Where are British moderate Muslims?

Jihad Watch has just published my article Where are British moderate Muslims?

If there are moderate Muslims in the UK, this is the moment for them to make their voices heard.

Pakistan’s Railways Minister has offered $100,000 for the murder of the filmmaker of The Innocence of Muslims.

In any civilized country, he would be not only fired from his cabinet position but also arrested for the crime of incitement to murder. Instead, Pakistan’s Prime Minister has excused him, and people in his country have demonstrated in his support.

Pakistan is a member of the British Commonwealth. Its High Commissioner to the UK, the equivalent of ambassador for Commonwealth countries, has defended the Railways Minister in an interview with Sky News.

Various British Muslims have also been interviewed, and they invariably expressed the opinion that, if freedom of speech should be protected, then the Pakistani minister is within his rights to say what he wants, and after all, he only hurt one person, not many like the controversial filmmaker. This is Muslim logic for you.

All this is reminiscent of what happened at the time of the Salman Rushdie affair, when opinion polls among British Muslims were showing the majority in favour of the fatwa against the writer.

Let’s not forget that many UK Muslims have come here from Pakistan, so much so that the derogatory term for Asians in Britain is “Paki”.

When we consider Pakistan, the country’s blasphemy law and its use to persecute Christian minorities in the most shameful way and the support that this law enjoys among the Pakistani population, and then we look at this latest episode of a government minister publicly inciting to murder with impunity and people taking to the streets defending him, we have to draw the conclusion that, if there are moderate Muslims in Pakistan, they must be very few or very silent or both.

Is the same true of British Muslims, many of whom are of Pakistani extraction?

Interestingly, Muslim figures prominent in the UK, always displayed for public consumption as representatives of moderate Islam, have turned out, under greater scrutiny, not to be so moderate after all.

Member of the House of Lords Lord Ahmed “savagely attacked Tony Blair for giving Salman Rushdie a knighthood, ...threatened to mobilise 10000 Muslims to prevent democratically elected Dutch MP Geert Wilders from speaking in Parliament, this is despite his own invite of the anti-semitic Israel Shamir who has been accused of denying the holocaust”.

The Pakistani-born peer also said: “Even if I have to beg I am willing to raise and offer £10 million so that George W Bush and Tony Blair can be brought to the International Court of Justice on war crimes charges”.

Former Deputy Leader of the Labour Group, Shadow Lord Chancellor and Shadow Secretary of State for Justice Sadiq Khan “is the lifelong friend of Babar Ahmad, a man indicted in the US on charges of ‘conspiracy to provide material to support terrorists, namely the Taliban and the Chechen Mujahideen; providing material to support terrorists; and conspiracy to kill in a foreign country’. Ahmad ran a website recruiting jihadi militants to go and fight the Russian in Chechnya and Coalition troops in Afghanistan. When arrested, he had in his possession plans for an American carrier battle group with written notations on it like ‘vulnerable to RPG’”.

Journalist Mehdi Hasan, former senior political editor of The New Statesman, on separate occasions called non-Muslims people of no intelligence and compared them to animals and cattle (in so doing revealing, on top of everything else, his speciesism).

And former co-chairman of the Conservative Party Baroness Warsi, unelected, appointed to the House of Lords, amidst public expenses frauds scandals, breachings of both the Ministerial Code and rules on financial declarations, found time to run a business her partner in which, Abid Hussain, has been a leading member of Hizb ut Tahrir, a radical Islamic group the Conservatives promised to ban when they were in opposition.

Disliked by Tories, called by one of them “the worst party chairman” we've ever had, Warsi, who is of Pakistani origin and maintains strong ties with that country, has now more power than ever, with two crucial cabinet posts and a seat at the National Security Council.

What Life in Islamized England Is Like

This video shows a reporter interviewing two women in Burnley, Northern England, on what their lives and those of people like them have become since their town has been populated by large numbers of Muslims.

Burnley is close to Rochdale, where grooming and sexual abuse of white young girls by Muslim men was allowed to continue for a decade by police and social services too politically correct to intervene.

Never Say Muslim Paedophile in Rochdale on the BBC

Last night I watched on the BBC the political debate programme Question Time. One of the questions from the studio audience to the panel of politicians, media people and other commentators was about the scandal provoked by the sexual abuse of white underage girls by Muslim men in Rochdale, Northern England.

Everyone in the programme uttered the usual platitudes and was ready to condemn the local police and social services for failing to act, but everything that was said, without exception, points to this: all the people participating in the debate are conniving with the cover-up, by sharing the very same ideology and fear - call it political correctness if you like - that caused it in the first place and, if they had been in the same position of responsibility as those police and social services, they would have done exactly the same.

How do I know that? Because, during the whole discussion, the words "Muslim" or "Islam" were not uttered even once. It must have been a feat.This is the final total score of expressions used in reference to the perpetrators or in association with what they did:

Asian males: 1

Catholic Church: 1

Catholicism: 1

Church: 1

People involved in this case: 1

People: 1

The accused involved: 1

Islam: 0

Muslims: 0

If you looked at those numbers without knowing what happened, you would guess that it was something to do with the Catholic Church - which obviously had nothing to do with it, but the mainstream media are always happy to drag it into any scandal, true, partially true, false, imagined, dreamed at night, it doesn't matter.

Labour Party's Deputy Leader Harriet Harman was particularly pathetic in her use of the most tortuous arguments to deny that the police had fear of accusations of racism or Islamophobia with consequent possible punishments as their motivation not to investigate and prosecute.

Buffoon, sorry, comedian Steve Coogan made a display of periphrases and circumlocutions, and every few words stopped in his tracks. Here is what he said when asked to explain the police's behaviour, complete with ums, pauses and hesitations:

"I think that that there's there's um... um... one thing that... We don't know the full facts, so we don't know. There's the inference that um... has been made in some quarters that it may be about the um... um... um... the religious dimension um... to this of the accused involved um... and whether um... because of sort of religious sensivitives um.. there may have been recalcitrance on the part of the police. Now, that's always a political hot potato, everyone you know wants to talk about is the perception of mysogyny in certain religions, and I'd say that that is true um... of certain aspects or certain people within Catholicism and um.. and also you know um... other religions, I don't think that any religion has a monopoly on this."

If these people couldn't even bring themselves to say the word "Islam" or "Muslim", so paralyzing is the taboo of accusing this doctrine or its followers in their mind, imagine whether, had they been in the shoes of those services whose duty was to investigate someone they can't even name, the outcome could conceivably have been different.

The show was a cover-up pointing the finger at another cover-up.

What's Wrong with Innocence of Muslims?

Vile, disgusting, blasphemous, defamatory, crude, boring, undignified: these are a bunch of the derogatory adjectives (generally the same, repeated ad nauseam) used innumerable times to describe the film Innocence of Muslims posted on YouTube.

What is exceedingly hard to find, in all the judgements written and spoken by its detractors, is a discussion of its contents and a reasoned, argued reply to them. In other words, the reasons why this film should be considered vile, disgusting etc.

If there is something that shows how these people, usually leftists and assorted anti-West ideologues, have totally lost not only the intellectual battle but also the intellect is this condemnation of a movie, that in most cases they haven't even seen and know nothing about, only on the basis of the say-so of Muslim mobs and leaders. They are so immersed in their suspended-reality world populated by myths like religion of peace, moderate Muslims and Islamophobia that they don't even recognize the necessity of arguments and reasons (or even reason, in the sense of rationality).

UK Papers Have Few Readers? Tax Internet Users

Leftists love the state, and the bigger it is the better.

The government is there to solve all our problems, they think. So why not use goverment intervention to save from failure UK liberal newspapers whose readership is constantly declining because people got fed up of finding in them the same old Marxist propaganda and anti-Western, pro-Islam, pro-immigration enthusiasm which is now less and less shared by the general population, who now has the free (in every sense) alternative of the internet?

This was the idea of a journalist of - surprise, surprise - The Guardian, the paper's executive investigations editor David Leigh.

His proposal is splendid from a communist viewpoint, and atrocious for everybody else: everyone in the UK with a broadband connection account should be imposed a £2 a month broadband levy, with which to create a fund to be distributed to newspapers in proportion to their UK online readership.

So, as is the usual knee-jerk response of the Left, rather than addressing a problem with a real, concrete solution to it (like, in this case, improving the quality of their rags by better meeting the demands of their potential readership), they want to ask the government to "solve" the problem by pouring more money into it (the "progressives" answer to everything, which achieves nothing except increasing public debt).

And how do you collect this new public money? By raising taxes, of course.

Most British newspapers sales are falling. Last month, The Economist says, the Guardian Media Group "reported an annual loss of around £76m ($121m). Its newspaper unit lost £54m".

Leigh thinks that the solution he proposes is "obvious", but even the online comments to his article clearly show that he is in a tiny minority to believe that although, as is often the case, people like him are probably deluded into thinking that they represent majority views.

And these are also the same "progressives" who keep telling us how they, unlike the nasty Tories who are out of touch with ordinary people, feel our pain in these difficult economic times and know how hard it is for families to get by. And yet they want households to fork out more money just to compensate the financial losses of those papers that people are not prepared to spend money to read.

So for what should they be worth saving?

Geller's Anti-Jihad Ad Makes Headlines

Courageous USA counter-jihadist activist Pamela Geller, Executive Director of the of American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), has brought anti-jihad to national and international media attention, with her ad in New York subway.

The poster, which is a response to anti-Israel ads previously displayed there, has been repeatedly vandalized since its first day, Monday.

Says Pamela Geller about this vandalism:

In a rational society, it would be looked down upon, but more importantly, the defacement is a metaphor for this entire conversation. Hundreds and hundreds of anti-Israel posters ran all over the country. Not one was defaced. One anti-jihad poster goes up, and it's defaced within an hour, while its creator faces defamation, smears and libel. Islamic supremacists and leftist thugs criminally defaced these ads within an hour. This is a physical manifestation of the entire conversation, or lack thereof. Anyone who speaks about jihad and sharia is attacked, defamed, destroyed -- just like these ads. This is exactly what’s happening in the media regarding jihad coverage in general. Anti-American, anti-Israel, pro-sharia hate is all over the airwaves, but anyone who dares to speak the truth about Islam and jihad in the media is immediately smeared and defamed. You can't have this conversation in the media, any more than I can present these pro-Israel ads, and receive any semblance of fair treatment.

New, Expletive-Laden Pro-Obama Ad

What's ridiculous about the new pro-Obama ad by actor Samuel L. Jackson is that a child features in it proclaiming the anti-Romney manifesto without obviously having a clue of what she's talking about: very much like the adults in the pro-Obama camp.

The video is full of expletives, and the young girl is also cursing.

And, in case for some strange reason you need a further good motive not to re-elect the incumbent with one of the worst records in American history, this should settle it: he has Madonna's support.

Madonna urged to vote for Obama, offering as the only valid argument that “For better or for worse, all right, we have a Black Muslim in the White House. Now that is some amazing ****. It means there is hope in this country.” Talking about color-blindness.

Blasphemy Laws Would Ban Islam

Of all the things being written on the subject of the Innocence of Muslims film and the reactions to it in the Islamic world calling for anti-blasphemy laws to be imposed all over the globe, the one I found most impressive and illuminating is that of Islam and Arabic scholar Raymond Ibrahim.

It is so self-evident that it's incredible no-one else has thought about it. And by revealing either Islam's internal contradictions or (more likely) Muslim lies, it offers the solution to the current conundrum and predicament. Those strategic, deceptive Muslim claims of wishing to protect all religions provide a clear way out.

If any politician or mainstream media outlet has the courage to dare touch the taboo subject of Quran and other Islam's sacred texts and use this logic, beautiful in its simplicity, we will have the answer to give to the Muslim world.

All links are in the article How 'Religious Defamation' Laws Would Ban Islam.

As the Islamic world, in the guise of the 57-member state Organization of Islamic Cooperation, continues to push for the enforcement of "religious defamation" laws in the international arena—theoretically developed to protect all religions from insult, but in reality made for Islam—one great irony is lost, especially on Muslims: if such laws would ban movies and cartoons that defame Islam, they would also, by logical extension, have to ban the religion of Islam itself—the only religion whose core texts actively defame other religions.

If films and cartoons defame Islam, the Quran itself defames other religions.

To understand this, consider what "defamation" means. Typical dictionary-definitions include "to blacken another's reputation" and "false or unjustified injury of the good reputation of another, as by slander or libel." In Muslim usage, defamation simply means anything that insults or offends Islamic sensibilities.

However, to gain traction among the international community, the OIC maintains that such laws should protect all religions from defamation, not just Islam. Accordingly, the OIC is agreeing that any expression that "slanders" the religious sentiments of others should be banned.

What, then, do we do with Islam's core religious texts—beginning with the Quran itself, which slanders, denigrates and blackens the reputation of other religions? Consider Christianity alone: Quran 5:73 declares that "Infidels are they who say Allah is one of three," a reference to the Christian Trinity; Quran 5:72 says "Infidels are they who say Allah is the Christ, [Jesus] son of Mary"; and Quran 9:30 complains that "the Christians say the Christ is the son of Allah … may Allah's curse be upon them!"

Considering that the word "infidel" (or kafir) is one of Islam's most derogatory terms, what if a Christian book or Western movie appeared declaring that "Infidels are they who say Muhammad is the prophet of God—may God's curse be upon them"? If Muslims would consider that a great defamation against Islam—and they would, with the attendant rioting, murders, etc.—then by the same standard it must be admitted that the Quran defames Christians and Christianity.

Similarly, consider how the Christian Cross, venerated among millions, is depicted—is defamed—in Islam: according to canonical hadiths, when he returns, Jesus supposedly will destroy all crosses; and Muhammad, who never allowed the cross in his presence, ordered someone wearing a cross to "take off that piece of idolatry."

What if Christian books or Western movies declared that the sacred things of Islam—say the Black Stone in the Ka'ba of Mecca—are "idolatry" and that Muhammad himself will return and destroy them? If Muslims would consider that defamation against Islam—and they would, with all the attendant rioting, murders, etc.—then by the same standard it must be admitted that the hadith defames the Christian Cross.

Here is a particularly odious form of defamation against Christian sentiment, especially to the millions of Catholic and Orthodox Christians. According to Islam's most authoritative Quranic exegetes, including the revered Ibn Kathir, Muhammad is in paradise married to and having sex with the Virgin Mary.

What if a Christian book or Western movie portrayed, say, Muhammad's wife, Aisha the "Mother of Believers," as being married to and having sex with a false prophet in heaven? If Muslims would consider that a great defamation against Islam—and they would, with all the attendant rioting, murders, etc.—then by the same standard it must be admitted that Islam's most authoritative Quranic exegetes defame the Virgin Mary.

Nor does such defamation of Christianity occur in Islam's ancient texts only; modern day Muslim scholars and sheikhs agree that it is permissible to defame Christianity. Qatar-based "Islam Web" even issued a fatwa that legitimizes insulting Christianity.

Now consider the wording used by Muslim leaders calling on the U.N. to enforce religious defamation laws in response to the Muhammad film on YouTube, and how these expressions can easily be used against Islam:

The OIC "deplored… an offensive and derogatory film on the life of Prophet Muhammad" and "called on the producers to show respect to the religious sentiments held sacred by Muslims and those of other faiths."

But what about the "offensive and derogatory" depictions of Christianity in Islam's core texts? Are Muslims willing to expunge these from the Quran and hadith, "to show respect to the religious sentiments held sacred … by those of other faiths," in this case, Christians?

Turkish Prime Minister Erodgan said the film "insults religions" (note the inclusive plural) and called for "international legal regulations against attacks on what people [not just Muslims] deem sacred."

Well, what about the fact that Islam "insults religions"—including Judaism and all polytheistic faiths? Should the West call for "international legal regulations against attacks on what people deem sacred," in the case of Christianity, regulations against Islam's teachings which attack the sanctity of Christ's divinity, the Cross, and Virgin Mary?

Even Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti—who a few months ago called for the destruction of all Christian churches in the Arabian Peninsula (first reported here)—is now calling for a "global ban on insults targeting all" religious figures, while the Grand Imam of Egypt's Al Azhar is calling for "a U.N. resolution outlawing 'insulting symbols and sanctities of Islam' and other religions." Again, they, too, claim to be interested in banning insults to all religions, while ignoring the fact that their own religion is built atop insulting all other religions.

And surely this is the grandest irony of all: the "defamation" that Muslims complain about—and that prompts great violence and bloodshed around the world—revolves around things like movies and cartoons, which are made by individuals who represent only themselves; on the other hand, Islam itself, through its holiest and most authoritative texts, denigrates and condemns—in a word, defames—all other religions, not to mention calls for violence against them (e.g., Quran 9:29).

It is this issue, Islam's perceived "divine" right to defame and destroy, that the international community should be addressing—not silly cartoons and films.

Ahmadinejad Meets Black Racist Farrakhan

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met with the Nation of Islam Minister and black supremacist Louis Farrakhan.

Ahmadinejad is in New York this week for the 67th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. A photo on an English translation of Ahmadinejad’s personal website shows Farrakhan sitting at the same table as the Iranian President, smiling in front of an Iranian flag, during a meeting of Ahmadinejad with the "leaders of Abrahamic religions".

Farrakhan is anti-white, anti-American, anti-Semitic. Calling him "racist" is one of the rare occasions when the term is rightly used. What better partner for an Islamic leader of Ahmadinejad's ilk, with the destruction of the West as common objective?

To make things even clearer, last night the Iranian President had "a hush-hush meal with Farrakhan and members of the New Black Panther Party Tuesday at the Warwick Hotel on West 54th Street", the New York Post reported.

It's hard to tell who is worse of the two men. Just to give an idea of Farrakhan's Weltanschauung, he said that in 1985 he was abducted by aliens from outer space:

Farrakhan also recounted what he claimed was a UFO abduction in which Elijah Muhammad warned him of a coming war. Farrakhan explained how after the 1985 event, then-President Ronald Reagan announced that Americans were to have no dealings with Libya and Gadhafi. It was at that point, he said Tuesday, that he understood this was the war to which his UFO experience alluded.

“I wondered then: Was Moammar Gadhafi the man and the war I was told about? While I was in Ghana it crystallized to me that it was Moammar Gadhafi and Libya. This was in 1986,” he said adding that he immediately took a Russian plane to Libya to warn Gadhafi of “America’s plans.”

“I told them my experience,” he said, “and I told them that America was going to bomb their airport, communications, their water project etc.”

According to Farrakhan, an American bomb strike on Libya shortly after his visit there confirmed his belief in his UFO prophecy.

“[Ghaddafi’s] life was spared and I knew then that God had made a brother for me and made me a brother for him and that is how our relationship began.”

Farrakhan also believes that the Monica Lewinsky scandal was a Zionist conspiracy.

To complete the unholy anti-Western alliance, Ahmadinejad is also supposed to meet Occupy Wall Street anti-capitalist protestors, according to the Iranian regime’s official FARS News Agency.

Italian Reactions to Muhammad Film Protests

Jihad Watch has my article Italian Reactions to Muhammad Film Protests:

The violent attacks on people and symbols representing the USA and the West in the Islamic world are one of those situations in which it becomes clear where people stand.

People are forced to make a choice here: they either point the finger at those whom they consider responsible for having provoked Muslim outrage, in other words guilty of exercising freedom of expression, or recognize that peaceful coexistence cannot be achieved by sacrificing the basic principles of our civilization, and that appeasement only leads to more and more aggressive demands.

It's similar to kidnapping and making ransom demands: governments are reluctant to give in to those requests, because they know that capitulation would encourage further kidnappings. But in dealing with the Muslim world, this logic - in fact any logic - is hardly ever applied.

Appeasement cannot work for the following reasons. Islam and European civilization are incompatible, not just because Islam is bent on destroying anything which is not Islam - what you may call the "supremacist reason" - but also because our fundamental principles and Islam's are in direct, logical contradiction, and trying to reconcile them is like squaring a circle. A conflict of interests can be solved with negotiations and compromises, but a logical contradiction, like that between a square and a circle, cannot be solved at all. We may call this the "cardinal reason".

It's interesting to note that Western authorities recognize the link between the religion of peace, specifically Friday prayers, and violence:

"Meanwhile, police said that German embassies and consulates in Arabic countries would be on high alert after Friday, a religious holiday, as some experts fear that violence could again escalate." (Islam versus Europe)

"France confirmed on Friday it would allow no street protests against cartoons denigrating Islam's Prophet Mohammad that were published by a French magazine this week." (Jihad Watch)

Why is it that when Muslims are closest to their religion, through mosques, Friday prayers, Ramadan, they get more enraged and aggressive?

Another criterion to separate people's positions is by looking at what they think of the "Arab Spring".

The Italian missionary-blogger-journalist Piero Gheddo in an article called "Where has the Arab Spring Gone?", after having praised both the revolts that brought democratically-elected governments in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia ("We cannot think that democracy, freedom of press and speech are positive only for us Christians") and Islam's glorious history ("Muhammad's religion spread by the sword but also gave rise to a civilization of great splendour, admired even by Christian sages and travellers"), writes:

"We live in 2000 AD, Islam still lives, as a culture, religion and worship of its past, in 1400 after Muhammad. It has not yet adapted to modernity. Muslim peoples are attracted to it, while the political and religious authorities try in every way to exploit Islam to save their power.
"Not only that, but there are objective difficulties in saving in the modern world the many good things that exist in Islam: the historical-critical reading of the Quran that would make it contemporary is not allowed because it is the word of God in the literal sense; in Islam there is no comparable authority to the Pope and the Bishops, every mosque or madrassa follows its own way; in Islamic law there is no notion of absolute dignity of every man and woman, which makes all creatures equal in their rights; and finally there is no distinction between religion and politics."

I said that people are forced to make a choice, but it seems that some, like Father Gheddo, are very skilled at avoiding it.

An on-the-fence position has been that of Pope Benedict XVI who, in his trip to Lebanon, invited to peace and dialogue among followers of the various religions. His situation is obviously complicated by his role of head of state and the fear that his words might be the trigger for new attacks on the Christian minorities who are like hostages in Muslim-majority countries.

A more robust answer came from a 2-day international conference on 15-16 September in Florence, organized by the association Una via per Oriana Fallaci on the problem and dangers of Islam, which was also a commemoration of the late Florentine journalist and thinker.

The focus of the conference was on the persecution of Christians inside and outside the Islamic world, Europe's progressive repudiation of its classical liberal values, and the sources of what the participants called "Christianophobia".

Christianophobia derives, according to expert on geopolitics Alexandre del Valle, from four myths, one of which is

"The myth that Islam is compatible with freedom and that Islamic violence against Christians is only a reaction to wicked behaviours on the part of Christians in the past as well as today. The current violence is excused as indignation provoked by the film The Innocence of Muslims, considered blasphemous by many Muslims, even if its contents have the sacred texts of Islam as their sources."

I must admit that I don't particularly like the neologism "Christianophobia", simply because unintentionally it seems to legitimize its counterpart "Islamophobia" from which it is probably derived, and in so doing it establishes a prima facie, superficial equivalence between the two religions.

Nevertheless, it seems to be in fashion in the current Italian debate, partly because of the recent Venice Film Festival's screening of Paradise: Faith by Ulrich Seidl, a movie that has as its highest point a sequence in which the protagonist, actress Maria Hoffstatter, engages in autoeroticism using a crucifix.

The double standards between the treatment of Muslim and Christian sensitivities, in this case as in that of the "Piss Christ" "artwork", are so blatant to provoke nausea.

"Violence explodes in the Muslim world. Western politicians compete in apologizing for the blasphemous Islam film. Do we need to burn down embassies and kill for someone to apologize for the blasphemous movie about Christianity which received the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival?" asks the blog Basta Bugie (Enough of Lies).

The question of free speech and where, if anywhere, the line should be drawn is worth exploring, maybe in another article. But that double standards should not be tolerated is so simple that does not require further analysis.

Continue reading.

Freedom of Speech Replaced by Sharia

Blogger Diana West has a very good article, "Trading the First Amendment for Sharia":

This is no media flap. This is war. Islam is attempting to dominate the West by attacking the basis of the West – freedom of speech. Our leaders won’t tell us that because too many of them have already surrendered. They deplore the violence against our people and our sovereign territory, yes, but their priority is not to defend free speech but to see that Islamic speech codes are enforced. They have already decided to discard liberty for Shariah. The U.S. government and the Islamic bloc known as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) couldn’t be more in sync on this vital issue.

How to get around the First Amendment? Through “some old-fashioned techniques of peer pressure and shaming,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last year. She was speaking about the so-called Istanbul Process, the international effort she and the OIC are spearheading to see Islamic anti-”blasphemy” laws enforced around the world.

Since last week, the Obama administration has made not one but two attempts to persuade YouTube to remove “Innocence of Muslims,” the Islamic riot-button du jour. The administration has denounced and practically jumped up and down on the video clip as “the cause” of Islamic rampaging. (To its credit, YouTube owner Google so far has refused.)

Amid the rioting, President Obama called on Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan for political support. Erdogan obliged by condemning violence against U.S. personnel in Libya, but he identified the video as “provocation” – indeed, all the more reason for blasphemy laws. When free speech “is in the form of a provocation,” Erdogan said, “there should be international legal regulations against attacks … on religion.” There should be domestic laws, too, he said, continuing: “Freedom of thought and belief ends where the freedom of thought and belief of others starts.”

A video in no way limits the freedom of thought and belief of anybody. This is another example of the tortuous logic of the Muslim world which, not incidentally, has never been able to reconcile Islam with Aristotle, the founder of formal logic.

That’s not how it works in the West. But such Shariah norms are what all of Islam – not just a “tiny band of extremists” – is pressing on us. A survey of the week’s news in the Islamic world reveals that whether terror kingpins (Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah and Indonesia’s convicted Abu Bakar Bashir) or Islamic scholar (Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed el-Tayeb), whether smashing U.S. Embassy windows in Yemen or meeting in the offices of the Arab League, whether Pakistani lawyers or Hamas fighters, whether under U.S. sanctions (Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) or an Obama ally (Turkey’s Erdogan), the Islamic world is speaking in one voice. Criticism of Islam must be outlawed, and violators punished.

And more audaciously than ever. Just this week, an Iranian group increased the bounty on Salman Rushdie’s fatwa’ed head to 2.5 million euros for “insulting” Islam 23 years ago in his novel “The Satanic Verses.” The influential Union of Islamic Scholars, headed by Muslim Brotherhood spiritual adviser Yusuf al-Qaradawi, demanded that Pope Benedict XVI apologize for his 2006 address in Regensburg, Germany, linking Islam and violence. Egyptian cleric Ahmad Fouad Ashoush issued a fatwa (death sentence) against the cast and crew of “Innocence of Muslims.” The Pakistani government declared a national holiday for anti-U.S. protests. And the Egyptian government, still begging for U.S. cash, not only sentenced an Egyptian Christian to six years in jail this week for “insulting the prophet” (and Egypt’s president and a lawyer), it also issued arrest warrants for six U.S.-based Egyptians who made the “offending” film and pastor Terry Jones for promoting it.

This is what a world without the First Amendment looks like. In the eyes of the Obama White House, however, the First Amendment is just an obstacle to synchronicity with the Islamic world. They are right, of course. That makes it our lifeline to liberty.

Obama Supporters Hate Romney Not for His Failures, but Successes

Ruthie Blum was on the TV channel Russia Today last night, in one of those albeit too frequent instances of the "Cross Talk" debates in which one person is on the opposing side of the other two debaters plus the "moderator" Peter Lavelle.

The subject was the relationship between the USA and Israel.

I was so annoyed that she was shouted down every time she opened her mouth (and the few words she managed to utter pointed to something worth listening to) that I googled her and found this insightful piece about the so-called Romney's "gaffe" on the 47%, which is not really a gaffe at all. Here is an excerpt:

Ironically, many of the very analysts who grasp that America is not at fault for the bashing it is receiving from the Islamic world find it hard to acknowledge that Romney is not to blame for every surge Obama enjoys in the polls. Never before has an incumbent with this abysmal a record been given such a break by the media and the public.

...Which brings us back to Romney's comments, made months ago, that caused such a stir this week. In the first place, he was not speaking on a podium in a public forum, but among a small group of sympathizers with whom he could be blunt about his strategy.

Secondly, when he said that he would “never convince [the 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what] that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives," he was referring to his inability to garner their electoral support. He was not saying that, if elected, he would not become their president. He was asserting that he would not be able to cause them to adopt his position on personal responsibility.

Third: Everything he attributed to the people who adhere to Obama’s worldview is accurate. Obama believes that government is the key and the solution to everything. It is no secret that socialism is the system suited best to people who see themselves as victims, and who consider the government to be both at fault for their plight and responsible for rectifying it.

These are the people who scream “pro choice” in relation to abortion, for example, but who expect the government to fund the termination of their pregnancies when their choice not to use birth control leads to unwanted consequences.

These are the people who think the “millionaires” aren’t paying enough taxes, but who go on the government dole when those “fat cats” (aka the industry bosses who provide them employment) are forced to shrink or dissolve their businesses when hindered financially.

These are the people whose handouts and bailouts and subsidies force the government on which they so depend to raise everybody else’s taxes.

Yes, these are the people who will never vote for Romney — and not because of his “gaffes,” but rather due to his views on how to stop the vicious cycle and downward spiral caused by government control and intervention.

Islamists hate America not for what it does wrong, but for what it does right. Obama supporters hate Romney not for his failures, but for his successes. It is this that the conservative camp should be shouting from the rooftops. Anything else they have to say on the matter should be reserved for the privacy of their own homes — minus the video cameras.

There Should Be Many More Films on Muhammad

In Islam it's forbidden to portray Muhammad. But why should we non-Muslims all be imposed Islamic laws? That's what Muslims are trying to do. We are inferior, and we should submit and obey.

In fact, there's never been a film (not just posted on the internet but actually shown in cinemas) about Muhammad or the origins of Islam as far as I know. Why not? Maybe because people have been understandably afraid of Muslim wrath.

We non-Muslims have a right to know about Muhammad without interference from Muslims and their own rules, which they have given themselves and are not our rules.

We have that right especially since a very, very large number of Muslims are coming to live among us in the West, particularly in Europe, often forcing their acceptance through illegal immigration, thus violating the laws of the country they enter even before they have established themselves in them.

Shouldn't we at least be allowed to learn about what this great mass of people who have imposed their presence on us believe?

Not everybody will want to read the Quran or even other books on Islam, but films are a popular way of spreading culture. Lots of people know literary masterpieces only through cinema visits and TV watching. So why not films about Islam, without having Muslims telling us what can and can't be said in them?

Something new is happening in historical research on the origins of Islam, which was strangely, almost incredibly, non-existent until now.

Now some books on the subject have been published.

One is Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam's Obscure Origins (Amazon USA) (Amazon UK) by Robert Spencer, renowned scholar of Islam and political activist.

In an interview on the book with FrontPageMag, he said:

The question of whether or not Muhammad existed is one that few have thought to ask, or dared to ask. For most of the fourteen hundred years since the prophet of Islam is thought to have walked the earth, almost everyone has taken his existence for granted.
...There is, in fact, considerable reason to question the historicity of Muhammad. Although the story of Muhammad, the Qur’an, and early Islam is widely accepted, on close examination the particulars of the story prove elusive. The more one looks at the origins of Islam, the less one sees. In Did Muhammad Exist?, I explore the questions that a small group of pioneering scholars has raised about the historical authenticity of the standard account of Muhammad’s life and prophetic career. A thorough review of the historical records provides startling indications that much, if not all, of what we know about Muhammad is legend, not historical fact. A careful investigation similarly suggests that the Qur’an is not a collection of what Muhammad presented as revelations from the one true God but was actually constructed from already existing material, mostly from the Jewish and Christian traditions.

It matters because my investigations, as the book shows, tend toward the probability that Islam was constructed as a political system foremost, and only secondarily a religious one – a point that has significant implications for the controversy today over anti-Sharia laws and how to regard the incursions of political Islam in the West.

Another book on the origin of Islam and the historical figure of Muhammad is What the Modern Martyr Should Know: Seventy-Two Grapes and Not a Single Virgin: The New Picture of Islam (Amazon USA) (Amazon UK) by Norbert G. Pressburg, translated from the German.

Islam versus Europe has written extensively about this work in several posts.

It says:

But in an earlier age when communications were more limited, when despotic rulers faced no outside scrutiny of any kind, when manuscripts could be burned en masse, dissident thinkers liquidated and alternative power centres subjugated through conquest, could a fake view of history have prevailed?

This is the thesis advanced in the book “Good Bye Mohammed” by Norbert G. Pressburg, so far available only in German. (I have no knowledge of whether an English translation is forthcoming.) Its scope and ramifications are astounding. Not only does it undermine the foundations of the Islamic religion, but it challenges assumptions that have long since come to be accepted by western historians and even anti-jihadists. If true, it will change everything.

Pressburg believes that Islam arose not in the 7th century AD, as standard historical accounts claim, but in the 9th or even 10th centuries. He believes the Muslims constructed a fake history stretching back hundreds of years, working up a fable of religious revelation and conquest that is now accepted by almost everyone, even those who reject the divine inspiration claimed for it.

The truth, as Pressburg tells it, is that no one called Muhammad existed. The tales of his life and sayings are simple inventions. Even the historical accounts of Muslim battles are invented, he believes. For example, Muslim historiography (and now standard history because the Muslim story has been accepted by everyone) tells of a decisive battle at Yarmuk fought between Byzantine forces and the Muslims. Pressburg notes there is no evidence this battle ever took place.

A third book is historian Tom Holland's In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire (Amazon USA) (Amazon UK) .

Holland's theory is not as revolutionary as that of the two books mentioned earlier but still interesting. He thinks that Islam, rather than pre-dating and motivating Arab conquests, followed them and was invented to justify them by invoking a religious obligation.

I have read excerpts from the book, published in British newspaper The Sunday Times, but I was a bit discouraged from reading the whole work when I watched the UK's Channel 4 documentary "Islam: The Untold Story", in which Holland asks Muslim scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr for constant reassurance. "Can a non-Muslim hope to understand the origins of the Muslim world?" Holland asked. "No", replied Nasr. One of the questions posed to him was whether Nasr would consider this historical research on Islam neocolonialist, to which the Islamic guru answered, probably to Holland's great relief, no. So Holland got permission to carry out his work.

Given Muslims'  incredible proneness to be insulted and provoked, it's understandable that anyone touching the subject would be afraid, but I doubt if fear is generally conducive to objective, impartial work.

Why doesn't a good, and exceptionally brave to the point of heroism, film director make a movie on one of these books?

Does Racism Mean Anything Anymore?

England soccer team's former captain John Terry leaves international football. "England captain John Terry quits international football because he thinks FA have already decided he's guilty of racism charge - even though he was cleared by a court of law" (Daily Mail).

His career is the latest victim (although it sounds odd using that term about ultra-rich and famous soccer players) of the football world and authorities' obsession with racism. Another victim is English football itself, which has lost a valuable player - and God knows they could do with people like that.

Former England manager Fabio Capello acted with much integrity when he stood by Terry and resigned over the FA's decision to strip Terry of his captaincy before his trial.

The absurdity of the accusation of racism moved by the Football Association against him was revealed during the trial, when one after the other several black or half-black colleagues of Terry's testified that he never displayed any racist behaviour, quite the contrary.

What does then "racism" mean? Even if somebody - and I don't know if Terry did, actually he was accused of just saying "black" which can hardly be considered an insult - but even if someone, in a moment of anger during an altercation, especially in a heated, adrenalin-supercharged situation like a soccer match, used a racial epithet that wouldn't mean he is a racist.

If a man's whole behaviour, ideas and attitudes are non-racist, saying "nigger" does not make him a racist.

"Racism" is a much-overused and abused word which, like many others - like "family" - has come to mean whatever anyone wishes it to mean. And I'm not saying that, it's the Macpherson's Inquiry into the death of black teenager Stephen Lawrence on 22 April 1993 which enshrined that, opening the door to the abuses we witness today, with these words: "A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person".

That literally means that a racist incident can be anything, without restriction.

Muslim Radicals with Friends in High Places

Babar Ahmad, Abu Hamza and three other major terrorism suspects will be extradited from the UK to the US in the next few weeks (from the BBC).

The European Court of Human Rights has given its final approval for the extradition.

Notice that the BBC site, in his photo's caption, tries to portray Babar Ahmad as a victim, saying that he has been held in UK custody without trial for nearly eight years, although the reason for that has in fact been appeals and other delaying actions by his lawyers and supporters. One of them is fellow Muslim and politician Sadiq Khan, Former Deputy Leader of the Labour Group, Shadow Lord Chancellor and Shadow Secretary of State for Justice.

Born in England of Pakistani parents, Babar Ahmad is lifelong friend from childhood as well as constituent of Sadiq Khan, who is also the MP for Tooting, South London.

Ahmad is accused of having run a major English-language pro-jihad website, Azzam, which played a crucial role in recruiting Muslims in the West to fight for jihad in Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan; money laundering through the website; plotting with US nationals; receiving classified US Naval plans; "conspiracy to provide material to support terrorists, namely the Taliban and the Chechen Mujahideen; providing material to support terrorists; and conspiracy to kill in a foreign country" (from Islam versus Europe).

Since the indictment, Khan has refused to sever his ties with his jihad-supporting friend. Indeed, Khan has shamelessly used his position as Shadow Justice Minister to help Ahmad in any way that he can, demanding that he be tried in Britain rather than extradited to the US, even though the terrorist recruitment website Ahmad is alleged to have assisted was operating out of the US.

Cutthroat Life for Immigrants in South Africa

Hard to be an immigrant in South Africa. Discrimination, assault, threats, harassment are daily for those who chose to leave their countries.

They've come to South Africa to work. But their lives are far from easy. African immigrants from Cameroon, Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia regularly suffer discrimination, threats or police harassment. It is not uncommon for their businesses to be looted or vandalized. They are accused by the South Africans of stealing their jobs. Although South Africa is mentioned as an example for the black continent to follow due to its economic development, the unemployment rate is nearly 25%.

The country has 2 million immigrants on its soil, or 3% of its population. But South Africans take a dim view of the fact that immigrants associate to buy wholesale and sell for less. And they do not hesitate to extend credit to loyal customers. Another advantage of these traders is that they open early and close late. "South Africa is a rather xenophobic country", according to Gwada Majange, spokesman for the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants (CoRMSA). "This year, for example, we had many attacks in the country, primarily targeting owners of grocery stores."

In July, at least 500 people have been displaced after attacks in Botshabelo, a township (slum), while shops were set ablaze in the outskirts of Cape Town. During 2008, the xenophobic riots against foreigners left many dozens of people dead.

Immigrants are excluded!

Immigrants' representatives have accused the authorities of complicity and of supporting this xenophobia. In cities, it is better for immigrants to carry their ID documents when they go out because the police do not hesitate to make life difficult for immigrants who do not have them on, says a Cameroonian. "They arrest people who do not have papers, and even those who do" observed Jean-Pierre Lukamba, vice-president of the African Diaspora Forum, a federation of associations of refugees and immigrants. According to him, "there are regular raids, roundups, sometimes they don't even tell you why they arrest you. Some police officers may even tear your papers."

Discrimination also exists in the health field. In South Africa It is more difficult for an immigrant to be treated. "When you go to the hospital if you do not have papers in South Africa, it becomes very slow. There is a woman who has lost her child because of that", says Marc Gbaffou, President of the Forum.

Similarly, to find a job they face multiple barriers. "A lot of job vacancies are marked 'SA only' or 'Bring your ID' (South Africans only, bring your South African papers, ed.). Immigrants are excluded!", denounces Marc Gbaffou. He thinks that the authorities are lax about the situation and they do nothing to improve the living conditions of immigrants. He was referring to a project that the ANC, the ruling party, wants to put in place to restrict "the right of non-South Africans to buy or manage grocery stores or larger companies without having complied with certain legislation."

For the moment, the authorities have not given more details about this project. Associations fighting for the rights of immigrants are respected in the country. They will not hesitate to voice their discontent.

Source: Afrik

Swedes Tired of Discrimination that Favours Immigrants

For the first time in history, Swedish people have held street protests against the discriminatory treatment they receive at the hands of the local authorities.

In the village of Grums, 80 people defied their fear of being called racist by taking to the streets to protest against the preferential policies for immigrants.

The most astonishing of those has been, apparently (I find it even difficult to believe), to forcibly evict native Swedish tenants, even long-standing, from public housing apartmens and replace them with refugees.

The organizers of the protest hope that this is the beginning of a new grass-root movement that will spread nationwide.

According to Victoria Wärmler [one of the organizers], Grums is far from the only municipality in Sweden where politicians refuse to listen to their constituents. After the protest was announced on Facebook, she received encouragement from several other regions where people wish to protest.

In Sweden, immigration is reaching a critical point, and so is indigenous opposition to it.

The number of Muslims in Sweden and Denmark doubled in 14 years.

This is the resut of research by Dispatch International, a new print and online newspaper created by Swedish journalist Ingrid Carlqvist and Danish journalist Lars Hedegaard, both fighters for freedom of speech and the Islamization of Europe.

The video above shows Lars Hedegaard's speech at the International Civil Liberties Alliance's Conference for Free Speech and Human Rights in Brussels on July 9 2012, at which he was presented with the Defender of Freedom Award.

Right to Bear Arms and Secular State

Europeans don't generally understand that many things that Americans do have the purpose of protecting the individual from the state, whereas the inhabitants of the Old Continent think that they are done for different reasons.

Two of the most illustrative and important cases of this misunderstanding are the right to bear arms and the secular state.

Europeans usually think that the US Constitution's right to bear arms has to do with individual protection from criminality and violence from other individuals. In reality, its main goal is to protect the citizen from the power of the state.

Without this constitutionally-enshrined right only the state, through the armed forces and the police, would be be authorized to have the use of arms, and this is a huge source of power and control.

It's reminiscent of the origin of the expression 'crossing the Rubicon'. The Rubicon is a river in Northern Italy which is sufficiently distant from Rome to have been elected by the ancient Roman Republic as the safe boundary, the defining line which nobody could cross with an army. The Romans knew only too well that weapons are a great source of power.

You must have an enormous trust in a government to allow it to be the only entity to be permitted to carry arms.

In my second example, Europeans in their majority believe that the secular state serves the purpose to protect the state from the power of the Church, whereas the opposite is true: the separation between Church and state has the role of protecting the Church from the power of the state.

Christian Values Erosion Opens the Way to Muslim Polygamy

A typical example of how the erosion of our Christian values has left us without defence against the encroachment of Islam is that of polygamy.

Multiple divorces and remarriages in the West have created a situation which is similar to polygamy with a man or a woman having more than one family. The only difference with Muslim polygamy is that men and women in the Western variant of polygamy are on an equal footing or rather, if there is a discrimination, it is against men.

In these circumstances, Muslim polygamy has been a much more easily accepted practice, with authorities and police in Western countries turning a blind eye to it, than it would have been the case in the past, when people knew what the word 'family' meant, before the time of constant redefinitions of the term to include homosexuals, threesomes, incestuous couples and all the ever-expanding circle of relationships that the concepts of marriage and family must now apply to.

As it is, it's not clear what the ethical basis for the rejection of Muslim polygamy should be, since we have allowed things that have similar consequences for the children, for instance, left in many cases without a clear father figure or even without a father at all, as in the case of single-mother 'families'.

In many ways, there are a lot of similarities between Muhammed and Henry VIII: they both formed religious principles around their physical needs and personal desires.

What's Wrong with Tattoos

It's interesting how there are things that we know instinctively and we think that they are just a gut feeling without much empirical evidence to support it, whereas in fact we know these things unconsciously, we know them without knowing why.

I have always found tattoos repugnant but I didn't attach importance to this feeling, one way or the other.

I then read several years ago Theodore Dalrymple's great book Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass (Amazon USA) (Amazon UK) , which I recommend, where he recounts and describes his experiences as a prison doctor, among other things. In it he says that a disproportionate number of prison inmates have tattoos.

So there was something after all in my dislike for these mixtures between body graffiti and self-harm.

In all the intervening years since my reading that the fashion of tattoos has spread a lot, especially among the young.

And now I have just read that the practice of tattoos is associated with many unhealthy and antisocial behaviours, including suicide, aggressive and/or delinquent behaviour, can be psychologically addictive and can lead to infections, according to scientific studies. Research on adolescents has shown a correlation between tattooing and living in a single-parent household, lower socio-economic status, high risk behaviours, substance abuse, violence, sexual behaviour, school problems, eating disorders.

The fact that tattoos have become increasingly fashionable  is part of the "dumbing down" trend especially in teenagers and young adults, the tendency to do one's worst instead of one's best, to try to emulate the lower or even criminal classes, in language, music (or rather cacophony), intellectual pursuits or lack thereof, street fashion, and the like.

This also shows that our gut instincts, although they should not be blindly followed, should at least not be discarded without some thought because there is an adaptive value in them, as psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer explains in Reckoning With Risk: Learning to Live with Uncertainty (Amazon USA) (Amazon UK) .

Source

The British and Political Correctness

I remember that, when I first came to live in London from Italy in 1984, before political correctness had begun in earnest, I read in books and magazines and heard on the TV many jokes about, say, the French or the Germans which, if they had been about blacks or Muslims, might have started a riot in the ethnic communities areas.

I've never, throughout all the decades I've been living here, seen any sign of discrimination, not even the slightest, tiniest and most insignificant, against Africans, West Indians and Asians, but Europeans were fair game.

Being Italian, it also happened to me sometime to hear jokes or other stereotypes about Italians.

The British then seemed to suffer from a superiority complex and to believe that no one in the world could be as good as they were.

A certain degree of political correctness existed already but, as I said, it was exclusively for the benefit of non-Westerners and anyway not yet as ferocious and draconian as was to become later.

Eventually that political correctness seems to have affected, as if by contagion, unintentionally, Europeans too.

I didn't think that I would ever say this but I would rather change the present time for the days when, yes, the English were a bit insufferable at times with their self-importance, but at least people were freer to speak and they didn't have to censor every word for fear of the thought police as they are now.

US Democrats Exposed in Favour of Banning Corporate Profits

Watch this video because it's worth it. It shows how communist at heart (and a bit naive to say the least) US Democrats are, in common with their leftist brothers all over the world.

Europe's Muslim Population Tripled

A Pakistani paper announced that the Muslim population in Europe has tripled in the last 30 years.

According to the Pew Research Centre, there were over 44 million Muslims in Europe in 2010 and over 58 million are projected to live in our continent in 2030.

Wikipedia Unreliable, CNN Says

Just a confirmation of what we already noticed.

This article on CNN on Wikipedia's unreliability refers to Wikipedia business and celebrity pages, but the easiness with which inaccuracies and misleading statements can spread on that online 'encyclopaedia' is true for all of it, especially if they are politically correct and pro-Islam.

Just look at the Wikipedia entry for Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the Islamic and Arabic chief centre of learning in the world. At Al-Azhar subjects that we would not normally associate with a prestigious university are taught as part of the curriculum, such as "The Treachery of the Jews" and "Islamic Jihad and Its Various Forms", as illustrated in the above video of a programme shown on the Egyptian Al-Rahma TV. The video is entitled Egyptian Cleric Miqdam Al-Khadhari on the Benefits of Al-Azhar Curricula: The Only Textbooks to Militarize the Students and Teach Jihad and Hatred of Jews Extensively.

According to Faith Freedom, Al-Azhar University curricula encourages extremism and terrorism.

And even the ultra PC New York Times reported this, happened in 2009:

Inside Al Azhar Mosque, a 1,000-year-old center of religious learning, the preacher was railing on Friday against Jews. Outside were rows of riot police officers backed by water cannons and dozens of plainclothes officers, there to prevent worshipers from charging into the street to protest against the war in Gaza.

“Muslim brothers,” said the government-appointed preacher, Sheik Eid Abdel Hamid Youssef, “God has inflicted the Muslim nation with a people whom God has become angry at and whom he cursed so he made monkeys and pigs out of them. They killed prophets and messengers and sowed corruption on Earth. They are the most evil on Earth.” [Emphasis added]

On top of everything else, this continuous reference to animal epithets is speciesist, as well as anti-Semitic.

And now, just a few days ago, we have this (from Breitbart):

Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Dr.Ahmed El-Tayyeb has called for enacting an international law that bans the denigration and desecration of Islam and its sanctities, which he said, have been violated by some "fools" who do not know the value of social peace between peoples, and do not mind fueling discord.

Dr.El-Tayyeb also demanded the punishment of those who committed such a "heinous and shameful '' act against Islam's Prophet Mohammad, peace and blessing be upon him (PBUH), calling meantime on the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to work for issuing such a law that would criminalize the insulting of Islamic sanctities and those of all universal religions, which, he added, would cause the disturbance of world peace and threaten international security, both are responsibilities of the UN and its Secretary General.

Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar , the oldest religious university worldwide, likened what happened against Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) to claims of insulting Semitism that has resulted in verdicts against several people all over the world, including thinkers and scientists.

El-Tayyeb added in his statement that silence does not befit officials at this dangerous and critical situation, stressing that such a "foolishness" should not go unpunished.

Interestingly enough, another Wikipedia entry, on Islam and Antisemitism, says:

Egyptian Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque and Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar University, and "perhaps the foremost Sunni Arab authority", has been criticized for remarks made in April 2002, described Jews in his weekly sermon as "the enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs." [Emphasis added]

Despite all this, the Wikipedia page on Al-Azhar University does not make any mention of anti-Semitism or jihad, and the only reference to freedom of speech is to say that Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy in October 2007 "drew allegations of stifling freedom of speech when he asked the Egyptian government to toughen its rules and punishments against journalists". But the naughty Tantawy was "a supporter of then Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak", so it doesn't count.

Overall, someone who didn't know anything about Al-Azhar University, reading Wikipedia would get the impression that it's an erudite, nice place where everything is hunky-dory as befits a religion of peace.

Trio Married in Brazil

At the end of last month it became public that a man and two women, who had been living together for some time, had celebrated their civil union in Brazil.

The notary who formalized the union, Ms Domingues, said that the idea of what constitutes a family has changed.

This is not the first time. There have been cases of a heterosexual man marrying two lesbians in the Netherlands (making this both a homosexual and a threesome marriage), and of a man marrying three women in Belgium. Interestingly, Holland and Belgium have also been the first countries to give full marriage rights to homosexuals.

There are many other cases like this, and I mean just among Westerners, non-Muslims. To them we then have to add the many polygamous marriages of Muslims living in the West. Polygamy is of course illegal (for the moment) in the West, but authorities turn a blind eye when it comes to Muslims, although it costs a lot to the welfare state and results in many virtually fatherless children which leads to increases in antisocial and criminal behaviour.

In France it is estimated that up to half a million of the country's 60 million inhabitants live in polygamous families.

Of course, as The Guardian says, 'Why shouldn't three people get married?'. The Brazilian notary summed it up well when she said that the idea of a family has changed.

Sources: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19402508

http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/30/three-people-get-married-thruple?cat=commentisfree&type=article

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/585

Is Britain a Democracy or a Totalitarian State?

The incredible thing about the events in Walthamstow is that, although you may have heard on the TV that the English Defence League is made up of violent, anti-democratic, racist thugs, what happened at this rally organized by the EDL shows a very different reality.

The Muslims and the leftists there didn't act as if they believed in democracy and human rights,nor did the police who didn't protect the right to free speech of the EDL from those who attacked them with bottles and bricks.
The only people who acted in true observance of human rights and democracy were the EDL, who didn't retaliate and acted lawfully, peacefully exercising their right to free speech.

Unite Against Fascism, on the other hand, despite their name behaved like fascists in their attempt to stop a peaceful demonstration.

Another thing that may strike you as odd is that there is so much talk about hate and hate crime. Some people would say that the English Defence League, for example, is full of hate.

In fact this overused word is never employed in cases when it would be appropriate, like in relation to the blasphemy law in Pakistan where it has been used to threaten the life of a Christian young girl possibly with Down's Syndrome only a few days ago. Or as in the case of this episode, in which true hate was shown towards some people simply because they had different ideas and they dared express them.

Saudi Arabian Man Sexually Molests British Boy

A 23-year-old Saudi Arabian man has been arrested in Milan for sexually molesting an English 13-year-old boy in a hotel in the Italian city.

The boy, who was staying in the hotel while in vacation with his parents, went into the hotel's sauna, where he found the man who touched him all over his body.

Italy. Immigrants Fight in Reception Centre

A fight broke among immigrants in a reception centre in Caltanissetta, Sicily.

The row started for futile reasons and ended with nine immigrants of various nationalities being injured and taken to hospital. They could be separated only by the intervention of the police.

Record Numbers of Immigrant Children in Italian Schools

As schools open in Italy, the number of pupils born to immigrant parents is higher than ever.

The record goes to a school in Milan's multi ethnic San Siro suburb, where 17 out of 19 pupils are children of immigrants and don't have Italian citizenship.

In other parts of Northern Italy the percentages are also high. In Emilia Romagna, the region with Bologna, non-Italian pupils form about 16 percent of the total, in Liguria, the region of Genoa, 12 percent, and in Friuli Venezia Giulia 10 percent.

A Highly Accurate Prediction about Islam

Westerners "have forgotten all about Islam. They have never come in contact with it. They take for granted that it is decaying, and that, anyway, it is just a foreign religion which will not concern them. It is, as a fact, the most formidable and persistent enemy which our civilization has had, and may at any moment become as large a menace in the future as it has been in the past. ...It has always see seemed to me possible, and even probable, that there would be a resurrection of Islam and that our sons or our grandsons would see the renewal of that tremendous struggle between the Christian culture and what has been for more than a thousand years its greatest opponent."

These words were written by Hilaire Belloc in The Great Heresies in 1938.

It's remarkable how they can predict current events, even to the point of "our sons or our grandsons" which indeed we are.

The capability of making accurate predictions is considered as a sign, as in science, of having a correct hypothesis to explain the phenomena or the events, which obviously Belloc had.

Today we also have people with a deep knowledge and correct understanding of Islam who are making the right predictions derived from their true theories about Islam. What these authors say, for instance, is that the so-called "Arab Spring " will be playing in the hands of the Islamists, which they said from its inception and they are already being proven right, while the mainstream media and prevailing politically-correct opinion sees it as a triumph for democracy, which we can already see that it's not.

So, who makes the most accurate predictions and therefore best understands Islam?

The West and Russia

I have found a way to write and send a post with my mobile phone. It's the first time so bear with me.

The West has a strange, almost schizophrenic attitude towards Russia.

Russia is a country which has spontaneously rejected communism and set to a path to democracy.

It's not perfect but the West should support it. Instead it seems to prefer to attack it at the first opportunity.

On the other hand, Western countries are mesmerized by the "Arab Spring" and believe that it is driven by pro-democracy fighters, whereas in reality the countries involved, be they Egypt, Lybia, Tunisia, Syria or Yemen, are going further away from democracy into the hands of radical Islamists.

The West also has as allies countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia , fully Sharia-compliant, and Turkey, another nation that is increasingly becoming Islamist.

It's true that the most unlikely and unholy alliances can be made for tactical reasons, but the West here is guilty of really bad double standards.

Romney, at the Republican National Convention, where he delivered an overall good speech , said that Russia and Putin should be shown some muscle.

I think that the West is doing exactly the opposite of what it should do.

Between the principles on which the West is based and the principles of Islam there is a logical contradiction. Logical contradictions cannot be solved any more than a circle can be squared. So there is no point in our attempts to find a dialogue with Islamic countries and in our being overoptimistic and excessively enthusiastic about developments there.

But, unlike logical contradictions, conflicts of interest can be solved with negotiation and compromise.

I think that there is a lot of prejudice and stereotyping about Russia in the West, where it's seen as the old enemy, the Soviet Union which is not any more.

The Pussy Riot case was immediately viewed as an attack on free speech by an oppressive regime, whereas it was nothing of the sort.

Russia and the West have a lot in common. Russia is a Christian nation, and it faces more Muslim threats than we do in the West. There are Islamic terrorists in the North Caucasus and in other parts of the country.