Sonar Chicken on Dec 8, 2009 18:52:02 GMT
Oh and to say something else, too: quite a few people in Europe really need to face up to the facts of their past. Everytime they keep rambling about how Europe is better than Asia in its treatment of women, I'm wondering if: they recalled the witch trials, how women used to be beaten up and sometimes, treated worse than animals in terms of rights and freedom(many or most not allowed to study, not allowed to vote, considered as a man's property), and so on...
But taking into account the horrors from WW2... is it any wonder why many of them ended up "forgetting" the past, not that it's the right thing to do but something common to many humans.
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Post by Elliot Kane on Dec 8, 2009 19:46:50 GMT
I think these articles are most noteworthy for the things they DON'T say, rather than the things they do.
While I agree with the general thrust of the article that Europe can do more to help its immigrants (Of all types!) to integrate fully and that the vile doctrine of Multiculturalism is a busted flush (Indeed, it is counter-productive, in that it discourages integration whilst encouraging alienation), I do think it is guilty of the same major failing as many other Islamic commentators: it ignores all fault on the Muslim side.
It does not once mention Islamic terrorism, for example. You would have thought that in the interests of fairness - or at least accuracy - that it was worth pointing out that that European concerns about militant Islam are at least somewhat justified and that European Muslims do far too little to drive out the vipers in their midst.
There is also the fact that whilst many Muslims do indeed believe in 'live and let live', a substantial number do not. They demonstrably believe that while considerable tolerance should be shown towards Islam, that Muslims need not return that tolerance. Look at the ridiculous furore over the Danish cartoons for the most famous example. Nor was that an isolated incident.
While it is definitely true that there is fault on the side of the European native communities, it is also a fact that European Muslims are as much to blame. It does no-one any good to pretend otherwise.
As an interesting side note, the Burqa is actually banned in a number of Muslim countries (Most notably Turkey). It's quite amazing how often this fact is not mentioned in articles decrying Western countries for wanting to ban it...
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Post by Ubereil on Dec 8, 2009 21:57:20 GMT
Oh and to say something else, too: quite a few people in Europe really need to face up to the facts of their past. Everytime they keep rambling about how Europe is better than Asia in its treatment of women, I'm wondering if: they recalled the witch trials, how women used to be beaten up and sometimes, treated worse than animals in terms of rights and freedom(many or most not allowed to study, not allowed to vote, considered as a man's property), and so on... Is != was. We're better now, that doesn't mean we were better 200 years ago. But yeah, forgetting what [Censored]s we were 50 years ago is common practise everywere. For instance, they forgot to mention this to us in school... But back to the actual topic: the most disturbing thing about this whole Minaret buisness is that the motivation for banning them is to prevent things like forced marriage and honor related violence. Problem nr 1 is that those things aren't really muslim practises, it's practises common within some eastern cultures. Problem nr 2 is that you'd might as well ban church towers for all the good it's going to do to solve those problems. Blaming european Muslims for what terrorists are doing in the middle east is not just a little unfair. The same goes for bringing up how some muslims aren't very tolerant. It's not like all westerners are (I mean, 57 % of the voters in the election we're discussing voted FOR banning Minarets, and that on very loose grounds). Übereil
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Post by kitty on Dec 9, 2009 16:27:22 GMT
Hrm, I wonder, what is the point of a minaret when it isn't used? Just out of practical interest.
If the 4 existing minarets would be in use, I would slightly understand the concern of the Swiss goverment. Simply because one doesn't know for sure what is said when the prayer is called.
But since the minrates aren't used... that just seem to be a scenery issue.
What I don't like about the article (like Eli said) is that it is so one-sided. All immigrants are treated in the WHOLE of Europe as second-class people? I don't think so.
I would have rather seen the ban on Burkas. I don't care how people walk around in their own four walls, but when you are out in the streets, you can't just mask yourself and hide your identity. That's a security risk.
Germany has a law called "mummery law", which forbids to mascerade at public events. That law's for the same reasons - you could commit a crime and noone can identify you or you could carry weapons under your mummery.
The koran does not justify the Burka enough (only three tiny verses, even mullahs do not agree on this debate) to say it is something dictated by the religion.
It is forbidden to wear headscarfs in public buildings in Turkey. So why allow them in public buildings in non-muslimic countries.
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Post by Ubereil on Dec 9, 2009 16:43:58 GMT
But since the minrates aren't used... that just seem to be a scenery issue. It's not the minaretes themselves that's the problem, it's what they represent. And it's not what they represent to the Muslims, it's what they represent to the Swiss that's the problem. To the Swiss they represent the Islamisation of Swiss society and they think that banning them will somehow matter. To the Muslims the banning of minarets makes them question if they're really wellcome in the west and if they really have the same rights as everyone else. They'd have an easier time dealing with the banning of burkas, especially if it was handled nicely by the policy makers. Because in that case there would be some actual reason behind it. Übereil
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Post by kitty on Dec 9, 2009 16:52:15 GMT
Well but the whole islamisation issue - they did not forbid building actual moschees, only the minarets and the real symbol of islam is the moschee.
I don't know, the pure islamophobic claim doesn't really seem entirely right here. And if it really is only and purely that, it wasn't really thought through...
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Post by Elliot Kane on Dec 9, 2009 16:58:37 GMT
Surely it's what minarets represent to BOTH, Ube? As Kit says, what is the point of building the things if they will never be used? Why are Muslims creating such a big fuss over buildings that will simply stand empty?
The answer is, of course, obvious to both sides: the idea is to build them in readiness for the day when they can be used...
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Post by Terrordar on Dec 9, 2009 17:04:25 GMT
They aren't really welcome in the West. And the Qur'an is not really the tome of peace exactly here either. The average person, not the average intellectual or what have you, generally doesn't want Islamisation in Europe or anywhere.
Whhhhhy?
Because they aren't comfortable with the Qur'an or the culture that generally comes with it.
Generally, I think its a backwards, vicious religion, that makes Christianity look like a tea party comparatively, which I generally think is a big pile of bull[Censored]too.
But remember, Mohammad, may piss be upon him, told the Muslims to go forth and conquer the world, and really at the end of the day, whether they are moderates, or fanatics, or terrorists or what have you, the society that is built up from Islam are generally sexist with hints of racism and extreme religious persecution.
Well to say the least it'll be interesting in 20-30 years in Europe, when the demographics begin to violently shift.
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Post by Ubereil on Dec 9, 2009 18:09:42 GMT
Surely it's what minarets represent to BOTH, Ube? As Kit says, what is the point of building the things if they will never be used? Why are Muslims creating such a big fuss over buildings that will simply stand empty? The loudest critique of this law I've seen/read have come from Christians/seculars. So it's not like all the muslims are crawling around on the ground, flapping their arms and screaming at the top of their lungs while everybody else thinks they're ridiculous. The answer is, of course, obvious to both sides: the idea is to build them in readiness for the day when they can be used... They weren't building minarets, so you can throw that line of reasoning out the window. The reason they're worried about this isn't the fact that they can't build minarets in itself, because they honestly don't care that much. They can use their cell phones if they want that functionality anyway. The reason they're worried is that the locals is trying to make it harder for them to practise their faith (that they're failing miserably doesn't matter, it's the intention that's worrying). Even though their right to practise their faith is firmly established in the Swiss constitution. They're worried because Muslims are collectivly being punished for something the odd, individual muslim (and odd, individual muslim group) has done. They're taking the worst example of what muslims has done and they project them on all muslims. If I was a Christian living in the middle east and they banned the building of church towers I'd be worried too. Übereil
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Post by Elliot Kane on Dec 9, 2009 19:38:53 GMT
Ube, this whole thing started with a Muslim group seeking permission to build a new minaret. So I think I'll keep my line of reasoning, thanks.
If the intention had been to prevent Muslims from practising their faith, don't you think the ban would have been on building new mosques?
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Post by Ubereil on Dec 9, 2009 20:16:01 GMT
Ube, this whole thing started with a Muslim group seeking permission to build a new minaret. So I think I'll keep my line of reasoning, thanks. Where did you get that info? I didn't read those two articles since I've already seen a 30 minute documentary on the issue where the leader of UDC got to give his motivation to banning them. That documentary didn't mention that they wanted to build a new minaret. You'd think the most reasonable reaction to a request to build a minaret when one isn't needed would be to simply decline the request. Rather than putting in the constitution that building minarets is forbidden. And to that the motivation for banning minarets wasn't that minarets are uneccesary. The pepole voting for did so to take a stand against the islamification of Swiss society by political islam. The problem is that their action attacked the wrong thing using the wrong means. It's sending the signal that we don't like muslims when we do like muslims (or at least ought to) as long as they follow our rules. Pushing Muslims into the "them" category is never going to integrate them into our society. If the intention had been to prevent Muslims from practising their faith, don't you think the ban would have been on building new mosques? That would have been too much of an infringement on their freedom of religion to pass, I think. But yeah, hyperbole warning, I take that one back. Although I do feel they can only tolerate Muslim practise as long as they do it out of sight. Which, by the way, goes against the Swiss constitution which says everyone has the right to practise their faith in public. Übereil
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Post by Elliot Kane on Dec 9, 2009 21:00:29 GMT
I actually read articles about it in several newspapers, Ube. Thus, I know what kicked it all off. You should try doing that, some time You are nonetheless correct that the entire situation snowballed rapidly out of all proportion until the result was utterly ridiculous. The minaret ban does indeed seem to be motivated more by a dislike of Islam than for any genuine reason. I am not in favour of a ban and would oppose any similar measure suggested for Britain. It seems to me to be silly, petty, and solving of nothing. My problem is with the completely uncritical way that the articles Jang posted regard the Muslim community in Europe, as if they are all innocents abroad who are entirely sinned against having done nothing whatsoever to deserve it. This being blatantly untrue, I object to the bias in the articles.
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Post by Ubereil on Dec 9, 2009 21:25:11 GMT
Read newspapers? I hardly have time to play computer games! I personally believe you're generalising a slight bit too much when it comes to european muslims. Most of them are average Joes who's done nothing to deserve this kind of treatment. I can't speak for "Muslim communities" outside of Sweden (I suspect the English one is one of the most radical in Europe though) but ours never really does anything politically. In Sweden we have this party called Sverigedemokraterna (The Sweden Democrats, guess their political wing ;D) which is gaining popularity fast. Not too long ago they posted an article in a major Swedish "newspaper" (it's questionable if Aftonbladet counts as a newspaper or not ) portraying Islam as the Great Threat and blaming muslims for forcing pork out of Swedish schools and preventing good ol'fashioned Swedish school breaking-ups in Churches. Even though it's Political Correctness and not muslims that does those two things. Muslims doesn't care about breaking-up in a church, they'd have full respect for something like that. And in a school where the majority of the pupils don't eat pork then what's the point of serving it? The majority of all criticism I see of Muslims and Islam is based on fear and ill-informed prejudices like those. It's hard to distinguish genuine points from "all muslims are stone throwers" arguments because of that. Habit, if you like. Übereil
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Post by Glance A'Lot on Dec 11, 2009 13:29:51 GMT
What do you think this is? It is colloqually called the 'Tobacco Mosque', because it actually is (respectively originally was) an industrial tobacco factory for producing cigarettes of the brand 'Yenidze'. Built in 1907/09, the 'minarett' actually is the factory chimney. The design was chosen, because the building laws of the time did not permit the building of factory buildings within the city core (it is not too far from the historic center of the city with its palaces and famous churches), and because it adequately represented what was manufactured. It now is a National Monument (and functionally an office building). Yenidze (The events in the dome mentioned in the article indeed have a rather special atmosphere from the unique location - there also is a restaurant on the roof with a beautiful view over the city and the Elbe river valley).
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Post by Elliot Kane on Dec 11, 2009 17:30:34 GMT
I'd definitely have thought it was a mosque from the appearance, yeah. Good find, Glance.
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Post by janggut on Dec 11, 2009 19:03:50 GMT
when i first read the 2 articles i posted above, i immediately thought of the humanologists in CC. ;D i was (& still is) very curious about the views of European members here on this issue. this happened near u & i feel that u know of this more than me who got it 2nd, 3rd even 4th hand from articles, blogs etc. thanks for sharing your views, people. @ EK -> i knew u'd pick up on the one-sidedness of the article & blog.
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Post by Elliot Kane on Dec 11, 2009 19:51:49 GMT
Jang - I'd be surprised if anyone missed it, really I see the relationship between Islam and the West to be a generally troubled one, with problems of understanding and intolerance on both sides. This is only made worse by the ongoing disintegration of Western society and the struggles within Islam to determine which version of the faith will gain pre-eminence. I think the West needs to give better support to those Muslims who preach genuine tolerance and understanding, because that's in all our best interests. But both sides break down quite badly on the secular vrs theocratic problem, in that the West has real difficulty handling a religious perspective and Islam has real problems with a secular perspective. That's what causes a lot of the problems and tensions we see. It's a failure of empathy on both sides, really. But that's the key - it requires BOTH sides to make an effort, not just one.
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