WHEN THE MUSLIMS TAKE OVER‏
Aljazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2008/12/2008122055527212230.html

Al-Shabab, an armed group fighting transitional government and Ethiopian forces in Somalia, is descrating religious shrines in the south of the country, Al Jazeera has learned.  

The ancient graves of clerics and other prominent people are among holy sites being targetted by the armed group in the port city of Kismayu.

Al-Shabab took control of Somalia's third-largest city about four months ago and quickly announced it would not tolerate anything it deemed un-Islamic.

Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Adow said Kismayu's Roman Catholic church was torn down just days after they seized power after bloody fighting.

He said: "The 60-year-old church had not been used for nearly 20 years and not a single Christian lives in the city - but that was not a good enough reason for the militias to spare the building.

"They are planning to replace it with a mosque."

The fighters then turned their hammers on graves, some of which contained the remains of followers of Sufi, a mystical form of Islam.

The sites have been revered for decades and are regularly visited be people paying homage to the dead, a practise al-Shabab has condemned as being akin to idolatry.

"We are a chosen lot by Allah to try and correct the mystics of the people and guide them," Hassan Yaqub, a spokesman for the Kismayu administration, told Al Jazeera.

"We have a responsibility to the people to guard the people against all evil deeds."

Public flogging

In Marka, another coastal town in the south of the country, Al Jazeera witnessed the public implementation of Sharia, or Islamic law.  

We are happy with the Islamists, we now have peace and the criminals have no where to hide"

Three men accused of smoking hashish were given a public flogging before the al-Shabab fighters set fire to the drugs that were purportedly found when the men were arrested.

Such practices have become more frequent as al-Shabab has increased its influence across southern and central Somalia, taking back many of the areas which were formerly controlled by the Islamic Courts Union until late 2006.

In October, a 13-year-old girl was reportedly stoned to death in Kismayu after she was found guilty of adultery.

The UN later said that she had been raped.

Last month, 32 people were whipped for taking part in a traditional dance in the town of Balad, about 30km north of the capital Mogadishu.

Public support

The crowds which were made to witness the flogging in Marka appeared to be overwhelmingly supportive of the new measures being taken by the new Islamist authorities.  

"We support their efforts 100 per cent. The establishment of Sharia is a source of joy for us all," one resident told Al Jazeera.

Another said: "We are happy with the Islamists, we now have peace and the criminals have nowhere to hide."

Somalia has had no effective government since a coup removed Siad Barre from power in 1991, leading to an almost total breakdown in law and order.

The only relative stability areas of the country have enjoyed in recent years was during the short period of rule by the Islamic Courts Union in 2006.

ooh lets not touch this topic better it slowly disappear from view.

Too bad eh Muslims that everyone else is getting wiser about you.

It is a shame that so many people who profess to be muslims, act in ways that apologists for Islam deem "unislamic".

If we were to take their claims about the number of muslims in the world, and then subtracted those who commit unislamic acts, from that figure, we would be left with about as many "true" muslims, as there are "moonies".

Until these "true" muslims, start to lead the extremist, fundamentalists, away from the violent, intolerant version of Islam that we are confronted with on a daily basis, we will never see there culture/religion/race, as acceptable.

Any Muslims on the board, do you condone these actions, or are you repulsed by them?

What's the matter with Waziristan?   [Mark Steyn]


Samuel Huntington's key point in his most famous book is that the conventional western elite view of man as homo economicus is reductive - that cultural identity is a more profound indicator that western-style economic liberty cannot easily trump.

This should have been obvious: If a man is a Muslim bus driver, which is more central to his identity - that he is a Muslim or that he drives a bus? Yet much of the trouble in the world comes from the assumption that economic interests will always outpunch cultural ones: The British imported a large Indian population to serve as a merchant and clerical class in Fiji. It made perfect economic sense. A century later Fiji was a coup-racked ruin split open on cultural fault lines.

In The Clash Of Civilizations, Huntington gave us the phrase "Islam's bloody borders" to describe the striking number of conflicts along "the boundary looping across Eurasia and Africa that separates Muslims from non-Muslims". The "border" - in the sense of a line of demarcation - is increasingly hard to discern. In parts of western Europe, it's more like the overlapping area codes you now get in certain US cities. Forty years ago, the mills of northern England needed workers so Britain imported them from Pakistan. The mills closed, but the workers stayed, and now Yorkshire has adopted Mirpuri customs of arranged cousin marriage: in Bradford, 75 per cent of Pakistani Britons are married to their first cousins. As to the seductive assimilatory charms of time, 30 years ago the percentage was half that. A victory for culture over economics.

These are difficult questions from which the progressive multicultural mind recoils in instinctive revulsion. Samuel Huntington, a lifelong liberal, never did: as Kaplan's headline in The Atlantic put it, he looked the world in the eye.

Quote:

in Bradford, 75 per cent of Pakistani Britons are married to their first cousins. As to the seductive assimilatory charms of time, 30 years ago the percentage was half that

Where do those numbers come from?

freediver wrote on Jan 2^nd, 2009 at 8:04pm:

Quote: in Bradford, 75 per cent of Pakistani Britons are married to their first cousins. As to the seductive assimilatory charms of time, 30 years ago the percentage was half that Where do those numbers come from?

Bradford.

So the numbers were made up?

I'm surprised they didn't tweak any scepticism in you.

oh, the delight of jumping to an 'aha!'.

Alas, the figure comes from a study comissioned by the MP Ann Cryer whose constituency includes Bradford.  To quote the BBC:



Mrs Cryer's constituency is in the Bradford area, where the rates of cousin marriage are well above the national average. It is estimated that three out of four marriages within Bradford's Pakistani community are between first cousins.

[url]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4442010.stm/url]


I am surperised that basic internet search skills still elude you.

Doesn't surprise me in the least...  or probably anyone else who has had the displeasure.

So it turns out I was right. The numbers were made up. Then the made up numbers were misrepresented as an even more absurd claim. Didn't you feel a bit silly posting such an extraordinary claim?

freediver wrote on Jan 2^nd, 2009 at 10:31pm:

So it turns out I was right. The numbers were made up. Then the made up numbers were misrepresented as an even more absurd claim. Didn't you feel a bit silly posting such an extraordinary claim?

Which bit of the BBC report are you struggling with?

I'm not struggling with any of it. It says the numbers were made up. It also makes a far less absurd claim than Mark Steyn. It kind of reminds me of a game of chinese whispers.

freediver wrote on Jan 3^rd, 2009 at 4:18pm:

I'm not struggling with any of it. It says the numbers were made up. It also makes a far less absurd claim than Mark Steyn. It kind of reminds me of a game of chinese whispers.

It does not say anywhere that the numbers were made up. "Mrs Cryer's constituency is in the Bradford area, where the rates of cousin marriage are well above the national average (55%). It is estimated that three out of four marriages within Bradford's Pakistani community are between first cousins. "


Three ot of four is 75%.

Yes I know that three out of four is 75%. But that 75% is still a made up number, because the 3 out of 4 is a made up number. You can't make up a statistic like three in four, then convert it to 75%, then say the 75% figure isn't made up because it was based on the other number. It just doesn't make any sense. The statistic is not a measurement of anything. It was made up. If you dont believe me, try figuring out how they came up with it. You seem to be under the illusion that because the BBC printed it, it must be true, even though they admitted it was made up.

Of course, this has lettle to do with Mark Steyn's even more absurd claim.

If you want to be taken seriously, you have to let go of the absurd claims.

freediver wrote on Jan 3^rd, 2009 at 5:17pm:

Yes I know that three out of four is 75%. But that 75% is still a made up number, because the 3 out of 4 is a made up number. You can't make up a statistic like three in four, then convert it to 75%, then say the 75% figure isn't made up because it was based on the other number. It just doesn't make any sense. The statistic is not a measurement of anything. It was made up. If you dont believe me, try figuring out how they came up with it. You seem to be under the illusion that because the BBC printed it, it must be true, even though they admitted it was made up. Of course, this has lettle to do with Mark Steyn's even more absurd claim. If you want to be taken seriously, you have to let go of the absurd claims.

So, the statistical national average is 55%. Because of the area in Pakistan they come from, Bradford has a higher proportion of cousin marriage.  How  much higher?

The local MP, talking to her constituents, including Bradford Hospital annd Bradford University where reasearch into birth defects started the whole outcry in 2005, estimates it to be 3 out of 4. Nobody has disputed her estimate, nor the national statistics. The BBC was coolith it (they did not 'make it up'). Muslims themselves put the cousin marriage raate in Bradford at 85 %.
http://muslimmarriages.wordpress.com/2007/06/11/thoughts-on-cousin-marriage/

What number would you be happy with, between 55% and 85%? Two out of three? Six out of nine?  

We'll go with your number rather than the locals'.

Quote:

Nobody has disputed her estimate

;D ;D ;D


Quote:

The BBC was coolith it (they did not 'make it up').

Not sure what you are trying to say here. I said the number was made up. I didn't say the BBC made it up. Of course someone else made it up. Then it went through any number of embellishments before it reached the local MP, who filtered it through whatever her political agenda is. Then the BBC quoted it. Then Mark Steyn mangled it into something totally different. Then you quoted Mark Steyn, apparently without realising how absurd his claim is. If you suspend scepticism whenever convenient to you, it turns into Chinese whispers, and the outcome is just as absurd. The long, tenuous and in places broken chain back to reality does not somehow justify your Chinese whispers.


Quote:

What number would you be happy with, between 55% and 85%? Two out of three? Six out of nine?

 

A number that wasn't made up would do fine, thanks. The problem with estimates is that they need no real justification at all. You just make them up. I'm not going to feed into that rubbish. Though it is generous of you to concede that my guess is as good as anybody else's.

freediver wrote on Jan 3^rd, 2009 at 5:39pm:

Quote: Nobody has disputed her estimate ;D ;D ;D [quote]The BBC was coolith it (they did not 'make it up').

Not sure what you are trying to say here. I said the number was made up. I didn't say the BBC made it up. Of course someone else made it up. Then it went through any number of embellishments before it reached the local MP, who filtered it through whatever her political agenda is. Then the BBC quoted it. Then Mark Steyn mangled it into something totally different. Then you quoted Mark Steyn, apparently without realising how absurd his claim is. If you suspend scepticism whenever convenient to you, it turns into Chinese whispers, and the outcome is just as absurd. The long, tenuous and in places broken chain back to reality does not somehow justify your Chinese whispers.


Quote:

What number would you be happy with, between 55% and 85%? Two out of three? Six out of nine?

 

A number that wasn't made up would do fine, thanks. The problem with estimates is that they need no real justification at all. You just make them up. I'm not going to feed into that rubbish. Though it is generous of you to concede that my guess is as good as anybody else's. [/quote]


That you, Abu?

I've never understood the fact that in most religions they are spreading the message of 'peace' in their holy books...and yet, every religion has done it - MY RELIGION OR ELSE!  :-?

Quote:

and yet, every religion has done it - MY RELIGION OR ELSE!

But only one religion does it with bombs, fanaticism and Holy War more than anyone else.

Calanen wrote on Jan 4^th, 2009 at 4:06pm:

Quote: and yet, every religion has done it - MY RELIGION OR ELSE! But only one religion does it with bombs, fanaticism and Holy War more than anyone else.

No, two. You forgot Islam.