Metahive wrote:Why? I mean you sought to engage in a debate about it on your own volition now, did you?
I'm not tired of discussions, but I'm tired of quick accusations of being racist.
Because you both tar an entire religion and an entire area with a very broad brush based on nothing but popular stereotypes.
If you have a region where some parts of the population have medieval beliefs, like that women are second-class citicens, then stating this is perfectly valid and has nothing to do with racism.
And if this is valid for an "entire area", it simply is. No racism involved at all.
I mean, as a German you do know that Germans themselves are often target of exactly this kind of ignorant prejudice, right? I mean, fuck, I get the same "look, a German, he must be a humourless authoritarian Nazi guy"-spiel when I tell people I'm from there and I don't even look German.
Sorry, but this doesn't fit to my experiences. I'm an IT consultant, in 2015 I have been in the USA, Poland and France for an international project and never ever has anybody shown such a behaviour.
Of course some Polish and French colleagues made some jokes about Germany and Germans (including some corny Nazi stuff), but I have taken this as fun and returned the favour when possible. Perhaps I would have had problems if I would have reacted in an uptight way instead...
Serious question, what do you know about Syria and Iraq? What was the situation of women in both countries before the recent crises? What kind of rights and limitations did they have? If you want to make definitive statements like that about them, I expect some work to have been put behind it. Syria was and actually still is a secular authoritarian dictatorship. Iraq was likewise before Bush Jr. fucked the country up. Both countries weren't actually all that deeply steeped in religious "piety" before they become conflict zones. I shall also remind you that it's ISIS that wants to install a fanatical Islamic regime in both countries and that the refugees coming here are running away from that very prospect!
The problem is that even in these secular dictatorships, you had some areas, especially rural ones, where such medieval believs are not uncommon. (just look at the rapes at the Tahir place in Egypt, people who do such things need a certain mindset).
It is perfectly possible that people flee from ISIS who don't know anything about how to behave in constitutional states and have been raised according to some weird believes they probably consider 'Muslim'.
And such people can cause problems, because they don't respect women as being equal, they probably test how far they can go in public before the police arrests them etc.
Of course other people from the same region are different and don't cause any troubles. This whole thing is a matter of the environment people have grown up and the beliefs they take with them, not about the region they come from as such.
In the 1960s, when Kennedy was aiming for the US presidency, a popular attack against him was that as a Catholic, he was unqualified to lead the US since all Catholics pledge allegiance to the Pope and he would thereore be compromised as a leader of the country. These people were ignorantly tarring an entire religious community with a very broad brush based on nothing but popular stereotypes, exactly like you're doing now. You don't know how women fared in Syria or Iraq, you don't know how people were or are educated there and yet you think you can render judgement on those people simply because you buy into the bigotted narrative concerning them.
50 years ago some morons in the US thought that a catholic US president is impossible. So what? Does this mean that I'm not allowowed to criticise the medieval beliefs of some utter morons in 2015?
I shudder whenever I meet an American here in Germany, because of course they must bring their whole gun-craziness, religious fundamentalism, litigousness and violent self-righteousness with them. O wait, that was me being like you and indulging in bigotted stereotyping, my bad.
I have never accused
all people living in a region as a whole, if you don't know the difference between this and my statements, you are beyond hope.
Ladies and gentlemen, I can envision the day when the brains of brilliant men can be kept alive in the bodies of dumb people.