What to do about Terrorism? Should news media publish Charlie Hebdo cartoons?

Terrorism is defined in the Terrorism Act 2000. (1)

Jonathan Powell was on Andrew Neils' Daily Politics on 8/1/15 with Maajid Nawaz of Quilliam foundation and Douglas Murray - the day after Charlie Hebdo Paris shootings. Nawaz said that the Charlie killers and others seek to create civil war between Muslims and non-muslims throughout Europe. Muslim liberals need to speak up to reform Islamic Blasphemy laws. Murray said the Hebdo killers were seeking to enforce Islamic blasphemy laws on the free west. For a decade, the UK media has been cowed by the threat of Islamist violence into not publishing cartoons of Mohammed. Murray says . Terrorism works. UK media should publish Mohammed cartoons on front pages (Powell agreed) en masse at a particular hour - to 'share the risk'. But before doing so, UK Government should protect UK media from attack by Islamists. When gunmen shout 'Allah Akbah' - it is everything to do with Islam, said Murray. (2,3)

In other news, concerning the Charlie Hebdo attack: the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten will not print Prophet Mohammad cartoons. They say "We have lived with the fear of a terrorist attack for nine years, and yes, that is the explanation why we do not reprint the cartoons, whether it be our own or Charlie Hebdo's," Jyllands-Posten said. "We are also aware that we therefore bow to violence and intimidation." "Denmark's other major newspapers have all republished cartoons from the French satirical weekly as part of the coverage of the attack which killed 12 people in Paris on Wednesday 7/1/15." (4)

Buzzfeed summarises other news organisations views about publishing  / not publishing the M cartoons. (5)

Change.org have a petition calling on UK and USA news organisations worldwide to publish the Charlie cartoons. (6)

Stephen Fry calls on news organisations to publish. (7)

sources:
(1) https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/380939/ProscribedOrganisations.pdf
(2) http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04xtkdx/daily-politics-08012015
(3) http://www.meetup.com/Cafe-Philo-Bournemouth/events/219170608/#
(4) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11334891/Charlie-Hebdo-attack-Jyllands-Posten-will-not-print-Prophet-Mohammad-cartoons.html
(5) http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/some-outlets-are-censoring-charlie-hebdos-satirical-cartoons#.ajZlVvK10
(6) https://www.change.org/p/editors-and-journalists-around-the-world-publish-charlie-hebdo-s-mohammed-cartoons-in-solidarity-with-the-victims-of-censorship-and-violence
(7) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/stephen-fry-calls-on-the-worlds-media-to-publish-charlie-hebdo-cartoons-9965449.html

Thought For The World - Brett Lock - This Life is the only life we have - Enjoy it!

Brett Lock

from Think Humanist by Humanist Society of Scotland

Thought for the day - Wednesday

Original audio source

Transcript of Thought For the World's thought for the day

Brett Lock

20th February 2008

Sophicles wrote "No man loves life like he that's growing old", and yet many of us - me included - curse our declining powers. Those of us with no delusions of an afterlife, a second bite of the pie as it were, rue that we are slowing down, filling out, and aching, as Leonard Cohen put it, in the places were we used to play.

All around us, there are reminders of the relentless march of time. Just the other day, I was sitting on a train when the photo on the front page of a newspaper caught my eye. It took me a while to realize that the world-weary, wizen old man on the cover of whatever tabloid it was Paul McCartney, once the most instantly recognizable face in the world.

I turn 40 today. I'm surprised to be here... not because I've ever had any dangerous flirtations with drug abuse, extreme sport or organized crime, no not me, I've always been 'sensible'... My surprise is that I got here so... quickly. The year 2000, and before that 1984, where science-fiction milestones, but are now nostalgia, as I realize that I've probably had more years now than are left to me.

But far from depressing - okay, I confess, it was for a minute or two - the idea that we only have one shot at life is a liberation. It means that we owe it to ourselves to pack in as much as we can in the time we have.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that

belief in an afterlife is a far more depressing state than accepting that death comes equally to us as it does to a bug on the windscreen. It is depressing because people do such terrible things to themselves and to others because they believe this life must be sacrificed to gain points in a hereafter.

Whether it is denying oneself the joy of love and companionship because you believe some God frowns on sexuality, or

blowing yourself up in a crowded marketplace because your faith promises a heavenly reward, the belief that this life - this only life - is not important, not precious, not all there is, is the greatest humanitarian tragedy imaginable. Life deferred is life lost.

Well, I must sign off. There are places to go, things to do, people to meet, and a finite amount of time to do it in.

If there were sin, mine would have been that I have taken time for granted. I have passed on opportunities; I have let friendships slip away. I've stayed in when I should have gone out to play.

But no more, from today I shall let go of these regrets. There is more life to snatch for the willing, for the bold. Yes indeed, no man loves life like he that's growing old.

We will not spy on our students - Bournemouth University

reposted from: http://www.bwire.co.uk/cms/site/docs/Wire_december.pdf - see pg 5.
Chris Street comments are in bright green;

highlights in yellow blockquotes.

UNIVERSITY lecturers and staff across Britain could be sent a secret 18-page document within weeks asking them to spy on “Asian-looking” and Muslim students in general. But Bournemouth University have blasted the plans as ‘ridiculous’ and insist they will not infringe basic human rights of students.

David Hart, the Head of Chaplaincy at Talbot campus said: “Bournemouth University will do what it has always done; continue promoting freedom of speech and equality.” The government document is currently being drafted by the Department of Education. Its aim is to submit a series of proposals to universities and other centres of higher education as the government believe that campuses have become “fertile recruiting grounds”, for extremists, national newspapers have reported. The government fear the political strength of Islamic student groups which have become increasingly politicised in the wake of the War On Terror and the possibility that Islamic moderates will be ‘sucked’ into extremism.

Gemma Tumelty, President of the National Union of Student’s has slammed the proposals as a step backwards. She said: “They are going to treat everyone Muslim with suspicion on the basis of their faith. It’s bearing on the side of McCarthyism.” Abdul Kapadia, a Muslim student at Bournemouth University and member of its Muslim Society has strong feelings towards the proposed document. He said: “I feel very badly about this draft . In every religion there are good people and bad people. “There are the average Muslims and then there are the tiny percentages of extremists. You cannot suspect everyone.”

Head of Chaplaincy, Hart, went on to add that Bournemouth University

always looks out for extremism - regardless of religion – in order to protect its students.

He said:

“We look out for any type of extremist religion that could be seen as unhealthy whether Christian or otherwise so that everyone can feel safe and comfortable.

Bournemouth University’s Diversity and Equality Advisor, Emma Stephens believes that government have overstepped the mark in their bid to combat terrorism. She said: “The government have a responsibility to be seen to be doing something about terrorism; this time however its efforts have been channelled in a ridiculous direction.”

'Thousands' pose UK terror threat

reposted from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7078712.stm
WASP comments are in bright green; highlights in blockquotes (yellow).

'Thousands' pose UK terror threat

Jonathan Evans took over as director of MI5 in April

There are at least 2,000 people in the UK who pose a threat to national security because of their support for terrorism, the head of MI5 has said.

Jonathan Evans said there had been a rise of 400 since November 2006.

He said children as young as 15 were being recruited for terrorist-related activity by al-Qaeda.

Resources that could be devoted to counter-terrorism were instead being used to protect the UK against spying by Russia, China and others, he added.

There had been "no decrease" in the number of Russian covert intelligence officers operating in the UK since the end of the Cold War, Mr Evans said in a speech in Manchester.

"A number of countries continue to devote considerable time and energy trying to steal our sensitive technology on civilian and military projects, and trying to obtain political and economic intelligence at our expense."

It was "a matter of some disappointment", he said, that this ongoing threat continued to take up significant amounts of equipment, money and staff.

'Deliberate campaign'

Mr Evans took over as director general of MI5 in April from Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller.

We will do our utmost to hold back the physical threat of attacks, but alone, this is merely containment Jonathan Evans MI5 director-general Profile: Jonathan Evans MI5 'evolving' to meet threat

Speaking on Monday at the Society of Editors' annual conference, he said the number of individuals in the UK causing concern had risen in part due to better intelligence gathering in "extremist communities".

"But it is also because there remains a steady flow of new recruits to the extremist cause."

In order to gather recruits, Mr Evans said,

extremists were methodically and intentionally targeting vulnerable young people and children.

The UK had to do more to protect these young people, he added.

Mr Evans said attacks on the UK were "not simply random plots by disparate and fragmented groups", but part of a "deliberate campaign" by al-Qaeda.

In the past 12 months, MI5 had found links between an increasing range of countries and terror plots in the UK, he said.

In Iraq, Algeria and parts of East Africa, especially Somalia, he said, the "al-Qaeda brand" had expanded and now posed a threat to the UK.

'Root causes'

Mr Evans said he did not think the level of terror threat against the UK had "reached its peak".

Every decision by the security service to investigate someone entails a decision not to investigate someone else Jonathan Evans

"We will do our utmost to hold back the physical threat of attacks, but alone, this is merely containment.

"Long-term resolution requires identifying and addressing the root causes of the problem."

He said it was "inevitable" there would be individuals who came to police or security service attention, but were still able to go on to carry out acts of terrorism.

"Every decision by the security service to investigate someone entails a decision not to investigate someone else. Knowing of somebody is not the same as knowing all about somebody."

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said the speech contained the message that MI5 needed the public's help.

"It's about tackling the ideology at grass roots. They can only really tackle the symptoms. They can't go up to people and say, 'Do you follow al-Qaeda?'"

Shiraz Maher, a former member of radical Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir, said the recruitment of young people by militant groups was a reality.

Youth initiatives, including football training and anti-drugs schemes, were being used to groom "impressionable and idealistic" young people,

he told BBC Radio 4's The World at One programme.

Foreign policy

But the Ramadhan Foundation said it was concerned Mr Evans had not stressed the 2,000 people suspected of involvement in extremist activity made up only a small proportion of the 1.6 million Muslim population.

Mohammed Shafiq, a spokesman for the Muslim youth organisation, said the language was inflammatory and called for responsible dialogue.

He said the group was prepared to talk to the police and security services, but in order to defeat terrorism it was important to acknowledge the threat existed mainly due to foreign policy.

Liberal Democrat shadow home secretary Nick Clegg highlighted the timing of the release of these figures which comes a day before Gordon Brown's announcement on new anti-terror powers.

"It is crucial that the security services do not get drawn into politics," he said.

During his speech, Mr Evans also announced that MI5's new Northern Ireland headquarters would soon be formally opened and said that by 2011 25% of the service's staff would be based outside London.

Can terrorism destroy democracy by AC Grayling et al

reposted from: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/vox_pop/2007/09/can_terrorism_destroy.html

Can terrorism destroy democracy?

Why democracy? Answers from Beth Ditto, Naomi Wolf, John Pilger and more.

Vox pop

September 30, 2007 10:30 AM

Joanna Bourke:

Weapons of mass destruction (invented), pre-emptive military strikes, collateral damage, refugees, internment camps, homo sacer, expanded police powers, states of exception, new imperialism, USA Patriots' Act, Department of Homeland Security, Guantánamo Bay, Diego Garcia, extraordinary rendition, secret trials, indefinite detention, domestic surveillance, the security state, torture, and many other consequences of a fearful and resigned democracy tell us that the answer is "yes". If we allow it.

Joanna Bourke is professor of history at Birkbeck College.

AC Grayling:

The most insidious danger presented to democracy by terrorism occurs when democracies self-harm in response, by trying to deliver themselves security by the deeply misguided means of tampering with their own civil liberties.

They do it in order to make the job of the security services easier, by assuming greater powers for holding people in detention for longer, increasing surveillance of the whole population from its bank accounts to its library borrowing habits, limiting free speech, giving each individual a number plate (in the form of an ID card) so that he or she can be tracked and traced everywhere, and more.

These harms to the fabric of a free society have longer effects, and in the long run worse effects, than terrorists' bombs. Yes, security is important, but not at the cost of doing the terrorists' work for them by damaging the fabric of our own society.

AC Grayling is professor of philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Ariel Levy:

Terrorism itself can do little but terrify, but what we do with our fear can drastically weaken democracy. In recent years, too many abuses of democracy to count have occurred under the ironic guise of protecting our freedom.

The Bush administration has manipulated the climate of intense anxiety that arose after 9/11/01 and used the "war on terror" as a justification for invading a sovereign nation, condoning torture, suspending due process of law for prisoners, and ignoring (or worsening) a host of other problems that the electorate prioritizes.

Consequently, we have a democracy that is disturbingly damaged, but we also have an election coming up, and with it, the prospect of change.

Ariel Levy is a contributing editor to New York magazine.

John Pilger:

Yes. Terrorism is destroying democracy in the US - not the terrorism of al-Qaida, which is minor, but the terrorism of a military-dominated administration in Washington. This terrorism has been going on for a very long time, but these days the neo-fascist impulses of Bush, Cheney and their gang, together with a supine Congress,

have seen off the bill of rights

and

legalised torture and bloody foreign conquest, and caused the US to be feared and hated across the world.

Millions of Americans may well be waking up to this; for only they can save their democracy, just as only ordinary Britons can save theirs.

John Pilger is an award-winning war correspondent, film-maker and author.

Camille Paglia:

In the six years since the destruction of the twin towers in New York, the very real threat of jihadism has caused a mammoth increase in police and government surveillance worldwide. It is difficult to imagine how this process will ever be reversed or undone. Alas,

most citizens, faced with the imminent destruction of their way of life, will gladly exchange freedom for safety. Hence terrorism, which ferrets out the weaknesses in our fantastically complex and interconnected economies, does indeed challenge the future of democracy.

Camille Paglia is professor of humanities and media studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Ken Loach:

This is a propagandistic question, which implies, we, the west, are democratic and other people are the terrorists.

The reality is that the state terrorism of the US government, aided and abetted by the British government, is the most powerful terrorism there is. Think of the things the US has done in Iraq, which is a war crime on a massive scale, as well as Nicaragua, Chile and many others. Think of the terrorism of the British government in the acquisition and disposition of our empire.

Ken Loach is a film and TV director.

Naomi Wolf:

It turns out, looking at the historical record, that a great many things can destroy democracy - and quite easily, once certain pressures are brought to bear. Terrorism can't destroy a strong democracy - look at the United Kingdom, with its years of attacks from the IRA. But once democracy begins to weaken, a terror attack - or a flood, or a mass protest that results in a "threat to public order" - can all be used as excuses to crack down on civil society and make martial law easier - as provided for recently, I am sorry to say, in the US by the 2007 Defence Authorisation Act.

Naomi Wolf is an author and co-founder of the American Freedom Campaign.

Beth Ditto:

Terrorism destroying democracy. What democracy? My memory only recalls a short while back a moment in history where a nation bigger than most was scandalised, robbed and lied to. Afterwards all accountability was lost, in a complacent helpless country medicated by the sweet syrup of cable television and air conditioning. An IV drip, for all Americans, to soothe those burns and band aid any sores caused by corporate corruption, consumer society, and stolen elections.

In my adult life I have participated in two elections. Bush was of course a candidate in both, seeing as I am only 26. I was denied the right to the truth about the elections by allegedly the most democratic country on the face of the earth: one that wages wars based on a mythological governing system, one that occupies countries for people whose opinion they have never asked.

As I have only known this kind of government the only thing I can really say is: I have never seen democracy. I have heard about it under the red white and blue hard covers of American history books in elementary school. I have seen the word written on banners between the talons of a bald eagle, below photos of white powder wigs on the heads of slave owning white men with wooden teeth, and my conclusion is that is what democracy has been my whole life.

Beth Ditto is lead singer of The Gossip and a G2 columnist.

Dozens of writers are tackling our 10 big questions about democracy. Read more from Why Democracy? here. And, from Sunday, read the Observer's special selection of responses here.

reposted from: http://www.daneandrade.com/2007/09/11/the-epistemology-of-an-atheist/

The Epistemology of an Atheist

September 11th, 2007 by Dane Andrade

Despair, like the smoky avoirdupois of this turbid grey and dismal morning, hangs apposite to the integrity of this specific day. This day, as if the news would let us forget, is the six year anniversary of religion announcing her flagrant and holy right to destroy life. It is also the six year anniversary of the moment faith was unmasked for me. To explain to someone what it was like for me, staring dolorously at the large screen TV in the tenebrous confines of the Notre Dame student center, would be doing the ineffable experience an injustice. The potency of the event would come to fruition later, but as the world seemed on fire, the sudden realization that the thousands of people who die annually in equal brutal fashion around the globe were no different then my own countrymen, thousands having died that day. I was 20 years old, and I was introduced to the world. Everything was simultaneously closer and farther away. My brain, ripe with its’ developmental apex, seemed unable to filter the abattoir of thoughts and feelings.

I was there, standing, among my peers, yet I was alone. I watched the President’s devotional prayer, to the supposed creator of all life, me a skeptic, agnostic, only recently liberated slowly and painfully from indoctrination, watching the prayers of my school and the leaders of the country. It was then, at some moment between invocation and realization, that I vomited. On my knees in a men’s bathroom in a school dedicated the Our Lady, mother of the personal god of the Christians, I lost god completely.

Watching them, these people, praying to the same bloody creator who was invoked in the very destruction of life… the word irony was insufficient. My humility was gone, and my correspondence to my weakness was gone. I was no longer a skeptic. There was hard proof, and real life experiences that pointed to the most obvious fact in all of human existence: There is no personal god; there is no watcher, safe keeper, protector, or creator.

Years later and the facts would conclude this without a doubt. None of the manifestations of the personal deities of cultures made any sense… none of the ancient arguments held any modern philosophical weight, nothing was left of this god except the faith of the majority. The same faith across the globe, in its’ diverse representations. It was after this that I started reading the philosophies. In Alvin Plantinga’s class, I was introduced to what would later become the strongest argument for the existence of god to apologists, and needless to say, I left the class armed with certainty of the failure of the god hypothesis. I started reading different literature, from C.S. Lewis and then to Russell, and in 2004, picked up End of Faith, by Sam Harris, which led to pre-ordering of his second work, Letter to a Christian Nation, and Richard Dawkin’s The God Delusion.

This is the modern epistemology of an atheist. It started many, many years ago, with my Catholic family background, my first encounter with evangelicalism, southern Baptism, going to school in the deep south, becoming “born-again”, and finally being brought by a close friend to a Heaven’s Gates and Hell’s Flames production during the revival of the world’s worst youth movement. I was forged in the most religious parts of this once secular country, and I was introduced to what my life would be, what I would become, six years ago today.

Muslim heads stuck firmly in the sand

reposted from The Times. Thanks to Richard Scutt for link.
Hassan Butt, a former jihadist, demands some fresh thinking

In the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings I remember having a passionate discussion with some friends about who was responsible for the attacks. “It’s the work of the security services; I can put my life on it!” one said. “In fact, I think they’ve killed off these guys, planted their stuff on the trains and then just blamed it on the Muslims again.” Then came a timid voice of opposition. “Shaf, I don’t think they’d kill their own people, I mean Tony Blair isn’t that evil. I think Mossad had a hand in it.”


The theories in the Muslim community were wide and varied: some believed the bombings were orchestrated by the Government in order to justify ever more draconian laws. Others believed it was near-impossible for four British-born Muslims to be behind such indiscriminate violence, so the first suicide attacks on British soil must have been the work of other terrorist organisations. Two years on I still hear the same conspiracy theories being clung to by a Muslim community that is living in a comforting state of denial.

Denial by definition is a psychological defence system by which people protect themselves from things that threaten them or make them feel uncomfortable. People do this by refusing to acknowledge the awkward person, thing or event, or by attacking any allegation of the existence of such difficulties.

I spent many years in the British Jihadi Network. While I was a member of that extremist group, I was told to encourage the spread of such theories because they created a useful, murky state of confusion. Propagating the idea that the Government was victimising Muslims by painting them as the bogeymen of the 21st century recruited young men to the radical camp.
The Brits that plotted to wreak death and carnage

Five men who hoped to kill thousands with a fertiliser bomb were described as ruthless misfits who betrayed their country

* British bombers and the lost links to 7/7

Background

* Brown to get tough on terror

* More than Vigilance

* 'Dirty bomb' mastermind plotted wave of atrocities across Britain

* Three terror suspects 'are on the run'

* The jihadi house parties of hate

This deeply imbedded culture of denial is not a new phenomenon in the Muslim community. Within Muslim families ? like any kind of family where its members are expected to live up to demanding traditional standards of behaviour ? there has always been a habit of burying their heads in the sand whenever there is something unfavourable happening.

For instance, there was a guy in my year at college who was a known drug dealer. He wasn’t at all subtle in displaying the wealth he had obtained from selling drugs and it was widely known that his family knew what he was up to but had decided it was easier to pretend it wasn’t happening, rather then confront the problems within their household. The same happens in our communities if someone’s sister or daughter is seen at a club or in the company of males, the first response will always be: “No, my daughter isn’t that type of girl! How dare you accuse my daughter and stain her untainted reputation.”

This tendency towards denial is now writ large with the problem of terrorism and Muslims. Let’s remember that the older generation of Muslims emigrated to Britain aspiring to work hard and to better their standard of living. They had always been law-abiding citizens whose loyalties lay with Britain in the main. Muslim involvement in terrorism here in Britain carries as much or even more shame for them as a drug-dealing son or a promiscuous daughter. Muslims do not deal with shame very well or anything that tarnishes their honour or reputation.

Just alcoholics or drug addicts must acknowledge that they have an addiction problem, we Muslims need to accept that there is a problem within our communities. Only when Muslims admit that 9/11 and 7/7 were the work of Muslim terrorists can we move forward to the next juncture: which is recognising the hard truth that Islam does permit the use of violence. Muslims who deny this, preferring instead to mouth easy platitudes about how Islam is nothing but a religion of peace, make the job easier for the radicals who can point to passages in the Koran, set down in black and white, that instruct on the killing of unbelievers.

I disagree with those who say the pressing problem is simply how do we deal with an aberrant, extreme minority who have unleashed a reign of terror on Britain ? rather, I believe the heart of the matter is Islam itself and how its teachings are interpreted. If we isolate the problem to that of the extreme fringe, then we are merely skimming the surface.

What we Muslims need to do is go back to our books: we need to debate the teachings that are used to radicalise young men and legitimise the killing of innocent people. We need to discuss and refashion the set of rules that govern how Muslims ? whose homes and souls are firmly planted in the West ? live alongside nonMuslims. Only when we do this can we successfully dissect the radicals’ interpretation of Islam and fight back against terrorism.

We can no longer turn a blind eye to the driving force behind terror attacks both at home and abroad. It should not matter how painful or embarrassing this admission may be, and nor should it matter how taboo this subject is.

Secular Terrorist

The spread of terror

Blaming terrorism on some unspecified evil within the Muslim community may please warmongers, but it won't help us defeat the violent extremists.

source: Guardian