There's a lot of islamic regions which were never a part of Caliphate.
Their interpretation of what being Muslim means in practice might differ significantly.
Their interpretation of what being Muslim means in practice might differ significantly.
http://jakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/despite-ban-female-g...
"2008 Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) fatwa challenging a ban on FGM issued by Indonesia's Health Ministry in 2006"
I stand to my claim, and I can support it with links: wherever Islam is a majority religion or "near to majority" the oppression exists. At least women, "unbelievers" (in Islam) or both. And Islam stands nowhere there for a "freedom of expression," quite the opposite. And the reason for that are both the basic religious texts and the practice through the history.
Regarding your arguments from another thread:
> Having training camps and wrapping women in opaque blankets is two distinct things. Bosnians mostly did former and not latter.
Do you talk only about the last years, and about the pure historical accident? I've given you the overview of the related history, after the WWII Muslims didn't have any governing power, and after the most recent war they just remained non-Sharia. Not something that the religion prescribes. And the Muslims weren't a majority.
> luckily I don't see much of them
You don't know what you talk about. For those not believing in Islam, the "ruler" was every Muslim they had to deal width, and they had to deal with them, as only Muslims controlled the land, and the Christians were just the workers on the land and they "belonged" to the Muslim owner just like the land belonged to him. They weren't allowed to do anything else. And what can be considered as the equivalent of the modern "police" were Muslims and of the "court" typically Muslim clerics (as Islam traditionally doesn't separate the church and the state).
So for you to imagine, imagine that whatever you do you do for such "rulers" (just for you to earn enough to eat) and that they control you whenever they please. Only they are allowed to carry weapons. And if your wife, daughter or sister doesn't cover her hair... maybe a recent example from the "moderate" Indonesia gives a hint:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Indonesian_beheadings_of_...
You can also research what the punishments for Muslims oppressing the "unbelievers" were "traditionally" to understand how ugly it was. All together, not a "tradition" anybody should be proud about. When Muslims today brag about "the people of other religions living peacefully" in the regions they controlled that typically meant just "they were not exterminated" (at that times, a lot of people were needed to work on the land, just like slaves were needed on the cotton fields in the States). Until the convenient moment, of course:
This. The freedom lovers, liberals and humanists must understand this threat posed by the vicious ideology of mainstream Islam. The USA and the west now must also invest similar (if not more) efforts and resources to fight this vicious ideology as those that they invested to fight another vicious ideology called communism.
It should however be noted that there are many people who have been Muslims just by birth and they do not necessarily follow the vicious ideology to its core.
So the fight must be against Islam and not against all Muslims, per se.
Yes and we should support all such people instead of parroting the slogans that effectively support the Islam fundamentalists (and they are anyway supported by billions of dollars every year). Parroting the slogans (like this title "the poems of a guy show how Islam is complex," no, Islam as an ideology is not getting more complex due to the unrelated publicly unknown actions of some individual) and supporting the initiatives that even indirectly support Muslim intolerance ("wear a burka day" and similar) doesn't make you "good for not being the racist," it just makes you a threat to the survival of our hard achieved freedoms.
We actually have to support these Muslims who don't treat their religion as the only truth there is, those who don't wear headscarves, those that don't hate Jews, those who don't pray five times a day, those who don't attend mosques, those who dare to say that the religious books were just made by humans, not the verbatim words of whichever "god."
The freedoms we take for granted are also "use it or lose it." The caricaturists (!) are among the first to painfully personally recognize how we're daily losing the freedoms. Charlie Hebdo is quite a known story, but consider Molly Norris who had to not exist anymore:
http://www.seattleglobalist.com/2015/02/09/molly-norris-draw...
http://www.steynonline.com/6965/there-is-no-more-molly-or-lu...
So what's going on? Taleb cleverly notes: "The most Intolerant wins." The intolerant minority can actually overpower the weaker tolerant majority.
We must be very clear in what we don't want to tolerate too. Which will be hard for a lot of "feelings" as yes, the West has a lot of what it shouldn't to be proud about too, that it shares with Islam. Including the religious fanatics and the slavery in America, or religiously-based hate and killing of Jews and many other nations in Europe. All part of the history or even presence, influencing the current events.
And we have to cut through the huge amount of disinformation to increase the number of people aware that the problem of losing freedoms exists, before it's too late.