Charlie Hebdo

The Charlie Hebdo massacre disturbs me more than most terrorist attacks I must admit, because unlike the slaughter of random people it is something that could make people change their behaviour to avoid. People will be ever more unwilling to satirise a religion that needs more satire than most.

Muslims Discovered America

According to Turkey's Islamist president Recap Erdogan anyway.

Muslims discovered the Americas more than three centuries before Christopher Columbus, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.

He made the claim during a conference of Latin American Muslim leaders in Istanbul, pointing to a diary entry in which Columbus mentioned a mosque on a hill in Cuba.

Mr Erdogan also said "Muslim sailors arrived in America in 1178".

He said he was willing to build a mosque at the site Columbus identified.

The Turkish president - whose AK Party is rooted in political Islam - gave no further evidence to back up his theory, instead stating: "Contacts between Latin America and Islam date back to the 12th Century."

There's actually quite a long list of supposed examples of pre-Columbian contact between the Old and New World, the Vikings are the only ones who've been confirmed but the Welsh, Irish, Basques, Romans, English, Egyptians, Africans, Chinese, Polynesians and Japanese have all had claims. Some of them are vaguely plausible- though probably still wrong- but most are not.

The Muslim discovery of America is not one of the more convincing theories but like a lot of psuedo-history appeals to the pride of a culture whose actual accomplishments have been rather modest since the Mongols sacked Baghdad. The former Chinese President Hu Jintao did something similar when he informed the Australian parliament that the Chinese discovered Australia back in 1421- a claim based on the ridiculous book by Gavin Menzies. Again it appealed to the pride of a culture that while once great, has lagged the West for centuries.

My favourite example of Islamists hijacking Western accomplishments is the widely believed story in the Middle East about Neil Armstrong hearing the Islamic call to prayer when he first set foot on the moon. In comparison reaching the Americas is lacking ambition.

Guess The Country

Over at The View From Cullingworth, Simon Cooke has a quote from a 17th Century English sailor:

"The men that are married are given much to jealousy, and will not permit any stranger to come where their wives are, much less to see them, but will keep them out of sight as much as they possibly can...all their women, both married and unmarried, go with a black veil over their heads and reaching down to their legs, all being covered except their eyes."

Can you guess where the sailor was visiting? If not, have a guess at the predominant religion in the country.


He wasn't at some port in the Ottoman Empire or on the Barbary Coast but was instead visiting Catholic Portugal. It might reflect the Moorish influence in Portugal although it must have been a few centuries since Islam held sway in the country.

It does show that while the burqa is now an Islamic garb in the past, other cultures have been equally repressive. It also shows that even in the 17th century the English regarded it as primitive and evidence of the failings of the menfolk that enforce it.

Also 17th century sailors are more insightful about the motives behind face covering garments than most modern politicians, academics and pundits- it is due to extreme sexual jealousy on the part of the menfolk.

What causes some cultures to foster such extreme sexual jealousy is the next obvious question- I don't know the answer but suspect it has something to do with clannishness and marriage structure.

Keep Women Drivers Off The Roads Says Guadian Columnist

The Guardian publishes an article by a Saudi Arabian man about women drivers. As you will be aware women can't drive.... and in Saudi Arabia it's illegal too.

 [pause for laughter].

Anyway the Guardian has published this article about by a Saudi man about how women in the kingdom don't really want to be allowed to drive because... well I didn't really follow the line of reasoning. I'm just too flabbergasted that a mainstream paper that has been publishing countless articles suggesting that western society is insanely misogynistic recently would actually publish something like this.

Sample quote after surveying female students:

I offered them anonymity in their answers, but even so, some wanted to be recognized.

Exactly how they could be recognised while wearing sacks over their heads wasn't explained.

Eternal Truths

There is a defence of Muhammad- the founder of Islam- in the Guardian, with regard to accusations that he was a paedophile for marrying a six year old girl.

A lot of effort is made to contextualise this by comparison with what was normal at the time- and it is true that taking very young wives was a lot more acceptable in earlier centuries than today. Various figures from ancient times to the late middle ages did this.

This kind of context matters in judging most historical figures but the problem is Muhammed is not most historical figures. If Mo had simply been a particularly successful warlord it would be tiresome to denounce his sexual morals or the fact he was a slaver. However he and his adherents have never claimed that he was simply a man of his time, but rather that he was the source of eternal truths, that are as true today as they were then.

It is similar to how the massacre of the Trojans by the Greeks is not a problem for modern admirers of ancient Greece whereas the massacre of the Canaanites by the Israelites is a problem for those who believe that the Bible or Torah are divine sources of truth.

Of course in the modern world most Christians and Jews don't endorse the worst aspects of their holy literature. This is not the case with Islam, when simply speculating that some passages may be allegorical is a death sentence in much of the Middle East.

Ed Balls Needs To Work On His Interview Technique

Mehdi Hassan writes about the abuse he has to take because he is a Muslim:

A recent interview of mine with the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, elicited the following response: "Get out of my country, goatfucker." 

Racist bastard!

I'm Baaack!

I haven't been following the news, so I was wondering- did they catch the French right wing, white supremecist who has been shooting Jews and Muslims to express his rage at immigration?

From Deepest Saudivania

FFS:

The Pennsylvania State Director of American Atheists, Inc., Mr. Ernest Perce V., was assaulted by a Muslim while participating in a Halloween parade. Along with a Zombie Pope, Ernest was costumed as Zombie Muhammad. The assault was caught on video, the Muslim man admitted to his crime and charges were filed in what should have been an open-and-shut case. That’s not what happened, though.

The defendant is an immigrant and claims he did not know his actions were illegal, or that it was legal in this country to represent Muhammad in any form. To add insult to injury, he also testified that his 9 year old son was present, and the man said he felt he needed to show his young son that he was willing to fight for his Prophet. 

The case went to trial, and as circumstances would dictate, Judge Mark Martin is also a Muslim. What transpired next was surreal. The Judge not only ruled in favor of the defendant, but called Mr. Perce a name and told him that if he were in a Muslim country, he’d be put to death. Judge Martin’s comments included,

This is so brazenly corrupt it's hard to believe it will stand but even so it's amazing.

Via

No One Knows Everything

But you'd think that when specifically mocking presidential candidates for ignorance of the Middle East people ought to research basic facts. The Telegraph's Tim Stanley disagrees:

According to Perry, the US can’t deal with Iran in isolation. You see, “There is an area over there of all of them working together” [one might call it, "the Middle East"], and if we’re going to tackle Iran as a nuclear threat then “we need to bring Syria into the mix.” His logic seemed to be that the only way to safeguard the world against the Shiite theocracy of Iran was to launch a war against the Sunni-dominated secular dictatorship of Syria.

No, the Syrian regime is dominated by the Alawi sect. They are recognised as Shias by the Iranian mullahs although some would regard them as heretics. They certainly are not Sunnis though.

This matters because given the religious fanaticism of the Middle East and the Alawi's status as near-heretics to many fundamentalists, the recognition as being legitimate Muslims by the Iranian regime is extremely valuable to the Assad junta.

Great Moments In Sportsmanship

Here:

After Pakistan’s defeat at the hands of India on Wednesday, Pakistan’s captain, Shahid Afridi, garnered praise from the Indian media for his graciousness in defeat.

That bolstered an aura of camaraderie created by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s decision to invite his Pakistani counterpart, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, to watch the game.

By Monday, that atmosphere had evaporated after Mr. Afridi returned home and made comments of a much different tenor.

Asked by a chat show host on Pakistan’s Samaa TV station about what it was like playing in India and the feeling he got from the Indian public, Mr. Afridi had this to say:

“If I speak truthfully, they just can’t have the kind of heart a Muslim has or a Pakistani has. I think they don’t have the sort of big hearts, pure hearts, Allah has given us.”

The comments elicited applause from a studio audience.

Makes our athletes look like Socrates in comparison.

The Extremists Won't Win, But The Moderates Are Pretty Extreme

This Pew survey from last year gives an indication of where public opinion in Egypt stands. It stands in the corner of the room marked "crazy"- with a large majority in favour of the public concerned about the rise of Islamic extremist but an equally large majority in favour of stoning for adultery and flogging for petty crimes.

So whilst the religious extremists probably won't take sole of Egypt, even the moderates & liberals aren't going tp be the Egyptian equivalents of Christopher Hitchens and will be likely to throw the Islamists a few bones.

The Less Unfunny Terry Jones Banned.

Koran burning (actually threatening to burn then wimping out) pastor Terry Jones has been banned from entering the UK.Fair enough- he is a provocatuer with few followers who wants to cause contoversy for its own sake. At least he can console himself that he is funnier than his namesake.

Plus the government wants some anti-islamic speakers to ban to say to Muslims that they aren't being singled out when Jihadis are banned. Unlike the last government's target they have actually banned someone who expressed an interest in visiting this country (although I believe Michael Savage is still banned even under this government).

Still the contrast between what gets an Islamist banned- nothing short of direct calls to murder infidels will result in a ban- with what gets an extreme "islamophobe" banned- burning paper.

The Real Danger Posed By The Swedish Suicide Bombing

It might play into the hands of the EDL.

In fairness in this instance I can see why Muslims might be aggrieved by the coverage of the self detonation- Muslims are frequently criticised for not integrating into their host societies and adopting local culture so when someone does something as quintessentially Swedish as ending his existance in a desolate Nordic landscape shouldn't he be praised?

Blasphemy

Arresting a girl for burning a Koran ostensibly for inciting religious hatred, underlines a worrying development. We have essentially created a blasphemy law that grants Islam protections from the normal expression of free speech. Furthermore extremist Muslims have been granted the final say over what is allowed to be said- because it is the implicit threat of violence from those sources that gives the police the incentive to arrest blasphemers in order to keep the peace.

Just Because You Got Stabbed Doesn't Make You An Expert

We have laws against inciting violence so what exactly is Stephen Timms proposing here:

An MP stabbed by a high-flying university student inspired by al Qaeda told how it was like a "bolt out of the blue".
Stephen Timms backed calls for an overhaul of websites hosting terror videos as he said Roshonara Choudhry's online radicalisation was "puzzling and alarming".

Indeed given that he acknowledges that his assailants radicalisation is "puzzling" he appears to acknowledge that he doesn't actually understand what motivated her so he is essentially calling for a ban on a wide range of unspecified material.

Best Burqa Ban Protest Ever

I like this protest for three reasons, it supports the principle of allowing the burqa, it mocks the burqa itself and it features two women wearing hot pants.

Update: I've had to remove the video because it plays whether you press play or not.

It's Different When You Do It

Like most people I have little sympathy for the publicity seeking pastor who is planning to burn some Korans to mark the anniverary of the World Trade Center & Pentagon attacks. The special pleading and double standards that have been revealed are interesting though; opposing the needlessly provocative Koran BBQ but supporting their legal right to do it is a sign of tolerance but opposing the needlessly provocative ground zero mosque but supporting the legal right to build it is a sign of bigotry.

For double standards though Anshuman Mondal is hard to top though, he explains:

The obvious precedent is the burning of The Satanic Verses in Bradford, which precipitated Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa.

To a point, because the loony pastor isn't actually calling for the Koran to be banned.

This was read by western commentators as a reprise of Nazi book-burnings, thereby indelibly associating in the liberal western imagination a relationship between Islam, fascism and totalitarianism. This was, however, a mistaken reading on at least two counts: firstly, there is no equivalence between mass book burnings organised by a powerful state and a street demonstration by marginalised working-class ethnic minority communities desperate to draw attention to their grievance when all previous attempts had failed

But the grievance was that a powerful state refused to ban books that the book burners didn't like, so the comparison is perfectly valid.

Secondly, western commentators took it literally: burning things is a common way of expressing protest in the Middle East and South Asia, especially within the context of regimes that are brutally draconian in policing public protest. In such situations, there is a tacit understanding between protesters and authorities alike that burning things (effigies and other countries' flags, mostly) is a form of symbolic expression that contains rather than unleashes violent sentiment

OK this is fair enough, burning is symbolic, fair enough. Sometimes things can be taken too seriously. So:

It's interesting to compare this to US sensitivity toward flag burning. Attempts to prohibit burning the US flag have a long history, and legislation prohibiting flag burning was on the statutes of 48 states until the supreme court struck them all down as unconstitutional violations of the First Amendment in 1989. Such is the importance of "protecting the flag" to Americans that every sitting Congress since has tried, in fact, to amend the constitution to allow flag protection laws only to be thwarted by the senate.

The Americans take burning things a bit too seriously, I get that.

It is not clear whether Pastor Jones has the burning of The Satanic Verses in mind as he prepares for DWOC's brief moment in the spotlight. It does not matter because symbolic incineration has become part of the lexicon of western media coverage of Islam, replayed endlessly on his television screen. In his mind he is probably fighting fire with fire; that is, he feels he is responding in a language "they" understand. The irony, of course, is that he misunderstands the idiom he is appropriating. It is a dangerous irony, though: mistranslations and misunderstandings can have dramatic effects, as the Rushdie affair demonstrated.

Nevertheless, Pastor Jones has upped the ante. Burning the Qur'an is guaranteed to provoke Muslim outrage. To believers, every word in it is the word of God, each verse is a sign (ayat) of the divine. They therefore treat each copy as a holy artefact. Whatever their relationship to other symbols, they do not take these ones lightly.

Right, so when Islamists burn things that are considered important in the West it is symbolic and should be taken in context however when people in the West burn items considered to be important by Islamists then really they should know better because it will inevitable cause outrage.

Problem/Solution

A female Muslim employee of Disney wants the right to wear the Hijab at work. Why not simply give her a Mickey or Minnie Mouse costume, then she can work at Disney in a customer facing role yet still manage to preserve her modesty in accordance with Islamic law?

The Ground Zero Mosque

Tasteless and provocative but if they aren't breaking any planning laws then they should not face any barriers from the government although it seems very foolish for the New York Mayor and US President to actually endorse the idea.

Failing Upwards

The foster carer who was struck off for "allowing" the 16 year old girl in her care to convert from Islam to Christianity has won her appeal against the decision. This is of course good news as it was a disgraceful decision by Gateshead Council in the first place- the idea that state bodies should consider it their duty to uphold religious strictures against apostasy is extraordinary- but this is one of the most depressing sentences you will see:

Gateshead’s decision was quashed by a court in Leeds last week, prompting criticism of the former head of its children’s services, Maggie Atkinson, who is now Children’s Commissioner for England.

The sort of people responsible for this kind of thing aren't simply a few bad apples, they are the people who are so respected in their field that they get promoted to national roles where they can influence policy.

The carer isn't the only victim in all this, they actually took another child whom she was caring for back into care, which given the outcomes for children in care is tantamount to child abuse, yet the person responsible for this is now the "Children's Commissioner" supposedly upholding the interests of children.