to be sick of the way some people react to 'freedom of expression'

[NotSoScary]

Before I continue, just want to clarify that I myself am a Muslim.

Im just so sick of all the attacks on Islam but Im even more sick of the reactions these cause. Examples include the Satanic Versus, the Prophets cartoon and more recently 'burn a koran day'. I mean what is the bleeding point in burning flags and protesting when these things happen? I get it, everyone has a right to express themselves and if u dont like Islam or dont agree with it, fine, express away. All I care about is being able to practise my faith and respecting all others, I truly believe in live and let live.

The reactions we are getting right now to burn a koran day is just so over the top, no one would even know about it if people just ignored it. The ignorant fool that came up with the day has never even read the koran so if u really want to do something about it, why not challenge him to a debate?

Sorry, I dont really know what Im trying to say, just needed to rant. Im just so tired of all the negative press on Islam all the time and cant help but think if it wernt for OTT reactions, it wouldnt be there. We're not all the same.

i started a thread a few days ago about the ignorant bastards that argue about religion etc and not fully understand it.

i don't agree with islam, but i don't agree with christianity or judism or most other religions either cos its all so hypocritical and male and cash dominated. but i feel that i can say that because i have read about other religions. i have read the holy books. i am proud to say what i believe but im not going to go mental at others who disagree with me.

people who go mental with religion race and all sorts of other stuff and end up fighting about it tend not to have the mental capacity to deal with their disagreements without violence, ergo they not have the mental capacity to understand that there is another side to it.

Sanielle - what is a babtist? As an RE teacher, that is sect I have never encountered; I thought they were baPtists as in being baptised.

I've dealt with many baptists and methodists, so what?

Heracles :o

No doubt when/if the nutter burns the Koran followers of Islam will be burning USA flags around the world, no sense of irony there then.

As for the "spokesman" for Islam who said "this proves the Western world hates Islam" ffs get a life. Another said we should burn a western embassy, great sense of proportian.

No one beats Islamics for getting outraged over very little.

Yes, why do people get so pissy to the point of violence about knobs (of any race, religion or political affiliation) purchasing an item and setting fire to it? It's a dumbfuck thing to do, but getting all outraged to the point of calling for violent retribution makes you look an even bigger dumbfuck than the person who did the original childish piece of destruction.

ccpccp - a small point, but there are british-born muslim soldiers in afghanistan, as well as british-born civilians firing on soldiers...

the few that aren't on the recruiting teams, anyway...

My point was, and yes, I fully admit my spelling is shocking (aren't you clever) I made a simple comment about a bab(p)tist minister being racist. You tried to be obnoxious and explain the definition of racism which I explained I understood and that if you had read my text you would see I never refer to Islam as a race. And again you try and tell me what I have said and that I owe you an explanation. Which I don't, but I tried to be nice and explain to you that some understanding of the area and the culture and what it like to actually live in the midst of radical religion is like, apparently my experience counts for nothing.

My point was this man is not burning pictures of the pope, or bitching about Judaism, which no matter how closely linked to his brand of Christianity he will be against. He is burning the KORAN. A holy book linked to the bible with a similar message and similar stories and many of the same characters.

What could cause so much hate in a religious man that he would burn something that really should matter to him? Well in my experience it is race. And as so many Christian churches seem to have invisible lines drawn with the congregation being white or black I think I am probably right.

I never said you were wrong, or that I was right. I said I think I am right. I still do. You can theorise all you like and come back saying I am wrong or spotting a million grammatical and spelling errors (you are a teacher, I should hope you could), I'll still think I am right.

Ah, thanks Eldritch. GOt it about Eminem. It just angers me that there is so much misogyny out there in the media, just everywhere and women have no recourse.

You're right Nick. Just found this

"My point was this man is not burning pictures of the pope, or bitching about Judaism, which no matter how closely linked to his brand of Christianity he will be against ... What could cause so much hate in a religious man that he would burn something that really should matter to him?"

Erm, have you missed the significance of the date? In no way am I condoning what he intends doing, but you seem to have been so side-tracked by your own issue that you have lost sight of the main picture.

Anyho, I still don't understand how one man and his congregation of 30 became a world story. I do hope that Muslims are taking more notice of the thousands of American Churches who are not having Koran burnings.

Eh no, I haven't. Again I'm american, 9/11 is kind of a big deal to us.

But anyway clearly I'm not allowed to answer the OP which I have tried to but was sidetracked by another poster, I obviously don't have anything valid to say so I give up. Mumsnet really is a bitchy place to be most times.

Thing is, many religious people are full of hate. If it's not followers of other myth systems they are busy hating, it's gay people, women, anyone who criticizes or questions their superstitions...

The knob has decided to cancel his book burning BTW. I am not entirely happy about this - not because I think burning books is anything other than childish petty malice, but the fact remains that a person has been intimidated into stopping an act which is perfectly legal (setting fire to an object which one has either bought and paid for or been freely given by someone else) by means of acts which are not legal (threatening to kill him or kill other people if he goes ahead.)

It's very important that the right to criticize and insult the bullshit that is religion is not eaten away by fear of violent retaliation by superstituous morons.
If you are 'offended' by this bloke burning his copy of your special book to the point where you think it's OK to threaten to kill him, you need to get the fuck over yourself and grow up.

SGB, your middle paragraph has worried me because if he's cancelled it, it that's going to put the idea into the heads of these fanatics, and the general public, that all muslims are dangerous terrorists who are likely to attack at any moment to stifle freedom of speech, which yet again draws attention away from the fact that it's white males who have the power to invade anyone at any moment, and have done.

Perhaps that was the intention all along.

I'm telling you, I'm not paranoid, dammit. They want the muslim-hating to be at its max before they invade Iran. Blair has already mentioned Iran.

I was not being obnoxious - he isn't being racist - fact. If he was KKK, then yes, I'd agree he was, but he is targeting Islam which is a religion, not a race, so thus not racist, given that Muslims are from many different countries and ethnicities.

If the guy is a Christian, he has faith that an orthodox Jew was the Son of God, and he also takes Jewish scripture as his Holy Book, so I don't think he'd be attacking the Jews - after Jesus wasn't a Christian.

No, I don't think he should burn the Koran, but I wouldn't say it is linked to the Bible at all (apart from being the scripture of a religion); and it does not have a similar message at all imo. The Koran will not matter to him precisely because it is NOT the bible. The Koran says that Jesus was not the Son of God and wasn't divine, (there is no God but God and Muhammed is his prophet, the Shadahah, declaration of Faith, first pillar of Islam), so Christians won't agree with it at all.

In the UK the congregations are not divided by race, at least where my home is, and in Brussels (Belgium) where we live now, the congregation at the Anglican cathedral is mixed race and seems very happy with that. You make a sweeping statement about Christian churches having a racial divide - really? All of them, world wide? I don't think so. After all, that would ignore one of the basic tenets of Christianity which is to love your neighbour whoever that may be.

As for 'I tried to be nice and explain to you that some understanding of the area and the culture and what it like to actually live in the midst of radical religion is like, apparently my experience counts for nothing.' Your explanation is 'Since I am from Florida, and have had to deal with many a babtist.' which tells me nothing. The Baptists I know are reasonable human beings who go in for long and verbose services and are more evangelical than the Church of England, so you haven't actually told me anything. Yes, I can accept that there is radical religion in the US; my Mum went to Colorado last year to stay with relatives and was gobsmacked that evolution was considered a dirty word and that her cousin was a creationist, but you don't say that at all.

You think he is racist, I don't. I get annoyed when people call someone racist and they aren't. Yes, he is inciting religious hatred, but he is not being racist.

A lot of Islamophobia is firmly rooted in Orientalism, which most definitely is racist. The language of the barbarous, savage Other, is racist.

To dislike Islam itself is not racist, but the discourse surrounding much of this dislike certainly is.

Hmm.. it's not racist, because Riven gets lots of trouble and she's Celtic-looking. Lot's of Muslims, Cyrrians, for example have got naturally blonde hair, so Islam is not a race.

On the other hand it is racist, because as GothAnne says, muslims are identified as "The language of the barbarous, savage Other.". IT was the Africans, then RUssians in the 50s, now it's Arabs/muslims. If most muslims had white skin and scouse accents, they wouldn't be as feared.

I agree with scary teacher. I don't think she is being bitchy by questioning some of the statements on here.

But it's not racist.
It's a (stupid)reaction to the buliding of the mosque on the 9/11 site and a stance against a religion. Not a race of people.
And what is this nonsense about 'savage other'?
I don't know here you live but here in London we have all been mixing quite happily for generations now

I don't think the discourse is always racist. I think much of the time it is an attempt to understand what is impenetrable at times, and an attempt to elicit explanations about why things are done are certain way; how some of the punishments (as an extreme example) for adultery like stoning can still exist in the 21st Century world we all inhabit. Why is it acceptable to kill someone for apostasy from Islam? After all, religious freedom is a human right codified by the UN, so someone deciding to change religion should surely not be punished. Some of these questions can be hard to answer, and so people retreat behind the charge of racism when questioned.

I think there is a wide gap between the 'Western world' and some followers of Islam, and attempting to find out why people do things in the name of religion that civilisation now dictates should not happen without being called racist is a bit like trying to have a conversation with someone who speaks another language and not your and vice versa. I don't know that the gap will ever be bridged, which is sad.

I'm more scared of Scousers than I am of Muslims.

Is 'the language of the barbarous, savage Other' a quotation? Where from please?

Sakura: but some Muslims have threatened to kill him, kill any American they see, etc etc. They are no more representative of ALL Muslims than he is representative of all Christians.
SOmeone did make a good point upthread about Islam not having a central figurehead (equivalent to the Pope or the Chief Rabbi or the Archbishop of Canterbury or Grand Wizard of the Wizengamot or whatever) so any fucking nutjob can stand up and start screaming threats and be (unfortunately) treated by the press as a representative of Islam when there are going to be plenty of Muslims very angry at the idea that some foaming-at-the-mouth psycho is considered to be speaking for them.
What I don't know (and would like to know) is whether there are plenty of Muslim senior clerics who would rather retain the moral high ground and therefore not call upon the faithful to start kicking arse all over the place but would prefer to say, ignore the nasty silly little man - and that these reasonable people are being ignored by the media, or whether the majority of Muslim clerics genuinely think that it's OK to threaten to kill people who diss their particular myth system.

Sanielle, I completely sympathise re what has been said to you on this thread.

The 'no racism argument strikes me as rather naive. While Islamophobia is not per se racist, it is something that today's racists are very very keen on (English Defence League, anyone?).

There have been some very good comment articles on Huffington post about the current American discourse on Islam, specifically in relation to the Ground Zero mosque, arguing persuasively that Islamophobia is the new guise good old fashioned racism wears.

And in all my visits to the States to see family I don't think we've ever come across a church that wasn't racially segregated. it's fortunate that it's not the same in the UK.

It's also interesting Eldritch that the minute Islam is challenged in certain cases, the racism card is played.

There are parts of Islam that I totally disagree with and cannot accept, but does that make me racist? I have problems with the theology, and the fact that if one is seen to question or challenge Islam at all, you get howls of protest...rather than an answer or a reasoned debate.

I think the Americans were shaken to the core by the events of 9/11, and hadn't realised that they could be in the firing line on their home turf and are still having problems reconciling that with their normal world view. They are no longer inviolate in Fortress America as they used to be; hence the Islamophobia and perhaps more xenophobia than previously, understandably. I further think they are coming to terms with the fact that perhaps they aren't perceived as liberators spreading freedom and democracy any more and that will be hard as a nation to deal with.

As for the EDL, perhaps they haven't got the nous to distinguish between being racist and and Islamophobic?

scaryteacher: Boo!!!

Funnily enough there was a white lady behind me in Romford Sainsbos on Wednesday in an abaya and headscarf, talking to her daughter in a broad scouse accent. I was tempted to ask her where she was from (always happy to hear a fellow NW accent) but was worried she might think I was being funny...