To be shocked this isn't getting more coverage?

[Sugarcoldturkey]

Women in Afghanistan are now forbidden from speaking when not inside their homes. A simple "hello" to someone in a shop is now against the law. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/aug/26/taliban-bar-on-afghan-women-speaking-in-public-un-afghanistan

AIBU to think this is some of the most horrific news I've heard in months? I can't wrap my head around it and I can't help thinking - activists/newspapers/politicians are loud when campaigning about the gender pay gap or the state of child care or a woman's rights to her own body but somehow on this topic no one wants to criticise too often or too loudly.

Is it because religion is mixed in? Or guilt over the war? Or do politicians in particular only care about women's rights when it's a vote-winner in their constituency? Or is it just that it's so terrible and we all feel so powerless to prevent it that we just prefer to ignore the situation?

I'm feeling v v shaken.

This.
Try being a Christian in Iran and you'll see the inside of Evin prison before you can blink. .....In fact, I'm trying to think of a Muslim led state where you can go to a church (if you can find one) or buy a bible from a Christian book shop.

Provide a reliable source for your indisputable fact or STF up with your racist right-wing propaganda.

It suggests that in the UK, if current trends continue, the proportion of the population identifying themselves as Christians will fall from 64% in 2010 to 45% by 2050, while the proportion of Muslims will rise from 5% to 11%.

Source: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32722155

I do agree and it's quite strange how very few people seem to care about this. Can you imagine if Israel banned people from practising islam...there would be riots on the streets of the UK.

I'm not passing comment on it...I'm just saying that in terms of migration and birth rates, I think it's really quite probable.

This is straight out of an EDL handbook.

And white colonial rule was a nightmare for Muslims.

Just like the slave trade and all the Muslims stolen from Africa by Brits.

It's been reported but what can we actually do? We know the taliban are anti women, extremists and the last time we intervened it didn't end well.

This is what I think - people seem to think it doesn’t “count” somehow if it’s women being oppressed. That it can somehow be allowed as part of someone’s religion.

Whereas if it were divided along the lines of ethnic group there would be outcry.

It was Trump who originally agreed the withdrawal, but Biden went through with it. It was shameful of western leaders to do that, but also of Afghan men to just lie down and let the taliban back in to oppress the women.

Exactly. There’s no evidence that Britain or any European country is going to become majority Muslim any time soon.

And that’s not even taking account of the fact that those coming to the UK are often those fleeing extremism so not in favour of bringing it with them.

My favourite is when the leftists get upset when a Muslim majority council cancels the Pride parade

Do you have any sources or figures for this?

Muslims currently account for around 9% of babies born and are a little over 6% of the population.. Yes, they have higher birth rates than other British people but nowhere near enough to drive that kind of shift. I don’t think you really understand the numbers.

For them to be the majority of voting age people in 25 years is mathematically just not possible. The U.K. birth rate is about 700,000 per year. Even if every single baby born in the next 7 years was born to Muslim families (which would be an absurd leap from 9% to 100%) that still wouldn’t be enough to make Muslims the majority of voting age people in 25 years.

This is not fact and anyone with a basic grasp of rudimentary maths can work out that what you are saying does not add up.

Yes and like the Christians stolen in Britain by Muslims (the Barbary enslavement). What's your point?

evidence?

I think it's more that they don't give a shit, personally.

They couldn't prevent the Taliban getting back into power, they knew they'd have bigger fish to fry with Russia (who also got the hell out of Afghanistan having failed to achieve anything there) and they weren't there to make things nice for Women and Girls, they'd been there because of terrorism - which the Taliban, both with Trump and Biden, had agreed they wouldn't support if NATO went away, honest, guv.

Possibly throw in the heroin trade doing very nicely when the Taliban weren't around to torch fields and they basically gave it up as a bad job, particularly when Covid hit and some of the money was needed elsewhere.

It's never been about protecting women. Nothing ever is.

agree
and the mental gymnastics it takes to be a "progressive" these days- it's exhausting, poor dears!
it's so much easier to tell the truth- it's a huge relief in fact
and I've been the other side- desperately trying to defend the indefensible because of this knowledge that it's what the good people think- it's the fashionable cause
I actually think this thread is far more robust than it would have been a couple of years ago- people are starting to speak up- the scales are falling

I think you're giving them too much credit, I don't think they give a flying fuck about the women paying for their shit decisions tbh.

Birthrate figures projected for the future take no account of future inward migration, whether legal or illegal. And a large chunk of this is from mainly Muslim states such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, north African and east African nations. Net migration to the UK is currently about 700K per year. Yes, not all of those people will gain permanent residency, but the children of a large percentage of these people will presumably also be Muslim.

Same here, felt tears in my eyes looking at those smiling faces and thinking about what is happening to women there now. This hatred of women that finds different levels of oppression and different ways of expression all around the world is so disturbing.

No. You’re right. It was Trumps office which started the withdrawal. Biden sped it up!

Making me think of Madonna’s folly “Raising Malawi”
and pumped millions of her own, and donations into building a school for girls. Lots of local leadership support, having photo ops etc.

Each brick was laid, was then stolen/sold and used elsewhere. School supplies, etc all stolen/sold and school never close to being build. Madonna quietly ended her project.

Western folly.
West cannot change the culture and priorities of others, waving banners & flags, protests, fund raisers, charities. wars.
Just like they say - only you can change yourself - these cultures will only change if they want to.

All extremist religions are not compatible with our values.

I am secular Jewish and there are pocket of the Jewish population which scare me. There was a scandal about the North London Jewish schools which claimed not to be schools where girls got very little bar religious education.

I do think Islam represents a bigger threat though, both because they are a higher percentage of the population and, I suspect, a higher proportion are less integrated.

I don’t think we should fear Moslems (or any other religions) though. We just need to decide what values and practices are mandatory to live in the uk and make every resident adhere to them without fear or favour. I think being able to speak English is also essential, at least as an aspiration. We shouldn’t have 2nd generation immigrants unable to speak English.

Generally, where populations integrate, they start to behave just like everyone else regardless of race or religion. We are all people at the end of the day.

But all the above starts with religious leaders accepting what is unacceptable within their own followers and making it abundantly and publicly clear.

Yes @Newbutoldfather but there is no necessity to integrate where immigration has been so fast so there are whole communities which don't have any contact with mainstream Britain. Plus Orthodox Jewish members have not engaged in any terrorism or sent teachers into hiding - that is why people are fearful.

@Menopausalsourpuss ,

I agree in general.

The Jewish community I am talking about have also failed to integrate and they refuse to educate girls. That is unacceptable in this country. But, no, they pose no threat to anyone outside their community, although the NY equivalent are a high proportion of the Jewish ‘settlers’ in the occupied territories, who most assuredly do.

But, that wave of immigration is done and represents a tiny proportion of the country. Moslem immigration does need to be managed, but not denied nor resented. Speed, education and integration are all important.

That still isn’t enough to make the U.K. majority Muslim in 25 years. 25 years is a very short period of time in demographic terms.

It’s estimated that the US will become majority minority in about 20 years. So ethnic minorities added together will outnumber the White population in 20 years time. The US is 57% white, 25 years ago it was 75% white. So it will take the US about 45 years to go from 75% white to dip below 50% white. That is with significantly higher net migration per capita than us too. So 45 years for the minority population to get from 25% to 50%.

The U.K. is currently only about 6.5% Muslim. The idea that in 25 years the Muslim population of 6.5% is going to become a majority because of migration from places like Pakistan and Bangladesh is just not feasible. Net migration and birth rate combined are still not enough to make that happen even if both increase significantly. Birthrates in a lot of those countries of origin are dropping dramatically so the idea that those communities in the U.K. will see their birth rate increase dramatically seems unlikely. The birth rate in Bangladesh is already below replacement rate.

Some of them are going down a very slippery path to justify their support for fundamentalist Islamists.

Support for Islamists is a by-product. In fact for many of them the anti-Semitism is just a by-product too. The basic point is that most of them hate anything that the United States supports, whatever that is. I suspect that often this is a reaction to a dislike of their own parents.