Thank you, Dima but....

Submitted by Sword of Islam (United Kingdom), Mar 9, 2006 at 16:43

Thank you, Dima for at least trying to substantiate your view with some hard facts. However, I don't think that anybody reading the article would conclude that there have been the mass deportations that you alluded to in your comments. There may be a hardening of immigration policies but some would say that this is long overdue.

There is a very big difference between the forced repatriation of an ethnic group as a whole and a toughening of immigration policy. More Arab and Muslim families are living in the US than were 'kicked out' so it proves that your statement is categorically wrong. But you have my respect for at least reprimanding that fool Libyan and for trying to spread information (even if it's wrong) from a verifiable source rather than the blatant propaganda that too many others are sowing.

The reason for any aggression that you may perceive is quite clear.

1) The constant propaganda and generalised remarks that are made with no attempt to provide evidence from a third party to confirm them.
2) An utter refusal to answer questions that are posed with anything other than questions (when they are not ignored as is usually the case)

The only educated, reasonable & articulate opposing view that I have encountered so far was that from 'another one'. He had the ability to at least try to answer any questions that were put to him in a rational, factual way and to ask some equally challenging questions of his own. Unfortunately, when difficult, serious questions have been asked of the Muslim participants of this board as a whole(and I'm not talking about Muslim dress or gender politics here!) the response has fallen into 1 of 3 categories:

1. It is ignored

or

2. A counter-accusation is made

or

3. Somebody says "Islam is a religion of peace. We are not all like that'

1 is most common.

2 is the classic way to avoid a question yet to distract the reader's attention away from the fact.

3 is paradoxically the most pointless and harmful. As a statement of personal belief it may very well be true of many. However silence is generally accepted by our legal system to indicate consent or approval. The only way that 3 can be believed is when we see the acts of these extremists utterly condemned by the 'peaceful majority' rather than mildly disapproved of. If massive protests can be organised attacking a series of cartoons then they can also be equally easy to organise to protest against the extremists. Strangely enough, we never see this. This therefore creates the understandable impression in the West that the majority of Muslims secretly approve of these acts (rightly or wrongly). So if you want respect , the best, and only way to do it is by making your statements, backing them up with verifiable information, and debating them. A good point properly made is impossible to argue with. So ignoring the difficult questions only serves to prove that the question is correct given the inability of anybody to argue against it.

So although your statement regarding the deportation of Arabs and Muslims is quite clearly mistaken I congratulate you for at least trying.

I am quite happy to answer questions regarding the factual accuracy of any comments that I make - so any aggression that you detect can quite clearly be attributed to a failure of others to even try to give some straight answers...

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