A noted Middle East expert told the Chosun Ilbo that because Koreans have an insufficient basic understanding of Muslim religious culture, they frequently earn unintentionally the enmity of Muslims.
HUFS professor Lee In-seop said that when some Koreans visit Muslim regions, they try to discuss with locals what they know about the Prophet Muhammad as an expression of friendship, but they sometimes end up making insulting statements, causing big problems. He advised Koreans not to reveal their identity or religion when visiting the Muslim world. They should also avoid areas with a lot of foreigners.
Lee noted that Koreans were not well known in the area of Yemen where Koreans were recently targeted in a terrorist attack, but in 2007, local Yemeni media gave a lot of press to a visiting Korean youth group — led by a missionary group — held a Christian-related performance and handed out Bibles and crosses during a summer camp event. Lee said that after the Koreans left, locals expressed unhappiness about what had transpired, and wrote a letter to the Yemeni president complaining about the missionary activity. Afterward, an Egyptian paper reported that Korean NGOs and KOICA volunteers could be Christian missionaries, too.
{ 98 comments… read them below or add one }
There’s those famous Korean good manners at work again.
Here’s an idea for the Chosun:
Write a follow-up article in which you interview Korean Muslims (yes, they do exist).
Yes, when Muslims hack off heads and hands and blow people to bits, it’s obviously because the victims inadequately understood them. Not because the Muslims are vicious animals or anything, no.
You can condemn the missionaries if you want. But the fact remains that, while their activity may be considered rude, if they did it among Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, etc., the most that would happen is that they’d get the finger. It’s only the Muslims who, when confronted with rudeness, feel driven to murder. Now I wonder why that is?
#4,
The fact remains that the most visible picture of Islam is that of violence. That’s certainly unfortunate, but I don’t see Saudi Arabia doing anything much to counteract this vision.
I think it might be a better strategy to push for women’s progress in the muslim world. Or at least a serious tactic to consider parallel to more traditional means. I remember reading about how more women in wall street would do us a whole lot of good considering their relative aversion to out of control risk taking.
I agree with #3.
That was pretty lame – addressing my own comment. My apologies – posting after a half-carafe always presents a few problems.
I meant #3, and I meant to ask – why don’t the Christians resolve problems in their own countries before trying to convert in others, particularly Islamic ones?
LOL, we usually get Korean, Japanese, or Russian ‘dating’ sites for our banner ads. But on this post, we get a Muslim ‘matrimonial’ site, featuring a woman completely covered except for her face and not showing a wisp of hair.
Man alive, what a bunch of backassward stone-age fucks.
And please, let me just preempt the “it’s only a tiny minority” bullshit. Even if that’s true of the ‘active’ ones, when was the last time you saw a bunch of moderate Muslims out an extremist and kick his ass? Half the time they offer a lame ‘condemnation’; the other half of the time you don’t even get that. They all want the same things to happen; the ‘extremists’ are just the ones that actually do what everybody else wishes they could do.
They unintentionally earn my enmity as well each time one of them asks how old I am or a very personal question within two seconds of meeting for the first time.
Maybe we should get Jon Huer to conduct sensitivity/cultural understanding training for any Koreans who want to travel to Yemen. That should stop the bombings.
Man alive, what a bunch of backassward stone-age fucks.
——
Who? Koreans for consistently going to volatile Muslim countries and trying to convert the heathen after repeated warnings?
Or the Muslims?
The Muslims, man.
The Korean missionaries may be naive, stupid, whatever. Choose your own adjectives.
But I’ll take those qualities any day of the week over murderous rage, a propensity toward shocking, barbaric violence, and an oppression of women that makes Victorian England look like Woodstock.
colontos, you want them to demonstrate that they’re against violence by kicking someone’s ass? How about this?
Someone like Naser Khader is probably a bit too lame for your tastes. Backassward stone-age fucks indeed.
It appears some people here could do with some education about Muslim culture and the geopolitics of the current conflict.
Or they could just drop their racist attitude.
“The fact remains that the most visible picture of Islam is that of violence. ”
How do you figure Muslims perceive American soldiers and the Iraq and Afghan Wars? After all, Bush was a fundamentalist Christian (so are many American soldiers).
Yes the bible-in-your-face happy clappy US evangelical thing brought out the worst in pushy Koreans, with their almost communist kansup-ing attitude. Watch secret sunshine, and you’ll get a clearer picture. US cultural imperialism at its worst.
Non-Muslims have the right to worship and conversion, but not missionary activities in Muslim countries. Although Islamic teachings specify that there can be no compulsion in religion, apostasy (a Muslim converting to another religion) is not allowed.
If we were to take sexual competition as a cause of conflict, Islam prohibits non-Muslims from marrying Muslim women, and Muslim men demand their non-Muslim wives to convert. From their point of view, Muslims “should” be on top of the socio-economic ladder, and most nonbelievers are living in dark ages.
On the plus side, there is no American, Korean, Chinese, etc. Mosque. A black man would be welcomed in a Mosque just as well as a white man. There is no ethnic division in prayer or place of worship. There’s no peer pressure on women to dress like sluts. You’re not bombarded with MTV and consumerism on TV daily, the censors cut them out. Most Muslims wash themselves 5 times a day and are pretty clean.
This is one of my favorite canards. Quick Quiz: Is Islam a race?
And hey, if I am in need of education (hey, kind of like females growing up in Muslim countries!), then why don’t you educate me? Aren’t you a woman? Do you like going to school? How about exposing your neck and ankles?
Censors = on the plus side?
I don’t think so.
LOL. It seems like a Korea is already christ country than Vatican.
So many christian holic…
No indeed, there is no peer pressure on women to dress like sluts. Instead, there is peer pressure on them to dress like astronauts, under pain of rape and/or death.
#3 and #6,
Radical Hindus have been known to kill people from other religions because they feel threatened. (India)
Radical Christians have been known to kill people from other religions because they feel threatened as well. (Uganda)
As a group, you’ve got to work extremely hard for me not to give a flying fuck when Muslims blow your guts straight out your ass.
Congratulations Korean Christians, you’ve succeeded!
You know what I mean about racist.
And I’ll have you know that Islam is a very liberating belief for women and has very passionate and strong feminist movements that unfortunately do not perfectly align with the western feminist philosophical project, as diverse as it is too.
I’ve studied most of my life, I’m one of those people who people refer to as a lifelong student. It was my faith that helped me to study so far. Islam holds education as a priority just like western society holds money and the self in importance.
Should all women dress like sluts?
I’m not going too far with this Colontos, I have encountered people like you ever since I left home and I have no interest in converting you.
I will say that I do have to ward off a sense of satisfaction when a martyr takes out people like you. Or one of your soldiers.
In addition, radical Islam isn’t just targeting ‘the west’, they’re targeting each other. The Sunni/Shia rift is particularly bad in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.
Fact is, when you are from a dirt poor town, and your only education is from a book in a language you don’t read, and the people who are teaching you are providing you and your family with food and shelter…you’d probably grow up trying to be whatever they told you to be.
Now, that’s got to be a puzzler: what does Professor Lee mean by ‘foreigner’? Is he saying Koreans should avoid areas with lots of Yemenis, or just the ones with those grotty folks from Oxfam?
I’m going to have to support colontos here. Islam is the religion of murderous rage. Ever since I’ve been old enough to pay attention to the news I’ve heard a steady stream of Muslim violence, so much so that its become a background hum to other news. Once I tried to imagine what the news would be like without Muslim violence constantly cluttering up the airwaves. It was a beautiful thought.
Since then I have not been able to be politically correct when it comes to Islam. I’d rather it died an ideological death sometime within the next 5 years. However I fear I will be disappointed, because too many people just like murderous rages.
I know that you’re misusing words, yes.
ROFL
They should be able to, if they want to, without fear of being taken to a rape room, beaten, and/or killed.
Sincerely, thank you. You couldn’t have done a more beautiful job of proving my point exactly. See, folks? The moderate Muslims, even the women, quietly applaud and feel “satisfaction” when so-called martyrs (you mean suicide bombers, murderers, rapists, and child killers, right?) kill “people like me” (read: Westerners).
By martyrs, do you mean people like the mentally handicapped women who were recruited to blow up a marketplace? Or do you mean the people who trained them? Or both?
http://smokehard.com/2009/dispatches-pakistans-taliban-generation/
Hey misuda, you posted this on the poktanju thread:
Heh, you sound like quite the good little Muslim. Care for a ham sandwich?
Three guesses what
Nora’sMelissa’sJD Hilts’Kushibo’s new ID is.Here we go again:
Three guesses what
Nora’sMelissa’sJD Hilts’Kushibo’s new ID is.You forgot the most recent incarnation,
user-81.Humanity leaves me speechless.
It’s simple. He means avoid all barbarians, according to what MH site thinks korean translated usage for barbarian should be.
i remember playing assassin’s creed the game and watching the film kingdom of heaven and loving them both. going all the way back, the thing between christian west and muslim east truly is a monumental misunderstanding and mistrust worth preserving, so much culture, history behind those ancient grudges.
The level of ignorance is incredible.
Incredible enough to send you into a murderous rage? Or just quietly approve of someone else who does…
Missionaries, comics, naming the class teddy bear Muhammad… so many outrages, so little time.
I was on the subway once and witnessed a Korean guy introducing himself from a man from Turkey. Within a minute the Korean guy had ascertained that the guy was a Muslim, and was asking him with a smile, “so you really HATE the Christians, don’t you, cuz you are a Muslim!” One of the most annoying and ignorantly insensitive exchanges I’ve ever witnessed in my life.
Meanwhile, by the way the comments here read, it looks like 1) the professor is right about Koreans’ level of understanding, 2) he could have made a broader statement to include many of the posters here as well.
One hell of a lot of stereotyping going on here… there have been a few really good documentaries shown recently including one on how Hollywood has persistently and maliciously stereotyped the Muslim as ignorant, evil, uncivilized, the villain… meanwhile if you have taken the trouble to read some of the religious and philosophical thought of Islam, you cannot help but be impressed by the quiet depth of wisdom therein. Titus Burchardt is worth reading, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and many others…
My heart has become capable of every form:
it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
And a temple for idols, and the pilgrim’s Ka’ba,
and the tables of the Tora and the book of the Koran.
I follow the religion of Love, whichever way his camels take.
My religion and my faith is the true religion…
- Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi
I prefer other more entertaining works of fiction to pass my time…
Stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_of_Arabs_and_Muslims
100 Years of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim stereotyping:
http://www.ibiblio.org/prism/jan98/anti_arab.html
Hollywood stereotyping of Muslims under attack:
http://www.payvand.com/news/08/jul/1201.html
42. Each to his own. Unless of course he is sitting on oil that the masters demand…
Isa Upanishad – Works of Sankaracharya, Advaita Vedanta and Hindu …
6. The wise man beholds all beings in the Self and the Self in all beings; for that reason he does not hate anyone.
http://www.sankaracharya.org/isa_upanishad.php
again, as i said in #35 exactly why i liked kingdom of heaven:
the right films touch the right audiences.
Yeah, I think I saw something like that in Arab cartoon:
http://www.islamanazi.com/cartoon2.htm
Hollywood is run by the Jews, you know.
I should have been more specific.
I was cherry picking religion from your list.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
Hard to argue with cold, hard dead bodies. Whoops, I meant facts.
Yes, Yuna, it is despicable how US missionaries forced Koreans to convert to Christianity. Korean cemeteries are full of the graves of Koreans who were beheaded because they refused to convert. Then those sneaky missionaries planted chips into the brains of the converted so that they would obey the missionaries’ every command.
So tell us, Yuna, when do Korean Christians take responsibility for their own choices?
Perhaps there are subversive elements in both Korean Christian churches and Islam that betray their alleged roots; the pushy evangelical that is only interested in promoting their beliefs without demonstrating a shred of insight into their own religion and the blood-thirsty disaffected that hide beneath the mantle of Islam, often lead or prodded to action by religious leaders that subvert Islam to their own image and politics.
Frankly both communities of Christianity and Islam need to clean up their space but both seem feckless and disgusting.
“Yes, when Muslims hack off heads and hands and blow people to bits, it’s obviously because the victims inadequately understood them. Not because the Muslims are vicious animals or anything, no.
You can condemn the missionaries if you want. But the fact remains that, while their activity may be considered rude, if they did it among Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, etc., the most that would happen is that they’d get the finger. It’s only the Muslims who, when confronted with rudeness, feel driven to murder. Now I wonder why that is?”
That’s a simplistic, racist response to a complex issue. As has been pointed out here, it isn’t only Muslims who are “driven to murder” over rudeness or insults. I’m fully aware that some Muslims are still living in the 7th century, and I hate the extremist elements as much as anybody, but is that a fair depiction of the majority of a billion + people?
I’m sadly surprised the Marmot agrees with this depiction – see comment #3 – especially when it includes the sweeping “the Muslims are vicious animals” bit. Jesus, smarten up.
Actually, see comment #6. I like to think the blogmaster and this blog are a little better than that.
Hey, I’m smart. And quite multicultural, too — if Muslims want to stone apostates, hang homosexuals, cut off their wives’ heads, honor-kill their daughters for talking to the kafir, make religious minorities 2nd and 3rd class citizens in their own lands, or do whatever it is “moderate Muslims” like to do, hey, it’s all good, as long as they’re doing it in their own countries. And sure, colontos’s answer is simplistic, but then again, what so complex about this issue? It’s not just the “extremists” that want to kill missionaries and apostates, after all — apostasy is a capital offense in a number of Muslim countries, including the supposedly moderate Muslim democracy we created in Afghanistan (how’s that for your tax money at work!).
I’m appalled at the lack of multicultural attitudes of so many posters. And by “posters,” I mean people, not the cardboard signs that we see taped to telephone poles . . . except for those poles with the weird design to prevent putting up posters.
Anyway.
As I was saying, I’m appalled . . .
No. “Appalled” is the wrong word for it. Maybe the posters (see above) who implicitly condemned multiculturalism did so for cultural reasons . . . and I respect that.
What I really mean to say is that I am appalled that people who share my own Western Culture (though maybe I shouldn’t capitalize that) violate their own culture and condemn the cultures of others. That just goes to show how corrupt and degraded Western Culture is . . . not that there’s anything wrong with that.
What I really mean to say is that I agree with everybody so long as they are expressing their own cultures.
I just hope that nobody is being ironic.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
#27 #54 #55
“Multi-Culturalism”, PC, and tolerance are not luxuries afforded to the Muslim according to the Koran:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/Quran-Hate.htm
The toughest Bible sermon I ever heard was delivered to me by a Kurd in (Moslem) Turkey:
“I don’t believe that Mohammed b*******t, I believe Jesus Christ died for my sins”
2Tim 2:9
Canadian woman who converted to Muslim after 2001 911 and who has a blog on Muslims being misunderstood, held captive by Talibans. Talibans will behead her if ransom not met.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090319.wpakistan19/BNStory/International/home
I wonder what she’s thinking now?
I’m sort of disappointed that so many people here want to conflate Islam with the beliefs and practices of its worst proponents… But then again, lots of people I know conflate Christianity with people like Fred Phelps, Pat Robertson, and the KKK, so I guess it’s par for the course.
I think it’s totally on the Muslims. Until they learn to criticize and control their own radicals, no one will feel safe with them on the same aircraft.
And we cannot trust their word… Their book tells them they get points toward a spot in heaven for lying to (and cheating) non-Muslims… It’s called al-taqiyyah…
No. I’m not trusting my family to the word of someone like that.
What kind of people equate a “Christian” complaining about lifestyle and a “Muslim” beheading his wife or daughter for “dishonoring” him?
What kind of person cannot see the difference between a woman getting a driver’s license in a Western country and a Muslim country (i.e., not allowed).
If you cannot tell the difference, you need to change your meds…
So the KKK only ever complains about lifestyle? Sure, Fred Phelps and Pat Robertson may just be harmless old kooks, but I chose the examples because of their cultural recognizability. I could just have easily gone with Nigerian witch-hunts, abortion clinic bombings, Warren Jeffs, or any number of other paragons of modern-day Christian enlightenment to illustrate the idiocy of tarring all members of a very diverse religion with a single brush.
Question:
Are the Koreans the only ones that have misunderstood the muslims?
Remember this?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4670370.stm
Even fellow muslims underestimate how sensitive the more extreme elements of the faith are.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/26/newsid_2542000/2542873.stm
All religions have extremists, but Islamic extremists, when offended, will go out there and kill you.
Zonath, you need to keep up with the news… http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=813FD3E8-4D63-4F25-AD6D-72048DB41D48
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=4102781&page=1
And the list goes on…
There are no “Moderate” Muslims. There are just those who are more willing to lie to you than they are to die trying to kill you…
Note that these fellows are always bravely beating and killing their womenfolk… And then running away…
I’m also at a loss as to how many people Zonath make the leap between isolated criminal groups with tiny memberships in the US (that are constantly indicted, convicted, and incarcerated as they commit crimes) and international terror groups sponsored by governments like Iran and Syria and NOT criticized by others of their religion…
I’d recommend a random drug screen if I was your employer…
There is a way to guarantee there will be no problems between Koreans and Muslims. It’s simple.
Surrender your culture. Submit to their every demand. Convert to Islam or become a dhimmi and pay taxes…
***Anything*** else is an insult to their so-called “religion of peace”…
As much as it tempts me to sink to your level and engage you in a tit-for-tat airing of “Christian” vs. “Muslim” atrocities, I won’t. My main point, after all, is that identifying the actions of a small subset with the beliefs and actions of a larger and more diverse group is folly. And while your lazy and intellectually dishonest attempts at conflating ‘honor killing’ with Islam might square just dandy with your world view, don’t think you’re fooling anyone other than fools with that line of ‘reasoning’.
Islam is a rat religion for colored morons. If one thinks believing in something like a divine Jew born of a virgin mother impregnated by a holy ghost and born on a Pagan holiday is silly, to think people believe that some pedophillic arab was speaking to an angel sent from god blows the mind. But it’s not insane. It’s just goofy.
Zonath, you’re an amateur at this.
You answer while claiming not to answer. You use ad hominem remarks aimed at proving your greater wisdom. You probably need to finish your homework, so I’ll be brief.
Al taqiyyah (lying, dissimulation, cheating, etc.) is in the Koran (or Quran, if you prefer). One such version, also found in their “scriptures” states “There is no compunction in religion”; but they will kill a Muslim who converts to any other faith.
“Honor Killing” (i.e., murder of female family members for som imagined slight) occurs with greater regularity in Muslim cultures than anywhere else. If you noticed the links, they even practice it in the USA. By comparison, I have not heard of any such practice being acceptible in Christianity, Judaism, or Buddhism.
After the 9/11 attacks, Muslim children in many locales were surveyed about the attacks. They claimed the dead were not innocent and deserved to die. These children had been taught that it was wrong in any circumstances to criticize a Muslim in front of Non-Muslims.
You may think there is some sort of equality between a so-called “fundamentalist Christian” who opposes gay marriage and “Muslim extremists” who disembowel Muslim women for working with CARE, blow up Russian schoolchildren in Beslan, or tear out the nails of little girls who color them in Afghanistan…
The rest of us can see past that.
Western Culture is mature enough to see the differences between a Billy Graham who spreads the Gospel and those televangelists who used that same Gospel to enrich themselves. Actions speak louder than word.
If there are Muslims working for a peaceful end to the conflicts that exist between Muslims and their neighbors (like India, Israel, Russia, etc.), they were probably killed by other Muslims who saw them as apostate.
You may want to run away and stab someone else in the back; but the fact remains that Koreans aren’t being murdered by anyone else. Muslims are the only group that routinely kill people who disagree with them.
And your continued defense of them marks you as either Muslim or dhimmi.
“What kind of person cannot see the difference between a woman getting a driver’s license in a Western country and a Muslim country (i.e., not allowed).
If you cannot tell the difference, you need to change your meds…”
Most Muslim countries – including Indonesia, Pakistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Egypt, etc – allow women to drive. Not shining examples of democracy, gender equality, or general human rights in some cases, but your example is, deliberate or accidental I don’t know, misleading. Change your own meds, or better yet, try reading a damn book or two sometime…
Nobody here is defending religious dictatorships like Saudi Arabia or Brunei, which, by the way, make up a tiny minority of the world’s Muslim population, or Muslim extremists.
“There are no “Moderate” Muslims. There are just those who are more willing to lie to you than they are to die trying to kill you…”
Well, seeing as they are all so bad, we’d better think about exterminating the lot of them, don’t you think? Seeing as there are no moderates, and as you claim, they’re ALL – one billion + human beings with a big asterix beside them – supposedly either liars or homicidal maniacs. Let’s start by pinning cresent moons on the ones who’ve infiltrated the US, Australia, Britain, or Canada. On September 11, we can vandalize their mosques…
Setnaffa, what you’re basically saying is that because one group of ‘muslims’ conducts honor killings, it’s okay to suspect other groups of muslims of doing or condoning the same. That’s functionally equivalent to me saying that, because people are being tortured and killed as witches in the Christian parts of Nigeria, it’s okay for me to suspect my Christian neighbors of doing or condoning witch hunts. I can even point to parts of the ‘good book’ that propose to encourage the practice.
Now I’m sure that there are parts of Islam that must grate on the modern sensibilities of my secularized and moderate muslim acquaintances, but then again, any person living in a modern culture who’s attempting to follow the life-teachings of groups of semi-literate desert-dwellers must feel the same sort of emotional dissonance from time to time. After all, I don’t see many Christians or Jews killing their disobedient children, or selling their families into slavery prior to entering bankruptcy… at least, not in this country.
If there were only isolated incident, your “logic” would work.
Show me one (1) Muslim country that allows the same freedoms we enjoy in USA, Korea, and other so-called “civilized” countries.
Your inability to recognize the difference between the laws God gave to the nation of Israel and the freedom given to Christians may be part of your inability to discern the truth here. Please read up on that before trying to use the Bible to justify murdering innocents with IEDs and suicide bombers.
I am not saying there are not Muslims horrified by the slaughter. I am saying they blame non-Muslims for ALL of it, even as they contribute to Hamas, Hezbollah, and other “charities”.
You may not know any Muslims, or you may be one yourself. But they do not have the same reaction to Muslim atrocities as they do to Danish political cartoons.
You’re just wrong if you think non-Muslims can trust them. Their own book tells them to lie to us. It’s not just my “world-view”, it’s theirs as well.
Nigeria is a country with a lot of problems–and a majority of Muslims, so maybe you should pick a different place. IIRC, they had riots with fatalities due to a beaty pagent being held there…
Where was it that they wanted to incarcerate or execute a schoolteacher for naming a teddy bear after a little boy who was named for their Prophet?
There may be “secularized” Muslims, because dropping the religion entirely gets you killed. There are no moderates. Reread the story in Buffalo, NY about the TV guy.
Wake up and smell the kimchi, buddy…
globalvillageidiot is named appropriately.
Saudi Arabian incarcerate and beat women who drive alone.
While I cannot speak for Malaysia and Indonesia, I would venture to say that not many Muslim women are alowed to travel without a male relative.
Even in the USA they don’t. Or at least the ones who wear the headscarves don’t.
You claim no one is trying to defend them, and yet you do by not holding the so-called “moderate” Muslims to the same standards you lay on people from Western Democracies.
Make your own mistakes on your own time; but when they start telling you what to say, what to read, what to wear… Remember this conversation…
I apologize for my many typographical and spelling errors…
I apologize for not being eloquent enough to properly warn you.
But if you are not a Muslim and you trust a Muslim, please don’t blame me, them, or anyone else but yourself…
It’s their religion. The Nation of Islam vs. the nation of war…
No such thing as Jihad, my college buddies told me in the 80s…
Yeah. Right. We can see how well that has played out for us…
One line per point… is setnaffa a white wjk or a wjk sockpuppet..? hummmmm….
As far as I can see, nobody here is even attempting to justify the practice of suicide bombing, the war in Iraq, or any other such campaign of barbarism and atrocity. Another case of your failure to see the forest for the trees?
Where would you prefer, then? Haiti? Ethiopia? Rwanda? I’m sure we can find some Christian backwater that we can cherry-pick for bad behavior by Christians to show that the whole lot of those Christ-addled people are in fact devils in disguise.
Sure. Just like all Americans blame muslims and 9/11 for the War in Iraq.
You all should watch this Arabic produced indie flick called “Paradise Now” (2005) about two Palestinians preparing for a suicide attack in Israel.
The director said: “The film is an artistic point of view of that political issue. The politicians want to see it as black and white, good and evil, and art wants to see it as a human thing.
Some dialogue from the movie:
Suha: Why are you doing this?
Khaled: If we can’t live as equals, at least we’ll die as equals.
Suha: If you can kill and die for equality you should be able to find a way to be equal in life.
Khaled: How? Through your human rights group?
Suha: For example! Then at least the Israelis don’t have an excuse to keep on killing.
Khaled: Don’t be so naive. There can be no freedom without struggle. As long as there is injustice, someone must make a sacrifice.
Suha: That’s no sacrifice. That’s revenge. If you kill, there’s no difference between victim and occupier.
more
“Saudi Arabian incarcerate and beat women who drive alone.”
I know, and it is wrong. Reread my post: I contrast Saudi and Brunei (where women aren’t allowed to drive) with the majority of the Muslim world (where women are allowed to drive). You’re the guy trying to lump all Muslims together, and use women drivers as an example.
“While I cannot speak for Malaysia and Indonesia, I would venture to say that not many Muslim women are alowed to travel without a male relative.”
Depends whether you’re talking about more conservative provinces or rural areas, or female professionals in cities like KL or Jakarta. (By the way, Malaysia consistently ranks higher than Korea in gender equality surveys.) In any case, generalizing all Muslims as liars or murders is not only idiotic and inaccurate, but it sells moderate Muslims short. (This includes many millions of religiously tolerant/”cultural”/fair weather/agnostic Muslims who have no problem with no observing Ramadan; having friends, neighbors, or lovers who aren’t Muslim; drinking beer; etc, not to mention the aforementioned Muslim professional women who are working their asses off to improve things in their countries.)
“Even in the USA they don’t. Or at least the ones who wear the headscarves don’t.”
Well, at least you’re finally admitting that you can distinguish between those who do and those who don’t. (Got any stats on what percentage of Muslim American women wear headscarves? Didn’t think so.) Are the ones in headscarves the murderers, and those without merely the liars?
When I first vacationed in Malaysia back in the mid-90s, I noticed that women seemed more active in politics and business. Then Trade Minister Rafida Aziz was famously outspoken like her boss, Mahathir Mohammed, whose wife, Malaysia’s first Malay woman doctor, and eldest daughter were also a vocal advocates of many issues. Park Geun-hye is the only woman politician of international prominence. Korea’s First Ladies have been sometimes seen and rarely heard.
“You know what I mean about racist.”
NO WE DON’T.
“There’s no peer pressure on women to dress like sluts.”
Most “peer pressure” on dress by women is by definition and generally in fact amongst their “peers” i.e other women. And surely it is only your enlightenend continued education that would consider alternative codes of dress to be “like sluts”. Not to mention that some of the nicest people I’ve met are sluts.
setnaffa you are a fool and I invite you to please stop spreading your manure here and anywhere else on the internet that you are abusing your man-given right to free speech. Apologizing for your spelling mistakes is the least of the shameful things you should be showing contrition over.
WangKon936:”Question:Are the Koreans the only ones that have misunderstood the muslims?”
I believe misunderstanding is the wrong term. Supremecist pretentiousness comes closer. A bald assertion of a piece of disinformation is used as the circular premise in making a tacit claim of the supremecy of the Korean identity at the expense of another culture.
Dokdo, fan death, mad cow, the cloning scam, the supposed U.S. military crime wave – these are examples. Most observers have noted this unfortunate habit but it’s difficult to put into words.
i am not blaming the americans. ok, saying it’s amerian imperialism at its worst really was a bit out of line, i admit. all i am saying is that a lot of the nasty korean characteristic hasn’t been helped by adopting america as the model for its modernization, from transport to religion, from pop music to education – like setting fire on extra dry leaves.. it could have chosen a bit more introspective, know-thyself cultural model from europe where not everything is anything goes..less flag-raising & less schoolchildren swearing allegiance to the state every morning.
Transport in Korea bears little resemblance to its US counterpart. In Korea, public transport is much more widespread, and it is affordable, clean, and safe from violent crime. Traffic laws, on the other hand, are irrational, proportioning blame to all parties involved even if one party obeyed all traffic regulations. Likewise, K-12 and tertiary education in Korea are very different from the US in all important aspects: curriculum, teaching methods, assessment, and services for students with special needs. Pop music is pop music. It all sucks.
Sentiments like yours, that modern Korean culture is at best a blind imitation of the US and at worst a product of cultural imperialism, are commonly heard from Koreans. Take a step back, Yuna, and ask yourself if it’s really true. This may be difficult if you’ve not spent much time in the US.
I know what you mean. I shudder every morning as I watch our naive, impressionable young students recite the Pledge of Allegiance while holding their right hands over their hearts. It’s an early step down the dangerous one-way path to mind control.
“…it could have chosen a bit more introspective, know-thyself cultural model from europe where not everything is anything goes..less flag-raising & less schoolchildren swearing allegiance to the state every morning.”
Nonsense. Why do you assert that Korea took the U.S. model – it is much more the Japanese model with little more than superficial similaries to the U.S. model.
OK I agree with Sonagi about flag waving. It’s absurd in any culture, but hardly peculiar to America and much less in evidence in America than many nations. The fact is America (include Canada) is much much more accepting of other cultures than most nations.
As for introspection, where did you get the impression that Europeans were more introspective than Americans? Are you denying the distinguished introspective trends in U.S. literature and philosophy? Being a highly individualist society (whereas European and Asian cultures tend to be more collectivist), the degree of introspection is if anything greater. If you examine U.S. academia, it just drips with introspection. Look at all the self-help books sold in the U.S. each year, etc.
Where is the “more introspective, know-thyself cultural model from Europe?” While Germany has such a tradition as reflected in their philosophers and artists but also has a legacy of nationalist aggression.
A more focused comment would have spoken of the stupid religious trend in U.S. society – the Puritans who persecuted “witches,” the fundamentalists who oppose abortion, etc. Thankfully, they are a minority, and most Americans today do not maintain an affiliation with churches.
i take back the imperialism part, nothing was forced. but americans were our main war heroes who came to the rescue, who then went on to not mind the dictators taking control in the South. because we chose to love everything american, when i talk to most koreans their “west” still means the U.S. – they know europe (and increasingly so) but everything from sliced processed yellow thing in a wrapper being passed as cheese to baseball game, it’s still the US.
in terms of transport, i mean owning/relying on cars and fuel guzzling larrrrrrge ones at that, and having 10-lane-motorways. at supermarkets i am always surprised to see tiny little ajumas stepping out of a huge hummer/tank and fill their trolleys with drums of milk and barrels of peanut butter. it makes no sense because korea is a small country and therefore could have done much better with a well-developed train + bike systems like they have in europe and japan.
in terms of pop music, korean hip-hop, rap, and boy – girls take their cue from the states. from R-Kelly, Usher, Justin Timberlake Pussycat Dolls to britney – their posters are in the background of the korean artists videos, and their beats can be heard in most of rain, wheesung’s beats, their pattern of clothes can be seen in girl groups and their choreography seen in boa’s music. what korea managed to achieve with their korean wave thing is that they chewed on the american culture and regurgitated it for the fellow asians. no, not all pop music has to suck or be a copy of something else like that.
in a truly tolerant multicultural society, pop music is like thriving flowers which can be exciting and should be exciting – a true movement.
i’ve spent time in the US. both in the red and blue states. maybe it’s because i’d spent time in europe prior, but i found US of A a weird and foreign planet, like bill bryson did when he went back. and then when i came back to korea, i recognized a lot of the bad korean characters are not helped and often are exacerbated copying the american way. those evangelist channels you see on US TV? some of those make the korean moksanims look reasonable.
oh yeah? self-help books = introspective???
that cracks me up.
actually that is another example. there seem to be endless “how to blah blah” by “someone. someone. PhD” in korea as well. thanks for another great example.
gotta admit the girl’s got a point.
How about this? In the name of HUMANITY, fuck ALL religion. $ included.
Well, I’d be very surprised, too. I wonder how many civilian hummers are actually on the road in Korea. 20? 50? 100? Koreans have become drinkers of cow’s milk, which is a staple of many European countries and their former colonies. If Koreans started stuffing their lunchboxes with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, then this is something new as I didn’t notice too many jars of peanut butter on grocery shelves while I was there.
Yuna, your discourse reminds me of comments written in the papers of my university students back in the late 90s:
“There are so many foreign cars on the road these days.”
At the time foreign-made cars comprised about 1% of the cars driven on the road, so why did Koreans perceive that there were “so many” foreign cars? A) because they never saw any before; and B) because the media was hyping up the increase in foreign car ownership with headlines screaming “Foreign Car Sales Up 200%!” A jump from, say 300 to 900 vehicles is 200% but still tiny fraction overall.
“There are so many foreign restaurants that haraboji can hardly find a place to enjoy a Korean meal”
I actually counted the number of Korean and non-Korean (Japanese, Western, spaghetti, pizza, burgers, etc.) restaurants along the street that leads to the front gate of Yonsei University, a college-oriented neighborhood where one would expect a disproportionately high number of foreign restaurants. The percentage of restaurants with non-Korean menus was about 25%. Around the corner in Yeonhui-dong the percentage was much lower.
I had so many conversations with Koreans, trying to persuade them that modern Korean society was more Korean, more distinct and homegrown than they gave it credit for, but I would have a better shot at converting my die-hard Catholic mother to Buddhism than getting Koreans to part with their cherished canards about their country and its relationship with the US.
“There are so many foreign restaurants that haraboji can hardly find a place to enjoy a Korean meal”
Actually those are Korean restaraunts pretending to be foreign and not generally doing a great job of it. Koreans like the appearance of adopting foreign cultures but the reality is that the adaptations are superficial. Oh, and bla bla bla aside, I find Americans to generally be way more introspective than Koreans – ahem myself excluded. bla bla bla…
wookinponub: “How about this? In the name of HUMANITY, fuck ALL religion. $ included.”
A lifetime Buddhist myself, my return to Korea and observations of organized Buddhism put me off Buddhism for the rest of my life.
This week’s Economist reports:
“Last week a Saudi judge sentenced a 75-year-old widow to four months in jail and 40 lashes for inviting two young men into her house. The errant youths, one of them a nephew of the woman’s late husband, said they had simply been kind enough to bring the elderly lady some loaves of bread.”
There’s a small subset of white women who for some reason become pathologically afraid of white men and civilized society and choose to marry men from the third world and attempt to live as their husband’s society’s womenfolk do.
Some are those “Not without my daughter!” idiots who marry Saudis or Iranians and then are surprised when bad things happen.
Probably the most famous woman (albeit posthumously) who illustrates this archetype is Barack Hussein Obama’s late mother.
Well, on one hand most of the muslim world is a lost cause. The best we can hope for is a business like relationship with them. We should studiously ignore their demands, while not interfering with their internal affairs. Ending the war of terror would be helpful in this regards, too.
sigh, my hummer/tank reference : not literally hummers and tanks, but the large korean SUV’s that they seem to be so fond of, and the larrrrgeness of the cars that they drive around in to go park in the underground supermarkets of COTSCOs and EMarts , and no i didn’t mean ajumas rode around regularly in US army battle tanks either, just in case you want to tell me how many of those are in circulation under ajuma ownership.
i am not blaming the american stuff per se. just pointing out some of the ill-adopted bits that don’t quite work in this country.
COTSCO->COSTCO
Perhaps, but then again, separating the two isn’t particularly honest, either. Even if we were to grant that not all Muslims believe that honor killings are OK, the fact remains that in many Muslim societies, honor killings are tolerated and, in some cases, legally protected:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing#Honour_killing_in_national_legal_codes
From another moderate Muslim state created thanks to the US and British taxpayer:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/girl-17-killed-in-iraq-for-loving-a-british-soldier-816301.html
Just in case anyone is interested;
“When British businessman Imran Ahmed was made redundant in January, instead of hitting the Job Centre he decided to arrange a one-man speaking tour of the United States to spread his message of peace and Muslim moderateness.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7964497.stm
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