Racial profiling

[Rhisiart]

Originally Posted by fryke

Okay. I can live with that.

(I kinda think this thread gave me a nice idea for a story I'm currently writing. 20 year old French blonde terrorist on the seat next to you in the plane. Sounds great. It has something. Sorry to bring that back again. I'm just mistreating my keyboard and writing quite a bit of text. Hopefully it'll be good when I'm done.)

Not all that far from reality. During the IRA bombing of London in the 1980's, my Irish wife was 'racially' profiled at airports and ports. She had a particularly bad experience getting though immigration at Heathrow one year. However, she seems to have come through it all unscathed.

As your book develops, could you not introduce a dashing muscular built Welshman as a hero who saves the day?

And Reed, I'd like to join the SSLO, but 'Herslf' is worried that there may be too many beautiful, scantily dressed blonde Sewdish women in the ranks.

[reed]

I was double checked at Kennedy (that is... coming back to my home town) because I was living in France for two years and working for UNICEF? My French girl friend went flying through without a wink. Firgure that one out. All is "in the eye of the beholder?"

rhisiart

MY wife wouldn't like it if I join the SSLO either. Hey, she gets through customs/passport control and I get nailed. For my looks? I think she owes me one.

[rubaiyat]

It would be foolish in the extreme not to search on the characteristics known to apply to most of the suspects.

If you want to catch Osama Bin Laden, an exceptionally tall Yemeni with long beard, on dialysis, should you apprehend dumpy Japanese housewives to show lack of discrimination?

True not all Muslim terrorists look like Arabs or Pakistanis, but virtually all the terrorists so far have been. Further the moslem community has been half hearted in its condemnation of the terrorist acts.

If you read the Koran you will find out why. It is nothing like the bible or buddhist teachings or that of the bahai or many codes which place kindness and love of your fellow human beings at the heart of religious practice. Many of its precepts are violent, misogynist, intolerant and absolutist. There are calls to charity and good works but these are essentially aimed at fellow muslims.

To muslims who believe in the absolute truth of the Koran, the so called terrorist acts are quite understandable. The terrorists are doing no more nor less than what the Koran calls for. The only point of debate arises over whether the killing of the faithful to get at the infidel is justified. There is no Koranic condemnation against killing of the unfaithful, quite the reverse, there are several incitements to do exactly that.

A muslim would have to ignore several parts of the Koran to maintain a peaceful, tolerant position with infidels. To the credit of many they do do that, but if it came to choosing between adhering to their religion and killing infidels there is no choice and they have shown on many occassions in history that is the case.

The strange part is that underlying the current agressive acts is a pervasive sense of persecution fostered by hard line Islamists and propagated by an abundance of petro-dollars. This follows a similar line to the German Nazi creed that they are justified in attacking mostly innocents because they have allegedly done something to you.

Islam is a religion founded and advanced mostly by violent conquest. Their thinking goes along the lines of "We are in the right because the Koran says so, so we have done no wrong but anyone who has raised a hand back against us has attacked the Koran". So they cherry pick their history and show no mercy to their "enemies". The death penalty applies to those who renounce Islam so by recategorising sects within Islam as "unbelievers" they can turn on them as well in internecine conflict. The Iranians have committed genocide against the gentle, moral Bahai and the Sunni's and Shiites have been at each others throats since the early days of Islam because of this.

The thing that really puzzles me is how they see their believe in an all powerful Allah, who is capable of evil as well as good - unbounded by any earthly restrictions, requires that they do his dirty work for him. Every purpetrator of whatever butchery, believes they are the instrument of Allah. The faithful have extreme difficulty in resisting such beliefs because that could target them as the next victim (shows their "lack of faith"), much safer to go along with the extremely violent who are after all justified by clear statements in the Koran.

Islam is an odd mixture of primitive blood lust and some sophisticated philosophy. As such it represents fairly accurately its feuding Mid Eastern tribal origins.

Unfortunately its repression of women, customs of arranged and early marriages where the women are mainly confined and kept pregnant means they will outbreed the dominant religion, Christianity, within the next 15-20 years.

That is when our tolerant, democratic and law abiding societies will be tested to their limits. The issue will be far beyond racial profiling at that point. It will be a matter of submission to something totally alien to modern western society.

[billbaloney]

Oh my god, crazy freak alert!

[rubaiyat]

I take it you have read the Koran?

[hawki18]

Ok I give up what is sslo do not know the initials, Is it some org. in Euorpe ?

[rubaiyat]

Scandinavian Sauna Liberation Organisation.

It was a joke in an earlier post about profiling blonde terrorists.

[Rhisiart]

Originally Posted by billbaloney

Oh my god, crazy freak alert!

Why?

Originally Posted by rubaiyat

…the Koran is nothing like the bible ...... the thing that really puzzles me is how they see their belief in an all powerful Allah, who is capable of evil as well as good ….

The Old Testament is full of references to a vindictive God. Take the Old Testament on its literal word and one could do all manner of terrible things to people (e.g. the Crusades).

Originally Posted by rubaiyat

To Muslims who believe in the absolute truth of the Koran, the so-called terrorist acts are quite understandable. The terrorists are doing no more nor less than what the Koran calls for.

I think it all boils down to interpretation. I am not a Muslim, but I always believed the term Infidel refers to Muslims who abuse the teachings of the Koran (i.e. Osama bin Laden). There are very clear references in the Koran extolling Muslims to tolerate people of other faiths.

Likewise with Jihad. As I understand it, Jihad is not about waging Holy War against Christians, but rather a personal war within oneself between good and evil (not being greedy, being faithful to one's spouse, avoiding vices etc.).

Many Islamic clerics interpret the Koran in a way that would set a good example to most Christians. The clerics who interpret the Koran in the way you have described (and I'm not getting at you here) are the ones who have politics on their minds, not theology.