Attacks in Paris + Belgium

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

Singing hymns and the old Lord's Prayer at assembly in the morning?

i'd do away with that. teaching kids about religion is a good thing though

 

[jacobncfc]

Singing hymns and the old Lord's Prayer at assembly in the morning?

Nah, nothing of the sort.

 

[mente captus]

belgium, really? they are the nicest people on this fucking planet!

http://www.myvideo.de/musik/herbert-groenemeyer/demo-letzter-tag-video-m-8111648

love you

 

[Super_horns]

Police are after a "bloke on the run" (pictured with 2 other men in the airport)- only going to heighten the tension I guess but they have moved quickly to try and catch those involved.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

i heard belgian intelligence is really shitty at communications. belgian police got more intel from british intel than their own

 

[Jockney]

Singing hymns and the old Lord's Prayer at assembly in the morning?

Can't speak for other towns and cities, but having worked in six separate North and East London primary schools I can tell you that the collective worship rule is almost universally ignored. OFSTED don't care, either, and almost never factor it into their reports in any significant way.

Besides, I'm not sure singing 'little donkey' amounts to much of any religious indoctrination. The larger issue is that the legislation implicitly asserts the supremacy of Christianity even in schools where Christianity is not the most popular religion.

 

[Jockney]

Teach kids critical thinking and science and they can make their minds up.

How about teaching critical thinking beside RE, so they can actually make their own minds up rather than just regurgitate your particular values.

 

[Womble98]

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/video-re...grants/#ooid=9kY3E3MjE6owFiMfxXmby6VwC6KzaJJS

Film crew randomly attacked when filming by migrants in Sweden. No police in sight.

How about teaching critical thinking beside RE, so they can actually make their own minds up rather than just regurgitate your particular values.

If you teach religion properly, with the criticisms of each religious argument as well as the arguments in favour, critical thinking will follow.

 

[Benito]

You know who I blame? just ask Ian.

 

[Jockney]

If you teach religion properly, with the criticisms of each religious argument as well as the arguments in favour, critical thinking will follow.

maybe in FE and beyond, but just not feasible in secondary education.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

You know who I blame? just ask Ian.

?

 

[Tilbury]

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/video-re...grants/#ooid=9kY3E3MjE6owFiMfxXmby6VwC6KzaJJS

Film crew randomly attacked when filming by migrants in Sweden. No police in sight.

Attack stopped by another immigrant intervening. Not sure that fits your narrative.

 

[Womble98]

Attack stopped by another immigrant intervening. Not sure that fits your narrative.

I don't have a "narrative". I am just simply pointing out that you allow huge numbers of people to migrate, live among themselves in insular society and not learn the same language as everyone else, you are going to have huge levels of unemployment, therefore high levels of crime, drug use and family breakdown, and therefore more and more disenchanted youth who are ripe for radicalisation.

 

[G-Dragon]

Sadly this is only the beginning.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

paris wasn't?

 

[Tilbury]

I don't have a "narrative". I am just simply pointing out that you allow huge numbers of people to migrate, live among themselves in insular society and not learn the same language as everyone else, you are going to have huge levels of unemployment, therefore high levels of crime, drug use and family breakdown, and therefore more and more disenchanted youth who are ripe for radicalisation.

So this video proves this how?

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

i remember when u first started on tff we had almost the exact same conversations with u taking something close to mordon's position, not sure if u realised or not and not meaning to come across condescending, u just done a sort of 180 here. we all change, just noticed it now

 

[G-Dragon]

paris wasn't?

What about it?

 

[SUTSS]

A few points replying to various posts:

Firstly, it's all well and good talking about the integration of immigrants and high unemployment in areas like Molenbeek and absolutely things need to be done about it but it's not true for the majority of terrorists. People convicted of terrorist offences have higher than average education levels with many having studied engineering or medicine so it can't solely be about disenfranchised communities and unemployment (although I will get on to integration at a wider level later).

Someone raised the point of muslims being treated as a homogenous group but only used examples from one side. It is equally true from the other side. When people claim that you can't say things/draw cartoons because muslims will be offended you are doing the same thing and shutting down individuality. I think this is a problem we have in this country especially where we don't seem to acknowledge the individuality of ethnic minorities and on the point about integration I think this actively works against it even from those who like to see themselves as very pro-minorities (that sounds very clumsy but couldn't think of a better way to put it than 'pro-minorities' when everyone bar racists is really pro-minorities).

I don't think it's necessarily racist to have profiling but muslim men can't be identified by the colour of their skin. The vast majority of terrorist attacks are done by men in their 20s-40s, quite often on their own and although this isn't always the case it would make sense in a world where the intelligence communities have limited resources to target this group over others. Someone mentioned 97 year old grannies and 5 year old girls earlier but when a 97 year old grannie from Huddersfield commits a terrorist attack then they should be targeted the same. Children are slightly different because they obviously could have something placed in their bag by an adult looking to get round security if you were only targeting one group but I don't think anyone is really suggesting you only do that.

Someone mentioned that other religions have violent people and of course this is true but that doesn't mean you can dismiss this and state that all religions are equal. At this moment in time Islam poses the biggest threat in a lot of the world (exceptions like the Central African Republic where Christians are). And this isn't surprising because Christianity has shed a lot of it's more hateful beliefs and beliefs do matter. You have people who genuinely believe that the end times are coming and that the end times involve the muslim armies defeating the infidels and that all non-believers (and believers of the wrong sort of Islam) are fair game. This creates a problem. Sure some Christians believe in a similar end time which makes the idea of someone like Ted Cruz being president terrifying but they don't have the same call to kill the infidel. The same with Jews. The Old Testament is full of calls to genocide but against specific groups who no longer exist. Of course that doesn't mean that they're completely peaceful and without issues. If an abortion clinic is blown up or a settlement made in the West Bank the people are more than likely going to be motivated by a religion that isn't Islam.

We also talk as if all immigration policies are the same across Europe and they are of course not. But they all seem to have one section that proves harder to integrate than others and that is the muslim section. This would suggest that there is something culturally there. Some people like to blame this on white people being racist and not liking brown people but I don't think there are enough racists left in the west to really make that point coherent. I think in part this is due to the cultural differences that are entrenched. If you look at the West Indian immigration to the UK a lot of the tensions there were gradually eaten away by football and music, this doesn't seem to be as true with muslim immigrants. But I think the larger part is the religion and the particular ultra conservative version that is preached in large parts of Europe. The only other community that seems to integrate less are the few ultra orthodox Jewish enclaves which is also down to religion.

 

[Tilbury]

i remember when u first started on tff we had almost the exact same conversations with u taking something close to mordon's position, not sure if u realised or not and not meaning to come across condescending, u just done a sort of 180 here. we all change, just noticed it now

Yeh I do remember actually ha. Went in the right direction I think.

 

[mistermagic]

Our Finance Secretary, Michel Sapin, has openly criticized Belgium for letting Molenbeek become the home of terrorists in Brussels (not in those words before some wise-ass googles the exact statement).
Not does that statement lacks timing, we have done exactly the same thing with our Northern Paris ghetto. It is something that both Paris and Brussels have to address. Now companies are building offices in the North of Paris in order to create jobs, activity, family atmosphere, etc. Brussels needs to do the same. People who have nothing to do all day are the most liable to radicalisation.

I don't know if those attacks have a direct link with the arrest of Salah but you must admit it is one hell of a coincidence. I disagree that those attacks took months of preparation and I believe that the 2 airport suicide bombers didn't want to be taken alive which they probably would have done after a couple of days of sadistic interrogation.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

What about it?

u said this is just the start i am saying what about paris u see

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

Someone mentioned that other religions have violent people and of course this is true but that doesn't mean you can dismiss this and state that all religions are equal. At this moment in time Islam poses the biggest threat in a lot of the world (exceptions like the Central African Republic where Christians are). And this isn't surprising because Christianity has shed a lot of it's more hateful beliefs and beliefs do matter. You have people who genuinely believe that the end times are coming and that the end times involve the muslim armies defeating the infidels and that all non-believers (and believers of the wrong sort of Islam) are fair game. This creates a problem. Sure some Christians believe in a similar end time which makes the idea of someone like Ted Cruz being president terrifying but they don't have the same call to kill the infidel. The same with Jews. The Old Testament is full of calls to genocide but against specific groups who no longer exist. Of course that doesn't mean that they're completely peaceful and without issues. If an abortion clinic is blown up or a settlement made in the West Bank the people are more than likely going to be motivated by a religion that isn't Islam.

This is really ahistorical. The reason for the rise of radical Islam as a mode of political organising is because of the failure of other political projects as liberationary/counter-imperialist forces. The US undermined Communism in the Arab world, the United Arab Republic and Nasserist pan-Arabism and Nationalism in Arab states/neo-Ba'athism. Obviously the US is not the sole reason for any of those projects failing - some of them - neo-Ba'athism for example - were very bad ideas anyway.

Islamism/Salafism are bad (and slightly different, but related, things), but they're also seductive because (like fascism) they appeal to the social conservatism of rural communities while maintaining the status of regional elites who go along with it. It's successful in terms of propagating itself (not in any sense as a liberationary force) because it's well funded. I would argue that the more sectarian/pro-Saudi strands are viewed as much less threatening to Western interests than Communism or Pan-Arabism were and that's why there's been very little effort to stem that funding - the more obvious Qutbist/revolutionary strands were clearly a threat to Western interests though.

kind of feel that people who just talk about "religion" - either to say it's all about religion or it is a twisted perversion of it - are missing the point. This is the failure of Harris/Dawkins - they view religion as brainwashing, without ever really exploring what the conditions are for those ideas to be seductive. Cos that would involve critically appraising the recent history of the middle east.

We also talk as if all immigration policies are the same across Europe and they are of course not. But they all seem to have one section that proves harder to integrate than others and that is the muslim section. This would suggest that there is something culturally there. Some people like to blame this on white people being racist and not liking brown people but I don't think there are enough racists left in the west to really make that point coherent. I think in part this is due to the cultural differences that are entrenched. If you look at the West Indian immigration to the UK a lot of the tensions there were gradually eaten away by football and music, this doesn't seem to be as true with muslim immigrants. But I think the larger part is the religion and the particular ultra conservative version that is preached in large parts of Europe. The only other community that seems to integrate less are the few ultra orthodox Jewish enclaves which is also down to religion.

Think you've got to realise that the predominant way racism acts in the west is structural and institutional rather than individual. Don't look at it as "white people not liking brown people" but as white-supremacy hard-coded into our society. Migrant communities stick together partly because they need to - in that the best way to resist violence from the state is collectively.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

good post

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

There's a sense of superiority in our own liberal values that manifests in different ways on both the Left and the Right in Europe. Those on the Right believe that Western values are superior and thus shouldn't be contaminated by Eastern ones, while those of the Left also assume superiority in Liberal values, but make the leap that they are so self-evidently superior, that so long as we clear any obstacles in the form of intolerance and bigotry, that Eastern peoples will naturally adopt our ideals on their own.

I would argue that both of these positions are naive. If you dropped a million Westerners into Pakistan would they stop eating pork? Stop drinking alcohol? Modify their dress and treatment of women to local standards? I suspect not, I suspect they'd live as close to their Western ways as they could get away with. They'd create demand for pork, alcohol and porn and they'd force local businesses to adapt or move aside. The only difference is that when the locals voiced concern about how this was affecting the cultural equilibrium of their country, Progressive Westerners probably wouldn't dismiss them as fascists.

We can articulate all day long why closing the borders or limiting immigration from certain parts of the world is a crude solution, but that is not the same as refuting it's efficacy. It stands to reason that the faster minority communities are allowed to grow the less they feel the need to integrate, so the less they do, which creates a never-ending cycle of native resentment and self-segregating minority disenfranchisement. When that disillusionment is given a seemingly holy and righteous religiopolitical justification, a call to arms for the only community that matters to them, then this is the result.

The way I see it we can either lower migration from select parts of the world, or we can assert our cultures and ideals more forcefully somehow, but this policy of passive multiculturalism coupled with mass immigration has to end one way or another. It simply isn't working.

First thing you do in a wake of a terrorist atrocity is try and score petty points on an internet forum?

This is basically the NRA mantra.

just a reminder that none of the paris terrorists were syrian

Neither are most of the people flooding into Europe as part of the 'refugee crisis'. Some of the Paris terrorists did use those routes though, and would surely have found it more difficult to move AK-47s and grenades around the continent were nations actually controlling their borders.

 

[TheMinsterman]

There's a sense of superiority in our own liberal values that manifests in different ways on both the Left and the Right in Europe. Those on the Right believe that Western values are superior and thus shouldn't be contaminated by Eastern ones, while those of the Left also assume superiority in Liberal values, but make the leap that they are so self-evidently superior, that so long as we clear any obstacles in the form of intolerance and bigotry, that Eastern peoples will naturally adopt our ideals on their own.

I would argue that both of these positions are naive. If you dropped a million Westerners into Pakistan would they stop eating pork? Stop drinking alcohol? Modify their dress and treatment of women to local standards? I suspect not, I suspect they'd live as close to their Western ways as they could get away with. They'd create demand for pork, alcohol and porn and they'd force local businesses to adapt or move aside. The only difference is that when the locals voiced concern about how this was affecting the cultural equilibrium of their country, Progressive Westerners probably wouldn't dismiss them as fascists.

In fairness, it's already demonstrable that large populations of western "ex-pats" are catered to, you can drink in the UAE, Oman etc, they sell pork in local super markets (albeit in a partially hidden section), there is however a trade off, the lack of tax is generally viewed as the bonus in return for keeping your nose out of local laws and governance, which by and large westerners abide to. All the expats I've ever spoken to over there have the attitude of "sticking to the rules", regardless of whether they disagree with them or not. Obviously you can't make the claim they ALL do, but by and large they adapt to local customs and do their best to abide by them.

 

[TheMinsterman]

Someone raised the point of muslims being treated as a homogenous group but only used examples from one side. It is equally true from the other side. When people claim that you can't say things/draw cartoons because muslims will be offended you are doing the same thing and shutting down individuality. I think this is a problem we have in this country especially where we don't seem to acknowledge the individuality of ethnic minorities and on the point about integration I think this actively works against it even from those who like to see themselves as very pro-minorities (that sounds very clumsy but couldn't think of a better way to put it than 'pro-minorities' when everyone bar racists is really pro-minorities).

Of course, that's absolutely true, it doesn't really matter which side of the spectrum you affiliate with, "Muslims" are all individuals with a wide variable of backgrounds that need to be examined with more nuance. They shouldn't be coddled and protected from "offence", equally they shouldn't be the subject of almost normalised hatred and mockery. Neither side is painted in much glory.

 

[silkyman]

Needs to be on some sort of watch list....

http://www.turkish-football.com/man...3-suicide-bomb-attacks-in-3-different-cities/

 

[Benito]

I know you're a troll but just go fuck yourself, will you?

The answer is to let in more hajis. Eventually, they'll blow everything up, and the bombings will cease.

 

[Stevencc]

Is no thread safe from Silkyman and Manchester City?