Why assume that the opinions of "moderate Muslims" would have any effect on "extremist Muslims" anyway? This seems to assume that Muslims are a single group of people, all of whom have a say in any action one of them takes. We wouldn't expect, say, US Pentecostalist Jimmy Swaggart to take any notice of Australian Jesuit Frank Brennan, so why would we expect, say, a radical cleric in Islamabad to take any notice of an Iraqi refugee in Ohio?
*Applause*
During 7/7/2005 in the UK when the news finally came through about the bombs, a guy in my office sadly asked why it was all Moslems condoned such violence. I told him, calmly (colleagues were missing at the time; one was injured, but not badly, the others unscathed) that would be the same as thinking that all Christians supported IRA terrorism and anti-abortion bombings. He understood the point I made; he just hadn't thought of it that way.
In a linked thing, I heard something on the BBC radio that infuriated me the other day: a report about US 'missions' flown over the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, and the danger - politically - should a Pakistani soldier get killed or injured. To translate, or fill in the gaps: these missions drop bombs on villages and towns full of people who happen to be Pashtuns. People are getting killed, but the BBC in this interview obliterated them from existence.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-10-01 07:37 pm (UTC)*Applause*
During 7/7/2005 in the UK when the news finally came through about the bombs, a guy in my office sadly asked why it was all Moslems condoned such violence. I told him, calmly (colleagues were missing at the time; one was injured, but not badly, the others unscathed) that would be the same as thinking that all Christians supported IRA terrorism and anti-abortion bombings. He understood the point I made; he just hadn't thought of it that way.
In a linked thing, I heard something on the BBC radio that infuriated me the other day: a report about US 'missions' flown over the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, and the danger - politically - should a Pakistani soldier get killed or injured. To translate, or fill in the gaps: these missions drop bombs on villages and towns full of people who happen to be Pashtuns. People are getting killed, but the BBC in this interview obliterated them from existence.