Douglas Murray and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown Debate

I've chosen this video of a debate between Douglas Murray and renowned UK Muslim leftist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a columnist for the (self-proclaimed) Independent newspaper, because it is very representative of several things.

Alibhai-Brown starts by saying that the last time the two of them debated they were very civilized and "British", which we must assume she now regrets because this time she was anything but.

Then, after reprimanding Murray for his - in her view - generalizations about Muslims and fundamentalism, she berates British culture which, she says, is a drinking culture. So he is accused of what he does not do and she, on the other hand, does: tarring everyone in a group with the same brush.

After this nice example of inconsistency, we are treated to her description of herself as "very well-integrated", in the same breath as her protest against imposing "Britishness" on everybody living in the UK.

Many similar inanities follow before the conversation begins revolving around freedom of speech and then Iran, Israel and nuclear arms.

About freedom of speech, I'm glad to see that Douglas Murray appears to believe what I believe regarding Holocaust denial. The gist of what he says is that imprisoning David Irving for denying the Holocaust gives the President of Iran, the madman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a pretext to accuse the West of double standards by showing its Achilles' heel in the defence of free speech.

Murray seems to think what I also believe about freedom of speech in general, namely that criminalizing Holocaust denial, Nazi and fascist speech is a violation of freedom of expression.

In fact, as many people have observed during the recent Muslim riots against the Muhammad film, making crimes of Holocaust denial and the rest paves the way to the Islamic world's request to impose on the West blasphemy laws outlawing criticism of Islam.

About Iran, the "very well-integrated" Yasmin Alibhai-Brown makes several attempts at morally equating it to Israel and Britain, saying that nobody should have nuclear weapons but, if some countries have them, then all countries ahould be allowed to have them too.

I found the best answer to that in a comment to the video:

In the words of Salman Rushdie:"There is only one group in the world that wishes to get nuclear weapons to use them... radical Islamists". Every country that is armed with them has them for deterrence. There are those who have them not to use them and there are those who want them to use them. Yasmin simply does not get it.

As we well know, Islamists have among their midst many suicide - nuclear or not - bombers.

The most revealing thing in this very enlightening video is the parallel in the irrationality of Alibhai-Brown's performance: she talks as irrationally as she acts irrationally during the discussion.

The lack of logic in her words is not only mirrored but confirmed and reinforced by her continuous interrupting, shouting, patronizing, forcing the others to pay attention to her, treating them like idiots, telling them what to do, pointing fingers under their nose and other hysterical behaviours.

If, at any moment, you may be tempted to take her pseudo-arguments seriously her behaviour serves as a reminder of what degree of irrationality we are dealing with here.

Obama Was Born and Raised a Muslim

If anyone in the USA, for some extraordinary reason, is still in doubt about whom to choose for President, I recommend two things. The first is an empiricist approach: you have tried one candidate and he failed, you haven't tried the other. In experimental science it would be reasonable to choose the not-yet-tried possibility.

The second thing is, if you haven't already done so, to read "Obama's Muslim Childhood" by Daniel Pipes.

The discovery that Obama has been wearing for over 30 years a ring with the first part of the Islamic declaration of faith, the Shahada, “There is no god except Allah”, will make sense to you if you read it, because you'll realize how important Islam has been in the President's life. WND's Jerome R. Corsi, who has written several books on Obama, explains:

The Shahada is the first of the Five Pillars of Islam, expressing the two fundamental beliefs that make a person a Muslim: There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is Allah’s prophet.

Sincere recitation of the Shahada is the sole requirement for becoming a Muslim, as it expresses a person’s rejection of all other gods.

Egyptian-born Islamic scholar Mark A. Gabriel, Ph.D., examined photographs of Obama’s ring at WND’s request and concluded that the first half of the Shahada is inscribed on it.

“There can be no doubt that someone wearing the inscription ‘There is no god except Allah’ has a very close connection to Islamic beliefs, the Islamic religion and Islamic society to which this statement is so strongly attached,” Gabriel told WND.

Let's go back to Pipes' long and very well-researched article. After observing that the incumbent accuses his rival Romney of hiding some of his biographical details, it says: "A focus on openness and honesty are likely to hurt Obama far more than Romney. Obama remains the mystery candidate with an autobiography full of gaps and even fabrications".

A list of Obama's clashes with the truth and inaccuracies about himself - like "He lied about never having been a member and candidate of the 1990s Chicago socialist New Party", or his claim that he was born in Kenya - follows, before Pipes gets to the main topic of his essay, which is Obama and his campaign's lies about Obama's Muslim childhood.

The President, repeatedly although in a contradictory fashion, has denied having ever been a Muslim.

Pipes, through a painstaking fact-finding work, shows that Obama was born and raised as a Muslim, and while in Indonesia he went to Koranic classes "studying 'how to pray and how to read the Koran,' but also actually praying in the Friday communal service right on the school grounds", attended the local mosque, wore sarongs, garments that in Indonesian culture only Muslims wear, and took part in advanced Islamic religious lessons which included the difficult task of reciting the Koran in Arabic. None of this was inevitable, because in Indonesia ""Muslim students were taught by a Muslim teacher, and Christian students were taught by a Christian teacher".

In summary, the record points to Obama having been born a Muslim to a non-practicing Muslim father and having lived for four years in a fully Muslim milieu under the auspices of his Muslim Indonesian stepfather. For these reasons, those who knew Obama in Indonesia considered him a Muslim.

"My Muslim Faith"

In addition, several statements by Obama in recent years point to his Muslim childhood.

(1) Robert Gibbs, campaign communications director for Obama's first presidential race, asserted in Jan. 2007: "Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago." But he backtracked in Mar. 2007, asserting that "Obama has never been a practicing Muslim." By focusing on the practice as a child, the campaign is raising a non-issue for Muslims (like Jews) do not consider practice central to religious identity. Gibbs added, according to a paraphrase by Watson, that "as a child, Obama had spent time in the neighborhood's Islamic center." Clearly, "the neighborhood's Islamic center" is a euphemism for "mosque"; spending time there again points to Obama's being a Muslim.

Particularly crucial is the section of the article concerning how Obama interacts with - I was temped to say "fellow" - Muslims, acting as if they were indeed his coreligionists. He acts and tells them things that a Christian, as he says he is, would never do and say, like talking about Jesus as a dead prophet.

When addressing Muslim audiences, Obama uses specifically Muslim phrases that recall his Muslim identity. He addressed audiences both in Cairo (in June 2009) and Jakarta (in Nov. 2010) with "as-salaamu alaykum," a greeting that he, who went to Koran class, knows is reserved for one Muslim addressing another.

Obama, in addition, has an exaggerated sense of the importance of Islam and Muslims, to the point that he hugely "overestimates both the number and the role of Muslims in the United States," which "smacks of an Islamist mentality".

So it's not surprising that

Muslims cannot shake the sense that, under his proclaimed Christian identity, Obama truly is one of them.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the prime minister of Turkey, has referred to Hussein as a "Muslim" name. Muslim discussions of Obama sometimes mention his middle name as a code, with no further comment needed. A conversation in Beirut, quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, captures the puzzlement. "He has to be good for Arabs because he is a Muslim," observed a grocer. "He's not a Muslim, he's a Christian," replied a customer. No, said the grocer, "He can't be a Christian. His middle name is Hussein." The name is proof positive.

The American Muslim writer Asma Gull Hasan wrote in "My Muslim President Obama":

I know President Obama is not Muslim, but I am tempted nevertheless to think that he is, as are most Muslims I know. In a very unscientific oral poll, ranging from family members to Muslim acquaintances, many of us feel … that we have our first American Muslim president in Barack Hussein Obama. … since Election Day, I have been part of more and more conversations with Muslims in which it was either offhandedly agreed that Obama is Muslim or enthusiastically blurted out. In commenting on our new president, "I have to support my fellow Muslim brother," would slip out of my mouth before I had a chance to think twice. "Well, I know he's not really Muslim," I would quickly add. But if the person I was talking to was Muslim, they would say, "yes he is."

Obama's middle name Hussein is again considered one of the reasons.

In conclusion, available evidence suggests that Obama was born and raised a Muslim and retained a Muslim identity until his late 20s. Child to a line of Muslim males, given a Muslim name, registered as a Muslim in two Indonesian schools, he read Koran in religion class, still recites the Islamic declaration of faith, and speaks to Muslim audiences like a fellow believer. Between his non-practicing Muslim father, his Muslim stepfather, and his four years of living in a Muslim milieu, he was both seen by others and saw himself as a Muslim.

This is not to say that he was a practicing Muslim or that he remains a Muslim today, much less an Islamist, nor that his Muslim background significantly influences his political outlook (which, in fact, is typical of an American leftist). Nor is there a problem about his converting from Islam to Christianity. The issue is Obama's having specifically and repeatedly lied about his Muslim identity. More than any other single deception, Obama's treatment of his own religious background exposes his moral failings.

Questions about Obama's Truthfulness

Yet, these failings remain largely unknown to the American electorate. Consider the contrast of his case and that of James Frey, the author of A Million Little Pieces. Both Frey and Obama wrote inaccurate memoirs that Oprah Winfrey endorsed and rose to #1 on the non-fiction bestseller list. When Frey's literary deceptions about his own drug taking and criminality became apparent, Winfrey tore viciously into him, a library reclassified his book as fiction, and the publisher offered a refund to customers who felt deceived.

In contrast, Obama's falsehoods are blithely excused; Arnold Rampersad, professor of English at Stanford University who teaches autobiography, admiringly called Dreams "so full of clever tricks—inventions for literary effect—that I was taken aback, even astonished. But make no mistake, these are simply the tricks that art trades in, and out of these tricks is supposed to come our realization of truth." Gerald Early, professor of English literature and African-American studies at Washington University in St. Louis, goes further: "It really doesn't matter if he made up stuff. … I don't think it much matters whether Barack Obama has told the absolute truth in Dreams From My Father. What's important is how he wanted to construct his life."

How odd that a lowlife's story about his sordid activities inspires high moral standards while the U.S. president's autobiography gets a pass. Tricky Dick, move over for Bogus Barry.

Obama has a disproportionate desire to appeal to, as well as appease as we saw in the case of the Muhammed film, Muslims. The head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Charles F. Bolden, Jr., explained that Obama "wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering." Which incidentally is not even remotely as great as Obama seems to believe. But that's for another post.

It's up to Americans to decide if they want to re-elect a President who lies in matters of personal identity, especially religion, which has obvious, major ethical implications. In comparison, as Pipes points out, Romney's "prior tax returns, the date he stopped working for Bain Capital, and the non-public records from his service heading the Salt Lake City Olympics and as governor of Massachusetts" are of little importance.

And it's up to Americans to decide if they want to re-elect a President who has Muslim background and sympathies, in a world where the West's need to distance itself from the Islamic world, to reaffirm its values of democratic freedoms against a Muslim world that tries ever more aggressively to impose its Sharia's blasphemy laws on it, to recognize with dispassionate eyes potential enemies emerging from the "Arab Spring", and to deal with a nuclearizing Iran, increases by the day.

There is a saying: "Once a Catholic, always a Catholic". I was brought up a Catholic and I know that, although I consider myself now an atheist Christian, as Oriana Fallaci described herself, so, not believing in God, I am not a Catholic any more, family upbringing and childhood impressions remain with you all your life. I suspect the same applies to Obama, and all the above rich and detailed information confirms it.

If I were American, I know what I would do.

Indian Sikhs Want Rowling Book Banned

Intolerance is contagious. We've just had enough of Muslim riots, and now we have the latest Sikh uproar.

JK Rowling, the British author of the popular Harry Potter series of children's books, has been attacked for her first novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy, by angry Indian Sikhs.

The Casual Vacancy is facing protests in India over its portrayal of a Sikh girl as “mustachioed yet large-mammaried”.

Sikh leaders said they were investigating complaints about the “provocative” language and would demand a nationwide ban on the book if Rowling was deemed to have insulted the faith.

...The Sikh character in The Casual Vacancy is Sukhvinder, the daughter of a surgeon and his parish councillor wife. She is teased for her hairy skin and referred to as “the Great Hermaphrodite” and a “hairy man-woman”.

India’s Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, which manages places of worship including the Golden Temple in Amritsar, said yesterday that it had received several complaints. Avtar Singh Makkar, the head of the committee, said the descriptions of Sukhvinder were “a slur on the Sikh community”. He said: “Even if the author had chosen to describe the female Sikh character’s physical traits, there was no need for her to use provocative language, questioning her gender. This is condemnable.”

A spokesman for the group added that its leaders would read the book carefully. “If deemed derogatory to the Sikh faith, we will demand a ban on it. We will make sure it doesn’t sell in India,” he said.

“Reputed authors like JK Rowling need to show respect to all faiths and communities as they are read by millions of people. Sikh believers, including women, are refrained from shaving and trimming their hair. This is a part of our faith and anyone making offensive remarks about it is directly hurting the sentiments of Sikh community.”

The spokesman also claimed that “media bias” against the Sikh faith was partly to blame for incidents such as the shooting of six worshippers at a temple in the US state of Wisconsin in August. An American Sikh student suffered abuse online last month after pictures of her with a beard and sideburns were posted on a social networking website.

Rowling has said she included Sukhvinder’s experiences as an example of “corrosive racism”. She has spoken of her admiration for the Sikh faith and said she was fascinated by a religion in which men and women are “explicitly described as equal in the holy book”.

Ever heard of Jesus Christ, JK? Did you think that Islam is the only religion?

A spokesman for Hachette, Rowling’s publisher, said the remarks were made by a character bullying Sukhvinder. “It is quite clear in the text of the book that negative thoughts, actions and remarks made by a character, Fats, who is bullying Sukhvinder, are his alone. When described in the narrative voice, the depiction of Sukhvinder is quite different to this,” the spokesman said.

Russian Court Bans Innocence of Muslims Film

What are the Russians up to? From the Pakistani The News, Russian court bans anti-Islam film:

MOSCOW: A Moscow court on Monday banned as "extremist" a US-made anti-Islamic film that fed deadly protests across the Arab world but whose showing was backed by human rights supporters in Russia.

Moscow's Tverskoi District judge sided with prosecution arguments presented in court that the low-budget "Innocence of Muslims" production "promoted the rise of religious intolerance in Russia."

"The prosecution's motion has been satisfied," a court spokeswoman told AFP by telephone.

But liberal activists and some officials urged the authorities to back free expression and not use the controversy to further a clamp down on rights under Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia's human rights ombudsman testified at the hearing Monday that he was against the film's prohibition while a group of artists and liberal media personalities urged Putin not to be swayed by the global militant attacks on US targets.

"The darkest forces of global terrorism are trying to scare our civilisation and force us to accept their will," reads the open letter to Putin.

"Ban neither this film nor any other works of art that disturb religious extremists," it urged. (AFP)

I don't like this last paragraph, that seems to try to compare Innocence of Muslims, which is just a film that says things, mostly taken from the official biography of Muhammad, that Muslims don't like to hear, so violates no law and is a simple exercise of freedom of expression, with the Pussy Riot hooligans who did violate the law by trespassing into a cathedral and then, by "bravely" denying having been in the church, deprived themselves of the possibility of receiving a lenient sentence through apologizing for their act.

"Religious extremists" is also a misleading expression, intended to muddy the waters regarding the vast difference between Islam and Christianity.

Christians don't like "works of art" like "Piss Christ" or the Venice Film Festival's Special-Jury-Prize winner Paradise: Faith or the painting of the Virgin Mary in elephant dung of a few years back, but by and large they accept freedom of speech.

Muslims, like communists, fascists and all totalitarians, are deadly enemies of free speech.

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'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).

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.

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.

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.

Does Madonna Care about Young Pakistani Girl Lynched and Imprisoned for Being Christian?

No protest from Madonna, Paul McCartney, Sting, Peter Gabriel and others of their ilk here.

Of course, a Christian 11-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome beaten up by a mob, arrested and put in jail in Pakistan, facing the death penalty for having allegedly burnt pages of Islam's Holy Book, under the country's blasphemy laws - portrayed as "strict" by the Western media but in fact simply following the Quran as good Muslims should - is not remotely as bad as a bunch of talentless, publicity-seeking, balaclava-wearing female hooligans trespassing into the Christian Orthodox Cathedral which is the symbol of Russia's liberation from state-imposed atheism, barging into its sanctuary containing the altar, offending the congregation with a vulgar and insulting song and dance full of expletives mocking a Christian prayer and then, after having shown their courage by denying their presence in the church, eventually having to face the consequences of their criminal actions.

First, the facts. The girl, Rimsha, living in a poor outlying district of Islamabad, is accused by her Muslim neighbours of burning pages of the Quran, of which police officials say there is little evidence.

But hundreds of angry neighbors [500 to 600, according to the police] gathered outside the girl's home last week demanding action in a case raising new concerns about religious extremism in this conservative Muslim country. [Emphasis mine; note the term "conservative" in this context]

The police intervened apparently for her protection, because the angry mob wanted to set her alight. As even the BBC says, in Pakistan just being accused of blasphemy, even without solid evidence, carries a death sentence from the mob, if not the state.

Almost everyone in the girl's neighborhood insisted she had burned the Quran's pages, even though police said they had found no evidence of it. One police official, Qasim Niazi, said when the girl was brought to the police station, she had a shopping bag that contained various religious and Arabic-language papers that had been partly burned, but there was no Quran.

Some residents claimed they actually saw burnt pages of Quran _ either at the local mosque or at the girl's house. Few people in Pakistan actually speak or read Arabic, so often assume that anything they see with Arabic script is believed to be from the Quran, sometimes the only Arabic-language book people have seen.

As many as 600 Christians have fled their homes in the area where the girl lives, fearing for their lives.

It is well known that in Pakistan blasphemy laws are often used to harass and persecute non-Muslims, especially Christians, and even for personal vendettas.

"It has been exploited by individuals to settle personal scores, to grab land, to violate the rights of non-Muslims, to basically harass them," said the head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Zora Yusuf.

Those convicted of blasphemy can spend years in prison and often face mob justice by extremists when they finally do get out. In July, thousands of people dragged a man accused of desecrating the Quran from a police station in the central city of Bahawalpur, beat him to death and then set his body on fire.

Actually, he was burnt alive

Attempts to revoke or alter the blasphemy laws have been met with violent opposition. Last year, two prominent political figures who spoke out against the laws were killed in attacks that basically ended any attempts at reform.

The girl's jailing terrified her Christian neighbors, many of whom left their homes in fear after the incident. One resident said Muslims used to object to the noise when Christians sang songs during their services. After the girl was accused he said senior members of the Muslim community pressured landlords to evict Christian tenants.

Pakistan's Minister for National Harmony (you need an office like that in a Muslim country) Dr Paul Bhatti is the brother of murdered Minister of Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, the country's only Christian government minister, killed for criticizing the blasphemy laws. The Minister said to the BBC that he really fears an umpteenth tragedy, and that the girl with her family should be taken to a safe place possibly out of Pakistan.

There are so many things to say on this, I don't even know where to start.

The media, Western and non, are incredible: they call Pakistan's blasphemy laws "strict" and Pakistan "conservative", not "Christianophobic", "racist", "fascist", "nazi", although in this case these terms, much overemployed (changing "Christianophobic" for some other "phobic") and inappropriately used in the public discourse, would for once be apt.

Somebody who, in a moment of rage during a heated row accompanied by verbal abuse on both sides, utters the word "nigger" (and, if he is the captain of the England football team, even just the word "black") is "racist" and risks being dragged to court; someone who beats up and tries to burn alive Rimsha is "conservative".

Does that sound right to you? Are you sure that the media you read and watch help you to make sense of the world we live in, or do they instead confuse the picture completely?

The behaviour of the Muslim mob in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital city, not some remote rural area, also deserves some reflections.

Who should reflect, in particular, are those who like to talk of great differences between radical and moderate Muslims, and of Islam as a jolly nice religion "highjacked" by what Robert Spencer calls its "misunderstanders".

From the many episodes of this kind that we've seen for a long time, it's obvious that in Pakistan Muslim people who hold these "extreme" views on blasphemy are not extreme at all, in the sense that either they are in effect a majority or their views are tolerated and accepted by a majority, so much so that they are reflected in the law of the country.

If you want to have an idea of the relative numbers, while fewer than 100 demonstrated in Karachi to condemn the murder in 2011 of Minister of Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, thousands rallied in major Pakistani cities demanding punishment for Asia Bibi (a Christian woman condemned to death for blasphemy) and threatening further protests and anarchy if the government moves to amend the blasphemy laws, and nearly 50,000 rallied in Karachi against the amendment of blasphemy laws and hailing Qadri, the killer of Salman Taseer, the provincial governor who was trying to achieve that amendment, as a hero.

If you want to do something about the fate of Rimsha and her family, the Asian Human Rights Commission has a sample letter and relevant email, fax, address contact details (via Jihad Watch).