RE: Are you an Islamophobe?
March 15, 2015 at 3:08 am
(This post was last modified: March 15, 2015 at 3:22 am by Thumpalumpacus.)
(March 13, 2015 at 2:36 pm)RobertE Wrote: Agreed, it is totally irrelevant. However, being bigoted is applicable to all religions, and not just Islam. In all religions, they always play the victim card, and to be brutally honest, Islam is one of a long list of many who love to play the victim to get support. It is one way of getting sympathy from everyone.
True. But a strong case can be made for anti-Islamic bigotry existing in the West, a case that was in place before 9/11 and GWoT, but certainly exacerbated by those events.
By the way, such bigotry should not engender sympathy for the aggrieved, but rather contempt for the bigots. That's my view, at least.
(March 13, 2015 at 2:40 pm)robvalue Wrote: Who would support the labels passive Islam and aggressive Islam? As in, that is the way they interpret and practice it.
I would think "peaceful Islamist" and "violent Islamist" would be more accurate. They both cleave to the same faith, the same book. Just like moderate and fundamentalist Christians, they cherry-pick their support. As a result, using the broad term for the entire faith, "Islam", seems inaccurate. I think it would be more to the point to add the suffix "-ist" in order to point up the individual nature of the decision being taken (between peace and violence).
And I would change the modifiers from "passive" and "aggressive" to "peaceful" and "violent" because, firstly, "passive" and "aggressive" are both milquetoast descriptors which do not tell you what is actually going on -- a body might be blown apart by a passive or aggressive design (passive: land-mine; aggressive: artillery barrage). If someone is being violent, calling it "aggressive" leaves too much rubber in the words for misdirection to slip in.
Secondly, peaceful Muslims are often not at all passive, and violent Muslims are often not aggressive, taken at face value.
Forgive my little burst here, but accurate language is a hobby-horse of mine.
(March 13, 2015 at 8:07 pm)Dystopia Wrote: I accept this distinction, I gladly welcome peaceful secularist Muslims in the west. A problem with this is answering the question "who's violent?" - For example, a Muslim who thinks gays should be executed but doesn't protest or actively seek to implement that measure - Is this person violent?
That Muslim would be extremist, but not violent ... yet.
