(no subject)
I shouldn't be surprised, but I am saddened, that the reaction of someone Jon and I know to the Dayton mosque gassing was to complain that moderate Muslims don't condemn extremist Muslims loudly enough. Putting aside the obvious responses - a moment's Googling will find roughly a bajillion examples of Muslims condemning terrorism, poisoning sleeping children is not much of an anti-terrorism strategy, collective punishment is not justice, quit blaming the victims - something struck me about this line of argument that I'd never thought of before. Why assume that the opinions of "moderate Muslims" would have any effect on "extremist Muslims" anyway? This seems to assume that Muslims are a single group of people, all of whom have a say in any action one of them takes. We wouldn't expect, say, US Pentecostalist Jimmy Swaggart to take any notice of Australian Jesuit Frank Brennan, so why would we expect, say, a radical cleric in Islamabad to take any notice of an Iraqi refugee in Ohio?