Seems like immigrants in themselves tend not to be seen as threatening, but the combination of immigrants and politics, which are relatively alien, tends to create suspicion/fear.
A summary from samcdkey once in a while would be much appreciated. On the rare occassion I present a link, I provide the url and then say "basically what it's saying is..." because people don't like reading quotes or clicking on links. I'd rather write a boring post like this than read an interesting quote...
"All this happened a hundred years ago..." After I read that part, nothing else seemed very important to the realities of today. Baron Max
There is a difference between the earlier Jewish immigration and the current Muslim immigration...there were fewer Jewish immigrants per head of host-nation population and the Jews did not want to set up their own laws to govern over the entire host nation....so I think the Guardian article uses a bad analogy. More recently, the levels of violence used by extremists have increased and have also been used to blackmail the host nation.
I lived in East London and worked in Whitechapel so I know the area well and I also took it upon myself to research the area's history - in fact when I was in school it was a historical topic as was the Holocaust. One of the most striking images of my youth was the film taken by British soldiers as they entered Belsen concentration camp. However these scenes are becoming commonplace in the media and normalization to genocide is occurring. The problem that fundamentalist immigrants pose to the host-nation and its integrated immigrant population is a threat of far greater magnitude today than it was during the misconceived validation of the 'Battle of Cable Street'. Rather than upsetting a few racist bigots, fundamentalism is concerning the liberal, democratic base of the host-nation. 'The Last Kabbalist in Lisbon' by Richard Zimler covers the persecution of minorities well.
That, sure. But, Sam, how many violent demonstrations did the early Jews hold in the streets of London? In all of England? How many Jews over the world were known to commit criminal acts of violence? And curious, but how many Jewish terrorists of that time, and in the world, were blowing up innocent women and children in suicide attacks around the world? And how many terrorist attacks happened in London? In all of England? No, Sam, the analogy does not hold ...not even close! Baron Max
Sometimes the religion of peace has to break a few heads to get its message of love across. Just like the Land of the Free has to break a few heads to get its message of democracy across. Seems the two are made for each other.
Wrong. There are some problems with British Born Muslims, I’m not just talking about Asian Muslims, I’m talking White, Black and Mixed race Muslims. Were there any problems in the 60s/70s when immigrants from Pakistan and India came? what about those Yemeni immigrants (make up the longest-established Muslim group in Britain) that came back in the what early 1900s, any bombs going off? Any terrorist attacks? The early immigrants worked hard, they lived very hard lives, I hear about it all the time. Why didn’t they resort to extremism or terrorism? Poppycock. Muslims in the UK do not want to set up their own laws, that is just the usual misinformation. There are Muslim MPs and countless Muslim councillors throughout the UK, I believe Muslims are well represented, in my town we have Muslim councillors, we’ve had a Muslim mayor, we have Muslims as school governors etc. Muslims, traditional Labour supporters are part of the democratic system and are always taken seriously. To label Muslims in the UK as outsiders is pure folly, Muslims are doing well for themselves, you’re from East London, you should know all about that. There was no real problem with terrorism and extremism before 9/11, what’s changed? Erm, No. What incidents are you referring to? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Multiculturalism doesn't work. As we can see, it's not working now. People try to avoid this truth with many random articles.
I'm just saying that the Guardian article uses a bad analogy....its not about race - its about fundamentalist ideology. Early immigrants were happy to come to Britain and accept the hospitality, improved standard of living and democracy offered by their host-nation...they integrated...no need to resort to extremism or terrorism...they were generally happy or I guess they would have moved elsewhere. Britain benefitted from the skills and labour that our immigrant peoples brought also their contribution to our cosmopolitan British culture. More recently fundamentalism has been an emergent property of immigration without integration. Addressing your second point: There is far more involvement of people from all places and from all 'levels' of society in politics today. The number of women MP's is slowly moving towards a representative level and eventually I hope democracy will represent all of Britain's diverse genetic make-up. Democracy is a good thing and I welcome it. However you are wrong to use this as foil to deny that there is a significant undemocratic ideology that supports the idea of a Muslim state in Britain and that the terrorism by Muslims (e.g. 7/7) is not coincidental to this (albeit not being demonstrated as causally related).
You’ll find that the extremists paraded around by the media are British born, its not about immigration without integration, I believe that is a separate issue. I know of immigrants that settle in the UK, they aren’t well integrated, they can’t really speak English, they live simple lives (work and sleep, that’s it) and only mix with their own kind, its not like that just with Muslim immigrants, it’s the same with others (Kosovans, Poles etc.), its just like when the first Asians came in the 60s/70s. Regarding extremism, you’ll find that all those that have gotten into trouble have been born and raised in Britain, they live and breathe England, there are other forces at work. Yeh, absolutely, it is the way forward. The ‘Islamic state in Britain’ idea was parroted by a fringe group (Al-Muhajiroun) that has now been disbanded. They didn’t represent the Muslims of Britain, the media made them, they were used to misrepresent the Muslims in the UK, much to the frustration of your average Muslim. The Muslim Council of Britain which is an umbrella organisation for most of the Mosques in Britain doesn’t advocate such nonsense. The many Muslim organisations throughout the UK never advocate such nonsense. The ideology promoted by such extremist groups (Al-Muhajiroun etc.) is supported by Tony Blair’s friends, the Wahabis in Saudi Arabia. I hope you watched the recent Dispatches - Undercover Mosque. Traditional Islamic teachings tell us that Muslims must obey the laws of the land in which they live (whether the country is Muslim or Non-Muslim), vigilantism is out of the question. I don’t believe there is a significant undemocratic ideology that supports the idea of a Muslim state in Britain. I do believe that a significant amount of Muslims in Britain feel isolated and are frustrated with events happening both at home and abroad. I think its important to make that distinction, its wrong to assume all aggravated Muslim want an Islamic state in the UK, we should never take things at face value. The idea of an Islamic state is pretty silly anyway, out of all the Muslims in the UK only a fraction would actually want an Islamic state, they would make up less than 1% of the UK pop. What are the chances of these guys actually doing anything, what about all those that would oppose them. Its just silly.
