News from the UK's Education Guardian.
An internationally renowned British Muslim scholar was this week refused entry to the US with no explanation, it has emerged. Zaki Badawi, head of the Muslim College in London, flew to New York on Wednesday to give a high profile lecture at the city's Chautauqua Institution. He was denied entry at JFK airport, detained for six hours and then forced to return home. It makes him the latest in a line of high profile European Muslims to be refused entry to the US.Dr Badawi told the Associated Press that he was given no explanation of why he was not being allowed into the country. "The people I was speaking to were very junior people and they are just executing things they were told. They were very, very embarrassed and I felt sorry for them. America is a lovely country. There is no reason why it should behave like that," he said.
The US Customs and Border Protection office said Dr Badawi had been refused entry to the country based on information indicating that he was "inadmissible".
A spokeswoman for the customs office in Washington, Leah Yoon, said when he was initially processed, his answers to basic questions were not "in alignment" with his background check or documentation. "He was questioned further and after a thorough interview he was deemed inadmissible," she said. "He was given several options, but chose to withdraw his application." The options presented to Dr Badawi could not be disclosed, she said.
Dr Badawi has visited the US several times, most recently in 2003. He was given an honorary knighthood, and in 2003 was a guest of the Queen at a state banquet for the US president, George Bush. Earlier this week, Dr Badawi joined other British religious leaders, including Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, in publicly condemning the London bomb blasts, which killed at least 54 people.
The FBI could not confirm reports that Dr Badawi had been turned away because he was on a US terror watch list. A Homeland Security spokesman said that during initial processing border officers had discovered information that "required further questioning" before deeming him inadmissible...
This action is not PC!!!
...at last...
(interesting to whom the doctor reported his rightful and legal detention - AP. who owns controlling interest in AP? AP - which 'somehow' had the "story" of Israelis being forwarned of London homicide bomber attacks -minutes after it happened - some kind of interesting propgaganda coordination going on -perhaps)
It is precisely all this -- the honorary knighthood, the rubbing elbows with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi of London -- in other words, all the seeming respectability that naive England can confer, will not do for the INS, the FBI, the CIA. One wonders exactly what it was the "required further questioning" and what it was that led Zaki Badawi who, given "several options" for complying with certain requests, chose instead to "withdraw his application." But the fact that he was not allowed to talk or impress his way in, shows that the American authorities are beginning, here and there, to get serious. And one assumes that this policy will only tighten, as it should. No need to seem to be giving someone the government's imprimatur -- for that is what letting a Muslim cleric or spokesman into this country would, at this point, seem to be doing.
It was a good sign when Tariq Ramadan was turned away (and it had its effect, by the way, even on young Muslims in France, some of whom have chosen to distance themselves more openly from Ramadan) -- for more on him, from the viewpoint of the intelligent secular Muslim, see the "Lettera aperta a Tariq Ramadan" by his fellow Eygptian (now an Italian citizen) Magdi Allam, which is one of the two such letters appended to his recently-published "Vincere la paura" (Overcoming Fear), in which, essentially, Magdi Allam tells Ramadan "I know you, I know all your tricks, all your wiles, you can fool some of the Infidels, but you can't fool me."
Of course, this "Open Letter" appears not to have been read by the British police, who have invited, and are paying, Tariq Ramadan to come to give a talk in London. On what? On how to continue to fool the Infidels? On how to fit into Western Europe with this "European Islam" notion that, of course, is simply a matter of lying as low as possible, not drawing attention to Islam, fitting in -- while the Da'wa and demographic conquest can continue, again unobserved or unnoticed, until such time as the forces of Islam can throw off their unwonted quiet, and reveal themselves as what they always were.
Is Zaki Badawi part of this taqiyya-and-kitman brigade of smilers, the "smyler with the knyf under the cloke" of Chaucer, translating Boccaccio's "Tradimento con gli occulti ferri" -Treachery with hidden weapons? Or is it simply an entirely unfair, unjust, terrible terrible thing that has happened? I suspect the first. What do you suspect?
From an article several months ago in The Telegraph:
"Prince Charles is brokering efforts to end the Muslim death penalty on converts to other faiths, it emerged yesterday.
He held a private summit of Christian and Muslim leaders at Clarence House this month to explore the centuries-old Islamic law under which apostates face persecution and even death.
His intervention follows mounting anger at the treatment in a number of Islamic states of Muslims who have converted to Christianity.
As an advocate of inter-faith dialogue, the Prince has come under pressure to criticise the religious law that, campaigners say, has resulted in hundreds of executions in countries from Iran to Sudan. Among the Christians at the confidential meeting was an Anglican archbishop from a part of Nigeria where Islamic Sharia law is enforced.
Others included the Bishop of London, the Right Reverend Richard Chartres, and the Pakistani-born Bishop of Rochester, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali.
It is believed the Muslim group, which included the Islamic scholar Zaki Badawi, cautioned the Prince and other non-Muslims against speaking publicly on the issue.
It argued that Islamic moderates could have more influence on the traditional position if the debate remained largely internal."
Could this attempt to prevent any public discussion of what happens to apostates in Islam, in which Zaki Badawi took part, be responsible for the refusal to admit him -- or at least be part of it?
"Could this attempt to prevent any public discussion of what happens to apostates in Islam, in which Zaki Badawi took part, be responsible for the refusal to admit him -- or at least be part of it?"
If so, it would reveal an astonishing crumb of rational sanity -- whose overall dearth has been leaving me sociopolitically starving -- on the part of the Bush Administration.
What do you suspect?
I suspect our Homeland Security doesn't have much idea what a real Jihadist Muslim or subtle taqiyya spewing Muslim is. But in their own pea brained brontosaurus way they are sending a message to these Mohammedan notables (Tariq Ramadan et al.) that they are not welcome here. That the USA is not their oyster the way London and Europe are. Thank God there are oceans between us and the "best of people" Arab Muslims. Europe is not so lucky.
Hugh (Oh, Hugh... tugs at his coat hem from below, Oh, Mister Hugh...),
Is that "open letter" available online anywhere? I Googled "Lettera aperta a Tariq Ramadan" + Magdi Allam and only got one hit -- a previous mention by you in dhimmiwatch.
In Googling the book in which you say that open letter appears, I found this blurbed quote from Allam:
"The culture of hate and death which the West always associates with Muslims is not in the DNA of Islam."
1) Allam thus seems to be of the "Good Islam has been hijacked by extremists" school
2) He's wrong about the West: the majority of the West has internalized PC multiculturalism and actually refuses to associate Muslims with a culture of hate and death. He seems to be as ill-informed about the West as some here in jihadwatch.
I don't know if the "Lettera aperta" addressed to Tariq Ramadan, or the one before it, also appended to the main text, addressed to Oriana Fallaci, can be found on-line. At some point I am sure they will be translated and posted; I will do it if I have time and post it here.
As far as Magdi Allam's inability to come to terms with Islam, even though he himself, an editor at the Corriere, and a frequest guest on the state-owned television channel (the RAI, whether on RAI UNO, RAI DUE, or RAI TRE), and a public figure by now, has had fro the past two years to go about with several bodyguards, and even though he tells 90% of the truth about Islam, it is that last 10% that, out of filial piety (he writes movingly of his pious relatives back in Egypt, and how kind and good they were, and he seems not to consider that perhaps they were kind and good despite Islam, because they did not take in Islam)--it is a mystery.
Or rather, it isn't a mystery, and the whole problem of these very intelligent people who, because Islam is a complete system, and because so much of their own being, their own sense of themselves, their own civilizational and personal self-esteem, is wrapped up in it, they just can't do what Ibn Warraq and others have done. For some it may be downright dangerous -- could Fouad Ajami publicly announce, because it must drive him crazy not to be able to comment on Islam truthfully (he's too intelligent not to know the score), that he is an apostate, or that he prefers to call himself a "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslim -- could he? And if so, could he still visit Beirut, those cafes, and then go on over to Kuwait, and so on? Could he, or is he perhaps more valuable to the cause of sanity, as he sees it, by not declaring apostasy?
And for that matter there is also the career to think of. What would Fareed Zakaria do, if he were to declare that yes, I have a wine column, and yes, I am about as "Muslim" as Ibn Warraq, but really, then my column, my "voice-of-moderate Muslim" role goes out the window, and I am as much a careerist as the rest of those who covet, or already possess, the kind of job I do.
By the way, Magdi Allam's "parting-of-ways" Open Letter to Oriana Fallaci sounds quite reasonable, quite intelligent, and you want to agree with him. For he's right -- her voice can be shrill, and her denunciation of Muslims is fairly categorical. And then you think about things, you go away from his text, you forgive Fallaci her self-dramatisation and a few gross errors of fact (which may be typos, in fact, that she never bothered to correct and no one dared to second-guess her), and in the end, you decide -- or I did -- that she holds up, she needed to scream what she screamed, and he, in the end, cannot see, despite his tone of sweet reason, which is very persuasive (Magdi Allam is thin, very dry or "asciutto" -- physically, he may remind one of that other exemplar of dryness Elie Kedourie), he in the end is wrong.
Hugh, the translation would be appreciated by me as well. I often search the sources you mention and follow up with the reading. All your efforts to educate us is greatly appreciated!!!
Hugh wrote...taqiyya-and-kitman brigade of smilers..
That's pretty good. I have been calling it a conspiracy of taquiyya within a community, whether that is family, neighborhood, or the world ummah.
About time they start blocking the entry of these Blood Lust low walking sub-humans. Now I can't wait until our government grows some balls and start closing our borders......Americans are angry....everyday they are expressing their opinions on open borders and our 20-24 million illegals in the U.S.A. Our wages are being brought down to minimum wage.....far cry from a living wage...where the average house is $350,000.00. Americans don't want to live 20 to a home like some of these illegals. It is war on both fronts...illegals from the third world (majority from Mexico) and these radical muslim sub-human terrorists!
Let the Game Begin!
Boo-hoo!
Should we care if the Americans get it wrong once or twice - indeed if they got it wrong at all?
What we need to do - is to clearly define - what the moderate position is in Islam? Because we are all a little bit confused.
Did Mr/Dr Badawi show up at the airport with a women dressed in all black (up to her eyeballs)?
The wearing of black is definitely an orthodox form of dress.
What is moderate in Islam?
Sometimes you just have to trust your instincts – it’s called survival.
Just ban ALL Muslims from EVER entering the USA and send the ones who are here back where they came from. It'll simplify the paperwork.
I hope they don't reverse themselves at INS next week and apologize.
If this expulsion stands, it is the first "dragon's tooth" in the line of defense we need to ring the country. Psychologically, tactically and strategically.
May it be the first among millions of deportations, refusals and demurrals. Every Muslim in the U.S. on a bad visa (overstay, fake student, etc.) should escorted out of the country by the end of the month.
Or will it take a batch of bombers in America to galvanize the sleepwalkers in Congress?
I would recommend sending a photocopy of an alarm clock on a postcard to you members of the Senate and Houses with the note:
WAKE UP! PROTECT THE NATION! DEPORT INFIL-TRAITORS! UPHOLD YOUR OATH! AMERICA'S BORDERS ARE WIDE OPEN TO TERRORISTS! DO YOUR JOB!
GUARD THE LAND FROM ILLEGALS NOW!!!
(_______________) Your name.
If they got ten million of these, it might give them a clue.
When I traveled in Europe I needed a special visa for France and was questioned at the border. Oh, the humanity! That was almost 20 years ago.
They pried into my business.
"What are you doing here for three months?"
Archaeology in Austria eventually.
My social life, "business or pleasure?"
Both.
And my personal possessions, "You don't have anything illegal with you from Amsterdam, do you?"
No. I'm not that stupid.
Where are you going in Austria?
University of Vienna, then Zillingtal.
The horror. I was detained upwards of two or three minutes before the Francophone Fascists were through humiliating me for being and Anglo-Slavic-North American minority in their Frankish Kingdom.