Time to hold my hands up. As someone from an Irish Catholic Family, we did very little to publicly denounce the IRA. I suppose that means that tacitly we were all broadly supportive of what they were up to
Time to hold my hands up. As someone from an Irish Catholic Family, we did very little to publicly denounce the IRA. I suppose that means that tacitly we were all broadly supportive of what they were up to
Sorry As someone who has (honestly) actually felt the blast of an IRA bomb (M6, 1997) I accept your apology.
However, as others have said, the IRA and extremist Muslim groups have very different aims and agenda. The IRA never sought to change the laws, customs and the very democracy the whole of the UK and the rest of the world live in, they merely wanted certain things for Northern Ireland/Eire.
No real point to make, but found this interesting in terms of how easily anyone can potentially be radicalised (to any viewpoint) and how easy it is to twist and shape opinion on such events.
Was discussing Paris with my Year 7 form this morning in a school with a VERY low number of non-white english students. All but one of them denounced the actions of the nutters but one lad (white, working class) was adamant that they were right to believe in something enough to die for it even if that meant killing others too. Only one in 30, but extrapolated lazily that’s 50 students in this school already open to the ideas of extremism…
Conversely (and more positively), only one student answered “because they’re Muslim” to the question “why do you think they did it?” – he was soon put in his place (by his classmates, not by me).
I’ve read and watched quite a few things today that gave me pause for thought.
The first is a BBC interview which I think was recorded some time back – it reflects a balance of views from young british muslims but two of the participants are quite comfortable articulating views that to me at least are fairly abhorrent and not compatible with the secular democracy that most people in Britain value. My concern isn’t whether their views are representative – surveys have already told us they are, more what kind of future is in hold for our society if we continue to allow these views to propagate:
The second thing I wanted to share is an audio blog from atheist journalist Sam Harris who appears to be well respected and writes for many of the world’s best news publication. His analysis IS not of the last week’s outrages in Paris, Kenya or Lebanon but again poses some very difficult questions that I’m not sure we as a society are necessarily ready / willing to answer:
The audio blog is quite long but well worth a listen and I’m genuinely interested in any reading any reactions from STW, either for or against the argument he’s making
I’m trying to work out if the islamophobic types on this thread that repeatedly ignore facts in order to support their bigotry are actually closet white supremacists
The government (understandably) cannot get their heads around the fact/deal with the fact, that they are up against an ideology.. It doesn’t have a central point to go and kill (like a Hollywood villain lair)..its an ideology that is internalised anywhere on the globe…and then secular groups perform their own acts….it’s pretty scary really…
All but one of them denounced the actions of the nutters but one lad (white, working class) was adamant that they were right to believe in something enough to die for it even if that meant killing others too. Only one in 30, but extrapolated lazily that’s 50 students in this school already open to the ideas of extremism…
That’s exactly why the armed forces puts so much effort into visiting schools. But obviously killing people for a belief in Queen and country isn’t extremism…it’s noble, brave and honorable.
@Colournoise – you might want to see what they teach the children in Syria. “Jihad. Jihd. We are going kill the Jews”. It’s ironic that what they are actually going to do is mainly to kill other Muslims
But obviously killing people for a belief in Queen and country isn’t extremism…it’s noble, brave and honorable.
Careful now. That sort of logical leap will just confuse people. Funnily enough I remember the army coming in to school. All I remember is some Dad’s Army type with a massive moustache banging on about how we were being invaded by the IRA, and how if you joined the army you got to do all sorts of cool things like skiing and mountain climbing. Getting your legs blown off to protect the profits of a few oil and arms companies wasn’t mentioned for some reason.
As expected, there’s a tremendous quantity of bollox spouted on this thread. In the interests of trying to find some constructive way forward, I though this was interesting …
5,000 extra police posts in the next two years and no new cuts in the defence budget
Making it easier to strip dual nationals of their French citizenship if they are convicted of a terrorist offence, as long as this did not render them stateless
Speeding up the deportation of foreigners who pose “a particularly grave threat to the security of the nation”
Pushing for greater European action against arms trafficking and greater penalties for it in France
As I posted I seen numerous comments in the media and heard directly that the Muslim community particularly in Europe must do much more than it has been that it fully supports the open, free, democratic life we enjoy here and fully buy in to the value system which we have.
I’d like to see more bigots, cynics and spineless politicians do more to say that they support the open, free, democratic life we enjoy, seeing as it’s them that seem so resolute about flushing it down the toilet with swathes of ill-considered oppressive legislation.
As has been pointed out they’re very clear what they want, and it’s totally bonkers. They even have a five year plan including rather bonkers map of what countries they aim to have control of in five years.
All the background to them is there in the links already posted in this thread. I wish everyone would read it so they understand who they are, rather than picking up soundbites from facebook or the press that feed the ignorance.
nostoc – Member – Block User
“I didn’t like Saddam, but at least we didn’t have war. When you came here, the civil war started.”
Bullshit. Maybe sincerely believed, bur bullshit.
A lot of them believe it, and they were the ones who lived through it:
This whole experience has been very familiar indeed to Doug Stone, the American general on the receiving end of this diatribe. “He fits the absolutely typical profile,” Stone said afterward. “The average age of all the prisoners in Iraq when I was here was 27; they were married; they had two children; had got to sixth to eighth grade. He has exactly the same profile as 80 percent of the prisoners then…and his number-one complaint about the security and against all American forces was the exact same complaint from every single detainee.”
JY No India. I was going to put that in the original post but I was interested to see who would jump to conclusions. Decades of violent conflict before and after the partion of India has lead to very entrenched attitudes on both sides. The slaughter of many Indians at the Kenya Mall siege and the Mumbai attacks is symptomatic.
This is part of the problem. In this thread there are two seemingly coherent, well researched articles which hold opposing views. The one DrJ posted says (interestingly, like the French muslims I work with) that ISIS are thugs/criminals interested in power who have co-opted their religion and convinced undereducated and easily influenced people that it’s about religion. The other, I CBA to search through the thread until i find it, tells us it’s a real religious movement and needs to be addressed as such.
Whilst it’s not uncommon to find opposing views of the same thing, when neither of these are particularly supportive of ISIS (although the latter comes closer), it’s concerning that nobody can decide whether it’s fish or fowl. We can’t really dismantle ISIS (beyond killing them all and letting the god of your/their choice sort em out) without understanding what it is we’re dismantling otherwise elements of it will develop into something worse or at least different as it’s hard to imagine what worse would look like.
interference by the “west” and suppression of democratic movements (propping up Shah and then supporting Hussein) was certainly one of the causes of the Iran-Iraq war, but not the only one.
irc – Member – Block User
“I didn’t like Saddam, but at least we didn’t have war. When you came here, the civil war started.”
Bullshit. Maybe sincerely believed, bur bullshit.
Correct. Iran Iraq war. Around 1.25 – 1.5 million casualties for starters. Short memories.
Or someone too young to remember that war, as opposed to Gulf 2
@atlaz IS is just a more virulent form of an Islamist fundamental movement. In reality there are many, Al-Q, Al-Shabib, Taliban, Hamas, Al-N etc. Have a look at the last Vicenews video I posted. It’s my contention such behaviour exists throughout the world, perhaps not as publically but the attitudes and education certainly do.
JY No India. I was going to put that in the original post but I was interested to see who would jump to conclusions.
No one jumped to any conclusions as only I replied and that was to take the piss.
I think I will go with the forum consensus though and just ignore your views but hey thanks for the balance 😀
