If refugees seek to come here as victims of terror, then the usual rules should apply. As far as I’m concerned, wee should be putting up a lot more of them – refugees are welcome to Britain in my book.
I don’t know what the right thing to do with refugees is. If they can become integrated and productive members of society then there is an argument for them to be allowed. But genuine refugees have a lot of physical and mental health problems, and require a lot of resources to become productive. Resources I don’t know we can justify while the NHS is having the problems that it is.
On the crucial argument, you still haven’t made your point. Germany and France have very different conditions than those applying in the UK. France has a traditionally large Muslim population going back to the aftermath of the Algerian War, and radicalisation has proceeded apace with the segregation and radicalisation of the banlieues. It is very easy for people from the Middle Eastern countries affected by war to slip in there and to find friends; Belgium, between Germany and France, is an ammunition dump for people wanting to commit acts of terror. Germany has along had a policy of welcoming gastarbeiter, with a large population of Muslims from Turkey (in particular) often terrorised by neo-Nazi gangs. Britain has a very different makeup and circumstances whihc have made terror attacks more easy to thwart.
You would have to show me evidence that neo-nazi violence is common in Germany, I have only really seen cases of Antifa, and other such groups doing this on a large scale.
I don’t think your assesment of terroist motivations is very accurate though. In the case of the Berlin attack, Germany has not participated in any of the middle east conflicts, and Tunisia was a French territory historically. So it makes little sense to attack Germany when he could easily have traveled to France instead. These people don’t make the most rational decisions.
The important point you haven’t confronted is the fact that british terror crimes have been committed by British terrorists. Pakistani immigration was brought under strict control in the early 1970s after a series of immigration laws passed by Tory and Labour governments (the Race Relations laws were passed at the same time to assuage liberal discontent over the (sometimes explicit) racial nature of these laws. Banning people from coming from Islamic countries (visitors, too???) will be very marginal, and may be totally useless in stopping this
Even if it is marginal, there is very little cost involved for us as far as I can see. But if there is an attack by a foreign national, would you change your view on this? Or would you continue to deny that it is even a posibility, as you are now.
Far more useful in the short term in the short-term is effective policing, and in the longer term working with the Islamic community, including young people to counter extremism.
I agree with this, but it is very difficult to work with the Islamic community in the current political climate, if such a community even exists. The media is obessed with claiming that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, but also critizing it is islamophobic, which makes it very hard to have a constructive conversation.
you can’t really stop homophobia as such, which is a rife among white people.
This was true maybe 5 years ago, but in my experience it is nearly dead here now. The only homophobic ‘attacks’ I have recieved for a long time have been from religious people (mainly muslims, fundementalist christans are very rare now and I don’t know any outside of my girlfriend’s family).
This isn’t a debate and it isn’t even close to a debate. It is the same points being rehashed over and over again by you Draculina and dressed up as something else.
Nobody is refuting any of my arguments, so what exactly do you want me to do?
Muslim radicalisation was largely driven by American and British imperialism in the Middle East and and around the globe and an interventionist ideology that has ensured America has been involved in a perpetual war, other than the great depression in the late 20’s-30’s, since 1776.
I wasn’t old enough to understand what was happening when the wars in the middle east started, but retroactively I don’t agree with them. They did however happen, and we have to deal with the conciquences of that.
I don’t think that is actually the main reason though, Islam is a very flawed ideology and your explanation doesn’t really explain why Bosnia has terrorism problems. They aren’t in the middle east, and Islam spread there from Ottoman imperialism, not American.
The world would be a far better place, if America didn’t stick its snout into everyone else’s business and attempt to impose their brand of right wing imperialist driven corporate neoliberalism on everyone else, on this planet.
I don’t know how true that is, without American influence we might be living in a world where a majority of countries practice stalinist or maoist communism, or any other number of possible outcomes.
That you appear to assume it is as simple as “ban dem Muslims”, “ban dat ideology”. A Trumpesque solution to a complex issue. Ban dem Mexicans, ban this ban that.
I don’t think that at all if you actually read my arguments. I think if we allow more muslims into the country then it will continually make it harder to find a solution to radicalisation. And if we can’t find one, then there will be a lot more widespread violence than just a few minor terrorist attacks.
This is just a side point for anyone else reading our debate, but Bosnia (and Herzegovina) is a European country of majority white muslims. They also have a lot of problems with radicalisation and terrorism, so it isn’t a race problem.
You once provided a global analysis of Islamic strength. As I keep asking, what is the racial make-up and geography of Islam within Britain? This is not just relevant to your assertion that terrorists are the children of Muslims, but also to BB’s wish to have a general war with all British Muslims in the country, with deportation in the first instance.
I don’t have any studies on this, but anecdotally I would say the largest group is Pakistanis, with nearly all of the rest being arabic.
I don’t agree on BB’s stance against British citizens, allowing more muslims into the country will only increase the tensions which is another reason to restrict migration.
I’m not talking about attacks in Germany or France, where very different conditions exist. It’s British radicals who were responsible for the 7/7 bombing on the London Tube, and British radicals who were responsible for the Lee Rigby butchery.
I think you don’t want to talk about them because they prove you are wrong at this point, what conditions fo you think exist here that prevents someone from stealing a lorry and running people over with it?
Banning everyone – Christian, atheist etc from a Muslim country but not banning any visitors (who may well be radical Muslims disguised as atheists – they are not duty-bound to be honest) from Belgium or France is going to do nothing. At best your policy is likely to be very marginal – effective policing and monitoring has been much more useful.
It’s going to stop people from those countries, if Germany had this policy then the Berlin attack wouldn’t have happened. I agree that policing is important, and will work better if there is less people that need monitoring.
I would prefer it if we didn’t have to monitor anyone, I don’t like living in a police state. Which is why I have said such a ban shouldn’t be forever, only until we can work out how to identify who is a radical and what the best way to deal with them is.
Nobody springs form the ground. We all have parents. But banning all people from Muslim countries without banning all Muslims strikes me as getting the worst of all worlds. You[‘r stopping the victims of terrorism coming in while allowing the rteal terrorists to prepare. Islam is a faith.
Why should the victims come here? It doesn’t help anyone, we get people who are seriously injured (both physically and mentally), and the other country loses people who could have help to fight the problems there, if not physically then with words and as an example of why the terrorist’s actions are bad.
I don’t mean to sound cold, but they have paid nothing into our system so why should they recieve any protections from it?
It’s the converts to Islam who seem to be the real gung-ho brigade for recruitment, and there are enough Muslim children of immigrants here who sympathise with radicalism. Why are they radical, when their parents and most of their peers are opposed to radicalism?
Do you have any evidence that they are opposed to it? Because everything I have seen would suggest that they aren’t, at least in regards to radical social views (anti-semitism, homophobia, ect).
drac, you didn’t really answer my points at all in your post of 29/12, and often seem to give rhetorical answers to Aunt Sally arguments (i.e.points which you make for me, but which I’ve not made). However, your slicing up of my sentences makes it all but impossible to defend myself without moving off in all directions, opening myself up to a similar slicing response and so on ad infinitum. I’m not prepared to do this, so not answering each of your points doesn’t mean accepting what you say.
“I’m not going to defend myself because i’m wrong but don’t want to admit it”
But there is one question I would ask before responding to what I regard as your main point. You say you won’t ban Moslems as such, but only put a ban on people of whatever religion from Muslim countries. Have I got your right on that?
No, I want to ban fundamentalist muslims, and islamists but this the only reasonable way of doing so that I can think of. I don’t like it, but I think its the only option we have currently.
Could you explain how that is going to be effective? The most effective and bloody attacks on UK soil have been by Brit radical Muslims, so it won’t stop them. A ban on Christians from Syria (where they are under threat of physical extinction) seems bizarre. Radical terrorists who want to get into the UK will get in, and those who want to travel around Europe would find ways of getting around no matter how tight the border controls.
As there won’t be a ban on visitors from non-Muslim Europe (just popping in to have a truck drive around Oxford Street, guv!), it’s not going to stop them either.
So, the people who are most likely to wreak havoc will not be affected by a ban on Muslim countries.
British muslims don’t just spring out of the ground magically, they are the children of immigrants. If you import more foreign muslims then you get more British muslims later. Regardless of this, what you are saying isn’t really true. For example, the most recent attack in Berlin was by a Tunisian, not a German muslim. I’m not really sure why you think the same won’t happen here. We have better intelligence and police forces than Germany but that will never stop every attempt.
So your argument is, some of them might get through so we should make it easy for all of them to get through?