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Fitzgerald: This Christmas, have a GOOD time

Dec 24, 2005 8:06 am By Hugh Fitzgerald

Anti-dhimmi Christmas (and Hanukkah) wishes from Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald:

While wishing all who observe the day the merriest of Christmases (or Hanukkahs, which custom now holds to be “happy” rather than “merry”) I also wish that you give a sobering thought to those who, though they may ardently desire to, cannot join in the celebration or the observance. About ten years ago in Saudi Arabia, for example, some British nurses were arrested for singing Christmas carols, behind closed doors, in their living quarters. They were held for a while, then expelled. That they did not receive harsher punishment was the result only of British diplomatic intervention.

Then there was the more recent case of Brian O’Connor, the Indian convert to Christianity who was seized and tortured by the Saudi police for being a Christian, accused furthermore of trying to convert others.

In the late 1990s, a wealthy Kuwaiti, Hussein Qambar Ali (Robert Hussein) converted to Christianity. First his entire business was taken away from him. Then his wife, and then his children. He was left with nothing. And then he was sentenced to death. There was an outcry in Britain (it hardly got any notice elsewhere). In the end, he was not executed. I recall this story well on this Christmas Eve because I once spoke with a rich Kuwaiti contractor who had been voluble on the subject of the “real Islam” which, he said, was aggressive and violent. He enjoyed being a truth-teller just as long as I feigned ignorance of Islam and pretended to be amused — but he changed tack completely when I raised the subject of the treatment of the Kuwaiti convert. Now, sensing that I was not only listening to him, but joining in his criticism of Islam, he began to deny that the Kuwaiti convert story was true, claimed that I didn’t understand all the details, etc. A sudden transformation. Similar experiences since suggest that unless someone goes all the way and makes a clean break with Islam, there is some kind of inability to recognize, or allow Infidels to recognize, the full truth. The urge to defend, to protect, the Faith kicks in. Infidels may be allowed to learn some things, but they must not volunteer criticism. That would be to accord them too much freedom.

But enough. Have a GOOD time today and tomorrow. Which good wishes remind me in turn of Sayyid Qutb. You know that Qutb, the spiritual father of so many now running around in Iraq and Afghanistan today (not to mention London, Paris, and Rome), wrote his Signposts Along the Way (Ma-alim fi al-tariq) partly prompted by his disgust with the West. And that disgust was the result of two years he spent in the United States in the late 1940s. How decadent it all was, how thoroughly un-Islamic. And do you remember what it was that offended him the most? It was the horrifying spectacle of a church social, and a square dance sponsored by a church — where American girls and boys could swing their partners and do-si-do, and try not to step on your neighbor’s toe, and now promenade. The horror, the sheer horror of it!

But I recently came across in a dusty bookstore, the kind where you find in the backroom a certain forgotten book that, once you realize its contents, leads you on a frightening journey into the deep dark past, or perhaps causes you to live in fear for your life, as others, afraid of what you have discovered in that manuscript, begin to chase you down (in either case, Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture), a book that prompted me to think of Sayyid Qutb. No, I am not speaking of the Qur’an — though some will no doubt attribute Qutb’s behavior to his fervent belief in the Qur’an and Sunnah.

The book I have in mind, one which I recently bought, is called Honor Your Partner. It is described as “Eighty-one American Square, Circle and Contra Dances, with Complete Instructions for Doing Them,” compiled by Ed Durlacher, with musical arrangements by Ken MacDonald and photography by Dr. Ira Zasloff. It was published by Devin-Adair in 1949, while Qutb was in this country, seeing that fiendish and insensate whirl of boy and girl. It was a sight he could never forget.

Check out the book yourself. You will not believe the things you find therein. I would like to draw your attention in particular to “A Word to the Caller” and the “rules to all dancers for a successful evening”:

(1) When instructions are being given DO be quiet so that all may hear and understand.

(2) Each person will be dancing with three or more others. One person can spoil the dance for everyone by being a “showoff” or ill-mannered.

(3) Have a GOOD time.

That last — “Have a GOOD time” — is particularly disturbing. What would Bin Laden, what would Ayatollah Khomeini, what would al-Qaradawi, what would Hassan al-Banna, what would al-Ghazzali, what would the earliest caliphs, say about that — “Have a GOOD Time”?

No wonder Qutb went home, intent on preaching Jihad. Don’t, as is fashionable, blame American “racism.” Blame those square-dance fiends. Blame all those who preach “Have a GOOD time.” Blame Ed Durlacher.

Blame, above all, the cheerful spirit of Christmas. This year, consider it part of your duty as an Infidel — to have a GOOD time.

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