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LW, are you kidding? If you are only "terrified" of Muslim men, perhaps you need to come to grips with the fact that you are a racist. Make steps to correct it, maybe get to know some Muslims (oooh!).

You are right, I did neglect to discuss Muslim women's organizations. It would be interesting to know what Muslim women might say about the reports that are the subject of the column, and about the specific experiences of this particular woman who wrote to me. The letter writer is a woman but not a Muslim. Indeed, fear of rape, not Muslim culture, is the main issue. Still, the opinions of Muslim women about this issue would be interesting to hear.

http://www.library.wisc.edu/libraries/WomensStudies/orgs.htm

http://www.ccmw.com/

http://www.mwlusa.org/publications/positionpapers/violence.html

http://www.mwlusa.org/publications/others/rule_of_the_rapists.htm

http://www.mwlusa.org/presentations/speech_persec.html

http://www.westernresistance.com/blog/archives/002306.html

Now I'd really better go write a column.

As a public relations rep, I, like the majority of thinking people, know that media is not necessarily where you want to get the truth. Given that media is where most people get their information about the world, it's depressing to say that, but it's nonetheless true.

Cary Tennis, going to blogger sites and even news organization sites or Swedish-CNN-equivalents does not verify the LW's impressions. In order to know whether or not Muslim men were creating the uptick in rapes, a research study, independent of media reporting, would have to be done.

Last year, Spanish researchers found that the Spanish media was spending a helluva lot of time reporting on immigrant crime (their immigration wave is a combo of North Africans and South Americans). Public opinion polls showed that Spaniards thought they were less safe due to the influx of immigrants. Trashy news magazines aired exposes on gang violence with reporters using hidden cameras to illustrate the violent nature of immigrant youths. However, when compared to crime statistics, there had really been no increase in crime in Spain at all. In fact, crime was down. But tell that to the old lady who sees an increase in immigrants when she goes to the supermarket. You can't overcome the media's drumbeat of "immigrants-are-dangerous-and-scary" with rational thought.

So to the LW, get over it. The way you can deal with your fears is by taking precautions (pepper spray, walking in groups when possible), but also, try to educate yourself. Yes, you should be afraid of rape - every woman thinks about it. But look at statistics. You're much more likely to be raped by someone you know than by a Mohammed Atta look-alike. And judging by your letter, you haven't gotten to know many of those.

I have to say, my impression of what Europe is going through right now vis a vis the Mulsim/Arab/Maghrebin/North African/[generally non-western-european-looking non-christian immigrants] is what the US was going through in the 1950's. The letter-writer's attitudes are just emblematic of the majority of white christian europeans.

It's painful to go through this kind of massive societal and cultural transformation, and there is a lot of anger, fear, ignorance and nostalgia for the past on many sides of the debate and the massive cultural change. We in the US came very close to massive violent conflict (yes, there was violent conflict, but not on a massive scale) during our transformation.

It is the the "final throes" of Us (Which Christian Europeans) vs. Them (Everyone else, including Jews, immigrants, Muslims, etc).

The attitudes the general white christian populus has are on par with the Dixiecrats. If they could institute real segregation, i feel like many Europeans, like Jean-Marie LePen, would. In many parts, there is already de facto segregation, with exclusively Muslim neighborhoods, and very few Mulsims living outside of them. North-African-looking people simply do not live in Piazza Navona or Saint-Germain-de-Pres. Just like blacks used to simply not live in many white American neighborhoods.

It was perfectly acceptable where I lived very recently for someone to say to me in a job interview "well, you american foreigners are great. but you know, i would never hire a muslim or arab."

Europeans will have to learn that multiculturalism the way we have learned it here. That over racism is wrong, and stereotyping on race is very very wrong. That xenophobia is wrong. That saying things like "well, mulsims are okay, but i wouldn't want my daughter to marry one" is not okay. In many parts of Europe, it's perfectly okay to be what we americans would consider extremely racist and ignorant and intolerant.

No, it will not be comfortable or easy, just like it wasn't for us, but it will happen.

Headline from CNN today:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/15/iraq.slaying.ap/index.html

Would it be right for us to generalize that all American soldiers are violent rapists? Or to say that all White male loners are child molesters because Natascha Kampusch of Austria was kidnapped and confined in a basement for 10 years by a man of that profile?

Please use some common sense before generalizing.

I feel bad for the girl who is to undergo the psychological trauma caused by the hate mongering, right-wing European press.

There is a reason why most Americans are of European descent - most of them fled the persecution and intolerance from Europe of mass slaughter, holocaust and ethnic cleansing. What we see here is a Europe slowly reverting to its past of bad ideas.

"Also, the Muslim/Arab dodge is nothing but debate-club sophistry. It's precisely the people like the letter writer who constantly conflate the two."

No, I was the one who pointed out that you SHOULDN'T conflate the two.

"As the LW herself points out, a Muslim could easily be a white skinned Scandinavian."

Where did I point that out?

The likes of poster Tina Trent and her ilk inhabit this repulsive little universe that reduces millions of men of a certain faith to terrorists, rapists, perverts, and the rest. We in the west must always have these dark, blood-drenched, foaming-at-the-mouth devil incarnate figure to fear and hate -- we always need a figure like this to obsess over. I doubt Ms. Trent has ever known any Muslim man in her life. Decades ago this lunatic stuff was said about Jews. It's still said about black men in certain segments of our society.

And to those idiots here who pontificate about feminists -- just exactly how much reading have you done on feminist writings on this subject? You're too damned lazy to even acquaint yourselves with the people you despise from your santimonious perch of self-righteous bullshit.

Why do we always need to do this -- invent a hate figure -- a brown/dark-skinned male -- upon which to express our own ignorance? Always from a total lack of experience, personal acquaintance or genuine knowledge about the groups of people against whom we just love to indulge our hatred?

Cary didn't even bother to seek out info from Muslim women's groups in Europe about this subject. There are many of them. All Cary did was to cite two well-known anti-Muslim writers.

Charming.