Gautam Mukunda wrote: > --- ritu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Anyway, I digress. From where I sit, his view does > > seem to be the view > > of a vast silent majority of muslims. The worrisome > > thing, though, is > > that relentless pressure, suspicion, demonisation > > and heckling to prove > > their humanitarian credentials could easily change > > that. > > > > Ritu > > Why?
Because that seems to be normal group dynamics: Isolate a group, treat them with constant suspicion and act as if they are all potential terrorists and sooner, rather than later, there is a ground swell of support, within the same group, for the extremist movements. I have seen it happen in Kashmir, Punjab and the North-East. An Irish friend of mine tells me that this is also the pattern she saw in Ireland. I am no psychologist so I can't state with conviction why people react this way but fear and violence do seem to be a more 'normal' response to threat perceptions than reason and considered action. I hope I am wrong but I think this pattern is emerging with Muslims on a global scale as well. Not just in the polls depicting an enlarged threat perception across the muslim countries but also in the recent statements of Mahathir and the response they evoked. He claimed that the war against terror was a war against Islam and asked the muslim countries to close ranks against this war. A bit more entrenching of this thought and you are staring at a delay of decades. I couldn't even begin to guess what this delay would cost in terms of money and lives. > I happen to agree with you about the beliefs of > the world's Muslims, but reasonable people could > easily _disagree_ with you, and say that the evidence > is that a large fraction of the world's Muslims - > possibly even a majority, but certainly a large > fraction - do support terrorism, have universalist > aspirations for their religion, and are willing to > gain those aspirations _by force_. True. Many reasonable people could argue that. > Certainly it is > striking that _even in the US_, probably the single > most successful country at assimilating other cultures > (Muslims included), some of the most prominent > Muslim-American organizations (CAIR, for example) act > as apologists for terrorist groups. Gautam, how many religio-political groups condemn their own lunatics/extremists loudly, clearly and constantly? For that matter, how many political organisations/groups do that? Such criticism becomes even more rare when there is a physical distance between the atrocities and the groups. I can't remember any Sikh groups decrying the murder of innocents in movement for Khalistan, can't think of a single Hindu group which condemned the Gujarat massacres last year.......... It seems to me that no group based on religion would soundly condemn atrocities committed in the name of that religion. The reasons seems to be two-fold: most of these groups are formed for political purposes and any such criticism endangers the support from their own constituency. Secondly, most of the people forming such groups do not know their own religious scriptures/books in enough detail to successfully challenge the extremists on the grounds of theology. > At some point, > isn't there a responsibility on the _Muslim_ world to > say that blowing up (for example) Jewish infants is > not acceptable? So far, the Muslim world does not > seem to have lived up to that responsibility even a > tiny bit. Has the Muslim world ever stood up and said that the blowing up of Jewish infants is a good/acceptable idea? If yes, then it is certainly their responsibility to refute the statement and make whatever amends possible. If not, then do you think they might resent our assumption that all of them lack the basic humanitarian instincts to be repulsed by the death of infants? > We are the ones _being_ attacked, not the > ones doing the attacking. Episcopalians aren't > launching suicide bombing campaigns. It seems to me > that the burden to prove bona fides should rest on the > other side of the scales right now. Who's 'we': A country? A religious group? Non-muslims? Who's on the other side of the scales: muslims? Extremists? Terrorists? As for the burden of proving the bona-fides, well what bona-fides do you want them to prove? When did they lose their claim to these bona-fides? Who are they supposed to prove the same to? Also, what would consitute sufficient proof? I look forward to your answers to my above questions. Ritu _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
