Thursday, December 17, 2015

Which Islam Are We Talking About Here...?

Perfect: ‘You Ain’t No Muslim’ Guy Now Afraid Of Being Killed By Muslims

It turns out that “John,” which is how he is identified, “is not Muslim himself, but said he is angry that terrorist groups such as ISIL claim to represent Islam.” He tells the London Telegraph, “ISIS should be wiped out, because they’re not Muslims, because Muslims don’t do that. It’s as simple as that.”

Except, of course, that a Muslim did do that. John actually knows this, and this is where the story gets even better. Why is he identified only by his first name, refusing to let the newspapers publish his last name? “Now the man behind the comments has said he fears retribution from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) — also known as ISIS — after their popularity.”

Well, there you go. The subway attacker wasn’t a Muslim, and the Islamic State is not Islamic — yet somehow they have an insistent interest in cutting off the head of any infidel who dares to make pronouncements about Islam.
Once again, non-Muslims are insisting they know better about who and what are Islamic.

What makes this such a perfect example of the trope is that it is once again non-Muslims who insist they know better about who and what are “truly” Islamic. And that they are doing it in the face of obvious counterexamples, which they acknowledge by their own actions — in this case, a subway attack by a Muslim, followed by a threat from radical Muslims.

To be sure, there are many “moderate,” non-violent, non-terrorist Muslims in Britain, in America, and in the rest of the world. (See a moving Facebook post by a disabled British soldier for some great perspective on this.) Yet there is no point in denying the existence of the large faction of Muslims who support tyranny and terror — documented in polls that range from one in three to one in 10 in various Western countries. Those who are killers or who support murder may be a minority, but they are a significant minority.

A debate among these people about the meaning of Islam and who is a true Muslim is useful and ongoing. But that’s not what the No True Muslim trope is about. The non-Muslims who make pronouncements about Islam are not actually attempting to influence Muslims or say anything about Islam. They’re trying to say something about themselves. John’s somewhat inarticulate explanation of what he was thinking ends with: “I don’t believe in all that.” It’s a message about what he believes, not what Muslims believe. It’s about establishing the purity of one’s own attitudes and motives.

[Emphasis added]

Addendum:
Are Palestinians and their elected leaders not Islamic?

3 comments:

Stan said...

It depends on how you define "moderate". I suspect that I do not agree, because even these are not assimilating. They form into Sharia-based no-go zones as has been admitted in both Britain and in France. So by western standards, they are not "moderate westerners".

Rather, some are getting jobs and appearing to assimilate, while others do not. But "appearing to assimilate", as we now know, can be a tactic, just like Takiyya.

Because they don't report the radicals in their midst, I still have to say no.

But there definitely are two metanarratives, the text adherents to the Qur'an, and the others who interpret the Qur'an to their own conclusion. This is definitely true of Sunnis; I don't know about Shia, although they seem to be Qur'an text adherents. The Sunni interpreters have a long history of interpretation to choose from. But that is also heretical according to western logic and probably to the literalists too.

And CAIR claims to be "moderate" yet has been shown to ship money to terrorists, and is supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood (aka Muslim Mafia).

So the jury is out, as far as I'm concerned.

World of Facts said...

That's a good point; really hard to define these lines between moderate, fundamentalists, radicals, or actually not even Muslim at all. There are definitely many that do assimilate do... statistically I have no idea what the % is but it obviously increase with each generation, and the better the social conditions, the better it works. Because it's bot just Islam that's the problem; let's not forget that. Socioeconomic context make people desperate are focused more inside their geto. The elders who hate western values can convince their youth much more easily to become fundamentalists if the youth feels disadvantaged in the very country they grew up in.

Robert Coble said...

The crucial distinction is in how "assimilation" is defined. (Thank you, Ayn Rand, for that admonition to "Define your terms!")

Let's take as a working definition the following (courtesy of Wikipedia, that bastion of impartiality):

Cultural assimilation is the process by which a person or a group's language and/or culture come to resemble those of another group. The term is used to refer to both individuals and groups, and in the latter case it can refer to either immigrant diasporas or native residents that come to be culturally dominated by another society. Assimilation may involve either a quick or gradual change depending on circumstances of the group. Full assimilation occurs when new members of a society become indistinguishable from members of the other group. Whether or not it is desirable for an immigrant group to assimilate is often disputed by both members of the group and those of the dominant society.

According to the definition, those being assimilated lose their distinguishing characteristics as members of their original (pre-assimilation) culture, and (post-assimilation) take on the characteristics of the assimilating culture to the point that the assimilated become indistinguishable from members of the assimilating culture.

If that is true, then the assimilated culture must be abandoned by those being assimilated. The mores and values of the assimilating culture must be accepted.

Full assimilation is a Utopian fantasy. There is NO empirical evidence for any such thing at any place or time on planet Earth.

The melting pot does not only "melt" those to be assimilated. In order to work even partially, the pot itself has to be melted, dynamically changing those doing the assimilating simultaneously with those being assimilated. It is not necessarily a zero sum game.

The assimilating culture can tolerate incorporation of some (NON-CRITICAL) aspects of the assimilated culture, such as new foods. However, those aspects of the assimilating culture which represent its dominant worldview, political system and values, moral system and values, etc. CANNOT be assimilated without forever destroying the assimilating culture. The obverse is also the case.

Ultimately, the question comes down to something rather simple: will the assimilating culture be destroyed or will the assimilated culture be destroyed within the area that is under question?

The "Kumbayah - can't we all just get along and respect our differences and accept that all cultures are equal and you cannot force me to accept your culture as the one that I must accept" nonsense directly contradicts the very idea of assimilation.

This in no way precludes individual people from assimilating fully into the dominant culture. However, those who do so will be more often than not treated badly by those who do not do so. They will be regarded as traitors to their original culture, and ostracized from those members who retain their original culture.

Examples of non-assimilation are available globally and historically. Counter examples of assimilation exist but only where there is minimal (dare I say "trivial") differences in cultures between assimilating and assimilated members of those cultures.

When the major premises of the worldviews of two cultures are directly contradictory and completely incompatible (such as between Western and Islamic), one or the other must and will be destroyed if any accommodating assimilation is attempted.

That may be a sad commentary on the human condition, but it is a realistic assessment based on the available evidence.