I just like going to places off the beaten track. Shiraz has so much history and is a beautiful place. Its the place where the ruler of Dubai studied and is only an hour away. Too cold for now but maybe in the spring IA. My freind brought in some Irania cakes, very tasty indeed. Shiraz Will they accept the Somaliland passport? or shall i use the Somali one?

What is a Muslim and does Shia fit into that category?

Like i said, this is the fault of Somalis period.

^^maxa dacay?

^^Not to sure about that as it removes what other kids may want to aspire to (an example). I dont segregating according to talent should be encouraged. Rather, an atmosphere of competition, in both the 'ordinary' kids and the 'swots/boffins' sub-class (all classes have sub classes of swots/boffins, ordinary and 'shy' (for want of a better word) kids), should be encouraged. Not sure what schools are upto these days. I keep hearing of kids going to Saturday schools etc. I have a young niece whos very bright mashallah and loves Saturday school.

Horta waxad tidhada alxamdullilah dabeetona ka yar waxad geeni extra curricular lessons/classes and see what happens (could be a future NASA Space probe designer/engineer). Mashallah

Democracy yes, based on separation of religion and state no, not sure about free market economy cos i dont know what it entails, rule of law? what about it?

Holocaust Denial or Smart Move? Why would a man of obvious intelligence, as President Ahmedinejad of Iran surely is, want to provoke the West by inspiring a conference meant to look at the Holocaust? What is really behind the 'Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision' conference? Throughout Western media, from the day this conference was announced until today, and for many more days to come I am sure, nowhere is this question asked: Why is this conference being held? Rather, we see a lot of fingers pointing at Mr. Ahmedinejad's 'obvious' anti-semitism and Holocaust denial. Furthermore, it is taken for granted that this is the case. President Ahmedinejad cannot be anything else other than an anti-semite who is bent on exterminating the Jews living in Israel. Yet, no one has bothered to ask why he doesn't start with the 30 000 or so Jews living in Iran. Why doesn't he start, for example, with Moris Motamed, an Iranian Jew who just happens to sit in Iran's Parliament. How did he get to be a member of the Iranian Parliament, anyway? Was he elected? I thought there was no democracy in Iran. Hmmmm. Could it be that Mr. Ahmedinejad is not interested in picking up where Hitler left off? After all, it wouldn't be all that difficult to kill 30 000 people. Look at Iraq. Unless of course he is afraid that the whole world would spring into action. After all, we all know that the life of one Jew is worth the life of a thousand Muslims. Right? To kill 30 thousand Iranian Jews would mean killing the equivalent of 30 million people. The world would most certainly not allow that. Right? What if Mr. Ahmedinejad is doing one of the most sane things in the world? What if he is merely calling the West's bluff? Remember a while back, how the Islamic world was up in arms over the publication of a cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammed? People in the West pointed to Islamic reaction and said "See, these people are backward. Look at how they react to something as self evident as freedom of speech." Well, it seems to me that Mr. Ahmedinejad has made a fool of the West by tricking us into behaving in the same way. Mr. Ahmedinejad pinpointed the one thing that would stir up controversy in the West. Just as it is a sacrilege to depict the prophet for Islam, so it is a sacrilege to question the Holocaust in the west. Being an intelligent man, and knowing full well that the Holocaust happened, Mr. Ahmedinejad has not questioned the Holocaust itself. Rather, he questioned the myth that has grown around it and how it has been used by Israel and the West in order to deny the rights of the Palestinians. A smart move by the President of Iran. I don't think that Mr. Ahmedinejad believes that some new evidence will be brought forth that will help the world see that the Holocaust did not happen. He himself knows that it did. What he wanted to achieve with this conference he did: he got the Western media and governments to overreact and by this to show the Islamic world that the West is untrustworthy and carries a double standard when it comes to Muslims. It can offend them at will, but they will not stand for their 'holy taboos' to be questioned. Surely the West is now behaving as if a taboo has been broken. Perhaps this is a good opportunity for people in the West to reflect on the necessity of respecting the taboos of other people, and to see that they serve a purpose and are not just there because people are 'backward'. Also, it may help us to question our own taboos. What if the Holocaust has been used as a weapon against the Palestinians? Is that an impossibility? What if a mythology has been built around the death of 6 million Jews? There's no denying, to my mind, that millions of Jews were killed, but how has this fact been used ever since? Has it been used to beat people into submission? Has it been used to intimidate North Americans especially, into an uncritical attitude towards Israel for fear of being called anti-semites and racists? Perhaps. It may not be such a bad thing for us to think about these things... Chris Voidis http://www.yioni.com/counter-spin.html A contribution on CiF

Iran hosts Holocaust conference Iran says the conference is aimed at providing a forum to air views about the Holocaust Iran has opened a conference to examine the Holocaust and question whether Nazi Germany used gas chambers to kill Jews, drawing condemnation in the West and criticism from Iran's Jewish community. Jewish rabbis were present on Monday at the government-sponsored event Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision, alongside academics from Europe. Some European countries have made it a crime to deny the Nazi killing of six million Jews from 1933 to 1945. Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran's foreign minister, said in a welcome address: "The aim of this conference is not to deny or confirm the Holocaust. "Its main aim is to create an opportunity for thinkers who cannot express their views freely in Europe about the Holocaust." The event, which Iran has said will question whether gas chambers were actually used against the Jews, has drawn criticism from Holocaust survivors, Jewish organisations, human rights groups and Western governments. Sessions at the two-day conference, held at the foreign ministry's Institute for Political and International Studies, were to include Holocaust: Aftermath and Exploitation and Demography: Denial or Confirmation? The conference was inspired by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, who since coming to power last year, has been criticised for comments referring to the Holocaust as a "myth" and calling Israel a "tumour". Among the participants was American David Duke, a former Louisiana Republican representative. He praised Iran for hosting the event. "There must be freedom of speech, it is scandalous that the Holocaust cannot be discussed freely," said Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader. "It makes people turn a blind eye to Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people." French writer Georges Thiel, who has been convicted in France for spreading revisionist theories about the mass extermination of Jews, said the Holocaust was "an enormous lie". "Jewish people have been persecuted, that is true, they have been deported, that is true, but there was no machinery of murder in any camp, no gas chambers," he said. Participants included about half a dozen Jews from Europe and the US, some wearing badges depicting the Israeli flag crossed out. One wore a badge saying: "A Jew, not a Zionist." "We came here to put the Orthodox Jewish viewpoint," said British Rabbi Ahron Cohen. "We certainly say there was a Holocaust... But in no way can it be used as a justification for perpetrating unjust acts against the Palestinians." The conference has upset Iran's 25,000-strong Jewish community, said Moris Motamed, the sole Jewish representative in Iran's parliament. "Denying it [the Holocaust] is a huge insult," he said. "By holding this conference, they [the government] are continuing to insult the Jewish community." Many ordinary Iranians admitted to embarrassment about the event, which follows Iran's decision to hold a competition for cartoons about the Holocaust in October. A former senior government official, who declined to be named, said that hosting the conference was unwise given diplomatic pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme. He said: "Such conferences should not be held." AL J E

Israel, Palestine, peace and apartheid Americans need to know the facts about the abominable oppression of the Palestinians Jimmy Carter Tuesday December 12, 2006 The Guardian The many controversial issues concerning Palestine and the path to peace for Israel are intensely debated among Israelis and throughout other nations - but not in the United States. For the past 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticise policies of the Israeli government is due to the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices. It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defence of justice or human rights for Palestinians. Very few would deign to visit the Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Gaza City or Bethlehem and talk to the beleaguered residents. What is even more difficult to comprehend is why the editorial pages of the major newspapers and magazines in the US exercise similar self-restraint, quite contrary to private assessments expressed forcefully by their correspondents in the Holy Land. My new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, is devoted to circumstances and events in Palestine and not in Israel, where democracy prevails and citizens live together and are legally guaranteed equal status. It is already possible to judge public and media reaction. Sales are brisk, and I have had interesting interviews on TV. But I have seen few news stories in major newspapers about what I have written. Book reviews in the mainstream media have been written mostly by representatives of Jewish organisations who would be unlikely to visit the occupied territories, and their primary criticism is that the book is anti-Israel. Two members of Congress have been publicly critical. Some reviews posted on Amazon.com call me "anti-semitic," and others accuse the book of "lies" and "distortions". A former Carter Centre fellow has taken issue with it, and Alan Dershowitz called the book's title "indecent". Out in the real world, however, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. The book describes the abominable oppression and persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories, with a rigid system of required passes and strict segregation between Palestine's citizens and Jewish settlers in the West Bank. An enormous imprisonment wall is now under construction, snaking through what is left of Palestine, to encompass more and more land for Israeli settlers. In many ways, this is more oppressive than what black people lived under in South Africa during apartheid. I have made it clear that the motivation is not racism but the desire of a minority of Israelis to confiscate and colonise choice sites in Palestine, and then to forcefully suppress any objections from the displaced citizens. Obviously, I condemn acts of terrorism or violence against innocent civilians, and I present information about the casualties on both sides. The ultimate purpose of my book is to present facts about the Middle East that are largely unknown in America, to precipitate discussion and help restart peace talks (now absent for six years) that can lead to permanent peace for Israel and its neighbours. Another hope is that Jews and other Americans who share this goal might be motivated to express their views, even publicly, and perhaps in concert. I would be glad to help with that effort. · Jimmy Carter was US president from 1977-81. His book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid was published last month. This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in the Los Angeles Times carterweb@emory.nu hear - read comments by readers at bottom of page

Somalis are to blame for the mess. No one else!

Islamic militia pushing toward Somali border town POSTED: 1:25 p.m. EST, December 11, 2006 MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- Islamic militiamen were moving on a Somali town on the Ethiopian border, an Islamic movement official said Monday, adding they would try to seal the 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) frontier to keep out any advancing Ethiopian troops and trap those already in Somalia. Somalia's transitional government, which Ethiopia backs against the growing threat posed by the Islamic movement, has sent about 700 troops to defend the town, Tiyeglow, said Mohamed Ali Gaboobe, a government militia commander. That raised the possibility of another front line opening between the rivals. Tiyeglow is about 90 miles (150 kilometers) northeast of Baidoa, the only town the government controls. Tiyeglow, on the pothole-ridden main road between the Ethiopian border and Baidoa, is believed to be one of the towns through which Ethiopian troops have entered Somalia and may be on their supply route. Both the transitional government and Ethiopia have consistently denied there are Ethiopian troops in Somalia, with Ethiopia saying it only has a few hundred military advisers helping the transitional government form a national army. "Our fighters, with a large number of battle wagons, are now advancing on Tiyeglow. We are going to the town following an invitation from the local people, who had asked us to help them restore law and order," said Mohamed Ibrahim Bilaal, an Islamic movement official. "We will go to all border towns in our country to deprive our enemy of a route to enter into our country. Also we don't want the enemy inside Somalia to get an exit route to flee from it when the jihad [holy war] starts," Bilaal told The Associated Press by telephone. Later Monday, another Islamic movement official said that the group had begun imposing a fee on livestock sales in some markets of Mogadishu to raise money for the fight. Sheikh Nour Ali Tukade said that they would charge $1.50 a camel, 60 cents a cow and 30 cents a goat. The latest military buildup further raises fears of intensified conflict in Somalia. The Council of Islamic Courts, which controls the Islamic militiamen, already has hundreds of combatants within striking distance of the transitional government along four front lines in southern and central Somalia. Information Minister Ali Ahmed Jama Jengali said that following the Islamic Courts' repeated declarations of a holy war, more Eritrean and other foreigners are entering Somalia to join the Islamic militiamen. But Jengali did offer any evidence other than to say the government had received intelligence reports to that effect. A confidential U.N. report obtained by the AP in October said that there are 2,000 soldiers from Eritrea inside Somalia backing the Islamic movement, in addition to 6,000 to 8,000 Ethiopian troops in Somalia or along the border backing the government. Eritrea denies having any troops in Somalia. A Somali human rights group said Sunday that it feared renewed fighting in Somalia could lead to a repeat of past human rights violations, such as rape, torture, kidnapping and looting. Somalia has not had an effective central government since warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other. A transitional government was formed two years, but it has been unable to assert its authority over the country. Since June, the Council of Islamic Courts has seized Mogadishu and taken control of much of southern Somalia. Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. cnn.com

Posted on Mon, Dec. 11, 2006 Islamic militiamen said advancingMOHAMED OLAD HASSAN Associated Press MOGADISHU, Somalia - Islamic militiamen were moving on an Ethiopian border town to try to seal the 1,000-mile frontier and keep out any advancing Ethiopian troops while trapping those already in Somalia, an Islamic movement official said Monday. "Our fighters, with a large number of battle wagons, are now advancing on Tiyeglow," said Mohamed Ibrahim Bilaal, an Islamic movement official. "We will go to all border towns in our country to deprive our enemy of a route to enter into our country. Also we don't want the enemy inside Somalia to get an exit route to flee from it when the jihad starts," Bilaal told The Associated Press by telephone. Somalia's transitional government, which is backed by Ethiopia against the growing threat posed by the Islamic movement, has sent about 700 troops to defend Tiyeglow, said Mohamed Ali Gaboobe, a government militia commander. The latest military buildup further raises fears of intensified conflict in Somalia. The Council of Islamic Courts, which controls the Islamic militiamen, already has hundreds of combatants within striking distance of the transitional government in southern and central Somalia. Tiyeglow is about 90 miles northeast of Baidoa, the only town the government controls. Tiyeglow, on the potholed main road between the Ethiopian border and Baidoa, is believed to be one of the towns through which Ethiopian troops have entered Somalia and may be on their supply route. Both the transitional government and Ethiopia have consistently denied there are Ethiopian troops in Somalia, with Ethiopia saying it only has a few hundred military advisers helping the transitional government form a national army. A confidential U.N. report obtained by the AP in October said that there are 2,000 soldiers from Eritrea inside Somalia backing the Islamic movement, in addition to 6,000-8,000 Ethiopian troops in Somalia or along the border backing the government. Eritrea denies having any troops in Somalia. A Somali human rights group said Sunday it feared renewed fighting could lead to a repeat of past human rights violations, such as rape, torture, kidnapping and looting. Somalia has not had an effective central government since warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other. A transitional government was formed two years but it has been unable to assert its authority over the country. Since June, the Council of Islamic Courts has seized Mogadishu and taken control of much of southern Somalia. --- Associated Press writer Salad Duhul in Mogadishu contributed to this report. source

^^True, there is a healthy Somali community in Damascus by all acounts. I want to go to a place called Shiraz in Iran. My freind (Iranian) advised me to use my 'Somali' passport instead of her majesty's as i wouldnt need to apply for a visa. The carab/muslim tag does have some benefits.

Islamists target Ethiopia border Somali Islamist fighters are heading for a town near the border with Ethiopia, aiming to cut off the government base in Baidoa, they say. The Islamists accuse Ethiopia of fighting with the forces of the government in Baidoa - charges denied by Ethiopia. The military build-up in the town of Tiyeglow follows fierce fighting on Friday and Saturday. There are fears of a regional conflict breaking out in Somalia. Meanwhile, Uganda has said it will not send peacekeeping troops to Somalia unless security improves. Last week, the UN Security Council approved plans for an African peacekeeping force but Uganda was the only country whose troops were named as ready to go. The Islamists reject the idea of sending foreign peacekeepers. Government movement Tiyeglow is about 150 kilometres (90 miles) north-east of Baidoa, the only town the government controls, on the main road to Baidoa from Ethiopia. "Our fighters, with large number of battle wagons, are now advancing on Tiyeglow," said Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) official Mohamed Ibrahim Bilaal. "We will go to all border towns in our country to deprive our enemy [Ethiopia] of a route to enter into our country." Government commander Mohamed Ali Gaboobe said they had sent some 700 troops to Tiyeglow on Sunday to prevent "Islamist expansion". On Friday, a senior UIC official called on all Somalis to join their fight against Ethiopia. Ethiopia denies taking part in fighting but admits to having hundreds of military trainers in Baidoa. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi says Ethiopia has made preparations in case of an Islamist attack. Analysts says the clashes and artillery exchanges that took place south-west of Baidoa on Friday and Saturday could be the opening shots of the long-anticipated war for control of Somalia. Ugandan Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Oryem Okello told Reuters news agency that there could be "all-out war" in Somalia. "We have decided that at this particular time, we should not go to Somalia," he said. The UIC has taken control of most of southern Somalia since taking the capital Mogadishu in June. bbc.co.uk

Well done SOL. We take this forum for granted but alot of hard work has gone into establishing and maintaining it over the years. But a brief history of how it started - when and why would be good.

By Ibtisam When i was getting off the train i realised that there is a slience carriage that i could've gone to! Its not your fault you are a not so well travelled Londoner. You are not alone! Last week i jumped a queue of maybe 300 people. I went to the front of the queue to try and get in before everyone else. My workmate was turned away and was 'told' to get to the back of the queue. I was let in. I was out within 5 mins. As i was leaving i spotted my freind at the back of the queue. The following day he told me how he waited from 1pm to 7pm to be seen (with a 4 hour break for lunch). I was let in because i'm 'arab' and he was told to get to the back because he was Indian. I felt terrible!

Originally posted by J B: quote: EDIT ^^So you do believe in Angels! ** JB takes his belongings and moves to the political section . ** I'm seeking asylum from Northerner's political theology. I'll tell you something, you may be beheaded if you go to the politics section

Here we go again. A: Since my stance is a function of your incoherent claim and you woulden't define your God, my stance can only be proved if you define God and existence, my proof demonstrate that there is no empirical evidence for your claim. JB, stop running in circles my friend. Avoiding the question posed by claiming incoherence and a lack of a definition is just an excuse. I don’t think I need to further qualify god or the word’existence’ to you as I’m sure you are a clever boy J. B: you're in no position to know what i've critically assessed, hence B is rationally false claim. You are right, but I also don’t see anything in the way of support for your position through the reading of religious texts (as most people try to do when presenting a case for or against). You must assess the supporting evidence for, even if you think its not worthy, and present your findings. I for one would love to read some of it. critical thinking is my only thought process where i critically examine the claims and crtique the arguments by applying logic to safeguard my intellectual integrity LOL @ logic

Very interestin David Letterman (is that show still on?)

EDIT ^^So you do believe in Angels! unlike you, i don't read anything into texts, i just apply a critical thinking, thus stay neuteral in my reading. Man, I have been pointing towards your ‘critical/rational thinking’ for the past 3 or 4 posts by trying to highlight it’s short-comings - that it is not critical nor rational as: a) You cant prove your stance – there is no god b) You havnt critically assessed the literature that points towards the contrary – there is one god

^^^looooool, Lehamn and Drogba are what? 6ft 5" and they fall at the slightest contact. A Good ploy by Lehman to get a reaction from Drogba which worked. But i'm sure Drogba got booked in the first half for mouthing at the ref. If that was the case then it would have been a 2nd booking. I think the ref handled it well

The US is not free from Islamophobes, but nor is it a racially monolithic culturally static state like Tony Blair's Britain Gary Younge in Minneapolis Monday December 11, 2006 The Guardian Afew weeks ago, Washington-based radio host Jerry Klein announced his own very radical plan to assuage public fears of terrorism. All Muslims, he suggested, should be branded with a crescent-shaped tattoo or be forced to wear a red armband. The phones rang off the hook. The first caller said Klein was "off his rocker". The next thought he was a genius. "Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country," the caller said. "They are here to kill us." And so it went on, with Klein being praised or pilloried, until he finally confessed that the whole thing was a hoax to see how deep the rivers of American Islamophobia ran. "I can't believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said," he told his listeners. "It's beyond disgusting." When it comes to popular prejudice and state repression, the Muslim experience in the US does not seem to have differed much from the rest of the western world since September 11. Klein was pushing at an open door. A Gallup poll this summer showed that 39% of Americans supported requiring Muslims in the US, including American citizens, to carry special identification. In 2005 the Council on American Islamic Relations (Cair) recorded a 30% increase in the number of complaints received about Islamophobic treatment. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the US government undertook the "preventative detention" of 5,000 men on the basis of their birthplace, and later sought 19,000 "voluntary interviews". Over the next year, more than 170,000 men from 24 predominantly Muslim countries and North Korea were fingerprinted and interviewed in a programme of "special registration". None of these produced a single terrorism conviction. According to a Pew research survey this year, Muslims are viewed less favourably in the US than in Russia, Britain and France. There has been progress. Last month Minneapolis elected the nation's first Muslim congressman - an African-American convert, Keith Ellison. But with each advance come new challenges. There is a brouhaha over Ellison's request to swear an oath on the Qur'an. But while many Muslims here looked to Europe in the hope that it might provide a counterbalance to America's disastrous foreign policy, they also look across the Atlantic in horror at the experiences of their co-religionists. There lies the paradox: the country that has done more than any other to foment Islamic fundamentalism abroad has so far witnessed relatively little of it at home. "Europe is not coping well with the emergence of Islam," says the executive director of Cair, Nihad Awad. "It has taken a long time for them to accept that Islam is part of its future and also part of its past." The different experiences have emerged partly, it seems, because the Muslim communities on either side of the Atlantic are so different. The patterns of migration have differed. A large proportion of Muslims who came to America arrived with qualifications and were looking for professional work. As a result, they are generally well educated and well off. According to a recent study by the Journal of Human Resources, the wages of Arab and Muslim workers in the US fell by 10% in the years following the terror attacks; but they are still better paid and better educated than non-Muslims. In Britain, the overwhelming majority of Muslims came from former colonies to live in poor areas and do low-paid work, and they remain the most economically impoverished. In 2004 Muslims had the highest male unemployment rate in Britain, at 13% - three times the rate of Christians. Meanwhile, 33% had no qualifications - the highest proportion of any religious group. In the US, most Muslims had been keeping their heads down. "Before 9/11, Muslims were all too happy to be building homes and families," says Ali Jaafar, who runs a medical research company in Minneapolis. "Afterwards, they were doubly shocked. First by the attacks themselves and then to see their neighbours turn against them. After 20 or 30 years, we realised it was not the place we thought it was." To many Muslims in Britain, their neighbours reacted just as they thought they would. Bradford had gone up in flames several months before 9/11 and the BNP was already making a comeback. Yet it is notable that when Tony Blair lectures Muslims about integration, as he did last week, the issue of economic alienation barely ever arises. How are people supposed to integrate culturally when they cannot move professionally, economically or even geographically? Just over 50 years ago, the US supreme court banished the "separate but equal" policies that segregated state schools here; it seems Britain is embracing a dogmatic version of its antithesis - "united but unequal". "There do not seem to be many opportunities for people to integrate into the economy [in Europe]," says Fedwa Wazwaz, a board member of Minneapolis's Islamic Resource Centre. Wazwaz had arrived at al-Amal school in suburban Minneapolis to pick up her daughter, Maryam. On the wall in an office hangs a T-shirt asking "Got Islam?" - a play on a popular milk commercial - while a poster invites entrants for the Qur'an competition. This private Muslim school is the only one of its kind in Minnesota. Wazwaz, who is originally from Jerusalem, does not regard her desire to send Maryam there as one of segregation but as one of "preserving some sense of Islamic identity for the child". "Everybody needs a sense of their identity," she says. In a country where every national group gets its own day, complete with a parade, flags and delicacies from the home country, there is greater scope for understanding the difference between autonomy - a distinct cultural space base from which people interact with the rest of society; and segregation - where people seek to separate themselves from the mainstream. To qualify your national allegiance through ethnicity, race or religion is not necessarily regarded as diluting it (unless you're Mexican and demanding immigration rights). The Britishness currently on offer from New Labour, however, comes in just two flavours: Anglo and Saxon. Thus are the limits of the political class's understanding of cultural hybridity, rendering Britain a racially monolithic, ethnically pure and culturally static state into which non-white and non-Christian people can either adapt, or from which they should be banished. "Our tolerance is part of what makes Britain Britain. Conform, or don't come here. We don't want the hate-mongers, whatever their race, religion or creed," Blair said. Quite what one does with the hate-mongers who were born here - whether they are the jihadists or the BNP - is difficult to fathom. Finally, American identity is rooted in something more than mythology. Blair seeks to transform "values" that are evolving and contested into those that are "essential" and "common", by the power of rhetoric alone. Americans can reach for something more substantial - the constitution. "There are built-in constitutional rights that are guarantees," says Awad. "We have to work hard to protect our rights as citizens and also to safeguard the constitution." You would be hard pressed to find a Muslim here who is optimistic. Yet American identity is not something they are threatened with but an ideal they want the rest of the country to live up to. "There is a road map," says Jaafar "It may be difficult, but we are getting there." g.younge@guardian.co.uk here

JB, You disappoint me man! Well not really as i 'know' what you dont The Theist's conclusion is F(1) through incoherency , while the Atheist's conclusion is F(0) through rationally justified beleif. An Atheist's default position is not "there is no that particular God", it's an ignorant position, it's our natural position dare i add. According to Gödel's oroiginal proof: "If this assertion is unprovable, then it is true, and the formalization of number theory in question is incomplete. If this assertion is provable, then it is false, and the formalization of number theory is inconsistent." Now, I have never heard of this Godel nor am I into philosophy but don’t you think his above statement is a little simplistic? Ala Darwin’s “we just came to be” theory? I will take it that you cannot prove your stance but still think its true. But one can’t have such an assumption without reading texts in favour of the positive (there is a god). Just as you do when writing essays/reports, one must delve deeper into the argument and cover all sides. I assume you have’nt gone quite that far. Please do and report back any findings. We shall continue in the future IA (god willing) Ps I have given up on politics (for now)!

Well done to him. But please take that ear stud off!