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

BluesShark, I actually agree in that you shouldn't do things to "feed the trolls", at least if that's not the only thing you want to do.

Actually, I think - and a lot of media analysts here say that atm - the current riots, demonstrations and threats are not caused by the shock of the drawings; not directly anyway.

As omeone here said, "if they're truly shocked, it's the slowest shock ever" - the drawings were in one Danish newspaper, 4 months ago. Yes, they have spread in a lot of newspapers now - but only after the first wave of riots.

Rather, there have been somebody interested in creating these riots - the most common theory aired is that it is used as a very convenient vent for anger caused by all different things. "A common and external (and small) enemy" - not the first time in history to use that one.

A handful of imams went from Denmark to the Middle East to show and discuss the drawings. I am not sure that they meant to create this mess, it could very well have been a sympathy-gathering trip that went out of hand. But it seems that they were the ones to show not only the actual 12 drawings but also some quite worse. And several papers in the region, after their visits, reported blatantly wrong and exaggerated stories, like one about the Danish government funding a movie that should on purpose belittle Islam and Mohammed

One of the imams have later been caught redhanded on TV - first, to Danish TV, saying that the boycot and riots was a sad thing that did not help their case or cause and then, on an Arab channel, saying that the boycot etc in the Arabk countries and the fight against Denmark made him happy.

Lastly, as the zombietime site shows clearly, Mohammed has been pictured over and over again during years and decades, if not centuries. Why is this case suddenly a call for demonstrations, flag burning and what's worse?

It could be partly self-inflicted because there has been a focus on the tone of the immigration debate in Denmark - again, sadly, Denmark has not been very good at welcoming people from other cultures.

There are two parts to this in current times - partly, Danes on average (in my personal view!) are not good at welcoming change and cultural change even less and thus we end up being very "us vs them" But the more recent fear of muslims, I believe, is actually to a certain extent inflicted on the loads of peaceful and law abiding muslim immigrant by the few extremists. Every time bombs go off, a lot of people tend to shut the "foreign" a little more out.

But I actually think it is also because Denmark is rather small and "safe" to rally against. Safe target for venting anger at...

>>When Abu Hamza calls for a Caliphate in the West, we are told that he is an extremist, but he is actually voicing a very real desire of a large number of Muslims<<

Really? Where do you get your figures from? Living in one of the largest Muslim communities in Britain, I've never heard those sentiments from people.

>>Mohammed is now one of the most popular names for babies in the UK<<

The government disagrees: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/specials/babiesnames_boys.asp
Mohammed comes in at 23, actually lower than it came in 2004, 2003 or 2002. All the top 10 are Judeo-Christian names, in fact all but three of the top 100 are Judeo-Christian or Celtic names. Even relatively common Muslim names like Ahmed don't make the list. For girls not a single traditional Muslim name makes the top 100.

I agree that the BBC has gotten its policy very wrong here and, given its insistence on showing Jerry Springer: The Opera an equally controversial piece, it has come across as being slightly hypocritical.

Race hate laws aren't stopping us from expressing our concerns, they're stopping people from encouraging violence against one group or another. As I've said in another thread I'm in favour of these laws, provided they are precisely worded enough to prevent misuse and abuse. I can still go out and say I dislike Islam because of its treatment of women, or Christianity because of its treatment of gay people. What I can't say is that we should attack Hindus because of the caste system and I'm glad of that.

<>

23rd out of how many thousand options?

For every hundred boys born, at least 4 are called Mohammed.

Does this 4% represent the demographics in the UK?

<>

I have no figures because no one is asking the question. But I tell you what, next week I will visit 50 of my former customers (all Muslim) and I will ask if they would prefer the UK to be a Muslim State. I'll then post the results here. If I'm wrong, I'll eat humble pie.

In return, is someone prepared to ask 50 Christians if they would like the UK to be a Christian State?

Actually, I just checked your link and it is rather disengenous. There are three variations of spellings of Mohammed, giving a much higher percentage.

Mohammed (and the variants) is the most popular name in the top 100, being listed three times.

www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1427601,00.html

Fifth most common in 2004

>>In return, is someone prepared to ask 50 Christians if they would like the UK to be a Christian State<<

It already is - have you not noticed that most of the major holidays in Britain are Christian festivals? Or that most of our laws derive from Christian morals. Or that our head of state is the head of this nation's church?

>>23rd out of how many thousand options<<

I think you've missed the point somewhat, the 23rd wasn't refering to percentages. I'd be amazed if in the country as a whole 4% of lads were called Mohammed. Plus *97%* of the other names were Judeo-Christian or Celtic. That's a stupidly huge majority.

That statement doesn't stand up to statistical analysis either, Struggling. Without knowing the proportions given each name, such an assertion is..er...just an assertion.

Interesting how many of the top 20 are Old Testament names, though...

RF

<>

Old Testament or both Old and New? John, Peter, James, Matthew, Paul, Timothy, etc are all New Testament names. David is an OT one.


az

I think there are more OT women's names: Rachel, Esther, Rebecca, Sarah . . . not sure if Mary is OT or NT.


az

I'm gonna go with the government rather than the Times, if that's all the same with you. As for the three variants of Mohammed, I'll repeat, they aren't percentages.

The Times article says that all variants of Mohammed accounted for 5,358, with the UK census data saying there were 716,000 (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=951) so Mohammed et al would be about 0.75% of total births. Not a staggering percentage

Are all children who are registered at birth with the name Mohammed actually called this in day-to-day life? I'm just wondering because, until recently, it was a law in Spain that all children had to be named after a saint. I believe that law no longer exists. And so, you get people with double names, mostly including Maria or José, but in RL they end up using the other part of their double name. Though, come to think of it, most Spanish names tend to also be saint's names. I think after the law was changed there was a sudden burst of 'soap opera' names for kids.


az

As much as any kid named Ryan or Ian at birth is likely to use that name later in life. It's all about personal preference really, when I was in my teens I started using my middle name for a while before reverting to my first name. There's definately not the Spain situation

I was just wondering if the Muslim way of naming children was similar to the Spanish one. So if a boy was legally called Mohammed Abdul for tradition's sake and then went by the name Abdul, this might account for the high statistics of Muslim children being named Mohammed.

az

Az - I think that's right: Muslim boys are pretty much always (?) given the name Mohammed but use another name (their second, I assume).

Well, I've also met plenty of Mohammeds, Trin, so I don't think they always choose the second name to go by. But it would make sense that this would tip the scale in terms of name statistics.


az

>>I don't think they always choose the second name to go by<<

No, right I think there's some sort of formal aspect to using the name as well (Mohammed on certain occasions, something else on others).

Where did all the 'Jack's come from? Why is that so popular all of a sudden?

<>

Titanic?

Noggin

Oh, my - that's probably right, isn't it?

The point in raising the naming of children Mohammed is to raise awareness that we have a growing segment of society who are Muslim. Although currently a small percentage of the whole, a disproportionate amount of media attention and political capital go to this ethnic grouping.

<>

(England's church, not the nation's)

Yes, so why do politicians, local authorities, schools etc ban the use of terms like "Happy Christmas"? To avoid causing offence to a minority, ignoring the fact that by so doing they offend the <>.

The actions of the BBC over a cartoon mirror this whole issue. It seems that the majority must put aside their beliefs, traditions and values in favour of alien religious zealouts who seek nothing less than the overthrow of the state. If a stand isn't made for our own belief system, it is a surrender to those who would subjugate us. The press were right to print the cartoon as it actually makes the valid point that the suicide bombers portray Islam to be a terrorist religion. That may or may not be true, but that is the perception amongst a significant proportion of people in the UK, the ones referred to here as "trolls" and "white van man". Are their views not valid?

Did anyone ever ask the electorate; "Do you want a multi-cultural society?"

<>

Does freedom of speech "oblige" the BBC to publish something? Or in taking the decision that it offends without having a positive benefit are they merely exercising their right to make judgements about whether they publish something or not?

Noggin