• VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works
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    6 months ago

    From a different article;

    She said the group appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent, possibly from Syria, and estimated they were aged 18-25.

    https://metro.co.uk/2024/07/02/lesbian-couple-beaten-gang-homophobic-attack-birthday-night-21142932/

    It’s not comfortable but stories like this are exactly why the right is gaining popularity and if the left continues to pretend not to see them and act like this then of course people aren’t going to take us seriously.

    We need articles to give us facts and talking heads to explain what’s being done and what the big plan is to make sure that letting in large quantities of immigrants in doesn’t have negative consequences for regular people.

    If we act like we’ve never heard of such things while they are listing distressing examples then the average undecided is going to be swayed their way. As an idealist I wish the world had no boarders, we don’t live in that world and i cant force the.world into it by ignoring reality. all the European countries going right have the same big reason for the shift, we can’t go on pretending that if we ignore people’s concerns and real problems that everyone else will ignore them too.

    • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

      The “Right” harps on the fact that they are Syrians to somehow paint all Syrians, all Muslims, all immigrants with the same brush, stoking fears of population replacement and other such bullshit.

      The “Left” says that we have already laws for mob violence, apply them. Bad people who are Syrians exist just like bad people who are Italians exist and just like bad people who are Americans exist and bad people who are Canadians exist. There is zero reason to weaponize the bad behaviour of those bad people to enact discriminatory policies against an entire community. Just apply the existing law. Persecute these assholes for the homophobic hate crime they did. Why is that not enough? In fact, the only people who would say this would not be enough are people with a hate agenda of their own, i.e., the far right…

      • SleezyDizasta@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        There’s a very strange phenomenon in Western left wing circles where there’s a sizable portion that would go out of their way to defend these criminals and their behavior, and even go as far as attacking the victims, just because of their religious or ethnic background which they deem is beyond criticism and anybody who tries to call out these behaviors is racist. Calling out hateful aspects of cultures and religions and actually holding them accountable is not weaponizing anything, that’s just being principled.

        • Floey@lemm.ee
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          6 months ago

          I’m in multiple left circles and had literally never heard such a thing, this is a conservative strawman.

          • SleezyDizasta@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            You’re either intentionally looking the other way without noticing or you’re in a bubble. You can literally just browse the comments under this post or this very thread to see examples of what I’m talking about

        • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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          6 months ago

          Bro you did the thing right there.

          If you condemn and criticize the individuals you would be right: these are vile people who acted out extremist hateful sexist violence. They suck, they should be arrested, tried and have the book thrown at them because their actions are disgusting.

          If you want to make it about “cultures” and “religions”, well, you’re offside. You’re extrapolating from a bunch of criminals to entire culture and an even larger religion. That’s bigotry and “the left” would be correct to call you out on it.

          Canadians as a whole are not violent islamophobes because some idiot shot up a mosque. Canadian culture is not vile and antisemitic because some other idiot shot up a Jewish school. The Christian religion as a whole is not antidemocratic just because some US evangelical trumpists did the January 6th thing. Same principle applies to Syrians or Muslims as a whole.

          This is basic shit.

          Ps. And no, the “aspects” caveat doesn’t work. We didn’t have a moral panic about antidemocratic aspects of Christianity because of Jan 6th. But it seems the far right loves to stir panic about “aspects” of Islam or brown people all the fucking time. You want to talk about “aspects” without being a useful idiot for the far right? Raise voices from within that community, who will know exactly how to walk that fine line.

          • SleezyDizasta@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            If you condemn and criticize the individuals you would be right: these are vile people who acted out extremist hateful sexist violence. They suck, they should be arrested, tried and have the book thrown at them because their actions are disgusting.

            This is what happens when you start sacrificing common sense in favor ideological dogma. See, sometimes issues go beyond individuals. When we see patterns emerging, we have to address the issues as societal problems. When you have one person burning down buildings you have horrid individual, when you have 1000 it’s a societal crises. While we have to criticize the individuals and hold them accountable for their actions, we also have to address the reasons why this is a trend to begin with so we can take steps to actually fix the issue.

            You can’t do this red herring where you ignore the trends and the big picture and just have tunnel vision on the one instance. This is what conservatives try to do whenever there’s a school shooting. They’ll do everything but admit that guns are the problem. What you’re doing right now is the same as a conservative going “it’s not the guns, it’s mental health”, “you can’t say it’s guns because there are good gun owners”, or “why don’t we ban cars”. Come on dude, at least try to have a honest conversation about this.

            Canadians as a whole are not violent islamophobes because some idiot shot up a mosque. Canadian culture is not vile and antisemitic because some other idiot shot up a Jewish school. The Christian religion as a whole is not antidemocratic just because some US evangelical trumpists did the January 6th thing. Same principle applies to Syrians or Muslims as a whole.

            Are you really trying to virtue signal to me the ol’ classic “not all muslims”? At this point you have to be disingenuous. No shit, nobody is implying otherwise. You’re just trying to find every excuse to defend islam and homophobic cultures. No, criticizing a culture or religion is NOT accusing every single individual of that culture or religion of being whatever is criticized. If we follow your own line of logic then criticizing homophobia in the US makes you a bigot because not all Americans are homophobes… Not only is this stating the obvious which nobody is contesting, but it serves no purpose other than to distract and detract from the points being made.

            And no, the “aspects” caveat doesn’t work. We didn’t have a moral panic about antidemocratic aspects of Christianity because of Jan 6th.

            Wtf are you even talking about? We literally did. Not necessarily about Jan 6th because that wasn’t religiously driven, but we have moral panics about Christianity every other month. From book bans to abortion rights to erosion of church and state to whatever. We regularly criticize Christianity for it’s questionable teachings and culture… that’s why it’s presence has weakened so much over the years. Why is it so hard for you to be consistent and apply the same principles to other religions like islam?

            But it seems the far right loves to stir panic about “aspects” of Islam or brown people all the fucking time.

            Have you ever wondered why the cops didn’t actually do anything to stop the criminals here? How about the many other instances like it in Canada or the UK or Sweden or whatever? It’s because they’re scared of being called racist. This isn’t me making things up, this is an actual thing. Here’s the most famous example from the UK:

            https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/grooming-gangs-iicsa-racist-fears-b2007649.html

            https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28967427

            https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-28951612

            Over there they have these massive muslim gangs all over the country that have been systematically young girls for DECADES. The most infamous of these gangs happened in the city of Rotherham where the muslim gang raped over 1400 children for over 30 fucking years. The cops barely did anything about any of it because they were terrified of being called racist. Why? Because every time they try do something morons like you crawl out of the woodworks to call them racist form mobs, berate them, and jeopardize their jobs.

            It’s not just the cops, the victims were shunned into silence too. Not by the criminals, but by the supposed “progressive” Labor politicians. For example, this ghoul publicly liked and retweeted a tweet that stated the following:

            “Those abused girls in Rotherham and elsewhere just need to shut their mouths. For the good of diversity.”

            https://metro.co.uk/2017/08/23/mp-shares-tweet-saying-abuse-victims-should-shut-their-mouths-for-good-of-diversity-6872181/

            The worst part is that when you actually hear the stories of the victims, it is the most gut wrenching thing. You have little girls going home from school only to get kidnapped, beaten, and raped repeatedly. Some of the girls even got pregnant and gave birth to babies they were forced to have. Just when these young girls needed the human rights activists, the feminists, the progressives, the police, the politicians, the justice system by their side… they were abandoned by all them. These people either did nothing to not offend the mob or outright defended the criminals. Everything here is a part of the infamous Rotherham child abuse ring:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal

            However, it should be noted that the raping is still going on today in that same city. It should also be known that Rotherham is NOT the only city. There’s literally dozens of other examples of the same exact thing happening:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sexual_abuse_in_the_United_Kingdom#Notable_incidents

            It’s not just the politicians either, the muslims leaders in the city were fully aware of the rapes and they went out of their way to cover them up:

            https://www.sanskritimagazine.com/rotherham-child-sexual-exploitation-muslim-leaders-aware-nothing/

            The reason why I brought all of this up is to demonstrate how this IS about culture and religion, how it IS a societal issue, how it IS something that goes beyond individuals. Those girls are all humans who had their childhoods robbed from them, some of them might never recover. It’s truly is sad. What’s worse, is that the same issues that prevented the Rotherham case from being brought to light are happening again and again. All of this could have been prevented if people like you stopped this virtue signaling crusade and actually held a set of principles for once. Can you imagine if all the groups I previously mentioned in the UK stuck by their values, called out the problematic aspects of islam and homophobic cultures right away, held the homophobes accountable for their hate, and actually stood by the victims immediately? Perhaps thousands of those girls wouldn’t have ended up as statistics for this ongoing tragedy.

            These lesbian girls are the same. They went through something that’s truly horrid, and instead of the LGBT groups, progressives, cops, and so many other supposed allies coming to their rescue… they all instead rushed to victim blame and defend the criminals. These girls aren’t the only LGBT victims in Canada to these types of incidents. Why? Why are we letting people live in fear like this? Why are we not defending the victims? Why are we not calling the vile aspects of islam and islamic cultures? Why are we not deporting these criminals? How many more victims do there need to be? How many more attacks? How many more traumatized souls? What I am saying is so well documented and there are so many examples, that I could give you as many sources and examples as you could possible want. I just want to understand what it will take for you to actually come to your senses and admit that maybe, just maybe, there is a problem with islam, there is a problem with homophobia form islamic cultures, that maybe we need to address it as a society?

            You want to talk about “aspects” without being a useful idiot for the far right? Raise voices from within that community, who will know exactly how to walk that fine line.

            Just an FYI, I actually lived in Syria (I lived in a suburb of Damascus called Jaramana from 2006-2009). There’s literally no way you know more about this than me. You’re trying to lecture from a place of ignorance. I’m 100% certain you have no idea what a sahih hadith is or what verse 4:34 says in the quran or what a fatwa is without looking them (which you should). Seriously, you know absolutely nothing about islam, islamic cultures, how muslims view homosexuality, or anything really. The image you have of islam is not based in reality.

            • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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              6 months ago

              Yea, not interested in a culture war.

              I wrote multiple times that the perpetrators here should have the book thrown at them. Existing hate crime laws are sufficient for that. Saying that …Canadian cops are scared to act for fear of being called racist is HILARIOUS. This is Canada, buddy, land of kicked-in indian kids’ skulls.

              And to cut to the chase, all your long tirade amounts to what exactly? Practically, in practice, in terms of actual policies that you want to see enacted, what are actually you advocating for, what do you want done?

              Because we can argue about whether 1 billion Muslims, 2 million of them in Canada are bad people or not until next spring, but ultimately it comes down to good or bad policy. Say your piece.

              • SleezyDizasta@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                Yea, not interested in a culture war.

                Lol you’re the one virtue signaling and trying this into something it’s not. I’m giving you actual data backed points about a measurable problem and pointing out how you’re making it worse.

                I wrote multiple times that the perpetrators here should have the book thrown at them. Existing hate crime laws are sufficient for that.

                And I very explicitly wrote mutliple times, that you’re master plan is idiotic because it doesn’t actually address the root cause of the problem. Clearly, the current hate crime laws don’t mean shit when these types of incidents are happening and in increasing frequency, not to mention the criminals got away because the cops didn’t do shit.

                And to cut to the chase, all your long tirade amounts to what exactly? Practically, in practice, in terms of actual policies that you want to see enacted, what are actually you advocating for, what do you want done?

                Brief list of common sense policies:

                • Ban all foreign funding to religious institutions within the country
                • Deport any non citizen residing in the country immediately if they committed a serious crime
                • Increase integration and assimilation programs for migrants
                • Change the national narrative about diversity from a mosaic to something more successful like a melting pot
                • Make it policy for the local police department to explicitly stand in solidarity of the victims in publicly circulated cases like this
                • Require secularism and liberal values to be taught at all religious views
                • Ban gender segregation at all educational institutions
                • Explicitly iterate that blasphemy and criticism of islam and other religions is NOT a hate crime, but a fundamental part of free speech
                • Establish a system to make it easier for children and women to more easily report domestic violence and abuse at home and quickly receive help, and add support in languages where islam and other radical religions are more prominent
                • Establish a quickly accessible and reliable system to tip authorities about extremism that may lead to violence

                Literally any of this beats your master plan of doing nothing to address the issue at a societal level and putting your head in the sand.

                Because we can argue about whether 1 billion Muslims, 2 million of them in Canada are bad people or not until next spring, but ultimately it comes down to good or bad policy. Say your piece.

                If this all your two brain cells managed to get out of what I said then I think I can understand why you’re position is the way it is, and I have no interest in wasting my time any further.

                • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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                  6 months ago

                  First of all, take your disrespectful and insulting little soundbites and shove them up your ass.

                  This response is a courtesy, and I’m going to focus solely on your policy suggestions. Further smarminess and disrespect are going to be left unanswered.

                  So:

                  Ban all foreign funding to religious institutions within the country

                  We already have a robust framework. See for example bill C51 of 2015. There is no evidence that people are being radicalized by imported preachers. In fact we have been exporters of Christian fundies and other crazies to the US for a while.

                  Deport any non citizen residing in the country immediately if they committed a serious crime

                  This is already explicitly the case, even for permanent residents.

                  Increase integration and assimilation programs for migrants

                  We don’t do assimilation in this country, this is Canada. Our multiculturalism is constitutionally a key national value and a distinguishing element of our national identity. Multiculturalism is who we are.

                  For integration there are multiple programs such as the the CIIP, and Canada’s sponsorship program allows refugees to be immediately integrated into a specific community. It has been wildly successful. The actual problem we have is with french lessons in Quebec that are a bit overwhelmed. So yea, increasing funding for programs for immigrants, sure, I’m with you there.

                  Change the national narrative about diversity from a mosaic to something more successful like a melting pot

                  Not gonna happen. And this is not some “narrative”. Multiculturalism like I told you is a foundational element of our identity. It’s so important it’s in our Charter of Freedoms (equivalent to the US Bill of Rights", see section 27: “This Charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians.” In this country, multiculturalism is literally in our definition of what it means to be free. No party will touch this.

                  Make it policy for the local police department to explicitly stand in solidarity of the victims in publicly circulated cases like this

                  You can’t have a public policy that is about “publicly circulated cases”. The law is the law. And the duties of police to protect fall squarely within their existing legal framework. But the problem more often than not is that violations to people’s freedoms come from the police, not despite the police.

                  Require secularism and liberal values to be taught at all religious views

                  This is the closest you are getting to Canadian reality. Private religious schools need to follow the provincial curriculum as defined in each province. There has been in fact push back eg in Ontario about forcing them to teach sex ed. Quebec has similar requirements. The private schools don’t like it, but they have to do it regardless. Public funding for private religious schools is definitely something many Canadians would like to see chopped.

                  Ban gender segregation at all educational institutions

                  That’s not a thing around here.

                  Explicitly iterate that blasphemy and criticism of islam and other religions is NOT a hate crime, but a fundamental part of free speech

                  Our last blasphemy law was repealed a few years ago. I don’t know what public policy would red “explicitly iterate” our Charter freedoms.

                  Establish a system to make it easier for children and women to more easily report domestic violence and abuse at home and quickly receive help, and add support in languages where islam and other radical religions are more prominent

                  Multiple systems for helping victims of domestic abuse exist. Canadian multiculturalism here means exactly that multilingual and culturally sensitive approaches are prioritized. But more funding for victims of abuse? Sure!

                  Establish a quickly accessible and reliable system to tip authorities about extremism that may lead to violence

                  The cons pitched a “barbaric practices” hotline a few years back that was a right joke. They are still being ridiculed for it and are trying to distance themselves for it.

                  Other than that, Canada does have a robust security and intelligence establishment thank you very much.

                  • SleezyDizasta@lemmy.world
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                    6 months ago

                    First of all, take your disrespectful and insulting little soundbites and shove them up your ass.

                    Follow your own advice

                    This response is a courtesy, and I’m going to focus solely on your policy suggestions. Further smarminess and disrespect are going to be left unanswered.

                    I literally don’t care.

                    We already have a robust framework. See for example bill C51 of 2015. There is no evidence that people are being radicalized by imported preachers. In fact we have been exporters of Christian fundies and other crazies to the US for a while.

                    The bill you cited doesn’t ban foreign funding to religious institutions within the country. I didn’t say anything about foreign preachers, I specifically said foreign funding to religious institutions within the country… which is what you quoted. These are two different things.

                    This is already explicitly the case, even for permanent residents.

                    Doesn’t mean anything if it’s not enforced. Case in point:

                    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-most-immigrants-with-deportation-letters-are-still-in-canada-cbsa/

                    We don’t do assimilation in this country, this is Canada. Our multiculturalism is constitutionally a key national value and a distinguishing element of our national identity. Multiculturalism is who we are.

                    Cringe. Also, assimilation and multiculturalism don’t contradict each other. In fact you can’t have multiculturalism without a degree of assimilation. A country that exists as nothing more than collection of ethnic and cultural enclaves that don’t even bother to uphold a common identity, is not a country. You need an overarching culture and identity that all these groups assimilate to have a sense of social cohesion.

                    So yea, increasing funding for programs for immigrants, sure, I’m with you there.

                    At least we agree on something.

                    In this country, multiculturalism is literally in our definition of what it means to be free. No party will touch this.

                    Multiculturalism is just the idea that a bunch of cultures can coexist together in the same country. Both the melting pot and the mosaic are different implementations of multiculturalism. The only difference is that the melting pot as a concept encourages different cultures to interact and mix to create something more unified while the mosaic encourages cultural segregation and isolation. One is clearly better than the other.

                    You can’t have a public policy that is about “publicly circulated cases”. The law is the law. And the duties of police to protect fall squarely within their existing legal framework.

                    That’s fair, the police should always stand in support of the victims until the due process is carried out and the justice system does it’s thing regardless of how public the case is. The criminals and the victims should not receive similar treatment from cops, as I have very extensively explained and evidenced with the Rotherham case in the UK which you have conveniently ignored because you can’t come up with a rebuttal for it.

                    But the problem more often than not is that violations to people’s freedoms come from the police, not despite the police.

                    That’s a separate issue. Just because such an issue exist, that doesn’t invalidate or delegitimize this issue.

                    This is the closest you are getting to Canadian reality. Private religious schools need to follow the provincial curriculum as defined in each province. There has been in fact push back eg in Ontario about forcing them to teach sex ed. Quebec has similar requirements. The private schools don’t like it, but they have to do it regardless. Public funding for private religious schools is definitely something many Canadians would like to see chopped.

                    I would take it a step further, on top of making them follow the provincial curriculums, I would hold the schools with repeated violations accountable by suspending their licenses to teach.

                    That’s not a thing around here.

                    Sex segregation is a very big part of islam. It’s more common than you think.

                    https://mua.ca/about-us/ (this is an actual school in Canada that openly advertises gender segregation)

                    https://nationalpost.com/full-comment/tasha-kheiriddin-religion-has-no-place-in-public-school-and-neither-does-sexism

                    https://csrs.nd.edu/evaluations/canadian-islamic-schools-unraveling-the-politics-of-faith-gender-knowledge-and-identity/

                    https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/01/31/clashes-over-religiously-motivated-gender-segregation-canadian-british-campuses

                    This is unfortunately way more common than you think.

                    Our last blasphemy law was repealed a few years ago. I don’t know what public policy would red “explicitly iterate” our Charter freedoms.

                    It’s more of upholding current principles and policies rather than adding new ones. It’s becoming increasingly more common for things like defacing the quran, drawing pictures of mohammad, criticizing islamic scriptures, calling out islamic traditions like how mohammad raped a 9 year old girl, or calling certain aspects of islamic culture like gender segregation and homophobia are being labeled as islamophobic or hate crimes and are being shut down. There’s obviously some people who do some actions that does cross the line and become hate crimes, but the things that I listed are not those things.

                    But more funding for victims of abuse? Sure!

                    Yippie, we agree on two things in a list of things that should be common sense.

                    The cons pitched a “barbaric practices” hotline a few years back that was a right joke. They are still being ridiculed for it and are trying to distance themselves for it.

                    Yeah… no, I’m thinking something more along the line of the FBI tips system where anyone can easily find and file report about potentially dangerous individuals or groups to the FBI so they can at least investigate it. As far as I’m aware Canada does not have anything that’s similar to that.

                    Other than that, Canada does have a robust security and intelligence establishment thank you very much.

                    Clearly there’s a lot of room for improvement considering how this incident just happaned.

      • BCsven@lemmy.ca
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        6 months ago

        I wondered the same, race was never a thing at our grade achool or highschool either in 80s or 90s. Like it never crossed our minds to think the brown/black kid, they were just kids, and some were the super popular kids. One of my white friends was super into rap and breakdancing and his entire friend circle was black. They called each other niggah as a greating ( but ER ending back then) Once I got into a career though I met a lot of the generation above me that were racist assholes. i’m not sure why our gen didn’t win out over the older gen.

      • SleezyDizasta@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        The middle eastern immigrants who can in to Western countries in 1970s until the 2000s were mostly educated, affluent, secular, and had a desire to assimilate. The middle eastern immigrants who started coming during the 2010s until now are mostly uneducated, poor, religious extremist, and have zero desire to assimilate. There’s a pretty big shift in the pre and post Arab spring middle eastern immigrants. These immigrants we’re seeing now here in North America and Europe are the real representation of those societies and why they are the way they are.