Proposed march through Wooton Bassett

[FrozenNorth]

Here

Initially saw this on the BBC but this link gives a bit more detail. I support everyone's right to free speech but ... dear goodness, this seems to be exceptionally bad taste. My DH is an army doctor and, during his time in a free Afgan clinic for civilians run by the army, saved many Afgan lives. He's going out there again in January. I can imagine I'd be incredibly distressed if he'd lost his life in the conflict and somebody wrote to me explaining what he'd 'really' died for. Ugh. Maybe it's just my personal bias, but I can't help feel that the proposed march is sited to cause maximum potential for violent conflict and to cause maximum hurt to those who are bereaved.

Not the moon Riven. We could still see them on a clear night!
Maybe Mars. They wouldnt last long there. Do you think they would still find something to complain about?

Riven. Following a very long thread a month or so ago. I have taken your advice. Instead of scowling when I see the mums at school who wear the headscarves, I now actively smile and say hello. I know I am a prat but I hadnt properly thought it through and just assumed all covered women were oppressed. Thank you for opening my eyes a bit wider.

"I think your find that most british muslims where wezternised clothes and have the rights to work etc.."

I think DP was speaking about sharia law and women in less progressive families tbh, at least thats they way I percieved it to be.

Hardly what islam4uk would promote.

Are the Scandinavians not a Western democratic nation then.
I do understand what you are saying but seriously you cannot compare the global situation we have now with the middle ages!
Also most of the "converting" done in the oldy days was at the point of a sword.
Isnt that exactly what we are trying to stop happening now? Except it is at the point of some poor brainwashed kid in a suicide jacket!

I will listen to anybody with a point to make, according to the freedom of speech which we have in this country. The problem is that groups like Islam4uk think they are right and everyone else is wrong!

Well, the BNP include Roman/Viking/Saxon/Norman immigrants as 'indigenous English', apparently

This is a shame that this extreme element chooses to air its vitriol at such a sensitive place where so many people openly grieve.It lumps all muslims in together becuase there are so many ignorant people who can't differentiate between your average muslim citizen and these extreme groups.It also insults the dead but also is a kick in the teeth for all those who work tirelessly at integrating religions in this country.These people are (under our laws) entitled to free speech but this is not the place.they should take their grievances elsewhere.They do not spout any more evil than NG they have just been very aggressive in their choice of venue.

"Are the Scandinavians not a Western democratic nation then"

Well they're a slightly different flavour than the primarily Western European influences that ended up shaping us.

"I do understand what you are saying but seriously you cannot compare the global situation we have now with the middle ages"

Even looking back over the last 100 years has seen our society make major shifts that many people at the time opposed. Votes for women, socialism, women at work, family planning, acceptance of single parents etc. etc.

So change happens and is good.

Telling people who want to change our society to go elsewhere is not only impractical but ignores all those who did manage to change our country to make it the place that we all live in.

"The problem is that groups like Islam4uk think they are right and everyone else is wrong!"

Don't most groups?

Didn't the suffragettes believe that they were right and all of those who believed that women couldn't be trusted with the vote were wrong?

Don't get me wrong, I don't like groups like Islam4UK or the BNP at all but I do believe they have the right to be heard and to try and change society as long as they stay within the law and do it peacefully.

Don;t we all think we are right and everyone else is wrong though ronshar. I'm not about to say that Nick Griffin has a reasonable view on what constitutes an indigenous population, nor that Anjem Choudray should write to the bereaved parents of soldiers killed in Afghanistan. And in that, I am right, and they are wrong.

"why are these kids so succeptible? Thats my question."

I read an article once (can't remember where or by whom) that said that these children are the lost generation they live in the uk and yet are apart from the uk, they follow islam and yet see about them the temptations of what others have and can do, they follow family values and yet would like to participate in the wider western culture, they feel they do not belong to either culture and yet walk in both. They feel they are not valued, not heard and in some cases not wanted by society in general.

I suppose it isn't hard to imagine a 'lost' child finding a purpose.

But politically that is what we want though. We vote for the policies that we want imposed on the rest of the population. Extreme policies just throw that into sharper focus, but it's true for all elections.

"Well, the BNP include Roman/Viking/Saxon/Norman immigrants as 'indigenous English', apparently"

The BNP are a little bit confused on what they mean by "indigenous" (as they are about many things).

Nick Griffin on Question Time said "the indigenous people of these islands – the English, the Scots, the Irish and the Welsh – the colour is irrelevant. It is the people who have been here overwhelming for the last 17,000 years"

So that excludes the Romans, Vikings (Danes, Norwegian etc.), Saxons and Normans to pick but a handful of the people that have populated these islands over the last 17,000 years.

"But we're only a Christian Country because foreigners came here with the explicit intent of converting us."

Not true.

Christianity originally came to Britain in the first century, when Roman traders told sories about Christ (as well as other stories about their own deities). There was never an organised attempt to convert the British.

Alfred the Great saw Viking attacks as a punishment from God and set abnout promoting Christain learning. Then, when the Normans came in 1066, William the Conqueror implemented a huge building project of new Churches and Monasteries. These new stone churches played a central role in community life: they acted as schools, market places and entertainment venues.

17 000 years? That's a bit different then. I remember looking it up because I was confused when I saw a blond haired BNP fellow on the TV bleating on about being part of the indigenous population. The stuff about the Saxons etc was on their website.

By Riven Mon 04-Jan-10 13:36:43
'Lots of muslim women have good rights that are here, some families don't give the females in their families the same freedom as rights but they have the freedom to a degree to get away from there families here there is support for them!'

Good your making progress I went to a friends daughers (2yrs old) funeral at a mosque and it was awful how the men and women were seperated to grief also how hard it was being a women that new the father well but not the mother very well...made it very odd....

Times are changing hopefully for loads of muslims x

I know I am am wrong on things and seek the knowledge to find the truth. I am not perfect. I most certainly do not think that everyone else thinks they are right all the time.
The ones who do are called extremists! Because they refuse to acknowledge anyone else's point of view.
What I am trying to say is that for groups like Islam4uk, if they want to live a life under Sharia law and within an Islamic structure then go somewhere where that is the case.
We live in a global village now dont we?
We live here, in a society where we have freedom of speech, equality for women, race, colour, disability etc.
Some of the things that go on in this country are unpleasant but I would be stunned to listen to a member of Islam4uk stand up and say that it is better in Iran for example, where for standing up and expressing yourself you get shot in the chest by a government sponsored militia man, and that they would rather live there!!

Is it so very simplistic of me to say if you dont like this country find one that is more to your taste???

"Christianity originally came to Britain in the first century, when Roman traders told sories about Christ (as well as other stories about their own deities). There was never an organised attempt to convert the British."

What about Joseph of Arimathea? If the stories are true then he certainly preached with the intent of conversion.

What about the children of Caractacus? They converted in Rome and returned here to preach.

Later still Saint Germanus was sent here to "correct" the errors, as they saw it, that had taken root in our relatively independent Celtic branch of Christianity.

All that long before Alfred.

So yes there were people who came here deliberately to spread the word, it wasn't just traders telling stories and locals thinking "oh that sounds like a good idea."

We have those equalities, up to a point, in this country because people have stood up and shouted for them. We didn't have them 100 years ago. And we like them now (most of us). But not everone did at the time. It's a matter of persuasion. And though I hope to God that Islam4UK don't shout loudly or persuasively enough to get a foothold here, what are the criteria for people we allow to shout, and those we don't? And who gets to set them?

If Islam4UK wanted to proselytise their faith and persuade people of their cause they would NOT be planning to march in WB. They want maximum offence and media impact (which they will probably get, especially if the appalling English Defence League-not my defence, and not my England- turn up for a punch-up). This smacks of rather teenage controversialism and posturing.

I'm with Wannabe: ignore ignore ignore. Not necessarily blanking them out of the media etc, which comes across as censorship, but I hope if any protest takes place it is completely ignored with no counter-protest and no one turning out to shake fists at them. A damp squid parade met by complete indifference is not what they are banking on.

Is it just me, or is the whole concept of a protest over specifically Muslim deaths irritating? Suggests you are only worth mourning if you are a co-religionist, and I don't like that. There is room for an action to mourn Afghan civilian deaths, but in another place and open to protesters of all faiths and backgrounds.

The thread has rather depressed me. Whenever one of these groups pops up with a new shit's trick they seem, directly or indirectly, to foster the impression with some that the immigrant communities in this country are overwhelmingly filled with people hostile to the majority population/culture. That fuels the white backlash/persecution complex. Everybody loses.

Someone always pops up to say that moderate Muslims should disassociate themselves from the extremists etc. Quite apart from the fact I don't think anyone should have to go around endlessly disassociating from stuff ('Not my fault Tony Blair took us into Afghanistan, honest, I voted Scot Nat, guv' etc)or proving loyalty, they'd never get anything else done. The media doesn't report it anyway.

And relax.

"Is it so very simplistic of me to say if you dont like this country find one that is more to your taste???"

Without being rude I think that that is a touch simplistic.

We owe so much to so many British people who in the past decided that they didn't like aspects of this country and set about changing them through protest and debate.

New Zealand had universal suffrage before 1900, thankfully the Suffragettes didn't just up sticks and move there.

I dare say the early labour movement was viewed as dangerously bolshy and its supporters invited to move somewhere more 'to their taste'.

But ronshar...they hate the west when it suits them...I doubt they refuse benefits or council houses and other western privileges

I'm very much "if you don't like it here fuck off".....but they wont.

Surely the point is they dont want to change just a few policy decisions, they want to change our whole way of life.
I do not want to be told what religion I have to follow. I do not want to cover my self up because a man might not be able to restrain himself. I most certainly do not want my word as a woman being worth only half that of a mans in a court of law.

Good grief I would rather live in France!!!!