Jihad Watch

[johnhemming2]

The first step must be to intern the known extremists on the intelligence watchlist across Muslim communities.

Internment has been tried before
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Demetrius

[johnhemming2]

Trying to conflate Islamism and Islam is the biggest mistake possible, because ultimately, most Muslims are not Islamists.

I can agree with this. In the sense that most Muslims are not violent jihadis.

[johnhemming2]

Anybody who does not fear Islam does not understand it.

Sitting where I am I can see a mosque. (if the curtains were open). I would hesitate to suggest that I understand the various strains of Muslim thinking quite well thank you very much.

I do not fear Islam. I do fear people who wish to incite a global religious war.

[biffvernon]

I an not against Islam, only the extremist and hardline interpretations of Islam which despoil a beautiful religion.

We are agreed.

I do think that moderate Islam needs to challenge the extremist and literalist interpretations more as well as reform the theological roots of Islam.

There are quite a few jokes doing the rounds at the moment on the theme of all men who have an ex-wife should be condemning the Egyptian hijacker.

Hope you listened to Thought for the Day.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03pgx4q

[BritDownUnder]

The first step must be to intern the known extremists on the intelligence watchlist across Muslim communities.

Internment without trial is something that exacerbated the Northern Ireland situation greatly in the 1970s. The UK is facing something of much greater magnitude than that now. I can only think it being a good idea if the person being interned is going to be deported with 100% certainty.

The rest of your comments I have to say I agree with.

Going forward the UK probably needs to have a long look at citizenship granted to immigrants and their descendants since, say 1945 or even 1900 as suitable cut off dates, and maybe make all people falling into this category reapply for British citizenship. Some people reapplying will of course find themselves ineligible due to past criminality and extremist/racist views.

Identity cards and far more severe restrictions of movement and internet usage need to be looked at too if necessary.

[Snail]

Also, I think treating all religion in schools in a different way would be good. Something like Sam harris's approach.

Lets start thinking of religion as child abuse. But this would entail teaching children to think.

This is something that should fit with the European Union's ethos imo.

[jonny2mad]

The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which creates an offence in England and Wales of inciting hatred against a person on the grounds of their religion.

Section 29A
Meaning of "religious hatred"
In this Part "religious hatred" means hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief.
Section 29B:
(1) A person who uses threatening words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, is guilty of an offence if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred.

That you have such a law is a sign we as a country don't understand religion, islam is not just a belief in god its a political system which is very much alike when practiced nationally by both shia and sunni . if it was just a belief in god it wouldnt have its own legal system and be imposing it on the modern world

The aim of islam is a world like either Iran for shia, or saudi afghanistan or isis controlled syria for sunni . every majority muslim country has a pull in these two very alike directions

All the democracy and secular values you see in the majority muslim world come from outside of islam, and they come from periods when the islamic world was weak .

They come from people like attaturk who tried to copy the west, he did that because he could see his country was backward and weak compared to europe.

They come from colonialism constitutions left over from colonial rule, and they come from the west being the main military power .

Now we dont have a law against political hatred, but we do have a law against religious hatred so you can hate and write things against someone who for example is a nazi, but not against someone who tells you a invisible man makes him have the views of a nazi.

This is basically illogical

[Little John]

Trying to conflate Islamism and Islam is the biggest mistake possible, because ultimately, most Muslims are not Islamists.

I can agree with this. In the sense that most Muslims are not violent jihadis.

It is irrelevant that the majority are not violent extremists. It's what they don't do that is even more important that the relative minority of full blown jihadists in their ranks

There are several countries in the world where to be gay, or to be a woman and wear western clothes and act in a culturally western fashion will invite the very real probability of violent death. These are not "radical" Muslim countries. There are merely Muslim countries. There is not merely a problem with Radical Islam. The problem is deeper and more structural than that. There is a problem with ISLAM. The so-called "moderate" Muslims you talk about; would these be the largely silent majority who, for the most part, do precious little to combat and publicly denounce the fundamentalists in their own cultural midst?

All of the above is a structural problem and is not one of just "radical" Islam. Structurally, Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Western secular culture.

[UndercoverElephant]

Going forward the UK probably needs to have a long look at citizenship granted to immigrants and their descendants since, say 1945 or even 1900 as suitable cut off dates, and maybe make all people falling into this category reapply for British citizenship. Some people reapplying will of course find themselves ineligible due to past criminality and extremist/racist views.

Again, this is in conflict with treaties already signed. If somebody was born in the UK and has UK citizenship and is not a citizen of any other country, then they cannot be stripped of UK citizenship and made stateless.

[UndercoverElephant]

Lets start thinking of religion as child abuse. But this would entail teaching children to think.

[sigh]

I'm afraid the Harris/Dawkins view on religion is not particularly sophisticated. The idea that there is no metaphysical basis to any religion - that metaphysical naturalism is necessarily true or even probably true - is not sophisticated.

The correct authority to consult on this matter is not science, but philosophy, and naturalistic atheism is by no means any sort of majority or consensus view within philosophy.

In short: most philosophers think Dawkins and Harris are wrong, so you have no grounds or right to dismiss all religions as "child abuse".

On the other hand, teaching that any one religion is "the one true religion" and that all others are false could be deemed harmful and prohibited, some so-called religions probably shouldn't be classed as religions at all (e.g. scientology) and as has been discussed at length in this thread, some religions are quite clearly dangerous and harmful.

The argument about whether Islam as a whole is a problem, or just part of Islam, or whether all muslims are a problem or just some, is a distraction and a bogus argument. Obviously some muslims are a problem and others are not. Obviously some forms of Islam are more harmful than others. The only thing that's actually worth debating is whether or not we can/should say that Islam in general has a tendency to cause serious problems, and I think the answer is also quite obviously that we can and should say that. Clearly some people don't agree.

The real problem here, in my opinion, is a widespread reluctance and failure to admit that the tendency of Islam to produce extremists is a direct result of the doctrines contained in the Quran. In other words, saying things like "Islam is a religion of peace", while failing to point out that the Quran is full of commandments to kill infidels, is counter-productive. The correct approach is to point out that the Quran is not, after all, perfect - and that some things in the Quran must be rejected if Islam is to be acceptable in the modern world. And so long as the apologists for Islam keep telling lies about this instead of forcing muslims to face up to the truth, then we can expect the public to turn to people like Donald Trump who is not scared to speak the truth.

[johnhemming2]

All of the above is a structural problem and is not one of just "radical" Islam. Structurally, Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Western secular culture.

In this you are ignoring the history of the UK.

The UK has not been an islamic country. It has for centuries been a Christian country.

A country that has burned people at the stake on the basis of religious disputes. Had laws that provided the death penalty for adultery.

I have visited the local buildings that have priest holes to conceal catholic priests.

etc etc.

I do not use this to substantiate a claim that there is a problem with Christianity

[Little John]

All of the above is a structural problem and is not one of just "radical" Islam. Structurally, Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Western secular culture.

In this you are ignoring the history of the UK.

The UK has not been an islamic country. It has for centuries been a Christian country.

A country that has burned people at the stake on the basis of religious disputes. Had laws that provided the death penalty for adultery.

I have visited the local buildings that have priest holes to conceal catholic priests.

etc etc.

I do not use this to substantiate a claim that there is a problem with Christianity

I have no problem with saying there is (or rather was) a problem with Christianity. However, church and state (and by implication, the wider culture) were separated in this country and across Western Europe centuries ago and this has had a significant taming effect on European Christianity. This separation has simply not occurred in Islam in any significant way. It is possible to be a Christian, a non Christian or even a Christian apostate in Western secular culture. In other words, you are not deprived of cultural identity on the basis of your religious affiliation or lack thereof. As a Muslim, you must be a follower of Islam, otherwise it is essentially not possible to be a good Muslim.

[UndercoverElephant]

This separation has simply not occurred in Islam in any significant way.

It's not just that it "simply hasn't happened". The problem not being recognised by Mr Hemming is that there are fundamental reasons why it hasn't happened that are peculiar to Islam and do not apply to any other major religion.

Islam is not just a religion. It is also a legal and political system. It is not possible to create an effective separation between state and religion in Islam. The best attempt so far has been in Turkey, and this should be a lesson to people like Mr Hemming in two senses. Firstly, it only worked at all by being extremely radical, including the prohibition of wearing Islamic clothing in public and the abolition of the Islamic education system. Mr Hemming is opposed to both these measures in the UK, even though they were deemed necessary in Turkey. And secondly, it hasn't worked very well, insomuch as there is a very real threat of the changes being reversed. It is by no means certain that Turkey will remain a secular state. An Islamic revolution is a very real possibility. Turkish muslims do not recognise the state/religion separation and are seeking to reverse it.

If history and the current state of the world is anything to go by then it would appear that the only way to keep Islam under control is the Saddam, Gaddafi and Assad way.

[jonny2mad]

The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which creates an offence in England and Wales of inciting hatred against a person on the grounds of their religion.

Section 29A
Meaning of "religious hatred"
In this Part "religious hatred" means hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief.
Section 29B:
(1) A person who uses threatening words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, is guilty of an offence if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred.

As islam is clearly a political system it would be interesting to imagine such a law as above brought in by neville chamberlain who I see the biffs of this country as a direct representative of in the modern day.

Imagine a law that stop political hatred which made it a offence to stir up hatred of the nazis, what would the outcome have been I wonder of such a law in place.

would ww2 not have occured nah

I mean this law was used to try to silence people talking about grooming

[johnhemming2]

It's not just that it "simply hasn't happened". The problem not being recognised by Mr Hemming is that there are fundamental reasons why it hasn't happened that are peculiar to Islam and do not apply to any other major religion.

I see a distinction between issues such as Social Capital, which is more important than people would think, Culture (in particular the family law aspects), the power structures in a society (we have a devolved class based structure other countries are more tribal) and religion.

What people represent as being religiously based is normally a mixture of all of the above.

I understand how people respond to a number of violent idiots murdering innocent people attending music events whilst shouting "god is great" in arabic.
However, that does not mean that the response is well informed.

The Ottoman Empire is an example of how different islamic societies (and they claimed to be an islamic state indeed a caliphate) are different from each other.