Here is a lesson in the craven opportunism of jihadists, as they immediately discard and subjugate former allies, but even more so in the consequences of accepting Sharia law in hope of gaining security: The nature of the insecurity only shifts as the state takes up the role of terrorizing citizens, with the full force of Islamic law behind it. Sharia Alert from the LA Times:
[...]
For 15 years, Somalia was ruled by clan-based strongmen, each with his own private army. The capital was divided among the warlords and controlled by their AK-47-toting fighters, many of them children.
Over that period of chaos, violence and war, the women of Mogadishu have risked their lives time and again -- and in the process changed their country.
First they became the wartime breadwinners in this male-dominated society.
"Women had to help the family to survive. That's when they got their voice, when they shared the life of the family with the men," said Malyun Sheik Haidar, 31, who publishes a women's newspaper.
This spring, women stepped up again. Weary of suffering stoically, they jammed the switchboards of Mogadishu's independent radio stations with angry protests about the warlords' violence.
It marked a stunning shift in Somali culture. People here call it a popular revolution that helped defeat the warlords and ushered in the reign of the Conservative Council of Islamic Courts.
But now that women have helped end the brutal power of the warlords, they may be forced to abandon their newfound status.
Already women are swapping traditional Somali dress, which is open at the face, for the Saudi-style black hijab, which covers the face and body.
[...]
Like many women in Mogadishu, [Maryam Mohammed] feels less vulnerable to violence nowadays, but she is afraid it will be harder to find work under the Islamic regime.
"I don't see them as something good," she said. "I'd like to leave Somalia if I can and do business, have a small shop or even a job with a decent salary, like a secretary or a cleaner."
[...]
Like the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Islamic courts won popular support in the mid-1990s by trying to enforce a degree of order, reducing theft and crime. When the courts' militias recently drove the warlords from Mogadishu, they had the support of the majority.
The courts represent various strands of Islam, some more fundamentalist than others, but there are fears that the recent rise of Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys as chairman of the group could mean more repressive, Taliban-style rules. Aweys took over from the more moderate Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, who is now chairman of the group's executive committee.
Ms. Haidar, 31, the women's newspaper publisher, was recently warned by a figure in the courts to give up working and stay home.
"If this continues, it will close down my newspaper," she said. "This is our only expression. We are talking about children's rights and women's rights, and if they stop us from doing that, it means we lost our rights."
Even under the more moderate leadership, Islamic guards had been stopping minibuses to check women's clothing and men's hairstyles.
Islamic guards grabbed Ismahaan Ali Mohammed, 18, an aspiring actress, and hacked her clothing with scissors because it was deemed too tight and un-Islamic.
Wearing heavy eyeliner that exaggerates her beauty, she and her friend, Nawaal Mohammed, 18, could not be more different from Maryam Mohammed, the former khat trader. They are self-confident, assertive and eager to soak up the pleasures of youth. But these days they must cover their bright dresses with the hijab.
[...]
"Now I'm afraid to be arrested or beaten," she said. "It's safer than before, but we have no freedom. We are not happy with this Islamic Sharia law."
She dreads donning a drab hijab before leaving the house.
Somalia is a haven for Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden has warned the US to stay out of Somalia. The US has so far not got involved in Somalia. Is this the right policy or should we be engaged diplomatically ?
This is off track and relates to the UK.
This journalist is of Indian descent and he is one to watch, this was in the Sunday Times.
Things are changing !!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2339783,00.html
Mr Multicultural shows his teeth
Nirpal Dhaliwal
Two of the founding grandes dames of British multiculturalism got into a cat fight this week. Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, has been “pandering to the right”, spat Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London.
Phillips’s crime was to state that last weekend’s Notting Hill carnival “can hardly be said to represent the everyday culture of most of London’s communities”. A pretty obvious statement to make as most people in London are not black. But Livingstone had a hissy fit and accused Phillips of selling out black people. “He’d had a brief sort of black power fling,” said Livingstone, “dissing” Phillips’s past activism, “and ever since then he’s gone so far over to the other side that I expect soon he’ll be joining the BNP.”
It seems that Trevor ain’t been “keeping it real” enough for Ken (or K Diddy as we call him on the street), so he’s calling new Labour’s No 1 homeboy a coconut. Maybe Trevor should get some gold teeth and grab his crotch more often.
Like in America, Britain’s debate on multiculturalism is becoming an empty-headed bun-fight in which race is a convenient bat to beat your opponents with. The United States has always been fraught with individuals tapping ethnic anxieties to further themselves. The Rev Al Sharpton and his jerry-curled hair became famous throughout the country as he jumped on the flimsiest bandwagons to make hysterical overstatements about race.
Britain’s irony is that the person profiting most from exploiting racial tensions is not a glamorous funky demagogue but a white middle-aged nerd. But K Diddy is savvy to the way race is skilfully employed in America and has imported those techniques here.
It’s easy to disregard Livingstone as just another cheesy lily-white leftie associating himself with ethnic groups to prove his hipness and moral perfection. But there’s a sinister consistency in his approach to minority issues. Two years ago he welcomed Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the fundamentalist Islamist, to Britain, praising him as a “powerfully progressive force for change”. He canoodled with him for the cameras and compared him with the Pope, although the sheikh endorses suicide bombings, despises gay people and thinks it is acceptable for men to beat their wives. But Livingstone knows what potential there is in cultivating ethnic and religious support.
As so few people bother to vote in local and regional elections, Livingstone would love to garner the support of the hardcore element of London’s Muslim community. The value of the lumpen ethnic block vote was obvious in George Galloway’s victory at the last general election. The podgy ex-pugilist knew nothing about the people of Bethnal Green & Bow but ousted Oona King, a hardworking, wholly committed MP.
Galloway has rarely voted in parliament since his election and has achieved little of practical value for his constituents. But he exploited the anger over Iraq to get himself elected, although he was never going to remotely alter government policy.
Similarly, Livingstone smartly antagonises the Jewish community. He argues that he’s not an anti-semite, but anti-semites will warm to his snide remarks — particularly those who are hardline Islamists. He knew exactly what he was doing when he attacked David and Simon Reuben, the Jewish businessmen, saying they should “go back (to their own country) and see if they can do better”. He would never dare tell black people to go back to Africa and try their luck.
In Livingstone’s calculated hierarchy of bigotries, anti-semitism is a low priority: it won’t lose him votes and might even gain him some. The same applies to homophobia.
K Diddy would never welcome a gay rights campaigner who publicly denounced Islam as an “abominable practice” in the manner that Qaradawi condemns homosexuals.
Phillips annoyed Livingstone when he challenged his declaration that the carnival had been a “triumph of multiculturalism”. As great as the event is, Phillips argued that combining diverse peoples into a cohesive society is a painstaking process that requires more than a day out in the sun shaking your booty. He touched a raw nerve when he undermined Livingstone’s attempt at congratulating himself for his cool exotic tastes, saying: “We wouldn’t, frankly, think of participation in a day’s morris dancing or caber tossing as a valuable exercise in building a modern multicultural society.” Let’s face it: the carnival is as outdated and irrelevant to a lot of black people as cheese and pineapple on sticks are to most whites. Hats off to Phillips for having the guts to say it.
Livingstone clings to the myth that he is Britain’s Mr Multicultural. In his view even black people can’t be less than euphoric about the carnival. He makes glib associations between Phillips and the far right, while snuggling up to dark-skinned fascists himself. The mayor pats himself on the back for an occasional street party while sneakily exploiting ethnic divisions.
I hope London voters will forget their differences at the next mayoral election and join forces to show this clown the door. Now that would be a real “triumph of multiculturalism”.
Wherever the death cult goes, horrible, miserable, failed societies are created. The death cult contributes nothing to the world but hatred, death and misery.
Islamic societies are literally hell on earth.
"I don't see them as something good," she said. "I'd like to leave Somalia if I can and do business, have a small shop or even a job with a decent salary, like a secretary or a cleaner."
-- from the article above
Here is the problem. Suppose this woman were allowed to emigrate to, say, Italy. Presumably she would arrive with her family -- her husband, her children. Or if not, she would find a husband once in Italy. He might be found from among the Muslims already resident, or she might find a non-Muslim husband from among the many people, including Italians, in Italy. As a Muslimah, she cannot marry a non-Muslim so a non-Muslim husband would have to conavert. This would likely mean very little to him. He would not take it seriously. Nonetheless, he has now become part of the Islamic community and there is a chance that, by degrees, he will take the whole thing seriously, or at least will further help to acclimatize Italians to the idea that "there is nothing wrong with Islam" and "Pippo, that fusto, managed to get that Somali stunner -- I'd turn Muslim too to get her" or something similar. Children result. They are all raised as Muslims. They go to the local schools, and acquire a native command of the language. But they do not abandon Islam. Indeed, as they live in a non-Muslim society, and are not forced to confront the economic and political failures that every Muslim country exhibits, they may have little idea of how Islam in operation actually works. But they are still people who call themselves Muslims, and we, the Infidels, have no idea what this will cause them, or could cause them, to do in the future, or their children, or their grandchildren. The "moderate" Muslim today may be transformed, or his descendants, if he does not make a complete break and become an apostate, may become an "immoderate" Muslim. It is the most peculiar belief-system, and its hold on its declared followers clearly very strong.
How many of these Somali women will turn out to be like Ayaan Hirsi Ali? One out of 20? One out of 100? One out of 1,000? One out of 100,000? How many of the men turn out to be like Magdi Allam in Italy, or like Bassam Tibi in Germany? How many Ibn Warraqs and Ali Sinas, or converts to Christianity such as Walid Shoebat, are there likely to be in any population of, say, 1000 Muslim immigrants? Should the Western world admit a million immigrants, or permit them to remain, because a few of them see the light? What would, statistically, be the magic number that would justify taking such a risk with your own lives, and the future of your children, and the future of art and science and the possiblities of mental and other kinds of freedom?
You might say it would be cruel to prevent this woman from emigrating to a Western country. I claim that it would be much crueler, to us, to take a chance on such a person. Let Muslims remain within Dar al-Islam, and let the Infidels do everything they can to first learn themselves, and then to show Muslims that they understand -- so that Muslims will then have to begin to recognize -- that the political, economic, social, intellectual, and moral failures of Islamic societies, both within Dar al-Islam and in Dar al-Harb, are directly related to, arise out of, Islam itself.
Hugh,
Its more likely that she would end up in the US. There are already a horde of Somali tribespeople from both Somalia proper and neighboring Kenya "settled" in various parts of Maine,Minnesota and other areas; much to the consternation of the locals. Most of these "refugees" are, presumably Muslim. They are brought here, en masse, by the poverty pimps in the refugee resettlement industry.
Then, once she gets here, through the "miracle" of chain immigration she will bring over her husband and siblings who in turn will bring in their spouses, in-laws etc. and so on, so that the whole Muslim neighborhood or village gets transplanted into our country.
I will chip in a few bucks to send nassem to somalia so she can explain true islam to the imams. I would go myself but the last time I had anything to do with winning the hearts and minds of a somali things didn’t work out so well.
Keep them out, Hugh? Perhaps. But could such alienation not be properly turned to our advantage? Perhaps I shock, but it is not for nothing that the word "janissary" exists.
Prophet Geoff
Related to feminism revisited (outside of Somalia) . . .see Fjordman's latest entry at Gates of Vienna
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/
From the heart of the article:
"The only major political party in Norway that has voiced any serious opposition to the madness of Muslim immigration is the rightwing Progress Party. This is a party which receives about two thirds or even 70% male votes. At the opposite end of the scale we have the Socialist Left party, with two thirds or 70% female votes. The parties most critical of the current immigration are typically male parties, while those who praise the Multicultural society are dominated by feminists. And across the Atlantic, if only American women voted, the US President during 9/11 would be called Al Gore, not George Bush.
The standard explanation in my country for this gender gap in voting patterns is that men are more “xenophobic and selfish” than women, who are more open-minded and possess a greater ability to show solidarity with outsiders. That’s one possibility. Another one is that men traditionally have had the responsibility for protecting the “tribe” and spotting an enemy, a necessity in a dog-eat-dog world. Women are more naïve, and less willing to rationally think through the long-term consequences of avoiding confrontation or dealing with unpleasant realities now.
Didn’t feminists always claim that the world would be a better place with women in the driver’s seat, because they wouldn’t sacrifice their own children? Well, isn’t that exactly what they are doing now? Smiling and voting for parties that keep the doors open to Muslim immigration, the same Muslims who will be attacking their children tomorrow?"
Like a life sucking magnet, Islam keeps tugging at modern folk, calling them back to the 624 and the Battle of Badr, the most noble of Islamic battles where the Moslems slaughtered dozens of pagans for having dared to arm themselves against caravan robbery, murder, and kidnapping.
Evil was annointed as holy on the fields of Badr. It's been all downhill ever since.
I'd like to leave Somalia if I can and do business, have a small shop or even a job with a decent salary, like a secretary or a cleaner.
No. NO! Please, stay there and enjoy the jihad and all the rich cultural experience it affords. We're in a Somali surfeit right now here in the States. A real glut.
Yes, I'd be honored to subsidize your apartment, pay your healthcare, pay your day care, pay your education, pay your transportation, and strong arm employers --- some very big employers --- to hire you. And of course to set up a parallel legal zone that favors you. Non-enforcement for bigamy, for example.
I'd love to subsidize you. I'd love to go extra-Constitution for you. But enough is enough.
Say, if we just ship you the gubmint cash that comes into your U.S. post box every two weeks, will you sign a contract to never come here? Ever?
Somalia is the new Islamic showcase country where one can see just how great Islam is in practice. ;>}
Mira- it's a good article. I think that he is right in that 'radical feminists' have been an enemy to us all in a number of ways. I would class myself as a feminist, but I totally oppose the type of 'radical feminist' he speaks of. They are a danger to all of us, including feminists. Selling out a society to islam cannot be construed as any kind of feminism that I could support. Can they not see that islam is not exactly good for the girls?
And let's face it, some of those 'radicals' are just plain crazy - Joanna Rytel's hatred of white men makes me sick. I don't know why any men ever listened to such nutters. Men and women should have ignored the crazies from the start. They (the 'radical feminists') have done a lot of harm to us all.
Another OT
Not meaning to endorse the BNP or anything, but this interview posted over at Up Pompei is fascinating. This Sikh talks about the breaking up of India during his childhood as being like a 'tsunami' of islamic violence. The Indians were 'quite surprised' at these events in 1948. The parallel with current events is quite chilling.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5313967073906592014
"Evil was annointed as holy on the fields of Badr. It's been all downhill ever since."
Let's not oversimplify history here. It was certainly uphill for the West after 1492 (even though her eastern flank suffered tremendous loss in 1453) -- straight through to the 20th century, when we had a couple of horrible bumps in our own road. We got over those bumps and have continued our stupendous progress never before seen in all of human history. It's only been in the last couple of decades, and particularly with the 911 kinesis of events, that we have been seeing the specter of an Islam Redivivus rise again.
The only thing hampering the West now is not Islam, so much as the West's own PC Multiculturalism which is irrationally preventing it from doing what needs to be done against Islam.
Before we can deal with Islam, we have to dismantle PC Multiculturalism.
But most realistically what will likely happen is that Islam will have to attack us many times in horrific ways, before our PC Multiculturalism begins to be dismantled -- in a hurry and by the seat of our pants.
A Muslim is expected to accept Islamic propaganda at face value. Required from Allah, is the expected pass to paradise, for all the kneeling, worshiping, praying, donating, preaching, judging, and enforcing. (Sharia law) Muslims also expect paradise, for carrying out jihad. All sane humans have a desire to live, and wish to live on after death, but there is that pesky little problem; no reliable evidence of paradise exists now, or ever existed. Indeed, we do have a vast micro and macro universal structure around us, and this is evident. Muslims put considerable time and effort into this insurance policy of Islam, and the payoff of paradise. Muslims can put their time to better use, by accepting the many challenges of the greater world outside of religion, and Islam is no longer needed for ethics, morality, and law. These principles will emerge from the common sense and desire of civilized societies.
"Can they not see that islam is not exactly good for the girls?"
I think the naive left-wing thinking goes "oh, once those communities are given all economic opportunities and welfare and programmes and funding and community centres and schools and political influence etc etc, they will develop and start treating women a bit better. At least within their cultural context. Because we're all the same deep down and all want the same things."
That's the kind of crap we get on NZ National Radio daily, and I'm getting thoroughly pissed off with it, now that I see how cluelessly stupid this thinking is!
Hi Lili -
yes, and there are many very rich muslims who still subjugate women, look at the saudi royal families, it is not true to say that giving them money/power/status will solve any of these problems. You are right, this is stupid thinking and is contradicted by the facts. Just cause I believe that we as women should not be beaten, denied equality before the law, etc. I am not ever going to agree with those crazy 'radical feminists' or any of their rubbish. They are dangerous, also dangerous are those who say money/power will sort it out if anything that will make it worse (I would rather abusive people do not have more power to abuse)