The only times I have seen him on British TV, he was being roasted for his views. I have never seen him unopposed as you claim. He was a master of propaganda, and so of course was newsworthy. The British press has been criticised for this, but they defend themselves by saying, as I have said, that he was not allowed an unopposed platform.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/dec/20/bbc-today-programme-cleric-anjem-choudary
As that article points out, not only were a whole lot of people (including the editor of the Jewish Chronicle) making the same point I'm making, the BBC was presenting him as representing
the (as in only) Muslim viewpoint. If the BBC, as they say in their defense, were actually interested in "a wide range of views from across the political and religious spectrums", why was he pretty much always the only Muslim appearing during these debates and interviews?
Saying that Choudary targetted Muslims because they would be more susceptible to his propaganda hardly lets Muslims or Islam off the hook, does it?
It makes one wonder why they focused their recruiting on those who knew the least about Islam and specifically warned against trying to recruit more devout Muslims.
It would also be informative if you declared which of the many Muslim organisations you linked to you consider to be representative of "true Islam".
The list includes Al Muhajiroun, Islam4UK, Muslims Against Crusades and Ahlus Sunnah Al Jamaah (all Choudary organisations).
As I've said before, there aren't any that are "representative of 'true Islam'", because Islam is too varied to have just a single "representative view".
An acknowledgement that these people and organisations are Muslim. Your arguments have 'no true Scotsman' written all over them.
Did I not
just say "my point has never been that people like Choudary or even ISIS aren't Muslims, just that they follow a particular interpretation of Islam that's different from, and not shared by, most other Muslims" in the post you replied to? You even
quoted it.
So their protests are largely ineffectual.
Because some Muslims can't get mosques that they don't control, have no one they can appeal to who does have control, and aren't even members of shut down?
Secondly, there needs to be a sea change in the attitudes of British Muslims as a whole. The majority (two thirds) would refuse to expose a fellow Muslim whom they knew to be planning a terror attack:
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/65...Muslims-would-NOT-give-police-terror-tip-offs
A tabloid referencing a poll with no name and no link?
Breitbart?
Really?
However, if you post the same link again about the counter-protests in London, you will need to show, as you have claimed, that this is an activity carried out by 'most' British Muslims.
Why can one Channel 4 documentary be repeatedly cited as evidence for what "can be said to constitute the activities of the majority of British Muslims", but not another Channel 4 documentary?
Because from here, the only difference
I can see between the documentary that it's permissible to cite repeatedly and the documentary that it's not permissible to cite repeatedly is that the first one shows Muslims in a bad light, and the second one doesn't.
I'm sorry to say this, A'isha, but your blanket refusal to apportion blame for Islamic terror to Islam, and your tendency to try to claim that extremist Muslims aren't really Muslim,
*sigh*
EDIT: Is
this the poll you meant? If so, why did you pick a one-sided sensationalist tabloid article that didn't even name the poll or link to it?
British Muslims are more likely to feel a stronger connection to Britain than the population at large, according to polling, which also found that more than half think that homosexuality should be illegal.
Extensive polling conducted by ICM suggests that in most cases attitudes held by the British Muslim population do not broadly differ from those held by the population at large, but there are significant differences when it comes to some issues such as homosexuality and women’s rights.
[...]
The research suggests that 86% of British Muslims feel a strong sense of belonging in Britain, which is higher than the national average of 83%. A large majority (91%) of the British Muslims who took part in the survey said they felt a strong sense of belonging in their local area, which is higher than the national average of 76%.
Of those questioned, 88% said Britain was a good place for Muslims to live in, and 78% said they would like to integrate into British life on most things apart from Islamic schooling and some laws.
[...]
In a series of questions on the terror threat in Britain, 4% said they sympathised with people who took part in suicide bombings (1% said they completely sympathised and 3% said they sympathised to some extent), and 4% said they sympathised with people who committed terrorist actions as a form of political protest generally.
[...]
Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Perry Barr, welcomed the fact that the polling had highlighted that the vast majority of Muslims had a strong attachment to Britain, but added: “I think the real issue is that their participation in British society needs to increase.”
“What this [polling] highlights is that the community hasn’t progressed from what was happening in the 80s and ... that they have been isolated without being able to have further integration,” he said. Mahmood argued that this was in large part due to a shortage of housing, which had led to overcrowding in British Asian areas. “It’s not for the want of trying,” he added.
Shaista Gohir, the chair of the Muslim Women’s Network UK, said interviews with other religious groups such as devout Jews and Christians would probably reveal similar social attitudes to those thrown up by the polling. She said that although any prejudice against gay people was unacceptable, the fact that nearly 50% of Muslims did not think homosexuality should be illegal was a sign that attitudes were shifting.
2nd EDIT:
Here's an article with some details about issues with the methodology used.
3rd EDIT:
As Kenan Malik, a London-based writer and lecturer, notes on Twitter, the results of the latest poll may betray this: While only 34 percent of British Muslims said they might contact police if someone close to them was involved with terrorism in Syria, ICM also found that just 30 percent within a non-Muslim control group said they would go to the authorities in the same situation.
In fact, ICM's data seemed to show that in a variety of ways, British Muslims felt more British and had less tolerance for extremism than their non-Muslim peers.
4th EDIT: And
here is the actual full data from ICM.
5th EDIT: Straight from the data, here's the breakdown of answers to the question "If you thought that someone who is close to you was getting involved with people who support terrorism in Syria, would you ..."
Muslims in Britain:
Report it to the police: 34%
Talk to the person directly about it to dissuade them: 46%
Look for help: 37%
Let the person deal with it themselves, I wouldn't get involved: 9%
I don't think someone close to me would get involved with people who support terrorism: 27%
Don't know: 10%
Non-Muslims in Britain:
Report it to the police: 30%
Talk to the person directly about it to dissuade them: 29%
Look for help: 16%
Let the person deal with it themselves, I wouldn't get involved: 3%
I don't think someone close to me would get involved with people who support terrorism: 57%
Don't know: 3%
