301. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #231436 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 16, 2008 at 11:10 am

Nairb I agree with your words in principle,but the fact is that this 'careful communications' strategy in practice tends to translate into statements like "Of course we have nothing against Islam, Islam is fine, fine, but it's just these extremists..."

This might be Machiavellian enough and work in a world where all Infidels understood the hellish doctrines of Islam. But that isn't the case. THe problem is the widespread ignorance of Islam, and this kind of rhetoric reinforces that.

There's another problem. Irshad Manji notes that in Egypt, early in the last century, girls ceremonially burnt their veils as a sign of liberation. Why? Because, pouring out of the West was the fire of the Enlightenment, of the idea of human liberation. The cold, stale doctrines of multiculturalism replaced that. And it is this that makes Islam so confident that it can win - it smells weakness.

A far, far better proposition would be to attack Islam full out while holding up the better ideals of the Enlightenment - to show the world's Muslims that life doesn't have to be a long, pointless servitude to a non-existent God and his verminous, corrupted mouthpieces - that life can be lived for its own sake, and the glory that lies with that.

302. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #231428 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 16, 2008 at 10:42 am

Oh, for goodness sakes...

But broad-based criticism of Islam by secular, white Europeans would, to my mind, only push Muslims to circle their wagons and fight against "racist infidels," thus making things worse for moderates and those who want to give up Islam altogether. And, too many 'secularists" are already crypto-xenophobes who would like to create such polarization.

Yeah. Secular White Europeans. Uh-huh. Honkies like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Brigitte Gabriel, Wafa Sultan, Nonie Darwish... I'm sorry, what was the point again?

This also doesn't address the basic problem that at the moment it is Infidel ignorance that is the problem. Ignoring what Islam is - as defined by the Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira - and what it always has been - as defined by fourteen centuries of horror - is the main problem.

This accepts to the idea that Islam can be reformed. How, exactly? To be a Muslim is to believe absolutely in the perfection of the Qur'an - in the same way that to be a Christian is to believe in the divinity of Christ. Two-thirds of the Qur'an preaches hatred of the kaffirs. Take that out and you will have reformed Islam. You will also have destroyed it.

Personally, I still don't think the Americans or Europeans should over-react to a muslim presence. Multiculturalism may not have worked, but there must be better methods assist integration with western culture and enforce western laws.

How, exactly, do you integrate people who don't want to be integrated? How do you stop people who are quite literally willing to kill their own children in order to preserve Islam?

303. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #231412 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 16, 2008 at 9:51 am

Lazarus what, exactly, are you on about?

Fanusi's second statement seems to suggest that Islamic religious writings are not so consistent at all, and that the latter ones over-rule any earlier "mistakes". Perhaps what Fanusi means is that the Koran is more consistent than his own statements?

I pointed out that there are very few peaceful verses in the Qur'an and those that do exist are cancelled out in accordance with the doctrine of naskh. What on earth are you on about?

This is a good area to challenge Islam. No-one in any faith would claim the prophet is more perfect than the god that created him. The only people with a chance of going there are christians who claim that jesus-bloke is actually god! All other prophets before muhammed were fallible. King David shagged other people's wives! It's things like this that show Islam is no different to any other religion. Yes most of Islam lives in the dark ages, but there are political reasons for religious leaders keeping them there.

You have understood nothing, but absolutely nothing I have written. It is the Qur'an itself that says Muhammad is to be immitated. I do just love how, in a thread about the rape of nine year old girls, you drag up King David as an example - who may not even have existed, and if he did it was over two thousand years ago!

You say that this could be a ground for reform. You don't get to reform Islam. Do you really think that, just because you say it, Muslims will follow that route?

The 'reform' of Islam has already happened: it's called Wahhabism, and it's the most virulent form in existence.

Old Sarum, Bonzai & others: it's not that there aren't wannabe reformers who want to bring Islam in line with human morality. I actually cited some, such as the Qur'anists. It's that they don't have a hope in hell of succeeding. Any interpretation of Islam that rejected Jihad and all the rest of its evil would become something completely different, and heretical: Ahmadiya, Ba'hai etc.

Trying to reform Islam is like trying to reform Communism or Nazism. A waste of time.

I notice, Bonzai, that you also drag up this 'underlying grievance' nonsense. Tell me, what underlying grievance causes them to rape nine-year old girls? What underlying grievance causes them to shoot schoolgirls in Iraq? What underlying grievance causes them to threaten women for buying cucumbers?

No. The problem is Islam itself.

304. God's Warriors

Comment #231227 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 16, 2008 at 2:35 am

I should have responded to this a long time ago, but I have had a great deal on my plate.

Yes, of course I see fundamentalist Christianity as a threat. But not in the way you think. I think the problems are twofold:

1. Mush-pot Christian thinking has lead to some staggeringly stupid policies. Note Bush's comment that freedom is the desire that God placed in every human heart. Is there any reason to believe this?

2. It leads also to some false identifications - such as the idea that this is "Islam vs. Christianity". No, it's Islam vs. the Rest. For that mattter, it might be more accurate to say "Islam against everything, including itself."

Christian fundies also lead to some other bad effects, principally:

3. It leads people to think that the comical forces of Robertson & Falwell are the worst that religious fanaticism has to offer. That's not true at all. Christianity, as it exists today, is a hybrid, and weakened, and defeated. Islam, on the other hand, exists in a pure state. That's a very different proposition.

There is one way that Christianity could return to the way it was, and I will repeat this: if the free-thinkers do not demonstrate that they are willing and able to take the fight to Islam, to unashamedly stand for what is right against that which is evil, then they will hand the victory to Christianity on a silver platter. Imagine the kind of forces that would be swept into power if there was a CBN attack on american soil.

Now, as to all these guys - Bonzai & others - who seem to understand that Jihad is a constant in Islamic history for fourteen centuries, but think that the Palestinian Jihad has nothing to do with Islam - have you all just missed that they all voted for HAMAS? Here are a few words from that charter:

Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. "

For the umpteenth time, the religion/politics division does not exist in Islam. The problem isn't the 'occupied territories', it isn't about the Golan Heights, or this piece or that piece of land. None of these places were occupied before the 1967 war, or in 1960 when Mossad grabbed Adolf Eichman and the Saudi Newspaper ran the headline "ARREST OF EICHMANN, WHO HAD THE HONOR OF KILLING 6 MILLION JEWS".

There wasn't even an Israel when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem allied himself with Hitler on the condition of eradicating the Jews. And so on and so on.

Israelies, Europeans, Americans, Indians, Chinese etc. we're all in this together. And I find it extremely cheap to pass judgement on Israel when you are not, in fact, one of those fighting for your lives against three hundred million Arab Muslims who want every Jew dead.

305. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #230329 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 2:40 pm

SASna & others, sorry - this misunderstanding is my fault. When I say "Christianity separates Church and State" I certainly don't mean what we mean today. I mean that, because of Jesus's command to render unto ceasar that which is ceasar's, the Church and State were separate entities, and the relentless snits and quarrels between them provided an important gap in which Enlightenment could grow. Here you had a lenient Prince who sheltered a freethinker from the Inquisition, there you had Jesuits who maintained the works of Aristotle etc.

This is a very important point, which is made, not by Christian apologists, but by guys like Fareed Zakaria (The Future of Freedom), Peter Gay (The Enlightenment) etc.

On the other hand, in Islam Church and State are one. They can't be separated, not ever.

306. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #230319 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 2:34 pm

Okay, it's getting late and I still have ALOT of work to do, so I'll probably have to make this my last posts for the night.

Bonzai,

The Quran is a horrible enough book, but my understanding is that many of the most outlandish Muslim practices actually come from the Hadith, while the Quran is supposed to be God's word, Muslims are not obliged to follow the Hadith, except for traditional reasons. There are also disagreements over the authenticity of books in the Hadith.

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid that's not so. The Jihad imperative is rooted in the Qur'an, as is the status of dhimmitude, the lesser value of women etc.

There is a broader point though. Say I wrote a book, two thirds of which railed against blacks, calling them 'the vilest of creatures', 'perverse', 'the lowest' etc. Now, even if I didn't include any specific incitement to violence, I'd still be morally accountable for people using my book as a justification for violence towards blacks.

It's exactly the same thing. Two-thirds of the Qur'an preaches hatred and contempt towards the kafirs - not to mention the incitements to violence and evil it contains. There's no way to reform that.

It's also wrong to say that Muslims are not obliged to follow the Hadith. The Qur'an continually refers to Muhammad as the example to be emulated - he is uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil, the Perfect Man, the Excellent Example. Muslims were usually called Mohammedans, and there's a reason for that - the figure of Muhammad, in Islam, is actually more important than that of Allah, all protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.

There's actually a group that has preached the idea of "Qur'an Alone". They're pretty decent chaps, from what I've seen, but, theologically, they don't have a leg to stand on. The Al Azhar just declared them all apostates, and you know what that means.

I am sorry to be a voice of such gloom, but we have to get to grips with this.

Could I also suggest that you just take a look at sites like JihadWatch, FaithFreedom, or read the online writings of Ibn Warraq (best place to start is with "Islam, the Middle East and Fascism" - google it, & also his unoffocial website).

307. God's Warriors

Comment #230285 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 2:03 pm

Oh, jesus - leviticus, I've written a rather long post on this over at the "We need to stop being such cowards" thread. I'd rather not have to repeat this.

I'm not going to comment on your numbers about Iraq or the rest of it for the moment, because the fundamental point is this: Jihad has been a constant in Islam for fourteen centuries, for far, far longer than the U.S. has even existed. These bastards slaughtered seventy million Hindus when they overran the subcontinent.

308. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #230267 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 1:40 pm

No, it's actually shorter than the New Testament. Still, it is nowhere as well written. I can spend a very enjoyable evening just reading Ecclesiates. The Qur'an... Well, you'll see. Let's just say that when Churchill called Mein Kampf "the new Koran", it wasn't just because of it's hate, violence, and war.

309. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #230258 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 1:30 pm

bamafreethinker may I suggest something? Over at Jihad Watch (jihadwatch.org) there is a Qur'an blog, which includes a section-by-section discussion of the Qur'an, including the important bits of the hadith, Sira and the commentaries (tafsir).

I understand not wanting to read the Qur'an. It's one of the most wrist-slittingly boring books in the world. Still, there's no substitute for the original text.

There are very, very few cherries. And those that do exist are cancelled by the doctrine of naskh in which the later verses (always more psychotic) cancel out the earlier ones.

310. God's Warriors

Comment #230255 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 1:27 pm

Well, the Qur'an doesn't specifiy it, but the Hadith does:


Bukhari (6:60:79) - Two people guilty of "illegal intercourse" are brought to Muhammad, who commands that they both be stoned. Apparently their act was out of love, however, since the verse records the man as trying to shield the woman from the stones.



Bukhari (83:37) - Adultery is one of three justifications for killing a person, according to Muhammad.



Muslim (17:4196) - A married man confesses that he has adultery (four times, as required). Muhammad orders him planted in the ground and pelted with stones. According to the passage, the first several stones caused such pain that he tried to escape and was dragged back.



Muslim (17:4206) - A woman who became pregnant confesses to Muhammad that she is guilty of adultery. Muhammad allows her to have the child, then has her stoned (the description is graphic).



Muslim (17:4209) - A woman confesses adultery and is stoned to death on Muhammad's order.


Ibn Ishaq (970) - "The adulterer must be stoned." These words were a part of Muhammad's farewell address to his people on the occasion of his final pilgrimage to Mecca.


Okay, I won't always be here, so please - alot of this stuff can be found quite easily on jihadwatch.org, thereligionofpeace.com, faithfreedom.org and so on. Happy reading LaurieB. ;-)

311. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #230249 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 1:20 pm

Mordacious ever since we started singing 'Ding-dong, the witch is dead' you don't need to duck.

I agree. He may have been flat-out wrong in some areas - Mark Steyn, for example - but it is nice to see him learn.

312. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #230241 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 1:14 pm

Bonzai, bamafreethinker I am sorry, but it won't. Christianity could be reformed - after a truly hideous struggle - because of important fault-lines within it. These are:

1. The Bible is a vast and vague document. It necessitates interpretation and discussion. The Qur'an, Hadith and Sira are much more consistent.

2. Christ has always been seen as a pacifist. Reformers could legitimately claim that they were trying to return to his original teachings. Muhammad was, first and foremost, a preacher of hatred. Two-thirds of the Qur'an preach hatred of the kafir. Remove that and you will have reformed Islam. You will also have destroyed it.

3. There is a Church/State separation in Christianity. Islam is first and foremost a political doctrine.

4. The early Church fathers incorporated huge elements of the Graeco-Roman legacy into Christianity, forming the foundation stone on which the Enlightenment could build.

Even with that it took the full fire of the Enlightenment and the power of science, as well as the hideous thirty-years war to reform it. We don't have that time.

313. God's Warriors

Comment #230230 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 12:58 pm

Sorry to be the dissenting voice here, but this show is utter drivel. It attempts to whitewash Islam by saying that - today, right now - Christianity and Judaism produce just as much violence as Islam.

Horseshit. Sorry, but I have no patience whatsoever for these kinds of apologietics.

314. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #230229 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 12:55 pm

Donald, sorry that it took me so long.

Fanusi, I have long regarded Islam as significantly different, and much much worse, than Judaism/Xtianity. But I wasn't aware of the figures you quote. Do you have web links? What is the status of the figures? How contentious, or accepted, are they?

Sure thing. One of principle sources is thereligionofpeace.com, which provides some interesting links, many of them to Wikipedia.

On the Inquisition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition#Death_tolls

Quote:

García Cárcel estimates that the total number processed by the Inquisition throughout its history was approximately 150,000. Applying the percentages of executions that appeared in the trials of 1560-1700�quot;about 2%�quot;the approximate total would be about 3,000 put to death. Nevertheless, very probably this total should be raised keeping in mind the data provided by Dedieu and García Cárcel for the tribunals of Toledo and Valencia, respectively. It is likely that the total would be between 3,000 and 5,000 executed.

(actually, I made a mistake: this is about the Spanish Inquisition specifically, but since that was the worst of them, I don't think my error was too grievous).

About the Witch Hunts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_hunts

Quote:

^ Brian Levack (The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe) multiplied the number of known European witch trials by the average rate of conviction and execution, to arrive at a figure of around 60,000 deaths. Anne Lewellyn Barstow (Witchcraze) adjusted Levack's estimate to account for lost records, estimating 100,000 deaths. Ronald Hutton (Triumph of the Moon) argues that Levack's estimate had already been adjusted for these, and revises the figure to approximately 40,000.

Now, as regards the horrors of Islam, my main source of the numbers massacred in India is the work of K.S. Lal, whose The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India is conveniently located online:

http://voi.org/books/tlmr/

A good article on the subject can be found here:
http://jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/007743.php

The Armenian genocide, the genocide in East Timor, and what has just happened in the Sudan can easily be found through google and wikipedia.

The number of two hundred and seventy million murdered by Islam I derived from Jamie Glazov, the director of the Centre for the Study of Political Islam and PoliticalIslam.com. His interview, Kafir Dreams can be found here at faithfreedom.org:

http://www.indonesia.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25666&sid=03ce9b8779672c5f9535979233f4695c

And here at Front Page Magazine:

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=76B12F33-3165-47D1-80ED-C3F1ACD07D8A

He derives his figures here:

http://www.politicalislam.com/tears/pages/tears-of-jihad/

I should add that I think some of his estimates are on the high side, such as 80 million Hindus; I'd place it at 70 myself. But that really doesn't matter does it - would we let Islam off the hook because it was 'only' seventy million?

Bonzai I don't try to whitewash Christianity. I realise that it sometimes seems that way, but that is because you haven't seen the blistering arguments I have had elsewhere with Christians.

I passionately value Justice, and Justice cannot exist without Reason. You have to know the facts before you can pass judgement.

You mention the conquests of South America and what the exploits of Leopold in Africa. Now, according the wikipedia, the numbers killed were about 10 million. Yet this can't be laid at the door of Christianity, because the driving force behind that horror was racism and imperialism and nationalism; the same blood and soil mysticism that later inspired the Nazis.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I am certain that the Christian priests collaborated and sanctioned that, and they deserve full condemnation for it. It was still not the cause. We all know the truly disgusting collaboration between the Catholic Church and Nazi Germany. That darkness was still not caused by Christianity but by the hideous doctrines of Adolf Hitler.

The point I am driving at is the essential difference between Islam and Christianity in that the former is a political doctrine and the latter is not. The fourteen centuries of Jihad were waged because of Islam and nothing else.

There are wars inspired by Christianity: the Albigensian Crusade for one, that killed about, what, a million?

Yet we have to bear the crucial difference in mind. My post was in response to Philip1978's comment that Islam today and Christianity of yestreyear are the same. They're not. Even if I weren't motivated by Justice, this error needs to be combated, because if people believe that Christianity and Islam are somehow equivalent they will conclude that there are ways of domesticating it, the way Christianity was domesticated, to the point that the worst we have to worry about are fools like Pat Robertson.

No. That is never going to happen. Until humanity regards Islam the way Nazism is regarded, we will not have a decent world.

Would you care to hear my brief against Christianity? It's quite substantial. A millenium of darkness, brought by the choking off of the human mind. Miserable poverty. Outbreaks of hysteria that consumed entire towns. Oh, believe me, I know more about the darkness that Christianity brought than I think anyone else posting here.

And that is why all free-thinkers must demonstrate that they can take the fight to Islam without reservation and without hestitation, without any illusions about what it is, with no moral equivalence and with no ifs, buts or maybes. Anything less than that and it's just wishy-washy apologetics. Which will mean that the Christian fundamentalists, who truly are able to speak forthrightly and fight this beast will be the ones to lead the fight, and to determine the kind of society we live in.

315. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #230226 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 12:54 pm

For crying out loud, this site keeps swallowing my reply!

316. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #230115 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 9:45 am

Phillip1978, I understand where you are coming from here:

But I have been thinking, if you came back in time to lets say medieval times even in England, you could be burnt at the stake or some other gruesome death for commenting on how nice the halibut was and that it was good enough for Jehovah! Christianity was pretty much as rabid as Islam is now - I am attempting to understand just what it was that changed things and how we could possibly incorporate it into getting the more fundamental followers of Islam to calm the hell down.

But, I am afraid, that you are wrong. I wish you weren't, but you are.

Here is a cold fact: Even the most fluffy-brained wiccans don't place the number of Witch-killings at much more than 60,000. One particularly hair-brained scholar estimates it at 100,000. The Inquisition killed about 3,000 - 5,000 people.

This is chickenfeed to Islam. A hundred thousand deaths? That's peanuts to what these bastards did to the Armenians, or to the Christians of East Timor. And those are nothing compared with the genocide they visited on the Christians and Animists in Africa, or when these monsters slaughtered seventy million Hindus when they overran the subcontinent.

The number of people offered to the blood-god Allah has been placed at two hundred and seventy million. Slaughtered. Not even Communism has such a black history. Not even the Nazis unleashed such depravity.

Christianity was a life-hating horror, without question. But Christianity had important fault-lines that allowed it to be reformed. One was the fact that Christianity was founded by a pacifist. The other is that it separated Church and State. These differences are not trivial. Finally, it grew out of a people who had the immense legacies of Greece and Rome. The Church Fathers were never able to part themselves from that legacy but reinterpreted it in Christian terms and thus provided the foundation from which the Enlightenment grew.

And even with all this, it took a thirty-year conflagration before the reform could take place.

But Islam has always been war, blood, slavery. It cannot be reformed. It can only be destroyed.

There's ways of doing that. There are ways of breaking and weakening and tearing down the dar al-Islam until it finally implodes. But this isn't going to be easy or quick. Islam isn't like Communism, that grew overextended and then collapsed internally. It isn't like Nazism that could be destroyed by taking out the government. Both Communism and Nazism were attempts to graft something new onto societies. Islam is different. It resides, not in any specific government, but in the minds of a billion people.

We can win this. We can wear them down, slowly, like a bulldog. All evil is the same - when it cannot find anything else to prey on it destroys itself.

Yet that requires a total rejection of any foolish illusions about Islam, any euphemism, any evasion about what this nightmare is.

317. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #230018 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 6:55 am

Jesus Christ, is this nonsense _still_ going on?

Give me a break. NEB, good idea.

Phillip, there are alot of Islamic denominations, but none of them differ in any significant way in its approach toward infidels.

Those Islamic reforms that have given rise to something nonviolent - Ahmadiyya, Ba'hai - are out and out heretics.

318. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229882 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 4:43 am

*shrugs* On the off chance anyone is buying this load of lies from this wretched creature, you are invited to take a look at the history of my comments - I usually use emphasis. In fact, I was using it in this thread before she brought the issue of emphasis up

I am sorry, BFKate, but I simply don't care enough.

-----------------------------

robaylesbury it's a good start. I'll be heading over there myself.

Anyway, is this a sign of people slowly waking up - even those who were pretty fast asleep until now?

319. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229876 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 4:34 am

DamnDirtyApe it's been corrected. I'm sorry, but BFKate's just lying through her teeth now. I never went back and added the emphasis. I don't know what the hell is the matter with her, but if you look, the typo never reappeared after I made it once. And, yes, it was only once.

What can you do with such a person?

320. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229871 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 4:30 am

Yeah... Sure... BFKate the emphasis is what made it more than a simple typo... Because, of course, noone uses emphasis to indicate a person's name when they are typing to them. I mean, that never happens, right?

Oh, wait, I usually use emphasis. I refer you to post 122 & 112.

For goodness sakes, get over yourself. I assure you I don't care enough to insult you like that, and I don't stoop to that kind of rhetoric.

--------------------

Tyler I'm really not sure. I think that the coverings predate Muhammad - Islam's laws and strictures are heavily derived from the norms of tribal Arabia.

I do find the article excellent. Hari has been off-course before with things like Mark Steyn, but it is nice to see people slowly begin to get it. Heck, I was pretty ignorant - and hence, well disposed - toward Islam about four years ago, and it was the cartoon riots that caused me to start learning. What I found, horrified me.

321. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229853 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 4:13 am

Jesus, Logicel, if this is what an alpha female looks like, what happens as you go down the hierarchy?

But, in point of fact, this is utter hogwash. Orianna Fallaci was an alpha-female. Ayn Rand was an alpha-female. Julie D'Aubigny was an alpha female. Maggy Thatcher is an alpha female, as are Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Wafa Sultan, Nonie Darwish, Irshad Manji, and Brigitte Gabriel. None of them would ever behave in this way.

This on the other hand is shell on a vacuum that tries to fill itself by snarling at everything at the least provocation, flaunting its most intimate details in order to bully others. Sorry, that elicits from me only bored contempt.

My supposed sexual comment was, in fact, a mistype, which I said right at the start, but to such an emaciated ego that will make no difference. For the record - again - I didn't even know about that abbreviation until she informed me of it.

322. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229840 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 3:58 am

Peacebeuponme yes it's low, and we don't even know it's true. Take a look at this little chucklehead's record. This sort of behavior - does this look like the activity of someone intellectually honest?

And if it is true, what does it say about the kind of person who will use - who will flaunt the death of her own mother and her sexuality to score cheap points on a bleeding internet forum?

*deadly serious* I have met people in some of the worst places in this world. They have always been honest, good people, friendly, decent and above all dignified.

323. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229831 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 3:50 am

Yes, and we all know that trolling around the internet to pick fights with strangers and using language that a third-rate streetwalker would be ashamed of is an example on character and moral strength.

324. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229825 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 3:42 am

Ah, well sorry about that BFKate - in which case then what we perceive as pointless rage, malignant anger, petty exhibitionism, gutter level profanity is really just a plea for help. There are courses available you know.

325. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229822 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 3:39 am

*chuckles* It's true, beeline. Still, the more we make her angry, the more free radicals build up, and the shorter her life becomes. Excellent!

Still, I return to my original point. We have for decades endured a barrage of postmodernism and relativism and multiculturalism that has had, at it's root, only one desire: to destroy the legacy and achievement of the West, to make people think it isn't worth defending.

Now we see the result. If we are going to find the strength to defend the West, we need to understand its roots and defend them once more.

326. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229817 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 3:33 am

Laurie you mean Cartomancer? If so, sorry for the omission: I haven't really interacted that much with him/her.

Anyway, may I suggest something unprecedented? If BFKate thinks that Hari is justified to be put under a fatwa, may I motion that, just this once, it's acceptable to put her under a burka?

Seriously: didn't your mother teach you how to behave at all? I get the feeling that your mouth hasn't been washed out with soap enough.

327. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229809 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 3:26 am

You know - and this is a continuation of my reply to BFKate this is really indicative of something very depressing that I've noticed: the lamentable decline of the Western homosexual.

I mean, seriously, what happened? We used to have magnificent gays: Quentin Crisp. Oscar Wild. Benevuto Celini. Julie D'Aubigny.

What happened? Okay, there's Stephen Fry, but that's about it. These days we have the likes of Rosie O'Donnell - and BFKate over here seems to be her clone: angry, flaunting her sexuality (as though that were any kind of distinction), petty and small.

It's a real shame.

328. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229792 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 3:13 am

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...

You called me BJKate. You little prick is that a piece of clever sexual innuendo? BlowJobKate?

About what I'd expect from someone who needs Johann Hari to tell them what to think.

TINFOIL HAT ALERT! That's actually the first time I've heard of that acronym, and this is, I'm pretty sure, also the first time that I've heard of Hari. The reason I referred to you as BJKate is because you were posting close to PJG, and I mistyped.

This illustrates the reason for my reaction to you, which is a combination of irritation and amusement. You launch into a huge, abusive rant and attack anything that moves. Okay, fair enough; I have some sympathy for that approach. However, it behooves you to have the facts to back it up. And there should be more to the attack than a generalized belligerence and a foul mouth. Honestly, how did your parents bring you up?

329. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229741 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 2:17 am

Okay, BFKate thanks for the evidence. Still, not all of those quotes are wrong - George Gallow is a pimp and prostitute for fascism and Islam and totalitarianism.

Hari is off the wall about Mark Steyn, but defending his right to free speech shows that he at least get's the idea of principle.

Etc. The basic point seems to me that if he is beginning to come to his senses about Islam and its evil, isn't this something to support? So what if he does or does not mean it - this still works for us.

330. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229734 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 2:05 am

Excellent article, it needs to be said more and more.

But the question arises: why have we become such cowards? The answer lies in the fact that we have been told time and time again that the legacy of the West is purely negative, only a stain on humanity, instead of the truth - that the West is the greatest and best civilization in human history and that we need make no apologies for standing up for it and need accept no lectures for being proud of it.

BFKate I must say that I find your comments distasteful in the extreme. I do not notice any articles that you have written fighting against this, I don't notice you doing much yourself except whine. I really don't notice any evidence cited by you to support your condemnation of Hari.

Also, what the hell is this about 'supporting a fatwa'? So you support the murder of those whose writings you find distasteful?

I'm filing this under part of the problem.

331. Defend the Individual and So the West

Comment #229456 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 13, 2008 at 4:02 pm

Viz a vis Beth Din courts, I'd have to agree. One law for everyone and that is it. However, I want to stress that I don't see them as the threat that the Shariah is.

DrShell, I think most of the confusion stems from this:

You may be able to find evidence of that somewhere else, but it's a misreading of the Romantic poets for sure.

Oh, I agree. I even wrote the following in this thread: "It's worth drawing a distinction between Romanticism in philosophy and in art. Schiller and Hugo were both Romantic artists, and their work is light-years beyond the poisonous murk of Rousseau."

But the Romantic philosophy is something different. Again, Heidegger was a pure romantic.

332. Defend the Individual and So the West

Comment #229379 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 13, 2008 at 1:26 pm

Steve you should remember not to pick a fight with me when you know that I always back what I say up. Take this little gem:

No. I did not say your views were more dangerous than that of any Muslim.

Well, in response to al, I said:

Still, it's odd: you have all this experience with Islam, you know the full horror of Saudi Arabia, and you still say that my views are more dangerous than those of any Muslim. Really? My views about the expulsion of Shariah supporters are really more dangerous? Than, say, Ahmadinedjad's? Bashar Assad's? Abu Usama's? Bin Laden's? Hassan Nasrallah's?

And in the next comment, you said:

I would say yes, they are

For all this police-state and thought-police nonsense, I repeat: I support making citizenship contingent on renunciation of Shariah. Any collection of goons, such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, or imams such as Abu Usama would then be given a one way ticket out of the country. Those who support Shariah vaguely, for whom you have such sympathy, would get the message and stop supporting it.

Incidentally, Abu Usama has said things like: "Burn down the shops of the Hindus, and as for the Jews, you must kill them personally." However, I don't notice much criticism of that from you. In fact, I don't see any complaints about that at all.

There is no escape from Justice. There is nothing without cause or consequence in the whole Universe, and if the guilty do not pay for their evil, then it is the innocent who do.

----------------------------------------

Dr.Shell, I'm afraid that I don't agree:

Well, while I could wish Romanticism hadn't set itself against the Enlightenment it did, at least, trumpet the importance of the individual, which is quite modern. All the anti-industrialization panic is understandable for the time; once you've been to the Lakes it's not difficult to grasp why Wordsworth would've been terrified to think of losing any of that glory to pavement.

This doesn't explain why the most individual-hating philosophies of the twentieth century drew on the poisonous muck of Romanticist philosophy.

Also, industrialization has freed incalculable millions from bondage, from the drudgery of rural life.

Romanticist philosophy isn't about the individual; it rejects reason, the most individual of all characteristics. It is an expression of the eternal savage, hating the Universe for being orderly, desperately trying to live in defiance of reality - no matter how many bodies it may pile up.

333. Al-Qa'eda in Iraq alienated by cucumber laws and brutality

Comment #229306 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 13, 2008 at 10:51 am

I repeat what I've said: These people are nuts. Stark, staring, flown-the-coop nuts.

frikkenkids what, exactly, are you proposing otherwise? Mocking these nutcases is important; Khomeni said 'there are no jokes in Islam' - well, nuts to him.

For the record, I seem to be the loudest bigmouth Islamophobe around here.

rod-the-farmer

don't think it is fair to blame to UN for not stopping genocide

That's partly true. It's mainly the fault of civilized nations being daft enough to listen to the UN-fetishists, at the costs of incalculable lives. Look at Darfur - the UN gave them a seat on the human rights council while the genocide was going on. All civilized nations should long since have seceded from the UN.

A wise man once said: "The death of Zarqawi is only a dangerous distraction from the fact that we have yet to capture Kofi Annan".

Ditto the EU - one of the most repellent lunacies in the West today. There's something to be said for a massive multilateral strike on Brussels, no doubt about it.

334. Defend the Individual and So the West

Comment #229144 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 13, 2008 at 6:30 am

bilge242 I appreciate that's how it looks. However, you have not seen the very long, and very acrimonious arguments between the two of us where he says that my views are more dangerous than that of any Muslim (yes, including Ahmadinejad, bin Laden, Nasrallah, Abu Usama etc.), where he denies that those who say they will support Shariah are unlikely to vote against it, where he has also held that saying that citizenship is dependent on the renunciation of Shariah law is extreme, but voting to introduce it is not, etc. etc. Sorry, but there is a point at which my patience snaps.

335. Defend the Individual and So the West

Comment #229032 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 13, 2008 at 3:06 am

It's worth drawing a distinction between Romanticism in philosophy and in art. Schiller and Hugo were both Romantic artists, and their work is light-years beyond the poisonous murk of Rousseau.

Vanitas, Romanticism in philosophy rests on the rejection of the mind. It's a worship of the cave and the tribe. Rousseau and the rest of these primitivists laid the basis that gave us guys like Heidegger with his blood-and-soil mysticism - a version of which continues in many of the loopier forms of environmentalism.

Steve Islam is over a thousand years old, hence ancient; it is thesummum malum of human degradation, hence evil. Hence 'ancient evil'.

I like how you are against condemnation without reservation. So, what are your reservations? Raping nine-year old girls is out, but fourteen year olds is okay? No lopping off hands, but perhaps a few fingers? Maybe not the full subjugation of women, just deny them the vote?

No. Islam has got to go. Full stop.

336. Defend the Individual and So the West

Comment #228964 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 12, 2008 at 11:05 pm

theantitheist, what I have been saying for a long time is that unless we are able to demonstrate that we are wable to take on this ancient evil, without reservations and without hesitation, it is groups like the BNP who will rush to fill that gap.

Christopher Hitchens made a similar point about the US, about fools saying it's just a clash of fundamentalisms. If secularists and atheists keep saying that, if they exempt themselves from this fight - then it'll be true.

337. Saudi Arabia Bans Dog Walking in Capital

Comment #228842 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 12, 2008 at 3:37 pm

Goldy! We appear to be on speaking terms again. ;-)

Okay, just kidding. Now onto the meat of the argument:

m.o.kane:

You treat one species like dirt you are bound to be laxed about your treatment of humans. Whether you eat dog, pig, or cow... there is no need to sanction cruelty to fellow mammals, goldy.

Sorry, that won't fly. It is a matter of solid historical record that the SS - yes, the Schutzstaffel - practiced a reverence for animal life that was almost Buddhist in its intensity.

Also - and this is the only good thing I have to say about the bastard - Muhammad loved cats and was extremly kind to them (to the extent that he said that a woman had been placed in hell for neglecting one).


And I really have to take objection to these two statements, firstly by m.o.kane and secondly by the great teapot:

Cat, dog, sheep, girl, women...

....

I am against eating dogs and 50 year olds abusing 9 year olds

This is an absurd trivilization. I've had many cats and dogs in my time and I really dislike the idea of anyone eating them. But to put the rape of a nine-year old human girl on a par with the killing of animals is frivolous and morally blind in the extreme.

And, yes, mentioning them in the same breath and in that manner is equivocation. It's like me saying: "I'm hate Communism, Fascism and the high-pitched whine of my next-door neighbours spoiled brat coming through the wall". This is frivolous.

338. Saudi Arabia Bans Dog Walking in Capital

Comment #228336 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 11, 2008 at 11:24 pm

Layla there's a hadith in Sahih Muslim that describes dogs as unclean.

Be that as it may, I'm more concerned about the fact that the "marriage" of nine-year old girls to forty or fifty year old men is okay, and this means that child-rape is endemic to Saudi Arabia and much of the rest of the dar al-Islam.

339. Novel on prophet's wife pulled for fear of backlash

Comment #227776 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 10, 2008 at 3:29 pm

It seems to me that this isn't what you have been "preaching" during the past weeks.
However, I am glad that you now agree with this level of moderate but firm response.

Er... I did specify a piecemeal approach that would cause those who vaguely support Shariah to quickly stop supporting it, but whatever. If I was unclear, I apologise. It's nice to come to an agreement, and I'm not being sarcastic.

*extends hand*

One reason the policy would have to be against Shariah supporters specifically, is that there isn't any other wording that wouldn't either cause it to run amuck or be useless (e.g. if it were against 'extremists' - can you imagine the wrangling that would go on trying to decide who and what was an extremist?). However, legislating against Shariah allows you to give the hard-core nutters the boot, while sending a signal to the rest. Und damit basta.

John Locke if it's wording, I'm fine with exile, too.

But I'm afraid that another target has wandered into my crosshairs:

Ok, AGN, Fanusi, et al
You've convinced me. I'm never gonna get "undercover" into my local mosque, not unless I get the special make-over of an actor in "Team America" (durka-durka). I never did like those foreigners. They stink, I don't understand them, and - well - they're just different to what I'm used to. They come here, and if they're not taking our jobs then they're taking our welfare cheques. Before I know it my whole family will be converted to Islam. Pass me that BNP form. Where do I sign?

Now, how do I start on the faggots? I just know that they want a piece of my ass! (I'm quite a catch.) And you can never say anything bad about them now-a-days.

Have you been putting something in your cereal? In case you haven't been paying attention, this isn't about 'foreigners', but about Muslims (and, yes, I've said that ibn-Myatt, the british Nazi convert, should be on the first boat - I think he falls under the heading of a 'real goon'), and when it comes to deporation, I'm not talking about all Muslims but Shariah supporters, and not even about all those who say they support Shariah, but about the hardcore whackjobs.

It may surprise you to hear this, given your cretinous BNP remarks, but there are Sikhs and Hindus making common cause with the BNP because the official response of the mainstream parties towards Islam is so gutless.

And that cretinous crack about gays - you crack down on Shariah supporters to protect gays. You can take a look at what's happening in Amsterdam.

Good grief... I'm reminded on Mark Steyn's famous comment on this sort of idiocy:

It should be the left's issue. I'm a 'social conservative'. When the Mullahs take over, I'll grow my beard out, get a few extra wives, and keep my head down. It's the gays and the feminists who'll have a rougher time of it."

340. Novel on prophet's wife pulled for fear of backlash

Comment #227739 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 10, 2008 at 2:35 pm

I agree with you that organizations such as Hizb ut-Tahrir should be banned and foreign clerics who preach hatred should be deported.

Bonzai, that's exactly what I've been talking about. Of course we can't deport the whole 40% who say they support Shariah. But if we get goons like Hizb ut-Tahrir and Abu Usama and the rest, that'll send a very strong message: This far and no further.

Making citizenship contingent on the renunciation of Shariah law gives us huge leeway in cracking down on the real goons, and it will have the bonus effect of slowing or shutting down radicalization. The article at the top of this thread is an example of the chilling effect that Islamic thuggery has had on our speech. Well, that can work for us too. If the real gangsters are kicked out of the country, the rest won't be so quick to follow in their footsteps.

Just for the record, fizhburn could we please not hide behind euphemism? 'ideological non-conformity'. We're talking about Shariah. And here's what that means: No free speech. No voting. No right to bear witness, your testimony is worth nothing. Non-Muslims wearing the yellow badge. Slavery. Women shot in football stadiums. Pogroms. Genocide. That's what we're talking about.

Why do you expect Saudi Arabia to take British citizens, who were born and raised in the U.K?

They're fellow Muslims, and there are ways of leaning on various governments. They'll take 'em.

On another note, as you say:

Do you see, there is a reason why welfare states are rich and developed while the non welfare states are in your own words, dirt poor.

Not so. Socialism bankrupted Tanzania. You can see the devastation it has wreaked in many, many countries. We have it because we can afford it - because we have the development of the Industrial Revolution behind us, we have the raw power of capitalism.

But that wasn't the point I was making. I was talking about the degradation that the abuse of that system produces.

341. Novel on prophet's wife pulled for fear of backlash

Comment #227713 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 10, 2008 at 1:48 pm

Thanks again, Quez!

It makes me quite irate, and that is not how I wish to debate.

If we are talking about who makes whom irate, can you grasp what it is like to write an extremely long post, citing facts and data, and then have a handful of words quoted with the tagline 'Since he believes this, there's no point in debating with him'. No reason, no rebuttal - nothing.

Morality an exact science? Sheesh!

So what is it then? If it can't be grounded in reason, what can it be grounded in? Faith? Relativism? In either case, why are my views then not - by your standards - equally valid as yours?

I started out from a very similar position as the one you hold. Then I learned. I bothered to study different social systems and the effects they have. I read up on philosophy, and psychology, and evolutionary theory. I learned.

And I am also a little tired of this kind of smearing and misrepresentation:

They seem to treat entire groups of people as almost sub-human (anyone who even vaguely supports Shariah, for example, or anyone who by accident of birth lives in a fundamentalist country, and should be prepared to put up with our nutters).

Notice how those who 'vaguely support Shariah' have suddenly become 'nutters' when it suits.

TheWhitePearl for the record, my position is that staying in Infidel lands is contingent on renouncing Shariah. This entails deportation of those who do support it here. I added an important qualifier: that such a process should start with goons like Hizb ut-Tahrir and the like, for the simple reason that those who 'vaguely support Shariah' would very quickly stop supporting it at all.

And, for the record, one of the "frightening generalizations" that Steve has spent a long time arguing with me about is my suggestion that people who say they support Shariah are rather unlikely to vote for measures curtailing Shariah.

I also like his idea that Saudi Arabia just happens to be fundamentalist, and it has nothing to do with the people who live there. Sure. Unfortunately, if you read, say, The End of Faith you find out that in the Arab Muslim world, the people are often more radical than the government.

There is a reason I wrote that very long post about the shaming code and its role in shaping societies, and how important it is that the civilizing process starts when young and is supported by the society around it. I didn't just type that out for the heck of it.

---------------------------------------

ColdFusionLazarus, Christianity reformed itself after centuries of struggle and some truly hideous internecine wars. We simply don't have that time.

It may not take that long for most muslims to change.

How much are you willing to bet on that? The continuation of civilization? Because that's the stakes we're playing for now.

There are some Muslims who do not subscribe to the version of Islam that you are describing.

Could I draw a distinction here? Of course there are millions of Muslims who don't embrace Islam as a Total System. But essentially all Muslims do view the Qur'an as the perfect and uncreated word of God, immune to all changes for all time.

Further, the Qur'an isn't like the Bible - a vast and vague book, written by thirty authors over a thousand years. It's a very narrow, precise vision of the world with one author.

Two-thirds of the Qur'an preaches hatred toward the kaffirs. Remove that and you'll have reformed Islam. You'll also have destroyed it.

This is why I say that trying to reform Islam is useless. It's like trying to reform Communism or Fascism or Nazism. We can't reform it; we can only destroy it.

As I said, there are ways to do this, to help Muslims break out of the mental prison of Islam. Also, I find it very interesting that you're talking about changing Islam - I thought on this site we were united by our desire to see all religion vanish.

The minute we allow your intolerant version of society to take hold is the moment that Islam or Fundamentalist Christianity has won.

Given that my intolerance is directed against Islam, I don't see how that works. As regards fundemantalist Christianity, one reason that I am so vehement about this is that I can see how the tides are flowing. If this problem isn't handled through reasonable though harsh measures now, do you care to guess what forces will take power? I'll tell you: fundie Christians in America and neo-fascists here in Europe. We already see their rise, and the threat of Islam is giving them that boost.

---------------------------

Okay, agn stop that right now. "Concentration camps"? No. Not now, not ever. Not even joking about that.

342. Novel on prophet's wife pulled for fear of backlash

Comment #227670 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 10, 2008 at 12:52 pm

Hope that this one sticks, because I must respond to this:

Sorry, but any such comment about the welfare state puts someone so politically far from me that I am going to find it difficult to engage in useful discussion (even if this site was working!)

You mean you find it difficult to engage in discussion with people whose ideas differ from yours. Especially when they present a well reasoned case, drawing on heavy evidence, that you find difficult to reply to.

Now, on the subject of the English welfare state, if you read Theodore Dalrymple's book, you find some of the most shocking descriptions of total degredation. And this isn't just Dalrymple's view, but the views of visiting African and Phillipino doctors who simply can't imagine such behaviour in the dirt-poor communities they come from. And a great part of that is that the abuses of the welfare state cut these people off from the necessity of providing for themselves and all the virtues that that in turn requires.

I can confirm that from personal experience. I've seen some pretty poverty ravaged places in my time. I've seen six-year old sheep herders on the freezing mountains of Lesotho. I've met farmers in Tanzania. I've visited hamlets scratching a living from the sides of the Himalayas. And I've never met people so totally degraded by their circumstances as you can find in the UK.

Even if we decided that some people were so terrible in their thoughts and actions that we took away their citizenship, it is totally inappropriate to deport them. No civilized democracy would want them, and to send them to regimes that support fundamentalism is to make the problem worse in that country, which is abusing the human rights of that country's citizens.

Okay, why? They want fundamentalism, there it is, they're welcome to it. I have trouble believing that the fundamentalism in, say, Saudi Arabia can be made any worse than it is. But you say that it's 'totally inapropriate'. Why? You've made a statement, now back it up.

Morality isn't platonic or mystical. It's an exact science - the science of how we can manage to live on this earth.

343. Novel on prophet's wife pulled for fear of backlash

Comment #227593 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 10, 2008 at 11:03 am

*stretches* ColdFusionLazarus, I agree with TheWhitePearl: we don't have a few thousand years.

It's also a misunderstanding of what Islam is. It isn't a religion the way Christianity or Buddhism is. It's a Total System. It regulates every last scrap of your life, down to the last detail. That's one reason it hasn't changed.

The other is to do with it's central 'selling point' - the idea that, unlike the Bible, the Qur'an is the literal word of God. Even fundies don't believe that of the Bible - when they say it's the word of God, they mean it is, interpreted through people (hence: the Gospel according to Luke, according to Mark etc.). But the Qur'an holds a place in Islam comparable to the one Christ does in Christianity. You can't change or ignore a portion of the Qur'an and still remain a Muslim, anymore than you can doubt the divinity of Christ and remain a Christian. They are completely invested in this idea that they hold the final, perfect revaltion. They aren't going to change.

On the subject of 'removing freedom to save freedom', I repeat: the defence of liberalism and democracy has always involved some very illiberal and undemocratic measures. It's just the way things are. I think it was Locke (I really hate not having my library here) who, when arguing for religious tolerance, meant tolerance amongst the competing Protestant sects, but not for the Catholics. This was because he understood that the Catholics were so powerful that if they set up shop, they'd be able to wipe out all the competing sects and all religious tolerance would end. It goes without saying that he'd have been against tolerating Islam.

344. Novel on prophet's wife pulled for fear of backlash

Comment #227557 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 10, 2008 at 9:42 am

Bonzai I don't know where everyone get's this impression, but I live in the UK, not the US.

But I do know about this asinine speech codes, which basically exist to rule any criticism of Islam outside the law. Again, why don't they just wear the yellow veil and be done with it?

The worst of the cartoon riots happened in the Muslim countries, not in the West. Yes, in the West there were protests, but that was Muslims exercising their democratic rights. People with signs like "behead the cartoonists" in the U.K were arrested and charged.

Really? How many? And what sentences did they get? Because according to the following news story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6904622.stm

Only four got arrested and they got six years - for incitement to murder.

Theo van Gogh was murdered, but the murderer was apparently a lone crazy, motivated by Islam for sure, but nevertheless a loner, not instructed by any Fatwa.

Well, given that - Sam Harris mentioned this a while back - something like thirty percent of UK Muslims back the death penalty for apostasy, I get the feeling that this guy wasn't part of a tiny minority.

Now some of us have been making the point that the entire damn crowd of rioters should have been put on the first boat to Saudi Arabia and were answered with a long shower of shit about being 'fascist'.

On a related note:

Frankly I find talks of striking Muslim countries at random and shooting Muslims in the street horrifying. If that is not Fascism I don't know what is, and what would make us more civilized than the Islamofascists if we descend to that level?

I'd like to stress that I don't advocate that. But, just answering your question as a hypothetical, there is actually nothing, short of fully fledged Nazism, that would make us the moral inferiors of Islamic jihadists.

Again, I don't support that, but I just want to stress that our reticence in the face of Islam stems from our concern for us, that we answer to a higher code than Islam. Don't ever loose sight of that point.

345. Novel on prophet's wife pulled for fear of backlash

Comment #227552 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 10, 2008 at 9:33 am

*dryly* Steve, that is because he was very careful to couch their comedy in evenhandedness and the attack on all three religions as being somehow equal.

Don't believe me? Fine. Let's try the following experiment. Let's both take a stroll around London for a day, both carrying plackards. I'll carry one denouncing Christianity or Judaism (or both if you'd prefer) and you can carry one denouncing Islam. I'll get your next of kin to tell me how it went.

Or we could stop this nonsense and ask people like, oh, I don't know, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Geert Wilders, Theo van Gogh (wait - he was killed), Wafa Sultan, Robert Spencer, Pim Fortuyn (whoops, him too), Walid Shoebat etc. about what it entails to speak up about Islam.

A good definition of the dividing line between a mixed-society and a dictatorship is when freedom of speech is abrogated. Well, we've had it abrogated here, so maybe we should instead talk about Europe as being in the first stage of Islamic occupation. I know that Steve is going to call me 'alarmist' and all that, while in the meantime our media and our elected officials and everyone else who is supposed to blow the whistle on this will continue to cave, one by one.

At this rate, they don't even need demographics and immgiration, since we seem to be so willing to wear the badge and bow our heads.

346. Novel on prophet's wife pulled for fear of backlash

Comment #227529 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 10, 2008 at 6:50 am

Old Saurm, there's something wrong with this:

I don't think the publisher can be blamed in this case. They would be understandably reluctant to place their employees & families in possible danger, & would also be skeptical about making much profit from a book that might be blacklisted by booksellers for the same reasons.

What is wrong with this is as follows:

they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

347. Novel on prophet's wife pulled for fear of backlash

Comment #227486 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 10, 2008 at 2:44 am

phil rimmer I'm sorry to have to answer: not much. It's a hell of alot easier making the case about Islam's evil to those who have had to experience it personally. This is why in Iraq we now have students who once praised the 9/11 attacks who are now saying 'I hate Islam'. (the mass slaughter of innocents isn't quite so funny when it happens a little closer to home).

If I had to name a group, it would be, once again, the Ahmadiya. But the principle allies should by the Hindu and Sikh immigrant communities, and this is especially critical as they are currently so desperate that some of them are making common cause with the BNP. I think that a broad-based UK coalition that includes the Hindus and Sikhs would stand less of a chance to being dismissed as simple 'racism'.

348. Novel on prophet's wife pulled for fear of backlash

Comment #227478 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 10, 2008 at 2:21 am

Steve the reason I'm against 'reaching out' to moderate Muslims is that it leads to the kind of craven apologia we see all the time.

And there's no way to reach out to people while simulataneously understanding that it's their damn religion that's the problem in the first place. It just doesn't work.

There are, however, cases where an outreach could work. For example, the Ahmadiya are considered heretical by other Muslims for rejecting Jihad and the horrors that go with it. Or the Bahai.

Above all, the people we should target are those non-Arab Muslims who have suffered so terribly at the hands of the Arab supremacism that is part and parcel of Islam (and why hasn't this been brought up more?). For example, the Kurds of Iraq. I remember watchin a video of the anti-Janjaweed rebels on al-Jazeera who have had it with the Arabs so much that they were dropping their Arab names and taking english ones like 'Colin Powell' and 'George Bush' (no, i'm not kidding).

Of course, that would have been a great alliance if the damn UN-fetishists hadn't been listened to, as a result of which all those potential allies have been brutally murdered.

Another source for allies is the Persian nationalist movement in Iran, always a strong source of resistance to Islam. There are plenty of Persians who have had it with the arab cult that has destroyed their ancient civilization. That's a rich source of allies, if you care to look.

Basically, anything that breaks up and weakens the dar al-Islam internally is a Good Thing.

349. Why Islam Is Unfunny for a Cartoonist

Comment #227115 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 9, 2008 at 11:17 am

decius, I have already quoted his response to the horrors of the Khmer Rouge. Here's another comment by him:

Space limitations preclude a comprehensive review, but such journals as the Far Eastern Economic Review, the London Economist, the Melbourne Journal of Politics, and others elsewhere, have provided analyses by highly qualified specialists who have studied the full range of evidence available, and who concluded that executions have numbered at most in the thousands; that these were localized in areas of limited Khmer Rouge influence and unusual peasant discontent, where brutal revenge killings were aggravated by the threat of starvation resulting from the American destruction and killing.

You can read the whole sordid mess here:

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19770625.htm

Here is him on China:

China is an important example of a new society in which very interesting and positive things happened at the local level, in which a good deal of the collectivization and communization was really based on mass participation and took place after a level of understanding had been reached in the peasantry that led to this next step.

He said this in 1967, five years after the end of the worst famine in human history that was caused precisely because of Mao. He also referred to Mao's China as 'relatively livable' - though not, presumably, to the thirty million who had died of starvation.

Here's Chomsky on Castro:

Noam Chomsky: Fidel Castro, whatever people may think of him, is a hero in Latin America, primarily because he stood up to the United States. It's the first time in the history of the hemisphere that anybody stood up to the United States. Nobody likes to be under the jackboot but they may not be able to do anything about it. So for that reason alone, he's a Latin American hero. Chavez: the same.

Do you know the conditions of existence incide Cuba?

He also said the following:

"American economic strangulation of Cuba" has been designed and maintained [to hide] the successes of Castro's programs to improve health & living standards

In other words, Castro's Cuba would be the only Communist society in the world that wasn't a hell-hole if it weren't for America. Anyone who believes that will believe anything.

The point is as follows: Chomsky is too much of a wily snake. What he does is typical: when it comes to the nightmare regimes of this planet, he gives them every shred of doubt. Howevwer, this sort of indulgence does not apply to civilized powers like the United States and Israel, where he will gladly take on any old junk to make his case about their perfidity. A particularly mendacious example was his response after 9/11, where he said the US couldn't be morally justified in going after the Taleban because the Clinton Administration had bombed the al-Shiga pharmaceutical plant. What makes this particularly mendacious is that, at the time, Chomsky said nothing about it, as Hitchens observes.

So, after finding that Communism has finally collapsed, Chomsky turns to another of the greatest evils in human history: Islam.

350. The best way to undermine the jihadists is to trigger a rebellion of Muslim women - and establish energy independence

Comment #226962 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 9, 2008 at 1:56 am

Is there any place where Christians still run Inquisitions and burn heretics? There are many Muslim theocracies where blasphemy is still a capital offense. Is there any Christian theocracy except for the Vatican,--even which doesn't run according to the law of Moses? But there are many Muslim theocracies and all of them impose Sharia.

*nods* Precisely Bonzai. If you want a visual metaphor, what would the three Abrahamic faiths be if you incarnated them as individuals?

Judaism would be the spotty nerd noone likes who ends up succeeding ridiculously well.

Christianity is a middle-aged guy who alternates between complaining about today's youth and pathetically trying to imitate them.

And Islam? A fat, beer-bellied thug, who has never held a useful job in his life, with tatoos crawling out his sleeves, who responds to even the most involuntary glance of curiosity or disgust with: "WHAT'RE YOU LOOKIN' AT???"