[Archived] Manchester Bombing

[JBiz]

9 minutes ago, matt83 said:

I wouldn't say all religions but out of all religious groups christians, Jews, sikhs, hindus, buddhists, quakers even bloody Scientologists none are targeting innocent civilians on a regular basis. And it is regular these days. But consistently one is. Now I DO NOT believe there's something fundamentally wrong in the head with muslims. 2 billion aren't all bad eggs.

But there is clearly a big problem with Islam. In my opinion as an outsider it seems there's religious leaders who interpret the Quran as the religion of peace but others interpret the Quran as their duty to cause mayhem. So without reading it myself perhaps if it's that vague about what it demands of its followers to such extremes I would say the Quran itself incites racial hatred particularly if some of its devotees use it as justification for jihad. So maybe there needs to be one categorical definitive interpretation on what it means to be Muslim.  

When all the dust has settled on this no doubt it'll be a British born Muslim known to the authorities. Who can't be touched because infringes on his human rights. 

That's the problem with religion as an entity in 2017- not one specific aspect.

I can't say that I'm extremely well read on the subject, but I've spent a lot of time reading extracts, viewpoints and summary on different religious texts. The title on the book often matters little. All it takes is a strong mind with an argument, to adopt their own meaning from ancient words written in a time that has little resemblance to modern day. 

Take Gay Marriage or abortion for example. To me this just makes no sense, neither impact other people's life or morals but neither are completely accepted in the west. Why do I care who someone loves? Why does it offend some people? Because they read a book that might not agree with it...

In terms of massacres, mass killings, torture, heinous crimes against innocent people; It never takes a lot of research to find examples in most religious groups, and also none religious or atheist examples - Polpot, Cambodia and 3 million people spring to mind.

Most recently, the most publicised have been killings of innocent westerners on their own soil by Muslims. Does that mean that other examples aren't happening? I don't need to show you, there are plenty in places of conflict all around the globe. Why are these most publicised I ask? 

Im not one who knows what the solution is, but I do know that persecuting groups of people with labels is just not going to fix anything. More work can be done by religious leaders to be vigilant and whistleblow in these situations, that is a given- but let's not forget that we can help as a race (human beings) by not spreading hate and intolerance of certain groups/people.

I have been moved by the people of Manchester in the last 24 hours, and the sheer amount of people who offered a room, a lift or some warmth/brew/food was amazing. I personally can't stand to see good people (who read from a certain book in their own time) be tarnished by a minority of vile idiots.

[Paul]

32 minutes ago, Dreyski said:

Excellent response by the locals:

The community that rushed to help

This is the way we have to react. We come together, we work together, we play together, we live together. We go about our daily lives as normal.

If we change our lives, our freedoms because of a terrorist action the terrorist has won. We can never allow this. 

[JBiz]

Just now, Amarillo said:

Who died and made you an imam, Biz?

Do you know even know what Islam espouses? It could be argued that these jihadists are more 'Muslim' than the moderates.

You could try to argue that, but the plain truth is the majority are just using the book as a moral compass, taking more extreme elements as ancient philosophy, much like the bible, Genesis, Abraham.

If that wasn't such an obvious fact, do you think that 1.6billion so called "jihadist" may have caused a little more damage in this country bar a few isolated examples of nutjobs? 1 death is too many, but the point is the same.

Stick to conspiracy theories.

 

 

[DE.]

5 minutes ago, matt83 said:

But there is clearly a big problem with Islam. In my opinion as an outsider it seems there's religious leaders who interpret the Quran as the religion of peace but others interpret the Quran as their duty to cause mayhem. So without reading it myself perhaps if it's that vague about what it demands of its followers to such extremes I would say the Quran itself incites racial hatred particularly if some of its devotees use it as justification for jihad. So maybe there needs to be one categorical definitive interpretation on what it means to be Muslim.  

The elephant in the room that is often ignored is that the West meddling in the Middle East for the past few decades is a large part of why there are now revenge attacks and general resentment from certain people of that origin towards our countries. A very small minority of those who feel that way will go on to commit these types of atrocities, but it's no coincidence that Islam happens to be the religion almost overwhelmingly practiced in these countries we have historically caused serious problems in. As is often the case, the ordinary folk are being forced to reap what previous and current Governments have sown. This hatred and resentment has been allowed to fester for so long that we're a long way from any kind of solution. 

[Amo]

Just now, DE. said:

The elephant in the room that is often ignored is that the West meddling in the Middle East for the past few decades is a large part of why there are now revenge attacks and general resentment from certain people of that origin towards our countries. A very small minority of those who feel that way will go on to commit these types of atrocities, but it's no coincidence that Islam happens to be the religion almost overwhelmingly practiced in these countries we have historically caused serious problems in. As is often the case, the ordinary folk are being forced to reap what previous and current Governments have sown. This hatred and resentment has been allowed to fester for so long that we're a long way from any kind of solution. 

And yet ISIS murder more Muslims than anyone else.

[DE.]

Just now, Amarillo said:

And yet ISIS murder more Muslims than anyone else.

ISIS murder anybody who doesn't agree with them. When you've got some pretty hardline clerics denouncing your supposedly Muslim group then you might have made a mistake somewhere in your ideologies. 

But ISIS is a political group disguised with religion anyway. They've never been about Islam, they've been about power, and use Islam combined with disenchantment and fear to get people to do as they please. As their power base erodes they will eventually become a total irrelevance, but some other power hungry group will ascend to take advantage of the turmoil.  

[Amo]

Just now, Biz said:

You could try to argue that, but the plain truth is the majority are just using the book as a moral compass, taking more extreme elements as ancient philosophy, much like the bible, Genesis, Abraham.

If that wasn't such an obvious fact, do you think that 1.6billion so called "jihadist" may have caused a little more damage in this country bar a few isolated examples of nutjobs? 1 death is too many, but the point is the same.

Stick to conspiracy theories.

I never said that all Muslims were jihadists. I never even averred that the majority were. You obviously missed the point or you're just twisting the argument as usual.

My point is that the extremists are the ones following Muhammad's example. They're the ones waging war on the "infidels" and subjugating women. By the letter of the law, that would make them more Muslim than most.

It's only through self-criticism that Islam has any hopes of reform. Burying our heads in the sand and making out this religion is innocent of this bloodshed is disingenuous and an insult to the dead.

[Amo]

Just now, DE. said:

ISIS murder anybody who doesn't agree with them. When you've got some pretty hardline clerics denouncing your supposedly Muslim group then you might have made a mistake somewhere in your ideologies. 

But ISIS is a political group disguised with religion anyway. They've never been about Islam, they've been about power, and use Islam combined with disenchantment and fear to get people to do as they please. As their power base erodes they will eventually become a total irrelevance, but some other power hungry group will ascend to take advantage of the turmoil.  

That's simply false, DE, and a transparent attempt to "de-Islamify" the actions committed by this group.

[DE.]

Just now, Amarillo said:

That's simply false, DE, and a transparent attempt to "de-Islamify" the actions committed by this group.

It's my opinion. I'm not saying they aren't Islamic, only that they are using very specific facets of Islam to forward their core agenda, which is political in nature. Granted, that political agenda largely relates to reverting the world back to medieval Islamic times, but it's still ultimately all about power and control. Modern Islam is a distant second to those goals and many core parts of their supposed religion are ignored in pursuit of that goal. 

A couple of decent articles here on the idea:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

http://www.newsweek.com/isis-caliphate-terrorism-jihad-al-qaida-ideology-nihilism-512597

Granted, I was probably wrong to say "they've never been about Islam" - they are, but it's the equivalent of modern Christians deciding to go back to the laws and morals of the crusades. In theory they are reading the same books and scriptures, but the world and perceptions have moved on. ISIS use a brand of Islam that is outdated to pursue a political goal. 

As an aside, if we were to flip history around between the Middle East and the West, you can be sure there would be minority radical Christian groups using the bible as an excuse to cause mayhem in Middle Eastern countries. The Old Testament is not easy reading. 

It's also a fallacy (imo) to suggest that if religion was expunged, none of this would be happening. Humans are naturally violent, largely selfish creatures. Survival of the fittest. If it wasn't current religions there would be something else created to excuse horrific actions. History shows we just can't help ourselves. 

 

[DannyKeg]

Wherever you live around the world, if you have an association with Manchester and the North West of England, you must be thinking about what happened last night. Your thoughts will be with the people who were at the concert. Families, teenagers and children who set off to enjoy themselves at a music show and ended up experiencing horrific scenes, some who will have been badly injured and some who won't return home. 

Like most people I can't understand how anyone can do this, how can someone plan and prepare to kill families, teenagers and children. How can someone justify to themselves and motivate themselves to travel to a music concert, with the intention of killing people. ?

I can understand how people have different political opinions, why people follow different religions, how people are aggrieved by injustice. But I don't understand how someone can think that the world will be a better place by doing something like this.

When I was growing up in the 1970's terrorism was carried out in the UK by Irish nationalists, my grandfather was Irish, I have an Irish name, my Dad was Catholic, we were horrified, disgusted and angry by the atrocities committed by the IRA. In the same way, the vast majority of Muslim people are equally horrified by the atrocities committed by extremist Islamic fanatics.

I have travelled all over the world and people are people wherever you go, we might have slightly different cultures, different languages, our skins may have different pigments, but we are all just people, there is more that unites us than divides us.

There are people who will use an atrocity like the Manchester bomb to justify their own prejudices, to use it to justify trying to divide people further, but as in Northern Ireland, the answer is surely the opposite, to come together and break down barriers between people, to me that is the only way to isolate and eradicate terrorism in the long term.

[JBiz]

Just now, DE. said:

ISIS murder anybody who doesn't agree with them. When you've got some pretty hardline clerics denouncing your supposedly Muslim group then you might have made a mistake somewhere in your ideologies. 

But ISIS is a political group disguised with religion anyway. They've never been about Islam, they've been about power, and use Islam combined with disenchantment and fear to get people to do as they please. As their power base erodes they will eventually become a total irrelevance, but some other power hungry group will ascend to take advantage of the turmoil.  

Look at Yemen. An intervention to stop a civil war that still rages on. The political element being Iran/US interests. The civilians not associated with Houthi or the government forces are burning US/British flags because the bombs landing on them bore our insignia! Sold to the Saudi's.

Depending on how this pans out, similar to the problems facing multiple African countries - just how likely is another group from any of those countries? I'd say highly.

Just now, Amarillo said:

I never said that all Muslims were jihadists. I never even averred that the majority were. You obviously missed the point or you're just twisting the argument as usual.

My point is that the extremists are the ones following Muhammad's example. They're the ones waging war on the "infidels" and subjugating women. By the letter of the law, that would make them more Muslim than most.

It's only through self-criticism that Islam has any hopes of reform. Burying our heads in the sand and making out this religion is innocent of this bloodshed is disingenuous and an insult to the dead.

Letter of the law? Pray tell, what examples of Hadith can you show us that define this idea that this is a more dangerous book than any other ancient text?

The religion is innocent, it's the @#/? people responsible, we need to stop giving them an excuse to carry on by giving them the response they crave for a start. How can a text be to blame? A strong mind to influence other weak minds could be in any context.. You speak as if this is the only radicalism within religion!

The main insults to the dead I see, are those using this as a vehicle to push intolerance, hatred and their own agenda of islamaphobia. Just look through this thread for a start. 

 

 

[Dunnfc]

Weird feeling leaving the office, bars empty, arndale empty, tram back down the road as quiet as anything... generally a bit erey if I'm honest.

[Baz]

What an awful awful day after a dreadful night.

Of all the concerts to target, this one was always going to be full of young girls. What kind of revenge for anything the West has ever done would see those at the top of the list of targets?

Fantastic response from the emergency services, local people offering rooms, cabbies giving free rides, chippies giving out food etc.

I hope the media give no coverage whatsoever to the evil person who did this. The coverage feeds others to try this in the future.  The coverage should be on the victims, and the response only. The person should be only be referred to as a John Doe.

[DE.]

Just now, Baz said:

Of all the concerts to target, this one was always going to be full of young girls. What kind of revenge for anything the West has ever done would see those at the top of the list of targets?

Probably the bombing of civilian areas, along with general warfare in the area, which has seen the death of many children in the Middle East over the years. It's obviously not right and there is no justification for this disgusting act, but if you were looking for something in the warped minds of the people who do these things then I'm guessing that is what they would come back with. We're talking about a significant group of people who have had a burning hatred for a long time, asking for logic in this scenario is impossible. 

The worst part is that it's not usually those directly affected by the issues between the West and the Middle East who commit these acts. It's weaker men who have been brainwashed by those people to do their bidding. 

[Baz]

3 hours ago, Kamy100 said:

Like I said earlier I can only talk about the situation in Blackburn. 

After 7/7 a number of the younger generation got together and agreed that we need to start influencing the mosque committees who were dominated by the “older” generation who had very much adopted the “head in the sand approach” and as community we were at a massive crossroads, sitting on our hands and doing nothing was simply not an option. 

Over the last 10 year the mosque system has been completely overhauled, there are proper curriculum’s in place, there are regular sessions in the majority of mosques where acts of terror are discussed and kids are given examples from the Quran and other religious texts of why these are acts are not tolerated within Islam. Also crucially the majority of kids are taught by imams who were born and educated in the UK (previously the practice was to bring in fully trained imams from abroad).  These imams will have been through approved training via the British Council of Mosques and can communicate with the young people at level the imams who come from outside the county cannot.  Also as I said previously there is much more co-operation with the police. 

What we are fighting is an ideology and one that I believe we can’t beat with violence.  We will beat it via Education.  That is to educate the young people to turnaway from, challenge and report extremist ideologies.  Back in 2007 we all said that this was not something that could be achieved overnight, there was/is no quick fix it could take decades to defeat this ideology.

However today is not the day for talking about these issues or apportioning blame, there will be plenty of time for that in weeks and months to come.  Today is a day to show respect and offer help to those who have been directly affected by this horrific act of violence. 

Kamy,  is anything being done about the proliferation of extremist stuff on Social media. In my opinion that's a key problem, starting with the Palestine / Israel stuff and escalating to the west's backing of Israeli military military action on Muslims. It starts out marginally biased to draw in susceptible people.

[Baz]

Just now, DE. said:

Probably the bombing of civilian areas, along with general warfare in the area, which has seen the death of many children in the Middle East over the years. It's obviously not right and there is no justification for this disgusting act, but if you were looking for something in the warped minds of the people who do these things then I'm guessing that is what they would come back with. We're talking about a significant group of people who have had a burning hatred for a long time, asking for logic in this scenario is impossible. 

The worst part is that it's not usually those directly affected by the issues between the West and the Middle East who commit these acts. It's weaker men who have been brainwashed by those people to do their bidding. 

Undoubtedly, but for example there's 50,000 at old trafford cricket ground on Saturday, Take That were on last weekend. It just seems a very callous target.

[DE.]

Just now, Baz said:

Undoubtedly, but for example there's 50,000 at old trafford cricket ground on Saturday, Take That were on last weekend. It just seems a very callous target.

Sadly we are talking about very callous people. It's all about causing the most outrage and anger. It's an eye for an eye, and they don't care if the entire world goes blind in the process. 

[Roversider]

Time for us all to stand united in love and not divided in hate.

 

[Mike Graham]

Watching the Albert Square memorial tonight gave me hope,

Muslim, Jew, Christian, Sikh, non believer........the humanity of people together is uplifting.

[den]

Spent a lot of today in Tarleton where the 18 year old girl who died was from. My Daughter worked in a school in hoole. This morning a teacher at the school received a text from her next door neighbour that simply said "my daughter has just been murdered". Obviously the teacher knew nothing about that at the time and understandably left in tears. That teacher had a present at home for the schoolgirl who died  - it was for her 18th birthday, which she was going to give to her tonight.

there was a vigil in the market square for the young girl, which was just starting as we left.

so very sad.

[cn174]

Just now, Baz said:

What an awful awful day after a dreadful night.

Of all the concerts to target, this one was always going to be full of young girls. What kind of revenge for anything the West has ever done would see those at the top of the list of targets?

Fantastic response from the emergency services, local people offering rooms, cabbies giving free rides, chippies giving out food etc.

I hope the media give no coverage whatsoever to the evil person who did this. The coverage feeds others to try this in the future.  The coverage should be on the victims, and the response only. The person should be only be referred to as a John Doe.

Such a sad, weird, almost surreal day, can't begin to think what the families of the fatalities and anyone affected must be thinking  So terrible. 

Quite a of the time working for an emergency service it could be just like working in any job, but then on nights/days like today it's really not. Some of my good friends were on scene all night long, fire officers and paramedics, others in the control and command rooms, responding to the worst thing Manchester has experienced in a long time, and they themselves probably ever, trying to save people's lives and sort everyone out though the chaos and not let the situation get bigger. 
Just mad to think that tomorrow our officers will be back in the office doing normal work, in meetings, phonecalls, managing etc, planning on how to respond to the next thing, protecting/preventing more people from coming to harm, training our FFs etc. At the same times fires still happen, people will need rescuing, cardiac arrests still happen, crimes still happen, it all will get dealt with.  At a time when the emergency services are expected to deal with more than ever, it's hard to not be in awe of them on occasions like this. 

What isn't surprising anymore though is the people of Manchester's reaction - always with kindness, helpfulness and practicality.  I today's response shows that. 
It wont be easy for Manchester to get over this, but it will. 

[Mike Graham]

Just now, den said:

Spent a lot of today in Tarleton where the 18 year old girl who died was from. My Daughter worked in a school in hoole. This morning a teacher at the school received a text from her next door neighbour that simply said "my daughter has just been murdered". Obviously the teacher knew nothing about that at the time and understandably left in tears. That teacher had a present at home for the schoolgirl who died  - it was for her 18th birthday, which she was going to give to her tonight.

there was a vigil in the market square for the young girl, which was just starting as we left.

so very sad.

Dreadful Den.

I don't know what to say.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Just now, den said:

Spent a lot of today in Tarleton where the 18 year old girl who died was from. My Daughter worked in a school in hoole. This morning a teacher at the school received a text from her next door neighbour that simply said "my daughter has just been murdered". Obviously the teacher knew nothing about that at the time and understandably left in tears. That teacher had a present at home for the schoolgirl who died  - it was for her 18th birthday, which she was going to give to her tonight.

there was a vigil in the market square for the young girl, which was just starting as we left.

so very sad.

Very sad story Den. It puts our football problems in their proper context.

[Aberdeen Blue]

Just now, Steve1 said:

Only Muslims can solve extremism !! End off !! There not going to listen to non Muslims who can't read the Qur'an therefore it's a Muslim problem 

The vast majority of muslims can't read it as its written in Arabic so they are at the mercy of "scholars" who interpret for the majority. 

[Dunnfc]

Just wanted to share this as it was the local Sikh community one of many helping today.