Metropol

James, the lesson for us all surely is to rise above calling for the deaths of innocent people - in fact any people.

I understand that the protests in London offend you, but to make retaliatory comments of this kind makes you no better than those you seek to silence. They no more speak for all who follow Islam than the BNP speak for all caucasian Britons.

"Islam" means peace; and for the vast majority of its followers this is exactly what they want.

I can hardly edit your words when I argued for free speech and free will; but I suppose I wasn't anticipating someone writing something quite as awful as that.

It beggars belief that the police failed to arrest a single person at this Muslim protest in London. Especially when you consider the police detained over 600 people at the Labour Party conference last year under the Terrorism Act (http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=2028602005) for such heinous terrorist acts as protesting against the Iraq war.

It's certainly the case that the police, and much of the media, are paralysed by fear at the thought of upsetting Muslims.

To say that the Terrorism Act is being applied selectively and politically would be something of an understatement.

At least some of the truth finally came out in the London protests - a certain element of Britain's Muslim community do support terrorism against the very country they choose to live in. I don't think for one minute that those placards are a fair reflection of how most Muslims in this country feel, but even if they represent 1%, then we obviously have a serious problem on our hands. A problem which the media and virtually all politicians have completely shyed away from until now.

As much as I dislike the the BNP, sometimes they do get it absolutely right. And they know they're right. They have a clever and well-educated man as their leader who puts across moderate and well-reasoned arguments. For example it's fair comment to say that Islam is incompatible with a Westernised democracy, and that multiculturalism has been an unmitigated disaster in many parts of the UK. The BNP use these arguments to win support and gain power, but given their history and roots it's probably safe to assume that far more sinister beliefs are their driving force.

The real scandal is why the media and mainstream politicians consider it so taboo to call into question the behaviour of Muslims. It shouldn't be left to the BNP and certain parts of the Tory party to raise an important debate into why some Muslims have this murderous hatred towards the country they live in. It needs to be a mainstream and open debate, which means an end to this ridiculous pussyfooting around for fear of offending a certain part of our population.

Apparently South Park has featured images of Mohammed at least twice. Didn't cause outrage. Neither did any of the other images shown at the address below, dating back to the middle ages. The site also shows the recent Danish cartoons which sparked this controversy, should you want to have a look. There are also some others which are I'm sure unnecessarily offensive if you are generally offended by such things.

http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/

Would a similarly drawn cartoon of God/Jesus printed in a Tehran newspaper have caused people in London to burn down the Iranian embassy? I don't think so. So why exactly are some Muslims behaving the way they are? We keep being told that Islam is a peaceful religion and that the actions of fundamentalist Muslims is at odds with the teachings of the Koran. So what is fuelling the behaviour of (among others) the people we saw in the news, walking the streets of London waving banners calling for people who offend Islam to be beheaded?

Anyone who knows me knows reasonably well will know that I have a healthy disrespect for organised religion owing to the general wide ranging hypocrisy that comes along with it. This latest row deepens those convictions. While I will vigourously defend the freedom of the media, I do not wish to see people offended for the sake of offending them - but I do not force my beliefs and morals on anyone and equally I will not have someone else's beliefs and morals forced upon me.

One of the leading Muslim scholars of Britain says that Islamists love Mohammed more than their families, and therefore anything like what the Danes did is seen as a slur against Islam. It's one of their biggest insults ever.

James H wrote:One of the leading Muslim scholars of Britain says that Islamists love Mohammed more than their families, and therefore anything like what the Danes did is seen as a slur against Islam. It's one of their biggest insults ever.

Yes, they find the cartoons offensive. Fine. I can understand that (to a degree). But it's a cartoon. A rather crap one at that. No insult (especially one in the form of a cartoon) is going to lead me to incite or carry out violent acts, which fundamentalist muslims appear to be more prone to doing more often than most. Why is that, and what has caused the rise in fundamentalist Islam in recent years?

I think it's all one sided.

I support the BNP for speaking their mind.

Is it racist to want asylum seekers out?

James Martin wrote:I think it's all one sided.

I support the BNP for speaking their mind.

Is it racist to want asylum seekers out?

"Asylum seekers" by definition are people who leave their own country for their safety, often for political reasons or because of war, and who travel to another country hoping that the government will protect them and allow them to live there.

To send someone back to danger would be wrong in a civilised society.

You are probably confusing them with bogus asylum seekers.

Dare I suggest that is because you listen to the likes of the BNP, who make no distinction between one group and the other.

So I suppose that does make you quite racist. Or naive.

I haven't decided which, but I'll let you know.

I don't consider the BNP to be racist. Indeed, despite being Tory, I agree with many of their policies.

I walk around Coventry and if I'm quite honest there's naff all British about it anymore. The Coventry University campus might as well be a foreign country, no word of a lie.

We're also still getting too many asylum seekers in. It's not racist to put limits on immigration, surely? Let's look at how that Bin-Laden supporting protest resulted in no arrests, whereas the Party Conference did. We're in such a Politically Correct society, that blacks are treated too well for fear of somebody being seen as racist because they're not being treated equally.

What a load of tosh. I'm not suggesting "fuck the Pakis" but I do think that this whole shit-scared "favour the darkies" attitude really has got to stop.

And unis, they have all these foreign students in FFS! (Only about half of Cov Uni's students are from England. Appalling.) And now there's an investigation going on because international students are assualting staff which means a reduction in the level service to us Brits who treat the system with respect.

For the record, I'm not racist. But I do support Britain being bloody well British, and it's not anymore. It's anything but.

Only one word to describe you after reading that, Mr Martin.

Cunt.

Ah right! Not racist. Got it. Just a xenophobe happy to tar the entire foreign intake of your university with the same brush for the actions of a few. Plus, you have beautiful dreams of segregation of education, no concept of universities' financial need for foreign students, less diverse towns and turning away refugees.

Glad we cleared that up.

What are you learning in uni by the way? It's clearly not debating skills!

James Martin wrote:I don't consider the BNP to be racist. Indeed, despite being Tory, I agree with many of their policies.

I walk around Coventry and if I'm quite honest there's naff all British about it anymore. The Coventry University campus might as well be a foreign country, no word of a lie.

We're also still getting too many asylum seekers in. It's not racist to put limits on immigration, surely? Let's look at how that Bin-Laden supporting protest resulted in no arrests, whereas the Party Conference did. We're in such a Politically Correct society, that blacks are treated too well for fear of somebody being seen as racist because they're not being treated equally.

What a load of tosh. I'm not suggesting "fuck the Pakis" but I do think that this whole shit-scared "favour the darkies" attitude really has got to stop.

And unis, they have all these foreign students in FFS! (Only about half of Cov Uni's students are from England. Appalling.) And now there's an investigation going on because international students are assualting staff which means a reduction in the level service to us Brits who treat the system with respect.

For the record, I'm not racist. But I do support Britain being bloody well British, and it's not anymore. It's anything but.

With most of your points thats all very well and a lot of people would probably agree with you, but you seem to let yourself down in the construction and delivery of your argument.