Dhimmi Watch: Electing a New People: The Leftist

May 30, 2006

Electing a New People: The Leftist - Islamic Alliance

A new essay by the European writer Fjordman:

Bertolt Brecht wrote a satirical poem after the 1953 East German risings:
"The solution
After the uprising of 17 June
The Secretary of the Writers' Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the People
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?"

At the beginning of the 21st century, electing a new people seems to be exactly what Socialist parties in Europe are doing. Perhaps the greatest idea of the Leftist parties after the Cold War was to re-invent themselves as Multicultural immigration parties and start importing voters from abroad. In addition to this, they have managed to denounce the opposition as racists, bigots and extremists. A new alliance of convenience between Leftists and Muslim immigrants is taking shape in Europe. I think the deal is that the Leftist parties get a number of new clients, I mean voters, in return for giving Muslims privileges and subsidies, as well as keeping the borders more or less open for new Muslims to enter. As one Muslim put it: "I vote for the Socialists because they give me more money." The Leftists are, in essence, electing a new people, replacing the one already there with one more supportive of their agenda.

There is, of course, nothing new in buying votes and "clients" by promising them access to other people's money. This was the essence of Leftism in the first place. However, although this is probably a flaw in the democratic system, democracy has still functioned within the borders of stable nation states. This flaw gets a lot more dangerous when combined with massive immigration, where certain political parties simply import people from other nations, even vocal enemies of their country, to shore up their own short-term support in elections. This will in the longer term breed resentment among the native population, who will in this way be forced to fund their own colonization. In the context of Europe, Muslim immigration could turn democracy into a self-defeating system that will eventually break down because native Europeans no longer feel that it serves their interests.

Leftists and Muslims have a mutual short-term interest in keeping the Leftist parties in power, and a mutual long-term interest in weakening the traditional, Judeo-Christian culture of Europe, which Socialists at best view with indifference, at worst as an evil obstacle blocking the road to the Socialist Utopia. Besides, Socialists traditionally place little ideological importance on such trivial matters as national borders. I believe Lenin said that borders between Soviet Republics were unimportant, as Socialism would transcend all national and religious boundaries and render them a thing of the past, anyway.
Many Marxists still haven't given up that ideal, after a century of failures. Hanne Andersen, a Danish Social Democrat, thinks that people from, say, Yemen or Pakistan should have as much right to live in Denmark as native Danes:

"I have for many years been of the opinion that it is incomprehensible that some people (especially from
the Danish People's Party) think they have a greater right than other people to live in a specific part of the earth. All people, all over the world, who have respect for others, their religion, culture, history and values have, as far as I'm concerned, an equal right to live wherever they want to."

Omer Taspinar describes how "Europe's Muslim Street," the 15 million or more Muslims of the European Union, is becoming a more powerful political force than the fabled Arab street: "This political ascendance threatens to exacerbate existing strains within the trans-Atlantic relationship. The presence of nearly 10 million Muslims versus only 700,000 Jews in France and Germany alone helps explain why continental Europe might look at the Middle East from a different angle than does the United States. Indeed, French and German concerns about a unilateral U.S. attack on Iraq or Washington's blind support for Israel are at least partly related to nervousness about the Muslim street at home." "In Germany and elsewhere in Europe, a Muslim swing vote is already having a critical impact."

Iranian-in-exile Amir Taheri, too, has noticed this "red-black" cooperation. According to him, Europe's hard Left "sees Muslims as the new under-class" in the continent: "The European Marxist-Islamist coalition does not offer a coherent political platform. Its ideology is built around three themes: hatred of the United States, the dream of wiping Israel off the map, and the hoped-for collapse of the global economic system."

This cooperation has received support from Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the Venezuelan terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal. Carlos has said that
Islam is the only force capable of persuading large numbers of people to become "volunteers" for suicide attacks against the US. "Only a coalition of Marxists and Islamists can destroy the US," he said. As Christopher Hitchens put it, "once you decide that American-led "globalisation" is the main enemy, then any revolt against it is better than none at all. In some way yet to be determined, Al-Qaeda might be able to help to stave off global warming."

Christopher Caldwell, writing about this Islamic-leftist alliance, tells of how the second annual European Social Forum in 2003 was held in three Communist-controlled suburbs around Paris. "Muslims were hugely overrepresented among the Social Forum's delegates." The yearnings of radical Muslims are now at the core of the Social Forum's universe. "They have jostled aside the left-wing economics and focus on global markets that once dominated." The key sign of this shift was the Forum's anointing of Tariq Ramadan as the event's co-star. Ramadan, a professor of Islamic studies in Geneva, Switzerland, is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and a hero to Muslims in Europe.

The Muslims are quite happy with this collaboration, at least for now: "We say to anyone who hates the Americans and wants to throw the Jews out of Palestine: ahlan wa sahlan (welcome)," quipped Abu-Hamza al-Masri, the British Islamist firebrand who is awaiting extradition to the US on various criminal charges. "The Prophet teaches that we could ally ourselves even with the atheists if it helps us destroy [the] enemy."

The American William S. Lind calls this "the Marx-Mohammed Pact:" "What made possible the recent bombings in London (July 2005), and the many more that almost assuredly will follow in Europe and the United States, is the Marx-Mohammed Pact. Once again, two sworn enemies, Marxism - - specifically, the cultural Marxism commonly known as Political Correctness - - and Islam, have made a Devil's bargain whereby each assists the other against a common enemy, the remnants of the Christian West." "London was only a foretaste of what those policies will bring to Europe and America. If we dare rip down the camouflage nets cultural Marxism has erected to blind us we see Europe has two real choices: an infinity of Londons or second expulsion of the Moors."

Of course, the same collaboration happened in Iran, where popular "reformers" such as Ali Shariati in the years before the 1979 revolution infused Islam with aspects of Western thought and made the Marxists believe that they could coexist with Islam. So they cooperated in overthrowing the Shah - and then all the godless Socialists were the first ones to hang from lamp posts around the country when Khomeini and his Islamic cronies seized power. The secular Leftists in Europe know fully well that they do not agree with religious Muslims on some issues, but they believe they are the senior partners in the alliance and that they can "ride the tiger." That may be true now, but for how long will the situation remain like that?

In Denmark, writers Helle Merete Brix, Torben Hansen and Lars Hedegaard think the Muslim immigration and the clashes we are witnessing now is part of a third Islamic Jihad, a third attempt to conquer and subdue the West. The fist one came with the Arabs more than a thousand years ago, the second with the Turks in the early modern era. Will three times be the charm for the Muslims? Will they succeed this time?

During the first Jihad, Charles Martel, "The Hammer," brilliant general and founder of the Carolingian Empire, the first Western power after the fall of Rome, defeated the Arabs in the Battle of Tours (or Poitiers) in 732, thus saving Western civilization, and by extension much of the world, from Islam. The Muslims underestimated the strength of the Franks, who they considered barbarians, and allowed them to pick both the time and place of the battle. The Muslims were also burdened with booty. During the battle, members of the Frankish army began freeing prisoners, and fearing loss of their riches, a significant part of the Muslim army abandoned the battle to protect their plunder. Although they managed to conquer Spain, Muslims thus lost the first shot at subduing the European heartland because they were too arrogant and underestimated the strength of their Western opponents, and were too weighed down by and concerned with their riches to fight effectively. Is the same thing happening now, only in reverse, with the arrogant West underestimating their Muslim opponents until it's too late?

During the second Jihad, Jan Sobieski, king of Poland, routed the Ottoman armies that had laid siege to Vienna in 1683. Leading a combined force of Polish, Austrian and German troops, Sobieski attacked a numerically superior Turkish army until their lines were broken and the Turks fled in confusion. This was the last time Muslims came close to threatening the West in traditional warfare. They now prefer demographic warfare through migration, combined with terrorism.

The third Jihad started with the oil embargo, the influx of Saudi petrodollars and the beginnings of Eurabia and Muslim immigration to the West in the 1960s and early 70s. During the third Jihad, Leftists all over Europe seem to be opening the gates of Europe from within. "You want to conquer Europe? That's ok. Just vote for us and help us get rid of capitalism and eradicate the Christian heritage of Europe, and we'll let you in. In the meantime, you can enjoy some welfare goodies, and we will ban opposition to this undertaking as racism and hate speech."

The basic trends are remarkably similar throughout Western Europe. I will start with describing the situation in the Scandinavian countries, as I'm Norwegian myself and thus have the most detailed knowledge of this region.

You know you have entered a strange, Eurabian world when leading politicians from Norway, a country straddling the Arctic Circle and with no colonial history, begin their election campaigns in the Pakistani countryside. Before Norway's national elections in 2005, the leader of the Socialist Left party, Kristin Halvorsen, praised all the "blood, sweat and tears Pakistanis in Norway have spent on building the country." While the deputy leader of the Socialist Left party has stated that he wants to abolish private property, its leader Kristin Halvorsen is in 2006 Norway's Minister of Finance. 83 percent of Muslims in Norway voted for Leftist parties in 2005. The Labor Party got a majority of these votes, whereas the Socialist Left Party got 30, 5 %, more than three times the percentage it got among the general populace. Psephologist Anders Todal Jenssen pointed out that parties such as the Socialist Left party had the most liberal immigration policies, and that this probably contributed to this tilt towards Leftist parties among immigrants. Likewise, the Labor Party is seen as the primary guarantor of the generous welfare state. The Leftist parties won a very slim majority (in fact, a minority of the votes) in parliament in 2005, and formed a coalition government that has been notoriously anti-Israeli and critical of the USA, as well as appeasing towards Palestinian Hamas terrorists.

Before Norway's Constitution Day, May 17th, in 2006, the Multicultural lobby in the country wanted to celebrate the day by singing the
Norwegian national anthem - in Urdu. The idea was that an Urdu version of the anthem would allow many immigrants from Pakistan, for example, to more easily express their love for Norway. The title of Norway's national anthem is "Ja vi elsker," which in English translates to "Yes we love (this country)." It may sound ridiculous to sing Urdu in Norway, but the capital city of Oslo in particular has a significant and fast-growing Pakistani community. In fact, it is expected that native Norwegians will be a minority in their own capital city within a generation. American writer Bruce Bawer, who lives in Norway, has pointed out in his book While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, that there are now more direct flights from Norway to Pakistan than from Norway to the USA.

Samira Munir, Norwegian politician of Pakistani origins, received many death threats against herself and her family because of her work as a champion of the rights of Muslim immigrant women. She was found dead under strange circumstances in November 2005 at Kolbotn station, one of the suburban lines outside Oslo. Earlier in 2005, Munir had claimed that there was widespread cooperation between the Socialist parties and Muslim communities during that year's elections in Norway. "The heads of families and the mosques would decide how entire groups of immigrants would vote. They made deals such as "How much money will we get if we get our people to vote for you?", and the deals were always made with the Socialist parties" said Munir. It should be noted that her own, Conservative party was not innocent of this, either. Akhtar Chaudhry, politician for the Socialist Left party, stated that Norway with its welfare state was pretty close to the Muslim idea of Paradise, and that the welfare state was similar to Islamic concepts of social justice. Of course, he failed to mention that according to "Islamic justice," non-Muslims should pay Muslims tribute as a sign of submission, and that undoubtedly many Muslim immigrants view the infidel welfare state in this way. He also failed to explain why Muslims cannot create such a "paradise" in their own countries, or whether the Scandinavian "Paradise" can survive a massive influx of Muslim immigrants.

In Denmark in 2005, less than five percent of immigrant voters supported the centre-right government, which had taken some steps in recent years to limit Muslim immigration. The country's Leftist parties had the near unanimous support of Denmark's immigrants. According to the Copenhagen Post, "over 95 percent of non-ethnic Danes with the right to vote say they support left-leaning opposition parties." The most popular party with immigrants was the Social Democrats. The second largest party in parliament drew the support of 47.6 percent of immigrants. Second most popular was the Social Liberal Party, polling at 21.4 percent. This trend has not gone unnoticed by those wanting to limit Muslim immigration, such as the Danish People's Party and its leader Pia Kjærsgaard: "Let's be honest. The Radicals are not just café latte-sipping people from the creative class. To a large degree, it is also largely composed of immigrants, and one could fear the result of the upcoming local elections in large cities, where there are large concentrations of immigrants that the Social Liberals pander to,' Kjærsgaard said. In the Scandinavian and Nordic countries, non-citizen immigrants gain voter rights in local (but not national) elections after living in the country for three years.

A vitriolic row erupted into the heart of Denmark's general election campaign early in 2005 when Islamic leaders urged the country's Muslims to vote against the ruling centre-right coalition. Kasem Said Ahmad, a prominent Muslim community spokesman, said he "advised all Muslims to oppose the government." Mr Ahmad organized a gathering of imams in an anti-government message during that week's Friday prayers. Danish Prime Minister Fogh Rasmussen, who was eventually re-elected, responded angrily and immediately to the proposed intervention of Denmark's imams: "They should keep their fingers out of politics," Mr Fogh Rasmussen said. "In Denmark we keep politics and religion separate. Imagine if Danish priests were to use church pulpits to urge people to vote for particular parties," he said. Morten Messerschmidt, a member of Denmark's Parliament for the Danish People's Party, says that "everybody should have expected that the leftwing would be the first to cry out against the Muslim intolerance. But for some reason only a few have done so. It has to do with a screwed up idea of cultural relativism." "Secondly I believe it has to do with power – it is well known that the Muslim minorities in Denmark are voting for leftwing parties. And some politicians – in Denmark as well as in many other European countries – are deliberately campaigning for these votes. Of course you wouldn't like to disturb the people handing you your paycheque."

In the spring of 2006, Sweden's largest Muslim organisation demanded in a letter, signed by its leader Mahmoud Aldebe, that Sweden should introduce separate laws for Muslims. The letter was a list running over several pages with aggressive demands for just about everything; separate family laws for Muslims, regulating marriage and divorce, that public schools should employ imams to teach homogeneous classes of Muslims children in their religion and the language of their original homeland. Sweden's Equality Minister Jens Orback called the proposals "completely unacceptable."

However, it looks increasingly as if the election in September will be a very close race, and the Leftist parties will be dependent upon the support of immigrants to remain in power. As Nima Sanandaji points out in FrontPage Magazine, "Swedish public television exposed that the leading Social Democratic party had started fishing for votes with the help of radical Muslim clergies." For several years the Christian wing of the Social Democratic party, called The Brotherhood, has been working with the influential Muslim leader Mahmoud Aldebe, president of Sweden's Muslim Association. Already in 1999, Aldebe proposed that sharia, Islamic law, should be introduced in Sweden. After the last election in 2002, Sweden's Muslim Association sent a congratulation letter to the re-elected Social Democratic Prime minister Göran Persson, congratulating him on his victory and hoping that Persson would work for implementing some of the demands of the Association in the future. The Muslim Brotherhood has earlier stated that for them, "Sweden is in many ways an ideal country, [and it] shares the ideals of the [Swedish] Social Democrats in their view of the welfare society. Leading figures in Muslim congregations are also active within the Social Democratic [Party], and have very good relations with Sweden's Christian Social Democrats. "The Social Democrats have, in turn, and perhaps as thanks for the support they receive from the mosque leadership, shown a tendency to shy away from the fact that there is extremism in some of our mosques. This has given the Muslim Brotherhood the freedom to force its ideology upon [the mosque's worshippers]." Israeli authorities in 2006 called Sweden "the most anti-Israeli country in Europe." The number of rape charges in the country has quadrupled parallel with Muslim immigration in recent years.

During the elections in the United Kingdom in 2005, the Labour Party tried hard to win back the traditional support from Muslims in Britain, many of whom threatened to leave the party in favor of anti-war Respect Party candidate George Galloway or even the Liberal Democrats because of Tony Blair's support for the war in Iraq. The most visible result of this was the attempts to pass a law banning incitement to "religious hatred." Prominent Muslims have stated their hope that according to this new law, it would be a crime to use terms such as "Islamic terrorism." The bill has been proposed in the British Parliament several times, but stranded on opposition from the House of Lords. As newspaper the Daily Telegraph stated, "it is a bone tossed to those who claim to speak on behalf of a Muslim community that overwhelmingly resides in Labour inner city heartlands." "If such a law had existed in the 1980s, Salman Rushdie might have been prosecuted for writing Satanic Verses rather than being protected by the British state." A local Labour candidate in London, Oona King, who eventually lost her election to Galloway, was accused of double standards after dropping references to Muslims in leaflets for predominantly white areas. One of the leaflets stated: "Oona voted to protect Muslims from hate crimes." But in the other leaflet it said: "Oona voted to make incitement to religious hatred a crime." One of her colleagues tried to lure British Muslims back into the fold with the following arguments: "Labour and British Muslims: Can we dream the same dream?" "Are you still unconvinced that the Muslims need or should want a Labour Prime Minister in Downing Street? Tony Blair is the first Prime Minister to have ever read the Qur'an, to quote from it and to talk about it." "The Muslim Council of Britain has been at the forefront of lobbying the Government on issues to help Muslims. Recently Iqbal Sacranie, the General Secretary of the Council, asked Tony Blair to declare that the Government would introduce a new law banning religious discrimination. Two weeks later, Tony Blair promised that the next Labour Government would ban religious discrimination. It was a major victory for the Muslim community in Britain."

Gordon Brown, Blair's PM-successor-in-waiting, paid tribute to British Muslims as "modern heroes" who brought hope and idealism to the country. He said they had "contributed to Britain spiritually and economically because Islam was a religion that encouraged fair play, social justice and equality." Labour PM Tony Blair himself called Islam "progressive" and praised the Koran for being "practical and way ahead of its time in attitudes to marriage, women and governance." This was after the Jihadist terror bombings in London in July 2005, and while several Muslim clerics in the UK were openly calling for overthrowing the West and British democracy. Maybe Blair, Brown and their ilk didn't read writer Spengler of the Asia Times Online, who, while reviewing Melanie Phillips' book "Londonistan," noted that "revulsion and contempt color Muslim attitudes toward the British leftists who most desire to appease them." In all fairness, it should be mentioned that even Conservative Party leader Michael Howard in 2005 spoke of the "immense" contribution Muslims have made to British life. Mr Howard said the "economically vibrant, culturally creative, socially aware" British Muslim community enriched modern Britain." This attempt of flirting with Muslims voters met with little success, however. The Tories complained in 2005 that it was difficult for them "to win the cities." As elsewhere in Europe, Muslim immigrants in Britain tend to be concentrated in major cities, thus consolidating the grip Leftist parties had on these areas. In the Netherlands, the municipal elections in March 2006 were won by the Labour Party, the Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA). The balance was tipped by the Muslim vote. Eighty percent of the growing immigrant electorate voted for the PvdA, while the remaining Muslims voted for smaller parties of the extreme left. This phenomenon prompted De Telegraaf, the largest paper in the country, to write that the immigrants have become a "power block." A case in point was the Amsterdam borough of Geuzenveld-Slotermeer. Here the PvdA won 54% of the votes. Of their 13 seats, however, 5 were won by Turkish and 2 by Moroccan candidates. This means that more than half the seats of the largest party were won by Muslims. The situation resembled that in the regional parliament of Brussels, Belgium, the so-called "capital of Europe," where the Parti Socialiste was the largest party. Over half its 26 seats were held by Muslim immigrants. As the online Brussels Journal noted, "the electoral strength of the Left in Western Europe is increasingly based on the immigrant vote, as the Left caters for voters who favour extensive redistribution of taxpayers' money to so-called "underprivileged" groups such as immigrants." "In many West European countries the parties of the Left are actively catering for the growing Muslim vote. The Left realizes that the Third World immigrants guarantee its power base because these immigrants moved to Western Europe attracted by the generous welfare benefits that the parties of the Left promote."

The PvdA leader Bos was worried about the poor competence of many of these newly elected immigrants. He said that "our new immigrant councillors" are bound to cause trouble because their "political culture" is often incompatible with Dutch politics: "They conduct politics according to the culture of their home countries, where clientelism is the norm." Bos's words were widely reported by the Dutch media and caused anger among the newly elected PvdA councillors, some of whom hinted that Bos had made a racist remark. According to the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies of the University of Amsterdam 80% of the non-indigenous electorate voted for Labour. This explains why cities such as Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Breda and Arnhem succumbed to the Left.

In Germany in the general election in 2002, numbers have indicated that about up to 90 percent of the Muslim voters backed Schröder's left-wing coalition. "Some 200,000 German Muslims voted for Schroeder in the elections which he won by only 9,000." Poll data from 2005, when the Social Democratic SPD narrowly lost the election to the conservatives and joined in a coalition with Angela Merkel as Chancellor, indicate that 77 percent of Turkish voters planned to vote for the Social Democrats, followed by 9.2 percent for the Greens and 7.8 percent for the Left Alliance. Pundits said that the Muslim vote was likely to reward Schröder's Social Democrats (SPD) for its anti-Iraq war position and pro-Muslim policies. A meager 4.8 percent said they would cast votes for the conservative CDU. Cem Özedmir, a member of the European Parliament for Germany's Green Party, said the Christian Democrats had made a strategic decision in not trying to attract Turkish voters. "It is too high a cost," he explained. "For every Turkish voter the party might win, it would lose two or three German voters because of the party's conservative attitudes toward immigration and its social base." Guelay Yasin, manager of the Turkish-German Chamber of Commerce, made it clear for which party most of her members would vote. "We will vote for the party which supports Turkey's membership to the EU," Yasin said. The Social Democrats would profit from this since Schröder had personally supported Turkey's becoming a member of the EU.

In fact, the major challenge to the Social Democrats in vying for the Muslim vote in Germany, especially the country's 2.6 million Turks, 840,000 of them with German passports, comes from other Leftist parties. Some warned that the SPD could lose a number of Turkish voters to the newly formed and immigrant-friendly Left Party, a group born out of the marriage of former East German communists and Oskar Lafontaine, the ex-chief of the Social Democrats. Hans-Christian Ströbele, a member of parliament for the Green Party, in 2006 triggered a debate by calling for an official Turkish translation of the German national anthem. Conservatives worried it would send the wrong signal about integration. A Turkish version, Ströbele said, could demonstrate how multicultural German society has become. "I would see it as a sign of integration if citizens of Turkish descent could sing the third verse in Turkish."

Early in 2006, the secretary general of Italy's largest Muslim organisation, the Union of Islamic communities in Italy, called on Italian Muslims to vote for the Party of Italian Communists at the general election. The leader of UCOII said that their party's willingness to accommodate the needs of the Muslim community was a good reason to vote for them - even placing at the end of his email the logos of the Party of Italian Communists and its allies at the Senate, the Greens, both members of the center-left coalition. Just weeks after Italian Muslims recommended voting for the Communist Party, a Communist minister in the newly elected Leftist coalition of Romano Prodi, super-Eurocrat and former President of the European Commission, which won a very slim majority and ousted right-winger Berlusconi, decided to make it easier for immigrants from North Africa to enter the country. Italy's new Social Solidarity Minister, Paolo Ferrero, touched off an immigration controversy by announcing that under Prodi's new center-left government, "any foreigner with a job should be allowed to stay in the country." "The declarations of Minister for Social Solidarity Paolo Ferrero on the delicate issue of immigration were met enthusiastically by the people who are waiting to set sail from other shores of the Mediterranean" said deputy Senate speaker Roberto Calderoli, who belonged to Italy's anti-immigrant Northern League. "Announcing the closure of temporary shelter camps and the abolition of the Bossi-Fini law will unleash an invasion." Italy is facing a growing number of illegal workers from North Africa. There has been an increase in arrivals to Italy by sea, as "Moroccans who used to cross into Spain to get into the rest of Europe are changing tactics and now going by boat from Libya to Italy." Libya has become the bottleneck of much of the immigration from Africa and of a large part of the Middle East.

Leading Sunni Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi and others have hailed the coming Islamic conquest of Rome, just like Constantinople was conquered in 1453. "Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror and victor, after being expelled from it twice. Islam entered Europe twice and left it… Perhaps we will conquer these lands without armies." The Saudi Sheikh Muhammad bin Abd Al-Rahman Al-'Arifi, imam of the mosque of King Fahd Defense Academy, concurred: "We will control the land of the Vatican; we will control Rome and introduce Islam in it. Yes, the Christians (…) will yet pay us the Jiziya [poll tax paid by non-Muslims under Muslim rule], in humiliation, or they will convert to Islam…"

Given the actions of European Leftists, Qaradhawi could end up being right in his predictions.

Posted by Robert at May 30, 2006 2:17 PM
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Comments
(Note: Comments on articles are unmoderated, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Dhimmi Watch or Robert Spencer. Comments that are off-topic, offensive, slanderous, or otherwise annoying may be summarily deleted. However, the fact that particular comments remain on the site IN NO WAY constitutes an endorsement by Robert Spencer of the views expressed therein.)

We need a new period of McCarthyism, this time led by a sober, sane and ethical individual, who will cleanse not only Washington, but academia and the MSM as well. I am heartened by the fact that the cries "Tancredo for President in 2008" are not isolated anymore.

Posted by: US_infidel

at May 30, 2006 2:48 PM

Thanks for posting, Mr. Spencer.

This is OT, but I'd like to make some PR for Iranian ex-Muslim Ali Sina's upcoming book. As many of you know, I'm a big fan of his, and consider him to be one of the very few people, along with the likes of Robert Spencer and Ibn Warraq, who truly understand Islam and the stakes involved. His book deserves to be widely read, both because he is a brilliant writer with a great understanding of how to fight Islam, and because he has been working full-time for years now with no income. Sign up for a copy, or many, and put up a link to the book at your blog:

http://www.faithfreedom.org/book2.htm

ISLAM and the Muslim Mind, By ALI SINA

Posted by: Fjordman

at May 30, 2006 3:05 PM

Fjordman,

Just FYI in case you missed it:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/011594.php

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch

at May 30, 2006 3:14 PM

Robert: I didn't miss it, I just wanted to remind people of it again :-)

Posted by: Fjordman

at May 30, 2006 3:17 PM

Fjordman:

No problem. As we say in the U.S., vote early and often!

Best
R

Posted by: jihadwatch

at May 30, 2006 3:21 PM

I don't know where these politicians think they will go to retire in peace and live off their ill-gotten gains. Where will be left?

Someone should tell the left: Import voters in haste; repent at leisure.

In the UK, Blair tripled immigration - after promising to cut it in his manifesto. All recent governments bears some responsibility, but his is heaviest of all. If we come out of the other side of this, Blair will be a figure of contempt in the history books for hundreds of years.

Posted by: Yojimbo

at May 30, 2006 3:22 PM

Also in the UK, the alternative to Labour is the Conservatives who are getting more left by the day...

They talk more left than Blair, who talks right and walks left.

Its all wrong, and none of them except the BNP (far right) will talk honestly about Islam.

Posted by: titfortat

at May 30, 2006 3:58 PM

Another compelling article by Fjordman. Sadly, it only re-enforces what I've believed for a while: that the Left is the West's Achilles heel and a principal impediment to raising awareness and organizing resistance to Jihad. Unless the Left is politically defeated, I fear Europe will be Islamized to the eternal misfortune not just of that continent, but of all of mankind.

What these shortsighted Leftist fools fail to realize is that once the Islamics have enough power and don't need them anymore, they and all their Marxist bretheren will hang alongside the capitalists, the clergy and all their fellow Infidels. It happened in Iran and it will happen in Europe if Islam triumphs.

We may be in the same boat as Infidels, but it's the Left drilling holes in the boat's bottom. Better get that life jacket on.

Thanks, Fjordman. Stay safe.

Posted by: Proud Infidel

at May 30, 2006 4:32 PM

Isn't it ironic in England that the one party despised and denounced speaks the truth, the BNP. It's really quite something.

Posted by: John Sobieski

at May 30, 2006 4:44 PM

The BNP are an opportunist racist party. They are not just anti-Islam they are also anti-Semitic and anti anyone who is not white. That may suit some people but it is abhorent to the overwhelming majority. In reality they should not even register.
The fact they do shows that the mainstream parties have to start listening and acting MORE proactively.

Posted by: Turbinehead

at May 30, 2006 4:59 PM

In the UK, it is now widely recognised that islam is a backward idealogy based on the teachings of a homicidal lunatic.

Posted by: Celsius

at May 30, 2006 5:02 PM

BNP....BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY.

Don't like ANY foreigners except members of the white Commonwealth and the USA.

These are not nice people, don't be fooled.

Posted by: Turbinehead

at May 30, 2006 5:06 PM

Just in case anyone thought I was promoting the BNP, I wasn't. I was just stating fact. I don't think there are any mainstream political parties in the civilised world who are honest about Islam.

My view is, as mentioned, the fact that the left is the first (and probably hardest) hurdle to get over.

The way to beat them is to stand shoulder to shoulder with Hindu’s, Jew’s, black, white, Buddhist’s etc. anyone with a vested interest in stopping Islam (pretty much everyone). The lefties can't cry racism then.

Its simple really, just got to get organised.

Posted by: titfortat

at May 30, 2006 5:46 PM

Again it was excellent but depressing post by Fjordman. Here in Finland we can perhaps avoid the mistakes done by our Nordic neighbours, but knowing the stupidity of Finnish politicians I would not count on that. The same multicultural sickness also pollutes this country.

Posted by: Saatanan Islam

at May 30, 2006 5:49 PM

'Someone should tell the left: Import voters in haste; repent at leisure.'

Problem is, they won't repent at leisure. I'm sure plenty of them already have their special hide-aways in other countries.

Posted by: Gary

at May 30, 2006 6:07 PM

What a bright article by Fjordman !

I am glad because I had observed the alliance between the Left and the Muslims in France, too. The cities which are predominantly populated with Muslims have communist mayors, sometimes socialist mayors.

That alliance is very interesting, because some left wing voters are going to become very confused, when they start understanding what it is all about. On the French left wing radios I heard some imams explaining that "secularism must come to an end in France" and the left wing journalists were approving ... I thought the lefties were anti religious ?

Also, about women rights, homosexuals' rights etc... what will the Left say ? What will some left wing voters think ? Will they start voting for the traditional right wing parties ?

By the way, latest news from Paris: last night, about 100 "youth" rioted in Monfermeil (a banlieue near Paris) and attacked the City Hall. 7 policemen were injured.

Worse, yesterday in Paris, in the middle of the afternoon, about 30 Black people of the "Tribu KA" (a racist organisation which militates for the "supremacy of the Black Race") invaded the Jewish streets of the "Marais", mainly "la rue des Rosiers" (an old, fashionable gay / Jewish / touristic area of Paris), and intimidated, insulted and threatened the Jewish pedestrians, openly. They are officially anti semitic. They claim it, are proud of it.

So, you see... I would say: a normal day in France.

The media did not insist too much about it... How surprising ! I wanted to find some internet links in English for the Jihad Watch posters, but I found nothing on Reuters.

Posted by: joiesauvage

at May 30, 2006 6:09 PM

I supposed none of these left-learning no-border types in the EU have doors on their houses?

Or locks on their doors?

Perhaps they think it would be better to live without skin? (Mustn't obstruct the free flow of bacteria into our systems with such an artificial construct as an epidermal barrier.)

Do they carry their money in their hands, free for anyone to grab?

Why should anyone have to pay for anything?

The whole silly idea of anarchist Proudhon that "Property is theft" seems to be their underlying madness.

Cultural suicide is not painless.

As they will find.

One of their ancient playwrights called this flighty state of mind Cloud-Cuckoo Land.

Its population is growing.

The American version is floundering in Congress, in parallel, although more and more "nativists", like myself (since I was born here, I'm proud to be a new Native American) are ready to kick the bums out, and we're telling them now so they can get prepared for a new career -...perhaps door-to-door security system salespeople?

If you fail to fully value your own land, and you deserve to lose it.

Posted by: profitsbeard

at May 30, 2006 6:10 PM

Ok more info about the riots last night in Paris:

http://www.swissinfo.org/fre/international/agences/detail/Sept_policiers_blesses_lors_de_violences_en_banlieue.html?siteSect=143&sid=6761976&cKey=1148951478000

(in French, unfortunately)

quick translation:

It happened in Montfermeil, a banlieue east of Paris. About one hundred "youth" attacked the mayor's private house. 250 policemen intervened and fought against the youth during a few hours, 7 policemen were injured, 6 youth arrested.

2 Molotov cocktails were thrown against the City Hall, also, and an official building was partially burnt.

Other riots took place in the neighbouring city, the now famous Clichy-sous-Bois (cf riots November 2005).

Xavier Lemoine, the mayor of Montfermeil, said that he was now scared for his life and the life of his wife and seven kids.

The reason for those riots is unclear. Some say it was a reaction because a "youth" was arrested (after the aggression of a bus driver 2 weeks ago), some other say it is because the mayor banned the gathering of the "15 to 18 year old youth" in the center of the city. As a matter of fact, there have been many aggressions by little groups of teenagers lately and the mayor thought the banning of the youth gathering would make the situation better...

Posted by: joiesauvage

at May 30, 2006 6:38 PM

As time goes on I find myself re-appraising more and more assumptions and givens from earlier in my life.

I will never listen to "Imagine" by John Lennon again in the same way:

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

I used to think this was a magnificent song -- the melody certainly is brilliant. But as time goes on I recognize how the sentiments lead to nightmares...

To paraphrase another John Lennon song

I don't believe in utopianism...
I don't believe in those who promise it, wish for it, or agitate for it, for they are the destroyers of the world...
I don't believe in faithlessness...
I don't believe in 'NO COUNTRIES'...
I don't believe in 'NOTHING TO KILL OR DIE FOR"...
I don't believe in forgetting about your history and your heritage
(living for today)...

The creepy similarity between many of the planks expressed in this and many other "counter-culture" songs and the ideology of Islam is undeniable. And the affinity between these two morbidly 'idealistic' ideologies is beautifully dissected in Fjordman's splendid article above.

Superb observations and reportage! Fjordman. You have not been idle!

-jsla

Posted by: jsla

at May 30, 2006 6:53 PM

Some French blogger better start a "Jeunes Watch".

Posted by: Television

at May 30, 2006 6:55 PM

Fjordman;

I didn't read your essay before finishing my piece today, I swear: Opinion: The Underlying Compatibility of Islam and Socialism

Posted by: Ruy Diaz

at May 30, 2006 6:57 PM

joiesauvage, wasn't this French black supremacist group founded by a black muslim? I guess it's a little easier to curse and beat a bunch of old Jewish men and women than to stop the arab muslim genocide of blacks in the sudan, huh? It's the cowardly mohammedan way.

Posted by: Infidel33

at May 30, 2006 7:11 PM

jsla, I too am in a free fall from long held convictions. Wónder what Lennon, always searching for something to fill his life would have said had he been alive today? Judging from the rock stars supposedly carrying the flame today, he probably wouldn't have had anything to say, for fear of having a fatwa issued against him.

Fjordman's article is surreal, a huge shift taking place around us, and virtual silence from the entire press. Is this situation tenable? If, or rather when, the backlash starts, will it be all the more fierce because a lid of political correctness has stifled any debate? It sounds like a mock-Freudian pressure cooker model, but AFAIK the relative absence of ethnic related crime in Denmark may be attributed to the fact that we have the Danish People's Party acting as a lightning rod, unlike in Sweden and Norway. We used to be known collectively as Scandinavia, and we felt we shared most values. Today I have nothing but contempt for the systems governing these nanny states. Fjordman's article (as well as another one by him on Sweden specifically) to me reads like deliberate collective suicide. I refuse to believe that the dhimmis responsíble for this disaster can be stupid enough to not realize this. Jim Jones on a national scale, Freud's Thanatos, the epitome of Western self hatred? What is going on?

Posted by: anti-uffe

at May 30, 2006 7:20 PM

Recent revelations from the UK home office ( foreign prisoners released from jail without being deported, nobody has a clue even approximately how many illegals are in the country) have revealed that the government have all but lost control of the borders. Personally I put it down to Thatcher back in the eighties. She spent a lot of money on the police but carried out a massive cull of civil servants, in order to lower taxes. As a result customs, immigration and social security have all been understaffed for years. There are all sorts of social abuses the government has never quite managed to get on top of, ever since.

Posted by: wallyUK

at May 30, 2006 7:30 PM

As much as I don't agree with Conservatives on many issues, this article explains why I will always vote Republican for the foreseeable future. The lesser of two evils so to speak...

Posted by: adobe

at May 30, 2006 7:34 PM

Here in the States, we vote early and vote often.

That's why we have the best politicians that money can buy.

William Jefferson being just the latest example.

Posted by: SCV

at May 30, 2006 7:40 PM

SCV-

That's cold!

(As in cash. As in ice box. As in 100 grand.)

Posted by: profitsbeard

at May 30, 2006 8:05 PM

OT, re Ali Sina's book. Just read the introduction and a bit of synopsis, and the experience confirmed what I thought before: the book will not fly because it sounds like a rant. There is a lack of qualification in the statements, with unsubstantiated opinions inside statements of fact. In one description, for example, is a comment the references Muhammed's "mental condition," which i took to mean that Sina thinks that the man was insane. Perhaps I misquoted and there are better examples, but in any case, in much of what I've read of Sina there is a sense of commentary without proof or fairness.

I am not saying that Sina is wrong. We are surely faced with a menace and with the fruits of a self-absorbed serial killer. But Sina's reader (at least this reader) doesn't get the sense that the author has a deep enough grounding in history or politics to be a teacher.

I see no reason for this work, as the story is better told by others.

Posted by: StillBreathing

at May 30, 2006 8:13 PM

The Danish People's Party is described as a far right party. Pim Fortuyn was called far right and fascist. Neither is true. As I understand it, both the Danish People's Party and Pim Fortuyn's objections to Muslim immigrations was the Muslim's social attitudes.

What is a disgrace is how parties that have been so stridently in favor of gender equality are willing to ally with a group that things a woman should be covered with veils. This point needs to be made. Isn't a politician who supports both Muslim objectives and women's rights a complete and total phony? Either they support women's rights or they don't. Let's make that clear.

Posted by: DavidE

at May 30, 2006 9:06 PM

Are you curious as to how the Left first came to the idea of multiculturalism? It may surprise you that it really goes back a long way. Probably to the writings of Antonio Gramsci, a brilliant Italian Marxist philosopher and economist in the early 20th century.

Gramsci had noted that, counter to Marx's predictions of the inevitable collapse of capitalism in Western industrial nations and its replacement by communism, this was just not happening in countries like the United States. But why? Gramsci argued that there were cultural forces that were impeding Marx's economic revolution. And that in order for socialism to come to nations like America, these cultural forces had to be undercut and overcome.

Gramsci asserted that the reason why American workers were not overthrowing capitalism was because despite economic exploitation, they were still reasonably satisfied in their personal lives. The cultural factors that were keeping Americans satisfied, Gramsci identified as: Christianity; the family unit; consumerism; individualism; and patriotism. Gramsci said that in contrast to Marx's emphasis on economics, all life is political. Only if these cultural factors were undercut would sufficient "revolutionary consciousness" develop to overthrow the state.

Gramsci said the Left needed to wage a "culture war" (he coined that term which is so familiar now) against traditionalist Western culture. And sure enough, I'm sure everyone here can cite numerous real-world examples as to how the Left has denounced and attempted to undercut each of Gramsci's five cultural factors.

In the post-colonial era, Gramsci's ideas really took off. He probably influenced Edward Said's anti-Orientalism and Herbert Marcuse's New Leftism, among others. Marx had believed that industrial capitalism was the necessary transitional stage between feudalism and communism. Gramsci's teachings stood this traditional Marxism on its head, and enabled the New Left to dispense with bringing communism to Western industrial capitalist societies, and start championing the backward feudal-like societies of the Third World instead.

Today's multiculturalism is simply the latest Left attempt to wage Gramsci's "culture war" against the West. The failure of Gorbachev's attempt at democratic Marxism and its wholesale rejection by Eastern Europe, completely disoriented the hard-core radical Left and pushed them toward the nihilist position that the capitalist West is irremediable and must be destroyed. They no longer care what replaces it--old-style communism, feudal-style hippie communes, giving animals equal rights with humans, even Islamist theocracy--so long as something does.

Posted by: Steven L.

at May 30, 2006 9:26 PM

One gargantuan thorn keeps stabbing at me though -- it's tough crediting the linkage between the anti-globalisation "no borders" crowd who accuse capitalists (and I think they have a point here) of wanting to erase borders (NAFTA, WTO, FTO) to allow the unimpeded global exploitation of workers by global capital... and the right wingers who accuse leftists and anarchists (and I think they have a point here) of wanting to erase borders in order to undermine and ultimately destroy capital and capitalism.

Perhaps it's not inconsistent. Perhaps this too is another dangerous nexus, a peculiar and deadly confluence of different agendas after the same goal.

Now add the mindless black hole of the Muslim Ummah -- another down-with-borders "religion", and you're cooking with gas...

Posted by: jsla

at May 30, 2006 9:49 PM

wallyUK,

You are not entirely correct since the latest figures reveal that 51.7% of the UK workforce work in the public sector. Thatcher's great failure was in failing to bring the burgeoning civil service and public sector workforce under control. Projections for 2007 (Treasury) are that 54.3% of the workforce will be employed by Government either directly or indirectly by the end of fiscal 2007/08.

Obviously this is unsustainable - even more so when one takes into account the fact that some seven percent of the workforce is unemployed and relying on Government money in the form of benefits just to put food on the table. Like it or lump it, what we are seeing in the UK is a Marxist/islamist apologia by the backdoor. Elsewhere on this site I reminded people that the current UK Government is mostly made up from 'former' members of the Communist Party - just Google their names to find this out: it's all there.

Fjordman's analysis is seemingly correct. There appears to be an unholy alliance between the barbarian hordes of islam and the classic left which currently dominates in Europe and the UK. We, as civilised peoples, are doomed unless more of us wake up to threat which we are facing. 'Just say no' applies to far more than the drugs problem!

Dominic.

Posted by: necessitasnonhabetlegem

at May 30, 2006 10:02 PM

Fjordman's essay raises very serious questions about the long-term viability of democracy in its present form. How might these problems be addressed, in principle?

The buying of clients with other people's money (which seems incidentally to be everywhere producing an inexorable expansion in the public sector, which by itself might well be sufficient to cause a breakdown in the democratic system at some point) might be dealt with, to some extent, by requiring tax measures to be ratified by a parliament, or a chamber within a bicameral parliament, where those paying more taxes were given proportionately greater representation.

This would not do away with the possibility of the Left "dissolving the people and electing another" through immigration policies, though from the essay one can see that it should be of some help. As for citizenship, perhaps this is too important to be left in the hands of party politicians. I've heard the Swiss have a system of juries of ordinary citizens who judge applicants for (cantonal) citizenship, an approach which sounds appealing.

Posted by: Mr. Spog

at May 30, 2006 11:22 PM

Excellent article, Fjordman, as always.

But the left will only find themselves betrayed by such alliances. In 2005, Britain's Abu Hamza said: "We say to anyone who hates the Americans and wants to throw the Jews out of Palestine Ahlan wa Sahlan (welcome). The Prophet teaches that we could ally ourselves even with the atheists if it helps us destroy [the] enemy."

And yet he has also compared Britain to a toilet, and has said it is justifiable to kill British subjects.

http://www.westernresistance.com/blog/archives/000016.html

Posted by: Giraldus Cambrensis

at May 30, 2006 11:40 PM

The natural alliance between Moslems and Marxists is based on a shared thirst for fake history.

Mohammed was touching up the reality thing in real-time way back in the 7th century. This is why the Koran has abrogation, and why Ibn Ishaq openly admitting to excising the worst of Mohammed from his biography of him.

Same for Karl Marx when he faked those all-important statistics on income growth to fit his preferred conclusion. Karl didn't have abrogation, he was an outright fraud.

Look at the reportage on Islam and the string of movies and TV shows produced since 9/11. Fake history. So fake, that poor Jodie Foster had to conjure terrorist stewardesses out of deference to Moslems.

Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer

at May 31, 2006 1:13 AM

To the commenter who thought that the Republicans would stave off the kind of colonization in the US that is described in this post I would say that, based on last week's new "amnesty for illegal immigrants" bill, there isn't any real reason to suppose that the Republicans will be much use on this issue. They believe that unlimited immigration is a neccessity for economic reasons, illegal or otherwise. The new bill from the Senate essentially says that illegal is to be made legal. Of course, Latin Americans aren't promoting jihad on religious grounds, but there is a fairly robust "reconquista" movement which claims that the US, or at least certain regions, are to be reclaimed from the Anglospheric United States. And, as in Europe, most of the new immigrants vote for the progressive party.
One difference, however, is that the Republicans can still talk about religious and values-related issues. Strange as it may seem to someone who is sick to death of the mixing of religion and politics in the US, I guess that this is going to be the thing that saves us from the fate of Scandinavia et al.

Posted by: american tory

at May 31, 2006 1:19 AM

Alarmed PF-

Don't forget the infamous "disappearing" Trotskyites and other "traitors to history" (and the Utopian collective ideal) from Stalin-era official photos, as Uncle Joe's endless liquidation of rivals also required that the 'apostates' (to the Marx-Engels-Lenin Trinity) magically vanish from Red Square, etc. still images.

The safest person in Soviet Russia was the photo retoucher. A guaranteed job for life.

First you erase the man, then even his shadow.

Posted by: profitsbeard

at May 31, 2006 1:37 AM

I am sure Karl Marx & Fredrick Ingles are both turning in their graves at how so-called ' communist' and ' socialist' are in allignement with such a brutal and backward religion such as Islam. The so-called Left is selling it's soul for electorial success. In doing so the left is destroying it's self. Which is the point of capitalist democracy anyway, to destroy the working class movement.

Marx saw the elimination of national boundries as a result , not of a world wide socialist/communistic movement but a result of the neccessity of kapitalism. The need and drive to exploit labor for the fruit of kapital would desolve national boundries. Can you say GLOBALISM? Can you see how the boundries of the United States it's self, the most powerful capitalist nation in world history, are now being compromised ..... even desolved by latino laborers?

Idealistic leftest did not bring about these phenomenons, but the natural progression of kapitalism. It is the kapitalist who wanted the cheap ass labor force imported into Europe in the first place. Same story with the US and the Mexicans, for the sake of suppressing wages of the indeginous labor force.

The left has joined in with this suppression of wages as some sort of working class cause! All the while thinking they are oppossing the kapitalist class! In Europe this confussion has translated into a boon for the Muslims as the left there confusses backward Islamic culture for some sort of " social progressiveness " in reality getting themselves elected as a party.

But make no mistake, it is the kapitalist system and the kapitalist class that has brought about this neo-jihad to begin with. The so-called left is tailoring it's ideals and theories to conform to the needs of the kapitalist class all the while deluding themselves into thinking they are some how oppossing the repressive kapitalist class and system. When in reality they are just feeding it what it needs.

Same thing with the left in America regarding immigration/colonization from Mexico. The left is openly supporting the explotation of workers and enabling brutal political structures to thrive in the host countries of the explotied immingrant/illegal working class. When in fact if not allowed to invade America, that restless working class would topple the corrupt political structures in their host countries. So you end up with an American " left " supporting explotation of peasant workers and hindering socialist revolution in Central & South America. The kind of " left " any modern globalisation kapitalist would love.

This is how kapitalism is unfolding in Europe as well with the Muslims packing into it and the predictable leftist/pro-kapitalist embracing of it.

But back to Marx and the hope of all humanity. Religions would desolve ( including Islam ) again not by some idealistic communistic movement but by ( you guessed it ) the natural progression of kapitalism. And by some strange coincident,centuries later, one see where some of the most athiestic populations live in the world today can be found in Europe, the birthplace of kapitalism.

And yes this effect first noticed by Karl Marx is playing out in the land of Islam as well. Withness Iran , where it is estimated that most of the population is athiest. Despite the rule of Mullahs over the last several decades.

We just have to have the balls to take out the Islamic leadership terrorising the population into conforming to Islam to free that population from Islam. If not faced with death and violence they would abandon Islam just as Europe has for the most part abandoned Christianity under the weight of day to day kapitalist life.

-----Nossy

Posted by: Nostrodamus

at May 31, 2006 1:59 AM

So much for the UK's feeble attempts to stop any 5th column. The UK is in major decline - and falling fast!

If there was ever a time to get serious in the UK it is NOW!

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/union-votes-to-boycott-israeli-unis/2006/05/30/1148956344970.html
-------------------------------------------------
Union votes to boycott Israeli unis
Benjamin Joffe-Walt, London
May 31, 2006

BRITAIN'S largest union of lecturers has voted in favour of a boycott of Israeli academics and higher education institutions that do not publicly dissociate themselves from Israel's "apartheid policies".
They narrowly backed the proposal, despite mounting international pressure from those opposed to a boycott, including a petition from more than 5000 academics and a plea from the Israeli Government.

The decision was made at the annual conference of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education. It was greeted with disappointment and anger by anti-boycott campaigners last night, but Palestinian groups issued declarations of support.

Presented on the final day of the Blackpool conference, the motion criticised "Israeli apartheid policies, including construction of the exclusion wall and discriminatory educational practices". It invited members to "consider the appropriateness of a boycott of those that do not publicly dissociate themselves from such policies".

After failed efforts to prevent the debate, speakers outlined the litany of difficulties experienced by Palestinian students and lecturers living under occupation, including the number of schools shelled by the Israeli army.

"The majority of Israeli academics are either complicit or acquiescent in their government's policies in the occupied territories," said Tom Hickey, a philosophy lecturer from the University of Brighton and the proposer of the motion.

"Turning a blind eye to what an Israeli colleague thinks about the actions of their government is a culpable blindness."

Delegate John Morgan, who seconded the motion, said there was no academic freedom for Palestinians. But the union's general secretary, Paul Mackney, spoke against the motion.

"Most of us are very angry about the occupation of Palestine, but this isn't the motion and this isn't the way," he said.

"Any motion to boycott requires the highest level of legitimacy. As far as I can see, no more than a couple of (union) branches have discussed this motion. You cannot build a boycott on conference rhetoric."

Delegate Ronnie Fraser, chairman of Academic Friends of Israel, the primary opponents of the motion on the conference floor, said he was "not happy at all", adding that the vote brought "dishonour and sheer ridicule" on the union.

Last year Britain's Association of University Teachers elected to impose an academic boycott on two Israeli universities. After an international outcry and a revolt by members it reversed the decision.

The boycott resolution will have an official shelf life of less than three days, as the two unions will merge tomorrow, forming the world's largest higher education union with more than 110,000 members. The resolution will be advisory to the new union but proponents say the decision represents a step change in the wider boycott campaign against Israel.

Aharon Ben-Ze'ev, of Haifa University in Israel, was "very disappointed". "I never say to British colleagues, 'If you don't subscribe to my beliefs, I will boycott you,"' he said.

Stephen Rose, of the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine, was delighted, saying: "We recognise that this has not been an easy decision."

He said the vote was "a historic step forward" in "helping persuade our Israeli academic colleagues that it is time to cease silent complicity with the illegal acts of the Israeli state".

But he warned that this was likely to be the start rather than the end of the debate.

GUARDIAN

Posted by: Gramfan

at May 31, 2006 2:02 AM

Nostrodamus is right. There is a peculiar and unprecedented collusion between the boss class who encourage the import of cheap labour which helps drive down local wages and the left who see mass immigration, paticularly of the Muslim variety, as an ideological goal. The "man in the street" has already woken up to this fact a long time ago but, in the absence of any political leadership, this has led to a new and dangerous upsurge of the far right fascist party the BNP in the UK.

Posted by: londongirl

at May 31, 2006 2:31 AM

Karl Marx wrote that multiculturalism as a means of wrecking a country thus making it ripe for revolution. When the Berlin Wall came down, Marxists in Europe gave up their hope of making Europe Communist by a Soviet military takeover, so they looked for other methods, and decided on multiculturalism.

Tragically, last year all the EU countries apart from Austria which dragged her feet were keen on letting Turkey into the EU. When that happens, it'll be the end of Europe.

Posted by: Elephant

at May 31, 2006 3:04 AM

It doesn't take immigration to corrupt democracy, because the entire concept of subjecting invididual rights to herd approval is already premised upon ethical bankruptcy.

It wasn't, after all, new immigrants to Germany who elected the Nazi party in 1933. Or new immigrants to Chile or Venzuela who elected Allende or Chavez.

Closer to home (the US), The Daily Horror Show is happening right out in broad daylight.

Posted by: Mike Schneider

at May 31, 2006 3:39 AM

Sorry, London Girl, I don't think Nostradamus is right. I think he's wandered off and climbed a tree somewhere and is busy looking at its trunk and not at the world around him.

It's hopelessly phillistine (and ill-informed) to imagine that the whole of Western civilization can be reduced to some supposed economic underpinning. The West, if it must be understood in such narrow terms at all, is to be understood in terms of liberal-democracy not something called "Capitalism". In free societies you will, not surprisingly, find that economic activity, may be freely practised. And, at bottom, prices are free to move with supply and demand, rather than being fixed by the state. The result of centrally planned economies is grinding poverty, corruption, the flourishing of a black market, and widepread pollution - as was evident all across the Eastern bloc. Marxist economics failed because of the absurd notion that something can be worth other than what one someone is prepared to pay for it. As Hayek showed this is inevitable, because setting prices "correctly" would be an insoluble problem of knowledge. Price is an indicator, a signalling mechanism.

Of course, some businesses would like cheap labour regardless of the wider social cost. But the same, of course, applies to state-run organizations: the British National Health service recruited nurses abroad for years in order to keep nursing wages down - it still does. But businesses/state-run organizations wouldn't get to do this, if politicians were prepared to apply stricter immigration rules. The buck doesn't stop with something called "Capitalism" (which, as someone once said, is merely a rude term for economic exchange by mutual areeement); it stops with the politicians.

And frankly I think it is obscene to talk of socialists "selling [their] soul" as Nostradamus does. They never had one. Marx's writings are full of images of violence, and predicated on an goal-driven "morality" that must of necessity violate the Kantian axiom to treat people as ends in themselves not means to your ends at every turn. Did the mounds of corpses, the horrors of the gulag, the writings of Solzhenitsyn, Vaclac Havel, and so many others teach us nothing?

Observant writers at the time - Turgenev, Conrad, Dostoevsky - recognized the transformation of human character that ensues, when resentment gains the upper hand. Their portraits of the nihilists, terrorists and revolutionaries who destroyed the old world of Europe are of lasting significance, not least because they show the intricate psychological connection between the ideology of Marxism and the terrorism of the Marxist state.

http://www.omp.org.pl/scruton_tot_ang_ang.php

In my view, this article by Serge Trifkovic gives a better handle on why many Western nations are sleepwalking into the arms of a new form of totalitarianism:

... elite hostility to all forms of solidarity of the majority population based on shared historical memories and common culture; the loss of a sense of place and history; rapid demographic decline, unparalleled in history; rampant Third World immigration; collapse of private and public manners and morals; imposition of "diversity," "multiculturalism," "sensitivity"; and demonization and criminalization of any opposition to any of the above.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=22332

Posted by: Yojimbo

at May 31, 2006 5:39 AM

It seems as if Europe never recovered from the aftershock of Naziism.

Then the tremendous tension, and expense, of containing the Commies. Chruchill was right, Uncle Joe was total monster. How could FDR have been so stupid, what with those megalomaniacal 5-year plans rolling mass murder from Belyorus to the Urals.

No, the European psyche never recovered. It shrank and it sank, and now we witness with disbelief a continental suicide in rolling in slow mo.

Could the upside down politics and hyposcrisies of modern Eurabian politics possibly get more ridiciulous?

The only reason the States and Australia haven't succumbed, yet, is that they enjoy private ownership of the media.

Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer

at May 31, 2006 5:43 AM

I believe a distinction must be made between the traditional, hard line Marxist Left on one side, and Social Democratic parties as well as parties that correspond to the American notion of (cultural, not economic) liberalism on the other. The party that Fjordman calls the Social Liberal Party is actually named the Radical Left in Danish, but their roots are not in Marxism by any standard. In the 1970s when Marxism reigned supreme in academia here, they were in fact seen as decidedly right wing. The political spectrum is different today, and they attract many voters lured by smarmy words of tolerance and humanism. Left, but not Marxist.

All parties in the Danish parliament have the preservation of the welfare state as their highest priority. This includes the Danish People's Party, which cannot be narrowed down into a 'far right' slot. Many of their voters are disaffected Social Democratic voters protesting their old party's lack of stance in the immigration issue. Utopian Marxist ideas play no role here, I think. However, anti-Americanism is still woven into our collective psyche. Add to that vague ideas of 'humanitarian' politics and words with positive connotations such as 'tolerance' and 'dialogue', and you have constructed a platform that boosts your own inherent goodness in contrast with the 'shrill' and 'inhuman' politicians of the DPP. Would these people have borders opened for unlimited immigration? No, they would also have to reject millions of people worthy of asylum. The Christian concern for the suffering they sometimes claim to represent would have to be unlimited, for it to be truly Christian - an impossibility that they never address. IOW they claim goodness relative to others simply by being willing to allow slightly more people into Denmark. Hypocrisy, holier-than-thou-ness, ego boosting at the expense of others? A cheap shot, that is for sure.

I don't believe Marxism plays an explicit role for any of these moderate leftists.

Posted by: anti-uffe

at May 31, 2006 5:53 AM

Marx published at a momentous time. The 1848 revolutions had more "isms" than you could shake a stick at, and the Continent was plunged into upheaval.

When the smoked cleared a half-decade later, people were exhausted and uncertain. The modern industrial state had to somehow be tamed.

Enter Marx, with his tidy little formulas, and thus modern socialism was born. With all his talk of exploitation this and worker's hero that his con job has enjoyed a 150 yr run and, yes, is the ideological bedrock of all Leftism.

Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer

at May 31, 2006 6:14 AM

"I don't believe Marxism plays an explicit role for any of these moderate leftists. "

Excellent post by anti-uffe, but I think you are forgetting something that, in my opinion, is marxist in the thinking of contemporary left in Europe.

They believe that the root cause of every conflict in the world is the unequal distribution of wealth. They cannot see any other reason for groups of people maintaining grievance against one another.

This way the completely underestimate islam and the threat it poses to our civilization.

Of course, contemporary left has largely given up their fantasies about state-ownership of corporations, but they still think that capitalism or "globalization" is fundamentally wrong, because it results to unequal distribution of wealth and therefore conflicts in the world.

Posted by: Saatanan Islam

at May 31, 2006 6:45 AM

Steven L.: Good point about Gramsci. I would add that his influence is probably one reason why the Left is trying to keep American life defined by racial identities as much as possible. It's been the sore spot in American life since Columbus.

Nossy--It's Friederich Engels, not Frederick Ingles.

I will add, however, that I have absolutely no sympathy for Bertholdt Brecht. His _Threepenny Opera_ has the gall to suggest that those involved in rescue missions and the like are all in the pay of greedy capitalist pigs rather than among the most selfless human beings you would ever meet, while Mackie Messer (Mack the Knife) is some sort of admirable Promethean character standing against the evil capitalist system. Brecht shows the Left's sympathy for all that is criminal and degenerate quite starkly. It was perhaps an act of divine justice that he ended up in a vicious little state governed by a criminal gang (the DDR--may its memory perish).

As for the Islamicist-Leftist alliance, it will indeed sooner or later flounder on the Left's love of the sexual revolution and its committment to the atomization of society.

Posted by: Kepha

at May 31, 2006 6:49 AM

All people who respect others have "an equal right to live wherever they want to," according to Hanne Andersen of Denmark. But if Andersen sincerely believes that, then does he accept the right of Jews to live in Judea, Samaria and Gaza? Or is this just another liberal, ostensibly universalist principle that only works in favor of Muslims and not Jews? Did Andersen support driving Jews out of their homes in Gaza last year? Was it progress or regress? How did Danish socialists treat Jewish refugees wishing to escape Nazi Germany in the 1930s? Indeed, did Arabs ever accept that principle, except on condition that non-Muslim immigrants to Arab-controlled lands --even Jewish immigrants to Israel-- agree to the dhimmi status? Do the Arabs accept that principle today? Does the PLO or the palestinian authority or hamas accept Andersen's principle as applied to Jews? Or do they now claim a "nativist" primacy for themselves throughout the Land of Israel? Is Andersen aware that Arabs in Israel during the British mandate campaigned for an end to Jewish immigration to the country and that the British government [Neville Chamberlain prime minister in 1939] agreed to the Arab demands [in the 1939 White Paper for Palestine]? Shouldn't he make granting this universalist right to Arabs, in particular, contingent on their agreeing to equal rights for Jews?

Posted by: Eliyahu

at May 31, 2006 7:24 AM

I agree with Nostrodamus and others that the alliance with Islam is not strictly "leftist," if anybody knows what "leftism" means anymore. In France, the upper crusty Giscard d'Estaing was instrumental in bringing in masses of Muslim immigrants. In UK, as someone pointed out, Abu Hamza came there under the Thatcher govt.

But the so-called "leftists" of today are more dangerous than the conservatives, since the "left" is so immensely ignorant about history, as the article about the lecturers union tells us. The UK lecturers are a herd of ignoramuses waving their "consciences" that are based on lies. The Arabs do not have a right to define themselves as natives of Israel for instance, nor does Israel "occupy" Judea-Samaria, which were part of the Jewish National Home recognized by the San Remo Conference [1920], endorsed by the League of Nations [1922], and confirmed by the UN charter in article 80 at the end of WW2. The 1947 UN General Assembly Partition Resolution was merely a recommendation as are all General Assembly resolutions on political matters, according to the Charter [see Arts. 10-12]. Israel had an armistice line with Jordan between 1949 and 1967, there was NO border, which fact Jordan took pains to point out in UN debate before the Six Day War of 1967. The gross ignorance of the UK lecturers is indeed offensive to what one would like to think about university lecturers. Alas. They don't have the right to hide behind ignorance or being "well-meaning" or "well-intentioned." As scholars [supposedly], it is their duty to investigate and find the truth, disregarding tendentious and partisan claims about history.

I believe that Leftist support for Muslims against the rights of others goes back at least to late 1917 when the Bolsheviks issued an Appeal to the Muslim Toilers of Russia and the East [see link:
http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2005/10/bolsheviks-for-jihad-genocide-stalins.html]

But around the same time, Toynbee at the Royal Inst of Int'l Affairs was taking and advocating a similar pro-Arab, pro-Muslim position. So here we have a Communist-imperialist convergence in favor of Islam and against the rights of non-Muslims as far back as the 1920s, if not before.

Posted by: Eliyahu

at May 31, 2006 7:49 AM

Eliyahu, I think you wrongly assume that Hanne Andersen (a she, although I have no idea who this nincompoop is) has more active brain cells and a willingness to use them than is clearly the case. She just waffles this goody-good-new-age fluff because it sounds so positive and constructive, and, by implication, makes *her* appear 'good'. This is very likely the whole point. Her grandchildren will learn that she was wrong.

Posted by: anti-uffe

at May 31, 2006 7:59 AM

jsla,

I hear 'ya when it comes to Lennon's "Imagine". I too am recovering from being a clueless Liberal and I used to think it was a great song. Now, I think it proves what a phony baloney he was.

Remember the "imagine no possesions" line? Well, he clearly couldn't imagine no possesions because when he was tragically murdered, he was living in one of the swankiest, most expensive places in NYC, The Dakota. Like so many on the Left, he enjoyed his possesions while lecturing others on the evils of possesions.

Posted by: Proud Infidel

at May 31, 2006 8:18 AM

In John's defense, he did admit so much in the song's very title. Not stating that he was morally above the rest of us, or a manifesto for social change, just words to ponder and reflect upon. Surely it makes it more timeless than, er, Power To The People, which dates from a later period when he was flirting with, cringe, revolutionary socialism (wearing Japanese militants' hard hats together with Yokes on the sleeve).

Lennon sure was best when he was being whimsical (Walrus) or reflecting on relationships. Imagine could have been a killer Beatles tune, which is more than you can say about most of his solo product, IMHO.

Posted by: anti-uffe

at May 31, 2006 8:36 AM

Fjordman, what an excellent and spine-chilling analysis! Hannibal not ante portas any more, but inside! I wonder if we, Poles, manage to stop the fourth jihad like we did in 1683. We used to call ourselves "the Eastern Wall (Bulwark?) of Christianity". Will we become the "Western one" soon? Not so sure any more:

http://www.warsawvoice.pl/view/9920

"A Check for Janikowo
23 November 2005

The King of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, has presented $300,000 to the small town of Janikowo in Kujawy-Pomerania province. The money will be earmarked for the construction of the Center for the Promotion of Dialogue, Cultural Cooperation and Education. Janikowo authorities expect the center to facilitate broader cooperation. Janikowo, with 9,000 residents and located near Inowrocław, is the home of the once-conjoined sisters Daria and Olga Kołacz, who at the beginning of the year were separated in a clinic in Riyadh during an operation funded by then crown prince and current Saudi king. Janikowo's mayor told journalists that the idea behind the center is to give young people and adults a chance to learn about various cultures, nations and religions as well as languages. The center will be housed in a former school building. Renovation and modernization work will start in the near future. The institution will open September 2006. The center will house facilities for teaching foreign languages, including Arabic, and an audio-video room furnished with state-of-the-art equipment.

According to the Saudi party, the center will contribute to enhancing the image of Islam on the international stage."

Apart from the spectacular victory at Vienna, we have had our sombre moments in history too:

The king of Poland and Hungary Wladyslaw III of Varna, lost his young life in 1444:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C5%82adys%C5%82aw_III_of_Varna

"The "bulwark of Christianity" (...) persuaded Władysław to engage in a two-year war against the Ottoman Empire. He also accepted the argument that the ten-year truce signed in 1443 in Szeged was not valid since the infidel Turks could not be trusted to keep their word. Despite their significant military advantages, Władysław failed to recognise the serious threat which the Turkish empire posed to Europe as a whole. Therefore, when the Battle of Varna began on 10 November 1444, the Polish king did not sense that this would be his final fight. He was killed during the charge on the ranks of the janissaries, who were protecting their sultan."
Apparently the Turkish sultan kept his head as a trophy in a pot of honey for many years.

Posted by: Polish infideless

at May 31, 2006 9:03 AM

if anybody knows what "leftism" means anymore.

Yes, gallons of blood, as anyone not determined to ignore the last 90-odd years of history knows.

In fact, as more information coming out of China now shows, more than we ever imagined.

Posted by: Yojimbo

at May 31, 2006 10:41 AM

The Saudis separated a pair of Polish twins? Bizarre.

Posted by: Television

at May 31, 2006 10:57 AM

Televison, yes, Saudis are on the case - it is called daw'a. Funny enough they are no so eager to help their own co-religionists. No need any more.

Posted by: Polish infideless

at May 31, 2006 11:27 AM

Eliyahu, not everyone has a right to live everywhere. Saying this ist nothing else than stupidity and transferred to reality it would lead to an empty Arab world. It is a typical example for: "perfectness is the most evil enemy of the good". But everyone has the right to live in his country and so Jews have the right to live in Gaza, Judea and Samaria as a matter of course.

You can regard it from both sides - the historical point of view with regard to the Bible: it ist Jewish land. And this ist not only Biblical but also noted in Quran. The modern non-religious point of view leads to the very same result. It is Israeli land, promised to the Jews by the Balfour-declaration and in addition militarily conquered in a defense war. There can be no doubt for any logically and honestly thinking person.

Concerning the leftists and the Muslim world - and in addition to Fjordman's great analysis - I found an article by Daniel Pipes - from 2003 indeed but still up-to-date.

Posted by: Eisvogel

at May 31, 2006 11:31 AM

uups... I forgot the link. Sorry. Here it is:
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/1040

Posted by: Eisvogel

at May 31, 2006 11:33 AM

jsla writes: "One gargantuan thorn keeps stabbing at me though -- it's tough crediting the linkage between the anti-globalisation 'no borders' [anti-capitalist Left] crowd....and the right wingers who accuse leftists and anarchists (and I think they have a point here) of wanting to erase borders in order to undermine and ultimately destroy capital and capitalism."

There really is no contradiction here, if you accept the fact that both political movements are working to double standards, as is common in politics.

As I pointed out in my earlier post on the philosophy of Antonio Gramsci, the goal of the Left is to weaken, dilute, and undercut the integrity and sovereignty of Western culture, not the integrity and sovereignty of non-Western culture. They attack economic globalization because they see it as undercutting and weakening the feudal economies and especially the cultures of the Third World. They have actually stated that women of the Third World working at their "traditional" jobs in rice paddies and hand looms is superior to a multinational telecom company hiring and training those women to do customer support, even though those women will be wealthier in pure dollar terms, because modernity is ruining their "folk culture." Among Leftists, Naomi Klein is an exponent of this view.

But the Left is only to happy to see those aspects of globalization that can weaken, dilute and undercut the culture of the West. That is why they support unrestricted immigration.

Of course, the Right has the opposite view. Pat Buchanan has spoken out forcefully against both unrestricted immigration and other aspects of globalization that can allegedly take away jobs from U.S. workers, as well as weaken our culture. In a sense, Pat Buchanan is the anti-Gramsci. He agrees with Gramsci about the need to fight a "culture war"-- but he wants the U.S. to win it, not lose it.

To see this, all you need to do is notice in what contexts each side employs the word "sovereignty." To the Right, it's U.S. sovereignty that's most important. To the Left, they constantly defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Castro's Cuba, Saddam's Iraq, the current regime in Iran, the Communist regime in North Korea, etc.

Posted by: Steven L.

at May 31, 2006 12:17 PM

Mr. Spog writes: "Fjordman's essay raises very serious questions about the long-term viability of democracy in its present form. How might these problems be addressed, in principle? The buying of clients with other people's money (which seems incidentally to be everywhere producing an inexorable expansion in the public sector, which by itself might well be sufficient to cause a breakdown in the democratic system at some point)"

Mr. Spog, the laws of economics can't be legislated out of existence, no matter how hard politicians try to do that. The ever-increasing burdens placed on a shrinking private sector by an ever-increasing public sector and and ever-increasing welfare class, must necessarily lead to stagflation. Eventually, the economy begins to contract at an unacceptable rate despite any and all attempts by the government and central bank to prop it up by inflation. This leads to massive discontent, political unrest, and even political violence. That is exactly what happened here in America in the 1970's. We reached a tipping point in which the U.S. economy was in a shambles, with simultaneous high unemployment and accelerating inflation.

At that point the country has two choices. It can either adopt radical economic reforms, reversing the welfare statism and socialism; or it must adopt draconian political controls (rationing, censorship, etc.) to force the citizenry to accept their reduced quality of life.

Here in the U.S., we had the good sense to choose the former course. Federal Reserve Bank chairmen Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan, and President Ronald Reagan, set the U.S. on a new economic course (to the fury of Leftists worldwide). Our public sector is still huge, but we have enjoyed a flourishing of the private sector, particularly in high technology, that has outweighed it.

France and Germany are stagnating now, about where the U.S. was in the 1970's. We've already seen riots breaking out in France, where unemployment is pushing 10%. Eventually they will either have to find a Ronald Reagan or even Teddy Roosevelt style reformer, or they will end up having to adopt stricter political controls and end up like Chavez's Venezuela.

Posted by: Steven L.

at May 31, 2006 12:33 PM

DavidE writes: "What is a disgrace is how parties that have been so stridently in favor of gender equality are willing to ally with a group that things a woman should be covered with veils. This point needs to be made. Isn't a politician who supports both Muslim objectives and women's rights a complete and total phony? Either they support women's rights or they don't. Let's make that clear."

Feminists like Phyllis Chesler and the lesbian feminist Tammy Bruce have argued very eloquently that modern feminists have turned their back on Islamist oppression of women. And they have also explained how this happened, based on their own experiences in the women's rights movement over the last 20 years. In America, feminists eventually formed political coalitions with economic leftists, multiculturalists, peaceniks and civil libertarians. Whenever you form a coalition with others who have other agendas, you have to compromise and reach a consensus on things you agree on and soft-pedal things you don't. But being political naifs, feminists gave up too much and got little in return.

The one sop that feminists got from these other groups was support for the one thing they cared about most--unrestricted abortion. But in return, feminists gave up a lot. Feminists used to speak out against oppression of women, especially forced genital mutilation and arranged marriages, in the Third World. But their new multiculturalist allies told them to soft-pedal it. Feminists may have been the first to notice the oppression of women by the Taliban in Afghanistan. But after Bush declared war on the Taliban after 9-11, the feminists' peacenik allies told them not to give Bush any more political ammunition. And so the new mantra among feminists is "Peace is a Feminist Issue." Feminists used to denounce pornography as degrading to women and tried to seek ways to restrict or even ban it. But their new ally, the ACLU, said no.

Posted by: Steven L.

at May 31, 2006 12:50 PM

To StillBreathing:

To see how brilliant Sina can be, check out this symposium debate in which Robert Spencer and Ali Sina teamed up together against two Muslim debaters. You are judging Sina too hastily.

Both Fjordman (above on this thread) and Robert Spencer (in many places) disagree with your rejection of the genius of Ali Sina. Furthermore, Sina's website gets hundreds of thousands of visitors a month (as shown by internet statistics site Alexa.com), so Sina is having a large impact. Untold numbers of Muslims have become apostates because of Ali Sina, because he opens their minds. There is room for more than one approach to defeating the dark side of Islam.

Posted by: traeh

at May 31, 2006 12:55 PM

One of the particular causes underlying the Left's support for, and blindness to, Islamofascism stems directly from the Left's besetting sin, arrogance. The particular manifestion of ego implicated here is projection- the smug assumption that another thinks and feels the way one does oneself.

The America-bashing, West-hating Left is making the fundamental projection-fallacy of assuming that the Jihadists hate the West for the same reasons the Left hates the west. And since Bin Laden and his ilk are nothing if not skilled propagandists, they play to this delusion by constantly referencing codewords like "imperialism," "economic exploitation," and of course "racism" and "intolerance." The Muslim's centuries old pathology of victimhood stands them in good stead playing to western victimization pimps!

The rest is taken care of by denial- surely anyone so upright and correct as to hate George Bush can't be evil! Therefore Islamophobic slanders like world conquest, international sharia, and wiping Israel off the map can't be true: no more true than the silly threats and promises in Mein Kampf, and we all know Hitler didn't mean it, right?

Posted by: Godefroi de Boulogne

at May 31, 2006 2:22 PM