The imam is wrong when he asserts that "radicalisation and extremism does not take place in mosques." We have seen again and again that it does. From the MuslimNews, with thanks to Kemaste:
Religious leaders have expressed alarm at the Government’s new controversial proposals to give the police powers to close places of worship, which fail to comply with an order to prevent them from being used to foment extremism.Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, has been accused of failing to listen to the advice of Muslim task forces set up in the wake of the July bombings in London in a whole raft of anti-terrorism legislation.
Imam Ibrahim Mogra, Deputy Convenor of the working group on Imams and Mosques said that he was surprised by Clarke proceeding to issue a consultation paper on ‘Preventing Extremism Together – Places of Worship’ on October 5 after he rejected suggestions that mosques would be targeted when welcoming the task forces’ recommendations last month.“Charles Clarke told us on September 22 that the Government was not intending to close down any mosques but that he wanted cooperation and assistance from the Muslim community,” Mogra told The Muslim News. “I told the Home Secretary that mosques are doing good work and we need to celebrate good practice,”he said.
The Leicester-based Imam, who chairs the Muslim Council of Britain’s Mosques and Community Affairs Committee, warned that the Government’s focus was misdirected. “Radicalisation and extremism does not take place in mosques. It takes place elsewhere. So the shift has to be to other areas where young people are vulnerable,” he said.
Oh please let the Blair government get this one right and let the moderate Muslims of the UK cooperate.
It can take place in the mosques. But it can also take place outside the mosques. All you need are a few good books -- Qur'an and Hadith and Sira -- and a few good men, their eyes glittering with certainty and hate.
Hugh:
You are right, and of course much goes on outside of mosques, possibly much more. But the psychological power of being able to freely foment hatred and jihad ideology inside the mosque lends it a legitimacy it would otherwise not enjoy, just as putting such lies as those about the Holocaust into print has conferred on the opinions expressed by warped minds. The credulous, the "They couldn't print it if it wasn't true" syndrome.
What is so distressing to me is that the majority of peaceful moderate Muslims that we keep being told about haven't been exposing the extremists and asking that they be sent back to from whence they came.
The first I heard of this phenomena (radical immams) was nearly ten years ago in a little Canadian scandal rag that printed a story about one of Canada's largest dailies spiking a story a Muslim journalist had proposed about the shocking speeches he had surrepticiously recorded in a Toronto mosque. That same paper finally broke a similar story earlier this year because a number of attendees at a certain mosque had been implicated with immigration violations and jihaddist connections.
Good idea. Target young Muslims' vulnerable areas.
The Finsbury Park Mosque in Little Algiers, N4 claims to have made a 'new start'. Whatever that means.
I have no comment on this other than personal exuberation! I served in the US Navy protecting rights of free speech, but I believe the right to life and freedom from persecution takes precedence. I am reeling in admiration for the absolute fortitude of Charles Clarke.
"Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, has been accused of failing to listen to the advice of Muslim task forces..", "Charles Clarke told us on September 22 that the Government was not intending to close down any mosques but that he wanted cooperation and assistance from the Muslim community" -- Hmmm.....Maybe he didn't get enough assistance?
Nothing will happen.
Intersted posted : Good idea. Target young Muslims' vulnerable areas. The Finsbury Park Mosque in Little Algiers, N4 claims to have made a 'new start'. Whatever that means.
Oops, I thought you meant soimething else.
Effractor
I share your view. This governement has done all it can to give the impression that it is doing something. In reality NOT ONE islamic fanatic has been deported so far. Clarke's policies on this issue, and there have been many so far, have been designed to be shot down at first sighting. It is hard not to come to the conclusion that this is deliberate.
The Labour government has spent a lot of political capital in allowing hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, mostly muslims, to stay in Britain. It is not about to jeopardise the electoral advantage gained.
Care to put some flesh on those bones, because within the context of political debate in todays environment, the so called "right to life" involves persecution of women who seek nothing more than what men have, and that is ownership and control of their own bodies.
As it stands your beliefs which have precedence suffer from an internal contradiction.
Oops, I thought you meant something else.
DP111, I only ever mean one thing.
I sometimes feel that a new Battle of (for?) Britain has started.
Interested: Ouch, that hurts.
Ouch, that hurts
Well stop doing it!
/stern nanny voice off.
he so called "right to life" involves persecution of women who seek nothing more than what men have, and that is ownership and control of their own bodies.
Abortion rears its ugly head even in this thread.
Ill remember that women want control and ownership of their bodies when one of them seeks financial assistance from the state to care for their newborn, the baby that was born with health problems because the mother smoked and drank the previous nine months. Hey, it was your body.
Now back to the impending conflict.
Dead Infidel Walking, isn't it a little inconsistent to be both opposed to abortion, and indignant about the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy carried to term?
Freedom has good and bad consequences, and the bad consequences are the price free societies pay for the good ones. If, specifically in the area of female reproductive freedom, you think that control is the best way to avoid those consequences, there is a religion that regulates all aspects of life, particularly female sexuality. That religion is Islam.
Interested
re: vulnerable areas.
What hurts the Jihad more then anything is limiting access to potential victims or dhimmis. Deportation of the perpetrator and the family, is a policy that reaches vulnerable parts other policies do not reach.
The basic impulse of Islam is to expand into Infidel territory. The territory is not just physical but spiritual and intellectual. Unable to do so, it will collapse quite quickly in historic terms, and thus release the 1.2 billion souls in its enslavement. What more can one ask for.
Never going to happen.
The Religious Hatred Bill however, for which this little smokescreen was meant to soften, will most certainly happen.
New Labour? New Traitors.
The ignorant and naive don't understand. The battle to create and Islamic society begins the moment that one Muslim takes residence there and multiples with the subsequent arrival of more of them. The mild-mannered will be influenced by the sterner and more militant that will use peer pressue to press on in full force using any means necessary.
"Mosques targeted for closure"
As Oliver Twist said "More please!"