peewee wrote:actually i have been trying to keep out of this argument but i decided to have my small say.
as you know i lived in a muslim country for 3 years and i am friendly with many muslims, even a small association with azriahmad, he lives in kuala lumpur and is muslim and is a great guy.
anyway i was renting an apartment from a malay diplomat, he is the malaysian ambassador to spain, at the time of the london bombing i met with him and he cried and said sorry on behalf of his religion, he was ashamed that these things were being done in the name of islam. i pointed out that he shouldnt be ashamed as most people are educated enough to realise whats happening. anyway we got to having a good chat about UK muslims and how some town halls cant even fly the english or british flag as some muslims are offended, he was astounded that we allow that in the UK. he believes that if they are british and want to live in britain they should respect britain and her cultures and traditions, just like i respect thai culture now i live there, even waking at 5 am one day a week to give food to the monks who pass the house, standing to attention twice a day when the national anthem is played, wai when i meet people and speak to them in thai as best as i can.
its not hard for me to do these things and i want to do them as i want to intrigate into the society as best i can. i believe to intigrate you have to embrace the culture, not complain about it at every chance you get like it seems a number of UK muslims do, and then have the audacity to complain about feeling segregated.
anyway i think my point is do not judge all muslims by the muslims you read about in the UK press. for every one extremist there are probably 10 muslims who disagre with them and embrace britishness. its a shame that people now look on them with suspicion but i do feel thats parlty their own doing for not intigrating properly
well said mate
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