Shootings and Casualties in Central Paris - Page 63

On November 15 2015 04:28 Djzapz wrote:

The discussion does not need to be framed around Islam, it needs to understand that it is one important concept. The people who are indoctrinated to ISIS often (not always) have some prior understanding of Islam which allows them to integrate ISIS's crazy stuff to their own beliefs. Much like Christianity can be used to be homophobic, it's a platform on which bad shit can be added. Is this not possible to discuss?

Perhaps a lot of Christians are fine with homosexuality, and yet that doesn't mean one cannot point at the correlation and say "there is something here". Something about Christianity preemptively supports the negative vision of homosexuality, right? Which takes absolutely nothing away from Christians who do NOT adhere to this vision, but there is a correlation (which does not imply causation) which NEEDS to be explored if we want to understand this phenomenon, right?

And so belief and ideology are a problem, they are at the very least something to explore and something to try to understand! To say "blame the individuals" seems to make sense until you understand that these phenomenons are not simple freak cases, they're part of a larger context which, of course, is not all religious - it's social and cultural and it has roots in poverty and oppression. It's all these things. It's religion too. It's belief, too. It doesn't take anything away from Muslims who don't adhere to this, but to just say we should ignore part of it because it's uncomfortable is absolutely absurd, in my opinion.

I mean to point at another example, the Christian man who went to Africa to talk about how horrible homosexuality is which eventually led to Uganda adopting horrible anti-homosexuality laws, he had a religious baggage. It doesn't mean Christianity is all bad, it means that it plays a role in how this is articulated. There's even a clip that John Oliver showed in one of his shows, where a Ugandan woman says "at first it wasn't Adam and Eve, it was Adam and Steve". Does Christianity really have NOTHING to do with this hatred of homosexuals? Even if it did not, it would be insane to say it cannot be discussed, it cannot be studied. It would be absurd to say the issue is too contentious to be looked at. Why silence thought? And once again this shouldn't be viewed as an affront to Christianity. The problem is it's offensive because it seems like a way in which Christianity could be attacked, but I have no interest in that. It's just clearly a factor.

And so while I understand the defense and the complete denial that it could even possibly be a factor, I disagree. It's an argumentative strategy that I can understand, but it closes off important topics that need to be discussed and are not irrelevant.

On November 15 2015 05:04 FFW_Rude wrote:


His name was Ismaël. I'm watching the news on TF1

On November 15 2015 05:03 Nebuchad wrote:


The thing is, in the picture that you describe, the role of islam is the role of any ideology. There is a certain notion going on, that notion needs help channeling, an ideology happens to be in the vicinity and so that ideology is used. That's always been how these things work. So does islam play a role in that sense? Yeah, of course. But is that role relevant? I don't see how you can make that case without going for specific criticism of islam as opposed to other ideologies, like others in the thread have been doing. Unless you want to make a case against ideologies in general, in which case I would agree with you, but not think this is the best time to make it.

On November 15 2015 04:57 farvacola wrote:

I don't think its fair to characterize opposition to a discussion that focuses on Islam as one that argues that Islamic extremism has nothing to do with Islam. While there'll be some people who may approach things with a totally "hands off religion" attitude, I'm pretty sure Yamato is instead suggesting that Islam, as a factor, is not prominent enough to warrant substantial focus as compared to the larger picture of geo-political colonialism on the part of Western powers and the ongoing side-effects of a very messily fought Cold War. While the contours of the faith likely play a role in how the sympathies of Middle-Easterners and Northern Africans are mobilized towards violence, I think it can relatively easily be argued that other influences deserve more lip-service, namely poverty, interventionism, and shortsighted diplomatic subterfuge like that practiced by the US during much of the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

On November 15 2015 05:03 Nebuchad wrote:


The thing is, in the picture that you describe, the role of islam is the role of any ideology. There is a certain notion going on, that notion needs help channeling, an ideology happens to be in the vicinity and so that ideology is used. That's always been how these things work. So does islam play a role in that sense? Yeah, of course. But is that role relevant? I don't see how you can make that case without going for specific criticism of islam as opposed to other ideologies, like others in the thread have been doing. Unless you want to make a case against ideologies in general, in which case I would agree with you, but not think this is the best time to make it.

On November 15 2015 05:16 Rebs wrote:
But that reform has nothing to do with solving the problem of militancy and terrorism using it as justification. That wont matter, people will do bad things and use some kind of justification regardless. Imagine a situation where religion doesnt exist Islam doesnt exist. Do you really think these people who are doing these things wont find some other excuse to be millitant and terrorize? Its a sum of the landscape that has been developed there, and Western intervention is just as much to blame as the failures of the nations themselves. So its the worlds problem more than it is Islam's problem.

The problem is that this is not "islam needs reform or this is happening because Islam has tenants that supposedly justify this activity and we need to talk about it thread"

On November 15 2015 05:30 Djzapz wrote:

I'm fine with this, and without the shadow of a doubt those things are important to discuss, but I disagree that it's not prominent enough to be worthy of discussion. There are too many elements of it that are very forward and prominent. ISIS, it's in the name. It's in what they shout as they're shooting at people. The reaction of Muslim world to the Charlie Hebdo shootings, it was aggressive. The cultural differences are not negligible. There are all these elements that are closely tied to the specific elements of ideology that are being mobilize to justify the acts.


I think you can make a case against ideologies in general while being particularly critical of those which have particularly negative effects in a particular context.


I don't know, I understand why people feel the need to make everything so black and white. Of course without Islam these people will find other excuses to be militant and terrorize. But this isn't binary. It's not "terror" vs "no terror". I'd argue that Islam facilitates it, as ideologies often do. And as others have said, it's likely that neocolonialism and these other contextual elements brought up by farvacola are other long-term explanations of what is going on.


I don't think Islam needs a reform. Fuck, I'm probably one of the people on this thread who's got the least of an idea on how to approach this issue. It just seems to me like there's a shitload of red tape around it and I believe the red tape to be unjustified. It's not there because it needs to be, it's there because it's sensitive and contentious.

On November 15 2015 04:33 las91 wrote:


You use big words but don't seem to know what they mean nor how they can be adjoined to actually create a coherent thought.

To the French posters, how large actually was the anti-immigration movement in France before yesterday?

On November 15 2015 00:22 Jibba wrote:
I know this is the thread for Paris but I think people should also know that ISIS set off two bombs in Beirut yesterday, killing 40+ and wounding 200+.

I don't think that should go ignored by westerners (even though I'm sure it will be.) Both countries need support.

On November 15 2015 02:15 ArtyK wrote:
Short recap by Le Monde in english : http://www.lemonde.fr/attaques-a-paris/article/2015/11/14/what-you-need-to-know-about-paris-attacks-and-the-situation-in-france_4810074_4809495.html

On November 15 2015 06:08 datscilly wrote:

This is an interesting angle. The scale of media coverage of France vs. Lebanon is vastly disproportionate, showing that we empathize with the people in Paris more than the people in Beirut.

Even though this is underreported in most media, this is the kind of contrarian angle that gets upvoted in reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3sso4k/lebanon_capitol_attacked_by_isis_one_day_before/

Although the mod tag for that link says "Misleading Editorialized Title | Already Covered", I don't think that it is misleading nor editorialized. According to my research, the Beirut bombings really happened on Thursday, the day before the Paris bombings.


Thanks for this.

Edit: Wow, in the time it took to post this, the reddit link has been purged from the listings of /r/worldnews! The link is still there, but it no longer appears on the front page (nor the second or third page...), even though it is three hours old with 7000 upvotes. And when I first clicked the link, the mod tag had simply been the descriptive "43 killed 239 wounded". So all this happened within minutes.

On November 15 2015 06:21 zlefin wrote:



it also shows how much more attention we pay to single large acts rather than numerous small acts; e.g. the 150 or so people murdered in Brazil today, in separate and unrelated incidents.

On November 15 2015 05:03 Nebuchad wrote:


The thing is, in the picture that you describe, the role of islam is the role of any ideology. There is a certain notion going on, that notion needs help channeling, an ideology happens to be in the vicinity and so that ideology is used. That's always been how these things work. So does islam play a role in that sense? Yeah, of course. But is that role relevant? I don't see how you can make that case without going for specific criticism of islam as opposed to other ideologies, like others in the thread have been doing. Unless you want to make a case against ideologies in general, in which case I would agree with you, but not think this is the best time to make it.

On November 15 2015 04:57 farvacola wrote:

I don't think its fair to characterize opposition to a discussion that focuses on Islam as one that argues that Islamic extremism has nothing to do with Islam. While there'll be some people who may approach things with a totally "hands off religion" attitude, I'm pretty sure Yamato is instead suggesting that Islam, as a factor, is not prominent enough to warrant substantial focus as compared to the larger picture of geo-political colonialism on the part of Western powers and the ongoing side-effects of a very messily fought Cold War. While the contours of the faith likely play a role in how the sympathies of Middle-Easterners and Northern Africans are mobilized towards violence, I think it can relatively easily be argued that other influences deserve more lip-service, namely poverty, interventionism, and shortsighted diplomatic subterfuge like that practiced by the US during much of the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

On November 15 2015 07:12 Squat wrote:

Out of curiosity, when would be the right time to have that debate? Because according to the self-flagellating crowd who seem incapable of believing that things can go wrong without western imperialism, that time is never.

The amount of mental gyrations on display in this thread speaks volumes about how eager people are to assume the mantle of responsibility for everything bad happening in the middle east, conveniently ignoring the fact that thousands of European-born citizens, who have never had a hair touched by any western occupation force, have made a mass exodus to some of the most war-torn and desolate places in the world, all to enroll with the most brutal and doctrinaire group of religious fanatics in modern history.

Everything matters. History matters. Geopolitics matter. Socioeconimics matter. Lack of national identity and long-standing tribal feuds matter. Lack of opportunity, failed states and crumbling societies matter. And yes, sincerely held beliefs about the fundamental nature of reality and the ancillary ideology matter. Taking any of these factors off the table or simply waving them away with the peremptory hand of the effete neo-liberal too mired in white guilt for real objectivity is not a recipe for honest discussion. It's simply lazy and disingenuous.

And the real irony here is that the people who are most likely to suffer from this obscurantism are regular, peaceful muslims,who only want to go about their lives. The refusal to engage directly with the deeply problematic aspects of Islam is the cause of an immense amount of both confusion and conflation, linking every expression of the faith to the suicidal mania that jihadists so fervently embrace. No one has any trouble believing that the homophobia of some local judge in Arizona is rooted partly in Christianity, yet no one is tempted to indict all Christians because of it. There is no reason we cannot have a similarly broad view of Islam.

On November 15 2015 07:23 radscorpion9 wrote:


I feel like at least this issue should be studied openly. I agree with djzapz that the political correctness needs to end and people need to stop accusing others of bigotry for asking questions about how influential Islam can be in promoting extremism (not saying you're doing this). If it turns out that religion is some excuse that really points to deeper motivations (such as the collapse of relations between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq), that's great...but at least look at the question openly, with equal weight given to all possible factors, before assuming that certain factors are minor.

On November 15 2015 07:24 Nebuchad wrote:


So we agree. Everything matters. Why are you telling this to me, and not to the countless people in this thread who would like to focus on religion, and are doing just that? Why is it that everything is so clear when it comes to christianity and islam to you, but when someone correctly describes how ideologies work, it must automatically mean that he's an apologist who says the ideology doesn't matter at all? Why is it that everything is so clear when it comes to christianity and islam to you, but when someone correctly says there are other factors at play, he just wants to "self-flagellate" and blame the west for everything? Please, be consistent.