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The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby Hennessy on Tue May 10, 2011 2:24 pm

Today as an occasional watcher of Sweden, the country so often touted as the more perfect social democracy the UK should live up to, I was surprised to find out that a motion has been tabled by the country's social democrats to officially create a muslim public holiday: http://muslimvoices.org/call-official-recognition-muslim-holiday-sweden/

Personally I have always seen the famous Swedish tolerance as synonymous with the idea of harmony in society, upon which the basis of a strong social welfare state was created, so to see my next find, a CBN news clip about Malmo in Sweden, was even more shocking. The "unknown source" bias of a US Christian News aside, the story about the plight of the 400-year old Jewish community in the city is verified elsewhere:


Telegraph article confirming story: http://tinyurl.com/yjhz4wq
Jewish News: http://tinyurl.com/5tvgbn7

Exploring the wonderful contribution to Swedish society these immigrants have made I was again surprised to see so many references to rape, and although the first sources I came across were invariably right wing eventually they started linking to sites like wikipedia, which even with its problems in my experience never steps over the line into full blown unqualified racism:

A report by the Sweden Democrats in September 2010 which compiled 114 of 253 court rulings from around the country in 2009 stated that 48% of convicted rapists in Sweden in 2009 were born abroad.[26] Amnesty International blamed Sweden's "deeply rooted patriarchal gender norms",[5] (however in 2006 Sweden was ranked as the number one country in gender equality[9]). Immigrants were five times more likely to be investigated for sex crimes.[3]


Full Wikipedia Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Sweden

I left in Amnesty International's farcical statement, akin to an ostrich sticking its head in the sand. You're left with two choices reviewing the evidence, either the entire Swedish male population has suddenly become more prone to raping and beating women, or one specific segment of it has been especially prolific. Violent crime in Sweden has tripled in the last three decades - (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... 5-2006.svg)

The situation was also not helped in 2004 when a respected mufti in Denmark set the tone for relations between immigrant muslim men and white women by declaring that women not wearing a veil "were asking to be raped" (http://www.jimball.com.au/features/Poli ... 20Post.htm). He was backed up a year late by a mufti from Australia, another country experiencing significant friction between its muslim minority and secular majority.


This is a long post already so I'll try and keep the next bit to the point. Sweden as a tolerant society is often considered a potential future model of this country by some. Yet even in the most tolerant society on Earth there is considerable friction and appalling sexual abuse going on thanks to an unchecked immigration policy. I will make no apologies for my language as it is my firm belief that the significant muslim enclaves in towns like Malmo represent the problems of allowing communities who still abide by what is still essentially a medieval code of living to become established.

The same is true in Holland, Denmark and here, all countries with historically open borders where there have been outrageous crimes committed in the name of Islam, the murder of Theo van Gogh, the Mohammed cartoons controversy, 7/7, and the Stockholm bombings.

When are we going to wake up to the problem in this country? We already have significant problems with young Pakistani men regarding young white women as "easy meat"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... emark.html

Plus our bombers were emphatically home-grown, a product of the homogenising of the inner parts of our towns like Luton or Bradford (referred to colloquially as "Bradistan"). The tribalism and backwardness inherent in these unreformed societies is a symptom of their unchecked transplantation into this country from areas like rural Pakistan, they essentially govern themselves using Sharia, and the only time the rest of the country hears about it is when tales of particularly horrific abuse within the community are leaked or when arrests are made.

There needs to be:
(1) a freeze on all immigration from countries which practise variants of Sharia law or have incorporated it into any part of their legal code, such as Pakistan, Somalia, Saudi Arabia.
(2) The review (leading to a permanent ban) of visas automatically issued to family members abroad of naturalised citizens.
(3) A review of all crimes in this country - with racial profiling instituted where an ethnic participation in crime is found to be abnormally skewed.
(4) The complete ban of all Sharia courts operating in the UK
(5) A pledge by all parties to thoroughly review any EU legislation that may come into effect to change immigration standards in the UK

Otherwise we're essentially turning our heads the other way as the problem grows and grows. More importantly, why is this a problem that is consistently and appallingly ignored by the Left? I would have thought that especially considering the work of feminists the world over, papers like the Guardian and big NGOs like Amnesty International would be all over the systematic rapes endemic in these unreformed enclaves. Instead as I have shown, they are either ignoring it, misrepresenting it, or flatly denying it with ridiculous arguments.
Last edited by Hennessy on Tue May 10, 2011 2:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby Hennessy on Tue May 10, 2011 2:38 pm

I'd just like to add that a great deal of soul-searching went on before I posted the above. I do not post it lightly as I am aware it could be regarded as inflammatory. I think of this forum as a safe haven for the development of political ideas however, as every statement must pass through the fire and ice of critical challenge. I have no doubt the above will be no exception, and spirited debate is what I'm after.
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Re: The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby RedCelt69 on Tue May 10, 2011 3:39 pm

Is this meant to be a parody? Or are you just a self-parody?
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Re: The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby Hennessy on Tue May 10, 2011 5:44 pm

How very naive.

So the message to take away is that things will eventually get better, because immigrants will see our wonderful democratic society, or more accurately their children will, and realise how backward and violent their imported creed is by comparison?

That isn't happening. It doesn't explain how 7\7 was a product of british born muslim fanatics. Like I said these are societies within a society, very closely knit together by marriage along tribal lines. The problem isn't one or two it is systematic, the one or two we hear about are invariably the young rootless men with the power to act on the prejudices of a whole community.

Arent you demonstrating exactly the ignorant approach of amnesty or the guardian, in assuming something is racist you black ball the entire line of argument without a second thought, or analysis of the arguments being put. Its a lazy and incomplete approach based on a world view that claps its hands over its ears whenever something it doesn't like is being discussed.

"that's racist" is just opinion, it doesn't take account of fact.
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Re: The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby macgamer on Tue May 10, 2011 9:10 pm

Hennessy, you have certainly raised a topic the Liberal and Left just don't want to engage with. Anyone who raises it is dismissed lazily as a racist or (insert minority here)-phobic.

This is surely a symptom of cultural and moral relativism. The West is no longer willing to its defend the cultural and historical achievements in the face of a resurgent Islamic civilisation. If we cannot defend and uphold the merits of Western civilisation, which include democracy and tolerance of religious and race / cultures, then what civilisation will influence immigrants to Western countries?

Instead of integrating (which is different from ablating their own cultural heritage) and learning to live in and respect the cultural norms of Western civilisation such as Western jurisprudence (i.e. not petitioning for Sharia law), democracy and tolerance (i.e. not attacking Jews), the immigrants reject, and who could blame them, the empty, materialistic and relativistic culture in which the find themselves.
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Re: The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby RedCelt69 on Wed May 11, 2011 12:45 am

There isn't a "Liberal and Left" club where we all get together and decide what to mock. Well. Perhaps there is, but I'm not a member. It's just a case of using logic after viewing the available information.

There's 2 groups who are particularly distressed about the "spread" of Islam: Christians and racists. The L&L tend not to belong to either of those 2 groups. Well, perhaps the occasional Anglican, but the C&E tends not to attract foaming-at-the-mouth loons.

Christians complaining about an imported religion being spread into (any) European country should really grab a dictionary and read the entry for "hypocrisy". Or, y'know, travel back in time to see how the pre-Christian European countries liked the import of that other imported religion. Just, basically, stop complaining about one group doing what your group did.

As for racists complaining about the Islamification of European states, listen to the wise words of one such individual:-

Muslamic Ray Guns, idd...


The L&L are (generally) not getting into the debate because (for the most part) they're too busy laughing at those who do. And, possibly, wondering why xenophobia tends to make your hair fall out.
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Re: The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby LonelyPilgrim on Wed May 11, 2011 4:22 am

I think Hennessey's point had more to do with cultural practices than religion, RedCelt. Attacking religious prejudice is a strawman.

There are much better ways to attack the issue:

For example, the crime data from Sweden... just because a group is over-represented in the prisons for a particular crime, it does not follow that the incidence rate for that crime is actually higher in that group. The laughingstock that is the US criminal justice system should be all the evidence anyone needs for the tendency of racism to be magnified in the application of 'justice'. Racial minorities are more likely to fall under suspicion, are more likely to be convicted given equivalent amounts of evidence, and are often given harsher sentences for the same convictions. These are established miscarriages of justice just about everywhere... so drawing racial conclusions from conviction rates is automatically suspect and displays a naive view about the allegedly blindness of the justice.

You want to know why the feminists aren't all over this 'issue'? Mostly it's because they are too damn pissed about all the white guys who get away with it by virtue of being members of the dominant gender and racial group. They tend to be upset that if a minority so much as looks at a woman wrong, he might come under suspicion, while you, as a white male, could statistically rape someone (especially a minority woman) in broad daylight in a public place and get away with it. So before you get high and mighty about this, you might want to start digging into real rape issues, and looking at numbers other than conviction rates to get a clearer picture of the whole issue. Right now you're drawing conclusions from data taken out of its complete context.

Further... so a few, even more than a few, radical Islamic clerics call for violence? No doubt. Want to come sit in on some Sunday sermons in some Christian churches in the US with me? Or maybe it would interest you to know that the Archbishop of Glasgow gave a sermon in St. Salvator's chapel in... 2004, iirc... about how the collapse of moral virtue in the modern world was due to the education of women, who really ought to just stay home and raise children. You can't justifiably condemn an entire culture on the basis of the words of a few of the leaders of their predominant religion - if you apply that standard to Muslims, then you also have to apply it to Christians, and that forces you to conclude that you are also a threat to the safety and well-being of the people around you since you are a member of a nominally Christian society and every now and then a Southern Baptist preacher in the US talks about killing the Pope or Muslims or whatnot as a good thing.

Finally, as a matter of personal opinion, refusing visas to people from the most brutal regimes is a particularly callous thing to do. Maybe a better job could be done of screening immigrants for their views towards jihad and sharia, but a blanket prohibition? What about people who want to leave that life and society behind? We are the West, if we want to act high and mighty and dominate the world like we do, we probably should default to the moral high road and acknowledge that having tolerant societies means we actually do have to be tolerant. The more intolerant we are the more we enable the formation of the types of insular and radicalising communities you decry. Your suggested policies would likely make the problem worse, not better.
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Re: The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby RedCelt69 on Wed May 11, 2011 7:54 am

You say strawman. I say that the original (claimed) position was ridiculous. Which was why I asked if it was a parody.

I could have spent a significant chunk of time detailing what was wrong with the CBN clip, but I'm in revision mode for the exams and that would have constituted too big a timesink right now. So, to summarise the rest of it... a "news" clip from Christian Broadcasting News (a station set up by Pat Robinson, the earworm of the NeoCons in the US, who will be pro-Israel, regardless of their actions, until the Second Coming of Christ) the Torygraph and Judaica World (Orthodox Jews who, again, are very pro-Israel).

If you're pro-Israel then you're anti-Islam (and I don't just mean the knuckle-dragging Muslims who equate Judaism with Israel). A "peaceful" pro-Israel rally turned violent in a city with a lot of Muslims? No shit. A peaceful pro-Nazi rally in Jerusalem would also have turned violent. Imagine how much less trouble there would be in the Jewish community of Malmo if they'd held an anti-Israel rally. And by "they" I mean Malmo's Jews. You don't have to be anti-Jew to be anti-Israel. Just owning a TV set (with access to news channels other than CBN) and some history books should be enough.

And I wish that these people would stop hijacking the word (anti-)Semite as their own. The Palestinians are also Semites. Israel treating Palestinians like humans rather than as subhumans would, y'know, be a start towards mending this long-standing rift of religious cultures. If Israel wasn't antisemitic, the anti-Jew meme wouldn't be spread so wildly in the Muslim world.

But that's just one part of the original statement.

LP, you've already addressed some of the problems, but when I see someone saying that Shariah Courts should be banned... I just can't help but giggle. It's classic BNP thinking, it really is. Shariah Law is a governing law for Muslims by Muslims (based on judgements from clerics). It has no legal basis in this country and is a law of like-minded people for like-minded people. Saying that it should be banned is, basically, making it ThoughtCrime.

There's the wider problem of the children (but especially daughters) of Muslims being caught up in a system that won't judge them as benignly as secular society. But that's a bigger problem, regarding the "ownership" of the thoughts of children. And that applies to all religions, not just Islam.

Get them in. Get them all in. Get as many Muslims as possible raised in secular countries so that they can appreciate how medieval some of the thought-processes of their parents are. You'll always have the tiny hate-filled minority... but that's OK, because the tiny hate-filled minority on the other "side" will attack them right back.

Slamming the doors shut and hating them... that's going to have bad future consequences, it really is.
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Re: The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby Hennessy on Wed May 11, 2011 12:02 pm

A "peaceful" pro-Israel rally turned violent in a city with a lot of Muslims? No shit.


A peaceful pro-Israel rally in a city with a lot of muslims in a country which is regarded as the most tolerant on earth. What more proof do you want of the abject failure of integrating these people, even into a secular culture which is prepared to honour their holy days as their own?


LP, you've already addressed some of the problems, but when I see someone saying that Shariah Courts should be banned... I just can't help but giggle. It's classic BNP thinking, it really is. Shariah Law is a governing law for Muslims by Muslims (based on judgements from clerics). It has no legal basis in this country and is a law of like-minded people for like-minded people. Saying that it should be banned is, basically, making it ThoughtCrime.



I'll take on board your points about my sources being overall right-wing, the truth is that its pretty impossible to get left-wing sources that even discuss the issues. But how about this independent article discussing sharia courts?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 24486.html

So we don't even know how many of these courts there are, nor what sort of rulings they may give. Some of their judgements conflict with British law and there are cases where people have been pressurised into accepting rulings. The courts are known not to have any respect for women's rights, gay rights or religious freedom, so they already share nothing in common with the limited number of Jewish courts that operate under the eye of the Home Office.

The part of this that most angers me, and I suspect angers the Swedes as well under all that glacial reserve, is that this is happening here. Not in some dusty fly-blown village in a forsaken backwater of Pakistan or Afghanistan, here, in this green and pleasant land. A part of my local community (Tooting, in South London, where there are two mosques on the main street and at least three religious killings in the past four years) is living by this code of disrespect and violence.

Get them in. Get them all in. Get as many Muslims as possible raised in secular countries so that they can appreciate how medieval some of the thought-processes of their parents are. You'll always have the tiny hate-filled minority... but that's OK, because the tiny hate-filled minority on the other "side" will attack them right back.

Slamming the doors shut and hating them... that's going to have bad future consequences, it really is.
[/quote]

Really? What sort of consequences? If we shut our gates for a while maybe we can reach out to those communities who don't have refresher courses in violent and despotic Islam hopping off the boat every week.

And I hate to say it again, but that "we'll get to the kids" argument isn't working. How do you push a message of tolerance and kindness on children who attend unofficial unregulated madrassas free from the corrupting influence of Western democracy?
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8305318.stm)

Do I have to explain again that these are societies with a society? They've already looked at our laws and our education system and said "No thanks", and set up their own. How much more disrespect for a country you emigrate to do you have to have before it starts pissing you off personally Redcelt?

LP I also have revision to do so I'll get back to you tonight if that's alright.
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Re: The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby Humphrey on Wed May 11, 2011 1:04 pm

There were some - I thought - rather alarmist projections published a while ago by right wingers who were predicting the islamification of Europe. This sparked off a series of debates concerning the clash of civilizations between the liberal west and it's supposedly intolerant Islamic minority.

Well, turns out I might have been wrong on the numbers, we are now talking about a very significant minority. There were 1,647,000 Muslims in Britain in 2001 according to the pew forum estimates. The figure for 2010 from the same group is now estimating 2,869,000 - an increase of something like 74% in a bit less than 10 years. That's 4.6% of the UK's population - approximately similar in number to population of Wales. Belgium now runs at 6% (25% of the population of Brussels), France, Austria, Switzerland 5.7%, Netherlands 5.5% (Amsterdam 24%), Germany 5%, Sweden 4.9%.

Question then is - is this a problem if you have a conservative religion growing fast in a liberal society ? I suspect not. Having had a few Muslim friends in the UK I feel lot of the more alarmist stuff is exaggerated. Of course there is an undeniable clash of values - mainly over stuff like drinking and anti-homosexuality. I'm very much a liberal and there has been a few times I have had to bite my tongue on certain issues so as to avoid conflict. The biggest problem it seems to me aside from the spread of radical Islam among some youths is the growth of anti-Islamic political groups. Despite recent history Europe has a long record of violence and persecution against ethnic minorities. The worry is that as the Islamic population grows the rabble rousing is going to get out of control.
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Re: The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby Humphrey on Wed May 11, 2011 1:12 pm

RedCelt69 wrote:As for racists complaining about the Islamification of European states, listen to the wise words of one such individual


Yeah - I mean it sounds like a garbled version of some true events. There were a number of gang rapes in Scandinavia and Australia that were perpetrated by arab immigrants and got branded 'islamic rape gangs'. 40% of Muslims polled back in 2006 wanted Shari-ah law in their communities - which I think is what he is talking about when he refers to the 'iraqi law'.
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Re: The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby RedCelt69 on Wed May 11, 2011 3:31 pm

OK. So the increase of Muslims in the UK has seen their small minority become a slightly less small minority. The number of Muslims isn't (in itself) a problem, just as the number of Christians isn't a problem. If they challenge the secular nature of everyone else (or interfere with those of a faith other than their own), then it becomes a problem. And I'm talking about all religions here, not just Islam.

Every child (regardless of their parentage) is born as a weak atheist. Their parents/society shape them into something other than weak atheists. I would argue that yes, madrassas are a problem... as are all faith schools. Scrap all of them. The children don't belong to any faith. If they're not old enough to be judged accountable for their actions, then they sure as hell aren't old enough to choose which flavour religion makes the most sense to them.

Education should take place in secular institutions which offer no faith above any of the others. Within the curriculum (as early as possible) introduce something called Human Studies (or similar... in Scotland there's a class called Religion and Morality, which is a tad more encouraging than simple Religious Education) in which children are taught (and re-taught for as long as it takes) that the shite that they may be told by their parents (or the religion of their parents) doesn't prevent them from treating every other human they encounter with the same dignity and consideration that they, themselves, should expect.

The parents might still screw with the little blighter's mind, but they will have a harder job of it.

An interesting idea would be for them to have a passing-out parade at a set age, in which they declare their creed (if they choose to have one) and they become UK citizens, accountable for their actions.

This is off-topic, slightly, but a quick Google (for when committing a crime results in you actually being imprisoned) gave this interesting breakdown:-

Age 16
    Leave school and work full time.
    You are still entitled to receive full time education.
    The housing authority has a duty to house you if you are homeless, eligible for assistance, in priority need and did not make yourself intentionally homeless.
    Leave home
    Age of consent – You can have consent to both heterosexual and gay sex.
    You can marry with your parent's consent.
    Change your name by deed poll
    Buy a lottery ticket/bet on football pools
    Drive a moped up to 50cc
    Choose your own doctor and consent to own medical treatment
    You receive a national insurance number
    You may receive income support. Depending on circumstances.
    You can drink beer, wine or cider with a meal if it is bought by an adult and you are accompanied by an adult. This does not include spirits (vodka, whisky etc) - this is still illegal.
    If you are receiving Disability Living Allowance at the highest rate your provisional driving licence will come into effect on your 16th birthday. You can apply for this within three months of that date.
Age 17
    You can drive a car or small goods vehicle
    You can donate blood
    You can join the Royal Navy/Marines/RAF or Army with parental consent.
    You can also join the Territorial Army with parental consent
    You can obtain a private pilots licence
    You can be interviewed by the police without an appropriate adult being present.
    You can be sent to a remand centre or prison
    You can apply for a firearms certificate.
Age 18
    You are now an adult!!!
    You can vote
    You can serve on a jury
    You can place a bet
    You can make a will
    You can buy alcohol and cigarettes
    Carry a donor card
    You can apply for a passport without parental consent
    If you're adopted you can see your birth certificate.
    You can ride a motorbike above 125cc with a licence.
    You can buy fireworks
    You can leave home without parental consent
    You can take part in a performance of hypnotism!
    You can be tattooed
    You can become a Member of Parliament

Jews have a Bar Mitzvah at the age of 13, when they're considered responsible for their actions. Perhaps a similar age could be used for all children (while still at school)?

But anyway. Back to revision.

Edit: Reading that back, the point I was trying to make is that the number of immigrants isn't the immediate problem. The legacy of those immigrants (their children) is... but they should be dealt with in the same way that every other citizen is dealt with. If people can't hate people who don't look like they do, or have a different religion (and, as I said, children should be regarded as religion-free until a certain age - during which, they're educated about all religions and none.) the country (and the world) would be a much better place.
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Re: The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby RedCelt69 on Wed May 11, 2011 3:42 pm

Hennessy wrote:Some of their judgements conflict with British law and there are cases where people have been pressurised into accepting rulings. The courts are known not to have any respect for women's rights, gay rights or religious freedom, so they already share nothing in common with the limited number of Jewish courts that operate under the eye of the Home Office.


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Re: The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby Humphrey on Wed May 11, 2011 3:46 pm

RedCelt69 wrote:OK. So the increase of Muslims in the UK has seen their small minority become a slightly less small minority. The number of Muslims isn't (in itself) a problem, just as the number of Christians isn't a problem. If they challenge the secular nature of everyone else (or interfere with those of a faith other than their own), then it becomes a problem. And I'm talking about all religions here, not just Islam.


Yup, this is really the key question.

RedCelt69 wrote:Every child (regardless of their parentage) is born as a weak atheist. Their parents/society shape them into something other than weak atheists.


Don't think this is actually the case - they seem to be closer to weak theism.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... god-belief
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Re: The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby Gubbins on Wed May 11, 2011 3:49 pm

While I do not necessarily agree that Hennessey is suggesting the best course of action, I applaud him for recognising the topic. If one takes a stance on immigration and the acknowledges that it creates problems, one is immediately dismissed as a racist from knee-jerk reactions such as those of RedCelt. The needs of those wanting to immigrate must be balanced with those already living here. As Nick Clegg said yesterday:

We must not surrender the meaning of Britishness to bigots, xenophobes, to organisations like the BNP. Liberals, progressives, true patriots must reclaim this ground. [...] So the coalition Government is trying to unwind the damage of years of mismanagement and populism. We want to do everything we can to make sure refugees get the help they need. [...] The mark and the measure of any civilised society is how it treats the voiceless.


If we also unwind the political spin, the message is clear. We must not be afraid to be British. We must not be afraid to uphold British values in Britain. But we must help refugees and consider requests from those who want to immigrate: Balance.

Yet the balance is currently skewed. The far left and far right continue to practice as they wish, but the moderate majority is skewed against speaking out against uncontrolled immigration for fear of being labelled racist. The problems that accompany immigration do not spring from race, however, but the situation immigrants have come from and the effects that large-scale immigration has. These can be broadly broken down into two factors:
1) Immigration does not happen equally. The 4.6% that Humprey quotes (and remember that this is Muslims, not total immigrants, though we presume most Muslims are immigrants) are mostly concentrated in enclaves within major cities. These enclaves discourage integration, and lack of familiarity and acceptance of the country's parent culture encourage division and tension, and further isolate the communities they house. Some places mix people together well, some places badly. Taking examples from my own past, Edinburgh is a good example of a multicultural city: its populations are spread out and integrated. Manchester is a bad example: enclaves, such as Chinatown and the Curry Mile, have encouraged the problems I've listed above. This process is self-perpetuating and more integration encourages more ghettoing and deeper divisions.
2) Immigrants are (on average) from more disturbed backgrounds. This is obviously the case with refugees, but can also apply to others - especially those from countries where prosecution for violence (particularly within the home) is less efficient. If they are not from disturbed backgrounds themselves, then because of (1) they will be more likely to mix with other immigrants who are. They will also most likely arrive in low socio-economic regions of Britain, and therefore be surrounded by a higher number of Britons from disturbed backgrounds as well. These individuals will have a greater tendency to commit crimes similar to those they've seen, including violent crime.

I would imagine it is these issues, rather than immigrants' religious or ethnic background, which are the cause of the statistics that Hennessey is quoting. It is partly in the nature of the people who are immigrating, but much more it is impacted by what happens to them when they arrive here. If we allow people come here, it is our duty to then take care of them: to help them integrate and, if necessary, help them come to terms with their pasts. But we cannot do this if immigration is unregulated. Rather than Hennessey's totalitarian solution, I would personally propose:
(1) Revision of the Schengen agreement to allow control of migration of non-EU citizens within the EU, similar to that currently proposed for Libyan refugees;
(2) Temporary limits on immigration when a new country joins the EU, which can be incrementally lifted once immigration from those countries falls below a preset rate;
(3) Better geographical dissemination of housing for political refugees;
(4) Annual limits on immigration into the UK and/or EU with preference given to, in approximate order:
- Political refugees, based on personal danger, with destination country based on first-port-of-call and (if applicable) language and family background;
- Returning families with a strong connection to the UK/EU (e.g. British Australians, Kiwis or Americans);
- Immigrants with experience in understaffed professions;
- Immigrants from countries to which we have net emigration.

I do not claim this is the right solution, or that a solution currently needs to be implemented: this is merely an alternative. But we should not be afraid to ask if there is a problem that requires a solution. If we are afraid, it is as contrary to liberal Western philosophy as the racist labels that we are afraid of.
...then again, that is only my opinion.
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Re: The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby RedCelt69 on Wed May 11, 2011 5:33 pm

Gubbins wrote:While I do not necessarily agree that Hennessey is suggesting the best course of action, I applaud him for recognising the topic. If one takes a stance on immigration and the acknowledges that it creates problems, one is immediately dismissed as a racist from knee-jerk reactions such as those of RedCelt.

It wasn't a knee-jerk reaction. If someone complains about Muslims without (also) complaining about Christians (or those of other religions) it is worth wondering why. Islam is anti-gay and anti-female? Do we need to be reminded about how people claiming the Christian label feel about gays? The bible says that a woman is the property of her husband. There are inequalities everywhere. Concentrating on one, while ignoring others, offers a familiar characteristic (to me, at least). Or perhaps I've been reading too many BNP/EDL outpourings.

You mentioned migrant ghettos. Have you ever looked at emigrating, yourself? Everywhere Brits go, they form ex-pat communities, sticking together... sometimes stubbornly refusing to learn the language of the country they are in, preferring the company of other Brits. I often wonder why such people emigrate in the first place... and then wonder why we, as a nation, expect people coming to our country to behave better than we do in others.

Gubbins wrote:- Returning families with a strong connection to the UK/EU (e.g. British Australians, Kiwis or Americans);

My record is slightly scratched, I know, but what about Aborigines, Maoris and Native Americans? If it's an American, do they have to show their British Lineage? Will they turn up at the embassy seeking a visa with a genealogist in-tow, listing their descent from the Mayflower?

We are all migrants or the children of migrants. Migration isn't the problem. Hating people who don't look like us (or believe like us) is the problem.
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Re: The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby RedCelt69 on Wed May 11, 2011 5:43 pm

Humphrey wrote:Don't think this is actually the case - they seem to be closer to weak theism.


I did say "born". As a tabula rasa, a newborn doesn't know what a dog is, let alone a god. If they don't have a personal god then they aren't theists.

If the developing infant is susceptible to non-science, all that shows is that they are lacking in scientific knowledge. Cause and effect (everything has a prime mover) is an understandable result of their senses being programmed by mother/father with everything that is done with an infant child. That article offered nothing un-obvious.
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Re: The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby Hennessy on Wed May 11, 2011 6:31 pm

RedCelt69 wrote:
Hennessy wrote:Some of their judgements conflict with British law and there are cases where people have been pressurised into accepting rulings. The courts are known not to have any respect for women's rights, gay rights or religious freedom, so they already share nothing in common with the limited number of Jewish courts that operate under the eye of the Home Office.





Right I see where you're going with this. I show you an article by the Independent raising exactly the same concerns as my statement above, and tellingly ambivalent on the subject of Sharia courts in the UK altogether, and I get a video back comparing me to Tommy Robinson.

In fact all the sources I've presented so far you've met with youtube videos of the EDL and off-topic cant about the "Christian majority". What country are you living in? Christians in this country have so little influence on political decision making it's frankly laughable to compare it with the overarching presence of Islam in the political and philosophical history of the Middle East. In fact it's the unchecked import of those ideas into a secular society I find troubling.

You're jerking that knee so hard it's a miracle it hasn't flown off your leg.
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Re: The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby Hennessy on Wed May 11, 2011 7:05 pm

For example, the crime data from Sweden... just because a group is over-represented in the prisons for a particular crime, it does not follow that the incidence rate for that crime is actually higher in that group. The laughingstock that is the US criminal justice system should be all the evidence anyone needs for the tendency of racism to be magnified in the application of 'justice'. Racial minorities are more likely to fall under suspicion, are more likely to be convicted given equivalent amounts of evidence, and are often given harsher sentences for the same convictions. These are established miscarriages of justice just about everywhere... so drawing racial conclusions from conviction rates is automatically suspect and displays a naive view about the allegedly blindness of the justice.


Fair enough in the US system, I suppose. But Sweden? I can't imagine the country being the same way. It ranked 1st in 5 out of 9 criteria considered by the World Justice Report Rule of Law criteria, and 2nd in two more criteria.
http://worldjusticeproject.org/sites/de ... 5b1%5d.pdf (Sweden)

The US justice system has its own problems to do with race, history and poverty, so it's not really fair to assume justice systems are even roughly the same on a country to country basis, wouldn't you say?
http://worldjusticeproject.org/sites/de ... 5b1%5d.pdf (the US)


You want to know why the feminists aren't all over this 'issue'? Mostly it's because they are too damn pissed about all the white guys who get away with it by virtue of being members of the dominant gender and racial group. They tend to be upset that if a minority so much as looks at a woman wrong, he might come under suspicion, while you, as a white male, could statistically rape someone (especially a minority woman) in broad daylight in a public place and get away with it. So before you get high and mighty about this, you might want to start digging into real rape issues, and looking at numbers other than conviction rates to get a clearer picture of the whole issue. Right now you're drawing conclusions from data taken out of its complete context.


On that first point, which smacks of Amnesty International's bizarre "deep rooted patriarchal society" statement, I've got to disagree. For feminism to ignore issues of rape, male dominance of society and the treatment of women because they lie outside our Western philosophies in another culture is emphatically wrong. Furthermore this isn't a problem of the Middle East or Africa, where it can be safely ignored until someone shuffles up to you with a collections tin, this happens in the UK. In my case it happens just down the road, as I stated.

So what's the real reason about feminist ambivalence? I can't be sure. It could be the same reluctance to engage with the issue for fear of being called a racist that everyone seems to have.

Further... so a few, even more than a few, radical Islamic clerics call for violence? No doubt. Want to come sit in on some Sunday sermons in some Christian churches in the US with me? Or maybe it would interest you to know that the Archbishop of Glasgow gave a sermon in St. Salvator's chapel in... 2004, iirc... about how the collapse of moral virtue in the modern world was due to the education of women, who really ought to just stay home and raise children. You can't justifiably condemn an entire culture on the basis of the words of a few of the leaders of their predominant religion - if you apply that standard to Muslims, then you also have to apply it to Christians, and that forces you to conclude that you are also a threat to the safety and well-being of the people around you since you are a member of a nominally Christian society and every now and then a Southern Baptist preacher in the US talks about killing the Pope or Muslims or whatnot as a good thing.


I concede that point, the majority cannot be held responsible for the actions of lone preachers. I think what I was trying to point out was that, as with all my arguments so far, is that taken together with all the clerical statements you've heard (abu hamza et al), they constitute glimpses of a philosophy that is hidden within the core of the muslim enclaves in this country elsewhere, inaccessible to the outsider, yet prevalent in the lives of those within that community.

Finally, as a matter of personal opinion, refusing visas to people from the most brutal regimes is a particularly callous thing to do. Maybe a better job could be done of screening immigrants for their views towards jihad and sharia, but a blanket prohibition? What about people who want to leave that life and society behind? We are the West, if we want to act high and mighty and dominate the world like we do, we probably should default to the moral high road and acknowledge that having tolerant societies means we actually do have to be tolerant. The more intolerant we are the more we enable the formation of the types of insular and radicalising communities you decry. Your suggested policies would likely make the problem worse, not better.


I see what you're saying, but the Middle East is an extraordinarily combustible place in this era, are we really ready for the ideas floating around Pakistan and Iran to make any sort of debut in force here. As Humphrey mentioned, this isn't a minority that is demographically stable once it reaches our shores, in fact its in a bit of a population explosion. This is something to be very afraid of, because while these communities remain totally inward facing the average migrant who arrives in Britain is confronted with the same Islamic philosophies of the country he left.

I'm a big believer in V.S. Naipaul's maxim "If a man picks up his bags and travels across the world, he's got to meet the country he goes to halfway". That doesn't seem to be happening. In fact the opposite is true, muslim communities in the North of Britain are intensely radical and religious by comparison to the muslims of North Africa, for example.

So shut the gas off, give our borders a breather. Normally with any immigrant community time and diffusion are the key to integration, but when a community intentionally ghettoizes itself even while it grows that doesn't happen.
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Re: The Muslim Immigration Debate

Postby Hennessy on Wed May 11, 2011 7:19 pm

I gotta say though redcelt, this video made me laugh.

Where do they get these people from? Never have I been so confronted by the case for well-funded state education .
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