Democratic Muslims imposing their ways again

[Renton 17871]

I want to say lots, but won't. All I'll say, is a generic "cunts".

 

Say what you like man! This is toontastic, we value freedom of speech here. I'd probably agree with a large part of it, even the cunts bit.

[Happy Face 29]

I want to say lots, but won't. All I'll say, is a generic "cunts".

 

Say what you like man! This is toontastic, we value freedom of speech here. I'd probably agree with a large part of it, even the cunts bit.

 

Except for when he got banned last time.

 

Perhaps he's wise to bite his tongue.

[Renton 17871]

Well he's free to say what he likes within the limits of reason, obviously. And he can always open another account it seems.

 

Am I allowed to say that I find fundamentalist Islam the most depressing and joyless cult going, and it is clear it cannot coexist with superior Western civilisation?

[Park Life 70]

Well he's free to say what he likes within the limits of reason, obviously. And he can always open another account it seems.

 

Am I allowed to say that I find fundamentalist Islam the most depressing and joyless cult going, and it is clear it cannot coexist with superior Western civilisation?

 

Agree with the first bit of the second para but alas you let yourself down with the second bit.

[Renton 17871]

Well he's free to say what he likes within the limits of reason, obviously. And he can always open another account it seems.

 

Am I allowed to say that I find fundamentalist Islam the most depressing and joyless cult going, and it is clear it cannot coexist with superior Western civilisation?

 

Agree with the first bit of the second para but alas you let yourself down with the second bit.

 

Fundamentalist Islam? How can it coexist though when they're willing to murder people for drawing a cartoon? Seems like a massive clash of values to me. Or do you not think our civilisation is 'superior'?

[AgentAxeman 82]

Well he's free to say what he likes within the limits of reason, obviously. And he can always open another account it seems.

 

Am I allowed to say that I find fundamentalist Islam the most depressing and joyless cult going, and it is clear it cannot coexist with superior Western civilisation?

 

Agree with the first bit of the second para but alas you let yourself down with the second bit.

 

 

fuckin hell, and i thought i was intolerant!

 

[acrossthepond 707]

Can we not use 'fundamentalist Islam'? All Muslims are by definition fundamentalists because it is a tenet of the faith that the Qur'an is to be taken literally as the word of God, which is what fundamentalism means. 'Islamists' or if you must 'Islamic extremists' is better.

 

I have spoken on this topic before and just let me say this: remember that these people with their threats and their Qur'anic misquotes do not represent us. If non-Muslims (non-Sunnis, actually, because the 230 million Shi'a Muslims in this world do not actually have a problem with depiction of humans) want to depict the Prophet, they should go right ahead.

[Renton 17871]

Can we not use 'fundamentalist Islam'? All Muslims are by definition fundamentalists because it is a tenet of the faith that the Qur'an is to be taken literally as the word of God, which is what fundamentalism means. 'Islamists' or if you must 'Islamic extremists' is better.

 

I have spoken on this topic before and just let me say this: remember that these people with their threats and their Qur'anic misquotes do not represent us. If non-Muslims (non-Sunnis, actually, because the 230 million Shi'a Muslims in this world do not actually have a problem with depiction of humans) want to depict the Prophet, they should go right ahead.

 

Except no-one will dare for fear of reprisal. I'm aware that this extreme reaction only applies to a small minority of muslims but it causes real problems. I'm a bit surprised this thread wasn't bumped in January actually after this happened (from Wiki):

 

On 1 January 2010, Danish police shot and wounded a man at the home of Kurt Westergaard in Aarhus. Westergaard drew the best known of the cartoons, which depicted the prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. The man was described as a 28-year-old Somali linked to the radical Islamist al-Shabab militia. He reportedly shouted in broken English that he wanted to kill Westergaard, who alerted police after locking himself into a panic room in the house, which was a specially fortified bathroom.[108][109] Police said that the man was "armed with an axe and a knife in either hand", and broke down the entrance door of the house with the axe. The man attempted unsuccessfully to break down the door of the panic room while shouting swear words. He was shot in his right leg and left hand after reportedly throwing the axe at a police officer who arrived at the scene.[110] Westergaard's five-year-old granddaughter was present in the living room of the house during the incident, but neither Westergaard nor his grandchild were harmed. Bomb disposal experts searched the home in order to ensure that a device had not been planted.[111] The Somali man was carried into court on a stretcher to face two charges of attempted murder, which he denied. He was not named as the result of an injunction in the Danish courts. A spokesman for al-Shabab, Sheikh Ali Muhamud Rage, commented: "We appreciate the incident in which a Muslim Somali boy attacked the devil who abused our prophet Mohammed and we call upon all Muslims around the world to target the people like him."[112]

[Guest alex]

Can we not use 'fundamentalist Islam'? All Muslims are by definition fundamentalists because it is a tenet of the faith that the Qur'an is to be taken literally as the word of God, which is what fundamentalism means. 'Islamists' or if you must 'Islamic extremists' is better.

 

I have spoken on this topic before and just let me say this: remember that these people with their threats and their Qur'anic misquotes do not represent us. If non-Muslims (non-Sunnis, actually, because the 230 million Shi'a Muslims in this world do not actually have a problem with depiction of humans) want to depict the Prophet, they should go right ahead.

There you lot go again. Trying to tell us what we can and can't say!

[acrossthepond 707]

I find it fascinating that back in 2006 Renton referred to not 'fundamentalist' Islam but all of it as 'a particularly intolerant religion' and 'completely joyless.' Now in the year of our Lord 2010 it's just 'fundamentalist Islam.' What changed? We invented chess, by the way.

 

I just re-read the entire thread and felt moved to explain some things about the Islamic world that you may not understand, so forgive the rant that is about to ensue.

 

There are a lot of problems with my religion. There may be hundreds. Islam is having an extraordinarily hard time of moving into the 21st century and I'm not entirely sure we ever made it to the 20th. Islam is more split than non-Muslims can probably ever imagine. We have the obvious Sunni-Shi'a divide, but we also have Wahhabis, Ibadhis, the four major religious schools of thought in Sunni Islam and the seven or however many it is in Shi'a Islam. We have Egypt and Syria and Lebanon trying to take us forward and we have the Saudis, Yemen and Iran pulling back. We have Indonesians who really don't give much of a shit, Albanians and Bosnians who are Muslim in name only, Turks who are frantically trying to pretend they aren't Muslims (and other Turks who are frantically trying to pretend they are), we have South Asian Muslims who fast an extra day during Ramadhan "just to be sure" (despite that it goes against the sunna), we have French and German and Dutch and Swiss and American and yes, British Muslims who went to Europe/USA as liberals but are slowly being turned back into ultra-conservatives. We are pulling in a hundred different directions and anyone who shouts loudly enough can get his views covered under the aegis of 'Islam' and have himself some followers too.

 

7-8 years ago, if you'd asked me, I would've told you that as a people we were moving forward. Increased equality for women, relaxation of restrictive mosque policies, the spread of moderate ideas via globalisation. It was going well. I laughed at the 'clash of civilisations.' But now, I'm not so sure. Egypt was one of the first countries to abandon the divisions in mosques between men and women, but they're back now. al-Azhar, the greatest religious school in Islam (and the second-oldest university in existence) is slowly being corrupted by the Saudi brand of 7th-century throwbackism. All around the world, the backlash continues. People who were once progressives are becoming regressive. Why?

 

The most obvious reason is that this much-vaunted disparity in wealth is not just an issue within the First World, but between worlds as well. The West have been the 'haves' and the East, the 'have-nots', since the 16th century. That disparity is constantly increasing. The rich are getting richer, and the poor are staying just as poor. Now, a lot of that can be attributed to the corrupt governments that rule over much of the Muslim world. The Gulf states may not have these problems, but most African Muslim states have advanced little over the last 40 years and the less said about Pakistan and Bangladesh the better. It's easy for those downtrodden people to take what some lunatic preacher tells them to heart when he says that they are God's chosen people, and that it is the devils of the West who have reduced them to the state they live in now. That's the first great tool of the Islamist - and his secret weapon is that like all good lies, it contains much truth.

 

I'm not sure that many people know this, but what most label 'Islamic fundamentalism' literally did not exist until the early 20th century. Much of the Muslim world had remained under the Ottoman Empire or its immediate predecessors since the time of the Prophet. And as time went on, the Ottomans modernised and even Westernised. People in the Ottoman Empire - Muslims, Jews and Christians alike - enjoyed considerably more religious freedom than many of the people in the modern-day states that succeeded the Empire's split do. But - because of poor decisions, because of the ill-fated ventures into Europe in the 19th century, because of the even more ill-fated decision to side with the Central Powers in World War I - the Ottoman Empire fell and was carved up by various colonial powers, and it was then that Islamism, which some label political Islam, arose. People like Jalal ad-Din al-Afghani and Sayyid Qutb of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt began to think about why the Ottoman Empire had lost. (Of course, they weren't the only ones. A bloke called Mustafa Kamal was thinking about it in Turkey and came up with a radically different answer.) They said that the umma, or Islamic nation, had given up on its true values and they had returned to a state of jahiliya, which means the period of 'ignorance' that existed in the Arabian Peninsula before the Prophet's message. The only way to overcome this jahiliya, which afflicted the entire Muslim world and made us 'less' than the West (as was evidently demonstrated by the fact that, politically, the Muslim world was dominated by Western powers - the UK in Egypt, Transjordan and Palestine; the French in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Lebanon; the UK again in the Indian subcontinent) was to return to shari'a law and to 're-Islamise' their societies. The motto of the Muslim Brotherhood (of course still active politically today in Egypt) is "the Qur'an is our constitution."

 

This is where the violence comes in. The Brotherhood, who are derided as terrorists by many, are not actually a violent organization. They prefer to attempt to effect change through political means. But Sayyid Qutb, who was a founding member of the Brotherhood, wanted more. He preached that the structures of the jahiliya had pervaded not only the Muslim world, but the entire Earth, and the only way to knock them down was through violent struggle, which he termed 'jihad.' It is Qutb who is at the heart of the Danish cartoon rioters, the Taliban, Osama bin Laden, and all who practice violent Islamism. It is not Islam, but Sayyid Qutb, who clashes with Western civilisation, and it is his ideas that we as Muslims must excise if we are ever to achieve harmony with Western society.

 

How do we accomplish this? Well, first, let's look at some examples of successfully modernised states that rejected his ideology. The best two examples are Turkey and Pakistan. In Turkey, Kemal (later to be known as Ataturk) completely revamped an entire society. He forcibly brought Turkey into the West and into Europe, first by finally separating Islam and the state (which had been joined in one form or another since the Prophet himself) and thus ending the Caliphate, which had nominally existed since the year 632. He rewrote Turkey's laws and based them on the Swiss Civil Code, then abrogated an entire alphabet and replaced the Arabic-style script with the Turkish alphabet as it is now known today in order to solve Turkey's literacy problems. Ataturk never disavowed Islam, but he made it clear that Turkey was to be, then and forever, a secular state. Mohammad Ali Jinnah had the same vision in Pakistan. Through the Muslim League, he organized the Direct Action protests that contributed to the eventual cession of South Asian sovereignty, eschewing violence. And in speeches both at home and abroad, he emphasized that Pakistan was to be an Islamic state in character, but a secular state in government.

 

Unfortunately, both movements have been derailed to some extent. Turkey remains the black sheep of Europe and anti-secularism is ever growing there, and Pakistan was Islamised against Jinnah's mandates during Zia-ul-Haq's 11-year military reign in Pakistan. In both cases, the struggle for recognition and standing in the world failed because of outside influences. Turkey have never managed to attain their greatest goal, and maybe never will: membership of the European Union; Pakistan have always been overshadowed by India's dominance of the Indian subcontinent. These failings have only encouraged the militant Islamists in these countries, who have said all along that the West are 'ignorant' and would never accept them, and who have only gained standing after what they perceive as being 'proven right' has occurred.

 

I apologise for the history lesson, but this is what I am trying to say: all across the world, Muslims are finding themselves second best. In their own countries, they are poor and broken. Egypt's blinding poverty has literally not improved in the 40 years since my father left. Iraq and Afghanistan are essentially civil wars. Yemen has already had its fill of civil war, and it improved nothing. Or worse - the Islamists have already won in some Muslim countries, namely Saudi and Iran, and they are trying their best in places like Pakistan. And they cannot leave, either. They are not wanted in France. Not wanted in Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, or indeed Britain. Persecuted in the United States. These are the people who are the fuel for the Islamist hate machine. It has nothing to do with Islam and never did. To these people, the West have left them with no option. The West destroyed their previous society and refused to accept them into its successor. Is it any surprise that they turn to the Islamists who promise them a return to the glory of the caliphate?

 

It is only through tolerance in the West that the intolerance of Islamism can be defeated. The 'clash of civilisations' is every bit as much of Western origin as it is of Eastern - see colonialism, the 'white man's burden,' the need to 'civilise' them. Only when those concepts are abandoned and the East is embraced as part of the modern globalised world, rather than as a battery of natural resources to be drained, or a bundle of savages who must be 'modernised', will the threat of a battle between the West and Islamism be finally put to rest.

[AgentAxeman 82]

nah, you's are all just loonies!!

 

[Renton 17871]

Interesting post atp, much appreciated. I can't see anything but more problems ahead.

[NJS 3986]

I've said many times that I see the main problem with religions is the gang forming side of it - which I accept is a very human trait. On the one hand I don't see why an Indonesian should ally himself with a Syrian just because they notionally believe in the same God but on the other a sense of universal brotherhood works as a concept for me but it should be based on simple membership of the human race rather than another conceptual layer of identity.

 

Of course this applies to other alliances and religions just as much as Islam but I think there is a sense of paranoia running through Muslims which can only lead to problems.

[LeazesMag 0]

I've said many times that I see the main problem with religions is the gang forming side of it - which I accept is a very human trait. On the one hand I don't see why an Indonesian should ally himself with a Syrian just because they notionally believe in the same God but on the other a sense of universal brotherhood works as a concept for me but it should be based on simple membership of the human race rather than another conceptual layer of identity.

 

Of course this applies to other alliances and religions just as much as Islam but I think there is a sense of paranoia running through Muslims which can only lead to problems.

 

"Members of the human race" - "this applies to other alliances and religinos just as much as Islam"

 

They are hijacking planes full of people and flying them into building where decent people are working for a living. They blowing up trains full of people going to work. They are fighting a crusade, not a war like men in the open but hiding like cowards with a capital C. There's no shaking hands and living together with these scumbags they want us on prayer mats 5 times a day or dead.

 

Excuses excuses excuses. Wise up man.

Edited April 22, 2010 by LeazesMag

[Happy Face 29]

You're an idiot Leazes.

[NJS 3986]

I've said many times that I see the main problem with religions is the gang forming side of it - which I accept is a very human trait. On the one hand I don't see why an Indonesian should ally himself with a Syrian just because they notionally believe in the same God but on the other a sense of universal brotherhood works as a concept for me but it should be based on simple membership of the human race rather than another conceptual layer of identity.

 

Of course this applies to other alliances and religions just as much as Islam but I think there is a sense of paranoia running through Muslims which can only lead to problems.

 

"Members of the human race" - "this applies to other alliances and religinos just as much as Islam"

 

They are hijacking planes full of people and flying them into building where decent people are working for a living. They blowing up trains full of people going to work. They are fighting a crusade, not a war like men in the open but hiding like cowards with a capital C. There's no shaking hands and living together with these scumbags they want us on prayer mats 5 times a day or dead.

 

Excuses excuses excuses. Wise up man.

 

And the Americans are bombing the shit out of people and torturing them around the world. Lots of them want us praying or dead.

[LeazesMag 0]

Can we not use 'fundamentalist Islam'? All Muslims are by definition fundamentalists because it is a tenet of the faith that the Qur'an is to be taken literally as the word of God, which is what fundamentalism means. 'Islamists' or if you must 'Islamic extremists' is better.

 

I have spoken on this topic before and just let me say this: remember that these people with their threats and their Qur'anic misquotes do not represent us. If non-Muslims (non-Sunnis, actually, because the 230 million Shi'a Muslims in this world do not actually have a problem with depiction of humans) want to depict the Prophet, they should go right ahead.

 

Except no-one will dare for fear of reprisal. I'm aware that this extreme reaction only applies to a small minority of muslims but it causes real problems. I'm a bit surprised this thread wasn't bumped in January actually after this happened (from Wiki):

 

On 1 January 2010, Danish police shot and wounded a man at the home of Kurt Westergaard in Aarhus. Westergaard drew the best known of the cartoons, which depicted the prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. The man was described as a 28-year-old Somali linked to the radical Islamist al-Shabab militia. He reportedly shouted in broken English that he wanted to kill Westergaard, who alerted police after locking himself into a panic room in the house, which was a specially fortified bathroom.[108][109] Police said that the man was "armed with an axe and a knife in either hand", and broke down the entrance door of the house with the axe. The man attempted unsuccessfully to break down the door of the panic room while shouting swear words. He was shot in his right leg and left hand after reportedly throwing the axe at a police officer who arrived at the scene.[110] Westergaard's five-year-old granddaughter was present in the living room of the house during the incident, but neither Westergaard nor his grandchild were harmed. Bomb disposal experts searched the home in order to ensure that a device had not been planted.[111] The Somali man was carried into court on a stretcher to face two charges of attempted murder, which he denied. He was not named as the result of an injunction in the Danish courts. A spokesman for al-Shabab, Sheikh Ali Muhamud Rage, commented: "We appreciate the incident in which a Muslim Somali boy attacked the devil who abused our prophet Mohammed and we call upon all Muslims around the world to target the people like him."[112]

 

nice people these muslims. Lets all invite them round.

[LeazesMag 0]

I've said many times that I see the main problem with religions is the gang forming side of it - which I accept is a very human trait. On the one hand I don't see why an Indonesian should ally himself with a Syrian just because they notionally believe in the same God but on the other a sense of universal brotherhood works as a concept for me but it should be based on simple membership of the human race rather than another conceptual layer of identity.

 

Of course this applies to other alliances and religions just as much as Islam but I think there is a sense of paranoia running through Muslims which can only lead to problems.

 

"Members of the human race" - "this applies to other alliances and religinos just as much as Islam"

 

They are hijacking planes full of people and flying them into building where decent people are working for a living. They blowing up trains full of people going to work. They are fighting a crusade, not a war like men in the open but hiding like cowards with a capital C. There's no shaking hands and living together with these scumbags they want us on prayer mats 5 times a day or dead.

 

Excuses excuses excuses. Wise up man.

 

And the Americans are bombing the shit out of people and torturing them around the world. Lots of them want us praying or dead.

 

Why are you anti - west ? Why don't you go and live in Baghdad or something ?

[LeazesMag 0]

You're an idiot Leazes.

 

ah, and you are an expert on security I take it ?

 

[NJS 3986]

Why are you anti - west ? Why don't you go and live in Baghdad or something ?

 

As I've said before I'm anti-war and the biggest war-mongers aren't Muslims.

[Happy Face 29]

You're an idiot Leazes.

 

ah, and you are an expert on security I take it ?

 

 

Compared to you I'm Leon Panetta.

[Happy Face 29]

nice people these muslims.

 

 

http://our-cats.com/2010/04/cats-in-islam/

[LeazesMag 0]

You're an idiot Leazes.

 

ah, and you are an expert on security I take it ?

 

 

Compared to you I'm Leon Panetta.

 

dream on.

[Happy Face 29]

You're an idiot Leazes.

 

ah, and you are an expert on security I take it ?

 

 

Compared to you I'm Leon Panetta.

 

dream on.

 

You're embarrassing yourself with your lack of insight by claiming that a global war is being waged over the sole question of whether you go "on a prayer mats 5 times a day".

[LeazesMag 0]

You're an idiot Leazes.

 

ah, and you are an expert on security I take it ?

 

 

Compared to you I'm Leon Panetta.

 

dream on.

 

You're embarrassing yourself with your lack of insight by claiming that a global war is being waged over the sole question of whether you go "on a prayer mats 5 times a day".

 

in your opinion. It's what they want though, whether you like it or not. You can talk about the ins and outs as long as you want, but nothing will change.