Terror attacks in France and Tunisia/now

Yes, I know what you said durhamjen.

Anya doesn't need anyone to 'stick up for her' as you phrase it so childishly.

I was commenting on the objectionable and dismissive language in your post.

Granjura, I suppose if the responses get too bad it could be reported on the link I gave earlier. It could be incitement to hatred.

I've just checked- and only one person commented- and no negative/racist/etc comments.

That link is not what I asked for. I have searched myself and found no evidence that British Muslims are prepared to march in protest as those in Tunisia did last night.

There are two reasons I can see for their reticence. One, yes, is fear and intimidation, especially those who live in poor, predominately Muslim areas of the UK and what is effectively a monoculture.

The other is the one I have observed in my anglicised and mainly middle class muslim friends - they don't think this is anything to do with them as they have largely distanced themselves from their own culture.

So between those who are intimidated and those who are distanced there is little communication and little hope for an organised response, just a few words from mainly elderly Imand will do little.

Maybe Muslims should mobilise and march to demonstrate their horror at this latest atrocity in Tunisia.

Other groups could just as well mobilise against the situation in the Middle East. I don't know how many have.

I remember joining the million or so who marched to demonstrate strong disagreement and horror at the invasion of Iraq (fat lot of good that it did).

"Dr Qadri told The Independent that he would raise the idea of a march at a meeting of up to 700 imams, community activists, students and other people interested in his ideas in London.

Such a public demonstration would “show that the Muslim community at large, they are for peace, they are against any kind of terrorism, they are not silent, they are vocal and they don’t condone, they condemn it,” he said, echoing David Cameron’s controversial remarks earlier this month that some British Muslim communities “quietly condone” the “poisonous ideology” of Isis."

From the Independent, petallus. He agrees with you. He regularly receives death threats, so he's brave.

Are you sure he was 'echoing David Cameron's remarks' durhamjen?

We can't just ignore what colonial powers have done in the past - the exploitation of natural resources of other countries, the creation of artificial borders for the west's own strategic and economic benefit, the brutal subjugation of whole countries and their inhabitants.

Anya You may dislike some of the comments made but we are usually told not to "shout" by typing in upper case and I think your comments come across as very aggressive. Desecration of graves is not the same as massacring people but it is often these sorts of acts of hatred that are the precursor to the increasingly brutal persecution of certain groups - as happened in Nazi Germany and in the southern states of the USA. They are generally carried out by people who have not been personally affected but who seize the opportunity to express their own prejudices - in much the same way as people become emboldened to express anti-Muslim feelings when an act of this nature occurs.

Whatever one feels about any religion and those who practise it (and I distrust most religions) I don't think that demanding Muslims "prove" their abhorrence of violent acts supposedly carried out in the name of Islam is likely to be helpful. If people are treated as if they are individually responsible for the acts of mad men they will become further alienated and separate - and surely that makes the situation even more dangerous?

As for jingle saying that she was leaving the thread because people were dwelling on "miserable things" - the thread was about the massacre of dozens of defenceless people on a beach so it was hardly a barrel of laughs to start with.

Eloethan you often sound quite aggressive yourself as do many people when they are annoyed by stupid posts. But it is not up to you to 'tell people off' like some prim little old HT.

You might think capital letters are shouty, but they have other uses that may not have occurred to you...they are used to emphasise. And,if I feel the occasional need to use them, I will.

I think you will find that many people are somewhat dismayed by the lack of a visible and emphatic response from British Muslims. Yes, French Muslims made their feelings clear after the massacre in Paris and it was noted and did much to show French citizens where most of their muslim fellow countrymen stood.

In Northern Ireland during 'the troubles' a group of womeh from all demonimations marched to show their abhorence at the violence.

No one is 'demanding' that Muslims do something similar, if you read the posts you will see we are asking why they haven't and suggesting it might make a strong statement.

As for focusing on the past, we need to deal with the presen we are living in dangerous times.

To be fair to David Cameron, there have been polls in the USA, not sure about here, that show that about 30% of muslims are sympathetic to ISIL.[but cant find this on google. It could have been a poll done by Fox News].
But there are bound to be some.
There will even be some amongst non muslims.

In France the poll was 15% [I can find this on google]

louderwithcrowder.com/new-poll-majority-of-american-muslims-want-sharia-shocking-numbers-on-jihad/

But that is in the USA so not sure that that is comparable to here.

insider.foxnews.com/2015/02/25/london-istan-poll-finds-27-percent-british-muslims-sympathize-paris-attacks

Now I have managed to find the polls, my post of 7.27am wasnt a very accurate memory recall.

I think that forgiveness is important.

To be fair, I have not had terrible things done against me or my family, so I am not really the best person to say this.

I used to think that we should only forgive if the person or organisation has said sorry. But as I have learnt more, I realise that that is wrong.

I think that forgiveness is actually very important for ourselves.
Otherwise, and here I am guessing, there is a build up, of anger over the years?

I dont know about the timescale either. It is natural to feel a whole range of emotions after an attrocity. Totally normal.
And again I am guessing, the larger the attrocity, the more the confusion at the time, the length of time it went on for etc, the harder and longer length of time to process.

But at some point, I do think that there needs to be forgiveness.

Soontobe. Are you referring to recent atrocities? If that's a yes, do you really think that forgiveness will change a terrorists mindset.

Forgiveness was what moved things forward in S Africa, so it has to be part of the equation - but we also need to make sure that our defences against these atrocities are as robust as we can make them.

I'm not so sure about forgiving the perpetrator of hideous atrocities that directly affect you, I think you would have to be a very special sort of person to be able to do that, and I wouldn't think it would change the mindset of a terrorist one iota. However, I do think, as previously stated, that to carry blame and recrimination into subsequent generations is wrong and counter productive. For sure terrible and deeply stupid things have been done by people to people over the centuries, but to expect future generations to feel guilty about events over which they had absolutely no control due to the fact that they were very young or weren't even born is for me plain ridiculous and detrimental to moving forward to a hopefully better future. . None of us can alter the past and what's done is done, but we can hopefully, learn by it. This of course is just my opinion and by no means a lecture!!

I probably did not express myself clearly in my last post.

I imagine if I were a Muslim I would abhor events like the one in Tunisia because it is going much too far. However I might also have a sense of injustice that there has been no real stand made by non Muslims in protest against persecution of Muslims, particularly in the Middle East where whole families are slaughtered in one go and children are shot in the streets.

For this reason I would not March.

I think Cameron understands this which is why he suspects some Muslims are quietly supporting terrorist behaviour.

Anya, a group of people in NI took part in a march - we now remember it as Bloody Sunday , British citizens gunned down by the British army

But petallus what could such a march achieve? Western troops spent years trying to protect civillians in the middle east, and are now endeavouring to train troops out there to protect their own population. What else can we do?

petra, I am referring to all atrocities.

Forgiveness is a bit infectious.

But do I currently think that that will have much effect on ISIL at this present time? No.

Northern Ireland was a completely different situation. There were two opposing sides plus the British Army.

In this current situation it would simply be the good guys demonstrating against the bad guys.

Muslims are not just Muslims. There are sects just as there are in the Christian Church. The ISIS is massacring Shia Muslims - the mosque in Kuwait is a horrible example of this. The people they have killed en masse in Palmyra were Muslims. They just do not care whom they massacre on their way to world domination. In the Balkans, Orthodox Christians and Catholic Christians fought in a bitter conflict, remembering hundreds of year old wrongs. In Northern Ireland, two tribes, calling themselves Christians, have fought an increasingly senseless battle which never seems to be quite over. Sectarianism, tribalism...whatever it's called, seems to have a nasty little niche in the human psyche.

S0metimes I feel like posting, "I wish the village idiot wouldn't keep popping up". But I won't.

that wasn't directed at you anno!