The Great Divide

A point of interest for me is the growing conflict between Islam and the West. It seems to me we are moving slowly towards a state where conflict will be inevitable. An interesting blog post on the subject of such relations and the recent Pew surveys is here.

Please note the figures quoted from the impartial Pew surveys with regards to the UK. They are by far the most worrying (especially for those of us who live here).

" 35% of Spanish Muslims think Arabs weren't responsible for the 9/11 attacks, compared with about 45% of German and French Muslims and 56% of British Muslims."

Also from relatively non-political media publications:

"The United Kingdom stands out as a paradoxical country. Non-Muslims there have strikingly more favorable views of Islam and Muslims than elsewhere in the West; for example, only 32 percent of the British sample view Muslims as violent, significantly less their counterparts in France (41 percent), Germany (52 percent) or Spain (60 percent). In the Muhammad cartoon dispute, Britons showed more sympathy for the Muslim outlook than did other Europeans. More broadly, Britons blame Muslims less for the poor state of Western-Muslim relations."

"British Muslims return the favor with the most malign anti-Western attitudes found in Europe. Many more of them regard Westerners as violent, greedy, immoral, and arrogant than do their counterparts in France, Germany, and Spain. In addition, whether asked about their attitudes toward Jews, responsibility for 9/11, or the place of women in Western societies, their views are notably more extreme.The situation in Britain reflects the “Londonistan” phenomenon, whereby Britons preemptively cringe and Muslims respond to this weakness with aggression."

Ok I have to make a point here, this does not necessarily show what people think but rather how they answered the survey. I do not believe that these figures reflect the views of British non-muslims, rather the British population is flat out terrified of the societal repercussions of expressing anti-muslim feeling. We are scared of being ostracised for what could be labelled as racist comments.

Well here is some news; it is illogical and incorrect to dislike a social group based purely on nationality or skin colour. But it is clearly right to express disapproval for such a group based on their morals, values and behaviour when we consider those factors to be unacceptable in a right thinking, democratic society.

Lets be honest, those muslims who have become westernised to a certain extent, and adhere to the gentle aspects of the faith in terms of brotherhood, consideration for fellow man etc. tend to be at least as much of an asset to society as the rest of us (I work with a few and they are all thoroughly nice chaps who generally have a sense of humour where Islam is concerned).

However, strict adherence for many means attitudes towards females, other religions and Jews that most of us Brits regard as unacceptable. And make no mistake we should make our voices heard. When those (now famous cartoons) were published there was uproar from the Islamic community due to the supposed disrespect to a figure who (please no Fatwah) may or may not be fictional. Yet greater discrespect to living breathing beings is a daily part of their very creed.

The Pew figures on Britain are scary, the proportion of British muslims who approve of terrorist bombings to 'defend Islam' is bowel movingly terrifying. These people have British passports!

I believe that there is a large proportion of the British muslim community who are moral, reasonable human beings, and that it is largely the 'angry youth' element who make up a lot of the statistic (as is often the case with dangerous extremist views). So to all of you with your brain engaged my message is this;

We all want to avoid conflict of any kind in Britain, so for fucks sake get your house in order. You have intentionally isolated yourself as a community on the basis of your creed, so now it is your responsibility to isolate and re-educate those extremist individuals.