I have long thought the problems, while real, are quite overblown or misrepresented in many respects and are often used as a subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) basis for racism, with much of the rest of the complaints made by whiners going on not about a lack of respect for rights but about how Islam is supplanting Christianity as the predominant religion in Europe. Richard Dawkins - no friend of religion - wrote that his hackles rise (as they should) when someone refers to “Muslim children”, and I concur wholeheartedly with his point that children are just children, all of whom are human beings and potentially capable of either greatness or ignominy as their own choices take them. Always avoid the temptation to make a group identification and condemnation, Oxygen, especially ones that are implicitly or explicitly race-based.
Strategically, my suggestion is to abandon the actual Islamist audience, and instead focus on the ordinary perfunctorily-Muslim citizen of Muslim nations, the ones with the same kind of low-level lip service interest in the predominant religion that you find in England, Norway, Germany and France.
Very good point. The problems faced exist, primarily, simply because of the inability or unwillingness of many intellectuals to stand up for what is good about western culture and demonstrate its value to newcomers. The best way to deal with the problem is therefore to step into the breach, “subvert” the receptive among immigrants (why them alone?) through showing the truth and value on offer.
You want to persuade them of something, something that they already know. I would thus focus on the fact that many of them already understand – the virtue of capitalism, and (many of them having lived under dictatorships in Iran, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Pakistan etc.) the virtue of freedom.
Exactly. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, Oxygen, middle-eastern cultures have had strong trading traditions for thousands of years, and this is an immense positive. If you’re going to do something, then build on that positive and suffocate the negative with it.
An instructive anecdote: a local news magazine published an article about famous Australian stockbroker Rene Rivkin not long after he died. One story it recounted was about how he went into a store run by Arabs and wanted to buy something but wasn’t prepared to pay the ticket price. The shopkeeper was having none of that, until eventually Rene said in a no-nonsense tone “Look, I’m a Jew, you’re a Muslim, neither of us pay retail.” This got the shopkeeper’s respect and the two finally began real negotiations. Rene got his discount.
You wouldn’t be alone, either. I frequently come across the claim (which I have no means to assess the veracity of) that the youth of Iran (yes, Iran!) are surprisingly pro-USA, much to their foaming-fundie government’s dismay. Similarly, I have seen quite a large number of pictures of Lebanese protesters seeking freedom from Syrian oppression, with scenes including large numbers of lovely young ladies - presumably nominally Muslim - in the kind of close-fitting jeans and tops that the likes of Pat Buchanan and Rush Limbaugh spit chips about. The Muslims getting notoriety are a minority who are intimidating the rest. Just as the great majority of alleged Christians are actually nowhere near as Christian as they like to think, there are plenty of Muslims who aren’t actually as Muslim, either. They are the ones you want to find, insofar as it is specifically Muslims you want to deal with (for whatever reason).
JJM