matching tracksuits

From the BBC:

Leading politicians have distanced themselves from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s belief that some Sharia law in the UK seems “unavoidable”.

Gordon Brown’s spokesman said the prime minister “believes that British laws should be based on British values”.

The Tories called the archbishop’s remarks “unhelpful” and the Lib Dems said all must abide by the rule of law.

Dr Rowan Williams said the UK had to “face up to the fact” some citizens do not relate to the British legal system. (Archbishop sparks Sharia law row)

I’m going to sound like a right-winger for this, but I’ll say it: it seems to me that if you have problems relating to the legal system of your country of residence, perhaps you should consider changing your country of residence; if you desire Sharia law, perhaps you should go to one of the countries where it is enforced — Iran and Saudi Arabia come to mind.

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[There] you have it, according to the moderate Muslims I have talked with in recent months. Reporters who want to cover this debate must realize that, as one scholar told me: �It is all about Shariah.� Can Shariah come to the West? Will governments in the West allow that and, if they do, are the political leaders who back that development prepared to deal with its affects on public life?

There is no Islam . . . without a Khilafah

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One of the dangers of having a controversial website that is also open to viewer comments is the threat of visitors’ words being attributed to the site owner.

As an aside, Dennis Prager rehearses the now-common (but still pretty good) observations about the difference in reaction in insulting Islam and insulting other religions. He points out the absurdity of the Federal Koran-in-the-toilet suit versus the crucifix-in-urine modern art piece. Putting a Koran in a toilet and putting a crucifix in urine are essentially the same thing, but the reaction is entirely different.

In this video, Ibrahim Hooper, of CAIR, makes just such a claim against Robert Spencer and his site Jihad Watch. “[Hooper] quoted a genocidal comment that was made on this website yesterday, and made it appear as if I had written it,” Spencer writes.

His response: “In reality, someone kindly alerted me to the existence of the comment shortly after it was posted, and I removed it and banned the poster.”

So it was on the site for a short period of time, but then disappeared. How then would Hooper have known it was there? Someone emailed him? Someone at CAIR monitors Jihad Watch continuously?

Spencer continues,

The comment itself seemed to me and to others who posted on the same thread to have been written by a provocateur — someone who wanted to discredit Jihad Watch and me by planting a comment here. Such people come through here fairly often. And now, after Hooper’s use of this comment despite its being deleted, I suspect even more strongly that it was written by a provocateur. (Jihad Watch)

Could it be that someone who is critical of the site posted such a comment to make the site look bad? It seems entirely possible.

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From Reuters, on the UK plots:

“To think that these guys were a sleeper cell and somehow were able to plan this operation from the different places they were, and then orchestrate being hired by the NHS so they could get to the UK, then get jobs in the same area � I think that’s a planning impossibility,” said Bob Ayres, a former U.S. intelligence officer now at London’s Chatham House think tank.

“A much more likely scenario is they were here together, they discovered that they shared some common ideology, and then they decided to act on this while here in the UK,” he said. (Yahoo! News)

Some common ideology? What could that have been?

They were all Formula One fans? They were all passionate about Jane Austen? They were all Culture Club fanatics?

That’s it — it’s Boy George’s fault…

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Holocaust denial is rampant in the Arab world. One doesn’t have to look too far to find it.

While looking for Holocaust images on Google, I found a discussion thread called “Myth of Holocaust Will Not Survive, French Historian” at IslamOnline.net.

French historian and professor of Sorbonne University Robert Faurisson said that the ‘myth of Holocaust’ fabricated by the Zionists would not survive.

Addressing the International Confernce on ‘World Vision on Holocaust’, Faurisson said that the gas chambers allegedly used by Hitler to massacre the Jews did never exist.

It didn’t take much to find it — I wasn’t even looking for it.

But who would have thought that we, American taxpayers, are actually supporting Arab/Islamic Holocaust denial?

Testifying under oath recently, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice misled Congress in her strong defense of Al-Hurra, the taxpayer financed Arab TV network. It was unwitting, though. She herself was misled.

During the March 21 House Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Rep. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) pressed Ms. Rice on the wisdom of providing a platform to Islamic terrorists, citing Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah’s Dec. 7 speech, which Al-Hurra aired live. The broadcast speech “went on for 30 minutes,” she responded, “followed by commentary, much of which was critical of Nasrallah.”

In fact, Mr. Nasrallah’s speech was carried in its entirety, roughly an hour and eight minutes. The commentary that followed–a 13-minute phone interview with Wael Abou Faour, a member of Lebanon’s governing coalition–was indeed critical of Mr. Nasrallah. He accused the Hezbollah leader of not being anti-U.S. and anti-Israel enough. While Mr. Nasrallah had claimed Lebanon’s governing coalition was aligned with the U.S. and had backed Israel during the war last summer, Mr. Abou Faour said that Hezbollah was actually closer to the U.S and added that any Lebanese faction that assisted “the Israeli enemy” should not be allowed to engage in political discussion because “the only place they should be [is] in prison.” [...]

Under Mr. Register, Al-Hurra covered the Holocaust denial conference in Tehran last December. But in a stark break from Mr. Harb’s era, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the attendees at his conference were treated with unmistakable deference.

Al-Hurra’s Dec. 12 report on the gathering included David Duke’s praise for Mr. Ahmadinejad, and it took at face value the organizers’ demand for Israel “to provide proof and evidence that certifies the occurrence” of the Holocaust. An official running the event was afforded the opportunity to show the open-mindedness of Holocaust deniers: “If we actually conclude with our experts through this meeting that the Holocaust is a real incident we will at that time admit its presence.” (Transcript provided by a fluent Arabic-speaking U.S. government employee.)

So we’re paying for a station that provides a platform for anti-Semitic rantings. What about the reporters themselves? Surely they are more objective.

The Al-Hurra reporter stationed in Tehran referred to those who believe Hitler killed six million Jews as “Holocaust supporters.” He took a swipe at the handful of conference attendees who didn’t deny the Holocaust, by noting that they “didn’t enforce their statements with scientific evidence.” In closing the piece, he referred to Israel as “the Jewish state on Palestinian lands.” (Wall Street Journal)

At least something, though, is providing a little bit of bi-partisanship on Capital Hill…

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Migrants to Herouxville, Quebec learn that lapidation — among other things — is not tolerated:

Don’t stone women to death, burn them or circumcise them, immigrants wishing to live in the town of Herouxville in Quebec, Canada, have been told. [...]

Its council published the new rules on the town’s website.

“We wish to inform these new arrivals that the way of life which they abandoned when they left their countries of origin cannot be recreated here,” the declaration reads. BBC NEWS

Members of the Muslim community are understandably upset:

However, the president of the Muslim Council of Montreal, Salam Elmenyawi, condemned the council, saying it had set back race relations decades.

He told Reuters news agency: “I was shocked and insulted to see these kinds of false stereotypes and ignorance about Islam and our religion.”

I write none of this to justify what the Herouxville council did. It was more than a little tasteless.

It might be a stereotype, but as Stephen Pinker and others have pointed out, within most stereotypes is a core of truth.

Truth is, there is stoning in the modern world:

• Afghanistan
• Iran
• Nigeria
• Saudi Arabia
• Sudan
• United Arab Emirates

In each instance, it is related to Islamic Sharia law. The truth is, contemporary stoning is a predominately (almost exclusively) Muslim practice. That is not to say that all Muslims support it; it is not to say that historically Muslims have been the only group to practice lapidation; it is not to say that only Muslims today stone. However, to say that associating lapidation and Islam requires “ignorance about Islam” is itself ignorant at best, misleading at worst.

What really caught my attention, though, was Elmenyawi’s juxtaposition of setting “back race relations” because of “ignorance about Islam and our religion.”

When did Islam become a race? We might call Muslims an ethnic group, but even that is extremely misleading. Did Elmenyawi misspeak? Was he misquoted?

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The case of Aishah Azmi, the teaching aid in Britain fired for refusing to remove her veil, got me to thinking about what it would be like to try to perform the basic functions of her job while veiled.

What was her job, exactly?

Headfield Church of England Junior School, where Azmi taught 11-year-olds learning English as a second language, suspended her in November 2005 after she refused to remove her veil at work. School officials said students found it hard to understand her during lessons and that face-to-face communication was essential for her job. Officials said the decision to suspend her was made only after school officials spent time assessing the impact of wearing the veil on teaching and learning. British Panel Reprimands School in Veil Dispute

I have a little bit of experience in teaching English, and I can’t imagine trying to do it without making my mouth visible. I spent much time sitting with students individually and showing them what my mouth was doing to make certain sounds, particularly “th”. It would be extremely difficult to do so with my mouth hidden.

Additionally, I know what it’s like from the learner’s point of view as well. My experience living abroad showed me how critical to comprehension it is to see someone’s mouth. When I was first learning Polish, a conversation that would have been simple enough in person was a nightmare over the telephone. If those who were trying to help me learn Polish had done so with their mouths completely hidden, I think I would have learned far less, far less quickly.

Veiling is not the same issue as observant Jews leaving work early on Fridays to get home before shabbat begins. Leaving early does not affect the quality of an individual’s work while at work; wearing a veil, in this case, seems to do just that.

The question is whether or not personal religious convictions trump job requirements. When they come into conflict, what gives?

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Interesting juxtaposition in the Scotsman yesterday:

ONE of Germany’s leading opera houses has unleashed an angry debate over free speech by cancelling a production over security fears because a scene featured the severed heads of Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed. [...]

After its premiere in 2003, the production by Hans Neuenfels drew widespread criticism over a scene in which King Idomeneo presents the severed heads not only of the Greek god of the sea, Poseidon, but also of Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed.

Now, who did they have in mind when they cancelled the production?

Christians?

Buddhists?

Ancient Greeks?

“We know the consequences of the conflict over the [Mohammed] caricatures,” the opera house said in a statement. “We believe that needs to be taken very seriously and hope for your support.” (Source)

Are we living in dhimmitude?

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Thud is right: it’s not fair to compare reactions of well-fed Westerners to those of poverty-stricken Middle Easterners. To boil it down to Islam is overly simplistic.

Yet I could be a lot more sympathetic to the anger of Muslims about Benedict XVI’s statements if it were not so hypocritical. Apparently it is alright for Muslim clerics to call Jews apes and pigs, to say Christianity is a twisted religion, to dismiss the spirituality of Hindism with the blanket term of “idolatry.” Below are a few quotes from sermons delivered in Saudi Arabia between 1997 and 2000, collected in Hatred’s Kindom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism:

• Christianity is a “distorted and twisted religion.”
• “The idea of intertwining religions and the claim that the Jews and the Christians believe in religions of truth … are sinful arguments and deceitful ideas unacceptable to the religion of [Islam]. … It is forbidden for man to bring together Islam and blasphemy, monotheism and polytheism … Allah’s straight path of righteousness and the satanic path of heresy.”
• “There is no similarity between Christianity and Islam. Islam is a pure and clean religion believing in the oneness of Allah … whereas Christianity is a deviation from the right path.”
• The Talmud is “the holy book of the Satanish Jews.”
• “The idol-worshiping Hindus indulge in their open hatred against our brothers in Muslim Kashmir.”
• Jews are the “brothers of apes and pigs.”
• “The present behavior of the brothers of pigs and monkeys, their treason, their violation of agreements, the ritual impurity they bring to places of worship … are connected to the deeds of their fathers’ fathers that lived at the beginning of Islam.”

And what’s being taught in the Saudi schools? A few quotes from textbooks:

• “Jews and Christians are the enemies of believers[;] they will never approve of Muslims, beware of them.”
• “Muslims will kill all the Jews.”
• “It’s allowed to demolish, burn, or destroy the bastions of the kufar — and all that constitutes their shield from Muslims — if that was for the sake of victory of the Muslims or the defeat of the kufar.”

More examples are available here.

The pope is being painted as a Crusader who wants to suppress Islam in the West, indeed, in the whole world. Yet what happens to Christians in Saudi Arabia? From the State Department’s “International Religious Freedom” report:

The Government prohibits public non-Muslim religious activities. Non-Muslim worshippers risk arrest, imprisonment, lashing, deportation, and sometimes torture for engaging in overt religious activity that attracts official attention. The Government has stated publicly, including before the U.N. Committee on Human Rights in Geneva, that its policy is to protect the right of non-Muslims to worship privately; however, it does not provide explicit guidelines–such as the number of persons permitted to attend and acceptable locations–for determining what constitutes private worship, which makes distinctions between public and private worship unclear. Such lack of clarity, as well as instances of arbitrary enforcement by the authorities, force most non-Muslims to worship in such a manner as to avoid discovery by the Government or others. Those detained for non-Muslim worship almost always are deported by authorities after sometimes lengthy periods of arrest during investigation. In some cases, they also are sentenced to receive lashes prior to deportation.

The Government does not permit non-Muslim clergy to enter the country for the purpose of conducting religious services, although some come under other auspices and perform religious functions in secret. Such restrictions make it very difficult for most non-Muslims to maintain contact with clergymen and attend services. Catholics and Orthodox Christians, who require a priest on a regular basis to receive the sacraments required by their faith, particularly are affected. (Source)

Of course, now the pope has apologized and all this is a moot point. Probably people in Gaza saying things like this had nothing to do with it:

During one rally gunmen in Gaza city opened fire at the Greek Orthodox church; no injuries or damage were reported. An unknown organization named “The sword of Islam claimed responsibility for the incident.

“We want to make it clear that if the pope does not appear on TV and apologize for his comments, we will blow up all of Gaza’s churches,”� the group said in a statement. (Source)

Nor did his apology have nothing to do with peaceful Western Muslims saying things like “Pope Benedict go to Hell” “Pope Benedict you will pay, the Muja Hadeen are coming your way” “Pope Benedict watch your back.” (Source)

Still, one has to wonder when the Muslim clerics who called Jew monkeys and Christianity a twisted religion will apologize…

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I’m certainly not the first to comment on this, but it’s been rattling around in my head for a couple of days.

Action and reaction:

• The pope makes comments that, when taken out of context, can be interpreted as implying that Islam is a violent religion.
• Some Muslims react by shooting a nun and others by fire bombing a church.

I really feel like a wing-nut for saying this, but…

• Why are we not hearing equal outrage in the Muslim world at these violent reactions?
• Why, when Madonna used crucifixion imagery in her latest tour (BBC), did we not get riots and violent protests at the Vatican?
• Why, when Jews are insulted, do we not see violent protests in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem?
• Why can various Muslims (including the leader of Iran) call for the destruction of Israel while we non-Muslims are expected to tip-toe around troubling ideas found in the Muslim world?

Update: Just after posting this, I read in the newest The Week of a Dutch priest who, angered at Madonna’s depiction of the crucifixion, phoned “in a fake bomb threat to a Modonna concert. [...] He was tracked down easily because he called from his home phone.” Google turns up a few stories about it.

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