I’m getting the feeling that I should’ve used another example, as the mere mentioning of Pegida seems to obfuscate the point I’m trying to make. So let’s recap, shall we?
Yes, that would be the best, because PEGIDA is a very bad example. For example some of their promoters are ex-criminals and questionable characters, many of the people demonstrating do not even follow PEGIDAs name and so on.
A few post back You and Sander made a post which went along the lines of: It’s irrational to fear terrorist attacks, there’s a far greater chance to die in traffic than from some nutjob blowing himself up. While this statement is true in itself, I responded by pointing out that terrorist attacks have far reaching consequences for society, not just for the victims and their relatives.
Does that also include terroristic attacks like from Breivik? Don't forget, he killed 77 people after all, but I don't see people being worried about Christianity, even though it is pretty obvious that Christianity as religion contains a lot of crazy lunatics as well - see the ones that have nothing better to do than attacking abortion clinics, protesting against homosexuals etc. The fact that Russia for example is very homophobic and also using Orthodox religion as reason does not spawn the question in the European Union if Christianity is inherently dangerous or changing society.
And the reason for this is rather simply.
Because we ARE mostly Christian societies. We do not connect situations like the terrorism by Breivik or actions in Russia - violence against Homosexuals, with Christianity as whole. It would give us the feeling that those attacks would come from us, from the inside and that is something that makes us feel very uncomfortable, so the mass media is avoiding it. People don't want to identify their view or religion with lunatics. In other words, they don't want to question the things they believe in.
However, Muslims make only a very small part of our western world, like Germany, 2,5% of the population are Muslims. It is more in France, somewhere between 8%-10%, but still very low compared to the clearly Christian confessions, at least if you can believe Wikipedia. So most people in the European Union or the US will see the Islam as a foreign religion and see it as a foreign culture. This makes it very easy for the media to connect attacks by lunatics with the Islam as whole, painting it as inherently violent religion, even though the exact same violence can be found in nations mostly dominated by Christian confessions - see Russia.
Considering historical and geographic circumstances the Islam is the dominant religion in many poor nations with either no or limited education which have usually no or a very poor infrastructure, like Afghanistan. It is no surprise that you will find more violence and places of extremism in such situations. It is also no surprise in my opinion that people, like some Muslims, in Europe which eventually face only resentment, xenophobia or poverty will be eventually easier to influence by radical and extreme views. This is not unique to the Islam or Muslims. This also counts for young Jewish people in Israel facing extreme conditions, or Christians in Germany moving to the far right because of poverty and frustration. It is simply a human condition. In the past people made it a habit to blame the Jews for everything. In the US they did it with the Chinese or Irish, xenophobia goes hand in hand with times of high immigration. People see their old and known values in danger by cultures they don't know and understand.
