Wednesday 12 December 2007

The Real Reason Scots Fear Islam...

Like most Scots, I don't know much about Islam.

Like most, I don't even know any Muslims.

And it is not too surprising. Only 1% of Scotland's population is Muslim - coming mainly from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India.

This is not a way-of-life-threatening horde.

Yet a recent survey says that Scots are becoming more intolerant of Muslims.

You could say this is a result of press scaremongering. Ordinary people, kept in ignorance, have become polarised since the 9/11 bombings and war in Iraq.

And religious intolerance is hardly novel in Scotland - there's been hatred in the land ever since the Reformation. Look at the treatment Irish Catholics recieved until not that long ago.

However, the influx of Irish (Catholic and Protestant) into Scotland 100 years ago was a genuine mass movement. The influx of Muslims from the subcontinent barely registers outside of a few suburbs in Glasgow.

And the few young Muslims I have met and spent more than a few minutes talking to have been as Scottish as me.

I suspect that the reason that Scots fear Islam goes deeper than the fear of the unknown, or the fear of one's way of life becoming alien in the land one was born in.

It is because Islam forbids the consumption of alcohol.

A more terrifying prospect to a Scotsman could not be imagined!

Yet if Scots loosened their grip on the bottle and looked about themselves, they will see that alcohol causes many problems in Scotland.

And I say that as someone who likes a drink as much as the next man...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree with every word you say. I must add though i'm agreeing from keen observation mainly, as i'm a Welsh woman who's fallen in love with Scotland and moved here recently.

Anonymous said...

I love proddy Muslims me!

Here, you didn't just weave cloth of two different fabrics did you ........

Anonymous said...

And the few young Muslims I have met and spent more than a few minutes talking to have been as Scottish as me.


What quarter Chineese/Polish and English? :-)

I do think that Glasgow does have good muslim relations. I think we were the first city in Britain to erect a purpose built mosque.

It does worry me though that the PC brigade - as well as making me want to use words like retard and spacka - would make me modify my eating behaviour for Ramadan

Robert Craig said...

To think the posters above are not even pissed...

Anonymous said...

Arrghhh yer me - hic - bestest-est mate ye hic blooooargh!