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Discussion Groups / British English / June 2007Conferring knighthood on Rushdie
I think the British Govt. had every right to confer the knighthood on Rushdie. I think he is fully derserving of the honour conferred on him. I am not a muslim but with things the way they are I feel this was not the right time for the British Govt. to honour someone whom the muslim community think blasphemed against the Koran. I think this will unecessarily strain relations between the two communities and this will not really serve any constructive purpose. It will only reinforce the feeling that Britain is insensitive to Muslim sentiments. I am sure many Brits feel this way too. alakeshwar > I think the British Govt. had every right to confer the knighthood > on Rushdie. I think he is fully derserving of the honour conferred > on him. Of course they have every right, The UK is a free and independent country. Whether it was deserved or not is, of course, a matter of opinion. > I am not a muslim but with things the way they are I feel this was > not the right time for the British Govt. to honour someone whom the > muslim community think blasphemed against the Koran. Do not see any reason why the UK government should take any notice of what people in the street in other countries think of its actions in a very mundane thing such as giving awards to its citizens. The UK is not a Muslim country. > I think this > will unecessarily strain relations between the two communities and > this will not really serve any constructive purpose. It will only > reinforce the feeling that Britain is insensitive to Muslim > sentiments. I am sure many Brits feel this way too. Why the hell should the UK be sensitive to Muslim sentiments, is Islam sensitive to ours? > I think the British Govt. had every right to confer the knighthood > on Rushdie. I think he is fully derserving of the honour conferred > on him. > I am not a muslim but with things the way they are I feel this was > not the right time for the British Govt. to honour someone whom the > muslim community think blasphemed against the Koran. Would you mind telling us exactly how Rushdie has "blasphemed against the Koran"? I (unlike you, it would seem) know the Koran, and have read Rushdie's work. I see no blasphemy. No, of course I don't expect a rational answer. Go ahead and scream about whatever you like; we don't expect people who can only talk in a scream to make sense. > > I think the British Govt. had every right to confer the knighthood > > on Rushdie. I think he is fully derserving of the honour conferred [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > whatever you like; we don't expect people who can only talk in a scream to > make sense. Look I never said Rushdie blasphemed against the Koran. I only said they think he did . Muslims are fanatical when it comes to their religion. Christians and Hindus and people of other religions are much more tolerant of other religions. The problem is you have a large muslim community in Britain..so why inflame their hatred when it can be avoided. Let's say you know somone is crazy,would you do something to upset the person. alakeshwar > Muslims are fanatical when it comes to their > religion. Christians and Hindus and people of other religions are > much more tolerant of other religions. No, some of the Muslims are fanatical. The nutcases. There are nutcases in Christianity and Hinduism too. Remember the prosecution of a play for "blasphemous libel", the murder of staff at abortion clinics, the Iain Paisley of the 1960s-2006, Ayodhya, the West Bank settlements. > The problem is you have a > large muslim community in Britain..so why inflame their hatred when it > can be avoided. Let's say you know somone is crazy,would you do > something to upset the person. Thus allowing the nutcases to give everyone the impression that they own Islam. They don't, as I know from my own contacts with Muslims. Let everyone understand that in Britain, as in the world, Islam is one religion among many. It must comport itself as such, and acknowledge the duty to accept comment and criticism. Protest is legitimate, and if peaceful and dignified is likely to be respected; an assumption of superiority is not, and violence even less so. By the way, I've never spoken to a Muslim who didn't come across as a normal, sane, tolerant person. British Muslims- those who ARE British and don't regard themselves as temporary transplants in an alien culture- need the support of the rest of us against the ignorance and aggressiveness of the religious and cultural land-grabbers. Paul Burke >> Muslims are fanatical when it comes to their >> religion. Christians and Hindus and people of other religions are >> much more tolerant of other religions. > No, some of the Muslims are fanatical. The nutcases. There are nutcases in > Christianity and Hinduism too. Remember the prosecution of a play for > "blasphemous libel", the murder of staff at abortion clinics, the Iain > Paisley of the 1960s-2006, Ayodhya, the West Bank settlements. >> The problem is you have a >> large muslim community in Britain..so why inflame their hatred when it >> can be avoided. Let's say you know somone is crazy,would you do >> something to upset the person. > Thus allowing the nutcases to give everyone the impression that they own > Islam. They don't, as I know from my own contacts with Muslims. Let everyone [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > support of the rest of us against the ignorance and aggressiveness of the > religious and cultural land-grabbers. Too bad that a group of 13 leaders of various Muslim groups in Britain were able to send a letter to the Guardian newspaper, objecting to the award of the knighthood to Rushdie and making ridiculously paranoid claims about this being some sort of deliberate and planned insult to Islam - when it appears they can't stir themselves to feel insulted when people commit violence, kidnapping and other atrocities in the name of their religion. Are the sane tolerant Muslims so thick that they can't see while few of us are going to think badly about their religion as a result of Rushdie's book, many of us will feel very badly about it as a result of what is being done in its name across the world? It's hard to dismiss this as "just a few nutcases" when there are whole countries under the most appalling oppressive illiberal rule from people who claim to be ruling in the name of Islam. I appreciate that Christianity too has a bad illiberal past, and an active illiberal wing. But it seems to me that the acceptance of toleration and liberalism e.g. by the RC Church, did not come about by people pussy-footing aroudn it and saying "oh most Catholics are good people, and Catholicism is good religion, it's just a few extremists that give it a bad name". No, it came about by people standing up to it and shaming it into reform, pointing out the hypocrisy of some of what was done in its name when put against the words of its founder. Matthew Huntbach |
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