With Merkel's Foes in Disarray, Germany Defies the Trump Trend

[Dill]

(04-28-2017, 07:55 PM)masterpanthera_t Wrote: Yet there is (or potentially could be) some aspect of the lure to terrorism from certain components within the "religious" texts (I put them in quotes simply because I'm not well versed in the differences between Hadiths and the Q'uran and the way different groups may interpret and value them).  A significant part of the terrorism is perpetrated by those who many would consider to be successful in life (doctors, engineers etc. at different levels of the terrorist organizational hierarchy).  Now what I'm attempting to inquire on is - what level of such behaviors is somewhat embedded in the interpretation of the religious texts, not just in the context of terrorism, but also many cultural aspects which if not anathemic are antithetical to the values of the civilized parts of the world? 

  However, is it not prudent that while acknowledging that the above mentioned differences exist in the Muslim world, that we delve deeper to understand the differences say between  Indonesia and Libya, or Saudia Arabia and Kosovo in terms of their Islamic beliefs and their impact on the cultural ethos?  And to further delve into why maybe we as a nation could judge the merits of the value systems of different countries before we just import them into our cultural fabric?  

  But part of the problem is that even when "moderate" people of intellectual curiosity and an eye on overall security for our nation, can't even ask these questions before being labeled as violators of religious rights or bigoted fools, how do we truly understand how the impacts of certain ideas (the stuff that was surveyed in say U.K. and elsewhere) will be felt in our society now and going forward?  
 

You raise a number of valid points here Masterp.

1. Religious behavior of Jews, Christians and Muslims usually is intimately connected to their texts, but the texts are simply not univocal. They are always read through traditions which frame them differently.  Think of Jews reading the story of Moses as the story of the lawgiver who guided the Jews to the Promised Land (but could not enter), and Christians reading it as the anti-type of Christ. Same words, very different content and prophetic import. Add to this historical context. Jews in a Jewish state and Christians in a Christian state tend to read their texts less tolerantly when they don't have to share power. This is why such a wide range of behavior is rooted in apparently the same texts and words. While we cannot ignore the words, we cannot simply look at them as unmediated directives which explain this or that group's behavior.

2. We on this list may profitably delve deeper into the various traditions of Islam, and the sometimes breathtaking differences which from our Western distance we call "the same." (A great example of what I am talking about can be found in a short, easy read: Clifford Geertz's Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia (1971.)) But remember that historians, religious scholars, and political scientists have been doing this for well over a century now. There are thousands of worthy books on the subject already there for us, if we have the will to read at least one or two. Your concern about letting people in the country who might impact our "cultural ethos", however, takes us in a different, perhaps anti-pluralist direction. Most would agree that we should not let someone in the country who wants to kill Christians or Jews. What is troubling now is the tendency to ascribe such intent to Muslims in general--to enough, at least, so that adherence to the religion becomes the primary criterion for profiling. That seems to me the purpose of the recent flood of information purporting to explain what Islam and Sharia "really" are, and aligning Medieval texts with the actions of some dispossessed and/or psychically wounded actors in the present. I would argue that if there is a damage to our cultural ethos, it would come from adopting racial, religious, and/or ethnic criteria of exclusion. The US has done that in the past, but have you noticed how few people brag about that?  Few say the Chinese Exclusion Act is an example of what made the US great. No one points to the Japanese internment as one of our finest hours. Some have argued that segregation was a great legal achievement, but that is no longer a majority position.

3. I am not sure there is a problem right now with understanding any impact that results from absence of knowledge. (Or perhaps I misunderstood your point?) We have our polls and surveys and ongoing social science studies measuring all aspects of how immigrants do or do not integrate in the US, though I think people may not always know how to access it. I don't want people to be attacked for moderate intellectual curiosity. I try not to do that. Though sometimes when I hear people arguing about what Islam is and why we should be worried, etc., I don't think I am hearing ideas that just popped in someone's head ex nihilo. Rather I see arguments and ideas migrating from Europe (cultural suicide) and the Middle East (eternal, inexplicable Muslim hatred for Jews), and purveyed by certain news sources and websites. I also see an odious genealogy behind some this, of which contemporary Americans may have little awareness. The invitation is to judge based upon the simplest sort of "evidence" and the clearest "logic," and the less one knows, the simpler and the clearer.

Just before writing this, I heard Donald Trump recite a poem in his speech tonight. It was about a nice lady with a good heart (American) who found a half frozen snake (Muslim immigrant) and took it home and fed it milk and honey to help it recover. When it did the snake bit the woman. She asked "Why would you bite me after I helped you? I took you in and saved your life. Now I will die because your bit is poisonous." The snake responded, "You knew I was a snake when you took me in."  The lyric does not say, "You didn't vet me properly and a percentage of us are dangerous." The message is that all we need to know about a snake is that it is a snake. The poem is a re-purposed lyric from "leftist" social activist Oscar Brown, who  adapted it from an Aesop fable.

To avoid getting people riled over Nazi analogies, I will just say that the world over genocidal hatred always involves reducing classes of people to vermin imagery--cockroaches, rats, poison mushrooms that look harmless, lice, and snakes--and teaching this to children.   Hatred doesn't always lead to genocide. It exists in every country, but the haters are usually to small in number or too far from the machinery of state to do any damage. Insecurity and eloquence can expand their numbers, control of the state their power.This is to say that snakes are not really our problem right now. But people peddling snake oil are.