Women's safety in Europe after Cologne

[DavidTCDaviesMP]

I have been invited onto Mumsnet to discuss the situation for women in Europe following the attacks in Cologne, and the challenge we face in Europe in trying to help millions of mainly young men, who are arriving in Europe from cultures which treat women very differently. I believe this is an issue which needs open discussion by political leaders yet is swept under the carpet. David Davies MP

True, I was just trying to be balanced in the sense that neither party is a good example of tolerance towards others.

Islamic extremism has taken a more violent form it is true.Could that be to do with the concept of Jihad? I know not all subscribe to that and see it as taking different forms...

Sporting - Fortunately or unfortunately most of you do not understand the hate that some muslims feel towards non-muslims. I hesitate to post the following on here, but it shows what is out there and goes some way to explain Cologne. Three months ago I was on another site, and this is one of the denigrations I received from a well-known professional football player who converted to Islam:

"Your mother should of swallowed you while she had the chance you fucking filthy whore. I hope you have two beautiful children then they slowly die of cancer."

But when you see this guy on TV, chatting amiably, you would not dream that he holds such opinions or how foul he is. He was the same towards non-muslim men too.

That is an unreasonable thing to say to anybody no matter if you disagree with them. I don't hate anybody enough to say anything like that to anyone. That is a truly hideous thing to say.

I hope that man is not representative of the majority, some people should perhaps contemplate keeping quiet if they cannot debate reasonably.

I hope that is so too. I may report him to the Football Association as I have a printout of the transcript. He also had two acolytes who were abusing me as well.

Did the moderators of the site in question not intervene as that counts as abusive language and on most sites would be taken down? I can only think of a very few unmoderated forums where it would be allowed to continue.

January please may I be added to your list? It would be useful to be able to discuss these important issues without foul abuse such as someone being labelled a "f**king disgusting human being" because they happen to disagree

We should all talk about the issues, no matter how difficult ... Older men will be difficult to change, little boys you have a chance with but it depends on the support of community leaders and home environments

I completely agree, but it's interesting that I was once deleted for also mentioning community involvement. Apparently it was considered offensive at a time when muslims felt under attack, which felt a bit like politically motivated censorship, but there you go

"Except, Deo the worst I have heard a Christian fundamentalist doing is shooting abortion doctors." Today, yes but not in the 1500s etc - we used to go abroad even using children as fighters (children's crusade) to kill muslims and take their lands. Today you are right that most Christian fundamentalists do not murder (although there have been a few blood atonement killings in the last 20 years - which is a fundamentalist thing which is probably in the bible - where you kill for the greater glory).,

Currently more muslims do kill than Christians or Jews, in the cause of their religion although not most muslims.

I certainly agree nothing shoudl be censored and we can talk about what we like and if Muslims or anyone else don't like it they will just have to cry in corners or seek therapy rather than silence those whose views they do not like. If I don't like to hear that men are superior to women that's tough. We need the freedom to say there is no God, that women are equal to men, that gays are fine or whatever it might be and indeed one reason many people come to the UK is because of our freedom of speech. it's a tough issue though as I support the right for people to deny the holocaust, to spout from the koran etc etc and where we draw the line at free speech is never easy. I would err on the side of let people be offended and force them to grow tougher skins even if people are saying on line a curse on DG she is spawn of satan.

We all have communities, for example I am part of my child's school community along with the other parents, teachers and students, there is nothing sinister in that, we can be stronger if we feel we belong.

Everybody in this area belongs to the community in the sense that they live here and it is a part of their day-to-day no matter how diverse they are.

Interesting article here on the tactics used by the "regressive left" (as opposed to the progressive left). (When the speaker refers to 'charity' he means the philosophical 'principle of charity', which is that you should consider the best, strongest possible interpretation of an opponent's argument, rather than nitpicking over how it is phrased). Some of it sounds quite familiar:

' "a group that "[looks] for the worst in people... and [does] not extend hermeneutics of charity, or a charitable interpretation of anything anyone says, but uses it as a hammer to beat people down". In addition, he believes the regressive leftists have become "hyper-moralists" and champions of their perceived victims. He cites the historical wrongdoings, such as slavery in the U.S. and colonialism as a legitimate concern that has caused mistrust of anything Western and capitalistic. He also added that "there are people who have suffered and still suffer legitimate instances of racism, homophobia etc. The problem is that every time the word racist is just thrown around like that, that word loses its meaning. And it should have quite a sting. That should be a horrible word".'

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_left

"He cites the historical wrongdoings, such as slavery in the U.S. and colonialism as a legitimate concern that has caused mistrust of anything Western "

Except, kesstrel, it is conveniently not taught that the original slaverers were African tribes who fought and conquered other tribes, took them as slaves and sold them to the middlemen - the Arab. It is the Arab slave traders who sold on to USA and Europe. You might say we were the end-users. Everyone was at fault in this vile trade but perspective is lost because that piece of history is not taught iin full.

"I support the right for people to deny the holocaust, to spout from the koran etc etc"

The problem here Deo is that it impacts on history lessons to children, and of course reinforces the belief held by millions of the migrants who have recently entered Europe - the very ones we are talking about. It would be like denying that WW1 & WW2 ever happened. There are enough crazies who want to rewrite history as it is, and I for one would not want to play into their hands, because 2 or 3 generations for now the history books of that time could well speak about a conspiracy lie that was popular in the 20th and 21st centuries but has now been discounted as preposterous.

january please add me to your list as well. Thank you for all you're doing.

Britt - slavery is alive and well. Cf Mauritania for further info.

I know they are difficult issues but I am glad the UK unlike I think Austria does not make a separate criminal offence of holocaust denial because if we shut down debate then we have lost.

Hoever that does not mean I think state schools should be free to promulgate false histories. The FLDS group in the US took children out of state schools in abot 2002 to control what they were taught - even that their leader was the real president of the USA. Now do I support the rights in the UK for home education? Yes because I put that freedom of parents above the risk of indoctrination. However they are not easy issues. Germany bans home schooling.

I do not support state schools state funded schools promulgating lies and I include in that C of E schools, creationist schools and all the rest who spout invented rubbish for biblical or koranic truth.

I certainly support trying to make it easier for women in all groups to have access to the internet and information and routes out of abuse and male domination.

Yep, the Islamic State of Mauritania. And of course the Gulf States import workers from various parts of Asia and Africa and in many cases treat them very badly indeed- not paying them for months and months, taking away their passports.

Going back to the Emma Thompson point upthread, she has urged us to stay in the EU or else "the country will return to its status as a cake-filled misery-laden grey old island”. What is it about the regressive left that they always appear to hate their own country? Do F off Emma dear.

Yes, f* of, Emma Thompson. That was also what Steve Allen on LBC this morning felt too. I cant stand all these Luvvies fronting charity appeals and dropping pearls of wisdom such as Ms Thompson's. I don't give a toss what an actor thinks ...... as if it's more important to what I or my milkman think.

yy!

This article is very good and explains it in a nutshell edition.cnn.com/interactive/2012/03/world/mauritania.slaverys.last.stronghold/ - which brings us back to - could we for example, take all 3.4+ million "slaves" in terms of refugees? This is just from one country and does not even begin to address the problems associated with.

Education, education - Mauritania is a country in which slavery has been illegal for 35 years... yet still up to 20% of the population is in slavery.

We cannot fix the world by just opening borders - and we certainly won't fix anything by yelling "racist/xenophobe". The world is inherently unfair, but we are extremely lucky in western europe that we attain some level of "fairness" - hard fought for by women and men before us. We need only cast our eyes back a few hundred years to the hellhole (for women) that was the UK and America.

You can't drag people into democracy - and as far as educating the children, what chance do they stand when their own mothers insist upon indoctrination?

Britt, that's slightly wrong. You're right about Africans capturing other Africans to sell them into slavery, but they actually sold them initially only to Arabs and there was a flourishing slave trade across the Sahara with African slaves being taken to the ME to be slaves there. Arabs didn't act as the middle men to Westerners, they were slavers in their own right. Westerners actual tapped into the pre-existing African/Arab slave networks and bought slaves directly from Africans, but those networks were set up to serve Arabs first.

This means that graves facing East are automatically reserved for Muslims.
I shouldn't think it does, Britt: 'facing' just means the direction the grave is dug and Christian graves face east as well. Even the ones in our local secular plot face east, though in another local secular cemetery they face south.

kess, I've been reading about the regressive left as we well. It's not cheering.

Is "regressive left" what I've always termed as "champagne socialist"?

There is good reason why many UK charities give small loans to mothers in Africa for a business (not to fathers who just piss the money up the wall) and help to educate women. It is the best way to make progress and why the Taliban oparticularly hates education for girls and why Boko Haram means Western Education is forbidden or is bad.

We win by ideas and information just as Caxton's printing press made it easier for information to flow and then the photocopier in Soviet Russia and the internet down the border between China and North Korea today and why groups like the FLDS ban internet and mobile phones (and I only mention them - only 10,000 people in the US because it is a non muslim group with the same kind of tactics of isolation of members and keeping women down).

We shoudl also not forget that never in the history of the planet has there been less violence. This are more hopeful than people realise although displacement of 50% of Syrian residents is absolutely awful and perhaps justifies Western support moving back to Assad as the lesser of two evils even.

Grace, it's leftists who tolerate, defend, deny (and even celebrate) bigotry and intolerance from minority groups in the name of political correctness and multiculturalism.

Not the same as champagne socialism, but their proponents have a massive crossover.

Is "regressive left" what I've always termed as "champagne socialist"?
No Grace, it doesn't seem to be, though I'm sure there's an overlap. It seems to be populated by people who don't like the West, and now that the USSR has vanished and even China has gone capitalist, they latch on to any anti-western ideology they can find. (I think that's it: I've culled this from my reading of Nick Cohen. I would happily stand corrected by someone better informed.)

x-post.