Good job Matt

Lately, I've been feeling completly freaked out.

Ever since the Pope "quoted" a medieval emperor talking nasty about Islam the strong question i've been feeling is that all the BS about "Clash of Civilizations" for real now?

Is it now "mainstream" to attack Islam? It's not for right/left wing extremists anymore?

I thought the "Clash" was just the wet dreams of some elite chicken hawk western pundit/professors & assorted Muslim extremists.

If the most liberal Western country can find it impossible to accomodate Muslims in it's midst...would the world dominated/led by the West accomodate Muslims?

If both the left and the right continually attack the identity of Muslims (Islam) -- aren't we denying them the right to exist? We are essentially saying we don't want Muslims in the western world, or perhaps in the world at all.

In this are the seeds for complete madness....and perhaps (as our Christian fundies hope) the End Times.

...just like Christianity should be criticized. There are good and bad things in the Bible and the Koran. When people use the bad things to justify bigotry and oppression or violence, then we need to examine those bad things and admit that they are, indeed, bad.

Of course, the notion that Islam is an inherently more violent religion than Christianity is just ignorant bigotry and all one can do in the face of it is attempt to educate those who are open to the idea that they could be wrong and ignore the rest.

Although I haven't read this book, the review implies that it is a thoughtful and balanced presentation not only of this incident, but of race relations as multiculturalism matures. I was in England in the 1980s and remembered seeing ghettos of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent. I thought it was very strange that girls and boys who were born and raised in England could dress as if they were still in India, that they spoke English with an accent and they were so separate from mainstream British culture. This was so different than Toronto. During the 1960s when my parents emigrated from India, Canada sponged up many of the well-educated Indians; especially scientists and engineers. Growing up, I didn't feel part of the mainstream, but I didn't identify with the "old country" either. It was eye-opening for me to go to England and see the unassimilated immigrants. I didn't understand then, nor do I know now, whether the Indian/Pakistani diaspora chose to isolate themselves or isolated themselves out of self-protection against the Paki bashers. Nowadays popular English culture consists of takeaway curries and Bhangra-hip-hip fusion club music, but it wasn't that way 30 years ago. And in Toronto, I see the opposite. An immigrant community that once blended away quietly is becoming more visible: women attending lectures at the University of Toronto in burqas, suburbs of Toronto where there's a Kabob House on every corner (this in a city where you had to drive to the city center to get fresh ginger!)

I don't know what's progress. Is it progress that people are taking pride in their culture and ethnicity almost to the exclusion of any mainstream assimilation? In some ways I think so, I remember being teased about how my parents' house smelled and being called "Paki". I don't know if that happens much anymore.

But this non-assimilation also comes at a price. Because I was so isolated, I learned to pick friends who had similar ideas and values -- good secular leftists because that was my background in India. Nowadays kids seem to become friends with each other because they look alike or know the same mother tongue. Good reasons to connect, but not necessarily at a truly human level.

One final observation in terms of non-assimilation is that Western colonialists did not assimilate with the "natives" they held themselves both apart and above. Is the current anti-immersion a backlash to the old colonial ways?

My rather long-winded point in all of this is that assimilating peoples from vastly different cultures is a relatively new experiment. And rather than seeing this as a "clash of civilizations", we could take a less fraught approach and see what happens next. But we do have to start by understanding that both the immigrants and the mainstream community end up shaken to their very core in trying to understand who they are and what they stand for.

"Proclaiming one's right as an heir of the Enlightenment to call them "goatfuckers" was probably not a good place to start."

But . . . but . . . apparently a lot of them do! Enough, anyway, to result in weddings and mandatory goat diapering:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4748292.stm

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5622900

Is that a riot I hear starting? Look, go behead the BBC and NPR, they said it first!

"A lot" of Muslims fuck goats? Do you have evidence that Muslims fuck goats at a higher rate than Christians fuck sheep, horses, and dogs? If a television personality referred to Christians as "sheep-fuckers," would your response also be, "but a lot of them do!"

To justify a nasty smear hurled at a large percentage of the Dutch population?

I'm sure I could do the same thing over here as regards farm animals and fundamentalist Christians.

Does it actually do anything to further the discussion?

Or are you merely throwing brickbats as Van Gogh seemed to like to do in the hope of shocking people?

How immature.

They deserved to get killed for the crime of inadequately coddling and appreciating their own killers. Ok, well that helps. Maybe Holland needs "No Infidel" districts where nothing that could be construed to offend the delicate sensibilities of homicidal muslims can be seen, heard, smelled or otherwise impinge on them.

I enjoyed reading the article by Matt Steinglass (stein-glass, an interesting surname) and have ordered the book.

I found it interesting that four of the main characters in the article/book, Theo van Gogh, Pim Fortuyn, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Mohammed Bouyeri were so adamant in proclaiming their interpretation of reality. Each is outrageous in his or her own way while seeming to yearn for celebrity. Perhaps there was not room for all four to exist on the same turf.

All wanted to teach, with each not quite knowing the best way to do that. All four are now removed from their original milieus, each without contributing their whole. A classic tragedy.

(Note: from what I remember of the saying, the best teachers are those that are sought, not those that seek to be sought.)