Online: Mainly positive bc of Hakim
IRL: Basically none
Online: Pretty much the same as any other person.
IRL: Two close friends of mine are Muslim. One likes anime, and the other likes sports (soccer in particular) and back in Junior High (until the pandemic struck) we would occasionally “sword fight” with some sticks we would find in school.
Online: Same as every religious, national, orientation or ethnic group honestly. A few nutjobs or wierdos, but the vast majority are good, regular, and nice people. Though I see that more indicative of the people themselves, and not their religion or identity.
In person: Very limited interaction. For the people I have met however, their religion rarely comes up except for minor things such as diet, small practices, or experiences.
Online I have the pleasure of regularly exchanging with Puerto Rican muslim comrades who are very nice!
IRL I haven’t had many occasions for social interactions with Muslims, class background is to blame
Online: can’t say, haven’t had much interaction, oddly enough.
IRL: the most notable is my former boss, a Tatar national and a proud Muslim. His faith mainly came up during various company celebrations (because he doesn’t drink), while his nationality occasionally came up when he complained how “all Russians are lazy and don’t want to work”.
And that’s about it. Despite my city having a Muslim population large enough to block roads during religious holidays, personal interactions for me are quite limited.
“all Russians are lazy and don’t want to work”.
Say whaaaat? I thought Russians were the most “masculine”, “hard-working” people out there. Or so they like to advertise themselves as, anyway.
As I’ve mentioned, the fellow is Tatar. He does not associate himself with being Russian
IRL, great. The only time I’ve really ‘noticed’ is when going for food and having to pick halal places or to meet after sunset during Ramadan.
Online? Can’t say I’ve ever really noticed except on Lemmygrad, where a few comrades identify as Muslim. Those interactions have been pleasant.
Online, they’re as varied as every other internet user.
IRL, I’m in Hong Kong. There is a large muslim community in my village (I’m far from the city center). The only Pizza place is run by the muslim community, so when I get pizza I get halal pizza. It’s delicious.
Halal food doesn’t taste any different from regular food, aside from not having pork or alcohol though?
Yeah. Their pepperoni pizza tastes very different considering every other pepperoni pizza I’ve ever had used pork.
Instead of ham & pineapple they use Chinese-style chicken sausage and pineapple.
It can. If the guidelines are followed properly, the animal is not as stressed and tense at the time of slaughter, leading to more tender meat.
Though I doubt that’s the main factor here.
I had a Bosnian muslim friend in HS and middle school. He was hilarious and really smart(but very immature when he wanted to be, which was often lol). He was not a communist but being Balkan, he was anti-US military, anti-interventionist, anti-Imperialist. He also did really really immature stuff at times, but he was a kid. Example, in Middle school, we held a pretend vote for president in our Social Studies class and the students could sorta endorse a candidate and try to convince students why you like them or whatever. I supported Bernie and he supported Trump. I asked him why, he wasn’t a Republican, he said it was funny af to him that he, a muslim, would support Trump while the news was talking about the muslim ban, I didn’t think it was funny particularly, it was kinda fucked up, but he was a troll before all else and tbh knowing him he’d never cast a vote in his life. Other than that, I have a muslim manager and she’s undoubtedly the nicest manager I’ve ever met. Other than that, most of the muslims I know aren’t very religious and barely identify as muslim, they see themselves as Arab before anything else
Those that I’ve talked to offline understand imperialism very well, but I have noticed that they tend to be a bit mysogenistic against women than liberals, but not as bad as conservatives and I correct them on it. Religion tends to make people essentialist, and with that comes some baggage. One of my social clubs has a Wahhabist, but to me he seems just as annoying as an evangelical christian. I avoid that person. Other muslims I have known are pretty cool.
One of my best friends is a muslim woman. I do not find interactions with her (nor other muslims) to be radically different from the ones I have with people of other religions, other than for the rather small factor of having to keep in mind certain restrictions (non-halal meat all year round and Ramadan when it’s that time of the year) when drafting plans with friends.
Online: Super cool, I had many conversations with some on various subjects, with the few I talked to. IRL: Unfortunately I didn’t have the opportunity to meet many because in my region they are an extreme minority, the place with the largest population of Muslims is 140km from my city, but in recent months refugees from Afghanistan arrived in my city, but I didn’t have the opportunity to meet any of them personally.
Opposite of most people in this thread, I don’t think I’ve interacted with many Muslims online, at least not discussing communism with them.
I’m very involved with the Muslim community at my university, I’ve met so many great Muslim leftists. One of my good friends runs the Student Justice for Palestine organization at the university, I love him to death, although we vehemently disagree on a few things. For him specifically, I’ve never seen him regurgitate anti-CCP Uighur propaganda, but many prominent Muslims in his organization have very loudly done so. He also organizes many marches, which I respect his passion for, even if I personally disagree with peaceful protesting to achieve the goal he wants. He believes the movement is big enough to demand real change, so I don’t really see the point in peaceful marches if you think your movement has enough traction. I’m of the opinion that peaceful protesting is great for spreading the word wide, but it’s not going to shake up the bourgeoisie like rioting will.
