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| Mad Wook wrote: |
| People in this country think that all Muslims are violent just because of the radicals. Middle-Easterners think we're all a bunch of God-less sodomites who take land for oil. All of it is nonsense. |
I had the chance to visit Turkey this summer for about a month, and it was really eye opening. Turkey is predominantly Muslim, but so many people don't understand what that really means. In the United States we tend to separate people from beliefs - people get to decide what ideologies to believe and pick and chose between them, almost matching our consumer like mentality. When someone goes crazy, we are quick to apologize for the ideological group they are from, labeling them as some fringe lunatic.
However in Turkey and many of the neighboring countries, you do not choose your religion, you are born into it. Every Muslim Turk I asked, were only Muslim in the same sense that some people in the United States call themselves "Christian." That is, they go to a Mosque only on special occasions, and by and large they almost seem agnostic in their day to day life. Basically, Muslims have their own version of the "cultural" Christian.
The group I was traveling with was assumed to be Christian, regardless of the fact it was not true. It was extremely difficult for the Turks to understand that the United States was different, that we were not born into a religion, so to speak. Since the United States is considered Christian, the Turks also assume that every piece of garbage that comes out of Hollywood, every news article, every government policy, etc. is also somehow part of Christendom trying to influence the world.
So you add that in with the history between Christians and Muslims, and you can start to see the disdain for the United States. To them it is just another Christian crusader country trying to oppress all of the Muslims, even though that could not be farther from the truth.
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