Author Archives: Oracle

Post-9/11 and the problem of abstraction

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From European Son
Architect company MVRDV provoked shock and outrage in early december when its plan for the building of two skyscrapers in Seoul, South Korea, came to public attention.

The two buildings strongly resembled New York’s Twin Towers, destroyed by al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001 — a day that is burned into the national psyche of the USA, and the psyches of individuals all around the world. Incredibly, the fashionable architecture firm designed a kind of exploding center, called the Cloud, that would join the two towers.

Things come into view soft focus. It takes a split second before we see the uniqueness of anything — a face in the crowd, for example. The architectural design does look like a photo of the Twin Towers exploding, at least until you look at it close up, or from above (which most of us won’t be doing).

No surprise that MVRDV quickly issued an apology, saying… read more.

Forget tactics; the “clash of civilizations” is not what you think

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From People of Shambhala

The words “The Clash of Ideas” are splashed across the cover of the special anniversary issue of Foreign Affair this month. This is of course a play on the “clash of civilizations” narrative that we’ve heard countless times since 9/11, and a nod to the notion that this clash – between radical Islam and the West, or liberal democracy – is fundamentally a “war of ideas.”

I have come to believe that this diagnosis is not only wrong, but a large part of the reason why we, who believe in freedom and the rights of the individual, appear to be losing ground. (For example, we are seeing more sharia in the West, despite us knowing that full sharia demands the execution of homosexuals, the stoning of women who commit adultery, and discrimination against religious minorities. And we are seeing our right to free speech eroded, especially across Europe.)

The battle is not one of ideas. It is a… read more.

Ron Banerjee: Understanding Islamic violence and how to defend our freedoms

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Footage from the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks that left over 100 people dead and over 200 wounded.

From People of Shambhala.

In the wake of renewed violence against Hindus in Pakistan, and with more than 100 Hindu families seeking asylum in India, Ron Banerjee, Director of the Canadian Hindu Advocacy group spoke to People of Shambhala. Mr. Banerjee talks about the background to the conflict, and why Pakistan was created in 1947. Why the West should include Hinduism, not just the “Judeo-Christian” tradition. And he also discusses Islam and violence against Hindus and the West, and how we can defend our values and freedoms.

PoS: At the moment about 100 Hindu families are seeking asylum in India, from Pakistan, and are claiming discrimination and violence. There were four doctors murdered on the first day of Eid, and, I think, a Sikh was stabbed as well. Can you tell us a little about that situation?

RB: Sure. The situation is very natural. Most people don’t understand what Pakistan is. Pakistan is a country that was formed for the Muslims. India is a multi-ethnic country for everybody. So Pakistan was formed with the very idea that the only people that should be in Pakistan are Muslims. There is nothing strange about what’s going on in Pakistan today. It’s being going on for a long time.

At independence Pakistan’s population was about ten percent Hindu and Sikh. Now it’s less than one percent. So the question is where did that nine percent go? Well, they were either ethnically cleansed, driven away, or slaughtered in large numbers in the 1971 war between India and Pakistan. In East Pakistan an estimated 2.4 million Hindus were slaughtered in just one year, and hundreds of thousands of Hindu women were… read more.

Iran: liberal democracy “shaken” by Islam, as Egypt employs sharia

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From People of Shambhala

The recent revolutions in the Middle East appear to have given Iran a renewed sense of confidence. Iranian Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani has said that “The Islamic Awakening which has started in Islamic countries has created a political earthquake in the western countries,” according to Iran’s Fars News.

Larijani was addressing a meeting with Foreign Ministry top officials, as well as heads of the Iranian missions abroad and their ambassadors.

Fars News reports that Larijani believes that the “principles of the western liberal democracy have been shaken by Islamic thoughts[sic].”

“The quake,” says Larijani, “has… read more.

Egyptian female blogger: remove hijab for freedom

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From People of Shambhala.

Egyptian blogger Aliaa Magda al Mahdy has risked harsh sharia punishments by calling for more freedom of expression.

Egyptian blogger Aliaa Magda al Mahdy and a male friend recently shocked the overwhelming Muslim Egypt when they posted photos of themselves naked. A coalition of 20 law graduates quickly called for the 20 year-old to be punished according to sharia(which would mean that she would be publicly whipped).

Ahmed Yehia of the coalition pointed out that “The former Constitution and the new articles in the new Constitution say that Islamic law is the basis of legislation, we therefore request that the two bloggers be punished according to Islamic sanctions.”

Yehia called their photos “an insult to the Revolution”and complained that they had “present[ed] themselves as revolutionaries [but were now] demanding sexual freedom.” In other words, for Yehia, and for very many other Egyptians, the former president was ousted not for more liberalism and democracy but because Mubarak’s Egypt was… read more.

Iran arrests fashion designers; wants to impose uniform on women

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From People of Shambhala

I was struck, about a year ago, when I heard an Iranian activist complain that Western media “goes on about” the restrictions on fashion. Perhaps she thought it trivialized the plight of Iranian girls and women. It is a state, after all, in which they are systematicallyraped by guards and police after arrest for such “crimes” as protesting in support of greater democracy — or any democracy at all.

But to those of us in the West accustomed to wearing whatever we want, the idea of “morality police” arresting women for showing the front of their hair, or for wearing clothing deemed to be too colorful and life-affirming, is extremely sinister and indicative of the nature of the perverse and totalitarian Government that oppresses its people.

Nearly 70 percent of Iran’s 78 million people are under 35 years-old. They overwhelming want… read more.

India’s new “positive discrimination” pleases Muslim leadership

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From People of Shambhala

India will soon put into effect a new 4.5% job reservation quota for minorities, which comes within the already established OBC [“Other Backward Classes”] quota. Better known as “positive discrimination” in the West, The OBC quota was established to help “backward” minorities, such as those from the lower castes and various tribes.

Muslim leaders appear to be pleased with the new quota, and believe Muslims — which make up the largest minority in India — will be the beneficiaries. It will mean that 4.5% of public jobs will be reserved for… read more.

Nazi conspiracy theories in Egypt’s new politics

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An edition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion forgery published in Karachi, Pakistan, 1969

Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have long been a staple of the Arab and Iranian press and consciousness. Haj Amin al-Husseini, an Arab nationalist and “Grand Mufti,” broadcast Nazi propaganda to Egypt during the Second World War. And the Nazi-inspired conspiracy theory of a Jewish-Freemasonic alliance, dominating the world, still appears frequently in the official media today.

For many in the West, the convergence of Egypt’s pro-democracy activists on Tahrir Square earlier this year was a welcome sight – as it should have been. Believing it to be a portent of a new era of liberal democracy and pluralism in the region, however, appears to have been too optimistic.

Reporting was partly to blame. The media covered the sexual assault of American reporter Lara Logan in Tahrir Square by a group of “thugs,” during the protests. But it largely chose to ignore the fact that the crowd was yelling “Jew! Jew!” at her during the assault. Logan was raped with the hands of the assailants while others photographed her with their mobile phones.

This 2005 Syrian edition of the Protocols claims that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, were orchestrated by a Zionist conspiracy. Last week Egyptian presidential candidate Tawfiq Okasha went on television to invoke the other, largely ignored, gentile half of the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory par excellence. Asked why Canadian television presenter Michael Coren had “dedicated a large part of his show to an attack” on Okasha, the presidential hopeful responded, simply, that Coren was “a Freemason.”

Lara Logan isn’t Jewish, and Michael Coren isn’t a Freemason either. But that wouldn’t worry those who believe they are. The truth is a detail. And the Jew and the Freemason are archetypes in extremist Muslim and extremist Arab mind.

Ayatolla Khomeini outlawed Freemasonry after coming to power in 1979. As is occurring in Egypt today, Khomeini managed to subvert Iran’s pro-democracy revolution, and began suppressing every group that did not adhere to his clerical fascist vision. Saddam Hussein, head of the Arab national socialist Ba’ath Party, made membership of the Freemasonic fraternity a capital offense the following year.

The first hint, since the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak, that the Zionist-Freemasonic conspiracy theory was going to inform politics came on… continue reading.

Glad you’re not a minority now?

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From People of Shambhala
Amina bin Abdulhalim Nassar, a Saudi woman was convicted and beheaded in the Saudi Arabian northern province of Jawf for “practising witchcraft and sorcery,” the country’s ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency.

From Saudi Arabia to the Land of the Free:

After Subramanian Swamy, a Hindu professor at Harvard, published an essay on how to wipe out Islamic terrorism, this university, dedicated to the exchange of ideas, decided that this was too much. Swamy was promptly dropped.

Continue Reading →

Minorities religions under Islamist regimes: a brutal week

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It’s been a brutal week for minority religions and spiritual movements in Islamist states.

The persecution of the Baha’i minority faith under the Iranian regime continues, according to Brazilian television.

Also, in Egypt this week the Salafi Party denounced the pro-democracy movement as — you guessed it — “Freemasonry” and “Zionism.”

In Iraq, liquor stores belonging to Yezidis (sun worshippers) and Assyrian Christians were attacked by mobs, set alight and destroyed.  The violence erupted after Mala Ismail Osman Sindi’s Friday sermon. The imam has since been criticized for the attacks, but he insists that he “only said that instead of massage parlors, people should build mosques.” Continue Reading →