A wild panel discussion at UC-Irvine. I am glad that it took place, because these issues urgently need to be discussed in America, and most people in the media and academia are afraid to discuss them. I wasn't there, but it does sound to me from this report as if Jesse Lee Peterson was way over the top. It's ridiculous to say that all Muslims hate America. Unless he has met and interrogated all Muslims in America, he can't possibly know that. As I have said many times, there are elements of Islam that give rise to violence and are the spearhead of today's global movement of Islamic supremacism. However, to assume that all Muslims subscribe to or are even aware of these ideas would be as foolish as assuming that all people who call themselves Christians can recite the Nicene Creed from memory, and competently explain its various elements.
Still, however, there is no reliable way to tell which Muslims hold to jihadist principles and which do not. And that is just one reason why I hope many more discussions like this one at UCI will take place across the country, so as to raise popular awareness of the reality of the jihad ideology and all its various current manifestations. From AP, with thanks to all who sent this in:
IRVINE, Calif. — A student panel discussion that included a display of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons descended into chaos, with one speaker calling Islam an "evil religion" and audience members nearly coming to blows.Organizers of Tuesday night's forum at the University of California, Irvine, said they showed the cartoons as part of a larger debate on Islamic extremism.
But several hundred protesters, including members of the Muslim Student Union, argued the event was the equivalent of hate speech disguised as freedom of expression.
Although there were numerous heated exchanges, no violence was reported.
The panel, which included one Muslim speaker, was sponsored by the College Republicans and the United American Committee, a group that says it promotes awareness of internal threats facing America.
During the discussion in a nearly packed 424-seat campus auditorium, six cartoons were displayed: three depicting Muhammad and three anti-Semitic cartoons.
The discussion got off to a contentious start with the Council on American-Islamic Relations — an invited guest — boycotting the event and calling the United American Committee a "fringe group."
Tensions quickly escalated when the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder of the conservative Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, said that Islam was an "evil religion" and that all Muslims hate America.
People repeatedly interrupted the talk and, at one point, campus police removed two men, one of them a Muslim, after they nearly came to blows.
Later, panelists were cheered when they referred to Muslims as fascists and accused mainstream Muslim-American civil rights groups of being "cheerleaders for terror."
"I put out a call to Muslims in America: Put out a fatwa on [Usama] bin Laden, put out a fatwa on [Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi," said panelist Lee Kaplan, a UAC spokesman. "Support America in the war on terror."
Thousands of Muslims worldwide have protested, sometimes violently, after the cartoons were published in a Danish newspaper and in other European newspapers. Islam widely holds that representations of Muhammad are banned for fear they could lead to idolatry.
Osman Umarji, former president of the Muslim Student Union, equated the decision by the student panel to display the prophet drawings to the debasement of Jews in Germany before the Holocaust.
"The agenda is to spread Islamophobia and create hysteria against Muslims similar to what happened to the Jews in Nazi Germany," said Umarji, an electrical engineer who graduated from Irvine last spring. "Freedom of speech has its limits."
How interesting that the one who makes the comparison to Nazism is the one who wants to limit free speech.
Brock Hill, vice president of the College Republicans, said his group had a First Amendment right to display the cartoons."We're not going against Islam whatsoever," he said. "This is about free speech and the free marketplace of ideas."
'How interesting that the one who makes the comparison to Nazism is the one who wants to limit free speech."
It's also interesting that while Umarji talks about the debasement of Jews in Germany before the Holocaust, he makes no mention of debasement of Jews today in Islamic countries.
"Osman Umarji, former president of the Muslim Student Union, equated the decision by the student panel to display the prophet drawings to the debasement of Jews in Germany before the Holocaust."
I suppose it is too much to ask Muslims to speak with one voice regarding whether or not they believe that the Holocaust was fact or hype.
They will take whichever position is expedient.
This cartoon issue boils down to one of secular democratic society (where public opinion matters, where everone has the freedom to express ideas and opinions ,however offensive) vs. a totalitarian point of view. It's that simple.
The democratic view of Brock Hill: "We're not going against Islam whatsoever," he said. "This is about free speech and the free marketplace of ideas."
vs.
"When we speak of democracy in Islam it is not democracy in the government but in the cultural and social aspects of life. Islam is totalitarian -- there is no denying about it. It is the Koran that we should turn to. It is the dictatorship of the Koranic laws that we want -- and that we will have -- but not through non-violence and Gandhian truth." Raja Sahib Mahmudabad, chief lieutenant of Mohammed Ali Jinnah
http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:zAd-mY23X38J:library.flawlesslogic.com/gandhi.htm+%22Muslim+leaders+were+under+no+such+illusions.+Also+in+1939,+Raja+Sahib+Mahmudabad,+chief+lieutenant+of+the+Muslim+League%27s+leader,+Mohammed+Ali+Jinnah,+wrote+to+a+fellow+Muslim:+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
It's important to distinguish between true Muslims (who do hate America - it's against Islam to not hate such a concept as the American one) and 'people with some form of Islamic identity' (pseudo-Muslims who may only follow Islam to a small degree, who may not hate America).
For example, there are not 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. There are 1.2 billion people with some form of Islamic identity, of whom perhaps 300 million are actually Muslim.
Dream on. It's (partly) about free speech, but "the free marketplace of ideas"?
If the European/American left has its questionable assumptions, so does the right. Here, again, is the assumption that "markets" are the answer to everything. The Austrian School of economics suggests that the market generally "works" for epistemological reasons - price (which is free to move in the market) is an indicator - a form of information. That doesn't mean that "success" in the market is a guarantee of excellence in any sense - merely that markets are flexible systems that are highly efficient at meeting people's diverse wishes.
Behind Brock Hill's statement I sense the belief that in a battle of ideas the best one wins. I think that is a lazy assumption. Within, for example, a scientific community, that is probably true. But is it true in society at large? I sincerely hope he's right; but I wouldn't bank on it. It doesn't work in culture, does it? Who sells more CDs - the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra or Madonna?
And there are certainly people prepared to fill the "market" for radical Islamic propaganda. Look at the story that's reported above over at Little Green Footballs. It's the shocking video of a speaker at the Muslim Student Union that struck me. He has the cheek to reject in advance any charge of anti-Semitism, but really Julius Streicher had nothing on this bloke:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=19477&only
Let's hope his "market" is limited. But who can say for sure?
Free speech? Free markets? Ask the French and the Danes what happened when free speech collided with free markets. Certainly determined Muslims have free markets over a barrel when they are allowed to burn, pillage, assault and murder because of their idea of the limits of free speech. We can kiss free speech and the rest of our Constitutional rights goodbye if the same is allowed to happen in America.
Here is some pictures that LGF has in regards to this California Cartoon Jihad.
My favorite one reads “Mohammad protector of women”.
http://www.rayra.net/Political_Coverage/UCI_Cartoons_Panel/UCI_MSA_Demonstration/uci_msa_demonstration.html
"Let's hope his "market" is limited. But who can say for sure?"
No one can say for sure and trash often sells very well indeed (Franz List once said, "people love trash"). But I'll take my chances with the uncertainty of democratic society vs. the certainty of dogmatic totalitarianism
The free and open exchange of ideas and opinions (however offensive) is a great threat to the totalitarian point of view (as expressed by Raja Sahib Mahmudabad quoted above).
The revolution of transport (planes, cars, etc.) and the revolution of communication (radio, film, tv, internet)that has occured (especially in the last 40 years) is causing a psychotic reaction in much of the Islamic world.
Western societies invented these things, but deep down the hostility of totlitarian Islamism is directed at the inventions because they are disseminators of ideas and opinions that can no longer be controlled by them. Cartoon rage is a luddite reaction, not a clash of civilizations. Ultimately the totalitarians must control the means of communication in order to control thought. That has to be the ultimate goal of "Islamism."
Jesse Lee Peterson has said brilliant things in the past on Hannity & Colmes. It's good so see someone actually say the necessary things that would make Robert look like a moderate.
Make that "someone prominent". At least more than Robert, Pipes, et al.
Robert,
Notice that the part about Peterson saying all Muslims hate America is not in quotes, so that is not a direct quote, but the liberal news reporter's interpretation of what he said. That means there is only a 5 percent chance he actually said and meant that. After all, how many times have the media and Islamist propagandists used that canard?
Tensions quickly escalated when the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder of the conservative Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, said that Islam was an "evil religion" and that all Muslims hate America.
The quote from one of Mohammed Ali Jinnah's lieutenants, offered in Frank's first posting above, should be studied. Print it out, as suitable to start a discussion on Islam, especially if you have an ostentasiously affable co-worker from Pakistan. Ask what an inquiring Infidel is to make of a such a statement. Or is it to be ignored as merely "one man's opinion"?
Brock Hill, vice president of the College Republicans, said his group had a First Amendment right to display the cartoons.
"We're not going against Islam whatsoever," he said.
Why the hell not?
Like it or not, Robert, we can pander to the "good" Muslims all we want, but the outcome will ultimately be the same -- Islam must be removed or reformed. There is no sane middleground on this topic if the West is to survive.
We did not sort out Germans from Nazis.
We did not sort out Japanese from Imperialists.
War is war.
You fight or lose.
Jesse Peterson says what is on the minds of millions of Westerners. I am done debating the good uses of Islam while good people of all faiths die everyday to its murder-bent followers.
If Muslims living in Western lands are getting justly frightened of the consequences of their longtime quietude over matters concerning their religion and world tolerance, then that is just sour grapes. Shame on them all for allowing it to get to this point without showing enough backbone to prove us all wrong and make us believe that they put family and nation before religion. Alas, we all know this just isn't the case 99% of the time.
I believe markjames is correct. I attended the event and don't remember Rev. Peterson saying that all Muslims hate America, but he definitely did say he believes that Islam is an evil religion. He was careful to make a distinction between "Muslims" and "Islam". They allowed camcorders inside, so I was able film most of the event (my tape ran out after an hour so I missed the last 10 minutes). The claim that people nearly came to blows was an exaggeration, although the exchanges between the audience and the panelists got a bit heated at times.
Before the event there was a man outside handing out the Muhammad's Believe It Or Else comic book, and he also had literature about the treatment of women in Islam. He was giving the latter to people in attendance as well as some of the Muslim women who were protesting.
Ironically, there was a workshop on da'wa at UC Irvine in January which was sponsored by the UCI MSA. I expected it to be well attended, but I got there half an hour late and there were only 8 Muslims in the audience. I guess they prefer to protest rather than to learn about their faith.
Hugh,
Why the need (for US readers) to go to extra-territorial sources, the reaction to that could be akin to the reaction to the Supreme Court using foreign judicial decisions as binding precedent. We can go much closer to home, to the website of the Muslim Student Association at the University of Southern California For on its inappropriately named misconceptions page, it states:
Ask the Muslim co-worker, is this really what your fellow Muslims in the USA really believe, that our constitutional form of government that provides protection for and equal participation and representation of all minority beliefs is un-Islamic and therefore no Mulsim can swear allegiance to the Constitution?
Re: Posted by: Hugh at March 2, 2006 12:44 PM
Hugh,
It is a beaut. It's a beaut....
I routinely spam my friends and co-workers with articles and comments from this and other sites. Having forced myself to watch and listen to more than a few muslim speakers I decided to get more involved. I do what I can to support anyone and everyone who speaks up for the truth. In a perfect world all religious orders would have some sort of golden rule and equally support each other. The goal of religion would be to better yourselves spiritually and not to intimidate, corrupt and control. I firmly believe most followers of religion are great people and I would welcome them as friends, neighbors and countrymen. Now, for the but …I distrust islam and do not see it as a religious order. Cult, possibly but not being as well read as some of the posters I would have to check the dictionary on that one. When an islamic organization like the council on American-islamic relations boycotts an event and calls the United American Committee a "fringe group, they only hurt themselves." Personally, I think if they had any thing useful to say they would welcome the opportunity to say it. We should all (within reason) support organizations, websites, groups and individuals that attempt to bring our concerns about radical islam into the limelight. Our best weapon is the truth. Time permitting I drop lines to newspapers, elected officials etc, mostly it is just an exercise in futility as I rarely hear back from them (except for form letters). The student panel in Irvine, should be commended for addressing the issue of free speech no matter how it worked out. It will be their planet to run soon enough, they seem to be on the right track.
I heard this story reported last evening on NPR with the words "hundreds of Muslims students from Irvine" went to protest the Cartoon Jihad expose.
What the hell are hundreds of Muslim students doing in Irvine?
I know we're suicidally stupid as a government, but what are people thinking at the community level?
Hundreds?
A cult that wants to supplant and destroy our nation, and we invite them in like there's no tomorrow.
Ooops... I'm giving the plan.
...away.
(Can't give it all away in one posting, obviously...)
"The agenda is to spread Islamophobia and create hysteria against Muslims similar to what happened to the Jews in Nazi Germany," said Umarji, an electrical engineer who graduated from Irvine last spring. "Freedom of speech has its limits."
Our evil agenda- lol!!
The agenda is to keep America aware of the radical dark side of Islam. Nothing on this site or anywhere has taught me to hate the Muslim people but only their core ideaology.
Their agenda:
...keep us blind to the truth about Islam
...to stop any criticism of their founder or religion via hate laws. (the cartoons are just the start)
...eventually do away with our Constitution and replace it with Islamic law. (not in my lifetime)
I would agree that most Muslims in America are westernized and hopefully don't think that way but groups like CAIR are phobic of the American way and our laws and culture. Should we call them Ameriphobic or Westernphobic?
If just wanting to aware of the extremes of Islam makes me Islamophic then suppose I am, but I know the centuries of dhimmitude my Greek side went through and as an American I would fight this. Do I hate Muslims- NO! Do I hate their core ideology- NO, but I will not live under such a yoke!!! Do I want to live under Islamic law- NO!! and double NO!!
CAIR- America love it or leave it!!
Arabs have been degrading Jews for centuries and in fact a Muslim leader, the British-appointed mufti of Jerusalem, collaborated in the Holocaust. He even said, in a speech to the Bosnian Muslim SS division --the Handschar [Khanjar]-- that National Socialism [that is, Nazism] and Islam had much in common.
[quoted in The Mufti and the Fuehrer, by Joseph Schechtman]. Nasser told the editor of a neo-Nazi German weekly, the National und Soldaten Zeitung [unsure of German spelling], that he was on the German side in the 2nd World War. So for an Arab or Muslim to compare Arabs/Muslims to the Jews in Nazi Germany is outrageous.
When they came to California, I think the Muslims thought it was Kaliphornia... I think this confused them into thinking they could threaten students at UC campuses into silence...
muslims are the real phobes.... they don't approve of anything that doesn't include chopping off body parts.
Appears the site which released the comic book series titled: "Mohammed's Believe it or Else!" has gone offline. Probably another victim of islam's global internet jihad. It was good while it lasted. RIP.
http://www.islamcomicbook.com/
Hmmm.
You say that you don't believe that all that many Muslims believe these things anymore than you believe that all Christians could recite the Nicene Creed. I grant you that the Nicene Creed is a tad wordy...but, what about the Apostles Creed?
I believe in God the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only son our Lord. Conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilot, was crucified, dead, and buried. On the thrid day he arose from the dead and ascended into heaven to sitteth at the right hand of God the father almighty, from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgivness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, Amen.
See, right off the top of my head that one. And if memory serves, while less wordy -- it covers pretty much the same ground as the Nicene.
I don't point this out to be all flaunty about what I have memorized, I do it to point out that reading this in church every Sunday for years of my life, has made it a part of me. I believe that that the same is true of most religions.
My anti-religion friends accuse all religions of brainwashing. They would use this quick ability of mine to spit out the Apostle's Creed as proof. For me, it is a distinct and important part of my faith and I don't consider it brain washing.
Others in other religions learn their lessons from the knee too. And those lessons tend to stick in all of us, no matter where we come from or what we are taught.
Muslims are no exception.
Copied from above so you'll be able to follow my brief (and yet I believe pertinent concern/rebuttal)
"Islam is the name of a way of life which the Creator wants us to follow. We avoid the word religion because in many non-Islamic societies, there is a separation of "religion and state." This separation is not recognized at all in Islam: the Creator is very much concerned with all that we do, including the political, social, economic, and other aspects of our society. Hence, Islam is a complete way of life.
As stated earlier, Islam is a complete way of life. Given this, it is not surprising that the "Creator is concerned with the method which we choose to govern ourselves. The preeminent rule which the Islamic state must observe is stated in the Qur'an."
Perhaps I am misinformed on what will be the conerstone of my rebuttal here -- but, I thought that all three of the big monotheistic religions held the same or similar "proof is in the pudding" type approach to Prophets. If a "prophet' predicts something wrong -- then he is no prophet at all as his words cannot have come from a perfect God.
So, Didn't Jesus say "render onto Ceaser what is Ceaser's". One of the oldest adherents to separation of church and state it appears. So, how can Islam claim Jesus as a prophet if he was so off the mark on that one?
And if they are wrong about Jesus being a prophet, which according to their "prophet" he was, then their prophet doesn't hold up against the proof is in the puddin' test. So, Jesus can go back to being God and Mohammed, well...draw your own conclusions.
[I]t is clear that the state's obligation of obedience to the Creator is as important as the obedience of the individual. Hence, the Islamic state must derive its law from the Qur'an and Sunnah. This principle excludes certain choices from the Islamic state's options for political and economic systems, such as a pure democracy, unrestricted capitalism, communism, socialism, etc. For example, a pure democracy places the people above the Qur'an and Sunnah, and this is disobedience to the Creator. However, the best alternative to a pure democracy is a democracy that implements and enforces the Shari'ah (Islamic Law).?
"The democratic view of Brock Hill: "We're not going against Islam whatsoever," he said. "
We need to get past this. I am actually are against Islam that aims at totalitarian sharia law. So should most people with an 'Islamic identity' but secular politics be.
I'm also against any politically expressed fundamentalist Chritianity if it tries to limit women's rights and imprison homosexuals, so there is nothing specifically anti-muslim in my viewpoint.
Freedom of speech has it,s limits,translation bow to our will and run your society the way we see fit.
Osman Umarji, former president of the Muslim Student Union, equated the decision by the student panel to display the prophet drawings to the debasement of Jews in Germany before the Holocaust.
Big exception..the Jews were not blowing people up around the world and desiring to dominate over other religious groups. What a stupid moral equivalency argument.
Interesting observations, disciple.
"Osman Umarji, former president of the Muslim Student Union, equated the decision by the student panel to display the prophet drawings to the debasement of Jews in Germany before the Holocaust."
This comment stood out to me too. Aside from being a poisonous distortion, and one which conflates the genuine victimhood of the Jew in Nazi Germany to the non-victimhood of the Muslim in the West today... it stuck me as being insightful on some oblique level...
Is there some perverted sense of reality and sobriety in his observatio?
For the longest time we've observed the way the Muslim projects onto us his fantasies and fervent hopes -- Despite the complete unreality of his allegations, the Muslim habitually plays up his victimhood at our hands -- he diverts responsiblity for his actions and atrocities onto us, his victims, and concocts fantastic stories and lies about every imaginable kind of atrocity at our hands while praying and hoping to inflict those exact same atrocities upon us... He would like nothing more than to rob us of our free speech -- he would like nothing more than to subjugate us, and steal everything that is ours -- he would like nothing more than to dominate us as he accuses us of dominating him...
The Muslim, taught from childhood to hate non-Muslims, to kill non-Muslims, to support warfare against non-Muslims because they are non-Muslims ye accuses us of crimes of bigotry and hatred and intolerance while embracing the most nihilistic and even genocidal bigotry hatred and intolerance against us...
So here we see this Muslim comparing the Nazi dehumanizing of the Jew in preparation for the Holocaust... Does the Muslim inadvertently reveal what he knows may be coming, but in that typically twisted perverted distorted Muslim way -- Is he revealing the truth that it's not the publication of these innocuous cartoons, but the seething out-of-control beastlike reactions of the Muslim hoards which convince us that Muslim humanity is indeed lacking? That the Muslim community is little more than a rampaging beast? Or is he recognizing inadvertently that the consequences of the Muslim overreaction to the cartoons will convince we infidels that we should not be too concerned if we are forced to industrially destroy them if they don't stop attacking threatening and menacing us in this fashion?
From the mouths of cretins, liars, and embracers of vile ideologies can come pearls of insight and truth, demented and twisted as it may appear...
This evening I posted an extensive series of audio recordings to my report on the conference -
http://www.rayra.net/Political_Coverage/UCI_Cartoons_Panel/uci_cartoons_panel.html
See the Audio-Visual page.
The recordings of the Panel discussion are a complete series with no gaps, from 1-2mins into Lee Kaplan's opening remarks until the very end of the discussion.
The only person that spoke of 'hating all muslims' was Mr Abed Jlelati, as an accusation.
Rev Peterson very specifically stated that he did NOT think all muslims were evil, but that Islam itself was. It is a valid distinction, and Ted Hayes nailed it - 'Hamas is RIGHT [in their interpretation of the Koran]'.
And the Mythical Moderate Muslims (MMM) that so many pretend exist are merely lapsed and in the eyes of the Islamofascists, apostate.
I invite you all to listen to teh audio of the event. And I'll have a few short video segments posted sometime saturday, too. And possibly some impressions and key points, if I can make a few uninterrupted hours this weekend to gather my thoughts / notes.