Islamic Freedoms?

Hmmm... Well, I basically challenge the premise here: that our values, and our freedoms, are a result of the 'Judeo-Christian' heritage. Unforturnately, Christianity plunged us into the thousand years of stagnation we remember, rightly, as The Dark Ages.

It was the Enlightenment, the rebirth of reason that freed men from the tyrrany of priests and kings. Not Christianity - it was very, very tyrranical at its height. Our freedoms are much more Graeco-Roman than Judeo-Christian.

There is one exception: the idea that _every individual_ has certain rights, not just the members of certain nations is, in its current form, very much a Christian legacy. Which we should applaud. But, _sans_ reason, individualism and the idea that life is good - all inherited from Greece and Rome - that idea remained powerless. Hence that hideous time.

This is the basic source of my disagreement with many anti-Jihadists and reformists. I believe we will have it much, much easier to convinve 'middle-of-the-road' Muslims to _give up Islam entirely_ than to convince them of "moderation". Moderation is essentially hypocrisy. And there has never been any revolution won by moderation.

I believe that if Islam is rigorously and relentlessly criticised, from all quarters, at once, it will crumble, loosing its best minds. And _as it crumbles, and not before_ will you see reformation.

This is wishifull thinking. Can freedom in Islam be attainable considering what is written in the Koran? Could freedom in Islam be accomplished if the "Medina Koran" were ripped off? (Would Muslims accept that? -- Nope.)

The problem seems to be the religious obligations of Muslims. Their cultural behaviour is rooted in them.

In the West, the cultural behaviour is rooted in the golden rule. Where is the golden rule in Islam? Abrogated?

The Islamic world does have freedoms, but they are "freedom from" rather than "freedom to"

For example, women have freedom from making decisions about the direction of their lives and therefore can focus on more matronly duties. Men have the freedom from being exposed to female sexuality which may cause them to be aroused and act like "feral cats" as the Grand Mufti of Australia has said.

All Muslims in Islamic states have freedom from being proselytized to by Infidels who sew disbelief in Allah and promote corrupted religion throughout the land.

When I was a lad we were taught the difference between right and wrong. If we did something wrong, a police officer would put a knot on your head. If you were lost or scared you called that same police officer. As with anyone in power that power can go to one's head.
As you said , things have been done in the name of Christ and in the name of law and order that weren't right. We have abandoned our Judeo-Christian values and replaced them with psycho-babble. The criminal is the victim and the victim got what they deserved.
In a 1949 movie a character notes that he considered the newly returned vets and their wives as a new Adam and Eve. They know the story of the apple tree but with technology advancing by leaps and bounds, they have ignored the lessons and turned to planting more apple trees, increasing the temptations.
What little, and that is a very little, I know about Islam I have learned from sites like this. The interpretations of the Koran change day by day, generation by generation, like some would do to the Constitution. The interpretations seem to be devolving instead of evolving. I don't see the Ten Commandments changing in that manner.
The law is the law is not an absolute because it is applied to and by humans and you have to give us imperfect beings a little leeway and compassion, but we have arrived at the point where we are throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I'm an old Marine 'Nam vet with no answers. I lack the education to give informed answers. I just have do what little I can and hope it contributes to the well being of my fellow man and my country. Maybe I will learn what "they also serve who stand and wait" means.

Tom

Welcome, Kevin.

I believe that if Islam is rigorously and relentlessly criticised, from all quarters, at once, it will crumble, loosing its best minds. And _as it crumbles, and not before_ will you see reformation. - posted by Fanusi Khiyal

Yes, islam will crumble from it's foundation of hatred.

There will be nothing left to reform after that. Once the veil of deceit is removed, the awful recognition of whats left will show muhammed stole anything decent from belief systems (already in existence in his day) distorting it all to suit his own perverse needs under the guise of his ever so sympathetic - or pathetic - alter ego, allah.

...a lot of brutality and savagery in our past - much done in the name of Christ. Today we look back at those things and realize they are not a product of the faith but, rather, of men.

Excellent commentary, this point seems to get lost during any conversation of Christianity and its past.

Unfortunatly I also think the answer to the question you posed is no. The tenants of islamic philosophy/theology (master-servent relationship) reject the idea that one has the personal freedom of choice, which is the cornerstone of Christianity. In light of this its hard to see any real islamic society based on true freedom developing.

I enjoyed the essay very much, thank you for the contribution.

"I mean, to be perfectly fair, during the height of the Protestant and Catholic wars who would have thought one day the faith these two factions claim as their own would one day produce the basket of freedoms called the United States of America?"

"Could we not be on the same end here? Could we not be mired in the Islamic versions of those Christian wars and we're missing the peace that will come?"

(1) The Islamic faith is more then a religion but also a system of government. Christian dogma despite the Vatican looking like a government at times during those wars never approached that level. Islamic government is counter to Western Democracy.

(2) Chrisitans had the luck also of fighting it out in the age of pikes and calvary charges not nuclear weapons.

(3) The Protestant reformation was inspired from the christian faith and did much to bring the individual to take notice of him/herself. After which the catholic church has also evolved to do the same thing. That individuals should matter had strong theological foundations within parts of christian theology and within the bible. Islam however is a collectivist faith and such reform is going to be hard if not impossible to accomplish. When people equate Islam with Christianity what people fail to remember is that the Scientific Revolution, Renaissance, and Enlightenment all occured in a "Christian Europe". Yes of course there were many Chrisitians who opposed all of these movements but just as many supported it also. There is a reason these movements never occured in the Islamic world.

Thus...

"I fear, however, that the answer is "no." What do you think?"

I agree....

In my opinion, Muslims cannot deal with a western style of freedom.....centuries of Islamic religious law would be nearly impossible to erase....

...on the other hand, we do not need their style of freedom in our lands either...

Ban Muslim immigration..

"I mean, to be perfectly fair, during the height of the Protestant and Catholic wars who would have thought one day the faith these two factions claim as their own would one day produce the basket of freedoms called the United States of America?"

Kevin,

I find this comparison to be misleading. Of course the Reformation led to much violence, but it was domestic, not international. Spain, France and England were rivals before the Reformation. The catholicism of France and Spain was simply added to the list of differences they had with England and it became a reason for them to ally with one another, but it wasn't the only one and it wasn't the foundation.

Catholics were attacked in England while Protestants were attacked in France - by their own governments, not by another country. The "Christian wars" also had absolutely no effect on Islam, as the Crusades had been over for centuries. Remember, the Crusades were a response to Muslim violence, not the cause of it.

It's also a false comparison because the primary violence today is not between Sunni and Shia. It's between Muslim and infidel. Iraqis being killed today have been rendered infidels because they cooperate with the West.

As for our "violent history", it is the history of all mankind. Violence done in the name of Allah dwarfs anything done in Europe in the 16th century.

You ask if we might not be be mired in the Islamic versions of those Christian wars and we're missing the peace that will come?
Unlike Muslims during the Reformation, Christians and all other non-Muslims are being attacked as part of those Islamic wars. We can't avoid the war by staying out of Islamic fiefdoms because Muslims live among us and they are bringing their hatred and violence with them. Mohammad Atta was welcomed into the US and we all know what he did.

I fear that the peace that will come will be Islamic because we don't have the will to stand up for our own beliefs and we no longer have the courage of our convictions. The Islamic belief system is anathema to anyone who believes in the freedom of the individual. The two cannot coexist. There is no middle ground.

Fanusi said:

Hmmm... Well, I basically challenge the premise here: that our values, and our freedoms, are a result of the 'Judeo-Christian' heritage. Unforturnately, Christianity plunged us into the thousand years of stagnation we remember, rightly, as The Dark Ages.

It was the Enlightenment, the rebirth of reason that freed men from the tyrrany of priests and kings. Not Christianity - it was very, very tyrranical at its height. Our freedoms are much more Graeco-Roman than Judeo-Christian.

Fanusi is correct. Political freedom means the freedom to be free from the inititation of physical force -- and the idea that men could coexist and function on such a basis rests firmly on the efficacy of reason and of man's ability to live by his mind, not by the sword.

But reason is the one thing most firmly baninshed under Islam, at least as near as I can tell. All religions demand the suspension of reason -- in favor of faith -- to some extent, if only to admit the possibility of a supernatural being. But Islam goes far futher than Christianity.

Christianity may have its ten commandments. But Islam has thousands of commandments. It rules the lives of its believers in excruciating detail, down to what to eat, what to drink, what to wear, what to say, who to associate with -- the details are endless.

I encourage those who are not familar with Islam to visit IslamOnline.net and look at its online Fatwa sessions. There Islamic authorities answer questions from Muslims about proper Islamic behavior. There are some 10,000 fatwas discussed there; even allowing for duplicate questions, there are still thousands of rules. The one overwhelming commandment of Islam seems to be, "Thou shalt not think!!!! Ever, on penalty of death!!!!!!".

Is it any wonder that such a system produces so many suicidally miserable maniacs boiling with hostility and feeling the need to kill?

Why would anyone think that a persuasion-based society, i.e. a society where men solve their differences by reason, could ever co-exist with this sort of religion?

Fanusi,

Bravo!

That post was so brilliant, that I agreed with every word of it.

Seriously, a nice little post.

I particularly like the notion that Christianity both helped and hurt. I suspect Christianity eclipsed the rational (but in many ways troubled and incomplete) concepts of Greco-Roman civilization, which had to fight its way back, and eventually did, resulting in this wierd Greco-Roman/Christian hybrid thing we call the modern west.

Don't Iraq & Afghanistan now have freedom? Then why did we read about Abdul Rahman facing the death penalty for apostasy, or Chaldean Christians or Mandaeans fleeing Iraq? Shouldn't they all be rejoicing, since they are 'free'?

In JW, this is a dead horse - we all know that freedom of conscience is non-existent in Islam. As a result, when an Islamic country is made 'democratic', what that simply implies is majority/mob rule. In the democratic world, we all know that that is not what it is.

Here's an example. Let's say there was an island with 20 people - 16 men and 4 women, they had a vote on whether the women should be raped, and that went 16:4 and the rapes went ahead, in the Infidel world, that wouldn't be called a democracy. In the Islamic world, it would be.

That's why the only civilized places in the Islamic world are places like Tunisia and (rapidly unraveling) Turkey. And they aren't democracies either - Islam is kept in check, and as a result, people are relatively freer to do anything except act out their islamic barbarity. But were they to become 'democracies' (as Turkey is now becoming), one would ironically see those freedoms evaporate into thin air.

Conclusion: Islam is a catalyst that bastardizes democracy and makes it more of a kakistocratic* society.

*Kakistocratic: government by the worst.

Kevin, you shouldn't have left. You should have waited for Dean's temper to subside as with all other instances.

Fact is that is the best set of commentators on the right and you'll miss that. Who knows, maybe you'll raise the level of discourse here, leaving the rabid, vapid unthought practitioners to slink off to LGF.

In any event, I wrote a response to you here. This is actually just an essay I wrote last year that I just reposted but I think it is relevant, especially since you're commentating on Willow, who is a writer on my site, and therefore accepts most of the premises I set forth here.

http://eteraz.org/story/2007/3/5/92431/88702

We hope to use freedom and democracy as devices to erode islam.

In the business world, the analogy would be the introduction of a "poison pill."

But the unfreedom that overspreads islam is so dark and dense, that it's difficult for that corruption of the West to enter, and to the extent that it has entered, it's barely spreading.

If we introduce Western methods of government, but a muslim society repeatedly votes in shariaa, then our policy will not have been fully effective.

Ultimately, we want muslim states without any vestiges of shariaa.

And ultimately, we want an islam where jihad is a dead letter.

No jihad, no shariaa.

That's the goal.

Freedom and democracy are simply weapons we're using to get there.

I only started reading due to my question (even though some people might roll their eyes, or say whatever - it is the God's honest truth why I started reading) 'why do they hate us'.
Posted by: s_sgt7

My experience exactly and the more I read the more I came to the conclusion that murder and tyranny are at the very core of Islam. I keep looking for more positive news but so far all I have found are things that only reinforce the idea that “reforming” Islam is next to impossible – I am still looking. however.

There is a story in D’Souza’s book about a secular doctor in Gaza who disagrees with the tactic and results of suicide bombing yet says of them: “Martyrs are at the level of prophets. They are untouchable. I can denounce suicide bombings, which I have many times but not the martyrs themselves, because they are like saints. The martyr sacrifices himself for the nation. If you want to be a part of this culture, you have to understand this. I don’t believe in religion myself, but I cannot say that martyrs are wrong. If you do that, you will discredit yourself completely.”

So how can the idea of freedom and tolerance coexist with a culture of death such as this?

Hmmm... Well, I basically challenge the premise here: that our values, and our freedoms, are a result of the 'Judeo-Christian' heritage. Unforturnately, Christianity plunged us into the thousand years of stagnation we remember, rightly, as The Dark Ages.

It was the Enlightenment, the rebirth of reason that freed men from the tyrrany of priests and kings. Not Christianity - it was very, very tyrranical at its height. Our freedoms are much more Graeco-Roman than Judeo-Christian.

I'm sorry, but this myth needs to die. Christianity did not plunge us into a thousand years of stagnation. This myth began with many who pushed the Enlightenment. Historical facts show that the West was generally moving forward at this time. It had an uphill battle with plagues, weather changes, and encroaching Islam. It was a time of civilizing barbarians. Church, State and individuals strove to work out a balance between rights and responsibilities. Its a great story of the founding of a new civilization from the ashes of the old. Christianity played a great part in it. Sometimes for ill but on balance for a positive. Blanket condemnations like those above are propaganda much like statements that the Crusades were about population and wealth and not religion.

The Enlightenment resulted in the French Revolution, WWI, WWII, Communism, Fascism, Colonialism, and the general malaise that now affects Europe and to some extent the U.S. That's far from a great record. Anyways, the Enlightenment is dead. Lip service is paid to it, but post modernism was it's death knell. Reason is worthless and only individual interpretation is the rallying cry. That's why we face people who talk about the nice Muslims to deny what is written in the texts of Islam.

I marvel at ignorance that the mass thought comes up with. They can not call things as they are, so they come up with hyphenated "conservatives" or "americans" and now lead to different descriptions of Freedom, being Islamic freedom.

That is utter nonsense as freedom is freedom. What our founders did not account for is the need of adjectives to freedom in RESPONSIBLE freedom and MORAL freedom to govern one's liberty.
Freedom does not mean you have the right to enslave, rape, cut off people's heads or fly planes into buildings.

I would suggest Kevin you check history as you are making the mistake Thomas Jefferson made in celebrating the French Revolution and finally after a decade and millions butchered found that freedom was not such a fine thing when found on it's own.

Islam and freedom can not abide on the same page as there are no freedoms in Islam. You either are enslaved by it or you are free from it which causes Muslims to lop off your head.

Get out of the beltway psychological feel good bovine scatology of equating your reference points in life on those of Islam, because your can't we all just get along does not work.
Frankly, I have compassion on Muslims if they were left to butcher each other, but Islam can not be left to "work things out" as their first mandate is to use nuclear bombs on American cities. Syria's first concern is to use biological weapons on European cities and then work on "Islamic problems".

Hopefully this helped in your education as your starting point is wrong.

Fanusi Khayal:

It is a major historical blunder to blame Christianity for the West's descent into the dark ages, one that follows today's fashionable historical trends, but is notoriously short on facts. You overlook the clear historical data that emerging Christendom - both in the West and in the Middle East - was under siege from foreign invasions as Rome's frontiers were overrun by Germanic barbarians, ransacking Huns and Magyars, its Germanic successor states in the West later had to contend with the same violence committed by maurading Vikings and raiding Muslims, and Byzantium continued to face first the debilitating struggle against the Greeks' traditional enemies, the Persians, and later, of course, centuries of full-scale Islamic invasion. On top of all this, the ancient world was undermined by demographic, cultural and political changes brought on by an onslaught of crises related to a range of factors ranging from crop failure and economic decline to bubonic plague and to resulting population decline and demographic collapse. Christianity did not cause any of this.

Clearly, Christian societies have often produced their own violence and oppression (usually resulting from the corruption of Christianity by conditions related to the types of crises I've mentioned here as we see for example in the adoption of feudalism - the only form of governance possible in the conditions of utter social collapse in the West during Viking and Saracen raids of the 8th and 9th centures) but at the core of the Christian faith are the virtues of charity and forbearance enshrined in both Scripture and Tradition which is always preserved at least among a prophetic minority who are able eventually to call the community back to its authentic values.

Yes, the ancient world respected individualism, but can you really call a culture in which at any given time 80% of the population were slaves a society that valued freedom or from which our freedoms directly emerged? The freedoms we enjoy in the West today are at least as much the result of Christian morality and theological anthropology as they are of the substrate of classical culture. One can see this, by way of illustration, in the virtue of prudence - transmogrified by secularization into today's "tolerance" - and the dawning of an awareness of the individual human being as the relational entity known as "person" (a concept unknown in history until the Trinitarian and Christological controversies of Christianity's patristic era and closely related to these developments). The French philosopher Robert Redeker - whom we could hail as a "confessor" of the West's freedom in light of his victimization by violent Islamist threats - notes this as well when he points out that the human rights culture of the West is a secularization of the Christian ethic of forbearance, of "making room for the other".

I do not argue that if the West simply "got religion" (again) all would suddenly be well, but I agree with Kevin that a fundamental respect in Western culture for its Judeo-Christian heritage as the source of its sense of transcendent value is essential to properly understanding, valuing and preserving Western freedom. Such an awareness can, among other things, bring balance to the debate about rights, by reminding citizens that their rights are related to corresponding responsibilities and mutual obligations, and help thereby to preserve the framework of the rule of law, without which there can be no freedom.

Islam thrives - and makes converts in the West (!) - precisely because it provides a sense - albeit a warped sense (for some of those affected by the alienation of modern consumer societies this may be better than nothing at all) of transcendence and one which, moreover, has "bite" to it. Like exercise makes demands of the body that ultimately make it healthier, religion that makes demands of the soul, stretches and strengthens the soul. People today long for this. Islam is in the ascendency at present because it provides an ethos for which people are willing to die. Western freedom must do the same - and do it at least as well - if it is going to survive the challenge of Islam. But it can only do so if it is built upon and aided by a strong spiritual foundation. That the Christian (and ultimately, Jewish) heritage is ideally suited (not to say that other traditions can not contribute as well) to this task is demonstrated by the historical fact that the West - the former "Christendom" - is where the culture of freedom and human rights has developed the deepest roots and most advanced features.

I have great respect for the secular ethos expressed in your comments, but to remain healthy and viable, it needs to provide a healthy respect and a pride of place for its religious and spiritual foundation. And I would urge you to consider this not least by rereading your western history.

"Christianity did not plunge us into a thousand years of stagnation. This myth began with many who pushed the Enlightenment. Historical facts show that the West was generally moving forward at this time. It had an uphill battle with plagues, weather changes, and encroaching Islam. It was a time of civilizing barbarians. Church, State and individuals strove to work out a balance between rights and responsibilities. Its a great story of the founding of a new civilization from the ashes of the old. Christianity played a great part in it. Sometimes for ill but on balance for a positive. Blanket condemnations like those above are propaganda much like statements that the Crusades were about population and wealth and not religion".

Terrhawk:

A tip of the hat to you. You beat me to it, but I see you said precisely what I wanted to say and extremely effectively.

Freedom is anti islamic

2.193. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allâh) and (all and every kind of) worship is for Allâh (Alone). But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zâlimûn (the polytheists, and wrong-doers, etc.)

8:39And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and polytheism: i.e. worshipping others besides Allâh) and the religion (worship) will all be for Allâh Alone [in the whole of the world[]]. But if they cease (worshipping others besides Allâh), then certainly, Allâh is All-Seer of what they do.[]

Shirk is worse than Killing

Since Jihad involves killing and shedding the blood of men, Allah indicated that these men are committing disbelief in Allah, associating with Him (in the worship) and hindering from His path, and this is a much greater evil and more disastrous than killing. Abu Malik commented about what Allah said:

(And Al-Fitnah is worse than killing.) Meaning what you (disbelievers) are committing is much worse than killing.'' Abu Al-`Aliyah, Mujahid, Sa`id bin Jubayr, `Ikrimah, Al-Hasan, Qatadah, Ad-Dahhak and Ar-Rabi` bin Anas said that what Allah said:

(And Al-Fitnah is worse than killing.) "Shirk (polytheism) is worse than killing.''

I believe the answer is no. This is an anti jihad site, not an anti blogger I have never read site. We try to stay on topic but the thread usually follows the comments posted. BTW we have our share of islamists and their western apologists posting here so don’t think that they are not playing tricks on us trying to make us look bad. In time you will find that the jihad is all encompassing and can be found under almost any rock you choose to turn over. But in spite of your qualifiers I will say welcome and good luck.

So, the Romans through corrupt leadership/moral decline weakened their empire to the point that the Visigoths overran them but in some alternate reality Christianity was to blame? Hey, that sounds just like where we are heading.

The Crusaders brought us Aristotle among other enlightenment era philosophers so we owe them a dept of gratitude.

Islam ostensibly originated out of the Mesopotamian region thousands of years ago. It worships the Moon-God, a perceived divine being that presided over the human sacrifice cults of the Babylonians and other peoples of the region.

Now. When humanity is seen by a bloodthirsty totalitarian clique of all-powerful clerics (read within their mosques) who have been leading a campaign of terror against humanity for thousands of years the real question I have is: what chance does freedom have of surviving people like this?

Technical question - what exactly is this 'Trackback' feature, and how does it work? I'm seeing it for exactly 2 of Kevin's posts - what does it do? Does that mean that if someone posts here, it'll appear there, or vice versa? What gives?

NO!!

And just who, in your opinion, would rigorously and relentlessly criticize ISLAM from all quarters?

We are called bigots and racists, for even SUGGESTING, that islam is anything OTHER than a peaceful, wonderful "religion"!

Posted by: americaningermany

I my opinion, our job is to expose Islam as it is. No embellishments, distortions or criticism needed. I trust that rational people of good will, will reach the correct conclusions.

Islam thrives because most people in the West have no clue as to what it really is - we need to change that.

So freedom comes with sin, but tyranny doesn't? Muslims are such hypocrites, Britney Spears is evil but having sex with a nine-year-old isn't.

It appears to me that in the historic trajectory of Islamic thought, "freedom" means a condition in which opportunities and inducements to sin are absent. This is reckoned to be the right way to organize society, to maximize the likelihood that people will not fall into life-patterns condemned by God, so that they will be accounted righteous by God in the Islamic version of the "last judgement" and granted the Islamic version of "eternal life" in the hereafter.

I think that this goes a long way toward accounting for the brutal, unforgiving character of Islamic social regulation. Sinners cannot be tolerated; they infect the whole community and place the eternal destiny of many at risk.

The contemporary Western understanding of "freedom" is more along the lines of "personal autonomy" or "opportunity for self-actualization." These are concepts that I believe are alien to the cultures of the historically Islamic peoples. And such concepts are downright pernicious in the context of historic Islamic thinking about social organization.

I'll note in passing that it appears to me that the historic Christian understanding of "freedom" is significantly distinct from either the Islamic or the contemporary secular understandings (as I have expressed them here). In the Reformed tradition of Christian theology (the only one that I think I understand),
"freedom" is a condition of the heart, of not being in bondage to evil desires. It is not something that can be engineered by creating a suitable societal environment and certainly not through social compulsion, but is the result only of the gracious work of God in the heart of the sinner. It seems to me that if one were to draw a fundamental distinction between Islam and Christianity, it would be this: in Christianity, individual redemption is regarded to be a work of grace in the heart of the sinner, while in Islam, individual redemption is regarded to be the fruit of social compulsion.

When Dean Esmay and others call for "more freedom" (presumably they are thinking along the lines of the contemporary Western understanding of freedom) in the Middle East, he is calling for a radical transformation of the cultures of those lands. That is not something that is likely to happen quickly.

Culture matters. Not everyone thinks about the world the way middle-class Americans do. Not everyone shares the aspirations that animate middle-class Americans. This is a fundamental misconception in the part of would-be radical transformers of the Middle East.

Hi Americaningermany!

I just wrote you on another thread -- go to:
"Afghanistan: Taliban claims control of another district"...I think it's the first thread. :)

Kevin:

Look at the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Cairo_Declaration_on_Human_Rights_in_Islam

This Declaration is a reflection of the Muslim world's view of freedom. What Westerners consider freedom is anathema to them.

As far as the origins of our conceptions of freedom goes, they have many and diverse sources. No one here, for instance, (correct me if I'm wrong) has mentioned the impact of the printing press on the development of our freedoms.

As an aside, I am old enough to remember people discussing the social impact that television would have on democracy. It had some effect but not as much as the hypesters thought it would. However, the internet seems to be another "kettle of fish" entirely.

The only constant is change.

"I guess the question now is: Can Islam produce a kind of freedom that can live side-by-side with Judeo-Christian freedom? If the answer is "yes," then fantastic."

It all sounds good, but, sorry, Christians might have murdered one another for centuries in the name of Christ, but in doing so, they were acting completely outside the scriptural foundations of their faith.

If Christians had carefully studied and taken seriously their own scriptures, and sincerly tried to emulate the life and spirit of their founder, Jesus Christ, and his eary followers, they wouldn't, and couldn't, have done the things they did to one another, or to anyone else.

In short, the pain and suffering Christians, visited in others in the name of their Christian faith, was a direct contriction of everything their founder, Jesus Christ, demanded of them.

Can the same be said about Islam? I don't think so. Would a careful study of Islamic scripture, and the life of it's founder, Mohammad, serve to deter a Jihadist from his unholy war against the rest of non-Muslim humanity? Would it show him the contridictions between "true Islam" and the 1400 years of carnage Muslims have visited on this world?

If anything, it would only serve to confirm the rightness of the Jihadist cause -- past, present and future.

The difference between Islamic teachings and terrorism is the difference between cat shit and dog shit. They compliment and reinforce one another. They both stink to high heaven.

Don't even hope that Islam is in a transition period between a violent and primitive past and an enlightened, kinder, gentler future. There has to be baises for believing that could happen, and there isn't.

Abolish or rewrite the Koran, Sunnah, Hadith, and you might get there.

At the risk of starting World War III, the Christian violence of the past was both religious and statecraft. The Inquisition was an order of the Vatican and Vatican doctrine, was carried out in Europe's cathedrals (the Cathedral of Toledo, for example), which was pointed out to me by the nuns in that Cathedral when I visited it last decade. The Inquisition lasted from about 1205 until 1875, when the last "heretic" was burned at the stake in South America for the "heresy" of speaking his own native language.

It is true that the Bible contains many fewer verses inimical to women and non-Christian religions than the Qur'an, but just last month a female professor of Hebrew (of 20 years) was removed from a Southern Baptist college in Texas because some guy down there found a verse that says women are not allowed to teach men (anything, presumably). There has been a lot of discussion about the anti-female verses in Galatians and Timothy I. When we Christians try to get round those, we generally say, "Yeah, but JESUS didn't say them." Meaning, "Muhammad DID say those things in the Qur'an or did them."

OK, that's a fair distinction. But it doesn't solve the problem that we demand Muslims remove these verses from the validated Islamic law -- basically, we demand that they illegitimize them -- overtly and incontrovertibly. We don't demand the same of Chrsitians.

Why?

First, we live in societies where we can escape those sects that play dirty games about race, women's rights, and the like. If some man tries to tell a woman she can't teach Hebrew becuase there are male students in the class, not only can she leave, she can also sue the pants off the school for a violation of her civil rights. Which is what this professor is going to do, and she will win. She will win big. Particularly because she taught there for 20 years, the religion hasn't changed, but one preacher has a little problem with women and is now in control and he will NOT be backed up by the rest. But the real SAFEGUARD here is that there is separation of church and state in this country, the civil codes of the Constitution of the United States, crafted principally by Deists and Freemasons, protect against just the sort of "rule by priest" that goes on in Muslim countries.

Second, Christendom did not really fight the Enlightenment when it came. It embraced it, and by doing so it escaped the nightmare that had been created at its upper levels with the Holy Inquisition and the violent anti-Semitism of Martin Luther.

As soon as an excape hatch appeared, Christiianity rushed through it, and relied upon the transcendental precepts laid out in the Sermon on the Mount and the example of Jesus' life, and righted itself like a ship that had finally thrown the loose cannon over the side and could repair itself.

Added to the remarkable transcendental structure provided by the Deists and Freemasons (I know there are those who will want to argue this, but Jefferson and three other early US Presidents have been reclassified as Deists removing an earlier whitewash), American Christian churches fought everything from slavery to the fight for women's suffrage, and arguably the Roman Catholic Church, healed from its nightmare became the #1 provider of education and medicine between the early 19th and mid-20th centuries, when the US government itself finally surpassed it.

What is evident with Christianity is NOT the complete unassability of its accepted scriptures, it is the willingness of Christianity to apply an ever-more-enlightened understanding of the world -- AND to apply the principles of love above any other principles, tainted by the prejudices of the times in which they were written, that accompany the overarching principle that Jesus' own words and examples trump everything else.

And in that, Christianity has absolutely got a perfectly benign, incredibly transcendent example. Jesus never made war on anybody. The "hottest" Jesus every got about anything was usury, and that was a temple problem where he -- oh dear! -- turned over a few tables occupied by people who were ripping off the poor.

He forgave a prostitute -- hell will freeze over before this happens in Islam. In fact, he forgave everybody. And just to make sure they got forgiven, he died real hard.

Now, we could make a case that some of the verses in the Bible could go. The Bible was constructed in its present form by committee, and that committee threw out some pretty amazing "books" of the Bible.

The Qur'an was initially written on bark and scraps of paper, many of which are likely not to have survived. [Huston Smith] The hadith -- virtually all made up to serve political and desert tribal warlords intent upon conquering non-Arabs and putting women back under the total desert tribalist subjugation from which Muhammad had managed to partially free them in the Meccan period -- only to reinstate some of it later, are completely spurious and an embarrassment to any religion. But they entrench and legalize abuse of women and violent jihad against non-Muslims, with the obvious intent of a worldwide land grab over which Muslims can strut their stuff.

That's why I am continuously inviting the so-called anti-terrorist US Muslims to get off their duff and get this done. Because "having at" those who openly expose these verses is not fighting terrorists. It's the cowardly practice of making them a straw man instead of dealing with guys like Al-Zarqawi who have you burned alive and your body thrown off a bridge in Ramadhi.

And there is no religion on this planet that has a worse problem than Islam with the verses inside its own scriptures. And if Muslims aren't willing to deal with that, I need somebody to tell just why they expect us to put with any more of this ridiculous "debating".

I hasten to add that since I know Muslims who ARE openly calling for this and doing everything they can to effect it -- often attacked by Muslims who should appreciate and Americans who should appreciate even more! -- I do absolutely believe that not all Muslims accept these evil verses as part of their religion at all. And since most Muslims have voted DOWN the imposition of shari'a (Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh), they do not all deserve the castigation reserved for the American Muslim community which has played one dirty game after another for special privileges and kudos from the Islamic leadership overseas, when it's perfectly clear that had they massed in protest right after 9/11, Wahhabi control of Islam would have been over by the end of 2001.

Islam is nothing more than institutional piracy--following the vile example of Mohammed--and abject slavery for all those who fall into its grip. In Islam, which of course literally means "submission," one becomes "free" by dying--first mentally, and then physically. The term "death cult" is not a cavalier epithet--it is accurately descriptive and highly appropriate.

True freedom is impossible under Islam. Not in the past. Not now. Not ever. Few issues in sociology could ever be so obvious or well documented. It is breathtaking that so many in the west are blind to the mountains of confirming evidence standing in plain view before them.

americaningermany,
Is this Fanusi Khiyal the same person as Kevin?
No. I am the Kevin that wrote the post.

Infidel Pride,
Technical question - what exactly is this 'Trackback' feature, and how does it work? I'm seeing it for exactly 2 of Kevin's posts - what does it do? Does that mean that if someone posts here, it'll appear there, or vice versa? What gives?
Trackbacks are a feature to most blogs that allow you to know when another blog is responding to a particular post. The place a certian URL into their post that sends a ping to your post and updates it. Then you can click on Trackback and see who is talkin' smack about you.

I have no idea how I turned them on. Robert noticed it too that I'm the only one that has them on. I don't know what I did. Still, they're very useful.

Welcome Mr. D,

This is something I have written here before: If any group of people can claim to practice reformed Judaism it would be Christians. Christianity taught me that punishment of spiritual crimes (blasphemy, heresy, and even adultery) are not to be punished by man. Only God has that jurisdiction. I figured this out when I learned about Jesus preventing the stoning of an adulteress.

In the United States, it took a few generations to get out from under the collective thumb of the Christian fundamentalists. I am old enough to remember the Blue Laws in the South where most retail stores and movie theaters were closed by local ordinance. In 1950, if you were planning an outing, all you picnic supplies had to be purchased on Saturday because most stores were closed on Sunday. These laws were repealed over time without a single gunshot being fired or car bomb being detonated.

Freedom means that we even allow someone to debauch themselves. Freedom means that we do not punish people for their religious transgressions. Freedom means that we can legalize sin, as in Nevada’s prostitution laws. To paraphrase William Taft - There is nothing quite so strong in human nature as the urge to lay down rules of conduct for other people. Until Muslims abandon their penchant for laying down rules for other people, there will always, always be conflict.

Following the fall of the Roman Empire much of the West went into what was called the dark ages, I would not blame Christianity for that.

Acts of violence by Christians was in spite of the tenents of their faith. Only those ignorant of Christianity would believe something as sad as that.

Islam is differentg, exclusion of the other, hate and violence are what it is mainly focussed on, it is a warrior religion, its aim was to create a fanatical army and in this it was very successful. Just imagine those Byzantium troops, tired from the war against Persia suddenly finding foaming at the mouth savages slashing around them with no fear of death in the middle of a sand storm, no wonder they collapsed into a rout against less that a tenth of their number.

When you look at this religion in detail you really begin to realise just how effective it is as a brutal tool to control the masses for the pleasure of its warrior leaders.

The trick in all this is prising its adherents away from it. My feeling is that thw West has only one choice, to ban Islam as against its core values of freedom.

I think that Wafra Sultan has it right, basically a transformation is needed and not a highly individualistic personal rejection of the violent aspects of Islam by individual worshippers.

Why Christianity AND ancient Greece are both critical to the discovery and protection of human freedom:

The alleged acts and words of Jesus as reported in the New Testament include several elements vital to freedom, elements lacking from ancient Greece:

1. Christianity inherited from the Jews the perception that time is linear, rather than cyclical, and spread that perception beyond Jewish culture. The Jewish concept of irreversible history is critical to a sense that the future is open, that each of us is more than a mere repetition of some eternal archetype or fated destiny determined by the stars. Even ancient Greece, with its great birth of individual freedom, still often assumed that there could be nothing new under the sun, that everything was ultimately a matter of eternal cycles. See Plato, for example.

2. The New Testament creates a separation between religion and state. That separation began in rudimentary forms already with the fall of the Roman Empire, and it was that fall, due to invasions of "barbarians" and other causes, that led to the so-called "Dark Ages," which many historians no longer believe were so dark anyway. Furthermore, as described in How The Irish Saved Civilization, Irish Christian monks played a crucial role in saving European civilization by preserving literacy and books and the seeds of free discourse. Christianity also took significant steps toward the liberation of women, steps taken no where else in the world. As I recall, this is described in a section of J. Roberts` History of the World. But the separation of church and state, which has taken many centuries to establish in the West, had its seed in the New Testament, and that separation is essential to freedom. It is that separation that in many ways eventually gave birth to and fostered the vaunted Enlightenment.

3. Central to the New Testament is love. Since love, properly so called, can only spring from the innermost core of a person, it is something that cannot possibly be compelled from without. To center a religious doctrine on love is thus to center it on freedom, freedom and individual responsibility. This is by contrast with so much of Islam, which is in many respects centered on outward observances and compelled obedience. Compare the five pillars of Islam with Jesus´ essential two "commandments": Love the Lord with all your heart and soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.

4. Christ, whose disciples believed he was God, insisted on washing the disciples´ feet, and stated that he who would be greatest among them would not have power over them. If even God would do something so lowly as to wash mere disciples´feet, then how much more is egalitarianism mandated for mere mortals by Christianity? Thus Christianity, over the centuries, gradually leads to egalitarian civilizations ruled by law rather than by persons, emperors, kings, etc.

5. One evidence that Christianity is central to a culture of liberty is that Christianity took Greek culture in and assimilated it. The New Testament, unless I´m mistaken, was written in Greek. Another example: In the Middle Ages we see Thomas Aquinas creating a vast body of incredibly difficult intellectual work all devoted to understanding Aristotle and creating a rapprochement between Aristotle and Chrisitianity. Many historians have also referred to Socrates as a Christian before Christ. If Christian and ancient Greek culture melded as much as they did, that indicates a heart of freedom in the core of Christianity, if not in the evil behavior of some Christians. We also see Aquinas doing battle with a famous Muslim philosopher over the issue of the immortality of the soul. Where the famed Muslim philosopher (I forget the name) argued that the individual soul dissolved into God or the world-all upon the dissolution of the body, Aquinus maintained that the individual soul was not a mere result of the bodily container, didn´t have its individual boundaries provided only physically, as a glass provides form to water. Rather the individual soul was something inherently individual, even after death and loss of the bodily container. So here again we see that despite the frequent failures of Christians to follow Christ´s example, the free individual is in many ways gradually allowed to emerge precisely within the bosom of Christian civilization. People make a grave mistake in blaming Christ or the New Testament for what Christians have done wrong. Of course the case of Muhammad and the Koran is very different. When Muslims misbehave, one indeed can often find a justification for that misbehavior in the Koran and in Muhammad´s life story. By contrast the life of Christ is in many ways a continual reproach to so called Christians´ behavior.

Pelayo,
Christianity taught me that punishment of spiritual crimes (blasphemy, heresy, and even adultery) are not to be punished by man. Only God has that jurisdiction. I figured this out when I learned about Jesus preventing the stoning of an adulteress.

I understand where you're coming from but that's not exactly right.

The men seeking to stone the woman we're legally right to do so. She had committed a stoneable (is that even a word?) offense. But, more importantly, they were seeking to trap Yeshua into sinning. As they saw it there was only two things Yeshua could do in this situation - have mercy on the woman and let her go (a sin against Yahweh as His Word was clear what was to be done) or call for her death (that would be breaking Roman law as only they could issues capital punishment).

They were trying to trick Yeshua into either breaking Torah or Roman law.

However, in Torah, for a person to be convicted of a crime two credible witnesses must be brought against them. Enemies, friends and people of ill repute couldn't be called. They weren't credible witnesses. What Yeshua did was invalidate the people looking to stone the woman, and trick Him, as witnesses against her. He used the men's consciences to invalidate them as witnesses.

Thus, when Yeshua told the woman no one was around to accuse her, and He Himself didn't accuse her, she was free to go. But since she had indeed sinned, He told her to sin no more.

That's what was really going on!

Using Torah Yeshua invalidated the accusing men as witnesses against the woman because of their own sin. Who is one with sin to accuse another of sin?

See how much we miss when we ignore Torah. There is so much about Yeshua's words and deeds (and the Apostle's) we misunderstand because we've been taught to ignore the Tanakh.

Terrahawk said:

The Enlightenment resulted in the French Revolution, WWI, WWII, Communism, Fascism, Colonialism, and the general malaise that now affects Europe and to some extent the U.S. That's far from a great record.

This is not true. It is myth, promulgated by the religious right, that a reliance on reason gave us the horrors listed above (except that I am not willing to issue a blanket condemnation of Colonialism). But the fact is that every form of totalitarianism the world has seen, including fascism, socialism, national socialism (Nazism) and communism has been based on the rejection of reason and the elevation of some form of mysticism. Mysticism is the claim to any form of non-sensory, non-rational, non-definable, non-identifiable means of knowledge, such as “instinct”, “intuition”, “revelation” or the good old stand-by, “faith”.

For instance, let me give you some quotes from the man who launched one of the most murderous totalitarian regimes in history, Adolf Hitler:

“We are now at the end of the age of Reason. The intellect has grown autocratic and has become a disease of life.”

“We must distrust the intelligence and the conscience and place our trust in instincts. Trust your instincts, your feelings, or whatever you like to call them.”

“At a mass meeting, thought is eliminated. And because this is the state I require, because it secures to me the best sounding board for my speeches, I order everyone to attend the meetings, where they become part of the mass whether they like it or not intellectuals and bourgeois as well as the workers….”

“The masses are like an animal that obeys its instincts. They do not reach conclusions by reasoning.”

“People set us down as the enemies of the intelligence. We are. But in a much deeper sense than these conceited dolts of bourgeois scientists ever dreamed of.”

“A violently active, dominating, intrepid, brutal youth -- that is what I am after……I will have no intellectual training. Knowledge is ruin to my young men.”

“There is no such thing as truth, either in the moral or the scientific sense.”

And why preach such things? Hitler’s answer: “These are times when not the mind but the fist decides.”

And:

“I need men who will not stop to think if they’re ordered to knock someone down!”

Hitler admired the way the Catholic Church had made use of dogma:

“Faith must be unconditional. I have followed the Church in giving our party program the character of unalterable finality, like the Creed. The Church has never allowed the Creed to interfered with. It is fifteen hundred years since it was formulated, but every suggestion for its amendment, every logical criticism or attack has been rejected. The Church has realized that anything and everything can be built up on a document of that sort, no matter how contradictory or irreconcilable with it. The faithful will swallow it whole, so long as logical reasoning is never allowed to be brought to bear on it.”

The Nazis were militantly anti-reason, because the had a simple goal. To elevate Hitler to the status of a god, a being whose wisdom and will was beyond question. Herman Goering once said, in response to a criticism of Hitler’s economic policies, “I tell you, if the Fuhrer wishes it, then two times two are five.”

If you study the underpinnings of the other major totalitarian systems, such as communism, you will find the same determined attack on reason. In communism, reason is attacked through the absurd notion that men do not acquire knowledge by reason but by some sort of osmosis, by some sort of mystical “conditioning” of the mind that occurs when exposed to machines.

It is true that international communist movement tried to position communism as a “scientifically proven system of thought”. But this was just a cheap attempt to exploit the fact that the only defenders of capitalism in the west tried to justify it on religious grounds, thus giving the communist the opening to claim that it was based on reason.

No system that viciously stifles dissent and demands unquestioning acceptance of party doctrine can be called reasonable.

As to the French Revolution, I will only say that it is not an accident that Robespierre, the master of the Rein of Terror, had, as one of his priorities, the establishment of a new state religion for France called “The Cult of the Supreme Being”. Whatever you may call him and the others responsible for the butchery, they were most definitely not men of reason.

You may argue history all you like, but the fact remains that every period of man’s history dominated by mysticism was a period of tyranny and brutality, whereas, when reason has prevailed, man has moved forward immeasurably.

I almost agree with Fanusi but take exception to this:

There is one exception: the idea that _every individual_ has certain rights, not just the members of certain nations is, in its current form, very much a Christian legacy. -

Actually that comes from the Roman Stoics. Cicero is a good source (written in 50BC). The idea can be found in the Greek playwrights’ story of Antigone. Aristotle was familiar with the concept but not an advocate. However, the Roman Stoics played a major role in advocating universal rights even if their aspirations weren’t achieved. Paul, being a proud Roman citizen, was well aware of these ideas which had already been around for centuries.

Islam, however, rejected Hellenic philosophy almost completely after Al Ghazali. Averroes tried to salvage the situation and champion Aristotle but with little success. Fortunately, Aquinas picked-up where Averroes left off. He was also an admirer of Cicero.

It is clear that Islam is not Greco-Roman having rejected Hellenic philosophy with Al Ghazali but is it clear why it is not Judeo-Christian since sees itself as a continuation of the Judeo-Christian tradition with the earlier prophets seen as Muslims. Anyone want to explain?

Question: Can Islam produce a kind of freedom that can live side-by-side with Judeo-Christian freedom?

Theoretical Answer:

Islam is originally, intrinsically, historically, institutionally and culturally inimical to Western freedom and human rights. In order for Islam therefore to "produce" a freedom that can live with Western freedom, Islam would have to transmogrify into what it is not. With human beings, such an illogical contradiction can become a workable reality, for many human beings live otherwise productive and decent lives while at the same time maintaining illogical contradictions in their minds. However, whether the vast majority of Muslims will do this is another matter. History and the news -- as well as the persistent prevarication, dancing and clever expression of loopholes of Muslims who engage in dialogue about this problem -- would indicate that they won't.

Concrete Answer Based in History:

It would seem from a study of the history of the Muslim world's contact with the West that Islam went through two overarching phases, and we are now entering a third phase:

Phase One -- 7th century A.D. to 18th century A.D.: Outrageously offensive and evil hostility against the West.

Phase Two -- 18th century A.D. to 20th century A.D.: Hostility continues but is considerably toned down as the West becomes spectacularly superior on a global scale and begins to encroach on Muslim lands economically, politically, and militarily, and even manages to influence and support the unprecedented extinction of the Caliphate (1920s).

Phase Three -- Late 20th century to the present: innumerable Muslims take advantage of various technological and political factors to resume their original Phase-One millennial hostility against the West and the Rest of the World.

The concrete answer to the question is found in Phase Two, where Western-style freedom and human rights began to insinuate themselves into the Muslim world mostly as a direct consequence of Western Colonialism -- through imposition of superior ways by force, through the disorienting effects of sociopolitical dislocations caused by Western "meddling", and through a more amorphous process of cultural seduction, all of which had the effect of psychosocially teasing out the basic appetites of human nature in a certain number of Muslims in spite of their Islam --, and mostly not as a result of anything inherent in Islamic culture itself.

Kevin, I am certainly unfamiliar with the Torah. Perhaps I should have used this to reinforce my belief than man cannot be allowed to punish spiritual crimes:

Judge ye no lest ye be judged

"I guess the question now is: Can Islam produce a kind of freedom that can live side-by-side with Judeo-Christian freedom? If the answer is "yes," then fantastic.

I fear, however, that the answer is "no." What do you think?"

The only way I can see Islam living peaceably with its neighbours... and this encompasses all of its global neighbours, and not just those of Judeo-Christian persuasion... is for Islam to treat the Koran and its other sacred texts in the same manner that other religions treat theirs... by basically ignoring the crazier and more toxic passages, and 'cherry-picking' the passages that contain valuable lessons.

Right now, I would say that the only way that Islam could be persuaded to adopt such a departure from their current 'business as usual' practices of jihad, demographic warfare, terror, mysoniny, supremacism, etc... would be for the Infidels of the world to really gang up on them with some seriously vicious reprisals, for their current behavoiur, up to and including massive nuclear strikes, ruthlessly strict sanctions, the seizure or destruction of their oil assets, etc... to crush 1.3 billion people into forced dhimmitude, killing as many hundred million along the way as is necessary, to convince the survivours to, as it were, re-write the Koran.

I believe that this is a certainty anyhow, and that Isalm is going to eventually force Infidels into this sort of massive reprisal, because Islam simply will... not... stop... until they... Muslims... are beaten to a bloody, decimated, pulp.

It is just a matter of how far the Infidels are willing to let Islam go, before they act.

The longer the Infidels wait... the more murder and abuse they permit themselves to receive at the hands of Islam... the more vicious the backlash will be, once the pendulum starts to swing the other way.

"I believe that they... see how corrupt our civilization has become with those freedoms"

"We have a lot of brutality and savagery in our past - much done in the name of Christ."

-from the post by "Kevin"

Both of these assertions are absurd.

The author of this piece readily admits that there is no Islamic country that he would care to live in yet proceeds to harp about our "corrupt civilization".

Would anyone here go so far as to say that we are a corrupt civilization? Certainly it can be said that certain parts of our society or government are corrupt- but our ENTIRE CIVILIZATION?

This is D'Souzite nonsense.

Furthermore, it can never be said that the "brutality and savagery" committed by Christians was done "in the name of Christ" in the same way that violence committed by muslims was and is done "in the name of Islam". Violence towards and intolerance of others is completely inconsistent with the message of the New Testament whereas this same violence and intolerance is wholly in line with the life of Mohammed and the message of the quran. To begin to equate violence committed by Christians with the 1400 hundred-year-long organized campaign of violence and terror carried out by muslims under the banner of Jihad is to begin to argue down the road of moral equivalence and this simply cannot stand.

I would not at all be suprised to come across the above post by "Kevin" in the comments section of Jihadwatch-diverse views are expressed here.

But on the front page?

Just yesterday, the good people who frequent this site were subjected to the psychotic ranting of the flatulent and self-aggrindizing "Morgaan Sinclair", and now this?

What's going on here?

To suggest that a parallel can exists between Christianity and the enemy ideology is ludicrous. It says a lot about our failures as a modern secular society. The fact this argument is often posed shows how bad of a state we are in. There is no reason here. This is the success of PC propaganda brainwashing.

And then for some posting here to discredit Christianity in the influence of the West…. Do you think Christian countries or Christians would be like they are today without Christianity? Think again! Christianity is real and primary! Again another failure of our secularism: religion is all the same, and every god is God.

Welcome Kevin. Although you hope to avoid a Dean bashfest you are probably in the wrong place for that, since these comments are unmoderated (because Spencer is committed to freedom of speech, and this site draws some of the most committed antijihadists. Dean has not fared well here, nice a guy as he may be -- people are more concerned with the nature of his work relative to the extremist agenda in islam than with his personal characteristics). Just be prepared to take a lot of comments with a grain of salt, and flag the truly offensive or abusive ones for removal, if you have any time for this.

Your thesis comes dangerously close to that of Dinesh D'Souza in identifying moral corruption in the west as a significant factor in encouraging radical islamic reaction against "western freedom", but I observe that you ask questions and are prepared to state your feeling that the answer is "no" regarding the possibility of a truly islamic style of freedom.

You can read at length Robert's analysis of D'Souza's problems, but nobody here that I know of would deny that there is indeed an element of exacerbation of the problem that is caused by perception, in the islamic world, of the west as corrupt. However, as Robert has abundantly demonstrated, the D'Souza hypothesis falls flat as an explanation for the resurgence of worldwide jihad we're seeing. How does moral corruption in America and Europe lead to church burnings, beheadings and supremacist agitation in Indonesia, Kashmir and Somalia? (lots of other places too: Thailand, Afghanistan (before the americans came in), Algeria, Chechia ... )

Go to the TROP site for an up-to-date picture of the places jihad is taking place and how the jihadists are developing a worldwide strategy. You'll see that the war against America/Israel/the West is only part of a larger picture that cannot be easily explained by these simple sociological platitudes. What we are seeing is no less than a cultural and political imperialism spawned out of religious supremacism. There is really little the west has done that is directly responsible for this, although arguably many things about the west have played into their hands in terms of winning over the hearts of muslims around the world.

The greatest way, bar none, in which the west is an irritant to jihad, is by being powerful enough (even now) to stand up to it and prevent the spread of islamic hegemony. This is the main reason we bear the brunt of vitriolic rhetoric on a worldwide scale. And it is the decline of the old colonial era (not a bad thing in itself) that has given jihadists this opportunity for an upswelling of their ranks and agenda.

In fact, there are still relatively few large attacks in the west, compared to the poor and disenfranchises area where violent jihad is most active right now. The attacks we see, like 7/7 and 9/11, are largely symbolic for them -- they know that even hundreds of successful attacks like this will not bring down the west. The jihadists know that this is not yet their time to attack the west. So "hard jihad" attacks go on where the opportunity is better -- right now the "soft jihadists" are busy trying to create inroads for islam in our society, and acceptance of resistance-bending propositions like "Islam is fundamentally a peaceful religion".

Daniel Pipe's "Islamist Watch" page gives a pretty good summary of exactly how the soft jihad is proceeding. You might want to read some of Dean's writings on these topics in light of this material. I'd be interested in your take on the subject.

“Can Islam produce a kind of freedom …”

The better question is can Islam adopt and secure a freedom-respecting social order. They don't have to re-invent the wheel.

It’s hard to say never but the hurdles are so great. Islam just doesn’t have the flexibility that Christian (especially Western Christianity) clearly has.

The fact of the matter is that liberty is rarely found and seldom maintained in Islamic nations. And there were many opportunities. The Pacific Rim nations have shown an ability to adopt and adapt the Western notion of liberty but Islam has had the hardest time.

November 1981:

Maybe we could just address Kevin's points. A review of my comments yesterday comparing the "immoralities" of a *segment* of Western behavior to the immoralities of extreme shari'a -- such as beheadings, beating women, amputations, burnings, stonings, death sentences for rape victims (while the rapist goes free) and things of that sort -- makes any argument made by D'Souza completely ludicrous.

When D'Souze tries to make these claims extolling the morality of Islam (!?), they can hardly be heard over the screams of Islam's victims.

Similarly, the London's Independent try to make the case that Somalia was more "orderly" when the imams started killing people for watching the soccer World Cup, the same argument I believe the Italians made about schmoozing up to the Fascists because the trains ran on time.

You might check the Taliban thread for the "missing" posts by your compatriots and note Robert's comment for the reason why. Personal attacks of the type you just launched on me, completely without provcation, aren't considered to be "on-topic". I look forward to having discussions with you that honor debate. Thank you.

Kevin wrote:
"I think history shows us that the freedoms we enjoy today, and the freedoms our Founding Fathers envisioned, are firmly rooted in the Judeo-Christian faith.

...during the height of the Protestant and Catholic wars who would have thought one day the faith these two factions claim as their own would one day produce the basket of freedoms called the United States of America?"

I agree with all the commenters who argued that modern freedoms result from the shaking off of religious rule and the secularisation of society, not from the 'Judeo-Christian' faith.

Kevin seems to be under the misapprehension that the 'Founding Fathers' of America were Christians. America was the first country to be founded on the principles of the Enlightenment, of human freedom based on reason.

Whether you describe the Founding Fathers as atheists or deists, they were thoroughly anti-Christian secularists. Not only Thomas Paine, but also Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, and Adams, said many things against Christianity.

America has, of course, declined since that time to become, statistically, the most virulently religious country in the developed world.

The basic thing about democracy and freedom is that dissent is tolerated. And so far from what I observe in Islamic countries is dissent is NOT tolerated:

In Saudi Arabia, women have to be chaperoned by a close male relative: brother, father, husband.
It is impossible for a woman to visit a market on her own.

In Egypt, writers, theologians are routinely prosecuted.

Then there is the persecution of other religious faiths.

Then the persecution of homosexuals.
Regardless of your views on this, in Western democracies they are tolerated and have "rights".
That is generally not the case in Islamic countries.

I dont think freedoms are likely to happen in Islamic countries.

I agree with most of what Michael Smith argued, i.e. that Fascism was not a product of Enlightenment reason, but a reaction against it. Smith attributes the absurd argument that links Enlightenment Reason with Fascism to the 'religious right', but it is also a common argument used by the postmodernist academic 'left'.

Then Michael Smith wrote:
"In communism, reason is attacked through the absurd notion that men do not acquire knowledge by reason but by some sort of osmosis, by some sort of mystical “conditioning” of the mind that occurs when exposed to machines."

What on earth are you talking about? Where, in any communist or Marxist doctrine, can you find anything remotely resembling that? You cooked that one up yourself.

schmegel US declined like what? Europe? Russia? Nazi Germany? China? ME? West without multiculturalism?

Get your facts straight and tell us what you really think leftie?

The enemy has to be defeated.
Not "freed" or "reformed".

Was it possible to reform the Third Reich and somehow make Nazis freedom-friendly?

"I agree with all the commenters who argued that modern freedoms result from the shaking off of religious rule and the secularisation of society, not from the 'Judeo-Christian' faith"

Posted by Schmegel

For what its worth Schmegel, I agree with you on the shaking off of religious rule, at least as far as this was an issue (quite a large one to be sure) in the history of the West. However, it merits your consideration that Christian tradition upholds the separation of religious and civil authority ("seperation of Church and State") - "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's ...".

I do not believe that it is the intention of either Kevin, nor of any of us who have commented in favour of his statements on the role of Judeo-Christian thought in the West, to uphold "religious rule". This is a red herring.

The point I think most of us are trying to make (I am, at any rate) is simply that Christianity (built of course on earlier Jewish, and to some extent, Greco-Roman, foundations) was able to make room in this way for secular, and democratic, political development, contrary to Islam, and that it made significant contributions to the development of democratic values, without which these values could not have developed, as demonstrated by the fact that nowhere else have they developed as fully.

As such, the modern secular West needs to fulfill the other half of that maxim: "Render ... unto God the things that are God's". This is not to impose on western secular society or its citizens the obligations of religious law or cult, Christian or otherwise, but simply to ask for respect for the pre-eminent role of religious life in the search for transcendent value upon which the search for the common good rests. The search for transcendent value in life is the one thing that convincingly and definitively elevates humanity above base animality and, thereby, makes civil life, including recognition and defence of the rights of the person and the freedom of the individual possible.

"It was the Enlightenment, the rebirth of reason that freed men from the tyrrany of priests and kings. Not Christianity - it was very, very tyrranical at its height. Our freedoms are much more Graeco-Roman than Judeo-Christian."

You make a good point. I always preferred to say that our culture is rooted in Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman ideals and principles.

I think you're mistaken in trying to read Judeo-Christian out of the equation, and giving Greco-Roman the lion share of the credit.

I don't think that we would have known, or been influenced, by the civilizations of Rome or Greece had it not been for the institutional church's love affair with these two classical civilizations.

It is to rhe credit of the earliest church leaders that they did not condemn Greek philoshphy, but embraced it as a a worthwhile subject for study.

Much of what we know about Greek and Roman thought was transmitted to us through the educational institutions of the official church. The many manuscripts that came down to us from the classical Roman and Greek worlds, did not come to us on their own, nor were they rediscovered in the age of enlightment. They were always there, in the safe keeping of Churchmen and chruch institutions that valued and preserved them.

I've always rejected the term "dark ages." I don't accept that the middle ages were quite as dark as some would have us believe. True, ignorance and superstition were the norm among the masses during that period, but there were many pockets of enlightment and learning present also. There had to be, else there would not have been an enlightment. The foundations of the enlightment were in the knowledge transmitted thrrough the institutional church.

It is one of the great tragedies of the Islamic world that, while Islamic scholars discovered and embraced, Greco-Roman thought and philosophy, it never really escaped into the wider Islamic world. It always remained an area of study among the select few.

If Classical Western thought had been embraced by islamic authorities, as it was by authorities in both the Western and Eastern Christian churches, it might have acted as a wounderful counter-wheight to the stiffening theology of Islam.

Sorry, but I believe that the most accurate term to describe the roots of our civilization is "Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman."

We owe much, and in equal measure, to both.

Kevin I agree with your rationale of why we shouldn’t think the non-citizens would prefer our way of life; although, I also agree with Archimedes2 that this is no fault of our own, because it is their objective to make us out as corrupt no matter how we are. This does not mean, however, we don't have serious flaws; not implying the non-citizens will fix those flaws.

JasonP wrote:
"It is clear that Islam is not Greco-Roman having rejected Hellenic philosophy with Al Ghazali but is it clear why it is not Judeo-Christian since sees itself as a continuation of the Judeo-Christian tradition with the earlier prophets seen as Muslims. Anyone want to explain?"

You're right to ask this question. Much of the Old Testament is morally appalling. The Koran resembles it greatly, because the Koran is in many ways a plagiarisation of the Old Testament. They both share the revolting story of Isaac (Ishmael in the Koran, but the story is the same), which amounts to the principle that you should murder a child if what you call 'God' tells you to. They both advocate brutal punishments (e.g. stoning). Their dietary and hygiene laws are very close. They both base ethics on the 'Thou shalt not!' of external prohibitions, as opposed to the internal sense of 'love', for God and 'thy neighbour', of the Gospels, which was a considerable advance.

K WROTE:

The men seeking to stone the woman we're legally right to do so. She had committed a stoneable (is that even a word?) offense. But, more importantly, they were seeking to trap Yeshua into sinning. As they saw it there was only two things Yeshua could do in this situation - have mercy on the woman and let her go (a sin against Yahweh as His Word was clear what was to be done) or call for her death (that would be breaking Roman law as only they could issues capital punishment).

But Kevin, two questions:

(1) Where was the male adulterer who made her an adulteress, and why wasn't it he who needed to be stoned?

(2) By the way, weren't these "men" a mob???

Maybe Jesus was dealing with the insane prejudices of his time and knew it.

Rational:

Your comments on the relationship between Judeo-Christian tradition and Greco-Roman thought are very well put! Thank you.

Freedom in the muslim world has a long way to grow.

We came up with a new idea and were Isolated from the rest of the World as we grew. It took us time to completely understand what it was we had and what it really meant. It is still developing.

The West has been traveling through this transformation for hundreds of years.Islam, I think, Just woke up to the rest of the World arround the turn of the Century. Granted, the Rulers and Higher ups had a clue, but what could be said about the general population.

In the space of 60 years, the West out paced the Islamic World Like a Dragster against an Electric Car. Especially in the form of Communications.

If Islam "reformed" itself to its basics back in 1928, it follows the time line where the General Population were bound to find out that the World, was Indeed, Round.

These "reformers" my well have considered themselfs so far behind the 8 Ball that resorting to Jihad, in the end, was their only answer. Because they are to far behind to catch up, the only option to them is to tear the other down. It is clearly expressed in the type of targets they hit today.

As for the Depravity of the West, well, thank the Progressives. Freedom isn't wrong, Neither is all Freedom right.

The Freedom to kill in the name of Ones God is not in our Constitution. It is a Freedom we need to keep out of it as well.

Democracy does not in and of itself make everybody right.

Islam might have a chance at realizing Freedom if we stop selling them Weapons. This way, when they use up all the Bullets they have, they may get tired of killing each other by hand.

"Anti-Semitic ravings on Serbian websites have wiped out the Sephardic population of the Balkans down to less than 3,000 Jews, and they will tell it's the Serbs that did it."

-from a comment posted yesterday by "Morgaan Sinclair"

I find it neither desirable, nor even possible, to engage in "discussions... that honor debate" with such a person as is capable of composing that sentence.

Actually, it's clear that Muslims can "handle freedom" because in the West -- and in Afghanistan, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon and other places in golden, if short, periods of time -- they've done just fine. They they've been assaulted by the Taleban, couped by the Khomenites, Salafisted by the Muslim Brotherhood, and destroyed by Hizbollah -- and now they don't have that freedom any more.

But they want it, judging by the movement now in Jeddah, Saudi ARabia, where the muttawiyyah have lost control and by the strong anti-Khomenei movement in Iran. This is held down only by frequent, horrific and deadly secret police activity.

But do they want it? Yup. That's why so many Muslims have fled to Europe and America, albeit in Europe it is mostly poor and fundamentalist ones, the males among whom enjoy freedom and the women of whom are subject to the same slavery they had back home.

“The point I think most of us are trying to make (I am, at any rate) is simply that Christianity (built of course on earlier Jewish, and to some extent, Greco-Roman, foundations) was able to make room in this way for secular, and democratic, political development, contrary to Islam …”

Good point “templar” and so too from “rational:”

“It is to the credit of the earliest church leaders that they did not condemn Greek philosophy, but embraced it as a worthwhile subject for study.”

At least until Justinian closed the philosophy schools at the start of the Dark Ages (yes, there weren’t pitch black but they were dark indeed!) It would take a giant like Aquinas to solidify the gains of the 12th and 13th century Renaissance to move the West forward by a giant leap.

It would take an extensive description to weigh properly the various influences – Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian, and Anglo-Saxon – that have helped to create our great nation. It’s a non-trivial exercise. In any case, suffice it to say that it is only the Anglo-sphere that has been able to maintain the wherewithal to maintain a liberal order in the face of a world gone mad with totalitarianism in the last 100 years.

Schmegel, I once described Islam as Christianity backwards. For Christians the peaceful tolerant message of Jesus supersedes (perhaps by being a new covenant) the harsh earlier example of Exodus and Deuteronomy. Of Islam it is the harsh tyrannical rule in Medina that supersedes (or abrogates) the earlier example where Mohammad preached (or pleaded for) tolerance … when he needed it personally. While a simplification, it is a useful one.

Some excellent points from many people on a topic that can't be settled with a few words.

JasonP

Good point about Islam being Christianity backwards. Actually, Islam is a recidivist cult that reverses everything that Jesus accomplished, reverting to a Pharasaic version of Judaism that is thoroughly corrupt and hypocritical. That's why it is satanic.

Consider the punishment of stoning for adultery. Jesus abolished it, Mohammad resurrected it.

Consider the hypocrcisy of communal prayer. Jesus told us to find a private space, a closet, and there to pray to God who would hear our prayer. "Don't be like the hypocrits who stand during the service to show that they are hungry from fasting." Islam, of course, is all about meretricious piety. Big showy displays like prostration during prayer, the yarmulka, etc. etc.

Consider the sin of ethnic pride which John the Baptist railed against when he said to the Pharisees: "Don't glorify yourselves, saying we have Abraham for our father,because I tell you, the Lord can make more children for Abraham from these rocks!"

Islam is a vehicle for Arab imperialism that insists on the superiority of the Arab race.

Two examples out of hundreds!

The only thing I see is Islam bashing Christianity, someone has to turn the table around for the sake of humanity.

>>
You're right to ask this question. Much of the Old Testament is morally appalling.
>>

Is it? How so? I dont find it the case.
Most people have not read *ALL* of it and with all the context. It is dead easy to pick 1 verse in isolation of of all the others and read that.
And in case you think the OT was "savage", could I ask whether we, several millenia later are morally superior? Much of Europe no longer has the death penalty and considers that "enlightenment". Right. Now what about child molesters (I am thinking of Belgium) who have the freedom to repeat their actions.

Has Humanity "advanced" since OT days?
No wars, no greed, no injustice?

>>
They both share the revolting story of Isaac (Ishmael in the Koran, but the story is the same), which amounts to the principle that you should murder a child if what you call 'God' tells you to.
> They both advocate brutal punishments (e.g. stoning).

Your right there. But there are differences between the OT covenant and Islam.

>>
They both base ethics on the 'Thou shalt not!' of external prohibitions, as opposed to the internal sense of 'love', for God and 'thy neighbour', of the Gospels, which was a considerable advance.

Morgaan Sinclair,

But Kevin, two questions:

(1) Where was the male adulterer who made her an adulteress, and why wasn't it he who needed to be stoned?

(2) By the way, weren't these "men" a mob???

Maybe Jesus was dealing with the insane prejudices of his time and knew it.

From your tone it appears plain to me you're hostile to the message of Yahweh in the first place. If I'm wrong please let me know. However, I will attempt to answer your questions anyway.

(1) The text doesn't say. And, in light of what the mob was actually trying to do, trap Yeshua, it doesn't matter. And your question assumes guilt on the part of the man she slept with. As you assume he must of know of her marriage isn't it just as likely that he had no knowledge given the penalties of for doing such? Additionally, we don't know if the man she slept with was Jew or gentile. A gentile wouldn't be subject to Jewish law. Especially if that gentile was a Roman citizen! Your bias is plain to see here. You're quick to dismiss the woman's guilt in favor of her suitor's possible guilt. The point here is that's she guilty. Let's deal with that first, okay?

(2) So they were a mob, what's your point? Again, their goal was to trap Yeshua into breaking Torah or Roman law. Don't lose sight of that.

Those "insane prejudices" you speak so highly of were authored by Yeshua's Father. If you have a problem with them take it up with Him because His Son certainly didn't questions the woman's guilt. Nor the righteousness of the punishment due to her. She never denied the crime and Yeshua never said death was the penalty for it. That "prejudice" is intact through the entire story and never once refuted by Yeshua. He simply invalidated the testimony of the witnesses against her because of their own sin. Not because they accused her of something she didn't do or He felt that the woman was being unfairly treated.

I ask you to stop projecting your prejudices upon Messiah when you and He have clearly never met.

The VERY word 'Islam' means 'Submission'

It would be a worthwhile pre-requisite of authors on this site to have read, and studied thoroughly, Robert's books.

Is that the case with Kevin?

1. Those who see serious problems in the West and blame them on freedom are fooling themselves for two reasons.

First because, in the balance, the freedoms have arguably produced more strengths than weaknesses. Zeroing in on the weaknesses produced is a product of wishful thinking.

Second because the sources of the weaknesses are complex, and typically in whole or in part something quite other than freedom.

For example, revolt against the basics of feudalism once feudalism broke down juuust enough via capitalism is arguably the big factor behind Marxism (and behind why Marxism didn't take off in the US like it did in Europe). Marxist ideology is behind a lot of the socially destrictive attempts to redesign humanity and to deny human nature that have sunk much of the West into decadence. This interacts with the freedoms flourishing due to other trends in the West, making fault pretty difficult to blame.

That said, it is possibly to our advantage that many non-moderate Muslims continue to blame freedom for our problems; it helps them develop a plan which hinges upon their misunderstanding and, here, consequent underestimation of us. That's bad if you think they have some hair's chance of adopting a free society themselves, but good if you think of them them as opponents in a long-term war.

2. Islam will not produce or adopt a culture of freedom, because freedom is contrary to its basic tenants and to the submission-based psychologies and social relationships those tenents tend to produce. The case is radically different from that of Judeo-Christian societies, as the animosity to freedom in those societies is not rooted in their texts, especially not as long-term historical mainstream traditional methods of interpretation interpret them.

3. To reiterate what is expressed in various posts above: The Greek empire fell, and the Roman empire fell, but their ideas and culture lived on significantly in the West. The Middle Ages were not as backward as is commonly thought or as was painted by those in the Enlightenment; there's a (member of Monty) Python whose written on this in the Guardian IIRC). The Enlightenment grew out of Christian as well as Greco-Roman ideas (the Pope has written on this). The Enlightenment brought a lot of good along with the nasties like the French revolution; the US Constitution and modern science, for example. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The system of active freedoms we in the West enjoy today aren't easily traced to only one of Judeo-Christainity, Greco-Roman thought, or the Enlightenment. Similarly, while we seem to have inherited certain problems of, say, Greek and Roman civilization, that doesn't mean that those problems are caused by, or even necessarily (as opposed to historically in a certain instance) linked to, freedom.

3. These social games with people going back and forth from one online clique to another are tedious. Take on extra writers on grounds like matching Hugh in intellectual seriousness. Not on grounds such as there's a glut of them running away from a competitor-gone-whack.

Answering November1981:

The Serbian Defense League has published extensively anti-Semitic material. Just one page ... found at http://compuserb.com/sdl/ ... will give you an idea of why I am saying that it is the Serbs who have driven the Jews out of the Balkans.

Further information about this can be found at many Jewish sites and in many articles penned by Jews.

At the Serbian Defense League website, they quote the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" as if they were absolute god's truth, when everyone knows they were penned by a French priest initially as FICTION and picked up by the anti-Semitic Russians and distributed as fact. They were brought to Russian courts in the 1990s, and should have been laid to rest by the Russian's court VEHEMENT dismissal of them as pure fiction and utter lies.

More on this Serbian blaming of the Jews for America's intervention in the Balkans lies in an article by Pierce called "What Makes Madeleine Run?"

QUOTING:

Bill Clinton and the manifestly evil group of Jewish advisors and assistants around him are murdering Serbian men, women, and children in Yugoslavia every day. They are murdering our fellow Europeans. They are murdering our fellow Whites, and they are doing it in our name. Madeleine Albright and James Rubin, William Cohen, Sandy Berger, Richard Holbrooke -- Jews all -- are appearing on television every night and telling us that we must continue killing Serbs until they surrender.

END QUOTE

But what is interesting about Pierce's article is that he keeps slipping up. He keeps saying that the US intervened in the Balkans to save the Jews, complaining that the US interrupted the Serb attempt to take over Kosovo.

Look, it's just a fact: Once Tito was gone, every single group in the Balkans -- Kovovars, Croats, Bosnians, Albanians, Catholics, Muslims, etc. -- VOTED THEMSELVES OUT OF SERB CONTROL. And one just needs to ask why these people felt like they needed to get away from Serb control.

Do they or do they not have the right to say: We do not want these people running our lives.

According to Milosevic they did not have the right. Milosevic waged an ethnic SERBIAN war against every other ethnic group in the Balkans. The Jews fled into mainly Muslim territory for protection, proof enough on its own that they feared the Serbs far more than they feared any Muslim aggression. In 1993, the Mossad intervened to pulled Jews out of Serbia [see the Cordoba protocols]. That's how much they feared them.

What Milosevic did was this: He took ALL THE MATERIEL belonging to the former Yugoslavia and he turned it on the citizens of the Balkans because they refused Serb control and wanted independence from them.

After succeeding in disarming the entire city of Sarajevo, he then proceeded to bombard a completely defenseless population for THREE YEARS, and did it from a 300-year-old priceless Jewish cemetery in the hills. He rained fire until there was no food, no medicine, and no hope. He did the same in Croatia, until the Croatian people appealed to NATO to bomb their own, knowing casualties would be heavy. But as one Croatia partisan said: It is better to die of being bombed than to wait for what the Serbs keep doing.

This is not to say that it is all one-sided. It means that it was not the Croats, the Bosnians, the Kosovar and Albanian Catholics, or the Muslims in the territories that declared war on the Serbs. It was the Serbs who declared war on them.

On the Serbian Defense League website you can read a glowing tribute to Mladic and Radkovic, the "heroes of Serbia". Those are the guys that the current government admits carried out the massacre at Srebrenica.

The Serbian government should probably make an attempt at this point to shut down the country's anti-Semitic websites.

But if you want to know why I say what I do, just look at this one website, and you will know there is a problem here:

http://serbiandefenseleague.com/

November, you keep dragging your jihad against me from thread to thread. You keep starting it up, forcing me to recount all this again.

All I can say is: If you insist! You really leave me no choice.

Kevin D:

I don't know who you think you are, but you are in absolutely NO POSITION whatsoever to claim anything about my spirituality. You sound like some Muslim imam who sits in judgment of the Western world calling it "infidel".

Well, I would say at this point I am much more of a Christian than you are, and I have a personal relationship in that regard that is not, and will not become, subject to your claiming the power of interpretation that belongs to God. Get off your high horse.

Now, back to the subject at hand. This site has had probably 100,000 posts by people decrying the stoning of women for adultery in Islam.

And if you'll notice, while you're focussed on some manipulation of Yeshua or Jesus (by any other name as sweet) ...

Jesus was focussed on the fact that a mob was about to stone a woman to death.

That's a focus I would suggest YOU get back to.

And what makes you so sure that she was even guilty? We've got a mob throwing stones here. Appparently Jesus didn't actually think this mob was doing the right thing, now did he?

And that is why I say the SPIRIT (not the jot and tittle) of this interaction is saying something vastly outside the normal Sadducee/Pharisee mind construct of its time.

I do not think you are in a position to assess my relationship with the Christ and you owe me apology for your arrogance and impudence and the slur and defamation you just committed.

How dare you!

Kevin D.

You are wrong. And I'm letting you know.

In general, the monotheistic religions (Christianity, Islam, Judhaism) have been the most intolerant, whereas polytheistic ones (Hinduism, Buddhism etc) have been more tolerant of non-believers.

This makes sense because if I worship the one and only true God, and you worship some other god, then you, in my opinion, must be either evil or misguided, and in need of correction.

However, if I am a polytheist and you worship some god I've never heard of, that's all good to me. I may be curious as to what your god is like, but basically it doesn't matter to me.

Let's not forget that the New Testament was heavily influenced by the Classical Greek thinking around at the time. The notion of free enquiry is originally an Ancient Greek one, and it has always had an uneasy relationship, at best, with any religion (as Socrates found out).

I'd say that freedom of enquiry has had a very tentative (and now wholly extinguished?) relationship with Islam.

Kevin, the OVERWHELMINGLY OBVIOUS thing Jesus did here was to stop a woman, however guilty you may think she was, from being stoned to death.

I believe that is His judgment on the matter. One I like the Islamic world to adopt.

And if you believe stoning a woman to death for adultery is still Jewish law, then why is that Israel doesn't apply it and that Jewish rabbis don't call for it?

Nor does the Pope call for it?

So what's happening here? Everybody just failing God. Are they, as you accuse ME of ... just in the position of "projecting their judgments on the Messiah"?

No, Kevin, nobody IN HERE is projecting prejudices on the Messiah, and I find it incredibly disturbing that when someone disagrees with YOUR TAKE on what something means, you invoke claim to speak for God and declare that those who disagree with YOU -- meaning they have a different spiritual reading on the text -- are "placing judgments on the Messiah."

Oh, brother. This is just the stock and trade of religious supremacists of any religion. You dare to question their attitude about some, their take on something, their interpretation on something -- and they strike back claiming the power of God to declare you "heretic" or "infidel" or some such nonsense.

What is clear to me is that when Jesus saw this going on, he pulled this woman out of this barbaric situation and basically told both the Romans and the rabbis who would have done this to her that love trumps vengeance. And whatever else is going in this situation, the lesson given was the lesson of compassion and forgiveness.

What I find so fantastic about Jesus is that he did this nearly mute, touching things that we so radical in His time.

Do you have any idea how radical that kind of love is? To stand up against a brutality like that, whether "ordained" by the state or by religion?

And while you're at claiming you know what I'm about as a Christian, mull this one over:

A drug addict stole my truck last week and was busted for it. When I got the notice to go court against him (first offense), I called a meeting with his lawyer and the district attorney and the judge about whether there was a way I could help him. Was it a good idea to let him off? No, they said. Was it a good idea to let him serve a sentence? They're not sure yet. Is it better for him to have counseling? They're not sure yet.

Why do you think I did that, Kevin? Whose example am I following to try to find what will best help the one who aggressed me?

Where do you think I get that example?

Shmegel said:

What on earth are you talking about? Where, in any communist or Marxist doctrine, can you find anything remotely resembling that? You cooked that one up yourself.

Not at all. Let me explain.

Marx essentially argued that the mode of production of one’s material life, and one’s place in it, determines or conditions one’s consciousness. Lukács famous expression of this notion is: "The premise of dialectical materialism is, we recall: 'It is not men’s consciousness that determines their existence, but on the contrary, their social existence that determines their consciousness.'...

In other words, it is not men’s reason that guides their life, but rather their social existence that determines what they will think.

Here is how Von Mises describes it:

The production technique is the real thing, the material being that ultimately determines the social, political, and intellectual manifestations of human life. This interpretation is fully confirmed by all other examples provided by Marx and Engels and by the response every new technological advance roused in their minds. They welcomed it enthusiastically because they were convinced that each such new invention brought them a step nearer the realization of their hopes, the coming of socialism.

There have been, before Marx and after Marx, many historians and philosophers who emphasized the prominent role the improvement of technological methods of production has played in the history of civilization. A glance into the popular textbooks of history published in the last one hundred and fifty years shows that their authors duly stressed the importance of new inventions and of the changes they brought about. They never contested the truism that material well-being is the indispensable condition of a nation's moral, intellectual, and artistic achievement.

But what Marx says is entirely different. In his doctrine the tools and machines are the ultimate thing, a material thing, viz., the material productive forces. Everything else is the necessary superstructure of this material basis.

In Marx’s view, the machines of production, and one’s relation to them as either worker or owner, determine one’s class and one’s consciousness -- reason doesn’t enter into it at all and is indeed deemed totally impotent in the face of these forces.

Kevin wrote:

"I mean, to be perfectly fair, during the height of the Protestant and Catholic wars who would have thought one day the faith these two factions claim as their own would one day produce the basket of freedoms called the United States of America?"

I think that is a perfectly valid statement. And also, if you look at the history of South American, you'll find that some of the problems there were caused by Christian apartheid of the native population.

What is so fantastic about the Christian response to this, particularly from Pope John Paul II, is the kind of self-assessment and responsibility that is a model now (or could be) for an Islamic turnabout. Pope John Paul II looked at Christians wars against native animists in Europe and South America and elsewhere, and the apology His Holiness wrote to the people of Paraguay was one of the most beautiful things I ever read. He absolutely deeply cared if any violence had been done to any people in the name of the Church, in the name of God, in the name of Jesus. And he took this upon himself as a divine responsibility, just as he did when he entered a Jewish synagogue and observed a service there in respect.

Christianity made it through its nightmare, and its example is one that I bring up to Muslims. Most don't appreciate it, but some actually do.

So, I don't find anything wrong with this statement by Kevin. I think it is correct.

Kevin, I am gone for the day. I will check tomorrow to see if you've answered any of my posts. You are under no obligation to do so, of course. And I am offended, but I get over that nearly instantly, so don't worry about it.

If you would like to write me, you can reach me (temporarily until another comes up on a new site) at HarvardEECJournalEditor@comcast.net

kev. old boy
I sincereley hope your future posts improve somewhat on this drivel that you have just posted.

Let me see it went somthing like this - lets be friends even if our opponents are in the ISAM IS A RELIGEON OF PEACE camp and eh what else oh ye everything would be just fine and dandy with the world if Islam could somehow ..eh change - and become FREE ISLAM but maybe it wont eh.. what do you think?

pretty pathetic Kev and it just will not cut it here - it may have been up to standard in yer last place but this is JW and we are mean motherf**^^s

bienvenido amigo -hilly****

Kevin:

In response to your reply to Morgaan Sinclair's query about the man involved in the woman's adultery, I have to defend the legitimacy of the question she puts to you, which your tone suggests you dismiss as of coming from an unbeliever unworthy of consideration. This is a question not merely for the perspective of the strictly Jewish law of the Old Testament, as your answer suggests, but rather one of universal significance, for Yeshua's response surely transcends the narrower perspectives for which that law was intended - the perservation of the distinctiveness of the Jewish people and their role in history. In the context of the fourth gospel - with its much more developed, and some would say Hellenized, universalizing perspective on the religious law of the Old Testament and its distinctive historical development, so clearly in contrast with the synoptic tradition - it hearkens to the same "catholic" (in the generic sense) spirit as the Apostle Paul's injunction in Romans 1 on the imprinting of an innate intuition of the moral law on the hearts and minds of all men and women, regardless of religious or ethnic background.

Within St. Paul's perspective, there really is no excuse for the man involved here, regardless of his prior religious formation, or lack thereof. Anyone, regardless of whether they have been in a position to receive Biblical revelation or not, ought to be expected to know, from wide human experience if not from the innate promptings of conscience, that adultery is wrong! (Period!) Therefore, what excuse can anyone possibly make for this man (and why do you even try to find a religious justification for letting him off the hook)? Surely Yeshua/Jesus' reply to the demand for stoning of this woman encompasses that point too! (And surely he meant to say that it would be wrong to stone either of them!)

In light of that, the question Morgaan poses is one which believers in Judeo-Christian revelation ought to be united with secularists and free thinkers, including feminists, in asking of the Muslim world; namely: "How can you be so hypocritical as to condemn the woman but to let the man in question entirely off the hook?" For that reason I, the "Templar" posting above, answer you using the name I reserve to underscore a position derived from the range of ideas commonly known as "free thought" - Jacque de Molay - a historic victim of religious and political authority run amok.

I also note that your answer to her seems to suggest the moral licity of the stoning penalty for the woman. But surely the whole point of Christian tradition, as Yeshua himself said, is to bring to completion and perfection the less perfect understanding of revelation which still pervaded the Old Testament. As such, I would have thought you would have appreciated the mercy which Christ shows to the sinful woman more than you have. This mercy - the very object of God's self-disclosure to mankind in history - is, as you no doubt are aware, not merely a matter of adhering to the exact literal perameters of legal injunctions and principles, but of the wider meaning of the Law, namely, its appeal to the heart of the human person.

More to the point, however, I am surprised, given the wider socio-political and cultural significance of Jihad, that you evidently did not think that handling this from the perspective of a wider appreciation of human rights in which she intended the question to be considered would have been more astute, rather than from the narrower sectarian perspective of the cleavage between those who, like you and me, believe in Yeshua as the saviour of humanity and those who do not. The former perspective provides the common ground on which Jihadwatch readers meet, not the latter.

This latter is a point which must be hammered home in relentless criticism of Islam. Women are neither property, nor subhuman animals to be subjected to demeaning treatment, as Islam, left to its own impulses, would do, but partakers in a common human nature, with the same rights, freedoms and obligations as men. One of Islam's great sins is that it negates the progressive dawning of this insight in ongoing revelation, reversing, as JasonP notes above, many of the data of previous divine revelation.

As a fellow Christian, I appreciate your defence of Judeo-Christian revelation as something to be valued as a bulwark against Islamist chauvinism, but I have to point out that we have to build common ground here with anti-Jihadists of all persuasions, not only those who share a common religious perspective.

Forgot to sign myself above as "Templar".

"From your tone it appears plain to me you're hostile to the message of Yahweh in the first place. If I'm wrong please let me know. However, I will attempt to answer your questions anyway."

Robert this guy is a jerk and you should be more careful who you allow freedom on this site - his tone is arrogant - humourless and judgemental - just like a - a - ehhhhh MUSLIM I think is the answer

bad marks aññ round there tut tut!
p.s I hope you dont ban me for speaking my mind!

Schmegel

The Old Testament and the Qur’an are nothing alike.

I think you just misunderstand the Old Testament. For one it contends the 10 commandments which is the basis of American law, so we are based on Judeo - Christian values. It also contains the golden rule, “love your neighbor as you love yourself”.

The law as revealed by the Old testament is what we today may consider harsh, but it only applied to Jews and they were free to walk away at anytime. There is no standing orders anywhere in the Old Testament to kill non-Jews, it couldn’t, because it would go against the 10 commandments and the golden rule. Jews are also commanded to treat the non-Jews living amongst them as equals, all there in the Old Testament.

Regarding our Founding Fathers

The Christianly they were apposed to, was the government verison (church of England) which is one reason why they left, they wanted religious freedom. I am not claiming they were all Christians in that they all accepted the Apostle’ Creed, but none of these ideas came from Atheism.

James Madison
He came up with the idea of dividing our government into three branches from his reading of Isaiah 33:22, “the Lord is our judge, the lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us.”

Judge = Judicial
Lawgiver = Legislative
King = Executive

Thomas Jefferson, re-wrote his own version of the New Testament, he removed all references as to the deity of Christ, yet he keep all of the other lessons and held them in great admiration.

"Kevin seems to be under the misapprehension that the 'Founding Fathers' of America were Christians. America was the first country to be founded on the principles of the Enlightenment, of human freedom based on reason."

First, the inhabitants of America at its founding and beyond were by and large Christians, and it isn't only founders and leaders who make a nation. Especially when you are talking about a free nation, you are talking about a nation in which the bulk of activity is not government controled, and is instead in the hands of the people. They, and the beliefs on which they acted( things like personal responsibility and respect for others rights even when one thinks they are wrong), deserve immense credit.

I say this, and I am not Christian. I'm also not saying that only Christianity encourages things like personal responsibility enough for this to happen. Other philosophies and religions might as well, but evidence suggests (strongly) Islam isn't one of them.

Second, the philosophy of the founders -- Natural Law theory and deism, largely -- owes a great deal of credit, historically, to Christianity. It didn't come from Christianity alone, but there are strong ties.

And yes, the oppressive nature of, for example, the Catholic Church was really quite bad at times. It was also fought using Christianity's own scriptures. Much as we might like, this ain't that easy with Islam's scriptures.

---

Brett McS: Also, don't forget that the ancient Greeks and Romans were polytheists.

Issues like tracing the roots and fruits of freedom are extremely complex, which make the frequently-encuntered Islamic view of freedom as having caused the current weaknesses in the West all the more laughable.

IMO, in the last 100 years or so, in the US, certain potent political and intellectual and social freedoms have decreased significantly (associational life has decreased while institutional life has increased; education being an example), but the platitudes and odes to freedom remain. People end up replacing the exercise of meaningful freedom with the exercise of the freedom to boink lots.

At this point, our weakness isn't too many trivial freedoms, it is too few significant ones.

If Muslims looked at the world more like Pentacostals (and if they sold an outlook more like that of the Pentacostals), they'd be able to notice this and capitalize on this in their memberships, and in their plans to take advantage of US weaknesses.

But they don't, by and large; they feed to and take as representative the minority who want fewer real freedoms (such as academic leftists of the sort who were burned by the fall of the USSR, and who now suck up Tariq Ramadan's writings). Catering to this crowd fits in more with what they already agree; noticing the real problem would mean asking questions about their own beliefs on freedom.

And, no: the ability for hundreds to repeat, as guest bloggers, what they (or at least I) read in the Wall Street Journal and Weekly Standard 2+ years ago isn't a significant freedom. Ditto the freedom to post video of a silly cat at YouTube. The freedom to spend your money as you like to get your kids a real education is more what I'm talking about.

Templar: Yes, that's how I meant it. And one of the reasons I like this interaction of Jesus' so much is that in the middle of a political battle in which either side could try to trap, what did He do?

What did He always do?

He always did the transcendently loving thing, in this case to say:

Whatever it is that you have done wrong, I still love you.

Whatever it is that these people hate you for, I can can still see the good in you, and I call on that which I see.

Whatever it is that you fear, I am there for you.

What He always, always, always did was put Love first, above everything else. That is who is was. I just can't buy it that when this one came down, He was sitting there thinking: Oh, dear, we've got the Jewish law and we've the Roman law, now, which shall it be?

What he obviously decided was: neither. It will be the law of Love, Compassion and Forgiveness, the one that trumps everything else.

It transforms Everything. Everything.

And so this, not more issues about the tiny things the "Law" means, is what I wish for everyone. Because no matter what everybody else disagrees about, what is overwhelmingly obvious about Jesus' life and death was that He stood for that -- for the Love -- above everything else.

Re: "We think, arrogantly perhaps, we're saving them from their own savagery when in reality we may be wrapping them in a pox infected blanket - and they know it".

That is true of the attitude of many Muslims. It is Muslim supremacism (including their pretense to "moral" superiority-LOL) which is the problem-and non-Muslims know it.

Curb your dogmas.

schmegel, you claim that the founding fathers were not Christian and, for the most part, you are wrong. You mentioned Thomas Paine and you were right. Just so you know, when Thomas Paine wrote the Age of Reason, which was highly critical of Christianity, he truly angered many of his fellow Patriots, in spite of his service to the Revolution. He was languishing in a European prison and NONE of them would lift a finger to help in because of his open disdain for Christ.

As for the inner workings of the hearts of our founding fathers, we will never know with complete certainty. In their actions and words, however, they did not support atheism or agnosticism.

As far as rights are concerned, most religions permit their followers many, yet Islam affords Muslims but one: and that is granting Muslims the right to be tyrannized in the name of al-lah!

In her comically deranged and patently Serbophobic comment above, "Morgaan Sinclair" writes the following-

"In 1993, the Mossad intervened to pulled Jews out of Serbia [see the Cordoba protocols]. That's how much they feared them."

I admit I was intrigued, and in the spirit of "honoring debate", I violated my oath not to engage this person and went ahead and googled "Cordoba protocols". I opened the first link on the search results page and found myself looking at a study entitled-

Evaluation of Two Hormonal !PROTOCOLS! for Synchronization of Ovulation and Timed Artificial Insemination in Dairy Cows Managed in Grazing-Based Dairies

authored by

M. C. !CORDOBA! and P. M. Fricke

-All of the links on the search results page were to similar studies. Such as this one- A New Protocol For Ovarian Carcinoma- put out by the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba- THE HORROR!

Undaunted, I kept searching forward through the results pages hoping that maybe I could find a link to a study entitled:

THE PROTOCOLS OF THE OVARIES OF DAIRY COWS

- but no such luck.

A normal person would stop there, but I decided to engage myself even further in the pursuit of "discussions... that honor debate" and I googled "Cordoba" "Serbia" "Protocols" "Jews"- the search results page listed links on a variety of subjects- none of which were even remotely related to secret night-time black helicopter Mossad airlifts of harried and persecuted polio-stricken Jews out of the Evil Nazi Kingdom Of Ex-Serboslavia.

In response to the inflamatory charges of Serbian Anti-Semitism levelled above, I looked through the websites for the Serb Defense League and Compuserb. Both of these websites are the work of an Anti-Semite who calls himself Boris Pribich and the entire contents of both sites consist of postings by Boris Pribich. I must say that in the literally thousands of hours of research I have devoted to Balkan history and the Wars of Yugoslav Succession in preparation for a film I am making, that this is the first I have heard of the Serb Defense League or Compuserb or Boris Pribich. It is unacceptable that the poster "Morgaan Sinclair" should slander an entire nation with charges of Anti-Semitism founded solely on the web-based rantings of this one little man.

I feel it's simply pointless to address the other baseless assertions and absurd mischarachterizations of Balkan events in this past decade put forward by "morgaan" in her post above.

I have great respect for Mr. Spencer and admire him for his wit and wisdom and for the tireless determination he displays in

The Struggle Against The Establishment Of The Islamic Order As Furthered Through The Campaigns Of Jihad, Dawa And Demographic Conquest

And I am aware that he sits on the advisory board of the American Council For Kosovo and as a result of contacts he has made through that group and research that he surely has conducted, that he must be fully aware of the absurdity of "Morgaan"s post above.

In light of the fact that certain comments have been deleted recently for distracting attention away from the core message of this site; are not the hateful, insulting and demonstrably false(and arguably racist) assertions put forth on display in the comments field above cause enough for that comment to be deleted and the person who posted it be asked to stick to reasonable debate on this issue?

This is just lunacy

With all due respect to Mr. Spencer and the people who comment here

all but one

Sincerely,

Jim

November1989,

Of course you didn't find the Cordoba Protocols that talk about the Mossad's insertion into Bosnia. You just went on your usual rant, this time to descending into overtly misogynist screed bringing up "ovaries" and "dairy cows" because you cannot with any substance whatsoever face one simple fact:

EVERY NON-SERB GROUP IN THE BALKANS VOTED THEMSELVES OUT OF SERB CONTROL AND WERE SUBSEQUENTLY TREATED TO SERB ATTEMPTS AT GENOCIDE.

That is a completely separate issue than fighting jihad, and the attempt to conflate native (not Wahhabi Arabs funded by the Saudis) Muslim populations with the attempted spread of shari'a is completely spurious.

But there's no talking rationally to you about it, because you're not rational.

And that's why thread after thread you attack me. You hope a voice of rationality on this subject will be silenced.

No, it won't.

I guess you hoped that when you attacked me as again today, personally, ad hominem, I would just cower and not respond.

I'm sorry. The simple truth is that 60% of all the war crimes of the Balkans Wars of th3 1990s were committed by Serbs. The other 40% were committed by ALL THE OTHER ETHNIC GROUPS COMBINED. And they all followed, sometimes by years, Serb rapes, tortures, and attempts at male gendercide of non-Serb groups.

Under no circumstances should Serbs be allowed to take control of any ethnic group they have tried to genocide.

Serbs are not, by virtue or their genes or culture, dominants of all they survey as if by divine.

EVERY NON-SERB GROUP IN THE BALKANS VOTED THEMSELVES OUT OF SERB CONTROL.

In retrospect of 10 years of attempted genocide, rape camps, examining men's genitals to determine their religion before shooting them in the face, I can only say that I bow to their profound good judgment in having done so.

And what I have said is not baseless in the slightest, as the timelien of the Balkans Wars, which I will copy to the next post, shows.

Now, November1989

I would like you to stop attacking me on thread after thread. When you do that, you force me to respond with information that proves your attack false and go over the same facts over and over again.

I do not like doing this, and I do not think it is fair to subject the rest of the readers here to it.

But when you start it all up again, I have to response.

Since there are other pertinent matters to discuss, I would ask you to do as JW staff have ask and keep things on topic, rather than engage in personal attacks.

The poster above likes to "cut and paste", maybe she should just cut and run.

sheer goddamned lunacy

I guess it just has to be ignored

Anyway, I cordially invite any who feel so inclined to google the term "Cordoba protocols" and see what you can find. You might not find aforementioned

PROTOCOLS OF THE OVARIES OF DAIRY COWS

but I know you'll have fun

I DID

Brett McS, You're right there.

Gore Vidal said that monotheistic religions are evil. I agree.

I saw a program on TV about Ancient Egypt, in which a pharoah (can't remember his name) decided to have only one god, rather than the many gods that had been worshipped before.

However, this same pharoah was the first pharoah to bring about religious persecution in Ancient Egypt, for all those who didn't follow this particular god.

Polytheism is much more democratic, since people can choose their own gods or goddesses, than having one imposed on them, which is much more fascistic.

November, 1989

All right, since internet research skills aren't aren't your forte -- and any excuse for a rant will be snapped up at the first opportunity -- I will help.

Roger Faligot, `Mossad Helped Jews to Flee from Serbia', The European, 3-6 June 1993.

Lexis-Nexis, or any competent Librarian, can help you locate and read this article. A copy may be accessed at the Library of Congress with a reader's ID badge. You will need to use the main research room that is not open to the public. I suggest desk 23 there as it has the best view of the ceiling inscriptions.

Voltaire, you're referring to Ahknatan and his was the attempt to have Aten become the only god of Egypt is called "The Amarna Heresay." He moved the capital of Lower Egypt to Thebes, was married to Nefertiti, and fathered the doomed Tutankhanum. After the Pharoah's death, the Thebes dynasty collapsed, and the monotheistic "heresy" with it. Tutankhamun was murdered at the age of 18 by what Egyptologists and forensic pathologists believe was a blow to the back of the head, which calcified, putting him into a coma for months before his death.

The redating by Schoch of the water markings on the Sphinx will likely change the dating of The Amarna Heresy, but right now it's listed as the 14th century BCE.

I really have never been able to make any connection between the Amarna Heresy and the monotheism of Judaism, though the Exodus was in the following century, the 13th century BCE. Sitchen claims that the Pharoah Hatshepsut was the woman who found Moses in the bullrushes, but I do not believe that Hatshepsut was involved in the Amarna Heresy.

P.S. to Voltaire: Sitchen is putting Hatshepsut in the 13th century, following the Amarna Heresy. Others put her in the 18th century, preceding it. But Sitchen also says that Jews had monotheistic beliefs in Canaan prior to any of these significant periods and therefore must have developed the monotheistic concept independently of the Amarna Heresy (and any relationship to Hatshepsut). Some are trying to make the case that the Jews passed the concept to the Egyptians before the Amarna Heresy, but I just can't get that.

But if you ever clear up this mystery, please let me know.

Good grief!

We can endlessly debate the definition of "freedom" and what it means to Americans vs. muslims, and we can denounce our filthy culture as unfit for any decent people, especially pious muslims. I would like to know what the hell is so upstanding and moral about islamic culture?

Is it their "family values"; polygamy, wife-beating/slavery; male supremacy; honor killings; persecution of female rape victims usually culminating in the execution or honor killing of the rape victim and impunity for the rapist?

Is it their putative abstinence from alcohol while drug addiction is rampant in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, but kept quiet, just as venereal disease, crime,prostitution, and mental illness are kept quiet, with no statistics available to anyone but perhaps the respective Orwellian Depravity Ministry?

Is it their insane obsession with sex that separates males and females until marriage, at which time girls as young as nine are forced to marry dirty old men? Is it their unfair and inequitable divorce laws that give women no voice or rights and grant custody of the children to the fathers?

Is it their primitive, disgusting and cruel mutilation of female genitals to guarantee chastity, abolish sexual pleasure, and ensure excruciating pain and plenty of blood for a muslim girl on her wedding day, while her triumphant groom revels in the gore and gloats to his friends and family?

Is it the islamic tradition of intermarriage, which is producing more and more physically and mentally defective babies who are rejected by the husband and his family, while the helpless victim wives are blamed for their defects? Is it the islamic tradition of discarding wives who do not produce male offspring or any offspring?

Is it the islamic tradition of forcing females to cover themselves so their satanic wiles will not tempt males to stray from the righteous path, to hold females entirely responsible for male behavior?

Is it the citizen spy brigades that police their neighbors (think Nazi Germany) and report apostates to the proper authorities so they can be punished accordingly? How many young women have been murdered by their own brothers/fathers/mothers for being falsely accused of speaking to a non-related male, for not dressing properly, or for some other trivial offense? Is this a decent culture?!

Is it their savage blood-letting animal sacrifice rituals performed in urban backyards, polluting the streets and sidewalks with blood and entrails?

I could go on and on but I think everyone is familiar with the bizarre, ridiculous, and obscene aspects of islamic culture. Western culture is vulgar and excessive but not everyone engages in the types of behavior depicted on television and in movies. Not all Western women are promiscuous sluts who run around half naked and sleep with a different man every night after barhopping until the wee hours. But even if we were all as immoral and hedonistic as Hollywood portrays us, we would be no worse than muslim hypocrites. Some muslim females might be as pure as the driven snow because they have no choice in the matter, but muslim men are sex crazed perverts. They have no respect for women because they are raised to hate them and they do, with a vengeance. A culture that hates women is a dysfunctional, abysmal failure.

In our society, our personal values determine how we will conduct ourselves and live our lives. As long as we obey the law, it's nobody's business but our own. We take responsibility for our actions and our mistakes. For all that is wrong with American/Western culture, it is far superior to anything islam has produced.

Muslims might actually believe that crime, drug use, prostitution,pornography, and rape only occur in decadent Western countries because we acknowledge these problems, address and try to correct them. Islamic countries attempt to hide their dirty laundry behind the facade of hypocrisy. Muslims certainly couldn't be any more offended by my culture than I am by theirs. Islam forbids individuality and personal freedom, so how can muslims co-exist in cultures that focus on and revere individuality and free choice?

OK, let's cut and paste-at least we can be done with the "Cordoba protocols". Now we have this offered up as conclusive and incontrovertible proof of widespread and deeply entrenched Serbian Anti-Semitism-

Roger Faligot, `Mossad Helped Jews to Flee from Serbia', The European, 3-6 June 1993.

-a single article in an obscure european magazine penned by the unfortunately named Roger Faligot.
I googled it and came up with one single result which links to the footnotes page of a book entitled: Israel and the War in the Balkans by Igor Primoratz- which cites one single sentence from the article in question,about Jews being airlifted out of Sarajevo, with the consent of the Bosnian Serbs who controlled the airport during the war in 1992.

This article was put forth as an example(the sole example) of the existence a widespread, deeply entrenched and violent Serbian Anti-Semitism and the only excerpt I can access through the web is quoted in a book, the subject of which has nothing to do with Serbian Anti-Semitism. I do not have access to Lexis-Nexis and am not going to bother trying to locate this article by Faligot. If one who "honors debate" seeks to engage in honest discussion in a forum such as this, then that person should be prepared to provide links that support their assertions or at least refer to material that is easily traceable on the web.

Anyway, the notion of some secret Mossad mission to airlift Jews out of Serbia during in the early 90's is preposterous; because, and I'll quote Wikipedia as I have no reason to doubt this passage-

"The Jews of Serbia lived relatively peacefully in Yugoslavia between World War II and the 1990s. However, the end of the Cold War saw the breakup of Yugoslavia, and wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. There were also a war in the Serbian province of Kosovo-Metohija and NATO raids of Serbia and Montenegro. While there was little anti-Semitism in Serbia during the wars, the Jewish community, as with all Serbians, suffered as a result of the wars. Many Jews chose to emigrate to Israel and the United States. During the Kosovo Conflict, the Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia relocated many of Belgrade's Jewish elderly, women and children to Budapest, Hungary for their safety; many of them emigrated permanently."

-Hence, most of the last Jews of Serbia left not because they were chased out by mobs or smuggled out in secret night-time airlifts, but to escape the bombing the extensive bombing raids carried out by NATO.

And just so we can get a glimpse of Jewish-Serbian relations during the time in question, below are some excerpts from the book Israel and the War in the Balkans which included the article by Faligot, offered up as proof of rabid Serbian Jew-Hate:

"The war in the Balkans was subsequently discussed in the Knesset on several occasions, but none of the criticism voiced by Knesset members succeeded in making a dent in the pro-Serb stance of the government. This was to remain Israel's official position. The government would not issue even the mildest condemnation of the Serbs...soon after the Dayton agreement was in place(1995) the ties between Israel and Serbia were developing at full speed. Mr Ori Orr, chairperson of the Knesset Foreign Relations and Security Committee, said on his visit to Belgrade in July 1994: "We have a good memory. We know what it is to live under sanctions and boycott ...Every UN resolution against us was adopted by a two-thirds majority...'. He went on to promise further support for Serbia, including help in improving the latter's international position and image."

I will again post this comment by "Morgaan Sinclair", posted previously on Jihadwatch-

"Anti-Semitic ravings on Serbian websites have wiped out the Sephardic population of the Balkans down to less than 3,000 Jews, and they will tell it's the Serbs that did it."

november1981, I have access to Lexis-Nexis on line, but wouldn't you know it, a journal called European (without the "The") out of London is only available from 1996 forward, at least through my library's access.

I have not read any of the comments, just glanced at them. They look kind of weird.
I just breezed in here to say this: The US is successful today because of a particular line in the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion".
This is at heart a secular country. That is why people are free to focus their attention on useful things, like medicine, computers, all of the things that have actual utility.
Judaism and Christianity serve one purpose - they keep people out of Islam.

'former liberal WF' wrote:
"schmegel, you claim that the founding fathers were not Christian and, for the most part, you are wrong."

I would say, however, that for the most part I am right. For example:

Jefferson said, 'To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings... Question with boldness even the existence of a God... Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man.' (He must have been in a bad mood when he said the last bit.)

Madison said, 'What has been Christianity's fruits? Superstition, bigotry and persecution.'

Adams said, 'Christianity is the most bloody religion that ever existed. ... The Cross: consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!... This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.'

Even Franklin said, 'lighthouses are more useful than churches.'

Some of these statements about Christianity make even a non-Christian like me blush. You could hardly claim, then, that America's founding fathers were Christians.

Michael Smith,

I don't know if you're still reading this rapidly ageing thread, but just in case...

What you wrote involved a complete misunderstanding of Marx. Marx's (Lukacs merely quoted it) famous statement - 'It is not men’s consciousness that determines their existence, but on the contrary, their social existence that determines their consciousness.' - has nothing to do with the notion that developments in technology determine consciousness, which is your interpretation of it.

I don't who that Von Mises fellow, who you quote at length, is. But he is clearly someone with no understanding of Marx.

You quote Von Mises as saying, "In his [Marx's] doctrine the tools and machines are the ultimate thing, a material thing, viz., the material productive forces. Everything else is the necessary superstructure of this material basis."

This statement is not true. For Marx, it is not the forces of production (e.g. technology) , but the social relations of production (e.g. worker - factory owner - expropriation - exchange) that determine consciousness.

The use of the word 'determine' here does not unseat Reason from the human mind as you seem to be suggesting. In Marx's thought there is an important distinction between ideology and science, i.e. between the determined and the critical consciousness.

schmegel

Have you any knowledge of the Jefferson Bible?

It contains a bit more info then these cherry picked quotes.

Remote, thanks for checking on that. You and I will never see that article and neither has "Morgaan" seen it. Most likely she owns a copy the book that cites it and threw out the article as proof simply because the title sounds so spooky. Unfortunately, Ms. Sinclair's mischarachterizations and false assertions are all too typical of the reporting and scholarly analysis of recent Balkan events.

And I'm still waiting for a link or something, anything, on the "Cordoba protocols"

November 1989

To the others: I'm sorry for this, but as long as November 1989 keeps attacking me, I have to keep responding. It's not OK with me for him to call me a liar and get away with it. I'm not and don't deserve to be called one.

When he stops attacking I will be more than delighted to call it a day on this. I didn't bring it up to begin with.

November 1989 ... Yesterday, completely unprovoked, you attacked me (again) claiming that all I say about the Serbian attitudes towards their neighbors, particularly the Jews, is somehow a lie. You never offer any refutation. I directed you to an article you seem to refuse to use Lexis-Nexis or a library to access. After repeated requests last night that you stop writing attack posts, I come in tonight to find more of them.

So that the people on this forum are not duped into believing that I say such things without solid academic foundation ...

Here is the full November 2006 report of the Helsinki Committee in reporting human rights violations against Jews in Serbia, indicative of the endemic and systematic anti-Semitism faced by Jews in that country.

HELSINŠKI ODBOR ZA LJUDSKA PRAVA U SRBIJI
HELSINKI COMMITTEE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN SERBIA
SCG–11000 Beograd, Zmaj Jovina 7, tel: (+381 11) 3032408, 2637116, 2637294
fax: 2636429, e-mail: biserkos@EUnet.yu, http://www.helsinki.org.yu

ANTI-SEMITISM IN SERBIA

Belgrade, November 2006
HELSINŠKI ODBOR ZA LJUDSKA PRAVA U SRBIJI
HELSINKI COMMITTEE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN SERBIA
SCG–11000 Beograd, Zmaj Jovina 7, tel: (+381 11) 3032408, 2637116, 2637294
fax: 2636429, e-mail: biserkos@EUnet.yu, http://www.helsinki.org.yu
CONTENTS:
1. INTRODUCTION
2. JEWS IN SERBIA
3. ANTI-SEMITISM IN SERBIA TODAY
3.1. Present socio-political context
3.2. Political anti-Semitism
3.3. Between theory of conspiracy and ‘comparative victimhood’
3.4. Anti-Semitism within the Serbian Orthodox Church
3.5. Civil scene anti-Semitism
3.6. Anti-Semitism in culture – publishing
4. GOVERNMENT REACTION
5. RECOMMENDATIONS

‘Even the final rest is not to be that.
The destruction of the cemeteries is not just an
anti-Semitic outrage, it is anti-Semitism itself’1

1. INTRODUCTION

In her book Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt notes an apparent rule that
‘...anti-Semitic sentiments take on political importance only when they can be combined
with major political problems...’2 In Serbia, where the last two decades have undoubtedly
been years of major political problems, anti-Semitic sentiments have assumed not only
political but also social and cultural importance although there are hardly any Jews in the
country at all. In view of this, how is one to approach the problem of anti-Semitism and
analyze its origins in a country in which Jews constitute one of the smallest minority
communities?

Whereas earlier theorists have sought the Political and social causes of modern and contemporary anti-Semitism within the confines of enlightenment, in the advent and demise of the European nation state, current analysts regard it as an outcome of the radical and extremist tendencies in society brought on by the changed social and economic environments in evidence at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st
centuries. Although the historical contexts in which the first two analytical frameworks
occurred are undeniably substantially different from the present one, this by no means
detracts from their relevance. Leaving aside the contradictory effects of enlightenment
and their connection with anti-Semitism,5 a belated project aimed at the creation of a
(greater) nation state, accompanied by political and social radicalization, seems to provide quite an appropriate framework within which to analyse contemporary anti-Semitism in Serbia.

The idea that a homogenous national group is a basic prerequisite for a state community (that is, for its territorial and personal sovereignty as well as for the definition of its political goals) is necessarily at odds with the existence of ‘nations within a nation’.

Serbia’s greater state-national project, that is, the way it was conceived and the methods used in the attempt to realize it, could not but bring about a clash with the national minorities. In order to justify nationalism and populism, and along with them Serbia’s aggressive policy towards neighbouring states and minorities at home, one had to reinterpret Serbia’s recent past and its Orthodox Christian traditions. On the one hand,
this strategy sought to legitimize the use of warlike policy as a response to the atrocities
committed against Serbs in the past; on the other, it set out to lay the foundations of a
new Serbian identity. Within this framework, persons belonging to certain minorities
were assigned the role of ‘enemy’ – Croats, Hungarians, and Bulgarians for their World
War Two collaboration with the Third Reich, and Jews as allegedly the chief culprit in a
global conspiracy against Serbia and the Serbs, an attitude both in line with the widely
known anti-Semitic stereotypes and betraying a total absence of any critical appraisal of
Serbia’s policy and its consequences.
The basic framework within which one should address the problem of anti-Semitism today is a complex one. In the past twenty years or so in

Serbian anti-Semitism has not existed as an isolated phenomenon; it should therefore be sought in the radicalization, intolerance and xenophobia permeating politics and society as a result of a
disastrous, destructive policy. In view of the traditional perception of the Jews as ever
others and foreigners, anti-Semitism in Serbia may, in a broader sense, be interpreted as a
problematic attitude to difference rather than as a purely anti-Jewish ideology, practice,
or discourse.

This study addresses anti-Semitism in four of its basic manifestations, namely as
political, religious, civil, and cultural. Whereas the first is almost wholly restricted to the
field of political discourse, the religious and civil often intertwine, mostly to the extent
that in today’s Serbia one discerns no clear dividing line between the church as a
religious institution and as a social and cultural authority and actor. Although the Serbian
Orthodox Church (SPC) has officially entered Serbia’s political life, this study considers
as being of far greater interest its influence on certain ‘civil society’ circles which may be
said to generate and promote anti-Semitism. The civil form of anti-Semitism is by far the
most open and radical, with the cultural providing it with motives and perpetuating its
presence on the public stage. The context in which this study addresses anti-Semitism is
provided by the political and social circumstances in the last decade of the 20th and the
beginning of the 21st centuries.
At present, denial and negation of anti-Semitism are especially strong in the
political and social spheres, reflecting as they do a legacy of a society, policy, and elites
incapable of confronting and overcoming a controversial past. This study throws critical
light on the background and manifestations of anti-Semitism, and of other forms of
intolerance, in order to emphasize, among other things, the need to reassess Serbia’s past
and present as a precondition for the establishment of a modern, democratic and tolerant
state and society.

2. JEWS IN SERBIA
The exact number of Jews living in the territory of the Republic of Serbia (not
including Kosovo) is not known. The last official census conducted in 2002 put the
number of persons declaring themselves Jews at 1,158.6 The total number of Jews is
estimated between 2,000 and 3,000.7
During the Second World War nearly the entire Belgrade Jewish community
perished in the Holocaust. Having embraced the main ideas of National Socialism,
especially those concerning racial purity, Serbia’s quisling authorities under General
Milan Nedić turned into diligent executors of the occupier’s policy against the Jews. The
Jews were denied the right to work, robbed of their property, and stripped of all their civil
rights.8 Aleksandar Lebl writes that from April 1941 on the Holocaust was carried out in
Serbia too. The occupying authorities were assisted in their mass extermination of Jews
in Serbia by the Nedić Government of National Salvation, Dimitrije Ljotić’s Yugoslav
National Movement ‘Zbor’, and the gendarmes and special police, who guarded the
prisons and camps and ran down and arrested sheltered Jews.9 As a result, State
Counsellor Harald Turner reported to Berlin as early as August 1942 that Serbia was the
only country in which the Jewish and Gypsy question had been solved.10 In consequence,
Belgrade was officially declared the ‘first city of a new Europe to be Judenrein [cleansed
of Jews]’.11 In recognition of their successful solution of the ‘Jewish question’, Nedić’s
Serbia and Nedić himself received a published tribute from the Reich leaders.12
Although Nedić’s and Ljotić’s anti-Semitism is a historically validated fact,
attempts are being made to relativize and reinterpret it by serving up all kinds of
interpretations. Thus, ‘In Serbia in 1941, the German occupying authorities were able to
achieve the quickest “final solution” of the Jewish question because Serbia was not a
German ally but an occupied country, so in Serbia the Nazis had free reign. Countries
which were Germany’s allies, such as Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Independent
State of Croatia [NDH] were able to conduct their own policy regarding the Jews, and it
could differ from Germany’s to a degree. Occupied Serbia had no such choice because it
was forbidden, under the terms of its capitulation, to pursue any “own” policy. The
Germans sought permission from the NDH to open a camp on the old fair grounds near Zemun since Croatia had annexed that part of dismembered and occupied Serbia. It was
there that some 8,000 Jews were murdered…’13
Since Israel’s foundation in 1948, according to the World Jewish Congress, over
10,000 Jews have emigrated from the countries of the former Yugoslavia, including from
Serbia more than half of those who survived the Second World War.
Today the majority of Serbia’s Jews live in Belgrade, with smaller communities
in Novi Sad, Sombor, Subotica, and Niš. Both numerically and politically and
economically they exert almost no influence at all in the republic.14 In politics they
occupy no prominent position but can be found in culture and in the police.15 In view of
the foregoing, there is no doubt that the perpetuation of anti-Semitism in Serbia requires
no (influential) Jews: ‘The fact that anti-Semitism is in evidence in environments where
no one has seen a Jew suggests an irrational phenomenon and a hatred for which Jews are
not indispensable.’16
3. ANTI-SEMITISM IN SERBIA TODAY
The existence of anti-Semitism in Serbia shows that the formal introduction of
democracy into politics through the inauguration of a multi-party system, freedom of
thought and free speech in the wake of communism does not necessarily result in genuine
democratization of politics and society. The effort to realize the Serb nationalist project
has given birth to right-wing political parties as well as a welter of nationalist, chauvinist,
and racist organizations.
Not infrequently, freedom of thought and free speech has in Serbia been taken to
mean the right to hate speech, through which anti-Semitism has been and continues to be
openly propagated. The general political and social climate of intolerance allows anti-
Semitism to be manifested in its various forms. Given that it has grown in intensity in
recent years, it cannot be regarded as a marginal phenomenon.

3.1. PRESENT SOCIO-POLITICAL CONTEXT
The removal of Milošević did not result in a total break with the nationalist
policy, so in the wake of several lost wars nationalism, xenophobia, and intolerance
continue to exert a strong influence on political and social life in Serbia. The frustration
in political life and in society as a whole stems from the inability (or rather the absence of
a desire) to face the recent past and the catastrophic consequences it has had not only for
neighbouring states and peoples, but for Serbia itself.
In spite of promulgating the new Constitution on 7 November 2006, Serbia is still
not constituted as a state. The undefined status of Kosovo, which the Constitution treats
as an integral part of the Republic of Serbia, prevents the definition of the country’s
territorial sovereignty, in the absence of which even the institutions of the state cannot
ensure an institutional-legal framework indispensable to the normal operation of the state
and society.
The idea, enshrined in the Preamble of the new Constitution, of a national-civil
state and a state of others betrays the lack of fundamental understanding of the modern
state on the part of Serbia’s political elites. The defeat of the national project has brought
about no redefinition of the direction in which Serbia’s future is to be charted. The ‘all
Serbs in one state’ project has been renamed ‘a state first for Serbs (and then for citizens
and others)’. Serbia’s territorial sovereignty still being up in the air, the elites have
attached priority in their political and wider social engagement to defining the personal
sovereignty of the Serbian state on the basis of a single-nation identity and on that
nation’s collective memory.
The reordering of the collective memory and the creation of a new Serb identity
are pursued with reference to three key periods in Serbia’s modern history: the Second
World War, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and its disintegration through
wars. This process has been monopolized by the state and by the national political, social,
and intellectual elites.17 In their revision of the past, these elites do not take as their point
of departure a critical appraisal of the net results of each of these three periods; on the
contrary, they proceed from a relativization of their problematic aspects, i.e. (anti)fascism
and nationalism. For this reason trivialized (anti)fascism and nationalism find room in
political decisions, cultural production, social life, and public discourse. The new
interpretation of history and the selective collective memory it conditions not only define
current socio-political life in Serbia but doubtless augur a controversial future too. Thus
reordered national memory is becoming the root not only of Serbia’s new national and
state identity, but also of its inability to integrate politically and socially the members of
the minority communities which are objectively opposed to such an interpretation of the
past and to the future which can be built on that basis. There has been no break with this
trend since 5 October 2000. On account of its internal political differences, mainly as to
the desired course of change, but also of its ‘ideological’ differences, the ruling DOS
coalition failed to make a break with the Milošević legacy. The introduction of religious
teaching into elementary schools, the rigid political attitudes to Kosovo, the affording the
church a direct role in politics though its participation in the Kosovo talks, the refusal of
the government of Vojislav Koštunica fully to cooperate with the Hague Tribunal, etc,
keep Serbia in a vicious circle of nationalism to this day.
The lack of a wider political as well as social will to take a critical look at and
cognizance of phenomena such as anti-Semitism, xenophobia, racism, intolerance, etc,
which are the concomitant of nationalism, deprives Serbian society of a chance to
reconstitute itself into a democratic, tolerant and, above all, auto-reflexive society ready
to accept difference as such instead of focusing on its own continuing frustrations or
making assessments in terms of its own needs.
17 ‘Sigurnost građana u nedovršenoj državi’, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia,
Belgrade, 2006.

3.2.POLITICAL ANTI-SEMITISM
Historically viewed, political anti-Semitism has manifested itself in specific
political actions aimed at depriving the Jews of their citizenship and civic status, at
imposing special levies on them and confiscating their property, at ghettoising, deporting,
and exterminating them as a final solution. It culminated during the life of the Third
Reich which devised and put into operation a machinery for the systematic production of
corpses.
Implicit if not explicit anti-Semitism survives the Holocaust and the adoption of
numerous international legal documents starting with the Charter of the United Nations,
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial
Discrimination, and others.
The roots of modern political anti-Semitism may be sought within the context of
the growing radicalization of democratic societies and the increasing evidence of rightwing
trends in Europe, especially in Serbia. Right-wing radicalism and populism have
become a major characteristic of the contemporary European political scene. The wider
social and economic crisis is characterized by a quest for a new identity in substantially
changed circumstances, a still predominantly discursive quest marked by anti-immigrant,
anti-Islamic, and anti-Semitic verbal attacks. In the countries of eastern and central
Europe, former members of the Warsaw Pact, this is additionally aggravated by the
reinterpretation of their communist and, above all, anti-fascist past including by all means
the ‘national’ perceptions of anti-Semitism.
Since the defeat of the war project, Serb nationalism has been looking to its
ideological roots, especially to the conservative thought personified by Nikolaj
Velimirović, Justin Popović, and the ‘pragmatic policy’ of the fascist Dimitrije Ljotić and
the quisling Milan Nedić. In Serbia, it was the post-communist,18 nationalistic
remodelling of the collective memory, which declared Nazi collaborators victims of
communism, that paved the way for the political and social sanction of anti-Semitism.
The rehabilitation of the fascist, quisling, and Chetnik movements in Serbia has laid the
ideological foundations for the relativization of extreme nationalism and of the
consequences of the policy conducted under its aegis, thus creating a political and social
climate for numerous racist and anti-Semitic campaigns.19 Given that the majority of
political parties with right-wing leanings have implicitly legitimized conservative
individuals and problematic periods from Serbia’s more recent history, one may speak of
an implicit or even explicit embracement of anti-Semitic theology and ideology on
Serbia’s political stage.
The rehabilitation of fascism, or of national anti-fascism according to those who
conduct the rehabilitation20 with a view to a ‘normalization’ of nationalism, provides a
framework within which anti-Semitism figures side by side with racism and xenophobia.
In this context, the new ‘national heroes’ such as Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić

August 2006. The author sees at work in Serbia today the ‘anti-fascisization of chauvinism...the
promotion of an authentic national anti-fascism’ through the legitimization of domestic fascists and quislings.are often made use of in the fight against the ‘dirty anti-Serb propaganda’. Thus, for
instance, the exhibition of photographs by the US journalist Ron Haviv, ‘Blood and
Honey’, in several towns in Serbia was marred by incidents caused by Radovan
Karadžić’s supporters chanting nationalist slogans.
In political discourse, one notices the use of anti-Semitic stereotypes in inter-party
recriminations, such as ‘Labus the Jew’, ‘Koštunica’s mother’s a Jew’, and so on.21 A
number of members of the Serb political elite – notably Vladan Batić, the justice minister
in the Đinđić government, Dušan Bataković, and Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica –
have publicly expressed their respect for Nikolaj Velimirović: ‘Bishop Nikolaj is an
indisputable moral authority in Serbia…our road-guide who is and will always be with
us…his teachings are the appropriate model for true patriots.’22

3.3 BETWEEN THEORY OF CONSPIRACY AND
‘COMPARATIVE VICTIMHOOD’

The first years of war in the former Yugoslavia were marked by a revival of anti-
Semitism and the political abuse of Jews through philo-Semitism. According to Milan
Vukomanović, anti-Semitism was first revived by certain political circles personified by
the ‘new left and right’ and the clero-nationalist, Ljotićite and Nedićite movements.24
The theory of an international conspiracy against Serbia, launched by the
Milošević regime and the satellite parties such as the Yugoslav Left and the Serbian
Radical Party, had the object of explaining away the failures of Serbia’s warlike and
nationalist policy. An integral part of this theory was the thesis about the existence of
‘shadow rulers’, that is, of Jewish power centres, which was a main generator of anti-
Semitism in Serbia. Other than there allegedly being a ‘…planet-wide Jewish conspiracy
against Christian Orthodoxy, especially against the Serb people…,’25 there was said to be
a conspiracy by fifth-colonists including Jews and the few political groups and especially
nongovernmental organizations opposed to the warlike policy.
These stereotypes are based chiefly on anti-Semitic publications, notably the
Protocol of the Wise Men of Zion. It was in this light too that the numerous foreign and
international initiatives seeking to prevent fighting in the former Yugoslavia were
interpreted, because they had been initiated and signed by Jews among others. At the
same time, Serbia’s Jews were asked to make an apology for the acts of the US
Administration including the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999.26 As Milorad Tomanić has
observed, this theory of a worldwide conspiracy against the Serbs and of a ‘new world
order’ was actually part of a well thought-out Serb plan boiling down to a ‘…Serb
conspiracy against the whole world and to a “new Serb order” that was to be imposed at
least in the territory of the former SFRY.’27
As well as encouraging anti-Semitism, certain political and intellectual circles
promoted philo-Semitism. In his Potiskivanje i poricanje antisemitizma, Jovan Byford
observes that the drawing of parallels between Serb and Jewish histories was closely
‘…related to the martyrdom myth characteristic of Serb nationalist discourse…’28 In the
late 1980s and the early 1990s in particular this ‘analogy’ was abused by many
intellectuals who pointed to a ‘historical fatality rendering the Serb and Jewish people
increasingly alike’29 or argued that ‘For the Serbs, every square foot of Kosovo is a
Jerusalem: there is no difference between the suffering of Serbs and Jews. The Serbs are
the thirteenth, lost and most unfortunate tribe of Israel.’30
The promotion of philo-Semitism had another objective: to reinterpret the recent
historical context of Serbia’s war of aggression against neighbouring states of the former
Yugoslavia and its nationalist policy towards minorities; this was done by investing the
Serb people with the role of victim on the historical model of the persecution of the Jews
especially during the Holocaust. The ‘analogy’ between the fates of the Serb and Jewish
peoples also drew upon the period of the Second World War especially in the
Independent State of Croatia, whose ideologues ‘blamed “Croatia’s misfortune”
primarily on the Serbs and then on the Jews…’ – ‘Serbs and Jews know what it means to
be the object of collective hatred, so the lessons of historical experience should not be
lightly forgotten.’31
Another object of the philo-Semitic rhetoric – wooing the Jewish-dominated
power centres with a view to obtaining their support in defence of the ‘suffering Serb
people and lands’ – actually helped to sustain the conspiracy theory and anti-Semitic
stereotypes. The Society of Serb-Jewish Friendship, founded on 21 November 1988, was
designed as a vehicle for this abuse, declaring as its aim ‘bringing closer together the two
peoples who have “often been unjustly accused just because they are different [from the
rest]”’32 and becoming close with those power centres which can help solve the ‘Serb
question’. Among its founders were Serb nationalist intellectuals inside the Serbian
Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) – Ljubomir Tadić (president), Dobrica Ćosić
(one of the authors of the SANU Memorandum), and others33 – and several members of
the Jewish community including the ubiquitous Klara Mandić. Financially supported by
the authorities, the Society became part of the regime’s propaganda machinery.34 The
launching of the claims about the existence of power centres in which Jews called the
shots was fully compatible with the official policy of the Milošević regime based on a
conspiracy theory. The Society never enjoyed the support of the Jewish organizations in
Serbia. The Union of Jewish Municipalities and Jewish intellectuals strongly objected to
the Society’s position, criticising it35 and making numerous protests against its
announcements.

3.4. AMTI-SEMITIZM WITHIN
THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

Following the collapse of socialism, during which period the state determined the
nature of its relationship with the religious communities,36 and the outbreak of armed
conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, the SPC was given an opportunity to throw its full
weight behind the Greater Serbia project. The SPC exploited the rise of nationalism in
Serbia to ensure its rehabilitation with a view to retraditionalizing Serbian society and
shaping a new collective identity. This implied, among other things, a squaring of
accounts with the communist ideology, whose ‘main victim was the church itself and
then the Serb people’;37 cleansing the national identity of this ideology was considered of
crucial importance for any return to traditions and Orthodoxy.
The insistence on traditions and Orthodoxy was not confined to the context of the
SPC’s showdown with the communists but became an integral part of the warlike policy
itself. Loyalty to Orthodoxy and to the SPC figured prominently in Serb war folklore.38
In 1991 and 1992 the SPC admittedly made several appeals for reconciliation and the
cessation of hostilities, but as war in Bosnia took hold it ‘demanded’ that the war effort
be pursued and blocked peace processes.39
The fundamentalism of the SPC is manifested in its advocacy of a return to the
roots and beginnings, its opposition to secularization, and its rejection of enlightenment
traditions and modern scientific, technical, and political achievements; combined with the
SPC’s status of an institution enjoying the greatest trust of the citizens, this
fundamentalism has been instrumental in the creation of a new Serb national identity
which is largely characterized by the absence of tolerance and the rejection of modern
political values.
In recent history the SPC has helped the perpetuation of anti-Semitism by laying
the foundations for and fabricating the new Serb identity. The first and most significant
of its actions was the canonization of Nikolaj Velimirović. The decision to canonize
Nikolaj Velimirović was taken unanimously by the SPC Holy Assembly of Bishops in
May 2003. As a result, Velimirović is regarded in Serbia today as the most distinguished
religious personality since Saint Sava.40 The successful rehabilitation of Nikolaj
Velimirović after forty years of marginalization has been hailed by the SPC as proof of
the capacity of the ‘Serb nation as a whole for revitalization, as well as the much-needed
validation of its spiritual values.’41 The touting of Nikolaj Velimirović as a key spiritual
authority has been accompanied not only by the issue of his works but also by the
publication of numerous laudatory writings about him. However, Velimirović’s
connections with the Nazi collaborators – ‘…Bishop Nikolaj, “[who was] close to Nedić
and Ljotić not only did not object to the totalitarian political systems, but clearly came
out in their favour”…’42 – and his demonstrated anti-Semitism – ‘All of the modern
European devices are the invention of the Jews, who crucified Christ: democracy, strikes,
socialism, atheism, tolerance of all religions, pacifism, world revolution, capitalism,
communism alike. All these are the invention of the Jews or rather of their father the
devil’43 – are in direct contrast to the myth about his martyrdom.
The person and work of Nikolaj Velimirović serve as an inspiration to many
right-wing youth organizations which operate if not formally as part of the SPC then
under its wing, and which are in the forefront of the anti-Semitic drive in Serbia today.
Several Jewish demands that the SPC dissociate itself from Nikolaj Velimirović’s
anti-Semitism have not borne fruit because ‘…Velimirović’s anti-European, anti-culture,
and…anti-Semitic spirit is implanted in what today constitutes the substance of a good
many people from the church.’44
When the SPC articulates its dissociation from and condemnation of anti-
Semitism, it does so mostly in the context of its abuse of philo-Semitism. Its philo-
Semitic rhetoric is based on the use of comparative victimhood,45 the object of which is
the defence of the Greater-Serbia project and the negation and relativization of its
extreme manifestations including anti-Semitism. In its numerous press releases, the SPC
refers to the martyrdom and victimhood of the Jewish and Serb peoples in the past,
stresses the authority of the Christian Orthodox Church, and denies that its dogma
encourages anti-Semitism. Although the SPC is officially opposed to anti-Semitism, the
fact remains that certain circles within it are anti-Semitic; also, the canonization of
Nikolaj Velimirović suggests that as an institution the SPC continues to figure in Serbia’s political and social life as a promoter of at least implicit anti-Semitism.

Given that anti-Semitism appears in Serbia today within a wider context ofradicalization, intolerance, xenophobia, and racism, and considering that the SPC has largely contributed to this state of affairs by its political and social engagement, one cannot help feeling that its declarative condemnation of anti-Semitism is a gesture of political correctness rather than reflecting its substantive position on this and related issues.

The active support of the SPC to the rehabilitation of fascists, collaborators, and
Chetniks from the period of the Second World War – Dimitrije Ljotić, Milan Nedić, and
Draža Mihajlović – all of whom were more or less anti-Semites,46 bears out the fact that

3.5 CIVIL SCENE ANTI-SEMITISM

Blatant anti-Semitic incidents are a feature of Serbia’s ‘civil scene’, which is
made up of a large number of more or less formal radical right-wing and (clero-)fascist
groups. The identity of the persons standing behind the more violent incidents involving
the desecration of Jewish cemeteries, monuments and religious facilities, the writing of
graffiti and the pasting of posters cannot be established with any degree of certainty:
except for three persons arrested for putting up anti-Semitic posters in March 2005, the
public is still in the dark as to the identity of the perpetrators.

Characteristically, the right-wing and clero-fascist organizations attract mostly
young people who find their foothold of belief in what has been promoted in the last
twenty years or so as a wider social trend, namely revised Serb nationalism and return to
traditional Orthodox values. The more extreme among these, such as skinheads,
Nacionalni stroj (National Formation),47 Krv i čast (Blood and Honour), and Rasni
nacionalisti - rasonalisti (Racial Nationalists - Racialnalists), have embraced the Nazi
ideology as their own. All of these organizations have in common extreme anti-
Westernism and rejection of liberal values, racism, nationalism and chauvinism,
ideological exclusivity, and xenophobia. Needless to say that anti-Semitism figures too in
this milieu. Whereas the proved activities48 of the aforementioned groups amount mostly
to virtual anti-Semitism, the activities of Serb right-wing youth organizations such as Dveri srbske (Serbian Door), Obraz (Honour), Sveti Justin Filozof (St Justin the Philosopher), Nomokanon (Nomocanon), and Svetozar Miletić include numerous and highly popular panel discussions and periodicals.

Although many public activities of Serb right-wing youth organizations are not explicitly anti-Semitic, the very fact that they support, among other things, the rehabilitation of Nikolaj Velimirović, Milan Nedić, Dimitrije Ljotić, and the Chetnik movement suggests a latent anti-Semitism.

Since civil sector anti-Semitism conforms to the pattern over the last decade and a half of expressing intolerance and often of rabid hatred of minority groups in Serbia, it paints a picture of society’s general state of affairs. As the Israeli ambassador to Serbia, Jafa Ben Ari, has observed in an interview with Danas (9 May 2005), in Serbia ‘there is no question of anti-Semitism per se, but of hatred simmering below the Surface’.

3.6. ANTI-SEMITISM IN CULTURE - PUBLISHING

Since the end of the 1980s Serbia’s publishing sector has been a most prominent
propagator of anti-Semitism, with over 150 titles published by various publishing
establishments. Some of these specialize in anti-Semitic publishing, notably Ihtus -
Hrišćanska knjiga and Klub nacionalnih knjiga Velvet.

The Protocol of the Wise Men of Zion has proved an especially successful product of the anti-Semitic publishing effort, having been printed in twelve different editions between 1990 and 2001;49 among the publishers, Ratibor Đurđević holds pride of place, having authored most of over fifty anti-Semitic titles published by Ihtus - Hrišćanska knjiga.

According to Aca Singer, many of the anti-Semitic titles freely published and circulated in Serbia in recent years are far more injurious than the Protocols: Ratibor Đurđević’s Jevrejsko ritualno ubistvo (Jewish ritual murder) is one of such works. The following is a list of some of the titles that have been on display in Belgrade bookshops:

Jevrejska zavera (the Jewish conspiracy); Srpski narod u kandžama Jevreja (the Serb
people in Jewish clutches); Pod šestokrakom zvezdom – Judaizam i slobodno zidarstvo u
prošlosti i sadašnjosti (under the six-pointed star – Judaism and free masonry in the past
and at present); Zašto se divim Adolfu Hitleru (why I admire Adolf Hitler); Mrtve krave
protiv šest miliona mrtvih Jevreja (dead cows vs. six million dead Jews); Zašto je
rasizam ispravan (why racism is right); Zašto mrzim Jevreje (why I hate Jews); Protokoli
sionskih mudraca (protocols of the wise men of Zion); Vladika Nikolaj o Judejcima,
neprijateljima hrišćana i hrišćanstva (Bishop Nikolaj on the Judeans, enemies of
Christians and Christianity); Zli i prokleti (the evil and damned); Zavera nad zaverama
(the conspiracy of conspiracies); Zlotvori čovečanstva (mankind’s fiends); Pet krvavih
revolucija judeo bankara (the five bloody revolutions of the Judean bankers); Svetosavski
nacionalizam u judeo-masonskom okruženju (the nationalism of St Sava in a Judeomasonic
encirclement); Holokaust – dogma judaizma (Holocaust – the dogma of Judaism); Talmud – izvornik satansko-judejskog porobljavanja čovečanstva (Talmud – the fountainhead of the satanic-Judean enslavement of mankind); Prokleti Hanan (the cursed Hanaan); Judejska zavera protiv boga i čoveka (the Judean conspiracy against
God and man); O semitskoj opasnosti i lomljenju srpske kičme u Drugom svetskom ratu
(on the Semitic peril and the breaking of the Serb backbone in the Second World War);
Zašto su Jevreji kroz celu istoriju protiv Srba. Ko su oni? (why the Jews have been
against the Serbs throughout history, who are they?); Jevreji u ogledalu Svetog pisma
(the Jews in the mirror of the Bible); Zli i prokleti: Dušmani savremenog čovečanstva
(evil and cursed: the foes of modern mankind); Drama savremenog čovečanstva (the
drama of modern mankind); Cionizam, komunizam i ‘novi’ svetski poredak (Zionism,
Communism and the ‘new’ world order); Sindrom straha od Judejaca u Americi (the fear
of Judeans in America syndrome); Rugobe i laži američke demokratije (the monstrosities
and lies of American democracy); etc.
Reprints of the works of Milan Nedić, Dimitrije Ljotić, and Nikolaj Velimirović
figure prominently in the anti-Semitic publishing sector. Further, periodicals such as
Logos,51 Kruna, Velika Srbija,52 and Pravoslavlje,53 as well as certain tabloids, run anti-
Semitic texts or articles by authors who can be linked to anti-Semitism. In reply to
protests from the Union of Jewish Municipalities, the publishers and authors of such
articles mostly reply that the readers themselves should be allowed to judge what is true
and what false in them. In spite of many complaints filed by the Union of Jewish
Municipalities against publishers of anti-Semitic books, the prosecutors have decided not
to prosecute criminally in most cases.54
The presence of anti-Semitism in culture is also substantiated by Nebojša Vasović
book Lažni car Šćepan Kiš, published by Narodna knjiga of Belgrade: in this work with a
marked anti-Semitic subtext, Danilo Kiš is accused of having achieved his success thanks
to his international Jewish connections; that he chose not to write about the ‘cooperation
of Jews and Nazis and those who…“profited from” Nazism and Stalinism’.55 The book
reduces the ‘Jewish identity to “gain” and to a “racial” or rather racist substance’.56 As
well as maligning Danilo Kiš, the author alleges that ‘cultural policy in Serbia was for
years determined by writers such as Oto-Bihalji Merin, Eli Finci, Oskar Davičo, Erih
Koš…’57

4. GOVERNMENT REACTION
There is hardly any adequate reaction on the part of the Serbian authorities to
anti-Semitic propaganda, incidents, publications and to hate speech in general in which
anti-Semitism figures. Under Article 134 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Serbia,
anti-Semitism may be criminally prosecuted as the dissemination of religious, national,
and racial hatred. A demand by the Union of Jewish Municipalities to include in the
Criminal Code a special provision penalizing the criminal offence of anti-Semitism,
negation of the Holocaust, minimizing the number of Jewish victims,58 and glorifying
Nazi ideology and leaders was turned down. Further, Article 38 of the Law on Public
Information of the Republic of Serbia prohibits the publishing of ideas, information, and
opinions encouraging discrimination, hatred or violence against persons or groups of
persons on the basis of their race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, etc. In spite of this, a
great many of the complaints filed against publishers of anti-Semitic literature by the
Union of Jewish Municipalities have been turned down by the prosecuting authorities.59
Most reaction to anti-Semitic discourse and incidents remains on the level of
verbal condemnation and critique. A series of coordinated incidents in March 2005
provoked a stormy reaction from the liberal public and well as verbal condemnations
from the SPC and the SANU; all the same, lack of an adequate response led Civic
Initiatives to issue a press release saying that the ‘new wave of extreme Serb nationalism
is under the aegis of certain state and church institutions’.60 On the occasion of the
incidents at the Novi Sad Faculty of Philosophy on 9 November 2005, Professor Milenko
Perović charged that the authorities’ unwillingness to prohibit the activities of extremist organizations betrays the fact that the ‘ruling political nomenclature in some of its
elements shares the political beliefs of these extremist organizations.’

It appears that the government’s strategy is to characterize anti-Semitism in
Serbia as an isolated phenomenon instead of treating it as an integral problem of the
general socio-political radicalization. Furthermore, any reference to its existence and
manifestations is frowned upon as an attempt to discredit the democratic policy and
society and to obstruct the process of reconciliation. The reactions of numerous
politicians from the ruling coalition, as well as of certain institutions of the state, to the
spate of organized anti-Semitic attacks in the spring of 2005 suggest a link between anti-
Semitism and major centres of political power bent on damaging the reputation of the
country: ‘Just as we have begun to repair the reputation of the country, an action has been
launched in order to damage that reputation. This action is orchestrated, but from a
different source and with a different objective…’

In response to the report of the Council of Europe monitoring mission on the
Serbian parliamentary elections held on 28 December 2003, which criticizes anti-Semitic
tendencies during the election campaign, the Ministry for National and Minority Rights
of Serbia and Montenegro announced on 28 January 2004 that the ‘carelessly
pronounced, sweeping assessments can only harm the process of reconciliation in the
region and the development of inter-ethnic trust.’
Unfortunately, such interpretations of anti-Semitism in Serbia and reactions of the
authorities indicate their unwillingness to get to grips with the legacy of a policy, now
redefined as ‘democratic nationalism’, which they continue to promote with considerable
zeal.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Eliminating anti-Semitismfrom Serbia’s political and social life necessitates the
following:

1. Having suffered military defeat, Serb nationalist policy must also be defeated mentally because the present nationalist political and social mindset continues to
generate intolerance, xenophobia, fascism, anti-Semitism, and so on.

2. In order to change mental attitudes in Serbia, the curricula must be purged
of all apologetic reinterpretations of the role of the collaborationists in the Second World
War, of the role of Serbia in the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, and of all anti-
Semitic ideologues and authors.

3. International institutions, especially the Council of Europe, ought to insist
that the authorities react adequately to anti-Semitism and to other manifestations of
hatred and intolerance, in compliance with relevant international documents.

REFERENCES:

1 M. Horkheimer, T. Adorno, Dijalektika prosvetiteljstva (Dialectic of Enlightenment),
Veselim Masleša, Sarajevo, 1974. My italics.
2 H. Arendt, Izvori totalitarizma, Feministička izdavačka kuća, Belgrade, 1998, p. 28.
3 Referring to the period from 17th to 19th centuries.
4 Adorno and Horkheimer, Arendt, and others.
5 Although this approach, in so far as it deals with a specific type of rationality and
subjectivity, may well be useful in studying the roots of anti-Semitism in general, its relevance to
Serbia’s recent historical political and social development, as well as to its present, is almost
insignificant.
6 Jews by ethnicity and religion. Slighly more than half of them were Jews by religion, the rest
declaring themselves secular. Aleksandar Lebl, ‘Antisemitizam’,
http://www.kczr.co.yu/okrugli%20stolovi/politicki%20ekstremizam/7aleksandar%20lebl%20antisemiti
zam.doc.
7 Ibid. See also ‘Puzeći i otvoreni antisemitizam’, Kažiprst, studio interview with Filip David,
Radio B92, Belgrade, 10 April 2005.
8 Olivera Milosavljević, Potisnuta istina. Kolaboracija u Srbiji 1941-1944, Helsinki
Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, Belgrade, 2006.
9 Aleksandar Lebl, ‘Antisemitizam’,
http://www.kczr.co.yu/okrugli%20stolovi/politicki%20ekstremizam/7aleksandar%20lebl%20antisemiti
zam.doc.
10 Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem. A report on the Banality of Evil, Penguin Books,
1994.
11 World Jewish Congress, www.worldjewish congress.org.
12 Mirko Đorđević in Nedim Sejdimović, Antisemitizam u Srbiji: od Vožda, preko Nikolaja,
do grafita, 26 March 2005, www.nedimsejdimovic.com.
13 Dr Krinka Vidaković-Petrov, ‘Dijaspora je dijalog o identitetu’, NIN, 3 January 2002.
14 Rather than being a qualitative judgement of their individual or collective contribution to
Serbia’s political, economic, and social life, this is an objective appraisal of their potential to shape
politics and its priorities, a potential which is in stark contrast to the dominant prejudice concerning
their clout.
15 Filip David, ‘Puzeći i otvoreni antisemitizam’, Kažiprst, Radio B92, Belgrade, 10 April
2005.
16 Aca Singer, president of the Union of Jewish Municipalities in Serbia and Montenegro,
Danas, 26-27 March 2006.
18 Post-communist both in an ideological sense and in terms of negating the multi-ethnic
character of the Yugoslav state and its social identity.
19 ‘Ljudska prava u senci nacionalizma. Srbija 2002’, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights
in Serbia, Belgrade, 2003.
20 Todor Kuljić, ‘Antifašizam and anti-antifašizamn. Propuštanje korisne prošlosti’, Politika,
21 Aleksandar Lebl, ‘Savremeni antisemitizam u Srbiji i svetu’, talk at the New Serbian Right
and Anti-Semitism round table, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, Belgrade, 3 November 2005.
22 Jovan Byford, ‘Potiskivanje i poricanje antisemitizma. Sećanje na vladiku Nikolaja
Velimirovića u savremenoj srpskoj pravoslavnoj kulturi’, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in
Serbia, Belgrade, 2005.
23 Tony Judt, ‘From the House of the Dead: On Modern European Memory’, The New York
Review.
24 Milan Vukomanović, ‘O čemu crkva (ne) može da se pita. SPC, država i društvo u Srbiji
(2000-2005)’, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, Belgrade, 2005.
25 Filip David, ‘Antisemitizam među nama’, Danas, 6-9 January 2000.
26 Ibid.

27 Milorad Tomanić, Srpska crkva u ratu i ratovi u njoj, Medijska knjižara krug, Belgrade,
2001.
28 Jovan Byford, ‘Potiskivanje i poricanje antisemitizma. Sećanje na vladiku Nikolaja
Velimirovića u savremenoj srpskoj pravoslavnoj kulturi’, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in
Serbia, Belgrade, 2005.
29 Dobrica Ćosić in ‘Antisemitizam’, Ljudska prava u tranziciji, Srbija 2001, Helsinki
Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, Belgrade, 2002.
30 Vuk Drašković, ibid.
31 Dr Krinka Vidaković-Petrov, ‘Dijaspora je dijalog o identitetu’, NIN, 3 Januar 2002.
32 ‘Antisemitizam’, Ljudska prava u tranziciji, Srbija 2001, Helsinki Committee for Human
Rights in Serbia, Belgrade, 2002, p. 268.
33 At the time the Society was founded, 16 of its 20 members were from SANU. Novi
horizonti, Veza sa Izraelom, http://www.novihorizonti.com/test/tekst.asp?ArtikalID=721.
34 Laslo Sekelj, Antisemitism and Jewish Identity in Serbia After the 1991 Collapse of the
Yugoslav State, The Vidal Sasoon International Centre for the Study of Antisemitism, The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, Analysis of Current Trends in Antisemitism, 1997, acta no. 12.
35 Ibid., p. 268.
36 Sigurnost građana u nedovršenoj državi. Srbija 2005, Helsinki Committee for Human
Rights in Serbia, Belgrade, 2006.
37 Radovan Kupres, Srpska pravoslavna crkva i novi srpski identitet, Helsinki Committee for
Human Rights in Serbia, Belgrade, 2006.
38 Ivan Čolović, Bordel ratnika, XX vek, Belgrade, 2000.
39 Milan Vukomanović, ‘O čemu crkva (ne) može da se pita. SPC, država i društvo u Srbiji
(2000-2005)’, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, Belgrade, 2005.
40 Jovan Byford, ‘Potiskivanje i poricanje antisemitizma. Sećanje na vladiku Nikolaja
Velimirovića u savremenoj srpskoj pravoslavnoj kulturi’, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in
Serbia, Belgrade, 2005.
41 Atanasije Jevtić, ibid.
42 Mirko Đorđević in Ljudska prava u tranziciji. Srbija 2001, Helsinki Committee for Human
Rights in Serbia, Belgrade, 2002.
43 Ibid.
44 Filip David, Most Radija slobodna Evropa: Koliko je antisemitizam prisutan u Srbiji i
Hrvatskoj, Dijagnoza bolesnog društva, Danas, 16-17 April 2005.
45 Comparative victimhood. Tony Judt, ‘From the House of the Dead: On Modern European
Memory’, The New York Review.
46 Laslo Sekelj, Antisemitism and Jewish Identity in Serbia After the 1991 Collapse of the
Yugoslav State, The Vidal Sasoon International Centre for the Study of Antisemitism, The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, Analysis of Current Trends in Antisemitism, 1997.
other than declaratively, the SPS does not wish to dissociate itself from anti-Semitism in
its ranks.
47 The Serbian Ministry of the Interior (MUP) classes this organization as anti-Semitic, among
other things, NIN, 29 December 2005.
48 Placing lists of Jews and anti-Semitic texts of Third Reich officials on web sites.
49 Laslo Sekelj, NIN, 2 August 2001.
50 The letter of the Union of Jewish Municipalities in Yugoslavia to the SPC Holy Assembly
of Bishops dated 28 November 2000.
51 The periodical of the Belgrade Divinity College students.
52 The organ of the Serbian Radical Party.
53 The organ of the SPC.

54 Aca Singer, the president of the Union of Jewish Municipalities in Serbia and Montenegro,
Danas, 26-27 March 2006.
55 Aleksandar Jerkov, NIN, 24 February 2005.
56 Ibid.
57 Filip David, Most Radija slobodna Evropa: Koliko je antisemitizam prisutan u Srbiji i
Hrvatskoj, Dijagnoza bolesnog društva, Danas, 16-17 April 2005.
58 Aca Singer, the president of the Union of Jewish Municipalities in Serbia and Montenegro,
Danas, 26-27 March 2006.
59 Ibid. Moreover, in 2001, Milija Milovanović, the Belgrade deputy district prosecutor,
dismissed a complaint by the Union of Jewish Municipalities of Yugoslavia against the publishers of the Protocols, saying there were no grounds for ex officio prosecution.
60 Danas, 24 March 2005.

The paper Morgaan Sinclair reproduces above is mostly a texture of assertions without evidence, rarely presents evidence for key assertions it makes, and often the claims of anti-Semitism in Serbia it alleges are phrased in a vague third person, e.g.: "...there was said to be a conspiracy by fifth-colonists including Jews and the few political groups and especially nongovernmental organizations opposed to the warlike policy." Said by whom? Some eccentric flake or some key popular figure? It provides little background or necessary information on the names it does damn, leaving us to wonder again if they are sufficiently representative of Serbia and Serbians as to warrant blanket condemnations.

P.S.: I wonder if Morgaan Sinclair knows what the English word "attack" -- one of her favorite words -- means, denotatively and connotatively. Every time I see it being misused by her, it has the effect of a mildly low-voltage, albeit annoyingly shrill, jolt of electricity.

Morgaan Sinclair

I have attacked your wild assertions and questioned your dubious sources. Instead of validating your sources and responding to points I raise in rebuttal you simply offer up yet more dubious material.After another poster challenges your sources you still fail to validate them or put forth any coherent argument of your own to substantiate your claims. Now you simply googled "anti-semitism serbia", clicked on the third link down on the results page and posted the report you found there in its entirety. That is not honest debate, that is Arts and Crafts.And this has been a waste of time.

You posted the following a couple days ago on Jihadwatch-

"Anti-Semitic ravings on Serbian websites have wiped out the Sephardic population of the Balkans down to less than 3,000 Jews, and they will tell it's the Serbs that did it."

Either you actually write in another language, and the sentence above is the result of a horribly mangled Babelfish translation, or you're just plain nutty.

I go with the latter

"Arts and Crafts"....LOL

I feel your pain, november1981!

Nutty!

I've just had a data-overdose from Mo's last post. I need some Bayer.

Thanks Champ

I followed your exchange with her the other day and she was relentless but you held your ground well. I've been following this site daily for a couple years now and have posted only a handfull of comments but I knew that at some point I would have to jump in and confront her as well.

Remote, I agree completely. I looked through that report so I could prepare a response, but when it started reading like the ICTY indictment against Milosevic I gave up. I figured that anyone who chose to read the whole thing would come to pretty much the same conclusion. The Balkans are awash in NGO's staffed by people with degrees in sociology or International Development who recieve funding to spend money or to host international seminars on "The Status of Women in Developing Societies" or to put out reports of the type posted above. One needs to ask who is funding them and why?

What is it with Helsinki and these Committees For This and those Foundations For That? A few people get together, form a corporation, give it an imposing name with the word Helsinki in front of it and I'm supposed to drop to one knee and bow my head in obeisance? Does anyone realize what a scam this is? A while back I and a few friends decided to get in on the act and we formed a think-tank called The Foundation For the Defence of Committees. We haven't gotten around to releasing a mission-statement yet but we have managed to think up some really cool-sounding titles for each other-
I myself am the Acting Undersecretary to the High Commissioner for the Procurement of Vittles and Strong Drink. The main thrust of our current activities is basically hanging out at posh cafes in West LA, sipping espresso and pretending to field really important calls on our swell-looking cell phones. We're not good for much by ourselves right now, but if anyone were to approach us with the right kind of funding- well then I'm sure we could put together a report as rife with rumour, inuendo and assertions without evidence as the one posted above- anyone with fat pockets, a bloated ego and delusions of grandeur can get my number by e-mailing me at "bribemewithcash@gmail.org- then pick up that phone, dial that number and make me an offer that only a Turk would refuse... and remember- the next really important call I field can be yours.

november1981,

Your new organization for the defense of committees could also have a subsidiary for the creation of the "Cordoba Protocols".

Why does Morgan Sinclair call you "November 1989"? I'm sure she has a link to explain it, or perhaps a dusty discontinued newsletter only available in the Library of Congress to readers with ID badges who may be conducted to their special desk #23 reserved for them by one of the Chief Librarians who is a friend of the family and also was at that mysterious cocktail party where everybody repeated the rumor that Robert Spencer is a bad man.

november1981 --

Wow, you caught that circus act -- wasn't that hilarious?! Me, a "terrorist plant sent by CAIR" is one for the record books (or maybe the comic books).

Robert was generous enough to remove her smear campaign; or as he put it, her "invective" posts.

OT: I don't know, maybe Robert should drug test newcomers before allowing them to post. I am not naming any names -- this is only a random suggestion.

Enjoy the ride, and welcome to JW!

The Cordoba committee, Sarajevo Rose - the source for the millions of Ottoman ships off the coast of Cadiz waiting to ship Jews to safety - surely we could spin some new tales.

November1981

I need to figure out a way to scam all oil rich Muslims of as much of their cash as possible; once I have, I'll have a few assignments down your way, such as coming out with reports that Muslims kill a million people each year, and come out with a statistical breakdown that adds up to more than that.