BF2S Forums Race relations thread

Probably less toxic than the madrassah culture TBH.

Pretty hard to ban hate speech and still allow free speech. Enough fascist groups have tried it and gone too far.

Which ships? The one Vietnamese one? I thought that was still being investigated.

Trade and military invasion are not really the same thing.

uziq wrote:

and china has never shown any interest in global expansionism before, and i very much doubt any chinese aircraft carriers will be on the prowl in the atlantic any time soon.

Okay maybe not soon, but what about 10-20 years?

I think the Chinese are smart enough to comprehend that America's global adventurism really hasn't worked out too well for us and it's not a model to replicate.

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

and china has never shown any interest in global expansionism before, and i very much doubt any chinese aircraft carriers will be on the prowl in the atlantic any time soon.

China has been expanding its influence and territory merrily for more than a decade, they've just done it very quietly and cheaply.

china wants to control the china sea and its key shipping/stranglepoints. if you look at america's and her allies' expansion in the asia-pacific region in the same time period, you'll perhaps see why china are being so 'aggressive'. america has effectively moved to contain china and potentially isolate her within her own seas. it's funny that you'll freak out about china building sand islands but pay scant regard to the obama administration's south china sea strategy. why? u scared of the funny-looking chinaman? i'm sure if there were a giant muslim nation effectively building a fence around australia with her navy that you'd be advocating sand islands, too.

and your 'multiculturalism has failed' rhetoric is decidedly fringe. the media might amplify it and give the right-wing blowhards more coverage than they are due, but it is FAR from mainstream. the outpouring of support and sympathy across the western world in the immediate aftermath of all those attacks you listed – 'not in our name', 'this is not us', 'you are not welcome here' – says more than your paranoiac little handwringing, methinks.

Last edited by uziq (2019-03-19 02:38:08)

islamic terrorists are called what they are: religious fundamentalists, and possibly fascists, if you really want to get into the political economy of what underpins modern autocratic, sunni islam. they are not supremacists because they don't kill people based on race and that term is always prefixed with a race or ethnicity tag. although it's a trifling difference and i'm not sure what your point is there, to be honest ...

seeing as multiculturalism as an '-ism' is only ever talked about in the context of liberal democracies, and a particular liberal democratic strain  from the 1980s onwards that was concomitant with market-led ideology and a general ceding of state/nation-based politics, again i'm not sure what your point is. 'multiculturalism' has failed in modern iraq? you're comparing apples and oranges and coming up with nonsense. if you want to talk about pluralistic and tolerant societies – which isn't really the same thing as 'multiculturalism' in the limited context you rant and rave against it, which is basically blairite britain onwards – then i'd say that various forms of society showed this was evidently possible. la convivencia in spain, for example (it's in the name, derp).

as for 'the world is doomed because muslims and chinese are taking over' ... lol. you really are a fucking moron.

and you are a pretty sick person if you think what is happening to the uighur muslims in china is the subject of jokes. it is an absolute disgrace.

Last edited by uziq (2019-03-19 05:25:17)

can you show me an 'islamic country' that is trying to foist islam on other countries?

it's a gross misrepresentation to say that iran or saudi arabia have designs upon islamifying the west. do they use religious ideology or fundamentalism to further their regional aims with their islamic neighbours? yes. do they want to 'foist their monoculture' on 'everyone else' (read: non-muslim westerners)? i'd say it's pretty ridiculous to claim that iran wants to bring ireland into a global caliphate.

you need to remember that the animus behind dilbert's posts is that he doesn't like seeing women in burkhas in the streets of bradford. when he complains that islam isn't 'multicultural', what he's trying to say in an elliptical way is 'why should we have them here?'

Last edited by uziq (2019-03-19 05:58:00)

i am well aware of saudi arabias outreach through its madrassas in pakistan, but wahhabism is not going to take off in the west any time soon. as for funding NGOs who 'advocate on behalf of muslims': well, who doesn't have NGOs advocating for their cause in centres of power? i would say that jews have a plenty big 'influence' on the west through this means, but i fear it won't help my argument as dilbert likely thinks they are trying to 'foist their monoculture' on us, too.

i think the psychology of a convert to islam is pretty easy to read. it's a mix of underdog rhetoric in the case of extremists/terrorists and a general appeal of submission and self-discipline in the case of people from disadvantaged backgrounds (like prison). in any case i think you and dilbert are too easily conflating the authoritarian/theocratic version of islam that is seen in a place like saudi arabia with the sort of islam practiced in places like america. there are plenty of iranians in america, for example, who do not want to be part of that particular political vision of islam, either.

uziq wrote:

it's a gross misrepresentation to say that iran or saudi arabia have designs upon islamifying the west. do they use religious ideology or fundamentalism to further their regional aims with their islamic neighbours? yes. do they want to 'foist their monoculture' on 'everyone else' (read: non-muslim westerners)? i'd say it's pretty ridiculous to claim that iran wants to bring ireland into a global caliphate.

you need to remember that the animus behind dilbert's posts is that he doesn't like seeing women in burkhas in the streets of bradford. when he complains that islam isn't 'multicultural', what he's trying to say in an elliptical way is 'why should we have them here?'

The whole muslim religion has designs on islamifying the rest of the world.
Wherever they go they expect their new home to bend to their will.

You're exactly right, if they don't accept our culture and seek to foist theirs on us we should not have them amongst us.
Women wearing burkas in Bradford is an insult to liberal democracy and shouldn't be allowed.

Because islamic values are wholly at odds with liberal democracy and catholic poles aren't blowing up children's pop concerts, nor the Amish AFAIK, I could be wrong though. The scientologists I am suspicious of.

Maybe we should have sat back and 'celebrated their differences' as the Nazis invaded Poland and gassed the jews, after all, each value system is as valid as the next and its not for us to interfere in or pass judgement on someone else's cherished beliefs.

And there were actually very, very few nazis personally involved in the death camps, probably barely a few hundred out of millions and millions of decent moderate nazis who you'd be happy to have as your neighbour, barely a fringe tendency at all, you can't tar all people with the same brush for the sins of a few.

I think its time, as a member of a pluralistic democracy, for nazism to be rehabilitated and take its place in modern politics, somewhere between the liberal democrats and sinn fein.

And if the average nazi was an OK fellow, what is mutilating women when they're children, preventing them having an education, making them wear medieval outfits if they want to go outdoors in a western nation and indoctrinating their children to blow up infidels by comparison?

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2019-03-20 02:19:30)

you make it sound like because i’m open to muslims being productive and coexisting members of a liberal democracy that i’m endorsing stadium bombings and female genital mutilation. it’s almost like you’ve never met a regular muslim or had one as a neighbour.

methinks when comparisons to nazi germany are evoked, the argument is already way past being lost.

i was on a date last week with a beautiful and talented girl of somali muslim background. she is studying medicine, doesn’t wear the hijab, and is campaigning against female genital mutilation. she still has her faith. and all this whilst dating a white-bread atheist like myself!

this is by no means an extraordinary rarity, either: there are moderates and reformers in every religious tradition, just as there are hardliners and extremists. you are seemingly only capable of seeing – and being afraid of – the latter.