Islam and Western Society

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Yes, but there was a time when.................

 

[Kat Stevens]

Yes, but there was a time when.................

So if we want to wait 600 years everything should be good, then.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Maybe not that long.  People slightly long in the tooth may remember hypotheses that Reagan and fundamentalist Christians wanted secretly to bring Armageddon to fruition in their lifetimes.  People claimed to be genuinely fearful of the prospect.

I suppose they might be having flashbacks now, with Iran cast as the zealous seeker of the end times.

 

[CougarKing]

At one point should a society not accommodate one group whose actions are done at the expense of another?

National Post

‘Muslim morality squads’ accused of confiscating students’ Easter eggs in U.K.

Children who took Easter eggs to class allegedly had them confiscated by “Muslim morality squads” patrolling a school in Birmingham, England, according to press reports.

The school is at the centre of an investigation into claims Islamic hardliners are attempting to infiltrate and run secular state schools in the city.

The mother of one of the students — who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals — told the Daily Express that groups of older students were taking the eggs from younger children and teachers were ignoring their actions.

“My daughter tried to bring in an Easter egg for a friend and one boy grabbed it and smashed it against a wall,” she said.

(...EDITED)

 

[pbi]

Disgraceful.

But is it really "Muslim Morality Squads" or a bunch of bullies stealing candy from kids?

If it's the latter, not very nice, but no panic.

If it's the former, then IMHO all the levers of society need to be mobilized against them, and against anybody else who thinks it's OK to force their religious views on people, especially by intimidation. Treat them like anybody else who disrupts a school. To me, one's faith is a personal matter: I have mine, you have yours. Unless I'm hurting people or breaking the law, leave me alone and I'll leave you alone.

But, what if these were Muslim kids in the class? Does it have the same meaning? Are the "squads" just enforcing the beliefs on the believers?

That thought aside, why does it seem to be predominantly Islamic adherents that are resorting to using violence to enforce/protect their faith? Stoning, flogging, shunning, honour killing, ranting mobs, etc, etc. I see the very odd bit of this sort of stupidity from others such as Christians, but mostly it seems to be a Muslim issue.

Have I got that wrong?

 

[George Wallace]

Disgraceful.

But is it really "Muslim Morality Squads" or a bunch of bullies stealing candy from kids?

If it's the latter, not very nice, but no panic.

If it's the former, then IMHO all the levers of society need to be mobilized against them, and against anybody else who thinks it's OK to force their religious views on people, especially by intimidation. Treat them like anybody else who disrupts a school. To me, one's faith is a personal matter: I have mine, you have yours. Unless I'm hurting people or breaking the law, leave me alone and I'll leave you alone.

But, what if these were Muslim kids in the class? Does it have the same meaning? Are the "squads" just enforcing the beliefs on the believers?

That thought aside, why does it seem to be predominantly Islamic adherents that are resorting to using violence to enforce/protect their faith? Stoning, flogging, shunning, honour killing, ranting mobs, etc, etc. I see the very odd bit of this sort of stupidity from others such as Christians, but mostly it seems to be a Muslim issue.

Have I got that wrong?

Quite a 'generalization'.  Remember, Islam is like Christianity in that it has various sects.  Like we had the Roman Catholic Church of Rome condemning and persecuting Protestants in past centuries, we also find Sunni and Shite Muslims at each others throats in many regions still today, vying for dominance of the Muslim faith.  The more violent sects that condone suicide bombing feel that one of the only way to get to Heaven is through death; martyrdom through killing non-believers, Infidel and Muslim alike.  To die in Holy Jihad is one way.  It matters not what collateral damage is involved, as long as a non-believer is killed.  Even if you are Muslim, but of another Sect, then you are considered a non-believer by these radicals. 

There are other religions that condone "stoning, flogging, shunning, honour killing, ranting mobs, etc, etc".  Sikhs, even in Canada, have been known to condone many of these barbaric practices.  You can find some of these practices among the Hindu as well.  It may be that Islam is such a large religion, world wide, and more in the view of the observer, that it seems that they are the ones most likely to conduct these practices.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Disgraceful.

But is it really "Muslim Morality Squads" or a bunch of bullies stealing candy from kids?

If it's the latter, not very nice, but no panic.

If it's the former, then IMHO all the levers of society need to be mobilized against them, and against anybody else who thinks it's OK to force their religious views on people, especially by intimidation. Treat them like anybody else who disrupts a school. To me, one's faith is a personal matter: I have mine, you have yours. Unless I'm hurting people or breaking the law, leave me alone and I'll leave you alone.

But, what if these were Muslim kids in the class? Does it have the same meaning? Are the "squads" just enforcing the beliefs on the believers?

That thought aside, why does it seem to be predominantly Islamic adherents that are resorting to using violence to enforce/protect their faith? Stoning, flogging, shunning, honour killing, ranting mobs, etc, etc. I see the very odd bit of this sort of stupidity from others such as Christians, but mostly it seems to be a Muslim issue.

Have I got that wrong?

Yes ...

Look at the picture in the article:

There is nothing Muslim about that; it reflects a culture, mostly Middle Eastern mostly, mostly
patriarchal, mostly tolerant if not actually supportive of slavery ... a culture which defines women as
chattels, as property and requires them to be invisible to other men. It, extreme modesty, is a
cultural artifact which was present in Europe 500 years ago, even later ...

And which is still present, today, in our 'Western' societies:

I don't know a great many Muslims but the ones I do are, essentially, indistinguishable from Christians, Jews, Hindus, atheists and so on, save, perhaps, for a few items of dress, reflecting their cultural traditions or when they worship in their churches, synagogues mosques and temples.

What we are seeing in the UK, in my opinion, is an attempt to impose Middle Eastern and West Asian cultural values on the community ... because the immigrant community is terrified of the larger society into which they they find integration uncomfortable and in which they feel themselves unwelcome.

To your other question: "But, what if these were Muslim kids in the class? Does it have the same meaning? Are the "squads" just enforcing the beliefs on the believers?" the answer is that it actually matters more.

The public (state) school system is secular, even in Canadian provinces that have confessional school systems, guaranteed by the Constitution. Parents may, at their own expense, enroll their children in private, religious schools, but the public, state system must be open and accessible to all and must not discriminate against or for any particular creed.

 

[pbi]

Hmmmm.

I think of myself as something between a "small-l liberal" and a "libertarian" (with a bit of Red Tory thrown in...) but I still struggle with my view of Islam and how it plays out in real life.

I see that any faith has three forms:

-the original tenets as established by its prophets-usually quite benign and widely acceptable;

-the manner in which believers interpret those tenets; and

-the manner in which certain sects/individuals exploit those tenets to justify other ends that are usually of a political, economic or cultural nature.

On reflection, and as I have commented elsewhere, I think ERC is probably right in assigning the primacy of culture in shaping how religious beliefs play out. An example here in North America would be the difference between a Baptist church in suburban middle-class southern Ontario, and a Baptist church in the red clay backwoods of Georgia. Both white, Christian, European descent, but quite different cultures and, I'll bet, different takes on their faith. Catholicism offers an even better example: compare the average middle class suburban Canadian Catholic with their coreligionist from Africa or Eastern Europe. I think you will find a big difference.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the New York Times is an interesting article about the difficulty of relating terms like Islam, Islamist, jihad, terrorist and al Qaeda:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/nyregion/interfaith-panel-denounces-a-9-11-museum-exhibits-portrayal-of-islam.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

Interfaith Panel Denounces a 9/11 Museum Exhibit’s Portrayal of Islam

By SHARON OTTERMAN

APRIL 23, 2014

Past the towering tridents that survived the World Trade Center collapse, adjacent to a gallery with photographs of the 19 hijackers, a brief film at the soon-to-open National September 11 Memorial Museum will seek to explain to visitors the historical roots of the attacks.

The film, “The Rise of Al Qaeda,” refers to the terrorists as Islamists who viewed their mission as a jihad. The NBC News anchor Brian Williams, who narrates the film, speaks over images of terrorist training camps and Qaeda attacks spanning decades. Interspersed with his voice are explanations of the ideology of the terrorists, rendered in foreign-accented English translations.

The documentary is not even seven minutes long, the exhibit just a small part of the museum. But it has suddenly become over the last few weeks a flash point in what has long been one of the most highly charged issues at the museum: how it should talk about Islam and Muslims.

With the museum opening on May 21, it has shown the film to several groups, including an interfaith advisory group of clergy members. Those on the panel overwhelmingly took strong exception to the film and requested changes. But the museum has declined. In March, the sole imam in the group resigned to make clear that he could not endorse its contents.

“The screening of this film in its present state would greatly offend our local Muslim believers as well as any foreign Muslim visitor to the museum,” Sheikh Mostafa Elazabawy, the imam of Masjid Manhattan, wrote in a letter to the museum’s director. “Unsophisticated visitors who do not understand the difference between Al Qaeda and Muslims may come away with a prejudiced view of Islam, leading to antagonism and even confrontation toward Muslim believers near the site.”

Museum officials are standing by the film, which they say they vetted past several scholars.

“From the very beginning, we had a very heavy responsibility to be true to the facts, to be objective, and in no way smear an entire religion when we are talking about a terrorist group,” said Joseph C. Daniels, president and chief executive of the nonprofit foundation that oversees the memorial and museum.

But the disagreement has been ricocheting through scholarly circles in recent weeks. At issue is whether it is appropriate or inflammatory for the museum to use religious terminology like “Islamist” and “jihad” in conjunction with the Sept. 11 attacks, without also making clear that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful.

The terms “Islamist” and “jihadist” are frequently used in public discourse to describe extremist Muslim ideologies. But the problem with using such language in a museum designed to instruct people for generations is that most visitors are “simply going to say Islamist means Muslims, jihadist means Muslims,” said Akbar Ahmed, the chairman of the Islamic studies department at American University.

“The terrorists need to be condemned and remembered for what they did,” Dr. Ahmed said. “But when you associate their religion with what they did, then you are automatically including, by association, one and a half billion people who had nothing to do with these actions and who ultimately the U.S. would not want to unnecessarily alienate.”

The question of how to represent Islam in the museum has long been fraught. It was among the first issues that came up when the museum began asking for advice in about 2005 from a panel of mostly Lower Manhattan clergy members who had been involved in recovery work after the attacks.

Peter B. Gudaitis, who brought the group together as the chief executive of an interfaith organization, said the museum rejected certain Islam-related suggestions from the panel, such as telling the story of Mohammad Salman Hamdani, a Muslim cadet with the New York Police Department who died in the attacks and was initially suspected as a perpetrator.

There was wide agreement, however, that the exhibit space should make clear that Muslims were not just perpetrators, but also among the attack’s victims, mourners and recovery workers — an integral part of the fabric of American life.

A year ago, concerns about how the film might be viewed by Muslim visitors were raised at a screening by a select group of Sept. 11 family members, law enforcement and others. As a result, several months ago, museum officials invited the interfaith group to view the film and tour the still unfinished exhibits.

The panel was pleased to see photographs of Muslims mourning included in photo montages. The museum also includes stories of Muslim victims and the reflections of Representative Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, on the impact of the attacks on America, the museum said.

“In general, everybody was very moved and impressed,” Mr. Gudaitis said.

But then the group screened the Qaeda film and grew alarmed at what they felt was its inflammatory tone and use of the words “jihad” and “Islamist” without, they felt, sufficient explanation.

“As soon as it was over, everyone was just like, wow, you guys have got to be kidding me,” Mr. Gudaitis said.

He and another member of the panel, the Rev. Chloe Breyer, executive director of the Interfaith Center of New York, began to organize a response. On Monday, they sent the museum’s directors a formal letter on behalf of the 11 members of the interfaith group who had seen the film, asking for edits. Their concern was heightened by the personal experience many on them have had with anti-Muslim sentiment, including the national uproar over the construction of a mosque and Muslim community center a few blocks from ground zero.

The response from the museum was immediate, though accidental: Clifford Chanin, the education director, inadvertently sent the group an email intended solely for the museum’s senior directors, indicating he was not overly concerned.

“I don’t see this as difficult to respond to, if any response is even needed,” he wrote.

The museum did remove the term “Islamic terrorism” from its website earlier this month, after another activist, Todd Fine, collected about 100 signatures of academics and scholars supporting its deletion.

In interviews, several leading scholars of Islam said that the term “Islamic terrorist” was broadly rejected as unfairly conflating Islam and terrorism, but the terms Islamist and jihadist can be used, in the proper context, to refer to Al Qaeda, preferably with additional qualifiers, like “radical,” or “militant.”

But for the imam, Mr. Elazabawy, and many other practicing Muslims, the words “Islamic” and “Islamist” are equally offensive when used to describe Al Qaeda, and the word “jihad” refers to a struggle against evil, the antithesis of how they view terror attacks.

“When you use the word ‘Islam,’ that means they are a part of us,” he said in an interview. “We reject that.”

For his part, Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University, defended the film, whose script he vetted.

“The critics who are going to say, ‘Let’s not talk about it as an Islamic or Islamist movement,’ could end up not telling the story at all, or diluting it so much that you wonder where Al Qaeda comes from,” Dr. Haykel said.

The museum declined to make the film available for viewing by The New York Times.

Michael Frazier, a museum spokesman, said the film would be shown in a gallery that also had two large interpretive panels illustrating how Al Qaeda was portrayed as “a far fringe of Islam.” Museum officials emphasized that Mr. Chanin and the rest of the museum took the concerns about the film very seriously.

“What helps me sleep at night is I believe that the average visitor who comes through this museum will in no way leave this museum with the belief that the religion of Islam is responsible for what happened on 9/11,” said Mr. Daniels, the president of the museum foundation. “We have gone out of the way to tell the truth.”

It is, in my opinion, quite wrong to try to equate Islam, the religion, with the al Qaeda terrorists who attacked, who continue to attack, America and the West. But it is obtuse, to be charitable, to deny that al Qaeda uses Islam as part of its political ideology. But it, al Qaeda, promotes only one certain brand of Islam and it does so within a wider strategic agenda. (I hasten to point out that I've never been certain about that agenda; it appears, to me, to have gone beyond Osama bin Laden's original aim of driving the infidels out of the Ummah Wāhidah, the original homeland if Islam; I'm not sure what the aim of wings like e.g. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb might be.)

It seems, to me, that many, many Muslim leaders are unwilling to acknowledge that al Qaeda is a radical Islamist terrorist group. I sympathize with their discomfort, just as I sympathize with Jews who don't like acknowledging that the Jewish Defence League is a terrorist group or, at least, provides 'cover' for individual terrorists. There are, by the way, Buddhist terrorist, too ...

Generally "we," the big, broadly liberal, Western "we," are not afraid of describing individual or groups as e.g. Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish or Sikh extremists of even terrorists, but we appear to fear that Muslims will react violently to the term Islamist or jihadist, unfair or unclear though those terms may be.

 

[pbi]

“The terrorists need to be condemned and remembered for what they did,” Dr. Ahmed said. “But when you associate their religion with what they did, then you are automatically including, by association, one and a half billion people who had nothing to do with these actions and who ultimately the U.S. would not want to unnecessarily alienate.”

But, they are quite clearly already associated with Islam: they believe they are fighting for it: without this their actions would appear meaningless. And, it would seem,  at least a part of the Muslim world has difficulty in expressing outright condemnation of these terrorists and their actions. Why is that? Who knows, but the effect on the general public is that silence appears as acceptance if not as support.

I think that we need to be very conscious of the fact that religious faith, any religious faith, is capable of givig rise to this kind of extremism: Christianity, Hinduism and Judaism have all been connected with bloody, miserable behaviour that involved the terrorizing of others. We , the big "we", need to be reminded of this. Not just about Muslims, but about religious extremists of all sorts. This museum would appear to do that. Because it offends some people is not, in my mind, sufficient reason to close it as long as it is telling the truth in a responsible way.

 

[Loachman]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/10778554/The-feisty-baroness-defending-voiceless-Muslim-women.html

The feisty baroness defending 'voiceless’ Muslim women

Baroness Cox of Queensbury is fighting to stop sharia 'seeping' into enforcing divorce settlements

By Peter Stanford

7:02AM BST 22 Apr 2014

The House of Lords has long encouraged a spirit of imperviousness to conventional wisdom, whether because of its members’ rank and wealth, or more recently when those appointed to the upper chamber have risen so high in their various careers and callings. Baroness Cox of Queensbury, its former Deputy Speaker, is a prime example.

A nurse, educationalist and human rights campaigner, she caught Margaret Thatcher’s eye in 1982 and was named as a Tory working peer. “The first baroness I ever met,” recalls this feisty 73-year-old, “was when I looked in the mirror that morning”. Ever since, she has used the red benches to raise neglected, inconvenient and unfashionable causes.

“I prefer to think of myself,” she muses over Earl Grey and scones in the House of Lords tea room, as the “voice of the voiceless”. Her latest crusade is to rally to the defence of British Muslim women, spurred on by the recent decision of the Law Society to publish “good practice” notes for solicitors on making wills compliant with sharia. This can deny women equal shares of inheritance, and exclude children born out of wedlock.

“The suffragettes will be turning in their graves,” says Lady Cox. “It undermines the most fundamental principles of equality enshrined in British law”. Not so, claim government ministers; while the retired president of the Supreme Court, Lord Phillips, has said: “There is no reason why the principles of sharia law… should not be the basis for mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution.” Lady Cox shakes her head: “Give me a break.”

In Britain’s 85 sharia courts and councils, she says, sharia “seeps” into enforcing divorce settlements, ignoring domestic violence and deciding access to children, all properly the preserve of British law. And that is why Lady Cox is determined to get her Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill on to the statute book.

“In these sharia councils, men can very easily divorce women, but for Muslim women it is much harder. I had a 50-year-old widow come to me for help because she wanted to remarry. She was told she had to have the permission of her closest living male relative, who turned out to be an 11-year-old son, living in Jordan. She showed me where he had signed his name in childish Arabic handwriting to give permission.”

She reels off further examples. “One Muslim lady who came to meet me here suffered horrific physical abuse in her marriage, ending up in hospital, yet she was under huge pressure from her community not to involve the police because it would shame her family. So she went to a sharia court instead, which denied her a divorce and told her to go back to her abusive husband and give him another chance. He carried on abusing her. She wept as she told me about it, and I wept with her.”

What she labels injustice, though, is seen by others as evidence of this devout Christian’s “Islamophobia”. They point out that, in 2009, she invited the banned far-Right Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, to screen his film Fitna, which attacked Islam, in the House of Lords.

“I believe in freedom of speech,” she replies robustly. “Yes, it hurts a little, but I’ve been called Islamophobic many times. It’s rubbish, of course. I’m passionate about Muslim women and yet I am called Islamophobic.”

Today’s politicians, she says, don’t want to upset community leaders. “Yet this concern with cultural sensitivity seems to be justifying practices that contravene the fundamental qualities of our democracy – one law for everyone.”

Lady Cox tells me that her country home is in David Cameron’s Witney constituency. Is she part of his Chipping Norton Set? “I’d rather spend my time in South Sudan,” she almost barks back. Indeed, she is overseas in troubled regions for six months of every year as chief executive of Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (Hart), the charity she founded in 2004.

Her Bill first surfaced in the Lords in 2011, and passed its second reading in the autumn of 2012. Yet it has been languishing since because it lacks the support of the main parties. “And it doesn’t even mention sharia,” she notes with a hollow laugh.

Among its proposals is that it be made clear to the bride and groom at Islamic weddings that the ceremony is not a marriage under British law, and that this has implications in terms of property and custody rights.

Another clause – “the one with the sharpest teeth” – makes it a criminal offence to operate in a way that imitates a court. “I went to a divorce hearing recently in a sharia court in the East End of London. The room was arranged just like a courtroom, with three men sitting up behind a bench looking down on us. The woman in question was intimidated into silence because, as she told me later, she believed it was to be a proper constituted court.”

Because it wasn’t, the woman could, of course, just take her case to a British law court. “Just?” Lady Cox laughs. “That’s what the Government says. Muslim women can choose to use British courts, but that ignores the family pressures put on them to keep such matters within their community. We have all read about honour killings. These women need our support. That is what so many have told me.”

And, as a voice of the voiceless, she will not refuse them. “If we don’t act,” she warns, “we are condoning discrimination.”

 

[Fishbone Jones]

It is, in my opinion, quite wrong to try to equate Islam, the religion, with the al Qaeda terrorists who attacked, who continue to attack, America and the West. But it is obtuse, to be charitable, to deny that al Qaeda uses Islam as part of its political ideology. But it, al Qaeda, promotes only one certain brand of Islam and it does so within a wider strategic agenda. (I hasten to point out that I've never been certain about that agenda; it appears, to me, to have gone beyond Osama bin Laden's original aim of driving the infidels out of the Ummah Wāhidah, the original homeland if Islam; I'm not sure what the aim of wings like e.g. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb might be.)

It seems, to me, that many, many Muslim leaders are unwilling to acknowledge that al Qaeda is a radical Islamist terrorist group. I sympathize with their discomfort, just as I sympathize with Jews who don't like acknowledging that the Jewish Defence League is a terrorist group or, at least, provides 'cover' for individual terrorists. There are, by the way, Buddhist terrorist, too ...

Generally "we," the big, broadly liberal, Western "we," are not afraid of describing individual or groups as e.g. Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish or Sikh extremists of even terrorists, but we appear to fear that Muslims will react violently to the term Islamist or jihadist, unfair or unclear though those terms may be.

But, they are quite clearly already associated with Islam: they believe they are fighting for it: without this their actions would appear meaningless. And, it would seem,  at least a part of the Muslim world has difficulty in expressing outright condemnation of these terrorists and their actions. Why is that? Who knows, but the effect on the general public is that silence appears as acceptance if not as support.

I think that we need to be very conscious of the fact that religious faith, any religious faith, is capable of givig rise to this kind of extremism: Christianity, Hinduism and Judaism have all been connected with bloody, miserable behaviour that involved the terrorizing of others. We , the big "we", need to be reminded of this. Not just about Muslims, but about religious extremists of all sorts. This museum would appear to do that. Because it offends some people is not, in my mind, sufficient reason to close it as long as it is telling the truth in a responsible way.

Then it is high time, in my opinion, that Muslims around the world including Saudi Arabia, et al, stood up and in one resounding voice denounce the terrorist factions of their religion. And not just denounce them, cut them off financially, stigmatize them and hunt them down and kill them.

Until they are ready to actually do something about the problem, except try and make it our fault, they can wallow in their own self pity and wring their hands about how we view them.

I'm tired of turning the other cheek, appeasing their self righteous indignation, and having to wear PC slippers as to not offend their delicate sensibilities.

You want respect? Come back after you've killed all the assholes making your religion a joke, show me their heads and I'll welcome you with open arms.

 

[Edward Campbell]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/10778554/The-feisty-baroness-defending-voiceless-Muslim-women.html

The feisty baroness defending 'voiceless’ Muslim women

Baroness Cox of Queensbury is fighting to stop sharia 'seeping' into enforcing divorce settlements

By Peter Stanford
...
Another clause – “the one with the sharpest teeth” – makes it a criminal offence to operate in a way that imitates a court. “I went to a divorce hearing recently in a sharia court in the East End of London. The room was arranged just like a courtroom, with three men sitting up behind a bench looking down on us. The woman in question was intimidated into silence because, as she told me later, she believed it was to be a proper constituted court.”

Because it wasn’t, the woman could, of course, just take her case to a British law court. “Just?” Lady Cox laughs. “That’s what the Government says. Muslim women can choose to use British courts, but that ignores the family pressures put on them to keep such matters within their community. We have all read about honour killings. These women need our support. That is what so many have told me.”

And, as a voice of the voiceless, she will not refuse them. “If we don’t act,” she warns, “we are condoning discrimination.”

But it's not just Muslims. Jewish women can, often do face the same or even worse hurdles in obtaining a divorce. The problems, including honour killings and female circumcision that we ascribe, generally, to Muslims are found in a variety of cultures, not all of them Islamic.

 

[pbi]

But it's not just Muslims. Jewish women can, often do face the same or even worse hurdles in obtaining a divorce. The problems, including honour killings and female circumcision that we ascribe, generally, to Muslims are found in a variety of cultures, not all of them Islamic.

Roger that. Hence my point that we have to be vigilant, and to have long and active memories, where all sorts of religious extremists are concerned. They are all equally rotten in my opinion, and they all make horrible mockeries of the faiths they claim to uphold.

Believe me that I'm not "picking" on Muslims: I'm quite sure that we have Christian fundamentalists who, if given the opportunity, would gleefully turn back the clock and burn not just books they don't like but people as well. Just like them good ol' days.

These types are by nature quite lethal when they get their hands on power. In my opinion, because they are (at least in their minds) doing God's will, then anybody who opposes them opposes God. And, of course, enemies of God must be friends of Satan. And if they are friends of Satan then the faithful must do all they can to root out and destroy them. No quarter for the Godless.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Then it is high time, in my opinion, that Muslims around the world including Saudi Arabia, et al, stood up and in one resounding voice denounce the terrorist factions of their religion. And not just denounce them, cut them off financially, stigmatize them and hunt them down and kill them.

Until they are ready to actually do something about the problem, except try and make it our fault, they can wallow in their own self pity and wring their hands about how we view them.

I'm tired of turning the other cheek, appeasing their self righteous indignation, and having to wear PC slippers as to not offend their delicate sensibilities.

You want respect? Come back after you've killed all the assholes making your religion a joke, show me their heads and I'll welcome you with open arms.

I'm with you, recceguy and so, I expect, are most Canadians, and Americans and Brits and, and, and ... I sympathize with the immigrant who just wants to make a good life for his family here, in Canada, and worship his own god(s) in his own way. But I want him or her to be as horrified as I am when terrorists from his community or homeland attack innocent people, anywhere. I have no trouble condemning Christians who practice ethnic cleansing in the Balkans or in Africa ... I expect my fellow citizens to do the same.

I think the Muslim community is afraid of the violent Islamists and I suspect they should be. When I proclaim that Irish terrorists - all Christians of one sort or another - ought to be helped to meet their god ASAP I do not expect to have my condo fire bombed nor even to be disowned by my Irish-Canadian in-laws. But I fear that the Iraqi-Canadian fellow who owns the corner store near my home wouldn't, shouldn't be so bold, I believe he, and his wife, might be 'visited' in the night by some of their co-religionists if he spoke out against radical, violent Islamists. How brave does he have to be? I don't blame him for staying quiet. I do, however, blame his self-proclaimed community leaders for their silence. If they want to be leaders they should act like leaders, and, as Warren Bennis says, "leaders do the right things."

 

[jollyjacktar]

I don't blame him for staying quiet. I do, however, blame his self-proclaimed community leaders for their silence. If they want to be leaders they should act like leaders, and, as Warren Bennis says, "leaders do the right things."

Their "community leaders" will keep quiet because they have no incentive to do otherwise if their "flocks" keep their lips zipped.  If the sheep don't baaaa, why should the Sheppard's?  I would take their silence as tacit approval of the status quo from both parties.  Until, as recceguy suggests, they prove otherwise with words and action, I won't believe otherwise myself.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

It's not so much the little guy on the street that I expect to condemn terrorists, but the high up Muslim religious leaders and governments. Those are the ones who would get world attention and press. They are also, in large part, the ones that support the terrorists financially and in silence. Lastly, they are the ones with the militaries, secret police and intelligence assets to go out and kill the renegade zealots.

If they spoke out and put action to their words, the little guy would start feeling emboldened and add his voice.

 

[pbi]

It's not so much the little guy on the street that I expect to condemn terrorists, but the high up Muslim religious leaders and governments. Those are the ones who would get world attention and press. They are also, in large part, the ones that support the terrorists financially and in silence. Lastly, they are the ones with the militaries, secret police and intelligence assets to go out and kill the renegade zealots.

If they spoke out and put action to their words, the little guy would start feeling emboldened and add his voice.

I agree with this sentiment, but part of the problem is that unlike hierarchical religions like (say...) Catholicism or Anglicanism, Islam has no "Pope" or similar figures to speak for the religion as a whole. On top of that, Islam , much like Christianity, is fragmented into different sects, persuasions, confessions or what have you. A Wahabist wants little to with a Sufi, and would probably like to do away with him given a chance.

All that aside, I still think that leaders at the local, regional or national level could and should speak out. Why don't they? Or do they, and the media just isn't covering it?

 

[CougarKing]

Just as bad as so-called honour killings...

The Pakistani immigrant who beat his wife to death in their New York apartment because she made him the wrong dinner - but his lawyer claims that's just his culture

Daily Mail

A Pakistani immigrant allegedly beat his wife to death with a stick for making him the wrong dinner, a court heard.
Noor Hussein, 75, believed he had the right to discipline 66-year-old Nazar at their apartment in Brooklyn, New York, his defense said.
But prosecutors claim he murdered her because she had made the mistake of cooking him a vegetarian meal made of lentils instead of goat meat.

At the start of Hussein's murder trial yesterday, a court heard the victim was left a 'bloody mess'.

Court papers quoted by the New York Post said: 'The defendant asked [his wife] to cook goat and [his wife] said she made something else.
'The conversation got louder and his wife disrespected defendant by cursing at defendant and saying motherf***** and that the defendant took a wooden stick and hit her with it on her arm and mouth.'

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

Yahoo News

'This is an Islamic Area Now': Police Investigate 'Divisive' Sign in East London Park
By Samantha Payne | IB Times –

An area of east London has become 'Islamic' overnight according to a poster that has appeared outside an east London Park.
The warning in Bartlett Park, Poplar, reads: "Do not walk your dog here! Muslims do not like dogs. This is an Islamic area now."

Police are now investigating the matter after being alerted to the sign by Labour MP Jim Fitzpatrick, who was himself informed by a concerned constitutent.

The Poplar and Limehouse MP wrote to police to find out if the "highly divisive" sign was put up by Islamists or a far-right group such as the English Defence League (EDL), and to see what action they were taking to prevent posters from appearing in future.

He told the Standard: "The question is whether it was put up to be provocative or by religious zealots to be racist.

"It's another facet of intolerance, or, because there's no guarantee it was done by Islamists, it could be those in society who are trying to polarise and divide us.

"Whichever side it was ought not to be able to get away with it and whoever's responsible ought to pack it in."

(...EDITED)