QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Thu 6th May 2010, 8:30am)
I live in America. More than 99% of the users of this site and en.WP are from the the English speaking world and Europe. Muslims are a small and hard pressed minority in our society. They are easy to pick on and vilify. Almost no one will speak up if you do. I'm speaking up for my neighbors and countrymen who are Muslims.
Most Muslims in America are Indonesians. Most Arab-Americans are Catholics. The small minority of Arab-Muslims in America tend to be looked at with some suspicion by Americans these days, but since nearly all the people who've been trying to blow up Americans this last quarter of a century (from
La Belle discotheque to Faisal Shahzad) have been Arabic Muslims, it's not really surprizing. I'm not really sure American can be accused of "starting it" by supporting Israel. This does not excuse killing of Americans, and especially civilian Americans. Muslims aren't good citizens of France, either, and so you can't just make anti-zionism an excuse for any bunch of Muslim emigrants acting-badly.
Defending much of Islam is a losing battle. As a religion it's even more narrowminded and unforgiving than Southern Baptistism, and that's saying a lot. And its attitude toward women is some of the worst to be found in a modern religion. Frankly, a lot of it is shit (see the Wahabits and Taliban for how bad Muslim conservatives can be), and what's left is superstition. You have to look very hard to find the diamonds in its rough (okay, it has a good attitude toward treatment of guests and strangers, and it's color-blind, at least toward Muslims). But overall, there is no reason to have any great respect for it (the religion). If its followers don't wake up and perform some major surgery on it, rather like the Roman Catholics had to do when faced with modern astronomy and the reformation, the conservative and fundamentalist version of Islam is going to be source of a great deal more suffering for many of its conservative believers. The world's patience for these people has long run out. When the Arabs' oil runs out and money stops being diverted to the most nutty branches of "Islam" they're going to be even more of a world of hurt. And deserve it.
It's not a bigotry thing-- the liberal Muslims are fine with me. It's a "recognize the asshole" thing. The conservative Muslims (of which there are very many- they are NOT a tiny minority) are not fine with me.