-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Freedom of speech debate heats up in France after death threats to 16-year-old girl who called Islam "religion of hate"
- Thread starter DiipuSurotu
- Start date
Indonesia would have been a good example, but even then there was that recent politician who was jailed because a bunch of Islamic extremists got mad.
Today I learned that apparently it is possible to be racist towards an idea and that saying that something sucks somehow magically means everyone who partakes in it also sucks. It's election time where I live but I have not heard takes this insane which I didn't think would be possible.
This is pretty simple to me. Because it's not criticism. It's just pure hate.
Like, let me put it like this.
The homophobic attacks and abuse she's getting are obviously terrible. Like, that's not in question at all. That's terrible and shouldn't be happening to begin with, no duh.
But then, let's take a step back for a minute. Because no duh it's terrible, but why is such homophobia terrible? Sounds like a stupid question at first, yeah, but just bear with me for a sec here. If you had to answer that regardless, what would you like say?
Probably something like homophobic attacks and abuse are just that, abuse, and it's something that not only is any such abuse terrible regardless but homophobic bigotry moreover on top of it all is almost always just based on some form of bigotry that makes no sense at all and so iften makes further assumptions about a person just because they're gay that you can't do at all, isn't how anything works, and just aren't true.
Like, someone who's gay is just that, gay. And that's it. That's all that tells you. You can't conclude anything about them from that. Doesn't tell you anything about their morality or ethics, doesn't tell you what they have or haven't done in their life, whether they are a good or bad person, or literally anything else about them. It tells you they're gay. That's all.
Now, wrapping this all around, despi many people thinking otherwise, being Muslin is the same in that particular regard. Belonging to the religion if Islam does not instantly tell you they "belong to a religion of hate." Beyond a belief in God and Muhammad being His prophet, it doesn't tell you much of anything about them. Simply knowing they're a Muslim tells you nothing about, say, what denomination they belong to. If they say hate gay people, or if not only do they personally have no problem with them but they themselves are disgusted by the hate the LGBT community gets for so many terrible reasons and advocate for them whenever they can, or they may, believe it or not, be LGBT and Muslim at the same time.
Simply knowing they're Muslim tells you nothing about any of that, one way or the other. It doesn't tell you if they're a good person, or an awful, horrible, one. It doesn't tell you if they've done horrible things in their life or worked their hardest to do good whenever they can. It tells you their Muslim. That's it. And as a faith of 2 billion people over the world with multiple denominations and just huge, tremendous diversity, that only makes sense. That you can't conclude much even about beliefs other than very general stuff such as a belief in God and the Prophet Muhammad, especially with how idiosyncratic and deeply, deeply personal religion tends to be .
So when someone responds to a statement like "Islam is a religion of Hate" with something like "I'm criticizing the religion itself, not the people," I'm like, okay, how is that different from "criticizing" homosexuality then?
And that may seen stupid, because Islam has beliefs, homosexuality doesn't. But that's exactly it. Homosexuals can have any number of beliers, can come from any number of walks if lives.
So when someone responds to a statement like that with "I'm criticizing the religion, not the people" I'm like... Okay, "which" religion are you criticizing precisely then? Like, who is the audience for that statement exactly? Who are we talking to and address in exactly? Who exactly is the recipient then?
Like, are we talking about Muslims in Indonesia, or in Saudi Arabia? India, or Iran?
Are we talking about Sunni Muslims, or Shia? Or are we talking about Wahhabi Muslims? Which specific part of the religion, which particular sect or denomination is being criticized? Who exactly is or isn't being criticized, which oat if the religion is the target of these supposed critiques?
It's almost never said. And when the answer is said, it's almost always the whole thing. The whole kit and caboodle. Despite that being a group of nearly 2 billion people. Despite all the different denomination d and their different beliefs and how they themselves often times don't like each other because these differences are indeed that significant. That countries like say Iraq and Iran aren't exactly fans of each other due to said differences. Nope, just lunped together equao.
Because the target almost always in these situations is "all of them." Despite that making no sense. Despite that being just as silly as trying to make assumptions about someone just because they're gay. That being a Muslim likewise dies not mean you can assume a person believes this is that either, not with the tremendous diversity in rye religion, not with the amount of different groups that believe different groups that believe different things for their own reasons despite being under the larger umbrella of Islam and if one realizes that, if one realizes that's all true, why "criticize" the whole entire thing that way? Why try to paint a religion of 2 billion people with the same brush regardless instead if being even the tiniest bit more specific as to who you are it are not talking about? Why not be even the least bit more specific instead if trying to saty Muslins are all this or that instead?
Because the answer there is gate. There's no other reason. And no amount of "I'm criticizing the religion, not the people/believers," will change that for those reasons, because why would one not be more specific, why would one not specify, why would you try and lunp all Muslims under the bus to begin with when you know that isn't true,behy would you use such language regardless unless that's the point to begin with and you're trying to lump people together/generalize as much as possible/just don't care about them or any of that at all and just care about spreading hate on turn? So yeah, that's all I see it as, because there's no other reason to do that to begin with, unless that's the motivation.
There are no good people in this story. Homophobia is terrible and should never happen and is completely inexcusable, as are death threats. But so is responding in turn with bigoted Islamaphobia. Homophobia is terrible and inexcusable, but for the exact reasons it's terrible, that's no reason to respond with bigoted Islamaphobia in return. Two wrongs in no way make a right.
They're as bad as each other. Mutual respect is a thing.
I was raised Muslim, by no means ever lived under any guise of Sharia law. What I do know is that Muslims I know are always tolerant towards other people, and want people to be tolerant of the beliefs they hold.
The reason why it gets muddy is that religion is a deeply personal thing, whether you accept it all or not, you take some, lose some. Painting all Muslims with a big old X on the door because they are "X" is irresponsible, doesn't take a genius to realise that. By the same coin, Muslims should be tolerant towards other cultures, and for the most part many are.
Blame the culture surrounding those particular Muslim populace, because then you'll get a better idea of what kind of thing or person you're dealing with. "A Muslim from over there" really doesn't count, neither would be painting a Greek person and a Polish person just because they're both into Jesus, ya dig? There is a culture problem regarding tolerance in certain South Asian communities, and it's something that the newer generations who might live in western countries have to reckon with, but it will get better with time.
I'm a second-gen immigrant from a Muslim family, and you do start to see the cultural differences between the younger members and the older members of our family. Nothing quite as radical as hating gay people, but little things that help bridge the culture divide that does still exist.
I was raised Muslim, by no means ever lived under any guise of Sharia law. What I do know is that Muslims I know are always tolerant towards other people, and want people to be tolerant of the beliefs they hold.
The reason why it gets muddy is that religion is a deeply personal thing, whether you accept it all or not, you take some, lose some. Painting all Muslims with a big old X on the door because they are "X" is irresponsible, doesn't take a genius to realise that. By the same coin, Muslims should be tolerant towards other cultures, and for the most part many are.
Blame the culture surrounding those particular Muslim populace, because then you'll get a better idea of what kind of thing or person you're dealing with. "A Muslim from over there" really doesn't count, neither would be painting a Greek person and a Polish person just because they're both into Jesus, ya dig? There is a culture problem regarding tolerance in certain South Asian communities, and it's something that the newer generations who might live in western countries have to reckon with, but it will get better with time.
I'm a second-gen immigrant from a Muslim family, and you do start to see the cultural differences between the younger members and the older members of our family. Nothing quite as radical as hating gay people, but little things that help bridge the culture divide that does still exist.
You're right, but you're also missing Shugga's point. This whole thing is problematic precisely because folks can't seem to separate muslims from Islam, or worse, from each other.
I'd love to live in a world where we're not treated as a monolith, or where I'm not the world's punching bag just because I happen to practice Islam (or look like someone who does).
Religion is a made-up, by definition anti-scientific source of ideology that has been used to justify atrocities. It is also a personal choice. Homosexuality is an innate, natural trait.
I'd argue it's even OK to criticize people for following any religion, for the above reasons. Meanwhile, "criticizing" somebody for their homosexuality is absurd and ignorant at best.
You are. "I mean of course the death threats are bad, but surely everyone can see the girl is a racist and the real problem, right?" Go start a thread about Islamophobia in France instead of putting your "she's no angel" rhetoric here.
Does it have to be one or the other? What she said was just as bad. Just because someone used hate speech against her doesn't give her the right to use hate speech.
I'm not sure you can easily separate religion and race in this context as Islam is strongly associated by certain races, cultures and nationalities and a lot of prejudice you see towards Muslims are mixed up in that. Sadly I think many people will use the "ideaologies aren't people" excuse to discriminate. Besides I think there's a difference between criticism of a religion and basically calling an entire religion that lots of people practice one of hate because people on social media said homophobic things to her.Islam is an ideology, not a race. Ideologies have no rights.
Also, Islam (as well as other Abrahamic religions) has some serious issues with LBGT rights. It's not exactly surprising for a LBGT person to look upon said religions very negatively, especially when openly attacked by someone who identify as a believer of such religions.
Hey Shugga,
gonna reply to my last reply to you or just ignore that?
A religion is based on religeous texts, a doctrin, a rule-set, a rulebook. That set of rules, in the case of islam and cristianity, contains in itself hate. No need to add a single human to the equation. Sure, there are individuals who call themselves christians but are fine with people being gay - but that's the thing - then they are not following the rulebook of the religion.
Taken to the extreme, we could imagine a person calling themselves facist, but in fact doesn't have a -single- facist opinion. I would say first off; I would inform him that he in fact is not a facist, and then I would proceed critisicing facism even though he claims he is part of it.
Same with religion. A muslim that doesn't support any of the hatred that is in the actual texts of the religion is of course a-ok in my book. Hopefully everyone here agrees, and I believe they do. But that doesn't mean that Islam is fine.
gonna reply to my last reply to you or just ignore that?
I'm not talking about muslims. I'm talking about Islam. I'm not asking about criticizing individuals, I'm talking about criticizing a religion.
A religion is based on religeous texts, a doctrin, a rule-set, a rulebook. That set of rules, in the case of islam and cristianity, contains in itself hate. No need to add a single human to the equation. Sure, there are individuals who call themselves christians but are fine with people being gay - but that's the thing - then they are not following the rulebook of the religion.
Taken to the extreme, we could imagine a person calling themselves facist, but in fact doesn't have a -single- facist opinion. I would say first off; I would inform him that he in fact is not a facist, and then I would proceed critisicing facism even though he claims he is part of it.
Same with religion. A muslim that doesn't support any of the hatred that is in the actual texts of the religion is of course a-ok in my book. Hopefully everyone here agrees, and I believe they do. But that doesn't mean that Islam is fine.
Sure.
Saying "this religion is trash" isn't criticism. Call it petty if you want, I don't give a fuck.
If you're gonna have a debate about Islam and open with "Islam is trash" (or hateful) you'll be laughed at.
Religions are not monoliths. Not two persons practice their faith in the same way.
And is not like religion is the biggest instigator against homosexuality.
How the hell is what she said "just as bad," as unprovoked abuse and direct death threats?
I get that what she said is a very poor way of criticising religion, and there is potential for the alt-right to be emboldened here (which, frankly, she shouldn't be held responsible for unless she directly encourages it herself), but she didn't call anyone a "dirty Muslim," or send death threats to them for crying out loud.
Last edited:
I guess it would be similar to responding to a catholic person by saying "Catholicism is a religion for pedophiles".
The whole "religion of hate" thing is a far right retort, usually, so Im assuming she has ill feelings towards muslims in general.
Just my vibe.
The whole "religion of hate" thing is a far right retort, usually, so Im assuming she has ill feelings towards muslims in general.
Just my vibe.
But then you aren't fine with criticism of a religion. Your pettyness has nothing to do with it.
You seemingly can't separate a religion and what it de facto stands for, from it's practitioners.
Until you get that, you will not understand what people are saying in this thread.
I know plenty of Muslims who don't want to kill or punish apostates. The vast majority, in fact.
I don't know of any mainstream schools of Sunni Islam that DON'T prescribe punishment (generally death) for apostates.
It's a pretty clear case of Islam being to blame rather than Muslims. The Shuggas of the world, knowingly or not, are trying to eliminate that distinction. They're tools of the far right.
I don't know of any mainstream schools of Sunni Islam that DON'T prescribe punishment (generally death) for apostates.
It's a pretty clear case of Islam being to blame rather than Muslims. The Shuggas of the world, knowingly or not, are trying to eliminate that distinction. They're tools of the far right.
What the fuck are you talking about? I'm in here saying generalizing Islam isn't a good thing, but I'm the one trying to eliminate distinctions? Ok man
Abrahamic religious scriptures all contain incredibly violent and disgusting elements which a lot of denominations are happy to ignore or selectively incooperate inorder to align with their culture or specific doctrines.
However by having these problematic elements in scriptures which are supposed to viewed as perfect and immutable your pretty much subconsciously vindicating these elements. As such , I don't view criticism of monotheistic religions as wrong , in fact it should be encouraged and pretty much as constant as we criticise and tear apart laws.
However by having these problematic elements in scriptures which are supposed to viewed as perfect and immutable your pretty much subconsciously vindicating these elements. As such , I don't view criticism of monotheistic religions as wrong , in fact it should be encouraged and pretty much as constant as we criticise and tear apart laws.
What do you mean "generalizing Islam"?
Luckily, in the case of Islam (and Christianity) there is a literal textbook definition of what it is.
And, what people are talking about in here, is criticing that definition.
I mean I could start calling myself a muslim. No one's here to stop me. But if i don't adhere to any of the rules and doctrines written in the very book that defines Islam, does it matter?
You could, also, idk, follow some of them but not all of them. Like most (all?) muslims do. Crazy I know.
Ok fine, so then people in here are not talking about criticising THEM, get it?
We are talking about criticing the religion as defined. Cause you know, according to Islam, these people that aren't actually adhering toi the rules, aren't actually muslims.
Okay, but the problem is you can't separate the two. As you say it's sbout the hook, the texts, but obviously that would have no relevo, no reason to care at all, unless you feel that at least certain people actually believe those things as such. As if it was just a historical thing, or just a matter of text, there be no reason to care in the here and how. Xlealy that's not the case.
So who are these people? Why not call them out specifically, refer to them and them alone, instead of trying to use them to define all if Islam?
Why do you do the exact opposite in fact? Not only referring to them specifically, the people who actually say and do such things, instead of using them to represent all Muslims, but not only that, not only that, but with you're little segue to Christians there, you not only seem interested in lumping them all together regardless, but go out of your way to "No True Scotsman" anyone who doesn't conform to that, just so the worst of the worst can be the "true" Muslims?
Like, why do that? Why do any of that?
Like, the fact you have to pull a No True Scotsman should already show how ridiculous this all is and makes my point for me all if itseof.
But if you're going to do that regardless,if you're going to do that anyway, why concoct a scenario where only those who believe everything 100% literally are the "true believers"? Why guys e them that power in the first place?
If you're going to do something like that regardless, why not consider those who actually respect LGBT individuals as the true believers? Why concede to the worst of the worst from the very start like that?
And why do any of this, why "No True Scotsman" out sntonr in the first place, saying this or that group of people don't count, just so you can lunp people together and hide it behind s critique of "criticizing a religion" when the fact you have to pull a no true Scotsman in the first place shows how flimsy and hollow that all is to begin with (especially when just to create a scenario where the worst are the true believers to begin with)?
Why do any of that (again, going back to the start here, that none of this would have any relevance and no one would care either way unless people did believe these things, or people at the very least felt they did, so to segment out the human portion is very disingenuous and just doesn't work)? I can't fathom any other reason than it's own form of bigoted hate like I said, no matter how many masks or layers it might try to obscure itself with.
EDIT: And on top of all that, if indeed you're talking about religious fundamentalists, while that itself encompasses a variety of people and beliefs, fundamentalist Islam is nonetheless at least somewhat more specific than Islam in general.
And a critique of fundamentalist Islam is not the same as critiquing Islam or all Muslims in general.
So indeed, if that's what you meant to say, then just say that, that "I'm critiquing religious fundamentalists" or "I'm critiquing fundamentalist Islam" instead of using a critique if fundamentalist Islam to generalize the entire religion or stereotype it or frame it in any particular way like that, because those are two very diffy things, and if that's what you mean, then why not just say that to begin with? That's exactly what I'm talking about, why does that specificity have to be pulled out instead if being present to begin with, if you're talking about specific people, just say those specific people to begin with instead of trying to use them to paint the greater whole a particular way? There's no reason not to have that specificity to begin with, and be consistent going forward with it, unless one's motives aren't pure to begin with.
Last edited:
You can separate them. I'm doing it right now.
I'm saying:
There are fine muslims.
Islam as a religion isn't fine.
See? Separated.
If you want me to be more specific:
The hateful things that is part of the literal doctrine of Islam (and Christianity) aren't fine.
You make it sound like criticism of Islam only comes from non Muslim folks. That's not true. Country of Turkey, where I am from, was built upon the ideas of anti-islamism. Founder of the country, Ataturk, was a staunch opponent of radicalism and did his best to cripple the power of Islam in the country: Banned Arabic almost everywhere, shut down Quran schools, banned Arabic Adhan prayers, regulated sale of holy books, abolished 1300 year of tradition of caliphate institution and hanged hundreds of clerics who were advocating violence. That was not a racist, nor discriminatory, that was necessary actions to take to modernize the country that was riddled massacres, rapes, beheadings and stonings in the name of Islam. Not to mention the whole Armenian genocide was motivated by rising islamism.
The point here, you can't wait for your folk to take action against problems out there. "It's our problem, we can handle this, outsiders shut up please" thing doesn't work out well if youre not planning to do anything. If you don't speak against and take action yourself, someone else will and you can't blame them when they do. Islam needs more people like Ataturk for that to not happen.
I'm saying that the apostasy thing alone is enough to say "Islam is trash". You can say that while realizing that virtually all Muslims wouldn't want to kill apostates, and that each Muslim follows their own version of Islam. When you claim that "Islam is trash" statements are really just attacking Muslims, you're conflating the two when they should be separated.
Same thing with Hinduism and caste. In the West, you'll be hard-pressed to find a Hindu that cares about caste. Does that let Hinduism off the hook? Is it bad if someone calls Hinduism trash because of it? Of course not.
I know it's not intentional on your part. But the far right would absolutely love if the rest of the population conflated Islam and Muslims.
Personal faith and the tenets of organised dogmatic religion are big distinctions that this thread, IMO, should try and not forget. It is one of the reasons why you can speak ill of a religion yet not speak ill of the faith people have.
Most people do. I'm not doing it, I'm calling out "just criticizing islam" as being a politically correct way of shitting on arabs/brown people in general.
Religions are trash. Most of the people practicing said religions aren't trash.
Discussing Islam and its implications, its troubles (as for all religions) is something that should be allowed to be debated and talked about. Saying it's a religion of hate is certainly a take, but it's far from being something that should spark a hate speech investigation. Talking about blasphemy is just laughable, who cares about blasphemes and if someone is disrespectful towards the institution of religions.
Regarding her history and other posts in the threads it just looks like she posted and said a lot more than "Islam is a religion of hate" and actually seems to harbor hatred towards muslims as a group. That part is not ok and should be called out, even if she's the victim of homophobic remarks. You can be a shitstain and still get hate speech hurled at you. Doesn't make it any less of hate speech.
So no, #JeNeSuisPasMila.
Discussing Islam and its implications, its troubles (as for all religions) is something that should be allowed to be debated and talked about. Saying it's a religion of hate is certainly a take, but it's far from being something that should spark a hate speech investigation. Talking about blasphemy is just laughable, who cares about blasphemes and if someone is disrespectful towards the institution of religions.
Regarding her history and other posts in the threads it just looks like she posted and said a lot more than "Islam is a religion of hate" and actually seems to harbor hatred towards muslims as a group. That part is not ok and should be called out, even if she's the victim of homophobic remarks. You can be a shitstain and still get hate speech hurled at you. Doesn't make it any less of hate speech.
So no, #JeNeSuisPasMila.
I assume someone has archived the video of her IG broadcast so there should be proof of this, but I've only seen one or two articles actually mention her comments that "'blacks and Arabs' are not her type."
In the video where she recounts the timeline of events, she says she was discussing with her friend how they're not into arab girls. Don't know what was actually said though, unless there's a VOD or something we can't really know.
Is there any verifiable proof of what you're claiming?
Last edited:
The most anti-Muslim sentiment worldwide is in places like India and China with huge Muslim minorities, where Muslims are either ethnically identical to the majority population or literally whiter. The "criticizing Islam to shit on Arabs/browns" thing seems to be a Western thing and is usually not generalizable to the rest of the world (maybe Myanmar?). It really is religious discrimination, not racial discrimination.
Yes I was talking in the context of the West/France, where I live and where this happened.
This is what Islamphobia clearly tackles, its still racist. Islam's followers ARE a group of people with common characteristics (men with beards, largely of brown skin, hijab/robes etc) and tropes directed against them (followers of Islam) on the basis of their "muslim-ness" is driven by racism, ie mistreatment of a women due to her hijab, dismissal of a job candidate because of their muslim surname , aggression towards someone due to their headgear (Sikh's for instance) for being perceived to identify with Islam is a strand of racism that exclusively targets muslims. Its just that racist have had success in obfuscating their hatred for ideology (Islam) but thier criticism manifests itself in targeting innocent people indiscriminately on the basis of being muslim.
What video? She doesn't mention any of that in the video is posted on the BBC article, I might have seen recap versions of her instagram video though.
Nobody can handle anything any more and freedom of speech laws need to be constantly repeated when some things are said.
I sure do hope the little girl is safe.
Here I am just worrying about my little issues having a newborn. Be kind to each other.
I sure do hope the little girl is safe.
Here I am just worrying about my little issues having a newborn. Be kind to each other.
Here
Hate speech isn't protected under freedom of speech here
Nah this is the video she made afterwards where she ends it by saying she is actually the victim of reverse racism lol
But she says she was talking about her PREFERENCES, and how she wasn't attracted to black people or arabs.