Quote:
Originally posted by MysticCat81
While I mean in no way to impute guilt to anyone but the guilty, the fact is that there is a real perception -- one more time, whether that perception is accurate or inaccurate -- that the larger Islamic community's denunciation of and actions to counter those groups that pervert Islamic teaching is tepid at best.
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That's the thing thought - perception.
What we see here in North America or the "West" is different from what others see - and more importantly how we see things differs.
One major problem I have with this discussion is the problem of sources and perception - face it a public denouncation of violence by 1000 people isn't going to get the same print or air-time that 1000 people supporting the violence; more over aspects of violent protests may be highlighted while ignoring a larger or more complex picture - in order to make the story "concise".
A fine example would have been the protests in Afghanistan - for the most part I noticed that the US networks (such as CNN or FOX) reporting left the impression that the protests where solely about allegations of the Qu'ran being desecrated: "Muslims protest desecration of Qu'ran"- which was only part of the story... in this case the CBC & BBC had being convering the protests for the preceeding week, during which the anti-government/anti-occupation/anti-corruption/anti-abuse nature was discussed - the allegations of desecration only added a further fuel to the fire. In the end I'd assume that most in the US thought the protests focused solely on the Qu'ran issue, without realizing there was much more to the violence. So in the end the perception that the unifying thread behind the story was "Muslims protesting desecration of Qu'ran"... and not "Afghans protest government corruption/un-employment/religious reforms/seccular reforms/prisoner abuse/prisoner killings/drug trafficing/renewed Taliban violence/or and end to occuption".
Admittedly when I started this thread I should have posted the entire article in the hopes more would have read it through - and that more would have seen that it was about more than the allegations of the desecration of the Qu'ran... and admittedly I should have lead the topic a little better by making it about all the allegations of physical or religous abuses...
I had hoped that this thread would have re-ignited the debate over the US Administration's policies regarding Gitmo and Afghanistan; the conections between Abu Gharib-Afghanistan-Gitmo; and the response to these allegations and/or charges - well other than Bush's dismissive comments that any allegations of abuse are "absurd" or the people "hate America"
(fuuny but didn't they say the samew about Abu Gharib?)