quite a bleak future then.there is absolutely no answer to this problem, not that i can see anhoo bar bringing back hitler or a nazi style approach. the final solution.
Much of the conversation in this thread could easily apply global politics from fifty years ago - you just need to remove references to "Muslims" and "Islam" and use instead "communists" and "The USSR". The world didn't end back then and it might not this time either. Mind you, "global" Communism really only lasted 80 or 90 years as an unrealistic concept whereas Islam has been a full-on fairy tale for 600 years or so.
I think we have to be prepared to say, as a nation, these are our values and if you don't share them don't come here, or go somewhere that has values closer to your own. Where this leaves disagreement within the political process I don't know but the policy of multiculturalism has failed and instead produced ghettoisation with all it's associated problems. Ultimately there aren't any rights or wrongs only winners and losers. Bleak indeed.
I think it would be fair to include Turkey as a reasonably "peaceful, prosperous and free Islamic country." It's not without its problems, but ever since Kemal Attaturk it has been a "secular state" in the strict sense, and even though the majority of the population are Moslems, observance of religion is a matter for the individual. The BBC series on the Ottoman Empire, shown last year, was something I found quite an eye opener.
Eastasia and Eurasia. The USSR failed due to the superior productivity of capitalism, it is quite different to religion. What has changed is globalisation and the ability for people and ideas to spread rapidly. The problem is here, now and won't go away.
This is where the word "secular" can become confusing. France is very much a secular state: BBC News - French court bans Christmas nativity scene But I'd categorise all of the Scandinavian countries, and Iceland and NZ, as "Christian" because as well as a majority of the population having some Christian heritage, in all of them there is a some linkage between the Church and the state (NZ after all having the Queen as head of state, who is also head of the CoE). That's not to say that those countries are not amongst the most "tolerant" in the world. The whole area is a minefield, and I fear that we are fed a somewhat rose-tinted view by the media. For instance, there have been recent major inflows of immigrants and refugees into Scandinavia, where there are now increasing unpleasant incidents of various sorts, which are not widely reported here (arson attacks on mosques, riots, etc).
Sweden. I didn't think people were conscripted in the UK? Our basic training was with the Swedish AK 4, which was much more of a brute then the ak-47. We had training days on various weapon from the around including ak-47, m16 and some much older stuff as well. Amongst the lot I found the ak-47 easiest in use iirc. However this is besides the point, the point is anyone can learn to shoot these weapons with not much training. Fact. I wouldn't want to give these cretins anything resembling credit. Trained army professionals? Pah, Hardly.
In which case Turkey is not an Islamic country. It is a secular state without a state religion where Islam is the majority religion as a result of cultural heritage not state decree.
Sorry mate, they don't want to be embraced by us 'infidels', here at least. In London there are large Muslim communities who don't - and don't want to - speak English. My wife is a social worker and has to pay an interpreter £200 a day so that she can hand out benefits and services to them because they need them - probably because the won't speak English and so cannot get a job. Also they have a huge number of learning disabled children because they insist on marrying their children off to their first cousins. The British state also has to pick up the bill for that. Multiculturalism is a failed experiment as confirmed by none other than the black labour -supporting former head of the Commission for Racial Equality Trevor Phillips. Could you please give me an example if a successful Muslim country? The Philippines, I suppose, could qualify, at a stretch, but I don't think it's anywhere near as wealthy as the US, Germany, UK and France or the Scandinavian countries. And please don't blame colonialism. Religions such as Islam and Catholicism hold back countries far more and colonialism brought some benefits too.
Turkey is distancing itself from Islam to support it's application to join the EU, which I have been told by politicians (off the record) also has plans to incorporate North Africa as it progresses its European superstate plan. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I have had the pleasure of visiting several Islamic countries on business and in my experience and generalising a little, the locals would be happier to bash you in the head than share a cup of tea with you. Not saying they are all like that but this is what I have experienced and that is nothing to do with religion or trying to open a branch of the People`s Front Of Judea in Dubai. The staff at holiday resorts don't really like us either, they just like the money.
Exactly. Like France which has no state religion but whose population is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic.
You are so right. I've had the same experiences. But I would make an exception for Egypt. I've been there many times, for work and pleasure, and always found the majority of people I met socially charming. Mind you they often say "I'm an Egyptian first and an Arab second" so perhaps that is instructive!
It's rather complicated I guess - Turkey is a democracy too, but Egypt is, once more, a military dictatorship which I assume does not (bearing in mind what it dislodged) decree that Islam must be followed. But perhaps we can, sadly, say that it is a not very peaceful and not very prosperous country which happens to have a majority who are Muslims? I'd dispute that Turkey is deliberately "distancing itself from Islam" because Attaturk did that (in the sense of separation of state and religion) 100 years ago, but more recently the democratically elected government has, contentiously, taken some steps towards greater compliance with Islamic preferences - enough to result in major demonstrations anyway.
Whilst I appreciate the difference between political and religious ideology ... in the end, no matter how different things become, it is always amazing how much they remain the same. Or, put another way - there's always something.
You don't mean the Philippines, do you? As well as being relatively poverty stricken and suffering from corruption (and sadly a sequence of weather disasters), the people there are predominantly Roman Catholics (and only around 10% Muslims).
Further evidence of the failure of multiculturalism. Protestantism tends to be very hands off and is the religion least likely to attract fanatics - except for a few hilarious and harmless (to outsiders at least) loony fundamentalists, particularly in the US. And Protestant and secular countries are the richest because they don't suffer the ill effects of the dead hand of religion.
Sorry I mis-spoke! Wrong south-east Asian country: Indonesia. Turkey was often considered a model of Muslim democracy before Indonesia became a democracy in 1998. In 2006 US-based think tank Freedom House said it was a free country: the only large Muslim majority country to have attained such a status. In North Africa and the Middle East, Israel is the only country regarded as free. So that's a bit of a success I think. Though Indonesia remains largely grindingly poor, perhaps controlled capitalism can rescue it, as it has all of the wealthy countries on the planet.
The point about British Pakistanis marrying first cousins from Pakistan, where available is echoed in Europe's Angry Muslims: Amazon.co.uk: Robert S. Leiken: 9780195328974: Books I know I am bigging up this book, but it is so informative on the different types of Islam and the fundamentalist sects and after what happened yesterday, it seems more essential than ever. I don't think I fully grasped what "multiculturalism" means until I read the book. What it does mean, essentially, is that everyone's culture is to be respected and even fostered within the UK. So if you want to live in Pakistani ghetto and settle your differences under sharia law and send your kids to a Muslim faith school, you should be able to. There is no notion that British values are worth defending except that of tolerance. In other words, we should be tolerant of intolerance. And we should smile benignly when the hand that feeds is bitten. And we shouldn't upset anyone by lampooning them. In fact, we shouldn't upset anyone at all. That is why the whole reaction to the Rushdie affair was so limp-wristed. There wasn't that much support for him from the Establishment. He had committed the crime of upsetting Muslims. The French don't feel like this at all.
I too have visited a number of Islamic countries on business and found without exception, hospitality and respect, a generalisation same as yours but two opposing views of Islamic countries! jihadists have become de-sensitised, we on the other hand in our politically correct western world are becoming over sensitive to offending anyone by words alone.
