EU Immigration Crisis Megathread

[Zanza]

Just having contact with extremists is not something that should in all cases be held against a politician. Our former interior minister was a criminal laywer for the Red Army Faction terrorists before his political career, but was not making their policies and motives his own.

[Martinus]

Did you guys read the article till the end? I think it's him referring to other moderate Muslims as "Uncle Toms" and the fact that he ran a campaign against the political opponent on the fact that he is a wrong kind of Muslim is what is damning, not his associations per se.

[Valmy]

Is it really though?

Yeah it is horrifying that a Muslim politician has to appeal to radical Islamists to be elected. That they are the largest grass roots organization among Muslims in Britain. How would that not be horrifying?

At best it's guilt by association.

Which is pretty damning for a politician. Appealing to radical xenophobes is helping Trump along. Does it matter rather he is actually a radical xenophobe?

[Martinus]

Is it really though?

Yeah it is horrifying that a Muslim politician has to appeal to radical Islamists to be elected. That they are the largest grass roots organization among Muslims in Britain. How would that not be horrifying?

At best it's guilt by association.

Which is pretty damning for a politician. Appealing to radical xenophobes is helping Trump along. Does it matter rather he is actually a radical xenophobe?

Yup, that too. As Nawaz puts it, it's the bigotry of low expectations - as bad associations are pretty toxic for white Christian politicians and they are expected to disown them.

[Valmy]

Just having contact with extremists is not something that should in all cases be held against a politician. Our former interior minister was a criminal laywer for the Red Army Faction terrorists before his political career, but was not making their policies and motives his own.

True. But this was different, he was actively courting their support by going after other Muslims and exploiting sectarian conflicts.

[Gups]

Is it really though?

Yeah it is horrifying that a Muslim politician has to appeal to radical Islamists to be elected. That they are the largest grass roots organization among Muslims in Britain. How would that not be horrifying?

At best it's guilt by association.

Which is pretty damning for a politician. Appealing to radical xenophobes is helping Trump along. Does it matter rather he is actually a radical xenophobe?

It's smear article with lots of vague inferences. It's a repeat of the same smears the Tories were coming out with and which have been pretty comprehensively debunked and disproved. 

It's simply not the case that he was elected because he sucked up to any religious group. I don't really understand what you mean when you say that radical Islamists are the largest grass roots organisation among Muslims.

[Valmy]

It's smear article with lots of vague inferences. It's a repeat of the same smears the Tories were coming out with and which have been pretty comprehensively debunked and disproved.

Is it? The guy seems to be critiquing the problems in British Muslim society and how they compelled this dude to act this way rather than smear him. He goes out of his way to state this several times. A smear campaign would make it sound like he was personally some sort of jihadi, instead the accusation is that political expedience was the motivation. Now he could be wrong but I don't see why a muslim would be motivated to portray his own people as being Islamist.

It's simply not the case that he was elected because he sucked up to any religious group.

When you say elected which election are you talking about here? Several were discussed in the article.

I don't really understand what you mean when you say that radical Islamists are the largest grass roots organisation among Muslims.

I mean what was said in the article.

[Martinus]

You see, Valmy, what we have to put up with here in Europe?

[Valmy]

You see, Valmy, what we have to put up with here in Europe?

It is just frustrating that neither Zanza or Gups seem to have given any evidence of even having read the article but seemed eager to tell me what it was saying.

I don't know if that is typical in Europe but it is pretty typical of Languish.

[Martinus]

It's funny because it's exactly the same mechanism the author describes in the article.

[The Brain]

I don't really understand what you mean when you say that radical Islamists are the largest grass roots organisation among Muslims.

I mean what was said in the article.

You mean this?

And sadly, extremists remain among the most powerful organized forces in Britain's Muslim grassroots.

[Valmy]

Yes, that. I may have quoted it imperfectly but still horrifying.

[Camerus]

It's a pretty damning article.  Good thing all of the examples in it have been debunked, though, or I'd have some serious questions about this guy. 

[Valmy]

It's a pretty damning article.  Good thing all of the examples in it have been debunked, though, or I'd have some serious questions about this guy. 

Ok. I will ask again how have they been debunked? Why would this guy lie about it? Especially after the election had taken place?

[Camerus]

It's a pretty damning article.  Good thing all of the examples in it have been debunked, though, or I'd have some serious questions about this guy. 

Ok. I will ask again how have they been debunked?

That was me being tongue in cheek. 

Seriously, there do seem to be such a variety of instances offered by that article that it seems difficult to dismiss them all, but then I admit to knowing almost nothing else about him.