Don't miss the riveting account by Joe Kaufman and Jeff Epstein of how the Marriott hotel chain refused space to an anti-jihad conference (at which, incidentally, I was scheduled to speak) but allowed CAIR to come -- and responded to protests that they feared Muslim violence.
Find it here, at Dhimmi Watch.
Read this article from Dawn, one of Pakistan's largest newspapers:
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/mazdak/mazdak.htm
Oops, I'm not feeling the love again. Silly me. I know, I know, I'm just a foolish intolerant guy, who's in need of constant upbraiding. Everybody tells me to feel more love. But unfortunately, I'm just an old stick in the mud, who's behind the times. I guess I'm just not loving enough. Right? I mean, that's the only thing I can really think of. After all, it couldn't possibly be that someone else's conduct might not be worth tolerating, or anything like that. It must just all be me. Maybe, as a guy, I just need to get in touch with my Dhimmi side. Then I can feel the love more. Because everyone knows that the highest aspiration is to love thy neighbor, and so obviously I can't be a good person without doing that.
Article follows:
Conversion losses
By Irfan Husain
MEET Sanno Amra and his wife Champa: a middle-aged Hindu couple. They live in a small, simple but spotlessly clean home in Karachi’s Punjab Colony.
Until six weeks ago, they lived with their five children, reasonably content with their lot. Sanno worked as a chauffeur, and his wife cooked for a family. On October 18, their lives suddenly fell apart: Champa returned home from work to discover that her three oldest daughters were missing — Reena (21), Usha (19) and Rima (17) had seemingly vanished without a trace. This is any parent’s worst nightmare, but the couple’s woes had only begun.
After searching frantically for the girls, they went to the local police station where the SHO put them off without registering a case. A couple of days later, they met the deputy superintendent of police for Clifton. This proved to be the only bright spot in the entire tragic episode, for DSP Raza Shah went out of his way to help. He forced his subordinates to file an FIR, and his intervention was invaluable in ensuring the safety of the parents. And just for the record, the MQM ‘sector-in- charge’ also lent them his organisation’s support.
On October 22, a police FIR for kidnapping was duly prepared, naming three young men from the neighbourhood as the principal suspects. Immediately, Sanno and his wife started getting threats from their neighbours. Earlier they had never had any problems, although they were the only Hindu family in a predominantly Muslim locality. But now, the same people were pressuring them to remove the names of the local boys from the FIR.
Within days, they received a package by courier containing three identical affidavits signed by their daughters, stating that they had converted to Islam of their own free will. The declaration concluded: “That since my parents are Hindu and after conversion of my religion, it is not possible for me to live and pass my life in Hindu system/society [sic] and therefore, I have decided to live separately...”
According to their affidavits, the girls (now calling themselves Afshan, Anam and Nida) were living in the hostel of the Madarsa Taleem-ul-Quran, and were being instructed by a local moulvi. On November 10, a court order directed the police and the administrators of the seminary to arrange a meeting between the girls and their parents.
When Sanno and Champa finally met their daughters, they were shocked to see that they were in burqas that concealed them from head to toe, leaving only their eyes uncovered. The eyes of the youngest girl were bloodshot from weeping. At this supposedly private meeting, a dour woman was present throughout as were a moulvi and a couple of cops. In subdued voices muffled by heavy fabric, the girls said they wanted to stay where they were.
Understandably, the parents are convinced that their daughters were under pressure. In fact, they simply cannot come to terms with the notion that their children have not only abandoned them, but also the faith they grew up in. As far as they are concerned, their daughters have been brainwashed. Interestingly, the girls have cited “religious channels on TV” as the reason for their conversion.
Since their daughters left, Sanno and Champa have not returned to their jobs. They stay at home with Suraj and Arti, their young son and daughter and wait for news. Apart from their neighbours, they have also been isolated by their own community. According to Sanno, other Hindus look down on them because of their girls’ apparent conversion. Face, that most pernicious of Asian values, has been lost.
I spoke to DSP Raza Shah and asked him if in his opinion, any pressure had been brought to bear on the girls. He was sure it had been a voluntary conversion, adding that it was very possible that neighbours might have influenced them. The parents are clear that their daughters never watched TV in their presence, nor did they ever discuss the possibility of a conversion. According to Vijay, a relative, twenty girls from the Hindu community had converted to Islam in the last five years.
Talking to the parents in their simple home, I could feel their pain and their distress. “We just sit and stare at each other”, Sanno said. “For us, life is over.” Above all, they want the certainty of the knowledge that their daughters did not abandon them voluntarily. They went back to the madressah recently where they were refused access to their daughters. “Even if they have become Muslims, we are still their parents,” Champa said tearfully. The moulvi at the madressah, instead of being sympathetic, invited Sammo and Champa to convert as well.
What the stricken parents are looking for is closure: once they are satisfied that their daughters will never come home again, they will learn to live with their grief. But for this to happen, they want the girls to be moved to neutral ground like the Edhi orphanage where they can meet them without the coercive presence of moulvis and cops. But this request has been turned down by a judge.
Vijay has shared the family’s tribulations, and is understandably bitter. “Mr Jinnah had promised the minorities equal rights and protection. But it seems his promises were buried with him,” he maintains. Given the spate of conversions, some voluntary, some forced, the insecurity among the minorities, especially among Sindhi Hindus, is understandable.
Even if most of these conversions are not at gunpoint, they still take place in an overpowering environment of religiosity. Religious programmes on every private and public TV channel must leave an imprint on young minds. The need to conform at school and college where religion casts a constant shadow, must exert a subtle influence on non-Muslim students. And in a society based on faith, the minorities have been marginalized to the point where they are tempted to convert simply to get ahead in life.
But Sammo and Champa are not concerned with the larger issues regarding the place and fate of the minorities in Pakistan. All they want is justice. For them this involves being able to spend time alone with their beloved daughters, free from pressure and coercion, and to satisfy themselves that they took this drastic step on their own. Surely in a state that aspires to General Musharraf’s oft-touted ideal of ‘enlightened moderation’, this should not be too much to ask for.
The relationship the US has with Saudi Arabia should be one of purchasing oil only. They have failed to prove that they are an ally, and aren't even close to being a friend of this country. CAIR is a group of Saudi puppets, and its staff should be deported to Saudi Arabia, where they can better serve islam.
Better to offend a Muslim than to appease one
From Sanman's post above:
"The eyes of the youngest girl were bloodshot from weeping."
Yeah, it sounds like that seventeen year old girl was just dying to become a Moslem. She and her sisters decided to leave their home, get away from their parents and burqa themselves into oblivion. If these girls were so eager to convert why did they need "a dour woman...a moulvi and a couple of cops" present at the meeting with their parents? Perhaps the girls were covered with black and blue marks but their parents couldn't tell because of the burqas. Or maybe they threatened the girls' parents and therefore they decided to keep quiet. This stinks to high heaven.
One thing it makes me think about, though. Here are three young woman, at perfect ages to have several healthy children. The next thing we'll hear is that they've been married off to some nice Moslem boys, they'll all become pregnant and they'll be relegated to living in some compound with a mean mother-in-law and nothing to do all day. Could part of the Islamic plan be to kidnap as many young women as possible, terrorize them into submission and then use them for Moslem breeding machines to further the cause? That's what this sounds like to me.
I cried my eyes out when I read this story. Dearest God, how could this be possible? Look at how many people have been possibly destroyed by this. A family ripped apart. The loss of three children, just like that? The inability of the parents to protect their children because the local officials are pawns and either approve of the kidnappers behavior or are afraid to stand up to it. Isolation in the community and to top it all off, they've lost face? And this in our modern world in 2005. All because there is a group out there that believes they can come in and take whatever they want and if we don't like it they'll cut off somebody's head to frighten us into submission.
But no matter how frightened we are, we have to steel ourselves against this. We have to take this story and make a decision about how we will live, and then we have to be watchful so that we will recognize the enemy and act swiftly, accordingly. It these bastards are ruthless, we have to be ruthless, if we want to survive. And we can't wait any longer. We have to start right now.
You can switch the jackboots for sandals, the epaulettes for a turban, the raised-arm salute for a forehead on the ground, it is still The Beast, and the Beast is strong. The good and decent people of the world are the exception, not the rule, and we, and all we hold dear, are in mortal danger.
How many more? How long a string of broken hearts, shattered families, stolen futures, violated children, and destroyed societies before this bastard scum that has the f*cking nerve to put Gods name in their mouths is finally, irrevocably, and unapologetically, wiped from the face of the earth.
How many more atrocities have to be suffered before the stupid, blindly arrogant, MC/PC/ME crowd decides that maybe, just maybe, there are universal values, that dressing a child molester in an exotic outfit, or placing a rapist in an exotic setting, or having a murderer do his deeds amongst a strange culture, doesn't change the fact that they are subhuman threats to mankind. I am disgusted beyong telling by those who, claiming to be the most moral, have none. I despise those who would engage in the mental masturbation of logic gymnastics while good people suffer horrific ends.
Isabella, you are so right. We have to start now, everywhere, because the cancer is here now, everywhere. The challenges our parents faced were not confronted so that we could surrender up what has cost the decent people of this world so dearly. It's our moral obligation to stand and fight and refuse to go quietly into the dustbin of history. I refuse.
Anyone reading how the Hindu and Christian minorities are treated in Pakistan can only develop contempt for Islam and the moral degradation it imposes on its followers. Muslims are worse than a pack of wolves when they are in a group.
My initial reaction is one of relief that I don't live with my family in Pakistan, such a despicable, fanatical, bullying environment.
Like Salman Rushdie once said: "Pakistan is a stain on the face of India"
my first reaction would be to kidnap my daughters back, find some weapons, and if all else fails, die taking them down. the desparation of these parents is earth shattering... l would make sure they would pay a very large price, and would think twice before they attempted this again.
Way back when, my mother (who died in 1987) knew old man Marriott when he was getting started. I doubt that the old man would approve of such cowardice because, according to my mother, the man had some guts.
The tacit admission that Muslims at Georgetown might get upset is very telling. I thought these university Muslims were supposed to be "enlightened." Hmmmm....
Hi sanman,
welcome to JW. well i dont think this is the right forum for such articles. try sending it to ToI or even those "human rights" people like Teesta Seetalvad. My very own grand aunt (who was a lawyer) was forcibly converted to Islam and married off to an illeterate moulavi during partition. She chose to die rather than live under abuse. Needless to say those girls are about to be married off to moulavi. I hope those girls have guts to do the same.
People don't seem to understand that this is how a corporation like Mariott functions. Its goal is to make money. So therefore it does not give a damn about the principles involved as long as its revenue continues to flow. Furthermore, the reason that they permitted CAIR in is because it does cause as much contraversy as the PTF might. The Mariott is simply watching its back. Our should be to make it so CAIR is faced with contraversy rather than PTF.
Mraaiot's founder is a Mormon, and they have their own false prophet. Satan takes care of his own.....
Did not see this in any Indian Newspapers.
Might have hurt sentiments of 'minority community'
BOYCOTTMARRIOTT.COM is available for FREE to any group who plans to organize a boycott of Marriott for their cowardly and dhimmitudinous action.
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Seculartalk wrote:"Did not see this in any Indian news papers.-Might have hurt sentiments of minority(muslim) community." Neither did I see this news item in any American,or Canadian news media. These Islamic guys are good at controlling which news should go to the media around the world,and which should not(otherwise, it will effect their Pak.earth quake loot collection). It is no secret, all around the world,leading news medias are bought for Saudi arab money. These papers will mention Islamic suicide bombers as just ' activists',and islamic terror groups as 'liberators'. BBC, CNN, Time in the States, and in Canada, The Toronto Star, and Global Mail beloing to this catagory. They act like "Judas" in our countries,- eating from our own hands,,and conspiring against us.