--- In [email protected], "Hagen J. Holtz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Irmeli said: > > > > Practically every time they (the nuslims) publicly say > > something, they make themselves just ridiculous, and show that > > their capacity to formal operational thinking, or abstract > > conceptual thinking, is poor. They combine categories in a wrong > > way all the time. And this is not about belief systems. It is > > about where they are in their cognitive development. And I > > consider their beliefsystems to be the cause of their > > backwardness. > > Irmeli, what you report from Finland fits perfectly into the > picture, which we also have on German grounds with this "ethnic" > group from time to time. So your description illustrates it very > felicitously. But for all that I personally consider their > beliefsystem not as being the main cause of their backwardness, > but rather their lack of willingness to go one step ahead.
I was reluctant to get into this because of the potentially flammable nature of the topic, but I shall, because both Hagen and Irmeli are making some pretty strong statements here about Muslims' "backwardness." I think that Hagen comes closer to the mark when he attributes the perception of "backwardness" not to the belief system per se, but to a strong reluc- tance to move beyond it and accept change of any kind. The parallel I would draw is to those who hold to "Vedic" ideals so strongly that they would insist on maintaining the caste system, even in a country that not only doesn't believe in it, but has made some of its distinctions against the law. I'm speaking of the US, and attempts I've seen by Indians in the US to claim that their beliefs about caste give them the "right" to discriminate between applicants of different castes in terms of employment. The cases I'm aware of were all *lost* by those hoping to uphold their right to pursue the caste system in America, but they continued to do it after paying the first fine. My friends in New York who have to do business with these people say that they do it still. They are a "Brahmin-only" shop, and they insist on remaining one, even if it is against the law. (For the record, as I understand it, if they were a religious organization like a religious school or a temple, they *would* be able to discriminate leg- ally based on religion. However, since they are a computer company, and one that does business with the government to boot, they cannot.) I'm just throwing this out because it's "fashionable" these days to mock Muslims as "backwards," even among those who throw around the word "Vedic" as if anything that it's attached to becomes holy and perfect as a result. If the Muslims are "backwards" for wanting to cling to their outdated and (in different countries) illegal ways of life, then so are Indians or wannabee-Indians who want to cling to the caste system.
