How to Keep Exremism from taking Root?

[Sukerkin]

I know that this article is from the Daily Mail, never a good starting point for a serious debate {} but it raises a point that might bear discourse - how can we stop religious fanatacism banning the flames of discord and hatred to the point at which people, who were once 'ordinary', become the grist for the suicide bomber mill?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/a...sister-explains-Muslims-lured-fanaticism.html

 

[granfire]

As they say around here 'that boy ain't quiet right'

how can you combat that kind of insanity?

 

[K-man]

If I think back a few months I got into terrible trouble with Bill Mattocks for suggesting that radical Islam was bad. Something about freedom of expression if I remember rightly.

It's a bit hard to deport people who have been born in the country,tempting though it might be, but I think the Government could start to enforce laws against incitement etc. These guys get away with heaps because if anyone complains, they are accused of racism. Police try to break things up, they are racist. Government passes a bill, racist. Try to stop radical clerics preaching hatred .. racist and curtailing freedom of expression.

Education is one answer, but often these guys send their children to Muslim schools. The kids get indoctrinated at home and at school. The majority of Muslims are the same as the rest of us, just wanting to live their own lives. It is a small minority causing the problems.

It is a complex issue with no simple answer. :asian:

 

[Master Dan]

I know that this article is from the Daily Mail, never a good starting point for a serious debate {} but it raises a point that might bear discourse - how can we stop religious fanatacism banning the flames of discord and hatred to the point at which people, who were once 'ordinary', become the grist for the suicide bomber mill?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/a...sister-explains-Muslims-lured-fanaticism.html

next to impossible if as a child your parents and relatives raise you to hate also send you to a school that does the same. Hitler did the same with all the youth education. I like what one women said on the link comments that Women will determin what being a Muslin is or the men will go with out? Yes but only in a free society. Isriel is one of the only countries in the middle East that requires muslim women to have equal legal rights while all the others have varying degrees of radical abuse of women regardless of what goes on in Palistine that is war

 

[Sukerkin]

I have just noted that you can tell that I typed up the OP in a furious few seconds before I had to fly off to the shop-floor to deal with something!

Obviously, it should say "Extremism" in the title (maybe the missing "t" got blown up?) and I meant to type "fanning the flames" rather than "banning the flames" .

 

[ballen0351]

I think by the very definition of an extremist there is nothing that can be done to change them. They don't follow laws or rules. They don't follow the norms. I don't think a person can be turned into a bomber. I think your already wired that way someone may help you along but a normal person wouldn't do it. At least I hope not.

 

[JWLuiza]

Education and freedom. Fundamentalists of ANY flavor hide behind control and brainwashing (Scientology, Christianity, Islam, Judaism). I was just listening to an interview with a woman who left a very strict hasidic community and it was very eye opening as to the level of control the leadership has and the level of isolation these communities can have.

 

[seasoned]

If I think back a few months I got into terrible trouble with Bill Mattocks for suggesting that radical Islam was bad. Something about freedom of expression if I remember rightly.

It's a bit hard to deport people who have been born in the country,tempting though it might be, but I think the Government could start to enforce laws against incitement etc. These guys get away with heaps because if anyone complains, they are accused of racism. Police try to break things up, they are racist. Government passes a bill, racist. Try to stop radical clerics preaching hatred .. racist and curtailing freedom of expression.

Education is one answer, but often these guys send their children to Muslim schools. The kids get indoctrinated at home and at school. The majority of Muslims are the same as the rest of us, just wanting to live their own lives. It is a small minority causing the problems.

It is a complex issue with no simple answer. :asian:

Agreed, plus, I mentioned a while ago in a thread, "that our freedoms will some day bring us down". To clarify, it's our freedoms that are extended to every Tom, Dick, and Harry, to mean all genders (border jumpers), that will be the curse of us all..................
Maybe this thread will bring BM back to the boards.

 

[billc]

The man in the article is no different than a serial killer in that he was born that way. He was always the way he was and radical islam is how it expressed itself. Instead of robbing banks or joining a street gang, the draw for him was the radical muslim culture. I think it is as simple as that. I don't think you can change peoples behavior that drastically, I think it is a part of them from the start, and they are just waiting to find what murderous nonsense fits their desires.

 

[Tez3]

Education and freedom. Fundamentalists of ANY flavor hide behind control and brainwashing (Scientology, Christianity, Islam, Judaism). I was just listening to an interview with a woman who left a very strict hasidic community and it was very eye opening as to the level of control the leadership has and the level of isolation these communities can have.

However Chasidc communities aren't extremists and there is a reason for them being the way they are, persecution. should they surrender their identity and become assimilitated into the mainstream or should they stay apart to preserve their identity and their beliefs? In the end it didn't matter they were sent to the concentration camps anyway. By being apart they preserve what they believe in, however I know that their way of life is a hard one to understand but not everything is quite what you think it is. It would take a long time to explain I think and as each group is differnt perhaps I still wouldn't get my point across. It's not for me but I do understand why. http://www.rebbe.org/chasidism.html

A good book to read although it is fiction is The Promise by Chaim Potok, apart from anything it's a good read.

 

[Josh Oakley]

I agree, Chasidic communities are not on the whole extremist. Many aren't even strictly fundamentalist.

Better examples of extremist Jewish groups would be the Kahane Chai in Israel or the CRIF in France.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[WC_lun]

The man in the article is no different than a serial killer in that he was born that way. He was always the way he was and radical islam is how it expressed itself. Instead of robbing banks or joining a street gang, the draw for him was the radical muslim culture. I think it is as simple as that. I don't think you can change peoples behavior that drastically, I think it is a part of them from the start, and they are just waiting to find what murderous nonsense fits their desires.

I can't believe I am writing this, but I mostly agree with you Billi. I think there are those that are ignorant and easily manipulated that get involved in those organisations, but for the most part they are just thugs that want to control others through religious zealotry.

 

[JWLuiza]

This specific subsect attacks a woman who brings light to their practices. Bans the internet, yet the business men are given free reign into the secular world but women are scorned if they know to read too well. This is the type of thought that breeds the horrible spitting attacks described in communities in israel and the US. They may not be terrorists but they have the same fundamental flaw. I shouldn't paint with such a broad brush but the tendency towards decreasing access to information is the same fundamental flaw.

 

[Tez3]

This specific subsect attacks a woman who brings light to their practices. Bans the internet, yet the business men are given free reign into the secular world but women are scorned if they know to read too well. This is the type of thought that breeds the horrible spitting attacks described in communities in israel and the US. They may not be terrorists but they have the same fundamental flaw. I shouldn't paint with such a broad brush but the tendency towards decreasing access to information is the same fundamental flaw.

I think you should provide a link to this because otherwise it seems you are tarring all communities with the same brush. It may not be a community thing it may well be a family thing rather than a fundamental one, also who is the woman who is supposedly shedding light on this community pehaps she is not and is actually stirring things? Perhaps she's someone who's fallen out with them and is being spiteful herself? An anonymous 'report' about a woman who reports that this is so means nothing.
Most people don't know what the Chasidic communities are, what they see is 'Jews' and the danger is we all get thought of as they same. I'd be the first to shout if someone was being mistreated but I'd need proof first.

 

[JWLuiza]

Listen to most recent skeptics guide to the universe podcast. Also note that I said subsect (Satmar) of the community. Also you can find info on her book here: http://www.deborahfeldman.com/about-the-book.php

 

[Tez3]

Listen to most recent skeptics guide to the universe podcast. Also note that I said subsect (Satmar) of the community. Also you can find info on her book here: http://www.deborahfeldman.com/about-the-book.php

Thank you. I've had a look at some of her book, there are also a good many people saying that what she has written isn't true. I find some of it unlikely tbh or at least not representative of Judaism let alone a sect that is as conservative as the Chasids. There's a lot that doesn't ring true but rather than rebut it here and derail the thread I'd ask people to take it with a pinch of salt and even if the worst of it was true it's only one tiny community not the Jewish world as a whole.

http://deborah-feldman-exposed.blogspot.co.uk/

 

[Carol]

I like the Skeptic's Guide podcast but to me Feldman did not come across as a rock of credibility. Skepchick & Co. were doing a fine job of drinking that magic Koolaid that makes them abandon all their vetting skills.

That being said, I agree very stronglywith JW's point of education and freedom being the best prevention/defense against extremism. Critical thinking can do a lot for mor ills than just extremism

 

[Ken Morgan]

The very first thing that needs to occur in any fundamentalist society is the emancipation of women. It has been shown time and time again, that when you educate women, give them the vote and all the other rights males have, various positive changes occur in society. The birth rate drops and poverty both drop straight away. Women want stability and growth for their families more so than men, as such, odds are their children will also become educated.

 

[Tez3]

However, extremism isn't confined to 'fundamentalists', there are a great many female extremists in groups such as the BNP, NF and suchlike. as there are in their polar opposites.

 

[billc]

I have just finished Ann coulter's book Demonic and she pointed out a few things that touch on this subject. One of the things she pointed out is that when you allow extremists to get away with what they do, you get more, not less of it. Her example was the obamacare protestor who had their finger bitten off by an obamacare supporter. The guy didn't press charges because he said he wasn't the litiguous type of person. Her point here is you can't capitulate to violent people, it only allows them to continue what they do. She states, and I think it applies here, "Tranquil, law-based societies are the most vulnerable to attack because those with an interest in defending it are calmly following the law. They don't like disorder even in defense of order. " You see this point here in the states and also apparently in Great Britain and the other democracies around the world as radical islamists preach hate and incite their young men to commit violent acts.

The way you deal with this is exposing it, not allowing it to go unreported. For example, the biggest help to the civil rights movement here in the States was the television camera. As our country saw innocent people, peacfully marching, being attacked by nightsticks, police dogs and fire hoses, and then the reports of the church bombings and murders were covered on television, things began to change. You had all of those things before, but the wider country wasn't forced to face them because they were hidden. That is, until television came along. What does that mean for the extremism from the first post. I think the BBC should send undercover reporters into Mosques and record the guys inciting these young men. Then put it on the air with extended coverage and footage. They should also do lots and lots of stories about this extremism so that regular muslims and other British citizens can't ignore it and that sort of behavior is acknowledged, openly as being wrong and something that will not be tolerated by the rest of the country as well as the greater muslim community. Regular citizens need to see this stuff on television as much as possible. Muslim citizens need to see this stuff on television as well. You may say, some muslims already hear and see this extremism already when they go into the community. True, but television pulls it out of the sympathetic environment in which they see it, much like seeing it under a microscope. Good people will find it harder to go along to get along when this stuff is out in open, and not hidden in their community.

The BBC also needs to do more stories on mistreatment of women in the muslim community. If you want to free women, you need to expose the abuse to the wider community, where they can't hide from it or ignore it. If you think of all the great monsters in history, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin and the rest, they made their greatest progess in their atrocities when people refused to see that they were evil and ignored what is easily seen now. Hitler was praised when he first came to power as were the communists. Now, when their evil is exposed, (at least the nazi evil) you can't have a neo-nazi march here in the states without 10 times the counter protestors denouncing them.

The truth about these extremists needs to be on television and the stories of their behavior needs to be on television. That is one way to combat it. When it is allowed to be hidden, and then explained away, it will just grow and the extremists will feel justified because the greater community doesn't deal with them, but hides their faces from them.

Another thing, the police need to be allowed to do their jobs. The klan was destroyed here in the states because after their evil was on television, law enforcement was able to take them on and it was demanded that they be taken on. I heard an agent on a show once who said that for every klan member today, there were 10 undercover agents infiltrating their group. That is one way you take on extremism, you let law enforcement enforce the law and that will only really happen when the extremism is exposed on television where the good people can see it and not ignore it and insist that it be dealt with by law enforcement and the judicial system.