(June 28, 2011 at 12:05 pm)Rayaan Wrote: ....what I've been reading so far, it seems that the British Muslims tend to live in their own segregated communities, and have these certain "no go" areas, which makes the non-Muslims a little bit unwelcome for that reason. But the idea of "no go" may be due to the the non-Muslims feeling like foreigners in their own country and thus leading them to invent such a word. Another reason for the existence of such isolated communities may be caused by incidents of racist victimization of incoming Asian and/or Muslim families. I don't if this is true, but that's a possibility. Therefore, I think it's quite possible that the division is mostly influenced by racial views rather than by religious views.
Hmm, no-go areas is most certainly a word created due to what you described.
As for your other reason, it may be more realistic to say that the 'asian/muslim families' are the ones causing the 'racist victimization'. In fact the rise of muslim gangs is becoming more and more prevalent. One non-muslim family who were living in an asian dominated area were getting bricks and stones thrown at their windows by local asian youths. Just a month ago my friend got car-jacked in another asian community here in Birmingham. Sure these may just be isolated incidents, but I could just as easily argue that muslims are the ones inciting racial hatred and not the other way around.
I would say it's a cultural issue more than anything else. And seen as these particular asian's cultures are heavily influenced if not governed by Islam, then is Islam not the core of the problem? I'm not saying "WIPE OUT ISLAM" or fight it or anything like that, but surely as a muslim you should be responsibly for effectively integrating into the country you have moved to (not directed at you personally)?
Quote:The main threats comes from extremists, be it religious extremists or political extremists. I don't know if a lot of them exist in Britain. But, remember that there are 1.6 to 1.8 million British Muslims, and the media and self-interested parties will tend to focus on the handful of crazy Muslims they can find to justify their own agenda of hate and division. So, it would be far more conducive to focus on the views of the mainstream British Muslims. And I'm sure that most of them are not dangerous. They are decent people just like many of the Christians living there.
I certainly agree, but blaming the image which muslims have is not the media's fault. It's their own. If they didn't breed islamic extremists, then we wouldn't have them in the first place. If your holy book wasn't open to such blatent "misinterpretation" (although I'm not so sure it is) then these extremists wouldn't have an excuse for the crimes they commit.
And I'd love to hear what the views are of mainstream british muslims, but they are segregated from the rest of us for whatever reason so I doubt we'll be hearing it any time soon. Unless they grow the balls and actually start speaking out against these muslim extremists, something I have seen very little of.
Quote:There may be a few schools, mosques, clubs, etc. which preach an 'extreme' form of Islam, and while most Muslims do not agree with this small minority, it seems as if their views are spreading further and further and affecting the country more negatively. But, what can you do now? Ban all the faith schools and mosques in the UK? No, but I think it would be a better thing to monitor the kids, especially the Muslim ones, to have a better influence as they are growing up so that there aren't radicalized and that they can be a good British citizen at the same time.
Monitor them? I would much prefer you sorting your religion out for yourself. Why don't muslims ever take responsibility for this kind of thing? Why should the state be responsible for a group of people who are so at odds with what this country is based upon? Like I said in the OP muslims in my opinion need to sort their religion out for themselves. We all hear from, I suppose rational muslims such as you how these 'extremists' are misled, or that they are poorly taught, or some other bullshit excuse. What I want to know is why they are misled in the first place. It's down to the mainstream muslim population to eradicate the bad eggs, and quite simply if you can't do that then don't blame US, or the media for the reputation you are getting.
Quote:To many, of course, the spread of Islam is like the spreading of a mental virus. However, I will not argue with that because that is their own view since they don't believe in God and religion in the first place.
I agree with much of what you posted rayaan, I know you don't perhaps have the best position to comment on the muslim population in the UK but it's good to hear from you nontheless.
