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

I have lived and worked in Muslim areas of Paris, Gazouille, and the people I knew there were ordinary, hardworking, working-class people. Most were only nominally Muslim and kept certain traditions for tradition's sake, but didn't really practise the religion.

I know several people who were born into muslim families, but who have left the religion, including one man who changed his name by deed poll to something with no religious connotations because he no longer wanted to be associated with that culture!

Those who choose to stay, IMO, are condoning the recent turn towards fanaticism the religion has taken. If they really disagree with terrorism sexism etc, they should be working hard to reform their religion to adopt more modern positions (like the Reform/Liberal Jewish movements have done - removing the sexist rules and traditions and modernising the religion), or leaving it in droves!

Staying and doing nothing is tantamount to agreeing.

VitaminC. I agree with you. My experience comes from Marsailles

One of the problems is that it has no Pope, no Archbishps etc to provide guidance and leadership. Therefore it is a fragmented belief system that is at the mercy of any self-appointed sheikh / mullah / Iman whatever

And don't forget that the price of leaving the faith is death. It's taken the Western world centuries to shake off the yoke of religion. it's unrealistic to expect people to suddenly refute centuries of believe, especially when many have been denied western education and are constrained by the communities in which get live

I admire those to chose to

What depresses me is that many of the people who have chosen to be violent fanatics have been raised and educated to an advanced level in the western world.

I just don't have an explanation for it - previously I would have assumed this violent fanaticism was a result of poverty and poor education but that doesn't seem to be the case for many people.

I don't have any answers. Just endless questions.

Gatorade from the French sites I'm looking at only six of the dead have been formally ID'd so far and none of them are women.

Well, of you actually want answers, Ubik1, then you seem to be asking the wrong questions in order to get them.

It's the height of foolishness to keep pretending that these murderers don't represent Islam.

Yes, they do.

They don't represent all Muslims, certainly - but Islam? They are the living embodiment of a very barbaric and blood thirsty ideology.

Want to know why people fly planes into buildings and shoot dead cartoonists? Their Holy Book tells them to...that's why.

I don't think 'their holy book tells them to' is an adequate explanation.

Caffee's right. It's like Christians literally acting out the Old Testament.

Add Saudinoil dollars into the mix to fund mosques into which they export of their particularly vicious Wahabbism and you can understand why it is happening

How you stop it is the problem. It's problem that has been posed for centuries.

you are lucky that you didn't see the footage of the French Policeman lying on the ground writhing in agony as he had been shot or saw him, with his hands up in surrender, being calmly executed by a shot in the head.

Or not so lucky.

Italian telly doesn't believe in pixellating.

three arrests - according to the guardian

Born 80, 82 & 96.

At least one born in Paris. And one a teenager

Fucking hell

That's good news about the arrests. I hope they've got the bastards bang to rights.

I'm afraid it is, Ubik1. They tell us why they are doing it, but we refuse to believe them. We'd rather comfort ourselves by pretending it's all socio-economic and so forth.

That may well play a role, but the overwhelming reason is that they truly, truly believe in their religion and their religion is incredibly violent.

We must, MUST, as a society....as a world....start having a serious discussion about Islam and the danger it poses.

And that discussion cannot even begin while we are still kidding ourselves that these fundamentalists don't represent Islam. They do. They represent the fundamental tenets of the ideology...they have not misrepresented it, or twisted it's meaning.

What they don't represent is every other Muslim in the world, and we should obviously never forget that.

neither does Youtube

French police denying arrests. the brothers are said to be returned from Syria.

German and Belgian newspapers have the CH cartoons on their front pages

Yes here is BZ Berlin

Absolutely right Caffe. I am sick to the back teeth of people whose first response to attacks like this is to fall over themselves to defend Islam. Enough with the right on wilful blindness. This is terrifying. No idea what we can do about it but being honest would be a good start

Caffe. You've pointed out the big big elephant in the room the one that Cameron never dares speak of.

The one that used to get you accused if Islamophobia if you dared to mention it.

The one that gets you labelled racist by those who are too ignorant to understand that it's a belief system and not a race of people

The one that is infiltrating school governing boards and actively seeking the dismissal if those who try to stand up to its bigoted views

We can now talk about immigration without being branded as racist

I hope that after today we can discuss the threat of Islam without being branded Islamophobic

But there is already a trend on Twitter called BlameTheMuslim in which people are complaining that Islam is bring unfairly blamed for every trivial thing that happens. Even T he G Hadrian and CNN are saying that CH brought this upon themselves

While that mindset persists and Cameron cannot even acknowledge the problem there is no hope for us.

But I have travelled in Muslim countries, I live in an area which has a high Muslim population and have only been shown generosity and kindness.

For someone like me - left wing, liberal, atheist - it's so difficult to understand how a religion can produce such extremity. And I don't know what the answer is.

how about #blameislamnotmuslims

I'm sure many Muslims are absolutely horrified by what happened today. I have a Muslim colleague who was in the office when I was listening to the news on the radio and I felt for her. Do I want her to feel ashamed or responsible for what was done in the name of her religion? Of course not.

But surely this constant blinkered defence of Islam has to stop.

So you've never had a man refuse to shake hands with you? I have. Or had an employee refuse to attend an important meeting because it had been scheduled during their prayer time? I have. Or had an NHS consultant respond to your male partner rather than to you as he felt uncomfortable even looking at me? I have.

In Britain

Multiculturalism is an utter failure when all the give is from one culture and all the take is from another.

We need to grow some very soon.

Lotto

You can't have it both ways. You cannot absolve her of shame and then complain that the followers are doing so blindly

I travelled in Muslim countries 30 years ago and saw more evidence of modernism then than I have in recent travels to those same countries. It's the worlds fastest growing religion. England will be an Islamic state within the next 100 years, probably a lot sooner. Our grand daughters will be living under Sharia law. Thats a fact

I sometimes wonder whether the successive Govts in the country are allowing uncontrolled EU migration as these migrants are more likely to be of Christian or Orthodox belief rather than Muslim. An attempt to dilute the problem

Er...no. Not in Britain.

I have quite a few colleagues and some neighbours who are Muslim and its a quite cordial really. Everyone gets on with their lives.

Everyone saying the problem is Islam the religion -- you do realise when you say that, you are on the side of the terrorists, right?

Islamist extremists believe that their form of Islam which, yes, is based on literal interpretations of the Quran is the only correct form of Islam, and they are the true representatives of Islam. One of the reasons why most terrorism is directed at other Muslims is because they hate those who don't submit to their authority more than they hate non-Muslims in the West -- the apostate is worse than the infidel. They want control of the Muslim world and everyone following their brand of Islam.

So when you say 'they are Islam' or 'they are the true face of Islam' -- you're agreeing with them! You're saying they are the correct interpretation of the religion. That's exactly what they want people to believe.

THAT is why everyone says over and over that they do not represent Islam. Come on, the Bible is just as bad as the Quran -- do we say Christian extremists represent Christianity? No, because the vast majority of Christians say they don't. So here too, if the vast majority of Muslims say 'this is not us', we should agree with them and support them, not call them all terrorists.

Pink news are also willing to publish some of the cartoons

www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/01/07/gunmen-massacre-staff-at-paris-magazine-that-published-islamic-gay-kiss/