With support for the ludicrous occupation of Afghanistan flagging, government efforts to ramp up Islamophobia become ncreasingly febrile. Now we have the deeply unlovely taxpayer funded Quilliam Foundation
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/11/quilliam_founda.html
being paid by Newsnight to produce a piece exposing the Islam Channel as a biased and unbalanced source of Islamic propaganda. It will be hitting our screens sometime in the next week.
I am really glad the government funds the Quilliam Foundation. Without their sterling work, we might all have been taken in – I am sure that I for one thought the Islam Channel was Movies for Men plus one hour.
Just as with Andrew Gilligan’s execrable piece on the East London Mosque,
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/03/muslims_found_i.html#comments
I have no doubt that we will learn that the Islam Channel contains people who are homophobic, have regressive views about women, want to impose sharia law on the UK, etc.
Nobody deplores theocratic government more than I do. Faith may motivate individuals but religious dogma should not be imposed on society. But many good Muslims believe that, for the proper order of society, the laws established by Mohammed to govern Medina 1500 years ago should be imposed universally now.
They are quite entitled to believe that, just as I am quite entitled to disagree. Probably a majority of British Muslims would agree with Quilliam that precise laws need to be updated for modern times and maybe it is unrealistic anyway to want to impose Islamic law in a country with 3% Muslims. But some deeply religious Muslims want to proselytise and impose, just as Livingstone wanted to impart Christianity and Christian values on an Africa where Christians were at the time a tiny minority. We are more than entitled to think they are wrong, but the proponents of sharia law are in their own eyes trying to save us from our sins.
What we have seen in the “War on Terror” is a growing intolerance of this Islamic proselytising, and increasing efforts to ban groups or outlaw activity which seeks to campaign for fundamentalist Islam. Yet at the same time we are urging young Muslims to eschew political violence and engage in the political process. If we forbid the outlet of political organisation and activity such as campaigning and broadcasting to the tiny groups of extreme Muslims, we grant them more publicity than they merit (as Newsnight is about to) and appear to justify those among them who argue that there is no freedom in the West and the way forward is violence.
Still there’s good money in it for the Quilliam Foundation and hacks like Gilligan. And it all feeds in to the ridiculous line that killing Afghan civilians keeps us safe in the UK.
Becomming a Jedi is the one true religion…..join now and collect your light sabre.
if all you religious nutters could go somewhere dark and cold and please leave the rest of us to eat our curries in peace
Well at least some news is coming out that we arent under the constant threat the Government would have us believe
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1260419/MPs-claim-government-used-terror-threat-justify-torture-abroad.html
Craig
Let me be clear on this, No Muslim agree with Qullam. None at all.
Even Qullam disagrees with Qullam!
Qullam is just a paid brown mouth that the government uses to repeat their statements that maybe seen as racist if coming out of a white mouth.
That is it, that is the be all and end all of Qullam.
And Craig, No Muslim is trying to impose Islamic laws on the UK. That is silly to think it let alone say it.
We want our law for our selves, not for you. Just as we have no intention of stopping you eating pigs, or drinking the liquid the seeps out of rooting fruit and barley.
And that is it. That is the excuse they use to impose their laws on us!
When Muslim women cover themselves, they accuse us of imposing our dress on them and bring bans. When Muslims eat Hallal, they accuse us of imposing our laws on them and bring bans. Muslims are calling for Islamic law in Islamic countries where the Islamic people want Islamic laws. And these people say we want to impose our laws on them?
It is they who are imposing their laws on us, by invading our countries, and killing and torturing us when we get in the way of their laws. And the excuse they use for invading our countries and imposing their system on us, is to safe guard their freedoms!
Bollocks.
Arsalan,
There are Muslims who do want to impose Islamic law on the UK. I’ve met them. Not many, thankfully.
Craig,
Re those who want to impose Islamic law on the UK….
Were any of those you met proponents/supporters of Al-Muhajiroun, or its off-shoots? Note how such groups were left well alone & allowed to shout out their views to a wider media audience (see the non-march through Woolton Basset for a recent example by Anjem Choudary (previously of Al-Muhajiroun).
Also see http://preview.tinyurl.com/pktev for more info on who may be behind such noisy protests…
There has been/still is a concerted campaign of Islamophobia present in the UK today.
The extremely unpleasant Harry’s Place ‘reports’ that Islam Channel has written to the Quilliam Foundation threatening to sue then if QF’s report is defamatory. Having been at the receiving end of QF’s attempt to sue you for libel, what do you make of this? I suppose it all depends on how twisted the report is!
I’ve never understood why Halal meat was ever allowed to be produced in this country. The meat industry has always told us how advanced our animal husbandry and slaughter practices have been. Now apparently it is fine to slit an animals throat while still conscious and let it suffer a horific death as long as God is Great is chanted in Arabic…. how very odd indeed… and apparently in some KFC establishments, they are ONLY serving Halal meat products because they don’t want to offend their muslim customers, so a bacon butty is right out of the question… as i said… how very odd indeed…….
Arsalan , totally agree, but I would add that some Muslims are fundamentalised because the elders have compromised. If the elders stuck to the Islamic masterplan and managed the hotheads, like myself, there would be no radicalisation, because the elders would be able to refute criticism from knowledge, instead of cheap insults like me, or hydrogen peroxide mixtures from others. Fortunately, apart from Craig’s, in general I don’t like blonde hair, or they’d be sniffing round my house trying to pin something on me.
Craig do you really think the people you spoke to attempting to take over this country?
Are they hording arms for a revolution?
Are they infiltrating the armed forces and the police for some sort of coup?
Are they taking part in the electoral process to take over democratically?
No.
So they are not doing any of the actions required to make this an Islamic state.
Because they have no intention or interest in imposing it on you.
They want Islamic law in Muslim countries.
The only conceivable way you maybe able to argue that is, they are trying to persuade the entire population here to become Muslim, there by turning this country in to an Islamic state. But that wouldn’t be imposing Islamic law here, if everyone here suddenly decide to become Muslim, the law which they will choose will be by there choice.
I have seen them shout their slogans to. but you don’t need to scratch very far below the surface to realise what they mean by it. What they mean by it is “Islamic law will be good for this country” and not “I am working towards taking this country over”.
Just like if I tell you, “You shouldn’t eat pork”, I mean “It would be better for you if you stopped eating pigs” not “I will snatch that bacon sandwich out of your hand and flush it down the toilet”.
Craig this should be obvious.
But the purpose of Qullam and other bastards is to argue, “Brown hordes want to impose their ways on you, so be scared be very scared”, instead of “Your government is imposing your ways on people who don’t want it, so be scared that they might do something to you in retaliation”.
For example look at the last post:
Posted by: Parky at March 25, 2010 11:13 AM
See, Muslims are eating their own meat in their own shops. And it is a “We allow”?
KFC wants to steal Business from Muslim shops, so labels(I believe falsely) their crap hallal.
The issue is Muslims don’t eat pork. And suddenly it is turned in to “They are trying to stop us eating it”.
If prats like parky don’t want to east Hallal, no one is forcing them to. KFC isn’t even really Hallal, they have just falsely labelled normal meat Hallal to attract ignorant Muslims. But still it is described as Muslims imposing Islam on non-Muslims.
@arsalan, on the suggestion that no Muslim wants Islamic law for the UK, in that assertion you are quite wrong. Like Craig, I have met such individuals and talked to them at length, and their views are deeply worrying.
Of course I post here regularly, and so my caution about criticising Islam at present should be well known. But for the avoidance of doubt, let me reassure you and others that I understand we have a deep Islamophobia in this country, and I deplore it.
Muslims are welcome to submit to a Sharia framework in the UK, in my view, so long as (a) it does not contravene the law of the UK, and (b) they have submitted to it voluntarily. The latter point is important, since some regressive proponents of Sharia would have women ruled by this system, regardless of her individual wishes.
Jon
As I have mentioned before. Wanting is not attempting to introduce.
There are no armies standing at the gates of the UK to bring these laws to you.
There are no political parties standing or intending to stand here on a Shriya platform.
But There are British armies in Muslim countries to do the opposite. And their are intentions to expand the list of invaded countries.
Our laws are not being imposed on you, it is your laws that are imposed on us.
And your last comment is the excuse they use to do it.
“since some regressive proponents of Sharia would have women ruled by this system, regardless of her individual wishes.”
They invade and impose with this excuse.
They call it women’s rights when they murder their husbands, brothers and sons.
They state they have invaded our countries to liberate these weak women from the clothes Islam forces them to wear. Then their soldiers rip the clothes of them and photograph them naked.
And done Muslim women here are told, “How there you dress that way when our soldiers are dying in your countries to free you from such clothing”
And then they bring laws to make it very hard to follow Islam here, with the excuse that they are only making it hard for regressive Muslims while supporting the progressives who abide by none of Islam’s dictates.
@arsalan, again you are wrong. I spoke at length with a young man representing Islam4UK, and we discussed the contradiction of his using his liberty to deprive me of mine. In my honest view, it was his opinion that this would be good for me and for society in general, and that if only I would learn about Islam, I would in time agree with it. So yes, he did want to *impose* Islamic law on the UK, and that he did not have an army to do so is irrelevant.
The laws of the UK are not “my laws” – they are the laws of the country of my birth and my residence, and I am bound by them by common societal agreement, but I did not write them and I do not agree with many of them. In fact I have always assumed you also live in the UK, so they are “your” laws just as much as they are “mine”. They are the laws of all Muslims here as well as the Christians, the Buddhists, and of all agnostics and atheists.
I have probably agreed with you before about the false claims by warmongers that their motives are humanitarian and that they are intending female liberation. But you are smart enough to realise that they are lying, either to us or to themselves. You should also realise, I think, that just because they use these falsehoods, that genuine humanitarianism and genuine female liberation are still decent, progressive ideals worth aiming for.
You know already that I am opposed to the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan. I am also opposed to the abuse, torture and degradation that goes along with these wars. Should I even need to point these things out?
anno
I am going to have to disagree with you bro.
The Archbishop wasn’t talking about introducing Shariya law here, even though that was what was reported by the gutter press.
I’ve told this to craig many times. It is best that we scratch beneath the surface to find out what is the context of a statement.
If you remove all the headline grabbing slogans and cut to the facts of his statement what he was talking about were independent tribunals.
The archbishop was talking about the arbitration service available in some musjids.
That’s all!
He was talking about things like couples having a dispute and going to the mosque to help it get resolved by a neutral arbitrator. He wasn’t talking about chopping the hands of thief or stoning adulterers.
He was talking about a neutral advising couples.
But the bastards said his support of this meant he was calling for Shriya law because according to the arbitrations act, two parties are allowed to set up arbitration by a neutral party and the verdict of such arbitration can be used in court.
The bastards said, this is detrimental to women. When in fact 90% of such cases to arbitration are brought by women to obtain rights Islam gives them but their husbands refused.
Without such arbitration which the bastards in the gutter press call Shriya courts, a lot of abandoned women were stuck without the prospect of remarriage.
The bastards want these women to abandon Islam by closing the only door they have to an Islamic divorce. That is why they slandered the Archbishop and accused him of calling for things he didn’t call for.
These bastards aren’t just against Islam, they are against God himself, so are the enemies of all religions.
Jon
I still don’t think you understand what I mean.
What I am basically saying is Islam4uk are lying when they say they want to impose Islamic law here.
They are lying to grab headlines that they wouldn’t have obtained if they didn’t lie.
But they themselves would prefer to use the word clever language for what they say.
They are just saying what they said to you to stimulate a conversion and attention.
Actions speak loader then words.
So if you want confirmation about what I said, ask them, “are you doing anything at all or do you intend to do anything at all to take over this country to implement Islam”
They will try and use clever language to dodge the question. But the closest you will get to what you said would be something like, “we are trying to convert everyone here to Islam, when everyone here converts this country will be ruled by Islam”, or “We are trying to take over the Muslim countries, and when we do things will be so good there that people here will press this country to join a union with the Islamic state instead of the EU even if they don’t convert to Islam”.
@arsalan, thanks for the clarification that you believe Islam4UK are lying, and are just in it for attention. But the young and idealistic man I spoke to was doing neither. In theory you could have a conversation with him about what you believe is the falsity of his leadership, but I believe you would find that his views are unchanged.
In any case if everyone in the UK converted to Islam, Sharia law would not be inevitable. I hope moderate Muslims – which would include me in such a hypothesis – would not wish to abandon their liberty, nor agree with the subjugation of women, nor submit to a legal system that includes deliberately injuring or killing people.
Arsalan
I’m going to have to disagree with you too. for example, Islam forbids all forms of spying. Your wallet gets stolen in the mosque, you ask for the CCTV to examined.
Oh, the CCTV can only be viewed by the police. Oh, the mosque is collaborating in an information exchange: you give us permission for a new extension, we’ll give you a hamas leader to exterminate.
The introduction of Sharia law into any corner of a non-Muslim country puts the Muslim in danger of cultural confusion, double-standards by the authorities etc. Using piece-meal law to try to achieve justice for women is a tool by the bastards to dilute, divide, and re-regulate and rule. They give you a Hobson’s choice. Solve your problem by deviation, bida’ or disbelief, kufr. No. If you want to live by Sharia, live by the totality of Sharia under Sharia Law.
If you are a Muslim and the state you are living in compromises your religion, MOVE. In the time of our prophet, saw, until and unless they left Mecca and so long as they remained with the polytheists, the Muslims were not given certain rights of protection. There were exceptions for those who were unable to leave of course. The easy life living on benefits wasn’t one of them.
Jon
In the totality of Sharia Law, from the Qur’an, fitna which means mischief that tests your patience, is worse than killing. If a Muslim parent, male or female, decides to commit adultery, and teaches their children that this is acceptable, and they demonstrate to their community that in this country Islamic Law cannot demand the four witnesses and punishment for the crime, – then the whole of Islam will be undermined,first the family and the community, and then the extended family and community abroad.
You cannot have two laws. many Muslims, shamefully commit adultery in the UK and their punishment is with Allah. It’s better to acknowledge English Law, than create confusion. But in a country where the law is clear, I am 100% in favour of the rebel, the married adulterer, who wants to wreck Islam itself, for the sake of their selfish passions, being given Sharia punishment. No one can impose Sharia on Christians. If anybody chooses to submit to Sharia Law in a Christian country, make sure you know exactly what the Sharia Law is, I’m telling you, because they probably already broke it 20 times every hour.
@anno, your perspective strikes me as stranger every time we discuss things. I am not religious, nor a Christian, but the idea that Archbishop Williams had “odious intention” strikes me as very odd. I quite like him, and find he has is of gentle and thoughtful character, despite what he does for a living. I should state that I find organised religion to be, on balance, harmful, and subject to widespread misuse, though I concur with Craig that it can be positive at the individual level. I am not sure why you think that his intentions are malign, except for the fact that he has a different religion to yours and that perhaps you are compelled to discredit him reflexively.
You also said:
> His job is to convince people that Truth is falsehood and
> falsehood is truth and cause confusion. That’s his job and
> that’s what he gets paid for.
You forgot to substantiate that assertion. Without substantiation, you rather sound like a group of religious people I discussed homophobia with some years back. There was all sorts of assertions, and plenty of statements of faith, but no substantiation and very little logical flow. The group? Evangelical Christians in America. Honestly, if you are motivated by religious ideology at the expense of logic, you will have a hard time discussing things with people here (who are of a variety of beliefs, I should think).
I also wonder if you might answer a direction question for me, to assist me in my discussion with @arsalan. Are you in favour of imposing Sharia law on the UK, even if you knew that some of its people would be opposed to it? Don’t worry about how it would be done, or not having an army; it’s a hypothetical question. (I note that in your above post, you say you would prefer to move. But the question is still relevant, since you would not have to emigrate if imposing Sharia on the UK was possible). I should look forward to reading your views!
I suspect Williams was just trying to be helpful.
The churches in Britain have their own laws, which do not always coincide with the wider laws of the land. For instance the Catholic church – and the Church of England for that matter – do not recognise divorce and therefore do not permit the remarriage of divorcees. Civil law however permits both these things. Although contradictory, the two laws are not in conflict with one another. They coexist. It is up to the individual to choose which law to adhere to.
Williams was simply proposing that such a mature and nuanced arrangement be offered to Muslims as well.
Jon
The simple people are exempted and the leaders are held accountable. The Gospels clearly state that 1/ no human being can perform miracles, but that they were done by God alone, sometimes in answer to prayer,2/ no human being can forgive sins, but it is done by God alone, sometimes in answer to prayer 3/ no human being has knowledge of the unseen, except by information from an angel sent by God alone, sometimes in answer to prayer, 4/ no human being can judge another human being in their entirety on the day of Judgement, except Allah. These statements are corroborated by the Qur’an. The Qur’an states that on more than one occasion, the Children of Israel, disobeyed their religion which they had been following, only after they were sent a prophet to remind them of its reality. The Archbishop lives in a mixed society and he has had plenty of time to consider the corrections to his religion which the Qur’an elucidates.
The Archbishop propagates the opposite of these Gospel statements, which he takes from phrases in the Gospels that have clearly been added from a different creed. That creed is that God uses special humans to delegate His work to. The purpose of this heresy is clear to me. If God delegates to humans, like Jesus,pbuh, then it’s not inconceivable that Jesus can delegate to Bishops, who in turn can delegate to priests, and so on until the society thinks that Man has been given total authority over Woman. May God forgive us. These ideas came from falsehood , not from Islam.
Do you know that Moshetarak, means the Following of Moses?. Many falsehoods, pre-dating Islam, were carried by Judaism to Afghanistan, as well as Cretan Mystery cults and reincarnation theories, which Judaism had accumulated over time. There are many falsehoods present among branches of Islam, including heresies which have been invented in proximity to Muslims, like Sikhdom which was created by the British to deviate the people from Islam.
You can’t change machoistic domination of men over women in Afghanistan by bombs and bullets. You have to unpick the injustice from the foundations. The foundation is the non-Muslim concept of God delegating authority down. Islam states that God does not share His authority with ANYBODY or ANYTHING. La ilaha illallah.
Easy. Straightforward. No need to kill people. That’s just an excuse to hit Islam, pipelines for oil, weapons bases and so on.
In answer to you question, I am not in favour of imposing Islam on anywhere, until real Islam has been explained to them and they have submitted themselves willingly to God’s commands. If, then, some people refuse, as many have done in the past, they have to pay a tax or Jizyah to the Islamic state. They cannot be forced into Islam and they cannot be harmed, providing they abide by the Sharia of the Muslim community. In other words they cannot be harmed if they are not harming Islam.
Anno… I’d be interested in your reply to Jon too. As someone who opposes the sick degeneracy of religion in all its forms, I’m also wondering why you think Britain should embrace Islam. Why should any country want to give up all power of self determination to a bunch of old men – and they are _always_ old men, invariably hardliners too – to dictate their preferences on how others should live their lives, and wrap that in terms of what “god”, “gaad”, “alah” or what-have-you supposedly desires?
Why is it that religious conservatives are always so desperately concerned about what their neighbour might be doing, instead of tending to their own behaviour and practices?
A while back I pointed out that your invoking of the “No True Scotsman” fallacy was a textbook example – claiming that No True Muslim would commit anything wrong, by definition. Lately, it appears you are coming at this from the other side too – that no truly decent person would not become a Muslim. This is probably why you regard British people in general to be so sick and degenerate.
The more isolated a religious group makes itself, in its views and company it chooses, the greater the intolerance it seems to show. An erstwhile friend in Utah thinks schools promote nothing but blasphemy, promiscuity and homosexuality, that Muslims roam the streets of London looking for Christians to burn and places to blow up, and that everyone outside his small circles is thoroughly immoral and being chased around by evil terrorists. He’s Mormon, and also thinks everyone else will come around to their ways one day.
The same isolation happens with Jehovah’s Witnesses, and particularly the evil-gellical baptist born-again types who I regard as the most dangerous of all.
You need to keep in check your deep suspicion of harmless people like Archbishop Williams, as he really is the most inoffensive, tolerant and reasonable religious leader I can think of. If you have a problem with his sort, you really do have a problem of your own.
Craig,
It’s fascinating that in the United States the only branch of the State that has the balls or strength to challenge the ruling dogma that Muslims hate us for who we are, not what we do, is… wait for it… the US Army!
Recently a rapport from CentCom has made the connection between what’s happening in the Israeli occupied territories and the wider war against Muslim radicals and terrorists. That, yes, there is a connection. That Israeli agression and mass slaughter of defencless civilians, has an effect on Muslim opinion and enrages the terrorists, who seek revenge for “our” crimes against them.
This is a significant change in elite American opinion, at least to the extent that the US Army’s top generals dare to make the connection in public.
This is, of course, a highly political minefield generals like Mullen and Petraus have stepped into, and it really reflects badly on the full-time politicians that they don’t dare make such an obvious connection. The Army, unlike the politicians, are not up for re-election.
This shows that the American political system is broken, and the political elite are useless; forcing the Army to step into the vacuum. One wonders what will be the next area the Army feels compelled to step into?
If Muslims achieve a majority in a given state and introduce Sharia law, surely that entails imposing it by force on the minority who do not subscribe to Islam? Isn’t that what Islam4Uk, and indeed many more moderate Muslims, would do? Hasn’t exactly that already happened in various countries around the world? To my mind, that warrants the talk of imposition as a goal.
If it gets in the way of your argument, you could weasel out of it by claiming it’s not what *true* Muslims believe. But it is what many *actual* Muslims believe, n’est-ce pas?
I sometimes wonder whether those who advocate Halal butchery should be given the chance to experience it from the animal’s point of view.
Ok your’e all right and I’m wrong. I’m wrong be living in a society that puts up with politicians that vote for US troops shooting up Iraqi families while it bans fox-hunting. I am wrong to live in a society that is fond of a religion that Allah states categorically is LIES, because their leader is a fluffy-bearded academic who wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Jon.
THE LEADERS ARE RESPONSIBLE.
In the parable of the good Samaritan, the righteous non-Muslim, which I happen to think Craig is, if you walk by the injured party without helping, you have failed in your duty. The church of England, under its present leader, has reverted to a quasi-monastic, contemplative mode, balancing its speech so as not to offend anyone. Quite frankly I would prefer Geoff Hoon, the corrupt lawyer and former defence secretary, or Jacqui Smith, the porn-purchasing feminist whose project to restrict prostitution will probably double child abuse in this country.
The Archbishop is like a floppy, old rag doll. With the other two there is hypocrisy and greed, while with the Archbishop there is sincerity and self-sacrifice. But he has remained doggedly and completely unchangeable on a matter which he is qualified to assess through his theological training, and which is laid out clearly in front of him in the Gospels and the Qur’an. The latter confirms and explains the former, if he had ears to hear or eyes to see.
The vested interests that govern the politicians are tested at elections, but the authority of the Monarch and the Church are cast in stone, unchangeable, invariable, defiant. The Archbishop has to span the distance from saying our troops are doing a good job in Afghanistan with the Queen with one foot, and condemning colonial violence with the other. Only an arsehole would try to split his legs across such a vast extreme.
Arsalan, the Archbishop WAS actually asking for there to be a bridging between UK law and Sharia Law. The bastards as you call them know our system and its devious ways better than you. Like Prince Charles who stated that he wanted to be the defender of ( all ) faith in this country. I am totally opposed to this thin end of the wedge, stay in power forever, sly, lying, mixing of Islam and Church of England concepts of legality. I don’t agree with this compromise and I think it is this kind of compromise which has made this country such a very powerful contender in colonial destruction. They win by compromise, deceit and not me guv diplomacy. Fuck em all I say. Amen.
Anno: We’re both living in a society that tolerates politicians starting wars we do not agree with. That has bugger-all to do with religion, and has everything to do with morality.
Declaring someone to be a liar because some dusty religious mumbo-jumbo from thousands of years back says otherwise is lunacy. You are entitled to your delusions, of course, but offering that as proof is no better than saying “It is so because I say it is so” to the rest of us.
The archbishop is a damned sight less offensive to me than misogynistic, miserable old bastards who pour out hatred, bigotry and evil punishment on anyone not bowing to their dictates. Not Gaads, not Allahs, but their very own.
All you seem to do is call on your own faith to prove your points, which is boot-strapping of the highest order. It might work well in your circles, but it just identifies you as a religious nut who has no rational argument anywhere else.
This isn’t to pick on you personally, I have exactly the same view of any religious devotee – all you have for proof is “faith”, and as Mark Twain so brilliantly put it, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”
Before we all get hung up abouit the compatability of Sharia with our common law, please be aware that European jurisdiction and laws are more relevant and overrule british law.
Not many lawyers know that or refuse to know it.
My position is very close to Jon’s. Those who want to submit their person to such law should be allowed to do so, if it is really necessarry, the latter is an argument that needs discussing, because sofar I am not aware of anybody leaving this country to submit their problems to a sharia court abroad.
Further, as someone who regularly refuses the watchtower at the doorstep and who believes that god is within all of us, should s/he/it be anywhere, not within any church or religion, I would argue that society should keep religion and politics well apart, how ever hard this may be.
That said, as long as Sharia only applies to those who submit to it, nopt imposed on to any minority, I could get along with it.
Are moderate muslims able to keep the radical vociferous minority at bay?, Those who do want to imposes it on unsuspecting others, as well as their religion, to create a ‘better society’, again an argument without much basis, cannot expect any support from me.
here in Europe we have seen how religious zealots, yes we have our own, esdpecially in the catholic church, confused many societies with their ‘betterment’ preaching fear and loathing banding about morals they themselves could not adhere to.
Acceptance and integration, yes, imposition, never.
If your’e a Christian ,yes, faith is indeed believing what you know ain’t so.
I was a very bad heathen, I didn’t do colonialism, or lying, or adultery or even capitalism. Sorry about that. I’m probably not even a very good Muslim either.
But I’m not a nut. I’m a self-loving Judaeo-Christian who is following the English tradition of justice and fair-play into Islam, after Mrs Thatcher took over the reins and drove the rest of you off the road, into the fields of greed, over the cliff-top of capitalism and into the sea of colonial destruction.
Curiously enough, outside this country’s extraordinary personality, there are communities out there in the world that do not feel the necessity of rape and pillage. I suppose its in our genes. All the more reason to leave.
@anno, most of your post at 2:59 PM hardly made any sense at all. It was more a stream-of-religious-consciousness, which is hardly useful to the debate. However I think that you were trying to make the point that because Archbishop Williams is not a Muslim, he is propagating falsehoods.
That is fine for you, no doubt, but I am with @glenn on this one. I know I asked for substantiation, but I didn’t mean quoting “evidence” from the Qur’an! I was hoping you had some secular proof of what you believe to be his evil intentions, but I am now leaning towards the assumption you have nothing of the kind. You are welcome to believe whatever you like, as @glenn says, but just because it is written in Your Book does not make it true!
> You can’t change [masochistic] domination of men over women
> in Afghanistan by bombs and bullets.
We agree, so surely that’s hardly worth stating?
> Islam states that God does not share His authority with
> ANYBODY or ANYTHING.
OK, you believe that, I don’t. Some people do, some people don’t. It isn’t a widely-accepted fact; it’s faith.
> I am not in favour of imposing Islam on anywhere, until real
> Islam has been explained to them and they have submitted themselves
> willingly to God’s commands.
This may appear to be semantic pedantry, but I think it is important. If someone submits themselves willingly to Islam, then it cannot be said to be imposed on them, can it?
> If, then, some people refuse, as many have done in the past, they
> have to pay a tax or Jizyah to the Islamic state. They cannot be
> forced into Islam and they cannot be harmed, providing they abide
> by the Sharia of the Muslim community.
For clarity, I think you are saying: you cannot force Islam on someone who does not want it, but you can force Sharia on someone who does not want it. Would you then be in favour of this in the UK if “real Islam” is explained to everyone first?
A yes or no, with additional clarifying statements if you wish, would be appreciated.
ingo: you wrote:
>That said, as long as Sharia only applies to those who submit to it,
> [not] imposed on to any minority, I could get along with it.
That would be fine if we were really talking about adults who truly had, with no coercion whatsoever, decided to take the diktat imposed. Could this really be said of young adults, and daughters, wives and sisters of the Man of the House in particular? They don’t get to cast a vote for themselves, given the elders of the community tend to tie up not only their own household’s vote, but that of the _entire_ community. Praise be for the postal ballot, so beloved by “New” Labour!
Given this, I regard the imposition of any religious law on the unwilling will be inevitable, if we allow it in any form at all.
*
Anno: I’m afraid you are making less and less sense, and your school-yard nyah-nyah logic does not become you. Mark Twain was talking about all religions, and you must be rather dishonest or childish to say otherwise.
Where do you get the idea that atheists, or heathens if you insist, are supposed to lie, rape, pillage and be fond of capitalism etc. ? Perhaps you feel it’s only a religion that prevents you and your mates from doing these things? I suggest you familiarise yourself with the British Humanist Society to free yourself from such flawed thinking, and perhaps become less jaded about non-Muslims.
Why do you think this entire country holds the views of this wretched government, when a small minority actually voted for them. Are you including yourself? Perhaps you really should find another country if you genuinely believe everyone in it to be so utterly despicable.
Jon
Yes, in the entirely hypothetical situation, which does not exist today and is likely to exist for many years to come, that enough was known about Islam to convince that imaginary, future generation to reject the status quo, three political parties all the same etc, and risk sailing into uncharted waters of Sharia Law and government,- ( because there is no Law without the power to enforce it ), (gasp), ( ‘ Michael Winner: don’t worry, this is only an advertisement, Madam.’ )- then everyone would have to abide by the law of the country, as they do now, and not everybody would have to agree with it, as they don’t now.
Please may I ask the question,What did you do to prevent Tony Blair invading Iraq against all logic and all international law? Are we not compelled to put up with completely unacceptable actions by our government? And what would be so very different from our situation if an Islamic government took equally unacceptable decisions in the future. What is so ghastly about feeling powerless to influence an Islamic government, which isn’t so ghastly about not being able to control Tony Blair. You are all projecting the traumas of living under these criminals onto Islam, and as Arsalan has pointed out, that’s not fair, because an Islamic government would not kill and break civil society by overwhelming and unaccountable violence. Islam would re-establish social and moral stability and millions of followers of other religions have lived safely under the protection of Islam over the years.
The truth is that the honest people of this country are experiencing post-traumatic shock syndrome at the speed with which this country has been propelled into gross financial and military criminality after the 1978/9 election for Mrs Thatcher and subsequently Tony Blair. We are in shock. If I am incoherent, which I am not in my own opinion, it is because I am in shock, at how we got here so quickly, and at how and where we are going to be propelled from here.