Islam - What's your view on it?

[novcze]

Some politicians should also look more into the structure of islam, because it looks like they don't know what islam branch they support with their actions.

 

[GBO Possum]

About the hijab...

 

[TenEightyOne]

About the hijab...

And, unsuprisingly, the hijab still isn't mandatory there. It's good post and a great illustration of what a lot of people here have been trying to tell some of the more hard-headed posters; Islam comes in many shapes and sizes.

Sadly Egypt are feeling the brunt of fundamentalism right now just as it seems they were in 1953 (the date he talks about) and 1966 (the date of that speech).

 

[GBO Possum]

And, unsuprisingly, the hijab still isn't mandatory there. It's good post and a great illustration of what a lot of people here have been trying to tell some of the more hard-headed posters; Islam comes in many shapes and sizes.

Sadly Egypt are feeling the brunt of fundamentalism right now just as it seems they were in 1953 (the date he talks about) and 1966 (the date of that speech).

In what many regard as the "center of Islam", imposing behavior on women is "normal", and the hijab is imposed.

I'm not too sure that Egyptian men today would laugh at such a speech, and even less likely in Saudi Arabia.

 

[TenEightyOne]

In what many regard as the "center of Islam", imposing behavior on women is "normal", and the hijab is imposed.

So what does Egypt have to do with that? I'm a little confused that you seem to be retracting the good point you made in the last post.

I'm not too sure that Egyptian men today would laugh at such a speech, and even less likely in Saudi Arabia.

Who knows? And Saudi Arabia is over a 1000 miles away from Egypt, why are you continuing to confuse the two?

 

[GBO Possum]

why are you continuing to confuse the two?

I'm not confused.

 

[TenEightyOne]

I'm not confused.

So drawing a parallel between Egypt and Saudi Arabia was intentional? They're different people, different places and have different histories. I don't think Saudi has ever had a secular leadership, that would be a huge distinction for starters.

Mecca may well be in Saudi Arabia but that doesn't make the political overlay the defining force (or prime example) of Islaamic practice. If you were going to confuse sites of historical significance with the current government of the area then we might as well hold Newfoundland up as an example that Hrafnar must surely live by.

Bangladesh certainly has far more muslims than Saudi Arabia (more than anywhere, iirc), the hijab is not compulsory there and it seems unlikely that Sheikh Hasina will ever make it so. In the face of all these facts and your certain lack of confusion, I'm not sure what your point was?

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Tony Abbott says "Islam needs to undergo reform"; Indonesia immediately replies with "this is not helpful":

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-...unhelpful-and-divisive-says-indonesia/7015120

 

[FoRiZon]

Tony Abbott says "Islam needs to undergo reform"; Indonesia immediately replies with "this is not helpful":

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-...unhelpful-and-divisive-says-indonesia/7015120

Bish. Abott is trash, not just for Moslem but also for immigrants and aboriginals.

Turnbull atleast is slightly better. He himself consults the imams from Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and some neighboring others to aleviate the situation and prove that ISIS is radiacally wrong.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Turnbull atleast is slightly better. He himself consults the imams from Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and some neighboring others to aleviate the situation and prove that ISIS is radiacally wrong.

Indeed. The change in rhetoric out of Canberra has been remarkable, and the relationship between Muslim Australians and the wider community has improved dramatically. But I still can't help but feel that Abbott has done irreparable damage - the Indonesians are right; by calling for reformation within Islam, however altruistic that might sound, Abbott is positioning Christianity as culturally superior to Islam. He's always been a hardliner from the right masquerading as a moderate.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Indeed. The change in rhetoric out of Canberra has been remarkable, and the relationship between Muslim Australians and the wider community has improved dramatically. But I still can't help but feel that Abbott has done irreparable damage - the Indonesians are right; by calling for reformation within Islam, however altruistic that might sound, Abbott is positioning Christianity as culturally superior to Islam. He's always been a hardliner from the right masquerading as a moderate.

Are the two religions completely equal in all regards?

 

[TenEightyOne]

Are the two religions completely equal in all regards?

No, but then the religions aren't even equal when compared with their own sub-flavours.

 

[ECGadget]

Never liked Abbott. I'm glad relations between Muslim communities are improving. I wonder if he is jumping on the Trumpwagon?

Also, whilst the no religion would say it is equal to any other, I believe all religions should be treated with the same respect, right?

 

[FoRiZon]

Never liked Abbott. I'm glad relations between Muslim communities are improving. I wonder if he is jumping on the Trumpwagon?

Also, whilst the no religion would say it is equal to any other, I believe all religions should be treated with the same respect, right?

Well Geert Wilders might be the better and also the best Trump companion, i guess.

 

[Ken]

I believe all religions should be treated with the same respect, right?

I agree. Wholeheartedly. And I'm neither Christian or Muslim.

 

[ECGadget]

I agree. Wholeheartedly.

It makes sense though, right? I mean if you respect anothers beliefs they shall respect yours too I suppose. Besides, it's all part of being a good human, and for me an additional bonus of being a good Muslim too.

 

[Ken]

It makes sense though, right? I mean if you respect anothers beliefs they shall respect yours too I suppose. Besides, it's all part of being a good human, and for me an additional bonus of being a good Muslim too.

It's the way the world should be. But I doubt any of us will ever see it. But this Buddhist will always strive.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

I wonder if he is jumping on the Trumpwagon?

No, he's scarier than Trump. Trump is a demagogue - he just says deliberately provocative things to make headlines. But Abbott was (and still is) a true believer. His insinuation of Christianity's supposed cultural superiority over Islam is no accident - he believes it.

He was like this on every single policy, not simply national security. Under his leadership, we were the only developed nation to go backwards on climate change; he argued that "coal is good for humanity". Under his leadership, budget reform placed the most financial pressure on the poor and vulnerable while corporate tax avoiders went unchecked for years - and all because Abbott loved the conservative narrative of the self-made man, and if you weren't a self-made man, then you deserved to be an underling to someone who was. Under his leadership, the government made bizarre decisions like the reintroduction of Knights of the Order of Australia.

Abbott ran this country for a very small group of people: the life-long conservative voters, the ones for whom voting anything other than conservative was unthinkable, even criminal. In Abbott's Australia, the only way to succeed in life was to be a wealthy white Christian male conservative voter. Everybody else missed out, and like as not, paid for it.

Put it like this - Abbott will happily destroy relations between Muslim Australians and the wider community for the sake of undermining Malcolm Turnbull, the guy who removed Abbott from power in the first place:

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-10/sparrow-why-abbott-called-for-a-reform-of-islam/7015854

 

[ECGadget]

No, he's scarier than Trump. Trump is a demagogue - he just says deliberately provocative things to make headlines. But Abbott was (and still is) a true believer. His insinuation of Christianity's supposed cultural superiority over Islam is no accident - he believes it.

He was like this on every single policy, not simply national security. Under his leadership, we were the only developed nation to go backwards on climate change; he argued that "coal is good for humanity". Under his leadership, budget reform placed the most financial pressure on the poor and vulnerable while corporate tax avoiders went unchecked for years - and all because Abbott loved the conservative narrative of the self-made man, and if you weren't a self-made man, then you deserved to be an underling to someone who was. Under his leadership, the government made bizarre decisions like the reintroduction of Knights of the Order of Australia.

Abbott ran this country for a very small group of people: the life-long conservative voters, the ones for whom voting anything other than conservative was unthinkable, even criminal. In Abbott's Australia, the only way to succeed in life was to be a wealthy white Christian male conservative voter. Everybody else missed out, and like as not, paid for it.

Put it like this - Abbott will happily destroy relations between Muslim Australians and the wider community for the sake of undermining Malcolm Turnbull, the guy who removed Abbott from power in the first place:

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-10/sparrow-why-abbott-called-for-a-reform-of-islam/7015854

I did not know that at all, thank you for the info! I thought he was just a bit of a muppet who just said things he didn't really understand too much about.

 

[LeMansAid]

I can agree with you on philosophical level but in reality I have far less faith in human nature.

I think it's completely justified to question whether or not Islam's people can modify their behaviours and attitudes sufficiently. Just as it was justified for people to question whether or not those committing barbaric and de-humanising acts in the name of Christianity could modify sufficiently.

I'm unsure as to if the Qur'an is more readily distorted than The Bible in regards to creating a perceived justification for horrific deeds, but I'm very sure that The Bible contains easily enough material to allow for horrific deeds aplenty either by following it to the letter, or twisting it a little.

If the question is a general "can human nature overcome?", you've already stated that it can....

All religions are equally bad, but most religions mellowed into peaceful form, which makes them no problem for me.

Running still with Christianity in reference to your quote - the rules didn't change, it was the people that changed. The Bible didn't change, the people just chose not to adhere to/exploit certain parts of it. Wouldn't that be human nature shining through?

If the question is a more specific "can the human nature of Muslims overcome?", I'd suggest that the degree of difficulty in the religious aspect is close enough to be equal to that of Christianity's, while the degree of difficulty in social and political aspects are as of yet not comparable. Which goes back to what I was saying in the previous post....

Given a decent period of political stability and non-abusive influence from the outside, if the (Islamic) religious archaics can't get it right, I'll start to really point the finger (if I'm still alive).

Again, "we" haven't been getting right for long at all, and I don't think that the hypocritical ex-smoker syndrome* is very classy, or fair.

* Where a person may have been smoking for years, but suddenly everyone else must give up immediately, or be condemned - just because this individual had recently seen the light.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

I thought he was just a bit of a muppet who just said things he didn't really understand too much about.

Oh, he is. He's one of those narrow-minded people who will either try and force the world they see to fit their expectation of what what it should be, and if that doesn't work, then they take it as carte blanche to marginalise and ignore it. After all, he threatened to shirt-front Vladimir Putin over MH17, which is an AFL term for an aggressive charge at your opponent that ends with chest-to-chest contact.

His comments come at the worst possible time - Sydney is on tenterhooks at the moment because this week is the tenth anniversary of the Cronulla Race Riots, a series of ugly clashes between Lebanese-Australian and Caucasian youth over the bashing of two lifeguards on Cronulla Beach. Even with the repair work Turnbull has done, relations between the Muslim community and the wider community are still at an all-time low. Most of it is coming from fringe lunatics like Reclaim Australia and the right-wing groups that like to portray Islam as "incompatible with our way of life".

 

[Johnnypenso]

I did not know that at all, thank you for the info! I thought he was just a bit of a muppet who just said things he didn't really understand too much about.

And you still don't "know that at all", you just have one person's opinion. If Abbott was just catering to a "very small group of people" for example, how did he get elected to begin with?

 

[prisonermonkeys]

If Abbott was just catering to a "very small group of people" for example, how did he get elected to begin with?

Because the previous government was incompetent, unstable and almost universally unpopular. They pretty much gave the election to Abbott and the Liberals, even before Abbott - then leader of the opposition - went on the offensive. Abbott didn't do anything to get himself elected; he pretty much just had to get out of bed on election day and he had it in the bag.

Of course, it proved to be a double-edged sword. The Rudd-Gillard government had been unpopular, to put it lightly, but once Abbott was in power, we quickly discovered that it could always get much, much worse. His first budget attempted to bring an end to universal health care, place additional pressure on student loans, slash welfare and pensions, and all the while trying to introduce an extremely generous paid parental leave scheme and offer tax incentives to big business.

If nothing else, Abbott made two key mistakes: first, he was a very effective, very aggressive opposition leader, but kept trying to use the confrontational approach when in power when a more nuanced method was needed. It didn't help that his office tried to micro-manage everything, with staffers given more influence than some ministers, and he developed the habit of a "captain's call", which was very autocratic of him. But more importantly, he assumed that he had been elected on merit when he was really elected because he was the lesser evil. Australia wanted a stable, transitional government; a means of ending the in-fighting and double-dealing that had plagued Rudd and Gillard so that come the next election, it would be less about the personalities and more about actual policy. Abbott failed to recognise that.

 

[LeMansAid]

Maybe you don't realise how much you blather on about Abbott, and maybe you often don't realise or care about your surrounds. It's a bit like how it doesn't matter what the thread is about, @DCP will always manage to squeeze out some nonsense to do with impending religious armageddon.

I feel embarrassed for you.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Maybe you don't realise how much you blather on about Abbott,

And maybe you don't realise how quick you are to criticise others because you have overlooked a major point: the Abbott government single-handedly ruined relations between the Muslim community and the wider community with the policy of "Islam has to change" whilst constantly rolling out new national security laws (often announcing the next ones before the previous set had even passed the senate) that now see Australia with the harshest and most-pervasive anti-terror laws in the world. And now here he is, making provocative statements about the nature of Islam a week before the ten-year anniversary of racially-charged riots - the worst riots in our history since the Eureka Stockade - for the sake of undermining the man who not only replaced him as Prime Minister, but has consistently out-scored Abbott in the court of public opinion on every single key issue since he took the job despite the stigma of having overthrown him (something that the party pledged they would never do, considering that the previous government did it twice).

So here we are in a thread discussing Islam in general, and a key part of the discussion since the thread was started has been the relationship between Islam and the West - but somehow, you don't think that intentionally-provocative comments from the man who ruined our relationship with the Muslim community (and arguably created a bigger security threat than if he had done nothing) timed to conicide with the worst possible moment and all for the sake of something as petty as hitting out at the man who replaced him because he was inept is somehow irrelevant to the discussion? Abbott is the kind of politician who hates terrorists, but kind of likes the idea of a malevolent offshore threat because he can create fear of it to stay in power. So what if the Muslim community suffer for it domestically? To Abbott, it's their own stupid fault because they didn't have the good sense to be Christian.

So yeah, I dislike him. I dislike what he represents, and I think his policies did far more damage than they helped to prevent. But at least I have a position that I stick to. Yours just changes depending on whatever is the easiest position to criticise someone from. Or did you think it was an accident that nobody thinks you have any credibility left? You don't contribute anything to the discussions you participate in - you just criticise others for taking part.

 

[LeMansAid]

You almost formed a whole post dedicated to thread related material there. Congratulations. You could try making that the norm, and leaving out.....

climate change

budget reform

Knights of the Order of Australia

shirt-front Vladimir Putin over MH17

...... and blah, and blah, and blah.

Or did you think it was an accident that nobody thinks you have any credibility left?

Maybe don't speak for everyone, eh? It robs them of the chance to say it to me directly.

But I don't want to clog this thread up any further. If you want to talk about Islam (and properly linked Abbott and Islam topics) go for it, if you want to talk about Abbott in general maybe go to the Oz thread, if you want to tell me more about my lack of credibility or other character related barbs - PM me.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

You could try making that the norm, and leaving out.....

And you could try reading the discussion before commenting. @ECGadget asked if Abbott's anti-Muslim rhetoric was akin to Trump's. I replied no, because while both of them made inflammatory remarks in recent days, Trump has thus far limited himself to one or two issues. Abbott, on the other hand, has handled the relationship with the Muslim community the same way that he handled every major domestic issue while in office: poorly. So while Trump is a fringe lunatic who is easily ignored because his power hinges on his ability to be provocative, Abbott is so much more dangerous because he had the capacity to enact his views. Like I said, he has shown a willingness to sacrifice the relationship between Islam and Australia for the sake of a petty shot at the guy who replaced him for being such a poor leader in the first place. The post that you chose to selectively quote for the sake of criticisng me made all of this clear. You willfully and consciously deleted the context I provided and disregarded the posts that it was a direct response to. Which, funnily enough, is exactly the sort of thing that Abbott does.

 

[ECGadget]

@prisonermonkeys Thank you for your explanations about Abbott. I heard from some people from Oz that he was a thoroughly unpleasant fellow but I didn't know that he did all that. I am sure he did some good things though (or at least one). I can see what you mean about him being worse than Trump, but I think Trump perhaps has more leverage? In any case, I think that particular debate probably lies in another thread! @Johnnypenso what is your opinion of what Abbott did/does with regards to his relations with Muslims or his thoughts on Islam, if you have one?

 

[Johnnypenso]

@prisonermonkeys Thank you for your explanations about Abbott. I heard from some people from Oz that he was a thoroughly unpleasant fellow but I didn't know that he did all that. I am sure he did some good things though (or at least one). I can see what you mean about him being worse than Trump, but I think Trump perhaps has more leverage? In any case, I think that particular debate probably lies in another thread! @Johnnypenso what is your opinion of what Abbott did/does with regards to his relations with Muslims or his thoughts on Islam, if you have one?

I don't have an opinion on Abbott one way or the other. I'm not familiar with the situation and I don't know any media out of the country that I can trust one way or the other.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Ten years on, and the memory of the Cronulla riots remains:

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-11/taha-how-the-riots-shaped-who-i-am-today/7019998

I don't know any media out of the country that I can trust one way or the other.

You can generally trust the ABC, or national broadcaster. The government used to criticise them for not being complimentary of their actions - they seemed to think that because the ABC is funded by taxpayers, then it should be pro-government propaganda; Turnbull has wisely shied away from that - which means they must be doing something right. Otherwise, the media tends to be pretty one-sided courtesy of Rupert Murdoch.