I think Denmark is right about this.

[Spiffor]

If it goes that "presto", that may just be because the seed of extremism encounters a very, very fertile land, don't you think?

Besides, you don't even need a foreign preacher to have islamism grow on such terrain now: satellite TV is enough to give ideas to Arabic / Pakistani Britons who'll become radical leaders.

[our_man]

~~~

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by our_man
I state my point again. Your country has in the past, and probably still is, let in the wrong type of people. A charismatic Muslim preacher blows into town, tells dissaffected Muslim youth, "it's all the Christian's fault, go kill the infidels". Hey Presto! From one extremist, you now have a hundred.

Drawing from Irish history you have thousands of examples of why state ostracism of social groups on religious grounds is a really bad idea. We could pass laws aimed at Muslims, just as we did against Irish Catholics, but I'd hope that we've learned from bitter experience just how counter-productive that can be.

[our_man]

~~~

[Buck Birdseed]

Yes, they're clearly imposing their own system of belief on the societies they arrive in. Let's all bow down to the Muslims, our imperialist conquerors.

[Hagbart]

Laws like these are spreading across the european countries. Recently Holland tightened their immigration laws.

BTW: I'm for common EU refugee/immigration laws.

[yavoon]

Originally posted by our_man
It's amazing that people are opposing Denmarks stance in this. The people that defend radical imams and their rhetoric just can't seem to understand that these people are a danger to our society. Hell, some Muslim immigrants would support this as the reason they fled to Europe in the first place was to escape from there crazed loons. The Muslim Council of Britain has stated before that extremists that hijack their religion for evil should not be tolerated.

I remember after those two British Muslims went to Israel to become suicide bombers (after being urged on by one of Islams many 'holy men') the head of the Muslim Council in Britain adopted a far harder line than the British government, saying that there were some elements in British society that have been tolerated for far too long. He gave me the impression that if he were Prime Minister he'd clear the country of these guys. The secular Muslims can see that these people are a threat, so why are there still people defending them?

its an idealogical stance that views even horribly wrong ones should be tolerated. and that its the crimes u need to arrest ppl for.

[our_man]

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[Buck Birdseed]

I was making a wry comment about your Ireland analogy, which is one of the silliest I've ever seen on here.

I personally started off as a socialist in my adolocence. After a while I was persuaded to add feminist beliefs to my system. The problem is that the two are not fully compatible- working class men are among the most sexist in history, nad many women actively participate on the "wrong side" of the class struggle. Therefore there needs to be a balance- a society set up as a kind of pluralism, where every oppressed group has the right to self-expression and to a share of the power, without trampling all over the others. Throughout history people have attempted to support one group while oppressing all the others- Marxists have been notorious antifeminists and homophobes, some feminists are stuanchly capitalist, and so on. Your faction fits perfectly well in that pattern- you claim you're after the liberation of a couple fo groups (gays, women) and you use this as an excuse to oppress a cultural group (muslims). You claim you're after freedom but rather than let all ideas work on an equal basis and let people chose between them you actively fight some of them, thus promoting oppression and ultimately driving people into even more extreme cultural expressions.

Let me ask you this: What superior "western" values are there that are superior to the "eastern" ones you've orientalized up? Certainly christianity and capitalism are as oppressive as any "eastern" dictatorship. The one major difference western liberal democracy has from any other system is that it instils into the people that they're citizens, that they are responsible for the state, that they're allowed to and must express their beliefs in an orderly discourse. Expressing yourself, whether just airing your views and debating them with others or expressing them in terms of actual policy and legislation is what sets democracy apart from any other system and what makes it superior. The open society is by nature one where things are out in the open and people are allowed to fight for whatever cause they like.

What you're doing is telling people they have a right to chose then removing their options, telling them that they should become active citizens then banning their causes, telling them your open society welcomes them then showing it to be bigoted, monolithic and pitifully closed. And you wonder why people are alienated and start bombing things?

[our_man]

~~~

[Buck Birdseed]

Originally posted by our_man
If all things being equal though, why is the Muslim world so different to the West.

It wasn't in pre-colonial times... Once the power balance shifted enough for the europeans to imperially dominate the middle east the society was pushed backward. For more reasons read Edward Said's thoroughly excellent Orientalism.

Are we referring to different bits of Irish history? I thought you were talking about the colonisation of parts of Ireland by people coming in from Great Britain. The difference obviously being that they were never an oppressed group but rather came as imperial conquerors, which was the point I was trying to get accross.

How exactly am I supposed to answer your question? It's based on premises that are not present in my posts and I futhermore do not agree with. I've read your next-to-last post again and how you could infer all that from a short statement putting cultural meetings into a power-system context is beyond me.

What I can say is that wanting to impose your beliefs on society is a good thing, and the basis of democracy. The beliefs we hate must also be fought by active citizenship and not by government repression- look at Palestine for a perfect example of why putting the boot down only fosters extremism. Abu Hamza is no threat to us, he's a hook-weilding fool with no power- the real threat comes from those who use the excuse of removing extremes to foster their own racist beliefs on the rest of society.

I can't help but feel you're in that category, our_man- the implied flavour of the "peaceful muslims" bull**** is "I'm not racist, even some of my friends are black". Real democracy is not based on the state favouring some cultural expressions over others, not on "integration" but on openness.

[our_man]

~~~

[yavoon]

Originally posted by our_man
OK Buck. One last question then. Would you have opposed the Nazis and what they preached? Or would you, like you are with radical Muslims, have defended their right to free speech and watch them goose-step towards the holocaust?

I would have opposed them and protected their right to free speech.

[Gangerolf]

Originally posted by MrFun


Islam is a legitimate religion -- we don't need to "fight" it.

It's the extremists who twist the Islamic religion to justify their inhuman actions that we need to fight.

I didn't say we should fight Islam! That would be kind of medieval. I ment [radical] Islamism, which is exactly the kind of extremists you're talking about.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by our_man
OK Buck. One last question then. Would you have opposed the Nazis and what they preached? Or would you, like you are with radical Muslims, have defended their right to free speech and watch them goose-step towards the holocaust?

Another interesting example, because British Fascists and pro-Nazi groups had a free rein in the mid-30's. Free speech was never an issue- what beat them here was not legislation but a uniting of the communities and opposing ideologies against them. We might wonder how British history would have turned out had the Battle of Cable Street never occurred.