Will self on the hijab

[boyfriday]

Come now BF... the Muslims have had more than a millenia to iron out the creases. We are not judging Islamic cultural practices based on a snapshot but on hundreds of years of fine-tuning. And the result is in (drum roll)... it is crap.

Muslims haven't been living in the west for more than a millenia.

 

There is no such thing as Islamophobia because it is completely rational to reject Islam.

 

..but not the people who follow it.

[Anna Glypta]

The flaw in your argument is that many of the people you talk about aren't Islamophobes, and they can see that how things are now is necessarily how things will be in the future. The evidence from Islamic countries clearly shows that as the percentage of Muslims increase the life of non Muslims become less tolerable.

 

You are wasting your time. Muslims can do no wrong in the eyes of the blinkered. What you say is correct, however the experience has been as the percentage of Muslims increases to the point where life for non Muslims becomes intolerable civil war breaks out. In the Balkans the western nations sided with the Muslims. However post 7/7 and 9/11 that might not be the case next time.

[boyfriday]

You are wasting your time. Muslims can do no wrong in the eyes of the blinkered. What you say is correct, however the experience has been as the percentage of Muslims increases to the point where life for non Muslims becomes intolerable civil war breaks out. In the Balkans the western nations sided with the Muslims. However post 7/7 and 9/11 that might not be the case next time.

 

How about keeping it relevant to the post they were responding to? I specifically referred to the development of Muslims in western countries..not the Balkans, or Saudia Arabia or Somalia.

 

The Muslims I encounter are no different to the rest of us, fabulous and crap in equal measure.

 

From your imbecilic post are we to take it that Muslims only do wrong in your eyes?

[Zamo]

Muslims haven't been living in the west for more than a millenia.

 

What you are asking is for us to take a punt on Islam. You want us to stake our culture on a religion than hasn't produced a winner in a millenia in order to win... err... Islam?

 

I'm personally not in favour of trying to blend British culture with Islamic culture to try and create a new improved Islam. It is like asking us to sign up for an injection that will give us haemorrhoids but with a one in a thousand chance they'll be pain free! I can quite happy live without haemorrhoids.

 

The irony is that best chance of Islam reforming in Britain is if we reject it i.e. no state funding, no concessions, no censoring criticism etc. Force Muslims to adapt and maybe a new improved Islam will emerge?

[Scabbydog]

I'm not asking you to take a punt on anything, Muslims are already here and been living amongst us for the last 50 years.

 

But isn't that what has happened throughout the world? They arrive in small numbers and don't assimilate, build up enclaves which they dominate. Then as numbers grow they start to try to impose their religion on the rest of the community knowing that there will be folk around who will make excuses at every turn. Eventually they take over the country and bring in the Muslim Brotherhood to impose Sharia law on everyone. Then they start to wage war on all other groups and drive them out of the country.

[Zamo]

I'm not asking you to take a punt on anything, Muslims are already here and been living amongst us for the last 50 years.

 

You effectively said we should give Islam another chance (ignore the obvious shortcoming that we see when we look at how people live in Muslim countries) because the influence of western culture may produce a more paletable version here in Britain. Which is great if it does but what if it doesn't?

 

What if the Muslim popultion continues to grow faster than the rest? What happens if we have parity in numbers and we do not have the new tollerant Islam that you hope for? Will we not have conflict? Isn't that a punt? Shouldn't we instead be trying to contain Islam instead of finding ways to integrate and encourage it?

[L00b]

Shouldn't we instead be trying to contain Islam instead of finding ways to integrate and encourage it?

That would depend on which islam, which is (IMHO) the fundamental issue where the niqab (and other, comparable proselytist efforts) is concerned.

 

Interesting that Mr Self, for the alleged intellectual luminary that he supposedly is, resorted to the same old liberal false dichotomy in respect of the French ban on the niqab ("the French banned it because they are afraid/racist/xenophobes/etc.")

 

Contrary to his diatribe, that ban has nothing to do with "fear", but all to do with pro-actively containing extremist proselytism.

 

The issue is not to do with religion as such, it is to do with its extremes. By way of analogy, entirely similar to taking action (outright ban and prosecution) against the likes of Combat 18, which sat well to the right of Attila the Hun by comparison to the Front National, never mind the 'standard' Tory-like UMP.

 

A little know fact (to even French people themselves): Imams are civil servants and paid by the State in the region of France I'm from (Alsace-Moselle). Exact same as Priests, Pastors and Rabbis. In that area at least, inter-religious initiatives are plentiful (and have long been so), and there is no religious component to the social tensions and nascent civic unrest. No niqabs about either. That's unlike most of the rest of France, particularly Paris, Lyon and Marseille suburbs (for the Muslim contingent) and Brittany (for the Catholic contingent)...Not sure there's a lesson somewhere in this, but I'm wondering about cause-and-effect nevertheless.

[esme]

Mod Note

 

When quoting another user, please take care with the quote tags otherwise one users post can be attributed to another user.

[boyfriday]

But isn't that what has happened throughout the world? They arrive in small numbers and don't assimilate, build up enclaves which they dominate. Then as numbers grow they start to try to impose their religion on the rest of the community knowing that there will be folk around who will make excuses at every turn. Eventually they take over the country and bring in the Muslim Brotherhood to impose Sharia law on everyone. Then they start to wage war on all other groups and drive them out of the country.

 

Forgive me then for not battening down the hatches but I'd be very surprised if my genial GP of nearly 30 years is harvesting some secret plan for world domination, he's more Colonel Blimp than Osama Bin Laden.

 

That's my experience of most Muslims I've met apart from the fire breathing varieties, but then I know plenty of black and white gobfrothers too and they aren't encouraging my interest in survivalism either.

 

---------- Post added 18-11-2013 at 23:41 ----------

 

Gullible, much. Isolated from reality, much. I suppose that's what you get from living in Whitby.

 

You mean Whitbystakistan surely?

[Scabbydog]

Forgive me then for not battening down the hatches but I'd be very surprised if my genial GP of nearly 30 years is harvesting some secret plan for world domination, he's more Colonel Blimp than Osama Bin Laden.

 

That's my experience of most Muslims I've met apart from the fire breathing varieties, but then I know plenty of black and white gobfrothers too and they aren't encouraging my interest in survivalism either.

 

There wasn't a Nazi to be found in Germany in 1918. By 1939 you couldn't avoid them. But there was always a Neville Chamberlain with his bit of paper to reassure everyone it was going to be fine.

 

A bit gullible was our Neville. I wonder if he ever blacked up?