a reply to:
Shiloh7
I have been fighting extremism for years and years now - from the inside, as I am also Muslim. I will offer up my perspective here, I hope you don't
mind.
They have websites and all where they export this extreme (and false) interpretation of Islam. People like me, we go there, and use polemics etc and
show this interpretation as being wholly wrong.
I used to do this 8-12 hours a day (some days 16) every day after I got hurt and couldn't work a normal job. Many people do this in their off hours -
still 4-8 hours a day after work, every single day. Many like me who practically make this a career - we just don't get paid.
And some people you gain, and some people you loose. We always seem to loose way more than we gain... its like for every 1 we pull away, there are 10
more joining this false belief.
So I started working on getting the worst of these websites down, but ran into much difficulty and opposition in that - between their supposed
freedoms and the governments incessant desire to "know what they are talking about" it's near impossible to shut them down...
Anyhow, I was talking to my husband and he disagrees also about shutting these sites down. He says that is not the actual source of the problem, the
source of the problem is whatever makes them feel disenfranchised from the rest of society which makes them prone to accepting extremism.
Something I was thinking about, since it is more European countries that are seeing the brunt of converts to extremism... a low estimate of 12,000
(but could be as much as 16-20 thousand) from Europe alone fighting in Iraq and Syria right now, either for ISIS or for Al-Qaeda. Those are absolutely
large numbers, and these are young men (18-30 year olds), whose parents are usually not extremists themselves - they aren't learning it at home in
other words. Cultural Muslims who try to practice their faith yes, extremists no.
I do think we have to figure out what is making large numbers of European muslims prone to extremism... and I wonder if it is not, as my husband
says... a feeling of disenfranchisement from society at large.
The one thing Europe did was to allow large numbers of immigrants without really working on integrating them into society, so you have these children
growing up in immigrant communities who perhaps feel as though they are outcasts from the rest of the country.
I don't know... but I think it is worth thinking about... a lack of integration and allowing too many immigrants all at the same time, could be a
contributing factor.
Someone once was discussing that... saying how if you have a group of 30 people all working on a project together, and you add one to the group, then
the group integrates the 1... when you add 5, the 5 keep to themselves more, eventually becoming a part of the group but much slower than the 1 did,
but when you add 15, they will keep to themselves and isolate themselves from the rest of the group...
This is probably part of the reason extremism is growing. There are almost more European and other foreign muslims fighting in Iraq and Syria than
there are Middle Eastern Muslims....Al-Qaeda and ISIS have gotten a substantial part of their fighting forces from our disenfranchised kids...
Anyway, its something to think about... what is the root cause of making someone susceptible to extremism?
edit on 16-8-2014 by OpinionatedB
because: (no reason given)