We have a 700 year head start

Submitted by FrenchKiss (United States), May 8, 2006 at 07:36

"One day we will find out that a western woman showing her legs in a western country is an offence against the Koran.”

A mere century ago women were not allowed to expose their legs in public, remember? They didn't call the era that marked the end of Victorian oppression "the roaring 20's for nothing." Up until quite recently you didn't even see nursing mothers in public places. It was considered indecent since women's breasts have obtained honorary sex-organ status. Men get to walk around topless on warm summer days, but a woman doing the same faces a conviction that would require her to register as a sex offender.

"Let me rephrase it in uncontroversial terms. Muslim culture is different. It is so far apart from our own that the differences can hardly be reconciled. Even the most extreme Catholic, Protestant or Jew would not get to that degree of radicalism. "

Lets throw a few things out there for you to mull over...

• The Spanish Inquisition
• The Salem Witch Hunts
• The Nazi Holocaust
• Western Imperialism
• Near extinction of the indigenous people of this (America) land
• Slavery followed by years of segregation and oppression
• Japanese Internment

At the turn of the 20th century we jailed homosexuals; heck you might even recall the recent case of Lawrence vs. Texas. It also hasn't been long since Jews have been welcome here. In fact, the "white slave" panic that we're seeing revived as "sex trafficking" was blamed mostly on the Jews and Chinese who were vilified as perverts and deviants that tricked innocent women into prostitution and slavery. It's widely discredited now, but it had the public in a fervor for a long time.

People still get killed for being gay (without government sanction, of course) And Jewish people were executed at a much higher rate through the mid 20th century due to unfair trials and prejudice amongst the general population. We are only just beginning to come around, thanks to the "political correctness" you abhor.

It would be interesting to know how Islam will evolve, and see where they're at 2000 years into the game. But we'll all be dead in 700 years so we'll never know. The best we can do is compare them to where the Western (old world) culture was at in 1400 CE. I believe we were throwing scientists in prison back then for declaring that the Earth revolved around the sun and arguing against the geo-centric theory.

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