we

In these turbolent timese the reading of We by Yevgeny Zamyatin will help us to still believe in the power of creativity and freedom.

a meaningless word

it is amazing that the word Islamophobia has spread so much and it means nothing.

Islamophobia?

From www.danielpipes.org | Original article available at: www.danielpipes.org/article/3075

Islamophobia?

by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
October 25, 2005

An Islamist group named Hizb ut-Tahrir seeks to bring the world under Islamic law and advocates suicide attacks against Israelis. Facing proscription in Great Britain, it opened a clandestine front operation at British universities called "Stop Islamophobia," the Sunday Times has disclosed.

Stop what, you ask?

Coined in Great Britain a decade ago, the neologism Islamophobia was launched in 1996 by a self-proclaimed "Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia." The word literally means "undue fear of Islam" but it is used to mean "prejudice against Muslims" and joins over 500 other phobias spanning virtually every aspect of life.

The term has achieved a degree of linguistic and political acceptance, to the point that the secretary-general of the United Nations presided over a December 2004 conference titled "Confronting Islamophobia" and in May a Council of Europe summit condemned "Islamophobia."

The term presents several problems, however. First, what exactly constitutes an "undue fear of Islam" when Muslims acting in the name of Islam today make up the premier source of worldwide aggression, both verbal and physical, versus non-Muslims and Muslims alike? What, one wonders, is the proper amount of fear?

Second, while prejudice against Muslims certainly exists, "Islamophobia" deceptively conflates two distinct phenomena: fear of Islam and fear of radical Islam. I personally experience this problem: Despite writing again and again against radical Islam the ideology, not Islam the religion, I have been made the runner-up for a mock "Islamophobia Award" in Great Britain, deemed America's "leading Islamophobe," and even called an "Islamophobe Incarnate." (What I really am is an "Islamism-ophobe.")

Third, promoters of the "Islamophobia" concept habitually exaggerate the problem:

• Law enforcement: British Muslims are said to suffer from persistent police discrimination but an actual review of the statistics by Kenan Malik makes mincemeat of this "Islamophobia myth."

• Cultural: Muslims "are faced with an extreme flow of anti-Islamic literature that preaches hatred against Islam," claims the president of the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences in Virginia, Taha Jabir Al-‘Alwani: "novels, movies, books and researches. Just among the best selling novels alone there are almost 1000 novels of this type." One thousand bestsellers vilify Islam? Hardly. In fact, barely a handful do so (for example, The Haj, by Leon Uris).

• Linguistic: A professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, falsely reported (in his keynote speech at a U.N. event, "Confronting Islamophobia," reports Alexander Joffe) attempts to hide the Arabic origins of English words such as adobe – which derives in fact from ancient Egyptian, not from Arabic.

• Historical: The term anti-Semitism was originally used to describe sentiment against Arabs living in Spain, Mr. Nasr also stated in his speech, and was not linked to Jews until after World War II. Nonsense: anti-Semitism dates back only to 1879, when it was coined by Wilhelm Marr, and has always referred specifically to hatred of Jews.

Fourth, Hizb ut-Tahrir's manipulation of "Stop Islamophobia" betrays the fraudulence of this word. As the Sunday Times article explains, "Ostensibly the campaign's goal is to fight anti-Muslim prejudice in the wake of the London bombings," but it quotes Anthony Glees of London's Brunel University to the effect that the real agenda is to spread anti-Semitic, anti-Hindu, anti-Sikh, anti-homosexual, and anti-female attitudes, as well as to foment resentment of Western influence.

Finally, calling moderate Muslims (such as Irshad Manji) Islamophobes betrays this term's aggressiveness. As Charles Moore writes in the Daily Telegraph, moderate Muslims, "frightened of what the Islamists are turning their faith into," are the ones who most fear Islam. (Think of Algeria, Darfur, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan.) "They cannot find the courage and the words to get to grips with the huge problem that confronts Islam in the modern world." Accusations of Islamophobia, Mr. Malik adds, are intended "to silence critics of Islam, or even Muslims fighting for reform of their communities." Another British Muslim, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, discerns an even more ambitious goal: "all too often Islamophobia is used to blackmail society."

Muslims should dispense with this discredited term and instead engage in some earnest introspection. Rather than blame the potential victim for fearing his would-be executioner, they would do better to ponder how Islamists have transformed their faith into an ideology celebrating murder (Al-Qaeda: "You love life, we love death") and develop strategies to redeem their religion by combating this morbid totalitarianism.

From www.danielpipes.org | Original article available at: www.danielpipes.org/article/3075

Howard's thoughts

I welcome with great joy the writing of my good friend Howard. As you can see his text is unedited. The first amendment's power!


Bill Clinton says that he doesn't want anyone to die before his time anymore. Well isn't that nice. I wonder why he didn't take it one step further and add that he doesn't want anyone ever to get sick anymore. These are the kind of remarks that really resonate with the useful idiots on the left. The social engineering liberal idiots that are ensconced in their make believe ivy league world and in Congress. It was that kind of wishful thinking in Europe prior to WWII that cost millions of lives and certain to cost the lives of millions more once again today.

This jovial over sexed dope, our ex-president, along with his scheming wife (don't forget we got two for one with this election) probably, more than any other Americans (with the possible exception of Jimmy Carter and company) through his lack of response to attacks against the U.S. Cole, the African embassies, and the first WTC attack amongst others, are primarily responsible for tearing down our defenses, destroying the CIA and allowing the Muslims to perpetrate their mass murders on 9/11.

Don't be fooled into thinking that these are harmless idealists with lofty ideas whose only crime is that they let their innate "goodness" (they have a virtual monopoly on goodness) cloud their judgment. No, these people are dangerous. They are very dangerous. And because they do not understand the central challenge in the world today---the pure evilness of fundamentalist Islam--- they are putting us in grave and constant danger.

Now we have George Bush who supposedly received some sort of mandate in the last election, but, as yet, with all his pandering to the left and trying to be all things to all people, apparently does not realize that he won last November. He warned Americans recently that there would be an upsurge in violence against the Iraqi people and our military prior to the Iraqi elections on Oct. 15th. That's it? That's our offence? He should be warning the insurgents about an upsurge in violence coming from America and directed towards them.

How do you like this? The barbarians are terrorizing America and the most powerful military in the history of the world. He should be taking out every village the insurgents are using to hide along the Syrian border. And yes I said village. We should be going into every insurgent stronghold wherever it is with aerial attacks not with our fine American boys. They are filtering back into Falujah? Fine. Level Falujah. Follow the Romans. Salt the land. It isn't worth one American casualty.

Iran is sending explosive devices to Iraq and Syria is allowing insurgents to enter Iraq through their porous borders to kill Americans? Aren't these acts of war? Maybe if we sent a cruise missile through Assad's palace he would understand that America frowns on such activity. And isn't it tiring, this back and forth with Iran. You negotiate the price of an automobile not lives. Take out their nuclear capacity now. Tell them that every time we find a "made in Iran" bomb in Iraq they will pay a stiff military price.

This is the only language these maniacs understand. I don't understand why we
are fighting these 5th century barbarians on their terms. What are we saving our technological power for? World War III? I have news flash for George Bush. This is World War III and he had better realize that before it's too late. If it
isn't too late already. Isn't it about time that we started doing some terrorizing of our own? Howard