A culture of violence and bigotry
May. 13th, 2004 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pluralthis will probably piss some of you off but it has been brewing for sometime
I am literally fed up and appalled with the coddling by the liberal west of Arab and Muslim governments and militants
To quote Bill Maher
"I am not prejudiced against them, prejudiced means "pre-judging", I am judging"
Which is what I am doing here, looking at their actions, and practices and judging them according to our standards.
Take the prison situation; for Americans to be outraged makes sense such behavior is outside the norm and the boundaries of what is acceptable in Western civilization. For Arabs in middle eastern countries to be outraged is hypocritical bordering on humorous. You cannot honestly be outraged at behavior which is the culturally and societally accepted norm in your society. They are not appalled and outraged that such behavior occurred, they are appalled and outraged that it was done by Americans
When Saddam did the same, there was no Arab outcry.
When King Hussein of Jordan shelled Palestinian refugee camps for a month, slaughtering thousands, there was no Arab outcry
When Arafat has lynched, jailed, tortured or executed his political opponents, there was no Arab outcry
When the Saudis have summarily executed political activists, and dissentors, there was no Arab outcry
But if an American or Israeli does anything remotely similar, all hell breaks loose.
This isn't outrage, it is hypocrisy and racism
They say Islam is a religion of peace, and let us for a moment, assume that is true. Then the questions I must ask are:
Why is nearly every Islamic regime categorically famous for its violent human rights violations?
Why on a per capita basis does Islam produce vastly more extremist militants and terrorists than any other nation, race, or religion?
The answer I hear, is the old "Bad Apples" clause, a few rotten ones spoiling the bunch, but that simply doesn't cut it when you look and realize the extent to which their governments and societies not only approve and condone but carry out large scale human rights abuses. Lets look closely at Arab/Muslim culture, not in the western world where they function (peacefully and successfully) as a minority, but in those places where they are a majority and determine their own society:
Homosexuals are commonly killed or beaten for being homosexual
Women are second class citizens
Daughters are murdered as a result of being raped or having sex in the name of "protecting the family honor"
Wives are beaten at their husbands whim
Dismemberment and beheadings are commonly practiced forms of punishment
Democracy is unheard of
Corruption is commonplace
Censorship of both news and ideas is the rule
Terrorists who target civilians, women and children are lauded as heroes
Religious leaders give public and televised sermons espousing racism and urging the killing of women and children
State text books slander other races/religions with accusations of ritual murder and blood sacrifice
Mainstream politicians call for the destruction of sovereign countries and the extermination of their entire population
Political dissent is met with summary executions or long prison sentences
Militants use children as bombs or cover from which to launch attacks
Public figures routinely threaten the US (and other nations) with Terrorist attacks
I wonder how can any liberal westerner, who supports Human rights, Gay rights and Equality for Women. Who Fights against racism and intolerance, or advocate the Democratic Process, look themselves in the mirror and still support these regimes and this society?
When sermons like this are produced and aired on government television channels, how can we support those causes which so blatantly encourage racism, murder and gross violations of human rights?
I am honestly confused and befuddled, please explain this to me?
I am literally fed up and appalled with the coddling by the liberal west of Arab and Muslim governments and militants
To quote Bill Maher
"I am not prejudiced against them, prejudiced means "pre-judging", I am judging"
Which is what I am doing here, looking at their actions, and practices and judging them according to our standards.
Take the prison situation; for Americans to be outraged makes sense such behavior is outside the norm and the boundaries of what is acceptable in Western civilization. For Arabs in middle eastern countries to be outraged is hypocritical bordering on humorous. You cannot honestly be outraged at behavior which is the culturally and societally accepted norm in your society. They are not appalled and outraged that such behavior occurred, they are appalled and outraged that it was done by Americans
When Saddam did the same, there was no Arab outcry.
When King Hussein of Jordan shelled Palestinian refugee camps for a month, slaughtering thousands, there was no Arab outcry
When Arafat has lynched, jailed, tortured or executed his political opponents, there was no Arab outcry
When the Saudis have summarily executed political activists, and dissentors, there was no Arab outcry
But if an American or Israeli does anything remotely similar, all hell breaks loose.
This isn't outrage, it is hypocrisy and racism
They say Islam is a religion of peace, and let us for a moment, assume that is true. Then the questions I must ask are:
Why is nearly every Islamic regime categorically famous for its violent human rights violations?
Why on a per capita basis does Islam produce vastly more extremist militants and terrorists than any other nation, race, or religion?
The answer I hear, is the old "Bad Apples" clause, a few rotten ones spoiling the bunch, but that simply doesn't cut it when you look and realize the extent to which their governments and societies not only approve and condone but carry out large scale human rights abuses. Lets look closely at Arab/Muslim culture, not in the western world where they function (peacefully and successfully) as a minority, but in those places where they are a majority and determine their own society:
Homosexuals are commonly killed or beaten for being homosexual
Women are second class citizens
Daughters are murdered as a result of being raped or having sex in the name of "protecting the family honor"
Wives are beaten at their husbands whim
Dismemberment and beheadings are commonly practiced forms of punishment
Democracy is unheard of
Corruption is commonplace
Censorship of both news and ideas is the rule
Terrorists who target civilians, women and children are lauded as heroes
Religious leaders give public and televised sermons espousing racism and urging the killing of women and children
State text books slander other races/religions with accusations of ritual murder and blood sacrifice
Mainstream politicians call for the destruction of sovereign countries and the extermination of their entire population
Political dissent is met with summary executions or long prison sentences
Militants use children as bombs or cover from which to launch attacks
Public figures routinely threaten the US (and other nations) with Terrorist attacks
I wonder how can any liberal westerner, who supports Human rights, Gay rights and Equality for Women. Who Fights against racism and intolerance, or advocate the Democratic Process, look themselves in the mirror and still support these regimes and this society?
When sermons like this are produced and aired on government television channels, how can we support those causes which so blatantly encourage racism, murder and gross violations of human rights?
I am honestly confused and befuddled, please explain this to me?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: cont... (Fragging email char limit)
Date: 2004-05-13 06:32 pm (UTC)How much longer will we sit on our velvet thrones and watch our own troop brutalize people?
If you believe in taking every regime that commits human rights violations down via force, do you realize how many countries that would involve? Do you realize that according to many people, myself included, that would include our own country?
Re: cont... (Fragging email char limit)
Date: 2004-05-13 06:40 pm (UTC)Yes, I am appalled by our troops behaviors and I feel that they should be taken to task for it, however bad such things are, they are still the exception not the rule in our society. However many faults and even gross human rights violations we may commit, they are again the exception rather than the rule.
Take for example France, whose africian policy is riff with human rights abuses, but who like us, for the most part it is the exception not the rule of their behavior. Such a situation could be resolved through economic and political force. However, a situation like the Congo, where there is an epic slaughter of human life going on that we are barely even aware of, would, because of the immediacy and the utter lack of any pretext towards respecting human rights on the part of the governments, require an immediate and martial response.
Re: cont... (Fragging email char limit)
Date: 2004-05-13 06:58 pm (UTC)Tell you what, how about we try to solve these problems without violence first, because we really haven't even tried.
Re: cont... (Fragging email char limit)
Date: 2004-05-13 07:07 pm (UTC)I entirely agree that we should attempt these things first without violence, except perhaps in the most dire situations such as in the congo, and in fact, I am currently drafting a post on this subject which will address this in particular, and which I think you may find more palatable with regard to this issue.
As for determining which countries human rights abuses are the exceptions it is pretty easy. You simply look at how the majority of the people are treated, and how the political process works. If for the most part they aspire and uphold basic human rights, then I would say their failings are the exception rather than the rule of their behaviour.
To be very clear, I am not using the term exception as some sort of excuse or allowance for such behavior, instead using it as a way of sorting between the common and accepted behavior and the abberation.
Take the US for example, how do we now that what happened in those prisons was an abberation of behavior and not the societal norm in america? well we look first at the general behavior of the american government towards its own citizens, then how it treats foreign nationals, and finally we look at the response of American Citizens to such behavior.
What we see is shock and outrage on the part of her citizens, and apologies on the part of her government. What this tells us is that such behavior is not accepted by the society, and therefore an abberation, not the norm.
Re: cont... (Fragging email char limit)
Date: 2004-05-13 07:12 pm (UTC)Personally, I consider the death penalty to be a pretty big violation of human rights, as does groups like Amnesty International. Our society, on the other hand, is almost fully behind it. It's not always so cut and dry.
Re: cont... (Fragging email char limit)
Date: 2004-05-13 07:22 pm (UTC)While I have no problem with the theorhetical concept of capital punishment, I have great problems with our process that leads up to it, and until we can find a way to be better assured that we are not executing innocent people, I personally feel there should be a cease to all executions.
Lastly, with regards to Amnesty international, I have huge problems with recognizing or viewing them as having the slightest amount of integrity, which I feel is truly tragic considering the nobility of their stated goals and aims.
The simple fact is that while the majority of Amnesty Internationals work is fairly respectable, their consistent bias and failures of integrity with regards to the situation in the middle east casts a deep and dark cloud over the entirity of their work.
I have personally experienced reading an amnesty international report detailing a situation which I witnessed first hand and being entirely flabbergasted at the huge discrepancy between the truth and the situation reported in the report.