U.K.'s Telegraph: "Geert Wilders' trial suspended after he attacks judge!" Wait... what?

political crusade against Islam

I'm wondering what exactly is the problem here? Isn't this simply a Good Thing..?

Daily Telegraph: Mr Wilders launched his political crusade ...

Would it be fair to say that the Dutch authorities have launched a political jihad against Mr Wilders.

That's a scandalously biased comment from the judge.

At least the BBC website had this positive comment from one of its reporters (bit of a collector's piece this - a positive comment about Geert Wilders)....

QUOTE:

Geraldine Coughlan

BBC News, The Hague

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Geert Wilders is defending his right to freedom of speech, which lies at the heart of the Dutch constitution. He believes he's said nothing offensive. He says his trial is a political process.

And he says it will not deter him from his mission, which is to stop the "Islamisation" of the Netherlands.

I hope Wilders stays on message:

Islam a totalitarian ideology that is the enemy of freedom.

Occasionally he strays into observations about immigrant populations which are more a reflection of a petit bourgeois dislike of disorder. That would be a gift for these biased judges.

He needs to stick to exactly what the Koran and Hadith say and what Mohammed did.

". . . flamboyant, peroxide blond MP, . . . on an anti-Muslim platform."

Whatever is the problem?

After all he's a flamboyant peroxide bonde? CONVICT HIM FOR THAT!

In fact however, he is not anti-m - he's anti-islam!!! Are we certain the judge wasn't seconded from the Telegraph?

Facts are clearly irrelevant in this kangaroo court. For the pseudo-judges to be asking him questions after he said he wouldn't testify on his own behalf should have shut the questions down. Instead the judge proved himself prejudiced with respect to any decisions. All thats left is the hanging. Oooops, forgot it isn't a sharia court. Yet.

G-d Bless Geert!

From the article:

"Mr Wilders is being prosecuted for describing the Koran as "fascist" and for comparing it to Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf, a text that is banned in the Netherlands...

'Prosecutors pointed to a series of quotes and remarks he has made in recent years. In one opinion piece he wrote: "I've had enough of Islam in the Netherlands; let not one more Muslim immigrate," adding "I've had enough of the Koran in the Netherlands: Forbid that fascist book."

If they propose to pillory Wilders and put him in jail for daring to call the Koran 'a fascist book', then are they going to arrest and try and jail Ibn Warraq as well?

Ibn Warraq, Pakistani apostate from Islam, has written a full-length essay in which he concludes that the ideology or belief-system that is Islam may quite accurately be diagnosed as an 'ur-fascism', since it displays all the markers of fascism that were enumerated by Umberto Eco.

As Hugh Fitzgerald put it, in a posting from 2006:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2006/08/pro-hizballah-rally-near-white-house.html#c255330

"But Islam is Fascism from head to toe.

"See the brilliant article by Ibn Warraq, analyzing Islam according to fourteen criteria for Fascism that Umberto Eco had supplied, and finding -- not surprisingly -- that Islam fit perfectly the fascist bill. "

And here is a link at which you may read, in full, that article by Ibn Warraq - "Islam, Middle East and Fascism"

http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=3766&sec_id=3766

And here's another Ibn Warraq article: "Islam as Totalitarianism".

http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/30778/sec_id/30778

We may also like to remember that Winston Churchill, in the 1930s, looking for a way to describe Hitler's Mein Kampf, chose to compare it to...the Qur'an. He called it "the new Koran of faith and war". We should not forget that the Churchill who did this, was not making the comparison wildly at random; he had lived among, and fought, and observed, at close quarters, Muslims, in Afghanistan and in the Sudan and, in the 1920s, Iraq. His comparing Mein Kampf to the Koran was not a casual insult; it was an intelligent attempt to communicate the kind of thing that it was.

Freedom of speech is very precious and it isn't free. It takes every new generation in a free country defending it, whether from Islam, the one major religion which has nothing in common with freedom, from silly politically correct rubes or from tyannies of all kinds that manifest the same control-freak characteristics that Islam does. Wilders knows all this quite well and is an heroic man for stating the truth so publicly, which is why so many people, lesser people to be sure, dismiss or even despise him. They fear him too, for he is a guardian and protector of freedom and those who are against him either don't understand freedom or loathe it or both.

Rejection of Islam is itself an *attack!* on Islam.

It follows the reasoning of the head of OIC, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu:

"Is burning the Quran or the Bible a sign of freedom? If I come and punch you, is it a sign of freedom? This is not ideas."

The OIC on Democracy and Human Rights (interview with OIC's Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Oct. 1, 2010)

Any challenge to Sharia law or the application of Sharia law or any arbitrary action by any judge applying Sharia law is framed as the equivalent of physical violence, thus *inviting physical violence in response*.

Marisol: "If it had been the Bible, no one would have raised an eyebrow. "

I would posit that even Mr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu would find analytical comfort in the notion that the authoritarianism of Islam should be projected upon all the non-Islamic world, including treatment by any religious entity of rejection of any of their ideas as blasphemy, punishable by the peer pressure of community rage.

At least I did not see the word "slammed" or "slams" in the article.

I should add that Churchill was not the only Westerner who, in the 1930s, observed upon certain striking similarities between Islam and Nazism.

The Scandinavian poster 'Ipso Facto' who used to post here rather a lot at one time, and whose record was pretty spotty, made one very useful posting, in a thread on July 28 2009 (unfortunately not in the archives, as all comments made at that time, using IntenseDebate, did not 'roll over' with their articles when we returned to using TypePad) relating to us what Karen Blixen, author of 'Out of Africa', thought of Nazism.

Here, then, from my 'famous quotes' file, into which I immediately placed the item as soon as I saw it, is Karen Blixen, in 1940, discussing Nazism and Islam:

"In the spring [of] 1940 Karen Blixen (wrote Ipso Facto) was in Berlin as war correspondent for the Danish newspaper Politiken.

'In "Letters from a Country at War" she wrote:

"Has there ever been anything like The Third Reich?

"**Of the phenomena I have encountered through my life Islam, the Muslim world and the Muslim world view come closest.** {my emphasis - dda}.

"The word Islam means submission and appearently that’s what the Third Reich is saying by its show of hands: I am Yours in life and death.”

"Like Nazism the Muslim world view is informed by an immense arrogance and pride:

"The orthodox believer is above all infidels, one orthodox soul is of more value than all the gold in the world.

"Islam in its essense destroys all classes as the Third Reich does.

"Muslims no matter if they are emirs or second-ranking people are equally good. There’s a strong team spirit and readiness to help one another – one has to give up 10 pct. of his fortune to Muslims in need, and it’s not charity, it’s a debt you pay.

" The rituals of Islam are similar to The Third Reich: Orthodox believers do not have time to turn into strangers to one another.

"**Some things in (Hitler’s) Mein Kampf are similar to chapters in the Koran** {my emphasis - dda}.”
(Quoted from 'Karen Blixen: Collected Essays') .'

Thus Karen Blixen.

Karen Blixen compared Nazism to Islam and Mein Kampf to the Koran. Churchill compared Mein Kampf to the Koran.

Comparisons work both ways: if Mein Kampf may be compared to the Koran, as Karen Blixen and Churchill did indeed compare it (and I think they were correct so to do, in the light of Ibn Warraq's later detailed analysis of Islam as fascism), then surely it is legitimate to compare the Koran to Mein Kampf and call it 'a fascist book'.

Will the Dutch court proceed to conduct a posthumous trial of Karen Blixen and Winston Churchill, and then call for their bones to be dug up and scattered, or their ashes thrown on a rubbish tip, as punishment for their having committed the unforgivable thoughtcrime of giving 'religious offence to Muslims'??

(The line about 'religious offence' is from another report on the trial that I saw in the Aussie ABC this morning, Australian time:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/04/3029227.htm?section=justin

'Dutch MP rejects hate speech claims'

"...He is charged with five counts of giving religious offence to Muslims..."

Good god. EVERYTHING gives religious offence to the members of the Religion of Perpetual Outrage.

http://amboytimes.typepad.com/the_amboy_times/2007/02/the_list_of_thi.html

FEBRUARY 12, 2007
The List of Things That Offend Muslims

Why not save time and put all five billion or so kafir on the planet on trial at once, if that is to be the charge against Wilders? We're all guilty of that, just by breathing-while-kafir!)

"Flamboyant"? Has this idiot calling himself a journalist ever seen Geert Wilders speak? Yet he calls this soft-spoken and dignified stateman "flamboyant" -- why? He's a "peroxide blond"?!? HE'S DUTCH YOU EFFING MORON.

That judge's wise-ass should be yanked off that bench and replaced with a jurist whose concern with justice is greater than his fondness for his own one-liners.

Corrupt judges, corrupt press, corrupt and irrational "hate-speech" laws the only purpose of which is to gag free speech. They will only be satisfied when Wilders and, by extension, all citizens of the Netherlands are forbidden to speak that which is not "approved".

I've never read "Animal Farm". Which critters would fit these clowns of the bench and the press?

GerbilTea -- Running wheel down for repair, is it?

What precisely does all your pseudo-academic yawping have to do with the danger of present day recrudescent conquest-centered Islam? Is it that you just like to hear yourself pontificate about Moses, Cromwell, "enduring religious texts", and other arcane non-sequitors to show us all how learned -- and monumentally irrelevant -- you are? "Welllllllllll... Moses did thisss and Cromwell did thaaattt and tit is tit and tat is tat and you're ancestors are just as bad as their ancestors so the Jooooooooossssss are just as 'bad' as you say the Muslims are...

Gerbil, somewhere near where you live there is a ratty coffeehouse frequented by the sort of ruminating communists with whom you no doubt have much in common. With any sort of luck, it lacks WiFi. Please go have a nice espresso on us. Several in fact. Come back when you can't stay so long. Nobody cares about your pseudo-intellectual ruminating. No. Bod. Y.

This case reminds me of Stalins show trials.

Maybe the prosecutions next move will be to declare Geert insane, and then send him to an insane asylum.

All in the public's best interest, of course...

Everything about this is scandalous.

The trial should have never gone ahead.

Wilders supporters should have come out in their thousands to block any access to and from the courthouse. That might have done the trick. Unless you show strength to these corrupt swine they just don't give you any respect.......

The media has been taken over by the worst elements in our society.

Geert Wilders is only voicing what the majority of the Dutch people believe.

He is being crucified for doing this.

In New Jersey a newspaper that covers the community where Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi killed himself after having his personal life publicized on the net by homophobes, has now announced that it will ban any civil union or wedding announcements from gay and lesbian readers.

Why?

Because a small group of ultra-orthodox Jewish fundamentalists said that such announcements hurt their feelings.

The editor of the NJ Jewish Standard, Rebecca Kaplan Boroson, wrote in her paper that she had to bow to their pressure.

The bigots, whether Muslim, Jewish or Christian, are loose and terrorizing our communities.

We need to fight back and Geert Wilders is a good example to follow.

http://jewishdailyreport.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/nj-jewish-paper-bows-to-bigots/

Here, video from the trial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I3nsTJB0ao&feature=player_embedded#!

I never tire of Wellington.

Cuts right thru.

If Mr. Wilders is making a mistake, it is in his call for Mein Kampf to be banned. It ought to be read. The comparison with the absolutist spirit of the Qur’an is apt. I won’t cite examples since it would make this post longer than need be and JW readers can read those books for themselves. Should a free thinking people fear ideas or free inquiry? Never.
When Geert Wilders is acquitted it will be good news.

It seems obvious that Mr.GerbilTea above has very little knowledge of the Islamic world in comparison to Christianity.

**** Of the 4 or 5 articles written on todays court proceedings for Wilders this particular writer was the only bias one of them all.

I believe what happened today in court that set in motion the action taken by Geert and Geert's attorney Bram Moszkowics, is based on what Judge Jan Moors said in reply to Geert's attorney who said: " My defendant will exercise his right to silence and would not answer questions during the trial".

Then Jan Moors, the presiding judge showed his clear bias by making this response: "I note that Mr Wilders has been accused of being "good in taking a stand and then avoiding a discussion" of the issue. "By remaining silent, it seems you're doing that today as well," he said.

I think Geert and his attorney spotted these bias remarks immediately in Jan Moors comments and the presiding judges clearly realized it as well.

For Wilder's and his attorney it was very a sharp move that ended up throwing the proceeding into turmoil.

I think they were looking for the bias and they nailed Moors comments to the wall on them. Great move on the defenses position.

Observe, ladies and gentlemen, that yet again 'GerbilTea' has attempted to throw sand by posting the same little farrago of taqiyya-kitman-and-tu-quoque which it has posted in numerous other threads of late, a screed that by glossing over the many and glaring differences between Moses and Mohammed (not to mention the absolutely fundamental differences between Biblical faith and Mohammedanism) attempts to trick the unwary and biblically-ill-informed into thinking that anyone who condemns Mohammed for being an evil pedophile slave-taking warlord must also condemn Moses, and that anyone who rejects the Koran must also reject the Bible.

I am not going to dissect the whole thing in detail.

I *will* however point out one very, very important and obvious difference between the two men.

Mohammed had many 'wives' (one of them a Jewess whom he raped on the night of the very day he had destroyed her peaceful community, tortured and murdered her husband, and killed all her adult male relatives, and another of them a little girl of nine) and many sex-slaves, including another Jewess, Rayhana, whom he raped after destroying her community and murdering her fiance.

Moses had *exactly ONE wife*, Zipporah (see Exodus 2: 15-22; and she seems to have been past puberty, for reference to the marriage is followed at once by reference to the birth of a son) and no concubines at all, at all, at all. There is not the slightest hint in the Pentateuch that Moses had more than one wife, let alone a concubine. Moses did not capture Zipporah in war; rather, he met her and her sisters at a well and rescued them from the unwanted and bullying attentions of a bunch of young thugs. And - perhaps in lieu of a dowry? - Moses worked hard for Zipporah's dad, Jethro, as a shepherd, for many years.

So if Jews were to regard Moses as *the* exemplar of conduct in the same slavish way as Mohammedans regard Mohammed as *the* exemplar of conduct (of course, the fact is that Jews DON'T regard every single thing Moses did or said as the determinant of proper conduct; Moses is explicitly and implicitly CRITICISED within the TaNaKh on a number of occasions, and is NEVER called 'perfect') then the fact is that the Hebrew faith holds up for emulation as its greatest prophet a chivalrous, hard-working **monogamist**, whereas Mohammedanism holds up for emulation a demonstrated rapist and bandit with a harem not only of wives but of sex-slaves.

For more on the all-the-way-down difference, and indeed, total and implacable opposition between Biblical faith and Mohammedism, those who wish to learn more may consult the following three articles.

The first, by Spengler, examines the implications of the fact that the Quran and sharia-law permits and commends men to beat their wives for 'disobedience', versus the fact that the TaNaKH (including the Pentateuch, the ancient books of Jewish law attributed to Moses) NOWHERE commands or approves any such thing.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LE25Ak01.html

'Wife-beating, sharia, and Western law'

And since the Pentateuch is attributed to Moses, let's look at the revolutionary principle encoded in the heart of the Pentateuch: the Covenant between YHWH and Israel which is, in fact, a covenant between YHWH and each Hebrew person, creating a relationship which is not - as in Islam - that of tyrant and slave, or of owner and object, but is, rather, reciprocal, a relationship of a subordinate king to his superior, in which the subordinate possesses genuine agency and dignity.

Joshua A Berman's brilliant article, 'God's Alliance With Man', from Azure, online, Summer 5766/ 2006

http://www.azure.org.il/article.php?id=131

And a modern Orthodox Rabbi, expounding the implications of the term 'ezer kenegdo' 'a help opposite', which is used in the account of the creation of woman, in the book of Genesis, chapter 2, verse 18.

http://www.ohrtorahstone.org.il/parsha/5768/bereishit68.htm

Can one imagine *any* sharia-steeped Muslim saying what the Rabbi says here? -

"Ezer means “help,” but the only way the “ezer” can truly help is if he or she is willing to limit him/herself and allow the other person to occasionally stand opposite, to feel opposite, to think opposite.

"A marriage partner is not a geisha girl or guy responsible to serve drinks and set the table.

"**A life’s partner must be able to say no if that is necessary—the ‘kenegdo’ part—because if you marry a yes-sayer, you aren’t really being confronted by, or confronting another** {my emphasis - dda}."

In Islam, the husband is as master and the wife as slave. A man may starve, beat, and even rape his wife, and sharia permits him to do so.

In Judaism, the wife is given permission to say NO. She is the ezer kenegdo: the help OPPOSITE, who may even oppose. And neither wife-beating nor marital rape are EVER permitted or commanded or approved by Jewish scripture nor by Jewish law.

Seems to me that the real, radical, observable differences in practice between Jews historically and today, on the one hand and, on the other hand, Muslims both historically and today, are pretty good evidence that, whatever superficial similarities may be claimed to exist between the archetypal lawgivers of both - Moses and Mohammed - these two founding figures in fact created radically different societies based on radically different assumptions about the character and nature of God, about what it means to be human, and about what kinds of relationships should obtain between God and man and between human beings, in particular, between husbands and wives.

This trial makes me appreciate the freedoms we enjoy in America.
I wish for two things: First, that Geert is not convicted, and Second, that he eventually is elected Prime Minister and makes sure that such a trial will never happen again in his country.

The Advocate: Islamic Group Decries Indonesian Gay Film Festival

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/10/01/Islamic_Group_Decries_Indonesian_Gay_Film_Festival/

Note the bizzare twist to the meaning of "Human Rights"

(OT)

Let's stop the Muslim apologists in their tracks at our universities. Let's use their editorial lies as a springboard for us to spread the truth about Islam.

If you have the time and inclination you can help by writing a comment here:

http://www.chicagomaroon.com/2010/9/20/no-grounds-for-ground-zero-debate

The trial against Geert Wilders is a political show trial, nothing less.
The Dutch have decided to classify criticism of an ideology as hates speech. I know Wilders as not been convicted yet but the fact that he is even on trial is scandalous.

As I have commented previously and also in some European newspapers: Martin Luther criticised the prevailing indoctrination of his time. Today he would be put on a show trial. The Europeans are slowly sliding towards a fascism that we last saw in Communist Easter Europe. A new wall of thought control is being build.

And one last point, to show that how politically motivated this trial is. If Geert Wilders had drawn the Mohammed cartoon with the bomb rather than Kurt Westergaard, would Angela Merkel have honoured him as she did Westergaard? No, Geert Wilders would be on trial for that expression, now convenient re-classified as hate speech, instead of Fitna.

Above, our Mohammedan, 'GerbilTea', proclaimed - in the posting which Marisol has rightly identified as borderline spamming, and deleted -

"I'd like you folks to explain to me the ways in which Islam...has anything to do with fascism other than "we just don't like it" and "how is Islam related to fascism under the 4 criteria I mentioned earlier".

Observe that GerbilTea chose a carefully limited definition of fascism, while also ostentatiously ignoring the formidable and detailed article by apostate from Islam Ibn Warraq, in which Ibn Warraq lays out the *fourteen* characteristics of classical fascism as enumerated by Umberto Eco, and shows that Islam exhibits *all fourteen*, that it may accurately be described as an 'ur-fascism'.

Just for fun, I'll give the link to the Ibn Warraq article again:

http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=3766&sec_id=3766

and for the other Ibn Warraq essay on 'Islam as Totalitarianism'

http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/30778/sec_id/30778

And for good measure, let's remember that Bernard Lewis in the 1950s argued that there were clear similarities between Islam and Communism:

Bernard Lewis - "Communism and Islam" [International Affairs,Vol. 30, No. 1(Jan., 1954), pp. 1-12] , cited extensively here

http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/29920

from here:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/09/the_islamintern_meets_in_chica.html

It might be good to consult a university library and unearth the original article in full.

And one final thought.

GerbilTea's claim that Islam is not 'fascist' because there is no 'LIVING dictator ruling over all Muslims' may be answered simply with - 'what was the Caliphate, then? And why is it that in fact very many Muslims today see all their woes as the result of the lapsing of the Caliphate in the early 20th century, and are dreaming about restoring, and indeed actively plotting to restore, the Caliphate?'

And as for the idea that Islam transcends nationalism...Islam *is* the apotheosis of Arab nationalism and imperialism. (As for the claim that the Islamic Ummah is 'like the church'...ROFLMAO...'let me count the ways'...except I really don't intend to take up the space required to do so).

Let us consider apostate-from-Islam Anwar Shaikh's book 'Islam: the Arab Imperialism'. See, for example, chapter 7 of that book, online:

http://www.islam-watch.org/AnwarSheikh/Islam-Arab-Imperialism7.htm

" Islam, the Self-Perpetuating Tool of Arab Imperialism".

Shaikh points out the central and exalted position of the Arabs within the Ummah:

"The hadith no. 5751 (Mishkat, Vol. 3) reports the Prophet saying:
"Love the Arabs for three reasons because (1) I am 
an Arab (2) the Holy Koran is in Arabic and (3) the 
tongue of the dwellers of paradise shall also be 
Arabic.", and he observes that " to be a Muslim, a non- Arab believer has to live as an Arab to qualify for Allah's love and pardon! "



I find Anwar Shaikh's argument that Islam is the Arab National Religion - and, indeed, Arab Imperial - Religion to be quite convincing. It is complemented nicely by the observations of, for example, V S Naipaul in his two books about Muslims, 'Among the Believers' and 'Beyond Belief', which both look in detail at non-Arab Muslims of Persian, South Asian and Malay ethnicity, and the ways in which, the more deeply Muslim they become, the more thoroughly they have to repudiate and annihilate every part of their identity and history that might be called 'non-Arab'.

Islam differs from Nazism in that one can pass from subhuman to human status by converting to Islam; whereas non-Aryans could never become Aryans. But within the Ummah, the *Arab* Muslims remain - and regard themselves as being - superior to everyone else; the person of non-Arab ethnicity who becomes a Muslim will always be a kind of second-class Muslim, because he is not an Arab no matter how zealously and thoroughly he may 'Arabise' himself, repudiating and destroying everything non-Arab/ non-Muslim about his history and identity.

Hopefully without putting too much further spotlight on our friend GerbilTea; I reached a conclusion from my conversation with him on an earlier thread:

In addition to conceding my point that, "Nothing good comes from islam," (though he cited Indonesia and Turkey as candidates for "modernized" islam!), he acknowledged that he could be called a "Cafeteria Muslim." What an insightful self-description! He picks and chooses what he "likes" (very little, it seems) about islam and throws the rest back at his fellow muslims. He has a serious moral and intellectual dilemma there, as islam isn't running a Country Buffet franchise--it's running a brutal totalitarian system bent on worldwide barbaric hegemony. If, as an American convert, he's an "enlightened muslim," then he's only the exception that proves the rule. I can only surmise that if Gerbs stated this liberal, "Westernized" philosphy at his local mosque, he'd have his ass bouncing on the pavement as they threw him out the door.

So, this is just my conclusion, but I think what we're getting from Gerbs is not islam, but GerbilTeaslam, his own invention, not representative of the "true" islamic worldview. This isn't necessarily a bad thing--it just, to my thinking, disqualifies him as any kind of spokesman for the "Religion of Peace." And as such, his pedantic ramblings may not even qualify as taqiyya; they're just not relevant to what we know as islam.

One last thought: People like Gerbs can't sit on the fence forever. The way this is going the real battle-lines (are and) will be forming sooner than later. Folks like him will have to decide: Are they Americans or muslims? They can either choose on the side of freedom or risk being picked-off that precarious perch, only to land on the wrong side of history...

Geert Wilders on banning the Koran.....

http://www.geertwilders.nl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1117

guys!
does anybody who is posting here, (gerbil, islamic empire
& cie excluded)really believes that we should trust the justice system and the media to be on our side???
when everything has to be islam-approved, pro-islam and do not even DARE to look at them the wrong way, because then, they would get insulted (you know, their sssssenssssitive beliefs....)
i have not heard a word about the trial in the msm...
mr wilders is a very brave man. netherland has way too high a percentage of a muslime population, so de facto, he is in a fairly deep river, fighting a strong current.
i think we should realize that as long as the imbecile useful idiots are there,....we have A LOT of dead weight that must be jettisoned so as to prevent a crash.
let's concentrate on targetting the enemy and jettison it!

Raven...Excellent manner to describe PC. "Logic is no device against the tyranny of PC."

A quote from Charlton Heston that is all over the internet is descriptive also.

"Political correctness is tyranny with manners."

Either direction PC is destructive. Tyranny says it all.

So Seculars have to be neutral in face of religious conversion rhetoric?

Hmmm...but what if the enemy's terror manual - the arab-quran - was revised to provide an ideological basis for caliph-Umar's aggressions and plunders (3 of the 4 "rushdoon" - guided by muhammad - caliphs were murdered in madhab disputes)? Judge for yourselves

http://pages.sbcglobal.net/zimriel/Islam/index.html

http://ifile.it/igszx4q

The arab-quran wasn't even scribed (into Assyric) for 17 years, because arab social idiocy hadn't engendered a written language. And its transmission was maintained to a handful of memorizers, who were conscripts in sectarian-political conflicts. Someone falsified the "Donation of Constantine," to the private benefit of Roman Catholics. And it was only after the early 19th century, that the Gospel of John was accepted as an evangelical rehash - vs synoptic - work. Familial and tribal references in the Hindu' Mahabahrata, change with each successive version, as usurpers sought identification with the source of moral authority, in order to advance private interests. So why is islam allowed to be a singular dogma?

We should stop all use of the assignment, "muslim," to affiliated sectarians. Disregarding puny groups (sufi, islmaeli, babist, alawi, ahmadi, etc) we should be identifying affiliates with their founding ideologues. See the following list, with source country noted:

Wahabist (Saud terrorist entity)
Maududist (India, cum Pakistan terror base)
al-Bannist (Egypt)
Ataturkist (Turkey)
Dahlanist (Indonesia)
Rahmanist (Afghanistan, Bush Frankenstate)
Gangohist (India-Deoband)
Madhist (Sudan)
Fodioist (Nigeria)

In my estimate, 70% of so-called "muslims" are affiliated, including by effective press-ganging. They don't form a unity; they are a mutual Genocide mass. Given defeat of the despised "al-kafirun," members of each sect would be expected to exterminate EVERY member of the other. At best, ONLY 15% of cultists would be expected to wage Murder on the rest, during "qiyama" (end of days). Given THEIR 1,500,000,000 numbers, that means that in the best case scenario, ONLY 1,300,000,000 "apostates" would be slaughtered, after the Genocide against al-kafirun, eliminates 5,500,000,000.

Why do we indulge those savages?

Equal time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_ZoroJdVnA

OT

Pakistani woman killed in Italy over arranged marriage

A Pakistani woman has died in Italy after her husband beat her with a brick for opposing the arranged marriage of her daughter, triggering a wave of outrage among Italian politicians on Monday.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8042167/Pakistani-woman-killed-in-Italy-over-arranged-marriage.html

British intelligence agents sent to foil attacks on Games

Britain, the United States and Australia have sent intelligence teams to India to help stop Pakistan-based groups launching a terrorist attack during the Commonwealth Games, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/commonwealthgames/8042505/British-intelligence-agents-sent-to-foil-attacks-on-Games.html

If you haven't already seen Geert Wilders' Fitna, The Movie, you can view it here.

Ouch! Of course, Khomenist (Iran terrorist entity) is on my list.

On September 6, 2007, politician Geert Wilders addressed the Dutch Parliament, boldly proclaiming that “multiculturalism” was destroying
European civilization:

http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1445&context=macintl

http://www.infowars.net/articles/march2007/010307Islam.htm

What's this joker's e-mail addy?

Wilders will be recorded by history as one if not THE modern saviours of continental Europe…

In fact I would be willing to bet that the Muslims themselves will in the not so distant future weep with joy upon hearing his name…

For the man has so greatly helped the cause of freedom and as a consequence helped wean the Muslim off of and escape from the cruel tyranny of MUHAMMAD’S EVIL AND PERMANENTLY FUNDAMENTALLY UNJUST CULT OF ISLAM.

Muslims love ex-Muslims such as myself even more than they love Islam itself...

I am a Canadian ex-Muslim with a website:
http://www.considerationsofacanadianex-muslim.org

This type of judicial abuse can be expected in an ostensibly free country when it lacks a constitution and a bill or citizens' rights.

British libel laws are so loose and liberal that Islamists are currently exploiting them to silence many whose voices should and must be heard:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWq5QsZLCrg

Rachel Ehrenfeld's clarion call for justice was effectively silenced in Great Britain by the monetary cloud of a Saudi criminal and the connivance of a British judge.

OOps....please make that "of" and "clout." Thanks.

Umberto Eco wrote a masterful account of the hallmarks of fascistic ideology. Read this, then ask yourself "In what ways does Islam and its various political manifestations resemble Eco's points on how to identify a Black or Brown Shirt?"

Eco:
Eternal Fascism:
Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt

By Umberto Eco
Writing in New York Review of Books, 22 June 1995, pp.12-15. Excerpted in Utne Reader, November-December 1995, pp. 57-59.

The following version follows the text and formatting of the Utne Reader article, and in addition, makes the first sentence of each numbered point a statement in bold type. Italics are in the original.

For the full article, consult the New York Review of Books, purchase the full article online; or purchase Eco's new collection of essays: Five Moral Pieces.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In spite of some fuzziness regarding the difference between various historical forms of fascism, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.
* * *

1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition.

Traditionalism is of course much older than fascism. Not only was it typical of counterrevolutionary Catholic thought after the French revolution, but is was born in the late Hellenistic era, as a reaction to classical Greek rationalism. In the Mediterranean basin, people of different religions (most of the faiths indulgently accepted by the Roman pantheon) started dreaming of a revelation received at the dawn of human history. This revelation, according to the traditionalist mystique, had remained for a long time concealed under the veil of forgotten languages -- in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in the Celtic runes, in the scrolls of the little-known religions of Asia.

This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, "the combination of different forms of belief or practice;" such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and although they seem to say different or incompatible things, they all are nevertheless alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth.

As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth already has been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.

If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine, who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge -- that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.

2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism.

Both Fascists and Nazis worshipped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon blood and earth (Blut und Boden). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life. The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.

3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake.

Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Hermann Goering's fondness for a phrase from a Hanns Johst play ("When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun") to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," and "universities are nests of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.

4. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism.

In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.

5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity.

Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.

6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.

That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old "proletarians" are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority.

7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country.

This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside. In the United States, a prominent instance of the plot obsession is to be found in Pat Robertson's The New World Order, but, as we have recently seen, there are many others.

8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.

When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers of Ur-Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.

9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.

Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such "final solutions" implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.

10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak.

Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people in the world, the members or the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler.

11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero.

In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Spanish Falangists was Viva la Muerte ("Long Live Death!"). In nonfascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.

12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters.

This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons -- doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.

13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.

In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view -- one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.

Because of its qualitative populism, Ur-Fascism must be against "rotten" parliamentary governments. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism.

14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.

Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, as the official language of what he called Ingsoc, English Socialism. But elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning. But we must be ready to identify other kinds of Newspeak, even if they take the apparently innocent form of a popular talk show.

* * *

Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier for us if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, "I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Blackshirts to parade again in the Italian squares." Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances — every day, in every part of the world. Franklin Roosevelt's words of November 4, 1938, are worth recalling: "If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land." Freedom and liberation are an unending task.

Umberto Eco (c) 1995

Ibn Warraq does a wonderful job of analyzing Umberto Eco's list of the traits of Ur-Fascism and how it compares with orthodox Islam's core texts and teachings.

The text, which I have copied and pasted below, is a bit long, but well worth the time it takes to read it. If anyone should care to contest any of Ibn Warraq's points, it might be a good idea to do so in this forum:

I include a link to the original text of his speach, and to its link in a cyber magazine:

http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=3766&sec_id=3766

Islam, Middle East and Fascism
by Ibn Warraq

In a speech that he gave at Columbia University, Umberto Eco spelled out fourteen features that he considered were typical of Eternal Fascism (which he also calls Ur-Fascism ); adding however this explanatory detail: " These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it."

Umberto Eco: [1] The Cult of Tradition. "Truth has already been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message."

Islam is the quintessentially tradition-bound religion. First, the Koran is the eternal and infallible Word of God, and contains the whole of God’s final revelation to man, and must be obeyed in all its details. "This day I have perfected your religion for you and completed My favour to you. I have chosen Islam to be your faith." The Koran is immutable, "Say: ‘It is not for me to change [the Koran]. I only follow what is revealed to me. I cannot disobey my Lord, for I fear the punishment of a fateful day." "Proclaim what is revealed to you in the Book of your Lord. None can change His Words. You shall find no refuge besides Him." The Koran is a faithful and unalterable reproduction of the original scriptures which are preserved in heaven.

A Muslim’s wish is to establish a new life in accordance with a religious law willed by God and consonant with the Prophet Muhammad’s intentions. Clearly the Koran by itself (i.e. uninterpreted) did not furnish enough guiding principles to meet the changing requirements of the early Muslims. Thus, in all matters whether civil or religious, the will of the prophet had first to be ascertained and followed as a true guide to practical conduct. The Prophet’s Companions were considered the best source for learning the Prophet’s will ; that is, from people who lived their lives in his company, witnessed his actions, and heard his very words and pronouncements on every single aspect of daily life. After the passing of this first generation, pious Muslims had to rely on the members of the next generation who passed on what they had learnt from the first. Thus, transmission from generation to generation continued down to contemporary periods. Finally, conduct and judgment were accepted as correct and their legitimacy was established if a chain of reliable transmission ( isnad, in Arabic )ultimately traced them back to a Companion who could testify that they were in harmony with the Prophet’s intentions. On the strength of such traditions, certain customs in ritual and law were established as the usage of the authoritative first believers of Islam, and as having been practised under the Prophet’s own eyes. As such, they acquired a sacred character. They are called sunna, sacred custom. The form in which such a usage is stated is hadith, tradition. Sunna and hadith are not synonymous ; hadith being the documentation of sunna.

Sunna intimately reflects the views and practices of the oldest Islamic community, and thus functions as the most authoritative interpretation of the Koran. The Koran cannot answer every single problem that any morally sensitive Muslim is likely to encounter ; and it only comes alive and effective through the sunna. Furthermore the Koran, contrary to what many Muslims realize, is an extremely obscure text ; even Muslims exegetes acknowledge that they do not know the meaning of many words and whole passages. For instance, the exegetes have classified obscure or opaque sentences of the Koran into Zahir ( obvious ) or hidden ( Khafi ). The Khafi sentences are further subdivided into Khaji, Mushkil, Mujmal, and Mutashabih. In Khaji sentences the other persons or things are hidden beneath the plain meaning of a word or expression ; Mushkil sentences are ambiguous; Mujmal sentences have a variety of interpretations , while Mutashabih ones are intricate sentences or expressions, the exact meaning of which it is impossible for a man to ascertain until the day of resurrection. The Koran itself tells us that it contains ambiguous verses, and verses whose interpretation is only known to God ( sura iii.5 p .214 vol.1).

The Sharia or Islamic Law is based on four principles: The Koran; the sunna of the Prophet, which is incorporated in the recognized traditions ( hadith ); the consensus (ijma) of the scholars of the orthodox community ; and the method of reasoning by analogy (qiyas)

Many liberal Muslims ( if that is not a contradiction in terms) get excited by ijma, sensing that somehow therein lies their only hope of modernising Islam. However, historically, the notion of consensus (ijma) has nothing democratic about it ; the masses are expressly excluded. It is the consensus of suitably qualified and learned authorities. The doctrine of the infallibility of the consensus, far from allowing some liberty of reasoning as one might have expected, worked in favour of a progressive narrowing and hardening of doctrine. By the beginning of 900 C.E., Islamic Law became rigidly fixed because Muslim scholars felt that all essential questions had been thoroughly discussed and finally settled, and a consensus gradually established itself to the effect that henceforth no one might be deemed to have the necessary qualifications for independent reasoning in law, and that all future activity would have to be confined to the explanation, application, and, at most, interpretation of the doctrine as it had been laid down once and for all. This closing of the gate of independent reasoning, in effect, meant the unquestioning acceptance of the doctrines of established schools and authorities. Islamic Law became increasingly rigid and set in its final mould.

Liberal Muslims think they are more liberated than their "fundamentalist" cousins because they (the Liberal Muslims) believe that by some creative re-interpretation of the Koran they will thereby bring the Koran, albeit screaming and kicking, into the 21st Century. First, it does not seem to strike these misguided liberal Muslims that they are still prisoners to an obscure, incoherent, bizarre mediaeval text, a curious amalgam of Talmudic Judaism, apocryphal Christianity and pagan superstitions (especially in the rites and rituals of the Hajj), full of barbarisms. They have not cut their umbilical cords, and are still trying to make sense of an often senseless text, more than a thousand years old. Second this desire to re-interpret has led to some willful and intellectually dishonest "re-reading" of the Koran. Feminists pretend that the "real Koran" is progressive towards women, human rights activists pretend, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary that the « real Koran » is totally compatible with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The reality is that the Koran, and the Sharia derived from the Koran, are totalitarian constructs that try to control every single aspect of an individual’s life from the way he or she urinates and defecates, the way he/she eats, dresses, works, marries, makes love, prays, to the way he or she thinks on every conceivable subject. Finally, while the Koran is open to some re-interpretation, it is not infinitely flexible.

Umberto Eco: [2] "Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism …The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense [Eternal fascism] can be defined as irrationalism."

Umberto Eco: [3] "Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action’s sake …. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been symptom of Ur- [or Eternal Fascism ]."

Umberto Eco: [4] " No syncretistic faith can withstand analytical criticism. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism (or Eternal Fascism), disagreement is is treason."

Umberto Eco: [5] "Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity. Ur-fascism (or Eternal Fascism) grows up and seeks for consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist movement is an appeal against intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism (or Eternal Fascism) is racist by definition."

I shall show that, mutatis mutandis, Islam also rejects modernism, is hostile to reason, critical thought, fears disagreement, and is terrified of ‘intruders,’ though Islam’s form of exclusion is based on religion and not race.

The revival of modern Muslim thought owes a great deal to the writings of the Indian (later Pakistani) al-Maududi. In works such as Jihad in Islam, Islam and Jahiliyya, The Principles of Islamic Government, al-Maududi was the first modern Muslim thinker to "arrive at a sweeping condemnation of modernity and its incompatibility with Islam, and to formulate a definition of the danger it constituted." Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian thinker, was in part influenced by al-Maududi, and felt that "Domination should be reverted to Allah alone, namely to Islam, that holistic system He conferred upon men. An all-out offensive, a jihad, should be waged against modernity so that this moral rearmament could take place The ultimate objective is to reestablish the Kingdom of God upon earth …"

Second, let us not forget that all three of the major Abrahamic religions are irrational, that is, they are based on irrational dogma that do not stand up to critical scrutiny. The whole framework of the three religions is historical, in that all three depend on the historical veracity of putative events described in their respective scriptures. But increasing critical inquiry and scientific thought( historical, philological , archaeological ) has revealed the improbability of the historical events described in their scriptures, and traditions. While Higher Biblical Criticism, developed by great thinkers such Spinoza, and further elaborated in Germany in the 19th Century, is well-known to, at least, educated Westerners and intellectuals in general , astonishingly few people even among the Western Islamologists seem to be aware of the shaky historical foundations of the beliefs of Muslims.

Muslims seem to be unaware that the research of the German Higher Critics apply directly to their belief system, which seems impervious to rational thought. For instance, there is absolutely no evidence, archaeological, epigraphic, documentary, that Abraham ever set foot in Arabia, let alone build the Kaaba. Many scholars such T. L. Thompson have even put forward the idea that not only Abraham but Isaac and Jacob never existed. Muslims are also committed to the dogma that Moses wrote the Pentateuch despite research since the 17 the Century of thinkers such as La Preyre, Spinoza, and Hobbes, and in the 19th Century by historians such as Julius Wellhausen who have all argued that Moses could not possibly have written the First Five Books of the Old Testament. No Western scholar believes the apocryphal Christian story of Jesus that is to be found in the Koran. Further it is surely totally irrational to continue to believe that the Koran is the word of God when the slightest amount of rational thought will reveal that the Koran contains words and passages addressed to God ( e.g. the Fatihah; sura vi.104; vi..114 ; xvii.1; xxvii.91; lxxxi.15-29; lxxxiv.16-19; etc.) ; that it is full of historical errors: at sura xl.38, the Koran mistakenly identifies Haman, who in reality was the minister of the Persian King Ahasuerus ( mentioned in the book of Esther ), as the minister of the Pharaoh at the time of Moses ; there is a confusion of Mary, the mother of Jesus, with the Mary who was sister of Moses and Aaron ; at sura ii.249/250, there is obviously a confusion between the story of Saul as told therein, and the account of Gideon in Judges, 7.5; the account of Alexander the Great is hopelessly garbled historically (sura xviii.82).

Finally, Goldziher, Lammens and Schacht, have shown that a vast number of traditions (hadith) accepted even in the most rigorously critical Muslim collections were outright forgeries from the late 8th and 9th centuries. It is simply irrational to go on accepting the "truth" of these traditions.

The history of the Islamic theology can be seen as a struggle between reason and revelation, with the eventual triumph of the dictates of revelation, with a victory for irrationalism and blind obedience to tradition.

It is undoubtedly true that there was at the dawn of Islam, a rationalising tendency as, for example, in the theology of the Mu‘tazilites. But the Mu‘tazilites were nonetheless Muslims, which in itself, as I have tried to argue above, is an indication of irrational beliefs. Second, they were ready to assassinate those who rejected their doctrines and advocated the jihad in all regions in which their dogma did not have the ascendancy. They were responsible for the Mihna or the Muslim Inquisition.

Finally, the rationalism of the Mu ‘tazilites was defeated by the philosophy of al-Ashari (died 935 C.E.) who, while not totally abandoning reason, did essentially subordinate reason to revelation. And the final death blow was given to rationalism by the real traditionists whose views eventually prevailed in Islam. The traditionists had no time for scholastic theology, which, for them was no different from Aristotelian philosophy –both led to unbelief. The traditionists refused to bend to aql, or reason, for them, reason was not required for religious understanding. Religious truth lay in in the Koran and the sunna, both of which had to be accepted without question and doubts. For example, al Shafi ‘i is made to say in true traditionist fashion that people who advocate scholastic theology with its modest amount of rationalism, "should be beaten with whips and the soles of sandals, and then paraded through all tribes and encampments while it is proclaimed of them, ‘Such is the reward of those who forsake the Koran and sunna and give themselves up to scholastic theology ( kalam ). ’" Al-Ghazali was similarly dismissive of reason; he constantly criticizes the Greeks and the Muslim philosophers influenced by them. Al Ghazali finds Greeks the source of all kinds infidelity ; he was totally opposed to spirit of free inquiry; for example in section 7, chapter 2 of his Ihay ulum al-adin, al Gahazali tells us that certain of the natural sciences are contrary to the law and religion, and in chapter 3 he tells us to abstain from free thought and accept the conclusions of the prophets. The great Ibn Khaldun is also suspicious of unbridled reason, which he also finds the source of unbelief. "No," wrote Ibn Khaldun, "one must be on guard by completely abandoning any speculation about (causes)...We have been commanded completely to abandon and suppress any speculation about [causes] and to direct ourselves to the Causer of all causes, so that the soul will be firmly coloured with the oneness of God. A man who stops at the causes is frustrated. He is rightly (said to be) unbeliever ….Therefore we are forbidden by Muhammad to study causes."

The ultimate sign within Islam of the fear of disagreement is surely the law of apostasy, (in Arabic, irtidad, or ridda ; while an apostate is called a murtadd). In the Koran (xvi.106 ff ) the apostate is threatened with punishment in the next world only, but under Islamic law the penalty is death. In the Traditions, Ibn Abbas transmits the following saying of the Prophet : . "Kill him, who changes his religion" or "behead him" ( Ibn Maja, Hudud, bab 2 ;Nasai, Tahrim al-dam, bab 14; Bukhari, Murtaddin, bab 2; Tirmidhi, Hudud, bab 25, Abu Dawud, Hudud, bab. 1; Ibn Hanbal, i.217, 282, 322.)

Finally, we come to Islam’s fear of ‘outsiders.’ Islam undoubtedly preached, to its credit, the equality of all free-born, Male Muslims. However Muslim women, and Muslim slaves are of course not considered equal. Thus Islam is not, in theory, racist .However Islam excludes people on the basis of belief. Salvation outside the Islamic faith is impossible. The world is divided between Muslims and Non-Muslims. There are very many sayings in the Koran which preach hatred and ill-will towards non-Muslims , and show a pathological fear of the "other:"

iv.101: The unbelievers are your sworn enemies.

lx.4: We renounce you (i.e. the idolaters): enmity and hate shall reign between us until you believe in Allah only…

lviii.23: You will not find believers in Allah and the Last day on friendly terms with those who oppose Allah and His apostle, even though they be their fathers, their sons, their brothers, or their nearest kindred …

ix.7: Allah and His apostle repose no trust in idolaters …

viii.13-14: Thus We punished them because they defied Allah and His apostle. He that defies Allah and His apostle shall be sternly punished. We said to them, "Feel our scourge. Hell-fire awaits the unbelievers."

viii.55: The basest creatures in the sight of Allah are the faithless who will not believe …

xxv.55: Yet the unbelievers worship idols which can neither help nor harm. Surely the unbeliever is his Lord’s enemy.

v.72: … He that worships other Gods besides Allah shall be forbidden Paradise and shall be cast into Hell-fire. None shall help the evil-doers.

ix.23: Believers! do not befriend your fathers or your brothers if they choose unbelief in preference to faith. Wrong-doers are those that befriend them.

ix. 28: Believers ! know that the idolaters are unclean.

xi. 28: Let believers not make friends with the infidels in preference to the faithful ; he that does this has nothing to hope for from Allah – except in self-defence.

iii.118: Believers ! do not make friends with any men other than your own people. They will spare no pains to corrupt you. They desire nothing but your ruin. Their hatred is clear from what they say, but more violent is the hatred which their breasts conceal …

v. 14: Therefore, We stirred among them (the Christians) enmity and hatred, which shall endure till the Day of Resurrection, when Allah will declare to them all that they have done.

v.64 … That which Allah has revealed to you will surely increase the wickedness and unbelief of many of them (the Jews). We have stirred among them (the Jews) enmity and hatred which will endure till the Day of Resurrection.

v.51: Believers! take neither Jews nor Christians for your friends. They are friends with one another. Whoever of you seeks their friendship shall become one of their number. Allah does not guide the wrongdoers.

Christians are marginally better regarded than the Jews, but the Koran still accuses them of falsifying the scriptures.v.75: "They surely are infidels who say, "God is the third of three"; for there is but one God; and if they do not refrain from what they say, a severe punishment shall light on those who are unbelievers."

They are also accused of worshipping Jesus as the son of God, and like the Jews, they have been led astray and must be brought back to the true religion, that is, Islam.

According to the Koran, Jews have intense hatred of all true Muslims, and as a punishments for their sins, some of them had, in the past, been changed into apes and swine (surah v.63), and others will have their hands tied to their necks and be cast into the Fire on Judgment day. The attitude enjoined upon the Muslims towards the Jews can only be described as anti-Semitic, and certainly was not conducive to a better understanding, tolerance or co- existence.

v.51: Believers, do not take Jews or Christians as friends They are but one anothers friends. If anyone of you takes them for his friends,, then he is surely one of them. God will not guide evil-doers."

v.56-64: O Believers, do not take as your friends the infidels or those who received the Scriptures before you [Jews and Christians] and who scoff and jest at your religion , but fear God if you are believers. Nor those who when you call them to prayer, make it an object of mirth and derision This is only because they are a people who do not understand.

Say: "People of the Book: isn't it true that you hate us simply because we believe in God, and in what He has sent down to us, and in what He has revealed to others before; and because most of you are evil doers?"

"Why don't their rabbis and doctors of lax forbid them from uttering sinful words and eating unlawful food ? Evil indeed are their works.

"The hand of God is chained up ", claim the Jews .Their own hands shall be chained up __ and they shall be cursed for saying such a thing ".

Jews are often accused, in the Koran, of perverting the scriptures, and holding doctrines they never held:

ix.29,30: "Declare war upon those to whom the Scriptures were revealed but believe neither in God nor the Last Day ,and who do not forbid that which God and His Apostle have forbidden, and who refuse to acknowledge the true religion [Islam] until they pay the poll-tax without reservation and are totally subjugated.

"The Jews claim that Ezra is a son of God, and the Christians say, " the Messiah is a son of God ".Those are their claims which do indeed resemble the sayings of the Infidels of Old. May God do battle with them! How they are deluded!"

And they deserve fully any punishment they get:

ii.61: "Wretchedness and baseness were stamped upon them [That is the Jews] and they drew on themselves the wrath of God. This was because they [the Jews] disbelieved the signs of God and slew the Prophets unjustly, and because they rebelled and transgressed ."

iv.160,161: Because of the wickedness of certain Jews, and because they turn many from the way of God, We have forbidden them good and wholesome foods which were formerly allowed them; and because they have taken to usury, though they were forbidden it; and have cheated others of their possessions, We have prepared a grievous punishment for the Infidels amongst them ".

Such are some of the sentiments expressed in the Koran, which remains for all Muslims, and not just "fundamentalists", the uncreated word of God Himself. It is valid for all times and places, its ideas are, according to all Muslims, absolutely true and beyond any criticism.

The treatment of the Jews by Muhammad is certainly not above reproach. The cold-blooded extermination of the Banu Qurayza ( between 600 and 900 men ), the expulsion of the Nadir and their later massacre (something often overlooked in the history books) are not signs of magnanimity or compassion. His treatment of the Jews of the oasis of Khaybar served "as a model for the treaties granted by the Arab conquerors to the conquered peoples in territories beyond Arabia." Muhammad attacked the oasis in 628, had one of the leaders tortured to find the hidden treasures of the tribe, and then when the Jews surrendered, agreed to let them continue cultivating their oasis only if they gave him half their produce. Muhammad also reserved the right to cancel the treaty and expel the Jews whenever he liked. This treaty or agreement was called a DHIMMA, and those who accepted it were known as DHIMMIS. All non-Muslims who accepted Muslim supremacy and agreed to pay a tribute, in return for " Muslim protection," are referred to as dhimmis.

The second caliph Umar later expelled the Jews and the Christians from the Hijaz (containing the holy cities of Mecca and Medina) in 640, referring to the dhimma of Khaybar. He is said to have quoted the Prophet on the right to cancel any pact he wished, and the Prophet's famous saying: " Two religions shall not remain together in the peninsula of the Arabs." To this day, the establishment of any other religion in Saudi Arabia is forbidden, many Christians have been executed for simply practising their religion. Here is how Amnesty International describes the situation in Saudi Arabia :

"Hundreds of Christians, including women and children have been arrested and detained over the past three years, most without charge or trial, solely for the peaceful expression of their religious beliefs. Scores have been tortured, some by flogging, while in detention….The possession of non-Islamic religious objects – including Bibles, rosary beads, crosses and pictures of Jesus Christ – is prohibited and such items may be confiscated" (AINO 62 ; July /August 1993).

At least since the Renaissance, one of the characteristics of Western civilisation has been its interest in other lands and societies. "This universal curiosity is still a distinguishing, almost an exclusive, characteristic of Europe and her daughters." Muslims are by contrast profoundly convinced of the finality, completeness, and essential self-sufficiency of their civilisation. For the Muslim, Islam is the one true faith, beyond which there are only unbelievers. "You [ Muslims ] are the best of peoples" the Koran tells Muslims (sura iii.110) It is a remarkable fact that until at least the late 16 th century, when Turkish historians began to show a vague and still faint interest in European history, Muslim historians, with three noble exceptions, and Muslims in general, showed little desire to step outside their civilisation intellectually. The exceptions are just that, exceptions : the geographer Masudi, cultural historian and observer al-Biruni, and historian Rashid al-Din. Until the end of the 18th century, very few European books were translated into Muslim languages, and most of these dealt with useful topics such as medical science. This attitude has continued to this day. No Islamic country has university faculties that study non-Islamic civilisations, with the exception, significantly of Turkey, where, in Ankara, one can study Sanskrit. Even to listen to Western classical music is considered undesirable, and a danger to Islamic civilisation; "the treason of an Arab begins when he enjoys listening to Mozart or Beethoven;" wrote the Tunisian al-Wasiti ( quoted by Norman Daniel, Euro-Arab dialogue, p.88 ) Here is how one political analyst sums up the situation in the 1990s :

"Arabs may be well informed on currency movements and the latest chat on the prospects of the Western economies but know surprisingly little about how Western societies and governments operate. Even those who live in the West or visit it frequently on holiday do not have much understanding of it because, in most cases, when they are there they mix with other Arabs,, principally their own relations, and take no interest in the culture, history or institutions of the countries they are in." Dr.Muhamed Talbi also makes a similar point by quoting Ibn Khaldun and Maryam Jameelah :

"Au VIIIe / XIVe siècle, Ibn Khaldun, dont le génie est pourtant incontestable,écrivait: "Il faut donc se tenir à l'écart des sciences relatives aux religions antérieures à l'Islam et il est interdit d'en discuter". Ibn Khaldun, en cela seulement, fut écouté, ou plutôt il était l'interprète d'une mentalité qui avait preevalu jusqu'à nos jours. "Peu de musulmans, écrit Maryam Jameelah, ont réellement une connaissance profonde de l'Occident. Combien de musulmans, par exemple, maîtrisent - ils le grec ou le latin, et combien sont - ils intellectuellement équipés pour étudier le Judaïsme et le Christianisme aussi bien que les idéologies laïques à partir d'un point de vue musulman? Alors que des générations d'orientalistes occidentaux avaient étudié l'Islam conformément à leurs besoins et à leurs buts, n'est - il pas essentiel que quelques ulémas deviennent des occidentalistes?"

Muslims are certain that Islam is not only the whole of God’s truth, but it is its final expression. Hence Muslims fear and persecute such post-Islamic religious movements as the Baha’is and the Ahmadis. Here is Amnesty International on the plight of the Ahmadis [ ASA :33/15.91]: "Ahmadis consider themselves to be Muslims but they are regarded by orthodox Muslims as heretical because they call the founder of their movement al-Masih [ the Messiah ]: this is taken to imply that Muhammad is not the final seal of the prophets as orthodox Islam holds, i.e., the Prophet who carried the final message from God to humanity …. As a result of these divergences, Ahmadis have been subjected to discrimination and persecution in some Islamic countries. In the mid-1970s, the Saudi Arabia based World Muslim League called on Muslim governments worldwide to take action against Ahmadis. Ahmadis are since then banned in Saudi Arabia."

Umberto Eco: [6] "Ur-Fascism (or Eternal Fascism) derives from individual or social frustration."

There has been a demographic explosion in the Islamic world, and the leaders have simply not coped, unable to provide jobs, housing, health facilities, transport, inflation running high, all compounded by human rights abuses (torture, summary justice, executions, and so on ) This failure has been very ably exploited by the Islamists to increase their prestige, to increase their power, which has led, in turn, to mounting demands for increasing Islamization of society. Another essential factor in the current Islamic revival has to do with Islam’s crisis of identity, especially in face of the West’s overwhelming economic and cultural success in contrast to the relative economic, cultural, human rights failures of the post-independence regimes in the Islamic world. These failures have led to an increase of frustration, envy and hatred of the West, and an exaggerated emphasis on their Islamic identity. And "since for Muslims Islam is, by definition, superior to all other faiths, the failures and defeats of Muslims in this world can only mean that they are not practicing authentic Islam and that their states are not true Islamic states. The remedy, therefore, is return to the pure, authentic Islam of the Prophet and his Companions, a rejection and elimination of the accretions and innovations that had debased and corrupted the faith and enfeebled the Islamic society … "

Umberto Eco: [7] " …Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside."

A belief in international plots, or, in other words, conspiracy theories are the key to understanding the politics of the Middle East. As Daniel Pipes in his acclaimed study, "The Hidden Hand, The Middle East Fears of Conspiracy" put it : "…Whoever hopes to understand the Middle East must recognize the distorting lens of conspiracy theories, understand them, make allowance for them, and perhaps even plan around them. Conspiracism [the belief in international plots or conspiracies] provides a key to understanding the political culture of the Middle East." Amazingly enough, most of the leading Muslim thinkers and actors of the twentieth century have put forward conspiracy theories to excuse the continuing cultural and economic backwardness of Islamic countries; the prevalence of such theories indicate a refusal on the part of Muslims to take responsibility for their own failures. As Pipes in his brilliant work says, "although grand conspiracy theories surfaced in the Middle East only in the late nineteenth century, their subject matter ranges much farther ; indeed it often extends right back to the time of the Prophet Muhammad. More broadly, conspiracy theorists reinterpret the whole sweep of Islamic history, plundering medieval texts to locate instances of conspiracy, especially on the part of Christians and Jews."

The Iranian scholar Ervand Abrahamian has shown how prevalent the conspiracies are in Iran,, leading often to tragic consequences , as in the mass executions of 1981-82:

"When in June 1981 the [People’s] Mojahedin tried to overthrow the Islamic Republic, Khomeini proclaimed that the CIA was planning a repeat performance of 1953 and that the whole opposition, not just the Mojahedin, was implicated in this grand international plot. In six short weeks, the Islamic Republic shot over one thousand prisoners. The victims included not only members of the Mojahedin but also royalists, Bahais, Jews.

"Kurds, Baluchis, Arabs, Qashqayis, Tukomans, National Frontists, Maoists, anti-Stalinist Marxists, and even apolitical teenage girls who happened to be in the wrong street at the wrong time. Never before in Iran had firing squads executed so many in so short a time over so flimsy an accusation."

Muslim thinkers premise their understanding of modern history on Western plots against Islam. For example, Muhammad al-Ghazali, a leading contemporary Muslim thinker from Egypt, wrote, "there is a conspiracy against Islam …by Western secularism because it claims that Islam is a dangerous religion.". Khomeini goes further by explaining, "In the interests of the Jews, America, and Israel, we [Muslims] must be jailed and killed, we must be sacrificed to the evil intentions of foreigners." According to such Muslim thinking, Islam made the Muslims great, culturally, militarily, economically , but because of external influence and plotting of the Jews and the imperialists, Muslims have been lured away from the Koran, the Sharia, the Muslim way of life, and hence have lost their moorings. Khomeini saw the Shah of Persia ‘s granting women the right to vote as an "attempt to corrupt our chaste women" and a plot against Islam "perhaps drawn up by the spies of the Jews and the Zionists" intending to destroy "the independence of the state and the economy." Rushdie’s novel, Satanic Verses he saw as a mortal threat to Islam.

As Pipes concludes, nearly all the most influential Muslim thinkers, such as Hasan al Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Abu’l A’la al-Maududi, accept the premise of anti-Islamic conspiration by Jews and Europeans, as do most of the preachers, scholars , journalists, and politicians. The very constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran refers to plotting, when it describes the White Revolution (the Shah’s land-reform program) as an "American plot … a ploy to stabilize the foundation of the colonialist government [of the Shah] and strengthen Iran’s …ties with world imperialism." This constitution also promises that non-Muslims will be well-treated if they refrain from getting "in conspiracies hatched against the Islamic Republic of Iran."

Muslims of the Middle East fear two main conspirators, Jews and Imperialists. Jews are seen as a threat to the whole of humanity, and are considered responsible for every evil in the world, from assassinations of Lincoln, McKinley, and Kennedy, to the French and Russian Revolution, and so on. As Robert Wistrich put it, for the Muslim Brethren of Egypt, "Of all the myriad enemies of Islam …Jewry represents the ultimate abomination, evil in its purest ontological form." and as Daniel Pipes adds, and the same applies for many other Muslims, for example, Sayyid Qutb, the very influential Egyptian thinker, wrote, "Through the lengthy centuries – regretfully – [the Jews] poisoned the Islamic heritage in a way that may itself be revealed only with the effort of centuries."

While Mustafa Mashur, another Egyptian thinker sees Jews behind "every weird, deviant principle" in history.

Muslims considered the U.N. International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994 as an international plot to undermine Islam, and to annihilate Muslims. Adil Husayn, a leading Muslim Egyptian thinker argued that the West’s promotion of birth control "is not aimed at developing the poor world. It is a racist plan to designed to continue looting and weakening us in favour of the dominating white race ….The conference is the culmination of a scheme aimed at annihilating mankind and Muslims."

What precisely is the reason for the prevalence of conspiracy theories in the Muslim Middle East. Many analysts are convinced of the role and nature of Islam in the incubation and perpetuation of conspiracy theories. The saying "better a 100 years of repression than a day of anarchy" sums up the fear of anarchy (fitna) that lies deep in Islamic culture, and may be responsible for encouraging the paranoid style of thinking. More commonly, Middle Eastern analysts point to the fatalism inculcated by Islam . Though there, as usual contradictory statements in the Koran on this subject, in the end it was the predestination doctrine that prevailed in Islam .Here are some quotes from the Koran that have led to a kind of fatalism within Islam :

liv. 49 All things have been created after fixed decree.

iii.139 No one can die except by God’s permission according to the book that fixes the term of life.

lxxxvii.2 The Lord has created and balanced all things and has fixed their destinies and guided them..

viii.17 God killed them, and those shafts were God’s, not yours.

ix.51 By no means can anything befall us but what God has destined for us.

( See also, xiii.30 ; xiv.4 ; xviii.101 ; xxxii.32 xlv.26 ; lvii.22 )

Kanan Makiya, the Iraqi political thinker, sees, "extreme fatalism …that may be a characteristic of Islamic culture generally « as a key explanation for conspiracy theories. In his view, this world view undermines the notion of man as responsible to himself. Similarly, Homa Katouzian traces conspiracy theories to an « unimaginable fatalism;" and Jahangir Amuzegar ascribes them to a "fatalistic streak." Others point to the Shi’a tradition of taqiya ( dissimulation – for self-protection and the safeguarding of faith ; and finally some single out the Shia tradition of martyrdom (shihada) that causes Iranians to externalize evil, to seek to put the responsibility for their failures, misdeeds, blunders onto others plotting against them.

Umberto Eco: [8] "The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies ….However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy."

The Muslims in the Middle East have been constantly humiliated for centuries, but perhaps at no time more so than since the late 18th century when Napoleon first burst upon the scene with the conquest of Egypt. Ever since then, Muslims have continued to be at once both attracted, and repelled by Western civilisation, and all its material and spiritual wares, which they cannot afford to buy, or emulate for fear of being accused of treason towards Islam. The Six –Day War with Israel totally humiliated not just Arabs, but all Muslims around the world. And as Umberto Eco says, they are condemned to lose wars as they seem incapable of rationally and objectively assessing the strength and weaknesses of the enemy. The enemy is seen as both too strong and too weak . As Field puts it, the paranoid style in the Middle East "is obviously linked to the theorists’ general ignorance of the outside world and this is clearly a disadvantage for any society. The belief in plots, combined with ignorance, leads the Arabs to exaggerate the power of the West and misjudge its motives, making them believe that it is hostile and manipulative when it is more likely to be morally censorious, occasionally concerned with upholding states’ sovereignty and /or protecting its oil interests, generally interested in promoting its exports, and often indifferent to Arab issues – or concerned but unable to see how it can influence events."

For the Middle Easterner, the Jewish or Imperialist conspirator is at once too powerful and too weak. Thus "the conspirator never rests, never falters, never makes mistakes, and never shows fear; word to the contrary is disinformation. He is tireless." "Every day the [enemies of Islam] plot new conspiracies and schemes." The Zionist conspiracy "has enormous resources at its disposal: money, media, industry, technology, oil, military hardware, and the intelligence agencies, led by Mossad and CIA." Gamal Abdel Nasser also believed in the omnipotence of the West, "The Americans know perfectly well what we will say, where we will proceed, and what we will do." While Sattareh Farman Farmaian tells of the servants in her family’s Iranian home that they "believed that the English were so diabolical that they could even cause floods, droughts, and earthquakes. And it was true that to Iranians, the British seemed almost supernaturally clever."

And yet, the enemies of Islam never wins . "The Jews may try, but they will never destroy the [Muslims]." Or as The Baghdad Observer put it, "A savage campaign has been conducted by the U.S. inside the Security Council to hurt Iraq, choke its economy and starve its people. Yet, as the first chapters of the conspiracy have failed to weaken Iraq, the final phase of the enemies’ schemes is definitely going to meet the same fate. The whole conspiracy is doomed to failure."

Umberto Eco: [9] "For Ur-Fascism, (Eternal Fascism) there is no struggle for life, but rather life is lived for struggle. Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare."

Umberto Eco: [11] "…Everybody is educated to become a hero …This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. In non-fascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity ; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By, contrast, the Ur-Fascist craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death."

Umberto Eco’s feature [9] goes naturally well with feature [11], so I shall discuss them here, and leave feature [10] for later.

The totalitarian nature of Islam is no where more apparent than in the concept of Jihad, the Holy War, whose ultimate aim is to conquer the entire world and submit it to the one true faith, to the law of Allah. To Islam alone has been granted the truth - there is no possibility of salvation outside it. It is the sacred duty - an incumbent religious duty established in the Koran and the Traditions - of all Muslims to bring it to all humanity. Jihad is a divine institution, enjoined specially for the purpose of advancing Islam. Muslims must strive, fight and kill in the name of God:

ix.5-6: "Kill those who join other gods with God wherever you may find them."

iv.76: "Those who believe fight in the cause of God..."

viii.12: "I will instill terror into the hearts of the Infidels, strike off their heads then, and strike off from them every fingertip."

viii.39-42: "Say to the Infidels: If they desist from their unbelief, what is now past shall be forgiven them; but if they return to it, they have already before them the doom of the ancients! Fight then against them till strife be at an end, and the religion be all of it God's."

ii.256: "But they who believe, and who fly their country, and fight in the cause of God may hope for God's mercy: and God is Gracious, Merciful."

It is a grave sin for a Muslim to shirk the battle against the unbelievers, those who do will roast in hell:

viii. 15, 16: "Believers, when you meet the unbelievers preparing for battle do not turn your backs to them. [ Anyone who does ] shall incur the wrath of God and hell shall be his home: an evil dwelling indeed ".

ix.39: "If you do not fight, He will punish you severely, and put others in your place."

Those who die fighting for the only true religion, Islam, will be amply rewarded in the life to come:

iv.74: "Let those fight in the cause of God who barter the life of this world for that which is to come; for whoever fights on God's path, whether he is killed or triumphs, We will give him a handsome reward."

It is abundantly clear from many of the above verses that the Koran is not talking of metaphorical battles or of moral crusades; it is talking of the battle field. To read such blood thirsty injunctions in a Holy Book is shocking.

Mankind is divided into two groups - Muslims and non-Muslims. The Muslims are members of the Islamic community, the umma, who possess territories in the Dar ul Islam, the Land of Islam, where the edicts of Islam are fully promulgated. The non-Muslims are the Harbi, people of the Dar ul Harb, the Land of Warfare, any country belonging to the infidels which has not been subdued by Islam but which, nonetheless, is destined to pass into Islamic jurisdiction either by conversion or by war (Harb). All acts of war are permitted in the Dar ul Harb. Once the Dar ul Harb has been subjugated, the Harbi become prisoners of war. The imam can do what he likes to them according to the circumstances. Woe betide the city that resists and is then taken by the Islamic army by storm.. In this case, the inhabitants have no rights whatsoever, and as Sir Steven Runciman says in his "The Fall of Constantinople, 1453":

"The conquering army is allowed three days of unrestricted pillage; and the former places of worship, with every other building, become the property of the conquering leader; he may dispose of them as he pleases. Sultan Mehmet [after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 allowed] his soldiers the three days of pillage to which they were entitled. They poured into the city...They slew everyone that they met in the streets, men, women and children without discrimination.. The blood ran in rivers down the steep streets...But soon the lust for slaughter was assuaged. The soldiers realized that captives and precious objects would bring them greater profits."

In other cases, they are sold into slavery, exiled or treated as dhimmis, who are tolerated as second class subjects, as long as they pay a regular tribute.

It is common nowadays for the apologists of Islam, whether Muslims or their Western admirers, to interpret "Jihad" in the non-military sense of "moral struggle," "moral striving." But it is quite illegitimate to pretend that the Koran and the books on Islamic Law were talking about "moral crusades." Rather as Rudolf Peters says in his definitive study of Jihad says, "In the books on Islamic Law, the word means armed struggle against the unbelievers, which is also a common meaning in the Koran." Apologists of Islam, even when they do admit that real battles are being referred to, still pretend that the doctrine of Jihad only talks of "defensive measures," that is, the apologists pretend that fighting is only allowed to defend Muslims, and that offensive wars are illegitimate. But again, this is not the classical doctrine in Islam; as Peters makes clear, the Sword Verses in the Koran were interpreted as unconditional commands to fight the unbelievers, and furthermore these Sword Verses abrogated all previous verses concerning intercourse with non-Muslims. Peters sums up the classical doctrine as:

"The doctrine of Jihad as laid down in the works on Islamic Law, developed out of the Koranic prescriptions and the example of the Prophet and the first caliphs, which is recorded in the hadith; The crux of the doctrine is the existence of one single Islamic state, ruling the entire umma [Muslim community]. It is the duty of the umma to expand the territory of this state in order to bring as many people under its rule as possible. The ultimate aim is to bring the whole earth under the sway of Islam and to extirpate unbelief : "Fight them until there is no persecution and the religion is God’s entirely." (sura ii.193 ; viii.39). Expansionist jihad is a collective duty (fard ala al-kifaya), which is fulfilled if a sufficient number of people take part in it. If this is not the case, the whole umma [Muslim community] is sinning."

Here are more bellicose verses from the Koran, the words of Allah telling Muslims to kill, murder on his behalf :

ii.193: Fight against them until idolatry is no more and Allah’s religion reigns supreme.

ii. 216: Fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike it. But you may hate a thing although it is good for you, and love a thing although it is bad for you. Allah knows, but you do not.

ix.41: Whether unarmed or well-equipped, march on and fight for the cause of Allah, with your wealth and your persons. This is best for you, if you but knew it.

ix. 123: Believers! make war on the infidels who dwell around you let them find harshness in you.

lxvi.9: O Prophet! make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal sternly with them hell shall be their home, evil their fate.

ix.73: O Prophet Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites. Be harsh with them. Their ultimate abode is hell, a hapless journey’s end.

viii.65: O Prophet! Exhort the believers to fight. If there are twenty steadfast men among you, they shall vanquish two hundred; and if there are a hundred, they shall rout a thousand unbelievers, for they are devoid of understanding.

xlvii.4-15: When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield strike off their heads and when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly ….

xxv.52: Do not yield to the unbelievers, but fight them strenuously with this Koran.

viii.67: It is not for any Prophet to have captives until he has made slaughter in the land …

What Umberto Eco calls the cult of heroism and the cult of death is beautifully exemplified in the Muslim cult of martyrdom. The Koran promises Paradise with its seductive houris to all those who die in the cause of Islam :

x. 4-15 "...As for those who are slain in the cause of Allah, He will not allow their works to perish. He will vouchsafe them guidance and ennoble their state; He will admit them to Paradise He has made known to them."

ix.111: "Allah has purchased of their faithful lives and worldly goods and in return has promised them the Garden. They will fight for His cause, kill and be killed."

iii.169-171: "You must not think that those who were slain in the cause of Allah are dead. They are alive, and well-provided for by their Lord…. "

iii.157-158 "If you should die or be killed in the cause of Allah, His mercy and forgiveness would surely be better than all the riches that amass. If you should die or be killed, before Him you shall all be gathered."

Bukhari gives the following hadith : "Narrated Anas bin Malik : ‘The prophet said, 'Nobody who dies and finds good from Allah (in the hereafter) would wish to come back to this world even if he were given the whole world …except the martyr who, on seeing the superiority of martyrdom, would like to come back to the world and get killed again (in Allah's cause.)'"

Finally, on the obligation of Jihad, I shall quote from two Muslim thinkers greatly admired in the West. First Ibn Khaldun in his Muqaddimah writes: "In the Muslim community, the holy war is religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) covert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force."

And now Averroes, a much romanticized figure in the West : "According to the majority of scholars, the compulsory nature of the jihad is founded on sura ii.216: ‘Prescribed for you is fighting, though it is hateful to you.’ The obligation to participate in the jihad applies to adult free men who have the means at their disposal to go to war and who are healthy, … Scholars agree that all polytheists should be fought; This founded on sura viii.39: Fight them until there is no persecution and the religion is God’s entirely"… Most scholars are agreed that, in his dealing with captives, various policies are open to the Imam. He may pardon them, enslave them, kill them, or release them either on ransom or as dhimmi [non-Muslim, second class subject of the Islamic state], in which latter case the released captive is obliged to pay poll-tax (jizya) ….Sura viii.67 "It is not for any Prophet to have prisoners until he make wide slaughter in the land." as well as the occasion when this verse was revealed [viz.the captives of Badr] would prove that it is better to kill captives than to enslave them. The Prophet himself would in some cases kill captives outside the field of battle, while he would pardon them in others. Women he used to enslave …. The Muslims are agreed that the aim of warfare against the People of the Book …is two-fold :either conversion to Islam or payment of poll-tax –jizya)."

Umberto Eco: [10] "Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak. Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people of the world, the members of the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party … "

Here, it takes very little substitution to see how Umberto Eco's tenth feature applies to Muslims as well. "Every [Muslim] belongs to the best people of the world, the members of the [Umma] are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a [Muslim] member of the [Umma]."

Islam is the most perfect of religion, and Muslims are the chosen people, as sura v.3 tells us: " This day I have prefected for you your religion and completed My favour to you and chosen for you Islam as a religion." Islam is destined to triumph ultimately, sura ix.33 "He it is Who sent His Messenger with guidance and the Religion of Truth, that He may cause it to prevail over all religions, though the polytheists are averse" (see also xlviii.28; lxi.9).

The arrogance of Muslims is captured very precisely by Frithjof Schuon, a Western convert to a mystical variety of Islam:

"The intellectual – and thereby the rational – foundation of Islam results in the average Muslim having a curious tendency to believe that non-Muslims either know that Islam is the Truth and reject it out of pure obstinacy, or else are simply ignorant of it and can be converted by elementary explanations; that anyone should be able to oppose Islam with a good conscience quite exceeds the Muslims’ imagination, precisely because Islam coincides in his mind with the irresistible logic of things."

Umberto Eco: [12] "Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters. This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of non-standard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality)."

Here are some machismo sayings from the Koran :

iv..34 Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, & because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them & banish them to beds apart; and beat them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them Lo! Allah is ever High Exalted, Great.

v.6... And if ye are sick on a journey, or one of you cometh from the closet, or ye have contact with women & ye find not water, then go to clean high ground & rub your faces & your hands with some of it...

xxxiii. 32-33 O ye wives of the Prophet! Ye are not like any other women. If ye keep your duty (to Allah), then be not soft of speech lest he in whose heart is a disease aspire to you, but utter customary speech And stay in your houses. Bedizen not yourselves with the bedizenment of the time of ignorance. Be regular in prayer, & pay the poor due, & obey Allah & His Messenger...

Equally, in numerous Hadiths on which are based the Islamic laws we learn of the woman' s role - to stay at home, to be at the beck & call of man, to obey him (which is a religious duty,) to assure man a tranquil existence. Here are some examples:

_____ If it had been given me to order someone to prostrate themselves in front of someone other than God, I would surely have ordered women to prostrate themselves in front of their husbands... A woman cannot fulfill her duties towards God without first having accomplished those that she owes her husband.

_____ The woman who dies & with whom the husband is satisfied will go to paradise.

_____ A wife should never refuse herself to her husband even if it is on the saddle of a camel.

_____ Hellfire appeared to me in a dream & I noticed that it was above all peopled with women who had been ungrateful. "Was it towards God that they were ungrateful?" They had not shown any gratitude towards their husbands for all they had received from them... Even when all your life you have showered a woman with your largesse she will still find something petty to reproach you with one day, saying, "You have never done anything for me."

_____ If anything presages a bad omen it is: a house, a woman, a horse.

_____ Never will a people know success if they confide their affairs to a woman.

Al -Ghazali (1058 - 1111), whom Professor Montgomery Watt describes as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad, in his " The Revival Of The Religious Sciences," defines the woman' s role:

"She should stay at home & get on with her spinning, she should not go out often, she must not be well-informed, nor must she be communicative with her neighbours & only visit them when absolutely necessary; she should take care of her husband & respect him in his presence & his absence & seek to satisfy him in everything; she must not cheat on him nor extort money from him; she must not leave her house without his permission & if gives his permission she must leave surreptitiously. She should put old on clothes & take deserted streets & alleys, avoid markets, & make sure that a stranger does not hear her voice or recognise her; she must not speak to a friend of her husband even in need... Her sole worry should be her virtue, her home as well as her prayers & her fast. If a friend of her husband calls when the latter is absent she must not open the door nor reply to him in order to safeguard her & her husband's honour. She should accept what her husband gives her as sufficient sexual needs at any moment "...She should be clean and ready to satisfy her husband's sexual needs at any moment." The great theologian then warns all men to be careful of women for their, "guile is immense & their mischief is noxious; they are immoral & mean spirited." "It is a fact that all the trials, misfortunes & woes which befall men come from women," moaned Al Ghazali.

Continue Reading "Islam, Middle East and Fascism" by Ibn Warraq

But...would the enemy publish a secret blueprint for shariazation of a state by oppression of national minorities?

Yah, the enemy did exactly that in 1989, shortly after Bush-one used a military jet to fly briefly out of the saud-terrorist-entity, after his saud hosts wouldn't let him celebrate Thanksgiving on their polluted soil.

In 1989, the OIC's first Islam in Africa Organization conference delegates - including the dictator, Babangida, the Obama favored candidate for Nigerian Prez in the 2011 elections - decided to publish a secret communque. Unfortunately for them, the November 1989 document was leaked, and the OIC had to admit same.

Their stated ends:

"To eradicate in all its forms and ramifications all non-muslim religions in member nations (such religions shall include Christianity, Ahmadiyya, and other tribal modes of worship unacceptable to Muslims."

And Babangida, then the muz dictator of Nigeria, declared that he would use extermination against the 50,000,000 of his subjects who were not slaves-of-allah. Only a failed coup prevented that wild animal from establishing his planned "Sultanate."

I have posted this here before, with absolutely no interest, let alone effect. I would question the anti-jihadi commitment of anyone upon whose brain the implications of this leaked document - now admitted by the IAFO - is impervious to impact.

Can you not comprehend the effect in loss of tens of millions of lives, and tens of billions of American dollars that would be necessary to effect the containment of a Genocidal muz tyranny in Nigeria, which is Africa's largest country?

This time, try to let this material come in contact with your brain material. Then, consider and react to same.

http://ifile.it/ng8f2az

Note - re "Ahmadiyya" reference: that movement - pejoratively referred to as Qadiani - was formed in Pakistan by an imam who believed he was getting messages from "allah" the alleged deity. Ahmadiyyas have been slaughtered in Pakistan since the Zia regime changed the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to refer to the sect as a "non-muslim minority." Of course, the muz dogma of "finality of prophethood" - allegedly stated in Muhammad's "last sermon" (a presumed fabrication) - signals a prohibition against "prophecy."

"Evidently this court is not interested in the truth”, reacted Wilders, “I can only conclude that the court will not allow me a fair trial”.
This is from the last hearing where a judge stated that truth didn't matter..He is more than duly justified in/with his silence..Bastards..

About this prejudice of this judge that Geert doesn't want to discuss, debate. That's ludicrous.

Usually, normally that is the attitude of many, by far the most, Muslims. And also of the Political Correct Multi Culturalist Culture Relativist people.

Talking about this huge undeniable controversy of Islam versus a broad specter of secular democratic laws and values is so often taboo for them. It's a topic often avoided by them and those around them, who know they are not welcome to talk about it. These Muslims and PCMC's also have busy lives with other problems and desires and they are generally not interested in discussion and getting well informed.

That in itself heightened the need to provoke more, in a still legal, peaceful way. Without provocation this very important issue of big problems with Islam would not even be put on the agenda, very probably. So Geert Wilders provoked, partly because polite protests and requests got us Islam-protesters nowhere at no time from Muslims and PCMC's.

The judge only referred to selective refusals for debate by the very busy Geert Wilders. He indeed does not any more react to all Muslims and opponents and certain tv-shows he avoids. But it's ridiculous to conclude from that he avoids discussion as a rule.

Interesting was the comment of Jan Marijnissen, from the Socialist Party. He said that Geert Wilders at times held Muslims accountable for what they ARE, not for what they DO.

This is such a crucial difference. Holding people accountable solely for them BEING part of some race is despicable. But Muslims DO CHOOSE for Islam. they are being held accountable for their choices and actions, not for what they ARE, in my view.

It's simply the old paternalistic attitude towards Muslims and the old racist card, played ad nauseam by Muslims or Muslim-defenders like Jan Marijnissen.

I'm Geert Wilders - we are all Geert Wilders...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody_of_brum/4872399315/in/set-72157624549663035/

A cocked up libturd system...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody_of_brum/4867022301/in/set-72157624527247651/

Brown's Patriots...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody_of_brum/4860250268/in/set-72157624527247651/

I'm Geert Wilders - we are all Geert Wilders

Geert Wilders is a gr8 man of valor and decency and he stands where I can't.

I mourn his death

I mourn the Netherlands death

We are all dead and we don;t even know it yet.

Yet to the death I support this foreigner, hailing from the first gr8 country to sail beyond it's borders and civilize this planet.

The Dutch were a gr8 people to slowly lose their place on earth, Judges, the media, PCness. panty waist ed statesmen, were the murderers of the Gr8 Dutch Nation

Maybe it's because I haven't been reading the Telegraph lately, but I didn't think that was their style. More of a Guardian-type slant, surely...

I believe Wilders's suggestion that the Koran be banned was rhetorical. He meant that, to be consistent, the Koran ought to be banned for the same reasons that Mein Kampf is proscribed in Holland.

Be Ye Men Of Valor?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody_of_brum/4863951072/in/set-72157624533321403/

With non-EU immigration continuing to rise the population in the UK is set to reach 70-million by 2027 and much earlier than originally forecast. Before the election our new government were strong on rhetoric to curb non-EU immigration but since have said that British companies need the skilled work force that immigration brings. We desperately need a political party like Hollands PVV lead by a Geert Wilders. All we get are upper-class, rich, school boys who have never had a real job and are without integrity or the ability to think past their own career prospects. The British people have been well and truly stitched-up.