dialamah

Probably. One can understand that educating Aboriginal kids was for their welfare; even the aboriginals at the time agreed that having kids able to function in the white world was advantageous for them. But the way in which it was done, the lack of care and oversight, even when it was pointed out to the government, the cruelty that was overlooked and even deliberately hidden - that cannot be ignored because they meant well. Even today, parents who beat their kids to discipline then can claim they "meant well", but they don't get a pass based on their "good intentions" if the kid dies.

Most people consider rationale for killing, aka motive, as pretty important but here you are saying it's irrelevant? Are you sure that's what you mean? And why would propaganda exist at all, if it didn't result in some kind of "success"?

Well, if that's your stance, you are just wrong. Propaganda is effective; if it were not, genocides would not happen because genocide requires that the people being exterminated are dehumanized first. Dehumanizing requires painting the targetted group with a broad brush to demonstrate how "unlike us", immoral and dangerous they are. That paves the way for broad support to "get rid of them by any means necessary". Sure, it's not any "individual's" fault if some nutcase goes out and runs over a family. But if your voice is among those dehumanizing Muslims, then you have helped create a space in which someone can see such action as necessary. It's no different than the way the Bible or Koran create a space in which "some" people will decide it's neccessary to beat your wife or kill your gay son.

Look up how propaganda works. It's not as simple as "dialamah said X, so I did Y". It's that as my voice is added to many other voices saying the same thing, the likelihood of action by someone increases. Not to mention that saying "Islam is a misogynistic religion as evidenced by its teaching about a gender roles in society; this must be changed" is a lot different than saying "A woman in a hijab supports killing gay people". One is a criticism; the other paints with a very broad brush and is simply hate and fear-mongering.

I regularly see posts on Reddit from young people, in both Western and non-Western countries who can't wait to leave their home, so they can freely express their atheism. Sometimes it means just the family home; sometimes it means their entire country. These seem to be mostly from Christian and Muslim homes, with a sprinkling of others.

Well, they could be more specifically named, of course, but that might result in caution or sanction from moderators. There are about half dozen, plus BCSapper who remains perpetually confused but at least not deliberately hateful. Propaganda requires the painting of a group with a very broad brush, whether it's to denigrate Jews, Christians, gays or Muslims. People who pretend "criticising Islam" is the same as assuming being Muslim = murderer and a driving goal to take over (if not now then certainly as soon as they get to x% of a country) create a space in which a mentally unbalanced person will think it's necessary to make a statement by driving over a family. The same kind of propaganda gets young men and women to strap on vests and make a similar statement with their own lives and as many other lives as they can. It's really sad.

Many of the Christians in the Middle East and Africa would share very similar beliefs. These regions are high in religiosity, and when there is high religiosity, women, children, gays and non-believers suffer. This is as true in the Western world as it is in other regions of the world. The difference in Western countries is that such religiosity is limited to small areas, rather than the entire society.

I don't know about you, specifically, but some posters on here have said ignorant and hateful things about Muslims. They've assumed Muslims are a monolithic group, dedicated to murder of innocent people for the flimsiest of reasons. As an example, see Argus' post just above, if you wear a hijab ... you must want to kill gays/non-believers.

While you use anecdotal stories of the most extreme, presented by the media, to argue that Muslims everywhere are evil incarnate. And there you go again - betraying your Islamaphobia. That mindset is as stupid as assuming that someone who wears a cross must therefore be homophobic, believe that divorce is wrong and that women belong in the kitchen, submissive to their husband. What you believe about Islam is not based on anything but the most extreme interpretation, practiced by only a tiny fraction of all Muslims. The rest, if not for the outward sign of a woman in a hijab, would be virtually indistinguishable from a conservative Christian in their views.

You first, Argus. Look in the mirror, examine your innermost self, and come back and tell "the left" how it is so racist. Criticizing Israeli policy toward Palestine is not the same as anti-Semitism. But I'm not surprised you can't tell the difference. And, just for the record, I condemn people who confuse Israeli policy with random Jews living in their country or neighborhood and think it's ok to attack or belittle Jews because they don't like what's going on there and blame Israel.

My brother in law refuses to have a certain couple to his home, because the one time they visited, he didn't like the way the husband treated his wife. When I brought that up as an example of a moderate Muslim, you declared either he, or I, was lying. Yah, you do. And the women who wear hijab? You claim that wearing hijab is proof positive that they're the most fanatical/extreme and don't belong in Canada. My hijab-wearing neighbor doesn't even go to Mosque, and neither does her husband. They don't care about gays or non-believers, and they think murder is wrong - especially murder in the name of Allah. Your assumptions about them, based solely on the hijab you'd see on her, betrays your mindset. So yeah, you do.

You don't, though. You, specifically, assume that every Muslim who doesn't support and condone violence, terror, misogyny, homophobia is lying. Because in your mind, you can't be Muslim and also be moderate.

I don't like Islam either. But I don't find it necessary to call adherents to Islam liars, misogynistic, fanatics, barbaric, homophobic, backward, dangerous, and constantly bring up the actions of the worst of them to characterize all of them, like the anti-Islam group on this forum do. MH is being very specific in his villification; he's not including every Canadian, or every white, non-Muslim Canadian or even every poster on this forum. His remarks is directed specifically to the people who can't understand the difference between criticizing a religion and pushing the idea that every member of that religion supports and engages in the most extreme behavior featured on the news.

Just as "the left" cannot understand the racism of "the right" when it comes to any issue involving non-white people.

Not when you are in the job, though. MH can't criticize the people who consider all Muslims the same as the worst of them. And anyone who thinks a guy who ran down a family did it because he had to "do something" about the religion is not nearly as unbiased as he pretends

How often have people on here, specifically the ones MH is referring to, declared that moderate Muslims should step up and condemn the acts of Islamic extremists? When Islam haters have one of their own go rogue, why aren't they stepping forward to condemn that act? Do they secretly approve some "doing something" about that religion? Nobody pretends Islam is just fine. Too many pretend that every Muslim is one prayer away from killing the nearest non-Muslim. The hatred and ignorance shown by the anti-Muslim posters is no different than the hatred and ignorance shown by anti-Western Muslims.

But we aren't supposed to criticize people who misrepresent Muslims as all being extremists, apparently. And when one of those people runs over a family, we should simply accept that he was doing "something about" the disgusting religion of Islam.

Why are you attacking MH for calling out people who feel the same about Muslims as the killer in this news story? If we're to call out people for killing others because they're "different", why shouldn't Islamaphobes be called out too? Are we only allowed to call out Islam/Muslims for murdering innocents? "How disgusting Islam is as a religion doesn't change because some extremist took into his own hands to do something about it," Do you, in your heart of hearts, think this Muslim family deserved to be mowed down because their religion is disgusting?

Let's review .... And here's where you lift the goalposts: And here's where you committed to moving them ... You may as well admit you are wrong, rather than trying to pretend you were talking about something else.

Yeah, I don't get why people think any government is happy about the hit their economy takes due to lockdowns. Makes no sense to me; a healthy economy is lifeblood to a government.

Who implemented it is irrelevant; it was policy - as you've just admitted.

In 1907, Dr. Bryce submitted a report on the state of the residential schools; it's an interesting read. The money the government provided for the running of the schools is detailed, the circumstances leading up to the establishment of the schools is reviewed, and the outcome for students is provided. Dr. Bryce supported the reasons for the establishment of the schools, but was very concerned about the health impacts on the children: "It suffices for us to know, however, that of a total of 1,537 pupils reported upon nearly 25 per cent are dead, of one school with an absolutely accurate statement, 69 per cent of ex-pupils are dead, and that everywhere the almost invariable cause of death given is tuberculosis". This report also points out that where schools were on or near reserves, and the kids were able to remain with their parents, they had much better outcomes in both education and health. He called for changes, but was ignored and eventually removed from his job because he kept pushing the issue. The second link shows virtually the same debate being held here today: In the Media: Children are dying! Those poor children, we must do something! Those selfless teachers, willing to spend their life to civilize the Indian! From the Government: This report from Dr. Bryce is causing quite a stir. We can't change anything; the Churches would object. Anyway, we have to just accept that many of these kids will die. We'll direct the schools not to accept sick students* Give the schools more money so they can improve the kids' diets. *The schools needed students to get money; they wanted more kids, not less. Dr Bryce's report commented on the problem the schools already had with declining enrollment.

I got this far and realized you didn't actually read what I wrote.

Quote from Sir John A McDonsld, 1879: When the school is on the reserve, the child lives with its parents, who are savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits and training mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly impressed upon myself, as head of the Department, that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men."

Wow, such minimizing! The removal of these kids to residential schools was an overt and deliberate attempt to remove from them their culture and identity. It was government policy. They weren't sitting around saying "aw gee, we just can't find enough teachers to go to the reserves, we have no choice but to remove them from their families, from toddler on up, put them hundreds or thousands of miles away so they can't find their way back, permit no communication between them, and not bother to advise families when kids were sick or died". Nope, the discussion was "How can we make these kids not indian? We must remove them from their parents, and prevent any communication between them. Oh, kids died? Way too hard/expensive to figure out who to inform, or to send the kids back. Just cause the Indian agent could tell us where to find the kids doesn't mean he'll have any idea how to find kids' parents." It was the choice of the religious organizations who ran the schools to abuse the kids. It was the combined choice of the religious organizations and the government to decide that dead indigenous kids could just be stuck in the ground - without any acknowledgement of their existence - and their families didn't need to know what happened to their kids. That some people are trying to minimize this shows just how far some of us haven't progressed since these schools were set up.