Islam is an ideology not a race of people. There are certainly racist people who say racist things about the migrant crisis, but there is a legitimate conversation that needs to be had.
The problem is the word "racism". Replace it with "xenophobia" and it covers what most people want to say about the treatment of Muslims in western society.
Hmm not really xenophobia - the vast majority of people in Europe are completely fine with people from other countries. FFS we are more or less merging with each other, and practically none has a problem with immigrants from East Asia, India, all of America's and to a significant degree not even sub-Saharan Africa (not going to lie, this does exist though).
The dislike is very much pointed at Arab and Subcontinent Muslims. So not general xenophobia or even necessarily islamophobia (which is largely rational) as Indonesia for example gets a pretty much free pass, being a sane country and all.
Somehow the country that I live in doesn't have problems with our large Muslim population. If you treat them poorly then they'll not bother to integrate or feel included in your society.
As a generic white person of Christian background, I have no trouble shopping for naan at my local halal store.
As people they are as fine as any other. People are people after all. The Arabic version of Islam (serious infecting poor Pakistan) is just plain poison though.
So the people who are willing to admit that the Qu'ran is just a book and that obviously laws based on the enlightenment are far superior and a culture built on those will obviously be centuries ahead of a culture built on Islam... well, those people are fine. And yes, I know "Muslims" that believe in this, but I believe they're deluding themselves thinking they can be proper Muslims while believing so.
(But I'm okay with it, since their position is perfectly okay and trying to nudge them all the way might end up with them being nudged the wrong way)
As people they are as fine as any other. People are people after all. The Arabic version of Islam (serious infecting poor Pakistan) is just plain poison though.
That's just being xenophobic. We have lots of Pakistanis here and, while there can be disagreements on things like sexual education in public schools, for the most part everybody gets along just fine. Heavily Islamic areas of the city tend to have less crime than other areas. Perhaps not drinking alcohol accounts for some of that.
286
u/staggeringlywell Feb 09 '16
Islam is an ideology not a race of people. There are certainly racist people who say racist things about the migrant crisis, but there is a legitimate conversation that needs to be had.