Tuesday, September 06, 2011

"Why Muslims are still mad at America"

Steven Kull uses the results of a 5-year study to go into some depth about a point I touched on seven years ago: A substantial part of the animosity is religious. They think we are anti-religious, and in particular anti-Islam.

We attribute goodness and part of our power to using a secular state; decoupling church and state. That is anathema to many Muslims all by itself, even without the aggressively anti-religious propaganda of recent years. And the philosophical underpinnings of our culture are from a particular religious framework inconsistent with Islam.

I haven't seen any signs that anybody in Washington gets the picture.

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2 comments:

  1. kyp Belligerent1:36 PM

    Even having read your previous entry, I'm still not entirely sure what you think ought to be done about it. It's a big, messy, complicated issue and I don't know if your suggestions would sway those who need to be swayed.

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  2. james1:12 PM

    I thought it was straightforward: we need to change the environment to try to encourage less extreme varieties. We can't do that directly, but we can try to make attractive and culturally appropriate offerings available. It costs manpower and demands that we have people managing it who aren't dumber than bricks about religion--we already tread on too many toes as it is. Being the "strong horse" is all very well, but it doesn't always last.

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