Islamic Britain & The Compromised Western Civilization

[Garooda]

Video of the attacker charging the police before he was shot.

[Lalmohan]

PIA jet with 300+ onboard en route from lahore to manchester. some sort of alert sounded (crew initiated emergency code we are now hearing) 10mins from manchester, raf scrambled, plane escorted to stanstead where it is now parked in the "hijack plane stand" and jets back to base and matter now being handled by essex police and home office

could just be a pindi chana release or irate mard throwing his weight around, or maybe there is someone important on board!

[Lalmohan]

essex police have arrested two men onboard the aircraft for endangerment of aircraft
pindi chana after all then

[Lalmohan]

coming back to the devolved swarm theory - recall the toulouse shooting incident last year? lone gunman, targetted french soldiers - particularly muslim ones? finished off with killing jewish children and then getting shot in his home by the swat team

[Rajdeep]

London killers had attacked an Indian-origin man mistaking him to be a soldier

The Woolwich killers - both Britons of Nigerian origin - went out hunting soldiers in weeks before attack, in the same area.
According to 46-year-old Paul Ramsamy, the pair confronted him after apparently mistaking him for a soldier because he was wearing combat trousers and boots. The incident took place in Greenwich as Ramsamy walked home.

The alleged incident took place two months ago and suggests the pair may have been plotting their attack for some time.

[Johann]

do the regular british police carry any sidearm?
15 mins to send a trio of armed cops to the scene in metro london seems a bit long...

Singha, the average response time for an Armed Response Vehicle in London is around or under 20 minutes. A 14 minutes response from picking up the call, to despatch, to arrival would be creditable normally given that Woolwich is in zone 4, on the other side of the river. Given that the vast majority of the 40 odd (and usually dramatic sounding) daily ARV calls are false alarms, the split second professionalism of the officers performance on the scene when faced with the real thing was excellent. It is rather satisfying that the lead jihadist was shot by a woman, and then had his life saved for trial by the same people who neutralised him.

The real problem of course is that this could easily have been a *lot* worse if the attackers had more powerful weapons, or they had been willing to target someone other than soldiers and police. Zone 1 and parts of zone 2 have the highest concentration of what are considered particularly attractive targets and so has the highest concentration of ARVs - the response time in those areas is *very* good, and its gotten even better since 7/7 and the Mumbai attacks.

Military installations in Metropolitan London outside zones 1 & 2 clearly should have been a much higher priority for police protection given the decade plus history of Jihadist and sympathiser rage over UK military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. It will take an inquiry to examine the extent to which this was a problem of JTAC assessments, or of London Metropolitan Police asset availability and allocation.

But lets also be honest - the so called 'English Defence League' outnumber the jihadists in the country by a long way, which is why most of the extra police on the streets after this ghastliness are there to protect mosques and their neighbourhoods rather than military facilities. Terrorism isn't just meant to scare governments and people - its meant to trigger cycles of violence that will jack up the numbers, quality and commitment of the next generation of recruits. A free hand for the fat louts of the EDL to terrorise and traumatise ordinary British Muslims is exactly what the Jihadists dream of.

[Hari Seldon]

Mark Steyn: Bystanders in their own fate

Nobody but nobody can quite say it like Mark Steyn does. Guy can make you chuckle while proofreading your arrest warrant. Fun read folks, highly recommended, and a perfect fit with the dhaga topic too.

[Arjun]

A free hand for the fat louts of the EDL to terrorise and traumatise ordinary British Muslims is exactly what the Jihadists dream of.

Am no expert on British politics, but I found nothing much wrong with the reaction of the EDL going by their press release:

It said "The terrible events in Woolwich were a reminder of something very few are willing to accept: we are at war. We must criticize the Muslim community's failure to deal with the extremists in their midst."

EDL has announced that a large demonstration in support of the armed forces will be held on Downing Street on Monday.

It added: "In fact, Islam has been at war with its neighbours since its inception. We need to clamp down on extremist preachers and the mosques that continue to host them. We need to kick the extremists off our streets and out of our country. We need to cut out the cancer that is Islamic extremism."

It added: "No one is claiming that all Muslims are extremists or that they should be treated as if they are."

[Lalmohan]

Arjun - the edl are a fascist and racist organisation - islamism is only one aspect to their agenda

[arun]

^^^ I have from time to time heard allegations of the EDL being racist especially with relation to Indian origin individuals and dharmic religions. I however have come across no concrete material support for that. That has led me to speculate that painting the EDL as racist outfit is a Mohammadden propaganda ploy to obfuscate support for the message among Non-Mohammaddens of the risks presented by Mohammaddenism. It would be appreciated if you could please provide instances of EDL actions that have targeted Indian’s, Hindu’s, Buddhist’s, Jain’s and Sikhs to racist attacks in the UK or for that matter any EDL action targeting Jews or practises that are not democratic. I have specified actions and not probable future motives as the problem faced from Mohammaddenism lies in its malign actions and not probable future motives.

[Arjun]

Arjun - the edl are a fascist and racist organisation - islamism is only one aspect to their agenda

Can you provide more evidence of this fascism or racism ? I've certainly heard enough about the football hooligans of Britain, which would seem to confirm a certain kind of mentality in EDL that's not the most positive - but is that enough of a background for use of epithets like 'fascists', racists', 'terrorizing and traumatizing' that you and Johann have used liberally ?

Their doctrine as described in Wiki is not particularly intolerant. There have been charges though, as per wiki, of arson and low-level violence leveled against certain of their members.

My problem is basically this - why the distinction in treatment of religions vs non-religious organizations ?? If you compare EDL ideology with Islam (from a POV of tolerance to outsiders) or on the basis of propensity of violence of EDL members vs Muslims - in both cases, EDL may actually come out looking better or at worst equivalent.

And yet, its hugely politically incorrect to criticize religion - but highly politically correct to use the usual leftist epithets on the EDL ?! Anybody see the hypocrisy out here ? Would be interested in any British viewpoint on the issue.

[Rajdeep]

^ well once a face of allah/god is put up , all the racism ,fascism , intolerance . homophobia , misogyny is permitted under the garb of religion , like in the various islamic countries.

[Rajdeep]

Hate crimes rise in UK after soldier's killing, mosque attacked, war memorials defaced

Londoners woke up on Monday to the word "Islam" written in large bold letters on two of the city's most prominent war memorials.

Vandals targeted the RAF Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park and the Animals In War Memorial in Park Lane leaving them defaced as an aftermath of the recent attack on Muslims following the killing of a British soldier by a pro-Islamic hate activist in Woolwich.

The spray paint has been used to scrub out the inscription on the tribute to the animals which helped keep Britain free.

British society has been left completely divided after the recent horrific murder of serving soldier Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich.

He had survived the deadly streets of Afghanistan where he was posted only to die on the streets of his country in the hands of two Islamic radicals.

[Johann]

Arjun,

Lalmohan and myself are people who live or have lived in the UK.

I wouldn't call the EDL fascist.

I don't think much of a movement that is mostly a nuisance to the public order and the police - these are the sort of idiots who insist they're on the side of law and order, but then clash with the police because they can't have the scrap they so badly want, or use rhetoric that means policing has to be diverted to protect mosques.

At the end of the day they are a movement by chavs, of chavs and for chavs. You can look up that word if you like.

After the Salman Rushdie thing blew up back in 1989 it attracted smart, capable British Muslims at decent, or even good universities to the Islamist groups. People like Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was bright enough to get into LSE. After 9/11 and certainly after 7/7 that flow of high quality recruits has dried up - the smart and the capable were for the first time asking questions of political Islam. All those groups can get are the Muslim equivalents - black, brown and even white of the EDL's constituency. Losers in short.

If the EDL gets its way and frightens the British Muslim middle class that flow of high quality recruits will restart.

This is exactly what happens with Northern Ireland - for most of the period's history the IRA was a bit player among Ulster Catholics - and would have remained one if it wasn't for the success of the reactionary 'unionist' right in persuading many Catholics that they needed the IRA to protect them. Good job loyalists, for helping make a not great situation much, much worse.

[Agnimitra]

A Response to the Woolwich Incident by British Shaykh Abdalhaqq Bewley
[youtube]p23Ai5y40yE#![/youtube]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p23Ai5y40yE#!

The Norwich based scholar, translator of the Qur'an and Muqaddam of the Shadihili/Darqawi tariqa gives a definitive British Muslim response to recent events in Woolwich, London

The British Muslim Network

The BMN represents British Muslims. In a time where what constitutes being British is constantly under scrutiny and review, the BMN represents the simple reality that Britain is home for many creeds and colours. Muslims have been in Britain for centuries. The BMN represents those who wish to see Islam in a form that acknowledges the time and place we are in.

We wish to represent the diversity of Islam in Britain and therefore welcome links with organisations working in areas such as the Islamic arts, youth work, Islamic sciences, economical and environmental reform, geopolitical engagement Parliament and local government.

[Agnimitra]

Mother of London Beheader Tricked into Converting Him to Islam Under the Guise of Deradicalization

She told him: “Michael is not listening any more. His older sister is a good Christian with a degree but Michael is rebelling as he has no father figure, dropping out of university and handing out leaflets in Woolwich town centre.

“He is from a strong Christian family but he is turning to Islam and turning against the family. He is preaching in the streets. He needs spiritual guidance before he radicalises himself.”

...

His mother was advised by a neighbour to take him to the head of the Woolwich mosque for spiritual guidance. He was converted to Islam by the head Imam, and taken for weeks of “further training” at a centre near Cambridge.

When he returned, however, he was even more “radicalised” and his mother could no longer “get through to him”. A spokesman for the mosque said they did not know if he attended or been converted there.

However, the British Sheikh above says that the presence of Muslims in Britain today is as important as the presence of Quakers in a previous century.

[RajeshA]

Whenever there is some group which tries to moderate between some ethnic group and Islamics, usually they tend to appease Islam.

This is true for most left-liberal but also most centrist parties in Europe.

They try to sell the story that there is some ideological difference between Islam and Islamism, that there are moderate and radical Muslims.

The right wing, e.g. the English Defence League (EDL) are doing a lot of good because they are going to make people see the true face of Islam. I am not passing any judgments about whether this true face is bad, good or beautiful.

But at least the British would be able to see more and more of it.

The elite want to postpone this unavoidable conflict simply because their profits are on the line. Considering that the British narratives have often been able to dominate the main stream media in the world, it will be interesting to see how all this pans out internationally. I am also looking forward to see whether this adulterous love between British and Islam would continue unabated or whether it will take a U-turn.

[Arjun]

At the end of the day they are a movement by chavs, of chavs and for chavs. You can look up that word if you like.

After the Salman Rushdie thing blew up back in 1989 it attracted smart, capable British Muslims at decent, or even good universities to the Islamist groups. People like Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was bright enough to get into LSE. After 9/11 and certainly after 7/7 that flow of high quality recruits has dried up - the smart and the capable were for the first time asking questions of political Islam. All those groups can get are the Muslim equivalents - black, brown and even white of the EDL's constituency. Losers in short.

If the EDL gets its way and frightens the British Muslim middle class that flow of high quality recruits will restart.

Johann, While I highly appreciate the perspective that you provide - I find it somewhat lopsided in its bias towards religion over a non-religious organization.

EDL may well be a movement of chavs and by chavs - but many would say Islam tends to gain its converts from the same class of society. And given education trends in the UK, the Muslim chav class is probably a much bigger percentage than that among White Brits.

So what you have really is one radicalized chav class that provokes another in a vicious spiral (though the White Brit chavs to their credit have not taken matters into their own hands as much as the other side). I think it is naive to blame the EDL in what is a natural cycle in the absence of a competent State...It is the role of the State to provide comfort that traditional British society is not being upended and that hate-mongerers and radicals from either end will be dealt with firmly. The British State seems to have failed in its ability to present such a picture so far - which is what has led to the rise of the EDL.

The problem is that religious freedom as defined in the West has come to mean impunity from laws and executive action that would normally have been applied for non-religious ones. If there is a Muslim version of EDL and the regular White Brit one - why is it that the former gets all the appeasement and the latter the stick in terms of media epithets, when the former has been responsible for all the high-profile cases over the last decade ?

[Agnimitra]

The mother country england is now competing with daughter country Pakistan:

Machete attack horror at Accrington barber's shop

MACHETE wielding thugs have left two men with ‘serious injuries’ after attacking them in an Accrington barber’s shop.

The two victims had been inside the shop in Ormerod Street when four masked men carrying machetes and knives forced their way inside.

Detectives investigating the incident said the gang attacked the pair before forcing them into the street.

The thugs also attacked a parked car during the incident at midnight on Saturday.

Police said they were alerted to the incident after witnesses called an ambulance.

The victims both suffered deep wounds and had to be taken to hospital by paramedics.

One of the men, a 23-year-old man from Accrington sustained a serious head injury while, the other a 24-year-old man also from Accrington suffered a serious cut to his arm, police said.

Both men are being treated at the Royal Blackburn Hospital and their condition was yesterday described as ‘serious but not life threatening’.

Detectives investigating the incident are now urging anyone who witnessed the incident to come forward.

...

“Despite the offenders wearing facial coverings we will endeavour to bring these extremely violent offenders to justice.

“I urge anyone with information about the attack to come forward and contact police.”

Extra police patrols have been launched in the area to try reassure residents. Police said they were looking for a gang of Asian men in connection with the attack.

A 23-year-old man from Accrington was arrested and released on police bail pending further inquiries.

Anyone with information about the incident should call police on 101.

[Lalmohan]

breaking: french police say they have arrested 22 yr old man suspected of attack on french soldier few days ago

[arun]

X Posted from the Islamism thread.

Former Prime Minister of the UK, Tony Blair, on the threat posed by Mohammaddenism:

The ideology behind Lee Rigby's murder is profound and dangerous. Why don't we admit it?: Tony Blair launches a brave assault on Muslim extremism after Woolwich attack

[Johann]

I think it is naive to blame the EDL in what is a natural cycle in the absence of a competent State...It is the role of the State to provide comfort that traditional British society is not being upended and that hate-mongerers and radicals from either end will be dealt with firmly. The British State seems to have failed in its ability to present such a picture so far - which is what has led to the rise of the EDL.

The EDL is two things simultaneously; a) a symptom of a set of problems and b) something that can and will make those problems a lot worse.

I certainly wouldn't hold the EDL responsible for the current state of affairs. But they have the capacity if unchecked to make things much, much worse.

So what you have really is one radicalized chav class that provokes another in a vicious spiral

Well put.

EDL may well be a movement of chavs and by chavs - but many would say Islam tends to gain its converts from the same class of society. And given education trends in the UK, the Muslim chav class is probably a much bigger percentage than that among White Brits....(though the White Brit chavs to their credit have not taken matters into their own hands as much as the other side).....If there is a Muslim version of EDL and the regular White Brit one - why is it that the former gets all the appeasement and the latter the stick in terms of media epithets, when the former has been responsible for all the high-profile cases over the last decade ?

There is a real link between football hooliganism, the far right, and organised violent working class racial violence that goes back to the mid 1970s. It was a threat both to both public order and the health of the country as a liberal democracy.

The police, MI5, the political class, and the educated classes as a whole have just had longer to develop the right approach to contain and weaken it without weakening democracy in the name of defending it.

It took a while, but the result has been worth it. Given the fact that the football hooligans will far outnumber the jihadis for the forseeable future it would be stupid to treat them as a markedly lesser threat to the social fabric. Especially when that sort of thing in the 1980s played no small role in strengthening Islamist recruiting in the 1990s.

The urban chavs of all races are not a constituency that the rest of society respects or pays much attention to in general and that is both dangerous and unhealthy. There are all sorts of unhealthy pathologies brewing there, and it requires an engagement that goes beyond policing and the courts. In that sense all communities need to be engaged without pandering to their prejudices. It will take time to get it right as the pendulum swings one way and then the other.

Minorities of all sorts (not just Muslims, although that is what this forum is most interested in) have received greater engagement because of the educated classes own commitment to reconfiguring the UK as a multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-religious democracy - in that sense it is not very different from the commitment of India's ruling classes.

Over time class usually trumps most other things here, and Muslims in the middle and upper classes on the whole in my experience have no desire to risk their comfort and their chances for abstractions *when* they know they live in a society that accepts them. In that sense the left's larger commitment to enabling social mobility for all is valuable and important.

I was invited as a guest speaker to a school in Bethnal Green last month to give a talk to students in an advanced A-levels course. This is close to the heart of the Bangladeshi immigrant community, and most of the girls were wearing hijab. Given that I was to speak on and discuss the Taliban, as part of their module on fundamentalism in general I expected real push-back. I was pleasantly surprised that there was not a trace of apology or sympathy for the movement, which they treated as more about politics and the male desire for power. These are the daughters of lower middle class shopkeepers and restaurant owners who plan on going to university and having careers. They have a religious identity, but no desire to be controlled by anyone. Worryingly, there was only one Muslim boy in the class. Working and lower middle class Muslim men have the most to lose from the changes happening around them, and the push we see comes from the fact that they're losing control over the women. Once again though, the phenomenon of girls outperforming boys by quite a margin is something you see in urban lower middle class and working class environments.

[Lalmohan]

johann - i wonder if there might be a divergence between bangladeshi youngsters, particularly girls - from pakistani origin youth - particularly boys?

[Shanmukh]

X Posted from the Islamism thread.

Former Prime Minister of the UK, Tony Blair, on the threat posed by Mohammaddenism:

The ideology behind Lee Rigby's murder is profound and dangerous. Why don't we admit it?: Tony Blair launches a brave assault on Muslim extremism after Woolwich attack

Ehhh - the headline is really misleading. He has nothing to say about Islamic supremacism and its history. What he is arguing is for support for al Qaeda in Syria. Assad is not supporting the terrorists in UK - the al Qaeda (and its ideological affiliates) are. So why is it so bad if the al Qaeda bites it in Syria?

[Lalmohan]

truth about rise in attacks on british muslims - telegraph

quite an interesting read - looks like there is a tendency to grab the limelight and portray oneself as the victim - instead of the aggressor...
same as it ever was...

[Johann]

johann - i wonder if there might be a divergence between bangladeshi youngsters, particularly girls - from pakistani origin youth - particularly boys?

Yes I think there's truth to that.

But there's also a real difference between London and the now dead-end mill towns that so many Pakistanis settled down in the 1960s before the British textile industry died.

Economic growth combined with high quality public educations and job creation has made a real difference for lagging groups. It doesn't bear to compare schools and job prospects in East London and say Dewsbury.

As I said social mobility plays a very important role over the medium to long term. People who feel like they've got something to lose are much more likely to avoid serious risks and keep climbing the ladder.

[RajeshA]

Of course there will always be constituencies within Islam who would want some respite from the extremist jihadi types. In a non-anti-Islamic atmosphere they may even express this view.

The whole point is however that these constituencies, e.g. Bangladeshi girls, would never carry the day on any matter related to the community.

[panduranghari]

johann - i wonder if there might be a divergence between bangladeshi youngsters, particularly girls - from pakistani origin youth - particularly boys?

Yes I think there's truth to that.

But there's also a real difference between London and the now dead-end mill towns that so many Pakistanis settled down in the 1960s before the British textile industry died.

Economic growth combined with high quality public educations and job creation has made a real difference for lagging groups. It doesn't bear to compare schools and job prospects in East London and say Dewsbury.

As I said social mobility plays a very important role over the medium to long term. People who feel like they've got something to lose are much more likely to avoid serious risks and keep climbing the ladder.

If this http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 33474.html is the future of most of poor estates in Britain you can see why newspapers like daily mail like to blame everything on the immigrants.

If it was not for the benefits we will see poverty like we see in India, in Britain as well.

When I was watching the last episode on Monday night, my SHQ said when our grandchildren are old enough and they ask us about Britain, what will we tell them?

1 thing I can say for sure is we lived in the stage of terminal decline of Britain. A once poor country due to their guile and atrocities got rich, then became poor due to short sighted policies and mainly due to their Karma.

[vinod]

When I was watching the last episode on Monday night, my SHQ said when our grandchildren are old enough and they ask us about Britain, what will we tell them?

1 thing I can say for sure is we lived in the stage of terminal decline of Britain. A once poor country due to their guile and atrocities got rich, then became poor due to short sighted policies and mainly due to their Karma.

No so fast... they haven't lost their guile. And the atrocities - they have outsourced it. So you never know...

[manjgu]

@Johann.... I was in bangladesh last month and i saw very few Hijab wearing girls/woman. the woman were wearing sarees and some of them with bindis also..and these were not Hindu woman but muslim woman. So surely in UK they are emphasising their Islamic identity ... u cant overlook this fact.

education in my opinion makes more hardcore islamic followers .. in my fathers village in western UP, the muslims of village would still say 'namaste' ... but not a single educated muslim guy would say 'namaste'. though hindus would not mind greeting 'walekum salam'' etc....

[manjgu]

muslim woman have had a negligible role in islamic extremism... alteast overtly ... so as others have indicated , this was not a very interesting group..!!

[devesh]

forget women. I am seeing burkhas and head-covering scarfs on 13-year-olds in US. at the local high school, as per one student who attends, scarfs and head-covering is quite normal even among freshmen girls. those are 13 and 14 year olds.

a neighbor who drives a 2-door sports model with a flashy yellow exterior, has both his daughters (one 11, and the other 14) wear scarves. even in 90-degree heat, the older girl now always wears at least a semi-long sleeves shirt (extending mid-way between elbow and wrist). the younger, I guess still has a year or two before her "luxury" of seasonal clothing comes to an end.

[Arjun]

Given the fact that the football hooligans will far outnumber the jihadis for the forseeable future it would be stupid to treat them as a markedly lesser threat to the social fabric. Especially when that sort of thing in the 1980s played no small role in strengthening Islamist recruiting in the 1990s.

Sure Johann, but football hooliganism does not constitute an ideology.

The government needs to focus its attention on all ideologies that express strong negative feelings towards any particular class or set of people. The EDL has a defined ideology. Islam has an ideology that strongly expresses itself about non-believers. At the end of the end of the day - the ONLY healthy society will be one that monitors followers of all such ideologies and ensures they don't get radicalized, with absolutely no quarter given for any ideology that passes itself off as a religion or otherwise.

I see some hope for British society in a recognition of this reality as expressed by David Cameron, Tony Blair and others. Yet, I don't think they go far enough.

[Lalmohan]

arjun - football hooliganism in the UK has for many years been synonymous with far right nationalist and fascist ideologies - sometimes overtly, but always covertly

meanwhile - the head of the EDL says that he does not support/condone the arson attack on the somali mosque in north london. he goes on to say that there are many decent muslims in the UK, some of whom even support the troops. police meanwhile saying that EDL graffiti was found at the burnt out mosque

[Johann]

forget women. I am seeing burkhas and head-covering scarfs on 13-year-olds in US. at the local high school, as per one student who attends, scarfs and head-covering is quite normal even among freshmen girls. those are 13 and 14 year olds.

a neighbor who drives a 2-door sports model with a flashy yellow exterior, has both his daughters (one 11, and the other 14) wear scarves. even in 90-degree heat, the older girl now always wears at least a semi-long sleeves shirt (extending mid-way between elbow and wrist). the younger, I guess still has a year or two before her "luxury" of seasonal clothing comes to an end.

@Johann.... I was in bangladesh last month and i saw very few Hijab wearing girls/woman. the woman were wearing sarees and some of them with bindis also..and these were not Hindu woman but muslim woman. So surely in UK they are emphasising their Islamic identity ... u cant overlook this fact.

In my experience there are two things that lead to Muslim women shifting to more conservative clothing
- When they're conscious of being a minority
- When the standards of the society they live in - whether South Asia or the West- becomes more sexually permissive. Modernity means that women are working, studying and running errands on their own or without elders.

Both of those things apply much more in the UK than Bangladesh.

The older Muslim girls in hejab I was talking about were also wearing jeans and light makeup, laughed loudly, would flirt with boys, and generally acted independent in ways their less Islamically dressed cousins in Bangladesh wouldn't be able to get away with. The hejab is almost a concession to their family and community, and a promise that they wont go quite as far -sexually speaking- as the rest of society. Some of course wore it as a badge of identity, but not nearly as many one might expect.

I've seen the changes in India's big cities over the years. The more permissive Indian youth and urban culture has become, the more conservatively Muslim families have dressed their daughters, but its gone hand in hand with more independence. I remember one early morning yoga class for both men and women a few years back. This one middle class young Muslim woman rode up on her scooter. She marched up in a burka, took it off without fuss, exercised in her tracksuit, and then put it back on to go back on the street. I thought that was fantastic, and a good lesson not to take things at face value.

[Johann]

If it was not for the benefits we will see poverty like we see in India, in Britain as well...1 thing I can say for sure is we lived in the stage of terminal decline of Britain. A once poor country due to their guile and atrocities got rich, then became poor due to short sighted policies and mainly due to their Karma.

Erm the reality is that Britain's working classes were physically better off after the end of empire than they ever were during it.

That is still true today.

Britain adopted the welfare state at the same time as the countries of the subcontinent went their own way. That is not a coincidence

WWII saw the UK adopt a whole sweeping range of socialist measures and that sort mindset in order to survive, and the majority of the British public loved it.

Labour was elected after WWII with a sweeping mandate because the public overwhelmingly agreed with its position that social justice at home was far more important than empire abroad.

[devesh]

I'm not so sure that the increasing trend of Hejab is a purely Western Islamic trend. Visited Hyderabad 2 months ago, and I can tell you that even educated Muslim women working in a professional setting are now increasingly putting on the "headgear". this was not so widely prevalent back in the day. I am speaking from personal experience of staying in Hyderabad until '98. I vividly remember Muslim women teachers in their late 20's and even 30's who never wore the hejab. forget about under-20 girls wearing it. that was a very rare occurrence back in the day. There used to be a Muslim Girls High School about a kilometer from where I lived, and in my days of vagabonding in after school hours, or standing and avidly watching passing by people from the veranda, I remember groups of muslim girls walking home and it was very rarely that I saw any one of them wearing the hejab. My grandfather used to comment that after the bitter experience of the Razakars and Nizami conservatism, he never expected Islamic girls would be roaming around so freely in only a couple of generations.

and now? well, that school doesn't exist anymore; no idea what happened to it. but I can tell you that in today's Hyderabad, muslim teenage girls are vastly more likely to be wearing the Hejab than not wearing it. the evidence is all over the city. even young girls of 14 and 15 are now wearing it. 15 years ago, this would have been a strange occurrence worthy of a lot of gawking. but now it's common.

[AbhiJ]

and now? well, that school doesn't exist anymore; no idea what happened to it. but I can tell you that in today's Hyderabad, muslim teenage girls are vastly more likely to be wearing the Hejab than not wearing it. the evidence is all over the city. even young girls of 14 and 15 are now wearing it. 15 years ago, this would have been a strange occurrence worthy of a lot of gawking. but now it's common.

Does that signal Islamic kabila is coming out of the shelf?

[manjgu]

even in delhi markets like South ex, GK ..one sees many more Hijab wearing girls...never saw anything like that about 10 yrs ago !!

[Lalmohan]

definitely - hijab wearing all over the world is on the increase