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Funny I thought the EDL was about stopping immigrants, not suicide bombers.
I apologise for my words here, but as much as I respect your right to have an opinion Goldsword, I dont respect your opinions.
You seem very closed minded and misguided about a very great number of things, im going to step away now and vent some steam elsewhere.
Apparently, at an EDL march you can "shove your fucking Allah up your arse" or claim that "I hate pakis more than you", but racism isn't an issue with them of course.
And a placard wanting "No More Mosques" is just about a planning application and nothing to do with tarring all muslims with the "extremist" tag.
Do you remember this group? They carried out many more bombings in the UK and killed a lot more people, than the islamic extremists have. Funnily enough the EDL membership weren't marching against them, no "No more churches" banners", no "you can stick your fucking Jesus up your arse" chanting then, was there?
EDL not racist, my arse.
There was an interesting programme on the BBC about it in which they totally failed to stop racist chants at the rallies, and even had a mainstream speaker claiming Muslims would 'burn in Hell', despite being on their best behaviour...
They're a terrifying group.
I could be wrong, but somehow I don't think the EDL are pro-Irish facists. And given that, despite what the English think, it wasn't a religous war (no-one was killed becasue they disputed that win is Jesus's blood and some of the worst killers were actually atheists). The other answer would be that PIRA have been beaten and the CIRA and RIRA are little more than an irritant.
However, the bigger question is not why the EDL weren't marching against them, but why the UAF has so many members who have spoken out in support of the political wing of an organisation which actually allied with the Nazis and was the most violent far-right group these islands ever produced
I wasn't suggesting that they were pro-Irish in anyway, more that their attention is purely on Islam rather than terrorism. If they hated the idea of their country being bombed and it's citizens killed then why only surface now - why not when the people doing the killing were white christians?
Also worth noting that the terrorism we see now isn't about religion either.
I disagree - it may be a peversion of mainstream religion, but religious beliefs are at the heart of it. The difference between Northern Ireland and Islamic terrorism is that there were atheists and christians amongst the killers - they were murdering for a political state. The Islamic terrorists are murdering for a religious one.
But it's about religious control. Religion isn't the excuse its the reason.
No more than our fighting back is about Christian control.
Only if you're a christian; but if you're saying that the we're fighting back so as to be free to worship who or what we desire (or not worship anything at all) I'd agree.
The terrorist's aim is primarily religious - to shape the state's actions according to their view of Islam. The fact that their a minority within that religion doesn't change that fact. Nor does the fact that EDL are protesting against Islam as a whole, rather than just its extemist elements.
These things are often intertwined, but I think it's wrong to suggest that religion is just some cynical excuse for exercising control over people. The vast majority of Islamist violence in the world occurs in muslim countries against fellow muslims. Now you could say that's about perceived cooperation with America or the West, but why would that necessarily be considered a bad thing? For the same reason that secularisation has been opposed at every stage by pretty much every powerful church in the West too. Because it reduces the influence and power of religious groups. But these groups don't just want power for its own sake, they want power because they are motivated by the genuine religious belief that they have, and recognise political power as being the way to achieve what they genuinely believe is right. There are certainly examples of politicians who have in the past cynically used religion as a tool for controlling people (Stalin with the Russian Orthadox church, for example), but I think the vast majority of religious campaigners are motivated by genuine belief. But yeah, fighting over an island with oil around it is a political dispute. Fighting against the ideological influence of the secular West is a religious dispute. Fighting against the political influence of the secular West is a political dispute. So I guess it's how you see it. There's as much exploiting of the political situation (e.g. Israel/Palestine, Iraq, etc) to promote a religious agenda as there is the other way around.
And of course religion just reflects basic human values, good and bad, because it was written by men and reflects the values of (specifically) men. Islam considers virginity a virtue for exactly the same reason that porn websites advertise "virgins." They're both built on an inbuilt emotional instinct that evolved to protect us from STDs and create a situation where men know the baby they're helping to raise contains their own genes. Religion and pornography both exploit this instinct in different ways. Incidentally, that doesn't mean that all religions are equal. They can all still choose to emphasise certain bits over others. The CofE and Westboro Baptist church are both using the same source material, after all. And currently, extremist Islam is a particular problem, even if on paper, Islam is no better or worse than Christianity or Judaism (in fact Judaism is arguably the worst of the lot).
The IRA were a Marxist organisation dedicated to uniting Ireland. They were not fighting because they wanted to promote the Catholic faith. Religon in Northern Ireland was only used as a badge of difference to identify two different groups of people. Most people in Northern Ireland like in the rest of the UK never went to church and didn't believe in God.
If you read up on the history of Ireland you will find that resentment between the two communities the so called Protestants and the so called Catholics only broke out because Britain gave land in Ulster to Scottish settlers which had been taken from older established Irish people in the 1600s. Most of these Scots at the time were Protestant and most longer established Irish people Catholic, but in later years as secularism took hold and religous practice declined, these two groups still held onto these religous labels to identify each other even though most of these people by the late twentieth century were athiest.
Christianity by the way teaches the opposite of war see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQUgiWa-pfI
So if the IRA had been really Christian they would not have campaigned for a united Ireland by using violence.
End of.
The troubles in Northern Ireland were political! They were between a minority of older Irish who called themselves 'Catholic' and the new Irish who came from Scotland in the 1600 - The Planters who called themselves 'Protestant'. Those were only labels based on historical religous affiliations of their ancesters not on modern religous observance.
One group was fighting for a united Ireland the other to stay part of Britain! The Uslter troubles had their roots in British imperialism in Ireland which went back centuries.
You show how you know nothing about the Irish troubles or Irish history! If it was religous war then how come many from Republican leaders over the centuries had come from the so called Protestant community like Wolfe Tone?
Oh dear dear dear... :rolleyes:
But in any case, NI is just one example of Christian nutters behaving like nutters. Many others could be mentioned. Why, the former "leader of the free world" claimed God Himself had told him to invade certain Middle Eastern nations.
So there you have it Goldsword: there are nutters on all sides commiting atrocities in the name of their supposed faith. That does not mean everyone who adheres to that faith is a nutter, or even that the religion itself is violent.
However I suspect you're not interested in hearing that, seeing as you have so far demonstrated a disturbing point of view regarding both Islam and that bastion of goodness and honour that is the EDL.
Yet also worryingly supports without questioning, anything and everything he/she reads on war protest sites.
I think that many would disagree given that part of their fight was against anti-Catholic bigotry and they fought under a self appointed catholic banner.
Hear of many protestant IRA members? Flashman might know of a few but generally they were catholics.
And that differs from the current situation with Islamic extremists how, exactly? They are fighting for political control, using Islam as a cover. In reality it's a perverted version of Islam.
Delusion. It's as if the Crusades never happened.
Perhaps a little history of the actions of the various christians churches wouldn't go amiss.
However, none of what you said refutes my salient point that EDF are a racist organisation.
Daily Mail
Guardian
Times
BBC
Guardian, again
More BBC
Telegraph
Sounds like a wonderful group to want to be associated with...
Given his lack of knowledge about Afghanistan I hesitate to agree with Goldsword, but indeed he is actually right. There's a lazy shorthand in using Protestant and Catholic, which ignores the complexity. But a large chunk of the killers were atheist or at best agnostic and the only time they ever saw the inside of the church were for weddings and funerals. The churches however did play a role, a lot of the groundwork for peace was done by men of the cloth.
Just to make sure you know I'm from Northern Ireland before you start accusing me of ignorance and lack of understanding. Goldsword posts an essentially accurate (albeit biased) description of it.
Which isn't to say there isn't a religous element on top, but its actually pretty minor - the real conflict is who rules Northern Ireland, not what religion it should be.
More accurately you could say they came from the Irish Gaelic tradition. Catholic is shorthand for that culture and doesn't actually describe what there religion is (atheist and agnostic as well). As an aside they didn't fight against anti-Catholic bigotry - though that may have inflamed a tense situation. If they had the conflict would have been over by the mid-seventies when all laws which could even be remotely used for religious purposes had been overturned. The IRA were quiet clear they were killing for a united Ireland (and INLA with their Marxist leanings one which was explicitly hostile to the Catholic Church)
Why the hell is there a full on conversation about the IRA going on? Seriously. It seems like it's ok to diverge a thread about Islam if the conversation is moving away from discussion of Islam, but not when it's moving towards discussing the unsavoury elements of Islam (which are inherent within the religion itself, btw).
There is plenty to discuss on this issue of drawing Muhammad. I haven't been following the news for a few days but last I heard, Bangladesh have also banned facebook.
Please create a separate thread if you want to have a full on conversation about the IRA or this relatively new organisation known as the English Defence League.
The issue is simply whether Northern Ireland remains a part of the UK or that it becomes part of one united Ireland. Personally, I don't see much enthusiasm out there for changing the way things are. The likes of Sinn Fein believe there should be a united Ireland, but I don't see them discussing the issue in the same way Alex Salmond's SNP do in Scotland. Northern and the Republic of Ireland work pretty closely on a lot of issues already - policing, for example.
My view is the one thing people are definitely united on is that they don't want to see a return to the bloodshed of the past.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to try and work out how a thread I started about the many "peaceful" and "tolerant" Muslims out there has become a thread about the politics of the IRA...
Most members of the IRA and UDA do not go to church and do not believe in God! Most people in the whole of Northern Ireland do not go to church and do not believe in God!
Most support for the Republican cause comes from Marxist Athiest organisations such as The Socialist Workers Party, The Communist Party and Red Action.
Most support for the Loyalist cause comes from secular ultra nationalist groups such as The National Front and British National Party.
Not all practicing Catholics are Republicans and not all practicing Protestants are loyalists. Wolfe Tone the father of Irish repubicanism and Ivan Cooper MP a leader of the civil rights movement were both protestants.
Ireland was terrorised by Britain for centuries that is why there was war in Northern Ireland.
Errr ... 'cos that's what happens in conversation and debate, innit? People tend to widen the discussion.
Not all Muslims are terrorists either, yet that doesn't seem to be bothering the EDL. Nor does it apparently diminish your support for the EDL cause. It certainly doesn't support the "No More Mosques" and "I hate Pakis more than you" aspect of EDL marches.
I've created a whole thread devoted to the EDL... http://vbulletin.thesite.org/showthread.php?t=142054