Shhh....don't say Islam is the problem...
Peter Martel
Van Gogh Is Dead. Islam Counts Its Blessings
From the desk of Koenraad Elst on Thu, 2005-11-03 00:10
One year after Theo van Gogh was murdered we are forced
to acknowledge that that event has been a benefit to Islam. Anyone who
is critical of Islam will still be branded as a "xenofobe" or an
"Islamofobe." Islamophobia is a newly coined word which has already
been used by Kofi Annan.
Following the assassination of van Gogh, the Minister of Justice of
the Netherland, Piet-Hein Donner, proposed to reinstate blasphemy as a
criminal offence. In the United Kingdom Islamophilia runs amok. The
July 7 bombings, which killed 55 people, seem to have reinforced the
taboo on criticism of Islam. The London police chief, Ian Blair
(Tony's parrot, though unrelated), said the bombings could not be
qualified as "islamic terror" because "Islam and terrorism do not go
together." Politicians and opinion makers assure us that Islam does
not condone terror and that we must support the "beleaguered" Muslim
community. With every act of terrorism the press becomes more friendly
towards Islam. The Guardian has virtually become al-Guardian.
The British government wants to make it a crime to insult Islam and
the Muslim community. When the House of Lords rejected this bill the
Labour Party, eager to win the Muslim vote, incorporated the proposal
into its party platform. Private companies are equally eager to pamper
Muslims clients. Piggy banks are banned, as are children's books
featuring piggies, as is pork on the menu in schools and prisons.
History has been rewritten to blame the West for the Crusades and the
conquest of al-Andalous.
Muslims like to complain about negative media reports. Research by
Maarten Hajer and Justus Uitermark of the University of Amsterdam
showed that the media are not at all anti-Muslim and that the
assassination of Theo van Gogh did not lead to negative reporting
about Islam. On the contrary. In spite of this the public is becoming
increasingly negative about Muslims. This, however, has nothing to do
with media reporting or commenting but with the simple facts: bombings
from Madrid to Delhi, riots in Birmingham and Paris, gang rapes in
Denmark and Australia, Muslims in Rotterdam and Berlin murdering their
daughters for "disgracing" the family, the beheading of Christian
schoolgirls in Indonesia, hate sermons in London mosques, and so on.
But how come van Gogh was slaughtered while certain critics of the
ayatollahs and Osama bin Laden have not been bothered? Islam is an
onion with different layers of sensitivity. One is allowed to mock the
ayatollahs but not to touch the holy core. And even there distinctions
must be made. As the Persian proverb says: "Ba Chodah diwana basj o ba
Mohammed hosjiar!" You can have a laugh at the expense of God, but be
careful about Muhammad! And, consequently, also about the Quran, the
Prophet's book. Van Gogh crossed the line in his movie Submission and
we have seen the result.
To me the fact that Monty Python makes fun of Jesus and not of
Muhammad is not a proof of pro-Islamic feelings, but simply of the
fact that most comedians do not know much about Islam. I think that
they are quite willing to tell jokes about the Prophet, but I fear
that if they do they would soon regret it. Danish cartoonists who drew
pictures of Muhammad, some of them not even offensive, had to go into
hiding. Maybe the cartoonists were ignorant, maybe they were
audacious, but it is a fact that Islam does not allow people to laugh.
There are some mild poems by Muslim authors such as Omar Khayam which
were written to make the public smile, but laughter is not
appreciated. My Moroccan neighbour never laughs heartily. He has been
taught that the devil enters through the wide open mouth of those who
laugh. The first blood spilled in the history of Islam was spilled in
Mecca when an infidel laughed on seeing some members of the new sect
of the Muslims pray with their backsides in the air.
If some of the leading politicians in the United Kingdom and the
Netherlands, those two former bastions of liberty, have their way, the
British and the Dutch will soon not be allowed to laugh at Islam
either. The Danish government, however, has set the right example. It
has told the Islam lobbyists that it will not restrict freedom of
opinion. Yes, laughing is allowed.