Quote:
Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
I do have some trouble with us continuing to cozy up to some of the ultra-conservative Islamic countries, like Saudi Arabia, that don't speak because they happen to agree with elements of what ISIS stands for. But real moderate Muslims have been and continue to be quite vocal - they just aren't usually people who have as many ties to the US government or get as much voice over here. And they are often the first people the terrorists want to kill (see, for example, the terrorism that happened in Yemen the same day as the shooting in Paris).
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I think part of the problem is that to be the voice opposing violence in the name of Islam, as a muslim in the Middle East, you become a target of violence in the name of Islam. We want people to stand up and say that other muslims who believe that anyone speaking against factions of Islam should be punished as infidels are wrong.
Seems to me it's the same issue over and over and over again, throughout history. If you lived in Hitler's Germany and you disagreed with what was going on, you best not say a fucking word. You don't know who you're talking to and what they might do. Stalin's Russia? Fidel's Cuba? The examples don't fit exactly because it's not always a government-imposed problem. But the article I just posted included:
“When a person comes out and promotes his heresy, promotes his debauchery, and justifies his apostasy on the basis that ‘Islam is not good,’ then there is the judiciary,” Sheikh Abdel-Gelil said. “The judiciary will get him.”
If moderate muslims believe that people who criticize muslims should be punished and extremists trade off of that sentiment to espouse crazier and crazier shit while labeling any dissent as anti-muslim, you end up with a group of people who are not going to speak out. And when you weave the idea that Islam is beyond reproach into law, you end up where we are right now.*
How does any moderate muslim go about changing the idea that one can never criticize Islam (whether it's your version of the religion or not) if the government outright states and/or the guy sitting next to you believes that any form of criticism amounts to a fucking crime?
TM
*Especially when you combine that with bombing campaigns from the West.
