redfiona99

Well go read it.

I am now going to invoke it, because what I am going to say will undoubtedly offend someone, and you know what, I don't care.

On the news today, the police were raiding the house of one Islamic fundamentalist or other, and there were the usual down with the west, yay go Islam, all should convert, blah.... leaflets and videos. The police were looking for something even more extreme than usual to get him on charges of inciting racial hatred.

Which bugs me somewhat. Not because I agree with what he says, no I'm completely against it. But because of this little thing called freedom of expression. Now I am well aware that what Islamic fundamentalists say is unpleasent in the extreme. But so's a lot of what the BNP say, and they're not going round their houses looking for similar material.

The major charge often laid down at the door of repressive regimes is that they seek to destroy all opposing view-points. In the 'tolerant' west, we're supposed not to do that.

Another thing that annoys me. When people say that people who believe in what aformentioned extremists should go home (despite the fact that quite often they are British citizens) or abide by UK rules.

Meanwhile when British people go to work in Islamic states there's constant complaints that 'it's not fair, we're not allowed to drink' or 'it's not fair, we have to abide by a curfew' etc. The hypocrisy stuns me.

My Mother argues that if I were in a state governed by in this case Islamic extremists I wouldn't be allowed to say this. And that's why I am saying it. That's chief glory of the freedom we have I can say whatever I damn well please, and the people being raided today are being deprived of that right. Whatever the rights and wrongs of what they are saying, that is wrong.

Or as someone else put it far better than I ever could,

First They Came for the Jews
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

That was plastered all over the walls of our high school, which probably counts as brain washing ;) but it says what I was saying far better than I could.
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And to think, I woke up this morning determined to have a non-angry day, and not to think about anything political.