Letters II: Every belief system should be open to debate and critique

I’m reminded of an observation by Richard Dawkins. After satirical cartoons about Islam’s founder appeared in a Danish newspaper, Christian churches throughout the Middle East and Africa were burned, Libyan Christians killed by rioters, the Italian Consulate in Benghazi was wrecked, and Nigerian Christians were placed in tyres and set on fire ... allegedly due to Muslim hurt. But, as Dawkins wryly put it: “Fortunately our political leaders were on hand to remind us that Islam is a religion of peace.”

Meanwhile in Britain, there was TV coverage of demonstrators with placards saying “Slay All Who Insult Islam”. As a further irony, the original cartoons in the Danish newspaper had been supplemented by much more offensive cartoons deliberately created by Imams in Denmark before being circulated worldwide. Interestingly, this hysterical “hurt” was in contrast to the alacrity with which the Arab media publishes anti-Jewish cartoons.

The point is this: aggressive edicts in the Koran are abundant and cannot be disconnected from Islamic violence. And writers of integrity should not fear to critique aspects of any belief system that exhort violence or degrade one gender by another. Especially when they lead to murder and mayhem on our streets.

The Guardian recently published a letter from an ex-Muslim woman who pointed out that Muslim theologians are unanimous in declaring that no religious toleration was extended to non-Muslims at the time of Muhammad after he came to power. Their choice was death or acceptance of Islam. And, when eventually other Abrahamic religions were tolerated in some lands conquered by Islam, Jews and Christians were taxed, humiliated and made to give a fifth of their children to Islam. She highlighted that the Old Testament also contains noxious texts but these are not taken seriously nowadays. No-one is currently being turned into a pillar of salt or sacrificing their sons on mountainsides.

Europeans castigate themselves for colonisation but ignore that Islam too colonised lands and permanently destroyed other cultures. Western apologists are so obsessed with the past misdeeds of Christian religions that they are wilfully blind to the past and present misdeeds of Islam and unacceptable aspects of its theology. Individuals have a right to pursue and enact religious beliefs privately, but only as long as these — like other belief systems — respect human rights in a wider sense.
Joan Hutcheson
Address supplied

MISINFORMATION about Islam is rife, with many people knowing next to nothing about it other than what the media tells them.

Here’s a jolly exercise we all could do to dispel the myths. Each week you print one-by-one the chapters of the Koran and Hadith, Muhammad’s biography. On alternating weeks you could do the same with the New Testament. That way we can read for ourselves and compare Christianity and Islam.

We should start to conclude very quickly that there are overwhelming similarities between Jesus’s life and Muhammad’s life as well as their virtually identical philosophies! Right?

I’m certain that Christians would be OK with this and I cannot envisage any backlash coming from the Muslim community, can you? Because Islam teaches peace and tolerance to all people.
James Andrew Mills
Renfrewshire

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Put aside tribes and throw inept Tories out on their ear

WE have a detailed plan, sayeth David Davis, which spans over 100 pages ... after all this time, the Westminster Government has managed to cobble together their detailed plan on 100 pages. University students would be expected to produce better.

Excuse me for pouring scorn on you Dave, but it’s not the quantity but the quality that counts, and by what I have read and heard, all you have come up with on these fabled 100 pages are two sentences: “1. No deal is better than a bad deal, and 2. We seek a free trade agreement and an associated customs agreement from the EU.” What’s on the remaining 99 pages is anybody’s guess.

Now if I’m not much mistaken, isn’t that what we have got at the moment as members of the EU — free trade and customs amongst a myriad other wonderful benefits? It seems, as we walk zombie-like towards a disastrous Brexit deal, that what in essence the Tory party want from Brexit is to control immigration and keep Johnny Foreigner out of the South East of Engerland at the expense of all else.

Theresa Maybe was savaged on the TV debate on Monday night, and she showed once again how poor she is when faced down with hard direct questions. So desperate was she becoming that she eventually fell back on the well-worn mantra “no deal is better than a bad deal”, and sadly this drew some applause from the obviously blue Tory members of the audience. It degenerated into near farce and even Paxman couldn’t get a straight answer from the Queen of obfuscation. This I find so typical of Westminster politics at the moment, that someone so patently, obviously inept and unfit to be Prime Minister is being opposed, sadly, by another also unfit to govern, thus rendering any real or forceful challenge to her and her party’s inward-looking delusional policies redundant. This leaves the Tories a free ride back to Number 10, hopefully not with the landslide majority she initially expected. The nearer the negotiations come the more nervous population should become, but sadly, apart from the SNP, Greens no-one seems to be perturbed. This is clearly a result of the continual barrage of ridiculous propaganda spewing from the right wing press, which clearly works on the adage that if you say the same thing often enough, people will believe it. It is also the case that not only are they vociferous but they bully all who dare stand up and call them out on their lies. That is why, as the election nears, we all have a duty to examine the facts as best we can, put aside tribal loyalties and use our right to vote. Never in my lifetime has a population had such a responsibility to get it right, and throw this mean-spirited, selfish and narrow-minded government out on their ear.
Ade Hegney
Helensburgh

THE LibDems have the luxury of knowing that they will not be held answerable for their pledges, which liberates them to promise anything they hope will win some votes, including, one would think, the Kingdom of Heaven, or Utopia.

There is always the possibility of a coalition, no matter how remote it seems. That would provide yet another opportunity to dispense with their “principles” in exchange for office, then to blame their senior partner for inevitable disasters.

If one needs reminding of precedent, think of Jim Wallace allied to Labour at Holyrood and Nick Clegg allied to Tories at Westminster.

We are reminded of news reports of the unworthy behaviour, while in office, of several LibDem ministers, at least one of whom was constrained to confess to being a stranger to the truth. It is disappointing to see a once honourable party abandon integrity and rely on candidates who are little better than carpetbaggers. Unpalatable home truths!
John Hamilton
Bearsden

I AM waiting with bated breath to hear Paul Nuttal’s explanation of the British Airways debacle.

While no firm conclusion has been reached as to the computer failure which caused the three-day meltdown, there is no dispute about the wholesale export of jobs by BA.

BA’s IT experts were made redundant en masse and their jobs shipped to not the EU but India. What is the Ukip take on this?
Amanda Baker
Edinburgh