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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Breaking : possible terror attack in Berlin

774 replies

MagicMary1 · 19/12/2016 19:41

twitter.com/ap/status/810931083944534016

This is so sad.

OP posts:
Wookiecookies · 20/12/2016 15:20

I havent contributed much, but I am reading everybody's posts with interest. Smile

Temporaryname137 · 20/12/2016 15:24

This is why people like believer are so dangerous (if well meaning) - they stifle the conversations that need to be had by screaming RACIST! YOU HATE FOREIGNERS!

Eebahgum · 20/12/2016 15:29

believerofhope "you are all blinded by hatred for foreigners you can't even reason". The only blind hatred and lack of reasoning I see on this thread comes from you. Is it not reasonable to hate people who commit terrorist atrocities? I don't see anyone spouting hatred for "foreigners".
But whilst people like you keep attempting to shut down reasonable conversations with your blinkered view of the world these atrocities will keep happening.

Bobkinyoyo · 20/12/2016 15:30

My dad had his life saved by being allowed here as a refugee in the eighties. I couldn't be more welcoming of refugees.

Integration is an entirely different (and IMO much more important) issue

I have worked in DV. The amount of women we saw who had been brought over here to get married. No knowledge of English, away from their families, often with abusive husbands. Totally totally heartbreaking.

1horatio · 20/12/2016 15:30

Bobkin

I would also call myself culturally liberal. Or maybe classically liberal.

Not a pc liberal where any mention of different cultures potentially having different values is decried as 'racist'...

SouthallGirl · 20/12/2016 15:37

On Sunday radio Maajid Nawaz said that in his opinion multiculturalism has failed. He is an ex-jihadi, Pakistani parents, speaks Arabic fluently and now runs the Quilliam Foundation. The rural poor upbringing argument upthread goes only a small way to explain anything. There is also the problem of no books other than religious text being allowed to be read in that country. Critical thinking is not encouraged, and probably the individual goes thru life with a hive mentality.

Those who have taken up arms are European-born muslim men. A fair number of muslim girls have been inveigled over the internet and travelled to Turkey and beyond to marry men they have never met before, because somehow they have been seduced by the notion of fighting for and establishing a caliphate.

1horatio · 20/12/2016 15:42

Nawaz is a fascinating character, isn't he?

I think inter European multi culturalism seems to work (DH and I have differences about Christmas [Santa, Father Christmas, the Christmas troll, the Christmas child or the Christmas spirit?]. Not about about stoning vs divorce...)

I'm actually fully supportive of refugees. But of actual refugees...

BillSykesDog · 20/12/2016 15:47

Man drives truck into crowd....silence

Someone on a forum makes a logical deduction of who it is....oh you're so full of hatred

ElfontheShelfIsWATCHINGYOUTOO · 20/12/2016 15:47

Going off on a slight tangent I read very prominent Immans with huge followers here - ie hundreds of thousands - flew to Pakistan to support a man put to death for killing a politician.

The reason he killed the politician was because this brave man was standing up for a lady - put to death for blasphemy, he said blasphemy laws out dated etc, so man shot him - and immans here were up in arms about it - saying it was a dark day In Pakistan and flew out to funeral!

Wookiecookies · 20/12/2016 15:48

Southall girl, you make some very interesting points, particularly in highlighting the dangers that come from shutting down critical thinking. Something that I think is happening more and more now, here in the west as evidenced above by believers post.
We must not be able to shut down alternative viewpoints, even if we find them uncomfortable, because the alternative is frightening.

ElfontheShelfIsWATCHINGYOUTOO · 20/12/2016 15:49

Nawaz is a fascinating character, isn't he?

Very - he is talking from inside out - who would have more intimate knowledge of the issues than he?

I always find myself nodding away when I hear him on in the media. But he is obv very intellegent too and has got himself out of terrorism etc.

ElfontheShelfIsWATCHINGYOUTOO · 20/12/2016 15:51

wookie

I disagree, I think if we were still under a labour government we would be gagged. But I do feel - the debate is emerging now and coming out, it has too. Esp in light of all recent reports.
I also fully support refugees, I am very happy to take people vetted from camps, I hope we can take many more we have had some in local ish to me community, on our local FB sites people are always asking how to get them things they may need etc. There is much support for them here.

1horatio · 20/12/2016 15:54

Elfon

Absolutely, he really is quite intelligent. And charming.

Why would you start nodding away? ;)

Werkzallhourz · 20/12/2016 15:55

The first problem with integration is that the larger the diaspora community is in an area, the more difficult it becomes to integrate with the host culture. There's no need to learn the host language if you live in an area where every one speaks yours. There's no need to mix with the host citizens if your community is large enough to provide jobs for you in a climate where your home culture holds sway.

An example here would be the difference between a Brit living in Benidorm as opposed to, say, Seville.

It is also the reason why migrants prior to the late 70s, regardless of background, integrated better than modern migrants. Because they simply had to. Otherwise, they would starve.

The second problem is that the more isolated from wider host society the community is, the more its diaspora expression of its "home culture" ossifies because it doesn't evolve with the wider host culture and may even set itself against it, but is also disconnected from evolutions occurring in the "home culture" itself.

The "home" culture in a diaspora context tends to be transmitted by family and other members of the community, rather than the wider society as a whole as would occur in the home country itself, so the culture of a diaspora is usually the culture of the home country that existed some ten, twenty, thirty or more years ago.

An example of this would be minority communities that live in a way and hold values that seems very old-fashioned and out-of-date to modern citizens of their home or origin nation. For example, the Lebanese community in Australia as opposed to modern Lebanese citizens in Lebanon itself. Pakistani communities in Britain as opposed to urban Pakistanis in Pakistan. Kashmir is also quite a noticeable example where modern Kashmiris living in Kashmir seem to have very different ideas and values to second or third generation British Kashmiris.

An example of this can be seen in something like the film "My Big fat Greek Wedding", which, although is a satire of sorts, quite accurately depicts that diaspora behaviour whereby third generation American Greeks somehow need to be more Greek than the Greeks themselves, and the Greek culture they perform is a culture that hasn't really existed in Greece for decades, if it ever did.

All this gets in the way of integration. I've seen it myself coming from a multicultural family, as does DH. Although DH and I are utterly assimilated (I think Grin), as is my DM and MIL, there are still flash points where there is a desire for both my DM and MIL to define themselves against "the English".

A lot of it is about notions of identity and selfhood that cannot be easily picked apart. Personally, I think the mass immigration of the last twenty years has been a total disaster, purely because the numbers of migrants involved has made the circumstances required for integration pretty impossible.

NotJustAnotherUsername · 20/12/2016 16:01

That is my experience too Elf, lots of support locally for the Syrians placed in my home town. One thing I agreed with Cameron on was taking refugees direct from camps then Merkel goes and says all welcome and puts every single European at risk, ISIS even said they were smuggling jihads amongst refugees and still she said come, all of you, anyone, come.
After Cologne I posted a meme of Merkel with the caption 'that look that says you've ruined an entire continent', it was deleted and I was banned despite it being my one and only deletion in 8 years on MN, apparently it was racist. Obviously since reinstated but I knew then what we were in for.

ElfontheShelfIsWATCHINGYOUTOO · 20/12/2016 16:03

Werz - as ever v interesting post Xmas Smile I have often thought this about mil who comes from another culture - and seems to have magnified all the traits x 1000 but her own dm and sibs seem far more forward and relaxed....she is a classic.

ElfontheShelfIsWATCHINGYOUTOO · 20/12/2016 16:07

lots of support locally for the Syrians placed in my home town. One thing I agreed with Cameron on was taking refugees direct from camps

For me this is the only way forward - it protects all sides - people cant hide racism behind the excuse " we don't know who they really are ( secretly we don't care we just want to hate them) so lets treat them with contempt" because they are vetted checked and we know they are safe.
And it protects us - the citizens the government is supposed to be duty bound to protect and it means if they are genuine and vetted then less likely to commit crime and start vicious cycle. Its a win win situation.

Wookiecookies · 20/12/2016 16:13

I think you misunderstand me ELF, I am responding to believers earlier post, when I refer to the dangers of shutting down of critical thinking by using poonts raised by southall girl as an example of what that can mean.

Wookiecookies · 20/12/2016 16:13

Points... stoopid phone! Grin

Wookiecookies · 20/12/2016 16:15

I mean more that people are silenced because of the fear of reactive judgements and emotive buzzword statements of some sections of the general public, less so from politicians.

SouthallGirl · 20/12/2016 16:27

There are horrendous attitudes and practices ongoing in these communities (my friend for e.g. at the age of 27 was slapped and kicked by her brother for going out with a man from a different religion

And the brother can be her younger brother. Because even at 27 that young woman is under the supervision of a brother.

Bobkinyoyo · 20/12/2016 16:31

It was her younger brother!

SouthallGirl · 20/12/2016 16:32

But if integration were discussed more and attitudes within certain communities challenged

It has not been successful so far. The Regressive Left will howl you down as racist, bigot, XXphobe, ZZphobe.

"The regressive left (or regressive liberal) is a political epithet used to characterize a section of leftists who are accused of holding politically regressive views by tolerating illiberal principles and ideology for the sake of multiculturalism."

They condone those same behaviours in their own culture but allow it in others.

SouthallGirl · 20/12/2016 16:35

Nawaz is a fascinating character, isn't he?

Yes, he's my boyfriend! Only joking ..... those that know me on MN know that I always say that about Maajid.

ElfontheShelfIsWATCHINGYOUTOO · 20/12/2016 16:56

Yes I know wookie - but the tide is turning - people couldnt speak out like this a few years ago.

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