Happy New Year. True, but I think some parts of the Muslim community are taking advantage of our unwillingness to confront issues, e.g. however offensive, we in the UK mock religions however because of Muslim sensitivities and the threat of violence no one dare say anything negative about Mohammad, consequently no through evaluation of his life occurs.
The allowance of some Shariah courts that discriminate against women in contravention of UK law occurs without serious investigation, and let us not forget Rochdale etc. I don't blame "Muslims" some sections are just taking advantage of an army of Liberals? Do gooders? whatever you wish to call them, who don't want to believe that in some areas of modern life the west has moved on and that Islam (and perhaps other religions) should adjust
Happy New Year to you too. I think you are right that some Muslims are taking advantage. Not sure realistically how that or any other type of exploitation will be stopped. It's like tax avoidance or benefit fraud - if tax laws or welfare provisions are open to exploitation there will always be some people who will try to manipulate the system to their advantage.
I also think regardless of how Prophet Mohamed's life is evaluated - and there are so many conflicting stories that it would be difficult to know what is true - in any society it would eventually come down to some people justifying certain behaviours attributed to him because of a mixture of supposed context, their own personal values and their personal agendas, while other people would find those behaviours reprehensible in that context, again because of their own personal values and agendas.
I am not sure what you mean by the West has moved on - if you mean that the West is more open to allowing criticism of its various different value systems - yes on the whole you would no longer get hauled up before a Committee and black-listed or found guilty of a crime such as sedition or treason let alone be tortured for expressing a critical opinion that someone found offensive though you might get a visit from the police or trolled by Twitter users and the media.
If you mean by "moved on" that the failings of the West are easier to live with than the failings in other parts of the world, my personal and admittedly very limited experience is yes I agree. I would rather spend my time trying to protect my kids from the dangers in Britain of issues such as crime, alcohol, drugs, sexual exploitation packaged up as sexual freedom, reliance on materialism or the superficial for happiness compared to trying to protect them from being bombed by their government or foreign powers, arbitrary arrest, brutal torture, mass rape, starvation in besieged towns, restriction of movement, corruption, not to mention the failing of basic social infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, security, law and order. And as you pointed out it is not just countries where Muslims are in the majority that experience these issues - they are also the experiences of people in many countries where Muslims are in the minority e.g. Sri Lanka.
That doesn't mean I would not criticise any perceived failings by societies in the West or anywhere else, as I think all value systems and behaviours should be open to critique and obviously I would expect there to be a broad spectrum of views and for there to be disagreement on the assessments of the relative impact of different values and behaviours.
Different people have different assessments of the level of emotional harm inflicted by different personal value systems. Having been an atheist, my experience is that not being religious doesn't afford protection from emotional pain. Being religious or spiritual just gives you some alternative tools to deal with pain as well as availing yourself of the non-religious tools.
It's up to society, made up of individuals to reach some agreement about whether the religious tools cause a level of harm that needs to be regulated or banned. That it is difficult to reach agreement is probably down to the complexity of the competing values that individuals within British society hold as important, such as tolerance and transparency and due process. It seems people in authority in Britain are willing to tolerate a lot in order to avoid being accused by members of their own society of intolerance. It's up to the people tying themselves in knots about this to untie themselves and accept some level of intolerance within themselves or accept that due process takes a long time so remedies to problems will be slow.
