TIMES OF INDIA: Gaddafy: Europe should convert to Islam

[Andalublue]

I understand what you are saying...but be honest...what happens when there IS a muslim majority and muslim extremists start killing people? Muslims start choosing sides. I think the British Muslim is very similar to the average American Muslim...they enjoy a nice blend of American culture that moderates the religiosity. I dont think ANYONE EVER has anything to fear from MOST muslims. but thats ALWAYS been the case. Its the extremists that pop up and start issuing fatwahs because someone drew a cartoon with the prophet and a grenade in his beard. Then you start having radical 'muslims' stirring up violence. Then you have this guy


and this guy

YouTube - British Islamic extremists

and next thing you know...****s blowing up...

Muslims are their own worst enemy...because the majority are silent or tolerate the radical muslims.

You make some good points, but is that a real CNN report? The reporter certainly doesn't sound like a CNN reporter and makes a few basic pronunciation and spelling mistakes that CNN wouldn't make. I suspect it is someone using CNN pictures and writing their own words.... Ah, just looked. infolivetv Live Television from Jerusalem.

Having said that, there are extremists but they enjoy far less support than this report would have you believe. The main interviewee, Anjum Choudary is a fairly pathetic character who leads a radical student group, Al-Muhajiroon/Islam4UK which has been expelled from all mainstream Moslem organisations in Britain. Their supporters number a few dozen and the organisation has been proscribed under counter-terrorism measures. No one, neither the British government, nor British Moslems are tolerating them.

 

[Gardener]

Repect the cultures of another nation and peoples is wholly different then trying to accept them as equal. Multiculturalism in Europe has never produced and is quite impossible of producing a singular coherent society whose people walk lock step in traditions. Multi culturalsim instead always produces fragmented micro societies within a larger macro society that in effect do not mingle or mix to any significant degree. Muslims live next to muslims, irish near irish, eastern europeans near eastern europeans etc. These micro societies have very different views which when taken as a whole in the macroscopic entity of a nation state produce only the illusion of tolerance and assimilation and people like you justify this by simply stating that they live in your country. The facts are european countries are very different and history bears this out through the very violent nature of european history. People of a feather flock together, ostriches don't run with eagles pretending they are flying.


edit: also multi-culturalism does exactly what it seeks to oppose. Racism. By infact emphasizing the difference."But the "differences" they have in mind are racial differences, which means we're being urged to glorify race, which means we're being asked to institutionalize separatism. "Racial identity" erects an unbridgeable gulf between people, as though they were different species, with nothing fundamental in common." Michael Berliner.

This looks spot-on to me. Here in the states, we have long adopted a melting pot approach, which has allowed us to utilize the strengths of all or immigrants, but remove ourselves from the inherent divisiveness of the misguided policies of multiculturalism. When I was a kid, two of my best friends were first generation Americans, born of Lebanese and Chinese immigrants, and they were just as culturally American as me because THEY wanted to be Americans, and Americans wanted them to be Americans. Multiculturalism turns that dynamic on its ear, because the assumptions would be that they STAY Lebanese and Chinese.

I think its an incredibly naive notion to think that people with completely different, and often very conflicting cultural values will, as if by magic, just all get along leading separate lives, but having to share the same space. Eventually, something has to give, and in Europe's case, I think the cultural values are so incompatible that when it gives, it's going to give big time. The divides are increasing as the populations are increasing, as is the balkanization brought on by multiculturalism. A hundred people living in a population of a million will assimilate out of necessity. A hundred thousand living amongst a million don't have to.

 

[VanceMack]

You make some good points, but is that a real CNN report? The reporter certainly doesn't sound like a CNN reporter and makes a few basic pronunciation and spelling mistakes that CNN wouldn't make. I suspect it is someone using CNN pictures and writing their own words. Ah, just looked. infolivetv Live Television from Jerusalem.

Having said that, there are extremists but they enjoy far less support than this report would have you believe. The main interviewee, Anjum Choudary is a fairly pathetic character who leads a radical student group, Al-Muhajiroon/Islam4UK which has been expelled from all mainstream Moslem organisations in Britain. Their supporters number a few dozen and the organisation has been proscribed under counter-terrorism measures. No one, neither the British government, nor British Moslems are tolerating them.

I have no doubt there is less support. I cant stress enough...I have lived in the muslim world for 4 years...I KNOW the vast majority are not those that we need to be concerned about. But how many extremists does it take before people ARE concerned? Even thought there are literally millions of muslims in America, 19 had a pretty significant impact, wouldnt you say?

And Whether people want to admit it or not...the concept of muslim bortherhood is alive and well...even in those nonfundamentalist types. I know many muslims who would personally speak bad of Hussein, or others, but the second a non-arab/non-muslim joined in, they quickly defended their actions.

What does any of it mean? Hell...I dont know. Hopefully nothing. Hopefully those progressive muslim types you and I both know that exist out there rule the day and overwhelm the fundamentalists. But I think it would be sheer folly to pretend there is no reason to be concerned or alert.

 

[Andalublue]

I have no doubt there is less support. I cant stress enough...I have lived in the muslim world for 4 years...I KNOW the vast majority are not those that we need to be concerned about. But how many extremists does it take before people ARE concerned? Even thought there are literally millions of muslims in America, 19 had a pretty significant impact, wouldnt you say?

And Whether people want to admit it or not...the concept of muslim bortherhood is alive and well...even in those nonfundamentalist types. I know many muslims who would personally speak bad of Hussein, or others, but the second a non-arab/non-muslim joined in, they quickly defended their actions.

What does any of it mean? Hell...I dont know. Hopefully nothing. Hopefully those progressive muslim types you and I both know that exist out there rule the day and overwhelm the fundamentalists. But I think it would be sheer folly to pretend there is no reason to be concerned or alert.

Concerned and alert? Absolutely. Scared of our own shadow and expecting every guy in a skullcap to explode on the bus? No way. The only way the extremists win is if we turn our society into a police state driven by paranoia and fear of those who don't share all our beliefs and opinions. You can't possibly defeat fundamentalism and authoritarianism with authoritarianism and xenophobia.

 

[VanceMack]

Concerned and alert? Absolutely. Scared of our own shadow and expecting every guy in a skullcap to explode on the bus? No way. The only way the extremists win is if we turn our society into a police state driven by paranoia and fear of those who don't share all our beliefs and opinions. You can't possibly defeat fundamentalism and authoritarianism with authoritarianism and xenophobia.

Now did I SAY scared of our own shadow? In fact have I in any way shape or form condemend all of the muslim world and said we should treat them all the same as the redical extremists?

 

[Andalublue]

Now did I SAY scared of our own shadow? In fact have I in any way shape or form condemend all of the muslim world and said we should treat them all the same as the redical extremists?

Sorry, I wasn't trying to rebutt your points, and I wasn't referring to what you'd just said, rather to the wilder assumptions of those who believe Europe is in some kind of race-driven, social melt-down. Sorry if you took offence at my imprecision.

 

[VanceMack]

Sorry, I wasn't trying to rebutt your points, and I wasn't referring to what you'd just said, rather to the wilder assumptions of those who believe Europe is in some kind of race-driven, social melt-down. Sorry if you took offence at my imprecision.

No offense...just points of order. In that vein I agree completely.