Islamic moral panics - whats in a name? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#13969168
There have been a spate of reports recently in the UK related to the charging and sentencing of alleged members of child-sex rings. Referred by police as “sex grooming”, these gangs prey on (mostly) teenage girls, befriending them, earning their trust through drinks, gifts and money, and then – gang raping them. Not surprisingly, the usual suspects have come out of the woodwork and pounced on the alleged perpetrators “muslim-sounding” names to draw baseless conclusions about the “problem” of the muslim community, and their propensity to engage in these horrific crimes.

What we are seeing here is a classic ‘moral panic’ against a cultural ‘other’. As an Australian, I am all too familiar with such moral panics, particularly those that are directed against the muslim community. The most potent of these was over Lebanese gang-rapes in the late 1990s. Through the mediums of tabloid media and right-wing commentators, these moral panics seek to tar entire communities, and to associate their culture with characteristics that are both morally inferior and incompatibility with the host culture; to the extent that certain behaviours (eg raping) are not merely seen as deviant behaviours, but are actually considered normal within those foreign cultures.

Of course its needless to say that such moral panics have no basis in reality; there has never been any evidence of a culture of gang-rape within the Australian Lebanese community, just as there is no evidence of a culture of sex-grooming within the muslim community in the UK.

While using a few isolated incidents to smear an entire community is bad enough, what is even worse is when a crime is attributed to a particular group or community when it cannot possibly be known whether or not the perpetrator even belongs to that particular group or community.


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#13984986
Sounds like an uninformed blogger in Australia thinks he knows more about what's going on in Rochdale than the people of that town, without even going to the effort of researching any facts.

Not surprisingly, the usual suspects have come out of the woodwork and pounced on the alleged perpetrators “muslim-sounding” names to draw baseless conclusions about the “problem” of the muslim community


The perpetrators are no longer alleged. Since the blog was written, they have been found guilty before a court of law.

And they are not merely people with "muslim sounding names". All of the convicted come from a Pakistani or Afghan background:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-17993003 wrote:Judge Gerald Clifton said the men, eight of Pakistani origin and one from Afghanistan, treated the girls "as though they were worthless and beyond respect".


just as there is no evidence of a culture of sex-grooming within the muslim community in the UK.


I would point to the recent convictions as evidence. Not conclusive evidence perhaps, but evidence nonetheless.

what is even worse is when a crime is attributed to a particular group or community when it cannot possibly be known whether or not the perpetrator even belongs to that particular group or community.


Why can it not possibly be known? Because the blogger has his fingers in his ears and wears a blindfold?
#13991017
Sounds like an uninformed blogger in Australia thinks he knows more about what's going on in Rochdale than the people of that town, without even going to the effort of researching any facts.

No, my argument was specifically about even more uninformed commentators attempting to draw baseless and sweeping conclusions about the wider muslim community from this isolated case. I'm not pretending to know much at all about this specific case in Rochdale - and I don't need to for the purpose of my argument.

The perpetrators are no longer alleged. Since the blog was written, they have been found guilty before a court of law.

irrelevant to my point. Whether or not they were found guilty matters not an ounce to the validity of the sentence you quoted.

And they are not merely people with "muslim sounding names". All of the convicted come from a Pakistani or Afghan background

:roll: wow thanks for proving my point. Maybe you should have read the blog a bit more carefully before making this comment.

I would point to the recent convictions as evidence. Not conclusive evidence perhaps, but evidence nonetheless.

no, individual and isolated anecdotes are not evidence of a culture across an entire population. It is as true in this case as it is (for example) for saying that a single attack on an Indian student in Melbourne is evidence of a culture of racism against Indians by Australians (as Indian tabloids attempted to claim). You need to look at statistics and trends across the entire population - obviously.
#13991574
GandalfTheGrey wrote:No, my argument was specifically about even more uninformed commentators attempting to draw baseless and sweeping conclusions about the wider muslim community from this isolated case. I'm not pretending to know much at all about this specific case in Rochdale - and I don't need to for the purpose of my argument.


I didn't notice you make an argument - only quote a blog. Unless you are the original author of the blog.

GandalfTheGrey wrote:irrelevant to my point. Whether or not they were found guilty matters not an ounce to the validity of the sentence you quoted.


Of course it does. There is a vast difference between an alleged criminal and an actual criminal - especially when the tone of the blog is clearly designed to cast doubt on the guilt of these people, and the use of the word "alleged" is part of the efforts of the blog author to enhance this doubt. Use of language and choice of words matters.

wow thanks for proving my point. Maybe you should have read the blog a bit more carefully before making this comment.


What's that supposed to mean? I don't even know which particular point you think I've made? What makes you think your reading of the blog is any more valid than mine? Your accusation here is vague to the point of being meaningless.

GandalfTheGrey wrote:no, individual and isolated anecdotes are not evidence of a culture across an entire population. I


A criminal conviction is not the same thing as an "anecdote". You are simply twisting language here. Also, how many anecdotes does one have to hear before they cease being "individual" and "isolated"? Living in the UK, I have heard a lot of discussion about this issue. Some of the people who are stating that there is a problem are members of the very islamic community that you are leaping to defend.

GandalfTheGrey wrote:It is as true in this case as it is (for example) for saying that a single attack on an Indian student in Melbourne is evidence of a culture of racism against Indians by Australians (as Indian tabloids attempted to claim). You need to look at statistics and trends across the entire population - obviously.


The blog author, and now you, seem to be saying "there was a false moral panic in Melbourne, therefore every similar thing we hear from the UK is false". Uhh no. No logic there at all. You might just as well say "I heard about a flu epdemic in Melbourne, but it was a false alarm, therefore whenever I hear about a flu epidemic somewhere else it must also be a false alarm". As with most such things, the devil is in the details, and each case should be considered on it's own merits.
#13991640
I am the author of the blog, I thought that would have been obvious by now.

There is a vast difference between an alleged criminal and an actual criminal - especially when the tone of the blog is clearly designed to cast doubt on the guilt of these people, and the use of the word "alleged" is part of the efforts of the blog author to enhance this doubt. Use of language and choice of words matters.


Are you being serious? "Alleged" is the correct term to describe someone who has been accused but not convicted of a crime. What term, pray tell, do you expect me to use? By your logic, you should be bashing the daily mail (and every other news source who are legally obligated to use terms like "alleged" and "accused") for the language they used in describing the accused. As for using this correct term to cast doubt on the perpetrators guilt, you simply have no idea what you are talking about. Again, if I took the word "alleged" out of the sentence in question, it would not have made an ounce of difference to my argument - because I wasn't interested so much with what happened in Rochdale (the specific article I linked to), but the sweeping baseless conclusions being drawn from it. Using this isolated incident to draw conclusions about the greater UK muslim population is no less baseless after the accused have been convicted.

What's that supposed to mean? I don't even know which particular point you think I've made? What makes you think your reading of the blog is any more valid than mine? Your accusation here is vague to the point of being meaningless.


Do I have to spell out the entire blog for you, or are you going to read it for yourself?

Being of Pakistani or Afghan origin does not automatically equate to being "muslim" - but in any case, thats not even what I was responding to in the blog. If you bothered to read it properly, you would see I was responding to the claim that a "reasonable assumption" can be made that someone with a "muslim-sounding name" can be considered a muslim. If nothing else, the title of the article should have been the giveaway. Nothing to do with country of origin. I also refer you to the double standards I mentioned in my second argument: if the Abdul's or Mohammad's from Pakistan can be safely assumed to be "muslim" based on the law of averages, then actually so too can the Mathew Johnson's or John Smith's be assumed to be christian based also on the laws of averages. This is because surveys and census data indicate that most westerners still identify as christian. Yet we don't go around saying "gah - another christian crime" whenever someone with a western-sounding name commits a crime.

A criminal conviction is not the same thing as an "anecdote". You are simply twisting language here.

what? Of course it is. An anecdote is simply an account of a specific event. The Rochdale case is an anecdote, irrespective of whether or not a conviction was made. You seem to be mistaking an anecdote for an event that is only based on rumour or something. Whatever you want to call it, the events in Rochdale (or whatever other specific incident you want to refer to) does not necessarily accurately reflect the behaviour of the wider UK muslim population. It may, but simply saying it does without more substantial evidence is simply baseless.

how many anecdotes does one have to hear before they cease being "individual" and "isolated"?

The problem with anecdotes is that you can cherry pick whatever "evidence" you want to create a particular impression. The question you need to ask yourself is for every anecdote demonstrating deviant behaviour, how many more or less anecdotes exist out there that demonstrate conformity? You would have to somehow show that the deviant anecdotes are proof that these behaviours are rampant across the entire population. Ultimately, the anecdote game is pointless - islamophobes can produce 5, 10 or 100 anecdotes demonstrating deviant behaviour by muslims and can draw whatever negative conclusions they want from it, yet how is it any more or less valid than if I produce 5, 10 or 100 anecdotes of conformist behaviour (although examples of conformity are obviously less interesting and less likely to be recorded), and draw whatever positive conclusions I want from those?

The blog author, and now you, seem to be saying "there was a false moral panic in Melbourne, therefore every similar thing we hear from the UK is false". Uhh no.

not even close. Drawing baseless conclusions from single anecdotes is just as invalid in Melbourne as it is in the UK. Thats all.

As with most such things, the devil is in the details, and each case should be considered on it's own merits.

more true than I think you realise.

Lets examine the Rochdale and other similar cases on their own merits, and lets not blindly rush to conclusions about the how it applies to the wider muslim community.
#13992180
I disagree with you on a number of fundamental points. Firstly, you assume that there is an equally strong link between being European and Christain and being from Pakistan or Afghanistan and being muslim. This is wrong for two reasons. The survey figures you are quoting are European figures - but in this case we are specifically talking about Britain, which is well known as being one of the most irrelegious countries in Europe (2011 census: 40% responded "no religion"). In addition, you ignore the harsh punishment that many people in Islamic coutries face for conversion. In Afghanistan, apostasy is a crime that can be legally punished by death, whilst in Pakistan, vigilantes have killed several apostates over recent years. These countries do not have the same freedom of religion that we enjoy in the west, and hence their obedience to their religion is considerably higher. Whilst apostasy is not, of course, punishable by death in the UK, many of the immigrants from these countries have come here comparatively recently, and still retain strong elements of their former culture.

I live in the UK - I only have to wander around my home city to see that the Islamic community is far more faithful than the natives - there are simply more places of worship in the areas of town where they live (although I must admit, a similar claim could be made for our Polish catholic community).

However, it can also be said that the religion of particular individuals doesn't really matter. If there is an issue, then it is with the culture of immigrants from Afghanistan and Pakistan, and how this interacts with the native culture of Britain. I don't believe anyone is saying "these crimes were committed because these men were muslims". Of course if these men strictly followed the Koran, then nothing would have happened. The accustations are subtley different - instead they are "these crimes were committed because these men came from an Islamic culture that denigrates women". To see this culture, we don't merely have to look at the disgraceful way many women were treated under the Taliban, but also at the way women living in Britain continue to be treated. For example, there has been a lot of publicity recently in the UK media regarding forced marriages, which affect between 5000 and 8000 women every single year (home office figures). To many British people, such forced marriages are abhorrent, and sound like something from the middle ages.

Within Islamic society, women are expected to be both obedient and chaste. One could perhaps say that Christianity encourages similar virtues. However to see what is happening, we should look out of our windows, not at what is written in holy books. Within Britain at the moment, there is a severe problem within the white community with excess consumption of alcohol - binge drinking. Do you consider me racist for aiming this accusation at whites? Or just honest? With high levels of drunkeness come increased sexual promiscuity and exhibitionism. Not long ago, official figures revealed Oldham to be the binge drinking capital of the UK - and Rochdale, where these child grooming occurred, is not very far away.

So we have muslim men, from a society where women are taught to be both chaste and obedient, living alongside western women, who reguarly get drunk and flash to the local lads. Is it any wonder that they look down on such women? If muslim men are taught that the way their own women behave is correct, then surely they must view the behaviour of western women as wrong? Surely they must look down on the behaviour of western women? And how could such feelings not affect their attitudes and how they react to other people?

I find it completely credible that those who do become involved in such crimes - those who perform acts such as grooming, will be affected by the general attitude of their community to those of different races. That's why I'm at least prepared to listen to these allegations and try to understand whether there's any truth to them, rather than dismiss them out of hand as you appear to be doing.

You seem to think accusations of a grooming problem only come from, as you call it "the usual suspects" on the right. They certainly don't. For example, one of the accusers is the MP Jack Straw, a former Labour Cabinet minister, who represents a nearby constituency (Blackburn) as MP. He has stated that there is a serious problem - which is interesting, since as a Labour MP in the North West he is highly reliant on the Muslim vote for his re-election. I doubt he would have taken the risk of making accusations unless he firmly believed them. Another accuser is Baroness Warsi, admittedly a Conservative government minister, but also a prominent member of Britain's Islamic community. Or consider this, from that well know right-wing publication, the Guardian:

At present, the closest we have to a national estimate comes from CEOP's 2011 scoping study into "localised grooming", roughly synonymous with on-street grooming. Response rates to the researchers request for data from police, children's services and the third sector, were low. Based on these patchy data, CEOP suggest there are over 2,000 "potential offenders" in the UK. Most of these, however, will never have been formally identified, let alone arrested, charged or prosecuted. Ethnicity data were available for just one-third. Of these, 49% were white and 46% Asian: the proportion of Pakistani Asians remains unknown. However, in a country where Asians constitute 7% of the general population, this is a striking figure.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... t-grooming

and from the same article:

In our research, which focuses on large offending groups, we analysed police data from five major on-street grooming investigations. Of the 52 suspects charged, 83% were Asian Pakistani, 11% Asian other and 6% white British. These are shocking statistics and the over-representation of Asian offenders within this dataset certainly merits attention.


Perhaps you may want to consider the words of Mohammed Shafiq (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... users.html):

“In the early days the Asian community thought the exploitation was all made up, just BNP propaganda. Then they realised that it was actually going on and they found it abhorrent.


These most certainly aren't the "usual suspects"....

Now to specifically pick up on another point from your post. If I type "anecdote definition" into google, it brings up two options:

1. A short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person.
2. An account regarded as unreliable or hearsay.

As I said, use of language is important, and your use of the term "anecdote" to describe a court case is completely inaccurate, since a court judgement case can in no sense be seen as "unreliable or hearsay", neither does it qualify as a "short and interesting story", such as one might recount after a dinner party. I'm still not sure if your use of this term was deliberately dishonest, or simply in error.
#13993797
I disagree with you on a number of fundamental points. Firstly, you assume that there is an equally strong link between being European and Christain and being from Pakistan or Afghanistan and being muslim.

Absolutely not. In fact I specifically said that I don't believe this in my blog. UK census data from 2001 lists "christian" as over 70%, the proportion in the muslim community in the UK who can be considered "muslim" is undoubtedly higher. Other surveys consistently give the "christian" population as well over 50%. Thus if we are talking about the laws of averages, any given person in the west is likely to be christian - thus going back to my original argument, it constitutes a "reasonable assumption" to label them such.

Of course thats not the whole story though. Amongst this same population, most people will say they are "non-religious" - even though in the same breath they will identify as "christian". There is obviously an inconsistency here, but the reality is thats how westerners think. They want to have it both ways- they don't want to be considered religious, but they are not prepared to disassociate themselves from their christian heritage. So what I'm interested in is what does this mean for the muslim community in the west? If so many "christians" are actually not really christian, how many "muslims" are not actually muslim? In the west I would hazard a guess that the proportion is higher than you might think - your own observations notwithstanding. The point is though that it just shows how unreliable it is to point to people you know nothing about, and automatically say "ah, he's muslim" - and just as equally, pointing to a white person and saying "ah, christian".

This sort of blind labelling is especially problematic when we are describing people who are engaging in distinctly un islamic behaviour - drinking, luring girls out of wedlock, raping etc - which is exactly what the cases in question are about.

As I said, use of language is important, and your use of the term "anecdote" to describe a court case is completely inaccurate

absurd. All I meant was it is a short and interesting story about a specific incident - that fits your dictionary definition just fine. But use another word then if it makes you feel better, it makes no difference. Specific incidents like these do not show overall trends in the greater community - thats the only relevant point. Stop being disingenuous.
#13993844
I noticed you avoided responding to the majority of my post - e.g. the statistics from the guardian, the quotes from people who would normally be expected to be pro-immigration etc. If all you can find to quibble with is two lines, then I am happy.
#13994082
I noticed you avoided responding to the majority of my post


Not avoiding, I skimmed over most of it because its mostly irrelevant to the topic of discussion. But anyway...

I don't believe anyone is saying "these crimes were committed because these men were muslims".


I beg your pardon? Thats exactly what people are saying. "If muslims are not terrorists/rapists/mysoginists its in spite of islam, not because of it" - is the standard line we hear ad-nauseum - followed by a few choice out of context quotes from the Quran, plus some jibes about the prophets pedophilia for good measure. Have you read any of Fried Chickens posts? I don't blame you if you haven't though.

So we have muslim men, from a society where women are taught to be both chaste and obedient, living alongside western women, who reguarly get drunk and flash to the local lads. Is it any wonder that they look down on such women? If muslim men are taught that the way their own women behave is correct, then surely they must view the behaviour of western women as wrong? Surely they must look down on the behaviour of western women?


don't assume to know the thought processes of these immigrants - or children of immigrants. They have chosen Britain as their new home, and rejected their old home - so that has to mean something surely to a great many of these immigrants. No doubt there are some who despise their new culture - just as their are many white people who despise how their own culture has turned out. But you can't use these sort of assumptions to make sweeping conclusions about an entire population.

That's why I'm at least prepared to listen to these allegations and try to understand whether there's any truth to them, rather than dismiss them out of hand as you appear to be doing.


Think about what I'm actually dismissing. Am I dismissing the possibility that there is a cultural problem with how some men treat women in this particular muslim community in Rochdale? Not at all. What I am dismissing is the leap in logic from this to assume the problem extends to the entire muslim population - nation wide. Baseless assumptions and prejudice is whats on my radar - not actual evidence of social/cultural problems within society. Jus as you yourself said in your last post - judge things on a case by case basis, and on their own individual merits, don't make sweeping and baseless generalisations from single and isolated incidents. Am I saying the problem is not there? Not at all - I just haven't seen any useful evidence that indicates that it is.

Or consider this, from that well know right-wing publication, the Guardian:


I have considered it - in about 20+ pages of posts where this particular study has been argued to death in the minor news forum. Suffice to say, the CEOP study gives us no useful data on any cultural trends nation wide - as the authors themselves specifically point out.
#13994152
GandalfTheGrey wrote:I beg your pardon? Thats exactly what people are saying. "If muslims are not terrorists/rapists/mysoginists its in spite of islam, not because of it" - is the standard line we hear ad-nauseum - followed by a few choice out of context quotes from the Quran, plus some jibes about the prophets pedophilia for good measure. Have you read any of Fried Chickens posts? I don't blame you if you haven't though.


Now you are the one who is employing stereotypes. I certainly haven't read any such remarks re. this particular subject, although I admit I don't go out of my way to read BNP and EDL literature. I really don't care what those guys say, since it's entirely predictable. I'm far more interested in the debate in the more mainstream press where attitudes can be both more varied and nuanced.

GandalfTheGrey wrote:don't assume to know the thought processes of these immigrants - or children of immigrants.


No human being can truly understand the thought processes of another. All we can do is approximate, and try to make mental models that allow us to get a rough grasp of how people behave. Constructing and testing such mental models is a large part of the what PoFo does, and you are doing so within this topic, just as much as I am!

GandalfTheGrey wrote:They have chosen Britain as their new home, and rejected their old home - so that has to mean something surely to a great many of these immigrants. No doubt there are some who despise their new culture - just as their are many white people who despise how their own culture has turned out. But you can't use these sort of assumptions to make sweeping conclusions about an entire population.


We all construct mental models based on a combination of our education, abstract reasoning, and real world observation, whether that's the ordinary man on the street, or the greatest of scientists. Of course, different people put different emphases on these aspects. Some, for example, simply believe what they are told and are conformists. In the above case, I simply explained the abstract reasoning behind my faults, since this part is the easiest to explain in a short paragraph. Don't assume that the other parts aren't also present.

GandalfTheGrey wrote:Think about what I'm actually dismissing. Am I dismissing the possibility that there is a cultural problem with how some men treat women in this particular muslim community in Rochdale? Not at all. What I am dismissing is the leap in logic from this to assume the problem extends to the entire muslim population - nation wide. Baseless assumptions and prejudice is whats on my radar - not actual evidence of social/cultural problems within society. Jus as you yourself said in your last post - judge things on a case by case basis, and on their own individual merits, don't make sweeping and baseless generalisations from single and isolated incidents. Am I saying the problem is not there? Not at all - I just haven't seen any useful evidence that indicates that it is.


It sounds like your engaging in hyperbola again - for example no one is making any accusation against "the entire muslim population" - it's very obvious that many muslims are not involved in child grooming or the like. However, several of the links I posted suggest that the problem does extend beyond Rochdale. For example, from the same article re. Mohammed Shafiq:

The Telegraph wrote:His initial involvement with the issue was in Blackburn, but then he discovered it was going on in his own home town.


GandalfTheGrey wrote:I have considered it - in about 20+ pages of posts where this particular study has been argued to death in the minor news forum. Suffice to say, the CEOP study gives us no useful data on any cultural trends nation wide - as the authors themselves specifically point out.


I wasn't aware of this debate. Perhaps I will try to find it. However wading through 20+ pages of comments sounds like it may be hard work!
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