Comment Re:Muslims? (Score 1) 880
Seriously? What do you call the gunning down of a civilian airliner carrying 270+ passengers from the flag carrier of a muslim country? Are you telling me that if muslim rebels in the middle east not attached to a government gunned down an Israeli El Al aircraft and then some claimed that they thought it was an American military Hercules or something, we would not be calling it terrorism. Can you even imagine a single media outlet in the west, anyone, who would not call that terrorism and the biggest terrorist incident since 9/11, 9/11 part II etc. You really think excuses of 'accidentally' shooting down a civilian airliner would wash in that situation?
Stop thinking with that blinkered attitude where terrorism is defined according to your cultural or social background, yet you consider that definition to be universal, sui generis, and a binary classification. A lone gunman is a lone gunman until he unfurls a muslim flag and then suddenly it's terrorism. I am not saying this isn't terrorism. But how much you identify this incident with lone gunmen going nuts posting hate online and then going on a shooting spree, and how much you identify it with a distant conflict in Syria that this guy was influenced by but had no direct affiliation with, is down to perspective. At least try to understand there is some fucking nuance involved.
To all the 'insightful' commenters about how Islam is inherently evil, and it is impossible to practice it without being violent, fuck you, Sydney will get through this, just stay the fuck away from my city. I am not going to tell the Turkish muslim lady who I get my lunch from, 100m (~110 yards) from Lindt cafe in Martin Place that her religion is inherently violent because some posters on a forum said so, that she is not practising it correctly by waking up at 5 am every day, getting her family to work and running a little hole in the wall shop all on her own that sells the cheapest and best lunch I can find, and that she needs to either un-convert (whatever the fuck that is meant to be) or leave this country. Or by sending her daughter to the best school she can afford and soon to university. No, she's doing it all wrong, this fucking nutcase is the one who is doing it right, and she needs to hand in her muslim card. Slashdot told me so.
I am not a fan of twitter, but I will gladly stand with the #illridewithyou crowd than be identified with you lot. There is a lot that needs to be figured out, and the way the IS ideology has appealed to hundreds of muslims in Sydney is clearly a serious issue. But no solution involve a suspension of basic human rights or officially classifying hundreds of thousands of residents of this city as inherently suspicious. Call it a cliche if you want, but that would be un-Australian.