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.