Why More People Need to Know Basic Islamic Doctrine

A good friend of mine told me the other day that our efforts to educate our fellow non-Muslims about the doctrines of Islam are counterproductive because it creates animosity against Muslims, which causes apathetic Muslims to side with the more devout, politically-active Muslims, leading to greater conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims.

This has a ring of validity to it. But at its core it is a foolish idea. The problem is, you would only know how foolish it is if you knew something about Islamic doctrine. In our educational efforts, this is the biggest thing we are up against: Assumptions made by non-Muslims who are ignorant of Islamic doctrine — assumptions that prevent you from educating them about Islamic doctrine. It's a catch-22.

Many of them make the following assumptions: That politically-active Muslims are acting out of political motivations rather than Islamic religious motivations; that they cherry-pick verses out of the Quran to justify their actions but Islam is not what motivates them; that the majority of Muslims don't believe any of that jihad stuff; that the majority of Muslims have no political motivations; and that anyone criticizing Islam must be an ignorant bigot. These assumptions all conspire to make it almost impossible to do the only thing that can clear up these misconceptions: Educate them about basic Islamic doctrine.

So I thought I would make a list of specific reasons why an understanding of Islamic doctrine is important. This might add a little extra motivation to help us overcome the catch-22. Here's my list so far:

1. The US allowed Sharia law to be inserted into the constitutions of Iraq and Afghanistan. If any non-Muslims involved in that decision had been familiar with Islamic doctrine enough to know what Sharia law means and what it entails, they would not have allowed it to happen. So billions of dollars have been spent to free those two countries from the domination of their previous repressive governments, and thousands of soldiers from Western democracies have died, only to have set up the conditions for the creation of two more Islamic countries. And anyone who knows anything about Islamic doctrine can tell you this will inevitably lead to countries increasingly dominated by misogyny, religious intolerance, and aggression against the non-Muslim world. It was one of the most awe-inspiring, mind-blowing, remarkably self-defeating actions done by any non-Muslims in recent history.

And the only reason it happened is that the non-Muslims involved were ignorant of the basic doctrines of Islam.

2. In the free world, politically active Muslims are are pushing for concessions of all kinds. In Britain, Muslim women doctors and nurses do not have to follow the same cleanliness standards as non-Muslims, for example. In Hamtramck, Michigan, the City Council waved the noise ordinances in deference to the mosque there to allow them to broadcast an amplified call to prayer throughout the neighborhood. After a Danish newspaper published some cartoons depicting Mohammad — nothing more offensive than politicians suffer every day all over the free world — Muslims rioted all over Europe, killing 187 people. Afterward, many newspapers refused to reprint the cartoons out of fear. They were intimidated into silence by Muslims. And so on (read more concessions).

These concessions would not have been given if the non-Muslims involved had known about basic Islamic doctrine.

You can't see the purpose of the political concessions unless you know Islam. People naturally buy into the specific reasons given for each specific concession and easily miss any larger purpose. Politically-active orthodox Muslims will continue to encroach on Western laws and customs, concession by concession, until they become a political force that cannot be easily resisted. They will have gained a level of political power that cannot be peacefully undone. They will have gained a sufficient foothold in the society, producing new Islamic norms, getting non-Muslims used to these things, until everyone feels "it's just the way things are."

The purpose of each concession is to fulfill Islam's prime directive: To make the whole world subjugated to Islamic law. If you don't know that, or if you don't believe that, you will take it on a case-by-case basis, and they will gain one concession after another.

The orthodox Muslims in the West, working for Islam's political goal, know how to play the game. They know what our buttons are. They know our Achilles' heel: White guilt (as it is known in America) or post-colonial guilt (as it is known in Europe). And they exploit it. They exploit this and many other psychological weaknesses in the Western mind, and gain one concession after another.

We have not had much historical exposure to Islamic ways of doing things, so we have no natural resistance. It's like introducing rabbits into Australia or mongoose into Hawaii. The other forms of life don't have time to adapt, so the new animals easily proliferate and ultimately dominate.

3. They keep having peace talks and peace summits and peace treaties to create "peace in the Middle East," meaning "peace between Israel and the Muslim countries surrounding Israel." Only someone ignorant of the most basic principles of Islamic doctrine would believe that anything approaching peace will ever be possible between Israel and the rest of the Muslim world. With no more than two hours of education about basic Islamic doctrine, any rational person would easily see that the goal is ridiculous.

But only someone who knows about Islamic doctrine could understand this. The non-Muslim world should be working toward security, not peace. Read the Quran and you will find there is no possible way for peace to exist between Israel and in the Muslim world. It is impossible.

There are obviously some Muslims who ignore much of their doctrine and who can live and let live with Israel. But as long as there are believing Muslims in the Middle East, Israel will be attacked. And all these efforts at disarming Israel or forcing Israel to make concessions to Muslims only prolongs the conflict.

This is another example of how it helps us defeat Islam's relentless encroachment to know the basic doctrines of Islam. It illustrates why an ignorance of Islam prolongs problems, weakens the position of non-Muslims, weakens the security of non-Muslims, causes the deaths of non-Muslims, and strengthens Islam's political power in the world.

4. The population of Muslims in Europe has grown large enough already that the politicians in Europe can no longer ignore the voting block represented by the Muslims, and they are working together (the Muslims and the politicians) to slowly dismantle, piece by piece, the hard-won freedoms, the principles of equality, and the economic viability of Europe's democracies.

And yet Europe is continuing to allow Muslims to immigrate to their countries in great numbers.

Why is Europe continuing such self-defeating policies? Because so many Europeans are so ignorant of basic Islamic doctrine.

5. Mosques are being built all over the free world. Non-Muslims allow this. In these mosques, Muslims are being taught that their loyalty to Islam is more important than their loyalty to the country in which they are citizens. They are being taught that the ultimate goal is an Islamic world. The ultimate goal is that all people on earth are subjugated to Islamic law. They are taught strategies to accomplish this goal. They are motivated to accomplish this goal in those mosques. They are given literature — books, magazines, and audio recordings — that teach these notions and motivate them to follow these notions.

This is happening in 75% of the mosques in America, and 80% of the mosques in Canada. It's probably being done similarly in the mosques of Europe.

Non-Muslims are allowing this because they are so ignorant of basic Islam that they unquestioningly accept the deliberate disinformation being given to them by orthodox Muslims. They are being fooled. They are being hoodwinked by orthodox Muslims with a political agenda.

The examples above barely scratch the surface. The list could go on and on. I'd be the first to admit that learning about Islam is not fun or easy. But it clears up a lot of false assumptions and greatly clarifies our situation. It allows you to look into the world and really see the forest for the trees.

We are being invaded. We are being colonized. And we are helping this happen. We are actively helping the invasion and colonization of free countries by politically-motivated Islamic supremacists. And the only reason we are not stopping it is that so many of us are so completely ignorant of basic Islamic doctrine.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here.

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If You Can Be So Bold

A while back, I told you about Michael, a man who uses a business card with a QR code on it to educate his fellow citizens about Islam. Read about it here (he added some good ideas about using the cards in the comments of the article). Michael does something else creative and bold: He wrote this on the back window of his car:

You can click on the image to see it larger. He wrote this: On my days off work, I can be found driving up and down very busy streets and Interstates in the Kansas City area, purposely driving just a smidgen slower than traffic, so vehicles read my back window, pass, then more vehicles have a chance to get a look at the back window of my vehicle. I haven't been called bashful for a long time.

We created InquiryIntoIslam.com as a website citizen warriors could use to share with people who really know nothing about Islam. It's a beginner's website. This is a great use of that resource.

I asked Michael if I could publish his picture, and he wrote back with this:

I would be honored if you would publish the picture of my back window on your website. That would be great if others would be willing to do the same, to get the word out. I am only guessing, but would estimate that hundreds, perhaps 500-1000 vehicles (cars, trucks, 18-wheelers) passed by that back window in just a matter of a few hours of driving during rush hour traffic this past Monday. This next time I will make the handwriting look cleaner, more presentable.

No doubt others may wonder "Hmm... where can I get the non-permanent, large, white paint markers to use for the writing?" Well, they are not that easy to find, let me tell you. I spent a bit of time searching the web for something that I felt would work and ended up purchasing these on amazon.com (link below), but the quality isn't the greatest, which I noted in the reviews section.  They are imported, and while they look nice, both markers in the 2-pack began to fail before I got full life out of them. So, there's that.

But there are other options out there, large white wax crayons (I found some at a lumber store), even ordering custom decals for those people who are able to spend more for a better look and are able to keep the message on their automobiles 7 days a week.  Some decals are a "peel and stick," for remove and reapply.

There are some thoughts there for others, that I had to go through for myself.

Oh! Also, you may wish to make sure you mention, or provide a link for them that they can click on, that will use your Amazon link, so you get that money that helps to support your ministry, when they buy the markers from Amazon. Every little bit helps, right? Just a thought, you can even suggest they Bookmark the Amazon link (like I did) and save it to the top of their browser so it is easy to find next time they buy something/anything from Amazon. My bookmarked icon/link automatically uses your link to Amazon.

Thank you!

Mike

For non-permanent White Paint Markers, here's the link: Uni Posca Paint Marker PC-17K White.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here.

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The Key to Your Listener’s Inability to Confront the Disturbing Nature of Islamic Doctrine

Someone left the comment below on The Islamization of the West and it reminds me of many similar comments I've gotten over the years, and similar feelings I've had:

"I am at a complete loss as to why CAIR, ISNA, ICNA, MPAC or this NMLA is even allowed to exist in America?? Are some Americans so dumbed down that they don't see the enemy right in front of them? Is this or any political party in government so stupid that they just turn a blind eye to what's happening?"

Can you feel the commenter's exasperation? Have you had this feeling before? We are in a strange situation: We try to simply share new information we've learned, and we find ourselves unable to share it — not because we are incapable of articulating it, but because our listeners do backflips trying to invalidate the information. They contort themselves into impossible cognitive pretzels in order to reject simple, factual information. It has been baffling to many of us. I know. I have heard from hundreds of our fellow counterjihadists about this.

And I know how it feels. I sometimes want to write off my fellow non-Muslims as idiots, but I know many of them are not stupid, so what is going on? What could be the cause of their seemingly stubborn stupidity on this subject?

Last night, I was reading Victor Davis Hanson's book, The Father of Us All, and he said something I've never thought about before. Namely, that people in the West are acutely aware of the inequalities of the world — we in the West enjoy a material quality of life far better than billions of other people — and for a lot of Westerners, this presents a serious ethical problem.

They feel guilty about it. They need to assuage their guilt in some way. But here is the key insight I've never thought about before: They need to assuage their guilt in some way other than giving up the goodies, because even though they don't like the inequality, they don't want to give up the high quality of life.

In other words, many people need to have a way to keep enjoying the material riches, but still rectify or expiate the guilt they feel about others being so poor.

The solution many have chosen is to go out of their way to see what's wrong with their own culture, and to give other cultures an undeserved reverence.


A FAMILIAR SOLUTION

This solution is something we are familiar with in our personal relationships. If you are more successful than a friend of yours, for example, one way you can help him feel better and prevent him from resenting you is to point out your own faults. Those who are exceptionally successful often habitually display humility, making it a point to underline their own personal imperfections.

The successful person can do this with integrity because everyone has faults, even very competent people, and because every success is partly a result of pure luck — the luck of being born in a free country, the luck of being born with ambition, a high energy, basic intelligence, good health, etc. Many people use this stratagem, knowingly or unknowingly, because it helps. The self-deprecation helps a successful person continue to enjoy the material goodies without feeling too guilty about it around other people, and without making other people feel bad about themselves or resentful of the successful person.

It shows no class to put down the "less fortunate" as lazy, stupid, ignorant, etc. It is the height of vulgarity to criticize or humiliate or ridicule or rebuke or denounce the less fortunate.

And I think the people who will not listen to you, or who argue in defense of Islam even when they know nothing about Islam, are doing the same thing on a cultural scale. In other words, when you, a fellow member of the fortunate class (a Westerner) start bad-mouthing another culture — when you start criticizing Islamic doctrine — you have violated an important code of etiquette. And for them to listen to you and accept what you say is for them to violate it too.

What we're dealing with is a "cultural humility" about Western culture and achievements. People are going out of their way to point out what is wrong with their own Western culture or their country in particular. They're not casual about this — there is an underlying intensity. They seem hell-bent on criticizing their own country or culture.

Now it makes sense that it seems so deeply felt, that your listeners seem so committed to stopping you from criticizing Islam and committed to criticizing their own culture. Many people rely on this criticism to allow them to enjoy their abundant technology and relative luxury without too much guilt.

They feel less guilty because they express a sufficient degree of contempt for their own highly successful culture, and they feel (or at least profess) sufficient admiration for all other cultures.

The simple, factual information about Islam you want to share threatens to undermine this whole unformulated creed, which endangers the linchpin of their emotional harmony and ethical congruence. They can't let it in.

To let it in would require them to rearrange an important feature of their worldview and their self-image. This is not a minor matter. This is not a small, inconsequential barrier we can easily sweep aside. It is a major psychological problem that stands in the way of our goal of educating people about Islam. Understanding what it is and what we're up against is the first step.


SURVIVOR GUILT

We are talking about a psychological problem similar to survivor guilt. People who have survived plane crashes or concentration camps or some other event where others have died sometimes suffer a painful, unrelenting guilt because they survived while others perished. It wasn't fair, and they have a problem dealing with the unfairness.

Westerners are in a similar position on a global scale. Think about it. We've seen close-up, full-color pictures of our fellow human beings starving in Africa, imprisoned in China, tortured in Iran, executed in Saudi Arabia, while we drive to and from our pleasant activities in clean, comfortable cars, go to grocery stores overflowing with food, come home to a comfortable shelter with cable television, microwave ovens, high-speed internet, and enjoy an immense degree of personal freedom. It isn't fair. Yes, we may have worked to earn the money, but had we been born in Iran or China, our lives would be tragically different, regardless of how hard we worked.

We got lucky and it definitely isn't fair. At some level, I think most of us feel some kind of guilt about this. I think we should have a name for it. Born in a Western Country Guilt? I don't know what to call it, but clearly some of us handle the guilt better than others.

How do you live with the inequality of the world? Some people think those of us in Western countries have created a superior culture, so we deserve our wealth. Some think the European or "white" race is genetically superior. Some good evidence indicates the inequalities are a result of geography. And some just consider themselves lucky and try to help others when they can.

We've all found a way to live with it, but the people we're having a hard time communicating with about Islam have found a less-than-optimal way of dealing with it. It's better than the path self-righteous racists use, but it is not ideal (or even adequate) — it's preventing them from confronting and accepting important facts about the real world.

Multiculturalism is one way this guilt manifests itself. Multiculturalism says all cultures are equal. None is better than others. Moral equivalence is another. Moral equivalence says, "Yes, that other culture does terrible things, but look, we've done terrible things too," so again, we are not better than others. White Guilt is another. Each of these different manifestations all stem from the same fundamental need to relieve guilt while still enjoying the safety and wealth and comfort of their Western society.

We have a need, wrote Hanson, for "cultural neutrality" — for seeing ourselves as no better than anybody else. This doesn't sound so bad, but the need for cultural neutrality can be so well-ingrained that it causes a kind of willful blindness that overrides common sense and the basic instinct of self-preservation. It has gone off the deep end. Hanson wrote: "...so strong is the tug of cultural neutrality that it trumps even the revulsion of Western progressives at the ... jihadist agenda, with its homophobia, sexism, religious intolerance, and racism."

It is important to clearly understand this perplexing, confusing, exasperating phenomenon we are all running into: The compulsive, undiscriminating reflex to defend Islam and criticize Western countries. The source of the resistance we're coming up against is this: People feel guilty for having so much more than others, and this prevents them from accepting your legitimate criticisms of Islamic doctrine.

With this understanding, we can begin to find more effective ways of educating our fellow non-Muslims on the basic facts about Islam.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence.

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The Golden Rule in Islam

Islam's apologists say that Islam just needs a reform. After all, Christianity and Judaism have been reformed. But the apologists never get around to saying what the reform would be.

There are many kinds of reform possible to Islam, but does anyone care if they reformed prayer by praying towards LA rather than Mecca? No. The only thing that kafirs care about is how Islam treats us. We want our treatment changed. We want political Islam reformed.

Islam's treatment of us can be found in one word — kafir. The Koran says that a kafir (unbeliever) can be robbed, killed, tortured, mocked, insulted, beheaded, raped, crucified and on and on. The Hadith and the Sira agree with the Koran. Every single reference to the kafirs is negative, offensive and hateful.

The word "kafir" illustrates both of political Islam's principles — submission and duality. The Trilogy (Koran, Sira and Hadith) says that every kafir in the world must submit to political Islam.

The Koran also establishes dualism with its ethical system. A Muslim is not to kill another Muslim; a kafir may be killed, or not. A Muslim is not to lie to another Muslim; a kafir may be deceived or not. And so on. Islam has one set of ethics for Muslims and another set of ethics for the kafir — dualistic ethics.

The later political Koran written in Medina frequently contradicts the early religious Koran written in Mecca. The Koran gives a rule for removing the contradiction by saying that the later Koran "abrogates" the early Koran. But the earlier Koran is still true; it was given by Allah. So in Islam both sides of a contradiction can be true. This gives Islam its dualistic logic. Our unitary logic says that if two things contradict, then one of them is false

This dualism accounts for the two types of Muslims — the good Muslim at work and the Taliban Muslim. Both Muslims are "real" Muslims. Dualism gives the "good" Muslim plausible deniability when they say that jihadists are not "real" Islam. Dualism means the "good" Muslims and the jihadists are just two ends of the same stick.

The Koran, Sira and Hadith are filled with demands for all kafirs to submit to Islam. Kafirs can submit by joining the religion or submit by being a dhimmi (an apologist). Either way, the Koran constantly demands that all kafirs submit to Islam.

So what kafirs want to reform about Islam is its principles of political submission and duality. What principle can be used to reform Islam? The key is how Islam treats the "other" — the kafir. The Golden Rule tells us how the "other" is to be treated. Every culture in the world has the Golden Rule as part of its heritage. But not Islam.

So what happens if we apply — treat others, as you want to be treated — to political Islam? All of the hurtful, hateful and harmful duality and submission disappear. What is amazing is how much of the Islamic doctrine goes away. About 61% of the Koran disappears. The Sira loses 75% of its words and 20% of the Hadith vanishes.

And those figures are low. All of the abusive words about women would go away as well. So the above reductions would be even bigger.

The Golden Rule even changes Hell. Islamic Hell is primarily political. Hell is mentioned 146 times in the Koran. Only 9 references are for moral failings — greed, lack of charity, love of worldly success. The other 137 references to Hell involve eternal torture for not agreeing that Mohammed is right. That is a political charge, not a morals failure. Thus 94% of the references to Hell are as a political prison for dissenters. The Golden Rule would empty the political prison.

Think how wonderful a Golden Rule Islam would be. No arguments, demands, accusations, law suits, threats, pressure, hateful speech, killings, or bombings. A Muslim could even be a true friend to a kafir. Islam would develop a sense of shame and admit to the terrible suffering of the 270,000,000 kafirs killed in jihad. A Golden Rule Islam would ask forgiveness about all the suffering of the dhimmis. A Golden Rule Islam would also admit to running the slave trade in Africa by killing and capturing the slaves they sold to the white slave traders.

Women would not have to be beaten and wear the hijab or burka. Honor killings would stop. Muslims could join us in the human race.

But all of those wonderful thoughts vanish when you realize what else it would mean to Islam. Mohammed had only 150 followers in Mecca after preaching the religion for 13 years. But when he went to Medina and became a politician and warlord, he conquered all of Arabia in 9 years by averaging a violent event every 6 weeks.

Duality and political submission were the principles that gave Islam its victory. Why would Islam drop the only principles that yielded success? Duality and political submission have crushed the world that believes in the Golden Rule.

CSPI could produce a Koran, Sira and Hadith that would use the Golden Rule. It would be a thin volume, but what Muslim would buy it?

- By Bill Warner
Copyright (c) http://www.politicalislam.com/
Copy and use as needed, give us credit and don't edit.
Original article

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Another Useful Tool for Active Counterjihadists

With most people, when you try to educate them about Islam, you're starting from scratch. Every little thing has to be explained. They know almost nothing. If you're doing it in writing, this can be a cumbersome and time-consuming project.

Of course, the answer is to link the more difficult-to-believe statements you make to an article that explains more about it and provides support for your statements.

But often you just want to link to a particular thing and the only good links go to long articles. The support for your statement is on that page but buried in the article, so now you're making it cumbersome and time-consuming for the person you're trying to influence.

We've created something that might help. The single most popular article on Citizen Warrior is The Terrifying Brilliance of Islam. Awhile ago, we streamlined it and made it more palatable for someone who knows nothing about Islam in an article called What Makes Islam So Successful? Then we created a linked outline version of that article, called Basic Principles of Islam.

Now when you're making a point, you can link to a particular part of that article, and yet the whole piece is available to the more curious reader, as well as being published on An Inquiry Into Islam, which is a novice-friendly site on basic information about Islam, with which the even-more-curious reader can slake their ever-increasing thirst for answers. We think this tool can help us in our efforts to educate people about Islam.

Anyway, we hope you can find good uses for it. We give you: Basic Principles of Islam.

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New Leaflet: You Must Accept My Religion

ONE OF OUR allies sent us a new idea for raising awareness. And we have a new leaflet. It's really good and different than the first two. (Read more about the first two and get links to them here.) It is entitled, "You Must Accept My Religion." This new one never mentions the words "Islam" or "Mohammad." Why not? Here's how the author explained it:

I have tried to reveal the essential thrust of Islam without once using those words. It’s like a gestalt. I think Islam is uniquely defined by its rules and the character of its founder that, hopefully, people will focus on those instead of being inoculated against the message by the hot trigger words that seem to numb so many peoples' brains. I would also like to think that someone trying to challenge what the leaflet says would be forced to admit that we all know it’s about Islam precisely because it sets out some of its defining features.

What a great idea! The author of these leaflets is very innovative about doing the most important thing we can do: Educate our fellow non-Muslims about Islam. Download a PDF or print the leaflet here: You Must Accept My Religion.

For the previous leaflets we used Google Docs, but so many people had problems with it, we've switched over to Scribd. Please let us know if it works better.

In a letter to us, another of our allies talked about a few other things he does to help raise awareness. Here's what he said:

I just wanted to share some things with you that I do to make a stand. I find these things empowering and I think a lot of your readers would also. They are small things but they make a difference. One of the things that really annoys me about living near Muslims is that their standpoint is written all over them and you’re just left feeling like a cipher. Isn’t there a way of saying “I reject your way of life” without getting arrested or beaten black and blue?

One thing I do is to wear a lapel badge of the Israeli flag — I live in an area where there are a lot of Muslims and (almost as bad) left wingers. I wear it in such a way that when my collar is turned up it doesn’t show so if there are some particularly aggressive people about I turn it inwards. When I’m in a public space where there are lots of security cameras, I show it more. Because Israel and Jews are such objects of loathing to Muslims, by wearing this badge I am implicitly rejecting Islam and its virulent anti-Semitism. Israel is on the front line in this worldwide struggle (though I realise in a sense we all are now) and supporting Israel is a way to rebuff some of the madness and evil. No-one can accuse you of a “hate crime” or “Islamophobia” (I don’t accept the validity of these but they are forced upon us) but you can still make a statement. Israel is a beacon of western civilisation and it is good to show our solidarity with her.

I also have an IDF cap with a Star of David and “Israel” boldly stitched across the front. I wear this when I go to the supermarkets or department stores as I think I would actually be very quickly assaulted if I wore it anywhere else. It’s a good bold statement of support for a great country taking a lot of flak from the Jihad and the wretched left-wing fools. You can easily get badges from suppliers on ebay and I got my cap from a company in Israel. It’s good to support Israeli companies too.

I think by wearing these things it also brings it into the awareness of less partial people too. It puts another dimension into the public space. If more people did it, it would have a much greater impact. If people challenge you about Israel, it opens up an opportunity to dispel some of the malicious mythology that has been built up over the last few decades. I must say no-one has said anything to me yet but a lot have noticed the badge and been made to wonder a little.

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Jihad Kills

Killed by the Ku Klux Klan: 1500

Killed by Nazi Germany: 40 million

Killed by jihad: 270 million

Jihad kills more people per year than were killed in 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition. (source) Jihad kills more people every day than the Ku Klux Klan has killed in the last 50 years. (source)

Source for 270 million number here.

Source for 40 million number here.

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Why Do Our Own Politicians Seem to Be on the Side of the Islamic Supremacists?

A FRIEND of mine has been lobbying in Tennessee (see an article about what Tennessee has been doing), and the lobbying process involves a lot of one-on-one conversations with politicians, and he said most politicians are almost entirely ignorant about Islam. They tend to make the assumption that it's a religion similar to any other religion and a few crazy people have committed terrorist crimes for political reasons and justified them with religious doctrines they cherry-picked for the purpose, taking passages out of context to make them mean what they want.

And since they make that assumption, they don't bother learning any more about it. They have plenty of other pressing issues competing for their attention.

That's the case in North America and Australia. In Europe, it is partly the same, and partly the fact that Muslims now make up a significant voting block, and since politicians do whatever they can to win elections, they feel they must pander to Muslims to get into office. Right now enough of the general population of non-Muslims in Europe are ignorant enough about Islam that the politicians are getting away with pandering to Muslims, but as the educational level rises, they will be voted out. They are already being voted out.

So when you feel despair about what seems to be an overwhelming preponderance of traitorous politicians, remember that this is a temporary situation. And remember that they are as likely to be as ignorant of Islam's prime directive as anybody else. They can also be educated like anyone else. My friend in Tennessee has had great success with his lobbying efforts, which he says is simply education. He is putting CSPI's excellent little booklet, Sharia Law for Non-Muslims, into the hands of politicians with great success.

So regardless of what you see politicians doing now, the situation is far from hopeless. And if politicians seem too committed to their uneducated position, we will vote them out of office.

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New Leaflet: Six Suicidal Assumptions About Islam

ONE OF OUR allies has been busy. Awhile back, I posted a leaflet we can use to help educate our fellow citizens about Islam's relentless encroachment (which you can read about here). The author of that leaflet created another one, and it is at least as good as the first one. Read the content of the new leaflet here.

Download a PDF version of the leaflet:

Suicidal Assumptions About Islam

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Six Suicidal Assumptions about Islam

1. Islam is about Muslims – no, Islam is about everyone. Islam has rules about everything, and that includes non-Muslims. 61% of the Koran is about non-Muslims. It has rules about whether or not Muslims should befriend non-Muslims; about how to treat non-Muslims captured in war; about whether non-Muslim women can be raped; the attitude to take towards the possessions of non-Muslims. Most of these rules are unfavourable or hostile toward non-Muslims.

2. Islam is a race (kind of) – there’s a lot of sloppy thinking about this. Making this assumption will render you incapable of any clear thinking on the subject. When you think about it, it’s obvious Islam is a belief system, but when people criticise Islam they are often accused of racism. Defenders of Islam are happy to exploit this tendency as a charge of racism carries such force in a society sensitised to it. But Islam is and always will be a belief system, not a gene pool.

3. Islam is a religion – there is a theme of personal salvation within Islam which gives it some similarities to other religions. However, this is not the main part of Islam. It is mainly a political and legal system with rules concerning the conduct of every imaginable subject from warfare to wiping your bottom. It is both highly political and very personal which may help to explain its huge capacity for taking offence. In a society concerned about discriminating against people on the basis of religion, the religious dimension of Islam can be exploited for political gain.

Islam teaches that achieving personal salvation is done through obeying all the rules and extending Islam’s control of the world. The surest way to personal salvation is by being killed whilst fighting for Islam.
Islam is often described by Muslims as a “total system of life”. This is a fair description. The effects of this system can be seen right across the Muslim world where women are subordinated, free expression is non-existent, and tyranny in one form or another is the norm.

4. The word “Islam” means “peace” – actually, “Islam” means “submission”. The basic idea is that perfect submission to the will of Allah brings peace. How do Muslims know the will of Allah? By studying what Muhammad said and did. What did Muhammad say and do? He brought new lands under the control of Islam and told his followers to do the same. So Muslims bring new lands under the control of Islam. When the whole world submits to the will of Allah, there will be “peace”, as Islam defines it.

In the past, Islam conquered new lands by following Muhammad’s example of military conquest. Today, this is less feasible so Islam follows Muhammad’s example of migration (al-Hijra). This is a 3 step process: (a) migrate (b) multiply (c) dominate. (b) is achieved by new arrivals, having large families, and converting the host population. (c) is achieved by subversion, increasing intimidation, then revolution. (a), (b) and (c) are mutually reinforcing. For example, the power achieved through (b) and (c) can be used to block controls on (a) migration.

5. Because most Muslims are not violent it must mean that Islam is not violent. The perception that most Muslims are not violent will depend on where you live. In those countries where Muslims are more dominant, they tend to be more aggressive. As a rule of thumb, where Muslims are a minority they are less violent. This goes back to the birth of Islam: when Muhammad had a small band of followers in Mecca, the message he gave them was peaceful and tolerant (“Let there be no compulsion in religion” is a favourite from this period); when he migrated to Medina and established dominance he and his followers became more violent (“Kill the unbelievers wherever ye find them” is a favourite from this period). The message he taught after migrating to Medina is saturated with violence. The principle here is that when Muslims are in a weak position, the Meccan message is uppermost; when they are dominant, the Medinan message is unleashed.

In effect, Islam is both violent and tolerant: when circumstances dictate, it is driven by the Meccan message; but, when circumstances allow, it switches to the Medinan message. Being a “good” Muslim and doing what’s right for Islam will change accordingly.

6. The best person to ask about Islam is a Muslim. About 90% of Muslims know very little about Islam. Most Muslims do not study Islam for themselves; they get their opinions ready-made from their leaders. They don’t have an in-depth knowledge and most probably don’t want it because the consequences of forming a deviant viewpoint can be fatal. Many Muslims are also in denial about the real nature of Islam.

Given what has been said about the Meccan and the Medinan messages, how do you know which message your Muslim is familiar with? And, if your Muslim knows the Medinan message is he/she going to tell you? There is a longstanding principle of using deception to protect the faith and the faithful in Islam which, as with all things Islamic, goes back to Muhammad’s own example.
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The conclusions we reach reflect the assumptions we make. Start with false assumptions and you reach false conclusions. Start with suicidal assumptions and you reach suicidal conclusions. We don’t have to make these mistakes ourselves; our leaders are making them on our behalf. We and our children will suffer the consequences.

Islam has a foothold in our country. If you want to prevent that becoming a stranglehold by means of the “peace process” described in 5 above, you need to join the Resistance.

Find out more about Islam and why you should resist it at www.citizenwarrior.com.

(You can also download, print, and distribute this leaflet there too)

“The first victims of Islam were Muslims.” Ernest Renan
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Download a PDF version of the above leaflet:
Suicidal Assumptions About Islam

Download this in Spanish here.

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Educate the Public With Leaflets

We received the following email and thought the idea could be effectively used by many of you. In the sidebar of Citizen Warrior, we have several PDF files you can print out as leaflets, and we'll add the one below to the sidebar. We think this innovative and enterprising citizen warrior came up with a great idea, and the content of his leaflet is excellent as well (links to the leaflet are at the end of this article). Here's his email:

Thanks for the great work you’re doing. Please have a look at the attached leaflet. I print copies of this leaflet regularly and leave them on the train when I commute to work. I have tried to give people an idea of Islam’s essential character and how this is the inevitable product of Muhammad’s character. I’ve tried to illustrate his character with examples and also show how Islamic teachings and practices are based on them.

The actual details of the leaflet are not really my main concern in this message. I’m perfectly happy for someone to produce a better leaflet. The PDFs that you have on your site are very good. I do think though that they are pitched a bit high for many of the people that I come across and they would be more expensive to print in the numbers that I use. My leaflet has the advantage of being two-sided. I print 10 copies, flip the paper over and put it back in the printer and print 10 times again. I then cut the sheets in half and I have 20 copies of a 2 sided leaflet. This all helps to keep down the cost. Being half-size sheets, they are easier to put down on seats inconspicuously and carry around in my rucksack.

You give some excellent advice about talking to people on these matters. However, there many times when we simply don’t get the opportunity to talk to people but we still need to do something. I think there are probably many people who would feel able to distribute some leaflets in the way that I do.

There are plenty of other places where they could be left (eg. Waiting rooms, airports, stations, buses). They are a good way of getting the information into the public domain and presenting it to people who would not go looking for the information on the Internet. The leaflets can prompt people to look up the sites on the Internet and learn more.

The Internet is fantastic for disseminating information when people request it but if people don’t think to request it you can’t be heard in cyberspace. So leafleting and the Internet can work in partnership.

By putting the leaflets on a site like yours and enabling people to download, print and distribute a ready-made leaflet we’re removing an obstacle to progress. By putting the source of the leaflet on the leaflet itself we can complete the circle and enable new people to download, print and distribute. We thus establish a virtuous circle that is self-reinforcing.

It is interesting to think of a few numbers here. If I distribute 50 leaflets and 2 people respond by printing another 50 each, 150 leaflets have been distributed. If 4 people respond to their 100 leaflets and distribute 50 copies each, that’s 200 more. If each time the cycle is repeated 2 out of each 50 respond by distributing 50 each, we soon get some very large numbers. We are increasing the number of leaflets by powers of 2. Thus by the time the cycle has been repeated 20 times, that’s 2 the power of 20 which is 1048576. After 25 cycles, it’s 33,554,432. The assumptions about response rates may be optimistic but you can see the potential.

Read the content of the leaflet here:
Some Things You Probably Do Not Know About Islam

Here is a printable PDF versions of the leaflet:
PDF of Some Things You Probably Do Not Know About Islam

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Update: The author of the above leaflet has created another one, and it's just as good, entitled "Six Suicidal Assumptions About Islam" (read the content of the flyer here). Download his new one as a PDF document here: Suicidal Assumptions About Islam.

Update 2: He has created a third leaflet: You Must Accept My Religion. I think it's his best one yet. It never even mentions Islam or Mohammad!

Update 3: We've now got a collection of pamphlets and leaflets. Click here to check them out.

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Some Things You Probably Do Not Know About Islam

The following is the content of the leaflet referred to in this article. You can download the PDF file for the leaflet here: Letter size or A4. This is what the leaflet says:

1. When Muhammad was in his fifties he married a girl (Aisha) who was just six years old. The marriage was consummated when she was nine. This is one of the reasons why child brides are still common in the Muslim world. On coming to power in Iran in 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini reduced the age at which a girl could be married to 9 years, thus following the example of Muhammad.

2. Muhammad participated in the massacre of 800 Jewish men who had surrendered themselves following a famous battle. Trenches were dug and they were all beheaded and their bodies thrown into the trenches. The women and children were distributed among the victorious Muslims as slaves.

3. When a woman came to Muhammad confessing that she had conceived a child out of wedlock, he said that she should wean the child and then be stoned to death. This sentence was duly carried out. In 1994, a Sharia court in Nigeria passed the same judgement against Amina Lawal thus following Muhammad’s example exactly. Because Muhammad’s behaviour is seen by Muslims as sacrosanct these kinds of laws will be almost impossible to change.

4. Muhammad supported the use of slavery. He gave away slaves as gifts. He owned all kinds of slaves including males, females and Black slaves. He passed around slaves for the purpose of sexual pleasure for his companions — men who were his chief lieutenants. He stood by and prayed while others beat slaves. He shared the pleasure of forced sex with female slaves after conquest. He captured slaves and sold them to raise money for warfare.

5. Muhammad told his followers to raid caravans in order to boost the economy of his fledgling state in Medina. Bandits and pirates need look no further for justification.

6. Muhammad said, “Whoever insults a prophet, kill him”; this is one of the reasons why Muslims are so intolerant of anyone mocking Muhammad…and why anyone doing so is liable to get killed. It is also the reason why Islamic law requires the execution of anyone insulting Muhammad or Islam. A Christian woman in Pakistan is currently facing execution for “insulting Muhammad”.

7. Muhammad said, “Whoever leaves Islam, kill him”; this why it is so difficult for Muslims to leave Islam. Abdul Rahman was flown to safety in Italy from Afghanistan in 2004 because he was threatened with execution for converting to Christianity. Many others are less lucky. Islamic law requires that those leaving Islam be executed. Islamic countries are now campaigning to get criticism of Islam outlawed worldwide. They are pursuing this via the United Nations (and making good progress!).

8. Under Islamic law, the testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man. That means that under Islamic law a woman is half as believable as a man.

9. At the end of his life, Muhammad boasted that he had been “made victorious through terror”. Is it any wonder that many Muslims are engaged in terrorism?

10. He also declared that he had been ordered to make war on non-believers until the whole world was dominated by Islam.

11. It is stated 91 times in the Koran that Muslims must follow the example of Muhammad in every detail. Just ponder the implications of that.

These are a small sample of facts about Islam. It should be enough to show you that the founder of Islam was a brutal warlord and that his words and deeds have given Islam its brutal and intolerant character. It is difficult to see what good can come from the teachings of a man like Muhammad. Take a look at the world and you will see that many of the most oppressive, brutal and backward societies are strongholds of Islam. They have become like this by following the teachings of Muhammad.

Islam now has a foothold in your country and we are seeing increasing pressure to make our society more Islamic. Do you want to live in such a society?

If the answer is “no”, it is important that you find out more about these issues. You can do so at:

www.politicalislam.com
www.jihadwatch.org
www.thereligionofpeace.com

(You can download, print and distribute this leaflet at www.citizenwarrior.com)

“Speak the truth, even if bitter.” - Muhammad

See this translated into Spanish here.

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Creating a New Parallel Religion

IN A BIOGRAPHY of L. Ron Hubbard entitled, Bare-Faced Messiah, the author wrote, "On 25 July 1968, while Hubbard was still in Bizerte, the government in Britain finally decided to take action against Scientology. Kenneth Robinson, the Health Minister, stood up in the House of Commons and announced a ban on Scientology students entering the UK. 'The Government is satisfied,' he said, 'having reviewed all the available evidence, that Scientology is socially harmful. It alienates members of families from each other and attributes squalid and disgraceful motives to all who oppose it. Its authoritarian principles and practices are a potential menace to the personality and well-being of those so deluded as to become its followers; above all, its methods can be a serious danger to the health of those who submit to them.'"

When I read that, I was thinking to myself, "Why couldn't they investigate Islam and reject it as socially harmful, attributing disgraceful motives to all who oppose it, and its authoritarian practices a potential menace to its followers?

The answer is obvious: Because Islam is an "established" religion. It has been around awhile and has lots of followers. The British government could get away with banning incoming Scientology students because Scientology is new and has relatively few followers.

And this got me to thinking about something someone suggested to me awhile ago: What if we started a new religion? I don't mean sincerely starting a religion, but creating what looks like a real religion, but with the same basic principles as Islam, but with different names. A website could be created that looks like the central headquarters of the new religion, outlining all the tenets of the religion.

Then we could write and speak about this new religion without getting any flak at all. Europeans who find it increasingly difficult to criticize Islam could switch to criticizing the same things about this new religion. They couldn't get into trouble because there are no adherents to this new religion, so nobody would be offended. And nobody else cares if you criticize a new religion.

I think if you criticized an unknown or new religion — if you criticized the exact same teachings as Islam, but didn't call it Islam — it would help people see the teachings for what they are. It would get outside the cultural immune system that makes the whole subject of Islam taboo.

To give you an idea of what this might be like, someone has invented a religion to make fun of Scientology. The new religion is called "Tarvu." Check out their web site. Its purpose is different — it just makes fun of Scientology. But we could create a web site that seriously parallels the core principles of Islam, but without any reference whatsoever to Islam itself.

Let us know what you think of this idea. Email us or leave a comment.

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The Will to Believe Versus the Wish to Find Out

IN A LONG email conversation with an intelligent, educated, successful man, he went from being totally against my criticisms of Islam to deciding to read the Koran to find out for himself. He told me he ordered a Koran. That was a big victory. But I thought, "If he gets one of those standard Korans, it is going to be difficult to decipher." So I asked him, "Which version of the Koran did you order?" He said he signed up for a free Koran from a website, and he didn't know what version it was. I told him, "There are a lot of Korans available to read online, but one of the problems with the Koran is its message is somewhat scrambled." And I explained in detail what I said in the article, Why the Standard Versions of the Quran are so Difficult to Decipher. I made a classic mistake here: I gave too much information. I kept selling past the close. I wanted to prove to him I knew what I was talking about, but I went too far. He had already decided to read the Koran. I could simply have told him, "Well, this version is the easiest to read: A Simple Koran." But no. I said too much. This was his response:

Wow, thanks for the rundown. I can see that there are no answers on the behavior of the average Muslim in the Quran so I wouldn't gain much by wading through it. You know, what I take away from this is that whatever is happening it is not fueled by the Quran anymore than what happens with our various Christian sects has anything to do with the Bible. The books are just props for the Imams, priests, ministers and miscellaneous zealots trying to make people live and act the way they want them to. It always blows me away that every religious leader tells his flock what God thinks, what God intends, what God likes, what God doesn't like, and what God is going to do to you or me or the heretics or the unbelievers or whoever the opponent is. They never say "I think this may be his/her motivation" instead they use simple declarative statements indicating that they have it straight from the Big Guy. It's the religious leaders who control the people there for the most part just as in the religious communities here the people's thoughts and mores are pretty much set by the priests, preachers, ministers, politicians, Fox News comedians, etc. We're fortunate here that we have a smaller group of fundamentalist religious leaders and they have less political power than in most Muslim countries. Imagine if the government was really run by the religious right, say, with fundamentalist Baptist ministers or Catholic priests in control. Fortunately, our supply of zealots is a minority. We can hope that witch hunts, inquisitions, ideologically-motivated murders (abortion doctors), persecution of minorities (homosexuals, women, Mexicans, etc) is nominally against our secular law which is supposed to trump religious law. We seem to be moving in the right direction although we seem to be much more theocratic than many other countries — theocracy with a liberal dose of oligarchy to my way of thinking. It would be wonderful if we really had total separation of church and state like some other countries. But that's not our tradition. I was interested in seeing an article in the paper a couple of days ago citing a study that showed that on the average atheists had a better knowledge of the Bible and Christian dogma than Catholics, Jews, or the various Christian sects. That seems to indicate that people do just take what is fed them by the leaders and don't really study it for themselves. It also suggest that a lot of people who do study religion end up atheists. What do you think?

This is how I replied: I'm not a Christian, but Islam is significantly different than Christianity. Mohammad really did learn a thing or two from observing the Christians. The Quran, once it is unscrambled (and that really doesn't take that much trouble, once you know how it's laid out) is a much more straightforward document than the Bible, and it even gives instructions on how to deal with its own contradictions. I think it's worth wading through the Quran, but just get an unscrambled version. The reason I think it's worth doing is that you'll be able to get the feel of the religion. It's not like Christianity. Muslims often make it a point to say it is similar to Christianity, but it's very different, and you'll get that by reading it. You said what's happening is not fueled by the Quran, but that's completely mistaken. It is fueled by the Quran. You can predict what orthodox Muslims will do and how they do it by just reading the Quran. Osama bin Laden and the other Islamic terrorists of the world often quote the Quran, and they quote it accurately. The people who run the OIC — the largest voting block in the UN — quote it. They are running its "program." They use it for their guidebook (as it says they should). Islamic countries around the world either use it as their guidebook or they are constantly suppressing rebellious forces who are pressing to make them use it as a guidebook. There may be a higher percentage of "Muslims in name only" in America than other places, but America has a lower percentage of Muslims than almost any other country in the world. And in other countries, Muslims are much more openly and strictly Islamic. And we don't really know how Islamic they are here because they keep it to themselves if they are devout (as it says they should in the Quran). But we do know that in America, 75 percent of the mosques preach jihad. In Canada it is 80 percent. It's worth knowing what's in the Quran because there is a whole PR arm of the Muslim Brotherhood that is actively producing disinformation about Islam, and they are getting their message across through all major media sources; it is being bought hook, line, and sinker by everyone from George Bush to Diane Sawyer. If you've read the Quran, you'll know better about the "true nature" of Islam. He responded:

I do appreciate what you're saying and you have a very logical approach to learning about the religion. I can see that a thorough understanding of motivation and custom and tradition can help us in negotiating with people. It can help us decide how to modify our behaviour to affect our relationship with them and we certainly could use more understanding like that. I get the impression that a lot of people who go to so much trouble to produce statistical arguments that Islam is x% different, worse, or ?? than Christianity are trying to say that the people are evil or motivated by evil desires. Like the proposition that Imam Rush puts out that (paraphrase) "These people want to kill us because they hate our freedom" That's a preposterous proposition. Anyway, it seems like all this dissecting of the Qu'ran is a lot like looking at weather maps to see if it's raining instead of looking out the window. The best weather prediction in the world doesn't touch the accuracy of walking out of doors and observing. What is happening in the world is a function of myriad traditions, emotions like greed, hate, as well as ignorance, religious and political manipulation and other unsavory forces. There are no simple answers like "We're good and they're evil" or "We're generous and altruistic and they're greedy and flawed" or "We're moral and they're without mores". So I repeat — What is the point that you are making by all this analysis of Islam? It seems after a long explanation there should be a statement that sums up the speaker's point. For instance I see the following possibilities. - So therefore our best course of action is a pre-emptive strike to wipe out any Muslims that might threaten us. - So therefore we should get out of Afghanistan and let them work out their own destiny. - So therefore we ought to forbid the construction of mosques entirely and outlaw books that espouse jihad. - So therefore we should terminate our dependence on their resources (oil) and leave them alone. - So therefore the only sensible course of action is to learn to live with them and let them follow their own traditions as long as they don't break our laws. Well, you get the picture. What is your point in all this analysis? What are you trying to convince people of?

My response to him was the best thing I did in this whole exchange. I backed off. I pulled back. I said: That is a fair question. The short answer is, I want you to learn enough about Islam that you are no longer fooled by their PR machine because of where that will lead. But I just don't have the energy or time to explain that all to you. My experience in learning about this is that there are people who have an intuition about Islam, and are self-motivated to learn more. And what they learn shocks and amazes them and they want to share what they've discovered with others. But nobody wants to hear it. Most other people have an entirely different motivation: They want to find out some information or adopt a point of view that will allow them to just forget about it and go on about their lives. They are not motivated to learn more on their own. The topic is a big one, and there is a lot to learn. And maybe when you have seen enough, you will dig into it yourself. You gave me five options (the bullet points). I don't like any of them. I want you to know more about Islam so you are no longer fooled by the orthodox Muslims deliberately trying to fool you so they can accomplish their agenda. He wrote back to tell me that was a good answer and it made sense. This is something I see very clearly now: There are those who want to learn more about it and who have an open mind. And there are those who have already decided what they want to believe, and they are merely looking for a way to confirm what they already have already decided must be true. Bertrand Russell wrote, "What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite." It is very easy and enjoyable to share what you know with the first group. And it is difficult and frustrating to share what you know with the second group. However, I think it is possible to influence the second group by talking about these differences between the two groups. If you're talking about someone who just wants enough information to be able to dismiss his intuitive fears, just point out the difference between the two people and then back off. You don't have enough time to waste talking to people like that, anyway. Find someone who is curious, and talk to them. Focus on the undecided. Not only that, but backing off can help you change someone's mind. You have a greater ability to influence when you have "walk-away power," as it is known to salespeople and negotiators. Read more about that here.

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Wanting An Excuse Not To Become Alarmed

THE FOLLOWING is an article published on Jihad Watch by Ronald Shirk, entitled, When Islam is Just "Stuff White People Like." I thought Shirk really nailed it when he said, "They wanted excuses not to become alarmed, and they wished above all to sound like the voices of reason against the 'alarmism' spread by 'jingoists' and 'militarists' like Winston Churchill."

That's it! That's exactly what we're up against in one sentence! I think it really helps to understand what underlies the incomprehensible refusal to listen to simple facts when talking to some people.

Here's the article:

It's hard for most of us who have already had our individual epiphanies on the subject of Islam to understand why so many of the very communities targeted for the worst abuse by sharia seem least willing to acknowledge the nature of the threat. Perhaps the comparison I've drawn with the phenomenon of anti-anti-Communism helps make today's self-willed blindness less surprising.

Reading the historical record, it is shocking how slow one key community was to awaken to the Communist threat: Christian clergymen. As Paul Kengor documents in Dupes, elite, mainline Protestant clerics served as a particularly gullible audience and important transmission belt for Soviet propaganda in the West. A number of prominent ministers, led by Soviet friendly professors like Corliss Lamont, embarked on subsidized cruises to the new utopia, and returned to America or Britain to discredit the truthful reports of religious persecution in Russia. After carefully arranged visits to Potemkin villages and rigidly controlled tours of select districts in Leningrad or Moscow, these veal-calves in collars would disembark in New York to tell the respectable press to disregard all the (factual) reports that Soviet Russia was persecuting Christians.

To some degree, these clergymen's attitudes may have reflected class, ethnic, and denominational bias; low-church, progressive ministers trained at Yale Divinity School or the Union Theological Seminary had little or no use anyway for bearded monks whose ceremonies were for them an embarrassing relic of Christianity's superstitious past. Such ministers, whose theological uncertainties had been neatly replaced by Social Gospel dogmas, were much more sympathetic to secular progressives like the atheist John Dewey (for years the leading dupe in America) than to exiled clerics with wild tales of labor camps and NKVD killing squads. (To some degree, the current apathy of even conservative Christians in America must stem from a similar distaste for "foreign," "archaic" forms of faith such as Assyrian Christianity in Iraq.) More important (because it's closer to the surface of consciousness) is the fact that many Western Christians today are deeply concerned about burnishing their credentials as good progressives, and distinguishing themselves from a) low-status, intellectually non-respectable Evangelical Christians, and b) low-status, ethnically intolerant working class Americans.

In other words, their embrace of foreign clerics with alien religions is just a niche form of urban white snobbery. It's akin to the behavior of an Upper West Side Manhattanite who preens about his cosmopolitanism by only seeing foreign films and overpronouncing words like Neek-a-ROU-gua. Of course, this political form of social climbing extends beyond our poshest neighborhoods and out into the Heartland. My favorite recent example of it appears in a town I'd never heard of, Norman, Oklahoma. There, Margarita Banos-Milton of St. Stephen's United Methodist Church is sponsoring a gabfest on "religious intolerance toward Muslims," featuring such luminaries as Muneer Awad, executive director of the [Hamas-linked] Council on American-Islamic Relations, Oklahoma City chapter; Malaka Elyazgi, a Muslim who serves on the University of Oklahoma's Women's and Gender Studies board of directors; Michael Korenblit, co-founder and president of the Respect Diversity Foundation of Oklahoma; and Nathaniel Batchelder, director of the Peace House in Oklahoma City. ... [As Banos-Milton said,] "I personally am deeply concerned about the misinformation, the heated emotion and blanket rejection of the Muslim faith. We have such wonderful Muslim brothers and sisters."

Kay Antinoro, St. Stephen's director of educational ministries, said the interfaith gatherings are designed for people seeking a better understanding of other faiths and their own faith. "This round table is an important affirmation of our church's respect for religious difference and an opportunity to offer another voice in a culture of misunderstanding, fear and hatred," Antinoro said.

You have it all right there: Ms. Banos-Milton is keen to display her post-Christian virtues of "deep concern," and the "wonderful Muslim brothers and sisters" whom she parades like adopted pets. Her colleague, Kay Antinoro is fluffing her church's peacock tail of "respect for religious difference." Could there be a religion on earth with less respect for "religious difference" than Islam? Not since Jim Jones handed out the Kool-Aid in the (leftist Christian) People's Temple. But what we need to remember is that appeasement of Islam really isn't about the Muslims, any more than it is about the victims of Islam around the world.

Religious dupes of the Communists weren't really concerned what was going on in Russia, either — or else they would have displayed more intellectual honesty than to accept without question the bromides dispensed by their hosts on foreign junkets. In much the same way, war-weary Englishmen in the 1930s weren't interested in what was really happening in the Sudetenland or Poland. They wanted excuses not to become alarmed, and they wished above all to sound like the voices of reason against the "alarmism" spread by "jingoists" and "militarists" like Winston Churchill.

When people swallow blatant lies, when they shut their eyes to so much evidence, only to maintain an intellectual position that raises their social status and makes them feel better about themselves, we don't need to wonder hard or wonder long why they prove immune to fresh evidence and solid arguments. Indeed, the more alarming facts an "Islamophobe" presents to such a person, the more violence you adduce and ugly connections you present, the crasser and more unpleasant you'll seem to him. You represent all the realities he doesn't wish to face. You're the oncologist who has spotted him smoking, the rehabilitated junkie who saw the needle fall out of his knapsack. You represent narrow, ugly, frightening thoughts; in effect, you become (in Freudian terms) the Id he'd rather pretend does not exist. So he'll repress all the information you try to pass on to him, the better to convince himself of his own high-mindedness. In fact, you'll become the scapegoat for whatever anxieties you've provoked — which explains why Oklahoma Methodists like these really do believe that the threat to religious tolerance in the West arises from...Christians.

Some people can't be reached. But many can if you do it skillfully.

Here are some resources to help you:

Focus on the Undecided

How to Approach a Conversation About Islam

How to Think Outside the Persuasion Box

Talk About Islam Among Non-Muslims

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Spelling "Quran:" Who Are We Trying to Reach?

BELOW IS AN email conversation I had with a reader of Citizen Warrior. This exchange is about a minor issue — how to spell "Quran." But it points to a bigger issue: Whether we are trying to appeal to (and hopefully reach and influence) people who don't already know about Islam's prime directive, or whether we are merely trying to appeal to each other.
At Citizen Warrior, we have been spelling the word "Quran" with a Q, rather than "Koran" with a K. The first email of the exchange said simply:

I never spell Koran with a "Q"...that is the preferred Muslim spelling.

I replied:
I prefer the preferred Muslim spelling. I am hoping to reach and inform people who "respect all religions" (multiculturalists — people who don't yet know much about Islam) so starting out with something deliberately disrespectful seems to me to be counterproductive.
If we were only speaking with each other, I would spell it however you like to spell it. But since many people have told me over the years that they share my articles with people they are hoping to influence, I try to keep it respectful. I never spell Muslims "Mooslims" or Muzzies or do anything else that would immediately stop a multiculturalist from reading. Those are the people we need to reach. Everybody else already "gets it."
She said:

How long do you think we have until they overrun our system of law? The Muslims have declared they are at war with us...I do not think that placating them in any way works...George W. Bush tried to tell us all that there are moderate Muslims but this is hogwash (no pun intended.)

I said:
I'm not trying to placate Muslims. I am trying to reach non-Muslims who don't know about Islam. This is a rule of basic public relations: Do not offend the person you are trying to reach. I have no interest in reaching Muslims. I don't care whether they like what I say or not. But many educated people know that Muslims prefer the word Quran spelled with a Q and they believe that spelling it with a K is what "Islamophobic bigots" do, and they just won't read something by such a person.
This is one of the most difficult points to get across to many people who want to do something about Islam: They don't understand that if they are a self-righteous zealot who just "speaks the truth and people's politically-correct sensitivities be damned" then the only people who will listen are those who already agree with them. If they want to reach the rest of the non-Muslims, they'll have to stop offending them every time they open their mouths.
I'm not saying you're a zealot. I'm using an extreme example to help make my point. This message is hard to get across to some people in the counterjihad movement, but I think it is an extremely important point, and it's one of the biggest things preventing us from bringing more non-Muslims to our cause.
I think our situation is urgent. We need to reach as many people as possible, in the shortest time possible. I believe spelling "Quran" with a Q helps us with that purpose and spelling it with a K hinders us.
She said:

If you are trying to reach non-Muslims, they usually spell the Koran K-o-r-a-n...

If you are trying to reach the educated non-Muslims, like me, they will usually know that Muslims prefer the spelling Qu'ran. You may lose them because they think you are placating Muslims spelling it that way....or being politically correct....

People today who are busy and educated do not have time to waste reading politically correct versions of Islam, so they rule yours out right away...why not ask and do a survey on it if you doubt what I am saying...ask people their relative awareness about the spelling, and their educational background.

I said:
You're kind of proving my point. While it's true that people who are already educated about Islam do not want to read politically-correct versions of Islam, those aren't the people I am trying to influence. My goal is to increase the number of people who are on our side. And the people I am trying to reach (those who don't know anything about Islam) would not read something that is blatantly or defiantly politically-incorrect. They are pretty sensitive to anything that smacks of prejudice, and they're looking for any excuse not to read something that runs counter to what they already know.
People like you already know. You don't need to be educated about Islam. You don't need to be reached. You're already on our side. It's okay if I "lose" you. I'm not really losing you, after all. You're still in the Resistance. You have not been turned away from the counterjihad; you've merely been turned away from Citizen Warrior.
She said:

My point is that the educated people you say you are trying to reach are the ones who would not know the difference between Koran and Quran...the ones who do have already decided their stance...whether educated correctly or not.

There is no reason to spell it the way Muslims prefer.

I said:
That is an interesting point, and might be worth considering: If people don't understand Islam's prime directive, they may not know the preferred Muslim spelling of the Koran, so they wouldn't be turned away by the information, so I might as well spell it with a K.
As I was pondering this, I realized that a lot of multiculturalists actually read a lot about Islam; but what they're reading is the PC version — the wishful-thinking version from mainstream news sources. So I thought I would find out how those news sources spell "Koran," and I decided to spell it however they spell it most often.
I decided to test the New York Times and the LA Times, as representatives of mainstream politically-correct news sources. Readers of these newspapers are the people, I believe, who would be most likely to be ignorant about Islam and yet feel informed. Those are the people I want us to educate (starting first with the undecideds). The point of view about Islam represented in the NYT and LAT is the standard, mainstream point of view about Islam. The people who read those newspapers have seen the word "Koran" (or "Quran") many times. The question is, when they see the word, how do they see it spelled by the sources they respect?
The reason I want to spell it the same way as the NYT and LAT is so my writings are not prematurely dismissed by readers of these sources because of their preconceived conclusion that I am a Muslim-hating Islamophobic bigot.
So I went to the NYT and LAT and searched the two spellings. And I discovered the opposite of what I expected. In the LAT, it was spelled "Quran" 223 times and "Koran" 333 times. In the NYT it was spelled "Quran" 292 times and "Koran" 4,060 times! Just for a contrast, I did the same search in the Wall Street Journal. They did just the opposite: It was spelled "Quran" 504 times and "Koran" 236 times.
So from now on I'm going to spell it with a K. That's what NYT readers are used to. They won't feel it is insulting to Muslims. They won't turn away from my writings. So although I'm doing it for a different reason than you proposed, I am grateful to you for motivating me to looking into it.
As a follow up to this conversation, I found a question and answer session with Merrill Perlman, the head copy editor of the New York Times. Someone asked why the NYT spells it "Koran" instead of "Quran" since the Arab world prefers "Quran." Perlman answered that the NYT's "overall guideline is to refer to our dictionary of choice, Webster’s New World College Dictionary, when it deals with the subject. W.N.W. prefers Koran, and so we do as well. The Associated Press, whose style governs many publications, uses Quran."

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