It is only Friday prayers which experience overflow like this.A picture may be worth 1000 words, but sometimes the words accompanying the picture are also important to digest.
Of over 2000 locations, this only happens in about a dozen places, mostly in crowded metropolitan areas.
Muslim congregations are trying to raise money to deal with their capacity problems.
They expect new centers to be complete in the next year or two.
Maybe it's cool to block the street back in the old country, but it just ain't gonna work in NYC.Feast of San Gennaro
they are a "melting pot," not a "mosaic."I understand that Canadians are taught this in school and parrot it thereafter at every opportunity, but I really have no idea what it means.
Just because some right-wing commentators abuse it to justify their views doesn't mean it doesn't exist and isn't a serious problem in some particular communities.The thing is, the right-wingers make the problem worse. They make things harder for people within the community who want to change things. They make it really easy for hardliners to accuse reformers of being in league with bigots who hate the community and want to destroy it. They make people in the communities fear that discussing problems plays into the hands of bigots. Every time someone brings these issues up in irrelevant discussions in order to paint Muslims as alien and primitive, it reinforces the idea that people who claim to want to liberate women are just really trying to discredit Islam. And that's not even the slightest bit helpful.
I'd really like to know some things about Muslims in the US. Are their children allowed to partake of sex-ed in school? Phys-ed and change and shower with the others?You realize, right, that the overwhelming majority of fundamentalists in the US are Christian? These aren't really issues that are identified with Muslims here.
Decades of European multiculturalism has created ex-urban neighborhoods that make any North American ghetto seem quite well integrated with the larger society. Many former Communist-bloc immigrants are also geographically clustered and poorly integrated but their native culture does not conflict with certain fundamental Western ideals as drastically. Pointing out that too often there has been a failure to integrate Arab, South Asian, and African immigrants and children of immigrants does not make one a racist.Why is it a problem that people want to live amongst their own? Especially when Europeans are so intolerant of their practices, why would they want to "integrate"?
Oh, if anyone has the actual numbers on what fraction of the Muslim population in France are citizens vs non-citizens, that would be interesting. It's a lot harder to find than I would think it should be.I think that France doesn't acknowledge religion in government statistics. (The same is true of the US: there's no question about religion on the census here, which complicates the process of gathering data about religious groups.) There are also some complicated definitional issues about who you count as Muslim: is it anyone from a Muslim background, or do you only count people who currently practice the religion to some degree? I'm not at all surprised that statistics about Muslims and citizenship are tough to come by. I'm sure that won't stop people from just making shit up, though.
really seems to be a demand that Muslims abandon their culture and adopt French cultureOh, to be honest I was responding to the "multiculturalism has failed" debate, rather than the blocking-traffic debate. I don't see why a ban on public prayer is necessary, however, as surely it is already illegal to impede the flow of traffic.
At least so far as establishing that public access takes priority to specialty religious interests. Make it reasonable—once a year big public event, with proper permits & public/charity events. A weekly shutdown of traffic space seems quite excessive to me.
"Multiculturalism has failed"This is kind of a flippant remark, but I actually like it. The reason it seems like multiculturalism has failed is that they haven't actually tried multiculturalism. Demanding that recent immigrants adopt your culture is not multiculturalism.
More like, you failed multiculturalism.
And another comment:Given that most murder victims of domestic violence are killed by partners when they try to leave, I'd say first world countries has a fair number as well, just under a different name.That's a pretty big 'to-be-sure'. Someone who faces the threat of honor violence from her family will not get peace even if the father or husband is jailed for the beatings and death threats, when there may be tens of other male relatives just as ready to punish her 'dishonoring the family'. This is a critical difference from the sort of domestic violence typically seen in the West, and maybe some people don't care to think through that distinction but to the victim it can mean the difference between freedom and a hopeless, endless nightmare.
To be sure, society as a whole doesn't approve, but you sure see a lot of "Why didn't she leave?" victim blaming... which, in the end, is still just another "how she deserved it" phrased differently.
If a Western victim of domestic violence manages to overcome the psychological manipulation and the fear of threats, she has a lot more places to go for protection. Her own family is not out to have her raped and killed, our society funds shelters where she can stay, our legal system tends to act against the (usually lone) perpetrator, and if she decides to try to have a life outside the shelter or her parents' or friends' house, being a woman without a male protector does not make her eligible for rape.posted by Anything at 2:03 AM on September 18, 2011 [11 favorites]
In the report, the only hope the woman had of escaping her family was the shopkeeper, who then spent five months in prison for helping her.
I will not believe you really think there's no significant difference, because what that means is that all those Western women who have found freedom might as well just go die or live a life of rape. I hope you'll appreciate my not taking your words at face value.
There needs to be an Abolitionist movement against the culture of honor violence. Ending it in the Muslim ghettoes of Europe would be a good first step.
In the report, the only hope the woman had of escaping her family was the shopkeeper, who then spent five months in prison for helping her.There's a whole hell of a lot wrong with that entire comment, which I can get into if you'd like, but that bit really jumped out at me. You linked to a news report about a woman in Afghanistan. It really sounds like you think that what goes on in Afghanistan tells you about "Muslims," generally. That's bizarre, given that Afghanistan is especially screwed up on many levels and given that the overwhelming majority of French Muslims come from or are the descendants of people who come from other places. It's sort of akin to pointing out how Haiti handles domestic violence allegations and acting as if you can use that to discern the attitudes of people from Italy.
Thanx for mansplaining that for me.I'm a woman, and I've got pretty good feminist credentials. I've also volunteered with a project that worked with immigrant women who were attempting to address domestic violence issues within their community. I'm not "mansplaining" anything when I point out that very real problems with the things you say here. Don't try to use feminism as a "get out of racism free" card.
Broken promises made to Adbelkader from on high are the ultimate betrayal as the Algerian troops play a crucial role in the liberation of Alsace. This battle is the movie’s most intense scene, made personal by the resonating words of Saïd spoken earlier in the film: “If I free a country, it’s my country. Even if I’ve never seen it before, it’s my country.”posted by BinGregory at 6:20 PM on September 18, 2011 [1 favorite]
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But, about 15 or 16 years to at Disneyland, I happened upon a little alcove that the park had set aside for a prayer by Muslim patrons. Made me feel good, both that there were a couple families using it on this particular afternoon (I would not have known the purpose of this space otherwise), and the fact that this big corporation made the space available.
So this makes me sad.
posted by Danf at 3:03 PM on September 17, 2011 [8 favorites]