The problem of Islamic radicalism

[crazy canuck]

I agree backwardness is not an Islami-specific thing (of course).

However we are talking about a larger region that is the cradle of civilisation and was largely at par with Europe in terms of societal and scientific development up until some centuries following the Islam conquest.

We cannot dismiss the notion that Islam had an influence on how these countries developed, when they have been islamis countries for the past, what, 1500 years.

I think this is a good time to mention once again the work of Bernard Lewis who examined that issue in depth and most certainly did not conclude it was a problem of religious belief.

http://www.amazon.ca/What-Went-Wrong-Between-Modernity/dp/0060516054

[Tamas]

Then again I am not sure I understand your term "religious belief" Nobody is attacking religious belief in general. The discussion is about aspects of Islamic radicalism that may be detrimental to the Islamic world and beyond. This is rather specific compared to your seeming defense of religious belief in general.

[Razgovory]

I agree backwardness is not an Islami-specific thing (of course).

However we are talking about a larger region that is the cradle of civilisation and was largely at par with Europe in terms of societal and scientific development up until some centuries following the Islam conquest.

We cannot dismiss the notion that Islam had an influence on how these countries developed, when they have been islamis countries for the past, what, 1500 years.

I think this is a good time to mention once again the work of Bernard Lewis who examined that issue in depth and most certainly did not conclude it was a problem of religious belief.

http://www.amazon.ca/What-Went-Wrong-Between-Modernity/dp/0060516054

Is this non-fiction or CC non-fiction.

[Berkut]

These societies do not have the separation between religious belief and their cultural norms that would be necessary to evaluate them separately....which is the entire problem!

You are missing the point.  You blame a particular religious belief for, as an example, honour killings. 

No, no, NO!

I do NOT blame the religious beliefs for "honour killings" in general, I blame them for those honor killings where the people doing the killing say "I am doing this because god told me to".

Fuck, you keep cutting out my explanations, and then pretending like the only thing I post is the little snippet you quote.

But again there is something else going on then just religious belief but you insist on focusing on religious belief.  You claim to have addressed the point many times but your argument is circular and really ends up concluding religion is the problem.

Religion IS the problem when it comes to people who cause problems because of their religion.

When someone kills someone because they believe that their religion demands it, pointing out that other people kill for reasons other than religion is not a counter argument to the observation that there is a problem of people killing others for religios reasons.

If the argument you were arguing against was that the ONLY reason people kill others is religion, then you would have a point.

Yes, I am coming back to religion, because that is the topic of the discussion!

This is like me claiming that drunk driving is a problem, and you responding that it isn't really, because people die in cars for all kinds of other reasons. Then insisting that I am not willing to see other reasons because I want to talk about drunk driving. Yes, you are right - people engage in honor killings for reasons other than because they think Allah wants them to (Islam). So what? I never claimed that only Islam has honor killings, I just used honor killings as one of many, many examples of horrible things done by those who think that Islam demands it of them.

[Berkut]

Then again I am not sure I understand your term "religious belief" Nobody is attacking religious belief in general. The discussion is about aspects of Islamic radicalism that may be detrimental to the Islamic world and beyond. This is rather specific compared to your seeming defense of religious belief in general.

I suspect this is the fundamental issue in fact.

The idea that religion is "special" as a belief system to the extreme (even, dare I say, radical?) extent that one must be ever so careful even when talking about the most radical of religious extremists. This apologism is a matter, I suspect, of habit.

[Valmy]

Nobody is attacking religious belief in general.

Not in this thread anyway

[Berkut]

Nobody is attacking religious belief in general.

Not in this thread anyway

I am happy to engage in THAT argument as well, but it is not specific to this argument at all.

[Fate]

The fact is that the people I am talking about who stone women (and that is just one example, you can pick plenty others, and it is likely that none of them will be the sole provence of Islamic radicalism, its not like they invented the various ways humans can be inhumane) *believe* that the act they are engaging in when they smash some womens brains out is a religious act.

You know who also stones women in a religious act? Yazidis from Sinjar. Why on earth did we got more directly involved in Iraq because of them is beyond me. I don't have a problem with ISIS eliminating fellow backwards Arabs.

[Admiral Yi]

i never once said this.

I read it the same way Berkut did.

You said the original idea of violence only arises in broken/culturally backward lands.  What makes countries culturally backward?  Imperialism.

[Martinus]

So, no comments on Zizek? And after I read through it and bolded parts. 

[Razgovory]

So, no comments on Zizek? And after I read through it and bolded parts. 

I had go back to look at your post.  What is wrong with you?  Can you not understand the words I write?  They aren't big words, you shouldn't have this much trouble.

[Berkut]

So, no comments on Zizek? And after I read through it and bolded parts. 

I thought it was pretty interesting, but he kind of went on and on.

Yes, I do realize the irony there.

Everything cast in the framework of "class struggle" made it a bit hard to take too seriously though.

[mongers]

I am not convinced that there is a complex issue behind why European muslim youth go to fight for ISIS.

I think it is similar in many countries, but take Hungary, for example, where the radical right is the most popular among the young generations. I mean, most of them is apolitical, but those are into it, prefer the radical right.

Why? Probably because it gives them a) identity, a sense of belonging, b) offers easy answers to complex problems, c) is agressive and offers a pressure valve for frustrated young people, especially if they are poor and uneducated.

In other words, it is prime material for the hopelessly naive and the frustrated loser.

Now, if you take the same demographic among the Muslim population of European countries, what option do they have? The national far right is straight out of question, because those guys pinpoint them as the main source of everything that is bad. No other frustration-relieving identity remains, really, unless you count the far left.

However, they do have a ready-made source of identity in their religion/religion of their parents/grandparents. It already defines them in the eyes of the society they live in, and indeed seems to be a big source of identity for their families as well - why else would the headscarf and such survive?
(It is worth noting this is definitely NOT a unique Muslim thing).

So, if we take for granted, that a portion of young people in general are vulnerable to various radical ideas, I don't see how the Muslims in Europe would NOT be gravitating towards Muslim extremism.

I don't disagree with much of this, but it's only one half of the trade or market, the supply side perhaps, there has to be a demand side, which I take to be people who intentionally radicalise them, brainwash them and organise their trips to the warzones and/or onto their 'missions' ie fascistic imans, terror groups, some intelligence agencies and political leaders.

Alternatively think of those sad individuals you talked about as the water, it also requires someone to turn the tap on.

[Berkut]

That is a good point mongers, and one I really was getting ready to make in response to Malthus.

I don't buy the idea that absent Islamic jihadism, Jihadi John would have simply latched onto some other terrible thing that would allow him to go murder a bunch of people.

I understand the basic idea that failed states provide fertile ground for all kinds of extremism, and there is no doubt that is very true and must be accounted for in any attempt to address these kinds of problems.

But absent a religiously based death cult handy, I am not sure that it is really true that everyone who finds that appealing would simply find something else equally as abhorent appealing.

[Gups]

The film Four Lions summed it up perfectly (and hilariously) for me. Many (and let's not pretend that there is a one size fits all explanation) of these guys are, as Malthus says, looking for a way to belong, to be a hero and to vent their aggression (we used to have a really bad problem with football hooliganism for the same motivations). They aren't necessarily well-versed in theology. But if they look in the Koran they can easily find justification for their actions.