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The idea of purity, of purifying the land or world of this and that evil depends upon a false belief and as neoplationists say there is no more dangerous thing for a person to have than a false belief. The Socratic method was to expose these false beliefs that act like parasites on the mind, on the life force and deflect people away from their real benefits and happiness.

How do we free people from their false beliefs? The little known philosophic method undermines the very core of the fantasy ie the self image that give it its power.

The reason it is not used, i suspect, is in using this method we might not only change the beliefs of others but also our own.

thank you for the site richard, i always enjoy your reports, i find your slightly tentative style a refreshing change from the usual over empahatic delivery and of course you are easy on the eye - very wide cheek bones, i ponder your lineage....

BUT, wrt the islam thing

a) we give to much airtime to cranks. can you imagine this amount of coverage for the bnp or alf? no wonder muslims feel paranoid

b) we need serious debate. as a poster elsewhere points out, the islamic revolution only looks like crass tribal violence but underneath it is deeply intellectually driven and that is why it is spreading - we really could see our hegemony ousted in the night if we are not careful so we need to take every intellectual argument and bring out our philosophers - not career politicians or self-marketed public spokespersons - to thrash out the logic of islam. at the very least we could perhaps persuade the islamic world that westerners are not deluded or depraved and that, political grievances notwithstanding, we would like to be allowed to retain our culture.

Your reports are misleading and border on villification. They may generate a lot of fuss but dont lead anywhere, I think thats good.

I don't have any issue about discussing things. We learn from differences. So it should be encouraged in all ways.

I've lived in the West for many many years now. The only problem when reporting about Islam and political Islam discussion is that all discussions quickly turn into hate-mongering propoganda and convincing that more than billion people are stupid or some thing of that kind.

What West has to realize is that Islam is powerful message that influenced and is influencing people around the world. By just demonizing Islam and political Islam for that matter and presenting only negative picture creates a huge void. Because as soon as some one meets a muslim or visits muslim country credibility of the western media itself under suspicion.

On the other hand West is too afraid of telling true tenets of Islamic theology and practice in word and spirit due to inherent western insecurity in Western beliefs which are basically eroded in order to achieve material gain.

I completely welcome the idea of the author above to present philosophical challenges to the Islamic world. Given free media you would soon realize that it is not theology itself that is main source of problem. I have lived in Islamic society for even more years than I lived in West. So I can say that.

Islam in its teachings is practised more in West than in the Islamic world if you are able to look beyond some stereotypical and cultural boundaries.

Though Western media has tried to distort the whole image of Islam by presenting covered women and violence. But what actually Islam and Caliphate stands for in a Muslim mind is what most of Western values in practice are today i.e. equality, and justice for all, respect for life, small vertical distance between a man on the road and the ruler. List goes on.

Now real problem arises when muslims want caliphate or Islamic system above said values are what comes to the mind of a muslim first of all. But what comes to a western mind is exactly the opposite - taliban style absurdistan.

Now west struggels to keep Taliban style absurdistan away and Mulims want Calipahte (basically western value based system).

Well West is not stupid. West has enough scholars and West knows the reality very deep and good. It is not good intentions of the politicians, money-making media, religious groups and many others that all want to potray other picture of Islamic world and internal struggle in Islamic socities.

I personally think this is very wrong approach because things have gone wrong and in this way West has kind of devised an enemy. Makingup an non-existing enemy. Atleast whole struggle in Islamic World was internal to start with.

All this noise of Laden and his followers could have been tackeled much easily.

This is how.

Reading most of the works of western intellectuals one easily finds that Western scholars (Bernard Lewis to name one) it is not Islam itself that allows Terrorism in its name. Many Islamic countries are victims of the terrorism itself. And 99.9% Muslims abhore terrorism. No doubt about that.

What west could have done is to work with Islamic world to tackle the issue. West is working with Islamic countries too but just it has created whole wrong image now. What was instead done - Bush and Western media and probably intellactuals found hot topic to blame Islam and all muslims for Terrorism primarily to denegrate Islam and Muslims since competing ideology. Which backfired and backfired badly.

Now problem has blown out of all proportions with all its issues that we read these days.

Even today technique is - blame all Muslims for terrorism so much that they're forced to fight this menace. Please note all muslim countries have been on board against terrorism. So what is the problem. How terrorism issue is different than poverty or AIDs. What so loud fuss. Reality is West wants to downlet Islamic World and if so then West has to be ready for what it sows.

When a muslim looks into his soul and all teachings of Islam and prophet it doesn't makes sense to him. I personally went through all this soul-searching too. Islam in no way allows terrorism. Please note perverts are every where. They should be treated as criminals and not heros of other side.

Since masses on Muslim side reach the same conclusion soon (missing link between Islam and Terrorism).

Now field is claimed by radicals on both sides. Muslims tell you see West is hypocritical. They want to defame and denegrate you as Muslims and they are enemies of Islam. To prove the point old bogus middle-ages history is invoked on both sides. What west says you probably already know by billions of Islam bashing sources.

Let us be true to each other both extreme sides are hypocritical and have their own agendas. But what is really shamefull her is that stage is commanded by extremists on both sides, ignoring 99.9% of the middle masses.

One more thing is that West analyzied and found that by finding an enemy outside West it would unite West. Though working technique is a very very bad choice. From here crap like clash of civilizations and like arises.

Remember by just throwing Jews out of Europe in Israel haven't solved any thing. May be West has had some trouble-free decades but what they opted for is much worse in my view.

Today three big parts/civilizations of the world see West as common trouble maker: Russia, China, and now Islamic World. Yes yes I know now more than 2.5 billion are wrong. It is always West that is right.

But may be West do need to soul search too. Sorry for my this long crap but may be there is atleast 1 sentence that contributed positively.

More worrying than violent islam is intellectual islam.

Physical terrorism is a coordinated distraction from mental terrorism.

Once we block the advance of islamic propaganda the violence will subside because there will no longer be a purpose for it.

The latest propaganda from MCB is yet another unchallenged injection of autocratic ranting into our democratic polity.

To compare the experience of muslims in Britain to the extermination of the jews in Germany, and on Krystallnicht, is so deeply offensive to me, as a christian whose family gave their lives to end the reign of Hitler, that I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to all my fellow jewish citizens that such an invalid and insulting comparison could be made by a British man.

I feel that it is time that the MCB declared their role in society. Are they a religious voice commenting on political affairs or are they a political lobby like Liberty? This makes a huge difference in how we respond to such aggressive attacks on the existing national culture.

What we are witnessing is a coded message to British muslims encouraging them to put shariah principles before British law.

It is enshrined in our legislation that men have a duty to control their behaviour regardless of what women wear - Yes means Yes and No means No, howver we dress and wherever we go.

most western men have undergone a seismic change in attitude to women and I can see now that the liberation of the 1970s and 80s could not in fact have happened without this complicity.

why are we wasting our time re-enacting the last two decades?

courage! this is our 4th world war, the 3rd was cold and the 4th is hot, and we are living with the enemy. the war on terror is indeed a war and i must do my part for the sake of my daughters and grand daughters.

I would very much like to know who it is that our government are frightened of and are bullied by. Why have they, the government insisted on these three so called residents being returned to this country. They are not even British Moslems or Nationals, so why do the government insist on their return here. They cannot be left to their own devices but will have to be watched. Which means that it will cost the British taxpayer thousands of pounds because of the manpower involved. I would surmise the ordinary man in the street are not at all interested about these three men. So who is it that forced the Government to insist on their return.I would also suggest that they delve into the reasons that they were arrested where they were and thoroughly check their story. I cannot understand this administration at all, they are so concerned with our security and then insist on the return of these men who are of no concern of this nation at all.
Yours sincerely
I. Drake

I just think that Mr Richard and all of you can keep commentin about the 'defining' and 'important' issue of the century or millenium but one thing alludes you and proves how obsessive you all are. Comparitively to poverty, crime and other causes radicalism is nothing compared. A brief maths lesson may be in order but if you really cared about protecting you would work more on these issues that are the major killers rather than obssess with people who just don't seem to agree with your opinions.