| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Dhimmi Watch | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog | Raymond Ibrahim | Robert Spencer |  |
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In FrontPage today I discuss the new Rushdie Affair (many news links in the original):
The more things change, the more they stay the same: as the clamor for Salman Rushdie’s death grows in the Islamic world, it is hard to avoid a sense of déjà vu. For many, the Rushdie Affair of 1989, when Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini first issued the now-notorious fatwa calling for Rushdie to be murdered, was their introduction to the Islamic fanaticism that now dominates the daily headlines. But now that Rushdie appears in public with some frequency and doesn’t seem concerned about the death fatwa (even though it was reaffirmed by the Ayatollah Khamenei in 2005), the reaction in the Islamic world to his being named a Knight Bachelor by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II for “services to literature” may seem incongruous to Westerners. Could Muslims possibly still be angry with Salman Rushdie, after all these years? The answer that is coming from Islamic countries this week is an emphatic yes.In Azerbaijan, the coordinator of the Centre for the Protection of Freedom of Conscience and Religion (DEVAMM) in Azerbaijan, Ilqar Ibrahimoglu, said of Rushdie’s being knighted that “such measures can be the cause of the strengthening aggression of the West against Islam. They provoke Muslims. Muslims should be very careful, watchful and cold-blooded.” The reaction from Iran, meanwhile, was predictable. The newspaper Jomhuri Eslami sneered: “The question is what the old British crone sought by knighting Rushdie, to help him? Well, her act only shortens Rushdie’s pathetic life.” Mohammad Reza Bahonar, the first deputy speaker of the Iranian parliament, told the assembled delegates: “Salman Rushdie has turned into a hated corpse which cannot be resurrected by any action. The action by the British queen in knighting Salman Rushdie, the apostate, is an unwise one.” Not only unwise, but insignificant: “The British monarch lives under this illusion that Britain is still a 19th century superpower and that bestowing titles is something still deemed important.”
Yet it seemed important indeed to the Iranians. Mohammad Ali Hosseini, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, found in the knighthood evidence of a moral defect among the British: “Knighting one of the most hated figures in the Islamic world is a clear sign of Islamophobia among high-ranking British officials. Honouring a hated apostate will definitely put the British statesmen against the Islamic community and hurts their feeling once again.” And he saw the honoring of Rushdie as part of a larger conspiracy against Islam: “Insulting Islamic religious sanctities is not accidental but organised and is taking place with the support and direction of some Western countries.”An Iranian jihadist group, the Organisation to Commemorate Martyrs of the Muslim World, offered $150,000 to anyone who finally killed Rushdie. Group leader Forouz Rajaefar said: “The British and the supporters of the anti-Islam Salman Rushdie could rest assured that the writer’s nightmare will not end until the moment of his death and we will bestow kisses on the hands of whomsoever is able to execute this apostate.”
The reaction from Pakistan was even more ominous. Protestors in Multan, Karachi and Lahore burned Rushdie and Queen Elizabeth in effigy, chanting “Death to Britain, death to Rushdie” and burning British flags also. Islamic leaders promised larger protests after Friday prayers this week. Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, the Pakistani religious affairs minister, declared before the Pakistani parliament: “This is an occasion for the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision. The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British Government apologises and withdraws the ‘Sir’ title.” After receiving criticism for apparently justifying a suicide attack, Ijaz ul-Haq later modified this statement, saying: “If someone blows himself up, he will consider himself justified. How can we fight terrorism when those who commit blasphemy are rewarded by the West? We demand an apology by the British government. Their action has hurt the sentiments of 1.5 billion Muslims.”
Muslim leaders in Britain were just as unhappy. Abdul Bari, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said that “many will interpret the knighthood as a final contemptuous parting gift from Tony Blair to the Muslim world….The insensitive decision to grant Rushdie a knighthood can therefore only do harm to the image of our country in the eyes of hundreds of millions of Muslims across the world.” Lord Ahmed, Britain’s only Muslim peer, also criticized the outgoing British prime minister: “It’s hypocrisy by Tony Blair who two weeks ago was talking about building bridges to mainstream Muslims, and then he’s honouring a man who has insulted the British public and been divisive in community relations.”
Thus Salman Rushdie once again indicates just how large is the gulf between the Islamic world and the post-Christian West in matters of freedom of speech and expression. Freedom of speech encompasses precisely the freedom to annoy, to ridicule, and to offend. If it doesn’t, it is hollow: inoffensive speech doesn’t need the protection of a constitutional amendment. The instant that any person or ideology is considered off-limits for critical examination and even ridicule, freedom of speech has been replaced by an ideological straitjacket. For years now, Islamic states and organizations around the world have painted Salman Rushdie as a symbol of evil as they have attempted to place Islam off limits not just for ridicule, but for any investigation into the elements of the religion that encourage violence against unbelievers, discrimination against women and religious minorities.
The entire Rushdie Affair, both in 1989 and in its new phase, is a sobering and instructive reminder of the gulf between the perspectives of the West and the Islamic world, and of the latter’s determination to silence anyone they considered to have offended Islam. British and other Western leaders thus have a new opportunity in the controversy over Rushdie’s knighthood to explain that freedom of speech is part of a view of the dignity of the human person that is ultimately rooted in Judeo-Christian conceptions that are superior to the Islamic view of human beings as slaves as Allah. They could mount an ideological challenge to jihadism by pointing out that if submission to God and abhorrence of blasphemy are really worth anything, they are much more valuable if chosen freely, rather than being coerced. But they can only be chosen freely if the freedom not to choose them is also present.
In today’s multiculturalist fog, no Western leader dares speak this way. Those who value freedom should simply be grateful that Rushdie was knighted at all, and hope that in the firestorm that is now certain to come, the honor will not be rescinded.
Posted by Robert at June 20, 2007 11:43 AM
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Muslim want western countries to form foreign policy and to make decisions which only appease muslims. Isnt that being DHIMMI. I have some respect for British Govt now for giving Salman Rushdie well deserved knighthood.
Posted by: Crusader![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at June 20, 2007 12:07 PM
"Centre for the Protection of Freedom of Conscience and Religion"
Hey guys, please don't use big words that you don't understand.
And I don't know if Rushdie deserved the knighthood or not, just as long as the screaming mimis are ticked about it and are, again, showing their true colors. That is the essential thing.
Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at June 20, 2007 12:11 PM
If indeed the Brits were so foolish as to "rescind" Rushdie's Knighthood to appease the Savages (Muslims), then I would know that the West has truly gone insane.
Posted by: darcy at June 20, 2007 12:11 PM
Now, we should ask the Pope to canonize Rushdie.
Posted by: David England at June 20, 2007 12:16 PM
I nominate Rushdie for Sainthood.
Posted by: Elric66 at June 20, 2007 12:24 PM
Well Darcy, I think we already have gone insane, but if we're the nuts that start running the asylum things might turn out okay.
I don't think the Queen will rescind the knighthood. What's she got to lose? She's an old lady who's had a long life and she's been through worse scrapes than this before. And I think being very proper, she will not back down on points of etiquette, especially not to a bunch of savages that have no case. Also, knights and fair damsels are the basis for good English fairy tales. The Queen knows the difference between those and reality, unlike our furry friends.
Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at June 20, 2007 12:25 PM
Ban the goddamned thing! The sooner the better.
The whole goddamned edifice of muhammadanism is built on fear and intimidation. It starts with muhammadans who can't insult the cult, the cult leader and who must murder anyone trying to escape the cult. Fear and intimidation confront the infidel who is subjugated, oppressed, exploited, violated until they can't take it and submit. Calling islam a religion is a lie and the lie must end.
Ban it, ye infidels!
Ban islam!
Ban it to save your souls!
Ban the goddamned thing!
The only time I want to hear islam's name is in "the now illegal cult of islam."
Posted by: Ynkedoodl2 at June 20, 2007 12:26 PM
I wonder if reprinting the cartoons would calm things down?
Kinda distraction from Rushdie?
No?
/sarc
Don't worry, not gonna happen.
We know our place.
That's a good dhimmi.
at June 20, 2007 12:32 PM
Now it is time for the Swedes to show they still have some guts, by having their Academy award Rushdie the Nobel Prize for Literature. Some taste, too -- he's a better writer than several of their recent winners.
Posted by: ebonystone at June 20, 2007 12:38 PM
“Salman Rushdie has turned into a hated corpse which cannot be resurrected by any action.
Well check this out,not bad for a hated corpse
http://illustratedpig.blogspot.com/2007/06/no-burqas-here-june-19.html
Posted by: shiva at June 20, 2007 12:45 PM
Mr. Rushdie should be praised for his courage above all else. To put his life on line for freedom is something more people need to understand. Islam will be defeated only when more people are willing to do that. Fear of death leads to dhimmitude.
Posted by: IAmFree at June 20, 2007 12:50 PM
>>British and other Western leaders thus have a new opportunity in the controversy over Rushdie’s knighthood to explain that freedom of speech is part of a view of the dignity of the human person that is ultimately rooted in Judeo-Christian conceptions that are superior to the Islamic view of human beings as slaves as Allah
Mr. Spencer, I respect you deeply. And for precisely this reason, I have to say that this is nonsense. Not by the furthest stretch of the imagination can the principles of fee speech and free minds be traced to Christianity and Judaism. The death penalty for apostasy is found in the Bible, as is the penalty for the worship of graven images, and the rest of the vileness that Muhammed accepted and exagerated.
And nor did the thinkers of Christianity do anything to stunt this evil. St. Augustine held that heretics should be tortured and murdered. St. Thomas Aquinas, without question the finest mind Christendom has ever produced, and one of the finest to ever live, still upheld the death penalty for apostasy.
The respect for freedom comes not from Christianity but from the Enlightenment. Because freedom of speech only has a value if reason has a value. If the point of existence is simply to adhere to 'revealed truth' then free speech can have no value. It is only if our minds have the power to percieve and understand an absolute reality that is not ameanable to wishes that free speech becomes vital.
I say this for the simple and straightforward reason that pretending otherwise splits the ranks of the anti-Jihadists. I could tell you of Indian editorials claiming that the "Judeo-Christian West and the Islamic Middle East deserve each other". How much damage is caused when your superlative book 'The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades" is part of a series that includes the unspeakable "PIG to Darwinism and Intelligent design"?
I say this out of a sound and sober respect for you, as one of the finest scholars of Islam in the world.
Free Speech has a value only if Reason has a value. And Reason has a value if, and only if, man's life - the life of every individual - has a value, in and of itself, and is not to be lived in thrall to any tyrant, whether he sits on a throne on earth or in some fantastical heaven.
Posted by: Fanusi Khiyal at June 20, 2007 12:55 PM
Where is the confidence in our moral superiority in the West over the immorality of the Islamic world?
Britian, and other Western nations, should state emphatically that the words and actions of Muslims in reaction to Mr. Rushdie's knighting are profoundly immoral, if not evil, and that the God that we worship could not possibly be on the side of any religion that would advocate murder as a religious duty.
So long as we in the West -- and especially our leaders -- continue to mince words about the true nature of Islam, Muslims will continue to believe that their religion is a respectable and great world religion.
It is neither respectable, great or moral, and we should have the moral confidence to say so publicly.
Tell them that it's for them to get right with God, not us.
Posted by: rational
at June 20, 2007 1:03 PM
Good grief: in assessing a piece like this, where does one start?
Clearly the writer at Jomhuri Eslami (from the piece above) is a complete moron who does not understand that it is not the Queen who decides who is to be awarded knighthoods.
The Centre for the Protection of Freedom of Conscience and Religion? Yeah, right. This is to religious freedom what German Democratic Republic was to democracy, undoubtedly.
Muslims always like to accuse Infidels of misquoting, or failing to understand, their 'holy' book. Likewise, I think it is worth asking how many Muslim leaders have read The Satanic Verses (in the original English, of course) and how many, if any, understood it.
Has that revolting s**t-stirrer Bari at the Muslim Council of Britain read it, I wonder? What about Mohammad Ali Hosseini, Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq?
I expect the feelings of Muslims will be even more 'hurt' after this week's Friday prayers.
Posted by: A Nonny Nonny at June 20, 2007 1:07 PM
Fanusi Khiyal, you blame a whole religion for a few bad interpretations by men that were around a very, long time ago. and the Enlightenment happened during christian times - we are waiting for an enlightenment in the muslim lands that would look at some of the teachings of their koran and hadiths and say they are not to be followed - gee, that would cut out more than half of their readings of their book versus a few passages in the bible - that no one follows today.
Instead we get masses of 'moderates' who know that if a person in their family dies as a shahid then they might be one of the 70 that he choses to also go to their heaven. That is why they let the radicals among them, and also support them - why? Because they are told to support them if they do not fight. There might be some 'moderates' who are ignorant of their koran and hadiths, but there are way too many of them who are not and no one in their community stops the radicals. Instead, we get wailing and gnashing of the teeth if all of a sudden the murderers that they have been breeding since birth to hate strike back at them instead of the Jews and Christians they are told to hate and kill.
I don't even go into any moments of sympathy for the muslim women anymore - they are the ones we hear dancing and ulalating when their shahid kill non-muslims. They know they will go to heaven and they know they might get a big paycheck from the likes of Saudi Arabia, or another oil rich muslim who is trying to use them as bombs.
Anyone who compares Judaism and Christianity to Islam is pulling at straws. Mohammed was a pagan and illiterate. He didn't know the scripture and that is why the kludge of facts of the Bible in the koran. There are no 10 commandments, only the preaching of hatred, lying in order to advance islam, sloth because the dhimmi can do their work, etc. They run around a rock - just like the pagans of mohammed's time did. He took some jewish things because he was hoping to entice the Jews to convert, but they didn't so mohammed started his slaughter of them.
Posted by: R_not at June 20, 2007 1:09 PM
rational asks:
'Where is the confidence in our moral superiority in the West over the immorality of the Islamic world?'
Hmmmmmmm……? ‘Confidence of our moral superiority in the West’? Very interesting idea this ‘confidence’ – ‘moral superiority’ and one that might very well keep us from cultural oblivion. I certainly hope that we do not rely too heavily on our present PC leaders for a ‘Winston Churchill’ or even a 'George Patton' who had the ‘confidence’ to say he would ‘grease his tank treads with the blood of the enemy’. That’s CONFIDENCE and we could use more of it. Well said, rational!!
Posted by: descendantofacrusader at June 20, 2007 1:34 PM
Thank You, IsabellatheCrusader, I hope you are right.
We must stand firm to the maw of Barbarism.
I have thought that the early 21st century might someday be called the "Rise of Barbarism." Hopefully, only the early.
Posted by: darcy at June 20, 2007 1:36 PM
Fanusi:
I respectfully disagree. The ideas of freedom of conscience and speech arose out of the Judeo-Christian conception of the dignity of the human person. It is no accident that the Enlightenment arose in Europe, not in the Islamic world.
This is not to divide the anti-jihad movement. I have consistently called for all the victims and potential victims of jihad and Islamic supremacism to unite. It is simply to speak the truth.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
at June 20, 2007 1:44 PM
To say that these people are in the dark ages and should develop out of them would be to give them too much credit.
Posted by: desertdawg29palms at June 20, 2007 1:47 PM
Centre for the Protection of Freedom of Conscience and Religion (DEVAMM) in Azerbaijan, also offers midnight basketball program for all those jihadis that need to "blow off a little steam" so to speak. Anyone that does a triple-double gets a fatwa from the local imam to kill the person of their chose. Kobe Muhammed , no kin to Shaq Muhammed, came very close in last nights game between the Lahore Whore-Killers and the Karachi Killer of Crusaders. Better luck next time Kobe.
Posted by: TheOmegaMan at June 20, 2007 1:47 PM
JW posters might be interested in how the fatwa came to be issued against Rushdie in the first place and the major part played in it by a British Muslim. I picked up these details in the obituary of this man, a sometime taxi driver who had talked himself into the job of reporter on the “Kensington & Chelsea News”, (circulation maybe 20,000). He went on to set up the “Muslim Parliament of Britain” which still exists and is occasionally mentioned in the press.
I'm going from memory but about the time the book came out he, as the self appointed leader of Muslim Parliament of Britain, went to meet Ayatollah Khomeini who was transitting through Heathrow airport. In the course of the meeting the subject of the “Satanic Verses” came up and Khomeini is said to have asked this individual (whose name escapes me) what should they do? The leader of Muslim Parliament of Britain suggested a fatwa.
Take it from there.
at June 20, 2007 2:15 PM
Lately, I've been annoyed at Britain because of the academic union boycott of Israel, but then along comes the knighting of Rushdie and I must say that I'm very impressed and grateful that Britain is still the sublime nation that all civilized people esteem.
Posted by: jewdog at June 20, 2007 2:30 PM
Greetings:
Back in the joy of my youth, my happy days in Catholic school, there was a little ditty that was part of our cutural training for the world of the WASPs we were too soon to enter.
It went something like this:
Consider our town of Boston,
Home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Cabots speak only to the Lodges,
And the Lodges speak only to God.
I always understood its basic lesson to be that you can't speak with people who speak only to God.
Posted by: 11B40 at June 20, 2007 2:42 PM
Behead those who insult CHRISTIANITY!
Posted by: One_of_the_last_few_Patriots_left at June 20, 2007 2:54 PM
"I'm going from memory but about the time the book came out he, as the self appointed leader of Muslim Parliament of Britain, went to meet Ayatollah Khomeini who was transitting through Heathrow airport." [Fred, above]
The gentleman's name was Kalim Siddiqui. He is no longer with us.
Posted by: A Nonny Nonny at June 20, 2007 3:20 PM
"I must say that I'm very impressed and grateful that Britain is still the sublime nation that all civilized people esteem."
Unfortunately, jewdog, it appears the people who lobbied for the knighthood didn't really know what they were doing.
The Queen could rescind it yet.
Posted by: cassandra at June 20, 2007 3:49 PM
"The respect for freedom comes not from Christianity but from the Enlightenment."
I don't believe this is an accurate statement. An article was published in the National Post recently, entitled: "Barbarians had higher standards" by Gerald Owen. (National Apr 27, 2007).
Owen writes:"At 53 out of 81 recorded instances[of torture], the undoubted champion for torture authorizations among English monarchs was Queen Elizabeth I, herself a Renaissance humanist, whom enlightened people today continue to favour. The torture boom was in the 1580s, in the runup to an expected Spanish invasion, which was no fantasy, though (as it turned out) the Armada failed to effect a landing.
Not Enlightenment skeptics, but the earnest Puritans of the Long Parliament abolished the Star Chamber [that was a torture chamber] in 1641; thus the only body with jurisdiction to order torture was no more. This was part of a broader and permanent weakening of the Crown."
Hence, the rise of freedom, civil liberties, and so on was an on-going process which can't be neatly summed up as the consequence of anti-religiosity. (One could also argue that the framers of the U.S. constitution did so as a consequence of their reading/interpretation of Exodus -- the greatest book ever written on the subject of freedom.)
Posted by: J.S. at June 20, 2007 4:06 PM
One of the lastfew Patriots left,
I think it should read:
Forgive those who insult Christianity, because we know forgiveness trumps death, everytime.
Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at June 20, 2007 4:50 PM
Um, 'scuse me, but are we talking about the 21st century, or what?
The only "people" today who gouge out others' eyeballs, and cut off heads while the victim is still alive (and then post that horror on the internet) and stone women and throw nitric acid on women and many other atrocities against women besides - are male Muslims.
Male Muslims. Anything else you want to say, J.S.?
Sorry, I don't believe that about Elizabeth 1. Her elder half-sister, Mary, yes. Back in the mid-15th century. Not the 21st.
The 21st century. You with us, J.S.?
Posted by: darcy at June 20, 2007 4:51 PM
A Nonny Nonny
"The gentleman's name was Kalim Siddiqui. He is no longer with us."
Many thanks, but it is amazing how a complete nonentity can cause so much trouble.
Posted by: Fred at June 20, 2007 4:56 PM
“Salman Rushdie has turned into a hated corpse which cannot be resurrected by any action. The action by the British queen in knighting Salman Rushdie, the apostate, is an unwise one.”
To thretaten the life of a Subject of Britain by a Nation-State must be considered a Declaration of War.
HELLO!!! Dhimmmis.. time to WAKE UP!!!!
The burning of flags should be seen in the same light.
Let's GET IT ON ALREADY!! Let us drive them FROM our lands!!
Posted by: Allahfanculo at June 20, 2007 5:04 PM
Darcy,
Follow closely, please. I was commenting on the poster who claimed: "The respect for freedom comes not from Christianity but from the Enlightenment...Not by the furthest stretch of the imagination can the principles of free speech and free minds be traced to Christianity and Judaism."
Currently some individuals (typically atheists) wish to claim that "The Enlightenment" is the end all and be all in terms of liberty, freedoms, civil rights, etc., BECAUSE they figure that "The Enlightenment" is devoid of religion or that it was anti-clerical, etc., etc. Conversely, they then claim that "religion" has been the bane of all rationality; freedoms, etc. Ok? This is an extremely simplistic formulation -- the dichotomy they wish to draw.
The reality is more complex. Thus, if you look closer, you discover that torture incidents were prevalent (the Star Chamber, for example) in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. And, who abolished the Star Chamber was none-other than the Puritans (those are those religious folk). This upsets the usual, over simplified renditions (the Puritans inadvertently *furthered* the progress towards civil liberties by limiting the powers of central authorities.)
Posted by: J.S. at June 20, 2007 5:21 PM
P.S.
I am obviously not talking about (nor was Gerald Owen) Queen Elizabeth II (that's the current queen)!! omg!
Posted by: J.S. at June 20, 2007 5:26 PM
“Lately, I've been annoyed at Britain because of the academic union boycott of Israel, but then along comes the knighting of Rushdie and I must say that I'm very impressed and grateful that Britain is still the sublime nation that all civilized people esteem.”
Well, as an Englishman I’m very flattered by your last sentence (I wish we deserved it these days), but surely it’s not “Britain” that tries to boycott Israel and not “Britain” that decided that Rushdie was worthy of a knighthood, but groups of British people – admittedly in the case of knighthood there has to be more of a national consensus. I wish we wouldn’t rush to identify individual or group actions with those of a whole nation. The situation is more nuanced, as they say. It is like trying to decide if “America” is Robert Spencer or Jimmy Carter.
at June 20, 2007 5:30 PM
Ah well, J.S., upon further reflection I realized I got the century wrong - Bloody Mary did her dirty burning-at-the-stake deeds to Protestants in mid-16th, not mid-15th, century, most prominently in 1555. She was a very sick individual.
All religions behaved abominably back in the previous centuries. Including Islamists, who secluded females in harems as sex slaves.
But the only "religious" group in the 21st century that is still mass-murdering people of other faiths is...Islam. They must be stopped.
Posted by: darcy at June 20, 2007 5:59 PM
I agree that Islam/Islamists must be stopped. (About how other religions behaved in previous centuries -- frankly, much has been written about European "atrocities" -- but, I don't think that enough people are aware of just how abominably Islam behaved. A number of years ago, I read Paul Fregosi's "Jihad in the West: Muslim Conquests from the 7th to the 21st centuries." The chapter on the "island" conquests was particularly gruesome...The history of Islam has been white-washed for so long, and truthful accounts are so few. I hear that Fregosi must also live in near seclusion, thanks to the Islamists.)
Posted by: J.S. at June 20, 2007 6:26 PM
"Could Muslims possibly still be angry with Salman Rushdie, after all these years?"
Sure, they have held much anger for 1400 years or so.
Posted by: sounder at June 20, 2007 7:57 PM
Could Muslims possibly still be angry with Salman Rushdie, after all these years?"
Sure, they have held much anger for 1400 years or so.
Posted by: sounder at June 20, 2007 7:57 PM
Post a comment
They think the Crusades were recent history, so a few decades is like yesterday to them. Their putative "golden era" was snuffed out by infidels when they weren't looking, and they're working feverishly for a revival. What really happened is simple: Muslims pillaged and plundered their way across several continents, confiscating the wealth of every nation they conquered. They lived off of that wealth until it ran out and then their great, enlightened, intellectual "golden age" collapsed. The stolen wealth, resources, and knowledge of superior civilizations were the foundation of their great empire, and they weren't even clever enough to sustain what they forcibly took and claimed as their own.
Muslims are the consumers of commodities produced by more industrious,ingenious, ambitious people. They only consume, they never replenish. They take but never give. When they have totally exhausted the resources of an area, resources they had no hand in creating, they move on to reduce another place to a barren wasteland. They remind me of locusts; they ravage everything in sight, leaving total destruction in their wake.
Posted by: Susanp at June 21, 2007 1:29 AM
I bought a copy of Satanic Verses when this all happened the first time. On principle.
I'm considering buying a new copy now to give as a present.
I suggest you all do the same, and pass the word along too.
Posted by: joeblough at June 21, 2007 2:28 AM
It seems that we in the West are now in the position that whatever we do is eventually going to provoke Muslims in some way or another.
Like the battered wives of abusive spouses, we must walk on eggshells, being ever-vigilant in what we say and do, so as not to give an excuse for another beating.
And you know what? I AM SICK TO GODDAM DEATH OF IT. I am especially sick of seeing Lord Ahmed, an over-fed Pakistani chip-shop owner and supposed "moderate" Muslim, criticising our country again and again.
He accuses Tony Blair of hypocrisy. Yet in Feb 2005, this supposed "moderate" hosted a book launch in the House of Lords for Israel Shamir. “Israel Shamir” is, in fact, a Swedish-domiciled anti-Semite also known as Jöran Jermas.
At the launch, Jermas gave a speech titled “Jews and the Empire”. It included observations such as:
“All the [political] parties are Zionist-infiltrated.”.... Jews indeed own, control and edit a big share of mass media, this mainstay of Imperial thinking.” “In the Middle East we have just one reason for wars, terror and trouble — and that is Jewish supremacy drive . . .
"in Iraq, the US and its British dependency continue the same old fight for ensuring Jewish supremacy in the Middle East.”
“Now, there is a large and thriving Muslim community in England . . . they are now on the side of freedom, against the Empire, and they are not afraid of enforcers of Judaic values, Jewish or Gentile. This community is very important in order to turn the tide.”
Lord Ahmed has never apologised for inviting a man with such odious anti-Semitic views to the House of Lords, nor explained why he did so.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article378140.ece
at June 21, 2007 9:21 AM
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