The original claim was that a “significant amount” of the brexit ads were xenophobic. That was clearly not the case.
Plus, I don’t agree that an position against unrestricted migration is necessarily “xenophobic” Nor that a position against unrestricted migration is a necessary part of a brexit voter and is absent for the pro-europeans.
I do not sit at the computer 24/7. I have just seen your post.
I never said that students were being misled. I noted that poor students in Britain are often directed toward courses that will result in lower paying jobs–something that occurs in the U.S., Germany, and other countries, as well. Such behavior is not directed against Muslims, but with a large percentage of Muslims among the poor, that group is affected by such actions, just as blacks in the U.S. have been similarly affected.
I do not claim that Britain is “misleading” all Muslims (or all poor kids) into poor paying career paths. I simply noted that the ways that education is run in many countries leads to that result and, in that way, the poor (and Muslim) of Britain parallel the poor (and black) in the U.S.
This exchange began with up_the_junction claiming that he could see no parallel between the issues of Pakistani immigrants in Britain and the black experience in the U.S. They are not the same and I would not claim that there are the same, but there are parallels. (Even up_the_junction’s implication that any problems are due to their own faults closely parallels comments in the U.S. regarding the black experience.)
I do think there was a lot of xenophobia in the leave campaign - not from everyone, of course - but actually I’m not 100% sure why it’s supposed to be relevant. The xenophobia was mostly against Eastern Europeans, who are generally not Muslim.
Tomndebb, in post 54 you did say that if you were wrong about the property thing, you’d withdraw it, but that kinda means it’s necessary for someone to point out that you’re wrong. Even when that was pointed out you claimed there were property restrictions after all.
When talking about problems Muslims face in Britain I’d say it’s better to focus on the actual problems rather than make quite strange and wrong assumptions about anti-Muslim laws.
I’m sorry, but I’m still baffled. What kinds of courses are you talking about? Do you have a cite?
No. I did not. up_the_junction claimed that Britain could not be discriminating because it followed EC protocols. I simply noted that such an argument was silly, given that other participants in EC standards found ways to violate them.
Having made no claim about anti-Muslim laws in Britain, I would guess that you are inferring things I have not actually said.
Novelty Bobble, you’ve posted on this board long enough to know nobody is convinced by debate in a day. I think this would be doubly true for a Dagestani bomb maker in an Egyptian prison. To his second lie, he claimed he had given up his extremist views while in prison, but that isn’t the case. He also took credit for “deradicalizing” an anti-Muslim bigot named Tommy Robinson, but it turns out Nawaz was paying him to make that claim.
Anyway, I have wasted way too much of my life on Nawaz. He is of little value. I criticized his views in this thread and you are saying I didn’t. That’s fine. I will leave it at that.
Regarding our instutions and defense against bad ideas. Yes, we have what we need. If a Muslim wishes to seek political office by supporting various ideas stemming from an extremely conservative view of Islam then they will fail based on the bad ideas.
Probably not. It is something I have inferred from several decades of reading about education in different countries–and the similarities in ways in which poor kids are treated. I have read the personal school experiences of people growing up poor in a number of countries–which are often closely parallel–but I do not have a study that indicates that poor kids are being shunted into poor paying jobs.
On a quick search, I did find this 
But it is too recent to be relevant to this discussion and is not actually on point regarding the wealth of the students’ families.
The Breaking Point poster wasn’t a Brexit advert?
Okay, I’ll put it this way: “the (undefined) bearers of the existing culture” meaning non-Muslims. Can you answer the direct question or not: Given current trends, can we expect England to be a country wherein the majority of the population is Muslim, or not?
So, there is no such thing as traditional British culture? The hijab has been a fixture of British culture? When people think Rule, Brittania!, they think hijabs and Sharia?
The Cultural Left’s deep self-hatred is saddening. I guess from your feeble answer I can expect to see Britain, and Europe from which my ancestors hailed, become yet another third world Muslim nest of hate and fury in years to come. Very very sad. So much will be lost.
No. Not remotely. This is not a thing that will happen.
It’s funny how “traditional culture” tend to be “the way things were when I grew up”. Cultures change. Kebabs and Indian food are now fixtures of “traditional British culture”. An insane amount of Americanisms have long since taken hold in British culture as well, particularly in popular music, television and film, as have elements of West Indian black culture. There are Polish delis all over my neighbourhood now (which is good if you like sausage) and a Polish section in my local Tesco. None of these are bad things.
And as elements of South Asian Islamic culture filter into British culture, British culture will be filtering into how those communities in the UK think and behave. And while they will hold onto those elements that they consider important to their faith, they will also become British, in the way that the Sikhs of Southall and the Jews of Golders Green have.
Also, of course, Islam is both more than just “hijabs and Sharia” and, most significantly, in many instances not even about hijabs and Sharia. Islam is as diverse in beliefs and cultural practices as Christianity, and runs the gamut from extremely conservative to extremely liberal.
(On a side note, the reference to “Rule, Britannia” is strangely apropos given that it was in part a response to a cultural clash caused by foreign types (the Georges)coming over here and imposing their laws on British society.)
This is entirely right-wing paranoid fantasy, like the claims of some that Birmingham and parts of London are “no-go” areas. There is far more “hate and fury” coming from the Islamophobes than there is from Muslims in the UK right now.
I (thankfully) have no idea what is possible within such circumstances, nor have you.
where has he claimed that? The consistent narrative from him was that he began his move away from extremism while in prison, not that he came out fully converted. At his PUBLIC press conference on his release and return to the UK he said…a direct quote
Who is making the claim about that? the same Tommy Robinson that now refutes his conversion and has swung back to an extremist point of view?
Whatever. If anyone has the slightest interest they can easily look back at the words you wrote and pick out, if they can, the criticism you made of his views. You could even cut and paste it here in reply and that’d be a slam-dunk wouldn’t it?
Are you saying that the bad ideas someone holds should be highlighted, debated and criticised in order to allow people to exercise their democratic rights to select a candidate or not? These “institutions” and “defenses” of which you speak are free speech, debate and democracy. No bad idea is above scrutiny, certainly not a religious idea. Do you agree with that?
The final fatality tally for jihadi attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan increased to 1,639, primarily fueled by victims who succumbed to their injuries.
With a total of 3,343 casualties, including 1,704 injuries, Ramadan 2017 is one of the bloodiest holy months in recent history. The number of deaths this year marked a nearly four-fold increase from the estimated 421 people killed by Islamic extremists last year.
There were nearly 160 terror incidents in about 30 predominantly Muslim countries this year, including one jihadi attack in the United States.
^^^ This is part of the problem. In the USA, I Can not think of one ethic group or religion outside of Islam that had numerous terrorist attacks.
So nations should have the right to limit or prevent immigration from Islam.
While I agree the majority of Islam has no problem, there is no denying a portion of it clearly does. That and Shria Law is is ANTI Western views in many cases, with the muslim immigrations valuing it over the culture of their new home land.
Let me propose two approaches to fighting intolerance toward the LGBTQ community.
#1 - I criticize Islam
#2 - I criticize intolerance toward the LGBTQ community
If I criticize Islam for its intolerance toward the LGBTQ community, I can expect those criticisms to be ignored and defended against by Muslims, and for others to call me a bigot who has no understanding of the construct “Islam” or the variation in attitude Muslims exhibit toward LGBTQ individuals. I will be left feeling confused because I thought these people criticizing me were my fellow ideological travelers, but now they seem somewhat regressive.
If I criticize intolerance toward the LGBTQ community then nobody would wrongly believe me a bigot, people who identify as Muslim might listen to my arguments, and my criticisms would address the broader population of people who are intolerant toward the LGBTQ community.
Since I would prefer the entire population of the UK or USA to show tolerance toward the LGBTQ community, I think the second approach would be far more effective than the first approach.
If my goal is to give people who want to express intolerance toward Islam a safe space in order to voice their concerns, then the first approach may be better.
Highly unlikely - and what sort of Muslims might they be anyway? I notice the totality of your reply simply doesn’t address the point: cultures change over time anyway. Every generation contains those who bemoan the loss of something “traditional” as it does so.
British, or English (they’re not always the same)? Whatever any generation thinks of as traditional British culture has some new adoptions and some seeming fixtures - until they’re not. For all I know, the same may be true of different Muslim cultures from different parts of the world as they adapt and change once settled in Britain. Certainly there are plenty of assertive British Muslim women who don’t wear traditional dress, just as there are plenty of English/Scottish/Welsh British people who no longer dress like they’re in a Jane Austen or Dickens novel, and not that many with the social attitudes to match. When people thought “Rule Britannia” in the 1890s, could they imagine the Beatles or the Glastonbury Festival or the singer whose name you borrow, let alone all the deeper social changes of the 20th and 21st centuries - the welfare state, anti-discrimination laws, and all the rest of it?
See above. It is not self-hatred to find the positive, and the patriotic, in social change and developments. Your own country - assuming you’re from the US - used to regard that as one of its proudest aspirations. And as for the assumption that all Muslims are and ipso facto always will be “third world”, a “nest of hate and fury” - it might be advisable to spend less time boning up on the apocalyptic rhetoric and a bit more actually reading in depth and thinking in depth about something you obviously don’t know much about.
I don’t know if you’re a little dyxlexic - I am- but you seem to have jumped from the European Convention (on Human Rights to ‘EC’, and you seem to assume from your own shorthand 'European Community.
I’ll be clear; the European Convention on Human Rights, as incorporated wholesale into UK legislation - is the cornerstone of equality rights across Europe, and most certainly in the UK.
As a matter of fact, you were unaware of that and on that basis I suggest you pull back all your extrapolated conclusions based on Pakistani taxi drivers and have a proper rethink.
This is the most amusing line of the thread. It’s really, so kind of you to consider the USA walks as an equal among nations struggling with cultural and institutional racism.
To pick up on this discussion of the Trojan Horse “scandal”, there’s aninteresting recent piece by one of the barristers in the case here, setting out the flaws in the case. It’s worth noting:
- The High Court found that the case against them amounted to “an abuse of justice”
- The government appears not to have understood its own guidance on prayer in state schools. Prayer is not merely permitted, nor even encouraged in state schools. It is mandatory.
For a largely Muslim school to organise Islamic rather than Christian worship doesn’t seem terribly strange on the face of it.
- It now seems to be the case that parents of Muslim pupils in the area are now, rather than sending their children to a school which both broadcast the call to prayer and took pupils on visits to upper-tier universities, choosing to homeschool their children. How that will effect integration remains to be seen.
Except for that last bit, welcome to the feeling others have whenever you talk about the US. Just take heart in the fact that tomndebb doesn’t talk about the UK constantly.
Those are not the only two ways of criticising intolerance towards the LGBTQ community. Nor are your scenarios the only possible outcomes. Your simplistic reading of the situation leaves you very little space for maneuver and only goes to reinforce the unspoken belief that a community with regressive beliefs can escape direct criticism as long as they wave the “religion” flag.
Pointing out the bad ideas and beliefs contained within religion is not bigotry in any way shape or form.
I think that Catholic teachings against contraception and the lack of equality for women in the faith are bad…it is not bigotry to point that out.
…most of whom were also Muslims. Why are you defining Islam by the attackers and not by the much more numerous victims?
There have also been more than 200 mass shootings in the US in 2017 alone, with hundreds of victims. Shall we judge Americans by this figure?
More than one? Hell, there was that loon who shot up a baseball field full of Congressmen recently and, as noted, a lot of other mass shootings by non-Muslims as well.
Bear in mind that while Islamic terrorism is a significant problem right now, it has not always been so. Islam has been around for roughly 1400 years; the rise in the Wahhabist fringe is a serious problem but it is not indicative of something intrinsic and unique to Islam. It wasn’t Muslims who popularized suicide bombings in the first place, and it wasn’t so long ago that good Christian folk were bombing innocent people (and The Troubles may not be over yet).
That conclusion does not remotely follow from what came before.
A portion of conservative white Christians also has a problem with extremist terrorism, to the point that the FBI considers it a greater threat to public safety than Islamic extremist. Perhaps we should also ban conservative white Christians from entering the country.
We’ve been over this with you. This is an ill-informed and incoherent argument.
In response to which groups are committing terrorism in the US besides Muslims, this link came up in another thread. It could do with more text, but it’s useful data.