Enoch Powell - The Man

[Phil D. Rolls]

I've been reading up on Enoch Powell lately, as I have always wondered how such an intelligent, articulate man could come out with something as abhorrent as the "Rivers of Blood" speech. Personally, I would never be in favour of repatriation, but given that the vast majority of the British people at the time agreed with him, is there not a case for saying that what he was doing was representing the views of his constituents?

From what I can make out he wasn't a racist, merely someone pointing out the social and cultural consequences of unfettered immigration. Looking at places like Hackney, for example, you'd have to say a lot of what he prophecised has come true.

As I said, it doesn't bother me. But in the spirit of fairness, does Enoch Powell not deserve an acknowledgement of his desire to represent his constituents in a democratic system. I am not stirring, and I really hope that people can prove that he was actually a very nasty man with fascistic tendencies, but I can't see any evidence of that in what I've read.

I prefer to live in a multicultural society, I think it makes life more interesting. Cameron's proposal to get back to British values is as flawed as Brown's or anyone elses - firstly what are British values, and secondly if there ever were any we can't turn back the clock in some kind of cultural revolution.

[Betty Boop]

Let me start by saying, I prefer to live in a multicultural society, I think it makes life more interesting. Cameron's proposal to get back to British values is as flawed as Brown's or anyone elses - firstly what are British values, and secondly if there ever were any we can't turn back the clock in some kind of cultural revolution.

I've been reading up on Enoch Powell lately, as I have always wondered how such an intelligent, articulate man could come out with something as abhorrent as the "Rivers of Blood" speech. Personally, I would never be in favour of repatriation, but given that the vast majority of the British people at the time agreed with him, is there not a case for saying that what he was doing was representing the views of his constituents?

From what I can make out he wasn't a racist, merely someone pointing out the social and cultural consequences of unfettered immigration. Looking at places like Hackney, for example, you'd have to say a lot of what he prophecised has come true.

As I said, it doesn't bother me. But in the spirit of fairness, does Enoch Powell not deserve an acknowledgement of his desire to represent his constituents in a democratic system. I am not stirring, and I really hope that people can prove that he was actually a very nasty man with fascistic tendencies, but I can't see any evidence of that in what I've read.

Never mind British values, what is muscular liberalism ? :rolleyes:

[Phil D. Rolls]

Never mind British values, what is muscular liberalism ? :rolleyes:

Didn't have a clue what he was on about there. I have heard of muscular christianity, maybe he's going to set up sports clubs founded on liberal principles?

[Betty Boop]

Didn't have a clue what he was on about there. I have heard of muscular christianity, maybe he's going to set up sports clubs founded on liberal principles?

A strange speech all together, and on the same day the English Defence League, were marching through Luton. They must have been chuffed !

[bighairyfaeleith]

Camerons a complete fool. He just talks absolute *****, muscular liberalism, WTF, seriously the guys is so far out of touch with the man on the street it's no real. I have long suspected cameron is a closet racist and he continues to fuel that suspicion as far as I am concerned.

I mean seriously, who thought it was a good idea to give a speech about nationalism in the motherland on the same day as there was an EDL march back home:confused:

Can anyone tell me how we would go about implementing any of the stuff he said???

It's up there with big society for me!!

[Phil D. Rolls]

Camerons a complete fool. He just talks absolute *****, muscular liberalism, WTF, seriously the guys is so far out of touch with the man on the street it's no real. I have long suspected cameron is a closet racist and he continues to fuel that suspicion as far as I am concerned.

I mean seriously, who thought it was a good idea to give a speech about nationalism in the motherland on the same day as there was an EDL march back home:confused:

Can anyone tell me how we would go about implementing any of the stuff he said???

It's up there with big society for me!!

Seems to me it's a little game that politicians play. They recognise that there is a huge racist element in British society. Rather like a gutter journalist they construct a speech that seems like it is pandering to them.

When you actually analyse the words, you find it is nothing more than tub thumping, and there is actually no substance to what they are saying. Cameron might just as well have promised a return to the summers we enjoyed when we were young.

It's interesting though, that when Enoch Powell made his explicit speech a large majority of people in Britain agreed. It has been said that he brought 2.5 million extra votes to the Tories, enough to swing the 1970 election in their favour.

Was he a bad man, or just articulating the views of the electorate? He spoke about the vested interests of people in the immigrant population who could dominate their communities.

Diane Abbot has popped up this morning to say that Cameron is blaming the victims. In fairness to Dave, IMO he is just opening the debate. Just like the Trade Union leaders, there is a whole swathe of "community leaders" who seem actually do quite well out of perpetrating divisions.

[One Day Soon]

Never mind British values, what is muscular liberalism ? :rolleyes:

You need to go and have a look at the Liberal Democrat Orange Book which Clegg co-authored.

Cameron and Clegg are basically two sides of the same coin. If they can get away with it they will run an electoral pact at the next UK election with a view to returning a 'coalition' government again. Except what they are really after isn't a coalition it is a redefining of their two parties - the Tories on the one hand being engineered away from the control of the old Colonels, the rabid anti-Europeans and the rump of Thatcherite thinkers who couldn't keep their mouths shut in public about the scary things they wanted to do and the Lib Dems on the other dumping their social democratic pretensions and their wet lines on justice, defence and welfare.

Essentially 'the project' is an attempt to graft a Lib Dem social conscience veneer onto an economically Thatcherite Tory Party and the long term objectives are to substantially withdraw from the public sector and public services, dramatically increase private health care and insurance, shrink the welfare system and transfer as much power as possible away from central organisation (government, councils, NHS, etc) and into a mixture of private corporation, private individual and collective community control. Organisation and provision of services in this way is what the term 'Big Society' is code for.

The prospect of this collaboration is what is driving papers like the Mail and the Telegraph up the wall. They don't think that dangerous socialists like Lib Dems should be any where near government. they think this because these papers sell substantially to precisely that group of older party influencers that Cameron wants to be able to ignore. Not because he disagrees with them but because they say things in public which make it difficult to massage the truth and to control the party.

The main downside of all this - and there are a good few - is that if you are poor, ill, old, disabled, remote or otherwise marginal then you are less likely to have the money, health, time or ability to be able to look after yourself individually or collectively as this model would require you to do.

Surely no-one really thought the Tories had come back with a personality change? Scratch any one of today's Tories and you will find that most of them still think the Poll Tax was a great idea, just very badly implemented and managed.

Muscular Liberalism is a Tory salon term meaning this - Maggie is back. And this time she's brought a Lib Dem insurance policy with her.

[Betty Boop]

You need to go and have a look at the Liberal Democrat Orange Book which Clegg co-authored.

Cameron and Clegg are basically two sides of the same coin. If they can get away with it they will run an electoral pact at the next UK election with a view to returning a 'coalition' government again. Except what they are really after isn't a coalition it is a redefining of their two parties - the Tories on the one hand being engineered away from the control of the old Colonels, the rabid anti-Europeans and the rump of Thatcherite thinkers who couldn't keep their mouths shut in public about the scary things they wanted to do and the Lib Dems on the other dumping their social democratic pretensions and their wet lines on justice, defence and welfare.

Essentially 'the project' is an attempt to graft a Lib Dem social conscience veneer onto an economically Thatcherite Tory Party and the long term objectives are to substantially withdraw from the public sector and public services, dramatically increase private health care and insurance, shrink the welfare system and transfer as much power as possible away from central organisation (government, councils, NHS, etc) and into a mixture of private corporation, private individual and collective community control. Organisation and provision of services in this way is what the term 'Big Society' is code for.

The prospect of this collaboration is what is driving papers like the Mail and the Telegraph up the wall. They don't think that dangerous socialists like Lib Dems should be any where near government. they think this because these papers sell substantially to precisely that group of older party influencers that Cameron wants to be able to ignore. Not because he disagrees with them but because they say things in public which make it difficult to massage the truth and to control the party.

The main downside of all this - and there are a good few - is that if you are poor, ill, old, disabled, remote or otherwise marginal then you are less likely to have the money, health, time or ability to be able to look after yourself individually or collectively as this model would require you to do.

Surely no-one really thought the Tories had come back with a personality change? Scratch any one of today's Tories and you will find that most of them still think the Poll Tax was a great idea, just very badly implemented and managed.

Muscular Liberalism is a Tory salon term meaning this - Maggie is back. And this time she's brought a Lib Dem insurance policy with her.

Thanks for that. You learn so much on here from fellow posters. :greengrin

[LiverpoolHibs]

I've been reading up on Enoch Powell lately, as I have always wondered how such an intelligent, articulate man could come out with something as abhorrent as the "Rivers of Blood" speech. Personally, I would never be in favour of repatriation, but given that the vast majority of the British people at the time agreed with him, is there not a case for saying that what he was doing was representing the views of his constituents?

From what I can make out he wasn't a racist, merely someone pointing out the social and cultural consequences of unfettered immigration. Looking at places like Hackney, for example, you'd have to say a lot of what he prophecised has come true.

As I said, it doesn't bother me. But in the spirit of fairness, does Enoch Powell not deserve an acknowledgement of his desire to represent his constituents in a democratic system. I am not stirring, and I really hope that people can prove that he was actually a very nasty man with fascistic tendencies, but I can't see any evidence of that in what I've read.

I prefer to live in a multicultural society, I think it makes life more interesting. Cameron's proposal to get back to British values is as flawed as Brown's or anyone elses - firstly what are British values, and secondly if there ever were any we can't turn back the clock in some kind of cultural revolution.

I think the thing to remember with Powell is that he didn't operate in a vacuum. And it's not that he was judiciously articulating the views of his constituents - he was articulating the views of his class and their economic interests. It's pretty easy to corroborate this by looking at the difference between his views in different economic circumstances. During the days of the post-war labour shortages he showed no antipathy to commonwealth immigration, stating that;

'I have set and always will set my face like flint against making any difference between one citizen of this country and another on grounds of his origin.'

A few years later when the labour shortage had been satisfied he turned - as much of the political establishment did after the Commonwealth Immigrants Act - to the rhetoric of the foaming River Tiber. When his leadership bid failed he realised he could carve out a career on the back of such things.

It's slightly ludicrous to claim that a man who (in the speech) referred to his black constituents as 'wide-grinning piccanninies' wasn't a racist. What he pioneered was the 'culturalist' based racism that we now encounter with the EDL and the assorted groups around them - the BNP's public face is now pretty much based on this because people still seem to buy, in whatever number, the idea that if you talk about racial 'culture' rather than racial biology or genetics you're able to avoid or stymie accusations of racism. It's a way of sublimating and coding language to get a more receptive audience; when Powell railed against Sikhs 'maintaining customs innapropriate to Britain' and getting 'special communal rights' he laid the foundations for modern day Islamophobia - different group same racist constructions. Powell, Cameron (not to mention the last few Labour governments who had an appalling record on this sort of thing) genereally caveat their comments with claims that the 'middle-ground' needs to speak out against such things to avoid the rise of extremists. It's nonsense, obviously - Powell comments were, to a large degree, responsible for the growth of the National Front in the seventies and eighties and Cameron's comments will most likely have a similar effect on the EDL.

[Phil D. Rolls]

I think the thing to remember with Powell is that he didn't operate in a vacuum. And it's not that he was judiciously articulating the views of his constituents - he was articulating the views of his class and their economic interests. It's pretty easy to corroborate this by looking at the difference between his views in different economic circumstances. During the days of the post-war labour shortages he showed no antipathy to commonwealth immigration, stating that;

'I have set and always will set my face like flint against making any difference between one citizen of this country and another on grounds of his origin.'

A few years later when the labour shortage had been satisfied he turned - as much of the political establishment did after the Commonwealth Immigrants Act - to the rhetoric of the foaming River Tiber. When his leadership bid failed he realised he could carve out a career on the back of such things.

It's slightly ludicrous to claim that a man who (in the speech) referred to his black constituents as 'wide-grinning piccanninies' wasn't a racist. What he pioneered was the 'culturalist' based racism that we now encounter with the EDL and the assorted groups around them - the BNP's public face is now pretty much based on this because people still seem to buy, in whatever number, the idea that if you talk about racial 'culture' rather than racial biology or genetics you're able to avoid or stymie accusations of racism. It's a way of sublimating and coding language to get a more receptive audience; when Powell railed against Sikhs 'maintaining customs innapropriate to Britain' and getting 'special communal rights' he laid the foundations for modern day Islamophobia - different group same racist constructions. Powell, Cameron (not to mention the last few Labour governments who had an appalling record on this sort of thing) genereally caveat their comments with claims that the 'middle-ground' needs to speak out against such things to avoid the rise of extremists. It's nonsense, obviously - Powell comments were, to a large degree, responsible for the growth of the National Front in the seventies and eighties and Cameron's comments will most likely have a similar effect on the EDL.

Fair enough, do you think that Enoch Powell was speaking for the majority of people in Britain at the time? Contemporary polls seem to indicate that he was. I find this appalling, but part of democracy is accepting what the majority say, even if it doesn't go along with what you think.

[One Day Soon]

I think the thing to remember with Powell is that he didn't operate in a vacuum. And it's not that he was judiciously articulating the views of his constituents - he was articulating the views of his class and their economic interests. It's pretty easy to corroborate this by looking at the difference between his views in different economic circumstances. During the days of the post-war labour shortages he showed no antipathy to commonwealth immigration, stating that;

'I have set and always will set my face like flint against making any difference between one citizen of this country and another on grounds of his origin.'

A few years later when the labour shortage had been satisfied he turned - as much of the political establishment did after the Commonwealth Immigrants Act - to the rhetoric of the foaming River Tiber. When his leadership bid failed he realised he could carve out a career on the back of such things.

It's slightly ludicrous to claim that a man who (in the speech) referred to his black constituents as 'wide-grinning piccanninies' wasn't a racist. What he pioneered was the 'culturalist' based racism that we now encounter with the EDL and the assorted groups around them - the BNP's public face is now pretty much based on this because people still seem to buy, in whatever number, the idea that if you talk about racial 'culture' rather than racial biology or genetics you're able to avoid or stymie accusations of racism. It's a way of sublimating and coding language to get a more receptive audience; when Powell railed against Sikhs 'maintaining customs innapropriate to Britain' and getting 'special communal rights' he laid the foundations for modern day Islamophobia - different group same racist constructions. Powell, Cameron 1. (not to mention the last few Labour governments who had an appalling record on this sort of thing) genereally caveat their comments with claims that the 'middle-ground' needs to speak out against such things to avoid the rise of extremists. 2. It's nonsense, obviously - Powell comments were, to a large degree, 3. responsible for the growth of the National Front in the seventies and eighties and Cameron's comments will most likely have a similar effect on the EDL.

1. Evidence?
2. What is nonsense?
3. Powell didn't grow the NF. Crashing economy, high unemployment and sump estates allowed the NF to grow surely?

[Phil D. Rolls]

1. Evidence?
2. What is nonsense?
3. Powell didn't grow the NF. Crashing economy, high unemployment and sump estates allowed the NF to grow surely?

I find the man a fascinating figure. Although I find his response to multiculturism wrong, I think he has to be given some credit for raising the issue in an intelligent manner.

It is folly to think you can merge two cultures without some sort of backlash from the indigenous population. For me, that doesn't mean you don't try. Whoever is to blame, many of the things he said would happen have come to pass.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Fair enough, do you think that Enoch Powell was speaking for the majority of people in Britain at the time? Contemporary polls seem to indicate that he was. I find this appalling, but part of democracy is accepting what the majority say, even if it doesn't go along with what you think.

That sounds more like crass majoritarianism than democracy. You certainly don't accept what the majority say if what they say collides and is incommensurable with the rights of a minority.

Which isn't to say that Powell was speaking for the majority in the Rivers of Blood speech. I'm not sure about that.

[Phil D. Rolls]

That sounds more like crass majoritarianism than democracy. You certainly don't accept what the majority say if what they say collides and is incommensurable with the rights of a minority.

Which isn't to say that Powell was speaking for the majority in the Rivers of Blood speech. I'm not sure about that.

My only source is Wikipaedia, so I accept that it isn't the best information I have. A Gallup poll (no idea about how many people, where or when) suggested that around 85% of respondents supported Powell.

[LiverpoolHibs]

1. Evidence?

Where to start, where to start.

Phil Woolas's recent election leaflets and his previous form - inluding calling the Tories soft on immigration for having admitted East African Asians expelled from Uganda and Kenya in the seventies.

Jim Fitzpatrick attempting to make political capital out of having left an Islamic wedding in protest at the gender segregation.

Liam Byrne's entire political career.

Jack Straw's repeated idiocy.

Gordon Brown's 'British jobs for British workers'.

David Blunkett's schools 'swamped' with asylum seekers.

Blunkett's plan for an asylum 'white list' of countries from which asylum could not be claimed.

The Crewe and Nantwitch by-election.

'Britishness' tests.

Ed Ball's post election soul-searching. 'We lost because we didn't outflank the Tories on immigration' (despite Phillip Gould having attempted to do exactly that) being the general theme.

And that's just off the top of my head.


2. What is nonsense?

Odd. It was in the previous sentence.


3. Powell didn't grow the NF. Crashing economy, high unemployment and sump estates allowed the NF to grow surely?

Well, I rather thought the economic situation was a given

[Leicester Fan]

I saw a programme on Enoch Powell and both Tony Benn and Michael Foot said that Powell wasn't a racist.

I think it's fair to say that he played the race card on that occasion though, maybe in a fit of pique for losing the Tory party leadership to Ted Heath not long before.

[magpie1892]

Where to start, where to start.

Phil Woolas's recent election leaflets and his previous form - inluding calling the Tories soft on immigration for having admitted East African Asians expelled from Uganda and Kenya in the seventies.

Jim Fitzpatrick attempting to make political capital out of having left an Islamic wedding in protest at the gender segregation.

Liam Byrne's entire political career.

Jack Straw's repeated idiocy.

Gordon Brown's 'British jobs for British workers'.

David Blunkett's schools 'swamped' with asylum seekers.

Blunkett's plan for an asylum 'white list' of countries from which asylum could not be claimed.

The Crewe and Nantwitch by-election.

'Britishness' tests.

Ed Ball's post election soul-searching. 'We lost because we didn't outflank the Tories on immigration' (despite Phillip Gould having attempted to do exactly that) being the general theme.

And that's just off the top of my head.



Vast majority of these are soundbites, Labour never really did anything that could be remotely construed as racist, unless you're white.

[One Day Soon]

Vast majority of these are soundbites, Labour never really did anything that could be remotely construed as racist, unless you're white.

You're back. And what's more worrying is that I agree with you. Apart from the last bit.

[steakbake]

Where to start, where to start.

Phil Woolas's recent election leaflets and his previous form - inluding calling the Tories soft on immigration for having admitted East African Asians expelled from Uganda and Kenya in the seventies.

Jim Fitzpatrick attempting to make political capital out of having left an Islamic wedding in protest at the gender segregation.

Liam Byrne's entire political career.

Jack Straw's repeated idiocy.

Gordon Brown's 'British jobs for British workers'.

David Blunkett's schools 'swamped' with asylum seekers.

Blunkett's plan for an asylum 'white list' of countries from which asylum could not be claimed.

The Crewe and Nantwitch by-election.

'Britishness' tests.

Ed Ball's post election soul-searching. 'We lost because we didn't outflank the Tories on immigration' (despite Phillip Gould having attempted to do exactly that) being the general theme.

And that's just off the top of my head.



Odd. It was in the previous sentence.



Well, I rather thought the economic situation was a given

very good. I work in immigration and can safely say that the current govs rhetoric and political motivation is no more fervent and irresponsible than the last. Woolas and Byrne in particular.

[Phil D. Rolls]

I saw a programme on Enoch Powell and both Tony Benn and Michael Foot said that Powell wasn't a racist.

I think it's fair to say that he played the race card on that occasion though, maybe in a fit of pique for losing the Tory party leadership to Ted Heath not long before.

He could speak Urdu amongst other languages - doesn't mean he wasnt a racist, but it is unusual.

He came from ordinary stock, his father was a primary school teacher, his mother the daughter of a policeman. Maybe that is why the Tories didn't want him.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Vast majority of these are soundbites, Labour never really did anything that could be remotely construed as racist, unless you're white.


You're back. And what's more worrying is that I agree with you. Apart from the last bit.

The thread was a response to Cameron's 'soundbites' and we were talking about political rhetoric. So I gave numerous examples as evidence to back up the claim that Labour also had an awful record on such matters - as I was asked.

Oh, and magpie - could you provide similar evidence for Labour having pursued a single policy that was 'anti-white'?


He could speak Urdu amongst other languages - doesn't mean he wasnt a racist, but it is unusual.

He came from ordinary stock, his father was a primary school teacher, his mother the daughter of a policeman. Maybe that is why the Tories didn't want him.

He spoke Urdu because he had a slightly desperate idea about becoming Viceroy of India (pretty much the most senior, regal-esque position someone of his, as you say, ordinary stock could get to). According to Churchill, Powell spent most of his first term as M.P. drawing up plans to reconquer India. Which even Churchill thought was mad.

[magpie1892]

You're back. And what's more worrying is that I agree with you. Apart from the last bit.

It's good to talk!

[Jack]

Personally I think he was a man in his time. I doubt reading Wiki, or any other reference sources, will give a proper idea of all the nuances of what was going on at the time; the highs, the lows the feeling of the country, that part of the country. IIRC Alf Garnett and Till Death Us Do Part was one of the top rated TV shows at that time as well as that one, can’t remember its name, with the new black next door neighbour – as a not very old young person in the 60s I did that show was a bit wrong.

My Dad, a little Englander and proud of it (although his little part of England is now in very rural Spain, even I can’t work that one out :confused:) was almost a mini Enoch and so was my wee Scottish Granny. My Dad in particular used to refer to him as a great debater in the House of Commons as opposed to the hecklers you get now. My mother didn't say much, I suspect she disagreed and saw him as a blustering politician and nothing more.

Each to their own in their own part of history. :agree:

[magpie1892]

[QUOTE=Oh, and magpie - could you provide similar evidence for Labour having pursued a single policy that was 'anti-white'?[/QUOTE]

Three million immigrants in a decade on Labour's watch, the majority of whom are benefit dependent with nothing to offer UK society other than FGM, murder, homophobia, mysogyny, death for apostasy, inter-familial marriage to a degree that is causing birth defects at 10x the UK average, 7/7, 'behead those whoinsult islam', etc., etc.

Even the Guardian comments pages are filled with angry lefties saying that it would have been nice to be asked. Madeline Bunting's piece yesterday was a laugh riot, and deservedly ripped to shreds BTL.

Anti-white in terms of the fact that white people remain the majority in the UK and are having to pay for the wonderful 'enrichment' that comes from importing unqualified, unemployable people unable and unwilling to work, or learn English, who have no interest in the welfare of UK society, quite the opposite in fact.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Three million immigrants in a decade on Labour's watch, the majority of whom are benefit dependent with nothing to offer UK society other than FGM, murder, homophobia, mysogyny, death for apostasy, inter-familial marriage to a degree that is causing birth defects at 10x the UK average, 7/7, 'behead those whoinsult islam', etc., etc.

Even the Guardian comments pages are filled with angry lefties saying that it would have been nice to be asked. Madeline Bunting's piece yesterday was a laugh riot, and deservedly ripped to shreds BTL.

Anti-white in terms of the fact that white people remain the majority in the UK and are having to pay for the wonderful 'enrichment' that comes from importing unqualified, unemployable people unable and unwilling to work, or learn English, who have no interest in the welfare of UK society, quite the opposite in fact.

That isn't 'evidence', that is a few paragraphs of raving racism.

[lapsedhibee]

top rated TV shows at that time as well as that one, can’t remember its name, with the new black next door neighbour – as a not very old young person in the 60s I did that show was a bit wrong.


Was that "Love Thy New Black Next Door Neighbour"? Execrable, even at the time. :bitchy:

[Phil D. Rolls]

He spoke Urdu because he had a slightly desperate idea about becoming Viceroy of India (pretty much the most senior, regal-esque position someone of his, as you say, ordinary stock could get to). According to Churchill, Powell spent most of his first term as M.P. drawing up plans to reconquer India. Which even Churchill thought was mad.

I wonder how many other Viceroys of India could speak Urdu. I don't see what the relevance of his ambition compared to his upbringing was. I would say that with a teacher for a parent and a policeman for a grandfather, his class was closer to the working people than the Tory grandees.

[Hillsidehibby]

That isn't 'evidence', that is a few paragraphs of raving racism.

Damn statistics eh?................

[Phil D. Rolls]

Three million immigrants in a decade on Labour's watch, the majority of whom are benefit dependent with nothing to offer UK society other than FGM, murder, homophobia, mysogyny, death for apostasy, inter-familial marriage to a degree that is causing birth defects at 10x the UK average, 7/7, 'behead those whoinsult islam', etc., etc.

Even the Guardian comments pages are filled with angry lefties saying that it would have been nice to be asked. Madeline Bunting's piece yesterday was a laugh riot, and deservedly ripped to shreds BTL.

Anti-white in terms of the fact that white people remain the majority in the UK and are having to pay for the wonderful 'enrichment' that comes from importing unqualified, unemployable people unable and unwilling to work, or learn English, who have no interest in the welfare of UK society, quite the opposite in fact.

Sorry, I can't let that pass. I can only go by my own experience of immigration. I find that when I work with people from other countries such as Poland, China, Nigeria, or India, they are generally better read, and I would say have a deeper intelligence than their Scottish counterparts. I attribute that to the fact that it takes a certain chutzpah and self confidence to move to another country.

I believe there could be situations like the one you describe in the major English cities, but I haven't seen any evidence in Scotland. What has arisen is a situation where there is a perception that Powell had it right, and I would like evidence that he is wrong.


Damn statistics eh?................

Rather like the one that said 85% of the electorate agreed with Enoch Powell - whoosh!

[Jack]

Was that "Love Thy New Black Next Door Neighbour"? Execrable, even at the time. :bitchy:

Yeah. It was awful.

I saw a few clips on one of these nostalgia shows a few months back. It really is extraordinary that the show passed for entertainment.

But that’s my point, that was the time Enoch Powel lived in. Even casual references to racism then would qualify as extreme now with demands for resignations etc..

[Peevemor]

Personally I think he was a man in his time. I doubt reading Wiki, or any other reference sources, will give a proper idea of all the nuances of what was going on at the time; the highs, the lows the feeling of the country, that part of the country. IIRC Alf Garnett and Till Death Us Do Part was one of the top rated TV shows at that time as well as that one, can’t remember its name, with the new black next door neighbour – as a not very old young person in the 60s I did that show was a bit wrong.


It was called "Love thy Neighbour" and was anything but racist. Yes it used expressions you wouldn't get away with nowadays (nig-nog, sambo, honky, snowflake, etc...) but it was always the black guy who got the last laugh, making his bogoted neighbour look stupid in the process.

[Phil D. Rolls]

It was called "Love thy Neighbour" and was anything but racist. Yes it used expressions you wouldn't get away with nowadays (nig-nog, sambo, honky, snowflake, etc...) but it was always the black guy who got the last laugh, making his bogoted neighbour look stupid in the process.

The problem with it and Till Death Us Do Part, was that the irony was completely lost on the racists it was aimed at. And then there was Jim Davidson's pal Chalky....

[Peevemor]

The problem with it and Till Death Us Do Part, was that the irony was completely lost on the racists it was aimed at. And then there was Jim Davidson's pal Chalky....

:agree:

Chalky was brutal, as was Lenny Henry's "Algernon Winston Churchill ..." character.

[magpie1892]

That isn't 'evidence', that is a few paragraphs of raving racism.

The 'waycism!' squeal really doesn't carry much weight anymore, largely because of over and inappropriate use.

'Boy who cried 'Wolf!'', et al.

[magpie1892]

Sorry, I can't let that pass. I can only go by my own experience of immigration. I find that when I work with people from other countries such as Poland, China, Nigeria, or India, they are generally better read, and I would say have a deeper intelligence than their Scottish counterparts. I attribute that to the fact that it takes a certain chutzpah and self confidence to move to another country.

I believe there could be situations like the one you describe in the major English cities, but I haven't seen any evidence in Scotland. What has arisen is a situation where there is a perception that Powell had it right, and I would like evidence that he is wrong.



Rather like the one that said 85% of the electorate agreed with Enoch Powell - whoosh!

No, I was talking about the UK as whole. I, too, have seen little evidence of this in Scotland but lots and lots in Lancashire towns, Brum, Leicester, London, etc.

It does take a certain amount of 'chutzpah' to move to another country if you're intent on working, assimilating, learning the language, exposing yourself to another culture and embracing that culture but if, say, I were to move into an expat community in Spain, sign on then begin denigrating all aspects of the host culture, I wouldn't expect to be 'celebrated' by the Spaniards.

I tend to believe that Powell was wrong - at the time - but unfettered immigration, political correctness and wet liberal hand-wringers with some odd guilt complex seem intent on proving him right.

However, Powell was certainly wrong in that he was talking about non-Caucasians whereas the current threat to society comes from the revolting 'religion' that is islam.

A religion, that is, not a race. Just to be clear, LH.

[Sylar]

It was called "Love thy Neighbour" and was anything but racist. Yes it used expressions you wouldn't get away with nowadays (nig-nog, sambo, honky, snowflake, etc...) but it was always the black guy who got the last laugh, making his bogoted neighbour look stupid in the process.

Stephen K Amos does a sketch on this show

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKGnFaeelOM

:greengrin

[McSwanky]

Three million immigrants in a decade on Labour's watch, the majority of whom are benefit dependent with nothing to offer UK society other than FGM, murder, homophobia, mysogyny, death for apostasy, inter-familial marriage to a degree that is causing birth defects at 10x the UK average, 7/7, 'behead those whoinsult islam', etc., etc.

Okay, so you seem to know that the 'majority' of the 3 million are 'benefit dependent.' So you have figures to back this up?

(If you don't then please forgive me for also playing the 'racism card.'

[magpie1892]

Okay, so you seem to know that the 'majority' of the 3 million are 'benefit dependent.' So you have figures to back this up?

(If you don't then please forgive me for also playing the 'racism card.'

Let's assume (rightly) that the vast majority of immigrants settling in this country over the last decade are muslim. I repeat, islam is not a race, so playing the race card, as you put it, is doubly irrelevant, but the left-wing IPPR reported in 2008 that:

"Muslim communities are typified by heavy levels of welfare dependency and low levels of wealth creation.Fewer than half of adults from four of the biggest Muslim groups in the UK – Somalis, Bangla*deshis, Turks and Pakistanis – are in employment. And because of the high number of children in their families they also tend to be heavy users of expensive public services such as the NHS."


I fail to see how, despite the incredible levels of cultural enrichment that we are all enjoying because of successive governments' immigration 'policies', this benefits the UK in any way.


Can you assist me?

[CropleyWasGod]

[QUOTE=magpie1892;2729614]Let's assume (rightly) that the vast majority of immigrants settling in this country over the last decade are muslim. I repeat, islam is not a race, so playing the race card, as you put it, is doubly irrelevant, but the left-wing IPPR reported in 2008 that:

"Muslim communities are typified by heavy levels of welfare dependency and low levels of wealth creation.Fewer than half of adults from four of the biggest Muslim groups in the UK – Somalis, Bangla*deshis, Turks and Pakistanis – are in employment. And because of the high number of children in their families they also tend to be heavy users of expensive public services such as the NHS."

Are you sure about this assumption? I would have thought that Eastern Europeans would have provided the largest block of immigrants.

[McSwanky]

Let's assume (rightly) that the vast majority of immigrants settling in this country over the last decade are muslim. I repeat, islam is not a race, so playing the race card, as you put it, is doubly irrelevant, but the left-wing IPPR reported in 2008 that:

"Muslim communities are typified by heavy levels of welfare dependency and low levels of wealth creation.Fewer than half of adults from four of the biggest Muslim groups in the UK – Somalis, Bangla*deshis, Turks and Pakistanis – are in employment. And because of the high number of children in their families they also tend to be heavy users of expensive public services such as the NHS."


I fail to see how, despite the incredible levels of cultural enrichment that we are all enjoying because of successive governments' immigration 'policies', this benefits the UK in any way.


Can you assist me?

No. Let's not assume anything. You're the one coming out with generalisations. Let's see you back them up with facts. You know, the things that aren't assumptions?

And if you still can't come up with anything concrete, then I promise I'll revise my statement from 'racist' to 'bigot.' That suit you better? :wink:

[khib70]

No, I was talking about the UK as whole. I, too, have seen little evidence of this in Scotland but lots and lots in Lancashire towns, Brum, Leicester, London, etc.

It does take a certain amount of 'chutzpah' to move to another country if you're intent on working, assimilating, learning the language, exposing yourself to another culture and embracing that culture but if, say, I were to move into an expat community in Spain, sign on then begin denigrating all aspects of the host culture, I wouldn't expect to be 'celebrated' by the Spaniards.

I tend to believe that Powell was wrong - at the time - but unfettered immigration, political correctness and wet liberal hand-wringers with some odd guilt complex seem intent on proving him right.

However, Powell was certainly wrong in that he was talking about non-Caucasians whereas the current threat to society comes from the revolting 'religion' that is islam.

A religion, that is, not a race. Just to be clear, LH.

Ah, that's all right then. So if Powell had been ranting about Jews, or Muslims, or Sikhs specifically, it would have been OK:rolleyes:

Islam a "revolting 'religion'"...Your use of inverted commas implies that you don't think it's a real religion. You contradict this in your next sentence, by saying that it is one:blah:

There are people within Islam who are completely despicable. Everyone accepts that. But it's not like lunatic fringers are exclusive to Islam is it? Or do you perhaps see the Catholic church as a bastion of inclusiveness, tolerance and respect for the rights of children?

As for your previous post, LH is bang on. That's the stuff of letters to the Daily Mail written in green crayon. "Evidence" it is not.

What worries me is what you might suggest as a (final?) solution to this "problem".

[magpie1892]

[QUOTE=magpie1892;2729614]Let's assume (rightly) that the vast majority of immigrants settling in this country over the last decade are muslim. I repeat, islam is not a race, so playing the race card, as you put it, is doubly irrelevant, but the left-wing IPPR reported in 2008 that:

"Muslim communities are typified by heavy levels of welfare dependency and low levels of wealth creation.Fewer than half of adults from four of the biggest Muslim groups in the UK – Somalis, Bangla*deshis, Turks and Pakistanis – are in employment. And because of the high number of children in their families they also tend to be heavy users of expensive public services such as the NHS."

Are you sure about this assumption? I would have thought that Eastern Europeans would have provided the largest block of immigrants.

Note: 'settling'.

The whole point is that while EEs come/came here to work, muslims, in the main don't. This is a fact, no matter how inconvenient.

[hibsbollah]

the revolting 'religion' that is islam.

A religion, that is, not a race. Just to be clear, LH.

If you think your first sentence is somehow excusable on the basis of your second sentence, you have clearly lost all sense of moral judgement.

'Islam isnt a race, therefore all kinds of prejudiced polemic is acceptable and those nasty ragheads are fair game'.

Not very original.

[magpie1892]

No. Let's not assume anything. You're the one coming out with generalisations. Let's see you back them up with facts. You know, the things that aren't assumptions?

And if you still can't come up with anything concrete, then I promise I'll revise my statement from 'racist' to 'bigot.' That suit you better? :wink:

If the IPPR isn't good enough for you, then, yes, 'bigot' will do. Another word that's lost a lot of potency.

[CropleyWasGod]

[QUOTE=CropleyWasGod;2729619]

Note: 'settling'.

The whole point is that while EEs come/came here to work, muslims, in the main don't. This is a fact, no matter how inconvenient.

So, you are saying that those who come here to work, are not coming to settle? But those who are here to settle, are not here to work?

[magpie1892]

If you think your first sentence is somehow excusable on the basis of your second sentence, you have clearly lost all sense of moral judgement.

'Islam isnt a race, therefore all kinds of prejudiced polemic is acceptable and those nasty ragheads are fair game'.

Not very original.

I've just returned from my second stint in an islamic country. Not sure I have ever used the word 'ragheads'.

I find islam offensive in many ways. I agree it's not original, but that was not the intent.

p.s. nothing prejudiced on calling islam for the many ways it offends. The facts are in, and they keep on comin'...

[magpie1892]

[QUOTE=magpie1892;2729644]

So, you are saying that those who come here to work, are not coming to settle? But those who are here to settle, are not here to work?

Eastern Europeans were mentioned as the probable majority of people who had come to settle in the UK in the last decade. I was saying that was not the case.

[McSwanky]

If the IPPR isn't good enough for you, then, yes, 'bigot' will do. Another word that's lost a lot of potency.

IPPR you say?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6799755/Study-reveals-impact-of-immigration-on-UK-faiths.html

1.1 million foreign born Muslims in total in the UK in December 2009. Now you're not trying to tell me that there's been another 400,000 since then (and I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt by assuming that all the 1.1 million you're talking about only moved here in the 9 years preceding 2010?)

Keep up the good work...

[CropleyWasGod]

[QUOTE=CropleyWasGod;2729654]

Eastern Europeans were mentioned as the probable majority of people who had come to settle in the UK in the last decade. I was saying that was not the case.

I mentioned them because, on anecdotal and observational evidence, I thought that would be the case. If you have actual evidence, then please disabuse me.

[khib70]

Let's assume (rightly) that the vast majority of immigrants settling in this country over the last decade are muslim. I repeat, islam is not a race, so playing the race card, as you put it, is doubly irrelevant, but the left-wing IPPR reported in 2008 that:

"Muslim communities are typified by heavy levels of welfare dependency and low levels of wealth creation.Fewer than half of adults from four of the biggest Muslim groups in the UK – Somalis, Bangla*deshis, Turks and Pakistanis – are in employment. And because of the high number of children in their families they also tend to be heavy users of expensive public services such as the NHS."


I fail to see how, despite the incredible levels of cultural enrichment that we are all enjoying because of successive governments' immigration 'policies', this benefits the UK in any way.


Can you assist me?
Yes, let's assume that. Only a snapshot, but this comes from the official UK immigration figures on this site

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/mig1110.pdf

These are the top five countries of birth for British residents born outside the UK.India (substantial Muslim minority) is first on the list, followed by Poland (nah) Pakistan (fair enough) The Republic of Ireland (don't think so) and Germany (nope).

See, that's called evidence. "Vast majority". Don't think so.

[hibsbollah]

I've just returned from my second stint in an islamic country. Not sure I have ever used the word 'ragheads'.

I find islam offensive in many ways. I agree it's not original, but that was not the intent.

p.s. nothing prejudiced on calling islam for the many ways it offends. The facts are in, and they keep on comin'...

Its totally irrelevant which countries you have or havent returned from. What is relevant is that you've just revealed yourself as deeply ignorant, and despite your obvious conceit, you dont have the wit to realise your own ignorance.

[magpie1892]

Its totally irrelevant which countries you have or havent returned from. What is relevant is that you've just revealed yourself as deeply ignorant, and despite your obvious conceit, you dont have the wit to realise your own ignorance.

If you say so.

Cracking post though, really stays on topic.

[magpie1892]

IPPR you say?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6799755/Study-reveals-impact-of-immigration-on-UK-faiths.html

1.1 million foreign born Muslims in total in the UK in December 2009. Now you're not trying to tell me that there's been another 400,000 since then (and I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt by assuming that all the 1.1 million you're talking about only moved here in the 9 years preceding 2010?)

Keep up the good work...

Oh, I'm so sorry. I mistakenly assumed there were illegal immigrants in the UK.

The Times seems to think there are at least 1.5m here. If they are illegal, they're not paying tax are they?

[magpie1892]

Yes, let's assume that. Only a snapshot, but this comes from the official UK immigration figures on this site

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/mig1110.pdf

These are the top five countries of birth for British residents born outside the UK.India (substantial Muslim minority) is first on the list, followed by Poland (nah) Pakistan (fair enough) The Republic of Ireland (don't think so) and Germany (nope).

See, that's called evidence. "Vast majority". Don't think so.

Really impress me and tell me the countries of origin, and majority faith in those countries, of the estimated 1.5m+ illegal immigrants in the UK...

As someone said above: 'Damn statistics, eh?'...

[McSwanky]

Oh, I'm so sorry. I mistakenly assumed there were illegal immigrants in the UK.

The Times seems to think there are at least 1.5m here. If they are illegal, they're not paying tax are they?

I'd be interested to learn how they're claiming benefits if they've 'slipped under the radar' on the governments system....

Still, let's take the Times' figures as correct. At least 1.5m in total you say? Still doen't quite match up with your 'majority of 3 million in the last 10 years' statement though, does it?

I may be seen as splitting hairs here, but I hate to see statements like yours fueling the fires of less intelligent people. Clearly you're an intelligent person, but with that comes some sort of responsibility to others less fortunate than yourself.

[magpie1892]

I'd be interested to learn how they're claiming benefits if they've 'slipped under the radar' on the governments system....

Still, let's take the Times' figures as correct. At least 1.5m in total you say? Still doen't quite match up with your 'majority of 3 million in the last 10 years' statement though, does it?

I may be seen as splitting hairs here, but I hate to see statements like yours fueling the fires of less intelligent people. Clearly you're an intelligent person, but with that comes some sort of responsibility to others less fortunate than yourself.

I'm an intelligent person? Apparently I am a conceited ignorant without the wit to see it.

I've asked where the illegals are coming from and when added to the official figure, I think that we are looking most certainly at a majority.

Also, as is shown through decades of paper cuttings, it is a breeze to claim benefits illegally in the UK.

I don't think I am stoking any sort of fire. From what I see, hear and experience, my views are not in any way extreme. Unless it's 'extreme' to be offended by muslim attitudes to gays, women, infidels (!), free speech, etc. In which case, guilty as charged. As I mentioned earlier, even left-wing commentators with demonstrable posting history on left-wing media websites are getting edgy.

Or are you saying all is well in the UK..?

[McSwanky]

I'm an intelligent person? Apparently I am a conceited ignorant without the wit to see it.

I've asked where the illegals are coming from and when added to the official figure, I think that we are looking most certainly at a majority.

Also, as is shown through decades of paper cuttings, it is a breeze to claim benefits illegally in the UK.

I don't think I am stoking any sort of fire. From what I see, hear and experience, my views are not in any way extreme. Unless it's 'extreme' to be offended by muslim attitudes to gays, women, infidels (!), free speech, etc. In which case, guilty as charged. As I mentioned earlier, even left-wing commentators with demonstrable posting history on left-wing media websites are getting edgy.

Or are you saying all is well in the UK..?

I said nothing about the state of the UK, and I'm not going to be drawn into arguing with you on that front. Thanks for attempting to put words into my mouth though, much appreciated.

All that I ask is that when you present something as fact, you ensure you are stating fact. I think that's fair.

[bighairyfaeleith]

I was reading this morning something on the bbc and it said that 25% of pakistani men are taxi drivers and I can't find the stat now but a large % don't work at all.

I think the problem is more to do with integration into society, the jobs that many pakistani people do especially are not jobs were they generally mix with people born and bred here. They may server us in there corner shop, or hand us our change in there taxi but thats not really the same as working in the same office as us, or on the same building site etc.

The british muslim council were saying that the problem with statements like camerons is that they show muslims as the problem rather than being part of the solution and I think thats very true, if we want to stop extremism then we need to closer integrate them into our society, making them eat jellied eels and sing the national anthem aint really going to work though:greengrin

[magpie1892]

If we want to stop extremism then we need to closer integrate them into our society

Ah, so it's the fault of indigenous Brits then. Of course. We've clasped every other colour and creed to our collective bosom (not that there's been any choice in the matter, however) but we've just not done enough to 'reach out' to muslims.

We must do more as it's all too evident just how much muslims in the UK want to integrate into British society. I mean, what could be more British than blowing up public transport with the loss of 52 lives? Or welcoming home 'Our Boys' from (admittedly pointless but hugely dangerous and frequently fatal) foreign tours with welcoming cries of 'baby rapists!'? Or the great respect shown to that most sacred of British bastions, free speech, by marching in London and inciting murder with placards reading 'UK you will pay, 9/11 on its way', 'behead those who insult islam' or even 'free speech go to hell'. A reaction to... cartoons. Published in... a Danish newspaper.

Maybe even send 'your' women out dressed as Ninjas? For me, there's nothing that says 'yes, I want to be part of your society; to be included and make a contribution' than going out dressed like a dalek with glasses.

[Phil D. Rolls]

No, I was talking about the UK as whole. I, too, have seen little evidence of this in Scotland but lots and lots in Lancashire towns, Brum, Leicester, London, etc.

It does take a certain amount of 'chutzpah' to move to another country if you're intent on working, assimilating, learning the language, exposing yourself to another culture and embracing that culture but if, say, I were to move into an expat community in Spain, sign on then begin denigrating all aspects of the host culture, I wouldn't expect to be 'celebrated' by the Spaniards.

I tend to believe that Powell was wrong - at the time - but unfettered immigration, political correctness and wet liberal hand-wringers with some odd guilt complex seem intent on proving him right.

However, Powell was certainly wrong in that he was talking about non-Caucasians whereas the current threat to society comes from the revolting 'religion' that is islam.

A religion, that is, not a race. Just to be clear, LH.

I think Powell was intelligent enough to see how things would pan out, if you read the Rivers of Blood speech, it seems to me that he was merely stating the consequences of different cultures being forced together in the way they were.

I realise that is pretty much the excuse the Afrikaaners used to justify Apartheid. It seems to me that the problem of integration was tackled unlilaterally, and it hasn't worked as well as it should have.

[magpie1892]

I think Powell was intelligent enough to see how things would pan out, if you read the Rivers of Blood speech, it seems to me that he was merely stating the consequences of different cultures being forced together in the way they were.

I realise that is pretty much the excuse the Afrikaaners used to justify Apartheid. It seems to me that the problem of integration was tackled unlilaterally, and it hasn't worked as well as it should have.

Powell was positing racial grounds more than cultural ones. He was talking about black people - Commonwealth immigration - he had no idea at the time of the threat that islam would become both in the UK and globally.

So the result was understood, just not how he thought we would get there.

There's not much hope of integrating people that not only actively don't want to be integrated, but desire the exact opposite.

[CropleyWasGod]

Powell was positing racial grounds more than cultural ones. He was talking about black people - Commonwealth immigration - he had no idea at the time of the threat that islam would become both in the UK and globally.

So the result was understood, just not how he thought we would get there.

There's not much hope of integrating people that not only actively don't want to be integrated, but desire the exact opposite.

I would agree with you on that. However, I am sure that you are saying that all Muslims fall under that description. Am I right?

[Phil D. Rolls]

Powell was positing racial grounds more than cultural ones. He was talking about black people - Commonwealth immigration - he had no idea at the time of the threat that islam would become both in the UK and globally.

So the result was understood, just not how he thought we would get there.

There's not much hope of integrating people that not only actively don't want to be integrated, but desire the exact opposite.

I read a book about the situation in Holland, "Death in Amsterdam", which was written after Theo Van Gogh was assassinated by "Muslim radicals".

One of the interesting things that came out, and is possibly mirrored here is that it is rarely the first generation of immigrants that cause the trouble. They are too busy getting their head down making money so that their kids can get a better life.

Those children grow up with opportunities, but also the memories of the abuse their parents suffered at the hands of the indigenous population. So along with the economic freedom, they carry a sense of grievance. This can often metamorphose into a need for revenge and outright rejection of the system they blame for their unhappiness.

Interestingly, the guy that shot Van Gogh was something of a loner, and didn't actually represent any group. He was as much a misfit in the Muslim community as anything else.

[LiverpoolHibs]

It's slightly ludicrous to claim that a man who (in the speech) referred to his black constituents as 'wide-grinning piccanninies' wasn't a racist. What he pioneered was the 'culturalist' based racism that we now encounter with the EDL and the assorted groups around them - the BNP's public face is now pretty much based on this because people still seem to buy, in whatever number, the idea that if you talk about racial 'culture' rather than racial biology or genetics you're able to avoid or stymie accusations of racism. It's a way of sublimating and coding language to get a more receptive audience; when Powell railed against Sikhs 'maintaining customs innapropriate to Britain' and getting 'special communal rights' he laid the foundations for modern day Islamophobia - different group same racist constructions. Powell, Cameron (not to mention the last few Labour governments who had an appalling record on this sort of thing) genereally caveat their comments with claims that the 'middle-ground' needs to speak out against such things to avoid the rise of extremists. It's nonsense, obviously - Powell comments were, to a large degree, responsible for the growth of the National Front in the seventies and eighties and Cameron's comments will most likely have a similar effect on the EDL.

It's a bit gauche to quote your own post but I didn't think there would be a perfect example of the above on this very thread.


A religion, that is, not a race. Just to be clear, LH.

Sigh, the 'Islam isn't a race' line really is quickly approaching 'some of my best friends...' in the 'things racists say' stakes.

As I said to FalkirkHibee when he attempted the same argument - 'race' does not exist as any meaningful way in which to classify human beings, the Human Genome Project have established that ther is no biological determinant for race. Therefore, something being (or not being a race) has no bearing on what constitutes racism. I assume that you hold a similar position on anti-Semitism, yeah? Judeophobic pogroms aren't racist because there isn't really any such thing as the Jewish 'race' - it's just a religion...


Ah, so it's the fault of indigenous Brits then. Of course. We've clasped every other colour and creed to our collective bosom (not that there's been any choice in the matter, however) but we've just not done enough to 'reach out' to muslims.

We must do more as it's all too evident just how much muslims in the UK want to integrate into British society. I mean, what could be more British than blowing up public transport with the loss of 52 lives? Or welcoming home 'Our Boys' from (admittedly pointless but hugely dangerous and frequently fatal) foreign tours with welcoming cries of 'baby rapists!'? Or the great respect shown to that most sacred of British bastions, free speech, by marching in London and inciting murder with placards reading 'UK you will pay, 9/11 on its way', 'behead those who insult islam' or even 'free speech go to hell'. A reaction to... cartoons. Published in... a Danish newspaper.

Maybe even send 'your' women out dressed as Ninjas? For me, there's nothing that says 'yes, I want to be part of your society; to be included and make a contribution' than going out dressed like a dalek with glasses.

Christ, what a viscious and scared chap you must be. This really is just a reprisal of the sort of thing people used to write about Jews in the 1930s.

[Leicester Fan]

He could speak Urdu amongst other languages - doesn't mean he wasnt a racist, but it is unusual.

He came from ordinary stock, his father was a primary school teacher, his mother the daughter of a policeman. Maybe that is why the Tories didn't want him.

I believe Ted Heath's dad was a brickie, hardly posh.

Leicester was mentioned in another post. I have to say even though we don't have a lot of inter racial trouble ( or at least little worth mentioning in the local paper) there isn't a lot of integration. Hindus and Sikhs live mainly in one part of the city and Muslims in another and there is very little love lost between them.

As a decorator I was asked last year by a hindu woman to stick a mural maps of the world to the ceilings of her kids bedrooms so that they could absorb knowledge whilst lying in bed, fair enough. Then she told me, in all seriousness to make sure Pakistan wasn't directly above her kids heads because she didn't want them to learn about that.

[magpie1892]

I would agree with you on that. However, I am sure that you are saying that all Muslims fall under that description. Am I right?

No, I am not saying that. I think - Amir Khan with his Union Jack shorts being an obvious example - that it is entirely possible to be British and muslim. There are many, and I know several, who are fiercely proud to be both.

But there are many more who are being led astray by the more outlandish and literal aspects of islam and this is being exacerbated by muslims in the UK finding themselves in a society that must be very confusing on numerous levels.

It was suggested above, and I was flippant in response, that we should do more to integrate muslims. I don't see what else we can do. Mosques, halal, bending over backwards not to cause any sort of offence (mainly without success). According to the Koran, if you take one step towards Allah, he will take two steps towards you. Well, the UK has taken several steps towards muslims but I am not seeing the reciprocal steps in the UK's direction from muslims.

[One Day Soon]

It's good to talk!

Jesus, you're barely back a day and you have managed to start an argument with, well, pretty much everyone.

You clearly have political views though I'm not sure that they can be easily pigeon-holed. Are you actually a member of a political party? If not how would you describe your politics or which thinkers do you admire?

[magpie1892]

It's a bit gauche to quote your own post but I didn't think there would be a perfect example of the above on this very thread.



Sigh, the 'Islam isn't a race' line really is quickly approaching 'some of my best friends...' in the 'things racists say' stakes.

As I said to FalkirkHibee when he attempted the same argument - 'race' does not exist as any meaningful way in which to classify human beings, the Human Genome Project have established that ther is no biological determinant for race. Therefore, something being (or not being a race) has no bearing on what constitutes racism. I assume that you hold a similar position on anti-Semitism, yeah? Judeophobic pogroms aren't racist because there isn't really any such thing as the Jewish 'race' - it's just a religion...



Christ, what a viscious and scared chap you must be. This really is just a reprisal of the sort of thing people used to write about Jews in the 1930s.

tl;dr, but it's not entirely surprising we disagree.

p.s. in describing me as 'viscious', you picked the wrong place to drop in a typo!

[magpie1892]

Jesus, you're barely back a day and you have managed to start an argument with, well, pretty much everyone.

You clearly have political views though I'm not sure that they can be easily pigeon-holed. Are you actually a member of a political party? If not how would you describe your politics or which thinkers do you admire?

What do you mean 'back a day'? Never been away! And I'm seeing rebuttals from the usual suspects, not 'pretty much everyone'.

I'm not a member of any political party. I don't really rate any of them. I'd describe myself (lord knows why you're interested!) as a libertarian. I believe very stongly in the equality of the sexes, the right to freedom of expression and sexual orientation and the right of the individual to make up their own mind. Which is why islam offends me.

Thinkers: Frank Field, Dan Hannan, Nigel Farage, Jesse Jackson and, yep, Margaret Thatcher.

[LiverpoolHibs]

tl;dr, but it's not entirely surprising we disagree.

p.s. in describing me as 'viscious', you picked the wrong place to drop in a typo!

If it was too long to read how did you establish I called you 'viscious' (sic.).

[magpie1892]

If it was too long to read how did you establish I called you 'viscious' (sic.).

Cos it was the last line?!

[One Day Soon]

What do you mean 'back a day'? Never been away! And I'm seeing rebuttals from the usual suspects, not 'pretty much everyone'.

I'm not a member of any political party. I don't really rate any of them. I'd describe myself (lord knows why you're interested!) as a libertarian. I believe very stongly in the equality of the sexes, the right to freedom of expression and sexual orientation and the right of the individual to make up their own mind. Which is why islam offends me.

Thinkers: Frank Field, Dan Hannan, Nigel Farage, Jesse Jackson and, yep, Margaret Thatcher.

For some reason I thought you had been absent. Perhaps I have just been over busy with the bar room brawl I managed to inadvertently start over on the main board with the 'Scott Brown - Legend' thread.

I'm not seeing a lot of support (well none at all really) for your posts so that's why I said everyone.

I was kind of expecting libertarian and no party and the reason I asked is because it can help to get a more rounded picture of where someone is coming from. I'm not sure you can reasonably single out Islam from all other religions in terms of being offended on the grounds you state. Is Judaism particularly good on equality of the sexes, freedom of expression and sexual orientation? Are Christian fundamentalists?

That's an eclectic choice of thinkers. Frank Field I know but find kind of self defeating. Dan Hannan I don't know. I would describe Farage as more of a political figure than thinker. Jesse Jackson I find pretty incredible to be honest - what is the draw there? Then there's Thatcher.....

Actually I dont regard her as a thinker, as it were, at all. Keith Joseph was surely the real thinker in the political crew there with Friedman as the main plank? Thatcher was a pretty shallow thinker but a very strong leader. Though wrong headed in my view, obviously.

On reflection the people you have chosen look to me more like quite public iconoclasts, people who weren't afraid to go against the grain and say what they thought. Actually, people who seemed to very much enjoy challenging the status quo. Which brings us, if I'm not mistaken, back to you....

Anyway, time for me to go back and be helpful on the Legend thread.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Cos it was the last line?!

Yeah, I think you read it.

[bighairyfaeleith]

Ah, so it's the fault of indigenous Brits then. Of course. We've clasped every other colour and creed to our collective bosom (not that there's been any choice in the matter, however) but we've just not done enough to 'reach out' to muslims.

We must do more as it's all too evident just how much muslims in the UK want to integrate into British society. I mean, what could be more British than blowing up public transport with the loss of 52 lives? Or welcoming home 'Our Boys' from (admittedly pointless but hugely dangerous and frequently fatal) foreign tours with welcoming cries of 'baby rapists!'? Or the great respect shown to that most sacred of British bastions, free speech, by marching in London and inciting murder with placards reading 'UK you will pay, 9/11 on its way', 'behead those who insult islam' or even 'free speech go to hell'. A reaction to... cartoons. Published in... a Danish newspaper.

Maybe even send 'your' women out dressed as Ninjas? For me, there's nothing that says 'yes, I want to be part of your society; to be included and make a contribution' than going out dressed like a dalek with glasses.

Your picking extreme examples of course perpetrated by the vast minority of muslims. So what is your proposed solution then??

I suspect it's shoot the lot of them but you probably won't say it:rolleyes:

[magpie1892]

For some reason I thought you had been absent. Perhaps I have just been over busy with the bar room brawl I managed to inadvertently start over on the main board with the 'Scott Brown - Legend' thread.

I'm not seeing a lot of support (well none at all really) for your posts so that's why I said everyone.

I was kind of expecting libertarian and no party and the reason I asked is because it can help to get a more rounded picture of where someone is coming from. I'm not sure you can reasonably single out Islam from all other religions in terms of being offended on the grounds you state. Is Judaism particularly good on equality of the sexes, freedom of expression and sexual orientation? Are Christian fundamentalists?

That's an eclectic choice of thinkers. Frank Field I know but find kind of self defeating. Dan Hannan I don't know. I would describe Farage as more of a political figure than thinker. Jesse Jackson I find pretty incredible to be honest - what is the draw there? Then there's Thatcher.....

Actually I dont regard her as a thinker, as it were, at all. Keith Joseph was surely the real thinker in the political crew there with Friedman as the main plank? Thatcher was a pretty shallow thinker but a very strong leader. Though wrong headed in my view, obviously.

On reflection the people you have chosen look to me more like quite public iconoclasts, people who weren't afraid to go against the grain and say what they thought. Actually, people who seemed to very much enjoy challenging the status quo. Which brings us, if I'm not mistaken, back to you....

Anyway, time for me to go back and be helpful on the Legend thread.

No, no, just knocking about. I got into a big tear up directly after Qatar got the 2022 World Cup as at the time (well, until Thursday in fact) I was living in Doha and could see first hand the poverty of the decision. Oddly enough, my detractors that day have gone awful quiet. The 2022 World Cup will not take place in Doha's summer. I've something coming up in one of the Sundays about this.

Before we continue, two things:


I regret (some of) the tone or our previous encounters here. Moving on...
I loved that thread. How Brown got booked I will never understand.

Anyway, you're right, these other faiths you mention have less than ideal records in the spheres you mention but you're engaged in 'whataboutery'. Just because Qatar, for example, does not execute criminals in public as Saudi does, does not mean the former's record on human rights does not require scrutiny. Furthermore, and this is an old (but robust) argument, I have yet to learn of British-born Christians/Jews/Sikhs/Hindus/Buddhists, etc. mass murdering people in the name of their faith or for any other reason. I have yet to see the aforementioned groups march in London and inciting muder (at least one while wearing a dummy explosive jacket - nice. A convicted heroin dealer, apparently, how does one square that with islam?) over cartoons mildly lampooning their faith published in another country.

Regarding my 'hit-list', I like (as you can see) strong leaders. I also like compassion and civilrights, hence Jackson's inclusion. I omitted John Smith, whom I knew a wee bit and he comes under the 'compassion' column. I am from the north (of England) so I fully understand the antipathy towards Thatcher.

Your 'On reflection...' paragraph insinuates that I enjoy being contrary. I really don't. I just (try to) call it as I see it. I'm with Pim Fortuyn on this one when he said: 'Ik zeg wat ik denk, en doe wat ik wil' (I say what I think and do what I like). On the subject of the late M. Fortuyn (whose funeral I went to), it has never been explained to me how a gay social democrat could suddenly find himself typed as 'far right' because he dared criticise the islamifiaction of Europe...

My political ideas range from far left to far right. But above all, I believe in the concept of fair play. Successive UK governments - of all hues (well, 2.5 hues) - are not playing fair by the taxpayer...

I'm a little confused (no doubt you would agree!) but in the 80s, when I was a wee lad, these ideas:

* gender equality
* equal rights for gay people
* complete freedom of speech and expression

...were considered 'left-wing'. Fast forward 20-or-so years, and sticking up for these things makes you a Nazi. How anyone other than a muslim (or Charles Manson) can stick up for that faith with its advocacies is quite beyond me. It flies in the face of all that socialists should hold dear. But therein lies the rub; there's no real socialist alternative. And how we need one, in a 'yin-yang' sort of way...

[magpie1892]

Your picking extreme examples of course perpetrated by the vast minority of muslims. So what is your proposed solution then??

I suspect it's shoot the lot of them but you probably won't say it:rolleyes:

Don't be obtuse, I would never suggest any such thing, even in jest!

My solution? This seems as good a time as any to reach for a quote. Indulge me, and I'll pick two:



'Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country' (JFK, obv.)
'When in Rome, do as the Romans do' (St Ambrose)

Contribute, don't take. Assimilate, don't estrange. Tolerate, don't hate.

And, if you want to be taken seriously, please understand that stoning a woman to death for being raped does not translate in 'the west' at all...

Arms are open, not crossed. Reciprocation is sought, but... I don't think it's coming.

[magpie1892]

Yeah, I think you read it.

I did, hence spotted the typo.

I know we're not really likely to agree on much, and that's OK, but I'm still frustrated by the fact that you have so much to say - some of it definitely worth regard - but your delivery is awful.

You don't seem to understand discourse as it is generally accepted. There's no take, only give. You're very stilted, and contradictory; you accuse me of racism, then assert there's no such thing as race...

I'm going to be patronising and say that you'll have a better understanding of 'how stuff works' when you're a bit more seasoned. Assuming '24' is your real age, of course.

I'm neither scared nor viscious; I am concerned though, as this Septic Isle seems very unhappy and anxious. Blame the Tories if you like, you'll be no nearer the answer.

[bighairyfaeleith]

Don't be obtuse, I would never suggest any such thing, even in jest!

My solution? This seems as good a time as any to reach for a quote. Indulge me, and I'll pick two:



'Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country' (JFK, obv.)
'When in Rome, do as the Romans do' (St Ambrose)

Contribute, don't take. Assimilate, don't estrange. Tolerate, don't hate.

And, if you want to be taken seriously, please understand that stoning a woman to death for being raped does not translate in 'the west' at all...

Arms are open, not crossed. Reciprocation is sought, but... I don't think it's coming.

OK, well that sounds like one of davy boys speeches but it tells the square root of f all, basically your saying they should live like us. Surely one of the benefits of migration is that we get to broaden our own horizons with a better understanding of how other people live.

I love the way you keep having to use the most extreme examples to prove your argument, perhaps that tells you your argument is wrong?

Think about the great things we now have as a result of migration. It would be a boring country if everyone just came here and started living like us, difference is good.

sorry but if thats our solution we will continue to be a target for extremists for a long time to come. We are just making it too easy for them!!

we should embrace people and the way they live, as long as they are prepared to abide by our laws and show the same understanding of our ways as I propose we show for theres then we should let them be, and afford them the same opportunites as ourselves. In this country we have never done that and the evidence of that is clear to see, why did so many italians own ice cream shops and chip shops. Why do so many pakistanis own corner shops and drive taxis. Why did so many poles work in factories and hotels.

[LiverpoolHibs]

I did, hence spotted the typo.

I know we're not really likely to agree on much, and that's OK, but I'm still frustrated by the fact that you have so much to say - some of it definitely worth regard - but your delivery is awful.

You don't seem to understand discourse as it is generally accepted. There's no take, only give. You're very stilted, and contradictory; you accuse me of racism, then assert there's no such thing as race...

I'm going to be patronising and say that you'll have a better understanding of 'how stuff works' when you're a bit more seasoned. Assuming '24' is your real age, of course.

I'm neither scared nor viscious; I am concerned though, as this Septic Isle seems very unhappy and anxious. Blame the Tories if you like, you'll be no nearer the answer though.

Ha, well I think it's safe to say that hibsbollah was absolutely spot-on with his earlier post. An enormous sense of self-importance with absolutely nothing to justify it.

It's quite telling that you put your own complete lack of understanding of a - pretty simple - concept down to me being 'stilted and contradictory'. I said that 'race' does not exist but that the existence of racism doesn't, and never has, depended on the existence of 'race'.

Unfortunately your posts on here very much give the impression of someone who is both vicious and absolutely petrified.

Incidentally why did you say you hadn't read it when you had? That seems rather an odd thing to do.

N.B. And why on earth would I be lying about my age?!

[magpie1892]

OK, well that sounds like one of davy boys speeches but it tells the square root of f all, basically your saying they should live like us. Surely one of the benefits of migration is that we get to broaden our own horizons with a better understanding of how other people live.

I love the way you keep having to use the most extreme examples to prove your argument, perhaps that tells you your argument is wrong?

Think about the great things we now have as a result of migration. It would be a boring country if everyone just came here and started living like us, difference is good.

sorry but if thats our solution we will continue to be a target for extremists for a long time to come. We are just making it too easy for them!!

we should embrace people and the way they live, as long as they are prepared to abide by our laws and show the same understanding of our ways as I propose we show for theres then we should let them be, and afford them the same opportunites as ourselves. In this country we have never done that and the evidence of that is clear to see, why did so many italians own ice cream shops and chip shops. Why do so many pakistanis own corner shops and drive taxis. Why did so many poles work in factories and hotels.

I think it sounds entirely unlike anything 'Davy boy' would say. This is the problem.

No, I am not saying 'they' should live like 'us'. What I am saying is that FGM, inter-family marriage, homophobia, misogyny, death for apostasy, halal by default, mass murder, incitement to murder, and so on, are all 'out' as far as I am concerned. Are you making a case for these mentioned?

Difference is good. Mass murder is not. I'll take 'boring' over mass murder any day of the week, and twice on Saturday.

I'm agreed, we do have a lot of 'good things' from immigration. The good things (Nigel Benn, John Barnes, Chinese food, great curry, etc.) are getting mighty diluted by the bad things - islam, benefit dependancy, benefit fraud, domestic violence being OK 'as long as you don't mark the woman'. Holy ****, are you really championing this ****?

Again, I agree that we should 'embrace people and the way they live as long as they are prepared to abide by our laws'. 100% agreement. Now, tell me, what does 200+ (and counting) shari'a courts in the UK say to you?

You're not convincing me. Luca's in Musselburgh and the Pia family are good examples of integration. They both, however, fail the suicide bomb test.

If you think I want a 'white' United Kingdom then you are way, way, way off the mark. I want to live in a UK where everyone pays their way.

[New Corrie]

Enoch's speech was made at a time when the immigrants of that period desperately wanted to integrate, but were met with barbaric racial obstacles, eg "no blacks" signs on boarding houses etc etc

It has changed days, Britain welcomes all with open arms, yet many want to abuse the hospitality. The pious nature in which Scottish people accuse folks of being racists beggars belief, the most intolerant country imaginable, and it's occupants getting high n mighty about racism, spare me please. I would also be interested to hear the views of the Guardian reading Scots if they lived in Birmingham or Bradford.

[magpie1892]

Ha, well I think it's safe to say that hibsbollah was absolutely spot-on with his earlier post. An enormous sense of self-importance with absolutely nothing to justify it.

It's quite telling that you put your own complete lack of understanding of a - pretty simple - concept down to me being 'stilted and contradictory'. I said that 'race' does not exist but that the existence of racism doesn't, and never has, depended on the existence of 'race'.

Unfortunately your posts on here very much give the impression of someone who is both vicious and absolutely petrified.

Incidentally why did you say you hadn't read it when you had? That seems rather an odd thing to do.

N.B. And why on earth would I be lying about my age?!

FYI, (patronisation alert!) starting a response with 'Ha' doesn't look good. At all.

Moving on. I don't agree I am self important, and that's not what HB (great sig, like you'll get something nuanced and objective on matters islam therein) said.

But, OK, assume I am viscious and petrified if it pleases you. This tells us...?

'I think it's safe to say', in general, that you can chide me if you wish, but you're not really making a contribution.

You need work. I suggest a kibbutz.

[magpie1892]

Enoch's speech was made at a time when the immigrants of that period desperately wanted to integrate, but were met with barbaric racial obstacles, eg "no blacks" signs on boarding houses etc etc

It has changed days, Britain welcomes all with open arms, yet many want to abuse the hospitality. The pious nature in which Scottish people accuse folks of being racists beggars belief, the most intolerant country imaginable, and it's occupants getting high n mighty about racism, spare me please. I would also be interested to hear the views of the Guardian reading Scots if they lived in Birmingham or Bradford.

As I understand it, the 'No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish' boarding house signs were/are an urban myth. But your second paragraph is bang on the money.

[LiverpoolHibs]

FYI, (patronisation alert!) starting a response with 'Ha' doesn't look good. At all.

I'm not exactly sure why you keep insisting on giving me style, erm, tips.


Moving on. I don't agree I am self important, and that's not what HB (great sig, like you'll get something nuanced and objective on matters islam therein) said.

No, it isn't what he said. It's related though and I was just expanding upon what he said. I didn't really expect you to agree.


But, OK, assume I am viscious and petrified if it pleases you. This tells us...?

It tells us that you sound/are vicious and petrified. I didn't intend the observation to lead to any grand explanatory point


'I think it's safe to say', in general, that you can chide me if you wish, but you're not really making a contribution.

I was replying, in kind, to your post which was about me rather than the topic at hand. It shouldn't be surprising that there was little contribution to the debate; I hope it cleared up your confusion over the 'race'/'racism' issue, mind.


You need work. I suggest a kibbutz.

I think you need better jokes.

[magpie1892]

I'm not exactly sure why you keep insisting on giving me style, erm, tips.



No, it isn't what he said. It's related though and I was just expanding upon what he said. I didn't really expect you to agree.



It tells us that you sound/are vicious and petrified. I didn't intend the observation to lead to any grand explanatory point



I was replying, in kind, to your post which was about me rather than the topic at hand. It shouldn't be surprising that there was little contribution to the debate; I hope it cleared up your confusion over the 'race'/'racism' issue, mind.



I think you need better jokes.

Yes, you're probably right on the last point. 'Take my wife..' Howzat!?

The rest? We're clearly poles apart, but I'm certain that neither of us would have it any other way. It's not really that big a deal in the oft-political sub-forum of a football mesageboard of a 'bohemian' club, in a labour heartland, in a labour/snp country. I don't expect to find much sympathy here.

A storm is coming, though.

[Phil D. Rolls]

Entertaining debate so far. I have only seen one point that addresses Enoch's motivation for that speech, namely LH saying he was representing the interests of the ruling class.

I can't say I'm 100% behind that, as there was still full employment in the 60s. There is no doubt that Powell was a maverick who had some far out views. It's just that I have seen a fair element of compassion in a lot of what he proposed.

Take his proposal to close down the asylums. This has been recognised by many as a very forward thinking and humanitarian move. Yet, his aim of care in the community, rather than at institutions was compromised by the actions of others.

Enoch Powell, rightly, said that the failure of this move in the 80s was due to under investment by the government. He recognised that it would cost more to look after the insane at home rather than in hospital. Thatcherites though saw it as an ideal cost cutting exercise.

So this is where I'm coming from. Enoch Powell seems to me like a man who spoke for what he thought was right. I think he had a greater grasp on humanity than most politicians, but was ultimately doomed because his solutions were too "way out" for most.

Just like Tony Benn, I think that Enoch's brain moved too quickly for those around him. I also think he wanted to act for people rather than vested interests.

[Sir David Gray]

No, I was talking about the UK as whole. I, too, have seen little evidence of this in Scotland but lots and lots in Lancashire towns, Brum, Leicester, London, etc.

It does take a certain amount of 'chutzpah' to move to another country if you're intent on working, assimilating, learning the language, exposing yourself to another culture and embracing that culture but if, say, I were to move into an expat community in Spain, sign on then begin denigrating all aspects of the host culture, I wouldn't expect to be 'celebrated' by the Spaniards.

I tend to believe that Powell was wrong - at the time - but unfettered immigration, political correctness and wet liberal hand-wringers with some odd guilt complex seem intent on proving him right.

However, Powell was certainly wrong in that he was talking about non-Caucasians whereas the current threat to society comes from the revolting 'religion' that is islam.

A religion, that is, not a race. Just to be clear, LH.


Ah, so it's the fault of indigenous Brits then. Of course. We've clasped every other colour and creed to our collective bosom (not that there's been any choice in the matter, however) but we've just not done enough to 'reach out' to muslims.

We must do more as it's all too evident just how much muslims in the UK want to integrate into British society. I mean, what could be more British than blowing up public transport with the loss of 52 lives? Or welcoming home 'Our Boys' from (admittedly pointless but hugely dangerous and frequently fatal) foreign tours with welcoming cries of 'baby rapists!'? Or the great respect shown to that most sacred of British bastions, free speech, by marching in London and inciting murder with placards reading 'UK you will pay, 9/11 on its way', 'behead those who insult islam' or even 'free speech go to hell'. A reaction to... cartoons. Published in... a Danish newspaper.

Maybe even send 'your' women out dressed as Ninjas? For me, there's nothing that says 'yes, I want to be part of your society; to be included and make a contribution' than going out dressed like a dalek with glasses.


No, I am not saying that. I think - Amir Khan with his Union Jack shorts being an obvious example - that it is entirely possible to be British and muslim. There are many, and I know several, who are fiercely proud to be both.

But there are many more who are being led astray by the more outlandish and literal aspects of islam and this is being exacerbated by muslims in the UK finding themselves in a society that must be very confusing on numerous levels.

It was suggested above, and I was flippant in response, that we should do more to integrate muslims. I don't see what else we can do. Mosques, halal, bending over backwards not to cause any sort of offence (mainly without success). According to the Koran, if you take one step towards Allah, he will take two steps towards you. Well, the UK has taken several steps towards muslims but I am not seeing the reciprocal steps in the UK's direction from muslims.


I think it sounds entirely unlike anything 'Davy boy' would say. This is the problem.

No, I am not saying 'they' should live like 'us'. What I am saying is that FGM, inter-family marriage, homophobia, misogyny, death for apostasy, halal by default, mass murder, incitement to murder, and so on, are all 'out' as far as I am concerned. Are you making a case for these mentioned?

Difference is good. Mass murder is not. I'll take 'boring' over mass murder any day of the week, and twice on Saturday.

I'm agreed, we do have a lot of 'good things' from immigration. The good things (Nigel Benn, John Barnes, Chinese food, great curry, etc.) are getting mighty diluted by the bad things - islam, benefit dependancy, benefit fraud, domestic violence being OK 'as long as you don't mark the woman'. Holy ****, are you really championing this ****?

Again, I agree that we should 'embrace people and the way they live as long as they are prepared to abide by our laws'. 100% agreement. Now, tell me, what does 200+ (and counting) shari'a courts in the UK say to you?

You're not convincing me. Luca's in Musselburgh and the Pia family are good examples of integration. They both, however, fail the suicide bomb test.

If you think I want a 'white' United Kingdom then you are way, way, way off the mark. I want to live in a UK where everyone pays their way.

I was going to add my comments to this thread but I've just read the posts I have quoted above and I don't think I could realistically add anything to them.

I agree with pretty much every single thing you have written there.

Well said. :top marks

This country's wishy-washy response towards the increasing Islamification of our towns and cities is embarrassing and, eventually, I believe we will seriously regret taking such a weak approach.

[bighairyfaeleith]

I was going to add my comments to this thread but I've just read the posts I have quoted above and I don't think I could realistically add anything to them.

I agree with pretty much every single thing you have written there.

Well said. :top marks

This country's wishy-washy response towards the increasing Islamification of our towns and cities is embarrassing and, eventually, I believe we will seriously regret taking such a weak approach.

aye cos the hard line approach in iraq and afghanistan really worked a treat.:rolleyes:

[Betty Boop]

I was going to add my comments to this thread but I've just read the posts I have quoted above and I don't think I could realistically add anything to them.

I agree with pretty much every single thing you have written there.

Well said. :top marks

This country's wishy-washy response towards the increasing Islamification of our towns and cities is embarrassing and, eventually, I believe we will seriously regret taking such a weak approach.

You have been watching too much *** News ! :blah:

[CropleyWasGod]

You have been watching too much *** News ! :blah:

B'llox. If he had been, he would have KNOWN that "the UK is already on fire". :greengrin

[CropleyWasGod]

I was going to add my comments to this thread but I've just read the posts I have quoted above and I don't think I could realistically add anything to them.

I agree with pretty much every single thing you have written there.

Well said. :top marks

This country's wishy-washy response towards the increasing Islamification of our towns and cities is embarrassing and, eventually, I believe we will seriously regret taking such a weak approach.

Okay, what would you suggest as a strong approach? Serious question.

[khib70]

I was going to add my comments to this thread but I've just read the posts I have quoted above and I don't think I could realistically add anything to them.

I agree with pretty much every single thing you have written there.

Well said. :top marks

This country's wishy-washy response towards the increasing Islamification of our towns and cities is embarrassing and, eventually, I believe we will seriously regret taking such a weak approach.

I've got no time for Islamists, and this country is not nearly tough enough on them.

However, the bit in bold is complete nonsense. Islamification? What does that mean? Which towns? Which cities?

This is the kind of vague but inflammatory statement beloved of demagogues (like Powell), in order to marginalise and vilify a minority. (this "Islamification" is being carried out by 3 million Muslims, half of whom are presumably elderly or children.)

You can't pass off extrapolated worst case scenarios as fact, or work on the basis that if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes true. Well, actually, you can, and do, but you're not the first.

What your post resembles most, is the rhetoric of anti-semitism.( "The Jews control everything, conspiracy, not integrating etc etc :blah::blah:")

Like Magpie, you're talking in slogans. Like him you're talking nonsense. And it's dangerous nonsense.

[Beefster]

I was going to add my comments to this thread but I've just read the posts I have quoted above and I don't think I could realistically add anything to them.

I agree with pretty much every single thing you have written there.

Well said. :top marks

This country's wishy-washy response towards the increasing Islamification of our towns and cities is embarrassing and, eventually, I believe we will seriously regret taking such a weak approach.

If you substitute 'Jewification' for 'Islamification', you could find a quote by a leading Nazi, before WW2/the holocaust, that was remarkably similar to that sentence.

[Twa Cairpets]

...
Thinkers: Frank Field, Dan Hannan, Nigel Farage, Jesse Jackson and, yep, Margaret Thatcher.

Thinkers / Nigel Farage in the same sentence. I think this is what you find in the dictionary under "Oxymoron".

[Pretty Boy]

I've got no time for Islamists, and this country is not nearly tough enough on them.

However, the bit in bold is complete nonsense. Islamification? What does that mean? Which towns? Which cities?

This is the kind of vague but inflammatory statement beloved of demagogues (like Powell), in order to marginalise and vilify a minority. (this "Islamification" is being carried out by 3 million Muslims, half of whom are presumably elderly or children.)

You can't pass off extrapolated worst case scenarios as fact, or work on the basis that if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes true. Well, actually, you can, and do, but you're not the first.

What your post resembles most, is the rhetoric of anti-semitism.( "The Jews control everything, conspiracy, not integrating etc etc :blah::blah:")

Like Magpie, you're talking in slogans. Like him you're talking nonsense. And it's dangerous nonsense.

:top marks Excellent post.

A lot of what i'm readin here from a couple of posters is the classic 'whatever next?' cliche. Essentially focussing on worst case scenarios to paint a far bleaker picture than actually exists.

A lot of the example of the 'Islamification' of our towns and cities is based on extreme examples- suicide bombers, those who protested at a welcome home march for soldiers etc etc. We are talking numbers in the dozens here not the thousands or millions certain parties would have us believe.

I am sure there is a section of the Muslim population unwilling to integrate, as there is a section of the indigenous population also unwilling to reach out and encourage or support intergration. However some of the comments by individuals on this thread and in general are vague half truths or downright lies, inflammatory nonsense that will be seized upon by the ignorant and ill thought out conspiracies.

[Peevemor]

This country's wishy-washy response towards the increasing Islamification of our towns and cities is embarrassing and, eventually, I believe we will seriously regret taking such a weak approach.

Scary stuff!

The state can't intervene on religious activity which doesn't break the law of the land. Whether the UK is a secular state is a bit ambiguous, but the monarch is bound by the coronation oath to protect protestantism - so why don't we get the Roman Catholics sorted out while we're at it? They have schools, chapels and all sorts of stuff going on in our communities. :wtf:

I say burn the papish hoardes! :protest:

[bighairyfaeleith]

:top marks Excellent post.

A lot of what i'm readin here from a couple of posters is the classic 'whatever next?' cliche. Essentially focussing on worst case scenarios to paint a far bleaker picture than actually exists.

A lot of the example of the 'Islamification' of our towns and cities is based on extreme examples- suicide bombers, those who protested at a welcome home march for soldiers etc etc. We are talking numbers in the dozens here not the thousands or millions certain parties would have us believe.

I am sure there is a section of the Muslim population unwilling to integrate, as there is a section of the indigenous population also unwilling to reach out and encourage or support intergration. However some of the comments by individuals on this thread and in general are vague half truths or downright lies, inflammatory nonsense that will be seized upon by the ignorant and ill thought out conspiracies.

yep I can agree with that, I mean how many people born and bred here don't want to work, abuse the system etc etc

Every section of society has it's wasters, generally known as jambos:greengrin

[Twa Cairpets]

This country's wishy-washy response towards the increasing Islamification of our towns and cities is embarrassing and, eventually, I believe we will seriously regret taking such a weak approach.

Interesting viewpoint.

Compared to 50 years ago, you're right. There are many more mosques in the country.

However, if you read back your sentence, it is completely indicative of a racist/xenophobic approach, and you cannot get away from this. The alternative to this "wish-washy" approach would be to be hard-line and restrictive on anything that spreads islam or the ability of muslims to worship/settle.

You approach is a clear desire to go back to some mythical halcyon days where the only people to be feared as posing a threat to our God-given way of living were the poor or catholics or Irish.

Your approach is high on minimally thought through rhetoric based on instances of extremism. The IRA and UVF have killed many thousands more people in the UK in the last 30 years. Are you railing against these in the same way or are they ok because they are christian terrorists?

Your position merely masks areas of specific and real concern that are valid to explore and question, such as the extent of UK Sharia courts, which I agree is wrong - justice is justice based on the laws of the land, not which particular faith you belong to.

[magpie1892]

The IRA and UVF have killed many thousands more people in the UK in the last 30 years. Are you railing against these in the same way or are they ok because they are christian terrorists?

Right enough, you can conflate the IRA/UVF with those who do their murdering in the name of islam. Peas in a pod, so they are.

For one thing, islamic muderers came close to matching the total number of deaths from thirty years of 'troubles' in one New York morning.

Secondly, the Jyllands-Posten muhammad cartoons controversy achieved a bodycount in three figures. If the Belfast Telegraph prints a cartoon taking piss out of Gerry Adams, all that happens is that some rocket sends bullets to Neil Lennon.

[Twa Cairpets]

Right enough, you can conflate the IRA/UVF with those who do their murdering in the name of islam. Peas in a pod, so they are.

For one thing, islamic muderers came close to matching the total number of deaths from thirty years of 'troubles' in one New York morning.

Secondly, the Jyllands-Posten muhammad cartoons controversy achieved a bodycount in three figures. If the Belfast Telegraph prints a cartoon taking piss out of Gerry Adams, all that happens is that some rocket sends bullets to Neil Lennon.

What a fatuous response.

My point was that terrorism is terrorism regardless of where it comes from. It is almost by definition committed by those beyond rational thinking on the extremes of their particular belief system or righteous cause.

Your cherry picking the actions of the actions of such extremists and those who are led along by them by dint of there educational backwardness, poverty or sense of futility is pointless. You wilfully present them as the mainstream view, and a reason to cower in terror and man the barricades. You have vastly more chance of being killed by virtually any other cause in the UK than by being killed by an Islamic terrorist.

Are gangs of islamic thugs protesting at Wooton Basset truly any worse than gangs of EDL Skinheads marching through Burnley? They are opposite poles of the same compass. They're both reprehensible, mostly deeply stupid sheep led by fanatics and bampots.

You seem to somehow think that Islamic atrocities are worse than other murders. They're not. They're all tawdry, tragic, pointless and vile. Being killed by a nameless loony Musilm is no worse than being blown to bits by an IRA bomb or Timothy McVeigh.

I'll repeat again, the overt Islamophobia where everything is scary, threatening and dangerous hides and masks the ability for genuinely concerning issues to be addressed without descending into accusations of "them all being a bomber" or "they all wear burkhas".

Genuine issues such as Sharia law courts (there should only be one law in a country) cannot be engaged if the default position of the debaters is that it is a slippery slope to global islamic takeover. It misses the issues by a country mile.

[Betty Boop]

What a fatuous response.

My point was that terrorism is terrorism regardless of where it comes from. It is almost by definition committed by those beyond rational thinking on the extremes of their particular belief system or righteous cause.

Your cherry picking the actions of the actions of such extremists and those who are led along by them by dint of there educational backwardness, poverty or sense of futility is pointless. You wilfully present them as the mainstream view, and a reason to cower in terror and man the barricades. You have vastly more chance of being killed by virtually any other cause in the UK than by being killed by an Islamic terrorist.

Are gangs of islamic thugs protesting at Wooton Basset truly any worse than gangs of EDL Skinheads marching through Burnley? They are opposite poles of the same compass. They're both reprehensible, mostly deeply stupid sheep led by fanatics and bampots.

You seem to somehow think that Islamic atrocities are worse than other murders. They're not. They're all tawdry, tragic, pointless and vile. Being killed by a nameless loony Musilm is no worse than being blown to bits by an IRA bomb or Timothy McVeigh.

I'll repeat again, the overt Islamophobia where everything is scary, threatening and dangerous hides and masks the ability for genuinely concerning issues to be addressed without descending into accusations of "them all being a bomber" or "they all wear burkhas".

Genuine issues such as Sharia law courts (there should only be one law in a country) cannot be engaged if the default position of the debaters is that it is a slippery slope to global islamic takeover. It misses the issues by a country mile.

Sharia courts in Britain deal only with civil matters, such as business, finance and family law. Jewish Courts (the Beth Din) also operate in the UK, which deal with divorce, community affairs, religious conversions and medical ethics for Jewish patients. The scaremongering on this thread is unbelievable. :greengrin

[bighairyfaeleith]

Sharia courts in Britain deal only with civil matters, such as business, finance and family law. Jewish Courts (the Beth Din) also operate in the UK, which deal with divorce, community affairs, religious conversions and medical ethics for Jewish patients. The scaremongering on this thread is unbelievable. :greengrin

I'm very ignorant to sharia courts, but is the issue perhaps that some sharia courts are setup quietly to do things they shouldn't?

Perhaps they should be banned completely or actually regulated and therefore controlled and we would have a better understanding of what they do, as I say I'm completely ignorant to what they are so excuse me if this post is ridiculous:greengrin

[Betty Boop]

I'm very ignorant to sharia courts, but is the issue perhaps that some sharia courts are setup quietly to do things they shouldn't?

Perhaps they should be banned completely or actually regulated and therefore controlled and we would have a better understanding of what they do, as I say I'm completely ignorant to what they are so excuse me if this post is ridiculous:greengrin

Not an expert myself, however I remember having the same discussion on a thread previously. :greengrin

http://www.business-lawfirm.co.uk/Blog/2008/09/Sharia-Courts-Are-they-Legal/

[lapsedhibee]

Perhaps they should be banned completely or actually regulated and therefore controlled and we would have a better understanding of what they do, as I say I'm completely ignorant to what they are so excuse me if this post is ridiculous:greengrin

They're quite good for keeping wummen in their place: helping to ensure that sons inherit more than daughters, etc.

[CropleyWasGod]

They're quite good for keeping wummen in their place: helping to ensure that sons inherit more than daughters, etc.

They have their good points then? :greengrin

More seriously, and it's been said many times on here, one must remember that Islam is 700 years or so "younger" than Christianity. In cultural development terms, it's akin to where Christian society was in the 14th Century. Not the most enlightened and equal environment...

That's not to excuse some of the supposed negatives of Islam, but it does help me sometimes to put these things in context.

[Twa Cairpets]

Sharia courts in Britain deal only with civil matters, such as business, finance and family law. Jewish Courts (the Beth Din) also operate in the UK, which deal with divorce, community affairs, religious conversions and medical ethics for Jewish patients. The scaremongering on this thread is unbelievable. :greengrin

The scaremongering is unbelievable, I completely agree.

As for Sharia law or Beth Din (which I didnt know about), I understand that they are legally binding arrangements on the assumption that both sides agree to the judgement - a kind of faith based Judge Judy.

The concern is that any legal judgement on civil matters based on religious principals - regardless of the religion - is inherently wrong. That is a debate worth having, I think - when it is covered in fear, loathing, distrust and misinformation it becomes impossible to debate sensibly.

[lyonhibs]

Three million immigrants in a decade on Labour's watch, the majority of whom are benefit dependent with nothing to offer UK society other than FGM, murder, homophobia, mysogyny, death for apostasy, inter-familial marriage to a degree that is causing birth defects at 10x the UK average, 7/7, 'behead those whoinsult islam', etc., etc.

Even the Guardian comments pages are filled with angry lefties saying that it would have been nice to be asked. Madeline Bunting's piece yesterday was a laugh riot, and deservedly ripped to shreds BTL.

Anti-white in terms of the fact that white people remain the majority in the UK and are having to pay for the wonderful 'enrichment' that comes from importing unqualified, unemployable people unable and unwilling to work, or learn English, who have no interest in the welfare of UK society, quite the opposite in fact.

The overwhelming majority of immingrants have come from the new EU countries admitted since 2007.

Are Poland, Lithuania, Latvia etc Muslim countries?? - as let's be honest, that list of cliched facets of the extreme variant of Islam show where you think the "majority" of immingrants have come from under Labour and also show where your prejudices lie.

You'll need to help me on this one, but I'm willing to say the answer to that is "No" and that you're havering.

[Twa Cairpets]

Three million immigrants in a decade on Labour's watch, the majority of whom are benefit dependent with nothing to offer UK society other than FGM, murder, homophobia, mysogyny, death for apostasy, inter-familial marriage to a degree that is causing birth defects at 10x the UK average, 7/7, 'behead those whoinsult islam', etc., etc.

Would you care to back up any of these with something approaching statistics or a source - I had a quick scan for the birth defect claim. The only reference I could find was from the website of the London Branch of the BNP with the heading "Pakistanis breeding themselves to death", which you would have thought they'd have been happy about. The site also made me feel like having a shower to cleanse myself, and you'll forgive me if I don't regard there views as being in any way an unbiased apparaisal of data.

If you can try to remember that anecdote is not evidence, and that throwing words like "majority are benefit dependant" suggests there is some empirical evidence behind your deeply unpleasant rant, I'd love to see where your ideas come from (apart from the aformentioned organisation).

Oh, and as for your benefits dependant bollox, maybe you'd like to have a read through this http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100104013144AA6qXhN

[One Day Soon]

No, no, just knocking about. I got into a big tear up directly after Qatar got the 2022 World Cup as at the time (well, until Thursday in fact) I was living in Doha and could see first hand the poverty of the decision. Oddly enough, my detractors that day have gone awful quiet. The 2022 World Cup will not take place in Doha's summer. I've something coming up in one of the Sundays about this.

Totally barking and phoney idea.

Before we continue, two things:


I regret (some of) the tone or our previous encounters here. Moving on...
Impressive and dignified.

I loved that thread. How Brown got booked I will never understand.
Not over yet - so many shuttered minds

Anyway, you're right, these other faiths you mention have less than ideal records in the spheres you mention but you're engaged in 'whataboutery'. Just because Qatar, for example, does not execute criminals in public as Saudi does, does not mean the former's record on human rights does not require scrutiny. Furthermore, and this is an old (but robust) argument, I have yet to learn of British-born Christians/Jews/Sikhs/Hindus/Buddhists, etc. mass murdering people in the name of their faith or for any other reason. I have yet to see the aforementioned groups march in London and inciting muder (at least one while wearing a dummy explosive jacket - nice. A convicted heroin dealer, apparently, how does one square that with islam?) over cartoons mildly lampooning their faith published in another country.

But my point is precisely that in terms of extremists of any faith the truth is that they conduct their activities in spite of their faith, not because of it.


Regarding my 'hit-list', I like (as you can see) strong leaders. I also like compassion and civilrights, hence Jackson's inclusion. I omitted John Smith, whom I knew a wee bit and he comes under the 'compassion' column. I am from the north (of England) so I fully understand the antipathy towards Thatcher.

How did you come to support God's chosen team given your origins?

Your 'On reflection...' paragraph insinuates that I enjoy being contrary. I really don't. I just (try to) call it as I see it. I'm with Pim Fortuyn on this one when he said: 'Ik zeg wat ik denk, en doe wat ik wil' (I say what I think and do what I like). On the subject of the late M. Fortuyn (whose funeral I went to), it has never been explained to me how a gay social democrat could suddenly find himself typed as 'far right' because he dared criticise the islamifiaction of Europe...

Really? You genuinely don't enjoy provoking the reaction? I have to admit that, if only a bit of the time, I do.

My political ideas range from far left to far right. But above all, I believe in the concept of fair play. Successive UK governments - of all hues (well, 2.5 hues) - are not playing fair by the taxpayer...

You are going to be serially disappointed. What upsets you so much is I'm afraid simply in the nature of government regardless of political hue. The name of the game is trying to succeed while also failing in large measure.

I'm a little confused (no doubt you would agree!) but in the 80s, when I was a wee lad, these ideas:

* gender equality
* equal rights for gay people
* complete freedom of speech and expression

...were considered 'left-wing'. Fast forward 20-or-so years, and sticking up for these things makes you a Nazi. How anyone other than a muslim (or Charles Manson) can stick up for that faith with its advocacies is quite beyond me.

Separation between religion and state is the key here. Do, think and believe whatever you want as long as you don't impinge on the rights and liberties of others. If you do, the law must not tolerate it. By and large I think we are pretty good at that.

It flies in the face of all that socialists should hold dear. But therein lies the rub; there's no real socialist alternative. And how we need one, in a 'yin-yang' sort of way...

Socialism, now there's a moveable feast. I don't think we need a Socialist alternative, I think we need an alternative on the left that understands the difference between producer interest and consumer interest in public services, has jobs and the economy at its core and knows what the UK is going to be for in the next 50 years. And a whole lot of other stuff too...

[lyonhibs]

Would you care to back up any of these with something approaching statistics or a source - I had a quick scan for the birth defect claim. The only reference I could find was from the website of the London Branch of the BNP with the heading "Pakistanis breeding themselves to death", which you would have thought they'd have been happy about. The site also made me feel like having a shower to cleanse myself, and you'll forgive me if I don't regard there views as being in any way an unbiased apparaisal of data.

If you can try to remember that anecdote is not evidence, and that throwing words like "majority are benefit dependant" suggests there is some empirical evidence behind your deeply unpleasant rant, I'd love to see where your ideas come from (apart from the aformentioned organisation).

Oh, and as for your benefits dependant bollox, maybe you'd like to have a read through this http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100104013144AA6qXhN

In a word, no. Or at least I seriously doubt it.

But as long as one convinces oneself - using what empirics for justification I know not - that it's a "FACT" that immigrants who are Muslim are a) in the majority lazy slackabouts with no intention to work and conjointly b) adhereing to a radical wing of Islam (but we'll just assume that ALL immigrants who class themselves as Muslim fall into the same bracket) and that c) behind our backs these crafty Muslims are "Islamifying" (God, when did the Daily Mail manage to get word into everyday parlance!!!) our cities such that we will soon be living under Sharia law (or something like that......) then folk like Mr Magpie can happily foster their "fear of the other" and keep Richard Littlejohn used to the lifestyle to which he has become accustomed.

[--------]

The overwhelming majority of immigrants have come from the new EU countries admitted since 2007.

Are Poland, Lithuania, Latvia etc Muslim countries?? - as let's be honest, that list of cliched facets of the extreme variant of Islam show where you think the "majority" of immingrants have come from under Labour and also show where your prejudices lie.

You'll need to help me on this one, but I'm willing to say the answer to that is "No" and that you're havering.




I think you might mean there "the overwhelming majority of recent immigrants admitted into this country.."

BUT I think that for "immigrants" some posters should be saying "ethnic minorities" - people whose families have come into this country since WW2, mostly from the Commonwealth, mostly Pakistani Muslim, Hindu and Sikhs from India, and Afro-Caribbeans from, well, Africa and the Caribbean.

I would think that if we were speaking of people who themselves entered the country since 1945, and their descendants, the majority would be of Commonwealth origin.

Could I also suggest tentatively that it might not be totally helpful that when people voice their concerns/reservations about the present situation with regard to people coming into this country from wherever, they're frequently immediately shouted down as being racist/bigoted/scaremongering/etc/etc...?

It IS possible to have reasonable concerns about the future of society in the UK without being a crypto-Nazi.

[Twa Cairpets]

I think you might mean there "the overwhelming majority of recent immigrants admitted into this country.."

BUT I think that for "immigrants" some posters should be saying "ethnic minorities" - people whose families have come into this country since WW2, mostly from the Commonwealth, mostly Pakistani Muslim, Hindu and Sikhs from India, and Afro-Caribbeans from, well, Africa and the Caribbean.

I would think that if we were speaking of people who themselves entered the country since 1945, and their descendants, the majority would be of Commonwealth origin.

Could I also suggest tentatively that it might not be totally helpful that when people voice their concerns/reservations about the present situation with regard to people coming into this country from wherever, they're frequently immediately shouted down as being racist/bigoted/scaremongering/etc/etc...?

It IS possible to have reasonable concerns about the future of society in the UK without being a crypto-Nazi.

You are completely correct. However, when the points raised by posters are those that mirror those of that particular political bent, rational debate becomes impossible.

[lyonhibs]

I think you might mean there "the overwhelming majority of recent immigrants admitted into this country.."

BUT I think that for "immigrants" some posters should be saying "ethnic minorities" - people whose families have come into this country since WW2, mostly from the Commonwealth, mostly Pakistani Muslim, Hindu and Sikhs from India, and Afro-Caribbeans from, well, Africa and the Caribbean.

I would think that if we were speaking of people who themselves entered the country since 1945, and their descendants, the majority would be of Commonwealth origin.

Could I also suggest tentatively that it might not be totally helpful that when people voice their concerns/reservations about the present situation with regard to people coming into this country from wherever, they're frequently immediately shouted down as being racist/bigoted/scaremongering/etc/etc...?

It IS possible to have reasonable concerns about the future of society in the UK without being a crypto-Nazi.

Indeed you're initial point is right - the poster I was replying to mentioned "Immigrants under Labour's watch" and I rather assumed he wasn't referring to the Labour of Messrs Wilson and Atlee :greengrin

Agree with your latter point in principle - but when said concerns include the gem that the majority of Muslim immigrants' behaviour/beliefs/practices has led to a rise in birth defects, one rather has to make one's opinion clear.

For the record, my reasonable concerns for the future of UK society centre on lazy wastrels with no incentive, motivation (and often very little opportunity) to get off their *****, off benefits and into jobs.

We have a fair load of people that fall into that category, from all sorts of countries of origin, belonging to all religions etc, yet - in any "ills of UK society today" debate, the habits, beliefs and overall contribution to society of "John Smith" never gets scrutinized as closely, hysterically or vehemently as his Muslim/Afro-Carribean/etc etc counterpart, and that peturbs me most of all.

[magpie1892]

Would you care to back up any of these with something approaching statistics or a source - I had a quick scan for the birth defect claim. The only reference I could find was from the website of the London Branch of the BNP with the heading "Pakistanis breeding themselves to death", which you would have thought they'd have been happy about. The site also made me feel like having a shower to cleanse myself, and you'll forgive me if I don't regard there views as being in any way an unbiased apparaisal of data.

If you can try to remember that anecdote is not evidence, and that throwing words like "majority are benefit dependant" suggests there is some empirical evidence behind your deeply unpleasant rant, I'd love to see where your ideas come from (apart from the aformentioned organisation).

Oh, and as for your benefits dependant bollox, maybe you'd like to have a read through this http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100104013144AA6qXhN

You make it hard for me to engage with you whenyou throw silly 'BNP' smears in my direction. There's a hell of a lot of ad hominem on this sub-board. It's not helpful and I should know, as I've been guilty of the same in the past. You might note that I apologised for the same on this very thread.

You need to accept that not everyone shares your point of view and personal attacks don't make your case at all.

I'll find some decent sources, nonetheless.

[magpie1892]

You are completely correct. However, when the points raised by posters are those that mirror those of that particular political bent, rational debate becomes impossible.

Indeed, as is also the case when 'BNP' gets bandied about in regard to those with whom you disagree.

[magpie1892]

When said concerns include the gem that the majority of Muslim immigrants' behaviour/beliefs/practices has led to a rise in birth defects, one rather has to make one's opinion clear.

One rather does.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3342040.ece

(from the above): "Medical research suggests that while British Pakistanis are responsible for 3% of all births, they account for one in three British children born with genetic illnesses"

From The Sunday Times: "Labour MP Ann Cryer raised the issue two years ago after research showed British Pakistanis were 13 times more likely to have children with recessive disorders than the general population. Mrs Cryer, who represents Keighley in West Yorkshire, told the Sunday Times: "This is to do with a medieval culture where you keep wealth within the family."
"I have encountered cases of blindness and deafness. There was one poor girl who had to have an oxygen tank on her back and breathe from a hole in the front of her neck," she added.
"The parents were warned they should not have any more children. But when the husband returned from Pakistan, within months they had another child with exactly the same condition."

From the BBC: "Research for BBC2's Newsnight in November 2005 showed British Pakistanis accounted for 3.4% of all births but have 30% of all British children with "recessive disorders"."

[magpie1892]

Socialism, now there's a moveable feast. I don't think we need a Socialist alternative, I think we need an alternative on the left that understands the difference between producer interest and consumer interest in public services, has jobs and the economy at its core and knows what the UK is going to be for in the next 50 years. And a whole lot of other stuff too...

Will PM you on a couple of your enquiries.

It's nearly time for bed but I need to go and bash some pakis first, of course.

[bighairyfaeleith]

You make it hard for me to engage with you whenyou throw silly 'BNP' smears in my direction. There's a hell of a lot of ad hominem on this sub-board. It's not helpful and I should know, as I've been guilty of the same in the past. You might note that I apologised for the same on this very thread.

You need to accept that not everyone shares your point of view and personal attacks don't make your case at all.

I'll find some decent sources, nonetheless.

Hold on, your using some pretty extreme examples of islam to back up your argument but you get your nose out of joint because the only example fr can find to back up your argument comes from a BNP site.

:rolleyes:

[magpie1892]

Hold on, your using some pretty extreme examples of islam to back up your argument but you get your nose out of joint because the only example fr can find to back up your argument comes from a BNP site.

:rolleyes:

Eh? I just posted three sources regarding birth defects: Times, Sunday Times and BBC.

I also posted an IPPR source for the high levels of benefit dependency among the muslim community.

Here's a muslim talking about the tenets of how his faith is interpreted by some muslims: http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/Kanwar+Islam+condones+wife+beatings+misogyny/4117312/story.html

Here's an (old) list of terrorist organisations officially recognised by the US: http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/terrorist.cfm
It's from 2002 so I guess that the current list must not show that 90%+ of the most, er, 'important' terrorist groups are muslim.

'Make sure you say your prayers', I was always told. Sound advice in this context from last week: http://allafrica.com/stories/201102040530.html

Lots and lots of food for thought there. It's all on the internet, in the papers (including the far-left Guardian and BBC). You only need to be minded to look.

p.s. There's only one person on this thread that's been on the BNP website lately, and it ain't me!

[Twa Cairpets]

You make it hard for me to engage with you whenyou throw silly 'BNP' smears in my direction. There's a hell of a lot of ad hominem on this sub-board. It's not helpful and I should know, as I've been guilty of the same in the past. You might note that I apologised for the same on this very thread.

You need to accept that not everyone shares your point of view and personal attacks don't make your case at all.

I'll find some decent sources, nonetheless.

I'm not attacking your character as the means of discredting your position, so you need to sort out your understanding of ad hominem.

I did not say you were a BNP sympathiser, although I did say that your viewpoints as laid out in this thread are ones that would appeal to those who do have BNP sympathies. If you're offended by that then, frankly, thats not my issue.

[Phil D. Rolls]

If you substitute 'Jewification' for 'Islamification', you could find a quote by a leading Nazi, before WW2/the holocaust, that was remarkably similar to that sentence.

Now it is impossible to discuss issues like racial integration for fear that it will lead to another Auschwitz. I'm not saying it isn't a real fear, but the democratic process - which IMO relies on debate and reason - has been scuppered by taking discussion out of the equation.


Scary stuff!

The state can't intervene on religious activity which doesn't break the law of the land. Whether the UK is a secular state is a bit ambiguous, but the monarch is bound by the coronation oath to protect protestantism - so why don't we get the Roman Catholics sorted out while we're at it? They have schools, chapels and all sorts of stuff going on in our communities. :wtf:

I say burn the papish hoardes! :protest:

I wasn't expecting that....


yep I can agree with that, I mean how many people born and bred here don't want to work, abuse the system etc etc

Every section of society has it's wasters, generally known as jambos:greengrin

I said before, I usually prefer to work with immigrants than some Scottish people. They are better educated, and their English is far superior. Most importantly, they don't slope off for a fag break every hour.

I hate the BNP, and I hate ignorance. One thing that is coming out to me, in relation to the OP is that it is not what people know that is important, it is what they believe.

Just below our veneer of a civilised society, we have a lot of people who will quite easily believe stuff like Pakistanis breeding themselves to death. I am sometimes stunned at what some people are passing off as bona fide facts.

All it takes is for an Asian person to win an unfair dismissal case, for co workers to say they have played the race card to win it. I've seen it, these are not bad people but they are gullible and can be manipulated.

This seems to me the crux of the mistake that was made at the time of Rivers of Blood. The establishment was seen to write off Powell's thoughts as the ramblings of an extremist madman. However, many people thought he was right. Many more than we might care to admit.

The fact that most of them had no idea about the inner city conditions he was talking about - I think that even today, the majority of racists come from places where 99% of the population is white - is neither here nor there. In a democracy their views are supposed to count for something, and they were ignored.

Most discussion on race focusses on the problems that immigrants suffer. There seems to be no forum for the indigenous people to put their views. Instead cultural integration is forced on them. Personally, I find it pathetic that they think that way, but there it is.

You only have to look at the number of "Red Lions" on the Costa del Sol, to see that the Anglo Saxons are not the best at embracing other cultures. So perhaps it was folly to expect any other outcome than "disenfranchised" children of Pakistani parents.

Gets back to what Enoch Powell said. His solution might not have been right (it's impossible now), but IMO he is too readily criticised for indentifying the problem.

[magpie1892]

I'm not attacking your character as the means of discredting your position, so you need to sort out your understanding of ad hominem.

I did not say you were a BNP sympathiser, although I did say that your viewpoints as laid out in this thread are ones that would appeal to those who do have BNP sympathies. If you're offended by that then, frankly, thats not my issue.

Not offended, it's just an all-too-typical (on this board and in the media at large) method of stifling debate that you don't like. As has been pointed out at length here and elsewhere, poking whitey with the racist stick isn't having the effect it once did.

I don't have any problem whatsoever with muslims. I have enormous problems with their nauseating faith.

The alliance between the left wing (who are supposed to stand for human rights and values) and fascist islamists (who barely believe in any human rights at all) is utterly baffling.

[magpie1892]

Now it is impossible to discuss issues like racial integration for fear that it will lead to another Auschwitz. I'm not saying it isn't a real fear, but the democratic process - which IMO relies on debate and reason - has been scuppered by taking discussion out of the equation.



I wasn't expecting that....



I said before, I usually prefer to work with immigrants than some Scottish people. They are better educated, and their English is far superior. Most importantly, they don't slope off for a fag break every hour.

I hate the BNP, and I hate ignorance. One thing that is coming out to me, in relation to the OP is that it is not what people know that is important, it is what they believe.

Just below our veneer of a civilised society, we have a lot of people who will quite easily believe stuff like Pakistanis breeding themselves to death. I am sometimes stunned at what some people are passing off as bona fide facts.

All it takes is for an Asian person to win an unfair dismissal case, for co workers to say they have played the race card to win it. I've seen it, these are not bad people but they are gullible and can be manipulated.

This seems to me the crux of the mistake that was made at the time of Rivers of Blood. The establishment was seen to write off Powell's thoughts as the ramblings of an extremist madman. However, many people thought he was right. Many more than we might care to admit.

The fact that most of them had no idea about the inner city conditions he was talking about - I think that even today, the majority of racists come from places where 99% of the population is white - is neither here nor there. In a democracy their views are supposed to count for something, and they were ignored.

Most discussion on race focusses on the problems that immigrants suffer. There seems to be no forum for the indigenous people to put their views. Instead cultural integration is forced on them. Personally, I find it pathetic that they think that way, but there it is.

You only have to look at the number of "Red Lions" on the Costa del Sol, to see that the Anglo Saxons are not the best at embracing other cultures. So perhaps it was folly to expect any other outcome than "disenfranchised" children of Pakistani parents.

Gets back to what Enoch Powell said. His solution might not have been right (it's impossible now), but IMO he is too readily criticised for indentifying the problem.

Well look at this. An intelligent and coherent 'anti' argument.

To several people on this thread (you know who you are), this is how it should be done.

[Phil D. Rolls]

Well look at this. An intelligent and coherent 'anti' argument.

To several people on this thread (you know who you are), this is how it should be done.

I don't know what I am arguing for. I'm basically trying to figure out what the hell went on in the 60s.

[magpie1892]

I don't know what I am arguing for. I'm basically trying to figure out what the hell went on in the 60s.

Well it still made superior reading.

[Phil D. Rolls]

One of the things that strikes me about this issue, is that if you are the only person who holds a viewpoint, people might call you mad. Whereas if everyone around you takes the same stance you are deemed sane.

By that definition, you can see the frustration of a lot of people. They think they have the right answer, yet "the establishment" keeps telling them they are wrong. If you have been brought up to believe that the view of the majority is the right one, then it must cause a bit of anguish to come across this.

I think it is much better to challenge thinking than to just tell people it is wrong. On the race issue, I would ask them to square up things like emigration to Canada, retirements to the South of Spain, and the impact that these have on indigenous culture, with what is happening in the UK.

I'd also go on to try and ask them to focus on previous problems that have occurred with mass immigration, in places such as Northern Ireland. If I was feeling devilish, I'd ask them to question who benefits from these divisions in our society.

These things can't happen without open, and frank discussion of all the issues. However that can't happen when people are scared to have their views tested for fear of being called a Nazi. Convince a man against his will, and you'll find you have to convince him still.

For me, in the modern world, multiculturism is inevitable. Communications have advanced to the stage where we all have access to the same information at the same time. It seems to me, people are prepared to defend what they see as their own values, whilst happily picking and chosing those values and artefacts from other cultures that suit them. IMO it isn't multiculturism that is the great myth, it's the concept that there are different races in the world.

We might have come to the same place by different routes, but we are all here together at the same time. However, that message seems to have failed to get through. We shouldn't be surprised that people in the 60s thought the way they did.

Many of them had been through a war where they were told that they were fighting to protect their values and culture. Then they get told that things have changed. It would drive anyone nuts.

And I think that racism is nuts.

[magpie1892]

Some very interesting points, again.

The first one especially caught my eye:


One of the things that strikes me about this issue, is that if you are the only person who holds a viewpoint, people might call you mad. Whereas if everyone around you takes the same stance you are deemed sane.

On this thread there are at least four people coming from an actively anti-islamic slant. Three people have responded not by calling the quartet 'mad' but by engaging in smears and name-calling. You already identified this problem. Here and elsewhere it seems that the minority view must not be challenged or you're immediately tarred racist/bnp/'terrified'/'deeply unpleasant' and so on.

However, the boy has cried wolf so many times that the shepherd's patience is exhausted and the smear attempts just bemuse now, rather than injure. This is great news for all people interested in open debate and democracy.

[Phil D. Rolls]

Some very interesting points, again.

The first one especially caught my eye:



On this thread there are at least four people coming from an actively anti-islamic slant. Three people have responded not by calling the quartet 'mad' but by engaging in smears and name-calling. You already identified this problem. Here and elsewhere it seems that the minority view must not be challenged or you're immediately tarred racist/bnp/'terrified'/'deeply unpleasant' and so on.

However, the boy has cried wolf so many times that the shepherd's patience is exhausted and the smear attempts just bemuse now, rather than injure. This is great news for all people interested in open debate and democracy.

This is the major worry, illustrated by the way Griffin managed to score out of being on Question Time last year. If they had just let the man talk, the majority of reasonable people would have seen that his views don't add up.

Yet, the Camden socialists played right into his hands, by demonising him and making him more of a martyr to the disenfranchised. They were all for attacking the ideals rather than the conditions that breed such warped thinking.

[bighairyfaeleith]

Well look at this. An intelligent and coherent 'anti' argument.

To several people on this thread (you know who you are), this is how it should be done.

seriously, who are you, the writing police:faf:

[Phil D. Rolls]

seriously, who are you, the writing police:faf:

Are they friends with the PC Brigade?:greengrin

[bighairyfaeleith]

Some very interesting points, again.

The first one especially caught my eye:



On this thread there are at least four people coming from an actively anti-islamic slant. Three people have responded not by calling the quartet 'mad' but by engaging in smears and name-calling. You already identified this problem. Here and elsewhere it seems that the minority view must not be challenged or you're immediately tarred racist/bnp/'terrified'/'deeply unpleasant' and so on.

However, the boy has cried wolf so many times that the shepherd's patience is exhausted and the smear attempts just bemuse now, rather than injure. This is great news for all people interested in open debate and democracy.

Hold on, the issue is how you to choose to present your views not that you hold them. People have rightly commented on the islamification of our towns comment because it mertied it, you have made several posts where you only highlight the most extreme examples of (bad) islam and try and say that is the whole story.

I don't generally read newspapers because I don't like to be told what to think, I don't like the way they only show you the bit of the story they want you to see and throughout this thread you have done just that, so don't be surprised that people challenge it. Try giving a balanced argument for once.

[bighairyfaeleith]

Are they friends with the PC Brigade?:greengrin

dinnae get me started on that lot:greengrin

[magpie1892]

This is the major worry, illustrated by the way Griffin managed to score out of being on Question Time last year. If they had just let the man talk, the majority of reasonable people would have seen that his views don't add up.

Yet, the Camden socialists played right into his hands, by demonising him and making him more of a martyr to the disenfranchised. They were all for attacking the ideals rather than the conditions that breed such warped thinking.

Griffin was bullied by the QT audience/producers for sure, but his was still a chatastrophic performance for the BNP - they turned on him in the aftermath and things have been even more chaotic with that party since.

I think he would have been better advised to have given QT a wide berth as he could have claimed - with come credibility - that he would have been bullied as he eventually was.

But... I'm not talking about BNP views here. I am talking about very widely and firmly held views that parts of islam are incompatible with western democracies. Specifically attitudes towards women, gays, jews, christians, apostates, free speech, and so on.

[magpie1892]

seriously, who are you, the writing police:faf:

Even if I don't agree with most of what FR wrote here, by any yardstick it's a significantly more robust analysis - and better written - than many, if not all, of the ripostes posted here.

[bighairyfaeleith]

Even if I don't agree with most of what FR wrote here, by any yardstick it's a significantly more robust analysis - and better written - than many, if not all, of the ripostes posted here.

Quite possibly, but that wasn't my point now was it:greengrin

[magpie1892]

Hold on, the issue is how you to choose to present your views not that you hold them. People have rightly commented on the islamification of our towns comment because it mertied it, you have made several posts where you only highlight the most extreme examples of (bad) islam and try and say that is the whole story.

I don't generally read newspapers because I don't like to be told what to think, I don't like the way they only show you the bit of the story they want you to see and throughout this thread you have done just that, so don't be surprised that people challenge it. Try giving a balanced argument for once.

Hold on yourself, hairy fella. I have no issue with being challenged. I have every issue with the manner in which I and others have been challenged on this thread, details above. Not that I am insulted, of course, but I am exasperated at the futile attempt tolose down debate that this represents. Futile because it just ain't working anymore. Thank your God for that.

If you feel I am giving 'extreme' examples of Islam, then provide a counterpoint, the balanced argument you mention.

Ideally, you would be able to give me examples of:



positive development of women's rights within islam
positive development of gay rights within islam
positive development of jewish rights within islam
positive developement of rights for apostates within islam
positive development of tolerance of other faiths and places of worship within islamic countries (KSA, Yemen, Indonesia, etc.)
positive steps within the islamic community to bring 'radicalised' muslims to the attention of the authorities

If it's onlythe bad stuff you're getting here, then bring us the good stuff!

[magpie1892]

Quite possibly, but that wasn't my point now was it:greengrin

Dunno. I guess not then.

[Phil D. Rolls]

Griffin was bullied by the QT audience/producers for sure, but his was still a chatastrophic performance for the BNP - they turned on him in the aftermath and things have been even more chaotic with that party since.

I think he would have been better advised to have given QT a wide berth as he could have claimed - with come credibility - that he would have been bullied as he eventually was.

But... I'm not talking about BNP views here. I am talking about very widely and firmly held views that parts of islam are incompatible with western democracies. Specifically attitudes towards women, gays, jews, christians, apostates, free speech, and so on.

Tbh, Islam doesn't bother me. I have never had anyone, other than a silly wee laddie from Tolcross, who thinks he is the Edinburgh Al Quieda, spout any extremism at me.

It is for people who are persecuted by Islam to break out from its grasp if that's what they want. We should be there to support anyone who is the victim of religious intolerance.

These fools that demonstrate in Wooton Basset are only significant because we give them the oxygen of publicity. Just like the plastic paddies at Parkhead with their anti war banners.

They don't want justice they want attention. A resolution to their grievances would be the worst thing that could happen to these people. They would then get on with their lives like everyone else. Much easier to be a freedom fighter than a worker (apart from the obvious drawbacks).

What is wrong is that everyone is afraid to poke fun at Islam, the way they do at other religions. It's been said that what Islam needs is a "Life of Brian" to flag up how preposterous religion can be. It is a brave man or woman who would go against these rabid monsters, but Islamists must find such a person IMO.

[Betty Boop]

Its not often I would agree with a Tory, but Baroness Warsi was right in her comments re Islamophobia in this country. It has become socially acceptable. To demonise an ethnic group because of their faith is abhorrent IMO.

[lapsedhibee]

What is wrong is that everyone is afraid to poke fun at Islam, the way they do at other religions. It's been said that what Islam needs is a "Life of Brian" to flag up how preposterous religion can be. It is a brave man or woman who would go against these rabid monsters, but Islamists must find such a person IMO.

My memory is, er, but wasn't Salman Rushdie that person? Did protestors marching in Leith Walk not wave placards, unhindered, demanding that he be killed? (I didn't see these placards myself, so they may be urban myth. If they were real, why were the carriers not stopped?)

[lapsedhibee]

To demonise an ethnic group because of their faith is abhorrent IMO.

Why, precisely? :dunno:

[One Day Soon]

Tbh, Islam doesn't bother me. I have never had anyone, other than a silly wee laddie from Tolcross, who thinks he is the Edinburgh Al Quieda, spout any extremism at me.

It is for people who are persecuted by Islam to break out from its grasp if that's what they want. We should be there to support anyone who is the victim of religious intolerance.

These fools that demonstrate in Wooton Basset are only significant because we give them the oxygen of publicity. Just like the plastic paddies at Parkhead with their anti war banners.

They don't want justice they want attention. A resolution to their grievances would be the worst thing that could happen to these people. They would then get on with their lives like everyone else. Much easier to be a freedom fighter than a worker (apart from the obvious drawbacks).

What is wrong is that everyone is afraid to poke fun at Islam, the way they do at other religions. It's been said that what Islam needs is a "Life of Brian" to flag up how preposterous religion can be. It is a brave man or woman who would go against these rabid monsters, but Islamists must find such a person IMO.


Spot on. It is so often the case.

And what makes it worse is that the loud shouting by bampot fringe groups provides the perfect cover so that legitimate isses of inequality or racism etc won't be taken seriously or be properly addressed. When Militant infiltrated the Labour Party in the 1980s the damage they did wasn't just in the destructive action and focus on ludicrous policy positions, it was also that their activities closed down space within which genuine debate could take place. So that eg you had to talk about nationalising the top 200 companies AND you had no space to give attention to tackling youth unemployment or growing the economy.

I know many, many peaceful, friendly, happy and open Muslims, Christians, Jews, atheists etc. I also know a good few freaks of all parties. The thing in common here is when people are not content with living their own lives by their own faiths but want to start telling others that they too must live by these beliefs. The people who do this are extremists and they are minorities. But they are aggressive and organised minorities. Sometimes, they manifest as suicide bombers, sometimes as intolerant settlers on other people's land and sometimes as murderers of clinicians providing abortions.

I do not think the issue is the faiths, I think the issue is the crossover in particular between extremism, politics and faith. A very good helping of ignorance, want and squalor is of course the agar required within the petri dish to allow the virus to flourish.

[Pretty Boy]

Tbh, Islam doesn't bother me. I have never had anyone, other than a silly wee laddie from Tolcross, who thinks he is the Edinburgh Al Quieda, spout any extremism at me.

It is for people who are persecuted by Islam to break out from its grasp if that's what they want. We should be there to support anyone who is the victim of religious intolerance.

These fools that demonstrate in Wooton Basset are only significant because we give them the oxygen of publicity. Just like the plastic paddies at Parkhead with their anti war banners.

They don't want justice they want attention. A resolution to their grievances would be the worst thing that could happen to these people. They would then get on with their lives like everyone else. Much easier to be a freedom fighter than a worker (apart from the obvious drawbacks).

What is wrong is that everyone is afraid to poke fun at Islam, the way they do at other religions. It's been said that what Islam needs is a "Life of Brian" to flag up how preposterous religion can be. It is a brave man or woman who would go against these rabid monsters, but Islamists must find such a person IMO.

South Park did exactly this.

There is an epsidoe from season 2 that feature Muhammad as a prominent character from start to finish and poked fun at Islam, Judaisim and Christianity throughout. Muhammad continued to appear in the credit sequence up to series 11.

At the time of this episode there was no fuss made at all and it gained very little publicity or provoked very little reaction at all. Fast forward a few years and a futher episode which poked fun at Family Guy and was set to feature Muhammad until Comedy central got cold feet and censored the episode, another year down the line Muhammad was depicted inside a bear suit as a high school mascot to poke fun at the previosu censorship. This was, of course, after the Danish cartoon incident. Both episodes attracted huge protests and controversy and indeed the 2nd was given as a possible explanation for the failed Times Square bombing.

Is it a coincidence that those who protested against this only did so after it became a huge cause in the Muslim world to protest against depictions of the prophet? These people failed to realise that Muhammad had featured in every South park episodefrom season 3 through 11 and nothing had been said. Give the 'cause' an air of publicity and suddenly thousand are offended by it.

You have called it spot on. Vocal, violent and controversial protests on all sides are the work of attention seekers who want to be noticed as opposed to those acting to protect their faith.

[bighairyfaeleith]

Hold on yourself, hairy fella. I have no issue with being challenged. I have every issue with the manner in which I and others have been challenged on this thread, details above. Not that I am insulted, of course, but I am exasperated at the futile attempt tolose down debate that this represents. Futile because it just ain't working anymore. Thank your God for that.

If you feel I am giving 'extreme' examples of Islam, then provide a counterpoint, the balanced argument you mention.

Ideally, you would be able to give me examples of:



positive development of women's rights within islam
positive development of gay rights within islam
positive development of jewish rights within islam
positive developement of rights for apostates within islam
positive development of tolerance of other faiths and places of worship within islamic countries (KSA, Yemen, Indonesia, etc.)
positive steps within the islamic community to bring 'radicalised' muslims to the attention of the authorities

If it's onlythe bad stuff you're getting here, then bring us the good stuff!

Hold on there yourself, before you ask me for any of that stuff, what is this thread about and why have you turned it into a thread about islam with comments like

"However, Powell was certainly wrong in that he was talking about non-Caucasians whereas the current threat to society comes from the revolting 'religion' that is islam."

"The whole point is that while EEs come/came here to work, muslims, in the main don't. This is a fact, no matter how inconvenient."

"Maybe even send 'your' women out dressed as Ninjas? For me, there's nothing that says 'yes, I want to be part of your society; to be included and make a contribution' than going out dressed like a dalek with glasses."

I got bored at page two, I'm sure there are many more little beauties in the previous pages.
The speed at which you chose to jump on this thread really does make me wonder, you obviously have a problem with islam, and many of your points are probably very valid, however your delivery does leave you looking like a racist. Sorry but it does.

Anyhow, i'm off to work on my gramma so I can continue this conversation, as obviously lots of us are not at your intellectual level :rolleyes:

[Twa Cairpets]

Hold on yourself, hairy fella. I have no issue with being challenged. I have every issue with the manner in which I and others have been challenged on this thread, details above. Not that I am insulted, of course, but I am exasperated at the futile attempt tolose down debate that this represents. Futile because it just ain't working anymore. Thank your God for that.

If you feel I am giving 'extreme' examples of Islam, then provide a counterpoint, the balanced argument you mention.

Ideally, you would be able to give me examples of:



positive development of women's rights within islam
positive development of gay rights within islam
positive development of jewish rights within islam
positive developement of rights for apostates within islam
positive development of tolerance of other faiths and places of worship within islamic countries (KSA, Yemen, Indonesia, etc.)
positive steps within the islamic community to bring 'radicalised' muslims to the attention of the authorities

If it's onlythe bad stuff you're getting here, then bring us the good stuff!

On the basis that the majority of this thread was about the impact Islam has on the fabric of British society, exactly how many of the above impact upon your life or those of people you know, in any way? I'd expect precisely none (Unless of course you are a lesbian ex-muslim convert to Judaism looking to emigrate to Yemen).

I'm not going to defend any religion for its belief system - I'll happily debate all day about faith. However, just because the Old Testament is a like a guide book to bigotry, intolerance and sexism, doesnt mean I asusme that all Christians are sexist intolerant bigots. You are quite clearly doing this in your representation of Muslims. The statement "I don't have any problem whatsoever with muslims. I have enormous problems with their nauseating faith". is ludicrous. It's like saying "I have no problem with christians its just their belief in Jesus that I dont like". For example, I dont assume all Christians are like the Westboro Baptists. You seem to assume that all muslims are genital mutilating apostate killers.

If you dont believe this to be the case, then dont raise it as point. I'm absolutely sure there are instances of both, but the numbers are so dramatically small as to be statistically completely insignificant. If you want to debate, debate on things that you may believe will impact upon you or the wider society.

You have a very interesting posting style though, I'll give you that. Hurling out loads of pop-cultural islamic stereotypes, which are inherently racist whether you like it or not, and then saying you cant debate because you keep getting called racist!

Your line "But... I'm not talking about BNP views here. I am talking about very widely and firmly held views that parts of islam are incompatible with western democracies. Specifically attitudes towards women, gays, jews, christians, apostates, free speech, and so on". is typical of the justification of your stance. If you want to defend your position, do it - dont play to the Logical Fallacy of Appeal to Popularity.

As it happens, I think youre actually right - a lot of the tenets of islam are at odds with where we are in the UK in terms of liberal freedoms, but dont think that exactly the same views are not held by millions of inhabitants of this country without any prompting from Allah.

[--------]

You are completely correct. However, when the points raised by posters are those that mirror those of that particular political bent, rational debate becomes impossible.


Indeed you're initial point is right - the poster I was replying to mentioned "Immigrants under Labour's watch" and I rather assumed he wasn't referring to the Labour of Messrs Wilson and Atlee :greengrin

Agree with your latter point in principle - but when said concerns include the gem that the majority of Muslim immigrants' behaviour/beliefs/practices has led to a rise in birth defects, one rather has to make one's opinion clear.

For the record, my reasonable concerns for the future of UK society centre on lazy wastrels with no incentive, motivation (and often very little opportunity) to get off their *****, off benefits and into jobs.

We have a fair load of people that fall into that category, from all sorts of countries of origin, belonging to all religions etc, yet - in any "ills of UK society today" debate, the habits, beliefs and overall contribution to society of "John Smith" never gets scrutinized as closely, hysterically or vehemently as his Muslim/Afro-Carribean/etc etc counterpart, and that peturbs me most of all.


I do beg your pardons - I wasn't suggesting that you guys were smearing anyone with the racist gibe, merely making a general point about the way discussion about the future of UK society can turn into blazing, totally-polarised rage-fuelled argue-fighting when pejorative labels are attached to opponents unjustifiably.

Of course, if one's opponent rummages around until he finds a label and then sticks it firmly and prominently across his forehead where everyone can see it ...

It occurred to me this morning that the Powell "rivers of blood" speech was delivered almost half a century ago. The fears he was articulating seemed very real to many people at the time (I was at Uni at the time so I'm old enough to remember the outcry the speech stirred up) but the disasters he prophesied have (unless I did a Rip van Winkle at some point) failed to materialise?

Times and life have changed - in 1964 Patrick Gordon Walker was defeated in the General Election - totally against the national swing to Harold Wilson's Labour Party from the Tories - by an obnoxious Tory squirt called Griffiths whose supporters put leaflets through letter-boxes saying "If you want a ****** for a neighbour, Vote Labour..." (Rhymes, see? Neighbour, Labour? Quite catchy really.)

I was going to suggest that perhaps some of us are getting all steamed up about nothing, until I googled another 'catchy' phrase from the far Right and found THIS website:

http://ourmisfortune.blogspot.com/

Die Juden sind unser Ungluck ... Look what THAT led to. And still the poison drips, drips, drips ...


As Thomas Jefferon said, "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."

[magpie1892]

Its not often I would agree with a Tory, but Baroness Warsi was right in her comments re Islamophobia in this country. It has become socially acceptable. To demonise an ethnic group because of their faith is abhorrent IMO.

You wouldn't find many people to disagree with that. But how many religions are exclusive to one ethnic group anyway? Certainly not islam or Christianity. Sikhism might have a good shout.

Besides, you can circumnavigate this non-existent issue by demonising the faith. Job done.

[magpie1892]

On the basis that the majority of this thread was about the impact Islam has on the fabric of British society, exactly how many of the above impact upon your life or those of people you know, in any way? I'd expect precisely none (Unless of course you are a lesbian ex-muslim convert to Judaism looking to emigrate to Yemen).

Expect as many or as few as you like, but then why would you ask?! Am I to assume that even if the impact on my life were 'exactly none' (and bear in mind I have lived and worked in two islamic countries) that I am only allowed to object if I am personally affected? Odd argument.


I'm not going to defend any religion for its belief system - I'll happily debate all day about faith. However, just because the Old Testament is a like a guide book to bigotry, intolerance and sexism, doesnt mean I asusme that all Christians are sexist intolerant bigots. You are quite clearly doing this in your representation of Muslims. The statement "I don't have any problem whatsoever with muslims. I have enormous problems with their nauseating faith". is ludicrous. It's like saying "I have no problem with christians its just their belief in Jesus that I dont like". For example, I dont assume all Christians are like the Westboro Baptists. You seem to assume that all muslims are genital mutilating apostate killers.

I do? Funny, I don't remember saying that. I do remember saying that I have a problem with islam, as you note.


If you dont believe this to be the case, then dont raise it as point. I'm absolutely sure there are instances of both, but the numbers are so dramatically small as to be statistically completely insignificant. If you want to debate, debate on things that you may believe will impact upon you or the wider society.

I'm stunned that you don't think islam worthy of debate. There are literally billions of people who disagree with you. It cannot be stated how 'hot' a topic this is, which is why it's being debated worldwide, all across the political spectrum.


You have a very interesting posting style though, I'll give you that. Hurling out loads of pop-cultural islamic stereotypes, which are inherently racist whether you like it or not, and then saying you cant debate because you keep getting called racist!

For the umpteenth time, islam is not a race. Saying over and over again that I am racist 'whether [I] like it or not' doesn't make your misconception any more true. It's a total non-sequiteur that disapproval of islam = racist. Whether you like it or not!

I'm happy to defend my position of being pretty disgusted by aspects of islam. I've been quite candid about this, written them down and all. Must I do so again? Invoking the popularity of my views issimply to illustrate that siad views are not particularly unusual.


As it happens, I think youre actually right - a lot of the tenets of islam are at odds with where we are in the UK in terms of liberal freedoms, but dont think that exactly the same views are not held by millions of inhabitants of this country without any prompting from Allah.

I know you agree. Your avatar gives us a clue. Not sure where you're going with your final sentence though.

[One Day Soon]

Expect as many or as few as you like, but then why would you ask?! Am I to assume that even if the impact on my life were 'exactly none' (and bear in mind I have lived and worked in two islamic countries) that I am only allowed to object if I am personally affected? Odd argument.



I do? Funny, I don't remember saying that. I do remember saying that I have a problem with islam, as you note.



I'm stunned that you don't think islam worthy of debate. There are literally billions of people who disagree with you. It cannot be stated how 'hot' a topic this is, which is why it's being debated worldwide, all across the political spectrum.



For the umpteenth time, islam is not a race. Saying over and over again that I am racist 'whether [I] like it or not' doesn't make your misconception any more true. It's a total non-sequiteur that disapproval of islam = racist. Whether you like it or not!

I'm happy to defend my position of being pretty disgusted by aspects of islam. I've been quite candid about this, written them down and all. Must I do so again? Invoking the popularity of my views issimply to illustrate that siad views are not particularly unusual.



I know you agree. Your avatar gives us a clue. Not sure where you're going with your final sentence though.

Would the more accurate label (if labels are to be applied) be either sectarian or bigot rather than racist? I'm not saying that you are any one or more of these I'm just thinking that on this particular matter you appear to be correct. You may or may not be a despicable, apologist, running dog of the right, supremacist nutter. But since the Islamic faith is not race based - and remember that Liverpool Hibs would contend that race does not exist anyway - then racist doesn't appear the apposite term here.

To get back to the main plot though. I think the real challenge is that while the issues you raise need to be discussed and aren't going away by themselves, the conclusions you reach about who is responsible - particularly when you move from the micro event to the macro responsibility - aren't evidenced. It's as though you see a symptom on one side and a cause on the other, but not the relationship between the two explained.

When do we move on to the second round of this debate: Enoch Powell - The Movie?

[Twa Cairpets]

Expect as many or as few as you like, but then why would you ask?! Am I to assume that even if the impact on my life were 'exactly none' (and bear in mind I have lived and worked in two islamic countries) that I am only allowed to object if I am personally affected? Odd argument.

I think you understand exactly the point I'm making. Your earlier posts are full of worries about the "creeping islamification" of the country. I'm suggesting that not one of the perils and evils that you list has the slightest impact on the lives on you, your social circle or the vast majority of people in this country. I personally find the wearing of burkhas and objectionableand baffling thing for someone to want to do to themselves or their wives. Until Im being asked to put my missus in one its not a concern if people want to cover themselves up. Bonkers yes, "destroying the fabric of the nation", no.


I do? Funny, I don't remember saying that. I do remember saying that I have a problem with islam, as you note.

Check post #122. Verbatim.


I'm stunned that you don't think islam worthy of debate. There are literally billions of people who disagree with you. It cannot be stated how 'hot' a topic this is, which is why it's being debated worldwide, all across the political spectrum.

I havent said that at any point nor suggested it. I have said that the demonisation of all muslims just because they happen to be muslim is wrong. Good straw man argument though.


For the umpteenth time, islam is not a race. Saying over and over again that I am racist 'whether [I] like it or not' doesn't make your misconception any more true. It's a total non-sequiteur that disapproval of islam = racist. Whether you like it or not!

OK, defining exactly which label your views belong to is to deflect from the. If you prefer bigoted I'm happy to go with that. And youre right, disapproving of islam does not make you racist or bigoted, but the disapproval and prejudice against people who are islamic certainly does. If it quacks like a duck...

And i am not defending Islam. It is a backward set of beliefs, which, as someone said earlier, is 700 years behind christianity in its development.


I'm happy to defend my position of being pretty disgusted by aspects of islam. I've been quite candid about this, written them down and all. Must I do so again? Invoking the popularity of my views issimply to illustrate that siad views are not particularly unusual.

Not a soul on here would dispute that the bad things you have lifted are disgusting, benighted and wrong, so you can keep banging that drum for as long as you want. If you do accept that these activities are on the fringe (even if just for the intellectual exercise) then debate what it its that so threatens you about people of that faith being in the UK. That would be interesting.


I know you agree. Your avatar gives us a clue. Not sure where you're going with your final sentence though.

The bad things that are caused by religion are equally evident in vast swathes of non-religious activity. Because it is easy to identify and isolate the muslim community, it is very easy to paint them as the prime culprits or caus eof such activities.

[Phil D. Rolls]

Would the more accurate label (if labels are to be applied) be either sectarian or bigot rather than racist? I'm not saying that you are any one or more of these I'm just thinking that on this particular matter you appear to be correct. You may or may not be a despicable, apologist, running dog of the right, supremacist nutter. But since the Islamic faith is not race based - and remember that Liverpool Hibs would contend that race does not exist anyway - then racist doesn't appear the apposite term here.

To get back to the main plot though. I think the real challenge is that while the issues you raise need to be discussed and aren't going away by themselves, the conclusions you reach about who is responsible - particularly when you move from the micro event to the macro responsibility - aren't evidenced. It's as though you see a symptom on one side and a cause on the other, but not the relationship between the two explained.

When do we move on to the second round of this debate: Enoch Powell - The Movie?

On the evidence of recent Hollywood casting, the lead part would be played by Gerard Butler with Hugh Grant as Ted Heath. Jim Broadbent, as always, would make up the numbers as Harold Wilson. The lady in the Wolverhampton street would be played by, at a guess, Stephanie Beacham.

Once again I ask, what has Enoch Powell ever done for us?

[lapsedhibee]

Because it is easy to identify and isolate the musli community, it is very easy to paint them as the prime culprits or caus eof such activities.

Now there's a minority ripe for demonising because of their beliefs. Tree-hugging, dreamcatching, sandal-wearing beardies! :grr:

[Twa Cairpets]

Now there's a minority ripe for demonising because of their beliefs. Tree-hugging, dreamcatching, sandal-wearing beardies! :grr:

Brilliant :greengrin (and now changed)

[steakbake]

On the evidence of recent Hollywood casting, the lead part would be played by Gerard Butler with Hugh Grant as Ted Heath. Jim Broadbent, as always, would make up the numbers as Harold Wilson. The lady in the Wolverhampton street would be played by, at a guess, Stephanie Beacham.

Once again I ask, what has Enoch Powell ever done for us?

I'd quite like to see Rodney Bewes off the Likely Lads worked in for a cameo. Either as a racist whinger or as a furrow browed liberal.

[bighairyfaeleith]

magpie are you the neo-conservative on question time tonight, his argument is scarily(and I mean scarily) like yours:wink:

On a serious note the QT debate tonight was remarkably similar to this thread, my missus said something very interesting for once during it, everyone kept saying what a tolerant society we are, however what are we being tolerant of, imagine you emigrated to Australia, and some Ozzie said they where tolerant of you, you'd quite rightly go nuts!!

If people are allowed to legally live here we have nothing to be tolerant of, they have the same rights and privileges as us, whether you like it or not.

[--------]

Its not often I would agree with a Tory, but Baroness Warsi was right in her comments re Islamophobia in this country. It has become socially acceptable. To demonise an ethnic group because of their faith is abhorrent IMO.


Depends on what they believe.

An ethnic group that believed in human sacrifice, ritual torture, and sex with nine-year-olds - THEM I would be happy to demonise.

One that stones WOMEN for adultery but lets the men go free (and correct if I'm wrong, but a woman needs a man around before she can commit adultery) - what about them? I refer to the religious authorities in the Islamic state of Saudi Arabia - NOT the most tolerant bunch of dudes on the planet, IMO.

In some quarters Islamophobia may now be de rigeur. In other quarters these days, say one word of criticism of anything Islamic, and you're first cousin to Dr Mengele.

[lapsedhibee]

An ethnic group that believed in human sacrifice, ritual torture, and sex with nine-year-olds - THEM I would be happy to demonise.
:agree:

Or another that, with a straight face, taught innocent children that the universe was created in seven days.


One that stones WOMEN for adultery but lets the men go free (and correct if I'm wrong, but a woman needs a man around before she can commit adultery) - what about them?
If a wumman in a civil partnership strays morally with another wumman, would that not be adulterous? :dunno:

[bighairyfaeleith]

:agree:

Or another that, with a straight face, taught innocent children that the universe was created in seven days.

If a wumman in a civil partnership strays morally with another wumman, would that not be adulterous? :dunno:

nope that would be one of my favourite videos:wink:

[Twa Cairpets]

Depends on what they believe.

An ethnic group that believed in human sacrifice, ritual torture, and sex with nine-year-olds - THEM I would be happy to demonise.

One that stones WOMEN for adultery but lets the men go free (and correct if I'm wrong, but a woman needs a man around before she can commit adultery) - what about them? I refer to the religious authorities in the Islamic state of Saudi Arabia - NOT the most tolerant bunch of dudes on the planet, IMO.

In some quarters Islamophobia may now be de rigeur. In other quarters these days, say one word of criticism of anything Islamic, and you're first cousin to Dr Mengele.

The concern is that if you cherry pick atrocity you get to the point that you could condem as appaling every religion. You could have a very good argument that the catholic churches stance on contraception has been directly responsible for the deaths of countless more people than have ever been stoned to death. Is the direct intervention to kill a single person on the grounds of doctrine better or worse, from a moral viewpoint, than prohibiting an activity that would save the lives of thousands? Is the withholding of a blood transfusion for a child by devout Jehovahs witnesses an act of moral courage or an act of despicable evil.

I can (and do) argue against the majority of the activities driven by islam, it doesnt mean Im Islamophobic - I dont hate muslims because they have faith, I dont hate christians because they have faith. I dont judge muslims on the basis of those that wear burkhas or blow people up any more than I do Christians on the basis of the activities of the Westboro Baptists or the IRA's bombing campaign (which, at its route was driven by religious difference).

In the UK, because people (like Magpie, I would suggest), immediately judge the people by the actions of the extremists for groups who are different and are seen to be alien to the ways of the land it becomes impossible to get to the nub of the matter.

If you rail against the religion per se you'll get nowhere. All you do is polarise and entrench. You can engage and educate and challenge people to think rationally, and the impact of all religion will lessen - the less that mainstream acceptance of religious belief of any texture is assumed, the less fuel there is for extemists. For middle eastern countries and Africa, where development and education is hundreds of years behind where the west is, credulous acceptance of what they are told by imams or priests is easy. The mental discipline of challenging what they are being told just doesnt exist. If you are told by every person you know and trust from birth - parents, family, teachers, religious leaders - that Allah is supreme, and are told that to challenge that belief is an unspeakable evil, you really dont have a chance to think anything else.

Doddie - this is not a pop at you or your faith. Arguing between religions is not going to get anyone anywhere. For every example of appalling behaviour by muslims, it would be easy to find examples of similar tragic behaviour being committed by people acting in the name of another faith.

The human actions of those professing to act in the name of whichever particular deity they worship is the evil thing, not necessarily the religion itself. Reaching the point where people can question why they are doing what they do as a result of faith is the first step to combating the excesses

[lyonhibs]

magpie are you the neo-conservative on question time tonight, his argument is scarily(and I mean scarily) like yours:wink:

On a serious note the QT debate tonight was remarkably similar to this thread, my missus said something very interesting for once during it, everyone kept saying what a tolerant society we are, however what are we being tolerant of, imagine you emigrated to Australia, and some Ozzie said they where tolerant of you, you'd quite rightly go nuts!!

If people are allowed to legally live here we have nothing to be tolerant of, they have the same rights and privileges as us, whether you like it or not.

:agree: :agree:

The verb "tolerate" is totally misused in this context. It's as if it's some massive hardship "putting up" (funny how no-one uses that verb) with these immigrants who are here legally, and the fact that we are doing so should be put up in shining lights.

"Welcoming, accepting" etc are far more appropriate IMO, but I guess some people view immigrants as an ill to be "tolerated", thus how it has entered common parlance to mean something very different to what it actually means.

[magpie1892]

Check post #122. Verbatim.

No, that was your bold in the par. I was referring to your last sentence: "You seem to assume that all muslims are genital mutilating apostate killers." Verbatim.

And I said, I didn't say that.

[Removed]

Or another that, with a straight face, taught innocent children that the universe was created in seven days.

It was actually created in six :wink:

[Phil D. Rolls]

I'd quite like to see Rodney Bewes off the Likely Lads worked in for a cameo. Either as a racist whinger or as a furrow browed liberal.

He could come in as a fat cat banker, telling everyone "you'll get your money". There's also a place for Jimmy Bolam as a Polish immigrant going around saying, "I pay my way".

[magpie1892]

I think you understand exactly the point I'm making. Your earlier posts are full of worries about the "creeping islamification" of the country. I'm suggesting that not one of the perils and evils that you list has the slightest impact on the lives on you, your social circle or the vast majority of people in this country. I personally find the wearing of burkhas and objectionableand baffling thing for someone to want to do to themselves or their wives. Until Im being asked to put my missus in one its not a concern if people want to cover themselves up. Bonkers yes, "destroying the fabric of the nation", no.



Check post #122. Verbatim.



I havent said that at any point nor suggested it. I have said that the demonisation of all muslims just because they happen to be muslim is wrong. Good straw man argument though.



OK, defining exactly which label your views belong to is to deflect from the. If you prefer bigoted I'm happy to go with that. And youre right, disapproving of islam does not make you racist or bigoted, but the disapproval and prejudice against people who are islamic certainly does. If it quacks like a duck...

And i am not defending Islam. It is a backward set of beliefs, which, as someone said earlier, is 700 years behind christianity in its development.



Not a soul on here would dispute that the bad things you have lifted are disgusting, benighted and wrong, so you can keep banging that drum for as long as you want. If you do accept that these activities are on the fringe (even if just for the intellectual exercise) then debate what it its that so threatens you about people of that faith being in the UK. That would be interesting.



The bad things that are caused by religion are equally evident in vast swathes of non-religious activity. Because it is easy to identify and isolate the muslim community, it is very easy to paint them as the prime culprits or caus eof such activities.

Yes, these are all good points with the exceptionof the one where amisunderstanding where you misquoted me.

But... don't put "creepiing islamification" in quotes. I didn't say that, either!

You're suggesting that the things I mention have had no effect on me or my social circle. That's not the case - I'm not that altruistic!

[Twa Cairpets]

Yes, these are all good points with the exceptionof the one where amisunderstanding where you misquoted me.

But... don't put "creepiing islamification" in quotes. I didn't say that, either!

You're suggesting that the things I mention have had no effect on me or my social circle. That's not the case - I'm not that altruistic!

Its not a direct quote, neither is is attributed as such. In this context the inverted commas quite clearly are in place to illustrate the phrase used is a general description summarising your stance.

What is far more interesting is that you choose to focus on a pedantically wilful misinterpretation of punctuation rather than the detail of what was written, so this doesnt constitute a response.

Do you or do you not believe that the issues you raised (female genital mutilation, death by apostasy etc) are fringe, minority activities, especially at affects life in the UK?

What elements of islam are affecting your life directly, so I can understand where you're coming from?

[lapsedhibee]

It was actually created in six :wink:

Aye, but I'm allowing for paid tea breaks, comfort breaks and that. Union rules. Not sure if God is a smoker and if so whether he had to pop outside the universe for a regular puff. All these things make tricky the exact calculation of time spent creating.

[magpie1892]

If people are allowed to legally live here we have nothing to be tolerant of, they have the same rights and privileges as us, whether you like it or not.

They should have the same rights and privileges as us, but many don't, and the stripping of said rights (i.e. 'you're not going out unless you're dressed like a ninja', 'you're not marrying who you want', 'you're not going to be allowed to work', 'you're not even going to be allowed to learn English', etc.) is coming from within their own community...

Equal rights for everyone. This is what most people want.

[magpie1892]

Its not a direct quote, neither is is attributed as such. In this context the inverted commas quite clearly are in place to illustrate the phrase used is a general description summarising your stance.

What is far more interesting is that you choose to focus on a pedantically wilful misinterpretation of punctuation rather than the detail of what was written, so this doesnt constitute a response.

Do you or do you not believe that the issues you raised (female genital mutilation, death by apostasy etc) are fringe, minority activities, especially at affects life in the UK?

What elements of islam are affecting your life directly, so I can understand where you're coming from?


OK, but the first one was a misquote, unless I mistunderstood 'verbatim'. Use single quotes.

You're right, I was pressed for time. Should have waited and given you the benefit of my undivided.

Yes, I agree these are fringe activities. Activites that were practically unheard of 20 years ago (FGM especially) but are now very high profile, with good reason. The concern is that with increasing numbers of muslims in the UK, that these activities might become morecommonplace. This doesn't really need a leap of faith.

From Rushdie in 1989 to British-born muslims blowing up London commuters in under 20 years with lots of filler in between. Where we're headed requires stringent analysis. Many tenets of islam are incompatible with the west, we're agreed on that and though they may be (for now) "fringe"activities as you put it, that's scarcely a reason not to object on numerous levels, even if it were to get no worse.

Hmm... bit personal that. Maybe in a PM.

[Twa Cairpets]

OK, but the first one was a misquote, unless I mistunderstood 'verbatim'. Use single quotes.

You're right, I was pressed for time. Should have waited and given you the benefit of my undivided.

Yes, I agree these are fringe activities. Activites that were practically unheard of 20 years ago (FGM especially) but are now very high profile, with good reason. The concern is that with increasing numbers of muslims in the UK, that these activities might become morecommonplace. This doesn't really need a leap of faith.
Reading the sources I can find on the internet (which are very disturbing), my reading of this practice is that it is not related to islam, and indeed it is opposed by (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_cutting)it - it appears to be predominantly a sub-saharan cultural activity. So your argument fails at the first hurdle, but even supposing that you are correct (which you're not), your choice of words is interesting. It would require a 100% leap of faith for the practice to become more widespread.


From Rushdie in 1989 to British-born muslims blowing up London commuters in under 20 years with lots of filler in between. Where we're headed requires stringent analysis.
You don't do irony do you?


Many tenets of islam are incompatible with the west, we're agreed on that and though they may be (for now) "fringe"activities as you put it, that's scarcely a reason not to object on numerous levels, even if it were to get no worse. Correct, but focus on the particaalr issue, don't adopt a shotgun approach of all Muslims are bad because they believe in Allah.


Hmm... bit personal that. Maybe in a PM.
No need, but either it does or it doesnt impact on you. If people are campaigning for your kids school to observe Ramadan, then fine, I'm with you. If it is a personal thing, then keep it personal - dont conflate the activity of an individual with the views of the group to which they belong.

[Twa Cairpets]

They should have the same rights and privileges as us, but many don't, and the stripping of said rights (i.e. 'you're not going out unless you're dressed like a ninja', 'you're not marrying who you want', 'you're not going to be allowed to work', 'you're not even going to be allowed to learn English', etc.) is coming from within their own community...

Equal rights for everyone. This is what most people want.

At the moment, and although you may be a very nice person, I kinda hope I'm not one of the "us" you refer to.

[One Day Soon]

The concern is that if you cherry pick atrocity you get to the point that you could condem as appaling every religion. You could have a very good argument that the catholic churches stance on contraception has been directly responsible for the deaths of countless more people than have ever been stoned to death. Is the direct intervention to kill a single person on the grounds of doctrine better or worse, from a moral viewpoint, than prohibiting an activity that would save the lives of thousands? Is the withholding of a blood transfusion for a child by devout Jehovahs witnesses an act of moral courage or an act of despicable evil.

I can (and do) argue against the majority of the activities driven by islam, it doesnt mean Im Islamophobic - I dont hate muslims because they have faith, I dont hate christians because they have faith. I dont judge muslims on the basis of those that wear burkhas or blow people up any more than I do Christians on the basis of the activities of the Westboro Baptists or the IRA's bombing campaign (which, at its route was driven by religious difference).

This is a whole other debate because many historians and contemporaries would argue that at the very least the conflict originating in Northern Ireland was economic and political in motivation and at the worst was exclusively a function of nationalism and inequality. You would not find many Irish republicans who were big fans of the religious priorities of the South for example. Its a debatable point but certainly means that painting the conflict as simply religious at route won't wash.


In the UK, because people (like Magpie, I would suggest), immediately judge the people by the actions of the extremists for groups who are different and are seen to be alien to the ways of the land it becomes impossible to get to the nub of the matter.

If you rail against the religion per se you'll get nowhere. All you do is polarise and entrench. You can engage and educate and challenge people to think rationally, and the impact of all religion will lessen - the less that mainstream acceptance of religious belief of any texture is assumed, the less fuel there is for extremists.

Why would that necessarily be a good thing? Our prisons are stuffed full of people who have committed all sorts of criminal acts - some spectacularly evil - and these people are not motivated by religious extremism. Let's remember too that there have been and continue to be a whole range of extremist groups who have absolutely nothing to do with religion - Baader Meinhof, Brigate Rosse, Shining Path etc. If you are saying that religion equals extremism then I disagree. if you are saying that extremism of any sort can lead to bad things then I agree.


For middle eastern countries and Africa, where development and education is hundreds of years behind where the west is, credulous acceptance of what they are told by imams or priests is easy. The mental discipline of challenging what they are being told just doesnt exist.

It does, just not in the volume you would see in the West.


If you are told by every person you know and trust from birth - parents, family, teachers, religious leaders - that Allah is supreme, and are told that to challenge that belief is an unspeakable evil, you really dont have a chance to think anything else.

Doddie - this is not a pop at you or your faith. Arguing between religions is not going to get anyone anywhere. For every example of appalling behaviour by muslims, it would be easy to find examples of similar tragic behaviour being committed by people acting in the name of another faith.

Or indeed committed by people of no faith.


The human actions of those professing to act in the name of whichever particular deity they worship is the evil thing, not necessarily the religion itself. Reaching the point where people can question why they are doing what they do as a result of faith is the first step to combating the excesses

Yes, unless the religion itself professes actions and beliefs inimical to normal and acceptable standards of human behaviour, it is the interpretation of twisted, sick or otherwise motivated individuals which makes for extremist activity and usually using the religion as a cover.

[--------]

:agree:

Or another that, with a straight face, taught innocent children that the universe was created in seven days.

If a wumman in a civil partnership strays morally with another wumman, would that not be adulterous? :dunno:


Don't put seven-day 168-hour creationism on me, mate - not my position. Nor is it the position the Hebrew text of Genesis presents. Nor is it quite as terminally destructive as heaving big stones at them for a very long time until they die in agony?

As for lesbian adultery - the guys I was thinking of would be more than happy - DELIGHTED, even, to have the chance to kill two women at the same stoning.

But TC (see above) is right - I can come up with all sorts of examples of appalling behaviour perpetrated by adherents of non-Christian religions, and they can point the finger back at appalling behaviour by adherents of the Churches over the centuries. That Christian stonings/burnings/floggings/whatever were carried out by nutters professing to be acting in the name of a man who told His followers to treat other people the way they would want other people to treat them, and Who instructed a bunch of zealots who wanted to stone a woman to death for adultery that if they WERE going ahead with the execution, it would only be right if the first stone should be thrown by whichever of them had never done anything wrong or immoral or sinful himself ...

... simply makes those atrocities worse, IMO.

[Twa Cairpets]

The concern is that if you cherry pick atrocity you get to the point that you could condem as appaling every religion. You could have a very good argument that the catholic churches stance on contraception has been directly responsible for the deaths of countless more people than have ever been stoned to death. Is the direct intervention to kill a single person on the grounds of doctrine better or worse, from a moral viewpoint, than prohibiting an activity that would save the lives of thousands? Is the withholding of a blood transfusion for a child by devout Jehovahs witnesses an act of moral courage or an act of despicable evil.

I can (and do) argue against the majority of the activities driven by islam, it doesnt mean Im Islamophobic - I dont hate muslims because they have faith, I dont hate christians because they have faith. I dont judge muslims on the basis of those that wear burkhas or blow people up any more than I do Christians on the basis of the activities of the Westboro Baptists or the IRA's bombing campaign (which, at its route was driven by religious difference).

This is a whole other debate because many historians and contemporaries would argue that at the very least the conflict originating in Northern Ireland was economic and political in motivation and at the worst was exclusively a function of nationalism and inequality. You would not find many Irish republicans who were big fans of the religious priorities of the South for example. Its a debatable point but certainly means that painting the conflict as simply religious at route won't wash.


In the UK, because people (like Magpie, I would suggest), immediately judge the people by the actions of the extremists for groups who are different and are seen to be alien to the ways of the land it becomes impossible to get to the nub of the matter.

If you rail against the religion per se you'll get nowhere. All you do is polarise and entrench. You can engage and educate and challenge people to think rationally, and the impact of all religion will lessen - the less that mainstream acceptance of religious belief of any texture is assumed, the less fuel there is for extremists.

Why would that necessarily be a good thing? Our prisons are stuffed full of people who have committed all sorts of criminal acts - some spectacularly evil - and these people are not motivated by religious extremism. Let's remember too that there have been and continue to be a whole range of extremist groups who have absolutely nothing to do with religion - Baader Meinhof, Brigate Rosse, Shining Path etc. If you are saying that religion equals extremism then I disagree. if you are saying that extremism of any sort can lead to bad things then I agree.


For middle eastern countries and Africa, where development and education is hundreds of years behind where the west is, credulous acceptance of what they are told by imams or priests is easy. The mental discipline of challenging what they are being told just doesnt exist.

It does, just not in the volume you would see in the West.


If you are told by every person you know and trust from birth - parents, family, teachers, religious leaders - that Allah is supreme, and are told that to challenge that belief is an unspeakable evil, you really dont have a chance to think anything else.

Doddie - this is not a pop at you or your faith. Arguing between religions is not going to get anyone anywhere. For every example of appalling behaviour by muslims, it would be easy to find examples of similar tragic behaviour being committed by people acting in the name of another faith.

Or indeed committed by people of no faith.


The human actions of those professing to act in the name of whichever particular deity they worship is the evil thing, not necessarily the religion itself. Reaching the point where people can question why they are doing what they do as a result of faith is the first step to combating the excesses
Yes, unless the religion itself professes actions and beliefs inimical to normal and acceptable standards of human behaviour, it is the interpretation of twisted, sick or otherwise motivated individuals which makes for extremist activity and usually using the religion as a cover.

Agree with all that.

Im not claiming that any belief system (religious, political, national or cultural) has a monopoly on evil and atrocity, because that is self-evidently not true.

But where it it is driven by religion, removing the uncritical acceptance of dogma reduces the opportunity for such extremism to gain a foothold.

In the context of this thread, where individuals such as Magpie focus on the activities of tiny minorities as being representative of an entire faith, it needs to be addressed because it is simply not accurate. I don't like much of what Islam stands for. I equally dont like much of what Christianity preaches, but I equally dont like assumptions being made about great swathes of the population as a result of what their faith hapens to be. When the militancy becomes mainstream and something that people who dont have that faith have no choice but to participate (for example if I was to be tried in the UK by Sharia law or I was forced to pray to Mecca how ever many times a day or if I was forced to attend my local church for 3 hours on a Sunday), thats when to fight against it because that is when it becomes a true imposition of an alien culture. I do not believe we are any closer to that becoming the state of affairs than when Enoch warned of the rivers of blood.

[lapsedhibee]

Don't put seven-day 168-hour creationism on me, mate - not my position.

Never occurred to me that you might consider yourself included. Had only some groups of North Americans in mind. Sensitive bunch, you believers! :greengrin

[bighairyfaeleith]

They should have the same rights and privileges as us, but many don't, and the stripping of said rights (i.e. 'you're not going out unless you're dressed like a ninja', 'you're not marrying who you want', 'you're not going to be allowed to work', 'you're not even going to be allowed to learn English', etc.) is coming from within their own community...

Equal rights for everyone. This is what most people want.

Perhaps some of them like dressing like ninjas? Some even consider it part of there fashion.

I wonder how many Brits living in Spain speak Spanish?

I see many Muslim women working. I see many not working, but then a lot of Christian women are stay at home mums are they not?

[ancient hibee]

I haven't followed any religion for a long time but it has always struck me that any atrocities(large scale or small acts)perpretated in the name of religion are in fact never encouraged by that religion but are almost always criminal acts carried out by nutters.For example a forced marriage may be arranged under religious/family pressure but there is the opportunity to escape.However murdering someone for not taking part in the marriage is a criminal actand I doubt if there is any religion that instructs it.

The trouble with religions is a surfeit of people with a Messiah complex.

[--------]

Agree with all that.

Im not claiming that any belief system (religious, political, national or cultural) has a monopoly on evil and atrocity, because that is self-evidently not true.

But where it it is driven by religion, removing the uncritical acceptance of dogma reduces the opportunity for such extremism to gain a foothold.

In the context of this thread, where individuals such as Magpie focus on the activities of tiny minorities as being representative of an entire faith, it needs to be addressed because it is simply not accurate. I don't like much of what Islam stands for. I equally dont like much of what Christianity preaches, but I equally dont like assumptions being made about great swathes of the population as a result of what their faith hapens to be. When the militancy becomes mainstream and something that people who dont have that faith have no choice but to participate (for example if I was to be tried in the UK by Sharia law or I was forced to pray to Mecca how ever many times a day or if I was forced to attend my local church for 3 hours on a Sunday), thats when to fight against it because that is when it becomes a true imposition of an alien culture. I do not believe we are any closer to that becoming the state of affairs than when Enoch warned of the rivers of blood.

You're sounding amazing reasonable here, TC. :wink:

FWIW, forcing people to be in church may achieve a degree of cultural conformism, but in my experience it doesn't do much beyond that. You can take the horse to water, and all that ...

And speaking entirely personally, I much prefer spending time on a Sunday with folks who have chosen to come along voluntarily, than haranguing a captive audience who just can't wait to get home to the telly.

However, I would suggest that the time to act to prevent Holy Terrors of whatever persuasion from achieving the position where thy feel able to compel your attendance at their particular kind of worship (with or without the ritual chastisement of fornicators and adulterers before - or after - the sermon) is now. To make sure that we all live in a country which allows freedom of opinion, belief and worship to everyone, and which forbids anyone and everyone from forcing their opinions, beliefs and worship on other people.

(Within reason, of course - I'm not in favour of legalising human sacrifice, or turning a blind eye to some Supreme God-Father asserting his right to ritually deflower the congregational virgins between the offering and the sermon.)


Never occurred to me that you might consider yourself included. Had only some groups of North Americans in mind. Sensitive bunch, you believers! :greengrin

Well, it wouldn't be the first time I got into one of these arguments and someone started telling me what I believe and putting words into my mouth rather than letting me speak for myself.

[One Day Soon]

Agree with all that.

Im not claiming that any belief system (religious, political, national or cultural) has a monopoly on evil and atrocity, because that is self-evidently not true.

But where it it is driven by religion, removing the uncritical acceptance of dogma reduces the opportunity for such extremism to gain a foothold.

In the context of this thread, where individuals such as Magpie focus on the activities of tiny minorities as being representative of an entire faith, it needs to be addressed because it is simply not accurate. I don't like much of what Islam stands for. I equally dont like much of what Christianity preaches, but I equally dont like assumptions being made about great swathes of the population as a result of what their faith hapens to be. When the militancy becomes mainstream and something that people who dont have that faith have no choice but to participate (for example if I was to be tried in the UK by Sharia law or I was forced to pray to Mecca how ever many times a day or if I was forced to attend my local church for 3 hours on a Sunday), thats when to fight against it because that is when it becomes a true imposition of an alien culture. I do not believe we are any closer to that becoming the state of affairs than when Enoch warned of the rivers of blood.

Not to labour the point, but this is also true of any set of beliefs be they religious, political or otherwise.

[Twa Cairpets]

Not to labour the point, but this is also true of any set of beliefs be they religious, political or otherwise.

Again, agreed except that it is only religion that would claim divine provenance for something being right or wrong, and dangling the twin options of eternal bliss or eternal damnation as a reward or punishement for actions. Admittedly the lines between race, religion and politics are not immutable, but it is a valid point to make.

However, extremism is extremism is extremism. By definition it is a view held by a (very) small minority. Fanatical belief to the point of wanting to kill or mutilate or destroy is wrong no matter whether it is politically driven or religiously driven. The deaths that result are exactly the same and exactly as pointless.

The reason Im posting on this thread is almost exclusively because I loathe the kind of knee-jerk unthinking ignorance that is put forward as a justification for bigotry. I'll debate the value or otherwise of religion all day, but I hope to do it from a position of some reason, and with something other than hearsay and headline to back up my point of view.

For example, Doddie and I may be at diametrically opposite ends of the faith spectrum, but I suspect I'd quite like to have a pint or share a dram with him. Because I disagree with core elements of his beliefs doesnt mean I regard him as a bad person.

Where the danger for society lies is when the likes of Enoch Powell or Nick Griffin can preach there scared, blinkered ignorance and find a receptive audience for their poisonous messages. Disagreement and debate is good. Bigotry and baseless stupidity is not.

[--------]

Again, agreed except that it is only religion that would claim divine provenance for something being right or wrong, and dangling the twin options of eternal bliss or eternal damnation as a reward or punishement for actions. Admittedly the lines between race, religion and politics are not immutable, but it is a valid point to make.

However, extremism is extremism is extremism. By definition it is a view held by a (very) small minority. Fanatical belief to the point of wanting to kill or mutilate or destroy is wrong no matter whether it is politically driven or religiously driven. The deaths that result are exactly the same and exactly as pointless.

The reason Im posting on this thread is almost exclusively because I loathe the kind of knee-jerk unthinking ignorance that is put forward as a justification for bigotry. I'll debate the value or otherwise of religion all day, but I hope to do it from a position of some reason, and with something other than hearsay and headline to back up my point of view.

For example, Doddie and I may be at diametrically opposite ends of the faith spectrum, but I suspect I'd quite like to have a pint or share a dram with him. Because I disagree with core elements of his beliefs doesnt mean I regard him as a bad person.

Where the danger for society lies is when the likes of Enoch Powell or Nick Griffin can preach there scared, blinkered ignorance and find a receptive audience for their poisonous messages. Disagreement and debate is good. Bigotry and baseless stupidity is not.


I've just finished reading Ian Kershaw's "The Hitler Myth", and there were definite religious elements in the way Hitler presented himself to the Party and to the German people as the Fuhrer of the nation - a sort of neo-pagan anti-Christian mythology which I believe the German churches, Protestant and Catholic alike, failed to understand until it was far too late.

And I would need to be convinced that the idea of the historical imperative in Marxist thought - the sense that Communism was the ordained and inevitable 'best and highest state' of human society toward which history was inexorably driving - didn't function as a sort of atheist 'god' in the minds of many Marxist revolutionaries in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Until they were wakened up by Lenin and the Cheka, that is - but then Lenin used the idea that the future belonged to the Bolsheviks as a justification for the Cheka. If the future belongs to you, you're entitled to do anything at all, even mass murder, to get there ...

[LiverpoolHibs]

Entertaining debate so far. I have only seen one point that addresses Enoch's motivation for that speech, namely LH saying he was representing the interests of the ruling class.

I didn't mean it to be quite as simplistic as that; it's also that he realised a corner had been turned with regards to Commonwealth immigration and that a niche had been opened up that he could exploit to build a political career in the wake of his failed leadership bid that could/would otherwise have led him to an obscure time on the backbenches. And there's also the fact that, as someone brought up with all the ideology of the British Empire, he was absolutely full to the brim with these racist constructs so that it wasn't an enormous shift to go from the paternalistic stance of welcoming imperial subjects into Britain when the interests of capital demanded it and sending them packing when it no longer did. I think you're giving him far too much credit intellectually and generally, he wasn't a particularly exceptional man - an appalling soldier by all accounts, a second rate classicist and an average politician with a half-decent turn of phrase.

Anyway, I'll add my two penn'orth on where the thread has gone since. There should be no backing down on the fact that magpie is a racist - even conceding that he may 'just' be bigotted is conceding far too much ground. When you are seeking to turn a group of some 1.5 billion people into an amorphous, homogenised mass of barbaric savages and then ascribe particular characteristics to them you are constructing a racist caraciture. As I've already said, 'race' not existing has no say in whether racism exists - so the claim that Islam is a religion not a race is absolutely pointless and a further attempt to head off accusations of racism (which at other times he says no longer has any potency). Racism is a two-fold process - constructing the 'race' and then assigning the 'race' attitudes, values and manners that are particular to it. This is precisely what he is doing.

Just because he attempts to couch his racism in appeals to liberal values doesn't make it any less awful. And I'd also question the extent to which these supposedly progressive values are actually genuinely held; for example, the references to support for feminist values don't really go hand-in-hand with the complete denial of female agency over matters of dress. 'They' never make an informed choice to wear the hijab, oh no, 'they' are 'sent out' looking like that.

The comparison between magpie's racism and twentieth century anti-Semitism may seem overly easy to make and getting into Godwin's Law territory but they are completely apposite as regards stereotyping of Muslims as bigotted and supremacist (and apologies in advance if anyone is offended by the disgusting stuff to follow - but I think it's a point that needs to be made):

"It is written in the Talmud. "Only the Jews are human beings. Non-Jews cannot be called human beings, they are like animals". Because of this we consider non-Jews to be animals, and call them 'Goy''. (http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/images/bigotted.jpg)

And predisposed to violence,

'The Jew wants war, the people don't. When the people bleed the Jew wins'. (http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.trans-int.com/blog/uploads/1934-29-x.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.trans-int.com/wordpress/%3Fp%3D568&usg=__zvd1sb_ufvqKjCRwmQzNTgQBUKg=&h=402&w=400&sz=98&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=sIxvlefLVK5tfM:&tbnh=147&tbnw=146&ei=bOlXTaWKMJOLhQfv4dzJDA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dnazi%2Bcartoons%2B%2522the%2Bjew%2Bwa nts%2Bwar%2522%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfiref ox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-GB:official%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D601%26tbs%3Disch: 1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=302&vpy=76&dur=542&hovh=147&hovw=146&tx=108&ty=130&oei=bOlXTaWKMJOLhQfv4dzJDA&page=1&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0)

Where Jews were once the 'Other' in Europe defiling Western culture and civilisation, now it is the Muslims. What's revealing in magpie's posts and the current position of the European far-right is how useless ideas such as 'multiculturalism' and 'respect' are in genuinely tackling racism - precisely because they are open to being used by racists. Most of Pim Fortuyn's schtick was that Muslim immigrants needed repatriating because they would never (apparently) accept his homosexuality. They did not (again, apparently) 'tolerate' liberal values. You need universalism not multi-culturalism otherwise you end up giving racists and fascists an opening which they can, and do, exploit. This oft-quoted stuff about a clash of supposedly incommensurable values and culture is just an enormous canard. My values aren't commensurable with those of the current government and a large number of people on this board, but so what? It only seems to become a problem when it comes to Islam. You get a taster in the Rivers of Blood speech of this, as I said previously, pioneering of culturalist racism. Powell goes with Sikhs instead of Muslims,

'The Sikh communities' campaign to maintain customs inappropriate in Britain is much to be regretted. Working in Britain, particularly in the public services, they should be prepared to accept the terms and conditions of their employment. To claim special communal rights (or should one say rites?) leads to a dangerous fragmentation within society.

The asides about 'tolerance', from bhfl and lyonhibs, were pretty interesting. Anti-racism and opposition to views such as magpie's aren't about promoting 'tolerance' any more than support for feminism is about promoting a situation where women are tolerated by men. Again, it's about promoting universal rights.

N.B. A final point, ironically and despite all of his terrified musings magpie's posts give a pretty fair indication that he's never met - or at least conversed with - a Muslim in his entire life.

[majorhibs]

magpie are you the neo-conservative on question time tonight, his argument is scarily(and I mean scarily) like yours:wink:

On a serious note the QT debate tonight was remarkably similar to this thread, my missus said something very interesting for once during it, everyone kept saying what a tolerant society we are, however what are we being tolerant of, imagine you emigrated to Australia, and some Ozzie said they where tolerant of you, you'd quite rightly go nuts!!

If people are allowed to legally live here we have nothing to be tolerant of, they have the same rights and privileges as us, whether you like it or not.

Who, exactly, thinks that, compared to a lot of other places worldwide, there is really anything much tolerant about the UK? I just dont see it. Who or what is tolerant, and compared against whom? Sorry but the UK is down there with places I have seen, maybe not as lawless as a lot of places but certainly divided, with NOTHING being done about it.

[magpie1892]

I didn't mean it to be quite as simplistic as that; it's also that he realised a corner had been turned with regards to Commonwealth immigration and that a niche had been opened up that he could exploit to build a political career in the wake of his failed leadership bid that could/would otherwise have led him to an obscure time on the backbenches. And there's also the fact that, as someone brought up with all the ideology of the British Empire, he was absolutely full to the brim with these racist constructs so that it wasn't an enormous shift to go from the paternalistic stance of welcoming imperial subjects into Britain when the interests of capital demanded it and sending them packing when it no longer did. I think you're giving him far too much credit intellectually and generally, he wasn't a particularly exceptional man - an appalling soldier by all accounts, a second rate classicist and an average politician with a half-decent turn of phrase.

Anyway, I'll add my two penn'orth on where the thread has gone since. There should be no backing down on the fact that magpie is a racist - even conceding that he may 'just' be bigotted is conceding far too much ground. When you are seeking to turn a group of some 1.5 billion people into an amorphous, homogenised mass of barbaric savages and then ascribe particular characteristics to them you are constructing a racist caraciture. As I've already said, 'race' not existing has no say in whether racism exists - so the claim that Islam is a religion not a race is absolutely pointless and a further attempt to head off accusations of racism (which at other times he says no longer has any potency). Racism is a two-fold process - constructing the 'race' and then assigning the 'race' attitudes, values and manners that are particular to it. This is precisely what he is doing.

Just because he attempts to couch his racism in appeals to liberal values doesn't make it any less awful. And I'd also question the extent to which these supposedly progressive values are actually genuinely held; for example, the references to support for feminist values don't really go hand-in-hand with the complete denial of female agency over matters of dress. 'They' never make an informed choice to wear the hijab, oh no, 'they' are 'sent out' looking like that.

The comparison between magpie's racism and twentieth century anti-Semitism may seem overly easy to make and getting into Godwin's Law territory but they are completely apposite as regards stereotyping of Muslims as bigotted and supremacist (and apologies in advance if anyone is offended by the disgusting stuff to follow - but I think it's a point that needs to be made):

"It is written in the Talmud. "Only the Jews are human beings. Non-Jews cannot be called human beings, they are like animals". Because of this we consider non-Jews to be animals, and call them 'Goy''. (http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/images/bigotted.jpg)

And predisposed to violence,

'The Jew wants war, the people don't. When the people bleed the Jew wins'. (http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.trans-int.com/blog/uploads/1934-29-x.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.trans-int.com/wordpress/%3Fp%3D568&usg=__zvd1sb_ufvqKjCRwmQzNTgQBUKg=&h=402&w=400&sz=98&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=sIxvlefLVK5tfM:&tbnh=147&tbnw=146&ei=bOlXTaWKMJOLhQfv4dzJDA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dnazi%2Bcartoons%2B%2522the%2Bjew%2Bwa nts%2Bwar%2522%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfiref ox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-GB:official%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D601%26tbs%3Disch: 1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=302&vpy=76&dur=542&hovh=147&hovw=146&tx=108&ty=130&oei=bOlXTaWKMJOLhQfv4dzJDA&page=1&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0)

Where Jews were once the 'Other' in Europe defiling Western culture and civilisation, now it is the Muslims. What's revealing in magpie's posts and the current position of the European far-right is how useless ideas such as 'multiculturalism' and 'respect' are in genuinely tackling racism - precisely because they are open to being used by racists. Most of Pim Fortuyn's schtick was that Muslim immigrants needed repatriating because they would never (apparently) accept his homosexuality. They did not (again, apparently) 'tolerate' liberal values. You need universalism not multi-culturalism otherwise you end up giving racists and fascists an opening which they can, and do, exploit. This oft-quoted stuff about a clash of supposedly incommensurable values and culture is just an enormous canard. My values aren't commensurable with those of the current government and a large number of people on this board, but so what? It only seems to become a problem when it comes to Islam. You get a taster in the Rivers of Blood speech of this, as I said previously, pioneering of culturalist racism. Powell goes with Sikhs instead of Muslims,

'The Sikh communities' campaign to maintain customs inappropriate in Britain is much to be regretted. Working in Britain, particularly in the public services, they should be prepared to accept the terms and conditions of their employment. To claim special communal rights (or should one say rites?) leads to a dangerous fragmentation within society.

The asides about 'tolerance', from bhfl and lyonhibs, were pretty interesting. Anti-racism and opposition to views such as magpie's aren't about promoting 'tolerance' any more than support for feminism is about promoting a situation where women are tolerated by men. Again, it's about promoting universal rights.

N.B. A final point, ironically and despite all of his terrified musings magpie's posts give a pretty fair indication that he's never met - or at least conversed with - a Muslim in his entire life.

I just skim read this again as you are not a friend to brevity still but your final point doesn't hold much water given that I've spent three+ years working in three muslim countries (back from Doha 11 days ago). Utterly terrifying, otherwise I'd have stayed longer. Worked and socialsed with muslims, which I have also done here.

However, I don't really need to explain myself in this regard. I think it's just as likely you're a racist as I am. I get quite a nasty undercurrent from a lot of your posts and it's evident here once more.

[Twa Cairpets]

I just skim read this again as you are not a friend to brevity still but your final point doesn't hold much water given that I've spent three+ years working in three muslim countries (back from Doha 11 days ago). Utterly terrifying, otherwise I'd have stayed longer. Worked and socialsed with muslims, which I have also done here.

However, I don't really need to explain myself in this regard. I think it's just as likely you're a racist as I am. I get quite a nasty undercurrent from a lot of your posts and it's evident here once more.

Interesting you're not interested in reading a post directly discussing your opinions. Do you similarly just lightly and uncritically accept information that backs up your prejudices?

So you've had bad experiences in muslim countries, and havent liked the culture there. Thats an absolutely valid reason not to like a country and the culture that exists there. No problem with that.

But as it exists in the UK, what is it that you fear will happen as a result of the islamic religion that will affect you, your family or your non-islamic friends and acquaintances or workmates, and what would you suggest is done about it?

[magpie1892]

Interesting you're not interested in reading a post directly discussing your opinions. Do you similarly just lightly and uncritically accept information that backs up your prejudices?

So you've had bad experiences in muslim countries, and havent liked the culture there. Thats an absolutely valid reason not to like a country and the culture that exists there. No problem with that.

But as it exists in the UK, what is it that you fear will happen as a result of the islamic religion that will affect you, your family or your non-islamic friends and acquaintances or workmates, and what would you suggest is done about it?

Like I said, I just skim-read it. My lack of interest stems from the length of LH's post, but, more pertinently, the source - i.e. I'm not so interested in LH's opinion on anything. Would that the feeling were mutual!

No bad experiences in muslim countries. Nothing unexpected anyway. It is their country after all.

I'm concerned about the rise of hate in the UK, as is being displayed on C4 as I write this. What should be done? Some muslims should stop shaming themselves, that would be a start. Then we're back onto the old favourites: women, gays, apostates, atheists, hindus, jews, terrorism from home-grown muslims, etc.

[Twa Cairpets]

Like I said, I just skim-read it. My lack of interest stems from the length of LH's post, but, more pertinently, the source - i.e. I'm not so interested in LH's opinion on anything. Would that the feeling were mutual! I'd go back and read it, its a very good post and will take up about thirty seconds of your life.


No bad experiences in muslim countries. Nothing unexpected anyway. It is their country after all. Except for it being "utterly terrifying" (Quote mark used to denote direct quotation in this instance). Now to my mind, "utterly terrifying" would equate at least to something of a bad experience, but maybe thats just me.


I'm concerned about the rise of hate in the UK, as is being displayed on C4 as I write this. What should be done? Some muslims should stop shaming themselves, that would be a start. Then we're back onto the old favourites: women, gays, apostates, atheists, hindus, jews, terrorism from home-grown muslims, etc.

This is really a nothing answer isn't it? In fact, it's not really an answer at all. It certainly isn't any type of a solution to the issues you claim exist. It's just a statement: "Some musilms should stop shaming themselves". Well, some motorists should stop using their phone while driving, some adults should stop drinking themselves into a fight every weekend, some charities should stop defrauding contributors. All of these statements are completely true, but doesnt amount to more than a statement that one would think the vast majority of muslims/drivers/adults/charities would agree with completely.

So again, what would you actually do?

As for this generic "rise of hate" as your fear, how is this affecting you? You're not really answering this at all, so assume you dont have any basis other than a hatred of something that is different to what you think.

"...the old favourites: women, gays, apostates, atheists, hindus, jews, terrorism from home-grown muslims". Absolutely none of these (I'm guessing) affects you directly. I'm an atheist, and I feel no fear or threat whatsoever when I deal with muslims. This is not to defend any of the less appealing aspects of the the more orthodox teachings of the faith, but to me there are parallels of sexism, homophobia, intolerance, different belief systems and extremist violence in every religion and in people of no faith.

You choose to single out Islam for some reason, and its hard to put that down to anything other than fear and base bigotry

[magpie1892]

I'd go back and read it, its a very good post and will take up about thirty seconds of your life.

Except for it being "utterly terrifying" (Quote mark used to denote direct quotation in this instance). Now to my mind, "utterly terrifying" would equate at least to something of a bad experience, but maybe thats just me.



This is really a nothing answer isn't it? In fact, it's not really an answer at all. It certainly isn't any type of a solution to the issues you claim exist. It's just a statement: "Some musilms should stop shaming themselves". Well, some motorists should stop using their phone while driving, some adults should stop drinking themselves into a fight every weekend, some charities should stop defrauding contributors. All of these statements are completely true, but doesnt amount to more than a statement that one would think the vast majority of muslims/drivers/adults/charities would agree with completely.

So again, what would you actually do?

As for this generic "rise of hate" as your fear, how is this affecting you? You're not really answering this at all, so assume you dont have any basis other than a hatred of something that is different to what you think.

"...the old favourites: women, gays, apostates, atheists, hindus, jews, terrorism from home-grown muslims". Absolutely none of these (I'm guessing) affects you directly. I'm an atheist, and I feel no fear or threat whatsoever when I deal with muslims. This is not to defend any of the less appealing aspects of the the more orthodox teachings of the faith, but to me there are parallels of sexism, homophobia, intolerance, different belief systems and extremist violence in every religion and in people of no faith.

You choose to single out Islam for some reason, and its hard to put that down to anything other than fear and base bigotry

I said "utterly terrifying" in jest. LH says I am, apparently, "terrified"; I'll concede that sarcasm doesn't come across well on here. So, yes, it's "just you" in this instance. Sorry about that.

I gave the LH post the attention I felt it deserved. There's little in there I can work with. I'm not entirely sure LH is not a BNP/EDL/Zionist on the wind-up, so extreme are the views projected. Overall, it's impossible to take seriously with its myriad contradictions. I get the whiff of the extreme right in LH's posts, so much doth he protest. It's either a poor 'false flag' operation or a troll.

We're obviously not feeling the same things as far as islam is concerned. That's no big deal, we can agree to differ. Your approach is so much more commendable in simply finding objections to my views than puerile smears and personal attacks, so I appreciate your dignity, even though we are not really meeting on this.

Did you enjoy 'Dispatches'? I thought it was quite well done. Wasn't really news though; my former flat in Doha was right next to a mosque (easy done, to be fair) and at midday every Friday the guy comes on the PA with a weekly 'sermon'. Lasts about 10-15mins, all the mosques do it. The sentiments posited are pretty disgusting in their racism and bigotry but it is a muslim country so 'when in Rome...'

I just don't want that kind of filth replicated in the rest of the world.

[Twa Cairpets]

I said "utterly terrifying" in jest. LH says I am, apparently, "terrified"; I'll concede that sarcasm doesn't come across well on here. So, yes, it's "just you" in this instance. Sorry about that.
No problem, Try a smilley next time, or maybe inverted commas, or addition of the word "clearly". All would work.


I gave the LH post the attention I felt it deserved. There's little in there I can work with. I'm not entirely sure LH is not a BNP/EDL/Zionist on the wind-up, so extreme are the views projected. Overall, it's impossible to take seriously with its myriad contradictions. I get the whiff of the extreme right in LH's posts, so much doth he protest. It's either a poor 'false flag' operation or a troll.

Theres little you can work with? Really? Wow. Try highlighting some of the "myriad contradictions".

As you would appear to be getting a huge amout of pleasure from yanking people's chains and getting a reaction, the accusations of LH being a troll are a bit clumsy really.


We're obviously not feeling the same things as far as islam is concerned. That's no big deal, we can agree to differ. Your approach is so much more commendable in simply finding objections to my views than puerile smears and personal attacks, so I appreciate your dignity, even though we are not really meeting on this.

Did you enjoy 'Dispatches'? I thought it was quite well done. Wasn't really news though; my former flat in Doha was right next to a mosque (easy done, to be fair) and at midday every Friday the guy comes on the PA with a weekly 'sermon'. Lasts about 10-15mins, all the mosques do it. The sentiments posited are pretty disgusting in their racism and bigotry but it is a muslim country so 'when in Rome...'

I just don't want that kind of filth replicated in the rest of the world.

Havent seen Dispatches, will try to catchup with it later in the week.

Once again, the nature of your objections have moved away from the very specific into the very general "I just don't want that kind of filth replicated in the rest of the world". Do you genuinely believe there to be a threat to Western Culture from Islam. Do you genuinely think that a minority faith of, I believe, around 3% of the population in the UK is any kind of position to fundametally destroy the fabric of society.

Do you speak arabic? Just wondering how you understood the filth being preached from that Doha minaret - I understood the call to prayer was fairly anodyne and formulaic, rather than preaching any message of hate.

I said in an earlier post its down to education for believers of all faith to challenge dogma and the more ludicrous messages religion gives. Equally, I believe its down to education of people like yourself who do have opposing views to be able to put across your point without sounding like a BNP stormtrooper. If you want to have any chance in persuading people that, for example, the wearing of burkhas fundamentally wrong, then dont use phrases like "ninja dalek" - it doesnt help.

[khib70]

I said "utterly terrifying" in jest. LH says I am, apparently, "terrified"; I'll concede that sarcasm doesn't come across well on here. So, yes, it's "just you" in this instance. Sorry about that.

I gave the LH post the attention I felt it deserved. There's little in there I can work with. I'm not entirely sure LH is not a BNP/EDL/Zionist on the wind-up, so extreme are the views projected. Overall, it's impossible to take seriously with its myriad contradictions. I get the whiff of the extreme right in LH's posts, so much doth he protest. It's either a poor 'false flag' operation or a troll.We're obviously not feeling the same things as far as islam is concerned. That's no big deal, we can agree to differ. Your approach is so much more commendable in simply finding objections to my views than puerile smears and personal attacks, so I appreciate your dignity, even though we are not really meeting on this.

Did you enjoy 'Dispatches'? I thought it was quite well done. Wasn't really news though; my former flat in Doha was right next to a mosque (easy done, to be fair) and at midday every Friday the guy comes on the PA with a weekly 'sermon'. Lasts about 10-15mins, all the mosques do it. The sentiments posited are pretty disgusting in their racism and bigotry but it is a muslim country so 'when in Rome...'

I just don't want that kind of filth replicated in the rest of the world.

Even by your standards, this statement beggars belief. Clearly you haven't read any of LH's posts. If anyone is on the wind up it's you. Or at least I'd rather believe that than believe that your mindless bigotry is genuine.

IMO LH is pretty wrong about a range of things, but I don't possess the sheer chutzpah to accuse him of "puerile smears and personal attacks" while simultaneously accusing him of being some kind of BNP provocateur, on the basis of no evidence at all. The fact that the sheer hypocrisy of that doesn't even occur to you says a lot about you, I think.

LH is one of the main reasons why we have such a high level of debate on this board. Strongly as I end up disagreeing with most of his posts, I make a point of reading them. That's why I don't make the kind of ridiculous allegations you choose to throw around.

As a supporter of Israel, and someone who despises all forms of religious fundamentalism and bigotry, I'm aware that some foul and dangerous things are said in the name of Islam. As indeed they are in the name of Christianity, Judaism, or just about any faith you care to name. By the same token there are good and humanitarian people of all faiths. What you have done is taken one faith group and labelled them all with the views and practices of the fringe extremist minority. And that, more than anything else on this thread, has the familiar feel of EDL/BNP thinking.

[Betty Boop]

Did anybody watch the Gert Wilders documentary on BBC2 last night ? What a despicable man, so full of hatred and loathing. Pamela Geller..........:bitchy:

[(((Fergus)))]

Did anybody watch the Gert Wilders documentary on BBC2 last night ? What a despicable man, so full of hatred and loathing. Pamela Geller..........:bitchy:

There were a lot of hate-filled people in that programme. What's the solution?

[magpie1892]

Even by your standards, this statement beggars belief. Clearly you haven't read any of LH's posts. If anyone is on the wind up it's you. Or at least I'd rather believe that than believe that your mindless bigotry is genuine.

IMO LH is pretty wrong about a range of things, but I don't possess the sheer chutzpah to accuse him of "puerile smears and personal attacks" while simultaneously accusing him of being some kind of BNP provocateur, on the basis of no evidence at all. The fact that the sheer hypocrisy of that doesn't even occur to you says a lot about you, I think.

LH is one of the main reasons why we have such a high level of debate on this board. Strongly as I end up disagreeing with most of his posts, I make a point of reading them. That's why I don't make the kind of ridiculous allegations you choose to throw around.

As a supporter of Israel, and someone who despises all forms of religious fundamentalism and bigotry, I'm aware that some foul and dangerous things are said in the name of Islam. As indeed they are in the name of Christianity, Judaism, or just about any faith you care to name. By the same token there are good and humanitarian people of all faiths. What you have done is taken one faith group and labelled them all with the views and practices of the fringe extremist minority. And that, more than anything else on this thread, has the familiar feel of EDL/BNP thinking.

Steady, I was only kidding. I've been advised to flag my poor attempts at humour in future, and I think I will. LH is just a loon, not a troll. :wink: (there you go)

[magpie1892]

No problem, Try a smilley next time, or maybe inverted commas, or addition of the word "clearly". All would work.



Theres little you can work with? Really? Wow. Try highlighting some of the "myriad contradictions".

As you would appear to be getting a huge amout of pleasure from yanking people's chains and getting a reaction, the accusations of LH being a troll are a bit clumsy really.



Havent seen Dispatches, will try to catchup with it later in the week.

Once again, the nature of your objections have moved away from the very specific into the very general "I just don't want that kind of filth replicated in the rest of the world". Do you genuinely believe there to be a threat to Western Culture from Islam. Do you genuinely think that a minority faith of, I believe, around 3% of the population in the UK is any kind of position to fundametally destroy the fabric of society.

Do you speak arabic? Just wondering how you understood the filth being preached from that Doha minaret - I understood the call to prayer was fairly anodyne and formulaic, rather than preaching any message of hate.

I said in an earlier post its down to education for believers of all faith to challenge dogma and the more ludicrous messages religion gives. Equally, I believe its down to education of people like yourself who do have opposing views to be able to put across your point without sounding like a BNP stormtrooper. If you want to have any chance in persuading people that, for example, the wearing of burkhas fundamentally wrong, then dont use phrases like "ninja dalek" - it doesnt help.

Not talking about the call to prayer. I would hear that x5 daily and yes, it's always the same. I was talking specifically - and made the distinction, I think - about the midday Friday 'sermon'. I speak a little Arabic, enough to make myself understood in the basics but I did get some help from an Egyptian former colleague of mine (muslim). Not that it was really needed - the tone and delivery of the address, even if you don't speak a word, is pretty obvious, a hate-filled message every week without fail.

I do think that there is a threat to western culture from islam. Is that not obvious?! The 3% you mention is arguable but numbers are not the issue. As Elijah Muhammad said: 'the mosta dangerous weapon in the world is a man with nothing to lose. It does not take ten such men to change the world, one will do.' - the meaning of the parable is clear, it's a question of motivation.

[bighairyfaeleith]

Not talking about the call to prayer. I would hear that x5 daily and yes, it's always the same. I was talking specifically - and made the distinction, I think - about the midday Friday 'sermon'. I speak a little Arabic, enough to make myself understood in the basics but I did get some help from an Egyptian former colleague of mine (muslim). Not that it was really needed - the tone and delivery of the address, even if you don't speak a word, is pretty obvious, a hate-filled message every week without fail.

I do think that there is a threat to western culture from islam. Is that not obvious?! The 3% you mention is arguable but numbers are not the issue. As Elijah Muhammad said: 'the mosta dangerous weapon in the world is a man with nothing to lose. It does not take ten such men to change the world, one will do.' - the meaning of the parable is clear, it's a question of motivation.

Western culture is under threat from extremists.

In the past christian extremists forced our ways upon these people. We are now surprised that they want to do the same to us???:confused:

[One Day Soon]

Western culture is under threat from extremists.

In the past christian extremists forced our ways upon these people. We are now surprised that they want to do the same to us???:confused:

Go to the Cowgate on a Friday night. Or Lothian Road, or Glasgow on Ugly Sisters derby day, or Reading town centre on the weekend, or open up any red top newspaper........

Western culture is under threat, predominantly from itself.

[bighairyfaeleith]

Go to the Cowgate on a Friday night. Or Lothian Road, or Glasgow on Ugly Sisters derby day, or Reading town centre on the weekend, or open up any red top newspaper........

Western culture is under threat, predominantly from itself.

aye, why do we always assume we are right, our way is best, anything else is just wrong.

Don't get me wrong, stoning women, killing people for being gay etc is wrong, but portraying islam as being all about that is just wrong. Kind of like saying Christianity is about killing people based upon harold shipman or adolf hitler.

Lets not assume our culture is best as the starting point then perhaps people of other faiths will engage with us as equals.

[Twa Cairpets]

I do think that there is a threat to western culture from islam. Is that not obvious?! The 3% you mention is arguable but numbers are not the issue. As Elijah Muhammad said: 'the mosta dangerous weapon in the world is a man with nothing to lose. It does not take ten such men to change the world, one will do.' - the meaning of the parable is clear, it's a question of motivation.

3% from 2001 census (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_Kingdom), so not arguable but very much an issue. In areas where the population is most dense - generally the industrial towns of North West England, the Midlands and London, the impact of predominantly Indian/Pakistani and Bangladeshi immigrants has made the culture of those places now part of what the wider culture of this country now is. It isnt a single, immovable "thing" - there is no heroic time where everyone held Victorian or Edwardian views.

The time to fight against it is when there are genuine, daily and specific threats to you and your way of life. And there just isnt. Many muslims will screamcterror from the minarets, sure but the surest way to give them support and succour is to drag the whole faith into it by accusing them of being of the same mould.

By the way, youve still not given a single piece of supportable evidence that could back up your apparent terror of the the threat. Remember - strip out the action of evil individuals acting on the extremes, and focus on the mainstream.

[ballengeich]

Go to the Cowgate on a Friday night. Or Lothian Road, or Glasgow on Ugly Sisters derby day, or Reading town centre on the weekend, or open up any red top newspaper........

Western culture is under threat, predominantly from itself.

On the Islamic day of prayer, the population's general rejection of alcohol and the demure attire of the local maidens will show just how far islamification has affected our cities.

[One Day Soon]

On the Islamic day of prayer, the population's general rejection of alcohol and the demure attire of the local maidens will show just how far islamification has affected our cities.

And if you CAN fight your way into a bar all the beers are listed in Arabic.

[bighairyfaeleith]

And if you CAN fight your way into a bar all the beers are listed in Arabic.

A beer is a beer

[One Day Soon]

A beer is a beer

Not if it's Kaliber

[LiverpoolHibs]

Steady, I was only kidding. I've been advised to flag my poor attempts at humour in future, and I think I will. LH is just a loon, not a troll. :wink: (there you go)

That's handy isn't it. You find yourself unable to actually debate the accusations coming at you, so you make a ludicrous smear. It goes down dreadfully and you get told, essentially, that you're an idiot - so you claim it was a joke. Excellent.