Year: 2010
Support for Sarrazin puts politicians in spin
Support for Sarrazin puts politicians in spin
Published: 5 Sep 10 12:13 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20100905-29619.html
Nearly a fifth of Germans would vote for a political protest party headed by Thilo Sarrazin, a poll revealed on Sunday, as mainstream politicians argue about how best to react to his statements on Muslims, immigration and Jews.
- Merkel calls nuclear energy summit to decide course of action – Politics (5 Sep 10)
- Growth forecast up to 3 percent with unemployment to shrink – Business & Money (4 Sep 10)
- Two-thirds of Germans disagree with Sarrazin – Society (3 Sep 10)
The survey, conducted by Emnid pollsters for the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, showed that 18 percent of Germans would vote for a political party headed by the Bundesbank board member.
He has created a furore in Germany with assertions about Muslim immigrants to Germany failing to integrate, and what he insists is a genetic element to intelligence – and the astounding proposal that people of a common religion are genetically related.
His theory is that genetically stupid immigrants are making Germany increasingly stupid as they are multiplying faster than Germans – and refusing to integrate into German society. Continue Reading →
Opposing Hassan al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood Is Not Some Kind of Racism
From Point De Bascule:
Opposing Hassan al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood Is Not Some Kind of Racism.
2 Septembre 2010 par Étienne Harvey, Marc Lebuis
Mots clés: MAC, Issam Saleh, Edmonton, Lessard/Gariepy Community
A reply to Issam Saleh, the Muslim Brotherhood leader who threatens to sue Edmontonians opposed to the opening of an Islamic school in their neighbourhood
By Marc Lebuis and Étienne Harvey
After they learned about the Muslim Association of Canada’s intentions to run an Islamic school in their Lessard/Gariepy area of Edmonton, 60% of the residents signed a petition opposing the project. [CTV – August 20, 2010]
Initially their objections were based on zoning considerations. As they learned more and more about the ideological background of the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), their objections came to include the danger of having an organisation openly supporting jihad and suicide bombing that would run a school in their neighbourhood. The Lessard Petition Campaign has set up its own website to explain the motives supporting its opposition.
The MAC is the Canadian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), an organization whose motto concludes with “Jihad is our way” and “Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope”. A previous article published on Point de Bascule exposed the totalitarian ideology of the organization and that of its founder Hassan al-Banna. On its own website, the MAC pledges to implement al-Banna’s ideology as “the best representation of Islam”.
Unable to refute the objections brought up by the residents, Issam Saleh, the MAC leader in Edmonton, tried to silence his critics by threatening to sue them for so-called “Islamophobia” in the Edmonton Sun [August 19, 2010].
The very notion of Islamophobia has been developed in the late eighties by Islamists to make their critics pass for irrational haters of Muslims. The MB’s recourse to this concept is flawed for the simple fact that many of its critics are Muslims themselves. Many of the most eloquent expositions written against the MB’s ideology have been produced by Muslims. Many of the most courageous stands against the MB have been taken by Muslims. Consequently, condemning the MB cannot be equated to condemning Muslims in general. Continue Reading →
Iranian woman facing death by stoning is ‘lashed 99 MORE times’ after newspaper prints picture of her without headscarf
Daily Mail: UK
By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 8:13 PM on 5th September 2010
Lashings: Sakineh Mohammad Ashtiani was allegedly whipped 99 times after an incorrect picture of her appeared in a newspaper
An Iranian widow sentenced to death by stoning for adultery has been lashed 99 times for ”spreading corruption and indecency” after a newspaper published an alleged picture of her without a headscarf, her son said last night.
Sakineh Mohammad Ashtiani, 43, was convicted of “adultery while being married” and given the death penalty after a trial over her husband’s murder in 2006.
The widow’s son Sajad, 22, has campaigned for her to be released and after the plight caused international uproar her execution was halted in July.
But supporters’ hopes have been dashed after Sajad said that his mother has been whipped 99 times after an apparent picture of her without traditional head-dress appeared in The Times last week.
The newspaper quickly withdrew the picture claiming it was of a different Iranian woman living in Sweeden but Sajad now fears that his mother could be hanged.
He said the photograph was an excuse to punish his mother and that the hardline Iranian government’s real purpose was to silence the international campaign to save her.
‘If it wasn’t the picture they would have found another excuse to try and silence her supporters outside Iran’, he said.
The Times said that it had been sent the photo “in good faith” by Mohammad Mostafaei, who was Sakineh’s lawyer in Tehran until he was forced to flee Iran at the end of July for publicising her plight.
Outrage: Sakineh’s plight has caused international uproar and her supporters hope that her death sentence will be quashed Continue Reading →‘That’s not a Lay-sah. This, is a lay-sah.’
Article at link above:
Tarik Ramadam Vs. Radu Stoenescu
Dutch coalition talks collapse as Geert Wilders quits
BBC:
Negotiations to form a coalition in the Netherlands have collapsed after the leader of the far-right Freedom Party, Geert Wilders, walked out.
Mr Wilders said he did not trust some members of the Christian Democrats to adhere to any agreement reached.
Some Christian Democrats have expressed deep reservations about any deal with Mr Wilders because of his strong anti-Islamic and anti-immigration views.
The collapse comes three months after an inconclusive general election.
The Netherlands has been without a government since the previous coalition collapsed in February. Continue Reading →
Pak Minister wants Obama to be ”leader of all Muslims”
Islamabad, Sep 2 (PTI) A Pakistani minister wants US President Barack Obama to offer Eid prayers at Ground Zero in New York and become the “Amir-ul-Momineen” or Caliph of Muslims.
Minister of State for Industries Ayatullah Durrani, who belongs to the ruling Pakistan People”s Party, said the upcoming Eid-ul-Fitr festival, expected to be observed on September 11, would be a “golden opportunity” for Obama to offer Eid prayers and declare himself the leader of all Muslims.
“In this way, all the problems of the Muslim world would be solved,” Durrani told The Nation newspaper.
Durrani, a former member of the Pakistan Ideological Council, contended that the Muslim world is in “dire need” of a Caliph and occupying this distinguished slot would provide Obama “exemplary titles” like “Mullah Barack Hussain Obama” or “Allama Obama”.
He said: “The time is approaching fast. Barack Hussain Obama must act now. This is a golden opportunity, Muslims badly need it.”
Obama”s elevation to the Islamic Caliphate would be the “key to success, he claimed but did not offer any explanation for his remarks.
”Ground Zero” is the former site of the fallen twin towers of the World Trade Center.
Radical Islam is world’s greatest threat – Tony Blair
3 September 2010 Last updated at 19:41 ET
Tony Blair has been making the rounds following the publication of his memoirs
Radical Islam is world’s greatest threat – Tony Blair
Click over to the BBC for the audio on this story using the link above
Tony Blair has been making the rounds following the publication of his memoirsFormer UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has described radical Islam as the greatest threat facing the world today.
He made the remark in a BBC interview marking the publication of his memoirs.
Mr Blair said radical Islamists believed that whatever was done in the name of their cause was justified – including the use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
Mr Blair, who led Britain into war in Afghanistan and Iraq, denied that his own policies had fuelled radicalism.
Continue reading the main story
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Asked about the argument that Chechens, Kashmiris, Palestinians, Iraqis and Afghans were resisting foreign occupation, he said Western polices were designed to confront radical Islamists because they were “regressive, wicked and backward-looking”.
The aim of al-Qaeda in Iraq was “not to get American troops out of Baghdad [but] to destabilise a government the people of Iraq have voted for”, he told the BBC’s Owen Bennett Jones in a World Service interview. Continue Reading →
US envoy Oren warns: Hizbullah has 15,000 rockets on border
By JPOST.COM STAFF
09/04/2010 03:23
Ambassador says Islamist group amassing arsenal in southern Lebanon with long enough range to hit Eilat; missiles now hidden beneath hospitals, homes and schools to avoid Israeli Air Force strikes.
Talkbacks (16)
Hizbullah has an arsenal of approximately 15,000 rockets amassed on Lebanon’s border with Israel, including some with a long enough range to hit the southern city of Eilat, US envoy Michael Oren told AFP on Friday.
“The Syrian-Iranian backed Hizbullah poses a very serious threat to Israel…Hizbullah today now has four times as many rockets as it had during the 2006 Lebanon war. These rockets are longer-range. Every city in Israel is within range right now, including Eilat,” he said.
Oren expressed Israeli concerns with Hizbullah’s concealment of the weapons as well.
“In 2006, many of their missiles were basically out in the open, in silos and the Israeli air force was able to neutralize a great number of them…Today those same missiles have been placed under hospitals, and homes and schools because Hizbullah knows full well if we try to defend ourselves against them, we will be branded once again as war criminals.”
This was not the first time that Oren has warned of the threat that Hizbullah poses to Israel. Following a clash on the northern border between the Lebanese Army and IDF soldiers last month, in which Lebanese soldiers opened fire on two IDF officers, killing one and seriously wounding the other, Oren warned that the distinction between Lebanon’s Army and Hizbullah has become “cloudy.” He expressed concerns that advanced weaponry given to the regular army could find its way into the hands of the Islamist group.
Following the border clashes and Oren’s warnings, the US Congress voted to suspend $100 million in aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces.
THE FJORDMAN REPORT: WHY MUSLIMS LIKE PLATO
Fjordman files his latest essay here at the Tundra Tabloids, concerning Islam’s opting for the destructive philosophy of the ancient Greek philosopher, Plato, in comparison to the West’s preference for Socrates and Aristotle. The fact that Socrates chose death to that of corruption, was greatly respected and admired by Christian Europe, which viewed him is an ancient martyr, while in the Muslim world, it wasn’t respected at all.
Muslims simply couldn’t identify themselves with Socrates as a “martyr” who died for his beliefs, the way many Christians did, because the Muslim “martyr,” or shahiid, is one who dies while killing others. Likewise, in order to earn their respect, Jesus would have had to have slain a good portion of the roman soldiers who were coming to arrest him to qualify. It’s no wonder then that Nietzsche and Hitler had great respect for Mohamed and Islam. KGS
WHY MUSLIMS LIKE PLATO
By Fjordman
As I indicated in my previous essay Western Civilization and Socratic Dialogue, the Socratic spirit has been a hallmark of Western culture at its best for nearly 2500 years. Yet it has never been shared by Muslims; nor by Western totalitarians starting with Plato in Antiquity. Plato (ca. 428-348 BC) in his early career was closely associated with his teacher Socrates (ca. 469-399 BC), who was executed in Athens when Plato was around 29 or 30 years old.
Plato’ s most positive contribution to Western culture, apart from his support of mathematics, was the fact that he provided us with much of the information we have regarding Socrates methods. Yet it is sometimes very difficult to see when he reports opinions that Socrates the truth seeker probably held, and when Plato puts his own, sometimes strikingly different ideas into the mouth of his former teacher. As historian of philosophy John G. Cottingham states:
Plato was evidently inspired by the ideas of Socrates, whom he makes the chief spokesman in his dialogues; but since Socrates himself wrote nothing, it is impossible to say with certainty how many of the ideas presented come directly from him. The general consensus is that the doctrines developed in the middle and later dialogues (most notably the famous Theory of Forms) represent Plato s own distinctive philosophical views, while the earlier writings more closely reflect the influence of Socrates. The Socratic project is to shake us out of our comfortable preconceptions, by challenging us to give a rational account, or logos, of the concepts and categories we employ, often unreflectively, in our ordinary lives.
The excellent French scholar Remi Brague explains in his book The Law of God: The Philosophical History of an Idea that medieval Christians found inspiration in his personal story and saw in Socrates a pre-Christian precursor persecuted for his monotheism. While he was not the son of God, as Christians believe Jesus of Nazareth was, the parallels between the executions of the troublemakers Socrates and Jesus are nevertheless interesting. Page 113:
Alfarabi and Averroes recall that Socrates preferred to die rather than live in a corrupt regime. The fact remains that the primitive scene of medieval religions is different. Christ died on the cross. Muhammad died in his bed, a victor; there are declarations attributed to him that suggest that he was aware of that difference from the prophets who had preceded him. Consequently, and in parallel fashion, Islam understands the martyr as a combatant who falls while killing, not as a victim who accepts being put to death. Defeat is not conceived as concealing a deeper victory, reserved for resurrection. Thus it seems that an authentic philosopher, in the Islamic context, must be in power. Since being at the head of Plato s ideal city is impossible, he would be the vizier of the actual sovereign. To repeat a lapidary saying: Socrates was judged; Maimonides and Averroes were judges. They might even have considered it their duty to condemn those who, in their own times, might have been equivalent to Socrates.
The image of Socrates as a martyr who died for his beliefs might make sense to Christians, but less so to Muslims. This is because a Muslim shahid, a term often translated as martyr, is not a person who dies for his beliefs but rather one who murders others for their beliefs and himself dies in the process, for example by blowing up a bus full of unarmed non-Muslim civilians. According to such an Islamic worldview, Socrates was a weakling and a failure.
Muslims, as did most European scholars, generally considered Aristotle to be a better writer than Plato and held him in high regard as the greatest thinker of Antiquity. One notable exception to this rule was in politics. We have no certain knowledge of any medieval Arabic or Hebrew translation of Aristotle s Politics, which was translated directly from the Greek to Latin by William of Moerbeke.
If an Arabic translation of this major work of political theory ever existed at all, which appears unlikely, it was at best treated with indifference, at worst with outright hostility. This blatant rejection of Aristotle s political philosophy stands in sharp contrast to the enthusiasm for his natural philosophy and requires an explanation.
If an Arabic translation of this major work of political theory ever existed at all, which appears unlikely, it was at best treated with indifference, at worst with outright hostility. This blatant rejection of Aristotle s political philosophy stands in sharp contrast to the enthusiasm for his natural philosophy and requires an explanation.
Brague concludes (page 116) that Aristotle s Politics appears to have been unknown in that part of the world. This was an absence that had one important consequence: Islam founded its political philosophy, not on Aristotle, but on Plato, whose political reflections the only ones available thus replaced Aristotle s, to play the role in the East that the latter filled in the Christian West. If there was a deliberate decision not to translate Aristotle s Politics, it is not impossible that this was because the work was judged less appropriate than Plato s dialogues on the ideal regime for use in connection with the Muslim community in search of a theory of its own, and therefore that in Muslim lands such theory was deliberately founded on principles that were more Platonic than Aristotelian.
Despite their love of Aristotelian physics, Islam had an affinity for Plato. One historian has compared the Muslim political community with the organization of Plato s ideal city. The Law of God, page 117:
One author whom one might not expect to meet in this context Nietzsche saw this similarity with an astonishing clarity. For Nietzsche, Muhammad is a Plato who succeeded. If the philosopher, necessarily a critic of the mores of the society in which he lives, does not manage to become the legislator of new mores, he leaves behind him the image of a dangerous dreamer. This was the case with Plato. But in his Syracusan adventure, Nietzsche continues, Plato thought he could do for all the Greeks what Muhammad did later for his Arabs, establishing both minor and more important customs, and especially regulating the daily life of every man. His ideas were quite practicable, just as certainly as those of Muhammad were practicable. A few hazards less and a few hazards more and the world would have witnessed the Platonization of Southern Europe. The philosophers of Islam seem to have seen in Muhammad the philosopher king that Plato had postulated, and to have seen the Muslim community as the realization of Plato s city. Did they sincerely believe this? Their practice shows, in any event, that they felt an affinity between Plato s political works and Islam.
I have also heard the claim that Muhammad was the Hitler who succeeded. Both statements could be considered true. That s what Muslims have in common with both international Socialists and national Socialists, or Communists and Nazis: A complete rejection of Western liberty and a passion for Platonic political totalitarianism. This explains why Marxists and radical left-wingers within the Western world often team up with Muslims: They have a mutual enemy and make common cause to stamp out the Socratic spirit of the West.
There are those who view Plato as the real founder of Communism, more than two thousand years before the birth of Karl Marx. In his work Western Philosophy: An Anthology, John G. Cottingham comments on Hegel, whom he regards as a difficult and often contradictory philosopher but concludes that individualism is deemphasized by him in favor of the state and that Hegel often seems insufficiently concerned with the practical safeguards needed to protect and foster the autonomy and individual freedom which his state is supposed to realize. It would be fair to put Hegel squarely in the anti-Socratic camp of Western thought, with roots at least back to Plato. Karl Marx himself soon followed in the Hegelian tradition.
Plato talked about the corrupting influences of art and argued for strict censorship of the kinds of music and poetry that should be allowed in his ideal state. He viewed the painter as a kind of trickster who seduces his audience by producing pale imitations of reality. Fortunately for the future evolution of European art and music, Aristotle had far greater sympathy with the artistic enterprise than did his teacher. Had Plato s views on this prevailed, much of the incredible variety of later Western art and music, from the Hellenistic period to the Northern Renaissance, would have been impossible. In this regard, Plato was very clearly an ancient forerunner of modern totalitarian movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
It is instructive here to remember that while the Nazis and the Communists both wanted and practiced strict regulation and censorship of decadent art, even they didn t go as far as to ban all works of pictorial art, European Classical music or ballet per se. Muslims, however, did do so. This means that mainstream Islam was even more totalitarian than the most totalitarian strains of Western thought, but it also means that the Platonic view of art and politics reflected by the Nazis and the Communists was more in line with Islamic thought than with the best and most creative elements of European culture. This again explains why a disproportionate number of Western converts to Islam today are either Marxists or neo-Nazis.
NOTE: The irony. Influential lovers of Plato since the time of Lenin, have been moving away from sporting facial hair, only for their followers to once again opt for Plato’s beard thanks to their acceptance of Mohammedism.
Geert Wilders openly threatened with beheading
Police say it’s ‘very possible’ attacks near fairgrounds had racial overtones
By TOM ALEX • ta***@***eg.com • August 24, 2010
Des Moines police are trying to determine what led to a series of attacks outside the Iowa State Fairgrounds over the weekend that included the assault of two police officers.
At least three people were arrested Friday through early Monday morning. Other arrests may occur as officers investigate the incidents, officials said.
There are indications that some of the fights – which appear to involve mostly teenagers and young adults – were racially motivated, police said.
“We don’t know if this was juveniles fighting or a group of kids singling out white citizens leaving the fairgrounds,” Sgt. Lori Lavorato said. “It’s all under investigation, but it’s very possible it has racial overtones.”
Officials announced last week that they were stepping up security outside the fairgrounds after a series of attacks Aug. 14 that included a pair of stabbings. Investigators are still investigating those assaults and victims intend to pursue charges.
Sgt. David Murillo stated in a report on Friday night, “On-duty officers at the fairgrounds advise there was a group of 30 to 40 individuals roaming the fairgrounds openly calling it ‘beat whitey night.’ ”
Jammie Carroll, 36, of Polk City, was seriously injured in the 3000 block of East Grand Avenue Friday night after a group of people beat him up, causing severe injuries to his eyes, cheekbones and nose, Murillo wrote. Carroll is white, and many of the suspects are black, police said.
State Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad, D-Des Moines, who has worked to fight gang-related violence, said he doesn’t have enough information to decide if the fights were racially motivated. He said police comments that race was involved could miss other factors, such as nonracial taunting.
Continue Reading →
1 in custody at Miami airport; 4 concourses shut
AP – Miami-Dade Police and Fire Rescue vehicles are shown at the arrival level at Miami International Airport … Yahoo news:
MIAMI – Federal officials say a passenger has been taken into custody after screeners detected something suspicious in a checked bag at Miami International Airport.
A statement by the Transportation Security Administration says its investigators, a Miami-Dade police bomb squad and other law enforcement agencies were on the scene.
The federal statement says four of the six Miami airport termianals had been evacuated and airport roadways also were closed as a safety precaution.
The statement does not give further details about what a TSA screener found at about 9 p.m. Thursday.
Authorites say the evacuation continued early Friday and urge anyone with departures from Miami to check with their carrier.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
MIAMI (AP) — Federal officials say a passenger has been taken into custody after screeners detected something suspicious in a checked bag at Miami International Airport.
A statement by the Transportation Security Administration says its investigators, a Miami-Dade police bomb squad and other law enforcement agencies were on the scene.
The federal statement says four of the six Miami airport termianals had been evacuated and airport roadways also were closed as a safety precaution.
The statement does not give further details about what a TSA found at about 9 p.m. Thursday.
Authorites say the evacuation continued early Friday and urge anyone with departures from Miami to check with their carrier.
Jihad at the Cordoba Cathedral: Halfway to a Whole Mosque?
An excellent article by Diana West:
Photo: Inside the Cordoba Cathedral, the architectural legacy of its pre-13th century existence as Cordoba’s Great Mosque, which was built from Cordoba’s pre-8th century cathedral dedicated to Saint Vincent.
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As noted in Andrew Bostom’s essay debunking the just-can’t-shake-it myth of Islamic “tolerance” in Muslim Spain, by the middle of the 8th century, the cathedral in Cordoba dedicated to Saint Vincent had been “converted” to a Muslim mosque. However, as 19th-century scholar of Muslim Spain (and Islamophile) Reinhart Dozy writes, this was “clearly an act of spoilation as well as an infraction of the treaty” between Cordoba Christians and the invading Arab Muslims.
All the churches in that city [Cordoba] had been destroyed except the cathedral, dedicated to Saint Vincent, but the possession of this fane [church or temple] had been guaranteed by treaty. For several years the treaty was observed; but when the population of Cordova was increased by the arrival of Syrian Arabs [i.e., Muslims], the mosques did not provide sufficient accommodation for the newcomers, and the Syrians considered it would be well for them to adopt the plan which had been carried out at Damascus, Emesa [Homs], and other towns in their own country, of appropriating half of the cathedral and using it as a mosque. The [Muslim] Government having approved of the scheme, the Christians were compelled to hand over half of the edifice. This was clearly an act of spoliation, as well as an infraction of the treaty. Some years later, Abd-er Rahman I requested the Christians to sell him the other half. This they firmly refused to do, pointing out that if they did so they would not possess a single place of worship. Abd-er Rahman, however, insisted, and a bargain was struck by which the Christians ceded their cathedral. Continue Reading →