Islamic Terrorism

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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby linguoboy » 2015-12-10, 18:51

vijayjohn wrote:
linguoboy wrote:I just did a survey of my Facebook Friends. Out of slightly more than 400, seven still have the tricolore overlay, which is a fraction of how many displayed it during the first week post-attack.

Wow, it went all the way down to seven? :shock: Well, that was fast! Or must have been. :lol:

I was a bit surprised, too. I figured a lot of people would keep the overlay on until they changed their profile pic for some reason, but I haven't gotten many notifications of people doing that. So for most it must've been a conscious decision to move on. But what triggered that?
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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby Yasna » 2015-12-10, 22:02

linguoboy wrote:I wouldn't say that, exactly, but I feel that--like most activity on social media--it was (in Bourdieuvian terms) much more about reproducing habitus than anything. Many people I know accompanied the switch to an overlaid profile pic with some remarks about how and why Paris holds a special significance for them. I don't question the genuineness of these emotions, but I can't ignore the shared features among these people, who were overwhelmingly of a particular socioeconomic background and status. So at the same time they were proclaiming, "I feel bad for Paris", they were also proclaiming equally loudly or moreso, "I'm the kind of person with the wealth and leisure that allow me to fly to Paris when I want".

This whole habitus dynamic you speak of applies just as well to lighting candles or laying down flowers. Does that cheapen those gestures too? And I don't know what to say about the rest of your post. It strikes me as very odd that anyone would look at gestures of solidarity for victims of a massacre through the lens of Klassenkampf. What is so strange or unsettling about the fact that people might react stronger to a tragedy when the victims are people they relate to more, or the location is a place they have some sort of connection to, however tenuous?

linguoboy wrote:Is it cynical to notice that and be somewhat put off by it? Fine, then call me cynical. At least I didn't ask the cynical question that was on my mind at the time, which was, "How will you know when you've shown enough solidarity and it's time to revert to your previous pic?" I know how snarky that sounds, but I'm actually really curious what cues people follow when it comes to shared behaviours like these.


linguoboy wrote:But adopting the flag overlay wasn't a spontaneous decision independently arrived at by millions of people simultaneously. You could watch the spread through social media; days after the attacks, FB was still notifying me of Friends adopting it. They were clearly influenced by the decisions of others around them, and I see no reason why this wouldn't work the same way in reverse. There must be some subconscious mental calculus at work in these situations.

I just did a survey of my Facebook Friends. Out of slightly more than 400, seven still have the tricolore overlay, which is a fraction of how many displayed it during the first week post-attack. Interestingly, twelve still have rainbow flag overlays. (There was a vogue for these which played out in a similar fashion in the wake of the Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage earlier this year.) One has a Nigerian flag overlay and one has the Bear Flag.


linguoboy wrote:I was a bit surprised, too. I figured a lot of people would keep the overlay on until they changed their profile pic for some reason, but I haven't gotten many notifications of people doing that. So for most it must've been a conscious decision to move on. But what triggered that?

When you are choosing to overlay your profile picture, Facebook gives you a few options for how long to keep it. If I remember correctly, I believe they were 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, or indefinite.
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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby linguoboy » 2015-12-10, 22:42

Yasna wrote:This whole habitus dynamic you speak of applies just as well to lighting candles or laying down flowers. Does that cheapen those gestures too?

"Cheapen" in what sense? I'm sure they have value to those who participate in them. (I'm not sure what they do for those they're intended to honour.) Certainly having the tricolore and other nationalistic symbols equated to "solidarity with the victims" had value to the Front National in its efforts to get into power at the regional and national level in France.

As Dr House remarks, it takes notably more effort to acquire candles or flowers and travel to the local embassy to lay them down. So, if effort is a measure of value, then these are more "expensive" gestures when compared to temporarily altering a photo.

Yasna wrote:And I don't know what to say about the rest of your post. It strikes me as very odd that anyone would look at gestures of solidarity for victims of a massacre through the lens of Klassenkampf.

Why? These gestures are a part of human behaviour like any other. Does it strike you as odd to study how people's burial customs are an indicator of their status? Because that's like half of all archaeology.

It's been nearly a month. Most people have removed the overlays. I don't think it's too soon to examine this phenomenon through a critical sociological lens.

Yasna wrote:What is so strange or unsettling about the fact that people might react stronger to a tragedy when the victims are people they relate to more, or the location is a place they have some sort of connection to, however tenuous?

Did I say something was "strange" or "unsettling" about it? I said it "put me off" that what purported to be a gesture of spontaneous empathy was anything but spontaneous and ultimately more egoistic than empathetic.

But now that you mention it, I do find it strange that a significant number of people in this country were far more ready to exhibit a sympathy for a tragedy which took place thousands of miles away to people they don't know than to a tragedy on their doorstep which affects people they actually interact with, often on a daily basis. I find it very hard to understand that dynamic, in fact, unless I look at it through the lens of class and race differences.
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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby Yasna » 2015-12-16, 14:56

linguoboy wrote:
Yasna wrote:This whole habitus dynamic you speak of applies just as well to lighting candles or laying down flowers. Does that cheapen those gestures too?

"Cheapen" in what sense? I'm sure they have value to those who participate in them. (I'm not sure what they do for those they're intended to honour.) Certainly having the tricolore and other nationalistic symbols equated to "solidarity with the victims" had value to the Front National in its efforts to get into power at the regional and national level in France.

I'm wondering if they put you off too, like the flag overlays.

Why? These gestures are a part of human behaviour like any other. Does it strike you as odd to study how people's burial customs are an indicator of their status? Because that's like half of all archaeology.

It's been nearly a month. Most people have removed the overlays. I don't think it's too soon to examine this phenomenon through a critical sociological lens.

What puts me off is the divisive sentiment. It is precisely times like these when we should be looking past socioeconomic backgrounds and class divisions to unite against an attack on civil society.

I said it "put me off" that what purported to be a gesture of spontaneous empathy was anything but spontaneous and ultimately more egoistic than empathetic.

By your logic it seems like all symbolic gestures would be considered "egoistic". And for the record, I don't think the flag gesture was spontaneous either. But that doesn't take away from its positive meaning for me.

But now that you mention it, I do find it strange that a significant number of people in this country were far more ready to exhibit a sympathy for a tragedy which took place thousands of miles away to people they don't know than to a tragedy on their doorstep which affects people they actually interact with, often on a daily basis. I find it very hard to understand that dynamic, in fact, unless I look at it through the lens of class and race differences.

Are you referring to gun violence?
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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby Yasna » 2015-12-16, 15:48

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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby linguoboy » 2015-12-16, 18:10

Yasna wrote:I'm wondering if they put you off too, like the flag overlays.

It depends. It seems a quite natural thing to do for someone you were close to, but the more distant you are from the victims, the less genuine and more ghoulish it feels to me.

Yasna wrote:What puts me off is the divisive sentiment. It is precisely times like these when we should be looking past socioeconomic backgrounds and class divisions to unite against an attack on civil society.

What does that even mean? To the government in power, it means "Don't question the measures we're taking, just support them." I think it's precisely at times like these that we should be most critical of people's reactions, since the world abounds with opportunists who are shameless about using "national tragedies" to advance their own agendas. (Just look at all the terrible legislation we were saddled with in response to 9/11, for instance.)

Moreover, I think class divisions and socioeconomic inequality are an important factor in the genesis of these attacks (although far from the only one). So, again, I don't think it particularly serves our interests to pretend they don't exist or don't matter at this time (or any other). Maybe I'd feel differently if the better off in society were more likely to call for "unity" when tragedies befall people who aren't quite so much like them.

Yasna wrote:
I said it "put me off" that what purported to be a gesture of spontaneous empathy was anything but spontaneous and ultimately more egoistic than empathetic.

By your logic it seems like all symbolic gestures would be considered "egoistic". And for the record, I don't think the flag gesture was spontaneous either. But that doesn't take away from its positive meaning for me.

It's not an either-or fallacy. The only purely spontaneous response is whatever you feel at the time. Any action you take to express that will be mediated to some degree. But there are more and less egoistic means of responding. Talking about how bad the Paris attacks make you feel because like to vacation there (which I saw a lot of) is definitely on the more egoistic side of things.

Yasna wrote:
But now that you mention it, I do find it strange that a significant number of people in this country were far more ready to exhibit a sympathy for a tragedy which took place thousands of miles away to people they don't know than to a tragedy on their doorstep which affects people they actually interact with, often on a daily basis. I find it very hard to understand that dynamic, in fact, unless I look at it through the lens of class and race differences.

Are you referring to gun violence?

Well, violence against the poor and vulnerable in this country in general. Recently there's been a lot of attention paid to the amount of police violence against civilians, particular shooting and beating deaths of African-Americans, and I've noticed conspicuously less support for those protests from exactly the same segment of society that was quickest to show "solidarity" with Paris. Again, who is it asking us to "unite", what ends are they trying to further by doing this, and why now and not in other circumstances?
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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby Aurinĭa » 2015-12-16, 18:57

linguoboy wrote:What does that even mean? To the government in power, it means "Don't question the measures we're taking, just support them." I think it's precisely at times like these that we should be most critical of people's reactions, since the world abounds with opportunists who are shameless about using "national tragedies" to advance their own agendas. (Just look at all the terrible legislation we were saddled with in response to 9/11, for instance.)

The leader of the largest Flemish party, possibly the largest party in Belgium, who is also mayor of the second largest city in Belgium, and unofficial prime minister of both the Flemish and the Belgian government, thinks it would be a good idea to have a Belgian "Patriot Act".

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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby Meera » 2016-06-13, 23:07

As an Afghan I am absolutely horrified at the shooting in Orlando.
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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby md0 » 2016-06-14, 5:53

User Elaine from Turkey also often posts messages like yours when someone commits a massacre in the name of Islam, and I wonder how much of this is internalising the collective responsibility trope that is almost exclusively used on non-Euros (Germans being the only outlier, and probably because of the unprecedented scale of the Nazi Germany atrocities).
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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-06-14, 14:44

That's too bad. I think there's probably a good argument to be made for collective responsibility when it comes to discrimination against Romani people, both in Europe and elsewhere.

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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby Yasna » 2016-06-14, 15:30

md0 wrote:User Elaine from Turkey also often posts messages like yours when someone commits a massacre in the name of Islam, and I wonder how much of this is internalising the collective responsibility trope that is almost exclusively used on non-Euros (Germans being the only outlier, and probably because of the unprecedented scale of the Nazi Germany atrocities).

I don't think people from Muslim backgrounds have a responsibility to speak out, but it is appreciated when they do. Their voices are simply more powerful in this battle of ideas. The Islamists are more likely to be swayed by people in their own religious and cultural communities refuting their ideas than by some white dudes they feel no connection to.
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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby Meera » 2016-06-14, 16:08

md0 wrote:User Elaine from Turkey also often posts messages like yours when someone commits a massacre in the name of Islam, and I wonder how much of this is internalising the collective responsibility trope that is almost exclusively used on non-Euros (Germans being the only outlier, and probably because of the unprecedented scale of the Nazi Germany atrocities).


This one really hit me hard though because it was from another Afghan. I feel so ashamed and embarrassed about it. :cry: I feel like I have to tell all my non Afghan friends that I am an Afghan and support the LGBT community.
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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby linguoboy » 2016-06-14, 17:03

Meera wrote:This one really hit me hard though because it was from another Afghan. I feel so ashamed and embarrassed about it. :cry: I feel like I have to tell all my non Afghan friends that I am an Afghan and support the LGBT community.

His father must feel the way you do because he has apologised multiple times for his son's actions and even offered to go to Orlando and apologise to the victim's family personally (though he also said he'd accept it if they weren't ready to hear that yet).

As upset and angry they are about the attack, though, not one of my friends in the LGBTQ community has responded with revulsion toward Afghans. They were quick to recognise that the shooter grew up here imbibing the same home-grown homophobia which we've all had to fight against. Almost of all of them see the invocation of ISIS as an afterthought. (As one foaf put it, " Pledging allegiance to Islamic state is the final cry of 'no homo' from a self-loathing closet case.")
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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby IpseDixit » 2016-06-14, 18:44

I find it quite outrageous that his father said he should've not committed that crime because it's God's duty to punish gay people.

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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby md0 » 2016-06-14, 18:47

vijayjohn wrote:That's too bad. I think there's probably a good argument to be made for collective responsibility when it comes to discrimination against Romani people, both in Europe and elsewhere.

How far can this argument go though? Can it justify collective punishment of Europeans in the same way it is used to justify collective punishment of other groups (I was recently ranting against neo-Stalinists justifying the collective punishment of Crimean Tatars for example).

---

I don't think people from Muslim backgrounds have a responsibility to speak out, but it is appreciated when they do.

It is still widely demanded by them, it's not an action decided without outside pressure.
Again, I cannot think any other dominant group except the Germans being forced to feel any degree of responsibility comparable to how non-dominant groups are.
Whether they are more effective in changing minds or not is an independent issue. It probably is more effective, and it is probably problematic that it is more effective because it plays right in the same nationalist tropes that cause many other problems. It is still not a sense of responsibility that comes solely from within.

---

I feel like I have to tell all my non Afghan friends that I am an Afghan and support the LGBT community.

For me, you feeling this way is a sort of violence you are living through, similar to the violence the LGBT community is also facing.
And I really feel strongly about this, because in the few occasions I had the chance to encounter homophobes that would open up and talk about their motivations (and sometimes they even apologised), they always had a variation of the "one of you lot hurt me, and now I cannot stand you all".

---

@linguo

Over hear the reaction was pretty standard, and even in my history of sexuality class, most students erased the LGBTness of the targets. Everytime there's a shooting in the US, the reaction is "The shooter must be a mental case because no sane person kills so many people, and Americans are collectively mental cases for having no gun control".
It's hard to find a piece in that reaction that isn't problematic and flat-out wrong. Mental health stigma is alive and strong over here, for one. Ignorance of the local context also.
And I know I would probably blame gun control in the past as well, but this guy had access to guns as legally as it gets, he was apparently working for private security. Secondly, in Cyprus there's one femmecide (usually of an ex-wife) a month, committed almost invariable with legally own guns (guns that the government forces you to own, because conscription).
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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-06-14, 18:57

md0 wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:That's too bad. I think there's probably a good argument to be made for collective responsibility when it comes to discrimination against Romani people, both in Europe and elsewhere.

How far can this argument go though? Can it justify collective punishment of Europeans in the same way it is used to justify collective punishment of other groups (I was recently ranting against neo-Stalinists justifying the collective punishment of Crimean Tatars for example).

I don't think so, but then I don't think actions like this shooting can justify collective punishment of Muslims (or even Afghans) either (though for all I know, people may well be attempting to do just that).

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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby Saim » 2016-06-14, 21:11

Weirdly enough, my impression is that there's been relatively less anti-Muslim backlash this time, at least on the internet.

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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby Meera » 2016-06-14, 21:25

IpseDixit wrote:I find it quite outrageous that his father said he should've not committed that crime because it's God's duty to punish gay people.


Unfortunately that's just how many Muslims are raised and think. I guess it is similar to how Christians used to believe that gay people will burn in hell. In most Islamic countries being gay is outlawed. In Afghanistan it can land you a prison sentence. Not all Middle Eastern countries are like this as I'm pretty sure Lebanon or Turkey doesn't jail gay people. But in many Middle Eastern countries it is illegal to be gay or a Lesbian. In Afghanistan any sex before marriage is illegal and you can go to jail for it. If you are married and engage in sodomy you can also be jailed. These counties are quite conservative.


Saim wrote:Weirdly enough, my impression is that there's been relatively less anti-Muslim backlash this time, at least on the internet.


I have seen the same honestly. Most posts and comments I have read have been about his easy access to an Assault Rifle and not blaming him for being a Muslim.
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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-06-14, 21:46


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Re: Islamic Terrorism

Postby linguoboy » 2016-06-14, 21:54

md0 wrote:Over hear the reaction was pretty standard, and even in my history of sexuality class, most students erased the LGBTness of the targets. Everytime there's a shooting in the US, the reaction is "The shooter must be a mental case because no sane person kills so many people, and Americans are collectively mental cases for having no gun control".

That's exactly the justification I heard from my sister's brother-in-law: Only a crazy person would do this, so he must be crazy. And crazy people, whatcha gonna do? That was after he tried the "if he was gay maybe it was a lover's quarrel" angle.

Obviously, there's a confluence of factors here. His father is a piece of work; I can't imagine what his upbringing was like. He may have been a closet case in a very homophobic part of the country (central Florida), and being a Muslim and a child of immigrants can't have been easy there either. Daesh is producing slick recruiting videos and webpages comparable to al-Qaeda's, and this was exactly the kind of angry, confused, disaffected young man they target.

md0 wrote:[And I know I would probably blame gun control in the past as well, but this guy had access to guns as legally as it gets, he was apparently working for private security. Secondly, in Cyprus there's one femmecide (usually of an ex-wife) a month, committed almost invariable with legally own guns (guns that the government forces you to own, because conscription).

But part of the issue gun-control advocates are making is that (a) he was so abusive to his wife she had to flee back to her family without any belongings; (b) he was so full of rage towards minorities that at least one coworker refused to work with him; (c) he was investigated by the FBI twice; and (d) he was put on the terrorist watch list, yet he was still allowed to buy guns legally. Since bans are a non-started these days, a lot of the gun control effort has focused on improved screening.
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