We discuss Arabs and Muslim countries often and I work hard to address misconceptions. For those who think a large percentage of Muslims are evil Id really urge you to carefully consider where you get your information from. Most often, people receive their info from mainstream media (which, ironically they dont trust on other issues), from anti-Muslim blogs / organizations and websites, from second hand word of mouth/ perceptions or from service as a military member or contractor in countries weve been engaged. More people are, in turn, informed by friends, social media and others whose original assumptions were faulty at best, or worse, manipulated by those with an agenda. Its reasonable to ask how accurate and objective ones sources are. For example, thinking you understand Muslim countries because you fought the Taliban is like saying you understand Christians because you arrested a KKK member. Im certainly not an Islamic scholar but I do know enough to know when the gap between truth and observable reality is dangerously wide. Im quick to say that, yes, there ARE Muslim terrorists, there ARE Muslim extremists. There are indeed crazy people in this religion (and every religion). But logical people MUST use statistics and real numbers to form opinions, not a small number of incidents, not propaganda, not wild news coverage but real statistics and real facts. If we do this we see that, yes, there are Muslim terrorists but we also see extremist Christians like Anders Brevik who killed 40 people, we see the Protestant / Catholic struggles of Northern Ireland, we see Slobodan Milosevek who killed 100,000 people and we see the Lords Resistance Army of Uganda who does great violence in the name of their twisted version of Christianity. Using real numbers and stats we also see that the percentage of Muslims who engage in terrorism is such a tiny number it can barely be statistically represented. The blind belief in anti-Muslim propaganda has been responsible for major problems in US foreign policy detrimental to the whole world. Never would we accept the idea of bombing New Hampshire simply because Mexican drug cartels who loosely share the same religion do violence 1000 miles away. Yet this is exactly what we did in Iraq when we bombed them because a guy 1000 miles away in a different country with loose interpretations of the same religion was charged with attacking us. People will read this and STILL ignore statistics and point to single incidents. Others will say things like But THEY believe XYZ.... its right in the Holy Book. To which I say Says who? Again, where do you get your information from? Every single person I have met who has specialized on this issue and spent time living in Muslim countries (as a civilian) has changed his opinions about the massive amount of false information present in our mainstream dialogue. Do we not recognize that terrorism is real and that groups like the Taliban exist? Of we recognize this. Does my redneck friend who is like a brother who lived over there for over a decade (you know who you are) still not think they have a mess of problems? Sure. I could fill a book with all the bad things about Islamic extremism - but there are others who do that. The reason I spend time on misconceptions is because they are so great and the need for accuracy so huge. If I can share a little bit of what Ive seen and learned then maybe it can make the world a tiny bit more understanding.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 15:46:15 +0000
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