Boston attacks reignite debate on Islam and terror

[Nye Bevan]

As Boston mourns, as Massachusetts holds a minute's silence, the Marathon bombing has reignited a fierce political debate. It is a hugely sensitive tussle over the nature of Islamist terrorism, Islam itself and how America responds to terrorism and a religion it doesn't truly understand.

In many ways it is a replay, a reflection, and occasionally a distortion of the major disagreement between supporters of George W Bush and Barack Obama. President Obama's opponents portray him as reluctant to use the word terrorism, overly sympathetic towards Islam, and insufficiently focused on the dangers of violent expressions of militant Islam. On the fringes, some accuse him of being a willing sympathiser.

But, more generally, there is a feeling on the right that liberals are too willing to bend over backwards to disconnect the religion from the violence. This makes liberals hot under the collar. They see it as sheer bigotry, and point out that there is in fact no connection between millions of peaceful followers of a religion and a violent fringe.

......

I, and I am sure other BBC colleagues, have received quite a lot of messages accusing us of, from one side, wilfully ignoring the role of radical Islam in this attack and, from the other side, saying we are fanning the flames of intolerance.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22244539

[BeyondGeography]

1. Tamerlan was a frustrated child monster and his brother was bored

But let's make this all about religion.

[Common Sense Party]

2. No, because religion had nothing at all to do with it.

Not in the least.

[pscot]

8. You left out the sarcasm thingy

[Common Sense Party]

9. I guess I did.

[Nye Bevan]

7. Plenty of young men are bored. But they don't blow people up.

So while the explanation could be boredom, the militant Islam aspect might be worth exploring too.

[BeyondGeography]

10. It is, and your tone is properly restrained

But our media culture doesn't do nuance well, and will fairly quickly give the witch hunters the megaphone. These guys were half-assed Muslims at best. If I were a serious member of that faith, I would be tearing my hair out about what's to come. If they really understood how this country works, American Muslims would start a high-profile campaign to identify and counsel young, at-risk males like Tamerlan. That might actually work, and it would help them with the public discussion.

[Stretch714]

3. I refuse to hold a whole group responsible for the action of a few in it.

It helps no one and fuels prejudices that don't need any more fuel.

Calling Obama a "willing sympathizer" is not realistic at all. Obama just understands that all of Islam is not militant or wants to kill everybody. Calling the Boston bombers terrorist right from the get go would have been a dumb and uniformed thing for him to say. They could have just been two idiots. Sadly it appears to be a terrorist attack and as usual all of Islam will get the blame like it always does.

Just my couple cents on the subject.

[Nye Bevan]

4. That would be like blaming all Christians for the crimes of Eric Rudolph (nt)

[BlueCheese]

5. To say this has nothing to do with radical Islam strikes me as willful denial.

Was it the only factor? Probably not. But was it a factor? If news reports about the older brother's activities are true, then it was. Personally I'm not sure why this is such a big deal-- what harm does conceding that fact do?

Let's do a thought experiment. Suppose it had been two native-born Americans, who also thought they were social outcasts, and who watched videos from right wing militia sites. Would we be trying so hard to disassociate their actions from their politics?

[Jack Sprat]

6. No. The outrage against Christians

or even a non-Christian wingnut would be thundering off the walls of DU. We truly do possess a number (not all or not most) of outright hypocrites. It is undeniable. We have seen far more posters defending Islam than sympathizing with those injured citizens in Boston.

If the attack had come from two brothers who happened to be Christians, and the surviving brother said that his actions were motivated by his religious beliefs, Christians (as a whole) would be savaged by many here and their posts never removed as an unfair attack on their group.

That's the duplicity and unfortunate hypocrisy that exists.