Wednesday, May 23, 2007
While Best of the Web takes a more sanguine view, Ace has the must-read today on the newly released Pew poll of American Muslim opinion: Media Spins/Spikes Disturbing Finding That Quarter of American Muslim Young Men Support Terrorism.
I heard Bilal Kaleem of the local Muslim American Society (MAS) on the radio today spinning things as best he could, but the callers weren't buying it. I wouldn't take much that the MAS says about this very seriously. After all, they're part of the problem.
You can only moan about American Imperialism and then combine it with a culture of martyrdom so long before there'll be some blowback. Europe thought they could appease the culture of hate by telling themselves it's only about the Jews or other such nonsense, but then the bombs went off in London and Madrid and the cars started burning down the Champs-Elysee.
The human mind is wonderful at seeing and creating associations. Justifying suicide terror against Israel and the Jews and imagining that that genie will stay within the bounds of his bottle is a fantasy. It's only a matter of time before the rationalizations that allow for suicide terror in one place begin to resonate elsewhere for situations that the mind begins to view as analogous. The cognitive dissonance that those walls are set up against can't long stand, and the Middle East has paid for it with mass murder and self destruction in Iraq and Egypt and Lebanon and elsewhere, and the poison has spread to second generation residents in Europe. Is America next?
There are answers. Say no to any Middle Eastern funding for ideological outposts. Accept no excuses. Justifying hate and murder in one place and imagining it's for "export only," or just a cultural difference that need not concern us is delusional. There's an ocean of hate out there. If this poll makes things look bad (or "concerning" at the very least), we need to make sure the walls of the dam are broad and thick, and that we keep drying up the puddles that form on this side. Things aren't going to get any better. They could get a whole lot worse.
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Agreed. Obviously, the U.S.'s situation is better than that of European countries, but we already knew that given the proximity Europe has to North Africa, the Levant, etc., not to mention their stronger ideological and political/economic ties to that same region. So the news could certainly be worse. But. Simple fact is, the news is not terribly good. For a contrast, imagine if similar poll/opinion numbers could be associated with white males or Jews or illegal aliens from south of the border. I somehow doubt we'd be talking about "good news" and while any type of mear fear mongering certainly needs to be avoided, it's interesting how so many commentators continue to give those Muslims who sympathize with jihadists/salafists or Islamicists so much "understanding."
There's the additional unknown factors, e.g., were people entirely forthcoming and are they expressing their true sentiments? In other words, given the U.S. is known to be less tolerant of Islamicists, are some respondents attenuating their responses to align with such cultural/political attitudes?
VDH h/t American Future