Fascism in Germany

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend . Martin Luther King jr.

When people perceive their lifestyle is under threat, and recent rhetoric is a drip drip about the causes being migration/ overcrowding, then the extremist views slowly become seen as less extreme somehow.
When governments seem to be letting it happen, then the extreme parties get listened to, and it becomes a slippery slope into Nazism.

We are also becoming more selfish, less community minded peoples.

There is a tipping point, and you cannot wipe out the racism in a culture in just one generation and it was deeply embedded in Germany, and Russian occupation of East Germany did nothing to dispel. But it is not absent here either, and we need to counter some of the rhetoric (of the 8m non-native born people in the UK, .3m are German)

What an excellent post TerriBull.

All Muslims Annie1?You are writing about a stereotype.

growstuff

All Muslims Annie1?You are writing about a stereotype.

Annie1 didn't say that at all.

You must have misread her post.

There are nearly 4 million Muslims living in the UK. Most live peacefully with their neighbours, pay their taxes and contribute to this country just like people of other faiths or no faith. Yet as soon as a Muslim does anything controversial it's seen as acceptable to stereotype the whole Muslim community. It is not. It's also unacceptable to assume that all women, regardless of faith, regard "equality" in the same way. Equality is not being told by other women how to conduct their lives, it is about "choice". Many Muslim women choose to wear the hijab, it's not the garment of oppression that some Western women think it is, nor is it required as part of religious observance. I'm fully aware that women in some religious communities are repressed by men but it's the men misrepresenting religion that are doing the oppression not the religion.

Sorry I dont believe in choicey choice feminism it tends to be utterly disastrous for women and ignores the hierarchies and oppression that shape the choice of some.

Callistemon21

growstuff

All Muslims Annie1?You are writing about a stereotype.

Annie1 didn't say that at all.

You must have misread her post.

So what percentage of Muslims did she mean?

I didn't misread anything.

^It seems it is always Muslims complaining about something that does not suit a noisy minority. If Christians emigrated to
a Muslim country do you think you would be able to ask them to change school hours or demand other customs? It just id not done.^

I'm sure that the original visas which permitted people of different faiths to emigrate to the UK didn't make that permission conditional on conforming to the 'British' way of life.

I think we should consider the fact that many of them are from countries that the British commandeered in the name of Empire and then expected the citizens to accept British laws and British way of life...

Galaxy

Sorry I dont believe in choicey choice feminism it tends to be utterly disastrous for women and ignores the hierarchies and oppression that shape the choice of some.

What's "choicesy, choice feminism"? Choice as far as I am concerned is the result of effective legislation that removes the hierarchies and oppression thus giving women the freedom to make choices in how they want to live their lives. I don't want to be told how to live my life by other women anymore than I want to be told by men.

It's the same idea that says prostitution is a choice for women and we should all cheer on that choice. It ignores the reasons why it is women who make that particular choice, it ignores the complexity of oppression, and generally ends up in an awful place for women.
Those who defend these 'choices' tend not to enact them in their own lives they let other women do that. There is brilliant essay somewhere on the myth of choice, I wish I could find it.

Vintagewhine

There are nearly 4 million Muslims living in the UK. Most live peacefully with their neighbours, pay their taxes and contribute to this country just like people of other faiths or no faith. Yet as soon as a Muslim does anything controversial it's seen as acceptable to stereotype the whole Muslim community. It is not. It's also unacceptable to assume that all women, regardless of faith, regard "equality" in the same way. Equality is not being told by other women how to conduct their lives, it is about "choice". Many Muslim women choose to wear the hijab, it's not the garment of oppression that some Western women think it is, nor is it required as part of religious observance. I'm fully aware that women in some religious communities are repressed by men but it's the men misrepresenting religion that are doing the oppression not the religion.

I'm fully aware that women in some religious communities are repressed by men but it's the men misrepresenting religion that are doing the oppression not the religion.

A very good point.

In effect then, it's not the religion we should be challenging but those that appropriate it for their own agenda. But it's hard to question a culture engineered by such individuals or groups without appearing to be attacking the religion. Hence the accusations of Islamophobia.

So really, the religious 'wars' are, in fact, culture wars?

Head-covering for women is an interesting issue. My grandmother (C of E) always felt the need to don a headscarf when leaving the house - and it wasn't in order to cover a head full of curling rollers - it was what women did. Similarly, my mother, dragging me to church, insisted that I cover my head before entering it as, if I remember correctly, did all other females. I went to a boarding school (co-ed) and, on Sunday, all the girls had to wear their school hats, whilst the boys removed theirs. I remember being very miffed about this but didn't have the vocabulary nor intellect to articulate my disapproval.

So when we talk about the wearing of hijabs it's as well to remember that we had our own (by that I mean C of E) cultural 'requirement' for women, back in the 40s and 50s, to 'cover-up' similarly.

So when we talk about the wearing of hijabs it's as well to remember that we had our own (by that I mean C of E) cultural 'requirement' for women, back in the 40s and 50s, to 'cover-up' similarly.

Roman Catholics, too, Dickens.

And the Christian requirement for women to cover their heads, particularly in church, stemmed from much the same as the Islamic belief in women as sexual objects whose uncovered state (be it hair, face or parts of the body) would inflame men's passions and sully the purity of the woman...

There is brilliant essay somewhere on the myth of choice, I wish I could find it.
Please link it if you do come across it, as I would be interested to read it.

I don't know what to think on the 'choice' thing. The trouble is that most things involve choice, and whereas yes, I can see that advocating that people have the choice to serve you or to act in ways that are detrimental to themselves can be hypocritical, removing that choice can also be self-serving and reinforce hierarchies.

To use the prostitution example - of course there are many sex workers whose 'choice' is born of limited opportunities and options, or who are coerced into it because of addiction or fear. But isn't the answer to that to remove the conditions that drive them to 'choose' sex work, rather than to remove the option for those who have made the choice to earn a living this way? Criminalising it is an easy option by comparison, and in any case is unlikely to give them more choices if they become convicted criminals. In fact it is likely that they will be less likely to find other work and more likely to have addiction problems after time in jail.

Also, there is the perennial question of who decides which choices should be available to others? Feminism, like many other philosophical or political perspectives is not a doctrine. People interpret it differently, and different viewpoints are valid. I don't believe that feminism can ever foreground men, for instance - to me that is a contradiction in terms - but there are those who disagree.

Waters always get muddied when religion, politics and lifestyles overlap. I believe in freedom of religion, and freedom not to have one. I also believe in freedom of expression within the law, whether that means a woman choosing to wear a burkha or choosing not to in the face of her husband or father's opposition. The difficulty, of course, is in knowing the motives behind someone's clothing choices. By all means make it an offence to force or otherwise coerce someone to wear one unwillingly, but surely removing any choice to wear it willingly is not just anti-feminist, but anti-democratic and anti-freedom. Just who gets to make the choice to remove the choices for others?

Oh I would criminalise the men not the women doodle.
The info on those who work in prostitution us horrendous, high rates of child sexual abuse etc.

So here is an interesting question. Why, with all our years of feminism and demands for equality, do African and Gulf states have more women doing STEM subjects at University than western countries? education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/women-earning-stem-degrees-middle-east-and-north-africa/
One view says that we think of those subjects as "male" whereas the Gulf and Africa have no such history and come at the subject equally. But I do wonder if separate classes for girls and boys helps.

Yes that's interesting that sort of reflects the finding of the gender paradox - was it in Sweden? where as equality increased the numbers of women in certain professions went down.

MaizieD

Roman Catholics, too, Dickens.

Oh yes, of course. But I mentioned C of E specifically because it appears to have been forgotten in the discourse.

Apparently the 1st February is World Hijab Day when Muslim women celebrate wearing the hijab.

People do all sorts of things through fear.
As well as being happy to do something for whatever reason.

And the Christian requirement for women to cover their heads, particularly in church, stemmed from much the same as the Islamic belief in women as sexual objects whose uncovered state (be it hair, face or parts of the body) would inflame men's passions and sully the purity of the woman...

The covering of a women's head comes from biblical verses in the New Testament. But it says it is a custom.

Yes it's true that catholic girls and women were expected to cover their heads, but that was kicked into the long grass long ago. It's much easier to kick over the traces having been born a catholic than it was a generation or so ago, even in Ireland, in fact particularly in Ireland they are not the meek malleable adherents they once were. The church shot itself in the foot over their prevarications and cover ups of wrong doings. Yet another large body inhabited by a disproportionate number of miscreants. Although when I say that I do hear my late mother say "the majority of people in the church are good" that may well be the case, but once a reputation has been tarnished, it's hard to get the trust back, particularly when the hierarchy don't do enough to rectify and acknowledge past wrongs and that applies to so many sectors in life.

Turning to head coverings on women, well of course it's up to them and ok if they can make an informed choice to wear the hijab without pressure. I did find it very regrettable to see a column of very little girls with hijabs, certainly no more than five years old. file into a theatre production of The Gruffalo some years ago when I took my granddaughter. If female hair, as it is in many patriarchal religions deemed to represent some sort of temptation then covering up infants for that purpose is very, very sad imo.

In any case men should really be the ones to cover their heads, they are more likely to lose their hair than women Surely God's nature's way of indicating that to leave their scalp uncovered is to risk possible skin cancer, just saying!

As an Anglican I was brought up to cover my head in church and still feel very uncomfortable if I don’t do so.

Germanshepherdsmum

As an Anglican I was brought up to cover my head in church and still feel very uncomfortable if I don’t do so.

Why?