[Skybird]

Abraham'S conclusions are somewhat wrong. The man I reported about did not say that all Muslims living in the west loose their connection to their religion, in fact he said the opposite, maybe I haven'T made that clear enough: he said that being confronted with the higher degrees of freedom in Western values they either start having doubts on Islam (only a very few!), while most stick even closer to Islam, like a protective reflex in a situation of uncertainty, to avoid these doubts. I know from Berlin from socialworkers that I know there from earlier times that there it is like this, too, with school_age people and their families. And throughout germany we have very, very strong indications that especially the young ones of turkish origin show very intense symptoms of strengthened ties to a.) Islam and b.) an ultra-conservative, very nationalistic understanding of their turkish identity. The drastic spreading of acceptance for a movement like the "Grey Wolves" speak volumes here. We also have the problem of dominant acceptance for family murders, with male and female turkish and Albanian teens alike. A majority of male schoolboys, if I remember correctly, and one third, I think, of girls accept these things and find them okay (a study from schools in Berlin, I referred to these things in more detail some months earlier).

Okay, I knew several people who - partly to my influence - left Islam. but it is by far not the rule that Muslims living in the West are doing like this. Ghetto-building, isolation, and the element of culture_shock that I tried to explain are causing quite the opposite effect: an even more stubborn sticking to thier understanding of what Islam is. As I said, he expressed his opinion that western policies are massively exaggerating their hopes that living by the Western example automatically leaves to a modernization of Islam interpretation. It is quite the opposite, he and me thinks.

When talking of Muslims, i mean "Muslim" in the original definition by Islam: Quran, Hadith, the realistic biography of the historical Muhammad (not the fairy-tale hero Islam has made of him). I need to stress this again. I never came along very well with "true" Muslims. I do not practive friendships with true Muslims, like I also do not tolerate stalinists or Nazis and the like. The Muslims I had good relations with always were no true Muslims at all, whom already had abandoned major parts of the identity of Islam without realizing it. maybe I need to make a more precise difference in my writings between non-Muslims (who just think of themselves as Muslims), true Muslims (towards whom I am absolutely hostile), and auslkänder/immigrants comwing from Muslim countries. but then I start to sound like this EU-language commission, don't I.

And no, neither did I know that blacking a Saudi flag is an offense for them (maybe I would have come to it if only I ever would have spend a thought on it - but why should I have done so?), nor did I know that this thing is not allowed to be raised to half-mast. In our places we should ignore such reservations from people far, far away. It is our place and ruling, not theirs.

Think of the regular broadsides Brtish yellow press is firing against us Germans. For some reason we Germans like the British much more, then they like us. If our bild-Zeitung always would answer The Sun on equal terms, London and Berlin woukld be smoking rubble today, and WWII would have been revisited. Look out for it with regard to the soccer event coming up. We germans know that until then they will fire some more unfair headlines at us. Well, there are thing you simply ignore and see them pass by withiout making a big issue of it. this more relaxed attitude is something that would serve Islam in general and the Saudis in special well, I think. we have many irritations and "offenses" taking place in the Wqetsern press, aiming at some of our neighbouring coiuntries. do we threaten to start wars because of that? Usually we do the best that can be done when such nonsens happens: we do nothing.