Fitzgerald: The resignation of Parvez Ahmed

Parvez Ahmed has resigned as chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR said in a statement: "Ultimately, the majority of organizational stakeholders supported a vision for implementing change and growth that differed from that of Dr. Ahmed."

Here is a malevolent organization, one of whose malevolent but possibly cleverer and therefore even more sinister members, designs to leave. Both the man who resigned, and those whose apparent old-fogy (i.e., less clever and with-it) ways led to his resignation, have the same goals. They wish to prevent Infidels from finding out too much about the texts -- Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira -- of Islam. They wish to prevent Infidels from finding out too much about the details of Muhammad's life (Banu Qurayza, Asma bint Marwan, Abu Afak, Khaybar Oasis, little Aisha, Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya, and so on) or from discovering that as the permanent Role Model and Perfect Man (uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil) that same Muhammad was an aggressive warrior -- but one who could be outwardly unaggressive if he had to be, for as he carefully noted to his followers, and for all time, "war is deception."

What strikes one with amusement is that the quarrel, if it is a quarrel, is only over efficacy of means, and not of ends. Not the man who resigned, not the Board that accepted his resignation, not other Muslims who commented on the business, have any disagreement about the need to prevent Americans from finding out just how deeply, how profoundly, Islam does not accord with the common understanding in the West of a "religion," but is also a politics and a geopolitics. And the core of that politics, that geopolitics, is the view of a world uncompromisingly divided between Believer and Infidel. It remains forever the duty of the former to conduct a "struggle" or Jihad to remove all obstacles to the spread, and then to the dominance, of Islam, everywhere in the world, and that includes every part of the Bilad al-kufr, the lands of the Infidels. The Total Belief System of Islam requires Muslims to participate, sometimes (depending on the circumstances), as a collective, with some members actively taking part in violent Jihad, while other members of the Umma or Community of Believers offer financial and moral support, and sometimes, when Infidel behavior is perceived as an act of aggression, individually.

And that Jihad can be conducted not only in the manner that Muhammad and his followers did more than 1300 years ago, through qitaal or combat (and for many Muslims what we non-Muslims have no moral or practical difficulty in describing as "terrorism" is simply a version of qitaal, justified by the undeniable fact -- so unfair, in the Muslim view, so very unfair -- of Western military superiority), but also by exploiting the instruments now available to them, that were not available to Muhammad and his Unmerry Men in western Arabia, or wherever in fact they may have been, some 1350 years ago. These include the Money Weapon, well-financed campaigns of Da'wa, and demographic conquest, as is now occurring in Western Europe in an alarming way. In The Netherlands there were 1,500 Muslims in 1960; 15,000 in 1970; 400,000 in 1997; more than one million today. They are ever more aggressive and open in their aggression and their demands for changes in the legal and political institutions of the Infidel nation-state in which they live, and for changes in the behavior of Infidels themselves to conform to what Muslims want.

There are several obstacles to the spread of Muslim power and influence in this country, and the obvious and indeed required (by Islam) use of such power to further spread Islam and to increase its power, more and more and more.

One obstacle is the Constitution of the United States, which is flatly contradicted in its letter and spirit by the letter and spirit of the Shari'a. They do not blend, they do not overlap, they cannot co-exist. Muslims know this. Infidels, alas, do not, or do not know in sufficient numbers quite yet, exactly in what ways the Constitution and the Shari'a, clash, and forever.

The very principle of representative government, the principle that the Constitution sets out as the cornerstone of the American government, the first advanced Western democracy, with its enshrined solicitousness for the rights of the individual, is that a government depends for its legitimacy on its reflecting the will expressed by the people. This is an outcome of social contract theorists, from Hobbes to Locke to Rousseau. In Islam, individuals do not matter. They are merely "slaves of Allah" and members of the Umma, the Collective or Community of Believers. They must always do what Islam demands, what is deemed Good for Islam. Islam is a completely collectivist faith. It is Islam itself, and the Umma that matter. The individual must accept Islam in toto, not question it, and certainly not even think about leaving it for another faith or no faith at all, for that would be to "harm Islam," indeed to be a deserter from the army of Islam. And one deals with such people as one would traitors -- one executes them, or if living in the West, one does whatever can be done, such as total ostracism, to bring them back into line. Infidels must never find out what Islam really teaches, and especially what Islam inculcates about the relations of Believers to Infidels. That would never do; that would harm Islam in the Lands where Kafirs still rule. And the time is not yet ripe or right to let them in on what Muslims think, or more accurately, what they are taught to think. To the extent that they identify themselves as Believers, they should be held to such knowledge, and to such beliefs.

It is unfair, you say, to attribute to Muslims living in the West, or in the United States, the beliefs that Islam inculcates? Why do you say that, about a Total Belief-System whose mental hold is so remarkably strong, and whose system for maintaining that hold even over those who might question something, or even wish to jettison Islam altogether, is so remarkably strong? It is not so much akin to a religion as to a totalitarian political movement, with an iron grip on the minds of almost all of its those within its power, and a ruthless ability to intimidate all but the most fearless among those who, though born into Islam, might indeed begin to question and make moves to jettison Islam.

On what basis other than the assumption that those who continue to call themselves Muslims, whether they are born into it or are victims of adult-onset Islam, actually believe in the texts and tenets of Islam and will act on them whenever that becomes possible, can we, the Infidels in question, possibly rely? How else can we plan to intelligently and rationally protect ourselves, except by seeing through those who routinely offer us taqiyya-and-tu-quoque, and by discarding the mind-forged manacles of naive bomfoggery and the interfaith-healing business ("three great monotheisms," "three abrahamic faiths," "we all want the same thing" etcetera etceterum) and learning about Islam on our own, with the texts that are on offer, the most important ones being the Qur'an and the Hadith and the Sira, a click away, all of them, on the Internet?

As in Western Europe, the reality of Muslim behavior cannot be hidden any longer from view. It can be discovered in the newspapers, on the Internet, and on sites that monitor Arab and Muslim news. See the samaritan site www.MEMRI.org and discover what Al-Qaradawi, or the Sheikh al-Azhar, or Saudi clerics, are saying to their own people, not what they smilingly impart to Western Infidels. This is the most important factor in waking Infidels up, and causing them -- again, with just a click on the Internet -- to find out what is in the Qur'an. Start with 9.5 and 9.29 and then the rest of that most important, and late, Sura 9. Infidels need to find out what hundreds of Hadith tell them about the texts and tenets of Islam, and the attitudes of Muslims. The make-up is no longer working: the lipstick is smudged, the mascara is running, the rouge is fading fast.

These texts, and the scholarship that revealed them by the great Western students who wrote circa 1870-1970 was always there, but it was hidden from view by the dutiful minions of MESA Nostra. They, though they are still ensconced in universities, and are still hiring and promoting, very carefully, only fellow apologists of Islam, have been and are being exposed and mocked. See my articles on "MESA Nostra" for more. Even where the academic apologists for Islam manage to gain, and retain, their safely-tenured posts and their well-upholstered chairs (both the chair, and the luxurious fabric that covers it, provided by Al-Saud Upholsters, Inc.) or work in Arab-funded "Centers" which such people as lean, mean, jogging John Esposito run to their own great good fortune (oh, the bank accounts you'll see!) and to the misfortune of the country whose government and students and citizens they so badly misinform, they are, intellectually and morally, now on the run. As more and more people learn enough to gain in self-assurance about their knowledge of Islam, those dangerous apologist-scholars will be ever more be vigilantly monitored, and their apologetics exposed to ridicule, and to the view of alumni donors, in the case of private colleges, and to state legislators, in the case of public ones. We would never have tolerated Nazi supporters during World War II remaining actively on college staffs, nor admirers of Joseph Stalin remaining to mislead the young during the Cold War; it is absurd to continue to endure the ability of Muslims and non-Muslim apologists to dominate the academic teaching of Islam and the Middle East in this country. Eventually even timid college administrators, so fearful about interfering with faculty "autonomy," will come to recognize the observable problems with MESA Nostra and its members as a unique problem in its scope and in the danger that a determined and widespread cadre of apologists means for the ability of Americans to avoid folly -- such as the naive messianic attempt in Iraq to "bring freedom to ordinary moms and dads" without any understanding of Islam, or the insurgency theorists, full of their generalizations ("in general, insurgencies last ten years") that miss the point without factoring in the permanence of Islam, and its effect on all kinds of things, including the likelihood of compromises involving Muslims when Islam, and the exemplary life of Muhammad the warrior, offer only the alternative outcomes of Victor or Vanquished.

The apologetics of CAIR, whether presented in the way that has been done by the Board that accepted the resignation of Parvez Ahmed, or as it might be done, if the recommendations of the slightly more cunning Parvez Ahmed were to be accepted and acted upon, are merely very slightly different means of misrepresentation of Islam. And those misrepresentations are no longer working, but are having the effect instead of arousing more and more suspicion. Many of the Muslims involved, in and out of CAIR, do not realize that the ground under their feet is shifting. And it is shifting, in large part, not because of this or that "islamophobic" website, as they would see it, but only because of the accumulated weight, added to daily by the news of that day, of the evidence: the observable behavior of Muslims toward non-Muslims (Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists) all over the world. Reality is now breaking in.

People are coming to their senses, and in the most unlikely places. And this is not because of, but despite, the timid and rigid and often stupid political and media elites, who are far behind many of those whom they presume to instruct and to protect.

Meanwhile, why don't you join me and re-read the little excerpts from the statements by CAIR, by Parvez Ahmad, by Muqtedar Khan, from this article.

Look, in particular, at these so very with-it phrases:

"failure to be more proactive and positive..."

"The nation's most well-known Muslim advocacy group....also needs to be more inclusive..."

"encourage regular turnover of leadership ranks.."

"the majority of organizational stakeholders supported a vision for implementing change and growth..."

"He had an opportunity to take it to the next level..."

Just look at it all. What perfect parrots, their verbal camouflage offering the illusion (no thanks, please, we've had our fill) that Muslims are just regular American guys, trying to be "proactive" and "inclusive" and encouraging "turnover" in "leadership ranks" and having "organizational stakeholders" who can support "a vision" for "implementing change" and, let's not forget, "growth." And Parvez Ahmad had an opportunity, now foregone, to "take it to the next level."

I can see it now: Muslims describing Muhammad in his Meccan days, having suffered a mid-life crisis, and trying to get in touch with his feelings, and then, having managed to find himself, chose a life of caring and sharing with others, one which required him to assume a leadership role.

Yes. Anything is possible. And you can find Muslim spokesmen and "community leaders" mimicking, in England, that country's fashionable phrases of the day, and in France doing the same in French, and so on. All amusing to the connoisseur, but it should not, for one minute, keep from our steady basilisk stare the contents of Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira, and what lies in the minds, and the hopes and dreams, of those who are adept at picking up the local vocabulary as a kind of veneer to present, or mis-present, themselves as Just Like Us.

No. Look in their mental baggage. Rifle or farfouiller through it, like the security guard at El Al or, nowadays, all major Infidel carriers, and see what you find. That's what counts. Not the outwardly pacific and plausible mien of the passenger, but what he's carrying in his mental baggage. Don't forget: you're a passenger on that plane, your own country, that he's trying to get on, or remain on, for what will be a very long flight, and a very bumpy ride, with the final destination still to be determined.

Posted by Hugh at July 10, 2008 10:45 AM
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