Another one that hurts

Hi Tangle,I mostly agree with your last two posts. Immigrants must follow local laws (I assume that all countries have forms that immigrants must sign stating that they agree to follow local laws). That seems to me a given.But forcing a religious community to give up some religious beliefs *can* cause enduring problems. Here in the US the federal government pressured the Mormons to forswear polygamy back in the late 1800's, yet some Mormon sects continue the practice right up to today, most famously the fundamentalist Mormon sect led by Warren Jeffs which suffered mass arrests under suspicion of child abuse, primarily sexual contact with minors. I wasn't sure what you meant by 'cultural' crimes until you mentioned FGM. Sure, agreed. Yeah, this is a tough one. Immigrant Imams sign the same immigration forms as all other immigrants, but proving that they're urging law-breaking practices so they can be deported is likely very difficult.--Percy

No you can't force people to give up their beliefs - all you do is create martyrs.But no-one is born with a a belief that a girl's clitoris needs to be cut off, women can't be allowed to drive cars, or that apostates, female adulterers and homosexuals need to be stoned to death - those things are learned.Moderate Muslims have interpreted their holy books in different way to the extremeists and it's that process of re-interpreting and re-assessing their books that the west somehow needs to encourage.Of course, being an 'extreme secularist' (wtf?) I want the education to continue to the point that the whole mountain of religious nonsense is abandoned and we can get down to the real task of building better societies.

I was musing whether mosques and what was being taught in them could be regulated so we know what's going on in them when 3 hours ago the UK government announced plans to do just that with UK madrassas:Plans to regulate madrassas published by government - BBC NewsThat's likely to be controversial.

The question is - what changes do you propose that will result in legal procedures being followed to your liking? Might I propose treating all Muslims with equal dignity and respect, even if they hold abhorrent beliefs?
Might I propose talking near exclusively about moderate Islam? Might I propose we barely deign to call extremist Islam, Islam?
Might I propose we consume media that gives sober analysis of immigration policies, the refugee crisis and the events that caused it, Islam and avoid hysterical fear mongering stories in attempt to shift the incentives to produce good material on the subject rather than easy material.
Might I propose we don't blame Islam itself. Sectarianism? Sure. Religion, fine. But Islam itself? That's probably not going to actually help.
Might I propose we take pains to avoid perceptions that this is a war against Islam, or the Sunni faith?
Might I propose we read the Qur'an as we read the Bible? The Hadith? Read some of the works by notable moderates and make efforts to actively engage with Muslims in our lives?
Perhaps we can donate money to charities dedicated to Muslims escaping the threat of familial reprisal for innocuous offences?Maybe we should encourage others to do likewise? I don't think there's as significant problem as you seem to. I expect most of the work will be done with time and exposure. In the meantime I'll urge people to learn about Islam and engage with Muslims in a friendly fashion.

I propose enforcing the laws that we've already made. There was a reason we made them, somewhere we lost sight of it. That's worked really well so far hasn't it? Bad and dangerous ideas need confronting, i have no respect for them, nor should our society. You can propose anything you like but pretending that the bad guys don't exist is not going to help the situation. We've done that, it didn't work, it allowed the bad guys to develop their ideas and pollute more minds. Business as usual is not going to solve this. Ignoring core problems and just being nice is not going to help. It was only when Christianity stopped reading their books literally and secular values and constraints were imposed on it that it was tamed. If your only answer is to carry on doing what all decent people have been doing anyway then you're not contributing anything of value.

I'll take the repetition to mean 'I have no suggestion on how to achieve this'. Yes, it's worked really well. That's swell.I still propose treating all Muslims with equal dignity and respect, even if they hold abhorrent beliefs. I don't know why you said this, I wasn't proposing doing this. So you keep saying. So what do you propose we actually do? Then describe the core problems, and explain how we can help. And therefore? So what have you contributed? As I said, I haven't been persuaded there is any need to do anything but calm the anti-Muslim/Islam hysteria down and to earnestly seek ways to live side by side with people of different creeds. Apparently you feel very strongly we should do something more, but I haven't see anything specific from you. Really the best I can get from you is that we should 'improve' things and criticize ideas we don't like more.Is there really nothing else on your mind?

So if someone goes around spouting racial hatred against, say, people of black origin in public, should they be treated with dignity and respect, or should they be reported to the police for incitement to racial hatred under the Public Order Act ?I'm interested in establishing whether in your view, extreme religious views, which are abhorrent to a lot of our values, are worthy of special protection, because they're religious.

Yes. Yes. I reject the notion of thought crimes entirely.

Oh I wasn't thinking about thought crimes - I was wondering whether an Imam preaching that gay people are an abomination, and lauding them being thrown off buildings, should be reported to the police for incitement to homophobic hatred under the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act.

Yes, you should report any criminal offences you witness.

Where we differ then, appears to be in the degree of respect we afford to (or perhaps in the definition of the word "respect" in relation to) people who hold and preach views which we find abhorrent.I suspect you may feel differently, but I have no problem calling abhorrent and unworthy of respect, someone who is a vocal racist. I also have no problem calling abhorrent and unworthy of respect an Imam who preaches murdering gay people.For the record, I also defend their rights to have whatever views they want. I don't, however, accord them the badge of my respect.Edited by vimesey, : No reason given.

The mistake is that 'treating all Muslims with equal dignity and respect, even if they hold abhorrent beliefs.' specifically mentioned 'beliefs', because 'beliefs' were to what I was referring. Tangled retorted that he doesn't feel the need to respect abhorrent ideas, and I said that we should still treat people who hold those ideas with dignity and respect.All criminals should be afforded a certain minimal level of human dignity and respect of course, but don't confuse 'respect' with meaning we should kiss the feet of murderers - just we should not urinate on them, menstruate on their pillows, provide them with decent meals, access to reading material etc., etc.

I think then that it does come down to a difference in what can be meant by "respect", and/or to the precise circumstances in which that word is used.The difficulty is in separating a sufficient and decent level of human respect to a particular individual, from our lack of respect for the idea they are preaching.And in particular, if that individual preaches publicly that their entire creed and identity is inextricably bound with ideas which (in part at least) we find abhorrent, (and indeed argues that other people's creeds and identities should be similarly bound) then it becomes extremely hard to separate the two. Or at the very least, to be seen to be separating the two.I will never be able to say that I respect a vocal racist, or a preacher of homophobic hatred. The word "respect" means far more to me than that. That does not mean that I would deny them their basic human rights - just that I need to get above that basic level of human rights, before I use the word "respect" in relation to someone.If you like, a difference between respecting someone's rights, and respecting the person.

That sounds all right, but during the 1930s would you have proposed treating all Germans and Austrians with equal dignity and respect even if they held abhorrent beliefs?To come up to date, I wouldn't treat members of the British National Party with the same respect that I would give to most other people.

So much is obvious.Meanwhile several hundred people died in Paris. Europe is on the highest terror threat levels. There's the largest manhunt every organised in France and Belgium. The UK government is about to vote on the bombing Syria and will win. The UK opposition party is about to self-destruct over it. The UK Children's Commissioner reported that British Asians are covering up child abuse and blaming the abused for 'dishonouring' the abusers. The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to 'take all necessary measures' to deal with ISIL in Syria. UK citizens are fighting against us, publicly beheading innocent captives in the name of Allah and being 'droned' in response. Russian passenger and fighter aircraft are shot out of the sky causing instability between superpowers. Extremist religious believers are in control of millions of people, making their lives intolerable and causing mass migration across the middle east and Europe.And that was just November.Obviously, all we need to do now is respect their views and values, don't read or report on what's happening, and just be very, very nice to those that would kill us and change our world in their image.Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.