Anti-Muslim Behaviour in the U.S.

[Shiranu]

Probably going to start a second thread about the myth of, "No Muslims are speaking up? Where are the Muslims to condemn their brothers? Silence is acceptance!" in a bit... but first, this shit...

http://www.onislam.net/english/news/americas/477691-anti-islam-bus-ads-infuriate-us-muslims.html

NEW YORK â€" A new anti-Islam advertisement campaign by a pro-Israel group has been criticized by New York Muslims and officials as "outrageous", considering the hate campaign deeply "offensive".

The ads feature an image for James Foley, the American journalist, who was killed by the so-called Islamic State (ISIL), along with the slogan: "Yesterday's moderate is today’s headline.”

A recent Gallup poll has found 43 percent of Americans Nationwide admitted to feeling at least “a little” prejudice against Muslims.

Anti-Muslim Attacks...

http://www.onislam.net/english/news/americas/475443-brooklyn-anti-muslims-attacks-soar.html

NEW YORK â€" Twin racial attacks at Brooklyn mosque over the weekend have drawn the ire of the Muslim community and city officials who condemned the soaring anti-Muslims attacks in the last two weeks.

NYPD detectives are probing several anti-Muslims attacks that targeted several mosques, leaving them defaced with defamatory graffiti, along with other forms of anti-Muslims harassment.

http://www.onislam.net/english/news/americas/460648-islam-hatred-in-new-york-subway-murder.html

CAIRO â€" An American woman has been charged with murder after pushing 46-year-old Indian immigrant to his death onto a subway train track in New York, thinking he was a Muslim.

How about some numbers of money raised for Anti-Muslim campaigns?

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/anti-muslim-groups-rake-millions-u-s-article-1.1461566

Anti-Muslim groups in the US raised $119 million between 2008 and 2011, report finds.

A report from the Council on American-Islamic Relations classified 37 groups as belonging to an 'inner core' of organizations whose mission is to spread what it calls Islamophobia.

One of the groups in the inner core is ACT! For America, a nonprofit founded by Lebanese American journalist Brigitte Gabriel, who argues that practicing Muslims should not be eligible to hold public office in the United States.

With that money, the group â€" whose executive director, Guy Rodgers, worked as a consultant to John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign â€" has helped pass anti-Islam bills in Tennessee and Arizona.

I'll be fair, this one didn't happen in America, but it was one that raised global headlines... but of course, the first guess was, "Must have been Muslims! White people NEVER commit violent acts!" (even though they commit the majority of mass killings, which makes sense since they are the majority).

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/religion/report/2011/08/26/10165/fear-inc/

On July 22, a man planted a bomb in an Oslo government building that killed eight people. A few hours after the explosion, he shot and killed 68 people, mostly teenagers, at a Labor Party youth camp on Norway’s Utoya Island.

By midday, pundits were speculating as to who had perpetrated the greatest massacre in Norwegian history since World War II. Numerous mainstream media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic, speculated about an Al Qaeda connection and a “jihadist” motivation behind the attacks. But by the next morning it was clear that the attacker was a 32-year-old, white, blond-haired and blue-eyed Norwegian named Anders Breivik. He was not a Muslim, but rather a self-described Christian conservative.

According to his attorney, Breivik claimed responsibility for his self-described “gruesome but necessary” actions. On July 26, Breivik told the court that violence was “necessary” to save Europe from Marxism and “Muslimization.” In his 1,500-page manifesto, which meticulously details his attack methods and aims to inspire others to extremist violence, Breivik vows “brutal and breathtaking operations which will result in casualties” to fight the alleged “ongoing Islamic Colonization of Europe.”

/http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/topics/anti-muslim ... time to bring back internment camps for Muslims, Muslim refugees fleeing Syria and Iraq and the like are waging stealth Jihad, fear, fear, fear, rawr rawr rawr the evil boogiemen Muslims are coming to get you!

And you may say, "But Shiranu, that is just the Right wingers! The Realllllly nutty people!". Yeah, okay sure... but the thing is the "liberal" media in this country takes it's marching orders from, for one reason or another, these idiots. Even "liberal" news sources, the moment a mass shooting or bombing happens, is quick to say, "I bet it was Muslims!".

And just a few Anti-Islam laws passed or attempted around the United States... because we gotta fear that boogieman!

http://www.religionnews.com/2014/02/21/commentary-clear-anti-muslim-bias-behind-anti-shariah-laws/
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2012-05-12/kansas-lawmakers-anti-islamic-law/54914292/1
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/05/rising-anti-islamic-sentiment-in-america-troubles-muslims/
http://www.loonwatch.com/2014/03/new-anti-sharia-legislation-introduced-in-several-states/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/27/anti-sharia-bill-north-carolina-gov-pat-mccrory_n_3823796.html
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/04/01/1802631/florida-senator-passing-an-anti-muslim-law-is-just-like-getting-vaccinated-against-polio/

To quote that last one, just because it is so telling of the mindset of people who RUN THIS FUCKING COUNTRY...

And this is very similar to that. Your mom and dad would not want you to get sick from one of those dreadful diseases, and I don’t want any American to be in a Florida courtroom and have their constitutional rights violated by any foreign law.

So for those of you who wonder why I "defend Islam", this shit is why; because Islam is not under attack in the United States, nor is the United States under attack from Islam. What we ARE "under attack" from is wave after wave after wave of anti-Muslim sentiment, spurred on by ELECTED OFFICIALS AND NATIONAL SPOKESMEN and what we ARE attacking is a boogieman that quite frankly does not exist in any scale worth mentioning in the United States. We got ALOT more issues than Jihadists that are FAR bigger issues that get swept under the rug, because it's much easier to just point to the brown guy and say, "Oh... uh... HE IS BAD BECAUSE... uh... OKAY HE HAS DIFFERENT RELIGION THAN US!" and we just eat that shit up.

[Hydra009]

Probably going to start a second thread about the myth of, "No Muslims are speaking up? Where are the Muslims to condemn their brothers? Silence is acceptance!"

Which is a really strange argument to make.  I don't remember apologizing for anything and there have been some really horrible injustices done by people who are vaguely similar to me in one way or another.

Silence is not consent.  Silence is silence.  And generally, if you take the time to talk to people about this stuff, of course they don't like it.  Duh.

So for those of you who wonder why I "defend Islam", this shit is why; because Islam is not under attack in the United States, nor is the United States under attack from Islam. What we ARE "under attack" from is wave after wave after wave of anti-Muslim sentiment, spurred on by ELECTED OFFICIALS AND NATIONAL SPOKESMEN and what we ARE attacking is a boogieman that quite frankly does not exist in any scale worth mentioning in the United States. We got ALOT more issues than Jihadists that are FAR bigger issues that get swept under the rug, because it's much easier to just point to the brown guy and say, "Oh... uh... HE IS BAD BECAUSE... uh... OKAY HE HAS DIFFERENT RELIGION THAN US!" and we just eat that shit up.

Creeping sharia is waaay overblown in the US.  It's basically a real-life version of this.

However, political islam does pose a problem, though the US is about as far from the epicenter of that as one could possibly be.  We really need to shore up our commitment to a secularism and fight back the much more serious attacks on secularism from Christian theocrats before we can even hope to deal with the Islamists.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

I'm conflicted on this. On the one hand, persecution of one ideology opens up the floodgates for more.

On the other hand, fuck Islam.

[Munch]

I'm conflicted on this. On the one hand, persecution of one ideology opens up the floodgates for more.

On the other hand, fuck Islam.

Same here.

Persecution of anyone is wrong, but there's a difference between people and their beliefs. Islam, like Christianity, needs to die.

[SGOS]

Creeping sharia is waaay overblown in the US.  It's basically a real-life version of this.

However, political islam does pose a problem, though the US is about as far from the epicenter of that as one could possibly be.  We really need to shore up our commitment to a secularism and fight back the much more serious attacks on secularism from Christian theocrats before we can even hope to deal with the Islamists.

I hear about it in Europe, but I haven't heard people worry about it in the US.  If that did happen, the conflict would be between Christianity and Islam, I think.  Secularism would be something on the sidelines, with just a few "weird" people talking about separation of church and state while Christianity subjugates Islam, and makes all kinds of laws that strengthen Christian political power.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I hear about it in Europe, but I haven't heard people worry about it in the US.  If that did happen, the conflict would be between Christianity and Islam, I think.  Secularism would be something on the sidelines, with just a few "weird" people talking about separation of church and state while Christianity subjugates Islam, and makes all kinds of laws that strengthen Christian political power.

Until one or the other manages to make their personal viewpoint the law of the land.

[Hydra009]

I hear about it in Europe, but I haven't heard people worry about it in the US.

They do.  Quite a lot, actually.  You'd think islamists had already taken over by their squawking.

It's pretty odd that the Christian right is up in arms more than most, because they're the most fervent theocrats.  You'd think of all people, they'd love the idea of living according to the dictates of God. 

[Jason78]

As long as they are denouncing all religions equally, I don't have a problem with it.

[pr126]

Does Dhimmitude in Denmark Describe Our Destiny?

Of course it could never happen in the USA. Why worry?

[Mister Agenda]

Does Dhimmitude in Denmark Describe Our Destiny?

Of course it could never happen in the USA. Why worry?

Yeah, the US would need some kind of founding document that allows some sort of high court to nullify laws that violate the founding document in order to resist something like that.

[Cocoa Beware]

This thread so reminds me of this:

(I also reckoned this clip is at least somewhat illustrative of the point Shiranu is making, I seem to understand much better where he is coming from now)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfilaKrnAhQ&list=LLE81NjtrAs2VxDvdhDUcJgA&index=4

[stromboli]

We all quote scriptures from the Bible which show the antiquated nature of the religion.
We do the same for the Koran.

Wherever fundamentalism can be applied, it has been. Mormon Fundamentalists are actually growing in number, since, like fundie xtianity and fundie Islam the scriptures are still there. Saudi Arabia's state religion keeps women in Burkas and women can be arrested for attending men's events. Amish women still dress as they have done for centuries and act according to biblical manners.

Where fundamentalism can be applied, it has been. Elements of Sharia Law exist in the Netherlands, Britain and Germany. Numerically the numbers of Islamic people in the Americas and Europe are increasing by percentage yearly. The number of Muslims in the US has doubled since 9/11
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/number-muslims-u-s-doubles-9-11-article-1.1071895

Muslim population is growing at a faster rate than any other comparable group
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/5994047/Muslim-Europe-the-demographic-time-bomb-transforming-our-continent.html

Everywhere that the numbers of Muslims become large enough, they have made efforts to implement sharia law. Sections of London and other cities in Britain have been declared by Muslims to be under Sharia Law.

Fundamentalist religions will seek to have power wherever it is able. Compare the Bible Belt to the rest of the US; then make all those bible thumpers Muslims and see what I'm talking about. religion is evil, period. Giving "moderate Islam" a pass is a big mistake, in my opinion. 

[Mike Cl]

stromboli says-- religion is evil

Absolutely!  I have often been heard to say that this world would have been much, much better off if no religion had ever existed.

[Hydra009]

Everywhere that the numbers of Muslims become large enough, they have made efforts to implement sharia law. Sections of London and other cities in Britain have been declared by Muslims to be under Sharia Law.

Fundamentalist religions will seek to have power wherever it is able. Compare the Bible Belt to the rest of the US; then make all those bible thumpers Muslims and see what I'm talking about. religion is evil, period. Giving "moderate Islam" a pass is a big mistake, in my opinion.

I agree.  Your average Muslim's apologetics is basically just a rehash of your average Christian's apologetics, except with fatwas instead of fatwa envy at the end.  Resisting this sort of thing is going to take a firm commitment to western values - particularly secularism and freedom of religion - and an insistence that religion never rule over public life rather than giving in to either the ultranationalist's urge to drive out the foreigner or the theocrat's insistence that ours is a Christian country rather than a Muslim one.

[VladK]

Nobody deserves to be harassed or attacked on the streets just because they're Muslim. These attacks are reprehensible and those who engage should (and WILL BE) prosecuted. We certainly know the Muslim world rarely reciprocates and either encourage or turn a blind eye to MASS violence against Christians and other religious minorities.

Islam however as an ideology is a threat. It rejects basic western and modern values, in fact it would be too extreme even to Christian social conservatives. If a few westerners see this criticism as a license to beat people up, the fault is on them, not on the people criticizing Islam.