I can't tell the point of this article beyond saying "there is a trend of Islamic terrorism" (a fact nobody is disputing). You suggest it's "the norm" but really it's still quite statistically insignificant...

You do go on to suggest that adherence to specific verses of barbaric seventh century ideology are the source of Islam's problem. I can somewhat get behind that, but would you also agree that Christianity would also share this problem if we were willing to adhere to it's barbaric and ancient verses? (how far back were we willing to do so and why did we stop?)

One thing you might want to correct is the idea that since Osama Bin Laden was a rich terrorist, drone strikes and the ensuing strife doesn't generate terrorism and sympathy for it. Perhaps you meant to highlight the fact that ideology CAN be a major or main motivator of terrorism, but you present Osama Bin Laden's existence as if it debunks factors contributing to terrorism other than ideology (such as American drone strikes).

Damn, from the title I thought this thread was going to be a deep dive into the subtleties, mind-blowing incomprehensibility, and yet fundamental feeling of rightness, of the Buddhist doctrine theory of Not-Self. Do I dare to discard the pronoun 'I'?

But it's not.

What a disappointment.

So...All the people who have committed a certain hideous kind of terrorist act in the last 16 years have a professed belief in Islam. And for some reason it's become important to some people that public leaders (referred to in the article as 'the political left' but including UK Conservatives, for instance) should say this out loud, and they don't. How will doing this improve matters?

There was a vigil in Manchester yesterday evening attended by several thousand people, and this was the poem read to the crowd. I'm afraid it doesn't mention Islam at all:

All the people who have committed a certain hideous kind of terrorist act in the last 16 years have a professed belief in Islam. And for some reason it's become important to some people that public leaders (referred to in the article as 'the political left' but including UK Conservatives, for instance) should say this out loud, and they don't. How will doing this improve matters? — mcdoodle

All sorts of people commit all sorts of crimes identifying with one group or another (white on black violence and vice versa, men on women violence, ethnic violence etc. etc.). If there was an inherent issue with Islam, don't you think all Muslims would be stating "Those fucking Manchester kids had it coming?" They don't because it's a rather specific interpretation of Islam which is necessary to get divine dispensation for an atrocity.

The Bible is pretty strict on non-violence, until St. Augustine came along and it became a political necessity to have Christians fight. A single sentence "render unto Cesar... etc." was lifted and, voila, separation of powers and all of sudden Christians could even kill without worrying about their immortal soul. That was a rather particular interpretation (and now widely accepted) interpretation of Christianity as well.

It's such an interpretation of Islam, which is more about the application of Islam for political purpose, that needs to be fought against. That is not done by accepting that interpretation as the correct one and considering it an Islamic problem, that is done by supporting and actively announcing other, peaceful interpretations.

"Don't listen to Al-Qaeda, listen to imam such-and-such". As societies we need to build strong, beneficial relationships with moderate Muslims and proponents of peaceful coexistence. Build trust.

There's also an important role for the media. When's the last time you read a positive article about a Muslim (or a black person for that matter)? Have you ever taken an Implicit Association Test? https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/Study?tid=-1

Remember "You ain't no Muslim, bro"?

That was powerful. I really thought there was a chance then that the conversation would change.

Remember "You ain't no Muslim, bro"? — Srap Tasmaner

No, I'm not familiar with that reference. Can you share?

Here's a story from the Washington Post that includes the original video and the "social media response." (Of course I americanized "bruv" into "bro.")

What was exciting about it at the time was that it seemed to be a spontaneous recognition by a witness to a terrorist act that what he was seeing was not an expression of religion, and he addressed the terrorist exactly at the level of claims to be acting in the name of Islam.

I think a lot of us assumed at first that the comment made the most sense coming from a Muslim, but that was not the case.

It was still powerful, still represented just the response you would hope for in a liberal society--for comparison, it's easy to find video from Trump rallies where people are yelling "Fuck Islam!"--but it lacked that additional sense of "taking back Islam." I think we imagined Muslim communities around the world standing up to extremists, maybe even some of those young, impressionable extremists doing some soul-searching, etc. Alas, the world again failed to change.

There's also an important role for the media. When's the last time you read a positive article about a Muslim (or a black person for that matter)? Have you ever taken an Implicit Association Test? https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/Study?tid=-1 — Benkei

I was trying to pick up the sense of what rickyk95 was trying to achieve, not particularly express my own view. I agree with Srap that 'You ain't no Muslim, bruv' was a heartening spontaneous response from someone on the street.

I can give you another example of this sort of thing.

After the Abu Ghraib videos came out, there was controversy, liberals were appalled, but then a Republican senator famously said he was "outraged by the outrage."

In response to that, Robert Siegel of NPR reminisced about when he was with American troops during the first gulf war. Iraqi soldiers were surrendering as fast they could--looking for Americans to surrender to. Siegel described how the troops he was with would bring the Iraqis blankets and bottled water, even light cigarettes and place them in their mouths. They were so gentle, he said.

And the point is, Americans want to be believe that this is who we are, that the response to what happened at Abu Ghraib should not be, "So what? They're the bad guys and we're at war!" The response should be, "We're better than this. This is not who we are."

Similarly, it was inspiring for this guy, in the presence of a terrorist committing a violent act, to resist equating his act with Islam, and to engage him as someone who has beliefs, that you could argue with, that you could call out for being wrong, not just as "the enemy." That's who we're supposed to be.

ADDED: So some of this is me projecting. His point was only to distinguish between the pure evil of ISIS and Islam. But it's still inspiring that someone could keep that distinction in mind face-to-face with a guy wielding a knife.

It is important to obtain historical perspective. Yes, the islamic bombers are mean, vicious, crazy, hateful, ill-advised, and a few other things, but this kind of pathological, antisocial, crap is nothing new. In 1996 the Irish Republican Army (IRA) blew up a 3000 pound truck bomb in the center of Manchester, completely wrecking the area around the explosion. This was one of many bombings in England and Northern Ireland conducted by the IRA. Sometimes people were killed, but the IRA usually called in a warning that such and such a place would be bombed in 10 minutes.

In 1970, the Army Math Research Building on the University of Wisconsin campus was blown up -- a protest against the Vietnam War. There were roughly a thousand bombings in the United States during the 1960s. People were killed, and none of them were done by Muslims.

Western Europe was terrorized by some home-grown leftist terrorist groups, among them the Baader Meinhof Gang -- aka, the Red Army Faction. They engaged in bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, bank robberies, and shoot-outs with police over a 30 year period.

In 1974 Patricia Hearst (grand daughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, founder of Hearst Newspapers) was kidnapped by some nut-jobs called the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). Ms. Hearst decided she kind of liked the SLA and joined them. Their "exploits" are incredible. Patty heroically participated in in some bank robberies. Here's a short video of little rich girl terrorist Ms. Hearst saving the world:

Islam, is at the very least partially, a catalyzer for these inhumane acts. — rickyk95

Well, religion and politics are catalyzers for most people, no matter what the religion and politics are, or what the issue is. Sometimes the result of a religious catalyst is ugly, sometimes it is sublime. I don't have fond feelings about Islam, but a realistic view of the world shows that Moslems are not, over all, crazier than anybody else (not a very high bar, granted). Civil war is often exceptionally violent, and the civil wars in Iraq and Syria are spilling out all over the place.

Plus, rickyk95, wars have become "asymmetric". Nazi Germany attacked England with heavy armaments, and England responded in kind. That's the old fashioned "symmetric war" that we all know and love. In "asymmetric war" people who don't have an air force or huge numbers of troops do other things. They infiltrate into the enemy, or behind enemy lines and conduct artisanal, boutique warfare by blowing themselves up in crowded food markets in Iraq, or concert halls in England and France.

Yes, it is disgusting, but that's the world we now live in. Get used to it. It's no worse than the world of 25, 50, or 100 years ago.

Islam, is at the very least partially, a catalyzer for these inhumane acts. — rickyk95

That's just an assertion.

All the people who have committed a certain hideous kind of terrorist act in the last 16 years have a professed belief in Islam. — mcdoodle

That confirms how successful this practice to base terror acts on bigotry is.

It is certainly undeniable that all sorts of terrorist acts have been committed by people who have nothing to do with Islam. I am not disputing that, what I mean to say is that the problem that exists today with terrorism has its roots in religious ideology. Whether people bombed a building in protest against the Vietnam War, or the Red Army Faction terrorized Europe for 30 years is irrelevant to the topic at hand. I am not denying that acts of terror can be committed for reasons other than religion, because they certainly can. What I am trying to get to is that the current trend in terrorist acts is motivated by religion to a great extent.

...what I mean to say is that the problem that exists today with terrorism has its roots in religious ideology. — rickyk95

Sure. But terrorism and religious ideology was part of the IRA bombings in England -- Protestant / Catholic. That wasn't the only ideology at work there, but it was a big hunk of it.

And ideology is ideology whether it's anti-militarism, communism, veganism, animal rights, criminal jihadism, or what have you. Given a high enough confidence in their ideology, some people are willing to subvert the social controls which most people have in place which prevent us from blowing people up in a terroristic fashion (formal war is a different situation).

Thank you for sharing that story, I was not aware of it. It is powerful.

I don't understand why you draw the connection to "Islam," as if the reason for these bombings have something to do with the tenants of a religion and that these people wouldn't respond with violence unless they were religious.

Don't you think this has more to do with the fact that a predominantly Muslim region was under Western colonial rule for more than two centuries? You really think it's Islam, and not the continual attempt of Western powers to control the middle east?

If, say, Texas, were under Iraqi occupation for two centuries and Texans committed horrible atrocities against innocent groups of Iraqis, would you say that Christianity was the cause of the violence?

If an African American during slavery committed horrible crimes against innocent groups of white people who had nothing to do with slavery, would you say that he committed the crime because he was black?

These attacks were horrible. I am in no way saying that they were justified. But it's ridiculous to think that religion has anything to do with them.

Don't you think this has more to do with the fact that a predominantly Muslim region was under Western colonial rule for more than two centuries? You really think it's Islam, and not the continual attempt of Western powers to control the middle east? — Colin B

No, I don't think colonialism explains it. Most of the world was colonialised by Spain, Portugal, France, Great Britain, Russia, and to a lesser degree, by Italy, Germany, and Belgium. Some of these colonial operations were really brutal, and for the most part there was little or no terrorism sent back from the 3 quarters of the earth that were or had been under somebody's colonial rule. The Ottomans also operated an empire in the Middle East, and so did the Persians and the Mongols. For that matter, so did the Romans.

Also, ancient, tribal Islam boiled out of the Arabian Peninsula and swept across Northern Africa, Spain, into India, parts of China, and SE Asia, changing local cultures as they did so. Europeans aren't the only ones who conquered. It's a rather ancient human tradition.

The current variety of terrorism involving Moslems stems from several factors.

Number One factor is that most of the Middle East has been run by piss poor governments for quite some time. The have been, are, and will probably remain corrupt, ineffective, often brutally oppressive, poorly operated, dictatorial, petrostans. The don't have much to offer their people.

Number Two, the French and English colonial powers didn't have control of the Middle East and Northern Africa long enough, so they didn't have enough time to significantly improve the piss poor governmental habits of the area.

Number Three, there is a rift among Sunnis, Shi'ites, Arabs, Persians, Turks, and so forth. Iran and Saudi Arabia have done what they could to rev up and poison these rifts. The Saudis have been busy using their oil wealth to export extremely conservative Wahhabi Islam all over the place. All sorts of tribal rivalries play into the mix. In short, anyone growing up in this region, or following its progress has a model of violence to follow.

Number Four, young people in this region do not have a lot of job opportunities and can not find a place in the economy. Wealth in the Middle East is not well distributed (just like is badly distributed pretty much everywhere else).

Number Five, the Internet and older media have made it possible for sociopathic groups to serve up their gloomy, nihilistic vision of annoying successful, rich, western heathen countries to and their pathetic fantasies of new caliphates to the young moslems in the west who probably don't know much about history, economics, civics, and so forth.

Number six, there is the history of wealthy, powerful western countries dominating the Middle East economies. So that provides a not very productive focal point to agitate around. Surprise terrorist attacks on people in Manchester, London, Paris, Nice, Berlin, Belgium, is doing exactly nothing for any cause, except the game of bloody uproar.

I'm not interested in educating you on history, so I will just respectfully say that I think the picture of the world you paint is not only inaccurate, but morally problematic.

I'm not interested in educating you on history, so I will just respectfully say that I think the picture of the world you paint is not only inaccurate, but morally problematic. — Colin B

Well! Just share a tiny bit of your historical knowledge to tell me which of these is a) inaccurate and b) morally problematic.

Piss poor governments? Care to defend the Assads?
Don't think the western government style has singular virtues?
No internal rifts and dissension?
Lots of jobs for young people?
Internet doesn't help disseminate crazy jihadi poison?
No jealousy of the west's imminence?

Morally Problematic? What? Hey, I'm not claiming that the Middle East is run in a uniquely awful way. Every single state on earth has been run in a perfectly awful manner at one time or another. For their own good, not for any one else's convenience, they need to get their acts together and start taking care of their rather large demographic, water, food, and economic problems.

>Piss poor governments?
You want to tell me that the government of Afghanistan was worse before the United States and CIA installed the Mujahideen? That India and Egypt were made better by British rule? That Algiers needed French guidance, because the middle east establishes "piss poor governments" without Western supervision? Your "morally problematic" idea is that the Middle East cannot survive without Western rule or intervention, yet all of your examples of "piss poor governments" directly result from the West's mission civilisatrice.

For example, you name Assad, a member of the Ba'ath party, a movement that would have been unable to take power in the middle east were it not for continual CIA intervention and funding, just like Assad wouldn't survive today without continual Russia support and the anti-Assad movement wouldn't exist unless it were orchestrated by the United States.


>Don't think the western government style has singular virtues?
No, I don't think that the United Kingdom's way of governing India, Pakistan, or Egypt had "singular virtues." Nor do I think that the style of government established in South Africa before Mandella was anything of the sort. Nor have American interventions and regime changes done anything but make the middle eastern regimes perpetually worse. So no, I would say that the western style of governing the middle east does not have singular virtues.

You might like the West's comfortable style of domestic government, but you would feel differently if you lived in a third world country under Western influence.

>No internal rifts and dissension?

You mean the tension between Nato-allies and Warsaw/Russian allies?

>they need to get their acts together and start taking care of their rather large demographic, water, food, and economic problems.

Yeah, I am sure that it's all on them and has nothing to do with centuries of colonial rule, followed by the continual proxy-wars waged by the United States and Russia. It's not Russia and America that's keeping the middle east in perpetual chaos; it's all their own fault ...