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Originally Posted by MTVN
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.
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There has been a bit of a backlash, as I said before, by the stupidest people in society. But the
vast majority of people understand the difference between Muslims and terrorists. You studied in Norwich, there has been a Muslim community in Norwich for hundreds of years, one of the oldest Muslim communities in the country. There has been no backlash against them because people understand the difference.
I don't see anyone turning on the Muslim community as a whole. I see a couple of kneejerk comments after twelve people were gunned down in cold blood. I worked quite a bit in Jordan last year. There is no shortage of Muslims
utterly condemning the actions of ISIL who are just one border away from them. I want to see everyone standing together to condemn these people, Christians, Jews, Muslims, people with no faith... If we're going to stand together we need to be
seen to be standing together.