It's not even the Muslims I'm bothered about. Most Muslims are too busy living their own lives to get involved in marches and protests and suchlike. I acknowledge that.

It's everyone else. It's all my friends and colleagues who were quick to condemn the nazis in Charlottesville, who were happy to share "punch a nazi" memes, who were eager to make statements about not tolerating intolerance, who were keen to point out that these bastards with the swastikas are the thin end of the wedge... but who, after the Barcelona attack, quietly changed their profile pictures to the Catalan flag and offered their "thoughts and prayers" and - well, that's all.

Where is the outrage from ordinary people? Not from Pegida and the EDL and the rest of the usual suspects - from people who find extreme right wing politics nauseating, people who support gay marriage and women's rights and the separation of church and state - where is their outrage about these fascist bastards who throw gay people off tall buildings and treat their women like chattels and massacre Christians and Yezidis with impunity and fight for the establishment of a theocracy which would make the DUP look like Harvey Milk? Where is the outrage from the left and the middle?

There is none. There are just "thoughts and prayers" and flags on profile pictures.

I gleefully joined in the nazi-baiting myself. I scoff at the notion of "free speech" for fascists - they've already had their say, as far as I'm concerned - and think it's perfectly fine to kick the crap out of people who wave swastika flags in public places. My opinion hasn't changed in that regard.

So why the double standards when it comes to Islamist terrorism? Why is it only the nutters and skinheads who seem willing to express their anger at 400+ murders in Europe in the past three years alone, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of people being massacred from Nigeria to the Philippines? Where are the voices of those who were so very, very loud last weekend? Why are all attempts to raise the subject met with accusations of bigotry, xenophobia and scorn?

I'd be grateful if somebody could explain to me what the difference is, because right now I'm seeing my 20+ years' understanding of the world crashing down around my ears and I could do with some help in making sense of it all.

But I doubt I'll get a reasoned explanation. What I'm expecting is someone to come along and tell me I'm a bigot or a racist and that will be that.

What goes around comes around, eh?

My hypothetical was about White Supremacists, so white people should be the first to send the message... of course everyone is welcome at the hypothetical protest march

It's a handful and it's weak. Sorry. The whole response in general is weak, even from the governments. The governments plan is reactionary, they are behind the ball playing catch-up. Where is the plan for a real change? There is none. It's a big mess, and getting worse by the day. And everyone is just standing by and watching.

Indeed. Compare the number of Muslims protesting against terrorism to the hundreds of thousands who turned out to protest about some Mohammed cartoons a Danish company printed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllan...ns_controversy

And the Charlie Hebdo ones:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-charlie-hebdo

When similar numbers of Muslims turn out to protest about Islamic terrorism I might begin to believe they actually mean it. So far all responses have been pretty pathetic in comparison.

Add to that the foiled plots also.

The lunacy was already evident when those sex attacks occurred in Cologne, and the media and authorities sat on their hands deliberately withholding details or even that it had occured - thats collusion of the worst kind. And thats the Germany of 2016 (new years), not something you have just read out of a history book. Scary.

DB my thoughts on your musings is that a lot of it comes down to stubbornness. People hate to admit they were wrong.

There are a lot of people who have spent so long demonizing anybody that has dared to speak out against problems in the Islamic community that they now simply cannot bring themselves to speak out against it, lest they give credibility to all the people they have denounced as racists. Much easier to double down.

You also asked 'where are the protest' when you are either ignorant or just wanted to ignore them to make your feeble point.

If White supremacists killed 300-400 anybodies, I would expect precisely 0 protests from them. Because white supremacists are all exclusively cun*s and Nazis and that's pretty much their MO. Just like you see 0 Islamic terrorists protesting beheadings or any of the other awful things they do.

Maybe I'm going mad, but I totally see plenty of condemnation and anger regarding Islamic terrorism whenever there is a terrorist attack.

Maybe it depends on the social circles we move in? I mean I see a lot of condemnation on EF for a start. In my own social circles with family and friends I see a lot of condemnation, I mean every time there is a terrorist attack I don't phone them all around...but I do see it whether it be in real life or on facebook.

In particular when I used to commute to work I'd listen to the BBC Asian Network. After 10am they have (or used to anyway) a phone in show which really does explore these issues. They would always have a show about 'another terrorist attack' when there was one, and again plenty of condemnation.

The protests are where were feeble. The whole religion of Islam needs to be reformed, there needs to be another "Arab Spring" type thing to do that. A revolution. The whole group of people need to stand up. Not a handful of people.

Strange. White Supremacists you call out quickly as c*nts, but no strong words for Jihadists?

BTW, each group, Radical Islamists and White Supremacists, belong to a larger group, who can give quiet approval eg. South USA in the 1800's lynching blacks (or EU 2000's Islamic terrorists?)... or the larger group can stand up and denounce and rein the radicals in ...

I wouldn't put neo Nazis in the same bucket as these suicidal jihadis for the very simple reason that the Nazis have clear aims and somewhat achievable objectives but the ISIS nutters don't. Their MO is complete chaos and they are perfectly happy to charge the cannons and be destroyed in the process. Just look at the idiots running up to armed police officers in Belgium and France with kitchen knives, they're more like rabid dogs than anything else.

So it should go without saying that no reasonable, right thinking human could justify that. However if these cowards did have the balls to march through cities glorying terrorism then you would see the massive counter demonstration and universal condemnation, just like we've seen with the Nazis in Charlottesville. I might be reading you wrong DB, but I don't see the equivalence.

ISIS and Islamic Radicals have a very clear aim: they want the world to live according to their interpretation of Islamic Law, and destroy anyone who is against them. That's what they are doing right now in the ME and other parts of the world. You seriously don't see that?
Happy reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_state

" It's all my friends and colleagues" Time to find new friends and colleagues or to put it another way "a limited statistical sample"

"The whole religion of Islam needs to be reformed" and you base this great idea on the 0.00001% of Muslims who commit terror?

On the same basis you should call for a total reform of the Christian religion because expressed as a percentage there were more Klu Klux Klan members than radical Islamist terrorists

Christianity was reformed in the 1500's, now the majority of Christians are relaxed, not killing in the name of it.
Read this, he hits the nail on the head: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-...b_5930764.html

"the reaction in the Muslim community seems too weak. " Your false assumption is that the Muslim community accept these terrorists as bone fide members members of the Muslim community.

Anders Behring Breivik wrote a manifesto where he claimed to be 100% Christian; so how many Christians felt the need to apologise for his actions?

The Klu Klux Klan was set up before 1500? Never Knew that.

" now the majority of Christians are relaxed, not killing in the name of it." Same as the overwhelming majority of Muslims, seems you shot yourself in the foot with your point.

What about all the other Islamist groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir? Don't they also want to bring about complete chaos a global caliphate?

We are not in the 1940's anymore. Have a look around who is doing the killing in Europe and trying to enforce their way of life; it is not National Socialists.

He said later that he wasn't a Christian but was a follower of Odinism. I'm certain you know of this but you prefer to ignore it.

What is your implication? Spit it out.

Haven't seen the Catalan flag touted around fb this time, so perhaps that fad's passed. I was never down with it myself and don't have a tw*tter account. As for 'punch a nazi' memes... I used to go watching Spurs in the late '70's and '80's. No need for memes when you have memories. Face it DB, some people started skriking when Diana died and haven't stopped since, and you know the type I mean.

Got a proximity and effectiveness issue here. The outrage is as much use as sending a petition to Theresa May to stop dogs being eaten in Yulin. They aim to instill fear, divide and conquer. I'm not scared. I won't turn on my Muslim friends.

Ditto.

Because it feeds directly into the nutters' agenda. To them, it justifies everything they've always believed. The rest of us recognise that terrorism is the World's second oldest occupation. It's just the protagonists that change.

The war against Daesh is being fought in situ, and it's going to take time, in the same way that N.I. took time, but they will be defeated.

You're trying to rationalise the irrational, and you can't wreak revenge on a corpse. Frustrating, isn't it?

I've got 20+ years on you I think. When I was a kid, the Sunday ritual was to visit our grandparents and watch 'The World at War' at my grandfather's knee whilst he explained it to us. It massively shaped his life and permanently affected his health. Then there's my mum's adopted brother who lost all of his family except from one sister. It sickens me to the core that there are still people who choose, of their own free will, to identify themselves as nazis. They're lower than a snake's belly.

Having attended a Catholic High School, which had a huge first generation Irish contingent, and having an Irish surname (4th generation), I remember how we were targetted for abuse and violent attacks by other schools everytime there was an IRA attack in England. I'm talking pitch battles involving hundreds of kids and police involvement. In a very small way, we knew what it was to be abused for something that we had no connection with and no control over.