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Islam has special privileges in the UK

12/20/2017

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Something is going seriously wrong.

Below is another post from Shazia Hobbs via Jihad Watch. I've mentioned her before and she has the ability to be heard when she speaks on these matters due to her background that I will never have. This article is sobering & well worth the time.

Hadn't we better back-track to where we lost our way while we still can?

FYI:~
  • Islam usually only requires a head covering for girls when they reach puberty (or when the girl is deemed old enough for marriage - according to Muhammad's example of consummating his marriage with Aisha this could be as young as 9, but 4 is not usual), to insist upon a hijab for a child of that age is to make a deeply concerning public statement for an overall stricter observance of Islam. The rule of thumb remains that the more the females are covered in a Muslim community the more disturbingly "radical" (read: orthodox) & the less Westernised the accompanying theology, attitudes & "culture" will be;
  • For more on the recent Antisemitism within the British Labour Party see here. There is also an article there on Muslims pushing for action against, not Antisemitism, but - groan - you guessed it: Islamophobia. 


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Islam has special privileges in the UK: Muslims have been bullying Britain and the leftists are their helpers

“Islamophobia – A word created by fascists and used by cowards to manipulate morons.” Andrew Cummins

I am no longer shocked or surprised to hear stories of men and women from the police force facing disciplinary action for criticising Islam. Men and women who have an impeccable work record who all of a sudden find themselves losing everything for saying halal meat is barbaric or for saying Sharia courts should be shut down. It should be shocking and it should be headline news that the very people who are supposed to serve and protect us, risk losing their jobs, for ‘insulting Islam.’ I suppose we should go back to the beginning to find out how we got here.

When my father arrived in the UK in the late 60s, he had no interest in getting special treatment, happy to be in the land of the free. Where money really did grow on trees and women were more accessible than they were back in Pakistan. What was there not to love about his new home, apart from the freezing cold, it was better than the poverty he had left behind. Did he want it to be ruled by Sharia? No! This was the late 60s, remember, and it was Iran and Afghanistan that were slowly being taken over by Islam. It was in Iran and Afghanistan that women were protesting against the forced veiling and all the other restrictions Islam forces on women and men.

Fast-forward to the UK, and it is obvious sharia is creeping into everyday life. The Home Affairs Committee has launched an inquiry into Sharia courts that operate in the UK; some say there are 80 Sharia courts, although due to their secretive nature, the true number is unknown. The fact that there is an inquiry at all shows there is a problem; although the Muslim men in charge of the inquiry makes it pointless, as they will no doubt find nothing wrong with Sharia, if applied in ‘context’ and something to do with ‘nuance.’

I hear lots of people talk about how they are too scared to reveal their identity on social media, and use anonymous accounts for fear of losing their job, as they are critical of Islam, and I hear lots of people who think these people are exaggerating and call them racists and Islamophobes. Then I read stories in the papers, stories such as that of Javaria Saeed, a former counter-terrorism officer for the Metropolitan Police and a practising Muslim, who complained to her bosses about some of her fellow Muslim officers. These Muslim officers saw nothing wrong with FGM and also advised Muslim women suffering from domestic violence to go to Sharia courts rather than report it to the Police. Unless the abuse was really violent, and how they determined ‘really violent’ abuse was not clear.

In August last year I was invited, along with many others, to speak at an event organised by Anne Marie Waters of Sharia Watch UK. An event at which I spoke about how Islam kills women, kills them not just physically but mentally and emotionally. This is not a lie, and we only need to look to Muslim countries to see how women are punished. We know in the UK that Muslim women are punished too, we have laws to protect them from forced marriage, from FGM, HBV, and there is talk of making breast ironing a crime too.

The one thing these evil acts all have in common is religion, some argue and say it is cultural, and I say it is religion. Africans, Egyptians, Indians, Pakistanis, and Indonesians, to name some, carry out FGM, all are completely different cultures, yet religion is the common denominator.

Anne Marie received hassle from the police. She couldn’t hold the event outside Westminster, they said, so she chose another location and that too was not suitable, as she needed to apply for permission. It seemed as if there was nothing but obstacles put in her way, with those in charge hoping she would cancel the event. Anne Marie is a strong woman and refused to back down, and so eventually they gave up and allowed her to hold the event outside Westminster, her first choice of venue.

If you want to march calling for Sharia law and for a Caliphate in the UK, then no obstacles will be put in place. Instead, the police will walk alongside you to protect you from any backlash. While you march, you can wave the ISIS flag, and that, too, goes unchecked. Protest against Sharia and mock Islam, and you may well find yourself arrested.

You can also wave banners and hold placards calling for the ‘Death of British Soldiers.’ That, too, is allowed and given a free pass. Protest against the evil and barbaric ways in which Islam kills women, stoning, lashing, beheading, and you may find yourself being accused of a ‘hate crime.’

Am I the only one who can see how stupid this is? Am I the only one who can see the double standards that exist in British society? Fighting for British culture and for British laws, and you are smeared as an Islamophobe, racist and fascist. March for the UK to become a Caliphate and for Sharia to rule, and you can do this every day if you want, with no hassle and no being moved on.

But when we have a Prime Minister who wears a headscarf when meeting with Muslim leaders, then is it any wonder the country is in the state it is in? What message does that give?

Islam has special privileges in the UK, and anyone who disagrees or challenges this is accused of racism. Racism against an idea, a religion is not possible, but as I said, Islam has special privileges, so you can be racist towards it, and if you argue that is not possible then you’re an Islamophobe.

​Do we give this special treatment to, say, Judaism? Do we arrest those who speak out against the Jewish people? No! All other religions can suck it up and deal with it; Christianity is mocked and rightly so, as is the Catholic Church and the child sex abuse scandal. So many Catholics left their faith, refused to go to chapel and mass after the scandal that rocked their religion, so sickened by the rape of children and the cover up.

Mosques are not immune to this abuse, and we have heard of molvis and imams who have abused and raped the children left in their care, trusted by the parents to teach them the Quran and not abuse that trust by sexually abusing and raping their children. Do we talk about this as freely as the Catholic priest’s abuse? No we don’t, because only one religion has special privileges and the rest don’t.

We have the Labour Party, who has a bunch of party members who are blatant Jew-haters, and all they need to do is apologise and carry on. Imagine if the Tory party openly hated Muslims. Would they be allowed to apologise and carry on? You would never hear the end of it.

Some laugh and say the fear is not rational and that Muslims do not want Islam to take over the UK. These are the liberal leftie Islam-loving and appeasing for votes and the deluded.

Britain is becoming like Iran and Afghanistan in the 60s, when the Islamists were taking over. Sharia is creeping into everyday life and there are too many quick to silence those who speak out about it.

We have a Labour councillor who demands that a school change its uniform policy to allow a 4-year-old to wear a hijab, we jail those who place bacon onto mosque door handles and give them longer sentences than we do to those who mutilate their daughter’s vagina, and we do not even arrest those who force FGM onto their daughters.

Just recently there was an article in the papers about the police being too scared to do anything about FGM for fear of being called a racist. Allowing little girl’s vaginas to be mutilated for fear of being called a name? Failing to protect little girls from a lifetime of suffering for fear of being called a name?

Hate preachers who are banned in Pakistan are given visas to travel to the UK and spread their hate in mosques. These visits are advertised all over Facebook and other social media platforms. In these mosques, they can preach to their fellow Muslims hatred towards the kaffirs, the Jews and the West. All the while they must be laughing at the stupidity of our government.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a fear of a religion that calls for your death for daring to leave it, that hangs you from a crane for being gay, that stones you to death for being raped.

Call me an Islamophobe all you want, it won’t stop me from speaking out about the ways in which the government is being bullied by Muslims, I do not want to be ruled by Sharia and I know there are millions of others like me, Muslims and non-Muslims, who agree. They cannot silence us all.

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Shazia Hobbs grew up in Glasgow with her white Scottish mum, her Pakistani-born dad, his Pakistani-born first wife and eight of the 11 children the two women. Shazia Hobbs debut novel, The Gori’s Daughter, is available on Amazon now.
  • On Twitter
  • Shazia’s biographical novel, The Gori’s Daughter at Amazon (Kindle & Paperback)
  • ShaziaHobbs.com (main website)
  • On Facebook (named after the novel)
  • Read one of many interviews with Shazia. This one at DailyRecord.co.uk
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Attack on a church in Pakistan

12/19/2017

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Via the Barnabas Fund. There is a 2 minute security surveillance video below (no gore, thank goodness). The surname Masih (pronounced muh-see) is common among the Christians of Pakistan and, I understand, is related to the term Messiah, clearly designating them as Christians.

What strikes me most about the video clip is the perfect ordinariness of the people involved. Sometimes we imagine people and situations that are quite unrealistic when we try to capture in our minds what such attacks must look like. But here we see perfectly ordinary looking men trying to get into a walled compound in order massacre perfectly ordinary women & children - one even seems to hurt his leg as he jumps over the gate - while some other perfectly ordinary looking men try to stop them.

Perfectly ordinary men slowed the advance of perfectly ordinary looking, but entirely merciless, killers and saved peoples' lives. Perfectly ordinary people like you and me. It's good to remember that.


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Pre-Christmas Attack on Quetta Church Kills Nine Pakistani Christians, injures over 50
Two Islamist terrorists attacked the Sunday morning service at Bethel Memorial Methodist Church in Quetta, Pakistan yesterday, 17 December. At least nine Christians died at the church or in hospital from their injuries, including women and children. There was a sustained gunfight with security forces and one of the terrorists blew himself up at the church entrance; another was shot dead. Islamic State have claimed responsibility for the attack.

Rev. Simon, the pastor of the church, was in tears, unable to speak, when Wilson Saraj, Barnabas Fund’s Regional Coordinator called him soon after the attack. Wilson had been worshipping at the same church on 8 October. Yesterday, an extra large congregation filled the church building because it is so close to Christmas.  Amongst them were some of poor and needy families who receive monthly food parcels from Barnabas Fund. At least three of the feeding programme families have sustained serious loss: two fathers, on duty at the main gates of the church compound, died during the attack, and a widow remains in hospital.
The courageous men who sacrificed their lives at the main gates were Sultan Masih (aged 36) and George Masih (aged 63, not related to Sultan). Realising they were about to be attacked, Sultan quickly locked the gates and warned others to get into the church building and leave him to deal with the terrorists. A second after he locked the gates the first terrorist arrived, as recorded by the CCTV cameras. It took the terrorists 82 seconds to climb the gate and get in, thus giving valuable time to the believers to take cover.  George also can be seen on the CCTV before the terrorist jumps down. Both Sultan and George were killed, but their tremendous bravery in facing the terrorists alone saved many other lives.

Urgent prayer needed
Please pray for protection for Christians in Pakistan and around the world, as Islamic State and other Islamist terrorist groups increase their attacks for the Christmas period. A second church attack, also inspired by Islamic State, had been planned yesterday, St Petersburg, Russia, but was foiled by intelligence and security.

Siaka, a widow, is injured and in hospital. She has already lost her husband and has three sons dependent on her. Like the families of Sultan and George, she is receiving monthly food parcels from Barnabas

Please help the Christian victims in Quetta
Barnabas has sent funds for emergency help for the survivors at Quetta to help with burial, medical and other costs. Please give now to help the Christian victims of this attack. 
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You may donate at this link.
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George Masih, although elderly, stayed at his post on the gates to face the Islamic State terrorists, and gave his life to defend the congregation.
​He leaves behind a daughter and two grand-daughters

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Britain's Demographic problems & Islam

12/16/2017

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Last month in a post where I quoted a French academic promoting the idea of self-governing Muslim areas to avoid a civil war I also mentioned that Director of the Barnabas Fund, Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, recently stated that he "expected Muslims to seek to create self-governing areas in places like East London, Leicester and Manchester in 5 years or so." 

Today a new article appeared from the Barnabas Fund on the matter of the real Muslim demographic trends in Britain. Note the rise of "far right" groups patrolling Muslim areas. That is disturbing - but again, why have these groups arisen? Could it not be put it down to the lack of realism on the part of governments and Police in dealing with what the normal citizen experiences in increasing severity: Sharia compliant intolerant Muslims who enact, encourage or condone anti-western attitudes and actions? This includes attitudes and actions from the treatment of women all the way through to suicide bombings.

Not being allowed to talk, not being heard, while there is a perception - if not a reality - that authorities have an official preference for a designated "victim group" while ignoring others has led to the inevitable vigilante action. This all has to be taken seriously by the authorities and addressed or things will continue to degenerate. Simple equality before the law and not being embarrassed to enforce our own standards of right and wrong would, I think, quickly & simply sort this out. Voila! No more "far right" backlash! One Law, one standard for everyone.

Why are so many governments and other authorities so reluctant to do this? Why instead do they tolerate or even encourage Sharia Courts (more on this below)? Several telling points here - really good article.


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Analysis: UK Muslim population projected to hit 10% - challenges for Christians in Muslim-majority parts of the UK

Pew Research has released a new report on the Muslim population of Europe. The report suggests that the UK Muslim population is significantly higher than previously thought and even without the effect of migration is likely to significantly increase due to higher birth rates among Muslims.

This confirms what Barnabas Fund suggested several years ago that the UK Muslim population is probably somewhat higher than official estimates. It also raises serious concerns for issues of religious freedom for Christians and other religious minorities in the UK.

The 2011 census put the Muslim population of the UK at 2.71 million, representing 4.8% of the UK population. The Pew Research report suggests this has now grown to 4.13 million, representing 6.3% of the UK population. However, as these figures do not include asylum-seekers the actual figure is likely to be even higher.

The Pew report also projects three possible future scenarios: i) zero migration which will result in the Muslim population rising to 6.56 million, representing 9.7% of UK population by 2050; ii) similar long term rates of migration to those seen before 2016 which would result in the UK Muslim population rising to 13.06 million by 2050, representing 16.7% of the population; iii) high rates of migration resulting in a Muslim population of 13.48 million, representing 17.2% of the UK population by 2050.

The recent rise in the number of Muslims in the UK has been driven by two main factors i) a much higher birth rate than the wider population; ii) high rates of annual migration – with around half of all migrants coming from Muslim majority countries, which is substantially higher than the proportion of the population as a whole.

Why does this matter? It matters because surveys done over the last 15 years have consistently shown that whilst the majority of British Muslims are peaceful and tolerant a significant minority hold strongly anti-Christian views. For example, in 2007 the Guardian newspaper reported that a survey of more than 1,000 UK Muslims found that nearly a third of Muslims aged 16-24 believed that anyone who left Islam to become a Christian should be executed and 37% wanted to live under sharia rather UK law.

Similarly, in April 2016 an ITV programme by former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission Trevor Phillips presented the results of an extensive face to face survey of UK Muslims by ICM. This poll, which focused on areas that were at least 20% Muslim, found that:
  • 23% supported the creation of areas where justice was administered by sharia courts rather than UK law, a figure which equates a total of around half a million UK Muslims.
  • 35% thought polygamy was acceptable.
  • 18% were sympathetic to those who use violence against anyone who mocked Muhammad.

Whilst it is heartening that the majority of Muslims do not hold these views, the numbers who do, combined with the possible doubling or tripling of the UK Muslim population, creates the potential that the situation of Christians living in some predominantly Muslim areas of the UK will become increasingly difficult. In particular, we would draw attention to
  • The violence currently experienced by Christians who have converted from Islam. For example, Nissar Hussain twice had to move house from Muslim-majority areas of Bradford, the last time under armed police protection.
  • This violence has now begun to target Pakistani Christians such as Tajamal Amar who was attacked a few weeks ago in Derby.
  • We are currently seeing a spillover from pro-blasphemy law protests in Pakistan into the UK

We have already seen some Islamist groups attempting to mount sharia patrols to enforce Islamic law in some predominantly Muslim parts of the UK. We are also seeing far right groups mounting counter patrols in mainly Muslim areas. Both of these groups seek to restrict freedom of religion for others.

The Islamists seek to prevent churches sharing the Gospel in these areas of the UK and particularly target anyone giving out tracts or engaging in other forms of evangelism saying “you can’t do that here – this is a Muslim area”; while far right groups seek to prevent Muslims meeting for worship.

This situation is being fuelled by government attitudes to sharia which are “at best” ambivalent, such as the review of sharia courts set up last year, whose terms of reference included looking for examples of “good practice.”

It is vital that the British government defuses this situation before it gets out of hand.
To do so it must address the root cause of the problem – which is the denial of religious freedom by both Islamist and far right groups and increasingly also by a new intolerant strand of secular fundamentalism. The government can do this by passing a law guaranteeing all seven aspects of freedom of religion which have emerged over the last five centuries in the UK, some aspects of which have never been formally guaranteed in our laws:
  1. Freedom to practise a faith (achieved 1689).
  1. Freedom of worship, including public reading of scripture (achieved 1547).
  2. Freedom to interpret Scripture without state interference (achieved 1559).
  3. Freedom to build churches, synagogues, mosques etc. without state registration (achieved 1812).
  4. Freedom to choose or change a faith or belief system (achieved 1689).
  5. The freedom to preach, evangelise and seek to convince others of the truth of one’s beliefs (achieved 1812).
  6. The absence of any requirement for people to assent to a particular worldview or set of beliefs (Test Act) to hold public office (1888), work in professions such as teachers or lawyers or attend university.
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Why do many jihadis become more devout before fighting?

12/14/2017

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​Take a stab in the dark.

Well it would make no sense at all if you follow the line that Jihadis are perverting true Islam and exploiting it for the sake of terrorism. But it makes complete sense if Islam itself - the sacred scriptures, the historic teachings and the person & teachings of its prophet - promotes violence. That certainly would explain the direct causal link between a Muslim becoming more observant and then turning to violence in the name of their religion.

More religion is not necessarily a good thing when the religion is Islam. Many examples & scripturally based causes for jihad are covered in this 5 minute clip. So are many questions as to why something so obvious manages to escape the attention of so many observers.

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​Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer discusses the case of Arman and Omar Ali, Muslim brothers from Texas who became devout in their observance of Islam and then joined the Islamic State (ISIS).
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Sure it's only an anecdote...

12/13/2017

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...best not ignore it though

Just saw this on Pamela Geller's website. Certainly it's merely one story, but such isolated anecdotes are becoming more common. For example, embedded within this account alone are a couple of similar stories with resounding echoes of the whole "Muslim rape gang" cover-up by British Police & other authorities. You'll see what I mean. It's pretty concerning. Wilson Chowdhry is a chap with the British Pakistani Christian Association, his involvement is interesting in itself.

This appears to be a steadily growing phenomenon which is not simply going to go away if it continues to be ignored.



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Woman whose head was smashed by three Muslim youth in an unprovoked attack is stunned by the wall of silence
December 12, 2017:, Wilson Chowdhry

​A Yorkshire woman who had her head smashed against a wall so hard that it left her bleeding and unconscious, by three Muslim youths, is concerned about the wall of silence that seems to have shrouded the culprits of the brutal crime. During the attack she suffered a large gash to her forehead and serious facial injuries.

Nikki Hurst [real name protected] was brutally attacked at 6.45 on 31st October 2017 in Batley a town in West Yorkshire, while walking to work. You can find her story in most of the main stream media one article can be found (here)

NIkki is concerned that local Kirklees police investigation into her case who she says are stalling in their attempts to investigate the brutal crime. She brought our attention to important details that have been misrepresented in police crime appeals. Most notably Nikki believes Kirklees police have been wrong with pertinent information In their press release that incorrectly listed the location of the attack as Lady Ann Road. She along with Chairman of the BPCA Wilson Chowdhry, visited the place where she was assaulted which was actually in an alleyway close to Mill Outlet Shopping Complex, nearby and parallel to Lady Ann Road.
...
Nikki believes that witnesses who may have seen the perpetrators fleeing the scene may be put off sharing evidence due to the incorrect location named by Kirklees police. The confusion lies in the fact that the alleyway could either have led to Lady Ann Road or alternatively to the Car Park of the shopping complex. If the three miscreants had run towards the Car Park to get away eyewitness may have accidentally discounted their movement as a consequence of the incorrect road being named.

The location is further confused by images promoted by local police detailing the wrong wall. The images sent through media groups seem to be of two large walls on Lady Ann Road rather then the wall of the alleyway where Nikki was attacked. We know this as the walls of the alleyway are much closer together with a gap of 4ft between them rather then the width of a Road.

Nikki is also concerned about the police account of the attack, her only memory of the attack is her head being slammed into a wall before she fell unconscious. The youths may have run away soon after this, rather then having spent a few minutes laying into her with their feet and fists. This may effect the time perceptions of the crime.

Despite the brutal head injuries she suffered Nikki recalls that two of the perpetrators were school children wore uniforms that identified their school as Batley High School. A third taller individual without any uniform, may have attended the same sixth form. All three youths verbally abused her before the attack despite their being no provocation calling her derogatory words related to her colour.

Nikki is frustrated that local Police have not been communicating with her over the attack in a manner that satisfies her need for information. She has no idea if a description of the three youths has been given to Batley High School or if any inquiries at all have taken place at the school.

The incident has left Nikki shattered and she rarely leaves her home now, even less when unaccompanied. Nikki is exhibiting clear signs of post-traumatic stress disorder yet thus far neither police nor Kirklees council have offered any counselling services, despite her requests. BPCA are offering her free counselling through our new telephone service via a professionally qualified volunteer based in Blackburn. However, we would appreciate offers from churches in the area who would meet with her and provide some comfort and support, please email admin@britishpakistanichristians.org if you can help.

Moreover, due to her taking time off work to recover she has lost her employment as a packer with Foxes Biscuits. Nikki had only started her new employment three weeks earlier and was not entitled to statutory sick pay. Losing her employment meant Nikki had to apply for Unemployment benefit/Job Seekers Allowance, however due to a rather jobsworth officer deeming her absence from work as her fault, she has been offered a government Hardship Fund for 6 weeks at £35 per week, this is because her injuries did not fall within the tariff of injuries within the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme. Nikki is appealing her benefits situation and your help would be appreciated in signing a petition calling for her claim to be expedited with a favourable conclusion, in consideration of her mitigating injury. Please sign our petion by clicking (here)

Nikki said:
“I can’t understand why the culprits have not been found yet. I have informed the police of the school from which two of the youths wore uniform and would have thought that investigations would have started from there.
             Somebody must know who the three boys are; they would have to be travelling from a certain direction to get to their school from the location of my attack, this silence is sickening, it only allows these vicious youths to attack other innocent people.”


British Pakistani Christian Association are calling for local police to consider reviewing this crime as a religiously motivated crime rather then racially motivated. We conclude that the attack is religiously motivated as growing evidence is emerging that radicalized Muslim youths in the UK are finding themselves at odds with British culture and values – a growing social malaise is being ignored by statutory agencies. This radicalisation is most evident in the North of England – illustrated by incidents like Nikki’s and other assaults on non-Muslims.

In a recent report by Quilliam a Muslim NGO ‘Group Based Child Sexual Exploitation: Dissecting Grooming Gangs’, they describe how many UK based grooming gangs operate from Northern English towns and cities. They wrote:

“When David Cameron spoke of the failings of multiculturalism in 2011 he was attacked from all sides,” Ms Adil continued. “What these critics failed to see was the numerous self-segregated northern towns, the plethora of organisations that preached problematic attitudes towards women and other faiths, and the hundreds of young men and women being radicalised right here on British soil.”

The common denominator in Nikki’s attack and that of Pakistani Christian Tajamal Amar (click here), is that both victims were innocently attacked without any intended provocation. The only provocation we can determine from both the accounts provided is that the two victims were non-Muslim.

In the Koran people of faiths outside of Islam are often named Kaffir a very derogatory term that can serve to breed animosity – though not always. The fact that Nikki’s attack occurred on the morning of Halloween a date when ‘Kaffir’ involve themselves in ‘pagan festivities’ may have been a trigger for the violence. Halloween is a day many Muslims detest and they abhor the cultural practices in Britain around this date. One Muslim website provides Islamic families with guidance on how to teach their children the negativity of Halloween (click here). In one part it states:

4) Explain your position: Present your research about Halloween. Allow your spouse to support you. Explain what your position will mean for your children. Emphasize that this is you and your spouse’s position and remind them that you love them. Do not over emphasize fatwas or what people in the community might think. You do not want your children to think that Islam is limiting their lives or that you care more about what people think than about your kids and what they want. Be sure to help them understand the following facts:

  1. Halloween has pagan roots
  2. It is associated with celebrating superstition, black magic, and devil worship
  3. Costumes are often inappropriate and immodest
  4. Trick or treating can be seen as either blackmail or begging and Muslims are not supposed to beg or extort people.

The phrase about not over emphasizing Fatwas causes BPCA great concern…

A vulnerable Kaffir woman on her own may well have been the perfect target to vent the frustrations that many Muslim youth feel around the festive period of Halloween, in certain communities. This is not to say that all Muslims will hold such frustrations but BPCA is noticing a rise in intolerance towards people of other faiths in Northern regions of the UK. One such example is the attack on Nissar Hussain a man who had to flee his home twice because of the outrage his public renouncing of Islam caused. His final exit from Bradford was accelerated by local police who stated he had two weeks to leave Bradford due to the imminent threat on his life. Worse still he had to be escorted by 4 police cars, each filled with 4 police officers all of whom brandished semi-automatic weapons, in what must have been the largest armed security presence this country has ever seen for the purposes of a civilian retrieving a box from his house (click here).

Tajamal Amar who I referred to earlier, is a Pakistani Christian from Derby who innocently donned two large poppies on his car and dangled a cross from his rear view mirror. He is believed to have been brutally beaten till unconscious for displaying both offensive items only a week before Remembrance Sunday – a date when many Muslims take to the streets in poppy burning protests named ‘Hate for Hero’s’ that are part of an annual campaign by Islamists.

BPCA are calling for Councils, Police Authorities and the Government to start referring to such hate crimes under a new category of ‘Kaffirophobia’. We believe the classification should be adopted within an amendment to the Racial and Religious Hate Crime Act 2006. BPCA has for some time condemned the political correctness and fear of being labelled Islamophobic that has stifled our statutory authorities.

In the Quillam report we mentioned earlier the NGO also urged police and politicians to dismiss political correctness, they wrote:

“The notion that certain cultures are out of bounds when it comes to criticism is not just misguided and misinformed, but often allows the most vulnerable individuals from society to continue to be victimised and abused.”

In each of the examples BPCA have shared above i.e. Nissar Hussain, Tajamal Amar and Nikki Hurst, their local police constabularies failed to report the crimes against them as hate crimes until media intervention was enacted. The current system is simply not fit for purpose which has led to BPCA submitting a report to the UK Hate Crime Inquiry (click here).

Nikki Hurst has asked BPCA to help with the financial ruin she and her partner have had to go through as a consequence of her attack. She has got herself into debt with her father-in-law, Step-dad and brother and owes them all a combined total of £410. When Wilson Chowdhry met with them he found them without money to pay for necessary electricity and helped with a small donation of £40. Mr Chowdhry also took the endearing couple out for a meal at a local restaurant and has spoken of how charming and friendly both of them were. We would like to settle the family’s debt for Christmas and would like to offer to cover the £410 with your help, if you would like to donate please (click here).

Wilson Chowdhry, Chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association, said:

“Kaffirophobia is an existential problem and one that has worsened in recent years, unless it is properly addressed we cannot expect this pattern to decline.”

            “Ignoring crimes of this nature do not make them disappear, quite conversely impunity usually results in an exacerbation of the original situation.

    “Our Government has a responsibility to protect all Britain’s citizens and people of good conscience everywhere, irrespective of their faith have a responsibility to one another and to the agencies helping them to make change a reality.

            “It is on that basis, I hope that this appeal pierces someones heart resulting in the culprits who almost killed Nikki being caught, for no other purposes then for their rehabilitation and for Nikki to get some justice. ” 
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Fantasy goodwill & unrealistic expectations

12/13/2017

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FGM, rape gangs, "breast ironing"(!), racism, Sharia courts and Islamic ghettos. What were once seen as the very worst aspects of Islamic migration are becoming very common.

​There's nothing like some first hand experience and the viewpoint of an insider who has come out. This is a very commonsense article from Jihad Watch which I think will be salutary.


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Mass Islamic immigration: We should be controlling who is allowed in
Dec 11, 2017 5:07 pm By Shazia Hobbs 

You know mass immigration is an important issue because you aren’t allowed to talk about it, you get called names if you do talk about it, and those in favour of it will never back down no matter what facts you give them or how rational your arguments.

Talking about Islam is virtually impossible, talking about immigration is virtually impossible and so talking specifically about mass Islamic immigration is something of a suicide mission. A frank discussion of mass Islamic immigration is absolutely guaranteed to generate smears of racist, fascist and bigot in order to silence that discussion.
The reason this tactic is employed so often is very simple: because it really works. Europeans have been successfully denied a discussion of immigration for decades.

In an ideal world, perhaps it might be wonderful to have open borders with everyone travelling as they please and causing no harm to each other. But only a fool believes we live in an ideal world, and only a fool believes we can achieve Utopia by opening our borders to all.

As the daughter of an immigrant who arrived in the UK from Pakistan in the 60s, many might assume I would be for open borders – yet I am all for closing our borders temporarily. My father arrived in the UK to work, not to claim benefits. He started off as a bus conductor, working his way up to driving the buses and eventually he had his own businesses, five of them.

When my father arrived in the UK, along with many other men and women of South Asian origin, there was plenty of work, there was also enough housing, they didn’t rely on benefits and they weren’t a strain on the NHS.  Yes, there was plenty of racism and ignorance towards the migrants but, crucially, they generally worked hard and integrated, and they were slowly accepted. It was a two-way street: migrants generally proved themselves capable of integrating and working, and racists stopped being racist. In historical terms, this was done in the blink of an eye and is testament to the decency of humanity.

We now know that the mass migration that occurred in the 50s and 60s and the years that followed weren’t without problems. We now have laws, which protect those at risk of being forced into marriage or at risk of being killed in the name of honour. It only took the Government thirty odd years to realise that cultures and traditions that were normal ‘back home’ should not be tolerated in an advanced democracy, and no longer ignored under the political correctness excuse. We still have a long way to go in changing people’s attitudes and protecting the most vulnerable in our society.

Allowing Muslims to make their home in the UK, whether escaping war and persecution or looking for a better life with free housing, benefits and medical care, hasn’t been without problems. There will be few people who have not heard by now of the term FGM – female genital mutilation – where girls as young as two and three years old are forcibly held down to have their vaginas mutilated, their clitoris sliced off and labia sewn shut, allowing only a tiny hole for them to urinate and bleed from. This barbaric practice is carried out purely to destroy a female’s sexuality and to ensure she gets no sexual pleasure, and so once again a new law has been passed and it is now a crime to carry out FGM. Even though we know it happens, even though we hear stories from survivors of this cruelty nobody has been successfully prosecuted. Not one single person. The fear of being labelled racist for not understanding people’s cultures is always stronger than the desire to protect those who are at risk from being mutilated.

There is another “tradition” that is only now coming to light that few people in the UK will have heard of, which is called “breast ironing”. It is as horrendous as it sounds. It is another barbaric way of controlling females: their breasts are ironed to stop them growing, or sometimes they are cut off completely. Those that carry out this evil say it is to protect the girls from being raped. Perhaps we should also remove young girls’ eyes in case they go blind one day.

Britain is now aware of the Muslim grooming gangs who have been allowed to rape young underage girls with de facto legal impunity. In the majority of these cases the perpetrators are of Pakistani origin, or to be precise men from a Mirpuri background, and recently we have also heard of gangs of Somalian men who have also been convicted of these horrific crimes. The names Rochdale, Bradford, Oxford, Rotherham and Aylesbury have become destinations on a dystopian Monopoly board of towns that have suffered a perfect storm of Islam, rape, political correctness, appeasement and cover up. Vulnerable, underage girls being raped by multiple men while those responsible looked the other way for fear of being labelled racist. These are the towns and cities in the UK we have heard about and no doubt that there will be many more.

Germany opened its borders and welcomed refugees, and it had no plan on how to deal with those that arrived. The vast majority of these ‘refugees’ are young, able men, escaping poverty and looking to make a better life in a country where they will be housed and given benefits. It is not racist nor is it bigoted to demand that these economic migrants be returned to their country of origin. These migrants make it difficult to help the genuine refugees, the ones fleeing war and terrors that we could not even begin to imagine. The children who have been born into war and who have known nothing but the sounds of bombs and gunfire. These are the genuine refugees we should be helping, in a controlled and responsible manner – not the armies of economic migrants.

Sex crimes and rape are on the increase in Europe at an alarming rate.  Sweden has almost become the rape capital of the world, second only behind South Africa [Graeme: yes, I know that Sweden has recently changed the way they measure rape statistics, but it seems to me that this is largely in response to the rapid rise in migrant rapes and an effort to obfuscate this reality]. The most disturbing thing I have witnessed happening in Sweden are the pictures that appeared on Twitter, screenshots from young Swedish girls’ Instagram accounts, before they turned their settings to private. By young girls I mean girls as young as eight or nine years old, children, being cuddled by grown migrant men. The children’s parents weren’t in these pictures. Perhaps the parents are unaware or the girls are from broken homes, neglected and unloved. These poor little girls see absolutely nothing wrong in what these grown men are doing to them, and for many it may be the first time someone has paid them any sort of attention, which they falsely believe is love. Men old enough to be fathers of the girls they are posing with in the pictures and the world is silent, apart from a little outrage on Twitter, not enough for it to be trending or for it to go viral. Sweden is experiencing its very own Rotherham and the world can see it, yet nothing is being done, again because that dreaded R- word puts such Kryptonite fear in to people. No, not Rape, but Racist.

There was an immediate, sustained, moral and political panic that we had to house the occupants of the Middle East and Africa on the basis they must all be “refugees”, but there is no equivalent moral or political panic that we must do something about mass rape committed by Muslims. On the contrary, the only panic I can see is that we must cover it up or make excuses for it: perhaps the rapists didn’t speak good enough English or good German, or perhaps it’s because of austerity? The surprisingly mild weather we have been having? Perhaps the food in Rotherham is not to their liking? Cover up after cover up and children continue to be raped by adults in our country so why should we now care that the children of Sweden are being raped? And so we stand by and do nothing. Do nothing for fear of being labelled racist.

We know integration by Muslims into many parts of the UK has failed and that ghettos have been created, where the community leaders rule their kingdoms and elected councillors have to listen to what they say, or else. Racist. Bigot. The usual words used to get their own ways, allowing Sharia law to prosper and flourish, unchallenged. If we heard only feel good stories about the large percentage of Muslim women who use Sharia Councils then it might be tempting to say it’s cultural and that it harms no-one and so why put an end to them.

However we know for a fact that the Sharia Councils operating in the UK do not believe in gender equality and that women are penalised purely for being women. We hear about the women who have been divorced by their husbands only to find out their marriage was legal only under Islamic law and not British, thus leaving the women with no marriage rights whatsoever. We hear about the women whose children have been taken from them in cases of divorce with all rights “granted” by the Sharia Councils to the fathers (the Sharia Councils have no right to do this), regardless of the father’s suitability. Muslim men who have appointed themselves rulers of their own little empires mostly operate sharia Councils across towns and cities in the UK.

The UK has many problems as it is. There are many that are homeless, either living on the streets or in homeless units waiting to be re-housed. There are children who will spend their entire childhood in care, never fortunate enough to be fostered by a loving family, leaving care at 18 years old to fend for themselves. The strain on the NHS is also another problem and with mass immigration it will only get worse, you would be a fool to think it wouldn’t.

We should be controlling who is allowed in, and we most certainly should not be labelled racist for wanting to do so. Young able men arriving purely for economic reasons should be sent back immediately, to deter future migrants from making the journey. These men are not fleeing war or persecution, they are bringing it.

We have already seen what mass Islamic immigration has brought to Europe: it has brought absolute carnage because Muslims have proved themselves unwilling to give up Sharia. The great European experiment has failed. This is the hand Europe has been dealt and the hand it must play. There is only one thing left to do: it is now time for Europe to give up Islamic immigration. If it doesn’t, there will be no Europe.

Shazia Hobbs grew up in Glasgow with her white Scottish mum, her Pakistani-born dad, his Pakistani-born first wife and eight of the 11 children the two women. Shazia Hobbs debut novel, The Gori’s Daughter, is available on Amazon now.


  • On Twitter
  • Shazia’s biographical novel, The Gori’s Daughter at Amazon (Kindle & Paperback)
  • ShaziaHobbs.com (main website)
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  • Read one of many interviews with Shazia. This one at DailyRecord.co.uk
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This is Why I am not smart enough to be a lawyer

12/13/2017

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I've mentioned before our missing sense of proportion here in the West when it comes to crimes involving Muslims. Here is another example of such an incongruity that perhaps some lawyer may be able to explain to a dunce like me.

Then again maybe not.

Jihad Watch report how one lady in the US gets 3 years incarceration for "aggravated vehicular jihad" where she deliberately ran off the road and into a man pushing a stroller. A wee tot was killed. Three years.

Meanwhile a man in another US State vandalises a Mosque and leaves bacon at its front door. The sentence? Fifteen years.

Come again?

Obviously I am not trained in the law and cannot grasp the graceful overarching symmetry of this sentencing. I mean perhaps we are not being told the whole story? Maybe the tot had drawn an offensive cartoon of Muhammad and had provoked a righteous & excusable backlash? Maybe the man left the bacon wrapped around a small thermo-nuclear device? No? Oh come on there must be something - what could explain this profound disparity?

It can't be because there's a glaring double standard.
Could it.


>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Florida man gets 15 years prison for breaking windows and leaving bacon at a mosque“
Vandal who left bacon inside mosque gets 15 years in prison,” Associated Press, December 6, 2017:

…The state attorney’s office serving Brevard and Seminole counties said Michael Wolfe was sentenced to 15 years in prison followed by 15 years of probation after he pleaded guilty Tuesday. The sentence had a hate crime enhancement.

The 37-year-old was sentenced as a habitual offender. Titusville police arrested Wolfe in January 2016 after the New Year’s Day vandalism. A surveillance video showed him smashing lights, cameras and windows with a machete.

Bacon was left by the front door. Consumption of pork and pork products made from pork is forbidden in Islam.


And this, with intro by Robt. Spencer:~


Ohio: Muslima gets 3 years for aggravated vehicular homicide in crash that killed 7-month-old boy

Three years? For aggravated vehicular homicide? Why? Would a stiffer sentence have been “Islamophobic”?

Last June, the Islamic State published a poster depicting an SUV driving over a heap of skulls and bearing the legend “Run Over Them Without Mercy.”

And the Islamic State issued this call in September 2014:
So O muwahhid, do not let this battle pass you by wherever you may be. You must strike the soldiers, patrons, and troops of the tawaghit. Strike their police, security, and intelligence members, as well as their treacherous agents. Destroy their beds. Embitter their lives for them and busy them with themselves. If you can kill a disbelieving American or European — especially the spiteful and filthy French — or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be….If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman, or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him….

“Woman sentenced to 3 years in crash that killed infant in stroller,” NBC4, November 29, 2017, 11:25 am Updated: November 29, 2017 (thanks to Creeping Sharia):

COLUMBUS (WCMH) — A woman has been sentenced to prison after being found guilty of aggravated vehicular homicide in connection with the death of a 7-month-old boy in June 2016.

Muhuba Ali Mohamed, 32, was accused of running off the right side of the roadway on Westerville Road in June 2016, striking a mailbox, and hitting a father who was pushing the baby in a stroller….
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The germ of the problem...

12/13/2017

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...in a nutshell

For your edification: Islam’s Three Worst Doctrines from Raymond Ibrahim.

As he states:~
"
These three interrelated teachings of Islam—loyalty and enmity, jihad, and dhimmitude—are unequivocally grounded in Islamic law, or Sharia.  They are not matters open to interpretation or debate. " 

And that is the problem in a nutshell.


>>>>>>>>>>

Islam’s Three Worst Doctrines
​
Because Islam gets criticized for many things — from hostility to modernity and democracy to calls for theocratic rule, radical “patriarchy,” misogyny, and draconian punishments, to name a few — it is helpful to step back and distinguish between those (many) doctrines that affect Muslim society alone, and those that extend to and affect Western or non-Muslim peoples in general.  On doing this, three interrelated doctrines come into sharp focus.    They are: 1) total disavowal from, and enmity for, “the infidel,” that is, constant spiritual or metaphysical hostility against the non-Muslim (in Arabic known as al-wala’ w’al bara, or “loyalty and enmity”); this naturally manifests itself as 2) jihad, that is, physical hostility against and—whenever and wherever possible—attempts to subjugate the non-Muslim); finally, successful jihads lead to 3) dhimmitude, the degrading position of conquered non-Muslims who refuse to forfeit their religious freedom by converting to the victor’s creed.

Loyalty and Enmity
There is no doubt that mainstream Islam advocates the separation of Muslims from non-Muslims, believers from infidels, clean from unclean.  Koran 5:51 warns Muslims against “taking the Jews and Christians as friends and allies … whoever among you takes them for friends and allies, he is surely one of them,” that is, he too becomes an infidel, or kafir, the worst human classification in Islam.  Koran 3:28, 4:89, 4:144, 5:54, 6:40, 9:23 all have the same message; 58:22 simply states that true Muslims do not befriend non-Muslims—“even if they be their fathers, sons, brothers, or kin.”   But Koran verses further call on Muslims to have enmity--hate—for non-Muslims: “We [Muslims] renounce you [non-Muslims]. Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us—till you believe in Allah alone” (Koran 60:4).  As the Islamic State explained in an unambiguously titled article, “Why We Hate You & Why We Fight You,”  “We hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers.”

The flipside of al-wala’ w’al bara is that Muslims are commanded to befriend and aid fellow Muslims—including jihadis, for example through funds (or zakat).  As one Muslim authority summarizes, the believer “is obligated to befriend a believer—even if he is oppressive and violent toward you—while he must be hostile to the infidel—even if he is liberal and kind to you” (The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 64 ).  This loyalty to fellow Muslims and enmity for non-Muslims is fundamentally responsible for the metaphysical or “spiritual” clash between Islam and the West.  Add to enmity the fact that Muslims are permitted to lie to non-Muslims—including by feigning loyalty or friendship—and it becomes apparent how dangerous the doctrine of “loyalty and enmity” is: among other things, disloyalty to infidels (see here, here, and here for examples), and a “mafia mentality,” whereby all Muslims must overtly or covertly work together, suggests that hostility for non-Muslims, even when unseen, is ever present.

Jihad
Jihad—war on non-Muslims for no less a reason than that they are non-Muslims—is the physical manifestation or realization of enmity for “infidels.”  Not only is it natural to attack and seek to subjugate those whom one is bred on hating, but the doctrine of jihad, including to spread and enforce Sharia around the world, is part and parcel of Islam; it is no less codified than Islam’s Five Pillars. As the Encyclopaedia of Islam’s entry for “jihad” puts it, the “spread of Islam by arms is a religious duty upon Muslims in general … Jihad must continue to be done until the whole world is under the rule of Islam … Islam must completely be made over before the doctrine of jihad can be eliminated.”

One can continue quoting any number of authorities, especially Muslims, saying that jihad to subjugate the world is an ironclad aspect of Islam.  Even the late Osama bin Laden—who would have had the West believe that al-Qaeda’s terror is a byproduct of political grievances—when speaking in Arabic to Muslims made it perfectly clear that the doctrine of jihad is the root problem: “Our talks with the infidel West and our conflict with them ultimately revolve around one issue… Does Islam, or does it not, force people by the power of the sword to submit to its authority corporeally if not spiritually? Yes. There are only three choices in Islam… Either submit, or live under the suzerainty of Islam, or die.”

Dhimmitude
But as infidels are to be hated per se and not merely in the context of jihad—the ability of which to prosecute is often curtailed by circumstances—the hostility continues even after the cessation of successful jihads.  Unlike other conquerors and conquests that generally permit the conquered to go on unmolested so long as they do not challenge the new order—some even try to appease and win over their new subjects—whenever and wherever Islam conquers, that old metaphysical hostility which fueled the jihad remains to gloat in triumph over the subject infidels.  Thus, not only must the latter pay a special tax (jizya), embrace a subordinate positon, and follow a number of debilitations—they must also be reminded and made to feel inferior and despised, including as a way to “inspire” them to convert to the “true” faith.

As the Islamic State explained in the aforementioned article, regardless of any and all appeasement offered by the non-Muslim, “we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam. Even if you were to pay jizyah and live under the authority of Islam in humiliation, we would continue to hate you.”  Either way, Islam wins:   If the non-Muslim continues in his faith, the Muslims continue to prey off him; if, on the other hand, the non-Muslim eventually “surrenders” to Islam, the umma gains a new recruit (with death as the penalty should he later entertain second thoughts and apostatize).
                                                                           ——--
These three interrelated teachings of Islam—loyalty and enmity, jihad, and dhimmitude—are unequivocally grounded in Islamic law, or Sharia.  They are not matters open to interpretation or debate.  By eliminating or lessening the focus from all those other “problematic” teachings that affect Muslims only—but which tend to be conflated with those (three) teachings that directly affect the non-Muslim—one can better appreciate, and thus place the spotlight on, the true roots of conflict between Islam and the West.
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Is fascism Right or Left?

12/12/2017

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Obvious answer, right?

Please don't call me a Nazi or a Fascist simply for opposing Sharia Law.

We hear the charges of "Nazi" and "Fascist' thrown around fairly freely these days. Unsettlingly this is often done by masked thugs trying to shut people up whose opinion they disagree with, which seems just a tad ironic to the rest of us. But it is also unthinkingly employed by pretty normal people who haven't really considered what they are saying.

I've held the view for quite a while that Fascism and Nazism have their roots not in the political Right but in the political Left. I mean the fact that Nazi was short for National Socialist should probably be a bit of a clue. On the other hand Mussolini, who I'm sure we can agree knew a thing or two about Fascism, stated that Government control of large corporations - as the US government pretty much affected after the Global Financial Crisis when it "Bailed Out" gigantic banks & other colossal institutions - constitutes a plank of Fascism.

Oh dear, what have we let ourselves in for?

Are people who want to give away all or most of what their country has to apparently needy people the morally virtuous while those who urge prudence are the new Machiavellis? Where does this end? If all the more prosperous Western nations were to take in a number of people equivalent to their combined existing populations would everybody really have an improved life? Or would the prosperous West be swamped with economic, cultural & religious burdens it is simply unable to handle? (See here for a revealing little video on this attractive fallacy. The best thing the West can do to help the rest of the world is export our historic attitudes, way of life and - yes - our Religion.)

It seems the more macro the scale the more theoretical the argument is and the more people are willing to give away what they have inherited. The more willing they are to see the Scrooges of the West cough up for the rest of the world's Tiny Tim's. A case of "Easy come, easy go"?

Many people now have the attitude that "the government" or - as a New Zealander I have heard this a lot over the years - "the Americans" should step in and do more. But where do these big guys get their resources (hint: they create no wealth, they can only appropriate it)? And what if those guys should run out of resources? Who will help then?

Privately people saying this often seem to find good reasons not to give out of their own pockets to help the needy in their own towns. Theory is fine, but "are you telling me to cough up?" Well that's a liberty.

Or perhaps is the real issue somehow that the modifier National has become a dirty word? Imperialist & oppressive International Socialism (even when Russia became Socialist and annexed various satellite states after WW2 - the U.S.S.R. being the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics") seems to get a free pass as we all seem to believe that was "to help the poor" even though the USSR killed millions of its own poor in search of the glorious workers paradise that never materialised.

It does sound like some of us are just plain confused.

By the way:~
It annoys me to have to refer to "Left" or "Right" as I think most of us are after the same things and labels often obstruct understanding, but the West seems to be increasingly splintering, so let's see if we can get some clarity on the concepts and the origins of this Fascism thing so we can have an informed discussion. Or those of us who think we really do have something of value to preserve will continue to be stigmatised as the very people our fathers fought to the death just 70 years ago. 

Here's a helpful 5 minute video from Conservative intellectual Dinesh D'Souza via PragerU. I think perhaps he attributes nefarious motives to those who simply have a blind-spot & that he's being too harsh on some Western intellectuals he accuses of deliberate obfuscation (but you all know I have a record of being too soft) - however the information here is still very important.

​I think it's a valuable contribution.
​Transcript:~

  “He’s a fascist!”

For decades, this has been a favorite smear of the left, aimed at those on the right. Every Republican president—for that matter, virtually every Republican—since the 1970s has been called a fascist; now, more than ever.

This label is based on the idea that fascism is a phenomenon of the political right. The left says it is, and some self-styled white supremacists and neo-Nazis embrace the label.

But are they correct?

To answer this question, we have to ask what fascism really means: What is its underlying ideology? Where does it even come from?

These are not easy questions to answer. We know the name of the philosopher of capitalism: Adam Smith. We know the name of the philosopher of Marxism: Karl Marx. But who’s the philosopher of fascism?

Yes—exactly. You don’t know. Don’t feel bad. Almost no one knows. This is not because he doesn’t exist, but because historians, most of whom are on the political left, had to erase him from history in order to avoid confronting fascism’s actual beliefs. So, let me introduce him to you. His name is Giovanni Gentile.

Born in 1875, he was one of the world’s most influential philosophers in the first half of the twentieth century. Gentile believed that there were two “diametrically opposed” types of democracy. One is liberal democracy, such as that of the United States, which Gentile dismisses as individualistic—too centered on liberty and personal rights—and therefore selfish. The other, the one Gentile recommends, is “true democracy,” in which individuals willingly subordinate themselves to the state.

Like his philosophical mentor, Karl Marx, Gentile wanted to create a community that resembles the family, a community where we are “all in this together.” It’s easy to see the attraction of this idea. Indeed, it remains a common rhetorical theme of the left.
​
For example, at the 1984 convention of the Democratic Party, the governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, likened America to an extended family where, through the government, people all take care of each other.

Nothing’s changed. Thirty years later, a slogan of the 2012 Democratic Party convention was, “The government is the only thing we all belong to.” They might as well have been quoting Gentile.

Now, remember, Gentile was a man of the left. He was a committed socialist. For Gentile, fascism is a form of socialism—indeed, its most workable form. While the socialism of Marx mobilizes people on the basis of class, fascism mobilizes people by appealing to their national identity as well as their class. Fascists are socialists with a national identity. German Fascists in the 1930s were called Nazis—basically a contraction of the term “national socialist.”

For Gentile, all private action should be oriented to serve society; there is no distinction between the private interest and the public interest. Correctly understood, the two are identical. And who is the administrative arm of the society? It’s none other than the state. Consequently, to submit to society is to submit to the state—not just in economic matters, but in all matters. Since everything is political, the state gets to tell everyone how to think and what to do.

It was another Italian, Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943, who turned Gentile’s words into action. In his Dottrina del Fascismo, one of the doctrinal statements of early fascism, Mussolini wrote, “All is in the state and nothing human exists or has value outside the state.” He was merely paraphrasing Gentile.

The Italian philosopher is now lost in obscurity, but his philosophy could not be more relevant because it closely parallels that of the modern left. Gentile’s work speaks directly to progressives who champion the centralized state. Here in America, the left has vastly expanded state control over the private sector, from healthcare to banking; from education to energy. This state-directed capitalism is precisely what German and Italian fascists implemented in the 1930s.

Leftists can’t acknowledge their man, Gentile, because that would undermine their attempt to bind conservatism to fascism. Conservatism wants small government so that individual liberty can flourish. The left, like Gentile, wants the opposite: to place the resources of the individual and industry in the service of a centralized state. To acknowledge Gentile is to acknowledge that fascism bears a deep kinship to the ideology of today’s left. So, they will keep Gentile where they’ve got him: dead, buried, and forgotten.

But we should remember, or the ghost of fascism will continue to haunt us.
​
I’m Dinesh D’Souza for Prager University.
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in admiration of "pathetic"

12/12/2017

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Sometimes you can only dream of being that good

Lebanese Christian scholar Dr Habib Malik cites three kinds of dialogue between Christians and Muslims which occur today.

The first,
is what I call 'least common denominator' dialogue – platitudes. We’re all three Abrahamic religions, we’re the three Middle Eastern monotheisms, the Issa of the Koran is really the same as the Jesus of the New Testament … This is mostly what transpires at Christian-Muslim dialogue conferences ... this is what Kierkegaard called idle talk ... In other words, if this is dialogue, it’s pathetic. 
​
The second is “'functional' or 'practical' dialogue.
This is dialogue with pragmatic aims: solving a specific problem, relieving tensions in a particular area, humanitarian relief, crisis management. This is very useful dialogue, a form of negotiations, if you will. It certainly has a role to play, but it’s still not real dialogue”.

Thirdly, is what he calls “'dialogue as witness'. And this is important ... for Christians, living Jesus Christ in the presence of others is the most powerful manifestation of this kind of dialogue.”
 
Genuine dialogue is achieved he says, when finally,
 
Dialogue [is] elevated to the Buberian dialogical, moving communication to communion, as it were, having a partner. It takes two if you are dialogically prepared to tango. Reciprocity here is of the essence. ...  'A relation between persons that is characterized in more or less degree by the element of the inclusion may be termed a dialogical one.' Inclusion here comes very close to the Christian conception of love, but it has to be reciprocal. So ... instead of searching for a new epistemology, I would say, back to ... basics.
                       
If the paradigm or template is Buber’s dialogical, then what goes under the name of inter-religious dialogue today, except in very rare cases, falls short of the mark. Certainly it’s absent in Christian-Muslim interaction. Inclusion has to be reciprocal, mutual, relational, interpenetrative.


​
That's real dialogue.

But we are stuck at a stage where we sometimes admire what Malik calls "Pathetic" dialogue as a bold step forward.

A case in point: the recent inter-faith event in Massachusetts where a Rabbi & his congregation welcome as real peacemakers & honest partners in dialogue people associated with the West-hating Muslim Brotherhood.

Oy vey.

Robert Spencer goes through some of the teeny tiny little issues with all this make believe in a 5 minute clip.
Robert Spencer: CAIR's rabbi and the perils of "interfaith dialogue"
​Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer explains why it was a mistake for Massachusetts Rabbi Howard Jaffe of Temple Isaiah in Lexington, Massachusetts to bring in Nadeem Mazen of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Stephanie Marzouk of the Muslim Justice League (MJL), and Samer Naseredden of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC), all of whom misled his congregation.
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How Important Is Jerusalem in Islam anyway?

12/10/2017

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Pusillanimous politicians, tradition,
hollow displays of outrage
​& realpolitik

Via Jihad Watch Hugh Fitzgerald does his usual thorough job of examining all the fuss over America's decision to (finally) move its Embassy to Israel's capital city. Seems like standard practise to me - what's all the fuss about?

Let's see whether things are as bad as we are told.

The author sums up this excellent piece thus:
1. President Trump has honored his campaign pledge, in contrast to his pusillanimous predecessors, to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem. In this he is also fulfilling the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, passed overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress. He has listened to, and rejected, the warnings of nearly a dozen Arab states.

2. The President is aware that this is a moment of maximum peril for the Sunnis of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. Iran’s Shi’a Houthi allies have withstood a ferocious Saudi bombing campaign in San’a, and may yet win much more of Yemen, giving Iran a potential base from which to threaten the Saudis from the south. Hezbollah, battle-hardened from fighting in Syria, dominates Lebanon. Most of Syria is now firmly back in Alawite (Shi’a) control. Assad owes his survival in large part  to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and to Hezbollah.

3. In Iraq Iranian Revolutionary Guards have helped defeat ISIS. ISIS is gone, but the Guards are still in Iraq. The government in Baghdad, now Shi’a-controlled, is firmly in Iran’s orbit, much to Sunni Arab chagrin.

4. In Lebanon, even though the Sunnis are as numerous as the Shiites (both have 27% of the population) they have no separate armed force, equivalent to Hezbollah, to defend their interests.

5. The Sunnis are justifiably alarmed by the “Shi’a crescent” that now extends from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon and the Mediterranean. That is much more worrisome to King Abdullah than the embassy move about which he, like most other Arab leaders, has uttered only pro-forma warnings about possible damage to peace-keeping.

6. Though it is not undermined directly by any Shi’a power, Sunni Egypt has an interest in helping its fellow Sunnis in limiting Iran and its proxies (Hezbollah, the Houthis) from extending their power. That means supporting Saudi Arabia in Yemen, helping the Sunnis in Iraq from being overwhelmed by the majority Shi’a, and even, possibly, aiding Sunnis in Lebanon to create a militia of their own capable of resisting Hezbollah. This could even include supplying Egyptian soldiers, paid for with Saudi funds. ... El-Sisi needs American military aid, and understanding, too, for there are Americans keen to punish his government  for supposed “human rights” infractions, insufficiently aware of what it takes to deal with enemies like ISIS, and the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sisi has no interest in sacrificing good relations with America, and Egyptian national interests, for the sake of those “Palestinians” who never have been, and never will be, satisfied as long as Israel continues to exist. 

​
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Trump and the Embassy: The Dogs Bark,The Caravan Moves On,
Hugh Fitzgerald

If you’ve been listening to NPR or the BBC or almost any news channel, you’ve been told again and again these days that Jerusalem is a city “holy to three faiths.” This is comforting for those who don’t like to make distinctions; it doesn’t, however, adequately convey the fact that Jerusalem as an entire city means far more to Jews and to Christians than to Muslims. For Muslims, Mecca and Medina are the two supremely holy cities, off-limits to non-Muslims. The qibla, or direction toward which Muslims face while prostrate in prayer, is Mecca. For a very short period, when first in Medina, Muhammad, in an attempt to win Jewish converts, had his followers when praying face north toward Jerusalem. After this attempt failed, Muhammad turned against the Jews, killed many of them, and directed the qibla southward, toward Mecca.

Muhammad’s abandonment of Jerusalem explains the fact that this city is not mentioned even once in the Qur’an. After Palestine was occupied by the Muslims, its capital was Ramle, 30 miles to the west of Jerusalem, signifying that Jerusalem meant very little to them.

Islam rediscovered Jerusalem 50 years after Muhammad’s death. In 682 CE, ‘Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr rebelled against the Islamic rulers in Damascus, conquered Mecca, and prevented pilgrims from reaching Mecca for the Hajj. ‘Abd al-Malik, the Umayyad Caliph, needed an alternative site for the pilgrimage and settled on Jerusalem, which was then under his control. In order to justify this choice, he relied on Qur’an 17:1, which states:

“Glory to Him who caused His servant to travel by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque, whose precincts We have blessed, in order to show him some of Our Signs, He is indeed the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing.”

The meaning the Umayyad Caliph ascribed to this verse was that “the furthest mosque” (al-masjid al-aqsa) must have been in Jerusalem (although there was no mosque in Jerusalem during Muhammad’s lifetime) and that Muhammad was conveyed there from Mecca one night, on the back of al-Buraq, a magical horse with the head of a woman, the wings of an eagle, the tail of a peacock, and hoofs reaching to the horizon. He tethered the horse to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount and from there ascended to the seventh heaven together with the angel Gabriel.

And that is how Jerusalem, which is not mentioned even once in the Qur’an, took on the significance it has for Muslims, who simply appropriated it, at a time when Mecca was temporarily off-limits, and assigned it to be the place — the “farthest mosque” — to which  Muhammad travelled from Mecca (the isra), before he ascended to the seventh heaven (the miraj). That Night Journey begins from a rock on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, upon which both the First and Second Temples were built. Muslims appropriated for their own purpose the Temple Mount, which they renamed Al-Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary, upon which were built the Dome of the Rock, from which, Muslims believe, Muhammad ascended into heaven, and the al-Aqsa Mosque, where Muhammad prayed after his Night Journey. This appropriation of the main Jewish site — the Temple Mount — for the Muslim narrative, is not surprising: Islam has taken over a great deal from the prior monotheisms, including Moses and Jesus (as “prophets”); it is natural that it would also lay claim to physical sites holy to Judaism and Christianity.

For Christians, Jerusalem is central to the faith. It’s the site of the temple where Christ was taken to be circumcised, the temple where Mary was taken to be presented, the city into which Christ makes his entrance on “Palm Sunday,”  the place where Christ kicked out the moneylenders from the temple, the place where, on a hill, Christ was crucified after carrying the cross through its streets, and where He was buried, at the site of what is now the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Compare the role of Jerusalem in Judaism. It has been the center of Jewish life, and longing, since 3000 B.C. Some Orthodox Jews still turn physically toward Jerusalem in prayer, while other Jews, while praying, turn their thoughts toward Jerusalem. For centuries Jerusalem was the capital city of Jewish kingdoms, the city of King Solomon and King David, the location of Judaism’s holiest sites (the Western Wall, the Temple Mount), and the historical focus of Jewish political life. It has been continuously inhabited by Jews for nearly 5000 years. As the Psalmist says, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”

So we must remember that Jerusalem, then, is far less significant for Muslims than it is for Jews and Christians. Sites in Jerusalem important to the Jewish and Christian faiths — the Western Wall, the Temple Mount, the Via Dolorosa, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and many others — you do not need to be either a believing Jew or a Christian to know that those sites really exist, and that they are revered by both. But for you to believe that Muhammad flew on his winged steed Al-Buraq from Mecca to Jerusalem, and from there ascended to the Seventh Heaven, you have to be a Muslim.

Now that President Trump has become the first president to honor his campaign pledge to move the embassy to Jerusalem, showing up all those presidents before him who made similar promises but then refused to honor them, let’s remember the prevarications of his predecessors. It begins with Bill Clinton, who in his campaign attacked George H. W. Bush for not moving the Embassy to Jerusalem, and promised that he, Clinton would do so. When he became president, Clinton promptly forgot that promise, having decided it would merely complicate his incessant attempts at “peacemaking” with Arafat. That “peacemaking” led to nothing, since Arafat in the end rejected even the huge concessions, amounting to 96% of the West Bank, which Ehud Barak, in a fit of madness, had offered him.

Next came George W. Bush who, in his own campaign for president, criticized the failure of Clinton to follow through and move the embassy, a charge with which he also saddled  his opponent Al Gore. But when Bush was elected, he did nothing about moving the embassy himself. To be fair, he was president during the 9/11 attacks, and had many other Middle Eastern and Islamic matters on his mind, including the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and that may help explain his failure to follow through on his embassy promise.

Barack Obama did not discuss the Jerusalem Embassy issue during his campaign, but he declared in a 2008 campaign speech, “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.” Sounds good. But not only did he backtrack on this almost immediately, but in his last press conference he warned against moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem. His administration also attempted, unfortunately with success, to prevent Americans born in Jerusalem from listing Israel as their place of birth. One wonders if, in light of Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, whether that issue will be re-litigated.

Tired of the earlier promises, and prevarications, from the Executive Branch, Congress had passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 on October 23, 1995. It was intended to initiate and fund the relocation of the Embassy of the United States in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, no later than May 31, 1999. It was an attempt to withhold 50 percent of the funds appropriated to the State Department specifically for “Acquisition and Maintenance of Buildings Abroad,” as allocated in fiscal year 1999 until the United States Embassy in Jerusalem had officially opened. The act also called for Jerusalem to remain an undivided city and for it to be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel. The proposed law was adopted overwhelmingly, by the Senate (93–5), and the House (374–37).

What Trump has done is extraordinary. He has forged ahead, despite all the grim warnings of terrible consequences; it seems fears of Middle East mayhem were grossly exaggerated. Several thousand Arabs, not more, in the West Bank, have rioted, and have been held well in check by tear gas and rubber bullets and water cannons; in Gaza, a total of 4,500 Arabs have gathered at six different spots along the border with Israel and thrown rocks and burning tires into Israel; two rockets were fired by Hamas into Israel. The Israelis returned live fire only against those identified as the ringleaders of the violence; two “Palestinians” have been killed. Compared to previous demonstrations, these have been comparatively small and restrained. “Days of wrath” is what Hamas’ leader Ismael Haniya promised. So far, not much wrath.
​
As for Arab leaders, most were muted in their protests. Egypt’s El-Sisi, who has good relations with Netanyahu, counselled “caution.” Right now El-Sisi is most concerned not with where the American embassy is placed, but with how to wipe out the terrorist groups — ISIS, and the more uncompromising members of Hamas — in the Sinai, and how to keep up the pressure in Egypt itself on the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been attacking Copts with impunity.

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How the Americans lost their intelligence

12/9/2017

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An explanation from someone with first-hand experience who can speak with authority on the matter. You'll be shaking your head all the way through this 9 minute video. But it really happened.
​

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Robert Spencer: How Robert Mueller sabotaged counterterror training in 2012
​Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer explains how, while he was director of the FBI, Robert Mueller presided over and approved of the removal of all mention of Islam and jihad from counterterror training materials, thereby hamstringing agents' ability to understand the motives and goals of jihad terrorists, and to counter them effectively.
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The persecution of Michael Sturzenberger...

12/9/2017

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...and the silencing of dissent

Six months suspended sentence for posting a genuine photo from the War years, basically because it makes Islam look bad. This chap is a hero of freedom.

FYI: I've mentioned Hamed Abdel-Samad before several times (see here for one post which has links to others). The flag in Mr Sturzenberger's office - and the picture on it of Klaus von Stauffenberg, made famous through the Tom Cruise film Valkyrie - are symbols of the German Resistance movement in WWII that sought to oust Hitler and end his tyranny. You can see how he views himself in defending his country from oppression, both from Islamisation and from his own current government.

His story is beginning to sound a lot like the treatment "Tommy Robinson" received from the British government. This is a fascinating yet deeply concerning discussion and something we really need to be aware of. Twenty-three minutes.

​
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​Interview with Michael Stürzenberger on acquittal and new charges
This is a follow up to the one we did with Michael after his sentencing to 6 months in jail posting a historically accurate photo to his Facebook page.
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How we are seen by our betters

12/9/2017

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It's a intellectual thing...

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An enlightening article from Bruce Bawer via Front Page magazine on how most people of influence seem to view the "worrisome rise of the far-right" in Europe. As a homosexual Mr Bawer has a healthy sensitivity to Islam's attitude to him. It baffles us all how that concern is not taken seriously by those in positions of influence.


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Vilifying the Counterjihadists, New book, same old smears.  
​ “That's a really good one,” the clerk told me. 

I was the only customer in the bookstore, and when he'd seen me paging through a slim new volume about the current wave of “populism” in Europe, he'd left his cash register, walked over to me, and begun waxing enthusiastic about it. He explained that he was just about finished reading it, and he repeated, not once but twice, that it was just plain terrific. 

It was last Friday, and I was at the Oslo Airport, and he turned out not to have in stock the book I was looking for, so I bought the one he recommended: Simen Ekern's Folket, Det Er Meg (I Am the People). I was struck by buyer's remorse even before I'd actually paid for it – first, because, even with today's strong dollar, it cost the equivalent of $42 (welcome to the land of state-mandated book prices), and second, because on the way to the sales counter I'd recognized Ekern's name. Within a week after July 22, 2011 – the day Anders Behring Breivik massacred seventy-seven people in and near Oslo, proclaiming that he was motivated by hostility to Europe's Islamization – Ekern, then a staffer at the newspaper Dagbladet, argued passionately that critics of Islam shared blame for the murders. My name led his list. He questioned our right to freedom of speech, because “our society is not improved by cultivating ever more ‘honest’ and ‘brave’ warlike Crusader rhetoric directed against Islam.”

Ekern wasn't alone. In the days and weeks after July 22,  pretty much the entire Norwegian establishment sought to use the Breivik massacre as an excuse to demonize and silence critics of Islam. Some of the nation's most respected commentators talked seriously about curtailing our free-speech rights and making arrests. With his op-ed, Ekern, a relatively young man, made it clear to the big boys that he was with them – a solid establishment lackey. I see that he's profited well from his loyalty: last December, I see, he was awarded two million kroner ($200,000) in taxpayer funds to write about foreign affairs. This is how things work in Norway: the proles are overtaxed, and much of that dough is then used to propagandize them: the nation's top media organization, state-run NRK, is a shameless tool of the political elite; major dailies get government subsidies (without them, Dagbladet would probably have folded years ago), and hacks like Ekern are paid handsomely to churn out establishment agitprop disguised as journalism. 

Which is exactly what Ekern's new book is. Bearing the subtitle The Growth and Future of Right-Wing European Populism, it professes to be a work of reportage about what you or I might call the counterjihad movement – as well as of that overlapping body of Europeans who want out of the EU. In fact, it's pro-elite PR. Still, I ended up being glad I bought it, because it proved to be a near-perfect example of its genre, and therefore worthy of study. To read it is to enter into the mind of a card-carrying member of the European establishment – a fellow who wants the deplorables to shut up and let their betters (himself included) go back to running things.

Although he specializes in skirting facts, Ekern kicks off his book – wisely – by getting out of the way those facts that are simply too big to ignore – which is to say, he quickly lists the major recent terrorist attacks in Europe. But he doesn't dwell on them, doesn't admit that they're rooted in mainstream Islamic theology, doesn't acknowledge that many “moderate” European Muslims cheer violent jihad, and doesn't point out that terrorism is, indeed, only one aspect of a full-court European jihad that involves a range of gradual cultural and social transformations. He also denies – and this is the fulcrum on which his whole argument turns – that Europeans' legitimate concerns about Islam (even when combined with their anger at politicians and the EU) are enough to explain the rise of “right-wing populism.” No, according to Ekern, the reason why so many Europeans have rejected mainstream parties is, quite simply, that they've been misled and manipulated – whipped up into an artificial frenzy by people like Geert Wilders, who don't really care about immigration or freedom, only about power.

While he derides Wilders and other “populists,” Ekern cites with respect and deference a host of establishment nabobs. He approvingly quotes European Council president Herman Van Rompuy, for example, to the effect that populism, not Islam, is the chief danger facing Europe today. He gives a thumbs-up to Olivier Roy's contention that violence by European Muslims is rooted not in their religion but in the supposed fact that they inhabit an “identity vacuum” that makes them neither truly French nor truly Algerian or Tunisian or whatever. (Why is it always Muslims, and never members of other immigrant groups, for whom such excuses need to be invented?) Ekern also approves of Sudhir Hazareesingh's assertion that those who prophesy France's doom at the hands of Islam are extremely light on facts. Bull: one book alone that comes immediately to mind, Laurent Obertone's 2013 La France Orange méchanique, is almost nothing but facts, a paralyzing litany of what Obertone calls acts of “violence of conquest” by Muslims in France. 

By contrast to Obertone, Ekern is a master at evading facts – immigration numbers, crime statistics, the percentage of Muslims in this or that country who favor sharia law and support jihad. He sneers consistently at the “populists'” who claim to be speaking for “the real people,” but he never faces up to the fact that ordinary European citizens – yes, “the real people” – were never asked whether they wanted their countries to be flooded by Muslims. Nor does he admit that most Europeans want a full halt to Muslim immigration. He ridicules the idea that “fundamentalist Islam” is “a totalitarian ideology.” He's disgusted by ethnic Europeans who consider some European-born Muslims part of the “other.” (Never mind that millions of such Muslims dream of a sharia-run Europe.) Ekern actually describes the counterjihad movement, which is all about defending free civilization and fighting barbarity, as a campaign “against cultural and economic liberalism.” He acts as if the movement is hostile to all immigrants. He even portrays it as a reaction to “modernity.”

​What, Ekern asks, are the roots of Europe's “populism”? If he were more honest, he might have told the story of Enoch Powell, the brilliant, supremely decent British MP whose 1968 “Rivers of Blood” speech destroyed his career and is now recognized as remarkably prescient. Or Ekern might have summed up the heroic career of Pim Fortuyn, the gay, left-wing sociology professor whose awakening about the dangers of Islam led him from the academy into politics and, in 2002, thanks to a pro-Islam assassin, into an early grave. 

But no: Ekern would have us believe that the father of today's counterjihad movement in Europe is the 89-year-old Jean-Marie Le Pen – a Jew-hater who shrugs off the Holocaust and liked Mussolini. Ekern spends a whole chapter reminding us, over and over, just how despicable Le Pen is – and implying that if we support border controls or hate the EU, we're in league with this old fascist. Ekern spends another chapter trying to convince us that Le Pen's daughter, Marine, head of France's National Front, shares her dad's beliefs: it's only a matter, you see, of “decoding” her rhetoric. (One is reminded here of the White House correspondents to whom every word out of Donald Trump's mouth is a “dog whistle.”) 

In his taxpayer-funded travels, Ekern interviews “populist” leaders from France, Italy, Germany, and elsewhere. But not Wilders. (A planned meeting with the Dutch leader is mysteriously cancelled, and Ekern wonders aloud whether it's because one of Wilders' people read about Ekern in my e-book. The very thought delights me.) But he doesn't talk to any ordinary Europeans who have seen their worlds turned upside down by mass Islamic immigration. He doesn't meet any Muslim imams or any of the innumerable Muslim women who, though living in Europe, are as deprived of basic civil rights as they were back in their homelands. Muslim gays? Nope. 

Nor does he interview a single author who has made a specialty of this topic. He obviously considers me and his fellow Norwegian Peder Nøstvold Jensen (“Fjordman”) to be beyond the pale – but what about Britain's Douglas Murray, Germany's Henryk Broder, Italy's Giulio Meotti, and France's Guy Millière, just to name a few? These are smart, well informed, and deeply humane guys – not to mention splendid writers – who have arrived at their dire forecasts about Europe's Islamic future after long and sober reflection. One suspects that Ekern prefers interviewing insurgent politicians to interviewing serious writers because the politicians' rhetoric is easier to mock and their motives easier to question.

Avoiding conversations with writers like Murray, Broder, et al., also makes it easier for Ekern, in his closing pages, to sum up his ideological adversaries' views in a way that absolutely none of them would recognize. They want, he says, a government with “an uncompromising attitude” toward immigrants. No, they just don't want their countries flooded with illegal aliens, foreign criminals, instant welfare recipients, and ISIS fans. On his very last page, Ekern introduces subjects that haven't figured at all in his book. Suddenly, and bizarrely, he wants us to believe that European “populism” isn't really about Islam at all but about – get this – opposition to same-sex marriage, distaste for contemporary art, and a desire to be able to slur dark-skinned people with impunity. How, asks Ekern, can leaders like Wilders and Le Pen say that they speak for ordinary people, when ordinary people “are also women, minorities, gays, cyclists, and contemporary artists”? Cyclists? Art? What? (As for gays, it's not Wilders & co. who want to throw them off roofs.) 

I started reading Ekern's book at Oslo Airport, and stayed with it on the flight to Hamburg. After taking the subway from Hamburg Airport to the main train station, I walked toward my hotel down a street called Steindamm. The first thing I noticed was the armies of women in hijab on the sidewalk. The second thing I noticed was that more of the signs on the stores I passed were in Arabic or Turkish than in German. There were a couple of travel agencies, with window posters advertising flights to Ankara, Islamabad, Peshawar, Shiraz, Kabul. Then, on the right, rising above the tops of the buildings, I saw a steeple – no, not a steeple; a minaret. 

Turning onto a side street, I found my hotel – right next to a small shop with a sign in both German and Arabic that identified it as several things at once: an Internet café; a place where you could “buy” and “sell” (it didn't say what); a “repair service” (but, again, it wasn't clear what they repaired); and a place where you could carry out money transfers. Over the course of the weekend, at various hours of the day and late into the night, I saw streams of young non-German men – no women – going in and out of that shop, and what was odd that none of them took anything in or brought anything out, and all of them emerged almost immediately after entering, not having spent enough time in there to transfer money, go online, or do much of anything else. Perhaps it was all entirely innocent, but it certainly got my attention and aroused my curiosity. 

Anyway, the bottom line is clear. A new Europe is being born. Whether you consider it a delight or a disaster, the change is real, dramatic, colossal. And yet Simen Ekern, like so many other media hacks on the old continent, is determined to downplay it all – determined to pretend that the European masses, far from reacting to the palpable, world-historic transformation of their own towns and cities, are being hoodwinked by a handful of haters.

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the spectrum of understanding

12/5/2017

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Well it's been a wee while. I've been off doing what all boys who have been trapped inside for a long wet winter do when the sun comes out - running around outside and playing. I've taken up road racing a small motorcycle and have done 3 events so far. And yes, it seems I am already "trying hard enough" as I am a little sore after a wee bingle on saturday and a nice man is fixing up my machine. Sheer carelessness on the part of someone old enough to know better - but as I always have to keep reminding myself when I make mistakes: every education has its costs. So here's hoping I learn the lessons quickly.

Here though, I have below juxtaposed an interesting study in contrasts. The first is an interview with a great historian on the liaison between Europe and the Arab Muslim world - the lady who popularised the terms "Eurabia" and "Dhimmitude," Bat Ye'or.

The second item is a 10 minute video of a chat with the gay conservative activist Milo Yiannopoulos and an Australian Muslim conservative called Emma Eros. This chat is at the opposite end of erudition to the first due to the appalling lack of knowledge of her own Faith displayed by this particular Muslim lady. It's fascinating because this is so very often the picture of a "typical Muslim" that we are presented with when we are challenged with how on earth we could hate such people. Of course we don't hate anyone, but the objects of our criticism (Islam the religion - Sharia Law, Islamic jurisprudence, its central texts, the person of Muhammad - traditional, orthodox, mainstream Islam as taught and practiced by the majority of scholars throughout history) on which we really focus are so widely misconstrued that we are popularly believed to actually hate perfectly nice, harmless people just because they are Muslim.

People are really confused on this issue and we have to do better in making it plain.

This lady is a very useful case study of the popular level of understanding of Islam many Muslims have here in the West. Taking advantage of all of our freedoms and, without any study, believing in a fantasy Islam that fits to their own Westernised worldview (they have this in common with many of our own politicians of course). Mr Yiannopoulos challenges her with great questions (my favourite form of provocation too) and certainly understands Islam far better than she. It's well worth a watch, but mind the couple of expletives.

Oh and for any other cultural Muslims reading this, the 5 Pillars of your Faith are:~
  • Shahada (faith);
  • Salat (prayer);
  • Zakat (alms);
  • Sawm (fasting);
  • Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca).

You're welcome.
And yes, Abrogation is historic, mainstream Islamic doctrine and does not involve "cherry-picking" verses of the Qur'an.

We need to be aware of both extremes of sagacity as we think & engage with Islamisation. There is the popular, confused face of the issue and then there is a genuine, scholarly, big-picture face. The NZ Muslims currently campaigning for KFC outlets to serve Halal meals (it's interesting to note that Halal slaughtered animals are not stunned before death - a point the article somehow neglects to mention) is an issue we need to think clearly about. What about animal welfare? What about those non-Muslims who object to eating such food (especially Sikhs to whom it is forbidden. Does nobody care about their religious scruples)? What about the certification costs which will likely be passed on to the consumer? Where does the money from Halal certification go? Is the Halal certification scheme in NZ open to abuse as has been demonstrated with the Australian scheme? (See an article & video on all this here).

None of these questions mean we hate Muslims or are calling all of them terrorists you know. 

So, onto the interview with Bat Ye'or, via Jihad Watch.
It's excellent, in particular do take note of the final 3 questions & answers.

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​Eurabia and the selling out of Israel: An interview with Bat Ye’or
The pioneering and world-renowned historian explains the contemporary geopolitical situation far more accurately and comprehensively than career diplomats and mainstream Western foreign policy and counterterror analysts.

“Eurabia and the selling out of Israel: An interview with Bat Ye’Or [sic],”
by Niram Ferretti, L’informale, December 3, 2017:

Few authors in the last decades have stirred a heated debate like Bat Ye’Or [sic]. To her work we owe the entrance into the market of ideas of terms such as “dhimmitude” and “Eurabia”, both essential to understand the political nature of Islam, its treatment of non-Muslim minorities and the political-economic axis built in the Seventies between Europe and the Arab world. It is due to this scheme which developed in phases and culminated with the oil crisis of 1973, that Europe sold out Israel to Arab interests. With clear precision, indicating one after the other episodes, irrefutable documents and public declarations, Bat Ye’Or [sic] has showed how postwar and post Holocaust Europe, progressively made anti-Semitism still practicable in the guise of anti-Zionism.

L’informale has met her recently during her journey to Italy where she was a guest at a conference in Turin.


In your seminal book
Eurabia you have explained how Europe in the Seventies, headed by France, has pursued a specific pro Arab policy explicitly against the interests of Israel. To what extent according to you has antisemitism played a role in all of this?

It is difficult to determine the role of antisemitism among actors in many countries making decisions in a variety of areas. Especially since in post-war Europe it was practically impossible to express anti-Semitic opinions. However, it can be noted that notorious anti-Semites have remained in key positions. Thus, despite the post-war purges, in the 1960s and 1970s, an influential network of officials, intellectuals and executives who had supported or collaborated with the Nazi and fascist regimes remained in the high positions of the State. For example, Walter Hallstein, who was the first president of the European Commission from 1958 to 1967, was a convinced Nazi, a university lawyer and an SS officer. He had advocated a united Europe under Nazism where the application of the racial laws of Nuremberg would have eliminated all Jewish life – a Nazi Europe economically united with the Arab world. Hans Globke, co-author of the Nuremberg Laws, was advisor to Chancellor Adenauer and his eminence grise. This situation existed throughout Western Europe.

These circles promoted a European alliance with the Arab countries where Nazi criminals had taken refuge. Converted to Islam, they held important positions in Syria and Egypt in the war against Israel. Let us not forget that since the 1930s a strong ideological and political alliance based on a common anti-Semitism united Fascism and Nazism with the Arab-Muslim [Graeme: see here for example]. This active anti-Israeli but discreet Euro-Arab core gained importance after 1967 thanks to the pro-Arab French policy. From that moment, under the patronage of the Quai d’Orsay, a speech worthy of Goebbels emerges with regard to the State of Israel. Despite these networks, however, European public opinion and the governments of that time – except France – were not anti-Semitic.

It was the Arab League which imposed after the Yom Kippur War of October 1973 on the European Community an anti-Semitic political strategy anticipating the eradication of the State of Israel, as it is possible to see at the Conference of Arab Heads of State in Algiers which took place from the 26th to the 29th of November 1973. For this purpose it used the oil weapon by prohibiting its sale to all countries friends of Israel. The oil embargo would be canceled only under the following conditions: first, the recognition of a previously unknown Palestinian people and of Yasser Arafat as its only representative, second, the Islamization of Jerusalem and third, Israel’s retreat on the armistice lines of 1949. Abba Eban, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, called these lines “the Auschwitz borders”, that is to say those of the Final Solution because they placed Israel in a mortal danger.
...


The recent Unesco resolutions of 2016 and 2017 have symbolically expropriated Israel in Jerusalem of the Western Wall and the Temple Mount and in Hebron of the Tomb of the Patriarchs. Isn’t this part of one precise strategy, the effacement of Jewish memory from Palestine in order to replace it entirely with Islamic history?

Exactly, that’s precisely the goal. This strategy was already implicit in the decisions of the European Community in 1973 when it demanded the retreat of Israel on the lines of 1949 and the Islamization of Jerusalem. Bear in mind that the war of 1948-49 was triggered by Arab countries and Arabs in Palestine assisted by Muslim soldiers of the fascist and Nazi armies of the Second World War. During this war the Arab countries took East Jerusalem and territories in Judea and Samaria, which they colonized and Islamized by throwing out the Jewish inhabitants. Europe did not protest against the Arab acquisition of territories by war and for the expulsion of their Jewish inhabitants.
...
The denial of the historical rights of Israelis in their country and the erasure of their religious and cultural memory confirms the Islamic version and interpretations of biblical history. The Qur’an states that all Hebrew biblical characters, including Jesus, were Muslims. Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, helped by European historians, have continued to appropriate the history of the Jewish people. The suppression by Europe of the history and memory of the people of Israel also erases that of Christianity, its identity and its legitimacy because Christianity is rooted in Judaism. And if Judaism is an aberration or the falsification of Islam, so is Christianity. European states – which in principle are Christian – agree to Islamize the sources of their theology and religious identity, out of hatred for Israel.


In the last years we have seen more and more the development of a narrative whose core is that Islam has strongly contributed to the coming about of Europe. At the same time in the introduction of the European Constitution there is no mention to the Jewish-Christian roots of Europe. The actual pope never loses a chance to say that Islam is a religion of peace and that if there are violent Muslims there are also violent Christians.
What do you make of all of this?

This narrative about the predominant Islamic influence on European science comes from two sources: one Arab and the other European, both political. Experts have shown that it has no historical base because the roots of the current European civilization are Judeo-Christianity, Greece, Rome and the Enlightenment. The Arab-Muslim source is a response, from the years 1920-30, to the confrontation of Muslim countries with the modern progress of European civilization. This superiority of the world of disbelief is humiliating and unacceptable for Islam, which by this cultural claim attributes all its merits to itself. This being said, it is clear that there were loans here and there, as there were from Hindus and Chinese. They are normal reciprocal exchanges between peoples and civilizations but they are not fundamental elements. It is true that the civilizations of antiquity in the East influenced those later in Europe. But these pagan civilizations, three thousand years before our era, owe nothing to Islam, which came much later, nor to Arabia, geographically isolated by its deserts. This statement is also a way for Muslim immigrants to assert an ancient cultural and scientific presence of Islam in Europe and to claim political and religious rights in countries where they emigrate.

The European source comes from the Mediterranean policy whose aim is to unite the two shores of the Mediterranean by strategic and cultural integration. It adopts the flattering language of the courtier toward Arab potentates and always tries to appease Muslim sensibilities in particular by a specious historical similarity of Islam and Judaism. This source does not recognize Judeo-Christianity because Muslims are offended.

To ease the integration of millions of Muslim immigrants, Europe is giving up its roots.

In 2000 the French deputy Jean-Louis Bianco discussed the topics on this subject in the Drafting Committee of the European Charter. The French government negotiator, Guy Braibant, having asked “what conclusions could the millions of European Muslims draw” if the charter referred to Christian values, the case was closed.

The pope is right in saying that violence exists everywhere. But we are not talking about individual violence, we are talking about a religious political system advocating war and accepting only temporary truces with non-Muslims. To my knowledge Jihad, religious war of planetary conquest, exists only in Islam. Without wishing to minimize the periods of Islamic tolerance or the attempts of some monarchs to modernize Islamic conceptions, one must recognize that jihadist ideology justifies terror, fanaticism, war and genocide. If we want to create a more fraternal humanity, we must openly discuss the aims and laws of jihad. We will help progressive Muslims who courageously fight this struggle.

...


While Israel is considered by a consistent minority of the Western world as a rogue state and antisemitism is often justified by declaring it is the effect of Israel’s policy towards Palestinian Arabs (which is another way to say that the victims deserve what they get), Islam is the only religion in the West which benefits of a sort of ironclad protection against criticism. What are the main reasons of this attitude?

Western states are perfectly aware of the dangers of criticizing Islamic laws. The concept of an uncreated Quran, that is to say a text consubstantial with the divine eternity, prohibits under the accusation of blasphemy any criticism of the laws rooted in it. The ban on criticizing Islam in the West aims to spare the susceptibility of immigrant populations who are not accustomed to the political freedoms and expression of our democracies. This prohibition do not prevents violent criminal reactions such as the assassination of Theo Van Gogh in Holland, among others, and the retaliation of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation which brings together 56 Muslim countries. The OIC demands from European states that hasten to obey them, severe measures punishing Europeans guilty of “Islamophobia”. I describe this situation in “Europe, Globalisation and the Coming Universal Caliphate”. It is true that the criticism of Islam poses a problem: it undermines Europe’s Euro-Arab merging policy and provokes conflicts between Europeans and tens of millions of Muslim immigrants. States are obliged to enforce the public peace between different religions and populations. Prisoner of this dilemma, the EU, encouraged by the OIC, reinforces against its populations its repressive arsenal punishing “Islamophobia”, thus violating the freedom of expression and opinion.


Europe is old and Israel is young. In Europe the birth rate has gone dramatically down in the last decades while in Israel it has been steadily rising. In Italy, just to take an example, the birth rate is 1,3, while in France is 2,0. In Israel it is 3,11. Israel, a country surrounded by enemies who wants its destruction, is projected toward the future, while Europe, which is in a much more favorable situation, seems not to believe any longer in the future. How do you explain this paradox?

There are several reasons for this European decline. Governments have not sufficiently encouraged a family-friendly policy that would free the mother from the combination of domestic and external work. But it is above all the hedonistic and enjoyable nature of our societies, a deliberate suppression of values, an education that generalizes skepticism, that incites young people to refuse the obligations, duties and sacrifices related to commitments and procreation. But we must not exaggerate, our European societies harbor treasures of generosity and solidarity. Israel represents a united people despite its scattering in different countries and who could survive everywhere thanks to the solidarity of its members. After the destruction of Judea by the Romans in 135, Jewish communities in exile gave themselves rules to survive among hostile populations. I cannot explain the strength of Israel’s hope, perhaps it comes from the existential problems required by these exceptional people who live in the permanence of the dialogue with God.


Regarding the violence in Islam, one of the main scholarly distinction made is that between Islam and Islamism. In this view Islamism is just Islam gone astray. What is your opinion?

This statement is part of the misleading speech of Europe, which has been in denial since its 1973 agreements. The Muslims themselves refute it. The Islamic violence that we see today, which is terrorizing many Muslims and Islamic states, has recurrently manifested itself in history because it conforms to Islamic law. The evolution of Muslim ideas and societies in the twentieth century attenuated or suppressed the most rigorous commandments. Today many intellectuals, and political leaders like Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and even Saudi Arabia are demanding religious authorities an updating. The EU and Barak Obama’s government have not accompanied or supported this revolutionary and courageous movement that could totally change international relations and bring peace, security and economic development to these countries. Obama and the EU collaborated on the so-badly appointed Arab Spring and the rise of radical movements.


There is ... more. Read the rest here.
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And now from the other end of the spectrum
, the kind of thing that we are far more likely to encounter in our everyday lives. More emotion, far, far less facts (except from the non-Muslim).
View Video Here
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    Author

    Hi my name is Graeme Howarth & I have a keen interest in facilitating open discussion about Islam. I have a Masters in Theology, focusing on obstacles to dialogue between Islam & Christianity.  

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