Re: Wahabbism/Salafi supporters
You ask me to think from a “normal French citizen’s perspective” - what is that exactly? Does that include Muslims in France? If not then you are asking me to look at the perspective of French non-Muslims. Does it include those non-Muslims who do not believe that Islam is represented by those terrorists? So really you are asking me to look at things from the perspective of the right-wing French.
Now there is very little I can do to stop anyone doing an act in the name of Islam. Such people could be Muslim, they could be non-Muslim acting to smear Islam.
I agree with you that the FACT is that terrorism is happening - the fact is not that it is necessarily being done by Muslims and on evidence as I provided earlier - the “Muslims” doing it are not even religious. Now it is displeases me that Muslims are told to look internally by the right-wingers from among the non-Muslims who already harbour anti-Islamic sentiments. And some of us a getting back-footed by their rhetoric and accept we Muslims have a problem. We will not be able to find such “Muslims” in our communities because they operate in isolation and are probably already pushed out and disassociated with us.
Standing up and proclaiming “we won’t allow anyone to use our religion” is to be honest - as good as farting in the wind. Ineffective. What we need to do is investigate causes academically. Study the pattern of how people become radicalised. Look at their histories and come closer to vulnerable people - not further away - People who might start to show such traits. This is my observation on the matter.
There are three classes of terrorist:
- The black operator
- The converter
- The peon
I’ll explain this later, for the time being focusing only on the peons. Usually they are secular, fun loving, self-absorbed Muslim-by-name hedonists. They will contain some element of a desire to be accepted by others - because that drives their personal sense of security. They will have violent tendencies - bad boys/girls … in to music, drugs and suddenly are exposed to violent material where Muslims are being attacked by oppressive regimes. These people will have an emotional hold on the label of being Muslim. They will be groomed by “The converters” who will convince them of channeling their energies towards helping Muslims and Islam by exacting revenge. Although it is not really revenge - because there are rules and common sense issues that are overlooked. These peons are unable to assess material for being right or wrong, truthful or false. They will accept the rhetoric of their groomers, because their groomers do one thing that they seek … They seek to be “accepted” … and have thus gradually moved away from their own friends and cannot create an affinity with the core body of Muslims and hence are easy prey.