what happened to free speech

[Mich the Tester]

I see moderate Muslims everywhere, because I live in a city that has a large Muslim population. Most of my adult life - for the last 30 or so years, to be precise - I've lived within 5 minutes walk of a mosque. I've spent many years living in parts of the city where I'm one of only maybe two or three non-Muslim households, and I lived at number 81.

In all that time I have seen evidence of extremism only once, for a short period: weird posters and stickers on lampposts and bus shelters, often attacking other prominent Muslims, such as imams who preached against extremist views. Then 3 people from a couple of streets away were arrested on terrorism charges after 9-11 (though no trial ever resulted) and that stopped.

There are about 30,000 Muslims living here, so that's one in 10,000 that is an extremist.

I don't usually bother engaging people in debate about their religious beliefs, but I do know quite a few Muslims who drink alcohol; they have presumably questioned at least one of the teachings of the Koran.

Your final question assumes that Islam, as understood and practised by the majority of Muslims, is in need of reform. I reject that assumption. If you think it is a valid assumption, it is for you to prove it so.

WHS

I was born in a Muslim province of an African country where people have suffered and still suffer at the hands of Islamic extremism, usually funded by Wahabis from Saudi Arabia or by drugs money, and I know quite a lot of muslims there who are sick to the back teeth of the violence, live quite peacefully with their christian neighbours, but are quite simply too scared to speak out for fear of their own lives. Of all the victims of Islamic extremism, I'd dare to bet that most are actually moderate muslims who are seen by the extremists as 'not sticking to the true faith' and they have had enough of it, but they can't do anything about it. That's why it's good that programmes like this have been made; it gives people a chance to debate, but unfortunately there are safety considerations, and if the safety issues are not considered there'll never be a debate.

As an aside, while some think that muslims are planning to take over Europe, why are there no Islamic party MPs in nearly all European countries? OK, Britain has a different electoral system to many other countries, but the paranoid BS of the islamophobes had any substance at all, there'd be about 10 seats in the Dutch parliament held by a muslim party, annd several seats in Germany, France, Italy and Spain; it's actually 0, zero, zilch, nada, and I'll tell you why; the vast majority of muslims vote for secular parties like the liberal or the social democratic parties, parties who are very cricital of religion. A few more vote for Christian Democrat parties, who aren't exactly religious zealots either. That's because most muslims know only too well the dangers of religious power and extremism and they don't want to encourage it. Pretty much like most Christians and most atheists, actually.



Oops, I'm making that stupid mistake again of thinking that facts actually matter.

[escapeUK]

UK Polling Report

-NOP Channel 4 polling came out with these results:
-33% of Muslims want Sharia Law as implemented in Saudi Arabia.
-28% of muslims agreed they dreamt of Britain becoming an Islamic State.
-78% wanted Danish cartoonist prosecuted.
-68% want prosecutions for insulting Islam.
-62% disagree with the freedom of speech if it insults religious sensibilities.
-50% said British people who insult Islam should be arrested and prosecuted.

Doesnt sound very moderate to me? These views are not compatible with the way of life in this country, or any other European country.

[Mich the Tester]

UK Polling Report

-NOP Channel 4 polling came out with these results:
-33% of Muslims want Sharia Law as implemented in Saudi Arabia.
-28% of muslims agreed they dreamt of Britain becoming an Islamic State.
-78% wanted Danish cartoonist prosecuted.
-68% want prosecutions for insulting Islam.
-62% disagree with the freedom of speech if it insults religious sensibilities.
-50% said British people who insult Islam should be arrested and prosecuted.

Doesnt sound very moderate to me? These views are not compatible with the way of life in this country, or any other European country.

Just a little bit selective.

- 48% said they never attended a mosque
- 61% of British Muslims said they thought of Britain as “my country
- 30% said Sharia while 54% preferred British law. I mentioned in my comments on an earlier ICM poll Sharia law does not necessarily equate to the hand-chopping, adulterer-stoning version in the tabloid press, Western countries like Canada have in the past allowed the use of Sharia law under limited circumstances for things like inheritance law, so it was then impossible to tell exactly what people were supporting.
- if British Muslims thought that relgious leaders who supported terrorism should be removed – 68% agreed
- The most respected figure amongst British Muslims (out of those in the survey) was the Queen (69% respected her highly, or a fair amount)
- putting this in context, non-Muslims think odd things too – an ICM poll in 2004 found 14% of people in the UK thought that the scale of the holocaust had been exaggerated, 27% of the general public told NOP in 2003 that Princess Diana had been murdered

[d000hg]

'moderate' doesn't mean thinking the same things or having the same views as us. It means when you disagree, you act in moderate way - 62% might want making a joke against Islam to be a criminal matter but that doesn't mean 62% would incite a riot because of it.

[fckvwls]

62% might want making a joke against Islam to be a criminal matter but that doesn't mean 62% would incite a riot because of it.

Why do you think Christians such as yourself are able seemingly handle this far better than muslims appear to? Jokes against Christianity hardly results in the same type of reaction that those against Christians do? Are there conclusions to be drawn from this? Admittedly, I know very little about Islam.

[Mich the Tester]

'moderate' doesn't mean thinking the same things or having the same views as us. It means when you disagree, you act in moderate way - 62% might want making a joke against Islam to be a criminal matter but that doesn't mean 62% would incite a riot because of it.

Good point, evidenced by the fact that at every opportunity that muslims in western Europe have had to vote for strict policies against insulting Islam or strict application of Sharia law, they've gone and voted for secular parties.

Frankly, it's not the muslims who scare me, it's the paranoid schizoid imbeciles who think everyone who reads a Koran is a threat to the western way of life.

There's an election in NL today. Polls predict that the paranoid schizoid islamophobe party will win about 20 of the 150 seats. There are about 1 million practising muslims in this country, there is no longer a 'muslim party' and polls suggest that about 5 muslims will win seats for the liberals, the social democrats, the greens (who are sometimes rabidly atheist) and the christian democrats.

There are lots of long winded definitions of Islamophobia, but I've got one that's just two letters long; BS.

[Scoobos]

Your final question assumes that Islam, as understood and practised by the majority of Muslims, is in need of reform. I reject that assumption. If you think it is a valid assumption, it is for you to prove it so.

WHS (Mostly)

If you look at Malaysia, which has more muslims than anywhere else in the world, you see that people are people and that the average muslim is the same as your average catholic. We have jehova's witnesses which I suppose you could equate to radicalism in other religions.

I agreed with everything except this line, take a read of Qur'an 4:34 . It's shocking to the max that this is allowed in a modern UK religion. Whichever way you spin it (as both sides of the extremists often do) , it's not good reading, from a British CoE point of view.

My wife who's a teacher, has to deal with children who are struck with wood on an evening, whilst learning the koran; I can't really accept this either..

I'm not racist, jus' saying what I see.

[Mich the Tester]

Why do you think Christians such as yourself are able seemingly handle this far better than muslims appear to? Jokes against Christianity hardly results in the same type of reaction that those against Christians do? Are there conclusions to be drawn from this? Admittedly, I know very little about Islam.

Have you forgotten how much fuss was made over Life of Brian? Or the bombings of abortion clinics in the USA? Or the murders of people in Northern Ireland for being Catholic or Protestant?

[Mich the Tester]

I agreed with everything except this line, take a read of Qur'an 4:34 . It's shocking to the max that this is allowed in a modern UK religion. Whichever way you spin it (as both sides of the extremists often do) , it's not good reading, from a British CoE point of view.

Very much compatible with the Dutch Reformed church's views though.

[fckvwls]

Have you forgotten how much fuss was made over Life of Brian? Or the bombings of abortion clinics in the USA? Or the murders of people in Northern Ireland for being Catholic or Protestant?

I'd recommend excluding USA from the debate as outliers

I meant proper Christians like dooohg who speak in tongues on the weekend

On a serious note, good points.