I'm way ahead of you. We had that conversation years ago. I know she feels insulted at any suggestion that, as a Jew with no family ties to Israel and with a general sense of dismay about Israeli military action, she should feel in any way responsible or apologetic for what happens there.I know that she felt very uncomfortable on the school playground when overhearing another parent using the term "Jew" when commenting about last year's nastiness in Gaza. (i.e. something along the lines of "Isn't it terrible what the Jews are doing in Gaza?"). So her thoughts on the matter are pretty clear to me. I was just trying to understand if YOU would suggest any equivalence between the idea of blameless Muslims being expected to speak up about about al-Qaeda, ISIS etc. and blameless Jews being expected to condemn what the IDF gets up to in the Palestinian territories
As I have said earlier, just in case you missed it. If people were carrying out atrocities in the name of my faith/religion/god then I would totally condemn their actions. Can't really say it any clearer mate
And that works for me regardless of what country It happens in, whether I have ever been there or whether I have no intention of going there.
He will be back he was just scoping Have a flame thrower close by and don't even think about kissing him you will get implanted
Very sad but as I have mentioned we are facing the consequences of our history . We would go a long way if the world said sorry
I don't think the Muslim community needs to overtly condemn the terrorists any more than anyone else does. If compelled to do so, it would be to make it obvious to people that want to throw a blanket over the whole religion (ie for people who want to generalise). Of course they don't believe it was the right thing to do otherwise the majority would just be lazy extremists (ie not willing to take up arms) and in fact the extremists wouldn't be extreme, they'd be the norm which isn't the case.
There's always that. Reminds me of something a completely naked man once said to my dad in the small hours of the morning in Salford a few years ago.
Not so long ago was there was something called the Spanish Inquisition - which killed people for Christian Heresy and was state sponsored. The reason I link this was it is all about fundamentalism - and always backed by $$$ - before the Spanish Royalty and the Pope wanting to kick Jews and Muslims out of Europe. Now the fundamentalists are backed and funded by the Saudis. It is never about an evil religion - or religion even. It is about some rich individuals wanting more and picking on some other groups to make it happen and stirring up one group about another. Did we fight a big war about this recently? Oh look here we are again....
THIS. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain get nothing like enough stick for their role in all of this - both in terms of people there in power funding the worst sort of evil and in terms of their governments doing little to prevent wealthy individuals from those countries to do likewise. But US and European commentary on this will always be muted for as long as Gulf money owns so much real estate in the world's great cities and for as long as their air forces are keeping western arms companies in business.
Whenever a large group of people start blaming a small group or another group for something - there is always a few conniving bastards behind it - yanking the strings.....
It appears that we're playing a very different game in the West. Almost after all of these atrocities committed on "home ground", the report comes in that the perpetrators were on a "watch list" or at the very least "well known potential dangers". The question as to how to deal with this information in the very best manner without it affecting our very own human rights we uphold as being so dear is one of the main ones. We are in a very real way allowing our disenfranchised young to become radicalized right under our noses but yet as soon as anything is done that doesn't suit our particular value of the day we scream Big Brother and Human rights. It appears we are waiting for something to happen that is so colossal it empowers the West for a full onslaught. Seems lunacy that IS and Al Qaeda are allowed to flourish, I know how difficult it is to shift 3 Million USD worth of oil a day which is apparently what IS has got it's hands on - who the hell is buying it off them? How are the transactions taking place? Come on, the highest echelons know who is behind all of this on both sides - occurrences such as Paris of last week just seem to be a small part of the game.
3rd attempt to post on this, still pretty confident I'll **** it up. One of the many badges I wear, some chosen, some inherited, is QPR fan. But I see many things associated with QPR that I can't stand - the idiots who define themselves through being anti-Chelsea, the twat who stabbed the Everton fan, Harry Redknapp. Do I feel the need to apologise or condemn these people? No, not obliged. Do they make me feel embarrased, ashamed on ocassion and needlessly and pointlessly guilty? Afraid so. I could have used any one of many other of my badges - British, anti-theist etc etc - to provide a similar example. So the answer to your question is no, neither your wife nor blameless Muslims should feel obliged to apologise for things they are not responsible for. In the case of your wife I suppose there are many other issues beyond her control at play, especially the ignorance of most people (including me) on the relationship between people with a Jewish cultural/family heritage and the Jewish religion, the state of Israel etc etc. Which will be an individual relationship and impossible to generalise, but hey, when has that ever stopped us? I'm sure she is not naive enough to expect anything different of the playground Mums. One thing that helps the ignoramuses though is, if you drew a Venn diagram, the circle representing Israelis who attacked Gaza (bit more than 'nastiness' in my view, like the kidnapping of those Israeli boys was more than 'unpleasant') would fall entirely within the Jewish circle. Similarly, the fanatical Muslim fundamentalist cirlce sits within the Muslim circle. And the violent QPR fan sits within the QPR fan circle. Implies no 'responsibility' or obligation but clearly there is a relationship. If you want to deny the relationship you have to disown the badge, get out of the bigger circle. If you don't like the relationship, you really should do something about it. But I suspect most people are like me with the idiot QPR fans - I don't like being associated with them, but I can't be arsed to do anything about it, and I can't deny my heritage and get out of the QPR circle (believe me, I've tried). So we all practice a bit of doublethink, the only way to survive. I do know that statements like 'these terrorists aren't 'real' Muslims' are misleading though. The vicious QPR fans ARE QPR fans, the IDF ARE Jews - the source material - Koran, QPR, being Jewish - contain all the seeds of all the various factions who wear the big badge. Just re-read this and it's gibberish. Sorry.
SB talk a lot of sense there, especially about relationships between being a part 'of a group' and whilst not feeling responsible for the actions of others within the group, but feeling embarrassed and having the desire to dis-associate yourself strongly from the actions of what is usually a small minority. Like SB I am both a QPR fan and at times embarrassed by the actions of some other fans and the club itself, and also an anti-theist. I used to be happy classed (if that’s required) as just an atheist, but the more I read and learn what has gone on in the past and still goes on in the present under the banner of religion my stance changed. Most atheists and anti-theists are happy enough for people to believe in what they want, on the proviso that you don’t sh!t on others (including people within your belief structure), push your beliefs on others and expect anyone to respect your beliefs, whilst most will including myself, respect your right to have them. Oh yeah and please stop the tax breaks.
Makes perfect sense - vicious QPR fans use the fact of being QPR fans for their own aims (finding a fight with rival fans for example) and extremists based in a wider circle use their interpretation for their own ends. I would like to say that the Venn diagram can be refined - within the Jewish circle, for example you could also rightfully have British-based playground Mums as a circle and it would be unlikely to intersect the Israeli's who attacked Gaza. Conversely, you could classify Atheists (thought I'd capitalise my group for the sake of parity), Muslims, Jews etc as subsets of humanity and make us all palpably linked to each other's actions. I suppose the level of "responsibility" gets stronger as the subset gets smaller (I have a very direct responsibility for the subset "Atheist QPR fans called Matt that live on my street" - an exaggerated example but you see my point). It's all personal, and I'd suppose humanitarian activists take a wider view (that's not me in case anyone is wondering) whereas most take a slightly narrower view. I'd also suggest that, unfortunately, the extremists, despots, drug barons, warlords and criminals of the world take on a more direct ownership of their subsets than most of us do (hence we're not all signed up to the relatively narrow "Neighbourhood watch" subset). I do think, however, that it is unfair to expect anyone to take a wider responsibility that we ourselves are prepared to do (ie apathetic me who doesn't worry excessively if a car gets nicked down the street shouldn't expect all Jews to take responsibility for a minority subset thereof). Sorry, quite rambling that one.
