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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

Because these people live in societies that have been colonized, manipulated, held down and bombed for decades on end, forcing them to get radically hateful and fundamentalist as a response and pass that on to others (younger men etc). Why would a white Swedish, Canadian etc. have any reason to do the same?

Besides, is it just terrorism that's incompatible with an "open society", or other acts of murder and oppression too? Because from the extermination of 6 million jews down to colonialism, slavery, the pogroms, nukes on civilians, gulags, the massacre in Manchuria, 2 world wars, etc, most western and asian countries don't look that good either.

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What's your point? That Islamic terrorism is compatible with open society because of a bunch of things were done to them over the past thousand years?

Or is it that because Western society has had some bad actors/states, that we can never thereafter point to bad behaviors or systems of thought?

>What's your point? That Islamic terrorism is compatible with open society because of a bunch of things were done to them over the past thousand years?

The question in the thread wasn't whether "islamic terrorism" was compatible with open society, but whether islam itself is.

And my point it, whether it is or not, that "open society" is not as "open" as it pretends to be either.

If some family had done "a bunch of things" (of enslaving, torturing and murderous nature) to your family "over the past thousand years", would you see them as friends? Especially if they continued those things in one way or another up to today, while celebrating how "open" and "tolerant" they are, (as opposed to you, who hates them).

I'm muslim and I don't share your point on me being a victim. I think that the best thing we, muslim that want to live in peace, can do, to get over this terrorism problem and stop our child from joining those organisations, is stop spreading the feeling that we are victims of the western world and accept that part of what happen/is happening to us is our fault. We need to stand for our selves by having better leaders, work harder and manage our wealth efficiently. As long as corruption and greed are common practices in our countries and no one is standing to fight them (or at least very little) we deserve what is happening to us. Those people who join ISIS or al qaeda think they are the victims of the western world, but the reality is that they are the victims of them selves and could have made a difference if they fought for there rights in there countries instead of chasing a chimera and killing innocent people.

I think his point is that we still have bad actors and states. We're just a lot better at PR and image management but to the dead that makes precious little difference.

No. You completely miss the point. Many of the terrorists were westerners recently converted to Islam. Also they did not come from poor social classes. They don't have the "excuse" of having grown in a troubled society, they were not desperate because of their shitty life,... Yet they decided to commit atrocities too.

>Also they did not come from poor social classes. They don't have the "excuse" of having grown in a troubled society, they were not desperate because of their shitty life

They were "westerners" only in their nationality not in their ethnicity. For some western societies it's difficult to imagine the difference, but it exists -- not everybody gets assimilated to the culture he lives in, especially if there's another culture he feels he belongs to by inheritance.

For those of people (who are not the majority of ISIS, but a small minority) it's about a twisted idea of revenge for what happened and happens to their (origin) countries and to people of the same faith there, and how the west views and treats them -- not about struggling with poverty.

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