Are They Right Not To Trust Them?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2432880/More-quarter-young-adults-Britain-trust-Muslims.html

This survey was carried out among the young, I would think that the figures would have been much higher among the more elderly.

We all know that it is only a small minority of Muslims who commit such horrendous attacks such as 'The Twin Towers' 'The London Bus and Tube Attacks', 'The Murder of Lee Rigby' and more recently 'The Kenyan Shopping Mall Terror Attack', and 'The attack carried out on the Christian church in Pakistan'.

But are these not sufficient to instil fear and mistrust?

[sp1814]

emmie

No - sorry, when I refer to both sides, I'm talking about the fanatics on both sides.

Not me.

As to the rest of your post, I have to say - read it twice and I don't understand when you're saying.

[LazyGun]

@ Sandy. I would rather our culture evolves under the influence of all who participate within it, rather than to graft on or adopt standards of clothing and behaviour based around historical cultural norms and policed by adherence to religious observance.

[sp1814]

razza

Okay - using the paedophile as an example - has that changed the way you view people in general? Or men?

Is your default position 'mistrust'?

I think that's the difference between me and some of the other contributors to this thread. I do not (by default) mistrust anyone.

But then again, I don't by default trust anyone. You have to earn it either way.

I think this goes back to my upbringing - I was surrounded by people of different races and religions and the effect has been that I see the person first and the traits second.

[emmie]

you said it's easy to fear what we don't know, i said but some do know, they see their areas turning into ghettoes, divided on ethnic lines, and i don't really recall that, people did integrate, i am not convinced that is happening now. As a gay man one assumes that your Muslim friends are happy as larry for you, but many are not, it is against their religious belief... is it not?

[emmie]

what fanatics by the way, our so called fanatics, like the EDL, have they killed for their skewed beliefs?

[sp1814]

emmie - exactly!

My experience of Muslims has been entirely positive. Thanks goodness, eh?

[sp1814]

emmie

Oh and with regards to fanatics, what I mean are those who are more interested in 'testosterone-based activities'.

[Sqad]

LazyGun

\\\ I would rather our culture evolves under the influence of all who participate within it, rather than to graft on or adopt standards of clothing and behaviour based around historical cultural norms and policed by adherence to religious observance. \\

"And so say all of us"

But it aint gonna happen, it hasn't in history and i can't see a change for the future. The problem is.......is Islamisation a threat and what can be done about it? Are peoples concerns rational?

[sp1814]

But this is going off topic - my point is that I'm not one of those people who automatically mistrusts someone based on religion or race.

I know that many are like that - but I can't understand that mindset.

[emmie]

good for you, however not all Muslims are happy with life in Britain, in the sense of it's liberal attitudes, perhaps the younger ones will be more open minded... and the ones after them, but if you are brought up in a faith that does not agree with homosexuality because of what it says in the Qu-ran, then how does that square with your friends, or any Muslim for that matter.

[ck1]

How many people don't trust staffy bull terriers? There are a few highlighted incidents on the news about them attacking kids and suddenly the whole breed is going to eat you. It's not necessarily right, but the events do instil a degree of caution into us which I think is natural. We have survived so long for having the ability to judge danger even if there's no immediate threat

[emmie]

footballers then, they are full of bull and testosterone....

[ludwig]

I trust the Sunnis but not the Shias. The Shias are horrible. I know that because a Sunni told me. He said 'Never trust a Shia. They're horrible.'.
It might have been the other way around actually. I wasn't paying much attention to be honest.

It's a bit like Tom Cruise. On the surface, a perfectly decent well adjusted individual, but in the back of your mind you're thinking 'Hmmm. You're signed up to a weird cult mate'.

[andy-hughes]

The major problem thrown up by the link in the OP is the fact that most of us receive our 'education' about Muslims from the national media.

The media is not in the business of telling us that the majority of Muslims are peace-loving people, that is not news, it does not sell papers, or make people watch telvision.

What sells papers and encourages viewing is attrocities which lead to fear, hatred and bigotry - which in forms a serioulsy large mass of public perception and thinking.

If, as a media receiverd, I am constantly advised that the bombs and terrorism come from Muslims who want to take over the world, it is not unreasonable of me to assume that Muslims are bad people to be feared and hated.

But the media does not represent all Muslms, any more than its attempts to demostrate that entertainers and actors are abusers.

In some cases, some are, but the hiuge majority are not - but they do not receive the media focus.

So, a large part of our fear and distrust can be laid fairly and squarely with the media we have, including rolling news, where the most insiginficant incident will be expanded to fill acres of time on a slow news day.

If we can educate our people that our media are far less to be trusted than other faiths and cultures, maybe young people will not grow up in such fear and ignorance.

[Sqad]

andy.........LOL......you are my favourite contributor......honestly you are.

One cannot blame the media for reporting atrocities due to fanatics, ANY fanatics at the time of incident.

Would you rather not know?

However i agree with the rest of your post.

[ck1]

good point andy, although what the media reports is correct, yes it is unfairly biased to show the bad stuff but it still happens. If next to every story about a suicide bomber there was a story about a muslim family doing charity work or adopting needy kids to include balance, the result would still be the same as a generalised perception that they shouldn't be trusted

[andy-hughes]

ck1 - I understand what constitutes 'news' but the spin put on it by the tabloids leads impressionable people to assume that all Muslims are terrorists and bombers.

Fostering, and indeed creatring distrust and fear is not the job of the news media - we are following in the footsteps of the American media, which constantly whips people into a state of paranoia, without serious foundation.

[sp1814]

emmie

Perhaps young Muslims are like young Christians. They too are brought up to believe homosexuality is a sin, but there are degrees of faith aren't there? Not all Christians spend every weekend marching up and down shouting about the wages of sin etc etc...

I assume it's the same with Muslims.

Actually, it must be! Otherwise I wouldn't have any Muslim mate...!

[sandyRoe]

We don't hear as much about the Shi'ites as we once did. Why have they dropped out of the picture?

[LazyGun]

@ Sqad - Its there that I think you and I disagree - that cultures change over time. Our culture has changed, remarkably, over just, say the last 2 decades in its view of and approach towards gay marriage and homosexuality, for instance. You might not agree with the actual changes personally, but you cannot deny just how rapidly our society has changed. The same goes for religious observance - many more people nowadays self-identify as lacking in religion or positively endorsing atheism, again in the space of a few short decades. And you can chart the same changes in cultural attitudes over a very short period of time for smoking, for drinking, in our attitudes towards sex as a whole.

Thats the pace of change within our culture. And 2nd subsequent generations of immigrants or people from different cultural or ethnic backgrounds change as well.

So I really cannot see any threat of "Islamisation of the West". What I do see is the very real "threat" - or at least a threat when viewed by your average zealot, fanatic or fundamentalist - of Westernisation/ Secularisation of their cultures, and I believe that change is inexorable. Which explains to me in part at least, why the extremists sometimes take the measures they do.