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I grew up in a Muslim majority country too, but now live in a Western country. AFAIK, the country I grew up in has so far managed to avoid the creeping fundame

I grew up in a Muslim majority country too, but now live in a Western country. AFAIK, the country I grew up in has so far managed to avoid the creeping fundamentalism that has overtaken others. Emphasis here on 'creeping'. I am sure the situation in your own homeland or in Egypt etc. didn't begin overnight with a rush of armed people in the streets. It probably started with small groups of people saying "Well, situation 'x' goes against my beliefs and I believe it will be solved by removing/changing/killing the perpetrators of it". It may start in small, isolated groups, but get enough people in the same echo chamber and that sentiment slowly becomes normalised and over time becomes supported by ever growing actions. Egypt took 40+ years to get from where they were to where they are now? Well, its only been about a year since this other group of people have felt they have been allowed to air their grievances and fundamentalist policies blatantly in the open because they perceive they won't be held to account for doing so.

rayiner 9y ago
There is a difference between a nutjob and the harbinger of something really dangerous. I'm sure there are Trump supporters who says stuff like "we should execute anyone caught sneaking into the country illegally a second time!" But do they have a sympathetic ear among any substantial portion of the population? No. Meanwhile, when a jihadi says "we should execute people who leave Islam!" In Bangladesh, over a third of people agree with that nutjob, and in Egypt it's almost two thirds of people: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religi.... There is no equivalence. And from the point of view of someone like me (who 1/3 of my fellow Bangladeshis think should be put to death), it's pretty outrageous to even draw the comparison. You might hypothesize that after 40 years of Trump we might well be in a position where lots of people think illegal immigrants should be put to death. But that misunderstands the evolution of American society. The nutjobs who happen to support Trump have always been there: http://www.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-whites.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-wh... (even in 2013, more than 10% of Americans disapproved of interracial marriages). But there's been a monotonically decreasing number of those nutjobs every year (down from over 50% in the mid 1990s). Trump isn't a sign of some sort of reversal in that trend. He's just the result of a perfect storm of a particularly unpopular Democratic candidate and an unusual clusterf--k of a Republican slate.

rayiner 9y ago

There is a difference between a nutjob and the harbinger of something really dangerous. I'm sure there are Trump supporters who says stuff like "we should execute anyone caught sneaking into the country illegally a second time!" But do they have a sympathetic ear among any substantial portion of the population? No. Meanwhile, when a jihadi says "we should execute people who leave Islam!" In Bangladesh, over a third of people agree with that nutjob, and in Egypt it's almost two thirds of people: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religi.... There is no equivalence. And from the point of view of someone like me (who 1/3 of my fellow Bangladeshis think should be put to death), it's pretty outrageous to even draw the comparison. You might hypothesize that after 40 years of Trump we might well be in a position where lots of people think illegal immigrants should be put to death. But that misunderstands the evolution of American society. The nutjobs who happen to support Trump have always been there: http://www.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-whites.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-wh... (even in 2013, more than 10% of Americans disapproved of interracial marriages). But there's been a monotonically decreasing number of those nutjobs every year (down from over 50% in the mid 1990s). Trump isn't a sign of some sort of reversal in that trend. He's just the result of a perfect storm of a particularly unpopular Democratic candidate and an unusual clusterf--k of a Republican slate.