When reading stories about Islamic extremism and the chaos it can cause it is important to not blame this on Islam itself. Extremists do not represent true Islam and believing this is racist and xenophobic. Every time an Islamic extremist event occurs many right-wingers jump to blame Islam and ignore the real causes: colonialism, and corrupt governments.
Colonialism is a big part of Islamic extremism and since we live in a country that caused it, many tend to ignore this. One example of this is western countries designing borders not based on the difference of culture. After WW1 Western countries like the United States, UK, and France had power over the globe, and after leaving the middle east destroyed with a world war they were tasked to redraw the border boundaries. The result was an extreme failure, the westerners redrew countries based on their own agenda. This ended up splitting ethnic groups into multiple countries down the middle and mixing high tension groups. This then leads to high tensions, civil wars, and loss of identity. Imagine how our population would react if a foreign country came in and split and mixed the United States, Mexico, and Canada all into multiple countries not based on identity. We wouldn’t blame “Christianity” for the problems caused, would we?
Another problem is corrupt governments in the middle east. Most governments have puppet leaders appointed by foreign governments to run their own agendas, not the peoples. These leaders have implemented western laws into nonwestern countries, which causes issues. This would be like if a foreign country like china appointed a leader and started using their laws here. Our citizens would be outraged and the same thing is happening in the middle east. While watching and reading films like “Persepolis” it is important to not blame Islam for the extremism and to take into account the factors I have highighted above. Actions of some cannot discount an entire relgion, if that applied then Chirstantiy would have been “cancled” during the Crusades.
WC:
Massoud, Mark Fathi. “Don’t Blame Sharia for Islamic Extremism – Blame Colonialism.” The Conversation, 8 Apr. 2019, theconversation.com/dont-blame-sharia-for-islamic-extremism-blame-colonialism-109918.
By Tarek Osman (@TarekmOsman). “Why Border Lines Drawn with a Ruler in WW1 Still Rock the Middle East.” BBC News, 14 Dec. 2013, www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-25299553.
I personally I agree with all the statements that have been made in this article. I also think that the media and or social media outlets have a lot of affects on this as well. The media seems to report on only the bad events (usually to keep viewership up) and they refuse to get to the heart of the problem; nonetheless report on a lot of the factual parts of the event. It’s hard to find “positive” news in general anymore wether online or on the television.
I’m so glad that you bring up such a critical point about Islam, especially at this point in the semester, as we finish up “Persepolis.” As a Muslim, I always feel relieved when I read about and hear others make fact-based claims about Islam rather than using their own biases, judgements, and blind spots to create claims about our religion. We’re critical learners, and as we learn and are introduced to new concepts, we must be open-minded and willing to challenge our own beliefs and opinions that can sometimes be founded on inaccurate representations of a certain group or religion or simply just false information. This is oftentimes the case when individuals learn about Muslims and the religion of Islam as a whole. Islam is not a violent religion nor does it tolerate violence. It doesn’t prioritize force over an individual’s freedom, and it surely is not what we should be blaming for the terrorism in the world. The acts of individuals who claim to be Muslim are not enough to use to judge the religion of Islam as a whole. As a Muslim, I believe Islam is perfect, but Muslims are not. When we read and watch “Persepolis”, we must keep this in mind. It’s the way that the rulers utilized Islam that makes the wearing of the veil oppressive and their laws cruel, not the actual religion itself.
I really enjoyed this presentation, but I loved your response to it even more. The insight you provided by actually identifying as Muslim was very beneficial for me to understand more about our readings and presentations this week. I agree with what others were saying that we have to keep an open mind because many of us do have preconceptions about other places in the world, as we have discussed in previous weeks. It is important to understand that as the presentation talked about, some problems of other countries comes from their rule of law, not the people or religion, but we only experience external cultural aspects, not the daily lives of the people there. The readings and the presentations gave insight into this along with what Manar said above. We need to realize that the people are different from their government and we cannot be biased against a group based on who they have to associate with. Learning about these things this week gave me a new appreciation for other cultures.
I think your post did a great job of distinguishing between the actions of government and a religion. I think to many people and news media outlets group the two together and as a result a religion is wrongly blamed. Also, your post had great context as to why there are certain conflicts in the Middle East to begin with. Not many people know that foreign governments have tried to enforce their ideologies on countries without understanding the different cultures and identities of the people living there.
I think you made great points in this presentation. We shouldn’t be judging an entire religion based on the actions of a few extremists. This concept doesn’t just apply to Islam; it applies to Christianity, Judaism, and other religions. So many people in America are quick to hate and act in violent ways against Muslims because of their racist/uninformed views, which can be interpreted as acts of terrorism too. At the same time it’s just as important to understand that many of the problems the Middle East is facing were caused by Western countries. Forcibly drawing borders without understanding the people, cultures, and groups of an area was destined to have far-reaching consequences.
You made some great points in your presentation for this week emphasizing the importance of not blaming the Islamic religion for Islamic extremism. As you pointed out, it abolutely is racist and xenophobic to hold these sort of unfounded generalizations as true. What I think is really interesting is how the United States thought that they could influence the Middle East any differently in terms of successfully “bringing peace” to the area than many failed attempts throughout history. Of course, peace was secondary to the real colonial goals of forward operating military positions and access to vast oil reserves in the region. It is truly an unfortunate series of events that have led to the sort of radical extremism that has developed from an unwanted Western presence and associated military devastation. Islamic extremism fueled by skewed media coverage of the region has created a dangerous society of uneducated people that judge an entire religion, rich with culture and history, by the terrible actions of a few bad actors.
Absolutely agree. People are very quick to categorize and generalize groups of people based on characteristics that do not represent the identities of individuals. People use race as a simple way to write off any Person of Color as “bad” for one reason or another because they do not take the time to understand the cultural differences and other factors that distinguish one individual from another. To assume anyone with a certain skin tone is dangerous is easier than learning the history and ideologies of different religions, governing bodies, individuals, etc.
This presentation did a very good job of addressing the issue of grouping Islam with Islamic extremism as a whole, which isn’t fair in any way. The way the government used the veil in Persepolis was an act of oppressive authority, but the veil or religion of Islam itself should not be viewed as such. This presentation was a perfect explanation distinguishing between religion and the governments’ use of said religion, and I enjoyed reading about why it is important to not generalize groups or religions because I find it harmful to people/groups that have nothing to do with the negative connotations that outsiders have on them. Nicklaus, I agree with how you tied the negative categorization of people of color to the presentation’s point of blaming an entire religion based off of what the government enforces to maintain that religion. My thoughts about the two concepts are very similar. I would also like to add that I feel like today’s society sometimes uses the phrase “I don’t see color” as an excuse to ignore the fact that although everyone should be treated equally, disregarding what others have gone through to achieve such equality is just as bad as generalizing a group misrepresented by negative connotations.
I really like the two hypotheticals you brought up about re-drawing border lines in North America and a foreign leader being appointed in the U.S. as they make the point of your presentation much more clear to those uneducated on the state of extremism in the Middle East. In regards to border boundaries, I like how you brought up the point that Christianity would not be to blame if problems were caused in this scenario because I feel that exploits the irony of many so called “Christians” in this country that consider all Islamic people extremist, even though they are just xenophobic. The same goes for the foreign government official appointing, but instead of religion in the case, it’s government. I know that if China, like you said, were to forcibly appoint and official in the U.S., many, many people would in fact be outraged. In the case of Islamic “extremism” and foreign puppet officials, I feel like its also important to point out the fact that news outlets in these countries are mostly run by the government, and incorrect news about the uprisings can be easily spread around the world by the government, creating a negative and false narrative about people who just want to be heard.
This is a good point. The novel and film “Persepolis” shows that many Iranians are not interested in religious extremism and they are in fact victims of the theocracy that replaced the Shah’s dictatorship. The novel and film should make the reader and audiences outside of Iran reevaluate their perceptions about people who are living under oppressive governments.
swinney.6 I defiantly agree with your comment on how the audience of watching the film and reading the book should reevaluate people who live under government rules and regulations, I think it is very quick to judge someone or their culture because of what they hear or see. We have to understand when government oppression takes place, people have different circumstances who don’t live in a free country.
I quite agree with the author. We cannot confuse extremists with Islam. Usually, the bad things that a small number of people do will bring negative labels to their group. Therefore, we can’t treat Islamists with prejudice. In addition, the author has a profound study of politics and history. The author points out that the chaos in Iran and the Middle East is due to the invasion of western countries, which led to colonialism and corrupt government.
I thought it was really interesting how you pointed out the drawing of boundary lines for countries. Not only does this incite uprisings and conflict, but I think it can even lead to political powers rising that are not representative of the entire country. This leads to corrupt governments, religious persecution, and wars. So many people resort to xenophobia to explain extremist religions, when they are not looking clearly at history or choosing to understand all cultural aspects of a country. This is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed, as these negative opinions have great effects not only on an individual’s perception of the world, but also global relations.
I think this is a very interesting topic because being from the United States, I think a lot of people are really only informed in terms of brief news reports and social media, etc. This shines a really interesting light on how other countries are truly ruled and work.
Thanks for the thread. As someone who is familiar with this topic of debate but has not yet engaged in the discussion, I think it’s really interesting to learn more about the history of Islam and how it has been reformed throughout time with colonialism. In addition, I also found your arguments engaging for how you compared another popular religion potentially taking the same repercussions as Islam has in the past and how it would look today if these proposed conditions were to take affect.