Sorry Ben, Not comparing Sooty to them, comparing the message. I will read your above list of Many I know already have recanted and said they were misinterpreted. I can express condolences and sadness also, that doesn't mean they are steadfastly against it.
I am offended by the violent acts described. It was a wrong assumption that I wasn't.
I am concerned by the avatar and let's face it the name "sooty" is also a racial slur
used it America in the 50's and dying out now in England.
By definition it means, "blackest of the black."
That photo would not be allowed in any public building in the U.S.
The same as a photo of Hitler, a swastika or the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.
I'm not the pc police and am not swinging from the left.
He has not explained, rationalized or defended the avatar and name.
Is it meant to be irreverent humor?
The worst thing about the use of racial photos and words is that some people do not do anything when they see or hear it.
People agree that it's unacceptable but do not say or do anything about it.
American black police association ...http://www.blackpolice.org
American Black lawyers association ....http://www.nationalbar.org/index2.shtml
What hypocrites... There is little difference between these organizations and the beliefs of Louis Farrakhan..they all hate white people
Let's digress for a moment. What bothers you here, the message or the avatar, this is a rhetorical question not directed at anyone. Would Sooty be less condemned if he had, let's Say Curly Howard or Pope John Paul II as his avatar. No, it's the message that seems to piss some people off and that he has a controversial avatar directs even greater attacks.
Let's take Ben's latest post, so many clerics condemning these outrageous attacks. Well not much has been accomplished with the condemnation rhetoric.The killing and capture of Al Qaeda elite has been a joint effort of the allies. Intelligence has been difficulto because they are afraid to talk. Bin Laden has a 25 million dollar bounty on his ass and he hasn't been turned in. To me it's just a smoke screen. Buying time. What Churchill saw over 100 years ago hasn't changed one iota. I mean really I'm sure there were some real fine Germans under the Third Reich, didn't change much what happened in the 30's and 40's. Or their loyalty to their homeland. In this case religion.
The fine Islamists in the states that have caught in sleeper cells. Sent their children to schools and were quiet upstanding citizens. So what happened?? Threats on airplanes of blowing them up then filing suit that their rights were violated when they were kicked off. This is a well construed plan. Sadly we haven't seen the end of the bloodshed.
I appreciate Bens wishful thinking but I'll start with his first candidate of peace, Mustafa Mashhur. He was the head of the Muslim Brotherhood.
This group is dedicated to the credo:
Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.
Since its inception in 1928 the movement has officially opposed violent means to achieve its goals, with some exceptions such as in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or to overthrow secular Ba'athist rule in Syria. This group was involved in the Hama massacre. So much for peace. My question, how do you oppose violence with exception? The brotherhood has been involved in violence on many occasions.
Let's look at some sincerity from this brotherhood:
U.S. White House counterterrorism chief Juan Zarate, who says "The Muslim Brotherhood is a group that worries us not because it deals with philosophical or ideological ideas but because it defends the use of violence against civilians."
Columnist and former Kuwaiti official Dr. Ahmad Al-Rabi, who has written that the "beginnings of all of the religious terrorism that we are witnessing today were in the Muslim Brotherhood's ideology.
Raymond Ibrahim, editor of The Al Qaeda Reader, who notes that Muhammad himself described war as "deceit" and that Muslim Brotherhood disciples, past and present, merely duplicate the "everlasting words of Allah," as iterated in the Qur'an.
Douglas Farah, a veteran international reporter who describes current Muslim Brotherhood propaganda as a "charm offensive.
Former U.S. Middle East peace envoy Dennis Ross, who told Asharq Alawsat newspaper that the Muslim Brotherhood is a global, not a local organization, governed by a Shura Council, which rejects cessation of violence in Israel, and supports violence to achieve its political objectives elsewhere too.
Magdy Khalil, executive editor of Egypt's Watani International, who reports consistent MB deceit concerning Egypt's 12.5% Coptic Christian population, so as to oppress and dhimmify them.
According to Rachel Aspden's article, 'The Rise of the Brotherhood,' The Muslim Brotherhood currently advocates suicide bombing attacks on civilians to fight Zionism, and its Palestinian wing Hamas targets both civilians and the military in Israel.
Ben, thanks for the interesting Sunday reading, I'm now going to read about your next peace
Double standard? I have only commented on one thing, your avatar and name.
I would have called out "Sooty" regardless of what thread he posted on.
By the way, I do have a life and it is not polluted by racism.
I say again, explain your avatar and name. Or will you refuse and add another name for me?
Nas, it's not the message that's bothering me, it's the poster. Again, I would call him out on any forum, not just this thread.
TD I'm playing devils advocate here, If I would use Alan Keyes as my avatar, would that be racial since I'm white? By the way I voted for Keyes in a past presidential primary.
You may be the only one here that it offends, I think the others it's the message, the avatar is a byproduct of the disagreement.
Nas, No problem with Alan Keyes as your avatar. I don't see that as racist. How about Fredrick Douglas, Jackie Robinson or Micheal Jordan?
I just would not attach the screen name "Sooty" to them.
Nasfan, I just realized that you are a real jerk and a complete idiot! The Muslim Brotherhood had been banned in Egypt, for many years, from having any representation or of any legal political participation. The name itself is banned from use in any form because of their history of promoting violence. One more time: SHUT UP!
You asked for 10 Muslims leaders who condemned terrorist attacks. I gave you about 100. When did I say there where leaders of peace. Don't twist my words.
Ben they didn't condemn the attacks if they support terrorism, who's twisting words? That's a real stretch buddy.Also very weak. That's like saying, you know, that Bin laden fella, he's just a misunderstood Saudi. You know, if we just reached out to him, he wouldn't attack us. LOL. A honest condemnation of the attacks also would have a grassroots swelling with the people, it's all smoke.
ragingbull, I appreciate your thoughtful comments.
Sooty, your name & avatar reveal much. In Russia or Ukraine, you can find many like-minded people.
My short answer to Sooty's question: No, Russia can't follow Britain, because (A) it has had a big Muslim population for a long time (the general trend of the last 25 years being downward), and (B) Russia is not a liberal democracy that will go far to practice tolerance or equality. If you want details, read on.
For everyone's information: "multiracial Muslim experiment" suggests some confusion. Muslim is not a race. The world's Muslim population is very diverse ethnically and linguistically, with no really dominant nationality -- most Muslims are not Arabs, nor do they speak Arabic as their first language. In Britain, a large proportion of ethnic minority people (whose ethnic heritage is not northern European) are not Muslim -- they are Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Jews, etc. And like other countries, Britain has Muslims who are from the ethnic majority. So it seems to me, that mixing race and religion is a way of stirring up the mud.
Since this forum supposed to be about dating, and "the multiracial Muslim experiment of Britain" doesn't seem to have a lot to do with dating, let me try and shift course a bit in a direction relevant to ... dating! In my opinion, if I want to connect with women from the Russian-speaking world, it will help if I learn about that world -- especially its culture, and the history that shaped it.
I haven't read all of the posts in this thread, but they seem to come only from a Western point of view. This is the kind of thing that many Russians despise about us: we think that "our world" is "the world," and don't bother to learn how they see things.
HISTORY: If you look at history, Sooty's question doesn't make sense. Whether you go by religion (Islam), language (Arabic, Turkish, Hindi etc.), geographic origin (middle east, south asia), or highly pigmented skin, Western Europe had, until about 50 years ago, a very tiny population percentage of the kind of people Sooty is afraid of. As Western Europe became one of the world's most prosperous regions, and birth rates fell, there was the big labor shortage that always happens such cases. And most of the cheap immigrant labor came from the near east. And Western Europe, which lacks America's melting pot tradition, has done a lousy job of assimilating these immigrants -- they often life in ethnic ghettos, have high unemployment, and don't see themselves as a part of the countries where they live.
Russia's history with Muslims is really, really different. Russia didn't become a land with a huge Muslim population through immigration. Russia conquered, by sword and gunpowder in numerous bloody campaigns, vast stretches of territory that had majority Muslim populations. [I recommend reading this history - it's fascinating. And if you wonder how Muslim countries got to be the way they are today, Russia had an important role in shaping many of them.] These conquests mostly took place quite a few generations ago, so the encounter of Russia with the Muslim world is nothing new.
One of the great things about the USA is that citizens are generally recognized as having one nationality. In Soviet days, the internal passports that every person was required to carry listed the person's nationality: it only said Russian if you were considered a true ethnic Russian. For a Jew who looked like any of his neighbors, who spoke only Russian and only knew Russian culture, whose parents and grandparents and great-grandparents had all lived in Russia, the nationality was given as Jewish. If you were from Kazan, your passport probably said Tatar. Etc, etc, etc. The Soviet Union had so many people whose origins were in the Caucasus, central Asian steppes, etc., that by the end of the Soviet era, the great fear was that the proportion of "Russians" was approaching one-half.
When the Soviet Union broke apart, Russia "spun off" most of its Muslim population into new states, and yes, with the boom of Russian oil money, the labor shortage in some areas (especially construction in Moscow) has been met by an influx of millions of workers from these former republics, a very high proportion being Muslim, and the great majority speaking Russian.
But even without these migrant workers, BETWEEN 5 AND 10 PERCENT OF NON-IMMIGRANT RUSSIAN CITIZENS ARE MUSLIMS. Most countries of Western Europe have a smaller propertion of Muslims; France has had a large Muslim population for some time (a consequence of colonizing north Africa); other countries of Western Europe have only exceeded the 5% level quite recently. Russia's percentage of Muslims greatly DECREASED as a result of the Soviet breakup, and the "backwash" of migrant workers (many of whom will be returning to their home countries) is only a part-way return to the percentages of Soviet times.
So I guess Sooty wants to compare Britain's "experiment" of recent years to more than 150 years of Russian history with Muslim populations.
CULTURE: It's no secret that Russia has a fairly large and violent White Supremacist movement. Racial murders have become frequent. There seems to be a real overlap between these skinhead types, and the more reasonable-looking nationalist parties with millions of followers. In America and Western Europe, displays of bigotry can get strong negative reactions; it's not this way in Russia. If you google "David Duke Russia Ukraine", you can learn how one of America's most pathetic moral cripples (a one-time KKK leader), massively despised and rejected in his home country, has gotten a great reception in the Russian-speaking world.
People from the Caucasus are commonly referred to as "blacks" (they usually look and sound different fro
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