sass

Frankly I'm less concerned about a few isolated instances of terrorism than I am by the creeping change to our culture which is undermining free speech and slowly chipping away at the liberal values which have underpinned our society

The Hebdo attacks were one instance of terrorism . But UK terror laws are a permanent fixture. (until the law is changed) Here's one of the results of them.... Imams afraid to even discuss the issues because they might be misconstrued....

http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle- ... ackle-isil

sass

The fact that you consistently keep trying to make out that it's only a problem if people are actively joining terror groups shows me that you don't understand the problem

.

Does this mean you are against the free expression of ideas? After all when someone freely says that they take exception to the ridicule of their religious beliefs ... how is that undermining liberal values?
Aren't they, by taking part in a free debate or freely offering their opinion in a poll , supporting the notion of liberty? Is it wrong for Muslims to express their displeasure and offence at the way Hebdo cartoonists treated their religious beliefs?

Frankly, unless someone resorts to violence or other forms of coercion I don't have a problem with the ideas expressed. And I fully understand that there is a fundamental difference between sympathizing with motives, and supporting crimes committed because of the motivation.
I think its somewhat perverse to complain about a group freely expressing their emotional reactions
as an attack on liberty.

What we've learned through history is that the best reaction to intolerant people isn't to shut them down. Its to give them a valid avenue of expression, and allow them to be heard. Then respond with reason and courage.
When you become outraged because people think a certain way and freely express those thoughts, we're well on our way to eliminating liberty.

Does this mean you are against the free expression of ideas?

Are you trolling me Ricky ?

The concern is that where we have a large and rapidly growing minority in which a very substantial proportion of them is opposed to free speech and sympathises with those who seek to shut it down by violent means we have a problem. When a very substantial proportion of them also believe that their faith is incompatible with our values, again we have a problem. The fact that you can't see this and keep on wasting my time with such obvious bullshit arguments makes me question why I'm even bothering to debate this with you.

Sassenach wrote:There are no quotas. Occasionally countries will reach an agreement to accept a certain number of refugees from particular disaster zones (Syria being the most recent of these), but this represents a small proportion of overall migration figures and so it's largely irrelevant. Here in the UK we do have a cap on the number of work visas that can be issued in any given year (to non-EU migrants) but there certainly isn't any discrimination between different ethnic, religious or cultural backgrounds.

Or national ones - other than that the limits only apply to non-EU migrants. Within the EU there is free movement for work, although when a new country joins, other EU members are entitled to set a limit for the first 5 years (as the UK did for Bulgarian and Romanian migrants, but did not for Poland and other expansion countries earlier).

Ray Jay wrote:

rickyp wrote:

Khalid Mahmood, the MP for Perry Barr in Birmingham, estimates that at least 1,500 young British Muslims have been recruited by extremists fighting in Iraq and Syria in the last three years

.

I wonder how Mahmood arrived at this estimate?

It's a reasonable question. He is a Labour MP and sympathetic to the Muslim community (and I guess a member of it).

Yes, Mahmood is a Muslim - he's the first Muslim to be an MP in England. And Perry Barr constituency has a large Muslim minority. But he is estimating and perhaps extrapolating, which means it's less likely to be accurate than stats based on monitoring. There has recently been a situation in Birmingham in which schools were involved in allegations of entryism by exterme Muslims to foster Islamic education rather than secular one in local schools. But Perry Barr and the nearby areas may not be typical of the other 2 million or so Muslims in the UK.

Per Wikipedia,

Approximately half (50%) of the religious affiliations of Muslims is Sunni, 16% Shia, 22% non-affiliated and 16% other/non-response.

In the UK the proportion of Shia is about 5%, with the vast majority being Shia. So there are indeed more Shia Muslims in the USA than in the UK.

[/quote]Would UK Muslims of Bangladeshi or Pakistani descent be less likely to join ISIS than a Muslim of Arab descent?[/quote]I don't know. I don't really know who is actually going out there - other than the one guy all over the news who is Kuwaiti-born. In reality it is more about the small extremist groups who are radicalising Sunni Muslims of any background, than it is about where they (or their parents) were born.

I was reading a book today and the author with regard to guerrilla warfare said that "the acts of a few are supported by the many." Similarly , I think the central issue with regard to Islamic extremism is that there only a relative few Muslims that are willing to wage jihad in the West but there a lot more that are sympathetic to the grievances that drive the extremists . I find some of Ricky's suggestions regarding placating western Muslims to be bordering on appeasement. It is not up to Western countries to change their societies so that they will be acceptable to Muslims.

In any case, if you want to stop the few Muslims in the West who go off to Syria or Iraq to fight then you have to change the thinking of the many who support/sympathize/have similar views to those who become extremists. That is why Ricky's hair- splitting about that poll is immaterial--all that matters is that 1/3 of Muslims in the UK could not find it in themselves to condemn those attacks. The 1/3 are the many that allow the few extremists to develop.

Ricky, I think you are confusing "sympathy" with "empathy".

And while there are aspects of UK terror laws I disagree with, it is an excuse. Emwazi, for example was not radicalised by MI6 approaching him. MI6 approached him because he was identified as someone already radicalised. Maybe they handled it badly, but it seems he was heading that way regardless.

freeman3

. It is not up to Western countries to change their societies so that they will be acceptable to Muslims.

If you read any of the information that was reported by Saunders, otehr than focussing on a singular question that Sassenach is obsessing about ..
i think its obvious that the West doesn't have to change to be acceptable to the vast majority of Muslims living in the West?

for example:

9. Muslims in the West cheer for terrorist violence
While it might seem chilling to learn that 8% of American Muslims feel that violence against civilian targets is “often or sometimes justified” if the cause is right, you have to compare that to the response given by non-Muslim Americans, 24% of whom said that such attacks are “often or sometimes justified.”
This is reflected in most major surveys. When a large-scale survey asked if “attacks on civilians are morally justified,” 1% of the French public, 1% of the German public and 3% of the British public answered yes; among Muslims, the responses were 2%, 0.5%, and 2%. Asked if it is “justifiable to use violence for a noble cause,” 7% of the French public agreed, along with 8% of French Muslims; 10% of the German public and fewer than 2% of German Muslims; 10% of the British public and 8% of British Muslims

What we need to worry about are the disaffected and disillusioned young. And over reacting to Muslim outrage about the purposeful provocations against their religion just reinforces the notion among these young that they are not welcome.
An interesting article that actually describes how some of these Western muslim youths are recruited...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mia-bloom ... 73576.html

danivon

Ricky, I think you are confusing "sympathy" with "empathy"

Am I? When i looked the two words up they were the only synonyms listed for each other...

Ricky:

danivon

Ricky, I think you are confusing "sympathy" with "empathy"

Am I? When i looked the two words up they were the only synonyms listed for each other...

That sounds like a yes to me.

do Muslims change attitudes when faced with new ideas? here's evidence this is true..

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/05/31/amon ... n-culture/

and the notion that Islam is a solid block of similar thought, where the interpretation and practice of the religion is universally held to mean the same thing by adherents is challenged when you see how different attitudes are for Muslims in different parts of the world ..
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the- ... iety-exec/



freeman3

That is why Ricky's hair- splitting about that poll is immaterial--all that matters is that 1/3 of Muslims in the UK could not find it in themselves to condemn those attacks. The 1/3 are the many that allow the few extremists to develop

.
I'm not hair splitting. I'm reading the language of the question and the answers.
If the same people who said the "sympathized with the motives" were also asked whether they supported or condemned the attacks they would have condemned them at or above the 90% rate based on all the other polls disclosing their attitudes towards violence.
What Sass is guilty of, and apparently you, is reading language beyond the poll and projecting something that is not said.
I ask you directly. Is it not possible to sympathize with the motives for an illegal act but still condemn the act?
Would it, for example, be possible to sympathize with the motives of someone who killed their sex abuser but condemn the act of murder?

Sass's poll seems to be in line with prior polls in the UK on support for the 7/7 attacks (25%) and other polls. I am not sure where you are getting the 90% oppose violence figure from. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_a ... _terrorism

You know what seems to change attitudes? When a Muslim population sustains major terrorist attacks themselves. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20 ... m-nations/

What Sass is guilty of, and apparently you, is reading language beyond the poll and projecting something that is not said.

Oh, the irony...

rickyp wrote:danivon

Ricky, I think you are confusing "sympathy" with "empathy"

Am I? When i looked the two words up they were the only synonyms listed for each other...

Really?
I just looked them both up on thesaurus.com.
http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/sympathy
http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/empathy

Just going on the most relevant words...

affinity, compassion, warmth appear for both

empathy, kindness, sensitivity, tenderness, understanding and unity appear for sympathy only

appreciation, insight, pity, rapport and sympathy appear for empathy only.

But, as ever, synonym matching/missing is not the way to determine the difference between the meanings of two words. A dictionary might help:

Sympathy:

noun, plural sympathies.
1. harmony of or agreement in feeling, as between persons or on the part of one person with respect to another.
2. the harmony of feeling naturally existing between persons of like tastes or opinion or of congenial dispositions.
3. the fact or power of sharing the feelings of another, especially in sorrow or trouble; fellow feeling, compassion, or commiseration.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sympathy

Empathy:

noun
1. the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.
2. the imaginative ascribing to an object, as a natural object or work of art, feelings or attitudes present in oneself: "By means of empathy, a great painting becomes a mirror of the self."

Both involve acknowledging another's feelings and understanding the reasons. But the former is also about sharing at least some of those feelings, while the latter is not.

What Sass is guilty of, and apparently you, is reading language beyond the poll and projecting something that is not said.
I ask you directly. Is it not possible to sympathize with the motives for an illegal act but still condemn the act?
Would it, for example, be possible to sympathize with the motives of someone who killed their sex abuser but condemn the act of murder?

Your example is quite extreme. I can indeed sympathise with a victim of sexual abuse, and even their feelings of anger at their abuser. I may even have some sympathy with revenge.

But sexual abuse is not the same as drawing cartoons. One is a direct violation of a person's physical being. The other is remote, and relies on the 'victim' internalising their 'offence'.

danivon

Your example is quite extreme. I can indeed sympathise with a victim of sexual abuse, and even their feelings of anger at their abuser. I may even have some sympathy with revenge.
But sexual abuse is not the same as drawing cartoons. One is a direct violation of a person's physical being. The other is remote, and relies on the 'victim' internalising their 'offence

'.

"drawing cartoons" may describe the activty. But it doesn't describe the offence dose it? They weren't just any cartoons.. they were deliberate attempts to provoke deeply religious muslims. I don't know that deeply religious people would describe the offence against their religion as remote. It is often a core of their being.

I used dictionary.com.... by the way. the definitions on it are very similar.

I have neither sympathy nor empathy with those who get all butthurt about a cartoon. It's high time we stopped pretending that these complaints are legitimate.

rickyp wrote:danivon

Your example is quite extreme. I can indeed sympathise with a victim of sexual abuse, and even their feelings of anger at their abuser. I may even have some sympathy with revenge.
But sexual abuse is not the same as drawing cartoons. One is a direct violation of a person's physical being. The other is remote, and relies on the 'victim' internalising their 'offence

'.

"drawing cartoons" may describe the activty. But it doesn't describe the offence dose it? They weren't just any cartoons.. they were deliberate attempts to provoke deeply religious muslims. I don't know that deeply religious people would describe the offence against their religion as remote. It is often a core of their being.

claptrap.

I used dictionary.com.... by the way. the definitions on it are very similar.

But not the same. English has a lot of that - words that have similar but distinct meanings.