“Kill unbelievers” its written
Every where you find them, let them be smitten
remove their heads
Hate them until they are dead
No compulsion in choice of religion.
Another extremely unfunny but spot on comic from you Author. Sadly I find you less and less “amusing” as these events unfold – but remain an avid reader and fan. On one hand you can have a T-shirt saying “Burkas give me the horn” – which is flat out hysterical; and then this today – which is bitingly on the mark. Keep it up. Thanks.
Came from a concert myself tonight (Devin Townsend Project) and it was clear by the relatively somber set list, not to mention Devin’s banter with the crowd, that these recent events were playing heavily on their minds.
But to their credit, the mood was still upbeat and fun, with positivity and unity the main messages of the night.
Appropriate, as their last album is called Transcendence.
.. but no doubt the “it isn’t Islam” mantra will be repeated.
I’m an occasional reader of Dabiq – the DAESH glossy mag (well, I only skim it, as it’s very, very boring) and I read their “Why Muslims hate the West” piece. They gave 6 reasons, the first 3 being religious (you’re Infidels, you insult Mo, drink alcohol, and so on). The last 3 referred to things like “You drop bombs on us”, but these were minor compared to insulting their prophet.
I also remember hearing an interview after Charlie Hebdo, with the owner of a Kebab house in High Wycombe who, when asked about the murders, said – like the Pope – that it was wrong, but they shouldn’t insult religion. Then he said something very scary “I love the Prophet Mohamed, more than my Mum and Dad, more than my children, more than my wife”.
With sttitudes like that, it’ll be a long uphill struggle …
Can we all acknowledge at this point that Enoch Powell might have been on to something? That signalling your virtue by welcoming millions of culturally incompatible immigrants into your country is kind of a bad idea?
Hi, jb. Whatever the rights and wrongs of Enoch in the context of hindsight always reminds me of the joke about some tourists in Yorkshire, who asked a couple of locals they met “could you tell us the way to Huddersfield?”. The locals looked at each other, shrugged, and one said “Well, I definitely wudnt ‘av have started from here ..”.
.. joy of joys, I got an edit button – just saying.
Because no true believer would visit a sacrilegeous place like a concert venue. (Obvioulsy I don’t believe that, but I’m pretty sure that’s how the reasoning goes for the terrorists). Other than that, it would just be collateral damage, worth it to further advance the cause of islam.
Koppieop, I think the answer to your question rests in the “no true Scotsman” fallacy. Since the concert was corrupt (in the murderer’s opinion), any Muslims attending it must also be corrupt and deserve to die. They are “no true Muslim.”
Macha, if the tourists had been in Maine, the locals would have said, “You can’t get there from here.” For the full joke, complete with a Maine accent, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIJBUZm1HoY
Two cents’ worth, thanks for that link. Delightful to discover this story telling style of humor. My favourite.
koppieop, given that the greatest number of casualties from suicide bombers by far have been fellow Muslims, I don’t think the fanatics give a flying frog whom they kill, or what level of believer their victims might be. It’s a death cult. The point of it is death, and that’s what they are after. But this sounds too simplistic to be accurate. Giving something a label like “death cult” doesn’t go very far to explain it. As Mo said, “Search me.”
I simply refuse to join the “just keep ’em out of my country” crowd. Here in Canada we have seen a couple of examples of the potential suicide bomber being thwarted by member of their family, or others in their own culture. That seems to me to be our only hope. Make sure that the immigrants feel welcome, that they trust the police and authorities, that they recognize and oppose the evil in their community. Simply tarring them all with the same brush and slamming shut our borders makes us no better than them as dead children wash up on Mediterranean beaches.
Author, once again with the rapier punch line. And thanks again.
“How can those fanatics be sure that there are no Believers in the crowds they attack?”
It wouldn’t matter. Either they weren’t “true” believers, or their deaths were the will of Allah and part of the plan. You can’t appeal to fanatics with reason, nor with compassion, it would seem.
I was reading some online newspaper article — the usual remarks from neighbours etc: “he was such a quiet lad”, “always respectful to his elders”, “he’d learnt the Koran off by heart”, “I wouldn’t have thought he could do something like this.”
And thought, “well there’s some more material for Jesus&Mo”.
🙁
Having respect for your elders (but, presumably, not western culture, secularism or children) and learning the Koran off by heart do not, apparently, prevent people from engaging in mass murder.
One of the explanations for incidents such as the suicide bombing in Manchester is that it was done in retaliation for the (fill in the date) killing of Muslims in (fill in the place). This makes a certain kind of sense, but it seems to me that the bombers were never taught the proverb, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Maybe the bombers’ supporters feel at least somewhat placated after the bombings, but they seem not to care that such bombings do nothing to prevent Muslims from being killed in the future. (Tangent/idle thought alert: Islamic culture started in an inhospitable desert environment. Has the violence in the bombers’ version of Islamic culture persisted in part because it works to keep the population from exceeding a sustainable level?)
The bombers remind me of toddlers throwing violent tantrums–the kind that leaves others with bruises at the very least. However, most parents tell their toddlers to “use your words,” and most of the people I know have grown up to be non-violent adults, regardless of how terrible they were when they were children. (One of my brothers comes to mind here!)
Terrorism seems to be another example of people acting on their emotions and using reason to justify it afterward. I hope that one of the advances we’ll make in this century is to change our culture so that people will manage their emotions in such a way that no one is harmed.
I admire the people of Manchester for how they are responding to the bombing. May their positive words and actions ripple outward and influence people around the world to live together in peace. (There is some basis for hoping that this will happen. See http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2015/07/awesome-life/ )
Another tech tip (not html-related, though): On days like today, when I visit http://www.jesusandmo.net/ for the current comic and I can’t see the Comments option in the nav bar below the comic, I visit http://www.jesusandmo.net/comic/glory/ (where glory is the title of the cartoon, which appears below the lower left corner of the cartoon). Problem solved 🙂 .
LD50, unfortunately there is no way to know whether any particular individual is harboring murderous thoughts. http://amothersreckoning.com/
But when it comes to the infiltration of our communities by fanatics bent on murdering as many as possible, our only hope is in the families and members of the culture from which those evil people come. Muslims as a group do not support terrorists. Nor do they appreciate having their religion and culture hijacked by fanatics. We need to treat them as allies, and not as part of the problem. It is immoral to close our borders to the very victims of those fanatics, out of fear that they may be fanatics themselves. They aren’t.
For what is worth, it sounds like he had had arguments with the emam at his mosque about his fanaticism, and he had been reported to the police by the community because of his extreme views.
By the way, I am also having to use two cents trick. The links to comments and the links to next and last under the comic are grayed out for me in all strips using chrome on android.
Darwin, it could be said that the fanatics don’t appreciate their religion having been hijacked by moderates.
To answer earlier points about other Muslims being killed in terror attacks, there is that old story, possibly true, about an army told to enter a city to kill the infidels. When asked how they were to tell the faithful from the infidels the leader’s reply was “Kill them all. God will know his own”.
So there’s that!
And finally, the last panel of the comic. Is this Mo proving the truism shit in-shit out?
koppieop Even if there were true believers in the crowd, they would die as martyrs and end up in paradise. The jihadist could win by blowing up the whole world, because the non-believers and idolaters would die and go to hell, and devout muslims would go to paradise. For them, life on earth is merely preparation for life on paradise.
DH — You say that closing the borders is “immoral,” and that’s fine. You are a moralist, and like all moralists you believe that adherence to an abstract moral code (your own) takes precedence over petty considerations of self interest. But still, can you at least acknowledge that from the point of view of self interest, the people of England (and Europe in general) would be better off today if they had heeded Enoch Powell’s advice?
Also, I’d like to point out that the family of the dead child who washed up on a Mediterranean beach was not fleeing Syria. They were fleeing Turkey. Where they were already safe.
DH, my point was that a young man learning the Koran off by heart probably correlates more with jihadism than being a “good Muslim” (who doesn’t murder children).
Also, there have been many polls indicating what Muslims think and support. It is not, unfortunately, a vanishingly small minority that support (or are sympathetic to the aims of) jihadism.
LD50, that’s the one, and it was Pope Innocent III’s representitive who reportedly uttered that line. The quote itself may be apocryphal but what is beyond doubt is that the representative wrote a report to the Pope which stated that ‘neither age nor sex nor status was spared’.
All part of the Albigensian Crusade which was ordered by that same ironically-named Pope and contained some 30,000 knights and footsoldiers from Northern Europe.
Religion and peace, dancing merrily hand-in-hand throughout history!
¨search me¨ – in the hands of someone lesser, the author would have settled for a simple ¨I dunno¨, but in the hands of our genius Author, he gets it perfect every time. Thank you Author…if only you had written the Koran instead of Mo – uh, sorry, I mean ALLAH.
jb “But still, can you at least acknowledge that from the point of view of self interest, the people of England (and Europe in general) would be better off today if they had heeded Enoch Powell’s advice?”
I think this depends on your definition of “better off”. And that depends on the kind of world you want to inhabit. I prefer to live in a world that embraces diversity, and I’m willing to accept the risks that diversity entails. Despite the horrors of an act of terrorism such as the recent event in Manchester, the risk to my life at the hands of a terrorist pales to insignificance every time I drive onto the highway.
It also depends on your definition of self interest, and exactly who you consider to be in your tribe and who you think of as “other than us”. I suppose from some vantage points we should be white supremacists. Certainly it would be in my best interest to keep the benefits of society for white folks like me, and owning a slave or two would certainly be of benefit to people of my colour.
You call me a moralist, as if you think that you aren’t a moralist. I suspect that you are, and that there are many things you consider to be immoral, such as owning other human beings. It’s a matter of degree, eh.
Regarding the dead child quibble, please substitute whatever represents the suffering of innocents in your mind for my poorly selected and inappropriate example.
LD50 “Also, there have been many polls indicating what Muslims think and support. It is not, unfortunately, a vanishingly small minority that support (or are sympathetic to the aims of) jihadism.”
Which is exactly why I’m not all that much of a fan of democracy. When I read that a huge proportion of Afghani support death by stoning for adulterers, I can’t say I want to hand them the keys to government. And I’m fully in support of keeping that “not vanishingly small minority” you speak of out of my country. The trick is separating them from the poor sods who have simply been made homeless by war.
I would also be in favour of ceremoniously burying in pig shit and pig offal whatever remains we can find of a suicide bomber. Has that ever been tried? Surely there is some way to use their idiotic beliefs to control their behaviour.
Darwin, if you’re not a supporter of democracy in Afghanistan, what’s the alternative, dictatorship, occupation, theocracy? Democracy may be vulnerable to terrorism (amongst other things) but it does at least evolve rather than stagnate. It seems to me that we should invest in the democratic process for every nation whether they like it or not. In the long run I think it’s our only chance.
Every time any moron says in public “nothing to do with Islam” they should be presented with this strip and asked to explain why they are right and Author is wrong. Of course it has everything to do with Islam. Just as nutters in the US murdering abortion doctors has everything to do with Christianity. Though admittedly it takes a somewhat selective reading of the Old and New Testaments to become a killer. No such problem with the Koran.
“It seems to me that we should invest in the democratic process for every nation whether they like it or not.”
I’m afraid that doesn’t work too well either.
Your average peasant couldn’t care less what form of government is being played in the capital — as long as it leaves him alone and doesn’t drop bombs on him.
He has the same say in how things are run whether it’s a democracy or a dictatorship. I.e. none.
A bit like us, really.
What one could try doing is not meddle in the internal affairs of sovereign states. I.e. — leave them alone!
Leaving them alone includes: not supporting terrorists (aka “moderates” aka Al Qaeda), not formenting revolution aka regime change, not building military bases on their soil and not doing all of this for the purpose of keeping them trading oil in US dollars or in order to prevent (or force) oil pipelines from being built.
An excellent strip and some damned fine comments, for me it raises my ultimate question again….
“What are we going to do about mohammed ?” Which should be sung badly in the style of “The sound of music”.
Nothing but total separation appears to hold any hope of success but I don’t want to be chancellor Sutcliffe in “V for Vendetta”, I want to be “V”! Or possibly Evie.
What to do ? Maybe Enoch was right but I really have no answer and I have spent much time contemplating the whole horrible mess. Any suggestions welcome.
And Happy Towel Day, Thanks for all the fish.
Micky “Darwin, if you’re not a supporter of democracy in Afghanistan, what’s the alternative,” Ah, there’s the rub, eh. I didn’t say I’m not a supporter of democracy. I’m just not a fan.
I suppose I would hope for some form of meritocracy, where the educated and scientifically literate people in charge make enlightened decisions based on the big picture and a mutual understanding of human rights and social goals. We seem to have something like that in Canada, though many would deny it. For example, the Canadian government did away with capital punishment at a time when a clear majority of Canadians were in favour of it, for all the wrong reasons. At least I think that’s the way public opinion was going at the time. The Stephen Truscott case was a deciding factor, plus pressure from us SJW. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Truscott
“According to one poll, support for the death penalty in Canada is approximately the same as its support in the United States, at 63 percent in both countries as of 2013.” from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Canada
Of course Enoch Powell wasn’t right. He predicted that the streets of Britain would become ‘rivers of blood’. Absolute bullshit! To date, we’ve barely suffered a shaving nick.
Darwin, while I applaud your attempts to remain objective and inclusive of new immigrants whose co-religionists have done some atrocious things, I’m finding it more and more difficult to stand with you on this. That’s not a criticism of you, but of me (I think).
.
as for burying the bombers in porcine muck, I would expect that to trigger a round of bombings and attacks …. given that drawing pictures warrant such an attack, I would expect just about anything can be used to justify their actions.
“I suppose I would hope for some form of meritocracy, where the educated and scientifically literate people in charge make enlightened decisions based on the big picture and a mutual understanding of human rights and social goals.”
Micky:
If THAT is your view of fascism, THEN I might actually like your fascism.
But I think we do not agree on the definition of fascism….
—- Due to a very pleasant spell of nudist vacation (with pleasant weather and good Bier, thanks for that!) I currently have very limited and flakey internet availability.
Do not expect any timely reactions from me.
Someone says, “I would love just one week where some religious nutcase doesn’t make the news. A day is possible.” Sorry. A day is not possible. You just need to comb through more news of the whole world. A day doesn’t go by without some religious nut case committing an atrocity, whether we hear about it or not.
Micky says “This is how fascism begins.” Oh I hope not. Is a democratic meritocracy possible? Only if the population is smart enough to choose people of merit I suppose, and this seems questionable given the current POTUS.
It’s true that fascism begins with an ideology, a vision of a perfectible world that can be achieved if we just give up a few basic human rights and commit some inhumane acts to achieve it. But “based on the big picture and a mutual understanding of human rights and social goals,” has never been part of fascism, unless the mutual understanding of human rights meant that some people didn’t have any. If the big picture is a desire to see ALL of humanity flourish, plus a concern for the environment and a desire to protect nature, and not just our own social group or tribe, this seems to me to be outside the limits of fascism. As usual I could be wrong about this.
Anyway, to correct any misapprehension I may have generated, Churchill was correct. Democracy is the best we can do. It’s designing it in such a way that my vote matters that is the hard part. Here in Canada, the Liberal government was elected in part on the promise to reform our “first past the post” electoral system. They have now backed away from that promise, possibly with good reason. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/why-a-failed-bid-for-electoral-reform-is-a-win-for-canada/article33982280/
DH – Democracy is fine so long as it is perfectly clear that no one’s fundamental rights may be violated, however large the majority on favour of doing so.
American democracy regularly violates fundamental rights. Because it does this, it is time the people “provide new Guards for their future security.”
There are fundamental rights – that everyone agrees on? This is news to me.
For me, democracy requires a lot of attentive, reasonably sophisticated critical thinking. Unfortunately.
DH – you may be right but I find it easier just to consult the news outlets I regularly pay attention to (and know aren’t biased towards certain ideologies) and am grateful to see a day without a terrorist attack, a terrorist plot, a rape, a murder or some insane declaration that threatens or impinges on basic rights/free speech, all linked back to religion.
It’s bad enough I’m guaranteed those articles in the context of politics and/or general human psychopathy.
Someone, you would have been cheered by the front page headline in the local weekly newspaper for the small market town I lived in back in the 1970’s.
“LOCAL GIRL RE-UNITED WITH LOST DOLLY”
That was the only ‘news’ for that week. Those were the days, eh?
“I suppose I would hope for some form of meritocracy, where the educated and scientifically literate people in charge make enlightened decisions based on the big picture and a mutual understanding of human rights and social goals.”
I don’t know, but I suspect Plato said something similar after the Athenian democracy condemned Socrates to death (democratically), apparently for being a smartarse.
He came up with the idea (I think) that democracy was flawed and that the best form of government would be one composed of — philosophers.
Educated, scientifically literate people think government should be made up of educated, scientifically literate people.
🙂
In the computer world there are a variety of regimes. The early internet (before the WWW and the, ehh, masses joined) had elements of anarchism. Certain projects (perl, Slackware) have a BDFL (benevolent dictator for life). Various other projects have varying forms of democracy.
BDFL works best — if you have a truly competent, well respected BDFL and agree with his aims.
back in the 1970’s.
“LOCAL GIRL RE-UNITED WITH LOST DOLLY”
That was the only ‘news’ for that week. Those were the days, eh?
Those were the days of the Red Brigades in Italy (“Years of Lead”) and the RAF (Baader-Meinhof gang) in Germany. The closing years of the Vietnam war, the Yom-Kippur war, Pol-Pot’s Killing Fields, Pinochet/CIA killing of Allende, Munich massacre, etc.
“I suppose I would hope for some form of meritocracy, where the educated and scientifically literate people in charge make enlightened decisions based on the big picture and a mutual understanding of human rights and social goals.”
I don’t know, but I suspect Plato said something similar after the Athenian democracy condemned Socrates to death (democratically), apparently for being a smartarse.
He came up with the idea (I think) that democracy was flawed and that the best form of government would be one composed of — philosophers.
Educated, scientifically literate people think government should be made up of educated, scientifically literate people.
🙂
In the computer world there are a variety of regimes. The early internet (before the WWW and the, ehh, masses joined) had elements of anarchism. Certain projects (perl, Slackware) have a BDFL (benevolent dictator for life). Various other projects have varying forms of democracy.
BDFL works best — if you have a truly competent, well respected BDFL and agree with his aims.
back in the 1970’s.
“LOCAL GIRL RE-UNITED WITH LOST DOLLY”
That was the only ‘news’ for that week. Those were the days, eh?
Those were the days of the Red Brigades in Italy (“Years of Lead”) and the RAF (Baader-Meinhof gang) in Germany. The closing years of the Vietnam war, the Yom-Kippur war, Pol-Pot’s Killing Fields, Pinochet/CIA killing of Allende, Munich massacre, etc.
But you repeat yourself, LD50.
Yes, the 1970s were shit, whether one is thinking of world affairs, national politics, music, fashion……take your pick. However, the weekly rag was a local paper for local people, reporting only on stories from within a 10-mile or so radius of the town. It was a very boring town, too.
Diversity has no intrinsic value in and of itself. It can be good in some circumstances, bad in others, and neutral in yet others. If a bad element starts moving into your neighborhood, and crime starts going up, the new diversity is not a blessing. There may not be actual rivers of blood running down the streets, and in fact your odds of victimization are probably still quite low in absolute terms. But your life has changed for the worse. You have worries you didn’t have before, not just for yourself, but for family and friends. You feel less safe going out at night, and you are constantly looking over your shoulder.
This was my point in bringing up Enoch Powell; not that he had predicted the future through a crystal ball, but that the people of England would have been BETTER OFF if they had heeded his advice! The number of people blown up by suicide bombers might not be large, but the fear is always there. Security must be provided for every public venue where a bomber might strike. Constant vigilance is required from the police to head off new attacks. Muslim immigration has created permanent and ever growing enclaves of people who are fundamentally hostile to Western values. Individuals may assimilate, but higher Muslim birthrates and the practice of importing spouses from the old country (the importance of this practice is little appreciated!) guarantee the continued existence of “no-go areas” where the ethnic English do not feel welcome. (The no-go thing can be overstated — certainly the police are not afraid to go there. But if you are an unaccompanied women wearing shorts and a halter top on a summer day you risk being cursed and spat upon).
Of course none of this touches the elites, who have the resources to distance themselves from all this wonderful diversity. And since the elites control the media, they are in a position to lie about the problems. One of the big lessons of Rotherham — (and remember, it wasn’t just Rotherham, this happened in other cities as well) — is just how untrustworthy liberal elites are when they talk about diversity, how unwilling to risk blasphemy (hate speech!) by questioning its sacredness.
And what does England (and the rest of Europe, for that matter) get in return. Nothing!!! The only benefit is that the elites get to congratulate themselves about how good they are, how tolerant, how welcoming, how totally different from the Nazis. Enoch Powell may not had a crystal ball, but at this point I don’t see how you can deny that he possessed an insight that the moral exhibitionists running England completely lacked.
Enoch Powell may not had a crystal ball, but at this point I don’t see how you can deny that he possessed an insight that the moral exhibitionists running England completely lacked.
I remember his Rivers of Blood speech, a rant not dissimilar to those seen 40 years earlier by a certain Austrian racist. It has not come true. If this marvelous insight of his was that bringing different people together may cause problems, well break out the medals for Mystic fucking Meg! Any idiot could tell you that; you don’t need an old racist’s predictions.
There has been large-scale immigration into Britain for as long as I can remember – as long as History books can remember – and this current blip is nothing that we haven’t seen before. To use it as a stick to beat immigrants is a racist knee-jerk and nothing more.
jb, consider this. A couple of weeks ago the media was full of the arrest of an Asian woman by armed pilice. On tv, in the papers, all over the internet and so on.
Last week a white, 20 year-old student from Devon was sentenced to 15 years for leaving a bomb on the London Underground, on a Jubilee Line train, which fortunately failed to detonate. How much media coverage did that little escapade garner?
How many white people are killed every week by other white people? We are still a greater threat to each other than brown people are to us. Where do I feel less safe in Britain? In the poor, mostly white-populated areas. It’s only when the perpetrator of a crime is brown or black that the media frenzies begin. Even then, the perpetrator is more likely to be British-born rather than an immigrant.
Rotherham? How many white paedophile rings have been busted recently? How many more are not being investigated because the members of the rings are rich white men, high-ranking judiciary, police officers, lawyers, etc?
Disproportionate reporting leads to disproportionate fear.
In the US, and I’m sure it’s the same anywhere, we get immigrants who come because they are are in love with the country, its culture and what it represents to them. Of course they are an asset. And we get people who hate it and are here just because they had no good alternative. There’s no really reliable way to sort that out at the border, unfortunately.
Koppieop? How could an Islamist be sure that there were no believers in a crowd of young women enjoying themselves out at night, often without male relatives controlling them, dressing in ways that they chose for themselves, and singing about things like sex and female empowerment? It’s a mystery isnt it? Gosh. It must have really kept Salman Abedi up all night worrying over than one…
jb, you are neglecting one important fact. The Birminham bombers was reported to the authorities several times, once on a terrorist hot line. His mosque had banned him. This says to me that the community of Muslims was trying to prevent what happened, and your security forces fucked up big time, as the investigation underway is going to show. Painting all Muslims as the problem is just not accurate, and not in any way helpful.
On another subject entirely, I have come to detest the church signs that litter my town. Always nonsense. Sometimes offensive to non-believers like me. I am reflexively literate. I read the damn things before I can stop myself, often dozens of times as I drive past the same sign. The nonsense gets injected into my brain whether I like it or not.
I’ve decided it’s time to make fun of the signs. So here’s my first. It’s all in how you read it, eh. I wonder if the author of this sign has any idea what I hear in my head every time I read it.
Darwin, it was the Manchester bomber, not Birmingham; their bombers were the IRA in 1974, and previous to that it was the Luftwaffe in WWII. You’re right though, the Muslim community did inform the police about his radical views, and alarm bells should have been sounding when his ex-imam banned him from the mosque and told the authorities why. The security forces fucked up big time with this one.
Of course, we don’t know how many other plots have been foiled, and how many of those failed because of information
passed to the police from within the Muslim communities.
I swear I don’t understand the likes of jb; he comes across as a poster boy for the BNP sometimes. Enoch Powell was a vile old racist whose views on immigrants was not dissimilar to Adolf’s pre-war rants on Jews. He never went as far as calling for a ‘final solution’ but all the nation’s troubles were blamed squarely on the ‘others’, those brown and black people he said were pouring in to take all they could and kill us all in the process. His views and predictions were so far off the mark they weren’t even wrong, as they say nowadays.
Acolyte, thanks for the correction. Bu hao yi si (feeling embarrassed). I never can get your cities straight in my head. Shoulda checked before I posted.
AoS — If any idiot can tell you that “bringing different people together may cause problems,” well, the idiots running post-war England certainly didn’t get the memo, did they?
I realize I am not going to change your mind. You and DH and the rest are a true believers, and you are going to paint a happy face on it, no matter what. Still, I find it very amusing when people (it’s not just you) plaintively say things like “the perpetrator is more likely to be British-born rather than an immigrant,” as if this demonstrates that the problem has nothing to do with immigration. Nothing, I tell you! Nothing!!!
Not as amusing though as the argument that if you are sufficiently nice to the Muslim community then they’ll turn their bombers in and you won’t get blown up. Does it really not register that, if the Muslims had not been allowed in in the first place, there wouldn’t be any Muslim bombers to worry about? That the problem is entirely the consequence of an immigration policy driven by the desire to make a moral statement? Of course, no matter how nice you are, 50 years from now the Muslim community — including the hard-core Islamist fringe — is going to be a lot larger, and I suspect the joke isn’t going to seem nearly as funny. But I’m sure there will be plenty of people just like you doing their best to paint a happy face on the situation.
(Not that this necessarily means the country is going to fall apart or something. One thing I find annoying about many people on my side of the argument is that they tend to go way overboard. But as Adam Smith pointed out, there is a great deal of ruin in a nation. No doubt 50 years from now the situation will be normalized, and everybody will have gotten used to living with the consequences of a mistake that is by then 100 years old. No doubt by then they’ll even have gotten used to being afraid to say it was a mistake).
Just curious, was the 20 year-old Devon student you mentioned this guy? The one who was “interested in gambling and Islam, and had collected photos of extremists, including the ringleader of the 2015 Paris attacks”? Funny how often it works out like that.
BTW, you are wrong about British immigration history. Between the Conquest of 1066 and the end of World War II there was in fact no large scale immigration into the British Isles. There were plenty of small movements of Huguenots and Jews and such, but nothing sufficiently large to have any real impact on the general population. You’ve been told otherwise by people who are trying to create a narrative that says “we’ve always had lots of immigration, this isn’t any different, nothing to see here.” The thing is, even if it weren’t false it would still be a stupid narrative, since, like diversity, immigration in and of itself is neither good no bad. It always depends on the specifics: in this case, who the immigrants are; and how many. Best not look at the specifics to carefully though — it might get in the way of being moral!
Maybe the bomber in Manchester was really reported by the Muslim community, but there is still some unpleasant stuff related to the mosque:
The Sun 28th May 2017: “Preachers at mosque where Manchester bomber prayed called for homosexuals, British soldiers and non-believers to be killed”: “The mosque where bomber Salman Abedi worshipped hosted hate preachers who called for British soldiers to be killed and gays and adulterers to be stoned to death. Didsbury Mosque’s YouTube channel still features videos from clerics including American Abdullah Hakim Quick.”
Also, according to one ‘source’:
The Mail on Sunday (28 May 2017): ‘In early 2017 the FBI told MI5 that Abedi belonged to a North African terror gang based in Manchester, which was looking for a political target in this country.
The information came from the interception of his communications by US federal agents, who had been investigating Abedi since the middle of 2016, and from information unearthed in Libya, where his family was linked to terrorist groups.
‘Following this US tip-off, Abedi and other members of the gang were scrutinised by MI5. It was thought at the time that Abedi was planning to assassinate a political figure.
‘But nothing came of this investigation and, tragically, he slipped down the pecking order of targets.’
Translation: there are so many potential dangerous terrorists that this one was the one that hasn’t appeared to be a priority at the moment.
jb – your anonymous comment went into moderation. As it was obviously you, I added your name/email and approved it. Then when you posted again, I removed the original.
Yikes, I deleted the second comment when I saw the first had come back! Fortunately I still have it. I was wondering what was going on! (Please feel free to make sure that no more than one copy shows up — I hate it when that happens).
Ugg, bad night, couldn’t sleep. So I guess I might as well take the opportunity to extend my screed, since I have nothing better to do right now.
I guess my big question is “what was the point?” The English people were not crying out for millions of foreigners to come compete with them on their crowded island. Mass immigration was never popular with the masses. (Not that this ever mattered to the elites of course. As DH has helpfully noted, progressives have no qualms about undemocratically imposing their values on those they consider their moral inferiors). So what was gained? A variety of ethnic restaurants maybe? Mmmm, Muslim cuisine! Immigration is often defended by asserting that white people by themselves are just boring, but I seem to remember that England was kind of a happening place back in the 60s. Am I wrong about that?
So what exactly made it so important to throw away the benefits of having a monoethnic and monocultural country — like Finland or Japan — so that you could get to live with hundreds or maybe thousands of people who would blow you up if they could figure out how the get the explosives and get around constant police surveillance, and with tens or hundreds of thousands who wouldn’t blow you up themselves, but who think you kind of deserve to get blown up? What? What did the French gain that makes the sullen immigrant banlieues worthwhile? How do all those gropey “Syrians” benefit the German people? What was the motive for all this, aside from a quasi-religious veneration of diversity for the sake of diversity? What was gained, aside from the opportunity to display moral virtue, to demonstrate that you were the exact opposite of Hitler? What???
I don’t know about the BNP, but jb comes across as a perfectly rational human. Not, for instance, like these hilarious chaps.
I’m glad that it appears to be possible to talk rationally and politely about race, racism, culture, immigration, integration etc. in this friendly forum dedicated to ridiculing the sincerely held beliefs of millions. The idea of “no platforming” is as silly as screeming: “All extremists must be shot! Absolutely NO exceptions!”
jb: Back in the 1950s, the UK was indeed “crying out” for workers from countries of the former “Empire”, and positively attracting them, mainly from the “West Indies” and the Indian Subcontinent. These immigrants readily found work: in the NHS, in public transport, and in the car plants and other factories. There was another injection of “African Asians”, when they were kicked out of Uganda by Idi Amin in the 1970s. Most of these original immigrants settled in the UK and produced families here. There are now British-born populations of brown & black people, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original immigrants, but as British as you or me by birth. Whether it was or was not a good idea for the British Governments back in the 50s to encourage all that immigration, we now have to live with the consequences. My personal impression, which could be wrong, living as I do in Aberdeen, far away from London, Birmingham and Rotherham, is that the British-born blacks are far better integrated into UK society than the browns. Of course many of the browns are brought up as Muslims and the blacks as Xians.
And, as a true Scottish racist, I really don’t care what colour they all are – I just hate them because they’re English!
jb, what was the point? Maybe the point is that there was no point, that things are done sometimes not because they benefit us in some way but simply because it was the right thing to do.
What was the point in my wife and I fostering children? We didn’t gain financially, we had problems with some. We were stolen from, verbally abused, had to deal with attempts to physically assault us (both from the children and their parents) and our own flesh and blood often had to take a back seat. Of course, we could have not bothered, could have left the children in over-crowded council-run homes, we could have given in to the demands of the parents who’d had their kids removed because they were in danger and just handed them over when they were screaming and threatening. Our lives would have been far easier, so what was the point?
Sometimes it’s just a matter of doing the right thing.
Acolyte, you said it. Perfectly. I was on the verge of saying that jb had killed this thread, that I have no interest in talking to him. But this is a good conversation to have.
Aside from the cost benefit analysis, there is such a thing as simply doing what is right. As I’ve mentioned before, my wife and I have befriended a Syrian family who spent a couple of years in a Jordanian refugee camp before being vetted and admitted to Canada. Allowing them to come here just seems like the right thing for my country to do. We need manpower. The father, after a year of acclimatizing, has found employment in his old occupation, that of a cement worker. He is very experienced and highly skilled. He had a good middle class life in Syria, with a large house complete with swimming pool, and a fleet of his own cement trucks, before a missile from a war plane put him in the hospital. While I can’t say I like his religious beliefs or his culture (his wife, who must never touch another man, can’t even shake hands with me) and we have little in common other than our humanity, we consider each other to be friends. I can see absolutely no reason to keep him and his family out of our country.
Jb has written rather sarcastically about my opinions. There are words for what I think of his, but in the interests of keeping this pub a convivial atmosphere I shall leave them to your imagination.
Haggis, thanks. I had to make that little video. That church sign cracks me up now every time I drive by it.
Darwin, even on a cost/benefit analysis every report I’ve seen shows that Britain makes a nett gain from immigration; despite what some people might claim, very few immigrants come to Britain for state benefits, most are eager to work and pay their way.
Besides, immigration has at least put the Irish monopoly on its arse! It used to be that the IRA would blow something up on a friday and the Irish builders would start re-building on the monday. Nowadays the Muslims have taken over the blowing shit up and the Poles have undercut the Irish on the building work (h/t Patrick Kielty).
Son of Glenner, no need to clarify. I know you Scots love us Sassenach Bastards really.
For some reason that part of your comment reminded me of Frankie Boyle talking about Braveheart and how everybody said that Mel Gibson would never make a convincing Scotsman “but look at him now….an alcoholic racist”.
Stereotypes, eh, old chap!
Oh, good point about the government trawling the old colonies to shore up our workforce. We really were crying out for immigrants to fill the jobs the whites thought beneath their dignity – until all these black and brown faces started nursing us, driving our buses, emptying our bins, and so on. Then they were ‘coming over here, taking our jobs’ yada yada. And it’s still the same, it appears, when one considers who seems to do all the menial jobs.
A man I know was ranting on last week about all the foreigners who are apparently coming here both for the handouts and council houses and taking all of ‘our’ jobs. A bit rich coming from a bloke who hasn’t done a day’s work in the 20 years I’ve known him, and has never intended to, either. I mean, how is it possible to hate people for doing the jobs that he has no intention of doing himself?
Anyway, I’m rambling, I’m tired, I’m off. G’night all.
Sorry, one more thing. I’ve just seen on the news that Ariana Grande will return to Manchester to play a concert in aid of the victims of the bombing at her show, which is a lovely gesture.
It was announced that the concert will also feature Coldplay and Justin Beiber. Because the people of Manchester haven’t suffered enough, I suppose.
Cost/benefit analysis sometimes neglects to clarify who benefits, and who pays the cost. I think it’s fairly clear that over here in the US, the economic elite favor conditions that reduce economic security in their labor force. They can probably point to cost/benefit analyses for all of it.
Having a morbid outlook on life can sometimes conflict one’s views.
For instance the Manchester bombing never should have happened and I’m sympathetic to the victims and survivors.
At the same time, I saw Drumph’s performance of the Star-Spangled Banner at the Arlington memorial and wanted to see him shot dead on the spot.
Conflicting.
Acolyte, there was the elderly mother of a relative I used to take out to dinner every time I was in LA. She was a widow. I figured she didn’t get out much. But one evening, in a posh expensive restaurant with boys from the barrio busing tables, she had a couple of martinis and started on about how the Latinos were invading her neighborhood and making her life less… wonderful. Mostly by hanging out at her local 7/11 and ruining the atmosphere I suppose. I looked at her and thought, wow, you non-contributing waste of skin. That was the last free dinner and conversation she got from me. Call me judgmental, but I have no time for that privileged crap.
I’ve enjoyed the discussions.
Re immigration issue:
1. The working classes are those most directly, immediately and often badly, affected. By no means all studies show immigration to be an unalloyed positive for the recipient country (not to mention the brain drain effect in the source country)
2. There’s immigrants and immigrants: in Australia we have many Libyan immigrants and now many born in Oz. They’re split about 50/50 Muslim and Christian. The Muslims have about a four times greater unemployment rate than The Christian Lebanese. A commenter above also made a point about the difference in integration between Christian vs Muslim immigration. Lack of even willingness to integrate is not helpful to social cohesion.
3. I have read somewhere that the mass migration of recent decades was pushed by Blair — there’s a comment somewhere that I can’t pin down, by one of his acolytes to the effect that “we’re going to shove multiculturalism down the Tories’ throats”. That is, it was political in intent as they saw immigrants as natural Labor voters.
4. See Maajid Nawaz’s criticism of the Didsbury mosque. https://youtu.be/ibFbZWEsAtU
Mosques are a problem — in the US, various studies have about 80% promoting extremist narratives in various ways. (Don’t know the figure for the uk).
Forse
An Aussie in Hong Kong
Jb. You raise some uncomfortable points. We now have 3 million muslims living in the UK and I want to know the roadmap for living together peacefully. There has to be a middle way between sharia law and mass internment. Both of these prospects scare the beeejaysus out of me
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But oddly, neither the press nor the politians seem able to make the obvious connection.
Spot on!
“Kill unbelievers” its written
Every where you find them, let them be smitten
remove their heads
Hate them until they are dead
No compulsion in choice of religion.
imho It’d be more… biting if you had Mohammed reading the Bible. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+13&version=NRSV
Another extremely unfunny but spot on comic from you Author. Sadly I find you less and less “amusing” as these events unfold – but remain an avid reader and fan. On one hand you can have a T-shirt saying “Burkas give me the horn” – which is flat out hysterical; and then this today – which is bitingly on the mark. Keep it up. Thanks.
Came from a concert myself tonight (Devin Townsend Project) and it was clear by the relatively somber set list, not to mention Devin’s banter with the crowd, that these recent events were playing heavily on their minds.
But to their credit, the mood was still upbeat and fun, with positivity and unity the main messages of the night.
Appropriate, as their last album is called Transcendence.
The “screw you” response seen in other cities after attacks has been continued in Manc (the city of my birth)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAh83wSXoAAaq3e?format=jpg
https://youtu.be/BmSKF5hdIpw
.. but no doubt the “it isn’t Islam” mantra will be repeated.
I’m an occasional reader of Dabiq – the DAESH glossy mag (well, I only skim it, as it’s very, very boring) and I read their “Why Muslims hate the West” piece. They gave 6 reasons, the first 3 being religious (you’re Infidels, you insult Mo, drink alcohol, and so on). The last 3 referred to things like “You drop bombs on us”, but these were minor compared to insulting their prophet.
I also remember hearing an interview after Charlie Hebdo, with the owner of a Kebab house in High Wycombe who, when asked about the murders, said – like the Pope – that it was wrong, but they shouldn’t insult religion. Then he said something very scary “I love the Prophet Mohamed, more than my Mum and Dad, more than my children, more than my wife”.
With sttitudes like that, it’ll be a long uphill struggle …
Can we all acknowledge at this point that Enoch Powell might have been on to something? That signalling your virtue by welcoming millions of culturally incompatible immigrants into your country is kind of a bad idea?
Hi, jb. Whatever the rights and wrongs of Enoch in the context of hindsight always reminds me of the joke about some tourists in Yorkshire, who asked a couple of locals they met “could you tell us the way to Huddersfield?”. The locals looked at each other, shrugged, and one said “Well, I definitely wudnt ‘av have started from here ..”.
.. joy of joys, I got an edit button – just saying.
How can those fanatics be sure that there are no Believers in the crowds they attack?
.-
Because no true believer would visit a sacrilegeous place like a concert venue. (Obvioulsy I don’t believe that, but I’m pretty sure that’s how the reasoning goes for the terrorists). Other than that, it would just be collateral damage, worth it to further advance the cause of islam.
Koppieop, I think the answer to your question rests in the “no true Scotsman” fallacy. Since the concert was corrupt (in the murderer’s opinion), any Muslims attending it must also be corrupt and deserve to die. They are “no true Muslim.”
Macha, if the tourists had been in Maine, the locals would have said, “You can’t get there from here.” For the full joke, complete with a Maine accent, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIJBUZm1HoY
Two cents’ worth, thanks for that link. Delightful to discover this story telling style of humor. My favourite.
koppieop, given that the greatest number of casualties from suicide bombers by far have been fellow Muslims, I don’t think the fanatics give a flying frog whom they kill, or what level of believer their victims might be. It’s a death cult. The point of it is death, and that’s what they are after. But this sounds too simplistic to be accurate. Giving something a label like “death cult” doesn’t go very far to explain it. As Mo said, “Search me.”
I simply refuse to join the “just keep ’em out of my country” crowd. Here in Canada we have seen a couple of examples of the potential suicide bomber being thwarted by member of their family, or others in their own culture. That seems to me to be our only hope. Make sure that the immigrants feel welcome, that they trust the police and authorities, that they recognize and oppose the evil in their community. Simply tarring them all with the same brush and slamming shut our borders makes us no better than them as dead children wash up on Mediterranean beaches.
Author, once again with the rapier punch line. And thanks again.
“How can those fanatics be sure that there are no Believers in the crowds they attack?”
It wouldn’t matter. Either they weren’t “true” believers, or their deaths were the will of Allah and part of the plan. You can’t appeal to fanatics with reason, nor with compassion, it would seem.
I was reading some online newspaper article — the usual remarks from neighbours etc: “he was such a quiet lad”, “always respectful to his elders”, “he’d learnt the Koran off by heart”, “I wouldn’t have thought he could do something like this.”
And thought, “well there’s some more material for Jesus&Mo”.
🙁
Having respect for your elders (but, presumably, not western culture, secularism or children) and learning the Koran off by heart do not, apparently, prevent people from engaging in mass murder.
One of the explanations for incidents such as the suicide bombing in Manchester is that it was done in retaliation for the (fill in the date) killing of Muslims in (fill in the place). This makes a certain kind of sense, but it seems to me that the bombers were never taught the proverb, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Maybe the bombers’ supporters feel at least somewhat placated after the bombings, but they seem not to care that such bombings do nothing to prevent Muslims from being killed in the future. (Tangent/idle thought alert: Islamic culture started in an inhospitable desert environment. Has the violence in the bombers’ version of Islamic culture persisted in part because it works to keep the population from exceeding a sustainable level?)
The bombers remind me of toddlers throwing violent tantrums–the kind that leaves others with bruises at the very least. However, most parents tell their toddlers to “use your words,” and most of the people I know have grown up to be non-violent adults, regardless of how terrible they were when they were children. (One of my brothers comes to mind here!)
Terrorism seems to be another example of people acting on their emotions and using reason to justify it afterward. I hope that one of the advances we’ll make in this century is to change our culture so that people will manage their emotions in such a way that no one is harmed.
I admire the people of Manchester for how they are responding to the bombing. May their positive words and actions ripple outward and influence people around the world to live together in peace. (There is some basis for hoping that this will happen. See http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2015/07/awesome-life/ )
Another tech tip (not html-related, though): On days like today, when I visit http://www.jesusandmo.net/ for the current comic and I can’t see the Comments option in the nav bar below the comic, I visit
http://www.jesusandmo.net/comic/glory/ (where glory is the title of the cartoon, which appears below the lower left corner of the cartoon). Problem solved 🙂 .
LD50, unfortunately there is no way to know whether any particular individual is harboring murderous thoughts. http://amothersreckoning.com/
But when it comes to the infiltration of our communities by fanatics bent on murdering as many as possible, our only hope is in the families and members of the culture from which those evil people come. Muslims as a group do not support terrorists. Nor do they appreciate having their religion and culture hijacked by fanatics. We need to treat them as allies, and not as part of the problem. It is immoral to close our borders to the very victims of those fanatics, out of fear that they may be fanatics themselves. They aren’t.
For what is worth, it sounds like he had had arguments with the emam at his mosque about his fanaticism, and he had been reported to the police by the community because of his extreme views.
By the way, I am also having to use two cents trick. The links to comments and the links to next and last under the comic are grayed out for me in all strips using chrome on android.
Darwin, it could be said that the fanatics don’t appreciate their religion having been hijacked by moderates.
To answer earlier points about other Muslims being killed in terror attacks, there is that old story, possibly true, about an army told to enter a city to kill the infidels. When asked how they were to tell the faithful from the infidels the leader’s reply was “Kill them all. God will know his own”.
So there’s that!
And finally, the last panel of the comic. Is this Mo proving the truism shit in-shit out?
koppieop Even if there were true believers in the crowd, they would die as martyrs and end up in paradise. The jihadist could win by blowing up the whole world, because the non-believers and idolaters would die and go to hell, and devout muslims would go to paradise. For them, life on earth is merely preparation for life on paradise.
DH — You say that closing the borders is “immoral,” and that’s fine. You are a moralist, and like all moralists you believe that adherence to an abstract moral code (your own) takes precedence over petty considerations of self interest. But still, can you at least acknowledge that from the point of view of self interest, the people of England (and Europe in general) would be better off today if they had heeded Enoch Powell’s advice?
Also, I’d like to point out that the family of the dead child who washed up on a Mediterranean beach was not fleeing Syria. They were fleeing Turkey. Where they were already safe.
AoS, you’re thinking of The Massacre at Beziers.
Nothing to do with Muslims, just Christians killing heretics. An interesting heresy in this case…
DH, my point was that a young man learning the Koran off by heart probably correlates more with jihadism than being a “good Muslim” (who doesn’t murder children).
Also, there have been many polls indicating what Muslims think and support. It is not, unfortunately, a vanishingly small minority that support (or are sympathetic to the aims of) jihadism.
LD50, that’s the one, and it was Pope Innocent III’s representitive who reportedly uttered that line. The quote itself may be apocryphal but what is beyond doubt is that the representative wrote a report to the Pope which stated that ‘neither age nor sex nor status was spared’.
All part of the Albigensian Crusade which was ordered by that same ironically-named Pope and contained some 30,000 knights and footsoldiers from Northern Europe.
Religion and peace, dancing merrily hand-in-hand throughout history!
¨search me¨ – in the hands of someone lesser, the author would have settled for a simple ¨I dunno¨, but in the hands of our genius Author, he gets it perfect every time. Thank you Author…if only you had written the Koran instead of Mo – uh, sorry, I mean ALLAH.
jb “But still, can you at least acknowledge that from the point of view of self interest, the people of England (and Europe in general) would be better off today if they had heeded Enoch Powell’s advice?”
I think this depends on your definition of “better off”. And that depends on the kind of world you want to inhabit. I prefer to live in a world that embraces diversity, and I’m willing to accept the risks that diversity entails. Despite the horrors of an act of terrorism such as the recent event in Manchester, the risk to my life at the hands of a terrorist pales to insignificance every time I drive onto the highway.
It also depends on your definition of self interest, and exactly who you consider to be in your tribe and who you think of as “other than us”. I suppose from some vantage points we should be white supremacists. Certainly it would be in my best interest to keep the benefits of society for white folks like me, and owning a slave or two would certainly be of benefit to people of my colour.
You call me a moralist, as if you think that you aren’t a moralist. I suspect that you are, and that there are many things you consider to be immoral, such as owning other human beings. It’s a matter of degree, eh.
Regarding the dead child quibble, please substitute whatever represents the suffering of innocents in your mind for my poorly selected and inappropriate example.
LD50 “Also, there have been many polls indicating what Muslims think and support. It is not, unfortunately, a vanishingly small minority that support (or are sympathetic to the aims of) jihadism.”
Which is exactly why I’m not all that much of a fan of democracy. When I read that a huge proportion of Afghani support death by stoning for adulterers, I can’t say I want to hand them the keys to government. And I’m fully in support of keeping that “not vanishingly small minority” you speak of out of my country. The trick is separating them from the poor sods who have simply been made homeless by war.
I would also be in favour of ceremoniously burying in pig shit and pig offal whatever remains we can find of a suicide bomber. Has that ever been tried? Surely there is some way to use their idiotic beliefs to control their behaviour.
@koppieop
You raised a very interesting question. This guy has the answer:
https://youtu.be/eFo_rR90Tr8
Darwin, if you’re not a supporter of democracy in Afghanistan, what’s the alternative, dictatorship, occupation, theocracy? Democracy may be vulnerable to terrorism (amongst other things) but it does at least evolve rather than stagnate. It seems to me that we should invest in the democratic process for every nation whether they like it or not. In the long run I think it’s our only chance.
Every time any moron says in public “nothing to do with Islam” they should be presented with this strip and asked to explain why they are right and Author is wrong. Of course it has everything to do with Islam. Just as nutters in the US murdering abortion doctors has everything to do with Christianity. Though admittedly it takes a somewhat selective reading of the Old and New Testaments to become a killer. No such problem with the Koran.
Micky,
“It seems to me that we should invest in the democratic process for every nation whether they like it or not.”
I’m afraid that doesn’t work too well either.
Your average peasant couldn’t care less what form of government is being played in the capital — as long as it leaves him alone and doesn’t drop bombs on him.
He has the same say in how things are run whether it’s a democracy or a dictatorship. I.e. none.
A bit like us, really.
What one could try doing is not meddle in the internal affairs of sovereign states. I.e. — leave them alone!
Leaving them alone includes: not supporting terrorists (aka “moderates” aka Al Qaeda), not formenting revolution aka regime change, not building military bases on their soil and not doing all of this for the purpose of keeping them trading oil in US dollars or in order to prevent (or force) oil pipelines from being built.
An excellent strip and some damned fine comments, for me it raises my ultimate question again….
“What are we going to do about mohammed ?” Which should be sung badly in the style of “The sound of music”.
Nothing but total separation appears to hold any hope of success but I don’t want to be chancellor Sutcliffe in “V for Vendetta”, I want to be “V”! Or possibly Evie.
What to do ? Maybe Enoch was right but I really have no answer and I have spent much time contemplating the whole horrible mess. Any suggestions welcome.
And Happy Towel Day, Thanks for all the fish.
Micky “Darwin, if you’re not a supporter of democracy in Afghanistan, what’s the alternative,” Ah, there’s the rub, eh. I didn’t say I’m not a supporter of democracy. I’m just not a fan.
I suppose I would hope for some form of meritocracy, where the educated and scientifically literate people in charge make enlightened decisions based on the big picture and a mutual understanding of human rights and social goals. We seem to have something like that in Canada, though many would deny it. For example, the Canadian government did away with capital punishment at a time when a clear majority of Canadians were in favour of it, for all the wrong reasons. At least I think that’s the way public opinion was going at the time. The Stephen Truscott case was a deciding factor, plus pressure from us SJW. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Truscott
“According to one poll, support for the death penalty in Canada is approximately the same as its support in the United States, at 63 percent in both countries as of 2013.” from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Canada
Of course Enoch Powell wasn’t right. He predicted that the streets of Britain would become ‘rivers of blood’. Absolute bullshit! To date, we’ve barely suffered a shaving nick.
Darwin, while I applaud your attempts to remain objective and inclusive of new immigrants whose co-religionists have done some atrocious things, I’m finding it more and more difficult to stand with you on this. That’s not a criticism of you, but of me (I think).
.
as for burying the bombers in porcine muck, I would expect that to trigger a round of bombings and attacks …. given that drawing pictures warrant such an attack, I would expect just about anything can be used to justify their actions.
Darwin, again, I guess I have to trot out Churchills remarks …
.
“…. democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others …”
I would love just one week where some religious nutcase doesn’t make the news. A day is possible. Too bad a month is far too much to ask.
“I suppose I would hope for some form of meritocracy, where the educated and scientifically literate people in charge make enlightened decisions based on the big picture and a mutual understanding of human rights and social goals.”
This is how fascism begins.
Micky:
If THAT is your view of fascism, THEN I might actually like your fascism.
But I think we do not agree on the definition of fascism….
—- Due to a very pleasant spell of nudist vacation (with pleasant weather and good Bier, thanks for that!) I currently have very limited and flakey internet availability.
Do not expect any timely reactions from me.
Someone says, “I would love just one week where some religious nutcase doesn’t make the news. A day is possible.” Sorry. A day is not possible. You just need to comb through more news of the whole world. A day doesn’t go by without some religious nut case committing an atrocity, whether we hear about it or not.
Micky says “This is how fascism begins.” Oh I hope not. Is a democratic meritocracy possible? Only if the population is smart enough to choose people of merit I suppose, and this seems questionable given the current POTUS.
It’s true that fascism begins with an ideology, a vision of a perfectible world that can be achieved if we just give up a few basic human rights and commit some inhumane acts to achieve it. But “based on the big picture and a mutual understanding of human rights and social goals,” has never been part of fascism, unless the mutual understanding of human rights meant that some people didn’t have any. If the big picture is a desire to see ALL of humanity flourish, plus a concern for the environment and a desire to protect nature, and not just our own social group or tribe, this seems to me to be outside the limits of fascism. As usual I could be wrong about this.
Anyway, to correct any misapprehension I may have generated, Churchill was correct. Democracy is the best we can do. It’s designing it in such a way that my vote matters that is the hard part. Here in Canada, the Liberal government was elected in part on the promise to reform our “first past the post” electoral system. They have now backed away from that promise, possibly with good reason.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/why-a-failed-bid-for-electoral-reform-is-a-win-for-canada/article33982280/
DH – Democracy is fine so long as it is perfectly clear that no one’s fundamental rights may be violated, however large the majority on favour of doing so.
American democracy regularly violates fundamental rights. Because it does this, it is time the people “provide new Guards for their future security.”
There are fundamental rights – that everyone agrees on? This is news to me.
For me, democracy requires a lot of attentive, reasonably sophisticated critical thinking. Unfortunately.
DH – you may be right but I find it easier just to consult the news outlets I regularly pay attention to (and know aren’t biased towards certain ideologies) and am grateful to see a day without a terrorist attack, a terrorist plot, a rape, a murder or some insane declaration that threatens or impinges on basic rights/free speech, all linked back to religion.
It’s bad enough I’m guaranteed those articles in the context of politics and/or general human psychopathy.
Someone, you would have been cheered by the front page headline in the local weekly newspaper for the small market town I lived in back in the 1970’s.
“LOCAL GIRL RE-UNITED WITH LOST DOLLY”
That was the only ‘news’ for that week. Those were the days, eh?
“I suppose I would hope for some form of meritocracy, where the educated and scientifically literate people in charge make enlightened decisions based on the big picture and a mutual understanding of human rights and social goals.”
I don’t know, but I suspect Plato said something similar after the Athenian democracy condemned Socrates to death (democratically), apparently for being a smartarse.
He came up with the idea (I think) that democracy was flawed and that the best form of government would be one composed of — philosophers.
Educated, scientifically literate people think government should be made up of educated, scientifically literate people.
🙂
In the computer world there are a variety of regimes. The early internet (before the WWW and the, ehh, masses joined) had elements of anarchism. Certain projects (perl, Slackware) have a BDFL (benevolent dictator for life). Various other projects have varying forms of democracy.
BDFL works best — if you have a truly competent, well respected BDFL and agree with his aims.
AoS,
back in the 1970’s.
“LOCAL GIRL RE-UNITED WITH LOST DOLLY”
That was the only ‘news’ for that week. Those were the days, eh?
Those were the days of the Red Brigades in Italy (“Years of Lead”) and the RAF (Baader-Meinhof gang) in Germany. The closing years of the Vietnam war, the Yom-Kippur war, Pol-Pot’s Killing Fields, Pinochet/CIA killing of Allende, Munich massacre, etc.
“I suppose I would hope for some form of meritocracy, where the educated and scientifically literate people in charge make enlightened decisions based on the big picture and a mutual understanding of human rights and social goals.”
I don’t know, but I suspect Plato said something similar after the Athenian democracy condemned Socrates to death (democratically), apparently for being a smartarse.
He came up with the idea (I think) that democracy was flawed and that the best form of government would be one composed of — philosophers.
Educated, scientifically literate people think government should be made up of educated, scientifically literate people.
🙂
In the computer world there are a variety of regimes. The early internet (before the WWW and the, ehh, masses joined) had elements of anarchism. Certain projects (perl, Slackware) have a BDFL (benevolent dictator for life). Various other projects have varying forms of democracy.
BDFL works best — if you have a truly competent, well respected BDFL and agree with his aims.
AoS,
back in the 1970’s.
“LOCAL GIRL RE-UNITED WITH LOST DOLLY”
That was the only ‘news’ for that week. Those were the days, eh?
Those were the days of the Red Brigades in Italy (“Years of Lead”) and the RAF (Baader-Meinhof gang) in Germany. The closing years of the Vietnam war, the Yom-Kippur war, Pol-Pot’s Killing Fields, Pinochet/CIA killing of Allende, Munich massacre, etc.
But you repeat yourself, LD50.
Yes, the 1970s were shit, whether one is thinking of world affairs, national politics, music, fashion……take your pick. However, the weekly rag was a local paper for local people, reporting only on stories from within a 10-mile or so radius of the town. It was a very boring town, too.
That wasn’t me. That was Anonymous.
Regarding local news and political systems we have a general election coming up.
I’m thinking of having a bumber sticker, or Tshirt, made up with: I BLAME THE ELECTORATE
Diversity has no intrinsic value in and of itself. It can be good in some circumstances, bad in others, and neutral in yet others. If a bad element starts moving into your neighborhood, and crime starts going up, the new diversity is not a blessing. There may not be actual rivers of blood running down the streets, and in fact your odds of victimization are probably still quite low in absolute terms. But your life has changed for the worse. You have worries you didn’t have before, not just for yourself, but for family and friends. You feel less safe going out at night, and you are constantly looking over your shoulder.
This was my point in bringing up Enoch Powell; not that he had predicted the future through a crystal ball, but that the people of England would have been BETTER OFF if they had heeded his advice! The number of people blown up by suicide bombers might not be large, but the fear is always there. Security must be provided for every public venue where a bomber might strike. Constant vigilance is required from the police to head off new attacks. Muslim immigration has created permanent and ever growing enclaves of people who are fundamentally hostile to Western values. Individuals may assimilate, but higher Muslim birthrates and the practice of importing spouses from the old country (the importance of this practice is little appreciated!) guarantee the continued existence of “no-go areas” where the ethnic English do not feel welcome. (The no-go thing can be overstated — certainly the police are not afraid to go there. But if you are an unaccompanied women wearing shorts and a halter top on a summer day you risk being cursed and spat upon).
Of course none of this touches the elites, who have the resources to distance themselves from all this wonderful diversity. And since the elites control the media, they are in a position to lie about the problems. One of the big lessons of Rotherham — (and remember, it wasn’t just Rotherham, this happened in other cities as well) — is just how untrustworthy liberal elites are when they talk about diversity, how unwilling to risk blasphemy (hate speech!) by questioning its sacredness.
And what does England (and the rest of Europe, for that matter) get in return. Nothing!!! The only benefit is that the elites get to congratulate themselves about how good they are, how tolerant, how welcoming, how totally different from the Nazis. Enoch Powell may not had a crystal ball, but at this point I don’t see how you can deny that he possessed an insight that the moral exhibitionists running England completely lacked.
I remember his Rivers of Blood speech, a rant not dissimilar to those seen 40 years earlier by a certain Austrian racist. It has not come true. If this marvelous insight of his was that bringing different people together may cause problems, well break out the medals for Mystic fucking Meg! Any idiot could tell you that; you don’t need an old racist’s predictions.
There has been large-scale immigration into Britain for as long as I can remember – as long as History books can remember – and this current blip is nothing that we haven’t seen before. To use it as a stick to beat immigrants is a racist knee-jerk and nothing more.
jb, consider this. A couple of weeks ago the media was full of the arrest of an Asian woman by armed pilice. On tv, in the papers, all over the internet and so on.
Last week a white, 20 year-old student from Devon was sentenced to 15 years for leaving a bomb on the London Underground, on a Jubilee Line train, which fortunately failed to detonate. How much media coverage did that little escapade garner?
How many white people are killed every week by other white people? We are still a greater threat to each other than brown people are to us. Where do I feel less safe in Britain? In the poor, mostly white-populated areas. It’s only when the perpetrator of a crime is brown or black that the media frenzies begin. Even then, the perpetrator is more likely to be British-born rather than an immigrant.
Rotherham? How many white paedophile rings have been busted recently? How many more are not being investigated because the members of the rings are rich white men, high-ranking judiciary, police officers, lawyers, etc?
Disproportionate reporting leads to disproportionate fear.
LD50, why are you plegiarising Anonymous? 😉
In the US, and I’m sure it’s the same anywhere, we get immigrants who come because they are are in love with the country, its culture and what it represents to them. Of course they are an asset. And we get people who hate it and are here just because they had no good alternative. There’s no really reliable way to sort that out at the border, unfortunately.
Koppieop? How could an Islamist be sure that there were no believers in a crowd of young women enjoying themselves out at night, often without male relatives controlling them, dressing in ways that they chose for themselves, and singing about things like sex and female empowerment? It’s a mystery isnt it? Gosh. It must have really kept Salman Abedi up all night worrying over than one…
Helena, do I detect a hint of sarcasm there?
jb, you are neglecting one important fact. The Birminham bombers was reported to the authorities several times, once on a terrorist hot line. His mosque had banned him. This says to me that the community of Muslims was trying to prevent what happened, and your security forces fucked up big time, as the investigation underway is going to show. Painting all Muslims as the problem is just not accurate, and not in any way helpful.
On another subject entirely, I have come to detest the church signs that litter my town. Always nonsense. Sometimes offensive to non-believers like me. I am reflexively literate. I read the damn things before I can stop myself, often dozens of times as I drive past the same sign. The nonsense gets injected into my brain whether I like it or not.
I’ve decided it’s time to make fun of the signs. So here’s my first. It’s all in how you read it, eh. I wonder if the author of this sign has any idea what I hear in my head every time I read it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhgFzseUemA
Darwin, it was the Manchester bomber, not Birmingham; their bombers were the IRA in 1974, and previous to that it was the Luftwaffe in WWII. You’re right though, the Muslim community did inform the police about his radical views, and alarm bells should have been sounding when his ex-imam banned him from the mosque and told the authorities why. The security forces fucked up big time with this one.
Of course, we don’t know how many other plots have been foiled, and how many of those failed because of information
passed to the police from within the Muslim communities.
I swear I don’t understand the likes of jb; he comes across as a poster boy for the BNP sometimes. Enoch Powell was a vile old racist whose views on immigrants was not dissimilar to Adolf’s pre-war rants on Jews. He never went as far as calling for a ‘final solution’ but all the nation’s troubles were blamed squarely on the ‘others’, those brown and black people he said were pouring in to take all they could and kill us all in the process. His views and predictions were so far off the mark they weren’t even wrong, as they say nowadays.
Acolyte, thanks for the correction. Bu hao yi si (feeling embarrassed). I never can get your cities straight in my head. Shoulda checked before I posted.
AoS — If any idiot can tell you that “bringing different people together may cause problems,” well, the idiots running post-war England certainly didn’t get the memo, did they?
I realize I am not going to change your mind. You and DH and the rest are a true believers, and you are going to paint a happy face on it, no matter what. Still, I find it very amusing when people (it’s not just you) plaintively say things like “the perpetrator is more likely to be British-born rather than an immigrant,” as if this demonstrates that the problem has nothing to do with immigration. Nothing, I tell you! Nothing!!!
Not as amusing though as the argument that if you are sufficiently nice to the Muslim community then they’ll turn their bombers in and you won’t get blown up. Does it really not register that, if the Muslims had not been allowed in in the first place, there wouldn’t be any Muslim bombers to worry about? That the problem is entirely the consequence of an immigration policy driven by the desire to make a moral statement? Of course, no matter how nice you are, 50 years from now the Muslim community — including the hard-core Islamist fringe — is going to be a lot larger, and I suspect the joke isn’t going to seem nearly as funny. But I’m sure there will be plenty of people just like you doing their best to paint a happy face on the situation.
(Not that this necessarily means the country is going to fall apart or something. One thing I find annoying about many people on my side of the argument is that they tend to go way overboard. But as Adam Smith pointed out, there is a great deal of ruin in a nation. No doubt 50 years from now the situation will be normalized, and everybody will have gotten used to living with the consequences of a mistake that is by then 100 years old. No doubt by then they’ll even have gotten used to being afraid to say it was a mistake).
Just curious, was the 20 year-old Devon student you mentioned this guy? The one who was “interested in gambling and Islam, and had collected photos of extremists, including the ringleader of the 2015 Paris attacks”? Funny how often it works out like that.
BTW, you are wrong about British immigration history. Between the Conquest of 1066 and the end of World War II there was in fact no large scale immigration into the British Isles. There were plenty of small movements of Huguenots and Jews and such, but nothing sufficiently large to have any real impact on the general population. You’ve been told otherwise by people who are trying to create a narrative that says “we’ve always had lots of immigration, this isn’t any different, nothing to see here.” The thing is, even if it weren’t false it would still be a stupid narrative, since, like diversity, immigration in and of itself is neither good no bad. It always depends on the specifics: in this case, who the immigrants are; and how many. Best not look at the specifics to carefully though — it might get in the way of being moral!
DH – Love the church sign 😀 😀
Maybe the bomber in Manchester was really reported by the Muslim community, but there is still some unpleasant stuff related to the mosque:
The Sun 28th May 2017: “Preachers at mosque where Manchester bomber prayed called for homosexuals, British soldiers and non-believers to be killed”: “The mosque where bomber Salman Abedi worshipped hosted hate preachers who called for British soldiers to be killed and gays and adulterers to be stoned to death. Didsbury Mosque’s YouTube channel still features videos from clerics including American Abdullah Hakim Quick.”
Also, according to one ‘source’:
The Mail on Sunday (28 May 2017): ‘In early 2017 the FBI told MI5 that Abedi belonged to a North African terror gang based in Manchester, which was looking for a political target in this country.
The information came from the interception of his communications by US federal agents, who had been investigating Abedi since the middle of 2016, and from information unearthed in Libya, where his family was linked to terrorist groups.
‘Following this US tip-off, Abedi and other members of the gang were scrutinised by MI5. It was thought at the time that Abedi was planning to assassinate a political figure.
‘But nothing came of this investigation and, tragically, he slipped down the pecking order of targets.’
Translation: there are so many potential dangerous terrorists that this one was the one that hasn’t appeared to be a priority at the moment.
Imagine these that are priorities then.
jb – your anonymous comment went into moderation. As it was obviously you, I added your name/email and approved it. Then when you posted again, I removed the original.
Yikes, I deleted the second comment when I saw the first had come back! Fortunately I still have it. I was wondering what was going on! (Please feel free to make sure that no more than one copy shows up — I hate it when that happens).
Ugg, bad night, couldn’t sleep. So I guess I might as well take the opportunity to extend my screed, since I have nothing better to do right now.
I guess my big question is “what was the point?” The English people were not crying out for millions of foreigners to come compete with them on their crowded island. Mass immigration was never popular with the masses. (Not that this ever mattered to the elites of course. As DH has helpfully noted, progressives have no qualms about undemocratically imposing their values on those they consider their moral inferiors). So what was gained? A variety of ethnic restaurants maybe? Mmmm, Muslim cuisine! Immigration is often defended by asserting that white people by themselves are just boring, but I seem to remember that England was kind of a happening place back in the 60s. Am I wrong about that?
So what exactly made it so important to throw away the benefits of having a monoethnic and monocultural country — like Finland or Japan — so that you could get to live with hundreds or maybe thousands of people who would blow you up if they could figure out how the get the explosives and get around constant police surveillance, and with tens or hundreds of thousands who wouldn’t blow you up themselves, but who think you kind of deserve to get blown up? What? What did the French gain that makes the sullen immigrant banlieues worthwhile? How do all those gropey “Syrians” benefit the German people? What was the motive for all this, aside from a quasi-religious veneration of diversity for the sake of diversity? What was gained, aside from the opportunity to display moral virtue, to demonstrate that you were the exact opposite of Hitler? What???
AoS, DH,
I don’t know about the BNP, but jb comes across as a perfectly rational human. Not, for instance, like these hilarious chaps.
I’m glad that it appears to be possible to talk rationally and politely about race, racism, culture, immigration, integration etc. in this friendly forum dedicated to ridiculing the sincerely held beliefs of millions. The idea of “no platforming” is as silly as screeming: “All extremists must be shot! Absolutely NO exceptions!”
Author,
This guy Anonymous copied 2 of my comments at May 27, 5:36 pm too! (Due to computer weirdness they appear just before my comments)
jb: Back in the 1950s, the UK was indeed “crying out” for workers from countries of the former “Empire”, and positively attracting them, mainly from the “West Indies” and the Indian Subcontinent. These immigrants readily found work: in the NHS, in public transport, and in the car plants and other factories. There was another injection of “African Asians”, when they were kicked out of Uganda by Idi Amin in the 1970s. Most of these original immigrants settled in the UK and produced families here. There are now British-born populations of brown & black people, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original immigrants, but as British as you or me by birth. Whether it was or was not a good idea for the British Governments back in the 50s to encourage all that immigration, we now have to live with the consequences. My personal impression, which could be wrong, living as I do in Aberdeen, far away from London, Birmingham and Rotherham, is that the British-born blacks are far better integrated into UK society than the browns. Of course many of the browns are brought up as Muslims and the blacks as Xians.
And, as a true Scottish racist, I really don’t care what colour they all are – I just hate them because they’re English!
BTW everyone, I hope you all understand that the racist rant in my previous post was “tongue in cheek”!
jb, what was the point? Maybe the point is that there was no point, that things are done sometimes not because they benefit us in some way but simply because it was the right thing to do.
What was the point in my wife and I fostering children? We didn’t gain financially, we had problems with some. We were stolen from, verbally abused, had to deal with attempts to physically assault us (both from the children and their parents) and our own flesh and blood often had to take a back seat. Of course, we could have not bothered, could have left the children in over-crowded council-run homes, we could have given in to the demands of the parents who’d had their kids removed because they were in danger and just handed them over when they were screaming and threatening. Our lives would have been far easier, so what was the point?
Sometimes it’s just a matter of doing the right thing.
Acolyte, you said it. Perfectly. I was on the verge of saying that jb had killed this thread, that I have no interest in talking to him. But this is a good conversation to have.
Aside from the cost benefit analysis, there is such a thing as simply doing what is right. As I’ve mentioned before, my wife and I have befriended a Syrian family who spent a couple of years in a Jordanian refugee camp before being vetted and admitted to Canada. Allowing them to come here just seems like the right thing for my country to do. We need manpower. The father, after a year of acclimatizing, has found employment in his old occupation, that of a cement worker. He is very experienced and highly skilled. He had a good middle class life in Syria, with a large house complete with swimming pool, and a fleet of his own cement trucks, before a missile from a war plane put him in the hospital. While I can’t say I like his religious beliefs or his culture (his wife, who must never touch another man, can’t even shake hands with me) and we have little in common other than our humanity, we consider each other to be friends. I can see absolutely no reason to keep him and his family out of our country.
Jb has written rather sarcastically about my opinions. There are words for what I think of his, but in the interests of keeping this pub a convivial atmosphere I shall leave them to your imagination.
Haggis, thanks. I had to make that little video. That church sign cracks me up now every time I drive by it.
Darwin, even on a cost/benefit analysis every report I’ve seen shows that Britain makes a nett gain from immigration; despite what some people might claim, very few immigrants come to Britain for state benefits, most are eager to work and pay their way.
Besides, immigration has at least put the Irish monopoly on its arse! It used to be that the IRA would blow something up on a friday and the Irish builders would start re-building on the monday. Nowadays the Muslims have taken over the blowing shit up and the Poles have undercut the Irish on the building work (h/t Patrick Kielty).
Son of Glenner, no need to clarify. I know you Scots love us Sassenach Bastards really.
For some reason that part of your comment reminded me of Frankie Boyle talking about Braveheart and how everybody said that Mel Gibson would never make a convincing Scotsman “but look at him now….an alcoholic racist”.
Stereotypes, eh, old chap!
Oh, good point about the government trawling the old colonies to shore up our workforce. We really were crying out for immigrants to fill the jobs the whites thought beneath their dignity – until all these black and brown faces started nursing us, driving our buses, emptying our bins, and so on. Then they were ‘coming over here, taking our jobs’ yada yada. And it’s still the same, it appears, when one considers who seems to do all the menial jobs.
A man I know was ranting on last week about all the foreigners who are apparently coming here both for the handouts and council houses and taking all of ‘our’ jobs. A bit rich coming from a bloke who hasn’t done a day’s work in the 20 years I’ve known him, and has never intended to, either. I mean, how is it possible to hate people for doing the jobs that he has no intention of doing himself?
Anyway, I’m rambling, I’m tired, I’m off. G’night all.
Sorry, one more thing. I’ve just seen on the news that Ariana Grande will return to Manchester to play a concert in aid of the victims of the bombing at her show, which is a lovely gesture.
It was announced that the concert will also feature Coldplay and Justin Beiber. Because the people of Manchester haven’t suffered enough, I suppose.
Cost/benefit analysis sometimes neglects to clarify who benefits, and who pays the cost. I think it’s fairly clear that over here in the US, the economic elite favor conditions that reduce economic security in their labor force. They can probably point to cost/benefit analyses for all of it.
Having a morbid outlook on life can sometimes conflict one’s views.
For instance the Manchester bombing never should have happened and I’m sympathetic to the victims and survivors.
At the same time, I saw Drumph’s performance of the Star-Spangled Banner at the Arlington memorial and wanted to see him shot dead on the spot.
Conflicting.
Acolyte, there was the elderly mother of a relative I used to take out to dinner every time I was in LA. She was a widow. I figured she didn’t get out much. But one evening, in a posh expensive restaurant with boys from the barrio busing tables, she had a couple of martinis and started on about how the Latinos were invading her neighborhood and making her life less… wonderful. Mostly by hanging out at her local 7/11 and ruining the atmosphere I suppose. I looked at her and thought, wow, you non-contributing waste of skin. That was the last free dinner and conversation she got from me. Call me judgmental, but I have no time for that privileged crap.
Thanks to SoG, AoS, and DH for articulating my thoughts – you deserve more than just my thumbs up.
BBC1 Panorama 29th May:
The mosque didn’t report the bomber.
“Despite wide reports that Abedi [Manchester bomber] was reported by Didsbury [his] Mosque, the mosque confirmed to Panorama that he was not.”
The words of the US Muslim cleric who is apparently featured on the mosque youtube channel (according to the Sun) :
“Abdullah Hakim Quick: What is the position in Islam on homosexuality? Put my name in the paper: The position is death, and we can not change Islam.”
https://youtu.be/tH068VWTmgE?t=127
I’ve enjoyed the discussions.
Re immigration issue:
1. The working classes are those most directly, immediately and often badly, affected. By no means all studies show immigration to be an unalloyed positive for the recipient country (not to mention the brain drain effect in the source country)
2. There’s immigrants and immigrants: in Australia we have many Libyan immigrants and now many born in Oz. They’re split about 50/50 Muslim and Christian. The Muslims have about a four times greater unemployment rate than The Christian Lebanese. A commenter above also made a point about the difference in integration between Christian vs Muslim immigration. Lack of even willingness to integrate is not helpful to social cohesion.
3. I have read somewhere that the mass migration of recent decades was pushed by Blair — there’s a comment somewhere that I can’t pin down, by one of his acolytes to the effect that “we’re going to shove multiculturalism down the Tories’ throats”. That is, it was political in intent as they saw immigrants as natural Labor voters.
4. See Maajid Nawaz’s criticism of the Didsbury mosque. https://youtu.be/ibFbZWEsAtU
Mosques are a problem — in the US, various studies have about 80% promoting extremist narratives in various ways. (Don’t know the figure for the uk).
Forse
An Aussie in Hong Kong
Jb. You raise some uncomfortable points. We now have 3 million muslims living in the UK and I want to know the roadmap for living together peacefully. There has to be a middle way between sharia law and mass internment. Both of these prospects scare the beeejaysus out of me
Decent one for a change, Nasser B!