Ehsan Jami is an intelligent, softly-spoken 22 year-old council member for the Dutch Labour Party. He believes there should be no compromise, ever, on the rights of women and gay people and novelists and cartoonists. He became sick of hearing self-appointed Islamist organisations claiming to speak for him when they called for the banning of books and the “right” to abuse women. So he set up the Dutch Council of Ex-Muslims. Their manifesto called for secularism – and the end to the polite toleration of Islamist intolerance. As he put it: “We want people to be free to choose who they want to be and what they want to believe in.”
Ehsan was immediately threatened with death. He was kicked to the ground outside the supermarket. He was grabbed in a street with a knife put to his throat.
Many of the publications allegedly called on British Muslims to segregate themselves from non-Muslims and for unbelievers to be treated as second-class citizens wherever possible. The literature also allegedly contained repeated calls for gays to be thrown from mountains and tall buildings and for women to be subjugated.
collected were in English – raising questions about the emphasis placed by the Government in combating extremism by training more English-speaking imams.
Herouxville!
The daughters of immigrants have a slight income edge over those with Canadian-born parents, according to a new Statistics Canada report.
…
The study focused on second-generation Canadians born between 1967 and 1982, comparing their earnings with those of Canadian-born parents over two six-year periods between 1996 and 2004.
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=87d97e88-3664-4944-a759-dfd68ffb1c94
Wow – this new found concern for gays and women from the right is touching. Where was it during the SSM bruhaha when some a y’all were calling for killing gays?
Maybe the good folks of Herouxville should ban Real Women for their subjugating stance… Oh and all Christians too because we all know that Rev. Phelps speaks for all Christians when he speaks about gays.
Monkey Attacks: I have not followed Quebec politics for a while, but if they’ve upgraded to Monkey attacks then we are all doomed….
Nbob: is your post an example of a Monkey Attack? Because your logic seems about as solid as one.
If you are going to post such nonsense, at least make it funny like mine….
The myth of multiculturalism is shown to be intolerance and prejudice. It’s a jar of kosher peanut butter. Multiculty is touted by the left-liberal/socialists as the Cure for prejudice and intolerance. Wrong.
Prejudice is an inherent human trait; to try to suppress prejudice leads to the intolerance/prejudice of the multicultural elites. Charest chokes on crow … caw … caw …
Multiculturalism is dead. Bury the carcass in PET’s Cemetery to the left of Bilingualism and Kyoto.
Man tossed from accommodation hearings
Kevin Dougherty, Gazette Quebec Bureau
Published: Monday, October 29
QUEBEC – A man was tossed out of hearings on reasonable accommodations of minorities Monday night after he made sweeping accusations that commission co-chairperson Gerard Bouchard branded “anti-Semitic” and “unacceptable.” …-
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=aa028c40-5154-456b-b23e-6a1a76926e5f&k=22777
Premier [Charest of Quebec] pens letter decrying intolerance
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=1b8fc856-ec8b-48c3-85f1-93d42e6bc2e2&k=73929
No kidding. I’m driving around on Saturday, I flick on AM 640, and it’s Arlene Bynon. She’s got on a Muslim woman who’s produced a new translation of the Koran, and she’s changed the part where men can beat their wives – they now should just leave them alone.
I’m thinking “it’s a start, but if you want to start whitewashing that book you’ve got a mountain ahead of you.” Still, any bit of progress is welcome I suppose.
Bynon only has 2 callers: one’s a young white dude who doesn’t surprise me with his mild hostility to her changing the words in a book that admittedly he doesn’t know very much about. The second is a young woman named Aisha, who says Muslims don’t need no stinkin’ changes to their book, ‘cause they should be living the life of Mo.
Of course Bynon should have asked if that extended to girls marry at 6 and being de-flowered at 9, especially given the caller’s name, but that of course never happened.
Sunday, it’s Bynon again, and she’s got one of the Herouxville councilors on. She’s asking him if he foresaw how controversial their published rules would be, and how infamous he and his town would be “all around the world!”
To his credit he stays calm and keeps stating that it’s simply a matter of common sense.
Bynon counters with Canada being a multicultural country. She can’t seem to grasp that Quebec hasn’t bought into multiculturalism, which is a recipe for destroying the existing culture. Quebec knows that – if the ROC wants to turns itself upside down that’s up to them, but Quebec is too smart for that.
Sure thing Nbob. Whereas the disdain for individual rights from the Left is entirely expected and not in any way surprising.
Don’t you ever get tired of carrying water for Islamic fascists? I’m sick of ’em, myself.
I don’t remember calling for the killing of gays… anyone else? Anyone?
**crickets**
RG
Below is shown the end result of multiculturalism in Britain.
Multiculturalism in Canada is dead.
The Canadian elites have lost the war. Kudos to the people of Herouxville.
…-
Telegraph | Immigration underestimated by 300,000
The Government has apologised after admitting it underestimated the number of immigrant workers in Britain by almost a quarter.
[…]
Telegraph | ‘Hate literature easily found at UK mosques’
Extremist literature that encourages hatred of gays, Christians and Jews can be easily found at many of Britain’s mosques, according to a new survey.
[…]
* Daily Mail | Agenda of hate in British mosques is linked to Saudis
I think that this clash is inevitable, given that the Islamic religion is primarily found in tribal political systems. For a people operating in this mode, meeting up with the freedoms of a civic and industrial society can be quite a shock – and vice versa.
It will take time for the Islamic perspective to modernize but above all, the West has to reject its first attempt at dealing with ME immigration – which was multiculturalism. Multiculturalism, as a policy, was a ‘hands off’ tactic, naively suggesting that an immigrant group living in an incompatible non-industrial worldview could work alongside of and with, an industrial worldview.
It can’t; and the West has to refuse to accomodate; it has to refuse to weaken its long fought for rules of democracy and a civic society. Over time, Islam has to, and will, adapt, but the West must not weaken.
*
“BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Angela Merkel has joined a growing movement
to criminalize forced marriages in Germany, which is growing less tolerant
of practices among Muslim immigrants that clash with the nation’s liberal
social values.”
“Forced marriages are generally imposed by young women’s families to
keep them from dating. Prosecution is rare and must take place under
assault laws that also outlaw threats and coercion.”
*
Hey RightGirl, don’t you know that verbally objecting to same sex marriage is morally the same as hanging closet queens from street lamps with bits of wire? That’s how they do it in Tehran, and I guess Nbob is ok with it.
I think moral equivalence should be listed as a mental disorder in the DSM. It make you incapable of being able to discern the difference between bad behavior and normal cultural differences.
Like, celebrating Ramadan instead of Christmas, that’s a normal cultural difference. Objecting to me celebrating Christmas because you celebrate Ramadan (or the reverse), that’s bad behavior worthy of verbal criticism.
Threatening “apostates” with death, beating your wife for showing her nose to a White Man at the voting booth, rape, and distributing hate literature against the country you’ve immigrated to, I’m pretty sure that stuff’s illegal. Laws, y’know.
Didn’t we deport Ernst Zundel back to Germany for just the hate literature? He didn’t even hang or beat anybody as I recall.
It’s ok Lefties, just colour in a picture of a nice pony and the mean Righties won’t bother you so much.
*
“nboob whines… Where was it during the SSM bruhaha
when some a y’all were calling for killing gays?”
yeah, that’s what we were all asking for… mass executions…
probably by those soldiers… with guns… in our streets.
tell it to your, uh… life partner.
*
Hey RightGirl, don’t you know that verbally objecting to same sex marriage is morally the same as hanging closet queens from street lamps with bits of wire? That’s how they do it in Tehran, and I guess Nbob is ok with it.
I think moral equivalence should be listed as a mental disorder in the DSM. It make you incapable of being able to discern the difference between bad behavior and normal cultural differences.
Like, celebrating Ramadan instead of Christmas, that’s a normal cultural difference. Objecting to me celebrating Christmas because you celebrate Ramadan (or the reverse), that’s bad behavior worthy of verbal criticism.
Threatening “apostates” with death, beating your wife for showing her nose to a White Man at the voting booth, distributing hate literature, I’m pretty sure that stuff’s illegal. Laws, y’know.
Didn’t we deport Ernst Zundel back to Germany for just the hate literature? He didn’t even hang or beat anybody as I recall, just said what Ahmadinnerjacket said about the Holocaust the other day. Pretty much word for word too.
It’s ok Lefties, just colour in a picture of a nice pony and the mean Righties won’t bother you so much.
So, in the eyes of idiotic moonbats, if one does not agree with two homos marrying, that must mean we want to kill them all? How friggin moronic is that? Guess what leftards. We are allowed to disagree with your “progressive” agenda. It does not make us killers of homos(your beloved islamonutbars are taking care of that), it just means that we do not agree with you. So take your leftist garbage, and stick it up your a$$.
kingston
Tis the tactics of the secular progressives.
Change traditional definitions of language to suit political purposes.
Gay used to mean a sense of joy. Now?
I never had sex with that woman, Monica Lewisky. Clinton was a master of shading meanings.
Marriage used to define a partnership which recognized the potential of creating children and defined responsibilities of raising children. At the very least, it was a social construct which assured women would have the help of a father in raising a living child she had carried inside her for nine months.
When a same-sex couple can produce children as a natural outcome of their physical act, I will lead the parade to rename their relationship ‘marriage.’
Until that is scientifically proven, the traditional definition of marriage will remain the most valid.
I have the National Post. Monday, Oct. 29th,2007.
(page A5). Journalist Allison Hanes. Ok…. Informative work for readers. No quarrel here.
However there is a picture. Credited to John Kenney/Canwest. Two actors are shown, strutting their stuff at “a day long public forum”. On the left is a figure of a man. He has a plaid car coat, set off by a roughly tied long scarf- with tassles. A sort of toque is pulled over his ear.
On the right is a woman. Black coat and a blue head scarf. I do not know what the discourse is about. More sneers at the average rural Quebecer, no doubt. In the background is Charles Taylor of the Bouchard-Taylor commission. Mr Taylor is stated as “laughs” while listening to the actors.
My heavens. How the intellectual will perfect his photo-op laugh. He is breaking up and shows a set of molars. Something to see indeed. Still, better than the shorts in a knot, hysteria by some of Canada’s media.
Just for the record, it’s possible to be against cultural relativism/tribalism and for same-sex marriage, while at the same time acknowledging that being against same-sex marriage does not necessarily equal hating gays in any way, shape or form (often it’s just a policy disagreement, which is quite healthy in a democracy, though it would be foolish to think NONE of the non-Muslims (often, though not always Christians) against same-sex marriage are motivated by a religious worldview which sees gays as an abomination)… I’m living proof. If you starve trolls they tend to wander off…
I’m ashamed to admit that I was so bored the other night that I caught an item on CBC (my Washington State-based cable company picks up free? feeds) on Herouxville. Aside from the good people of town presenting a great model for standing up to the consequences of multi-culti re Islam. The real story (refresher, actually) was the pain it caused the so-called reporter who is a classic arrogant elitist sleazeball in terms of forcing his left-lib bias into the coverage. When he tried to marginalize the townsfolk by saying how they were in the minority, the response was that they had been bombarded with supportive e-mails from Western Canada.
On Holland: They got too Liberal, let em in, now they have to live (or die) with them.
On The Telegraph UK: They got too Liberal, let em in, now they have to live (or die) with them.
On The Canadian Media – Herouxville: It would appear these wise folks have learned from the mistakes of the previous two.
The most misunderstood people in Canada are the folks of Herouxville. What really happned is that the town council, under mayor Andre Drouin, released a “decree” that stated that if you wanted to live in Herouxville, there were certain ethnic habits that you had to be prepared to give up. Keep in mind that the original decree was written in French; It’s very easy to twist words and meanings as well as intentions when translating from one language to the other.
I would suggest that you get a copy of the document from reliable source. You might be surprised at how “realistic” some of their suggestions really are!
The worm is turning. The leftist smoke screens are dissipating. And the taqiyya, kitman and abrogation deceptions are being exposed. The blowback is coming.
The problem is Islam. The violence that is foundational in its war manual, the Quran, and the violence in the sunnah of its founder, Mo.
The problem is not race. It is not the Crusades. It is not other religions. It is not western imperialism. It is not Iraq, or Afghanistan. It is not Israel. It is not left, or right.
It is ideological. Islam has its own law that is superior to western law, because it was uncreated and handed down directly from allah, not men. In Islam, forget about separation of church and state. The church is the state. While you’re at it forget about democracy, individuality, human rights and freedom of any kind. Oh, and forget about technology, art, music and literature.
There is no rational defence for the supremacist, imperialist, political and military ideology of Islam, as it currently exists.
The laws the west has pertaining to the protection of religion were fine for a time, until wide spread Islamic immigration came along. Not to mention Wahhabiist, Saudi funding.
With Islam the west needs specific religious laws pertaining to Islam. Not to protect Islam from the people, but to protect the people and our culture from Islam.
“Ehsan was immediately threatened with death. He was kicked to the ground outside the supermarket. He was grabbed in a street with a knife put to his throat.”
Says it all.
It’s not up to the west to accept Islam’s tendency to produce violent meglomaniacs.
It’s up to people within the Muslim faith to demonstrate how much damage their time-warped fellow travellers are doing.
The Old Testament is not without violent chronicle, but most human beings have accepted that particular book was a historical chronicle of the Jewish peoples.
Trouble is, there are some Muslims who want to re-enact the expolits of Murderin’ Mo as chronicled in the Qur’an in the context of a much different world today.
ET wrote, ” . . . the West has to refuse to accommodate; it has to refuse to weaken its long fought for rules of democracy and a civic society. Over time, Islam has to, and will, adapt, but the West must not weaken”.
But, ET, it already has, big time.
G.K. Chesterton wrote, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” Aristotle said, “Nature abhors a vacuum.”
In the 21st century West, the “something” and the “vacuum” are one and the same. And what would that be? It would be the Judeo-Christian dispensation with its understanding of the inestimable worth of the individual, justice, and mercy, the cornerstone on which both Western democracy and jurisprudence—until the Charter—have stood. (That’s why we’re now in big trouble.)
Although non-believers, like John Mortimer and Theodore Dalrymple (and, I believe, Me No Dhimmi), are more than willing to give credit where credit is due—to the Judeo-Christian backbone and ordering of a just society—I know that ET and many others here will equivocate. (Their unwillingness to acknowledge inconvenient truth vastly diminishes their argument.)
And what has filled the vacuum? Moral relativism and multiculturalism.
ET, I agree with you that the West “must [sic] not weaken”. But, IT HAS! So, the genies of moral relativism and multiculturalism—allowed to roam free, on the public wreck of the West’s Judeo-Christian heritage and Christian practice, in which I’ll include the exercise of democratic institutions—need to be put back into the bottle.
However, with the very belief system, that protected us from these genies, now dismantled, ridiculed, and those who adhere to it subject to severe state sanction, just how do you think this will happen?
Islamic religion is primarily found in tribal political systems. For a people operating in this mode, meeting up with the freedoms of a civic and industrial society
OK, but again I must concur with irwin daisy — that it’s the Islam not the tribalism. ET consistently underplays the Islam in my view.
We need a refined definition of religion I think. A “religion” that calls for the overthrow of our liberal democratic order and its replacement with sharia law can’t be afforded the protection of religious freedom. We need to become more muscular here — more creative in our lawmaking. We NEED to monitor the mosques (and the churches and synagogues of course out of PC sensitivity).
Can’t we end Saudi financing of mosques. Make imam welfare impossible. I mean, if we can have laws restricting foreign ownership of corporations (laws I don’t agree with btw) surely we can END Saudi financing of mosques, END Saudi “gifts” to departments of Middle East studies in our universities. And END family re-unification as a valid ground for immigration. And END immigration from obviously hostile countries like Pakistan.
lookout – of course I disagree that it is the Judeo-Christian perspective that has focused the West.
I think it’s the focus on the prime role of reason, on the work and thought of the individual, along with an insistence on empirical and theoretical objectivity and an ethics based on these values. And these are found in ancient Greece and Rome – Read Aristotle and Plato; read Cicero. Then, there is the rise of the civic nation, directly related to the rise of a market rather than peasant agriculturalism.
As for the West and Islam, I also disagree that the situation is beyond repair – as you seem to suggest. I think that the rise of criticism of multiculturalism, a critique that would have been unacceptable ten, even five, years ago, is indicative of the strength of the West. The rise in rejecting unreasonable accomodation – and insisting that there IS such a thing as ‘unreasonable accomodation’ to Islam – is another indictator.
So- all is not lost. Yes, the utopian leftists, Cloud Dwellers all of them, remain drifting along in their safe fog of isolation. We will always have Cloud Dwellers in a society; those who can only live within the security of the seminar and rhetoric. But, we also have pragmatic realists – and more and more, these people are speaking out against utopian nonsense. That’s happening both within the Muslim world, and within previously diehard multiculturalists.
So- I’m more positive about the future than you are.
me no dhimmi – Of course I ground the ideology (aka the religion) within the economic base. An ideology doesn’t float around on its own; it is grounded in hard core reality. The Islamic religion, as I’ve said before, emerged within and is grounded within a tribal economy and a tribal political infrastructure. That’s obvious from both knowing the economic and political history of the early centuries of the ME, and, reading the actual Islamic texts.
So, if the economy changes, ie, from a peasant agriculture to an industrial mode, the ideology of ‘how to live’ must also change. That’s basic common sense. The economic mode will always change first; the ideology is far harder to change and changes after. I disagree with irwin daisy’s superficial view, ie, that the ideology (religion) exists ‘floating’ and unrelated to the economic/political infrastructure.
me no dhimmi, I agree that it would be extremely constructive to end Saudi supporting of mosques. But exactly how this would be achieved is beyond my imagination; the funds can be laundered in a million ways. But, I think that a non-Muslim nation should be very public about rejecting SA funding of religious systems in its political domain. And very public about rejecting teaching hate.
No, we can’t stop foreign takeovers of our industries. After all, we do the same in other countries. And, since Canada hasn’t developed an investor class, by taxing everyone down to one level of ‘wealth’ (middle class) we rely on foreign capital to even put up and run industries in Canada.
No, you can’t end family re-unification as an immigration value, nor can you close off immigration from certain countries, for that moves to stereotyping and means that people who might want to flee repression (eg in Pakistan), are unable to do so.
A new blog worth visiting: kafircanada.blogspot.com
“the West has to refuse to accommodate; it has to refuse to weaken its long fought for rules of democracy and a civic society.”
Agreed. However, how do you, ET, propose we do that?
“Over time, Islam has to, and will, adapt, but the West must not weaken.”
How and why, exactly, will Islam adapt, especially as Lookout pointed out, that the west is already accommodating the outright cultural separation, supremacy and intolerance that is Islam?
Half the answer is in getting the question right. Is the problem backward tribalism? Is the problem terror? Or, is the problem Islam?
I think the world is finding out.
“I disagree with irwin daisy’s superficial view, ie, that the ideology (religion) exists ‘floating’ and unrelated to the economic/political infrastructure.”
ET, you may consider yourself Conservative, but you certainly are a master of leftist debating tactics.
As I recall, I gave you a simple premise based on fact that you could not disprove. That is, once again, that violence is foundational to Islam.
Others have established this fact (and I agree) and it has not been disproven. Therefore the problem is the ideology of Islam, including its text and the life of its founder.
Since you cannot argue against this fact, you have resorted to ad hominem attacks and putting words in my mouth, in an attempt to discredit me. The most ardent leftists could learn a lesson from you.
The above quote from your post proves this once again. I never said and do not believe that that “the ideology (religion) exists ‘floating’ and unrelated to the economic/political infrastructure.”
I have only said what I have said.
Did you ever think that maybe posts like this contribute to a rift and perceived barriers of division between Muslims and non-Muslims?
irwin daisy – I repeat my point; you never consider the economic and political infrastructure. Your focus is only on the ideology.
My point is that the ideology rests WITHIN the economic and political infrastructure. When that changes, the ideology must also change. You focus only on the ideology and totally ignore that it is rooted within a deeper infrastructure.
So, when tribalism as an economic and political infrastructure is no longer functional – as is the case now – the ideology (Islam) must change. You refuse to admit that it can change.
The situation now, with the emergence of Islamic fascism, is an internal fight in Islam, when the deep infrastructure is changing (from tribal to civic, from peasant agriculture to industrial) and the ideological superstructure is resisting a concomitant change. This is always the case; the ideological superstructure is always the most resistant to change.
But, your focus is only on this ideological superstructure; you ignore the economic and political base in which it operates.
No, Steve.
The ‘barriers and division between Muslims and non-Muslims’ is called the Quran, the Hadiths and Shariah. You should look into it sometime, since its been going on for around 1400 years or so, now.
ET,
The ideology created the economic and political infrastructure. Why do you think they are called Islamic States with Islamic financial systems and Shariah?
I do not refuse to admit it can change. However, in order to do so, as I’ve stated countless times before, it must edit out the calls and rewards for perpetual violence against non-Muslims. It must rid itself of Shariah. And it must rid itself of the perfect man to emulate, Mohammad.
I’m not holding my breath though.
If the ideology is not changed. Nothing will change. Otherwise, how can seemingly peaceful, moderate Muslim parents give birth to radical terrorists in the west? Kids who are born into everything the west has to offer, yet choose the instruction of foundational, allah approved violence, that is Islam?
The radical terrorist interpretations of the Quran and precise following of Mo’s life have not been proven wrong, because they are not wrong.
For those who wish to split hairs over Islam and tribalism…
Tribalism is incompatible with modern society… period.
This is why NO tribal society has EVER progressed into a technological/industrial or even an efficient agrarian society.
Islam is simply a belief system that is designed to exploit the tribal society.
This makes it doubly incompatible with ours!
“Did you ever think that maybe posts like this contribute to a rift and perceived barriers of division between Muslims and non-Muslims?”
Sure. And The Weather Network makes it rain.
Steve’s not getting the “verbal disagreement is not the same as hanging queers” thing. More relativism.
I’m telling you, its a freakin’ mental disorder. You Lefties should be paying me for this stuff, it’ll cost you a hundred bucks an hour at the shrinker.
The ‘barriers and division between Muslims and non-Muslims’ is called the Quran, the Hadiths and Shariah…..
Posted by: irwin daisy
All together now: AMEN!
Irwin:
I am no fan of Islam; in fact I believe you are right in that it is the religion/ideology that is the problem. But you are quite simply wrong in your statement that the ideology created the economics/political infrastructure. Any student of Arabian history can tell you that tribalism/pastoralism existed well before Islam; back when Arabia was predominantly pagan/Jewish/Christian.
On that point, most people don’t know shiite about Arabian Pre-Islamic history. Islam has successfully imposed it’s own revisionist history of the Middle and Near East on even Western curriculae, such that the ‘Crusades’ are now understood to be Christian adventurism in ‘foreign’ lands, not the feeble counter-attacks on ferocious Imperial Islam that they really were.
Religion is Bull>?>M
No, irwin daisy, an ideology does not and cannot exist ‘as an ideology’. In such a case, it is simply a superficial philosophical speculation found only in the seminar rooms.
An ideology, to exist as a belief system, not a rhetorical argument, emerges and is grounded in an economic and political base. As I have pointed out previously, and as ‘evilprinceweasel’ comments, the pre-Islamic population was politically and economically tribal, operating within pastoral nomadism.
Islam, as I’ve maintained, emerged in the 7th c to defend that land base and economy in response to the Roman/Christian expansion of settled agriculturalism in the ME.
It will, as an ideology, have to change. As others have noted, tribalism is incompatible with a modern industrial society, and an ideology that operates within and promotes a tribal political, economic and familial system, can’t function as a modern society.
Islamic fascism, aka fundamentalism and terrorism, is a sign of the tension created when the two levels: the basic economic/political level and the ideological level – are ‘out of sync’. Moving the tension back into the ME, which is what the US has done, moves it right back to where the system has to be changed.
I happen to have a more positive view than you; I think that Islam will change, Islamic fascism will dissolve, BUT – the West must refuse to accomodate Islamic fundamentalism, must refuse to accept the relativism of multiculturalism, and must stand by its own civic society and the rule of reason.
There are enough Muslims of the first and second generation living in NA and Europe to get a generalized picture as to how willing Muslims are in adapting their religion to their new environment.
So far we have poll after poll in various western countries unmasking a too large to be ignored minority that subscribe to Islamic intolerances and would find nothing wrong with sharia laws being imposed. We’ve seen since 9/11 and the numerous atrocites following no public march or full page ad against the terrorist elements in Islam here or in Europe.
Visiting David Horowitz’s site, his Islamofascist Awareness Week was met with disruptive and hostile Muslims on campus after campus. Confronted, they never own up. On blogs and with call-ins to radio talk shows are the predictable whiney Muslims who refute any criticism of Islam. The disingenuous comments from Muslims in this article about hate spewing British mosques is an example. If the majority of peace loving Muslims have had their mouths nailed shut for whatever reason, so what. It’s well beyond the point where they matter.
It’s pretty obvious that a lot of Muslims are economic opportunists in the west, indifferent to the western values they’ve happened upon. I suspect that a large percentage wouldn’t shed a tear or feel guilt if 6 million Israelis was annihilated tomorrow by an Iranian bomb. That’s the same savage attitude that we at the point of a gun demanded Nazi Germany give up.
How can you change when you refuse to admit a problem? And, if, a big if, Islam ever reforms itself it’s going to only happen after a whole lot more carnage is visited upon us.
No, you can’t end family re-unification as an immigration value, nor can you close off immigration from certain countries, for that moves to stereotyping and means that people who might want to flee repression (eg in Pakistan), are unable to do so.
ET, this is simply false; family re-unification is a relatively modern phenomenon. You certainly CAN stop family re-unification! A proper immigration system is unapologetically muscularly self-interested — selecting people who are best suited to Canada’s needs.
AND, I simply don’t care about Pakistanis “fleeing repression”. This is not my/our problem. Moreoever, we simply lack the ability – the astuteness, the incisiveness, the street-smartness — to make the determiniation about who is “fleeing repression” and who is faking.
penny: A Tribute! Does anyone nail it more consistently and more economically than penny?!?
Did you ever think that maybe posts like this contribute to a rift and perceived barriers of division between Muslims and non-Muslims?
Posted by: steve
No, that’s for insincere appologists of facism.
Posts like this contribute to an understanding of the rift between Muslims and non-Muslims?
eg. “Love Thy Neighbour” opens up a can of rift on “Death To The Infidel”
ET: “lookout – of course I disagree that it is the Judeo-Christian perspective [sic] that has focused the West.
“I think it’s the focus on the prime role of reason, on the work and thought of the individual, along with an insistence on empirical and theoretical objectivity and an ethics based on these values.” (This value system sounds pretty Judeo-Christian to me!)
Reason, individualism, “empirical and theoretical objectivity and an ethics based on these values” don’t just float around in the air, caught by individuals here and there, once in a while: these goods didn’t do that either when the West was forming. As we are corporeal beings, our aspirations have to be channelled into corporeal entities. I contend—and am hardly saying anything novel or eccentric—that these values and virtues were, indeed, focused in and promoted by the Christian INSTITUTIONS of the West. If not, please explain how the values you and I agree on happened to be passed on to millions of people in a multitude of countries for centuries. (Your refusal to acknowledge the foundational reality of Christian institutions to the formation and nurture of the West is utter nonsense and, as I’ve said, seriously erodes your credibility.)
And, now that the Judeo-Christian basis of our institutions has been dismantled, notice the disintegration of our institutions themselves: this is no coincidence, ET.
ET also says, “I think that Islam will change, Islamic fascism will dissolve, BUT – the West must refuse to accomodate [accommodate] Islamic fundamentalism, must refuse to accept the relativism of multiculturalism, and must stand by its own civic society and the rule of reason.”
It must, must it? Just saying it—mere assertion—doesn’t make it happen. Have you noticed, ET, that the unmoored-from-its-roots West’s refusal to accommodate many of the imperatives of the Muslims hasn’t happened yet? Check out the surrender monkey appeasements of all kinds in Western institutions all over the world. Disgraceful. And we don’t have all the time in the world. The clock is ticking. Unless some very serious things are done very soon, it’ll be too late.
And, as I’ve said, with the Judeo-Christian BELIEF SYSTEM (which includes all kinds of people who are non-observant in a religious sense), that protected us from the relativism of multiculturalism, now dismantled, ridiculed, and those who adhere to it subject to severe state sanction, just how will the West have the cohesion of thought and purpose and the cojones to reassert its own heritage—Judeo-Christian, BTW—and reject those cultures inimical to it?
Instead of all the generalities we’ve heard over and over again, please provide the specific, practical remedies that you think will return the multicultural, relativistic genie to his bottle. Please include how the West will, as I said above “have the cohesion of thought and purpose and the cojones to reassert its own heritage”.
Actually, ET’s response to me earlier reminds me of a young (about 10), entitled, and rude Canadian student in hijab I recently encountered: I said, “Are you as rude at home as you are to me?” (If reported, a teacher could be reprimanded or disciplined for being so blunt!)
Her saucy reply? “Of course not!”
Right. (I’m considering how to put that genie back in the bottle. As I’ve said, time’s short.)
lookout: Thought of you yesterday when I read this excellent, beautiful essay.
What the New Atheists Don’t See
By Theodore Dalrymple
Autumn 2007
w3.city-journal.org/html/17_4_oh_to_be.html
As mentioned earlier while I am not a believer myself I believe in the value of belief! Which is what I think he’s saying here.
Many thanks, Me No Dhimmi! I LOVE Theodore Dalrymple and have just forwarded two of his City Journal essays on crime to some bimbo, anti-Conservative Crime Bill journalist.
I’m going to check out this essay pronto, MND. (I suggest that ET do the same.)
Theodore Dalrymple is the pseudonym of Anthony Daniels, a British psychiatrist, who, among others, worked with criminals and many of their “baby mothers” while in the employ of the National Health Service: like teachers, he’s been in the trenches and has experienced, first hand, the erosion of our beliefs and standards and the consequent wreck of most of our once fine institutions.
His essays at City Journal are masterpieces of non-PC clear, succinct observation, erudition, guts, and wit. I don’t have it yet, but MND’s message has spurred me on: I’m going to be sure to get Dalrymple’s latest book, “Our Culture, What’s Left of It”. Even though the subject matter of his articles is certainly gloomy, his sharp prose and analysis always leave me feeling uplifted.
I recommend the writings of Theodore Dalrymple to everyone here. Do yourselves—well, not the trolls—a favour!
no, lookout, I don’t accept your view that the ideological base of reason, a focus on objective reality, the individual, ethics, etc – originated within the judeo-christian ideology. I contend they are Greek-Roman and I suggested that you read Aristotle, Plato and Cicero. For a start.
I also disagree that the West has abdicated its commitment to these values. You have only to be aware of the voicing of opposition to multiculturalism in Europe, in America and in Canada – an opposition that even five years ago, wouldn’t be heard. There’s opposition, not only in blogs – and I consider blogs vitally important in this action, but opposition in the MSM. And, in the political venue (Netherlands, France, US, Canada).
And, as I’ve said before, there’s a growing acceptance in the Muslim world that they must change; I’ve mentioned some journals and articles before.
So, you may have a gloomy view of the future; I don’t. Mankind has struggled through many dilemmas and will continue to do so. I happen to think we’ve reached a critical threshold with regard to Islamic fascism, and multiculturalism and there will be a profound shift in ideology in the Islamic world. Give it a few more years. Oh – and I’m not ten years old.
A nice book on the nature of historical change – read Fernand Braudel.’ On History’. Things take time and Braudel looks at ‘la longue duree’.
ET – I see absolutely no evidence of a “growing acceptance in the Muslim world that they must change”. The Mothership of Islam, Saudi Arabia, continues with impunity to fund radical mosques right under our noses. They are funding the groups that David Horowitz encountered across our campuses.
Like Mexico the failed Arab states can seed their economic refugees in the west, receive billions in remittance and sit still until the demographics reach a tipping point in their favor in their new provinces. There is no risk for them with that strategy. We westerners have been a passive, unskeptical lot allowing our native self-loathing fools on the left to undermine us. The monopoly purveyors of news and culture, our MSM, aren’t our friends. Despise them as we should, but, far too many still get their world view from them.
The gloomy future will be here sooner than you think, a matter of a couple short years, if Iran becomes nuclear. What happens if America and Israel can’t obliviate this horror? What if we get an accommodating Dem in the WH next?
We are one election away here from capitulating to a European mindset of denial and retreat from the WOT in the WH.
We don’t have a few more years.
ET, please stop putting words in people’s mouths: I did NOT suggest that “the ideological base of reason, a focus on objective reality, the individual, ethics, etc – originated within the judeo-christian [sic: insulting, ET] ideology.” Nor did I suggest you were ten.
You, as usual, have sidestepped the importance of Christian INSTITUTIONS re the promulgation of, let’s say, Greco-Roman values via Judeo-Christianity. I shake my head at the history book you’d write of the West. It would have a huge hole in it. What WOULD you do with the Church and its vital role?
You also say, “I also disagree that the West has abdicated its commitment to these values.” Get real, ET. Among other places, look at our schools and universities, our courts and Human Rights (sic) Commissions: hot beds of favouritism, repression, and totalitarianism, especially where observant Christians are concerned. Please be less parochial.
Here are some excerpts from a recent interview in The Brussels Journal with Theodore Dalrymple (British psychiatrist and journalist: see above posts), an unbeliever like you, but more honest, I believe, and not in denial about the role of religion, especially Christianity.
“Interviewer: Mr Dalrymple, you are a well-known analyst of the cultural disease of our society. What do you see as the main problem?
“Theodore Dalrymple: The underlying problem is a lack of purpose, a lack of feeling of belonging to anything larger than one’s own little life. This gives rise to quite a large amount of social pathology.
“Interviewer: Does this have to do with immigration? Does the problem lie mainly with second generation immigrants? Or do we find the same problem among our indigenous population, the young people, as well?
“TD: I think it is our indigenous population which suffers from a lack of purpose. THEY HAVE NO RELIGIOUS BELIEF (Emphasis mine) . . . They also have no cultural and intellectual interests. Therefore they do not feel they belong to any larger project than their private lives . . .
“The answer to a lack of civilization is not barbarism; the response to barbarism is not to destroy civilization. However, that has been the response of intellectuals in the West and, of course, this has had its effect on the population as a whole . . .
“Within our Western societies there is a micro-totalitarian climate and to ask people what they mean by it is very difficult. It is a bit like asking people in North Korea whether they like the government.
“Interviewer: Of course this totalitarian mentality is also affecting the original population, who are not allowed to raise certain topics anymore.
“TD: I do not know whether they are not allowed to [sic], but they feel hesitant to. Maybe it is worse in Belgium than in England. The problem of course with not speaking our mind is that if we do not speak our minds there is likely to be an explosion.”
It seems, ET, that you see the same phenomena but reach very different conclusions. Your rosy analysis appears to deliberately ignore crucial puzzle parts. Maybe it’s because you’re wearing rose coloured glasses.