The world needs to turn to alternative energy with a quickness - but maybe we can get a bit more repressive theocracy and gulf-destroying spills first.
lol I think the link is quite clear. The 'Muslim World' can't do anything because that's not an organized group of people. Muslims aren't responsible for each other in that way. The people in the region are powerless, and it's meant to be that way. Personally, I reject any blame assigned to the people of the region for these kinds of things. They are shielded from the outside world, and silenced on the inside. Despite that, I never waver in my preaching to try to get things to change. Wishful thinking? I don't know. I am concerned about it, but the reality is that as long as this world addiction to oil exists, the problem will persist. I'm sure when the oil runs out, all the former oil customers will come marching in with their "hero" badges condemning the atrocities. If you're asking me, realistically, when things will change, I say it's when the oil loses its value or runs out. Till then, we do our best everyday. Crazier things have happened I guess.
French people think Muslim women covering their head is degrading, even when the Muslim women don't. They want them to assimilate culturally. So, they ban dress they don't like. Indonesian people think Muslim women wearing revealing clothing is degrading, even if the women themselves don't. They want them to assimilate culturally. So, they ban the dress they don't like. My position is that both France and Indonesia should let Muslim women dress however they wish to dress. Actually, the Indonesian ban is a little more understandable because even in the US we have laws against people wearing too revealing clothing in public. But not allowing someone to optionally cover their head is totally incomprehensible to me.
That's because in your failed logic, you have conveniently been ignoring the fact that the same type of Islamist fanatics that try to force the women in Indonesia to dress in a certain way also force the women in France to dress in a certain way - and the French law merely tries to address and stop that. For the umpteenth time, the majority of women who are wearing this nonsense in France are not optionally wearing it - they are forced by the same type of fanatics as these women in Indonesia. So your seemingly noble, middle-of-the-road position of making it generously optional is in fact neither noble nor moderate - because it leads to the same result in both cases - the fanatics get their way.
Mathloom: 1) You and I both seem to agree that the Islamists who force women to dress or not dress in a certain way (among other methods of oppressing them) and who are very radical and intolerant in terms of putting their beliefs over everything else are wrong, right? 2) At the same time you say "It's not a problem of the Muslim world. Nothing can be done." And you attribute it to oil and economic problems. 3) However, this radicalization and oppression of women (as expressed in forcing them to dress a certain way, like in Saudi-Arabia) is not only spreading in oil-rich regions. It is, as we can see e.g. in France, spreading into Western countries as well. So - are you saying the West shall just accept that it is spreading into its own countries?
1) Yes. 2) I said there is no Muslim World as you are referring to it. That term attempts to bottle a heck-load of different people into a convenient box that doesn't exist and does not have uniform properties/actions. There is no doubt that oil keeps certain dictators in power and it is a fact that they are the propagators of what we are against. Please let me know if you don't think these are factual statements. 3) It is spreading because those who want to spread it (a minority even in Saudi Arabia) have enough money to monopolize Islamic schools, websites, books, flyers, universities, poverty-stricken sovereign governments, etc. Then the people who are imprinted leave, they go elsewhere because thank God we are humans and we won't come out like a factory line. When we talk about oil money we are talking about cash in hand. In one hand specifically. Think about that kind of power. They should not accept the ideology spreading. But that doesn't mean banning a veil is a good step. In METHOD, it is an identical to forcing the veil. I am against all kinds of force. But to be clear one more time. I am against the ideology and am with those who want to reject the ideology. But two wrongs don't make a right. I hope they can come up with a better solution to achieve the goal of rejecting the ideology in their society. The solution they have presented NOW, in my opinion, is terrible and I am convinced that it is one that will have backlash one way or another. Whether that's by terrorism, or by domestic abuse, or through further polarization, or creating enemies within a country, or whatever. Point: Whether something implodes or explodes, there will be a mess.
Thanks for your response, Mathloom. Do you have any suggestion as to what else could be done in the Western countries to stop the spreading of influence of these Islamists?
One important thing for me is that even if you remove the veil, you are not removing the ideology. At best, you are moving it. For me the best solution is education. Information. Knowledge. Being consistent, clear and fair. Leading by example. Make it a crime to have a school spreading terrorist ideology. Bring social services into the picture when a parent teaches their kids these things. Ensure that these people don't face bumps with integrating into society by not attacking their image. When you integrate, you learn. When you are forced to integrate, you reject education. I'm no expert. I don't claim to have a solution. But I think there are certainly ways in which the same (or better) results can be achieved with zero force. It's difficult for a woman who is barred from doing something harmless to then trust the people who barred her. It's probably impossible. I'm open to ideas.
New film uncovers racism in Germany http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/8347040.stm Is Germany a racist country? That is what a new documentary, Black on White, is trying to find out. Its findings are shocking. But, as Damien McGuinness reports, the filmmaker himself has been criticized by black Germans for his methods. For more than a year, journalist Gunter Wallraff travelled across Germany wearing a dark-haired curly wig and with his white skin painted black. Equipped with a secret camera, and calling himself Kwami Ogonno, he went to predominantly white areas to see how a black man with a foreign accent is treated. The experience, he said, was even more depressing that he had expected. "I hadn't known what we would discover, and had thought maybe the story will be, what a tolerant and accepting country we have become," said Mr Wallraff after a screening of the film Black on White in Berlin. "Unfortunately I was wrong." He was almost beaten up by neo-Nazis after a football match in eastern Germany. And outside a small-town nightclub was told by a skinhead: "Europe for whites, Africa for apes." But the film's most disturbing aspect is not the well-known racism of right-wing extremists, but rather the secretly-filmed reactions of everyday people - the landlady who says she could not possibly rent out a flat to a black person, or the shop owner who will not let "Kwami" try on an expensive watch, but willingly hands over the same watch to the next customer who is white. Everyday abuse For black people in certain parts of Germany such experiences are commonplace, believes Sven Mekarides, general secretary of the Africa Council in Berlin. Mr Mekarides left his native Cameroon in 1991 and came to study in a small town in eastern Germany. He says he and his fellow African students experienced racist attacks and abuse every day. They were spat at, shouted at and beer bottles were thrown at them. The worst attack took place in the eastern Berlin district of Lichtenberg in 2004, when Mr Mekarides and his girlfriend were surrounded by seven young men armed with knives. "We soon realized that it was dangerous to travel in groups of less than three people. And we would never let any of the women go anywhere without accompanying them," he said in a Berlin cafe. “ With an ageing population, Germany is now having to come to terms with being a country of immigration ” Since then, he said, the situation has not got much better. According to the Amadeu Antonio foundation there have been 138 racially-motivated murders in Germany since 1990. And last year police registered 140 race attacks in Berlin. "Those are only the most extreme cases the police know about," said Mr Mekarides. "Every day we get calls from black people who have been falsely accused of stealing something or insulted on the street." Clown in a carnival? Although Mr Mekarides welcomes the discussion about racism the film has sparked off, he believes the filmmaker's exaggerated disguise confirms Europeans' worst stereotypes of an African. "He just doesn't look like an African," said Mr Mekarides. "The wig, the make-up and the brightly-coloured shirt are all so over the top, he looks like he's a clown in a carnival. "After he has washed his skin, he can forget the problem. But black people have this problem every day." Some German newspaper commentators have accused the filmmaker himself of racism for acting out such a negative stereotype of a black person. The character of Kwami speaks broken German and is childlike in his ignorance of dangerous situations. Anti-racism pressure groups, meanwhile, have complained that the filmmaker is paternally speaking for black people, rather than with them. Why did he not simply film the experiences of real black people? "It was crucial that I take on these dangers myself," countered Mr Wallraff. "There's no way that I could delegate this role to someone else. "I've been accused of being racist. But just imagine if I'd sent a black person into situations that I wasn't prepared to go into myself." Torture and prison With a celebrated 40-year career of unearthing social injustice, it is impossible to doubt Gunter Wallraff's motivations. In one assignment he went undercover as an anti-government protestor in 1970s Greece and was tortured and imprisoned. The film has won praise for starting a debate about racism in Germany. After a Q&A session with Mr Wallraff in a Berlin cinema, one young black woman said the film was "interesting, helpful and needed for Germany". She said: "I've lived here all my life, and this is the first time I've ever seen an audience like this discussing this issue." Racism is viewed as unacceptable by mainstream German society, and many urban areas pride themselves on a multi-cultural tolerant atmosphere. But there do still exist so-called "no-go areas" - particularly in rural eastern Germany - which anti-racism activists advise non-white people to avoid. Gunter Wallraff's film has already done a lot to spark discussion about racism. With an ageing population, Germany is now having to come to terms with being a country of immigration. Clearly the debate is just beginning.
Thanks Mathloom, I think this is an interesting dialogue. I agree with everything I quoted except the last sentence. Knowing that post WWII western European countries (including Germany) are very tolerant, and with the Netherlands probably being the most tolerant of all, and having welcomed immigrants with open arms, I think that these countries, as strange as this might sound to you and many others, have not done enough to "force" immigrants to integrate. I know many people with very good intentions, especially post 1968, who did not question anything immigrants brought with them, because they wanted to be open-minded, well-meaning, multi-cultural, etc., and under no circumstances did they want to appear as terribly close-minded as their parents or grandparents. So they welcomed the immigrants and gave them the opportunity to live in their country basically without asking anything in return in terms of showing a willingness to integrate and to learn and respect the rules and the civilization of the country. To be honest, this worked in many cases - but the case with the highest percentage of failures is that of Muslim integration. I don't know if there is something inherent in the way they believe in their religion/ideology itself (the thinking that they don't have to respect the laws or rules because these are below their religious beliefs anyway), but I think it definitely has to do with the Muslim immigrants on average having a very low education level. So I agree that education is very important. However, unfortunately, without mandating this education, and without drawing very strict lines in the sand that basically force these immigrants to respect certain rules, they will keep living in a parallel society, even though they are in the country. The veil/burkha is part of that, and banning them is part of an effort to avoid the development of parallel societies with their own rules and laws (which might be totally contradictory to the country's laws and rules) within the country. So to summarize, it is regrettable if, to some degree, you have to "force to integrate", but it is preferable to the spreading of an ideology that is completely incompatible with a free western civilization.
Equal time for the very tolerant Germans! Zones of Fear: Germany's No-Go Areas http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php?wc_c=476&wc_id=588 The debate on No-Go areas in East Germany has demonstrated that the Germans are by no means as enlightened and purified of counter-civilizational tendencies as some anti-Muslim cultural warriors would claim. A commentary by Eberhard Seidel Rear view of a skinhead (photo: dpa) Parallel societies, national liberated zones, honor killings, the Rütli School, Neo-Nazis, macho Muslim juveniles – every week new horror stories emerge from the depths of the German Republic. Just as the public is beginning to understand and accept that Arab and Turkish macho youth are the raised middle fingers of the nation, that they are threatening our civil society, now this: No-Go areas in Germany! The claim made by former government spokesman Uwe-Karsten Heye that there are places in Germany people who might look like foreigners are best off avoiding, "because they might not get out alive," is certain to raise the hackles of many. You can just hear them: Here Germany goes again with its self-castigation, dredging up the old German guilt complex, demonizing racism, which is no worse here after all than with our neighbors. What's the phone number of the nearest police station? You almost want to ask: What's all the excitement about? Heye is only expressing what the potential victims of racist violence have long internalized. And nary a Berlin school class with an intercultural mix of pupils would dare take a trip into the surrounding Brandenburg countryside without first answering the following questions: How safe is the hostel? Is there a right-wing scene there? What's the phone number of the nearest police station? This is the way things have been for the past sixteen years. Nothing special – just another day in Germany. It feels good that after months of putting up with the annoying background drone of caustically culturalistic Muslim bashing, the vista has now broadened for a moment to let everyone in again: We, the Germans, are by no means as enlightened and purified of counter-civilizational tendencies as some anti-Muslim cultural warriors would claim. But activists on the anti-racism front, some of whom have been eagerly rubbing their hands for days now because as far as they're concerned Heye put the right issue, framed in the right words, on the agenda, should stop to think for a moment. Because the situation is much more explosive than the former government spokesman suggests. German Jews in immigrant districts Zones of fear are out there in force – not only in the eastern part of the Republic, and not all of them are occupied by right-wing extremists. This could and must be a warning for guests to Germany: Jews with skullcap and earlocks who openly sport a Star of David should think twice before trying to move about freely in immigrant districts with a high ratio of Muslim youth. And gays already know that it is not advisable to publicly display their sexual orientation in the right-wing strongholds of East Germany or on certain inner-city streets in the West. What are frequently discussed as being opposite problems are actually two sides of the same coin. The fear zones in Berlin-Neukölln, Berlin-Wedding or in East Germany have more in common than people like to think. For the past twenty years, at the latest since the wall fell in 1989, entire city quarters and regions have been shut off from the production of wealth and thus from the joys of consumption. Anyone looking for prospects of advancement, whether immigrant or German, gets out as fast as possible and tries to gain a foothold in more prosperous, consumption-friendly climes. Unemployment rates of under 30 percent What's left behind are social milieus that have little connection with the material standards and cultural codes of the trendsetting middle classes. In none of the zones that made it into the headlines in the past few months is the current unemployment rate lower than 30 to 40 percent. People have already known for a long time what no politician dares to admit in public: Society no longer has any use for the majority of the inhabitants of these fear zones. There is no room for them in the economy. Not today and not tomorrow either – not even in the army. The era of construction helpers, assembly line workers, steelworkers and infantrymen is history. Naturally, this is no excuse for right-wing radicals, anti-Semitism, gay bashing, hostility against Germans, racism or Islamism. Nor has an automatism been set in motion that can be justified by saying: That's what you get. And in fact, most of the victims – particularly women and older people – silently accept their misery. Limited scope of equality promise On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that it is mostly young men who are trying here to remain in control of their own destinies – all too often using unsuitable means. And one rule in educationally disadvantaged, organizationally weak and resource-poor milieus that are reached neither by trade unions nor by a democratic left-wing with its promises of equality is: Whoever has nothing quickly relies on what seems to be his birthright – that is, religion, ethnic identity, blood, heterosexuality. In these zones of fear young men can gain the most attention with behavior that's outside the norm and frequently violence-oriented. In a certain sense, their actions can thus be regarded as rational. They have learned that funds for youth centers, for school equipment and for job-creation schemes flow more freely when the number of racist attacks, violent acts or votes for radical right-wing parties have exceeded a critical mass. But the bourgeois classes have little to offer these milieus. No desire to redistribute jobs, no ideas for a society that is running out of work. Ethnic idiosyncrasies, Islamic characteristics A way out of this dilemma is sought in culturalistic debates. People no longer look for social causes behind the aberrant behavior of migrant youth, but instead for ethnic idiosyncrasies, Islamic characteristics and pre-modern thinking. The same strategy is used in East Germany. There, people still like to attribute conditions solely to the legacy of the GDR. This conveniently overlooks the fact that most of the troublemakers were socialized in the united Germany. There is a great temptation to define the country's problems as geographically and historically imported. This gives the (West German) majority society a feeling of moral superiority and saves them the trouble of taking a closer look at the rot spreading through their own foundations. With this kind of perspective, it's easy to create a certain mood, but not a sustainable state. For the fact is that this country cannot rid itself of either its conspicuously non-conforming eastern youth, or its uncouth young migrants, as much as some wish it could or others even demand in the case of "foreigners."
CometsWin: I know Günter Wallraff. He makes a living out of uncovering "scandals". He has been out of the public limelight for a few years, so he is trying to find new ways to get into the press. I have read one of his previous books in which he claims that McDonalds employees purposely spit into Hamburgers and make bets on who gets them, etc. If you want, you can find racists in every country - he is just looking for them so he can get attention for himself and make money. Is there racism in Germany? Yes, unfortunately there is. Is there racism in the US? Yes, unfortunately there is. Unfortunately, it exists in every country. However, I actually believe that there is a lot less racism (percentage-wise) in Germany than in the US. I have never even thought of race as much of an issue (and I am not your typical white German) before I came to Houston to study there. I could not believe my ears when I heard someone whom I actually liked and had beer with (a law student from Louisiana) talk about black people in the worst racist ways. Needless to say that our "friendship" ended there. He really seemed to be a nice guy, but apparently that was what he was taught by his parents. Vice versa, I noticed that there was something like reverse racism. At least in West Germany (where I grew up), I can honestly say that in the circles I grew up in, race was never an issue - people were truly color-blind for the most part. But CometsWin - if you want to post this article to somehow insinuate that I have a racist motivation in my posts, you are completely off.
I'm not sure this is true, but unfortunately, it might be - however, that would not be a German issue, but an issue in any country. As to the other stuff: I have been to Berlin-Neukoelln, Wedding and some of the other areas mentioned in the article. While it is correct that these are low-income, high unemployment zones with higher crime than elsewhere in the country, as a comparison, I would feel 100 times safer than walking around at night in downtown Houston.
