It’s “the first of the storm”, says Islamic State. And little wonder. For the chaotic scenes on the streets of Paris and the fearful reaction those attacks provoked are precisely what Isis planned and prayed for. The greater the reaction against Muslims in Europe and the deeper the west becomes involved in military action in the Middle East, the happier Isis leaders will be. Because this is about the organisation’s key strategy: finding, creating and managing chaos.
.... It conscientiously exploits the disheartening dynamic between the rise of radical Islamism and the revival of the xenophobic ethno-nationalist movements that are beginning to seriously undermine the middle class – the mainstay of stability and democracy – in Europe in ways reminiscent of the hatchet job that the communists and fascists did on European democracy in the 1920s and 30s. [2648 comments]
[TOP RATED COMMENT 534 votes] It is critical that we understand what is really going on, starting with an acknowledgement that Islam – the moderate kind – has an integral role to play. If you tell your kids that the Qu'ran represents the words of God, then they're uniquely vulnerable to someone telling them that all the words in the Qu'ran are true, including the ones that don’t match with 21st century democracy and liberalism.
It's absurd to carry on insisting that all this has nothing to do with the 'religion of peace'. And it's condescending in the extreme to behave as if any acknowledgment of this will unleash some sort of Fourth Reich in Europe – it won’t.
It's possible to distinguish between people (who deserve respect) and their ideas (which don't). No one, of any religion or none, should be afraid to walk the streets of Europe. But it's not 'far-right fear-mongering' to point out that Islam is diametrically opposed to every value that defines us, even when it's not being used to actively harm us.
This weekend the Guardian ran a piece called "Terrorism has come about in assimilationist France and also in multicultural Britain. Why is that?" – this sort of wilfully inane questioning has gone on far too long. We all know why, and it’s not about our policies.
[2ND 415] The problem is that silent majorities are irrelevant when there is a motivated violent minority. Hitler's Germany, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, Cambodia under Pol Pot. What do they have in common? The violent minorities prospered, and the silent majority (who just want to be left alone) suffer and are slaughtered.
If just 10% of Muslims believe in what isis are doing, then in the UK alone that is 200,000 people. An army.
And there is a severe problem with Islam, and it is not being debated (nor is it allowed on the news). Today I saw on the BBC the idea brought up the fact that the main problem is that these jihadists are not heretics. They are not some weird offshoot of Islam. They are the simple logical extreme of what is already an extreme religion.
They are not some freakish minority. And he was shut down and talked over straight away and the conversation moved on without it being revisited. We must be honest and face facts that Isis and jihadists are not uncommon with Islam as a harder reading of the Quran, allied with politics, logically ends in these extreme beliefs. And you will not see that debated anywhere.
[3RD 197] We in the west need to abolish all faith schools. Children need to be taught together and taught all religions along with, and most importantly, not believing in anything and being secular. Children are indoctrinated by parents and by these schools but if they had their eyes opened, some would realise there is a choice in how you live and think.
As long as we continue to segregate children according to their religion there will never be any attempt at integration and harmony amongst those that live in the west. [Guardian Cif] Read more
