"But what we must insist is that Muslims are treated both no worse and no better than anybody else."

Amen to that!

But no religion should get any special privileges. Especially they should not be allowed to run schools and have them paid for by the state.

And they should only be registered as charities if they are doing genuinely charitable works with no proseltyising as part of the package.

Nor should they get other tax breaks or favourable treatment by the planning system.

THEN we might get a better society...

Yes. I heard this on the radio this morning.
There should be a dignified surrender to the home team's history here.
Living together should have an objective dimension, where all sides can understand and see the reasonable stop.
I am surprised at the Planners'decision, in the first place--but the times change so rapidly and mischief is swift.

I doubt this would have made the national news, let alone the blogosphere, if the main protagonist had been Tesco.

Having been in conversation with a gentleman protesting about the mosque in Camberley, I now very much doubt the genuine natue of concern that people have for this listed building, which I imagine is in a bad state of repair inside. His comments ranged from the need for conservation, through to how we should prevent the Islamification of the U.K. in one short conversation. How dare people try to cover up their fears by using conservation as a facade. I agree with the above comment from technicolour.

I'll second John D Monkey. In Scotland, the SNP is threatening to introduce state-funded Muslim schools - as if we didn't have enough utterly irrelevant shit in our lives from the Catholic ones (before you complain, I'm a Catholic with an Irish passport).

I can support the sensible need to send positive signals to our Islamic community when so much that they see is negative, but social unity, whatever we mean by it, surely cannot be helped by religious apartheid in our schools. It's over-compensation. As James Thurber wisely said - you might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backwards.

"I doubt this would have made the national news, let alone the blogosphere, if the main protagonist had been Tesco."

You must be joking! Everthing Tesco do is crawled over by local and regional press, and there is a very active and dedicated anti-Tesco online and blogging community. Just Google "say no to tesco".

Not that they don't deserve criticism, but all they are doing is what capitalist companies do: making money for their shareholders at the expense of people with less power than them - egged on or at least allowed to by spineless governments and local authorities of all political persuasions.

Do you blame a killer whale for being a killer whale?

Well, that is a relief. Not Islamophobia!

Some of the people who criticise Muslims and what they get up to or believe in, might be quite reasonable, fair minded people*.

That was the evidence gleaned from the comments and votes defending Michael Gove in response to the Guardian Cif blog “Gove's unprincipled mosque stand”.

An analysis
http://libertyphile2.blogspot.com/2010/02/goves-unprincipled-mosque-stand.html

found that the single biggest category of vote winning comments were those that said in so many words:

"... the issue is largely to do with planning and local objections to the destruction of a building of some historical interest and its replacement with something totally out of character with the area."

A lesser number referred to:

".... the nature of Islam and the fact that you can't build a church in Saudi Arabia, and in many Islamic majority countries other religions are hindered or suppressed. These are often prompted by comments supporting Mr Hiliar (the Liberal Democrat candidate for Camberley) claiming that the objection to the mosque is all to do with islamophobia."

*Now, what will be interesting is whether or not these people get to take part, or get listened to, in the current (MCB inspired) agitation to have a parliamentary investigation into Islamophobia.

That Tesco planning application in Norfolk (was it Sheringham?) got a lot more national coverage than Camberley Mosque, at least in my internet browsing/radio listening.
Is it not valid to link the destruction of traditional buildings and transformation of city scapes with Mosques to the Islamification of our country?

What are you criticising? The belief that Britain is being Islamicised? (Don't you think it is?) Or the objection to the Islamification?

'I now very much doubt the genuine natue of concern that people have for this listed building, which I imagine is in a bad state of repair inside.'

It may well be nowadays but it was in good repair when it was sold, by Surrey Heath council, to the Bangladeshi community.

The majority of the objections were concerning the height of the building. Apart from a 230 year old church spire in the area, there is no other building of that height. It was well proven that the height was a security risk as it completely intruded upon the RMA Sandhurst nearby.

If Tesco had planned to put a building of that height in such proximity to where our future military leaders are trained, they would have had the same knock-back.

The problem here seems to be that Surrey Heath council were bending over backwards to accommodate the applicants without due regard for national security. This should have been thrown out at the first planning hearing.

What shocks, but doesn't surprise me, is the belated interest the MoD and the MP (Michael Gove) took in this case. I am sure Sandhurst officials would have informed them at the start that a proposal for a building of this height had been put forward.

As Craig suggests, if the owner of the old school has outgrown it then find somewhere larger. Knocking down a listed building is not the answer. The old school is a delightful building (or was when I was last in it 25 years ago) and had been well maintained.

Finally, let me say that if the CoE or the Catholic church had applied to demolish the building and build one of the size and height that was planned by the present owners, I am completely sure the result would have been the same.

John D Monkey: Do I blame a killer whale for being a killer whale? Never. Do I think that the fiduciary duty imposed upon corporations should be abolished? Absolutely. Do I think supermarkets should amend their purchasing policies, and the concomitant bankruptcy of/race to the bottom by the farming industry in the meantime? Yes. Do I think we can find alternatives? Again, yes.

Brian: Tesco planning application: Norfolk. It's true; mentioned in three of the nationals; quite well-covered by the Guardian; otherwise local coverage. Good, this is a landmark case. Tesco did not already own the site; Sheringham was one of the few towns left without a Tesco. Their fight to move in had been going on for a decade. In an exciting and newsworthy move, the council decided to back a local eco store instead. Do I have to point out the differences?

However, you make my point for me:
"Is it not valid to link the destruction of traditional buildings and transformation of city scapes with Mosques to the Islamification of our country?"

The Islamification of our country? By under three percent of the population? Whose country it also is, by the way? You are joking.

Many new buildings are constructed with a 25 year life expectancy, and some of those are demolished even before that. I had a party of African sportsmen in stitches when I showed them a neo-Gothic extension to Magdalen College Oxford. They said they preferred their new buildings to be NEW. Historic building worship is a curious, English phenomenon.

I have worked as an electrician on listed buildings for the Muslim community and I found that the building services were in need of complete overhaul, when you look under the surface of the decor. Walls, rooves, floors and staircases all made from wood unfortunately cannot be adapted to the standard of fire safety you would expect from a public building of any sort.

Can I ask, Were the people of Iraq and Afghanistan consulted before this country and others demolished their infrastructures, legal institutions, and social fabric? Did anybody ask if the local community had a preferable response to simply knocking the countries flat? Islamification in this country happens only within the process of UK law. But invasions have totally contravened international law at many levels. One law for New Labour, another law for us.

I am pleased to see that the important British heritage of this Victorian school building will be preserved. It is local councils responsibility to preserve parts of community history and as a British person with many Muslim and other faith friends I am deeply offended that any person would make this dispute a dispute of faith. It is not. This is a dispute of heritage and whilst Muslims are welcome to build mosques here in this country they can not do so by destroying British heritage.

They, if they have outgrown the school will have to look elsewhere for alternative accommodation for the mosque and find a site more appropriate, that does not involved deleting part of an English town's past.

I'm not saying whether it's a good or bad thing but it is happening. Some people certainly object to that change, is it in some way offensive for them to object? I get the feeling you think it is.

But of course I agree that it's not necessarily 'Islamophobic' to want to save an old school. The Camberley Save Our School campaign apparently want to work with the Bengali Welfare Association to find a way forward too. The BWA spokesperson sounded upset, and the Conservative council leader admitted there were 'a few racist elements' involved, so one hopes this will reassure them.

Technicolour

"Do I think that the fiduciary duty imposed upon corporations should be abolished? Absolutely. Do I think supermarkets should amend their purchasing policies, and the concomitant bankruptcy of/race to the bottom by the farming industry in the meantime? Yes. Do I think we can find alternatives? Again, yes."

1. For Government to do. Successive governments have done the opposite: emasculated competition policy, overriden their own planning policies, etc. Lord Sainsbury is labour's biggest donor. The conservatives are never going to make big business act more responsibly. I'm not holding my breath.

2. It would be nice but Dream on! Unless government forces them they will never deliberately forgo profit to give dairy farmers a fairer price. Monopsony doesn't work that way. Capitalism is about profit through monopoly, not competition.

3. I'd like to think so too - but am too realistic to hope. How could we do this, without retail and wholesale price maintenance laws?

would it be racist to object to the mosque replacing the church not because of any architectural significance of the church but because we are predominantly a country of christian tradition and a large overbearing mosque would constitute an "Islamification" of the area?

I'd like to tackle head-on this canard - 'Islamification'. What's wrong with getting a little bit Islamicised? We are a mongrel people blending many influences and traditions, and what we regard as 'British' is an already complex cocktail. I can quite clearly see myself to be an Irish Scottish Catholic Protestant Christian Jewish muddle (Irish Catholic mother, Scottish Protestant father, Jewish life partner). Scrape back a couple of generations and there's even more. I have at least one genetic condition I owe to the Vikings and god knows what forgotten race bequeathed me my nose.

We can't let 'Islamification' sound like some kind of plague - everyone who comes here influences us no more than we wish. 'They' become 'us'. There's a wonderful poem somewhere about the countless waves of invaders who have swept across our geography, leaving only place names.

Again we note how out touch with the local community both Michael Gove and Andrew Cleverly (who happens to be the Agent of Surrey Heath Conservative Assocation)was at the original planning meeting and being clapped and cheered by the supporters of the mosque.

"would it be racist to object to the mosque" ...

Your comments concern religion, rather than race. Within which, there are many sects, some of them more or less tolerant than others. My personal opinion is, I keep away from the ones that don't wish to accept the existence of others, on the grounds that sooner or later they're going to intolerate me.

Vronsky - you could be right, I've heard others say it will be more a case of 'us' having to become 'them'. Perhaps we should vote on it. Anyone for a referendum?

Should

a) 'They' become 'us'
b) 'We' become 'them'

If enough people vote a) will we have to convert all the mosques into Tesco 24 hr superstores? Maybe change Sunday opening hours to Friday as a mark of respect?

Vronsky wrote: "There's a wonderful poem somewhere about the countless waves of invaders who have swept across our geography, leaving only place names."

The primary source of your understanding of history should be history books and not history.

You do understand that, gee, lots and lots of individuals were killed, right?

z) None of the above.

Sorry for long reply in advance

JohnD (guess that was you):
1. Quite. Still, in an early statement to Climate Camp, a spokesman for the Drax power station claimed that they shared the protestors' objectives and 'would like their help in getting government changes'. The protestors thought this a laughable ploy, but to me it might have been sincere: people in corporations do, after all live on the same planet.
2. That's why we have unions.
3. See local eco store, above? Veg boxes. Allotments. Re-distribute land. Rebuild our greenhouses (Kent used to be covered with them). Add geothermally heated polytunnels (you can grown avocados in a polytunnel). Plant useful trees in public parks - apples, sweet chestnuts, hazels, figs. Reclaim edible food which otherwise goes to landfill. Switch from dairy to arable. Grown more hemp and flax for the seeds. To start with. There's a great and detailed report on how Britain can feed itself, somewhere. I'll try & find if you like.

brian: no, I don't think it would be technically be racist, because Islam is a religion, but it might be a little phobic. Anyway, the decision has been turned down, so I guess it won't be possible to see whether the addition of something domed and a bit twiddly to the architectural landscape would constitute 'Islamification'. Living near a few different mosques (including a beautifully tiled one), it doesn't seem to have done. I mean, I walk around in shorts and everyone sells alcohol and er - what do you mean by 'Islamification', again?

Meanwhile I sadly remember that our Christian tradition has not always been that great; remember the burnings? Also, I love a thing of beauty as much as anyone, but have just read a terrifying BBC report into asbestos in schools from which, it says, Victorian schools are not exempted. I hesitate to pass it on, but old schools should not necessarily be romanticised.

I don't like mosques. I find them alien and overweening. I don't like synagogues or churches for the same reason. I wish all these middle-eastern mystery cults would have stayed at home. I much prefer henges and stone circles. They belong here.

Vronsky is right. We are a mongrel people, reflecting centuries of diverse influences from foreign cultures. It's what defines Britishness. So why not a bit of Islamification? At least the art is better than the garish Christian stuff.

The foreign influence that really did for us, the one we never recovered from, was the Roman occupation. It brought us a class system and Christianity. Thanks a lot.

I often wonder how things would have turned out if Boudica had defeated the Romans and sent them packing for good.

I guess I'd define it as the process of an area becoming more islamic in its religious, social and cultural activities and outlook, but then I'd never get a job at the OED.

Glad you enjoy it anyway, and I'm sure lots of other people do. Just wondered what you thought about those people who don't. Should they be able to have a say about it? Are they racist for objecting to it?

As for the Christian tradition I'm sure you're right to knock it. I think all those Christians have got a nerve and I don't know how the druids ever put up with them.

"I don't know how the druids ever put up with them".

They didn't have the opportunity. The Romans wiped them out.

MJ

"I don't like mosques. I find them alien and overweening. I don't like synagogues or churches for the same reason."

I know what you mean but it doesn't have to be that way. Partly I think it's a matter of size / scale and "in-your-face-ness" (can't think of a synonym from the dictionary).

Although not a religious person I do like small country churches, the small orthodox ones that abound in the greek islands, and some smaller older mosques in the sub-continent. Many of the latter have no minarets (there is nothing in Islam that requires these) and are more discreet buildings which don't rub the dominance of the religion in.

Cathedrals etc. were / are deliberately designed to dominate, to shock and awe to use a neologism. I think its related to the tension between the superiority complex and the lack of confidence inherent in religion: you can't prove your beliefs are "correct" or that "God" exists. So you try to intimidate / bully the ordinary people into accepting your narrative and your social control of them. Also to give you their money.

"They didn't have the opportunity. The Romans wiped them out."

I wouldn't say that out loud in Glastonbury.

Bloody Romans. What have they ever done for us?

But the Romans never came to Ireland. Isn't it a bit strange? And then one of our pagan Celtic raiding parties went to Wales, kidnapped the son of a Roman tax collector, and brought him back here to tend sheep. From whence he escaped, came back as a Bishop, and turned us all Christian. More's the pity! I'm with you, MJ, I much I much prefer henges and stone circles.

"Bloody Romans. What have they ever done for us?"

I just knew someone would say that.

"Bloody Romans"

What have the Huguenots ever done for us ?

dreoilin: is that the story of St Patrick? I never knew that. How interesting.

That's the gist of it, MJ. The story has been embellished, of course, about teaching the Trinity with the shamrock, etc. And there was more than one bishop, as far as I know. He didn't convert Ireland on his own. But they've been rolled into one as St. Patrick. I don't think snakes had got this far before the island was cut off after the last ice age. They say that the snakes (in the story) are a symbol for the Celtic druids which he banned.

What, for that matter, about the creeping JehovahsWitnessification of the country ?

They're the only people I've ever had knocking on my door wanting to convert me to their beliefs.

I got lost in a stone circle in Cornwall once. We stumbled on it, accidentally, out on the moors. It was only about 100 metres wide, and outside it was Cornish moor stormy; but once you got inside, the air was almost completely calm. Something to do with vibrations from the granite, we figured, but we became utterly disorientated. Very curious experience.

brian: I still don't understand about 'Islamification'. Do you mean that if many Muslim people move in to an area the pubs will close down?

"They say that the snakes (in the story) are a symbol for the Celtic druids which he banned".

That would make sense. Over here ancient sacred sites were often appropriated by the Christians who built churches on them, often dedicated to St Michael, who slew dragons.

"They're the only people I've ever had knocking on my door wanting to convert me to their beliefs".

Yes, them and the folk from Sky TV.

I live in Camberley and went tot hat school
It is almost the only peice of history our town has and to knock it down to suit 1800 people was an utter discgrace.

There was no Islamapphobia in Camberley before this happened and with good luck there wont be any going forward but in this case the silent majority became very very vocal. There is nothing wrong with people feeling a town is their town and I am rpoud to be part of the protest and I hope it encourages others to stand up for what the majority so often wants and so seldom gets

"Yes, them and the folk from Sky TV."

Good point, I hadn't thought of that. And all the power-bill cults, too.

I didn't realise there was a Whalley Range in Blackburn as well as Manchester. This caused me to look up the Manchester WR on wiki, and noted that its population is less than 50% White British, as at 2001. The Blackburn WR is described as having a large Muslim community with almost all residents being from India and Pakistan.

By the way, what happened to the Danes?

"By the way, what happened to the Danes?"

They took up pigfarming, I think.

Er, Mr Main, they didn't knock it down. I must say, you sound like you had remarkably happy school days. Good for you.

I have no fear of cults, religious or otherwise, since I have already been taken over by my computer. By choice, I'd be a dowser.

And the Huguenots really galvanised the wool industry, helping make Norwich the fine city that it is today.

technicolor: interested to hear of your mystical experience in a Cornish stone circle. Have you ever been to Avebury?

Mmm. The thing about Blackburn is that its council has created apartheid estates for the poorer people who need council housing. Quite simply, people with different complexions get housed in different areas. It's like a particularly dull jigsaw puzzle.

The resulting regional concentrations do not prove, or demonstrate anything else about Blackburn as a whole, however. Or Manchester. Or the UK.

The Danes were great, weren't they?

What happened to the Danes?

Actually they still live in Sheringham. Fun to see the Sheringham Tesco referenced by people who presumably don't realise I come from there. My mum lives literally just across the road from the proposed new Tesco and it would make her life much easier.

Disgracefully, Sheringham's beautiful Victorian primary school - which brung me up - was demolished about twenty years ago and replaced with ugly modern flats.

MJ: No I haven't - I think Children of the Stones put me off. Seen Stonehenge from a distance, though. And lent someone my Julian Cope book before I got a chance to explore it and never saw it again, drat.

What is islamification? Not sure what it has to do with pubs, might ask around tonight at The Mullah's Arms.

Isn't islamification the changing of a place from one particular culture and ethnic profile to a generally islamic and new ethnic profile. In England for instance this would often be from white, church of england (at least for weddings and funerals) to pakistani and muslim. Would that be a fair definition? Is there a better term?

For me, religion is mythology and should be left to Sunday schools for those interested. When religion has power, it has proven to be tyrannical, obstructive and oppressive.
Some religious buildings can look beautiful--and mosques with minarets are among these, but they do not blend-in everywhere.
People are important, regardless of their beliefs, or non-beliefs, but danger comes with imposition of their ways, upon others.
Unfortunately, the British people, who are not part of the ruling elite, have never been able, or allowed to cohere through centuries of being brow-beaten and subjected to the most extreme social and industrial changes. This may be why so many are volatile and suspicious of "outsiders" who appear to be stronger in their communities and beliefs.
Those who make political choices for the masses, seldom dwell or frequent the same habitat--and when there is an outbreak of racial or ethnic violence, they (who make free with others' charity) appear with lofty sanctimonious admonishments.
It is left to mixed communities to solve problems reasonably and respect established mores, rather than push for a conclusion from a base of paranoia.

The Danes seem to have settled in quite some numbers here, despite Brian Boru, et al. Dublin originated as a Viking settlement around the 9th century. Aside from Wood Quay, they've recently found a Viking "3-bed semi-D" on the north side of the city:

http://tinyurl.com/yarsclg

-----

I've been to the Roman baths in Bath, and the Abbey in Glastonbury. I have some great photos. I've holiday'd from Inverness to Windsor, to Land's End, and got bitten to death on Skye. I hope to be back in North Wales in the near future. The fast ferry from Dun Laoghaire takes only 90 mins. It's less stressful for me to get to Wales (with car) than to drive to Galway, believe it or not.

-----

I remember when I heard or read that nuns and monks were turfed out of their convents and monasteries under Henry VIII, chucked back in again under Mary, and thrown out again under Elizabeth I. I thought it was hilarious (I was young) but there was tragedy there too. The conflict caused by religions is horrendous, and I've had nothing to do with any of them since my teens. Recent events in Ireland have only set my opinions in stone.

"They're the only people I've ever had knocking on my door wanting to convert me to their beliefs".

Hey! I had to do that when I was a kid!

If you get fed up with them, tell them to put a note in their house-to-house record that you'd rather not be visited; that used to work for one year.

As a Camberley resident, it would appear that the main objection voiced by many other Camberley residents, has not received the airtime that the arguments put forward by the protagonists; namely the traffic congestion that would result on the A30.

A larger mosque would attract many more people in cars. As most people who are familiar with this stretch of the A30,since the implementation of the bus lane, traffic is often stationary down to the Meadows round-about. The entrance to the Mosque is not currently controlled by traffic lights.

Why has no-one proposed that the money that would have been used to build the new mosque, be used to renovate the interior of the current building, or build on a site that would not cause such congestion to other users of the A30?

"If you get fed up with them, tell them to put a note in their house-to-house record that you'd rather not be visited; that used to work for one year."

Thanks Clark. I remember you mentioning you used to be one, now you remind me.

I don't really object, though, they're reasonably respectful about it, go away quietly if I tell them I'm too busy and not interested. I don't always do that. One time, they came with some shtick about did I know that there was this huge planet up in the sky called Saturn, and how it had seven suns orbiting around it, and wasn't that wonderful and how could something that fantastic be, without a God to have thought of it ? So I felt I ought to do them the favour of converting them to The Truth, that being my idea of astronomical knowledge (ie "Oh no, there isn't !") ... I told them I was comfortable with my current faith (agnosticism) and had no wish to abandon it, but if they'd care for a cup of tea anyway they were welcome to come in and chat. (It was peeing down with rain, the house was warm). Half an hour later we seemed to end up agreeing that what they really meant by it was that a lot of people were unhappy, and they wanted to tell people that the world was a much nicer and more wonderful place than they might think. Which I thought was nice of them, really, even if I did think the details were mistaken. They never offered to burn me at the stake once, which is where I do draw the line.

"They never offered to burn me at the stake once, which is where I do draw the line."

Perhaps I should clarify - nor did I offer to burn them, either.

"nor did I offer to burn them, either"

Very noble of you.

Still, I'd rather have someone on my doorstep spouting nonsense about the seven suns of Saturn than someone quoting from Verse 1, Chapter 1 of the Holy Book of Murdoch: "We woz just fixin' up some of your neighbours wiv Sky and woz wonderin' wevver..." etcetera and Amen.

Ah, now, when I hear someone telling me I should have television, I do reach for my blowtorch.

But, if I could try and wrench myself back to Camberley, where I've never been ... it sounds as though there might be architectural / planning issues, and maybe a bit of hi-jacking too ?

I can't remember walking through the wardrobe, but I'd better find my way out of here.
Another brandy my good fellow.

The Witnesses get the semi scientific stuff from their "Awake!" magazine, but I'm sure it would have said "moons".

Now I come to think of it, the news notes near the back of either that one or "The Watchtower" is, if I remember rightly, a semi-decent alternative news source - of a slightly different flavour from say, Rense.com - probably less outright rubbish than Rense, but more biased. But stories the mainstream tend only to own up to later. They love pointing out where "The World" has got it wrong.

Good to hear from Su from Camberley. Of course no one will mention the word "cars" in the same sentence as "Problem" - that upsets far too many people.

I really think the likes of the UKIP and the BNP couldn't careless about buildings, listed or otherwise.
What concerns them, are brown faces, Islamic or otherwise.

Now that the planning permission that was granted has been removed, no prises for guessing that the next location chosen by the Bengalis for their Mosque will face protests from these same people?

Craig,
So are you denying that UKIP are a bunch of right wing racist nut Jobs?

Yes, it's odd that such a very local issue has become national news. I and our Community Council have been trying for years to reduce the proportion of multiple-occupancy housing - nearly all owned by big business, of course - in my area and also to reduce the number of late-night nightclubs. We get the detritus of all that in the form of reeling, aggressive drunkenness, scratched cars, bottles, etc. It's not national news, though all of these problems are very common to many of us, I'm sure, esp. those living in towns and cities.

Things certainly get hijacked all round, I agree.

But yes, whatever the rights and wrongs of it all, this is national news because of its provenance, as Arsalan suggests.

Oh, and because it's in the south of England; anything in the South is big news. A dog coughs in Shepherd's Bush, it's big news. That pompous ass, Max Hastings, clone of (fellow-pompous ass) William Rees-Mogg, and his cohorts don't tend to feel comfortable venturing much north of the M25 perimeter - surely, the metaphysical Hadrian's Wall of our time. It's one thing that makes my teeth grind at some Book Festivals, those arrogant voices, slung around in showers of gold and silver, those drawling voices that proclaim an inherent (perceived) superiority. Hastings's book 'about Africa' is 'Book of The Week' on Radio Four right now. I sat listening to it after midnight following a long shift at work. The I turned it off. Oh God, do we really need more colonial narratives about 'Max' Hastings, 'Mac' Hastings and the gung-ho, Boys Own progenitor? "Away wi ye, ye fuckin ijeut, away an shoot some giraffes!"

Yes agree Arsalan. Why give the permissions in January to demolish and rebuild in the first place? They have been rescinded to appease the objectors? There is an election coming!

Why the presence of the EDL and the Cross of St George flags outside the meeting? The same flags that are draped on our weaponry/killing machines in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It was never about the school buildings (which are not listed nationally as Grade 1, 2 or 2* etc by the way but listed locally as being in a conservation area). It was always NO MOSQUE just as it used to be NO IRISH or NO BLACKS.

I live in Surrey and any conversation about the state of the economy, unemployment or similar topic usually brings the response 'We have too many of them here' meaning immigrants. There are quite a number of smug fascist types around here. If I put up a Troops Out sign outside I reckon I would have my windows broken.

http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/s/2067387_video__camberley_mosque_plans_rejected

Watch the video.

Britain sounds like a horrible place.

It's quite a pretty place, actually, if you like that sort of thing.

"I really think the likes of the UKIP and the BNP couldn't careless about buildings, listed or otherwise.
What concerns them, are brown faces, Islamic or otherwise."

UKIP seem to be taking it further and disliking most pink faces as well. (As, I'm sure, the BNP would if they ever got rid of the brown ones. They won't, of course).

As a British muslim, I do wonder why new mosques in the UK always have to look the same. What works in one part of the world doesn't necessarily work here. I have yet to see a mosque in this country that makes the slightest effort to blend in.

Its a design thing and I would love to see someone try to mix it up a little. For example I would love to see a truly English mosque. This school building could be converted sympathetically and set off a trend.

"Craig,
So are you denying that UKIP are a bunch of right wing racist nut Jobs?"
--arsalan

You're a ticket. :)

"So are you denying that you're a ticket?", surely ?

You're right Richard. I'll go back in the wardrobe.

That wasn't meant to sound snappy, by the way. I was amused at John's comment above, and it's late anyway.

As Craig might have noticed during his travels around Muslim Blackburn, the inhabitants have little intention of fitting in with their surroundings. The area has high levels of rainfall and is normally quite damp. However this does not deter the Asians from wearing garments that would be more at home in a hot dusty climate. Hardly suitable for East Lancs rainfall. Also he may have also noticed the lack of English pubs in these areas as they don't want to use them either. I would say the reason they design the Mosques in the way they do has more to do with reminding them of "home" which many do not consider to be the UK. Of course if they miss their ancestoral life so much, maybe they would be well advised to get on the plane and relocate there permanently. Also note how many of these Mosques which get planning permission by local councils, wishing to ingratiate themselves and so winning their votes, take years and years to be built. They are often left as eyesores for five or more years until the money can be raised to complete them. Islamification of the UK is well underway and anyone who can't see that would be advised to visit Specsavers for a check up.

And likewise, I worried afterwards if mine might sound like 'correcting', where I just meant to continue the amusement. It must be late. Never mind :-)

Carl Rove admitted on US TV today that he had supported the use of torture under the previous administration, and was proud of his role in advising it. He said very useful information had been obtained by breaking the will of suspects through 'water-boarding'. Even though Japanese POWs were executed as war criminals for using the very same practice on US servicemen.

He went on to say that such information had been used to prevent attacks, such as the one involving Heathrow. Are our security services going to admit to having used this information that is known to have been obtained through torture?

"Hardly suitable for East Lancs rainfall"

Oh, that's just yer northern club culture thing. They're ded 'ard, is all, and trying to relate to them queuing in the snow for the discos in nowt but a pair o' knickers. Of course, that's only nostalgia for the good old days on the savannahs of the Rift valley, when we 'ad proper weather. Mind you, that was before we'd trained up the whippets to behave like hot water bottles, so it wasn't all as good as they like to make out. But then, nostalgia never was as good as it used to be.

Parky

Our monarchs and politicians have succesfully prevented Islam from coming to the UK for a thousand years. They exchanged the inphallability of the Pope with that of Henry Eighth and Tony Bliar still thinks 22% of the votes gave him total, supreme, exclusive control and the right to ignore the wishes of the people.

I am immensely grateful that Islam has come here, And I've joined them. Sometimes you have to check out new things. Maybe they know something we didn't know before.

"Maybe they know something we didn't know before."

I'll take the whingeing about 'creeping islamification' seriously when I see them trying to revert to roman numerals for their arithmetic. Oh, how I'll laugh.

glenn

Carl Rove. After Craig, I heard Phillipe Sands QC give testimony to the JCHR that Bush had decreed that these 'suspects' were beyond the scope of the Geneva Convention.

Has JCHR reported yet? I know anything to do with parliament is slow. They would love to find some new software that would fix all their Trojans of illegal behaviour. Their technique is to bore us into forgetting the crimes of New Labour.

Who am I to criticise parliament? But there again, Who is George Bush to cancel International Law?

House of Lords
House of Commons
Joint Committee on Human
Rights
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt/jtrights.htm

The one dated 15 January 2010 contains an e-mail from Craig but it is just a record of its receipt and the contents. on p136 of 217! I haven't waded though any of the others.

"inphallability of the Pope"

So much in so few words.

I would refer 'Parky' to a speech delivered last year by the Conservative Party Chairman, Eric Pickles (hardly a political soulmate of mine!) in which he made the excellent point that strong family/ community relationships in West Yorkshire among Asians (predominantly, in those areas, those of Pakistani origin) had helped to save the greater community of Yorkshire from atomisation in the context of the collapse of the textiles industry.

Yes, I know the Tories were instrumental in destroying manufacturing in this country - but that's not the point in this illustration.

Go to Newcastle, Parky, in fact, come to Glasgow. In both wonderful cities - btw, Larry, Britain is a fab place, but you have to be able and willing to critique that which you love, otherwise it's not true love! - you will see young men in tee-shirts in minus-two degrees and young women in mini-skirts deep in the night's cold embrace, going animatedly from nightclub-to-nightclub in the city centre.

I've written of clothing mismatches in a self-abnegating (for the character concerned) and lightly humorous manner - read 'Psychoraag' or 'Joseph's Box' to find these vignettes - so it's something I find humorous, but not serious, not 'go back to where you came from' material. Otherwise, everyone from Surrey would have to go back to Surrey and from what Mary says, it can be a pretty hairy place to live! I'm sure there are lovely parts of Surrey, wondrous hills and dales and wonderful people there, as there are everywhere. In fact, I know some.

If anyone wants to read a magical tale of 'The Holy Land of the South Saxons' (Sussex), btw, check out 'The Saelig Tales, on-line.

I was born in (East) Yorkshire. No-one gets to tell me to go back to where I came from - otherwise I'd be returning to Beverley, esteemed and beauteous home-town of Philip Larkin, that alleged supporter of Enoch Powell et al. How ironic!

Islamicfication?

Islam is what Muslims believe, so if you have Muslims, you have people who believe in Islam.

Isn't that obvious?

now that most Muslims here are born here, sendning them back to where they came from is no longer applicable, because they don't have citizenship over there.
So what is the solution?
Gas chambers?

There is a green LAM living in Camberwell green, unless she has moved, I wonmder what jenny Jones stance is on this issue.
If I cannot destroy a listed building and replace it with a golf course or a private house, why should anybody breach planning laws, however shite they may be and however much havoc they have caused with corruption and local shimmying, so its not an issue in my mind and all the conotations attached to this issue inconsequential,imho.

Suhayl - I might have painted Surrey as a racist outpost. There is certainly an air of unquestioning self satisfaction and I am sure that NIMBYism rules. Most of the population probably support 'our boys' in Iraq and Afghanistan if the local press is anything to go by. Local issues are of the greatest interest. It is a beautiful county, the most wooded in the country apparently, and the chalk downlands provide lovely views.

The potholed roads are something to behold as are the vast number of 4 x 4 vehicles. There is bewilderment about the economic collapse as if such a thing should happen to upset their standards of life and the career expectations of their children. Just my observations.

Take your mind back 1,100 years. This is what happened to 'foreigners' then.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/8563377.stm

So perhaps we have advanced a little.

Forty years ago, when buses still had conductors, I was travelling near Glasgow. It was an extremely hot day. 'You'll be used to this where you come from' said a lady to the dusky conductress. 'Whit? Drumchapel?' was the puzzled answer.

Parky,

What the inhabitants of Blakburn wish to wear is entirely up to them. Doesn't worry me at all.

Most of the Muslims I know who live round here follow local tradition and have their weekly gathering in our local pub with the rest of us.

Starts about 9p.m. and the tap water - even with ice is completely free as is the entrance.

It does get rather loud though, in fact many people - and nearly all the drummers who aren't already deaf wear ear plugs.

The beer is expensive though, and not quite as good as Pendle Witch in Lancashire.

I find it very rare, for anyone to turn down a pint or a short in favour of free water. It has happenned though, and no one bats an eye lid.

There's nowt wrong with a decent mosque, provided the artwork is done with love and prayer.

Tony

"You'll be used to this where you come from' said a lady to the dusky conductress. 'Whit? Drumchapel?'"

I have 3 grandparents from south-of-Pennines England, and one from Penicuik. Every time I hear this line of thought I end up with visions of spending the rest of my life perched across Hadrian's Wall with one shoulder pointing north (and hoping no-one spots any 'Viking DNA', I never did like swimming).

Let's test the theory. Anybody wants to claim to be "Caucasian", round them up and send them back to the Caucasus, see if it improves things.

I don't even think I'm trivialising the issue, I think it really is that daft. Idiocy can be lethal, of course.

I read that the proposed Mosque would cost £3m to build. At the planning meeting the rep for the Mosque stated that the old school roof leaked and the windows were drafty, I understand that when the school was sold it was in very good repair, which suggests that the old building has been deliberately allowed into decline as an excuse for future demolition. If repairs are needed ? then carry out the necessary repairs.

Tony, I'll buy you a beer one day.

Mary, watch out for those 4X4s! And potholes. And Little Islanders.

Richard, what an LSD image that is: 'The Janus of the Cheviots'! Sounds like something Michael Scot, Great Magus of the Eildon Hills, would've conjured-up. I found your 'tunes' site (two sites, in fact), btw - it looked fascinating - I was keen to explore it, but it seems to be being repaired, or transferred, or something?

Vronsky - brilliant anecdote and absolutely true. All Power to the Conductor! All Power to 'The Drum'!

Henry
My aikido teacher told me to attack him as if I really meant it, for him to react quickly in defence. If you had said you hate Muslims, I would have quickly replied that maybe God doesn't like you. But as you wrapped it up in street gossip and totally false speculations, I can't really be bothered to reply to you.

SS
But you did !

Suhayl - the tunes site. I just checked it, it seems to work, but it's horrible slow to respond. Twiddle your thumbs a bit & it'll be there. I hope. That's the http://livetunebook.qualmograph.org.uk one. I just had a look at google, looks as though pointers to the old Leeds uni version are proliferating, which is silly, they should be dying away by now, it's longgone. Nothing much I can do about it, though.

Want to say more about Michael Scot ? I vaguely know the name - scholar, translator of Arabs, "magician" ? - but not really any details.

Craig...

...well it doesn't bother me either what they wear or indeed what anybody else does. They can go naked for all I care. The illustration was to indicate one example of an invited guest culture not conforming to the accepted norms of a host. In this case it was taking sensible precautions against the prevailing weather for health reasons.

I guess it also does not bother you that in this Muslim culture it is perfectly normal and indeed in cases mandatory that people marry within families. So what you might say? Well the resulting congenital illnesses of offspring that arise from this end up costing the national health service scarce resources to treat. This would not be required if they accepted the norms that restricted this.

Then there is also polygamy, treating women and children as chattel and the stoning or bashing of homosexuals. I suppose as good hand wringing Liberals you can look away and pretend it's not happening....

As a non-believer in any organised religion, I am quite happy for anybody to believe what they like except of course when those beliefs influence the accepted cultural norms and laws which have been built up over generations. And if they are going to build a Mosque to go and pray in, at least get on and finish it in a reasonable time.

"well it doesn't bother me either what they wear"

in spite of coming in complaining about it.

And if anybody picks the next set of points up, you won't care about those, either, will you ? but there'll be something else.

Some people just enjoy complaining.

He was probably biting his tongue not mentioning the burqa. I rather like Muslim female atire; to my eyes it looks dignified and mysterious.

(burqa)

It makes me a bit nervous. Of offending, because I don't know how I'm supposed to behave around it, I wasn't brought up to know what's polite.

"I guess it also does not bother you that in this Muslim culture it is perfectly normal and indeed in cases mandatory that people marry within families. So what you might say? Well the resulting congenital illnesses of offspring that arise from this end up costing the national health service scarce resources to treat. This would not be required if they accepted the norms that restricted this." Parky.

Parky, I'm sorry but this is really silly. Alcohol-related illness costs the NHS, and society in general, millions of times more than any congenital illnesses that might arise as a consequence of combinant recessive alleles.

80% of all attendances at A and E Depts are alcohol-related. And that's just one secondary care speciality.

What about fry-ups and heart attacks/ strokes?

Or genito-urinary infections (aka STDs)?

You see, anyone can play this game. Where does one stop?

Look, I do not agree with burqas or hijaabs, nor with partriarchal oppression and I argue against these things in the Muslim/ South Asian communities and elswhere. But please, let's not attempt to align rational discourse with emotive triggers to prejudice.

Oh, and incidentally, I am not a 'guest'.

MJ: as I said to anno, try wearing a burkha for a year, every time you leave the house. Nothing to stop you.

Thanks for the suggestion technicolor but I probably won't, any more than I'd wear a miniskirt and high heels.

Technicolor, you are very wrong about "nothing will stop you".
My wife wears that, and people try and stop her all the time with fists and insults.
I'm sure MJ and Anno would be beaten up just as much as my wife if they started wearing one.
We are expecting her to be attacked again soon, because these physical attacks follow verbal attacks by MPs, such as Philip Hollobone's recent attack.
Because the physical attackers see the MPs' verbal attacks as a declaration of immunity. And these MPs use the views of Hijab hating self labelled Muslims as all the justification they need for their.
incitement.
Suhayl Saadi I have lost any respect I had for you. The next time my wife is beaten up, or I am arrested for protecting her, I'll think of you.

anno, there is no excuse for this violence.

But I would like to know: why does your wife wear a burkha? Mohammed (pbuh) did not saying anything about a burkha. And Muslim clerics argue against the headscarf, even.

Does she really believe that she needs to be hidden from the world because of her gender? Does she believe that her hair or her face or her arms would inflame men to crazy passions? If so, who has told her these things? They are not true, you know.

And finally, why don't you wear a burkha?

I mean, if you could wear one without being beaten up. I find it appalling, and terribly sad, it goes without saying, but it doesn't make me any fonder of burkhas. Or oppression.

By the way, I think Muslim men are, in a way, as oppressed as women in these cases. Who wants to have their babe shut into a black pillar box? Who wants to have their children brought up thinking their mother needs to be hidden?

Please answer! And no need to attack Suhayl, I think.

Arsalan, I'm not "self-hating", I just have a different view from you. You never come along to support me on these threads when I'm attacking racist or bigoted views but you're always ready to go OTT at me whenever I say something with which you disagree. I obviously despise anyone who attacks people. That's not what I'm supporting. For goodness sake!

Sorry, arsalan, of course. You sounded eerily like anno there.

"...as oppressed as women"

Are Muslim women oppressed? Is it because of the rules of dress? I remember hearing Germaine Greer argue quite powerfully that the dress-code is liberating for Muslim women because it releases them from the pressure to appear sexually attractive all the time.

She can argue all she likes but I notice she doesn't choose to wear one.

Not all women who are Muslim are oppressed. Women living under extremist rules are oppressed.

Assuming the rumours are true and women really do wear things like that out of a wish to be less looked-at, it's paradoxical, isn't it ? they become conspicuous by it.

And to be conspicuous is to invite all sorts of pontification concerning a supposed obligation to conform, and the risk of being seen as fair game by anyone who looks at things like that. Having been on the receiving end of that lecture myself, back in the days when growing facial hair was thought to be just asking for the Doc Martins, all I can say is, buggered if I'm going to have opinions on how other people ought to look, I expect to fail the Cultural Conformity Test along with the best (deliberately, if necessary). Quite apart from the whole other can of worms about men having ideas on how women should dress.

A friend of mine, several years back, went back to university and did some actual research. She came out of it saying that most of the people who wear it around here were very clear with her that they were doing it because they wanted to, that was what they preferred. Certainly, I see them laughing with each other while they do their shopping and don't get the impression they think they're oppressed.

*shrug* just my ha'penny's worth, it's none of my business really.

(sorry posted too early) That's why I said 'in these cases'. On the other hand, Ayaan Hirsi Ali considers Islam a repressive religion full stop.

Richard; I found the same with some *young* Muslim women up north (one wonders whether they will still be laughing 30 years later, hope so, of course). Still, they probably do feel they're doing it by choice. Talk to women from Afghanistan, who were dressing as they wished when the fundamentalists imposed the burka and you find quite a different, and not at all funny, picture.

My wife comes from a country which has been practising Islamic monotheism for 2,500 years. As a mature Islamic society it runs like a well modulated diesel engine, neither revving or stalling. Islam is a work-horse for the human being. Modesty is maintained by male and female in a way that is inconceivable in the UK.

In my view, the burkha is a gift from Allah for us to deal with seriously sick societies like the UK, to protect the personal environment of the Muslims who choose to live here, for whatever reason, from the kind of mind that can vote for a psychopath who invaded two foreign nations illegally in ten years, and who is now preventing our charitable resources from reaching a third, in Palestine.

"Still, they probably do feel they're doing it by choice"

and I'd want to give it a good hard thinking-about before I was sure I knew their reasons better than they do themselves.

From Camberley to Afghanistan, via Blackburn, 2 separate Whalley Ranges, St. Patrick, Danes and Sheringham. Fantastic ... Yes, I get a general impression the people there aren't much
the better off for having had the rest of the world notice them.

"From Camberley to Afghanistan, via Blackburn"

Digression. Beg pardon, but I can't resist.

To pick up dreoilin on the norse founding of Dublin ... they were all *over* the Irish sea, and points north. I was going to say various things, but then I discovered http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse-Gaels which does it better. ("McLeod" runs as a middle name in my family, so I'm particularly amused at the derivation of that).

All it misses is the story (from the Orkney Saga, I think) of the norseman who didn't want to go and fight at what turned out to be Clontarff. Stupid idea, no good'll come of it, etc. His mother sent him off anyway, telling him "If I'd realised you expected to live for ever, I'd have raised you up in my wool basket". Which somehow manages to say an awful lot about peoples' lives in a very few words. He got killed horribly, of course, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do (...and, back to "conformity").

The whole business has fascinated me ever since I realised it was there. Perhaps because "British history" is told so much from a south-east-facing perspective and I'm a contrary sod - there were all kinds of things going on in places we don't think of very often.

and that's before we start on their eastwards-looking Swedish cousins ...

"Beg pardon, but I can't resist"

Stll can't ... "Doc Martins". Not to be confused with the Dock Martens, which would be a tribe of large sea-going weasels. Aaand, back to the norsemen.

Oh dear. I'm very sorry.

hey Richard; bankers 'feel' they are putting a tie on by choice, too. I think the test would be if they decided to choose not to. It is remarkable that no man 'chooses' to wear a burkha: although from anno's account it seems as though he should. Why is that?

And, to repeat, the burkha has nothing to do with being Muslim.

Vikings.
All politicians, and most of us, try to establish a persona of superiority as a platform for their/our often flawed opinions.
Brown's persona is indigenous Celtic 'We got here first.' Yorkshire Muslims often adopt a Viking intruder persona of, 'Tha'll tek us as tha find us.' Many Muslims adopt, ' You know the rules better than us, we only just got here.', but they know how to operate the rules, by heck. Then there is the curious Celtic stance of, 'Wherever you came from, you obviously didn't get on with them, or you wouldn't have come bothering us.'

Blog commenting creates authority from these micro-persona-slices + anecdote and opinion. Wham! End of comment.
I AM your big sister/brother, believe me you are wrong about this.'
'I am terribly sorry to sound racist, but can you get your foot out of my ribcage, there was plenty of room on this bus before you lot got here.

I just heard Nigel Farrage and Salma Yaqub talking about the burkha. Yes technicolour, as Salma Yaqub rightly pointed out, we are only talking about the burkha so that politicians can distract attention away from the enourmous tension between rich and poor in UK society in this recession. Nothing to do with being Muslim, as you said.

"My wife comes from a country which has been practising Islamic monotheism for 2,500 years"

That's a clever trick.

Do you mean, all monotheism is 'Islamic' ?

technicolour
My beard is my burkha. as such it loses me an awful lot of business in the construction trade of The Sun's Britain.
I don't wear shawal chamees, soft cotton shirt and trousers, with numerous longjohns and jerseys, either, except at home of course, because it's not my national dress. An Englishman can't wear his pyjamas even in his own house in front of guests. But this too is culture, I find, and in other cultures it signifies 'Welcome! Relax!'.

Richard Robinson

Technically, yes. Our prophets are the same as those of the Bible, and our universal creed is, ' None is worthy of worship, except God. Muhammad is His messenger', May Allah's peace and blessings be upon him. This is our universal witness or 'shahaadah'. Why don't you come and join us?

You remember from your Gospels the scholars asked Jesus who he was, 'the Messiah, Elijah come back or the Great Prophet that is to come? peace be upon them all. In the Gospels he is quoted as asking them in return who they thought that he was.

The Great Prophet that is to come, being Muhammad (saw) and the prophecy in the Gospels is this. After I go , will come another, and he will confirm everything that I have said, and make all things clear, and he will speak only what he hears. These are the qualities of the last prophet, peace be upon him. After Jerusalem was invaded by the Romans in 73 A.D. many tribes left for Madinah in Saudia Arabia to wait for the great prophet to come. But some of them were not too happy that he turned out to be an Arab, and so the story goes on....

anno, could you tell me something ?

Just, what is politeness around a woman wearing a burqa, in the street as we both get our shopping ? I mean - two people heading for the same doorway, I'd expect to hang back a bit, 'you go first', and expect some moment of mutual acknowldgement, a bit of a grin or something. But if the other person's's wearing a burqa, is it polite to do that sort of "here we both are", moment of eye-contact sort of thing ? Or does the covering-up imply that that would be invasive, does it ask to be treated as invisible ? I just don't know, you see ? Trivial stuff, but it does actually happen from time to time, and for what little it's worth, I'd like to not be giving them bad vibes. (Or have they tuned me out and won't notice either way ?)

"This is our universal witness or 'shahaadah'. Why don't you come and join us?"

Thanks, but ... theisms don't feel right to me. Not one particular one, the whole proposition. To put a face on the universe, with intentions, thoughts, feelings, seems to me to be to make too much of ourselves. Humanity just doesn't have that sort of a place in the universe we see these days.

(I've heard "Islam" translated as "submission" - would "humility" be an acceptable alternative, or is there a difference ?)

Back in the day, I'd have described myself as "not religious". These days it seems to me that 'agnosticism' is itself a faith - I can't prove it, nor can I prove that proving is the right way to go about it, just reason it out as far as that'll take you and after that accept that it's axioms all the way down. The only absolute I see is the possibility of learning that they're wrong, and to lose that would be a loss too far.

In a more practical sense, I can't accept the idea of a book's being unquestionable.

But I can't resist quoting one, anyway :-

Ignorant, ignorant.
Most people are so bright.
I'm the one that's dull.
Most people are so keen.
I don't have the answers.
Oh, I'm desolate, at sea,
adrift, without harbour.

Everyone has something to do.
I'm the clumsy one, out of place.
I'm the different one,
for my food
is the milk of the mother.

(from U. K. LeGuin's transliteration of the Tao Te Ching).

Tech I believe you are being dishonest with your comments on what Muslim women wear, remembering that you had asked a question which I had comprehensibly answered.

Posted by: arsalan goldberg at November 30, 2009 10:18 PM

technicolour

To be honest I've never actually thought about whether I should wear one or not(Do you think it will bring out my eyes?).
Now that I have thought about it I can categorically tell you I will never wear one because it is not allowed in Islam to be a transvestite.

But if you are asking me what Islam says on this issue. My answer will be more vague, because there is a difference of opinion on this issue, which has existed from the earliest days of Islam.
I don't know how knowledgeable you are about Islam, so I will assume you have no knowledge to try and make my answer as comprehensive and clear as possible.
The two Primary sources of Islam are the Quran and Sunnah(words and actions of the Prophet). The Sunnah has been collected in to various compilations, called Hadith. Bukhari(9 volumes, I have this) is the most famous one which was collected by someone from a city in Uzbekistan called Bukhara. Muslim(4 volumes I have that too) is the second most well known, and was collected by a student of Imam Bukhari called Imam Muslim. Looking up at my bookshelf which is just above this computer there are a lot of others, such as Riyad us Suliheen, Nawawi, Tarmedi, al Muwata and loads of others.

The Quran was revealed verses at a time. The way we follow the verses of the Quran is the way the Prophet Mohummed pbh followed them. Because the words and actions of the Prophet are within themselves revelation.
When the verse concerning what women should cover was revealed, women covered themselves with whatever came to hand. The female members of the Prophet Mohummed's pbh family covered everything except an eye to see with.
The key issue on whether Niqab is compulsory or not is whether this dress code was for the female family of the Prophet pbh or for all Muslim women.
Some Muslim Scholars of Islam say it was only for the female family members of the Prophet pbh and the dress code for other Muslim women allows them to show face and hands because there are Hadith that says women are allowed to uncover the face in Huj and allowed to uncover it to be identified for signing a business contract.
Others who say the dress code of the Prophet's female family members is for all Muslims state the same Hadith, but say the very fact that women are allowed to uncover their faces in those circumstances means they aren't in other circumstance.

Now if what you meant by your question was which of the two opinions do I believe is correct. My answer will have to be I DON'T KNOW!
Greater men than me differed on the issue, so who am I to say who is right and who is wrong?
I don't need to decide on which opinion I believe is stronger because I am never going to wear one anyway.
Just as I don't need to learn about how long after a women's period ends does she have to take a bath and when does praying and fasting become compulsory on her,again because I have never had a period and I never will.
Just as if you ask me what I think of always ultra and whether I think it is better than supermarket own brands, I don't know and I have no reason to find out.

If you meant what I think of others wearing Niqab, Everywhere and in none Muslim countries such as this one in particular.
I have to say whether it is compulsory or not I respect them for copying the dress of My Prophet pbh's family, because I love my Prophet pbh and I love my Prophet PBH's family. When it comes to non-Muslim countries where such a dress results in discrimination, insults and even attacks, I have to say I respect them more.
When following a religion results in worldly reward, it is very easy to follow one, and the out word signs of following a religion do not indicate in word piety. but when following a religion result in no worldly benefit and much harm in this life, I think it is clear those people only do what they do for God. And that sort of conviction has to be respected by people of all religions.

Posted by: arsalan goldberg at November 30, 2009 10:18 PM

tech
Why do I accuse you of dishonesty. You say Prophet Mohummed peace be upon him didn't say anything about this topic when you know his wives wore it. And I know you know this, because I told you, and you responded to the post where I told you.

Tech why can't you realise that Muslim women may know a little bit more about what the Prophet Mohummed peace be upon him said about how Muslim women should dress than you?
Or that some one such as myself who has studied the Quran and the Sunnah(And you do know I have because I have mentioned some of the volumes of Hadith I own) would know more about what the Prophet Mohummed says on this issue than you?
If you wanted examples of what the Quran and the Prophet pbh who it was revealed to say on the issue, I think you would have asked for it.
I believe the answer I gave you in November was enough, and was ignored by you.

So I will end by saying Muslim women wear what they do because they obey their creator. And they believe that is what their creator told them to do. Just as they believe their creator told them not to eat Pigs. Some very silly people like to say Muslim women do so because they obey men. These silly people only say this as an excuse to force Muslim women to dress the way white men tell them to dress.

There is a difference of opinion on the issue, but it is between Burkha and Hijab.

"anno, could you tell me something ?"

That looks a bit exclusive, I didn't mean it like that, just the way the conversation seemed at the time. I'd hear anybody.

Arsalan, you know that many of the Hadiths are of disputed provenance. Also, the difference of opinion is not just about 'hijaab and burkha', that's a distortion.

I respect your knowledge of Islam and your conviction, your iman too. But I do think that just like the MSM do in relation to politics, you too are narrowing the terms of the discourse and this sartorial allusion is an example of that. The way you present it, it is as though you're intrepretation(s) is/ are the only ones possible. Of course many (very devout) Muslims would disagree with you.

Good morning Arsalan. No, I wasn't being dishonest: I thought your original post came from anno, see apology above.

Thanks for reposting. It is interesting background, thank you. My own books on the subject are in storage, so I cannot supply you with quotes, sadly.

Still. I was talking about the burkha, not the hijab.
And even over the hijab, there is a great deal of dispute. As you say, there are different opinions and one can be a 'good' Muslim woman without wearing it.

But the hijab leaves the face uncovered. The full burkha does not even 'leave one eye free', does it? So yes, I would be interested to know where the rationale is for that.

I don't know why you brought periods in, in your earlier post. Periods are unstoppable. They are natural. They are the basis for life. They are the work of the creator, however you like to define that title. They are not an item of black cotton clothing.

Incidentally, where does it say that the burkha is only for women?

I am now going for a walk, in the sun, in the full knowledge that were I in a burkha I would not be able feel the warmth on my skin, or the wind in my hair. I would not be able to smile at my neighbours or eat an ice cream, or stop for a coffee, or any of the other things Western women - and you - take for granted.

Instead you say "I have to say whether it is compulsory or not I respect them".

You respect people forced to hide themselves from the world because they are women? You respect people who are under threat of death or lashings if they show their faces outside? I respect them too, but I think for different reasons.

Apologies for calling me 'dishonest' will be accepted.

"Hadiths are of disputed provenance"
That is the key issue here.

That is the key issue here.
To deny the ruling people are forced to deny the source of the ruling.
Which also happens to be the source of Islam.

When it comes to accepting the text as true, but disagreeing on the meaning. It is possible to derive two separate opinions on this issue. Which are Hijab and Niqab.
But if you dispute the very source of Islam, the text itself, then as you say other things are possible, but I would say everything would be possible when the authenticity of the text is the issue.

Lets use your argument on another issue to clarify.
For example Pork, or lets use the words of the Quran, lahmul Kanzir.
“He has forbidden you only the maytatah (dead animals), and blood, and the flesh of swine…” [al-Baqarah 2:173]

The word Kanzir means pigs. But if someone wanted to make pigs lawful, in the way people dispute that Muslim women have to cover their hair in Islam what they would do is state, "Kanzir doesn't mean pig, it means Police officers, in Islam it is forbidden to eat the flesh of police officers".
The safeguard against this is the sunnah, we know what the Prophet pbh refrained from eating from the Hadith that record every aspect of his life.
Now going back to the issue of Hijab.
The word the Quran uses in the verse of Hijab is Khimar, this word means headscarf. People who want to change Islam's ruling on this issue attempt to do so by changing the meaning of this word. But they are prevented from doing so by the Hadith describing what happened when the verse was revealed. What did women cover? What did the Prophet PBH tell them to cover? this is known. There is a dispute on the extent, but the fact that hair is included in the extent is undisputed.

Are you familiar with the Hadith on this issue and their chains of narration?
The reliability of the reporters?
Their trustworthiness or lack of it.
If you are not then you should familiarise yourself with them before you dispute their provenance.
They include Hadith of both Bukhari and Muslim, and other sahih collections such as abu Dawood.
When these people, say there is a dispute on this issue who do they claim is the other side of the dispute?
All four Sunni Schools, agree on this, the Shia schools who are within Islam the Zayadi and Jafari schools agree on this. And the remaining school of thought which isn't Shia or Sunni the Ibadi agree on this. So who in Islam do they say dispute it, other then those who dispute Islam while claiming to be Muslim?

the last post was for suhel, tech I will read what you write now,

Tec the issue of Burkha is more about what was done then what was said.
Islam is like that.
In Islam we do not show our respect to our Prophet pbh by worshipping him, in the way some Christians worship their Prophet peace be upon him. In monotheism worship is reserved for the creator. We believe the Prophet's are the best of humanity, ever word and deed of theirs is purified and guided, so is an example to us.
So we show our respect to our Prophet pbh by copying him. That is why Muslim men grow their beards and trim their moustaches. Muslim women can not copy the Prophet on this issue, because most of them do not have beards to grow and moustaches to trim. And the few that do should have them removed for obvious reasons. On these issues where which are unique to the sexes, Muslim women show their devotion by copying the female family members of the Prophet PBH.

They did cover everything. This fact is undisputed.
So it has less to do with the wording and more to do with the actions.

The reason for the dispute is some rules in Islam were unique to the Prophet pbh and his family while others came for everyone. For Example, Muslims fast during the daylight hours and eat during the night, while the prophet fasted the whole of the day and night. When Muslims are poor we are allowed to take charity, but it was forbidden for the Prophet PBH or his family to take it even when starving.
So if there is a dispute between the deeds of the Prophet pbh and his words, in Islam the wording takes precedents, because some rules like what I have mentioned were unique to him.
The people who state that showing the face is allowed use the Hadith I mentioned in the November post, to state

There are many Muslims and Muslim scholars who don't agree with your views on these matters, arsalan. To mention just one or two sources of information on this, I would refer people to the work of Ziauddin Sardar or Amina Wadud. But there are many others, some of whom (the women, like Amina Wadud) do wear the hijaab themselves, others of whom do not.

Nonetheless, arsalan, I say again that I do respect your views and of those who share your views. Sadly, my experience of these fevered debates which I have all-too-often with friends and acquaintances is that the reverse does seldom seems to apply. I do not claim to represent the views of all Muslims; I accept that there will be differing views. http://cairolusakaamsterdam.blogspot.com/2010/01/amina-wadud-on-hijab.html

that the Burkha was only compulsery for the Prophet pbh's wives.

arsalan, I was responding to your 9.46 am post, not your 10.11 one.

As I have mentioned before this dispute is not within Islam, it is between Islam and what is not Islam.
Amina Wadud is not a Muslim.
A self label isn't enough to make someone a Muslim.
I can even top your Amina Wadud, by giving you who sects who agree with out she says, but like her they are not Muslim.
So this issue isn't a dispute within Islam, just as the Qadyanis saying their founder is a Prophet doesn't make the Finality of Prophethood a disputed issue in Islam. All it means is the Qadyanis are not Muslim.

The text decides what is within Islam and outside of it, not heretics.

Posted by: arsalan at March 14, 2010 10:13 AM was part of the post
Posted by: arsalan at March 14, 2010 10:11 AM

Arsalan, only God has the right to determine who and who is not Muslim. Is that not the greatest sin of all, to assign to onself an attribute of God, particularly this attribute? It says so, in the Holy Quran. What gives anyone the right to say that such-and-such is not a Muslim, just because one may disagree with them? Is Ziauddin Sardar, then, also not a Muslim? And am I not a Muslim because you decide that I am not? How convenient. How Stalinist. How Neocon.

Arsalan: I appreciate your replies so far.

"The female members of the Prophet Mohummed's pbh family covered everything except an eye to see with."

So not the full burkha, then. Please tell me why you approve of it.

Suhayl's humbling and interesting point aside, I was told that to become Muslim one had to say (and believe) the Shahada. Is this not true anymore? If not, what has changed?

"Muslim women show their devotion by copying the female family members of the Prophet PBH."

But if Muslim women are forced to copy an idea of what the female family members were supposed to have worn or, alternatively, a garment they did not apparently wear (the burkha), that's OK?

Mohammed (pbuh) recommended a specific kohl for women, I believe, too. Are women who fail to use it 'heretics' too?

Suhayl Saadi

There is no such thing as a Muslim atheist. Or a Muslim who doesn't believe in Islam.
Yes there are differences of opinion based on the text, and I have listed some of them here. But there is a difference between disagreeing with the meaning of the text and denying it.
Or attributing a meaning to the text which contradicts it. So the Qadyanis are not Muslim for their belief in a Prophet after the final one, the Agha khanis are not Muslim for their belief that the Aga Khan is the incarnation of God, the Nation of Islam are not Muslim for the same reasons.
These limits do not end with sects and organisations, it applies to that American just as much.
I am not going to comment about Ziauddin Sardar, because I know little about him, and can't be bothered to do a google for such a petty issue. If you are asking me to do a verdict on you, if that is what you want, go to a mosque. List the beliefs you hold that conflict with the mainstream and ask someone of knowledge whether it means you are still a Muslim or not. I am not touching that issue with a 10 foot poll.

Tech yes, they left one eye open. I think people in the Tunisian country side still dress like that.
Tech to be a Muslim one needs only to recite the Shahada, but it requires the belief in the Shahada too. An atheist who recites it doesn't become a Muslim atheist.

I believe the statement on force is a red herring. People are invading countries to stop people wearing it not the other way around. And that is what has happened, the Americans and their puppets banned government employees from wearing it in Afghanistan. So women have a choice of abiding by what they believe their creator ordered them to do and feeding themselves, or obeying American men and watching their children starve.
No one is invading your country to give you that choice in reverse.

and lastly disobedience is not heresy.
Heresy is Heresy. A Muslim woman who doesn't wear hijab is still a Muslim woman just as a Muslim woman who eats pork, commits adultery, robs banks or any other sin is not a heretic but is a sinner. But denying the rule is the heresy.

In short Muslims who eat pork but admit it is sinful are sinful but still Muslims.
That is sinfulness and not heresy. It becomes heresy when they legalise pork, deny the text that forbids it or change its meaning. The same applies to Hijab and all other issues.

Thanks, arsalan. But my basic point was not that Muslims could be atheists, not at all, it was simply that it is not up to you or I to determine who is, and who is not, a Muslim. We may have our views on the matter. But ultimately, it is up to God, not any mosque, imam or sheikh.

Also, not on this issue so much as more generally, Zia Sardar's work is very interesting and well worth a look - even if you don't end-up agreeing with everything he says. I'd recommend his 'Desperately Seeking Paradise' - this goes for anyone interested in 'journeys', etc.

I need to go somewhere now
Bye

Suhayl Saadi,

thank you for your mention of Ziauddin Sardar; I checked his Wikipedia entry and found this:

'He argues that the image of Muslims as "the darker side of Europe" seems to be a fixture of western consciousness and is recycled from generation to generation.'

This fits with my personal belief that "racism" results from personal failure to recognise ones instinctive distrust or fear of people of a different culture. We cannot eradicate this feeling from ourselves. We can only recognise it and thereby compensate, thus diminishing it over time through positive experiences.

I remember my own fear of Muslims from my youth; they just *seemed* scary; they hadn't threatened me.

"Racism" results when someone fails to notice that this fear has an internal source, and instead projects it upon the feared people, regarding them as dangerous.

I have put "racism" in quotes as Islam is not a race, so Islamophobia is not strictly racism, but I think that the principle still applies.

"I believe the statement on force is a red herring. People are invading countries to stop people wearing it not the other way around."

I'm sorry Arsalan, but this is a tragic statement. 'People' (the Western governments) invaded Afghanistan for geo-political reasons. You know this. The extremists in power were put there by the US. The extremists on the sidelines (Hezb i Islami etc) were funded by the US and the UK. Saudi Arabia is supported by the US and UK.

And you use the state of these countries as a reason for supporting the burkha? You claim it is not imposed by force, when all the testimony, the punishments, the floggings, the murders, clearly shows it is. I don't understand. It doesn't make sense.

Anyway, enough of this, I should think. It is not a small issue - when has the treatment of women ever been, any more than the treatment of slaves? But it is off topic.

Clark: I've got no fear of people from a different culture, thank heavens. My godmother had nursed her way through India, Mogadishu, South Africa and Egypt. I was brought up on her stories. I didn't even know there was an image of Muslims as 'the darker side of Europe'. Is there?

Thanks, all, for a spirited discussion! Clark and Technicolour, good points. Oh yes, Islam has been constructed as 'The Other' for a long, long time in Europe. This spectre has been raised at strategic moments in history.

Arsalan, I am mainstream Sunni, btw. The Ismailis are a branch of Shi'ism, 'Sevener' Shias, as (unlike Irani and other 'Twelver' Shias) they believe that there were seven, rather than twelve imams. There are millions of Ismailis in Central Asia, including, for example, in Hunza in northern Pakistan, and also in Karachi and Mumbai. I'm aware of the intriguing history - Hasan-i-Saba and the 'Old Man of the Mountains', Alamut, enemies of the Caliphs of Baghdad, probable allies of the Crusader states, 'Hashashim - smokers of has - though of course hash makes one mellow not aggressive, usually! - hence the word, 'assassin'. But of course the group has evolved hugely since then and expanded. They would be very annoyed if anyone were to suggest that they are not Muslim. They do the pilgrimage and believe in everything essentail, the five pillars, etc. Many of them are just as devout as anyone else. Not all are rich or middle-class, you know. They're not all the Agha Khan, who is of course their leader! As a community, they do a lot of good work as well.

Qadianis/ Ahmadis were declared not to be Muslim by Bhutto Pater in the mid-1970s in Pakistan solely in order to appease the ascendant religious parties; this was a shameful act. Again, ironically, Qadianis are actually one of the main missionary groups of Islam and do many good things. I know theologically their ideas are non-conformist and yes, there is the rather important issue of the last prophet. I'm also aware of the British Raj's influence historically in the C19th in their genesis.

The Druze are probably not in the tent of Islam any more, and I think most would not self-describe themselves as Muslim, although in Lebanon it may be more complex. Walid Jumblatt, remember that name? Anyway, some fight in the Israeli Army (the ones who live in Israel/ Palestine) but then, so do the Sunni Bedouin who live in Israel/ Palestine.

I once met a man who declared that Shias were not Muslim. I disagreed heartily with him!

I met another man who thought that only Shias were Muslim. Likewise!

You made an excellent point a few months ago when you pulled me up excellently about some of my previous swingeing comments on the Salafis and I think that you were right to do so. I don't think we need to be infinitely divided, arsalan, I think a broad and tolerant 'church' is better, because otherwise, we just begin to break-up into egotistical sects.

As Muslims, I feel that it's what's in our hearts that's important, and how that translates into our actions.

God will judge.

Peace.

Technicolour,

although I can only speak from my own experience, I do believe that many people have these unconscious, instinctive fears, and that it can lead to racism or feeling threatened by members of a different culture. You were fortunate to have such a godmother.

Regarding your statement "'People' (the Western governments) invaded Afghanistan for geo-political reasons": I suspect that unconscious fears act as an enabler, and that Islamophobia is 'cultivated' partly unconsciously, or at least not exclusively cynically, in the process of leaders justifying their decisions (to themselves as well as to others), ie, it's a (sometimes convenient) convergence of influences.

So in that sense, Arsalan has a point. Some leaders do wish to enforce western ways, and those leaders really do think that they're helping to free people.

I also believe that basic psychology should be taught universally in school. I wasn't even taught that aggression is a response to threat.

Suhayl Saadi,

thank you for these facinating insights into the diversity of Islam, here and on previous threads. I think that the popular illusion of Islam as monolithic is part of the cause of Islamophobia.

"I think that the popular illusion of Islam as monolithic is part of the cause of Islamophobia."

Hm. "We" put up with Popes for long enough. *Competing* monolith, possibly.

I'm more inclined to suspect it has nothing much to do with the specific natures of either Islam or Christendom, just a bad case of quarrelling with the neighbours. Just wait till the monotheisms get together and start pronouncing on what's wrong with the polytheisms ...

Clark, I don't want to be a bore, but which leaders? And if their motives were anything to do with 'Western values' why did they then install and continue to support Karzai, who has legalised rape in marriage and passed a law forbidding women to leave their homes without male consent?

You're right, I was lucky.

My pleasure!

Btw, if you want to peruse another interesting 'journey', check out the story of 1960s Kentish Town Mod group, The Action ("the best white soul band of all time!") and specifically, that of Ian Abdellateef Whiteman, keyboardist, flautist, saxophonist, architect, book illustrator...
www.ianwhiteman.com

Sadly, the excellent bassist of the group, Michael Al Hajj Evans, died suddenly a few weeks ago.

Also, Top Topham, The Yardbirds' first lead guitarist (before Eric Clapton, ironically enough). There was a good article in 'e-mel' magazine a few years ago about this (I think fairly purist) blues guitarist.

Abdellateef played with Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens) when they went to Bosnia in the mid-1990s and also played extensively with Richard Thompson in various bands.

Actually, Yusuf Islam's own journey is fascinating too. Go to his website for more details. I was very honoured that Yusuf's publicist, Omar, came to one of my London readings recently and we had a good chat, all-too-brief of course as is the way at such events! Yusuf released a witty single and promotional video with his pal, Dolly Parton recently about the time, several years back, when he was refused entry to the USA, entitled, 'Boots and Sand'.

Gosh, I always seem to return to music, don't I?! Well, I see (or rather, hear) the azaan (call to prayer) as beautiful music - as long as it's not done through a loudspeaker! There's a mosque in Thatta, Sindh (Pakistan) designed during the reign of Mughal Emperoro, Shah Jahan (he of the Taj Mahal), which is acoustically designed so that you can hear the prayer equally in all spaces - it's a very large and beautiful mosque, recently restored.

Heavenly.

Other musicians who have converted to Islam include bassist Danny Thompson (of Pentangle and John Martyn fame) and guitarist Richard Thompson.

Sorry Clark, that might have sounded a bit abrupt; I didn't mean it to!

Technicolour,

you ask "which leaders?" Well, I haven't really speculated that deeply, and besides, this is a question of psychology, so I would have to know the leaders personally. I just find it difficult to believe that all Western leaders are thinking "we can grab the resources, and encourage Islamophobia to help us get away with it", more "we can't possibly leave a resource as internationally important as that under the control of that sort of regime - they'd have far too much international power. Imagine what *a regime like that* [irrational fear] might do with such power!"

And I don't think it's an all - or - nothing issue, some leaders completely cynical, but others entirely motivated by unconscious fears; more a spectrum of these in each individual leader.

As to Karzai, they just used him because he was available, the end justifying the means. Nothing to do with values, more "He may be a bastard, but at least he's OUR bastard".

Richard Robinson,

I fail to understand you. My point was not about the nature of Islam (or Christianity), but about *ignorance* of the varied nature of Islam.

Suhayl Saadi,

I worked at a club in Bradford in the '80s, near Bradford City football ground. While setting up in the afternoon I often heard the call to prayers. It was haunting and beautiful.

Technicolour,

there have been various discussions on this site about whether leader such-and-such is a psychopath, or what other explanations there could be for their attrocities, and how they cultivate Islamophobia, as if the majority were in the grip of these few evil leaders. I see it a bit differently. We are all, to a greater or lesser extent, in the grip of our unconscious nature, including our 'leaders'. We can diminsh its hold upon us by becoming more conscious.

I can't believe I'm taking a break from Snakes on a Plane for this.

"If any male or female enforces it on their women folk, they know their circumstances better than someone who is outside Islam."

How very convenient, anno. And yet you then go on to say:
"The ones who are not perving, and don't hate Islam should respect her choice."

So you force it on her and it becomes her 'choice'. Uh uh. Wrong.

"Clark - I think that the popular illusion of Islam as monolithic is part of the cause of Islamophobia.

RR - Hm. "We" put up with Popes for long enough.

Clark - I fail to understand you. My point was not about the nature of Islam (or Christianity), but about *ignorance* of the varied nature of Islam."

My point was that, given a thousand years or more of having perceived "the" church as "catholic" (Greek, via Latin: "universal"), I don't see how a perception of something as monolithic works as an objection, regardless of its accuracy.

I suggest that "it belongs to them next door, and we've been arguing about where the garden-fence ought to be" works better as an explanation.

"Not everyone who sees a woman wearing a burkha, is an Islam-hater, or trying perve about women"

WT*F* ?

I don't know where you live, maybe it's different there. Round here, they're out on the streets getting the shopping in, how do we not see them ? It's got nothing to do with whatever the hell kind of weirdo you might think, or so very liberally not think, we are, it's just how seeing people works - they're there, so are other people, other people see them.

Thanks, Arsalan.

Richard, doesn't it say in the Gospels that if someone looks at someone with the desire of adultery, then they have committed adultery? So W*T*F* was Jesus pbuh talking about then? Or was that bit added by the church as an afterthought? maybe? Only God Knows.

I want to ask the time-honoured question of this blog: Cui bono? Who benefits from the flame of antagonism between Shi'a and Sunnis in Iraq, which did not exist before the UKUS invasion?
( Please note I dropped the (Is.)word on this occasion.) Who benefits from igniting the flame of antagonism between Christian Democracy and Islam? Talking about the Burka is people picking on the differences. Fundamentally the values of Chritianity and Islam are the same even if the theology is different. Frankly I don't know. Some people say that the root is Secular fundamentalism. Some people like myself ask if it is a particular branch of religious racism. Some people say that the root is trans-global economics or neo-colonialism.

But what I do know is, that whoever seeded false-flag bombs to start the civil war in Iraq, and whoever started to rake up the old wounds of the British Raj by attacking Afghanistan, and whoever started the process of privatising national resources, we had better learn the lesson quick, that their objective is DIVIDE AND RULE. The tensions were DEFINITELY started deliberately and if we don't stop over-reacting, WE ARE DOOMED.

A previous commentator on another day, Ian McNee, suggested that these divisive forces are unco-ordinated, pragmatic and opportunistic. Whatever serves the purpose at the time, anti-communism one half-century, anti-Islam when oil resources beckon, anti-China is next down the line. This is a contradiction.
Yes the targets of the tensions changes, but the techniques used are the same.
That doesn't mean that the originators of the divisions are united, or the same people. For all I know this stuff is taught in College. The strategy is always the same. We, the people, have to consciously take a stand against the political powers that try to dis-unite us, lest their pockets or their prejudices or their nihilistic anti-values prevail.

"Whatever serves the purpose at the time, anti-communism one half-century, anti-Islam when oil resources beckon, anti-China is next down the line...
Yes the targets of the tensions changes, but the techniques used are the same.
That doesn't mean that the originators of the divisions are united, or the same people. For all I know this stuff is taught in College. The strategy is always the same. We, the people, have to consciously take a stand against the political powers that try to dis-unite us, lest their pockets or their prejudices or their nihilistic anti-values prevail." anno

Absolutely.

"Richard, doesn't it say in the Gospels that if someone looks at someone with the desire of adultery, then they have committed adultery? So W*T*F* was Jesus pbuh talking about then? Or was that bit added by the church as an afterthought? maybe? Only God Knows."

I certainly don't.

Does the need to buy a couple of pounds of potatoes always lead to adultery ? What an interesting life you must lead.

""Whatever serves the purpose at the time, anti-communism one half-century, anti-Islam when oil resources beckon, anti-China is next down the line...
Yes the targets of the tensions changes, but the techniques used are the same."

Yes, I'd agree with that. Except, maybe they're "under development", they can maybe change here and there as the powers-that-be learn. They do, I think. Just, not what we'd wish them to.

Richard. I grow my own.

"Richard. I grow my own."

Hah. Fair point.

Tatties for tea, Ma'am?
Sir Walter Raleigh, circa 1590

All these adults and their adult-ery. Try Snakes on a Plane, is my advice.

"Tatties for tea, Ma'am?"

Ah, thank you, Vicar.

I switched on to snakes on a plane, it seemed crap so I switched off again.

I don't have anything against snakes.

They eat mice and rats so they are very useful. Humanity would be close to extinction without them.

Snakes don't go about biting people for no reason. If people leave them alone, they leave people alone.

They eat mice not people, so it is mice they want to bite. If they were in a plane full of people, they would try and hide. Not come out to bite people.
They have nothing to gain by biting a person except wasting venom that they need for mice.
The only snake able to eat people is the anaconda. And they aren't venomous.

Ah, but Arsalan, you missed the fact the snakes were sent crazy by pheromones sprayed through the plane's air conditioning. And we all know what (male) snakes will do when driven crazy by thwarted lust. If only the passengers had worn some kind of covering, perhaps a - no, I won't go there.

Anyway, the two passengers humping adult-erously in the toilet get it first; a powerful message to us all.

The reason no one wanted the mosque is becuase areas with mosques go downmarket quickly (there are numerous examples of this in the UK). Crime rises, unemployment rises and house prices drop. However, then only legal argument to be made was the listed building argument, which is why it was used so vociferously. No one was being a coward, but no one in Camberley wanted to be labelled 'racist' or 'fascist' or whatever the latest misguided epithet is.

The happy, rockstar astronomer - the Michael Wood of the stars - was better. I'm waiting for him to hit the heliopause.

'Snakes on a Plane' - how do such 'dogs' get made?!! I'm surprised Brian Dennehy wasn't in it - was he?

"As someone who devotes much energy to battling Islamophobia"
-Haha, as if there are Muslims devoting their lives to battling 'Infidelophobia'. Don't you get it? Islam wants you dead, subdued or converted! According to the Koran, there's no other option. Devote all you like, as soon as the scimitar hits your neck it will count for nothing!

I hear the swishing of net curtains and the sound of well-watered aspidistras...

"Anyway, the two passengers humping adult-erously in the toilet get it first; a powerful message to us all"

Snakes don't approve of humans reproducing ?

I've not seen it, and don't really expect to. But I did hear someone tell that a bull once got loose on the car-deck of the Orkney ferry. I can imagine taking a certain satisfaction in a few minutes'-worth of that footage.
Much more drastic than a china-shop.

Suhayl: do you mean the *great* Brian Dennehy; star of The Belly of an Architect? Watch Snakes on a Plane 3 times in penance if you do.

Funny that, Martin. No, really, it made me laugh out loud. I have an image of myself blithely travelling around the Islamic world, befriended as a 'Child of the Book', smiling, grateful, and oblivious to the frequent swishes of scimitars missing my unprotected neck by inches. Have you ever travelled, by the way?

Nor do my friends & neighbours seem to want to kill me either, and goodness knows they have provocation. What's going on?

As for Mr 'areas with mosques in go downmarket', no that's not at all a racist or vicious, if you prefer that epithet, thing to say. It is quite frankly, fucking stupid, since the building was being used as a mosque already.

Brian D has acted in so many really mediocre TV movies that now I find that I can't associate him with much else. I guess Jason Robards did too and he acted in some great films. Nonetheless, I will do my penance, technicolour. As long as you don't ask me to watch Noel Edmonds... I'd take the snakes any day.

God, Martin S must be on LSD! Baaad trip, man. Now, where did I put my scimitar...?

Woah, Suhayl. Noel Edmonds on a Plane. I think we have a script!

No they bloody didn't dress that way. Or behave that way. If you'd had women locked into their homes clutching at your knees and begging you to help them from the enforced house arrest and enforced seclusion and enforced dress, you might have a different opinion, Arsalan. But you don't want to know, do you? You don't want to know about Jamiat i Islami and the other mujaheddin groups who were horrified by Hezb. Fine.

You are however right in that decades of war have caused this insanity. And who is to blame for that? Oh yes, the US, UK and the Soviets. Not the poor bloody Afghans.

I can see past the burkha (see above). I can't see past your refusal to keep supporting it, and refusal to walk a mile in someone else's shoes, even if that person happens to be a woman. Nothing to do with being a tranny.

Aargh, my past is catching up with me.

Stage left pursued by false bears, in the shape of a post-demo court case featuring a wonderful argument with a court usher, on the subject of whether the head of a bear costume counted as a hat ("it comes off, sonny") and whether a quacking toy duck on wheels was a necessary part of someone's defence (he'd had enough and gave up. It went into court, where it was plainly unnecessary, and therefore good for morale).

Also "40 years and we're still hearing the same tripe!"

As I remember it, Alf Garnett was supposed to be a mockery rather than a role-model, but some people never caught on.

Richard, damn, that's too funny. Will have to grin & bear it, I guess.

Yes, that's right, Richard, Alf G was parody, but as you say, many didn't get the irony. The kitchen-sink films and TV dramas were often excellent critiques of then-contemporary British society, with cracking dialogue. Really good cinema/ TV. 'A Taste of Honey', etc.

Ah! I found my scimitar! Roight then, me lubbers...! Toime ta walk tha plaank, it be! Redbeard's me name and don' ya be forgettin it! Khairrudin Barbarossa, Corsair of the Barbary Coast, Whoite Slave Trader and terrifier a' the flanks a' the Thames! 'Cept me got a fancie Devonian accent me has, Raabert Newton-stoiyle!

"Will have to grin & bear it, I guess."

I should, perhaps, have remarked that it was an "Anti-racists are having more fun" fancy-dress demo. And now the acid seems to have got to Suhayl, too ... can you play us a tune on that scimtar thing ?

yes, but Richard, I can *see* it. 200 helpless passengers locked on a plane with an out of control Noel Edmonds (Kevin Spacey). Terror? It lurks above! Suhayl can do the soundtrack on his scimitar (I bet it sounds a bit like a saw, but with sharper notes).

I wish I had a scimitar.

Arsalan, by the way, this is nothing personal. I like many nuns for example (well, not in that way). I do respect religious adherences as long as they don't detract from humanitarianism and human rights all round.

Human rights all round! Mine's a double!

I wish you had a scimitar too, Arsalan. I do have one, a Turkish one. Family legend says it is bloodstained, but I think it is rust. Still, you are welcome to borrow it, as long as you can play a decent intro.

"Suhayl can do the soundtrack on his scimitar (I bet it sounds a bit like a saw, but with sharper notes)"

The Sandvik Stradivarius can actually be found in tool catalogues, believe it or not. (It could 20 years back, anyway, I don't know about now).

"an out of control Noel Edmonds". Horror indeed. I live in Lancaster - the neighbouring town of Morecambe has an ugly history of involvement with Mr. Blobby. *Bad* acid.

Well, actually, I always thought that if I were forced to fight (ie conscripted) I would do so in a Mr Blobby suit, put on at the last minute, obviously. That should put the prat among the pigeons, as they almost say. And some good would come out of this terrible evil (you know it).

My father took me to see a concert which included the Sandvik Stradivarius at the Albert Hall when I was a child!

Just realised that the original post (yes there was one) contains the immortal line "The old scholl has in fact been in use for many years".

These hippies & their sandals, eh?

"Well, actually, I always thought that if I were forced to fight (ie conscripted) I would do so in a Mr Blobby suit"

My god ! you fiend !

(Cameras fade to set-piece battle).

A battalion of false bears and wooden ducks, they can be fielders, while Mr. Blobby bowls wooden footwear, and Suhayl in to bat (well, scimitar) with a parrot on his shoulder ... And for spectators, a horde of very puzzled-looking Tebbits.

Ah yes, the sound... the pure note.

Craig do you know where I can get a letter of marque?

"Craig do you know where I can get a letter of marque?"

In Somaliarrrrr, me hearties.

Well, actually, I always thought that if I were forced to fight (ie conscripted) I would do so in a Mr Blobby suit"

My god ! you fiend !

(Cameras fade to set-piece battle).

Band of Brothers. Square jaws. Troops advance, grimly. Sound of rocket fire (those terribly accurate hem hem ones). And, through the mist of conflict, come the battle torn figures...with what in the middle? Mr Blobby?

Total collapse of stout parties. At least, that's what I reckon.

Poor Craig. He from Elsewhere is bound to make out we're all his fault ...

Thank you so much for pointing out that "anti-Semitic" has become a meaningless term thrown at anyone who says anything critical of Israel.

Hey, he should pay us!

I quite like that bloke from elsewhere for some reason. Mischief, probably. Anyway, he seems to want to go to the surreal, and who are we to stop him, in this surreal world, where people believe things and reality is worse than all of them.

re latest LfSl post (thanks Mary) QED.

honestly larry, you're wasting your time. Engage or not. We have seen you off, in any other respect.

But larry, what do you think of the Mr Blobby idea? Will it work?

sorry, those were meant for the other thread, time for bed!

"Somaliarrrrr"

I feel a bit dubious about having said that. Not funny, what's going on there.

"Alf G was parody"

Intriguing (in a sad sort of a way) that his lefty protagonist was a thespian by the name of Booth, who fathered a certain Cherie Booth, now Blair.

Seems Marx got things the wrong way round, when he talked about great personages appearing twice "the first time as tragedy, the second as farce." We got farce first, now we get tragedy. But I don't care, I only ever watched the programme because I was blinded by an adolescent lust for Una Stubbs.

I quite liked 'Snakes on a Plane', though. There is something adorable about the idea of jamming a couple of hundred Americans into a metal tube and then inserting some venomous reptiles in the other end - can't quite put me finger on what it is.

Vronsky
I'm am so glad everyone here is using the word venomous instead of poisonous. There are only two poisonous snakes, all the others are edible.

Yeah, Una Stubbs rocked! All my primary school teachers tried to be Una Stubbs. Well, except the male ones (as far as I know).

Snakes on a plane ? There's worse.

A short story by, I think, Truman Capote, where someone committed a murder by waiting until the victim left his car with one of the windows a bit open, in a car-park in the full ?Texas? sun. Whereupon the murderer promptly obtained a dozen and a half rattlesnakes from somewhere handy, injected them with amphetamines and introduced them through the slot at the top of the window. So, when the victim comes back and opens the door - rattlesnakes on speed, pouring out of a car ! (I have no idea whether it's true, but I think he claimed it was).

Also a story I heard from one of the old hot-water-springs towns in south-west France, where nobody uses the pool much any more so it's quietly reverting back into the local ecology. Open the tap for more water, and what pours out is water with water-snakes in.

UGHH! That's horrible! And at dinner-time, too.

'A water-spout with a sleek finish'.

So the moral of this thread is, yes to Mosques no to snakes on planes?
Or was that the other way around?
Anyway, I think it was all a Labour gimmick.
Labour and the other parties know that Muslims will always vote Labour.
So the other parties ignore pleasing Muslims and concentrate on winning over winnables such as racists.
Labour know that their is nothing to gain by pleasing Muslims, because they already have the Muslim vote, and nothing to lose by displeasing them, because Muslims carried on voting Labour after the slaughter of millions of Iraqis and Afghans by Labour. So Labour too concentrates on securing the racist vote.

This is all a Joke. None of the councilors had a problem with a Mosque being built there outside of election season, all of them had a problem with it being built in election season. None lorded the building's "Historical significants" when planning permission was first sort. So how long does it take for a building to change from being dilapidated to Historic? This would indicate the time it takes for parties to think about the next election?

This is all about securing the vote of the knuckle dragging skinheads of the EDL. This turn down might effect the way they vote, but wont effect the way the Muslims will vote. Because everybody knows they will always vote Labour.

Arsalan - yes. It all has a bit of feeling that all there is to vote for is the colour of the deckchairs on the Titanic, doesn't it ?

"UGHH! That's horrible"

It is rather, isn't it ? I'm sorry.

But, they started it ! I never liked planes anyway.

I have never voted, and never will.
All a bunch of lying bastards.
My solution to the mess I see around me is immigration.
Yes, every country have their problems, but few have the problems of this country.

Arsalan I think you mean emigration. Where can we go? I sometimes feel that I am on that yellow brick road with my little dog looking for the Emerald City!

I was going to go to Syria, but then I decided on UAE because I have a friend there who keeps telling me my family can stay with him and his until we get our selves settled.

I have a feeling that there will be concentration camps in the UK and my family will be amongst the first to enter them. Europe has a tradition of concentration camps and extermination, the UK is not exception.
And when the worst does come to pass, and Muslims are loaded up on to cattle trucks. They will all plan to rush out as soon as the train stops, so they can caste their votes for Labour before it is their turn to enter the gas chambers. Because who knows, if they don't vote Labour, the Conservatives might get in, and their gas chambers might be worse.
We might try and show them it doesn't make much of a difference whether it is a Labour government or a Conservative government putting them in the gas chambers, but they will reply, "You have to vote for the top two parties or else the BNP might get a seat and they hate us!"
Labour's supporters will say none of this is Islamophobic. While the opposition complain about the amount of money Labour is wasting on all those trains they have commissioned to transport Muslims to the death camps while 'Our boys' who guard the camps have to pay for their own train tickets to get to the camps. They will complain about how Muslims get to stay at the camps for free, While "Our Boys" who guard the camps and exterminate the Muslims within them have to pay for their own hotel rooms. They will demand better pay for "Our boys" and state the supporting 'Our boys' isn't supporting the extermination of Muslims, that 'our boys' exterminate. They will also criticise the Muslims in the concentration camps for not supporting 'our boys'. They will tell them that those Muslims should support 'Our boys' who exterminate them, they should be grateful to 'our boys' for serving 'our country'. They will state that if Muslims have a problem with being in concentration camps and being gassed, they should blame the politicians and not 'our boys' who are only doing their duty. All the moderates will line up to become concentration camp guards to show their people of this country that not all British Muslims are unpatriotic extremists who hate our boys, many are obedient citizens who will show Britain that their loyalty lies with the government and not with Islam and Muslims. They will do this cheering on 'our boys' while 'our boys' exterminate Muslims, even when our boys exterminate the moderates own families. They will make excuses such as, "It is all the fault of the extremists who hide among law abiding Muslims, how would Our boys know the difference". These moderates will even smile and express support for our, when our boys are killing them! That will be the last words of these Moderates in Qullam and other organisations while they are being gassed by our boys, "We love you and thank you for serving our country by gassing us".

Scimitars, gaschambers. I reckon explosives are a greater worry. All of them, I'm not taking sides.

Richard maybe not gas chambers, but things aren't going to get any easier for Muslims here whoever people vote for.
Ladies getting beaten up by knuckle dragging skinheads, and families being burnt by petrol through letter boxes is something that already happens.
So come to think of it, Gas chambers do seem less painful than what currently happens.

Whether this country does resort to gas chambers, or continues to expand on the Petrol letter box together with the Hijabi/Niqabi beating things, I don't think it would be a good idea for me to keep my family here to find out.
I'm off as soon as my son is well enough to fly, whose coming?

1970: England. Asians being 'bashed', houses being strewn in excreta, systemic discrimination against blacks, Asians in jobs, mortgages, everything.

1966: Glasgow, Scotland: excreta being shoved through our Jewish friends' front doors every Easter and systemic discrimination against Roman Catholics.

It's not new, this psychosis of Europe's and its hallucinated 'Other'. It's just that the loculation of 'The Other' shifts.

Wherever one goes in the world, one can spot similar dynamics of tribalism; it seems this is hardwired into us, probably as a societal survival mechanism. Now it threatens the planet with nuclear holocaust.

People must make up their own minds, to the extent any of us can, about the direction of their lives. One might intone, cod-heroically, "Stay and fight!" But I know that some see the clouds darkening. Of course, the exertion of hegemony is global: one cannot run. There is nowhere to hide. The worker-bees (and their drones) are everywhere.

And wherever one goes, somewhere, there will be an-Other. In a kind of reverse fantasy, some people like to construct themselves into that Other. As the Jews of Europe discovered in WW2, though, it may well make no difference. One is cast into one's fate by the lunacy of the mob. Still, one can see that it might be more comfortable if one is not that 'Other' wherever one goes...

I have no intention of becoming the oppressor, but I am not staying here to find out what they are going to do to the "Other", before it is someone else's turn to be the "other".
I would prefer to fight for other peoples rights somewhere else, then fight for my own here.
This country is clearly going to get a lot worse before there is any hope of getting better.
The excuse they are using to smash in doors, and drag out women and children in their underwear is terrorism. But that is just the excuse for that activity. To stop the Mosque the excuse was heritage. They use yet more excuses to ban Hallal in Schools, Hijab in the work place and Niqab where ever they want.
It is all just an excuse, but I believe the line has been crossed.
In the past people posted poo through letter boxes without government approval. When it comes to the Mosque, the ruling party plus the opposition have clearly stated where things are and where they are going to. They agreed to the Mosque until the Nazis of the EDL said they were unhappy with it,
They you think this will be the last time they cave in to Nazi demands?
Do you think they will only obey the Nazi at the local level, or will they also obey them at the national level?
And the EDL are Nazis, you can see them doing Nazi solutes every time they are photoed.
Those of us who have memories longer then this current open season on Muslims, remember their names and faces chanting support for the gas chambers and the extermination of Jews. We remember them calling for Gas chambers here. But back then they were taken as nutters to be ignored and arrested, but now they are swing voters who are obeyed and served.
Will the government end their obedience to the Nazis when it comes to their demands against Mosques, or will their longstanding demand for gas chambers also be obeyed? with the slight amendment that they should be filled with Muslims and no longer Jews?

You're not wrong. But remember Enoch Powell, and the sustained way both the main political parties courted the racist vote over a period of years? The NF used to hold mass rallies in London and elsewhere. The dockers marched in support of 'Enoch'. Now, if they did that, one half of London would rise up and smash them. The EDL have a millionaire businessman behind them and I suspect they are a hard state front. Remember Margaret Thatcher and "swamping"? Remember Rhodesia and sanctions-busting? Aden and Mad Mitch? Yes, I know the demise of the genuine, organised internationalist Left has led to a vacuum in terms of leadership willing to smash fascism at the grassroots in a strategic manner on the streets and in the town halls. This is a major change. The hard state uses the Far Right for its own purposes, as you know - nil new there. It's aligned with aggressive imperialist wars now, and the international ant-colonial movement is no more. This applies everywhere, not just the UK. Don't let the b.... get you down!

Suhayl - "one can see that it might be more comfortable if one is not that 'Other' wherever one goes".

Yes. and, sort everything into polarised monoliths, then we can *really* go to town with the Us And Them ?

The Other does shift. At the moment, 'Islam' is a particular focus because we do actually have theoreticians of various factions offering various flavours of holy war, for or against. But then back in the day we had Enoch Powells offering support for othering a different other. Are black people not getting shit for being black any more ?

The manipulative theoreticians are the really dangerous bastards, of course, but on 'the street', I find it hard to imagine a bunch of thugs giving someone a rigorous theological examination before deciding whether they need a good kicking, I suspect it's a lot more to do with being visibly not like them; or testing someone's feminist credentials before a rape ... be part of the monolith, or else.

Heroic 'Stay and fight', etc. Maybe the question with that is not how much power one has here (little enough, fuck knows), but whether one would have any more anywhere else ? There must be difficult decisions there, and purely personal. Short of that, it might be possible to find a 'safe place' and keep your head down and, by great good luck, not have the scimitar-wielding steamrollers of history do their thing on your lawn but how to guess where ? I had friends who moved to New Zealand when Thatcher came to power. I hope that was far enough, but it's not very big ...

Arsalan - "So come to think of it, Gas chambers do seem less painful than what currently happens."

I don't want to agree that there's anything to be said in their favour at all.

Ancient music is not all harmless nostalgia. Anybody remember Linton Kwesi Johnson’s 'New Crass Massakkah' ?

Anyone heard Etruscan music? I'm interested in what it might've sounded like.

This is from ancient times and I like it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUSYb3igXzI

"Anyone heard Etruscan music? I'm interested in what it might've sounded like."

What, from before the ancient Romans stomped them ? Wooo. Anybody's guess, I guess.

I've heard it alleged that Nero's instrument was really the bagpipes, if that helps ? No, it probably doesn't, I suppose.

Anybody else hear that thing on the news, Vicar refuses to allow a bunch of old biddies to do their Tai Chi in his church hall, because it comes from a different religion and he can't be having competition ?

Lucky he nipped that one in the bud, eh ? "Gentle exercise", who do they think they're fooling, do they think we don't know it's a martial art ?!?!? Old ladies, so what, we all know about them, that Boudicca, she was a long time ago, wasn't she ? See ? Bloody liberals, mustn't offend the old dears, break yer arm with one swipe of their knitting needle !! Give 'em an inch and they'll be coming for you, scimitars sticking out of the sides of that girt big roller thingy, by the time you hear the steam it'll be too late !!!!!

There should be a few capitalised words somewhere, but I don't like them.

Richard
Do you know of any Tai Chi classes for children in London?

Arsalan - no, I've no idea, sorry.

getting irrelevant again, let me count the ways ... London is a couple of hundred miles away and I haven't been there for maybe 15 years. I have no children. And I don't do Tai Chi.

Look out for the steamrollers.

I bet I could organise a Tai Chi class for children in my Mosque if I could find a teacher. Currently they only have a wing chung class for women.

Do you have more details about the church or teacher, so I can put the teacher in touch with the Mosque?

"Do you have more details about the church or teacher, so I can put the teacher in touch with the Mosque?"

I have no more than The News reports. Google for "Tai Chi" + "church" gives, for example -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7476408/Unchristian-Tai-Chi-classes-banned-from-church-hall.html

(it was in Sheffield, btw)

It's a good idea, though, go for it. I bet you could find a teacher and some people who'd like classes. Or other such groups, or classes, looking for a place ... now I think of it, I remember I heard a similar story a while back (mid-'90s) about another bunch of "christians" closing down a yoga class for being "heathen". I don't think it's a very widespread sort of bigotry, but I could be wrong.

I've been looking for a Tai Chi for my son for over a year but I couldn't find one. He has problems breathing so I think it would help.

If he wanted to expel heresies and the influences of polytheism from his church I'm sure he would be able to find a better target than Tai Chi?

I am not a fan of heresies and if you scroll up you can see examples of what I consider heretical in regards to people who claim to be part of my religion.
So I would applaud it in other religions, but I just can't see how a bunch of old ladies doing breathing exercises can be seen as heresy?
They are not doing it to worship other gods, they are doing to breath.

"I just can't see how a bunch of old ladies doing breathing exercises can be seen as heresy?"

Well, I can't see how any of it makes sense, either.

The vicar was quoted on the radio4 fragment I heard, as saying that he thought it was invented by the old chinese Taoists (I think he might be right that far), and therefore was bound to be incompatible with the 'spiritual awareness based on Jesus' that he thought he ought to be encouraging people to hae. I think I've quoted him a bit inaccurately, but that was the sense of it.

In the other, Yoga, case that I mentioned, I actually found a few people defending the closing-down. One of them thought it was a Hindu thing, another thought it was Buddhist, but they were both agreed that their christianity ought not to put up with anything that had anything to do with with any other religion at all, no matter how innocuous it might seem.

I suppose the basic sense is that religions can't do anything with each other except compete and fight, so to accept any bit of a different one is encouraging an enemy. Anyone who believes anything different is just waiting to steamroller their scimitars over you.

"Anyone who believes anything different is just waiting to steamroller their scimitars over you."

Ah, no, I've strayed from your point, haven't I ? No, I doubt they did 'believe' anything about it; just wanting to know how to hold their bodies better, breathe clearly and stuff. A lot of martial-arts disciplines do have spiritual/philosophical aspects to them, I think, but it wasn't clear that the refusing vicar had even studied it that far or what the teaching did involve, he was just saying "it comes from outside my system so I forbid it", really.

There are things which I refuse to partake in because I believe "it comes from outside my system so I forbid it", such as celebrating the Prophet pbh's birth day. There is no record of him celebrating his own, or telling us it was a holy day or a day of celebration so I refuse to treat it any different to any other day and see people who celebrate it as deviants.
I'm not an expert in Christianity or its history but Christianity is no different here in regards to Christmas. Jesus pbh never celebrated his own birthday or told others to do so, there is no record
of him doing so or saying so in the bible. So the vicar would have done better when it comes to removing heresies if he removed Christmas from his church.

Who invented Tai Chi is irrelevant, the Chinese invented gun powder and the Arabs invented the gun, but that doesn't stop people of other religions using them.
Tai Chi may have a philosophical/religious part to it, and if that is the case the solution would have been simple. Just restrict the teaching to the physical exercises and not Philosophy and religion.

Yeh cannae dae that, mon. Yeh cannae dae that. Ony mair than ye con bind the salat tae jist the phasical exercises. Well, ye can, but ye lose 90% ae it.

Where are the larries? Are they being rolled-over by some miscellaneous Muslim or other? St Louis - and Osaka - are full of such miscellaneous Muslims, just waiting to roll over the larries. A larry is a painted Pakistani HGV. A larry is a concubine, waiting to tell a tale to her shah-en-shah. A larry is a eunuch, wielding a scimitar in the moonlight. By a pool. Like a fool. In July.

"the Chinese invented gun powder"
"Yeh cannae dae that, mon"

Bleh. You've gone and started me thinking, now. But it's going to take a while, and I have to go out. Later ...

Look this is the EDL the organisation that fought against the Mosque. These are the people the council obeyed.
Do you really think this was about a building younger than my house when these guys piss on famous castles?

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_qreV02pD3Ko/Sx3d5wwNl7I/AAAAAAAAAWc/VY8gawCi7b0/s400/EDL.bmp

Arsalan,

how on earth did you find that picture?

Those guys aren't really trying to hide what they really are.

You don't need to search to find such things,
That is how they always behave,
EDL yobs urinate on Westminster Abbey
Posted by Antifascist
If desecrating Nottingham Castle was not enough, on Friday the 5th of March, whilst in London to pay homage to their far right extremist prophet Geert Wilders, the "patriotic crusaders of England's cultural heritage" paid their respect to one of England's most historic sacred Christian sites, deluging Westminster Abbey with gallons of filthy urine

Engaged in a tsunami of continuous racist chanting, the EDL's (in denial) neo-Nazi "defenders of England's Christian heritage" made a beeline for one of London's most famous place of worship, unzipping their floppy pink mitres in majestic unison, baptising walls, doorways and memorials with an almighty torrent of pungent hops-tinged English excreta.

Given a free reign to do what they pleased, while sober anti-fascist demonstrators were kettled, jostled, arrested, and released later without charge, the drunken racist thugs of the so-called English Defence League were allowed to do just whatever they wanted in Britain's capital, free to roam the streets of London without censure, inflicting conflict and hatred upon anyone and anything as they pleased.

Scuffling in city pubs, drinking in the streets, racially abusing passers-by, intimidating shoppers, threatening anti-racist campaigners with violence, the very worst of England's binge-drinking yob culture was on display in the nation's capital last Friday. Rampaging through the streets, disturbing the peace in the Tate Gallery, was not enough to keep the violent fascist yobbos occupied. Once they had paid lipservice to wildeyed Wilders, they set off on their most hypocritical mission yet.

Their Hitler salutes and incessant racist chanting hardly demonstrating to the world the EDL are not bigots, by displaying the same contempt towards Christianity as they openly display towards Islam. Stopping off at a sufficient number of drinking holes along the way, paying homage to cheap fizzy Australian, Danish and Belgian lagers, the self-styled "defenders of England's native culture", slurped, stumbled and vomited until their bladders were ready for the big one, the defining moment for the english nationalist hooligans to leave their mark upon one of Britain's most historic churches.

Making a pissing pilgrimage to Westminster Abbey, the usual suspects including the same lout dressed like St George captured urinating on Nottingham Castle (they never learn), ran in desperation towards the historic church, disproving the sceptics who thought they only defiled mosques with racist valdalism after dark, by doing their utmost to show the world what the EDL truly thinks of Christianity. The Metropolitan Police, church officials and embarrassed tourists looked away while the filthy louts of the riot-igniting EDL (including some of their ringleaders) sprayed walls, doors, commemorative plaques, and anything they could land on including a medieval doorway.

Westminster Abbey was used as a toilet by the thugs of the EDL.

Urinating in public always has been a criminal offence. In this CCTV era, so much as dropping a bus ticket onto the pavement can warrant a hefty fine and even a court appearance, but even though the recognisable culprits had been captured many times on camera, none of the despicable fascist scrotes who thought it funny to behave like tomcats on one of London's most visited sacred places of Christian worship have so much as been interviewed by the boys in blue.

Try pissing not in broad daylight but late night, down some hidden rubbish-strewn alley of no importance, and expect to be arrested, handcuffed and rushed to the nearest nick to spend the night. The EDL regard themselves as untouchables since the bail terms for their leaders were overturned in court, but this fails to explain why the capital's bastians of law and order see fit not to apply the letter of the law to these lawless racist football hooligans, when law-abiding social workers, students and humanitarian anti-racist campaigners are jostled, harassed, and even arrested without charge for peacefully opposing fascism, is beyond explanation.

Given a licence to chant offensive slogans, pick fights with opponents, and indecently urinate in broad daylight on Britain's historical tourist sites willy-nilly, beyond their curtain of spin and internet trolling, the so-called English Defence League" are nothing more than the shamelessly moronic dregs of society, a gang of uncontrollable racist louts unable to control their bladders who bring nothing but hatred, fear and shame to the country they claim to love.

Armitage Skanks at Indymedia

Look here they are pissing on a Church, not just any Church, Westminister Abbey.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y94IDoy9Wlg&feature=youtube_gdata

And it is the same people.
These guys do not care about old buildings, they do not care about Christianity.
The mosque permission being taken away was nothing to do with old buildings being replaced by new. It is about Racism against brown people and legal ways to express it.
These guys don't care about Christianity, if they did they wouldn't piss on churches.

I suspect the EDL is a security state front organisation.

EDL are a BNP front, (They haven't tried very hard to hide it)
I have heard from a Non-BNP fascist that the BNP and NF are security fronts, if that is the case then EDL would be a front of a front.

The BNP is a shit used by the security services to attract flies.

That's a very good way of putting it!

Hey Suhayl Saadi

just a follow up to an earlier post in this thread about congenital disorders caused by marriage and breeding within families. You dismissed my comments earlier as you have every right to do, however if you have a moment check out this link, it may surprise you.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1259401/Baroness-Deech-Rise-marriages-cousins-putting-children-risk-birth-defect.html

btw have to admire you folks for your many comments here, personally i'm a busy chap and don't have the time you guys have to sit and type. However it's not a criticism as i do find many of the contributors both enlightening and entertaining, sometimes they can be both simutaneously!

dailymail?
That is all the information I require to make a judgement.
I don't think anyone needs to follow the link.
The word dailymail is more then enough information to discredit whatever content that link might have.

My son is ill, and in the beginning they kept asking us that question when we took him to hospital.
I really found it offensive.

Right, back to the Tai Chi bit, the "Chinese invented gunpowder", can you cherry-pick or do you have to eat it all ? thing.

Tangled. In the case of gunpowder, I'm not sure there's any great heresy involved, the ideology of "hey, we can kill people from a distance, great !" is fairly universal ? The article in Wikipedia remarks that one of the bunches of people that found it were looking for an elixir of longevity (oh boy ...) in which case, people found use in it regardless of the original thinking behind it. Also, I think of Sir Isaac Newton, who was a swivel-eyed loon that spent more time working on alchemical stuff than anything else, and a hardcore biblical fundamentalist (genesis-based chronologies, the world was created at 9.15 in the morning of Thurday the somethingth of June, 4004BC stuff), but we've subsequently managed to cherrypick the bits of his work that fit with our current belief systems (gravity, mechanics, calculus) and drop the bits that didn't, without detriment - according to our current belief. Who knows if he'd have agreed ?

And, for a contrary case, see the Wikipedia article on snake-oil, which I found a real eye-opener when I discovered it. In China, where it came from, the idea worked. When they imported it to the USA, it didn't, and thus got a bad name. Because Chinese snakes are different from USA ones, the cherrypicking went wrong, they couldn't just have the bits they liked. Not that that's 'belief' stuff.

So, in practical terms, maybe you can and maybe you can't, it depends whether
the bathwater you'd like to throw out really isn't the baby. According to who ? The belief system of the cherrypicker, or of the originator ? Maybe it becomes something entirely different, in translation ?

In terms of beliefs without any practical aspects, people always have nicked stuff from each other; and, how do you tell if it "works" or not if there's no practicality to it ?

(this is getting a bit too practical-examples and less religious than I like, I've been out in the pub and am at a bit of a loss for spirituality. Let's just be glad I'm Not Having An Attack Of Capital Letters With Line Breaks. *ahem*. But - )

It all seems a bit like criticising the invasion of Iraq for being disgustingly badly planned. Yes, but it's not really the main point, it wouldn't have been any better if it had been really well planned. (In my opinion, which of course is all this is). My criticism of that vicar is where I think I also disagree with you, arsalan, what you were saying about bits of belief you wouldn't accept.

Which is, that he wouldn't take the risk.

If other peoples' way of looking at things has come up with something that people _want_ to cherrypick, then there was something there. Or they think there is, anyway, even if you disagree. So let it come. Argue against it, if you think there's something to disagree with. And, if you're sure that your ideas are the right ones, you have nothing to be afraid of, right ?

Censorship is cheating.

Richard, you're mixing metaphors: babies and bathwater and cherries and cherry-pickers! Not that there's anything wrong with that - mix away!. Everything is syncretic at some level; indeed, we ourselves are syntheses of several billions of years of DNA exchange, mutation, etc.

Have you ever walked a labyrinth in a cathedral? I haven't, but I quite like the idea. I read a wonderful book written by a nun once about this; I lent the book to a (broad-minded, old-style C of E) vicar and he never returned it! He's most welcome to it, of course. There something about certain types of physical movement in space; even if you don't 'buy' the whole religious package associated with it, it can still be energising if approached in the appropriately contemplative manner. The dance of the planets, the galaxies...

Thanks, Parky. Look, 'cousin marriage' is a cultural issue, not a religious one and it's an issue which South Asian Muslim communities (we're talking this cohort, largely) also talk about. But it's a societal matter, not a polemical one.

Also, FYI, levels of cystic fibrosis are high is Scotland, pemphigus has a relatively high incidence among Jewish people, MS is high in Scotland (we really have a problem with high levels of morbidity for lots of diseases up here, some of which is enviromental, to do with diet, alcohol, etc. and some, genetic), thalassaemia is prevalent from the Med to South Asia and Sickle Cell in African-origin communities (both are for adaptive reasons re. malaria protection). Melanoma is massive among white people nowadays, it's an epidemic, a real killer, esp.in Australia but also elsewhere. Yet tanning salons replicate. The potential effects of alcohol and smoking on the foetus is well-documented. The list goes on - it's very long!

All other aetiological factors in these lists are presented as, 'here's a health issue, let's try and manage it as best we can', but the 'cousin marriage' issue tends to be presented as 'here's another rod with which to beat those primitive Muslims about the head'.

Some of the most devout Muslims don't marry their cousins, or even people from their own ethnic communities, but they still get beaten about the head, metaphorically and sometimes literally, about this and for other things too.

No-one ever says that 'Christians account for 99.9% of alcohol-related problems on the NHS' (even corrected for population proportion and expressed as a ratio), because such a statement would seem ludicrous. But looked-at in a one-dimensional 'Daily Mail' manner, it is of course true. Some Muslims do drink, but it tends to be less common and so Muslims account for far less in the way of alcohol-related issues vis a vis the NHS. 80% of all attendances at A and E Depts in the UK are due to alcohol-related illness. That's just A and E. We're not talking cirrhosis, etc. It's an enormous financial burden which you and I pay. But The Daily Mail et al would be likely to write-up a story about that, if they did write one, framed in that manner: 'Christians told by Muslim doctor to stop drinking!'. Or it would be a 'let's bash the working classes' story.

I'm not endorsing such an approach, of course, I'm illustrating the fallacy of it.

When Muslims (or other 'Others') marry or take-up with indigenous people, they're told that 'They take our women'. When they work, 'They take out jobs'. When they're out of work, 'They claim benefits'. When they're very fit and win sports races, black people are told 'it's not fair, they're naturally athletic'. When they don't, they're told they're lazy. When they're swots and successful, they're resented and made fun of. When they're not, they're 'thick'. John Lennon's 'Working Class Hero' has great lyrics and they apply also in these circumstances.

Give it a spin!

"As soon as you're born, they make you feel small..."

"When Muslims (or other 'Others') marry or take-up with indigenous people, they're told that 'They take our women'. When they work, 'They take out jobs'. When they're out of work, 'They claim benefits'. When they're very fit and win sports races, black people are told 'it's not fair, they're naturally athletic'. When they don't, they're told they're lazy. When they're swots and successful, they're resented and made fun of. When they're not, they're 'thick'. John Lennon's 'Working Class Hero' has great lyrics and they apply also in these circumstances."

I never thought of it like that. There is no winning with the daily mail.

Marry out, we take other peoples women, marry in we are inbred.
If we work, we take their Jobs, if we don't we take their benefits.
If we can afford a house we drive up the prices making them affordable, if we can't we take away council housing needed by the indigenous.

The real issue for them is that fact that we breath. Anything less then mass suicide will be regarded as an act of provocation.

Thats why I didn't read the article, the fact that it is in the daily mail is enough to discredit it in my eyes.

"Richard, you're mixing metaphors"

Not widely enough, I think - they both state that we already know where the boundaries are, which closes down the thought I was wanting to open up, namely that we don't.

I'm not very familiar with cathedrals, I didn't even know there were any that contained mazes. (Did their builders lift that idea from a different mindset ?)

Ah, not mazes, Richard, labyrinths. That's the thing, you see. A maze (eg. Hampton Court) is potentially 'devilish' because it aims to make you become lost - so the Minotaur's one on Crete was a maze really - a labyrinth, on the other hand, is designed in loops around a centre so that if you just follow any path, you will always get out, it will always bring you to safety.

Chartres Cathedral's the most famous. I think Salisbury may have one. Lots of cathedrals have them, usually on the floor, sometimes as hedges outside. Many have been covered with chairs, unfortunately. People 'walk' them, some in bare feet like the pilgrims at that place in Northern Spain, Santiago de Compostela; it's a metaphor for attaining spiritual enlightenment and being filled with the Holy Spirit. I think that like a lot of things we consider 'Western', I think labyrinths and mazes may go back to Sumer or Babylon. In other words, to Iraq, the cradle of Western civilisation.

But specifically, I think it was Mediaeval - High Gothic - mysticism, same sorts of concepts as Rosslyn Chapel (forget Dan Brown!). It's been years since I read that book, though, I'd have to look into it again. 'The Saelg Tales' (a novella of mine, on web) contains an account of an Armenian church and of a Sussex Saxon church, no labyrinths but a similar, 'spirit-into-stone, frozen music' ambience. Dig it!
http://textualities.net/suhayl-saadi/saelig-tales-part-1/

Hi Suhayl,

yes the list of self-inflicted illnesses is indeed a long one caused by alcohol, tabaco and unhealthy foods such as takeaways. The difference here though is that these are largely self inflicted through goods which are taxed quite heavily by government and thus the price of these goods has an element which can be used to offset the cost of necessary health care.

By parents chosing to marry within their own families and therefore selecting a restricted gene pool in order to produce children inflicts poor health and limited longevity on their off-spring. This outcome has been known about for many years and why such practices are not favoured. This practice has occured within white anglo-saxon groups in the past and no doubt still does as a visit to the West Country may show. It just seems sensible for immigrant groups wishing to integrate into British society that they follow this practice too. In the end it has the benefit of producing a stronger and long lasting breed which given the goal of Islam to convert everyone to its way of thinking surely must be sensible. To think otherwise is surely to be in denial.

And btw Arsalan the Daily Mail is really a damm good read especially the on-line version, as some of the reader comments are hilarious, produced by crazy people who should be locked up for their own well-being and our safety.

I'm not in denial, Parky, I'd indicated that in my post on the subject. As I said, it's largely a cultural practice which developed in agrarian societies and is related to the distribution and inheritance of land. That's one of the reasons why it died-out in industrial societies, including in the UK. It's got nothing to do with Islam. There is nothing in Islam that says one ought to marry one's cousin. Like a lot of rural, tribal customs, they take a while to change in an industrial (or post-industrial) setting. MacDonalds no longer marry only MacDonalds, even though they're all 'Sons of Donald' (Donald must've been some man!). It's a socio-economic/ tribal demographic matter, not a religious one. And I guess no-one wants a guy with one eye and a twitch playing a mandolin on a hill above the Everglades. What I am critiquing is the manner in which the 'story' tends to be presented in certain sections of the media compared with other, not-so-dissimilar potential 'stories' and the motivations behind this difference.

If we're looking coldly at costs to the NHS, perhaps one might posit the fact that without Muslim people (and Hindu, Sikh and Christian South Asians and Africans and African Caribbeans) working for it, the NHS would've collapsed 50 years ago. Cystic fibrosis is not taxed at source. Nor are pemphigus and MS.

I agree that The Daily Mail on-line comments are often hilarious, sometimes disturbing. The iceberg effect.

We will decide how much of yourself you are permitted to cover.
We wil decide who you are allowed to marry.
We will decide the designs of your places of worship.
We will decide what you view as Halal.
We will decide every aspect of your life.
If you don't like it leave the country.
We will decide this for you, and no one else.
Because when you are here, you belong to US!
You are here to serve the government, not to be served by the government.

y0ypdul

http://002evolves.blogspot.com

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However, unless I wanted to sell my soul to the Devil, there's no way I would work for the British government

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