[garinda]

Originally Posted by Pheonix

Hi

I am a new member to Accyweb and find some of the threads very intriguing as I work through some of the posts.

I have never been out of work and never relied on the state for support, on top of that I have served in the British Army although for only 9 years, in my time in the army I saw some good things and some bad, but I will never meet a bunch of better people in my life as they were always there for me as I was for them. At no time was colour creed or religion mentioned although there is always barrack room banter and you have a laugh and a joke and you learn to give as well as take.

Someone said that we should train the youngsters to go back and join the local militias, fine is it a good idea, NO, reason - these youngster when they are turned (whether they are muslims, christian, sikhs is immaterial) will come back and use those skills against us, just on a side note who trained the taliban in afghanistan (the American and the British so they could oppose the Russians, what are the taliban doing now fighting the Americans and the British and I have lost good friends in this cause).

Someone talked about integration, my response is you do not clap with one hand it takes two.

I have lived in Accrington for over 40 years, I have a lot of friend from all walks of life, colour, religion and yes Freemasons aswell.

I am also god-father to my friends kids and the family are catholics I am not.

Now if was to tell you that my ethnicity is not British or English and I am a muslim will your views or opinions of me have changed since you started to read this post. Why? you do not know me. The point that I am making is that we need to get to know people as individuals not as groups or what religion or colour they are, but who they are as themselves and yes this must work both ways.

There is a lot more I could say but for now I will leave it at this as each person must conduct themselves in life as they see fit, after all we do live in a free and democratic country.

I hope I have not offended anyone with my comments as these are my personal views.

Certainly didn't offened me.

An excellent post.

The media love the idea of having a new scapegoat, and for the past couple of years it's been Islam, even though the majority of British Muslims are peace loving, hardworking citizens.

We certainly didn't brand all Catholics as potential terrorists, when for decades we were attacked by a tiny minority of people.

Until a decade ago the most famous Muslim in the world wasn't Bin Laden, it was someone who always tops the polls of the most popular sportsman of all time, Mohammed Ali.