France, and how we respond.

[dexeron]

Leaving public for two reasons. Firstly, it relates to the previous two posts (that I left public.) Secondly, the comments section below is worth reading, because it exemplifies exactly the attitude I'm warning about here.


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Why did I share the two posts immediately preceding this?

It's so tempting, in the wake of horrible tragedy, to simply accept the narrative we're being sold that lumps everyone even slightly different than us into an "other" category and blame them for all of our misfortune. It's easy to say: "we are at war with Islam" or to blame the refugees for these actions. Even some who would not go so far will still say: "ISIS is exploiting the refugee crisis, thus all refugees are suspect/the borders should be closed." It makes us want to think of the world in stark black/white terms - yet that is exactly what the terrorists want us to think. That is how they think: that the world is the stage for a conflict between "the West" and "Islam," and they want that war. They want the everyday Muslim to be marginalized and victimized by folks in the countries that they have wounded. They want mosques to be burned down (as just happened in Ontario.) They are in the minority, but they want to get more people onto their side, to see their way of thinking.

They want us to do their work for them.

The real world is, of course, far more complicated than some fantasy of "good" vs "evil." Yes, the actions of ISIS are evil, but too many who buy into this black/white mindset are unwilling to differentiate "ISIS" from "Muslim," or ask "Why aren't Muslims fighting or speaking out against ISIS" when so many Muslims are, every day, putting their lives on the line to do so. Understanding these complexities is vital to moving on to find real solutions to these problems, instead of continuing to follow policies that ultimately just further the cycle.

If you haven't already, please go down and read the previous two posts made to my journal, both shares of the words of another, but important words that discuss some of the facts of what's really going on in this ongoing conflict.

Let me close this by quoting yet another friend from Facebook. I won't link this one directly, or give his name, because he chose to keep the post restricted:

"Do not side with terrorists:

A friend posted an image saying that we are at war with Islam. This worries me, as I do NOT want to be on the same side as the tiny Salafist takfiri extremists who want the West to be at war with all of Islam. It is how they hope to take control of the average Muslim. Remember: DAESH, killer of too many fellow Muslims to count, ~wants~ the French and the rest of the West to react in anger and fear and wage war against all of Islam. Please do NOT promote what they want."

Understand who the enemy actually is. Fight the enemy, if it is required. But do not let their quest to make us give in to fear and hatred succeed. Do not do their work for them. Fight them first and foremost by refusing to follow their dance.

Comments

Part 2

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

Salafist Takfiri did not even exist until very recently, with its origins in folks living near the end of the 18th century. It gained power along with the rise of Arab Nationalism near the end of the 19th century and into the 20th. Islam went along just find for thousands of years (experiencing both peace and war, just like Christianity was doing at the same time) until the rise of these groups. "Reading the Quran" is meaningless here - the Quran was read for thousands of years and most people who read it didn't run off with swords to behead unbelievers. Takfiri don't use the Quran to justify their actions anyway, but specific "scholars" of the Quran (from the last couple of centuries) who basically made up whatever they wanted to support their political goals (much like Khomeini completely reversed the old policy of Shi'a staying out of politics and sticking to scholarship, instead preaching that as the best scholars, it was their duty to rule.)

Hell, folks held prisoner by ISIS have reported that they saw no Qurans, and the soldiers never prayed.

I know you've got an obvious counter-argument to my statements above about radical Christians vs. radical Muslims: "But these Christians aren't actually killing anyone - Muslims are, and the so-called 'peaceful' Muslims aren't speaking out against it, or fighting it!"

Ignoring the examples I showed of Christians actually killing people, that kind of statement merely betrays ignorance as to the actual facts. Christian murder is still going on, all over the world, every day! - and there's silence from your everyday Christian. (This is not a criticism, most Christians just don't know about it.) Meanwhile, Muslims are out there protesting, every day, and speaking out - even in Middle Eastern countries, against these atrocities! And there are thousands of thousands of Muslims putting their lives on the line to fight groups like ISIS in Afghanistan and Iraq, dying to try to preserve freedom from these groups. The Kurds are actually seeing some success, and have taken back some land from ISIS. They loudly say: "ISIS does not represent Islam."

In fact, the people most loudly saying "ISIS represents all of Islam" or "Islam is at war with the West" are ISIS themselves. That's the narrative they want everyone to agree with. That's the purpose of these attacks. They want the West to see "Islam" as the enemy, to treat all Muslims as suspect, for people to burn down mosques (as just happened in Canada.)

They want us to do their work for them.

I am not making you out to be the enemy. I don't think you are an enemy. But I think all of us are so easily tempted to react in an all-too-human way to attacks like these. We react in fear. We want to fight back. We want a concrete foe to point at, to hate, to get revenge on. And there is a concrete foe - but it's not "Islam," it's not refugees fleeing these monsters, and it's certainly not the average Muslim.

We should fight back (and we have been. The military has been conducting thousands and thousands of air-strikes against ISIS targets over the last few years, and have been very successful. The fact that ISIS is now resorting to this kind of attack, instead of their previous strategy of merely "state-building" is actually a testament to that.) We should all stand strong against extremism (in any ideology that preaches violence!) but what we must not do is agree with the terrorists. We must not let them frame the conditions and the battleground for this fight. We must not let them define for us the nature of this war (or the nature of the faith of billions of people who live in peace - because let's be honest, if "Islam" really was the enemy, we'd all already be dead.) We must not let them win, and giving in to fear is surrendering to them before the fight's even really begun.