Oligarch: I wasn't claiming that Europe as a whole was multicultural now, merely that it wasn't in the past. Some parts certainly have changed, but many haven't. In fact, some countries, particularly in eastern Europe, are decidedly more mono-cultural now than they have been for a long time, if ever.

Pericles: I personally think the whole so-called War on Terror is a farce from an economic point of view (amongst others). If the U.S. and other Western governments had wanted to "save lives" then they could have invested that money in any one of a number of schemes (road/car safety, prevention of major lifestyle diseases, etc.) that would have paid much greater dividends. Or, they could have put all that money into energy research so we could one day wean ourselves off oil and then not have to be embroiled in a completely crazy part of the world that is not content to drag itself back to the Dark Ages, but sees that as its greatest potential world export/contribution to human civilisation.

Pericles, it was not my intention to tar every muslim with the seditious brush, but to tar the religion itself. Sorry for the confusion. (poor expression)

As I've said many times, it's not the majority who carry out the sedition, its a minority of radicals who take their religion to heart to the point where they see an 'Enemy of Islam' under every rock and behind every green tree. Hence we have numbers of radical (Quranic) Muslims on trial in Sydney and Melbourne.

Philo makes the valuable point about the nature of Islam as 'political'.
Shorbe and Oligarch make the points about 'invasion by stealth' in words to that effect.
But you... you don't see a problem with a substantial Muslim minority.
Well, we are all welcome to our opinions.
Do you see a problem with defacto polygamy by Muslims ?
Do you see a problem with 1000s of Muslims raging in the streets calling for death to those who insult Mohammad or Islam ? (your turf..London)
Do you see any difficulty in the likes of Abu Izzadeen claiming "Islam will take control of UK whether you like it or not"?

Pointing out such things is not to seek to tar every muslim with the brush of idiocy or extremism, but it IS to suggest that we need to tighten up our immigration laws and actually be more selective. While one cannot claim that denying entry to Muslims would be fair to those among them who just want to 'get on with life' we can be sure that denying entry to all of them would reduce the potential for their offspring to become radical and rant in our streets. (remember the demographics of the London bombers ? "home grown")

I'll agree on one point. The money spent in Iraq would be better spent in Afghanistan and in creating allies.

BOAZ: My problem in this is not Islam as such. That's not to say that I have any respect for Islam. I don't. I'm not a particular fan of religion in general, but due to Western history, Christianity and Judaism have largely been reformed to the point where they comfortably co-exist with the secular. Islam, to the lay observer, remains mired in the Dark Ages. How, or why, could I respect that?

Anyhow, my point is not that I have a real problem with Islam. I believe it's a failed ideology, and that for Muslims to be anything other than second class citizens or second class nations, they will naturally have to reform their religion in a similar way to Christianity. In this respect, I'm in a state of mild amusement watching these clowns grappling with the realisation that once the oil runs out, no one will care about their crappy world view.

However, my real problem is with the West. To me, the decision to jump ship from a world view spawned in the Dark Ages to something better should take the average person all of about half a second. Yet, for a multitude of reasons, that isn't happening like it should. Why not? What's fundamentally amiss at the heart of postmodern, Western civilisation and how it identifies itself that not only do people not voluntarily and eagerly embrace it, but that it has such a hard time defending itself not to outsiders but to insiders (ie. Westerners)? Why, in the face of such overwhelmingly obvious idiocy, do we not laugh Islam off like we would anyone who believed in Asgard and Valhalla, but instead stand paralysed when these barbarians want to go on a rampage over some cartoons and what is supposedly one of the cornerstones of our very existence (free expression)?

Yes, my problem is with the West. It's like that quote from Fight Club, "I felt like putting a bullet between the eyes of every panda that wouldn't screw to save its species". If there is invasion by stealth, then it's because we're bloody idiots.

Ingenuous.

>>Pericles, it was not my intention to tar every muslim with the seditious brush, but to tar the religion itself<<

Unfortunately, this dividing line is often invisible to the rest of us.

How are we supposed to draw a distinction between the Boaz who excoriates Islam because he disapproves of it, and the Boaz who execrates Muslims for the perceived faults of Islam?

>>As I've said many times, it's not the majority who carry out the sedition, its a minority of radicals who take their religion to heart to the point where they see an 'Enemy of Islam' under every rock and behind every green tree<<

Many people think the same about Christian evangelists. Simply substitute "rabble-rousing" and "Christianity" for "sedition" and "Muslim", and you have defined the problem in a nutshell.

Each side has its extremists, who like nothing better than to point fingers at each other. In doing so, they stir up antipathy where none existed before except in their own heads.

Shorbe makes an interesting point.

In terms of maturity, Islam could be regarded as a rebellious teenager. Due to a confusing rush of hormones, it is not possible - for a few years at least - to treat teenagers either as children who will instinctively do as you tell them, or adults whom you can trust to listen to reason.

(To stretch the metaphor a little, the hormones in question might well be the wealth created by oil over the past thirty years, which allows them to buy guns and feel important.)

But as any parent knows, it is impossible to instruct teenagers in this state as if they were still little kids - which is the way the US and Europe have tended to treat the Middle East - nor yet treat them as rational adults.

Normally the best way to deal with the raging hormone issue is to state the boundaries clearly, and to exercise superhuman patience.

So far, with Islam, we have allowed evangelical Christianity to dictate the former, and have at the same time discarded the latter entirely.

Pericles
Islam as a teenager, with hormonal problems -an interesting analogy!

Islam as practised in some countries -like Malaysia & Indonesia, was in past centuries almost universally moderate and included many borrowings from other creeds. But in recent times its leading lights have sought to cleanse it & make it increasingly fundamentalist (read- intolerant, aggressive & shoganistic )

Would Malaysia & Indonesia be examples of the teenager regressing -or a case of a reversion to younger ways that old people sometimes experience -dysmnesia ?

Oh yes , yesterday in Turkey there was a major demonstration by secular Turks.When interviewed one of the demonstrators made a telling point.She said -The Islamisists are using democracy, when they gain the position of power they will ditch it & impose their fundamentalist model -Now if Boaz had said that -it would be bigotry -but there it was from someone on the frontline -and a non-Anglo -and non- Christian to boot!

Horus: That's something a few European nations need to wake up about. The liberal Dutch (amongst others) will quite probably find themselves being outvoted in their own country within a few decades. Then they'll face an interesting dilemma.

The problem with democracy is that as long as one has the numbers, winning is assured, regardless of whether one is a ratbag or even believes in democracy. Democracy has only been seen as a preferable system thus far because such problems have not arisen on a major scale. It will be interesting to see how Europe (and the West) react when the Netherlands starts winding back the clock back. My prediction is the fur will start to fly.