Tellingly, in its report of the attack on the priest, the Sunday Telegraph had made no mention whatsoever of the alcohol-fuelled nature of the assault despite a clear statement from the canon’s wife making this plain. Of course, it just so happens that the Sunday Telegraph was also the paper which originally printed Michael Nazir-Ali’s [...]
January 18, 2008 – 10:59 pm
The former Ex Hizb ut-Tahrirites are playing out a variant of the burden of representation but it’s a dangerous game they are engaging in. They may delight the Murdoch/Torygraph axis but at a time of increasing racial tension their posturing is unhelpful and, whether intended or not, this stance sadly does the bidding of the [...]
January 18, 2008 – 10:56 pm
The plain fact that Maher can’t quite get his head around is that Livingstone is a genuinely popular figure in London, including among the capital’s 700,000+ Muslims. The mayor of London has a long and proud record of opposing racism and prejudice against minorities. And frankly, who can blame them for being a bit wary [...]
January 14, 2008 – 6:40 pm
In my own Diocese of Blackburn we have got areas with a high Muslim population but we have absolutely no no-go areas. We can go everywhere. We have extremely good relations with the Muslim communities.
The Church has got to accept that if you are the church in an area with a high Muslim population, then [...]
January 14, 2008 – 6:29 pm
What is his evidence that any part of London, or anywhere else, is controlled by this ideology? The general consensus seems to be that if they, and their Muslim or otherwise Asian inhabitants, are “controlled” by anyone, it is the social networks and conventions which were imported from “back home”. Islamists are a minority, even [...]
January 12, 2008 – 12:20 am
Ethnic communities will tend to gravitate around specific neighbourhoods. This is a commonly understood pattern of social demographics. No one is suggesting that in doing so other communities are excluded and unwelcome.
Farouq Taj
January 8, 2008 – 11:40 pm
As a Christian, I am disgusted by the Bishop’s promotion of a style of Christianity that is prejudiced, power-hungry and yearning for the past. As a Quaker, I am very aware that many Christian groups have themselves faced centuries of persecution and discrimination within “Christian Britain”. And I am horrified that Nazir-Ali has chosen to [...]
January 8, 2008 – 11:19 pm
The Bishop of Rochester, Nazir Ali is persistently portraying multiculturalism and Muslims as bogeymen – a disservice to both his Church and his roots. Surely it cannot be Muslims – 3% of the population – that threaten “the distinctively Christian character of the nation’s laws, values, customs and culture” (Daily Telegraph, 7th January 2008).
Salaam
January 8, 2008 – 11:16 pm
But where are these “no-go” areas in our country that non-Muslims are being prevented from entering? Well, unfortunately the good bishop did not think it was necessary to go to the bother of backing up his headline-grabbing assertion with any actual evidence.
Inayat Bunglawala
January 8, 2008 – 11:14 pm
At one point it’s about Muslims, then it’s about the decline in Christianity. We can only assume he feels the two things are linked.
He’s not going to fill out any more churches with this kind of hate-filled rhetoric, apart from far-right thugs who are lapping this up. “No go areas”? What does a Muslim look [...]
January 8, 2008 – 5:00 pm
Is there some way to actually confirm the use of sharia in Britain and its growth is specific regions? That is crucial. That has to be reported as fact, not opinion, or the story will just spin around and around in circles.
Get Religion
January 7, 2008 – 11:33 pm
The irony of all this is that I used to live in equally such rough places such as Hulme and particularly Moss Side back in the day and other places I’ve worked regularly in such as parts of Cheetham Hill and Toxteth, which really were “no-go areas” for real reasons and not just your own [...]
January 7, 2008 – 11:30 pm
Back in 2001 England experienced its worst race rioting for twenty years in some towns in the north, and anyone who knows anything about them understands that these towns are split along race lines not religious lines. It was asians versus whites, and not Islamic Extremists versus the rest, or however else he wants to [...]
January 7, 2008 – 11:24 pm
In London, where Islamic extremism was openly preached into the early years of this decade, it did not produce a single no-go area. Finsbury Park, for example, was traversed by a main road, the A503, which remains a main road, and by two Tube lines and suburban and main-line railways. I have personally seen Jews [...]
January 7, 2008 – 12:00 am
Things aint so clear cut and, sadly, clumsy generalisations like those in the Sunday Telegraph article are in danger of feeding into a xenophobia that has little to do with the gospel we espouse as Christians. Surely a robust Christian faith does not require that the Christian faith is privileged or that no other faith [...]
