Grovelling alone

rippon

Melanie Phillips says:
“Ahmadi Muslims in south London have been targeted by Islamists in a hate campaign, and a Muslim woman in Bradford has died after being set on fire (via JihadWatch), underlining the fact that Muslims are themselves front-line victims of Islamic jihadis and sharia law.”

BUT, there is no indication in either of the links that Melanie herself provides that the woman was “set on fire”.

Truthtriumphs

And anyone who has the audacity to stand up to the fascist ideology of Islamism is labelled islamophobic.

Michael Roberts

Miss Phillips, I couldn't agree with you more.

The tragedy is, and I speak as one who lives in, or rather on the edges of an increasingly Muslim dominated area, that certainly a good proportion of them are happy to adopt a Western lifestyle and totally condemn the murderous activities of their lunatic fringe (this is not Islamic)(?), we never hear this viewpoint (from what one would like to think is the silent majority) broadcast loudly, clearly and regularly in the media. Coincidentally I had a conversation with an English clergyman this afternoon who is closely in touch with local communities and he confirmed this view exactly.

And of course no Muslim can be unaware of the hostility of non Muslims to the ridiculous, indeed horrifying spectacle of the black walking coffins, Darth Vada outfits, bin liners to mention but a few epithets, that are seen increasingly on the streets. We don't need to ban them, but we do need to see outright public criticism from the sensible ones in their own communities. They do not have the right to thumb their noses, not that you can see them, at the indigenous culture. If this is not intended, then have some consideration and don't do it.

Oh dear, this is turning into a rant. It's late at night, forgive me.

Halfway through 'While Europe slept: how radical Islam is destroying the West from within', Bruce Bawer. Spot on, thoroughly recommended.

DavidSI

Rippon....you're right; the link is to the wrong site. Here is the link that I think Melanie meant to refer us to.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/10/uk-muslim-woman-dies-after-being-found-on-fire.html

Mosquito

A powerful summing up of the present state of play in this country. As Melanie notes we are slowly being swallowed up by a voracious predator. But our greatest foe is ourselves- unless we wake up to what is happening free institutions in this country are doomed. It is not the Islamist fanatics who are the main enemy ( they are only doing what comes naturally). It is our bien pensant elite who are allowing all this to happen.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Rippon: "BUT, there is no indication in either of the links that Melanie herself provides that the woman was “set on fire”."

What difference would it make to you, anyway? Those anti Zionists, like you, who rail against Israel for its injustices against the Palestinians, find it very hard, if not impossible, to accept the notion of islamo-fascism.

It is as meaningless to vilify Israel in the context of how Arab and moslem state and non state actors Israel have and do function and the culture and ideology of Islam which defines them. It's like vilifying the US for it "imperialism" in an age otherwise largely defined by Stalinism.

"Moderate Islam", in the political context, is all but an irrelevance in the Middle East, at the very least. Between the historical vicious tendency to cant of the Left and the total lack of understanding of much by the liberal West, you have oceans of dangerous drivel threatening to drown all those who genuinely believe in justice and human rights.

TomTom

Merkel is a JOKE. She attacked Thilo Sarazzin and had him removed for criticising Multi-Culti. She told Germans to get used to ever more mosques in German cities.

Now she is in danger of being toppled and her party is being deserted by conservatives she races to echo Horst Seehofer of the CSU who seeks to displace her CDU party as it corrodes.

She is an opportunist with no core beliefs - more Cameron than Thatcher. She is finished as polls indicate room for a new party to the right of the Socialist CDU. She is as believable on Immigration as Alan Johnson

Wily Trout

There is a cultural issue about the wearing of the veil. In our society, people who hide their faces are traditionally seen as villians, thieves or bandits. So where is the consideration of western cultural sensitivities? Hidden faces make us uncomfortable.

JohnBUK

Well, no doubt when these countries start convincing some of their less-desirable Muslim friends to go away some right-on leftie luvvies will suggest we take them all in. And we will.

Andy Gill

Merkel didn't just say multiculturalism had failed, she said it had "failed miserably", and she is quite right.

All but the wilfully blind can see this now. The problem is how to roll back the decades of Islamocreep. The starting point surely must be to shut down any further immigration from Islamic countries.

GaryO

Britain is still a country where being a progressive is something to be proud of. As long as this remains, Islamists will flourish. For progressives it is not how well you defend the pursuit of equality, justice, happiness and liberty that counts, it is how well you can give these dastardly Western values up that's the true sign of tolerance.

All these measures you mention that our European neighbour's have taken undoubtedly impinge upon human rights, but that's what Islamists want isn't it - for us to give up our unyielding desire to defend freedoms?

What Angela Merkel should have been brave enough to say is that we have not been selective enough in our immigration policies. To say this would mean that one set of immigrants are favourable over another – and that would just grate with the progressives.

Keith

It is not he people of Britain that grovel alone, it is the Politicians and establishment who continue to believe that all Religion (any old religion) is a worthy thing. The people long ago abandoned the concept that the Organised Religions hold the moral high ground over the non religious or that religions are a harmonious influence in society simply because of the glaringly obvious Elephant in the room that, by there doctrines, they are commanded to be discriminatory against every other religion and against the non religious. Some doctrines are so unacceptable that they are against EU and UK law yet the political classes and establishment continue with their war against the will of the people. If this pre programming of strife continues it will soon reach a critical mass, the program be triggered and I believe it will end very badly.

Derek Pasquill

Western liberals and progressives - a car crash waiting to happen.

Margaret Muller-Johansson

I don't even like people who wear sunglasses indoors forget about people who hide their faces with textiles, yes it makes me feel uncomfortable and it makes many civilize people uncomfortable people who do this kind of things are masking their identity it is unfair they want to see us but we can't see them, I just wish they wear wherever they want in their homes and in their countries but not in our world.

Dave M

One point Melanie seems to miss is Britain has always totally followed the U.S.A. and I think immigration policy has simply been copied from the U.S. This is why we get these forms asking us to tick boxes to denote our ethnic origin. This, to me, looks like it's simply been copied from American state census/employment legislation. I get no end of forms asking me to tick the "white British" box which is really all part and parcel of an ideology that supposes the ideal State is one made up of multiracial populations.
Moreover, what Melanie refers to in Europe was bound to happen at some time. I'm quite sure the British will continue to go further down the road of multiculturalism but many European countries will get cold feet, especially Germany. This is because the sense of national identity in countries such as Germany is still very strong. I really don't believe the average German will want to live in a country where Germans become just one ethnic group in a huge melting pot.
I agree there is the danger of multiculturalism tolerating radical Islam as Melanie states but there are also other perils to be wary of. The big defect with multiculturalism is it stifles national identity, sense of history and social cohesion. It mistakenly supposes that once nationalism is attacked by making societies more ethnically mixed, peace and harmony will follow. This is far from being the case. What it actually does is create suspicion, competition for resources, xenophobia, tribalism and division.
I have a strong feeling multiculturalism will fail the same as the communist utopia failed. First it will fail in parts of Europe. Finally it will fail possibly in the U.S.A. Even in Britain, the fact you see so many flags being displayed seems to indicate a growing unease people feel their identity is under attack. This sense of unease had some implications in the last elections because Labour refused to address the issue.

Ray

Pat Buchanan, speaking about the glaring divergence between indigenous and ethnic birth rates throughout the Western world, puts it this way...

"Baby boomer Europe decided in the 1960s and 1970s it wanted La Dolce Vita, not the hassle of children. It had that sweet life. Now the bill comes due. And the bill is the end of their tribes and countries as we have known them."

simon

El Cid had an interecting way of pressuring the Islamic community using extortion and protection as a two vice that squeezed financialy and phsicaly on the Islamic population of Spain. I wonder what the roll of the criminal underworld will be in the UK future

Old Slaughter

No Melanie, it is not on its knees, it is bent over.

Even more humiliating but with much the same result

steve

Could someone familiar with the German example explain how Germany has embraced multiculturalism in the past? Wasn't it Germany that prevented generations of Turkish immigrants from getting German citizenship thus discouraging integration of such people? Is that an example of multiculturalism?

Charles Martel

Interesting Article By Nicolai Sennels -

The integration of Muslims into Western society has failed, and will never occur to the extent necessary for them to function successfully in Western society. The reason is that a vast majority of them have not fulfilled all three of the criteria that are necessary for becoming members of, and feeling at home in, our non-Islamic societies:

1.Wanting to integrate
2.Being allowed to integrate
3.Being able to integrate

Check this link – http://europenews.dk/en/node/36496

Michael White

Current demographic projectory will make this a non-issue in about 90 years.

Dixon

Regarding Campus Life (and I live actually on one so I know something about it) I think the "Next Steps" ( to use a hideous and ungrammatical current cliche) for Islamisists will entail making complaints about the dress of female students. They'll be looking for Muslim students ready to complain that they find it offensive to have to share classes and facilities with "uncovered meat" (to quote an Australian Imam) ...that is, girls in mini-skirts.

Admittedly, they'd be off to an easy start, as to befrank, a large section of the female student body seems to think that university life is a contest in sex-appeal. Their appearance boggles me mind and when I think what it must be like for the majority of hormone driven boy students I can see any Islamic campaign on the matterwould be pushing atan open door.

Thereafter, it will lead to pressure on non-Muslim women to abide by certain "codes of appropriate dress" in all communal settings. In fact, whereas France and Syria (amazingly) have imposed codes of secular dress on Muslims in public facilities, I would bet a sum of dosh that in this country it is going to be the exact opposite: codes of dress for non-Muslims in situations where Muslims might have to work with them.

Augustus

Yes, all over Europe multiculturalism has failed. And why is that? Because instead of facing the challenges of the 21st Century head on, Islam chooses to camouflage that fact and to insist on even more religious symbols, and shout their perceived moral superiority from the rooftops.
And many do indeed suffer from feelings of moral superiority, that is, they regard themselves
as more moral than Western culture, which by many is seen as decadent and overtly sex-orientated. Many families fear that if their children strike up too close relationships with
indigenees they will also become immoral and decadent. That makes the parents afraid, and if their daughters have a boyfried they are afraid that she could lose her virginity, which is a nightmare for someone
living in a patriarchal system,
where old tribal rites combine with religious rites.

Integration is also made more difficult because many Muslims have had very little education.
They arrive from villages in Anatolia, Pakistan, or Morocco,
themselves isolated from much of the modern world, and once arrived in say Stuttgart or Munich, they build a wall between themselves and the local population, prevent their children identifying with the host nation, and therefore from
its knowledge and social welfare. The state can really only do so much, however, like
organize welfare correctly and
stamp out misuse of the system,
but at the end of the day integration is mostly a personal choice. The more people want to believe that the world is only made up of believers and non-believers, that mental wall will always remain the dividing line, preventing those from afar in becoming 'one of us'.

Brian Williams

@rippon, what are you talking about? http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/10/uk-muslim-woman-dies-after-being-found-on-fire.html

"A 23-year old woman has died after she was found on fire behind a house in Bradford, police have said."

Are you suggesting that she set HERSELF on fire?

rippon

Brian Williams (October 19th, 2010 4:46pm) asks, “Are you suggesting that she set HERSELF on fire?”

I’m in no position to say anything, neither is ‘jihadwatch’.
Possibilities include murder, suicide, accident (e.g. cooking).
‘Jihadwatch’ are basically saying, with no evidence, that it was murder committed by a fundamentalist Muslim(s).

The standard of evidence for such a charge is much higher than simply “found on fire”. It does no credit to ‘jihadwatch’ or Melanie Phillips or you that, with something so serious, you happily jump to conclusions so prematurely.

wendy

Join the National Secular Society and start to fight back,before it's too late.

Dixon

Rippon...what a ridiculous display of disingenouousness. A pregnant teenager is burned to death and you want us to consider the possibility it was suicide.

Even if that isnt asick joke, there are thousands of other examples of honour killings to choose from and hundreds of them in the West. Maybe Rippon you would want us to consider the possibility that the girl found in a suitcase chopped herself up and put herself there after committing suicide ...but the court found that it was the parents that did it!

these obscenmities are occurring with dizzying frequency nowadays, in outr very midst. And you want to make excuses for the perpetrators. Shame on you! You'ra a disgrace.

rippon

@Dixon (October 19th, 2010 6:36pm)

To label me a “disgrace” clearly shows you, Dixon, to be a cretin.

You say, “there are thousands of other examples of honour killings to choose from and hundreds of them in the West.”

Jihadwatch should focus on those then; they are (according to you) clearly spoilt for choice.

There is a crucial difference (but, for you, apparently too subtle a difference) between “a pregnant teenager is burned to death” and ‘a pregnant teenager burned to death’. I’ll explain (because it seems you might be a bit too dense to see for yourself): the former implies foul play, whereas the latter is merely a statement of fact.

You say I “want to make excuses for the perpetrators” - when no one (e.g. you) even knows whether a crime has been committed.

My posts can actually +help+ Islamophobes like you: The risk you run is that if, in time, it transpires that there wasn’t actually any crime committed in this instance, then your charge of ‘hundreds of honour killings in the West’ will simply be undermined, and then there will simply be more reason for you and jihadwatch and Melanie Phillips not to be taken seriously. I reiterate: better to focus on the proven “hundreds”, rather than this single one about which no authority (e.g. policeman) has said anything yet.

You could take a leaf out of the book of the Israel critics, e.g. Goldstone Report: wait for investigations and evidence before jumping to conclusions. Undue haste by jihadwatch (and their disciples) will suggest that they have an agenda rather than a desire for uncovering the truth.

Mr. Mabutoh Afunfa

True! Western Europe is becoming unstable place specially Britain and who can i blame? leftist ofcourse they are dancing with political correctness and they are still supporting people who want to abuse democracy and freedom.

AY

In my humble opinion, Europeans are presently adapting to live in apartheid society - simply because no other alternative given. Or, better to say, multi-apartheid society, the direct development of "multicultural" one.

However, this innocent IMHO causes so deep horror among moderators, that it was banned here for 3 consequitive times..

This is your future too, mods - so let people discuss how one can make this apartheid crap less painful, - and evolve to something acceptable in the end.

Hepworth

I'd say you all miss the point.
Merkel is and always has been at the heard of a one "unelected" government of Europe, eventually the world.
The Right Wing has been having success all over Europe and so, as the Marxist revolution nears completion they throw us a bone to chew on and hope we don't notice the coup de gras.

politically incorrect social worker

Rippon @7.44: the truth is that honour killings and terrorist threats in the UK and Europe are not being carried out by Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, Christians, Buddhists...but by Muslims. You may think I am an Islamophobe or a cretin, but I consider myself to be a realist - the evidence is there

Truthtriumphs

Rippon.
It is clearly you who needs an education in the meanings of words.
A phobia means an irrational fear or hatred.
There is nothing irrational about a fear of Islam, for it is a fear based on the terrifying practices of its adherents based on its religious teachings.
Choose your words with more care in future.

Simone

Add Norway, whos government just told the Saudis that their mosque funding days are over so long as they restrict religious freedom in Saudi Arabia.

rippon

‘Politically incorrect social worker’ (October 19th, 2010 9:55pm) said, “the evidence is there.”

My point (which seems to have eluded you), then, is that ‘jihadwatch’ et al should focus on that evidence. No authority (e.g. police, forensics) has even commented on this particular death yet.

By pouncing on this case so prematurely, with their uninformed conclusion, ‘jihadwatch’ merely look ridiculous.

Why not draw upon the ‘solid’ evidence of Islamic honour killings, which is “there”, you say, in the “hundreds”, Dixon says.

Dixon says I’m a disgrace, but the real disgrace is to exploit this girl’s death to make a political (Islamaphobic) point when we don’t even know yet whether anyone killed her or why.

Dixon

No Rippon, you can call me anything you like but its clearly you who are as you put it a "cretin". You blabber on about Jihad Watch as though you read it which patently you dont or you would be well aware that over the years "they" (its a one man show as anyone who actually reads it knows, entirely down to Robert Spencer) have indeed catalogued "these" thousands of other such cases. Killings of apostates and hapless sundry offenders of Mediaeval dogma all over the world, daily, week in, week out, year, after year, after numbing year. Not just that but mass murder of Christians and other non-Muslims from all over the globe, kidnapping, rape and forcible conversion of non-Muslim girls in pretty much every country where there is a Muslim majority. "They" (Robert Spencer) are (is) also actively campaigning to prevent one American apostate Muslim, Rifqa Barry, being sent back to parents who clearly intend to kill her.

What are you doing for the likes of her or any of these victims whilst this mayhem unfolds across the world and in our own streets...you are speaking up for the killers.

Disgrace. No, frankly disgusting. And blatantly an ignoramus to boot. You turn my stomach.

Robert Bruce Lewis

Ray, since you quote Patrick Buchanan, I think you should know something else about him: he believes that Europe committed cultural suicide through its barbarous holocausts of the Twentieth Century and that, because it has become decadent and morally unnerved--as demonstrated by its failure to reproduce its various ethnic groups--the United States should turn her back on ya'll and LEAVE you to stew in your own juices of remorse, self-hatred and gross materialism. He advocates ABANDONMENT of you, as a culture too far gone in moral and intellectual cowardice to save, that your hordes of unassimilated Orientals, the residues of your predatory empires, are, in a very real sense, your just punishment for the atrocities you committed in the 19th and 20th centuries. He believes, as many Americans do--including, it would seem, the feckless, dithering Obama--that the sun has set on Europe as it rises on Asia.

James Lovelace

Let me point out how we already live in a two-tier legal system, where muslims are given preferential treatment.

In October 2010 a 58 year old muslim, serial child-rapist from Bradford was able to flee the country half way through his trial, because he was not held on remand:
http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/8454127.Hunt_for_man__58__found_guilty_of_child_rapes/
He had repeatedly raped an 11 year old and a 12 year old girl, over a period of many years.

In May 2010 when two members of the EDL climbed atop a derelict warehouse and played the "Call To Prayer" they were attacked by armed police, given broken limbs, and spent weeks on remand, before being released without charge:
http://www.libertiesalliance.org/2010/05/05/state-repression-of-edl-unacceptable-treatment-of-english-defence-league-political-prisoners-by-the-british-state/

The only charge they may have been guilty of was anti-social behaviour, yet they were put on remand and kept in a segregation unit.

How is that our freedom to protest what is going on in our society is considered a crime worthy of remand, but child rape isn't? If the Dudley 2 had not been protesting about islam, they WOULD NOT have been held on remand (cf Fathers4Justice). If the child-rapist had not been a muslim, he WOULD have been held on remand. In March 2010 an 18 year old man in Belfast was remanded for the child rape of a 15 year old:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8553175.stm

This country is a disgrace. That a 58 year old man who repeatedly raped 11 and 12 year old girls was not held on remand when peaceful protesters were, shows that muslims in this country are given preferential treatment by the criminal justice system.

The convicted child rapist is still on the loose. Thankfully, the number of supporters of the EDL has now grown from 25k at the time those two protesters were remanded, to reach 37k supporters in just over 1 year. No doubt the EDL will reach 50k supporters by Christmas.

The establishment has decided to aid and abet the islamisation of the UK, but the ordinary man and woman in the street is not going to stand for it.

Augustus

Why should Muslims want to integrate anyway? They are guaranteed an abundance of social welfare whether they develop skills or not, whether they learn our language or not,
or whether they work or don't, and whether they decide to recognize Western values and mix with the indigenous population or not. Lack of integration presents no danger of them being isolated from society because there are plenty of opportunities for them to live in a parallel society where everyone shares the same cultural values. The tragedy is that by building a pschological wall between themselves and their host communities they prevent their children from benefiting from the host nation and learning from it, and thus from its knowledge and its social wealth.

Ganpat Ram

So multiculturalism failed?

When was the last time Hindu immigrants threatened Western values? Have there been Hindu bombings?

Just curious, as a Hindu.

Could this be a dishonest use of language - people want to say Muslim failure to integrate into Western society is a threat, are too confused or cowardly to say this, and take the easy way out of blaming all immigrant communities?

This is at the least extremely unfair.

May we have some honesty in this debate, please.

Dixon

Gunpat Ram is spot on!

I also know Hindus who find the preferential treatment accorded Muslims to be objectionable and who are inclined to say "somethings got to be done about it".

Hindus, Seikhs,Buddhists, Coa Daists etc, etc, etc, genuinely do add to the richness and diversity of our society. There is absolutely only one doctrine that is a problem, and it isnt Scientology either.

Abracabara

The Muslim population of Britain is less than 3 per cent.

Next.

Ganpat Ram

DIXON:

Many thanks for the support! Much appreciated. many Hindus like me listen to all this worried talk about "immigrants" threatening havoc and think bewilderedly: "What have WE done to deserve this?"

ABRACADABRA: Muslims may only be 3 per cent in the UK now, but their numbers are rising much faster than the general population. Indian experience shows that in a democratic order by the time Muslims become 10 or 12 per cent, nearly the whole of politics is determined by their vociferous demands, with the threat of violence always lurking in the background. Europe should not go to that Islamised political territory. And from 10 per cent to 20 takes only a generation.

rippon

Ganpat Ram said (October 20th, 2010 12:42pm), “When was the last time Hindu immigrants threatened Western values? Have there been Hindu bombings?”

The principal reason – according to pre-suicide-bombing video – for 7/7 was UK participation in the bombing and invasion of Muslim countries.

If the UK bombed and invaded India, some Hindus most probably would perpetrate some terrorism in this country.

Michael White

"BUT, there is no indication in either of the links that Melanie herself provides that the woman was “set on fire”."

Rippon is correct, there is no evidence at this stage by the English Law criminal standard of proof. However, it is not unnatural to venture a likely cause given the nature of the incident and historic acts of a similar nature involving similar cirumstances and tradition. To deny a possible, even likely link on the grounds of absence of evidence may be strictly correct but is also rather puritanical and tantamount to a forced trance, resisting that most intelligent of the human brain’s skill – a connection of circumstances - leading to a halting of intelligent thought itself. The scene is akin to finding a prepared pyre of Korans outside Pastor Terry Jones’ Church and forcing one’s mind not to connect that Terry Jones was involved somewhere - puritanically correct; frog-like in terms of intelligent thought.

rippon

When Ganpat Ram and Dixon talk about the detrimental effect of Muslims on this country, they are seriously at odds with Melanie Phillips, because …

A crucial point that Melanie makes in her piece above is that, in demonising Muslims, one should be careful in the targeting – because there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Muslims. The ‘good’ ones include Ahmadi Muslims, who, Melanie and jihadwatch argue, are at threat, like the rest of us, from the ‘bad’ Muslims.

Ganpat Ram has also wandered onto dangerous territory, warning about the dangers of rampant breeding by Muslims. That’s exactly the concern the Nazis expressed about Jews.

Abracadbra

"If the UK bombed and invaded India, some Hindus most probably would perpetrate some terrorism in this country."

And then there was the Irgun.

Michael White

"Ganpat Ram has also wandered onto dangerous territory, warning about the dangers of rampant breeding by Muslims. That’s exactly the concern the Nazis expressed about Jews."

The concerns expressed here should not be compared to Nazi Germany. There is no comparison with the UK today against events in Europe during the 1930s/40s.

davod

" Indian experience shows that in a democratic order by the time Muslims become 10 or 12 per cent, nearly the whole of politics is determined by their vociferous demands, with the threat of violence always lurking in the background."

This is a little misleading. Even after the partition of India, Muslims comprised a large part of the Indian population.

rippon

Michael White (October 20th, 2010 3:42pm) said, “it is not unnatural to venture a likely cause [for the girl’s death].”

But why bother – especially when there is already the evidence of “hundreds” of proven honour killings committed by Muslims to draw upon?

If honour killings do constitute a real phenomenon of the Muslim community in this country, then there might be a case for addressing that community over this issue – though not necessarily, because we already have strict laws against murder and GBH, so simply jailing all Muslims who commit murder/GBH (as we do with non-Muslims, in theory) could be sufficient ‘confrontation’ with that community.

The problem, though, is this: there have been significant cases of Muslims being wrongly arrested/accused of foul play – the police ‘anti-terror’ raid, leading to serious injury of a young man by the police, on an innocent Muslim household in Forest Gate, London comes to mind.

A propensity for jumping the gun in arresting/accusing Muslims, and potentially or +actually+ getting it wrong, will only make it more difficult to hold Muslims to account for real crimes.

If you wait until the police/forensics confirm murder and motive – should be easy given how ‘certain’ the case is – then there’s no problem; but if it turns out to be suicide/accident, say, then people won’t take you seriously next time you bleat ‘Muslim honour killing’.

Stephen O

@ James Lovelace

Have you been getting your data from Facebook?! The EDL are really not a group any self respecting person would want to be associated with, are they?

@ Rippon

An excellent point. When the British occupied India, there were bombs, bullets, riots and all manner of "terrorism" being directed at her Majesty's forces.

Abracadabra

@ Michael White

"The concerns expressed here should not be compared to Nazi Germany."

Really? --
"western Europe going down under the tide of radical Islam. Rather than liberal society creating the utopia of harmonious cultural pluralism, it is being swallowed whole by the giant predator whose voracious mouth it encourages, in the spirit of tolerance, to open ever wider in the unshakeable belief of western liberals that the jaws about to snap shut around their necks are actually stretched wide in a smile."

C.Gee

rippon:

-"the dangers of rampant breeding by Muslims. That’s exactly the concern the Nazis expressed about Jews."

"Exactly"? Really? Amazing how much Nazism has changed since the end of WWII.

St Bruno

The speech by Angele Merkel recently in Leipzig is celebrated as a fantastic turning point for Germany. For me it sounds like rhetoric to gain votes by saying things that are perceived to be Zeitgeist or of the moment then cast away after the election.
She is a politician first and foremost so must engage in the democratic process of elections. She will say almost anything to get re-elected. She said ‘integrated’ and not ‘assimilated’ into German society, two different things. I suppose one could say that the Russians were integrated into East Germany but not assimilated even after sixty years. The Russians had other ideas.

Below is a fascinating interview with the German author and anti-jihad activist Dr. Udo Ulfkotte.
http://vladtepesblog.com/?p=26846 which is as of yesterday. He is another of the growing number of Europeans who are daring to stand up against the invasion of of our homelands.

A piece by him http://www.ulfkotte.de/18.html which sounds rather familiar but was written in 2006, The World-upside down. Freiheit not needed but it will be when it disappears.

Verity

1. "Switzerland" as a country has not banned minarets. One canton in Switzerland has banned them, on a citizens' vote.

2. This Mrs Malik sounds like an islamic and a pretty ignorant one at that if she thinks the burqa, niqab and similar attire are "religious symbols" when neither have anything at all to do with religion.

They are ancient, intelligent, desert attire designed to keep the searing Saharan sun and those constantly blowing desert winds out of the ears, eyes, noses, mouths and throats of the nomads who lived in the desert.

What Mrs Malik and others don't mention is, in the desert, men wear very similar attire. Long gown-like clothes that cover all their limbs, and the keffyah, which is cleverly folded to keep the sun out of the eyes and off the back of the neck. They also often draw it across their noses to protect their air passages.

This garb is never referred to at all in the q'ran. Ever. Mo' may have been a bit of a goer, but he never got himself in the fashion advice business. What he laid down as law was, women should "dress modestly". Story, end of. No further details. Plus he also handed down the same order to men.

Too bad Mrs Malik either hasn't read her q'ran, or she's read it, knows that the niqab, burqa and similar are never mentioned and is lying to the rest of us by pretending it is.

Either way, she sounds sneaky.

Ganpat Ram

Do Westerners - the native White majority, I mean - honestly think Hindu immigrants in the West pose a danger to traditional Western liberal values, are having great difficulty fittng into Western life? Do they think this about Christian immigrants from Latin America?

Would Westerners not admit that the Hindu community as a whole has no trouble with Western values? How often do you hear that Hindus are threatening violence because of some cartoon or advert and the like? Do they fear Hindu bombs on the London Underground?

Let us be honest, or we will be totally confused as to what the problem is. Most immigrant communities HAVE fitted in reasonably well with Western liberal values. Hindus, Buddhists, nearly all Sikhs, don't threaten liberal values even remotely.

However, many Muslims do have a huge problem with these values, and what we should really be talking about is how to rectify that, not punching away at some amorphous entity called "immigrants". Regrettably, Phillips and her like have fallen into this trap of using an utterly unfair catch-all.

I am bemused by the usual attempts to avoid admitting that Islam is the problem here by resorting to totally inept comparisons. The claim that current fear of Western Islamisation is the counterpart of Nazi anti-Semitism is particularly absurd. The German Jewish community of the Nazi era was a tiny, pacific community of about half a percent of the German population. It threatened no decent liberal values; it did not indulge in or threaten violence or demand the censoring of books or cartoons that supposedly offended Judaism. In all this it was the opposite of Muslim communities in today's West. It was the Jews' enemies, the ultra-nationalist Germans, who constantly threatened liberal values violently and harboured extremely serious ambitions of world conquest.

So, ABRACADABRA et al, your equating today's Muslims with the Nazis' Jews is totally laughable.

RIPPON's and STEPHEN O's attempt to blacken the Hindus with the guilt for a terrorism they have not even committed on the pretext that they WOULD have done so had their homelands been occupied by the West, like the poor Muslims', is even more ludicrous. Really, what pitiful, mean arguments!

Even if it were accepted that Hindus too would have been as bad as Bin Laden had the West taken over Hindu lands, it is at least clear they are NOT in that position, are cosily fitting in with Western liberal values and threaten little except the chartered accountancy profession and the like. Why not have the common sense to exclude them for that practical reason alone from expressed fears of immigrants who fail to integrate into the West, threaten liberalism and import terrorism?

Besides, this line that seeks to excuse Islamist terrorism by pointing to supposed or real Western depredations in Muslim lands is crude nonsense. The Vietnamese fought French and US occupation of their country without indulging in random terrorism in France and America against civilians. The main Indian nationalist movement was a peaceful, eminently liberal one and certainly did not resort to mass terrorist attacks against British civilians. The Black liberation movement against aparheid in South Africa did not plant bombs in the London Underground even though many British governments directly or indirectly collaborated with the South African regime. And so on. Nor did any of these nationalist movements stand for extreme Dark Ages religious tyranny, as the Islamist ones do.

Let us, once again, be honest, as George Orwell would say: the alternative is total confusion as to what the threat is.

Jeremy Davies

Melanie I know it isn't a newspaper, but Private Eye has been covering the goings-on in Tower Hamlets for over a year.

Abracadabra

The Irish (IRA), Jews (Irgun) and Catholics (Guy Fawkes) are among those who've felt justified in making terrrorist attacks on the UK.

Over the last several years, the US and UK have brought about the deaths of tens of thousands of Muslim men, women and children - based on a bunch of lies.

Dixon

"Abracadabra
October 21st, 2010 5:22pm

The Irish (IRA), Jews (Irgun) and Catholics (Guy Fawkes) are among those who've felt justified in making terrrorist attacks on the UK.

Over the last several years, the US and UK have brought about the deaths of tens of thousands of Muslim men, women and children - based on a bunch of lies."

I just thought the best refutation for the above comment was to qoute it...it is in itself the best possible evidence of the kind of people at issue here.

rippon

Abracadabra (October 21st, 2010 5:22pm) said: “tens of thousands” [of Muslim deaths resulting from US-UK state terrorism].

That should be +hundreds+ of thousands.

And don’t forget the preceding decade of “genocidal” Iraq sanctions that the UK participated in, which included half a million Iraqi children, which the US didn’t even try to deny (US Secretary of State at the time, Madeleine Albright, saying the deaths were a “heavy price” but, she thought, “worth it”).

John.

Ganpat Ram presented himself as a resident of Canada, on this site, a few days ago, so how is it that he's making pronouncements about our country as though he lives here? Simon, on the 19th of September, mentions El Cid, but not King Philip the 3rd of Spain, who, in 1615, because of similar, very much more long-standing, problems with the Muslims, to the ones we have, expelled the lot of them, mainly to North Africa. One does not wish to harm them, but neither are they wanted here by those who have never given their permission for them to be here in the first place, namely the native indigenous people of these islands. Possibly many of us would much prefer to return to the homogeneous society we had up until the 1950's - shared customs, traditions, history, language, religion, and ancestors. No government has ever asked us whether we wnated to give our country away to all the West Indians, Africans, Indians, Arabs and Pakistanis we have here now, nor have we ever given our consent to this. Most of us may agree that many, even most, of these people are harmless and agreeable but that does not mean that we actually want to give our islands away to them. Why have time limited work permits not been given to all these people instead of passports being handed out like confetti?

Dixon

Two lies from Rippon:

October 20th, 2010 3:53pm

When Ganpat Ram and Dixon talk about the detrimental effect of Muslims on this country, they are seriously at odds with Melanie Phillips, because …

A crucial point that Melanie makes in her piece above is that, in demonising Muslims, one should be careful in the targeting – because there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Muslims. The ‘good’ ones include Ahmadi Muslims, who, Melanie and jihadwatch argue, are at threat, like the rest of us, from the ‘bad’ Muslims."

First lie here, that we are saying there are "bad Muslims" or "good Muslims": NOBODY is saying ANY Muslims are "bad"...we are saying that it is Islam that is bad, and ALL Muslims are its main victims.

Rippons comment above is doubly a lie, because it elides the point about Ahmadis which is not that they are "good Muslims" but fellow Muslims being persecuted by other Muslims for the theological crime of taksfir.

In fact Rippons above comment is three-ways a lie...because JihasdWatch doesnt pay any special attention to Ahmadi persecution, it being one of myriad groups being persecuted by Muslims worldwide, as anyone who actually reads the site knows.

Rippons second lie:
"
Ganpat Ram has also wandered onto dangerous territory, warning about the dangers of rampant breeding by Muslims. That’s exactly the concern the Nazis expressed about Jews."

This is a simple lie: the many aspects of NAZI Jew persecution were never dependent upon claims about demographics.

But there is a deeper, implied lie in that comment. That there can be any equation between NAZI demonizing of Jews and criticism of Islam. This is, frankly, a disgusting imputation. Its like saying a criticism of NAZIism would be demonising Germans! Jews were persecuted (andstill are) not for anything they did or believed but because of the parents they were born to. I, or anybody else seriously hostile to Islam, start with the presumption that people born to Muslim parents firstly have had no choicein the matter and are the principal people oppressed by Islam and secondly do not necessarily go on to endorse or act upon the essential directives to ardent followers of that doctrine.In nother words, we dont care a fig for whether a person isv "ethnically" froma group associated with Islam, only whether they CHOOSE to exhibit the misogeny,racism and totalitarian Fascist agenda that are undeniably aspects of the doctrine in its abstract form. Its a matter of their CHOICE whether they follow that doctrine in a way that no person persecuted by NAZIs for being Jewish ever had such a choice. We criticise people for what they say anddo not for who they were born to. When the likes of Rippon draw a specious paralell between these things, which areworlds apart, they essentially reveal themselves to be incapable of even such an obvious distinction.

At the very least, even a half-wit should recognise that those of us who charge Islam with making slaves of women by definition implicitly regard roughly half of all Muslims as the enslaved and innocent victims of that ideology.

Ganpat Ram

JIHN:

For the record, I am a Canadian resident, but with some years of living in the UK now thankfully behind me, and still concerned about the place's future. In any case this infuriating and cowardly equating of Hindus with Muslims as "immigrants" threatening the host societies with violence nd non-integration has plenty of devotees in Vanvcouver too, and I debate with them.

The rest of your piece claimimg Britain should be free of colored types I will not comment on; it is suffiently ludicrous on its own to utterly discredit you. Since the British themselves never hesitated to emigrate in huge numbers - far bigger numbers than Asians or Africans, absolutely let alone proportionately, their case against immigrants is contemptible.

Steve Lee London

The thing is Melanie regularly roundly condemns the only political party in the UK with the balls to stand up against militant Islam, who, incidentally are so racist they have a Jewish councillor - we all know which party I'm talking about but the mere act of typing the three letter acronym means the comment will not be published...

rippon

John (October 21st, 2010 7:19pm), says, “ … nor have we ever given our consent to this [giving the country away to immigrants].”

But doesn’t the low vote-count for the BNP (and UKIP and others) mean that, overall, the country effectively +has+ given its consent?

John also suggests that it would be better to give time-limited work permits rather than full citizenship. But one compelling reason for granting full citizenship is to entice the much-needed workers (doctors, nurses, teachers, cleaners, etc.) to come – and stay – here. If foreigners knew that they could only come here on condition that they would, sooner or later, have to leave again, then you wouldn’t be able to entice them to come in the first place.

Moreover, most of these immigrants are from the Empire (euphemistically called the ‘Commonwealth’), which their countries enriched and empowered in the first place. Therefore, it is perfectly right that they come here and enjoy a morsel of the UK’s stupendous wealth that derived, and continues to derive, from their countries of origin.

Ganpat Ram

RIPPON, ABRACADABRA:
BERCHMANS:

You are deeply invested in the story of Muslims-as-Victims.

I am not. I think that tale is wildly exaggerated.

Take Iraq. The Americans could certainly have done their intervention more competently. But the Shia majority of the country, previously suffering the most unimaginable oppression at the hands of Saddam, certainly would not want to go back to the Saddam regime. I know Iraqi Kurds in London who have assured me that they regard George W Bush as the saviour of their people, who for the first time in a very long time gave them the chance to breathe.

It is Muslim regimes and political forces who slaughter other Muslims in the biggest number and with the least pity.

Non-Muslim societies have an infinitely better record than Muslim ones in modern times when it comes to respecting the rights of minorities. With virtually every Muslim regime, non-Muslims are an inferior species by definition, lucky to be alive.

In Indian Kashmir, Muslims are aggrieved; but they have the right to express themselves freely, to organise and vote. In most of India, Muslims can freely condemn Hinduism, the majority faith. Try even whispering against Mohammed in Muslim societies - even non-Muslim ones with large numbers of Muslims.

The Israelis occupy the West Bank, but this is after a war to obliterate Israel unleashed by the Arabs in 1967.

May I remind you that the murderous hue and cry against Rushdie's supposed blasphemy happened well BEFORE the first Gulf War? Were tens of thousands of murdered Muslims then the cause for murderous uproar over claims of blasphemy?

Nelson Mandela was lampooned by the Young Tories in the 1970s and 1980s. Did Black people in the UK threaten them with death?

Gandhi was lampooned by the British press countless times in the 1930s and 1940s: did Indians threaten violence in Britain?

rippon

Ganpat Ram (October 21st, 2010 9:19pm) says, “You are deeply invested in the story of Muslims-as-Victims.”

One doesn’t have to be “invested” in anything if one focuses on evidence, investigation, science and facts (rather than your preferred mythologies).

Johns Hopkins, The Lancet, MIT, ORB are amongst the serious organisations that estimate Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the invasion-occupation at well over a million. And I don’t know who, if anyone, has any idea how much death US-UK actions have caused in Afghanistan and Pakistan. (It is Allied policy +not+ to count native deaths.)

You, Ganpat Ram, apparently believe those organisations are indulging in a “wildly exaggerated” “tale” about Muslims being victims.

We have a good idea (if we +want+ to know) of the extent of the barbarism of the US assault on Fallujah, and we know that illegal weapons were used, and we know that, as a consequence of that use, many birth deformities have resulted and women are now advised +not+ to have children.

We know that, rather than consigning the torture of Saddam’s regime to the past, the Americans replaced it with their own brand (e.g. Abu Ghraib) – another tall “tale”?

The US-UK cannot perpetrate such massive crimes and terror and expect no terrorism in response. Indeed, there very own intelligence agencies predicted such blowback – just on the basis of an invasion, never mind all the additional crimes we committed.

Despite these facts, you say,
“It is Muslim regimes and political forces who slaughter other Muslims in the biggest number and with the least pity.
Non-Muslim societies have an infinitely better record than Muslim ones in modern times when it comes to respecting the rights of minorities.”

You also say, “The Israelis occupy the West Bank, but this is after a war to obliterate Israel unleashed by the Arabs in 1967.”

A serious debate is difficult when someone embraces myths rather than real history.

Abracadbra

And British dalings with Muslims stretches back through 150 years of colonialism ... and, week after week, the killing goes on ... in countries with neither the ability nor the intention to hurt us.

Yet people here declare that the Muslims are "taking over" Britain.

Bart Roozendaal

The plot thickens. Today, Friday 22 October at 16.00 hours, the Amsterdam Challenge Chamber has ruled that members of the court hearing the Wilders case might be prejudiced. This following a request to that effect by both Wilders and his solicitor Bram Moszkowitz, on the grounds that the court had refused to hear a principal witness, Professor of Islamic Studies Hans Jansen, and also that one member of the court, Tom Schalken, had tried to influence Hans Jansen over dinner prior to the trial.
It is easy to see why the court dreaded hearing Jansen: he is an outstanding advocate of the position that Islam considers itself at perpetual war with the West, and that its ultimate aim is to conquer the West.
See his website: www.arabistjansen.nl
A salient detail is that an earlier request by Wilders to challenge the court on the grounds of prejudice had been turned down.
The above means that the entire trial has to be repeated from square one.

Ganpat Ram

ABRACADABRA, RIPPON:

May I remind you that Muslim political pressure to silence anyone in the West who dared to be toughly critical of Islam was well under way BEFORE the US/UK intervention in the Gulf? Thge Salman Rushdie sentence of death was in 1989. When Muslim numbers reach a serious level in any society that allows free expression, we get an outcry to censor those who criticise Islam. That is independent of anything happening in terms of foreign affairs.

As for Western intervention in the Gulf, it also hepled to FREE millions of Shias savagely suppressed by Saddam, as well as Kurds. The West intervened to help Bosnian Muslims, as well as Kosovo Muslims, in Europe. Western governments still criticise Russia for its policies agsainst the Chechen Muslim rebels. During the first Arab-Israli War, several Western governments, especial;ly Britain, notoriously sided with the Arabs. Historically, Britain and the US have sided with Pakistan against India. They both instigated and massively supported Afghan Islamist rebels fighting the Soviets.

So the idea that the West has consistently sided against Islam let alone that this excuses Islamist terror attacks, is an absurdity.

As for historic grievances, Mexico lost half of its territory to the US. Do Mexican immigrants in the US make bombing attacks on US territiory or demand censorship of the US press? India was plundered by Britain over a cuople of centuries; do Hindus make bomb attacks in London or demand censorship of criticism of Hinduism in the UK? Most large Hindu temples in North India were destroyed by Muslims; do Hindus make terrorist attacks in Muslim countries as reprisal for that?

And why did Egypt cut off the Gulf of Eilat to Israeli shipping in contravention of international law, and demand the withdrawal of the UN buffer force between Egypt and Israel, and indulge in mass fanatical demonstrations threatening the extinction of Israel, in 1967?

Richard

Excellent post, Melanie!

John.

Ganpat Ram: People in contemporary societies surely have the right to choose whom they wish to allow into their countries and whom they don't. Obviously people are going to choose those with whom they share culture, customs, traditions, history, laws, language, religion and ancestors, though not necessarily all of those. This means that, had the native British been given any choice in the matter they would have been unlikely to have consented to allowing millions of rapidly reproducing West Indians, Africans, Indians, Pakistanis and Arabs into their islands. (I don't include Chinese or Japanese because they are exremely law-abiding and go to great pains to become assimilated). But they were never given such an option. It was done without their consent. I'm not sure why you insist on talking about "immigrants threatening host societies with violence and non integration" as I actually pointed out that most immigrants, (not "immigrants"), are harmless and agreeable, but that does not mean that we want them here for ever. Secondly, the British emigrated, mainly in the 18th and 19th centuries, to sparsely inhabited countries in which the climate usually suited them. Their treatment of the sparse indigenous inhabitants was, in many cases, far from exemplary, but this has been attended to, so far as it can be attended to, in modern times. In any case the zeitgeist of those times was not that which obtains in our times and one can only judge the past by its its own values and accepted mores. The millions of people, of vastly different milieux from our own, who have arrived on our shores, have come to an already heavily over-populated country and are not deeply welcome here as permanent residents. To say we need them is nonsense - do the Japanese, the Chinese or the South Koreans need immigrants? No, they solve their own problems. Part of the trouble is the low standard of all education in this country and the restricted numbers of places in medical and engineering schools, but this is soluble. Do you imagine that India or China, for example would allow millions of British, Africans, West Indians, Arabs, and Chinese to emigrate to their countries, eventually numbering around 1/10th of their populations? Of course not! So why do you think it is somehow different for us? The only places foolish enough to have permitted this to happen are the Western democracies and now they're reaping the whirlwind.
Rippon:Few votes for the BNP are the result of (a) its bad reputation, which does not necessarily reflect what it really stands for, and, (b) its somewhat uncharismatic leaders. This does not mean that the indigenous British do not sympathise with some of its aims. All I can talk about usefully is my own experience and this tells me that most native British in my area are sick to death of having more and more immigrants appearing in the area, and devoutly wish to be rid of them. This is not a popular thing to say out loud but it is true. Like me they do not wish them harm: they simply don't want them here. As I say above, the Chinese etc. do not need doctors, nurses etc. from abroad and nor should we if we weren't so badly educated and organised. As I also said, this is remediable. We do not wish to entice them here - though you may be right in saying that the government does - to save cash and swell the numbers of voters for their particular party. We want to have more of our own qualified professionals. We left the Empire long ago and, in any case, we gave far more to it than we took from it. The only regret is that we were obliged to leave many countries before we had banked on leaving and so an efficient civil service did not have the time to be built up.

Dixon

"Abracadbra
October 22nd, 2010 10:02am

And British dalings with Muslims stretches back through 150 years of colonialism ... and, week after week, the killing goes on ... "

At last youve uttered a truth...week after week the killing goes on,of non-Muslims and non-observant or "apostate" Muslims by Muslim zealots,even IN the UK, where parents murder their own children in the name of "honour".

Tell us will you, how do you explain the mayhem in Southern Thailand where Muslim zealots , in a country that doesnt have any involvement in the supposed global causes of Islamic violence,are murdering literally schoolgirls (beheaded wherever they can be found), schoolteachers (blown up by the bus load) and occasionally soldiers tasked with protecting these heinous persecutirs of Muslims. Oh, plus those Budhist shop-keepers who dare to open their businesses on a Friday.

The murder of non-Muslims by Muslim zealots occurs in every country on the face of the planet where there is a significant Muslim minority and is state-sanctioned policy in every country where there is A muslim majority.

But forget all that. When are Muslims going to stop practising FGM. Not all Muslim communities do, but ONLY Muslim communities do. A practice that may be thought too disgusting to explicitly describe in polite debate such as this but which most definitely warrants such explicit description. Because what really does FGM entail: slicing off the clitoris of pubescent girls. The basic fact in the act of FGM, which is laughably referred to in this country by the dhimmi apologetic euphemism "female circumcision".

Estimates by medical charities haveit that the number of victims now amounts to hundreds of millions. For a start, more than 60% of all the women in Egypt.

I invite Rippon, Abracadabra and their fellow sock-puppets to imagine having had the end of their penis lopped off at puberty (the rough equivalent were such a heinous practice applied to boys) in the name of a "religion". Then to consider whether that "religion" is something you should so wholeheartedly leap to perform apologetics for?

rippon

Ganpat Ram and Dixon are missing a crucial point:

It is +our+ job to focus on +our+ crimes and hold +our+ leaders to account. It is the job of Muslims to do the same in their communities.

In missing this point, your ranting arguments degenerate into: ‘it doesn’t matter how much murder, misery and mayhem we inflict on Muslims, or how many laws we break, because Muslims are no better, e.g. they too commit massacres, burn subversive books, mutilate girls and break laws.’

Your demented arguments are a gift to fanatics (e.g. bin Laden, Taliban) because they can be used to justify crimes by Muslims, e.g. ‘9/11 and 7/7 are fully justified because they constitute a drop in the ocean compared to the murder of Muslims committed by the West (e.g. genocide through sanctions of half-million Iraqi children).’

Dixon is so full of demented rage that he apparently thinks the solution to Islamic mutilation of girls lies in bombing Islamic countries.

The majority opinion amongst Shias is that life was better, or less appalling, under Saddam – because, however odious Saddam was, now there is lawlessness, bombing, kidnapping, and appalling (if any) water electricity sanitation and medical care.

The Iraq invasion was illegal anyway, but the moral depravity is exacerbated by the fact that most of these consequences were entirely predictable – and predicted – by intelligence agencies. But that didn’t matter because the priority was to control access to the oil fields. The lie that we invaded to ‘spread liberal democracy’ (adopted once the WMD lie collapsed) is the 21st Century equivalent of the ancient lie that the Crusades were motivated by a desire to spread civilisation and Christianity (rather than to plunder other people’s resources).

Dixon asks ‘when will Muslims stop doing that [FGM]?’ The answer is, ‘when the secular movements in those countries gain the upper hand.’ One reason why rational secular movements don’t achieve that is because such movements tend to be nationalist/socialist, i.e. believing that their countries’ resources (e.g. oil) should be used for the benefit of the people rather than the enrichment of elites and foreign corporations; and then western powers, e.g. US, step in with financial and military support for fascist forces (e.g. Taliban, Saudi ruling families) to quell those nationalist movements.

(John says, “We left the Empire long ago and, in any case, we gave far more to it than we took from it.” That’s just plain wrong. The theft and plunder by the Empire of the subject nations is what made this a stupendously rich country in the first place. And the exploitative relationship between the UK and the subjects – euphemistically called the ‘Commonwealth’ – continues today, through the shackles of economic relationships put in place so that militaristic ‘persuasion’ is less necessary.)

Shoshana

The constant revisionist history which Arabists try to foist on the rest of us is simply sickening. They don't like the facts, so they try to spin a yarn hoping to take advantage of the ignorance of others.

There is no doubt that the Israelis struck first in 1967, however, after weeks of saber-rattling, genocide-promising broadcasts, expulsion of UN troops from the Sinai, the movements of troops, and the closing of the Straits of Tiran (a war crime by itself), the Israelis had no choice if they were to survive.

However, this did NOT involve Judea and Samaria (called by imperialists, "The West Bank"). When the armistice was declared during the War for Independence, the Jordanians had control of the historic Jewish heartland. During a series of pogroms and ethnic cleansings, the Jordanians and their Arab allies had murdered or driven out every Jew, including the elderly and the babes in arms, from their homes over a period of decades.

Jordan initially did not join in the war. In fact, the Israelis begged and begged them, to stay out of it. However, Hussein (may his name be blotted out) believed the propaganda of the accursed Nasser, and joined in so he would have a share of the spoils.

Too bad for him, the Israelis didn't lie down and die. They liberated Judea and Samaria, and even more importantly, they liberated Jerusalem from its defiling occupiers. Under Jordanian occupation the ancient synagogues were destroyed and Jewish gravestones used for pavement and latrines. (Compare this with the extreme sensitivities and concern with which the Israelis treat Islamic entities. Well, there is no comparison.)

Judea and Samaria were lost to the Arabs because of Hussein's greed and cupidity, not to mention his overweening pride. Tough tuna for them.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Rippon: what is their about Islamic radicalism NOT to be "phobic" about?

Perhaps you could give me, say, just a snippet of a good PR film you might get together for the Moslem Brotherhood?

Can't wait:

Sun going down on magnificent desert landscape.

Camera pans down, the golden flare of the sun shimmering in the lense...

From the bottom of frame we see emerge the head of woman, wracked by anguish..

..camera tracks back to reveal a baying crowd, clad in black, many with faces covered, stones in hand.."

Radical Islamism is what we all need to fear. Noone cares a hoot by anyone practising their religion who has peaceful intent blah, blah..It is radical Islam which is what we are getting killed battling..NOTHING about that we should fear more.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Rippon is quite right to insist that thorough investigations should ake place before any Islamic Fundamentalist wshould be accused of murder.

But, then again, one wonders if a non believer's accusation of murder would hold any weight whatsoever for the accused Islamic fundamentalist.

One wonders what Mr Rippon thinks of the Iranian regime's conviction of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani for adultery and the inital (at any rate) sentence bestowed on her of stoning to death?

Perhaps he thinks Sharia Law is the kind of Law we should tolerate, and even when applied by fundamentalists in our own country..

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Rippon: "In missing this point, your ranting arguments degenerate into: ‘it doesn’t matter how much murder, misery and mayhem we inflict on Muslims, or how many laws we break, because Muslims are no better, e.g. they too commit massacres, burn subversive books, mutilate girls and break laws.’"

Absolute rubbish. Our job is to make sure islamic fundamentalism does not go unchecked - first and foremost in our own society. When deemed necessary, furtherafield.

Intrinsic to the Ilslamic credo is the destruction of the non believer. That is the caveat we should heed and doing so does not mean a condoning of behaviour that is worse than that which we are trying to prevent.

The Liberal cri de coeur is too often misplaced. It could have just as easily been applied to Nazi Germany. In fact, it was!

Dixon

Abracadabra is only legitimately denoted by a word or two which cannot be used on this platform (only because of bourgoise inhibitions that do not apply in the real world where most people of any walk of life that I know, from Gordanstoun to The Gorbels, would use such words to describe him). Let us just say that when he writes ...."Dixon is so full of demented rage that he apparently thinks the solution to Islamic mutilation of girls lies in bombing Islamic countries".........he at the very least lies, deceives, traduces and resorts to ad-hominem all in one sentence. Where did I say in this debate anything about bombing "Muslim" countries.In other discussions, yes, I do advocate large scale, intensive obliterative acts of aggression against any foreign entity (Muslim being nothing to do with it) that poses any threat to our state....but these issues are nothing to do with this debate.Nothing at all. THIS debate is about whether we should,as the likes of Abracadabra want...sit back and allow such practices as slicing off a girls clitoris to be tolerated in OUR own neck of the woods (and yes, in many cases also sewing up her vagina bar two little holes for urine and menstraution,so that she has to be literally sliced open on her wedding night,all well documented practices, such sophisticated civilised folk we are talking about).

Yes Abracablabber, you do,obviously miss the point here entirely.If you want to blabber on about evil George Bush bombing innocent "Muslim" countries why not takethat to where its the topic under discussion. BTW, you might also discuss in that context the fact that Osama Obama has increased those bombings under his reign, even if he is a Muslim.

Meawhile, in THIS debate, explain to us how you would feel about having had your key bits of genitalia excised in your childhood, whether you would feel as keen to endorse the beliefs that such a practice is embedded in and why, with those reflections in mind,are you happy for that set of "values" to be allowed to extend its presence in our very communities.

"Demented rage"... No,my blood runs cold on this matter, as it has done for the thirty-two years since I first rationally acknowledged the facts.

Abrathedabbler, know-nothing, feel-nothing, worth-nothing.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Rippon: "In missing this point, your ranting arguments degenerate into: ‘it doesn’t matter how much murder, misery and mayhem we inflict on Muslims, or how many laws we break, because Muslims are no better, e.g. they too commit massacres, burn subversive books, mutilate girls and break laws.’"

Absolute rubbish. Our job is to make sure islamic fundamentalism does not go unchecked - first and foremost in our own society. When deemed necessary, furtherafield.

Intrinsic to the Ilslamic credo is the destruction of the non believer. That is the caveat we should heed and doing so does not mean a condoning of behaviour that is worse than that which we are trying to prevent.

The Liberal cri de coeur is too often misplaced. It could have just as easily been applied to Nazi Germany. In fact, it was!

John.

rippon: do a bit of reading - and travelling. Fro e.g. M. Perham's "The Colonial Reckoning". Even the the inhabitants of ex-imperial countries, who experienced British rule will tell you that they were well and fairly treated by a just and considerate administration - in many cases far better thatn anything they have experienced since!

Ganpat Ram

JOHN:

I grew up in Uganda partly in colonial days, and I am in a position to comment on the absurdity of your brazen endorsement of British imperialism.

Like all the colnial rulers, the British starved access to education. In Uganda - much less ruled in favour of Whites than Kenya - this meant your chances of becoming literate, let alone going to secondary school were very slim if you did not come from a well-off urban family. It was a severely hierarchical society, where people were inferior or superior first of all because of race.

Things were far worse in Kenya, where White settlers deprived the Kikuyu of the Hghlands and crammed them into native rerservations with incredibly little land to go around. In time this generated the Mau Mau uprising that Churchill's last government suppressed with Hitlerite ferocity, hanging natives randomly by the thousads, setting up concentration camps, using widespread torture.

In a copper-rich country like Zambia the British companies milked huge revenues but the colonial rulers spent so little on education that in a place with millions of natives at Independence there were only four secondary schools.

In India, the literacy rate was pitiful at Independence, and even lower than BEFORE the British set up their rule nearly two centuries previously. India experienced massive famines under British rule, each taking many millions of lives, including one in the 1940s where the Churchill government (the Cabinet records show it) deliberately withheld food aid.

Despite the gross incompetence and corruption of post-British governments in India, India has never had a anything describable as a famine since the British.

Books like Mike Davis' "Late Victorian Holocausts" and the writigs on Indian famines of Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate economist, tell us something about the quality of British colonial rule.

John.

Ganpat Ram: You don't seem to have done too badly out of British rule yourself and you now live in an English speaking province of an ex-imperial dominion which is odd considering your extremly bitter attitude towards the very people who have made your present circumstances possible. It is also curious that you seem to have had no urge to return to an imagined downtrodden former colony to try to remedy the supposedly terrible injustices of which you speak. Perhaps Idi Amin was a touch worse than the hated British? My Ugandan friends have told me how the Indians in Kampala used to spit on the heads of Africans passing by, below their upstairs windows, and how miserably badly the same Indians treated them in the Indian shops. How tolerant and kind was that? Incidentally I do know Uganda myself and have experienced first hand the welcome of the people and the happy memories they have of the British.
Didn't Jesus say something about removing the beam from one's own eye before taking the mote out of someone else's? You only look at the worst possible side of British rule and never at the hugely positive side of it - do I have to keep repeating what I have said in many former contributions? Try reading a few less biased books and talking to present -day Ugandans including those who lived under British rule.