With a startling lack of imagination, the Islamists have decided to have a go as well.
From the BBC:
The Muslim Council of Britain has reiterated a call for the Conservatives to launch an independent inquiry into alleged Islamophobia within the party.
The MCB has repeatedly demanded an investigation, and says there are now "more than weekly incidents" involving Tory candidates and representatives.
In an open letter, it tells chairman Brandon Lewis he must "ensure racists and bigots have no place" in the party. A Tory spokesman said it took all incidents of Islamophobia seriously.
I hope the Tories maintain a sense of humour and get Shrami Chakrabarti in to do a whitewash!
Anyway, this'll be fun! Most people can distinguish between criticism of Israel (the country) and straightforward racism towards Jewish people*. For some reason however, any criticism of Islam (a weird set of anti-democratic, anti-Western and anti-liberal beliefs) is immediately portrayed as straightforward racism merely masquerading as criticism of those beliefs, which it clearly isn't.
If it were, then those same racists would engage in Hinduism-phobia, Sikhism-phobia, Buddhism-phobia etc, which they clearly don't. Not even the EDL have been accused of those, the words don't even exist, let alone the actual -ism itself.
* Clearly, criticism of the actions of a country is always legitimate, whether correct or not, as is criticism of political, religious or other beliefs, whether correct or not. I spend a lot of time criticising what the UK government does and criticising Home-Owner-Ism, that doth not somehow make me racist, doth it?
Thursday, 31 May 2018
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Since about 90% of Muslims vote Labour, Muslims are clearly guilty of "Tory-phobia". This form of bigotry must be stamped out. And there's an awful lot of "Trump-phobia" around, which is equally deplorable.
Just as the whole Labour "anti-semitism" crap is simply a weapon being deployed in that party's internecine struggles, so will this latest move only succeed if it manages to enlist the support of one half of the Conservative Party by offering them a weapon to use against the other.
"In an open letter, it tells chairman Brandon Lewis he must "ensure racists and bigots have no place" in the party."
No bigots? It'll be a very small party then.
"I spend a lot of time criticising what the UK government does and criticising Home-Owner-Ism, that doth not somehow make me racist, doth it?"
Nor would you be racist if you spent a lot of time criticising the British, because the British are not a race. Nor are Muslims a race, for that matter.
"B, why would I criticise "the British"?"
Because you are a Francophile? I didn't say you would or did, just that if you did...
"No Brit is particularly responsible for what another Brit does."
Nor is any Muslim particularly responsible for what another Muslim does, but ssh, that's not what TPTB want you to think.
It seems to me that TPTB have decided that Muslims are the enemies of the people de jour. The people must have an enemy, otherwise they may start to realise that TPTB are responsible for a large part of their woes. Muslims fit the bill nicely at the moment, but that leaves TPTB with a problem: there's an awful lot of them resident in the country, who, if they turned violent or even political, could be a nasty threat to the status quo. So the resident enemy must always be given special treatment to delude them into thinking that, though Muslims are The Enemy, that doesn't extend to British Muslims, oh no.
B, nope.
Please distinguish between "Islam/Islamism", which are Very Bad Things, like unspent nuclear waste or the Ebola virus - and "Muslims" as people, most of whom are perfectly agreeable as co-citizens, colleagues, neighbours etc.
As I may have mentioned several times before, my wife is a "Muslim", but she is not an Islamist. I know the bloody difference.
"Please distinguish between "Islam/Islamism", which are Very Bad Things, like unspent nuclear waste or the Ebola virus - and "Muslims" as people,"
That is impossible. "Muslims" are people whose religion is Islam. If Islam is as bad as nuclear waste, then those who observe that religion have to to be equally bad. If you were born to Muslim parents and brought up as a Muslim, but renounce Islam because you think it is as poisonous as as Ebola, you are not a Muslim who is "perfectly agreeable as co-citizens, colleagues, neighbours etc", you are no longer a Muslim.
TPTB have not decided that extremist Muslims (I don't use the word Islamist, because it can also mean an non-Muslim scholar of Islam) are the enemy, because that is not simple enough. The meme is "Muslim = terrorist", just as fifty years ago, it was "Irish = terrorist" and no-one gave two hoots about Muslims.
Personally, I have nothing against Islam. Nothing that their extremists do today has not been done by Christian extremists in the past, yet Christians, by and large, have got beyond doing that sort of thing in the name of their religion, although pockets of extremism still remain. As you appear to be trying to point out, it is important to distinguish between the religion itself and what is done in its name. Beliefs are not responsible for the actions of their adherents.
Because fifty years ago, islamic fundamentslism-terrorism in its modern form was only just starting.
The IRA had and still have a not totally unreasonable cause (a re-united Ireland), they never sought to overthrow the free west.
I do not like what Christians were doing a few hundred years ago either.
Perspective, man!
"It's all Fatcher's fault' anyway...
@Bayard
@" Nothing that their extremists do today has not been done by Christian extremists in the past"
Really what Christian extremists banned photos like the Taliban did?
I certainly cannot think of any Christian extremists with the same level of support as the Ayatollah khomeini who promoted marrying girls before puberty as he did. Can you?
"The IRA had and still have a not totally unreasonable cause (a re-united Ireland), they never sought to overthrow the free west."
Considering TPTB have decided that Muslims are The Enemy and their mouthpiece, the MSM is busy pushing that line, how sure are you that Muslims really want to "overthrow the free west"? Does that desire really tie up with the Muslims that you know who are "perfectly agreeable as co-citizens, colleagues, neighbours etc"? and if some Muslims, the ones you know, are OK and others, the ones you don't know, are not, does that not suggest that the whole "wanting to overthrow the free west" thing is something external to Islam, just as Nazism was external to Christianity, despite all the Nazis being, nominally, Christian?
"Really what Christian extremists banned photos like the Taliban did?"
Well, we didn't have photography in the C17th, but the Puritans banned the equivalent: pictures of saints in churches. They smashed all the stained glass and statues and whitewashed over the wall paintings.
In Christian mediaeval England, it was not unknown for children to be married as young as 3 or 4 and 7 was the age of consent. A girl of 12 could be married in Scotland as recently as 1928. Not all 12 year old girls have reached puberty.
B, you are arguing against the agenda of TPTB, why not discuss on my own terms? Which is to criticse a hugely massively damaging anti-equality, anti-freedom, anti-Western etc school of thought?
"Which is to criticse a hugely massively damaging anti-equality, anti-freedom, anti-Western etc school of thought?"
1, because I don't see it like that and 2, because you appear to be confusing the religion with some of its practitioners. I'll make the point again: How can Islam be "poisonous" and "a hugely massively damaging anti-equality, anti-freedom, anti-Western etc school of thought" and yet its practitioners be "perfectly agreeable as co-citizens, colleagues, neighbours etc". Cannot you see the contradiction there?
'The Muslim Council of Britain has reiterated a call for the Conservatives to launch an independent inquiry into alleged Islamophobia within the party'
Drawing two things together in a highly speculative manner:
I did assume this was coming in some form (phobia/ism), for the Tory High Command to deal with. Surprised it took so long to organise. Perhaps Windrush/Grenfell was doing the job and filling the MSM evening news? But Grenfell has been put into the inquiry 'long grass' and Rudd is gone. May survived as PM. I'm pretty sure that Tory HQ were busy deleting anything they could find in the tweets/posts of its members as the Labour antisemitism/Blairite fight raged just before the local elections. But I assume the Tory horse has already bolted, UKIP girlfriend style perhaps?
Blairites, BBC and the Guardian put together the Labour, anti semitism storm, pretty quickly, once they thought Livingstone (idiot) would be supported by Corbyn. Still waiting to see how many of the 500,000 membership they can condem and try to kickout. I'm guessing the Tories 'Civil War' which is run along Euro lines, there may well be another MP in the frame.
So, Labour antisemtism, politically, was about going after the many: those who support Corbyn and detaching as many as possible. Tory Islamaphobia, politically, will be about the few. A minister or a couple of wavering MPs come the EU vote.
God - what the Tories and Labour really need are skilled, PR men, in the very top job, to handle all of this stuff.
Mark Wadsworth: "Please distinguish between 'Islam/Islamism', which are Very Bad Things, like unspent nuclear waste or the Ebola virus - and 'Muslims' as people, most of whom are perfectly agreeable as co-citizens, colleagues, neighbours etc. As I may have mentioned several times before, my wife is a 'Muslim', but she is not an Islamist. I know the bloody difference."
I think this passage actually goes a long way to explaining why Islamophobia is often seen as a form of racism!
Mark Wadsworth is clearly not a Muslim himself (because he describes Islam as a Very Bad Thing, which obviously no Muslim would ever do) but this also implies that his wife cannot be a (practising) Muslim because Islam forbids a Muslim woman from marrying a non-Muslim man. So when Mark describes his wife as "Muslim" he is clearly referring not to her religion but to her ancestry.
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