Another scary addendum to the Ottawa connection...the reason the police moved in when they did is that these men (Canadian citizens) were planning to send money and schematics that day to Afghanistan for building new-and-improved IED bombs to blow up our Canadian soldiers over there. How can that not be scary enough to make one question?

I've been lurking for awhile but do want to chime in because I think this is a very important topic.

The arguments I'm reading here are a lot like the ones used in the early 20th century referring to the Southern Europeans who were entering the US in droves.

There are demogogues who find ways to empower themselves in religious organizations just as they do in political ones, and transform religious institutions into political ones. We all have seen this for years in Christianity, and now we see it in Islam. "Religion" is a way of knowing, like science is a way of knowing. But taking over the world by force and using fear tactics to convert people (including children) isn't religion. It's something else, but I wouldn't call it religion. Distortions have long been made in interpreting the Bible: You can blame the followers of the holy book, but not the book itself.

The "West" actually owes a great deal to Islamic culture, though you won't learn that in the US school system. We can look at past history -- when Europeans were starving and bathing only about once a year, Islamic people had constructed public baths, and lighted streets, and beautiful temples, and clothes made of silk. The Islamic empire stretched into Asia and they were trading with China and India. The crusaders learned about these things when they invaded Muslim cities. Muslims later brought universities, hospitals, medicine, math, and even classical Greek philosophy and the check-writing system to Europe. The influence of Islamic thinking inspired the renaissance in Europe.

Europe has recently had a different approach to immigration than has the US and possibly Canada. It seems to me that there's some idea among European nations that there's something that's intrinsically "French" or "German" or "Italian" or "Dane" that's distinct from Kurdish or Turk or Arab, and that the latter can never actually aspire to become part of the nationality, unless they give up their ways. Maybe the very idea of "nation" (which is also an Islamic invention) needs to change?

I haven't waded through 480+ comments to this Canadian national news article about U.S. preacher wanting to burn the Koran. In today's paper.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/worl...article1697677/

Really? One still needs it as a reference text even if one is not a Muslim/believer.

Edelweiss, I never claimed you wanted to throw out all Muslims. It was just a comment but already alot of folks just want them out of their home country. It's fear.

Eagle, sure arrest if there is hard evidence of terrorist plotting. But doesn't make all Muslims potential terrorists nor hostile to non-Muslims, like the people down the street.

I think the U.S.preacher's intentions only makes Muslims more defensive, inflames alot of people. More blockages to understanding.

Hmmm...let's see the Nazis burned books, Communist China at the height of its desire to "control its people" burned books and sacred texts in the 1960's. (You didn't know that?? That was the Cultural Revolution. Learning, books was seen as bourgeois. People were tortured. Temples destroyed turned into factories. Mob control, etc.)

When there's talk of burning copies of a book that by itself is quite harmless but interpreted in so many ways by different people (like the Bible), then there's something just wrong and pervasive.

Edit update: now it's 610+ comments on that globe and mail article.

I don't think there's an easy answer here. We in the West tend to view closed societies as a bad thing, do we not? When other countries are not welcoming to Christians or Westerners, for example, we view them as prejudiced and backward. But when we Westerners have the same discussions, we're just trying to preserve our way of life. Which is it?

I can imagine that if you live in Indonesia, a big influx of Christians with their different customs, different religious observances, and different expectations is not a happy change. Why are these women dressed in shorts? Why do they drink alcohol? Why do they want Sunday off for worship? And, worst of all, what if my child wants to marry one of them?

These are 'ordinary' problems. I cannot think of a single immigrant group to the US that spoke English with any facility on arrival. The one exception is the Irish, who were forced to learn it by their English overlords. (My grandparents spoke both English and Irish.) The first generation never does all that well, but they often don't even teach their native language to their children.

It's really hard for me to judge how much our present discomfort with Muslims represents something new or is just business as usual. The US, for example, has a long history of treating immigrants who were not Protestant, German, or English as second-class citizens. For example, the Irish and Italians were not even considered to be whites when they first started showing up to the US in large numbers. Catholics were *not* the kind of people thought to represent what the US was all about. (Remember when John Kennedy had to assure the American voters that the Pope would not take over if he was elected? Where I live, people still consider Catholics to be cult members.)

As to honor killings or forced marriages, anything that violates the laws where people live needs to be prosecuted. Yes, this may make some people very uncomfortable, but the immigrants themselves can decide if their new home is too 'different' for them to ever get comfortable. When in Rome, and all that.

Unfortunately there maybe some truth here in terms of national "self-identity" and everyone else is "other"...which might explain why the German international firm that I worked for (3 yrs.) seemed just fundamentally clueless in corporate self-expression of workforce diversity and how to give credit to employees who were not Germans. Some of these other employees had been with the firm over over a decade (Like I said the Canadian managers, were privately fed up.)

I worked in an international American-based firm for 3 yrs. It was the opposite: each country region exercised its own image for its workforce portrayal, etc. But there was a common standard in corporate culture, public relations, workforce diversity, etc. Sure there was U.S. influenced standards, but the local country managers had some flexibility to portray the corporate business in local terms.

Let's hope Edelweiss' "A" granddaughter will be viewed as German. But somehow, reality is that she will have to explain herself from time to time on her citizenship, her ancestry because people misunderstood her "origins".

Ok, Edelweiss you already told me the face of Germany is becoming more diverse. So that means all the German tourist literature from Germany, had better change to reflect this. Or maybe it tends to be just in the big cities?

Or maybe if we knew how diverse it was...it wouldn't be as interesting to visit for Canadians/Americans? Who might ho-hum at diversity selling point. (ie. What else is new? Big deal.)

The pastor who wants to burn the Koran, someone lives near the same town as the pastor. This is what this American says:

That church is in the town where I work. That idiot will do anything to get his name in the news. The more coverage they give him, the happier he is.

Our station will not send a crew to cover that nonsense. We have a crew on standby, if the fit hits the shan that night, but we are trying to avoid it.

In a small bit of irony, the city will not give him a burn permit, so the act WILL be illegal.

From this thread.. http://forums.bicycling.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/632104717/m/7221082696/p/1 People in this different forum, are alot of men. It is an American dominant forum just like BWS. Yup, guys somtimes joke in the midst of the storm. They talk about other stuff that has nothing to do with bikes.

Hello everyone,

I have just spent at least an hour reading through this entire thread. Loads of good ideas floated, but I agree with Ellemm that there's no easy answer here.

As for whomever suggested that I invite a Muslim women to join the discussion. Interesting idea, but unfortunately I don't personally know any, and thus I might not trust that someone who enters the discussion now saying she IS such a women - actually is who she says she is.

I don't think we as a group will be able to do much more than ponder the situation. But that's OK. We really don't have to do more than that, do we?

DJ's comment, which was boxed in Orchid's most recent post is certainly interesting. I refer to the concept that perhaps our very understanding of what makes up a nation has to change. And she is correct that the knights who fought in the crusades brought back with them many concepts and philosophies that inspired what became known as the European Renaissance.

It brings to my mind something I learned in college when studying this period. As I recall -- and I know the concept is right even if the country is wrong -- the Polish knights did not participate in the Crusades because their beverage of choice was beer -- not wine -- and they had no process to keep it from going bad as they traveled to the Holy Lands! (Pasturization hadn't been invented yet!)

I'm all for living in a country that is a melting pot -- and I recognize that means we have to take the good with the bad... Regardless, doing so keeps us from becoming inbred -- and we can all learn from the press of new ideas.

Orchid, to answer your question from earlier in this thread:
In Orthodox Judaism, women have virtually no role in the synagogue. Synagogue is a male domain. Women sit separately (in a balcony if available, or at the side on the main floor behind a curtain divider.) Womens synagogue prayer is considered unimportant, and women are not considered reliable witnesses in a Jewish court of law.

However, women are equal within the home, and are expected to be educated. Jobs are OK as long as they don't interfere with child care.

__________________________________________________________

As Western religions moved from Judaism to Christianity to Islam, in my opinion they have also gotten increasingly patriarchal. The more patriarchal, the more militaristic and also the more misogynist.

I think Jewish Orthodox women are treated as 2nd class. Christian Fundamentalist women are lower than that. Muslim women are even worse off.

In the more liberal branches of these religions, women are treated as equals. Also, there's some correlation (but not absolute) between education and equality.

I'm scared of fundamentalist Christians. I'm even more scared of fundamentalist Muslims. However, "some of my best friends are" members of the less fundamentalist branches of any and all religions.

It's not about race. It IS about not supporting any religion which treats women like dirt.

Exactly Meredith. that is what I've been saying all along. And this should not be accepted in a democracy.

I hear what you both are saying, but where does separate and different become intolerable? Most people in the US are pretty comfortable with the idea of Christianity, even though we all know that practices differ widely and plenty of people do not permit women priests or ministers or even lay readers. Some Christian churches have removed women from Sunday schools based on the 'suffer not a woman to teach' idea.

Is it that these people seem to be a minority, so are tolerable? Is it that we're taught to pretty much mind our own business in terms of religion as long as people are not interferred with in public? I don't have the answer to this, but if we're talking about women's equality here, then we don't seem to have much trouble with *some* subjugation of women as long as there isn't too much. So it's really just a question of degree, or are all religions bad in this area?

And, you know, it's not just women. I know people who have had to abandon their families because they are gay. There's no way they will still be accepted, so have moved away for good. Or marrying outside the religious/ethnic group. Or getting a college degree. The list goes on and on. You know, there are people in the US who don't think women should have the right to vote; where did that idea come from, in a country that's overwhelmingly Christian?

Anyway, I heard something interesting on the radio today. It's about the first Muslim university in the US. Very small, very democratic. The man who started it said he has traveled widely and noticed that many practices in Muslim countries are cultural, not religious, and he's interested in people being able to study Islam without all the baggage.