Dan Gillmor — a proponent of “citizen journalism” and tech expert — whose blog at Bayosphere is always worth visiting, posted this Friday:
One day after, life goes on; the city’s back at work, the conference in Gleneagles continues.
I talked to many of the young Muslim lads I’ve known since they were babies, and I talked to their parents. And guess what? The parents are shocked, the youngsters gleeful. Go figure. The leaders of the Muslim Council of Britain can issue as many statements of solidarity and sympathy as they like; the facts are that many of their children rejoiced after the carnage in New York and they rejoiced after the slaughter in London yesterday. …
The challenge, writes Mr. Wallace, is “to find a way to integrate a sizable number of disaffected and alienated young people so they do not attack their own country or aid and abet those who would.” Below, the statistics:
With white people we’re all brown, they look at us like that, we all look the same.”
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About a third (34 per cent) are under 16 years of age compared to 19 per cent for Anglos. (Figures taken from the 2001 census).
So there you have it; a human time-bomb, just waiting to be primed.
[Dan Gillmor adds this following note.]
See also: Mini Kahlon’s report from Lodi, California, where Muslim men have been charged with lying to the FBI in an unrelated matter.
The pundits on TV are saying that London is a special case because it has such a large, separate Muslim community that attracts a lot of extremists. But, in the U.S., Muslims tend to integrate more into the U.S. culture, so we’re not as likely to see similar bombings.
Lodi may tell us something else.
(I haven’t read much about the Lodi/FBI case. Have any of you?)
I am actually not so sure that the Arab Muslims are more integrated in the US. Sixty percent of my students are Muslim: Yemani, Bangladeshi, and Bosnian.
Most of the students have adopted western attitudes towards consumption, music, etc.
The Bosnian students, despite their horrific war-scarred childhoods, are very integrated. They dress like North American teenagers – bare tummies and everything. Far fewer arranged marriages. The Bengalis are next on the integration ladder. The girls seem to have far more choice about wearing the head covering. Arranged marriages at fairly young ages still affect many of the students. The Yemani boys are very integrated. They “date” American girls (white and black). They bump loud rap from big SUVs. But, they will be sent to Yeman for brides. Many talk about having a couple of wives. I have had conversations with many in which they state that their wives’ faces will be covered and that their daughters will not be allowed to go to school. These are the same kids who love Tupac. The girls are never out out of the scarves, and most wear a full body burka (sp?). Many of the girls do not make it past the 5th grade.
What am I to think when I hear students talk like this?
As Ductape (who I miss and wish would show back up here) is found of pointing out… what you’re dealing with is not so much the religion (Islam) as the culture that it’s been applied over… Thus the Bosnians most likely have a different underlying culture than the Yemenis, although they basically share the same religion, and basic beliefs (applied in different ways).
Many cultures are oppressive, especially to women, irrespective of religion, but the religion applied on top of that is used to both dominate and validate the underlying culture to the point where they become almost inseparable from each other.
southern Arabs have a much different culture than northern Arabs, and African Arabs have another culture.
Most of the burka stuff is most-prominent in Southern Arab culture, and it is also increasingly common in the American Black Muslim community.
Obviously, the practice has also spread into Pashtun culture in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is probably because the Talib movement was funded by southern Arabs.
I’m not an expert on either Muslim culture or dress, but…I’m just chiming in.
that the Muslim world has to resolve. Will the Southern fundamentalists win out and attempt to isolate large swaths of the worldwide Muslim community from both developement and the rest of the world?
This is not so different from the “Christian” battle being waged in the political venue of our society.
I don’t know an awful lot about the various cultures/religious practices of the different regions myself. I am not even sure I agree with Ductape (although I am coming around to it) as so many times the various religions… Muslim, Christian or otherwise, seem to facilitate and support oppression in various cultures, as well as introduce it where it didn’t exist before.
But, still… it probably does go both ways.
Everyone always forgets Indonesia!! My word.. the largest Muslim country on the planet and women there don’t wear burqas or cover themselves…
Pax
It seems to me that if the idea is to diminish the enthusiasm and support the youth express for these kinds of violent acts, a good way to start wouldbe to craft a message explaining that such behavior is representative of cowardice, not courage; that killing innocents reveals a tragic flaw in ones character and faith, not a strength that such acts are things to be ashamed and embarrassed about, not proud of; that people who commit these acts are looked on with contempt, revulsion, derision and pity; that such behavior is ultimately an act of self-huiliation on the part of the perpetrator.
In short, get them to understand that it’s just not cool. We’ve managed to help youth here at home perceive smoking as uncool and self-destructive, and the incidence of teen smoking has declined. The same rubric applies to this other more weaponized version of ignorance.
Third line, after “…not a strength…”. Add a semi-colon, otherwise sentence reads badly.
” … such behavior is representative of cowardice, not courage; that killing innocents reveals a tragic flaw in ones character and faith, not a strength that such acts are things to be ashamed and embarrassed about…”
I wonder if there are young Muslims of stature — e.g., cricket or soccer players — who could speak to the young Muslim community.
CAIR (cair-net.org), whose daily bulletins I get, is absolutely fantastic in all of its outreach efforts. They track all legal and law enforcement cases but they also participate in events like Earth Day.) I don’t know if the UK Muslim community has a similar group.
Muslim youths with stature, or just youths with stature; I don’t think the distinction is as important as we might think.
As a youth myself at one time, I, like everyone else wanted to be important and cool and influential. All youth are learning about power. When i was a kid, fireworks were appealing because there was nothing like the rush of power one got from blowing something upwith a cherry bomb or an ash can. And on a certain level, bombing is bombing to kids experimenting with the feelings of power. Unfortunately for Islamic youths and Christian youths, there’s so much emphasis on the pseudo-spiritual extremists who’re subverting these religions for their own ambitious purposes and weaponizing the ignorance of their followers in the process that counteracting these forces is a formidable task.
But, by counteracting these influences with imagery that exists completely outside the religious contexts, I think people have a better chance to simply renounce the murderous zealotry as stupid.
I’m not saying Muslim youth spokespeople aren’t extremely important, but only that to be effective, the campaign of enlightenment has to transcend the restrictions of religious dogma.
Read my comment below, all of you.
Ask yourself–why is this problem only in the Moslem community? What responsibility do the majority community–the white Britons whose virulent racist hate has made the non-whites, especially the Moslems, the subject of hateful acts and words–have for remedying this situation?
You’re buying into the racist claptrap that this fellow is peddling with realising it; hell, perhaps even he doesn’t realise how wrong he is.
Why must Moslem sports stars speak to their young people? Why doesn’t David Beckham have to speak to young white Britons about their racism? Actually, the worst racists in “Great” Britain are over the age of 30, and aren’t shy about making their opinions known.
More below.
I’m not buying into anyone’s racist claptrap, not the correspondents’ in these email messages or yours either.
What I write may well be claptrap but it is not racist.
I saw this after 9/11 and I’m seeing it again–the assumption that a small group of Moslems did this, therefore they are all under suspicion. This is what led to racial profiling in the United States of anyone who “looked Moslem” (a Hindu friend of mine was followed by a Los Angeles policeman and questioned because he “looked Arabic and had a backpack).
Ann Coulter has endorsed racial profiling of anyone who “looks Moslem”, as have a number of other people in the United States and Great Britain.
Timothy McVeigh, who killed quite a lot of people when he blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, was a blonde, blue-eyed white man. Yet nobody demands that we racially profile all Aryan-looking sorts.
Blaming all Moslems for these attacks, and casting them all under a shadow of suspicion–labeling all their youth “ticking time bombs” for example–will do nothing but further alienate and anger people who are NOT going to build and set off bombs.
I see the same mistakes being made again and again, and each time I see them, I lose a little more of my already-faint hope that people might use their reason and examine things logically.
I have friends and family in London; I should be, and am, emotional about these bombings. But I shall not let my emotions overwhelm my good sense.
I don’t know where to begin with you, but I will just start with this. When we see anything, here or elsewhere, we have the ability to discern or decide according to our own interpretation, background and intellect.
It seems a little like you are telling us what we should consider for our attention lest we may be swayed by what you perceived to be an untruth.
And that you are telling Susan what is proper to post, how to go about posting it and what to put with it or by extension all of us.
I frankly don’t see any difference in what she put in her diary and the comment you made with reference down thread, except that you told us what to think about it, she did not and I prefer her way.
We are quite capable of discernment on our own.
You are making assumptions and implying motives and perceptual failures to people without foundation.
Of those of us who you seem to be attacking for our views, who has claimed that a small group of Muslims committed the London bombings? Answer? No one, not even the people whose correspondence is quoted in the original story here.
Who among us here is accusing all Muslims for being responsible for these attacks? Answer? No one, not even the people whose correspondence is at the heart of this story here.
You may dispute the contention that many Muslim youth expressed rejoicing about the bombings. Wallace claims he spoke to Muslim youths he’s know all his life and that they were gleeful. By your accusations of some sort of racism on his part, you imply he’s lying. Yet you yourself, in another comment, say this;
Now isn’t it possible that the people who you spoke to might have a different perspective than the people this guy Wallace spoke to? Is it possible that just like everyone else on the planet not all Muslims think alike just as not all Americans or Jews think alike? If Wallace is telling the truth does that mean you’re lying, (and vice versa)? Would Wallace be justified in implying you were exhibiting a reverse-racist perspective by claiming that many Muslims you spoke to deplored the bombings? Of course not, just as you have no legitimate justification for implying he’s performing a racist act.
After 9/11, I found to my horror that many of the evangelical extremists I come across in my day to day activities in the south (of the US) were quite pleased themselves that the attacks had taken place because it advanced their absurd ideological premise that the war of Armageddon was starting and this was the beginning of the first battle. I remarked about this incredibly offensive sentiment to friends and associates and was roundly criticized by people just like you, screaming at me that I was demeaning Christians and lumping them all together as evil because I had some sort of axe to grind against Christianity. But they were wrong. I spoke out because the reality of the sentiment I discovered was profoundly disturbing, and that was the only reason. And there was never ever one remark or careless statement by me that implied that all Christians were at fault for holding such beliefs.
If you want to attack people for the various racist and cruelly demeaning ways they treat people, attack the people who’re doing such things, not the rest of us. Ann Coulter and all the other sick creatures who think like her deserve our contempt, but transferring your contempt for them onto those of us here who do not believe as they do is inappropriate. If these shitbirds were posting here that would be different, but they’re not.
Local Muslim leaders and law enforcement officials told CAIR that a rock was thrown through a window of the Islamic Center of Bloomington sometime last night. Liquid “accelerant” was then poured through the window and ignited. The fire was extinguished before if could do major damage to the facility. A burned Quran, Islam’s holy text, was also found outside the mosque. …
From CAIR
I lay this at GWB’s feet. Every one of his responses to 9/11 has been counterproductive.
If Muslim youths in London are gleeful, it’s because they see themselves involved in a war, and they are not on Bush’s side. Why should they be?
Bring ’em on, eh George? You putz.
Many of the young Moslems rejoiced?
What utter rubbish. Unadulterated bullshit, to use the more American term.
I was living in the United States on 9/11 and had people tell me that Moslems in Los Angeles gathered at their mosques to give thanks to Allah for the deaths of 3,000 “infidels” that day.
Of course no such thing ever occurred; Moslems who did gather at their mosques were there for the prayers that all observant members of that faith practise five times a day.
Notice how the information is passed along to the author of this blog, Mr. Gillmor–some older Moslems told Mr. Wallace who then told Mr. Gillmor that their young people “rejoiced” in the murder of innocent Londoners.
Well, my goodness, shall we get Mr. Gillmor to swear to this in court? He’s practically witnessed the jubilation with his own eyes. He’s been told by somebody who’s been told by some anonymous somebodies about this, so it MUST be true. Despite the fact that information is passed is hearsay, and third-hand at that, Mr. Gillmor has the nerve to repeat Mr. Wallace’s words: “..the facts are that many of their children rejoiced after the carnage in New York and they rejoiced after the slaughter in London yesterday.”
Facts? A fact is verifiable and verified. Mr. Wallace, the reporter of this “fact”, didn’t observe anything with his own eyes.
Now, let us suppose that this information is at least partly true and some young Moslems in London are pleased at the news of the bombing. I have news for Mr. Wallace and Mr. Gillmor: some young people are idiots. I recall that some students at my university cheered in 1981 when they learnt that President Reagan had been shot. Those same university students are now men in their forties and I doubt that any of them would have the same reaction now. Young people sometimes don’t think things through and their ideas are as yet unformed.
I agree that many Moslems feel alienated from the larger society around them in places like the United States and England and the Netherlands and Germany. Hm, wonder if it’s anything to do with the prevalent and virulent racism in those places? One of the first and most predictable reactions of some white Londoners after the bombings was to call for rounding up all the Moslems and deporting them, making threats of violence against Moslems and their mosques, halting all immigration of non-whites, and the ever-popular “nuke the entire Middle East”.
Perhaps it’s not just the attitudes of the young Moslems that needs work, but also the attitudes of the non-Moslems–many of them well over the age of 30–who refuse to accept Moslems into society and who say “oh, they’re all the same, the Abduls”. Maybe the real “human time bomb” here is racism, including the sort practised by Mr. Wallace, in which it is the Moslems who are the hidden menace and only the Moslems–not racist Britons–who need to change.
By the way–I live in a neighbourhood with a rather high number of Moslems (both Shia and Sunni) and they have teenagers living at home. I can report their reaction to the London bombings with my own eyes: they were horrified, as would be any decent people, and extended their sympathy to me and to my other English neighbours. I am not speaking only of their elders but of their children. Well, perhaps I’m fortunate enough to live on the same street as “good” Moslems and not those nasty “ticking human time bombs” that Mr. Wallace warns us about.
Well, as my signature line says–
I don’t think Dan Gillmor was intent on addressing ALL the problems. He was passing along a reaction from a Muslim friend in London.
Nor was I intent on addressing ALL the problems — including the racist attitudes of the majority population.
It’s problematic when one attacks a post for what it doesn’t include. It’s a report from one person who shared it with his friend.
What you say about youths is very true.
But I don’t think you can say with certainty that no Muslims in L.A. rejoiced on 9/11. Just as I don’t think you can vouch for the full set of feelings of your neighbors — what they may express to you may not be all that’s in their hearts… they may be telling you what they think you will want to hear from them.
I witness the extraordinary efforts by CAIR in its daily bulletins to be “a part of” America and to be included, integrated, and safe. But they do so not just out of a positive wish to be an American on equal footing but also to quell the hatred within their own ranks, just as much as they wish to calm Americans who view them with suspicion.
Susan, this diary focuses entirely on the reaction of the Moslem community and upon the responsibility of the Moslem community to the London tube bombings.
As such, it lacks balance.
I sought to bring balance back to it by pointing out that:
(1) The alleged rejoicing was just that–alleged. While I cannot say it did not happen, neither can Mr. Wallace nor Mr. Gillmor. Neither of them witnessed it, and Mr. Wallace’s sources are anonymous. And upon THIS we are to rely as Gospel?
(2) The problem in London with racism is not new–and I object to the Moslem youth of London being labeled “ticking time bombs”, as if they are all potential murderers. Whether or not Mr. Wallace realises it, that is the exact analogy used by the National Front (a racist, fascist organisation for those of you who don’t know about it) to justify bashing Moslems, stopping all non-white immigration, and rounding up and deporting all Moslems to “their” countries.
Why is the equation always so one-sided? Why does the diary focus entirely on the responsibilities and reactions of London’s Moslem community, and not on the community as a whole?
You see, Mr. Wallace SAYS he wants to “integrate” the Moslems into the larger community, but he puts the whole of the effort on their shoulders.
As one who has a sister, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, and cousins living in London, and as one who has lived there myself, I find Mr. Wallace’s view irresponsible and narrow, and Mr. Gillmor’s uncritical reporting of it to be irresponsible.
I suppose my teenage neighbours, some of whom are my son’s friends, could be so devious as to tell us how sorry they were about the Tube bombings and then go home and toss a “Yay Murder Bombs” party, but somehow I find that a rather dubious proposition.
And I did not say that no Moslems rejoiced on 9/11–I just didn’t witness any. Just as neither Mr. Wallace nor Mr. Gillmor witnessed any rejoicing on June 7th or any time thereafter, but relied upon hearsay.
What is the standard of truth here? Say, I heard from somebody who heard from somebody that such-and-such is true. Sorry, can’t tell you the name of the original source, but Bob told Jim and Jim told me, so you know it’s got to be the straight arrow.
That’s rubbish. That’s bullshit. And it’s not acceptable.
Okay. Well, my daughter just arrived so I’ll be gone for a while. Talk later.
I’m absolutely sure there are some Muslims in Britian are pleased the bombings happened. I’m sure there were some Muslims in the US happy about 9/11. I’m sure there were Muslims in Spain happy about 3/11. I’m sure there are Muslims who will be happy about the next attack, and the one after that, and the ones after that.
Simple statistics informs us out of 1,000,000 people at least 1 will be a certified wacko.
To report what some unknown person(s) to another person who told yet a third person as representative of anything is disingenious, at best. Given the chain of evidence I agree with Shadowthief: this is malicious propaganda. (If I may so re-state his conclusion.)
I realize my mistake.
I acted merely as a conduit when I posted Dan’s info, not as anything more.
I did so because what he passed on was interesting. It was never meant to be the end-all of the discussion.
It was meant to provoke discussion.
In that regard, the post was a success. But I never in a million years anticipated I’d be attacked or that what I posted be dismissed rather angrily as rubbish.
I will not post items that could in any way be misconstrued as un-p.c. Even if the material doesn’t come from me personally. I’ve learned my lesson.
I for one don’t think you did anything wrong, you just presented some info (not your own words), just like everyone does a thousand times a day and I don’t get the point of the attack on you for this.
I certainly did not get the impression that you were saying it was the end of the discussion, and indeed it wasn’t…
PC correct….oh my, we shall have to pass that test?
Susan I say just go on with the way you have been writing and posting, I think 99 percent of us on this site appreciate you and stand behind you.
Thank you, Diane. Very, very much.
I hate to admit it but it was completely bewildering and hurtful since, had I had a clue such anger would erupt, I’d have skipped the post altogether. It isn’t worth it to feel such pain and alienation from a place that I treasure.
I tried to find an e-mail address for Dan Gillmor so the fellow could come here and defend himself, but can’t find one. I’ll post an item on his blog and hopefully he’ll see it. He deserves an opportunity to respond to the assumptions made about his purpose in sharing his friend’s feelings.
Thank you again … disagreement and debate are fantastic. That’s how we all learn. But I hope we can be kind-hearted and polite. I’m going through quite enough right now not to have to spend half the day today feeling sick in my stomach about this.
I know it was for you, I was waiting to see your reply if you could come to terms with it and when you didn’t I had to jump in.
Trust yourself Susan, you did nothing wrong and I say that again. This nit picking by the poster is just silly, obscuring your intent which was perfectly clear to me, and others I am sure.
If you need more help just call on me and do not, I repeat, do not let this commenter get you down…..
I do think that he/she broke the cardinal rule of this site and that is don’t be a P….k. Sorry for the left out letters, I just don’t like the word, but you know what I mean.
And I hope you will be as “politically incorrect” as possible whenever/wherever you choose. Not that I think you even were in the above diary, just wanted to make that point.
Love you Susan and big hugs to you, go over to the cafe and take a rest and get some hugs….
I agree with Diane. Don’t alter your style just because someone takes personal issue with something you posted, especially when your goal was to offer up someone else’s point of view for consideration and discussion. You did nothing wrong Susan. Please keep doing what you are doing. Your indefatigable efforts and broad range of knowledge are an inspiring.
Susan, I hope you don’t think I was attacking you, with my comment below. It wasn’t meant to be. Although, as I did say, I found the post here… presented as it was, as the reactions of the “Muslim Community of London”, when in fact it is the reporting of hearsay by one person in London, to be depressing. Mostly because I encountered it after seeing various other stuff, and it made me just want to bang my head against the keyboard… but also because I find it very one sided.
I realize, of course, that you are just posting what this person has said, as a point of discussion – which I think is a good thing. But the “Muslim Community of London” is very diverse in beliefs and reactions, and for the original writer of the piece to title it that is very misleading, in my view.
Anyway, I wouldn’t avoid controversial topics, or stick to PC stuff and all that… write what you want, post what you think is important, it’s mostly all excellent and informative, even if one doesn’t agree with it. You are a most excellent reporter and disseminator of information and I hope you don’t hold yourself back in any way from putting stuff up that you think needs to be known. We’re liberals, we can handle it ;).
SusanHu,
I want to add my voice in support of your efforts to always bring to the table relevant topics that have significance for all of us. I too am quite surprised at the extremely negative response that’s been directed at you and this story, and reading much of this critical commentary, I see some people have by and large, on an emotional level, conflated separate issues with each other in their attempts to brand what you’ve posted as representativeof some sort of one-sided, out of balance screed. I couldn’t disagree with them more, (see a post of mine somewhat below here).
In any case, life is tricky, but I’m hopeful you won’t let these kinds of criticisms inhibit you from speaking your mind. The world needs more people like you.
Then you’ve learnt the wrong lesson, Susan.
I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing that you’ve posted this, as it’s given us a chance to examine how insidious racism is. I find that the most evil thing about racism is that people don’t always recognise it when it is in front of their eyes, or even in themselves.
Let us assume that the blogger has the best of intentions and wants the non-Moslem community and Moslem community in London, and elsewhere, to reach out to each other.
Yet in doing so, he repeats a warning from Mr. Wallace that the disaffected Moslem youth are a collective “ticking time bomb”. Such imagery is unfortunate because it is racist, and racist partly because there is no counterbalancing warning about white racism (which is a very serious problem in Great Britain and has been identified as such both by and within the London police force).
I’m not much on “lessons learned” myself, but if you want them, here’s the ones I think we ought to take from this:
(1) Sometimes we post things written by others without examining them all the way through. You have, I have, we all have. I once posted an article (on another political blog, not BooTrib) by Christopher Hitchens (whom I normally despise) that I thought was atypically insightful and got thrashed pretty good for it by other commenters because they saw things in his article that I did not. Which leads me to Lesson #2–
(2) If something we are posting does not have balance, we should provide it in our commentary or at least mention the fact that we realise it doesn’t examine all sides of the issue. I sought to bring matters back into balance here because what I read is, to my mind, racist stereotyping of Moslems without a firm foundation in the evidence. Not knowing the reputation of the authors, I took the words on their face value, found them disturbing, and dismissed the whole thing as “rubbish”–which I do not thing is too strong a term for second-hand hearsay that makes such a damning charge.
If, on the other hand, this particular blogger had personally spoken to Moslem youth in London who were happy about the bombings, and reported his conversations with them, I would have course taken a different tact. For example, are these particular youth representative of the hundreds of thousands of Moslems living in London, or not?
As for what is “un-pc” and what is not–I don’t care to be “politically correct” myself, because I take it that means never offending anybody. Rather, what I want is fairness and an examination of all sides of an issue, particularly when members of a particular religious or ethnic group are being accused of celebrating murder. It’s quite a serious charge, as you know, and ought not be taken just on the say-so of some chap who heard it from another chap who heard it from some people.
I’m reasonably sure that Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and a number of evangelical fascist leaders here in the US rejoiced over the attacks of 9/11 because those attacks provided them with the perfect pretext to advance their agenda for war in the MidEast.
Just as I would criticize them for their rejoicing, so too would I criticize those who might rejoice over the murders in London regardless of their ethnic or religious affiliation.
If I were a white Christian, would it make sense for me to criticize a lunatic like Falwell if he, claiming to represent a Christian point of view, expressed pleasure that the 9/11 attacks took place? Of course it would make sense. And condemning him for his diabolical zeal in such a matter has nothing to do with anyone else’s failings in the areas of racism or anything else, nor would I have to be a white Christian in order for my criticism to be legitimate.
It’s the same for anyone else, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Christian, whatever. Jews, say, might have an interest in renouncing the violence perpetrated in the name of Judaism by the extremists in the settlements in Israel, not so much because they feel a need to defend their religion against condemnation from outside it, but because they revere their own theology and don’t want ambitious and violent lunatics corrupting it.
All these arguments about racism against Arabs and Muslims and whatever other groups there are that might be discriminated against have validity in their own right, but such arguents are separate and distinct from the central issue highlighted in this story having to do with how one can communicate effectively with people who might have bought into a malicious, pseudo-religious ideology that is destructive on every level.
There are many youths in the Christian evangelical movement here at home who’ve bought into the idea that Islam is a false religion and it’s adherents are the enemy of Christianity. I routinely, constantly, condemn the leaders of the evangelical fascist movement for espousing and encouraging this perspective in their followers, and I lament that more mainstream “Christian” leaders don’t speak out more forcefully against these psychotic usurpers who’re trying to hijack Christianity to legitimize their own ruthless, murderous, powermad agenda. A similar problem exists within the Islamic community with respect to spiritual impostors spreading a gospel of violence, intolerance, fear and hate.
There is a problem. It exists on it’s own now independent of whether other racist or religious intolerances have helped make the psychological ground fertile for such terrible ideological growths. If Muslim speakers in the Muslim community can help neutralize this violent message, what’s wrong with that, in and of itself? If Christian speakers here at home can help debunk the insanity of the Dobson dogma, what’s wrong with that? No one here (that I know of) seems to be claiming that Muslims or Christians have the obligation to do such things, only that such messengers might be useful. No one here seems to be saying that it should be only Muslim voices speaking to Muslim youth, only that such voices might be useful.
One further correction: Mr. Wallace, who reported the “fact” in this case, is NOT a Moslem.
What I’m getting from your comments is that you think we should deny that some Moslem youths were excited by the London bombings, or at least not discuss the fact that they were, because older white people in England are racist.
Racism can’t defeat racism – what we need to defeat racism is an open, honest dialogue – not refusal to admit that racism exists in most people and most ethnic groups.
I also don’t think this should be a contest to prove who is more familiar or connected with the Moslem communities in their area.
No, what I am saying is that we must have balance. You say we should “discuss the fact”–what “fact” would that be, I wonder? What you have is a man who talked to a man who talked to some people (he claims). Well, that may be enough to make this a “fact” for you but it does not satisfy me. Have you not heard of people fabricating stories to make their point? I know nobody as important as a President or Prime Minister would lie or manufacture evidence, but surely some lesser folk might do so.
Some Moslems may or may not have rejoiced at the terror bombings; some Britons may or may not have rejoiced when bombs fell on Fallujah and Baghdad and elsewhere. Certainly what we know for a fact that is that tens of thousands of threats have rained down upon Moslems in England–indiscriminately against people who had nothing to do with these acts of terror. That is a FACT.
Moslems are presumed guilty until proven innocent, then. All of them are “ticking time bombs” according to the author of this article.
Have we any evidence that it was Moslems who did the terror bombings? If you do have such evidence, it is your duty to turn over that evidence to London Metropolitan Police.
What we have here is nothing but rumor-mongering and speculation.
My sister has half a dozen Moslem neighours on her street in London and has had the same reaction from them as I’ve had from mine: shock and grief. There were Moslems killed and injured by those train bombs as well, you know–a brown skin does not shield one against a bomb blast any more than a white skin.
Well, as my signature line says…
I contend they are playing a dangerous game of RUMOR.
I agree with Shadowthief and others on this.
I don’t know who Gillmor is… I’m sure he’s a nice, informed guy and all that, but it’s just depressing to see this presented here, with no balance, no backup besides hearsay and no apparent point.
Of course, I saw this after wading thru the racist screed on the Gilliard blog, and having a discussion with Sirocco at the EuroTrib about whether Muslims should march in huge numbers… not out of apparent guilt, but out of self-interest… to proclaim that they don’t approve of terrorism and that they are loyal citizens of whatever country (in this case, Britain).
I don’t think the burden of proof should be on individuals to prove that they are not responsible for the actions of people they don’t even know, who may look like them, or may worship in a variety of their religion and so forth. There really is no way for some to do enough to prove that to some others, and I don’t even think the attempt should be made. It’s a validation of the bigotry that says that it’s okay to look at one Muslim, Arab, whatever, and see all, in my opinion.
But Nanette, they’re all “ticking time bombs”, all those Moslem youth.
Not the racist white youth who join the National Front in England, nor the white skinheads in Germany and France who attack Moslems and Jews equally.
No, it’s the Moslem youth alone who are “ticking time bombs” and the Moslems have to prove to us that they are harmless.
I wonder why white people don’t have to prove anything to anybody? I’m English and my country has waged war on Afghanistan and Iraq, yet no Afghani nor Iraqi has ever asked me to prove I don’t approve of the Blair/Bush war against their people.
What if these bombers turn out not to be Moslems at all but some other group? The British authorities haven’t identified anyone as culprits, although that so-called “Secret al-Qaeda” group immediately claimed responsibility (and misquoted key passages of the Quran).
What if the bombers turn out to be, oh, I don’t know, disaffected racist white youth belonging to the National Front? Must all white folk then march to “prove” they are loyal Londoners and Brits? No? Oh, I thought not.
anything because in too many places they are the POWER in all things. It is an assumption of the grandest order. White is right and all else is assumed less than if it is not of, from, by, or in actuality, white.
Is it a reasonable or proper way to think? I sure don’t think so. But it is often the “loudest” thought out there. Quite arrogant, in my opinion.
A microcosm of this type of thought is: In my work experience, in a work place of a 2/3 majority male employees, the required annual “discussion” of sexual harassment in the work place brought a large number of grumbles and rolled eyes pleading heavenward for some form of male oriented sanity. In many of their minds (and I do mean most)there was no such thing as SH. They could not comprehend that it even exists. And further, how’s a guy supposed to hit on a cute, hot chick if he can’t say and do those things that surely chick’s like and show that the guy is interested in them. The concept of unwanted advances was too foreign to them to even contemplate.
I know the example seems OT, but there are a lot of white people that don’t, can’t, won’t see that there is any racism in their remarks, actions or beliefs. They really don’t see it. It does not exist for them. It is the I’m right, you’re wrong, state of being that exists in total blindness.
Is it unjust? Yes! Is it inherently unfair and despicable? Yes! But it is how it is at the moment. So work to change it. It seems something you feel very strongly about, so keep working to change it. And thank you for caring so much about it.
I care so much about it because three of my university colleagues were hounded out of the United States after 9/11. One was Palestinian, one Egyptian, one Iranian, all three adherents of the Moslem faith.
Their ‘crime’ was to be worshipful Moslems with brown skin. Two relocated to Canada, the third to France.
I care because I see good people falling in with the evil “blame all the Moslem” crowd (folks like Ann Coulter and Tom Friedman) without realising it.
We must be very careful and keep our wits about us. Think: who would benefit if we were to become suspicious of all Moslems? Us? Them? Or those on both sides who seek to divide us and make us hate each other?
The Moslem youth of London are not a “ticking time bomb” any more or any less than any disaffected youth. There are disaffected white youth, too, and some join the National Front.
And I repeat: NOBODY has proven nor disproven WHO set these bombs. Whatever happened to waiting for evidence? The forensic scientists and British security services are even now doing their jobs properly and we will know within due time the identity of the culprits. What about waiting until then, without condemning anyone?
Why you care so much. And how fortunate your friends are to have one like you to speak out for them.
I care too, even though I don’t have the direct experience that you do. So Together we will do what we can and keep at it until we change it.
Bon Chance, to you and your friends.
make me tired. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have them, just makes me wonder.
There was nothing wrong with what Susan passed on to us a a point of view of someone else. There was some information that shadowthief brought out that was informative too.
That’s not what makes me tired. It’s never the words that are said so much as how they are said. I disagree with calling anyone or anything Absolute Rubbish. That is so condescending and dismissive that it usually makes me not want to read any more of what is presented.
The feeling of the dismissive attitude of shadowthief’s statements made me wonder if he felt the rest of us were unable to come to our own reasonable conclusions based on further reading or already being in possession of further knowledge of our own. I have not yet met anyone on this blog that isn’t a thinking person. I have not met anyone that just reads anything and says “oh, that must be true, so and so said it, it’s in print so it must be true.” That is the type of thinking that a certain portion of our society, the tv hypnotized masses, seem to follow. That is not what I see here, nor have I seen even the slightest evidence of that.
So even though the content of shadowthief’s comments had some useful information. It seems the way it was offered made it a hostile place to visit. I feel I can say this with some authority as I have on occasion done this myself. (as recently as yesterday, and apologies once again, booman) There is nothing wrong with the “meat” of what we are wishing to say, but the method of delivery is defeating, or hurtful, or both. Frankly, I wish I didn’t make mistakes. I do though. But I am really open and willing to learn from them. I hope I do that as well.
Maybe if we could let our “expressed opinion” rest for a little before we post it, we might be better served. It really is just as easy to deliver our opinions in a more reasoned or calm way. . .and that would be me speaking to myself, most certainly. If any of you can relate to it as well, then that’s good too.
Being passionate and invested and concerned is what makes us interesting people worth reading, imo. So if or when we go off a bit in our presentations, maybe we can also see that we might have presented it in a slightly different manner that would not seem accusatory towards others. Just a suggestion.
Thanks for saying this… I agree. I tend, often, not to pay much attention to how things are said… probably as a result of growing up basically a very calm (sometimes irritatingly so, to others) person in the midst of prima donnas.
I ignore the ‘gasp! shock! drama, drama drama!’ stuff as a matter of course, and just get to what is pretty much being said, but I should have paid more attention and realized how hurtful that could be to others, especially Susan, who it seemed to be directed to.
So, I too agree with most of the substance of the above remarks, but not at all with the presentation.
The “rubbish” comment, to be clear, was not directed at SusanHu but rather at the accusation that Moslem youth in London are happy about the Tube bombings and that those Moslems are a “ticking time bomb” in London’s midst.
I am at BoomanTribune BECAUSE of SusanHu; if it weren’t for her diaries at Kos, I wouldn’t have migrated from there to here.
I find it notable that the words Susan posted are not her own but someone else’s.
I make no apologies nor explanations for my manners other than to say that I did not intend any personal attack on SusanHu. If it was not clear before, it should be now.
I’m glad to hear that it wasn’t directed at Susan, although it seems that that was not gotten across clearly at the first. Hopefully you’ll tell her so directly.
I agree with most of your points (although I know nothing at all about race relations in Britain, or the youth there of any color). I think collective blaming and so on should be countered at every turn.
Gas station/convenience store near my home remodeled a couple of days after 9/11. Painted everything red, white and blue. Gas pumps, every part of the outside of the store, everything. Defensive coloring… they are Sikhs.
That people feel the need to do things like that – in an effort to keep safe – is what should be roundly condemned (and often is, to be sure). But it is unacceptable to blame everyone within a group or religion for the actions of a few within that group, and I don’t believe that that sort of bigotry should be given any sort of validation, at all.
Here’s what the “ticking time bomb” thinking leads to in my opinion.
This is on the front page of Steve Gilliard’s blog (you know, Kos’ favourite blogger in all the world). After citing with glowing approval Tom Friedman’s article, which has as its central thesis the “thought” that–
And because I think that would be a disaster, it is essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact that it has a jihadist death cult in its midst. If it does not fight that death cult, that cancer, within its own body politic, it is going to infect Muslim-Western relations everywhere. Only the Muslim world can root out that death cult. It takes a village.
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/
Steve Gilliard’s “better half” chimes in::
I wanted to add my 2c to this, because it’s something that I feel strongly about, especially after watching BBC’s all-night broadcast on WLIW last night.
They had the head of the Muslim Council of London or somesuch on. He spoke for almost half an hour.
All he did was simper on about how “this is a multiethnic country; we shouldn’t point fingers, etc.”
Did he ONCE say “Islam is against this kind of behavior, it’s wrong?”
NO.
For that matter, did anyone in the UK speak out against the fatwah against Salman Rushdie?
I’m sorry, but I am sick of the kneejerk reaction of most of the Left when these omissions are pointed out. It results in some kind of group Tourette’s: BLAH BLAH IRAQ BLAH FUCK RACIST BLAH TOLERANCE BLAH BLAH ISRAEL YADDA YADDA XTIAN FUNDIES SHIT…..
Just for once…let’s see ONE mainstream, high-exposure Muslim cleric come out and say that suicide bombing is wrong. For the time being, let’s give ’em a pass on the whole honor killing-forced marriages-women not being allowed-to drive/vote/wear shorts thing.
If members of Islamic communities want to be seen as integrated parts of the countries that they live in, doing something as basic as NOT supporting–openly or tacitly–a misogynistic blood cult is a start. When the leader of a large community in London can’t find anything to say other than “oooh, please, don’t blame us” (and you’re racist pigs if you do, vile infidels, seems to be the subtext here) then those leaders are not doing their jobs.
If a white guy and/or Jew sneezes and accidentally gives some kid in the Middle East a head cold, a mixed race crowd of 40,000 shows up to protest. Seeing just a leeeeeetle bit of that kind of self-criticism and introspection in the Muslim world is what Friedman is calling for, and rightly so.
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/
Well, that didn’t take long, did it? Straight from the bombings to blaming all Moslems everywhere.
The Pope hasn’t condemned the US and British bombings in Iraq. It’s time to round up all Catholics, eh?
I am reminded of Dorothy Parker’s famous retort when someone asked her why she drank so much: “I’m looking at one of the reasons.” Or, to misuse one of Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous statements, “Hell is other people.”
Hello. Just registered as a user here because I just have to respond.
I’m an American Muslim. And what really confuses me at times–and mean this sincerely–is how people don’t hear us when we condemn terrorism. I know if one looks at the entire fifth of the world as a monolith, certain people’s actions are going to speak louder than other people’s words. But, why don’t folks understand that it’s been condemned, over and over and over again. Some people (and I’m not one to take personal responsibility for another’s action) have gone so far as to apologize.
Juan Cole discusses, for anyone who wants to see, how Muslims from around the world have condemned terrorism, and these are folks who actually have authority to issue opinions, unlike terrorists, because they are actual scholars.
People who wish to hear you (and others) when you condemn terrorism, will. Others never will… no matter what, it’ll never be enough. I’ve heard Muslims condemning terrorism, publically and privately, since 9/11. Still, you get the “Why don’t they speak up?” stuff.
Why? I don’t know… some of it is ignorance, some malice, some probably just not paying attention. I don’t believe it should be catered to, however. I’ve mentioned in a couple of places that the burden of proof shouldn’t be on people who have done nothing to prove that they have done nothing, or that they are worthy of being treated like everyone else. (Many groups have also gone through this sort of thing, not related to terrorism specifically, but the ‘group responsibility/guilt’ type thing).
Anyway, many others were saying this and other things in the comments of the blog that Shadowthief just posted that awful screed from. Sadly, it’ll be a bit of a while before things change, though, but we’re working on it.
Hope you enjoy your time here and join in more of the conversations as well.
thanks for the welcome!
Hi and welcome.
I take your point about why don’t people hear the condemnations, and I do hear them….I hear them all the time on cable news stations and in foreign news sources.
I think it is because some people don’t want to hear them or they set some impossible standard or height that the condemnations have to reach.
This apect of humankind extends far beyond this particular issue and is very insidious…
How can you reach the point of “enough” of anything in point of fact.
Rather like a parent saying to a child, prove to me that you can be trusted. What are the standards, what is the arena of proof, what happens if I don’t meet the standards which I do not even know, a lot of what if’s and grey areas.
How can anyone set out on a task of proving they are anything, who is to be the arbiter of that…..oh so many questions and there is no right answer.
and to add something to what Nanette said to you about the people not accepting that there is widespread condemnation of violence perpetrated in the name of Islam within the Muslim community.
Sadly, many people are content to settle for believing what they want to believe, and nothing more. This habit is sometimes born of mental laziness, but more often it is a function of the fact that many people need to deny uncomfortable truths in order to maintain the delusion that their own beliefs are superior. This has been the case since the dawn of man. In war, the enemy is always demonized, and “God” is claimed by everyone to be on their own side.
This cleverly instilled need for one’s own ideology to be superior is deadly. I know many Christians, for instance, who, despite their claims of love and compassion for their fellow man, cannot acknowledge any of the other religions on earth as being equal to or as valid as their own. And every major religion has people like this constantly striving to gain control of the doctrine. They use religion as the disguise to conceal their own ruthless and violent hunger for power, and their followers frequently use their own version of false-piety to mask their own insecurity.
The people who are using this violence as a means to assert the superiority want this to be seen as a religious war because such a definition helps them conceal their naked lust for power. and they are shameless in the exploitation, in the way their actions representunconscionable blasphemy against the very religion they hide behind and purport to revere. Bin Laden is no more representative of Islam than the evangelical fascist James Dobson is representative of Christianity or the violent extremist Israeli settlers are of Judaism. All of these people are spiritual charlatans. But religion and nationalism are easy to exploit on an emotional level, and this is how a few ambitious and greedy liars can start a conflagration that will last for generations.
War is a business; but it still requires that those one would wage war upon be demonized, not only to justify killing them , but to justify to the folks back home the losses in blood and treasure expended to battle against a fierce and terrible. And what better target for demonization than a religious group, where enmity, fear and suspicion between religions is already sustained at high levels.
This is why so many people don’t hear you. If they do hear you, it may cause them to doubt the legitimacy of their own aggression, so they close their minds and charge into battle.
And the media, (here in the US at least) won’t hear you well either because, after all, they’re in the entertainment business now, and war, the spread of conflct and intolerance, this is grand theater, a moneymaking spectacle if ever there was one.
the enemy for many in our societies. Islam is currently being demonised to create a new world enemy. All I know is that this demonisation is the sure way to make sure more attacks will happen on western soil. The level of condmnation of the London attack is quite rightly high, but where is the indignation when civilians are bombed to death in far larger numbers in Fallujah? Think how that looks to outsiders let alone Muslims. We are our own worst enemy in many ways.
You’ve got that right.
Politics runs on having enemies.
Nazi’s
Communists
<nice big gap here>
<new thing>
They’re still trying to figure out what to put in <new thing>. Tried China for a while. Didn’t work out too well when all our multinationals decided they needed China for their markets and cheap labor. Or the US Govt needed a buyer for all the T-bills they’re printing to stay afloat.
Terrorists might fit. But then we get into the whole gray area of Chechen Rebels and IRA and Palestine and all the folks in South/Central America the CIA sponsored. Ooops, that’s a bit embarrassing, politically.
So, now its Extremist Muslims. Because… well, they generally don’t have crap for militaries, their countries are not exactly enviable… and getting permission to attack actual countries is too hard.
Its really pitiful as a threat, but luckily for the politicians the media is filled with a bunch of lazy self-interested 20 and 30 somethings who don’t remember what real enemies look like. Instead, a few hundred folks who kill a few hundred other folks are the biggest threats known to a country of 300,000,000 people.
In the end, they might be half right. After another term or two of being led by a religious extremist of our own, the Extremists claiming to speak for their respective religions might just be the biggest threat to all of us of all religions.
And maybe someday the average American will wake up and say “I used to say that any action was better than inaction. We needed to do something to confront these threats. God, I wish I knew then what I know now. How could I not have seen the consequences of taking so many wrong actions.”
Well, here we go. I boldfaced the ages of some of the “ticking time bombs” (19, 17, and 22 years old) who seem not to be celebrating the murders of 50 of their fellow Londoners.
They’re not innocent, of course–it’s only right to suspect all Moslems. They’re all a potential threat. I know it because some blogger told me so.
The imam, who was planning to speak about Thursday’s terror bombings, instead described how a caretaker awoke at 3 a.m. to the sound of shattering glass. Virtually every window on the mosque’s facade — more than 20 panes of glass — had been smashed.
“People were asking, ‘Why did they do this? We didn’t explode the bombs. Why did they do this to our mosque?’ ” Faruk Ahmed, secretary at the mosque, said as he showed off the damage Saturday afternoon.
The incident, which follows two suspicious fires at a mosque in Leeds, raised fears of a backlash against Britain’s large Muslim community, fueled by public anger over last week’s bombings in London.
“When you get on a bus or when you go into a workplace as a Muslim, people look at you with different eyes,” said Asfar Chowdhury, an information technologies systems manager who came to Britain from Bangladesh eight years ago. “It’s going to have a big effect on innocent people like us.”
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/07/10/MUSLIMS.TMP
At the East London Mosque, one of the city’s largest, congregants leaving their afternoon prayer denounced Thursday’s attacks as antithetical to Islam.
“Whoever did these bombings, no matter who they are, are criminals,” said Khaled Bin Mohammed Sadique, a 19-year-old student. “No matter what religion they are — Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist — they are killing innocent people.”
Hamza Aswat, a 17-year-old also attending the Heroes of Islam conference at the Islamic center next door to the mosque, said one of his friends, a teenage girl, was still in the hospital recovering from injuries sustained in the bombing of the double-decker bus in Tavistock Square. A 20-year-old Muslim woman, Shahera Akther Islam, is among the missing and was believed to have been aboard the Circle Line subway train when it exploded.
“These people say they’re doing this in the name of Islam, but they are hurting people of all faiths and all religions,” Aswat said.
Despite their rebuke of the bombers, many at the East London Mosque also said they believed Britain’s role in the war in Iraq may have encouraged an attack by extremists.
“If you’ve got a pressure cooker that keeps building and building, eventually it’s going to explode,” said Sohael Haji, 22, whose family immigrated from India before he was born.
London has long boasted of its reputation for racial and religious tolerance. Of the city’s 8 million residents, nearly 1 million are Muslim. But preserving an atmosphere of tolerance has proved more difficult since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which sparked concerns that terror cells were active in Europe, including in London.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/07/10/MUSLIMS.TMP
Anushka Asthana
Sunday July 10, 2005
There are 1.6 million Muslims in the UK, each with a different personality, different interests and different opinions. Some are devout, praying regularly and dressing appropriately. Others are less strict. It is ludicrous to describe the way ‘they’ think or feel when we are talking about a diverse group of people.
However, one thing they do now share is a fear that ignorance will cause people to indeed lump them together and attack them.
When Saira Bin Bashir heard about the attack her first emotion was a sense of dread. She texted a white girlfriend with her concerns and received the reply: ‘People who are not narrow-minded know that the majority of Muslims are against all violence.’
‘I just thought, she does not get it,’ said Ms Bin Bashir. ‘She won’t be looked at weirdly, she won’t be called names.’
Leaning against the window, looking down the road, she added: ‘If Asian lads down there started acting up in front of the journalists, they would be labelled “Muslim boys”, but I know they are not even practising. If white boys did it, they would just be labelled boys.’
Nearby, six Muslim teenagers had gathered around a ramp in the middle of the Chicksand housing estate, just off Brick Lane. ‘I can’t believe they are already blaming al-Qaeda,’ said Jakir, 16. ‘They have no evidence,’ he said to nods from his friends.
‘When the twin towers got bombed they started on Iraq,’ said Goshah, also 16. ‘Now they will start on another Muslim country. And they will kick us out of this country as well.’ Goshah flung his arm towards a woman standing nearby. ‘You’re lucky because you are white,’ he said.
‘Yeah, white people will be more racist now. They call us Pakis already, but it is going to get worse,’ said Jakir.
There is an increasing feeling of isolation among the boys on the Chicksand estate. The group spend hours every day hanging around the estate, chatting and riding their bikes. When they turn 17, some will get cars, and then they will spend time hanging around in them, added one local. She reported local fears that extremists had come to the area to exploit young and reckless attitudes. Young men on Whitechapel Road had been handing out leaflets full of extremist sentiments and had used loudspeakers to denounce the erosion of ‘Muslim values’ and attack homosexuality.
Jakir stepped forward from his group of friends and yelled: ‘Big up Jihad, big up Jihad.’ However, other members of the Muslim community said his attitude was born of anger at the treatment of Muslims elsewhere and would change as the boy matured. ‘Young people see what is happening to Muslims – 7,000 civilians dead in Afghanistan and Iraq – and the only way they know how to express their feelings is to shout,’ said Ahmed Versi, editor of Muslim News . He added that these were not boys who were likely to take up arms in the future.
Older teenagers in the area seemed to confirm Mr Versi’s opinion. While they expressed resentment about Western foreign policy and an increasing feeling of ‘them and us’ there was no other talk of condoning violence.
Shahidul Islam, 19, was sitting on a wall with a friend watching Jakir and his friends. ‘What they fail to understand is that these attacks kill everyone,’ he said. ‘There were lots of Muslims on the bus and tube.’ Mohammad Miah, 26, tried to explain local feeling. ‘I feel the same as many Muslims. We give our condolences to the families and individuals involved in what was a heinous act of terror on commuters just going to work.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,16132,1525414,00.html