Islamaphobia Legislation (UK)

ANDREW GREEN said:
Actually 'Muhammed' certainly is mythical and not historical.
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I've heard the theory that there were multiple Mohammeds. It sounded plausible but I haven't looked into it. We most certainly do know a lot more about his life and that he really existed than that of Jesus (who probably existed but is basically known through a few short gospels). But let me take a different tack then, as it's more to the point I was making: You can say you should emulate Jesus but other than being forgiving and occasionally losing it at people who lend money in temples, there's really nothing hard laid down that this means. Whether or not you dispute the accuracy of the Hadiths and Koran, the point is that there is a lot of explicit detail about his life that as a Muslim you're required to believe. And a lot of that material (slave trading, murder, wife-beating, child molesting) hasn't exactly aged well. Even if you don't believe he actually existed, the point is that the religion instructs those who do believe to hold him up as a representative of God on Earth to strive to be like. And that's markedly different to the very vaguely documented life of Jesus, true or false.

ANDREW GREEN said:
As for Muslims following Islam, it's not really different from Christians following the Old Testament.
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It is different and I already explained why. I can repeat. The Bible isn't regarded as the word of God. That the Koran is, is a central tenet of Islam. The New Testament explicitly resigns the Old Testament to being deprecated, in so far as the Old Testament is other than a historical document anyway. A Christian can dismiss parts of the Bible as old Hebrew myth. Islam requires belief that the Koran was dictated by God. It's one of the most central beliefs of Islam there is. If you don't know this, then you don't know much about Islam.

ANDREW GREEN said:
That aside I don't believe the recomendation from this document states criticism of Islam is prejudiced.
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This document, and I have read it, explicitly defines criticism of Islam as racism. So yes, it does. You should be against it if you don't like people conflating Islam with Muslim, as I don't.[/quote]
 
Thecaferacer said:
I think thats quite a famous misqoute from Marx. He meant that religion was a way of helping the oppressed masses cope rather than it being used against them
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Marx seemed to generally believe the masses should rise up and didn't like passive populations that accepted their place. I read "opiate of the masses" as a criticism by him - he meant it as something that keeps the population dull and placated, imo. He was a public atheist so I wouldn't imagine him to speak favourably of religion. But I suppose it could be either.
 
h4rm0ny said:
Marx seemed to generally believe the masses should rise up and didn't like passive populations that accepted their place. I read "opiate of the masses" as a criticism by him - he meant it as something that keeps the population dull and placated, imo. He was a public atheist so I wouldn't imagine him to speak favourably of religion. But I suppose it could be either.
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Everythings open to interpretation but he wrote religion is the "heart in a heartless world, the soul in souless conditions, it is the opium of the people" sounds positive to me, like a natural high.
 
Thecaferacer said:
Everythings open to interpretation but he wrote religion is the "heart in a heartless world, the soul in souless conditions, it is the opium of the people" sounds positive to me, like a natural high.
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Oh, well if that's the full quote then I stand corrected. It does lean more towards your interpretation. I guess he lived in a time when doctors still prescribed heroin to make people feel better so it's perhaps shifted in how the phrase is viewed with time.

Nasher said:
OFC they did eventually rise up and we got communist Russia. Great result :p
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The trouble with revolutions is they seem to just go the full 360°. I guess that's why they call them revolutions.
 
I'm curious as to what, precisely, separates "criticism of islam" - allegedly acceptable tho I wonder for how long - and so-called "hate speech" or "language of racism".

I'm 100% positive that somebody will construe any criticism of islam as hate speech or racism.
 
FoxEye said:
I'm curious as to what, precisely, separates "criticism of islam" - allegedly acceptable tho I wonder for how long - and so-called "hate speech" or "language of racism".

I'm 100% positive that somebody will construe any criticism of islam as hate speech or racism.
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I just find it laughable that i can change race by joining a religion. Criticising Islam isn't racism (who's followers come from many races) you may call it bigoted, but it isn't racism. And anyone even trying to argue that it is, is a bit broken in the head IMO
 
Caracus2k said:
Government rejects Islamophobia definition ahead of debate

It seems as though the current Tory government have decided that its not a good idea to accept that an idea as nebulous as expressions of 'muslimness' or perceived 'muslimness' can form the basis for declaring something or someone to be racist
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I'm tentatively pleased which this seemingly good news. I fully expected the opinion police to be out in force following a swift acceptance of this.
 
FoxEye said:
I'm curious as to what, precisely, separates "criticism of islam" - allegedly acceptable tho I wonder for how long - and so-called "hate speech" or "language of racism".

I'm 100% positive that somebody will construe any criticism of islam as hate speech or racism.
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Its obviously not possible to separate criticism of an ideology from aspects of the ideology in practice as Mr Khan appears to suggests. Polygamy is an explicitly endorsed aspect of 'muslimness' (according to some schools of Islam as per the example of the religions prophet) how would we square that circle unless we adopt the practice as being legal into out law for example?

Mr Khan said:
"Being critical of Islam or any religion does not make you an Islamophobe," he added. "You are only an Islamophobe if you use the language of racism tageting expressions of Muslimness."
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I would be very interested to hear him qualify what would constitute 'the language of racism' would involve when I am pretty sure this would turn out to be rather circular and rely on the definition of 'islamophobia and/ or 'critiquing expressions of 'muslimness' (why he claims is a type of racism) including the assumption that Islam is a 'race' in the first place.
 
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Amen to this.

Critics have questioned whether the definition could lead to issues with freedom of speech.

An open letter signed by over 40 academics, writers and campaigners said it was "unfit for purpose", warning its "uncritical and hasty adoption" would "aggravate community tensions" and "inhibit free speech about matters of fundamental importance".
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Aggravating community tensions seems to be a pastime of the left though, they just do it by persecuting white people in favour of minorities, a 180 degree reversal of historical racism. All people should be treated as individuals, not groups and be equal under the law, otherwise you're creating a multitier system that will only breed resentment.
 
A genuine (not leading) question as I don't really have much interest in the topic but how does the proposed definition differ from the definition of anti-Semitism?
 
Caracus2k said:
Government rejects Islamophobia definition ahead of debate

It seems as though the current Tory government have decided that its not a good idea to accept that an idea as nebulous as expressions of 'muslimness' or perceived 'muslimness' can form the basis for declaring something or someone to be racist
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Not just the Conservatives, per se. According to the Times, they got a lot of campaigning to the Home Secretary by ex-Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, feminists (the real kind), academics and others as well as the head of UK's counter-terrorism policing.

Just possibly, this might also open the door to getting rid of the similarly defined anti-Semitism guidance where criticism of Israel is explicitly racism.
 
LOAM said:
A genuine (not leading) question as I don't really have much interest in the topic but how does the proposed definition differ from the definition of anti-Semitism?
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It differs slightly in specifics, but the principle is equally flawed. In anti-Semitism guidance the UK adopted, Zionism / Israel is equated with ethnicity with criticism of the former being interpreted as criticism of the latter. (And conveniently ignoring the quite large number of Jewish people around the world who are not Zionists and the substantial number of non-Jewish people who are).

Zionism isn't a religion per se, but both Islam and Zionism are ideologies and the guidance in both of these cases is to equate the ideology with race. So it's pretty much the same. A couple of people in this thread argued that this guidance should be approved because the "anti-Semitism" guidance is approved. This is stupid - the correct way to reconcile the double-standard is to now review and fix the anti-Semitism guidance.
 
StriderX said:
That’s a strange definition of ‘rejection’, just looks to me to be ‘not yet’.
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Yes. The Times article doesn't say they've rejected it yet, just that May's government is "expected to reject it". If they say "it needs further consideration" and "not broadly accepted" that's a strong indication of which way they're going to go. Fingers crossed nothing upsets that at the last moment and this gets through.
 
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