Gettin' OT on dat azz - Muslim Culture

Enosekel wrote:

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Originally posted by Savaric
You know what freaks me out is that weird music they play on their mosque loud speakers. Aaaeeeuuuuhhhheeeemmmaaahh. I'd be permanently on edge in one of those countries.
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Alright, I know this risks going further OT, but I have to respond to this. Please tell me you were being sarcastic! It's not wierd music, it's the call to prayer. I spent part of last summer in Bahrain, U.A.E., and I visited Riyadh. No matter where I was, I liked the sound. It's a kind of reassuring, peaceful ritual throughout the day.

And regarding the treatment of women somebody else brought up, I also wore the veil the whole time I was there. It was completely voluntary, except when I was in Riyadh, and I loved it. It made me feel secure and pleasantly anonymous. Maybe it would have been different if I was forced to wear it.

Every family I met had good men in it who never spent all day trying to figure out how to oppress and beat their women, even if it is a major topic, by some accounts. Every woman I got to know was safe, protected, and happy, encouraged to express herself and make her needs known within their cultural norms, just like the same is true for American women, within our acceptable boundaries. Yes, there were a lot of things we might consider 'sexist' but it's just a different culture, not necessarily wrong. Like others said, I hope we're not just lumping everyone together here.

Since Eno moved some of the discussion here I'll move my replies.



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Originally posted by Savaric
Those are pretty weak comparisons Dal... That shit's gingersnaps compared to what's happening over there. They would have to cut the abortion clinics employees heads off and blow up schools that teach evolution to students to even remotely be in the same league.
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Christian Terrorists

The IRA can be debated as a Christian terrorist group, and while Wikipedia lists the KKK as a mostly Christian group their origins relied heavily on twisting Christian beliefs to suit their agenda. That's exactly what Muslim terrorists do. They twist Islamic teachings and use them as tools to support their cause. There are actually Imams and Clerics that preach peace and that the West isn't an enemy. Dalaena already pointed out why many of them aren't outspoken in their preaching. It also doesn't make a great media story, so you don't see a lot of reporting.

Why are there so many Muslim terrorists then? Generally speaking it is easier to recruit poor uneducated youth to an extremist group. Fortunately for those leading terrorist groups there is no shortage of poor uneducated Muslim youth. To compound the problem the lack of seperation of church and state among some Arab states leads to tollerance of extremist views under the guise of religion and eventually the extremist views get interwoven into the government and they end up supporting terrorism.

What I've learned from traveling around the world is that people are basically the same. A majority of people are in the middle on any issue and you have smaller groups at each extreme. The problem here is that one extreme has been allowed to recruit people from the middle and grow unchecked for decades. Muslim terrorists are still not a majority of the Muslim population, they are just the portion of the Muslim population that we hear the most about...and they happen to have litteral armies and well developed world-wide networks.




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Originally posted by Aristotle
What we get bombarded with is a bunch of morally relativistic crap that refuses to accurately call a spade a spade. The majority of Islamic Middle Eastern nations are horrifically evil and tremendously oppressive regimes.
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The important point I'd like to emphasize is that the evil nations are evil because they are controled by evil people. A majority of people in Iraq hated the Sadam regime, and felt the evils of it first hand. The solution is to destroy these corrupt governments. Islam isn't inherently bad, there are just a lot of people who have used their interpritation of Islam to do bad things. Religion is a tool that can be used for good and evil alike. It doesn't really matter which religion you look at you can find a way to do evil with it.

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Originally posted by Enosekel
I spent part of last summer in Bahrain, U.A.E., and I visited Riyadh.

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The U.A.E. is not Iran, Syria, Afghanistan or Pakistan. I want you to spend part of your summer in one of these countries- then report back to us.

Going to the UAE is like saying I was on a four day pass to Qatar (massive tourist location, essentially) while I was overseas and saying that women aren't really too repressed.

Try two weeks in Tehran and come tell us it's not so bad.

I think the point there wasn't that all muslim nations are woo, awesome hunky dory with happy people... but more that just because a nation IS muslim doesn't mean it sucks and everyone is miserable.

Exactly, Aelyn.

Savaric & Darion:

There are a lot of predominantly Muslim nations out there, not even all in the mideast, and none of them "counts" more than others as a representative of "real Muslim". I'm sure you've even heard the factoid that there are more Muslims outside of the mideast than there are inside. Does that make them "not count"? Haha. Iran, Iraq, and especially Pakistan are even worlds different from each other, let alone from UAE & Bahrain, but they all still "count".

The U.A.E. and Bahrain - it's good to use them as an example BECAUSE they are different. They prove that Islam and government and civilization and progress can mix together quite well. And who knows, had the history of man, geography, and the natural history of the region been different, there is no reason Iraq could not be the UAE, and vice-versa.

Bahrain has been likened to the Zurich of the middle east, so strong is their financial/banking economy. Dubai (in the UAE) is the commercial center of the middle east and you would be amazed how much international business is done there and how many immigrants swarm there hoping for a chance as opposed to the fabled Americas. The people from third world countries that I've met in my travels, even the Christians, said they don't want to immigrate to the USA over a place like Dubai, it is now much more a land of opportunity.

Things are happening in both places, and the people are doing well. They've successfully found ways to make money besides oil dependency and thus have more diverse and stable economies than the places you mentioned. They do not have to worry about westerners (or their neighbors!) bombing the fuck out of them or muscling them around and making them feel insecure due to a dependency on oil revenue. They have found ways to deal with their neighbors (who, by the way, scare them just as much as they scare us) peacefully despite fundamental differences.

Get with it!

As for the places you've mentioned, like Iran. No, I've never lived there. Neither have you, or most Muslims, so I don't see how that invalidates what I said (which it seems you're trying to twist into a counterpoint to whatever your argument is...tsk).

Iran (and all these other places you mention) has not always been the way it is today. In historical terms, quite recently they had a very different government and lifestyle and values, and women were less "repressed" not so long ago. By my standards, yes, they are repressed. By traditional Iranian standards they are repressed, too, so I say that to suggest that that is somehow tied into what the Iranian people want or what Islam is REALLY about is inaccurate.

I'll have to look up some of the names of books I've read more recently from Iranians detailing their experiences in Iran during the last 60 years or so (or you can on Amazon.com) but according to them, most people never wanted to live in the opressive regimes of recent history. Either they did not predict it would be like this, or they had no control or choices to begin with and were too busy just trying to stay alive through the ordeal. I take their personal experience a lot more seriously than that of some guy who is a soldier or watches CNN or took a poli sci class in the USA...or wherever you're coming from with your "wierd music" opinions, not sure. Christ, it's not even music, it's a man's voice!

There is more going on than just "bad religion" in Iran, Iraq, etc. Poverty, opression, fear, lack of basic resources, lack of education, lack of hope for so many years all bring out the negatives in people. Everywhere you look in the world where there are downtrodden and disenfranchised people, the result is always the same. Most scholars of African American culture too will concur that the reason there is a much higher rate of spousal abuse amongst black americans than, say, whites, is for the same reasons. Not just because they have been shit on and now want to shit on someone else, because it makes them feel better, but because being deprived in so many ways, from so many angles, weakens a person. It has nothing to do with religion. Religion is just the excuse.

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They've successfully found ways to make money besides oil dependency

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Amazing, considering the major export of both Bahrain and UAE is oil.

There are a number of other flaws and inconsistencies in your statements, but for the sake of not doing your research for you I will ignore them.

Bahrain is literally the fastest growing Arab economy in the world. This is because they have one of the freeest trade policies. Bahrain is also a constitutional monarchy rather than a dictatorship or theocracy. I will not bother mentioning the UAE because it is literally the richest Muslim country in the world. You essentially went to two of the nicest examples of free-trade economies that the Arab-Muslim world can supply and are using that as a basis for your conjecture.

Get with it. Most Middle Eastern countries are thoroughly Muslim and -do not compare- to the two upon which you are basing all your theories, as the two you mention are ridiculously wealthy and not torn by internecine strife. They are also tiny, and have minimal standing militaries due to lack of need.

If the UAE and Bahrain are so great, why is it that they refuse to release data on what percentage of their population is below the poverty line, and what the GDP per capita is for the various income quintiles?

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications...k/geos/ae.html

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications...s/ba.html#Econ

Gee, probably because it is the same thing as in every other oil rich muslim country: the shieks live like... shieks... and the rest suffer.

Furthermore, both of those countries are so overrun with foreign nationals that if you go there, you are barely even going to interact with the native population in any of the major cities.

For example, in UAE:

"73.9% of the population in the 15-64 age group is non-national."

Bahrain isn't much better:

"44% of the population in the 15-64 age group is non-national"

That's insane!

Also, some interesting facts about the ratio of men to women in those countries.

For comparison, here's US data:

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Median age:

total: 36.5 years
male: 35.1 years
female: 37.8 years (2006 est.)

Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.72 male(s)/female
total population: 0.97 male(s)/female

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Just for more data, how about another Western, modern country. France:

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Median Age:

total: 39.1 years
male: 37.6 years
female: 40.7 years (2006 est.)

Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.7 male(s)/female
total population: 0.95 male(s)/female (2006 est.)

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For UAE:

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Median Age:

total: 28.1 years
male: 34.8 years
female: 23.3 years (2006 est.)

Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.04 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.55 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 2.73 male(s)/female
total population: 1.43 male(s)/female (2006 est.)

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For Bahrain:

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Median Age:

total: 29.4 years
male: 32.4 years
female: 25.8 years (2006 est.)

Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.03 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.02 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.38 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 1.07 male(s)/female
total population: 1.26 male(s)/female (2006 est.)

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So what we see here is that in the free, modern world where women have equal rights and are not beaten by their husbands as a matter of religious law, population ratios actually tend to move towards more women as people get older.

But not in the UAE and Bahrain. "Miraculously", while they start out with the same ratio at birth, as they get older, the poor women become LESS of the population.

This bucks the worldwide trend, which is towards females living longer. It is generally believed by science that estrogen is a major reason women live longer - it counters a lot of problems (like heart disease).

So UAE and Bahrain:

1) Refuse to disclose poverty numbers.

2) Refuse to disclose per capita income numbers at various income levels.

3) The majority of their population that you would interact with if you visited is not even native to the country.

4) Somehow, against the worldwide trend, manage to have their men making a higher % of the population as it gets older. (It couldn't possibly becuase women still get treated like shit there, eh?)

Sorry, but these shimmering examples of how muslim theocracies can be "just fine" really don't measure up by any legitimate, objective standard.

But just to show you I'm not simply bagging on the religion, lets look at a non-jihadist Muslim nation. Morocco:

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Median Age:

total: 23.9 years
male: 23.4 years
female: 24.5 years (2006 est.)

Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.04 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 0.99 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.77 male(s)/female
total population: 0.99 male(s)/female (2006 est.)

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Wow. Whadda ya know... It is more reflective of the worldwide trend.

And wouldn't you know, they also disclose their poverty numbers and per capita income levels.

There's nothing wrong with Islam the religion.

What is wrong is the way it is practiced in the Middle East - and the fact that it is practiced via despotic theocracy and crooked, authoritarian rule.

Religion (and I mean ANY religion - Islam, Christianity, etc.) can be a force for good, but not when it dominates every aspect of life, culture, government, and economics.

Wow... what a thread. I normally keep my mouth shut because I know I know so damned little, historically speaking... and I watch a boat load of programming and still know but a kernel.

People are terrorists. That's how I see it. Belief is a symantic way of explaining it. It's the disposition of the person/people at any given time that puts many of these acts in the category of Holy Wars or acts of religious or patriotic terrorism. It's still just PEOPLE, who are held by a preponderance of dispositions and it's still killing, whether someone shoots a doctor in an abortion clinic or takes out an entire building. It's all the same. Someone committing horrific crimes against another is terrorizing them, with or without group support, or doing so on a large scale.

I find it a disservice to lump vile behaving individuals or groups by Theistic categories to be feared for their religious affiliations. Pure stereotyping. Which I admit is hard for many to separate in this day and age of media -think like the masses- mentality.

Religion birthed patriotism. Even in the 'days gone by', let's say... Who would stand and say they were not bound to the duty of the present culture? For example, Who would tell the elders there was no such thing as a witch? According to the rulers, surely only a WITCH would dare. And so, although people may belong to similiar groups, races, have the same faith or no theistic faith at all, they tend to be lumped together and often their voices quieted, because not everywhere in the world are individuals equally freely able to reveal their personal values within their settings.

levity drum roll please:
God's Song
Artist: Randy Newman

Cain slew Abel Seth knew not why
For if the children of Israel were to multiply
Why must any of the children die?
So he asked the Lord
And the Lord said:

"Man means nothing he means less to me
than the lowiliest cactus flower
or the humblest yucca tree
he chases round this desert
cause he thinks that's where i'll be
that's why i love mankind

I recoil in horror from the foulness of thee
from the squalor and the filth and the misery
How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me
That's why i love mankind"

The Christians and the Jews were having a jamboree
The Buddhists and the Hindus joined on satellite TV
They picked their four greatest priests
And they began to speak
They said "Lord the plague is on the world
Lord no man is free
The temples that we built to you
Have tumbled into the sea
Lord, if you won't take care of us
Won't you please please let us be?"

And the Lord said
And the Lord said

"I burn down your cities--how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we
You must all be crazy to put your faith in me
That's why i love mankind
You really need me
That's why i love mankind"
*Phiala crawls back under her rock*

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Originally posted by Enosekel
That's what we should be trying to shut down, not an entire group of people based on their culture or their religion. That's what Hitler tried to do. (Okay, I pulled the Hitler card! I didn't call anyone Hitler, though, so points for me, right?)

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Godwin's Law of Internet Argumentation - AKA Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies - referenced herein:

Godwin's Law

states that as the number of posts or responses to an internet argument reach an infinite number, the probability of someone making a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis reaches one. I hereby invoke Godwin's Law, thus praying to end this thread, which I have personally creatively retitled "Enosekel versus Enosekel versus Enosekel: the Rearguing." Enosekel now forefeits the argument to Enosekel for falling astray of Godwin's Law, and I hope Enosekel has learned from this not to invoke the Nazis when so vigorously debating Enosekel.

That is all.