Baroness Warsi taking advantage of her position

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In thinking that it hasn't taken Baroness Warsi long to take advantage/abuse? her position by saying that she wants to fight bigotry towards Muslims.

Of all the causes she could have used her position to put her weight behind, I'm dismayed that she has chosen this one.

Perhaps Baroness Warsi will suggest to her fellow muslims that they should have a bit more tolerance of non-muslims around their own dinner tables and then maybe the media wouldn't be so quick to describe them as moderate or radical.

And was Baroness Warsi 'abusing her position' when she used her position as a british muslim to go to Sudan to rescue the christian woman accused by fundementalists of blasphemy against Islam in the teddy bear debacle?

No,Blu on the contrary - I think she highlighted Muslim views.

But it's not Christianity now, and you can't compare it to Christianity now. It's self-flagellation of the most ludicrous kind to do so. You can bring up the women who aren't allowed an abortion but otherwise you've nothing to compare with stonings for being raped etc etc.

I completely disagree with you that it's about oppressive religions. Islam is not an oppressive religion, it's really quite feminist, forward-thinking and tolerant. But much modern Islamic culture is oppressive and at the same time extremely politically powerful. It gains some of its "domestic" power from its apparent immunity to criticism, as evidenced here. To some people it looks like Baroness Warsi is saying, don't criticise Islam even in your own home. If you don't understand that a certain section will have fearful feelings about that, and just abuse them as bigots, then you will turn them into bigots, resentful bigots to boot, and the problem will get bigger.

I said regions not religions and that was a typo anyway for regiemes.

The point I am making is that WHICH religion is used is quite irrelevant.

"The issue is oppressive regions"

I misread that as religions, sorry

it's not just regions using Islam as an oppressive tool, it is parents, families, husbands, fathers, people you might live next door to

it is people using sharia law in their own communities and, unlike the jewish community, rumblings among extremists about spreading it to British law or "common" law, or whatever it's called nowadays

it's gang warfare on the streets of northern England between Sikh and Muslim gangs

you know this

people fear it and now they're being told not to talk about it -- that's what it feels like to them, well some of them, not everyone obviously

if you don't read the daily mail, say, or mix with a certain sort of person, it's hard to understand what people will feel like on this issue

I think it's easy to be "above" it, to look down on it, and thus to fail to understand it

people need to have the freedom to say "I feel afraid of this, I feel afraid because of that" etc etc

no sorry it is relevant -- we're talking NOW

if you talk to my MIL about the crusaders she isn't going to give jackshit, she's worried about sharia law and women in burkhas teaching in schools

i mean you can't give some sanctimonious essay on historical transfers of cultural power, it's just nuts

yeah I shouldn't have been so rude, I don't think you're nuts

I think the OP is probably half right. Baroness Warsi could have picked anything to campaign on - she's just picked something close to home. I don't have a problem with that.

Regarding some of the points on this thread.

Firstly - The whole reason the Daily Fail and lots of older/middle class people feel so afraid is because Islam has huge communication problems.
By keeping themselves to themselves and failing to integrate with their new communities Muslims have not come into contact with others and vice versus. This means your Daily Fail reader doesn't come into contact with a Muslim on a social level, they have no idea how Muslims think or act and this promotes fear. For example - cricket! So many Muslim cricket teams here with their own leagues and organising groups who hardly ever come into contact with white/Hindu/Sikh/afro-caribbean community teams. What a lost opportunity.

Secondly - Islam as a whole does not have a proper "structure" as we would recognise it. Sure there are scholars and heads of Mosques but there isn't anyone public who can stand up and claim the right to speak on behalf of his religion. A lot of Immams don't speak English, or won't speak to the press. I'm lucky - I've got the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Catholics have got the Pope. I'm talking as an ex-local newspaper reporter here. When you had a story about Muslims it was always a struggle to know who to talk to as no-one was terribly forthcoming. I think it's even more difficult to find people to talk at a national level. Get a story relating to Hindus and Sikhs and it was never a problem. Someone was always happy to talk.

Thirdly - The crazy stories about banning Christmas and stuff are not just stories. There is enough truth to keep the kettle bubbling. Muslims are treated differently by a liberal elite who walk on eggshells around them.
Here in Leicester you won't find Charlotte's Web in primary schools because someone decided it would offend Muslims. Who was that person? It wasn't a Muslim. My brother is a special police officer in the south and he is not allowed to chase a criminal into a Mosque. He can chase someone into a church or a synagogue but not a Mosque. When you actually talk to Muslims you start to find out that they think this is all tosh but people are making arbitrary decisions because "it might upset them", an attitude which is itself hugely prejudiced. I also think it's incumbent on Muslims to stand up and tell people it's stupid when they come across this stuff.

I have no doubt that Muslims experience prejudice daily. I reject the assertion that you shouldn't use the Voltaire/not Voltaire quote when discussing it. The point stands. People have to be able to discuss their fears in order to overcome them and come to a better understanding between communities.

And breathe!

I think Warsi's comments were extremely timely & well-expressed. Made me think anyway.

Appletrees - The problem is cunts being cunts. That they are using Islam as an excuse and a tool isn't the important thing (when you are discussing if 'Islam' per se is the problem) - you could swap in a different religion and it's signs and signifiers and get exactly the same results.

So the problem is NOT Islam. It's people using any set of ideas to make the world black and white so that they can convince some people that they are the goodies and therefore they should be allowed to do whatever they like as it's all in order to get the baddies.

Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Nationalism, Personality Cults all can and have been used in the same way.

And as soon as you start to push back at them for the spurious reasons they claim are their motivations you reinforce the sense of grievence they rely on to reinforce the group identity.

If someones being a cunt then we need to tell them to stop being a cunt. What excuses they give are not important, and we shouldn't validate them.

coalition- good post.
Baroness, please stop being a cunt (but please do carry on campaigning against bigotry and discrimination).

RadioHelen thank you for making exactly the point i wanted to make, far more eloquently than I could have done.

We cannot keep refusing to discuss the fact that atrocities are being commited in the name of Islam. If we refuse to discuss what it might be in the Koran or islamic teachings that makes people want to blow themselves up, people are going to turn against Islam and Muslims in general, even though the majority of muslims condem terrorism as much as your average Christian, Hindu or Atheist.
As radiohelen pointed out, there is a degree of cultural and religious protection afforded to Muslims which isn't afforded to other social groups. There was a story a while ago about a number of CCVT cameras being removed from a muslim area in Birmingham after cries of "It's not fair". CCTV is an accepted intrusion of privacy in our modern society- lots of people don't like the cameras, but most people are rational enough to accept that they aren't a direct accusation on the part of the government and are simply there to try and prevent crimes.
When people see these levels of special treatment being afforded to any one group, of course it will stir up hostility. The founding principles of democracy include equality and freedom of expression. I can't, therefore tolerate the implication that one group ought not to express their objection to a perceived inequality.
It seems that some people are unable to differentiate the desire for frank and open discussion about a significant social movement for ignorance and bigotry. (People are unbelievably quick to use the word bigot in this thread, by the way) The only way "ignorant" people are going to become less so is if they are allowed to discuss their concerns without fear of condemnation.
It is fact that in Iran girls can be married at 9 and homosexuality is illegal. It is fact that in Afghanistan a man can legally starve his wife if she refuses to meet his sexual demands. It is fact that these laws exist in the name of Islam, therefore, I would be more alarmed if people didn't raise some concerns about the same religion becoming more prevalent in the UK.

If people cannot accept that my raising these concerns is NOT tantamount to calling all muslims homophobic kiddy fiddlers, i truly, truly despair of the world.

But it isn't anything in the Koran or Islamic teachings. You can and have got similar results from fascism, communism and anarchism in the last century. You got it from Christianity at least up until the 19th century. The first suicide bombers were communist Tamil Tigers. There are atrocities between Hindu cadres in India.

Looking to Islam for explanations of these behaviours is just to look in the wrong place.

The terrorist problem comes from the usefulness of creating outgroups to strengthen your grip on a group, and the human rights issues come from being medeivel patriarchal societies.

Islam is not a necessary or a sufficient cause for these things.

Radiohelen You are so right - I wish I was as articulate as you because you have expressed very well how I felt when I made the OP. Thank you.

"Slay those who associate others* with Allah in his divinity, where ever you find them, seize them and beseige them and lie in wait for them" ChAl-Tawbah 9:3-5

Towards Understanding The Quoran. Translated and ed. Zafhar Ishaq Ansari, Pub. The Islamic Foundation 2007.

*Eg, the Christian divine trinity.

I can give you more quotes if you require them.

I like Warsi but tolerance is a 2way street and I would like to see hate preachers of ANY faith arrested and bought to book. And if that includes the bigots who were handing out inflammatory literature to young people outside the Bristol Union building the other day call me a bigot too They were shouting "death to the kuffirs in Afghanistan"

Katiepoes - I lived in Amsterdam for a few years an had quite a couple of instances where I was 'bullied' by Muslim boys. I can understand why a prominant anti-muslim has been elected there. I have friends who had to move from particular areas as the wife was being spat at by Muslim boys, shouted at etc. This also happened to me.

How did the Netherlands let this happen?

Needle - it doesn't MATTER what it says in the books, as people pick and chose which bits to believe/how to interpret them anyway. Same as with all the other belief systems.

Needle I too am aware of that quote (yes, surprise, surprise I have Muslim friends) and I know that when I see Muslims spilling out of their local mosque this has been a part of their teaching. So what are we supposed to think?

I know that many, many, Muslims would not act out that particular quote, but I fear that there are many who would.

Desiderata Agreed.