Because we don't have as many high profile successes, it's easier to remember the Somali community for its failures, even though most of us are still going strong on the right side of the law. It's not fair, but it's understandable, like Castro pointed out, we're black and muslim and immigrants, as scapegoats we couldn't be more perfect. However, I live in one of the areas mentioned, and it is scary how little a lot of Somali parents care for their teenage kids. These boys (some of them as young as 9 or 10) gather together in gangs and continue to roam streets until well past 3am. Now tell me, since we Somalis are supposed to be so family oriented, why are the parents either not noticing or not caring that their young boys are not in bed. A lot of them have no problem telling their daughters off if they get home past 6pm or if she's wearing make-up. Yet their sons are allowed the 'freedom' to get themselves in trouble. (To be fair, I know some parents who simply can't control their kids, and they're finished with them, but seriously, a lot seem to just not care). Maybe it's this mentality that boys can take care of themselves, whereas girls need protecting. It's bullsh*t of course, but it's really really scary how profoundly unaware some Somali parents are of what their kids are going through and what they are up to. I don't want to be all The Sun like, but in this case, I'm inclined to place some blame on the parents.

did a topic on this a while ago, and there are quite a few arty people out there. Lots of writers too. Me = a film student/filmmaker, studying at uni in the UK. At the moment I'm only doing music videos, but I'm busy setting up a production company with some people, and working on short films and a couple of possible features/documentaries. I do webdesign on the side, as well as some graphic design.

^^^ wonder how you'll take it when he changes his name to a symbol or something. K'naan is amazing, seen him perform twice in the last few weeks in London. He is the single most relevant artist around at the moment, seriously. Love his poetry too, I love it when someone can render me speechless like that.

^^I'm pretty conventional here too Born in Mogadishu, left when I was 11 months, brief stint in Sharjah, UAE. Then moved to the Netherlands when I was 5, grew up in a little farmer's town in north, then moved to the capital Amsterdam. After that I followed the first wave of Somalis migrating to the UK. Currently happily settled in the greatest city in the world, London, yeah baby. Seriously, have never been happier anywhere, except maybe in my little farmer's town, I had a wonderful idyllic childhood there, the kind you see in the movies, it was almost unreal. Might want to move to my (current) dream city of San Fransisco at some point, I'd still be within reach of Hollywood but not too close. If they'll let me past immigration that is.

I think this is written by a black person. Most of the allegations are economic ones, rather than race specific (i.e no one is talking about how the white race is inherently better in all aspects). It just sounds like something a black person would write to 'wake up' his fellow black man.

That's really scary.

^^^ Britain may have a party like the BNP, but like the figures above show, it only has only 4 or 5 percent national support. The existence of a right-wing party doesn't mean the country as a whole isn't accomodating. The indigineous people are complaining for a reason (personally, I don't think it's fair). The government does give priority to immigrants who don't have somewhere to stay when it comes to housing. As a Somali I think the benefit offices are much too lenient with their welfare policy. They go out of their way to pay education and other expenses for people of poor backgrounds. Affirmative action seemed to have actually worked here, unlike in countries like The Netherlands. I wonder, despite the lack of racist national parties in the US, is the US government really as accepting and accomodating towards ethnic minorities and immigrants as Britain. Remember, these a fringe parties, and one should a judge a country as a whole by their national policy and the attitudes of the people in general.

1. Sick of ***** muslims making life worse for the rest of us 2. Sick of ***** non-muslims making life worse for the rest of us. 3. Sick of the British media 4. Sick of the thickheads who don't bother to read a party's manifesto but think they're still not racist when they vote BNP. 5. Sick of chavs and hoodies. 6. Sick of guys who can't keep their trousers above their hips. (Sometimes coincides with no.5)

Originally posted by Khalaf: Give me a break. If they too good for ESL…why don’t they take the test and test out? I would test American students too…many of them belong in ESL class. It's not always a simple test, often students whose first language isn't English, are pressurised into taking ESL modules. When I first started college I was heavily pressured into taking an ESL course. Even after I demonstrated my English skills by writing an essay and the teachers actually admitted that my grasp of English (both written and spoken) was superior to that of my peers (most of them who were native Brits), I was still strongly recommended to take an English course as my option. I stood my ground though, why waste my time with a course that contributes very little when I could take a module that could be actually helpful in some way. It's ridiculous that instead of judging each student individually, they just lump them all into one big group marked "ethnic". Give me a break, I can't begin to count how many British 'natives' I know who can barely speak their own language.

Get him a sign saying "Welcome to the REAL world".

People do your kids a favour and NEVER EVER speak to them of sex. My mom once tried to tell me about sex, and I'm still trying to recover from it. She only got as far as "when a man and a woman get married....", before I collapsed on the floor, foaming around my mouth, praying to God for a speedy death. I'm 23 now, and I still can't stop crying with horror when think about that day, ugh. Good grief people, don't ever mention sex or anything vaguely sexual (like lipgloss or bras) to your kids. Or even comments like 'boys only want one thing', coming out of the mouth of our parents is vile, disgusting and should be punishable by law. Thank God both my parents are still virgins.

^^^ I found Order of the Phoenix to be the weakest in the series (it wasn't bad, but it wasn't nearly as good as any of the other books). Half-Blood Prince is my favourite actually. 1 - Les Miserables by Victor Hugo 2 - The Stand by Stephen King 3 - Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

I find intelligence so incredibly sexy, it's insane. I swear, there's nothing sexier than a geek. If I see anyone with glasses I just drop my drink and shoot my way through the crowd to talk to them. I'm seriously smitten with Stephen Fry right now, go figure.

In this thread it is a crime To speak in anything but rhyme To avoid this thread being misleading Those who break the pact Will acknowledge the fact That they are incapable of reading SO speak freely and share your mind We will with our rhyme, repay in kind If with 'please' For no reason you wish to rhyme with 'cheese' I shall not recoil Yet, beautiful poems that do not rhyme makes my blood boil Mindless poetry is not accepted Even the classics are not excepted Speak to us not of flowers and sunshine To us this is a sign Of copying and pasting, line by line We desire conversation and debate Speak of things to which we can relate Speak of all you love, desire or hate But to remember to always have fun in the things you say and the lyrics you create So I assume the mission is understood If you wish to speak, you should Please rhyme what you wish to say To start you off, tell me, how was your day?

I have never looked a person's looks and i have never looked a person's personality. Actually, I don't look anything because that makes no sense. ahahahahahahahahahahahaha

^^^ it's not a very subtle trick then So unsubtle in fact, that I doubt you can call it a 'trick', more like a big flashing neon sign for Capitalism.

Neither, I look at a person's aura first.

Uhm, I didn't know lectures were optional, they definitely aren't at my uni. In fact, if you miss more than a couple in the row, you're automatically withdrawn from the course.

^^that's the same arguments squatters use. I don't agree, property is property. You should be able to leave your house for a decade and still have it when you return. Especially since you've left it in circumstances of war. Unless owner cannot be found or verified to be alive, in that case the state ought to take it and recompense the owner once they're found. However, if the care of the current occupiers has somehow directly increased the value of the land, maybe they are entitled either a compensation or some of the land, especially if to all purposes the land seemed abandoned. That's only fair, right?

Originally posted by NGONGE: You rhetorically ask: had the cartoons been about the Holocaust and Jews would the response been the same from the Danish government and the Western world? Seeing that it is a question you (and I) already know the answer to, I shall not bother to answer it. However, I shall instead deal with why things are so. The Jews, you see, would not have come out in such demonstrations and waved placards promising another eleventh of September and other nonsense. The most you would have got from them would have been a few press conferences where they criticise the world for condoning such offensive rubbish and threaten to take their case to the highest courts of whatever lands. They would have then, slowly, covertly and very diligently have gone about the business of punishing the perpetrators. Rest assured that if that Danish paper had insulted the Jews, it would have got easily punished. But, where WE differ from them is that we protest for today and never plan for tomorrow. The Jews would have worked towards changing the laws that allow such a paper to insult them in such a way. This is why Austria (which is no lover of Jews) has laws that forbid anti-Semitic utterances. You think the Austrians, out of the goodness of their own hearts decided to install such laws? Holocaust arguments aside, it’s no secret that the Jews were hated and mistreated in Nazi Germany (and Austria) before the Second World War. They were; in fact, not very popular in many other parts of the world either. However, because Herr Hitler was foolish enough to declare war on almost the entire world, the proverb that says ‘my enemies enemy is my friend’ came into play and the Jews were welcomed with open arms by the Allies (you need to go back and read British newspapers prior to 1930 to see how much the Jews were hated back then). They then, as the war progressed (and because many of them were talented) went about pleading, granting favours and buying loyalties to make sure that nothing like what happened in Germany would ever happen to them again. There was no lashing out; rather meticulous long term planning that is bearing fruit today. They did it for Judaism and not for the Jews that lived at that time. Because, like how we believe with Islam, they believed that Judaism was for all time and not only today. Compare and contrast if you will. I am no fan of Jewish conspiracies or their ability to control the world. For that, you’ll need to go and read the efforts of other Nomads. What I am a fan of is COMMON SENSE. The Jews, Christians and countless other groups always try to fight their cases with calm and long term planning. Ours, as evidenced by this case and the dozen others throughout the years has always been a reactionary response with no plans whatsoever. Nothing has made so much sense to me in a long time. However, the Jews were educated, talented and organised. They understood their religion and they understood that religious appeals wouldn't work on non-believers. The majority of muslims rioting in these countries are poor, fairly uneducated (about the world as well as their religion) and hopelessly divided and uncontrollable. Such as the climate is today, and the arrival of all the signs of an all-out war (cultural if not military), I doubt muslims will ever achieve that same level of focus. Even if they did, there's another obstacle to their course, that of their undeniable sympathy towards Al-Qaida principles. The leaders of these fringe (and terrorist) organisations are egging towards a global war, and the rhetoric they use is that of war. Now, these everyday young muslim rioters have pretty much grown up on this rhetoric and the terms they have been taught to counter the West's (often very subtle) opposition of muslims is that of war and vengeance and passion; two concepts inherently opposed to rationality and diplomacy, which are the necessary instruments to defeat such a wide problem. That's why I see this whole (to borrow a cliche) 'clash of civilisations' escalating into something infinitely more sinister and destructive, namely a global war. Ngonge pointed out that muslims are almost unique in their methods when challenged by a secular west; methods which contribute nothing and exacerbate an already trying situation for muslims. He referenced the way the Jewish have handled a similar situation and how they have done so more effectively. I'm saying we are too far gone to ever apply that same challenge to the powers that be. We can always say that a few have hijacked our cause, but these 'fringe elements' are much more powerful than the majority of muslims could ever be. They are the ones shaping the future for muslims, and I fear that one day there will be nothing for us muslim but the choice between 'Al Qaida' and West, with both sides telling us 'you're either with us or against us'. I guess we don't have to wonder what World War III is going to be about.

Don't be fooled, everyone is just taking a break to sharpen their insults.

^^^ You are so right. And there's no exercise like shopping during the January sales.

Originally posted by Jamelia: LOoooL....What the hell is sinporia?...do you mean singapore?......LMAO....... Sinporia is way better than Singapore, it's cleaner, the king is a powerful wizard named in all the prophecies and the streets are made out of very expensive chocolate, so there. :mad: God bless Sinporia!

By God do I love sinporainians.

Paris, bloody frogs are ruuuuuude.