Italy: Christmas carol sparks row

Here's a carol they can sing:

(to the tune of "Adeste Fideles" ("Oh, Come All Ye Faithful")

Silence your children
Or we'll cut their heads off.
We are
the ru-oo-lers
o--of
your fu-ture life!

Shut your weak yaps
And bow- down to Me- eh- cca!

(softly) Accept your coming prison.
(louder) " " " "
(loudest)" " " "
Or-------
die like a dog"

(no copyright, since intellectual freedom will be outlawed under the Global Sharia State)

I guess this teacher is unaware of the fabled Islamic "tolerance" - certainly these students wouldn't have a problem with public displays of Christianity, now would they?

Last year in Toronto Canada a Islamic website
posted a notice to all Muslims to avoid the phrase
"Merry Christmas" because it's offensive to Allah and un-Islamic.
When a local Muslims was outraged at this attack on their Christian friends they called the Organization and then the media with a conplaint,the usual PR crap kicked in and the excuse for this posting was a Human-error during the preparation for web updates.
The head of the Org. said that the message shouldn't have been posted,but he didn't deny the existance of such a view during the Christmas season and that tells me they do see Merry-Christmas as offensive to Islam and Allah.
In October a store put an ad in the window promoting their line of winter hats,Muslims complained the ad was offensive to Islam because Osama Bin laden was pictured wearing the hat.
Oh,did I forget to mention BUSH was beside Osama with the same hat,for people that distance themselves from terrorism they surely get riled up fast when Osama is mocked.

Here's a thought for Muslims,DON'T LIVE HERE,CHOOSE TO MOVE TO A ISLAMIC NATION WHERE YOU'LL FEEL AT HOME AND NOT BE FORCED TO MIX AMONG US FILTHY GODLESS INFIDELS.

That teacher is a real twit. By trying to make a Christmas carol more "acceptable", she's giving them ideas. Perhaps the Muslim kids really didn't give a hoot, but with her starting the ball rolling on this "wipe out any references to Christianity in a Christian-based country during a Christian holiday season" nonsense, she sets a precendent. First this, then something else. Bit by bit, whittling away at customs and rituals we hold dear. Like termites.

The Muslim website that reminded Muslims that they should under no conditions wish Christians a "Merry Christmas" -- or indeed, wish any non-Muslims good wishes for any Infidel holidy -- is absolutely straightforward orthodox doctrine in Islam. There is nothing strange nor extreme nor unrepresentative about it. Infidels need to be feel their religion as a "humiliation," and certainly not as something of which they can be proud, or in which any Muslim could possibly join in wishing them anything in a spirit other than one of malevolent hostility.

Exceptions may be made, of course, for the usual taqiyya/kitman purposes of fooling the Infidels.

Otherwise, not allowed. Verboten.

What does it take for Infidels to get the picture? How man dots do they need before they start to connect them, from 1 to 1000. Why, the picture is practically drawn for you already.

This evening, for example, NBC News purported to "investigate" the nature of various foreign JIhadis fighting in Iraq. Yes, reported Lisa Myers, they seemed to be from among the very well-off, as well as the young unemployed. They came from Arab countries, and from Europe. They were different in many respects. "But they all had one thing in common." I waited, expecting at long last she would say the obvious on national TV -- "and that one thing was a deep belief in the tenets of Islam."

No, sorry. She just couldn't see it. So instead she said "and that one thing is hatred of the United States which, now Brian Willimas comes in to add, "as making war on Islam."

"Making war on Islam"? Islam is making war on everybody who is not a Muslim -- America gets special treatment becuase America is the most powerful and resolute country to oppose the Jihad, even if its leaders and most of its people still fail to understand precisely what that Jihad is all about.

Why attack France, when you can bribe the assorted Chiracs and meanwhile, 1 out of every 3 babies in France is now a Muslim -- better just to wait, and pocket the country in a generation or two. But the United States is another matter altogether.

Thank God.

Please read Islamization of America. It is available at http://www.islamreview.com. It shows the sinister nature of moderate mulsims and their evil plan to take over America

A MUSLIM HOLIDAY CAROL-

(to the tune of "The Twelve Days of C*****Mas")

[Skipping the repetitive lead up, and going to the final list of 12]

"On the Twelfth Day of No-Mas my half-human* gave to me-

12 corpses burning
11 streets a-blazing
10 children bleeding
9 cut-throats smiling
8 imams cursing
7 artists dying
6 dogs exploding...

5 R.P.G.'s!

4 dozing Popes
3 French fools
2 I.E.D.'s
and a Europe turned to Ar-a-beee!"

Prettige Sinterklaas, hoor!
("A Pleasant St. Nicholas' Day, pal!" in Dutch)

*"woman" as defined by Mohammad and Allah

What a load of fuss over nothing.

So they gave Muslim pupils the option of not using Jesus's name on a Christmas carol - gee whizz we're one step closer to armageddon..obviously. Everyone rush out and stock up on lots of tinned food.

Talk about inflamatory scare-mongering headlines in newspapers...'Jesus banned from Christmas carol' clearly that wasn't what happened - the Christian kids we're singing Jesus to their hearts content but the Muslim ones we're told they could substitute it for something else. Nothing wrong with that. If they forced ALL the kids to change 'Jesus' to another word in order to please a minority in the class that's something different but that's NOT what happened here.

As a Christian I wouldn't want my kids necessarily singing about Islamic beliefs and so I would hope a Muslim school that my child attended would respect that.

By the way how does the forum (if this can be classed as such) feel about changing pictures of Jesus on Christmas cards to something that's more historically accurate - in other words replacing the pictures of blond-haired blue-eyed European Jews with the more accurate black-haired, brown-eyed Semities that they obviously were in 1 Anno Domini.

I know the Black Christian community in some parts have gone to the extent of portraying Jesus as an African child - which is stretching things a bit but at least it has made some of us rethink what we have taken for granted and how we have visually turned the religion into something distinctly European. It seems we have forgotten that we follow a middle-eastern religion founded by 'diaper-wearers' as we are reminded once a year when our kids re-enact the orgins of our faith through nativity plays. My daughter played a snow flake this year at her's...I didn't know there was heavy snowfall in Bethlehem that time of year...Hmmm....

Twits like this Schoolteacher are everywhere. (OK., perhaps not in Muslim countries..)

They judge by what THEY know, and they are clueless about Islam or what Islam is all about!

So they think everyone is "good and fair" if only you treat them good and fair.
Just like George Bush:" We are good people, they don't know how good we are...."

But that is not the way of the Muslim...

If we don't stand for our values and for what we hold dear, we will fall for everything and the great sellout has already begun.

I STILL CANT BELIEVE THE POPE KISSED THAT DIRTY BOOK...

and in public....

Twits like this Schoolteacher are everywhere. (OK., perhaps not in Muslim countries..)

They judge by what THEY know, and they are clueless about Islam or what Islam is all about!

So they think everyone is "good and fair" if only you treat them good and fair.
Just like George Bush:" We are good people, they don't know how good we are...."

But that is not the way of the Muslim...

If we don't stand for our values and for what we hold dear, we will fall for everything and the great sellout has already begun.

I STILL CANT BELIEVE THE POPE KISSED THAT DIRTY BOOK...

and in public....

Sin Bad-

Jesus IS a prophet (a minor one, admittedly, and nowhere near as great as pedophile Mohammad -"suffer the little children" takes on a whole new twist!) accepted by Islam, so the issue is not one of "over-reacting" but stupidity. On the teacher's part, for not knowing this, thereby not censoring "Jesus". And on the Muslim students' part, for not telling her. And for the Italian press for not mentioning it.

Meanwhile, if you send your kids to a "Muslim school", be prepared for them to send you brats right home.

They don't want you, or your Infidel spawn.

Revert (since we are all technically born Muslim, according to their concept) or go!

But I hope you try. I want to see how you respond to you kids being ostracized, mocked as infidel dogs, thought retarded, and driven out of the classroom as infiltrating, degenerate Christian swine.

Merry Jihad! And to all, a good night!

Beard:

I never said he wasn't a prophet - I don't think they celebrate ANY prophet's birthday so what I said still applies i.e. they were given the option not to use the word 'Jesus' in favour of something neutral. So I still think this is a storm in an egg-cup.

Perhaps you had a bad experience yourself with some ignorant people and can't see how your own sweeping generalisations about over a billion people is entirely a mirror image of eqaully repugnant generalisations about over a billion Christians by Muslims i.e. we don't wash properly after using the toilet, we are a nation of drunkards, drug users, disease-ridden sexual degenerates with no respect for women etc etc. Clearly we are not but it's a convenient stereotype and it doesn't require much exercise of the grey matter between our ears. I think we should avoid falling into the trap of stooping to the same level of others.

I have been quoted time and again how the Bible is full of pornography etc but I'm sure as others are taking biblical verses out of context like-wise people here are doing the same to the Muslims' texts. None of this is healthy.

I have never been called a filthy Christian swine or my kids referred to a 'spawn' by any Muslims either at home or abroad - and I've travelled to several Muslim states. Speculating about what they may say in private is pointless. My appearance and lack of fluency in any langauge other than English clearly marks me out as a UK/US type Westerner yet why no abuse? If the man/woman on the Arab/Muslim street hates the 'West' it is the governments of the West and the policies of our governments. I don't like it when I see our flags getting burnt and I wish they would stop it and a way of expressing anger/indignation. It's easy for us to interpret it as anti-western when they are really seeing the flag as the symbol of the government and not the entire nation or it wouldn't be safe for any of us to travel outside our own or 'allied' countries.

I'm not likely to send my kids to a Muslim school but I doubt they could simply send non-Muslim kids home as the laws which protect them from discrimination also protect us. If their schools happen to produce high-achieving children then most parents would consider such a school for their kids as we all want them to do well academically. If the school sucks then we're unlikely to give it a second thought.

I think it's easy for people who remain within their own closed circles to imagine all sorts of fantastically terrible things about people who are different. I think if we make more effort to mix with other people we may find that one nation has just as much scum and good people in it as any other.

Oh God, here we go again ! Sinbad's trotting out of the tired old "We're all just people , so let's live together in peace and celebrate our differences blah, blah. bla...."is so predictable. Why do so many insist on sleep-walking into the darkness that islam has planned for us ? How can anyone visiting this site and reading all the news stories and articles here not see the struggle that is now going on at a global level ? Either Sinbad is a clever muslim troll (note the oft-used muslim troll device of comparing the Koran to the Bible) or is a classic example of the brain-washed liberal who finds it hard to belive that a so-called "religion" might actually be motivated by the desire to dominate all other belief systems. Maybe Sinbad should take his family to the "home" of islam - Saudi Arabia - and try wearing Crucifixs outside any mosque . Or better yet he could enrol his children in one of Pakistan's religious schools and see how long they last as "infidels" amongst the muslim zealots.

Sinbad,

I hate wasting my time on people like you, so I will make it brief.

Few of us claim to be "generalizing" about all Muslims. Given the poor literacy rate of many Muslim countries, its pretty safe to say that most of the people who identify themselves as "Muslim" (do they ever have a choice in these countries?) do not even know what "Islam" really means beyond a few monotonous rituals.

If you think that hating a religion or its "prophet" is always the same as hating the people who follow it, then I suggest you go to websites like the DU where circle-jerking is the main substitute for thinking.

Sin Bad-

Perhaps your travels in Muslim regions were mild. Glad for you.

But, as even Muslim scholars have lamented recently, there are NO world-classic Islamic universities, comparable to any of those in the West, or Japan, Korea, China, etc...
So, good luck finding:

A) a high-caliber Muslim school for your kids

B) Having them accepted without converting (reverting), since, why else would you be in a religious school? Which is all their schools are, by decree/essence. (Or would they suspect you were trying to get a lawsuit going, to disrupt their educational system, by forcing their hand and revealing what their actual teachings are?)

In general, most average Muslims have as little clue about what their Koran says as the average Christian does of the Old Testament's carnage.

But, when you read it (as I'm sure you have), and when you realize that its million plus hardcore True Believers are absolutely certain that its violent creed should be spread everywhere, to become the only jurisprudence allowed on Earth (Sharia Law), you might begin to have some misgivings about the drift of the just-another faith.

The indifferent Muslim majority- who treat tourists well, and like satellite dish porno with their curtains closed- will not speak out against the militant maniacs, but are willing to be dragged along with them, as 'brothers in The Book'. Content to be 'top dogs' (if the Jihad wins), by default. And then their treatment of Infidels will shift to the new reality.

While most humans may be basically 'decent', their guidebooks of belief can be examined and critiqued.

I would be at the top of their Infidel list (not a person of 'The Book'), should they gain any Saudi Arabian-like power beyond that nightmare zone*, so I choose to be aware of the point of their cutting edge lunacy, and oppose any growing tyranny over freedom of thought.

Pretending that their neighbors were civlized didn't work to well in post-WW I Germany for the Jewish Germans.

Better to know, than wish.

As the old Arabic saying put it:

"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."

(*or would you let you wife be treated like crap, and you kids be forbidden from expressing your/their own beliefs?)

P.S. for Sin Bad's kids-

Here's a fun project for classroom study:

"Draw a Picture of based on this story from the Wonderland of Merry Muslims"!

(link below:)

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=137

(And Remember: Girl students get half credit!)

I'm new to the site, so hello everyone. Thanks for such an interesting site!

In case anyone is interested, reports on and extracts from, schoolbooks in places like dear old Saudi, the P.A. and Israel can be viewed at www.edume.org - It makes fascinating reading...

"In October a store put an ad in the window promoting their line of winter hats,Muslims complained the ad was offensive to Islam because Osama Bin laden was pictured wearing the hat."

I certainly hope that they did not remove the ad because of muslim pressure. In the fall there was a store where I live that had a tee shirt displayed in the window which featured a bloody hammer with the caption "she was asking for it", womens groups tried to have the shirt removed and were told although the shirt was in poor taste the store was protected under free speech. They tried to have it banned under a "hate crime" against women and one caller to the local talk radio even said if the bloody hammer was depicted next to a man wearing islamic clothing with "he was asking for it" would that be allowed....the city official answering calls said no because that would be hate directed against a "racial" group (once again muslims are not a race)...so muslims are protected under hate crime but natural born Canadian women are not...

PS, the store said they were not promoting violence against women and had a similar shirt which was available in the store but not displayed...a bloody pair of scissors with the caption "he was asking for it" Its a small store that seems to cater mostly to the goth type crowd.

Reading some of the comments on this posting today has helped me decide to cancel my subscription to DhimmiWatch. I thought this would be a good place for intelligent, critical discussion of Islam, but have found it and JihadWatch a cesspit of racist, uninformed, and grossly one-sided diatribes. When someone like Sinbad makes intelligent and thoughtful suggestions, he is answered, not by reasoned discourse, but by a most unpleasant series of sneering abuse. I myself hold an MA and PhD in Persian/Arabic/Islamic Studies (Edinburgh and Cambridge), and am a former lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies, and an Honorary Fellow in a Centre for ME and Islamic Studies.

I am not a Muslim and do not hold a brief for Islam. I share many of your fears and anxieties about Islam and agree that political correctness has done much harm in our treatment of Islamic human rights abuses and much else. But, just as I hate anti-Semitism, so I despise the cheap, vicious, and often quite moronic expressions of out and out hatred I have encountered on this site. Abuse is abuse, and it will only end by convincing Muslims that we are all they say we are.

My advice to most of those posting messages here is simple: learn something solid about Islam before you set yourselves up as judges and juries to condemn Muslims. Think hard about this: you need people like me to contribute to your discussions. Instead, you have alienated me and others like me. If this is the best the US has to offer in the debate about Islam, God help us all!

Denis
Even though many of my posts may be down the lower end of the scale, could you say the same about Hugh's?

Please stay, as we need you in this fight.

Well said Denis - but I think you're wrong to walk away from Dhimmi Watch. How does that help moderate or counter the more extreme voices here?

BTW Sinbad ("I didn't know there was heavy snowfall in Bethlehem that time of year...Hmmm..."

have a look at this link - http://www.bethlehemassoc.org/sub_pages/BethlehemNews02152004.htm - not quite Christmas time but it shows that heavy snow does fall in Bethlehem!

Hugh said,

"Why attack France, when you can bribe the assorted Chiracs and meanwhile, 1 out of every 3 babies in France is now a Muslim. . ."

That absolutely makes my skin crawl.

Denis Mac-

As a scholar of Persian/Arabic/Islamic studies, three questions:

a) have you ever read the Koran (and Hadiths)?

b) can I have your subscription?

and:

c) what exactly does "racist" mean in the professorial context used in your post?

Islam is not a "race", since it encompasses lands "converted" (was there a sword involved anywhere in this process? Or was polygamy enough emolument the patriarchally-inclined?) from Indonesia to Morocco, thus contains once-Berbers to Asian former-Hindus, mainland lapsed-Buddhist Thais, rebel once-tribal polytheistic groups on the edges of the Phillipines, and some Muslim offshoots in the outer regions of China, etc.

What "race" is this? (Other than human?)

And is it "insulting" to use satiric exaggeration (even religious scholars like Dean Swift have been known to dabble in this realm) to try to get a response, beyond the p.c. pabulum, from those playing the same old schmaltzy violin music of "we must all respect everyone everywhere, since people are basically good and lovely and humane and compassionate"... when anyone with a kindergarten diploma, who has moved in the world of people not play-acting to get tourist dollars, can grasp the old fact that Solon knew in classical Greece: "Most people tend to the Bad (if not rerstrained by law)."

Now, secular law, as won by the Age of Reason
in the West, determines the reach of religious domination of society. Sharia Law (that's part of your course, naturally) would devolve humanity to the level of the pharoahs.

But, maybe mummifiying our brains would be a simpler solution.

Taking offense so quickly shows little classroom skills with countering or controlling any students who ever asked a seriously challenging question.

Consider those posting here as your students.

Enlighten all about the root documents of the Muslim faith and their legal codes. And their practical effect in goverment.

The people who 'submit' to these dogmas and judicial traditions are in need of a more critical exigesis of their texts, wouldn't you think?

That may "insult" them, as the English religious hierarchy was once "insulted" when Tyndale wanted to print a Bible in the language of the people of that 'green and pleant land'. He learned the reality of intolerant theocratic despotism. And what they are capable off when they gain earthly (secular) as well as spiritual dominion.

Lighten up, doc.

It seems your becoming as thin-skinned as the mullahs.

(Or their proseltyzing predecessor -who was surveying the conquest of an Infidel city when an aide asked about the disposition of the municipal library. His reply: "If the books agree with the Koran, we don't need them. If they disagree, we don't want them. Burn them all."*

Ah, intellectual freedom! I can smell it from here.

*In the same spirit as the 'Christian' tradition's "solution", during the massacre of the Protestants [Huguenots?] in France, when a brother-in-dogmatics said the parallel 'divine' phrase: "Kill them all, God will know his own". (Now the pithier: "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out!")

Robert--

It seems to me that when a dissatisfied or offended subscriber wishes to cancel his subscription, you have no choice but to follow website policy to the letter, especially if that subscriber is imposingly well-credentialled, if he does say so himself. And, therefore, all amounts for any unused part of the subscription should be cheerfully refunded, no questions asked.

Thanks Hugh! You made my day (and almost made me spill my tea from laughing!).

Voltaire,

What the heck are you talking about? I think most of the posts here are erudite, witty, and relatively civil.

MacEoin is just a humorless, stick-in-the-mud Saidist who thinks he can intimidate us by flashing his credentials.

He isn't worth your concern nor our time.

RE- Doctor MacEoin-

Assuming the post was by the actual person-

(I have a diploma from a Tree-Sitting Competition in Cohocton, New York, and a Second-Class Shipfitter's Degree, if he wants a pissing contest...)

But-

Here's a link to someone not very impressed with his intellectual acumen - at least not in his proclaimed area of expertise:

http://bahai-library.com/wwwboard/messages02/804.html

VIZ-

"MacEoin's privileging of text over real-life... apears to compromise the canon of believer-intelligibility..."

And-

"Equally problematic is the lack of any definition of 'ritual' or 'semi-ritual.' MacEoin speaks of 'quasi-ritual' or 'pseudo-Bahai practices'..."

Plus-

"Moreover, MacEion ignores ethical texts- the soul of ritual- and any ethical dimensions of ritual..."

Sounds like the same guy, to me. More worried about the "deconstruction" [once simply know as "analysis" before the French school muddied the intellectual waters with their love of turning flesh to fog and words to semiotic cataracts*] of "texts" than the mortal threat involved in one of them for all intellectual freedom in the future.

And that book would be?-

The Tripitaka of the Buddha, you ask? -No....
The Tibetan Book of the Dead? -No...
The Poetic Eddas of the Norse? -No...
The Popul Vuh? -No...
The Four Gospels of Jeshua Ben David? -No...
The Anti-Christ by Nietzsche? -No...
The Analects of Confucius? -No...
The Tenets of Manu? -No...
The Tao Teh Ching? -No...
The Bhagavad Gita? -No...
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius? -No...

What could that book (text) be?

Hmmm... starts with a K...

...and ends with a global theocratic-despotic tyranny.

If mere credentials were to the point, the Nobel Peace Prize given to Yassir Arafat would inspire.

*in both senses of the word, of course.

Oh no !! The great thinker and islamic scholar Denis Mac Whatever has left DW ! How will we survive without him ? His numerous witty, intelligent posts were a delight to read weren't they ? OH THAT'S RIGHT ! He posted bugger all except , as far as I can see, his hysterical farewell letter. "You need people like me to contribute to your discussions." Geez, get over yourself you puffed-up arrogant academic. If you really know so much about islam why aren't you running your own site to warn those less intelligent than yourself (and there must be millions of them ) about it's dangers ? And as for your pathetic little snidey comments about "is this the best the US can do" - many of the posters here at DW & JW are from Canada, Australia, Pakistan, Holland, Norway, Great Britain as well as from the United States.
The only cesspit here Denis is in your own self-obsessed mind. I don't know how we'll manage without you old chap but by God we'll try.
P.S. Hi Robert , if you're reading this, I'd like to double my subscription to make up for the tragic loss of losing Denis's.

In order to keep up that subscriber base which is so important for our advertising revenues – Robert tells me we may lose the Tiffany account, and others whisper that the BMW people are not happy with our demographics (can the Absolut Vodka account be far behind), and are not sure they want to continue throwing advertisiing dollars at Jihadwatch for much longer. So let me do a little damage control, by reminding one and all of our virtues, including disgruntled subscribers who have cancelled their subscriptions.

In the first place, many items of news posted at Jihadwatch/Dhimmiwatch are never reported in the American press, or reported much later. This gathering of so much material, from such wide and disparate sources, showing a world-wide phenomenon, prompted by the same texts and tenets, but expressing itself in local violences and aggressions – is valuable.

So too are many of the postings, which offer analysis that is often useful, and personal testimonies from non-Muslims, from Nigeria, to Indonesia, from Spain to Egypt.. It is true that not every posting is a masterpiece of understatement. Sometimes, out of sheer frustration at the refusal of so many to see what is staring them in the face, or at the organized hypocrisy of, for example, the E.U. or the U.N. or the Arab League, posters give vent to a fury that sometimes is American in its hyperbole rather than English in its litotes. We all have our favorite figures of speech. Mine are paronomasia and hypallage. What are yours?

In any case, this is a come-on, come-all forum, largely unmonitored. Readers can winnow the wheat from the chaff themselves.

Denis MacEoin knows that the the academic study of Islam is a school for scandal. The Saudis and other rich Arabs have in essence boughtup the "Islamic studies" field, sometimes by setting up "centers" in Bradford, or Durham, or Exeter, or Georgetown, and if not the Saudis, then Kuwaitis or representatives of assorted emirates and sheikdoms (better watch this, because The Ruler of Bahrain elevated himself to the “Prince” and now he has given himself a promotion to “King of Bahrain,” much to the amusement of J. B. Kelly and others with experience in the Gulf). St. Antony’s rests on the money left by Anton Besse, an Adeni Jewish trader who would not be pleased by the use to which his legacy has been put, at least in the Middle Eastern section of that St. Antony’s gallimaufry.

MacEoin wrote "New Jerusalems" a dozen years ago. It was a good book about Islam and Rushdie, and is listed in the bibliography to Ibn Warraq’s “Why I Am Not a Muslim.” He had to leave Durham, so the story goes (he can certainly set us all straight) because he was teaching about Islam in a way that did not satisfy the Saudis, and the Saudi paymasters ran everything, as they do in so many places, and not merely in academic life.

Now that MacEoin makes his living as a writer – of thrillers under the name “Daniel Easterman” and also “Jonathan Aycliffe,” – he surely pays attention to words. Why would he regard as “racist” attacks on an ideology, a belief-system? What does that have to do with “racism”?

Mr. MacEoin/Easterman/Aycliffe may retain some residual defensiveness about Islam, in the matter of those "esthetic" apologists for Islam, who are willing to go far in deploring, especially in private, much about Islam and Muslims, but for some reason continue to act as Defenders of the Faith to one degree or another. Eric Ormsby of Montreal, and Robert Irwin of the TLS both come to mind. One finds Al-Ghazali fascinating, and yet judging by his essays in The New Criterion, has realized that Western cultural riches far outstrip whatever once entranced him about the study of Islam. Irwin’s translations of classical Arabic poetry keep him somehow tethered to the reservation – though his leash is long enough for him to have gone and taken a huge bite out of Edward Said, and one hopes he will complete a study of that dangerous and silly man. Both know more about Islam than they allow themselves to recognize – Irwin keeps assigning books on Mughal India, to Francis Robinosn or William Dalrymple, which virtually insures not only apologetics, but apologetics of a Barbara-Cartlandish swoon-over-Mughal-court-intrigue-and-lovers-and-luxury sort. Maddening.

No one likes to have given a decade or three of his life to studying something that required mastery of a difficult tongue, and that in the end proves to be far less interesting than one’s native language or culture. Most of the sincere students of Islam find that there is not much there there, so they try to make it interesting for themselves, and part of making that thing interesting is to deny the essentially primitive and aggressive and mind-stunting nature of the belief-system of Islam. Almost everything of interest that has come out of high Islamic civilization was created despite, not because of, the strictures of Islam. Mughal miniatures, the science of Al-Rhazi, the ratiociniation of Averroes or Al-Farabi and others who were hardly orthodox in much of their thought.. That is worth remembering.

One hopes that the man who wrote "New Jerusalems,” even if he noisily unsubscribes, will occasionally peek in now and again. After all, it is not Jihadwatch that caused him to lose his academic post. It is not those at Jihadwatch who are helping to deliver England and the rest of European civilization into the plausible hands of Tariq Ramadan and others of that ilk.

One suspects that Mr. MacEoin/Easterman has a touch of the anti-American bug, and finds fault because this site is largely run by and from America. He might be surprised at at how many Europeans read this site, take comfort in it, and derive both profit and pleasure in what it offers -- as the ample evidence of emails suggests.

And it is mainly in Europe that one now senses most keenly the slipping-away of European civilization, not because of the innate and self-evident wonderfulness of the belief-system of Islam, but simply because the Muslim immigrants, with their large families, are outbreeding the locals, and when one adds the constant attempts at Da’wa, that appeal to the economically and psychically marginal, one realizes that even a belief-system as crude and primitive as this, with Manichaean division of the world between Believer and Infidel, dar al-Islam and dar al-Harb, may well destroy a far more worthy civilization. It has happened before in history. .

Albion:

?Tired old?? judging by most of the stuff posted here ?tired and old? is more applicable to the constant stream of abuse aimed at Muslims (justifiably of course I?m sure you?ll say). What I?m saying is radically different from the standard posting, I?m just sad you tired of it so quickly.

Actually I would prefer that people lived in peace together but perhaps that view is also ?tired and old? and some people here just wouldn?t have a reason for living if they weren?t at war with someone or other. I?m not some naïve Jesus boots wearing acoustic guitar playing tree hugger and I don?t think all differences can be ?celebrated? because there are some things we will fundamentally disagree about. I?m just sick of people on our side in this clash of civilisations pouring out the invective against the ?new commies? as if this conflict is a war of words and he who comes out with the punchiest most sarcastic one-liner wins. This ?forum? is, in the main, a place to air highly prejudiced views in like-minded company ? how comforting for them. And why can?t people like me see the impending DOOM about to befall us after reading everything on this site?well perhaps we read wider than this and don't confine our information one site or sites or one strain of thought. Perhaps we prefer to keep our minds open and although scary stories worked on me until I was ..oooh..5 or 6 year old I?m not so easily made paranoid. I think it will take a Goebbels-like propaganda effort to convince the ordinary Western public we should be marching Muslims off to gas ovens because they?re out to control the world and eat our children.

At first I couldn?t work out what a ?Muslim troll? was assuming it was some kind of insult about the physical appearance of Muslims or something but apparently I?m posting to cause annoyance or offense ? haha that?s rich. Well sorry Albion as convenient as it is to generalise on this forum I can?t conform to either of the two categories I must fall into according to you. Not everyone can be so easily pidgeon-holed. I can see why extremists on both sides wish the world and its people were so simplistically black and white.

Rublev:

Sorry you don?t like wasting your time on people like me please waste it on those who hang on your every word, agree with everything you say, and clap and cheer with wild enthusiasm to every witty or witless comment you treat this forum to.

?If you think that hating a religion or its "prophet" is always the same as hating the people who follow it, then I suggest you go to websites like the DU where circle-jerking is the main substitute for thinking.?

This forum is not simply showing hatred of a religion and its prophet because here you constantly read references to Muslims, Muslims, Muslims - that suggests to me a hatred that is not confined to 'the religion of Islam' or 'the prophet of Islam'. I suggest you pay closer attention to what people are writing.

Beard:

If my experiences were mild it was most likely because I treated people like human beings, I try not to parade around the world full of the imagined superiority of my European heritage. I don?t looked down at or talk down to people in other parts of the world unless they subject me to it first. I'm not suggesting that you do either but if you?ve had bad experiences is it perhaps because the views you express on here, you are equally confident about expressing in person on your travels through the Muslim world? No doubt you wouldn't have been embraced with open arms.

Ok- high calibre schools of Muslims, at least where they exist as minority populations within our countries, predominate as much as any other faith-based school be it Jewish or Catholic. They are almost always single-sex and despite objections to this segregation of the sexes by Muslims, Catholics and Jews by ?liberals?, they tend to perform better in league tables than their co-education counterparts. Draw whatever conclusions you want from that. I am not talking about madrasa type schools in Pakistan or wherever because like most countries (Muslim or not) in the third world I?m sure standards are pretty poor and schools are hopelessly under-resourced. I only talk about the West because that?s where I live.

I know that many Muslims here send their kids to Catholic schools because of the single sex element, the disciple and the morals. To me that does not indicate a people who are afraid of their children getting converted to Christianity only that they prefer a school with a moral ethos over one which is secular-based. If they can send their kids to my school why couldn?t I send mine to theirs? Oh yeah cos they?re evil and no doubt they would flog my kids and chop off their hands for picking their nose in class.

?Pretending that their neighbors were civlized didn't work to well in post-WW I Germany for the Jewish Germans.?

Well pretending their neighbours were vermin-like disease spreaders out for world domination didn?t work for non-Jewish Germans either. Sadly they realised too late they'd been fed a load of baloney and we had to destroy their country for it - but try apologising to 6 million souls for that little mistake. I?m sorry but I see the same pattern developing here.

As for my wife being treated like crap ? that would be my actions not something enforceable by the state. This country has battered women?s refuges across its length and its breadth without the state needing to give incentives to keep up the quotas. Full, mind you, of non-Muslim women beaten black and blue (and they?re the lucky ones) by husbands and boyfriends who don?t wear diapers on their heads or subscribe to any religion. I?ve forgotten the latest statistics but I?m sure someone here can remind me how many women in THIS country die every week at the hands of a ?significant other?. How?d that happen? I think we should get our own house in order and liberate our own women from misogyny before we try to ?civilise? other people who are equally abominable towards their women as we are.

Cubed: "Why attack France, when you can bribe the assorted Chiracs and meanwhile, 1 out of every 3 babies in France is now a Muslim. . ." That absolutely makes my skin crawl.?

What?s a Muslim baby? I think the writer means ?is now of North African descent? but that would be racist ? so use the word Muslim and hey presto! Now you see it now you don?t. Fortunately for the Jewish community they are considered both a race and religion so making similar comments about them IS racist. Funny how I still can?t put a white European Askenazi, Middle Eastern Sephardic and African Falasha side by side and see ?one? race. But lucky for them I guess and too bad for Muslims and Christians and any other faith whose adherents don?t look so alike.

If Muslim baby means they?re coming out with a fully grown 2 foot beard or complete with baby burqa that would make my skin crawl too.

Billy Bass: Interesting ? thanks for that! I suppose the earth must have shaken a few days before the first Christmas too ? how I under-estimated the geological expertise of my daughter?s kindergarten teachers

Sin Bad-

Your concern reminds me- in a parallel sense- with the U.S. government's, which brought on sky marshalls in the 1970's during the first wave of airplane highjackings, but, as time went on, and the threat seemed to ease, they silently removed this last line of defense from almost every flight. (As wise a removing fire extinguishers from buildings just because they haven't had any fires lately.)

This course of 'trusting' (AKA- doing things on the cheap) the passengers (with box cutters, etc.)
worked really well on 9/11.

Since then, there has been a general concern in the West about the militant followers of the Koranic war-cry, and these linked sites (Jihad Watch/DhimmiWatch) are a source for information NOT on the average fallafel seller in Constantinople or counterfeit jeans merchant in Karachi, but about those cutting edge (no pun intended) members of the jihadist movement. Which is rooted in and encouraged by (as it absolves all cruelties, deceptions, slaughter and conquest-) the 'holy' suras of the Koran.

While the Old Testament is just as vicious in places and just as Angry God-intoxicated, and is spiced with a despotic megalomania and 'divine' calls to kill (the Canaanites, etc.), it is no longer taken literally -except perhaps by a few thousand Hassidim in New York state or an equal number of Ultra-Zionists at the Wailing Wall.

They pose no threat to the people on the streets of Amsterdam. Like the infidel artist Theo Van Gogh, or Jew journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, nor against freedom of thought, expression, etc., per se. They are inward-looking.

The million or so Muslim (or do you prefer Qu'ranic?) militants forming jihadist cadres are rising to tear down the 'secular, degenerate infidel West'. Or don't you read the news?... From Iran to Algeria, Bali to Babylon... daily.

On the distaff side:
Hanging girls who 'smart talk' back at the mullahs; stoning a girl in France for fobbing off a suitor; throwing acid in the faces of girls in Pakistan for prefering a different 'arranged hubsand'; threatening a Dutch member of Parliament (who left Islam) with death.

Sytematically.

Unlike the random examples of 'wife-beating', etc.
you mention, for the West which are done out of person passions, not propelled by a holy law..

And for the fellows:
...but need I repeat the litany of carnage that is NOT being carried out by Buddhists, Jains, Shintoists, animists, agnostics, atheistics, Bahais, tiki worshippers, cargo cultists or even Scientologists. (Blessing and Peace Be Upon L. Ron Hubbard)

Maybe you don't grasp the concept of highlighting a point by leaving off the quotation marks. As if any Muslim school would dare ACTUALLY throw your kids out. Or PUBLICALLY scorn you or insult your wife. Of course not. I say it, without their quotes, as an example of what they would be saying if they had power. And do, when they DO.

They want to lull you with how reasonable they are, as they replace your culture with their divine alternative.

(Rent a biology video showing the nesting habits of the cuckoo. The pattern may be instructive.)

Whether the majority of Islamic peoples are 'good old regular folks at home -and genteely pleasant tour guides and soft drink vendors on the street'-is immaterial -if they allow their Koranically-censorious lunatics to lead the argument, shout them down, intimidate them, murder their outspoken artists, writers, human rights advocates, hang women who demand equality, and plan to spread the Sharia Law around the globe. With nuclear arsenals coming into their hands shortly, if Iran, etc. are not prevented from this folly by the 'enlightened self-interest' of the West.

I have seen what 'Christians' did with their religious rule for 2 millenia (Cathar slaughter extirpation of the gnostics, Arians, Pelagians, Jan Hus, Tyndale, The Hugeunots, ad nauseam...)- -and this only JUST gotten under control, and ONLY RECENTLY pried out of direct government rule. And I have no wish to see an even stronger, more unified and fatally-headlocking variety come to 'earthly dominion'. Through default- as everyone pretends they cant really be meaning what they say*- or birthrate- or warfare.

We are at a pivoting point in time.

If the West and its secular allies do not say NO to this Bronze Age patriarchy's claim to 'own' the human race and the Earth, and DO NOT try to convince its less-Absolutely Certain members to reassess the darker dogmas of Mohammad (are women really only worth half a man? Can infidels be lied to for tactical reasons until their are ripe for sacrificial killing?), then the future looks to be a daily roster of beheadings, stonings, schools and churches and mosques and synagogues being burned down, from Jakarta to Jefferson City.

There is no need to demonize people. But their thoughts CAN be demonically absurd.

Flip through a second-hand Penguin copy of the Koran. They're drilling it into their kids's heads in huts and high rises around the globe.

We're going to have to answer it, either with epistemological arguments to reason. (Which seems unlikely to have much effect, since religous scripture, by definition, does not allow for debate or logical investigation.)

Or with other means.

Whether something cunning- like setting up alternative 'Sufi-Centers' with our own imams, to try to leaven their 'divine' documents with some levity, love and skeptical sweetness.

Or with open conflict.

I prefer the method of intellectual judo. Subtly
alterring the internal dialog by sowing new ideas, sura-interpretational doubt, etc.

But will follow the dictum "Live free or die"
in any case.

Happy Hannukah. Merry Christmas. Gnothi seaton.

(*"Hitler always told the truth, but no one believed him; Stalin always lied, and everyone believed him.")

Rublev
I was talking about MY posts, not everyone else's.

Almost everyone's posts here are terrific.

A sad footnote-

A pity Mr. MacEoin has the same first name as the church where the remains of Charles Martel are laid to rest. In the town of the same name (near Paris).

Glad to hear he has a day job ---
as a writer of Stephen King-meets-Jane Eyre type ghost-mystery-thriller romances.

One pen-named book of his (as "Jonathan Aycliffe") is entitled:

"Whispers in the Dark".

I think it should be "Whistling..."

Never trust a guy who taught at the University of Fez, in Morroco.

(Didn't Ataturk outlaw them?)