Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

[Pratyush]

Arjun,

The post is in keeping with the mandate of this thread, that the IM are not to be discussed. So the apeasement of IMs by the Indian Politicos is also OT on this thread.

JMT.

If you wish to continue then please do so on the OT thread.

[Arjun]

My post was not intended to focus on IMs or Indian politicians per se. What I wanted to underline is that, despte all the breast-beating that one sees in western newspapers, the west is actually faster than many other major societies in reacting to Islamic presence, whether this reaction is termed anti-Islamism (i.e. viewing it in positive sense) or Islamophobia (in negative sense) depending on one's point of view.

You have to remember that in most western societies Muslims constitute 5% at max or typically a much lower % of the population. If you plot the rise of the extreme right and legislative / political calls for curbs on Islamism etc in these countries against the actual percentage of Muslim population, you will find western nationsin general being quicker on the draw than others. Whether this difference is good or bad is not a question I am getting into out here.

[Pratyush]

In a way this is forcing an assimilation of the muslims in the western Europe. But if you are to look at it from the perspective of Islamic narrative. Then you will realise that this is building another grevience in the muslim world. This is someting that cannot be countered.

Whichever way you look at it the grevience will continue to build up. Blair is correct in it that they have been out done in every area that counts.

Do some thing and grevience are build. Do nothing and get Sharia as a result.

Which bring me to my original rant, that the euros have no idea what to do.

[RajeshA]

Published on Sep 17, 2010
Interview with Hamed Abdel-Samad, author of "The Downfall of the Islamic World"
'Islam Is Like a Drug': Der Spiegel

Abdel-Samad: In a sense, Islam is like a drug, like alcohol. A small amount can have a healing and inspiring effect, but when the believer reaches for the bottle of dogmatic faith in every situation, it gets dangerous. This high-proof form of Islam is what I'm talking about. It harms the individual and damages society. It inhibits integration, because this Islam divides the world into friends and enemies, into the faithful and the infidels.

[akashganga]

Published on Sep 17, 2010
Interview with Hamed Abdel-Samad, author of "The Downfall of the Islamic World"
'Islam Is Like a Drug': Der Spiegel

Abdel-Samad: In a sense, Islam is like a drug, like alcohol. A small amount can have a healing and inspiring effect, but when the believer reaches for the bottle of dogmatic faith in every situation, it gets dangerous. This high-proof form of Islam is what I'm talking about. It harms the individual and damages society. It inhibits integration, because this Islam divides the world into friends and enemies, into the faithful and the infidels.

This is a good post. It is rare to see arabs finding faults in islamic holy books. I hope muslims of the indian subcontinent (who fantasize of being more islamic then arabs) read about these arab intellectuals and reformers.

[A_Gupta]

http://communities.canada.com/vancouver ... omber.aspx

The case provides a good opportunity for public discourse, because it is not based on allegations about what Faisal might have done. Faisal attempted to detonate the bomb, he was charged with this offense, and he admitted doing it. Like the cases of seven Canadians who pleaded guilty to charges in the "Toronto 18" bomb plot (four others were convicted), there are no complications from speculation or hearsay. Nobody is saying that Faisal represents all Muslims, or even most Muslims. There is no question of prejudice, bias or conspiracy. There is no reason to accuse anyone of Islamophobia. Faisal tried to kill as many people as he was able; he freely admits as much, and even seems proud of it.

It seems surprising, then, that more informed analysis of such uncomplicated stories does not appear in the public media. Faisal's case allows people to ask a number of straightforward questions: How does a young man who seeks U.S. citizenship and pledges allegiance to the U.S. form the intent to destroy it? What did Faisal mean when he said that the Qur'an allows Muslims to defend themselves? How did he connect that understanding of the Qur'an with the crime he attempted in Times Square? Is Faisal's understanding of Islam shared by a significant number of young North American Muslims, or is he a lone wolf? In either case, is there any way to deal with such a deadly understanding? If so, who could do it?

One interesting detail of Faisal's story is that, according to the Associate Press, Judge Cedarbaum told Faisal after sentencing him, "I do hope you will spend some of the time in prison thinking carefully about whether the Qur'an wants you to kill lots of people." It seems that Faisal had already decided this question as a free citizen of the United States. What are the chances that he will learn a less radical interpretation in jail?

[RajeshA]

Published on 10 Oct, 2010
By Huma Yusuf
Islamophobia in the US: Dawn

Present-day Islamophobia has many incarnations: the Cordoba House/Park 51 controversy continues with 68 per cent of Americans (according to a CNN poll) opposing the construction of the ‘ground zero mosque’ at its proposed location. Opposition also rages against the construction of mosques in Wisconsin, Tennessee and Kentucky.

[Cosmo_R]

Today's NYT re Pam Geller

In the process, she has helped bring into the mainstream a concept that after 9/11 percolated mainly on the fringes of American politics: that terrorism by Muslims springs not from perversions of Islam but from the religion itself. Her writings, rallies and television appearances have both offended and inspired, transforming Ms. Geller from an Internet obscurity, who once videotaped herself in a bikini as she denounced “Islamofascism,” into a media commodity who has been profiled on “60 Minutes” and whose phraseology has been adopted by Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/nyreg ... wanted=all

Her case may be weakened by her conspiracy theories. Guess it takes all kinds. Oriana Fallaci was much better at this sort of stuff.

[asprinzl]

Cosmo,
PG is a close friend of mine. This hit piece by NYT is absolute garbage. And garbage is what journalism is for NYT and their ilk these days. Any wonder why their readership is declining so rapidly? Also wonder why the elite and the political class are so disconnected from the general public these days? Because these folks get their news and info from the NYT and similar outlets for whom ideology or political agenda is fact instead of fact itself.
Avram

[Cosmo_R]

Published on Sep 17, 2010
Interview with Hamed Abdel-Samad, author of "The Downfall of the Islamic World"
'Islam Is Like a Drug': Der Spiegel

Abdel-Samad: In a sense, Islam is like a drug, like alcohol. A small amount can have a healing and inspiring effect, but when the believer reaches for the bottle of dogmatic faith in every situation, it gets dangerous. This high-proof form of Islam is what I'm talking about. It harms the individual and damages society. It inhibits integration, because this Islam divides the world into friends and enemies, into the faithful and the infidels.

There is a passage in 'Baudolino' by Umberto Eco that relates to something called "Green Honey":

"Some fine morning one of these youths woke up in a sordid, sun-filled yard, where he found himself in chains. After a few days of suffering, he was brought into Aloadin's presence; he threw himself at the master's feet, threatening suicide and imploring to be restored to the delights without which he could no longer live. Aloadin then revealed to the youth that he had fallen into disfavor with the prophet and could regain favor only if he declared himself willing to carry out a great mission. Aloadin gave him a golden dagger and told him to set forth, to journey to the court of a certain lord, Aloadin's enemy, and kill him. In this way the youth would gain what he wished, and if he were to die in the enterprise, he would be raised into Paradise, in every way identical with the place from which he had been excluded, or if anything, still better. And this is why Aloadin had very great power and frightened all the princes in the region, whether Moors or Christians, because his messengers were prepared for any sacrifice.”


http://books.google.com/books?id=KweMpA ... ey&f=false

Pages 89-91 are worth a glance. Wonder if this sounds a little familiar.

[Manny]

IS "Secularism" in France worse than "Secularism" in India? Are they trying to infringe on peoples religion?

Well.. Here are two ways they are fighting back in the Burkha ban. This is funny and interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU8JrC3k ... r_embedded

And here is a woman complying with the new Law of France and removes her Niqab..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAMx5yomJXg

[CRamS]

Today's NYT re Pam Geller

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/nyreg ... wanted=all

I'll take her as seriously as I do any of the attractive bimbo mouthpieces that republicans and tea party put out. Nowadys, Fox is slimily turning out out some soft po**n, putting on as I said bimbos showing quite a bit of skin parroting the usual hot air about "big govt", "liberals", "Obama is a socialist" crap like programmed robots. Fox news would increase their viewrship and would get me signed on too (at the moment, dishnetwork gives it to me free) if they ask bimbos like PG, Ann Coulter, Megan Fox etc etc to come out in their bikinis. At least that way you can tune out of what they are saying and look at the curves .

[Carl_T]

^^^ Here you go sir.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TG7DTOkU-s

[A_Gupta]

http://changinguppakistan.wordpress.com ... lim-world/

According to columnist Andrew Alexander, the Washington Post’s editors recently pulled a Non Sequitor comic strip by Wiley Miller, because they were “concerned it might offend and provoke some Post readers, especially Muslims....

[A_Gupta]

http://criticalppp.com/archives/25851

According to Israeli literary lion Hillel Halkin, Islam is “an insult to human intelligence.” That’s a harsh assessment, but then Islam is also harsh in its assessment of Jews, so one might say it’s a saw-off on the phobia front. What is to be done about Islam’s Jewish problem, the source of so much of the world’s tensions and misery?

Tarek Fatah, Canada’s most outspoken reformist Muslim, would be the first to acknowledge and even sympathize with Halkin’s contempt for Islam. In his new book, The Jew is Not My Enemy, to be released Oct. 19, Fatah summarizes the present situation between Jews and Muslims: Jews hate Islam, and Muslims hate Jews. “Even the most radical Islamist websites [attack Jews viciously but] do not have a single sentence attacking the Jewish faith,” Fatah notes, while even the most rabidly anti-Islamist Jews “rarely attack Muslims, yet have little reservation in deriding Islam and the Koran.”

By coincidence, Jonathan Kay’s review of historian Martin Gilbert’s In Ishmael’s House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands, appeared here yesterday. Gilbert’s book leaves us with a depressing portrait of “a hateful pathology rooted in 14 centuries of Muslim history.” But Gilbert is by no means the first, or even the most erudite scholar of Islam, to arrive at this glum and apparently hopeless conclusion.
Tarek Fatah is almost as savage a critic of Islam in its present manifestations as the others, but unlike the others — whether non-Muslim like Gilbert, or a Muslim apostate like Ibn Warraq, whose new book Virgins? What Virgins? batters Islam to a polemical pulp — he is also a deeply committed Muslim. He is guardedly optimistic, too. Fatah envisions a peaceful place where Jews’ respect for the Koran and Muslims’ respect for Jews can co-exist in harmony.

His book attempts to take us there. Not on a flying carpet of wish fulfillment, but on a slow, steady train of facts, textual analysis and historical interpretation.

[Philip]

Veteran dawn scribe,Irfan Husain has this insightful piece about IQ2,an outfit that promotes "Islam as a religion of peace".However,in a NY Univ debate,some unpleasant truths emerged.

....implication of these statistics: 7pc of Muslims are not peaceful. And 7pc of 1.5 billion comes to 105 million violent Muslims out there. For me, that’s 105 million too many.

The great debate over Islam By Irfan Husain
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/daw ... -islam-300

....In Holland, Austria, Germany and Belgium, radical rightwing parties have climbed on the Islamophobic bandwagon, and have increased their votes in recent elections. Britain, while it remains a bastion of liberalism and tolerance, is becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the crime and violence rampant in its Muslim communities. Although around 2.8 per cent of Britain’s population is Muslim, currently 12pc of the jail population profess Islam as their faith. And of course, Muslims are increasing at a far faster rate than any other group. According to an article by Richard Kerbaj in the Sunday Times last year, the number of Muslims in the UK rose by 500,000 between 2004 and 2008.Understandably, such statistics cause disquiet among the majority who fear they are being swamped by foreigners who largely refuse to accept the culture and the values of the host country. Even liberal Brits are beginning to question an immigration policy that has produced the tensions that are now surfacing.

Above all, the perception that somehow, Islam sanctions and promotes acts of violence is creating a backlash in the West. The truth is that in the 21st century, there are very few sacred cows left in the West. When the Pope visited Britain recently, he was attacked mercilessly in the media. The Queen is often lampooned. Steve Bell, the irreverent Guardian cartoonist, regularly portrays the Prime Minister as a condom. Nobody is spared, and nobody is off-limits.

Against this backdrop, Westerners just cannot understand why Muslims should expect special treatment for them and their faith. The point many commentators make is that if they have decided to move to the West of their own free will, Muslims should get used to the unfettered right to comment and criticise that is taken for granted here. Thus, if some nutty preacher in Florida decides to burn the Muslim Holy Book, or some obscure Danish newspaper runs cartoons of the Holy Prophet [PBUH], Muslims should ignore such provocations.

Rather than blend into the mainstream, many Muslims in the West have chosen to make a defiant statement about their identity. More and more young women are wearing the headscarf or the burqa when their mothers never did. Similarly, young men sport ragged beards and high shalwars to announce their faith. This, of course, is their choice. But it does set them apart, and signals that they have nothing in common with their Western hosts.

This deliberate distancing from the West, while living within its boundaries, gives rise to an understandable degree of hostility. Many Islamic websites and imams advise Muslims not to have anything to do with non-Muslims. Often, this results in misunderstandings when some Muslims refuse to even extend the common courtesy of saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.

In the IQ2 debate, Zeba Khan cited a Gallop poll that showed that some 93pc of all Muslims were peaceful and against acts of violence. What her opponents did not immediately pounce on was the logical implication of these statistics: 7pc of Muslims are not peaceful. And 7pc of 1.5 billion comes to 105 million violent Muslims out there. For me, that’s 105 million too many.

[RajeshA]

Veteran dawn scribe,Irfan Husain has this insightful piece about IQ2,an outfit that promotes "Islam as a religion of peace".However,in a NY Univ debate,some unpleasant truths emerged.

"....implication of these statistics: 7pc of Muslims are not peaceful. And 7pc of 1.5 billion comes to 105 million violent Muslims out there. For me, that’s 105 million too many.

The great debate over Islam By Irfan Husain
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/daw ... -islam-300

7% of Muslims are not peaceful! Ahem!

What if we take out all the women, old men and children?! All those would be taken out of the total but not from the violent ones. So do we get 40% of all Muslim men between 16 and 46 are violent?

[Carl_T]

RajeshA - I think you are giving them too much credit. Are they really taken seriously enough to refute?

[RajeshA]

Carl_T ji,

I'm just amused by their estimates!

[ramana]

http://criticalppp.com/archives/25851

According to Israeli literary lion Hillel Halkin, Islam is “an insult to human intelligence.” That’s a harsh assessment, but then Islam is also harsh in its assessment of Jews, so one might say it’s a saw-off on the phobia front. What is to be done about Islam’s Jewish problem, the source of so much of the world’s tensions and misery?

Tarek Fatah, Canada’s most outspoken reformist Muslim, would be the first to acknowledge and even sympathize with Halkin’s contempt for Islam. In his new book, The Jew is Not My Enemy, to be released Oct. 19, Fatah summarizes the present situation between Jews and Muslims: Jews hate Islam, and Muslims hate Jews. “Even the most radical Islamist websites [attack Jews viciously but] do not have a single sentence attacking the Jewish faith,” Fatah notes, while even the most rabidly anti-Islamist Jews “rarely attack Muslims, yet have little reservation in deriding Islam and the Koran.”

By coincidence, Jonathan Kay’s review of historian Martin Gilbert’s In Ishmael’s House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands, appeared here yesterday. Gilbert’s book leaves us with a depressing portrait of “a hateful pathology rooted in 14 centuries of Muslim history.” But Gilbert is by no means the first, or even the most erudite scholar of Islam, to arrive at this glum and apparently hopeless conclusion.

Tarek Fatah is almost as savage a critic of Islam in its present manifestations as the others, but unlike the others — whether non-Muslim like Gilbert, or a Muslim apostate like Ibn Warraq, whose new book Virgins? What Virgins? batters Islam to a polemical pulp — he is also a deeply committed Muslim. He is guardedly optimistic, too. Fatah envisions a peaceful place where Jews’ respect for the Koran and Muslims’ respect for Jews can co-exist in harmony.

His book attempts to take us there. Not on a flying carpet of wish fulfillment, but on a slow, steady train of facts, textual analysis and historical interpretation.

OK Islam maligns the Jews but not their religion because it also owes its existence to Judaism. There is a linear descent of Isalm from Judaism. By berating the followersof Judaism, it is blostering itself as the true message. Quite easy to understand.

By same token Jews berate the Koran for its a heresy of the Judaism etc. Again easy to understand. Why does Fatah not see this?

Also Fatah's shikwa or complaint is with the current Wahabist hijack of Islam. Hence he criticises it.

The core problem is Islam is a reactionary Christianity without Christ. Its not a new religion but a political doctrine claiming divine right. Just as the Romans took over Christianism as a poltical religion, the Arabs created Islamism as an imperial doctrine. Hence all this confusion and angry/polemic exhcnages between the three faiths: Judaism, Christianism and Islamism.

Most likely Tarek Fatah is a descendent of the early converts to Islam and has historical memories passed on and thus objects to current Wahabist Islam which is an Anglo-Saxon promotion.

[Johann]

OK Islam maligns the Jews but not their religion because it also owes its existence to Judaism. There is a linear descent of Isalm from Judaism. By berating the followersof Judaism, it is blostering itself as the true message. Quite easy to understand.

By same token Jews berate the Koran for its a heresy of the Judaism etc. Again easy to understand. Why does Fatah not see this?

Also Fatah's shikwa or complaint is with the current Wahabist hijack of Islam. Hence he criticises it.

The core problem is Islam is a reactionary Christianity without Christ. Its not a new religion but a political doctrine claiming divine right. Just as the Romans took over Christianism as a poltical religion, the Arabs created Islamism as an imperial doctrine. Hence all this confusion and angry/polemic exhcnages between the three faiths: Judaism, Christianism and Islamism.

The period of Arab expansion, i.e. under the first four caliphs, the Umayyads and Abbasids were actually far more tolerant than later period of non-Arab Muslim rule.

Muslim Arabs saw Islam as an Arab religion (and many still do!), and were not keen to attract converts, especially since that cut in to the jizaya tax base.

In this period Christian Arab tribes, for example in Syria often had more prestige and power than non-Arab converts to Islam. The same went for Jews in Arab Spain (*before* the Berber Almohads and Almoravids).

A lot of this has to do with the Arab obsession with lineage, and the highly hierarchical nature of Arab tribes. Non-Arab Muslims just didn't fit in, unless they were formally adopted in to a tribe which is what it took to avoid marginalisation in the first few generations of Islam.

This is one of the sources of the inferiority complex that has dogged so many non-Arab converts.

When the Caliphate began to fragment Turkic soldiers and Berber tribes became the new centres of power. One of the ways they tried to increase their social status is by trying to reduce the relative centrality of Arab culture and Arab identity by emphasising Islam, Islamic culture and Islamic identity.

The side effect of this was a sharp increase in the mistreatment of non-Muslim groups - this is also the period when you start to see mass conversion of peasants, who were of course the majority of the population in any society.

We see this in India as well - the Arab conquest of Sindh did not produce as Islamised and antagonistic a society as the Turkic invasions of Punjab and the Gangetic valley which produced a level of religiously directed violence and hatred that the Subcontinent is still grappling with.

[ramana]

The Abbasid revolt was due to the primacy of the pure Arabs in garnering the spoils of Islamic state. There was revolt be Persio-Arabs which was suppressed but led to new thinking and the overthrow of the pure Arabs.

Meanwhile book review:

"Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism" by Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr
Oxford University Press, USA | 232 pages | English | 1996 | ISBN: 0195096959 |

Nasr examines the life and thought of Mawlana Mawdudi, one of the first and most important Islamic ideological thinkers. Mawdudi was the first to develop a modern political Islamic ideology, and a plan for social action to realize his vision. The prolific writings and indefatigable efforts of Mawdudi's party, the Jamaat-i-Islami, first in India and later in Pakistan, have disseminated his ideas far and wide. His views have informed revivalism from Morocco to Malaysia.

Nasr discerns the events that led Mawdudi to a revivalist perspective, and probes the structure of his thought, in order to gain fresh insights into the origins of Islamic revivalism. He argues that Islamic revivalism is not simply a cultural rejection of the West, rather it is closely tied to questions of communal politics and its impact on identity formation, discourse of power in plural societies, and nationalism. Mawdudi's discourse, though aimed at the West, was motivated by Muslim-Hindu competition for power in British India. His aim, according to Nasr, was to put forth a view of Islam whose invigorated, pristine, and uncompromising outlook would galvanize Muslims into an ideologically uniform and hence politically indivisible community. In time, this view developed a life of its own and evolved into an all-encompassing perspective on society and politics, and has been a notable force in South Asia and Muslim life and thought across the Muslim world.

[arun]

The instinct of the more ppious adherents to cleanse parts of itself of bits that are deemed less pious in patently inappropriate ways, does seem to exist.

Two stories from widely separated parts of the globe on the inappropriate self purging instinct among some Muslims.

The first dating to October 11, 2010 from Indonesia:

Officials Announce Plan to Relocate Ahmadiyah Families to a Deserted Island

The second dating to October 14, 2010 from the UK:

Hate campaign discovered against south London Ahmadiyya Islamic minority

[Karna_A]

Rather than blend into the mainstream, many Muslims in the West have chosen to make a defiant statement about their identity. More and more young women are wearing the headscarf or the burqa when their mothers never did.

Women in Islam becoming more Islamic is a hard to imagine phenomenon. Why would someone deliberately give away one's freedoms and help their tormentors unless they have generational Stockholm syndrone? How many of these women have read the "Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia"
http://www.amazon.com/Princess-Story-Be ... 0967673747

This reminds of the famous patty Hearst case in Berkeley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patty_Hearst

The granddaughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst and great-granddaughter of millionaire George Hearst, she gained notoriety in 1974 when, following her kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), she ultimately joined her captors in furthering their cause

[Gerard]

The Region: Jihad is the answer

The central question for many in M.East has for years been: Why is it – since we are a superio people (Arabs) with a superior religion (Islam) – that we are behind the West and what can we do about it?

[A_Gupta]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101014/ap_ ... w_o_reilly

NEW YORK – Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg walked off the stage of "The View" Thursday during an argument with Bill O'Reilly over the proposed Islamic center near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The women objected to the Fox News Channel host saying that "Muslims killed us on 9/11." They returned after an O'Reilly apology.

[harbans]

After some more back-and-forth, O'Reilly said that "if anybody felt that I was demeaning all Muslims, I apologize."

Funny, but O'Reilly spoke the truth. Muslims did indeed kill people in 911 (AFAIK..no Buddhists or Jains were in those planes) and why was that offensive or generalized to mean or demean 'all muslims'? This is precisely the lib problem. They are not seeking truth. They seek homogenity, much like Nazi's and Islamist's do to essentially to cover up their mental handicaps in handling a 'complex' society that actually has different and deeper POV's. Libs find people speaking truth uncomfortable. They don't find people accepting untruth as norm, offensive..simply because there may exist a threat of violence. So if you humbly or straightfowardly state the truth..you are wrong. Period. If you fumble on inanities around the bush..it's ok. The courage to face simple truth is just not there in these pseudo sec libs..even in the West.

[JwalaMukhi]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oc ... m-failures

Angela Merkel, German chancellor

"Germany should … get tougher on those who refuse to integrate before opening itself up to further immigration."

Horst Seehofer, Bavarian state premier

"Integration is the achievement of one who has integrated … I don't have to recognise anyone who lives from the state, rejects that state, refuses to ensure his children receive an education and continues to produce little headscarfed girls."

"A large number of the Arabs and Turks living in this city (Berlin) has no productive function other than selling fruit and vegetables".

"Turks are conquering Germany in the same way as Kosovars conquered Kosovo – with a high birth rate."

[Cosmo_R]

http://jbpaz101.blogspot.com/2010/10/mu ... n-nyc.html

http://electionink.com/showthread.php/2 ... ..?p=22946

More than a bit racist the second link. Interesting story going viral.

[arun]

Canadian newspaper National Post in an article titled “ How to use SUVs to mow down Canadian enemies of Allah “ about an Islamic Terrorist outfits “instructions on how to use a vehicle, preferably a large SUV, to plough into unsuspecting bystanders going about their daily business“:

Alex Wilner: How to use SUVs to mow down Canadian enemies of Allah

National Post. October 18, 2010 – 9:57 am …………….

In a “feature” article – “The Ultimate Mowing Machine” – AQAP offers instructions on how to use a vehicle, preferably a large SUV, to plough into unsuspecting bystanders going about their daily business. Reminiscent of the 2008 and 2009 bulldozer attacks in Israel, “the idea,” AQAP explains “is to use a pickup truck as a mowing machine, not to mow grass but [to] mow down the enemies of Allah.” To ensure maximum carnage, AQAP suggests welding “butcher blades or thick sheets of metal” on the front of the vehicle at chest-height in order to more easily “slice through bone” and inflict mortal wounds on victims. The ideal locations to carry out such attacks are pedestrian-heavy streets: “In fact if you can get through to “pedestrian only” locations that exist in some downtown (city center) areas, that would be fabulous”. And because perpetrators are unlikely to escape alive, AQAP sells vehicular terrorism as a suicide mission. “It’s a one-way road. You keep on fighting until you achieve martyrdom.”

Lest Canadians think we’re somehow not on AQAP’s target list, the journal piece specifically suggests carrying out such attacks “in countries like Israel, the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Denmark, [and] Holland.”

It won’t take a genius to conduct an act of vehicular terrorism and it isn’t difficult for us to ponder the worst-case scenarios. ……………..

National Post

[Manishw]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101021/ts ... ioreligion

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A top US public radio network has sacked a senior news analyst after he made disparaging remarks about Muslims on television.

National Public Radio (NPR) said it notified Juan Williams late Wednesday that it was terminating his contract as a senior news analyst for NPR News.

Williams was fired just two days after he made a Fox News Channel appearance during which he agreed with a television host that the United States was facing a "Muslim dilemma."

[ramana]

There is a tug of war between Political correctness and truth. And the former is dominant now.
Juan Williams is a decent person and not any bigot.

[A_Gupta]

^^^
http://www.mediaite.com/online/juan-wil ... versation/

this?

[harbans]

There is a tug of war between Political correctness and truth. And the former is dominant now.

Very well said. And our nation with psec libs is tending to PC than the national motto of Satyameva Jayate.

[Arjun]

Free Speech on Trial in the Netherlands

The verdict on Geert Wilders' trial should be a precedent-setting one, with implications that are bound to reverberate globally. Seems November 4th is likely D-Day for the verdict.

[RajeshA]

Originally posted by Haresh

Published on Oct 22, 2010
By Andrew Gilligan
Labour: London borough becomes 'Islamic republic': Telegraph

For the last eight months – without complaint or challenge from Mr Rahman – this blog and newspaper have laid out his close links with a group of powerful local businessmen and with a Muslim supremacist body, the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) - which believes, in its own words, in transforming the “very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed… from ignorance to Islam.” Mr Rahman has refused to deny these claims.

We have told how the borough’s change from a conventional council leader to a mayoral system came about as a result of a campaign led and financed by these two groups – and how the IFE, in its words, wanted to “get one of our brothers” into the position.

We have described in detail, again without complaint or challenge by Mr Rahman, his deeply problematic two years as council leader until he was removed from that post six months ago, partly as a result of our investigations. After he secured the leadership with the help of the IFE, millions of pounds were channelled to front organisations of the IFE, a man with close links to the IFE was appointed as assistant chief executive of the council despite being unqualified for the position and the secular, white chief executive was forced out. Various efforts were made to “Islamicise” the borough. Extremist literature was stocked in Tower Hamlets’ public libraries.

[arun]

From Malaysia, a country that is reputed to be number among the most liberal of members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), news of the appearance of a “Santa-like" character wearing an Islamic skullcap who took children on ride through the sky on a magical trishaw in a TV ad, gets a bunch of knickers in a twist :

By Agence France-Presse, Updated: 10/21/2010

Malaysian TV station fined over 'Christmas-like' Ramadan ad

A Malaysian TV station has been fined after airing an advertisement marking the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr which was accused of insulting Muslims by using a Christmas-like theme.

TV3 apologised and pulled the commercial off the airwaves after an outcry over imagery including a "Santa-like" character wearing an Islamic skullcap who took children on ride through the sky on a magical trishaw.

There was also criticism that the ad, which marked the end of the Ramadan fasting month last month, featured a lotus flower which is linked to Buddhism.

Deputy information, communications and culture minister Joseph Salang Gandum told parliament that the private channel had been ordered to pay a fine of 50,000 ringgit (16,000 dollars).

He said he was "happy to say" that the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission had slapped TV3 with the maximum fine possible "in regards to the case which is said to have insulted and shamed Islam". ……………….

AFP via MSN News

[arun]

Moving on from Malaysia over to neighboring country and fellow member of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, Indonesia' public display of the statue of Buddha offends Muslims of the town of Tanjung Balai. Shamefully the City Council goes along with the demand. Dhimmidom it appears is alive in Indonesia:

Buddhist Statue Draws Islamists’ Ire

[Rajdeep]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ayra_j2/se ... 795310489/
Some interesting photos from the past. Got it off reddit where there are is discussion happening on a propaganda piece.

[Arjun]

Good overview article on trends across Europe : Anti-Muslim feelings propel right wing