Misunderestimating
by Dr. Pants on Jan.17, 2006, under Life and the Universe, Norway
I belong to this forum in yahoo called "New To Oslo." I think the idea is a great one. Connect people from other countries, living in a new one, to each other so they may share their experience and knowledge about anything under the sun. Today I saw someone ask where they could find mustard seed. Sure enough, someone answered them.
It’s also a great place to meet up with others like yourself. They have a monthly ‘pub’ night where everyone gets together to share stories and meet face-to-face.
It’s also a place where people can discuss topics that may be difficult to discuss with people in your new adopted country.
Well, being the wonderful person I am, decided to post a link to a news articles about how there has been an ever increasing rate of rapes in Norway, Sweden and several other countries by immigrants of Muslim descent. I posted it with this message:
Very scary and interesting. I haven’t seen this in the papers here but find the news disturbing enough to pass it on. I hope we all keep an open mind and remember a small few’s actions don’t represent everyone. And yes. it is a Conservative Zine.. Take it all with a grain of salt.
I checked several sources online that found this information to have some merit.
Well, all hell broke loose after that. I was told this stuff wasn’t appropriate for the forum, I was offending people and that this was all a joke. In other words, people reacted.. many as if they didn’t even read what I had written.
Many jumped in and a few, one who is Muslim, defended my point. I simply wanted to ask and discuss whether others had encountered or read about this.
Then, I got this e-mail from a girl I met in town who is in the forum… She said something to me that made a whole lot of sense.
Whenever you bring up a minority group, people feel that they are being "objective" by just defending the minority, but they don’t care to analyze the issue at hand and therefore become very subjective in their opinions. It is no different than when you bring up the boy/girl issue. Let’s face it, there are things boys are better at than girls–it’s been proven, but don’t ever say that to a feminist! You’ll only get arguments that have no proof. I believe in equal rights, but I am a realist as well!
Amen to that..
January 17th, 2006 on 10:13 pm
Here in the States, since 9/11, there have been some really ugly incidents of persons of Arab Muslim heritage being unfairly mistreated, including some of my students (for example, one who flew an American flag in his front yard every day from the time he became a citizen suffered much vandalism to his house and anonymous threats that said he didn’t have a “right” to fly the flag).
However, there is a big difference between hateful actions such as those and just looking at statistics and asking questions about them. It doesn’t do anybody good to suppress facts just because those facts are politically incorrect. What is needed more is to look at that information and evaluate it, not in a vacuum, but with regard to other relevant data, such as the age of the perpetrators, demographics of the neighborhoods in which the rapes occur, and things like that. Seeking to get a clearer picture is not the same thing as a blanket condemnation of all Muslim immigrants.
January 18th, 2006 on 6:11 am
Exactly! I want to get some answers. If the Koran does actually condone the raping of unpure women then it is something to be concerned about. The problem is, I have no idea. i have asked Muslim friends here and they have said they know nothing about it. Is this a case of something good being changed to suit a violent purpose?
January 18th, 2006 on 9:08 pm
No one has idea. It’s all horseshit. The only clear course of action is what the planet has embarked upon: wipe this smear of shit off the shit and start over. Humans have an extremely short lifespan with terribly limited memories about things that happened during those ludicrously short lifespans. They believe in all kinds of horseshit. In fact, belief seems to be a keep ingredient that is demanded by ordinary people in cementing relationships among their family members and neighbors. Horseshit. All horseshit. I don’t believe in anything. I don’t put up with people who believe in anything. People who believe in anything are willing to do anything. I am not willing to do many things. I am willing to blow up the world if given the opportunity. That does require believe. Just opportunity.
January 19th, 2006 on 12:12 pm
I’ve also experienced difficulties when trying to discuss minorities, prostitution, beggars, etc… I was even called right-wing once, for implying that not all beggars are honest joes…
What is sort of funny about the article you link to is that the article writer attributes most of her information about Scandinavia to the “journalist” Fjordman. He isn’t a journalist, but rather a very controversial blogger who had a huge international following, was relatively unpopular in the Norwegian “blogosphere,” and who recently stopped blogging.
January 19th, 2006 on 10:28 pm
Pants, I have studied the Koran, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in it condoning rape of any woman, even an infidel.
To the contrary, the Koran’s view of women and thier rights, and the way they should be treated, is astonishingly progressive. Women are to be respected, and their views are to be valued. In the 7th Century, no other society gave women the sort of respect that was decreed in the Koran.
Of course, much of the rest of the world has made progress in the past 14 centuries, so women do generally get more respect than they used to. But the treatment of women in Islamic societies seems to have strayed from the Koran — if you look at the Koran itself, you don’t find justification of the kind of oppression that is applied nowadays.