Relax and enjoy it
The bishop of Oxford is ‘personally very happy for the mosque to call the faithful to prayer in East Oxford’. I don’t suppose he lives there, does he? Or does he.
“Faith is a very important factor in the lives of 80 per cent of the world’s population and a public expression of that faith is both natural and reasonable…It is good that we should be reminded of the faithfulness of many members of the community.”
Is it? Why? And even if it is, we get reminded quite a bit already, don’t we?
“It is natural that Muslim communities will gather in a particular area and what matters is that we demonstrate the kind of respect that is the basis of any civilised society.”
Okay. The next time I see Muslim communities gathering in a particular area, in their natural way (like wildebeest gathering at a water hole is it?), I’ll make a point of demonstrating the kind of respect that is the basis of any civilised society. I’m not sure what that is, but I’ll make a point of demonstrating it anyway. Perhaps I just go up to the gathering communities and tell them, in so many words and accompanied by poignant and demonstrative gestures, that I respect this gathering in a particular area ceremony? Would that be it?
“I would say to anyone who has concerns about the call to prayer to relax and enjoy our community diversity and be as respectful to others as you would hope they would be respectful to you.”
Relax and enjoy it. So if one of my neighbours takes to broadcasting a speech by Huey Long through a loudspeaker from a tower for two minutes three times a day every day, I should relax and enjoy it? I should relax and enjoy any old broadcast repeated noise? Or just the kind that reminds me of the faithfulness of many members of the community? Well whichever it is, I’ll find it difficult. The bishop may be a good multitasker but I’ve never been very good at filtering out intrusive noise. I try not to make a lot of racket myself, and I don’t enjoy it when other people do – so the relaxation bit will probably be difficult, and the enjoyment even more so.
“I sympathise with those who find any kind of expression of public faith intrusive, but I think part of being part of a tolerant society is saying, ‘I don’t agree with this but I accept it as part of my responsibility as being part of a diverse community’.”
Why? Why is it part of being a tolerant society along with part of my responsibility as being part of a diverse community? Why is it my responsibility to not mind amplified intrusive noise? Why isn’t it the responsibility of other people to not make amplified intrusive noise? The bishop forgot to explain that part.
Ophelia: What I’d like to see is genuine free competition. During the few minutes of Muslim calls to the faithful, local churches could have a spell of bell-ringing to show they’re still in the market for believers in spite of falling attendances. I really can’t see why anyone should object to such a cacophony (sorry, I meant to say “expression of multicultural diversity”) occurring a mere three times a day.
Let’s not forget the metalheads, Allen, true believers that they are. Two minutes should be enough to get through Born to be Wild played really fast.
And the metalheads would of course win since they have amps which “go up to 11”. Which raises the serious question of what’s wrong with an ‘acoustic version’ of the call to prayer. Sure, it would require the muezzin to actually climb to the top of the minaret, as has been happening for the last fourteen hundred odd years, but if you really care about your ‘tradition’ and your ‘faith it seems like a small price to pay.
Incidentally, as far as I understand it, Islam doesn’t actually require the call to prayer to be made from a minaret, or the roof of the mosque, or any high place in general, but I suppose if the muezzin simply stood on the footpath he might look a little too much like a spruiker. . .
Inch by inch pretty soon they will have a foot.
No self-respecting metalhead would ever play that if he took metal seriously!
But, seriously, I wonder are mosques in UK & US allowed to amplify their noise? Or, for that matter, to make religious noise outside the privacy of their own mosque?
Living in a neighbourhood with a lot of Jews, quite some muslims & increasingly many fresh Catholics from Poland, I can tell you that in Belgium muslims are in general the least noisy.
Then again, what’s not noisy in the UK?
PS: metalheads have the church of Satan already
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200801/CUL20080114a.html Yes but do you get this sort of stuff froms jews and catholics Job?
Blimey, this is all a bit sour, isn’t it? Surely the call-to-prayer side of religion is the bit that we should encoursge, the aesthetic, ritualised aspects that add to the richness of life so long as the priests are kept in their place? Would life be better without church bells? The call to prayer is rather beautiful, I think. They should just make sure that it is not elctronically amplified and everyune could be happy.
Richard.
Well, no, but I don’t get anything like that from muslims either over here.
The issue for me is religious madness & I don’t see the value of isolating the specific muslim form of such religious madness.
I could not care less if people “feel” religious & then go about their normal secular business which is what Belgian muslims in my neighbourhood do (and at least do better than Jewish Orthodoxy & Jehovah’s witnesses to name but two).
I don’t buy Islam being madder than any other religion – mainly because I can’t buy any organized religion as not being completely & utterly daft.
Do you think the bishop would be so supportive if someone decided to play the audio book version of The God Delusion on a loud speaker three times a day?
John M writes:
> Blimey, this is all a bit sour, isn’t it? Surely the call-to-prayer side of religion is the bit that we should encoursge, the aesthetic, ritualised aspects that add to the richness of life so long as the priests are kept in their place? Would life be better without church bells? The call to prayer is rather beautiful, I think. They should just make sure that it is not electronically amplified and everyune could be happy.< I think one the reasons for rather strong opposition to such proposals is that there is a feeling (justified, in my view) that ever since the Rushdie affair (starting around 1990) Muslim officialdom has tried to exert an undue (in the sense of very much out of proportion to their numbers) influence on the way affairs are conducted in Britain – and when it faces opposition it frequently cries “Islamophobia”. Personally I wouldn’t want to hear the Muslim call to prayer three times a day, and I think that if it were amplified it would be particularly objectionable. I feel the same about church bells, though I think they are aesthetically rather more tolerable (and I don’t think the argument that they are part of a centuries-long tradition in the UK is to be dismissed). I’ve lived in various parts of London for over 60 years, and I can’t recall hearing church bells since my teenage years. As a personal preference, I think they are more acceptable in country areas than in densely populated towns.
>Even in a Western country like Britain around 35 percent of Muslims apparently agree that apostasy should be punishable by death.< That should have read among Muslims between the ages of 16-34. For Muslims over 45 the figure is below 20 percent.
In order to ensure that the playing field is scrupulously flattened, the Muslim call to prayer should be ‘unplugged’ and church bells should be real, not off some scratchy old tape.
I agree with Ophelia – the general level of unwanted noise is the real issue.
Incidentally, John M’s implied suggestion that encouraging acceptance of the Muslim call to prayer, one of “the aesthetic, ritualised aspects” of the religion, would in some way help to keep the priests “in their place” is, I think, very wide of the mark. On the contrary, if anything it would encourage the desire of many of them for Islamic officialdom to play an ever-increasing role in British society.
Bahá’í Faith
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahá’í_Faith
Also:
“In the brief course of its 150-year history, the Baha’i Faith has transformed itself from an obscure Middle Eastern sect into a fast-growing religion that has established itself in every country of the world and is rapidly emerging out of obscurity to take its place alongside older more established world religions.”
http://www.northill.demon.co.uk/bahai/
The bahá’i Faith, founded by Bahá’u’lláh is a monotheistic religion. It originated in Iran in 1844
Free competition idea brilliant. Church bells, audio book of The God Delusion, heavy metal, advertising songlets, Huey Long, bits of opera, Hitler, The Trout Quintet, Begin the Beguine…
The same rules should apply as for charity workers stopping people in the street: give them a week each annually to advertise their fares in the public space and leave people alone the rest of the time… We KNOW the churches and mosques and whatnots are there, we don’t need that much reminding!
Or am I going too far?
Dulcis instar mellis campana vecor Gabrielis
(I am sweet as honey, and am called Gabriel’s bell)
Missus vero pie Gabriel fert læta Mariæ
(Gabriel the messenger bears joyous tidings to holy Mary.)
Though the practice of saying the Angelus declined in the latter half of the twentieth century, many Irish parishes continue the tradition of ringing the Angelus bells, traditionally at 6:00 a.m., noon and 6:00 p.m.
The Angelus bells, when they ring out, to this day, is to me synonymous with food glorious food. As throughout my whole childhood I always found myself in a long queue [genuflecting and chanting the Angelus] at the these specific times waiting for measly meals.
Every day I listen to “The bells of the Angelus, Call us to pray. In sweet tones announcing the sacred Ave Ave, Ave, Ave Maria. Ave, Ave, Ave Maria. An angel of mercy, led Bernadette’s feet, Where flows the deep torrent, Our Lady to greet. Ave……………Immaculate Mary, Our hearts are all thine. Protect us, your children, Who kneel at thy shrine. Ave………The tune of the above Angelus hymn is to be heard from the church bells, three times daily, in Dublin city.
Talk about noise pollution! It is so utterly boring! I am sure the Bishop of Oxford would just love the sound of these monotonous Angelus bells seeing that he does not live near the area. Faith perfect faith and a public expression of that faith in the guise of intrusive noise is just not very appealing!
Allen,
I did not want to offend you nor did I want to sound as serious as I probably did.
As far as organized religion: no, I am not going to diversify my assesments & single out one of ’em as if the others are more harmless since they happen to do less harm presently.
Weird, I try to read Steel most weeks because I find him (moderately) funny. I never realized he was a member of the SWP!
These Trots sure are devious!
Job I am supprised that you see nothing to choose between faiths as you probably could have smelt the smoke from France when it was torched a while back?
I’ve been following this topic with interest. It seems to me there is a dimension that no one is mentioning; that the public call to prayer does not strictly serve as a reminder to the devout, but is actually intended for everyone else.
Modern technology has many cheap and effective ways to remind someone it’s time to do something (e.g., take your pills, be somewhere, say prayers, etc.). Digital watches can be purchased cheaply and programmed to whatever schedule the person requires.
O.K., but maybe that solution doesn’t work, because (and I don’t know this, just supposing here) maybe it’s important that all the devout be notified together, or in unison, or by the same source. But that’s a problem that can be solved easily, cheaply, and privately, too. Have a faith-based pager that the faithful can carry (or cell phone – introducing the iPhone, as in Islam-phone! I’d be rich if I didn’t give all my best ideas away like this).
Given that this isn’t how things are done, I can only conclude that the real reason for broadcasting the call to prayer (at least in places where these technological solutions are viable) has to be its potential to maximally interfere with everyone else. By being so obviously public and unavoidable, it allows it ensures that anyone can check and see who is and isn’t praying. It also allows you to be certain that everyone else sees how devout you are when you stop what you are doing to pray.
-CM
Damn! Didn’t check the weather forecast before accessing the internet! When the sun stays hidden like that, the trolls are always out and bolder!
Must be all that smoke drifting from across the channel…
Go to the source documents:
http://www.bahai.org
You would think all that smoke would be enough to make Frenchmen move to London?
And Arnaud succeeds in dragging the discussion off topic again. Sorry!
GT,
My previous post wasn’t referring to you if that’s what you mean.
Richard,
Whatever…
On reflection, I should have used the more appropriate term “groupuscle” rather than “sect”.
Correction: That should have been “groupuscule”
“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupuscule
To try to get back on track, surely Allen, there is an argument to be made to get muslims back inside mainstream society? Or do we want to encourage a ghetto mentality with all that it brings in terms of opportunities for extremism to flourish?
I remember in France during the last presidential elections Sarkozy arguing that the State should help fund mosques (in direct contradiction with at least a century of strict separation of state and churches). The official argument being that muslims in France being found mainly in the poorest social classes didn’t have the advantages of centuries of christianity behind them but still required places of worship.
(The unofficial, and for me quite convincing, argument being that, in conjunction with more careful visa-ing of foreign imams, better the state than the Saudis…)
Lets keep things in perspective and remember that all in all mainstream, secular societies have had much more influence on the muslim minorities found among them than the other way round. If we increase the inclusion of people who are, at the moment, often excluded, it can only be at our advantage.
>To try to get back on track, surely Allen, there is an argument to be made to get muslims back inside mainstream society? Or do we want to encourage a ghetto mentality with all that it brings in terms of opportunities for extremism to flourish?< I can certainly agree on that point, namely that it would be good to get the appreciable number of Muslims who are not “inside mainstream society” (although a fair number are anyway, without having given up Islam) to feel comfortable as part of mainstream society in the UK. And I agree that the last thing we need is a ghetto mentality in any group. But I don’t understand why you think anything I wrote above should (apparently) lead you to think otherwise.
It was a “surely Allen” as in “you cannot fail to agree, Allen” and not as in “you sure are a a+#@?!%$e, Allen, to want to keep muslims in ghettos like that!”
Sorry if that wasn’t clear!
On that note, I am off to the pub (Market Porter, Borough, for those in the know) and wish you all a good evening, or good morning, night or afternoon depending on your time zone!
>It was a “surely Allen” as in “you cannot fail to agree, Allen” and not as in “you sure are a a+#@?!%$e, Allen, to want to keep muslims in ghettos like that!”
>Sorry if that wasn’t clear!< Thanks, Arnaud. It certainly wasn’t!
Exelent posts Arnaud that is the sort of thinking that will have us all on prayer rugs in 20 years!
Richard,
Could you join the dots for me? I don’t see that in Arnaud’s posts but I may have missed something.
No, he can’t join the dots (at least, he never does), which is why it would be nice if he would refrain from that kind of drive-by flaming. Richard, I know you don’t like to write at length, but that being the case, you really ought to restrain yourself. You can’t both take rude pot-shots at people and refuse to make arguments. I’ve told you before: I won’t have it.
Sorry O.B. I know its no excuse but Arnaud did call me a troll,Don sure I can Arnaud implies that the duty to intergrate moslems is on us the host I take isue with that, we have bent over backwards to make people from all backgrounds feel welcome in the U.K and all we get in return is more demands for cencorship ect from large numbers of moslems.
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-31456320080117 Don it also seems that increasing numbers of moslems do not wish to join the mainstream?
Richard,
I have never for a moment considered you a troll, but given your responses to Arnaud’s points I can see how he might have reached that conclusion.
This thread is probably dead by now, so you you may not even read it, but if you do then please try to get rid of the idea that there is a single entity called ‘Islam’ to which we need to form a single, simple response.
I just don’t think you are prepared to engage with the complexity of the situation. I think of the people I know who are are nominally or culturally moslem in so many subtle ways and who would not recognise ‘having us all on a prayer rug in 20 years’ as an argument they could engage with.
Don I am not that lacking in nuance I was poking fun at what I consider to be Arnauds strain of suicidal liberalism. Once again I would ask you in a world of exploding doctors how do we tell the good from the bad?
Yes but Richard we can’t tell when you’re poking fun and when you’re picking a fight. This is why I’ve deleted you several times in the past; this is why I keep telling you that it’s a problem that you prefer very short blunt posts. You yourself may not be lacking in nuance but your posts are. I keep telling you this – but you don’t take it on board. Please do. You have a particular style, which you apparently can’t modify very much; given that you know that, and that you know people often think you’re trolling, you really need to be much more careful and restrained. It’s only fair, frankly. I could delete a lot more of your posts; given that I leave most of them, the least you can do is to be careful not to put people’s backs up.
It’s annoying having to waste time and space here telling you not to flame, or seem to flame. Give me a break, please.
Oh fuck it! I promised to myself I wouldn’t engage in discussion any further but what the hell…
I am truly sorry Richard if my calling you a troll has upset you, because I can see you are as truly offended as an Iranian mullah faced with the suggestion that, maybe, men and women are equal after all. May I suggest that in the future, if you really don’t want to be called a troll, you refrain from trolling?
You may call it “poking fun” but when you don’t engage with any of the arguments that are made to you in response, I consider it trolling. When you only ever write the same post ever and ever again (which is essentially what you do: we could virtually replace all your interventions by “We’ll be on the prayer mats within 20 years”), I consider it trolling. When your posts are short and unargumentated and little more than a statement of opinion without bothering with things like, I don’t know, corroborating evidences? I consider it trolling. Call me paranoiac but, when your first post came on within an hour of mine to, out of nowhere, introduce the French riots – something on which we already had a few exchanges if I recall correctly (well, as far as yourself can truly exchange arguments with anybody) – I consider it trolling. When you laughingly attempt, like you did a while back, to present yourself as of a left of centre persuasion – which flies in the face of everything you have ever said here – I consider it trolling.
As for the French riots, as I have already tried to explain to your worryingly thick skull, they have as little to do with islam as the Watts riots had with christianity. They were, and probably will be in the future, started by decades of a shameful policy towards the suburbs and by the racism that is still prevalent in a large part of French society. They were the actions not only of French youths of North African origin (lots of them are as “moslem” as you or me) but also of Portuguese, Asian or ethnic French (whatever that is). A quick search on Wikipedia will tell you that according to the head French internal security services, Renseignements Generaux, not really anybody’s idea of a leftist organisation, islamism had nothing to do with the riots. In France the only people to suggest that muslims were responsible for the riots were on the extreme right fringe: bluntly put, people like Le Pen who were keen to play on fears of islamism. What they meant was “Arabs” and didn’t want to fall foul of accusations of racism. Islam is not a race but islamophobia is often used as a cover for racism. You may want to reflect on the company you keep. I could have called you things a lot worse than a troll…
To conclude and maybe come back on the subject of integration, yes, we need, on both side of the Channel, to do more to integrate immigrants and children of immigrants. Live and let live, the British way, and shutting people on the side while telling them they have the same rights as everybody else, the French way, is simply not good enough.
OB, sorry if my reply comes across as too strong but I am fed up with people who obviously cannot wait to be standing in “rivers of blood” of their own making so that they can tell us that Enoch Powell was right all along…
That’s all right Arnaud. I’m somewhat fed up myself.
I’ll tell you what it is, Richard. You guilt trip us by pointing out that you left school at 14 etc, but then you take advantage by doing all this flaming. That’s not fair – and it’s disruptive. You like B&W – so you shouldn’t make its comments seem trollish.
Arnaud What you are saying is that basicly it is our fault that a large number of moslem imigrants are not intergrating into mainsteam society and because I take isue with that you imply I am facist(Le Penn)or racist (Powell). Just for the record I have no problem with imigrants or imigration whether the people are from Africa,Poland,Asia or even France, I even dont have a problem with moslem imigration although I think it should be on a case by case basis at least untill the threat from radical islam subsides. What I do have a problem with is honour killings,f.g.m,sharia courts,burkas, anti semetism and holocaust denial being preached in mosques, cartoon riots,demonstators with behead those who insult islam signs and on and on, as every day passes there are more and more demands for censorship with the ever present threat of riots and mayhem if the demands are ignored, as any good liberal should be I am sick of it! here is Hitch on the matter. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/06/hitchens200706 Here is a short piece on growing antisemetism in France. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/international/26antisemitism.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
finaly paper881/news/2002/04/02/Newsnationworld/Synagogue.Firebombings.Lead.To.Fears.Of.Rising.AntiSemitism.In.France-2126567.shtml
No, what you are doing is you are constantly making links between societal problems and islam. Newsflash, Richard. All our problems won’t be solved by getting rid of islam! Criminality in Britain, or in France, or in the US, is not caused by islam. The French riots, or the riots in the north of England a few years ago, were not caused by islam. I live in Peckham in South London and crime there is not of muslim origin (it’s mainly drug related, which in a lot of cases means “yardies”). But hey, that doesn’t stop you from putting it all on the back of the “moslems”!
So, yes I say we have to do more to integrate this people in our societies because you know what? We’ve done shit all! In Britain the very multiculturalism that Hitchens is railing against has insured that there was no pressure on the immigrants to integrate and change their ways (and don’t mistake me, I am for them to change their ways, by a lot) because the very fact that people in this country were reluctant to claim a moral superiority over the backwards cultures of rural India and Pakistan handed over much power to the mullahs and the imams. The very facts that muslims in general (and please don’t showcase the very few example of muslims who actually managed to drag themselves out of the quagmire, social mobility in Britain has been disastrous for ages) were kept too poor to actually afford to open a mosque or pay an imam and had to rely in lot of cases on Saudi Arabia, with disastrous consequences, should be a wake up call.
And you know what also? I am sure that you agree with 90% of all this! But you, or Hitchens for that matter (he doesn’t really answer his own opening question) have nothing to propose apart from, I suppose, “send them back to their own country”. And what country is that, pray? When we are talking about second or third generation immigrant. How many ancestors does it take to become British or French?
So you write like I spend my weekends chairing sharia courts and handing out the sharpened flints to FGM practitioners. We agree on these problems, you lump! But shall I remind you that FGM is illegal in Britain, that after a time when they were wary of being seen as insensitive the police is no trying to address the issue? That’s it is the same with honour killing? That Sharia law is not a part of British law (and that whatever deranged hate mongers like mad Mel Phillips may say, it will NEVER be part of British law, there is absolutely no chance of that)? That the people calling for the beheading of the Muhammad cartoonists were arrested and sentenced?
Talk about irony! As I am typing this, the BBC widget interrupts me with a piece about Victoria Climbie, the little girl abused and killed by her guardians. And guess what? They weren’t muslims these people, they were good christians and what they did, they did in the name of christ, as a lot of child abuse is done these days… When are you going to advocate the sending back of all christians to the Vatican, Richard?
Since the subject is (allegedly) the call to prayer…
Did it occur to anyone that you can broadcast over RADIO – using electromagnetic waves which no-one will even notice unless they deliberately tune in? Of course, I could be mistaken – maybe radio hasn’t been invented yet.