Robert,

I can think of a few books that should be in that card catalogue, can't you?

Posted by: CapitalistGig at September 5, 2007 9:26 PM

Tower Hamlets... that's where my great-grandparents were from. My, how the old neighbourhood has changed.

Posted by: Josephine at September 5, 2007 9:54 PM

Public libraries are mandated to buy books that the public has expressed an interest in reading. Railing against the numbers of pro-Jihad books in public libraries doesn't accomplish anything; it just smacks of a call for censorship. For one thing, the public NEEDS to be able to read these books, to know what they are up against. They SHOULD be widely available and free for all to read. If libraries aren't buying enough works by anti-Jihad scholars like Robert Spencer, it's because not enough members of the public have pressured them to do so. It is up to the taxpayers who want their libraries to offer a more balanced selection of viewpoints to communicate with public libraries. Censorship is never the answer. That's what the jihadists want. BTW, in the public libary in my own small Canadian city I have found works by Robert Spencer, Oriana Fallaci, Bruce Bawer, Mark Steyn, Nonie Darwish, Irshad Manji, Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz, Alan Dershowitz, Paul Berman, David Matas, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and many, many more anti-Jihad authors, works which have been pivotal in opening my eyes to the reality of the Islamist threat around the world. So at least one public library is doing its job.

Posted by: angloirishslav at September 5, 2007 9:58 PM

"Its main author Douglas Murray told BBC2 Newsnight: 'This is a collection that is warped towards one particular extreme interpretation of Islam.'"
-- from the article above

Not ideally put. Misleadingly put.

Posted by: Hugh at September 5, 2007 10:09 PM

Wow. And I'll be in London for an entire year starting from the end of this month. It's scary.

Posted by: RoobartSbansar at September 5, 2007 10:13 PM

deface those books. this is our duty. i have done this before with black power material i found in a south east london library. the author openly stated that peace would only come through the literal genocide of "the white man". i stole all the books and destroyed them.

it was plumstead library to be exact.

talking of which, the only "religious" center signposted in plumstead was for the local mosque and not for the numerous churches in the area.

Posted by: leonthepigfarmer at September 5, 2007 10:42 PM

Well as the pro jihad books fill the shelves,we have all the anti jihad books being banned, or not allowed to be sold.

http://www.serbianna.com/blogs/michaletos/?p=200

Posted by: The fanatic at September 5, 2007 11:03 PM

you know you can donate books to the public libraryif you want now most librarians I have met and the left-wing liberalsso this might be the only way to get looks like a Roberts into the library

Posted by: mowasaperv at September 5, 2007 11:35 PM

"Wow. And I'll be in London for an entire year starting from the end of this month. It's scary."

Posted by: RoobartSbansar at September 5, 2007 10:13 PM

Hmmm, that is a curious statement...familiar. Yes GBA, I have been paying attention.

Regards,

awake

Posted by: awake at September 5, 2007 11:41 PM

I am someone who thinks that those books should be in the library, at least in English translations. One does need to know the enemy. In this case it is scary because one assume most of the readers aren't trying to know the enemy but to take counsel from a friend.

Posted by: Jerry M at September 5, 2007 11:57 PM

Zino's book What a Muslim Should Believe offers advice in the form of hypothetical questions.
"Is it allowed to support and love disbelievers?" he asks. The answer is simply "no".

Islam's Socrates!

Posted by: alexon at September 6, 2007 12:14 AM

The Qur'an's "no friendship except for purposes of secret self-defense" verses are extremely disturbing. These verses are guaranteed to stoke and maintain a current of distrust between Muslims and other groups. Why does Muhammad set up distrust as a permanent, metaphysical feature of the relations between Muslims and non-Muslims? Isn't the answer that an impermeable wall of distrust is one of the typical means of social domination and control used by cult groups? The four anti-friendship verses Spencer quoted (I quote them just below) mean that a non-Muslim has to know a Muslim extremely well to trust him fully. And maybe not even then can the situation be a relation of trust. We've heard the news story a year or so ago where a Muslim caught sudden jihad syndrome and murdered a close friend who was not Muslim. The Muslim had started reading the Qur'an and becoming more religious, and came quickly to feel that it was his Islamic duty to kill his "friend."

One can understand why non-Muslims and peaceful Muslims are in denial about the situation with these four verses and other disturbing verses in the Qur'an, not to mention about statements in the Hadith: many Islamic doctrines are difficult to face, more so every passing day as the global conflict seems to intensify and one feels what huge future tragedies are almost certainly to be visited on the world through the concretization of the Qur'an's verses of enmity, hate, and violence.

"Yea, to those who take for friends unbelievers rather than believers: is it honour they seek among them? Nay, all honour is with Allah." (Qur'an 4:139)

"O ye who believe! Take not for friends unbelievers rather than believers: Do ye wish to offer Allah an open proof against yourselves?" (Qur'an 4:144)

"O ye who believe! take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily Allah guideth not a people unjust." (Qur'an 5:51)

"Let not the believers take for friends or helpers unbelievers rather than believers: if any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah: except by way of precaution, that ye may Guard yourselves from them. But Allah cautions you (To remember) Himself; for the final goal is to Allah." (Qur'an 3:28)

Posted by: traeh at September 6, 2007 12:53 AM

deface those books. this is our duty. i have done this before with black power material i found in a south east london library. the author openly stated that peace would only come through the literal genocide of "the white man". i stole all the books and destroyed them.

Leonthepigfarmer

Leon, I'm glad to see that I'm not the only person who does nasty things to library books, at least library books that have no business in our libraries. A few years ago, CAIR had a big campaign to provide books about islam to schools and public libraries. It never occurred to me to deface them, stupid me; I checked them out, tossed them in a dumpster, and waited for the late notices. I paid for every book I threw away and they have not been replaced. It was worth the money.

If I thought I could get away with stealing islamic propaganda screeds and jihad manuals, I would sure do it but I think they have some sort of electronic devices, or bar codes, or something, that makes an alarm at the door go off if the book isn't taken to the desk and properly checked out. I'm too chicken to find out.

Posted by: Susanp at September 6, 2007 12:53 AM

"We've heard the news story a year or so ago where a Muslim caught sudden jihad syndrome and murdered a close friend who was not Muslim. The Muslim had started reading the Qur'an and becoming more religious, and came quickly to feel that it was his Islamic duty to kill his 'friend.'"
-- from a posting above

You are thinking of the murder of the Sellouk boy in Houston by his "close friend," a Saudi:

"A Saudi Arabian national in Houston pled guilty to slashing a Jewish friend's throat after undergoing a religious revival. Mohammed Ali Alayed, 23, faces up to 60 years in jail after the Aug. 6 attack on Ariel Sellouk, 23, the Houston Chronicle reported Monday. Houston police did not find a religious motive for the slaying."

"after undergoing a religious revival" -- just as the whole Muslim world, now that it has the OPEC trillions, and the millions of Muslims deep behind enemy lines, and the approriaton and exploitation of Western technology made possible by a small part of those oil-generated trillions, can afford, can dare, is able to undergo that same "religious revival" -- i.e., bring the concept of Jihad, which never disappeared but only fell into desuetude, as a military matter, because the Arabs and Muslims were so weak, is back, permanently, and with a vengeance. Muslims can be contained, but Jihad will never disappear as a concept. It is Islam itself that provides it, that nurtures it, that insists upon it as a central duty of all Muslims.

Posted by: Hugh at September 6, 2007 1:06 AM

A library is a library is a library. End of story.

What do you want to do? Burn the books that you disagree with? Limit the contents of your local libraries just in case some books might offend you or inflame the passions of those who read? Deny the right to knowledge - no matter how dangerous or offensive it is, or isn't, to you - because you are right and everyone else is wrong?

Everywhere where freedom has been challenged some people have burnt books, closed libraries and imposed censorship.

That's what Muslims do; it isn't what we do.

Go on, jettison the baby with the bath-water and then later on try to explain to the next generation just what it was that we were fighting for!

Don't, for God's sake, let the Islamists dictate your agenda. Freedom is absolute - even the freedom to hate and repudiate freedom, and that's what we are fighting for, and that's what makes us better than them.

If you can't see that then we had all better give up the fight.

A library, any library, holds all opinions and all viewpoints. Education teaches you what to make of that resource - but the resource has to be complete. How can you know what you are for if you don't, or can't, know what you are against?

That libraries hold Jihadist texts - 'quelle surprise!'. That some people are so undereducated as to fall for the contents of those texts - 'quelle surprise!'.

We live in a new age - an age of resurgent, fundamentalist Islam - but the answer to this new age should not be increased tyranny or censorship or book burning or lambasting of librarians for doing their jobs or denying access to original texts. It should, of course, be increased education and propaganda on behalf of freedom and liberty and a staunch upholding of the absolutes of those two great concepts.

Posted by: OliverPCamford at September 6, 2007 1:37 AM

angloirishslav said

Railing against the numbers of pro-Jihad books in public libraries doesn't accomplish anything; it just smacks of a call for censorship.

But it is censorship when the pro-jihad books are purchased by the library, and anti-jihad books like Roberts, Warraq's, Hirsi Ali's, etc. are banned.

Jerry M said

One does need to know the enemy.

Yes, but knowing the enemy includes allowing criticism of the enemy. Just allowing the viewpoint of the enemy to be spread while banning all rebuttals will not inform us about the enemy.

Posted by: special_guest at September 6, 2007 1:42 AM

Well at least you have books in your UK libraries. My local library is expanding with a multi million dollar program into giant computer rooms, movies (I do watch them I'll admit) and racks of Spanish language photo-novellas, whole sections of anime and outright comic books, etc etc.

Libraries get donated material from cults, kooks and fanatics that end up in the annual sales or thrown away or else half the valuable shelf space would be taken up with Dianetics and vanity press novels, etc etc. Yes the library draws lines. They must.

Posted by: poetcomic1 at September 6, 2007 1:48 AM

Hugh -

People die for freedom. That is as it has always been. I weep for the dead boy but I cry also for the attacks by our own upon our hard-won freedoms simply because some idiot Muslim chose to act upon some badly, or correctly, interpreted ancient text held by his or her local library.

People kill people - that is the basis of our law. Books don't. If one person or another justifies his or her action on the basis of what he or she read in an ancient text found in his or her library then who is to blame? The library? The librarian?

No!

The person whose education was so lacking, whose mind was so weak, whose morals were already so corrupted that he or she was ready to interpret texts found in his or her library in such a way as to justify, at least in their own minds, the murder of another human being are already failed humans and they are to blame for their own actions. People are responsible for their own actions - that is a fundamental precept and no amount of weaseling around the issue can make it any better nor justify a weak argument about censorship and restriction of access to texts.

Books don't kill - people do! Pace NRA.

Posted by: OliverPCamford at September 6, 2007 1:49 AM

OliverPCamford said

The person whose education was so lacking...

Lack of education does not cause jihad activity. We've seen it is the most educated, the most wealthy Muslims who are involved in jihad.

...that he or she was ready to interpret texts found in his or her library in such a way as to justify, at least in their own minds, the murder of another human being

It is not a "misinterpretation" of Islamic texts that justifies murder. It is mainstream interpretation, by leading Muslim scholars. How would you interpret the following quotes from the Qur'an in a way that does not justify murder:

Qur’an 2:191 And kill them wherever you find and catch them. Drive them out from where they have turned you out; for Al-Fitnah (polytheism, disbelief, oppression) is worse than slaughter.

Qur’an 4:89 They wish that you would reject Faith, as they have, and thus be on the same footing: Do not be friends with them until they leave their homes in Allah’s Cause. But if they turn back from Islam, becoming renegades, seize them and kill them wherever you find them.

Qur’an 4:91 You will find others who, while wishing to live in peace and being safe from you to gain the confidence of their people; thrown back to mischief headlong; therefore if they do not withdraw from you, and offer you peace besides restraining their hands, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them; and against these We have given you a clear sanction and authority.

Qur’an 8:12 Your Lord inspired the angels with the message: I will terrorize the unbelievers. Therefore smite them on their necks and every joint and incapacitate them. Strike off their heads and cut off each of their fingers and toes.

Qur’an 9:5 When the sacred forbidden months for fighting are past, fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, torture them, and lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.

I am for a full and open discussion of Islam's beliefs, not censorship. We're not allowed to have that discussion today. I'm approximately one bazillion times more interested in making sure that the anti-jihad message is allowed to be articulated than that the pro-jihad message is spread across our countries. That's the censorship I'm concerned about. But feel free to spend your time making sure the pro-jihad message is spread, if that's what floats your boat. Just don't be too surprised if JW/DW readers don't share your interests.

Posted by: special_guest at September 6, 2007 2:29 AM

I've killed my Jew!

http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/353

Posted by: Kemaste at September 6, 2007 3:28 AM

traeh -- Well said.

Posted by: Josephine at September 6, 2007 6:32 AM

Perhaps it may be worth contacting the M.P. to complain?...

Idea Store Whitechapel - the borough's flagship library, learning and information service - opened on Thursday, 22nd September 2005. The store offers the fullest range of services:

More books, CDs and DVDs - over 17,000 new items as well as stock from the existing libraries

An extensive range of newspapers and magazines

A dedicated reference and information library

A children's library

A cafe

Free internet access

A range of state-of-the-art learning spaces and classrooms

A creche for the children of learners

Specialist spaces for teaching dance and complementary therapies

Tower Hamlets Council is delighted that, by working in partnership with Whitechapel Art Gallery, the people of Whitechapel not only have a new high-quality library and learning facility, but will also continue to enjoy the old Whitechapel library building through Whitechapel Art Gallery's exciting new scheme for expansion.

321 Whitechapel Road
London E1 1BU

http://www.ideastore.co.uk/index/PID/52

To find the M.P. for the area, Post code search: E1 1BU

http://www.upmystreet.com/commons/l/

He's sure to want to sort it out!?

... oh hang on,maybe not.

Posted by: kasper1062 at September 6, 2007 6:45 AM

One third of the population of Tower hamlets are of Bangladehi origin: some 60,000 of them. Half of these are under 20 and many local schools have almost exclusively Bengali rolls. Just up the road from the Whitechapel library is an architectuaral excrescence, the Whitechapel mosque - paid for by Saudi money, that has been busily Wahhabising the local Bengalis for nearly three decades. Bengalis were always looked upon ( at least by Pakistanis, and their own local Jamat-Islami) as not quite proper Muslims, with a culture tainted by Hindu influences. Saudi money and the internet are no doubt well on the way to solving that problem by now.
Immediately opposite the rear entrance of the mosque there was, in the early 90s, a seedy basement flat whose windows were plastered from the inside with al Muhajiroun posters. I assumed this was the base from which members of that group used to set out when they fly posted Whitechapel High Street with notices in Bengali carrying such messages as 'do you know that your daughters are being given sex education lessons at the kaffir schools that are teaching them to be promiscuous?'They use to have a stall pushing their booklets in the Whitechapel street market at weekends.

Posted by: wallyUK at September 6, 2007 9:57 AM

It seems some people posting on this thread have a somewhat incorrect understanding of just what censorship is. Censorship is the direct prohibition of any type of media. A form of censorship is the banning of books. For example, the novel "All Quiet on the Western Front" was banned in Germany under the nazis. These books were burned publicly and it was illegal to sell a copy. This was censorship in its purest form. Libraries refusing to shelve a particular book is NOT censorship because one can still go to a local bookstore and buy it. I do find it somewhat offensive that objectionable books are purchased with my tax money, but that is what living in a free society is all about. I get more upset however if I find that the libraries are not balancing out their collections with differing viewpoints. When I find that this is the case, I don't deface a book. People tend to get excited about things like that and before you know it, the news media start saying things like "hate crime" and such. I just place the book in an obscure shelf where nobody will think to look. Last time I checked, the copy of the Koran that I placed next to "Backyard Pig Raising" was still there.

Posted by: never_submit at September 6, 2007 10:38 AM

*************************************************
********
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*************

CAIR REP RESPONDS!

Hey AFFAD is talking about "Irritating Spencer"! hahahha why dont we all go and comment on his website abit!

http://affadshaikh.blogspot.com/2007/09/irritating-spencer.html

****************************
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Posted by: THE ALLIES SHALL WIN at September 6, 2007 3:04 PM

Libraries should be free to have any books they like on their shelves, that's the meaning of freedom. But it's not freedom if only one sort of viewpoint is allowed, for fear of "offending" the backward peasants.
These are the same left wing libraries who have been busy pulping Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie, and Noddy, since the seventies.
Attempt to get them to make a book of "offensive" cartoons available, or anything that criticises the joys of backward cultures, and see how far you get, not far, I reckon?
Even if the library attempted to allow such material, the Muslim's favourite pastime of standing in the street screaming and shouting and intimidating everyone would soon have our craven pathetic officials doing a U turn.
Such is progress.

Posted by: Ian at September 6, 2007 4:21 PM

What's with this idiot talk about destroying books? Foolish peoples destroy books because they are afraid of the ideas contained in them. Rational peoples challenge those ideas and defeat them.

If you destroy books, you line up alongside the Nazis, the Communists, and the Islamists. Leave these books as they are. In fact, tell more people about them. Let them check them out, and read them, and marvel at how their tax money is being used.

Let people who may have only seen Abu Hamza's face on the TV news read exactly what he stands for. Let Qutb's Milestones become as famous as Mein Kampf (and if more people had read that back in the day, then we might have spared ourselves the disaster of WWII.)

Let non-Muslims get the message straight from the horses' mouths. Let people see that the jihad ideology exposed on anti-jihad websites, or in the writings of Robert Spencer or Melanie Phillips, isn't - as it is often claimed by their opponents - a twisted misinterpretation of Islam, or the alarmist ravings of "right-wing" commentators with books to sell, but a real living entity that is being used to fuel terror and violence around the globe.

By all means write to Tower Hamlets council to demand that literary counterweights from the above writers and others be included in its collection. Enlist sympathetic allies to join you (but no crayonned letters from neo-Nazis - you need to maintain credibility).

The last thing we should do is compromise our freedom of speech because we don't like the message. That is just what the Islamists want. Instead we need to take the message, and use it against the very people that it is aimed at.

Posted by: Matamoros at September 6, 2007 8:09 PM

According to Richard Littlejohn, they've also got "Women Who Deserve To Go To Hell", published by Hizb ut-Tahrir.

http://tinyurl.com/33bba8

..."At a time when the Government is supposed to be 'reaching out' to young Muslims to prevent them becoming radicalised, local councils are spending taxpayers' money putting into public libraries books by convicted terrorists which advocate death, destruction and holy war and preach violence against women and 'kafirs'..."

Posted by: Josephine at September 6, 2007 10:09 PM

Josephine:
According to Richard Littlejohn, they've also got "Women Who Deserve To Go To Hell"

I bet Paris Hilton is in there. Josephine, that reminds me of that thread on here a couple of weeks back - remember those religious weirdos posting comments about "immoral" Western women on the "Highway to Hell"? Scary.

By the way, your great-grandparents would definitely NOT recognise Tower Hamlets these days. I hardly recognise it myself whenever I'm reluctantly required to go there.

At the last census (2001) Muslim children made up 60% of its under-5s, so you can picture the borough's make-up in 20 years' time.

Posted by: Matamoros at September 6, 2007 11:19 PM

The last thing we should do is compromise our freedom of speech because we don't like the message. That is just what the Islamists want. Instead we need to take the message, and use it against the very people that it is aimed at.

Posted by: Matamoros at September 6, 2007 8:09 PM

Sorry, but I disagree with you. The books I threw away were children's books, propaganda aimed at the most vulnerable and malleable minds. They are focusing on our children because just like the Marxist progressives that dominate the Democrat Party in America, led by Queen Hillary, they understand how important children's minds are to their agenda. That's playing very dirty where I come from. Kids are already being indoctrinated in our miserable public schools and I know that to be an indisputable fact because I taught in them for years.

I am opposed to censorship but where do you draw the line? Do you allow rabid jihadists to run wild in the streets after being inculcated with anti-American hate in the mosques, their minds poisoned by the rhetoric of maniacal imams and the supremacist, militant reading material contributed by Saudi Arabia? Do you sit back and do nothing, like Great Britain did for decades, while a thriving fifth column of savage jihadists and terrorists plot your destruction? They aren't interested in how we might feel about their agenda---we're filthy infidels, remember?

Listen, these bastards don't have to come to our countries in the first place. There are certain requisites for all immigrants and the first damned one is loyalty to their adopted country!
Radicalized muslims usually become that way after years of exposure to the jihad ideology; sermons in mosques, videos and recordings of radical clerics, websites, books, pamphlets, and group associations. Would you be ok with muslim vendors setting up shop on street corners and hawking their wares encouraging muslims to attack and conquer the evil infidels in their own country?! The way I see it, it's much easier to prevent problems than to try to solve them later. Look at the mess we're in right now as a result of our suicidal immigration policies.

I think we're in deep enough sh*t, with God knows how many islamic terror cells already here. Why in the world should we allow radical (is there any other kind) muslims to incite sedition, terrorism, and jihad with incendiary books, tapes, videos, etc.? If stopping that is censorship, I'm all for it because it is the path to insurrection and self-destruction.

For a glimpse at the horrors of brainwashing children, take a look at the pathetic little waifs in Palestine, taught to hate and become martyrs, killers, by the age of ten or younger. Look at Saudi ARabia and how its school curricula shapes the attitudes and ethos of its young people, many of them eager to become jihadists and kill Americans in Iraq. If I ever go into a library and find more islamic crap aimed at kids, I will be a "censor" once again, with no compunction whatsoever.

Posted by: Susanp at September 7, 2007 12:06 AM

So, what point have we reached here?

That the wretched Muslims in their ignorance will use our freedoms against us? Yes. But surely we knew that anyway, didn't we?

That the wretched Muslims will attempt to stock our libraries with texts which justify their immoral misadventures? Yes. But surely we knew that anyway, didn't we?

That the wretched Muslims, singularly the most violent purveyors of Deist and Theist propaganda, would attempt to subvert our liberal (note the small 'l') democracies' freedom of access to all information to their own ends? Yes. But surely we knew that anyway, didn't we?

And yet, despite knowing that this is a Muslim inspired, left-wing, propaganda attack upon our freedoms to read and enjoy as we please and as we will many, many people here seem to think that it is correct - that it is morally right - to restrict access to books and information and to tell librarians (professionals whose only task is to safe-harbour all texts for future recension and reference) just what they must and must not store. It's almost as if the Internet just doesn't exist!

I'm glad, dancingly, partyingly glad, that so many of you so obviously care for the written word, for the book, for the authorative source, for the unchallegeable evidence, but I am saddened that so many of you think that it is correct to censor our libraries. The wrong as well as the right has to be recorded and available to all.

Some people will naturally read the wrong as if it were right and yet others will read the right as if it were wrong, but that is humanity for you - in all its glory and in all its stupidity. The availability of information, no matter how wrong that information might be, is not the issue. What is the issue, in my opinion, is how we train ourselves and our young to deal with any information.

You cannot fight Islam by withholding Islamic texts from those whom you hope will join you in the fight. It is not the availability, or otherwise, of Islamic texts that make a difference but rather the education of all of us in logical thought and the ability to see these, and other, texts for what they are - evil and antihuman.

Suppress the texts and you are suppressing the very freedoms for which we are fighting. Freedom is, I'm afraid, indivisible and absolute. We will win this war because we are free - we will lose it when we allow our freedoms to be removed in the name of winning.

As I said before: books don't kill people, people kill people. I'll extend that thought if I may: the ideas that books contain don't kill people, people who uncritically adopt the ideas that some books contain kill people.

BUT BOOKS DON'T KILL PEOPLE. PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW HOW TO READ BOOKS CAN END UP KILLING PEOPLE, ALSO. It's not about what a library does, or does not contain, it is, as usual, about what people think and believe the books to mean!

So, some of you wish to censor and control the contents of our libraries. What value, therefore, has a library so censored and controlled?

None. It a eunuch library - a library with its whole raison d'etre removed - a library without balls! Libraries hold information and texts that you don't like and you don't value - and that statement applies, thank God, to everyone of us.

And that is what we are fighting for. It's called freedom folks: live with it!

Posted by: OliverPCamford at September 7, 2007 12:39 AM

And die for it if you have to. It's worth dieing for - as any Brit or American should know!

Posted by: OliverPCamford at September 7, 2007 12:57 AM

There once was a country named Britain
With libraries snug as a mitten.
But Jihad came their way
And since that sorry day
It's a fruit that they wish they'd not bitten.

Posted by: profitsbeard at September 7, 2007 2:04 AM

Oliver-

What shelf should books promoting rape go on?

Or guidebooks for pedophilia?

In a society being undermined by violent Jihad, allowing their terrorist proselytizers' works (of malignant intolerance and hatred of the non-Muslims) to be freely available to potential jihadis is somewhat naive.

At least monitor who takes them out, for security reasons (as you should "The Anarchist's Cookbook", etc.), and have counter-balancing anti-Jihadist works in greater numbers in the stacks, since it is our Civilization's argument, not our enemies', which should get the loudest and largest voice in our own damned libraries.

I don't think works of Nazi propaganda were blindly distributed to U.K. libraries during The Blitz.

Posted by: profitsbeard at September 7, 2007 2:14 AM

kasper1062:

Sorry, I feel obliged to clarify your comment for those not in the know.

The local member of parliament you refer to is of course George Galloway: the pro-PLO, Saddam Hussein-handshaking, cat impersonating Muslimophile. On his web site it proudly announces about his home town that:

Dundee's city hall became the first public building in any western country to fly the Palestinian flag

http://www.georgegalloway.com/page.php?page=content/biography.html

Posted by: watling at September 7, 2007 6:56 AM

Matamoros -- "Highway to Hell" is still a good song.
Maybe folks should put AC/DC CDs inside those jihadi books.

I used to think I'd like to visit Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, Mile End, etc., just to walk around and imagine what it was like for my various ancestors in the olden days, but now I know there's no point. Of course, they were very poor areas, and there's no sentimentalizing that, but still, it would have been meaningful to me. Now, based on what I've read, I don't think it would be safe. It seems we wouldn't be welcome in those Muslim enclaves. And we certainly wouldn't get a feel for the old English ways.

Posted by: Josephine at September 7, 2007 7:37 AM

If it is the case that libraries stock books on the basis of popular demand, then I would suggest that we all leg it down to our nearest library and ask for Spencer, Steyn, Buchanan etc to be on their shelves.

Perhaps we could report back at Dhimmiwatch on the reaction, in say 1 months time?

Posted by: Paul Weston at September 7, 2007 7:38 AM

Is government money used to purchase those jihad-promoting books?

Government money = taxpayers' hard-earned cash.

Posted by: Josephine at September 7, 2007 7:56 AM

Paul Weston -- That's an excellent idea.

Posted by: Josephine at September 7, 2007 7:59 AM

As an FYI to all, if memory serves, Douglas Murray put in an appearance with Daniel Pipes in opposition to London's mayor and admirer of Sheik Qawadari, Ken Livingstone (can't remember what the precise topic was) in front of a crowd not normally thought to be particularly well disposed toward Pipes late last year or early this year, and Murray was said to have outshone Pipes.

Accounts could probably be found in Harry's Place's archives.

Posted by: waterdragon52 at September 7, 2007 8:12 AM

profitsbeard:
I don't think works of Nazi propaganda were blindly distributed to U.K. libraries during The Blitz.

Nazi propaganda was broadcast over the radio in Britain throughout the war. Although officially discouraged, listening to the broadcasts of William Joyce - Lord Haw-Haw - became incredibly popular with British people.

Creepy and menacing in tone, and sneering and sarcastic in content, they were intended to destroy British morale. In fact, they achieved the complete opposite. They stiffened resolve, and gave the British people something to talk about and to ridicule the next day ( ridicule is still a popular pastime in the UK today ).

Personally, I think we should give Omar Bakri his own show, and let him speak freely for an hour every night. He'd create more anti-jihad converts in a week than all the books, articles and websites put together.

Posted by: Matamoros at September 7, 2007 9:55 AM

Matamoros-

Except that there were not several million proto-Nazis living openly in England during WW II.

But more anti-Jihad material needs to be on the shelves, as antidotes to the Islamic corrosives.

Posted by: profitsbeard at September 7, 2007 10:35 AM

Previewing your Comment
SusanP
Sorry, but I disagree with you. The books I threw away were children's books, propaganda aimed at the most vulnerable and malleable minds.

And there are plenty of people out there who would make the same argument for destroying copies of The Origin of the Species. Once you start burning books, you’ll only get demands that you burn more.

These books are vital to the anti-Islamist cause. They are not written by Christian, Jewish or atheist anti-jihadists, or by ex-Muslims disillusioned with their faith. They are written by fervent followers of Islam. The authors cannot therefore be accused of “misinterpreting” the texts, or of translation errors, or of having a theological axe to grind, or any of the other excuses put forward by apologists to smear those who highlight how Islamic theology fuels the jihad.

What do we gain from banning these books from the libraries? They’ll still be available elsewhere - in mosques and Islamist bookshops. What’s more, it will give the Islamists a propaganda victory - the infidels are so afraid of our ideas that they want to silence us. You can almost hear the cries of “Islamophobia”.

Surely it’s better that these books are out in the open - in English, freely available, so that all can read their poisonous ideas - rather than passed out around secretly by an Islamist underground?

These books don't need to be burned, they need to be publicised as widely as possible. Howabout starting a "Jihadist Book of the Month" slot, whereby their contents can be revealed to the online world? Exposing its vile anti-Semitic publications did much to discredit the neo-Nazi movement in the UK - surely the same thing will work with the Islamists' propaganda?

These books offer an insight into the Islamist mindset, and so are a potent weapon against Islamism, in three ways:

1) They are written by Muslims, and state the Islamist agenda and viewpoint in clear and uncompromising terms for all to see. So much for the British Govt’s claim that “there is no connection between Islam and terrorism”. Therefore, these books offer a lever against official reluctance to recognise the Islamist problem.

2) Having them available upholds our Western tradition of free speech, and gives us a chance to widen it. It offers an opportunity to lobby to get the works of anti-Islamists onto the library shelves. How can a library stock Abu Hamza and Sayed Qutb, but not Robert Spencer, Ibn Warraq, Bat Ye'or or Wafa Sultan?

3) Best of all, they provide countless opportunities for Islamist propagandists to shoot themselves in the foot. Inayat Bunglawala, the Dr Goebbels of the MCB, declared that it was right that public money be spent on these books: “These are authors that are read widely in the Muslim world, and it’s not surprising that they should be stocked in areas where there happens to be the highest concentrations of Muslims. It doesn‘t mean that you with agree with them… ”. No, of course not, Bungle.

So, instead of being the reading matter of the fabled “tiny minority of extremists”, we have a Muslim spokesman stating publicly that books such as Women Who Deserve to Go to Hell are immensely popular, the Muslim world’s equivalent of Stephen King novels. Well, who would have guessed that?

Posted by: Matamoros at September 7, 2007 11:45 AM

"These books don't need to be burned, they need to be publicised as widely as possible. Howabout starting a 'Jihadist Book of the Month' slot, whereby their contents can be revealed to the online world? Exposing its vile anti-Semitic publications did much to discredit the neo-Nazi movement in the UK - surely the same thing will work with the Islamists' propaganda?" Posted by: Matamoros

I think that is an excellent idea.

Posted by: Josephine at September 7, 2007 12:18 PM

profitsbeard
But more anti-Jihad material needs to be on the shelves, as antidotes to the Islamic corrosives.

Agreed, but we have to be creative too, and recognise the value of black propaganda. And, of course, the value of the methods used by our security services.

I mean, surely Muslims aren't so nieve that they don't see why these books are suddenly being made available? Have they not heard of "flagged" books? How the electronic lending records system found in modern libraries is used to record the names and addresses of people who borrow certain books? After all, they did it for years with Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto, and that was back in the days of the old card system. Computers make it a whole lot easier.

You think they'd realise that these books aren't being made available in order to spread Islamist thinking, but to identify and obtain the personal details of those sympathetic to it. This is one of the oldest tricks of the intelligence community - surely at least some Muslims are wordly enough to know this?

If I were a Muslim, I'd be warning my "brothers and sisters" not to take these books out. But look on the bright side - if these books are as popular as they claim, then Mi5 have the names and addresses of hundreds of Islamist sympathisers already.

Posted by: Matamoros at September 7, 2007 12:20 PM

OliverPCamford -- That is the challenge, isn't it? To fight the extremists without becoming like them. I think this is very important.

Posted by: Josephine at September 7, 2007 12:21 PM

Matamoros-

From your fingers to MI5's ears.

Posted by: profitsbeard at September 7, 2007 10:50 PM

Josephine -

That is indeed the challenge. I wish I knew the way forward. And "Highway to Hell" is still a good song, I agree.

Profitsbeard -

"What shelf should books promoting rape go on?

Or guidebooks for pedophilia?"

Apart from the fact that it is in English 'paedophilia' and I forgive your Americanisation of the word, then I have to say that such books would have to go on the shelves concerning human sexuality. I am sure that you could find a relevant classification number in the Dewey System (check out http://www.tnrdlib.bc.ca/dewey.html#300 , which I am sure will help you).

As I implied before, we in the West do not censor knowledge or opinion or wrongness or rightness in our libraries nor do we do that in our corpus of knowledge.

And that, my friend, is what we are fighting for - and to preserve! It's called, as I said before, freedom. Live with it!

Posted by: OliverPCamford at September 9, 2007 11:33 PM

Josephine -

You said:

"I used to think I'd like to visit Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, Mile End, etc., just to walk around and imagine what it was like for my various ancestors in the olden days, but now I know there's no point. Of course, they were very poor areas, and there's no sentimentalizing that, but still, it would have been meaningful {sic} to me. Now, based on what I've read, I don't think it would be safe. It seems we wouldn't be welcome in those Muslim enclaves. And we certainly wouldn't get a feel for the old English ways".

You would be very surpised by how much of old England is still here. Meet me in London anytime that you wish and I'll show you around the great bits of the East End in perfect safety.

Muslim enclaves? Huh? They are not universal and much of the old East End is still occupied by Englishmen true!

If you ever want to come over here and do the tour just email me at OliverPCamford@hotmail.co.uk
and I'll show you just how much England has survived.

Posted by: OliverPCamford at September 10, 2007 1:31 AM

OliverPCamford -- Thank you. That's good to know. If I am ever lucky enough to visit England, I will drop you a line.

I was thinking of that English politician who was giving a speech to some Muslim folks in the East End and was interrupted by a well-known Muslim agitator. (I'm sorry I'm so fuzzy on the details.) This agitator told him to stay out of Muslim areas.

By the way, the word meaningful is defined in my Gage Canadian Dictionary as:

"full of meaning; having much meaning; significant"

Posted by: Josephine at September 10, 2007 8:05 AM