Baroness Warsi says Muslim prejudice seen as normal

[Gerald]

Prejudice against Muslims has "passed the dinner-table test" and become socially acceptable in the UK, a senior Conservative is to say.

Baroness Warsi, co-chairman of the Tory Party, will warn against dividing Muslims into moderates and extremists.

The baroness, the first Muslim woman to serve in the cabinet, will say such labels fuel misunderstanding.She will use a speech at Leicester University to accuse the media of superficial discussion of Islam.

Baroness Warsi will say anti-Muslim prejudice is now seen by many Britons as normal and uncontroversial, and she will use her position to fight an "ongoing battle against bigotry".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12235237

None: 20 January 2011 Last updated at 08:00 GMT

[Skybird]

What have we learned from her?

1. Criticisng certain inhumane, totalitarian, supremacist claims and content in Islam, is "prejudice".

2. Differing between moderate and radical people is discrimination.

3. Warsi does not know the surves carried out in Britain over the past 5 years or so that show that up to one third of the younger Muslim population support violence if it needed to enforce Sharia and Islam in Britain.

4. Warsi ignores that Muslim communities systematically reject to cooperate with the police to identify extremists in their ranks, and abuse the silly goodwillingness of the British police (that since some time is demanded by rules to tell them in advance when they want to arrest a Muslim suspect or extremist ) to help the wanted person "disappear", by warning him. Why The Muslim community is so special that it is the only group in Britain that gets warned in advance of what the law enforcement authorities plan, is beyond me. They must be very very special indeed, or what?

[Gerald]

In time it may have an impact on Muslim societies to take over key parts of a parliamentary level, but it's not just the UK, if this is a continuing trend or merely a transitional mode

[Skybird]

Yes, it is not just a British thing, unfortunately. We have Turkish politicians in Germany, too, and for the most they also try to whitewash abiut Islam and try to reach deals with German socieity to give it special treatement and special role, at the cost of our own identity, of course. And like in Britain, and criticism of Islam gets overkill-brandmarked as racism and "Islamophobia" (a term that first was thought out by the Saudis to battle against resistance against Islam in Europe, and later certain political circles in the West, mostly from the left side, and after them: the media, picked up the term enthusiastically). The Saudis are the biggest mnoney-giver to the Isamic mission in Europe. Their institutions often are breeding grounds of Wahabitism and pure Islam, translating into fundamentalism. The King Fahd academy in Germany is under constant surveillance by the office for the protection of the constitution, a German mix of Secret Service and FBI. The office demands since years to shut down the academy and rates it as a major risk. Politicians as usual claim to know it better.

[Gerald]

"Islamophobia" that word has been inflation, and the risk of extremists within the Islamic ramifications of increasing opposition to the rules themselves, leading to an increased vigilance in politics and the judiciary

[Skybird]

People should ask themselves some questions:

why is not Hindus, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, atheists, claiming special rioghts for themselves inside our communities, but in general: most of Muslim groups?

why is integration no big deal for Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, atheists migrants, but for Muslims?

Why were Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, atheist migrants not overrepresented in several categories of crime statistics (before this discmrination became forb idden to hide the unwanted truth), but Muslim migrants are?

Why are not Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, atheist migrants overrepresented in statistics on depending on social wellfare, success in school and education, job succees, but Muslims are?

How could one argue that Islam and the culture and mentality it transports has nothing to do with it, when statistics show us that time and again it is the distinctive criterion? Not only statistics, but the experiences of social workers? Streetworkers? Police? Teachers?

Why has the taregt of mobbing at schools, and school violence, shifted, why now say teachers that blackmailing, ripping off, school crime, offending, is being commited for the most from oriental gangs against native Germans?

Is this the only reaction to the problem we are capable to give: that in the media we now hide any reference to the Muslim background of a person when there is a negative report on - just a "person" ? That in Cologne the police now may ask the public if somebody has seen this suspect - but refuses to identify the suspect in background as well as in looks becasue that would tell people they are being asked for somebody from the Middle East, or a Muslim? I remember that I noted this phenomenon in the English media, too. If you read newspapers carefully, you will find both in England and Germany more and more reports where there is just the talk of a "person", a "male", a "suspect", and later somehow it gets leaked and learned that it was somebody from the Middle East region or a Muslim. Whereas a native German suspect, would get fully identified and described in looks precisely. Isn't that discrimination of native Germans?

[Gerald]

In some cases, it has become one of focus, at Muslim groups irrespective of the western country in question, the authorities have not been interested to have a dialogue for the benefit of religious societies, and in doing so, authorities may issue for the participants to deal with any back-subsidence

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Vendor

In some cases, it has become one of focus, at Muslim groups irrespective of the western country in question, the authorities have not been interested to have a dialogue for the benefit of religious societies, and in doing so, authorities may issue for the participants to deal with any back-subsidence

Pardon?

[Gerald]

There has been, and is a great deal of media focus on, among other Islamic branches, and as long as authorities do not choose to confront any problems so it may be an opposite effect

[tater]

Islam is not an "indelible trait" of some people. Ie: it is NOT "race."

Islam is belief in a set of ideas. Nothing more. being against Islam is no different than being against any other set of ideas. If it's OK to be against Republicans, or Communists, or Nazis, it's just as OK to be against Muslims (people who agree with the set of ideas called "Islam.").

It's even OK to be against—shudder—Judaism. The tricky bit with that is that starting with the Spanish Inquisition, being Jewish ceased being one who believed a set of ideas (that it is entirely legitimate to be against), and became a "blood" issue. This was because many converted (upon threat of death), and these conversos we then persecuted because even though now Catholic, their neighbors wanted to their stuff (what a surprise). So anti-semitism is a special case because it because a "race" where none really existed.

Muslims are not a "race," have not been persecuted as a race (though Muslims themselves disallow leaving on pain of death, so any problems making it a "race" should be taken up with THEM.

I dislike any backwards, misogynistic, violent set of beliefs. islam fits the bill.

[joegrundman]

Originally Posted by Rt Hon Baroness Warsi

The notion that all followers of Islam can be described either as “moderate” or “extremist” can fuel misunderstanding and intolerance, she will say.
“It’s not a big leap of imagination to predict where the talk of 'moderate’ Muslims leads; in the factory, where they’ve just hired a Muslim worker, the boss says to his employees: 'Not to worry, he’s only fairly Muslim’.
“In the school, the kids say: 'The family next door are Muslim but they’re not too bad’.

These are mixed messages.

The latter one is the easiest.

“In the school, the kids say: 'The family next door are Muslim but they’re not too bad’.

this is influenced by the most recent work of Tariq Ramadan and his "tolerance is not enough" *- she's clearly uncritically taken this attitude that tolerance implies hegemony and the power and mind to indulge others their peculiarities. Well Ramadan's latest work is not something trivial and easily dismissed.

It is to say that in a modern society, tolerance is not what is required but instead complete, from the heart, acceptance that others may be group a,b,c and that is no reason to have any kind of prejudice about them - even benevolent prejudices, just as you don't about neighbours who appear to be of your own background.

I can see where she's coming from with that, and i guess it does represent some kind of ideal state, but she is clearly relating this not to a universal ideal but specifically to the case of Muslims who are singled out for suspicion in a way quite removed from the experience of Jews, Hindus, Chinese, Poles or other non-Anglo-Christian groups. In her comment here it is as if to say this is just a general fact of not being of the main group and unrelated to anything that the muslim community of britain, europe or the world may actually be specifically doing.

I feel this is willfully ignoring the obvious

* see. Ramadan, T.A Quest for Meaning

Part 2

The notion that all followers of Islam can be described either as “moderate” or “extremist” can fuel misunderstanding and intolerance, she will say.
“It’s not a big leap of imagination to predict where the talk of 'moderate’ Muslims leads; in the factory, where they’ve just hired a Muslim worker, the boss says to his employees: 'Not to worry, he’s only fairly Muslim’.

This I'm afraid is revealing, in a way that i think she maybe didn't realise. This amounts to a confession that there is not in her mind a distinction between extremist islam and true islam.

For those in the west who have been regularly drawing distinctions for the two (including myself),we are basically hoping for a developed moderate ideology to arise that can refute the extremist narrative. In short what we would prefer is not to diminish moderates as "fairly muslim", but to be able to diminish extremists as "not real muslims"

Warsi tells us that in her discourse the opposite perception is, if anything, the true one and that she identifies extremist islam as real islam and fears moderate islam will be portrayed as the fake version.

this whole muslim relations story is getting worse, not better. How can the fanatics not be invigorated by the obvious signs of western war weariness in afghanistan? How come no one here has even commented on the highly consequential murder of Salman Taseer in Pakistan?