Death and politics

For some time now, the small town of Wootton Bassett has paid respect to fallen British soldiers, whose bodies are being returned from battle in Afghanistan and Iraq via the town to a mortuary. Recently, several muslims from a group called Islam4UK decided they wanted to use the town to make their own anti war protest march.

This is what someone had to say about it on one forum:

"I have to say that after listening to his sh.it I've never felt more like picking up a gun and killing some f.ucking muslim c.unts! Mainly the ones that will be with him on his little parade...... then the rest of em.

F.uck em."

Islam4UK is a fringe group which probably has less than 100 members, out of almost 2 million muslims in the UK. Its leader has had his organisations banned one by one for promoting or glorifying terrorism. Nonetheless they have managed to garner immense amounts of media attention.

"Why aren't mainstream muslims speaking up, if they're opposed?" The same, tired old arguments are being wheeled out. They are speaking out - the media just isn't interested because it doesn't make as juicy a story. Oh and look, there's even a facebook group protesting against Islam4UK. That will really show those evil muslims that we mean business.

No right thinking muslim would want to use occasions of grief as an opportunity to make some cheap political point. Most british muslims are against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, to differing extents and for different reasons. Sadly, our stock has fallen so low, our reputations become so tarnished, that anyone will now believe anything of us, no matter how low or inhuman. Now more than ever, it is incumbent upon every muslim to make that extra effort to reach out to their fellow human beings and remind them we are here and that we are not all filled with hate and nihilistic violence.

The latest conspiracy story is about Google. If you type in "Christianity is" into the Google search box, it starts generating the most common predictable search requests. Yet if you type "Islam is" you get nothing. People are up in arms, claiming that there's a conspiracy to appease those dangerous violent muslims. Google says it's just a programming bug. Which do you think is more plausible? If Google really wanted to deceive people, why not generate options like "Islam is a good religion", rather than deleting the entire predictive text option?