Border Control (Saudi Arabia issues demands to Qatar)

[Pies4shaw]

That's harsh. I don't think we should boycott Australia merely because the team tried to put the Saudis off by doing something that disrupted their cultural norms - but I'm willing to be persuaded.

[Mugwump]

^ and in any event, it's only soccer.

[stui magpie]

It's only soccer which is an absolute tip of a sport, but refusing to participate in a minutes silence before the game is a fkn disgraceful effort.

I don't buy the "it's not part of our culture" bullshit, you aren't at home now Toto. When others come to your country they are expected to fit in with your culture. "When in Rome".

Pack of disrespectful <snip>s, **** them and <snip>

[Skids]

It's called respect cnuts

[Mugwump]

It's not really about respect. It is coded support (or at least unconcern) about what happened, because of why it happened - and a signal of support for the underlying cause. All western nations and others affected by this scourge should refuse to play them.

Until we firmly reassert that our culture is not be relativized, we will not be respected by cultures which know what they are.

[stui magpie]

If they actually refused to participate because they considered that triumvirate of faecal haemorrhage who killed those people in London to be Martyrs, as I've seen reported, that says a lot.

[Pies4shaw]

It's only soccer which is an absolute tip of a sport, but refusing to participate in a minutes silence before the game is a fkn disgraceful effort.

I don't buy the "it's not part of our culture" bullshit, you aren't at home now Toto. When others come to your country they are expected to fit in with your culture. "When in Rome".

Pack of disrespectful <snip>s, **** them and <snip>

Do you think? Watching the game, I was actually bemused by the lining up. It isn't like Australia was the French national team lining up at the Stade de France or a band performing at the Bataclan. Two Australians were murdered on the other side of the world. What's to stand about at a sporting event? I'm not aware that they had any connection to the Socceroos - it just struck me as a trifle arcane.

[stui magpie]

I didn't watch the game as I don't watch soccer.

A trifle arcane, maybe. The point was that the Australians wanted to do it as a show of respect, the Saudi team management were asked, with notice, and declined. Repeatedly. Then apologised after the event as though it was an accident.

When you go to another country, plenty of things the locals do could be construed as arcane or weird or just plain dumb, but when in Rome.........

The refusal and then the belated apology, once criticised world wide, demonstrates a lot.

[Pies4shaw]

Bemusement, maybe?

[Skids]

So the Victorian state government are installing bollards for our protection hey.... what's next, issue visitors with bullet proof vests at Tullamarine?
I feel safer already

[thesoretoothsayer]

The point was that the Australians wanted to do it as a show of respect, the Saudi team management were asked, with notice, and declined. Repeatedly. Then apologised after the event as though it was an accident.

I'm not one to defend the Saudis but I did see another article that showed a couple of their blokes did stand still during the minute's silence.
All respect to those guys.
As for the others....

[stui magpie]

[Mugwump]

The only one I believe to be really sincere and thoughtful is the fellow from the Bosnian Muslim group. Until Muslims own the problem, rather than deny it, it will get worse. He owned it, the others engaged in denialism of variable sophistication. That schtick about "killing one innocent human being and you kill the whole world" is used repeatedly, without any consideration that innocence is not a concept applicable to unbelievers in the Quran, and the fact that there are many more injunctions commanding that they be slain.

It's a warlike religion, because 6th C Arabia was a very warlike place and war was a successful strategy for Mohammed. If you think religions are just emanations of human affairs, then Christ might have been the same in the circs but because he stood no chance of conquest, his message is peaceable. We should see it for what it is. A bad ideology rooted in the Arabian 6thC. Some good people follow it because it is their culture, and good people know, at some level, that much of it is barbarous and to be ignored. But the underlying message probably leaches even into the minds of the good, at some level.

[stui magpie]

^

Little doubt if you read up on the evolution of Islam, how it evolved as Mohammed moved from a lay preacher pretending to be a Jewish prophet to an eventual warlord conqueror, the passages written in the last years (which are those that win in case of conflict with other passages) are all about warfare and conquest.

Like anything, it's all in how you choose to interpret it. many chose to follow the early passages when the Koran mirrored the teachings of Jesus, but in a true reading it's a manifesto for war that makes Mein kamph look like the scribbling of an illiterate.

[stui magpie]

Interesting stats

Muslims in Australia make up around 3.6% of the population.

9% of prisoners in Gaol identify as Muslim
20% of prisons in maximum security identify as Muslim.

That's a reasonable disparity.

I picked up the prison stats in an article about other prisoners sooking about Muslims getting microwaves in their cells during Ramadan. Didn't bother linking the article as it's irrelevant. Even prisoners have to be fed and if a microwave in the cell is the best means of feeding people later than others, so be it.