h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes, more blatant in the US. Which begs the question of how the UK can avoid heading in the same fundamentalist direction.

Do you feel that the London bombings were used by any UK groups to manipulate fear?


>>The thing is...I think it's something of a manufactured insecurity<<

I think as well the the manufactured insecurity there is the inherent insecurity that people feel when faced with change, especially if they feel relatively powerless.

Kea , I think, mentioned why are people fearful, I think the problem is we have people on TV who often have a vested interest spouting about muticulturism being great for Britain, when the reality is what a reporter called Mr Malik showed in his documentary. He said there is what is called a thin white line in some inner cities. He said you get a large number of people moving into city centres from other countries, the shops, old churches get taken over, sometimes being turned into Mosques, the schools often turn into places where very few Englsh people go so English people move out of the city centre. More people from abroad move in to take the place of the English people so a thin line of English people slowly moves out of city centre, the line slowly moves further and further back creating a growing white line.
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People often speak of multiculturism being a great thing as there are curry takeaway shops, etc. However if you have lived in the same house for 50 years and everyone you grew up with has left following the thin white line and your nearest church is now a mosque and the only butcher sells Ha Lal (sp?) meat then perhaps multiculturism loses its shine a bit.....

" I am uncomfortable with how some people are making it an us and them situation"

Regarding the practice of Muslim women wearing a veil (BTW, is there any requirement that Muslim men wear any sort of distinctive garb or adornment that would identify them as Muslim?), at some point, distinctive garb crosses an ill-defined border and becomes a "uniform," analogous in many ways to a military uniform, for example. The whole point of wearing most types of uniforms is to identify the wearer with some particular functional group (police, airline flight crew member, etc.) or ideology.

If the "uniform" identifies the wearer as a Muslim, for example, then it becomes an issue of the role of Muslims in society and how people react to Muslims. Do they feel threatened by them? If so, how valid is that feeling? It seems eventually to come down to a question of whether being a Muslim is somehow fundamentally antithetical to harmonious participation in a predominantly non-Muslim society such as currently exists in Britain and the US. And perhaps ultimately it becomes a question of whether Muslims and non-Muslims can coexist peacefully on our planet. At the moment, the jury still seems to be out on this question. And I think it's not an open and shut case where the responsibility for that may lie.

And it's certainly not just a Muslim/non-Muslim issue, either. As I recall, Muslims did not play a major role in the now perhaps almost forgotten WW I and WW II. And look at Northern Ireland, as another example. Can human beings holding differing ideologies ever learn to coexist peacefully on our planet? History seems less than optimistic on this score. Unfortunately, as weapons of mass destruction become ever more widely available, the clock continues ticking down. Anything even approaching world peace is not guaranteed. Tranquility for ourselves and our spawn teeters on ever shakier ground. Will we ever learn to get it right while we still have the opportunity?

Incidentally, a tolerable outcome to all this might begin with something as simple as the golden rule.

>>Do you feel that the London bombings were used by any UK groups to manipulate fear?

I think it's a little more subtle than that. It's more The Madness of Crowds...and the pandering of politicians to that madness. There will be certain benefactors, of course...the BNP...and whatever mainstream party latches on most effectively to the usual, tough-talking agenda. Put it this way...John Reid and Jack Straw are no fools. Which way Cuddly Cameron will swing is up in the air. But he's an untrustworthy, shameless opportunist, and let's not forget who was the architect Howard's racist campaign.

>>As I recall, Muslims did not play a major role in the now perhaps almost forgotten WW I and WW II.

Point of information, JCN...not of great relevance, but interesting all the same...Indians served in the British military in huge numbers in both wars. In WWII they were the backbone of the Italian campaign and suffered particularly heavy casualties at Monte Casino. I make 8 from this list with identifiably Muslim names: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_Victoria_Cross_recipients. And then there were the units formed by the nationalist, Subhash Chandra Bose, who fought for the Japanese and Germans.

Afternoon SS

I think you are right.

Regrettably I started this thread on the BA issue. I wasn't arguing for or againss BA's dress code, rather I was trying to make the point that we have been brainwashed into allowing anything Muslim to go on in the name of multiculturalism - any dissenting voice haas in recent years brought forth cries of Racist!. These usually emanate from politicians or from those who haven't seen the thin white linw moving , have never been to a town where 30% are Asians - and thus cannot comrehend what that feels like.

And before I get howled down as a racist - it has nothing to do with race. It isn't even about religion either. What it IS about is the now large concentrations of followers of a certain section of a faith which fundamentally doesn't believe in democracy, and whose culture is so completely different from the indigenous mixed race society in which it exists.

There are areas of Northern and Central England's towns which are virtually no-go areas, certainly after dark, unless you are known there. Those who pretend that this isn't true should try it. Is this the way we hoped or expected the welcome of refugees/migrants to go?.

No it isn't. We were encouraged to open the UK doors and to embrace those who wanted to come here. What I hoped for, and expected was an absorbtion into our existing society, an acceptance of how we are governed and how we behave towards each other. A sort of mutual acceptance if you like, as has happend with previous waves of refugees . But this isn't happening, and any unease up to now has been labelled 'racist'

That is the crux of my starter post. A Christian symbol, in a nominally Christian secular society is seen as potentially 'offensive' regardlesss of how many legitimate complaints against the lady concerned with regard to her contract may be - whereas we are expected to accept the veil as a religious garment, without a question, and without comment.

It is this imbalance of view which is wrong, and which has lead to a society within a society. That cannot be healthy for the future.

Novo
(

Strangely Strange...

I agree that our cities are becoming intolerably ghettoised. So shouldn't the white people be asking themselves why thay can't live alongside Muslims? After all, it's not as if immigration works by people coming in from developing countries and paying over the odds for houses so that the native population can no longer live there. Incomers naturally gravitate towards the cheaper housing, in areas where prices have fallen as a result of 'white flight'. What is it about the (native) British that we won't get on with our neighbours?

Myself, I've not been fortunate to live in a single house for such a long period of time. My record is 11 years in my childhood home...and seven years in a multicultural area (40% Muslim). Having moved, I really miss the community. It was a lot friendlier and more vibrant than the suburban monoculture where I live now.

And what's wrong with halal meat? I admit that I don't eat meat however the beast is killed, but I've heard it can be as tasty as any. Even if not...I think you'll find that in many areas, small local butchers have disappeared for reasons entirely unconnected with immigration: Tescos.

There were also Muslims who fought for the Nazis as he thought their fanatical fight to the death mode suited his requirements, so it is swings and roundabouts.

What is wrong with Hal lal
meat is is killed without stunning the animal and cutting its throat and letting it bleed to death unstunned. If any other abatour killed without stunning the animals first they would be prosecuted.
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Well it is easy to say live together in harmony. There was another documentary called the Last White Boy In School, if I remember correctly, his was the only white family left in a large area and he was the only English boy left in his school. His sister was bullied into converting to Islam as she was picked on for being Christian and recieved racist comments. She said she wanted to convert then admitted she had done so to stop the bullying at her school, a school with few English children left. So she converted wore a head scarf and wasn't picked on anymore..

>>There were also Muslims who fought for the Nazis as he thought their fanatical fight to the death mode suited his requirements, so it is swings and roundabouts.

Ahem, SS. I *did* mention Chandra Bose. There were 2000 in the Nazi Tiger Division. The WWII Indian Army numbered 2.5 million, all volunteers, The biggest volunteer army ever. Tiny swing. Bloody big roundabout. (Not all Muslims, admittedly - but even now, India has the world's 2nd largest Muslim population, and in those days it included Pakistan and Bangladesh too).

novo:

Oh come off it! Is anyone actually saying that Christian symbols are offensive? Have BA said that? Even I, as you well know, an Atheist Fundamentalist, am not saying it. (...at least it's no more offensive than any other religious symbol). A similar issue came about last year with the 'alleged' banning of Christmas (as with many such stories, it was a tabloid fabrication). I recall Radio 4 phoning a Muslim organisation and asking them if they were offended by the celebration of Christmas. Their response was "Don't be silly." (Speaking for myself, obviously, I'd disestablish the church and ban the teaching of religion in schools, etc. etc. etc...but that's a separate issue.

It's damn clear to anyone that this BA issue has nothing whatsoever to do with Muslims...except to the extent that it has been latched on to for sinister and disreputable reasons. Surely Muslim BA personnel were simply minding their own business and then this nonsense came along?

SS:
1. Would you like to make the case that non-halal slaughter is humane? Ever been in one of Bernard Matthew's sheds? I'm not saying that halal is *better* - just Matthew 7:3.
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/mt/7.html

2. I'm reasonably convinced that for any case of a white child being bullied by his or her Muslim peers, I will be able to find you a counter example of a Muslim child being bullied. I'm not sure you can use your anecdotal evidence to support the argument that bullying and the singling out of difference by schoolchildren is a particular feature of Islam.

I am and always have been an avowed anti-racist. Racism never came up when I was growing up in a small Scottish town, because there was only one brown face out of 80,000. In the RN, I mixed with many cultures and colours and the strict regime of basic training bonded all of us regardless of background. We live in a divided society, where one section has good reason in their mind not to bond with the rest. Prior to 9/11, this was no multicultural heaven. P***-Bashing was a regular occurrence leading to a simmering resentment amongst all Asians. However, I vividly remember a street interview with a young Asian just after 9/11. He said, "Before 9/11, I was just another b***** P***, now I'm a Muslim". Said with pride I might add. From being rootless children of immigrants, despised by many and physically assaulted by some, Pakistanis especially have found an identity. It rather suits them that it is so radically different from British Society as it helps them feel part of something special.

Where will this lead us? Young Muslims have a certain justification to reject Britain, but they are not so stupid as to want to return to Pakistan. They strongly feel this land is theirs by right, their religion assures them of this, so suddenly they've gained roots they never had before. The more British Society rejects them, the stronger the temptation to follow the urgings of the hotheads to hit back.

Spot on about the no-go areas btw. I was in Dewsbury last week & ran out of cigars late in the evening. My Muslim boss insisted on accompanying me to the garage as there had been a lot of attacks on whites in the area. Two days beforehand, a young white girl had her throat slashed in the street and her boyfriend stabbed. She died)

Actually the banning of Christmas was not entirely a myth, they did a TV investigation into 10 of those type of stories last Christmas which I think I still have on a DVD somewhere as I love Christmas programmes so record a lot.
Anyway there was something about a council banning the word Christmas from towns decorations, it seems that an emloyee got a bit carried away with not offending some people and removed the word Christmas from design. He was found out and the design changed to include Christmas again before production began.
Of the 10 stories about Christmas some were misunderstandings but some were found to be partly true or examples of people being overzelous and not thinking things through and how it would be seen by the public.

No go areas are not limited by race or skin colour.

No matter what your skin colour, there are plenty of all white areas of UK towns where you can be robbed or attacked.

And a little Christian fish symbol on your car won't help you at all...



sprout

Hi Edward


I see my careful attempts to admit that the BA aspect was a red herring haven't penetrated yet, even though I must have put a caveat in 3 posts at least.

My whole point has been, or I tried to express it as, 'not what muslims think of other religions symbols' , but what 'we' think they might think and thus what 'we' must not do. It may be worth noting that the "Sainted Tony" said today that the wearing of the veil is not good for Muslim integration into UK society!

So I cannot be that far wrong then

Novo

Edward,
I was merely replying to a question of why white people don't stay in an area and move out in a thin white line. The girl was interviewed and admitted she was bullied into converting to Islam, I merely give her story of a reason of why some people may move out.
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I never claimed that animal stunning before slaughter is 100% effective, but at least to try to stun is better than refusing to do so at all, if I am to have my throat cut, I would rather someone at least tried to stun me first!

I agree Sprout, no-go areas are not race-specific. But it is naive to believe any attack on me in Dewsbury would not have been at least partly because of my skin colour.

Before I get accused of being a white male victim again, it is unlikely that any such attack would have been deemed a racist crime. A sad fact seems to be that only violence perpetrated by whites against coloureds is actually racist. An exception to this is the Kriss Donald case, possibly the most sickening racist attack of recent years.

Depends on the context, no?

You wander into Dewsbury. You are beaten up by someone of a different skin colour.

Is it because:

a) They were after your wallet
b) You're not from round here
c) you are white
d) you have a Scottish accent
e) They had a bad day and decided to take it out on someone
f) They wanted to impress their girlfriend

If they don't say much, unfortunately it can be difficult to tell...

sprout

SS...Yes...you should watch the programme again. If it's the one I'm thinking of, it was a rare moment of something approaching actual journalism from ITN. I seem to recall a high count of cases where the claim was utter garbage and maybe two in which, approached with a certain bias, there might at first appear to be prima facie case. Certainly there's no evidence that I'm aware of of the mass suppression of Christian symbols. There's certainly too much of the tosh in my kids' school. See also the famous banning of 'Baa Baa Black Sheep.' Everyone knows that story. Problem is...it never actually happened.

(btw...how effective to you reckon a captive bolt gun is in the hands of a poorly-trained abbatoir worker on minimum wage? Matthew, 7:3.)

SWL - don't fall over immediately, but I agree with you. You're right. We've never been a tolerant, multicultural heaven. We should be trying harder. My problem is that since 9/11, it's got *worse*, and it's unfair to lay the blame on a beseiged Muslim community. Naturally I am askance at anyone adopting a religious identity. However, I can quite see why it has become a badge of pride. "You ing Muslim" "Yeah, I'm a Muslim - want to make something of it?"

SWL
>>it is unlikely that any such attack would have been deemed a racist crime.

And we were getting on so famously.

First of all...check your law. The police are obliged to treat as racially motivated any crime that is reported to them as such.

Second...check your facts. There are proportionally more successful prosecutions for racially motivated crimes perpetrated by non-white aggressors against white victims than vice versa. This is not because there are more attacks. The (highly respected...but you've pooh-poohed it in the past) British Crime Survey shows an overwhelming proportion of non-white victims.