Quote:
Originally Posted by Livia
I never said I supported banning Muslims entering the UK, the closure of mosques (unless they support extremists, and let's face it, some do) or any other unlawful action. However, when the first reaction of so many people is "oh the poor ordinary Muslims" it's a skewed, in my opinion.
The vast majority of people already know that most Muslims are ordinary, hard-working, law-abiding members of the community and only the very stupidest in our society would target them based simply on their religion. And keeping the focus on ordinary Muslims and worrying about how the stupidest people in society will react IS taking away from the terrorist attrocity by pre-empting the victimisation of innocent Muslims where clearly that isn't happening. I haven't seen twelve Muslims shot dead in Paris. I haven't seen a Muslim hacked to death on the streets of Britain, nor have I seen a mass coming together of Muslims to denounce the action of their brothers and sisters.
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IMO that's the wrong attitude when for the vast majority of Muslims in the West they are going to have more in common with you and me than they are these extremists. There is a common enemy here and I find it near impossible to generalise across the Muslim population in any way considering how bitterly divided their religion is. The Islamic world is tearing itself apart right now the way that the Christian world did in the 16th and 17th centuries. I don't believe your average Muslim in the West should feel any guilt or responsibility about this when they too are a victim of it. And I do think it is important to make that point, else we risk becoming engulfed in racial violence and chaos. I'd go even further and say that distinguishing ordinary Muslims from extremists is vital to confronting and tackling extremism in general, and not just a token and insensitive gesture by self-righteous leftists. After all, one of the police officers killed yesterday was himself a Muslim which does tragically illustrate the point. If we can't remind people that extremists do not represent all Islam on the day that a Muslim police officer has laid down his life to prevent terrorism, then when can we? Shall we wait till grenades have been thrown at Mosques - as has now happened - before anyone speaks up? It's what was so positive imo about the Sydney attacks that Australians immediately expressed their solidarity with the Muslim population rather than turning on it.