Islam and Muslims are our new current favorite whipping-boy. In watching the late night talk shows, I see that comedians think it ok to make fun of Muslims in ways in which they wouldn't dare do with other identity groups. And even liberals feel it alright to make gross overgeneralizations about Muslims that they wouldn't dare do with other identity groups (except conservatives of course).
People keep saying, "If there really are moderate Muslims, then why aren't they doing something? Why aren't they more vocal?"
There are moderate and liberal Muslims, and some of them are very vocal. A lot of them are not. Why not? Why don't most of us act in the face of injustice? Most of us do not. Why didn't the vast majority of German citizens rise up against Hitler? I don't believe it's because there was something particularly wrong with Germans. Some of the more angry Europeans are asking Americans why we don't rise up against Bush when we know that what he's doing is wrong. Yeah, we know. And aside from a few protests and emails I don't do much about it. Why am I not chaining myself to the gate of the White House when I know that my country is torturing people and killing others? I don't know. History will condemn us and I dont blame it. But I know that I won't be so quick to condemn others for not acting. It's so easy to condemn others when you're not the one who has to put your own butt on the line.
Another related question that I hear is "If there really are moderate Muslims, then how come all the Muslims that I see are radicals?"
:banghead3
Maybe because the media only shows you the ones who are radicals.
Maybe because radicals tend to be more vocal and visible than moderates.
Maybe because there are moderate Muslims all around you and yet you don't see them. The people who go out of their way to identify themselves as Muslim are the ones who feel the most strongly about it. That doesn't mean that all of them are extremists, but certainly on average they would be more extremist than the ones who don't make a point of identifying themselves. (Just as is the case for other religions.) And the moderates are probably afraid to identify themselves.
Muslims constitute over 1.2 billion people in this world, from all over this world. That means about 20% of the world's population is Muslim. If they were all radicals who like to blow things up and kill people, there would be a helluva lot more violence than there is. There are more Muslims in Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia and Malaysia than there are in the Middle East. There is a huge Chinese Muslim population (Arab is one of China's five national languages). America being the immigrant country that it is, you've probably come into contact with Muslims and not even recognized that they were Muslims, because they don't fit our sterotype. Just peaceful people going about their lives, and then we have the nerve to ask how come all the Muslims we see are "violent" etc. It would be embarassing if it weren't so damn awful.
