More on Wafa Sultan from the UK Sunday Times, with thanks to Granny Weatherwax.
It would be hard to imagine a place more remote from the violence and turmoil of the Middle East than this quiet cul-de-sac in the southern suburbs of Los Angeles. But as David Sultan opens the front door of his home he glances up and down the street anxiously.He has good reason to be nervous: ever since Dr Wafa Sultan, his wife, appeared on Al-Jazeera, the Arabic television network, last summer she has been receiving death threats. During that and a second broadcast in February Dr Sultan, who was brought up as a Muslim in Syria, denounced the teachings and practice of Islam as “barbaric” and “medieval”.
The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilisations,” the impassioned 47-year-old told Al-Jazeera’s stunned audience across the Arab world. “It is a clash between civilisation and backwardness, between the civilised and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between human rights on the one hand and the violation of these rights on the other, between those who treat women like beasts and those who treat them like human beings.”
The broadcasts have caused an unholy stir in the Muslim world and virtually overnight have turned Sultan, previously known only to a few for her writings on www.annaqed.com, a small Arab-American website, into one of the most controversial figures in the international debate about Islam. The broadcasts have been downloaded more than 1m times from the internet and she has been interviewed on CNN and profiled by The New York Times and Le Monde.
While some acclaim her as “a voice of reason” others have denounced her as a “heretic” and insist that she deserves to die. What seems to have most infuriated many Muslims were Sultan’s comparisons between how Jews and Muslims have coped with the tragedies that have befallen them.
“The Jews have come from tragedy and forced the world to respect them,” she said, “with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling.
“We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.”...
Read it all.
I think, that when the newpapers keep writing about her, they should just effin'PRINT the address anyway! I mean, the New Duranty Times all but did this when they wrote about her last week. They said what her husband did...oh well. I guess since she is making all this noise in public, I hope they get a gun. They may need it. What do you think would happen if she were assassinated? What would the reaction in this country be? I remember Charles Johnson at LGF writing about a frightening encounter with a muslim leaving one of the largest mosques in the LA area...he said, as the congregants were leaving, one young man smiled, and made a 'shooting gun' gesture with his hand. I am sure that the Imam would be properly shocked to find violence prone youths in his mosque.
Could this be real? A "moderate muslim", who would have thought we would ever see one. It's like bigfoot, you hear about it but didn't expect to ever see it. The first thing I thought was good for her and I wish here luck trying to change the other 1.2 billion non-moderate muslims. My next thoughts were of concern for her safety and her family. History has shown us she is brave and probably doomed. If the islamic world ever does change the women will be the strength behind the transformation. The men have done nothing to improve it and they have had almost 1400 years to attempt it. From the male prospective why would they change it? You can have multiple wives who obey instantly, or you severely punish them, if that doesn’t work, dump um and get more. I can see no reason any male would ever want to change islam. True some muslim males are weak and can’t control their women, nassem spends way to much time on line so her husbands caracter is in question but it might not be his fault. She is in no stretch of the imagination a moderate so at least the mind control is still working.
So the men have no reason to change islam why would the women? What good could it do them? One wife for one man. A voice in family affairs, the ability to work and live free. How about the ability to govern men. I can think of all sorts of bennies for the women but it still comes back to one realization, it will not be islam. You can’t change that evil book all you can do is refuse to follow it. Maybe as the women realize it can never be changed they will drop it and find a better life program to follow, one can only hope.
A "moderate muslim"...
-- from a posting above
She is an ex-Muslim. An apostate. She is not a "moderate Muslim." This continues to be mis-reported, and such mis-reporting is telling. She has made the final leap, the one that Fouad Ajami, Kanan Makiya, and some others cannot allow themselves to make. Filial or civilizational piety, embarrassment, considerations of career and "effectiveness" (better, safer, more remunerative to be a "Muslim-for-identification-purpposes-only" Muslim than to jump over the Grand Canyon the way Wafa Sultan did).
Ibn Warraq, and Ali Sina, and others have not received the recognition due them. One of the reasons may be that they are not Arabs, nor are any of those among the dozen signatories of that letter who are ex-Muslims Arabs.
For the first time, an Arab says -- to a mass audience of Arabs -- what Wafa Sultan said. She is wonderful. She deserves support, and publicity. And so do Ibn Warraq and Ali Sina and all the others who have gone before, but who were not Arabs.
Part of the impact was that Wafa Sultan apparently spoke, not merely Arabic, but flawless, elegant Arabic. (This I have from a linguistically keen native informant). That contributed to the undeniable force of her presentation.
Hugh, the fact she is no longer a “muslim” doesn’t surprise me although I did not know it until you informed me. As I understand it there is no form of excommunication except death. We know from the past actions of other muslims she is an extremely brave person to speak out. As you so elegantly put it she does deserve whatever support we can give her (along with the others). I am afraid the media will keep dropping hints as to her location and could potentially endanger her. I continuously insist the truth is the greatest weapon against islam, who better as an ally than an ex muslim? I hope the readers will help email her messages around the world. I’m going to pass a few myself :-0.
David Sultan opens the front door of his home he glances up and down the street anxiously.
America: land of the free, but home of the paranoid if you exercise that freedom.
Islam's toll on the mental, financial, and cultural health of the world is incalculable, and growing fast.
Not to mention the historical body count from the earliest razzias, through the Barbary States, to modern terrorism.
should just effin'PRINT the address anyway
There's no "f" in "print".
"home of the paranoid..."
-- from a posting above
It is not "paranoia" but justified prudence that explains the manner in which David Sultan comes to the door. He is not paranoid at all. Those who are not sufficiently alert to the dangers of Muslim fanatics, and to the general, slow-moving menace, are the crazy ones.
This must be about the first time a British newspaper has had someone openly and clearly say that the qur'an is full of incitement to violence. It's brilliant stuff!
I just hope that the Sunday Times has a high enough readership.
-- from The Sunday Times
Let the phrase "other Muslim women" pass. But ... Hmm ... "reprisal" seems an odd choice of word here?
Mukhtar mail was "victim of a gang rape ordered by a Pakistani tribal council".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4042941.stm
The Times article is better than nothing, but there is still subtle misdirection and misuse of language going on here.
Belive it or not, but even if this particular woman has left islam behind completly there are actually some moderate muslims out there. For example Naser Khader here in Denmark. He calls himself muslim but at the same time he also admits that he is not actively practicing the religion. He lets his children eat pork even though he doesn't eat it himself (according to himself not for religious reasons but because his upbringing means that he simply can't bring himself to eat it). The "Democratic Muslims" movement he has started requires all members to sign a statement where they among other things declare that they find sharia-law unacceptable and that religion must be subordinate to democracy and law.
Offcourse there is bound to be some of the organisations members that are lying when they say these things, but I don't doubt for a second that Khader himself belives in it.
And offcourse there will be plenty of voices on both sides claiming that "But then he is not really a muslim!". Its understandable that those who wish for muslim world domination would say that, but its also important that those of us who don't wish it are willing to support that there can really be a moderate islam. We can't exterminate islam, but we can help the true moderates claim it for themselves. Instead of alienating them by claiming they are just misguided and not really muslims, we need to strengthen them because it weakens the fanatics.
Just like christianity was reformed, islam can be too. But it means that we have to make room for an islam that is followed as loosely as the modern form of christianity, instead of denying that its a possibility.
Hugh,
Of course you're right about the clinical diagnosis. I was using "paranoia" in the vernacular to describe someone who has his or her head on a swivel.
By my way of thinking "paranoia" regarding Islam is the first step to understanding reality, not a mental disorder.
Amazing how Muslims, former Muslims, or Muslims for ID, all have the same reaction when daring to stray from the religious line. How can any rational person compare Islam to the other religions in free nations which allow people to come and go peacefully?
ExpatriateDK posts:
"We can't exterminate islam......."
Who says? When was the last time you ran into a Cathar?
Wafa Sultan is extraordinarily brave, as are her husband and her children. As a wife and mother, I feel certain she did not venture forth without their approval and support ... since, horribly, not only is she now in jeopardy .. but so is her family.
This courageous family deserves our continual support. Thank you Hugh, for your work in bringing these articles to our attention. If my husband were in the necessary position of looking down the block for assassins every time he opened the door I can tell you it would be meaningful to know there were those who recognized and appreciated the sacrifice being made and so, I hope we keep getting these updates.
Wafa Sultan and her family are in my heart with prayer.
ExpatriateDK .. I'm no longer optimistic about a reformation of Islam. Or let me say it this way: It makes about as much sense to reform Islam as it would to reform Fascism. Christianity started with superior raw material: a Jewish Jesus. Please take the time to read up on Mohammed (the archetype of the Mohammedan terrorist) and your idealism may temper into realism.
Regrettably, that attitude, attractive as it may be for sentimentalists, may get you killed.
In the first place, the picture of the Reformation as a "taming" of Christianity is a flawed and historically suspect one. I believe Michael Oakeshott suggests somewhere that Calvin's Geneva was perhaps the first example of a totalitarian state (in the modern sense) in Europe. So this is a more complex and fraught question that it might at first appear to be to Northern Europeans like you and me. Besides, the suggestion is likely to rile Roman Catholics here, and so perhaps is best not pursued.
Some may like to say that the Reformation was a precursor to the Enlightenment and that that did the trick - but this leads us into even murkier waters. Was not Communism, as well as Locke and Kant, also a product of Enlightenment thinking? Besides, here we may have clashes between atheists and Christians on the board.
Then again, one feels obliged to point out that some say that Islam is in the process of having its Reformation and that is precisely what is the problem. The Reformation was, in large part, a returning to the texts. But the more this happens with Islam, the worse things will be for unbelievers. Really, these kinds of doctrines do not pose a threat to people (and, historically, the more Christians actually became aware of them the better for them and everyone else). The doctrines in the Koran do (and the more Muslims actually become aware of them the worse for them and everyone else). There have been countless people in nominally Islamic countries who probably have been very unaware of what is in the Koran. Saudi money is being used to approse them of its contents. Do you really want a return to such texts?
Whoops my typing gets worse and worse: apprise.
ExpatriateDK, unless someone writes a second book of the koran then the moderate muslim will remain a myth. It is more a life plan than a religious reference. Because it was written to be followed, never questioned or changed reform is impossible. I have no problem with religious titles and if someone claims they are a muslim but does not follow the rules in the koran to the letter, then they are lying or a non practicing muslim. I don’t believe for one second just because they are a muslim they will turn into a violent, hateful person, they have to be practicing muslims first. Asking a muslim to except new interpretations of the koran is like adding six or seven new commandments to a Christian. In short it will not happen. I have talked with many Arab and non Arab muslims, all will eventually admit the koran is perfect and they think everyone should follow it. They skip right over embarrassing portions they don’t wish to explain and misdirect you away for asking any more questions. The biggest problem I have found with warning people about the danger of islam is Americans are by nature rugged individualists and tend to think the rest of the world follows this model:
All families want their children to succeed and live better lives than their parents.
All religious people are good natured and non violent
All religions are equal and essentially are the same or similar (almost true as most major religions do have some sort of “golden rule” islam being one exception).
All people have some good in their hearts.
All people value individual freedom and have a right to self-expression.
There are others but it is easy to pick those ones apart when islam comes into the argument. It is hard for Americans in particular to realize the terrorists are not a minority. They are simply practicing the religion to the letter. They tend to recite the commonly held PC misconceptions about islam, a small percentage has stolen/corrupted the religion, yada,yada,yada. Believe what you will I still consider a moderate muslim an impossibility.
The Wafa Sultan video. Listen with your sound on! This woman blew away the "Koran Scholar" She doesn't trip over one word. Koran Scholar is rendered speechless and in a rage.
http://switch5.castup.net/frames/20041020_MemriTV_Popup/video_480x360.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=null
WAFA SULTAN:
Once, he calls them Ahl Al-Dhimma; another time he calls them the 'People of the Book'; and yet another time he compares them to apes and pigs, or he calls the Christians 'those who incur Allah's wrath.' Who told you that they are 'People of the Book?' They are not the People of the Book, they are people of many books. All the useful scientific books that you have today are theirs, the fruit of their free and creative thinking. What gives you the right to call them 'those who incur Allah's wrath,' or 'those who have gone astray,' and then come here and say that your religion commands you to refrain from offending the beliefs of others?"
The Islamic "Reformation" is already underway. It's called Salafi Islam or Wahhabism.
An Enlightenment in Islam, or a rational approach to religion, is the unicorn we all should be chasing.
The Christian Reformation sounds good to modern Protestants, but even Martin Luther opposed what it became (a bloodbath). Eventually Martin Luther advocated killing the radicals he invigorated.
There is a word for "enlightenment" in Islam: ijtihad. Is it a solution to the jihad problem? Probably not given the nature of the ulema. Fact is, a "reformation" of Islam is the last thing it needs. Getting back to the basics of Islam means Qur'an, Sunnah, and all that entails.
Dear Alarmed-
You are so right! Reading it is one thing but watching Wafa Sultan in action is priceless.
As Hugh has pointed out, the press has largely failed to note that Dr. Sultan is no longer a Muslim. The headline for the New Duranty Times article about her labeled her a Muslim, even though she clearly stated, in both the article itself and in the Al-Jazeera broadcast, that she is not a Muslim.
I sent emails to the article's author and to the Times’ ombudsman, expressing my concern about that error. I did a google search today to see if they had issued a correction, to no avail (although I didn’t persue it very far).
But I did find this LA Times story, and noted the first sentence:
“She's no longer a Muslim…”
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-sultan13mar13,0,5595073.story
Whew! What a breath of fresh air, I thought. But then I read the (UK) Sunday Times article referenced in the main body of this thread, which stated:
“Ayaan Hirsi Ali has to travel everywhere with bodyguards after the threats against her and the death [of] the film maker Theo van Gogh, her friend and collaborator.”
Shouldn’t that read “and the MURDER of the film maker”?
poetcomic1
I'm glad you listened to Wafa Sultan. It's as if she has been waiting all her life to say this. She has her recitation down pat and it sure ain't a Koran recitation. It's an indictment of stupid Islam and the atavistic culture it spawns in Arab nations
Listen with sound on!
http://switch5.castup.net/frames/20041020_MemriTV_Popup/video_480x360.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=null
My personal experiences with Gulf Arabs living in Orlando around the turn of the millenium should have told me all I needed to know about Arab culture. I assumed they were the exception rather than the rule.
If a look could kill, everyone in our apartment building would have been riddled with ordnance.
On the other hand, nobody drank more, debauched more, or did more foolish things while drinking and debauching. Apparently they were planning on returning at some point. Probably nuclear engineers.
A Saudi princess pushed her domestic help down the stairs after beating the poor woman. The prosecuter sent her back to Saudi Arabia in lieu of prosecution.
At this moment there are radical imams using the (public) University of Central Florida for aggressive da'wa and recruiting.
If anyone is looking for a huge number of potential terrorist/jihadis, flying (word chosen intentionally) under the radar screen, look to Florida. After 9/11, this should be glaringly obvious. Our local police make Mayberry look like Interpol.
ExpatriateDK Wrote: "Offcourse there is bound to be some of the organisations members that are lying when they say these things, but I don't doubt for a second that Khader himself belives in it."
Really? I have my doubts. Only if he had stepped away from Islam completely would I trust him. He's a politician and as such he specializes in saying what peopel like to hear. And what exactly have a lot of Danes been yearning to hear these last few months? That there are also 'moderate and democratic' muslims. Basically he has been saying what a lot of peopel wanted to hear and been cashing in on that psychological need. Remember that most peopel who vote for him are Danes, not muslims/immigrants, so his 'moderation' tells more about what a lot of Danes like to hear, than about what muslims in Denmark really want. He knows what's written in the Koran and as such he is as guilty of lying as any other muslim is, when he says that Islam is a religion of peace.
"We can't exterminate islam, but we can help the true moderates claim it for themselves."
Actually we CAN exterminate Islam if we are willing to use sufficiently extreme measures. It's just not the style of democratic western countries to such things.
"Just like christianity was reformed, islam can be too."
I my opinion Christianity wasn't really 'reformed' as the core of the message has remained essentially the same. The Bible hasn't changed for 2000 years now, nor will any 'reform' change the fundamentals if Islam. What changed was that the power of the church was destroyed and it's dogmas exposed to criticism and ridicule. The same must happen to Islam. It's not enough just to scratch the surface of the faith, you have to dig in deep and deliver a fatal blow. It's a question of crushing Islam as a political force and that can only be done through war, a modern crusade against Mekka and Medina. And I predict that that will happen one day.
Yojimbo,
The truth of the matter about the Christian Reformation is that it really took a couple of centuries before the Christian faith ever got "tamed" from the Reformation itself. It had to take not only the war(s) that are mention, but also in truth, the Christian Reformation really did not end, IMHO, until the Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church. It was from Vatican II onwards that Christians worldwide were more interested in going back to the roots of the Bible texts and how the early Christians lived.
As far as Islam ever getting reformed, the closet it has ever came was really with the Sufi Muslims. They focus more on the spiritiual aspects of the Muslim faith. Also what was praticed in the first few centuries and if memory serves correct, there is a female Muslim writer, the one who wrote the book, "The Trouble With Islam ", said that Muslims must discover the early pratice of " ijtihad " or enlightenment.
Yojimbo makes a very good point about returning to the texts--in Islam it's like returning to the tar baby or something. Just get in deeper,as the Islamic 'scholars' have ruled the later writings supercede the earlier, like a Supreme Court ruling, and it's the later writngs that call for the violence. I'm very pessimistic that Islam can really reform itself--they have to either grow out of it, leave it entirely, get absorbed into the modern world somehow, or we must isolate them from ourselves.
Wafa Sultan is not a moderate muslim. She is an apostate in their eyes. So us getting "all smily" about a moderate muslim appearance is useless. She believes that if you have to be moderate you have to be a non-muslim. Don't wait for moderate muslims, they dont exist. If they are moderate, they are not muslims even if they say so they are.
Teresa Watanabe, author of the LA Times article,
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-sultan13mar13,0,5595073.story
also wrote, concerning an incident at Los Angeles’ King Fahd Mosque shortly after 9/11 (and addressed in this Militant Islam Monitor.org article http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/661 ):
“The article showed how militant and peaceful factions in America's second-largest city are fighting for dominance within a mosque financed by Saudi money: "Inside the mosque community, there are those who are sympathetic to jihad and suicide bombings and those who are not. Some object to non-Muslims visiting their sacred space; others warmly embrace them. Some women veil their entire bodies; others throw off such practices as outdated.... On the Friday after the terrorist attacks, the imam [Tajuddin Shuaib] says, he gave a sermon condemning suicide bombings and was shouted down by some men who leaped to their feet and accused him of 'changing the Quran.'"
Right here, in the Good Old USA, and not far from Dr. Sultan's home.
It's hard to imagine a reformation.
Beagle:
Sorry to see that my alma mater(UCF) is going Islamic. There was nary a hint of that when I attended the school. We were way behind the national multi-culti curve, thankfully.
Bigcatgirl:
Rubbish on Vatican II. It emasculated the Church and ushered in the current crisis. As though Catholics were clueless until 1965. Hogwash. At least the pre-Vat II Catholics knew the difference between a Muslim and a Christian. Pre-Vat II Catholics prayed for Muslim conversion every Good Friday. Can't say that about the current crop of dhimmis at the Vatican who continually mouth "we worship the same merciful God" tripe while excusing Islamic depradations in some ecumenically-induced stupor.
PRCS
You said, "Shouldn’t that read “and the MURDER of the film maker”?"
Yes, it most certainly should.
Lepanto
And you said, "Rubbish on Vatican II. It emasculated the Church and ushered in the current crisis. As though Catholics were clueless until 1965. Hogwash. At least the pre-Vat II Catholics knew the difference between a Muslim and a Christian. Pre-Vat II Catholics prayed for Muslim conversion every Good Friday. Can't say that about the current crop of dhimmis at the Vatican who continually mouth "we worship the same merciful God" tripe while excusing Islamic depradations in some ecumenically-induced stupor."
And I say, Bravo.
Lepanto,
Sorry to see that my alma mater(UCF) is going Islamic. There was nary a hint of that when I attended the school. We were way behind the national multi-culti curve, thankfully.
The lures of cash tuition from out-of-state students, and oil money for endowment, have overwhelmed Harvard. What could we expect from UCF?
It's hard to imagine the free world winning a clash of civilizations when jihadis can recruit on campus, are encouraged to do so by campus administrators, but the U.S. military needed a hotly-contested Supreme Court opinion to gain the same privilege.
Beagle--ain't that the truth!
Lepanto,
Just want to briefly respond. The truth of th matter is that on Good Friday, there is still prayers offered as part of the special prayers said on that day for "those who do not believe in Jesus. " Also the present pope has been taking a more hardline stand against the jihadi-based violence. He even had representives of the Muslim community in Germany go to meet him instead of him going to their mosque late last summer when he came home to go to the World Youth Day. So at least it is not the total dhimmis that you say there is. Do not give up hope.
BTW, this Christian/Catholic knows the difference between a Muslim and a Christian.
-Beagle
I'll mark that as the quote of the day!
Taking an "all or nothing" stance on islam only serves to increase the problem. Because its rules out finding allies among the muslims and having those allies help in the fight. It increases the number of enemies we have because we end up fighting all muslims, instead of having some of them help our own cause.
Christianity was once a fanatic religion too, abused by powerhungry madmen to oppress the generel population and as an excuse to start wars and kill people. That power was broken when people stopped accepting the church's preachings as the absolute truth. We need islam to go through the same process, with help from the western world if needed. And no, I am not one of those who believe we should do this by adopting their laws in our own countries. Obviously we should take a very hard stance against every single threats towards our basic freedoms. But that does not include alienating those muslims who openly work against their own oppressive religion.
The Koran may claim to hold the ultimate truth, but that claim will be the very first that a true moderate ignores.
Christianity was once a fanatic religion too, abused by powerhungry madmen to oppress the generel population and as an excuse to start wars and kill people
You don't need to "abuse" Islam to get a system that "oppress[es] the generel population ... start[s] wars and kill[s] people".
That's what it's about.
Fundamental difference.
And closing one's eyes to that problem, doesn't make it go away. As I said, that kind of sentimentality will get you killed.
"Just like christianity was reformed, islam can be too" Quoted above...
ExpatriateDK ;
Your statement I have read before here many times, and it is in error. The bible (N.T) is the book of christians, to "reform" it is to rewrite the word.
Nothing in the N.T. that I know of requires the "reform" you said it has went through. But, in the case of islam and the koran, it's reform may be needed for the world to survive.
They are not equal.
OT
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2081527,00.html
quote:
GORDON BROWN is drawing up plans to turn Britain into the most Islam-friendly economy in the western world.
The chancellor has given Muslim leaders private assurances that he wants to create a “level playing field” in the economy, so that more and more “sharia compliant” financial products can be offered to British Muslims.
Brown hopes his proposed changes would remove barriers to many British and foreign Muslims participating fully in the financial system. They would help make London the natural home for Islamic funds from around the world, and increase the inflow of investment from oil-rich Middle Eastern countries.
“Making the UK and London a centre for Islamic finance means putting in place the tax and legislative framework that is supportive of Islamic products,” said a senior Treasury official.
“On top of this, we’re also looking at promoting the City abroad as a centre for Islamic finance.”
Raelian Bishop Wafa?
Mrs. Sultan is obviously filled with deeply rooted rancor that has turned malicious and that is mainly based on her traumatic experiences while in her University at the hands of fanatical so called “Muslims” her position is understandable but what is not understandable is her bashing of the whole of Islam based on generalization and naïve-poor understanding of the religion, this can be confirmed by the fact of her affiliation to the “Flying Saucer Cult” of Rael, lead by a mostly Islamo-phobic self proclaimed prophet who claims his father was an extra-terrestrial; somethings mainstream media deliberately conceals.
Face it, in the end Wafa is just an instrument of a larger agenda against Islam.
Regards
[Z]
http://www.raelianews.org/news.php?extend.141
Wafa Sultan, Mukhtar Mai and brave women like them are the real hope of Islamic world. By standing up to Muslim tyranny and dragging their male family members into their struggle, they show that our common humanity can triumph over Islamic totalitarianism. Let's pray that many more follow in their footsteps.
ExpatriateDK, I also believe Naser Khader is the 'genuine article', a moderate, democratic Arab-Dane (folks, he has "democracy" in Arabic tattooed on his arm!). He is not your run-of-the-mill taqqyia tongued weasel, being under constant police protection as he is. I believe one must give him credit for walking a narrow line between being acceptable to us infidels and still being seen as representing Islam. He is the object of intense hatred among most (I believe) Muzzies here; declaring himself an apostate would annihilate any prospects of gaining a foothold for his movement the Democratic Muslims. If anything, he is more likely taqqyia tongued towards Muslims!
Only a few weeks after it was founded, this movement faced its first crisis as one of its prominent members turned out to have spoken in favour of sharia. After a hastily arranged meeting this member suddenly no longer wanted sharia to be made the law of Denmark. Hmmm. I think it is safe to say that, while being a welcome initiative, the Democratic Muslims must be kept under tight scrutiny, and not be seen to sweep such controversy under the carpet.
My only main gripe with Mr. Khader is his being a MP for Det Radikale Venstre, "The Radical Left", which is neither radical nor leftish in the Anglo-American sense of the word, but nonetheless is the most sickingly dhimmified political party one can possibly imagine. Led by an unbelievably annoying, prissy school mistress type, this party is unable to direct anger toward any Muslim, unable to find flaws with them that are not ultimately attributable to 'us', and arrogant and patronizing towards anyone who does not want to open the borders to the multicultural paradise waiting to enrich us.
I would respect Khader a helluva lot more if he were the member of any other parliamentarian party.
An 'honor killing' is the usual Islamic solution for those Muslim thinkers who do not sew their lips shut with Koranic twine.
She should keep heat on hand.
And kevlar everywhere else.
anti-uffe wrote: "I would respect Khader a helluva lot more if he were the member of any other parliamentarian party."
If he had chosen any other party it's unlikely that he would have gained such a position as the one he has now. The weak and Dhimmified leadership of the party is exactly what has made it possible for a non-dane as him to move up to the top. In Venstre or Socialdemokratiet he would never have gained such a position...
Here in Arizona we have one of the rarest of breeds, a moderate Muslim (if there actually is such a thing). His name is M. Zuhdi Jasser and he is a medical doctor and former officer in the U.S. Navy. He is the chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (http://www.aifdemocracy.org), an organization which promotes support of American democracy and freedom and denounces terrorism in any form. Of course for all I know, he is the only member of AIFD. You know he is doing something right because CAIR and the one and only local Muslim rag hate him.
The amount of nonsense spoken about Catholicism and Christianity on this thread has been unbelievable, and every time one person of some sense tried to direct the discussion into more useful directions - e.g. Yojimbo and Ronin - the ignorami brought it back to their "reformation" nonsense. Lepanto and Daisytoo seriously believe that the anti-Christian forces that seized the Church in the sixties had something to do with the Second Vatican Council, which proves that they have never read any of its documents and accept enemy propaganda uncritically. Bigcatgirl at least knows enough to answer them, but she imagines that the Church before and after Vatican II were two different kinds of things - make a study of trends from the eighteen hundreds on, at least, and you will know that this is nonsense on stilts. expatriate_DK has a view of history that was old and ignorant in the nineteenth century and that would be laughed out of any serious history department in the world today - but I for one am not disposed to deliver the lengthy university-level course that it would take to disabuse this person of his/her nonsense, if indeed s/he were willing to give it up. And there is even worse. Antony, the Cathars were a few tens of thousands mostly upper-class faddists, and it took a fifty-year war to destroy them. Muslims are one billion. Even if you fancy yourself as the Hitler of your age, Hitler did not manage to kill even the much smaller Jewish group, as the smartest of his intelligence men, Walther Schellenberg, pointed out privately. Hitler asked who remembered the Armenians; well, plenty of people, beginning with the surviving Armenians. Practically every genocide in history is a failure. (North Americans might be surprised to know that there are numerically as many Native Americans north of the Rio Grande now as there were before the rise of the US and Canada - some four million. The population was always thin, which is why settlers managed to flood the whole continent.)
What the crap about reforming Christianity reduces itself to, Odin showed with exemplary clarity: insulting and ridiculing it. If that is what you want, fine. Do not expect me to sympathize. But what is really bad and damaging about this ignorant nonsense is that it leads to more nonsense. As there never was any reformation of Christianity in the sense you mean - the sense of changing fundamental beliefs, philosophy and philosophical anthropology, ethics, and structure - you cannot build the hope of a reformed Islam on the fraudulent dream of a reformed Christianity that does not exist. Dr.Wafa Sultan knows better than that; she knows that Jews and their religion and attitudes are one kind of thing, and Muslims and their religion are another, and she has drawn the consequences. And for the same reason why I am a Christian, I could never be a Muslim; and if I ever had to choose between atheism and Islam however reformed, I would choose atheism.
"And what exactly have a lot of Danes been yearning to hear these last few months? That there are also 'moderate and democratic' muslims."
The term we should be insisting on when someone calls themselves a 'moderate' is SECULAR. A person who accepts and supports the separation of state from religion. Without that, there can be no true freedom of religion/non-religion.
I get the impression and the Free Muslims Coalition is an organisation working for total reform, that wants the koran interpreted in modern terms, has grave doubts about the other texts on which sharia is based, and, above all, wants secular states. Check it out: http://www.freemuslims.org/
Lili, if the FMC deviates from the koran by indorsing democracy (a non Islamic principal) and any law other than sharia they lose the title of muslim. That is not me talking just the 73 excepted sects. I guess the FMC has started sect 74. They don't represent muslims any more the David Korish represented Jesus. I beleave the FMC sponsored an anti terror rally in NY last year which failed miserably, more reporters showed than moderate muslims. I don’t fault them for trying but reality is simply this, if they start to gain any real followers the ummah will crack down on them and destroy this group. They will discredit them throughout the muslim world, some imam will declare a fatwa and they will face a real enemy. An enemy belonging to the same religion they wish to save. There is no way to modernize islam unless you scrap the koran and rewrite it. There are two kinds of muslims: hard core practitioners (aka terrorists, sympathizers, supporters) and non practicing muslims.
I try, Paolo.
I don't doubt that those whom I was disagreeing with mean well, buy I would say to them imagibne it is about 1932 now and you are saying this:
Make no mistake, it's a valid comparison. The texts give the outlines of an interlocking totalitarian system that provides justification for just about any form of repression. And the practice of Islam, in its expansionist phases, provides all the historical evidence of an attitude to human life one would never wish to have to known about - an estimated 60-70 million dead in the conquest of north India alone.
To be sure, the practice is not always so bad, and there are plenty of Muslims both in the past and now who have lived and are living perfectly peaceful lives. But that's to the credit of human nature (and perhaps to surviving shreds of pre-Islamic moral attitudes) not, so far as I can see, to the credit of Islam. These people in most cases will be people who knew little of the contents of the Koran (and probably couldn't care much either). This religion is a permanent danger - and more so than ever because of the nature of the modern world and the availability of oil money.
One might wish for a "loosely followed" form of Islam. Likewise, one might wish for a fine day tomorrow. Wishing doesn't make things so. And while we spend time wishing - and making what concessions we think will please "loose" Muslims - we lose our world.
I never guessed I see anything like this in my lifetime, and I think it would be difficult to undersetimate the seriousness of what we face.
In my view what European governments should do is try their hardest to make our way of life stick. And if they can, then the problem of a "loose" form of islam will take care of itself, because any form that is not "loose" will not be tolerated.
Suggestions:
I predict this won't be done - or only patchily and in the end we will probably end up with conflict on the streets and the sort of measures no one wants: internment, forced movement of populations, seizure of private property, and perhaps worse.
I also expect some European countries to go rapidly downhill as the brightest and most hardworking move to the US or Australia.
Sorry - foul typing, poor syntax, clumsy writing. I'm off to bed.
I agree with this part of Expatriate's post:
"We can't exterminate islam, but we can help the true moderates claim it for themselves. Instead of alienating them by claiming they are just misguided and not really muslims, we need to strengthen them because it weakens the fanatics."
I don't agree with his next statement:
"Just like christianity was reformed, islam can be too."
I think these few Muslims who are bending their rules are not signs of a new Islam that could morph out of the old; rather, they are signs of a psychological in-between schizophrenic state, one foot in Islam, the other in the modern world. Nevertheless, we should support them and not shock them with demands that they "leap the Grand Canyon", as Hugh put it. Some can make that leap; we shouldn't expect all of those Muslims bending their rules to be able to make that leap. Give them time; if they are eating pork, not wearing a veil, and listening to pop music (or even Mozart!), and if more and more do such things, that can be very good for our cause in the long run. There's no need to force a choice upon them to do things they aren't ready to do. In the short run, yes, their schizophrenia nourishes the lie that Islam can be reformed; but take the long view: more Muslims being culturally schizophrenic will, in the long run, erode Islam until it falls like a house of cards.
I'v seen pictures of children, with there heads cut off. five and six year old kids. I'm real impressed with islamofascist monkey man wanna be's.
[i]In my view what European governments should do is try their hardest to make our way of life stick. And if they can, then the problem of a "loose" form of islam will take care of itself, because any form that is not "loose" will not be tolerated.
Suggestions:
Much tighter immigration rules, reducing entrance to virtually nil
More police
Enforce the law - in particular no "no-go" areas where the rule of law does not run
Ban organizations linked to terror
More money for intelligence and the military
Cut state benefits and time-limit them, too - no one should be using them indefinitely as a way of financing terror, "peaceful conversion" or anything else[/i]
Well, Yojimbo, what a surprise - I agree with nearly every word. And this seems to me a much more realistic program than dreams of mass expulsion or massacre.
Muslims have no value for human life they are programmed to kill from the day they were born..what kind of human being would murder their child for the sake of keeping their "honour" intact?
Anyone who commits murder could never have any "honour" in this modern day and age.
We have enough murderers in our prisons already without importing more from the backward regions of the earth.
WE DONT NEED THEM HERE,KEEP THEM OUT....THEY ARE ANIMALS.
Paolo,
You've said: "Dr.Wafa Sultan knows better than that; she knows that Jews and their religion and attitudes are one kind of thing, and Muslims and their religion are another, and she has drawn the consequences. "
So do I know better - that's why I have said: " I'm no longer optimistic about a reformation of Islam. Or let me say it this way: It makes about as much sense to reform Islam as it would to reform Fascism. Christianity started with superior raw material: a Jewish Jesus. "
You also said: "Lepanto and Daisytoo seriously believe that the anti-Christian forces that seized the Church in the sixties had something to do with the Second Vatican Council, which proves that they have never read any of its documents and accept enemy propaganda uncritically."
What evidence do you have that I believe any such thing?
So you did not endorse Lepanto's "Rubbish on Vatican II"? You did not say "Bravo"? How odd. It must have been another Daisytoo.
"Rubbish on Vatican II. It emasculated the Church and ushered in the current crisis. As though Catholics were clueless until 1965. Hogwash. At least the pre-Vat II Catholics knew the difference between a Muslim and a Christian. Pre-Vat II Catholics prayed for Muslim conversion every Good Friday. Can't say that about the current crop of dhimmis at the Vatican who continually mouth "we worship the same merciful God" tripe while excusing Islamic depradations in some ecumenically-induced stupor."
I certainly did say Bravo to the above. I also certainly did not claim to "seriously believe that the anti-Christian forces that seized the Church in the sixties had something to do with the Second Vatican Council," .. What anti-Christian forces are you referring to?
If you think I'm mistaken that's all well and good .. but please supply the facts that correct any misimpression you believe I have .. don't attribute motivations to me that don't exist; that's simply not sensible.
The anti-Christian forces I mean are those that have seized many of the mainline Protestant denominations and emptied them out of anything specifically Christian - the belief in Jesus as the only saviour, "way, truth and life"; the belief in original sin; the philosophical anthropology including a well-defined doctrine of the difference between man and woman, and the indissolubility of marriage. These forces have been active in the Catholic Church too, and the last three Popes have struggled to stop them. As for "we believe in the same God", just go read Pope John Paul II's declaration REDEMPTOR HOMINIS (or his negative accounts of the "impoverished" view of God in Islam, in I believe CROSSING THE TRESHOLD OF HOPE, or another of his books - I do not have the reference with me right now).
The enemies of Christianity and the Church are unfortunately well entrenched especially in middle-level bureaucracies in the many dioceses and even in the Vatican. They have a genius for burrowing in and trying to subvert the great structure of the Church from within. In places such as Los Angeles and much of Brazil, they have virtually succeeded - the Church is ran for the benefit of Politically Correct causes, and incidentally of its increasingly isolated bishops. Even in the Vatican, there are people who are fighting the current Pope tooth and nail; he just recently discovered an attempt to turn the whole Italian episcopate against his right-hand man in the country, Cardinal Ruini. It is from this breed of unrepresentative and destructive desk-warriors-for-PC that the atmosphere of weak-willed drift that you complain about comes; but they do not represent the Church, any more than the nails that pierced the body of Christ represent Christ.
Paolo,
Thank you for taking the time to make an important distinction:
"It is from this breed of unrepresentative and destructive desk-warriors-for-PC that the atmosphere of weak-willed drift that you complain about comes; but they do not represent the Church, any more than the nails that pierced the body of Christ represent Christ."
I am not going to dispute your claim that "they do not represent the Church, any more than the nails that pierced the body of Christ represent Christ." since I have nothing but my experience of the Church as an apologist to Islam - along with, it seems, every other socioreligious phenomena to cross its path - to dispute your claim.
In fact, I'm grateful to stand corrected (even if still uncertain) since that gives me hope that perhaps the Church will find a demonstrably strong way to take back its moral authority from the "PC desk-warriors" (both in and out of the Church) who you claim are " fighting the current Pope tooth and nail' ( and I say have turned it into One Big Ridiculous Multi-Culti Hootenanny).
Most significantly -- I am glad to stand corrected, since my intention has not been to insult your faith in what indelibly endures in the Church - and endures despite the PC Hootenanny Nonsense.
PS Paolo ...
"It is from this breed of unrepresentative .." may be the crux of the problem ... While you can see they are not representative, this has not been my experience .. In fact, they have been just about 100% representative.
What is this supposed to mean???????
From "Zero" above:
"Raelian Bishop Wafa?
Mrs. Sultan is obviously filled with deeply rooted rancor that has turned malicious and that is mainly based on her traumatic experiences while in her University at the hands of fanatical so called “Muslims” her position is understandable but what is not understandable is her bashing of the whole of Islam based on generalization and naïve-poor understanding of the religion, this can be confirmed by the fact of her affiliation to the “Flying Saucer Cult” of Rael, lead by a mostly Islamo-phobic self proclaimed prophet who claims his father was an extra-terrestrial; somethings mainstream media deliberately conceals.
Face it, in the end Wafa is just an instrument of a larger agenda against Islam."
Regards
[Z]
Posted by: zero at March 19, 2006 06:50 PM
http://www.raelianews.org/news.php?extend.141
Is your link supposed to be proof Dr. Sultan ascribes to this bunk??? I read the link and there's nothing to indicate she even knows this group exists. They just plucked her comments out of cyberspace and plunked them down on their site for their own benefit. Probably like Tom Tancredo doesn't know he won American Anti-Dhimmi of the year award, except I emailed him to congratulate him on his award including a link to Jihad Watch, of course.
Please do better fact checking before posting such silliness.
"Probably like Tom Tancredo doesn't know he won American Anti-Dhimmi of the year award, except I emailed him to congratulate him on his award including a link to Jihad Watch, of course.."
I'm still laughing No_Mooselimbs! And I'm so relieved someone else 'took on' the aptly named zero. Good job!
Daisytoo,
I'm glad I could brighten your day! I just can't believe that post wasn't pounced on earlier. It was beyond stupid.
Keep up your excellent posts! I have to admit, sometimes my Jihadwatching occupies a little too much of my day!