As I say on the
Islam in the West
page,
most Muslim immigrants come to the West precisely because they support its freedoms
and want to escape failed states ruled by clerics and Islamic dictators.
We have a duty to let these freedom-loving Muslims in.
Western Muslims are the most liberal, tolerant, pro-democracy Muslims in the world.
All the dissidents are here
- the religious dissidents,
the political dissidents,
the feminist dissidents, and
the gay dissidents.
All the dissident works
- such as criticism of Islam and
Islamism
- are published in the West.
This is all much to be celebrated.
However, there is a substantial minority
(10-20 percent)
of immigrants
who threaten our western freedoms.
They are
Islamists
- essentially religious fascists who want to impose their religious beliefs
on the rest of us.
What to do about these aggressors is one of the questions of our time.
The divided, tormented mind of the British Islamist: Anjem Choudary
(born 1967)
enjoys all the innocent pleasures of western freedom
while at university in 1991.
Later, he turns into a humourless, guilt-ridden, hate-filled Islamist fundamentalist, who says that
what he did should be illegal, and strictly punished by sharia.
You would almost feel sorry for him.
The younger Choudary was much more attractive.
Which side - freedom or fundamentalism - will triumph among young western Muslims?
My bet is on freedom.
For every young Muslim attracted by the austerity of jihad and sharia,
two more will be attracted by sex, atheism and freedom.
Islam in the west will survive,
but it will become relaxed
and tolerant of criticism and apostasy (as Christianity has become).
Image from
The Daily Mail, 14th March 2009.
The magazine is
Mayfair
vol 26 no 4
(1991).
Model is
Denice Lewis
(born 1960).
"England is a cesspit. England is the breeding ground of fundamentalist Muslims."
- Shocking words from
Nigerian writer
Wole Soyinka,
winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature,
angry at the radicalisation of the Nigerian
Flight 253 bomber
while he was a student in Britain.
Reported 3 Feb 2010.
Image from here.
He may exaggerate, but what is the world coming to when foreign intellectuals complain about the jihad
being exported from England?
(He's not the only one.)
It shows hatred, religious bigotry, jihad,
and a coming violent revolution against Britain,
being preached at some mainstream British mosques.
Preachers defend
wife-beating
and sex with children.
They call for the killing of homosexuals.
They call for the beating, jailing and killing
of people who do not say their prayers
to a being called "Allah"
(which they believe exists).
Congratulations to Channel 4 for doing this important service,
and congratulations to their awesomely brave undercover reporter,
who is presumably an actually moderate Muslim.
Britain needs to get serious about this issue.
Britain cannot simply stand by as these preachers breed the next generation of
London bombers.
These preachers have no business living in the West,
and should be jailed or deported.
Almost every Briton agrees with me.
16 percent of British Muslims support the "cause" of the London bombers.
These people should not be living in the West.
If they do not believe in freedom, they should not live in the free world.
They should leave.
24 percent of British Muslims believe
the British government
carried out the 7/7 attacks.
Optimism - Few western Muslims support terrorist violence.
The opinion polls above are a lot better than
polls in the Islamic countries.
Probably 80-90 percent of Muslims in the west we can live happily with.
Only 10-20 percent are a problem.
Survey, July 2006
also shows that a fantastic
56 percent of British Muslims think the UK government is not doing enough
to fight Islamist extremism.
Pessimism - They want to end our liberties peacefully.
That is, 40 percent of British Muslims want to end our western liberties.
They just want to do it peacefully.
If ever they are in the majority, they will end British freedom.
The poll shows 41 percent of British Muslims don't want sharia law.
And of course they may win the argument,
as, over time, British Muslims finally come to understand and appreciate
what a free society is.
Still, 40 percent in favour is an appalling number.
It is a strong argument for restricting Islamic immigration
until current Muslims integrate better.
Certainly,
no one who believes in sharia law should be allowed into the West.
37 percent of young British Muslims want Sharia law in Britain.
36 percent of young British Muslims think apostates should be killed.
13 percent of young British Muslims said they "admired" Al Qaeda.
The stats for older British Muslims are much better.
Maybe the young will ditch their fascist views as they grow up.
Or maybe, disturbingly,
the young show what the British Muslims of the future will look like.
The fantastic young Muslim woman
Munira Mirza
(British-born daughter of Pakistani immigrants)
discusses the report,
and, brilliantly, declines to blame it all on "Iraq" or "Israel"
or some other mythical root cause.
Instead, she blames it on
multiculturalism,
and the patronising left-liberal habit of treating immigrants
as members of groups and tribes,
rather than as individuals and freethinking citizens.
This has helped alienate young British Muslims from British society,
and forced them to look for an alternative identity.
Brilliantly, she points out that the alternative to multiculturalism,
that is, a proposed unifying culture of Britain,
does not have to be an exclusivist, ethnic, monocultural Anglo-Saxon tribalism,
nor does it have to be just a bland, valueless, greedy consumer society.
Rather the unifying culture of Britain
should be the universal values of the western Enlightenment.
This is what every British immigrant can and should sign up to.
Munira Mirza really speaks my language.
I, and people like me, understand the values to promote
to get immigrants to integrate into the West.
The liberal left don't.
Their values will lead to tribalism, alienation, bigotry, racism,
ethnic conflict, and in the long-term
possibly even civil war.
In 1989 Iqbal Sacranie
said about the threats against
Salman Rushdie:
"Death, perhaps, is a bit too easy for him?
His mind must be tormented for the rest of his life
unless he asks for forgiveness to Almighty Allah."
He still
apparently
thinks Rushdie's book
should be illegal.
Instead of his usual kid gloves treatment,
the "moderate" Iqbal Sacranie gets a proper grilling
as he tries to dodge question after question.
Transcript - the weasel words of Iqbal Sacranie
as he
tries to avoid condemning Hamas,
tries to avoid condemning some of the MCB's extremist affiliates,
and tries to avoid condemning the preaching
that the War on Terror is a War on Islam. (*)
(*) The War on Terror is, of course, a War on Islamism,
but that is something all moderate Muslims should support.
Inayat Bunglawala,
June 2007,
on the Rushdie case.
He supported killing Rushdie for speech when he was young:
"on February 14 1989, when the Iranian Islamic leader, Imam Khomeini delivered his fatwa calling for Salman Rushdie's death, I was truly elated
...
It seems crazy now, but I really did believe that some committee of learned elders should vet all books before they could be sold to the public.".
But he has grown up a bit since:
"I will readily acknowledge that we were wrong to have called for the book to be banned
...
Our detractors had been right. The freedom to offend is a necessary freedom.".
Good for him.
I'd like to see him condemn blasphemy laws in Islamic countries too
(not just in Britain).
Inayat Bunglawala, Dec 2007,
refuses to condemn
Islamic states that impose
the death penalty for apostasy.
"He did not do so, merely commenting that "it was a matter for those states"."
Harry's Place:
"The MCB should issue a public statement which makes it absolutely clear that apostates have a right to change or abandon their faith, both in this country and abroad, publicly or privately, and to proselytise freely: and that their apostasy may be countered only by persuasion.
If the MCB wants to demonstrate that they have a role to play in the mainstream of public life, then it would be sensible for them to make their institutional position on this issue absolutely clear."
jesusandmo.net cartoon
on the Muslim Council of Britain
and the death penalty for apostasy.
As Harry's Place says:
"credit where credit is due".
Could the annoying Bunglawala
turn out to be an Islamic reformer?
It may be a false dawn,
but on the other hand Islam may change slowly for the better this century. People do change their minds.
On the other hand:
Inayat Bunglawala
writes for the website of
the Islamofascist
Yusuf Al-Qaradawi.
There is no explanation for why
"a supposedly liberal political commentator is writing uncritical articles on the website of a leading fascist."
For some reason,
The Guardian
(also here)
feels the need to print these religious fanatics
- just because they are fundamentalist Muslims.
It would not print them if they were fundamentalist Christians.
Azzam Tamimi
(also here)
has expressed support for Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Khomenei,
suicide bombings and the destruction of Israel.
Azzam Tamimi on Israel
(see transcript).
"anybody in the world, with faith or without faith,
must come together in order to eradicate this cancer from the body of humanity.
...
Do you know why Tony Blair, George Bush, and all the members of this camp are so worried?
They are worried because they know the world can see clearly today that Israel is a menace,
is a threat to humanity. They can no longer fool anybody and
they are worried that
this spoiled baby of theirs is about to be thrown out of this human body of ours.
It is just a matter of time.
...
This black chapter in the history of humanity will eventually come to an end"
Hilarious splicing
of Azzam Tamimi in the speech above
with Azzam Tamimi pretending to be moderate with a credulous NPR host.
Azzam Tamimi screams
"Today we are all Hamas!"
at a sick pro-Hamas demo in London, Jan 2009,
as George Galloway looks on.
Tamimi calls for the elimination of Israel.
"MPAC's world view is simple. We are at War.
MPAC believes every Muslim man woman and child is a target in that War.
And we believe that it is FARD
upon every capable Adult to defend the Ummah.
We also adopt the position that every Muslim who does not participate in that war
is committing a crime against those they allow to be murdered, raped and persecuted
and against his or her Lord.
...
Whether or not the failing to take part in Jihad to protect the Ummah leads
one into hypocrisy and out of the fold of Islam is something we have not found the answer too.
...
When innocent people are murdered one has no option but to act with time or money
to fight the Jihad. This is beyond any reasonable doubt to any thinking man
...
Those ACTIVE Muslims who will give their time to the Jihad,
or their money, are few in number, and no single organisation can take these enemies on.
The few willing to fight are poor, under funded, man power starved Muslim organisations
and they cannot compete. There is a capability Gap between the enemy and us.
A Gap that must be bridged if we have any hope of protecting ourselves."
"The enemy even when in the open is immune from any counter action by the Muslims,
such is the deep coma these institutions have put us in.
This can be seen no more clearly then in the case of powerful members of Parliament backing Israel.
These men are comfortable, they know that the thousands of Muslims that elected them
are so ignorant and comatose that they can attack Muslims without
any form of action or challenge by the Muslims and their institutions.
This is a fact, and can proven by the election of
the Vice Chairman of the friends of Israel
by 15000 Muslim zombies
eight years in a row.
Not one Muslim has taken it upon himself to remove him.
This highlights more then any other the Zombie like state we are in."
What does "remove him" mean?
This sounds like a threat against an MP.
If MPAC are making threats like this, they should be made an illegal organisation.
They attack Britain's lukewarm "support" for Israel:
"the type of unqualified support given to Israel by the current Government is not conducive to British national interests as this could damage Britain's relationships with 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide
...
An incoming Conservative Administration should accept that pro-zionist attitude will not bode well with many. Pro-zionist statements would only damage relationship with Muslims nationally and internationally.".
On Iran:
"Irrespective of one's views of theocracy, the current Iranian regime was established by a popular revolution, ... and has a significant measure of domestic support. ... hostility to Iran is not in Britain's national interest.
...
Furthermore, Iran has many legitimate security concerns, being surrounded by, what is to them, potentially hostile powers. Instead of joining the United States in demonising Iran, Britain should assist Iran in addressing these legitimate security concerns"
On preachers of hate like
Yusuf al-Qaradawi:
"We disagree with the suggestion that "foreign preachers and scholars advocating the rejection of the institutions and values of democracy" should be denied entry into Britain.
...
While we may disagree with many views of
Yusuf al-Qaradawi,
we feel it is inaccurate for the Policy Group to question his status as a leading Islamic scholar.
...
Yusuf al-Qaradawi is considered a leading scholar by other many Muslims, including Muslim scholars."
On Iran's desire for nuclear weapons:
"Given Iran's position in the Middle East, facing a nuclear-armed Israel, Iran appears to have legitimate reasons for seeking nuclear weapons for defensive purposes."
As the
Tories here say,
what are these weirdos doing in the Conservative party?
Shouldn't they be in a party more suited to them,
such as RESPECT?
The
Islamic "Human Rights" Commission
complains about just about any criticism of Islam
or Islamism.
If they supposedly believe in "Human Rights", shouldn't they believe in the
right to free speech to criticise any religion or political ideology?
After all, I am an atheist and a neo-conservative who believes in human rights,
and I firmly believe in the right of anyone to criticise atheism or neo-conservatism.
Islamophobia Awards 2003.
Simply defending Israel at all
(see
William Hague)
or the mildest criticism of Islamism
(see Polly Toynbee)
or simply criticising the Iranian dictatorship
(see
Donald Rumsfeld)
gets one labelled "Islamophobic" by this alleged "Human Rights" group.
On the Rushdie knighthood, Lord Ahmed
is quoted as
saying:
"Actually I was appalled to hear that Salman Rushdie had been given [a] knighthood, particularly when this man has been very divisive.
This man - as you can see - not only provoked violence around the world because of his writings, but there were many people that were killed around the world and honouring the man who has blood on his hands, sort of because of what he did, honouring him I think is going a bit too far."
If this is an accurate quote, then Lord Ahmed should be expelled from the Labour Party.
How dare he blame the victim of violence for the violence?
Why doesn't he blame the medieval savages that actually carried out the violence?
In 2005, Lord Ahmed himself
hosted in the House of Lords
the far right "anti-Zionist"
Israel Shamir,
who believes in world Jewish conspiracies
and the blood libel against the Jews.
Reformed ex-Islamist Ed Husain says:
"Geert Wilders is undoubtedly an ill-informed, hate-driven bigot with many unpleasant views but he is not directly inciting violence. As a result, unlike in the case of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, I do not support the decision to ban him from the UK. By threatening parliament with a mob, Lord Ahmed is contributing to the negative portrayal of Muslims and their religion."
One point is lost in the discussion about the lack of moderate Muslim groups
in Britain, and it is this.
Moderate British Muslims, who support British society,
are far more likely to want to join mainstream British organisations,
rather than set up their own separate Muslim sectarian group.
Muslim groups are likely to be inherently extremist, tribal, insular,
religiously conservative, non-moderate,
or otherwise unpleasant.
They will almost by definition
attract those who are alienated from British society.
Whereas the many British Muslims who are well integrated and successful
will have little interest in joining some whining tribal grievance group.
Muslim groups do not (and never will) represent British Muslims.
Survey of British Muslims, 2007:
Only 6 percent say the MCB represents them.
51 percent say no organisation represents them.
Ex-jihadis describe how left-wing Britain failed to integrate them:
"From the right, there was the brutal nativist cry of "Go back where you came from!" But from the left, there was its mirror-image: a gooey multicultural sense that immigrants didn't want liberal democratic values and should be exempted from them. Again and again, they described how at school they were treated as "the funny foreign child", and told to "explain their customs" to the class. It patronised them into alienation.
"Nobody ever said - you're equal to us, you're one of us, and we'll hold you to the same standards," says Husain. "Nobody had the courage to stand up for liberal democracy without qualms. When people like us at [Newham] College were holding events against women and against gay people, where were our college principals and teachers, challenging us?"
Without an identity, they created their own. It was fierce and pure and violent, and it admitted no doubt."
Abu Izzadeen
at an
Al-Ghurabaa meeting in Birmingham, July 2006,
laughs at and mocks the 9/11 victims,
threatens more London bombings,
and threatens all the Jews of Europe.
The audience roar laughing at the beheading of
Kim Sun-il.
What are these sick, deranged people doing living in Britain?
Why aren't they rounded up, jailed and deported?
Egyptian jihadi
Hani al-Sibai,
living off the taxpayer in London,
is another person who should be deported.
Hani al-Sibai
rants war and hatred from London:
See transcript.
Article, Aug 2007:
Khurshid Ahmed of the British Muslim Forum: "People who seek to undermine our liberal democracy and our traditions and values have no business being in this country."
David Davis, shadow home secretary: "Clearly this man has deplorable views, and the sooner he is removed from Britain the better."
See his hilarious theory about the meaning of eating
turkey
(and here)
at Christmas:
"This shows the kind of hatred that is deeply rooted in the West - they serve the Turkish, Ottoman, Muslim man as food at the table, for entertainment and as a sign that they have slaughtered him."
What an idiot.
The cool Egyptian liberal Sayid Al-Qimni
has contempt for him:
"This man uses filthy and nauseating language. To hell with him.
... You are completely insane. Go away. Go.
What, all the garbage dumps were closed and they had to go the sewage to get you?"
Most Britons agree that extremist Islamists should be deported:
Al-Ghurabaa calls for the killing of critics of Islam in Europe, 2006:
"Kill those who insult the Prophet Muhammad
...
The insulting of the Messenger Muhammad ..
is something that the Muslims cannot and will not tolerate and
the punishment in Islam for the one who does so is death.".
What are these appalling people doing in Britain?
Why aren't they deported?
Britain is finally becoming less hospitable
to the fascist enemies of Britain:
Al-Muhajiroun disbanded in the face of an impending ban.
Its successors Al Ghurabaa and the Saved Sect
and Islam for the UK
were banned
for glorification of terrorism.
Their vile members were jailed for 4 to 6 years for the
cartoon demo.
Abu Hamza was jailed for 7 years for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred,
and is to be
extradited to the US.
Abu Izzadeen has been
jailed for 4 and a half years
for inciting terrorism.
Abdullah El-Faisal
has been deported.
Abu Qatada
is in jail pending deportation.
The Crawley
jihad gang has been jailed for life.
The
transatlantic aircraft plot
was destroyed.
Omar Bakri Muhammad fled Britain to Lebanon,
and is banned from returning.
In Lebanon he discovers he faces a death sentence!
(As a comment says:
"Self imposed extraordinary rendition works!")
It's a start.
But there are still a lot of jihadis living free in Britain.
Does
Abu Qatada
deserve to be deported?
Consider this:
In 2009, Al-Qaeda jihadis
kidnapped and beheaded
utterly innocent British tourist
Edwin Dyer
in order
to try to force Britain to release
Abu Qatada.
That tells you all you need to know about
Abu Qatada.
As I say,
I support immigration for freedom-loving immigrants.
I support deportation for freedom-hating immigrants,
even if their lives are at risk.
Unfortunately, the law seems to make no distinction:
More than 230 terror suspects free to stay in Britain,
Sunday Times, May 21, 2006.
In the UK, 230 Islamic terrorist suspects have claimed refugee status,
saying their human rights would be violated if they were forced to return home.
This is the nonsense that comes from the lack of clarity in the law.
We provide asylum to fascists just as easily as
to people fleeing fascism. The law seems to make no distinction.
Don't be surprised if in the next few years
some of these "refugees" bomb a British city.
Refugees have already
tried to bomb London.
The (very catchy)
"Dirty Kuffar"
(2004)
by British fascists
"Sheikh Terra"
and the "Soul Salah Crew".
Great fun, but seriously,
everyone involved in this video should be expelled, not just from Britain, but from the West entirely.
Almost every Briton agrees with me.
March for sharia, London, 2009.
The
YouTube comments
give a good idea of how Britons (including liberal Muslims)
feel at these freaks
threatening their country.
The leftist
Ken Livingstone,
Mayor of London,
came out against the London bombings.
But he has been a long-time
defender
of
the extremist religious fascist
Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, who supports identical suicide attacks on civilians in Israel.
The fascist
Yusuf Al-Qaradawi
thinks his own beliefs about
the supernatural
should govern everyone in society,
even those who don't believe in them.
He explicitly rejects separation of state and church
and freedom of religion.
He demands"that the UN adopt a clear resolution or law that categorically prohibits affronts to prophets
- to the prophets of the Lord and His messengers, to His holy books,
and the religious holy places."
He supports death for atheists like me and homosexuals.
He defends
wife beating
and female genital mutilation.
He supports forcing women to wear the hijab.
His website
islamonline.net
blames rape victims who dress immodestly.
He supports the Iraqi fascist resistance.
He supports the
Sudan genocide.
He supports Hamas.
He supports the killing of innocent Jewish civilians, including children, in Israel.
He supports the destruction of Israel.
His
"heart breaks"
for the killing of the monster
Yassin,
but not for
the children Yassin killed.
He supports the Holocaust.
Al-Qaradawi is exactly the kind of hate-filled preacher
who should be kept out of Britain.
Al-Qaradawi on homosexuals:
"The schools of thought disagree about the punishment.
...
Some say we should throw them from a high place, like God did with the people of Sodom.
Some say we should burn them, and so on. There is disagreement."
Don't just listen to me.
Listen to moderate Muslims petitioning the UN,
calling for a treaty banning the use of religion for incitement to violence.
They
condemn the "sheikhs of death"
who incite terror.
They name Al-Qaradawi,
who they accuse of "providing a religious cover for terrorism".
They even call for people like him to be brought before an international court.
Nick Cohen on Ken Livingstone:
"The 'socialist' mayor of London
[is] rushing to defend the reputation of a murderous queer basher."
Al-Qaradawi is head of the
European Council for Fatwa and Research,
based in Ireland.
Yusuf Al-Qaradawi
praises the Holocaust.
Copy here:
Ken Livingstone
spews Israel-hatred and America-hatred
on the state TV of the terror state of Iran,
which threatens a genocide of the Jews of Israel,
which funds the killing of brave British and American troops in Iraq,
and which funds and encourages Shia-Sunni sectarian slaughter in Iraq.
Livingstone calls it a "tragedy" that the dictator
Nasser
(who gassed Yemen,
killed Jewish civilians,
and wanted to carry out a second Holocaust of the Jews of Israel)
failed
in his aim to "unite" the Arab Muslim world.
Strangely, Livingstone comes out against the London bombings.
In the movie
Religulous,
Bill Maher
brilliantly takes down the
creepy British Islamist rapper
Aki Nawaz ("Propa-Gandhi",
of the extremist group
"Fun-Da-Mental").
The rapper goes on and on about his right to dissent, to be different.
Yet when Maher asks him about Salman Rushdie's right to dissent,
he immediately says that is "complex" and other weasel words.
Rapper:
"Anyone worrying about what I am saying should get involved in the debate. You are allowed to dissent, that is a right."
Maher:
"But is that a right in Islam, to dissent? Was that a right for Salmon Rushdie? Salmon Rushdie was there to provoke, insult, and he did it intentionally. But, should he die for that?"
Rapper:
"It's easy for you to say things kind of in black and white. It's more complex than that. There is emotions and passions and philosophy involved."
Maher:
"All you have got to say is that it is wrong for someone to have to suffer a death threat for writing a book. But, apparently, it is more complicated than that. But, you want that protection for yourself."
Rapper:
"I'm willing to discuss them in terms of facts and not fictions."
Maher:
"You don't see a fundamental hypocrisy for you asking for the right to dissent and somebody else getting a death threat."
Rapper:
"No, because my dissent is to stop the madness."
The London-wide
Race Hate Crime Forum
said in 2006 they
wanted to prosecute the
Gay & Lesbian Humanist
for its attack on Islam in the Autumn 2005 issue
(after the Islamic bombings of London).
Without defending everything the issue said,
what I want to focus on is the idea that they could be prosecuted partly for
calling Islam "this barmy doctrine".
Such a statement, about any belief, must always be legal.
To make such a statement illegal is sharia.
Nick Griffin
of the neo-Nazi
BNP
was arrested in 2004
for an attack on Islam.
He was prosecuted.
Here is his
attack on Islam,
which was filmed secretly for a BBC documentary The Secret Agent.
Now
the BNP is an obnoxious neo-Nazi group.
I can't stand them, and
their supporters hate me.
But, without defending everything (or anything) Griffin said,
what I want to focus on is the idea that he could be prosecuted partly for
describing Islam as follows:
"this wicked, vicious faith has expanded
from a handful of cranky lunatics about 1,300 years ago".
Such a statement must always be legal.
It should be perfectly legal to describe any religion
(or any other belief system such as communism or capitalism) as evil.
To make such a statement illegal is sharia.
The prosecution failed. In 2006 a jury cleared him of all charges.
Run by the sinister
Muslim Arbitration Tribunal,
which absurdly believes that an alleged "holy book"
should govern British law.
"Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system
...
Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi .. said he had taken advantage of a clause in the Arbitration Act 1996.
Under the act, the sharia courts are classified as arbitration tribunals. The rulings of arbitration tribunals are binding in law,
provided that both parties in the dispute agree to give it the power to rule on their case."
Domestic violence against women now legalised.
"In the six cases of domestic violence, Siddiqi said the judges ordered the husbands to take anger management classes and mentoring from community elders. There was no further punishment.
In each case, the women subsequently withdrew the complaints they had lodged with the police"
Comment:
"Leaving a substantial number of (nonwhite) British women to the mercies of this antique barbarism seems to me both sexist and racist, but what do I know?"
Sebastian Faulks, Sunday Times, August 23, 2009, speaks about Islam.
He is shocked after reading the Koran for the first time:
"it has no ethical dimension like the New Testament, no new plan for life. It says 'the Jews and the Christians were along the right tracks, but actually, they were wrong and I'm right, and if you don't believe me, tough - you'll burn for ever.' That's basically the message of the book.
...
Jesus, unlike Muhammad, had interesting things to say. He proposed a revolutionary way of looking at the world: love your neighbour, love your enemy, be kind to people, the meek shall inherit the Earth. Muhammad had nothing to say to the world other than, 'If you don't believe in God you will burn forever.'"
"Oh, Sebastian!
If Islam was a forgiving, understanding religion that allowed freedom of speech and freedom of opinion, then this grovelling humiliation of an apology wouldn't be necessary, now would it?"
"What a backdown. Threats? Fear? His book being burned? It simply confirms the view of many that Islam is an unforgiving religion that cannot tolerate even the mildest of criticisms".
Though I sympathise with
this comment:
"I can't say that I blame. The way of the anti-jihadist is hard and not for every infidel. I think it is safe to assume that only his first comments were honest."
And this:
"He's not married to his opinion. He's certainly not going to jeopardise his life and the lives of his family, friends and colleagues. He doesn't want to turn his back on his current lifestyle and live in safe houses waiting for Islam reform.
So he issues a hasty retraction. Honestly, who wouldn't? Robert, Daniel, Pamela, Hugh and Geert. That's who. And that's part of the reason why I admire them."
Christianity Has Been Demoted By The Political Class, 11 Dec 2009, by Theodore Dalrymple (an atheist), notes the official hostility to Christianity:
"By far the most significant thing about the case against Benjamin and Sharon Vogelenzang was that it reached a court of law in the first place.
...
For myself I do not much care to be buttonholed by religious enthusiasts but in a free country that is a situation with which citizens must be expected to cope on their own without resort to the courts."
Islamism
will be defeated, humiliated, and thrown in the dustbin of history
in the next few decades.
The West has seen off far greater threats
than some know-nothing medieval religious revival.
The defeat of Islamism
will be a great day, above all, for
Muslims in the West, who will no longer be feared as a possible
fifth column.
Over the next century,
Islam in the West will mutate in the same way Christianity did.
It will become far more tolerant and more diverse.
As with Christianity, traditionalists will still exist,
but they will no longer threaten violence.
As with Christianity, Islamic and post-Islamic scholars will arise
who question the existence of Allah,
the origin of the Quran,
the morality of Muhammad
and even his existence.
Millions of Muslims will become secular, apostates and atheists.
In the end,
the idea of the West,
the idea of reason, curiosity and human freedom,
will prove stronger than either Christianity or Islam, or any religion.
Wonderful anti-Islamist demo, Oct 2009, from
British Muslims for Secular Democracy.
"Freedom! Democracy!"
"Free Speech Will Dominate The World."
"Liberal Democracy Will Rule The World. Freedom Is Here To Stay."
I used to complain here that Salman Rushdie was not knighted.
He was knighted in 2007.
Good stuff.
I shall take credit!
Since 1995.
