Britain, like all Western countries, has a security problem and that problem can be described in one word. Islam. It is radicalised members of this faith who commit or try to commit virtually all terrorist acts. This radicalisation and terrorism is fundamental to the faith, it happens everywhere the faith is practiced. In countries with large Islamic communities the only answer, proven by history, is authoritarianism. Even Turkey, which is supposedly “democratic”, has a large and authoritarian security apparatus to keep radical Islam under control. But nearly all Islamic countries are outright dictatorships with ruthless strong men suppressing the extremists. It is what works.
In Britain Islam represents about 5% of the population, but this is expanding extremely fast, soon it will be 10%, then 20%. We are on the way to becoming an Islamic country, as happened to Lebanon. So, inevitably, we have the usual percentage of radicalised Islamic nutters. These people have committed terrorist acts here but they have been stopped from committing very many more. Plots are broken up by our security services on a regular basis. This will continue because it is a core belief of some followers of the Islamic religion that they have a duty to go and kill other people. There is no getting away from this fact. We will have many more plots and some will succeed. Innocent people will die.
The response of our politicians is to become more authoritarian, just as in the other countries with Islamic populations. Instead of acting to control the Islamic community our government act against all of us, taking away our hard fought for rights and freedoms. Every time anyone complains about the state becoming excessively powerful the answer comes back that it is to protect us from terrorism. We now have mass surveillance where everything that everybody does, says or thinks is monitored by a Stasi like state apparatus. And progressively our rights to free speech, free movement, free assembly and so on are being taken away from us. Each time that the government act it is just another brick in the wall. Now Theresa May is at it again, they won’t be happy until they have absolute power over us.
The stupidity of this is twofold. Firstly the terrorist wins. By getting the state to do their work for them. Every time another law is passed that erodes our rights it is a terrorist victory. Secondly what the politicians are “protecting” becomes less worth protecting. Why bother protecting a state in which everyone’s rights have been so severely eroded?
The ONLY answer, as any critical thought will tell you, is to act against Islam, not against all of us.
Not all Islamic people are Salafist extremists wanting to behead all non believers. But there are many shades of grey in attitudes. Many Islamic people support the aims of the Salafists, to a lesser or greater extent. A quarter of British Muslims think that the Charlie Hebdo killings were justified, for instance. They think their imaginary special friend who lives in the sky is more important than the rights of people living here on earth. Certainly very many of them have zero tolerance for the rights of non Islamic people to do anything that Islamic people disagree with. Yet this is our country. And we have allowed them to make homes here. We have supported a very high percentage of them with our benefits system. And there is no gratitude.
Firstly we must go to zero immigration from Islamic countries. Our problem is bad enough without making it worse. Secondly we need to foster a more tolerant and liberal Islam within Britain. One which doesn’t mutilate the genitals of young girls, force marriage on unwilling partners, accepts the “honour” punishments of throwing acid in women’s faces and all the other primitive barbarity. Putting people through our education system doesn’t work. Many terrorists and would be terrorists here have been highly schooled. Doctors, for instance.
Liberal and Islam might seem an oxymoron. Two words that are utterly incompatible. But I know many Islamic people with a value set similar to mine. They are educated Western liberals, well read and tolerant of other people’s ideas and beliefs. They are the exact opposite of the media stereotype. So it can be done. It is just a matter of working out how to do it.
Meanwhile Theresa May must stop taking away the rights and freedoms of tens of millions of people.
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Your rant is packed full of demonstrable ignorance and Orientalist racism.
The West was a primitive backwateron the periphery of civilization until it came into contact with far more Advanced civilization of Islam. Much of what you think of as Western is derived from Islamic civilization. The great Spanish Muslim Philosopher Ibn Rushd is known as the “father of Western Secularism”
Right, but for so-called for authoritarian state in Turkey (pure nonsense – now) those Turkish Sufi inspired Muslims might go on a rampage. Your ignorance of Turkish Islam is astounding!
The first thing you need to do is stop murdering Muslims, invading their countries and helping to oppress them around the world! You have been doing it for centuries – time to stop. It’s astounding how do not see the obvious connection amid the radicalization of some Muslims and your war of terror, or your supporting the US war of terror against Muslims,which has killed 1.3 million Muslims over the last decade 1/2 according to a new study.
But you think you are the victim?
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harmlesstree,
So you justify terrorism. Not the best solution for the world.
AS for the Middle East, you can learn about it here: http://www.bruceonpolitics.com/2015/03/21/bush-and-blair-killed-a-million-people/
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It’s ironic that a lot of those double edge razors you keep going on about were manufactured and sold to you by Muslims. Try not to get any terror viruses when you are shaving your amazing chin with them.
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Wet shaving,
You lie. My razors come from Gilette in America and Edwin Jagger in the UK.
My blades come from PPI in St Petersburg.
Very obviously you don’t know what you are talking about.
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The government is not your friend, see how they attempt to take away your rights and to have more control over you.
Using terrorism as an excuse:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/uk-government-counter-terrorism-bill-would-criminalize-speech-political-activity/5450249
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You are perfectly correct Bruce.
More power to your elbow, and no pity to the execrable, perfectly incorrect ‘harmlesstree’.
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The problem we need to deal with is labeling. As soon as we label a group of people, dehumanise and objectify them, making violence against them easier. If certain ideologies encourage this labeling and violence against the people thus labeled then a dialogue about the ideology needs to be had. It does not help keeping people that fall under certain labels out of the country, that is actually also violence against a label, which means we are then treading on the same path we are trying to alter.
These matters are way more complex than most people see. We need to look at the living conditions in the countries where the majority of people executing terrorist acts come from. You say Islam causes authoritarian regimes. You are mixing up causality with correlation. It’s not because there are Islamic countries with totalitarian regimes that Islam causes it. The biggest Islam country on the planet, Indonesia, does not have a totalitarian regime and the country hosts multiple religions which live together in peace. One thing stands out though. Most of those totalitarian countries are oil states. Usually, when things go wrong, one only needs to follow the money trail. And governments of oil countries get most of their income through oil, not taxes. And when you are not dependent on the taxes your people pay, there’s less incentive to take care of them. So, combine poor living conditions with a totalitarian regime and a highly religious, any religion, population and you have the perfect mix to breed terrorists.
And the fact that terrorists who act in the name of Islam are the biggest group is just plain wrong:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/non-muslims-carried-out-more-than-90-of-all-terrorist-attacks-in-america/5333619
Add to that the fact that we are way faster to call an action terrorism when it’s done by someone acting in the name of Islam than by someone else makes it even worse. Think of the guy that slaughtered all those people in Denmark. He was acting out of Christian believes. Didn’t hear anyone calling him a Christian terrorist although if the same thing would have been done in the name of Islam, it would have been a terrorist act.
Yes, we need to solve the problem of violence against labeled groups, any labeled groups, not just the violent acts against Western people. And for that we need to tackle the root causes, not apply band aids to the wounds as we are doing now. And that means standing up to countries that we are dependant on for their oil. So, moving to an oil independent energy system might have quite some benefits.
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> “The problem we need to deal with is labeling.”
You lose the argument in the 1st sentence. Quite the effort, considering your wall of text.
Actually the problem we need to deal with is to stop letting a bunch of whackjob immigrants irreversibly change their host country’s culture for the worse…. Successfully having men BANNED from public swimming pools for x hours per week, so Allah won’t get angry when their burqa wearing chattels have a splash about…. The absolutely MANIACAL behaviour by these unruly Habibs when someone in Denmark drew a picture of their invisible friend in the sky, taking to the streets and getting all shouty – across the globe, all the way down to Australia FFS…. Speaking of which, gotta love it when the Grand Mufti proclaims that the layDEEZ kinda had it coming if they were wearing “provocative” clothes and then found themselves on the wrong side of a good old fashioned rapin’.
I find it’s the PRO immigration fools who are obsessed with terrorism and body counts as if it’s the only game in town, then lecturing us on irrational xenophobic fear.
But you Stef, YOU are mostly worried about labelling. Change a few words around here, maybe ban a few words there…. Problem solved!
You idiot.
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Another prime example of violent acts that would be labeled as terrorist acts if they were done in the name name of Islam is the violent against gay people. All in the name of Christianity.