Muslim terror attack on London Bridge

[PottyLisa]

It's even better to see your desperately transparent attempts to wind people up.  You're a funny little fella aren't you

[woolley]

7 hours ago, RIchard Britten said:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/many-people-killed-terrorist-attacks-uk/

You cannot compare the clash between Islam and the West to the Irish situation. A different order of magnitude altogether.

[pongo]

57 minutes ago, woolley said:

You cannot compare the clash between Islam and the West to the Irish situation. A different order of magnitude altogether.

Why not? It's true that many more were being murdered by the Provisionals. But, as the former head of MI5 is saying, this is a generational thing. It's something which will pass. It's not really a fundamental clash of cultures because it's a minority of people, mostly disaffected youth. It's clearly not the same, but why isn't it comparable?

[woolley]

@ Pongo: It is indeed a fundamental clash of cultures which have largely abhorred each other for well over a thousand years. The Western authorities simply will not recognise that which is staring them in the face. They are deluded, not to mention criminally negligent, in refusing to concede that the whole social experiment of the massive melting pot of cultures is a catastrophe that governments of the past have visited on our children and grandchildren. They are not even discouraged in their folly. In fact, they are accelerating the process as evidenced by Merkel's outrageous behaviour in Germany in the face of the huge influx from the Middle East which has affected other European countries too. It is an abdication of their responsiblities to their own people whose protection is supposed to be their first duty. The crime wave now being perpetrated by economic migrants on European citizens is a scandal.

We are only in the foothills of an epic existential struggle and, compared to this, the IRA and its machinations were indeed a little local difficulty. A deadly one, of course, but small and local on the global scale. This larger struggle has been fought out before in various theatres down the centuries and it is going to be fought out again in the modern age. It ebbs and flows as certainly as night follows day. Islam is young, growing, hardened and not afraid to die for the cause. The West is old, dying, soft and doesn't even know what its cause is anymore, let alone prepared to die for it. Yes, it has the hardware but this is not a great deal of use when there are massive fifth columns living in every country.

The man speaking in the piece you link to displays his naivety for all to see when he remarks: “I think this is genuinely a generational problem. When I left MI5 in 2013 if I had been asked I would have said that I thought that we probably were over the worst of the al-Qaeda threat."  Good call! Not! What made him think that? He should have asked those on the ground who see the segregation and the expanding enclaves of Muslims in our cities with the pressure points around their fringes. They know very well how things stand because they see it happening every day. What makes you think that his blithe assurance of it being a generational phenomenon of 20 or 30 years duration is likely to be any more accurate than his previous belief that we were past the peak some years ago? Maybe he'll just be comfortably dead by then and not around to answer the awkward questions. It seems a meaningless time frame he has pulled out of the air given that we know the Muslim population will continue to expand faster than the general population and each generation appears to have the potential for greater radicalisation than the last. It is just so, so arrogant to believe that our soft liberal society can end this struggle where so many others have failed throughout history.

Why did we volunteer for it? A major contributory is no doubt that those who dream up these policies do not have the results impinging on their every day lives. Or at least not until much further into the process. The likes of us here are similarly blessed, sitting pretty on an offshore Island that doesn't suffer the threats from jihadi radicals.

I've done this all before of course. You know very well what I think, so there is no point my going on at great length again. Suffice to say, the aspect of all of this I find the most disquieting is the complete and utter imperviousness of some obviously intelligent people to the peril at hand. It is quite astonishing. Perhaps in their comfy complacency, they really have become too civilised to recognise danger. It's always been OK, therefore it always will be appears to be the mission statement. Well, every Napoleon has his Waterloo. One day we will inevitably meet ours and this may very well be it coming down the tracks.

 

[Tarne]

I can't really beat that

[P.K.]

14 hours ago, Tarne said:

I can't really beat that

I can.

Let's start with Merkel's collective guilt and move on from there.

Hint: there's nothing wrong in viewing Muslims as fellow human beings...

[pongo]

I don't agree with these great dramatic sweeping visions of history Woolley. History isn't really like that - it tends to be about people, money and deals. We know that, from history itself.

40 years ago most Middle East terrorism, and most terrorism internationally including in Ireland, was essentially anti-colonial and leftist. What used to be called liberation politics. It needed a centre and that centre was ultimately Moscow. That's not to say that all of the groups were directly or even indirectly Moscow backed. Some were. Some were backed by the satellites and some were backed by the satellite's satellites. The PIRA which had been essentially a right wing conservative splinter was backed by Libya by the 1980s.

Very few people in 1980 would have ever predicted the collapse of the USSR. And yet it was gone by the end of the decade. And without it, international terrorism went into decline. Until the emergence of extreme Islamic terrorism. And that's the connection I am making. If you remove the centres that inform and back terrorism then it starts to go away. That's why I believe that he is right to say that it is generational.

--

Also - the globalisation you so hate also has the potential to serve as an antidote to the  differences which exist between cultures. Make them want iPhones and stock exchanges more than they want to fight.

[Chinahand]

I'm trying to think how to respond to Woolley's huge messianic sweep that our culture is weak and soft and being consumed from within by Islam.

I mainly think it is a huge, unwarranted extrapolation which shows such a lack of faith in our cultural strength that if Richard Britten had said it Woolley would be going on about self loathing liberals - well look at your own ideas Woolley.

Just like Pongo I find ideas of blood enmity and clashes of civilisations too large themes when the reality of social change is about traditional cultural traditions mutating under local influences, technological change and generational shifts.

The idea that the UK is going to be outbred by Muslims is a fantasy pure and simple.  The demographics just don't accommodate any such idea.  Link 1 Link 2

If you presume no decrease in the birth rate of Bangladeshi and Pakistani populations over the next 50 years, assume they start having children earlier and presume Whites continue to have a negative growth rate due to fertility rates below replacement levels in 50 years time these populations will still be less than 10% of the population.  Muslims make up less than 5% of our population, their differential birth rate is simply not enough to significantly change that.

I want to try to understand what Woolley expects the next 50 odd years to be like. He seems to think civil war is inevitable with the ethnic cleansing of Bradford the only way to restore the UK's glory.

 As far as I'm concerned I think it will not be that different from now - the UK will remain a diverse society with multiple communities, these communities will develop their unique traditions which will be a mix of British and their own ethnic traditions, which will cause a slow separation between the communities and their old home cultures.

British Muslims are a very diverse community and to portray them as all supporting Wahabbi or radical Islam is just untrure - that diversity will continue.  My understanding (and I wish I could find the data) is that religious observance amongst the Muslim community in Britain is decreasing. just as in the mainstream, with secularization increasing.

Will their be terrorism - yes.  Will this be of such an extent to cause a social breakdown - no.  There were 6 million members of the Irish Community compared to 2 million muslims and radicals hiding in that community killed far more people than Islamic terrorists have been able to so far.  Will a larger proportion of Muslims become radicalized than the Irish - maybe a bit, three times more - I doubt it,  So a problem of similar size.

The most important factor on how the Muslim population is radicalized is Middle Eastern politics which are totally fucked up at the moment.  But just as Yugoslavia created huge waves of refugees and pulled Western Countries into a war, but is now peaceful I don't see these factors as necessarily getting worse in the Middle East.

Algeria went through this cycle for a generation and emerged totally exhausted by violence.  Iraq and Syria will go through the same.

I'm proud of my culture, see it as influencing British Muslims far more than British Muslims are influencing it and find the oh no the world is ending rants the forums is full of bemusing.

All we can do is wait and see, but nah, the British Muslim population will be no more than 10% of our population in 50 years time, will not have been ethnically cleansed and will not have caused a social breakdown in Britain. I suppose I can just about aspire to be still living to see if my prediction comes true.

Woolley are you really so lacking in faith of British (and European) culture that you see such a radically different vision.  I don't get how you get so worked up about it.  The Nazis killed 1/2 a million Brits. I don't want to play down 50 odd people killed on transport for London, but you've got to put it in some sort of perspective.

 

 

[woolley]

6 hours ago, pongo said:

I don't agree with these great dramatic sweeping visions of history Woolley. History isn't really like that - it tends to be about people, money and deals. We know that, from history itself.

40 years ago most Middle East terrorism, and most terrorism internationally including in Ireland, was essentially anti-colonial and leftist. What used to be called liberation politics. It needed a centre and that centre was ultimately Moscow. That's not to say that all of the groups were directly or even indirectly Moscow backed. Some were. Some were backed by the satellites and some were backed by the satellite's satellites. The PIRA which had been essentially a right wing conservative splinter was backed by Libya by the 1980s.

Very few people in 1980 would have ever predicted the collapse of the USSR. And yet it was gone by the end of the decade. And without it, international terrorism went into decline. Until the emergence of extreme Islamic terrorism. And that's the connection I am making. If you remove the centres that inform and back terrorism then it starts to go away. That's why I believe that he is right to say that it is generational.

--

Also - the globalisation you so hate also has the potential to serve as an antidote to the  differences which exist between cultures. Make them want iPhones and stock exchanges more than they want to fight.

Well I can agree with much that you say here Pongo but, as you would expect, we reach entirely different conclusions. 

Sweeping visions of history do happen, though gradually through the people, money and deals you speak of. They are but a summary of the individual events and accidents and miscalculations of human experience that cumulatively build our story onto the huge canvas of life that flows down the passage of centuries. The wider historical ramifications are thus greater than the sum of the parts. All of the things we see happening now in real time will be viewed through the prism of time by the historians of the future, whoever they turn out to be, just as we look now at the events of the past. It is far more difficult to interpret current events because you cannot yet clearly see the consequences in true perspective. Therefore the jury is out on liberal the policies of successive governments since WW2 and it will be for many years to come. It’s too soon to say, in the words of Zhou Enlai, although the harbingers are not encouraging.

I concur with your comments on the Soviet Union, its sponsorship of international terrorism and the shock of its sudden unravelling. This teaches us that things we see as certainties in our lives are anything but, and I say that as a big fan of eastern bloc communism as a youngster. Everything is subject to constant change and it always has been.

Soviet paymasters supporting international terrorism through the decades is a totally different proposition to the resurgent militant Islam that has been welcomed into the West with open arms and invited to strengthen and grow. This is a spontaneous movement in direct contrast to the old leftist, post-colonial struggles for ascendancy. You have to recognise the zeal with which these beliefs are held. Islam is their religion and the global Ummah is their nationality. Their observance is their entire existence in a way that it is difficult for the present day secular westerner to understand. It trumps any supposed state nationality allegiance. 

As for making them want i-phones and stock exchanges, are you serious? If so, that’s quite frightening. You need to think in a “fundamentally” different way. They literally laugh at you for being impressed by such false idols of Mammon. They see it as your weakness and they despise you for it. These things are anathema to them and you might as well wish for the moon as think you can bring about a conversion of that magnitude. They are all heading for paradise, don’t forget.

Of course they are not averse to using technology for their ends. The Koran encourages the use of whatever means are available in the interests of the struggle to spread the word far and wide.

Globalisation is infinitely depressing for many reasons, and all the more so if, as you postulate, it has the potential to destroy the differences that exist between cultures. Who wants a bog standard world? The world’s individual cultures differentiated are its treasures. Playing around with them to create a “global village” in individual continents and countries in some crazy Frankenstein type social experiment is what has gone badly wrong and where the intractable problems have arisen and continue to fester.

[Tarne]

And another one today... 

It's gonna keep happening in increasing numbers because there's increasing numbers of the Enemy. 

[Tugger]

Except, of course, there hasn't been another one today at all.

How disappointing for you, and those like you

[Neil Down]

4 hours ago, Tarne said:

And another one today... 

It's gonna keep happening in increasing numbers because there's increasing numbers of the Enemy. 

There’s been an incident. Hope that’s clear enough for you 

[quilp]

Not terror-related, according to the Met.

[Tarne]

Eh, I'll hold to my judgement for a couple of days, I saw the pictures before they were censored. 

[Tugger]

What a shame you didn't exhibit such patience in the first place