Renewed warnings of extremism on UK university campuses
http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2015/ ... y-campuses

According to the new research, "The speakers featured have suggested that there is a Western war against Islam; supported individuals convicted of terrorism offences; expressed intolerance of non-believers and/or minorities; and espoused religious law as a method of socio-political governance – opposing democracy in the process."

The report notes the high volume of students involved in Islamist inspired terror attacks who were studying at UK universities when they were believed to have been radicalised.

Events were "most likely to take place in London," and several guest speakers appeared in reports repeatedly. The University of Westminster, Queen Mary University of London, the School of Oriental and African Studies, Aston University and King's College London among others all featured regularly in lists of 'worst offenders' for the number and type of events held with radical preachers.

From data gathered at universities across the UK, the report found that the majority of events with extremist speakers "host just one orator, and rarely act as debates. Instead, they tend to function as unchallenged platforms where extreme or intolerant speakers are presented as religious or political authorities."

A very small volume of planned events featuring extremist speakers at university campuses were cancelled.

In contrast, the report also notes instances of secularist speakers and atheist students being harassed or having their events "violently threatened" by Islamists.

I wonder if this is happening everywhere and not just the UK?
you may name call me Cassandra

Fucking Musselmen, clearly the solution is to ban Islam and anyone who doesn't like that can leave.

http://www.secularism.org.uk/blog/2015/ ... a-delusion

Islamists are again using the victims of anti-Muslim bigotry to advance their agenda. Once again, a British university has aided this project in a conference on 'Islamophobia' which undermined and demonised ex-Muslims as "McCarthyites".

better here than a 2nd thread

The Kurdistan Secular Centre (KSC) is appealing for international help and support to promote secularism and the separation of religion and state.

http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2015/ ... al-support

or even a 3rd one

Over here we had this:

Blesk wrote that the Arab refugees brutally attacked activists promoting a petition against immigrants in the street of Olomouc, north Moravia, a few days ago, LN writes.

The far-right initiative We do not Want Islam in the Czech Republic, which launched the petition campaign against accepting refugees in reaction to the obligatory quotas proposed by the EU, released the news about the violent attack on its website as well.

But the Czech police present a very different version of the incident that occurred in Olomouc last Friday, LN writes.

First, the attackers were not Arab immigrants but a group of 15 medicine students from Pakistan, Egypt and Iraq who were going to have lunch after the Friday prayer.

Olomouc's Palacky University has been teaching foreigners for nearly 30 years, and some of them settle in the country, while others move abroad, the paper says.

Second, one of the students verbally protested against a crossed-out picture of a mosque, which is the logo of the initiative, but no physical violence occurred. Other Muslim students had a similar quarrel with the anti-Islam activists on Thursday.

http://praguemonitor.com/2015/06/04/ln- ... m-campaign

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edit: Blesk is owned by Daily Mail I think ;)

edit1: It was quite a deal for the Uni, officials explained, as on one hand (tearing down of leaflet occurred) there were concerns about freedom of speech and expression awareness of involved foreign students on the other the Uni does want people from all over to come in granted they have something to offer to academia as the Uni ideology is research not religion or politics.

one of the students verbally protested against a crossed-out picture of a mosque

one mans verbal protest


is another mans WTF


1 million Muslem mens bums pointing directly at me, ready to fire with one pull of the finger, well I think that gets a protests point over better

Our daily dose of less-than-coherent fear-mongering!

So the answer to your question is probably positive, situation is different elsewhere. I guess you can thank to colonial ambitions or rather capitalized upon opportunities in past for your situation ;) The US one is particularly interesting as there is relatively large group of Muslims yet they don't want to behead anyone.

Well that is one of the excuses I've heard;
the British Empire was to blame for everything in the Middle East...
but never a word about the Ottoman Empire…

then add the social justice warriors (SJW), who I presume are the Student Union. Who associate with CAGE* who add a traction to what I’ve heard some call "white mans guilt". Its playing right into the Islamists hands. You’re a villain if you say anything, a villain if you don’t, and a SJW loves to hate a villain.
It is a narrative which even University graduates are not immune from. One of the terrorists in the 2007 Glasgow attack was a qualified Doctor. Jahadi John went to University too.

The above features are about breaking that SJW link and well as the passive supporter of Islamism?

*(CAGE was the group whose leader said Jahadi John was a great guy, it was counter terrorist officers who made him hack heads off)

Excuses .. well, the world is global and complex. It is possible that when butterfly waves wings in Amazon it will have influence over weather in UK in couple of weeks. It was a joke, however, as with any problem identifying causes can help with finding solution. It was suggested several times, for example with connection to debate over criminality in Denmark, that there is more than a single cause and more importantly it is perhaps social problem rather than religious one.

I say excuses because The Ottoman Empire was brutal, and that brutality, like the Armenian genocide, gets ignored or denied quite abit by some Muslims, because why? Islam can do no wrong and saying it does might lead to saying Muhammad did a few genocides as well, so was he wrong too?

It is certainly something extra. You don't turn from unreligious to someone willing to explode for Allah in a few months, and that is all it seems to take.

But then America used to have kids run away to join cults back in the 60's and they had to be kidnapped and de-brainwashed. Is this something part of the basic religion or religion plus I really don't know. But it is very effective.

Anything one holds too dear or too high regard can influence ones judgement or sanity.

wise words there tuco

tuco wrote:Excuses .. well, the world is global and complex. It is possible that when butterfly waves wings in Amazon it will have influence over weather in UK in couple of weeks. It was a joke, however, as with any problem identifying causes can help with finding solution. It was suggested several times, for example with connection to debate over criminality in Denmark, that there is more than a single cause and more importantly it is perhaps social problem rather than religious one.

Very much agreed. The world if too complex for the simplistic renditions anti-Muslim bigots to be even worth the space they take up.

The model from Denmark is the Aarhus model: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33344898

Recognising these social factors is extremely important, particularly when anti-Muslim bigots are clamouring for Muslims to have their liberties curtailed. What's odd is how easily the anti-Muslim bigots emulate that which they supposedly despise - stoking up fear and hatred against a garbled group of their own manufacturing, appealing for Muslims to be treated as second class citizens who should be kept under observation, and treated as criminals due to the actions of a tiny fraction of Muslims. From what I can tell, the way anti-Muslim bigots want to address the problem of Islamic violence is by converting our nations into anti-democratic tyrannies.

Fortunately, they're still in a very tiny, but obscenely vocal minority. I think most Europeans learned the harsh lessons of WW2 and are not so ready to fall back into these destructive patterns.

Peter Brown wrote:Well that is one of the excuses I've heard;
the British Empire was to blame for everything in the Middle East...
but never a word about the Ottoman Empire…

The Ottoman Empire was broken up in the treaty of Sèvres, and Western colonial powers drew national lines on a map that paid no attention to mere trifles like ethnic, cultural, religious, social, or historical differences. Tension and conflict were quite literally drawn into the next century with a pencil.

Whether the Ottoman Empire was bad or not is entirely irrelevant with respect to what happened after the Ottoman Empire was dissolved.

Peter Brown wrote:I say excuses because The Ottoman Empire was brutal, and that brutality, like the Armenian genocide, gets ignored or denied quite abit by some Muslims, because why? Islam can do no wrong and saying it does might lead to saying Muhammad did a few genocides as well, so was he wrong too?

Again, it's just irrelevant with respect to occurrences that happened after the Ottoman Empire was dissolved and redrawn by Western powers. A red herring.

The British Empire was an Empire, and so was the Ottoman. Both used draconian measures to stay in power. Only one gets blamed by certain political Muslim groups.
The Crusades were a call to a Christian vs Muslim holy war. The Jihad was also a holy war of Muslims vs everyone else. Jihad is only the Arab word for Crusader in this context. One is still blamed for all the atrocities they did, the other isn’t, and the atrocities even get denied by revisionism.

Peter Brown wrote:The British Empire was an Empire, and so was the Ottoman.

Thanks for pointing that out for us - I am sure no one could possibly have known otherwise.

Peter Brown wrote: Both used draconian measures to stay in power.

To 'stay in power' of what? Please try to make some sense here.

Peter Brown wrote:Only one gets blamed by certain political Muslim groups.

Am I a political Muslim group, Peter? Am I part of a political Muslim group, Peter?

No, I'm not. And once again, you miss the point. No one is 'blaming' anyone for anything. What people are doing is acknowledging the hard evidence of history.

Peter Brown wrote:The Crusades were a call to a Christian vs Muslim holy war.

Wrong again, old chap. You should do the research *first* then expound on a specialist topic. There were also crusades against the pagans, such as the Norwegians, the Wendish, the Old Prussian, and the Livonians; against other Christians such as the Byzantine Empire, and numerous threats of crusades against Bohemia; and against heretics, such as the Albigensian/Cathar crusade where the dear Christian lord Arnaud-Amaury was recorded as replying to a question regarding how they would know the good Christian population of one city from the heretics: "Caedite eos! Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius" – "Kill them all - god will know his own!"

Peter Brown wrote:The Jihad was also a holy war of Muslims vs everyone else.

No, not against 'everyone else', Peter. This is complete hogwash again.

Peter Brown wrote:Jihad is only the Arab word for Crusader in this context.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Peter Brown wrote:One is still blamed for all the atrocities they did, the other isn’t, and the atrocities even get denied by revisionism.

Not quite. There are 2 different sides to this, and their narrative always posits the other as the perpetrator of atrocities.

In Europe, the Crusades were to 'reclaim the Holy land' - as if Christianity had ever been in possession of that 'holy' land in the first place. The great knights and noble kings heading off to protect Christian holdings. And what land was it? Well, just everything on the Mediterranean coast of near Asia. It would have been more accurate had they been crusading to restore ancient Greek paganism.

Meanwhile, Muslims in these countries get the narrative of being attacked by the heathen empires of Europe, murdering and pillaging the good Muslims.

Both sides are self-justifying and can only do so because there's no outright winner to write the history.

But more interestingly is how you still keep revising history to fit your personalized narrative, even when you've been repeatedly challenged and shown lacking in relevant knowledge about these periods. So before you call the pot black, go do some basic research, eh?

Peter Brown wrote:Pat Condell

Pat is not a credible source, Peter. He is a comedian who stopped being funny. It's one part of the echo-chamber which has radicalized you into absurd positions.

sorry, all I can see is you going out of your way to not even recognise my opinion. For you the elephant in the room will never exist and well I'm not sure what the and is just that there is an and

Peter Brown wrote:sorry, all I can see is you going out of your way to not even recognise my opinion.

Oh, I recognise your opinion, Peter - the fact that I've spent considerable time debunking it so efficiently that you can't even acknowledge the challenges I've made to that position shows this - the problem is that your opinion isn't worth anything on a site dedicated to rational skepticism if it doesn't accord with the evidence.

Peter Brown wrote:For you the elephant in the room will never exist and well I'm not sure what the and is just that there is an and

For me, your posts ARE the elephant in the room, Peter. I mean that quite seriously.

Also, please stop for a moment and consider the number of people who have responded negatively to your position. Do you think it's because all these people are gullible, or so PC they will wipe anyway any misdemeanour in order to be hip, or that they all just want to wail on the Gospel according to Peter?

Or do they have a point that *you* continuously fail to acknowledge?

Why would it be everyone else who can't see the elephant in the room, Peter? Have you considered it's just you?

Peter, don't you think sometimes you're a tad obsessed with all this stuff?

No matter how we huff and puff, Islam is still the Muslims thing to deal with. We can't really do a whole lot about curbing fundamentalism, other than using debate to show people better ways and better ideas. I'd be in favor of letting those fundamentalist speakers onto the campuses in order to engage them intellectually.

and numerous threats of crusades against Bohemia;

More than just threats.