Record numbers embrace Muslim faith.

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.independen...im-faith-2175178.html

/// "Converts who become extremists or terrorists are, of course, a legitimate story," said Mr Mughal. "But my worry is that the saturation of such stories risks equating all Muslim converts with being some sort of problem when the vast majority are not". ///

What is Fiyaz Mughal, director of Faith Matters actually suggesting that all such stories should be somehow less saturated in some way?

How does he suggest that this can be done?

[emmie]

Ok, so who do propose will acknowledge Britain's role in the slave trade, those on AB, our political leaders, The Queen?

[Zeuhl]

em

shouldn't we all acknowledge it?

[i]acknowledge: accept or admit the existence or truth of[i]

That is just a question of understanding historical events isn't it?

[emmie]

fine, so we acknowledge it, all of us, then what, will the people who's ancestors were enslaved be happy, satisfied, ask for compensation. I believe there have been such cases in America. I am honestly mystified how we can just acknowledge and apologise for something that none of us had a hand in. If i do something wrong, and inadvertently hurt someone, then i would apologise and hope that would be accepted. Perhaps it's a good case where a country's government can apologise, to those who do feel aggrieved, but how far back do we go.

[Zeuhl]

I am honestly mystified how we can just acknowledge and apologise for something that none of us had a hand in.

em

You are connecting two very different things which don't need to be.

We should all acknowledge that things happened in the past that have shaped our country and influenced our lives and which involved the harming of others.

That is life. That is history. That is being honest.

I don't see that correlates at all with 'apology'. Like you, I don't see how any meaningful apology for a behaviour can be made by people who weren't responsible for (or even alive at the time of) that behaviour.

Sadly, the people who protest most at any suspicion of 'apology' for wrong doing in the past seem to do so by dismissing or trying to diminish that wrong doing.

That is a cowardly denial of our own history.

Furthermore, it is only going to antagonise people with ancestry harmed by that wrong doing. Perhaps the people who behave in that way either derive a sad pleasure from upsetting those people or their view of history is too distorted by their own agenda.

I have no issue accepting that our financial and manufacturing industries were partly based on the evils of the slave trade. I suppose I (in common with most British people) have benefited from that.

But I have nothing to apologise for.

[anotheoldgit]

Zeuhl

/// I have no issue accepting that our financial and manufacturing industries were partly based on the evils of the slave trade. I suppose I (in common with most British people) have benefited from that. ///

And how many people who are driving German, Japanese or Italian cars, or who have certain household implements also manufactured by certain foreign industries that were partly based on evil slave labour?

I am not as suggested, denying that the British were not involved in the slave trade, but so were many other countries, both a couple of hundred years ago and also throughout the age of man.

So it is time now to accept it and then forget it, or how long do some suggest we go on about it, another 200 years? a 1,000 years? how long?

[Zeuhl]

how many people who are driving German, Japanese or Italian cars, or who have certain household implements also manufactured by certain foreign industries that were partly based on evil slave labour?[i

Yes. So what?
Why do you think that changes or diminishes what we did?

'Yes your honour, i was abusing those children, but lots of people round our way do that so it doesn't matter, right?'

Errr no, not really.

[i]to accept it and then forget it]

is that really your approach to everything that happened in the past?
or just aspects you find uncomfortable or at odds with your model of 'how things are'?

accept it - yes

then forget it - are you serious?

How do you forget your past and what made you what you are?

The good and the bad.

How do you learn and grow from those things?

How do you use the learnings?

Or is your approach to sleepwalk into the future with only those forgotten experiences behind us?

I don't honestly think you really believe that. I suspect that what you really want is a selective history of events that fit a pre-supposed view.

That is just another form of dishonesty and denial.

[FredPuli43]

AOG: Muslims attacking Muslims in the Middle East. Is that the fault of the religion ? We've had two world wars, and various other wars where Christians attacked other Christians . Were those the fault of Christianity ?

We may distinguish sectarianism, which neither Christians nor Muslims are universally free of. That is the unifying force in conflicts which have a history, not of disputes over mere interpreting of holy books or of theology, but of supposed or real suppression or injustices by followers of one sect against those of another.