Islam Banned in Angola

[Gocka]

Gocka, I seriously doubt that Islam can be considered a violent and dangerous religion, the problems you've identified are not symptomatic of the religion per se but rather by the violent and criminal minority of its followers.

I dont think Islam is meant to be a dangerous and violent faith, but at the moment it has to be said that it is. I think it is a minority that are violent but let me throw this out there as an example: How many countries currently that are predominantly muslim are open war zones? Now how many extremists have been killed in places like Iraq, Afghanistan Pakistan and Syria to date? We are talking about 10's of thousands of extremists who have been killed and 10's of thousands more who are still fighting, how many extremists are there? In my opinion almost every muslim country has an extremists sect in it. Clearly there huge numbers of these extremists present in the world, other then your odd ball whack job Christian cult here and there can you really say the same problem exists in Christianity? Yes they are a minority but they seem to be a pretty large minority. Let me draw a comparison with Golden Dawn in greece. You cant say all greeks are racist and think like the golden dawn, but certainly based on the numbers they poll at you can say a significant number of greeks do think that way, and in a modern context its too many, also continuing the example of greece, how many silent supporters do you think the golden dawn has? Supporters who dont say it out loud but stand by and permit them to do what they do because deep down they agree with them and like what they do. For me islam has an alarmingly large minority of extremists, who have an alarmingly large group of silent supporters. If they were such a tiny minority they would all be dead by now, but they are still kicking strong. Just to note, I'm am not very religious myself, but I am only drawing comparisons here.

In your opinion would you say this minority is sizable are insignificant?

[EgejskaMakedonia]

I dont think Islam is meant to be a dangerous and violent faith, but at the moment it has to be said that it is. I think it is a minority that are violent but let me throw this out there as an example: How many countries currently that are predominantly muslim are open war zones? Now how many extremists have been killed in places like Iraq, Afghanistan Pakistan and Syria to date? We are talking about 10's of thousands of extremists who have been killed and 10's of thousands more who are still fighting, how many extremists are there? In my opinion almost every muslim country has an extremists sect in it. Clearly there huge numbers of these extremists present in the world, other then your odd ball whack job Christian cult here and there can you really say the same problem exists in Christianity? Yes they are a minority but they seem to be a pretty large minority. Let me draw a comparison with Golden Dawn in greece. You cant say all greeks are racist and think like the golden dawn, but certainly based on the numbers they poll at you can say a significant number of greeks do think that way, and in a modern context its too many, also continuing the example of greece, how many silent supporters do you think the golden dawn has? Supporters who dont say it out loud but stand by and permit them to do what they do because deep down they agree with them and like what they do. For me islam has an alarmingly large minority of extremists, who have an alarmingly large group of silent supporters. If they were such a tiny minority they would all be dead by now, but they are still kicking strong. Just to note, I'm am not very religious myself, but I am only drawing comparisons here.

In your opinion would you say this minority is sizable are insignificant?

One could argue that the US, and other major (predominantly Christian) powers have played an active role in making these countries war-zones. There are a number of countries where the majority are Muslim that are far worse now than they were before foreign intervention, whether it be by political or military means.

You're holding hundreds of millions of people accountable for the actions of a very small minority. That's simply not a fair generalisation to make. Most Muslims, in particular in Western countries, have assimilated quite well into our communities and have absolutely no tendency to promote or support acts of terror.

[EgejskaMakedonia]

You cant seriously tell me that there is no correlation between violence in the middle east and islam. In Christian countries the violence doesn't directly stem from Christianity but in the middle east much if not most of the violence can be directly linked to radical islam and infighting between islamic sects. If we are talking about today, right now then you cant seriously say that Christianity is a violent or dangerous religion in any way, you cant say the same thing about islam. Also how many Christian theocracies exits in the world, and how many islamic theocracies exist? RTG got it spot on above, secularism and islam dont seem to be able to coexist. How often and to what detriment does Christianity have an effect on modern democracy and rule of law? Christian countries are secular, while muslim ones are not for the most part. The crusades happened how many centuries ago, how far have be progressed since then, that is why Crusade like Christian countries dont exist because decent common folk would be against it. Any religion can be used for good and bad, but as I already said if you look at the here and the now then it is clear that Christianity is not causing many if any problems on the world stage with peace, democracy, rule of law and, coexistence while islam is.

There is a correlation, but it's to do with extremist sects of Islam, which aren't practised by the majority of Muslims. I see these particular sub-categories of Islam as a way to manipulate people into following their cause. How else will they gain support? We've seen it with Christianity in the past. It's an abuse of religion, used as a tool to brainwash people into fighting for their own personal agenda. Like I said earlier, it's the people at the helm that are to blame, not the entire religion. Turkey is a good example of a secular state that worked, prior to the most recent government coming into power. It's simply a cycle, almost every religion will be used as a tool of manipulation at one point or another. It's almost inevitable as it has such a wide reach.

What threat is 80-90 thousand Muslim Angolans to the state? If anything, by destroying their mosques and banning their religion, this will only incite potential hatred and encourage some individuals to use it as an excuse to introduce radical Islam. I agree, the radical interpretations of Islam should be stamped out as they do not represent the core religion. However, to deny an entire group the right to practise their religion is an outright breach of democracy.

To be honest, I thought that more people here would be against the ban. Given that Macedonians have been denied the right to their religion of choice, language and identity for centuries on end, it seems rather hypocritical that we turn around and encourage the suppression of other religions.

[Phoenix]

Gocka, the Muslim countries that you claim are open war zones are such because of many other reasons, not exclusively because of religion.
The Middle East is undergoing huge change in terms of geopolitics, economy, technology and the overthrow of a status quo that had existed for decades post WW II.

In many cases competing interests (various Muslim factions) are fighting to fill a vacuum or a changing order and much of this change has been initiated by the destabilizing dynamics of Western interference in the region in recent decades.

Once again, I doubt this is borne out of their religious teachings but more often than not a call to arms to unite members of similar sects to fight for causes that will benefit certain individuals...these are time honored tactics that pray on simple God fearing people.

[Gocka]

Gocka, the Muslim countries that you claim are open war zones are such because of many other reasons, not exclusively because of religion.
The Middle East is undergoing huge change in terms of geopolitics, economy, technology and the overthrow of a status quo that had existed for decades post WW II.

In many cases competing interests (various Muslim factions) are fighting to fill a vacuum or a changing order and much of this change has been initiated by the destabilizing dynamics of Western interference in the region in recent decades.

Once again, I doubt this is borne out of their religious teachings but more often than not a call to arms to unite members of similar sects to fight for causes that will benefit certain individuals...these are time honored tactics that pray on simple God fearing people.

I cant deny any of the above because its all true. I dont want to come off as muslim bashing because that is not my intention. If I really wanted to drive home one point about islam, it would be that it seems to be incompatible with secularism, individualism, and liberty. To me it has tendencies to be repressive by nature (not necessarily violent) yes the violent elements are a small minority, but the repressive side i think may even be a majority. In Saudi Arabia women are not aloud to drive by law, by muslim law, in Pakistan girls can not go to school, in the UAE public affection is punishable by jail time, in many muslim countries public hangings and beheading exist, cutting off limbs for things such as stealing, blood feuds, marrying off girls who have not even hit puberty, violence against other religious minorities, you can go on all day if you wanted to. This is the repressive side of islam that is incompatible with Judeo Christian values and rule of law that most western countries are built upon. I dont see these same problems existing in Christian countries and I think islam or abuse of it at a minimum is the reason.

As far as the extremist sects, I still contend that islam has a much higher percentage of extremist and silent followers then any other mainstream religion (Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, or Shinto.)

I'm sorry but kind of like communism, on paper it says this and that and it all seems great but in practice it doesn't quite live up to the expectations.

Almost every single muslim country has a sizable extremist contingent. Can there really be absolutely nothing in the religion that causes this phenomenon? Can it really all just be coincidence and a few bad apples?

Also please dont confuse me for some captain America team freedom cheerleader, because I am not. I despise most of US foreign policy, they have there own selfish agenda and have certainly made things worse in every single place they have put their fingers into. That said I think you guys are underestimating the sheer quantity of these extremists, I believe they are quite more then a tiny minority, more like a sizable and significant minority with a sizable minority of supporters.

Of course it is no ones business to go into these peoples countries and tell them how to live and by what rules, unless the majority of a population calls out for help, no one should stick there nose in to "assist".

I do feel bad about kind of being happy about Angola banning islam, I feel dirty for not being 100% against it as logic says I should be since it is a violation of basic human rights, but at the same time something about islam rubs me the wrong way. It shouldn't be banned by law, but I think muslims need to do more to stomp out and teach against extremism.

[George S.]

in the name of islam a lot of killing etc is committed.Even the muslim people themselves hate real fundamentalism.They say that fundamentalism should be driven out.
gocka you should be aware of the different sects of islam who hate each other eg sunni etc they have so much hate etc within islam.There are things within islam that aren't right when a religious person a teacher of islam can order people to kill ,hate etc.