Persuasion

"Cause person to have belief".

Just looked it up in the Oxford dictionary. Isn't that interesting. I'd always thought the definition of persuasion was causing someone to change their belief. When do you ever meet someone who doesn't already have an opinion on most of life's aspects? I know little kids who hold very strong beliefs, sometimes based on the childish desire for everything to be fair, sometimes just based on their instincts.

Was it hard to persuade political leaders that Adolf Hitler was a threat to personal and worldwide safety? You bet. The story of Churchill's years in the wilderness is made all the more poignant because we know the outcome, the millions of dead, the loss of ancient beautiful architecture, the rationing of necessities, the genocide, the millions of soldiers who fought bravely and were brutalised by the experience. That's History 101.

Why is it hard for so many people I consider friends to see what I see, so clearly? I believe it's because I haven't learned the fine art of persuasion. I haven't found the collection of words that, if I string them all together well, will set off a mini explosion in the brain. "Heavens, what I thought about x is actually wrong."

One of my biggest conversions was getting over my horror of Ireland and Irish people, because of the propaganda I've been exposed to here in London concerning the so-called IRA. Merely crims who used violence to gain media attention and power and these days serious amounts of money. It makes me wonder if the terrorists in the middle east won't ultimately be exposed as sophisticated criminals too.

A girl said to me last night, in the friendliest setting you can imagine "when are they going to get Bush for all the money he made from oil-for-food". I was absolutely stumped and could not find the killer, persuasive words that would explain what I thought everybody knew, that Sodhim refused to deal with Americans and Brits. Well, except for Galloway. I thought that was oil-for-food 101.

I'm tired of being wrong. I'm tired of thinking that people understand that Islamofascism and the caliphate are one and the same, then reading the Guardian and finding out that this really eyewateringly simple fact isn't widely known by intelligent people who seem to follow current events.

Part of sharia law is about the enslavement of women. If swathing them in medieval clothing and beating them and mutilating genitals (weird that) doesn't give the game away then please tell me, what dictionary do I need, to find the words that will communicate to hearts and minds that stoning for alledged sexual misconduct is wrong, that executing gays is wrong. It's not "complex" as gay friends have said to me. It's just plain old fashioned and wrong.

I watched the Channel 4 programme "Great British Islam" through three times, thinking somehow I'd missed something important. Where was the logical explanation for "being sent to Pakistan for an arranged marriage" and wearing all the medieval clothing while the guys the female presenter was interviewing were in hoodies and cut up tee shirts with scary hair and scarier tatoos, just normal underclass accoutrements in Britain.

Just a few bits from that documentary:

There are 2 million muslims in Britain today and half of those were born in Britain. So 3% of the population is muslim, and nearly 50% are not born here.

The female presenter said that after 9/11: "Suddenly it became very important to me to look like a muslim, wear the headscarf."

January 1989 with the publicaton of the Satanic Verses: "Critical defining moments in British Islam – our religion is being misrepresented."

"My uncle burned the book on tv, he found the insult of this book unacceptable."

So, what was acceptable was the religious fatwah, sentencing Rushie to death for his work of fiction. Those are really useful, eye opening facts about the religion, that I'll grant you.

Professor Humayun Ansari is quoted on film: "They saw muslims as primitive people who didn’t understand british culture and free speech and they were denounced in the press as intellectual hooligans and behaving in ways that the Nazis did".

That's a valid assessment.

Female presenter: "The rushdie affair (sic) was a new departure in the history of british islam. Non muslims had to learn to deal with an increasingly vocal muslim community."

"The new millennium began with hope. Noone suspected that British Islam would be blown off course by a single event on foreign soil. Al queda’s attacks on New York’s Twin Towers
changed the political landscape for British muslims in how they saw themselves and how they were perceived by the rest of Britain."

Isn't that an interesting way to refer to September 11th.

"I don’t think that anyone expected that boys from Leeds would..."

I'll agree with her on that, they were boys, not men.

Professor: "The London bombers are a defining moment. These were British born and bred bombers, so muslims now have to actually consider how they’re going to resolve the crisis that is coming from within."

Female presenter: "At this point in the history of British islam, Muslims are being asked to prove their allegiance to this country but most of us were born here, brought up here, we feel british" Except at the beginning of the programme she said only 50% of the muslim population was born here...

Older guy in green tee shirt with very long hair: "They’ve put us on the outside because they’ve never understood us and all we’ve ever wanted is nothing more than what they’ve got but absolutely nothing less than what they've got."

An older lady: "We want to be integrated, we want to have our part in society but where are our role models, where are our cabinet ministers? We're now talking about citizenship, we’re talking about rights."

At the end of the programme the camera fixed on the female presenter, swathed in the British flag, wrapped around her head and her shoulders and falling past her waist.

I think this programme was a bid for understanding. I would have liked to hear a lot more from the professor they interviewed, for instance, what does he recommend, what other areas of history and sociology does he compare it to - that would have interested me.

First of November = white rabbit. Who taught me to say that? A British superstition. On the first day of the month, the moment you realise it, you're supposed to say "white rabbit". So I'll have good luck all month? Fingers crossed.