Posted tagged ‘Islam – submission’

European Union Declares War on Internet Free Speech

June 3, 2016

European Union Declares War on Internet Free Speech, Gatestone InstituteSoeren Kern, June 3, 2016

♦ Opponents counter that the initiative amounts to an assault on free speech in Europe. They say that the European Union’s definition of “hate speech” and “incitement to violence” is so vague that it could include virtually anything deemed politically incorrect by European authorities, including criticism of mass migration, Islam or even the EU itself.

♦ Some Members of the European Parliament have characterized the EU’s code of online conduct — which requires “offensive” material to be removed from the Internet within 24 hours — as “Orwellian.”

♦ “By deciding that ‘xenophobic’ comment in reaction to the crisis is also ‘racist,’ Facebook has made the view of the majority of the European people… into ‘racist’ views, and so is condemning the majority of Europeans as ‘racist.'” — Douglas Murray.

♦ In January 2013, Facebook suspended the account of Khaled Abu Toameh after he wrote about corruption in the Palestinian Authority. The account was reopened 24 hours later, but with the two posts deleted and no explanation.

The European Union (EU), in partnership with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft, has unveiled a “code of conduct” to combat the spread of “illegal hate speech” online in Europe.

Proponents of the initiative argue that in the aftermath of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, a crackdown on “hate speech” is necessary to counter jihadist propaganda online.

Opponents counter that the initiative amounts to an assault on free speech in Europe. They say that the EU’s definition of “hate speech” and “incitement to violence” is so vague that it could include virtually anything deemed politically incorrect by European authorities, including criticism of mass migration, Islam or even the European Union itself.

Some Members of the European Parliament have characterized the EU’s code of online conduct — which requires “offensive” material to be removed from the Internet within 24 hours, and replaced with “counter-narratives” — as “Orwellian.”

The “code of conduct” was announced on May 31 in a statement by the European Commission, the unelected administrative arm of the European Union. A summary of the initiative follows:

“By signing this code of conduct, the IT companies commit to continuing their efforts to tackle illegal hate speech online. This will include the continued development of internal procedures and staff training to guarantee that they review the majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech in less than 24 hours and remove or disable access to such content, if necessary.

“The IT companies will also endeavor to strengthen their ongoing partnerships with civil society organisations who will help flag content that promotes incitement to violence and hateful conduct. The IT companies and the European Commission also aim to continue their work in identifying and promoting independent counter-narratives [emphasis added], new ideas and initiatives, and supporting educational programs that encourage critical thinking.”

Excerpts of the “code of conduct” include:

“The IT Companies share the European Commission’s and EU Member States’ commitment to tackle illegal hate speech online. Illegal hate speech, as defined by the Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA of 28 November 2008 on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law and national laws transposing it, means all conduct publicly inciting to violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, color, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin….

“The IT Companies support the European Commission and EU Member States in the effort to respond to the challenge of ensuring that online platforms do not offer opportunities for illegal online hate speech to spread virally. The spread of illegal hate speech online not only negatively affects the groups or individuals that it targets, it also negatively impacts those who speak out for freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination in our open societies and has a chilling effect on the democratic discourse on online platforms.

“While the effective application of provisions criminalizing hate speech is dependent on a robust system of enforcement of criminal law sanctions against the individual perpetrators of hate speech, this work must be complemented with actions geared at ensuring that illegal hate speech online is expeditiously acted upon by online intermediaries and social media platforms, upon receipt of a valid notification, in an appropriate time-frame. To be considered valid in this respect, a notification should not be insufficiently precise or inadequately substantiated.

“The IT Companies, taking the lead on countering the spread of illegal hate speech online, have agreed with the European Commission on a code of conduct setting the following public commitments:

  • “The IT Companies to have in place clear and effective processes to review notifications regarding illegal hate speech on their services so they can remove or disable access to such content. The IT companies to have in place Rules or Community Guidelines clarifying that they prohibit the promotion of incitement to violence and hateful conduct.
  • “The IT Companies to review the majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech in less than 24 hours and remove or disable access to such content, if necessary.
  • “The IT Companies and the European Commission, recognising the value of independent counter speech against hateful rhetoric and prejudice, aim to continue their work in identifying and promoting independent counter-narratives, new ideas and initiatives and supporting educational programs that encourage critical thinking.”

The agreement also requires Internet companies to establish a network of “trusted reporters” in all 28 EU member states to flag online content that “promotes incitement to violence and hateful conduct.”

The EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, Vĕra Jourová, has defended the initiative:

“The recent terror attacks have reminded us of the urgent need to address illegal online hate speech. Social media is unfortunately one of the tools that terrorist groups use to radicalize young people and racists use to spread violence and hatred. This agreement is an important step forward to ensure that the internet remains a place of free and democratic expression, where European values and laws are respected. I welcome the commitment of worldwide IT companies to review the majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech in less than 24 hours and remove or disable access to such content, if necessary.”

Others disagree. The National Secular Society (NSS) of the UK warned that the EU’s plans “rest on a vague definition of ‘hate speech’ and risk threatening online discussions which criticize religion.” It added:

“The agreement comes amid repeated accusations from ex-Muslims that social media organizations are censoring them online. The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain has now begun collecting examples from its followers of Facebook censoring ‘atheist, secular and ex-Muslim content’ after false ‘mass reporting’ by ‘cyber Jihadists.’ They have asked their supporters to report details and evidence of any instances of pages and groups being ‘banned [or] suspended from Facebook for criticizing Islam and Islamism.'”

NSS communications officer Benjamin Jones said:

“Far from tackling online ‘cyber jihad,’ the agreement risks having the exact opposite effect and entrapping any critical discussion of religion under vague ‘hate speech’ rules. Poorly-trained Facebook or Twitter staff, perhaps with their own ideological bias, could easily see heated criticism of Islam and think it is ‘hate speech,’ particularly if pages or users are targeted and mass reported by Islamists.”

In an interview with Breitbart London, the CEO of Index on Censorship, Jodie Ginsburg, said:

“Hate speech laws are already too broad and ambiguous in much of Europe. This agreement fails to properly define what ‘illegal hate speech’ is and does not provide sufficient safeguards for freedom of expression.

“It devolves power once again to unelected corporations to determine what amounts to hate speech and police it — a move that is guaranteed to stifle free speech in the mistaken belief this will make us all safer. It won’t. It will simply drive unpalatable ideas and opinions underground where they are harder to police — or to challenge.

“There have been precedents of content removal for unpopular or offensive viewpoints and this agreement risks amplifying the phenomenon of deleting controversial — yet legal — content via misuse or abuse of the notification processes.”

A coalition of free speech organizations, European Digital Rights and Access Now, announced their decision not to take part in future discussions with the European Commission, saying that “we do not have confidence in the ill-considered ‘code of conduct’ that was agreed.” A statement warned:

“In short, the ‘code of conduct’ downgrades the law to a second-class status, behind the ‘leading role’ of private companies that are being asked to arbitrarily implement their terms of service. This process, established outside an accountable democratic framework, exploits unclear liability rules for online companies. It also creates serious risks for freedom of expression, as legal — but controversial — content may well be deleted as a result of this voluntary and unaccountable take-down mechanism.

“This means that this ‘agreement’ between only a handful of companies and the European Commission is likely in breach of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (under which restrictions on fundamental rights should be provided for by law), and will, in practical terms, overturn case law of the European Court of Human Rights on the defense of legal speech.”

Janice Atkinson, an independent MEP for the South East England region, summed it up this way: “It’s Orwellian. Anyone who has read 1984 sees its very re-enactment live.”

Even before signing on to the EU’s code of conduct, social media sites have been cracking down on free speech, often at the behest of foreign governments.

In September 2015, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was overheard on a live microphone confronting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on what he was doing to prevent criticism of her open-door immigration policies.

In January 2016, Facebook launched an “Online Civil Courage Initiative” aimed at Facebook users in Germany and geared toward “fighting hate speech and extremism on the Internet.”

Writing for Gatestone Institute, British commentator Douglas Murray noted that Facebook’s assault on “racist” speech “appears to include anything critical of the EU’s current catastrophic immigration policy.” He wrote:

“By deciding that ‘xenophobic’ comment in reaction to the crisis is also ‘racist,’ Facebook has made the view of the majority of the European people (who, it must be stressed, are opposed to Chancellor Merkel’s policies) into ‘racist’ views, and so is condemning the majority of Europeans as ‘racist.’ This is a policy that will do its part in pushing Europe into a disastrous future.

Facebook has also set its sights on Gatestone Institute affiliated writers. In January 2013, Facebook suspended the account of Khaled Abu Toameh after he wrote about corruption in the Palestinian Authority. The account was reopened 24 hours later, but with the two posts deleted and no explanation. Abu Toameh wrote:

“It’s still a matter of censorship. They decide what’s acceptable. Now we have to be careful about what we post and what we share. Does this mean we can’t criticize Arab governments anymore?”

In June 2016, Facebook suspended the account of Ingrid Carlqvist, Gatestone’s Swedish expert, after she posted a Gatestone video to her Facebook feed — called “Sweden’s Migrant Rape Epidemic.” In an editorial, Gatestone wrote:

“After enormous grassroots pressure from Gatestone’s readers, the Swedish media started reporting on Facebook’s heavy-handed censorship. It backfired, and Facebook went into damage-control mode. They put Ingrid’s account back up — without any explanation or apology. Ironically, their censorship only gave Ingrid’s video more attention.

“Facebook and the EU have backed down — for now. But they’re deadly serious about stopping ideas they don’t like. They’ll be back.”

1637This week, the EU, in partnership with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft, unveiled a “code of conduct” to combat the spread of “illegal hate speech” online in Europe. The next day, Facebook suspended the account of Ingrid Carlqvist, Gatestone’s Swedish expert, after she posted a Gatestone video to her Facebook feed — called “Sweden’s Migrant Rape Epidemic.”

 

An In-Depth Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Islam and the Defense of Western Civilization

June 1, 2016

An In-Depth Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Islam and the Defense of Western CivilizationThe New Criterion via YouTube, June 1, 2016

The blurb beneath the video states,

For The New Criterion, Ben Weingarten, commentator and Founder & CEO of ChangeUp Media sits down with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, ardent defender of Western civilization and individual liberty against Islamic supremacism, New York Times bestselling author of ‘The Caged Virgin,’ ‘Infidel’ and ‘Nomad’ and ‘Heretic,’ former Dutch MP, fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, founder of the AHA Foundation Ayaan Hirsi Ali and recipient of The New Criterion’s fourth annual Edmund Burke Award for Service to Culture & Society for an in-depth interview. During their discussion, Weingarten and Ali discuss America’s inability under both Presidents Obama and Bush to recognize and defend against Islamic supremacism as the totalitarian existential threat of our time, the clash of civilizations between Islam and the West and the ideology of the global jihadist movement, the Islamization of Europe, how the West can defend its freedoms from a subversive global jihadist movement seeking to use those freedoms against us, the war on free speech in the West being waged by Islamic supremacists with the help wittingly or unwittingly of many on the Left and more. For more from The New Criterion’s April 2016 ‘Edmund Burke Award’ gala and other compelling content, check out The New Criterion’s YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/TheNewCri….

Matt Bracken: The Hybrid Vigor of the Coming European Islamic State

May 23, 2016

Matt Bracken: The Hybrid Vigor of the Coming European Islamic State, Gates of Vienna, May 21, 2016

(Here’s the video referenced in the article. — DM)

— DM)

Gates of Vienna introduction

The following essay and meme by Matthew Bracken were prompted by a cell-phone video from Germany of a culture-enricher assaulting a German teenaged boy. I won’t embed the video; I find it almost too unbearable to watch. To see a young man so unable to defend himself, so unwilling to stand up and be a man, is disheartening and dismaying.

Below are Matt Bracken’s thoughts on what all of this means.

Bracken article

bracken-dhimmi

This is heartbreaking to see, but very important.

This is how a dhimmi is created in a gun-free country, where armed self-defense is an alien concept. This is prison yard rules, and the young German is just fresh meat. This German kid will probably convert to Islam just to stop the pain and “gain the respect” of his new masters.

Note how the bully threatens to beat him every day just to harden him up and make him a man. A similar psychological process occurs in military boot camp with new recruits. He doesn’t know it yet, but his mother and sisters are now Moslem chattel property. He won’t lift a finger to defend German women; he is a dhimmi at best. Most likely he will just convert as a matter of bare survival, but he will always be a “second-class Muslim”, even if he submits. These IslamoNazi bullies will have him reciting the Shahada in less than a month, and after that, his sister is toast. Just fresh meat for the hijra jihadis.

This is how Islam has spread for 1,400 years: brute force, threats, intimidation, and using terror as an example of how far they are willing to go to force the spread.

Smug Americans who own firearms might laugh at the current plight of the Europeans, but they should not. The Europeans have been brainwashed by the “multi-kulti-uber-alles” Left to simply submit when the planned hijra invasion happened, which is happening now. The ordinary Euros were betrayed by Quisling traitors in high offices. From the Muslim point of view, the hijra invasion is moving from the dawah (preaching) phase to the jihad phase, using violence and threats of even greater violence to force a complete Muslim takeover. That German boy now understands who are the alpha males, and who are not: The Moslems are, and he isn’t.

But there is the long-term danger in this process even to America. If Islam wins in Europe, a well-known social/genetic dynamic will kick in. All of the German girls and women (even the man-hating radical feminists and lesbians) will be raped, enslaved, or “married” by force, but one way or the other, there will be a rising generation of Muslims in Europe who are half-German.

People should understand a genetic process called “hybrid vigor.” There is a reason the Ottoman Turks collected European boys to be raised as Janissaries. The Arab desert Muslims have terrible DNA after 1,400 years of first-cousin inbreeding, but when they impregnate their German conquest victims they will create generations of 100% full Muslims who are half German. Of course, this will happen in every European country, not only Germany.

Americans should not be smug about the collapse and Muslim conquest of Europe. Half-German “Super Muslims” will be a tough adversary. Remember the Ottoman Janissaries from history. They were fearsome fanatics, but also big, strong and smart.

Another crop of “Super Muslims” were the Berbers of Morocco, who provided most of the brains and muscle used for the invasion of Spain in 711 AD. The “desert Arabs” were a scrawny and pitiful bunch. Man for man, they were weaklings compared to the hearty Berber mountain folk. But the Berbers were divided, tribe against tribe, from one Atlas Mountains valley to another. The invading Arab armies picked off one tribe at a time, and forced them all to convert. These newly united Berber Super Muslims were imbued with ”convert zeal,” and ready to invade new worlds to spread the banner of Islam.

United for the first time in history, the Muslim Berbers of Morocco (under mostly Arab leadership) turned their natural war-lust against the Christians of Spain. Like the pre-Muslim Berber tribes had been before them, each Spanish Christian principality was divided from the others across the mountains of Spain. The united and newly converted Muslim Berber armies swept over the separate Spanish fiefdoms one after the other.

The point is that Muslim invasions have often succeeded against divided foes who were, man for man, much stronger and even smarter. A generation later, this invigorated hybrid population can be very dangerous, because after the consolidation phase where the invaded region is brought under united Islamic control, they will be straining to burst their borders and conquer new worlds, like the Super Muslim Berbers did in Spain. Think also of Iran in this context. United Arab Muslim armies conquered Persia, creating another brand of hybridized “Super Muslims.”

I shudder to think of what German Super Muslims will be capable of in thirty years, if Islam is triumphant in Europe. They would make the Earth shake

Islamic Words and Concepts that Americans Must Understand. Now.

May 22, 2016

Islamic Words and Concepts that Americans Must Understand. Now, Dan Miller’s Blog, May 22, 2016

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

Ten Islamic words and concepts — well understood by Islamic jihadists and others who strive to impose Sharia law on us  — define and articulate the Islamic quest for world domination. However, few charged with “countering violent extremism” understand their meanings and none are permitted to consider such “islamophobic” Islamic concepts when doing their jobs. Thank you, Obama, CAIR and related Muslim Brotherhood – linked Quislings.

Imagine that while learning to “counter violent extremism” on behalf of the Obama-CAIR collective, you encounter a ravenous lion intent upon eating you for dinner. You have been assured, repeatedly, that it, like adherents to “the religion of peace and tolerance,” is only a falsely-maligned, tame and starving kitten in need of food and that you must act accordingly. Don’t succumb to catophobia! What would you do? Become dinner? Run away? Shoot the lion?

A non-fiction article by Matthew Bracken, author of three novels about traitors, foreign and domestic, was recently published by Gates of Viena. The article focuses on these Islamic words and the concepts they embody: dawah, dhimmi, hijra, jizya, kafir, shaheed, shariah, takfir, taqiyya and ummah.

Bracken wrote,

[I]f you are a national security professional, senior military officer or political leader involved in any aspect of the “Global War On Terror,” AKA “Countering Violent Extremism,” these are ten words that should already be a part of your working vocabulary. If you can’t readily discuss their meaning, significance, and relationships, then you are worse than a fool, you are a disgrace to your office and a danger to your country.

He’s right. Obama, Kerry and their many followers are, indeed, dangers to our country as well as to Western Civilization in general. Rather than learn about Islam, they pretend that it is what they have been told, falsely, that it is. Those who understand Islam and want to prevent what it seeks for America from happening are disparaged as “Islamophobes.” Parallels could perhaps be drawn to “idealists” drawn to Communism as a peaceful and tolerant ideology, without bothering to learn about “Uncle Joe” Stalin and what he was doing. Uncle Joe knew what he was doing and thought it was good. Representatives of the fifty-seven Islamist Member nations of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) know the meanings of the words highlighted by Bracken and the purpose of Islam: to make Islam dominant throughout the world. They consider that good and act accordingly.

Mr. Bracken’s important Arabic words are used in context in the following quotations from his article.

[I]f you are an Army general or Navy admiral who, right here and now, without looking at your smart phone, cannot discuss how a kafir becomes a dhimmi, and what a dhimmi’s rights and options (if any) are under shariah, then you are as ignorant of your job as an European-theater Army general circa 1942 who did not know a panzer from a pancake, or a schutzstaffel from a schnitzel. A person as ignorant as you should be kept away from any responsibility for protecting our nation. You are incompetent, and you are a fool.

If you don’t know how to determine when a Muslim suicide bomber is a shaheed and when he is a terrorist according to the shariah, then you are as dangerous to our national safety as a North Atlantic ship captain who believes that icebergs are a fairy tale concocted by conspiracy theorists. Full speed ahead, Captain Smith!

If you don’t know takfir from taqiyya, and can’t discuss the meaning and importance of both, you are as useless as a WW2 intelligence officer who didn’t know the Kriegsmarine from the Luftwaffe, (but who thought that one of them was a private flying club, based on conversations that he overheard among his ever-helpful German cleaning staff).

If you cannot, right now, intelligently discuss the global ummah and its relationship to the OIC in the context of the GWOT, then you should be working for the Department of Parks and Recreation, and not the Department of Homeland Security. If you don’t know what the OIC refers to in this context, put on a dunce cap, and go stand in the corner. And if you don’t know whether your office is in the Dar al Islam or the Dar al Harb, please jump out of an upper-story window, and when you hit the sidewalk, ask any immigrant who is engaged in hijra. He’ll know the answer, even if you do not.

If you don’t know how dawah relates to jihad when faithful Muslims are engaged in long-term hijra, you should turn in your official credentials and take early retirement. You are as oblivious as a WW2 U.S. Army general who thought that the Geheime Staatspolizei were German motorcycle policemen much like our American state troopers, because a helpful German passer-by told him so.

If you don’t know what the three options are for a kafir who violates the shariah when living in the dar al Islam, then please get out of the national security business. If you don’t know why a dhimmi would care about jizya, please retire, and hand your duties over to someone who has the natural curiosity and personal integrity to conduct his own study of our actual enemies and their actual strategies. But in the meantime, you must immediately stop lapping up the false narrative being spoon-fed to you by hostile foreign agents, domestic traitors, useful idiots, and cowards who know better—but who won’t make waves while their pensions are beckoning.

If your job is national security, and you didn’t score at least an eighty on the ten-word quiz, then you have obviously swallowed the big lie that we can safely delegate the understanding of our Islamist enemies to the WW2 equivalent of “moderate Nazis.” Sounds insane, doesn’t it? But under President Obama, this is indeed our national policy for fighting the GWOT: allow a range of Muslim Brotherhood front groups to conduct America’s narrowly limited analysis of so-called “radicalized Islam,” and thereafter guide our policies toward Islam and Muslims in general.

Here is an important example straight from current events. Please tell us, oh national security professional, whom has the United Nations delegated the critical task of selecting and “screening” the Muslim “refugees” who are currently arriving in the USA at the rate of thousands per month? Any guesses? It is the same organization that the Obama administration has also optimistically granted the authority to choose our new Muslim “refugee” immigrants. If you don’t know the answer, please get out of the national security business.

So who is it? It’s the fifty-seven-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation, headquartered in Saudi Arabia, which I referenced above. The mission of the OIC is to promote the spread of Islam across the globe until there is no more dar al harb, and all of the kafirs have either been converted to Islam, killed, or forced into submission as dhimmis. If you didn’t know, dhimmis are formally and legally subjugated second-class citizens who must pay the special jizya tax as the price of their being allowed to live under shariah in the ummah.

But this special offer is only extended to Christians and Jews: all others must choose between conversion to Islam, and the sword. That is, if their Muslim conquerors grant them the option of conversion. According to the Shariah, the defeated kafirs may also be killed or enslaved, if either of these two outcomes would be considered more beneficial to the ummah, based on local conditions and needs. (Of course, the captured women and girls may be taken as sex-slaves.) Mohammed did all of the above, and he commanded that these practices be continued in perpetuity, and they are.

The charter of the OIC puts Islamic shariah law ahead of secular law. This means, for example, that the official position of the OIC is that Muslims who leave the faith should be killed, and that any faithful Muslim who kills an apostate ex-Muslim has done no sin, but instead should be thanked and congratulated for the deed. It’s the same with adulterers: they should die, and killing an adulterer is no crime.

Yes, that really is their position, and they really do believe it, and much more than that. The OIC is made up of fifty-seven Muslim nations, united by a common belief in the supremacy of Islam, and their mutual obligation to conduct both dawah and jihad until the Dar al Islam covers the globe, and Allah’s eternal and immutable shariah has supplanted godless democracy and all manmade laws. This dawah includes the practice of using taqiyya when making arrangements or having negotiations with as-yet unsubmitted kafirs in the dar al harb.

So it’s no wonder that ninety-nine percent of the “refugees” being “screened” by the OIC and transported into the USA are Muslim, even though the Christians and other non-Muslims (who until recently made up over ten percent of the populations of Syria and Iraq) are suffering a brutal genocide and holocaust at the hands of Islamic State kidnappers, mass-rapists and mass-executioners.

. . . .

Let me offer you another simple test that you may apply to your own national security work space and mission. If you have been ordered to purge the ten listed Arabic words (and others) from your official GWOT lexicon, and instead to hand over the task of analyzing “Islamic radicalism” to alleged “moderate Muslims,” then you are being played for a fool by our nation’s most implacable and devious enemies, both foreign and domestic.

. . . .

Today, we are literally outsourcing our intelligence analysis in the GWOT to the OIC and various Muslim Brotherhood front groups. Simply do a search for “Holy Land Foundation, Hamas, CAIR, and FBI” to begin your overdue education. Is it any wonder that the official “Countering Violent Extremism” narrative holds that there is utterly no connection between Islamic terrorism and Islam? That the Islamic State, which quotes chapter and verse of the Koran as justification for its every decision, is not Islamic? That Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Caliph of ISIS, who holds a PhD in Islamic Studies from the Islamic University of Baghdad, knows less about Islam than President Obama and his American-trained national security staff? [Emphasis added.]

In 2016, ignorance of the reality of the Islamist threat is no longer an excuse. Many resources are readily available if you are willing to look unblinkingly at the light of truth. I would suggest the online video lectures given by Stephen Coughlin and Dr. Bill Warner as starting points. Those who need or desire to read an exhaustively researched (over a thousand footnotes) academic treatise on the present Islamist threat should carefully study Coughlin’s “Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad.”

After 9-11, Mr. Coughlin was an acclaimed subject matter expert and frequent high-level lecturer at the CIA, the FBI, and the Pentagon, until 2008 when he was made persona-non-grata on federal property as an unwelcome “Islamophobe.” And who made the determination of Mr. Coughlin’s “Islamophobia?” The same Muslim Brotherhood front groups that our intelligence agencies now rely upon for their understanding of “violent extremism,” which, of course, we are assured has absolutely nothing to do with Islam.

We know this must be true, because President Obama has told us so. Unless, of course, he is practicing taqiyya on behalf of the ummah. Taqiyya is a bedrock principle of Islamic shariah, a ready tool for Muslims to use when they are dealing with kafirs. And not only radical Muslims, but ordinary, everyday, “moderate” Muslims. According to the shariah, it’s not a sin when a Muslim lies to a kafir in order to promote Islam. In that case, taqiyya is just a very clever form of dawah, helping to prepare the kafirs for the final Islamic jihad victory.

Conclusions

Obama, et al, complicit with CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated groups, require “our” Countering Violent Terrorism forces to assist, rather than fight against, Islamic terrorism.  That’s perverse and some (I am one of them) consider it treason.

As I observed here, Islamic terrorists torture and murder  — quite legitimately under Islamic doctrine — thousands of people. That’s deplorable. What Islamists and their modern-day Quislings have done even without chopping off heads, and continue to do to European nations, is even worse. They have moved in and have done a great job of Islamising entire nations. With the help of Allah, Obama and His band of Quislings, that’s what they are doing and hope to do more of to America.

“Our betters” lie to us, repeatedly.

Hillary Clinton lies even when it’s inevitable that her lies will be discovered. Many of her supporters are attracted, or at best not repelled, by her lying. At least she is consistent: the truth simply is not in her.

Islamists and their fellow travelers who are taking over Europe must be prevented from doing the same to our “land of the free and home of the brave.”

Obama and His followers seek to have us forget all about that as well as those who fought and died to create and then to preserve America. Shall we, must we, become dhimmis and yield to the OIC, Iran, CAIR and Obama’s other Islamist and Muslim Brotherhood friends by electing Obama’s soul mate, Hillary Clinton, as our next Commander in Chief?

Not on my watch, not on Trump’s watch and, I hope, not on your watch. Isn’t it time to make up your mind? The Muslims in the following video have already decided to support Hillary and have contributed funds accordingly.

According to this source, Ms. Clinton managed to collect “half-a-million dollars, making it one of the top five private fundraisers Clinton has had in this country.” She did not get Muslim money because of her charming personality.

Many of the Pakistanis at the event were pleased with Clinton’s vocal support of the Muslim religion.

Aisha Zahid said, “Talking about Muslims and favoring Muslims, so I really appreciate her whatever effort she is making against Islamaphobia, so I really think she needs to be the next President of the United States.”

If you haven’t already watched the following video, please do so. If you have, please watch it again. It makes more sense about “Republican principles” and why we need to honor them today than any other video I have watched.

If we want to continue to affirm these Republican principles, we need to keep a country in which to do it. America still is, and must remain, our country.

Although America remains our country, she is slipping away. How long do we have to stop and reverse the process of Islamisation which is, thus far slowly but inexorably, leading to America becoming part of the ummah? We the people must save her from Islamists, dhimmis and their fellow travelers.

Sweden’s Holy War on Children’s Books

May 21, 2016

Sweden’s Holy War on Children’s Books, Gatestone InstituteJudith Bergman, May 21, 2016

♦ Taken to its extremes, the urge to cleanse a culture of elements that do not live up to the politically correct orthodoxy currently in political vogue unsettlingly echoes the Taliban and ISIS credos of destroying everything that does not accord with their Quranic views. The desire “not to offend,” taken to its logical conclusion, is a totalitarian impulse, which threatens to destroy everything that disagrees with its doctrines. Crucially, who gets to decide what is offensive?

♦ The question arises: How much purging and expiation will be needed to render a country’s culture politically correct?

♦ “When we have days of carnivals and music the goal is that these days should be experienced as positive by everyone. The Swedish flag is not allowed as part of carnival dress. … Positive and bright feelings must be in focus. … School photos must obviously be free of national symbols.” — Swedish school in Halmstad.

♦ Rome covered up its classical nude statues for a visit from Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, in January 2016. A decade ago, who would have even imagined such sycophancy?

In 1966, one of Sweden’s most popular children’s writers, Jan Lööf, published Grandpa is a Pirate, an illustrated children’s book, which featured, among other characters, the wicked pirate Omar and the street peddler, Abdullah. The book has been a bestseller ever since, and has been translated into English (as My Grandpa is a Pirate), Spanish, French and other languages. Ten years ago, 100,000 copies of it were even distributed to the Swedish public with McDonald’s Happy Meals, as part of an initiative to support reading among children.

Ah, but those were the days of yesteryear! Now, fifty years later, the book is no longer tolerable. The now 76-year-old author told Swedish news outlets that his publisher recently said that unless he rewrites the book and changes the illustrations, it will be taken off the market. The publisher also threatened to withdraw another of his books unless it is redone: it features an illustration of a black jazz musician who sleeps with his sunglasses on.

Lööf’s publisher, the Swedish publishing giant Bonnier Carlsen, says that it has not yet made a final decision and that it only views the rewriting and re-illustrating of the books as “an option.” There is no doubt, however, that they consider the books in question extremely problematic.

“The books stereotype other cultures, something which is not strange, since all illustrations are created in a context, in their own time, and times change,” said Eva Dahlin, who heads Bonnier Carlsen’s literary department.

“But if you come from the Middle East, for instance, you can get tired from rarely being featured on the good side in literary depictions. Children’s books are special because they are read over a longer period of time and the norms of the past live on in them, unedited. As an adult, one may be wearing one’s nostalgic glasses and miss things that could be seen as problematic by others.”

Dahlin further explained that the publishing house spends a lot of time reviewing older publications, to check if such “problematic” passages occur. She added that the publishing house does not check for only culturally sensitive passages:

“There are many female editors, and therefore we have probably been more naturally aware of gender-biased depictions than these type of questions. But now we have better insights and a greater awareness of these issues.”

1612One of Sweden’s most popular children’s writers, Jan Lööf, was recently told by his publisher that unless he makes his bestselling 1966 book, Grandpa is a Pirate, more politically correct by rewriting it and changing the illustrations, it will be taken off the market

Sweden is no stranger to “literary revisions” of this kind, or other cultural revisions in the name of political correctness. Both Pippi Longstocking and other children’s books have gone through assorted revisions or have even been taken off the market. In the Pippi Longstocking television series, a scene in which Pippi squints her eyes to look Chinese has been edited out altogether, so as not to offend anyone. In 2013, a popular, award-winning Danish children’s book, Mustafa’s Kiosk, by Jakob Martin Strid, was taken off the market in Sweden after complaints on Swedish social media that it was racist and “Islamophobic.” Ironically, the author wrote it in 1998, when he was staying in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, as “an anti-racist statement.” Tellingly, the book had been on the Swedish market since 2002 with no complaints. In his response to the criticism, the Danish writer noted that an equal and non-racist society only comes about “when you are allowed to make (loving) fun of everyone.” “I also make fun of Norwegians,” he added.

In 2014, after complaints on Swedish social media that some of its candy was “racist,” the Haribo company decided to change one of its products, “Skipper Mix,” which consisted of candies shaped in the form of a sailor’s souvenirs, including African masks.

The question arises: How much purging and expiation will be needed to render a country’s culture politically correct?

That question raises an even bigger one: How high is the price of political correctness in terms of “cleansing” the past and present of perceived slights, anywhere, to just about anyone?

Taken to its extremes, the urge to cleanse a culture of elements that do not live up to the politically correct orthodoxy currently in political vogue unsettlingly echoes the Taliban and ISIS credos of destroying everything that does not accord with their Quranic views. The desire “not to offend,” taken to its logical conclusion, is a totalitarian impulse, which threatens to destroy everything that disagrees with its doctrines. Crucially, who gets to decide what is offensive?

What begins innocently enough, by taking out passages from books that may hurt someone’s feelings, can end up turning into something far more sinister, as it indeed has in Sweden. Former Swedish Prime Minister Frederik Reinfeldt famously stated in 2014 that Sweden belongs to immigrants, not to the Swedes who have lived there for generations. He thereby communicated that he believes the future of Sweden will be shaped by non-Swedes, showing a curious contempt for his own culture.

This contempt has spread fast throughout official Sweden. In 2014, a Swedish school in Halmstad forbade displaying the Swedish flag, after a student painted his face in the Swedish colors for a carnival. In its new rules, the school specified why:

“Most students look forward to school traditions. When we have days of carnivals and music the goal is that these days should be experienced as positive by everyone. The Swedish flag is not allowed as part of carnival dress. … Positive and bright feelings must be in focus. … School photos must obviously be free of national symbols.”

However, the “precedent” for such rules had already been set ten years prior, in 2004, at a school in Vaargaarda, when two girls had worn printed sweatshirts which happened to display the Swedish flag and the word “Sweden.” They were told that this kind of clothing was not allowed at school. One of the girls told reporters that singing the national anthem had also been forbidden at the school.

In 2012, two members of Sweden’s parliament suggested that statues of the Swedish Kings Carl XII and Gustav II Adolf should be removed, because they represent a time when Sweden was a great military power, “a dark time in our country as well as in other countries, which were affected by Swedish aggression,” as the MPs wrote in the motion. Instead, the MPs suggested, the squares of central Stockholm should be adorned in a way such that they “signal peace, tolerance, diversity, freedom and solidarity.”

In 2013, a Baroque painting of the nude goddess Juno was removed from the restaurant of the Swedish parliament, ostensibly to avoid offense to feminist and Muslim sensibilities.

The above should not be discarded as crazy practices peculiar to Sweden. On the contrary, they present a perfect case-study of the consequences of politically correct culture driven to the extreme.

Indeed, these consequences are already proliferating across the Western world. One particularly noteworthy instance took place when Iranian president Hassan Rouhani visited Rome in January 2016. To prevent Rouhani having “a hormonal shock and ripp[ing] up the freshly signed contracts with our Italian industries,” as one Italian columnist, Massimo Gramellini, wrote, Rome covered up its classical nude statues. Who would have even imagined such sycophancy a decade ago?

In Britain, students have recently campaigned for the removal of symbols of British imperialism, such as a statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oxford University. These students claim the campaign is not only about the statue itself, but that it is “…a campaign against racism at Oxford, of which the Rhodes statue is a small but symbolic part.” Already in 2000, the London Mayor Ken Livingstone suggested that statues of two 19th-century British generals should be removed from Trafalgar Square in London, based on his own ignorance:

“The people on the plinths in the main square of our capital city should be identifiable to the generality of the population. I haven’t a clue who two of the generals there are or what they did. I imagine that not one person in 10,000 going through Trafalgar Square knows any details about the lives of those two generals. It might be time to look at moving them and having figures ordinary Londoners and other people from around the world would know.” The problem with all this, of course, is that most of London’s wealth and greatness in terms of art and architecture is due largely to British colonialism, so the question is just how many buildings would be left standing in the British capital, if one were to take this issue and bring it to its logical conclusion.

The trouble with wanting to scrub the cultural and historical slate clean, as it were, is, of course, that countries cannot just press “delete” on their culture and history. Such a move would entail not just the removal of books, paintings and statues, but a complete purge. Those who truly care for history will know that this experiment has already been attempted, not once but several times over, by the various communist and Nazi movements of the twentieth century. While there is little comparison between those movements and the culture of political correctness, the impulse governing them all nevertheless remains the same: To forge and impose one singular “truth” on everyone, rooting out everything that does not fit the utopian mold. That is neither “diverse” nor “tolerant.”

Trump, Ryan and the Islam Problem

May 16, 2016

Trump, Ryan and the Islam Problem, PJ Media, Roger L. Simon, May 15, 2016

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One of the main areas of contention between Donald Trump and Paul Ryan is the question of Muslim immigration. In early December, when Trump first made his proposal (now a “suggestion”) to stop all such immigration until we “understood what was going on,” one of the first to react in high dudgeon was Ryan, who declared: “This is not conservatism.”

He was applauded for his four-word pronouncement by those “conservatives” at the Washington Post, who called his response “near-perfect.” Actually, to me it seemed morally narcissistic and had little to with conservatism, pro or con. Ryan wanted to disassociate himself as quickly as possible from the ugly and seemingly racist Trump.

But let’s look more closely at what the speaker said during that response:

When we voted to pause the refugee program a few weeks ago, I made very clear at the time: there would not be a religious test. There would be a security test. And that is because freedom of religion is a fundamental Constitutional principle. It’s a founding principle of this country.

Aside from the obvious — if people are fighting and killing you in the name of a religion, how do you ignore the “religious test” — what about that “security test”? Is it really happening or are people slipping into the country by various means, including an open border, with no test whatsoever?  What about reports of an ISIS camp eight miles from El Paso?

And, perhaps more importantly, did that “pause” Ryan voted for actually take place in any meaningful way? According to the New York Post a “surge operation” bringing Syrian refugees to America was already in operation this past April.  By “surge operation,” Gina Kassem — regional refugee coordinator in Amman — told reporters, it was meant the resettlement process that normally took 18 to 24 months would be sped up to 3 months. (Some pause!) And the figure of 10,000 refugees that has often been proffered by the administration was a minimum, not a maximum.

What is the maximum and how will they be vetted? And just how do you “vet” during a “surge”? Is that what Ryan really meant by a “security test”?  I doubt it, but Trump should ask him at their next reconciliation meeting. As they say, Paul’s got some “xplainin” to do.

Now this isn’t a simple question. The Syrian people have suffered mightily at the hands of various psychotic despots, secular and religious. Trump has called for supporting more extensive refugee camps in the region, an idea that makes more sense than bringing them here.  (He has also called for the Gulf states to pay for them — good luck with that.)

The main point is that this is a significant campaign issue and intelligent solutions have to be discussed.  Trump has put Rudy Giuliani in charge of studying this from his side, an excellent choice.

There may be a short-term fix, but there won’t be a short-term answer. This is a very long-term problem, the longest one we have, dwarfing the deficit and everything else — civilizational, really.  Will we be America or will we go the way of Europe and turn semi-Islamic like France in Houellebecq’s novel?

It wouldn’t be hard. We have been living under an administration that has been an enabler of Islamism.  Obama has chosen to ally himself with Islamists like Turkey’s Erdogan, Egypt’s Morsi and, most stunningly, Iran’s Khamenei, while abjuring Egypt’s al-Sisi, who seeks to reform Islam.  Go figure.

On top of all that — it’s hard to believe this — there are reports our administration was colluding with Russia in an attempt to get Israel to give back the Golan Heights to Syria in some putative peace settlement. Syria? Needless to say, Mr. Netanyahu was not amused.

In any case, on the immediate question of Muslim immigration, Trump may have sounded excessive and even been excessive.  That’s his technique — he likes to get our attention, then negotiate. But in this particular negotiation (not, for example, on entitlements) the basic talking points — and the American people — are on Donald’s side. Ryan should listen.

Exclusive: ‘I was Raised by an Islamist Terror Cult in America’

May 15, 2016

Exclusive: ‘I was Raised by an Islamist Terror Cult in America’ Clarion ProjectRyan Mauro, May 15, 2016

Silhouette-Man-Woman-Pixabay-IPIllustrative picture: Pixabay)

The Clarion Project has been in contact with a woman who grew up within Jamaat ul-Fuqra, a cultish Sufi Islamist terrorist group that now goes by the name of Muslims of the Americas.

The group is best known for establishing “Islamic villages” on U.S. soil, for example, its “Islamberg” headquarters in New York state.

She has agreed to anonymously come forward with her heartbreaking story. We have removed details for her safety. She provided photographs and specific facts that are unavailable in the public sphere that we subsequently confirmed.

The following is her testimony provided to Clarion Project national security analyst Ryan Mauro. It is one of the very few first-hand testimonies from someone who was inside Jamaat ul-Fuqra when it committed terrorism under that name:

I still know many Muslims and I know that Jamaat ul-Fuqra is nothing like them, but there are violent ones who will take issue with what I say and do. They believe you should be killed if you decide not to be Muslim or practice Islam the way they do because, to them, it’s “apostasy,” and that’s a capital offense under Islam. I do believe some of those violent Muslims may attempt to kill me.

From my point of view as a kid in Michigan, everything was great even though my mom and dad got a divorce and I was living with my mom. My first introduction to X [a Fuqra member] was when he hit me for breaking rules I knew nothing about. My name was also changed to be Islamic.

We lived at 52 Ferris Street in Highland Park, Michigan, a three-story building with six apartments on each floor. The entire building was occupied by black Muslims, some who came from Detroit. Non-Muslims were not allowed to move in. Armed guards were at the front entrance.

Living in the building was like living in a Muslim country. We didn’t go outside much because they didn’t want us to be influenced by non-Muslims. Us kids didn’t have any friends outside of the building. We were very poor and slept on the bare floor with no beds. Sometimes we didn’t have heat or hot water. We didn’t have any furniture whatsoever. We ate on the floor out of large platters with our fingers. Food was also sometimes scarce.

Once my mother was making the only food we had in the house: Beans and rice. As she was seasoning, she mistakenly poured the entire bottle of salt in it. I watched her break down crying because this was the only food she had to feed her children. Someone told her to use a potato to suck the salt out of the food so we could eat it.

The building was like a house of horrors. Some of the kids were tortured by their parents or beaten by the “brothers” in the building. There was one kid in particular I remember who was treated really badly. He would be beaten severely for little things like taking food from the refrigerator for himself. He and some others would sometimes not be allowed to stand up and forced to hop around like a bunny for days on end. They’d make him run errands throughout the building, hopping up three flights of stairs.

He was also starving and I remember him coming to our door begging for food. There was a fire set by one girl who was also known to be beaten badly and kept separate from the rest of the kids. Years later, I met the boy again and he just broke down crying. It was heart-wrenching. He wanted to know why no one helped him.

There were exercise classes in the basement. The brothers were training for whatever Muslim war they continuously told us was coming. Our schooling was irregular and not formal. There were no science classes and math was deficient. Mostly we learned to read and write English and Arabic. I learned later about the gaping holes in our education. Sometimes there was class once a week, sometimes not at all.

We were not allowed to listen to music or watch commercials. They didn’t want us to be influenced by them. There were some odd rules like the children couldn’t have cabbage patch dolls. They were called “evil.” The Smurfs were considered demonic.

This was true of my entire time with Fuqra. There was a tape recorder that I’d use to secretly record kids shows on the TV like Kids Incorporated. I only learned the pop songs from that time by hearing them sung on that show. I didn’t even hear Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” until much later in life. I’d try to memorize the songs in a closet because I couldn’t be caught listening to them.

Growing up, I thought all Muslims were like us. Later, I realized these were just the odd rules of our Muslim cult and that most Muslims did not follow most of the same rules as we did. Just like most Muslims are not terrorists and some Muslims don’t wear full coverings, every sect is different.

We would hear all kinds of fearful messages. I was told that in my lifetime the Muslims would have to fight the kafiroons (non-believers) and I would have to make sure I was on the right side of the war.

The females, including myself, wore what we called jilabias; a head-to-ankle length traditional Muslim garment. We usually made them ourselves. We sewed our own clothes when I was a kid, which was fun. We had different colored jilabias.

It was also common for men to have several wives. I was molested by one man, who I know also molested another girl. It causes feelings of shame that can affect you the rest of your life. It changes your brain chemistry.

The leader of our community was a man known as “Imam Musa.” It’s important to note that we were not Nation of Islam Muslims. In fact, we were taught that the Nation of Islam members aren’t really Muslims.

One day, there was a lot of commotion and we were told that a sheikh from Pakistan was coming to visit our little community inside the building. His name was Sheikh Mubarik Ali Gilani. They said he was a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed. It was all anyone talked about and some said he was coming to the U.S. seeking recruits for jihad in Afghanistan.

Everyone in the building was about the sheikh. Every disagreement was deferred to the Sheikh. The Sheikh and his wife would even name his followers’ babies.

When the sheikh arrived, I met him very briefly because I had a weird dream about the Prophet Mohammed. I couldn’t really remember the details. It was supposed to be a big honor to meet the sheikh. The leaders of our community met with him and some changes were made.

One of the first things that happened is that the sheikh married one of the girls who was around 14 years old and he was probably in his 40s. The marriage was supposed to combine our community with the sheikh’s community in Pakistan. It was the kind of marriage that reminds me of ancient times where a father would marry his daughter off to someone important in order to have a treaty with that community. She left to live with him in Pakistan and her father became the new leader of the community.

The sheikh renamed our community at this point to be “Jamaat ul-Fuqra,” which means “community of the impoverished.”

His followers in America are primarily African-American converts to Islam, but I believe our community was the first, or one of the first, he visited in the United States. Several of the “brothers” from the building went to Pakistan to meet with the sheikh, and when they returned, they were even more militant and religious than before. It was as if they had been hypnotized.

We were told that they prayed a lot and had mysticism circles. I vaguely remember something about them praying and going up to see Prophet Mohammed. They carried out small “missions.” Various sources on the Internet said that Fuqra carried out various terrorist attacks in the 1980s and early 1990s across the U.S. I heard about one of them.

There are press reports about Fuqra members bombing a building that housed a cleric. I knew one of them and that he had gone to visit the sheikh in Pakistan. Somehow, during the attack, the door to the basement got locked behind them and they died in the ensuing fire. The rumor in our community was that the CIA locked the door and trapped them inside. The men who died were considered “martyrs for the cause of Allah” in our community.

When we were there, one day I overheard people saying something about the FBI watching the building in navy blue cars outside. I looked out the window and, sure enough, there was a navy blue four-door sedan sitting out there. After that day, I noticed it was out there all the time.

In the 1990s, I heard several rumors. I heard that Sheikh Gilani was barred from entering the U.S. because he was suspected of being involved in a terrorist attack involving an airplane. I heard that Sheikh Gilani lives in a luxurious compound in Pakistan and that his family is extremely wealthy. His wives have expensive jewelry and servants and even their own seamstress.

I don’t know if these rumors are true first-hand, but supposedly there is a big dichotomy between how luxurious the sheikh and his family live and how poor his followers in the United States live.

Not long after the sedan was noticed, the sheikh sent an order from Pakistan that all Muslims in the building had to disperse across the country. This was devastating for me because I couldn’t see my friends anymore. I was very lonely. The community members went to California, Washington D.C., South Carolina, Georgia, New York and maybe other places.

I knew that Fuqra had bought land in rural areas of New York and Georgia for followers to settle at where they could follow strict religious codes. A group of us went to New Orleans in Louisiana and we didn’t have to wear our jalabias because we had to be incognito.

We lived in a two room shack behind someone’s house. The leader drove a cab. We moved frequently. I suspect that when they couldn’t pay the rent, they’d get evicted and move. In between moves, we’d live with other families and that was fun because we could play with other kids. I remember seeing scary and loud fights between the women married to the leader. A knife was pulled one time and another time a pregnant woman was kicked.

We drove to Brooklyn to hear the sheikh speak in a large mosque during one of his trips to America. His wife was there in a private room and she was revered in the community. I’ll always remember the shoes she wore. They looked like shoes that a genie would wear; gold and curled at the tip.

During that visit, I saw something that left a lasting impression on me. All the females were called to the basement of the mosque. There had to be 30-40 of us in a circle on the floor. They brought a chair out and put it in the middle of us. Then they brought out Y [a Fuqra member] and she had to sit backwards in the chair with her back facing the crowd. A woman came out with a big stick and gave her 10 lashes while the crowd of women said “shame on you!” with each lash.

At first, she just winced in agony. Eventually she was crying pretty hard. The entire scene was traumatizing for me and I felt bad for the children seeing it. She didn’t immediately go back to New Orleans, but did after some time.

The leader of the New Orleans community continued to be abusive and beat kids. I remember him beating one boy for peeing standing up. I guess Muslim men are supposed to sit down when they used the restroom. It really upset me.

One time I walked into the living room and saw one of the boys getting beaten. He looked at me with pain and fear in his eyes. I immediately screamed for the leader to stop hitting him and then I started shaking with fear. No one talked back to him. He told me to leave a room and continued the beating with a belt as the boy hunched and crawled into a corner. I felt helpless. It was the catalyst for me deciding to leave.

I took some pocket change and ran away. I didn’t know where to go, so I just walked up and down random neighborhoods and ended up at an outdoor mall. Eventually, I was falling asleep and had to go back home. My mom was crying when I walked in and I told her I wanted to go live with my dad.

I ran away again only days later and was hit with a belt when I came home. This time, I fought back and began screaming for someone to call the police. It made him give up and walk away in a huff. I later ran away again and got to a pay phone where I called my dad in Michigan. He had tried to take me away when I was growing up but was stopped by guys with guns. I knew he’d rescue me.

He called a cab to bring me to the airport and I sat there and waited for hours. Then I saw my grandpa come out of the airport and he paid the taxi that had been waiting forever. We flew back to Michigan.

After I left, most of the Muslims left the New Orleans site and went to other Fuqra places. I know some did not move to other Fuqra communities and I suspect that some of them stopped being a part of Jamaat ul-Fuqra.

It was time to start my life over in Michigan but I still suffer a lot from all I experienced to this day.

The Glazov Gang-Stephen Coughlin Moment: The Narrative Set Within a Month of 9/11.

May 13, 2016

The Glazov Gang-Stephen Coughlin Moment: The Narrative Set Within a Month of 9/11, via YouTube, May 11, 2016

(The “countering violent extremism” program: how it, and the media, ignore the basic problem — violent Islam. — DM)

 

Islam and Sexuality: Sex for Men, but Not for Women?

May 13, 2016

Islam and Sexuality: Sex for Men, but Not for Women? Front Page MagazineDr. Majid Rafizadeh, May 13, 2016

Sex in Islam

Often I receive notes from Iran or Arab Muslim countries, from educated women who want to raise awareness and learn how to overcome the fear that has being indoctrinated in them regarding how they handle their body and, most importantly, think about their sexual life and sexuality.

“Socially speaking the average age for virginity has gone up in Muslim countries. I am thirty-five years old now, and I am still a virgin.  They have planted deep rooted guilt and shame in us if we think about these issues before getting married,” an Iranian woman, a writer and teacher from city of Kerman wrote in a note in Persian.

I am not a therapist, but I have analyzed the issue from religious, political, social, and theological perspectives (Allah, a God Who Hates Women). First of all, it is crucial to detect the roots of the problem.  The religion of Islam intervenes, in an unlimited way, not only in how women should dress (veil and cover), but also how women should think about their sexuality and body.

The Quran (literal words of Allah according to Muslims and Islam) and life of Muhammad are the two most crucial sources through which Sharia law views women and tells them how to reflect on their sexuality.

These two sources are used to teach, train, and brainwash women from childhood, through social media, Imams, Sheikhs, mosques, TV, families, tribes, schools, and colleges.  As I will explain later in the article, guilt, shame, and feeling sinful about their sexuality are indoctrinated at this level.

Then there is the hard power level, which imposes the fear. If a girl or woman breaks one of the Sharia laws above, she will be punished. The punishment can be from the state (execution, lashing, imprisonment, stoning, torture), or it can come from community and family members (such as honor killing, beatings, imprisoning the girl in home, etc.). Often the punishment comes from both the state and community or the family.

Those who impose these laws could be either women or men. For example, in Iran, there are many female moral police in the street working for the state to monitor the population. In addition, some Muslim mothers are stricter on their daughters than their fathers or brothers.

Since the Quran is the indisputable word of Allah according to Muslims, it is the most powerful tool. If we analyze the Quran meticulously, we see that many verses related to sex are directed towards how men can enjoy their sexual life, but women play a passive role.

[2:223] Your wives are a place of sowing of seed for you, so come to your place of cultivation however you wish and put forth [righteousness] for yourselves. And fear Allah and know that you will meet Him. And give good tidings to the believers.

[2:187] It has been made permissible for you the night preceding fasting to go to your wives [for sexual relations].

[4:25] And whoever among you cannot [find] the means to marry free, believing women, then [he may marry] from those whom your right hands possess of believing slave girls. And Allah is most knowing about your faith. You [believers] are of one another.

There is no verse telling women that they should enjoy their sexual life as well. In fact, those verses that are directed towards women are objectifying, subjugating, dehumanizing, disempowering and impose fear in them if they break the Sharia laws.

For example:

[4:15] Those who commit unlawful sexual intercourse of your women – bring against them four [witnesses] from among you. And if they testify, confine the guilty women to houses until death takes them or Allah ordains for them [another] way.

[24:31] And tell the believing women to reduce [some] of their vision and guard their private parts and not expose their adornment except that which [necessarily] appears thereof and to wrap [a portion of] their head covers over their chests and not expose their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers, their brothers’ sons, their sisters’ sons, their women, that which their right hands possess, or those male attendants having no physical desire, or children who are not yet aware of the private aspects of women. And let them not stamp their feet to make known what they conceal of their adornment. And turn to Allah in repentance, all of you, O believers that you might succeed.

Some Islamic and Sharia laws and teachings even spread the idea that women should feel filthy, guilty and bad about being a women, as well as about their natural physiological attributes. For example:

[2:222] And they ask you about menstruation. Say, “It is harm, so keep away from wives during menstruation. And do not approach them until they are pure. And when they have purified themselves, then come to them from where Allah has ordained for you. Indeed, Allah loves those who are constantly repentant and loves those who purify themselves.”

These teachings become more powerful when the state joins the religion to impose the Sharia law.

These teachings and punishments have been going on for over a thousand years. As a result, it is not easy for some Muslim women to free themselves from these feelings about their sexuality. The process would be slow if a woman decided to liberate herself from these Islamist, political and social chains. For a Muslim woman, it is much harder to do so in the Muslim world rather than in the West. But the most important thing is to raise awareness and continue educating people about these issues.

Pope Francis Blasts Europe Over Migrants

May 7, 2016

Pope Francis Blasts Europe Over Migrants, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, May 7, 2016

02

Sigh.

Europe is struggling to live up to the vision of its founders, Pope Francis has said in a powerful speech that asked: “What has happened to you, the Europe of humanism, the champion of human rights, democracy and freedom?”

Speaking as he became the first pope to accept the prestigious Charlemagne prize for his work on behalf of European solidarity, the pontiff called for Europe to reclaim the principles that had been established after the second world war, above all by embracing integration and revamping its economic model to “benefit ordinary people and society as a whole”.

…Founded in 1950 by Dr. Kurt Pfeiffer, the Charlemagne Prize is “the oldest and best-known prize awarded for work done in the service of European unification,” according to the organization’s website.

Kurt Pfeiffer was a Nazi. There are debates about whether he was a reluctant Nazi or not, but he was certainly a member. Rodney Atkinson has spoken about this in the past, I don’t know that I accept the whole thing, but certainly there are valid questions to be raised here.

The Charlemagne Prize. The prize was originally founded by the Nazis, but was then re-founded in 1949 by the efforts of the Aachen textile merchant Kurt Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer, who had previously been a member of the Nazi Party and of five other Nazi organizations, maintained that he had always tended to be a fundamental believer in Europe. And the Charlemagne Prize Society was to be associated with the imperial idea Reichsidee of the Emperor Charlemagne. The post-war image of Charlemagne as unifier of the Christian west was preceded by his Nazi portrayal as a unifier of the German tribes. Charlemagne had been compared with Hitler, his Reich and Greater Germany. This is clearly exemplified by the career of the Aachen professor of philosophy Peter Mennicken, who took over the professorship previously occupied by an expelled Jew, and who after the war had authorized influence over the symbolism of the Charlemagne Prize and the liturgy of its award ceremonies.

But we’ll skip over to the speech about the ideals of the EU’s founders. Some of whom just happened to Nazi-ish.

He expressed his desire for a Europe “where being a migrant is not a crime but a summons to greater commitment on behalf of the dignity of every human being,” and where youth can “breathe the pure air of honesty” in a culture that is “undefiled by the insatiable needs of consumerism.”

“I dream of fa Europe that promotes and protects the rights of everyone, without neglecting its duties towards all,” he said, and voiced his hope for a Europe “of which it will not be said that its commitment to human rights was its last utopia.”

Except you can’t protect the rights of all. Sometimes you have to choose.

You couldn’t protect German sovereignty and Polish sovereignty at the same time. You couldn’t protect German and French civilians at the same time. You had to make choices. You can’t protect Muslim rights to migrate and the right of the Jewish population of Europe not to be terrorized or murdered.

You have to choose. You have to decide between good and evil rather than providing a fuzzy humanistic picture in which evil does not appear to exist except as selfishness in the face of social justice demands. In which evil is not going along with the latest horrible and disastrous scheme executed at your own expense.

Pointing to French statesman Robert Schuman, the Pope echoed his insistence at the birth of the first European Community that the continent couldn’t be built all at once, but “through concrete achievements which first create a ‘de facto solidarity.’”

Schuman was one of Petain’s ministers. Again, like Pfeiffer, his legacy is complex and mixed, but it’s interesting that so many key EU people are so tainted.

The Pope also stressed the importance of cultural integration, rather than merely resettling foreigners geographically, allowing European peoples to overcome “the temptation of falling back on unilateral paradigms and opting for forms of ideological colonization.”

Francis advocated for a culture of dialogue involving “a discipline that enables us to view others as valid dialogue partners, to respect the foreigner, the immigrant and people from different cultures as worthy of being listened to.”

“Today we urgently need to build coalitions that are not only military and economic, but cultural, educational, philosophical and religious,” he said, and encouraged the leaders to arm their people “with the culture of dialogue and encounter.”

How does the culture of dialogue work within Islam? It’s the old “nice doggie” until you find a big enough rock school of dialogue.

And what does cultural integration mean? It seems to involve listening to Muslim migrants, rather than them listening.

To create dignified, well-paying jobs “requires coming up with new, more inclusive and equitable economic models, aimed not at serving the few, but at benefiting ordinary people and society as a whole,” he said.

“It would involve passing from an economy directed at revenue, profiting from speculation and lending at interest, to a social economy that invests in persons by creating jobs and providing training,” he said, adding that “we need to move from a liquid economy prepared to use corruption as a means of obtaining profits to a social economy that guarantees access to land and lodging through labor.”

An economy is based on profit. A social economy is just a welfare state funded by profitability somewhere. Even Communist countries ended up needing to find a profitable venue. China did really well at it. The USSR was terrible at it and collapsed.

In an actual economy, social mobility and dignity may not be perfect, but they are available. A social economy is just feudalism with more buzzwords and depends entirely on the goodwill of insiders. No one has dignity in a social economy. They have no sense of worth. They depend entirely on charity dispensed by political barons which is stolen from the people who have been enslaved and denied the profits of their work.

Pope Francis closed his speech by voicing his dream for “a new European humanism” based on the welcome for foreigners, care for the poor, and respect for human life and dignity.

You can have two out of three. But if you turn Europe into Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, you’ll eventually have none of the above.