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

Interesting article on the story that prompted the original post...

http://marranci.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/the-dog-the-hat-the-police-and-muslims-in-dundee/

Malik knows exactly what he's doing, but he's just invoked the Godwin's Law of race relations. The vilification of Jews in Europe was led by the state. The media went along with it because it was dangerous not to. The exact opposite is occurring in the UK with Muslims, where the State bends over backwards to ensure equitable treatment but the media takes a different route.

Yes, many of the stories are fallacious and exaggerated, but they are believed not because people want to believe them but because they are consistent with proven behaviour in some Muslims.

Oh wow, another biased blog site. There's a novelty

Notice he doesn't explain the reason for the increased police action in 2006. To understand that, you need to know what was going on in Dundee at the time. In 2006, the Mohammad Zakariya School was closed down by the authorities. A girl's school, it was supposed to work to the national curriculum. It didn't. The 2 dozen or so girls actually were taught needlework, cooking and general housewifery tasks. No Maths, English or Sciences in sight. Closing it down caused a bit of upset within the Muslim "community". The Imam at the Hilltown Islamic Centre (funded by the Deobandi Sect) was briefly replaced by a younger chap from Dewsbury who, by all accounts was a bit of a firebrand. He had a mixed impact. He was the organiser of a protest march by Muslim students at Dundee Uni and a sit-in demonstration at Duncan of Jordanston. However, the older Muslim men in Dundee persuaded the Mosque Committee to reinstate the old Imam and things calmed down. It was during this period that the Police took an interest in what was going on in the Mosque and started questioning young Muslims.

Once again we see Muslim activism leading to a reaction, which somehow gets turned into accusations of victimisation.

After I posted my response and shut down the computer for the night, I realised that I should also have said that while Malik has a point about vilification, I also think that there's something dangerous and inappropriate in the comparison with Nazi Germany.

This isn't because of Godwin's law, but because I don't like exaggeration and the overuse of important moral touchstones. "Nazi", "Stalinist", "genocide", and "police state" all have very specific meanings, I don't think they should be cheapened or eroded by hyperbole. All sides can be guilty of it.

On the specifics of Dundee, I think your summary of the situation at that private school is a little unfair - it's not that maths, science etc weren't taught, more that they weren't taught properly. But based on that report it's unsurprising that the school wasn't registered/approved or whatever the process is.

http://www.hmie.gov.uk/documents/inspection/ImamMuhammadZakariyaScho.html

Thanks for that link Otto. I hadn't read the specifics.

One of the reasons I know a bit about the situation in Dundee is I'm pretty good friends with a shopkeeper in the Hilltown. At the birth of his 2nd daughter, I took a week's holiday from my own job & ran his shop. His wife had a difficult birth and there were complications. It was M who told me about the school.

Incidentally, there are many such schools in England. According to M, it's where parents send their kids if they feel they are going awry. Boarding fees are as low as £400 a year, with the balance being funded by the local Mosque. The parents don't see these schools as an educational resource, but as a place to remind the kids of their culture & religion. It works for the girls, but less so for the boys he says. The boys tend to rebel even more.

Hi Blicky,

I think you need to re read my post, then deal with the issue again. happy to debate with you, as always, but not on the basis of somethinhg I did not say.

Novo

Novo lets just have little look at what you said again.

"Posted By: novosibirsk - two eyes and two cats.

Evening All,

I think we have been here before, about two years back? None the less I would like to make a point or two.

The particular story in WA's initial post doesn't interest me , everything blown out of proportion by the media etcetera.

However there is a fundamental point here which perhaps the majority of posters can ignore. Without being racist I must admit to feeling a little 'uncomfortable' at the way some of the towns in the country have been fundamentally changed.

I would refer specifically to Bolton, a town I knew back in the 60's.
There are now significant areas almost entirely occupied by what posters refer to as a minority. They are not a minority there. I entirely acccept the reasons why, and the rights to live in communuties as various groups wish, but sometimes the changes brought about within the areas the minority consider as 'theirs' gives rise to a twinge of concern.

Such feelings are exacerbated by the drip drip of the persistent claims that we must respect their rights and their culture. Fine. But do we get the same consideration of the indigenous population's culture? No, we don't: it is always suggested that 'we' should be tolerant but I think it should work both ways.

Until all the cultures accept the basic values of the nation as a whole, there will be occasions where the sometimes great difference in views will offend one side or the other. We all need to accept change - that is how any society benefits from new cultures and new ideas - but it is not wrong to feel that some ideas are intolerable.

An example would be 'honour killings' which are unacceptable to us and which we call murder. These may be rare, but the treatment of some Islamic girls and women can only foster divisions, not heal them.

If you cannot grasp my point, I invite you to visit Bolton, or Bury or Bradford and compare these towns with say, Arundel or Axminster, or Wrexham and Whitstable





Why shouldnt anyone feel an attachment and call "theirs" in any place they have a right to live?

You miss a fundamental point predominantly ethnic minority communities are not created by the minorities they are created by economics and the choices of the dominant community. Along with this there are the longfortgottne by some racist unofficial policies of housing departments and their staff to put black and Asian families into the the worst stock on the worst estates. This is not a thing of such ancient history a few years ago I heard a radio 4 programme where estate agents admitted to telling asian prospective buyers that properties were sold when they were not for fear that they would get lower commissions if an influx of Asians lowered house prices.

More later as duty calls.

It's 'Alsatian', by the way.

Not like me to be pedantic on spelling. But has anyone else read Alasdair Gray's 'The Saddest Story In The World' which hinges on the mis-spelling of 'Alsatian'?

I shan't get dragged into this one, ta. There are lies, damned lies and lazy journalism. Here we have a manufactured story about a possible complaint by one possibly wrongheaded person. It says nothing about whether said person has cause to be worried about community-police relations in his area. It says nothing about a creeping Islamicisation that some no-brained eejits are determined to see wherever they look. It says much about a quiet news day while Westminster Village is in recess.

kthanxbai.

Do read Gray, btw. I'd recommend starting with 'Poor Things' - wiser that launching straight in to his masterpiece, 'Lanark'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alasdair_Gray

Damn! I said I was leaving well alone. However...

blicky:
>>I heard a radio 4 programme where estate agents admitted to telling asian prospective buyers that properties were sold when they were not for fear that they would get lower commissions if an influx of Asians lowered house prices.

The racism happens in the nice, white areas.

Two illustrations:

Years ago, during the Great Negative Equity, I was forced to rent out a house. The buffoon of a letting agent tried to sound me out on whether I'd want to limit my tenants to the less attractively hued thus:

'Last week I rented a place to Labi Sifre...'

On a more amusing note, a Zimbabwean friend was binding it difficult to buy near Cambridge. He hatched a plan. He'd pick out an attractive village and go knocking on a few doors:
'Hi! I'm thinking of buying around here. What are the neighbours like?'
And everyone would go,
'Shit! A black man moving in!'
And the prices would tumble.

'course this wouldn't be racism. Just honest concern about property prices. Everyone has to move on before the collapse - no offence, like.



novo...

You're a reasonable man. Is it really a surprise that communities change? I used to live in Glasgow's Pakistani community. Fifty years ago, it was a Jewish community. Last week I noticed it's got a Polish shop.

Sure...some people (*some* people) find it hard to adjust...but when I hear it said that Bolton/ Blackburn/ has changed out of recognition, I have to see passive racism at work.

You know what...those communities had already changed. The mills closed a while ago. But who ran the mills? Not an indigenous Lancastrian/Yorkshire monoculture but a cosmopolitan mixture including Irish, East Europeans, French, Afro-Caribbeans. Don't be fooled by the Gracie Fields films!

Hell...go back 140 years and you'd have seen mills owned and run by German concerns such as Engels GmbH

I wondered if you had seen this story, again about muslims and dogs. In this one the imam seems to have more sense than the police.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4276489.ece

I cant help thinking that both sides are stokeing the same fire here . The radical muslim will object to something on religious grounds knowing that it will be siezed uppon by the daily mail etc. and be used to wind up its readership , like shooting fish in a barrel . The daily mail etc is allways on the lookout for just such stories .
It is ironic that both sides , on the face of it polar opposites are try to achieve the same goal ie. conflict and mistrust between each community .

best fishes......tod

Morning Edward,

Good to hear from you again. I honestly confess that I had never thought I was Guilty of 'passive racism'! I am genuinely not racist in my feelings , as you will know from past comments on this kind of thread - but I suppose the wish not to see large chunks so radically changed makes me so.

I'll have to rethink this. Thanks for the observation. BTW I think I have always accepted the need to embrace change, perhaps it is the degree ?

I expect Blicky will have a point to make in similar vein!

Novo

Hmm passive racism dont buy it you are an active racist.

Not the worst and not someone I cant honestly like despite your racism. You should have heard some of the language my grandfather used to use about me and according to all of his jealous daughters and granddaughters there was no one he dotted on more than his first grandson.

Still going around adding to the unthought through weight of resentment and suspicison under which ethnic minorities have to live is active racism.

Your post makes the people left in an area the ones guilty for taking it over as if it were some kind of hostile invasion when the blame lies full square on the shoulders of those who ran out as soon as they could.

Hi Blicky,

Point taken. As I posted to Edward, it is not an active thought on my part, rather a regret at the change, but I accept that in itself it constitutes an unworthy line of thought.

Again, (as to Edward), I'll have to rethink on this, because it must seem odd that I can say (honestly) that I have no racial or colour prejudice, and I earnestly wish for greater integration into one nation, so logically I should have no complaint.

Criticism accepted.

Novo

From the article Xanatic linked:

'Caroline Kisko, of the Kennel Club, said: "We would not condone any attempt to make search dogs wear special clothing, which could cause them distress."'

Gimme a break! Same article says that dogs wear booties when there's broken glass about. Some people even dress their pets in booties for...fun.

NOTE: I am in no way accusing Ms Kisko of anything here. She was, doubtless, answering an innocent question from a journo with an angle to grind. I'll bet nobody even mentioned Muslims to her.

Folks - a little media literacy, puhLEASE. This whole therad is full of non-stories. It was started by one. There is NOT a sinister campaign by nasty brown skinned beardies to take away the freedoms of the Stout Yeopersons of Olde England and make us eat their nasty, garlicky food.

>>Again, (as to Edward), I'll have to rethink on this, because it must seem odd that I can say (honestly) that I have no racial or colour prejudice, and I earnestly wish for greater integration into one nation, so logically I should have no complaint.

Well Malcolm X said something about the first step being to recognise the racism within ourselves. The important thing is to recognise (unlike at least one poster in this thread) that there is nothing 'natural' or inevitable in that racism.

In Northern Exposure (remember that), the ex-astronaut character was disturbed to discover that he had a half-Korean daughter. DJ Chris gave him these words of comfort:
'If it's any help...your racism is a learned attitude. That means you can unlearn it.'

Ah yes, food.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/education/2261307/Toddlers-who-dislike-spicy-food-racist%2C-say-report.html

Toddlers who dislike spicy food 'racist'

Nice people don't read the Telegraph. End of.

Anecdotally...

Our childminder took my eldest two to a diwwali party at their nursery, aged three. They were tucking in to the pakora and samosas, so she tried some. Blew her mouth off! Now I'm certain she's not a racist. (in fact she has a multiracial family of her own - plus I could namedrop the prominent political family she's a member of). I also note that she drinks tea and coffee which I would regard as gnat's-piss-going-on-dishwater.

What is it you're trying to demonstrate here, SWL? That that's some kind of pernicious campaign by the beardie brownskins in tandem with gullible social workers to brand everyome a racist? Or what?

Incidentally...you do seem to keep a remarkably full cuttings file on the topic...