From Arab Times, with thanks to Twostellas:
KUWAIT (RTRS): At a Kuwaiti hotel Sheikh Ali Abu al-Hassan holds an audience spellbound with his talk about “the pleasures of heaven”, a paradise where true Muslims will enjoy virgins, eternal bliss and bounty. Down the road at Kuwait’s university, women and men are brought down to earth with the reality of life in the country. They are segregated to prevent them from “sin”. Islamist protests in Kuwait have forced the government to ban pop concerts, while at hospitals devout women surgeons are refusing to operate on men saying it is religiously forbidden for them to see their genitals.In the past, men and women mingled and dated in Kuwait. The country had mixed beach clubs for nationals. No longer. Most now have separate swimming days for women and men. Like other Gulf states, Kuwait is witnessing a rising tide of fanatical Islam. More and more women wear the veil and more men grow beards to display their religious fervour. Islamist extremism indoctrinated by the Sunni Salafi and Wahhabi movements is spreading from Saudi Arabia to neighbouring Kuwait, influencing its youth and affecting all aspects of life. Many Kuwaitis, like other Arabs, denounce the United States and its allies for backing “corrupt” rulers and what they see as Washington’s war against Islam and plans to control their region’s oil wealth.
“Kuwait was a relaxed place 30 years ago. If people choose to be more Islamist you can hardly stop them from doing that,” said a Western diplomat with long experience of the country. “There is a significant number of people who believe in the (Muslim) fundamentalist approach. There is also a significant number of people who hate the Americans and Europeans,” he said. Other diplomats point to an alarming rise of sympathy among young Kuwaitis for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The Islamists’ won their foothold in Kuwaiti society through schools and universities. That served as a springboard to more influential posts and eventually to Parliament from where they are now imposing their views through the law making process.
“They brainwash children at a young age. Dancing is banned, concerts are banned, we’re heading to dark times. Anything pleasurable is deemed un-Islamic and immoral,” said Leila Othman, a liberal Kuwaiti writer. “I am sad. We lived golden days in Kuwait in the past. The Kuwait I lived in is not the one I can identify with now.” Othman, most of whose books are banned because of their progresssive ideas, has her own experience of the Islamic transformation. “I have a daughter who is veiled, she belongs to the salafis. My son is a religious extremist. This pains me because at home we didn’t have this zealousness. It was the school and university. These were the dens of indoctrination. Our children regressed,” she said....
As in other Gulf states, some of Kuwait’s elite lead a quasi-Western lifestyle. They buy Western clothes and have parties and discos at home. “The constricting religious atmosphere is generating frustration and leading the young to live two kind of lives — an underground hedonistic one or another obsessively religious life,” Othman said. “All the Arab world is looking for salvation from the grip of these religious tentacles that have spread everywhere. This is a catastrophe. How many years would it take us to break free of this? It is a tragedy,” she added.
“The Islamists’ won their foothold in Kuwaiti society through schools and universities. That served as a springboard to more influential posts and eventually to Parliament from where they are now imposing their views through the law making process.”
This is just another of the many red flags that free people should have been aware of long ago. When this devious cult has progressed to this stage of their quest in the take over of free countries, it’s time to put an immediate stop to it.
Hmm..just a thought, maybe it would be better to let Saddam run the country 12 years ago.
There are only two examples, and one quasi-example, of the successful constraint of Islam in Muslim countries.
The first is Turkey, where the loss of the Ottoman Empire, and the threatened collapse as well of Turkey, permitted a war hero with firm convictions that Islam was an obstacle to Turkey's well-being, to systematically constrain Islam, through giving the vote to women, passing the Hat Act (outlawing the fez made it harder to pray, and was part of the emphasis on Western dress), ending the use of Arabic scrpt and translating the Qur'an into Turkish (though it was supposed to be read only in Arabic) and having a commentary, or tafsir, written -- to Ataturk's taste; monitoring the mosques, even at times destroying those of recalcitrant clerics (and imprisoning or killing them -- Ataturk did not hesitate). As a result, non-Muslims can feel, in talking to Turks, and especially to that class of secularists (about 25% of the population, possibly as much as 1/3) who benefited from Ataturk's reforms but are insufficiently grateful to him because the Cult of Ataturk possibly embarrasses them (they do not realize how necessary it is to provide an alternative to the powerful Cult of Islam), and because they lack the imagination to realize that Turkey, or Istanbul, is an anomaly in the Muslim world, and that anomalous position is owed entirely to that secular strain.
The second example is Iran -- or rather, the Islamic Republic of Iran, which by enforcing the Shari'a, and giving Iranians a quarter-century of pure unadulterated Islam, has done more damage to Islam in the minds of at least this, and possibly a few more generations of Iranians, than any Infidel propaganda could ever do. That so many Iranians in exile have given up Islam, whether for some recent incarnation of the Tudeh Party, or Christianity, or western skepticism, or some brand of Pahlevism-cum-Persian-nationalism where one carefully names one's children Cyrus and Darius, not Mohammad -- these are all attempts to find one's way out of the horrors on display of Islam, in the Islamic Republic.
The third way, is that of Afghanistan in the 1920s and 1930s, which looked not exactly to any pan-Turanian ideology, but to the example of Ataturk more than any other Muslim country did. For what else could an enlighted king do if not realize that if Afghanistan was to have any chance, it had to be saved, however disguised that salvation might be (so as not to openly proclaim that Islam was the obstacle, Islam was the problem, for Muslim Afghanistan), from what Islam did to its peoples' minds.
All of these ways of recognizing Islam's inability to fashion a society that is semi-decent, in its political and economic arrangements, that allows for some intellectual activity, even moral development including regarding the 9/10 or 85% of the world that consists of non-Muslims as something other than dar al-harb, the Land of War to be conquered, and all non-Muslims subjugated -- all of this was the result, not of success, but of failure, and recognition of that failure.
But how will Kuwait or Saudi Arabia ever recognize their own failures, as long as they continue to profit from the largest transfer of wealth in human history, a transfer which not a single Arab or Muslim did a thing to deserve? Unless their money is diminished, unless the Western wage-slaves leave en masse, until the Kuwaits, and the Saudis, and the U.A.E. inhabitants all find themselves no longer welcome to help themselves to the medical care (every single rich Arab goes for treatment to Infidel doctors, and Infidel hospitals -- Arafat being the latest billionaire to do so), to education, to the stores and other delights of the West, a funfair-cum-brothel for so many of them.
It is the duty of intelligent policymakers -- and even the best of ours seem, when it comes to Islam, to be nincompoops, utterly unwilling even to consider the possibility that Islam itself is the problem, not the absence of "democracy" (Blair's remarks on Islam show him to be, on this matter, a fool -- and his more recent statements about what he regards as the "heart of the conflict" -- the Jihad against Israel that he ludicrously accepts as being a "Palestinian struggle for a separate state" -- shows how overrated he is -- and the idea that the Americans owe him anything, for doing what he himself said should be done as a moral matter, is doubly idiotic.
How long will it take for the obvious to be understood -- and lines from Beslan, and Amsterdam, and New York, and Madrid, and Washington, and Bali and a thousand other points of fright -- be connected?
What will it take for that word "relgiion" to be replaced, in the case of Islam, with the much more accurate and telling phrase "belief-system," and when, in the Pentagon, or at the State Department, or in Congreess, will staffers be assigned to actually read what the great scholars of Muslim history and of Islamic thought -- Arthur Jeffery, David Margoliouth, Schacht, Snouck Hurgronje, K. S. Lal, C.-E. Bousquet, Emile Fagnan, Vajda, and fifty others -- be read, and reliance on the likes of Esposito,or the apologists for Islam who have seized power at most academic centers (Columbia and Georgetown being the worst).
And those who kept relying on Bernard Lewis, who at one point a few years ago, seemed to be regarded as the fount of all wisdom for those who were "tough-minded," should engage in what, in Italian, is called "ridimensionare" -- he needs a little re-dimensioning. For Lewis has always suffered from his slights at being ignored, or treated badly, by the Foreign Office and the Arabists in England, and his gratitude to Ottomanists, and his unwillingness to see, or even to study, the problem that Islam as a belief-system presents (he was never very couragous, not about Bat Ye'or, not about Ibn Warraq, and he shows no signs, even though he knows perfectly well that Western Europe may lose its own civilization, everything, to Islam if people do not speak up now -- and predicting the takeover of Europe by Islam, as Lewis has done, is not enough, not nearly enough. Posterity will be very hard on him if he does not, like Goitein and Maxine Rodinson, realize and admit publicly that he has been wrong, very wrong, about the full malevolence of this system, to make a break with his Turkish admirers and fan club (it's not easy, but it has to be done) and go back to those whom he helped persuade that the Iraqi venture in democracy was worth doing, and explain that now all eyes should be on Islam in Europe -- and the U.S. should use the occasion of these elections to get out of Iraq, coute que coute.
He must realize that, as with the Oslo Accords, he was wrong, dead wrong. Time to tell it publicly -- and that doesn't mean slyly, obscurely, but openly. Many men, and much materiel, have now been allocated to this Iraq venture -- it was fine to disarm the damn country, but just look at it? Is this to be the American project for the next term, or next decade? Does this make sense? If Lewis cannot see what he has helped get us into, and why Iraq is not, pace the mantra, "just like Germany and Japan and people said they weren't ready for democracy" -- well, if he can't demolish that idiocy in about half-a-minute, then he is no thinker or historian. He allowed himself all srots of absurdities -- the most egregious, perhaps, was that political ad for his friend and host Prince Hassan of Jordan, as a plausible monarch for a new Iraq (written with James Woolsey). Where did this idea come from? How plausbile was it? But Lewis was the Big Man on Campus.
By the way, did anyone in the Pentagon talk to J. B. Kelly about the likelihood of this "Light Unto the Muslim Nations" project succeeding? No? Long-distance call too expensive?
Through failure, through Muslims enduring the failures of Islam itself, they will be lead away from Islam -- or at least to constrain it. Either Ataturk in Turkey, recognizing Turkey's backwardness and the need to modernize, or the horrible experience of the Islamic Republic of Iran, will do the trick.
By giving Western aid, instead of cutting it of, by deciding to "rebuild" Iraq rather than let it go, and letting internecine warfare, if necessary, decide the outcome -- should we care if the Shi'a attack the Sunni? Why? -- perhaps giving extra aid to the Kurds, for reasons of realpolitik -- we will hasten the day when both "democracy" will come, and when Islam will be less of a threat.
Once again Hugh has made very relavant point. We must make our voices heard above those that are listed above. After all, we are the many, and "the squeaky wheel gets the grease."
Write, call, fax e-mail EVERY pertinent individual in the government, bureaucracy, and press. Sooner or later they will come to understand that the voices they hear are not those of "cranks, loonies, village idiots, or even bigots," if we do offer relevant facts rather than raw emotion.
When I read that true Muslims in the afterlife will enjoy things like a "bounty of virgins" I have trouble even calling Islam a "belief-system" as Hugh does. I think the term "cult" more accurately describes it. I know it's next to impossible, but I would like to see someone pin down any of the authorities on Islam as to the inconsistent value of a chaste life on earth with a heavenly whorehouse afterword. By the way, also ask where the supply of virgins comes from - we would all like to know.
This just goes to show you that poverty and terrorism are not related, but Islam and terrorism are related. Marxists and former Marxists the world over complain that terrorism is caused by poverty. Islamic piety and terrorism go hand in hand. I think that it will be at least a decade before the media in this country will ever say anything like that and you will never hear that from the New York Times or the BBC.
These kids and students sound like our spoiled Ivy League brats who are either communists or liberals. They have all their material needs met effortlessly, so they no longer have to struggle and concentrate on making ends meet or striving for a well-paying career. They just parrot what their revered professors tell them.
It's so like the US universities. It took 6 years in graduate school before I lost my reverence for these egotistical, preening, and petty scholars. To an 18-year old, they probably never met anyone as smart or competent in any subject, so going to the lectures would be like listening to Moses. In talking with professors, I have never met a more politically illiterate bunch of people in my life. An average day laborer's take on politics and human nature has more validity than anything these yo-yos have to say. After all, these professors are protected from reality by their lifetime positions in their ivory towers.
Just another thought:
You cannot raise your children to be Islamic and expect them to not fall into the hands of the radical Islamists. Kids in their teenage and early adult years are prone to be idealists and expect that their life will be perfect. Part of that idealism is to live as close to the ideal of whatever ideology holds sway in their minds.
Only an atheist, and an atheism founded on reality, is able to reject mysticism, and in particular, the mysticism of Islam. You must consistently reject religion as a means of knowledge and source of moral codes. Especially if those moral codes come from 7th century Arabia.
Leila Othman, the liberal Kuwaiti writer who laments that her children now belong to Islamists, probably raised them to believe in Allah and the Pedophile Prophet. How could she expect them not to fall into the Islamists hands?
If you believe in Islam, why not take it literally? You must either accept Islam or reality.
OT but I've been reading about Wicca and pagan religion on the net.
Wiccans DON'T proselytize.
They don't think that their religion is superior to all others.
There is equality between men and women.
They are opposed to racism, sexism, homophobia.
They accept the right for others to believe in their religion.
They worship mother earth and nature.
They believe that EVERYONE, whether they are Wiccan, pagan or not, go to Summerland when they die.
Their creed is, "An it harm none, do what you will." They are not told what to think, or how to live, only told not to harm others.
They DON'T blow themselves up in suicide bombing.
Do NOT believe in killing, either people or animals.
Are NOT full of hate.
Do NOT believe that they are superior to others.
They don't believe that they are the sole owners of the truth.
And yet Wiccans are routinely persecuted, lose their jobs, lose their children in custody cases, etc.
George W Bush says that Wicca is not a religion, yet he says that Islam is a religion of peace.
I don't understand why Wicca is so demonised by Christianity, and yet so many Christians hold interfaith services with muslims.
I remember one person at Jihadwatch or Dhimmiwatch, say that "after we get rid of muslims, then we'll come for the atheists."
That really shocked me.
Anyway, I think if we all went back to worshipping nature, the world would be better off IMHO.
This is kind of like how the Arab American groups
protested and lobbied successfully to the have the
villians in the movie "The Sum Of All Fears"
changed... so we have a lame plot with Neo-Nazis
threatening the US. Yeah, that is a realistic plot !
Our political correctness and blindness to the
insidousness of the rising Islamic threat will
only lead to a final conflict of global proportions.
The clock is ticking...
MetalMuncher
I totally agree with your assessment of many of the institutions of “Higher Learning.” Having worked with some of these “Educated’ individuals who enter the work force thinking they have all the required knowledge from what the books say are nut cases. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for an education. There is one thought I keep in mind.
Common sense without an education is better than;
An education without common sense.
So, it stands to reason an average day laborer has to rely on much more common sense and therefore acquires a sound well rounded education. Having said that, I disagree with a statement in your second post - - “Only an atheist, and an atheism founded on reality, is able to reject mysticism, and in particular, the mysticism of Islam. You must consistently reject religion as a means of knowledge and source of moral codes. Especially if those moral codes come from 7th century Arabia.” On all subject matter I try and apply common sense to it and find there is many things in religion that are a benefit to me and I am sure to the world. Therefore, I find there is nothing in Islam/Muslim doctrine that would be of any benefit to me. Instead, common sense tells me it is a devious cult I want no part of. - - My humble opinion.
Voltaire, I am a Christian and I really don't care if a person is a Christian, Jew, atheist, or whatever. As long as you are on our side in this battle- you are ok with me. Speaking of people saying they are coming for atheists next, the same has been said of Christians here also.
Voltaire and Corolyn2,
As someone who does not believe in God, I also worry that some here may feel atheism is as much of a threat as Islam. Not every atheist is a Marxist or a Muslim apologist. On the contrary, the most consistent standpoint from which to criticise the threat of Islam is Western liberalism and humanistic values. Christianity is not as oppressive as Islam now primarily because the Enlightenment's humanistic values have had 400 years to temper religious dogmatism in the West. While even Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are to the left of moderate Muslims, I think we should still be on guard against the efforts of Christian leaders like them to have government fund religious education and proselytizing religious charities. The West too is recoiling from the accelerating pace of change that modernity brings and could still follow our Muslim brothers into the dark abyss of religious dogmatism. This is especially true if we frame the debate in terms of a clash of civilizations between Islam and Christendom, rather than between Islam and Modernity.
What is happening in Kuwait sounds very similar to the facist movement in pre WWII Europe.
What we are also seeing is a degeneration of civilization. ( Anybody remember the 80's fad group Devo? That was their theory also. ) This rejection of western civilization for Islamic fanaticism also occured in Iran. Neither country was a full fledged democracy. So political reorganization is crucial to heading off this degeneration of civilization.
If you are going to topple the royal family of Saudi Arabi, as some think America's end game is, and not develop alternative energies sufficant to replace oil. Then you better have access to say a Iraq and Kuwait. The Islamic movement in those same said nations could cause the oil researves to slip through our fingers via politcal hostility to the United States. In such a senario we would become more dependent than ever on a Saudi royal family, with all it's pro jihad trappings.
The bottom line is , than in order to tell the Arab world where to go , or to just let them kill themselves off.......WE MUST DEVELOP ALTERNATIVE ENERGIES.
That is where our real struggle , liberty and security is to be found. Not in killing off religous fanatics in the back alley ways of Fallujah. Not that that is a bad ideal in it's self, it's just that it will take a lot more than that to win the war on terror. A lot of political theater will not get it done, just project a perception that it is being done.
Nossy
I saw a television piece with a young Kuwaiti woman interveiwed at a Kuwaiti shopping mall. She was dressed rather chic (jeans, a blouse and long black hair); a beatiful woman (Arab I assumed by her features). She told the interveiwer that her parents, told her that their family would leave Kuwait, if the Fundamentalist got their way in the chambers of power.
Also, I have a friend who is going to marry a wiccan. He said she can be a real bitch at times.
All people are susceptible to the same temptations, some people are more susceptible than others.