Check out this pic......
DoD
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The recent thwarted terrorist plot in England that aimed to blow up
commercial airlines between Britain and the United States serves as another
chilling reminder of the horror that multiculturalism has wreaked in Western
Europe. A nightmarish fact: most of the terrorist suspects who aimed to
engage in the mass murder of innocent civilians were home-grown -- they were
born and raised in Britain. In other words, Britain has welcomed immigrants
whose children hate British and Western society and seek to destroy it. So
what sense, then, is there to invite and to be tolerant toward the
intolerant? Many Western European countries have been agonizing over this
precise question and have clearly made certain conclusions about it -- which
explains why they are now in the process of overturning the policies of
multiculturalism.
Today we have assembled a panel of experts to discuss several questions
connected to this phenomenon. First: what exactly have been the consequences
of Muslim immigration to Western Europe? Second: has the official policy of
multiculturalism in Western Europe suffered a death? If so, is it too little
too late?
Our guests are:
Bat Ye'or, the world's foremost authority on dhimmitude. She is the author
of Islam and Dhimmitude. Where Civilizations Collide. Her latest book is
Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis.
Claire Berlinski, the author of the new book Menace in Europe: Why the
Continent's Crisis Is America's, Too.
Bruce Bawer, a New York writer who has lived in Europe since 1998. He is a
literary critic, translator, poet, and the author of books about being gay
in America and fundamentalist Christianity. His most recent book is While
Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within.
Leon de Winter, a Dutch bestselling novelist and political commentator. He
writes a weekly column for Holland's largest political magazine, Elsevier,
and contributes to Holland's and Germany's most prominent dailies and
weeklies. He is an adjunct-fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington DC.
This year he was awarded the prestigious Buber-Rosenzweig Medal for
Jewish-Christian relations in Germany. In 2002, he was the recipient of the
Die Welt Literature Prize. He lives with his wife, bestselling novelist
Jessica Durlacher, and their two children in a village close to the Dutch
beaches. Every year they live a couple of months in California.
Fjordman, a Norwegian blogger who writes about issues related to Islam and
Western cultural weakness, with particular emphasis on Europe. His own blog
has been closed since 2005, but he continues to write essays at other
websites, including Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch and the Gates of Vienna
blog.
Hege Storhaug, a journalist and author, and Information Director in the
Norwegian political think-tank on integration issues, Human Rights Service
(HRS) (www.rights.no). The last 14 years, Storhaug has been working on
issues such as forced marriages, "honor" killing, female genital mutilation,
and oppression of European Muslim girls and women in general. She has spent
more than two years in Pakistan, exploring cultural and religious abuse of
females. Storhaug strongly opposes multiculturalism, and is hence also a
critic of how Islamism is affecting Europe. This is the main topic of her
coming book this autumn.
and
Lars Hedegaard, The President of Denmark's Free Press Society, an
organization devoted to the protection of free speech (www.trykkefrihed.dk)
and a member of its online journal "Sappho"s editorial board
(www.sappho.dk). He holds degrees in history and English from the
Universities of Aarhus and Copenhagen. He is a journalist, author and
political commentator and a daily contributor to a satirical column in the
conservative national daily Berlingske Tidende (www.berlingske.dk). Over the
past few years he has increasingly specialised in studying the impact of
Islam's growing presence in Europe. His most recent book (coauthored with
Helle Merete Brix and Torben Hansen) is In the House of War: Islam's
Colonization of the West (Danish title; "I krigens hus: Islams kolonisering
af Vesten"), 2003, which became the focus of an animated national debate. He's
currently working on a book on the ideological metamorphosis of the Danish
left-wing from a pro-socialist to a multiculturalist position.
FP: Bat Ye'or, Claire Berlinski, Leon de Winter, Bruce Bawer, Fjordman, Hege
Storhaug and Lars Hedegaard, welcome to Frontpage Symposium.
We begin with our first section: Beginnings of Multiculturalism.
Beginnings of Multiculturalism
FP: Ladies and gentlemen, our discussion will have two parts today: the
first being about the beginnings of multiculturalism and the second being
the possible solutions to the havoc it has wreaked within the societies that
have practised it.
So before we get to some of the effective ways Western Europe can face the
threat it now faces, let's first begin with what multiculturalism is in the
first place, where the concept first came from and how it was implemented.
Who thought this up and why was it put into practise?
Now these questions are not suggesting, obviously, that societies were not
supposed to accept immigrants or to accept other cultures. We are clearly
referring to the multiculturalist policy based on cultural relativism that
is founded on the premise that anyone and everyone should be allowed to come
into a host society without any serious scrutiny. This is a policy based on
the belief-system that the host society has no right to expect of its new
citizens a respect for the ways of life of the host society.
Now perhaps to provoke the discussion a bit, let me begin with the argument
that it is disingenuous to suggest, as many do, that well-intentioned people
came up with these ideas and that they did not know what terrible realities
they would engender. Is it not basic common sense that this was a calculated
and malicious plan from the very beginning? Was it not a weapon with which
the Left knew it could effectively wage war on its own society and help
break it down?
Lars Hedegaard, let's begin with you. What would you say about the
beginnings of multiculturalism?
Hedegaard: The concept has been around for a while. It is an idea that was
produced in the New World and from there imported to the old one. In his
classic The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society
Arthur Schlesinger traces it back to the German-born Jewish-American
philosopher Horace Kallen. In an article in The Nation from 1915 he
advocated a policy of "cultural pluralism" as opposed to the idea of
assimilation and the slogan of the "melting pot" whose goal was to create a
new race of Americans. At first this new concept didn't gather many
adherents outside narrow academic circles, but the Civil Rights movement
after the Second World War gave rise to new expressions of ethnic identity
that tended to reinvigorate the idea of multiculturalism.
Not all of this was bad in a country where racism was deeply ingrained in
the national character, as Tocqueville had clearly noticed. It was perfectly
proper and fitting to acknowledge the contributions to American history of
minorities such as Blacks. American Indians, Asians etc. -- and in Canada to
acknowledge the contributions of the French speakers. In fact the term
"multiculturalism" appears to have been coined in Canada in the 1960s. I
don't think the framers of the multiculturalist credo could necessarily
predict its disastrous consequences.
By the early 1980s -- when the term began to be widely used even in
Europe -- it had turned into an ideological platform on which the left could
base its claim to power -- now that socialism was no longer a goal that
anyone could take seriously. In today's western world, multiculturalism and
its concomitant celebration of "ethnicity" (which has by now degenerated
into tribalism) should be understood as a post-political ersatz-ideology now
that the social transformation of society and the abolition of capitalism
are no longer on the agenda. And of that I'm sure that the self-declared
leftists are perfectly aware.
FP: It is complete news to me that the transformation and the abolition of
capitalism are no longer on the Left's agenda. Hege Storhaug go ahead.
Storhaug: I totally agree with Hedegaard that the abolition of capitalism is
not a topic for the leftists in general in the public debate anymore. It
seems that the leftist have understood for quite some years that pure
socialism is a lost case. But in many ways, the Left has just transformed
the idea concerning economical equality, into cultural equality.
From here on, the leftists have taken the idea even further; if you are not
white, you are per definition a victim of discrimination. And the new
perspective is that if you are a Muslim in Europe, you are per definition
also a victim of irrational hatred from the majority society.
The Left in Norway has now even constructed a new term; "new racism". "The
new racist" is a person who is critical to political Islam. This false
construction, combined with also labelling those who are critical to
political Islam as "Islamophobes", has its obvious parallels to techniques
used by the followers of Stalin. The new totalitarianism is, in this
respect, to try to strangle a debate about the obvious problematic sides of
multiculturalism and politicized religion. It is a new ideological war where
the "good" leftist sees a useful weapon against the "evil" establishment.
And this is where the leftists seem to believe they will fight a noble fight
for the poor and suppressed all over the world.
To bring in hard facts in the debate, is extremely difficult. The heart of
the debate is almost totally based on emotions, a kind of competition
between "the good and the bad guy". The "good" is the one who without
reservations and documentation wants open borders in the name of so-called
humanity. The "bad" is the one who says that the politics of open borders,
and hence splitting up a nation into parallel societies, is the road to
destruction of both the economy and the basis values in a democratic
society. Everybody in the end turn out as losers. To sum up; the Left sees
multiculturalism as the possibility to regain lost ideological power in our
new historic era.
FP: The both of you are of course right: multiculturalism is the Left's new
weapon to wage war on its own society. But that war is founded on the desire
to transform society, to wipe the slate clean, and this involves destroying
capitalism. That some leftists may camouflage their desire to build
socialism does not mean it does not remain their objective and dream. If the
Left didn't want to transform its own society and destroy capitalism, it
would find no need for multiculturalism; it feeds multicultural policies
precisely because of its long-term objective of destruction.
Fjordman go ahead.
Fjordman: I agree with most of what Hedegaard and Storhaug said above. A
Norwegian newspaper exposed the fact that the largest "anti-racist"
organization in the country, SOS Rasisme, was heavily infiltrated by
Communists and extreme Leftists in the late 1980s and early '90s, in other
words, during the downfall of Communism in Eastern Europe. They went
directly from Communism to Multiculturalism, which should indicate that at
least some of them viewed Multiculturalism as the continuation of Communism
by other means. French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut has stated that
anti-racism will be for the 21st century what Communism was for the 20th
century: A source of violence. I think
he's right.
Besides, Muslim immigrants vote overwhelmingly for Leftist parties. In
Norway, I believe about 85% of them voted for left-leaning parties during
our recent national elections. This trend is remarkably similar throughout
Western Europe. At the beginning of the 21st century, Leftist parties in
Europe are electing a new people. Perhaps their greatest idea after the Cold
War was to re-invent themselves as Multicultural immigration parties and
start importing voters from abroad. In addition to this, they have managed
to denounce the opposition as racists, bigots and extremists. In Europe,
Muslim immigration could turn democracy into a self-defeating system that
will eventually break down because native Europeans no longer feel that it
serves their interests.
Leftists and Muslims have a mutual short-term interest in keeping the
Leftist parties in power, and a mutual long-term interest in weakening the
traditional culture of Europe. During this third Islamic Jihad, the third
Islamic attempt to conquer and subdue the West, Leftists all over Europe
seem to be opening the gates of Europe from within. "You want to conquer
Europe? That's ok. Just vote for us and help us get rid of capitalism and
eradicate the Christian heritage of Europe, and we'll let you in. In the
meantime, you can enjoy some welfare goodies, and we will ban opposition to
this undertaking as racism and hate speech."
Still, as much as I dislike Leftists, it is wrong to think that they are the
alone in this madness. The Project - for it is a deliberate, organized
project which I'm sure Bat Ye'or will talk more about - to dissolve the
nation states of Europe is a coalition of several groups: Leftists, who hate
the West in general and are suspicious of the nation state.
However, there are also centrist and even so-called conservative groups
participating in this. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the author of the awful EU
Constitution, is considered a conservative politician, who however has an
enormous contempt for ordinary people.
You have another group who are convinced that the nation state is the cause
only of wars and trouble. I suspect former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl,
for instance, belongs to this group. And finally, we have perhaps the
largest group: Opportunists who follow the lead of the three other groups.
They have good jobs on an international basis and no longer feel any close
attachment to the nation states they are supposed to represent, anyway.
I call them The New Marie Antoinettes. The old Marie Antoinette was famous
for the quote ""If they have no bread, then let them eat cake." In Eurabia
today, the New Marie Antoinettes would probably have said "Let them eat
kebab." They think cries for national sovereignty is an old superstition
among the common people, and are actively dismantling their own societies
through massive immigration, Multiculturalism and supranational
institutions, primarily the EU. One blogger suggested naming this project
The Great Deconstruction, a name I like. Earlier generation lived in the Age
of Reason, we live in the Age of Deconstruction. Maybe this Project could
also be called The Great Leap Forward, but I heard rumors that this name was
already taken.
De Winter: Many of the things that have been said by the distinguished
panellists is true, but at the same time I am a bit hesitant to grant so
much power to groups of revolutionary Leftists bent on the demise of the
West. This is way too much honor for them, and as far as I can judge, at
least in my home village in Holland, they did not succeed, despite all these
things you can read in your morning paper.
As far as I can see we are talking here about unforeseen effects of the
cultural revolution in Western Europe in the Sixties. This period marks the
revolt of the Adolescent, who not only got a strong economical position but
who also became a political voice. Young people were not on their way to
adulthood anymore, this part of life became a goal in itself.
The youthful and painful awareness that the world was ugly became a tool in
the hands of neo-Marxists and recliner-revolutionaries. In my home country,
something very peculiar happened in the Sixties: a kind of 'contract social'
emerged. The public arena was left to the rhetoric of the Left, and at the
same time the majority of the population was allowed to continue to keep its
traditional lifestyle. Basically, the media were handed over to all kinds of
progressives with their own agendas, and the majority got used to its own
silence.
In this public arena certain values were cherished: anti-fascism, feminism,
secularism, pacifism, anti-colonialism, anti-capitalism, et cetera. It is
here where the ideas of multiculturalism first showed up. It started with
the so-called 'sub-cultures' of pseudo-bohemian artists, academic Marxists,
all pretending that the existing values of Western civilization were
overdue. They started to develop a cultural relativism.
At the same time, they were making a living because of these values: every
month they cashed their paychecks - written out by decent civil servants who
collected tax revenues handed over by a decent civil society. As long as the
system was 'closed', the welfare state functioned and the various groups
knew how to behave.
For some time it is fun to be a revolutionary, but after a couple of years
most young welfare revolutionaries got bored and moved on - see what
happened to the famous 'krakers'in Holland in the Seventies and Eighties;
they are now fathers, teachers, businessmen.
But the public arena was annexed by the Leftist media, and this did not
change. It was impossible to discuss the problems of immigration when the
first signs showed up.
Still, Europe tried to cope with the consequences of the Second World War,
and anti-racism was one of the essential values of the post-Sixties
establishment. Criticizing a newly arrived ethnic group was simply 'not
done'.
The rules of post-Holocaust Europe and the post-Sixties cultural relativism
were clear: approach the problems of immigration purely within their
socio-economical context and avoid discussing cultural or religious aspects.
Was this a conscious 'Project' to mislead the general public about the
intentions of Marxists and multiculturalists? I don't think so, at least not
so in Holland. The overwhelmingly leftist media played a crucial role in the
selection of the root causes of immigration problems, and after the
direction was set it became virtually impossible to change course. In
Holland, it took decades before someone was able to break the taboos of the
media. The man who did this was called Pim Fortuyn, and he was killed
because of it.
So, there is a direct line from the Second World War to the Cultural
Revolution of the Sixties, and from the Sixties to phenomena such as
cultural relativism and multiculturalism. I don't exclude the idea that from
a certain point these trends became a policy in the hands of people who
turned it into a 'Project'. But reality is way too complex to organize such
a Project over such a long period of time in so many countries. Yes, we do
have problems with large groups of Muslim immigrants in most Western
European countries, and ,yes, it is still hard to discuss these issues
openly. But at the same time it is clear that the 'contract social' is
showing its first fault lines. The majority is about to give up the
limitations imposed upon them by the political and media establishment.
So, what we basically witness are optical illusions created by the media.
Multiculturalism never took over in Western Europe. Holland still is to a
large degree a traditional Calvinist country, which does not recognize
itself in Holland as described in the media.
I think the media are their hold: the majority is fed up with the
limitations created by the media. In Holland, the majority woke up Pim
Fortuyn. The country is still confused, but the time that the PC-crowd could
silence anyone, is gone.
Also interesting are the developments in Belgium. Despite the vast coalition
against the rightist party Het Vlaams Belang, it is gaining strength. I am
not sure yet if Vlaams Belang became a decent conservative movement, but it
is clear that the media cannot control the population anymore.
Yes, I am worried, but I still believe in the power and sense of sanity of
decent Europeans.
Bawer: It's true: the same hatred for American capitalism that once drove
members of Europe's political and media establishment to play down the
horrors of Communism, or even actively celebrate it, has since turned them
into multiculturalists with a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil approach to Islam.
For such people, any ideology - however problematic- is preferable to the
ultimate evil of American capitalism.
Multiculturalism has become official dogma in much of Western Europe, and
the word is routinely used as if it were a synonym for equal rights or
ethnic pluralism or colorblind democracy. Of course, it isn't. It's a
grotesque expression of cultural self-contempt and self-destructiveness.
Multiculturalism compels self-declared anti-fascists to blind themselves to
the most chillingly fascist phenomena of our time. It compels feminists to
accept the subjugation and abuse of women by men who believe they have the
right to rape, beat, and murder them. It compels gay activists to embrace
as allies people who, given the chance, would drop a wall on them.
Multiculturalism is deeply, perversely irrational. If you're a
multiculturalist, it's verboten even to notice, acknowledge, and express
concern about murderous hatred directed against you and yours by the
officially oppressed. For a multiculturalist, any act or statement by a
member of an officially oppressed group, however morally reprehensible, is
to be understood either as a legitimate reaction against "our" prejudice (or
our forebears' colonialism) or as a legitimate aspect of an alien culture
that we, in our pitiful narrowness, have failed to understand and respect -
which is, of course, our obligation.
Many Europeans recognize that multiculturalism is leading their societies to
disaster. If you can get them to loosen up and trust you, they may venture
an awkward, uneasy critical word or two about the proliferation in their
midst of people who long for sharia law and about the refusal of
multicultural-minded political leaders to address this growing crisis
responsibly. But many such Europeans hardly know how to express their
concerns, because they've almost never heard such concerns openly,
intelligently, and responsibly articulated. All they've heard all their
lives from officially approved authorities - teachers, professors, the
media, politicians, government agency workers, talking heads on TV, the
representatives of state-funded "independent" organizations like SOS
Racism - is that any concern about multiculturalism and its consequences is
tantamount to racism.
Yes, there are so-called "populist" parties that oppose multiculturalism,
but they are profoundly stigmatized, and many people who silently agree with
them feel nonetheless compelled to join in the routine public mockery of
them. Some of these parties, moreover, are in fact racist, so that on the
rare occasions when one does hear open criticism of multiculturalism in
Europe, it often comes from people who only confirm the establishment
assertion that to oppose multiculturalism is, indeed, to be racist.
While many ordinary Europeans do oppose multiculturalism, then, most of them
tend to keep quiet about it, or to articulate their opposition only very
carefully and selectively - or, alternately, to express it in occasional
(often drunken) outbursts of indignation and frustration. Few of them,
certainly, have any expectation that their views might ever affect official
policy. There's a widespread resignation to the fact that multiculturalists
control the media, academy, state agencies, and so on. Besides, they know
what happens to those few people who do openly dissent from multicultural
dogma - they're demonized as bigots and racists. They know very well that
if you want to get ahead in European society, you don't take on
multicultural orthodoxy.
Granted, this has been changing - kind of - at least in some countries, and
in some places more than others. As Leon de Winter notes, Pim Fortuyn tore
down the wall of silence in the Netherlands regarding the dangers of
multiculturalism and massive Islamic immigration. Similarly, Denmark's
Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has stood up bravely against the
multicultural establishment in the name of free speech.
In Norway, Hege Storhaug has single-handedly had an explosive effect just by
going on TV and radio and criticizing mindless institutional
multiculturalism in a way that is bold, intelligent, moral, reasonable, and
uncompromising. All this is progress.
Yet on an everyday level, among ordinary citizens in these and other
countries, it can still often appear that the old inhibitions remain firmly
in place. The political establishment seems solidly planted, unmovable,
unchangeable. There may be a widespread rage, in short, but it's largely an
impotent rage. Europeans today have been bred to be passive, to leave
things to their leaders, whose wisdom they've been taught all their lives to
take for granted. Even Europeans who are highly uneasy about
multiculturalism, then, tend to be incapable of effective action or
organization. They look around for somebody else to do something, or at
least to say things that might help clarify the situation, help bring their
own often muddled views into focus, and help make them feel justified in
their vague but increasingly intense sense of alarm.
Part of the problem is that many Europeans today have been taught to think
of their own societies, in large part, as value-neutral spaces. The fact
that freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and equal rights are not
natural givens, but are rather a precious heritage that had to be fought for
and that are now under attack and must be defended without hesitation or
apology, is something that needs to be driven home to many of them. They
were brought up to believe that their societies' one great overriding
virtue, other than the bottomless generosity of the welfare state, is an
unbounded multicultural tolerance -a limitless openness to and
"understanding" of even of the most brutally intolerant foreign cultures.
To shake off a lifetime of this kind of indoctrination is not easy: it's
hard to quit yourself entirely of the deeply instilled notion - perverse
though it is - that the ultimate act of goodness is to pour endless amounts
of your own hard-earned tax money into the pockets of immigrants who hate
you, hate your country, hate your form of government, and will gladly
destroy it all when they've gained enough power to do so. The feelings of
guilt and insecurity on the part of many of those who dare to reject this
orthodoxy should not be underestimated.
Berlinski: Actually, I believe the idea of multiculturalism antedates Horace
Kallen and in fact has its origins in the Swiss constitution of 1848, which,
it is only fair to note, seems to have served the Swiss rather well.
The idea that multiculturalism is the product of a calculated, malicious
Leftist plot strikes me as a stretch. For one thing, it's completely
incompatible with doctrinaire Marxism; for another, I've seen no historical
evidence for the claim. Many leftists did indeed end up as multiculturalists
after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but I agree with Hege and
Lars-multiculturalism is functioning here as a substitute for
anti-capitalism (in turn a substitute for something else), and not as its
natural extension.
There are some similarities between modern European multiculturalism and
Soviet nationalities policy as implemented between 1923 and 1933, I suppose,
but the goal of the Soviet policy was to encourage the cohesion of the
state, whereas contemporary European multiculturalists generally hold
multiculturalism itself to be the goal-a good unto itself, no matter what
the consequences for the state.
Both Marxism and multiculturalism are Utopian ideologies that have proven
attractive both to morons and those of a totalitarian temperament; beyond
that-not much in common, really, if you take what they profess to believe
seriously. By contrast, the anti-globalization activists are the Left's more
direct ideological heirs, although they're still engaged in abject
deviationism.
But Jamie, you've spent more time than I have poking around those Soviet
archives-have you found some evidence to suggest that multiculturalism
originated in a Left-wing plot? Or is that just your gut feeling? I agree
that the Left's malice and calculation should never be underestimated, but
sometimes putting Fluoride in the water is just some poor bozo's idea of a
sound public hygiene measure.
Whatever its origins, if we're trying to figure out what's gone wrong with
Europe-and I presume that is why we're all gathered here today-I'd be wary
of ascribing complete explanatory power to the ascent of multiculturalism as
a doctrine. It's a dopey idea, to be sure, but is it really the primary
reason Western Europe now finds itself unable to integrate its large,
hostile Muslim minorities?
France, despite categorically rejecting official multiculturalism, despite
having always rejected it, is having precisely the same problems with its
Muslim immigrant population as the rest of Europe. Jamie, you correctly
point out that Europe's postwar immigration policy was not sufficiently
discriminating, but this had less to do with ideological multiculturalism
than it did with filling industrial labor shortages, making good on moral
commitments to the former colonies, and simple shortsightedness. (On the
other hand, the fact that a disturbingly high proportion of these immigrants
have not been obliged to learn the languages, abide by the laws, or respect
the core values of their adoptive countries has a great deal to do with
multiculturalism.)
Anyway, I'd be inclined to view multiculturalism as the symptom, not the
disease, the real disease being the utter, collective demoralization of
Europe in the wake of the collapse of Christianity and the two World Wars.
If Europe is suffering now from an excess of indiscriminate tolerance, I'd
look to the Holocaust as the source: How do you convince people to stand up
for European values if that is where they lead? I'm not saying they
shouldn't stand up for those values, by the way, far from it; I'm just
pointing out the key psychological problem.
FP: Thank you. We're not really much in disagreement my friend. My main
point is simply that multiculturalism serves as a weapon with which the Left
can work its destructive agenda.
Bat Ye'or go ahead.
Bat Ye'or: Thank you Jamie. As the previous commentators rightly remarked,
the concept of multiculturalism is implicit in the idea of "Europe des
Nations," going back to the early 19th century, and in the drive toward
European unification promoted by various politicians, historians and
intellectuals, including Michelet (France 1830), Berchet and especially
Mazzini (Italy ), and Hegel (Germany).
Both the Socialist and the Romantic movements advocated the establishment of
a United States of Europe or European Federation. With the development of
the railroads that shortened distances and facilitated travel and contacts,
Europeans became aware of a cultural unity above and beyond the diversity of
languages, arts, and literature. The value of multiculturalism was
reinforced in the context of a broad movement of European unification to
counter the dangers of belligerent nationalistic rivalries and block the
threat of further inter-European wars, especially after the major wars of
the 20th century.
After WW II, Gaullist France thought to compensate the loss of its Arab
colonies by forming a vast Euro-Arab Mediterranean ensemble that would form
a strategic, political, cultural and social entity. The French and the Arabs
wanted to build a strategic Euro-Arab alliance that would stand as a
powerful block against America. French diplomats developed contacts with
Arab counterparts, particularly the Libyans, and managed to integrate this
alliance into a common European policy on oil and security.
The policy was established at the highest levels of the European Commission
and within European Community organizations. Not all European States
immediately agreed to the project. But Palestinian terrorism in the late
1960s and 1970s, combined with the oil boycott imposed after Arab hopes of
militarily destroying Israel were dashed in the 1973 Yom Kippur War,
persuaded the recalcitrant nations, including Holland, to participate in the
project.
This was the creation of Eurabia. Eurabian ideology envisaged a united
Mediterranean culture based on a symbiosis between the Northern and the
Southern shores through multiculturalism and a unifying process similar to
Europe's integrative dynamics. The hope was to achieve a common Euro-Arab
empire with free circulation of goods and people, a common diplomacy and
culture, a common Euro-Arab Parliament, a Euro-Arab university (here and
here)and a common financing organism.
Multiculturalism is in fact a crucial dimension of the Euro-Arab strategic
alliance. Since 1975, agreements connecting Europe to the Arab world are
frequently mentioned in texts of Euro-Arab meetings and of the European
Union. The terms of Arab-Muslim immigration to Europe are outlined in these
documents: immigrants should be encouraged to maintain ties with their
countries of origin and integration into European culture was not essential.
The texts call for the establishment of Muslim cultural and political
centres in European cities, and set forth guidelines for education,
publishing, and the media. Details on the most recent period can be found in
the report of the European Commission for Culture, Science and Education
presented to the European Parliamentary Assembly by José Maria de Puig from
the Spanish Socialist group (November 2002).
The multiculturalist policy to which you refer, Jamie, is connected in
Europe to the absorption of Muslim culture into the Mediterranean entity. As
Laars pointed out, by the 1980s the Left had strengthened its Third-Worldism
and alliance with Arab states. It supported mass immigration from Africa and
Asia as natural allies against established Western cultural bastions. The
spiritual father of the deconstruction of Western culture was the late
Edward Said, who devoted much work in order to replace it by the Arab-Muslim
perception of history.
I agree with Storhaug and Berlinski on the Stalinist methods used to
silence disagreement by labeling people "Islamophobes." We can expect a
reinforcement of this policy as a consequence of a resolution passed at the
Third Extraordinary Session of the Islamic Summit conference in Mecca on
December 7-8, 2005: "Endeavor to have the United Nations adopt an
international resolution to counter Islamophobia, and call upon all States
to enact laws to counter it, including deterrent punishments." This is now
being initiated at the new UN Human Rights Council. The problem is: how to
define "Islamophobia" according to Western criteria that do not recognize
blasphemy.
I agree with Fjordman's analysis of the alliance between the Left and
Muslim immigrants as an interactive dependency. The Left shares a visceral
anti-Americanism and a totalitarian propensity with the general Arab
population. The dissatisfied and often unemployed immigrant masses seem like
an opportunity to fill the European proletarian vacuum. But above all, the
Left uses these immigrants to help destroy the traditional Judeo-Christian
values of a vacillating, demographically impoverished Europe plagued by
antisemitism. Those forces are endeavoring to bring to birth the world of
the future: an Alliance of Civilizations, fraternization of peoples,
reconciliation of Islam and Christianity through immigration and
multiculturalism. They both reject Judeo-Christianism, although for
different reasons.
The Project mentioned by Fjordman is in fact a strategy described in a
plethora of EU documents, approved by the major parties represented at the
European Parliament, and coordinated by the European Commission. It was
pursued with particular enthusiasm under Romano Prodi, president of the
European Commission from 1999 to 2005.
The cultural relativism of which de Winter speaks is related to the
immigration policy and the integration of its values. Fear of awakening
opposition to the Common Strategy of the European Council that established
EU policy toward the Arab Mediterranean countries led to the repression of
all discussion of the economic problems and difficulties of integration
caused by massive immigration. The immigration issue was falsely connected
to the Holocaust and thereby protected by the rules and taboos of
post-Holocaust Europe. European Jews had no homeland at that time; they were
trying to flee a genocidal policy that condemned a whole people to
extermination.
Today's immigrants are not in this type of situation, and certainly not the
Muslims who have 56 countries within the Organization of the Islamic
Conference. Of course, certain individuals who are threatened by
totalitarian dictatorship must be helped, but this is very different from
the Jewish situation. Moreover, this shameful manipulation of Holocaust
history and European guilt feelings is used to cover an antisemitic
Mediterranean policy that is pointedly anti-Israeli and anti-American, while
Palestinianism supported by the EU promotes the destruction of Israel,
thereby pursuing the European extermination policy implemented during WW2.
For pointing out these elementary truths I was accused of being a racist.
On the other hand I do not agree with de Winter on multiculturalism. I think
it is very well implemented in Europe. Multiculturalism is the foundation of
Europe's generalized anti-Semitism, anti-American racism, and Palestinianist
subculture with its fanatical support for Arafat and Saddam Hussein, moral
relativism, and loss of identity. Multiculturalism is manifest in schools:
insecurity, violence, pressure for curriculum changes (for France see the
Obin Report); in universities, where students and professors conduct a
cultural jihad against Western values; in some museums and in all
expressions of culture and public and political life.
My position is very close to that of Bawer. I think that he perfectly
grasped the European situation in all its complexity. I agree totally with
his analysis, especially concerning the totalitarian web cohesion of
"teachers, professors, the media, politicians, government agency workers,
talking heads on TV, the representatives of state-funded 'independent'
organizations like SOS Racism" to indoctrinate the politically correct. This
perfectly expresses the political directives given by the European
Commission to coordinate and control in all EU member-states the political,
intellectual, religious, media, teaching and publishing apparatus since the
1970s so as to harmonize with its Mediterranean strategy based on
multiculturalism. Bawer is perfectly right when he alludes to the
professional harassment, boycott and defamation that punish those who openly
reject the politically correct discourse. This leads to the development of a
type of "resistance press" as if Europe were under the "Occupation" of its
own elected governments. This free press on the internet and in blogs
brought some changes, including the rejection of the European Constitution
because people are fed up with the supra-national authoritarian policies of
Brussels that have made such a mess.
I also agree with Bawer on the divide between the people and the political
establishment, on the paralysis of the latter and the impotent passivity of
Europeans, which might explode in ugly xenophobic crimes, and especially
that immigrants are only pawns in a Euro-Arab strategy that turned Europe
into "value-neutral spaces." For having spoken and written on Europe's
Judeo-Christian spiritual values I was attacked verbally and in texts as an
Islamophobe.
Unlike Berlinski, I do not see any political shortsightedness in the
integration policy, because integration was never in the cards. From the
1970s when immigration policy was being elaborated between the countries of
the European Communities and those of the Southern Mediterranean under the
auspices of the Arab League, no European texts or agreements mentioned the
need for integration but only the need to educate Europeans to host
immigrants and be tolerant. The source of Europe's "excess of tolerance" is
not the Holocaust but its political exploitation that covers current
policies, while Europe shows extreme intolerance toward Israel in the
apartheid mechanisms of some of its universities, its economic boycotts and
divestment policies, as well as the Marcionism and replacement theology
professed by some of its Churches, and the constant condemnation of Israeli
policies.
Multiculturalism is a wide all-embracing doctrine whose components are not
all negative. It encompasses the struggle against fanaticism, prejudice, and
chauvinism; it is open to humanity in its diversity; but it has been
perverted by a hidden political agenda. Multiculturalism sustains many
aspects of European policy. Walter Schwimmer, the Austrian diplomat and
Secretary General of the Council of Europe from 1999 to 2004, told foreign
ministers at the Islamic conference in Istanbul (June15th 2004) that the
Islamic component is an integral part of Europe's diversity. He reaffirmed
the commitment of the Council of Europe to work against Islamophobia,
antisemitism and other forms of intolerance, and proposed the launch of a
series of joint projects on the teaching of history and religious diversity.
The report recommends that these projects be extended to the whole of the
Mediterranean basin, ''as a contribution to our intercultural and
inter-religious dialogue''.
According to the European Council report, the Council was also actively
involved in the co-organisation of a Conference on the Image of Arab-Islamic
culture in European history textbooks, which took place in Cairo from 12 to
14 December 2004. The event, which was held within the framework of the
Euro-Arab Dialogue ''Learning to Live together;'' was jointly organized by
UNESCO, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The aim of this
conference was to examine negative stereotyping in the image of Arab-Islamic
culture presented in existing history textbooks, and to discuss ways to
overcome this stereotyping.
To continue reading this article, click here.
serwad
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> FUCKING IDIOT! THE WORLD HAS HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR LIES AND YOUR HATRED!
How is this a lie?
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>> FUCKING IDIOT! THE WORLD HAS HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR LIES AND YOUR HATRED!
By Gideon Levy
Abdullah a-Zakh identified his son's body by the belt. The shoes and socks
also looked familiar, irrefutable proof that he had lost his son. In the
morgue of Shifa Hospital, after hours of searching, he found the bottom part
of the boy's body. The next day, when Operation "Gan Na'ul" - "Locked
Kindergarten" - ended and the Israel Defense Forces exited the Saja'iya
neighborhood of Gaza, leaving behind 22 dead and large-scale destruction,
the other body parts were found.
Mohammed was buried twice. He was 14 years old at the time of his death. He
was killed last week, three days before the start of the new school year, so
he never got to enter ninth grade. Did the planners of the operation give
thought to the children who would be killed before giving it the satanic
name "Locked Kindergarten"? Did the IDF computer that comes up with the
names know that there would be five children and adolescents among the dead?
Did they think about the popular song that the operation's name evokes? It
was unpleasant, very unpleasant (in the words of the song) this week to see
the results of Locked Kindergarten in the Saja'iya neighborhood in the
eastern section of Gaza City.
This sprawling, overcrowded residential neighborhood was occupied for almost
a week by the IDF. The army wreaked destruction in it. A monstrous bulldozer
maliciously potholed a few roads, scarring the asphalt with gaping wounds,
for no apparent reason. Houses were hit, street tiling was uprooted,
electricity poles were cut down, cars were crushed, dozens of trees were
destroyed and 22 residents were killed. For almost a week the tens of
thousands of residents lived in terror, some of them unable to leave their
homes.
The IDF Spokesperson's Office explained this week: "The IDF operated in
Saja'iya as part of the overall activity to create the conditions for the
return of Gilad Shalit, damaging the terrorist infrastructures and the
firing of Qassam rockets. In the course of the operation, a tunnel was
uncovered which was dug from the direction of Saja'iya toward the Karni
terminal. This tunnel is only part of the tunnel threat that affects the
orderly transit of goods on a daily basis. The IDF does all it can to avoid
harming non-involved people and under no circumstances does it intend this."
Now Abdullah a-Zakh is a bereaved father who saw his son's body torn apart.
Burdened by suffering and struggle, with long years in Israeli prisons,
deported to Lebanon as a member of Hamas and probably an activist in Islamic
Jihad, he mourns for his son. On the wall of the mourners' home, which was
demolished by the IDF in 1971, Mohammed's photograph hangs next to a
photograph of his uncle, who was killed four years ago. And also the
photographs of the other children who were killed in Locked Kindergarten,
along with Mohammed.
When the children of Saja'iya went to school this week, at the start of the
school year, carrying their new schoolbags and also the horrors of the
previous week, they found a few empty seats in their classrooms. This week
the streets of this neighborhood were more fraught than ever with
devastation, mourning and fury.
The zoo of Gaza is locked, too. It's a new zoo, built by France, with a
model of the Eiffel Tower at the entrance, but this week it stood empty, the
lone lioness downcast in her narrow cell. Two shekels to get in for a child,
three for an adult, but the place is locked. No one visits, Gaza can't
afford to visit a zoo these days. In the Abed Rabbo neighborhood the
residents emerge anxiously from their homes to view the damage inflicted by
night, uprooted orchards. This is where the tanks invaded last Saturday
night. In Saja'iya the electricity and telephone technicians are laboring to
repair the damages of Locked Kindergarten, and farmers are returning to
their wrecked plots, trying to salvage what can still be salvaged.
An angry passerby stops us and begins to shout loudly against Israel and
Europe, which, he says, is supporting Israel. The bitterness here is great.
Next to an apartment building a yellow cab is stuck in the ground, its back
pointing skyward, its belly in the earth. Another source of income gone. In
the industrial zone at the Karni crossing are containers from Copenhagen
that were made in Shanghai, now perforated and savaged from the battles that
raged here last week. A Zim shipping lines container is here, too, by the
side, as though shy, with Herzl's seven golden stars emblazoned on it. The
soldiers did not shoot it.
Half a family was killed here two months ago in a lone house at the edge of
the neighborhood: Amana Hajaj, 45, her son Mohammed, 23, and her daughter,
Rawan, a girl of six. The family had gathered beneath vine and fig tree in
the evening to roast corn on the small barbecue that is still here, when
three missiles slammed into the yard. The Hajaj family doesn't live here
anymore; only the son, Yasser, a handsome youth of 17, comes every few days
to feed the dog that is guarding the house and the chickens in the coop. The
family left the house immediately after their tragedy, because of the fear:
when you open the iron gate that leads from the house to the street you see
an IDF position on the hill at the edge of the horizon to the east, its very
presence enough to instill fear in the hearts of those in the exposed house.
The grapes of wrath attest to what happened: they still hang, scorched, on
the vine in the yard.
On the second day of the school year, children are burning electric cables
that they pulled from the houses that were destroyed last week in Saja'iya
in order to extract the copper from them. Mourners' tents have been put up
in every corner of the neighborhood. A group of grim-faced men sit at the
entrance to the home of the boy Hussam a-Sarsawi, too. The bereaved father
has gone to the mosque to pray and they are unwilling to talk in his
absence. Hussam was 10 years old at the time of his death - one of those who
fell in Operation Locked Kindergarten.
The atmosphere on the streets is bleak and tense; the looks of the passersby
say it all. In the footsteps of fighters: It's easy to distinguish between
the streets the IDF used here and the streets that were not gutted by the
tanks. These are the footsteps of devastation. An elegant yellowish villa on
a street corner is punctured by bullet holes and half wrecked. This is where
the boy Mohammed a-Zakh was killed.
In the courtyard sit the mourning women, in black, among them the bereaved
mother, Abir, opposite photographs of the dead and verses from the Koran in
the black and gold of Islamic Jihad. Mohammed a-Zakh set up a booth next to
his home, to make a little money during the vacation. Every day he sold gum,
wafers, biscuits and chips for a pittance to the neighborhood children, and
took in about NIS 20 or NIS 30 a day. Last Tuesday, too, he was open for
business. There were two days left in the summer vacation. At about 11 A.M.
he went up to his mother on the second floor and saw her baking pitas.
Afterward he went to the mosque, for the midday prayers, and then went back
to his mother to ask for an electric cable - there happened to be power in
the neighborhood just then - in order to vacuum the dust from the carpets in
the mosque. "You're still making pitas?" he asked.
When he got back from the mosque he noticed that someone had opened the door
of his dovecote and that all the doves had flown off. Mohammed ran after one
dove and managed to return it to the dovecote, which was in the roof of the
house. He then went down to his grandmother's apartment and ate lunch.
Afterward he went down to the street and was not seen again alive and well.
Mohammed walked toward Mansura Street, the neighborhood's main thoroughfare,
where the tanks were. According to one account, he was asked to go there to
see how his uncles, who lived in the line of fire, were doing; another
version has it that he went to see the tanks and help the "defenders," as
they call themselves in this fighting family. The father of the family,
Abdullah, who joined us later for a conversation, has seen his share of
struggle. In 1971, when he was 17, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison by
Israel for security offenses which he declines to specify. He was released
in 1985, after 14 years, in the Jibril deal. A year later he was rearrested
and sentenced to four years in prison.
Three years later, in 1992, he was deported to Marj al Zahur, in Lebanon,
together with hundreds of Hamas activists, including Ismail Haniyeh, Abdel
Aziz Rantisi, Mahmoud Zahar and Saeed Seyam, who became leaders of the
organization. He was allowed back to Gaza a year later and in 1995 was
arrested for brief periods by the Palestinian Authority. He says that
everyone claimed he was active in Islamic Jihad, something he denies. Now
54, he works for the Palestinian Authority as a very senior officer, in
charge of the veteran fighters. Between one incarceration and another, he
fathered eight children, among them Mohammed.
The grandmother closes her eyes. The aunt weeps silently. She relates that
in the war of 1956, five members of her family were killed. Abdullah asks
the women to move to another part of the courtyard. The marks of mourning
and trauma are very apparent on him, as he tells his story: Last Tuesday his
sister came to the house and said there was a wounded boy on Mansura Street.
Abdullah rushed to Shifa Hospital. "I looked everywhere but couldn't find
him. I thought maybe he was in surgery, but no. I had a feeling that
Mohammed was a shahid martyr.
"I thought maybe he was transferred to another hospital and I sent relatives
to look in Al-Quds Hospital. They didn't find him there. The feeling that he
was a shahid grew stronger. I thought that if he was not in the hospital, he
must be lying at the place where he was killed. It would be very hard to get
there and get him out. We know that if anyone is wounded there, no one can
get close enough to get him out. We know that the army shoots at anyone who
approaches there, even at rescue parties. There were cases of people who
tried to rescue the wounded and were shot.
"Then I thought he must be in the hospital refrigerator. I asked my cousins
to go and check. There were a few shahids there, and they saw them, but they
came back and said they did not find Mohammed. The feeling that Mohammed was
a shahid grew stronger in me. But there was no announcement.
"I decided to go to the morgue and look. I went in but I didn't find
Mohammed. Then I saw half a body, the only one that was not identified. I
saw that it was Mohammed's half-body. By the belt. It's a belt that I bought
him. And the shoes he wore. I looked at the socks and I knew it was
Mohammed. I was sure it was Mohammed. The upper half of the body had
disappeared.
"Mohammed was killed by two shells fired by a tank, and both shells hit him.
Mohammed is fourteen years and four months old. He was not armed and he
didn't know what a weapon was. They saw that he was a boy. Maybe he went
there to see the defenders, maybe he wanted to take part. Maybe he threw
stones at a tank. They fired a shell at him. That is Mohammed's story and
that is the end of Mohammed."
Mohammed was buried that day. The next day, last Wednesday, when the IDF
left Mansura, they went to the killing place to look for the other half of
Mohammed. They found his body parts together with the body parts of Yusri
Abu Jabber, a press photographer for the Al-Quds network, who was also
killed there. The rest of Mohammed's body was buried on Wednesday. Abdullah,
the father: "Mohammed was a schoolboy. That is the whole story of Mohammed.
It happens every day, every day. Can a boy like this, like Mohammed, be a
danger to them? And if he was a danger to them, they could have wounded him
instead of killing him. They could have thrown a teargas grenade at him.
Even if he was a danger to them, you don't fire a shell at him."
The IDF Spokesperson's Office, this week: "The IDF is not aware of a
14-year-old boy being hit other than from media reports, and is not familiar
with the circumstances in which he was hit. It should be noted that on the
day the report was published there were heavy exchanges of fire, which
included the firing of antitank missiles, the detonation of explosive
devices, and light-arms fire against IDF forces."
His youngest child, Ibrahim, is on his knees, scribbling on himself with a
pen. Abdullah gags every so often. Abir is pregnant, and if it's a boy they
will name him Mohammed. "Israel must know that we must live together. We are
ready to live in one state, not two states, and all the refugees will return
and we will all live in a democratic state, call it Israel or Palestine. I
am certain that we are ready to live together. We long to live in a good
democracy, but I am sure you Israelis will not accept that. Israel will not
agree to a two-state solution, either. Israel only wants more and more, and
the right wing in Israel wants to destroy us. But Israel, what does it
hear?"
This year they didn't buy Mohammed a new schoolbag. He kept putting it off.
Photos in the family album: Mohammed as a baby in uniform; Mohammed as a boy
in a boat in surging rapids - a studio photomontage; Mohammed with a toy
rifle; Mohammed with Yasser Arafat, shaking his hand during a visit Arafat
made to the neighborhood; Mohammed against a background of two cardboard
Qassam rockets in a photo studio; and the last photograph, taken about a
month ago, of the whole family together in the studio, for a group portrait
to get a health insurance certificate
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/760138.html
DoD
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> "DoD" <the...@ss.mil> wrote in message
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>>> FUCKING IDIOT! THE WORLD HAS HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR LIES AND YOUR HATRED!
Tell us where the lies are in this. Special thanks to Mimi for the find....
Why Do Muslims Execute Innocent People?
Islamist Ideology
by Denis MacEoin
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2006
While often ignored in the Western media, human rights abuses in the
Islamic world are a daily occurrence. Both Muslim states and ad hoc
religious courts order mutilation and execution, not only of criminals
but also of individuals-mainly women-who have not committed anything
which would be considered a crime in other societies. In some cases,
Shari'a (Islamic law) tribunals issue death sentences for those
acquitted in regular courts.[1] In other cases, religious leaders invoke
religion to sanction non-Islamic practices such as honor killings and
female genital mutilation.
Original Islamic jurisprudence, however, does not necessarily mandate
such severe punishments. In the early twentieth century, it even seemed
that the introduction of modern legal codes in Muslim majority countries
might ameliorate regular Shari'a punishments, but in recent decades,
traditionalists have pushed a back-to-basics program which has augmented
application of Shari'a punishment. Rather than modifying Islamic
practice, many self-described Islamist reformers make matters worse by
advocating retrenchment rather than reform.
Unjust Punishment
Many of the crimes for which death is mandated involve sex or honor.
While capricious application of Shari'a punishment is common throughout
Muslim majority countries and communities, since the fall of the Taliban
and because of the activity of Iranian journalists and bloggers, many of
the specific examples which are known in the West come from Iran.
On August 15, 2004, 16-year-old Ateqeh Rajabi, was hanged in public in
the northern Iranian town of Neka. Her crime was to have sex with her
boyfriend. She had no lawyer, nor could her family find one willing to
defend her. The capriciousness of the judge rather than a strict
interpretation of the Qur'an contributed to her death. She had talked
back to the judge, Haji Reza'i, who later remarked that he would not
have ordered her execution had it not been for her "sharp tongue."[2]
In December 2004, Leyla, a 19-year-old girl with a mental age of eight,
was sentenced to death for "acts contrary to chastity." The sentencing
judge ordered her to be flogged before execution. Her situation was
lamentable. When she was eight, her mother forced her into prostitution,
letting her be raped repeatedly. She was later sold as a temporary wife
(mut'a, sigha), legal in Twelver Shi'ite law which allows temporary
wives to be contracted for set periods ranging from one hour to
ninety-nine years. Thirteen-year-old Zhila Izadi also received a death
sentence-later commuted-after being impregnated by her older brother.
Other examples abound. In July 2005, Iranian authorities publicly hanged
two boys, 18-year-old Ayaz Marhoni and 16-year-old Mahmud Asghari, in
the shrine city of Mashhad for homosexual acts. Photographs of the boys
with nooses round their necks just before their execution are available
online,[3] but never appeared in Western newspapers or on television.
On January 7, 2006, an Islamic court in Tehran passed a death sentence
on an 18-year old girl, identified only by her first name, Nazanin. She
had stabbed an assailant while fighting off three men who attempted to
rape her and her 16-year-old niece.[4] Reports suggested their attackers
were members of the Basij, a radical militia charged with upholding the
Islamic Republic's revolutionary principles. Nazanin was aged seventeen
at the time of her offence, too young for a death sentence even under
Iranian law that states that such sentences for minors should be
commuted to five years' imprisonment. In Nazanin's case, the judge
ignored extenuating circumstances and applied rigidly the law of
retaliation (qisas). Under such a system, a life must be paid for by a
life, an eye for an eye, except where the family of the victim is
willing to accept blood money or compensation (diya) for lost body parts
and organs.[5]
Iran is not the only Islamic country practicing spurious punishment. On
April 21, 2005, in Spingul, a valley near Faizabad in Afghanistan's
Badakhshan province, family members and villagers executed 25-year-old
Bibi Amin after she was found in the company of a man to whom she was
not married. She was buried to her neck and, for two hours, stoned.[6]
There have been similar cases in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan,
Nigeria, and other Muslim countries. Even in Egypt, where Shari'a law
has been modified, men and women are still imprisoned unequally for
adultery.[7] That the application of such punishments is widespread and
that its perpetrators justify their actions in Islam neither means that
a consensus exists among theologians or that such interpretations have
been consistent through time.
Qur'anic Attitudes toward Punishment
With only one exception, every chapter of the Qur'an begins with the
words Bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim, "In the name of God, the merciful,
the compassionate." While such compassion is lacking in modern
application of Shari'a law, this has not always been the case. Many
traditional sources argue for limited punishment. The Sunan of Ibn Maja,
one of the six canonical collections, cites a saying by Muhammad that
reads, "Do not carry out punishments if you can find a way to avoid
them."[8]
This example is echoed by another tradition from the Sunan of Tirmidhi:
"Wherever possible, do not inflict punishments (hudud; singular hadd) on
Muslims; if there is a way out for someone, let him go. It is better for
the ruler (al-imam) to err in forgiveness than for him to err in
punishment."[9] According to the twelfth-century jurist and philosopher
Ibn Rushd (Averroes), "hadd punishments are suspended in doubtful
cases," echoing another hadith to that effect.[10]
Still, in traditional Islam, adultery and fornication (both termed
zina') are considered criminal acts worthy of a hadd punishment, which
the Qur'an sets at 100 lashes.[11] Adultery itself is a difficult charge
to bring under Shari'a: it requires four adult male witnesses to the
penetration; in contrast, only two males (or four females) need witness
murder for the charges to stick. Nor is circumstantial evidence
sufficient. Pregnancy is not enough to prove that adultery occurred
since the law considers that a woman may have been penetrated in her
sleep or, according to some scholars, the possibility that an embryo
could have gestated for up to five years. The penalty for false
accusation of adultery is seventy-five lashes.
That does not mean that Islamic law does not embrace the death penalty
for adultery. At some point-often said to have occurred during the rule
of the second caliph 'Umar (r. 634-44)-jurists began to set the
punishment for married people as stoning to death based on a verse that
had allegedly been dropped from the Qur'an.[12] Stoning is also
mentioned in the Hadith, and there is no doubt that Muhammad sanctioned
the punishment. However, strict conditions are determined for accusation
and punishment. A distinction is made between unmarried and married
offenders; inebriation, force, and errors such as intercourse with a
woman mistaken for a man's wife or slave girl are mitigating factors
while the demand for four eyewitnesses to sexual penetration makes it
almost impossible to bring an accusation. It is because of the
difficulties of formal adultery charges that many Islamic societies
embrace honor killing.
Historically, there were significant differences in the treatment of
free men and slaves. Modern Iranian law discriminates even further
against religious minorities. The Islamic Republic might execute a
non-Muslim man accused of having sexual relations with a Muslim woman,
whereas a Muslim man who has sex with a non-Muslim woman is not subject
to any penalty.[13]
Despite the potential for leniency in the application of Islamic rules,
states acting in the name of religion have applied harsher penalties
than traditional religious jurists. The Islamic Republic of Iran ordered
Ateqeh Rajabi hanged even though Shari'a only permits the execution of
married adulterers, whereas she was single. At most, she should have
received 100 lashes-and, according to many interpretations, these should
not be laid on hard.
The hadith literature is not silent on two of the factors relevant to
many of the recent applications of capital punishment in the name of
Islam for crimes of honor. Tirmidhi relates an incident when a woman was
brought to the Prophet, accused of adultery. It transpired that the man
had forced her to have intercourse in acknowledgment of which Muhammad
refused to have her punished.[14] Young age can also be cause for
leniency. Ibn Maja records a statement by a boy who survived the
massacre of the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza in 627, saying he had been
spared the fate of the tribe's men because he had not yet grown pubic
hair.[15]
What about a case such as Nazanin's, in which a person was killed? In
Islamic law, offenses against the person come under the law of qisas.
These offenses amount to five crimes: murder, voluntary
manslaughter-such as when an offender sets out to beat a victim but
kills him or her in the process, involuntary killing, intentional
physical injury, and unintentional injury.
Retaliation-a life for a life-is permissible in the two instances of
intentional killing or injury, but even in these cases, the victim's
family may waive retribution in return for a set financial payment. In
all other cases, only blood money may be demanded. If correct Shari'a
rules were applied, Nazanin would not face a death sentence for an
involuntary killing, especially when she had acted in defense of her honor.
Theological Impediments to Reform
So why is there a growing discrepancy between the penalties justified in
Islamic jurisprudence and the far more serious punishments applied?
Traditional Muslims believe that the Qur'an is immutable. It is not just
a sacred text like the Torah or the New Testament but a direct copy of
God's word imprinted on the mind of Muhammad via recitation from the
Archangel Gabriel. It cannot be rewritten. Indeed, a hadith attributes
to Muhammad the saying, "Whosoever disputes a single verse of the
Qur'an, strike off his head."[16]
This doctrine has become pernicious for all who attempt a modern
understanding of the scripture. Whereas progressive Jewish and Christian
scholars and clerics have devised forms of higher criticism that tackle
issues of context and period, all efforts to do the same thing with the
Qur'an have met with fierce resistance. Several Muslim reformers-notably
Pakistani academic Fazlur Rahman (1911-88), Iranian cleric Muhammad
Mujtahid-i Shabestari (b. 1936), Iranian philosopher 'Abd al-Karim
Soroush (b. 1945), and the Syrian Muhammad Shahrur (b. 1938)-have tried
to develop ways to account for the social, linguistic, and religious
environment at the time of the Qur'an's revelation when adjudicating and
legislating on matters relevant to the modern world, such as women's
rights. Their efforts have pushed the debate in a positive direction,
but they are both better understood and better liked in the West than in
the Muslim world.[17]
Muslim reactions to such reformist initiatives have been largely hostile
and even violent. In the 1960s, a Pakistani religious court sentenced
Fazlur Rahman to death.[18] Vigilantes have attacked Souroush on
numerous occasions,[19] and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born ex-member
of the Dutch parliament;[20] Canadian writer Irshad Manji;[21] and Los
Angeles-based psychologist Wafa Sultan, [22] all outspoken critics of
Islamic social practice, are in hiding or under guard.
The pressure to reject contextualization of the Qur'an is illustrated by
two cases, occurring more than sixty years apart in Egypt. In 1930, a
cleric named Muhammad Abu Zayd, published a book of Qur'an exegesis
titled Al-Hidaya wa'l-'Irfan fi Tafsir al-Qur'an bi'l-Qur'an, in which
he treated concepts such as paradise as metaphors. Other clerics at
Cairo's Al-Azhar University, the central seat of religious learning and
authority in Sunni Islam, condemned him. Rashid Rida' issued a more
forceful condemnation, accused the author of being an apostate, and
called for his forcible divorce. All copies of the tafsir were collected
by the police and destroyed. Clerics who had read it were dismissed from
their posts.[23]
In 1992, history repeated itself. Egyptian academic Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd
presented research in application for a full professorship at Cairo
University. His work argued that the Qur'an had been written in a human
language so that men could understand it. Since it was in a specific
language, he argued, it was legitimate to read it with reference to our
knowledge of seventh-century Arabic and the human world to which it was
directed. His arguments created an uproar. Al-Azhar University condemned
him. Leaflets and the popular press accused him of heresy. The Egyptian
government tried him before a secular court on charges of apostasy. He
was declared a heretic (mulhid) and an apostate (murtadd) and became the
object of death threats from radical Islamists throughout the country.
An Egyptian court ordered that he and his wife be divorced on the
grounds that a Muslim woman cannot be married to a non-Muslim, even as
he denied ever abandoning his faith. He now teaches at the University of
Leiden in the Netherlands.[24] That parallel situations would occur
sixty years apart illustrates how stifled scholarly discourse is at
Al-Azhar.
A particularly flagrant example of academic suppression in a modern
Shi'ite context may be seen in the case of 'Abdulaziz Sachedina, a
prominent Shi'ite academic, professor of religious studies at the
University of Virginia, and coauthor of Human Rights and the Conflict of
Cultures: Western and Islamic Perspectives on Religious Liberty.[25] In
August 1998, Sachedina, who had received complaints from his local
Muslim community about his teaching and writing about Islam, held a
meeting in Najaf, Iraq, with grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. In the course
of this interview, as recorded in detail by Sachedina, Sistani demanded
that he could no longer "express any opinions in matters dealing with
Islam, its religion, and its teachings." Prominent among the many
theological errors of which Sachedina was accused was his promotion of
an irenic, pluralist approach to Judaism and Christianity, which he saw
as equals of Islam.[26]
The net result of such incidents is discouragement of serious
revisionist work on the Qur'an and the Hadith. Fear for one's life, the
safety of one's family, or one's livelihood are powerful disincentives
to saying or writing anything controversial. The only arena in which
open debate on such matters takes place is in Western academe, but it is
likely here that some Muslim academics living in the West and, indeed,
some Western scholars of Islam have chosen safer areas in which to carry
out research, knowing the risks they now run from a single accusation of
defamation.
Qur'anic Challenges
The problem is that, despite the belief that the Qur'an is the immutable
word of God, in its current form the book was compiled only during the
reign of the Caliph 'Uthman (644-56) and organized into suras, ranging
in length from a few verses to many pages. While the Qur'an was revealed
over a period of twenty-two years, the order of compilation was curious:
with the exception of the first sura (al-Fatiha), the longest suras come
first and the shortest last. Early scholars debated when particular
suras, verses, or groups of verses were "sent down." Determining
chronology was often basic, all suras being labeled either Meccan or
Medinan, based on in which of these two Arabian cities Muhammad had
received a particular revelation. Sometimes it was possible to attribute
certain passages to a particular incident, such as the Battle of Uhud or
a dispute with the Prophet's wives. These asbab an-nuzul (occasions of
revelation), insofar as they are reliable, permit a more nuanced picture
of how the text developed during Muhammad's lifetime.
One thing is clear: later verses often express a position contrary to
earlier ones. For example, early-mainly Meccan-verses express a positive
view of Jews and Christians, whereas late ones-all Medinan-follow the
souring of relations between the Prophet and both Jews and Christians.
By this reckoning, there are late verses that abrogate (termed nasikh)
and early verses which are abrogated (termed mansukh).
Verses commanding jihad against non-believers abrogate those of an
ecumenical nature, moving from a position of "There is no compulsion in
religion"[27] to "Fight those who do not believe in God or the last day,
who do not forbid what God and his Prophet forbid, who do not believe in
the religion of truth among those who were given the Book [Jews and
Christians] until they pay the poll tax (jizya) by their own hands,
having been brought low."[28]
The problem is that earlier sections of the Qur'an tend to be more
amenable to a modernist interpretation than later ones. Where modern
Muslims emphasize the verse decreeing that there is no compulsion in
matters of faith, more radical or orthodox scholars trump such citations
with nasikh verses overriding moderate interpretations.
What impact does this have on punishment? Qur'anic verses that mention
punishments are invariably late but not very detailed. Although the
Qur'an always carries greater weight than the hadiths, it is not
uncommon to see a hadith cited to support a harsher legal position.
Thus, the verse, "There is no compulsion in religion" is outweighed by
the tradition according to which the Prophet said, "Whosoever changes
his religion, kill him,"[29] which forms a basis for the law of apostasy
as it still stands.[30]
The Emergence of Islamic Neo-radicalism
What happened to some strains of Islam to favor the past over the
present and glorify black-and-white interpretations of the Qur'an over
more nuanced approaches? While the exact answer varies across regions,
certain common factors emerge.
In several cases, a puritan form of Islam has either allied itself with
a military or political force-for example the Salafi-Wahhabi movement's
alliance with the Saud family in Saudi Arabia-or has itself taken
political power, as with the early nineteenth-century Sokoto Caliphate
in West Africa or, more recently, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's
followers in Iran, the Taliban in Afghanistan, or, perhaps, the Islamic
Courts Union in Somalia. In all such cases, the resulting political
systems have applied Shari'a in a harsher form than usual.
In addition, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, there has
been a broader struggle between traditionalist and modernizing
influences and movements. Growing European influence in Middle Eastern
states led to demands for the introduction of Western-style
constitutions, educational systems, and laws. Many regional countries
adopted modern legal codes modeled on the French, Italian, Swiss,
British, or other systems. This represented a great step forward in
respect to areas such as family law, tangential women's rights, legal
clarity, and modes of punishment.
There were, however, two drawbacks to this brand of modernization. The
first was the alienation of the clerical class. Religious leaders are
"the learned" (ulema), men who have undergone training as jurists within
Shari'a. Marginalized by the introduction of European criminal codes and
the establishment of Western-style courts, divested in many places of
their role as educators, and alienated by the overt secularization of
many Muslim societies and cultures, the ulema dreamed of a return to
basics. They were backed by like-minded lay thinkers, such as Hasan
al-Banna (1906-49), a schoolteacher who founded the Muslim Brotherhood,
an influential and radicalizing force in several countries in the Middle
East and Europe.[31]
The reaction against modernization might have been muted had there been
a loose movement for reformation of Shari'a itself. Mainstream scholars
held that it was impossible for modern jurists to challenge or alter the
legal precepts set down in the early tenth century by the four main
Sunni law schools-Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali. The classical
formulation of this precept is that the gates of ijtihad, independent
reasoning in matters of religious law, had been closed. The Qur'an-as
the immutable word of God-could not be rewritten nor could the records
of the Prophet's life and sayings-the other source from which Islamic
law derived-be edited or reconsidered.
However, beginning in the late nineteenth century, a number of thinkers
argued that, even if the sacred texts could not be altered, it was
legitimate to exercise reasoning in order to bring the laws more in line
with modern ways of thought and practice. At that time, Muslim attitudes
to the West were generally positive. Arab, Iranian, and Turkish
political reformers sought to emulate European political systems,
science, technology, military know-how, schools, universities, and laws.
They argued that Islam could advance by re-configuring itself along
Western lines.
Despite this, a small number of intellectuals developed a countervailing
trend that emphasized the religious and legal thought of the first three
generations of the faith. This became the Salafi movement, derived from
the Arabic term salaf (predecessors).[32] Salafi thinkers such as
Muhammad 'Abduh (1849-1905)[33] reexamined the two basic texts, the
Qur'an and the body of traditions or hadiths that make up the Sunna, the
living record of how the Prophet and his companions behaved and thought.
From this emerged a belief that, far from needing to be modernized,
Islamic law and, by extension, Muslim life in general, had to return to
how it was at the time of the Salaf. Most of the movements Western
commentators term "fundamentalist" are Salafi.
While the first modern Salafi thinkers sought reform, later Salafi
theoreticians narrowed the debate. Egyptian cleric Muhammad Rashid Rida'
(1865-1935) published a periodical, Al-Manar (The Lighthouse), which
influenced intellectuals across the Islamic world. His ideas formed a
bridge between Salafi reformers and more radical movements such as
Banna's Muslim Brotherhood.[34]
These new Salafists focused on improving Muslim morals and what has come
to be known as "Shari'a-mindedness." Sayyid Qutb (1906-66),[35] probably
the most influential Islamist thinker of the twentieth century, took
this moral emphasis and extended it to include violent action against
both non-believers and unfaithful Muslim rulers. He argued that the term
al-jahiliya, which had normally been used to define the "Age of
Ignorance" that preceded Islam, should now be applied to the present day
to the extent that modern society-including Muslim society-had distanced
itself from Islam. Just as Muhammad fought a holy war against the forces
of paganism in seventh-century Arabia, so, too, true Muslims should
fight the barbarism of the modern age. Qutb outlined these ideas in a
short book, Ma'alim fi' t-Tariq (Milestones on the Road), based on notes
he kept in prison.[36] The text launched the new, radicalized, jihadist
style of Salafi thought and activism.
It is this world-view that is echoed today by theorists such as Osama
bin Laden and groups such as the Afghan Taliban. They argue that Islam
cannot adapt to the changes imposed by history but must remain rigidly
faithful to the existing interpretations of scripture, the models laid
down by the Prophet and his companions, and the legal rulings developed
from these sources by the first generations of legal scholars.
Reform without Reformation
There have been and are a number of reformers working to bring Islam
into closer harmony with universal standards of justice, tolerance,
pluralism, and human rights. These include Nurcholish Madjid
(1939-2005), the founder of a school of Islamic neo-modernism in
Indonesia, in which contextualized, independent reasoning in matters of
religious law, ijtihad, is put forward as a path to renovation, and
radicalism is understood as an obstacle to progress because of its
authoritarian and intolerant nature; Mohammed Arkoun, an Algerian
thinker, who teaches at the University of Paris III, for whom
secularization and modernization are essential elements of Islamic
progress; and feminists such as Asra Q. Nomani who have called for major
liberalization in the sphere of women's rights.
Others present a liberalizing face to the Western media and academia but
retain an essentially conservative position on everything from hijab
(veiling) to jihad. This charismatic but, essentially, two-faced trend
promotes an image of Islam as protective of human rights while sticking
to an agenda in favor of strict Shari'a limitations to such rights. Two
notable figures in this context are Tariq Ramadan and Sheikh Yusuf
al-Qaradawi. Ramadan is the Swiss-born grandson of Muslim Brotherhood
founder Hasan al-Banna. With a broad academic background including Swiss
doctorates in philosophy and Islamic studies, and Arabic and Islamic
studies qualifications from Al-Azhar University, he has taught at
several Western universities, including the University of Fribourg and
St. Anthony's College, Oxford. While he is banned from the United
States,[37] he has been accepted in Europe as a Muslim intellectual with
a reputation for moderation. That said, many French intellectuals
describe him as "The Master of Doubletalk" and regard him as an
intégriste or fundamentalist. He has argued, for example, that Muslims
should enter into mainstream society only to move it closer to Islam;
that he accepts Western laws but only so long as they do not oblige him
to do something against his religion; that stoning for adultery should
be subject only to a moratorium until Muslim clerics discuss the matter;
that Muslim women should insist on wearing the veil; that swimming pools
should be segregated, and so on.[38] His support for radicals such as
Yahya Michot, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, or Sayyid Qutb lays bare an agenda far
from that of the moderate he likes to pass himself off to be.
Qaradawi (b. 1926) is another Azharite with an international following.
Considered by most Muslims as a "moderate conservative" and lionized by
London mayor Ken Livingstone, Qaradawi's moderation on issues such as
elections and women's enfranchisement is a thin disguise for radicalism.
He has issued fatwas and commented in lectures, television broadcasts,
and on the Internet that wives should submit to their husbands; men may
beat their wives "lightly;" men and women should mix only to a very
limited degree; and women must wear hijab. He has deemed female genital
mutilation, flogging of adulterers, and execution of homosexuals and
apostates permissible and has endorsed suicide attacks against Israeli
civilians or U.S. soldiers and civilians in Iraq. He has also condemned
liberal democracies and urged Muslims to vent their anger publicly on
issues such as the Danish cartoon controversy.[39]
Some Western governments have relied upon Ramadan, Qaradawi, and others
to develop appropriate policies towards Islam and Muslims. Western media
have painted them as authorities on Islam, enabling them to speak
without an explicit mandate on behalf of Muslims. By drawing media and
government attention to themselves while keeping their agendas hidden,
they come to overshadow more authentically reformist figures. This
problem is compounded by the numerous self-appointed bodies claiming to
represent Muslims in Western countries, such as the Council for
American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim Council of Britain.
None of these individuals have used their prominence to speak out about
harsh punishments, the execution of minors, or the stoning of those whom
most modern cultures would call innocent women. It is probable that many
self-described reformers practice a form of taqiya or religious
dissimulation in order to show a moderate face to the West and quite a
different perspective to their constituents in the Muslim world.
Indeed, when challenged about the harshness of Shari'a penalties, many
Muslim writers and Islamist politicians state their dislike for the
alternative-human rights as defined by the "Universal Declaration of
Human Rights"-on the grounds that such agreements are of Western origin,
that they will undermine the norms of Islamic societies, and that they
are not themselves based on Shari'a rulings. Some Muslim intellectuals
have even argued that human rights do not exist in Islam. In 1985, Sa'id
Raja'i-Khurasani, the permanent Iranian delegate to the United Nations,
stated that the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which
represented secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition,
could not be implemented by Muslims and did not accord with the system
of values recognized by the Islamic Republic of Iran . his country
would, therefore, not hesitate to violate its prescriptions."[40]
According to Ayatollah Muhammad-Taqi Misbah-Yazdi, a contender for the
role of Iranian supreme leader upon the demise or removal of 'Ali
Khamene'i, "Islamic human rights differ from the 'Declaration of Human
Rights.' . Human rights must be Islamic human rights."[41]
Conclusion
There are, then, several reasons why severe punishments and unreasonable
judgments continue in parts of the Islamic world and why certain human
rights-the freedom to change one's religion, to convert Muslims to
another faith, to enjoy full civil rights as a Baha'i, Zoroastrian,
Armenian, or Jew, to marry by free choice, to write about controversial
religious issues-are nowhere recognized. In the absence of fully
secularized educational systems and with the increasing political
involvement of groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood or Hamas, the day
when genuine reform arrives in most Muslim countries seems to be as far
off as ever.
A hardening of sentiment against the West and an increasing tendency to
fall back on conspiracy theories to explain Islamic problems seem to
make insistence on tough Shari'a -mindedness a desirable option for many
if only as a weapon to use against perceived Western weaknesses.
Desperate not to offend, the West has done little to make issue of
abuses such as those promoted by judges like Haji Reza'i. While crimes
such as his go unpunished, the continued stoning, hanging, flogging, and
even beheading all serve to intimidate Western critics and are,
therefore, encouraged by Islamic states and groups.
On a wider scale, a major debate needs to take place between advocates
of Islamic or other relativist human rights agendas and supporters of
the principle that such rights are, by their very nature, universal and
applicable to all people at all times and in all places. Unfortunately,
that debate cannot take place openly while there is a threat of violence
from those who oppose the notion of human rights as a Western or Zionist
evil.
What are the policy implications of this situation for Western
countries, the U.N., and international human rights organizations? One
is that they should give more genuine support to Muslim reformers, their
conferences and publications, and, where appropriate, their teaching
positions. Another is to pressure Islamic governments to make arrests
when death threats and similar menaces are used instead of open
argument. A recent Saudi doctoral thesis listed two hundred names of
intellectuals who must be killed while, in May 2006, Osama bin Laden
declared open season on all Muslim freethinkers. Neither the Saudi
government nor the Islamic establishment elsewhere have moved to counter
such provocations.[42]
Human rights issues must be linked more firmly to trade and other
agreements. The multiculturalist notion that Muslims may not be
criticized for the use of unjust and cruel punishments must be
countered. The stigma of political incorrectness is counterproductive.
Islamic countries and ordinary Muslims must be given incentives to
observe human rights norms within their borders and disincentives to
apply the Shari'a in harsh and unjust ways.
The case of Egyptian democracy activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim is
instructive and suggests that outside pressure can work. In 2000,
following his criticism of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's anointing
of son Gamal as his successor, an Egyptian court arrested Ibrahim on
spurious charges involving finance of his nongovernmental organization,
the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies. The Bush administration
responded by withholding nearly $200 million in aid pending Ibrahim's
release. The Egyptian government responded by setting him free.
The payoff from support given to positive reform is potentially
enormous. If genuinely reformist thinkers are enabled to have an impact
within Muslim societies, violence, unjust punishments, and abuse of
human rights in the name of religion will decline. In the end, a space
for dialogue can only be opened up when intellectual debate joins forces
with a determined war on terror-not only terror against Western
interests but also against all violence done to Muslims themselves in
the name of religion.
http://www.meforum.org/article/1000
Jim E
"serwad"
Pastes crap due to his inability to string enough words together to make a
sentence
serwad
>
> "serwad" <ser...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
> news:w12Ng.17634$Ca4...@bignews7.bellsouth.net...
>>
>> "DoD" <the...@ss.mil> wrote in message
>> news:6M1Ng.299$vW4...@tornado.rdc-kc.rr.com...
>>>
>>> "serwad" <ser...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
>>> news:LG0Ng.3115$726...@bignews1.bellsouth.net...
>>>> FUCKING IDIOT! THE WORLD HAS HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR LIES AND YOUR HATRED!
>
> Tell us where the lies are in this. Special thanks to Mimi for the
> find....
LIE IS THAT BOTH U.S. AND ISRAELI TORTURERS ARE FAR WORSE THAN ANYTHING
SADDAM OR ANY MUSLIM COULD EVER HAND OUT!
DoD
>
> "DoD" <the...@ss.mil> wrote in message
> news:l72Ng.304$vW4...@tornado.rdc-kc.rr.com...
>>
>> "serwad" <ser...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
>> news:w12Ng.17634$Ca4...@bignews7.bellsouth.net...
>>>
>>> "DoD" <the...@ss.mil> wrote in message
>>> news:6M1Ng.299$vW4...@tornado.rdc-kc.rr.com...
>>>>
>>>> "serwad" <ser...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
>>>> news:LG0Ng.3115$726...@bignews1.bellsouth.net...
>>>>> FUCKING IDIOT! THE WORLD HAS HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR LIES AND YOUR HATRED!
>>
>> Tell us where the lies are in this. Special thanks to Mimi for the
>> find....
Why Do Muslims Execute Innocent People?
serwad
the street at any time of day and night, and where thieves do not snatch
purses in the middle of the day. In USA 260 women and children are raped or
murdered or bot h ON ANY SINGLE DAY, BY THE MEMBERS OF THEIR OWN FAMILIES.
DoD
> Nonsense! There is no muslim country where a woman would not walk freely
> on the street at any time of day and night,
Wearing a tent no doubt.
Wanna talk Pakistan?
Wanna talk about honor killings?
and where thieves do not snatch
> purses in the middle of the day. In USA 260 women and children are raped
> or murdered or bot h ON ANY SINGLE DAY, BY THE MEMBERS OF THEIR OWN
> FAMILIES.
Silly statistic.
serwad
serwad
--
When a Jew has gentile in his clutches another jew may go to the same
gentile, lend him money and in turn deceive him, so that gentile shall be
ruined. For the property of the gentile, according to our law, belongs to no
one, and the first jew that passes, has full right to seize it.
Talmud, Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamiszpat 156
DoD
Then why do you keep asserting it?
serwad
THE SOCIETY OF UNITED STATES
DoD
But it is silly for you to keep bringing it up. It probably is inflated.