Makes me wonder whether the govt wants us to mindlessly give in to (all of) "British" culture(well they'd probs love that but where does multiculture come in that?) and/or get an angry reaction from us to prove their point about all this extremism etc. :/

oh ill bet this will come up at work yippee(!)

did Merkel not say the same thing before??? i dont understand what theyre trying to achieve with statements like these, honestly. i think its quite irresponsible actually and having Lord Ahmad appear on BBC one because hes a muslim conservatives member????

You wrote:

Lord Ahmed is Labour. Barroness Warsi is Conservative. I don't think the Lib Dems have a famous token Muslim member - quite an achievement considering that even the EDL have managed to get one.

r u sure??? cos otherwise the BBC made a typo lol

i just checked, and it is conservative Tariq Ahmad hes called

Thats what they were talking about on LBC this morning.

talking about multiculturalism. there was this joke in France (im sure it can be tweaked to fit England)

Little boy didnt do his homework and got in trouble at school, while his teacher is telling him off he is not looking at him, which infuriates the teacher even more: "Look at me when im talking to you young man! have you no respect?!"

That little boy goes home. and for some reason gets told off by his dad (maybe he had a note from his teacher saying that he hadnt done his h/w?) so anyway, his dad's shouting at him and, as he learnt at school, he's looking up at his dad...and SMACK! "How dare you look at your father in the eye?! have you no respect?!"

Lilly wrote:

Thats what they were talking about on LBC this morning.

talking about multiculturalism. there was this joke in France (im sure it can be tweaked to fit England)

Little boy didnt do his homework and got in trouble at school, while his teacher is telling him off he is not looking at him, which infuriates the teacher even more: "Look at me when im talking to you young man! have you no respect?!"

That little boy goes home. and for some reason gets told off by his dad (maybe he had a note from his teacher saying that he hadnt done his h/w?) so anyway, his dad's shouting at him and, as he learnt at school, he's looking up at his dad...and SMACK! "How dare you look at your father in the eye?! have you no respect?!"

haha i like tht.

and interesting fact about Lord Ahmad. i cant remember what they said in the interview on BBC, but i just thought it was so silly. multi-culturalism doesnt work, but dont get angry about it, just bring Ahmad on the show and everything will be ok!

Quote:

We need to argue that their prophecies of a global war of religion pitting Muslims against the rest of the world are rubbish.

Hear, hear, their prophecies are rubbish. Most of the speech and probably his grasp was pretty woolly, but I don't think he joined the EDL.

I think he means that the muslims should get involved more in British culture

like s** before marriage
13 year old school kids giving birth
falling over your own vomit on a Friday night

If the people did the above we would be on track- Should we?

i say. you're fourteen. or early/mid teens. what do you say?

Nothing, What has my age got to do with this?

we just like to know the newbies, helps to make a better rapport

yes yes we do!

just tell us a roundabout how old you are. dont need to tell us your exact age.

stopincest wrote:

Nothing, What has my age got to do with this?

You might have learned to make sincere points rather than blithe mischaracterisations, so that in every discussion there is at least one honest broker. If you take a minute to read the speech the PM feels that British culture, in the behaviour of yobs and in the minds of a deeply unhelpful, probably disgustingly ungrateful immigrant population, offers little of the civility and tolerance that Britain was respected for, and that ought to be revived as a beacon of why to reject the jihadi mindset, specifically so as not to let the EDL claim to be plugging a hole. Not necessarily though, you could be 80 and still ignorant.

Joie de Vivre wrote:

stopincest wrote:

Nothing, What has my age got to do with this?

You might have learned to make sincere points rather than blithe mischaracterisations, so that in every discussion there is at least one honest broker. If you take a minute to read the speech the PM feels that British culture, in the behaviour of yobs and in the minds of a deeply unhelpful, probably disgustingly ungrateful immigrant population, offers little of the civility and tolerance that Britain was respected for, and that ought to be revived as a beacon of why to reject the jihadi mindset, specifically so as not to let the EDL claim to be plugging a hole. Not necessarily though, you could be 80 and still ignorant.

How about if the "yobs" are British born then who gets the blame?
EDL plugging a hole NO The EDL are just a bunch of football hooligans I don't think they can do any thing

No, no. I do think you need to read and make sure you understand before dashing off replies. I think you should read the speech you were criticising and on which I offered mixed responses, before trying to understand my responses.

Joie de Vivre wrote:

No, no. I do think you need to read and make sure you understand before dashing off replies. I think you should read the speech you were criticising and on which I offered mixed responses, before trying to understand my responses.

Based on what I've read I find it hard to believe how he could come to that conclusion: "state multi-culturalism has failed." What's that supposed to mean? Should the state not support multi-culturalism? Yes, we need to tackle the extremist groups and have an honest discourse on this issue; but, how're we going to do that?
Surely not by sidelining and marginalising decent Muslims or resorting to knee jerk reactions or comments. He makes the point that it is from within Islam and Muslim communities that extremism needs to be tackled, which is correct.

But he fails to mention the unsung forces of Islam who are trying to integrate and tackle extremism, whilst staying true to Islam; their work is so easily tarnished when a right wing politician/journalist makes an inappropriate and rash comment. He also fails to note that the Gallup poll found that Muslims were actually more loyal and had more confidence in the system- if this has changed then he needs to ask why?

To be honest, I think Cameron was either trying to shift the attention away from his economic policy or he has been acting on the wrong advice of his aids. Douglas Alexander said that the PM lacked direction: HOW exactly are we going to tackle the issue; surely not just be sqeauzing assets.

You might have a point about shifting attention from other matters.

It was a clumsy speech. But note, even if the word "muscular" is not a good one for talking about how to deal with multi-cultural fallout, that he coupled it with the word "liberalism". As alien as liberalism can be in religion it is more alien to the EDL.

You're right he didn't highlight existing efforts from Muslims, or say enough to illustrate that he feels the majority of Muslims are fine citizens. So he has alienated some Muslims and liberals.

The main problems presented by Islam in Britain are or have been recurring themes in all religious communities, getting them to move with the times and uphold the law. That always takes generations.]

A separate, urgent issue, that of getting people to respect the kindnesses of the state and reject extremism shouldn't be so hard to discuss. "Multiculturalism has failed" can only be properly criticising a few policies and is a ridiculously grandiose approach.

Waht a ridiculous thing to say

he hasn't JOINED the EDL!

However

I DID hav some problems with his speech

but I agree with some things he said

a lot of Asian people keep themselves to themselves
living in what I would describe as ghettos
and not integrating

A lot of chinese people don't integrate either

and some WHITE brits dont integrate!

well it seems no one integrate.

you know what bad? if you dont fit in any of the mentionned categories, you are a.l.on.e

which mentioned categories?

Talking of multicularism and integration, my head of years went to some college just outside bham and they were like "We had a bit of a shock seeing the students were predominantly white and middle class! Their teachers may be shocked too as we obviously aren't [white/m.c] We're lucky to be in such an environment [where its more mixed]

I found it embarrassing when that college's teacher was going around our class and some of the *asian* girls were being quite immature - I mean it was normal for us but you know if that posh middle class teacher working in such a college has never really interacted with other ethnic minorities she may get the wrong idea? hmm

But the teachers said they got excellent feedback and they "don't say it enough" to us but they're "proud of us and blah blah blah" It was quite a gay message for a teacher

Back to the topic - I'd hate to live in an area where there was only one ethnic group.

But unfortunately I know do know people who dislike other people and wish to only live around their "own kind" and feel superior to others so they can be pretty racist too, for no reason :/

Well our teachers, when talking about the other college said how their students were so engaging etc and this other word begining with 'I' that I can't remember. They didn't sound immature and basically they had decent convos with the teachers etc and we basically didn't really do that.

I mean one girl sitting by me was like "I don't even know what I'm doing" and was just laughing (she's a bit crazy - in a good way)& then apologising and the visitor was like "Don't you think you should calm down and concentrate on your work?"

LOL

you know whats funny
even areas mainly full of white people have immaturity
depends where you go so theres nothing to be embarassed about lol

yep I know but you know that image you have of posh middle class white people...

lol anyway I only cared during that hour. old news now

ThE pOwEr Of SiLeNcE wrote:

yep I know but you know that image you have of posh middle class white people...

lol anyway I only cared during that hour. old news now

so back to the old ways then??? lol

Lol thought someone would say that.
well not like im doing anything wrong!

Sorry this may sound really stupid but what's the EDL?

'English Defence League' a group of fascist people.