Gamle bøger og moderne dilemmaer

Fra American Enterprise Institute:

… After the 9/11 terror attacks, Americans understandably felt a new surge of curiosity about Islam. In response, scholars and writers have offered two broad types of answer.

The first answer is defensive and apologetic. As typified, for example, in the work of the scholar John Esposito and the popularizer Karen Armstrong, this school denies any special connection at all between Islam and violence. To the extent that it acknowledges Islamic violence at all, it condones it as response to the aggressions of others. The logical implication of this work: If we want terrorism to stop, we must change our own behavior to stop provoking it.

The opposing answer is accusatory. As typified by the work of the scholar Bat Ye’or and the popularizer Robert Spencer, it locates the sources of Islamic violence in the Koran itself, in the person of Muhammad, and in the core teachings of the Muslim faith. The logical implication of this work: Islamic violence will continue so long as Islam itself plagues the earth.

…
If one goes back into Islamic history, one encounters many devout Muslims who read their religion in ways that seem impressively modern. They recognized that the Koran was a work of human origin, a product of its times. They applied the techniques of skeptical historiography to the legends of the life of Muhammad, the hadiths, eliminating thousands of them as spurious. Muslims called this approach “ijtihad,” the application of human reason to religious revelation.Catastrophic events in Islamic history–and perhaps also a gathering awareness that the skeptical method might cut much deeply than even its first practitioners anticipated–led to the famous “closing of the gates of ijtihad” almost one thousand years ago. But now the pressure of modernity is forcing those gates open again. Many Muslims experience this opening as deeply threatening. Reactionary Islam promises to relieve those feelings by slamming the gates shut forever, with all the force derivable from hundreds of billions of dollars of oil wealth.

Fra Counterjihad Summit i Bruxelles

More on Bat Ye’or at the Counterjihad Summit

by Baron Bodissey

I reported last night on the Oriana Award, which was given to Bat Ye’or during Counterjihad Brussels 2007 by the Italian delegation.

Bat Ye’or gave a sobering keynote address at the conference, describing in some detail the process that has created Eurabia, and outlining the ongoing efforts by the EU, the OIC, and various NGOs that are leading inexorably towards the full Islamization of Europe.

The “Eurabia” process is not a secret one; however, it is not well-known to the general public, because it is buried under cubic acres of official EU working documents, treaties, and declarations of intent. Consider the Islamization of Europe a purloined letter, lying in full view of anyone willing to overcome an aversion to mind-numbing bureauspeak and take a serious look.

Ms. Ye’or has done all the requisite work, and has laid out all the details of what has become known as Eurabia.

Her speech, along with other materials from Brussels, has been posted at Counterjihad Europa. Others will become available as the transcription and conversion of documents is completed. Here is an excerpt:

I will start by a warning: have no illusions. The Eurabia in which we live is solidly established although there are some improvements since the election of Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy, and also the realization by more and more people that things cannot go on like this. For 40 years Eurabia has built its networks, its finance, its hegemonous power, its totalitarian control over the media, the universities, the culture and the mind of people. If one wants to end this system, one will have to reverse decades of policy…

Eurabia grew within the growth of the European Community (EC) and then the European Union (EU). It was conceived and planned by the European Council and implemented by the European Commission as a supranational policy, linked to the European Community interests and immediate security concerns over terror and energy supplies. The EC correlated a massive Muslim immigration to a strategy of peace and stability in the Mediterranean, hoping that the Euro-Arab symbiosis through economic development, soft diplomacy and multiculturalism would guarantee peace, markets and oil. In the Euro-Arab policy, Muslim immigration is welcomed as an element of a Mediterranean geo-strategy conducted as a partnership with the Arab-Muslim world on the base of pacifism and continual funding and services provided to the Arab world, similar to the subsidies given to the economically underdeveloped EU member-states. The European Investing Bank is the model for the Mediterranean Investing Bank.

This strategy had also an ideological perspective: the refusal of any more war — peace at last by resorting to economic agreements and mutual concessions. However this laudable formula, which succeeded for the integration of Europe, was not adapted to deal with a Muslim world that conceived its international relations only in the framework of jihad. Worst, the Nazi evils came back with a vengeance in the Euro-Arab alliance so similar to the Vichy-Berlin-Arab and Palestinian Nazi and Fascist axis of the thirties and forties against Jews, democracies and America. These evils had not died after World War II, and they reemerged within the Eurabian-Arab Palestinian jihad against Israel.
– – – – – – – – –
Let us see how the secret Arafat-EC alliance has transformed Europe. Threatened by Palestinian terrorism in the late 1960s and the 1970s, and by an oil boycott, Europe searched for protection under the wings of those who threatened her. The conditions were: oil and peace for Europe in exchange for a hostile policy toward America and Israel, and most important, European support for Arafat and the PLO, a jihadist and international terrorist movement. Since that moment, Europe entered into the vicious cycle of dhimmitude and self-destruction by justifying jihadism. It developed a culture of hate against America and Israel and paid billions as a security ransom to the Palestinians. Likewise, it opened its gates to massive Muslim immigration according to agreements with the Arab League countries.

This choice of a policy based on fear, ransom and surrender, and on the justification of jihad has blinded Europe to its dangers. Allied with the PLO and the Arab League, the EC denied the threat of global jihadism. This denial, fundamental to Eurabian policy, motivated the appeasement and peaceful surrender to jihadists while pretending that Europe’s enemies were American, but above all, Israel’s policies of resistance to jihad. Hence, Europe transferred onto Israel and America the threat of a terrorist war to which it had already capitulated.

It is “Palestinianism” — the most cherished European ideology because it is the very guaranty of its security against terror — that has determined European support for jihadist tactics. And jihad is not like any war, it represents a whole theological corpus of war, with its holy strategy and ritual tactics of air piracy, terrorism, abductions, beheadings and killings of civilians.

For the Arab and Muslim world, Palestinianism embodies the ideology and aims of jihad against a rebellious dhimmi people. Based on a Muslim culture, history and theology, it denies territorial independence and sovereignty to any non-Muslim people. Such a position is self-defeating for all non-Muslim states, and particularly Europe. Palestinianism is at the root of Europe’s self-destruction. [emphasis added]

The full text of Bat Ye’or’s keynote speech is available here (in pdf format). I recommend that you print and distribute it to anyone you know who thinks “Eurabia” is a paranoid fantasy.

And for those who think America is exempt from all this, bear in mind the “North American Union”. The NAU is also considered a paranoid fantasy by most people, but it is being constructed in the same manner, piecemeal, boring document by boring document. Agreements, protocols, joint understandings, etc. — none of them requires the consent of Congress. They are not secret, but they are never noticed by the public at large, and so never generate any popular counter-pressure on our elected representatives.

Imagine a European Rip Van Winkle, who went to sleep in the 1950s, during the heady days of the “Common Market”, when removing trade barriers was supposedly the only issue. Waking up fifty years later, he discovers that a totalitarian European regime has been imposed from Brussels, without so much as a by-your-leave from the citizens of the nations of Europe.

O Brave New World, indeed!

It begins with the removal of trade barriers. Then comes the talk about “the free flow of goods and people”. Then the “harmonization of laws within the Community”. With PC-Multicultural indoctrination to grease the skids, no one notices until it’s too late. They wake up and find that their God-given rights have evaporated, and decisions are made on their behalf and without their consent by a distant and unaccountable corps of bureaucratic mandarins.

Watch Europe closely: its present is America’s future.

—

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 03, 2007

The Development of a Parallel Society

by Baron Bodissey

An Interview with Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo

At the Counterhihad Summit in Brussels last month, Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs interviewed Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo, who was one of the featured speakers at the conference. Heroyalwhyness, a longtime Gates of Vienna reader and commenter, has transcribed the interview; the results are below.

Q: Hello, I’m here with Patrick Sookhdeo, am I saying that correctly?A: Sookhdeo.

Q: Sookhdeo. You just gave a very powerful presentation at this conference, and I wanted to discuss with you — just how far infiltration of Islam is in Western societies, particularly you focused on Britain.

A: That’s correct. I think that its important that we separate out the countries because Islamic infiltration is dependant on a number of factors. And in some places, they have been able to make much more headway than in others. I think the UK is by far the place where they have made the most headway.

Q:Why is that?

A:I think there are several reasons. I think, firstly British policy of successive governments followed a policy of multiculturalism. It was politically driven and effectively enshrined Islam. Which meant, it was politically acceptable. It was allowed to develop socially and culturally. I think that’s a very big area, the multicultural. I think the second where the majority of Muslims came from, they came from the Indian sub-continent. British policy during the days of the hiraj was to allow the Muslims a degree of autonomy in terms of ‘how’ they could live out their religious lives, known as communalism. And so, when they came here, although initially they were part of society, gradually they began to develop much more, this communal position furthered by a British policy of multiculturalism. And I think that in the last forty years, Islam has rediscovered it’s roots. Classical Islam has rediscovered the Qur’an, the hadith, it’s Sharia and they have discovered an Islamic identity. I think these things together has projected them very much into a community which is distinctive.

Q: So you would say that they have, not a choke hold but a strong hold in the UK.

A: They have created blocks, you could say power blocks from which they can influence. And those power blocks are geographical. Where, in areas they form the majority — also in society, where they can lead a society in matters of government, where they can seek to shape government policy. So, I would say that they are present in many different aspects of British life.

Q: How did they do that? What was their strategy? It wasn’t by accident, certainly?

A: No no. It was very well thought out and fortunately, many had not done work on this. Back in 1979, there was the Islam in Europe conference, and one of their basic strategies that arose was that Muslims should NOT integrate as individuals in society but rather as communities. So they emphasized the development of Muslim communities — in other words, they would become majority in given areas and then they would go to the next stage which was to engage the political bodies in that area. If you had to reduce their strategy over the past 30 years it would firstly the creation of an Islamic consciousness, and all Muslim women would wear the hijab, everyone eats halal meat — those very basic things that gives visibility to the Muslim community. They know “who” they are. And their Sharia, their law, it now becomes operative within. Secondly, to create organizations and institutions. For example, an Islamic Woman’s Society, an Islamic legal society, an Islamic educational society… now, each of those societies sits down and works out it’s principles and sets “what are our objectives”, “where do we want to go”, “how are we going to get there”, “how does Islam fit within this”, and “where does our law come in”. Once they have that in place, they move to the third stage which is to say to their local authority “look, we have lots of Muslim children in school, should not the school cater for our children, in terms of dress, in terms of Ramadan, in terms of food, in terms of education ?” They’d say, politically, we’re here, should we not be present on national days, should we not be a part of everything. So what has happened is they’ve engaged the political structures at local, regional and national levels. Islam has now been accepted and brought into the center. That engaging also had to do with the media, social, cultural, religious bodies all operating in tandem so their presence was known, it was felt. And then there is the final stage which is the threat. If you don’t give way to what we want, then we are not to blame if you are attacked. Now in England, we have had our 7/7 and sadly, Muslim leaders came out and said, “It’s really British government policy is to blame because you/we are in Iraq killing Muslims. You can’t blame our young people. In other words, they are saying to the government, “ you have got to follow our foreign policy. We will tell you what to do”. So you’ve got that fourth stage which is where violence is threatened or utilized.

– – – – – – – – –
Q: Now, in America, this is starting to happen. I’m on the “Stop the Madrassa” coalition. There is a school in Brooklyn, an Arabic school and we’re trying to stop it. But it’s certainly not the first, and I can see in the UK, they’ve been very successful, have they not? Are there a great many Muslim schools, public schools?

A: Very much so. In fact,. the worrying feature is that our present Labour Government has decided to fund at least one hundred Muslim schools. So you have independent Muslim schools, that’s outside of the state funding.

Q: Yes, we have that too

A: And the government is now saying, “we need now to fund them and to bring them into the state sector as Muslim schools — which I think is an unwise decision to take.

Q: And so, what do you think is the next step in the UK? What happens next?

A: I think the worrying factor is how far these communities are going to go in terms of some kind of autonomy. If they form majorities within given geographical areas… that is already happening…

Q: That is happening.

A: And if non-Muslims are being pushed out, if they create their own institutions, which they’ve done. If they’re able to Islamicize police forces, which they’ve already done — and capture political power — At what point do they say these areas are now going to be under Sharia, and we will determine “who” comes in and “what” can take place within? Let me give you two illustrations. Dogs. Muslims are currently saying their hadiths, traditions say that dogs are unclean and should not be in these areas. So what happens if you have a dog? Another is alcohol. What happens if you have a taxi driver who is this Muslim, he picks up somebody who has alcohol at this alcohol shop. Does that mean the alcohol shop will have to close down? Or advertising. One may not like some advertising if they advertise beer or scantily clad ladies. Should they all be removed? So it has huge impact on what happens within a community. My concern for the states, I think, is not just madrassas which are developing, but actually Islamic communities of the type which we have seen develop in the UK.

Q: Like Dearbornistan.

A: Exactly. That is now happening in the states.

Q: Now, if George Bush could have done something differently after 9/11. Did he do anything that you think could have been done differently? Done better? More effectively? Or is this just a runaway train?

A: I think Mr. Bush’s strategy, and may I add, I doubt any other incumbent would have done it differently because they had to safeguard the American people. That was the priority.

Q: yes —

A: And it meant that they had to develop Homeland Security for the first time join up all the dots and all the security agencies working together properly, good immigration laws with much greater emphasis on counter terrorism. I, personally, think he did the right thing. But I think secondly, he had to go after the perpetrators. And so, it was right that the Taliban, al Qaeda was attacked in their back yards, so to speak, in Afghanistan.. And I don’t think Mr. Bush could be faulted. Again, as I said, any incumbent would have done the same.

Q: Do you think the train has left the station?

A: I think in the UK, it has. Because the Muslim community has been allowed to develop in such a way that it’s going to be very difficult for outsiders to influence it. It could be, she could be influenced from within. It would mean the Muslim community leaders standing up and saying, “Look, we want to come back into the station and we want to be a part of life “. That’s a decision they have got to take. But if they continue to preach separation, the development of a parallel society, old Indian version of communalism, then I think it is very very difficult to see a way ahead.

Q: Why would they back peddle when they have been so successful? I don’t understand. I mean, what would be the objective? They are achieving their objectives this way.

A: I think that you would, are not happy… there are some young professionals who have embraced Western values, particularly separation of religion from state. Internal, private law rather than public. Really they’d appreciate a liberal Western society. And I think people like that obviously do not want an Islamic state. I think there are some Muslim leaders who are sitting down and saying, Look we have fled from rigid societies, do we want to replicate those societies here? Is it possible for Islam to adjust to a contemporary Western society? So I think we’ve got those thinkers. The real dilemma is, the communities are conservative by nature, even though they are traditionalists. Their leadership tends more the hard line. They’re the Jamaat, the Muslim Brotherhood. Their leaders are actually saying, “well, we got what we wanted, and it’s taking us where we want. And more than that Western society, secular society is so corrupt, we don’t want that! We want our children and our families to grow up in our own communities, with our own religion and with our own law “ In other words, we want a Muslim street. That’s where the tension is going to be.

Q: And this Muslim Street, do you think it would welcome Christians and Jews and infidels? It’s not in the book, Patrick.

A: Well, thus far in the UK, they are saying they don’t want them because they have had anecdotal evidence of people being pushed out of those areas of conflict and violence. And the Muslim Street is the Muslim Street under Sharia, otherwise they are going to create zones into which non-Muslims are not going to be allowed into.

Q: I think that is very dangerous. Your opinions on Turkey entering into the European Union. Do you have any thoughts on that?

A: Very much so. Turkey is a member of NATO and a very valued member. I can see a place where Turkey, in terms of economics and trade can have a relationship with the European Union. For Turkey to become a full member of the European Union would pose real challenges to Europe. The size of the Turkish population by 2020, it could get up to a hundred million, that’s about a quarter of Europe would be of an Islamic position. The present government is moving away from the secular state and is moving towards an Islamist state. Europe is very weak in terms of its foundations, it’s Judeo-Christian basis is very weak

Q: which makes it so very easy to infiltrate.

A: Precisely. I would be uneasy with a fully integrated Turkey into the European Union because I believe it could pose real difficulties for Europe for the future. If, there are those who have suggested that if Europe [Turkey] enters the European Union by 2020, Europe could have as much as 45% Muslim.

Q: Wow.

A: It begins to pose real difficulties for a country which would then be shaped by Islam.

Q: And in regards to the global jihad, by the way, I just purchased your book, “The Global Jihad”, is that available yet, is that on Amazon yet?

A: It’s Amazon UK. It’s being published in the US next month.

Q: Maybe we’ll do a show with you when that comes out and help you sell some books.

A: Thank you.

Q: How Israel fail? Israel, most assuredly failed. Not always, not throughout history. But you have to say the current leadership is weak. What would you have done differently? If you were advising…

A: Yes. Are you thinking in the context of Hizb’allah?

Q: Yes.

A: I think if one is going to war then one needs to decide to pursue it absolutely or not at all. Secondly, there is a temptation now to use air power because no one wants more body bags. And air power by itself is not sufficient. Thirdly, the issue of ground troops was very significant and how far they would move, but more than that, Israel underestimated the fighting capabilities of Hizb’allah. She will need to take seriously an irregular force fighting asymmetrically and she will have to look at how she can engage in that, particularly if her air power takes out buildings from which insurgents can hide bombs. I think the whole strategy needs to be re-looked.

Q: Well, thank you very much and good luck.

A: Thank you so much too.

Bowing to the Islamists

Last Thursday, a group of 80 people from 15 European countries, plus Israel, Canada and the United States, convened in a conference room on the seventh floor of the European Parliament building in Brussels for a “counterjihad” meeting.They listened to speakers such as the Egyptian-born scholar Bat Ye’or, author of the book “Eurabia,” who explained how the European Union (EU) has become a vehicle for the Islamization of Europe and how the EU has promoted “a massive Muslim immigration […] hoping that the Euro-Arab symbiosis through economic development, soft diplomacy and multiculturalism would guarantee [Europe] peace, markets and oil.”

The citizens of Europe are extremely worried by this Islamization process, but their political leaders impose it on them against their wish. Europe is in worse shape than America because European democracies lack two pillars of freedom that America still has – solidly enshrined in the first and second amendments of its Constitution. In many European countries, freedom of speech no longer exists. It has been restricted by laws intended to curb so-called “hate speech.” These laws forbid people to express their worries about massive immigration and about the Islamization of their nations.

Europe, with few exceptions, such as Switzerland, is also unfamiliar with the second pillar of free societies: the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. In countries such as Belgium even pepper spray is an illegal weapon. The result is that the law-abiding citizens are at the mercy of criminals, many of them of foreign extraction.

While the delegates at the counterjihad meeting, who had been invited to the European Parliament by one of Europe’s so-called far-right parties, discussed strategies to counter the spread of Islamism, EU bureaucrats convened in a meeting room two floors below. On the fifth floor of the parliament building, they discussed the “harmonization” of self-defense legislation in the 27 EU member states. This means that, if the EU gets its way, the citizens of all member states will soon be submitted to Belgium’s strict rules and that pepper sprays will be banned everywhere.

Meanwhile, as became clear from the country reports given at the counterjihad meeting, Europe’s no-go zones are multiplying. These are areas where the police no longer dare to venture and where Islamists hold sway. Every night since the beginning of last week, immigrant youths have been torching cars and clashing with police in Amsterdam’s Slotervaart district. The incidents started Oct. 14 when a policewoman shot dead a 22-year old ethnic Moroccan while he was stabbing her and a colleague with a knife. Senior police officers compare the current situation in Amsterdam to the 2005 Ramadan riots in Paris. Media outside the Netherlands, however, hardly mention the riots, which aim to drive the police from Slotervaart and turn the neighborhood into a new no-go area – yet another pocket of Eurabia on Europe’s soil.

Similar events are currently taking place in Brussels, the capital of neighboring Belgium and of the EU. Last Sunday, demonstrating Turkish youths ransacked an Armenian pub in the Sint-Joost-ten-Node borough. According to the pub owner, police were present at the scene but did not interfere while his pub was being demolished. The Armenian owner, who by Belgian law is not allowed to possess pepper spray, had to flee for his life. The situation in Brussels remains tense.

 

Fortunately, there is some good news as well. Last Sunday, the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) won 29 percent of the votes and 62 of the 200 seats in Switzerland’s federal parliament, the National Council. This is the largest number of seats that any Swiss party has ever won since 1919.

During its campaign the SVP used a controversial poster, showing three white sheep standing on the Swiss flag. One of the white sheep kicked a black sheep off the flag. The caption read: “Bringing safety.” The SVP poster wanted to emphasize that foreigners commit four times as many crimes as the Swiss do and that this situation will no longer be tolerated. Everyone knows which segment of the foreign population the term “black sheep” refers to.

Even law-abiding foreigners living in Switzerland realize what the SVP’s true message is: Get rid of those aliens who perpetrate crimes. Parties in the rest of Europe would be persecuted for using similar posters because people are not allowed to contemplate the issue, but the Swiss are able to raise their voices. It is no coincidence that the freedom-loving Alpine republic consistently refuses to join the EU.

This piece was originally published in The Washington Times on October 24, 2007 .