General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Dear Liberals: Being Critical of Islam Is Not Racism [View all]sibelian
(7,804 posts)These are unambiguously BAD THINGS. I don't think paraphrasing me with exclamation marks is going to alter the moral significance of these actions.
"But, if our goal is eradicating racism, sexism, and homophobia everywhere it exists" - Noooooo, our goal is preventing an INCREASE in such problems in our nations that may arise through refusing to acknowledge that inviting large numbers of homophobic, misogynistic, authority loving weirdos is likely to increase the frequency of misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, antisemitic attacks on innocent people!
The idea that we could significantly alter the Middle East's cultural landscape in any significant way over a reasonable timespan is silly, for one thing. Any long-term project we could adhere to is likely to dissipate before it has any real effect because OUR societies morph and develop rapidly according to changing global circumstances. Family relations, interpersonal relations, our perspectives on other nations, economic problems, all our strategies around these things are up for grabs and being moulded and discarded and re-introduced through triangulation-enabled democracy. EVERYTHING is part of the Western political conversation. That's not necessarily true elsewhere. We can't rely on our own nation's perspectives on any of these things to remain the same from one generation to the next, so we can't develop any realistic response to Islamic fundamentalism over democratic timescales, the problem of dissipating global prejudice against the already disenfranchised is generational, it's not something you solve in an election cycle, or even three election cycles. We are responsible for OUR people. We can't take responsibility for everybody.
"how does dividing up racists, sexists and homophobes and declaring those who also practice Islam uniquely evil help us to achieve our goal?"
1. It stops racism (yes, substantial numbers of fundamentalist Muslims are horribly racist, so are many Chinese people and a substantial proportion of the Japanese, and Koreans, you should hear the stories one of my ex-work colleagues used to tell about her trips home to Hong Kong, they all thought she was a low-class maid from the Phillipines because she was taller than most Chinese people despite being entirely of Chinese ancestry, racism isn't some kind of mysteriously Western phenomenon), and sexism and homophobia spreading through crowds via peer support and establishing itself as a cultural norm.
2. I am NOT declaring "all those who practice Islam" as uniquely evil, that is a mischaracterisation of my position, I wish you would stop doing this. You must know perfectly well by now what it is I'm saying, please stop making me responsible for correcting your flights of fancy in this direction. I live with Muslim people on my street, thank you. What I am saying is that Islam is a conduit for misogyny and homophobia, just as many other religions are, and it is uniquely Islamic nations that validate and enshrine grotesquely abusive reactions to women and gay men in law, women being by far the more greatly affected, I will add. There are many Islamic nations which do not engage in this, that fact does not change the religion of the nations that do, nor does it dissolve the connection between those nations legals structures and their religion.
3. You can give up trying to persuade me that the West's previously attempted and ridiculous and totally self-defeating military strategies against the ME are going to have any bearing on our understanding of the nature of Islam. Just because bombing it doesn't fix it doesn't mean that theocracy is some kind of super-fun thing we're all supposed to think is morally acceptable. I haven't advocated any military action against any Islamic nation (although I have no problem whatsoever with specialist operations against ISIS, who are just plain evil). I have no idea why you keep bring it up. I protested against the Iraq War in Glasgow and Edinburgh along with everyone else and was ignored by Blair along with everyone else. I have no idea who or what it is you think I am.
I keep seeing people saying "Islam isn't monolithic" well it's FUCKLOAD more monolithic than any kind of Western culture, I'll tell you that for nothing. Obviously it isn't possible to point at any individual Muslim and say "that guy believes X" any more than it is with any other belief structure, and it is also a fundamental of liberalism that this individual Muslim has the right to that acknowledgement of his or her individuality, but that fundamental point in and of itself does not form a basis from which to dismiss observations of Islam as a whole.