Category Archives: Debate

Islamism Must Carry a Price

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CPP…By Daniel Greenfield  Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Islamists are sworn to make war on the West, to drive out freedom and democracy, replacing them with the mandated tyranny of Islamic law.They declare all laws and all nations that do not originate or abide by Islamic law to be invalid. And they reserve the right to make war on them by any means necessary, from the political to the economic to the terroristic.

And yet it might surprise many people to realize that most Islamists are not haggard fanatics living off dried goat meat in caves. Instead many of them are doctors and lawyers working in major American and European cities, they serve as advisors to Western politicians and write newspaper columns. Their organizations are treated with respect and given veto power over the policies of governments whose existence they reject.

And that in a nutshell is the trouble of it all. Because Islamism should carry a price, instead it only carries rewards. Islamists in Europe and America do not actually have to be isolated hermits working out of a few ghettos. Instead they are able to gain all the benefits of the West, from advanced degrees to high paying jobs to political recognition, while maintaining their hatred for the West. Continue Reading →

Iraqis Shocked as Atheism Creeps in

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“No one is guiltier than the Americans who brought such ideas to Iraqis.”

atheist-bus1 IslamOnLine…BAGHDAD – Although their number remains insignificant and most of them hid their identity, the fact that some people are leaving Islam and becoming atheists is a troubling news in conservative Iraq.

“I was surprised a couple of weeks ago when my son told me that his colleague at college told him that his father had become an atheist,” Sheik Abdul-Rassoul al-Rabia’a, a religion teacher at Baghdad University, told IslamOnline.net.

Not only did the father abandon his Muslim faith, he wanted his son to follow in his footsteps.

“I suggested to my son bringing his friend home and talked with him that despite his father’s thinking, he should continue to follow his Muslim heart and never deny his God,” al-Rabia’a said.

Linking that to the non-stop violence plaguing the country since the 2003 US invasion, some Iraqis are becoming atheists.

Most of them have had personal incidents involving either themselves or close relatives.

“Iraq is a land without God or any other kind of major protective superior form,” claims one atheist who declined to be named fearing reprisal.

“We have been forgotten and it is better to think only rationally than emotionally. I left behind my old beliefs because it is the only way to protect my children from any harm that God isn’t being able to do.”

Yasser (not his real name) is grouping up with others who have also renounced their faiths.

“When we first decided to organise ourselves, we were only eight people,” he told IOL.

“And after seven months, our number has reached to 34 but many other groups are being formed countrywide according to my contacts in northern and southern Iraq.

“We believe that today in Iraq, there are at least 220 atheists linked to the groups nationwide.”

Caro (not his real name), 41, also claims their numbers are on the rise.

“Each day we are having more followers and maybe one day we will be able to have our own centre where we will be able to discuss our ideas and nature creation.” Continue Reading →

National Post’s Michael Coren on Kurt Westergaard

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Michael Coren: Freedom’s curmudgeonly hero

Posted: October 06, 2009, 9:00 AM by NP Editor

Tonight on my daily television program, The Michael Coren Show, my guest will be a wanted man. Indeed three people were arrested last year for plotting to murder him and he is under constant police protection because his life is under permanent threat. Yet 74-year-old Kurt Westergaard resembles a kindly uncle more than a danger to the state. And truth is, he’s only seen as a danger if it’s an Islamic state. Because this bearded, gentle and disarmingly unassuming man set off an international crisis in 2005 when his cartoon of the prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb as a turban was published in Denmark’s leading newspaper, Jyllands-Posten. The subsequent protests and violence led to more than 100 deaths, attacks on embassies and the storming and burning of Danish and Western buildings throughout the Islamic world.

This was the only television interview he gave in Canada. I’d like to think it’s because I have a known commitment to freedom of speech but, frankly, it’s also because some journalists are frightened of giving him any exposure — we were obliged to record the interview early so as not to publicise his movements because of security concerns. “I’m an old man, I haven’t so much to lose,” he says with a smile when I ask him if he’s ever scared.

Continue Reading →

Pajamas Media: A truly excellent analysis of US Foreign policy using game theory

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PJTV does it again, specifically the segment they call ‘Afterburner’, which consistently has well researched and highly creative analysis.

In this one, they use game theory, the best kind of modelling for human transactions in this writer’s opinion, to analyze how Obama’s foreign policy is working or not. While I think the element of time is missing, (we may not be seeing Obama’s entire hand yet) it is a sound analysis. For anyone wishing to explore this kind of thinking in greater detail please buy and read the most excellent book, Moral Calculations by Laslo Mero, on game theory and human frailty.

IFPS Steyn and Levant speak to Parliament

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From the IFPS website:
This was an extraordinary thing. Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant spoke to Canada’s Parliament making the case for freedom of speech over the right not to be offended.
There will clearly be a sequel as you can tell at the end when they are invited back to restate the case once the evidence for their various claims have been properly examined. This was a great moment for freedom of speech.
James Cohen

Link: Steyn Levant ParliamentBelow, the same video from youtube, perhaps slightly better quality

Jonathan Kay on Kurt Westergaard, free speech, and leftist refuseniks

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h/t Steen

From Canada’s National Post:

kurt-westergaard-650

Jonathan Kay on Kurt Westergaard, free speech, and leftist refuseniks
Posted: October 05, 2009, 4:33 PM by Jonathan Kay
Jonathan Kay, Full Comment

Has Jack Layton converted to Islam? That’s what activist Tarek Fatah asked himself last month after the NDP leader sent out an effusive Eid message to Muslim supporters, urging one and all to “renew the spirit and faith in Islam.”

“I am waiting with bated breath to see Layton ‘renew’ his faith in Islam,” Fatah wrote. “Has he already embraced the Shahadah [oath of Islam]? He goes on to say, ‘We are not celebrating the end of Ramadan, but thanking Allah for the help and strength given throughout this special month’ We? May I suggest a new name for Layton: Jack AsSalaam.”

Layton’s Eid stunt wasn’t a one-off: For years, the NDP consistently has courted Canadian Muslims – even selling out the party’s otherwise dogmatic embrace of gay marriage and hard-core feminism by running candidates who support Sharia law.

Nor is Layton alone. The post-9/11 shotgun marriage between leftists and fundamentalist Muslims has generated some bizarre juxtapositions. At anti-war demonstrations, militant feminists lock arms with women in Burkas. A group called “Queers Against Israeli Apartheid” marches in solidarity with Islamists who regard homosexuals as vermin. And the Socialist Worker (yes, it’s still around), recently ran a column urging readers to support the Taliban’s fascistic movement because it’s “the face of anti-imperialist resistance in Afghanistan.”

That last one pretty well sums up the emotional bond between Islamists and Marxist enablers: a shared hatred of capitalism and globalization, and a romantic embrace of any fighting faith – no matter how bigoted or reactionary – that stands in opposition to Western civilization.

But the Left also has produced “refuseniks” (to borrow a term from self-described Muslim refusenik Irshad Manji) with the backbone to resist this ideological reflex. In the United States, Christopher Hitchens, who once wrote a book about the war crimes of Henry Kissinger, now rails against Islamofacism full-time. The aforementioned Tarek Fatah is a refusenik. So is Terry Glavin, a B.C.-based activist who’s become of one of Canada’s leading voices in support of our Afghanistan campaign.

Last week, I met with one of Europe’s most famous refuseniks, Kurt Westergaard – the Danish artist behind the famous 2005 image of the Prophet Mohammed carrying a bomb in his turban. In 2008, he was the target of at least one assassination plot. The man now lives a Rushdie-esque existence, in a house equipped with steel doors and surveillance cameras. Continue Reading →

Cartoon Convergence at Yale

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Written by: Diana West

Friday, October 02, 2009 8:53 AM

Somehow, and I do not know how, both Kurt Westergaard and Jytte Klausen ended up speaking at separate appearances at Yale yesterday, also the same day the alumni group, the Yale Committe for a Free Press, sent off a second letter to Yale protesting the censorship of all Mohammed imagery, including Westergaard’s cartoon, in Klausen’s Yale University Press book The Cartoons That Shook the World.

Not exactly a harmonic covergence, but a convergence nonetheless.

What follows are highights from some of the reports tracking these criss-crossing events.

I’m going to start with the good news — the excellent letter from Yale alumni that I did not write but happily signed:

Simply stated, Yale must not be the arbiter of what is “safe” to publish. Such censorship corrodes the intellectual freedom that is the foundation of the entire university community. It also violates Yale’s own explicit policy: “Above all, every member of the university has an obligation to permit free expression in the university. . . . Every official of the university . . . has a special obligation to foster free expression and to ensure that it is not obstructed.”

The core American value of a free press transcends political viewpoints. Indeed, Yale’s surrender to unknown potential belligerents drew strong objection from many quarters, including the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the PEN American Center. Also protesting Yale’s action was the National Coalition Against Censorship on behalf of many constituent groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Middle East Studies Association.

Even closer to home, Sarah Ruden, whose translation of Virgil’s Aeneid was published by Yale, announced that she will no longer allow Yale to bid on her future works. In her own words, “Yale Press, after breaking a crucial relationship of trust with an author’s mind and work, should be called a lickspittle of fanatics and forfeit any respect or consideration from other authors.”

In a world where light and truth are under siege, the entire Yale community has a vital stake in preserving a free press. Fortunately, it is not too late, and not too difficult, to reverse the mistake that was made here.

We formally request that the Yale Corporation direct the Press to reprint Professor Klausen’s book with the censored material restored. This will bring a fitting end to this controversy. Lest it be said that the Corporation has never before exercised such direct authority over the Press, we must recall that never before has the Press censored an author’s work prior to publication. Restoring the censored material will also allow Professor Klausen’s book work to serve as a tangible reminder that freedom of the press cannot be taken for granted.

Alack, no such stirring stuff coming from the current crop of Yalies.

Indeed, the opinions that dominate the public space at Yale on the related matter of Westergaard’s visit to Yale to speak and answer questions are either Islamic voices, which believe Westergaard should not have been invited, or dhimmi voices, which pay lip service to free speech and take a stand on not exercising it. The following  op-ed by senior Matthew Ellison, which ran in yesterday’s Yale Daily News, sums the latter mindset up:

Yale and its students have thus far stood as a paragon of restraint amid the chaos. Unfortunately, through this international brouhaha, restraint has been the exception, not the rule.

This begins with the cartoonists.

Tsk, tsk — no self-restraint, those political cartoonists. Don’t they know better than to, in Westergaard’s case, take note of and actually illustrate the repeatedly, openly, brazenly made connections between violence and Islam, as expressed by Islamic terrorists and Islamic authorities alike? (It’s not just Abu Qatada time again, it’s also Imam Qaradawi time, because he is a world- famous Islamic authority who preaches about Mohammed the jihad model — which Kurt’s cartoon, by the way, perfectly and accurately captures.) Back to the op-ed by the Yale senior. Continue Reading →

Interview with Kurt Westergaard, Toronto Canada

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From IFPS

I had the opportunity to spend the day yesterday with several extraordinary men, one of whom, was Kurt Westergaard, the creator of the infamous ‘Moetoon’.

In this interview, I speak at a private house, which is why there is a fair amount of background noise as we prepared dinner after a day of interviews in Toronto, with Kurt, as well as Lars Hedegaard, the creator and president of the Danish Free Press Society, now the International Free Press Society.

Kurt I must say, is a man who history has handed a tough role, and a role which he did not ask for, but accepts with grace, dignity, and a rare humility. I do not get the impression that it was Mr. Westergaards ambition to become a martyr for free speech and to live in a bunker as he does now, or in hiding as he did for years. But he has unflinchingly defended free speech and has not once turned away from his values for the illusion of safety.

Below, is a conversation with Kurt and Lars and their views on freedom of speech, and their recent experience at Yale, a once great institution of western education.

Link: Interview james kurt Lars4-desktop

What Islam Says about Music

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From Islam-Watch: Big H/T to jdamn for this.

When non-Muslims, particularly Westerners, hear the news of Islamists burning/vandalizing music stores in Pakistan, they get struck with disbelief. How could this be possibly true a religion prohibit music? Here’s what Islam truly says about music…

Islam bans, prohibits, music
Star singer Cat Steven (Yusuf Islam) gave up music
after converting to Islam, but later realized it’s hard
being pure Muslim and returned to singing.

Is music forbidden in Islam? This article will consider this question.

It is often said that music is prohibited in Islam. Upon hearing this statement most people doubt that such an absurd claim could possibly be true.

If the religion of Islam actually does forbid music, even the majority of devout Muslims would probably find this to be very strange and a cause for concern. Why in the world would a religion prohibit Music? Do any other minor or major religions prohibit music? What did Muhammad have to say about this matter? This article will also consider the many benefits of music.

Let’s examine what the Islamic texts and traditions have to say about this subject. The first two hadiths that we will consider have been selected from Sahih Bukhari, what, Muslims believe, to be canonical text of Islam. Muslims believe them to be authentic utterances of the Islamic prophet and should therefore be obeyed.

Hadith: Sahih Bukhari: Volume 7, Book 69, Number 494v:

Narrated Abu ‘Amir or Abu Malik Al-Ash’ari:
that he heard the Prophet saying, “From among my followers there will be some people who will consider illegal sexual intercourse, the wearing of silk, the drinking of alcoholic drinks and the use of musical instruments, as lawful. And there will be some people who will stay near the side of a mountain and in the evening their shepherd will come to them with their sheep and ask them for something, but they will say to him, ‘Return to us tomorrow.’ Allah will destroy them during the night and will let the mountain fall on them, and He will transform the rest of them into monkeys and pigs and they will remain so till the Day of Resurrection.”

Hadith: Sunan Abu-Dawud: Book 41, Number 4909:

Narrated Abdullah ibn Mas’ud:

Salam ibn Miskin, quoting an old man who witnessed AbuWa’il in a wedding feast, said: They began to play, amuse and sing. He united the support of his hand round his knees that were drawn up, and said: I heard Abdullah (ibn Mas’ud) say: I heard the apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) say: Singing produces hypocrisy in the heart.

Hadith Qudsi 19:5:

“The Prophet said that Allah commanded him to destroy all the musical instruments, idols, crosses and all the trappings of ignorance.”

Muhammad also said:

  1. “Allah Mighty and Majestic sent me as a guidance and mercy to believers and commanded me to do away with musical instruments, flutes, strings, crucifixes, and the affair of the pre-Islamic period of ignorance.”
  2. “On the Day of Resurrection, Allah will pour molten lead into the ears of whoever sits listening to a songstress.”
  3. “Song makes hypocrisy grow in the heart as water does herbage.”
  4. “This community will experience the swallowing up of some people by the earth, metamorphosis of some into animals, and being rained upon with stones.” Someone asked, “When will this be, O Messenger of Allah?” and he said, “When songstresses and musical instruments appear and wine is held to be lawful.”
  5. “There will be peoples of my Community who will hold fornication, silk, wine, and musical instruments to be lawful ….” — ‘Umdat al-Salik r40.0 Continue Reading →