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@Baron-Silas-Greenback The UK election seems worse than Trump vs Hillary. I'm leaning towards the Tory's as they probably won't try and combat terrorists with hugs and compliments..probably.
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This from Brendan O'Neill hits the nail on the head perfectly
One of the major problems we face is not that our society is too mean about Islam, but that it flatters Islam too much. Islam now enjoys the same kind of moral protection from blasphemy and ridicule that Christianity once (wrongly) enjoyed. All last week I received furious emails and messages in response to two articles I wrote about the Manchester attack, telling me that using the word Islamist is Islamophobic, because it demeans Islam and its adherents by suggesting they have something to do with terrorism. This is why our political leaders so rarely use the terms Islamism, radical Islam and Islamic terrorism: because they want to avoid offending Islam and also because they don't want to stir up what they view as the public's bovine, hateful prejudices. This censorious privilege is not extended to any other religion. We do not avoid saying "Catholic paedophiles" about the priests who molested children for fear of tarring all Catholics with the same brush. We happily say "Christian fundamentalist"about people who are Christian and fundamentalist. We use "Buddhist extremists" to describe violent Buddhist groups in Myanmar. Only Islam is ringfenced from tough discussion; only terms that at some level include the word "Islam" are tightly policed; only criticism of Islam is deemed a mental illness -- Islamophobia.
This is incredibly dangerous. This censorious flattery of Islam is, in my view, a key contributor to the violence we have seen in recent years. Because when you constantly tell people that any mockery of their religion is tantamount to a crime, is vile and racist and unacceptable, you actively invite them, encourage them in fact, to become intolerant. You license their intolerance; you inflame their violent contempt for anyone who questions their dogmas; you provide a moral justification for their desire to punish those who insult their religion. From the 7/7 bombers to the Charlie Hebdo murderers to Salman Abedi in Manchester, all these terrorists -- Islamist terrorists -- expressed an extreme victim mentality and openly said they were punishing us for our disrespect of Islam, mistreatment of Muslims, ridiculing of Muhammad, etc. The Islamophobia industry and politicians who constantly say "Islam is great, leave Islam alone!" green-light this violence; they furnish it with a moral case and moral zeal.
There are no quick fixes to the terror problem, but here is a good start: oppose all censorship and all clampdowns on offence and blasphemy and so-called "Islamophobia". Every single one of them, whether they're legal, in the form of hate-speech laws, or informal, in the guise of self-censoring politicians being literally struck dumb on TV because they cannot muster up the word "Is...is...is...islamist". This will at least start the process of unravelling the Islamist victimhood narrative and its bizarre, violent and officially sanctioned sensitivity to criticism. And if anyone says this is "punching down" -- another intellectual weapon in the armoury of Islam-protecting censorship -- tell them that it is in fact punching up: up against a political class and legal system that has foolishly and outrageously sought to police criticism of a religion. This means that the supposedly correct response to terror attacks -- "don't criticise Islam" -- is absolutely the worst response. Making criticism of Islam as commonplace and acceptable as criticism of any other religion or ideology is the first step to denuding Islamist terrorism of its warped moral programme, and it will also demonstrate that our society prizes freedom of speech over everything else -- including your religion, your God, your prophets, your holy book and your feelings.
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@Rancid-Schnitzel said in Another attack in London:
I can see the point there Nick, but this apparently independent and non-structured religion that is powerless to produce a united front in tackling terrorism often appears to be incredibly united and on the same page when there is a grievance or something to bitch about.
That's different to having a hierarchy.
There are still core tenets common to all of the sects of Islam, I assume.
Maybe they all don't like a particular thing they see. Maybe some of them will protest it vehemently as a group. But assuming they'll all start cutting heads off, or stabbing people on the high street, about that thing they don't like, is too broad a brush.
Funny thing: the news doesn't often report on the Muslims that see the thing they don't like in the news, and get on with their lives after a brief shake of the head.
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@NTA said in Another attack in London:
@Rancid-Schnitzel said in Another attack in London:
I can see the point there Nick, but this apparently independent and non-structured religion that is powerless to produce a united front in tackling terrorism often appears to be incredibly united and on the same page when there is a grievance or something to bitch about.
That's different to having a hierarchy.
There are still core tenets common to all of the sects of Islam, I assume.
Maybe they all don't like a particular thing they see. Maybe some of them will protest it vehemently as a group. But assuming they'll all start cutting heads off, or stabbing people on the high street, about that thing they don't like, is too broad a brush.
Funny thing: the news doesn't often report on the Muslims that see the thing they don't like in the news, and get on with their lives after a brief shake of the head.
Who is assuming they'll all cut off heads? Who even suggested that?
My point is that I don't buy the argument that Muslims can do nothing about this at an individual or group level because they lack a Catholic like hierarchy.
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@Rembrandt said in Another attack in London:
@canefan That is absolutely right and not very well understood by those defending it. Most people I know who are coming like white knights to defend all things islamic over the last few hours know incredibly little about the religion. They've never read the texts, they don't know the history, all they see is a different flavoured Christianity but one that is marginalised and must be protected at all costs unlike Christianity which is the foundation of all that is evil.
Yup, 100%. If you have not educated yourself on the topic then you cannot join the debate as anything but a puppet for someone elses ideas. Which is bad for a number of reasons not least being that you don't understand the motovation for those ideas.
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Interesting piece on the inner thinkings at ground zero of the wahaabist disease, Saudi Arabia
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@Rancid-Schnitzel said in Another attack in London:
Who is assuming they'll all cut off heads? Who even suggested that?
Calm your farm. It's an expression of the level of violence some of them go to in the name of their religion. That's one extreme. The other is shaking your head and getting on with your life.
My point is that I don't buy the argument that Muslims can do nothing about this at an individual or group level because they lack a Catholic like hierarchy.
They can do something about it at every level if they're so inclined. The Manchester bomber was reported to authorities (more than once, I believe) by the Muslim community as one example. I imagine that's how a few of them get into watch lists in the first place.
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Forget May's speech, this is the way to deal with this sort of thing.
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@Rembrandt said in Another attack in London:
@antipodean Sickening isn't it. I guess they just want to avoid having egg on their face when its discovered that the terrorists were really white football hooligans right?
Weak and pathetic.
Tommy Robinson (who isn't known to pull punches) makes a great point as to what will happen if the authorities don't actually do something people will start taking things into their own hands then you'll really have an extremist problem.
That's quite a detailed rant from Tommy Robinson. His proposed solution of internment borrowed from the Troubles in Northern Ireland would give me pause for thought however.
I'm old enough to have grown up during the war in Northern Ireland and seen the effect it had on people on both sides of the divide. There was plenty of internment of people - from both Republican and Loyalist/Unionst factions. I'm not sure how successful a policy it was though. It brought like-minded people together into the one space, and guarded by their 'oppressors', fostered further hatred/opposition and deferred attempts at bringing about a long-term peaceful solution.
Robinson contends that if the British Govt do nothing then homegrown militias will emerge to take the law into their own hands - and again he draws a parallel with NI on this - presumably making reference to some of the 'murder gangs' that were created within communities. He fails to acknowledge that the British Army had already been dispatched onto the streets in the late sixties/early seventies - initially to protect Catholic communities - and then found themselves fighting people within them. If Britain were to become like NI in the seventies and eighties with troops deployed actively on the streets on a daily basis, patrolling and supporting the police (who would then be armed like the RUC were), what would ordinary Britons make of life then? Or attempting to 'intern' a cohort of some 3,500-4,00o suspected people, what does someone like Robinson think will be the intended and unintended consequences of that policy?
For all that, I understand his frustration. These are dangerous times without doubt. And that danger is getting closer and closer to all of our streets and front doors.
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@NTA said in Another attack in London:
@Rancid-Schnitzel said in Another attack in London:
Who is assuming they'll all cut off heads? Who even suggested that?
Calm your farm. It's an expression of the level of violence some of them go to in the name of their religion. That's one extreme. The other is shaking your head and getting on with your life.
My point is that I don't buy the argument that Muslims can do nothing about this at an individual or group level because they lack a Catholic like hierarchy.
They can do something about it at every level if they're so inclined. The Manchester bomber was reported to authorities (more than once, I believe) by the Muslim community as one example. I imagine that's how a few of them get into watch lists in the first place.
Doesn't that last paragraph contradict your entire argument?
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@Rancid-Schnitzel not necessarily. We were taking about "mainstream" in the same terms as people think generally about religion. There is a difference in structure that means Reformation (per the Christian church) can't be approached in the same way.
If the individuals or local groups choose to do something about a loose cannon in their midst, even if they are a noted or respected Imam, it doesn't necessarily create a wave of change. In fact, they're likely to be condemned by the whack jobs halfway around the world.
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@NTA said in Another attack in London:
@Rancid-Schnitzel not necessarily. We were taking about "mainstream" in the same terms as people think generally about religion. There is a difference in structure that means Reformation (per the Christian church) can't be approached in the same way.
If the individuals or local groups choose to do something about a loose cannon in their midst, even if they are a noted or respected Imam, it doesn't necessarily create a wave of change. In fact, they're likely to be condemned by the whack jobs halfway around the world.
Or threatened by wack jobs on the same street...
Another attack in London