islamist extremists strike in france

[KareninsGirl]

My thoughts are with the victims of the latest barbaric act by Islamic extremists.

The world needs to wake up and defend itself.

RIP those who died and prayers for those critically injured.

at French magazine office www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30710883

The problem (as it seems to me) is that Islam is still very much a totalising religion. Christianity has fought this battle with the State over the last 400 years and it lost. It is no longer a totalising religion, it exists within a western liberal democratic framework subservient to its laws. Thus though individual Christians may dislike homosexuality (for example) that belief is subservient to the secular laws of the land.

Until Islam and the majority of it's followers come to accept that you can be a Muslim but your religious beliefs must defer to secular laws I don't know how it's existence can be anything but fraught (at best) in the west.

We live in a golden age of reason and tolerance. I think sometimes people thing progress can only move forward, that the future is always an advancement. But that isn't the case, we can lose it, lose it all.

Oh, and a word about "interpreting" holy texts.

This is a silly argument that gets us nowhere.

Because...and I hate to be the one to break this to you....these texts are all fiction. They are made up fairytales. They have as much grounding in reality as Horton Hears a Who.

There is no Yahweh/Allah - and he did not hand down his words to Jesus/Mohammed.

A large group of very ancient people made all this shit up - either wholesale, or using other made up shit as a basis.

So, who decides the "correct interpretation" of fiction? The writers perhaps....well, they are all dead.

Bottom line - no one "interpretation" has any more validity than any other. The murderers have as much right to their "interpretation" as the "moderates".

That's the problem with religion. It is all made up - and there is no final arbiter on what made up fiction actually means. Because....it doesn't actually mean fuck all on any level.

But I would dearly love to have someone explain how "beat your wives if they don't do as they are told (although, please don't kill them)" can be interpreted to say "domestic violence is a sin in Islam".

Even trickier than "Beat your slaves by all means - as long as they don't die within a day or two, you won't be punished. They do belong to you, after all".

Good grief, humanity...grow up. This is the stuff of our childhood when we didn't know any better. There's no excuse whatsoever for still believing it.

This thread had lost all its debate . Anyone with an alternative viewpoint is being ridiculed and attacked. I agree with clean that some comments made here are offensive and if someone points that out they are asked how dare they say that.

How can there be an open debate when posters with the same viewpoint refuse to listen to any other point of view. Ironic on a thread about free speech.

I shall leave you all to your frothing and hide this thread now. There are some very good points made by both sides on this thread and it'sa shame it's gone this way.

Extremists have no place in the Western world.

Why cant the governments deport extremists? Why do we tolerate these people that clearly hate the west and all it stands for ?

I'm in France. RTL radio are reporting another shooting incident. It appears that the men have been found. They seem to have taken hostages.

Why cant the governments deport extremists?

They can, if they don't mind arguing with the European Court for a decade. Theresa May once made an interesting comment about deporting an extremist first and arguing with the EC afterwards. Hamza has gone now. So, I guess it's a moot point. But, it will be interesting to see what happens next time. My personal view is that a government (any government) weighs up the risks and doesn't mind doing completely illegal things (extraordinary rendition and Guantanamo Bay) when it believes that such behaviour is necessary (or the USA demands it.)

I don't think for a second that there would be any/many European-based jihadists if the Americans demanded that their allies got rid of them. They'd all be on sealed planes to Egypt or Albania, departing at 2AM, by now.

Not somebody I would normally quote but Ricky Gervais said:

"You can easily spot any true Religion of Peace. Their extremists would be extremely peaceful".

Fucking right.

babbas No. You cannot get away with that. You cannot on the one hand claim to want "open debate" and then in the next breath whine about "offensive comments".

What you choose to find offensive is your business. Other people should not be shamed into shutting up just because you don't like what you are hearing/reading.

You'd know that already if you had the faintest idea of what this thread is about.

See ya.

RTL reporting that at least 2 people have been critically injured this morning. The hostages have been taken in a 'zone d'activités' - an industrial site.

The figures have been revised. 2 dead and at least 20 injured.

May they rest in peace. This day is going to be as horrific as Wednesday was.

It's going well then

This is horrendous.

The shooting seems to have taken place before the hostages were taken sebsmummy1.

They are now saying that there is 1 dead.

Deportation wouldn't work, they would only find a way of killing people elsewhere and radicalising more simple minded useless idiots that cannot think for themselves.
Also, many of these jerks are already second or third generation British/French/etc.
if you put them in jail, they end up brain washing some more people with no direction and no brain or they come out of jail too soon and continue their activities of terror.
The only way is the death penalty.

Reports - 1 hostage.

Horrible watching live news, you just can't imagine how this is going to end - or rather can imagine sadly.

I don't think there is a scenerio where these guys come out if this alive.

We can only hope that as few innocent people are killed or injured really. I expect the terrorists actually want to die.

For me it's simple.

The attackers were extremeists, radicals. They certainly don't represent the vast majority of Muslims in the world. Mainstream Islam does not equal Radical Islam.

At the same time, it's possible to critique radical Islam without it being a criticism of mainstream Muslims because, again, radical Islam is not the same thing as mainstream Islam.

If you don't conflate the two, everything stays pretty amicable.

For example, I am a white, Christain woman originally from America. When people made fun of Sarah Palin it didn't bother me at all. I thought she was foolish and I did not identify with her at all. I would, however, have found it tiresome if people kept assuming I agreed with her and wanting to argue with her and critique her ideas with me as a stand in.

It's how many people they kill before they are killed that is such an awful thought. They've just closed the northern runway at C de Gaulle airport.

Do people not worry about the persistent separation of extremists and Islam, by governments, journalists and citizens alike? It's like saying that rape is perpetrated by a few mad and bad, psychopathic individual and is in no way a product of a patriarchal and misogynistic rape supportive culture. Oh, wait...

Do we never learn from the world around us? Do people actually realise what 'institutionalised racism' means, for example, in relation to Stephen Lawrence? Do they not understand that the actions of a few racists are always supported by an inherently racist culture, that the 'extremists' are just the tip of the iceberg? Do they not realise that for every rape, every lone-wolf jihadist extremist, for every racist beating, there is a long line of cultural support, ranging from overt (funding, laws) to tacit (not speaking out, looking away, tacit agreement to the normalisation of aggression behaviours). Do people not realise that if these really were 'extremist incidents, they would occur sporadically, in isolation and infrequently (someone mentioned Harold Shipman).

So, what can we do: Look at how other groups have addressed these issues:

1. language - let's, as a culture, define what it means to be, for example, Islamophobic, racist, supportive of violence.
2. tacit cultural support for violence - what does this mean and how does this permeate cultural processes?
3. let's examine our own hysterical response whenever anyone criticises Islam. Why should Islam be exempt from scrutiny in the way that other ideas aren't? Why do people literally 'froth' when discussing this, as opposed to discussions of ethnicity and racism, sexism, child abuse, white-collar crime, etc.?

But if these sorts of discussions make people uncomfortable, then I'll sit back and wait for the next atrocity, say and do nothing and watch the cycle repeat.

Well there is only one Sarah Palin but there are thousands of Islamic extremists willing to kill in the name of their religion, I really don't see the comparison

They are now denying that anyone has been killed this morning.

And here we go....didn't take long

I think the suspects know they will be killed and aim to 'take out' as many other people as they can. It is inhumane.

I cant say I have much time for Mr Gervais after 'Derek' but the quote above is extremely apt.

Peaceful protest can achieve things.
Mahatma Gandhi achieved a great deal.
Nelson Mandela (in his later years mind) achieved a great deal.

You don't have to go around killing people to express your view (or prevent others expressing theirs).

Any 'religious' person who practices extremism is not religious, just an extremist.

That goes for the current bunch of loons that are Isis, as much as it went for some of those involved in the 'Holy Crusades' of 600 years ago.

(random thoughts).