Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[Max Wall]

8 minutes ago, MattP said:

If someone has blown up innocent people shouting Allah Akbar and left a confession video telling us that he has done it because of what the Koran tells him, it's going to be pretty hard to report the case without letting the public know he's a Muslim.

If anything I'd suggest the press is often kind, see the Muslim grooming gangs all over the country described in the Mainstream as "Asian" rather than making reference to the religion.

Well, that example's obviously a different matter. I was referring to the more general mentioning of when someone is a Muslim when the same doesn't tend to be done with other religions. Crime is committed by people, not religions but often it's mentioned in reports. I'm not sure the press are kind to Muslims, the press will get away with what they're allowed to get away with and will push all the boundaries until they are ordered to stop.

[Guest MattP]

1 minute ago, Max Wall said:

That's just where we greatly differ Matt. The problem with that for me is that, for example, a working Muslim woman, law abiding, tax paying, chooses to wear the burka rather than being told to by a man. The more people encouraged to 'speak out against it', the more she is under growing pressure to remove something she wears by choice. The more people in positions of power that 'speak out against it' the more ordinary people in the street will become vocal towards someone wearing a burka. I just can't see that as causing anything other than persecution in the long run. If you could prove conclusively that all women wear a burka against their will, that would be a different matter, but that's not the case.

I'm not ignoring or belittling any of your points btw, we all have our own opinions. 

No problem at all.

I think the language used has to be careful when doing so and I'm not advocating going down the Boris route here, but I still think in a modern liberal secular democracy it's not the wrong thing to do to speak out against something as archiac this, providing it's done in an extremely punctilious and respectful way.

We need to remember providing it is done like that the Muslim reformists and progressives will be behind us doing this, it's the fundamentalists who will oppose.

[Max Wall]

Hahaha. Bloody politics thread, swore I'd keep out of it. Been trying to watch an old Match of the Day with our victory against Arsenal for the last 45 minutes.

[Buce]

1 minute ago, Max Wall said:

Hahaha. Bloody politics thread, swore I'd keep out of it. Been trying to watch an old Match of the Day with our victory against Arsenal for the last 45 minutes.

 

Blimey.

 

Was television even invented then?

[Max Wall]

Can we just all decide that a happy medium would be to ban all berks instead?

I'll start with Mourinho.

 

[Max Wall]

1 minute ago, Buce said:

 

Blimey.

 

Was television even invented then?

It was only 8 weeks ago Buce 

So to answer your question, yes, TV came to Somerset in April.

[Buce]

10 minutes ago, MattP said:

No problem at all.

I think the language used has to be careful when doing so and I'm not advocating going down the Boris route here, but I still think in a modern liberal secular democracy it's not the wrong thing to do to speak out against something as archiac this, providing it's done in an extremely punctilious and respectful way.

We need to remember providing it is done like that the Muslim reformists and progressives will be behind us doing this, it's the fundamentalists who will oppose.

 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure we're singing from the same hymn sheet (or at least the same songbook) with this.

 

My criticism of Johnson centres on the unnecessarily rude and disrespectful language he used, not the subject matter.

Edited 8 August 2018 by Buce

[Dr The Singh]

4 hours ago, yorkie1999 said:

Burkas shouldn't be banned, but people should be allowed to take the piss out of women wearing them. If i started dressing like this, i'd get ripped apart.

 

I always imagined you like this, I feel let down 

[Buce]

1 minute ago, Max Wall said:

It was only 8 weeks ago Buce 

So to answer your question, yes, TV came to Somerset in April.

 

 

The force of conditioning.

 

I grew up in a world where that just didn't happen.

[Alf Bentley]

32 minutes ago, Max Wall said:

I guess that's pretty rural whilst being close to the coast. To be honest, it must be hard being a Muslim in any Western country in recent years. The abuse and suspicion aimed at ordinary working people must be pretty difficult to deal with.

Ignorance is so often the cause but the constant pinning of religion to crime doesn't help and that's the media and news agencies that get away with doing it. I've never seen a headline on the news that says Catholic man robs bank, maybe they used to and I'm just not old enough to have seen it. General persecution of any kind is abominable in 2018 as far as I'm concerned and not enough is done to educate.

 

I agree with Matt's first point below. If a crime is clearly linked to a particular belief system, it's fair enough that it's mentioned - though I'd hope that the media and the public would make the distinction between a "Muslim" and an "Islamic Extremist" or Islamist", namely someone with an extreme interpretation of a mainstream belief system, who uses that interpretation to justify murder and intolerance.

 

Unless a Catholic (or a Muslim) was robbing a bank for religious-related reasons, his religion would have no relevance - unlike with Islamist terrorists. However, the whole "paedophile priests" outrage has been firmly and correctly connected to the Catholic Church.

 

23 minutes ago, MattP said:

If someone has blown up innocent people shouting Allah Akbar and left a confession video telling us that he has done it because of what the Koran tells him, it's going to be pretty hard to report the case without letting the public know he's a Muslim.

If anything I'd suggest the press is often kind, see the Muslim grooming gangs all over the country described in the Mainstream as "Asian" rather than making reference to the religion.

 

Disagree with your second point, Matt, unless you've seen clear proof that these gangs, often Muslims of Pakistani or Afghan origin, commit their crimes because they are Muslims and not because they are of Pakistani/Afghan origin.

 

I'm not excluding the possibility that their particular macho Islamic culture might have something to do with it. Indeed, I think it's likely. But it could also be strongly related to traditional culture in that part of the world that is not exclusive to Muslims.

Question-marks are raised by the fact that sexual abuse of children is a major, well-publicised problem in India, too - and among Hindus, not just Muslims, unless I'm mistaken.

Likewise, I've not heard of many instances of Muslims of Malaysian, Indonesian, Nigerian, Iranian or Saudi origin committing such crimes....

 

To avoid the use of the indiscriminate term "Asian", maybe the media should refer to "grooming gangs of Pakistani origin" (I've not heard of many gangs of Indian origin in the UK, despite such abuse being an issue back in India)

[yorkie1999]

3 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Alf has it right again.

 

TBH for me it's a pretty simple dichotomy: if women are wearing a burka/niqab of their own free will, then that choice should be respected. If they're being coerced into doing it, then it shouldn't. As has been discussed above, more research perhaps needs to be done on exactly how much coercion there is going on.

That's the problem though, If it is an oppression thing, muslim women will never say they're being forced to wear a burka 

[leicsmac]

12 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

That's the problem though, If it is an oppression thing, muslim women will never say they're being forced to wear a burka 

Yeah, you're right - and that's what makes it so difficult to get actionable data to support either way. All we've got to go on are assumptions about who is wearing them freely and who is being coerced - a dangerous thing to be taking action against (legal or otherwise) if it were to happen.

 

Problem is that this is a complex issue with not enough information that some folks are trying to reduce to a simple good/bad generalisation.

[yorkie1999]

Just now, leicsmac said:

Yeah, you're right - and that's what makes it so difficult to get actionable data to support either way. All we've got to go on are assumptions about who is wearing them freely and who is being coerced - a dangerous thing to be taking action against (legal or otherwise) if it were to happen.

 

Problem is that this is a complex issue with not enough information that some folks are trying to reduce to a simple good/bad generalisation.

One element of a western society is to protect the weak and suppressed and so if any group is in that position, or suspected to be in that position, it is up to the rest to do something about it. If Muslim women are even suspected of being forced to wear the Burka, then it is up to our society to do something about it, and that means banning it until there is evidence to say it should be allowed such as Muslim women coming out and saying they want to wear it.

[leicsmac]

Just now, yorkie1999 said:

One element of a western society is to protect the weak and suppressed and so if any group is in that position, or suspected to be in that position, it is up to the rest to do something about it. If Muslim women are even suspected of being forced to wear the Burka, then it is up to our society to do something about it, and that means banning it until there is evidence to say it should be allowed such as Muslim women coming out and saying they want to wear it.

So in this case, in your view, the assumption is that coercion is a bigger factor than it being worn freely in the UK until proven otherwise, even though we don't really have hard evidence for that?

 

You could well be right, but it's still a guess and a gamble.

[yorkie1999]

Just now, leicsmac said:

So in this case, in your view, the assumption is that coercion is a bigger factor than it being worn freely in the UK until proven otherwise, even though we don't really have hard evidence for that?

 

You could well be right, but it's still a guess and a gamble.

If a child goes into school with bruises or looking miserable, then his teacher will suspect that something is going on in his home life and it gets reported. A guess and a gamble?

[leicsmac]

Just now, yorkie1999 said:

If a child goes into school with bruises or looking miserable, then his teacher will suspect that something is going on in his home life and it gets reported. A guess and a gamble?

2

Exactly, which is why we have case-by-case investigations for such things to uncover what's really going on and prove foul play (and even then things can get missed, several very tragic cases attest to that). Perhaps a similar thing might apply here under the purview of domestic violence (which I would certainly say psychological coercion to wear such clothing would be an example of)?

[Max Wall]

1 hour ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

I agree with Matt's first point below. If a crime is clearly linked to a particular belief system, it's fair enough that it's mentioned - though I'd hope that the media and the public would make the distinction between a "Muslim" and an "Islamic Extremist" or Islamist", namely someone with an extreme interpretation of a mainstream belief system, who uses that interpretation to justify murder and intolerance.

 

That's fair enough Alf.

The problem for me is often the public don't. They hear what fits the current and their own narrative, then interpret and apply information accordingly.

 

Edited 8 August 2018 by Max Wall

[Guest MattP]

1 hour ago, Alf Bentley said:

To avoid the use of the indiscriminate term "Asian", maybe the media should refer to "grooming gangs of Pakistani origin" (I've not heard of many gangs of Indian origin in the UK, despite such abuse being an issue back in India)

I think that's fairly sensible. It's certainly not right to be lumping all Asians in together given I don't think a single Chinese, Japanese, Hindu, Sikh etc person has had involvement in any of these gangs. (In Leicester Sikhs were even on the receiving end) in that case a few years back where the revenge attacks occurred. 

[yorkie1999]

4 minutes ago, Max Wall said:

That's fair enough Alf.

The problem for me is often the public don't. They hear what fits the current and their own narrative, then interpret and apply information accordingly.

 

 

Well, they do, much in the same way the public could tell the difference between a catholic and an IRA terrorist.

[Voll Blau]

3 hours ago, Buce said:

 

I know it's a cliche, but travel really does broaden the mind.

 

I'd be all in favour of government-sponsored travel for young people pre-uni.

Uni type-kids (generalising here, so apologies) are more likely to have the will and, more importantly, the means to travel anyway though? Surely such a scheme should be open to all young people, with special priority given to those who don't have the financial means to do so off their own back?

[Buce]

Just now, Voll Blau said:

Uni type-kids (generalising here, so apologies) are more likely to have the will and, more importantly, the means to travel anyway though? Surely such a scheme should be open to all young people, with special priority given to those who don't have the financial means to do so off their own back?

 

Sure, it was just lazy speech - I would want it to open to everybody leaving education, whether they were going to uni or into work.

 

I honestly feel society and their personal development would benefit from it.

[Guest MattP]

Just now, Buce said:

Sure, it was just lazy speech - I would want it to open to everybody leaving education, whether they were going to uni or into work.

 

I honestly feel society and their personal development would benefit from it.

Could send them all to Venezuela for first hand experience of Socialism 

[bovril]

If someone sees the term "Asian grooming gangs" and decides everyone from Asia is like that then they're a bit thick anyway. It's like saying we should avoid using the word "men" because, you know, not all men are sex offenders. Should I be offended when someone uses the term "European people traffickers", for example?

I think the debate is a little disingenuous and smacks of people thinking some prejudice is more acceptable than others. 

[Strokes]

3 minutes ago, bovril said:

Should I be offended when someone uses the term "European people traffickers", for example?

I only voted leave because I felt we were being grouped with these monsters.

Brexit means no false finger pointing.

[Buce]

18 minutes ago, Strokes said:

I only voted leave because I felt we were being grouped with these monsters.

Brexit means no false finger pointing.

 

Instead, you are grouped with the likes of BoJo the Clown, JRM and Farage.