The Telegraph poll of British Muslims
I figured I’d just reformat the poll results from The Telegraph that are making the rounds.
Q: Do you think the bombing attacks in London on July 7 were justified or not?
6% – On the balance justified
11%- On the balance not justified
77%- Not njustified at all
6% – Don’t know
Q: Whether or not you think the attacks were justified, do you personally have any sympathy with the feelings and motives of those who carried out the attacks?
13%- Yes, a lot
11%- Yes, a little
16%- No, not much
55%- No, none at all
6% – Don’t know
Q: Whether or not you have any sympath with the feelings of those who carreid out the attacks, do you think you understand why some behave in that way?
56%- Yes, I think I can understand
39%- No, I don’t understand how anyone could behave like that
4% – Don’t know
Q: The Prime Minister has described as ‘perverted and poisonous’ the ideas that led the London suicide bombers to carry out their attacks. Do you agree or disagree with him that their ideas must have been perverted and poisonous?
58%- Yes, I agree
26%- No, disagree
16%- Don’t know
Q: How loyal would you say you personally feel towards Britain?
48%- Very loyal
33%- Fairly loyal
6% – Not very loyal
10%- Not at all loyal
4% – Don’t know
Q: Which of these views comes closest to your own?
1% – Western society is decadent and immoral, and Muslims should seek to bring it to an end, if necessary by violence
31%- Western society is decadent and immoral, and Muslims should seek to bring it to an end, but only by non-violent means
56%- Western society may not be perfect, but Muslims should live with and not seek to bring it to an end
11%- Don’t know
Q: Do you agree or disagree with this statement? ‘British political leaders don’t mean it when they talk about equality. They regard the lives of white British people as more valuable than the lives of British Muslims.’
52%- Agree
29%- Disagree
18%- Don’t know
Q: If anyone is charged and put on trial in Britain in connection with the bombings on July 7, do you think they will or will not receive a fair trial?
37%- They will
44%- They will not
19%- Don’t know
Q: The leaders of Britain’s main political parties have said that they respect Islam and want to co-operate with Britain’s Muslim communities. In general, do you think Britain’s political leaders are sincere or not sincere when they say these things?
33%- Sincere
50%- Not sincere
16%- Don’t know
Q: How much responsibility do you think Muslims show now take on for peventing such crimes and bringing to justice those who commit them?
32%- A great deal of responsibility
34%- Some responsibility
10%- Not much
14%- None at all
1% – Don’t know
I left the last three poll questions off because I don’t think they were that interesting and this post is a bit long. You can find them at the link above. My only comment is that many of these people expressing sympathetic opinions about the terrorists must be grotesquely stupid, since they surely knew that the results would be made public and perhaps generate further animus toward their community as a whole.
I guess they feel safe enough to express understanding for the bombers.
I would of course like to see numbers on how Non Muslim English citizens respond to these questions which will give a better context to the poll.
This poll does raise the question of whether a significant minority of Muslims in Britain are now the ‘fifth column’.
This is a link form the same paper:
sessionid=SOAM03W53MLMHQ FIQMGSM5WAVCBQWJVC?xml=/news/2005/07/23/npoll323.xml
” Mosque ‘punished by the extremists’ ”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;j
Thus the problem is even worse, as those who are not in the ‘fifth column’ find themselves intimidated into silence or worse – at a minimum, turning a blind eye to crimes committed by the radicals. Perhaps this sums up what seems to be a world-wide problem of Islamic radicalism – even if you are really assimilated and want to get on with (your new western) life, the radicals will not leave you in peace.
Were I a citizen of the sceptred isle, I should vote for the BNP in a trice.
Tony Blair should be able to say to the fence sitting muslims:
“Hey–don’t worry about them, worry about me, kapeesh?” (or capice for those purist muslim Italian speakers)
But no, he seems to be too busy trying to be the nice guy. So he loses the respect of the people whose help he needs the most.
I would of course like to see numbers on how Non Muslim English citizens respond to these questions which will give a better context to the poll.
this is of course a plausible point with some of the questions, for example the ones about loyalty or sympathy. nevertheless, the one about an immoral and decadent society indicates a reserve of enmity.
nevertheless, the one about an immoral and decadent society indicates a reserve of enmity.
Thanks for posting these. I agree, but I did find the question poorly worded (I’m not sure what “end it” means or if it means the same thing to everyone who responded). However, I think a lesson from the Cold War for me is that as long as people are willing to engage in nonviolent activities (for real–not just as a cover or to support violent activities), they should be allowed to do so, regardless of their ideological perspective. If 31% want to end Western society through nonviolent means, let them try. The real question is what percentage would actually endorse violent means were they in a safer space to express their opinions.
If 31% want to end Western society through nonviolent means, let them try.
well, 31% of 2% isn’t that many. that western societies like 18th* century britain or late 20th century USA can allow dissent is that the majority believe in “the system” and tolerance. certainly many american christians believe that society is decadent, so these questions are fuzzy (my experience is even evangelical christians have a more broad and symbolic conception of “decadence” than muslims though). the issue i have is that a minority of muslim seem predisposed to toward violence, so even if the 31% doesn’t aid the minority in a vigorous fashion, their own biases might result in them looking the other way or not being proactive in defending a system which they on some level oppose in any case.
* 18th century england was not liberal compared to the late 20th century regimes, but was rather open compared to say france. my recent reading indicates that one reason that the political leadershp toleranted dissent is that they were safely assured that the populace and the powers backed the constitutional monarchy and despotism of any kind would have gained little traction.
Can anyone say unscientific data gathering fraught with all sorts of invalidating biases? A wonderful bit of liberal tripe that is meant to show how wonderful nearly all Muslims are and it is only those wacky extremists that are the problem.
I couldn’t care any less what Muslims have to say because what they do and think in private are incongruent with their official stance.
well, 31% of 2% isn’t that many
I’m assuming that 2% is the total Muslim population in Britain. If that is the case, then nearly 1 out of every 3 Muslims wants to change Western decadent society into some form of backward, violent theocracy. That is a TREMENDOUS amount of people who believe that especially if one was cavalier and factored in the 11% who were a “don’t know” into this group, wink wink.
I’m assuming that 2% is the total Muslim population in Britain. If that is the case, then nearly 1 out of every 3 Muslims wants to change Western decadent society into some form of backward, violent theocracy.
many american conservative would express great reservations about the state of western culture. i think you are making leaps, which though might be justified, aren’t conducive to further discussion. what’s the point of making a comment when you can go on top of a building and shout your truths? any further outbursts will be deleted….
31%- Western society is decadent and immoral, and Muslims should seek to bring it to an end, but only by non-violent means
A generous, yet not implausible interpretation – what the Muslims call ‘western society’ christian conservatives call ‘liberal society’. Different words for the same thing. Both regard that society as ‘immoral and decadent’ (which means nothing more than not punishing gays and promiscuous women).
Of course, there are far more Muslim are generally far more serious about their religion than Christians, certainly in Britain, and Islam is a more demanding religion.
MOST British Muslims support destroying British society. You guys think this poll is so accurate and are assuming that those Muslims are dumb…. most of them know that answering in the affirmative to some of these questions will elicit bad things for them, and so aren’t going to do it, especially after a few Muslim bombings.
Correction: Most “British” Muslims.
many american conservative would express great reservations about the state of western culture.
Correct. Though the difference is that American conservatives do not advocate changing it by violent means or secretly condoning violent actions. Fringe elements not withstanding and they certainly do not make up 1/3 of conservatives, if truly conservative at all.
Just to be clear, I do not believe the numbers and think that nearly all Muslims view the west as decadent and a majority would condone violent or non-violent means to bring about this change.
Whether their disgust and anger at the west has merit, and I think it does and am actually sympathetic to certain viewpoints of theirs, it none the less is immaterial. No one has forced them to live amongst the infidels and wanting to change an ENTIRE civilization with culture and all is definitely within the realm of unsubstantiated grandiosity.
They want the monetary benefit and safety of the west yet reject the hedonistic attributes and fear for their progeny being engulfed in it. Therein lies the rub wouldn’t you say?
I think we need to differentiate between a pro-Western critique of modern popular culture by conservative Westerners and the anti-Western critique of all Western culture and history by Islamic non-Westerners.
Danny, I think you’re mistaken. It’s not conservatives who chant “hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go”.
jeeves, thanks for the change in tone. much more fruitful.
MOST British Muslims support destroying British society.
well, we can’t go mind-reading can we? i’m not sure you aren’t right, at least broadly interpreted, nevertheless, unless further analyzed such statements don’t really give us much more to chew on. can you point to any sort of data? if muslims by their nature deceive i guess that would be hard, but what vectors point to the deception for you?
p.s. this is a friendly warning to all concerned, i am not going to tolerate nose-bleed level outbursts. if you are angry, step away from the computer and calm down.
They want the monetary benefit and safety of the west yet reject the hedonistic attributes and fear for their progeny being engulfed in it. Therein lies the rub wouldn’t you say?
i think you are correct to the first aproximation. i think that is why particular muslim sects, like the ismaili, are better at integrating, they have centuries of practice at maintaining their distinctive traditions within an unbelieving culture. the sunni muslims who have emigrated to western europe don’t have similar coping skills because they come from cultures where their values are normative. their first response at the deviance of their children is to demand that the culture reinforce their norms because that is the expectation they bring with them.
I do not believe the numbers and think that nearly all Muslims view the west as decadent and a majority would condone violent or non-violent means to bring about this change.
i would add a caveat. religious muslims. the data from france for instance (and my recent reading on european “muslims” in general) suggests that a non-trivial number have embraced secularity, including premarital sex and alcohol. the problem right now is that i don’t think there is a “liberal” or “moderate” alternative to the more austere conservative islam, or further over, the radicalism, to express religious belief within the context of. to be more precise, i believe that ~moderate islam is probably equivalent to the far “right-wing” (or more accurately, the unreconstructed pre-enlightenment form) of christianity. the chasm in the middle is empty, so that’s why you have instances of secularists who “get religion” so often flipping to radicalism.
it is possible that there might never develop an alternative. in most of the world jews fall into two groups: religious and secular. the religious would be what we call orthodox here in the states. the USA took the german reform movement whole hog and we have a broad spectrum of religiosity, practice and outlook, from “ultra-orthodox” to “reconstructionist,” to many shades in the middle and orthogonally. in contrast, in much of the rest of the world people who aren’t particular religious still attend an orthodox synagogue when they observe holidays, etc., because that is the only authentic form of judaism. there is of course a big difference between orthodox judaism and the conservative form of islam that is normative in much of europe for the “religious,” orthodox judaism is relatively quietistic in relation to the culture as a whole (to some extent like muslim sectarian groups who have not had the support of the state or broader culture). nevertheless, the analogy to judaism can be fruitful in that the correspondences between islam and judaism are, i think, more numerous than between islam and christianity (halakah/shariat, kashrut/halal), etc.
well, we can’t go mind-reading can we? i’m not sure you aren’t right, at least broadly interpreted, nevertheless, unless further analyzed such statements don’t really give us much more to chew on. can you point to any sort of data? if muslims by their nature deceive i guess that would be hard, but what vectors point to the deception for you?
As you said, the individuals who were blunt about their opinions must be “grotesquely stupid, since they surely knew that the results would be made public and perhaps generate further animus toward their community as a whole.” It is easily implied from this statement that the others aren’t as stupid and are keeping their true opinions to themselves.
You will never be able to produce correct data based on polls when it comes to such a controversial issue. The simple fact that more than a quarter of them were willing to be completely truthful and blunt about their beliefs during such a potentially perilous time for them says an awful lot about how strong Islamist beliefs are in their communities.
As the polls also show, most Muslims don’t think that those terrorists are going to get a fair trial, nor do they think that the obsessively multiculturalist British politicians are sincere in their willingness to work with Islamic communities. You can trust these numbers, because it isn’t exactly controversial and could have positive benefits for them. Then there’s the silly question about whether the Muslim communities bear any responsibility for the attacks and bringing them to justice, and the numbers don’t correlate with their previous answers, but still 24% think they bear little or no responsibility.
This means that AT LEAST 1/4 of Muslims in Britain are disloyal to Britain, contrary to their previous answer, which as we can see now was a lie.
When we ask for these communities to condemn the attacks, they say, “we condemn the attacks, but… but… but…” There’s always a “but” attached at the end of all their “condemnations.”
I’m not saying that Muslims are by their very nature deceitful, but just compare the poll questions with each other and their responses and you can see deception at work.
arcane, i had some of the same thoughts. the only critique i have of your comments i have is that human minds don’t work as a coherent whole (also, some groups have many immigrants whose english isn’t perfect). people can have obviously contradictory thoughts/views without being conscious of it. i do think that the numbers suggest that there is a strong undercurrent of self-conscious alienness, for lack of a better word, among british muslims. checking the attitudes of hindus and sikhs, who are physically dissimilar from the majority white population, would probably show that it is peculiar to the muslims themselves.
It’s not conservatives who chant “hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go”
That was my point. Conservative Muslims don’t think of Plato or Milton when they talk about western civ. They do think of skanks with fuck-me skirts. That’s what they think is decadent.
ismaili, are better at integrating, they have centuries of practice at maintaining their distinctive traditions within an unbelieving culture
I’ve just been reading something about a related point: Different religions have different attitudes towards the law. Eastern religions I don’t know enough about, but none had, as far as I’m aware, very strong legal traditions. Christianity is well-known for rendering Caesar what is Caesar’s – throughout the west, ecclesiastical courts dealt only with personal law, never with civil or criminal law. Judaism is like Islam, in the sense that Halakhah and Shariah are both all-encompassing, but Jews, like Ismailis, had lived as a minority so long that nobody is sure what a ‘Halakhah state’ is any more. Islam alone is a religion that demands total subservience of all of society.
The problem is that Muslim ghettos in Europe insulate the nuts and force the people who would otherwise not be nutty from society and prevents their proper integration.
Is the Singapore model the only way that can work when it comes to diversity? I hope not, but quite frankly I don’t know of any other solution, since assimilation is now considered “racist,” and the Singapore solution scares the heck out of me.
But I do know that some deportations need to begin. Enough is enough. Only then can we shock the Muslim community into taking some responsibility.
It’s not conservatives who chant “hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go”
One thing about this… while this is generally true, there are a lot on the far-far-right who are pretty hateful of Western Civilization. You see this in the neo-folk / apocalyptic folk music scene, the “Traditionalists” centered around Rene Guenon and Julius Evola, and those who espouse Romanticist folk beliefs. They’re a pretty small group, but they are becoming more and more influential in the far-right, especially in Europe.
“But I do know that some deportations need to begin. Enough is enough. Only then can we shock the Muslim community into taking some responsibility”.
Non citizens have been regularly deported since 9-11 in the US and I am not sure if it has shocked the Muslim community in the US.
Likewise if non citizens are deported in UK (they do deport but I am not sure how many have been deported since 9-11) I dont believe it will be a major shock for the Muslim community in UK.
To shock the Muslim community, citizens would have to be kicked out (I am not sure to where. Maybe parents country of origin) provided the parents country takes them in which it probably wont.
Judaism is like Islam, in the sense that Halakhah and Shariah are both all-encompassing, but Jews, like Ismailis, had lived as a minority so long that nobody is sure what a ‘Halakhah state’ is any more. Islam alone is a religion that demands total subservience of all of society.
well, jews did create their own halakah states within the matrix of christian culture. the ottomans were explicit about their ‘millet’ system, but a similar process occurred with jews and christians throughout much of europe from what i can gather. after all, it was the jews who excommunicated spinoza! and from what i gather israel is strongly shaped by the bounds of halakah, isn’t it? the distinction between muslims and non-muslims needs to be nuanced as part of of a continuum, not an idealistic dichotomy, because cultures throughout the world derive legal principles from their zeitgeist, and religion is a big part of that. i’ve heard of muslims complain that india’s civil code is partly derived from hindu customary law, so it isn’t all that neutral. some of the laws against incest in the west seem to be strongly influenced by medieval catholic campaigns against the practice (cousin-incest tends to crop up again whenever the church is lax or can’t enforce the ban).
but yes, ultimately, i think the problem is not belief, plenty of groups among fundamentalist christians believe that western civilization is unsaved, it is practice, as muslims have a plan of action for reform as an alternative. i have said before that part of the problem is that islam grew up with christian civilization, so it developed ways to counter, mimic or blunt customs it found unassimilable.
more later….
i don’t think deporations are negotiable, i think they are going to happen. AM is right, it is the extent that is under issue. frankly, the muslim distrust of british society as a whole as gauged by this poll is not reassuring. to use an analogy, blacks in the pre-civil rights south had reason to distrust authority. i do not think that the legal discrimination against muslims is on anything like that scale (especially in britain), but they still feel assaulted. utopia is never reality, and judged against an ideal i am sure that britain fails. but life is not a utopian proposition, it is a choice of best options.
perhaps europe’s unassimilable muslims need a special allah-land?* they could have sharia there, and attempt to set up their own euro-islamic state (you know, the welfare state coming out of the zakat of good muslims instead of infidel tax dollars). western culture is resilient of hostile minorities if they are not very numerous, but muslims are i think getting to the point where they are crossing the threshold. the publicized assaults on homosexuals in the netherlands is a bad signal, gays are a canary in the coal mine since they are hated by broad swaths of non-muslims as well.
* if citizens are getting deported they might not have a country to go to. at least one that would want to take them.
Certainly in the case Muslims with duel citizenships (there are many in the UK) a place exists to take them. Perhaps London could provide a cash payment for each of these people to give up their British passport and leave (that is, forever). Recall, in the 1950s, many Muslims were brought in specifically to work in the textile mills of Leeds. One could argue that those jobs are now long gone and it is time to return to Pakistan and elsewhere. The government payments could thus be justified under a ??severance-package?? scheme.
This carrot, coupled with the stick of ended public assistance for immigrants (USA-style), forbidding of further immigration (for example, no more arranged marriages from the ”old country” and bringing the spouse back to the UK) Denmark has adopted a hardliner policy on such marriages. Also, change amnesty rules to mimic that of, say, Austria or Finland. (Very few get amnesty in either nation).
I don’t know how many would actually be willing to take the money and run: The point, however, of providing a cash incentive to emigrate, would be to change the population’s sense of the direction where Britain is heading. ”Why let more in when we are paying the ones here to leave?”
I have no problems with deporting radical Muslims who are “citizens,” especially clerics and other important religious figures who are inciting people to conduct war against the West.
And non-citizens have been deported regularly since the creation of this country. Any non-citizen that is here illegally should be deported, in my opinion.
I guess I read the “bring it to an end” question as discussing the immorality and decadence of Western civilization, rather than bringing all of Western civilization to an end. (How would you bring Western civilization to an end by nonviolent means? Go into television?)
–JMK
“Recall, in the 1950s, many Muslims were brought in specifically to work in the textile mills of Leeds. One could argue that those jobs are now long gone and it is time to return to Pakistan and elsewhere. The government payments could thus be justified under a ??severance-package?? scheme”
Most of the ’50s’ people would now be on average 75+ in age.
Also its not these first generation immigrants (very old by now) who are creating the problem. Its their British born children who are the problem. So I am not sure how the British born kids could possibly fit in the ‘severance package’.
“I have no problems with deporting radical Muslims who are “citizens,” especially clerics and other important religious figures who are inciting people to conduct war against the West”.
This idea is a non starter except for cases where the people hold dual passports.
If a person is so radical that his citizenship is being stripped away, I can assure you that his/or his parents country of origin is not going to accept him. Does anybody seriously believe that Saudi Arabia or Egypt or Lebanon will want to take in the trouble makers ?
Deporting citizens will create a serious constitutional problem. Most judges will be very very leary of making a person stateless. I believe preventive detention along with a whole bunch of other severe measures will have to be exhausted before citizens are made stateless.
“western culture is resilient of hostile minorities if they are not very numerous, but muslims are i think getting to the point where they are crossing the threshold”
Italy,Germany,Portugal, ay,Switzerland,Finland,Belgium and Denmark they would fail to cross even 3% of the population.
In France maybe, but in countries like US,UK,Spain,
Ireland,Norw
Frankly speaking, fear of Eurabia in number terms (except for France) is unfounded and not backed by facts.
Al Mujahid,
Then we’ll create Allah-land in a small island… that way it’ll be easy to nuke if they find a way to cause more trouble. ;)
Why nuke ?
We will send in Britney and Paris Hilton.
I am much aware that the first generation is very old, (if even alive), but their families (grandchildren, etc.) are in the UK because of this invitation to work (even more are not). The simple point is to provide a justification (or fig leaf) for such a spending program. This is politics as theatre – not hard-nosed economic analysis. Getting such a spending bill through Parliament would be politics extraordinaire.
The point of such of a program is to ultimately change the zeitgeist. Immigrants (or their descendents) are returning home; the UK is getting out of the business of being one of the world’s biggest third-world population magnets.
If only the first generation folks end up going – so be it. The zeitgeist has changed and the NHS has a few less oldsters to worry about.
According to the CIA 2005 FACTBOOK the Muslim population in Germany is now around 3.7%.
In France maybe, but in countries like US,UK,Spain,Italy,Germany,Portugal, ay,Switzerland,Finland,Belgium and Denmark
Ireland,Norw
these are all different countries with different circumstances. and i’m not speaking eurabia, i’m speaking the possibility (not actualized yet) of low-level violence persisting for years. the problem isn’t the number of muslims as much as the fact that they are concentrated in urban ghettos so they can form 25% or more of a metro area’s population. the suggestion of high levels of alienation means that radicals, if they choose to persist, have a decent environment to hide low in. muslims are, to use an analogy, carriers for this plague.
In the US, people who are not born as US Citizens, but are naturalized citizens dont have the same rights as the native born citizens.
For example naturalized citizens cannot run for presidency and if they have made material lies on their citizenship application, their citizenship can be revoked if the lie is uncovered within a certain number of years (WW2 Nazis have no such statute of limitation privilege though)
So I am in favor of putting restrictions on citizenship of naturalized citizens.
This will require a simple act of Congress and there would be no need for the Court to tackle tricky constitutional issues.
Also for naturalized citizens, there would be no problem of finding the country of origin as these people once held passports of a different nation (except for Palestinians who are officially stateless)
I would however not deport such naturalized citizens, but strip them of their citizenship and reduce them to the status of resident aliens (same thing happens to people who make material lies on their citizenship application)
Once these people are reduced to resident aliens, some of the regular constitutional rights would be suspended and it would be much easier to deal with them.
Certainly interesting ideas, AM, but I don’t like the idea of keeping them on US soil. Your favorite organization, the ACLU, along with its pet communist organizations, like the CCR and NLG, make enough racket over terrorists kept overseas… I can’t imagine how noisy they’d be about this.
Islam is the faith of one billion humans. There are just 14 million people who consider themselves Jewish. Both faiths are outnumbered by 1.196 billion Han (92% of the population of PRC) whom we should consider Atheist.
Look at the demographics: Population: 1,298,847,624 (July 2004 est.)
Age structure:
0-14 years: 22.3% (male 153,401,051; female 135,812,993)
15-64 years: 70.3% (male 469,328,664; female 443,248,860)
Between males 0-14 years and females, there is a shortfall of almost 17 million females. The age group 15-64 has a difference of 26 million. Where are these Chinese boys and men going to get their mates?
Anyone want to hazard a guess? Hint, maps are useful. The PRC also needs oil!!! All the ‘stans perhaps?
No one seems to have mentioned internment as a solution for trouble-making UK citizens. There is a precedent for this in Northern Ireland and in the current environment it would be pretty easy to push through such a measure.
How to identify the internment candidates would be the main problem. How about lie-detector tests on attitudes towards violent protest?
Where are these Chinese boys and men going to get their mates?
They aren’t and it will not be a big deal.
For an example of extreme imbalance between unmarried males vs. females look at some Muslim societies. Men are allowed as many as four wives (and even more concubines- look at the numerous ”princes” – and at bin Ladin’s father). Under such a system, a very large percentage of males get nothing. Saudi Arabia represents an extreme example of this imbalance – the question on causality is do ”Saudi’s harems” (the leaving of theoretically 3 out of 4 men unattached for life) cause it’s violent sociopathies. Or is it that their brand of Islam is the underlying cause of both the unusual marriage rules and the violent behavior.
Btw, monogamy seems to be the common pattern in large parts of the Muslim world.
William: One could argue that those jobs are now long gone and it is time to return to Pakistan and elsewhere. The government payments could thus be justified under a ??severance-package?? scheme.
I don’t know how many would actually be willing to take the money and run.
Probably very few. The French tried a similar thing in the mid-1970′s with an eye to sending back many of the North African migrants after the end of les trente glorieuses, but few took them up on it. Most of those who took repatriation payments were European immigrants (especially Spaniards and Portuguese) who were happy to go back to economically booming countries.
Considering the shambolic state of Pakistan I doubt many people, no matter how little they like Bradford or Oldham, would want to go back, whether they were paid or not.
It isn’t entirely true that ecclesiastial courts never dealt with criminal matters – “Benefit of Clergy” (in England, at least) began as a privilege: clerics could be tried for criminal offenses only in ecclesiastical courts. A good summary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_of_clergy
I suspect that you are right about the number of takers ? although the payoff would be coupled with the various new disincentives to staying (or getting in) that I mentioned.
The point of the exercise, at a minimum, would be to get people starting to think of the UK as a place where Muslims leave, not arrive (today being the reverse).
At least one could say to disaffected Muslins, ”Hey, if you are not happy here, we are willing to pay you to leave. Go live in any number of the existing Islamic states that you consider to be religious paradises.”
Btw, I think, in the case of voluntary emigrants (if there eventually are any), any number of Muslim countries would be willing to take them in. Those espousing radical (to the point of advocating violence) beliefs have would certainly have less choice (Syria?) but the rest should find places to take their Western skills.
william, i think you are on the right track in changing the mindset of the culture. btw, syria might be sketchy about taking sunni radicals…they killed a bunch of them in the early 80s. they tend to support (not exclusively) secular groups like the PFLP.
Razib,
william, i think you are on the right track in changing the mindset of the culture. btw, syria might be sketchy about taking sunni radicals…they killed a bunch of them in the early 80s. they tend to support (not exclusively) secular groups like the PFLP.
You’re thinking about the Hama operation that took place by Hafez al-Assad. Traditionally, Syria has had no problems with terrorists as long as they don’t threaten the stability of the Alawite regime. Hafez was much more tough in taking out those who were dedicated to bringing down the regime, especially terrorists organizations who were actively taking control of Syrian cities. His son, Bashar, who is currently in control, is much less experienced than Hafez and the regime isn’t as strong as it was under Hafez. As a result, he has become something of a pawn for terrorist organizations because he doesn’t have the political strength to control them.
Syria is basically a terrorist state anymore.
William,
reign_relations_CE_2.jpg is a map of the Han world order, 2000 years ago.
The “one child policy” has created the huge inbalance between males and females in China. You also must consider the mind set. China is the “Middle Kingdom”. Its historical maps show China at the centre.
The Han are racially and ideologically cohesive. There are well over one billion of them. Chinese Nationalism is again on the rise, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_nationalism
and the country has millions of young men for whom the Peoples Liberation Army will have to find something for them to do.
Population pressure has been the cause of all the mass migrations in human history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiongnu
The jury is out on whether the Xiongnu were the Huns who gave their name to Hungary, however http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Han_fo
When a country has massive military forces, other countries should take note. Imitating the ostrich is maladaptive.
In terms of repatriating diaspora populations to their original or near original homelands, I think everyone is forgetting the 2 most large scale attempts so far:
1. Liberia – where freed slaves were repatriated
2. Israel – where Jews were repatriated
In both cases, it was a voluntary repatriation, although not without some horrible precedents, which may have forced some people to feel they had no option but to leave the country of their birth.
Both new nations have had their share of birthing difficulties but show that it is possible to repatriate people.
In the first case I believe the US government purchased the land that would become Liberia, in the second case Israel was partly ceded by the British, partly won by terrorism (Haganah) and partly purchased (Hertzl).
Could not a large semi-settled area be purchased for non-assimilating Islamists and they be resettled – let’s say in Patagonia?