DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Richpo64 on October 11, 2007, 01:55:37 PM
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Islam is Peace for Britain?
by Robert Spencer (more by this author)
Posted 10/08/2007 ET
Updated 10/08/2007 ET
?Who are we? We are Islam is peace. We want to eradicate Islamophobia. Our home is Britain. And we represent peace.?
It?s a new ad campaign in Britain: Islam is Peace. Buses and trains are sporting the legend, ?Islam is Peace,? and an array of images, including that of a Muslim policewoman, a Muslim scout group, and a Muslim chef, attempt to show that Muslims in Britain are ordinary citizens, and should not be regarded with suspicion.
The group?s website derides as a ?misconception? the idea that ?jihad means holy war.? It speaks about jihad as involving a ?struggle to improve the quality of life in society and the struggle against injustice, oppression and tyranny,? but says nothing about armed struggle. It leaves unexplained how innumerable thousands of Muslims worldwide could have gotten the idea that jihad had something to do with violence. The site also dismisses the idea that ?terrorism is supported in Islam,? saying, ?this misconception is one of the most widely held misconceptions about Islam today,? and quoting the Qur?an to show that ?it is clearly Islamically unlawful to murder an innocent person.? However, it doesn?t specify what qualifies a person as innocent, and thus does not answer the jihadist claim that no non-Muslim can be innocent.
The British jihadist leader Anjem Chaudary articulated this view several years ago on British television, when he told an incredulous interviewer that ?as far as Muslims are concerned, you are innocent if you are a Muslim.?
So if you condemn attacks on innocents, you?ve done nothing -- absolutely nothing -- to condemn the actual jihadist point of view.
The Islam is Peace campaign centers around a five-point plan:
1. To monitor and fight Islamophobia wherever it occurs.
2. To create permanent channels of dialogue and debate between the Muslim community and the rest of Britain, ensuring that your voice is always in the mainstream media. To partner with business and government to ensure that our concerns such as racism and social exclusion are understood.
3. To call upon our government to work towards a just and lasting peace in areas of conflict around the world, helping eliminate the injustices that foment division and nurture violence.
4. To be creative. To ensure that we have our finger on the pulse of the British mainstream. To understand what our community wants the world to hear.
5. To create friendships. To create a culture of understanding. To create a future of dialogue and a lot of new friendships.
Did you have a sense of d?j? vu reading those points? They are, not accidentally, quite similar to the goals of the 1960s civil rights movement in America. But the difference between this campaign and a real civil rights campaign is the same as the difference between Rooseveltian reformers and Leninesque revolutionaries.
A few things are glaringly absent from these five points. There is not one word about fighting against the jihadist ideology of Islamic supremacism within English mosques and Islamic schools. Instead, point one of the campaign is to fight against undefined Islamophobia, as if the only reason why anyone regarded Muslims with suspicion was because of bigotry and hatred by non-Muslims.
Well, I?ve got news for you. If ?Islamophobia? actually exists at all, it is a result of the over nine thousand violent attacks committed by Muslims in the name of Islam since 9/11. If the Islam is Peace organizers really want to end ?Islamophobia,? here is a simple five-point plan of my own. To end ?Islamophobia,? Muslims should:
1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.
2. Renounce definitively not just "terrorism," but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means.
3. Teach Muslims the imperative of coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis.
4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.
5. Actively work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.
If Muslims do those five things, voila! ?Islamophobia? will vanish. No slick PR campaigns will be needed.
Mr. Spencer is director of Jihad Watch and author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)" , "The Truth About Muhammad" and "Religion of Peace?" (all from Regnery -- a HUMAN EVENTS sister company).
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The Muslim communities in the UK do condemn the attacks made by British Muslims on innocents. It came as a complete shock and horror to the people of Dewsbury that some of the train bombers were from that town.
I don't know where the radical right keeps getting this idea that Muslims never condemn the violence of their own. They do! Often! What the hell else are you wanting them to do?
What the hel do the British Muslims care about the US Constitution? That's just incredibly stupid. Sharia, has a very negative meaning in right wing circles, in reality the community of Dewsbury in Britain follows sharia law (as well as British law) and has a far lower crime rate than white communities of equal size.
There are many more examples of Muslims coexisting peacefully with non-Muslims than the opposite. Cases like Bradford are rare.
You cannot tell Muslims what to teach in their Mosques, any more than you can tell Christians or Jews what to teach. You know that.
Muslim nations have provided the most prisoners, especially Pakistan, in the war on terror. Who says western Islamic communities aren't doing enough? I see no evidence that they are not being cooperative.
Islamaphobia won't vanish any more than anti-Semitism, or any other form of bigotry will. That takes education and a lack of ignorance. Not articles that try to blame the subjects of bigotry for that bigotry.
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I don't know where the radical right keeps getting this idea that Muslims never condemn the violence of their own. They do! Often! What the hell else are you wanting them to do?
Quoting Zoolander from an earlier post, the need to clean up their own mess first.
Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
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:(
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OK, Rich, that was over the top.
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Agreed.
My apologies.
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Look bitch, there aren't any Christians out there blowing up women and children.
What about Eric Rudolph?
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Eric Rudoplh ... lol
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Eric Rudoplh ... lol
Yeah, I guess killing people and setting off bombs is pretty funny (I'm assuming that you're using "lol" to mean laugh out loud, which is disturbing, instead of lots of love, which is even worse).
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Eric Rudoplh ... lol
How pathetic.
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Eric Rudoplh ... lol
How pathetic.
Rich loves the homosexuals, but Islam does not!
Islam = Evil
Rich = Homosexual Orgy
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Eric Rudoplh ... lol
How pathetic.
Almost as pathetic as your reluctance to engage in discussion on it.
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Rich loves the homosexuals, but Islam does not!
Islam = Evil
Rich = Homosexual Orgy
JS, you're going to turn me straight.
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Rich loves the homosexuals, but Islam does not!
Islam = Evil
Rich = Homosexual Orgy
JS, you're going to turn me straight.
LOL
Good thing you have a sense of humor.
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LOL
Good thing you have a sense of humor.
Humor is an essential aspect to a satisfying life.
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Wow Just Stupid.
That was well, just stupid.
lol
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>>Almost as pathetic as your reluctance to engage in discussion on it.<<
You're actually going to compare one man to militant Islam and the thousands they've murdered?
But hey, fell free to explain your twisted rational. I like a joke as much as the next guy. Tell us how one man virtually all Christians condemned is somehow proportional to a global movement of murder for religious world dominance supported by millions.
Please, go ahead.
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Tell us how one man virtually all Christians condemned is somehow proportional to a global movement of murder for religious world dominance supported by millions.
You didn't ask for proportion, you made a blanket statement: Look bitch, there aren't any Christians out there blowing up women and children. I corrected it by bringing up a Christian terrorist, just because other Christians condemned him doesn't make him any less of a terrorist, as I'm sure you would agree if the subject was a Moslem. If you can't handle the correction don't make the mistake.
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yeah sure:
http://s202.photobucket.com/albums/aa56/USA2008/?action=view¤t=56bbf929.pbr (http://s202.photobucket.com/albums/aa56/USA2008/?action=view¤t=56bbf929.pbr)
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OK, Rich, that was over the top.
It's OK Ami. I expected it. In fact, I was egging him on. Whatever he said, I knew it was coming.
I've come to the conclusion that debating with Rich is senseless. I am going with my "Inner hOOt" in response to Zoolander from now on, and I'll have a little fun while I'm at it.
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It's OK Ami. I expected it. In fact, I was egging him on. Whatever he said, I knew it was coming.
It was an uncalled for cheap shot. It has no place here.
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>>It was an uncalled for cheap shot. It has no place here.<<
Actually is was called for. But if the little Muslim girl can't take it, then I'll refrain from upsetting her in the future. I wouldn't want an honor killing on my hands.
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Hey look, they swept the skies for alien life.
And it worked!!
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They found your mother?
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>>It was an uncalled for cheap shot. It has no place here.<<
Actually is was called for. But if the little Muslim girl can't take it, then I'll refrain from upsetting her in the future. I wouldn't want an honor killing on my hands.
Cultural groups that still perform honor killings also kill men who dishonor the family. It's not advertised as much as the killing of women, but it happens.
That said, Zoolander would have been killed off a long time ago in an honor killing. Perhaps a good reason not to leave Ohio.
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>>It's not advertised as much as the killing of women, but it happens.<<
Then I suggest you get dinner on the table and stop flirting with the mailman.
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>>It was an uncalled for cheap shot. It has no place here.<<
Actually is was called for. But if the little Muslim girl can't take it, then I'll refrain from upsetting her in the future. I wouldn't want an honor killing on my hands.
BTW, I never saw it.
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>>It's not advertised as much as the killing of women, but it happens.<<
Then I suggest you get dinner on the table and stop flirting with the mailman.
That was just dumb. :P
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I kind of feel sorry for ol' Zoolander.
I mean, what kind of life could you lead if all day you worry about the constant "threat" of Iran, Islam, terrorism, radical leftists, communists, etc? You immerse yourself in paranoia all day long.
It is all very sad.
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>>I mean, what kind of life could you lead if all day you worry about the constant "threat"<<
Remember now, Just Stupid is really scared of Blackwater .... lol
Never mind the folks who really want to kill us ... what a poltroon. He sits in chatroom ripping off the tax payer bloviating about how a million crazed Muslims don't represent a threat.
But like I said, he's an admitted Communist, therefore he's a fridge player who nobody takes seriously. Well, Brass does, when he's not out searching for little green men.
:D
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Actually is was called for.
Feel free to insult Henny all you'd like. Leave her family, especially children, out of it.
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>>Feel free to insult Henny all you'd like. Leave her family, especially children, out of it.<<
So the peaceful future of her children, and the children of real Americans isn't worthy of discussion?
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So the peaceful future of her children, and the children of real Americans isn't worthy of discussion?
That's fine.
Insults and veiled threats targeting her children are not.
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I consider it established that the majority of Muslims are peace loveing no less than any other large group of humans.
The violent minority tho - What do they amount to - what is their importance ?
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>>Feel free to insult Henny all you'd like. Leave her family, especially children, out of it.<<
So the peaceful future of her children, and the children of real Americans isn't worthy of discussion?
We can talk about children in general all day. Ami's right - I thought you were just calling ME names, but if your comment went further than that, please just leave my American-born son out of it. I have never mentioned your children before and would appreciate the same courtesy.
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Threats?
Get a grip.