Whistling Past the Graveyard

“Don’t you think German women dress better now, since the war, M. Daladier?” “Why, yes indeed I do, Mr. Chamberlain.”

Two Christian Science Monitor articles Illustrate the optimistic wishful thinking prevalent today in some circles.

In an attempt to show that Islam is changing, the Monitor’s editorial board points out in its 5/11/09 article, The Unseen Burqa Revolution, that:

[…] it's so important to recognize victories large and small – from the women who gained 25 percent of the seats in Iraq's provincial elections Jan. 31, to the two Palestinian women in the West Bank who appear to be the first female sharia judges in the Middle East. […]

As the Pakistani Army fights the Taliban, remember that this Muslim country twice elected a woman as prime minister – the late Benazir Bhutto. In the past 20 years, female premiers have led Indonesia (the world's largest Muslim country), Bangladesh, and Turkey. […]

On 5/8/09, the Monitor ran a story by John Hughes, Islam and Democracy, which included:

[…] skeptics have argued that this is a lost cause, and that democracy and Islam are incompatible. So it is heartening to see the integration of democracy and Islam taking place in three huge countries whose Muslim populations make up somewhere between a quarter and a third of the world's entire Muslim populace. […]

Mr. Hughes goes on to say that democracy is thriving in Indonesia, India and Turkey.

Three very interesting countries, but not examples of thriving democracy, Mr. Hughes. In fact, just about the opposite. The Indonesian government systematically denies equal rights to non-Muslims. From the 2/9/09 Christian Today:

[…] Sixteen of 32 provinces have passed laws influenced by sharia. These laws vary widely in form. In Padang, both Muslim and non-Muslim women are required to wear headscarves, while a law in Tangerang allows women found “loitering” alone on the street after 10.00 pm to be arrested and charged with prostitution. Other laws include stipulate Quran literacy among schoolchildren and severe punishment for adultery, alcoholism and gambling. This is unacceptable because it is not in line with the pluralism that the constitution recognizes,” according to some lawyers. […]

India is an example of Islam held in check by a Hindu majority which answers Islamic aggression in kind and Turkey is an example of a failing attempt to maintain a secular government which Ataturk installed by force over a Muslim-majority populace.

More typical of the integration of Islam and democracy is the case of Maher El-Gohary, reported in Compass Direct of 5/12/09. Mr. El-Gohary is the first Egyptian Muslim ever to get official permission to change to Christianity. He is in hiding, in fear of his life, while his lawyer sarcastically says “In Egypt we have freedom of religion, but these freedoms can’t go against Islam.”

David P. Goldman writes injects a sense of reality in the 5/12/09 First Things:

America is even more vulnerable today, when its government cannot even identify who and what the enemy might be. President Obama insists that America is not at war with Islam, but it surely is at war with an interpretation of Islam shared by tens and possibly hundreds of millions of people. By falsely representing the terrorists as an unrepresentative minority in the Muslim world, Western governments have left their people vulnerable to a profoundly demoralizing shock.

What those hundreds of millions of Muslims share is not an interpretation but acting upon the commands found in the Koran that have never been limited in time or place.

And then there is the arch-pessimist himself:

The march of time cannot be halted; there is no question of prudent retreat or
clever renunciation. Only dreamers believe there is a way out. Optimism is
cowardice.

Men and Technics, Oswald Spengler

Originally posted on 5/13/09

Havel is Wrong--McCain was Right

NYTimes.com:

OPINIONMAY 11, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor: A Table for Tyrants
By VACLAV HAVEL
The absence of competition in the election for the United Nations Human Rights Council suggests that states that care about human rights simply don’t care enough.

In his NYTimes article, Vaclav Havel correctly identifies the problem in the Human Rights Council. The fox is guarding the hen house. The major rights abusers are taking seats in the Council in order to prevent criticism being directed at them and to make sure the only nation criticized is Israel. The recent Durban II conference demonstrated how that works.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference has colluded with its leftist alliance members Cuba, Russia, China, Venezuela and many African states to this end.

The West is attacking Islam for its withholding of rights from women, gays and non-Muslims. Islam, in the form of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, is fighting back in the U.N. The OIC is a unique organization. It is made up of 57 U.N. member states that identify themselves as Islamic. No other religion has such an organization on the international political level. This is another expression of Islam’s lack of separation of religion and politics.

The OIC is pushing the idea that its framing of human rights in Islamic law is superior to the human rights outlined in the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

CAIRO DECLARATION ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN ISLAM
Organization of the Islamic Conference, 1990
Preamble: Believing that fundamental rights and universal freedoms in Islam are an integral part of the Islamic religion and that no one as a matter of principle has the right to suspend them or ignore them as much as they are binding divine commandments, which are contained in the Revealed Books of God and were sent through the last of His Prophets to complete the preceding divine messages thereby making their observance an act of worship and their neglect or violation an abominable sin, and accordingly every person is individually responsible—and the Ummah collectively responsible—for theirsafeguard.”
Opening line: “Reaffirming the civilizing and historical role of the Islamic Ummah which God made the best nation…and the role that this Ummah should play to guide a humanity confused by competing trends and ideologies…”[emphasis added]

The Cairo Declaration denies the rights found in the UDHR and essentially states that everyone has the right to be a Muslim and get the rights guaranteed in the Koran. Maybe this is why the Pope does not consider Islam just another religion.

Jane Kramer reported the Pope saying, in her New Yorker piece of 4/19/07:
…

it (Islam) is not simply a denomination that can be included in the free realm of pluralistic society. Islam has defined its own catalogue of human rights, which differs from the Western catalogue.

But Mr. Havel was wrong to conclude that the problem lies with the states that care about human rights. The problem lies in the standards for membership in the UN. There are two possible solutions. Either start enforcing those standards by kicking out members who do not comply or form a League of Democracies as John McCain suggested.

It might be a good idea to form the League anyway, since the OIC has the votes to block any membership issue. The League could function as a counterbalance to the OIC.

Originally posted on 7/28/09

Multiculturalism and Islam

Every time I turn around, someone is telling me that George Orwell was right, words do matter, and we have to agree on what the important words mean. Right now there is a significant disagreement on what the word “multicultural” means. It is in a category of words that have been drained of meaning and turned into clubs. “Fascist” is another word in that category.

Samuel Huntington, Ibn Warraq, Richard Rorty and John Rawls have all written penetrating, and sometimes wrong, comment on the subject.

For example, David Sapsted writes in The National of 5/10/09:

LONDON // A Muslim chef is suing Britain’s largest police force, claiming he suffered religious discrimination because he was expected to cook bacon and pork sausages for breakfast.

Hasanali Khoja is due to put his case against the Metropolitan Police to an employment tribunal, which starts a 10-day hearing in London tomorrow.

The case has caused outrage in the British press and has been seized on by far right political parties, being branded “the madness of multiculturalism” by the British National Party.

I am pretty sure the BNP is not objecting to the presence of another culture in Britain. The British peoples have absorbed cultures since the Romans. My guess is that the BNP is objecting to an attempted hostile take over of British culture.

The explanation of why this should not be labeled as multiculturalism comes in two parts, Occidentalism and cultural relativism.

Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit write on page five of their book Occidentalism about the potent mix of ideas that have combined to oppose Western culture.

“The loathing of everything people associate with the Western world, exemplified by America[…]” is attractive to Islamists, anti-capitalists and socialists who see the capitalist West as the roadblock in their path to dominance. David Sapsted probably agrees with most of the political left in their assessment of Islam as just another religion, no threat to the West. The left wing sees Islamists as allies against capitalism and look no further than that.

The reason the Muslim chef makes his demands and the reason they will be met is cultural relativism.

Pope Benedict, writing while he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, speaks of an epidemic of relativism in Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam, 2006:
Europe is infected by an epidemic of relativism. It believes that all cultures are equivalent. It refuses to judge them, thinking that to accept and defend one’s own culture would be an act of hegemony, of intolerance, that betrayed the anti-democratic, anti-liberal, disrespectful attitude toward the autonomy of other populations and individuals. Pp.85-86.

If I am right, the BNP is protesting the imposition of Islamic law—a cultural artifact dedicated to the downfall of Western culture.

The basic assumption of multiculturalism is correct—many cultures and religions can share one nation in justice and harmony—Western nations have been doing it for a long time. But Islamic nations have not. There is a long historical record supporting that truth, and the stronger Islam is in a nation, the more true it is.

Islamic culture cannot qualify for inclusion in multicultural nations. All cultures are not equal in that sense. The culture of traditional Islam is one that cannot qualify because Islamic law has not been reformed to allow the acceptance of other cultures and religions as equals.

Originally posted on 5/10/09

Enemy Generator

My reaction to 9/11 followed a path familiar to millions of Americans. Grief, rage, frustration. After Pearl Harbor, we spent a long time in Europe because it was circling the drain, but we always knew where we would wind up. In Japan. After 9/11 we had no return address for our response.

We killed a lot of enemies, unfortunately not bin Laden, in Afghanistan and Iraq. We captured some more and sent them to Guantanamo Bay. We tried some enemies in our criminal courts. But almost eight years later the number of enemies seems to have grown, if you believe their own statements. There seems to be something out there generating enemies.

I needed to understand the ideas behind 9/11, and I noticed that bin Laden was talking about religious doctrine as justification for his attacks. But not to Americans. To Americans he said something completely different.

Raymond Ibrahim has done the West a service by collecting and translating the writings of the leaders of Al Qaeda into The Al Qaeda Reader. In his 4/11/08 article for Middle East Strategy at Harvard, Jihadi Studies as Trivia, he says:
Consider the disparity of the following two quotes, both by bin Laden, one directed to Americans, the other to Muslims. To Americans, he says: “Reciprocal treatment is part of justice; he who initiates the aggression is the unjust one.”
However, in an obscure essay entitled “Moderate Islam is a Prostration to the West,” directed at fellow Muslims—his Saudi kinsmen, to be specific—bin Laden celebrates his understanding of Islam’s aggressive nature:
“[O]ur talks with the infidel West and our conflict with them ultimately revolve around one issue, and it is: Does Islam, or does it not, force people by the power of the sword to submit to its authority corporeally if not spiritually?
Yes. There are only three choices in Islam: either willing submission [i.e., conversion]; or payment of the jizya [poll-tax paid by non-Muslims], thereby bodily, though not spiritual, submission to the authority of Islam; or the sword—for it is not right to let him [an infidel] live.
The matter is summed up for every person alive: either submit, or live under the suzerainty of Islam, or die…. Such, then, is the basis of the relationship between the infidel and the Muslim. Battle, animosity, and hatred—directed from the Muslim to the infidel—is the foundation of our religion.”
(The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 42.)

Bin Laden’s putative second-in-command, Zawahiri, quotes the chapter and verse from the Koran to back up bin Laden’s statements. I recommend The Al Qaeda Reader to anyone who wants to understand the war we are in.

The enemy generator is the Islamic law bin Laden and Zawahiri cite as justification for their jihad.

Any intelligent reader of the Koran and Sunna would have to agree that bin Laden and Zawahiri are correct when they say that traditional Islam allows only three paths for the infidel:
• converting to Islam
• becoming a Dhimmi, and therefore subject to humiliating second-class citizenship
• death.

So, I think that the return address for 9/11 is the reform of Islamic law. We are at war with those who believe, as bin Laden does, that Islamic law constitutes an open-ended declaration of war against unbelievers; that the Koranic commands to battle unbelievers are not limited in time or place.

It is not up to infidels to solve the problem. It is up to Muslims to rescind the state of war that has existed for centuries. It may, however, be prudent for us to suspend Muslim immigration until that happens.

The appropriate Islamic authorities should publish a new interpretation of the Koran which makes clear that the aggressive violence recorded there was wrong then and is wrong now. Experience has taught us that violence in the name of religion is wrong, and always has been.

That is the meaning of the right to freedom of conscience.

Originally posted on 5/8/09

Reform Islamic Law

We are very late coming to the game that Islamists in America have been winning since 9/11. They started their accusations of racism and bigotry early on and have not let up. It is well past time for us to stop playing defense and start playing offense. Full court press.

There certainly were inexcusable and criminal bigoted attacks on innocent Muslims after 9/11. I hope the perpetrators of these attacks are still in prison. I propose to criticize Islam. Criticism is not bigotry. I disagree with some of the ideas that are part of the ideology of Islam. In our society, religious ideas can be criticized because we do not place them above reason.

Criticism is not racism. Racism is disrespect for a person’s unchangeable physical traits. People deserve respect for who they are. They can’t change their race. Ideas should always be criticized. That’s how good ideas advance and bad ones are discarded.

America has been accused of declaring war on Islam. We have not declared war on Islam. We declared war on terror, which is the same as no declaration at all. It is time we declared that there is something wrong with Islam. Something that we intend to fight.

Islamic law needs to be reformed. It condones the use of violence to remove all barriers to the spread of Islam. This is the doctrine of jihadism, and we cannot allow it in America.
An Islam purged of the jihad imperative is no threat to us or anyone.

Muslims Against Sharia have shown one way it can be done. Mahmoud Taha of Sudan pointed to a different path to reform. They have in common the removal of the jihad imperative from the Koran, by different means.

I am not persuaded by Westernized Muslims who have denied that Medieval, Middle Eastern Islamic law has any relevance to modern Islam in the West. As if it is no longer in force. But it is, and why haven’t they joined the reform movement demanding reinterpretation? These Muslims live in the West because they do not want to live under unreformed Islamic law, but most of them see no reason to take a risk and join the reformers.

Our job is to keep the heat on them until reform happens.

Inside America, we need imprisonment for those who work toward imposition of Islamic law. They are committing the crime of sedition. This re-orienting the focus of our law enforcement efforts will give domestic Islamic reformers the safety they need to move from their present defensive position to offense. Our foreign policy should reflect the same goal. Aid those who resist the imposition of unreformed Islamic law, attack those who try to impose it. Europeans will have to decide which side they want to join, if they ever vacate that comfortable seat on the fence. There are signs that they are ready to move.

We have been so tentative, trying to find some way to express our sense that something is wrong with Islam. The events of 9/11 and the Middle Eastern reaction to them shouted that message to us. We have been living with a sense of foreboding as we tried to find the handle. We really didn’t want to look very hard at the realities of Islam, we wanted to be convinced that Islam is just another religion.

We wanted to be convinced that the problem lay only with Islamists--or al Qaeda, mujahidin, militants, radicals, jihadists, Hizballah, HAMAS, fundamentalists, Wahhabis, the Muslim Brotherhood, Iranian Mullahs, the Taliban, Salafis or extremists. We pointed to any splinter group that we could blame for the continuing mayhem being committed by Muslims around the world, much of this mayhem victimizing other Muslims.

Many Americans accepted with relief the Islamist claim that our foreign policy was to blame. Some Americans are ashamed to see how successful our businesses and our political style and pop culture and technology are around the world. They see our successes as confirmation of Edward Said’s cynical, Occidentalist view of the West as imperialist.

But all the above were avoidance strategies. The foreboding was justified. The problem was not found on the fringes of Islam, but at its heart, in Islamic law. In traditional Islam. Unlike Christianity and Judaism, it has not found a way to realign its dogma to the realities of modern human rights. The residents of the fringes of Islam are the reformers-- the few who have been allowed to remain alive—not the traditionalists.

So that is where we have been. How do we get into the game? No more playing defense. No more apologies. Let’s get our hands in Islamist faces and keep them there.

Originally posted on 5/7/09

Drawing the Line, Part 2

In American criminal law, the Smith Act of 1940, 18 U.S.C. paragraph 2385, says that it is a criminal offense for anyone to “knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise or teach the duty, necessity, desirability or propriety of overthrowing the Government of the United States or of any State by force of violence, or for anyone to organize any association which teaches, advises or encourages such an overthrow, or for anyone to become a member of or to affiliate with any such association.”

The crime described by the Smith Act is sedition, which my dictionary says is “Conduct or language inciting to rebellion against the authority of the state.” Since its enactment in 1940, the Smith Act has been revised to make the bar higher for convicting those who are charged with violating the Act.

We should do two things:

---Congress should eliminate those revisions. Our law enforcement officials should have maximum latitude in pursuing such criminals.

---The Attorney General should select any one of the blatant advocates of Islamic law (sharia) in America for prosecution in order to make clear that the advocating of Islamic law falls within the scope of the Smith Act.

This is why I believe advocating the establishment of Islamic law in America is a crime.

The Koran (Haleem translation), 9:29:

Fight those of the People of the Book who do not truly believe in God and the Last Day, who do not forbid what God and His Messenger have forbidden, who do not obey the rule of justice, until they pay the tax and agree to submit.

It is always dangerous to quote without context. The context of this quote is about who should be allowed to “come near the Sacred Mosque” in the seventh century. If this command had been interpreted in Islamic law as an instruction not to allow unbelievers to worship at the mosque, I would not be writing this.

I am writing this because Islamic law interprets this verse and many like it to mean that there is to be a continual struggle against unbelievers until they submit. No limitation in time or place. The struggle to establish Islam as the dominant religion is presented in Islamic law as an imperative that brooks no opposition. Infidel governments are no exception.

The opinion that Islamic law advocates forcible overthrow is confirmed by rulings of the Turkish Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights. In 1998, the Turkish court banned the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi) because the rules of sharia promoted by Refah “were incompatible with the democratic regime …Democracy is the antithesis of sharia.” The European Court of Human Rights agreed on appeal in 2001 and 2003.
Noting that the Welfare Party had pledged to set up a regime based on sharia law, the Court found that sharia was incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy as set forth in the Convention. It considered that sharia, which faithfully reflects the dogmas and divine rules laid down by religion, is stable and invariable. Principles such as pluralism in the political sphere or the constant evolution of public freedoms have no place in it.
According to the Court, it was difficult to declare one’s respect for democracy and human rights while at the same time supporting a regime based on sharia, which clearly diverged from Convention values, particularly with regard to its criminal law and criminal procedure, its rules on the legal status of women and the way it intervened in all spheres of private and public life in accordance with religious precepts.

Luzius Wildhaber, President, European Court of Human Rights

http://www.echr.coe.int/NR/rdonlyres/29AC6DBD-C3F8-411C-9B97-B42BE466EE7A/0/2004__Wildhaber_Cancado_Trindade_BIL__opening_legal_year.pdf

The Court’s judgment included the following observations:

• The Refah claim of freedom of association does not overcome the State’s rights to protect its institutions.
• The means to change the State’s institutions must be legal in every respect.
• The final goal of the party must be compatible with fundamental democratic principles.
• Sharia does not exclude the use of force in order to implement its policies.

Until Islamic law is reformed to exclude the use of force in spreading Islam, its advocates should be subject to prosecution for sedition.

Originally posted on 5/5/09

Drawing the Line

Geert Wilders is having problems exercising his right to free speech when that speech is critical of Islam. His problems are part of a larger problem for all of us.

Commenting on Mr. Wilders, Gary Fouse wrote:

[…] In America, everyone can practice their religion freely, including Muslims. It is when it becomes a political ideology preaching hate that we draw the line. […]

Mr. Fouse touches on the central issue concerning America and Islam. Indeed, the central issue concerning the evolving relationship between America and religion: what limits do we want to place on the freedom to practice religion?

The secular version of that question is: what limits do we want to place on the freedom to promote political ideologies? In the case of Islam, both questions must be asked. They must be asked because the limits of these freedoms are being tested. Purposefully.

We must pay attention to these freedoms. Asserting them keeps our individual citizens free to act and think as they wish—a kind of freedom that should be on the world’s endangered species list. Acting against abuses of these freedoms protects the whole democratic enterprise which is America. As Mr. Fouse points out, we need to draw the line between freedoms we want to protect and abuses we must prosecute.

How to do it?

It’s not rocket science, but it must be done with care—we are dealing with fragile and precious national assets—our freedoms and our global reputation. No new legislation is needed. Islam does not need to be singled out, our laws apply to all religions. We simply need to enforce the laws we already have. We have some experience with this.

There was a time when American Mormons openly practiced polygamy. It was part of their church law, part of their covenant with their god. They passionately believed in it. But in America, secular law takes precedence over religious law and most Mormons gave up their illegal practice.

Islamic law (Sharia) is incompatible with our secular law in:

• Advocating the forcible overthrow of any national government that does not submit to Islam (Jihadism)
• The lack of separation of religion and state
• Demands from Islamic law on the allegiance of the American Muslim citizen
• The doctrine of Islamic supremacy
• Muslim treatment of non-believers
• Blasphemy penalties
• Gender inequity
• Persecution of homosexuals
• Lack of freedom of speech
• Lack of academic freedom
• Lack of artistic freedom
• Lack of freedom of conscience

Looking at this list, even a non-lawyer can see the cultural and legal chasm between American law and Islamic law. It’s not rocket science.

Are there Muslims who do not follow every command of Islamic law? Yes, as surely as there are Catholics who do not follow all of Canon law. Are there Muslims who are actively opposed to the present interpretation of Islamic law and want to change it? Yes, Muslims Against Sharia and American Islamic Forum for Democracy are two such groups. We should support them and groups like them in their efforts to create a version of Islam that is acceptable in a liberal democracy.

Unreformed Islamic law does not qualify to be part of a liberal democracy. It is more logical to treat it as a competitor than a component of America.

Originally posted on 5/3/09

Islam and Free Speech

The Islamic assault on free speech has become considerably more sophisticated since the death sentence on Salman Rushdie. A court in Jordan is seeking jurisdiction and an Interpol arrest warrant to try the creators of the Danish cartoons. Geert Wilders, the creator of the film Fitna and member of the Dutch Parliament, is being prosecuted by Dutch authorities on hate speech charges.

The British House of Lords invited Wilders to show his film and speak about it. The Labour government refused his attempt to enter the country, the first such refusal of any elected politician from an E.U. state. The refusal was based on the assumption that Mr. Wilders’ presence in the U.K. would cause a public disturbance. His right to free speech was not considered important enough to overcome the threat of public disharmony. Mr. Wilders is criticized for calling for the banning of the Koran. The charge comes from a September, 2007 speech Wilders gave to the Dutch Parliament. This is the relevant part of that speech.

Madam Speaker, the Koran is a book that incites to violence. I remind the House that the distribution of such texts is unlawful according to Article 132 of our Penal Code. In addition, the Koran incites to hatred and calls for murder and mayhem. The distribution of such texts is made punishable by Article 137(e). The Koran is therefore a highly dangerous book; a book which is completely against our legal order and our democratic institutions. In this light, it is an absolute necessity that the Koran be banned for the defence and reinforcement of our civilisation and our constitutional state. I shall propose a second-reading motion to that effect.

He is clearly calling for the Koran to be judged by the same statutes as all other incitements to violence. His call is for consistency in the application of the law. This is a perfect example of why hate speech legislation is a slippery slope and a bad solution for most problems. Mr. Wilders evidently agrees. In a speech on 2/27/09 at the Washington National Press Club he said this:

I propose the withdrawal of all hate speech legislation in Europe....In Europe, we should defend freedom of speech like Americans do....Millions think liberty is precious. That democracy is better than Shariah....there is no stronger power than the force of free men fighting for the great cause of liberty.

In his 4/27/09 speech in Florida, Mr. Wilders proposed nine steps Europeans should take to defend against Islamization.

• Speak out against the ideology of cultural relativism.
• Redefine Islam as a political rather than religious entity.
• Encourage voluntary repatriation of Muslim immigrants. Expel Muslim immigrant criminals.
• Stop mass immigration from Muslim countries.
• Adopt a European equivalent of America’s First Amendment rights.
• Require a pledge of allegiance and assimilation from everyone.
• Stop building new mosques. Close mosques where incitement to violence occurs.
• Close Islamic schools.
• Get rid of present political leaders.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations responded with a press release beginning:

WASHINGTON, D.C., 4/26/09) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on GOP leaders to demand that Rep. Adam Hasner, the head of that state’s House Republicans, step down from his leadership post for co-hosting an event at which the speaker said Islam should not be recognized as a legitimate
faith and Muslims should not have religious freedom.

It may be possible for CAIR to exert enough political pressure to get Rep. Hasner removed from his leadership position. But Rep. Hasner is not the issue. The issue is Mr. Wilders’ right to say the things he says.

Originally posted on 3/30/09