Therumancer said:
The point here is that getting people to come out and party in the middle of streets over anything is rough, you just don't generally see it outside of movies. We did see it there though, as an international/meta-cultural phenomena. Whether the number is actually 90% or not (that's actually just a guess from how it looked and was reported) the bottom line is that I treat any kind of suggestion that 9/11 and anti-western sentiment is from a small minority, or even estimates like 50%.
50% may seem like a small number compared to your 90% guess, but that is actually quite a large percentage of people who believe an attack on innocent civilians in a country that is not actively at war with you is justified. As you said though, the study does include a significant number of Muslims who aren't in the main areas of hostility towards America. I'd like to see those numbers revealed by country as I'd believe that some more peaceful regions that are US friendly (Indian Muslims, for example) would have skewed the data downwards a fair bit. They have to be careful doing that though, as this particular question can rally people to a cause and if you actually had a nation that was over 90% on that question then we'd begin singling out certain nationals.
Azahul said:
The grey area is easy. The US often seems to forget that 9/11 was not an unprovoked act. Outside of the 7% that hold it as completely justified, you have a lot of very angry people across, well, the entire world when it comes to the US. In the Middle East, you have several prior invasions and the backing of groups like the Taliban and individuals like Saddam Hussein. And across the world you have all those problems with cultural imperialism and American companies running rampant. I'm, frankly, impressed at the 55% calling it unjustified.
An attack on civilians would have been condemned by their own prophet and that's speaking of a man who built an empire bent on conquering the world within just a few decades of its inception (from Medina to Spain in less than 100 years, no small feat). Many of us even have problems with the Dresden bombings and the bombings of Japan and those were countries who were actively at war with us. It takes a special kind of mindset to justify such an attack on non-combatants. The 55% need not surprise you when the study is worldwide and not region based. The numbers from Iran would differ greatly from the numbers from India or China.
I... really don't think that was the intention. "Qualified" seems to pretty clearly mean in the sense that a potential worker has the correct education and experience, and I think you're rather underestimating the intelligence of any interviewees that think that it's ok to answer "Yes" to that question while still holding the view that women are unqualified due to their gender.
What does "intention" have to do with anything? It's the effect that matters. It's great that you likely live in a country with significant efforts to establish gender equality but you have to understand that these are cultures where being a woman literally disqualifies you from certain jobs. Had they begun asking about specific jobs they would have found what appears to be a significant inconsistency arise. Imagine if you'd just gotten an affirmative to the previous question and then asked if they could be a cashier only to get a no because then men would have to talk to her as is not culturally acceptable in their society. "Of course being able to talk with customers to take orders and money is a requirement of being a cashier". If I were a store owner in a Middle Eastern culture with that kind of custom I would be unable to hire women in client-facing positions even if I wanted to.
To look at this kind of study an use it to shrug off Islamic culture's outright degradation and abuse of women is a great insult to all the women impacted by a very different reality that flies in the face of any such study.
I'd love to find out more about the intricacies of these studies. For example, how many of the surveyors were female? That number being significant at all could significantly skew results due to the customs I mentioned. In a culture where men don't usually talk to women, the kind of people who respond are already those who don't follow the local customs. They say that they did this in an unbiased way but I'd love to have access to regular footage of them performing the surveys and where they performed them. For example, did they go from house to house or did they do it largely in colleges or other such places? If there's anything I've learned from all the coursework I did in statistics, it's that surveys can be biased in three ways. The wording of the questions, the way survey collectors conduct the surveys, and the way that the sample is randomized. The absolute most important component is that the sample be random. You can even forgive the other two points of bias to a significant extent if the sample size is large and random enough. If the study is done right, then the numbers speak for themselves. Some people would say that interpretation is another area for bias but how the group performing the study interprets them is meaningless when the numbers stand firm.
If 90% of Muslims follow these "core beliefs" to the letter, then in the years I've spent in the Middle East and South East Asia I've managed to only encounter that final 10%. And that's not true. These beliefs exist, yes, and they're written down in the holy books, but they're not followed in just the same way Christians don't tend to follow ideas like women being made to serve men.
It is what Islam teaches, it is not necessarily what Muslims practice. These aren't only religious beliefs, but also legal beliefs as I've explained. There is a difference when a national religion has been established in a way that involves it in the legal process.
What makes you think Christians don't believe that women are to obey their husbands? I'd say the numbers of people who don't follow that is increasing but it's still a VERY common belief/practice. It is even regularly taught from the pulpit.
I don't know why your experience would be particularly relevant. What verse/belief that I presented would be something that would have impacted you? As I stated regarding the "fight unbelievers" verse, it's out of context despite being a controversial one. Did you go there shouting that there is no Allah or something like that to disprove the verse's acceptance. Were you a Muslim's wife for a time and did you mouth off more than three times? Are you a female who successfully drove a car around Saudi Arabia without being properly attired and having a male escort? Were you a ten year-old female whose father was attempting to entice a 40-year old wealthy man into marrying you or something?
I'm not sure how you'd really come across these things that largely happen behind the scenes.
I know exactly how I interpret each example. As kooky laws written down centuries ago in a different time and culture, laws that aren't applicable today. And I don't know very many Muslims that agree with any of them. And I'm not even sure what your point is here. Beliefs written in a holy book are not indicative of cultural homogeneity. Christians in sub-Saharan Africa are different from Christians in Romania and different again from Christians in the USA. Christians in any of these regions are hardly identical in their beliefs as well. Muslims are exactly the same.
I dare you to say this exact paragraph within a populated Muslim establishment in pretty much any of the Islamic nations. "What do you think of these Qur`anic verses," "I interpret them as kooky laws written down centries ago...". If dealing with American Muslims, they very well may agree with you thanks to the integration into our culture but you'd likely get offense in the same way Christians would be offended. I wouldn't anticipate violence though. If dealing with Indian Muslims your speech may be angrily tolerated or you may be physically removed from the establishment and taught a lesson out back. I fear for your very life at the blasphemy you've spoken in say, Iran. Either at the hands of the locals or even the government itself.
Let's not even get started on apostasy, an automatic death sentence in nearly every Islamic nation, both locally within the culture and legally.
What's interesting is that people like you project their own sensibilities onto these very different cultures. You think that just because you and I believe these verses to be archaic that these other countries would too. But that's not the case. They're several decades behind us at least and that's only assuming that they're progressing our way thanks to the distance diminishing force that is the internet.
A question you should ask is what would happen in most Muslim cultures if you were to walk into the street and burn a Qur`an. Yes, you'd be stupid for doing something like that in any culture. But the ability to offend Islam is not present at all.
For all my studies and interactions with peaceful Muslims. I've very much wanted to consider Islam peaceful. But that would be a lie. Islam is incompatible with pluralistic ideals and Western culture without significant revisions. The current movement to make it out to be peaceful is to counteract the very real and very wrong persecution of Muslims by Americans who are quick to stereotype individuals around them. I understand this motivation. I understand wanting to do anything to protect innocent people who don't deserve such discrimination and even persecution. But the way to do that isn't to lie about something. It's to come down hard about prejudice, something that is intrinsically evil.
For goodness sake, I feel like I'm talking in circles. The article is saying that we don't represent Muslims in a way that accurately depicts the reality. Given that we almost only depict Muslims as terrorists in our video games, there's no way Rath can really be wrong in that respect. No one is saying that there aren't deeply embedded problems in a lot of Islamic cultures. What is wrong is presenting these cultures as all the same, with the same beliefs, and that's all I'm trying to argue.
Meaning we don't depict Taliban forces like they're just charging troops with kittens and candies? Perhaps the Al Qaeda forces in video games should be secretly trying to get into tickle fights.
The issue isn't that Muslims are being misrepresented. It's that the groups that aren't extreme or militant aren't relevant to the stories we see them in. The groups being represented are entirely apt but by no means make up the normal Muslim.
I do wonder how a game would go over regarding a main character who is Muslim but is also American. To see those two qualities conflict while fighting militant Muslisms overseas. It's certainly ripe for dialogue but I don't know how Americans would recieve it.
This is by no means a universal reality. It certainly isn't universally followed or believed. It's only even fully practiced in a bare handful of countries, and even famous examples like Iran do not follow their religious dogma in law exactly.
Right. This is why I'm specifying that I do not believe the context of that verse to be what people assume it is. I thought it may be beneficial for you and me to discuss this as we're likely in agreement here. As long as individuals do not directly insult Islam or publically practice their faith, they're generally safe. Those verses in context generally refer to other nations who are militant and is the grounds for taking over another nation to impose Sharia law moreso than harming the individual. This is what people confuse when they think of spreading Islam by the sword. They (people who have not studied Islam) believe that terminology means that they demand people convert or they kill them. That is not (or should not) be the case. It's an overall spreading by military conquering which may still be upsetting but certainly has a different opponent than the individual. Individual entities within an Islamic nation are then only confronted for doing something contrary to Sharia law.
Right, I'm cutting up this paragraph because I think it's critical to our disagreement here. You are correct in that, theoretically, this is supposed to be what the denominations teach. The reality is that even preachers rarely teach a lot of the examples you cited, and the reality for individual Muslims and their beliefs vary dramatically. And above all, if it isn't what Muslims actually believe, it's fundamentally irrelevant. What's the point in harping on about something as indicative of a culture if the majority of that culture doesn't believe in it?
Because it's part of their laws. Sharia law is a derivative of Qur`anic passages and the specific Hadith source that the relative school of law adheres to. Western criticism and political pressure has made their enforcement of these laws a lot more difficult but only on cases that catch the public eye. Men are legally allowed to treat their wives that way as well as to allow those marriage practices and it's fairly common in the bedouin societies still. Add that to commonly know practices like female circumcision and being a female in an Islamic society can be quite the hard knock life.
I really don't think you are. You're judging an imaginary religion that only exists within the Western psyche as a result of what the media has presented to us. Islam as this monolithic entity divided into only two big sects (Shiite and Sunni) all believing in those fundamental precepts you laid out is nothing more than a myth. Actually go and explore the culture sometime. It is a lot of fun, eye-opening, and will hopefully rid you of this misconception that modern Muslims still act like medieval Christians.
No, I am judging the actual letter of their laws that are often criticized by other nations when particularly egregious examples surface.
Have you actually studies the Islamic faith and the resulting Sharia law? It honestly sounds like you're projecting your Western culture onto other cultures. Essentially, you're doing the same thing you think I'm doing. Just in the other direction.
Not exactly. I'm taking exception to you calling them "mainstream beliefs", when the reality is so much more complicated and convoluted.
A mainstream belief is an orthodox/accepted belief. Particularly one that has found its way into law. Tell me, in a Sunni nation, what do you think the law has to say about someone who blasphemes? Do you believe that there is no such law that regards that or do you know full well that it exists and how extreme the punishments can be? I mean, hell, these are nations that cut off the hands of thieves regardless of the extent of the theft as long as they're repeat offenders (two, for example). Why? Because the Qur`an says to. We are literally looking at a theonomistic religion that is in the seat of power over several nations. That makes a difference.
The 5 schools of law (4 Sunni, 1 Shi`ite) take commands of the Qur`an and their respective hadith source and literally rate each command from outright demand to recommended but not compulsory. It's typically a 5-point scale that even rates brushing one's teeth (Muhammad had a habbit of brushing his teeth with a root and so the action has been considered righteous and therefore given a religious/legal rating. I forget the rating but I don't believe it was compulsory like not drinking or eating pork are).
