No you have it wrong here, its not the world its within islamic countries themselfs they want an islamic government a united block from morocco to indonesia, that is their aim to unite all muslim countries under their way of thinking. Its muslims who are more at risk with this ideology than westerners, if the west really does want to tackle such issues then they have to promote proper democrasy in these countries and stop supporting tip pot rulers in saudi arabia and other parts.

which is precisely why the moderates need to step up… the u.s. should absolutely stop supporting the regimes such as the one in saudi arabia… they support extremism, they are corrupt and keep their people under their heal… but, a country like the u.s. can’t do it the way they did it in iraq, we’ve seen how large a failure that was… of course we would never attack saudi arabia, but what i am saying is, external pressure from the u.s. will not work… it will lead to a worse standing for the u.s. in the eyes of muslims and the rest of the world… we’ve done too much of that in the past and it’s never really worked out well (just look at s. america)… for democracy to be promoted there first needs to exist a desire for democracy which is visable internally… and the only way this can happen is for moderates in those country’s to stand up… or have within there ranks a person of the character and nature of attaturk…

let’s stop laying blame on the victims and start pointing the finger where it ought to be pointed…

the british way of life is not the problem… british foreign policy is not the problem, though it clearly is wrong in some cases… the problem is the people who commit these acts…

look there are a lot of people all over the world who don’t agree with what the west does… some are directly affected by it in much worse ways then the guys you see blowing themselves up in the UK these days… but you don’t see attacks by their groups…

the problem is not external, but internal… these guys clearly have something wrong with them and i think there is not enough proactive action by the communities to which they belong to curb these tendencies… sure there maybe problems like racism, but you know what, there’s racism everywhere… no reason why it should be a get out of jail free card… and before anyone starts thinking this is a rant against muslim communities, i will say the same applies to the communities in n. ireland, the likes of the BNP and basically extremism everywhere…

as an indian who has lived most his life in the u.s. and more or less sees himself to be an american first (even though i don’t agree with many things the u.s. does) i think the key is to stop the ghetto mentality… i don’t know what the case is in the UK, but here communities blend and mix (well atleast my family has, they are still traditional socially, but have come to respect and admire the governance of the country)… communities in britian have to open up to each other… and minority communities who don’t agree with certain aspects of british life, still have to do their part as citizens to adhere to the institutions of governance… likewise the government can’t let pressure deteriorate and rot it’s power base… this means no caving into changing education policies because someone might get offended… the goal of education is to teach the truth, not to cater to every sensitivity in those who are taught…

because of the actions of these few individuals, the entire community suffers… the communities themselves have to start understanding this and take some real concrete steps to distance themselves from these ideologies… it is not enough to say oh this is terrible, this is wrong after the fact… they have to make renunciations globally… it is not enough to speak against terrorism in the UK and then to be for it in areas like israel (even though israel is clearly wrong with it’s conduct with palestinians)… that’s giving and escape passage to individuals… they need to close this down… also, too many times i’ve seen interviews with these imans fresh off the plane saying things like, my muslim brother is more important than anyone else… and it’s even a bigger problem when the leader of the so called moderates claims it is alright for the likes of the aytollah’s in iran to call for a fatwa against salman rushdie, maybe we should think twice about just how moderate these moderate… it’s time for the government to start telling them well, no, that’s not how it works here… it’s time for the communities to start telling them, no, that’s not the type of person we want leading our community…

words no longer mean enough… both sides (including white britain) need to start acting to stop this from going on…

I’ve been told a lot about Leeds being a great school town, so I’m not so much concerned about that. I think out of all the cities, it’s probably the best when it comes to being a student (I imagine costs for most things are reasonable as it has to cater to student needs). What I am worried about is the sheer size of the school. I went to a very large university (Boston University) and what I learned there is big universities aren’t the best when it comes to meeting the needs of individual students (and all the red tape that is usually involved). I do understand that the masters programs would be far less crowded so there would be a better means to distinguish yourself, but my hatred for BU (because of all of the red tape that was involved) has got me a bit freaked out about Leeds these days. I guess I didn’t think through my choices as much as I had previously thought.

ah, that’s actually what i’m thinking as well… although the people at leeds were really nice, i almost feel indebted to them, i’m beginning to lean towards surrey… the program director has the same research interests as i do (devolution and EU development)… anyways, it’s so close to london that it would make everything easier in terms of eventually trying to get a job… but we shall see… thanks for the input…