Saudi Arabia - Denmark, a love story?

[Jammrock]

I think Muhammad looks quite dignified in that cartoon. That and the message isn't bigoted at all, imo, merely social commentary regarding the image radical muslim are being seen for all the violence surrounding the Danish Cartoons. It's as tasteful as I could ever imagine a Muslim/Muhammad cartoon given the current global situation.

But I'm not Muslim so ...

EDIT: Hahahahaha... did you read the comments on the opinion comic? Here are these people(person?) trying to comment on how undiginfied and bigoted the cartoon is by calling the cartoonist and the paper (and Americans in general) animals. Hypocrisy knows no bounds.

[Gurm]

The answer, Schmo, is that Muslims are COMPLETELY F***ING BAT-SH!T CRAZY.

[ZokesPro]

The full answer to your questions is actually quite complex (because one would have to compare and contrast the opinions of the different "schools" of Islam), but in a nutshell, the answer is yes for all three questions.

The long way to answer your questions cuts directly to the heart of the debate on whether there really exists such a thing as "moderate Islam" or if "moderate Muslims" are simply those who are able to ignore those aspect of their religion that stand opposed to Western values, technically making them apostates--not true Muslims.

There's a story in Islamic theology that says that Mo's advice on how to deal with infidels was to let them choose among three options:

1) offer to let them convert to Islam (if they do then accept them)
2) if they are "people of the book" (ie., Jews or Christians) offer to let them pay the jizya tax and live under "protected" dhimmi status. (a good explanation of what that means: http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/why-dhimmi.htm)
3) call for Allah's help to wage Jihad against them.

Just to let you know that I read the link you provided. I just don't know what to say.

[schmosef]

Just to let you know that I read the link you provided. I just don't know what to say.

If you are interesting in learning more about the topic then I recommend the dhimmiwatch blog: http://jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/

[Tjalfe]

spiked humor's take on this

http://media.spikedhumor.com/16266/yaafm12.swf

note. The purple dragon uses offensive language, and the comics are shown.

[Jammrock]

Good old YAAFM ... let the riots begin!

[DukeP]

Absolutely amazing!
Good link.

~~Dukep~~

[TransformX]

Hipocricy?

http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/Fringe/2E219E73CCFB817BC225711E00571DF7?OpenDocument

Apparently, according to local news, no Jewish group was invited..

Oh, and just another little thing.. http://shianux.jiyuuu.org/2006/02/04...-for-everyone/

[schmosef]

Hipocricy?

http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/Fringe/2E219E73CCFB817BC225711E00571DF7?OpenDocument

Apparently, according to local news, no Jewish group was invited..

Oh, and just another little thing.. http://shianux.jiyuuu.org/2006/02/04...-for-everyone/

@TX, your second link isn't working. Maybe you have it cached. Can you quote it?

[schmosef]

it's a black and white world...

Judeoscope.ca notes an article in the Montreal Muslim News on Australian Treasurer Peter Costello’s statement that Muslim immigrants should adapt to Australian values, in which the author expresses utter contempt for Western civilization:

Calling on Muslim to embrace western values, or in this case Australian values, is merely coded speech calling on us to leave our faith. For believing Muslims our set of values are based on the Quran and the noble example of the prophet Muhammad. If we look deeply into the sickness of what passes for “western values” one can see why we choose Allah over human made systems of morality and conduct.

Allah unambigously says in the Holy Quran:

“O you who believe, obey Allaah and obey His Messenger, and the people in authority among you. And if you dispute over anything, refer it to Allaah and His Messenger if you really believe in Allaah and the Last Day, that is best in terms of consequences.” (4:59)

“And he who does not rule by what Allaah sent down, it is they who are the disbelievers.” (5:44)

“And he who does not rule by what Allaah sent down, it is they who are the wrongdoers.” (5:45)

“And he who does not rule by what Allaah sent down, it is they who are the rebellious.” (5:47)"

[TransformX]

Exceptionalism and hypocrisy: why silencing religious criticism is bad for everyone

Gong Jiao Way

The Fake Times
Friday, 03 February 2006

A blogger, known as The Legal Janitor, has been brought in for questioning by the police after complaints were made over his posts criticising sexuality education provided by religious groups.

The National Council of Religious Overlords (NCRO) received complaints from Christians that the posts question the scientific validity of their belief that condoms do not prevent conception or the transmission of HIV.

Chief Indoctrinator Goh Toh Heow explains, “We believe as a matter of faith that all pre-marital sex will definitely lead to sexually-transmitted infections and eternal damnation in hell, and find it extremely offensive that the posts cite scientific research and logic to claim otherwise.”

“On top of that, the posts caricatured and made fun of our beliefs. We feel that the intention seems to be to incite Christian anger unnecessarily.”

Lord Inquisitor Ho Lee Seet states firmly that “no one is allowed to ridicule or cast aspersions on the faith of a person under the cloak of free expression”.

1. Illogical and unworkable

The critical problem over the rule enunciated by MUIS, “no one is allowed to ridicule or cast aspersions on the faith of a person under the cloak of free expression”, is how illogical and unworkable it would be in practice.

Each of the 3 Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are monotheistic, and demand exclusivity of faith. It is central to their teachings that each one professes to be the One True Faith.

This being the case, what happens when a Christian preaches that Christianity is the only way to salvation? Or when a Muslim preaches that Islam is the only way to God?

The unfortunate consequence of following the rule stated by MUIS is that every Jew, Christian and Muslim would immediately fall foul of that rule by simply preaching or trying to spread their faith. When one religion is preaching that it is the only true faith, it is also necessarily ‘casting aspersion’ on another which preaches the same.

Thus the statement put forth by MUIS cannot hold. It is precisely because Singapore is a multi-religious society that we must allow criticism and alternative opinions of any religion. f this freedom is taken away, neither Jews, Christians nor Muslims would be allowed to preach the exclusivity of their religions any longer, so as to not ‘cast aspersions’ on the faith of others.

Is this the result that MUIS is looking for?

2. Hypocrisy and double standards

It must also be noted that the double standards practiced by those who criticise the caricatures is rather glaring, when the Arab press publish anti-Semitic and racist cartoons on a regular basis. Where was MUIS when these caricatures were published? Why did they not speak out against such ‘ridicule’ and ‘casting’ of ‘aspersions’?

To make things worse, the perception of ‘everyone else against Islam’ is one that has been actively cultivated by certain Muslims.

A delegation of fundamental muslims from Denmark have toured The Middle East with the material shown in these links (published today in a danish newspaper), in order to stir up the situation as they were not able to ignite the confrontation they wanted in Denmark. However, the most offensive pictures shown on page 35 and page 36 were never (before) published in any Danish paper or magazine. They were added to the original series of pictures by the delegation itself. The fundamental religious leaders in Denmark speaks with two tongues. They are talking about integration in Danish, and confrontation in arabic.

The question is, if you are right and your cause is just, why do you have to lie and deceive?

Tellingly, the mainstream press, and particularly the Islamic press, have conveniently neglected to report that there are Muslims who support freedom of speech:

For its part, the newspaper has found Muslim allies. When the controversy first broke, hundreds of Danish Muslims demonstrated in Copenhagen in support of the newspaper. Among them were refugees that right-wing, anti-immigration parties would like to see turned away at Denmark’s borders.

“People have a right to say what they want without being killed,” says Nasim Rahnama, the 20-year-old Iranian woman who started a petition in support of the newspaper. “These Islamic groups have to be stopped. I just can’t sit down and do nothing.”

So far Ms. Rahnama, who moved here from Tehran four years ago, has collected over 150 signatures from Danish Muslims who support the paper’s stance but says that she would have got many more if it weren’t for people’s fear that Islamic groups would find out.

“I am so happy here,” she says. “I have learnt the language. I have a lot of friends. I live in freedom; I love it.”

The clear fact is that this is not an issue of persecution of Muslims, but rather the prevalance of the use of physical violence by lunatics to silence the voice of moderate Muslims.

Would moderate Muslims criticising the use of violence be ‘casting aspersion’ on the faith of those who believe in using violence as a tool of oppression?

3. A Reflection on Yourself

Glenn Reynolds says:

The lesson is that if you want your religion not to be mocked, it helps to have a reputation for senseless violence. Is this the incentive structure we want?

If your reaction to some people criticising you, or even making fun of something you believe in, is to plan and threaten to kill them, then who is the caricature now?

[schmosef]

We should fear Holland’s silence

Islamists are stifling debate in what was Europe’s freest country, says Douglas Murray

"Would you write the name you’d like to use here, and your real name there?" asked the girl at reception. I had just been driven to a hotel in the Hague. An hour earlier I’d been greeted at Amsterdam airport by a man holding a sign with a pre-agreed cipher. I hadn’t known where I would be staying, or where I would be speaking. The secrecy was necessary: I had come to Holland to talk about Islam.
Last weekend, four years after his murder, Pim Fortuyn’s political party, Lijst Pim Fortuyn, held a conference in his memory on Islam and Europe. The organisers had assembled nearly all the writers most critical of Islam’s current manifestation in the West. The American scholars Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer were present, as were the Egyptian-Jewish exile and scholar of dhimmitude, Bat Ye’or, and the great Muslim apostate Ibn Warraq.

Both Ye’or and Warraq write and speak under pseudonyms. Standing at the hotel desk I confessed to the girl that I didn’t have any other name, couldn’t think of a good one fast. I was given my key and made aware that the other person in the lobby, a tall figure in a dark suit, was my security detail. I was taken up to my room where I changed, unpacked and headed back out — the security guard now positioned outside my bedroom door.

I had been invited to deliver the closing speech to the memorial conference on what would have been Fortuyn’s 58th birthday. I said I would talk on the effects of Europe’s increasingly Islamicised population and advocate a tougher European counterterror strategy. There was no overriding political agenda to the occasion, simply a desire for frank discussion.

The event was scholarly, incisive and wide-ranging. There were no ranters or rabble-rousers, just an invited audience of academics, writers, politicians and sombre party members. As yet another example of Islam’s violent confrontation with the West (this time caused by cartoons) swept across the globe, we tried to discuss Islam as openly as we could. The Dutch security service in the Hague was among those who considered the threat to us for doing this as particularly high. The security status of the event was put at just one level below “national emergency”.

This may seem fantastic to people in Britain. But the story of Holland — which I have been charting for some years — should be noted by her allies. Where Holland has gone, Britain and the rest of Europe are following. The silencing happens bit by bit. A student paper in Britain that ran the Danish cartoons got pulped. A London magazine withdrew the cartoons from its website after the British police informed the editor they could not protect him, his staff, or his offices from attack. This happened only days before the police provided 500 officers to protect a “peaceful” Muslim protest in Trafalgar Square.

It seems the British police — who regularly provide protection for mosques (as they did after the 7/7 bombs) — were unable to send even one policeman to protect an organ of free speech. At the notorious London protests, Islamists were allowed to incite murder and bloodshed on the streets, but a passer-by objecting to these displays was threatened with detention for making trouble.

Holland — with its disproportionately high Muslim population — is the canary in the mine. Its once open society is closing, and Europe is closing slowly behind it. It looks, from Holland, like the twilight of liberalism — not the “liberalism” that is actually libertarianism, but the liberalism that is freedom. Not least freedom of expression.

All across Europe, debate on Islam is being stopped. Italy’s greatest living writer, Oriana Fallaci, soon comes up for trial in her home country, and in Britain the government seems intent on pushing through laws that would make truths about Islam and the conduct of its followers impossible to voice.

Those of us who write and talk on Islam thus get caught between those on our own side who are increasingly keen to prosecute and increasing numbers of militants threatening murder. In this situation, not only is free speech being shut down, but our nation’s security is being compromised.

Since the assassinations of Fortuyn and, in 2004, the film maker Theo van Gogh, numerous public figures in Holland have received death threats and routine intimidation. The heroic Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her equally outspoken colleague Geert Wilders live under constant police protection, often forced to sleep on army bases. Even university professors are under protection.

Europe is shuffling into darkness. It is proving incapable of standing up to its enemies, and in an effort to accommodate the peripheral rights of a minority is failing to protect the most basic rights of its own people.

The governments of Europe have been tricked into believing that criticism of a belief is the same thing as criticism of a race. And so it is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous to criticise a growing and powerful ideology within our midst. It may soon, in addition, be made illegal.

I had planned — the morning after my speech — to see Geert Wilders, but instead spent the time catching up with his staff. Their leader had been called in by the police to discuss more than 40 new death threats he had received over the previous days.

As I left the Netherlands I once again felt terrible sorrow for a country that is slowly being lost. A society which should be carefree and inspiring has become dark and worried. The jihad in Europe is winning. And Holland, and our continent, takes one step further into a dark and menacing future.

Douglas Murray is the author of Neoconservatism: Why We Need It

[schmosef]

I could kiss this woman!

Video here: link
Transcript here: link

Arab-American Psychologist Wafa Sultan: There Is No Clash of Civilizations but a Clash between the Mentality of the Middle Ages and That of the 21st Century

Following are excerpts from an interview with Arab-American psychologist Wafa Sultan. The interview was aired on Al-Jazeera TV on February 21, 2006

.
Wafa Sultan: The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat them like human beings. What we see today is not a clash of civilizations. Civilizations do not clash, but compete.

[...]

Host: I understand from your words that what is happening today is a clash between the culture of the West, and the backwardness and ignorance of the Muslims?

Wafa Sultan: Yes, that is what I mean.

[...]

Host: Who came up with the concept of a clash of civilizations? Was it not Samuel Huntington? It was not Bin Laden. I would like to discuss this issue, if you don't mind...

Wafa Sultan: The Muslims are the ones who began using this expression. The Muslims are the ones who began the clash of civilizations. The Prophet of Islam said: "I was ordered to fight the people until they believe in Allah and His Messenger." When the Muslims divided the people into Muslims and non-Muslims, and called to fight the others until they believe in what they themselves believe, they started this clash, and began this war. In order to start this war, they must reexamine their Islamic books and curricula, which are full of calls for takfir and fighting the infidels.

My colleague has said that he never offends other people's beliefs. What civilization on the face of this earth allows him to call other people by names that they did not choose for themselves? Once, he calls them Ahl Al-Dhimma, another time he calls them the "People of the Book," and yet another time he compares them to apes and pigs, or he calls the Christians "those who incur Allah's wrath." Who told you that they are "People of the Book"? They are not the People of the Book, they are people of many books. All the useful scientific books that you have today are theirs, the fruit of their free and creative thinking. What gives you the right to call them "those who incur Allah's wrath," or "those who have gone astray," and then come here and say that your religion commands you to refrain from offending the beliefs of others?

I am not a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew. I am a secular human being. I do not believe in the supernatural, but I respect others' right to believe in it.

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khouli: Are you a heretic?

Wafa Sultan: You can say whatever you like. I am a secular human being who does not believe in the supernatural...

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khouli: If you are a heretic, there is no point in rebuking you, since you have blasphemed against Islam, the Prophet, and the Koran...

Wafa Sultan: These are personal matters that do not concern you.

[...]

Wafa Sultan: Brother, you can believe in stones, as long as you don't throw them at me. You are free to worship whoever you want, but other people's beliefs are not your concern, whether they believe that the Messiah is God, son of Mary, or that Satan is God, son of Mary. Let people have their beliefs.

[...]

Wafa Sultan: The Jews have came from the tragedy (of the Holocaust), and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror, with their work, not their crying and yelling. Humanity owes most of the discoveries and science of the 19th and 20th centuries to Jewish scientists. 15 million people, scattered throughout the world, united and won their rights through work and knowledge. We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. The Muslims have turned three Buddha statues into rubble. We have not seen a single Buddhist burn down a Mosque, kill a Muslim, or burn down an embassy. Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people, and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.

[Jammrock]

wow ... brave man to say that to a Muslim audience.

[schmosef]

She's a woman. Click the link at the top of my post to see the video. It's awesome to hear the tone of her voice.