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In FrontPage this morning I discuss how the world's foremost economic magazine aids Islamist intimidation and the chilling of free speech. (News links in the original.)
Several weeks ago I wrote about how some cartoons of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper became an international incident. At stake is much more than some cartoons; this matter has become a test case for the continued viability of freedom of speech in Western countries. And now The Economist has written about the story in a way that reveals the biases and false assumptions so prevalent in the public discourse today.As Islamic terrorism and jihad violence spread all over the globe, The Economist has doggedly maintained its tone of blame-the-West-first dhimmitude. Instead of seeing the cartoon controversy as another threat to freedom of speech in the West, it places the onus all on Danish racism and xenophobia. The spin starts in the lead sentence: “For much of last year, various squabbles have simmered over several prominent Danes' rude comments about Islam.”
Imagine you are a writer for The Economist, sitting down to write your story about the cartoon controversy. What is this story about? You could start it with a reference to the Van Gogh murder and the chill on free speech about Islam in Europe. Or you could refer to one of the many anti-Christian broadsides lauded in European art museums and on its airwaves, and the stout defenses of freedom of speech that the likes of The Economist published in the face of any Christian protest. You could refer to the menacing rise of anti-Semitism in Europe, and to increasing intimidation by Islamic thugs.
Or you could cast the whole thing all as being about "rude comments about Islam." Yes, of course! That's it! How could non-Western non-Christians, largely non-white, be anything but victims!
And so The Economist story got its proper lead. Then it follows with this: “Now a schoolboy prank...” Oh, so that's what it was. Not a trial balloon to see if free speech still existed in Europe. Not an attempt to defend it against attack. Just a schoolboy prank. Those idiotic schoolboys at Jyllands-Posten! Don't they realize they're playing with fire? “Now a schoolboy prank by a newspaper has landed the prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, in the biggest diplomatic dispute of his tenure in office.”
True, but it also showed him, at least initially, to be one of the few European statesmen with a clear understanding just how deep and serious was the cultural challenge presented by the cartoon protests and other instances of Muslim indignation. But as far as The Economist is concerned, all that matters here is that a schoolboy prank ended up embarrassing the Prime Minister.
The Danish paper that printed the cartoons should evidently be embarrassed too: “The paper insists that it meant no offence: it was merely protesting against the self-censorship of some cartoonists who had refused to illustrate a children's book about Muhammad for fear of reprisals.” Using the word "insist" implies a defensiveness: in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, the paper insists...In other words, The Economist is fairly sure that the paper was up to some racist no-good. But its journalistic integrity requires it to note that they "insist" the contrary. The Economist story continues:Louis Arbour, the United Nations human-rights commissioner, said she was "alarmed" by such an "unacceptable disregard for the beliefs of others". Similar condemnations came from the European Commission, the Council of Europe and the Arab League. The affair has led to protest marches in Copenhagen and Karachi, and a wave of disapproving e-mails to Danish embassies. The cartoons were even condemned by many in Denmark's liberal-minded intelligentsia, not because they favour censorship but because they see the drawings as part of an increasingly xenophobic tone that has infected all Danish dealings with foreigners.Do you consider yourself liberal-minded? Like to think of yourself as part of the intelligentsia, or at least in tune with what the knowing people know? Then you better pile on and condemn these cartoons, along with all the right-thinking folks and forward-looking institutions.
The Economist makes sure you know that Denmark is not right-thinking: “In a country where a member of parliament can liken Muslims to "cancer tumours" and still not lose her seat, unfettered public debate is seen as normal.” Ah, see, Denmark is just sort of unhinged, you see. They have mad members of Parliament and schoolboy pranksters running newspapers. Really, they need to rein themselves in a little. “Danes, like most people, cherish their freedom of speech. But their secular society may have blinded them to some people's religious sensitivities. Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, a former foreign minister, laments his country's lack of manners.” Is that what it was – lack of manners? Well, no one wants to be unmannerly. Danish secularism has gotten out of hand, you see, that's all. The Danes just have to recover their manners. Did The Economist pontificate about manners and religious sensitivities during the Piss Christ controversy? Somehow I rather think it didn't.
Ellemann-Jensen says: "We have a right to speak our minds, not an obligation to do so," he says. What on earth does that mean? We are not forced to say what we think? There are circumstances in which speaking our minds is not called for? That is true on an individual level. But if on a society-wide basis the Danes are prevented from saying what they think for fear of reprisal or even of giving offense to some group, then they no longer actually have the right to speak their minds.
Even worse is what The Economist does to the Danish Prime Minister: “Mr Fogh Rasmussen has tried to defuse the row mostly by ignoring it. After he had rejected a request for a meeting with 11 ambassadors from Islamic countries to Copenhagen, he was lashed by 22 former Danish ambassadors to the Muslim world, who deplored his ignorance of diplomatic niceties. After several more weeks of dithering, the prime minister at last tackled the matter in his new year's speech, condemning any attempts ‘to demonise groups of people on the basis of their religion or ethnic background’. But although he alluded to ‘a few unacceptably offensive’ instances, he did not mention Jyllands-Posten by name. And he also insisted that the general tone of the Danish debate was ‘civilised and fair’.”
How viciously unfair to Rasmussen. In fact, he didn't ignore the problem or dither. He stood up stoutly for freedom of speech, saying: "This is a matter of principle. I won’t meet with them because it is so crystal clear what principles Danish democracy is built upon that there is no reason to do so.” He added: “I will never accept that respect for a religious stance leads to the curtailment of criticism, humour and satire in the press.” The matter, he said, was beyond his authority: “As prime minister I have no tool whatsoever to take actions against the media and I don’t want that kind of tool.”
The Economist just happened not to notice that he said all that? Or did it all just not fit their paradigm? They were, after all, much more concerned with the Muslims whose feelings were hurt by the cartoons: “For many Muslims, this is too little, too late….In a sign that the row may have some time still to run, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, a 57-strong group of countries, has also announced a boycott of "Images of the Middle East", an exhibition due to be held in Denmark this summer. What should have been a celebration of Denmark's cultural links with the Islamic world now looks like falling victim to Danish free speech.”
Not "falling victim to Islamic intransigence and inability to accept the parameters of a free society."
And so the readers of The Economist, and most Westerners in general who get their news solely from such sources, continue on blissfully ignorant of just how severely threatened their free societies really are.
Posted by Robert at January 12, 2006 7:08 AM
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Robert, isn't the Economist at least partly owned by wealthy Arabs in the Persian Gulf? That would go far to explain why the Economist takes a soft line on Islamist abuse of freedom of speech and on Muslim intolerance.
Posted by: Eliyahu![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 12, 2006 7:30 AM
Since Louise Arbour considers it "unacceptable" to be offensive about "the beliefs of others," I am waiting for her to say something about how we Jews are depicted in Arab cartoons. I am waiting for the Economist too complain about the ugly way in which Jews are depicted in cartoons in the Arab press, and sometimes in Europe. They also like to call us "sons of apes and pigs" and so on. Is that acceptable to Ms Arbour, the UN high commish on hoomin rites?
Be that as it may, an Israeli named Aryeh [or Arieh?] Stav put out a book translated into English about Arab caricatures of Israel, Jews, Israelis, etc. It is full of offensive cartoons. This ought to make it easy for the Economist and Louise Arbour to find the "unacceptable," since Stav has gathered so much offensive material together. The book is called something like: "Peace: the Arab Caricature"
Posted by: Eliyahu at January 12, 2006 7:40 AM
Good point, Eliyahu! Cartoons running routinely in the Arab press are the most ghastly assortment of depraved anti-Semitism and Anti-Americanism going. How about doing an exhibit? One should be held in the halls of Congress so our lawmakers must pass them every day and be reminded what evil really looks like.
Posted by: Rebecca JW at January 12, 2006 8:57 AM
The Economist also ran a piece on Saudi Arabia the the normally circumspect John Derbyshire praised in a Corner posting:
Is Islam as intractable as the Pope seems to believe? On the other side of the issue, The Economist last week did a "special" on Saudi Arabia, leaving quite an upbeat impression. The country is inching toward liberalization. It's slow, but stuff is happening. Remember, for example, that 2002 fire in a girls' school, when 15 girls died because religious police wouldn't let them leave the burning building without their veils? The Economist says this "led to the sacking of the Wahhabist head of girl's education and the department's absorption into the education ministry." Well, that's progress.Deeply religious socities -- even theocracies or near-theocracies -- can turn to modern postindustrial hedonism with surprising speed. Ask a Spaniard; ask an Irishman. It can happen. The Economist piece left me thinking it might happen in SA.
Then the qualifications come in, of course. SA has been pretty much left alone for several decades. ("Few outsiders realise that this is one
of only four Muslim countries that were never colonised by Europe, and the only one never invaded.") It is monocultural. ("The kingdom is the only country in the world, except perhaps North Korea, where the practice of all faiths but one is officially banned. Even other forms of Islam are frowned upon.") Net-net, I am not sure that those stupendous oil reserves are a benefit, but they at least give sensible rulers some
leeway for experimental reforms, and SA's current rulers seem sensible by Middle East standards.In places where these things do not apply, reform of Islam may not be possible. SA may be a best case. Still, the fixation on Islam as the
fundamental problem may be misplaced.
To whom the indefatigable Andy Bostom wrote this:
Read this quote from W.H. T. Gairdner (an important early 20th century scholar of Sufi Islam, & missionary, who lived for years in Cairo) in 1909, who described the same predicaments which, sadly, still confront the Muslim world today, especially Suadi Arabia, almost a century later. Note that Gairdner mentions a Conference in Mecca at that time, i.e., a CENTURY ago, which today would be deemed FAR MORE candid and "progressive" than anything taking place today in "The Kingdom", certainly by Derb's/The Economist's 2005/6 standard, and yet as Gairdner predicted with depressing accuracy, NOTHING has really changed in the interim, except,perhaps a march backwards:Posted by: Rebecca JW"It remains to be seen how soon the reformers will realize the account that must sooner or later be settled between real civil and religious liberty and Mohammedan sacred law or 'Shariat' (including the Koran, and the Traditions)...It remains to be seen... whether the zimmi [dhimmi],
(Christian or Jewish subjects) can ever really be accorded equal rights with the Moslem in Moslem states; whether the habit of freedom can be taught; and whether the root of the whole social evil, the position of women, can be touched, while a belief in the Koran remains...But apart from the problematic future, we have the historical past:- by the confession of the entire Moslem world itself, nothing could have been more deplorable from every point of view, moral, social, intellectual, political, and even religious, than the state of all Moslem lands before the reform movement from the West agitated them. This was freely admitted at a Moslem
Conference held lately at Mecca...Is this confessed failure, then, due to Islam, or
is it not? All that can be said is that Islam had practically had an absolute monopoly of influence where the state of things had been brought about;
and that the impulse towards change in no case sprang-apparently could not have sprung-from any purely Islamic source. These are, at least, two solid facts.The 'movements' that spring from purely Islamic sources are typified by names like Abd ul Wahhab, the Mahdi, El-Senussi: And these movements are
movements-backwards."
at January 12, 2006 9:09 AM
The prime minister at last tackled the matter in his new year's speech, condemning any attempts ‘to demonise groups of people on the basis of their religion or ethnic background’.
Demonise people,,, what rot... if the truth is told how can it be demonising people,, are now not allowed to say a mass murder is a mass murder, for fear of demonising him???
What has this religion got over the governments of the world, and many of their people. Say something against them and every one is made to bend over backwards to plicate them,, say something against Christianity, Jews, Hindu's etc, and we are told everyone has the right to free speech... I fear world wide that we are being terrorised by words to keep us quite as to the true nature of this so called religion, until their time is right and they are called... Their numbers are not quite there yet...I fear that the media is in part to blame for the present situation, and when thousands of our people are slaughtered by the up coming Muslim uprising, we have the media to blame for helping them to sneak up behind us.
at January 12, 2006 9:10 AM
Louise Arbor would have nothing to say about the antisemitic cartoons in the Muslim press. Firstly, she'd say that they are criticizing Zionists and not Jews, and that hooked nosed Hasidic Jews that are featured in the papers are caricatures of right wing settlers. Also, she'd mention that since there are no Jews in most Muslim countries that it's not a human rights issue since no Jews are at risk in some of those countries. Plus she would say that we are cherry picking the cartoons from most of the extreme papers (total nonsense since these cartoons appear in abundance in the most mainstream and government approved papers) and that we are trying to foment even more tension between Muslims and Jews.
Of course this is a completly dishonest way of presenting reality, but since when did reality ever matter to the UN? The Muslim bloc has spoken, there can be no justice for Jews in the UN, ever.
Posted by: igor at January 12, 2006 9:15 AM
Robert, outstanding analysis of a brazen pandering. A metaphor for our times, sadly.
Posted by: biorabbi at January 12, 2006 9:57 AM
re: Derbyshire
I don't think he is a reliable source on the matter of Islam. I think he gets blinded from time to time by his racialism (Steve Sailer does the same thing in regards to Islam and Muslims). He is more optimistic towards social change in the Arab world rather than the (Christian and animist) Subsaharan African world only because the Arabs are lighter skinned. I think he makes the same mistake as Pryce-Jones that is that he thinks the problem lies with "Arabs" instead of Islam. Yes, these problems existed with pre-Islamic Arabs, but many of those problems were exlcusive to the nomads, the sedentary Arabs were far more civilized. This is all about the ideology of Islam and as Derbyshire's ridiculous observation that Saudi Arabia is "reforming" demonstrates, he doesn't quite grasp that yet.
Bostom brings up a very important point. Reform (of any sort) cannot happen within Islam. Conversely, reform cannot come from the outside either because Muslims will not tolerate infidels dictating to them how they should follow their religion. All of the enlightened despots we've seen throughout Islamic history have either been hypocrites (Akbar) or influenced deeply by the West (Ataturk), none of them became enlightened by Islamic society. Muslims will not be convinced to leave their religion on their own because of the ideological failure of Islam. To Muslims, failure and Islam do not belong in the same sentence so they will not see the connection, ever. Islam restricts free inquiry and perpetuates ignorance and victimhood so they will only see their own failure as a result of the machinations of the infidels. The only solution would be a mass conversion of Muslims to other faiths and "faith" can be a rather loose definition, it doesn't have to be an organized religion but it must not be a more moderate sect of Islam or athiesm. It cannot be another Muslim half-way house for obvious reasons, a possible relapse, and it cannot be athiesm (for the masses, individuals may choose to become athiests) because most of them are illiterate and uneducated so they will need something spiritual to fill the void.
Only the West and the Rest can convince Muslims to give up Islam but it will be difficult. They cannot convince themselves because they will never be able to see its faults, only a few brave ex-Muslims will be able to see them, but that's not enough. One possible scenario would be conversion through imperialism but that would be impossible and far too costly. It could happen though, Muslims would convert out of Islam if they were occupied by a much stronger power and if that power made a serious effort. Another possible idea would be to demoralize Islam to such an extent (perhaps doing something to Mecca without resorting to bombing it) that their faith in Allah would be shaken to such an extent that they would be compelled to find another religion. Both scenarios seem unlikely but isolating the Muslims and hoping that they will fix the problem with Islam and possibly leave Islam will only buy us time, it will not provide us with a solution because they will be hard pressed to admit that there is anything wrong with Islam.
Posted by: igor at January 12, 2006 9:58 AM
OT, but there has been another stampede round the circus in Mecca and 100+ deaths which may rise to 300. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4606002.stm
at January 12, 2006 10:42 AM
Granny W - weren't the Saudis going to teach our police about crowd control?
Posted by: Interested at January 12, 2006 10:48 AM
If the whole world was muslim what would happen at mecca then...all trying to attend...chaos
Posted by: Borg at January 12, 2006 11:10 AM
The deathtoll is past 300 now, 345 apparently. Add them to the dead when the pilgrim hostel collapsing last week.
This is turning into an annual occurance such that I'm starting to wonder if those who post on this site who always refer back to the human sacrifice cults of pagan Arabia don't have a point.
at January 12, 2006 11:12 AM
If even the staid, conservative Economist is abandoning Western values, what hope is there?
Posted by: Benjamin at January 12, 2006 11:29 AM
Meanwhile back at the ranch. Well the Old Bailey, not really a ranch although I'm told it can get a bit wild at times, Hookie Hamza details his plan for establishment of the Caliphate. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4605726.stm
Living amongst us is like living in a toilet apparently. It is a three stage war and first we must to be bled with a kitchen knife and mouse poison until we are near surrender.
"He says it is a "long bloody way" and will divide people into three groups - those who are enemies, those who feel "the road is too bloody and too long" and those who join the "victorious party".
Death, dhimmitude or Islam. Just like the bad book says.
Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at January 12, 2006 11:57 AM
And Planet Rock News (an unusual source but not one I have ever had reason to doubt thus far)
says the death toll in Mina is feared likely to rise still further.
at January 12, 2006 12:04 PM
Why is everyone worrying about the deaths at the Hajj? It's all meant to be, and perfectly alright. It's all explained here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3459041.stm
Posted by: religion_of_peas at January 12, 2006 12:18 PM
Look at my face, do I look bovvered?
Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at January 12, 2006 12:20 PM
Does this face look bovvered, though?
Posted by: Interested at January 12, 2006 12:25 PM
Used to be that --- in order to obtain or retain credibility --- it was incumbent on the intellectual to deal with all applicable factual reality, no matter how unfriendly to his theory.
Not so anymore. Now, any old polemic will do. The Economist crossed that line many years ago, when the ideologues took over.
Make it up; trot it out. If it feels good, share it.
Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at January 12, 2006 12:53 PM
OT, but there has been another stampede round the circus in Mecca and 100+ deaths which may rise to 300. -GW
...and yet no one handed out candy to the children. I guess Jews and Christians lack that general glee for death.
Posted by: kevin at January 12, 2006 1:05 PM
kevin said "and yet no one handed out candy to the children. I guess Jews and Christians lack that general glee for death."
I don't know about anyone else, but I had a Snickers (tm) to honor the dearly departed.
Posted by: special_guest at January 12, 2006 1:25 PM
"the staid, conservative Economist.."
-- from a posting above
It's been unacceptable for years. The Middle Eastern coverage is the most egregious, but not the only example, of the rot.
For more on the standards of English journalism today, see the essay on The Times in Ian Robinson's "The Survival of English." He shows in his study, published in the early 1970s, how incapable The Times had become even of expressing the kinds of things that needed to be expressed. Google Ian Robinson and read everything he and those associated with "The Human World" have written, are now writing, about English education, the degradation of English political and intellecutal life, today. Lots of stuff on-line. You can skip, if you wish, "The New Grammarian's Funeral" if you don't want to wade through old Mouton ('s Gravenhage -- I like writiing that) blue-colored pamphlets by Chomsky -- the Sage of Swansea versus the Sage of Massachusetts Avenue (MIT Dept. of Linguistics Division). But you don't need any similar preparation for "The Survival of English" or his book on Chaucer or the excellent Spitzeresque one on English prose back in -- well, as they say in my hip-hopping neighborhood -- back in the day.
Posted by: Hugh at January 12, 2006 2:19 PM
i look forward every year to the stampedes of the pebble-throwers. the more the merrier. now, where's my tootsie roll (tm)?
Posted by: theygottago at January 12, 2006 2:52 PM
Igor, it is obvious that Derbyshire is not up to speed on Islam and this, I am ashamed to say, is despite my whole hearted effort to educate him. Alas, he turns to, what have been for him, reliable sources on other matters. I do not believe his barrier lies in "racialism" but rather in something else (a very odd thing for him to be showing), "wishful thinking," something he normally holds in complete and deserved contempt. He is thoroughly anti-pc, so it isn't that.
Posted by: Rebecca JW at January 12, 2006 3:22 PM
Mr. Spencer,
Dissection acute.
Orwell has stopping spinning is his grave for a few minutes.
The next issue of the Economist dealing with their sanitized Candyland (or is it Cloud-Cuckoo-Land?) version of Islam will get old George back in motion, no doubt.
But good work against the sleazy avalanche of p.c. pabulum and manifest misdirection!
Kudos!
Posted by: profitsbeard at January 12, 2006 4:16 PM
I'm in finance and have read The Economist and Financial Times for years. It is no secret that ANY Brit pub you read will be pro Islam and anti American, albeit in a subtle way.
Even worse is the bias toward Brit interests in the former colonies. They are always printing false stories about the cocoa crop being stomped by elephants, an African coffee crop suffering drought, and so on. Their stuff about metals is so bad as to be almost criminal; the completely ignored the attempted Chinese takeover of the world copper market.
Neither paper has been reliable for at least ten years. The only financial paper worth reading is Investors Business Daily, right wing only in the editorial section. Their evaluations of stocks is read by everybody.
Posted by: Duke at January 12, 2006 4:20 PM
I am an avid reader of the Economist. I remember an article from about 1996, maybe 1997 that had Khomeini on the cover. The article discussed the expansion of Islam into Afghanistan and the former USSR/CIS/Central Asian republics. I *beleive* I understood the threat to the "the wrong Islamic influence i.e. Iran" but I did not understand the re/increased/Islamisation of the whole region. I knew about the Algerian 1994 election which led to an annulled victory by Islamists, but somehow I did not place such a great importance on the Islamist movement. There‘s a simple explanation really. I did not know the religion of pieces at that time.
at January 12, 2006 7:44 PM
"Investors Business Daily, right wing only in the editorial section. Their evaluations of stocks is read by everybody."
-- from a posting above
1)A review of "The Legacy of Jihad" appeared in Investors Business Daily. Silence from The Wall Street Journal, where the continuing failure to analyze Islam, and the ignoring of Da'wa and demographic conquest, and the belief, shared by all kinds of people, that since Islam is a belef-system with more than 1 billion adherents, it just can't be a threat, we just can't accept that, it cannot be -- besides, in the end, doesn't economic prosperity always cure everything, because each of us is, at bottom, no matter what trivial differences seem to divide us, homo economicus. End poverty, end the Jihad. Q.E.D.
2) I don't read "Investors Business Daily" so I must not be part of "everybody." I know lots of people who must not be part of "everybody" becaue they don't own stock either. However, a solution comes to mind. Send money to JW, and we will buy stock, and avidly read Investor's Business Daily, and report back on what we learn. No longer a zero/sum game -- where we have all the zeros, and you do all the sums, but rather Win/Win. Isn't that supposed to be our collective goal -- that Win/Win? Let's start right here.
Posted by: Hugh at January 12, 2006 7:59 PM
1)A review of "The Legacy of Jihad" appeared in Investors Business Daily. Silence from The Wall Street Journal, where the continuing failure to analyze Islam, and the ignoring of Da'wa and demographic conquest, and the belief, shared by all kinds of people, that since Islam is a belef-system with more than 1 billion adherents, it just can't be a threat, we just can't accept that, it cannot be -- besides, in the end, doesn't economic prosperity always cure everything, because each of us is, at bottom, no matter what trivial differences seem to divide us, homo economicus. End poverty, end the Jihad.
-Hugh
I agree that prosperity will NOT stop the jihad, but I believe it would lessen it to some extent. We can agree to disagree about how much of an effect economics might have. It might be negligible. After al greed often trumps other "important" things in ones life, such as religious/political beliefs.
Posted by: Kafir Nonbeliever at January 12, 2006 9:04 PM
"greed often trumps other "important" things in ones life, such as religious/political beliefs."
-- from a posting above
Certainly the insensate Cult of Growth, and the inattention to what it is doing to everything around us -- no one wants to consider what happens if the Growth-kissing has to stop, and then other ideas begin to rear their dangerous limits-to-private-wealth heads, has trumped everything else so far -- gratitude to Whom It May Concern, worry about the atmosphere and the atmospherics of life among them, not to mention inattention to Islam.
Perhaps I should hop aboard the juggernaut while there is still time. Yes, I should get with the program. Tomorrow I shall send off my offer to the Saudi Embassy: asking if I promise to turn my undivided attention to solving Sudoku puzzles and composing clerihews, and persuade Robert to do the same, what's in it for us, and see how they respond.
at January 12, 2006 9:28 PM
For those who have been bamboozled and deluded by their craven shepherds to see the world in stark terms of black and white, left and right, liberal and conservative.. take a good drink of Chai Tea, sit back and rethink..
There is no liberal press, no conservative press..only a profit motive establishment press.. and we all know who has the money, where the markets are and where (sadly apparently) the future is...your local favorite media outlet (print or electronic) and your local politico (Republican or Democrat)knows it... The Saudis and Iranians have the oil and purse strings. The Saudis alone (not even mentioning the Emir of Dubai, the Emir of Kuwait or the Iranian mullahcracy) own 7% of our national debt, 30% of our economy (including a healthy share of our media) and have 1 trillion dollars in our banks.
consider what would happen to our economy if the Saudis withdrew their money and investments...or stopped or slowed down the delivery of oil.
Follow the money.
Sherlock Holmes.
A crime is committed.
Look for motive and means.
Means is money, motive is power
He who has the money has the means to buy opinions and opinions are manufactured to obtain power.
Posted by: Nariz at January 12, 2006 11:23 PM
posted above:
"I fear world wide that we are being terrorised by words to keep us quite as to the true nature of this so called religion, until their time is right and they are called... Their numbers are not quite there yet..."
Yeah, I know what you mean...really spooky.
Definitely like something out of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".
Then there are the rumours that Prince Charles has secretly converted to Islam...this supposedly took place when he met with the mufti of Cyprus Shaykh Nazim Adil (in 1993).
Shaykh Nazim Adil : "Did you know that Prince Charles has converted to Islam. Yes, yes. He is a Muslim. I can't say more. But it happened in Turkey. Oh, yes, he converted all right. When you get home check on how often he travels to Turkey. You'll find that your future king is a Muslim."
"Nonsense," replied a Buckingham Palace spokesman, denying Charles's supposed conversion.
Still, he shows a real fondness for Islam, evidenced his lecture delivered in February 1994 at Oxford extolling the virtues of Islam, his frequent visits to Islamic holy places, his dedication of a South London mosque, outfitted in traditional Sunnah attire; and his 1993 trip to see the Quran of Sayiddina `Uthman (in Tashkent, Uzbekistan) with Shaykh Hisham Kabbani.
In 1993 Prince Charles made a speech, acclaimed throughout the Arab world, on relations between Islam and the West. He urged the West to overcome its "unthinkable prejudices" about Islam and its customs and laws.
He spoke warmly of the West's debt to the culture of Islam and distanced moderate Muslims from misguided militants. "Extremism is no more the monopoly of Islam than it is the monopoly of other religions, including Christianity," he said.
Then there was his recent trip to the U.S to persuade George W Bush and Americans of the merits of Islam in October 2005.
And how about Prince Philip.
Apparently, Philip is a eugenicist who wants to reduce the population of this planet from a current level of about 5.3 billions persons, to less than 1 billion within the next two generations.
To quote Prince Philip "In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation."
I too sometimes get the feeling that Western societies are being 'set up' and perhaps there really is a conspiracy by elite and wealthy humanists to rid the world of excess population by deliberately introducing Islam into western societies under thew guise of "Multiculturalism" (how many Western societies actually had a choice in the matter by way of referendum or even debate?), actively fostering it until it reaches critical mass, then unleashing it.
That should knock a few zeroes off the total world population, eh?
Then, in my more rational momemts I ask myself how on earth could they coordinate and keep control on anything this massive...let alone how could they keep a lid on such a conspiracy.
at January 13, 2006 12:14 AM
I can forgive The Economist for some of their really bad economic predictions - surely their prediction for an oil price of ten dollars a barrel a few years back rates as the most famous,
but to fail to support a free press in the western world is stupid, ugly, unforgivable, and likely profitable for them.
Yes, i think that The Economist has been bought, or the editors anyway, like Galloway the U.K. member of parliament. Did i hear anyone say 'Fisk' ?
My letter goes out to them tomorrow, and my subscription will not be renewed.
Fuck em, to be blunt.
at January 13, 2006 2:39 AM
Mike_W, thankyou for seeing things the same way as me... I do wonder whether our governments are really on our side or just pretending...The left want control of the world as much as Islam, and they are both helped along by the media which is of course, mainly left....
I would like to say here that I am not however happy with the stampede. I cannot say good riddance, or agree with some of the things that have been said on here, as although I know it is a rotten religion, these people are human also and have loved ones who will morn for them, I will not celebrate, dance and laugh, like they have done when our people have died. It is sad when someone dies. Most of the people really believe in what they do, they are good Muslims, and what I mean by good Muslims is that they follow Islam implicitly, sadly yes, and sad that they cannot see how dangerous and evil it is and how it totally controls their lives, but we have to realise that they are being taught all sorts of lies. It is also so sad that their god sends their sons to die for him.. of course they dont send the leaders sons to die, but the peasants sons.
at January 13, 2006 9:33 AM
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