Petition for Free Expression

Anyone who values free speech, sign this petition

British Islamists call for British troops to be handed over to Iraqi foreign insurgents

The following piece has appeared on my old favourite, the Al Ghurabaa website

NAME AND SHAME THEM!

It is about time that the British government and the British public took responsibility for what their dogs are doing in Iraq and elsewhere in the Muslim world. These vile animals seen here need to be exposed, arrested and put on trial in a Shari'ah court. That is why Al Ghurabaa are running a campaign to bring these British soldiers to justice. We demand that the British Government hand over the criminals to the Mujahideen in Iraq to be put on trial.

Considering the tyrannic nature of this government we are pessimistic of the Government response so if anyone from the general public, whether family or friends, recognise any of the culprits pictured or others not mentioned, please send us all information about them to nameandshame@alghurabaa.co.uk or call us on 07904 034 544

What do you think the would do if they obtained a name and address?

March for Free Expression

Trafalgar Square has been provisionally booked for March 25th.

Offers of support to marchforfreespeech@googlemail.com or check out the website.

Winston Churchill on Islam

In a book called UK at War with Islam (pdf, 743k), the whackos of Al Ghurabaa use the following quotation from Winston Churchill (The River War, 1899):

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.

This is a well know quotation and it has been widely repeated, both approvingly and disapprovingly. It bears examination for several reasons, not least that it is always good to read any prose, however tactless, that derives from a time when people felt able to say what they actually thought about cultures different to their own.

Churchill distinguished, rightly, between the Islamic religion and its followers. He castigated the former and praised the good among the latter.

He was correct in discerning the connection between Islam and slavery, which still exists more than a century after he wrote and longer after the abolition of slavery in the West. One of the rarely remarked on problems of Islamic migration to the West has been the reintroduction of slavery that has accompanied it. It is to the lasting shame of Western liberals that they have preferred to see this reintroduction than to abandon multiculturalism.

But then in Britain, they have also been prepared to see the death of the universal electoral franchise, less than a century after it was won. In the 2005 British General Election, postal voting enabled Muslim "community leaders" to take people's voting papers and fill them in as they wished. This of course affected women disproportionately severely.

Churchill was also correct to point out the connection between the strength of the West (which he characterises as Christianity, though today widespread secularism makes "the West" a better term) and science. It is worth emphasising that he pointed out that science had needed to defend itself from Christianity in the past. Followers of the campaign to legitimise the two hundred year old fallacy now known as Intelligent Design will be aware that this battle is not yet over.

But in the main, the West has remained within "the strong arms of science". Despite its role, centuries ago, of conserving Classical learning and conveying and enhancing Hindu mathematics, the Islamic world today is poorly educated and economically moribund, producing almost nothing except oil. Creationism has won there, with evolutionary theory taught in none of the Universities or schools in the Gulf states. This theocratic infantilism bodes ill for them, you might think, in what has been touted as the century of the life sciences, with genetics the new silicon. And so it does, with one big "but": the technology that is produced by the West spreads.

Think of bin Laden, that creature of the West, in his flak jacket, with Kalashnikov rifle and satellite phone... even his wealth derived from western oil consumption. As the technology gap narrows, the relative strengths of the two cultures level out.True, the present Iranian nuclear controversy is about the attempted acquisition of decades-old technology, but it is very powerful technology. There have been no qualitative leaps for half a century (missile defense will be the next) and until the next technological shift, we are increasingly vulnerable.

But what Churchill did not foresee, and probably would never, from the fastness of his Victorian certitude, have dreamed could happen, is the loss of confidence in the West, and especially in Europe, combined with the post-colonial mindset of much of the rest of the world.

Here is Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa, speaking to the National Aseembly of Sudan in January 2005:

You were the first among the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence from colonialism, opening the way towards the total liquidation of colonialism and apartheid on our continent. We were the last to achieve liberation from white minority rule and apartheid, marking the conclusion of the work you had started, of the final abolition of colonialism in Africa.
...
we should step backwards briefly to look into our shared colonial past, once again to make the point that there are many factors that should propel us towards common action.

...
I would like to mention is Winston Churchill, who served under Lord Kitchener, and wrote the famous account of the colonising exploits of Kitchener in Sudan in the book entitled “The River War”.

Let me quote a short paragraph from this book, which quotation tells the whole story about what our colonial masters thought of us. Churchill wrote:

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism...(here follows the quotation I began with)"
...
What Churchill said about Mohammedans was of course precisely what our colonisers thought about all Africans, whether Muslim or not. And this attitude conditioned what they did as part of their colonial project, including what their soldiers, such as Gordon, Wolseley and Kitchener did to those they sought to colonise.
...
our shared colonial past left both of us with a common and terrible legacy of countries deeply divided on the basis of race, colour, culture and religion.
...
As of yesterday, Sudan has a Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The protracted and destructive war in the South has come to an end, never to return. It is also our firm view that that Peace Agreement and the new Sudan that will be born as a result of its implementation, provide a firm basis for the solution of other conflicts in Sudan, including the conflict in Darfur.

Today, I visited El Fasher in the Darfur region and have witnessed the challenges facing the government and people of Sudan in the area. I am confident that working together with the AU the leadership of this country will fully resolve the situation.

Of course, the situation in Darfur is not resolved, more than a year later. And, although the problem there and in other parts of Sudan, for two decades now, has been that of a Muslim regime attacking animists and Christians, killing some two million of them in the process, Mbeki can blame it on a colonial legacy.

Al Ghurabaa are, by their own lights, honest. They see any opposition to the complete domination of Islam and the imposition of Sharia law as a a vicious attack on Muslims and, within this supremacist philosophy, they are entirely consistent.

Mbeki is another matter. He prefers post-colonial solidarity with regimes in Sudan and Zimbabwe to ethical politics and effective humanitarian action. He will praise the murderers of millions while castigating those who brought life expectancies of up to half again those of the present day to African countries. And he falls back on the comfortable bigotry that can suggest that Churchill was using Muslims as a proxy for all Africans in his writings, instead of examining Islam and holding Islamic regimes accountable for their faults.

Churchill, in fact, wrote extensively about Africans. If Mbeki cared to be more honest, he would find plenty to criticise there. From the same book as quoted above:

The indigenous inhabitants of the country were negroes as black as coal. Strong, virile, and simple-minded savages, they lived as we may imagine prehistoric men--hunting, fighting, marrying, and dying, with no ideas beyond the gratification of their physical desires, and no fears save those engendered by ghosts, witchcraft, the worship of ancestors, and other forms of superstition common among peoples of low development. They displayed the virtues of barbarism. They were brave and honest. The smallness of their intelligence excused the degradation of their habits. Their ignorance secured their innocence. Yet their eulogy must be short, for though their customs, language, and appearance vary with the districts they inhabit and the subdivisions to which they belong, the history of all is a confused legend of strife and misery, their natures are uniformly cruel and thriftless, and their condition is one of equal squalor and want.

Far from using Muslims as a proxy for all Africans, in the very same book that Mbeki was quoting from, Churchill was careful to distinguish Arab Muslims from black Africans:

Although the negroes are the more numerous, the Arabs exceed in power. The bravery of the aboriginals is outweighed by the intelligence of the invaders and their superior force of character.

and to disctinguish both from people of mixed race:

The qualities of mongrels are rarely admirable, and the mixture of the Arab and negro types has produced a debased and cruel breed, more shocking because they are more intelligent than the primitive savages. The stronger race soon began to prey upon the simple aboriginals; some of the Arab tribes were camel-breeders; some were goat-herds; some were Baggaras or cow-herds. But all, without exception, were hunters of men. To the great slave-market at Jedda a continual stream of negro captives has flowed for hundreds of years. The invention of gunpowder and the adoption by the Arabs of firearms facilitated the traffic by placing the ignorant negroes at a further disadvantage. Thus the situation in the Soudan for several centuries may be summed up as follows: The dominant race of Arab invaders was unceasingly spreading its blood, religion, customs, and language among the black aboriginal population, and at the same time it harried and enslaved them.

Churchill was at best patronising about black Africans, at worst he was by contemporary standards staggeringly racist. This is, of course, no more than to say that he was a man of his time, as are we all. However, the picture he described, of the Arab Sudanese preying on and enslaving the black population, is exactly that of today.

In passing, it means that Mbeki was either deliberately lying when he made his speech in Sudan or, more likely, he had not bothered to look at the book he was quoting, perhaps lest it disturbed his comfortable prejudices. There was plenty in this book to fuel a sense of grievance against the attitudes of past European colonists, but it did not include a conflation of the black and the Muslim Sudanese. One day, a powerful African nation will have a leader who is capable of remembering historical prejudices and injustices and of taking action against present horrors. But this is not that day.

Churchill's writings give us, seen through the prism of his racial prejudices, an accurate reflection of the situation in Sudan in the last years of the nineteenth century. A century later, life is basically the same for the black Sudanese. Mbeki is doing nothing to help. Students of the South African President will find nothing surprising there.

But there has been change elsewhere. We now have in Britain, in Al Ghurabaa and other Islamist organisations, the same kind of Islamic supremacists as have faced the people of Darfur, and they are seeking to change British society into an analogue of that of the Sudan.

Yet, far from showing the same kind of bullish confidence in their own culture as Churchill displayed consistently throughout his life, our present ruling classes seem to be unable to do anything except accommodate, apologise and capitulate. They are the flip side of the Mbeki coin, paralysed by post-colonial guilt to the point where they are unable to take effective action against anyone from that part of the human diaspora which found itself colonised by Europeans in the past, even when the people in question are violent supremacists and fascists.

I am glad that the racial prejudice has diminished (it has not disappeared completely, of course). Long may it wither. But I long for another Churchill in this, our time of need.

Freedom March - Statement of Principle

The March for Free Expression has just posted a statement of principle on its website. It reads:

The strength and survival of free society and the advance of human knowledge depend on the free exchange of ideas. All ideas are capable of giving offense, and some of the most powerful ideas in human history, such as those of Galileo and Darwin, have given profound religious offense in their time.

The free exchange of ideas depends on freedom of expression and this includes the right to criticize and mock.

We assert and uphold the right of freedom of expression and call on our elected representatives to do the same.

We abhor the fact that people throughout the world live under mortal threat simply for expressing ideas and we call on our elected representatives to protect them from attack and not to give comfort to the forces of intolerance that besiege them.

Anyone willing to support this can check the website regularly, as linked to above, or email the campaign at marchforfreespeech@googlemail.com

Islam is slavery

Islamophobic, or what?

But that's not me talking. This is from a recent post at the website of UK based Islamofascists Al-Ghurabaa - the cheeky laddies behhind the "Behead Cartoonists" banners recently seen in London.

The full piece is headed

There is no Room for Freedom in Islam

and begins:

Despite the insistent pleas of some apologetic sections of the Muslim community and their distorted claims that Islam ‘represents freedom’ and ‘tolerance’. The fact of the matter is that there is no room for freedom in Islam whatsoever, in fact Islam calls for the complete opposite, and end of all freedoms and the enslaving of all people to their lord.

We do not want the slavery to our desires, money, women, man-made laws, Tony Blair etc like that offered by a free and democratic society, rather the Muslims believe in Islam, which is the total submission to Almighty Allah exclusively by worshipping Him (swt), obeying and following his commands and declaring complete intolerance, hatred, disassociation from Shirk (associating partners with Allah) and all of its people (i.e. all Jews, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, atheists etc).

The west calls for freedom of belief, to believe as you wish and worship as you wish and change your Deen as you wish. There is no space for this fallacy in Islam; in the Shari’ah it is well known that we have been ordered with “the one who changes his Deen, [to] kill him.” And although under an Islamic authority nobody will be forced to embrace Islam, we do not accept for people to walk with their idols and crosses in the streets publicly, nor to build any new places of worship (though they may keep their existing ones).

Another recent posting is headed:

VOICE OF THE MUSLIMS OR VOICE FOR THE KUFFAR

(They like capital letters. Hobbies include shouting and hitting forehead against walls.)

It begins:

The vying of various so-called Muslim organisations in the UK to represent the views of the mainstream Muslim community has become like an auction, with the bidding related to the one who can side and ally with the Kuffar against the Muslims the most.



As Muslims living in any part of the world, there are certain invariable rules that are common amongst all Muslims and forms a part of there identity and the privilege to be called a Muslim, any violation of this rule would negate his/hers belief and hence there privilege to be called a Muslim and to be associated with the global Muslim community.

Recent events such as the insult and the ridiculing of the Messenger Mohammed (SAW), has made apparent the stand and clear hypocrisy of some so-called mainstream Muslim organisations. Instead of calling for the Hukm of Allah (SWT) to deal with those involved in insulting our beloved Messenger Mohammed (SAW) (i.e. the one who is proven to have done so, must be executed), they have instead embroiled themselves in a tirade of abuse, condemnation and vilification for those whom stood out to defend the Messenger Mohammed (SAW), giving rope to the Kuffar to attack there Muslim brothers and sisters.

To go even further certain individuals have called upon the police (i.e. Kuffar), to investigate, arrest and to prosecute Muslims for breaking man-made laws. That is enough proof upon somebody to be deemed an apostate, as it is a form of allying with the Kuffar against Muslims, and in doing so has violated a clear edict in Islam, that to ally with the disbelievers against the believers (Muslims) is an act of apostasy.

A section entitled

Kill Those who insult the prophet!

appears to be unavailable at the time of writing, probably because the file was moved after being put online. It seems, from the filename (cartoon.htm) to have been an incitement to murder the Danish cartoonists.

It's a shame I didn't catch it in time. If the open incitements to murder in the pieces cited above were NOT sufficient to bring about their rapid removal, it's interesting to speculate what might have been.

Peaceful Terrorism

Metrospy is selling T shirts with one of the Danish cartoons on the front. From a page of his hate mail:

This is like invitation for terorists to attack your country. Islam is very peacful relgion.

Aggressive Intent

Christopher Hitchens is spot on, again:

The prohibition on picturing the prophet—who was only another male mammal—is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent. This current uneasy coexistence is only an interlude, he seems to say. For the moment, all I can do is claim to possess absolute truth and demand absolute immunity from criticism. But in the future, you will do what I say and you will do it on pain of death.
...
But if Muslims do not want their alleged prophet identified with barbaric acts or adolescent fantasies, they should say publicly that random murder for virgins is not in their religion. And here one runs up against a curious reluctance. … In fact, Sunni Muslim leaders can't even seem to condemn the blowing-up of Shiite mosques and funeral processions, which even I would describe as sacrilege.
...
those who are determined to be "offended" will discover a provocation somewhere? We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt

I will not be a Dhimmi

From the blog of Minh-Duc, via Gates of Vienna, comes the best summary I have read so far of the cartoon controversy. I have changed the layout slightly, but not the words:

By asking the government of Denmark and Norway to punish the cartoonist and their publishers, the demanders have absolutely no regard for individual liberty.

By asking the government of Denmark and Norway to apologize for the offense of private citizen, they believe that the state and the individuals are one and the same - this is the central value of facism.

By boycotting Danish and Norwegian products, they believe that one member of the collective can be punished for the action of the other. This is the very same attitude that result in the barbaric gang rape of Mukhtar Mai.


Let not pretend that they seek to redress an insult to their religion. It is a mere pretext.

They seek nothing less than our submission - our unconditional surrender to their rule.

To them I say "bring it on." I will not submit. I will not surrender. I will not be a dhimmi. I did not escape Communism to live under Sharia. You are prepared to die for your religion. I am prepared to die for my freedom.

The new front is being fought in Denmark and Norway. If they fall, we are next.

Amen.

Buy Danish

According to Theodore Dalrymple in City Journal, Denmark

produces far more, oil excepted, than the whole Arab world put together

Their goods are being boycotted in many Muslim countries right now. To help people who want to buy Danish to help compensate for this, a website has been set up at http://www.buy-danishproducts.com/ to provide information about Danish products and services.

Anti-Dhimmitude in Britain

Encouraging YouGov poll results in The Sunday Times. 1600 people questioned:

The poll shows that 86% of people think the protests were “a gross overreaction”. By 56% to 29% respondents said it was right to publish the cartoons in Denmark and republish them elsewhere.

The article is headed

Public anger at Muslim protesters

That's a fact.

March for Free Expression

The campaign is getting serious, with a blog just opened to serve as an information point. If you are a blogger, please link to and publicise this event.

Starting point

This is the website and information point for the forthcoming March in Support of Free Expression, to be held in London in March 2006.

Information will be posted here about the event, together with updates on supporting organisations and individuals.

If you are interested in helping, attending or supporting this event, please contact us at marchforfreespeech@googlemail.com

Deafening silence over Islamic human rights

Two oxymorons in one title. I'm getting better at this.

Strangely, the Islamic Human Rights Commission can find no space on their website to promote the rights of freedom of conscience or speech. They cannot find time in their busy schedules to campaign about honour killings, the removal of girls from schools at the age of 14 or forced marriages.

But they are very exercised by the Cartoon Affair. And who should pop up signing their press release, but one "Shaikh Faiz Siddiqi LLB, Barrister, Convener MAC":

The publication of offensive caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad ( peace be upon him ) have caused outrage amongst the majority of the 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide.

No it didn't. It passed almost completely unnoticed. What has caused the outrage is a campaign, orchestrated by Syria and Saudi Arabia in response to a tour of the Middle East by a group of Danish imams, equipped with a dossier containing the cartoons that were published, and some others added to make things look worse, who are such extreme salafist sunnis that the government of Iran refused them an audience.

I offer a translation of the rest:

This latest outrage is being noted as an ongoing series of attacks on Islam and Muslims.

We, the attackers, are in fact (professional) victims.

The decision of different media to reprint the said caricatures has continued to inflame the situation.

And Western civilisation has yet to capitulate to us.

The angry reaction of the Muslims in the UK is being fuelled by the lack of sensitivity and unreasonableness by the media and certain governments. The apology of the Danish newspaper and the Danish Prime Minister has been rejected as it does not go far enough to rectify the damage done.

We demand greater displays of obedience and submissiveness from the Danes.

Reports of rising tensions and anxiety in the Muslim community have started to cause concern to its leading scholars and Imams. In their effort to bring direction to the protest and cohesion to the debate...

But we have got some bad press recently. Bummer. Maybe people will buy it if we pretend to be a moderating influence, working to contain the more hot-headed elements of our community. That way, we can demand the same degree of surrender to Islamic law as the suicide bombers, while not actually calling for anyone to be beheaded.

Number of organisations exceeds Muslim population

Check out Pickled Politics:

The number of British Muslim organisations have officially exceeded the number of actual Muslims living in the UK this week, after a flurry over activity over the Prophet Mohammed cartoons.
...
The proposed name was initially signed off as British Islamic Group for Muslims Against Cartoons, until McDonald’s lawyers stepped in.
...
It has been estimated by the think-tank ‘Think Islamic ThoughtS’ that by 2050 there will be a Muslim organisation for every citizen in Britain.

Respect

"Shaikh" Faiz Saddiqi, UK Muslim Action Committee has given a press interview in which he says:

What we've called for really is for the Press Complaints Commission to add that there be a prohibition for the media to print images of the Holy Prophet Muhammad- peace be upon him. Not because we want to enforce our laws upon people.

We have a law prohibiting depictions of Mohammed and we want to enforce this law on others, not because we want to enforce our laws on others...

Simply because we are saying they are offensive.

but because we want to make it illegal to offend us, something that would extend even beyond the scope of enforcing Muslim laws on non-Muslims. Muslims can and do say things that offend other Muslims, within the bounds of Islamic law, but non-Muslims must not have the same privilege.

We've not said it once twice three times and after that any acts that are offending or insulting in the same manner are a deliberate act of malicious provocation.

We have said repeatedly that non-Muslims must not offend us but people still have the temerity not to submit...

So what we are saying that in a civilised community people have a social contract with each other and in that social contract what we have to do is respect each other.

So I'm going to use the language of civilisation to try to impose a completely one-sided version of respect, wherein non-Muslims cannot offend Muslims, but no reciprocal duty exists.

Glad we've got that clear, Faiz.

Remankable punishment

From The Jawa Report gallery of photographs all taken on Feb 10th 2006. It's a sobering view of burgeoning worldwide fascism, and a reminder that the "tiny minority of extremists" is not so tiny. Also a good example of the kind of arithmetic we are seeing in this dispute:

Publishing a dozen unremarkable cartoons

EQUALS

maiming, mutilating and killing men, women and children indiscriminately

Or perhaps these are mainstream, moderate Muslims demonstrating? Let's ask Faiz Siddiqi, who is organising today's march in London.

You cannot be a moderate Muslim. You are either a Muslim or not a Muslim

(Faiz Siddiqi, quoted in the Teheran Times, 1997)



Italy?

Offensive

The American publication The National Review hails Ayatollah Sistani, the pre-eminent Iraqi Shi'a cleric.

Ayatollah Sistani has called the publication of the cartoons a "horrific action," not surprisingly. But he also has condemned the "misguided and oppressive" Muslims who "have exploited this . . . to spread poison and revive old hatreds with new methods." They, he continued, project "a distorted and dark image of the faith of justice, love, and brotherhood." In a better world, Sistani would have a Nobel Peace Prize. This is hereby a call for someone out there who is eligible to make a nomination — a category including congressmen and professors — to make the nomination.

Some words of wisdom from Sistani:

Taharat (cleanliness) and keeping a clean body and surroundings are very important in Islam. Everyone must refrain from eating and drinking those things which are najis; and the clothing that one wears for Salat, which is the best of actions in worshipping Allah, must be clean, and it is best that they are the most pure of clothing. Because of this, it is necessary to know what things are najis and if something is najis, the method of making them tahir.

ISSUE 13: Everything that exists is tahir except for eleven things, and those things that comes into contact with them also become najis.

ISSUE 14: The things which are najis, are the following:
1. Urine
2. Stool
3. Semen
4. Corpse
5. Blood
6. Dog
7. Pig
8. Alcohol
9. Beer (According to Ihtiyat Wajib)
10. Kafir
11. The sweat of a najis eating animal.

A Kafir is an unbeliever: a non-Muslim. Note that everything is tahir (clean) except these eleven najir (unclean) things - which include me, my mother and my children.

Just for clarification:

ISSUE 17: The urine and stool of animals whose meat is halal, like the cow and sheep, and animals whose blood does not gush out, like the snake and fish, are tahir.

So the shit of a cow is clean, but I am unclean. And further:

ISSUE 18: The urine and stool of animals whose meat is makruh to eat, like the horse and donkey, is tahir.

ISSUE 19: The urine and droppings of birds whose meat is haram, like the eagle, are tahir.

ISSUE 20: The droppings of small animals, like the mosquito and fly that do not have meat, are tahir.

So saying that the flower of our civilisation and all our people are lower than the shit of a mosquito is NOT offensive, but drawing a picture of Mohammed tending sheep is.

Just so we're clear about that. Nobel Peace Prizes all round.

March for Freedom of Expression

Work has kept me from blogging today, but I did receive this e-mail:

Hi,
I am canvassing individuals and organisations to gather support for a
march in London some time soon in defence of freedom of expression. I
do not represent anyone other than myself. I am concerned, as no doubt
are many others, that fear, dressed up as sensitivity, may tempt
some in power to allow our most precious right to be circumscribed,
to be eroded. We need to stand up, be counted and be seen. The
strength and survival of true democracy depends most of all on the
free expression of ideas. All ideas. There cannot be any compromise on
this. As Voltaire said to one of his foes " I despise your views but I
am prepared to die for your right to express them "

I am proposing the usual; a march on a weekend day from Hyde Park to
Trafalgar Square. Would you give your support to such a demonstration?

marchforfreespeech@googlemail.com

There are some big names already expressing support. If you are willing to help or attend, or even just forward mails to friends, then please contact Patrick at that address.

Magic WAND

One of my posts, Perfect Dhimmitude was commented on by someone called mere muslim, aka Abdurrahman R. Squires, an ex-US marine and a convert to Islam. Firstly, thanks for a restrained comment, which read:

Mere Muslim said...

Below are links to four new articles, from a traditional Muslim perspective, which address various issues which are being raised by the on-going Danish cartoon crisis. I hope that at least some of the self-righteous Islamophobes out there will have the courage to read these articles in detail--but especially the first one which is an exposé of the sloppy antics of Daniel Pipes:

Danish Cartoons, Double-Standards and Daniel Pipes

Hate-Mongers Beware...

Why Muslims Are Angry...

An Idiot's Guide to Offensive Cartoons

The actual articles can be found via the post linked to above, or by visiting his website.

I say it was a restrained comment, despite a phrase like "self-righteous Islamophobes", because that's just par for this particular course. If anyone talks about Islam, they quickly become deaf to the incessant repetition of the lazy word "islamophobia", which is just shorthand for "any remark that is not flattering".

I've read the above articles. The most substantial one is indeed the Daniel Pipes piece, and I'll come to that last. In fact, taking them in reverse order makes some sense.

An Idiot's Guide to Offensive Cartoons isn't. After the first sentence, it doesn't mention the cartoons at all, let alone provide a guide to them but, for all that, it starts well:

Well I couldn't resist weighing in on the ongoing cartoon saga. The first thing I want to say is: the violent, idiotic and un-Islamic behavior has got to stop.

Why? Because this was foreseen in the Qu'ran:

"You will certainly be tried and tested in your possessions and in your souls;
and you will certainly hear much that will grieve you,
from those who received the Book before you (i.e. Jews and Christians)
and from the pagan idolaters.
But if you persevere patiently, and guard against evil,
then that will be a determining factor in all affairs."
- Qur'an 3:186

and

Maintaining self-restraint in the face of the disgusting bigotry, hatred and blasphemy that we're facing today is what it means to "perservere patiently", which is what the Prophet-salla Allahu 'alayhi wa salam-did when he was mocked, ridiculed and spat upon by the pagan opposition.

and

Thus the question arises of how he would react to being satired and lampooned in cartoons or having his teachings besmirched by the foolhardy example of some of his latter-day followers?

and so on. That's it. Really. Just the assumption that some terrible wrong has been done, a call to refrain from violence, and examples of Mohammed's forbearance.

Note the two phrases in bold above. They provide us with a simple formula:

being satired and lampooned in cartoons = disgusting bigotry, hatred and blasphemy

No, they don't constitute hatred or bigotry. They are part of the rough and tumble of Western life. The only people for whom they constitute blasphemy are Muslims. And we are not Muslims. But there is a word for non-Muslims who live in a Muslim society and have to conform with Muslim laws and "feel themselves subdued" (Sura 9:29): Dhimmi. I'm going to need this next phrase again, so I'll make it an acronym for convenience. We do not live in a Muslim society and We Are Not Dhimmis. WAND.

Please understand this, Abdurrahman: we are not Dhimmis and you are not going to make us into Dhimmis.

Next, we have Why Muslims are angry.

Personally, I think the primary reasons, aside from the general post-colonial trauma that much of the Muslim World still suffers from due to their exploitation by European powers for so many years, are quite obvious: double-standards and hypocrisy. Thus in reality it’s not about the cartoons per se, but about all the hypocrisy and double-standards surrounding the debate about them.

While I go and talk to some North African Berbers and Sudanese Christians and Animists about post-colonial trauma - having their entire culture destroyed by Islamic invaders - anyone interested can check out the Guardian article which shows the first double standard.

I'm back and, hey, that was fast. Two million of the Sudanese were dead, so it took less time than I expected. The Guardian article shows that the Danish newspaper that published the "offensive" cartoons refused to publish some unsolicited cartoons with a Christian theme. The editor said

"The illustrator thought his cartoons were funny. I did not think so. It would offend some readers, not much but some."

Newspaper refuses to publish unsolicited material. Hold the front page. Newspapers almost never publish unsolicited material. By way of a contrast, the Mohammed cartoons were commissioned because a book author had found it difficult to find an illustrator who would work on his book about Mohammed's life. After the trail of murder left by extremist Islamists across Europe, that's no surprise, so the Jyllands-Posten commissioned some cartoons to show that free speech and free expression still exist in Europe.

Do you really not understand that, Abdurrahman? The newspaper was trying to show that magic WAND. As the editor recently remarked, "we failed". What has instead become clear is the degree of fear, repression and outright dhimmitude that Islamist extremism has planted in Europe and other western countries. That's what this blog, and others, is trying to roll back.

The reason why Muslims feel angry is encapsulated in this next passage, a quote from someone called Rachard Itani:

You can curse the Prophet of the Muslims at will and with total impunity. However, approach the holocaust at your own risks and perils…There is a word for this in the English language: hypocrisy…This whole affair is nothing but an over-reaction to a simple cartoon, you say? Not if you remember a certain other cartoon that appeared in the British newspaper, The Independent, on 27 January 2003. It depicted Prime Minister Sharon of Israel eating the head of a Palestinian child while saying: "What's wrong? You've never seen a politician kissing babies before?" Jews in Britain and around the world erupted with indignation…Muslims deserve nothing more nor less than for Christians in the U.S. and Europe, and Zionist Jews in Israel, to simply abide by the golden rule: treat others as you would have others treat you. So far, Christians and Zionist Jews have proven that they only abide by the alternative definition of this rule: ‘They who have the gold, make the rule.’

Yes, there was anger at that Independent cartoon. But there were no Jews burning embassies, holding up placards demanding that the editor if the paper be beheaded or demanding changes in the law and in society. That's the difference. I think the Independent was and is contemptible, but I uphold their right to free speech. No Israelis claimed immunity from criticism after the cartoon was published. No Jews declared that non-Jews should be subject to Jewish religious law.

The holocaust is the main theme, though, and is dwelt on at length in the next two pieces. Hate-Mongers Beware starts more ominously:

All hate-mongers out there need to realize that one of their kindred spirits, Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher, was found guilty at the Nuremberg Trials and sentenced to death even though he never directly participated in the Holocaust.
...
I wonder if any of the hate-mongering Neanderthal hypocrites out there, like the ones who seemingly think freedom of speech should be absolute, want to defend Julius Streicher's right to free speech?

It's always interesting for a modernist, empirical, scientific, rationalist child of the enlightenment to be called "Neanderthal" by an uncritical believer in bronze-age superstition. But moving on:

Personally, I feel that idea that Muslims are the "New Jews"--since it's okay to hate them, stereotype them, claim they have a propensity towards violence, have no moral values and pose a threat to society at large--is very substantiated, thus I don't think that internment camps (or worse) are out of the question if another large scale terrorist attack takes place on U.S. soil or elsewhere.

And indeed some commentators have mentioned internment, including the very beautiful Michelle Malkin.

Just as an aside, P.J. O'Rorke, remembering all the ethereal babes who walked in counter-culture demos in the 1960s, theorised that the cutting edge is where the most beautiful women gravitate. Just compare some of the right-wing bloggers with, say, Code Pink and you'll get the idea.

To continue from the article:

It's at times like these that I really feel thankful to Almighty God for guiding me to Islam. Sure, most of us get frustrated by the often misguided antics of Muslims these days, but just look at the hate-mongers out there whose daily work consists of making the world a more hateful and less tolerant place

You mean, a place where free expression isn't tolerated? The sort of place where followers of one religion demand that others obey their 1400 year old laws? That's not going to happen, because of that magic WAND.

And so to

Daniel Pipes, the world's most prominent anti-Muslim hate-monger
...
Based on the fact that he's the respected spokesman for so many Islamophobes around the world, you'd think he'd be able to articulate a decent defense for his paranoid positions. Please try to keep this in mind when you see how easy it is to un-spin his half-baked assertions—and it is always easy when the facts are on your side. So without further adieu, here's what Daniel Pipes, glaring hypocrite and Islamophobe extraordinaire, had to say:

"Will the West stand up for its customs and mores,
including freedom of speech, or will Muslims
impose their way of life on the West? Ultimately,
there is no compromise: Westerners will either
retain their civilization, including the right to
insult and blaspheme, or not."

It’s quite ironic that he finds it so easy to ignore the fact that eleven European countries (including ones that he lists as standing with Denmark in his article), as well as his own State of Israel, have laws which make public denial of the Holocaust a crime.

This seems to be a "they are doing it, so we'll do it too" defense, but that can't be right because

what Daniel Pipes is actually arguing for in this case is a juvenile "We're doing it because they do it too!" justification.

Pipes had mentioned anti-Semitic cartoons in the Middle East. But this is hypocrisy, because burning a flag or a cross are also illegal in the USA, we are told. Then there are links to photographs of racial lynching is the USA.

On that note, please realize that the existence of anti-Semitic Muslim cartoonists and the actions of violent angry Muslim mobs in various locales doesn't nullify the fact that many of those who are defending free speech and the so-called Western way of life are having hypocritical double-standards—so please stop using the recent violence as a way to divert attention from the real issue.

You mean, like showing 70 year old atrocity images to divert us from atrocities being committed today?

Various pundits are claiming that European Muslims want special treatment under the law, although at least one specific religion is already getting preferential treatment. They claim Muslims only want their religion to be protected from insult, but true and decent Muslims want all religions protected from insult (which is a Qur'anic concept by the way).

And, for his twisting of the truth,

the Daniel Pipes' of the world truly have a lot in common with the likes of Julius Streicher.

Muslims do want special treatment before the law. The atrocity pictures, of KKK lynchings, far from being a sign of hypocrisy, are the exact reason why cross burning is illegal in the US. We all have our particular histories and this is part of that of the USA. The Holocaust is part of Europe's and, while I don't personally agree with it, this is why Germany led the way in passing Holocaust Denial laws. European anti-semitism is not extinguished and revisionism is a route used by neo-fascists to gain ground.

But Islam is NOT a part of our history. We are not Muslims and, you guessed it: WAND. But Christianity is a part of our past. There were terrible passages in European history. Heresy and blasphemy were punished by death. There are still atavistic remains of blasphemy laws in many European countries and you'd be right to say that they don't include Islam (or Hinduism, or Buddhism...). But they are the problem, not the solution. Our ancestors fought for the right for free expression, against a (Christian) theocracy - paying with their lives in many cases. The freedoms we enjoy were hard won and are fragile and precious. And we are not going to let them slip away.

We are not Muslims. We are not Dhimmis. And we don't want your religious laws.

Rarebit eating surrender monkeys

Compare and contrast two pieces in today's Telegraph.

Muslim Plea Fails:

A French court yesterday turned down a request by Muslim groups to gag a satirical weekly which today publishes all 12 of the cartoons and a new caricature.

The Muslim Council of France told the Paris civil court that the cartoons incited religious or racial hatred. The court ruled the application inadmissible on a technicality.

Charlie Hebdo's director and editor-in-chief, Philippe Val, said yesterday he chose to publish the cartoons "for reasons of solidarity and on principle".

University drops editor over cartoon:

A student newspaper has suspended its editor and recalled 10,000 copies after it published the Danish cartoon satirising Mohammed as a terrorist.

Cardiff University's student union paper Gair Rhydd - which means Free Word - is believed to be the first British publication to use the image that has led to violent global protests. The cartoon, first published in Denmark last September, shows the Prophet with a lighted bomb on his head decorated with the Muslim declaration of faith.

Student union leaders in Cardiff discovered on Saturday that the weekly newspaper, which is distributed free on the university campus and to halls of residence, included the cartoon alongside an article describing reaction to its publication elsewhere.

By noon yesterday they had retrieved 98 per cent of the copies. About 200 copies remained in circulation. A statement by Cardiff University Students' Union said it "very much regrets any upset caused or disrespect shown".

Ashgar Ali, a councillor in Grangetown, Cardiff, said: "The Muslim students at the university are going to be upset."