Lifting the Veil of “Islamophobia”

[Jokodo]

The article you link contradicts everything you claim:

Peter Jones, who spent seven years researching Australia’s Islamic schools for his PhD, said only 15 to 20 per cent of Muslim students attended Islamic schools.

That is, if correct, sure much more than the figure for Austria, but still a far cry from what you are insinuating - that it is hard to find Muslims in general schools, or even your more recent claim (shifting goal posts, much?) that "[t]he only moslem kids that go to state schools here are the ones who can't get into muslim schools".

Also, Muslim schools are very much not what you imagine them to be, as seen from the following quote:

About half of the teachers at most of the schools were not Muslim [a much higher percentage than that of non-Catholic teachers at the Catholic private school my wife went to - Jokodo] and all the schools approached said they would happily enrol non-Muslim students.

You're busted. It's only a question of when you'll admit it.

"They would happily take non muslim students". Of course they would say that. Go try enrol a non muslim kid to one of these places.

Do you seriously expect us to accept the fact that you imagine bad things to happen as evidence that bad things will happen?

And this while talking about schools that have up to 50% non-Muslim teachers? Which is more than can be said about non-Catholics at the Catholic private school my wife was sent to?

 

[Keith&Co.]

because they were sending funds overseas to what some suspected were to Hamas and other terror organisations.

What SOME suspected?
Of what weight is that statement in the discussion?
I mean, i'm sure YOU already believe the money was going to terrorists.
But was a forensic accountant involved in establishing these suspicions? Or Interpol?







Subway?

What if they were sending funds to schools in muslim countries trying to educate women or girls? Or to efforts to make life better for muslims in the country others 'escaped?'

 

[Jokodo]

because they were sending funds overseas to what some suspected were to Hamas and other terror organisations.

What SOME suspected?
Of what weight is that statement in the discussion?
I mean, i'm sure YOU already believe the money was going to terrorists.
But was a forensic accountant involved in establishing these suspicions? Or Interpol? <snip>

I totally missed that - those suspicions weren't even mentioned in the article that angelo linked, allegedly as a source. All the article says is that some schools' funding has been suspended over allegations of financial mismanagement or doubts over their non-profit status. Sounds more like embezzlement than supporting terrorism to me.

angelo, if you've heard a claim but can't track it to anything better than a fringe right-wing blog, you should be doing one of two things: A) don't repeat the claim, or B) be honest about your sources and link to that blog, however loony it may look. What you shouldn't be doing is providing a more mainstream source and then pretend that it makes your claim when it obviously doesn't. That's just pure dishonest.

 

[Sabine Grant]

Yeah, no. I think you are grossly exaggerating. The part about not dating non-Muslims is correct in a lot of cases, although that's oftentimes due to the families and not the children. But that's not something unique to Muslims. I have never once met a Muslim who said they can't have non-Muslim friends.

Pew surveys have shown that at least here in the U.S., Muslims identify as "Muslim" before "American" at pretty much the same rate as Christians do. And most don't see a conflict between the two. If it's different elsewhere, it's obviously due to the surrounding sociopolitical circumstances and not what the Qur'an says.

- - - Updated - - -

She's a bigot? The imman at the moslem school or mosque who tells his followers that Jews are monkeys and death to the infidels is not a bigot??

How in the hell does this follow from what I posted?

I haven't seen you make a single rational statement anywhere in this thread. Or the other one, for that matter.

Typical response. Attack the messenger when you don't like the message.

Typical response from someone who dismissed corrections focusing on several of his claims in his previous thread and now statements correcting claims made in this thread. Why do you not address the central point of Hirsi Ali's stances implying that ALL Muslims should be "crashed under our boot"? Why have you not addressed the central point of her implying that they be stripped of their Constitutional Identity in Western nations? Why have you not addressed her inflammatory portraying of Muslim schools in Western nations teaching children that Jews are "pigs and monkeys"? Why are you dismissing the vast experience of socialization with Muslims of posters who have attested that they have never encountered Muslims telling them "they cannot have non Muslim friends"?

Why did you state :

http://talkfreethought.org/showthre...-of-islamophobia&p=15187&viewfull=1#post15187


"Isn't it a fact that the silence from muslims is deafening after many muslim terrorist attacks?"

when I had previously commented about the response to Islamist terrorism and counter measures adopted by the Muslim nation of Morocco targeting the expansion of radical Islamist terrorist factions into Mali as well as counter measures targeting the same groups attempting to recruit and radicalize young Moroccans in Morocco? Is that what you refer to as "deafening silence"?

Your one liner I quoted above was addressed by me yet you did NOT acknowledge my correction of your statement,

http://talkfreethought.org/showthre...-of-islamophobia&p=15407&viewfull=1#post15407

Am I to expect that you will trot the same claim in another one of those anti Muslims fear/hate mongering propaganda threads?

Are we supposed to be celebrating the fact that in two countries out of the whole moslem world are trying to ferret out the radicals? Not having much success in Nigeria are they.

You are supposed to acknowledge that your previous claim,

"Isn't it a fact that the silence from muslims is deafening after many muslim terrorist attacks?" was demonstrated to be incorrect. Further, it is not only "two countries out of the whole moslem world" who have joined the efforts deployed in Mali by members of the African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA). To name a few : Chad, Ivory Coast, Senegal etc...A total number of 21 AFISMA members . To note that Ivory Coast, Togo, Sierra Leone and several others engaged in Mali are members of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation. Several have a Muslim majority population and Muslim members in their Government.That might be news to you as I do not expect you to be familiar with the demographics and the diversity of the governmental representation of members of the AFISMA.

Can you prove these muslim schools and mosques are not teaching young impressionable young kids that Jews are pigs and infidels are apes? That both are the enemy? That they should not associate with them?

A better question would be : "has Ali provided evidence that Muslim schools throughout Europe incite antisemitism and refer to Jews as "pigs and monkeys". The answer is NO. Considering the documentation I previously provided regarding the rating of best lycees in France, do you imagine that the French Administration would include in its top rated listing any school where students would be incited into antisemitism while Faculty and Staff members would refer to Jews as "pigs and monkeys", calling them "the enemy" and forbidding association with them? Are you not aware that racial and religious hatred speech in France is penalized? Have you forgotten the heavy fines (twice) which hit Bardot upon the publication of books which incite hatred against the French of immigrant origin, specifically targeting folks of Northern African and Sub Sahara origin, an immigrant origin group constituting the vast majority of our French Muslims? So, non, Muslims schools in my country are not going to engage in conditioning children into cultivating antisemitism. But in Ali's mind, all Muslim schools in Europe do. She would equally advocate closing Muslim schools in my country to include the top rated lycee in France which happens to be a private Muslim school.

It seems that Ali Hirsi would be a lot more knowledgeable than you as she was and still is a muslim.

It does not seem rather it is a certainty that you tend to unfortunately produce too many incorrect claims : Ali deconverted in 2002 and became a self declared atheist. She is not "still a Muslim". Another certainty is that Ali engages in inflammatory depictions of Muslims in general without making any distinction whatsoever. I make those distinctions.

All I'll add to that is this: Try to enrol a non muslm from a xtian background to these schools and see what happens. Or this: Try and find a muslim from a muslim background in a general/state run school.

You actually think that no Muslim student attends French public schools and our Universities? What type of schools do you think serve the population residing in the low income housing projects, population with the highest ratio of youth of Northern African and Sub Sahara origin? Private schools? Do you have insights regarding the demographics of French schools and Universities I somehow would not have?

Even in the secular private school I was enrolled in my hometown, Cannes, we had several students of Northern African origin who were Muslims. Coming from well off families though.But that because Cannes itself is known to have an upper economical class population. However, it is public schools who serve what we refer to as the "Zones sensibles" projects or "sensitive Zones".

How do you know that private Muslim schools would not accept applicants who are not of a Muslim background in France? Do you pronounce an equal claim regarding French private Catholic Schools? Private Jewish schools? Are you not aware that all private schools in France have to comply with the standard curriculum established by the Ministere de l'Education Nationale? And that, again, private schools tend to perform better than the public educational system which is why so many well off families will chose private over public?

This shows that muslims will never assimilate with the western culture that they have escaped to.

"This" showed absolutely nothing. It only showed once more that you keep producing misinformed and unsupported claims which have to be corrected.

 

[dystopian]

Australia is a younger country than all European countries and the history of muslim immigration here is recent as compared to the old continent.

Bullshit. When do you think Muslim immigration in Europe started? Because outside of the balkans, it's actually a pretty recent thing. Sure, due to our colonies we were for a very long technically the largest muslim country in the world, but the actual percentage of muslims in the European part of the Netherlands was never more than 0.1%. Immigration from Islamic countries only began in earnest in the 1960's and 70's; and that was actually a government led effort in order to attract cheap labor.

By comparison, Muslims actually PREDATE the western presence in Australia, as muslims from Indonesia traded with aboriginals. Furthermore, there was muslim immigration to Australia as early as the 1860's, and the oldest Mosque in Australia dates from 1861 (I very much doubt you'll find mosques that old in western or northern Europe). Australia severely restricted it's immigration policies in the early 20th century, but relaxed them again after WW2; and most of the immigration thus started in the 70's.

In other words, you're full of shit and the history of muslim immigration is NOT recent as compared to most of Europe.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I totally missed that - those suspicions weren't even mentioned in the article that angelo linked, allegedly as a source. All the article says is that some schools' funding has been suspended over allegations of financial mismanagement or doubts over their non-profit status. Sounds more like embezzlement than supporting terrorism to me.

According to this article:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-31/australias-largest-muslim-school-facing-closure/5062118

The money was not going overseas, but to the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils.
I can't find an article for money suspected of going overseas to Hamas.

 

[J842P]

Or this: Try and find a muslim from a muslim background in a general/state run school. This shows that muslims will never assimilate with the western culture that they have escaped to.

I was personally acquainted with least a dozen, and that's not counting wishy-washy Muslims, but hijab-wearing observant Muslims.

 

[jab]

The notion that citizens of any Western nation should be stripped of their Constitutional Identity and subsequent Rights and Privileges afforded to ALL citizens based on their beliefs (in this case Muslims) heavily clashes with democratic principles. To my knowledge "We, the People" does not intend to exclude from "The People" ,citizens, based on their religious identity. What is disturbing to Warpoet is any suggestion implying that a designated (targeted would be more appropriate as a term) group of Constitutionally protected persons are to be treated as personae non gratae.

Have you Americans already forgotten how you mistreated Japanese Americans? There too, it was all about a "threat"....I find too many Americans to be really quick to succumb to paranoia while promoting discriminatory measures and that in the name of protecting your democratic republic, which I must remind everyone is supposed to be a pluralistic democratic republic.

"Japanese American" is not quite the same as "Islam". One is a belief system, one is not--Can you tell which is which? A better analogy would be the Red Scare in the US.

One has to respect Ali for pointing out abhorrent aspects of an ideology of which she has first-hand experience and knowledge, aspects that have negatively impacted her own life, and hey guys--yeah, I mean you, Warpoet, maybe show some respect for the sexist degradation she has experienced as a woman--even if one disagrees with her solutions.
If one should be careful not to associate oneself with Far Right elements in one way, one should think carefully about dipping one's bodily appendages into the fetid pool of misogynist piss.

 

[Warpoet]

One has to respect Ali for pointing out abhorrent aspects of an ideology of which she has first-hand experience and knowledge, aspects that have negatively impacted her own life, and hey guys--yeah, I mean you, Warpoet, maybe show some respect for the sexist degradation she has experienced as a woman--even if one disagrees with her solutions.

Yeah, I keep forgetting that bigotry against an entire subset of the population somehow becomes acceptable so long as the person spewing it has been wronged by someone belonging to that subset of the population. Racists and xenophobes across the globe will rejoice at that revelation. And I'm sure that if we were talking about some Palestinian who thinks that all Jews are an enemy who should be crushed and calling for them to be treated like second-class citizens, you'd be rushing to his defense like you are Ali's and chastising others here for labeling him a bigot. Not.

If one should be careful not to associate oneself with Far Right elements in one way, one should think carefully about dipping one's bodily appendages into the fetid pool of misogynist piss.

And luckily, anyone with at least a few functional brain cells can see that that's not what I or anyone else here is doing.

 

[angelo]

The article you link contradicts everything you claim:

Peter Jones, who spent seven years researching Australia’s Islamic schools for his PhD, said only 15 to 20 per cent of Muslim students attended Islamic schools.

That is, if correct, sure much more than the figure for Austria, but still a far cry from what you are insinuating - that it is hard to find Muslims in general schools, or even your more recent claim (shifting goal posts, much?) that "[t]he only moslem kids that go to state schools here are the ones who can't get into muslim schools".

Also, Muslim schools are very much not what you imagine them to be, as seen from the following quote:

About half of the teachers at most of the schools were not Muslim [a much higher percentage than that of non-Catholic teachers at the Catholic private school my wife went to - Jokodo] and all the schools approached said they would happily enrol non-Muslim students.

You're busted. It's only a question of when you'll admit it.

"They would happily take non muslim students". Of course they would say that. Go try enrol a non muslim kid to one of these places.

Do you seriously expect us to accept the fact that you imagine bad things to happen as evidence that bad things will happen?

And this while talking about schools that have up to 50% non-Muslim teachers? Which is more than can be said about non-Catholics at the Catholic private school my wife was sent to?

Oh I agree. Not long ago I was glancing through the situations vacant in my local paper when I spotted an add for a teacher at a xtian private school. The first requirement was that the applicant be a xtian and to teach xtian values whatever they may be. I was outraged and sent off an email to the school concerned as I thought religion should not be a barrier nor a requirement for any position. Needles to say I never received a reply. I imagine the teacher has tell the students that god created the earth or he/she would not be considered for the position.

 

[angelo]

Or this: Try and find a muslim from a muslim background in a general/state run school. This shows that muslims will never assimilate with the western culture that they have escaped to.

I was personally acquainted with least a dozen, and that's not counting wishy-washy Muslims, but hijab-wearing observant Muslims.

That's because their muslim schools are chok-of-block full with no vacancies.

 

[Jokodo]

Or this: Try and find a muslim from a muslim background in a general/state run school. This shows that muslims will never assimilate with the western culture that they have escaped to.

I was personally acquainted with least a dozen, and that's not counting wishy-washy Muslims, but hijab-wearing observant Muslims.

That's because their muslim schools are chok-of-block full with no vacancies.

You'd think that, if that were the reason, those schools would be opening new campuses all over the place to meet the demand.

The fact that they don't seem to be doing this anywhere near the level your hypothesis predicts shows that many Muslims are indeed just fine with going/sending their kids to state schools.

And even so, you're shifting goal posts. You explicitly challenged us to "Try and find a muslim from a muslim background in a general/state run school", assuming that we'd fail and claiming that our failure would show something.

Let's recapitulate some facts: The article you linked said that 15-20% of Australian Muslims go to Muslim schools. This sounds high from my perspective, coming from a country where private schools are a rather marginal phenomenon, but when I checked with the Australian Bureau of Statistics, I found that about 1/3 of students overall go to non-government schools. The statistics I saw didn't indicate which fraction of those non-government schools are church schools, so we have to guess here. But even with as little as one third church schools among the private schools, and given that just over 60% of Australians identify as Christians, this might very well mean that the ratio of people going to faith-based schools is higher among Christians than among Muslims.

 

[angelo]

All the private schools here are religious based, all of them, 100%. Either run by anglicans, methodists or catholic.

 

[Jokodo]

All the private schools here are religious based, all of them, 100%. Either run by anglicans, methodists or catholic.

OK.

So, given the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures, according to which there are 1,270,495 students in non-government schools vs. 2,375,024 in government schools, i.e. one third in private schools, which you claim are 100% religious schools, and given the figure of 15-20% of Muslims in Muslim schools cited in your article, we can savely conclude that it's harder to find a Christian in a non-Christian school than a Muslim in a non-Muslim school.

I don't like to repeat myself, but: You're busted.

 

[angelo]

Busted? Why is that? Are you saying that given a choice a muslim student would rather go to a state school rather than a mosque or muslim school? Reason there's muslims in state schools are as I already stated is because all the muslim schools are more than full. Oh yea, reason why there are not more muslim schools built seeing that there's not enough. Money and restrictions by some local people who do not wish to live next door to a mosque.

 

[Jokodo]

Busted? Why is that? Are you saying that given a choice a muslim student would rather go to a state school rather than a mosque or muslim school?

I'm saying that a Muslim student is more likely to go to a state school than a Christian student. This holds for both of our countries.
Your challenge was "Try and find a muslim from a muslim background in a general/state run school." Challenge accepted and completed. Your challenge was not to find a Muslim that is happy about being in a state school, just to find one who is there. You are shifting goal posts. If you want to formulate a new challenge, you'll first have to admit that the last one was trivially easy to meet.

Reason there's muslims in state schools are as I already stated is because all the muslim schools are more than full.

If your evidence for this new claim is any better than your evidence for your previous insinuation - that it is well nigh impossible to find Muslims in state schools - I invite you to come forward with it. If you don't have any, you might be better advised to drop your claim. There's a lot of things you have stated in this thread, few of which turned out to be correct on closer inspection, so you should not expect us to accept "I already stated" as a surrogate for evidence.

 

[angelo]

I'm saying that a Muslim student is more likely to go to a state school than a Christian student. This holds for both of our countries.
Your challenge was "Try and find a muslim from a muslim background in a general/state run school." Challenge accepted and completed. Your challenge was not to find a Muslim that is happy about being in a state school, just to find one who is there. You are shifting goal posts. If you want to formulate a new challenge, you'll first have to admit that the last one was trivially easy to meet.

Reason there's muslims in state schools are as I already stated is because all the muslim schools are more than full.

If your evidence for this new claim is any better than your evidence for your previous insinuation - that it is well nigh impossible to find Muslims in state schools - I invite you to come forward with it. If you don't have any, you might be better advised to drop your claim. There's a lot of things you have stated in this thread, few of which turned out to be correct on closer inspection, so you should not expect us to accept "I already stated" as a surrogate for evidence.

I have supplied you with evidence that all the muslim schools or mosques have more students that they can handle. Given a choice a muslim student with backing from his/hers family would choose a muslim educational system before a state school one where it's more than likely a rational one.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I have supplied you with evidence that all the muslim schools or mosques have more students that they can handle. .

What, this article?
http://muslimvillage.com/2013/08/14/42527/australian-islamic-schools-booming/
The one that says SOME schools have waiting lists? That first paragraph there contradicts your claim.
Do you have evidence that ALL schools are full? Did i miss it?

Or did you....?

 

[Jokodo]

I'm saying that a Muslim student is more likely to go to a state school than a Christian student. This holds for both of our countries.
Your challenge was "Try and find a muslim from a muslim background in a general/state run school." Challenge accepted and completed. Your challenge was not to find a Muslim that is happy about being in a state school, just to find one who is there. You are shifting goal posts. If you want to formulate a new challenge, you'll first have to admit that the last one was trivially easy to meet.

Reason there's muslims in state schools are as I already stated is because all the muslim schools are more than full.

If your evidence for this new claim is any better than your evidence for your previous insinuation - that it is well nigh impossible to find Muslims in state schools - I invite you to come forward with it. If you don't have any, you might be better advised to drop your claim. There's a lot of things you have stated in this thread, few of which turned out to be correct on closer inspection, so you should not expect us to accept "I already stated" as a surrogate for evidence.

I have supplied you with evidence that all the muslim schools or mosques have more students that they can handle.

No, you haven't. You have linked to an article that mentions one school with currently 1600 students and a waiting list between 2-300. Assuming that this school is representative (which it may well not be), this suggests that the potential market for Islamic schools is around 20% larger than what the existing Islamic schools can cater to. That still works out to be less than the current share of church schools among the Christian population.

Given a choice a muslim student with backing from his/hers family would choose a muslim educational system before a state school one where it's more than likely a rational one.

You keep repeating this as if repetition begat truth. It doesn't.

 

[angelo]

Yes okay, whatever! I'm going by the local muslim schools here which every one of them has a waiting list, especially made worst/better by the influx of asylum seekers. There's even buses that pick up and drop off students from out of the schools area.