Salman Rushdie on Islamic Terrorism

Friday

In a long article in The Independent entitled Salman Rushdie: His Life, His Works, and His Religion, we get a semi-biography of Rushdie and all he has been through since the fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeini. Rushdie's views of Islamic terrorism are insightful. It's an issue he has been immersed in much longer than the rest of us have even known there was an issue.

The following is a long quote from the article. The article is well worth reading in its entirety.

[Rushdie] fears that many people are willfully misunderstanding the new Islamist virus that has spread through this new world. "People have been so knocked off balance by what's going on that their normally well-functioning moral sense seems to have lost its footing." After 18 years in the Islamist cross-hairs, Rushdie wants — needs — people to understand that this new Islamic fundamentalism is not simply the lump sum of all the bad things the West has done to Muslims, reflected back at us.

At the time of the fatwa, Rushdie was widely known as a fierce and fearsome critic of US foreign policy, a man who condemned Israel's "monstrous" occupation of Palestinian lands, a man who damned Margaret Thatcher as " Mrs. Torture" and warned that "British society has never been cleansed of the filth of imperialism." He risked his life traipsing through the jungles of Nicaragua to expose Ronald Reagan's illegal funding of a horde of neo-fascist guerrillas trying to topple the country's elected government.

It made no difference. He had questioned the Official Story of Islam, trying to open it up to the mixed, metaphorical dream-worlds of the modern metropolis — and for that, he had to be butchered. "It's one thing to criticize the way in which the American government is behaving, or the British government, and I have a lot of criticisms of that — in fact, nothing but criticisms," he says now. "But it's another thing to fail to see that an enemy actually exists and is extremely serious about what he wishes to do.

"If tomorrow the Israel/Palestine issue was resolved to the total happiness of all parties, it would not diminish the amount of terrorism coming out of al-Qa'ida by one jot. It's not what they're after," he adds, his foot tapping against mine as he leans forward. "Yes, it's a recruiting tool, rhetorically. Many people see there's an injustice there, and it helps them to get people into the gang, but it's not what they want. What they want is to change the nature of human life on earth into the image of the Taliban. If you want the whole earth to look like Taliban Afghanistan, then you're on the same side as them. If you don't want that, you're not. They do not represent the quest for human justice. That, I think, is one of the great mistakes of the left."

Within this Talibanist morality, there is room for great slabs of delusion and hypocrisy. In Shalimar the Clown, Rushdie shows sparingly how the jihadi fighters of Afghanistan have sex with adolescent boys, and the next day chop to pieces men they have dubbed "homosexual." "One of the great untold stories of al-Qa'ida is that they are all these men who fuck little boys. They all have these disciples who they're ostensibly training in the way of the warrior, but they're also enjoying. For a while, then they go off — and they have their wives and families at home. It's like Classical Greece." Does he think Osama bin Laden has done it? "I wouldn't like to say," he says tactfully. "He's an Arab, he's not an Afghan. But Mullah Omar, he's another story..."

He senses soft racism in the refusal to see Islamic fundamentalists for what they are. When looking at the Christian fundamentalists of the United States, most people see an autonomous movement of superstitious madmen. But when they look at their Islamic equivalents, they assume they cannot mean what they say. "One of the things that's commonly said by Islamists is that it's acceptable to bomb a disco, because a disco is a place where people are behaving in a disgusting way. Go away and die — that's all bin Laden wants you to do. It's not just about Iraq, it's about ham sandwiches and kissing in public places and sex with girls you're not married to." He pauses. "It's about life."

It horrifies Rushdie that so many people in his natural political home — the left — don't get it. They seem to imagine that when people call for a novelist to be beheaded for blasphemy, they are really calling for a return to the 1967 borders, or an independent Kashmir, or an end to the occupation of Iraq. As he says this, I blurt out a repellent question: was there a small part of him on September 11 that felt almost relieved — that thought: " Now they'll understand"? He pauses, a long pause, the only one in this interview. Have I offended him? But he answers with the same contemplative calm as before. "It wasn't, actually. What an awful thing to think. But... but I remember after 9/11 that a lot of people did finally get it, and I remember thinking — it's a shame that 3,000 people had to die for something pretty obvious to get through people's heads."


III: The quiet American, and the art of slitting our own throats

Rushdie has looked down the barrel of Islamism, smelt its cordite, and survived. So he is perpetually being asked — how do we lift the collective fatwa on our transport systems, our nightclubs, our cities? How do we scrape meaning from his misery? "When people ask me how the West should adapt to Muslim sensitivities, I always say — the question is the wrong way round. The West should go on being itself. There is nothing wrong with the things that for hundreds of years have been acceptable — satire, irreverence, ridicule, even quite rude commentary — why the hell not?

"But you see it every day, this surrender," he says. He runs through a list of the theaters and galleries that have censored themselves in the face of religious fundamentalist protests. He mentions that the entire British media — from the BBC down — placed itself in purdah during the Muhammad cartoons episode. "What I fear most is that, when we look back in 25 years' time at this moment, what we will have seen is the surrender of the West, without a shot being fired. They'll say that in the name of tolerance and acceptance, we tied our own hands and slit our own throats. One of the things that have made me live my entire life in these countries is because I love the way people live here."

Rushdie sees surrender stamped on every one of the "faith schools" being constructed by Tony Blair. "To say the solution to the problems religion has caused is more religion... it's just crazy," he says. It will only reinforce the sealing off of Muslims from the world that is symbolized by the veil, which he sees as a hideous anti-feminist shroud, " a one-woman tent."

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The Number of Attacks Add Up to an Invisible (or Ignored) Global War

Monday

On November 15th, 2007, FrontPage Magazine published an article by Patrick Poole about Glen Reinsford's tally of Islamic terrorist attacks since 9/11. The article was entitled, "A Grim Milestone Ignored." We republish it here with permission.

The establishment media is seemingly obsessed with “grim milestones” in the War on Terror, as the Associated Press reminds us this past weekend. But in the next week those same establishment media outlets will probably stand mute when yet another “grim milestone” is reached – the10,000th attack by Islamic terrorists and militants since 9/11, which is responsible for approximately 60,000 dead and 90,000 injured.

The chronicler of this bloody tally is Glen Reinsford, editor of TheReligionofPeace.com, who began compiling and updating daily a detailed list of reported incidents of violence and terrorism around the world targeting non-Muslims and Muslims alike. Because of space limitations he only posts the past two months worth of attacks on his websites main page, though he has archived all of the incidents from past years (2001-2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007). He also maintains a banner graphic with the updated number of attacks, which people can post on their own websites.

When asked what prompted him to begin such a labor-intensive undertaking, Reinsford identifies the tepid response to Islamic terrorism by otherwise outspoken Muslim groups, with one organization particularly in mind:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). After 9/11, I kept an eye on them and was quite disgusted by their lack of moral perspective. They complain about issues that affect Muslims which are quite trivial, on average, compared to what is happening in the name of their religion. They do occasionally denounce terror in a general, somewhat ambiguous, sense but there is an obvious lack of passion. Their real interest is themselves.

Reviewing the list of recent incidents, it is surprising how many “smaller” attacks occur daily, which the establishment media pass with only a casual mention. While high profile attacks, like the one last week in Baghlan Province, Afghanistan that killed 75 and wounded at least 100 (many of them school children), receive plenty of attention, smaller incidents, such as the attack last week on a hotel in Baramulla, India that killed one, rarely register with the Western media.

Because Reinsford relies on the establishment media for his numbers, the true number of attacks and their victims are underreported:

In my case, I use published media reports from reputable sources on the Internet, such as the Associated Press. None of the information comes from rumor or word of mouth. Every bit of it can be verified through publicly-available sources. If anything, I undercount the attacks.

In his explanation of his methodology, he notes that he doesn’t include combat-related statistics, and acknowledges that the death toll may increase in the days and months following the attack as victims die from their injuries, which almost never get reported. The list also doesn’t account for the genocide in Darfur committed by the Islamist government in Sudan and their Janjaweed marauding militias, which the UN estimated last year had resulted in 400,000 dead and 2 million displaced.

With such seemingly incomprehensible carnage, I ask Reinsford if there were any particular incidents that stand out, and he identified three (qualifying that he could easily identify 15 more):

Nadimarg, India (3/23/03), dozens of Hindu villagers roused out of their beds and machine-gunned by Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) Islamists.

Beslan, Russia (9/3/04), some 350 people slaughtered by Islamic militants - half of them children.

Malatya, Turkey (4/18/07), three Christian Bible distributors are tied up, tortured for hours then gruesomely murdered by men who acted explicitly in the name of Islam.

For me, a September 2006 Washington Post article stands out concerning an attack targeting Shi’ite women and children stands out, when a Sunni suicide bomber detonated a kerosene fuel bomb filled with ball bearings (for added effect) ripped through a crowd waiting in line to buy fuel. The Post described the horrific scene:

The horrific blast sent women engulfed in flames screaming through the streets. Two preteen girls embraced each other as they burned to death, witnesses said. Later, wailing mourners thronged the scene of the blast, which was strewn with the shoes of victims and a woman's bloodied cloak, and voiced doubt that the reprisal violence would ever end.

While many Muslim organizations in the West expend considerable effort portraying themselves as victims of Western “Islamophobia”, very little is said by those groups about the fact that many of the countless victims of Islamic terrorism are Muslims themselves. There are certainly no public protests by organizations like CAIR in recognition of those Muslims murdered and maimed by Muslims, though they are quick to cite the number of civilians accidentally killed by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan (though Reinsford notes that while 225 Iraqis were killed in collateral damage incidents in 2006, there were 16,791 Iraqi civilians killed by Islamic terrorists that same year).

Reinsford says that the skewed perspective of ignoring the toll Islamic terrorism takes on Muslims stems from a failure by Muslim leaders to recognize the glaring problems that are resident in the heart of their own community:

Yes, most of the victims of Islamic terror are Muslim, yet there is very little outrage on the part of the Islamic world to terror, relative to, say, a Muhammad cartoon or an "insult to Islam" by a public figure. What does this tell us about the priorities of Islam? In fact, sympathies for terrorists run much higher than many people realize. Even those that do truly disagree with violence (and there are many) somehow avoid taking any sort of responsibility for ending it by convincing themselves that it has nothing to do with Islam. Obviously it has everything to do with Islam, and the unwillingness on the part of Muslims in the West to provide moral leadership against Islamic extremism will ensure that the terror continues for a long time.

With some of the biggest figures in the Islamic religious establishment preaching jihad beamed around the globe on Islamic satellite networks, and countless websites offering jihadist tracts, YouTube hosting a veritable smorgasbord of videos documenting terrorist incidents, and Internet forums dedicated to networking would-be jihadists and encouraging violence, it might be that Islamic extremists are a minority, but they clearly have dominated the conversation. And it is doubtful that the situation will change as long as that remains the case.

Fortunately, there are some Islamic leaders willing to speak out consistently and forcefully against Islamic extremism and the non-stop acts of terrorism, but the establishment media rarely gives them notice, let alone a hearing, preferring instead the cacophony of CAIR and those extremists who offer weak condemnations of terrorism, yet defending its justification and denying its true causes.

Meanwhile, the deadly toll continues to roll unnoticed by the establishment media. But Glen Reinsford is still there continuing his grim task keeping us all aware of how pervasive and unrelenting the problem of Islamic terrorism really is.

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Funding Islamic Terrorists

As we wrote about earlier, in The Wahhabi Invasion of America, the Saudi Wahhabis are making terrorism possible around the world. A terrorist must be supported by somebody. Otherwise, he would have to work for a living. Here is a short film (8 minutes) about one of the people exposing the underlying financial support for Islamic terrorism around the world.



Thank you to the good people at Muslims Against Sharia for introducing me to this film.

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Internet Jihad

According to the Qur'an, it is the duty of every faithful Muslim to fight until the whole world submits to Shari'a law, using whatever means they can. Below is a dispatch from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), who have translated a message from the Global Islamic Media Front. It instructs Muslims everywhere to conduct online "raids."

Using the Islamic principle of Tiqayya, a Muslim is allowed to deceive infidels if it is in the interest of Islam. The internet jihad is part of a 20-year plan to overthrow the U.S. government. Does that sound impossible? Egypt used to be a democracy. It is now in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists. Lebanon was once a Christian nation. It is now run by Islamic fundamentalists. Turkey was once one of the few secular democracies in the Islamic world. It is now run by Islamic fundamentalists. All these changes have occurred in the last 30 years.

There are millions of Islamic fundamentalists, and they are totally committed to their cause, and will use every means available. Meanwhile, most of us think it's impossible for it to happen to us, and go on about our lives. This is what the jihadists are counting on.

Here is the message MEMRI translated:

Special Dispatch Series - No. 1621

June 14, 2007

Global Islamic Media Front Instructs Islamists to Infiltrate Popular Non-Islamic Forums to Spread Pro-Islamic State Propaganda

Recently, the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF) announced a new comprehensive media campaign titled "The Battar Media Raid to Defend the Islamic State [of Iraq] (ISI)," [1] whose declared purpose is to repel the intensive campaign against the ISI by Arab and Western media agencies and to stop the increasing military campaign against the ISI by Sunni organizations in Iraq.

In a message titled "The Battar Media Raid: How to Participate? How to Help? What Is My Role?" the GIMF announces the beginning of the campaign and provides a detailed description of the campaign's goals and ways of accomplishing them, including infiltrating non-Islamic forums for the purpose of posting pro-ISI propaganda.

The following are excerpts from the announcement:

The Islamist Forum Must Be Like a Beehive During the Raid

"What we expect from you brothers and sisters is for the [Islamist] forum to be like beehives during the raid... [whereby] one person takes part in distributing [material]... another generates links... one person writes an article... while another writes a poem... People must feel and notice that the forums have changed radically during this blessed raid..."

The following are the details of the plan:

Designate a Special Space on the Forum for Raid Material

"First:...Those who supervise the [Islamist] forums have a significant role in this raid. We expect from you the following: a) to post the raid's slogan on the websites, forums, and blogs, as a way of expressing support for the raid; b) to designate a special space in the forums in which material related to the raid will be posted... so [that this material] will be easily recognized [by forum participants]. We request that this space be open to everyone, with registration not required; and c) to collaborate with GIMF in matters concerning suggestions and experience..."

Ban Anyone Who Slanders the Islamic State [of Iraq] From Disseminating Their Poison in the Forums

"Second, we expect the following from the forums' administrators: a) to take control of your forums and forbid anyone who slanders [the ISI] or [accuses it of causing] civil strife from disseminating his poison in your forums... [and] b) to prevent futile and useless discussions and responses... and to urge people to participate in the raid."

Post Raid Material on [Non-Islamic] Music, Youth, and Sports Forums

"Third, beloved [raid participants], the raid is dependent on you... The raid demands of you many things... such as expertise, especially in the following areas: seeking religious knowledge, montage, translation into any language, uploading material onto various types of websites, web design, graphic design, journal and publication design, and hacking and security. If you have expertise in any of these [fields], contact the GIMF representative on any of the forums. If, however, you do not possess this expertise... there are other matters you can [promote]: for example, posting matters related to the raid in most [jihad] forums... posting [material] in non-jihad forums, posting in non-Islamic forums such as music forums, youth forums, sports forums, and others. Anyone who undertakes to post the material must look into the [appropriate] manner of spreading [the material for each type of forum]... The way in which members of music forums address one another differs from the way members of jihad forum address one another."

Monitor Forum Members' Reactions to Your Posting

"You are not required to engage in blind copying and pasting here... [On the contrary,] you should select [carefully] the material... and the words... and the most important issue is to monitor forum members' reactions after you disseminate your material and to respond to them, turning for help to your comrades in the jihad forums if you find it difficult [to reply] to one of the reactions [from members of the non-Islamic forums]."

"[You should also offer] commentary to the various news agencies' websites... such as the Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyya websites... Even if they do not publish your commentary... do not give up... Persist... in the attempt to place the name of the raid in every commentary..."

Participate in Live Shows on Satellite TV

"[Another way to assist the raid is by] participating in live shows on satellite TV... Anyone with a desire [to do so]... can contact, and participate in, any program discussing... the jihad in Iraq... He should be sure to mention... that he is a participant in the Battar Media Raid to Defend the Islamic State [of Iraq]... Of course, he should mention this fact immediately after going on the air... and not prior to that... [This way,] millions will hear the name of the raid...."

You Can Slip a CD Into Your Friend's Bag Without Him Noticing

"[People should also engage in] downloading various publications related to the raid and distributing them to others... If you are afraid that you will be exposed, you can [distribute the material] without people noticing... [For example,] you can slip a CD into your friend's bag without him noticing... you can drop it into a person's car while he is driving... you can place it in your neighbor's mailbox..."

Jihadists are committed, intelligent people with long-range strategies. We can beat them if we try. And you can play a crucial role. Read the top seven tasks a citizen can do to help.

If you'd like to read more about the underlying principles of jihad, and why it is so dangerous to the free world, start here:
The Terrifying Brilliance of the Islamic Memeplex

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Women’s Rights and Political Islam, Part One — A Speech by Donna Hughes

The following is a speech given by Donna M. Hughes, Professor and Carlson Endowed Chairperson of the University of Rhode Island Women's Studies Program. Thank you to the URI College Republicans for organizing this week of awareness about a major threat to world peace and freedom. Thank you for inviting me to speak about how this global political movement threatens women’s freedom and rights. I’ll start out by addressing terms. There are a number of terms that are used to refer to the global political movement I want to talk about: Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic extremism, Islamo-Fascism, Islamism, and Radical Islam. I chose the term “political Islam,” a more neutral term, for the title of my talk, not because I think one can equivocate about this global threat, but to emphasize that we are talking about a political movement — a political movement based on selective interpretations of the Koran. I am not talking about all of Islam or all Muslims. Although as with any political movement, it is built on particular traditions, culture and views; otherwise the movement would have not appeal to the base from which the movement leaders want to draw their support. I am talking about a political movement with an ideology, goals, and methods for achieving their goals. The term Islamic fundamentalism seems to imply that we are talking about a conservative or traditional practice of Islam. When I use the term, I am referring, not to conservative or “fundamentalist” interpretation of Islam. I am referring to a political movement. The term Islamic Fascism clearly links the phenomenon that we are talking about to a political movement — fascism. Although the goals of radical Islam are not exactly like those of Mussolini’s fascist movement, it evokes an authoritarian political goal and differentiates the movement from a purely religion one. It does have a more harsh sound to it and it doesn’t roll of the tongue very easily. The term Islamic fascism was coined by moderate Algerian Muslims who were under attack by Muslim extremists who wanted to impose Islamic or Shari'a law in Algeria. Helie Lucas, the founder of Women Living Under Muslim Laws, explains that Islamo-fascism means the “political forces working under the cover of religion in order to gain political power and to impose a theocracy … over democracy.” Islamism is the word closest to what the advocates of this political movement use themselves. Islamism is not the same thing as Islam. Islamism, with an “ism” on the end connotes a political belief system, like feminism, communism, Nazism. And a supporter of Islamism, is an Islamist, as in feminist or communist. This term is by far the easiest to use, but I am hesitant to use it, 1) because it is easily confused with Islam or someone who observes the Islamic faith, and 2) I have Muslim, pro-women’s rights, pro-freedom supporters who consider themselves Islamists. They think that Islam is compatible with democracy. They support a type of political Islam that recognizes the rights and freedom of all people, and they are working to create such as state. I will use all these terms in my talk. The important thing to remember is that I’m talking about a political movement, not a whole religion or all Muslims. I’m talking about a political movement with a set of beliefs and political goals, practices that put those beliefs into action, and methods that impose their rule and belief system on others, whether they are willing or not. SOURCES I want to tell you how I came to understand the threat of Islamic fundamentalism to women, girls, and their rights. This occurred long before 9/11. In 1994 to 1996, I worked as a Lecturer at the University of Bradford in England. The city of Bradford has the largest population of Pakistanis outside of Pakistan. The loudest sound in the city was the call to prayers broadcast from the mosque on the edge of campus. I learned that after Ayatollah Khomeini, the Supreme Religious Leader of Iran (i.e. religious dictator) issued a fatwa calling for the murder of British author Salman Rushdie, there were demonstrations in Bradford is support of the fatwa. Soon after I arrived in Bradford, a young Muslim woman was murdered. She was run down by a car driven by a family member as she was walking on the sidewalk to work. This was what is called an “honor killing,” in which women and girls are killed by family members for disobeying their fathers or for being too independent. She wanted freedom from an arranged marriage and rigid cultural constraints on her life as a woman. I joined an organization called Women Against Fundamentalism. It was formed by mostly Muslim women of Asian descent after the fatwa to murder Rushdie. Its goal was to oppose the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in England and its threat to women’s freedom. At the University of Bradford, I was in charge of a women’s studies major. We had several Asian women, as the Pakistani and Indian women were called, on the course. I soon learned that all of them were being pressured to drop out of school and accept arranged marriages. They were guilt-tripped, threatened, and sometimes beaten. I soon realized that staying enrolled at the university was the only thing that helped them maintain a moderate level of freedom and independence. If they dropped out, they would be forced into marriage. A couple of the women couldn’t resist the constant pressure. They came to my office and told me they were dropping out of school and accepting their family’s plans for them. They tried to put a good face on it. Some women were beaten by their families to force them out of school. I learned how common this was when I made inquiries on how we could help a frightened, exhausted young woman. The University maintained a set of rooms in the halls of residence for women who needed emergency shelter each semester. On a regular basis, I saw the political campaigns of the Islamists. Groups, such as Hizb ut-Tahir, which is now banned, had literature tables in the lobby of the building where I worked. I often stopped and picked up the pamphlets. I was particularly interested in what they said about women and women’s rights. Their goal was, and is, to unify all Muslim countries into one Islamic state ruled by Islamic or sharia law. They predicted that in the near future, they would take over the UK and turn it into an Islamic state. Their literature stated that they would advance women’s rights by protecting them from the kind of harassment and violence that western women are subjected to. Wearing the veil or hijab would protect them from sexual harassment and sexual assault. The political tracts stated that they respected women and would allow women to stay in the home and take care of their families where they would be protected by their fathers, brothers, and husbands. These were not presented as choices for women, but their roles and destinies under Islamic rule. I believe that people mean what they say and write about. I took the Islamists at their word. I showed the pamphlets to my colleagues, asking “Have you read these things? Do you know what they say they are going to do?” Two years ago, when the world learned that the suicide bombers on the London underground were from Leeds, a city just ten miles east of Bradford, I was not surprised, as some were, that the terrorists were homegrown. I had read their literature ten years before. In 1996, my education about Islamic fundamentalism expanded from the local level to the global when I met groups of Iranian exiles living in Europe, the U.S. and Canada. They were survivors of the Khomeini revolution in Iran, which brought to power the first modern theocracy, which means "rule by religious leaders." They (the Iranian exiles) had supported a liberal interpretation of Islam, freedom, democracy, and rights for women. Many of them had been arrested for opposing the rise of Islamic fundamentalists to power in Iran. Some had been tortured. Many of them had friends and relatives who were executed by the Iranian regime. For the past 11 years, I have continued to learn about Islamic fundamentalism from them and have supported their conferences for women’s rights, democracy, and freedom. I learned from them what happens to women when religious fascists — a term used by my Iranian friends — come to power. I have also learned about the fate of women under Islamic fundamentalism from groups like Women Living Under Muslim Laws and the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan. ISLAMIC FASCISTS, POLITICAL IDEOLOGY, AND PRACTICE When Islamic fascists put their political ideology into practice, they use methods we call terrorism — the systematic targeting of civilian populations using violent means. The first place they exert their power is on the local level. I like to say that terrorism begins at home. The first victims are usually women and girls. Islamic fundamentalist ideology rejects universal equality and rights as set out by the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and the basic principles and rights on which democracies are based. The Islamic fundamentalism ideology rejects liberalism, women’s rights, moderate and liberal interpretations and practices of Islam, and promotes discrimination against non-Muslim religious groups, particularly Jews. The political goal of Islamic fascists is to create a religious dictatorship, based on their version of Shari'a or religious-based law. They oppose democracy and the western concept of freedom, claiming that Western democracies and laws are man made, and only the laws of God or Shari'a laws are valid. According to Shari'a law, Jews and other non-Muslims, such as Christians and Hindus, can only have secondary status as citizens. There is no freedom of religion. For example, under Shari'a law, if a Muslim converts to another faith, he or she can be punished by death. Under Islamic fundamentalist ideology and law, men and women are not equal. Women are considered to be physically, emotionally, intellectually, and morally inferior to men. Under Taliban rule in Afghanistan, women were not permitted to go to school or to work or to leave the house unless accompanied by a male relative and had to wear a burqa — a bag-like garment that covers the whole body and has only a mesh opening to see out. In Iran, women are not permitted to run for president or be judges because they are not emotionally capable of making decisions. Women and girls are not permitted freedom of movement or freedom of dress. They are required to wear the covering chosen by the religious leaders. Women and girls are seen as morally weak and must be prevented from having contact with men who are not family members. Sexual misconduct, which can be an act as simple as a girl talking to or meeting a man from outside her family, is considered to be a violation of her family’s honor. The shame she has brought on the family can only be wiped out by killing her. This is the basis of “honor killings.” In Iran, there are official “crimes against chastity,” which includes things such as having a baby without being married. For violations of these laws, a woman or girl can be flogged or even hanged. The most torturous form of punishment in Iran is stoning to death. Currently, eight women are imprisoned, waiting to be stoned to death in Iran. This form killing is not found in the Koran, it is a barbaric form of killing used centuries ago and brought into modern times by Islamic fundamentalists. [Editor's note: While it is strictly true that stoning is not mentioned in the Koran, it is not prohibited, and it says in the Koran many times that Muhammad should be used as an example to imitate, and Muhammad endorsed stoning as a punishment.] Under Shari'a law, all public facilities, such as hospitals, classrooms, and buses, are segregated. These laws make women officially second class citizens without equal rights. A Muslim, Iranian woman coined a name for this system — gender apartheid. This kind of misogyny, or woman-hating, is at the heart of Islamic fascists’ control of a population. If you suppress 50 percent of the population, and systemically punish violators by public stonings, hangings, and whippings, you can terrorize an entire population.

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Women’s Rights and Political Islam, Part Two — A Speech by Donna Hughes


IS CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISM THE SAME AS ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM?


Frequently, when I speak about Islamic fundamentalism, someone suggests that Muslims may have Islamic fundamentalists, but the U.S. has Christian fundamentalists. The implication being that they are the same. This equivalency is flawed thinking.

The U.S. is a democracy that guarantees fundamental freedoms and rights. The Christian Right is a political movement of conservative Christians. They may have political and social views and goals that you may not agree with, but they operate within a democratic framework. To influence policy and laws, they use their rights as citizens to form advocacy organizations, lobby, and vote.

When adherents to these views resort to violence, such as the bombing of abortion clinics, it is treated as an act of violence, and the perpetrators are arrested and punished. And most leaders of Christian Right organizations condemn these acts of political violence.


I’ve never heard a Christian fundamentalist call for the takeover of the U.S. government by radical preachers or priests, or to have Christian or Biblical law replace the U.S. Constitution.

That’s the difference between Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism: One respects democracy, fundamental rights and freedoms, and the democratic process, the other doesn’t, and its goal is to destroy democracy, freedom, and the democratic process.


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Women’s Rights and Political Islam, Part Three — A Speech by Donna Hughes


MULTICULTURALISM VS. UNIVERSALISM


I want to talk about why this flawed equivalency between Islamic fundamentalism and Christian fundamentalism has become so popular and why it seems to have become so hard to differentiate between oppressive political systems and practices and democratic political systems and liberal practices.

Today, advocacy for multiculturalism has replaced support for universalism.

Universalism is based on universal principles of human rights, equality, freedom, and democracy, as laid out in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and before that the U.S. Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Other democracies have their own constitutions and founding sets of documents.

Today, these visions and commitments to universal equality among people have become secondary to advocacy for multiculturalism.

Embedded in multicultural ideology is cultural relativism, the principle that all cultures are equal, must be respected, and cannot be criticized. Or if one does criticize another culture or religious practice, the speaker must immediately point out deficiencies in other cultures and religious practices, or at least those of his or her own, in this case, the U.S.

One cannot advocate for relative rights and freedoms without rejecting universal principles of freedom and rights. If you unconditionally accept and respect other cultural and religious practices, the first group that always loses is women. Most discriminatory attitudes and practices are based on culture, tradition, and religion. Women’s greatest hope for freedom and rights comes with the promotion of universal principles of freedom and rights; then women can claim their equality.

Today, I see students in class being fearful of discussing types of violence against women or the oppression of women. Although they may be horrified by honor killings or female genital mutilation, they feel they have to accept it because it’s someone else’s culture or religion.

They think it is unacceptable to advocate for other women’s freedom and rights because it might violate the others' cultures or religions, and that would be imposing their view on another culture or religion. While at first glance this may sound respectful, it translated into remaining silent and accepting some of the worst human rights violations against women.


Following acceptance of multiculturalism, they withdraw into isolationism. If we must respect all other cultures and religious practices, then there is nothing to do about violations of women’s rights around the world. They often oppose any efforts to improve the lives of women in other countries. They justify this isolationism by saying they have enough work on women’s issues here at home and they should concentrate on that.


WHAT DO MUSLIM WOMEN WANT?

Women join political movements. There are Muslim women who have joined the Islamic fundamentalists. There are women who voluntarily put on the hijab and support the oppression of other women.

There are probably some women who just want to be left in peace to live a quiet life.

But there are also women who want freedom and rights, who strongly reject Islamo-Fascism, and who have organized to oppose Islamic fundamentalism.

I believe we have a responsibility to differentiate between Islamic fascist and pro-democracy groups. I don’t believe there is a moral equivalency between them. I don’t believe it is disrespectful to judge other systems and practices and to condemn human rights violations and the oppression of women. I don’t believe it is "imperialistic" to support other women’s struggles for freedom and rights.

I believe that rights come with responsibilities. The people in this room are among the freest in the world. I believe we have a responsibility to not turn our privileged backs on other women. I believe we have a responsibility to use our freedom and rights to help others.

I believe we should be using our freedom of speech, our freedom of association, and our educations and access to communications technology to assist other women to achieve the same set of rights and standards of well-being.


You can start by learning more about the conditions for women under Shari'a law. You can research how Islamic fundamentalism is spreading and the impact that is having on women. You can research different Muslim women’s groups. You can find out how to get involved in supporting different organizations.

I’ll end with a quote from Maryam Rajavi, a leader of the opposition against the theocracy in Iran. In a text entitled The Price of Freedom, she says:

The Iranian woman is today engaged in the most serious, most difficult and most decisive battle of her destiny … Women are the prime victims of oppression under the clerical regime and they have the highest explosive potential against the regime. The survival of the clerical regime is also intertwined with the suppression of women. … [Women] are humiliated and tortured every day, only because they are women. Yet they have never surrendered. They use every opportunity to voice their protest against the clerical regime and stage demonstrations.

And further, to those who think that Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is intolerant, bigoted, and anti-Muslim, I will again return to The Price of Freedom by Maryam Rajavi as she describes the process of liberation of women from Islamic fundamentalism:

One must, first and foremost, confront such a mentality, particularly in light of the fact that this interpretation or reactionary spell has a historical precedent for women. It is said that the situation of women has always been like this and that she must be grateful to anyone who offers her compassion and mercy. Only when you rebel against this trap and understand the futility of this spell, the deadlock is broken, the road becomes clear, and you take the next steps. I do believe that a woman’s emancipation begins the moment she breaks this spell and believes that rebellion and resistance against tyranny are her inalienable rights. It is from this moment that no power in the world can prevent the liberation of a woman who has decided to be free.

Donna Hughes' speech (above) was originally published here: Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week Day 3

Read more about Islamic fundamentalism: The Terrifying Brilliance of the Islamic Memeplex

Read more about defeating terrorism through fighting for women's rights: Strengthen Women's Rights to Reduce Terrorism

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When You Talk to Your Friends About Jihad, Try to NOT Scare Them

Friday

A FRIEND of mine and I were waiting for an event to end, and we had about 20 minutes with nothing to do. With a smile on my face, I said, "I have an idea! Let's talk about Islamic jihad! She gave me a look that said, "Please let's talk about anything but that." I've talked to her about it before.

So I said, "I've been meaning to ask you, for research purposes, why don't you like talking about jihad?"


She said, "It creeps me out."


"You mean it's scary?" I asked.


"Yes," she reluctantly admitted, as if she was embarrassed to say so.


I said, "Well there is some good news. The majority of Muslims ignore the Qur'an's instructions to subjugate infidels. People are people, and in many places in the world, Muslims did not choose to be Muslims. Somewhere along the line, they lived in a place that was converted to Islam by whatever means, and now they are Muslims, but may have never read the Qur'an in their own language, don't really know what's in it, and don't follow most of the things prescribed in it.

"They are casual Muslims. They're just living their lives, going about their business, raising their families, and are not interested in taking over the world."


But at this point, I couldn't help myself. I said something scary: "Of course, the children of these Muslims are vulnerable to the fundamentalist Muslims who come into town (as they have done in many places) and start saying to the young men, 'Your parents are hypocrites. They say they are Muslims but they don't know what's in the Qur'an and they don't practice real Islam.' Young teenagers being what they are, are very open to this message, and already prone to seeing something wrong about their parents, and they are easily recruited to the jihad."

I then started talking about something a less scary, and we kept talking. But I'd gotten some good information in there, and she might see the news a little differently now, and maybe eventually she'll get a chance to vote on immigration laws or sedition laws, and she'll be more informed about what's at stake.

It's hard to talk about jihad without being scary, but it's something we should all work on. Our fellow infidels need to know about this stuff. It is ugly and unnerving, but there are many ways to make it more interesting and less upsetting.

Even though I didn't really mean it as a technique, when I asked my friend why she didn't like talking about jihad, she became more open to talking about it. I was at least acknowledging her feelings, and after we talked about it, we both knew each other a little better, and that makes it more comfortable to talk about anything, including jihad.

So that question could be used as a technique when you see someone's hesitancy about talking about jihad-related things. Ask the person why they don't like talking about it. This will give them a chance to relax and open up, and it'll give you some insight into what is going on in the minds of your fellow citizens.

If you have tried to talk to someone about jihad recently, we would love to hear about your experiences, good or bad (leave a comment on this post). One of the best things we can share with each other is what kinds of approaches we have tried that worked well, and what didn't work very well.

And if you haven't been talking to anybody about it, try the approach above, and then come back here and tell us about it. We can help each other get better at this. One of the great things about the internet is you can share your personal experience and it can help thousands.

Read more: How to Change Someone's Opinion

Read more: Know the Koran

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Muslims Are Still Going On Slave Raids In Africa? In the 21st Century?!

Tuesday

The following is an article by Stephen Brown called Slavery in Islamist Sudan. Reprinted with permission. IT WAS THE KIND of excitement that made children uneasy. Grownups were pointing toward the river. Others were arriving at a run. The bustling atmosphere in the market place of the peaceful African town of Nyamlell in the Dinka tribal area in the southern Sudan was changing. Worried adults could see what a seven-year-old Dinka boy, Francis Bok, who had gone to the market that fateful day with older village children to sell his mother’s eggs and peanuts, could not: “a storm of smoke” rising from a nearby village. Sellers frantically began to gather up their wares and hurry away with the buyers. The adults understood. They recognized the approaching signs of the dreaded scourge that most people believed had disappeared from the pages of African history long ago: a slave raid. It was 1986 and Bok was about to see his happy world of family and village shattered forever by a centuries-old, barbaric practice that has never died out: the violent capture and enslavement of black Africans by Arabs. “The Arab militias were told to kill the men and enslave the women and children,” said the now 28-year-old Bok, who was himself captured and enslaved that day, to an audience of 80 people at the University of Toronto recently where he had been invited to speak by the campus organization, Zionists at U. of T. Bok, who would spend the next ten years working as a child slave, then outlined for his college listeners in horrifying detail the savage hurricane of violence he next witnessed when the Arab slavers attacked. “I saw many people on the ground, shot…I saw people with their heads cut off with swords and shot in the head. People were lying on the ground like they just wanted to relax for a moment. I saw blood pouring like a small stream,” the 28-year-old Bok recounted in a voice that still quivers with emotion. Unknown to him at that time, Bok was also an innocent victim of the decades-long, savage civil war between Sudan’s Arab Muslim North and the country’s African Christian and animist South. Based in the capital, Khartoum, the North’s Islamist government, which also hosted Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, had promulgated sharia law in 1983 for the whole country in its quest to Arabize and Islamicize the non-Muslim South. Also as part of this goal, the Khartoum government armed Muslim militias and sent them in the 1980s and 1990s to wage jihad against the infidel southerners. However, the spears and hippopotamus shields of the South’s Dinka and Nuer tribes, the war’s main victims, were no match for the Kalashnikov-armed Muslims, who went on to kill two million southern Sudanese, displace another four million and take tens of thousands of slaves in a silent genocide. After the slave raid, Bok, a Christian, told the audience he was taken to the Muslim North to work for one of the Arab raiders’ families as a child slave for the next decade. During the pitiless trip north, the little Dinka boy witnessed the depth of racism, cruelty and religious hatred of his captors and their world towards black Africans when an Arab slaver cut off the leg of a Dinka girl who would not stop crying because she had seen her parents butchered in the market place. Upon his arrival at his master’s home, Bok was to experience himself this racial viciousness when he was immediately surrounded and beaten by the masters’ children who called him “abeed” (slave), an Arabic word also used for black Africans in general. And a slave Bok was in every sense of the word as he worked for his master without a day off and without payment for the next ten years, often laboring from four in the morning until after the family had gone to bed that night. “I was supposed to look after the goats; there were about two hundred goats,” Bok told listeners of his first days as a seven-year-old slave. “My master knew all the goats. He would ask: ‘Where is this goat? Where is that goat?’ If I answered: ‘I don’t know. He would beat me…He had a favorite stick to beat me. When I had done something wrong, even when I had done nothing wrong, he beat me.” Lonely and isolated, Bok said he was made to sleep in a shelter near the animals and was never allowed to talk to the Dinka slaves owned by other Arab families. The child slave even received a beating, Bok told the audience, when he asked his master one day why he calls him ‘abeed’ and why no one loves him. He was told never to ask that question again. The treatment Bok received from his master’s wife, however, was even worse. She would, he related, not allow her ‘abeed’ to look her directly in the face and would spit in his, often calling on her children to spit on the Dinka boy too. “That hurt,” said Bok. “I asked her why? She said: ‘You are my slave and this is my house.’ She would also grab a knife and say she would kill me like a chicken.” For ten long years, Bok told his listeners, he would lie awake at night and wonder who was going to come and free him from this hopeless, helpless life of a slave where he was told he was just an animal. Even his forcible conversion to Islam, outwardly in Bok’s case, did not bring any improvement in treatment. Only his faith in God, the Dinka slave stated, and his desire to see his parents again kept him going. “I hated the way they treated me and the way they treated the other slaves,” said Bok, recounting his humanity was never once recognized during all those years with the Arab family, his only value being the work he could do. This was hideously emphasized by a nightmarish incident that convinced Bok to take matters into his own hands and escape. On a visit with his master to his master’s friend, Bok said he was instructed to talk in the Dinka language to another boy-slave, who had had his leg cut off. “I asked him what happened,” Bok remembers. “He started crying and said he had refused to go to work for one day. He told his master he was sick and wasn’t going to work. His master told him he had to go to work. There was no excuse. The boy continued to argue with his master, so his master cut his leg off.” At age 14, Bok told a silent audience he was caught escaping twice and badly beaten, and nearly killed the second time. Waiting until he was 17 to make another attempt, Bok successfully made it to Khartoum with the help of a kindly Muslim truck driver who took him home and bought him a bus ticket. From Khartoum, the young Dinka made it to Cairo where he was eventually allowed to come to America as a United Nations refugee in 1999. Today, the former African slave is a proud American citizen. In 2000, sponsored by the American Anti-Slavery Group, Bok began speaking of his experiences to audiences across the United States, especially at schools and colleges, giving as his reason the fact he could not forget those Dinka slave boys he remembered seeing in the Sudan. In his anti-slavery advocacy, Bok became the first escaped slave to appear before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and has spoken to other politicians, including Colin Powell and George Bush, whom he and most Dinkas, he says, hold in high regard for his assistance to the southern Sudanese cause. The new African American, grateful to America for the second life it has granted him as well as for the opportunity to speak about his people, also wrote a highly engrossing book about his days as a boy slave, Escape from Slavery: The True Story of My Ten Years in Captivity and My Journey to Freedom in America, that should be required reading in every high school. About the only setback for Bok in America occurred when he discovered his father had been killed and his mother and sisters went missing in the same Muslim militia raid that saw him enslaved. His brother, however, was still alive and a member of the southern Sudanese, anti-government army. As for the Sudan today, Bok says the problem remains the same in that the government is still trying to impose sharia law on its non-Muslim citizens, whom, he says, will never accept it and the second-class status it confers on non-Muslims. Bok, who is not against independence for the African South Sudan, also says he did not believe in the 2005 peace treaty between the North and the South that ended the war. “It was a big deal for the Sudanese; but I didn’t even smile,” he said. “I knew it wasn’t the real thing. I don’t see it as a real peace. Why is it a peace when there is still a war (Darfur) in the country? They (the government) shifted the war to another region.” Bok says he plans to return next spring to the Sudan for the first time since his escape and would like to teach English to refugees in Darfur. Asked what he would say to his former master if he was standing in the same University of Toronto lecture room with him at that moment, the supposedly ‘half savage’ ex-slave said he would tell his former tormentor that he was “absolutely wrong” to do what he did and never to do it to another person. “I don’t want to do anything bad to him or to his wife who hit me,” he said. “The only thing I could do is point a finger at him and say: ‘This is the man who took my childhood away from me.’ Other than that, I forgive him.” Maybe most people don't see the role Islam is playing in most of the horrors and conflicts in the world because Islam is not identified in the news coverage of the events. We hear about a civil war in Sudan, but we are never told, "Muslims want everyone to submit to Islam or dhimmitude, and the Christians and Animists in the south refuse to submit." When covering the different civil wars and conflicts between nations, if the news agencies identified the religions or political ideologies of each side, it would quickly become clear that almost all of them are between Muslims and someone else. And in almost all of them, Muslims instigated the conflict but consider themselves merely "defending" Islam. What possible good does it do to say anything negative about Islam, even if it's true? Find out here.

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Learn About Islam

Sunday

THE IDEAS in the heads of your fellow Westerners makes a big difference. Until more non-Muslims understand the goals and methods of Islamic supremacists, the free world is vulnerable. And you can help turn the tide. Find ways to introduce information about Islam to your fellow non-Muslims. Here are a few ideas to help you.

You will be shocked at how little most people know about Islam. And they will be shocked to find out. And when enough non-Muslims know about it, Islamic tactics like pretext and deceit will be seen for what they are, and will no longer make us defenseless.

When we know more about the founder (the one all Muslims should imitate) and the goals of the religion, our collective actions can effectively thwart their plans. Our collective grasp of the real situation will bring more rational changes to our laws and policies (such as our current immigration policies and the application of sedition laws).

The key is what happens in one-on-one conversations throughout the West.

The ideas in the heads of your fellow citizens (such as a blind faith in multiculturalism) are not the kind that will convert them into Muslims, but the ideas help the spread of Islam by weakening the West's defenses. You can play an important role in curbing the spread of jihad by speaking up within your own sphere of influence.

How? When you hear an idea that is incomplete, uneducated, or dangerous to our collective survival, stop it from spreading. For example, "Actually, what they mean by 'Islam is a religion of peace' is that their mission is to make the whole world submit to the law of Allah (Shari'a), and once that is accomplished, there will be peace in the world. Therefore, Islam is a religion of peace. That's what they mean. But that's not really peace as we know it."

But to do this kind of innoculation, you have to have a pretty good handle on Islam itself. That will require some study.

I know you have other things to do, and you can't make this a full-time occupation, but I also know how serious this is, so it will require some sacrifice on your part.

I have created a curriculum of sorts. I tried to figure out what would be the material you could study that would give you the most critical knowledge with the smallest investment of time. Here is my curriculum:

Books to read:

Islam and Terrorism
The Sword of the Prophet

Audiobook to listen to in your car:

Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam

If you listen to this program seven times over the next year, you will have a good grasp of the most important parts of Islamic teachings. If you only do one of the things I recommend here, this is the one you should do.

DVDs to watch:

Islam: What The West Needs To Know
Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West

The DVDs are not only good for your own education, they are an excellent way to introduce the ideas to your fellow non-Muslims. After you've watched them a couple of times, start loaning them out to friends. Keep them in circulation. Buy several copies if you need to.

You can help stop the spread of the ideas that make the West defenseless only by having a sufficient amount of knowledge.

When you hear someone imply that the United States brought the terrorists into existence with bad foreign policy, how will you answer? One possible way is to give a brief history of jihad. During the last great jihad, Islamic forces conquered Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, and Serbia, and they were at the gates of Vienna in Austria in 1683, when their forces were finally defeated.

In other words, they were violently attacking and defeating non-Muslims before the United States had even been created.

This is not to say some of the United States foreign policies didn't leave much to be desired. But the Islamic principle of jihad has a long history and Muslims are now using political mistakes as a pretext to engage in unrelenting warfare, as they have since the beginning. If you don't know any of this, it would be easy to see things as the Jihadis want you to see them, and in fact, many Westerners have bought the pretexts hook, line, and sinker.

Study that material, and start right away. The Islamic ideology is out to take away freedoms and human rights. After millions of people have fought against tyranny and died to gain the rights and freedoms we enjoy today, here comes a pernicious politcal force to take them away. And Islam could realistically succeed with terrifying brilliance.

Take action today. With every new understanding you have, and with every new certainty and clarity you gain, you will feel more bold in speaking up, and speaking up is exactly what we must do to win.

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The Wahhabi Invasion of America

Friday

The following was written by Mark Silverberg, author of The Quartermasters Of Terror: Saudi Arabia and the Global Islamic Jihad. Reprinted with permission.

Reza F. Safa, author of Inside Islam: Exposing and Reaching the World of Islam, estimates that since 1973, the Saudi government has spent an unbelievable $87B to promote Wahhabism in the United States, Africa, Southeast Asia and Europe.

According to official Saudi information, Saudi funds have been used to build and maintain over 1,500 mosques, 202 colleges, 210 Islamic Centers wholly or partly financed by Saudi Arabia, and almost 2,000 schools for educating Muslim children in non-Islamic countries in Europe, North and South America, Australia and Asia.

The Kingdom has fully or partially financed Islamic Centers in Los Angeles; San Francisco; Fresno; Chicago; New York; Washington; Tucson; Raleigh, N.C. and Toledo, Ohio as well as in Austria, Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, Turkey, and even in some Muslim countries such as Morocco, Indonesia, Malaysia and Djibuti.

Saudi aid to Muslims abroad, however, comes with strings attached, and most of the recipient institutions end up promoting the Wahhabi version of Islam.

A Textbook Case of Wahhabism

In a region where holy war is explained in public-school textbooks as "consider the infidel your enemy," (advises a Saudi text for 10th-graders), the connection between political Islam of the sort advocated by Osama bin Laden and the education offered to Persian Gulf schoolchildren has been the subject of agonizing dispute.

In late 2002, The Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace (CMIP) undertook a survey of Saudi Arabian (Wahhabi) textbooks. Unlike the Center's former surveys of Palestinian and Syrian textbooks, however, the Saudi textbook survey included the Saudi Arabian (Wahhabi) outlook on Christianity and the West as well as Saudi notions of government, women's status and children's rights as taught in schools.

The results of the survey provide some insight into the message the Saudis wish to instill in the minds of their students both in their Kingdom and throughout the world. The message, simply stated, is that Wahhabism either must dominate or be dominated.

In terms of the democratization and modernization of the Arab world, Wahhabism stands as a monument to Arab stagnation and decline.

The Report analyzes 93 school textbooks taught in grades 1-10, mostly from the years 1999-2002 and presents a "unique" religious and political worldview to which school students between the ages 6 and 16 are exposed through their textbooks. In these Wahhabi texts, Islam is presented as the only true religion while all other religions are presented as false. "Islam is the only religion leading its followers to Paradise, whereas all other religions destroy their believers in Hell. The Muslims are, consequently, superior to followers of all other religions, in both this world and the next."

Christians and Jews in particular are denounced as infidels. Jews especially are presented as enemies of Islam and of Muslims. "Muslims may not befriend them, nor emulate them in any way, lest that lead to love and friendship which is forbidden."

In a broader context, the textbooks make clear that the West, in particular, is the source of all misfortunes of the Muslim world — its most dangerous effect on Muslim society being "its cultural and intellectual influence in various fields including the spread of Western practices and habits — from Western democracy to Western influence in the fields of literature, art, music, the media, fashion, education and research — including Christian missionary work, Western humanitarian and medical aid, and even Western-invented computer games."

According to the Wahhabi world perspective, "the Jews are a wicked nation, characterized by bribery, slyness, deception, betrayal, aggressiveness and haughtiness." As such, they have been "a harmful element in world history," and are responsible, inter alia, for "the French and Bolshevik revolutions and for the outbreak of World War I."

Not content to portray the Jews solely in negative terms to students, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are presented as an authentic historical source. One textbook mentions that "perdition is the desired fate for Jews." Zionism is presented as an evil movement. Accordingly, "Zionism strives towards world domination or, at least, towards territorial expansion in the Fertile Crescent and Arabia. It uses evil means to direct world history, including some non-Jewish auxiliary organizations like the Freemasons and the Lions and Rotary clubs."

In Wahhabi textbooks, Israel is not recognized as a sovereign state and its name does not appear on any map. Instead, all maps bear the name Palestine. Israeli regions such as the Negev and cities such as Haifa and Acre are presented as Palestinian. Palestine is presented as a Muslim country occupied by foreigners who defile its Muslim holy places, especially the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The occupation of Palestine is portrayed as the most crucial problem of the Arabs and the Muslims, "who should all join forces for the total liberation of Palestine and its purification" from the Zionists.

Nor is peace between Muslims and non-Muslims advocated. Instead, the Saudi textbooks, even grammar books, are full of phrases exalting war, jihad, and martyrdom. [This is consistent with the content of the Qur'an and the Sunnah.]

The Saudi textbooks do prove one thing as a certainty — Wahhabism rejects Western democracy, and praises the type of regime Saudi Arabia has embraced, the character of which is attributed to Islamic directives.

Wahhabi Educational Outreach America, perhaps due to the inherent openness of its society, is the only country outside Saudi Arabia where the Islamic establishment is actually under Wahhabi control.

For American Muslim moderates, the harsh reality of having their religion hijacked by Wahhabi radicals is something they have yet to confront. "Radical Islamic groups have now taken over leadership of the 'mainstream' Islamic institutions in the United States and anyone who pretends otherwise is deliberately engaging in self-deception," said the late Seif Ashmawi, an Egyptian-American newspaper publisher.

Stephen Schwartz, a noted scholar of Islam has commented that "Wahhabi agents have sought to impose their ideology on all who attend the mosques they control."

Of that $87B religious propaganda budget, the Saudis have allocated considerable line-item space toward building religious institutions that promote the Wahhabi version of Islam. The Saudis have funded more than 80 percent of the Wahhabi-influenced mosques built in the United States within the last 20 years. Moreover, the majority of Muslim Student Associations at U.S. colleges are dominated by Islamic and anti-American agendas, as are most of the numerous Islamic Centers and schools financed by the Saudis.

And the most malleable minds belong to Muslim children. An estimated 30,000 Muslim children attend Saudi-funded Wahhabi day schools in America. Intolerance and outright rejection of American values and democratic ideals — classical Wahabbism — are often taught.

Susan Katz Keating, writing in FrontPage Magazine noted that the Saudi-Wahhabi worldview is gradually finding its way into these Wahhabi-funded schools. In affirmation of the CMIP study, she concluded that children learn classical Wahhabi philosophy — that on Judgement Day, "Muslims will fight and kill Jews. The cowardly Jews will seek refuge behind trees. Much like the trees in the forest scene from the Wizard of Oz, these trees will become animated and aggressive. They will call out to the righteous: 'Oh Muslim, Oh servant of God, here is a Jew hiding behind me. Come here and kill him.'"

Students are taught "it is better to shun and even to dislike Christians, Jews and Shiite Muslims." Students learn it is okay to hurt or steal from a non-Muslim.

The Saudi-supplied textbooks at these Wahhabi schools state that Muslims are obliged to consider all infidels the enemy.

As a rule, Wahhabi worshippers do not embrace the American religious community's spirit of inter-faith cooperation. They are distinctly isolationist. This attitude came to light as early as the 1990's, when Wahhabi mosques in America refused to accept help from local churches wanting to donate food to Bosnian Muslims.

Confirming the parallel findings of the CMIP study, Keating concludes that Wahhabism will not work with infidels, even if the purpose is to save other Muslims.

The Saudis, meanwhile, have directed considerable outreach toward the American Black Muslim community. In one effort to showcase the bounties of Wahhabism to this target audience, the Saudis' enfeebled King Fahd pledged as much as $8M for a lavish mosque in shabby South Central Los Angeles. The Saudis' Islamic Development Bank pledged an additional $295,000 for a school attached to the mosque.

From the Saudi perspective, this and other similar contributions are less an expense than an investment. According to Reza Safa, an authority on the manner in which Wahhabism is spread throughout the world, "as many as 90 percent of American converts to Islam are black." According to some estimates, if the conversion rate continues, Islam could emerge as the dominant religion among urban blacks.

Wahhabi Prison Outreach

The Saudiís also have a special program aimed at converting blacks in prison. In a well-documented June 2002 article in the Washington Times, Cal Thomas noted that the program is funded by Saudi Arabian money through the National Islamic Prison Foundation which underwrites a "prison outreach" program designed to convert large numbers of African-American inmates not only to Wahhabism, but to its political objectives including virulent anti-Americanism.

The Wall Street Journal (February 5, 2003) also confirmed that Wahhabism is making serious inroads into the black population of American prisons. It quoted a New York-based Wahhabi imam, Warith Deen Umar (who until his retirement in 2000 helped run New York's growing Islamic prison program by recruiting and training dozens of chaplains and ministering to thousands of inmates himself) as saying: "The 9/11 hijackers should be honored as martyrs. The U.S. risks further terrorism attacks because it oppresses Muslims around the world. Without justice, there will be warfare, and it can come to this country too."

The natural candidates to help press such an attack, in his view, are African-Americans who embraced Islam in prison. Prison dawa, or the spreading of the faith, has become a priority for the Saudi Arabian government. The Islamic Affairs Department of the Saudi Embassy in Washington disseminates hundreds of copies of the Quran each month, as well as religious pamphlets and videos to prison chaplains and Islamic groups who then pass them along to inmates. The Saudi government also pays for prison chaplains, along with many other American Muslims, to travel to Saudi Arabia for worship and study during the hajj, the traditional winter pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims are supposed to make at least once in their lives.

The trips, courtesy of the Saudi government, typically cost $3,000 a person and last several weeks. Prison authorities believe that these converted inmates could serve as terrorists once they are released, murdering their own countrymen in a kind of "payback" for perceived injustices done to them by white America.

On October 20, 2002, the New York Times quoted Faheem Shuaibe, imam at a large, predominately black mosque in Oakland, Calif., as saying that more than 200 African-American imams have been trained so far in Saudi Arabia. Mr. Shuaibe told the newspaper: "This was a very deliberate recruitment process by the Saudis — trying to find black Muslims who had a real potential for Islamic learning and also for submission to their agenda. They taught Islam with the intent to expand their influence. A principal target was to stop the indigenous Muslim leadership in America from tinkering with their religion."

According to the Times story, the brand of Islam being taught and exported was Wahhabism.

This is a trend worth watching. Many of America's black Muslims have harshly criticized America and have deemed it an "immoral society." Increasingly, black Muslims oppose U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and are adopting a Saudi-influenced view of Arab-Israeli relations.

Other Wahhabis in the U.S. advocate a Saudi-style approach to American government. Daniel Pipes reports that significant elements within the American Islamic community seek to replace our Constitution with the Quran. A ludicrous fantasy, to be sure; but one that offers a glimpse of Wahhabi dreams for America. [Maybe not so ludicrous after all. Check out their 20-year plan already underway.]

Former CIA Director James Woolsey told Congress: "Wahhabi extremism today is the soil in which al Qaeda and its sister terrorist organizations are growing."

Our problem is that we are not just fighting terrorists and their financial supporters. We are also fighting a religious ideology. The intrusion of Wahhabism into America is a threat to our security and to our way of life. The fact remains that the government has not done enough to root out Wahhabism, to shut off its funding, to close down its funding recipients, or to encourage moderate Islamic leaders to emphasize the inclusive (as opposed to the exclusive) writings of the Quran and the more humble and pluralistic commentaries of the Hadith.

The U.S. has also failed to pursue a coherent political strategy aimed at de-legitimizing the ideology of Islamic terrorism in America and undermining the terrorists' sources of support. And it is becoming increasingly clear that the reason for this failure is Washington's unwillingness to risk a rupture with Saudi Arabia.

The Bush administration has to face up to the fact that Riyadh has been — and remains — the main ideological and financial sponsor of Islamic extremism worldwide, and the Saudis are not seriously interested in helping us combat it.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations Report, Saudi Arabia is the largest source of financing for al-Qaeda, and blamed both the U.S. and Saudi governments for not being tough enough.

Matthew Levitt, has said that "Saudi officials and state-paid religious leaders sit on the boards of charities that the American government suspects of supporting terrorism."

Let there be no doubt. Al Qaeda ideology is essentially Wahhabism, and most, if not all members of al Qaeda are ideologically Wahhabist.

Billions of Saudi dollars are flowing through legitimate businesses, charitable front organizations, Islamic Centers, academies, private schools, wealthy Saudi individuals and worldwide criminal activities for the sole purpose of promoting a religious philosophy that is antithetical to democracy, the democratic ideals of freedom, tolerance, religious pluralism and Western civilization as we know it. Until the administration confronts this reality in a decisive manner, lasting progress in the war on terrorism is unlikely. Wahhabism, by its very nature and history, represents a nascent fifth column in America.

UPDATE: We've come across more about this here: How OPEC Profits Are Used to Endanger Americans.

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Simple Plan To End Islamophobia

Thursday

Below is Robert Spencer's simple five-point plan for ending Islamophobia once and for all. This is in response to a slick PR campaign in Britain. If you are unfamiliar with the Islamic underpinnings of terrorist attacks, read this first: The Terrifying Brilliance of the Islamic Memeplex. Now, here is Robert Spencer:

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Article Spotlight

One of the most unusual articles on CitizenWarrior.com is Pleasantville and Islamic Supremacism.

It illustrates the Islamic Supremacist vision by showing the similarity between what happened in the movie, Pleasantville, and what devout fundamentalist Muslims are trying to create in Islamic states like Syria, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia (and ultimately everywhere in the world).

Click here to read the article.


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