The Redhunter

June 2, 2008

The Legal Jihad in Canada

Anyone who thinks that other democracies like Canada have freedom of speech "just like us" haven't been following Mark Steyn's travails up there very closely. He and the Macleans (sort of their equivalent of Time or Newsweek) have been hit with a legal jihad designed to silence all criticism of Islam that the usual suspects find objectionable. Background here, if you're not sure what it's all about.

The trial is now underway, and I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Steyn fills us in with a post over at The Corner

Jonah, re: Omar Sharif saying that, when he has a problem with some guy, he finds it far easier to go to the neighborhood sheikh to sort it out than to have to mess around with all that western legal mumbo-jumbo. He'll be happy to know they've introduced a similar system in British Columbia: The sheikhs sit on a "human rights" tribunal and lay down the smack without any time-wasting rubbish about rules of evidence, presumption of innocence, etc.

Andrew Coyne is live-blogging the first day of the Steyn/Maclean's show trial from the Robson Square courthouse in Vancouver, and from the Omar Sharif perspective it seems to be going swimmingly. The Canadian Islamic Congress lawyer says that freedom of speech is a "red herring". If it were, it would be on the endangered species list. And the New York Times guy says he "can't believe what he's witnessing".

With their usual low cunning, the "human rights" sheikhs chose a courtroom that only seats 40 people so a big crowd (including CBC reporters) were wedged up peering through the glass in the door until the head sheikh (a judge best known for fining the Knights of Columbus for declining to rent their hall for a lesbian wedding) said the pressed faces of the people were distracting her and shooed them away. Typical. A third-rate bureaucracy that tells everyone from McDonald's to Maclean's magazine how to run their affairs can't even organize a show trial with minimal competence.

Maybe the folks who can't get in should file a "human rights" complaint against the "human rights" tribunal for denying them the human right to attend a human rights trial. Say what you like about Saddam's justice system, but at least I'd be dead by now and out of my misery.

This is a big deal. From what I can tell the Canadian Human Rights Commission does have some serious powers. More than outright legal sanctions, though, is the message that will be sent if Steyn and Macleans loses; any serious criticism of Islam and we'll haul you before a tribunal and force you to spend thousands of dollars defending yourself. Still want to publish a book here?

Posted by Tom at 7:49 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 8, 2008

Sharia Law is OK by the Archbishop of Canterbury

via today's Washington Times I learn that the Archbishop of Canturbury has "called for applying Islamic Shariah law in Britain in certain instances". The Archbiship, a certain Dr Rowan Williams, said this and more as part of a lecture series. Here are a few tidbits that I picked out this morning

Among the manifold anxieties that haunt the discussion of the place of Muslims in British society, one of the strongest, reinforced from time to time by the sensational reporting of opinion polls, is that Muslim communities in this country seek the freedom to live under sharia law.

He may has well as told us that Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength, and that War is Peace.

But it is important to begin by dispelling one or two myths about sharia; so far from being a monolithic system of detailed enactments, sharia designates primarily – to quote Ramadan again – 'the expression of the universal principles of Islam [and] the framework and the thinking that makes for their actualization in human history'

The "Ramadan" the Archbishop refers to so approvingly is none other than Tariq Ramadan, an apologist for the worst excesses of Islam. Ramadan is the grandson of none other than Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the jihadist groups seeking the restoration of the Caliphate and destruction of the West.

The Archbishop goes on to argue for a "transformative accomodation" of Sharia law into the British legal system, because it seems "unavoidable."

In an interview on BBC Radio 4 the Archbishop repeated many of these themes, if anything even more explicity

It seems unavoidable and indeed as a matter of fact certain provisions of Sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law. So it's not as if we're bringing in an alien and rival system.

In other words, we're not going to ask Muslims to accept Western values, so we'll just accept theirs.

When asked if this would bring stoning to Great Britain, he replied that

There's a lot of internal debate within the Islamic community about the nature of Sharia and its extent; nobody in their right mind I think would want to see in this country a kind of inhumanity that's sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states - the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women as well...

No doubt native Britons don't want these things. But how about some of the Muslims who want the Sharia law? The Archbishop avoids that topic with weasel words, going on about

I think one of the points again that's come up very interestingly in recent discussion between Muslim and other legal theorists is the way in which in the original context of Islamic law, quite often provisions relating to women are more enlightened than others of their day; but you have to translate that into a setting where actually that whole area, the rights and liberties of women has moved on and the principle, the vision, which animates the Islamic legal provision needs broadening because of that.

What jibberish.

Does anyone think that it will end here?

To be sure, as he points out,

We have orthodox Jewish courts operating in this country

Which is something liberal apologists love to bring up. But the last time I checked Western-style civil rights were alive and well in Israel, and yes that includes it's Arab citizens too. No one is afraid of orthadox Jewish law. There is reason to fear Sharia law, and anyone who does not need only look at Islamic countries where it has been implimented, like Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states.

In the interview the Archbishop insists that Muslims could appeal Sharia court decisions to the regular British court system, and we are supposed to be reassured by this. But Muslims won't put up with this for long. They don't recognize any higher authority than their law, and as the Muslim population increases they would put what would probably become irresistible pressure on the appeal courts to let their decisions stand.

Liberals often roll their eyes when you tell them about Sharia law coming to Europe. They think it's a conservative scare story, the purpose of which is to take away civil liberties, put us under a permanent war footing, etc etc. I've heard and read many say that oh no, Muslims are integrating into European society perfectly well.

If that's true, then why is the Archbishop so willing to grant them their own legal - limited - system within a European country?

Melanie Phillips has more analysis than I have time to write this morning.

Posted by Tom at 8:16 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

December 10, 2007

Saudi Influence in Academia

There's a big story in today's Washington Times about something I've been blogging about for some time now; the Wahhabist penetration of academia through use of oil money. Scholar Walid Phares has written extensively about this, most particularly in his books Future Jihad and The War of Ideas. I reviewed both here; see "Book Reviews" under "Categories" at right.

Here are a few excerpts, but you'll want to read the whole thing:

Two years ago this month, a Saudi prince caused a media splash — and raised eyebrows — when he donated $20 million each to Georgetown and Harvard universities to fund Islamic studies. ...

Some call the Saudi gift Arab generosity and gratitude for the years American universities have educated the elite of the Arab world. Others say the sheer size of the donations amounts to buying influence and creating bastions of noncritical pro-Islamic scholarship within academia.

"There's a possibility these campuses aren't getting gifts, they're getting investments," said Clifford May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. "Departments on Middle Eastern studies tend to be dominated by professors tuned to the concerns of Arab and Muslim rulers. It's very difficult for scholars who don't follow this line to get jobs and tenure on college campuses.

"The relationship between these departments and the money that pours in is hard to establish, but like campaign finance reform, sometimes money is a bribe. Sometimes it's a tip."

As Phares noted in The War of Ideas, it all started after the 1973 oil embargo, when the Saudis realized they had a lot of power at their hands. They did some investigation and discovered that many American universities were eager for their money. As Phares documents, the Saudis also discovered that in return for the money college administrators were eager to believe the Saudi version of Middle East history.

The article is fair, pointing out that "The idea of giving endowed chairs to advance a point of view is not exclusive to wealthy Arabs." Mormons and Israelis have also gotten in on the action.

Influence buying is wrong no matter who does it. We should not, however, fall into moral equivalence. Saudi influence is far greater, and their kingdom is a totalitarian nightmare.

At the end, the article quotes Zuhdi Jasser, an American reform-minded Muslim that I have written about before and who "gets it".

Zuhdi Jasser, a Phoenix physician and a Muslim who is chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, says Islamic governments are looking for a free pass.

"Islamists such as the radical fundamentalists seen with the Saudi Wahhabis exploit American universal tolerance to provide a vehicle for the dissemination of their propaganda free of critique," he said in an e-mail. "It is important to emphasize — 'free of critique' ... it is the tolerance which permits that.

"But I would hope that we correct our response not by changing our tolerance but by intensely critiquing political Islam and its incompatibility with our pluralistic democracy. America"s laboratory of freedom and liberty should not change."

The Wahhabists are one of the three branches of the jihad that is trying to destroy the West. Dr Jasser is probably correct in that an absolute prohibition on Saudi money would violate our tradition of tolerance. Rather, the best way to deal with the Wahhabists is to expose them for what they are.

Update

If you still think that the problem of Saudi influence in either K-12 or our university system is exaggerated, please see these two articles by Stanley Kurtz:

Saudi in the Classroom: A fundamental front in the war

Taking Sides on Title VI: Middle East Studies reform goes partisan

Posted by Tom at 8:08 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

December 8, 2007

"Steynophobia" as part of the War of Ideas

Rather than deal with problems within their religion, some Muslims have decided that the only way to deal with those in the West who criticize them is to shut them down. Some call it "legal tourism", and it is an attempt to use libel and slander laws to silence anyone who dares to speak out about the way Islam is practicied by some Muslims. They don't have to win the suit to succeed, because the credible threat of a suit will serve to intimidate. As such, it's kind of like the case of the Flying Imams.

The latest incident to spur this concern is an attack on the author of America Alone, Mark Steyn. In October of 2006, MacLean's published an excerpt from America Alone; "The Future Belongs to Islam.". Six months later several Muslim law students approached MacLeans and demanded that they be allowed to put a five page response, without any editing, in the magazine. When the editor refused, they filed a "human right s complaint" against Steyn In a post on The Corner, Stanley Kurtz explains:

Late yesterday I stumbled across an article about a "human rights complaint" filed by the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) against Maclean’s, Canada’s most widely-read news magazine, for running a "flagrantly Islamophobic" excerpt from Mark Steyn’s book, America Alone. At least two Canadian Human Rights Commissions have agreed to hear these complaints. Only then did I find Steyn’s too-easily-missed late-night post from Wednesday on the controversy.

This is a big deal. The blogosphere has so far largely missed it, but this attack on Mark Steyn is very much our business. There may be an impulse to dismiss this assault on Steyn, on the assumption that it will fail, that Steyn is a big boy and can take care of himself, and that in any case this is crazy Canada, where political correctness rules, rather than the land of the free. That would be a mistake. The Canadian Islamic Congress’s war on Mark Steyn and Maclean’s is an attack on all of us. I’ll say more in a moment about how a Canadian case can reach into America, but let’s first take a look at the goings on up north.

The complaints against Maclean’s for publishing an excerpt from America Alone have been filed by several Canadian law students and by Faisal Joseph, a former crown attorney. Maclean’s published a total of 27 letters over two issues in response to Steyn’s piece–more responses than any Maclean’s cover story received over the past year. Yet when the law student’s demanded a longer response, Maclean’s was willing to consider it. The students then insisted that Maclean’s run a five-page article, written by an author of their choice, with no editing by the magazine. They also demanded that the reply to Steyn be a cover story, with art controlled by them, rather than the magazine. At this point, Editor-in-Chief Kenneth Whyte showed them the door, saying he would rather let Maclean’s go bankrupt than permit someone outside of operations dictate the magazine’s content.

The tiff over the excerpt from America Alone is only the tip of the iceberg. The Canadian Islamic Congress has actually accused several Canadian news outlets of Islamophobia. CIC issued a report entitled "Maclean’s Magazine: A Case Study of Media-Propogated Islamophobia," in which at least 18 articles were said to show anti-Muslim bias. Canada’s National Post has been similarly attacked. Here, journalist Andrew Coyne explains how he was accused of endangering Muslims merely for having penned the phrase: "...the massive backlash against innocent Muslims that failed to materialize..."

Although the more liberal Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) has criticized CIC and defended Maclean’s, it’s worth noting that CIC has managed to successfully intimidate MCC in the past. Coyne notes that a spokesman for MCC resigned his post last year when the president of the CIC accused him of "smearing Islam." The charge of de facto apostasy left the MCC spokesman fearing for his safety.

What about the article in question–the actual excerpt from America Alone published in Maclean’s? Read it and you’ll see that Steyn is an equal opportunity savager. Enervated Europeans come in for every bit as much criticism as jihadi terrorists–more, really. The closer to home, the tougher Steyn gets. Of all European’s, Steyn is hardest on culturally "dead" Belgians, the country where Steyn’s mother and grandparents came from. The only really vicious insult in the piece is hurled at Steyn himself.

This piece by Ali Eteraz in the Guardian commendably repudiates CIC’s attack on free speech. Even so, none of Eteraz’s points against the actual substance of Steyn’s piece hold water. Steyn does not say that "all" Muslims are radicals. If anything, Steyn goes out of his way to say that matters are not so simple. For example, he notes that the radicalization of South Asian Muslims is recent, and explains that it’s the watery weakness of Europe’s own multicultural ideology that forces Muslim’s back onto radicalism for a sense of cultural coherence. If anything, the anti-free-speech attacks on Steyn and Maclean’s, by Western-trained lawyers, no less, show that Steyn’s concerns about poorly assimilated Western values are more than justified.

Ugly as this affair may be, can we assume that Steyn and Maclean’s will ultimately emerge unscathed–and that America, at least, is safe from this sort of crazy Canadian multiculturalism? No we cannot. However they’re resolved, these high profile cases take a toll on all concerned. More important, they send a chill over smaller fish.

American’s need to recognize the pattern here, and we also need to realize that it has already invaded the United States. American readers depend on international outlets. We often read our Steyn in Canadian publications. So an attack on Steyn in Canada is an attack on America. And recall the ongoing battle over "libel tourism," which resulted in attempts to use British law to pull Alms for Jihad from American library shelves. (Here’s the latest update on the libel tourism battle, and how it threatens free speech in America.) And take a look at this list of Muslim libel cases in America. (Be sure to read the end of that account for an understanding of how enervating and intimidating these cases can be–especially for targets less well-placed than Steyn or Maclean’s.)

Then consider my post from yesterday on the spread of "bias reporting systems" to American college campuses. As in Canada, these systems may begin in response to alleged "homophobia," (see the link to the article on Georgetown in my post), but they also open up opportunities for accusations of "Islamophobia." (The term itself shows the echo effect.) Making use of "bias reporting" to attack Georgetown’s Catholic culture will surely play into the hands of Georgetown’s Saudi-funded programs to promote "Muslim-Christian understanding." These programs are positive connoisseurs of "Islamophobia." Give them a bias reporting system–especially an anonymous one–and they could easily go to town. And for more on the influence of Saudi money on American education, sure to open the field to CIC-like attacks on "Islamophobia," see "Saudi in the Classroom."

Connect the dots and you will see that the attack on Mark Steyn in Canada is part and parcel of a world-wide assault on free speech that has already reached well into America. This is our battle. It is essential that there be widespread public condemnation of the attack on Mark Steyn. Not only does this "human rights" complaint have to fail, it has to fail miserably and with embarrassment. Otherwise, whatever the formal result, the chilling effect will be one more victory for the forces trying to destroy our rights.

Follow the link to Kurtz post for the links to stories about the controversy.

Don't hold your breath waitiing for the usual "civil rights" organizations to rush to Steyn's defense.

As you might imagine, there's been much discussion about this at The Corner, but the best was this link by Steyn him self to a piece by Roger Kimball who describes his own experiences in

As a publisher, I’ve so far had just a little taste of libel tourism. This spring, Encounter Books is publishing Willful Blindness: a Memoir of the Jihad, by Andrew C. McCarthy, who helped prosecute the “blind sheik” Omar Abdul-Rahman and other jihadists responsible for the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. Just last week I received a message from one of the entities that helps distribute our books in Canada and Britain:

Can you please let us know if there are any references to Saudis and terrorist[s] in the book. We are just concerned that this book, could potentially create libel lawsuits as it could offend Saudis living in England and this has happened with many other US publications and we do not want to be jeopardized in selling this book.

Hello? So books offensive to Saudis are verboten?

They don't need to make it illegal to win, just intimidate publishers and and distributors enough so that they take a "hands off" position toward any book that discusses forbidden matters.

In the end, it's all part of the War of Ideas that Walid Phares so brilliantly describes in his book of the same name. The jihadists want to silence all who oppose them. We - supposedly - value free speech. Which idea will win?

Posted by Tom at 11:17 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 1, 2007

The New Wonders of the Age

The desire of certain Western intellectuals to justify something that goes on in third-world countries, which to ordinary people seems barbaric, is nothing short of amazing. It's a sort of celebration of the "other", a romanticization of Rousseau's "noble savage". Put another way, it's moral relativism at it's worst.

Normal people, when informed about the African/Muslim practice of "female circumcision", or genital cutting, are horrified. But then you wouldn't be a member of the American Anthropological Association (AAA).

This very morning, at their annual meeting, they discussed whether this practice was .... I kid you not.

John Tierney in an editorial yesterday in the New York Times (h/t Lisa Schiffren at NRO) explains

Should African women be allowed to engage in the practice sometimes called female circumcision? Are critics of this practice, who call it female genital mutilation, justified in trying to outlaw it, or are they guilty of ignorance and cultural imperialism?

Those questions will be debated Saturday morning in Washington at the American Anthropological Association’s annual meeting. Representatives of international groups opposed to this procedure will be debating anthropologists with somewhat different views, including African anthropologists who have undergone the procedure themselves.

Unbelievable that this is going to even be debated. If there's still any doubt in your mind that the AAA is infected with the worst sort of cultural relativism, Tierney puts it to rest in a discussion of " critique of the global campaign against female genital mutilation, written by another participant in Saturday’s discussion, Richard Shweder of the University of Chicago."

Dr. Shweder says that many Westerners trying to impose a “zero tolerance” policy don’t realize that these initiation rites are generally controlled not by men but by women who believe it is a cosmetic procedure with aesthetic benefits. He criticizes Americans and Europeans for outlawing it at the same they endorse their own forms of genital modification, like the circumcision of boys or the cosmetic surgery for women called “vaginal rejuvenation.” After surveying studies of female circumcision and comparing the data with the rhetoric about its harmfulness, Dr. Shweder concludes that “‘First World’ feminist issues and political correctness and activism have triumphed over the critical assessment of evidence.”

I rather think Dr Shweder has the political correctness part backward.

To be sure that Tierney's description was right, I downloaded the good doctor's essay, and sure enough, right there on page 5 I found this

In this essay I suggest that in at least one very intimate cultural and family life domain the rules of the game have been imposed by the rich nations of the world in such a way that they invite moral critique. The critique is invited because activist organizations and governments in the rich nations of the world have tried to universalize their own cultural preferences and tastes with little regard for truth in advertising, and with considerable contempt for the democratic voice of majority populations in the particular poor countries most directly affected by the forceful expansion and willful imposition of American and European cultural perspectives. I am going to suggest that these “First World” governments and activist organizations (who, ironically, often frame their campaigns in a discourse of human rights) have actually acted in violation of several human rights, including rights to self-determination and rights to family privacy, among others, which they themselves often invoke in defense of their own cultural preferences and practices.

So opposing female genital mutiliation is rich countries imposing their morals on poor nations. This is bad because Dr Shweder maintains that a majority of the women in these countries support the practice, therefore it is ok.

Lisa Schiffren makes the obvious retort that "when the British forbade sutee, the locals, some women included, wanted to keep burning those widows." Did that then, make the burning of widows ok? According to Dr Shweder, apparently so.

All of this reminds me of nothing so much as the words of Malcolm Muggeridge, as he observed Western liberals as they traveled about the Soviet Union in the 1930s

They are unquestionably one of the wonders of the age, and I shall treasure...the spectacle of the travelling with radiant optimism through a famished countryside, wandering in happy bands about squalid, over-crowded towns, listening with unshakable faith to the fatuous patterr of carefully trained and indoctrinated guides, repeating like school-children a multiplication table, the bogus statistics and mindless slogans endlessly intoned to them.

There were...earnest clergymen who walked reverently through anti-God museums and reverently turned the pages of athiestic literature, earnest pacifists who watched delightenly tanks rattle across the Red Square and bombing planes darken the sky.... The almost unbelievable credulity of these mostly university-educated tourists astonished even Soviet officials used to handling foreign visitors....

From Muggeridge, "Chronicles of Wasted Time", as quoted in Paul Hollander's "Political Pilgrims"

Just as Western intellectuals then justified Stalin's Russia, Mao's China, and Castro's Cuba, today they justify female genital mutilation. They'll justify anything as long as the participants are anti-Western and they don't have to partake themselves.

If the American Anthropological Association had really wanted to learn something, they would have invited Ayaan Hirsi Ali to their little conference. It'll never happen, but I can dream.

Update

More on the Western moral confusion front from Mark Steyn:

Just to reassure Jonah, my head did not explode at the BBC's description of the Sudanese mob as "good-natured". In fact, I didn't even roll my eyes or give a mild tsk. Such is the way of the world. Thousands of Sudanese men calling for the execution of a middle-aged schoolma'am over a teddy bear are "good-natured", while Martin Amis is a "racist" and I'm a "flagrantly Islamophobic" hatemonger.

Even so, it's impressive to see the speed with which poor Mrs Gibbons has been consigned to the same camp. As Tammy Bruce reports:

When asked by FOX News for a comment about the situation, a National Organization for Women spokeswoman said they were "not putting out a statement or taking a position."

Fortunately, other members of the sisterhood are. From The View:

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: You’d think if you’re going overseas, I mean, we had this discussion yesterday about people coming to America and learning the customs and knowing what is cool, and what isn’t cool. But I find that maybe we are not- and I say we just as European and American, we’re not as anxious to learn the customs before we go places. It’s just one of the reasons we’re called the ugly Americans.

What's so "ugly" about a British schoolteacher taking a job teaching Muslim schoolchildren in Khartoum? Never mind, the victim must have been asking for it. And, given that the prohibition against Mohammedan teddy bears was concocted out of whole cloth, even the most abjectly "sensitive" are bound to fall afoul of something or other. As The Belmont Club puts it:

The incitement here is not entirely on the Sudanese side. The supine behavior of the West, abject surrender to every demand, its willingness to shame and degrade itself without limit, is in large part responsible for the provocations now directed toward it.

Which is why there'll be more. In hostage negotiations, tough-talking governments say they won't make "concessions to terrorists". They mean prisoner releases and cash handovers. Yet we make equally critical psychological concessions with nary a thought.

Posted by Tom at 10:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 27, 2007

Some Questions for Muslim Schools

The Islamic Saudi Acadamy, located in the Virginia suburbs of Washington DC, should be closed simply because it is operated and funded by the Wahabist government of Saudi Arabia, which is a totalitarian nightmare. But what about Muslim schools where we cannot find a direct link to a jihadist government or organization? How do we determine if the school has a jihadist or Islamist curriculum, or whether it is simply a religious school that happens to be Islamic?

M. Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim American and former Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy, answers these questions in an article posted at Family Security Matters. Mr. Jasser is the founder and Chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, a Phoenix based organization. That Family Security Matters is a pretty conservative outfit vouches for the AIFD by itself, but please visit his website if you'd like to be reassured. These days, it's understandable.

In the article, Mr. Jasser pulls no punches in his description of the Saudis, who's "Wahabism is arguably the primary cancer cell in global militant Islamist ideology." But we shouldn't just stop with the Islamic Saudi Academy, he says, but rather we should use this as a "first step" in bringing accountability to other Islamic schools in the U.S. It's not a small issue, either, for his article cites a 2004 National Center for Education Statistics study which determined that there were 182 Islamic private schools in the United States. This may seem a small number, but these schools can graduate a lot of students. History shows that determined minorites can make a disproportionate impace.

Harboring no illusions, he warns that

The (Islamist) schools around the country are all relatively new and wasting no time in creating a generation of students which are more likely than not to be defenders of Islamism over anti-Islamist systems based in universal liberty. While only a minority of Muslims send their children to these schools, they are a growing and significant minority countered only by a silent majority of Muslims.

What we need to do is "discuss in a comprehensive public manner, the context in which Islamic parochial schools teach Islamic history." This means examining their curriculum. Mr. Jasser has a series of questions that we need answered by Islamic schools:

1. How does the school teach American history and the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights? What is taught about the struggle of our founding fathers against theocracy? Is European Enlightenment ideology taught? Are students encouraged to learn from non-Muslim philosophers especially those who influenced our founding fathers and taught liberty and freedom?

2. Are students taught that sharia is only personal or that it also specifically guides governmental law? Does their answer change whether Muslims are a minority or a majority?

3. Do they view non-Islamic private and public schools as part of a culture of ‘immorality’ and decadence since they are not Islamicized or can non-Islamic schools be morally and equally virtuous?

4. Do they teach their children that ‘being American’ and being ‘free’ is about moral corruption or is being American and free about loving the nation in which they live and sharing equal status before the law regardless of faith tradition?

5. Is complete religious freedom a central part of faith and the practice of religion? In the Islamic school, how are children treated who refuse to participate in school faith practices?

6. Are the children taught Muslim exclusivism with regards to the attainment of paradise in the Hereafter? From that, are the children also taught that government and public institutions must thus be ‘Islamic’ in order for the community as a whole to be able to enter the gates of Heaven?

7. How are student discussions, debate, and intellectual discourses approached regarding American domestic and foreign policy? Do the teachers have a political agenda? Does that agenda demonstrate a dichotomy between Islamist interests and American interests?

8. Is the historical period of Muslim rule of Spain (Andalusia) taught in the context of the history of the world during the Middle Ages or is it looked upon as superior to current day American ideology even after the advances of the Enlightenment?

9. Is the pledge of allegiance administered every day at the beginning of the school day?

Mr. Jasser gets it. He is a true reformer, not one of those "moderates" we are told about who end up holding views antithetical to Western ideas about liberty.

I've blogged about Muslim reformers before, and how we need to support them. Mr Jasser and others like him should be invited to the White House and Congress should invite them to testify. While I can't prove neither has happened, I rather doubt it.

We are in a worldwide war against the forces of jihadism. While part of it will be fought on the battlefield by military forces, in the final analysis it is a War of Ideas. The way you win a War of Ideas is to prevent older believers from passing their ideas into the next generation. I'm going to post a lot more on this shortly, but an obvious first step is to scrutinize Islamic schools, and to do so boldly but fairly. Those that pass muster are more than welcome to particulate fully in our great nation, but those that don't must change or be sent packing.

Posted by Tom at 7:58 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

November 26, 2007

More on the Islamic Saudi Academy

One thing that drives me nuts is how so many people, especially on the left but also on the right, tolerate or even give tacit suppor to the Nazi regime of Saudi Arabia. The Islamic Saudi Academy, with two campuses in Alexandria and Fairfax, Virginia, mere miles from our nations capital, is a case in point. Fortunately, some Americans are hard at work to try and close this abomination. Unfortunately, others are working just as hard to keep it open.

From an AP story in today's Washington Times we have an update

Twelve U.S. senators and a federal commission want to shut it down, and its most virulent critics have dubbed it "Terror High." ...

Now the school finds itself on the defensive again. Last month, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a report saying the academy should be closed until it can conduct a review of the curriculum and textbooks.
...

Indeed, many people familiar with the school say the accusations are unfounded. Fairfax County Supervisor Gerald Hyland, whose district includes the academy, has defended the school and arranged for the county to review the textbooks to put questions about the curriculum to rest. That review is ongoing.

Much of the debate is about the content of the textbooks used at the school

Academy officials have acknowledged that some of the original Saudi textbooks use intemperate language, but say they have made significant modifications at the academy to remove offensive passages. They have, for instance, removed from teachers' versions of first-grade textbooks an excerpt instructing teachers to explain "that all religions, other than Islam, are false, including that of the Jews, Christians and all others."

This is absolutely unbelievable. I couldn't care less what is in the textbooks at this school, and here's why:

Imagine that it was the 1980s, and the apartheit government of South Africa had set up a school in northern Virginia. Would anyone care what was in the textbooks? Of course not. The place would be surrounded by people with torches and pitchforks and closed within a week. And rightfully so.

But when it comes to anything having to do with Islam, suddenly everything changes. The Saudi Arabian government is one of the most repressive on this earth. It is totalitarian in nature, and is antithetical to everything we in the West hold dear.

Here are the findings of the USCIRF regarding the academy linked to above:

• It is the only school in the United States that is operated with the direct authority of the Saudi embassy. Twenty such academies are operated by the government of Saudi Arabia in foreign capital cities around the world.

• It operates on two northern Virginia properties owned or leased by the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, with the leased property being leased by “the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia d/b/a (doing business as) the Islamic Saudi Academy.”

• The Saudi ambassador to the United States is the chairman of the school’s board of directors, which, according to the Academy’s web site, “oversees the educational and administrative operation” and “provides direction and guidance to every aspect of” the school’s operations.

• The school is funded by the government of Saudi Arabia.

• On numerous occasions, Saudi Embassy officials have spoken to the press on the ISA’s behalf—including in response to inquiries about its curriculum.

• According to the Academy’s brochure, posted on its own web site, the ISA uses Saudi government “curriculum, syllabus, and materials.” It is these ties to the Saudi government and embassy that bring the school within the Commission’s mandate, which is to monitor foreign governments’ compliance with international religious freedom guarantees.

Women are especially targeted for oppression in Saudi Arabia, the details of which are or should be well known. Yet there is no international outcry. Only we dreaded neocons, joined by a few lonely liberals, sound at all outraged. In the AP story, a Democrat, Fairfax County Supervisor Gerald Hyland, defends the academy. He probably considers himself a champion of women's rights.

But it's not just Democrats. The Bush Administration is to blame as well. Our President is far too cozy with the Saudis. It is to his shame that he has ignored the civil rights abuses rampant throughout the Muslim world. No doubt the hope is that our ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq will eventually produce an atmosphere where liberty can take root, but these are long-term undertakings. We need to act now.

Since the left and establishment right seems determined to ignore the women who are virtual slaves in Saudi Arabia, it is up to us evil conservatives to sound the alarm.

Close the Islamic Saudi Academy.

Previous:

Wahabbists in Northern Virginia

Posted by Tom at 9:01 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

November 10, 2007

Wahabbists in Northern Virginia

Last week I wrote about Hate in London Mosques, and in the piece mentioned the Saudi Islamic Academy in northern Virginia. Lo and behold but just the other day Stephen Spriell has an article on the academy over at National Review. Appropriated titled "Virginia is for Radicals? A troubling school", Spriell writes that the "curriculum(of the academy) has been the target of legitimate criticism for its use of textbooks that promote jihad and justify violence against Christians and Jews."

The Saudi Islamic Academy maintains two schools, or campuses, in northern Virginia. Their main campus is at 8333 Richmond Highway Alexandria, VA 22309, just outside of Washington DC, where grades 2-12 are taught. The "West Campus" is at 11121 Pope's Head Rd Fairfax, VA 22030, also only a few miles from the capital, where Kindergarden and first grade classes are held. Their website, as you might imagine, makes them look like just another school, albiet a religous one.

The truth of the matter is that according to a 2006 study by Freedom House and the Institute for Gulf Studies, which studied the textbooks at this and other Saudi schools,

The descriptions of the "other" - Muslim "defiants", "polythiests," and "infidels" - in these Islamic studies textbooks for the current academic year do not comport with the picture of "moderation and tolerance" presented by the Saudi ambassador to Washington and other Saudi officials. These books continue to reflect a curriculum that inculcates religious hatred toward those who do not follow Wahhabi teachings. When the current school year ends, thousands more will graduate from Saudi public schools steeped in the belief that those of differing religious faiths are morally inferior and even evil. Their texts will have taught them that peaceful coexistence with so-called "infidels" is unattainable and that violence to spread Islam is not only permissible, but an obligation.

As the Director of the CIA, James Woolsey, said while testifying before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs on November 16, 2005

On all points except allegiance to the Saudi state Wahhabi and al Qaeda beliefs are essentially the same.

Last month the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom(USCIR), described by Spruiell as "a watchdog group created by Congress eight years ago" released a study in which they essentially said that if the Saudis could not clean up their act the State Department ought to close the school.

The USCIR did not actually view material used at the northern Virginia school, but rather those textbooks used in Saudi Arabia. When criticized for this, their response was that to have contacted the school directly would have violated their mandate. Instead, they contacted the Saudi Embassy which was noncooperative.

In a Post article last month school administrators aaid that they had revised their material last summer. They did this by taking textbooks sent from Saudi Arabia and ripping out objectionable pages.

The Post, in turn, criticized the commission, pointing out that Fairfax County Supervisor Gerald Hyland (D) had asked to view material at the school and was "immediately" granted access. He viewed English-language material and found nothing objectionable. Further, they editorialize that it's unfair to ask the school to prove a negative; that they aren't teaching hate. They concluded that the commission "crossed a line".

To an extent the Post has a point. And if it was anyone but a Saudi school I'd be sympathetic to their arguments. But we are talking about Saudi Arabia here, a country not too different than the wost totalitarian nightmares of the twentieth century.

In their defense, Spruiell asks "suppose the school had given the commission a set of books with some pages ripped out: What would that prove?" and that

For now, let’s just accept the premise that a foreign government should not be exposing students in America to a religious curriculum that even a panel of Saudi royal advisers has concluded “encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the ‘other.’” How do we verify that such a curriculum is not being taught in schools operated by that foreign government?

One way to do it would be to ask the foreign government to provide unaltered copies of all its teaching materials for public review or else close down its school. The State Department is the only government agency with the authority to enforce such a policy. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem interested in this solution, and the only alternative it’s offering is more assurances that Saudi Arabia will get around to removing the hate from its textbooks — eventually.

Further, how does Supervisor Hyland know that he saw everything? And what about the material in Arabic?

What I Think is Going On

What the Wahabbists of Saudi Arabia are trying to do is infiltrate our societies and pull the wool over our eyes as to their true intentions. As the reedom House and the Institute for Gulf Studies shows, they are teaching their young people that "violence to spread Islam is...an obligation."

Walid Phares summed it up well in his 2005 book Future Jihad. He identified six methods, or tactics, that the Wahabbists use as part of their infiltration strategy

1) Economic jihad: Oil as a weapon - Because we need their oil, we collaborate with them. This give them the opening that they seek.

2) Ideological jihad: Intellectual penetration - The Wahabis have spend much time and money penetrating academia. Many if not most Middle East studies programs are funded by Saudi money. For their money the Saudis want and get a sanitized version of Islamic history.

3) Political jihad: Mollification of the public - One, reassure the public that there is nothing to worry about, and two, promote acceptance of Islam in general and their verison in particular. They want us to turn to their approved sources for information about Islam.

4) Intelligence jihad: Infiltration of the country - The first step is to control the Islamic community in the target country. They do this by trying to gain control of the mosques, Muslim community centers and the like. The next step is to encourage their members and sympathizers to join Western governments, intelligence agencies, police units, and military.

5) Subversive jihad: Behind enemy lines and protected by its laws - As long as they obey the laws of the target government, they are relatively safe. As Phares put it during an interview on NBC after 9-11: "The safest place on Earth to hide from the dragon is inside its belly."

6) Diplomatic jihad: Controlling foreign policy - "Arabists" in the US State Department have been a problem for some time. Because we listened to Saudi advice we became convinced that the Taliban weren't really so bad, we missed al Qaeda because they didn't want us to know the truth about how close OBL's philosophy was to Saudi Wahabism, we let Hezbollah take over Lebanon, and we stalled too long over Sudan and let a genocide develop.

What we have at the Saudi Islamic Academy and the controversy surrounding it are examples of 3, 4, and 5 in action.

Where are the Liberals?

Suppose we were talking about a school set up by apartheit-era South Africa. Can anyone doubt what the reaction of the left would be? Would anyone, right or left, accept assurances that whatever went on in the home country the material in a "South Africa Academy" school didn't teach racial bigotry?

Yet these are the people who lecture us daily on our own shortcomings, real and imagined. They're currently all up in arms over waterboarding, and would have anuerisms if they saw a Christmas scene on public property, yet most are utterly blind to the dangers of jihadism.

The Bush Administration Asleep

The Bush Administration, and traditional conservatives are equally to blame. Our relationship with Saudi Arabia is far too cozy.

This is the administration that says it's main foreigh policy goal is to promote democracy, yet also ignores the problem of Saudi Wahabbist infiltration.

What to do?

So let me say it outright: Saudi Arabia is our enemy.

A country can be our enemy and no, we don't have to attack them militarily. We can even trade with them and they can be our enemy.

But what we have to do is stop pretending like the Saudis are our friends. They need to sell us their oil as much as we need to buy it from them.

Here are a few quick policy suggestions:

1) Reduce our dependence on foreign oil. I wrote a long piece on this a few months ago, so won't repeat my arguments or recommendations here.

2) Start a human-rights campaign to expose abuses in Saudi Arabia and other similar Islamic states.

3) Set up a quid-pro-quo system in that if the Saudis want something from us they have to make an advance toward liberalism.

4) Shut down or limit as much as legally possible Saudi influence in the West. This should be done by shutting down the Saudi Islamic Academy and stopping Saudi funding of Middle East studies programs in academia.

5) Stop listening to Saudi advice on anything.

6) Fire or find a way to reduce the influence of "Arabists" and Saudi sympathizers in the State Department. The State Department seems to have it's own aganda much of the time, whereas in reality it is supposed to carry out the will of the president.

7) Fire Condi Rice. While I once, thought she held great promise, I'm done with her. Between our relationship with Saudi Arabia and her nutty insistance on another round of "peace talks" between Israel and the Palestinians I've had about enough.

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October 30, 2007

Hate in London Mosques: A Warning to the U.S.

If we don't keep our guard up we're going to have this here in the U.S. From the Times of London

Lessons In Hate Found At Leading Mosques

Books calling for the beheading of lapsed Muslims, ordering women to remain indoors and forbidding interfaith marriage are being sold inside some of Britain’s leading mosques, according to research seen by The Times.

Some of the fundamentalist works were found at the bookshop in the London Central mosque in Regent’s Park, which is funded by the Saudi regime and is regularly visited by government ministers. Its director, Ahmad al-Dubayan, is also a Saudi diplomat and was among those greeting King Abdullah when he arrived in Britain last night for his official state visit.

Extremist literature, including passages supporting the stoning of adulterers and waging violent jihad, was also found on sale at many other mosques regarded as mainstream institutions.

More than 80 books and pamphlets were collected during a year-long project in which researchers visited 100 mosques across Britain.

Read the whole thing but I think you get the point.

Melanie Phillips warned about this sort of thing in her 2006 book Londonistan, so no one should say they're really surprised.

Meanwhile, close to where I live we have an Saudi funded school, and some are worried about what they're teaching. From The Washington Times

Fairfax County officials are reviewing Arabic-language textbooks at a private Islamic school after a federal panel's recommendation that the school be closed.

The county does not expect to find problems with the textbooks at the Islamic Saudi Academy, in McLean, but wants to study the issue "to put the matter to rest," county spokeswoman Merni Fitzgerald said yesterday.

Earlier this month, a federal human rights panel recommended the academy be shut down until a review was conducted to ensure the school is not espousing radical Islam. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said in a report issued Oct. 17 that it had no direct evidence of a problem at the academy but is concerned that the school closely mimics a typical Saudi education, which some critics say promotes intolerance of Christians, Jews and Shi'ite Muslims.

The academy, subsidized by the Saudi government, has nearly 1,000 students in grades K-12 at two campuses, in Alexandria and Fairfax. The Alexandria site is leased from Fairfax County.

So the county "does not expect to find problems with the textbooks". Apparently they missed former Director of the CIA James Woolsey's November 16, 2005 testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, where he said that

On all points except allegiance to the Saudi state Wahhabi and al Qaeda beliefs are essentially the same.

You can't say it any more plainly than that, can you?

Fortunately some people in the U.S. are trying to spread the alarm. One of them is the invaluable David Horowitz. His Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week ran October 22-26, and he's got a complete report on his website FrontPage Magazine.

The week of October 22-26 witnessed the largest, most successful campus demonstrations by students not associated with the anti-American left in the history of campus protests. 114 college and university campuses participated in “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, which highlighted the threat from the Islamic jihad, and the oppression of Muslim women. It featured speakers such as former Senator Rick Santorum, Ann Coulter, Robert Spencer, Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager and Daniel Pipes, and was organized by the David Horowitz Freedom Center with the help of Young America’s Foundation and the Leadership Institute.

Do I have to tell you to read the whole thing?

We had better listen to people like Horowitz and his list of speakers, or it's going to be Washingtonistan DC before long.

Posted by Tom at 8:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 23, 2007

"Britain's Terrible Problem"

The invaluable Melanie Phillips has moved her blog (or "diary", as she calls it) to The Spectator. If you haven't already, bookmark it and make it part of your regular reading.

Phillips is best known for exposing the radical Islam that has so deeply permeated into Great Britain in her 2006 book Londonistan.

Her recent post Britain's Terrible Problem struck me as particularly important. We're all supposed to believe something along the lines of "the vast majority of Muslims are nice peaceful people and only a tiny minority are terrorists." Once again Phillips demonstrates that the pc emperor has no clothes:

More very alarming evidence indeed of the attitudes of ‘mainstream’ British Muslims. As the Telegraph reports, the Conservative Muslim Forum, a body set up by David Cameron to advise the Conservatives on Muslim issues and which is headed by Lord Sheikh, has condemned the government’s support for Israel on the grounds that this displeases Muslims and says that Iran has ‘legitimate’ reasons for wanting nuclear weapons. It also argues that preachers who advocate a rejection of democracy and its institutions should not be denied entry into Britain.

In the document, the group says:

Regardless of the foreign policies of the United States, hostility to Iran is not in Britain’s national interest. A constructive engagement with Iran offers many possibilities for progress.

But of course, this inverts the facts. Britain is not hostile to Iran; Iran has declared war upon Britain and the west. There can be no ‘constructive engagement’ with a country that is currently blowing up our soldiers in Iraq. For British citizens to state that although they oppose Iran getting nuclear weapons, it has legitimate reasons for wanting them when it is committed to the destruction of Israel and war against the west, is appalling.

Indeed, Iran declared war against the west some 38 years ago, it's just that many people have refused to recognize that fact. But then, many on the left don't believe that Iran is supplying weapons to the insurgents in Iraq at all. They think it's all an invention of the Patriarchal-Imperialist-Bush-Cheney-Halliburton-War-Machine, or however that one goes these days.

No, I am not saying we should bomb Iran now. We might need to at some point in the near future, but right now our efforts should be focused towards replacing the current regime with a truely democratic, pluralistic one.

Lest you think that it's all in Phillips' mind, and that we on the right are all making up this bit about Jihadist Islam being a threat, I'll just cut the the end of her post

...the MCB (Muslim Council of Britain) itself subscribes to the philosophy of Maulana Maududi, who along with Syed Qutb was one of the founding fathers of modern jihadi Islamism. Its spokesman, Inayat Bungalwala, has said he is committed to the Islamisation of Britain. Furthermore, it shelters under its umbrella many groups which are even more extreme.

Shocking as all this is, nothing in the document, alas, is surprising. These extremist attitudes are mainstream among British Muslims. The fact that they are regarded as ‘moderate’ — by a British political and educated class that in no small measure actually shares the animus expressed here towards Israel and America —is why Britain has such a terrible problem.

This document follows the recent pronouncement by the 138 Muslim religious leaders reported here which, although hailed as an olive branch to the Christian church, was actually a demonstrable threat. It is only when other Muslims come out and denounce these attitudes loud and clear for the treacherous, bigoted and lethal opinions that they are that we will have any hope that Britain’s Muslims will join the struggle against the jihad instead of fanning the flames of religious war.

Unfortunately, given the attitude of left-wing political correctness and multicularism that is so pervasive in the UK (where it's even worse than here in the U.S.) I wouldn't count on many people demanding these Muslim groups change their attitudes.

Update

Via LGF, Nile Gardiner at NRO has more on this Conservative Muslim Forum group. Apparently they were created by the British Conservative Party. Head over there and read all the gory details, such as the CMF's support of the current Iranian regime.

Maybe it really is the end of the world as we know it.

Posted by Tom at 8:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 18, 2007

Coming to a School Near You...Next

This post by Carol Iannone on the Phi Beta Con blog over at NRO is so good it's worth reprinting here in its entirety

A couple of weeks ago, the New York Post reported that the foot washing basins are coming to New York University.

The Muslims also have to wash their arms, ears, nostrils, faces, necks, and heads, so they may still need the sinks.

Here is a description of the washing before prayer from an Islamic website. (I've lost the link but there are numerous websites giving these instructions.) This is done five times a day every day:
— Before Wudu you make your intention. Then start with washing the hands as far as the wrists. You perform this 3 times.
— Rinse out the mouth with water using the right hand. You perform this 3 times.
— Wash the nostrils by sniffing up water and blowing it out. You perform this 3 times.
— Wash the face 3 times .
— Wash each arm up to the elbow. You perform this 3 times.
— Wipe or rub the head with the inside of the fingers. You perform this once.
— Clean the inside of the ears with the index fingers and the back of the ears with the thumbs. You perform this once.
— Wipe the back of the neck. You perform this once.
— Wash the feet up to the ankles. You perform this 3 times

Read on, it gets worse.

The website also says that there are special rules for situations where water is not readily available, but the example offered is the desert.

CAIR has published guides for employers, schools, prisons, hospitals, etc., on the special needs of Muslims that they say must be accommodated in these places. These pamphlets appear to be the source for a lot of what we're hearing of Muslim demands. For example, they insist that no Muslim should be expected to serve or sell alcohol. They do not say that Muslims should avoid taking jobs where alcohol is part of the work. On the washing business, they recommend using the sinks in restrooms for the ritual washing. In hospitals and nursing homes, aides should help Muslims who cannot perform the ritual washing by themselves. Students in public schools should be allowed to perform the ablutions and the prayers. In schools or the workplace, Muslims performing the prayers cannot be approached for any reason but an emergency and no one may walk in front of them. In public schools, they want qualified Islamic experts to be brought into the classrooms to explain Islam, and they call it an error to say that Allah is the Muslim God. He must be seen as the same God as of Judaism and Christianity, even though Islam calls Abraham a Muslim and says he nearly sacrificed Ishmael not Isaac, and the Muslim "Jesus" cannot be called the Son of God, did not die on the cross, and was not resurrected, all of which completely negates the entire Christian faith.

One wonders how this can be going on in public schools when the Supreme Court has ruled that even voluntary prayer is disallowed, when we have people mounting lawsuits to take "under God" out of the pledge and going into paroxysms of protest at the merest hint of God or Christianity in the public sphere. So much fear is focused on Muslims being violent that this kind of thing is being overlooked. People are grateful that they're just washing their feet instead of becoming suicide bombers. But it is proof that Muslims are not assimilating, that they expect America to accommodate them, and not vice versa, and that it is not just jihad but everyday ordinary Muslim practices that will present problems to America.

One recalls how the supporters of mass immigration always insist that new immigrants are assimilating just as immigrants did in the past, and how they call people racists, nativists, and xeonophobes for the mildest demurral. But it is obvious from reading the guides that Muslims are counting on their growing numbers to make more and more demands on society while the rest of us sputter in protest or sheepishly go along. They are not even willing to modify or adapt an intrusive practice that is inconsiderate and discourteous to the majority of people with whom they work and study who must use the resrooms for ordinary purposes. As for the idea of installing special foot basins, it is obviously an unwarranted public accommodation of religion, but because the Muslims' washing their feet in the sinks is so repellant (leading to "wet floors, dirty conditions," and "uncomfortable moments"), and because political correctness and the principle of non-discrimination has gone so far, and because of the practiced nonchalance of today in which everything is supposed to be accepted, no one protests. Not even those who would grow hot with rage at any public display of Christianity.

The CAIR guides also make plentiful use of the concept of "diversity." And Islamic spokesmen have learned to use the language of rights, pluralism, inclusiveness, in their debased multiculturalist meanings, to further their encroachments, such as demanding halal foods in public school lunchrooms. A spokesman on televison seemed to think that this is what America owes Muslims, that this is the promise of inclusiveness, tolerance, pluralism, etc., that there should be this much accommodation of Muslim demands. And of course no one is telling him otherwise. No one is telling him that if they want this level of religious observance, America allows them to create their own religious schools with their own money, not to renovate the public scools to fit their customs. Likewise, when it comes to serving or selling alcohol, no one is telling them that American freedom and prosperity means that Muslims do not have to take jobs that require dealing with alcohol.

But it's not just the Left to blame for this state of affairs. The Right with its claims of America as a "universal nation" is also to blame. Theodore Dalrymple writes about how Scotland and Italy are succumbing to sharia laws. Dalrymple lives in Europe so he doesn't see that it is also happening here, despite all the happy talk about Muslims in America assimilating better than in Europe.

I believe that Muslims would adapt if they met any resistance, but they see all this diffidence and fatuous servility toward them and so their only thought is to proceed with their sense of entitlement and make more demands. (A Muslim student at NYU did feel uncomfortable, which could be the basis for some kind of change in behavior: "Having other students 'just walking in and seeing us have our feet in the sink - it's awkward,' she added.")

The president has unfortunately led the way in this, albeit out of good intentions. He has gone so far into the "universalism" that he has come to believe that America stands for nothing but openness and inclusiveness, has no culture whatsoever, and exists only to accommodate every group that deigns to gift us with their presence in full multicultural fashion. Thus his annual White House iftar dinner celebrating Ramadan.

According to one article:

"President and Mrs. Bush host an iftar dinner every year because they want people around the world to know how much they respect Islam and the many Muslims living in the U.S. who are free to worship as they want, and are an integral part of our society," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House National Security Council.

Actually it sends the opposite message. Not that they are part of us, but that they are separate and require separate homage to their religion at the White House. Also, the dinner is meant to prove that Bush is not an enemy of Islam, but those who believe that are not going to be put off by the annual dinner. The dinner just encourages them to expect more servility and to look for other ways in which Muslims are not being specifically served or accommodated.

It is not really called for that an American president host White House dinners in honor of Islam in order to show Muslims that he respects them. The American Constitution respects them and he is supposed to uphold the Constitution. Actually, believe it or not, time was when we would expect the groups to show that they respect America, not that our president would have to make a display of showing his respect toward them. And of course the WH makes no mention of the fact that Muslims' being "free to worship as they want" is presenting a burden to others and is producing behavior that is entirely out of keeping with American standards of public comportment.

Furthermore, the president has accepted the Muslim view of God. Cal Thomas expresses dismay that Bush has professed on Al Arabiya television that the Muslim God is the same as the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus that we know from the Bible. Bush does this explicitly in the name of "universality," indicating that becoming universal means eventually losing what is most dear.

Ditto to everything Iannone says.

What insanity.

Posted by Tom at 8:33 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

September 27, 2007

From Muslim Foot-Baths to Muslim Smoking Rooms

This post by Mark Steyn over at The Corner highlights a situation that is sadly becoming all too typical

Okay, Muslim foot-baths in Kansas City airport, gender-segregated swimming sessions at French municipal pools, banning pork from Aussie hospital menus, no eating donuts for Belgian cops during Ramadan, no seeing-eye dogs or alcohol in Minneapolis taxi cabs, fine, fine, fine. Must be sensitive and all that.

But this is an amazing victory. In Vancouver, infidels can't smoke but Muslims can:

Vancouver's hookah-parlour owners are celebrating after winning an exemption Thursday from a proposed new bylaw that will ban smoking on most sidewalks in commercial districts, in bus shelters and even in taxis passing through Vancouver.

In giving the bylaw unanimous approval-in-principle, Vancouver city council members bowed to arguments that hookah lounges provide an important cultural space for the city's Muslims and granted them a temporary exemption...

[Emad Yacoub] said hookah lounges are essential for immigrants from hookah-smoking cultures, because it helps them deal with the depression common for newcomers and gives them places like they have at home.

Where do the rest of us go to deal with depression? As Jay Currie asks, "What about my culture?"

By creating a special exemption for Muslims - who do seem to be the only immigrant group actively demanding these sorts of “cultural accommodations” we are basically declaring our Muslim citizens worthy of special treatment and, at the same time, unworthy of the health concerns which are purported to be the basis of general smoking bans.

The state, in other words, is prepared to treat Muslims as free-born adults who can weigh the "cultural value" (ie, the pleasures) of smoking against the health risks. But not the rest of us.

Posted by Tom at 8:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 9, 2007

As Goes Spain...

Aaron Hanscom just got back from visiting relatives in Spain, and his impression of the outward appearance of the country matches what I saw in Britain, France, and Belgium: "The cathedrals were beautiful and the cheese was great."

Ditto that. Anyone who hasn't been to St Pauls, Westminster, or any of the cathedrals in France is seriously missing out. Alas, it's all a facade.

Alas, my prolonged stays in Spain have taught me that the continent’s impressive outward appearances—massive cathedrals, a strong euro, great cheese—obscure a hollowness at its core. The truth is that Europe’s churches are largely empty; its welfare economies are unsustainable; and—most troublingly— its restive Muslim minorities seem unappeasable.

Spain was under Islamic rule for 800 years, and many Muslims blame Spaniards for the loss of Al-Ándalus. Spanish politician and terrorism expert Gustavo de Arístegui has documented how there is already a policy underway to reconquer land and monuments that were once under the domain of Islam. In an interview with me last year, Arístegui said, “Spanish society today is not willing or ready to accept the threat we face.”

My conversations with Spaniards this month gave me reasons for hope and despair. While most people seem to be coming to the reluctant conclusion that radical Islamists pose a threat to their way of life (the first step in defeating radical Islam), they remain unsure how to fight back.

Consider the conversation I had with my wife’s uncle at my brother-in-law’s wedding. I was prepared to be cornered by Miguel, who always finds time at family reunions to bombard me with political commentary. A supporter of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español – PSOE), he has generally agreed with Prime Minister José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero’s policies of appeasement. You can imagine my surprise when he told me that he had recently joined over a million Spaniards in Madrid to protest the government’s early release from prison of ETA terrorist José Ignacio de Juana Chaos. He also agreed with me when I told him that Muslim immigrants to Europe should be expected to assimilate into their new culture, rather than reject a Western lifestyle.

But Miguel wasn’t prepared to call certain Western values superior to radical Islamic values. When I asked him if we could agree to condemn honor killings (a practice spreading across Europe), he said no. Even when I pointed to his three beautiful daughters and reminded him that forced female genital mutilation was regularly practiced in many Muslim countries, he shrugged as if to say “that’s just the way they do things over there.”

Anecdotal, you say. Perhaps, but anyone who doesn't have his head in some left-wing blog all day knows that Hanscom's story rings true. Via Melanie Philips we have this tidbit from the Daily Mail

Up to eight police officers and civilian staff are suspected of links to extremist groups including Al Qaeda. Some are even believed to have attended terror training camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Their names feature on a secret list of alleged radicals said to be working in the Metropolitan and other forces. The dossier was drawn up with the help of MI5 amid fears that individuals linked to Islamic extremism are taking advantage of police attempts to increase the proportion of ethnic staff.

Astonishingly, many of the alleged jihadists have not been sacked because - it is claimed - police do not have the "legal power" to dismiss them. We can also reveal that one suspected jihadist officer working in the South East has been allowed to keep his job despite being caught circulating Internet images of beheadings and roadside bombings in Iraq. He is said to have argued that he was trying to "enhance" debate about the war. Classified intelligence reports raising concerns about police staff's background cannot be used to justify their dismissal, sources said.

Instead, the staff who are under suspicion are unofficially barred from working in sensitive posts and are closely monitored. Political correctness is blamed for the decision not to sack them. It is widely feared that "long-term" Al Qaeda sleepers are trying to infiltrate other public sector organisations in the UK.

Wonderful.

Update

I forgot about this last night, but a much better example of how far Europe has it's collective head in the sand comes from none other than the new British PM himself, Gordon Brown.

Gordon Brown has banned ministers from using the word “Muslim” in ­connection with the ­terrorism crisis.

The Prime Minister has also instructed his team – including new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith – that the phrase “war on ­terror” is to be dropped.

The shake-up is part of a fresh attempt to improve community relations and avoid offending Muslims, adopting a more “consensual” tone than existed under Tony Blair.

How exactly does "war on terror" offend Muslims? The fact is that most terrorist acts are committed by groups that claim to act in the name of Islam. Ignoring the problem won't make it go away. The problem is that too many Muslims refuse to recognize or do anything about the extremism in their midst.

If you won't believe me perhaps you'll believe Safraz Mansoor, writing in the left-wing Guardian (h/t Melanie Philips)

As tempting as it is to say ‘not in my name’ when faced with the terrifying facts of Islamic radicalism, the uncomfortable truth is that those who perpetrate and support such extremism do so in the name of Islam. It is no longer enough for British Muslims to pretend it is someone else’s problem or to retreat into the usual ritual of bashing the media. Denial is no longer an option and British Muslims need to accept that the cancer of extremism affects their entire community. They also must utterly and without equivication denounce the use of violence. One might think this would be a relatively straightforward matter but in the past even a simple denunciation has been difficult to extract from the self-appointed community leaders who seek to speak for Muslims.

Read the rest of Philips' post, because she quotes several other Muslims saying essentialy the same thing in other British papers.

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April 2, 2007

The Third Islamic Invasion of Europe

Islam scholar Bernard Lewis gave the Irving Kristol lecture at the American Enterprise Institute March 7 (via Melaine Phillips). Among other things, Lewis talked about "a return among Muslims to what they perceive as the cosmic struggle for world domination between the two main faiths--Christianity and Islam. " He points out that among religions, Christianity and Islam claim to be universal, unlike Hinduism or Judaism. In other words, Christianity and Islam want to spread the word to all people. This perception, he says, led to the centuries long struggle between the two for world domination. He then points out that Christians no longer wish to conquer in the name of their faith, however, while Muslims do.

The Muslim attack on Christendom, he says, has gone through three phases.

The first took place immediately after the death of Muhammed in 632 A.D. when Islam spread throughout Northern Africa, into Spain, and for a brief time, modern France. It challenged Byzantium but was eventually stopped, whereby a stalemate ensued. Through the Crusades Christians managed to temporarily recapture the Holy Lands, but in the end this was reversed.

In phase 2 the Muslim world attacked in Asia and Eastern Europe. This was largely carried out by the Turks, and they defeated the Byzantine Empire and tried, with varying success, to expand their empire. The Europeans were able to eventually reverse much of the gains made by the Ottoman Turks.

This brings us to phase 3, which is ongoing.

Lewis spends some time on Islamic radicalism, but then comes to the issue of Muslims in Europe who have immigrated there

Let me turn to the question of assimilation, which is much discussed nowadays. How far is it possible for Muslim migrants who have settled in Europe, in North America, and elsewhere, to become part of those countries in which they settle, in the way that so many other waves of immigrants have done? I think there are several points which need to be made. ...

I mentioned earlier the important difference in what one means by religion. For Muslims, it covers a whole range of different things--marriage, divorce, and inheritance are the most obvious examples. Since antiquity in the Western world, the Christian world, these have been secular matters. The distinction of church and state, spiritual and temporal, lay and ecclesiastical is a Christian distinction which has no place in Islamic history and therefore is difficult to explain to Muslims, even in the present day. Until very recently they did not even have a vocabulary to express it. They have one now.

Lewis also points the differences between becoming an American citizen and a British or French one. If you get American citizenship you're an American. Gaining the same in Europe does not make you English or French.

But then we get to the heart of the matter

What are the European responses to this situation? In Europe, as in the United States, a frequent response is what is variously known as multiculturalism and political correctness. In the Muslim world there are no such inhibitions. They are very conscious of their identity. They know who they are and what they are and what they want, a quality which we seem to have lost to a very large extent. This is a source of strength in the one, of weakness in the other.

…
The Islamic radicals have even been able to find some allies in Europe… They have a left-wing appeal to the anti-U.S. elements in Europe, for whom they have so-to-speak replaced the Soviets. They have a right-wing appeal to the anti-Jewish elements in Europe, replacing the Axis. They have been able to win considerable support under both headings. For some in Europe, their hatreds apparently outweigh their loyalties.

…
Where do we stand now? Is it third time lucky? It is not impossible. They have certain clear advantages. They have fervor and conviction, which in most Western countries are either weak or lacking. They are self-assured of the rightness of their cause, whereas we spend most of our time in self-denigration and self-abasement. They have loyalty and discipline, and perhaps most important of all, they have demography, the combination of natural increase and migration producing major population changes, which could lead within the foreseeable future to significant majorities in at least some European cities or even countries. But we also have some advantages, the most important of which are knowledge and freedom.

Lewis isn't bombastic, and doesn't make his points in the same style as an editorial writer or TV pundit would do. But that doesn't lessen the impact of his words.

We'll see if our advantages overcome theirs. I'm not optimistic, given the plethora of stories like this one that was repoted in a London newspaper on Sunday

Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Governmentbacked study has revealed.

It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.
...

It found some teachers are dropping courses covering the Holocaust at the earliest opportunity over fears Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions in class.

Who is assimilating whom?

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December 11, 2006

Waking Up in the UK?

It's just possible that the British are finally getting it. After years of having their capital city lampooned as "Londonistan" for their sheltering of suspected and even known terrorists, some are recognizing the danger in their midst.

Last week Prime Minister Tony Blair gave a speech in which he - finally - seems to recognize that the excesses of multiculturalism have simply got to be reigned in. Here's the money quote

So it is not that we need to dispense with multicultural Britain. On the contrary we should continue celebrating it. But we need - in the face of the challenge to our values - to re-assert also the duty to integrate, to stress what we hold in common and to say: these are the shared boundaries within which we all are obliged to live, precisely in order to preserve our right to our own different faiths, races and creeds.

We must respect both our right to differ and the duty to express any difference in a way fully consistent with the values that bind us together.

So: how do we do this?

Partly we achieve it by talking openly about the problem. The very act of exploring its nature, debating and discussing it doesn't just get people thinking about the type of Britain we want for today's world; but it also eases the anxiety. It dispels any notion that it is forbidden territory. Failure to talk about it is not politically correct; it's just stupid.

Partly the answer lies in precisely defining our common values and making it clear that we expect all our citizens to conform to them. Obedience to the rule of law, to democratic decision-making about who governs us, to freedom from violence and discrimination are not optional for British citizens. They are what being British is about. Being British carries rights. It also carries duties. And those duties take clear precedence over any cultural or religious practice.

Ok, sure, this it tepid stuff. But in fairness, politicians must always tempter their words. If you read between the lines I think you'll agree that this is dynamite.

Of course, it's one thing to give a speech, quite another to put words into actions. We shall see. But it's a start.

There were two events, I believe, that hit Britons hard enough to wake them from their slumber. The first was the subway bombings of almost a year and a half ago. Blair addresses this in his speech

When I decided to make this speech about multiculturalism and integration, some people entirely reasonably said that integration or lack of it was not the problem. The 7/7 bombers were integrated at one level in terms of lifestyle and work. Others in many communities live lives very much separate and set in their own community and own culture, but are no threat to anyone.

But this is, in truth, not what I mean when I talk of integration. Integration, in this context, is not about culture or lifestyle. It is about values. It is about integrating at the point of shared, common unifying British values. It isn't about what defines us as people, but as citizens, the rights and duties that go with being a member of our society.

Bingo.

And what are these "unifying British values"? Blair defines them as "belief in democracy, the rule of law, tolerance, equal treatment for all, respect for this country and its shared heritage."

Again, so far so good. As for multiculturalism, he says that

The whole point is that multicultural Britain was never supposed to be a celebration of division; but of diversity. The purpose was to allow people to live harmoniously together, despite their difference; not to make their difference an encouragement to discord

.

I don't want to get into a big discussion on the whole business of diversity and multiculturalism, and there is some sillyness on these subjects in his speech, but I'll forgive him if he puts words into action.

Andrew Struttaford, writing at National Review, identifies the other incident that prompted this self-examination; the Muslim veil

It was, I feel certain, the first time that an article in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph ever triggered a national debate. In the article, written in October, its author, Jack Straw, the leader of the House of Commons and a former foreign secretary, disclosed that he asked any visitor who came to his office wearing a full Muslim veil to uncover her face when she spoke to him. Naturally, he only made this request if a female member of his staff was present. He’s a gentleman, you know. ...

If this wretched garment, in at least its more stringent forms, has more to do with misogyny than piety, so the hostility it provokes owes less to outraged feminism than to the mounting unease felt by many Europeans at the presence of the increasingly assertive and increasingly extremist Islam rising within their midst. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that there is something about the very appearance of the veil (and I am here referring to the burka and the only marginally less appalling nikab, a get-up that generously allows a clear view of the wearer’s eyes) that is alien, dehumanizing, and, in the context of Europe’s current troubles, thoroughly ominous. Little more than walking shrouds, these women seem like the harbingers both of future theocracy and the slaughter that comes in its wake.

I was cheered when this debate broke out. The full veil is certainly a tool of oppression, and it is among the wonders of the world why the self-styled "womens rights" types don't go ballistic over it.

To be sure, even if Blair is serious, and follows his fine words with action, it's still an uphill battle. The BBC most certainly does not get it. This BBC story is so unbelieveable it led David Frum to joke that Mark Steyn must have hacked their computers and posted a parody.

Sigh.

Posted by Tom at 8:51 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

November 15, 2006

Book Review - "America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It"

Just when I think that the future can't be much darker for us in our war on Islamic Jihadism, Mark Steyn comes along to ruin things for me.

Consider our current situation: Iraq is in the throws of massive sectarian violence and may slide into Rwandan-style slaughter, Afghanistan is not-at-all secure, Musharraf has virtually ceded large parts of his country to the Taliban and their allies, most of Somalia, including it's capital Mogadishu, is controlled by the Supreme Islamic Courts Council, an Islamist militia, and Iran appears to be well on the way towards obtaining nuclear weapons. Did I miss anything?

Actually, as Steyn points out in America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It, what I missed was the fact that the United States is now virtually alone in the world. Europe, he explains, is well on the road to being completely lost to the Jihadists.

On the surface, of course, it doesn't seem that way. Their leaders still mouth the traditional pieties, lamenting that "with only proper US leadership" and "less arrogance", why, we would all be together against the terrorists. Traditional institutions such as NATO and a European-dominated Security Council still prevail.

Further, it's tempting to think that of course we can't really lose to the likes of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Isn't Europe the rock of Western Civilization? Surely a continent that survived the Nazis, Communists, and other assorted fascists can take on a bunch of backward Islamic fanatics, right? I mean, maybe they'll get lucky with some terrorist acts, maybe even sneak a nuke into a city, but lose, as in foreign occupation? No way.

"Yes way" is Steyn's response.

Here is Steyn's argument in a nutshell; the populations of native Europeans are headed into steep decline. Not only that, but the radio of young to old people is rapidly declining. Over the past several decades they've set up an enormous welfare state which depends on lots of young people for old-age payments. European leaders, seeing that the young people simply won't be around when needed, have been encouraging massive immigration into their countries. These immigrants are overwhelmingly Muslim, and most have no desire to assimilate into European culture. Not only that, but, most or many of them plan on making Europe a Muslim continent, complete with Sharia law. Native Europeans, infected with leftist multiculturalism and a complete lack of a sense of nationhood, have no will to resist.

America, he says, will be alone in the world before we know it. In many ways we already are.

Combine a powerful argument with his world-famous Mark Steyn wit, and you've got a great book. It is at once deeply sobering and laugh-out-loud funny. Put it on your must-read list.

The Inexorable Power of Demography

In order for a population to maintain its existing numbers, there must be 2.1 live births per woman. More and it's numbers increase, less and they decline. The United States is at almost exactly 2.1. That our numbers are slightly increasing is due, of course, to immigration.

Europe as a whole is 1.38, Western Europe, 1.5 or less. A few country numbers: Germany and Austria 1.3, Italy 1.2, Sweden 1.64, Ireland 1.9, Spain and Greece 1.15. Russia has the lowest at 1.15, and France the highest at 1.89. On the other side of the globe, Japan is at 1.32, and while they'll have a benefits crisis, they don't have to contend with immigrants who want to change the very nature of their society.

All this leads to rapidly declining populations. The populations of Spain, Greece and Russia will start to halve every 35 or 40 years starting sometime mid-century. The population of Yemen will exceed that of Russia.

Besides the fact that the welfare-state will simply come crashing to the ground (it's a mathmatical certainty), no one knows what will happen economically when there are lots and lots of retired people relative to younger workers.

On the other hand, here are the birthrates in Islamic countries: Pakistan 5.03, Saudi Arabia 4.53, Iran 2.33 (though Ahmadinejad is trying to get it up), Afghanistan 6.69 and Yemen at 6.58

Calculators Don't Lie

Into all this come Muslim immigrants. Europeans want(ed?) them because of their labor and ability to fund their welfare states, and Muslims wanted to come because Europe is obviously a better place than, oh, say, Pakistan or Algeria.

Exactly how many Muslims are in Europe now is open to question, and the numbers are probably higher than advertised. However, most sources I checked conclude that about 5% of Western Europe is Muslim, with the total number being at around 23 million.

The Muslim birthrate in Europe is somewhere around 3.5 live births per woman.

The bottom line: Sometime towards the end of this century Western Europe will be majority Muslim. Get the picture?

Islam is Not Just a Religion

This is not the place for a full discussion of Islam, the law, and the nature of society. Suffice it to say that you just haven't been paying attention if you think that the difference between Westerners (whether Christian or not) and Muslims is trivial. We're not talking like the differences between Presbyterians and Mormons, or Jews and Hindus, for that matter.

The reality is that all Westerners, and Hindus too for that matter, live in countries that have been through or deeply influenced by the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment. This is why I'm not worried about the impact of Hispanics on American culture or society; fundamentally they're just like us.

Islam is another matter. There has never been an Islamic Martin Luther, much less a St Augustine or St Aquinas. I'd say Islam was stuck in the Middle Ages, but that would be an insult to Medieval Europe. I believe that Islam is reformable, it's just not on that path right now.

Radical Islam has exported itself to Europe. Melanie Phillips documented how bad the situation in the UK, who's capital was been dubbed "Londonistan" by French police officials. Islamism is an imperial project, says Steyn, and it's coming to a town near you.

It's not just the vast potential for terrorism that is the problem. Surveys show that up to 60% of these Muslims want Sharia law implimented in the European countries where they reside. Many or most of them have no wish to conform to Western standards, they want us to conform to them. Steyn, like any number of authors writing on this subject, provides example after example of demands that radical Muslims are making on their new countries; and time after time native Europe surrenders.

The problem is that the Muslim immigrants see the customs and law of Europe, and reject it. They see women who are free, and it offends them. They see that gays are allowed to live without being stoned to death, and it enrages them. They examine our legal system and believe it unjust because it is not based on Islam. They look at our democracy and seek ways to exploit it. They use our tradion of tolerance against us.

All Muslims? No. But enough Muslims? Yes. If there is a large group of "moderate Muslims" in Europe, it is a well-kept secret.

It's the Identity, Stupid

Population decline in and of itself would only be a economic problem; how to pay for all these benefits? A threat from radical Muslims would not be a problem in a culture and country that firmly believed in itself.

Add the two together, however, and you've got a disaster on your hands.

How Europe lost it's way is no great secret; two world wars, coupled with the threat of complete annihilation during the Cold War, prompted many to distrust or hate nationalism and put their faith in integration and international institutions. And it has, in this respect, worked; the idea of two major European countries going to war with each other is more remote than ever.

Sure, if the Islamists somehow cobbled together a traditional army and hit the beaches in Spain or Italy, Europe would rally to their defense. The problem, as Steyn points out, is that "the dragons are no longer on the edge of the map."

The reasons why Europe is not resisting are several. There is the lack of national identity that I mentioned earlier. There is also it's post-Christian state. Most Americans believe in God whether they go to church or synagogue or not. Most Europeans don't even believe in God. This results first of all in a lack of believing in anything, a lack of identity.

On top of that you've got leftist muliculturalism, which seeks to deny that any one culture or society is superior to any other.

All of this has led to a lack of identity. Islam is not only growing in Europe though immigration, but by conversion. Again, numbers are hard to come by, but there are all too-many news articles about the subject.

What Christian churches are left outside of Catholicism are in full-scale retreat. Most are desperate to retain whatever members they can, and believe that the best way to do so is to become like the society around them. This has led to a milquetoast version of their religion that is utterly unable to resist the threat that is all around them.

The funny part about it all is that if you had to invent an ideology that would be complete anathema to the liberal or leftist mindset, you couldn't do better than radical Islam. It's mysogenic, anti-gay, and theocratic. Yet to most leftists and indeed many liberals, the threat's simply not there. They'll tell you that the Islamists are just upset because we haven't solved the Palestinian-Israeli problem.

In the End

"Jihad can win", is Steyn's message. Although it may seem incredible to us to imagine the sort of changes that would forever change Europe, it is stability that is the illusion. Looking at the broad sweep of history, one realizes that not only do countries come and go, but peoples do to. Meet any Visigoths or Byzantines recently?

So yes, Europe as we know it can disappear. Before it does it will likely catch on as to what is happening, and we'll likely see mass