I have no issues with Vavra's views.
I have no issues with his views either. At least not his views on Islam. They seem pretty sane to me.
I was at a football/soccer match in an Islamic country after the Paris attacks, and before the game there was an unscheduled minute of silence for the victims. To my utter astonishment, roughly five thousand of the twenty thousand in attendance stood up and cheered. With smiles on their faces they all started chanting "Allahu Akbar' - or, God is great.
This was incredibly upsetting because it was happening all over the stadium - it was a disparate group of people, from all walks of life, and they were celebrating the deaths of young people during what was supposed to be a minute of silence. I was literally almost sick to my stomach. It was loud, celebratory cheering. The person I was with couldn't understand why I was so upset. Prior to this, I had always assumed that people who supported ISIS were terrorists, and to discover that roughly 20% of the Islamic populace openly supports and endorses the deaths of 'infidels' was shocking. I was simply ignorant of this fact.
Since that terrible day, I've read up on the Islamic situation, and there are literally thousands of metrics all over the world that clearly point to 20% of the Islamic populace endorsing jihad. 20% of one billion means that Islam has a problem - one which the rest of us can't ignore.
Why am I saying this?
Because I see a lot of confusion on this issue. Since religion is involved, many people want to push the debate about Islam under the carpet. Islam is an ideology. When you attack an ideology, you're not attacking people - you're attacking their ideas. It's perfectly acceptable to attack an ideology - unfortunately, Islam rather bluntly states that you aren't allowed to do this, and that, in and of itself, is a very, very dangerous thing.
I don't believe that conversation about this topic should be shut down. This issue reaches all of us - even as gamers - and we need to have frank, open discussions about it.
Yes, gamers can choose to boycott developers because of their views - but what if the gamers simply don't understand those views, or aren't educated enough to interpret them, or maybe even have an agenda of their own?
