I didn't see it because it wasn't there. Where in "Considering the craziness around the Tea Party, 9/11-mosque debate or Quran burnings you American buddies have to contemplate about these days," is the attack on America? Sounds pretty sympathetic to normal people who aren't full of rage and fear looking for slights in everything. And you claim it's the liberals who are obsessed with politically correct speech.
Right. Any American member of the Tea Party or against the construction a Mosque near the site of 9/11 is "full of rage and fear". This is the European take and I accept it as such.. But of course, in reality, you are completely out of touch.
He did nothing angrily, that's you projecting. You do everything angrily, except debate. I'm looking forward to the day you give that a try.
"Considering the craziness around the Tea Party, 9/11-mosque debate or Quran burnings you American buddies have to contemplate about these days, I thought it might cheer you up a little when I tell you you at least aren't alone anymore:
Is it really culture? Maybe it's the American tendency not to acknowledge social differences as a problem society is facing, but as individual problems: Those who are bad off don't try hard enough. When you're poor, it's your own fault, and it's not because society doesn't give you a chance by failing to offer equality of opportunities. Increasing spending on education and social programs? Naw, that's "socialism" and thus anti-American and evil. So when blacks are still poor, it's not because they are disadvantaged, but it must be their "culture", their attitudes or their behavior. That's certainly easier than thinking of means to improve equality of opportunities.
Unless, of course, you hold a mindset right out of the Nazi playbook, where everybody "who is not with us, is against us" and anybody questioning the actions of a respective government automatically is a traitor (which is an interesting way to look at people practizing the civil right of free speech and the democratic duty of checking government power against executive excesses, which seems familiar to both genuine Nazis and parts of the American right, because it's a perfect sledghammer-argument to destroy everybody who stands against a government that blatantly violates basic civil and human right standards in genuine authoritarian fashion. And authoritarian fashion righteously wrapped in the flag is just what Nazis and parts of the American right love).
A widespread, increasingly rabid islamophobic sentiment among both the American and the German population that in many ways closely resembles the anti-Semitism of the 20s and 30s
For the record: My words were meant as light-hearted teasing, not more.
Someone apparently took offense by my mentioning of the Tea Party. I explained my rationale behind it. If you disagree, fine, I may be wrong. But why doesn't it even take more than half of a tongue-in-cheek reference to cause you to make a nationalistic dick-size-competition out of it? Why can't you folks not just relax a little and debate what was actually said, instead of starting a strawmen-molestation orgy out of a weird feeling of national superiority?
I am not sure how you could possibly get the impression I attempted to qualify, justify or distract from islamophobia in Germany and Europe by pointing to America. If you had actually read and understood my posting, as well as my later replies, you'd have realized that I'm doing the exact opposite: I condemn islamophobia, especially in Germany, and just mentioned the international context that this new islamophobia is not an exclusively German thing, but prevalent within various Western countries.
I think we can further agree as well that Germany today is no longer a country dominated by suprematist thoughts as under Nazi rule, just like America is no longer a country dominated by racist slave owners.
I just superficially mentioned islamophobic events in America (again: obviously for everybody with basic reading comprehension skills, not to justify anything that happened in these regards in Europe), and the mere mentioning of these events, which are unfortunately sad facts, are too much for your nationalism to swallow, because apparently, in your eyes, pointing to facts that make America appear not perfect are an attack on you personally, on your honor and on your nation.
The protestors against the Ground Zero mosque invited Geert Wilders, currently Europe's #1 islamophobic Muslim-hater (from the Netherlands), who then held a speech there.
Of course I did not mean to imply chauvinism or islamophobia is an originally American thing and Europe had been entirely innocent on that field before. But I don't think Europe is generally more chauvinistic than America either. It's a problem we all share and always have to have an eye on.
Of course I can only speak for myself, and I can't comment on debates you had with other Europeans. But is it maybe possible that this is just the impression you got from Europeans that were fed up with the very common American high-horse nationalism other people have demonstrated? You will probably admit that there are quite a few Americans, also around here and on the nets, that are rather full of themselves, consider any pointing to an American flaw a personal attack and show an extremely arrogant attitude, as if it had them themselves, personally, who, with bare hands, struggled Hitler's neck, single-handedly liberated the world from Nazism and brought the Berlin Wall to collapse, informing this horrible ungrateful European Nazi and Commie-scum that they are not worth enough to even have an opinion on America, let alone criticize things that happen there?
And although that hardly is hard empirical data, I believe islamophobia is at least not less prevalent in America these days, than it is in Europe: The mosque protests were a good indication. You find dozens of polls that more than 50% of Americans hold "not favorable" opinions of Islam in general, and more than 60% oppose the mosque (and don't tell me that's not islamophobia -- only the fewest people will oppose it because of the bad sight or city planning reasons, but most based on the notion that "Islam in general = terrorism").
And let's not forget that this anti-Muslim feeling is partly responsible for starting and maintaining several wars and military missions that resulted in the death of several dozens of thousands of Muslim -- regardless if you think this war is justified or not, which would be topic for an entirely different debate. The point is, like the wars or not, it's a good part islamophobia that made them possible ("let's show it to them!").
Our Muslims are your Mexicans. Americans hate "illegal immigrants" (code for "poor Latino") for taking your jobs, some even form militias to keep them out. But this kind of American xenophobia is not connected to islamophobia, as it is in Europe.
You want to bring them freedom and democracy, and once you made it, they'll be all nice and fine? If that's your idea, I couldn't imagine a more dangerously naive and absurd idea. And reality has completely demolished all good intentions that may have been the root for this idea: Iraq is still unstable, may fall into civil war or to Iran and on the long run make the entire region more hostile. Thanks to Bush's grandstanding talks ("crusade") and the ... let's cautiously say: "exaggerations" prior to the Iraq war have given not few in the Muslim world the impression this is a war of the West against all Muslims, and they became the best recruitment machine bin Laden and his al-Qaida could have ever hoped for.
Many disoriented angry young Muslims in Europe got the idea it may be cool to play tough terrorist as well, because of that. Thank you very much.
It's Europeans who, maybe in a faulty manner, but with best intentions, have taken their lesson from the past and now, without the burden of any individual responsibility whatsoever, point to Americans whose attitude shows an eery similarity to the exact attitude that made their grandpa a criminal.
And islamophobia in America, as I explained above, goes far beyond some nuts not even burning Quran books. Far, far beyond. Just one example: Before Sarrazin published his book in Germany, several Americans had published books with very similar topics already. And popular pundits time and again connect Islam in general to violence, terrorism and all kind of ugly excesses.
When the Mohammed-cartoons were published in Denmark, the public reaction was much stronger and more hateful within the American right-wing blogosphere and general media. And if you want to find an ilk of quasi-fascist American Muslim-haters, it's the easiest thing you can do on the internet.
Again, I don't want to say America is worse than Europe, in these regards. But if you believe it is any better, you are lying to yourself.
No. As I said above, it goes far beyond it. I compare it to 68% of Americans apparently believing in the equation "Islam in general = terrorism". To more than 50% of Americans answering in polls they hold an "unfavorable view" of Islam in general. Of huge mob ralleys inviting people like Geert Wilders. Of former Vice Presidents who compare Islam in general to neo-Nazism. Of popular pundits in the mainstream media permanently hammering the myth "Islam = terrorism" into the heads of their audience, and fostering hatred against the President by emphasizing his middle name. By more than 20% hating the President because they wrongly believe he is a Muslim. By the large number of people who find a President sinister and not trustworthy, just because of his name, his heritage and well probably his skin color too. The many fundamentalist Christians who consider Muslims to be doomed and see the entire conflict as a crusade.
You really want me to do that, right? Do I have a choice? Do you really leave me one? Here you go.
Native Americans. Blacks. Manifest Destiny. Ku-Klux-Klan. Japanese internment camps. Illegal immigrants. Welfare queens.
So you have one genocide on your national hands (although maybe not as big in numbers and less well planned than our one), a few centuries of slavery and exterminating the culture of blacks, additional few decades of legal racial discrimination (hey, as far as I know, slavery has been abolished in Germany since around 1808 already!) and wild lynching mobs for the purpose of ethnically cleansing their lands. Then in times of war, you didn't care much for the civil rights of those of your fellow citizens who happened to have ancestors from your enemy country. And certainly, you won't tell me that you don't have people anymore today, who still suspect, dislike or even hate blacks, "illegal immigrants" and whose worst dream it is they may wake up one day, and English speaking whites are a minority.
Here you go, you left me no choice but saying that.
But let me explain again that I don't mean this as an attack on today's America, or as support for the absurd claim that Europe is somehow better. Of course it isn't. What you said proves that. But as I see it, you hardly have any basis for claiming a historical-moral high ground at all. We are apples from the same tree, you guys over the ocean and we guys here: Same stem, same roots, same ****."
