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What do British Muslims think of the UK? – My Telegraph »
Recently, I’ve been looking through polling information accumulated by pollsters on the opinions of British Muslims – in order to try and gain an insight regarding the communities many of my Muslim friends come from. There are some rather worrying trends. The first is that young Muslims hold much more extremist views than Muslims over the age of 24 (perhaps this is a maturity issue but I think it goes deeper). The second is the extent of support and sympathy with terrorism, terrorists and the approval of subsequent atrocities. The third is how susceptible Muslims seem to be to conspiracy theory – preferable to blaming the tenets of their theology. The last is the complete denial over the necessity for Islam to go through the same textual criticism, verse abrogation and scrutiny that every other religion seems to have done. In the traditional arenas of belief, things are rather easy to predict: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/07/muslims-britain-france-germany-homosexuality - 0% of British Muslims found homosexuality acceptable. - 3% found relations outside of marriage morally justifiable. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1510866/Poll-reveals-40pc-of-Muslims-want-sharia-law-in-UK.html - 40% of this poll found Muslims wanting Sharia law in the UK. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-432075/Multiculturalism-drives-young-Muslims-shun-British-values.html - 75% of young muslims want women to wear the veil (or at least hijab) compared to 19% of adult population. As I've stated though, there are rather more concerning patterns emerging: 1) The extremist views of young Muslims in particular (aged 16-24) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/2461830/Killing-for-religion-is-justified-say-third-of-Muslim-students.html These results are from a poll of Muslim students: - 33% claim that killing is justified if done to protect religion. - 40 percent support the introduction of sharia for British Muslims. - 33 percent support a worldwide Islamic caliphate based on sharia. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1540895/Young-British-Muslims-getting-more-radical.html & http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-432075/Multiculturalism-drives-young-Muslims-shun-British-values.html These results are from Muslims polled (16 – 24) for Policy Exchange: -37 percent of young British Muslims want Sharia law in Britain. -36 percent of young British Muslims think apostates should be killed. -13 percent of young British Muslims said they "admired" Al Qaeda. 2) Support or Sympathy with Terrorism & 3) Conspiracy Theories http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/jun/23/uk.religion -According to a 2006 Pew Survey, only 17% of British Muslims believe that Arabs carried out the September 11th attacks. http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/religion/survey+government+hasnt+told+truth+about+77/545847 -According to an NOP survey, 2007: -24 percent of British Muslims deny that the four British Muslim suicide bombers carried out the 7/7 attacks. -24 percent of British Muslims believe the British government carried out the 7/7 attacks. http://news.scotsman.com/ViewArticle.aspx?articleid=2798950 & http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3244cf90-2626-11db-afa1-0000779e2340,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3244cf90-2626-11db-afa1-0000779e2340.html&_i_referer= -According to Channel 4 Polls in August 2006, reported in both the Scotsman and the Financial Times: -24 per cent agreed or tended to agree that the 7/7 bombings were justified. -45 per cent think 9/11 was carried out by the US or Israel. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article729974.ece -16 percent of British Muslims support suicide bombing in Israel. -7 percent of British Muslims support suicide bombing in Britain. 4)The denial of Islam requiring scrutiny, and the will to suppress free speech and criticism. http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/291 -NOP Channel 4 polling came out with these results: -33% of Muslims want Sharia Law as implemented in Saudi Arabia. -28% of muslims agreed they dreamt of Britain becoming an Islamic State. -78% wanted Danish cartoonist prosecuted. -68% want prosecutions for insulting Islam. -62% disagree with the freedom of speech if it insults religious sensibilities. -50% said British people who insult Islam should be arrested and prosecuted. -Between 5-9% say that violence to protect Islam is acceptable. -Whilst 10-13% found that they “understood” why young muslims might want to become suicide bombers. All this seems rather concerning to me. I doubt Muslims would intentionally and continuously lie to pollsters to give themselves and their religion a bad press. I've always been aware of the scriptural curiosities in the Qur'an and Hadith and the failure of the religion to go through what every other religion has gone through (in textual criticism etc) is clearly causing food-for-thought around the UK today. No-one is suggesting the situation is irreconciliable, but the trouble is that muslims - whether out of cowardice through not wanting to criticise someone they sympathise with or whether through tacit agreement - are remaining silent over the issue. Dr. Emmanuel Tanay (German Professor) summarised the way many on MyT feel in an essay called "A German View of Islam", which I shall quote now: "We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers." He continues: "The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous. Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 40 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people. The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across Southeast Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet. And who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery and ethnic warfare. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'? History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: * Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. * Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun. * Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts--the fanatics who threaten our way of life." Source Main page (current trends)
More about: British Muslims, Sharia law, Suicide bombers, textual criticism, uk, young Muslims