Does America Have a Muslim Problem?

[Richard]

This is an abridged preview of an article that will appear in the 30 AUG 2010 issue of TIME.

Richard

Does America Have a Muslim Problem?
Time, TBP 30 Aug 2010

You don't have to be prejudiced against Islam to believe, as many Americans do, that the area around Ground Zero is a sacred place. But sadly, in an election season, such sentiments have been stoked into a political issue. As the debate has grown more heated, Park51, as the proposed Muslim cultural center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero is called, has become a litmus test for everything from private-property rights to religious tolerance. But it is plain that many of Park51's opponents are motivated by deep-seated Islamophobia.

The proposed site is close not just to Ground Zero; it's also a stone's throw from strip clubs, liquor stores and other establishments typical of lower Manhattan. Muslims have been praying in the building for nearly a year, a fact that has got lost in the noise of the protests. But since early August, it has been the scene of frequent demonstrations, with signs saying things such as "All I Need to Know About Islam, I Learned on 9/11." The husband-and-wife team behind Park51, Imam Feisal Rauf and Daisy Khan, seem stunned into paralysis: while opponents cast them as extremists sympathetic to al-Qaeda, they have given very few interviews themselves. Pressure is mounting on the couple to move their center to a less polarizing location.


The controversy has also brought new scrutiny to other examples of anti-Islam and anti-Muslim protests, raising much larger questions:

• Does America have a problem with Islam?
• Have the terrorist attacks of 9/11 — and other attempts since — permanently excluded Muslims from full assimilation into American life?

Although the American strain of Islamophobia lacks some of the traditional elements of religious persecution — there's no sign that violence against Muslims is on the rise, for instance — there's plenty of anecdotal evidence that hate speech against Muslims and Islam is growing both more widespread and more heated. Meanwhile, a new TIME-Abt SRBI poll found that 46% of Americans believe Islam is more likely than other faiths to encourage violence against nonbelievers. Only 37% know a Muslim American. Overall, 61% oppose the Park51 project, while just 26% are in favor of it. Just 23% say it would be a symbol of religious tolerance, while 44% say it would be an insult to those who died on 9/11.

Islamophobia in the U.S. doesn't approach levels seen in other countries where Muslims are in a minority. But to be a Muslim in America now is to endure slings and arrows against your faith — not just in the schoolyard and the office but also outside your place of worship and in the public square, where some of the country's most powerful mainstream religious and political leaders unthinkingly (or worse, deliberately) conflate Islam with terrorism and savagery. In France and Britain, politicians from fringe parties say appalling things about Muslims, but there's no one in Europe of the stature of a former House Speaker who would, as Newt Gingrich did, equate Islam with Nazism.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...011798,00.html

[JJ_BPK]

Don't mean to hi-jack, but I think this is also part of the equation.

Just watch this CNN "news reel" from the UK about UK Muslims and their ambitions to turn Buckingham Palace into a mosque.

Q: What about the Queen??

A: She can convert to Muslim or leave the country.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mlxMndnlzw

I think the UK may be in an advance stage of assimilation into the Muslim Borg.

[SF-TX]

Originally Posted by Richard

This is an abridged preview of an article that will appear in the 30 AUG 2010 issue of TIME.

Richard

Does America Have a Muslim Problem?

No. Islam has an American problem.

[craigepo]

Originally Posted by SF-TX

No. Islam has an American problem.

concur.

[nmap]

Does America have a Muslim problem? Sure. And does Islam have an American problem? Again, sure.

But not in the sense presented by the article.

The underlying belief systems are different. Look at the various freedoms Americans have, historically, embraced - including the freedom to collect compound interest . Islam is against all of these.

Freedom of speech? Of religion? Try those in Saudi Arabia. Don't expect to survive the experience.

The very phrases "slave of God" and "God willing" suggest the antithesis of the free will promulgated in the West.

The belief system connected to the religion is the problem - and it will spawn conflicts until the belief systems cease to be in conflict. This may well imply the destruction of at least one of the belief systems...and maybe both.

[T-Rock]

I think the author has his head up his forth point of contact

IMO…IF… every Muslim were a terrorist, then we would have a Muslim problem. Nevertheless, his narrative, the title, and the way he frames the article requires those reading to categorize every Muslim as a terrorist, as opposed to judging people on their individual merits - It successfully puts everyone in a no win situation.

IMHO, we do have an Islam problem, and Islam has a problem with us, there’s no doubt about it, particularly from those who advocate the Medina way. Our Islam problem is that we are at war with Islam because Muhammad declared war on us.

One of our problems is categorizing a Supremacist political ideology as a religion.

The author would have been better served if he were to have framed the article:

“Does America have an Islam Problem”

Just my $00.02

ETA

Those unwilling to criticize the traditions of misogyny, jihad, Jew hatred, racism, bigotry, subjugation, supremacy and pedophilia, etc, the ways of “Mo-Alla” - are the ones who are the problem.

Enough with the concessions. There is something inherently wrong with the prophet of a religion and those who condone “eyes for infant girls”, and “Mufaakhathah”, the practice in which the prophet "placed his [male] member between her thighs and massaged it softly, as the apostle of allah had control of his [male] member not like other believers"

[akv]

Originally Posted by NMAP

The belief system connected to the religion is the problem - and it will spawn conflicts until the belief systems cease to be in conflict. This may well imply the destruction of at least one of the belief systems...and maybe both

.

Some good points so far in this thread, but before we single out religion, our American freedoms and belief systems have historically clashed with ideologies that don't value what we do. Our issue and conflict with the Nazi's had next to nothing to do with religion, and the Soviets were atheists in theory, yet we found their policies, conduct and ideology repugnant. We don't seem to have a problem with Turkey, they are a NATO ally and if we honor our obligations we must defend them if they are attacked, yet Islam is the majority religion there, the difference is though imperfect, we aren't opposed to Turkey's political ideology as a secular democracy.

My question is do we trust Putin and his thugs more than AQ because in theory Russia like America enjoys a Christian majority? Perhaps this is my prejudice, I am always suspicious of the Russian nation, even if they claim democracy/reform...

[alelks]

In my opinion what America has is a problem of is not having any balls anymore. Years ago we would have told them to go pound sand.

[Richard]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGSN7JVg1yQ

I'm for helping Tom save America...

Richard

[Thomas Paine]

Originally Posted by Richard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGSN7JVg1yQ

I'm for helping Tom save America...

Richard

That's what I'm talking about. American patriotism!

[Raschid]

Islam is just The New Kid On The Block or shall we say "The Benjamin "of the World Religions that from it´s inception has been by it´s detractors tried to be thrown down the well to stifle it. But alas THATS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN BROTHER!

Because as The German Poet GOETHE has said:
" Foolish thst everone in his own way
His very own opinion does praise,
If Islam means to submit your will to God´s,
Then we ALL live and die in Islam!"

Goethe and Napoleon were Pro Islam
and Patton called The Koran a very interesting Book

Thomas Carlyle in 'Heroes and Hero Worship and the Heroic in History,' 1840

"The lies which well-meaning zeal has heaped round this man are disgraceful to ourselves only

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Raschid

Patton called The Koran a very interesting Book

So is Playboy, but that doesn't make it right.

You need to take a deep cleansing breath and slow down before posting again.

TR

[Pete]

Originally Posted by Raschid

............"The lies (Western slander) which well-meaning zeal has heaped round this man (Muhammad) are disgraceful to ourselves only

Well, well Raschil

We'll be looking for some informed input from you in the days to come.

Or your time here may be short.

Pete

[T-Rock]

Goethe and Napoleon were Pro Islam
and Patton called The Koran a very interesting Book

Hitler had a favorable inclination towards Islam. Didn’t General Alexander Loehr say “Islam was such a desirable creed the Fuehrer longed for it to become the official SS religion.” ?

Wonder why?

Considering the ideological similarities between Nazism and Islam, could someone with a simple world view contend that Nazism was a child of Islam?

Johann Von Leers ardently admired what the Muslims had done to the Jews.

Muhammad ‘Inayat Allah Khan (al-Mashriqi) translated Mein Kampf into Urdu, and when he met da Führer, he realized beforehand, “the success of the Nazi movement, simply by following the shining guidance of the Holy Koran”

Are you a Spade bearer Raschid?

Just curious…

[akv]

Originally Posted by Raschid

and Patton called The Koran a very interesting Book

Generally citing Nazi's, some rapper you have to identify, a mythical Jedi Knight, combined with short bus spelling, and a rude tone towards a lady aren't the most endearing ways to make your point here or most anyplace of significance. Despite all of this, there are folks here who differentiate between Muslims and terrorists, and respect the rights of all Americans.

If you are referring to General George S. Patton, yes he did find Islam "interesting."

“It seems to me a certainty that the fatalistic teachings of Mohammed and the utter degradation of the Arab women are the outstanding causes for the arrested development of the Arab. He is exactly as he was around the year 700, while we have been developing.”
-George S. Patton