In this column in Al-Jazeera (thanks to Fjordman), Soumaya Ghannoushi points out the manifestly true and obvious fact that to take defensive measures against Islamic terrorism contradicts the multiculturalist ethos. Then she adds this:
In this context, the intensely rich and complex Islamic culture, which had fostered some of the most cosmopolitan and open societies in history, in Baghdad, Damascus, Cordoba, or Istanbul, has found itself reduced to a narrow set of vulgar stereotypes.These range from the subordination of women and arranged marriage to fanaticism and religious despotism. Such arguments bespeak much ignorance and prejudice.
Above all, they overlook the fact that all cultures are subject to different modes of interpretation, and that no culture is homogenous or absolute. To reduce the Islamic culture to these phenomena is akin to identifying ‘Britishness’ with Victorian military expansion and the British massacres of natives in Kenya, Sudan, and Malawi, or seeing Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and the burning of the corpses of so- called enemy combatants as representative of American culture.
There is a great deal wrong with this. First, the idea that those were "the most cosmopolitan and open societies in history" is extremely dubious. See here, for example, for some information about Muslim Spain.
But more importantly, to reduce British culture to Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo would be to ignore the self-criticism of Western society, and the fact that the perpetrators were prosecuted. Where in the Islamic world are those who are fighting the subordination of women and arranged marriage? They are few and far between. When a woman gets death threats for leading Islamic prayers, when one rape victim is hanged and another is barred from speaking about her plight, when even the "moderate" Jordanian Parliament votes down stiffer penalties for honor killing, and there are so many other examples of this kind, it is clear that there is in the Islamic world not anything like the Western capacity for self-criticism and reform. And there needs to be.
Nadz On-line, an young Arab American woman blogger sliced and diced Soumaya Ghannoushi very nicely in her diary the other day:
I'm sick of Soumaya Ghannoushi
For those of you who don't know who this clown is, she's a columnist for the online english AlJazeera. If it isn't enough that al-Jihaderiya has to bombard us with snuff films and tapes of the bearded he-slut offering phony truces, they make us suffer the tedious rambling of this deluded, patriarchy-loving apologist.
I've decided to summarize and analyize her latest bit of crap so you don't have to. Because I'm nice like that.
First off is the title:
Ghannoshi: Europe should accept its Muslims
Nadz: You can already see where this is going. Of course it should - but should it accept Islamofascism and terrorism? And should Muslims accept Europe, Soumaya?
Ghannoshi:In the name of culture, Bush’s wars turn into a noble mission to bring democracy to the culturally hostile Middle East, while Blair’s draconian crackdown on civil liberties becomes a necessary defence of "our British values" against cultural and religious aggression.
Nadz:How dare that imperialist cowboy pigdog try to help democratize our wonderful, utopia in the Middle East! And the nerve of Tony Blair's draconian - that's right, draconian! - desire to keep all Britons, Muslims included, from getting blown to Smithereens. And what are these draconian measures, exactly? Being able to monitor and arrest suspected terrorists? Oh my, what a police state? If you're concerned about civil liberties, honey, you might want to look at our own countries and see if you can spot any abuses there.
Ghannoshi:The dichotomy between ‘we’ and ‘they’, ‘we’ the Europeans, or Westerners, who are imbued with the light of reason and spirit of progress, and ‘they’ who still dwell in the darkness of superstition and cultural stagnation.
Nadz:Ah, I know this was coming - the old "cultural relativism" argument. Guess what? Some of us happen to think that societies with individual rights, gender equality, democracy and human rights are superior to other societies without these values. That's not a racist statement, it's a statement about culture. Read this for a start.
Ghannoshi:This colonialist rightwing discourse is on the ascendancy once more in Europe, such that the Chirac government could unashamedly recast the bleak decades of French colonisation of Africa and the Arab Maghreb as a ‘civilising mission’ in the history syllabus taught in French schools.
Nadz:Dontcha mean the eeeevil colonialist rightwing imperialist neocon christian zionist corporate conspiratorial discourse that perhaps there is a problem in Europe now with integration, and that the current system isn't working?
Ghannoshi:Instead of driving European governments to forge more open relations with their socially deprived and institutionally marginalised religious and ethnic minorities and to review their policies of illegitimate military expansionism, September 11 has turned into a pretext for clinging to a right wing aggressive agenda at home and an arrogant foreign interventionism.
Nadz:Yeah, after 9/11, we had the nerve to respond to a direct attack on civilization - we used it as an excuse, no less, to attack the nuts who attacked us. We should have had a few diversity workshops instead, asking why bearded mullahs don't like us.
Ghannoshi:In this climate, multiculturalism has been painted as Europe’s scourge and the root of its ills. As one writer put it, "the time for sophistry is over…. our country must assert its values".
Europe’s minorities are in other words the cause of all its social, political and economic deficiencies. The remedy lies in suffocating them through stringent legislations and ruthless practices, from stop- and- search and surveillance, to control orders and shoot- and- kill police tactics.
Nadz:Oh, how ruthless! Being asked to open your bag in a ------- train station! Asking that you at least accept and adhere to a country's values of freedom and individual rights. And no, minorities are not the cause of all of Europe's problems - socialism, unreformed economies and the bureaucracy of the EU are probably part of the problem. But when a large portion of the populace has hostility to the country and refuses to integrate, this is a cause for concern, no?
Ghannoshi:They and their faith have been reduced to a security problem to be dealt with exclusively by the intelligence services. However much Europe’s Muslims attempt to prove their allegiance to the nation-state, they remain in the eyes of its strategists a fifth column and a threat to homeland security.
Nadz:No you haven't. But consider London. Madrid. All of the thwarted terrorist threats. Isn't it legitimate to be concerned about security?
Ghannoshi:That Europe incorporates in its midst a multitude of cultures is undeniable. But cultural pluralism does not simply refer to the phenomenon of cultural diversity.
It points to the existence of many which are equal in the public arena. The presence of a multitude of communities in itself is not enough. The important thing is whether they are treated as equals by the state.
This is plainly not the case in Europe where ethnic minorities are more likely to live in poor housing, some of which unfit for human habitation, to suffer health problems, lag behind in education and experience unemployment than their white counterparts.
Nadz:I agree that the French tend to discriminate and treat immigrants as second-class citizens. Something needs to be done to solve a complicated problem. Like, maybe, integration? The problem is, many do not want to integrate.
Ghannoshi:Denouncing multiculturalism has become a gate to reviving the tradition of cultural essentialism, with its belief in the superiority of European culture and myths of the white man’s burden and his civilising mission.
Nadz:I've touched on this before. The belief that democracy and individual rights are good values that people should strive for does NOT mean racism. Ayan Hirsi Ali, an African woman, is a good example of someone who thinks she's entitled to be an individual, even though she was born into a non-European culture.
Ghannoshi:In this context, the intensely rich and complex Islamic culture, which had fostered some of the most cosmopolitan and open societies in history, in Baghdad, Damascus, Cordoba, or Istanbul, has found itself reduced to a narrow set of vulgar stereotypes.
Nadz:Is Islamic culture open and cosmopolitan now? For it's time, yes it was, but if you looked at the old Islamic empire by modern standards, I'd give it a nyet on the freedom scale.
Ghannoshi:These range from the subordination of women and arranged marriage to fanaticism and religious despotism. Such arguments bespeak much ignorance and prejudice.
Nadz:Vulgar stereotypes, eh? So I guess these issues are NOT a problem? As an educated Muslim woman, you should be trying to combat these problems, not push them under the carpet and write them off as "prejudice".
Ghannoshi:Some liberals are particularly fond of the following question: How, they ask, is it possible to be tolerant with the intolerant? But with the recent assaults on civil liberties and the drive to police the public sphere and encroach into the private realm of the citizen in Europe and the US, this inherently flawed question has been reversed.
Nadz:You can't be tolerant of the intolerant.
But there is something even more hypocritical and sinister here. You are lecturing western countries about civil liberties and freedom that you, as an Islamist who wants a more religious society, do not believe in yourself. If you had your way, individual rights would not be as important as defending the welfare of the ummah and apologizing for terrorism.
And for that, Soumaya Ghannoushi, I hereby declare you a Cheerleader of Patriarchy.
Nadz also tells readers to check out some of the comments posted in response to Ghannoushi's A-J article as some of them "take Ghannoushi to school".
http://nadz101.blogspot.com/
Complex is right; when a young woman has to weigh the consequences of reporting her own rape for fear of her male relatives, I guess you could call that complex.
Those intensely rich islamic cultures might once have existed in some form, though I would imagine the criteria for 'richness' leaves much to be desired.
Those cultures certainly dont exist today, which is why the muslim immigrants are flocking to the west. Why would they leave behind a paradise, and if it exists, why not return?
Soumaya Ghannoushi...do you have a one-way ticket to Tehran yet? Ill help you pack.
Glad you are still around Fjordman.
"When in Rome, do as the Romans do." This old chestnut is a metaphor for not making cultural waves while visiting, or even living in, a foreign city. Foreigners, even those that become citizens have the duty to put aside and even jettison the cultural baggage that does not mesh with the new society in which they find themselves. This act is the first step to assimilation. Immigrants, and visitors, that do this will find that they will be accepted after a trial period. However, if they do not, by making themselves odd or apart from the mainstream, they have only themselves to blame for their ostracism.
Apparently Muslims don't or won't understand this maxim. Perhaps it's because they didn't come to be accepted, but to affect a cultural overthrow, the stated goal of some of the less subtle among them. No one should be surprised that the mainstream is fighting back, pushing them aside, and demanding they be removed.
"the intensely rich and complex Islamic culture, which had fostered some of the most cosmopolitan and open societies in history, in Baghdad, Damascus, Cordoba, or Istanbul"
-- from the article by Ghannoushi above
While the "intensely rich and complex Islamic culture in Baghdad, Damascus, Cordoba, and Istanbul turn out, on closer inspection, not to be quite as depicted since Romantic writers -- Sir Walter Scott (the nobility of the Muslim warriors in "The Talisman"), Chateaubriand (nostalgia for Islamic Spain in "Le dernier des Abencerages" by a writer who was just having fun in the way he made up things about places he never visited in North America, and who also wrote "La genie du Christianisme"), and Washington Irving ("Tales of the Alhambra")--the myth lives on.
It lives on in such books as "Ornament of the World" by Maria Rosa Menocal (google "Maria Rosa Menocal" and "Jihad Watch" for more), in which a mythical Cordoba stands in for a mythical Andalusia (the very word makes one swoon). That Maria Rosa Menocal is a professor of Romance Languages at Yale, and Director of the Whitney Humanities Center, and her book receives an endorsement from Harold Bloom, that famous Islamic scholar, yet fails even to mention, in the bibliography, much less to have made use of, Evariste Levi-Provencal's work on Islamic Spain, or more recent specialists such as Charles-Emmanuel Dufourcq (one of his essays on this very subject is reprinted in Bostom's anthology "The Legacy of Jihad"), should raise an eyebrow.
The court of Haroun al-Raschid was not Periclean Athens, Elizabethan London, Paris at the time of the Sun King, or Pushkin's Petersburg. A House of Translators (mostly Jewish and Christian) does not amount to a cultural flowering. The list of major figures, not Christian nor Jewish nor near-apostates, who came out of Damascus, Baghdad, Cordoba, or Istanbul, cannot amount to more than a few dozen, if that. If one further examines individual cases -- Rhazes or al-Razi --one finds that these were nearly freethinkers, one step away from persecution, and achieved whatever they did not as loyal Believers, but despite Islam. One does not credit the Soviet Union, tote up to the heroic achievements of the Great Socialist Revolution, Ilf and Petrov, Kharms, Platonov, Sakharov, still less Mandelshtam, and still less emigre writers (at his death Nabokov was misidentified in some newspapers as a "Soviet" writer).
As for Cordoba, those those who like to adduce the example of Maimonides as a happy camper in Cordoba, fail to realize that he fled Spain, that he fled Morocco, that he managed to find relative security, because his medicla knowledge was useful, at the Fatimid court in Cairo, and that his own summary of how he felt about the treatment of Jews at the hands of Muslims -- a summary that does not make it into Menocal's book, or for that matter into Sherman Nuland's just-published biography -- is to be found in his Epistle to Yemen, with its bitter denunciation of the foul treatment that was the common lot of Jews in that period of supposed convivencia.
Bernard Lewis, who is busy chipping away at his own monument, so that posterity will be left with far less than if he had been silent these past few years, or at least had owned up to a few mistakes - including his scandalous refusal to admit not only to the mistake of supporting the Oslo Accords, but why his enthusiasm for those "Accords" made no sense if he took seriously the principles of Islamic law, and the model of Al-Hudaibiyya; his behind-the-scenes belittling of Bat Ye'or, and his own refusal to recognize that the history of dhimmitude (a word he likes to mock as "dhimmi-tude" as if it is a preposterous, rather than useful, addition to the lexicon) of which she is the pioneer, has produced important scholarship; his own blind spot about the mistreatment of Christians under Islam, have led him to focus almost entirely on what happened to Jews, and he cannot get out of his head the matter of comparative mistreatment, and exhibits an unwillingness to treat deeply, or treat at all, the mistreatment of others, including Christians, Zoroastrians, in the Middle East, and since he carefully circumscribes his work, he has never written about the remarkable similarities in the mistreatment of Hindus under Muslim rule, to the treatment meted out to Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians. And he doesn't stop -- see the latest "American Scholar" -- but, even as he foresees the "Islamization of Europe," he does not tell us what he thinks should, could, ought to be done about it, rather than simply calmly predicting, as if it were something merely to be noted, not to be horrified by. This guarded, careful, solicitous-at-every-point-of-Muslim sensibilities public figure (as he now is), with thosehome-truths-always-confided-sotto-voce manner, should do a bit more to warn, and a bit less ignoring of Bat Ye'or and others who have, in some ways, shown the lacunae in his own scholarship.
For it is those who continue to soothe Muslim sensibilities by constant reference to this exaggerated "convivencia" and supposed cultural greatness that, the more you study it, the less there seems to be of it. Lewis's insensate comparisons between Europe in the Middle Ages with a supposedly superior "Islamic" civlization (a civilization that he does not analyze as existing for a few hundred years, at most, on what was left, material, and spiritual, by the conquered Jews and Christians, who continued to fructify what is now misleadingly called "Islamic" civilization, after the name of the conquerors, but many of the outstanding figures either were from those conquered, or fro those, among the conquered, who had either converted themselves, or were the sons of converts, but still just a generation away from non-Islamic influences and freer ways of thought.
Does anyone think that if Europeans lose control of their own civilization, and through Da'wa and demographic conquest become subject to Muslim rule, that all non-Islamic influences will suddenly end? They will live on, for a while, just as they must have in the Middle East and North Africa, ever-dwindling, but still twitching, still alive, for a while. Lewis doesn't mention any of that, doesn't see it.
Lewis, in fact, gave three short paragraphs, two of them exculpatory, out of 400 pages in his popular survey, "The Middle East." He continues to ignore the subject of what happened, to all those non-Muslims, all those Jews, those Christians, those Zoroastrians, conquered by islam. Under what conditions did they live? What led some to convert, slowly, over time? What were the effects, for example, of the jizyah? How onerous was it(see, on this, the remarkable admission of S. D. Goitein, in his late-in-life introduction to "A Mediterranean Society," that he had completely re-thought his view of the jizya, how understanding its full effect as he never had before -- after a lifetime of work, some of it devoted to "Arab-and-Jew-convivencia" studies.
And Lewis seldom forgets to pay formulaic treatment to the greatness of Islamic civilization, comparing it to the European Middle Ages, and having the Europeans suffer by his comparison. But his "Middle Ages" are always the Dark Ages, and a caricature to boot. Lewis appears not to have kept up with Western scholarship on that period, and all the things that have led to a re-evaluation, upward, of those formerly deprecated times. For the last half-century at least, there have been many important studies of the Middle Ages, yet the popular imagination continues to believe in those "myths that will not die" so vivaciously dissected, for the mass audience, in Regine Pernoud's "Those Terrible Middle Ages!" Bernard Lewis appears to be one of those convinced that what he learned in the 1930s as a schoolboy, about those European Middle Ages, remains fixed forever, in amber. But "Forever Amber" should be no historian's motto, and the same goes for Lewis's refusal to engage sympathetically with what is presented in "The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam." He has never reveiwed the book, never written about it. He goes slyly around, denigrating Bat Ye'or, making fun of the word "dhimmitude" as "dhimmi-tude" -- thus we are supposed to believe the word is illegitimate, for no one can add to the wordhoard, apparently.
In a world of espositos and armstrongs, Lewis stands out. But that should not be the opint of comparison. Snouck Hurgronje, Joseph Schacht (on Schacht's death Lewis wrote an elegant tribute), and many of the scholars of Islam presented in "The Legacy of Jihad." And Bat Ye'or, who has had the means to work as an independent scholar, outside the university system, and has never felt the need, as Lewis so obviously has, to placate or soothe ruffled feelings (very easily ruffled feelings) of Muslim colleagues, to be critical, but always leaving those colleagues the out of a glorious past, which required Lewis to stay away from subjects -- the treatment of non-Muslims -- that would perhaps have required from him, a different conclusion.
That such remarks as those in the article above can continue to be made is not owed to Lewis alone. Muslims, even the quasi-truth-tellers who cannot bring themselves to discuss the role of Islam as explaining the political, economic, social, and intellectual disarray, that has merely been exposed, not created by the outside world, in the new conditions of OPEC-prosperity that have removed any traditional excusees, and demonstrated what, given vast unearned wealth, the Muslims naturally create -- and what they create, as societies, is telling. And we have every right to tell about it, and to relate it to the long history of Muslim conquest and Muslim subjugation of non-Muslims.
Lewis may think he bears no responsiblity for articles like that above. He may think he has been sufficiently judicious. He is wrong. He has been wrong before. He has admitted, privately, that he has been wrong before. What he cannot seem to do is to write something, publicly, showing his own remarkable twists and turns, and perhaps even, at this late date, paying tribute, by name, to Bat Ye'or. He just can't do it. He won't do it. And posterity will judge him by what, at this point, he has to tell us of value, that will help to prevent, rather than merely to predict, the Islamization of Europe.
"Muslims, even the quasi-truth-tellers who cannot bring themselves to discuss the role of Islam as explaining the political, economic, social, and intellectual disarray, that has merely been exposed, not created by the outside world, in the new conditions of OPEC-prosperity that have removed any traditional excuses, and demonstrated what, given vast unearned wealth, the Muslims naturally create -- and what they create, as societies, is telling."
Nice summary!
The tragedy of Lewis is that he is a very talented historian. The problem is that much like Donner, he doesn't like to deviate from the Muslim party line, except in extreme situations (e.g. he doesn't demonize Israel). I've read "the Crisis of Islam" and I was horrified that it was written by Lewis. Lewis has some "truth moments" in the book, but it was generally a whitewashing of Islam and blaming Islam's hatred of the West (but it should have been more accurately described as the infidel, that's the real crisis) on the dreaded "Wahabbis". I also came away thinking that Lewis did not understand Islamic theology that well after reading his very weak argument that Khomeini's fatwa was "unIslamic".
Also, it just amazed me how Lewis could say something like this:
“The Muslim fundamentalists, unlike the Protestant groups whose name was transferred to them, do not differ from the mainstream on questions of theology and the interpretation of scripture. Their critique is, in the broadest sense, societal. The Islamic world, in their view, has taken a wrong turning. Its rulers call themselves Muslims and make a pretense of Islam, but they are in fact apostates who have abrogated the Holy Law and adopted foreign and infidel customs. The only solution, for them, is a return to the authentic Muslim way of life, and for this the removal of the apostate governments is an essential first step. Fundamentalists are anti-Western in the sense that they regard the West as the source of the evil that is corroding Muslim society, but their primary attack is directed against their own rulers and leaders.” (p24)
and then turn around and say this on the very next page:
“Islam is one of the world’s great religions. It has given dignity and meaning to drab and impoverished lives. It has taught men of different races to live in brotherhood and people of different creeds to live side by side in reasonable tolerance. It inspired a great civilization in which others besides Muslims lived creative and useful lives and which, by its achievement, enriched the whole world. But Islam, like other religions, has also known periods when it inspired in some of its followers a mood of hatred and violence. It is our misfortune that we have to confront part of the Muslim world while it is going through such a period, and when most – though by no means all – of that hatred is directed against us.” (p25)
Lewis also derided the concept of naskh in the book, which I found troubling. Is he lying about Islamic theology or is he just ignorant? I still don't know.
"Such arguments bespeak much ignorance and prejudice...Above all, they overlook the fact that all cultures are subject to different modes of interpretation..."
"Modes of interpretation?"
I never heard of "modes of interpretation" before. With them, I suppose, you can explain anything any way you want; you just have to be in the right "mode of interpretation."
"appeasement mode"
"apologist mode"
"victim/martyr mode"
I have read Soumaya Ghannoushi's editorial on the Al-Jazeera website and have seethed at the misinformation appearing below the coy, winsome image of Ms. Ghannoushi appearing in the headline. Nadz On-Line does as effective job as is possible in vivisecting Ms. Ghannoushi's hypocritical moral instruction.
Waterdragon: you're two for two today.
... the intensely rich and complex Islamic culture, which had fostered some of the most cosmopolitan and open societies in history...
Islamic "cultures" in all their glory are uniformly impoverished, simple, and barren. The absence of art, literature, and science in them is startling. The paucity of politics and free thought in them is embarrassing. Further, these so-called cultures are uniformly insular and closed, as commanded by God himself in the Koran.
Benighted, Moslems point to the golden light cast off by the flames of edge nation Infidel cultures as they are extinguished by the dark hand of Islam. Such a glorious golden light shone during the extinguishment of Byzantium; the snuffing of Persian culture is also another brilliant example of the light of "Islamic culture."
And now the Moslem campfire dance has started in Europe, I can't wait to see the jackboot of Islam crush out the flames of light of the very cradle of modern civilization. We can bask in that glow, too.
Why accept anything or anyone who is so intolerant of your culture and beliefs?
Muslims migrants are the ones that should accept their new homes as they are, not try to drag them back to the 7th century, where more time was spent swinging swords than bathing.
How pompus these people are. They come from nothing but dirt, sand, machetes, and poverty, get an opportunity to do something productive (that's productive, not reproductive)with their lives, but instead they follow a flawed group of Muslim spokespersons who are out to Islamize the planet. (ie: slap nuts).
They should assimilate, or stay in their shit heap homelands.
"Al-Jazeera columnist: Europe should accept its Muslims"
I have a different idea.
"US_infidel: Dar-al-Islam should accept back Europe's Muslims"
On another thread, Sheik yer Mami notes that in Germany, 77 mosques are under construction and 123 are planned.
Lots of money at work. Where's it coming from? It would seem to suggest a lot of people using those mosques. Lots of people who had a choice to drink from clear waters, but who insist instead on bringing the desert with them. So, Ms. Ghannoushi, why should the West accept the destruction of its precious cultural heritage, the desertification of its own identity, its conquest at the hands of marauders. Is Istanbul preferable to Constantinople? Not in my book.
The West must indeed tolerate its minorities and defend their human rights. But acceptance is a different matter. Acceptance connotes a capitulation to a point of view, resulting in an accommodation to that point of view at the expense of previously held values. Acceptance of Islam in the West would constitute an error of cataclysmic proportions. It brings me no happiness to anticipate that after much of the destruction inevitably following a Muslim takeover, the murders, the vandalism, the theft, that the Muslim conquerors will arrogate the best of the remainder to themselves. They will attribute this remainder to Islamic culture, including the work of thinkers, artists and scientists who would be surprised to find their lives and work described in later generations as Islamic. This follows the pattern of the Islamic "Golden Age" following the looting of cultures not their own, the Arab Muslims took time to understand the manuscripts that survived the pillage and took them as their own.
No Ms. Ghannoushi, the West must not accept this. It must prevent this.
Igor wrote:
"Is he lying about Islamic theology or is he just ignorant? I still don't know."
History is not math. You can believe whatever you want, and you will have plenty of "credible" sources to justify your views.
I suppose that few historians have high standards, a sense of responsibility, and dedication to the objective truth, which compel them to read everything they can get their hands on, including what their critics say. Needless to say, Bernie Lewis ain't one of these exceptional few.
Chattillon:
thanks for the "gold stars". I've pretty much given following conventional sources of information, finding bloggers like Harry's Place, Nadz much more interesting and useful sources. Of course they often x-link to trad media, whether it's a good story or to cut it up.
History is not math. You can believe whatever you want, and you will have plenty of "credible" sources to justify your views.
Yet the realities of history are knowable. You wouldn't think that if you listen to the pinhead morons in academia, but reality does indeed occur and can be accurately described.
Deconstructionism for all its pomposity and self-congratulation claims only to guarantee ignorance. Hell, if I need to get stupid I don't need to get a PhD and write nonsensical essays; I can just go down to the local mosque, sign up for the Islam, and start scowling away.
"Al-Jazeera columnist: Europe should accept its Muslims" Translation: "Europe, SBUMIT!"
"Deconstructionism for all its pomposity and self-congratulation claims only to guarantee ignorance." - APF
Well put.
"Where in the Islamic world are those who are fighting the subordination of women and arranged marriage? They are few and far between."
INDEED!
I would also add that most efforts to explain why Islam isn't about terrorism, degradation of women, hatred, and intolerance, seem mainly to occur in infidel lands and to convince infidels, rather than the legions of Muslims who so misunderstand Islam as to practice terrorism, degradation of women, hatred, and intolerance...
Why do most of these efforts occur ONLY in infidel lands, where these apologists for Islam can promulgate their fairytales about a non-existent Islam? It is because we are not Muslim ourselves, and therefore this vocal aspiring minority of Muslims can speak about Islam, or lie about Islam, without fear (as yet) of murder and maiming by their coreligionists...
How poisonous! If these avant guard Muslim apologists are successful in their disinformation campaigns about the nature of Islam, then the time will come where they too are in danger for speaking thus about Islam, not from an intolerant West as they would like to pretend, but from the selfsame Muslim hoardes which these prevaricators would encourage us to allow in increasing numbers into our lands...
Persons such as Soumaya Ghannoushi are agents in the fifth column, and they are attempting to march us down a one way street, the cul-de-sac of Islam, and the dead end it represents... Such agents would have us believe their lies about Islam, such agents wish for us to remain asleep about Islam, and wish most for us to continue to allow the Muslim menace to grow in our midst until we can do little about it...
With acceptance of Muslims comes banning of pork soup, a staple in France.
Pork Soup Becomes Political in France
I too am intensely rich and complex. My mind stretches to the horizon like an Abarbian desert. My heart is as black as oil. My very teeth are as green as the flags of Islam.
Why, I deserve a government grant to write a report about myself and my inner loveliness. Yes, I be a hit at al Jezeera. I foresee a rise in my happiness quotient.
Intensely rich and complex....
But will it work at the dancehall?
OOPS! Typo! That should have read "Europe SUBMIT!". Sorry 'bout that chief!
Perhaps it is only becuase I've been paying attention, but it seems to me muslims have been getting awfully uppity since 9-11.
Ain't nothing new. If you wanna talk about chutzpah, how about that crazy time way back in 627AD when Mohammed sent letters to the leaders of the Persian Empire, Byzantium Empire, Abyssinian Empire, and Egypt containing a death threat unless they all agreed convert to Islam.
Remember, in 627 Islam was a raggedy band of thieves and murders that could barely raise a cavalry of 500 horsemen and camel pilots.
With all the power Moslems have now (petrodollars), should we be surprised that our moonrock worshipper neighbors are uppity now?
In Strasbourg, pork soup was banned this month after officials deemed it could disrupt public order.
My God, I could be wiped out!
Intensely rich and complex....
But will it work at the dancehall?
You can bet it won't. Smart girls know a phoney/a liar when they see one (i.e.,one who uses tautological fillers/feelers to get a dance and a little bossom)
In laymen's terms, her call for Europe is to:
"Lie back and enjoy it."
I find pepper spray in their eyes, and a bent hatpin in their crotch works better.
Muslims on the Continent are like the ancient myth of the Rape of Europa.
Except that the modern EU victims of this immigration 'violation' have a guilty colonial conscience and seem unable to get beyond their cultural need for masochistic self-abasement in order to rouse their dithering instincts and defend themselves.
What they hell good is Islam to the West?
Do they bring anything but disruption, imperialistic delusions, resentment, Koran-santified lies, social-leeching and sub-human stupidities like "honor killing" and "a 'religious' call for death if you become an apostate to Islam"?
We've got plenty of home-grown morons. Importing a crazier crop from the 7th century is about as brilliant as bringing in more kudzu. (Although at least that invasive vine has some practical uses, unlike the Koran.)
"Hell, if I need to get stupid I don't need to get a PhD and write nonsensical essays; I can just go down to the local mosque, sign up for the Islam, and start scowling away." (Alarmed Pig Farmer)
Well said!
YES LETS SEE WHAT THOSE MULSUMS HAVE BROUGHT THE WORLD??
BEHEADINGS AT 11
BUSES BLOWN UP WITH PEOPLE STILL IN
THEM
THEN WE HAVE THE CLOSINGS OF DANCE HALLS IN FRANCE BECAUSE NOT ENOUGH PLOICE TO PROTECT THEM FROM MULSUMS??
AND OF COURE WE CAN'T LEAVE OUT THE MULSUM RAPE GANGS
OR WOULD IT BE THE KILLING OF THE GIRL CHILDREN BECAUSE THEY MARRIED SOMEONE THE FATHER OR BROTHER DIDN'T LIKE
HAVE I LEFT ANYTHING OUT
OH YEA
SOME FLIM FROM THE MULSUMS IN FRANCE
http://media.putfile.com/French-riots
now maybe I just aint getting the right picture but, I think I am.........
Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
GOD BLESS THE COUNTRIES WHO HAVE HEROS PITY NOT THE COUNTRIES WHO NEED THEM AMEN
OH YEA FORGOT THE STAMPEADS AND THE STONE-INGS HOW COULD I FORGET THOSE
Sure why dont we all
Just bend over for Islam
Have a grenade put where the sun doesnt shine
And when you see that islamic rusty knife
SAWING off your OWN head...
Do not pay any attention to it...
Do not attempt to struggle
Do not attempt to save your own life...
For the Good liberals have already decided
Who they WANT to WIN...
And i have a clue for ya...
IT ISNT THE USA!!!
Zenta
Whilst Eugene was in Italy the campaign dragged on in the East. In 1690 the Ottomans recaptured Serbia including Belgrade although the following year Louis of Baden captured all of Transylvania. The war ground to a stalemate for the next six years.
Eugene was given command of the army in Hungary in 1697. He joined his force of 30,000 men at Peterwardein with orders to stand on the defensive. The Ottoman Sultan Mustapha personally lead his army north from Belgrade along the River Tisza. Eugene also went North linking up with reinforcements which strengthened his army to 50,000 men. Mustapha moved on Szeged and Eugene followed with his Hussars limiting Mustapha’s intelligence due to their shortage of cavalry. The Sultan lost his nerve and ordered his army to cross the Tisza at Zenta on a pontoon bridge.
On 11 September a captured Pasha disclosed that whilst the Sultan and his artillery had crossed the river the bulk of the infantry with the Grand Vizier had not. Eugene rushed his army to the high ground above Zenta. His left wing infantry used a sandbank to get behind the Turkish defences and cut off access to the bridge. Some 20,000 Turks including the Grand Vizier were slaughtered and a further 10,000 drowned. Eugene’s army lost about 300 men.
This victory was decisive and lead to the Treaty of Karlowitz 1699 in which the Hapsburgs gained all of Hungary and Transylvania except the Banat of Temesvar. Eugene’s reputation was made across Europe.
I have relatives living in Holland who are absolutely dismayed at the way things are developing in that country. These are fantastic people who survived German occupation (my mother was also living in Holland at that time) only to live to see Muslim colonisation/arab expansionism in action. The most tolerant people in the world don't deserve this fate.
It's easy to predict what's going to happen based on the demographics. It's not racism, its not religious bigotry, ITS SIMPLE MATH. A muslim majority in 50 years, ya? The end, game over. Rather unfair.
mistyhymen says:"A Muslim majority in 50 years,ya?..Rather unfair."
If the Hollanders are siting quite ,doing nothing about it,what you fear will do happen.
The great disadvantage of too much Freedom and Good life , is turning the Western countries,as well as Americans in to selfish ,lazy ,'what may happen let it happen'type of people.
They have lost their patriotism of their country, dont care for their religion,and live a 'devil I care' life.
But when Push comes to showell, (which is already started) they all will wake up, and -why 50 years,with in five years,you can see the change in their attitude,and you can see the plight of these intruders,who now dictates to us to take more muslims into Europe.There will be open slaughter,and blood bath if things go on like this.