Multi-pronged terrorist attack in Vienna - unfolding

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Seanchaidh

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Iron

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none of that is an argument against my claim; Islam is not Qutbism.
Why would you even mention Qutbism in the first place? It's based on theological arguments that are adapted to the modern world. The leader of this movement was executed by Socialists in Egypt, classic state repression.
The goal-posts, I can't see them, where are they now?
Nationalism is an alien concept brought to the ME by imperialist colonialists 100 years ago. The resistance in Afghanistan to the socialist government and later the soviet puppet was religious in its nature. The rebellious movement driven by the British in the ME had to invent Arab nationalism as a means to unify the disparate tribes.

I really don't understand when are you going to give me one, just one source to whatever you wrote here:
And the lack of such notably higher rates of a certain kind of terrorism during the Islamic Golden Age? Or the centuries between then and (relatively) recent?

Here is what I think is a much better explanation, though by no means exhaustive: Arab-speaking countries can more easily communicate with each other-- they are one linguistic community-- and much they have in common is guerilla resistance to oppression by foreign empires dating back to at least the Ottoman Empire. Successful resistance. Glorified resistance-- watch Lawrence of Arabia for an example. The Islamic world has many linguistic and religious communities that have quite justifiably encouraged martyrdom entirely apart from any theological implications. And there is ongoing aggression from Israel, the United States, Soviet Union/Russia, China, and between various authoritarian regimes and their populations. It's not just a coincidence that Sayyid Qutb was brutalized in an Egyptian prison and then executed.

And the big virtue of this explanation is that it doesn't rely on a theological cause which, if it were doing what you say, predicts SO MUCH MORE historical violence than has actually happened. This explanation seems to much more accurately track with the timeline of events and the material conditions surrounding them.
I can argue for the Islamic world against "the west" if I wanted to, and there are good arguments to be made. But what is this gibberish?
 

Crystal Violet

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Do you actually have Muslim friends? Ever talked to them about their religion? Whether they feel like spreading it by the sword, as you said, is compulsory?
I'm sorry it's off topic but you replaced his quote with "waffle" and I just burst my gut laughing. Do people actually say that? I'm using this from now on.
 

SupahEwok

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I'm sorry it's off topic but you replaced his quote with "waffle" and I just burst my gut laughing. Do people actually say that? I'm using this from now on.
Screenshot_2020-11-04-12-02-37.png
Definition 2 is a stronger than what I had in mind as a response, but yes, it's a valid phrasing.
 

Revnak

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Do you actually have Muslim friends? Ever talked to them about their religion? Whether they feel like spreading it by the sword, as you said, is compulsory?
We, as civilized Christians, cannot truly know the savage. Their minds are alien to our own.
 

Revnak

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On topic, what’s probably not helping with the whole ISIS thing is Turkish support for continuing the conflicts that spawned them. Yeah, the US did start the more recent shit, and on the longer scale colonialism as a whole, but their resurgence can probably be tied to Turkish mercs restarting multiple conflicts.
Edit: first, the like was before my edit. Second, I wanna make it clear that IMO, the US actions in question don’t end at all the interventions they did throwing fire on Sunni/Shia conflict in Iraq, but also their abandoning of Syrian rebels leading to those guys joining up with the only people who’d give them guns to kill Assad.
 
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Seanchaidh

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Why would you even mention Qutbism in the first place?
Because, as it is a big influence on Al Qaeda, it showcases how violent terrorism by Muslims is a pretty recent phenomenon. And yes, the violence of Islamist movements can be attributed to the brutalizing they received by secular authorities. Do you have a point?
 
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Hawki

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And the lack of such notably higher rates of a certain kind of terrorism during the Islamic Golden Age? Or the centuries between then and (relatively) recent?
If you're going that far back, I don't know how you'd really quantify what terrorism was and wasn't.

I'm aware of the Islamic Golden Age. I'm also aware that it ground to a halt because a strain of thought appeared that "to know the mind of God was blasphemy."

Here is what I think is a much better explanation, though by no means exhaustive: Arab-speaking countries can more easily communicate with each other-- they are one linguistic community-- and much they have in common is guerilla resistance to oppression by foreign empires dating back to at least the Ottoman Empire. Successful resistance. Glorified resistance-- watch Lawrence of Arabia for an example. The Islamic world has many linguistic and religious communities that have quite justifiably encouraged martyrdom entirely apart from any theological implications. And there is ongoing aggression from Israel, the United States, Soviet Union/Russia, China, and between various authoritarian regimes and their populations. It's not just a coincidence that Sayyid Qutb was brutalized in an Egyptian prison and then executed.

And the big virtue of this explanation is that it doesn't rely on a theological cause which, if it were doing what you say, predicts SO MUCH MORE historical violence than has actually happened. This explanation seems to much more accurately track with the timeline of events and the material conditions surrounding them.
Minor point, say Lawrence of Arabia to someone in the Middle East, and they'd probably ask "who?"

But that aside, if you could explain all Islamic violence through the Middle East, then you'd have to similarly explain why it isn't generating Christian or Jewish terrorists, and why Islamic terrorist groups remain common in Africa and Asia. As I've pointed out, if there's a linear link between terrorism and oppression, then Christianity should be committing far more terrorist acts.

And even then, let's assume all of that has to do with geo-political concerns. How does that translate to the cartoon attacks? Or Vienna? Those weren't geo-political.

Sure you can include those. Excluding wars seems dubious at best.
Okay, so you want war? Alright. Cross-reference the birth of Islam and the expansion of the Islamic caliphates/empires. One comes directly after the other.

I'm dubious of saying that war proves much, because you can have war without religion. Religion certainly makes it easier to justify war, but it's not the be all and end all of it. If we're going by body count across history, Christianity almost certainly has a higher number.

But this isn't about war, it's about terrorism. Terrorism isn't inherently tied to religion, but when we consider religious terrorism, which one is the most active? I've already provided the statistics.

Do you actually have Muslim friends? Ever talked to them about their religion? Whether they feel like spreading it by the sword, as you said, is compulsory?
That's a nice non-sequitur, and another reframing of things. But fine.

-No, I don't have Muslim friends. I work with plenty of Muslims at work, they're normal people like any other. None I'd call friends though, just members of the public.

-No, but I don't talk about religion much with other people, period. People can believe in whatever they want. You can believe in Lord Zenu for all I care. I care more about actions than beliefs. I don't particuarly care if someone is offended by a cartoon, I care when you get offended so much that you decapitate someone.

-I'd like you to quote where I said that "spreading it by the sword" is compulsory.

To elaborate, I've already explained why the Abrahamic faiths tend to be more violent than the others, and why Islam is more violent than the Abrahamic faiths. People of all religious can rationalize their faiths all they want, picking and choosing what they want to believe and what not to.

This isn't about individual Muslims, it's about the ideology. People have rights and dignity, ideas don't. And while most religions contain pretty terrible ideas, some ideas are more terrible than others. If you disagree with that, you can either try to explain why. Or alternatively, write "waffle." Your choice.

We, as civilized Christians, cannot truly know the savage. Their minds are alien to our own.
Who's "we?" I'm not Christian.

If a Christian beheaded someone for showing a cartoon mocking Jesus, I'd have no sympathy for them either. But we can play the whataboutism game all day, it doesn't change the reality of what's happening in the world. Or, rather, what's happening in regards to this particular topic.
 

Seanchaidh

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But that aside, if you could explain all Islamic violence through the Middle East, then you'd have to similarly explain why it isn't generating Christian or Jewish terrorists, and why Islamic terrorist groups remain common in Africa and Asia. As I've pointed out, if there's a linear link between terrorism and oppression
1)Ku Klux Klan, other Christian Identity Extremists. Zionist political violence. They are both things.

2)I'm not explaining it by reference to oppression. I'm explaining it by reference to violence being a common experience and one which can be glorified among a linguistic and religious community. Some guy's grandfather threw off the Ottomans, his father was displaced from his home in 1948, his cousin eventually joined the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, his son suicide bombed a cafe in Tel Aviv, and now he has other family relations in ISIS or whatever. All of them are honored by their families we may assume in this hypothetical example. And I've noted that the explanation is not meant to be exhaustive. It is only meant to be better than the one you've provided and to have a similar scope, and it easily accomplishes the former because it doesn't have a more than ten centuries long gaping hole in its logic.

If you could explain any of the terrorism you're talking about by reference only or mostly to Islam, you would have to explain why the pattern of terrorism you've described only really started around the 1960s. For reference, Islam has been a thing since the seventh century.

Another thing is the level of solidarity among Muslims generally, which we may attribute at least in some part to the Hajj. Large portions of the relatively affluent members of this group all have a sense of kinship from the shared experience of having undertaken a trip to the same place in order to worship; and stories of this pilgrimage reverberate even further to those who haven't undertaken it. This strengthening of group identity is all quite apart from any violent doctrine. And so, the group being as large (and for such a large group as relatively cohesive) as it is, the list of grievances it has against (ultimately) global capitalism as directed by Western powers, is quite long indeed.


Malcolm X:

There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colours, from blue-eyed blondes to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and the non-white. America needs to understand Islam because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem. You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held.
Now, why does the phenomenon you want to explain start happening only as late as the 1960s? You have a relatively large group of people who are regularly antagonized by foreign powers- often directly or indirectly doing the bidding of the most powerful state in the entire world, the USA-- and an ongoing and murderous colonial project in Palestine. The solidarity of this group leads Western scholars to believe that the Muslim world is cohesive enough that it is all one civlilization, and further that there is a war between civilizations going on (provoked in large part by the gigantic list of grievances that Muslims can write about the United States and other Western countries.)
 

Hawki

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1)Ku Klux Klan, other Christian Identity Extremists. Zionist political violence. They are both things.
I never said they weren't. I don't know how it disproves my point that the vast majority of religious-inspired terrorism is Islamic.

2)I'm not explaining it by reference to oppression. I'm explaining it by reference to violence being a common experience and one which can be glorified among a linguistic and religious community.
Then that's even worse.

There's at least a rationale to respond to oppression with violence, but the glorification of violence is pretty common across cultures. Difference being, some apparently take that a step further.

Some guy's grandfather threw off the Ottomans, his father was displaced from his home in 1948, his cousin eventually joined the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, his son suicide bombed a cafe in Tel Aviv, and now he has other family relations in ISIS or whatever. All of them are honored by their families we may assume in this hypothetical example. And I've noted that the explanation is not meant to be exhaustive. It is only meant to be better than the one you've provided and to have a similar scope, and it easily accomplishes the former because it doesn't have a more than ten centuries long gaping hole in its logic.
But again, that doesn't work, because if terrorism simply comes from the glorifcation of violence, then there should be more equal level of religious-based terrorism across cultures.

If you could explain any of the terrorism you're talking about by reference only or mostly to Islam, you would have to explain why the pattern of terrorism you've described only really started around the 1960s.
Probably due to the spread of Washabism. A strain of thought that comes from a country that would classify me as a terrorist by my mere existence.

Another thing is the level of solidarity among Muslims generally, which we may attribute at least in some part to the Hajj. Large portions of the relatively affluent members of this group all have a sense of kinship from the shared experience of having undertaken a trip to the same place in order to worship; and stories of this pilgrimage reverberate even further to those who haven't undertaken it. This strengthening of group identity is all quite apart from any violent doctrine. And so, the group being as large (and for such a large group as relatively cohesive) as it is, the list of grievances it has against (ultimately) global capitalism as directed by Western powers, is quite long indeed.
First, that's not really a point in the religion's favour, if the strengthening of group identity is to the point where you're more upset about people insulting your prophet than people committing murder in his name.

Second, I don't know what capitalism has to do with this. But if you want to play that game, how long is the list of attrocities by Islamism? Because if we're making such wide sweeping statements, that has a headstart on capitalism by about 1000 years.

Third, let's assume that all Islamist violence is a response to Western imperialism. Okay, sure. Western imperialism had the run in the Middle East for mere decades, compared to centuries of Ottoman rule. And that doesn't explain Islamist terrorist groups in Africa and Asia. Why are people murdered in Austria when Austria never had an empire in the Middle East? If anything, Austrians should be the ones committing terrorist attacks against Turks if your theory is correct.

Now, why does the phenomenon you want to explain start happening only as late as the 1960s? You have a relatively large group of people who are regularly antagonized by foreign powers- often directly or indirectly doing the bidding of the most powerful state in the entire world, the USA-- and an ongoing and murderous colonial project in Palestine.
"From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free..."

Look, I'm not a fan of Israel, but framing it as colonial is spurious. And that goes for both sides, since often Arab antagonism towards Israel is framed as colonial itself.

The solidarity of this group leads Western scholars to believe that the Muslim world is cohesive enough that it is all one civlilization, and further that there is a war between civilizations going on (provoked in large part by the gigantic list of grievances that Muslims can write about the United States and other Western countries.)

I don't need scholars to tell me that there's cohesion in the Muslim world. It's happening before my very eyes. Where, by the tenents of their religion, carrying murder out in its name is less egregious than insulting their prophet. In one of the areas I work in, there's posters going up that make it clear that insulting the prophet is a no-no. I'll at least grant them that they haven't outright applauded murders done in their god's name, so that's a step up I guess. And if you want to list grievances, that goes both ways.

There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colours, from blue-eyed blondes to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and the non-white. America needs to understand Islam because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem. You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held.
Look, I have respect for Malcolm X, but this statement is one I completely disagree with.

First, the idea that Islam "erases the race problem" is rediculous. Islam generated its own strain of racism from the get-go. The Middle East is rife with racism, so Islam's apparently failing.

Second, let's assume that's true. It states that the only way to unify humanity is to run around a giant black rock. I mean, surely we can do better than that.

Third, the United States has its own breed of Christian crazies in it, but if there's one thing worse than Christian crazies, it's Islamic crazies. At the very least, Jefferson's Wall keeps Christian crazies in check. There's no equivalent of this in Islam.

To make it clear, I don't particuarly care what people believe, because people believe nonsensical things all the time. I care when your beliefs cause harm to others. And mocking some prophet of some god, in a world that's got thousands of both, isn't harm.
 

Seanchaidh

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Then that's even worse.
It is neutral.

First, that's not really a point in the religion's favour, if the strengthening of group identity is to the point where you're more upset about people insulting your prophet than people committing murder in his name.
Trivializing their grievances in a nakedly propagandistic way won't help you understand their motivations, but I suspect you aren't interested in that in the first place given your simplistic explanation.

But again, that doesn't work, because if terrorism simply comes from the glorifcation of violence, then there should be more equal level of religious-based terrorism across cultures.
How many times do I have to tell you that I wasn't proposing an exhaustive explanation? Not many more, I should think, since your explanation so obviously cannot be exhaustive either even with the generous assumption that it can help to explain anything at all.

Terrorism doesn't "simply come from the glorification of violence". It doesn't "simply" come from any one thing. There are means, motives, opportunities, inclinations, available alternative means, grievances, intensities of grievance, norms, copycat behavior; so many different factors. And they all dwarf whatever effect you could reasonably think a religion with mainstream jurisprudence that explicitly disallows attacks upon civilians might have.

"From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free..."
And? Do you think national liberation movements are unique to Muslim communities?

Look, I'm not a fan of Israel, but framing it as colonial is spurious. And that goes for both sides, since often Arab antagonism towards Israel is framed as colonial itself.
It is a settler colonial project that frequently murders people, as is typical of settler colonial projects.
 

Hawki

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It is neutral.
No, it's worse.

If your religion is so important, so binding, that you'll automatically side with people of that religion, regardless of any context, then that either says something about you, or your religion, or both.

Trivializing their grievances in a nakedly propagandistic way won't help you understand their motivations, but I suspect you aren't interested in that in the first place given your simplistic explanation.
I know you're not interested in explanations, but let's make this as simple as possible:

If Islamic violence is entirely geo-political, why is so much violence done in its name regardless of geo-political aims?

For instance, what does ISIS have to gain by murdering people in Austria when Austria has never interfered in the affairs of the Middle East? What does a Chechen Muslim have to gain by murdering a French teacher by showing images of his prophet?

How many times do I have to tell you that I wasn't proposing an exhaustive explanation? Not many more, I should think, since your explanation so obviously cannot be exhaustive either even with the generous assumption that it can help to explain anything at all.
Fine. Neither explanation is exhaustive. But which is more likely? That the violence done in the name of Islam is entirely geo-political, or it might have something to do with the religion itself?

Terrorism doesn't "simply come from the glorification of violence". It doesn't "simply" come from any one thing. There are means, motives, opportunities, inclinations, available alternative means, grievances, intensities of grievance, norms, copycat behavior; so many different factors. And they all dwarf whatever effect you could reasonably think a religion with mainstream jurisprudence that explicitly disallows attacks upon civilians might have.

Even if the religion disavvows attacks on civilians, there's plenty of perscriptions of violence.

And if you say "other religions do that too," then yes, they do. And they're not above scrutiny either.

If Islam is a religion of peace, why do we need to keep being reminded that it's a religion of peace, whenever something non-peaceful is done in its name? I'm not aware of any Jain terrorism, which is an actual religion of peace.

And? Do you think national liberation movements are unique to Muslim communities?
National liberation movements? No. But again, there's protests going on right now, from Iraq, to India, to Pakistan, to Indonesia, against Macron. As in, there's more outrage about the cartoons than the murders they caused. I cannot think of any other religion that would act like that.

It is a settler colonial project that frequently murders people, as is typical of settler colonial projects.
Fine. Let's say for the sake of argument that Israel is settler colonial. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that somehow Israel's existence is an affront to every Muslim on Earth, and that explains why the religion has so many terrorist attacks done in its name. Where, then, is the Buddhist equivalent for Tibet? Where, then, is the Christian equivalent for West Papua? Why aren't we seeing similar levels of global terrorism done in the name of these religions? Because if Israel is settler-colonial, then those examples are as well.

You can criticize Israel all you want, you can't say that it's simply because of Israel that Muslim terrorism exists. I doubt the ISIS branch in the Philipines or Boko Haram are particuarly concerned about Israel. I mean, I don't doubt they'd love to see the Jews removed or killed, but they're not flocking to the Middle East, they're waging their own conflicts in their own lands to set up their own systems of government.
 

Thaluikhain

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Okay, so you want war? Alright. Cross-reference the birth of Islam and the expansion of the Islamic caliphates/empires. One comes directly after the other.

I'm dubious of saying that war proves much, because you can have war without religion. Religion certainly makes it easier to justify war, but it's not the be all and end all of it. If we're going by body count across history, Christianity almost certainly has a higher number.
Well, I was thinking more of recent wars, say in the last generation or so as being more relevant.

But this isn't about war, it's about terrorism.
But why? It seems (correct me if I'm wrong) that you're saying that Islam is particularly violent, but only if you look at particular forms of violence.
 

Seanchaidh

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I know you're not interested in explanations, but let's make this as simple as possible:

If Islamic violence is entirely geo-political, why is so much violence done in its name regardless of geo-political aims?
No, let's avoid causal oversimplification rather than deliberately thinking stupidly.

But again, there's protests going on right now, from Iraq, to India, to Pakistan, to Indonesia, against Macron. As in, there's more outrage about the cartoons than the murders they caused. I cannot think of any other religion that would act like that.
> protests going on right now... against Macron
> outrage about the cartoons

these are not the same thing.
 

Hawki

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Well, I was thinking more of recent wars, say in the last generation or so as being more relevant.
So, I actually agree that recent wars are more relevant, but someone already brought up the Crusades. If we're going that far back, why not further back?

But claiming that all Islamic terrorism comes from the Middle East doesn't hold up. Nor does 'levels of oppression.'

But why? It seems (correct me if I'm wrong) that you're saying that Islam is particularly violent, but only if you look at particular forms of violence.
This thread is about terrorism, not war. There's a philisophical argument to be made that there's no difference between the two, but from a practical standpoint, we do. So, looking at one particular form of violence (terrorism), and one particular form of terrorism (religious), which does the most damage?

No, let's avoid causal oversimplification rather than deliberately thinking stupidly.
Right. I'm done with you.

If you refuse to be intellectually honest, I'm not wasting anymore time with you.
 

Seanchaidh

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If you refuse to be intellectually honest, I'm not wasting anymore time with you.
Intellectual honesty is not the same thing as deliberately oversimplifying a phenomenon and its causes in order to construct and defeat a straw man argument so you can go on to declare your position the winner by default.
 

Iron

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Intellectual honesty is not the same thing as deliberately oversimplifying a phenomenon and its causes in order to construct and defeat a straw man argument so you can go on to declare your position the winner by default.
Literally exactly what you did with me.