I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

b’shalom

bananabrain

And I’m supposed to take seriously his claim that he wants social cohesion? If the top Hindu people constantly brought over Narendra Modi, wouldn’t Muslims complain?

Well there has been an increase in attacks against Muslims (and Asians in general) post-9/11 and post-7/7, along with other instances of racial abuse and discrimination. Anecdotally I’ve occasionally mentioned this myself here on PP, although I believe there have also been some official surveys confirming the fact.

hmm. i think what people fail to understand about nazi germany is about how all-pervasive the anti-semitism was. if you got your windows broken, don’t bother complaining to the police, don’t bother with insurance, you were just screwed. if you got discriminated against at work, forget it. here, muslims have a whole raft of legal and societal protections that simply weren’t available to us. no matter how daft a case (e.g. shabina begum and her jilbab) you can always find someone to fight your corner.

There’s also been a marked increase in Muslims leaving the UK for the Middle East (Gulf States etc) due to the noticeable wind-change in attitudes towards Muslims here in the UK during the past few years. I think it was even covered by some news-related programmes on the BBC a little while ago.

well, if i see some evidence, i may revise my views, but this all sounds a bit anecdotal to me.

I am firmly of the view that the nutters that want to blow us up should be caught and dealt with. That is not what I seem to be seeing, if you see what I mean.

precisely – rather than blaming the whole thing on imperialism and iraq.

Many people have simply replaced the word “P*ki” with “Muslim” in their own minds and attitudes. To paraphrase what one of our American cousins (Camille) recently said during a different debate on Sepia Mutiny, people with an agenda of hatred are often just looking for an opportunity to perpetuate this agenda.

as jews, we are not unaware of this. this is why the fact that it is fundamentalist muslims that are responsible for much of the anti-semitism in the UK is so a) terrible and b) self-defeatingly ironic.

there can be a gradual, creeping slide towards increasingly extreme behaviour if enough people are perceived to implicitly support it (or would be unwilling to take any definitive action to oppose it, apart from just “making appropriate noises” or even staying completely silent) and/or if they can find enough plausible-sounding reasons to rationalise, justify and excuse it. Do not be naive about all this.

and yet jews are still being accused of being paranoid. there’s a damsight more evidence that people are out to get us than that they’re out to get muslims.

also bet you that a lot of the hysteria about hijabs, niqabs etc would not have been so pronounced if “the jihad” had never occurred, and that there would be a greater degree of tolerance and accomodation about such things.

probably not niqabs, but certainly hijabs would not have been so utterly and negatively misconstrued.

@refresh:

you’re better off finding out from them direct:

http://www.aauk.org/
http://www.salaamshalom.org.uk/
http://www.sternberg-foundation.co.uk/

as a fan of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan I’ve been considering that it’s a tremendous tragedy that such music (and the philosophy behind it) isn’t promoted more forcefully here in the UK.

i couldn’t agree more. qawwali for everyone!

@douglas clark:

godwin’s law, eh? never heard that one before. well, i guess it’s right – except that it wasn’t me that produced the reductio ad hitlerum, but abdul bari.

German propaganda was probably based on a little truth and huge lies. We are seeing a similar thing here. A little truth, huge lies. And a populace that is deliberately fed that diet. That is no different from Germany in the 30’s, where other failures were supressed, in order that the favoured béte noir could be the aim of the arguement in order to win ‘hearts and minds’. For evil reasons.

except that in germany, the jewish community and its representatives had done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING – the charges against them were 100% trumped up. there was no jewish omar bakri. no jewish abu hamza. no jewish finsbury park mosque. no jewish 9/11 or 7/7. their offence was, “scientifically”, to be subhuman. here, 13% of muslims think suicide bombing can apparently be OK in some cases – and of course, we all know which cases those are.

We do not see all Muslims as suicide bombers, largely, ’cause we know the occasional Muslim, and think that the Muslims we know are unlikely to want to blow us all up. We are able to spot a, sadly, politicised media for the self serving fools that they actually are.

precisely.

@random guy:

you knew “what the Islamists are up to”. Can you elaborate? Are you calling Bari an Islamist? To me, the Islamist issue is a completely seperate debate and leads down the well-trodden “Foreign Policy or Political Islam” is the problem route (and we had a wonderful end to that here)

i’m not saying anything specific. i’ve talked to enough islamists to know what they’re about. their aim is well known, well-publicised and as stated – whether via pizza hut, al-ghurabaa, the saudis or whoever. i know they all want different things, but that just means we need different tactics to counter them. and, yes, as far as bari is concerned, he is linked to islamist parties in bangladesh – i believe there are people here who are happy to back that up.

Is it acceptable for you to have a problem with muslims in general as a Londoner and political Islam as well?

i don’t have a problem with muslims in general, except when they start making excuses for murderers and would-be murderers. i do have a problem with political islam, because a) it is religiously incorrect and b) it wants to murder me, my family and virtually everyone i know.

So are you one of the people who feels like dictating to Muslims about how they should practice their religion?

yes, i am. i say they need to read their bloody sources, learn what the religion actually teaches and come to an understanding with the modern world. if that’s “dictating”, then fair enough. just as presumably, you would “dictate” that my religion ought not to involve oppressing the palestinians. which it doesn’t, although many idiots of my faith seem to believe it does. i’ll damsure dictate to them, too.

In that case, is it not acceptable for me to have issues with MI5 making generalisations about my community in the name of domestic (and foreign) policy?

i wouldn’t say that. i’d refer you to douglas’s earlier point about the city watch of ankh-morpork. it is their job to treat the rest of us with suspicion and paranoia, just as it is the job of the press to treat everything with scepticism, analysis and second-guessing.

b’shalom

bananabrain

In the context of your “perception of Muslims as a Londoner” you stated that you knew “what the Islamists are up to”. Can you elaborate? Are you calling Bari an Islamist? To me, the Islamist issue is a completely seperate debate and leads down the well-trodden “Foreign Policy or Political Islam” is the problem route (and we had a wonderful end to that here)

So the question is actually one of how specific you are about your particular beef with Muslims as a Londoner. You seem to be worried about culture and terrorism as well. Is it acceptable for you to have a problem with muslims in general as a Londoner and political Islam as well? If I am reading you correctly, you also take issue with the way Islam is practised in London? So are you one of the people who feels like dictating to Muslims about how they should practice their religion?
Undeniably, the ‘problems’ you refer to are related to the climate of hate and fear perpetuated against muslims since 2001 (would you have brought this up before then?). You can’t have this debate without referring to very strained community relations. And this is where the global impact of T.W.A.T is being felt locally.

In that case, is it not acceptable for me to have issues with MI5 making generalisations about my community in the name of domestic (and foreign) policy?
I do not believe I am making unrelated statements here, and I am certainly not trying to start a flame war. All these issues are actually related, unless you are referring to something else which is more specific (What the Islamists are up to in London perhaps?).

Douglas, thanks for your replies

Sunny, agreed that the MCB does not do itself any favours but as a political platform it is doing what any political body does – looking out for its own. So that is why you get the statements which appear one sided. And unfortunate as it may be, Muslims in general have a very reduced political platform, especially in terms of media exposure in the mainstream, and also in terms of having opinions which are at odds with the Government’s view of what Muslim organisations should be like.

That’s how I see them. I wish it were easier for them to treat others the way they wish to be treated, but maybe that would be political suicide or and sell fewer papers.

On a more happy note, where I’d disagree with Jai is on what ordinary folk, folk like me for instance, actually think.

We do not see all Muslims as suicide bombers, largely, ’cause we know the occasional Muslim, and think that the Muslims we know are unlikely to want to blow us all up.

We are able to spot a, sadly, politicised media for the self serving fools that they actually are. A question for you. Is Melanie Philips a rich person because she failed to underestimate her audience? No, I would argue that she spotted a market gap and filled her boots with it. Still and all, she did not make a ripple in the pool of what John Junior described as the ‘good folk of Auchtermuchty’. They have never heard of her, nor her bloody book. If they think anything at all about the issues that we address here, it is probably from first principles, whether the, one, Muslim they know is an OK person or a complete idiot. that is what judgements are made of, sad to say.

That’s what it’s like out here in the sticks. Frankly, I do not know whether you guys are lucky living in the Big Wen, or whether you are so up yourselves that you can’t see the wood for trees.

What I do admittedly see is a lot of politically engaged folk. And that is right healthy, so it is.

Is that not the problem? The, admittedly, few Muslims I know these days, are not the politicised ignoramouses of popular culture. The women I used to know did not think that their culture was without issues, particularily in relation to chosing a partner.

The men I knew did not subscribe to the MCB agenda, in fact they didn’t even know they existed.

Not to say they didn’t have ‘traditional’ values. Values I’d perhaps have shared up until I had a grown up daughter of my own, when you tend to see the other side of the equation.

I agree with you Random Guy, and I think this is one of my biggest concerns. However, the duplicity on behalf or orgs like MCB make it very difficult for people to take them seriously, and thus stand up for Muslims when needed.

If I only knew Muslims through hearing MCB pronouncements I wouldn’t have a favourable view either.

I know what you are saying, Douglas .

Obvilously I’m joking which is in keeping with the ridiculous agreement that this thread seems to have with Baki’s analysis of the policitical simularities between Britain today and Germany in the 30s.

TFI

I am getting myself into a twist here. I think you know I am on your side, and against folk that think violence is any sort of answer?

I am, for my sins, part of what you’d see as Jai’s majority. Except, I am not.

got to the point where everyone who opposed the war was an apologist. Blair operated on the principle that everyone else was wrong except him.

Last time I looked in the mirror, you could describe myself as white. Very ugly white, right enough. Last time I thought about this issue, I thought Blair was wrong. Last time I thought about it, I thought anyone that thought Blair was a complete utter idiot probably had it right.

You have an issue with my analysis?

Now how do you cleave the ordinary public away from the anti-war brigade? The apologists. You prepare the population for the inevitable. The long war. How else could you operate the agenda?

With regards “It is completely ridiculous for any Muslim to see an advocate, for which read apologist, as their favoured method of communicating with the rest of us.” , don’t fall into the trap of us and them. We will all lose.

Painting organisations into apologists seemed necessary, and there are plenty of willing hands to do that as we saw for many many months here and of course HP.

“They have to get off their backsides and do better than this, otherwise you are right. It will all end in horror.”

I can only imagine someone else will be determining who shall be allowed to air the concerns of muslims.
In the end there is only one principle that will count – what is said and not always who says it.

On that count I am waiting for Bananabrain to let us know what the three organisations he referred to are saying and doing.

When you said:

We’re certainly not at the gas chambers stage yet, but I know enough about global history and I’ve seen enough negative behaviour in the UK in recent years and during my lifetime in general to know that, human nature unfortunately being the way it is, there can be a gradual, creeping slide towards increasingly extreme behaviour if enough people are perceived to implicitly support it (or would be unwilling to take any definitive action to oppose it, apart from just “making appropriate noises” or even staying completely silent) and/or if they can find enough plausible-sounding reasons to rationalise, justify and excuse it. Do not be naive about all this.

I thought I was going to deny it. And yet on reflection, it seems quite worryingly accurate. As bananabrain has already breached the Godwin rule, perhaps I’d be allowed to say this before I get shot down? German propoganda was probably based on a little truth and huge lies. We are seeing a similar thing here. A little truth, huge lies. And a populace that is deliberately fed that diet. That is no different from Germany in the 30′s, where other failures were supressed, in order that the favoured béte noir could be the aim of the arguement in order to win ‘hearts and minds’. For evil reasons.

The only way out of this is for Muslims to take the commanding heights of condemnation of the wee murderous shites that pollute their religion. That I am not seeing.

It is completely ridiculous for any Muslim to see an advocate, for which read apologist, as their favoured method of communicating with the rest of us. They have to get off their backsides and do better than this, otherwise you are right. It will all end in horror.