As someone who devotes much energy to battling Islamophobia, it is important equally to oppose false cries of Islamophobia whenever any Muslim group is thwarted. Otherwise “Islamophobic” will become a meaningless pejorative just as “Anti-semitic” is thrown at any rational critic of Israel.
Having looked at the dispute over Camberley Mosque, I feel that it is the Bengali community which is acting with gross insensitivity. They wish to pull down a listed Victorian building to build a mosque. I would oppose that were the proposed replacement a mosque, synagogue, church or Tesco.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/surrey/8561342.stm
The old scholl has in fact been in use for many years as an Islamic centre. There is no threat to that. It is demolition of the building which is objected to.
It strikes me that the very large and sturdy building looks ideal for sympathetic internal conversion to make it a better mosque. Failing that, the community can do what anybody else has to do whose needs have outgrown a listed building, and move the mosque elsewhere.
I encountered a similar arrogance and insensitivity from some members of the Muslim community while campaigning on Whalley Range in Blackburn, when I was faced with a demand that a pub close to a mosque be closed down. I replied that the pub had been there for over a hundred years before the mosque.
The deliberate spread of fear and hatred of Muslims by politicians, media and security services is a real problem. But what we must insist is that Muslims are treated both no worse and no better than anybody else.
“UGHH! That’s horrible”
It is rather, isn’t it ? I’m sorry.
But, they started it ! I never liked planes anyway.
I have never voted, and never will.
All a bunch of lying bastards.
My solution to the mess I see around me is immigration.
Yes, every country have their problems, but few have the problems of this country.
Arsalan I think you mean emigration. Where can we go? I sometimes feel that I am on that yellow brick road with my little dog looking for the Emerald City!
I was going to go to Syria, but then I decided on UAE because I have a friend there who keeps telling me my family can stay with him and his until we get our selves settled.
I have a feeling that there will be concentration camps in the UK and my family will be amongst the first to enter them. Europe has a tradition of concentration camps and extermination, the UK is not exception.
And when the worst does come to pass, and Muslims are loaded up on to cattle trucks. They will all plan to rush out as soon as the train stops, so they can caste their votes for Labour before it is their turn to enter the gas chambers. Because who knows, if they don’t vote Labour, the Conservatives might get in, and their gas chambers might be worse.
We might try and show them it doesn’t make much of a difference whether it is a Labour government or a Conservative government putting them in the gas chambers, but they will reply, “You have to vote for the top two parties or else the BNP might get a seat and they hate us!”
Labour’s supporters will say none of this is Islamophobic. While the opposition complain about the amount of money Labour is wasting on all those trains they have commissioned to transport Muslims to the death camps while ‘Our boys’ who guard the camps have to pay for their own train tickets to get to the camps. They will complain about how Muslims get to stay at the camps for free, While “Our Boys” who guard the camps and exterminate the Muslims within them have to pay for their own hotel rooms. They will demand better pay for “Our boys” and state the supporting ‘Our boys’ isn’t supporting the extermination of Muslims, that ‘our boys’ exterminate. They will also criticise the Muslims in the concentration camps for not supporting ‘our boys’. They will tell them that those Muslims should support ‘Our boys’ who exterminate them, they should be grateful to ‘our boys’ for serving ‘our country’. They will state that if Muslims have a problem with being in concentration camps and being gassed, they should blame the politicians and not ‘our boys’ who are only doing their duty. All the moderates will line up to become concentration camp guards to show their people of this country that not all British Muslims are unpatriotic extremists who hate our boys, many are obedient citizens who will show Britain that their loyalty lies with the government and not with Islam and Muslims. They will do this cheering on ‘our boys’ while ‘our boys’ exterminate Muslims, even when our boys exterminate the moderates own families. They will make excuses such as, “It is all the fault of the extremists who hide among law abiding Muslims, how would Our boys know the difference”. These moderates will even smile and express support for our, when our boys are killing them! That will be the last words of these Moderates in Qullam and other organisations while they are being gassed by our boys, “We love you and thank you for serving our country by gassing us”.
Scimitars, gaschambers. I reckon explosives are a greater worry. All of them, I’m not taking sides.
Richard maybe not gas chambers, but things aren’t going to get any easier for Muslims here whoever people vote for.
Ladies getting beaten up by knuckle dragging skinheads, and families being burnt by petrol through letter boxes is something that already happens.
So come to think of it, Gas chambers do seem less painful than what currently happens.
Whether this country does resort to gas chambers, or continues to expand on the Petrol letter box together with the Hijabi/Niqabi beating things, I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to keep my family here to find out.
I’m off as soon as my son is well enough to fly, whose coming?
1970: England. Asians being ‘bashed’, houses being strewn in excreta, systemic discrimination against blacks, Asians in jobs, mortgages, everything.
1966: Glasgow, Scotland: excreta being shoved through our Jewish friends’ front doors every Easter and systemic discrimination against Roman Catholics.
It’s not new, this psychosis of Europe’s and its hallucinated ‘Other’. It’s just that the loculation of ‘The Other’ shifts.
Wherever one goes in the world, one can spot similar dynamics of tribalism; it seems this is hardwired into us, probably as a societal survival mechanism. Now it threatens the planet with nuclear holocaust.
People must make up their own minds, to the extent any of us can, about the direction of their lives. One might intone, cod-heroically, “Stay and fight!” But I know that some see the clouds darkening. Of course, the exertion of hegemony is global: one cannot run. There is nowhere to hide. The worker-bees (and their drones) are everywhere.
And wherever one goes, somewhere, there will be an-Other. In a kind of reverse fantasy, some people like to construct themselves into that Other. As the Jews of Europe discovered in WW2, though, it may well make no difference. One is cast into one’s fate by the lunacy of the mob. Still, one can see that it might be more comfortable if one is not that ‘Other’ wherever one goes…
I have no intention of becoming the oppressor, but I am not staying here to find out what they are going to do to the “Other”, before it is someone else’s turn to be the “other”.
I would prefer to fight for other peoples rights somewhere else, then fight for my own here.
This country is clearly going to get a lot worse before there is any hope of getting better.
The excuse they are using to smash in doors, and drag out women and children in their underwear is terrorism. But that is just the excuse for that activity. To stop the Mosque the excuse was heritage. They use yet more excuses to ban Hallal in Schools, Hijab in the work place and Niqab where ever they want.
It is all just an excuse, but I believe the line has been crossed.
In the past people posted poo through letter boxes without government approval. When it comes to the Mosque, the ruling party plus the opposition have clearly stated where things are and where they are going to. They agreed to the Mosque until the Nazis of the EDL said they were unhappy with it,
They you think this will be the last time they cave in to Nazi demands?
Do you think they will only obey the Nazi at the local level, or will they also obey them at the national level?
And the EDL are Nazis, you can see them doing Nazi solutes every time they are photoed.
Those of us who have memories longer then this current open season on Muslims, remember their names and faces chanting support for the gas chambers and the extermination of Jews. We remember them calling for Gas chambers here. But back then they were taken as nutters to be ignored and arrested, but now they are swing voters who are obeyed and served.
Will the government end their obedience to the Nazis when it comes to their demands against Mosques, or will their longstanding demand for gas chambers also be obeyed? with the slight amendment that they should be filled with Muslims and no longer Jews?
You’re not wrong. But remember Enoch Powell, and the sustained way both the main political parties courted the racist vote over a period of years? The NF used to hold mass rallies in London and elsewhere. The dockers marched in support of ‘Enoch’. Now, if they did that, one half of London would rise up and smash them. The EDL have a millionaire businessman behind them and I suspect they are a hard state front. Remember Margaret Thatcher and “swamping”? Remember Rhodesia and sanctions-busting? Aden and Mad Mitch? Yes, I know the demise of the genuine, organised internationalist Left has led to a vacuum in terms of leadership willing to smash fascism at the grassroots in a strategic manner on the streets and in the town halls. This is a major change. The hard state uses the Far Right for its own purposes, as you know – nil new there. It’s aligned with aggressive imperialist wars now, and the international ant-colonial movement is no more. This applies everywhere, not just the UK. Don’t let the b…. get you down!
Suhayl – “one can see that it might be more comfortable if one is not that ‘Other’ wherever one goes”.
Yes. and, sort everything into polarised monoliths, then we can *really* go to town with the Us And Them ?
The Other does shift. At the moment, ‘Islam’ is a particular focus because we do actually have theoreticians of various factions offering various flavours of holy war, for or against. But then back in the day we had Enoch Powells offering support for othering a different other. Are black people not getting shit for being black any more ?
The manipulative theoreticians are the really dangerous bastards, of course, but on ‘the street’, I find it hard to imagine a bunch of thugs giving someone a rigorous theological examination before deciding whether they need a good kicking, I suspect it’s a lot more to do with being visibly not like them; or testing someone’s feminist credentials before a rape … be part of the monolith, or else.
Heroic ‘Stay and fight’, etc. Maybe the question with that is not how much power one has here (little enough, fuck knows), but whether one would have any more anywhere else ? There must be difficult decisions there, and purely personal. Short of that, it might be possible to find a ‘safe place’ and keep your head down and, by great good luck, not have the scimitar-wielding steamrollers of history do their thing on your lawn but how to guess where ? I had friends who moved to New Zealand when Thatcher came to power. I hope that was far enough, but it’s not very big …
Arsalan – “So come to think of it, Gas chambers do seem less painful than what currently happens.”
I don’t want to agree that there’s anything to be said in their favour at all.
Ancient music is not all harmless nostalgia. Anybody remember Linton Kwesi Johnson’s ‘New Crass Massakkah’ ?
Anyone heard Etruscan music? I’m interested in what it might’ve sounded like.
This is from ancient times and I like it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUSYb3igXzI
“Anyone heard Etruscan music? I’m interested in what it might’ve sounded like.”
What, from before the ancient Romans stomped them ? Wooo. Anybody’s guess, I guess.
I’ve heard it alleged that Nero’s instrument was really the bagpipes, if that helps ? No, it probably doesn’t, I suppose.
Anybody else hear that thing on the news, Vicar refuses to allow a bunch of old biddies to do their Tai Chi in his church hall, because it comes from a different religion and he can’t be having competition ?
Lucky he nipped that one in the bud, eh ? “Gentle exercise”, who do they think they’re fooling, do they think we don’t know it’s a martial art ?!?!? Old ladies, so what, we all know about them, that Boudicca, she was a long time ago, wasn’t she ? See ? Bloody liberals, mustn’t offend the old dears, break yer arm with one swipe of their knitting needle !! Give ’em an inch and they’ll be coming for you, scimitars sticking out of the sides of that girt big roller thingy, by the time you hear the steam it’ll be too late !!!!!
There should be a few capitalised words somewhere, but I don’t like them.
Richard
Do you know of any Tai Chi classes for children in London?
Arsalan – no, I’ve no idea, sorry.
getting irrelevant again, let me count the ways … London is a couple of hundred miles away and I haven’t been there for maybe 15 years. I have no children. And I don’t do Tai Chi.
Look out for the steamrollers.
I bet I could organise a Tai Chi class for children in my Mosque if I could find a teacher. Currently they only have a wing chung class for women.
Do you have more details about the church or teacher, so I can put the teacher in touch with the Mosque?
“Do you have more details about the church or teacher, so I can put the teacher in touch with the Mosque?”
I have no more than The News reports. Google for “Tai Chi” + “church” gives, for example –
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7476408/Unchristian-Tai-Chi-classes-banned-from-church-hall.html
(it was in Sheffield, btw)
It’s a good idea, though, go for it. I bet you could find a teacher and some people who’d like classes. Or other such groups, or classes, looking for a place … now I think of it, I remember I heard a similar story a while back (mid-’90s) about another bunch of “christians” closing down a yoga class for being “heathen”. I don’t think it’s a very widespread sort of bigotry, but I could be wrong.
I’ve been looking for a Tai Chi for my son for over a year but I couldn’t find one. He has problems breathing so I think it would help.
If he wanted to expel heresies and the influences of polytheism from his church I’m sure he would be able to find a better target than Tai Chi?
I am not a fan of heresies and if you scroll up you can see examples of what I consider heretical in regards to people who claim to be part of my religion.
So I would applaud it in other religions, but I just can’t see how a bunch of old ladies doing breathing exercises can be seen as heresy?
They are not doing it to worship other gods, they are doing to breath.
“I just can’t see how a bunch of old ladies doing breathing exercises can be seen as heresy?”
Well, I can’t see how any of it makes sense, either.
The vicar was quoted on the radio4 fragment I heard, as saying that he thought it was invented by the old chinese Taoists (I think he might be right that far), and therefore was bound to be incompatible with the ‘spiritual awareness based on Jesus’ that he thought he ought to be encouraging people to hae. I think I’ve quoted him a bit inaccurately, but that was the sense of it.
In the other, Yoga, case that I mentioned, I actually found a few people defending the closing-down. One of them thought it was a Hindu thing, another thought it was Buddhist, but they were both agreed that their christianity ought not to put up with anything that had anything to do with with any other religion at all, no matter how innocuous it might seem.
I suppose the basic sense is that religions can’t do anything with each other except compete and fight, so to accept any bit of a different one is encouraging an enemy. Anyone who believes anything different is just waiting to steamroller their scimitars over you.
“Anyone who believes anything different is just waiting to steamroller their scimitars over you.”
Ah, no, I’ve strayed from your point, haven’t I ? No, I doubt they did ‘believe’ anything about it; just wanting to know how to hold their bodies better, breathe clearly and stuff. A lot of martial-arts disciplines do have spiritual/philosophical aspects to them, I think, but it wasn’t clear that the refusing vicar had even studied it that far or what the teaching did involve, he was just saying “it comes from outside my system so I forbid it”, really.
There are things which I refuse to partake in because I believe “it comes from outside my system so I forbid it”, such as celebrating the Prophet pbh’s birth day. There is no record of him celebrating his own, or telling us it was a holy day or a day of celebration so I refuse to treat it any different to any other day and see people who celebrate it as deviants.
I’m not an expert in Christianity or its history but Christianity is no different here in regards to Christmas. Jesus pbh never celebrated his own birthday or told others to do so, there is no record
of him doing so or saying so in the bible. So the vicar would have done better when it comes to removing heresies if he removed Christmas from his church.
Who invented Tai Chi is irrelevant, the Chinese invented gun powder and the Arabs invented the gun, but that doesn’t stop people of other religions using them.
Tai Chi may have a philosophical/religious part to it, and if that is the case the solution would have been simple. Just restrict the teaching to the physical exercises and not Philosophy and religion.
Yeh cannae dae that, mon. Yeh cannae dae that. Ony mair than ye con bind the salat tae jist the phasical exercises. Well, ye can, but ye lose 90% ae it.
Where are the larries? Are they being rolled-over by some miscellaneous Muslim or other? St Louis – and Osaka – are full of such miscellaneous Muslims, just waiting to roll over the larries. A larry is a painted Pakistani HGV. A larry is a concubine, waiting to tell a tale to her shah-en-shah. A larry is a eunuch, wielding a scimitar in the moonlight. By a pool. Like a fool. In July.
“the Chinese invented gun powder”
“Yeh cannae dae that, mon”
Bleh. You’ve gone and started me thinking, now. But it’s going to take a while, and I have to go out. Later …
Look this is the EDL the organisation that fought against the Mosque. These are the people the council obeyed.
Do you really think this was about a building younger than my house when these guys piss on famous castles?
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_qreV02pD3Ko/Sx3d5wwNl7I/AAAAAAAAAWc/VY8gawCi7b0/s400/EDL.bmp
Arsalan,
how on earth did you find that picture?
Those guys aren’t really trying to hide what they really are.