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Muslim reformers vs. Islamists

May 26, 2016

Muslim reformers vs. Islamists, Dan Miller’s Blog, May 26, 2016

(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

Whether Islam will eventually be reformed is an open question. The topic is much discussed by Muslims, a few of whom favor reformation and more of whom oppose it. The issue is important for America, and indeed the free world in general. There is little that non-Muslims can do to assist a reformation beyond recognizing the substantial differences between moderate and radical (mainstream) Muslims, supporting the former and purging the latter. Please don’t conflate the cops with the killers.

Reformation of Islam

Here’s are comments by an American Muslim reformer, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser

In the following December 2015 video, the Fox News host misrepresented Donald Trump’s position as banning “all” Muslims, apparently permanently. Trump’s proposal was to ban Muslims until we can vet them adequately. Dr. Jasser agreed that Muslims advocating Islamist political ideology should be banned and that we should temporarily ban them all until we can distinguish moderate Muslims from “radical” Muslims. His suggestions for vetting Muslims included cessation of reliance on the Council on American – Islamic Relations (CAIR), et al, which are on the side of the Islamists.

An article by Raymond Ibrahim delves into Muslim perceptions of moderate vs. “radical” (i.e., mainstream) Islam and posts these views, as articulated by Dr. Ahmed Ibrahim Khadr, an Islamist. Dr. Khadr stated,

“Islamic researchers are agreed that what the West and its followers call ‘moderate Islam’ and ‘moderate Muslims’ is simply a slur against Islam and Muslims, a distortion of Islam, a rift among Muslims, a spark to ignite war among them. They also see that the division of Islam into ‘moderate Islam’ and ‘radical Islam’ has no basis in Islam — neither in its doctrines and rulings, nor in its understandings or reality. [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

Among the major distinctions (translated verbatim) made in Khadr’s article are:

  • Radicals want the caliphate to return; moderates reject the caliphate.
  • Radicals want to apply Sharia (Islamic law); moderates reject the application of Sharia.
  • Radicals reject the idea of renewal and reform, seeing it as a way to conform Islam to Western culture; moderates accept it.
  • Radicals accept the duty of waging jihad in the path of Allah; moderates reject it.
  • Radicals reject any criticism whatsoever of Islam; moderates welcome it on the basis of freedom of speech.
  • Radicals accept those laws that punish whoever insults or leaves the religion [apostates]; moderates recoil from these laws.
  • Radicals respond to any insult against Islam or the prophet Muhammad — peace and blessing upon him — with great violence and anger; moderates respond calmly and peacefully on the basis of freedom of expression.
  • Radicals respect and revere every deed and every word of the prophet — peace be upon him — in the hadith; moderates do not.
  • Radicals oppose democracy; moderates accept it.
  • Radicals see the people of the book [Jews and Christians] as dhimmis[barely tolerated subjects]; moderates oppose this [view].
  • Radicals reject the idea that non-Muslim minorities should have equality or authority over Muslims; moderates accept it.
  • Radicals reject the idea that men and women are equal; moderates accept it, according to Western views.
  • Radicals oppose the idea of religious freedom and apostasy from Islam; moderates agree to it.
  • Radicals desire to see Islam reign supreme; moderates oppose this.
  • Radicals place the Koran over the constitution; moderates reject this [assumption].
  • Radicals reject the idea of religious equality because Allah’s true religion is Islam; moderates accept it.
  • Radicals embrace the wearing of hijabs and niqabs; moderates reject it.
  • Radicals accept killing young girls who commit adultery or otherwise besmirch their family’s honor; moderates reject this [response].
  • Radicals reject the status of women today and think that the status of women today should be like the status of women in the time of the prophet; moderates oppose that women should be as in the time of the prophet.
  • Radicals vehemently reject that women should have the freedom to choose partners; moderates accept that she can choose a boyfriend without marriage.
  • Radicals agree to clitorectomies; moderates reject them.
  • Radicals reject the so-called war on terror and see it as a war on Islam; moderates accept it.
  • Radicals support jihadi groups; moderates reject them.
  • Radicals reject the terms “Islamic terrorism” or “Islamic fascism”; moderates accept them.
  • Radicals reject universal human rights, including the right to be homosexual; moderates accept them.
  • Radicals reject the idea of allying with the West; moderates support it.
  • Radicals oppose secularism; moderates support it. [Emphasis added.]

Dr. Jasser’s views on what American Islam should be are remarkably similar to the perceptions of moderate Islam set forth by Dr. Khadr, albeit with contempt as “a slur against Islam and Muslims, a distortion of Islam, a rift among Muslims, a spark to ignite war among them.” Mr. Ibrahim concludes his article by suggesting that “the West may need to rethink one of its main means of countering radical Islam: moderate Muslims and moderate Islam.” I agree. What is being done now is actually furthering “radical” Islam.

The former president of Egypt’s Al-Azhar University called, rather amorphously, for reform in the Islamic religious discourse.

Here’s an address to the Canadian Parliament by a moderate Muslim journalist. Please watch the whole thing, because it sets forth quite well the differences between Islamists who want to overpower us and moderate Muslims who support freedom and want to eliminate Islamism.

Moderate Islam is not mainstream Islam

Germany’s largest Muslim organization recently had a moderate Muslim theologian fired from the University of Munster.

Islamic apologists routinely claim that violent Qur’an verses have no validity beyond Muhammad’s time, but this story illustrates that this is not the mainstream view in Islam. The persecution of Mouhanad Khorchide also shows the uphill battle that genuine Muslim reformers face: branded as heretics and/or apostates, they’re often shunned (or worse) by the very community that needs their ideas the most. [Emphasis added.]

The author, Robert Spencer, quotes a May 23rd article by Susanne Schröter in a German periodical:

When the theologian Mouhanad Khorchide, who teaches at the University of Münster, published “Islam Is Compassion” in 2012, he received a variety of diverse reactions. Many non-Muslims celebrated the work as the revelation of a humanistic Islam: an Islam that no one needs to fear. This feeling arose in part because the author created a picture of God that is not “interested in the labels of Muslim or Christian or Jewish, believer or nonbeliever.”

Korchide threw out the idea that Koran verses that appear violent or hostile toward women or non-Muslims may be valid for all eternity. He wanted them to be viewed as the words of a bygone era.

It seemed that the professor, with the swoop of his pen, managed to brush aside all those reservations that made people wonder whether Islam really “belonged to Germany,” as former President Christian Wulff said famously in a 2010. One might even have thought that Muslims would offer Khorchide a pat on the back.

On the website for DITIB, Germany’s Turkish Islamic union and the country’s largest Muslim organization, one can read that Khorchide’s statements were a “rejection of the teachings of classical Islam” and an “insult to Muslim identity.” For this reason, the professor was removed from his post at the university.

Canadian journalist Tarek Fatah, the moderate Muslim in a video provided above, wrote

In November 2014, while testifying before the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, I raised the issue of Islamic clerics using mosque sermons to attack the foundational principles of Western civilization and liberal secular democracy.

The Senate Committee session referred to is the one presented in the video referenced above.

Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell was outraged by my testimony that at most Canadian mosques, the Friday congregation includes a ritual prayer asking, “Allah to give victory to Muslims over the ‘Kufaar’ (non-Muslims).” In a heated exchange with me, the senator suggested I wasn’t telling the truth, implying I was motivated by Islamophobia. Sadly, Sen. Mitchell is not alone in such views.

But neither is there any let-up in the attacks on Canadian values emanating from many mosque pulpits and Islamic conferences hosted by radical Islamist groups.

For example, in a sermon on Friday, May 6, delivered at a mosque in Edmonton, an imam invoked the memory of Prophet Muhammad to whip up hatred against Israel. He declared peace accords with Israel are “useless garbage” and vowed that Jerusalem will be conquered “through blood.”

In February, the same cleric predicted Islam would soon conquer Rome, “the heart of the Christian state.”

The Edmonton mosque diatribe was not isolated.

On May 13, just north of Toronto, an Islamic society hosted a celebration of Iranian mass murderer, Ayatollah Khomeini. The poster promoting the event described Khomeini as a, “Liberator and Reformer of the Masses.”

On Saturday, the Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, banned in some countries, hosted a conference to discuss the re-establishment of a global Islamic caliphate.

Here are excerpts from an article about the Hizb-ut-Tahrir meeting referenced by Mr. Fatah.

1616

The first speaker was Brother Mostafa, of Arabic roots. Mostafa started by calling nationalism and sectarian conflict the main reasons for division in the Ummah (Islamic nation). He reminded Muslims that they are obligated to implement Allah’s demands that fulfill the Islamic State. It is “not permissible for us to choose, ” he said. He cited the verse: [Emphasis added]

“It is not for a believing man or a believing woman, when Allah and His Messenger have decided a matter, that they should [thereafter] have any choice about their affair. And whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger has certainly strayed into clear error.” — Surat-Al-Ahzab (33), verse 36. ]Emphasis added.]

. . . .

As the event started late, Naeema [a woman in the audience] began a conversation. We talked about our origins and how long we had been in Canada. She said she had been here 40 years, so I asked about the disconnect between enjoying 40 years of democracy, yet trying to end it. I mentioned a book published by Hizb-ut-Tahrir:

“Democracy is Infidelity: its use, application and promotion are prohibited.”

“الديمقراطية نظام كفر، يحرم أخذها أو تطبيقها أو الدعوة إليها”

Naeema said she was not qualified to debate the topic, but that democracy had done nothing good for people, so she and other believers would follow the rule of Allah. [Emphasis added]

The meeting participants are comparable to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim Brotherhood – Hamas affiliated organization which, along with similar groups, provides Obama and His “fighting violent extremism” cohorts their marching orders on fighting, not Islamist jihad or Islamisation , but “Islamophobia.”

Conclusions

America would fare better in fighting “violent extremism” if the principal enemy were named: it is political Islam — Islamism. Presently, naming it is forbidden and those engaged in “fighting” it — supposedly on our behalf — are Islamists dedicated to the Islamisation of America.

Suppose that, instead of relying on CAIR, et al, as representative of “peaceful” Islam, our government rejected CAIR and its Islamist colleagues favored by Obama and instead supported and relied upon Dr. Jasser’s moderate group, American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

A devout Muslim, Dr. Jasser founded AIFD in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United States as an effort to provide an American Muslim voice advocating for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state. Dr. Jasser is a first generation American Muslim whose parents fled the oppressive Baath regime of Syria in the mid-1960’s for American freedom. He is leading the fight to shake the hold that the Muslim Brotherhood and their network of American Islamist organizations and mosques seek to exert on organized Islam in America. [Emphasis added.]

Perhaps, if our next president is neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders, we will do that. If we don’t, the Islamists will continue to win, the Islamisation of America will continue and American principles will go down the toilet. We cannot permit that to happen.

In an 1886 Fourth of July address to the citizens of the Dickinson Dakota Territory, Theodore Roosevelt said,

We only have the right to live on as free men, so long as we show ourselves worthy of the privileges we enjoy. We must remember that the republic can only be kept pure by the individual purity of its members, and that if it once becomes thoroughly corrupt it will surely cease to exist.

. . . .

All American citizens whether born here or elsewhere, whether of one creed or another, stand on the same footing; we welcome every honest immigrant, no matter from what country he comes, provided only that he leaves behind him his former nationality and remains neither Celt nor Saxon, neither Frenchman nor German, but becomes an American, desirous of fulfilling in good faith the duties of American citizenship. [Emphasis added]

When we thus rule ourselves we have the responsibilities of sovereigns not of subjects. We must never exercise our rights either wickedly or thoughtlessly; we can continue to preserve them in but one possible way – by making the proper use of them.

It has been my observation (and to a substantial extent that of the Canadian journalist and moderate Muslim in a video embedded above) that the principal loyalty of many Islamists is not geographical or to a state. Rather, it is to their version of Islam, be it Shiite, Sunni or some variation thereof. For example, Hezbollah members fight, not to help Lebanon or Syria, but to support the Iranian version of Shiite Islam — an apocalyptic vision in which the hidden iman will return and bring the world to an end. It is reasonable to assume that the principal loyalty of mainstream Muslims (Islamists) in America is, and will continue to be, to Islam, not to America.

American origins and views are very different and perhaps uniquely so.

This land was made, not for Islamists but for immigrants who leave behind their former nationalities and remain “neither Celt nor Saxon, neither Frenchman nor German, but become an American, desirous of fulfilling in good faith the duties of American citizenship.” How many of America’s current crop of immigrants do that?

We have had little of this thus far. How much do we want? It’s pretty much up to us.

Categories: CAIR, Canada, Free world, Islam - the religion of war, Islam and Christianity, Islam and human rights, Islam and Jews, Islam in America, Islamic immigration, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic integration, Islamic jihad, Islamic reformation, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation, Islamism, Islamist moral values, Islamists in America, Islamists in Canada, Islamophobia, Obama and Islam, Obama's America
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“Minnesota Men” go to Trial (17)

May 26, 2016

“Minnesota Men” go to Trial (17), Power Line, Scott Johnson, May 26, 2016

Well, I went to the trial yesterday and a fight broke out. Waiting in the hallway to enter the courtroom at the appointed hour, The hallway was thick with those of us waiting to be admitted to the courtroom. I stood directly behind a young Somali lady wearing a hijab. As she started pushing and shoving, she repeatedly dropped the F-bomb at maximum volume within shouting distance of the jury. And here I thought I’d seen it all.

The fight, as it turns out, was between the mother of Abdirizak Warsame and her daughter, Warsame’s sister. As Warsame was about to resume testifying against the three defendants under a cooperation agreement with the prosecution, daughter took went after mother. The conflict represented their divided loyalties in the case. The Star Tribune’s Stephen Montemayor picks up on the trial’s undercard here. Warsame’s sister put up a better fight in the hall than Warsame did on the stand.

Warsame was the third and weakest of three key witnesses called by the government. He completed his testimony yesterday. The government seems to me to be ending its case on a low note. That’s generally not how you’re supposed to do it.

Without going into details, it seemed to me that defense counsel Bruce Nestor turned Warsame to use on behalf of his client, Abdirahman Daud. I may be missing something, but I’m not sure whether, on balance, Warsame was more helpful to the government or to the defense.

Warsame made me reflect on my understanding of the case against the “Minnesota men.” In a sense, they are products of the vacuous America of 2016. They have been Americanized in that sense. These young men had boundless opportunities of a conventional sort before them, yet they chose to squander them. They are talented and resourceful, yet they represent a great threat. They are seriously misguided young men. What happened?

Warsame is a graduate of the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy in Inver Grove Heights. With a little help from the Minnesota chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the school has now been shuttered. I wore out a keyboard writing about the school before it closed. For years the school operated, illegally in my opinion, as a publicly funded Islamic charter school.

From TIZA Warsame proceeded to Heritage Academy, a mostly Somali high school in Minneapolis. This year the Minneapolis school district moved to retake control of Heritage from its board.

After high school Warsame attended a local community college and worked for several employers. Indeed, he worked for two on the tarmac at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport while he was pursuing his interest in ISIS.

Islam filled the life of Warsame and his friends. It filled the vacuum now served up by American culture to immigrants. The “Minnesota men” could have succumbed to drugs or alcohol in a pattern that has devastated the lives of so many American families. In this case, however, they fell prey to Islam. It was Islam that intoxicated them.

Judge Davis himself took up this point with Warsame yesterday. “You understood that if you committed jihad you would die,” the judge said. “What attracted you to that?”

“The reward you would get and the fact that this life is temporary,” Warsame said. “If you were to go sacrifice yourself and go fight in jihad, the reward would be bigger. You’d save your family and save yourself.”

America, what you got for that?

Categories: Islamic indoctrination of children, Islamic integration, Islamic jihad, Islamisation, Islamists in America, Minnesota
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Has the Pope Abandoned Europe to Islam?

May 26, 2016

Has the Pope Abandoned Europe to Islam? Gatestone Institute, Giulio Meotti, May 26, 2016

♦ In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI said what no Pope had ever dared to say — that there is a link between violence and Islam. Ten years later, Pope Francis never calls those responsible for anti-Christian violence by name and never mentions the word “Islam.”

♦ Pope Francis does not even try to re-evangelize or reconquer Europe. He seems deeply to believe that the future of Christianity is in the Philippines, in Brazil and in Africa. Probably for the same reason, the Pope is spending less time and effort in denouncing the terrible fate of Christians in the Middle East.

♦ “Multiculturalism” in Europe is the mosque standing on the ruins of the church. It is not the synthesis requested by Pope Francis. It is the road to becoming extinct.

♦ Asking Europe to be “multicultural” while it experiences a dramatic de-Christianization is extremely risky. In Germany, a new report found that “Germany has become demographically a multi-religious country.” In the UK, a major inquiry recently declared that “Britain is no longer a Christian country.” In France, Islam is also overtaking Christianity as the dominant religion.

To scroll the list of Pope Francis’s apostolic trips — Brazil, South Korea, Albania, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Ecuador, Cuba, United States, Mexico, Kenya, Uganda, Philippines — one could say that Europe is not exactly at the top of his agenda.

The two previous pontiffs both fought for the cradle of Christendom. Pope John Paul II took on Communism by toppling the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain. Benedict XVI took on “the dictatorship of relativism” (the belief that truth is in the eye of the beholder) and bet everything on re-evangelizing the continent by traveling through it (he visited Spain three times) and in speeches such as the magnificent ones at Regensburg, where he spoke bluntly about the threat of Islam, and the German Bundestag, where he warned the gathered politicians against declining religiosity and “sacrificing their own ideals for the sake of power.”

Pope Francis, on the contrary, simply ignores Europe, as if he already considers it lost. This former Argentinian Cardinal, a representative of the “global South” Christianity, made spectacular trips to the migrants’ islands of Lampedusa (Italy) and Lesbos (Greece), but never to the heart of the old continent. Pope Francis has also made it difficult for Anglicans to enter into the Catholic Church, by downplaying the dialogue with them.

Most importantly, however, in his important May 6 speech for the Charlemagne Prize, the Pope, in front of European leaders, castigated Europe on migrants and asked its leaders to be more generous with them. He next introduced something revolutionary into the debate: “The identity of Europe is, and always has been, a multicultural identity,” he said. This idea is questionable.

Multiculturalism is a specific policy formulated in the 1970s. and it was absent from the political vocabulary of Schuman and Adenauer, two of Europe’s founding fathers. Now it has been invoked by the Pope, who spoke of the need for a new synthesis. What is this all about?

Today, Christianity appears marginal and irrelevant in Europe. The religion faces an Islamic demographic and ideological challenge, while the post-Auschwitz remnants of Jewish communities are fleeing from the new anti-Semitism. Under these conditions, a synthesis between the old continent and Islam would be a surrender of Europe’s claim to the future.

“Multiculturalism” is the mosque standing on the ruins of the church. It is not the synthesis requested by the Pope. It is the road to becoming extinct.

Asking Europe to be “multicultural” while it is experiencing a dramatic de-Christianization is also extremely risky. In Germany, a new report just found that “Germany has become demographically a multi-religious country.” In the UK, a major inquiry recently declared that “Britain is no longer a Christian country.” In France, Islam is also overtaking Christianity as the dominant religion. You find the same trend everywhere, from Protestant Scandinavia to Catholic Belgium. That is why Pope Benedict was convinced that Europe needed to “re-evangelized.” Pope Francis does not even try to re-evangelize or reconquer Europe. Instead, he seems deeply to believe that the future of Christianity is in the Philippines, Brazil and Africa.

Probably for the same reason, the Pope is spending less time denouncing the terrible fate of Christians in the Middle East. Sandro Magister, Italy’s most important Vatican observer, sheds light on the Pope’s silences:

“He remained silent on the hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram. He remained silent on the young Sudanese mother Meriam, sentenced to death solely for being Christian and finally liberated by the intervention of others. He remains silent on the Pakistani mother Asia Bibi, who has been on death row for five years, because she too is an ‘infidel’, and [He] does not even reply to the two heartrending letters she has written to him this year, before and after the reconfirmation of the sentence.”

In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI, in his Regensburg lecture, said what no Pope had ever dared to say — that there is a link between violence and Islam. Ten years later, Pope Francis never calls those responsible for anti-Christian violence by name, and never mentions the word “Islam.” Pope Francis also recently recognized the “State of Palestine,” before it even exists — a symbolic and unprecedented first. The Pope also might abandon the Church’s long tradition of a “just war,” one regarded as morally or theologically justifiable. Pope Francis always speaks of the “Europe of peoples,” but never of the “Europe of Nations.” He advocates welcoming migrants and washes their feet, while he ignores that these uncontrolled demographic waves are transforming Europe, bit by bit, into an Islamic state.

1624In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI (left) said what no Pope had ever dared to say — that there is a link between violence and Islam. Ten years later, Pope Francis (right) never calls those responsible for anti-Christian violence by name and never mentions the word “Islam.” (Image source: Benedict: Flickr/Catholic Church of England | Francis: Wikimedia Commons/korea.net)

That is the meaning of Pope Francis’ trips to the islands of Lampedusa, Italy, and Lesbos, Greece — both symbols of a dramatic geographical and civilizational boundary. That is also the meaning of the Pope’s speech for the Charlemagne Prize.

Has the head of Christianity given up on Europe as a Christian place?

Categories: Clash of civilizations, Europe, Free world, Islam and Christianity, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamisation, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Pope Francis
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Canada Home to Islamic Radicals

May 25, 2016

Canada Home to Islamic Radicals, The Toronto Sun via Middle East Forum, Tarek Fatah, May 24, 2016

2683

In November 2014, while testifying before the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, I raised the issue of Islamic clerics using mosque sermons to attack the foundational principles of Western civilization and liberal secular democracy.

Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell was outraged by my testimony that at most Canadian mosques, the Friday congregation includes a ritual prayer asking, “Allah to give victory to Muslims over the ‘Kufaar’ (non-Muslims).” In a heated exchange with me, the senator suggested I wasn’t telling the truth, implying I was motivated by Islamophobia. Sadly, Sen. Mitchell is not alone in such views.

But neither is there any let-up in the attacks on Canadian values emanating from many mosque pulpits and Islamic conferences hosted by radical Islamist groups.

For example, in a sermon on Friday, May 6, delivered at a mosque in Edmonton, an imam invoked the memory of Prophet Muhammad to whip up hatred against Israel. He declared peace accords with Israel are “useless garbage” and vowed that Jerusalem will be conquered “through blood.”

In February, the same cleric predicted Islam would soon conquer Rome, “the heart of the Christian state.”

The Edmonton mosque diatribe was not isolated.

On May 13, just north of Toronto, an Islamic society hosted a celebration of Iranian mass murderer, Ayatollah Khomeini. The poster promoting the event described Khomeini as a, “Liberator and Reformer of the Masses.”

On Saturday, the Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, banned in some countries, hosted a conference to discuss the re-establishment of a global Islamic caliphate.

Pakistan-Canadian writer Tahir Gora went to cover the event, but was barred from entering the hall. “They said this was a closed door, in-camera meeting for our supporters,” Gora told me after he was asked to leave.

2684A speaker addresses the Hizb-ut-Tahrir conference in Mississauga, Ontario, on May 21.

Fortunately, one Palestinian-Canadian woman was able to enter the event.

She shared with me some of the proceedings from inside the gathering. “I walked into the banquet hall with approximately 100 attendees who were gender segregated. I sat next to a woman who said she had been in Canada for 40 years.” When I asked her if she felt any disconnect between enjoying 40 years of democracy, yet supporting the Hizb-ut-Tahrir who wanted to end it, she explained that democracy has done nothing good to people, so she and other believers follow Allah’s rule.

“The first speaker reminded Muslims that they are obligated to implement Allah’s orders that fulfil the Islamic State. It is “not permissible for us to choose’ he said, citing the Quran. However, he said it was necessary to win the public’s hearts and minds; and to partner with people of power, citing examples from the life of the Prophet.”

“At the end, a three-minute video was presented to demonstrate the collective oil and natural gas production capabilities of the Muslim world, the human capital needed to mine and process these resources … the military power required to protect them and the types of weapons needed to make such a military effective.”

While this was unfolding we received news that the Trudeau government, as part of its infrastructure development program, had authorised a $200,000 grant to a southern Ontario mosque with links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Which begs the question: Who’s minding the store?

Categories: Canada, Iran, Islam - the religion of war, Islam and human rights, Islam and Jews, Islam and terrorism, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic radicalization, Islamic State, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation, Islamism, Islamists in Canada, Israel
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“Radical” vs. “Moderate” Islam: A Muslim View

May 25, 2016

“Radical” vs. “Moderate” Islam: A Muslim View, Gatestone Institute, Raymond Ibrahim, May 25, 2016

(Please watch this video in which a moderate Muslim defines moderate Islam:

— DM)

[T]he West may need to rethink one of its main means of countering radical Islam: moderate Muslims and moderate Islam.

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

♦ According to Dr. Ahmed Ibrahim Khadr, the first loyalty of radicals is to Islam while the first loyalty for moderates, regardless of their religion, is to the state. Radicals reject the idea of religious equality because Allah’s true religion is Islam; moderates accept it.

♦ Radicals, Khadr charges, also marvel that the moderate “finds hatred for non-Muslims unacceptable.”

♦ If true — and disturbing polls certainly indicate that Khadr’s findings are prevalent — the West may need to rethink one of its main means of countering radical Islam: moderate Muslims and moderate Islam.

After his recent electoral victory, it emerged that Sadiq Khan, London’s first Muslim mayor, had described moderate Muslim groups as “Uncle Toms” — a racial slur used against blacks perceived to be subservient to whites, or, in this context, Muslims who embrace “moderate Islam” as, in his view, a way of being subservient to the West.

One of Iran’s highest clerics apparently shares the same convictions. After asserting that “revolutionary Islam is the same as pure Muhammadan Islam,” Ayatollah Tabatabaeinejad recently said:

“Some say our Islam is not revolutionary Islam, but we must say to them that non-revolutionary Islam is the same as American Islam. Islam commands us to be firm against the enemies and be kind and compassionate toward each other and not be afraid of anything…”

According to the AB News Agency,

“Ayatollah Tabatabaeinejad stated that revolutionary Islam is this same Islam. It is the Islam that is within us that can create changes. The warriors realized that Islam is not just prayers and fasting, but rather they stood against the enemies in support of Islam.”

How many Muslims share these convictions, one from a Sunni living (and now governing) in London, the other from a Shia living and governing in the Middle East?

According to an Arabic language article, (in translation) “The Truth about the Moderate Muslim as Seen by the West and its Muslim Followers,” by Dr. Ahmed Ibrahim Khadr in 2011:

“Islamic researchers are agreed that what the West and its followers call ‘moderate Islam’ and ‘moderate Muslims’ is simply a slur against Islam and Muslims, a distortion of Islam, a rift among Muslims, a spark to ignite war among them. They also see that the division of Islam into ‘moderate Islam’ and ‘radical Islam’ has no basis in Islam — neither in its doctrines and rulings, nor in its understandings or reality.

Khadr goes on to note the many ways that moderates and radicals differ. For instance, radicals (“true Muslims”) aid and support fellow Muslims, especially those committed to jihad, whereas moderates (“false Muslims”) ally with and help Western nations.

This sounds similar to Ayatollah Tabatabaeinejad’s assertion that “non-revolutionary Islam is the same as American Islam. Islam commands us to be firm against the enemies [“infidels”] and be kind and compassionate toward each other.”

Among the major distinctions (translated verbatim) made in Khadr’s article are:

  • Radicals want the caliphate to return; moderates reject the caliphate.
  • Radicals want to apply Sharia (Islamic law); moderates reject the application of Sharia.
  • Radicals reject the idea of renewal and reform, seeing it as a way to conform Islam to Western culture; moderates accept it.
  • Radicals accept the duty of waging jihad in the path of Allah; moderates reject it.
  • Radicals reject any criticism whatsoever of Islam; moderates welcome it on the basis of freedom of speech.
  • Radicals accept those laws that punish whoever insults or leaves the religion [apostates]; moderates recoil from these laws.
  • Radicals respond to any insult against Islam or the prophet Muhammad — peace and blessing upon him — with great violence and anger; moderates respond calmly and peacefully on the basis of freedom of expression.
  • Radicals respect and revere every deed and every word of the prophet — peace be upon him — in the hadith; moderates do not.
  • Radicals oppose democracy; moderates accept it.
  • Radicals see the people of the book [Jews and Christians] as dhimmis [barely tolerated subjects]; moderates oppose this [view].
  • Radicals reject the idea that non-Muslim minorities should have equality or authority over Muslims; moderates accept it.
  • Radicals reject the idea that men and women are equal; moderates accept it, according to Western views.
  • Radicals oppose the idea of religious freedom and apostasy from Islam; moderates agree to it.
  • Radicals desire to see Islam reign supreme; moderates oppose this.
  • Radicals place the Koran over the constitution; moderates reject this [assumption].
  • Radicals reject the idea of religious equality because Allah’s true religion is Islam; moderates accept it.
  • Radicals embrace the wearing of hijabs and niqabs; moderates reject it.
  • Radicals accept killing young girls who commit adultery or otherwise besmirch their family’s honor; moderates reject this [response].
  • Radicals reject the status of women today and think that the status of women today should be like the status of women in the time of the prophet; moderates oppose that women should be as in the time of the prophet.
  • Radicals vehemently reject that women should have the freedom to choose partners; moderates accept that she can choose a boyfriend without marriage.
  • Radicals agree to clitorectomies; moderates reject them.
  • Radicals reject the so-called war on terror and see it as a war on Islam; moderates accept it.
  • Radicals support jihadi groups; moderates reject them.
  • Radicals reject the terms “Islamic terrorism” or “Islamic fascism”; moderates accept them.
  • Radicals reject universal human rights, including the right to be homosexual; moderates accept them.
  • Radicals reject the idea of allying with the West; moderates support it.
  • Radicals oppose secularism; moderates support it.
1568 (1)According to Dr. Ahmed Ibrahim Khadr, the first loyalty of radicals is to Islam while the first loyalty for moderates, regardless of their religion, is to the state. Radicals reject the idea of religious equality because Allah’s true religion is Islam; moderates accept it.

Khadr makes other charges outside his chart, including that radicals want religion to govern society, while moderates believe religion has no role in public life, that it must be practiced in private; that radicals take the text of the Koran and hadith literally, while moderates rely on rationalism, and that the first loyalty of radicals is to Islam — a reference to the Islamic doctrine of “Loyalty and Enmity” — while the first loyalty for moderates, regardless of their religion, is to the state. Radicals, he charges, also marvel that the moderate “finds hatred for non-Muslims unacceptable.”

Khadr’s conclusion is that, to most Muslims, “moderate Muslims” are those Muslims who do not oppose — and who actually aid — the West and its way of life, whereas everything “radicals” accept is based on traditional Islamic views.

If true — and disturbing polls certainly indicate that Khadr’s findings are prevalent — the West may need to rethink one of its main means of countering radical Islam: moderate Muslims and moderate Islam.

Categories: Islam in America, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic integration, Islamic reformation, Islamisation, Islamism, Islamist moral values, Moderate Muslims
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The Muslim World is a Permanent Refugee Crisis

May 25, 2016

The Muslim World is a Permanent Refugee Crisis, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, May 25, 2016

syrian_refugees_having_rest_at_the_floor_of_keleti_railway_station._refugee_crisis._budapest_hungary_central_europe_5_september_2015

The permanent Muslim refugee crisis will never stop being our crisis unless we close the door.

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Forget the Syrian Civil War for a moment. Even without the Sunnis and Shiites competing to give each other machete haircuts every sunny morning, there would still be a permanent Muslim refugee crisis.

The vast majority of civil wars over the last ten years have taken place in Muslim countries. Muslim countries are also some of the poorest in the world. And Muslim countries also have high birth rates.

Combine violence and poverty with a population boom and you get a permanent migration crisis.

No matter what happens in Syria or Libya next year, that permanent migration crisis isn’t going away.

The Muslim world is expanding unsustainably. In the Middle East and Asia, Muslims tend to underperform their non-Muslim neighbors both educationally and economically. Oil is the only asset that gave Muslims any advantage and in the age of fracking, its value is a lot shakier than it used to be.

The Muslim world had lost its old role as the intermediary between Asia and the West. And it has no economic function in the new world except to blackmail it by spreading violence and instability.

Muslim countries with lower literacy rates, especially for women, are never going to be economic winners at any trade that doesn’t come gushing out of the ground. Nor will unstable dictatorships ever be able to provide social mobility or access to the good life. At best they’ll hand out subsidies for bread.

The Muslim world has no prospects for getting any better. The Arab Spring was a Western delusion.

Growing populations divided along tribal and religious lines are competing for a limited amount of land, power and wealth. Countries without a future are set to double in size.

There are only two solutions; war or migration.

Either you fight and take what you want at home. Or you go abroad and take what you want there.

Let’s assume that the Iraq War had never happened. How would a religiously and ethnically divided Iraq have managed its growth from 13 million in the eighties to 30 million around the Iraq War to 76 million in 2050?

The answer is a bloody civil war followed by genocide, ethnic cleansing and migration.

What’s happening now would have happened anyway. It was already happening under Saddam Hussein.

Baghdad has one of the highest population densities in the world. And it has no future. The same is true across the region. The only real economic plan anyone here has is to get money from the West.

Plan A for getting money out of the West is creating a crisis that will force it to intervene. That can mean anything from starting a war to aiding terrorists that threaten the West. Muslim countries keep shooting themselves in the foot so that Westerners will rush over to kiss the booboo and make it better.

Plan B is to move to Europe.

And Plan B is a great plan. It’s the only real economic plan that works. At least until the West runs out of native and naïve Westerners who foot the bill for all the migrants, refugees and outright settlers.

For thousands of dollars, a Middle Eastern Muslim can pay to be smuggled into Europe. It’s a small investment with a big payoff. Even the lowest tier welfare benefits in Sweden are higher than the average salary in a typical Muslim migrant nation. And Muslim migrants are extremely attuned to the payoffs. It’s why they clamor to go to Germany or Sweden, not Greece or Slovakia. And it’s why they insist on big cities with an existing Muslim social welfare infrastructure, not some rural village.

A Muslim migrant is an investment for an entire extended family. Once the young men get their papers, family reunification begins. That doesn’t just mean every extended family member showing up and demanding their benefits. It also means that the family members will be selling access to Europe to anyone who can afford it. Don’t hike or raft your way to Europe. Mohammed or Ahmed will claim that you’re a family member. Or temporarily marry you so you can bring your whole extended family along.

Mohammed gets paid. So does Mo’s extended family which brokers these transactions. Human trafficking doesn’t just involve rafts. It’s about having the right family connections.

And all that is just the tip of a very big business iceberg.

Where do Muslim migrants come up with a smuggling fee that amounts to several years of salary for an average worker? Some come from wealthy families. Others are sponsored by crime networks and family groups that are out to move everything from drugs to weapons to large numbers of people into Europe.

Large loans will be repaid as the new migrants begin sending their new welfare benefits back home. Many will be officially unemployed even while unofficially making money through everything from slave labor to organized crime. European authorities will blame their failure to participate in the job market on racism rather than acknowledging that they exist within the confines of an alternate economy.

It’s not only individuals or families who can pursue Plan B. Turkey wants to join the European Union. It’s one solution for an Islamist populist economy built on piles of debt. The EU has a choice between dealing with the stream of migrants from Turkey moving to Europe. Or all of Turkey moving into Europe.

The West didn’t create this problem. Its interventions, however misguided, attempted to manage it.

Islamic violence is not a response to Western colonialism. Not only does it predate it, but as many foreign policy experts are so fond of pointing out, its greatest number of casualties are Muslims. The West did not create Muslim dysfunction. And it is not responsible for it. Instead the dysfunction of the Muslim world keeps dragging the West in. Every Western attempt to ameliorate it, from humanitarian aid to peacekeeping operations, only opens up the West to take the blame for Islamic dysfunction.

The permanent refugee crisis is a structural problem caused by the conditions of the Muslim world.

The West can’t solve the crisis at its source. Only Muslims can do that. And there are no easy answers. But the West can and should avoid being dragged down into the black hole of Muslim dysfunction.

Even Germany’s Merkel learned that the number of refugees is not a finite quantity that can be relieved with a charitable gesture. It’s the same escalating number of people that will show up if you start throwing bags of money out of an open window. And it’s a number that no country can absorb.

Muslim civil wars will continue even if the West never intervenes in them because their part of the world is fundamentally unstable. These conflicts will lead to the displacement of millions of people. But even without violence, economic opportunism alone will drive millions to the West. And those millions carry with them the dysfunction of their culture that will make them a burden and a threat.

If Muslims can’t reconcile their conflicts at home, what makes us think that they will reconcile them in Europe? Instead of resolving their problems through migration, they only export them to new shores. The same outbursts of Islamic violence, xenophobia, economic malaise and unsustainable growth follow them across seas and oceans, across continents and countries. Distance is no answer. Travel is no cure.

Solving Syria will solve nothing. The Muslim world is full of fault lines. It’s growing and it’s running out of room to grow. We can’t save Muslims from themselves. We can only save ourselves from their violence.

The permanent Muslim refugee crisis will never stop being our crisis unless we close the door.

Categories: Europe, Islam and colonialism, Islamic conquests in Europe, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic nations, Islamic refugees, Islamisation, Obama's America
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Islamic Extremism in France Part IV: Crime and Immigration

May 25, 2016

Islamic Extremism in France Part IV: Crime and Immigration, Clarion Project, Leslie Shaw, May 25, 2016

Hyper-Cacher-Policemen-France-IP_0French policemen in front of the Hyper Cacher supermarket, the site of an Islamist attack by Amedy Coulibaly, who had pledged allegiance to ISIS. Coulibaly, the son of African immigrants from Mali, was a close friend of Saïd Kouachi and Chérif Kouachi (whom he had met in jail in 2005), the gunmen in the Charlie Hebdo attack. The Kouachi brothers were sons of Algerian immigrants.

French civil servants are forbidden by law from voicing opinions that are not in line with government policy and can only express their views anonymously. In October 2015, a group of senior civil servants known as Plessis published an op-ed in the Figaro newspaper attacking the impotence of government policy and pernicious media propaganda on the issue of illegal migrants.

“This impotence, coupled with a moralizing media discourse, is increasingly disconnected from the will of the French people, who have been subject for several decades to the disorder caused by uncontrolled immigration, are worried about the threat of terrorism and demand protection and security. It is striking to observe that the current non-stop media blitz, verging on moral bullying, has failed to convince the French people.”

The disorder referred to is an omnipresent reality in France, most notably in the legal system.

In March 2015, the Administrative Court building in Toulouse was ransacked by Islamic extremists who scrawled “The Prophet Will Judge You” on the walls. One third of the 6,000 cases currently being judged by the Toulouse Administrative Court relate to illegal aliens and 30% of those are challenges to deportation orders. The attack was not covered in the national media and local reports underplayed the fact that it was perpetrated by Islamists.

French Administrative Courts rule on litigation between French citizens and the state in areas such as taxation, social housing, building permits and civil service employment, but in recent years there has been an explosion in cases brought before the court by illegal aliens supported by NGOs and these now account for over one third of cases nationwide.

In 2011 there were 53,482 such cases, and the figure is no doubt much higher today. This means that a French taxpayer or civil servant in litigation with the state or an entrepreneur trying to get an invoice paid may have to wait three or four years for a judgement. Challenges to French law brought by illegal aliens have thus thrown the legal system into chaos and are costing the French taxpayer billions of euros.

Other areas of the French judicial system have been thrown out of joint as a result of immigration as well. One example is the Tribunal Pour Enfants, or juvenile court, which handles cases involving minors.

Although it is illegal in France to compile statistics based on ethnic origins, it is sufficient to take a stroll through the corridors of the juvenile section of courthouses around France to realize that the vast majority of cases involve minors of North African or African origin.

Sociologists will put this fact down to poverty and lack of opportunity, but the reasons go deeper and are linked to the differing codes of socialization in the countries of origin of the parents and the host country.

These children underperform at school because the parents are incapable of or unwilling to push them to study. Poor results and truancy are common, and many leave high school with no qualification. Those who obtain a diploma are automatically accepted into university but lack the drive and ability to succeed.

Putting this down to deprivation is an invalid argument because the children of over 120,000 boat people from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos who arrived in France in 1979 have succeeded in assimilating into French society and are renowned for their respectful attitude and hard work in the classroom.

Juvenile delinquency is not a problem in these communities and the reasons for this are cultural, not economic.

Another field where children of North African and African origin outnumber other ethnic groups is the Aide Sociale à l’Enfance, or child protection system. This public service deals with both juvenile delinquents and children who for various reasons have been removed from their parents.

Again, statistics are not available but one only has to go to the waiting rooms of the offices of the ASE in French cities or visit the hundreds of child care residences to realize that the vast majority of children there are from Muslim families.

I am personally familiar with the case of an 11-year old French girl who was temporarily placed in a home after being rescued from an abducting parent. Of the 35 child residents, 34 were from North African or African families. When the French child’s father sent her a miniature nativity set to decorate her room at Christmas, she was forbidden from setting it up so as not to offend the Muslim children.

The most striking disproportion is in the area of criminal justice and is reflected in the prison population, where Muslims, who represent 10% of the population, account for between 50% and 65% of inmates.

These are ballpark figures as the compilation of statistics is illegal, but again a visit to courtrooms and penitentiaries is sufficient to show the estimates are not far off the mark. Indirect methods used to calculate the number of Muslim prisoners are observation of Ramadan, first names, testimonials of imams, presence at Friday prayer and demands for halal food.

Sociologist and author Farhad Khosrokhavar puts the figure at between 50% and 80%. In his 2013 study Radicalization in Prison: The French Case, he reported that non-Muslim inmates complained they felt like they were living in a Muslim country due to the regular calls for prayer and the fact that over half the prisoners in the exercise yard were Muslim.

Whatever the real figures, the connection between juvenile delinquency, violent crime and jihadism is beyond any doubt. Most of the perpetrators of Islamic terrorism over the past 10 years had a criminal record and many were multiple offenders of a legal system that allowed them to roam freely throughout Europe.

Categories: France, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic jihad, Islamisation, Islamophobia
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VIDEO: Countering Radical Islam – A Moderate Muslim Speaks Out

May 25, 2016

VIDEO: Countering Radical Islam – A Moderate Muslim Speaks Out, Gatestone Institute via YouTube, May 24, 2016

The blurb beneath the video states,

How did a terrorist cell find safe haven in a Muslim community in Brussels and carry out two successful terrorist attacks over four months? “Who are the voices of moderate Islam?,” asks Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a founder of the Muslim Reform Movement. “Who are the voices that can take back Islam from the radicals?” The West’s focus on fighting Islamic “militants” is failing, and needs to be replaced by a “tough love” strategy of countering political Islam as a whole, and supporting moderate Muslims who believe in democracy, freedom of speech, women’s rights and gay rights.

Categories: Islam in America, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic integration, Islamic reformation, Zuhdi Jasser
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REPORT: Migrants Committing Disproportionately High Crime In Germany While Media And Govt Focus on ‘Far Right’ Thought Crimes

May 24, 2016

REPORT: Migrants Committing Disproportionately High Crime In Germany While Media And Govt Focus on ‘Far Right’ Thought Crimes, Breitbart, Raheem Kassam and Chris Tomlinson, May 23, 2016

GettyImages-526912156-640x480

A massive, migrant crime wave is surging across Germany according to figures buried in a new report released by the country’s Interior Ministry. The data reveals that without migrants considered, crime rates in Germany would have remained roughly static since 2014. But, in fact, the country recorded an extra 402,741 crimes committed by migrants.

While much of this criminality concerned illegal border crossings, German authorities instead talked up a “record surge” in crimes by “right wing radicals”.

Concerning statistics from the 135-page report reveal that 70 per cent of pickpocketing, one of the crime types on the rise, was committed by non-Germans. Of this figure, 34 per cent was committed by recent asylum seekers, with the rest committed by “non-Germans”.

Foreign nationals are thought to account for around 11 or 12 per cent of the total population of Germany, but were over-represented in every area of crime.

Illegal immigrants and asylum seekers account for around 2.5 per cent of Germany’s population, but were also massively overrepresented.

Amongst total offences, non-Germans accounted for 27.6 percent while illegal immigrants and asylum seekers accounted for 5.7 percent. Of homicides, the figures are 29.3%/8.2%, and of sexual assaults, the figures were 20.5%/4.8%.

In all of these cases as well as those indicated in the chart below, non-Germans and illegal migrants outstripped their proportions of crime to their representation in German society.

Non-Germans accounted for 38 per cent of all robberies, 38 per cent of thefts, and 43 per cent of thefts that involved a level of aggravation such as assault or force.

They accounted for 40.2 per cent of burglaries, 43.5 per cent of shoplifting, and a whopping 75.7 of pick pocketing or purse snatching.

In the chart below, non-Germans are in light red while asylum seekers and illegal migrants are in deep red.

Screen-Shot-2016-05-23-at-16.13.08

And of migrant crimes specifically, Syrians top the list of migrant crimes that are not related to border controls, with a total of 10,348 individual offences in 2015. They also led assault cases among migrants, with 3,186 offences in 2015.

Thefts were most committed by Albanians, with 6,689 offences and Algerians coming close with 5,611. Algerians almost tie with Serbians when it comes to fraud. Balkan nationals were accountable for 2,834 cases, barely above North Africans’ 2,774.

Algerians top the list for smuggling goods (2,449) and also top the list for drug selling offences (976).

Even when border control breaches are exempted from the data, the situation is still stark. Male crime is stagnant amongst Germans, but when migrants are added, male crime goes up 12 per cent, with female crime rising just 6 per cent. This reflects the fact that most migrants into Europe in 2015 were young men.

Crime rates amongst “non-Germans” outside the residence act are up 13 per cent, whereas crimes committed by Germans are down 5 per cent.

And the report shows that offences against the Residence Act, the Asylum Procedures Act, and the Freedom of Movement Act are up by 157.5 per cent, with shopliftings up by 7.1 per cent, pickpocketing up by 7.0 per cent, burglary up by 9.9 per cent, and drug offences up by 2.1 per cent.

Presenting the report to journalists however, Mr. de Maiziere insisted in focusing on “politically-motivated crimes by the far-right” which he said had risen 35 percent in 2015 to nearly 23,000.

“The sharp increase in politically motivated crime points to a dangerous development in society,” de Maiziere told reporters at a news conference. “We are witnessing a growing and increasingly pronounced readiness to use violence, both by right- and left-wing extremists.”

But while attacks on refugee centre rose to 1,031 compared to 199 in the prior year, most of the offences committed appear to be what could be called “thought crime”, or what police describe as “evidence that they aimed to eliminate certain constitutional principles”.

Of a total of 38,981 political crimes committed in 2015, some 29,681 (76.1 per cent) were classed under this category.

Of real incidents, 1,031 were attacks on asylum centres, but just 177 of these were thought to be “violent”, with most of the rest believed to be “propaganda” offences or vandalism.

And according to the statistics, identified left wingers have had more confrontations with police (3,507 incidents), according to the statistics, than right wingers have (1,203 incidents). Left-wing activists have confronted more right wingers (4,276 incidents) than vice versa (1,406 incidents). These incidents include public protests like those of the PEGIDA movement.

Nonetheless, the reporting from Western news agencies has focused on a “right wing” wave of violence.

Earlier this month, when Republican Party presumptive nominee Donald Trump alleged “[L]ook at Germany, it’s crime-riddled right now”, organisations like Politifact were quick to crow about how immigrants accounted for fewer crimes than native Germans.

But today’s statistics reveal that as a percentage of the population, non-Germans and illegal immigrants account for a massively disproportionate amount of crime in Germany.

Categories: "Far right hate groups", Crime, Germany, Islamic immigration, Islamic integration, Islamic refugees, Islamophobia, Thought crimes
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Austrian Freedom Party: Victory in Defeat

May 24, 2016

Austrian Freedom Party: Victory in Defeat, Gatestone Institute, Soeren Kern, May 24, 2016

♦ European political and media elites have been quick to hail the election of Van der Bellen, who campaigned on a pro-immigration, pro-EU platform. They seem to believe his razor-thin win validates their uninterrupted pursuit of European multiculturalism.

♦ Meanwhile, European elites have expressed relief at Norbert Hofer’s defeat. Their reactions would indicate that they unaware that they are largely responsible for the rise of anti-establishment parties in Austria and other parts of Europe.

♦ “Europe has been polarized for years by misguided policies pursued by the old major parties, not only in Germany but in many European countries. The fact is that it must be our task to preserve freedom, democracy and the rule of law across the continent. And the policy of open borders does exactly the opposite.” — Frauke Petry, Alternative for Germany party.

Norbert Hofer of the anti-immigration Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) has been narrowly defeated in his bid to become Austria’s next president.

Alexander Van der Bellen, former leader of Austrian Greens party, won 50.3% of the vote, compared to 49.7% for Hofer. The margin of victory was 31,026 out of nearly 4.5 million votes cast.

European political and media elites have been quick to hail the election of Van der Bellen, who campaigned on a pro-immigration, pro-EU platform. They seem to believe his razor-thin win validates their uninterrupted pursuit of European multiculturalism.

But Hofer can claim victory even in defeat. By winning half the ballots cast, Hofer has exposed Austria’s gaping political divide on immigration and relations with the European Union. Hofer’s rise, which has effectively upended Austria’s political system, has also inspired anti-establishment parties in other parts of Europe.

Hofer had been in the lead after polls closed on May 22, with 51.9% of the vote to Van der Bellen’s 48.1%. In the end, however, the race was decided by 700,000 mail-in votes, accounting for 14% of eligible voters. Van der Bellen won 2,254,484 votes to Hofer’s 2,223,458, according to the Interior Ministry.

1620In this month’s Austrian presidential election, Alexander Van der Bellen (left), who campaigned on a pro-immigration, pro-EU platform, defeated Norbert Hofer (right) of the anti-immigration Austrian Freedom Party. (Image source: ORF TV video screenshot)

In what amounted to a political earthquake, Hofer won 36% of the vote in the first round of voting on April 24. Hofer — who campaigned on a platform calling for strict limits on immigration and tough rules for asylum seekers — defeated all of the other candidates, including those from the two governing parties, the Social Democrats and the Austrian People’s Party, which have dominated Austrian politics since the end of World War II.

Although the role of president in Austria has traditionally been largely ceremonial, Hofer had suggested that he would try to remove the current government led by newly appointed Chancellor Christian Kern and force new parliamentary elections. Opinion polls suggest that if parliamentary elections were held today, the Freedom Party would win. The next polls are scheduled for some time in 2018.

Van der Bellen, a 72-year-old economist, was gracious in victory, pledging to be “non-partisan president for all of those living in Austria.” He added: “All Austrians are equal. Austria consists of two halves. The one half is just as important as the other half.”

An analysis in the German newspaper Die Welt warned that Van der Bellen will not have it easy:

“It will be up to Van der Bellen to find the right tone and to show that he not only embodies the Austria of the city dwellers, but the whole country. He will have to bear in mind that according to the polls, 40% of those who voted for him did so only because they wanted to prevent a president from the Freedom Party.”

Conceding the election, Hofer wrote on Facebook: “Of course, it is a sad day. But please do not be discouraged. The effort in this election campaign is not wasted. It is an investment for the future.”

Hofer’s meteoric rise has focused the minds of the establishment parties. On April 27, just three days after Hofer’s initial electoral victory, the Austrian Parliament adopted what may be one of the toughest asylum laws in Europe.

Under the new law, Austria will declare a “state of emergency” on the migration crisis. This will allow Austrian authorities to assess asylum claims directly at the border. Only asylum seekers with immediate family members already in Austria, or those who can prove they are in danger in neighboring transit countries, will be allowed to enter the country. Other migrants will be turned away. The new law also limits any successful asylum claim to three years.

Austria received 90,000 asylum requests in 2015, the second-highest number in the European Union on a per capita basis, but this pales in comparison to what may lie ahead. In a radio interview on April 28, Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka warned that up to one million migrants are poised to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Libya to Europe.

Mass migration to Austria has been accompanied by a spike in migrant-related rapes, sexual assaults and other crimes across the country, and has contributed to the rise of the Freedom Party.

Reflecting on the outcome of the presidential election, Hofer’s campaign manager, Herbert Kickl, said: “This is a huge achievement. Hofer managed to convince half of the population in defiance of the system.”

In France, where polls show that the leader of the National Front, Marine Le Pen, is leading polls for presidential elections in 2017, party secretary general Nicolas Bay wrote on Twitter: “Despite the disappointment, a historic score for our ally from the Freedom Party. The future belongs to patriots!”

Meanwhile, European elites have expressed relief at Hofer’s defeat. Their reactions would indicate that they unaware that they are largely responsible for the rise of anti-establishment parties in Austria and other parts of Europe.

The president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, said anti-EU parties should be completely shunned: “Neither a debate nor a dialogue is possible with right-wing populists.”

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said: “The election result removes a heavy burden for all of Europe.” Ralf Stegner, the deputy director of Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD)commented on Twitter: “This must serve as a warning that we can never again allow it [the rise of anti-establishment parties] go this far and that we have to combat this threat to our democracy with full force!”

But the leader of the Alternative for Germany party, Frauke Petry, said the vote was “an important day, not only for Austria, but for all of Europe.” She added:

“Europe has been polarized for years by misguided policies pursued by the old major parties, not only in Germany but in many European countries. The fact is that it must be our task to preserve freedom, democracy and the rule of law across the continent. And the policy of open borders does exactly the opposite.”

The outcome of the Austrian presidential election will not be official until June 1, the deadline for legal challenges to the vote count. Some Freedom Party members have expressed anger at the opaque manner in which mail-in ballots are counted.

Categories: "Far right" parties, Austria, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamisation
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