J. K. Rowling on Rupert Murdoch
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January 13, 2015 at 9:21am
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Murdoch is not Christian.
Oh yes he is.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/media-billionaire-and-fox-news-owner-rupert-murdoch-tells-christians-to-pray-for-middle-east-counterparts-111404/
OK. I’ll believe you and Christianpost.
I’ll believe Murdoch himself, more so when you did not substantiate your claim with any evidence.
Wilson, beware the latest strain of fundamentalism, politichese.
The British culture minister went along similar lines. It’s just that his wasn’t a gut, candid, reaction. He just stated British muslims should rise against this barbarism. A muslim himself, gives him the right to say so.
So Murdoch cannot.
Liberal, how long will you maintain your equidistant position to prove your thesis? No space for religion in mainstream politics.
Nature abhors a vacuum, fundamentalism fills it.
Jozef, the issue is not with Muslims rising against this barbarism, they have done so plenty of times, not least out of self preservation. The problem is that this poses a lot of uncomfortable questions that many people keen to avoid.
You are taking this issue too seriously. In the scheme of things both Murdoch and Rowling are just public figures. The difference lies in what Murdoch’s media publishes. The above response by Rowling is a good one, that is all there is. I don’t think any of them form any policy in either terror issues, muslim integration, or major influence on European discussions of present security. So chill out.
“Liberal, how long will you maintain your equidistant position to prove your thesis? No space for religion in mainstream politics”.
You’ll have to rephrase the question, Jozef. I honestly don’t know what you’re on about.
Yes, we could start discussing the ‘reformation’ Islam went through at the end of the 19th century, turning it into the fundamentalist political design we see today.
Just ask the Armenians or which religion’s leaders were special guests in Hitler’s Berlin.
And now for the usual crap about Pope Pius 12th.
Exactly. You just lack the mental instruments. Hindered by your irrevocable faith in reason to describe and determine everything.
Labelling people according to their denomination. Rowling’s logic means minorities must be left to their devices, and so what if Pakistanis took to selling their kids in rural England.
I can’t get what you’re driving at, Jozef, unless we get down to “local” nuts and bolts. Here, let me help:
1. Joseph Muscat solemnly marches “against terrorism” (I assume it’s against all kinds in general, and Islamist in particular).
2. Joseph Muscat awards top national gong to billioniare Saudi prince and member of the regime that has done more to fund, arm and motivate terrorism than anyone else.
3. Simon Busuttil warns against Islamophobia.
4. Kuwait hosts many of the top Sunni ISIS propagandists and inciters of Sunni Shiaphobia, which is a form of Islamophobia, innit?
4. Simon Busuttil cheerfully attends Kuwaiti celebrations at the University of Malta.
5. Anthony Manduca and the assembled hosts of columnists spend three years urging us to attack Syria and bring down Assad.
6. ISIS attacks Syria. Assad fights ISIS.
7. The bishops drone on about persecuted Christian minorities in Iraq and Syria.
8. The columnists, not to be left out, join in.
9. The Christina minorities take refuge in areas controlled by Assad.
10. Islamophobe China cracks down on Muslims in Xinjiang.
11. Muscat and Busuttil are both delighted that Malta is doing business with China.
12. This morning, I read on my cereal packet that I should stir the porridge until I get the right “consistency”.
“And now for the usual crap about Pope Pius 12th”.
Looks like we’ve got a history denier here. I won’t even bother posting links to photographic evidence. That said, I won’t call Pope Pius XII a Nazi, like some priests in Nazi Germany evidently were. Which brings me to the main point here. You don’t judge a whole people on the actions of a comparatively extremist minority.
And you, I presume have no idea how many Jews were hidden away inside his Vatican.
Or that he had given his implicit support to the ones who intended to have Hitler assassinated in 1938. The message passed on through the archbishop of Munich to the German navy’s high command spearheading the plot. He had been the vatican’s ambassador to Munich for years.
No, you need your websites and photographic evidence. My source happens to be Rome’s Rabbi, and the yearly commemoration of his foresight and actions.
Studia, capra.
Liberal, the moment you’ll distinguish people from their religion is when you’ll get my point. But then, you cannot extrapolate people from their belief system and give me the usual lame excuse you think will suffice.
But that’s the fragility of a faith in abstract principles without endorsing a uniform code of ethics.
Britain’s behaving exactly the same, no sign of tomorrow’s front page anywhere in its press. All I see is the rush to whitewash a phenomenon which knows perfectly well how ‘liberal’ democracy works. The financial times went one better, ‘they asked for it’. Obama, who said we can, couldn’t even be fagged to excuse himself in person for missing last Sunday.
I don’t blame Britain, a republic, it isn’t.
As I said, the question to ask is what remains of Islam if Europe and the West have to prevail. And who gets to do it.
Remember appeasement? Just ask yourself why no-one in their communities speaks. Trust me, if we have to read this as a form of terrorism, ask every Italian how the Brigate Rosse were reduced to nothing.
It was a matter of the PC refusing to associate with any of their ideas, and that means refusing to define them as ‘radicals of some mainstream’, and, and this is where it becomes interesting, getting workers in those factories where Brigatisti bred their followers to turn them in.
To date, I haven’t seen one Imam do it. All they care for is whether this is good or bad for Islam. Doublespeak anyone?
Is it possible to conceive Islam doesn’t have the instruments to save itself? You should be convinced it doesn’t, so what’s with the reflecting on Christianity?
Given the concerted effort to align muslim to Islam, you’re perverse enough to let the ones at Charlie Hebdo die in vain. That they not be offended. Sick.
Do you mind if i take the worst case scenario and work backwards, or is your suprematic tendency aligned to a calculus where religions are banned?
How liberal of you to reflect me in your ultimate nemesis, the libertarians. Oops.
If I’m concerned Merkel prefers denouncing 28,000 in Dresden as intolerant neo-Nazis, what’s your take, let them to it?
I have this feeling your latent anti-religious sentiment is nothing but hatred for Europe’s spiritual identity.
I call that anti-semitism. Guess who admires Islam’s Jihad.
Cut the crap Liberal.
@Wilson. You state: “I don’t think any of them form any policy in either terror issues, Muslim integration, or major influence on European discussions…”
Think again. Murdoch owns Fox and many world wide newspapers. Remember News of World and the phone tapping saga. He owns several British (European) newspapers and has a significant influence on election outcomes. Through that influence he contributes to policy making. His policy, that is.
Jozef, I’ll assume your post was addressed to me, since you didn’t say.
“Exactly. You just lack the mental instruments. Hindered by your irrevocable faith in reason to describe and determine everything”.
This just exposes your prejudice.
“Labelling people according to their denomination”.
And where exactly have I done so?
“Rowling’s logic means minorities must be left to their devices, and so what if Pakistanis took to selling their kids in rural England”.
No. It just means that people should not be held accountable for the actions of others. No more and no less.
“And you, I presume have no idea how many Jews were hidden away inside his Vatican…”
Jozef, it seems that you have some difficulty in understanding plain English.
My point was precisely that there are good people and bad people in all religions, and that we shouldn’t judge everyone on the actions of an extremist minority.
Yes, I do know that many Jews were hidden inside the Vatican. I also know that there were many Nazi priests. Like I said, there are good people and bad people. I am not a history denier.
Until you get this basic point, I won’t bother wasting my time with reading the rest of your post.
On second thoughts I have read the whole comment, and Jozef has maliciously or mistakenly (take your pick) misrepresented me so much that I feel I have to reply.
Jozef accuses me of failing to distinguish people from their religion, and says that only then will I get his point. Perhaps I fail to do so simply because it is he who is failing to distinguish people from their religion (Islam in his case).
He then mentions irrelevant stuff such as the Financial Times saying that ‘they (the murdered people at Charlie Hebdo) asked for it’, as if it is also my opinion, when it most certainly isn’t.
He goes on to comment that Obama ‘couldn’t even be fagged to excuse himself in person for missing last Sunday’. Now I ask, what has Obama got to do with me?
Jozef then goes on to say that I am ‘perverse enough to let the ones at Charlie Hebdo die in vain. That they not be offended’. Are you deliberately slandering me, Jozef, or are you just stupid.
I made it amply clear in my posts that no one has the right not to be offended, and that I believe in free speech. Let me spell it out to you: the murderers who killed the people at Charlie Hebdo, just like all terrorists, are scum. Happy?
Jozef then suggests that I might believe that religions should be banned. He can’t be further from the truth. Free speech necessarily implies religious freedom.
Cut the crap, Jozef.
I thought that he, himself, thought he was God.
Everyone wants the Nobel Peace Prize it seems. Swimming with the current is easy. It has always been the way of the world and humans always follow the easiest route. What makes J.K. Rowling an authority on this topic? Was it the children’s books that she wrote that give her the moral authority and knowledge to comment?
[Daphne – J. K. Rowling lives in a democracy. She doesn’t need authority to comment. Rupert Murdoch is not an authority on religion either. But neither of them has commented about religion. Their comments are about whether or not we are our brothers’ keepers.]
By that reasoning we should all be heeding the advice of every single one of the over one billion people that live in democracies without as much as questioning whether they are qualified to do so.
[Daphne – It’s not advice. It’s a comment. It’s an opinion. It’s what freedom of expression, an inalienable human right, is about. Freedom of expression is not about the freedom to pass remarks about the weather or yesterday’s lunch. Nor is it restricted to qualified people. It’s up to you to sort out whose opinion you want to listen to and whose opinion you couldn’t be bothered with, but your choice does not involve getting the latter to keep quiet.]
I am just sick of everyone jumping on the bandwagon in search of that one most cherished of human needs: acceptance and a feeling of moral superiority – affirmation.
Tweeting, with the one-line simplistic, often undecipherable, messages are just further proof of the dumbing-down of society. We are living in the information age yet people have never been so ignorant. They are made to think they are enlightened. Very dangerous in my opinion.
[Daphne – On the contrary, people in general have never been so literate and well-informed. To what are you comparing the current state of ignorance? Yes, people are ignorant now but they were far, far more ignorant at any point up until now. Even in my own lifetime I experienced horrendously greater ignorance in Malta. I have mentioned several times before my fellow patients’ first encounter with a cereal packet (mine) in the maternity ward at St Luke’s Hospital in 1986, and how they surrounded me at a ‘safe distance’ like the natives around Captain Cook as they watched me pour it into a bowl, add milk and eat it, then got one of their number to approach me and ask me questions. I was 21. A few of them were old enough to be my mother. You could say that my ignorance was equal to theirs, but in a different way: I had no idea of the extent of deprivation in my own country, and I don’t mean material deprivation, either, though that too. Is there more ignorance now in Malta than there was a hundred years ago when only 5% of the population could read and write and 2% were fluent in English? Do you actually understand how many of our contemporaries take adult illiteracy for granted as a fact of life and entirely normal because they grew up with grandparents and even parents, especially the women, who couldn’t read and write and thought nothing of it? ]
I once remember a professor of history replying to a question that he did not have the authority to answer as he was a specialist in one specific period in history in one specific country.
Those were the days when people commented when they felt they were qualified to do so. Now everyone is quick to sound like the wise man without having the strength of character to either keep their uninformed comments to themselves or to at least qualify their statements with a disclaimer.
[Daphne – Yes, I agree with you entirely that it is a vast show of stupidity and ignorance, but context is all. Stupid comments on Facebook are a celebration of free speech. Elevating stupid comments to the level of valid opinion on television shows is a self-defeating celebration of ignorance. You have to differentiate between contexts.]
It is one thing when Joe Average writes something on his wall and another entirely when someone with great reach, someone like Murdoch or Rowling, make uninformed comments.
There are new studies on how pop stars and film stars, of the level of intelligence of Clooney or Madonna, have influenced world politics and, in essence, history. Their uninformed, irresponsible comments have swayed public opinion on topics they have no knowledge of, and yes, no authority to make.
Everyone has the right to an opinion but you would have to agree with me that their expressing it in the public domain is dangerous. Think Jacob Zuma’s comments on how a quick shower is all one needs to prevent AIDS.
And trust me when I tell you that I know people you would think intelligent who swear by and believe most of the nonsense that these public figures regurgitate onto the malleable minds of their followers.
Not expressing an opinion is more dangerous than expressing one that the uninformed and ignorant will take literally.
“Everyone has the right to an opinion but you would have to agree with me that their expressing it in the public domain is dangerous. Think Jacob Zuma’s comments on how a quick shower is all one needs to prevent AIDS”.
Extraordinary claims call for evidence. J.K. Rowling’s comment, on the otherhand, is just a common sense opinion.
“Elevating stupid comments to the level of valid opinion on television shows is a self-defeating celebration of ignorance.”
I couldn’t believe Xarabank invited a make-up artist to participate in the debate on the Paris attacks.
“iii mela mhux kullhadd indaqs clueless hii?!, Mhux kullhadd ghandu opinjoni?! Mela tahseb li int ahjar minn haddiehor?!” etc etc..
Sorry to have to break it to you, Wormfood, but nature itself ensures that everyone is not equal.
Liberal, if you haven’t noticed I was taking the piss out of the type of person that tends to make up the Xarabank audience. Of course inequality is the natural state of things.
Apologies, Wormfood. I misunderstood you, and should have known you were being sarcastic.
The question put is not if J. K. Rowling has any authority to comment. It is whether Rowling’s opinion is worth listening to and whether it carries any authority. Many Maltese name-drop for support rather than for illumination very much like a drunk clinging to a lampost.
I find her ultimatum totally unchristian actually. Wait for some bishop to go beg forgiveness in Murdoch’s name.
‘Born a Christian’ – how’s that for the ultimate status symbol?
Only in Britain.
“I find her ultimatum totally unchristian actually…”
Please don’t tell me you took her comment literally. Only in Malta.
Boring.
@albona. Ignorance and authority unfortunately do mix. I recall Ronald Reagan in his later years as President – and a more recent George Bush Junior (during all of his term as President). George Bush Junior this week stated that God had told him to push through with the invasion of Iraq. That is an unfortunate twist of mixing religion, politics, religion and ignorance.
Very disturbing thinking, coming from the head of a news empire.
One wonders: If Dieudonnés views are disturbing and held to be inciting racism, and he is prevented from holding shows throughout France on that correct basis, how should one therefore regard Murdoch’s empire?
That’s rich. (No pun intended).
Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, who is Muslim, is News Corp’s second-largest voting shareholder whose support was a key factor when John Malone tried to wrest control of News Corp away from Murdoch in 2004.
Is Murdoch holding this historically staunch ally of his family responsible as well?
That’s the Al-Waleed bin Talal who got a gong in Malta’s New Year’s honours list.
It has just occurred to me that Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, who is News Corp’s second-largest shareholder is the same person who received the gong on Republic Day.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/47400/saudi_prince_in_malta_to_receive_republic_day_honour#.VLTsN8lCiEM
I have to ask this question. Would it have been different if he said that ISLAM is to be held responsible for the deaths of the Charlie Hebdo victims?
Yes, but only slightly.
Meanwhile, “Richard III campaigners say it’s wrong that the last king of the House of York will not be given a Catholic burial.”
If anyone was in any doubt about the terrorists not having won, here’s today’s major news story in the UK. Life is really back to normal.
http://mashable.com/2015/01/12/aziz-ansari-rupert-murdoch-tweets/
@rupertmurdoch You are Catholic, why are you not hunting pedophiles? #RupertsFault
— Aziz Ansari (@azizansari) January 12, 2015
.@rupertmurdoch is responsible for all pedophilia committed by anyone Catholic. @rupertmurdoch why are you pro-pedophile :(
— Aziz Ansari (@azizansari) January 12, 2015
.@rupertmurdoch is Christian just like Mark David Chapman who shot John Lennon. Why didn’t Rupert stop it? #RupertsFault
— Aziz Ansari (@azizansari) January 12, 2015
.@rupertmurdoch Are you responsible for the evil shit all Christians do or just the insane amount of evil you yourself contribute to?
— Aziz Ansari (@azizansari) January 12, 2015
Aiz Ansari, as a Muslim, should be the last to comment about paedophilia. Without judging or commenting:-
“The Islamic source materials state that Muhammad proposed marriage to Aisha when she was 6. He assumed her silence constituted her consent. Some 2 to 3 years later, just after he had fled to Medina, he consummated his marriage with her. He was 52 and she was 9. This occurred prior to Aisha’s first menses and by Islam’s legal definition Aisha was still considered a child. Islam teaches that a child enters adulthood at the beginning of puberty.”
[Daphne – ‘Without judging or commenting…and without the most basic knowledge of social history, either. That was normal practice throughout the world at the time and for many centuries afterwards. Childhood is a relatively modern idea. For much of history (and it follows, prehistory), menstruation made a girl a woman and given that the biological purpose of menstruation was conception and birth, and the only social purpose of a girl/woman was reproduction, then a girl was ready for sex and reproduction as soon as she began menstruating, which can be as early as eight years old in the southern Mediterranean and the Middle East. Marriage was contracted before that, but not consummated until menstruation began. This was certainly typical of the royal houses of Europe, and in ordinary society, where the formality of marriage was dispensed with because there were no estates and possessions involved, girls were ‘married’ off at their first period. It had to be to a much older man because a 10-year-old boy could not support a 10-year-old wife and child or even father that child. Life expectancy was low, so you had plenty of teenage widows who contracted subsequent marriages or partnerships with men increasingly closer to their own age as each one died off. Even in the second half of the 20th century, Maltese girls were often married at 15. Much earlier, marriages at 12 were unremarkable.]
But you’re forgetting something, Daphne. Muhammad married a six year old and he is seen by Muslims as being the perfect example to emulate because he was Allah’s messenger.
[Daphne – Oh come on, really now. Next you’re going to tell me that the reason so many Maltese men hang around with prostitutes is because they’re emulating Christ.]
The fact his other eight wives protested he was giving her too much attention, only to be rebuffed he got his revelations when wearing her clothes means nothing.
And that’s an extra five wives more than allowed in his Koran.
Please.
I’m serious, that is why it is legal to marry a nine year-old girl in many Islamic countries as diverse as Iran and Saudi Arabia.
[Daphne – You’ve got it the wrong way round. Mohammed did it because it was normal practice. He didn’t make the law. The practice continued independently of Islam and in places where there was no Islam for centuries afterwards. There was a protracted process of enlightenment which put an end to this – though it didn’t stop girls of 12, 13, 14 and 15 being married off until relatively recently even in Malta. Maria Isabella of Spain was married at 13 – to her first cousin – in 1802. That process of enlightenment had nothing to do with religion, anywhere. On the contrary, it controlled the excesses of religion. Girls continue to be regarded solely as reproductive goods by the rulers of Islamic states and by the ignorant because there has been no secular process of enlightenment. Girls are not married at nine by educated, civilised people and it is against the law in states with a predominantly Muslim population which are not ‘shariah’ led.]
Muhammad is presented as being the perfect Muslim and an example to emulate for all time because he received Allah’s revelations. If he isn’t than that would cast Allah in a bad light and that scenario is unthinkable for believing Muslims. It would raise a lot of disturbing questions.
[Daphne – That is neither here nor there. Roman Catholicism proscribes sex outside marriage but the real controls on that were social and not religious. When those social controls ceased to be effective, Roman Catholics ignored the proscription and now there is no going back. Muslims and Roman Catholics are just people. They will do whatever they want to do and use their own judgement in doing it, and the only thing that will prevent them is fear. Either fear of punishment or fear of social censure.]
Not because one would think that patronising prostitutes would be imitating Christ. It would be because if any anybody else did it, except Mohammad, (especially if it was a Catholic priest) it would be condemned as paedophilia and we would never hear the end of it!.
Daphne, yes.
You forget the minor detail of Shar’ia, which is God’s law, superior to everything man can ever do.
They tell us they’re not allowed to kill, but do not specify in which circumstances. If Khafirs, that’s us, accept positions of responsibility or power, we’ve betrayed our promise to subdue. Guess what.
That’s 800 pages of Hadith, based on what he did, most them unsavoury details dealing with Khafirs, leaving us second class citizens.
My point being that councils or synods are de facto redundant. Even because parables weren’t his forte.
If Christianity’s method was incessant debate about what Christ would have done, Muslims get to read and follow what he actually did.
No space for interpretation, contradictions taken care of by adopting the chronological method, coinciding with the supremacist face of its inherent duality. Totalitarian or what?
The question then must be what remains of Islam if the democratic West has to prevail.
[Daphne – Prevail where? You are not suggesting further crusades, I trust.]
Here goes the religion of peace!
Muslim (20:4645) – “…He (the Messenger of Allah) did that and said: There is another act which elevates the position of a man in Paradise to a grade one hundred (higher), and the elevation between one grade and the other is equal to the height of the heaven from the earth. He (Abu Sa’id) said: What is that act? He replied: Jihad in the way of Allah! Jihad in the way of Allah!”
Muslim (20:4696) – “the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: ‘One who died but did not fight in the way of Allah nor did he express any desire (or determination) for Jihid died the death of a hypocrite.’”
Muslim (19:4321-4323) – Three separate hadith in which Muhammad shrugs over the news that innocent children were killed in a raid by his men against unbelievers. His response: “They are of them (meaning the enemy).”
Tabari 7:97 The morning after the murder of Ashraf, the Prophet declared, “Kill any Jew who falls under your power.” Ashraf was a poet, killed by Muhammad’s men because he insulted Islam. Here, Muhammad widens the scope of his orders to kill. An innocent Jewish businessman was then slain by his Muslim partner, merely for being non-Muslim.
Tabari 9:69 “Killing Unbelievers is a small matter to us” The words of Muhammad, prophet of Islam.
Ibn Ishaq: 327 – “Allah said, ‘A prophet must slaughter before collecting captives. A slaughtered enemy is driven from the land. Muhammad, you craved the desires of this world, its goods and the ransom captives would bring. But Allah desires killing them to manifest the religion.’”
Ibn Ishaq: 990 – Lest anyone think that cutting off someone’s head while screaming ‘Allah Akbar!’ is a modern custom, here is an account of that very practice under Muhammad, who seems to approve.
Ibn Ishaq: 992 – “Fight everyone in the way of Allah and kill those who disbelieve in Allah.” Muhammad’s instructions to his men prior to a military raid.
Read more at http://janmorganmedia.com/2014/05/proof-islam-evil-violent-intolerant-straight-koran/#KucfEu8DDh501LUZ.99
[Daphne – My first reaction is to delete your hateful, intolerant and bigoted comments. My second reaction, which wins out, is to upload them in the spirit of tolerance. But there will come a point where you will begin to spoil the atmosphere like a loud drunk at a bar, and then I will have to kick you out until you learn how to be civilised. You are a fine one to talk about evil intolerance.]
I might have been unclear there.
I’m aware that most Muslims would find the notion of child marriage abhorrent and I agree with you that Muslim societies can secularise.
I’m familiar with a number of Muslim cultures and I’ve even discreetly dated girls from those backgrounds.
Yes, the controls are social at the end of the day, but we are also talking about a faith that is integral to the identity of most people.
My aim is simply to highlight the reasons why it is more difficult for Islamic societies to shed some of the past baggage.
The basic premise of Islam as an uncorrupted faith with divine revelations being dictated to a man who has to be considered as a paragon of virtue and the ultimate example to humanity makes for an even more inflexible situation that Roman Catholicism.
One thing gets disproven and it all falls down.
Also keep in mind how millions are emotionally invested in this. I hope you understand my point.
I fully agree with you that anthropologicaly there is little difference between our society and that of some of our Islamic neighbours.
[Daphne – Not so different: http://www.catholic.com/tracts/papal-infallibility ]
http://www.clarionproject.org/blog/sharia/muslims-must-rise-fix-sharia-laws
La Redoute, your reading of Islam is plainly Christian.
And if I may, the watered down hypocritically pious version.
That we never offend anyone.
I ask you how many more Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Kurds, Zoroastrians, non-believers must die, flee or face being brutalised by an ideology calling itself submission and which basic tenet refutes the concept of human rights, before you acknowledge a problem residing in Islam itself?
You sound like victims of brutal abuse. I can’t believe we’re still at this cat and mouse. Do you really think the male group hasn’t made up its mind?
What reading of Islam? The context of that quote is a conversation about personal responsibility, not religious conviction.
And how many Muslims at the hands of Buddhists?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/08/us-myanmar-violence-specialreport-idUSBRE9370AP20130408
And how many Jews at the hands of Christians?
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/israel.predicts.french.jews.will.emigrate.after.paris.shootings/45869.htm
How many Muslims at the hands of Christians?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/06/central-african-republic_n_5248198.html
Each religion has a history of making enemies of other religions.
Why are you singling out Islam?
We need to talk, Jozef. Either something’s wrong or I’m not getting your point here.
Chris, because it is the one killing people in the name of God on a global scale today.
It is not Islamophobic to make these considerations, notice my distinction between humans and their religion.
Islam’s already been through mass apostasy, invariably its women. Which is why Shar’ia courts cannot exist in our democracies, they defy our scale of values, indeed reject it.
Why then, don’t we ask ourselves how these people in Europe gain their freedom of expression? Maybe because that means contradicting their Imams. All we do is throw money at their ghettoes, thinking they’ll leave us alone.
What happens to the family of that policeman, are they expected to remain in their muslim community?
La Redoute, personal responsibility smacks of universal human rights.
As for religious conviction, somewhat a redundancy if the price to pay for apostasy is at the discretion of an Imam.
Is something wrong, Baxxter?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8L7EUduABA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y73N2baMr2s
And all I get is some ‘liberal’ laying on the paedo-Catholic.
Give me a break.
Well, Ritienne 3 is technically Muslim. So it’s personal.
Personal responsibility is the flipside of personal freedom, Jozef. I don’t imagine you’d have it any other way.
Or are you saying the gunmen weren’t to blame because they’re Muslims? Where’d the imam fit in there?
Meanwhile back in Rotterdam, The Netherlands… http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/muslim-mayor-rotterdam-ahmed-aboutaleb-tells-islamists-pack-your-bags-fck-off-live-tv-1483127
What relevance has the opinion of one individual, not in a position of authority, or an acknowledged representative of the group of which s/he is speaking, to a serious subject like this? Why do we pick and choose whom to quote to bolster our argument rather than produce an argument of our own?
I do not take as a gospel what either Murdoch or Rowling has to say.
The murders in Paris are, first and foremost the responsibility of those who fired the shots. It is also the responsibility of those who collaborated with them in the planning and execution of the crime.
It is also the responsibility of those who led them to believe that shouting “Allahu Akbar” before killing another human being is a way to heaven. It is also the responsibility of the international groups across the world who promote this culture, irrespective of whether this is at home, in a teaching or praying establishment, or on the Internet.
They are all to blame and be held to account.
Allocating portions of blame is a waste of time, but the guardians of a world-wide culture, or civilization, carry a great load of responsibility to ensure that this is not abused or misrepresented. If there are no guardians, then we are in big trouble.
Lighten up. Rowling’s is just a witty comment that most of us find interesting enough to read. Authority has nothing to do with it.
Murdoch would afford Rowling some credibility but only if she gets her tits out.
Quick to seize the opportunity:
http://uk.businessinsider.com/david-cameron-encryption-apple-pgp-2015-1?r=US
But at least he cares about Charlie Hebdo’s victims, yeah right.
This is an interesting paper that has struck a chord with me. I too believe that Islam has been sabotaged by fundamentalists.
http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/804/8206.htm
On the subject of whether Islam is a peaceful religion or not – I do not know enough about it to profess an opinion. All I know is that I have many Muslim friends and they are no different to my Christian ones in that they are all individuals seeking to live a decent life.
Some argue that Muslims are only peace loving when they are in a minority and once they become a majority they will seek to impose their religion on you.
If it is true that Islam is only peaceful so long as you abide by it, and if not then you are considered to be an infidel and are to be struck down, then it is not peaceful at all. So does the Koran really say that, or is that solely the interpretation of a few imams, who have interpreted the Koran so as to fit their quest for dominance over all.
The trick is to stop considering it a religion, if the secular yardstick has to be adopted.
And a good Muslim does not abide by it, he must subdue to it.
A Muslim pays for leaving Islam with his life. Indeed Charlie Hedbo forgives, not that Islam will ever subscribe to contrition, that is itself blasphemous.
A God who deceives the Jews by substituting the Christ on the cross, orders Muslims do the same in his name.
[Daphne – ‘A Muslim pays for leaving Islam with his life’. No religion is a house and only attention-seekers make a drama of their exit because they can’t slam the front door on the way out. The world is full of lapsed or indifferent Muslims just as South America, southern Europe and the rest of the world is full of lapsed or indifferent Roman Catholics who go about their lives never giving religion a second thought. This is entirely possible in the secular world. It was not possible in 1950s Malta, for instance, where the parish priest monitored whether you were receiving Holy Communion or not and checked you off in a notebook during door-to-door home visits. Even as late as the 1990s, the Mosta parish priest visited our home – without prior notice and found me building a bonfire in the garden and covered in soot, so clearly I was mad – and asked me for the names of all the household members so that he could write them down in his book. I was taken aback by the matter-of-fact way in which he made his request, which I met with the standard convention in these situations of pretending I hadn’t heard.]
Yes, but he couldn’t issue a fatwa could he.
We find ourselves asking Imams whether Islam dictates killing or not.
When they invariably say that it is against Islam and the teachings of the prophet, we mistake it for an irrevocable no, mentally adding sanctity of life etc.
No one ever goes on to ask whether the answer they’ve given is because Shar’ia isn’t yet enforced, or that the circumstances of the slaying were above the conditions reserved.
What I want to understand, is which verses, and more significantly, which parts of the Sunna and Hadith have been definitely relegated to historical posterity.
I never get an answer from their sources.
If we’re khafirs, I don’t see why we insist on becoming dhimmis.
Forget the names just use your head. Is every Christian responsible for whatever any other Christian does or fails to do? Surely not. By the same token, Murdoch is wrong in holding every Muslim responsible for the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2015-01-13/local-news/Government-Whip-Godfrey-Farrugia-says-age-of-sexual-consent-should-be-lowered-from-18-to-16-6736128607
I thought sixteen was reserved as an age of experimentation with one’s peers.
This is also unbelievable: women edited out of the Paris march photo by extremist orthodox newspaper.
http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/a-new-new-perspective-of-the-paris-march–ekL_cTGpql
I really cannot understand many comments. It seems many Maltese have forgotten the times when people used to frown on a woman not wearing a head scarf/ veil to church. I must have lived in a different Malta.
I’m Maltese but does that mean that Owin and Jenice’s 50 shades of Super oOe Joseph is my responsibility?
I pay to read The Times and The Sunday Times (www.thetimes.co.uk) and both are excellent newspapers. However both have a glaring lacuna; one never reads anything about Murdoch even though he is a newsmaker.
That’s the justification for media pluralism. One source cannot be all things to all.
Being born a Christian doesn’t mean you’re still practising. If she really were she’ll definitely won’t excommunicate herself.
Problem is, that unfortunately people like her never really found how God can directly change and affect directly their life (though not necessarily their fault), otherwise they will never leave Christ.
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/wxoeua/the-condemnologists
Can anyone answer my sincere question:
Why is it that we only see Muslim fundamentalists killing others in the name of religion?
It seems that these Islamist groups are competing between themselves to get the greatest attention so that someone sponsors their group and not the other “rival” group.
The Charlie Hebdo killers asked for the names of their victims before killing them, they were selective; while the Boko Haram killers in Nigeria massacred 2,000 in one fell swoop.
Islam has a big leadership problem, one cannot look up to a single person as a point of reference like the Catholics have their pope.
There is no hierarchy.There is also a subtle competition between the imams for world wide attention.
Many of us recall the return of Ayutallah Komeini to Iran from his exile in France, with his influence he dethroned the Shah.We couldn’t fathom why the people who were living a western style of life, went crazy in his presence.
Religious leaders replaced politicians from then onwards in Iran.
We have seen the Sunni Saddam Hussein placing the toilets in jails in the direction of Mecca, so that when his Shia(?) prisoners kneeled they would kneel facing Mecca and the toilet. There are too many extremely opposing opinions in the Muslim world.
Americans wanted us to believe that Osama Bin Laden was in cahoots with Saddam Hussein when we know that these two were diametrically opposite each other on religion.
I worked in various countries with Muslims; it is difficult for us to understand their mentality.
[Daphne – You shouldn’t really find it difficult at all, John. We both grew up in Malta in the 1970s. It’s the main reason I don’t find religious/political totalitarian thinking among the ignorant as alien as do those who grew up in the same period in, say, Britain, and who really struggle to understand it. The mindset is the same, whatever the religion or the politics. It’s a completely closed and irrational way of thinking.]
For a start, John, there isn’t an Islam but many Islams, just like there isn’t one Christianity but many Christian denominations, plus sects, plus fringe elements, plus assorted loonies. In Malta we even have a chap calling himself the “Anglican Church in Europe”. The Archbishop of Canterbury hasn’t issued a fatwa yet, but he should.
Some of the worst anti-Muslim hate speech comes from the mouths of Muslims themselves: Sunni vs Shia. And some of the worst Muslim pogroms (sorry, I had to borrow this word from the Jewish vocabulary) were perpetrated by Muslims. And there are Ismailis, and Yazidis, and Druze, and Sufis, and Ahmadiyyas, and all the way up to Nation of Islam.
It doesn’t make sense to expect there to be one central authority.
Who’s the central authority for Christianity? Is it the Pope? The Archbishop of Canterbury? The Assyrian Patriarch? The Archbishop of Uppsala? The Patriarch of Moscow? Jerry Falwell?
Secondly, and Jozef mentioned this, political Islam is a recent phenomenon. It started in the 18th century with radical Muslim preacher (in Europe he would have been Calvinist) Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, who allied himself with local ruler Muhammad bin Saud. Fast forward to 1914 and that meddling bisexual fool Lawrence, and we get Saudi Arabia. And that’s when the trouble really started.
It’s terribly un-PC to point the finger at Saudi Arabia (the political entity) but apparently perfectly fine to point the finger at Islam.
You know, I can’t help feeling we screwed up badly with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Instead of making enemies of them, we should have helped them bring down the Saudi regime. After all, it was their initial and final aim. They only got pissed off at the US and the West because we kept supporting the evil Saudis. But money trumps principles.
We have these enemies all over the world that have nothing to do with religion. China is another one. Instead, we obsess with some imagined Islamist threat, framing it in terms of religion instead of politics. It’s a Saudi/Qatari/Emirati/Kuwaiti threat, not an Islamist threat.
Nothing like candid logic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TChhWlM8LsE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEYLfGF9iiA
[Daphne – It’s not logic but the absence of logic. If Christianity had held sway in Europe, we would have been in the same fix that people are in Islamic states. The problem is religious dominance and control in and of itself, and not one religion or another. Europe is safe from religious control of individual behaviour not because it is Christian but because it is secular.]
Christianity is the dominant religion in Malta and still is in some European countries.
Besides it was the dominant religion for the last thousand years in Europe, however there were no similar terrorist attacks in both recent and far away history as we have seen recently in France by Christians. In France Islam is not dominant, at least till now, however France has never in its recent history experienced similar terrorist attacks.
The question no one has answered satisfactorily is why have most terrorist attacks in the last 20 years been committed by Muslims or in the name of the Muslim faith? Is this is a religious war? Are many Muslims aggressive and vindictive?
[Daphne – There is no dominant religion in Europe. Europe is secular. A significant percentage of Europeans identify themselves as Christian if pressed, but in reality, almost nobody practices and the churches are empty or being closed down.
Are many Muslims aggressive and vindictive? No more than anybody else – ‘Muslim’ isn’t a separate species of humanity.
Is this a religious war? No. It is the consequence of the massive population explosion in the youth demographic in the Middle East. Wherever and whenever you have disproportionately large numbers of young people, especially young men, with no work, no future and nowhere to go, you are looking at trouble like war, crime and terrorism. ]
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/14/the-role-of-islam-in-radicalisation-is-grossly-overestimated