Posted tagged ‘Canada’

Guess Who Is Helping Islamists to Oppress Women?

October 10, 2016

Guess Who Is Helping Islamists to Oppress Women? Gatestone InstituteThomas Quiggin, October 10, 2016

Why Canada’s Minister of Immigration should be accepting an award from an individual whose own organization (ICNA) openly advocates violence against women is not clear. Minister Hajdu, despite her role as Minister for the Status of Women in Canada, has remained silent on this issue despite being made aware of it directly.

Not only did the child services department do nothing to help the 1400 girls being raped and forced into prostitution, in fact she (and others) went out of their way to silence anyone who tried to speak out. Rather than face the fact that a problem of mass rape existed, Joyce Thacker played a role in the cover-up.

Canada’s Prime Minister Trudeau has declared himself to be a “feminist” and says he is committed to increasing the role of women in society. However, he recently visited a gender-segregated mosque in Ottawa, the imam of which is part of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), placed on a list of designated terrorist organizations by the United Arab Emirates in 2014.

Ironically, the City of Ottawa has other mosques which are modern and humanist, but the Prime Minister has never chosen to visit one of them.

 

Advocating violence against women and other misogynist practices are increasingly being accepted by individuals who identify themselves as “feminists” and “female leaders.”

The process of normalizing Islamist misogyny is well underway while so-called feminists remain silent on issues such as wife beating, child marriages, female genital mutilation and “forced suicides.”

For current feminists, it appears as though political correctness and fantasizing that they are “social justice warriors” outweighs the rights of women, especially brown women.

When it comes to the issue of opposing violence against women, feminists are as silent as beaten wives. Nothing – including the advocacy of wife beating, pedophiliac sex acts with nine-year-old girls and the generalized oppression of women – can draw feminists into the debate on the role of women under the Islamist ideology that is prevalent in Canada and the USA.

Premier Katherine Wynne of Ontario (population 13.6 million) recently visited the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), along with Education Minister Mitzie Hunter. They met on August 26, 2016 with female members of the Islamic Circle North America Sisters (ICNA Canada) in Scarborough. The ICNA directly advocates misogynist positions such as wife beating, the taking of slave girls and the position that women are, overall, inferior to men. ICNA also notes that Islamic women have been “emancipated” from the obligation of earning their own livelihood. Therefore, women can be kept at home and cannot leave the house without the permission of the husband.

1889Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne (center) with ICNA employees. (Image: Twitter/Kathleen Wynne)

Quite alarmingly, the Premier of Ontario did not criticize the organization or its heavily misogynistic beliefs. Rather she publicly claimed to have been “honoured” to have been there. The Minister of Education, Ms Hunter, appears to have remained silent on her views concerning this visit.

The Minister of the Status of Women, Patty Hajdu, for the federal government of Canada does not appear to have any problem with those advocating violence against women, either. Her cabinet colleague, Minister John McCallum, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, received an award for his “outstanding service” from the Canadian Council of Imams. The chairperson of this group is Dr. Iqbal Al-Nadvi, who is also the Amir of ICNA. Why the Minister of Immigration should be accepting an award from an individual whose own organization (ICNA) openly advocates violence against women is not clear. Minister Hajdu, despite her role as Minister for the Status of Women in Canada, has remained silent on this issue despite being made aware of it directly.

Mayor Bonnie Crombie of Mississauga has repeated allowed Hizb ut Tahrir (HT), a leading Islamist organization, to use city-owned property in Mississauga to hold conferences. In addition to stating that democracy is not compatible with Islam and that all Canadian soldiers are war criminals, HT is running an education campaign to teach women about “women’s rights.” To HT, women’s rights are a Western concept and Islamic women should be aware of their obligation under sharia law. Ironically, the City of Mississauga withdrew permission (once) for Hizb ut Tahrir to have a meeting on city-owned property. Gerry Townsend, the CEO of Mississauga Living Arts Centre, confirmed the cancellation explaining that “there has been a bit of publicity about this organization.” The meeting, it seems was not cancelled because HT is misogynist or listed as a terrorist group in multiple countries, but rather because of “publicity.” Other meetings carried on without incident.

Member of Parliament Iqra Khalid is another woman who maintains silence in the face of the advocacy of violence against women. Prior to being a Member of Parliament, Ms. Khalid was the head of the Muslim Student Association at York University. In 2015, the same York University Muslim Student Association was handing out books for Islam Awareness Week. According to a book handed out, wife-beating is permissible under certain circumstances and some women enjoy being beaten because they are submissives. Ms. Khalid, who has close ties to the Islamic Society of North America and others, has not spoken out against the violence advocated by her former student association, the ICNA, the ISNA or any other such Islamist organization.

Perhaps the most disturbing example of all, however, is Joyce Thacker of the United Kingdom. She was the £130,000-a-year Strategic Director of the City of Rotherham’s children’s services department for five years. During that time, the ongoing rapes, drugging and enslavement of eleven to fourteen-year-old girls carried on in Rotherham. Not only did the child services department do nothing to help the 1400 girls being raped and forced into prostitution, in fact she (and others) went out of their way to silence anyone who tried to speak out. The reason for the enforced silence over a period of years was later identified in the official UK government report as “institutionalized political correctness.” The rapists were primarily identified as Pakistani/Kashmiri/Muslims and the victims were identified as being primarily white girls. Rather than face the fact that a problem of mass rape on a wartime level existed, Joyce Thacker played a role in the cover-up.

The most interesting role of all, however, is that being played by Canada’s Prime Minister Trudeau. He has declared himself to be a “feminist” and says he is committed to increasing the role of women in society. However, he recently visited (September 2016) a gender-segregated mosque in Ottawa. Female Members of Parliament who attended with him had to enter by a side door and sit in the segregated area. The imam of the mosque is part of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), according to the mosque’s own website. This organization was placed on a list of designated terrorist organizations by the United Arab Emirates in 2014. More interestingly, a review of the teaching and reading material of the mosque in early 2016 revealed a disturbing fact. The study noted that “It is not the presence of extremist literature in the mosque libraries that is worrisome. The problem is that there was nothing but extremist literature in the mosque libraries.”

Worse, the Prime Minister also stated: “…as I look at this beautiful room — sisters upstairs — everyone here, (I see) the diversity we have just within this mosque, within the Islamic community, within the Muslim community in Canada.”

How this be seen as anything other than an attempt at normalizing the segregation of women? Ironically, the City of Ottawa has other mosques which are modern and humanist, but the Prime Minister has never chosen to visit one of them.

What are the possible reasons for such practices whereby feminists and major feminist organizations refuse to speak out on violence against women? Most leading feminists are still white, as are many female leadership figures. Many victims of misogyny and abuse are brown:

  • Brown women, not known to be a voting block, therefore have little to no influence in the corridors of elected power;
  • Women, especially those in positions of power such as Premier Wynne, Minister Hajdu, and Mayor Crombie of Mississauga can be misogynistic notwithstanding that they are female; and
  • In many cases, the forces of political correctness and fantasy of seeing themselves as “Social Justice Warriors” place the rights of Islamist males over the rights of Muslim and non-Muslim females.

Canadian Red Cross Outsources Guide for Refugees to CAIR

September 28, 2016

Canadian Red Cross Outsources Guide for Refugees to CAIR, Clarion Project, John Goddard, September 28, 2016

canada-red-cross-booklet-hpPhoto: images from the teacher’s guide

The Canadian Red Cross has funded a teachers’ guide depicting Canadian society as practicing a “terrorist ideology of hate” against Muslims.

The guide, written ostensibly to coach teachers on how to help Syrian refugee children adapt, suggests that “hate,” “discrimination” and “Islamophobia” amount to a terrorist ideology, and that non-Muslim Canadians are its perpetrators. The solution is Islam, the guide says.

“The core values and central tenants of Islam are immutable,” it says, “and are the best counter-narrative to the terrorist ideology of hate.”

The Red Cross is expressing vague misgivings about the publication.

“The original intention… was to provide educators with a resource to help children deal with cultural transition and possible trauma due to war and significant cultural change,” the charity’s spokesperson said in an interview. “In our view, the majority of the publication achieves its intended purpose, but there are specific areas that we don’t feel fit with its original intention.”

To produce the booklet, the Red Cross gave $3,000 from its “Syrian refugee resettlement fund” to the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), formerly CAIR-Canada. The group changed its name three years ago after its parent organization, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), was repeatedly shown to have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

Canada has accepted 31,000 Syrian refugees in the past year, but the guide shows less concern for refugee children than for “Canadian Muslim youth.” The word “refugees” does not even appear in the title, “A Guide for Educators: Helping Students Deal with Trauma Related to Geopolitical Violence & Islamophobia.”

The 16-page booklet portrays Muslim youth as under attack not from Islamic State terrorists or President Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian forces, but from non-Muslim Canadians.

“To constantly feel under attack, to have to defend one’s faith, and to be continuously called upon to condemn the actions of criminals and terrorists is emotionally traumatic,” the booklet says.

The word “trauma” appears often, mostly referring to Muslim life in Canada. “Trauma can be related to historical events such as the history of colonization,” the guide says. And: “Being marginalized and categorized as ‘the other’… can be traumatic.”

The guide includes specific tips for teachers. One is to examine oneself for anti-Muslim bias — “recognize your own judgments and biases.” Another is to let Muslims proselytize in schools — “provide space for Muslim students to speak to their peers about their faith.”

In italics, the tip sheet says: “Care should be taken by teachers on the language and tone they take when discussing world events and the Islamic faith.”

TV commentator Ezra Levant put the last point in plainer language. “This is an instruction to anybody working in the school system to shut-up about Islam — it is a favored religion,” he said last week on his online news channel, The Rebel.

The self-described conservative channel sent the Red Cross more than $25,000 this summer to help with forest-fire relief in Fort McMurray, Alberta, but will never donate to the Red Cross again, Levant told viewers of The Ezra Levant Show.

“I think the Red Cross should withdraw its support [for the booklet] and apologize to Canadians,” he said.

Two years ago, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police abruptly cut its collaboration with the NCCM on a “United Against Terrorism” guide. The police force “could not support the adversarial tone” of the booklet, they said.

The Red Cross said its specific objections to the teachers’ booklet include three reprinted op-ed pieces. One is by the head of the Winnipeg-based Islamic Social Services Association, a partner on the booklet, comparing the circumstances of Canadian Muslims to that of Japanese-Canadians interned during World War Two.

“We are in discussions with the organization that produced the publication,” the Red Cross spokesperson said. “I’m not sure what the end result will be.”

Another collaborator on the guidebook was the Canadian Human Rights Commission, an ostensibly neutral federal government body, which “translated the booklet into French to reach a broader audience,” a spokesperson said.

Two years ago, the NCCM sued then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his press secretary for libel when the press secretary referred to NCCM as “an organization with documented ties to a terrorist organization such as Hamas.” The case is still before the courts.

Ontario Imam Tells Muslims Not to Apologize for Foiled ISIS Suicide Attack

August 24, 2016

Ontario Imam Tells Muslims Not to Apologize for Foiled ISIS Suicide Attack, Counter JihadBruce Cornibe, August 24, 2016

Islamists often blame the foreign policies of Western governments in attempt to mask the despicable acts of terrorism committed by jihadists. This type of scapegoating switches the fault from radical Islam to the West, and finds traction with Westerners that succumb to the white privilege/collective guilt mindset furthered by leftist academics.

An Ontario imam named Mazin AbdulAdhim, who is connected with the radical Hizb ut-Tahrir movement, continues to condemn the West  after the stymied terror attack by ISIS supporter Aaron Driver on August 10. Take a look at AbdulAdhim’s Facebook post, allegedly posted the day after the thwarted attack:

Aaron Driver, a Muslim convert from my city, was killed in a confrontation with the RCMP yesterday. They allege that he detonated a device inside a taxi, hurting himself and someone else, and was shot when he tried to detonate another one.

It is important to not jump to conclusions about this information until details are made clear. The media clearly has a campaign against Islam and Muslims, and so we should be careful how we respond to news like this.

Even if the information is true, we must not allow these sorts of events to cause us to be pressured to apologize for actions that we are not responsible for, nor should this cause us to become afraid of speaking the truth. The governments of the West kill and help kill dozens of innocent civilians every day, and the crimes they have committed against humanity through their foreign policies are orders of magnitude worse than anything these individuals have committed or tried to commit…

It’s funny how Islamists like AbdulAdhim say the media is out to get Muslims, when many media outlets push the contrived ‘Islamophobia’ narrative. For example, the BBC recently ran a story that implied that opposition to Sharia law is ‘Islamophobia’ – apparently interrupting an interview by stating, “There’s no Sharia law here.”

AbdulAdhim also flips morality on its head and thinks that alleged crimes resulting from the foreign policies of Western governments are a much greater evil than Islamic terrorism. This is another leftist tactic of using moral relativism to justify the most absurd of viewpoints – for example, drone strikes that seek to minimize collateral damage are apparently more evil than a suicide bomber aiming to murder innocent people. This is the reasoning behind actual terrorist groups like Hamas who blame Israel for terrorism when Israel’s military inadvertently kills or injures civilians because the leaders of Hamas purposely hide their militants in schools and hospitals to ensure collateral damage.

AbdulAdhim also provides a Facebook posting that’s indicative of how anti-Western the Sharia mindset is at its core. Purportedly posted after the Orlando massacre, the anti-democratic/anti-capitalist post states:

…It’s amazing that Muslims still have not absorbed the fact that this is not our system, these are not our laws, and these are not our governments. This system does not represent us, and it will not protect us if those behind it decide that we are no longer worth protecting.

It’s amazing that Muslims continuously ignore the fact that our Creator gave us our own system and obligated it upon us, and He will never allow us to solve these countless problems we face today until we return to His system that He ordained for us in His final message…

…We are the ones who have turned away from the systems revealed by Allah (swt), and look at this most miserable life we live, constantly apologizing, lacking in dignity, and never having proper representation of the proper implementation of Islam.

And we are the ones who have caused the spread of corruption throughout the land and the sea, since we abandoned our positions in implementing Islam on the political level, and left those positions for the worst of humanity to occupy…

Unlike the Islamists of the Hamas-affiliated Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) organizations like Hizb ut-Tahrir are more forthright about their political goals and what Sharia law entails. As suggested from AbdulAdhim’s previous statement, political Islam is not compatible with democracy and a capitalist system.

We know in Sharia “that only Allah can righteously create laws that are binding on human beings[;]” therefore, laws conceived by humans are invalid. From this perspective there’s no reason to have a democracy since the laws that likely come out of the democratic process are inherently wrong, and there’s no reason to have a free-enterprise system when Allah has already stipulated what is permissible (halal) and what is forbidden (haram) – for example, usury (riba) is prohibited (Quran 2:275-280). Also, the elevation and promotion of Islam and Muslims is another key element of Sharia. How is a government governed by Sharia supposed to give equal rights to Muslims and non-Muslims (Kafirs) alike if non-Muslims are systematically discriminated against in Islamic texts that make up Sharia like the Quran (2:221)? It can’t, and AbdulAdhim knows that.

The use of violence is one of the few differences between Islamists and jihadists (even though some Islamists subscribe to violence). As we have already seen Islamists oftentimes downplay Islamic terrorism or blame it on supposed Western aggression, thus helping to advance their Sharia agenda. Furthermore, Islamists like AbdulAdhim are enemies to Western civilization and the Western countries they inhabit. Leaders like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cannot identify the threat stemming from radical Islam because they are too steeped in political correctness. The threat of Sharia won’t go away on its own – the West must confront its enemy.

New Study: Extremist Literature Common in Canadian Mosques

August 24, 2016

New Study: Extremist Literature Common in Canadian Mosques, Clarion Project, Elliot Friedland, August 24, 2016

Islamic-State-Fighter-1-HP_1Illustrative picture. (Photo: © Screenshot from video)

Extremist literature is widely available in mosques and Islamic schools in Canada, according to a new study, reported by the National Post.

The study was conducted by Thomas Quiggin a former intelligence analyst with the Privy Council Office and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and Saied Shoaaib, a journalist originally from Egypt.

The study found that not only was the material available, but in some places it was the majority of the literature available.

The co-authors argued that politicians have reacted insufficiently to the threat, and that extremists were gaining the upper hand ideologically.

“Further research is required to determine the depth and breadth of this problem,” the study concluded.

The findings are especially troubling in the light of another study, published earlier in August, which interviewed Canadian citizens who had travelled to Syria or Iraq to fight for jihadist organizations such as the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL), as reported by Macleans.

In this study, titled Talking to Foreign Fighters: Socio-Economic Push versus Existential Pull Factors, researchers questioned 40 foreign fighters, 60 family members, friends and associates, and 30 online supporters from December 2015 to February 2016.

They have so far they have published findings from an initial sample of 20 jihadists. Their findings indicate that ideology was a primary motivating factor in the radicalization journeys by of those to whom they spoke.

“None of our sample indicated coming from familial situations of poverty or marginality,” they said. “On the contrary, many indicated they had fairly happy and privileged, or at least comfortable, childhoods. In general, there was almost no discussion of the economic situation of their families.”

Those interviewed “run the gamut from troubled youth with personal problems to accomplished young men and women from stable backgrounds,” the authors wrote.

“Anger and frustration have their role to play in the process, but it is the positive investment in an alternate world-saving role that matters most, no matter how strange it may appear to outsiders.”

They also saw that many seemed to radicalize and travel in “clusters,” as opposed to lone wolves.

Furthermore, they added that mentoring from someone seen as a religious figure was necessary for many to complete the process of radicalization. “In most cases, we would say the help and encouragement of some other outside mentors is required to complete the process of radicalization, to turn wannabe terrorists into deployable agents or independent martyrs for the cause. The process of self-radicalization needs to be legitimated to be complete.”

With the presence of extremist literature available in mosques, the ability of Canadians to be drawn into such an ideology seems clear.

Attempted Suicide Bomber Shot and Killed in Canada

August 11, 2016

Attempted Suicide Bomber Shot and Killed in Canada, Clarion Project, August 11, 2016

Aaron-driver-canadian-suicide-bomber-screenshot-640-320Aaron Driver being arrested in 2015. (Photo: © Screenshot from video)

An Islamic State sympathizer armed with an explosive device was shot and killed by Canadian police on Wednesday evening, reported CBCNews.

Aaron Driver, 24, detonated an explosive device which injured himself and one other person in the town of Strathoy, Southern Ontario. Police responded to a terror threat reported earlier in the day and confronted Driver.

Police said he had another device which he planned to detonate on a suicide mission in a public area.

“A suspect was identified and the proper course of action has been taken to ensure that there is no danger to the public’s safety,” the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement.

“As this is still an unfolding matter and that the investigation is still underway, we are not able to provide further comment at this time.”

Driver had been arrested previously on terror charges by the police in June 2015 and was released on a peace bond in February this year.He signed the peace bond agreement, meaning he was “consenting or acknowledging that there are reasonable grounds to fear that he may participate, contribute — directly or indirectly — in the activity of a terrorist group.”

The terms of his peace bond were that he had to register his address with the police and inform them of any change to his address. He also had a curfew of 9pm to 6am and could not have a computer or smartphone or log onto social media accounts.

Driver was also reportedly under police surveillance.

He had drawn the attention of Canada’s spy agency CSIS when he tweeted in support of the Islamic State under the alias Harun Abdurahman. Among other things, Driver said that the 2014 terrorist attack on Parliament Hill in which a Canadian soldier was killed was justified.

“I’m OK with soldiers or police officers being targeted for what they’re doing to Muslims” he told CBC in an interview in July.

“I think it’s a little hypocritical that people would take issue with people retaliating against them … when it’s the police and the military who are killing Muslims.”

He also downplayed suggestions he posed a terrorist threat in the interview, adding “I don’t think I’m a threat, and I don’t think there’s a reason for Canadians to think that I’m a threat.”

No Canada

June 12, 2016

No Canada, PJ MediaDavid Solway, June 11, 2016

(Europe? Obama’s America? Leading or following into the abyss? –DM)

burning_toronto_canada_police_car_banner_6-6-16-1.sized-770x415xcToronto police car torched during the G20 protest on June 26, 2010. Photo by arindambanerjee / Shutterstock.com.

Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber  may have been tactless when he spoke of the “stupidity of the American voter,” but I suspect he might have trotted out the same insult had he surveyed the West in general or the Canadian electoral scene in particular. After all, Canada, a comparatively peaceable country that regards itself as an “honest broker” in international affairs and a beacon of cultural—and multicultural—enlightenment, is fundamentally no different from other Western countries marching down the Hayek Highway. I have written before of the collective foolishness of a presumably educated nation installing a majority Liberal government to manage its affairs despite the readily available evidence of the social and economic malaise that left/liberal politics have inflicted on Western democracies. A cursory reconnaissance of the U.S., the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Scandinavian countries and others should have sounded a clear warning to Canadians, or at any rate to anyone still capable of cerebral functioning.

But no. We fell for the media hatefest against the Conservative party and its leader Stephen Harper, while subscribing to our own version of “hope and change” as represented by the jejune and deceptive Justin Trudeau and his troupe of trendy mediocrities strutting on the national stage. How could we have travelled this route? As David Mamet points out in The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture, we “reject any request for information about the actual mechanics of this ‘Change,’ by referring to ‘Hope’.” Unfortunately, hope is not a policy or a platform, and it is certainly not an expression of a practicable future. It should come as no surprise, then, that electoral promises have been duly and rapidly broken in favor of vanity projects and that a host of destructive policies have been legislated, or are about to be legislated. To take a number of examples:

  • By introducing Bill C-14, the Liberals have reified their advocacy for physician-assisted dying, depriving doctors and health professionals of moral choice on the issue. Claiming a “deep respect” for Parliament, they have nevertheless imposed substantial limits on debating time.
  • Trudeau is eager to engineer a change to our “first past the post” electoral system, replacing it with one of a wide variety of possible reforms, such as ranked ballots, proportional representation and online voting. The proposed reforms, based on vote transferability and leftist coalitions, would both introduce an element of needless complexity into the electoral process and, in Canada’s multiparty system, which leans collectively to the left, virtually ensure a permanent Liberal majority. A transformation this vast should require a national referendum, but Trudeau’s minister of Democratic Institutions—a label straight out of Orwell—cites a Twitter hashtag #electoralreform as sufficient reason to sidestep a plebiscite. The 30-year-old, out-of-her-depth, Afghan-born, newly created Minister Maryam Monsef is hostile to referenda because they supposedly exclude the “marginalized.” As National Postcolumnist Rex Murphy comments, “Evidently, women, people of color, the disabled—build your own list—are allergic to voting in a referendum.” But she is merely doing the bidding of her leader, who intends to strike a committee, in which Canada’s one conservative party will be outnumbered 9 to 3 by left-oriented parties, to determine the best way to implement what is nothing less than a political coup. The Liberals have recently shown signs of relenting on the referendum issue, but the situation reveals their arrogant disregard of the people they presumably answer to.
  • The Liberals deny that they inherited a balanced budget from the previous Conservative government and have now projected a $30 billion debt, sure to increase in the future, that will serve not only as a fiscal drain on the present but as an economic drogue on generations to come.
  • Trudeau eliminated selective income splitting for families, a measure ostensibly intended to deprivilege the “wealthy” and thus burnish the party’s popular image, but obviously designed to work against the traditional family structure by making it more costly to sustain the stay-at-home wife/mother arrangement. Cost, however, is not a personal consideration for Trudeau, as it happens, heir to a multi-million dollar trust fund. The nannies looking after his children will soak the Canadian taxpayer $100,000 per annum. Indeed, when he visited Washington to confer with Obama, he was accompanied by a 44-member entourage consisting of celebrities, fundraisers, in-laws and, of course, the nannies, at taxpayers’ expense.
  • Trudeau has enthusiastically endorsed the feminist agenda and established a gender-balanced cabinet, irrespective of merit or competence. The embarrassing spectacle that Chrystia Freeland, minister of International Trade, made of herself o Bill Maher’s show is no accident. We can expect more of such sophomoric ineptitude in the years ahead. A government that eschews proven or demonstrable talent in favor of gender parity, much like our current universities, and hires or appoints on the basis of sex is monstrously irresponsible.
  • To strengthen their “social justice” credentials as the party for the times, the Liberals, who long ago jumped on the same-sex marriage bandwagon, have, additionally, projected Bill C-16 providing for an up to two-year prison sentence for anyone convicted of fomenting “hate propaganda” against transgenders. The word “hate” clearly furnishes enormous latitude for interpretation and renders critical discourse problematic and even dangerous, now that the Criminal Code is about to be amended. It seems that freedom of expression contracts with every new piece of social legislation, by no means astonishing in a country whose left/liberal Supreme Court has already pronounced that truth is no defense in cases where offense is given to marginalized groups or individuals.
  • No less damaging, Trudeau’s well-documented sympathy for Islam has resulted in the importation of many thousands of so-called “Syrian” refugees, all improperly vetted, who will swell the welfare rolls, glut an already grossly dysfunctional single-payer medical network, further disrupt a progressively concessionary educational system, and create more social havoc in the form of Sharia ghettoes and eruptions of Muslim-inspired violence. Bet on it. As Muslim reformer Tarek Fatah reports in the Toronto Sun, Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell accused him of lying and of Islamophobia (!) when Fatah testified to the Senate about Canadian mosques that feature seditious preaching against secular democracy, about Israel as “useless garbage,” and about the necessity of spilling blood. “While this was unfolding,” he continues, the Trudeau government “had authorized a $200,000 grant to a southern Ontario mosque with links to the Muslim Brotherhood.”

In moving decisively to the left and bringing in programs that will inevitably fray the economic fabric of the country while diluting its traditional substance, Trudeau boasts that “Canada is back”—a slogan, Murphy writes, “that’s saccharine and weirdly jingoistic at the same time,” as if his election were “a victory, not for [the] party—which it was—but for the country itself.” Such hubris is both typical and unforgivable.

Perhaps what is no less troubling is that the cultural sycophancy practiced by the Liberals has now infected the Conservative party, which, despite its objection to Liberal spending and dubious policy initiatives, has, under interim leader Rona Ambrose, slotted the same-sex marriage plank into its party platform. “I think our party got a little more Canadian today,’ Calgary MP Michelle Rempel said after the convention vote. Indeed it did, and that’s a real shame. The Conservatives didn’t stop there. Ambrose has suddenly discovered that she too is a fan of legislation to prohibit criticism of transgenderism; “who you love, how you identify,” she pontificates, “should never be cause for fear or anxiety.” Interestingly, when the Daily Caller asked if she would then support or approve of pedophilia, no reply was forthcoming. By striving to emulate the Liberals as a matter of crass and misguided expedience—as if the Liberal base comprising the general run of leftists, Muslims, aboriginals, journalists, talking heads, environmentalists and global warmists, colonies of indoctrinated students and the entitlement crowd will gratefully change their voting habits—the Conservative party has betrayed its principles and its core constituency.

The real problem, however, is not the political party or the leader in question, but the intellectual laxity of the electorate. Canadians, who have always preened themselves on their moral and intellectual superiority to Americans, in reality merely ape the customs and usages of their neighbors to the south, generally a decade or so later. Mutatis mutandis, we would have flocked to the polling stations to vote for an Obama, a Hillary or a Bernie. The Donald would have been anathema.

Admittedly, there is a rather more modest Trump-like figure on the conservative scene who seems interested in running for the leadership of the party with a view to the 2019 federal election, namely, successful businessman and TV personality Kevin O’Leary. (See CBC’s Dragons’ Den and ABC’s Shark Tank.) Responding to questions about a potential leadership bid, O’Leary said he was not prepared to sit in perpetual Opposition, preferring to wait until he sees whether the party is willing to jettison the political hacks who led it to defeat. “I’m proud of the country,” he continued, but “I’m depressed that it’s not competitive and I see so much incompetence, mediocrity and stupidity when it comes to managing it and I’m just tired of it.” Like Trump, O’Leary is nothing if not confident. “One way or another,” he says, “I’m going to figure out how to fix it.” But in the present narcoleptic milieu his prospects are probably slight.

Ten years hence the country may wake up, as innumerable U.S. citizens appear to be doing today. This is assuming we still have a country that is anything like the country we used to have. Given an oppressive direct and indirect tax structure, the proliferation of “hate speech” laws, the discursive ravages of political correctness, the faux “social justice” agenda, the malignant influence of feminism on business, government, the courts and the academy, the ongoing inroads of Islam into the body politic and the culture at large, the faddish convictions of the intellectual and artistic communities swimming with the brackish tides, and the flaccid surrender of the public to these toxic developments—including the reluctance to seek out and process reliable information, as Mamet intimated—the issue is alarmingly moot.

To arrive at reasonably dependable insights for one’s political thinking, one needs to distrust any single media outlet and take the time to review multiple sources in order to factor out feasible assumptions in making political choices. It takes work, civic dedication and the willingness to pay attention. Laziness is not an option. A rudimentary knowledge of history is also essential. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in a January 6, 1816 letter to Colonel Charles Yancey: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free…it expects what never was and never will be.” This is true not only of the American republic but of any democratic nation, and Canada is no exception. Lacking a vigilant and enlightened citizenry, there can only be worse to come.

Decree by government decree, the ship of state is listing ever further portside, abetted by the shifting weight to the left of a lumpen public. This is how a once-proud nation must eventually founder. Captivated by a liberal/socialist media consortium and unwilling to do our homework, we have become increasingly sanctimonious and uninformed, denizens of Gruberland. Even hockey may not save us.

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIQnQjcdsWw

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=condC3PQfIg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urCxNJpZoKM

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.

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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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArgMK2kAjzw

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRlHcnHM6C4df

Canada Home to Islamic Radicals

May 25, 2016

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

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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?

My First Hizb-ut-Tahrir Conference

May 24, 2016

My First Hizb-ut-Tahrir Conference, Gatestone InstituteZ., May 24, 2016

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:

“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.

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

Time: Saturday May 21, 2016, 12:00-3:00PM
Venue: Swagat Banquet Hall, 6991 Millcreek Dr., Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

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The half-full banquet hall, divided into the men’s side and the women’s side, admitted about 100 attendees. A black flag with white script was on display, on both the screen and on the podium. “Why,” I said to the woman next to me, “is this flag there? Is that not the ISIS flag?” The woman, later identified as Naeema, said it was not, and called her son, one of the organizers, to address the question. It seemed difficult for him, too; he went off to look for someone else more knowledgeable to the help with the problem. Naeema explained that the writing was different. “I can read Arabic,” I said. No one could be found to answer the question.

As the event started late, Naeema 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. Reflecting on the Muslim Brotherhood’s year in power in Egypt, I asked if she were prepared to have a dictator claim to be Allah’s spokesman even if he abused the power. She said she had never thought about it like that, but, again, that she was not qualified to debate the topic. As the conference began, the conversation stopped.

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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:

“وما كان لمؤمن ولا مؤمنة إذا قضى الله ورسوله أمرا ان يكون لهم الخيرة من أمرهم و من يعص الله ورسوله فقد ضَل ضلالا مبين.” سورة الأحزاب، آية ٣٦.

“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.

Mostafa then focused on two pillars for advancing the Islamic State:

  1. Winning the public’s hearts and minds; and
  2. Partnering with people of power

To illustrate the point, he referred to the prophet’s sira (life) and cited two examples:

The first was a comparison between the Pledges of Aqabah 1 and 2. In the first, the prophet focused on seeking moral support from the tribes which he called to Islam. In the second, he sought their pledge for militant defense. This second pledge, Mostafa said, represented the foundation of the Islamic State.

His next example was an illustration of the right choice of allies. He cited the prophet’s negotiations with a tribe, the Banou-Shayban. When asked how strong they were, the Banou-Shayban had replied: “We are 1000 men who take weapons of war as our toys, and we care for our horses more than we care for our children.” This reply, it seems, enabled them to win the contract.

As Mostafa spoke, his teenage daughter proudly but quietly cheered him; her younger sisters played with glitter and coloring books.

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The next speaker was brother Bilal, of Asian origin. Bilal’s message focused on how to make the Ummah powerful and independent. He summarized the requirements: a capable military, economic engines, natural resources, and trained and dedicated people. A short video was presented to demonstrate these points. They included the collective oil and natural gas production capacities of the Muslim world, the human capital needed to mine and process these resources, the military power required to protect both natural and human resources, and the types of weapons needed to make this military effective.

Everyone waved the black flags with the white script.

The Great Western Retreat

May 4, 2016

The Great Western Retreat, Gatestone InstituteGiulio Meotti, May 4, 2016

♦ Of all French soldiers currently engaged in military operations, half of them are deployed inside France. And half of those are assigned to protect 717 Jewish schools.

♦ This massive deployment of armed forces in our own cities is a departure from history. It is a moral disarmament, before a military one.

♦ Why does anyone choose to fight in a war? Civilized nations go to war so that members of today’s generation may sacrifice themselves to protect future generations. But if there are no future generations, there is no reason whatever for today’s young men to die in war. It is “demography, stupid.”

On March 11, 2004, 192 people were killed and 1,400 wounded in a series of terrorist attacks in Madrid. Three days later, Spain’s Socialist leader, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, was elected prime minister. Just 24 hours after being sworn in, Zapatero ordered Spanish troops to leave Iraq “as soon as possible.”

The directive was a monumental political victory for extremist Islam. Since then, Europe’s boots on the ground have not been dispatched outside Europe to fight jihadism; instead, they have been deployed inside the European countries to protect monuments and civilians.

Opération Sentinelle” is the first new large-scale military operation within France. The army is now protecting synagogues, art galleries, schools, newspapers, public offices and underground stations. Of all French soldiers currently engaged in military operations, half of them are deployed inside France. And half of those are assigned to protect 717 Jewish schools. Meanwhile, French paralysis before ISIS is immortalized by the image of police running away from the office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo during the massacre there.

1578French soldiers guard a Jewish school in Strasbourg, February 2015. (Image source: Claude Truong-Ngoc/Wikimedia Commons)

You can find the same figure in Italy: 11,000 Italian soldiers are currently engaged in military operations and more than half of them are used in operation “Safe Streets,” which, as its name reveals, keeps Italy’s cities safe. Italy’s army is also busy providing aid to migrants crossing the Mediterranean.

In 2003, Italy was one of the very few countries, along with Spain and Britain, which stood with the United States in its noble war in Iraq — a war that was successful until the infamous US pull-out on December 18, 2011.

Today, Italy, like Spain, runs away from its responsibility in the war against the Islamic State. Italy’s Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti ruled out the idea of Italy taking part in action against ISIS, after EU defense ministers unanimously backed a French request for help.

Italy’s soldiers, stationed in front of my newspaper’s office in Rome, provide a semblance of security, but the fact that half of Italy’s soldiers are engaged in domestic security, and not in offensive military strikes, should give us pause. These numbers shed a light not only on Europe’s internal terror frontlines, from the French banlieues to “Londonistan.” These numbers also shed light on the great Western retreat.

US President Barack Obama has boasted that as part of his legacy, he has withdrawn American military forces from the Middle East. His shameful departure from Iraq has been the main reason that the Islamic State rose to power — and the reason Obama postponed a military withdrawal from Afghanistan. This US retreat can only be compared to the fall of Saigon, with the picture of a helicopter evacuating the U.S. embassy.

In Europe, armies are no longer even ready for war. The German army is now useless, and Germany spends only 1.2% of GDP on defense. The German army today has the lowest number of staff at any time in its history.

In 2012, Germany’s highest court, breaking a 67-year-old taboo against using the military within Germany’s borders, allowed the military to be deployed in domestic operations. The post-Hitler nation’s fear that the army could develop again into a state-within-a-state that might impede democracy has paralyzed Europe’s largest and wealthiest country. Last January, it was revealed that German air force reconnaissance jets cannot even fly at night.

Many European states slumber in the same condition as Belgium, with its failed security apparatus. A senior U.S. intelligence officer even recently likened the Belgian security forces to “children.” And Sweden’s commander-in-chief, Sverker Göranson, said his country could only fend off an invasion for a maximum of one week.

During the past ten years, the United Kingdom has also increasingly been seen by its allies — both in the US and in Europe — as a power in retreat, focusing only on its domestic agenda. The British have become increasingly insular – a littler England.

The UK’s armed forces have been downsized; the army alone is expected to shrink from 102,000 soldiers in 2010 to 82,000 by 2020 – its smallest size since the Napoleonic wars. The former head of the Royal Navy, Admiral Nigel Essenigh, has spoken of “uncomfortable similarities” between the UK’s defenses now and those in the early 1930s, during the rise of Nazi Germany.

In Canada, military bases are now being used to host migrants from Middle East. Justin Trudeau, the new Canadian prime minister, first halted military strikes against ISIS, then refused to join the coalition against it. Terrorism has apparently never been a priority for Trudeau — not like “gender equality,” global warming, euthanasia and injustices committed against Canada’s natives.

The bigger question is: Why does anyone choose to fight in a war? Civilized nations go to war so that members of today’s generation may sacrifice themselves to protect future generations. But if there are no future generations, there is no reason whatever for today’s young men to die in war. It is “demography, stupid.”

Spain‘s fertility has fallen the most — the lowest in Western Europe over twenty years and the most extreme demographic spiral observed anywhere. Similarly, fewer babies were born in Italy in 2015 than in any year since the state was founded 154 years ago. For the first time in three decades, Italy’s population shrank. Germany, likewise, is experiencing a demographic suicide.

This massive deployment of armed forces in our own cities is a departure from history. It is a moral disarmament, before a military one. It is Europe’s new Weimar moment, from the name of the first German Republic that was dramatically dismantled by the rise of Nazism. The Weimar Republic still represents a cultural muddle, a masterpiece of unarmed democracy devoted to a mutilated pacifism, a mixture of naïve cultural, political reformism and the first highly developed welfare state.

According to the historian Walter Laqueur, Weimar was the first case of the “life and death of a permissive society.” Will Europe’s new Weimar also be brought down, this time by Islamists?