Not sure if this has been discussed.
Both victims Muslim, though the girl seems to have been attacked for *not* wearing religious garb by her peers.
yes, I was reading the 2 latest reports⊠different schools, different departments⊠but the same (seemingly) senseless violenceâŠ
We seem to be drifting to a state of mind where there is no tolerance or other groups, hate fills the air and anyone who calls this out is themselves attacked.
I wonder where we went wrong.
1 Like
So-called âsocialâ media - itâs like SF on bad acid (old hippie writing)
Weâve lost the shared values we had.
Once you lose the absolute and have only relative values, where everyone can choose his or her morality and no one can gainsay him, society breaks down.
3 Likes
Well, racism is currently booming in France. Younger and younger people are driven to racist, fascist, eugenist groups and they are wild. We had racist riots in ArdĂšche few months ago.
To which Iâd add the anonymity and speed of social media exchanges that can facilitate forms of aggression that would far seldom occur in other situations.
5 Likes
Yes. They allow the poison to be spread - injected - much more rapidly than one could have imagined.
2 Likes
The internet and the social media it has spawned is the direct cause.
I have thought for years that the world wide web is (on balance) the greatest evil ever invented.
Sure we can all book holidays and order stuff we dont really need on Amazon but the underlying damage is insiduous, growing and very real.
My son comes home with some horrendous tales as he is a collĂšge teacher and as a prof principal, has to attend conseil de discipline meetings with pupils and parents and he says its dreadful. The parents are on a different level of pure intelligence these days and even with a class full of witnesses, still swear their little darling has done no wrong, go to the local papers and give different facts etc. Unfortunately religion which is banned in education establishments is still being pushed via clothing or symbols which are suspension punishable and as for the harrassment via social media, that is rife. However, there are some good pupils still and some intelligent parents with a bit of respect for those who teach their kids but they are dwindling fast.
1 Like
By allowing an ideology and belief system utterly inimical to Western culture to not only thrive, but also granting its followers preferential treatment over the native population.
If you think this is happening by accident across all of Europe, I have one of Londonâs bridges for sale that you might be interested in.
For Peteâs sake - I complain about intolerance and then someone pops up with an example of that very intolerance 
No one is ânativeâ to anywhere except perhaps Africa from whence we all emigrated. No-oneâs culture or religion is the âright way to live a life, to the exclusion of all other possibilities. In particular all gods are false (or maybe none are) - even yours, the first people to walk in France almost certainly came via the eastern Mediterranean and had brown faces, why should their descendants be forbidden to tread the same path?
If we put half the effort that goes into hating each other into helping each other the world.
would be a hugely better place.
A factor but I agree with @DrMarkH and @Porridge - it isnât the root cause, but it enables it to seed and spread and find the minds of those already predisposed to hear the message.
Iâm not a believer in conspiracy theories, though I could be persuaded that people in positions of power for their own ends and enrichment are happy to see us waste our time an effort in fighting each other and not looking at how they are behaving.
1 Like
Iâm extremely tolerant as Iâve never discriminated against, insulted or attacked anyone for having different religious beliefs to my agnostic self.
How come the descendants of the first humans to arrive and settle anywhere apart from Western Europe are called ânativesâ or âindigenousâ?
Arenât the Welsh the last remnants of the original ancient Britons AKA the native population of the British Isles?
Yet you post:
Which rather suggests that you see immigration as the problem.
Generally to distinguish the earlier wave of migrants from the latter.
My point was about humans having a common origin in Africa - which means if anyone were able to trace their lineage back far enough the discovery would be that they originated there, not Europe, or Australia or the US. We are all, thus, immigrants (unless you happen to live in East Africa).
Who almost certainly walked here across the fields of Doggerland rather than springing fully formed on the Welsh mountains.
East Africa is where we emerged as a species, everything else is migration.
Iâm not sure itâs not a bit too late for this
Radicalised students, whipped up on social media, may only be further inflamed.
Think some of us would appreciate a reference to support that assertion, but perhaps not from Plaid Cymruâs web-site.
I think the oldest known settlements in the British Isles are in the Shetlands, but the first settlers crossed via the now long submerged Doggerland. So either the Shetland house builders were driven north by subsequent invaders, or perhaps the first âEnglishâ were crap house builders (plus ça change!).
1 Like
Depends whether one is talking about hominids or homo sapiens -tricky stuff!
The so-called âCradle of Mankindâ is a short drive north of Joâburg and their museum is very special and moving. But I think the dominant current theory based on DNA analysis is that there were several places where early hominids and homo sapiens got it on, so to speak, from Neanderthals in Europe to Denisovans in Siberia and SE Asia.
1 Like
Yes âitâs complicatedâ, as they say. But no more than a few percent of Neanderthal or Denisovian DNA persists. A bit of jigglyness going on between early homo sapiens and hominids who evolved in southern Europe (and importantly in this context, Asia) does not alter the fact that the bulk of humanity originated in Africa. It doesnât change the basic equation that we are all immigrants.
Anyway as I said the point is that we all have much more on common than separates us and we ought to keep sight of that fact.
Itâs really interesting how the discovery of DNA has changed our understanding of the history of humanity.
I remember when doing âAâ level Geography fifty years ago, we were taught that there were five âracesâ (Chinese, Indo-European, Negro, Australian aborigines and the so-called bushmen of Southern Africa - now called the San people). Of course through the discovery of DNA, we now know this is nonsense, yet the concept of race still exists whereas conversely due to âout of Africaâ genetic research, we now know there is greater genetic diversity within Africa than in the rest of the world combined.
So I guess in that sense, weâre almost entirely either descended from those who left Africa, or those who stayed behind. Nothing to do with black, white or whateverâŠ
2 Likes