General Chat

I would love to discuss P.C. tonight in the light of another murder by islamist extremists. This world has moved on from the illiterate stage of only listening to the scribes and pharisees -from the time when the guy in the robes TOLD you what to believe and how to think. So now we have a whole section of society who do not hold to our beliefs, or our way of life, or our understanding of acceptable behaviour who demand that we adjust to acomodate them. I make no reference to colour creed or any other -ism that the P.C social workers wish to jump upon - only to the fact that we have in our midst people who will kill because the have a different CULTURE to us. Life is so cheap in so many countries throughout the world that we cannot grasp the mentality of those who live within such backward societies. If you really want to look backward read the quaran (koran). You will not find peace or acceptance or tolerance or freedom or any such ideal. You will find a world of total domination by the hierarchy who wear the cloak of the imam!

Interesting ideas here John. At the risk of getting shot down in flames, I would suggest that all cultures try to impose themselves on others. It's in the nature of being human unfortunately and it's what makes war. The globe has never been free of that since groups of humans began seeing one another as strangers and the scale has just got bigger. At some times in history things are more violent than others, and while I don't condone in any way what has happened in recent days, firstly, extremists are not representative of their culture as a whole and secondly, our own culture is not so far removed from barbaric behaviour. Yes, we can go too far down the 'PC' road, I agree with that wholeheartedly, but we shouldn't tar everyone of a particular culture with the same brush either. I wouldn't like to be equated with the most extreme characters in my culture, or have someone think that that was the norm when it isn't.

Well said, Felicity and Marion. What the terrorists are trying to do is to provoke wild reactions by people who do not accept their extreme ideology, in order to bring about the clash of armageddon and resulting destruction they desire. The best thing we can all do is to refuse to be tempted into such intemperate retaliation. Events like this make us all reexamine our consciences to check out what our beliefs really are on issues such as the just society, how to police it, what to do with people who threaten it etc. I suppose the one thing I can't tolerate is intolerance. Other folks are entitled to their views, however much I might disagree with them, provided they do not threaten me or other people who hold different views from them. The terrorists in this case seem to be led by a psychopath, and the only way of dealing with a psychopath is to remove him from society to a place where he or her can't exercise any power over others. Whether that means terminating their life or locking them away for ever, I leave to each individual to judge for themselves. Finally, the point about not being tempted into believing that this behaviour is representative of Islam is important. Yes, the Koran is capable of interpretation as an invitation to holy war against all infidels; equally, the Bible could be interpreted in a similar way (and has been down the ages). Ditto the Jewish Torah. However, they can all be read in an entirely different light. One thing I'm clear about is that this old doctrine of "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" is not going to get us anywhere in the long run. It's quite plain to see how unproductive it continues to be in the Middle East, and states and terrorists can shell each other into eternity, and hell will freeze over, before anything is ultimately gained, and that will only be a pile of corpses. At the risk of being provovative, Jesus said, "Turn the other cheek, and do good to those who persecute you." OK, it takes courage to do that, and he's not suggesting that we just roll over and become wimps. We do need to develop effective ways of responding to acts of terrorism. However, good and evil are locked in a constant war, and we must learn to use the weapons of good to overcome evil, not simply to retaliate using the same weapons of evil. (Right, off your soapbox, mate! Hope that helps.) Philip

Interesting points John. As Philip has pointed out, all religious writings can be interpreted in many ways - hence we have Orthodox and Liberal etc Jews, (Old Testament and Torah)Catholics, Protestants, Baptists, Evangelists etc (New Testament) Sunni, Shi'ite, Zoroastrian, etc Moslems. It must also be pointed out that the Koran has elements of both the Old and New Testament contained within it. As for the terrorists, there were many Jewish terrorists in the past - they became the leaders of Israel, and did we assume all Roman Catholics were members, or agreed with, the IRA? As for different cultures within our midst - there always have been, as well as different religions - particularly in the port areas of Britain - a lot ot the time these people were invited here to do the things we didn't want to do! As for imposing their religions and culture on us - in the past England and Europe has done a damn good job of destroying the way of life and even whole cultures in other lands - the most recent ones being in Australia, New Zealand and America. They had their own cultures that seemed to our eyes at the time as 'backward' so we invaded them and imposed our allegedly 'civilised' culture on them. Aren't we in the West continuing to show crass arrogance by using our way of life as a template for the rest of the world? Two wrongs don't make a right, but forgetting history for the sake convenience is a dangerous act. maggie

I think a lot of this hatred goes back to the hatred between the Jews and the Moslims. This suicide attack again in Egypt was against the Jews. I don't think Sharon is helping matters either. He was himself also a terrorist!! Relating to Ireland. Why doesn't somebody ask the Protestants to give up their arms.? It is always the Catholics who are asked to give up their arms. p.s. I'm not Catholic!!

Although the Protestants were the 'invaders', they had Sovereignty on their side, Sylvia! maggie

An added thought - 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter'. Freedom means different things to different people and different cultures.

Sylvia, I remember a famous Guardian headline in the early '80s (I think), when Dom Mintoff won the Maltese general election and proposed to close the British dockyard at Valetta. It went "Mintoff's Malteser!" I was tempted at the time to suggest to the British Goverment reloving two problems at a stroke by proposing an exchange between the Protestant population of Northern Ireland and the Catholic population of Malta. Effect would have been a united Catholic population in Northern Ireland and a loyal Protestant community in Malta. Somehow the idea never seemed to catch on. Wonder why, lol! Must have been that swapping sunshine for shipbuilding (and vice versa) didn't appeal! Philip