Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the Parti Quebecois's favoring of francophone immigrants:
When the Parti Quebecois promoted passage of a law to favor the admission of francophone immigrants (or, as it turned out, immigrants from countries deemed partly francophone, for their command of French in many cases was shaky) it did the following:1. Favored maghrebins -- Muslims from North African countries (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia) over, say, immigrants from Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, and Ecuador. This has led to Montreal's large Muslim population, and to the security problems, and expense of monitoring that population, that no one anticipated.
2. Created an atmosphere alarming to non-Muslim immigrants who have the greatest familiarity with Islam, including a large Maronite community and other Christians from the Middle East.
3. Created for itself conditions which, by favoring this maghrebin migration, not only has led to greater expense and physical insecurity for Canadians, but that must constantly worry Canadian authorities for another reason. For should there be jihad attacks by Muslims who have been allowed into Canada under the Quebecois policy of favoring, without any further distinction, francophone immigrants, the reaction will be harsh. It is possible that security measures will be ever-tighter at the border, and that this will make trade more expensive and less efficient, and tourism will suffer as well. And just imagine what the reaction would be were there to be an attack on American tourists by one or more of those beneficiaries of this "francophone first" policy, in Montreal or elsewhere in the Province of Quebec.The millennium bomber, caught with a car full of hidden explosives, came from Algeria. He had been living in Montreal and was stopped by an alert border guard in Washington State. But what if such an attack had gone off? What would have been the economic consequences to Canada?
4. The uncontrolled and possibly uncontrollable Muslim presence in France and Belgium has caused a number of those most immediately affected, or those who have been the keenest to see what is happening in France, to want to go to Quebec. They would be exactly the kind of new immigrants, not least for cultural reasons, that Quebec and Canada should wish to welcome. The writer Maurice Dantec, who has left France and is now living in Quebec, is one well-known example. French Jews who are reported to be more than uneasy might still move to Quebec, but the large-scale presence of Muslims might dissuade them. Is this something that the government of Quebec has thought about?
5. The policy of favoring immigrants from francophone countries fails to consider the nature of Islam. The abyss between Believer and Infidel is neither imaginary nor the product of any particular behavior on the part of those Infidels. It is mandated by Islam itself. To the extent that someone presently called a Muslim takes the tenets of Islam seriously, or by the very act of calling himself a Muslim leaves himself and his descendants open to that possibility, he could be a threat to Infidels. This should not surprise. What should surprise is the continued willingness of others not to take Islam's teachings seriously, not to investigate them, not to study how non-Muslims have been treated over 1350 years of history, from Spain to East Asia. The record does more than disquiet.
When the government of Quebec instituted the policy of favoring francophone immigrants, it did not consider, and was not even thinking about, that larger gulf between Believer and Infidel that is permanent and is more than a matter of nouns and verbs. It was not thinking of the safety of its own citizens, much less of what might happen if through such a policy an environment unfriendly to American tourists and trade might be created. It was thinking only of anglophone Canada, and how to discourage immigrants from Italy or Greece or Portugal who might prefer to have their children learn, and use, English. They are in effect insisting by fiat that French can be protected, but their protection includes a policy that in far greater ways undoes the very thing it was expected to do. It threatens Quebec and its cultural and civilizational coherence far beyond whatever would-be speakers of English among its non-Muslim immigrants might have threatened them.
5. And there is one more thing. The Province of Quebec has its own immigration policy at present. That policy does not, however, threaten only Quebec. For those immigrants, once they have been admitted to Quebec, then become citizens not of the province, but of Canada itself. And they can move freely anywhere in Canada. Thus does an immigration policy fashioned for reasons of Quebec nationalism threaten the safety of Canadians in Alberta or British Columbia. Should this not be a matter for all Canadians to discuss? Surely anglophone Canada could exempt from general attack the favoring of francophone immigrants, while insisting that francophone immigrants form the Maghreb not be part of that program. But what would it take to even begin to discuss this kind of thing?
It would take a willingness, by some, to start discussing the tenets of Islam, the texts of Islam, the history of Islamic conquest and subjugation of non-Muslims. Can the Western world, can Canada, allow itself what is apparently the most unreasonable, and most unheard-of, thing conceivable -- to examine and analyze Islam? And then to act based on that examination and analysis of Islam’s tenets, and of the observable behavior and attitudes of Muslims around the world -- beginning with those now resident in France, in Italy, in England, in Belgium, in Holland, in Germany, in Denmark, in Sweden, in Norway? Or shall we keep pretending that everything we can see for ourselves does not mean what it must mean? Is this how governments in the Western world, with a duty to instruct and protect their citizens, should behave?
And does not the government of Quebec have a duty not only to its own citizens, but to those fellow Canadians outside of Quebec who had nothing to do with this policy of favoring francophone immigrants which so far has tended to favor the Maghrebins -- a policy which, in its application, threatens their interests, and them?
I cannot give you good numbers but Quebec also brings in lots of Vietnamese and Haitian immigrants due to the French (colonial) Connection. A quick google search says 100,000 Haitians in Quebec.
So it isn't just the Maghreb Muslims.
Remember that man who gunned down 14 Quebec schoolgirls?
This Marc Lépine had an Algerian father. His last name was made into a French one
_________________
http://www.gendercide.org/case_montreal.html
Case Study:
The Montréal Massacre
Summary
The Montréal Massacre of December 6, 1989, in which 14 women students at the École Polytechnique were systematically killed and 13 other students wounded by a lone gunman, is indelibly imprinted on the minds of Quebeckers and others who struggled to comprehend the worst single-day massacre in Canadian history.
Background
Since the beginning of Québec's "Quiet Revolution" in the 1960s, women had been making increasing strides in non-traditional occupations and educational programs. In the 1970s and 1980s, growing numbers flocked to the École Polytechnique, the School of Engineering at the University of Montréal. While most men in Québec and elsewhere accepted and even welcomed these transformations, a minority felt themselves disadvantaged by attempts to encourage women's new roles and opportunities.
One of these was Marc Lépine, a 25-year-old Quebecker and child-abuse survivor who, as an adult, was described by acquaintances as a moody loner. Lépine had sought to join the Canadian Armed Forces, but was rejected. He had also studied for admission to the École Polytechnique, but was not accepted -- a decision he apparently blamed on "affirmative action" policies promoted by feminists and their sympathizers. In the suicide note he would leave on his body, Lépine provided some insights into the virulent mindset that fuelled his rage against women and feminists:
Much more on the semi-Magrheb mass murderer Marc Lepine --->>
http://volokh.com/posts/1142399687.shtml
Hugh:
You're right on target on this one. It's been apparent to me for some time that if you can walk and chew gum at the same time, and speak French, then welcome to Quebec.
Regarding Haitian immigrants, the current Governor General was born in Haiti.
http://www.gg.ca/gg/index_e.asp
i had know idea that bastard lepine was part algerian explains a lot. I visited a friend in Montreal a few years back. Nice city but it is overrun by muslims you see them in the streets wearing their pajamas and rags. A couple of years ago there was an attack on a synagogue. A vandal desecrated holy texts. I believe feces were used. When they caught the guy who did it, it was shocking. No one on this site would guess ever who did it. A muslim youth. It was very shocking who would of ever thought.
Calling General Jack Black Pershing:
http://carcino.gen.nz/images/index.php/0c898237/59f340d4
What adds to the tragedy of the Montréal Massacre was the PC response of the Canadian elites. Instead of looking the real cause of Marc Lépine's criminal acts (hatred of women, lack of community roots, his mother's failed marriage to a Muslim, etc.), the elites pushed more more gun-control and disarming law-abiding Canadians. Everywhere in the Western world, this suicidal mindset leads to even more violence and oppression.
Here is a simple rule: neither Muslim immigrants, nor those likely to be susceptible to Da'wa, should any longer be welcomed as immigrants. Why? For no reason other than that of self-preservation. Physical security, social harmony, relief from the growing expense of guarding schools, churches, synagogues, government buildings, bus stations, metro stations, train stations, airports, and of course monitoring mosques and Muslim groups and individuals -- as now must be done everywhere in the Western world. Not because one wishes to do it. Not because Infidels take delight in doing so. Reluctantly, but necessarily.
There is no obligation to make our difficult lives even more difficult. Infidels worry about a thousand things -- irreversible environmental damage, economic catastrophe caused by those unthinking cheerleaders for "globalization," all kinds of things. The Western world is in a confused, demoralized, and weakened state. Many of those in that world need to understand that they have far less to apologize for, and far more to celebrate, than the assorted ill-educated or shallow or corrupt leaders in that Western world appear to think.
Cemeteries are likely to become targets, too, I regret to say:
http://www.ejpress.org/article/news/uk/7163
Including war cemeteries:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2907701.stm
The dead may be past caring, but if this becomes more widespread it would make our world uglier and nastier.
These people need to be contained, as in quarantine. Preferably in the middle east.
Cemeteries for Infidels are routinely treated contemptuously whenever Muslims are in control. Remember that during the Jordanian occupation of Jerusalem's Old City from 1948 to 1967, centuries-old Jewish gravestones were taken and used to pave Jordanian army latrines.
In Algeria, the government and the people routinely vandalize, desecrate, do whatever they can, to the graves of the French -- and there are organizations of former French residents of Algeria that have repeatedly raised the issue, with their own as with the Algerian government, and gotten nowhere.
In Libya, and in Somalia, the graves of Italians have in recent years been simliarly dug up, the bones of the dead -- the Infidel dead, so they don't matter -- unceremoniously dumped in with garbage and other trash. This has been reported in Italy, but not outside Italy. trash heaps. over the Muslim world.
So when the cemeteries of British and American soldiers are vandalized in France by Muslims, this should not surprise. This is par for the course of Islam. There will be more, much more of this. And of so much else.
Shall we continue to hide this information from Infidel publics? Or shall this kind of thing be made known to Western Infidels, so that what is done to American and English graves in military cemeteries in France by Muslism now permitted to live in France, is usefully connected to the throwing of the remains of Italian dead into trash heaps in Somalia, or of French civilian dead in Algeria, or the venerable Jewish tombstones, centuries-old, pulled up from the Mount of Olives and used to pave those Arab Muslim army latrines?
I vote for making it all known.
I'd like to hear you tell such things to, for example, Ambassador Walker and see if his face changed.
Hugh, you have been quite eloquent in enumerating the problems of Muslim immigration. Is it possible that Islam is being weakened by it as well? Would there be a Wafa Sultan if there was no immigration from the Muslim world? More to the point, would she ever have been able to speak out? Ditto for Irshad Manji, Salman Rushdie, Ali Sina, Ibn Warriq, and many more. By suffering the presence of Muslim communities we gain a lot, not just the royal we of the west, but we who are awake to the threat of Islam. I realize that is no consolation to those killed and wounded in terror attacks, but war is war, and one must fight it on the territory most advantageous, and for us that is the world of ideas and dissent, preferably among Muslims.
For Canada itself, Muslim immigration may be ill-founded, but not suicidal; Canada is demonstrably not going the way of France. Statistics available online indicate that China and India are the #1 and #2 sources of immigration to Canada. I am not posting sources because they are ugly PDFs but a little googling and it is easily available. I do not know of any evidence that the Muslim immigration from India is disproportionate to their 12% stake of the population there. Other big sources include Phillipenes and Vietnam. Islamic terror may be a fact of life in Canada, but demographic conquest remains an impossible goal.
Why, lets not be to quick to judge. Canada is probably the only country where large immigration and multiculturalisme is working. Ever heard of race riots or jyhad in Canada? I neither.
"Ever heard of race riots or jyhad in Canada?"
-- from a posting above
What is "Jihad"? It does not proceed only through violence. It proceeds through forcing changes in the behavior of Infidels, so that they are forced to modify their own societies to accommodate Muslim demands, and step by step, pull down whatever barriers may, in the Muslim view, exist to the spread of Islam.
For example, Muslims refuse to recognize the practice, by Westerners, of the right of free speech. The fanatical reaction, and the world-wide scope of that reaction, to the Danish cartoons, with mob violence, attacks on Danish and other Western buildings, widespread and nearly complete economic boycotts, the recall of Ambassadors, the raising of the cartoons at the level not only of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Countires (vide Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu's outrageous remarks about the Danish cartoons, and Ihsanoglu, a Turk, was deliberately chosen to head the organization becuase it was felt that he was Westernized, he was plausible, he was a historian of science and a scholar, he would present the Muslim case in the most moderate and acceptable of fashions -- and look what he turned out to be supporting, and demanding), worked. Very few newspapers in the entire Western world -- in England, in America, in Canada in particular -- carried those anodyne cartoons, though many papers had their firm views about how in the end freedom of speech must now suddenly be modified to accommodate Muslim sensiblities. All of a sudden, a solicitousness for those who object to any criticism of their religion or religio-political belief-system, was on display where it had never been displayed before.
That victory has taken place in Canada. The demand for elements of the Shari'a to apply to Muslims in Canada was finally defeated, only after a very long campaign. And that demand will continue to be made, again and again.
The failure of politicians to even begin to study Islam, for fear of what they might find out, and certainly their fear of saying anything like the truth which those in whose name they claim to govern can easily discover, and easily see how their leaders are obfuscating or lying about the nature of Islam, is also a victory for the Jihad.
And when people are shouted down and prevented by mob violence and threats from speaking out -- as happened to both Benjamin Netanyahu and another speaker at Concordia University in Montreal -- that too is a victory for the Jihad. In this case, it is the Lesser Jihad - that directed at the tiny Infidel state of Israel, the Jihad that until about 35 years ago, before the OPEC trillions and the Muslim migrant millions, allowed bigger goals to be aimed for --on a field no longer limited to the tiny sliver of land that is Israel, but was now directed at all the Lands of the Infidels.
Of course Jihad is being conducted in Canada. Only those who, like George Bush, persist in not mentioning the word "Jihad," not understanding or even making an effort to understand what it means, and identifying "terror" as the same thing as Jihad, when "terror" is but one of its instruments, and hardly the most effective -- will continue to think that there is no Jihad in Canada.
As for that business of "race riots" -- what do "race riots" have to do with Jihad? Nothing. Muslims are not a race. They are people in thrall to a belief-system. Some are more observant, some more or less in thrall. But the potential for greater enthrallment remains, and the potential, for children and grandchildren of "moderate" (i.e., unobservant) Muslims to become the other kind, remains.
That is something that cannot be overlooked.
Quijybo writes: "Statistics available online indicate that China and India are the #1 and #2 sources of immigration to Canada."
The Chinese do emmigrate to Canada in large numbers but they vastly prefer Vancouver (sometimes jokingly referred to as "Hongcouver") and the west, or cosmopolitan Toronto. Basically the only reason they choose frigid Montreal or Quebec City is because the entry wait is much shorter.
Interestingly, the Chinese are resented by many in Quebec for the resistance they invariably pose to Francophone and successionist fever. Quebec would probably be a separate country by now if it weren't for the Chinese there.
Al
and perhaps the same is true of Indians too?
Nice explanation of Jihad Hugh.
Well as a Lebanese Christian living in Montreal, I can confirm point 2.
"Would there be a Wafa Sultan if there was no immigration from the Muslim world? More to the point, would she ever have been able to speak out? Ditto for Irshad Manji, Salman Rushdie, Ali Sina, Ibn Warriq, and many more. By suffering the presence of Muslim communities we gain a lot.."
-- from a posting above
This hope is a wan hope. The notion that because those one-in-ten-thousand or one-in-a-million exceptions to the rule exist, in the Western world, does not justify admitting the other 999 or 9,999 or 999,999. Ibn Warraq from Pakistan, Ali Sina from Iran, Wafa Sultan from Syria, managed in the West, and each is a very special case, to arrive at their views. But how representative are they? How many French Muslims belong to that group of maghrebins laiques? Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina, and Wafa Sultan have had more influence on Infidels, by being the truth-tellers they are, than on Muslims who live in totalitarian societies, or who, even in the West, are so thoroughly brainwashed, or tie themselves through emotion -- filial piety, for example, loyalty to a Muslim parent -- that they will not shake off, question, even find out all about Islam. I know of mothers who have divorced their Muslim husbands and tried to convince their children to reconsider Islam; the children in many cases refuse to even read the full Qur'an or HadithL "I won't do it, don't try to make me read it, I'm not going to."
Fouad Ajami tells us that he arrived from Lebanon believing and spouting all kinds of Nasserist nonsense. But Fouad Ajami was not only extremely intelligent, but led a charmed academic life, and has been the recipient of the very best that America has to offer. And over decades he has come to jettison, one suspects, Islam -- though he will not say so, cannot say so, and therefore, however, good he has been as an "Arab voic" to show up Edward Said or show up the idiocy of this or that act of Westeern appeasement, still cannot bring himself to discuss Islam tout court -- which by circumscribing his truth-telling, limits his effectiveness. Occasionally he allows a little of the truth to come out when he is confronted by one more uncomprehending American. When Dan Rather started to blather about the supposed secular nature of Saddam Hussein(this was before Hussein's fall), demonstrating in a way that he knew would not be understood, Ajami put on a little pantomime: "You wear pants. I wear pants." Which was to say -- that's what the supposed moderrnity and secularism of Saddaam Hussein, and by extension many others, amounted to. "You [Western men] wear pants, I wear pants." It went right past Rather, as Ajami knew it would.
The same is true for Kanan Makiya, who after all his decades in the West, after all he has seen in Iraq, and all that he has identified as the general Arab indifference to Saddam Hussein's cruelty, and to the mass murder of Kurds by Arabs, he has not yet shown any ability to go beyond the case of the Kurds to the treatment of the Berbers, or the black African Muslims in Darfur -- that is, the problem of Islam as a vehicle for Arab supremacism. This is something he cannot touch. He announces that he is a freethinker, yet he becomes extremely defensive when Islam appears to be the subject of discussion and attack, and recalls his pious Shi'a grandmother. virtually alone among Arabs, to publicize the campaign by Arab Iraqis (though Makiya never goes beyond his narrow scope, never chooses to investigate or connect the treatment of Berbers and Darfur blacks and other non-Arab Muslims). And he still writes of the "plight" of the "Palestinians" and has not questioned for one minute the existence of this "Palestinian people" that cannot easily be distinguished from Jordanians or other local Arabs -- and were in any case invented post-1967 for political reasons.
The notion that we should allow in Muslim immigrants by the tens or hundreds of thousands, so that a handful just may turn into Wafa
Sultan or Ibn Warraq or Ali Sina (or Fouad Ajami, or Kanan Makiya) is crazy. They are exceptional people. They are unusual. Immigration policy cannot be made in the hope that out of every thousand, 1 or 5 will turn out to be like that.
And, by the way, I do know what Ibn Warraq thinks, and Ali Sina thinks. Both think it is mad policy to continue to admit Muslims to the non-Muslim countries, an act of collective insanity. Others would need to be polled, but I am sure that Azam Kamguian, and Irfan Khawaja, and many others, knowing what they know about Islam, would similarly suggest a ban on Muslim migration.
So even if I cannot persuade you, would you be willing to accept the horror expressed by Ibn Warraq and other ex-Muslims to continued Muslim migration to the West? A horror expressed by the extraordinary people whe swelling of whose ranks you offer as a justification for continuing to permit such Muslim immigration?
A question of numbers. A question of statistics. Like so much else in this great big world of ours, with Every Man His Own Epidemiologist.
What I don't get is Canadian Irshad Manji. She herself has received threats for writing "The Trouble with Islam," and yet she still hangs on to the religion. Hmmm.
She hangs on to calling herself a Muslim. Logically, she should not. For other reasons, possibly because it is much more sellable to be a Brave Young Muslim Reformer doing what all such people do -- Speaking Truth to Power -- than to be just your own sweet and lonely Leibnitzian monadic self. No market for that.
Besides, she comes not from a Muslim society but from parents who lived in East Africa. What, really, does she know of the Full-Monty of Islam? She doesn't.
But she's getting those speaking engagements. Is she useful? Partly. But not a truth-teler like Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina, Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and others. She holds out a hope for the reform of Islam the effect of which is to allow many Infidels to console themselves with the notion that things are happening, reforms are occurring or must naturally occur, if we don't rock too many boats. It's not true. It's dangerous to be fooled into such notions. Irshad Manji, no doubt inadvertently, helps to promote such pleasingly pollyannish views.
Farah,
As for Irshad Manji still clinging to Islam, this could just be a phase that Muslims have to go through if they want to escape the intellectual prison of Islam. This exists in a sulfurous mixture among still less enlightened Muslims, in which the more diabolical aspects of the Islamic canon are unknown if not denied, and the "we are the victim" worldview serves to make the excuses necessary for the Jihad. In any case, she has her own reasons for not abandoning Islam which she has written about. I would not agree were I in her shoes, but she is certainly doing more good than harm, and for that I applaud her and wish we had many more like her.
On to Hugh's point:
"So even if I cannot persuade you, would you be willing to accept the horror expressed by Ibn Warraq and other ex-Muslims to continued Muslim migration to the West? A horror expressed by the extraordinary people whe swelling of whose ranks you offer as a justification for continuing to permit such Muslim immigration?"
I do accept that large numbers of Muslim immigrants is bad. But how do we spread western ideas to the benighted Muslim world? Islamic terror is a constant danger, a slouch into dhimmitude is certainly a huge problem, but we have to assess the damage done to Islam as well, and it is real. Reformers and apostates have an effect, and it is magnified by the modern media. It is not a critical mass yet, but it is building slowly. Like the Jihadis, we have to take a long-term view.
If we were to create a strategy for confronting the global Jihad, and Islam itself, a total ban on Muslim immigration would not necessarily be to our advantage. I would not advocate France-style self-destruction via Muslim immigration, or even the level that America is tolerating. But if indeed the pen is mightier than the sword, we need Muslim apostates and reformers, as well as a population for them to "minister" to.
Which makes more sense, freedom or Sharia tyranny, a religion based on a merciful God and the golden rule, or Muhammad's barbarism? Women's liberation or women in Burqas? At some level, having Islam compete in the marketplace of ideas is an opportunity to expose its manifest stupidity. Either our ideals are better than theirs, or we might as well hang it up and give our Shahada now. I cannot say for sure if I am right about Muslim immigration, but I AM sure that Islam is a false doctrine, one that cannot stand the light of reason, analysis and free thought.
The Quebec immigration policy described above not only threatens Canada as a whole, but the US as well. After all, Canadian citizens do not need visas to enter the US, and so once these Mohammedan activists are Canadian citizens, currently nothing will prevent them from entering and leaving the US at will.
If Quebec (and Europe) are not going to do anything about Muslim immigration, it is high time that the US government starts requiring visas for citizens of all countries outside the US, not just most. After all, if a Korean or Vietnamese person requires a visa to come to the US, why not Europe? (Ostensibly, the reason in the past has been that people from Europe or Canada are less likely to want to settle in the US due to standard of living differences. However, that hardly seems true anymore.)
After all, how many Muslims is one likely to encounter from Taiwan, Korea or Japan? Otoh, since Europe has accepted in huge numbers Muslim immigrants, be it Algeria, Turkey, Morocco, the US should start making visas required for European citizens wanting to visit the US. That way, it is easier to screen out and block Muslim visitors. Note that when an embassy/consulate denies someone a visa, their discretion is final, and not subject to appeal.
I agree with Hugh - not just Quebec, but Europe, and indeed, all of dar ul Harb - should stop accepting Muslim immigrants (other than apostates, and that too well screened). But until that happens, the US should do what it can to make sure that just because they are in Paris, Cologne or Montreal doesn't mean that they get to come to Detroit.
We should certainly be concerned about Montreal, but we should also be concerned about Brooklyn. There you will also see increasing numbers of women in hijabs, headscarves, abayas and even veils or tank-like burkas. Their men, however, feel under no such compulsion to wear Muslim garb - they are quite happy to wear comfortable western jeans and NY Yankee sweatshirts.
And now the idiots in our Senate, the worst to sit since the one that declared Caligula a god, is ready to pass idiotic "immigration reform" legislation that in addition to returning the southwest to Mexico will increase the numbers of Muslims entering the US.
How do you say "Suckers" in French?
They never taught that exact idiom in high school.
The closest I can think of is "trompe".
(As in the artistic term trompe l'oeil -or: "fool the eye".)
Islam, the trompe l'oeil of 'faiths'.
"But how do we spread western ideas to the benighted Muslim world? Islamic terror is a constant danger, a slouch into dhimmitude is certainly a huge problem, but we have to assess the damage done to Islam as well, and it is real. Reformers and apostates have an effect, and it is magnified by the modern media. It is not a critical mass yet...But if indeed the pen is mightier than the sword, we need Muslim apostates and reformers, as well as a population [in the Western world] for them [those apostates and reformers who will be formed from Muslims living in that West]to 'minister' to."
"
--- from a posting above
The pen is not mightier than the sword. That's just a phrase. And the idea that we should admit more Muslims in the hope and belief that that is the way to convert a sufficient number has been proven false -- look at the statistics. Look at what the large-scale Muslim presence does, everywhere that it is allowed to exist, in Infidel lands. Are you willing to make our own countries even more unpleasant, expensive, and dangerous because you -- but not Ibn Warraq, not Ali Sina, not Azam Kamguian, not Ayaan Hirsi Ali, not Irfan Khawaja, not a single ex-Muslim anywhere inthe world -- think we can help persuade enough of these people to change, to drop Islam? That hasn't happened, despite the best efforts, to more than a handful of people --the most intelligent and morally aware people -- among those born into Islam. Such people are few.
Far better to stop preventing the creation of those conditions which, in the Muslim world, will force many more Muslims to finally realize that the political, economic, social, intellectual, and moral failures of their societies are, in every case, attributable to Islam itself, to its habit of mental submission and discouraging of free and skeptical inquiry (which stunts the mental growth at every level), to its inshallah-fatalism, which is fatal for economic activity beyond mere trading of goods, and certainly does nothing to promote either science or technological innnovation, the inculcated belief that Islam is a closed and perfect system and curiosity about other kinds of knowledge, from non-Muslims, unless it is the most narrow kind that can immediately be exploited for Muslim purposes, is otherwise a matter of indifference, the habit and duty of obedience to the ruler as long as that ruler is a Muslim, the different treatment for women, and for Infidels, who are according to Islam itself to be treated as the inferiors they are -- all this explains what is wrong with the Muslim countries. All this, however, is not yet seen by enough Infidels, and by hardly any Muslims, as the explanation for what ails them.
If we have as little to do with them as possible, do not permit them to export their multiplying populations but to bottle them up in their own countries so that they have to start exercising some control of their own populations, keep them from acquiring or, where they have acqauired it, ever using major weaponry, on threat of great, almost annihilatory retaliation, end the Jizyah of foreign aid, work to diminish the oil revenues that permitted, after 1973, the Jihad to metastasize from the smaller ones here and there -- in Kashmir, against Israel, against non-Muslims in Indonesi-- to the much larger world-wide Jihad, with plenty of local manifestations all linked in the minds of Muslims, and in the mix-n'-match of Muslim volunteers in every theatre of the Jihad-war -- if all of this is done, it will help ccreate those conditions that will force Muslims, without being allowed to come to our countries, to face up, or begin to face up, to what it is about Islam that has damaged so many Infidels, and so many of those born, through no fault of their own, into Islam.
"That victory has taken place in Canada. The demand for elements of the Shari'a to apply to Muslims in Canada was finally defeated, only after a very long campaign. And that demand will continue to be made, again and again."
You're not correct here. First of all, the Sharia thing was only in Ontario. Sharia has never been proposed as an addition to federal Canadian law. It was to be added to a list of religious/cultural arbitration options for family court proceedings, in this province alone. But the Liberals shot it down and killed all such religious arbitration. Great move there, although it took the Libs a hell of a long time to make it.
Incidentally, I wouldn't call the fight against Sharia long or even a campaign. Most people here didn't pay any attention to it, or bought into the ridiculous line that this would just be a way to resolve family matters without getting Canadian courts involved, would save us all money, etc. Uh-huh. Women who had come to Canada from Muslim societies, though, did speak out very, very strongly against Sharia.
Best part of all of this is that Sharia was studied by a commission under Marion Boyd, former wacko NDP (think communists in orange) cabinet minister in Ontario. She's as feminist, lefty and, well, as lesbian as it gets, yet she thought that letting Sharia get a toehold here was just a dandy idea for women. Awesome.
What the hell is wrong with these people?
Francophones get an advantage.
The good side: Canadians are willing to make distinctions when choosing immigrants.
The bad side: they're making the wrong distinctions! Language is not more important than common values.
Hugh,
Firstoff, I am not advocating the mass immigration of Muslims to the west. I in fact lean toward your view on the subject, though I must admit I am more favorable to immigration in general that a lot of people here, just not Muslim immigration. This country would have a terribly hard time allowing immigration from one part of the world and not another. My original post, which still stands in my eyes as sensible, was about how the Muslim diaspora is opening a window to other ways of thinking, to the Muslims in the rest of the world. I have seen this with my own eyes and in conversating with Muslims.
Muslim women came out against Sharia courts in Canada. It is a small victory, but it means something. Could this ever happen in the Islamic world? Unraveling Islam will take generations, and advocacy AGAINST Sharia by women in Canada is a step. The trickle of people leaving Islam could become a flood in 50 years' time. If Islam is backwards and Muhammad was a monster, eventually Muslims themselves will realize it.
As for the pen being mightier than the sword, it is a cliche but one that is most apt. How can you yourself more effectively combat the global Jihad? In a Marines uniform, burning under the Iraqi or Afghan sun, or basking in the warm, glowing warming glow of your computer monitor? Islam is not threatened by violence; it thrives on it. It does not shrink back from conflict, it instigates it. But the violence that Islam is most unique in propigating is against its critics, and those who elect to leave. Ideas threaten Islam, terminally. I think everyone here knows that. What we need to figure out is how to get those ideas out, both to the infidel public at large, and Muslims as well. If a little immigration from Muslim countries facilitates that, it might be worth the sacrifice. I know the cost is high.
when the muslim immigration first came to my attention, more than a decade ago, i too thought it was a good thing, that the immigrants would come to see things as americans see them.
the price for every Wafa Sultan is quite high; and we could take such people in as political refugees (if they are not killed, of course...).
in the back of my mind, though, is this truth: "this country would have a terribly hard time allowing immigration from one part of the world and not another." or more specifically, from one religion and not another.
that's one reason why it's important to convince folks that islam is a political system, not worthy of respect as a "spiritual" path, is so important.
but have muslims here to convince them better? or to have their backing for a new kind of communication in the arab world? but why not use radio free europe and the internet? why endanger our children?
Quiyjbo-
If it meant preventing the immigration of Hirsi Ali or Ibn Warriq to the West in order to deflect any further Muslim infil-traitors, I think even Hirsi and Ibn would agree that we in the free world would be better off having such apostates stay home and fight within Islam rather than sacrificing the very world they, too, are fighting to preserve.
Hell, if throwing me out of the West could somehow stop Muslim immigration cold, I'd be willing to live as a dhimmi in Mecca. (And I hate patriarchy and sheep's eyeballs in couscous more than most.)
If someone at the U.N. can work out that deal, email me through this site, and I'll start donating my stuff to the Salvation Army:
Muslim Immigration to the infidel world ends and I have to start learning to look at the ground and biting my tongue. (And watching out for men with camcorders and butcher knives.)
Something has to stop this dogmatic termite infestation.
Quijybo, going slightly off topic here...
It is very important that the issue of Muslim immigration and its consequences be discussed in the context of Islam and its canonical intolerance and violence, rather than the context of immigration as a whole. The current national debate on immigration is pretty much dominated (on the pro-amnesty open borders side) by liberals, Latinos and employers who benefit from it. While you may not agree with these people on this subject, they should not be antagonized. I can think of no better situation than for the average American liberal to be aware of what the Quran, Hadith and Sharia really have to say. I would love it if Latinos in this country knew what Islam had to say about infidels. There is no benefit to us if these people see Jihadwatch forums as about anything other than Jihad.
I have seen the problem of "faux coalition building" in the left. It may surprise (sarcasm) you to know that I know many people intimately involved in all sorts of lefty nonsense. I have seen, for instance, a massive anti-Iraq war protest in SF. This protest was notable for its inclusion of so very many absurd and "causes" that most Americans are either not interested in, or by which they are outright appalled. The lefty kids think they are "educating and radicalizing" when they are really "alienating and ostracising". I know people who were diametrically opposed to the Iraq war, who feel this way about the left and their organizations.
This forum's participants are overwhelmingly "conservative"; in fact the entire intellectual movement aimed at exposing Islam is as well. It is critically important to our success in the political and intellectual mainstream to leave unrelated political views at the door, otherwise our view will NEVER be in the majority. Immigration is a dangerous issue for this very reason.
Here is a rule of thumb I propose for a discourse about Muslim immigration: try to make sure your arguments are something even Latino immigrant would find persuasive. You may not in fact want 20,000,000 Latino immigrants, but you've got them, along with millions of Americans who really don't so much mind them either, and we need allies.
Posted by: OutOfAqaba at April 3, 2006 06:36 PM
"First of all, the Sharia thing was only in Ontario."
The sharia thing was also pushed in Quebec, but they lost. Last fall, I had read somewhere that the sharia thing might be attempted in British Columbia as well.
Let's also keep in mind that that large Muslim presence in the larger cities, especially Toronto and surrounding region, translates into a lot of political influence provincially and federally. (e.g., the area takes up a large number of seats).
We should also keep in mind that Islamic law, when not backed by imperialistic force, imposes its way in bit-by-bit, officially and unofficially, into the host society. This is nothing new. Apostates are still in danger in the west; frank criticism of Islam has been curtailed; school curricula are being altered to fit the Islamic agenda; politicians adjust their platforms to appeal to conservative Muslims, etc.
"Sharia has never been proposed as an addition to federal Canadian law. It was to be added to a list of religious/cultural arbitration options for family court proceedings, in this province alone."
Islamic law is by its very nature in addition to Canadian Federal Law.
"I wouldn't call the fight against Sharia long or even a campaign."
They've only just begun.
"Most people here didn't pay any attention to it, or bought into the ridiculous line that this would just be a way to resolve family matters without getting Canadian courts involved, would save us all money, etc."
That wasn't my perception; this got a fair amount of media coverage over a long period. I saw polls that indicated that about 95% of the respondents didn't want Islamic family/personal law. About 65% of Muslims didn't want it.
"Women who had come to Canada from Muslim societies, though, did speak out very, very strongly against Sharia."
Some did, yes. And some women from Muslim countries spoke out in favour of it. Muslim organizations tend toward favouring Islamic law, more so than do most Muslims in Canada.
"Best part of all of this is that Sharia was studied by a commission under Marion Boyd, former wacko NDP (think communists in orange) cabinet minister in Ontario. She's as feminist, lefty and, well, as lesbian as it gets, yet she thought that letting Sharia get a toehold here was just a dandy idea for women."
Indeed. It is incredible, the sheer level of suicidal stupidity of Boyd, but Boyd's own riding has a large percentage of Muslims, so perhaps her preception was that this would help her get more Muslim votes (that may or may not have been the case). The proposal itself, which Boyd initially had reported upon, was apparently written by the pro-sharia Syed Mumtez Ali--he actually boasted as having written most of himself. This was the perfect marriage between the NDP moral relativists and the Islamist forces who were (and still are) quite willing to oblige them in their suicidal stupidity.
Archi:
I had to save your above posting in my special 'Islamic folder'
unreal!
A lefty- looney -lesbo- moral- relativist suckling the Mohammedan warriors for the promise to take them all back to the 7th century..?
Farah said:
What I don't get is Canadian Irshad Manji. She herself has received threats for writing "The Trouble with Islam," and yet she still hangs on to the religion. Hmmm.
Could it, perhaps, be the money she's making from it, and the fame?
Sorry to sound cynical.
Hugh, I am sorry if I sound johnny-one-note in my contributions, but it strikes me that there is an elephant in the room that is often disregarded out of principle or habit. The Quebecois immigration policies were determined not only by hatred of the Anglophone sphere, but also by a positive, crassly mistaken, and widespread ideology: a desire to prove that the nation is above the Church, that Francophonie is an independent set of values that can live without and outside the world of Catholicism and Christianity.
This is particularly significant in Quebec, since the French-Canadian as a people would never have survived without the Church. It was the continued presence of the Church in Canada - and this in spite of British hatred and intimidation - that kept the French language and identity alive, long before Catholicism was legalized in any other part of the British Empire (including Ireland). Catholicism was the cradle in which the Quebecois nation grew and developed, from a matter of eighty thousand surrouned by more than three million English-speakers, to the current several million.
This, however, meant that the Quebecois intellectual leadership developed the mother and father of all Oedipus complexes. Hatred for the Church in Quebec is a serious passion, and the Bloc Quebecois is actually more rabidly secularist than anyone in their Liberal allies. The Church did a lot to deserve this hatred; its history in Quebec is rich both in authoritarianism and in corruption. But there is also a strong and direct influence from France, and from the idea that France should itself be reason enough to live and die. What was in Paris a cosmopolitan intellectual imperialism became in Montreal a poisonous self-regard.
The massive immigration allowed in both Old and New France since the sixties is not really different from the republican ideology that dominated France since before the First World War, in which the subjects in the French colonies in Africa and Asia were not, whatever they might have thought, conquered subject, but "Francais d'outre-mer." This ideology had a fairly successful test in the Great War, during which large numbers of African battalions fought on the Western Front, and did actually conquer a considerable amount of colonials - in 1960, the city of Dakar voted to remain French, and we know how many islands and pieces of land throughout the world are "French overseas departments".
What is insufficiently appreciated is that this is the ideology of Combes (if not of Clemenceau, who opposed colonial conquests), the ideology that saw Frenchness as something separate from the historical territory and religion of France, an abstract quality mystically bound with the values of the Revolution and equally at home in every country in the world. A century before, Napoleon, with the same vision (after all, he was an Italian who had betrayed his own identity), had tried to impose French as the language of Germany, Italy, Croatia and the Netherlands (no joke; in Florence, Hamburg and Amsterdam day-to-day administration had to take place in French). In the early twentieth century, his lesser latter-day successors tried the same game in Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Now all the chickens have come home to roost. In both the Old and the New France, governmental action massively supported by the intellectual class has, over the course of a century, utterly uprooted the Catholic Church. The Church is, in both countries, isolated, weak, and unnoticed. And to further break it, both Frances have opened themselves to immigrants from every part of the world, so long as they are Francophone. After all, the ideology taught, the values of the Enlightenment - so vaingloriously forced by Chirac into the so-called European Constitution - are universal. Nobody bothered to reason their way around the contradiction between universality and France. Nobody wondered whether the mere possession of a language immediately made you intimate with Moliere, Voltaire and Balzac. Nobody took the trouble to see whether the universal values of the Enlightenment were even understandable, let alone shared, among the "Francais d'outre-mer". And they opened the doors, and all the sharks swam in.
Why the Catholic Church should be so detested by the French government and intellectual classes is a long story. It has to do with the Church being more a party within the French State than a part of the Universal Church (from which it arrogantly separated itself through those Gallican tenets that made it almost unreachable by the Pope), to do with its struggles against other parties of Huguenots and Jansenists, and to do with the Enlightenment inheriting the quarrel, though not the beliefs, of the Jansenists. But the end result is this: that the French state and the Quebecois authorities have done their best to uproot the historical religion of both countries - and now have no better weapon in the struggle against worldwide jihad, than the provincial and thrice-discredited claim of the "universal values of the Enlightenment/Revolution".
From a posting above:
"It is very important that the issue of Muslim immigration ... be discussed in the context of Islam ... rather than in the context of immigration as a whole."
If anyone thinks that we can continue our insane immigration policies of bringing massive numbers of third world immigrants to the US and at the same time exclude Muslims from that flow - think again. It would be politically impossible to discriminate only against Muslim nations, to say nothing of the fact that Muslims would use countries like Mexico as stopping off points before continuing on to the US. Indeed that is already happening. So the choice is very clear. Either lower the flow now or face the fact that we can easily have 50 million Muslims here by 2050 which would be 10% of the population based on FAIR's recent projection. And that brings us to the point where France, the Netherlands etc. are now. Is anyone comfortable with that?
RBLA,
I do not see how we can end up with 50 million Muslims in the United States in 2050; if you could provide a link to FAIR's data on this I would be most interested in reading it. From what I have read on their site, it is the Latino and Asian populations that will grow quickly, and most of the Asian population is not Muslim.
I agree that the current level of immigration is foolish, a non-policy with potentially disastrous implications. I stated in one of my earier posts that the nature of political discourse in this country is such that we cannot selectively allow and restrict immigration based on country of origin, let alone religion, even if religion in this case really ought to be "triumphalist death cult".
I just feel that the issue of immigration policy and anti-Jihad advocacy should be approached separately. I want as many people finding out about the evil aspects of Islam as possible. They will then come to their own conclusions about immigration from the Muslim world. Hitting both issues at once can alienate people. We're on the same side on both issues.
"the issue of immigration policy and anti-Jihad advocacy should be approached separately. I want as many people finding out about the evil aspects of Islam as possible."
-- from a posting above
Immigration, and Muslim immigration, to the Western world, are two different things. I agree with the poster above. Nothing matters as much as stopping Muslim immigration. This doesn't mean there are not other problems that should not be ignored -- including the rate and nature of other immigration, and the degree to which homo economicus (both the immigrant looking for higher wages, and the employer looking for cheaper labor) should be allowed to transform the nature of a country, a country now in thrall, as is much of the world, to the idea that Growth is a Holy Grail, and only a rise in GDP can bring about a rise in happiness -- two very silly ideas, but accepted as gospel hither and yon).
Keep the focus here, and possibly elsewhere, on the kind of immigration that is a mortal and immeidate threat. This is not the same thing as urging others to ignore other kinds of civilizational threats, including the threat that non-Muslim immigrants who come not to assimilate whole-heartedly but with ideological chips on their shoulders may, once admitted or allowed to stay, be an especially tempting target for Da'wa, and possibly more susceptible than most.
But it is important not to mix things up, and not to seem -- and by the way, not only to seem but be ("Nay, I know not seems" -- Hamlet to his mommy) reactionary. No need to be or seem to be such.
I'm still wearing my "Madly For Adlai" button, right over my "Stop Hitler" button. What about you?
I did a demographic study at one time estimating the US Muslim foreign stock (Foreign born plus US offspring). The Muslim foreign stock grew from some 300,000 in 1970 to 2.3 million in 2000 increasing by almost one million in the decade of the 90s alone. That gives an annnual growth rate of 6.7%. Projecting this out 44 years (anyone can do the math) gives a foreign descended Muslim stock of some 42 million by 2050, if present immigration trends continue.
So I apologize, my faulty memory caused me to exaggerate the projection slightly. However, if native converts are added the figure goes up.
Due to my immense respect and admiration for Mr. Fitzgerald's writing, I will heed his injunction and not post on this topic anymore; I will leave that to others and let future events speak for me.
But I do have one final question. Exactly how, in terms of law, language and practical politics do we design an immigration policy that singles out only Muslim nations out of all other third world nations for special treatment without reducing immigration as a whole?
"Exactly how, in terms of law, language and practical politics do we design an immigration policy that singles out only Muslim nations out of all other third world nations for special treatment without reducing immigration as a whole?"
-- from a posting above
No country in the Lands of the Infidels is required to admit those who claim, by continuing to call themselves Muslims, to be adherents of a belief-system that:
1) Uncompromisingly divides the world between Believer and Infidel, Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb.
2) Allows Infidels three options: death, immediate conversion to Islam, and a permanent status of deliberate humiliation (this humiliation is an important part of it, so that the JIzyah was to be paid personally, and the dhimmi to be hit or spat upon or otherwise humiliated -- no "put the check in the envelope"arrangement as some may think), degradation, and physical insecurity.
3) Agrees that a figure (who may or may not have existed, but that is irrelevant) called Muhammad, referred to in the Qur'an as "uswa hasana" (a phrase used three times in the Qur'an, twice in reference to Abraham), as al-insan al-kamil, the Perfect Man, the stories of whose acts and deeds and even silences have been collected and winnowed, and then ranked for their degree of likely authenticity, by such muhaddithin as Bukhari and Muslim, who studied the isnad or chain of transmission, and carefully investigated the likely trustworthiness of each human link on that chain, and by whom, and when, that particular isnad-chain was begun.
Since Muhammad is the Perfect Man, those who claim to be Muslims either believe, or pretend to believe, or lend support by their presence, in their merely swelling perceived power of Muslims that can translate into political gain, to those Muslims who do fully believe that Muhammad was the Perfect Man, and that means endorsing:
1) The witnessing of the decapitation of the prisoners of the Banu Qurayza.
2) The assassination of Asma bint Marwan, Abu Akaf, and others who for some reason -- often because of a satirical vese or two -- had earned Muhammad's enmity.
3) The bloodcurdling ways that Muhammad encouraged people to be murdered.
4) The role of Muhammad as slave-owner, thereby justifying for all time the institution of slavery within Islam, which explainis why there never was a Muslim William Wilberfoce. This acceptance of slavery, which claimed tens of millions of victims, in Western Europe and Eastern Europe, and most of all in black Africa, where huge numbers of young males, in particular, were seized, castrated on the spot, and then taken in slave coffles, and then by dhow from such slave gathering-centers as Pemba, to the slave-markets of Islam. About 10% are likely to have survived the trip.
5) Muhammad who killed the father, brother, husband of Safiya and then took her as his sex slave, and encouraged others in his entourage to do the same. Many such cases, lots of examples of this kind of thing.
6) Muhammad who took an interest in Aisha when she was six (daughter of a Companion), "married" her -- i.e. had sexual intercourse with her -- when she was nine. She was called away from her toys to go to Muhammad.
7) The Sayings of Muhammad are dear to a great many Muslims. They do not include that would remind you of the sayings of Jesus. No gentle this, meek and mild, no mercy and peace and justice and the meek shall inherit the earth. None of that. Muhammad was the leader of a warrior band, a political leader who seized power, made treaties that he then broke when he felt strong enough to do so, and gave impetus to the creation of an empire based on aggrression against all non-Muslims.
Two of his statements deserve to be committed to memory:
"War is deception."
"Islam is to dominate, and is not to be dominated."
There are many other similar remarks. They should not be ignored. They are taken in by tens or hundreds of millions of very primitive people. They believe it all -- all of it. Many people in not-so-primitive Germany, within living memory, managed to believe all kinds of things. One must not underestimate the primitive nature of masses of people, whether it is the result of less than a decade of Hitlerian rule, or of a 1350-year history of aggression against, and subjugation of, all non-Muslims, a history interrupted only by those periods of relative calm when Muslims were simply too weak to conduct Jihad through combat, and did not possess as yet those other instruments of Jihad -- the money weapon, propaganda, demographic conquest from within the Lands of the Infidels --that they possess today.
That is a start by way of answering your question. If just what is written above becomes widely known to a sufficient number of those whose duty it is to instruct, or to protect, us, the Infidel citizwens of Infidel countries, then measures to end Muslim immigration would be widely supported. There is no obligation to permit, much less welcome, into your midst those whose presence on a large scale makes Infidels lead lives that are much more unpleasant, much more expensive, and much more physically dangerous than they would otherwise be.
The truth of that last sentence cannot be denied by any sane person living in Western Europe today. If it less recognized as true in the United States, that is only because there are far fewer Muslims as a percentage of the popoulation. That is the only difference -- not that America "knows how to integrate Muslims." That is nonsense.
Hugh
I agree with everything you say regarding Muslims and I have been reading extensively about Islamic history over the last few years. However I have also been active in immigration reform circles and those of us in that field have come to a full realization of how difficult it is to get the greedheads and dhimmis in Congress, to say nothing of President Bush, aka in some quarters as Imam Abu'shila to even take the most minimal steps necessary to secure our undefended and terrorist prone borders.
The only hope is that all of those who are concerned with any aspect of this problem including that of Muslim immigration to unite with one voice and force our elected officials to severely damp down the entire flow, ideally with a moratorium, giving us a chance to design an immigration policy that serves the national interest and such a one would, it goes without saying be permanently Muslim free.
But, we will not get a piecemeal policy that serves only one particular ethnic group or world view. Now, perhaps I'm wrong and I wish you luck in banning solely Muslim immigration; and I will support your efforts to do so; however I don't think it can be done. Divided, the different groups supporting western civilization and American civilization will be picked off one by one.
Furthermore fragmenting the one nation that is even slightly willing to stand up to resurgent Islam is a very bad idea. To invite further ethnic tensions with real and perceived grievances as our present policy is doing (and you can see that in the streets of LA among other places) is to give a great advantage to the jihadists; the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Indeed the entire history of Islamic expansion was fueled by resentful groups or individuals among the "infidels". You are certainly more familiar than I am with names such as Cantacuzene, Count Julian or the Conqueror's Hungarian cannoneer Orban. Inviting the creation of large dissident ethnic enclaves filled with such individuals strikes me as a very bad idea.
And that is my last posting on this topic. Promise.