Commisérations

[Lat-Literal]

You mean the kind of regulation possible only by force and for which millions was spent on Leveson without there being any ultimate material difference?

In any case, new media are no longer the principal purveyors of information now.

That said, the very declaration of intent to spend extra billions on security and other measures, as reported in news media and other outlets, will be telling IS that it's winning, despite any successful attacks against it.

Not the same regulation associated with Leveson, no, but rather the requirement - with detail - of a standard vis a vis content in commercial broadcasting as per the 1970s.

That would - as then - have stipulations on the amount of time given to this or that in the interests of the commonweal. More Attenborough/Chataway and less Annan Onward.

Anyhow, that was my last post on this thread!

[Serial_Apologist]

The problem with this statement is that the Pope & the A of C are not 'one single figure' speaking on behalf of Christians - they only speak for their own particular branch of Christianity. It's a serious mistake to talk of 'Muslims' in this contest - there are many branches, only one, or some, of which are responsible for the interpretations of the Koran that lead to IS.

Most troubling for me - and possibly the understandable remaining source of any Islamophobia among people who think like me as long as not countered by "moderate" Muslims - is the infidel, fatwa-conferred status on ex-followers, and the right of any follower to pursue it in any way he or she sees fit, that appears additional to central authority absence.

Beside this, the main drawback Islam has in common with all religions as far as I can see - namely the reinfication of a concept - is less of a problem in Christianity, which sees God as the giver of The Word, but sees this giving as underpinned by His limitless mercy. I'm not at all sure the latter applies to God in Islam.

[ahinton]

Not the same regulation associated with Leveson, no, but rather the requirement - with detail - of a standard vis a vis content in commercial broadcasting as per the 1970s.

OK, but that was no "golden age of news broadcasting" either and, in any case, any changes to news media regulation, even if followed to the letter by every regulated entity at all times, would make little or no difference to the effect of any largely unregulated news broadcasting on social media and the like.

[ahinton]

Most troubling for me - and possibly the understandable remaining source of any Islamophobia among people who think like me as long as not countered by "moderate" Muslims - is the infidel, fatwa-conferred status on ex-followers, and the right of any follower to pursue it in any way he or she sees fit, that appears additional to central authority absence.

Beside this, the main drawback Islam has in common with all religions as far as I can see - namely the reinfication of a concept - is less of a problem in Christianity, which sees God as the giver of The Word, but sees this giving as underpinned by His limitless mercy. I'm not at all sure the latter applies to God in Islam.

I think that the difference to which you draw attention here is of no small relevance and it is perhaps in part because of it that there's a good deal less overt Christian "terrorist extremism" of the kind that is not always discouraged from manifesting itself within (though not as any direct consequence of) Islamic practice.

Where the two religions have a commonality is in the "interpretation" of their tracts, the Bible and the Qu'ran and, in part because they were each authored written many centuries ago (and the former by quite a number of people over quite a long period of time), the manifold changes in everything that they relate to - social, scientific, linguistic, communicative and many others - since they were written are so great as to make it almost inevitable that authentic, authoritative and definitive "interpretations" are nigh impossible today and this leafves it open for all manner of self-serving misinterpretation of a more wilful kind.

There is indeed, as you write, scant evidence of that "limitless mercy" in certain Muslims' view of and evident dependence upon such concepts and phenomena as "the infidel", "fatwas" and the overt willingness to commit suicide in the name of Al'lah as part of what those who do not live by such things would regard as acts ot terrorism or reflecting a supporting "philosophy" for them; Muslim "extremists" also for the most part take very little account of what is discussed here - http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/pr...wer/index.html . See also http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...c-history.html .

"Not in my name"? No, indeed - but not in the name of Islam either...

[Petrushka]

The Brussels 'lockdown' does not make much sense but the authorities were left with a dilemma. There is surely very little chance of terrorist activity with the city in a state of siege and with the security services just about the only ones on the streets so the Belgian Government is eventually going to be in for a humiliating climbdown. On the other hand, had the Belgian authorities said nothing and there had been an atrocity....

No matter what happens, a major European city, and the HQ of NATO and the EU at that, has been paralysed with fear by a few mindless individuals who haven't actually had to do anything very much.

[Anastasius]

....No, indeed - but not in the name of Islam either...

You need to brush up on the Quran, in that case.

[Serial_Apologist]

You need to brush up on the Quran, in that case.

I watched a very disturbing programme on Channel 4 about ostensibly Muslim women in east London gethering others to private hearings in which they basically ranted otherwise unsubstantiated assertions at them in front of small children who just happened to be there, presumably their or their listeners' offspring. No doubt objectors, were they to dare object amid these times, would say the programme was edited to show up the "lecturers" in the worst light. But what really struck me was the idea that just barking out various allegations about kuffars and British values would carry any credibility whatever. If indeed that was all in which the alleged indoctrination consisted. But when radicalisation was talked of back in the 1970s, it took a heck of a lot more than selective readings from Das Kapital by someone at behind a trestle table to convince many such as me that the so-called Trotskyite Left wasn't intent on bringing about the end of civilisation as we knew it. What on earth has happened to today's youth culture to produce such apparently blindly obedient robots, especially in the light of feminism and what it meant to us? I've some pretty good ideas bursting to be outed - the trouble is they involve dealing in unacceptable P-words.

[ahinton]

You need to brush up on the Quran, in that case.

If that were the case, then so, presumably, would all Muslims (including Imams) and Islamic scholars who have come out firmly against the conduct of ISIS as not only inhuman but anti-Islamic, so you'd better tell them all - unless, of course, you accidentally or wilfully misunderstood my reference to "not in the name" as meaning that such conduct is not being carried out in the name of Islam when clearly it is; my point is that it has no business to be carried out in the name of Islam if indeed it is anti-Islamic, as so many have declared it to be.

[Serial_Apologist]

If that were the case, then so, presumably, would all Muslims (including Imams) and Islamic scholars who have come out firmly against the conduct of ISIS as not only inhuman but anti-Islamic, so you'd better tell them all - unless, of course, you accidentally or wilfully misunderstood my reference to "not in the name" as meaning that such conduct is not being carried out in the name of Islam when clearly it is; my point is that it has no business to be carried out in the name of Islam if indeed it is anti-Islamic, as so many have declared it to be.

Big if though. Unfortunately, also, as you have already indicated, the world of Islam is rent in two at base and has been for almost the entire duration of that religion's existence; and interpreters of the Koran have only to declare their faith in God being its transmitter on which to justify carrying out fatwa with no accountability to other higher authority comparable at least with those in various Christian denominations.

Unfortunately interpretation using subsequent knowledge in matters of science and evidence gathering, let alone from the lessons of history, appears to have no legitimate bearing on interpretation using the disciplines reasonable people have developed over several centuries for weeding out falsehood - which is incredible from a rational point of view alone, given that the concepts of TEXT and INTERPRETATION are by sheer definition as mutually inextricable as horse and carriage, not to mention love and marriage, which of course aren't.

[Nick Armstrong]

A sound rant:

OK César Franck and (arguably) crème brûlée aren't French, but he's otherwise not wrong as far as I can see.

[mercia]

brave words but I think if I were him I'd be watching my back from now on - checking under the car etc.

[Beef Oven!]

brave words but I think if I were him I'd be watching my back from now on - checking under the car etc.

You think he shouldn't have said it, perhaps?

[Lat-Literal]

He should go into politics.

Overnight, and after ten days when the news media (Haw-Haw) gave the sort of obsessive attention to "events" (Macmillan) that cola companies wouldn't be able to manufacture in their wildest dreams, I was astonished - totally astonished - to hear that IS is "almost defeated" in the Middle East. A fortnight ago, they had taken over Boston, Lincs from those pesky Eastern Europeans and were on the verge of conquering China. None of it has ever rung true. Populations are being manipulated by the enemy and the enemy of the enemy.

Sometimes it requires ordinary members of the public to force a bit of truth across the enforced frameworks for discussions. A taxi driver - not generally the sort of character expected to advance an anti new Trident perspective - got past the barrier yesterday on a late show. I remain, on balance, just in favour of a replacement but what exactly is there to "upgrade" he asked. The thing has never been used. It goes up in the air and can wipe out half a country. What more do you want of something if it can achieve those two things? It's a point that no MP has made so far as I am aware. And I had to admit it was the sort of argument that was so persuasive it made one wonder about the "informed".

Anyhow, apparently, it is debatable whether IS can be defeated according to some because however much you take away their weaponry, they can commit Paris style atrocities closer to home. Well, what am I missing here but doesn't that reduce them to a sort of IRA or Baader-Meinhoff in the 1970s, albeit medieval and right of Attila? And without the news industry hyping up panic at every turn such things were easily made trivial in broad terms. I am not seeing Neil as brave. What I like about what he said is that it's normal.

[mercia]

You think he shouldn't have said it, perhaps?

he can say what he likes - personally I wouldn't be brave enough to broadcast that - he is addressing 'them' directly, so I assume wants 'them' to hear it

[Lat-Literal]

There is something distinctly weird about apparently big boy politicians racing to bomb everywhere from Tripoli to Timbuktu and yet having in this regard "heeded" public concerns about them racing to bomb everywhere from Tripoli to Timbuktu. There are agendas and I don't believe half of what we have been told. Very possibly, if you pursue a policy of international regime change that loses public confidence here and abroad, then you have to inflate others' idiotic attempts at regime change as overwhelming to regain support.

But I'm too old to worry about it.