Ariel is understandably confusing Arab with Muslim. There has never been an Arab Democracy.
On the same subject, while not all Arabs are Muslims, Muslims who are Arab seem to take their religion differently. The prophet was a real Arab (not just Arabic-speaking), and their book is written in Arabic.
Huntington described Muslims in Indonesia as somewhat "relaxed", and I can see his point. It takes a very relaxed vision of scripture to do away with all the surahs explicitly prohibiting wearing heavy metal shirts.
I'd say that muslims of any background in Canada are also pretty relaxed too.
Arabs in Europe have to deal with a horrible sense of inferiority. The easiest most accessible instrument they have to feel superior to the decadent Europens is identifying with their righteous religious superiority (being more pious, (the women more modest) and speaking a dialect of the language of the book as a mother tongue)
So yes, while there are whackjobs in every religion and ideology, I don't know of any set of beliefs (except perhaps for Scientology) that so explicitly and without much room for interpretation, rules the punishment of apostates, of insults of Islam, and of violent expansion by war, so unlike other whackjobs, these have a recognized, respected excuse that no other kind of whackjob has.
The very real danger of this situation is that with our liberal increasingly technological civilization at the end of the Patriarchy, we are just asking for Luddites and Reactionaries to make an appearance, and the Muslim Saboteur (Luddite), the Muslim Ted Kaczynski, has Legitimacy and a potential following of 500 million men and their subjugated wives and children.
On the same subject, while not all Arabs are Muslims, Muslims who are Arab seem to take their religion differently. The prophet was a real Arab (not just Arabic-speaking), and their book is written in Arabic.
Huntington described Muslims in Indonesia as somewhat "relaxed", and I can see his point. It takes a very relaxed vision of scripture to do away with all the surahs explicitly prohibiting wearing heavy metal shirts.
I'd say that muslims of any background in Canada are also pretty relaxed too.
Arabs in Europe have to deal with a horrible sense of inferiority. The easiest most accessible instrument they have to feel superior to the decadent Europens is identifying with their righteous religious superiority (being more pious, (the women more modest) and speaking a dialect of the language of the book as a mother tongue)
So yes, while there are whackjobs in every religion and ideology, I don't know of any set of beliefs (except perhaps for Scientology) that so explicitly and without much room for interpretation, rules the punishment of apostates, of insults of Islam, and of violent expansion by war, so unlike other whackjobs, these have a recognized, respected excuse that no other kind of whackjob has.
The very real danger of this situation is that with our liberal increasingly technological civilization at the end of the Patriarchy, we are just asking for Luddites and Reactionaries to make an appearance, and the Muslim Saboteur (Luddite), the Muslim Ted Kaczynski, has Legitimacy and a potential following of 500 million men and their subjugated wives and children.
