thorolf ([info]thorolf) wrote,
@ 2008-01-28 10:26:00
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Current mood: annoyed

Head/Desk
For those of you that haven't heard yet, Freya Aswynn posted an entry on her blog that's being seen as an anti-Islamic screed - and for good reason. I found the link from [info]lwood's LJ (as did several others on my FList) - if you're curious, I can do the HTML-fu necessary to add a link here as well, but having read the first few paragraphs, it's all pretty standard xenophobia and nothing that I actually want to drive traffic to...

After pondering a bit over the weekend, I'm realizing that part of my own negative reaction stems from something that's not quite hypocrisy in the classical sense, but more a realization that people just aren't thinking things through to the same degree that I try to (yes, I flatter myself from time to time - don't we all?)

I've seen similar sentiments expressed in other online journals - some belonging to people on my FList, even - and I sometimes take the time to point out that not all believers in Islam follow the fundamentalist variants that are so popular these days. I sometimes hear back the questions "Well, where are all these moderates?" and "Why aren't they getting press?"

Cast your mind back a few months, to the infamous Fox News piece on Asatru. Remember that one? The one that did include a few snippets of opinion from Troth members and other so-called "Universalist" heathens, but then ran slavering for the far right lunatic fringe and prison population? Moderation doesn't generate headlines, blog traffic, or ad sales - you need sensationalism to do that, and focusing on a bunch of boring, middle-to-lower-class white folks who get along with their neighbors isn't what Fox News wanted to portray. They wanted a jucier story about Neo-Nazis and prison thugs who embrace a religion that caters to their baser instincts, so that's what they wrote. The moderates (and even liberals) among the Heathens just weren't newsworthy...

Guess what? Those are the same people depicting all of Islam as a bunch of terrorist thugs. Shoe kinda pinches a little when it's on the other foot, does it not?

For the record - I'm not a big fan of Islam. I studied Middle Eastern History as part of my bachelor's program, and there's little in the religion that appeals to me.  Islam's history is problematic - but then, so is Judaism's history and Christianity's, for that matter. I'm not even entirely comfortable with the early days of modern Heathenry, when it comes right down to that. Every religion has its negatives, and Islam's got some serious "too big for its britches" issues in certain communities, IMHO - more on that later - but tagging everyone who espouses every sub-variant of a religion as being the same as every practitioner of a particular subset is the sloppiest of sloppy thinking. It's like blaming the Unitarians for Operation Rescue. We bitch about it when it happens to us - so why do we then turn around and do the same damn thing? Hm?

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[info]lonespark
2008-01-28 05:57 pm UTC (link)
Excellent thoughtful post.

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[info]raydon_12
2008-01-28 06:07 pm UTC (link)
Well put!!

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[info]heethen_crone
2008-01-28 06:23 pm UTC (link)
I read her screed as well. Thanks for your thoughtful post. I can understand, though, where Aswynn's coming from. It's not happened here yet but there have been several cases in Europe, and starting in Canada now as well, where Islamic immigrants have insisted that their court cases be tried in Islamic courts rather than the law of the land. It's an unwillingness to operate within the laws and customs of the country they moved to. I liken it to the South American immigrants that come to the US and then refuse to learn to speak English and expect everyone to learn Spanish to deal with them. Many immigrants, of course, learn English but it's those that don't that get the headlines and attention.

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[info]thorolf
2008-01-28 08:40 pm UTC (link)
That's where the "too big for its britches" comes in - I'll post more on that in a bit. Multi-culturalism requires that the participating cultures buy into the multi-cultural ideal, and some folks didn't get that particular memo...

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[info]e_falki
2008-01-28 06:58 pm UTC (link)
A very thoughtful and well worded post. If only we had more Heathens in the greater community who were also like this.

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[info]walkyrja
2008-01-28 07:02 pm UTC (link)
What You Said.

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[info]boars_heart
2008-01-29 03:48 am UTC (link)
I didn't find it so much an "anti-Islamic screed" as a rather curious support of an xian political org by, well, Asatru's leading whack-a-mole. *G*

One thing needs to be kept in mind when viewing rhetoric like this from Europe: their cities are being inundated by waves of Muslim immigration that threatens the social fabric, demands concessions contrary to establishes law and custom, refuses to assimilate, and---all to often---shelters, aids, and abets terrorists, as in the recent London arrests.

We don't have it quite that bad here . . . yet. I live in South Texas, which has its own immigration problems and "rising brown tide" but those folks just want to mow our lawns and roof our houses and make our breakfast tacos, not pilot airplanes into our refineries. It's hardly the same problem, but it IS a problem throughout Western countries:

We all have declining birth rates among our own people.

We all have rising rates of immigration both legal and not.

We're all experiencing the pressures and fractures of having social change foisted on us against our will. Frequently, the political and economic powers that be are seen as being in collusion with the forces and sources of that change, against our own established interests.

And the powder keg awaits the spark.

~Boar

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[info]thorolf
2008-01-29 03:47 pm UTC (link)
I understand the pressures - but I've also seen the same attitudes exhibited throughout history, and there's not that much that seems new to me. It's just that it's happening to us now, instead of people in a history book.

Take a hard look at the anti-Irish sentiments from last century. There was a religious element (anti-Catholicism), fear of a high birth rate among the Irish, accusations of moral depravity (esp. with regard to alcohol abuse) - and Catholicism, while past its 'spread by the sword' stage, is just as expansionist as Islam...

One of the primary problems, IMHO, is making sure that the immigrants are given the _opportunity_ to assimilate to a degree that works for _everyone_ - not just the majority who is uncomfortable with the Outsiders, and not just the specific minority that doesn't want to lose its cultural identity.

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[info]etichonides
2008-01-29 07:05 am UTC (link)
I don't know what to think. I've lived through any number of threats to democracy, and none of them seem to have panned out. I remember when the Vietnamese boat people were taking our jobs, and the Japanese were buying out the whole country. The panic mongers seem to have moved on to Mexicans and Chinese, and now Muslims have replaced Communists. I have a streak of skepticism when it comes to these threats, but I'm not yet convinced that Islam is really innocuous, or Christianity for that matter. It seems to me there is something pernicious about belief systems that demand to be treated as the One True Faith. True Believers seem to have difficulty getting the hang of living in a pluralistic society. I don't know how far I'd trust any of them.

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[info]asatruteacher
2008-01-29 02:08 pm UTC (link)
Thorolf, although I haven't read Aswin's screed, I have to respectfully disagree with you about Islam as a whole. Islam as a faith seeks to dominate all other cultures around it. No, not dominate, but destroy. I've heard it described as the religion of perpetually outraged. If you listen to the "spokesorganizations" in various countries you'd see what I mean. Islam's answer to problems is violence, from 9/11 to Beslan to Madrid to London, to Theo Van Gogh.

Danny

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[info]thorolf
2008-01-29 04:03 pm UTC (link)
Thanks for responding - and I'll agree to respectfully disagree... :D

Yes, there are Islamic extremists who do in fact pose a threat. 9/11, the previous year's WTC bombing attempt, the U.S.S. Cole, the Achille Lauro - trying to deny that there is a threat out there would be ludicrous. I agree on that point. My HR director, though, is not one of the extremists. Having met individual Muslims who don't insist that their way is the only one gives me some hope that it's not endemic to the religion as a whole, but just to an admittedly large, loud, and violent faction within it...

And there is a moderate wing in Islam that does not cater to the Jihadist/fundamentalist party line - it's been around in various forms for centuries, and is in part responsible for the preservation of Pagan (specifically Hellenic Greek) writings, even though Socrates and Plato were not "People of the Book". Islam, I would argue, is not quite as one-dimensional as you believe.

Though I'll grant that the ones getting all the press lately certainly aren't representative of anything reasonable, rational, or sane.

Christianity is more of the same - the Bible (specifically the New Testament) is quite explicit about spreading The Word, and the overlay of Christianity on top of imperial Roman aspirations makes the modern Jihadists look like the amateurs they are. I'm under no illusions about the principles behind fundamentalist monotheism, and I'll oppose them every step of the way - but painting everyone with the same broad brush, I still argue, is a mistake, and one that we should know better than to engage in willfully.

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