Better Representing Muslims: A Few Ideas

[Quantum Glass]

Uhm, what?

First of all, Jesus, the prophet of christianity/son of da man himself said stuff like "love your enemy", "turn the other cheek" and "let him who is without sin cast the first stone". Very same book, supposed to be a role model for all christians.

Muhammad on the other hand was a warlord that raided settlements of the infidels, killed the men, enslaved the women and claimed the land for himself. He executed those who refused to convert and had sex with children and women he considered spoils of war. And Allah says it's aok, as it is written in the Quran. And because the Quran is the word of god, it's still being law in regions with muslim majorities.

There's a fine line between doing nasty stuff, realizing it is bad and officially condemning it and doing said stuff for over a thousand years and continue doing it because some delousional dude said we can't have nice things.

Every civilization has ugly spots on its vest, but some learn from them while others are proud about it.

To return to the actual topic: muslims are portrayed in video games as they're perceived in real life. Guess they're not so innocent about that. And what anyone interprets into fantasy characters his business. If I wanted to, I could whine about the same stuff whenever Space Nazis or the like show up because I'm German.

But I don't for some very simple, yet plausible reason: I simply have enough commonsense to realize not fucking everything is aimed at insulting me. A valuable lesson most muslims do not seem to have learned yet.

...You read the cliffnotes version of the Hebrew Bible, didn't cha? I won't discuss my opinion on the whole, "Hell," business, seeing as how I'd probably insult a few people, but from what I can tell, a pretty large number of Christians believe, not only in Jesus, but also in God. Shocker, isn't it? And God was something of a delinquent in his teenage years. Smiting transpired, I'd reckon. Rape victims being punished via group ballistics, slavery being legal, et cetera. Claiming that what's written down in the books a people read defines their morals is a pretty messed up idea of morality.

"I simply have enough commonsense to realize not fucking everything is aimed at insulting me."

"You haven't been following the news in recent months, have you? In all countries of the "Arab Spring", all non-muslims must fear for their lifes. Foreigners and non-muslims get abducted, tortured, persecuted or outright executed on sight. All in the name of Allah. I could post some videos, but that'd get me insta-banned.

I know what's gonna come now: "that's only a minority, not all muslims are like that". Well, 70% of the egyptian people have voted for the people who promote exactly that. And it's not like the "good" muslims in these places fight to protect and support those who suffer from the wrath of the "bad" muslims. Guess that's saying a lot."

See, the irony is, most of the ringleaders, the propagators of violence, are--while certainly Islamic--mostly giving the west grief for political reasons. I'm not saying they're justified, but they're not doing it just because God told them to. Granted, they tell their followers that it's the holy thing to do, but if there's anything history has shown us, it's that using religion to create killers is ridiculously easy.

 

[faefrost]

Is it completely and utterly evil of me that my first thought on this is that we need to arrange for a live debate between the "Portrayals of Muslims in Videogames" folk and the "Tropes vs Women in Videogames" people? Worthwhile discussions in an open and public forum.

I know... I'm a baaaaddddd man.

 

[Therumancer]

Liberals, the peace at any price movement, and humanitarians like to try and focus on individuals and put a human face on problems

A) Character writing is quite literally about focusing on an individual. Kinda missing the point here

B) You know, when you needlessly throw in your own political biases, you largely invalidate your own points, which if stated in a more rational (or "moderate" if you prefer. wink) fashion, you'd much more effectively get your point across by not clouding your own argument

Well, I don't believe in mincing words, this situation is what it is, there isn't a lot of room to dress it up. When I go off about the left wing and it's politics I do so to make a point, those who are offended because "hey I'm left wing" but might otherwise agree with the argument are kind of those I'm writing for, to get them to re-assess their priorities on these issues. For the record I am actually pretty moderate as there are issues I swing pretty far to the left on (freedom of speech, workers rights, and even what limitations should be placed on business) but those subjects rarely come up on these forums. Mostly when I go off about the left wing, it's simply because the ideal that you should be tolerant of everyone is a problem, and anything that encourages people to be intolerant is wrong, is something I feel needs to be opposed. Tolerance is a nice ideal to strive for, but at the end of the day there are some people, even large groups of them, that should not be tolerated or accepted under any circumstances. A culture like the one in The Middle East is one of those things, when you basically let a people enslave half their population... the women, and then see visiting women follow those customs to show "tolerance" and "avoid offense" that's a problem. There is no reason at all we should be tolerating a culture that does that, and that's just one aspect of the entire thing as I explained.

As far as this applies to gaming, understand that the article writer is talking about a large variety of things. A big part of his point revolves around the portrayal of Muslims as bad guys in video games, and their culture as being pretty much a bad thing even when portrayed through science fiction analogy. My counterpoint is that this is both accurate and nessicary because that is pretty much what your dealing with. If some Muslim looks in the mirror and the truth hurts, that's a good thing in the long run. This kind of stuff is not being made up and projected onto Muslims as a whole as part of some kind of racist agenda, its really what that culture is like. The point of the links I posted (and I encourage people to do their own research) is to demonstrate that. In say a FPS where your dealing with an opposing force, the portrayals are pretty accurate, and if anything don't go far enough.... and let's be honest, this is who we are fighting in real life and why, making games about the military in the present day it's not out of line to portray who it actually fights against, and why by showing the people as a group who they are. I demonstrated how these people are conditioned into fanatics, how early that starts, how much unreasoning hate they are taught for everyone not themselves, and even one video (which is hardly unique) of children being taught to engage in suicide warfare. Like it or not the whole "suicide bomber" thing isn't a negative stereotype, it's real, and conditioning kids while they are young and teaching them this kind of stuff via having their childhood mascots and heroes murdered and similar techniques is exactly how you get people willing to commit suicide to inflict damage on an enemy.

On a more individual level, when your dealing with the portrayal of Muslims as scheming bad guys, who are out to screw everyone, well understand these are people conditioned in that culture to hate anyone who isn't a Muslim. Those that aren't fighting are going to cheat you and do whatever they can to achieve whatever small victories they can. Exceptions always exist, but that is going to be the most common situation. What's more you have to remember the guys calling the shots are the ones who are producing those videos of childhood mascots being murdered, and telling the people to hate and kill everyone not like them. On some levels these guys might believe in what they are doing, but from an outside perspective they are pretty bad.

In general if you were dealing with totally self contained stories about Muslims dealing with other Muslims without outside influence coming much into the question, you'd be right if there was some effort to make things utterly demonic. This is pretty much the whole "Aladdin", "Arabian Nights" school of thought and really that works fine on it's own and generally isn't where we're having problems anyway. On a more adult level the best reference I could think of would probably be George Alec Effinger's "Marid" stories like "When Gravity Fails" which largely take place in a cyberpunked Middle East.

My point is pretty much that there is nothing at all wrong with portraying members of the Muslim culture pretty much as they are. The implication here being that the portrayal is inaccurate, when really as I demonstrated, it's not. That portrayal is grounded in reality. In general if your an outsider it's pretty much expected a Muslim is going to try and get one over on you within his own culture, to him, you are the enemy. From a military perspective, it's even less ambigious. The only reason I can see to argue against this is largely political as part of an overall agenda that might be well intended but is fairly misguided. I've done a lot of digging into it over the years, and to be blunt it's actually pretty straightforward over all. Some guy grows up listening to TV telling him everyone who is not Muslim is the enemy, he's taught Jews killed Mickey Mouse, he goes to church and hears "kill Americans" every day and the horrors of the great western satan every day, granted he might not become a warrior himself, but some westerner walks up to his spice stall to buy something, do you think he's going to want to do business fairly?

I know not everyone will agree with me, but that's my two cents (pretty much what I said before). To be honest though I will consider what you say and see if maybe I can be a little more diplomatic in the future, though to be honest I'm not really sure how you can make these kinds of points with the same strength in doing so. I mean the gist of my argument is "hey look, there is all the stuff we're talking about". My basic argument is people didn't just make stuff up so people would dislike Muslims, rather Muslims did stuff that made it so people didn't like them.

At the end of the day when Muslim culture changes (one way or another) so will perceptions. I think it will happen, but it's not going to be through denial, or not using them as bad guys in reality based FPS games that are based on what's actually going on.

 

[Azahul]

One helluva snip

It's amazing, because you keep presenting examples of why the points Rath raises are important. Now, my mother's side of the family are Muslim, belonging to a reasonably small Islamic sect called the Druze, and they are nothing like what you describe. They live in Lebanon, a country that has historically been invaded time and again by one of the US's closest allies, but they are fervently and fanatically pro-American. They think the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan are some of the best things to ever happen to the region. And their reasons for this are based, in no small part, on their unique combination of ethnicity, religious leaning, and nationality.

I've traveled extensively in the Middle East, and opinions you run into on the ground run the gamut of, well, anything you can imagine. The Middle East, above all things, is complicated, and you're generalising one of the most diverse and divisive areas of the planet with terms like "Muslim culture". The fact is that based on your ethnicity, your sect, your nationality, and an absolute myriad of other reasons, your views on Americans, on non-Muslims, and the world in general are going to vary wildly. This is why the article is important. People like you get these ideas of what "Muslims" or "Arabs" are like, and never realise that the terms "Muslim" and "Arab" are essentially meaningless for this kind of discussion because they just cannot be broad enough to apply to the majority of people and still convey a disposition towards the rest of the world. A Muslim is simply someone that follows Islam, but one of the largest Muslim countries on the planet is Indonesia and they hardly get a mention in this kind of debate. One of the biggest perpetrators of the problems supposedly inherent to Arabic culture is Iran, where they don't even speak Arabic or belong to the Arab ethnicity.

Rath doesn't seem to be saying that there aren't problems in the world of Islam or within the North African/Middle Eastern/Central Asian parts of the world. There are. That's not on debate, and isn't even close to the point of the article. What he's talking about is this kind of blanket treatment. Large swathes of the Middle East trace their current social climate directly back to the days of tribalism, and this informs their identity. It's an incredibly complicated geographical area with people that defy the kind of labels the West has, and continues to, put on them. The kind of portrayals he advocated would be immensely helpful in helping people like yourself to understand that even within the "Non-Muslim hating, anti-American, 'burn the infidels'" group, there is an incredible spread of different attitudes and social, economic, and political reasons behind those feelings beyond their religion and their culture. That first point in the article, "Stop lumping everyone together", is critical. It's the key to understanding the Middle East. Everything there plays out on a far more micro level than anyone in the West gives them credit for.

Hence his suggestions. Understanding which tribe one of those formless terrorist groups from the Modern Warfare series belong to would go a long way to understanding their motivations. Understanding motivation, in real war, is key to winning the conflict. It's really hard to argue with Rath's point that "realism" in games only seems to go towards their portrayal of guns, rather than the way the war is actually fought.

A great deal of understanding comes from the participation, not just the observation. For example: it's very hard for a Westerner to understand the importance family connections and social status play in the Middle East (and, actually, most of the rest of the world), until they find themselves living in that social context where it is right to make claims on family, and for your family to make claims on you.

Oh goodness, I think I'm in love. Yes, this, exactly this. It's so hard to get people to understand just how much family (and by extension, ethnicity, tribalism, etc.) means in regards to life in the Middle East. Even the word "family" makes this hard to convey. In Lebanon, if I'm talking about my "family", it seems I mean half the country. Here in Australia, it's pretty much just my mother and father and siblings, or maybe the slightly more extended family of uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents. Back in Lebanon it means talking family trees so labyrinthine and extensive that it could really only be described as a forest.

Thank you so very, very much for those posts. It's nice to see someone that actually gets how hard it is to talk about this part of the world.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Freakin' process ate my freakin' post...

Anyway, I get the feeling the article title might have been better referring to culture instead of religion (as indeed the article itself does), though I guess one of the points was that there's no real way to do that. And it's not like I disagree with anything said.

I'm honestly more concerned about my country's culture in general learning to distinguish between stereotypes and reality (though apparently, we're still better than most of Europe), but like with the sexism in society and sexism in gaming thing, they're not exclusive and zero-sum. I get the feeling if Arabs/Persians/Kurds/North Africans/Indonesians/Azeri/Chechens/etc. start receiving more honest portrayals in either general life or games, one will certainly affect the other.

All right, you challenged my Google-Fu.

Quran 8:61: "And if they incline to peace, then incline to it [also] and rely upon Allah. Indeed, it is He who is the Hearing, the Knowing."

Quran 9:5: "Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful."

And as I said, sura 9 takes precedence.

That's not really possible, since they don't contradict each other. Their contexts are very similar, and they're two different presentations; that part of Surah 8 is presented as a general moral lesson (though specifically referring to the Banu Quaraysh, sorta like the Bible presenting moral lessons using the Pharisees and Sadducees), while in Surah 9, it's referring to a specific then-upcoming event. Verses 8:58-62 are roughly saying "if you suspect your enemies will betray you, confront them about it on equal terms while preparing for war. If they betray you, God will strengthen your hand, but if they insist they want peace, trust God and be peaceful." Verses 9:3-5 are saying, in effect, "in about four months, on the day of pilgramage, is when our ceasefire with the Banu Quaraysh will dissolve. If you've got other treaties going on, though, with Pagans who've been keeping up their ends, those are still in full effect. After the dissolution, and when we get to Mecca, kick the Quaraysh's asses, unless they agree to peace and to stop being dicks."

Even if that part of Surah 8 came before (might have, though it's hard to tell, since the Quran is organized by topic, not chronology), neither can really take "precedence." I figured you'd bring up something like the rules concerning alcohol, gambling, or polygamy, since those are the easiest examples of that happening.

Is it completely and utterly evil of me that my first thought on this is that we need to arrange for a live debate between the "Portrayals of Muslims in Videogames" folk and the "Tropes vs Women in Videogames" people? Worthwhile discussions in an open and public forum.

I know... I'm a baaaaddddd man.

...what would they debate? I get the feeling there'd be a bit of overlap between the people will to actually argue for those topics. It might even come down to a compare-and-contrast between damaging portrayals due to fear and ignorance, due to objectification and pandering, or even tragic overlap between the two.

 

[ArkhamJester]

Liberals, the peace at any price movement, and humanitarians like to try and focus on individuals and put a human face on problems

If some Muslim looks in the mirror and the truth hurts, that's a good thing in the long run. This kind of stuff is not being made up and projected onto Muslims as a whole as part of some kind of racist agenda, its really what that culture is like.

Y'know the truth does hurt, but not for the reason you think. The truth hurts because if you and the majority of this thread is any indication my childhood paranoia is wholly justified. Roughly 95% of you people have no clue what the hell your talking about.I have never been to the Middle East I was born and raised here in the states. Religion has always been used as a justification for evil behaviour. But here is the trick it isn't the religion itself that is inherently evil, it is the bastards who misinterpret and outright twist the words to suit whatever they are trying to justify.

Anyone remember the Beatles song Helter Skelter? how that was outright twisted to justify a vile mans actions? Remember how the blame was squarely on the man and not the bible or the beatles?

Therumancer, when you mention how a child grows up hearing how every non muslim is the enemy, those are the words of whatever tyrant is in charge, twisting Islam to suite his needs. After all its easier to claim that everyone you deem the enemy is evil if god "has your back"

Anyone that says the "Culture of the Middle East" simply show just how truly ignorant of the region they are.

There is no "Culture of the Middle East" there are a myriad of cultures, practically a unique one for ever country, usually far more then that. And if you are talking about Islam, which most of you are, then know that just like every other major religion out there, their are multiple sects and extremists groups out there. While it would be bull to say that they don't influence each other, they are all different and truly unique. Also Arab does not necessarily mean Muslim, remember there is a sizable Christian population throughout the region.

FYI outside of Saudi Arabia, the women are in no way "slaves" In the past 10 years alone, more women then ever have been joining the workforce, and not necessarily the "Female accepted" jobs like secretary or teacher. More women are being given government jobs and even positions of authority. Years back it made news that women were being accepted into police academies in certain countries. Even in Saudi Arabia the restrictions on women are finally starting to loosen, and let me tell you, this isn't because they did the "proper" thing and westernise. Hell, my own aunts are a recently graduated architect and a veteran lawyer with her own practice.

I am well aware that the Middle East as a whole (though I stress you really shouldn't think of this complicated region as one whole) isn't as far along in the female rights department as say the US or Europe, but it certainly isn't the backwards cesspool of practical enslavement and biblical time mentality that depressingly many of you think it is.

The soldiers are not fighting Islam, they are fighting Al Qaeda and tyrants. they are not there to attack a religion. While it is true that many of the members of Al Qaeda will identify as Islamic, but the truth is that they are only using it as a justification for their actions, just like the crusades used Christianity, just like Manson used Helter Skelter.

A few of you in this thread ask why the muslim community doesn't try to apologize or better establish that most of us are not like the terrorists (who happen to identify as muslim) To that I only have to say this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=vIkjPwxOcdk#t=11s[youtube]vr3x_RRJdd4[/youtube]

Indeed why should we have to establish that we are human beings and not ignorant murderers.

And in regards to the comments about the cultures changing, there is a bloody rebellion in Syria right now with the explicit purpose of rididng themselves or a tyrant and improving the country in the long run, In Susan they successfully dethroned their tyrant. Change is happening, slow, plodding even, but it is happening.

When I was a kid, and even now, I shut myself away and stick to playing games because I am terrified of making friends. Terrified that they would have a thought process just like most of you in this thread. So yes Therumancer it does hurt to look in the mirror, it hurts knowing that so many of you are gleefully ignorant of a complicated region. it hurts knowing that most of what I type will fall on deaf ears or just be regarded as me either being an "Apologist" or indoctrinated from a young age.

For many of you there simply is no scenario where Islam isn't some form of institutionalized corruption. If just one of you will take the time to do some real research, not just look up the absolute worst that comes from the region or the religion or whatever Fox has on the T.V. Whether that means reading the Qu'ran for yourselves or looking up anthropolgy reports or whatever, then this post wasn't in vain.

Signed: an ignorant, indoctrinated, womens rights hating, xenophobic, muslim.

 

[Therumancer]

[

Indeed why should we have to establish that we are human beings and not ignorant murderers.

And in regards to the comments about the cultures changing, there is a bloody rebellion in Syria right now with the explicit purpose of rididng themselves or a tyrant and improving the country in the long run, In Susan they successfully dethroned their tyrant. Change is happening, slow, plodding even, but it is happening.

When I was a kid, and even now, I shut myself away and stick to playing games because I am terrified of making friends. Terrified that they would have a thought process just like most of you in this thread. So yes Therumancer it does hurt to look in the mirror, it hurts knowing that so many of you are gleefully ignorant of a complicated region. it hurts knowing that most of what I type will fall on deaf ears or just be regarded as me either being an "Apologist" or indoctrinated from a young age.

For many of you there simply is no scenario where Islam isn't some form of institutionalized corruption. If just one of you will take the time to do some real research, not just look up the absolute worst that comes from the region or the religion or whatever Fox has on the T.V. Whether that means reading the Qu'ran for yourselves or looking up anthropolgy reports or whatever, then this post wasn't in vain.

Signed: an ignorant, indoctrinated, womens rights hating, xenophobic, muslim.

To cut to the basics here.

At the end of the day, there is one basic metaculture present through "The Middle East" deriving from very similar interpetations of the Muslim faith. There are different tribes, nations, and points of view, many of which do not get along but they are united by a lot more similarities than differences. This is why there are so many calls for "Jihad" to put aside those differences and attack those that the overwhelming majority of the people in the region believe are the enemy. It's also why Bin Ladin was willing to surrender early on but only if he could be tried in a Muslim country under Islamic law, and why despite a huge amount of fighting when it came to facing the US and it's allies during "Desert Storm" Saddam was able to hide military forces in Iran to prevent them from being destroyed.

Understand that there are exceptions, and you might even one of them, but we're talking about the big picture not individual exceptions that defy the trends. What's more, I myself pointed out that there isn't generally that big a problem with Islamics that happen to be born and raised apart from that culture.

Incidently, your also dealing with the opposite of ignorance, since I myself demonstrated the truth by showing what is going on in the region. The source not being one network, program, or fringe videos distributed by some underground video house, but what passes for public education in the region. Sure there might be progressives in the region, but they represent a tiny minority.

Things like Al Queda are simply the violent arm of the problem, the active fighters. The problem is that they are a symptom of the bigger problem. If Al Queda is defeated as long as the central metaculture of the region continues more groups of the same sort will just appear to replace them, as the entire metaculture of the region is designed to produce it.

What's more, I do not put much credence in someone pulling the "I'm a Muslim and I'm okay" card as that's pretty much what you'd expect. It's possible that you are one of the progressives and yourself do not see the problems and believe what you are saying. It's also possible that it's a carefully considered argument because such arguments are a very effective way to undermine sentiment in the US since it's what people actually want to believe. I look back at cases where we've had progressive seeming professors at universities here in the US secretly running information hubs for terrorism. Sensible, peaceful arguments on one hand, makes you want to sympathize, but then look behind the curtain and... ooops. Trust me, when I say I've put a lot of thought into my positions and spent a lot of time examining the facts across a wide range of points of view, which is in part why it was so easy for me to provide a few links reinforcing my points right off the cuff.

Also, if you read what I said you'd notice that I mentioned very specifically that the Qua'ran is no worse than any other religious text, and that Islam could be practiced peacefully and in cohabitation with other societies, and indeed is for a number of people. That is however not the case with the metaculture dominating the Middle East which represents the core of the problems that are being dealt with.

What's more you mention Syria, but understand that this is not a war to overthrow a tyrant, it's actually a war between two religious factions... the Sunnis and the Shiites going at it once again. The sides are defined largely by religion and both sides want their faith to dominate. We already saw what happened here with Iraq, where instead of being progressive the first thing a Shiite majority did was ensure in their new constitution that they were going to be an Islamic state, as opposed to separating the church and state and making way for more progressive laws and reforms.

I'm one of those people who actually thinks we should stay out of Syria other than to prevent the Russians from selling/installing weapon systems there. After all whoever takes over is going to be bad news, and keeping Syria vulnerable in case we, or Isreal, have to go in is in our best interests. Other than that, as far as I'm concerned
they are welcome to blow each other to pieces as much as they want.

As jaded as that sounds, understand that we already trusted several groups in the region and it generally backfires. We pretty much built up Saddam to be a progressive influence in the region and stand off Iran so we wouldn't have to get involved directly. Pretty much letting Muslims deal with other Muslims and dealing with what were supposed to be progressive factions to help reform the region... that ended beautifully, largely because Saddam decided he could get a better deal from Russian patronage and they would let him go a-conquering which was pretty much what he really wanted to begin with. When it comes to Afghanistan... again, our mess, we trusted these "Taliban Freedom Fighters" (yes I remember when I was a kid they were portrayed as the good guys) who proceeded to create an even more horrorific regime than the one the Russians were allied with. Despite pretty much giving these guys their country, they backed Bin Ladin and refused to give him to us when we tried to go through diplomatic channels since by rights The Taliban should have
been our allies in the region.... the bottom line here being that every time we trust a "progressive faction" in the region we wind up making a bigger mess because we simply don't want to accept how much of a xenocidal mess the region is. The only time anyone seems interested in being progressive is as a buzzword when they are trying to get US support. As a result I have no interest in getting involved in Syria (at least not the way being discussed) because even if the rebels we back win, they are going to be tomorrow's bad guys following the typical pattern. We WANT to believe that there are heroic, progressive, freedom fighters in the region, fighting against a radical minority, but that isn't really the truth, and which has a lot to do with our failures in the region.

That said, we're not going to agree. You think I'm wrong, I think your wrong. Ultimatly time will tell.

Also don't get me wrong, I actually kind of wish you were right, but from everything I've seen, researched, and run into, I do not think you are.

-

On a side note, while I mentioned it in passing, and it has little to do with any of this, Manson's dogma was largely reactionary to the "Black Muslim" faith and their belief in a great uprising against white people who were created by the sorcerer/scientist Yakub to enslave them. I made a reference to the Wikipedia page on that which does an okay, if not perfect job of handling it. The thing is though that none of the mainstream Muslim faiths in The Middle East seem to acknowledge Yakub (or didn't) which is why I mentioned it as a side point about a non-Middle Eastern group that represents a problem... alongside those Muslims who are divorced from the regional metaculture and manage to live alongside others peacefully without their faith ever coming up (I myself have pointed out they do exist, but are globally speaking a tiny minority when it comes to the genuine ones as opposed to those playing that card to hide in other societies).

Strictly speaking while The Beatles couldn't be blamed for what Manson did, arguably Black Muslims could be, as his insanity seemed to largely be reactionary to those calls for a race war, along with Manson's belief that whites were doomed to near extinction, and that extreme measures were the only way to ensure we'd ever survive or come back to anything resembling a civilization... or at least that is my understanding of it. In Manson's Dogma "Helter Skelter" which he just took from the song (for whatever reason) is what he called that apocalyptic war/uprising in which most whites were going to be killed. It has very little to do with the song which is about a slide at a playground if I remember correctly.

 

[NeutralDrow]

The soldiers are not fighting Islam, they are fighting Al Qaeda and tyrants. they are not there to attack a religion. While it is true that many of the members of Al Qaeda will identify as Islamic, but the truth is that they are only using it as a justification for their actions, just like the crusades used Christianity, just like Manson used Helter Skelter.

What's more, it's a demonstrably, ludicrously poor justification. Most of their targets and the majority of their victims are Muslims of every stripe, and that's not a bug, it's a feature. With Al Qaeda and other groups practicing takfir, you could easily say that they're the ones fighting Islam. After all, when the clerics[footnote]Not that there aren't also problems with the ulama, I realize.[/footnote] gathered in Jordan and issued a statement saying in part "we represent every legal and mystical school of thought in Islam today, and we say that anyone who thinks they can randomly declare someone to be not a 'true' Muslim is talking out of their asses," the response from Global Jihadist groups was basically "oh yeah, well you're all heretics too!"

I'm not a Muslim, myself, so I can't match your feeling exactly...but speaking as someone going into international security-related fields as a career, I think I can come close. I'm not in a position to feel personal insult, but I do feel frustration over the kind of willful, toxic ignorance it takes to not only lump a massive group of incredibly disparate people and cultures together under a single heading against actual evidence, and to not only then assign them every atrociously negative quality they hear about (regardless of source), but to allow that drown out anything they learn to the contrary. The kind of ignorance it would take to read <url=http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2011/01/egyptian_muslims_act_as_human_shields_for_coptic_christmas_mass.html>something like this and dismiss it implying nothing at all, like some twisted inversion of "some of my best friends are black." Ignorance that's not just wrong, but actively harmful.

In other words, I feel ya, dude. Though I guess I'm just a college-educated librul (who reads Reza Aslan, of all people), so what do I know, huh?

 

[flarty]

Ah a religious article, great.

Muslims get a tough wrap, it really is a shame to judge a whole religious nation of people, especially when its made up of so many different races and creeds. The question we must really ask ourselves is why are they portrayed as violent sociopaths at any given opportunity in the media. Even in the news?

I mean everyone remembers the death of an American ambassador in Libya, but did anyone hear about the little reported incident after when all the locals decided enough was enough and chased the extremists thought responsible from the area. It was so little reported on that i cant even find an article regarding the incident.

If you ask me its one massive smear campaign so people arent horrified by western sponsored atrocities in the middle east.

 

[Azahul]

At the end of the day, there is one basic metaculture present through "The Middle East" deriving from very similar interpetations of the Muslim faith.

This is kinda key to the entire argument here. This "basic metaculture" is impossible to define in any meaningful way. "The Middle East" is a region that means nothing in regards to making generalisations about the people that live in it. The fact that you believe otherwise is why the implementation of some of Rath's suggestions is so important.

For example, those links you posted? Two out of the four of them are from Al-Aqsa TV, from the same program no less. Produced by, you know, the state-television studio of Palestine, run by Hamas. A third is a news report about the exact same part of the world. Putting aside the ridiculousness of taking what is essentially war-time propaganda more intrinsic to the Israel-Palestine situation than anything and declaring it evidence of a widespread trend in Muslim society, you're taking very nearly all your evidence from one source, and one area. It's... kind of mind-boggling, honestly. The article talks about a problem in Western media of using Muslim as some kind of blanket term that infers an automatic predisposition towards certain stances, and your response is to say it's wrong by pointing to a single example of one small part of Muslim culture that acts in a certain way. Not to mention that coupled with the phrase:

The source not being one network, program, or fringe videos distributed by some underground video house, but what passes for public education in the region.

It seems like you're actually unaware of this fact. To be clear, the videos you posted are mostly from one network, even one program. They do not infer a widespread hatred of the West, hatred of women, or hatred of non-Muslims within the Middle East. They show a hatred of Israel and its western supporters within the comparatively tiny geographical area of Palestine, presumably because... oh, I dunno, the whole history of the Palestinians vs Israel. But that is only a very small part of the Muslim world, which is the entire point of the article and this topic.

Honestly, the rest of your post doesn't have much to do with the topic at hand. You're citing a lot of events and locations and using it to make... some kind of point, I suppose, but it doesn't really seem linked to topic at hand. No offence intended, but your posts in this topic haven't actually done a very good job of tying your evidence to your argument against Rath's points (or even making it clear what your opposition to Rath's article actually is). Some of your arguments outright support Rath's idea that we need to foster more understanding of the variances of Muslim culture and the Muslim world. You mention the utter failure of propping up the Taliban as an example, but if anything that just proves that you really need to pay attention to the cultural and social tensions whenever you invade anywhere. The Muslim world has problems. No one has ever disagreed with you on this point. It's just that a lot of these "universal" problems are nowhere near universal, a lot of these universal attitudes are not universal, and the whole culture of the region is so much more complex and fractured than the media gives credence to.

On an unrelated note, could you link me some information on Iraq hiding troops in Iran during Operation Desert Storm? I've never made a study of the Gulf War (my study of the history of the region is much more focused on Lebanon/Israel/Palestine, and even more focused on the 50s-80s), and I've never heard of this happening. Sounds absolutely fascinating, and a brief google search turned up nothing.

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

This is probably the best approach [http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html] that I've seen when it comes to dealing with any characters of a demographic that is subject to stereotype (whether Russians, Muslims, women, atheists, republicans, scientists or whatever)

Short version: The problem of stereotyping comes when we have a single character (or a single kind of character, like a character replicated many times, as is common in video games) that represents the only example of a given demographic. It becomes natural for the audience to jump to conclusions [https://xkcd.com/385/] that any trait unique to that character is related to their other unique traits.

Ergo, if you only have fanatical terrorists representing Islam in your story, that will be how the audience will regard Muslims in your world. If you have a variety (even a mere handful) of Muslims each with different interests, motives, goals, attitudes and so on, this will demonstrate that Islam does not directly correlate with the traits that vary amongst them. (Though it will also reinforce those traits that are consistent amongst your Muslim characters, so you have to be careful.)

Similarly, when you have one woman in your ensemble, then all her unique traits will be associated with her sex. Having multiple women in your story allows the audience to see which of those traits are not necessarily related to their gender.

238U

 

[Nejira]

You know there are a diffence between being from the Middleeast/being a "middle eastern" and being a muslim right? There are muslims here in Scandinavia where I live and not all of them are from the middleeast. One is a nationality/ethnicity and the other a religion. Nationality/ethnicity is not a choice (although nationality is later in life) but religion is a choice. Not the same thing. Just because I was born in Europe, am white it does not mean that I am a christian. What I am however is a caucasian and an european.

 

[Xisin]

I read the article and the comments that followed and I can now honestly say that I know why nothing gets done in politics.

 

[nyysjan]

Wonder what kind of image people would get from USA if they only listened to Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh?

 

[Jedi-Hunter4]

Reading through these comments it's astounding the level of misguided hypocrisy.

First off my main problem with the article. Think about it just how many times in these games are these charters stated as Muslim, explicitly? Very rarely,the writer is placing a stereotype upon these characters himself by assuming all people of middle eastern and north African descent are Muslim, which as he rightly points out (but does not seem to have the self awareness to take in the information he is offering) not all are.

Another point, when the hell did criticizing Islam become a racial thing? A lot of the radicals that are being dealt with are western converts. I'm not sure if this is a divide between the US and Europe, but in the EU I think we have probably had a lot more exposure to Islam, if you live in a UK city for example, there will be at least a small Islamic community. People do make offhand comments, everyone does, not saying it's right. But I don't think the overriding prejudice here is by any means a racial thing.

The concern and the prejudice I would say is centered out of a fear and concern out of the ability Islam currently seems to have to be manipulated and convert Muslim and Non-Muslim alike, from good upbringings, into full on radicals bent on harming people. The vast Majority of UK terror attacks have been committed by our own citizens in recent years, the worst in recent memory the 7/7 bombings in London was carried out by homegrown terrorists. Is it not almost logical for people to fear something (even if it has been manipulated) that turned people we consider our own to attack and kill their fellow Britons?

In the article the Skyrim reference in my opinion is just pathetic, I never once viewed the Redgaurd in a negative light, my main thought on them was how epicaly cool every encounter I had with them was.

The fact is we have been and still are at War with radical Islamic Cells over the middle eastern and northern Africa regions, our media will reflect this, these people will not be shown in a good light, nobody want to sympathize with an enemy and to humanize them while we still have our own coming back in body bags, that's life. If you can't understand that you have probably lived a very sheltered life and have an over idealized view of the world. When you know it's your neighbors coming back to their family's without their legs who believed they were going to these countries to help the good people there build a better life separate from these radical monsters who would make their fellow Muslims suffer just as much as they would us if they had the power you can probably better understand.

The one comment I will make that could be a good shift is showing a better representation of the Muslims standing side by side with us to fight these oppressive and radical powers, the interpreters, guides, native armed forces and of course the Muslim men and women in our armed forces. I thought the film green zone did a good job of this, showing an native interpreter risking his life and that of his family essentially to try and help his country.

 

[Jedi-Hunter4]

...You do realize that Christians still worship that kind of God, right? Sure he might not advocate stoning rape victims /now/, but there was certainly a period where he was cool with it. Sends children to hell, too. And the Jews still have all of the crazier Hebrew Bible laws still technically canon, but nobody minds, because they don't actually hurt anybody. See, there's this fascinating new concept we just got from the Athenians--it's called the justice system. When somebody does something bad, they're punished for their actions. Conversely, when someone doesn't do something bad, they're not punished. We're still working out the kinks, but if everything goes right, we might be able to hold people accountable for their actions. Wonderful new idea, really. Judging individuals when they do something wrong...I tell ya, those Athenians come up with the wackiest forms of government.

You have kind of invalidated your whole point by using a topic you obviously only have popular culture references for, nobody is going to take you serious on as complex a topic as the 2000 year history of Christianity, it's development and interpretation by 100's of different sects. You have also made the mistake I see the vast majority of people making by taking the bible literally, I've made this point before, the bible is not written as a strait text, it is riddled with metaphors and symbolic stories, not all of it is meant to be taken literally, most forward thinking modern biblical scholars do not literally believe the story of Noah's ark, how thick do you think these people are? I don't think I have ever met a priest in fact that takes the stories like that literally. Any way back to the point it's a common misconception that Athens created the just kind of government we have today, they allowed people to vote, that's it. Also you had to be a Man, a Citizen and a Landowner.

- They also kept slaves (Who were beaten for crimes that would be a fine for a free man)
- Were undeniably Xenophobic for huge periods of their history with a few exceptions
- They had laws governing pederastic relationships (A romantic relationship between a Man and a boy restricted up to the point of sodomy)

They made a step forward in terms of the justice system but it was till far from fair by today's standards because of many of the laws they were enforcing.

When you produce some of the great classical heroes and Scholars people like to forget the legal pedophilia and slavery!

 

[Malty Milk Whistle]

Snuh-Ip

Don't bother saying anything to therumancer, he's a renowned....I don't quite know what the word is, but he REALLY irks everyone on the board and seems to think that massed walls of bizarre text a good argument make.

My take on this whole thing is quite different compared to most people I know, mainly due to an ex-islamic uncle who was kicked out of Syria when there was all that stuff a while back.
I'm also quite disgusted by some people saying stuff along the lines of "Islam says some bad stuff, therefore all Islamic people are evil" as the amount of Eurocentric bias is staggering.

You cannot comprehend a entire smorgasbord of civilisations until you've actually had proper contact with all of them (something I haven't, but I'm planning to) and judging by the amount of silliness going on, I'm assuming most of of western civilisation has had little to none actual experience or even a conversation. It may shock some, but one cannot group an entire mass of cultures under 'designated evil villain' and expect that it's fine to make frankly daft statements about them without having ever met a member of that culture.
It's widely accepted racism...or religionism....or entiregoddamedlandmassism....
I don't know.

The only bit I'm critical about in the article is that Dorne is pretty much spain, with the Moors (the salty dornishmen) and the Spanish(the stony dornishmen) and according to most, it's the place where the least shit has hit the fan.

 

[ExileNZ]

Better Representing Muslims: A Few Ideas

Muslims don't always have to be antagonist of the war game.

Read Full Article

You make some nice points, none of which I particularly want to contest, but let me just add something:

"the English, Scots, Irish, Americans, and Canadians", as well as South Africans, Australians, New Zealanders and a number of others I've surely forgotten to mention are lumped together solely because they speak English.

The term most commonly used is "Anglo-Saxon", which always got up my nose because the Anglo-Saxons have been buried for centuries, but I digress. We're lumped together like that all the time, and the worst thing is that the longer I spend overseas, the more I start using that term myself.

I'm not justifying lumping all Muslims, Arabs and Middle Eastern people together, I'm just saying that the idea is not so alien since it goes both ways.

 

[hornedcow]

The problem comes from fanaticism. The Bible is a horrible book with terrible life lessons and even worse characters, and thankfully not many people follow it. Judaism and Christianity have been around long enough to have...mellowed...out some. They did their Crusades and Inquisitions and whatnot. Islam is the youngest of the three and still going through its difficult teenage years. And embracing a troubled teen doesn't make them any LESS a troubled teen.
I'm all for equality, but fanatic Muslims love to quote the Qur'an on how a truly devout Muslim won't allow other religions to exist.

Exactly, fanatics. But there are always fanatics in every belief system, even non-religious ones, and the concept that religions that have existed longer than others are more "mellowed" is just flat out wrong. The existence groups like the Hindu nationalist RSS or the various sectarian paramilitaries in Northern Ireland, or even lone nutters Anders Behring Breivik prove that.

And the idea that most Muslims aren't on board is...nice...but its the same idea that most Scientologists don't believe in aliens. Its what they say to outsiders. I'd bet that given a choice between a world of many religious beliefs, and one of ONLY Islam...most Muslims are going to choose the latter. Not that they aren't pleasant people, but in private they decry a lot of what people do.

Again, such bigotry and closed mindedness is not exclusive to Muslims. How many working-class Brits do you think talk about the "Pakis" taking their jobs, or how many southern Americans complain about the godless queers amongst their friends. The reason people keep those prejudices to themselves is because they want to fit in with a society that's long since deemed those views unacceptable. And fitting in is the last thing I'd expect a people who plot the destruction of said society to do.

 

[Thaluikhain]

And to all those saying "You can't judge Islam by the Qu'ran/hadith" You're basically saying you can't judge a religion by its fundamental ideological basis and are therefore a moron.

By it's nominal basis. Not necessarily the same thing.

...

Eh, no reason we can't have Islamic space marines getting eaten by bugs, as opposed to western space marines getting eaten by bugs.