Multiple terrorist attacks in Brussels – Latest Updates
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The kind of language I hear around me from otherwise intelligent people is extremely worrying.
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/1200...
I have sympathy with people who are angry, as I am, with the lack of good leadership from at least the leaders in my country, the lack of security and action is astonishing.
I do not live in the US, but I can guess the people who vote for Trump feels kind of the same way I feel about the politicians in my country.
Abdeslam (the last terrorist from the france attacks) was arrested in Belgium 3 days ago and upon his removal from the area, youths gathered chanting his name and throwing bottles at the police combis. The national media chose not to cover this for the same reasons you laid out and it has caused a bit of a furore in Belgium.
The distinction between racism and the fight against bad ideas (religious extremism) is often blurred by both the extreme right and the left.
There is a concerted effort to indoctrinate these youths, and criticism against anything islam is not allowing this debate to be held.
See this article "Remove the Saudi influence from our mosques" http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/regio/brussel/1.2507974 written by a female politician of Moroccan descent.
which realistically only 50% graduate from. Very naive to assume, that's not at all state funded educations fault. As if indoctrination wasn't part of that as well in the first place.
> criticism against anything islam is not allowing this debate to be held.
wat?
Also not quite sure I understand the argument against state funded education. Pretty much everyone in Belgium has a state funded education, myself included.
That's 50% of the university students, obviously, rough estimate.
The implicit statement that it is the students' fault, when their education goes wrong, implies that our educational system is otherwise perfect. I challenged that, not for the monetary aspect.
In Denmark, at the time of the cartoons controversy, there was also a group of Muslims on the other side, whose leader was elected to Parliament: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Muslims_in_Denmark
http://www.brusselnieuws.be/nl/nieuws/jongeren-gooiden-stene...
And then this happens. What are we supposed to think ?
Assuming all Muslims are ideologically the same, and that Muslims monolithically defend this sort of behavior is an asinine assumption.
Your original post comes across as prototypical "us vs. them", "we are the good guys" blather. Yes, murder and violence are indefensible, but otherization does nothing to work towards deeper understanding of the causes/issues at play.
Plenty of Hacker News users claim it all the time, unfortunately.
Religion has no part in this its only a vehicle as is Christianity. The real picture is much bigger and more complex.
And please look behind the media curtain as other have pointed out you have the internet on your hands you can get all the sources you need.
You can see the distinction, surely? Islam creates space and justification for these actions in a way that Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity does not. It's a difficult to swallow pill yet it's true.
Source: Am an ex-muslim and generally interested in this phenomenon.
But my point is the current terrorist attacks in Paris are committed by people who got discarded by society with no purpose in life and they found a group who gave them a place where they felt needed and respected.
Brevik is a Nazi and he is not Christian
Some books are much better at this than others. And while I don't believe the bible was that prevalent in the wars of the past, even if it was, that was centuries ago. We've cast aside such foolish things yet live in a world where many people have not.
And that's our problem.
On your second paragraph - that's exactly why an ideology that can transform a person from a citizen into a terrorist because they feel marginalized needs to be addressed. There's a whole lot of marginalized people across our globe.
While it's true that many disfranchised individuals turn extremist it's also true that just as many of those who do are very privileged. People don't decide to join ISIS because they are poor, the do so because they are influenced to do it in a very methodical and well financed way.
Credit to you; that's not an easy (or particularly safe) path to walk.
https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=islam%2C%20terror%2C...
Draw your own conclusion.
Plus I don't think you really want to make this association. Breivik was a (neo-)Nazi (e.g. [1]). If anything he supports the argument that ideology leads to terrorism (it is baffling to me that anyone would ever think it doesn't). I don't think anyone is making the argument that there is only a single violent ideology on this planet.
But I find it weird that to make your point you'd draw attention to the association between terror and ideologies. Because then you'd very quickly arrive at the obvious question : per ideology, how much terror, and at what point do we take action ? Per ideology, how much terror is something the above graph can help with.
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/anders-breivi...
Not a single one protested the violence (although that I understand : in Brussels you won't get beaten up, or worse, for excusing or even supporting terror. The opposite stance gets you branded racist in the best case).
There are numerous places in Brussels where the tension between the police and the new "locals" is very close to the flashpoint. And to be frank, Brussels is positively peaceful compared to Paris and Rotterdam. I do not have direct experience of how it is in other cities, but I doubt these cities are the only ones. Antwerp, where I live, is also rapidly becoming a flashpoint and has been the site of muslim terror attacks against Jews. Tellingly, lots of Jews are leaving.
And let's get one thing straight. Brussels is loaded to the brim with minorities. From the black community from Congo to Lebanese and Iraqi Christian refugees, all have communities. Whilst these communities aren't without problems, there is only one community that constantly commits violence on everyone surrounding them. From "youth" randomly attacking whoever is stupid enough to get on the metro alone (and I'm a man, any woman knows that you can't take the metro alone anymore. 5 years ago, not a problem). I just want to say : it's not just these attacks, in fact, that's the least of the problems.
I believe we would be far better of to not acknowledge whatever 'terrorist' organisation or group might have been behind this by spouting out '<terrorist organisation X> has taken credit for the attacks in Brussels' in the media. Yet we all know this is what will happen. Also the religion aspect will be brought in again because the organisation acts because of their beliefs. Hate will be harvested on both ends. We could possibly lose a bit of freedom, sit out and wait for the next attack.
So while it's comparison between one specific act and years of political decisions, I don't think there's got to be anything wrong with OP for such comparison. Electing a terrible leader of a powerful country can cause many more people getting blown up than we've heard of today.
The fear of Trump is based on what we've learned from history: charismatic leaders, sowing discord and tension, talking about building walls to separate and contain people, trying to rid a country of certain races and religions, have caused the utmost tragedy in recent times. Trump is the one injecting US presidential campaign bullshit into this issue, and that must be countered.
Reacting to this tragedy with organised hatred only creates a new, far worse tragedy.
What reaction and how will it kill innocent people? Be concrete. You are speaking of a vague hypothetical as if it were a fact.
>And this time, the blood will be on our part.
I know it's trendy to be self-loathing, but I would rather have blood on my hands than someone else having my blood on their hands. An innocent civilian dying due to coalition forces' attempt to combat terrorists is not the same as a civilian being killed by said terrorists.
There were two explosions at around 08:00 (07:00 GMT) at Zaventem airport as people queued to check in
Belgian broadcaster VRT says at least 13 people were killed and 35 were wounded at the airport
Shots were heard before the explosions, which appear to have struck near the American Airlines and Brussels Airline check in desk
Some time later there was also a blast at Maalbeek metro station, very close to the city's main European Union buildings
The Belgian government has raised the terror alert level to 4 across the country, the highest level
Of course you can't prevent these attacks. But some ideas are not bad and I doubt there's no discussion about new options after today.
Behaviour is determined by what you start with into life and what you learn during your life, that is genes and socialization.
Now, if you take a birds eye view on the situation it comes clear to me that on both axis there are strong correlations among these terrorists.
Realizing facts helps solving problems.
Oh, wait, I think you were trying to say that we should use racial profiling without spelling it out. Oh.
It's sad that one even has to ask for such an approach. In most cases it's undisputedly the only senseable one.
You can't work scientifically if your fear of being labeled racist guides and censors you.
We know why terrorism happens. We've known this for an awfully long time. We don't need unscientific nonsense about how brown people are magically terrorists.
Science frequently comes up with inconvenient answers. But you might find that the science here is inconvenient towards your position, not others'.
I don't get this. My impression that the fear of being labeled racists makes people censor themselves is not something I only hear others saying but also the press specifically censors the ethnicity of wrongdoers because it might appear to be justification for racism.
> We know why terrorism happens. We've known this for an awfully long time.
I'm not so sure about that one. In any case, the fact that we still suffer from terrorism speaks its own language.
> We don't need unscientific nonsense about how brown people are magically terrorists.
I totally agree on that we don't need unscientific explanations. I call for the opposite. Ridiculing a point I never made doesn't help.
> Science frequently comes up with inconvenient answers. But you might find that the science here is inconvenient towards your position, not others'.
My position on this topic is in many parts neutral, because I'm happy to admit that I don't know all the facts nor do I understand the whole picture thoroughly. Thats why I wish for more investigation.
Your last sentence baffles me.
Knowing why something happens doesn't mean it stops happening. First, some problems aren't easily solved. Second, there is not the will to solve some of them. Climate change is an example of this.
But it does not apply equally to all cultures(with muslims relatively extreme in that regard). The jews, for example we're badly treated for decades, with relatively little terrorism. The people of Tibet under china are also, quite peaceful.
I mean, look at the reason you have to take your shoes off every time you fly.
We see one of the memes that have a positive correlation with terrorism very clearly; it's islam.
People have reflexive denial when one points this out. You can spot this when they don't react to your arguments in a logical manner.
If we finally accepted that islam is among other things a facist authoritarian political ideology, then we could eventually say "no" to Saudi Arabia building and controlling mosques in our countries.
I wonder why people internalized political correctness as if it were a totalitarian ideology.
This isn't intended as a defense for the choices or judgements of any party involved, I just wonder why we collectively cling to the notion of 'turning evil'.
Pretty much any form of social-building construct is/has been construed as a fascist authoritarian political ideology, so how about abstracting that part of the debate and focusing on who's using which of these ideological tools? Your argument could be made about the US, does that mean you equate both organisations? Their differences may lie more in the intentions of the deciders than in the methods each use to advance their agendas. All parties have different means and unkown goals in so making informed guesses as to the why of it all seems a bit futile.
You appear to be ignoring the socialisation that happens before radicalisation.
> We see one of the memes that have a positive correlation with terrorism very clearly; it's islam.
You appear to be ignoring other forms of radicalisation.
If I point to department stores that have been fire-bombed by animal rights extremists and then say "Vegetarianism is a radical extremist ideology" I hope people would point out my error.
If I point to the bombings of abortion clinics and death threats made to doctors; and the promotion of violence against the child by some Christian extremists and I say "Christianity is a radical extremist ideology, driven by a brutal paternalism" I hope people would point out my error.
It's weird that HN fails so hard the "All boobaks are red; are all red things boobaks?" thing that we expect 11 year olds to understand.
That sets islam apart from vegetarianism, which we also expect a 11 year old to understand.
In fact, I also see similiar dangerous tendencies in christianity. However, these days it leads to comparatively few problems when compared to islam and thus doesn't need as much attention.