Islamic Union under investigation in NRW

Eh? Was invading Iraq meant to reduce the threat of islamic terrorists then? The availability of salt n vinegar crisps in Munich has not changed as a result of invading Iraq either.

I think quite a few English people were rather against the invasion - I seem to remember thousands flocking to the street in protest to it in fact. Different scenes to jubilous nutters dressed up in nativity play costumes firing their AK-47s into the air in jubilation after 9-11

And quite a large majority of muslims were apalled by 9/11, and all you can remember are some Palestinians celebrating that were shown on CNN, and which very possibly was staged. Why would you expect anyone to believe that the English protesting the Iraq war were representative of anything? The fact is that both the UK and US government have participated in the Iraq debacle, as citizens that blood is on our hands.

Villager, while I am very glad that you correctly pointed out that many (I suspect the vast majority of) Muslims were appalled by the 9/11 attacks (which very much violated Islamic precepts) it is also true that a majority of UKers opposed using force in Iraq in 2003.

NYTimes article today about the difficulty of setting up an Arabic-language public school in Brooklyn, because it has been labelled as a "Madrassa" by some. They had support from the city, 400 grand from the Gates foundation, even support from some Rabbis:
Critics Cost Muslim Educator Her Dream School

Its a public school, if they want to go to a specialist school they should go to one funded by private dollars and not tax dollars like every other student in the US has to.

Was there a religious element to this school or were classes just taught in Arabic? If there was a religious element then it would be unconstitutional to use public funding..

EDIT: Okay it seems like no religious element, but still, are you implying that immigrants have some special rights to have their particular language on a curriculum? My young relatives back in Texas will have problem finding classes in English 10 years down the road if this is the case.. School is to prepare you for college and life, not use tax dollars so people can refuse to intigrate at all - if they want to not take classes in English they can fork up the cash and go to private school like the nutjob Christians who dont want their kids to read about evolution.

This isnt persecution, its whining that you dont get special treatment.

there are many examples of specialized public schools in the US with language immersion education, typically with Spanish or French.
This means that some of the curriculum is taught in the second language.
but there are also other cases: Boston Latin School
So why not Arabic? Exposure to a foreign culture is a positive thing, some TT'ers aside.
By the way, I was brought up in a Spanish-speaking household, but I did well above average in my English-language SAT, and can even spell the word "Integrate".

Boston Latin school requires Latin, it doesn't teach half its curriculum in Latin. I wouldn't be opposed to public schools offering Arabic as I took Latin in HS and it was relatively useless. I am opposed to money being spent for a special curriculum in the name of 'diversity' using tax dollars for 2 reasons:

1) Its largely going to be used not as a tool of diversity but to give certain immigrants to have the luxury of not having to bother with English integration.

2) You being a resident of NYC and me having relatives in Queens I think we can both agree that many NYC public schools have serious, serious problems. Yet you want more tax dollars funneled to what is essentially a catering to a special interests group.. Bollocks.. For the record I also oppose public performing arts schools like the uppity one Tupac went to

Good job catching me on a spelling typo though, I'll be sure to read through your posts with a fine tooth comb. For starters, when starting a sentence it is English custom to begin with an uppercase letter.

OK, so you were disappointed to find that Latin is no longer spoken in the former Roman Empire (EU).
In any case, you were exposed to a language that was the lingua franca of scientific discourse for many centuries, learned something about history, and perhaps were inspired by some Virgil.

My mother specializes in preparing textbooks for bilingual education in the states, and her objective is facilitate and improve integration, to provide a well-rounded education. Designing a curriculum that totally disregards the cultural background of the students is demeaning and unproductive. The strength of the US lies in integrating the richness and diversity of its immigrants.

Spelling errors happen all the time, I also use the checker if I can

There is a tremendous need in the US for fluency in Arabic, and especially given the Zeitgeist, it needs to be not only Arabs or Jews with family ties or origins in the Middle East. Khalil Gibran and other schools instructing in both English and Arabic are an absolute necessity. I would suggest, though, that it must be made crystal clear to those in the community that everyone is welcome at the school, not just students who are Arab-Americans, and politics really needs to be kept out of it. I suspect that a lot of people in New York got the mistaken impression that this was to be a religious school, or one designed only for Arab-Americans.

Both Villager and LP have made good points. I was raised in a bilingual household as well, and the point should also be made that it is a lot harder to gain both linguistic and cultural fluency as an adult (I am studying Arabic right now myself).

You say that like translating the Aeneid is a good thing.

Look I am not against teaching multiculturalism and I think its important to offer better foreign language training as US students are woefully undeveloped in this area. Plus Arabic is a good idea for college. But I do not think it is demeaning to expect core curriculums to be taught in the language that is used primarily in the country where the school is located and by which the majority of the taxpayers who fund the school speak.

Why is it fair to spend extra tax dollars on a special school so kids dont have to be 'demeaned' by having to speak english when my little cousins have to go to a crime ridden underfunded shithole of a Queens public school that can barely afford to pay its teachers?

yeah, I am with you there, the public school system in NYC is a disaster for the most part. Private schools are out of reach for all but a tiny minority. You can blame Conquistador and his friends for promoting an out-of-whack income distribution.

I was upset that the good jobs in NYC were occupied by wetbacks from New Jersey, Conn. and other suburban tax havens. They would come to our city, take our money, and spend it on their golf courses while the natives had to scrabble a hard living on concrete parks. Ever played softball on cement? Sliding to base is painful.

The increase in gas prices should strangle these parasites.

And yes, translating the Aeneid is a great thing!

Hats off to Conq for trying to learn Arabic, beautiful calligraphy and poetry. I wish I had done the same years ago.

Villager, sounds to me like you grew up in the 1970s and early 1980s, things have changed a bit in NYC.

BTW, the combined top federal, state, and city tax load for NYC residents is the highest in the entire US. Add the high sales taxes (regressive, of course) and...

Of course, those terrible highly-paid Wall Streeters do absolutely nothing for the NYC economy other than pay a lot of income taxes (including on their bonuses) sustain high real estate prices (thus raising more tax revenue) pay meals taxes when they dine out and have corporate parties, pay sales taxes on the purchases of suits, etc. You get the idea.

What's Villager's solution? Chasing out Wall Street to the suburbs would certainly lower the Gini coefficient, but it wouldn't make it easier to provide city services.

Why do you think I took the job in Hamburg rather than Manhattan? Sad when moving to the more socialist country is pretty much a tax break

Public school funding is supposed to come from real-estate taxes, and public schools in the Jersey suburbs were much better that those available in the city. Perhaps I am a bit out of date, but my brother still live in Manhattan and paying for a private school is very difficult (impossible) if you are do not have a wall-street bonus.

It isn't what this thread is about, but have you have thrown it out there anyway, as if you're playing some trump card that you're above playing, but that you are playing anyway!

Despite the misgivings one may have about British colonialism, even if it was under their strict control, they at least laid the foundations of what modern democracies are all about, from a system of government to education to law. One cannot say the same thing about countries which have been under the influence of Islamic theology...


I think that any human being with any sense of decency was appalled by 9/11 regardless of their religion, however it is somewhat strange that the only times Muslim communities in Europe have managed to organize mass demonstrations in the last five to ten years have been to protest against the war in Iraq, headscarf legislation and political cartoons that weren't to their liking...


...who integrate thanks in large part to their desire to learn English, the latter being what binds everyone who emigrates or has emigrated to the US in the past together.

Wow this discussion went places

In short (to the original topic), the group in question has probably been under surveilance for a while.
I don't think the police forces would have gone ahead with arrests if they didnt have good evidence.
Right now they don't want to be seen making mistakes and letting people go on the basis of little evidence.

On the flip-side maybe they are being extra careful.
In the end, it might turn out that the evidence is circumstantial and baseless or hearsay from complaints received.
They should go through due process.

----

immigrate means to migrate into, emmigrate to migrate from
If we had all studied Latin this would be much easier

Yes, learning English in the US is important and required, no question. But if that is a given, what to do with the rest of the curriculum? Learning about the Pilgrim fathers and dressing up like turkeys is OK for Thankgiving, but you have to learn World history as well, perhaps some science and math, maybe read some literature, et cetera und so weiter.

Why not have some schoolkids learn soccer instead of touch football? Is this really going to damage them?

Yes, public school funding generally comes from real estate taxes, which is why I mentioned them above. If you still have relatives in NYC (I do, and presume you do as well) ask them how much a co-op costs these days. You are more less correct on the private schools, although they do offer scholarships (my sister obtained one for high school).

My mother taught in Ridgewood (NJ) during most of the time I was in elementary school, and my sister and I attended school there, which we were lucky to have the opportunity to do.

You made it to Columbia, so are you a product of NYC public schools, or did you attend private schools?

I made the point about the tax load in general since you decided to toss out the income distribution misdirect.

It is going to damage them when they grow up as soccer fans and then are relegated to watching the MLS while the rest of us get NCAA ball and NFL

In the case of the VIKZ, this group is a member of the Coordination Council of Muslims, and there is a political aspect to this.

Who speaks for German Muslims?



Perhaps some members of the state would like to discredit the entire experiment...but a conspiracy would be too easy an explanation

Nice one, thanks for the tip. Emigrate, emanate, ex, out of. Trust me, I usually don't make these kinds of mistakes...


Heh? You're comparing what's being taught in high school to what people learn in grade school. Who learns about history, science, literature and mathematics when they're seven years old?


When did you last live in the US? I think soccer is one of the biggest amateur sports in the US.

As I have said before, I was lucky that my family worked like dogs so that my brother and I could go to private schools, though they were not so prohibitively expensive back so long ago. My niece is on a scholarship (gifted ). My tuition at Columbia was paid by student loans, financial aid and some grants, otherwise it would have been impossible to afford.

There are some outstanding NYC public schools, Stuyvestsant and Bronx Science, but it is not easy to get in.

Since I recognize the role of luck, and the value of a good education, I feel that the State should do more to make these opportunities available to many others.

The Kuwaittimes, Gulf news and Khaleej Times usually have very bisaed Op-Eds 8so I hope you are not reading those)
Yes they report the facts (or don't when its not in their favour) but they have to please their market.

I think before we elevate this "round-up" to something political we should take care to make sure it is not just something a little less (or a little more in the subject of security).
If they have been accused of radicalising, with evidence, then they deserve due process no matter what political aspirations their umbrella or co-organisations have.

In fact, they deserve the same due process just like everyone else. We cannot put the kid gloves on for select set of people and reserve the baseball bat for others.

1st to 5th grade curriculum includes some science, though maybe it was just hamsters and snakes.
Math?? Of course we did some math.
History? I attended Little Red Schoolhouse, so what I learned in History was about the white man's exploitation of the Indians and other minorities. Perhaps they did not teach this in your school.
Soccer? maybe in the suburbs where they have the nice green fields and the SUVs.

You didn't make one. AFAIK "emigrate" (takes only one 'm', not two as someone else wrote) was correct, at least in British English. "Mr. X emigrated to the United States from [country of origin]."

Emigrate = leave a country. You emigrate from your home country to a new one. Immigrate = enter a country. You immigrate into a new country from your home.

Same on both sides of the pond according to OED

In the States, and from our perspectives as native-borns, they are immigrants.
Though now, as ex-pats, we are emigrants from the States, immigrants to Germany
And yes, I should have run the spell-schecker...oops...-checker. My keyboard is rusty.

Stalin and Pol Pot were atheists. Reasonable and logical guys weren't they. Since you are logical and resonable too ...logically speaking what would this make you?

There are a some wackos who claim to be atheist...just like there are some wackos with other beliefs who claim to be muslims, christians, jews, hindus etc...but "some" is not "all".

I see where you are going with this. So unless kids are reading A People's History of the Unites States at the age of seven, they just aren't getting a real education, are they?
By the way, "History" in your original post is not a proper noun and therefore should not be capitalized.


It's been a while since you've been back in the US, hasn't it?

14 years and counting...

and yes, I make typing errors as well, I am not a language pedant. It is just that the topic touched upon Latin and non-English education.

As for my red-diaper upbring, it was interesting but not one which I would inflict on others. The time is past for singing Pete Seeger songs and having Mao posters. That's what pushed me into voting Republican in the first place.

The whole fucking situation has been manipulated into existence...

Isn't anything beginning to click when our leaders continually go against our express wishes!

Is the penny dropping that what we think is a free society is simply a carefully disguised system of control?

Are you really going to become one of our revered leaders without having the required connections, finances and willingness to compromise to the agenda?

Our media shows us the bad, bad Muslims and their media shows them the bad, bad west.

Meanwhile there is a select group of individuals profiting from the weapons and war that the idiots without their own thoughts are carrying out for them...

Fuck me! WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!

Wake up on the wrong side of bed today?

not at all...

I am in a fantastic mood as always...

just can't stand arguing semantics... get to the cause of the issue.

You will never fix a slashed throat with a band-aid!

you write song lyrics, don't you?

Are you being a wanker on purpose or are you incapable of addressing the point?

If the latter... continue bothering God and leave me out of it.

Not at all, it was just that the image was more poetic than the usual here in the discussion,
and I agree with you totally on the issue of media manipulation, my concern is that this has gotten out of hand and the state is now focusing on Muslim groups because that is the convenient scapegoat. And no doubt the Muslim world gets a distorted picture of the West as well, but it is less a concern.
Edit: my other concern was whether we, as well-off ex-pats, could identify with the problems that immigrants from Muslim countries have to deal with in Germany. But this does not seem to be the case. Being an immigrant to Germany is not strong enough to create a cohesive social group, apparently the divide between the Muslim and the Christian world is as strong as ever.

Villager. I think the Muslims in the world are far more unified, even as expats, than we can ever hope to be.
Most see themselves on the same level being Muslim.
On the other hand we differentiate on country of origin, language and race. They (ideally apart from the different sects and so on) don't differentiate.
Thats a very progressive thing.

I don't think over a billion people really need our help right now, besides, the money in the Gulf buys plently lobby power.

yup, I'm going out to have some Schweineschnitzel

You miss the point. The atrocities that your named people above committed were not committed in the name of atheism they did these acts due to the doctrines they followed, as do religious people. So, atrocities were committed in the name of communism, fascism and religion...not in the name of atheism.

I don't want to get you in a defensive posture but maybe its not as simple as doing something in the name of religion.

People always need a way to maintain power.
When religious people do terrible things in the name of religion, they are just using the tools within that religion to justify themselves.
What is scary is when the justification is over genocide

Sometimes Communists have wanted to eradicate the power that the Church, good or bad, has over people.
Likewise when the Khmer Rouge executed Buddhists they too perceived them as a threat.

Basically people eliminate threats around them and they use whatever means to do so.
Its a struggle for power more than a religion or way of thinking being classically bad or good.

You really think that atrocities are not committed due to the perpetrator genuinely thinking they're doing god's work? I also fail to see how atrocities which are committed which are justified by religion are any different.

Atrocities are committed when the person thinks they are justified.
Doesn't matter if it is a religion or political motivation.
Its a belief, in anything, that thinks it is rational to commit atrocities. This is what humans are suseptible to.

This doesn't make religion or lack thereof, good or bad.

---------

Indeed, and that brings us right around again. Religion provides the justification and motivation, as do other doctrines such as communism and fascism. Atheism, does not provide the justification or motivation.

So we're back to my original question. What atrocities have been committed in the name of atheism? I bet you struggle to find any answer, but will have no problem of answering the opposite: what atrocities have been committed in the name of religion?

I do think that religion is bad, exactly because of these reasons, so much shit has happened because of it. Wars, genocide, murder, slavery, opppression...the list goes on.

I get it now...you think of atheism as a sort of religion. Its not.
It's a rejection of religion in the favour of complete rationality.
That complete rationality has caused also atrocities.

I most certainly don't.

Such as?

If you think of organised religions as dictatorships then you can make a link there though.

@Timmeh: Wars have happened, and will continue to happen because of natural human instincts. Even if you do not believe in God, you are going to identify with your family, neighbors and nation in that order. And when you perceive a threat to your well-being, you will volunteer to fight along with your brothers/comrades whatever. Religions serve to demarcate groups, but so do sports, political parties, social class, whatever.
On the other hand, religions have developed among men as a way of adding supernatural authority to ethics, and to bring meaning to a meaningless world. Most people are not comfortable with a meaningless world. Religions also help men to broaden their understanding of humankind. Instead of perceiving the world as my family against all others, a religion is a community of thought that transcends national and social boundaries.
In the particular case of Islam, you have a world religion that arose from a tribal world, in this it has surpassed Judaism (still semi-tribal, though the tribe has been scattered among the nations of the earth), Christianity (created and imposed by Constantine and successors), Zoroastrianism (what ever happened to these guys?), and Buddhism. Islam did away with social boundaries, and was truly revolutionary when it appeared. Unlike Christians, Muslim leaders were able to govern states with many different religions and ethnic groups (albeit charging them the appropriate taxes...but better taxes than death). Please note that I am not advocating that you recite the Shahadah , but just that consider that most Muslims are really not that interested in slitting your throat.

@Timmeh:

Good. Thats the first step.
Atheism is not a religion in any sort of way.
It it the rejection of the beliefs and culture of the world's religions that have evolved over thousands of years.
Therefore you cannot compare Atheism and Religion as apples to apples.
-
Ok next step
Now let's compare them on the level of "belief".
That inherently is what a person believes to be true.
Sometimes the person believes that to be right, other people must me wrong.
Thats called "intolerance", not religion. It's inside a person. We can allow allow others the right to believe and live the way they want or not. That's our choice based on our belief.

-
To say that religion therefore causes intolerance which then supports atrocities is a non-causal link.
Somewhere in that argument is the person who makes a desicison whether to kill the person with a pick-axe or not. Thats a big part.

To say that religion does not sometimes make people stop and think about what they are would be un-true.
That is because most religions have some sort of judgement clause where you will pay for your sins.
Unfortunately many individuals compeltely rationalise their descisions, however terrible.
Here's the crux: this individual is making the desicison based upon his/her environment and situation.

Here is a question: what would stop an atheist from killing someone if they felt no guilt and could get away with it? Just their innate sense of right or wrong?

People rarely kill each other but it's a damned sight easier to do if you have been convinced you are doing Gods work. Same if you have been convinced that the outgroup is of lesser morality or worth than you like dictatorships do.