Thursday, August 31, 2006

Al-Turki Gets 27 Years

Remember the bookstore owner/Saudi student/slave-owner who lived in Colorado? Well, he got his, at last. How satisfied that district attorney who prosecuted him must be. I hope she's drinking some haram champagne tonight to celebrate her hard work and success:

Homaidan Al-Turki, the Colorado Saudi “student” denied in Arapahoe County District court that he enslaved the woman and said authorities were prejudiced against him.

“Your honor, I am not here to apologize, for I cannot apologize for things I did not do and for crimes I did not commit,” he told Judge Mark Hannen.

Al-Turki was convicted in July of 12 felony counts of unlawful sexual contact with use of force, one felony count of criminal extortion and one felony count of theft. He also was found guilty of two misdemeanors: false imprisonment and conspiracy to commit false imprisonment.

You know, he probably really believes he’s not lying. Sexual congress with a slave isn’t rape under Shariah law, is it? The victim of his affections is Muslim, so that makes it okay. Rape an infidel slave maid? No way. Why do you think they “hire” Muslims in the first place? That poor child was all of seventeen when she went left home in Indonesia to work for the Family from Hell.

The mills of God grind slowly, especially when they are being turned by the Feds. However, separate federal charges are to be heard in October, so Mr. Al-Turki’s goose is cooked. So to speak.

Arab News reports that the student’s attorney claims that his client is the victim of “cultural differences”:

the 37-year-old Saudi national, denied the charges and blamed anti-Muslim prejudice for the case against him. He said prosecutors persuaded the housekeeper to accuse him after they failed to build a case that he was a terrorist.

Al-Turki, who was studying for a doctoral degree at the University of Colorado, was convicted June 30 of unlawful sexual contact by use of force, theft and extortion. All are felonies.

He was also convicted on misdemeanor counts of false imprisonment and conspiracy to commit false imprisonment.

After the judge denied a motion for a new trial yesterday, defense attorney John Richilano said he would appeal the convictions. The lawyer argued that cultural differences were at the heart of the charges.

The TurkeyHe’s got that right. The cultural differences between Colorado and Saudi Arabia are vast. But Mr. Al-Turki will have lots time to study this chasm of understanding as he grows old in prison. Well, he's a student, right? And they study, don't they? I mean, when he's not reading the Koran or praying. Or complaining.

No, he’s not out on bail. Are you kidding?

Now we just wait for October to see what he gets for charges of “forced labor, document servitude and harboring an immigrant.”

Not till October? Trick or treat, Mr. A…now’s there’s a cultural difference right there. And you get to dress up in prison stripes for Hallowe’en. I can’t wait to see what treats the feds have in store for you.

I love happy endings, don't you? Especially since the maid got to go home with $64,000.00. That ought to be enough to pay for some life-time therapy...[yes, that's a joke. I know she won't get much help. I even understand cultural differences sometimes].

Can't wait for the Fems to show up at Federal Court in October and demand that he be given the maximum sentence. I'll bet they'll pack the courtroom. Yes, that's what they'll do -- if they're not tied up demonstrating against Bushitler. Or attending that wonderful Bush assassination movie in Toronto. Gosh, what a full dance card, girls.

Favorite Fantasy: Assassinating Bush

By now everyone has seen the announcements of the upcoming fake documentary that shows the assassination of President Bush in Chicago in October, 2007. The TV “drama” is set to be shown in Britain, and has a place on the roster at the Toronto Film Festival. Haven’t the Oliver Stone copycats learned their lessons well?

This exercise in fantasy is just another decompensation for those whose hatred of Bush is so visceral that it leaves them obsessed with the idea of his death. Before this is all over, I expect to see even uglier sado-masochistic fantasies on film. It is a fascinating phenomenon, this derangement. Fascinating the way watching a worm crawl up your arm is fascinating.

Assassinate Bush Michelle Malkin calls this kind of thinking “assassination chic.” What it represents is the deepening dementia of those who have lost the ability to think and can only rage at the facts on the ground. George W. Bush is the president of the United States of America and it’s killing them, perhaps literally. The increase in cardiac arrests must be rising — anyone in the terminal stages of BDS probably ought to stay away from the film just for the sake of his or her health. Hatred is corrosive: not for the object but for the container. These guys are eating their own insides out with their venom.

The film is being offered to American television. It will be interesting to see which, if any, of them are willing to show it, and who they will get to sponsor it. Progressive Insurance might be willing to do so. The CEO poured a great deal of money into the last election. And then there's always Soros; he's good for a few dollars. Not the Saudis, though. They prefer the devil they know to Cheney.

There’s not enough available of the plot to tell you what is supposed to happen to Dick Cheney when this wishful thinking takes place. It’s difficult to believe that the BDS sufferers would prefer to have Mr. Cheney in charge. Or maybe the plan is to simply keep shooting everyone till Ted Kennedy is finally at the helm?

This is not worth our time, folks. The writer/director, Gabriel Range, has made about five third-rate sensationalist TV docu-dramas (fake documentaries) — ranging from one on the Menendez brothers (remember those charmers who killed their parents?) to another in which the whole transportation system in Britain collapses, and the inept authorities end up killing people by mistake. This latest venture about Bush derives from a lust for fame on the part of Mr. Range...and what could possibly garner more attention than the subject matter he has chosen this time?

The only thing this TV show proves is that there is no limit to how low the Bush-haters will sink. While deplorable, it is at the same time pathetic and embarrassing. I want to look away so I won’t have to see their decline. For example, ol’ Garrison Keillor is advocating cutting health care for anyone who has a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker. He went off the edge so long ago he’s hanging onto his sanity halfway down the side of the cliff by clutching a daisy. If the country gets any redder, they’ll have to institutionalize the guy. Too bad. He used to be funny. Now he’s simply pathetically unpleasant and absolutely predictable. Predictable is not consonant with funny, but I don’t think he takes in new information anymore.

Don’t you wonder how this latest stupidity will affect the elections here, given the timing of its release? It is scheduled to be shown in Toronto in October and that ought to generate enough screaming to send us right to the first Tuesday in November. What do you want to bet it gives the Republicans a boost? It’s too visceral a film not to cause some fear and revulsion.

Shhh…don’t tell them about the law of unintended consequences. Oh, I forgot — they still don’t get the idea of free markets and tax cuts. So go ahead and tell them: it won’t penetrate the concrete.

I do believe this syndrome is progressive. And possibly lethal.


Powerline terms this “incitement to assassination." Sounds about right, but I think the blowback will be a paradoxical incitement to vote for more security.

Council Winners for August 25th

Watcher’s CouncilRick Moran placed first for a fine essay on a thorny and distressing subject -- Iraq: Quit or Commit. Rick says:

…many readers who have been following my evolving position on the War in Iraq know how pessimistic I have become over the last six months about the chances of that bloody land achieving anything like a stable, democratic government. For them, it may come as no surprise that I have reached a point where I believe we must make a decision as a nation about whether we want to continue our involvement - which would mean an increase in resources and a direct confrontation with Iran and Syria over their massive support for the terrorists and insurgents - or whether we should pack up and go home. In other words, escalate or leave.

Why now? And why bother writing about it?

Simply put, the reason I have come to this conclusion now is that the enemies of Iraqi democracy have established a clear upper hand in the country and it is uncertain at best whether the situation can be retrieved at this point.

I suggest you read the whole essay. It may portend a coming wave. And The Sundries Shack agrees with him. See Bring Them Home. Now.

Gates of Vienna was second for The Nation-State vs Anarchy and Imperialism.

ShrinkWrapped’s On Meaning is, as usual, a tightly-woven essay covering many aspects of our current cultural malaise. Sometimes he reminds me of Karen Horney, who, if you haven’t read, you should. Just google her name.


And now the Non Council posts, which were exceptionally fine this time around, though I do have a philosophical difference with those who nominate professional writers or very prominent blogs. I like greater variety and most of us read the prominent blogs anyway. That said, here are the winners:

The first place essay was excellent. 3AM Magazine writes about one of my pet peeves, cultural equivalence, titling the article Bad Faith:

To recap briefly, cultural equivalence is evident when Tariq Ramadan depicted those who criticise religious intolerance and intimidation as “extremists”, thereby suggesting some parity of derangement between those who published the cartoons of Mohammed, or argued for the right to do so, and the believers who made homicidal threats and set fire to occupied buildings. (This echoed Karen Armstrong’s reference to “aggressive” cartoons, published “aggressively” — again, attempting to suggest parity of motive and blame, as if one excused the other, or shared the same moral gravity.)

Tariq Ramadan is sounding more like himself since he had to settle for the London School of Economics when his attempt to get a visa to teach in the US failed the smell test. His granddaddy was one of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood and Tariq didn’t roll far from the family tree. In fact, he’s still hanging in there, only more discreetly.

But Notre Dame ought to have its wings clipped for ever inviting him here in the first place. I hope any alumni reading this reconsider their pledges to this turncoat institution.

Terror War by Michael Totten is an compelling chronicle -- or part of it -- of his visit to the war zone in the latest incursion attempt into Israel. He also has some informative photos along with explanations of what he's showing you:

There is a lot of talk in the media and the blogosphere about Hezbollah’s targets in Israel. Some insist that Hezbollah does too aim its Katyushas at the Israeli military. The “proof” is that 12 soldiers were killed by a rocket just before I arrived on the border.

Here’s the thing, though. Hezbollah hit a little of everything in Northern Israel: houses, trees, streams, grass, apartments, roads, vineyards, and cows. Thousands of rockets crashed and sprayed shrapnel inside their shooting gallery. The odds that none of the rockets would hit a single IDF soldier were microscopic. Hezbollah couldn’t have achieved zero Israeli military casualties no matter how hard they tried unless they didn’t fire those rockets at all.

I was far safer on military bases, in open fields, and on tiny kibbutzes than in cities during Hezbollah’s terror war. Katyushas are nearly useless against an army but are devastatingly effective as terrorist weapons against civilian population centers even as they cause relatively light damage. Shrapnel may not hurt your apartment building too bad, but it will tear you to pieces if you’re in the way.

Totten is required reading, just for his perspective.

Reason, in The Kurds Go Their Own Way, covered a part of Iraq we’re going to hear from more and more as time goes on. Though the essay doesn’t say so, I think one of the consequences of the Middle East conflicts is going to be the establishment of a Kurdish state. Not right now, not tomorrow, but when the dust settles, they may finally get their way.

No wonder Kurds are so genetically close to the Jews. They sure do share a number of traits — like tenacity and making order out of chaos, and fighting impossible odds.

All the rest — and some excellent ones, including a great satire — are at The Watcher’s Place. Enjoy!

The Men-Beasts of Vienna

We got a comment yesterday from an interesting fellow. Since it was on an old Jamaat ul-Fuqra thread, most of our readers haven’t seen it yet. I’m reproducing it below in its entirety:

Ku Klux Vienna
You people are sick, violent kooks inciting civil disobedience and insurrection against other U.S. citizens (the KKK reborn as the MMM under the banner “Murder and Maim Muslims”. You are the threat to the safety and security of us all through your inciteful, hate-filled acts! You never seem to tire from the taste of blood! If you want justification to hate and kill and maim, why don’t you go to the jungle and caves you came from and get on with it like the men-beasts you truly are and leave these people alone!

Alternate title for this post: What the well-dressed Gates of Vienna reader is wearing.

Synchronized Bomb Attacks in Thailand

A carefully coordinated series of bomb attacks struck southern Thailand today. According to the AP:

Bombed bank in southern ThailandNearly two dozen bombs exploded almost simultaneously Thursday inside commercial banks in southern Thailand, killing two people in a region bloodied by a Muslim insurgency, police said.

The homemade bombs, which were triggered by mobile phone signals, were placed in garbage bins, at newspaper stands and near seats where customers wait for service in the banks in Yala province, said Maj. Gen. Paithoon Choochaiya who heads the provincial police. At least 28 people were injured.

Authorities said two suspects were detained. A review of close-circuit video showed that some of the explosives were planted by women, police said.

Some of the apparently small devices were hidden in women’s handbags or inside books carried by teenagers in school uniforms, said Lt. Gen. Ongkorn Thongprasom, the army chief in the south.

Some of the targets were “Islamic” banks; i.e. those which charge no interest. For some reason they were not exempt from the attacks.

There’s more in the Bangkok Post:

Such simultaneous terrorist attacks in the deep South, where more than 1,300 people have died from violence over the past two and a half years, have become increasingly common as the region’s separatist movement attempts to demonstrate its unity and resilience, authorities said.

It’s important to remember that the “separatist movement” — the media’s preferred term — in the south of Thailand is an attempt by Islamic terrorists to wrest control from the central government in Bangkok.

The Bangkok Post provides some background:

Thailand’s deep South has been gripped by a simmering separatist movement for decades. The area, once an independent Islamic sultanate called Pattani, was first conquered by Bangkok in 1786 but only came under the direct rule of the Thai bureaucracy in 1902.

Pattani’s separatist struggle has been fuelled by the local population’s sense of religious and cultural alienation from the predominantly Buddhist Thai state. More than 80 per cent of the 2 million people in the three-province region describe themselves as Muslims.

80% Muslim is an ominously large percentage. If southern Thailand is like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Yemen, Iraq, Palestine, and other predominantly Islamic areas, a de facto ethnic cleansing will soon occur, as non-Muslims flee to other areas before they are killed. This is what I have previously called the “Islamic ratchet”, the process whereby countries which pass a critical mass of Muslim population become increasingly Muslim, until all others are driven out, converted, or killed.

Commenter Ik has given us these statistics for the Muslim population in the Indian subcontinent:

Country 1947 2001
Pakistan 80% 98%-99%
Bangladesh 60% 90%
India 7%  15%

Notice the virtual disappearance of Hindus from Pakistan. But India has not ethnically cleansed itself of Muslims. In fact, their population has increased, presumably as Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh leave their economically dysfunctional homelands to look for work in the Indian powerhouse.

It seems that southern Thailand will go the way of Bangladesh, and become an independent and impoverished Islamic statelet. The wretched poor of the new country will tug at the world’s heartstrings, and the UN and its NGOs will descend on the victims with “aid”. The Islamic Republic of Pattani will become Palestine-on-the-Malacca-Strait.

We have some experts on Thailand among our readers. Anyone want to weigh in with additional information?

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Multicultural Discourse in Finland and Sweden

A Finnish reader and blogger (who has asked not to be identified) sends us a translation of an important article from the author’s Finnish-language website. It is about Multiculturalism and the effects of Muslim immigration in both Finland and Sweden.

The translator includes the following introductory note:

The article covers a lot of the same issues as Fjordman and it is backed by references to news articles (in Finnish and Swedish) and publicly available statistics (in Finland and in Sweden).

Finland has had a significantly more restrictive immigration policy over the years than Sweden, Norway and Denmark. That is why the problems caused by Muslim immigration are of a smaller scale than in neighboring countries. However, the things may change for the worse in the future, since PC multiculturalism is prevalent here as well.

The original article is here.

The author is Jussi Halla-Aho, a historical linguist (Slavic languages), and is currently a PhD, since he completed his thesis a couple of months ago. He is running for Finnish parliament in the next election in 2007 as an independent candidate for True Finns party (Perussuomalaiset). Currently this party has 3 MPs (out of 200).

The ideology of this party can be compared to similar parties in other Nordic countries like Sverigedemokraterna (Swedish Democrats) in Sweden and Fremskritspartiet (Progressive Party) in Norway.

The complete list of Jussi’s writings (in Finnish) can be found here; his bio can be found here.

I am writing to you, because, in my opinion, his articles are worthy of a larger audience and they describe fairly accurately the situation in Europe right now.

Jussi has become kind of a cult hero in Finland ever since the Mohammed cartoon madness. During the cartoon events, Finnish prime minister Matti Vanhanen apologized for the publication of cartoons on a Finnish website. In addition, the police investigated the website but the state prosecutor decided not to prosecute the case. Finland was never a target for angry Muslims, which is what Vanhanen wanted with his apology.

And now for the article itself:

Multicultural Discourse Here and Across the Border

By Jussi Halla-Aho


By following the crime statistics published by the Finnish Department of Justice on crimes committed by foreign nationals it is possible to find out that the situation remains very stable. The same immigrant groups (Turkish, Iranian, Iraqi and Somali) are over-represented in the same categories of crime (battery, robbery, sex crimes), and the relative proportion of crimes committed by individuals with immigrant background is rising by a few per cent annually (See statistics from year 2003, 2004 and 2005.). The statistical facts seem to refute the commonly held view that the impression of high crime rate among immigrants is created by peaks caused by a few individual perpetrators. The trend is real and, as is to be expected, it is remarkably similar to the trends in other Nordic countries.

Since the crime rate among immigrants is increasing rather than decreasing, it makes me wonder, why the reports on assaults and rapes committed in Helsinki city center and Kaisaniemi Park have completely disappeared from the pages of the largest daily newspaper in Finland. Last fall when the crimes committed by the Somali gangs reached their peak, Helsingin Sanomat showed some signs of loosening the self-censorship and began more accurate reporting of the news. However, today it seems that the self-criticism has been followed by an even stronger backlash and that the newspaper has decided to adopt a Swedish-style editorial policy. The crimes committed by minorities are either censored or not published at all. As I stated in my column Keskustelua meillä ja naapurissa, the Finnish media have not yet been engaged in collective self-censorship, which is why the actual content of the story can be found if you take the trouble to do so.

On the 20th of August a shooting incident took place at a service station in Lahti. Below are the stories printed by Helsingin Sanomat and Iltalehti based on the original story published by The Finnish news agency STT.

Helsingin Sanomat 21st August, 2006-08-26

Shooting incident in Lahti

There was a shooting incident at a Lahti service station on Thursday afternoon.

According to the police, apparently no one was hurt at the incident.

The suspect, a 20 year-old man was caught, but the police were still looking for the victims of the shooting in Thursday evening.

The officer in charge of the investigation, Jorma Halme, said that it is not yet clear whether there were one or more shots. According to Halme, the incident took place to settle scores between individuals.

Iltalehti 21st August (source)

Shots were fired at a service station in Lahti

According to the police, apparently no one was hurt.

The suspect, a 20 year-old man, was caught, but the Police was still looking for the intended victims of the shooting in Thursday night.

The incident at the service station in Lahti took place at half past three in the afternoon.

“It is not yet clear, whether there were one or more shots fired,” Jorma Halme, the officer in charge of the investigation, stated.

According to Halme, the incident was about settling scores between two Romani tribes. None of the roughly ten people involved come from Lahti.

“I don’t know, if they met by accident or if it was a planned meeting,” Halme said.

(Fair enough, the incident does not involve immigrants, but it reveals the motives of censorship very clearly.)

Helsingin Sanomat chose not to publish the news item in their printed version at all, probably because there were more important shooting incidents to be reported (the linked article was about shooting a seal that was caught in River Tenojoki in Lapland).

In Turku (the fifth largest city in Finland) violent crime committed by immigrants, primarily of Somali origin, has increased this summer (link, link, link, link, link). The City of Turku Office of Immigrant affairs has tried to convince people that the various ethnic groups get on very well. The Police, however, admit that the situation has been gradually worsening for several months and that the violence has become increasingly brutal (victims lying on the ground have been kicked). The concerned citizens who have contacted the Police have been recommended “not to go out in the evening.”

For someone living in Helsinki this sounds oddly familiar. Helsingin Sanomat has reported nothing about the events in Turku. It is not that the news is not worth reporting, since in the past Helsingin Sanomat dedicated several articles to an individual attack on an immigrant-owned pizza parlor in the town of Kajaani.

In the beginning of August the Helsinki district court imprisoned a 22 year-old Kenyan serial rapist. Despite his young age the Kenyan has been previously convicted for several rapes, which makes one wonder about the effectiveness of the Finnish criminal justice system. The Police are looking for possible additional victims, which forced Helsingin Sanomat to publish the man’s personal description: “The man has short black curly hair.” Well... maybe you could have mentioned some more visible features.

In the 12th of August a 37 year-old man intentionally hit a 14 year-old girl with a car. The girl was riding a bike on a cycling route in Lahti. The victim suffered severe head injuries. Helsingin Sanomat published the following story:

Helsingin Sanomat 15th August, 2006-08-26 (STT)

Man suspected of intentionally hitting a girl cyclist with a car

The Police in Lahti are investigating a weird incident, in which a man is suspected of intentionally driving his car on a cyclist riding on a cycling route.

The girl, born in 1992, hit her head on the tarmac but she has since been released from the hospital.

The driver, born in 1969, was arrested on Monday on a suspicion of attempted manslaughter.

The police do not yet have a full picture of the incident. The driver escaped the scene of the crime.

He was arrested later, since the victim was able to identify the suspect.

Both Etelä-Suomen Sanomat and Ilta-Sanomat are able to tell that the 37 year-old man is of Somali origin and that he has been harassing and threatening the girl’s family for two years with no apparent motive. The man has already received a restraining order (which he considered to be totally unnecessary).

In the 14th of August, a man tried to rape a 14 year-old girl in the Helsinki suburb of Tapulikaupunki. Below are the versions of the story published by Helsingin Sanomat and Iltalehti:

Helsingin Sanomat 15th August, 2006 (STT)

Attempted rape of a minor in Helsinki

An underage girl suffered a brutal rape attempt in Tapulikaupunki of Helsinki at two o’clock on Monday morning.

The incident was reported to the emergency center shortly before three in the morning. The police arrested a suspect in his apartment later in the night.

The police have not yet finished the investigation. According to the police the suspect was riding a bicycle. The police are looking for eyewitness reports concerning a bald man riding a bicycle at the time of the incident.

Iltasanomat 14th August, 2006 (source)

Attempted rape of a minor in Helsinki

An underage girl suffered a rape attempt in Tapulikaupunki of Helsinki last night. The police have caught the suspect who is a male foreign national living in Finland.

The police continue to investigate the incident.

The web edition of Helsingin Sanomat has received several complaints concerning censorship of articles. The site administration has adopted a policy of systematically removing the complaints, which should convince even the most gullible one that the conscious filtering of information is based on ideological grounds. The current editorial policy of Helsingin Sanomat is so obviously biased and in such a sharp contrast to other Finnish news media that I have begun to wonder why I should pay for that kind of a newspaper. Naturally, Helsingin Sanomat contains accurate information as well, like the TV Guide and the weather, but the same also applies to the former Communist newspaper Tiedonantaja. The point is that both Helsingin Sanomat and Tiedonantaja do not report the news based on its newsworthiness or significance, but instead the news is printed if it matches the ideology and worldview of the editorial staff.

Despite the fact that Iltasanomat and Iltalehti mainly concentrate on writing about celebrities like Matti Nykänen, for domestic events they have proven to be the most reliable news source available. For the time being Turun Sanomat has been able to report the events in Turku fairly accurately. However, there is a reason to fear that Turun Sanomat will change its editorial policy more to the line of Helsingin Sanomat if the gap between reality and the multiculturalist theory grows too wide in the streets of Turku.

In addition to media, the conduct of the authorities should also be examined. The immigrant gangs creating havoc in the streets of Turku have caused some of the citizens to react, and the discussion forum on the City of Turku website has been filled with heated debate. According to Turun Sanomat “the tone of the discussion has become such that some users demand restrictions to be placed on the postings. Some of the comments attack immigrants and blame them for the rise in street violence.” City of Turku Chief Media Liaison Seppo Kemppainen states that “if the situation remains as it is, closing the forum may become an option.”

Politically correct discussion turns out to be fascinating, as always. When users of the forum intended for citizen input blame immigrants for the violence they commit, site administrators start thinking of closing the forum. Violence is less of a problem than the fact that it is discussed. The situation in Turku will certainly improve if the accusations concerning immigrants are suppressed on the City of Turku website.

Earlier I have written about the air- and water-tight politically correct censorship in Sweden. The situation is not necessarily as hopeless as it seems. Even if the Swedish crime news articles do not include the perpetrator’s description, they do mention the place in which the crime was committed. Some examples follow:

A group of three “youths” assaulted a young man and stole his cell phone in Malmö last March. A month later another young man was brutally beaten with a dog leash. A friend of his was beaten down and kicked. The Police solved the cases and ten “youths” between 16 and 20 years of age were charged with 17 different indictments including among others battery in the first degree, two counts of vehicle and money theft, drug crimes and extortion.

The young men came from the suburb of Hermodsdal. 65 per cent of Hermodsdal residents are immigrants coming mainly from Iraq and Bosnia. (As we will later see, the total proportion of immigrant population is reduced by the fact that most of the residents over 65 years of age are native Swedes. For Hermodsdal this means that in younger age groups the immigrant percentage is probably higher than 65.)

During sentencing, the Swedish criminal justice system showed its worth. Seven of the youngsters were ordered to the “control of social services”. Two 18 year-old suspects were found not guilty. In addition, the oldest one in the group was sentenced to pay fines. During interrogation, the police found out that one of the youngsters involved in the robbery and assault had met with the social workers the same day. So it is safe to assume that the meeting was successful. Prosecutor Anna Edelbank was satisfied with the verdict: “The perpetrators were young. It is better for society that they receive support and treatment than to lock them up in jail.”

In the district of Fosie, which Hermodsdal is part of, a four-year-old boy used a stone to break a young girl’s bicycle. The boy’s parents were present. When the girl’s mother reacted to the incident, the boy replied: “If you tell the police, it will be your daughter’s head next time.”

In the Stockholm suburb of Tensta “youth gangs” have stolen money and fare cards from buses. Moreover in Tensta a 40 year-old man was stabbed in the back. Also in Tensta, three men held another man hostage for days tied to a bomb.

Of Tensta residents between 16 and 64 years of age 86.1 per cent are of immigrant background, mainly from Asia and Africa.

Naturally, the largest proportion of crimes are committed in the city center both in Malmö and Stockholm, which makes the interpretation more difficult. In any case, Swedish society has become fairly violent. Since, according to research, certain types of crime are mostly committed by immigrants (see the rape wave in Oslo and the shocking study made among immigrant youth in Malmö) and since, based on my personal experience, it is hard for me to believe that the Swedes are very much different from the Finns, I don’t think it’s likely that the reported gang rapes and cell phone thefts are committed by native Swedes, even though the censorship provides an opportunity for the idealists to entertain the idea.

More examples:

The driver of an illegal taxi mugs his client using a knife and a gun in Stockholm. See an article from Helsingin Sanomat concerning the way illegal taxis operate in Turku.

Two 18-year-old “youths” steal a wallet and a cell phone from a passer-by using a knife and a gun as a threat in the center of Malmö.

Four “youths” rape a 15-year-old girl in Stockholm amusement park.

A gang of girls assaults two other girls by beating and kicking. The victims refused to part with their money.

Three “youths” steal a handbag from a woman in Malmö.

Cars have started have started burning in Malmö. Around the car there are about fifty “youths”. Does this sound familiar?

I would like to point out that these are recent events. This kind of thing is happening all the time in Sweden.

What is the theoretical background for covering up immigrant crime? What is the goal of the news blackout? A significant part of the Swedish public, at least of those living in cities, know as well as I do here in Finland that newspapers practice self-censorship, but probably an even larger part likes to believe the media and the Social Democratic party rather than their own eyes. The well-organized Swedish society is heading towards a collapse. The collapse is not caused by prejudices towards the immigrants, the thing that the self-censorship is intended to mitigate, but by the fact that the streets have become a tramping ground for “youth gangs” and that native Swedes have become prey in their own country. This trend does not disappear by not talking about it.

Germans who lived during the Second World War have been repeatedly asked how come they didn’t know what was happening to the Jews and other minorities. If the entire propaganda machine is set up to say that everything is fine, people tend to believe it. Generally people like to believe in good news if the alternative is to face a reality that is ugly, brutal and terrible. Posterity will place the same question to those who live in the final days of the Swedish welfare state in the first half of the 21st century. “How come you didn’t know, if it all happened before your very eyes?”

Perhaps the immigrant crime is not covered because there are more relevant problems to address in Sweden. Kolmården zoo in concert with Kenyan Airways arranged a Kenyan dancing ensemble to perform Kenyan folk dances to the public. The chairman of the Swedish anti-racist center (Centrum Mot Rasism, CMR) Ywonne Ruwaida said that the performance “reinforces the prejudices and the discriminating structures within society”. Performing among wild animals “paints a primitive picture of Africans”.

Daniel Ole Leuka, one of the Kenyan guests, is surprised by Ruwaida’s statement. “We are doing a good PR for our own country, we earn good money, and we do not feel that we are being compared to animals.”

It is hard to make it any funnier than it is. I feel pity towards Africans who live in and visit Sweden. They should apparently just stand up as totems in the Green Party office, do nothing and avoid all contact. There is always a risk of racist connotations. I wonder if this contains racist messages in Ruwaida’s opinion.

Several times I have mentioned Swedish suburbs in my columns, but I must admit that I know fairly little about their actual state of affairs. I did some research in the statistics pages of the City of Stockholm. The residents of the city are described with various parameters like gender, age, nationality, level of income and voting patterns. The “multicultural” content of a suburb is not necessarily linked to the number of foreign residents, since in some areas the foreigners are mostly citizens of other Nordic and EU countries. There are, however, clear correlations, which decreases the number of parameters needed. If the share of residents with immigrant background is higher than 30 per cent, the immigrants are mostly Asians and Africans. Asians include the residents of Middle Eastern origin, who constitute the largest group of immigrants in Sweden.

In Helsinki, which is the most multicultural place in Finland, there are no suburbs with more than 20 percent immigrants. Despite this, ghettoization has already begun here. In Stockholm there are 60 suburbs in which the share of immigrants is greater than 20 per cent. The top ten with immigrant percentages are the following:

Rinkeby 91.1%
Tensta 86.1%
Husby 80.8%
Skärholmen 73.2%
Akalla 62.6%
Bredäng 61.3%
Rågsved 59.7%
Kista 55.7%
Sätra 52.4%
Vårberg 52.3%

The proportion of immigrants is actually higher, since the figures above describe the residents from 16 to 64 years of age. In the suburbs mainly populated by Asians and Africans a significant number of people above 65 years of age are native Swedes, while among children under 16 years the immigrant share is higher than average. For example, in Tensta immigrants constitute “only” 62.4 per cent of the population among people above 65 and 87.4 per cent among children under 16 years.

While these figures tell about the scale of the change taking place in Swedish cities, at the same time they remind us about the incredibly good situation in Finland. For some this means that there is no need to worry about anything. For others it signifies that a) we can still avoid the Swedish way, and b) if no steps are taken, the change will happen here as well and it will be a very rapid change indeed. Sweden’s liberal, non work-related immigration policy was started as late as in the 70s. Since 1985, 564 000 immigrants of non-Nordic background have arrived in Sweden. Three per cent of them have come for work and two per cent for studies. The most important reasons for arrival have been “family connection” (family reunification, retrieving spouse from the home country) 41 per cent, “humanitarian reasons” 21 per cent, and “need for protection” 15 per cent (Source: Åke Nilsson, Efterkrigstidens invandring och utvandring, 2004, page 29.) Sweden teaches us a lesson. Once you decide, on humanitarian principles, to accept everyone who is willing to come, there will be no shortage of volunteers.

It is probably no surprise to anyone that the share of immigrants in a suburb correlates negatively with the average income. In the year 2004, the average income in Stockholm was 274,100 Swedish crowns. For the most multicultural suburbs the figures were: Rinkeby 153,100, Tensta 163,600, Husby 177,300, Skärholmen 192,400, Akalla 213,700, Bredäng 197,500, Rågsved 187,700, Kista 239,400, Sätra 213,400, Vårberg 213,000. The high figure for Kista can be explained with the fact that not Africans but residents coming from EU countries constitute the second largest immigrant group right after Asians.

It is, of course, a matter of judgment whether the grimness of the suburbs is due to the high number of immigrants, or the immigrants’poor living conditions are due to the grimness of the suburbs, or that the social structures are discriminatory. I merely intend to describe the reality in Sweden, which is the model of multiculturalism and our shining example. There is no reason to believe that today’s Rinkeby is not tomorrow’s Kontula (a suburb of Helsinki), if the same mistakes with immigration are made here in Finland. This means that immigrants are not carefully selected and they are not forced to integrate. The choice of integration cannot be left to the individual immigrant, since the largest part of them feel no desire to become like us. The welfare state with its generous benefits only gives them a better economic possibility to continue doing what they did in their homeland.

While figuring out the numbers, I was asking yet again why this obviously damaging ghettoization is tolerated. There is no question about the poor state of immigrant suburbs, but so far the political elite has failed to do anything to present a comprehensive solution to the problem. Does the current situation benefit someone? Let us look at the voting patterns in the last local election in 2002. The statistics give the combined support of the ruling Left (including the Social Democrats, the Leftist Party and the Green Party), of the conservative opposition (including the Moderates and the Christian Democrats), and of the group “others”. (Those who are not familiar with Swedish politics should know that the Social Democrats rule as a minority government with the support of Leftist party and Green party, who are able to influence decisions on individual issues). The Leftist coalition received 48.7 per cent of the total vote in Stockholm, while the conservative opposition received 46.2 per cent of the vote. In the suburbs with the highest percentage of immigrants, the Left received the following percentage of votes:

Rinkeby 87.5%
Tensta 81.1%
Husby 74.2%
Skärholmen 68.4%
Akalla 67.1%
Bredäng 68.6%
Rågsved 71.5%
Kista 57.8%
Sätra 60.8%
Vårberg 63.9%

[Note from Baron Bodissey: Using Excel, I have created the graph below, which compares the two groups of percentages.]
Immigrant population percentages and voting patterns

For Kista the figure is slightly lower because of the relatively high percentage of immigrants from other EU countries, but otherwise the multicultural suburbs are significantly more interested than average in the state of the working class, women’s rights and environmental issues.

Let us play for a while with an idea that the ruling leftist elite has lost its moral compass and patriotism and that it is only interested in remaining in power by any means necessary (This is purely hypothetical). In Sweden, like in other Nordic countries, the left and the right have historically received fairly equal share of the vote. Both sides have had a good chance either to win or lose the election. Suddenly, by accident and as a result of humane ideals, the country receives a lot of people, who due both to their indigenous features and to idealistic immigration policies do not become a productive part of the society but start breaking the law and living on taxpayer’s expense. The newcomers are completely dependent on government handouts, which are traditionally on the agenda of the political left. Logically, the newcomers tend to vote the political force that guarantees that the generous handouts are left untouched. The political force that supports generous spending on handouts realizes that the newcomers’ vote guarantees them the opportunity to remain in power permanently.

Of course, the Left is also supported by other groups in addition to immigrants. The working class vote for Social Democrats because of old habits and out of a sense of duty. In Sweden, there are not as many “floating voters” as in Finland. Feminists and other “socially conscious” people vote for the Leftist party. Trendy young people tend to favor the Greens, since they see it as a moral and ecological choice. These voter groups rarely have to face the ugly reality of ethnic enrichment, because they don’t usually live in Rinkeby or Tensta. This is why ghettoization does not significantly reduce the share of votes received by the left from their traditional supporter base. The Swedes pay the highest taxes in the world, largely to fund the excessive costs of multiculturalism, but they like to pay it, since they have learned that taxes are used for funding the welfare state, which is a source of immense pride for every Swede. The working Swedes have a relatively high standard of living, which means that they do not consume public services too much. This is why they fail to notice that their tax money is not being used for funding Swedish welfare but for something else.

From the Leftist point of view isolated ghettoes mainly populated by isolated immigrant groups are an ideal solution. Complete dependency on the political left makes the immigrant population loyal supporters of the left. Because the ghettoes are isolated, they only disturb the image of well-being in Sweden to an extent that can be covered up with effective media self-censorship and “education”. At the same time the dependence of the political Left on the ghettoes not only prevents it from taking any effective measures to stop the ghettoization (you cannot criticize your voters) but also makes stopping the ghettoization undesirable.

The ruling Left milks the working Swedes to maintain a predominantly idle immigrant population, who thankfully vote for the Left. Swedish society has to support two parasites, each living in a symbiotic relationship with the other. That is, in this particular game of thought.

But even if the Swedish left would be so cheap and cynical, this kind of thing cannot go on forever. Generous welfare benefits attract more and more people and when the share of the idle population grows enough, the tax burden for the remaining workforce causes work to become unprofitable. This eventually causes the system to collapse. Why should anyone support a policy that leads to a certain destruction?

Why does the United States government oppose restriction on carbon dioxide emissions, even if the administration of the world’s leading scientific and economic superpower certainly has all the knowledge about the effects of emissions to the climate and therefore to the future of United States? That is because a career politician never sets his sights 20, 50 or 100 years to the future but instead focuses on the next election. Prime Minister Göran Persson knows that Swedish society can be milked at least for the rest of his remaining natural life.

Why do the voters let all this happen? It is because Westerners like to be “good” people and believe that their fellow men are equally good people. It is because they have humane values. It is because, as I earlier stated, a human being would like nothing more than to believe in the good news, if he is given even the smallest opportunity to close his eyes to the bad. It is because half of the people are more stupid than average.

It is because the moral and ethical values of Western man have made him helpless in the face of wickedness and immorality.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

The Failure of Western Universities

The Fjordman Report
The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna.


Kari Vogt, historian of religion at the University of Oslo, has stated that Ibn Warraq’s book “Why I am Not a Muslim” is just as irrelevant to the study of Islam as The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion are to the study of Judaism. She is widely considered as one of the leading expert on Islam in the country, and is frequently quoted in national media on matters related to Islam and Muslim immigration. People who get most of their information from the mainstream media, which goes for the majority of the population, will thus be systematically fed biased information and half-truths about Islam from our universities, which have largely failed to uphold the ideal of free inquiry. Unfortunately, this situation is pretty similar at universities and colleges throughout the West.

London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), scene to a growing number of anti-Semitic incidents from an increasingly pro-Islamic campus, issued a threat to one of its Jewish students to cease his protests against anti-Semitism at the University. Gavin Gross, an American, had been leading a campaign against the deterioration of conditions for Jewish students at SOAS, which is part of the University of London. SOAS had witnessed an escalation of anti-Jewish activity, in both severity and frequency. At the beginning of the year, the Islamic Society screened a video which compared Judaism with Satanism.

Meanwhile, in a move to “promote understanding between Islam and the West,” Saudi Arabia donated about SR13 million to a leading British museum. The officials said the money from Prince Sultan would pay for a new Saudi and Islamic gallery, which would help to portray Islamic culture and civilization in right perspectives. It would also help fund scholarships for Saudi students at Oxford University.

Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Al-SaudThe Saudis and other oil-rich Arabs are busy buying influence over what Westerners hear about Islam. Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, a member of the Saudi Royal Family, is an international investor currently ranked among the ten richest persons in the world. He is known in the USA for a $10 million check he offered to New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani in October 2001 for the Twin Towers Fund. Mayor Giuliani returned the gift when he learned that the prince had called for the United States to “re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance toward the Palestinian cause.”

Prince Talal is also creating a TV channel, Al-Resalah, to target American Muslims. He already broadcasts in Saudi Arabia. In 2005, Bin Talal bought 5.46% of voting shares in News Corp, the parent of Fox News. In December 2005 he boasted to Middle East Online about his ability to change what viewers see on Fox News. Covering the riots in France that fall, Fox ran a banner saying: “Muslim riots.” Bin Talal was not happy. “I picked up the phone and called Murdoch... (and told him) these are not Muslim riots, these are riots out of poverty,” he said. “Within 30 minutes, the title was changed from Muslim riots to civil riots.”

A survey conducted by Cornell University found that around half of Americans had a negative view of Islam. Addressing a press conference at the headquarters of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), Paul Findley, a former US Congressman, said that the cancer of anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic sentiments was spreading in American society and required corrective measures to stamp out. It was announced that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) would be launching a massive $50 million media campaign involving television, radio and newspapers. “We are planning to meet Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal for his financial support to our project. He has been generous in the past.”

The World Assembly of Muslim Youth, founded by the nephew of Osama Bin Laden in the US, is sharing offices with the Islamic Society of North America and the Islamic Centre of Canada. WAMY Canada runs a series of Islamic camps and pilgrimages for youth. US Special Agent Kane quoted from a publication prepared by the WAMY that said: “Hail! Hail! O Sacrificing Soldiers! To Us! To Us! So we may defend the flag on this Day of Jihad, are you miserly with your blood?! And has life become dearer to you? And staying behind sweeter?” According to him, 14- to 18-year-olds were the target audience for these teachings.

Harvard University and Georgetown University received $20 million donations from Prince bin Talal to finance Islamic studies. “For a university with global aspirations, it is critical that Harvard have a strong program on Islam that is worldwide and interdisciplinary in scope,” said Steven E. Hyman, Harvard’s provost. Georgetown said it would use the gift – the second-largest it has ever received – to expand its Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Martin Kramer, the author of “Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America,” said: “Prince Alwaleed knows that if you want to have an impact, places like Harvard or Georgetown, which is inside the Beltway, will make a difference.”

Georgetown professor John Esposito, founding director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, has, probably more than any other academic, contributed to downplaying the Jihadist threat to the West. Kramer states that during his early days in the 1970s, Esposito had prepared his thesis under his Muslim mentor Ismail R. Faruqi, a Palestinian pan-Islamist and theorist of the “Islamization of knowledge.” During the first part of his career, John L. Esposito never studied or taught at a major Middle East center. In the 80s, he published books such as Islam: The Straight Path, the first of a series of favorable books on Islam. In 1993, Esposito arrived at Georgetown University, and has later claimed the status of “authority” in the field.

In 2003, officials from the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) recognized Esposito as the current “Abu Taleb of Islam” and the Muslim community, not only in North America but also worldwide. In appreciation of his “countless effort towards dispelling myths about Muslim societies and cultures,” Dr. Sayyid Syeed, Secretary General of the ISNA compared the role of Esposito to that of Abu Taleb, Muhammad’s non-Muslim uncle who gave unconditional support to the Muslim community in Mecca at a time when it was still weak and vulnerable.

The rise to prominence of Esposito symbolizes the failure of critical studies of Islam – some would argue critical studies of just about anything non-Western – in Western Universities in the 1980s and 90s. Frenchman Olivier Roy as early as 1994 published a book entitled The Failure of Political Islam and wrote of the Middle East as having entered the stage of “post-Islamism.” As Martin Kramer puts it, “the academics were so preoccupied with “Muslim Martin Luthers” that they never got around to producing a single serious analysis of bin Laden and his indictment of America. Bin Laden’s actions, statements, and videos were an embarrassment to academics who had assured Americans that “political Islam” was retreating from confrontation.

Duke Professor Bruce LawrenceAt least US Universities are noticing bin Laden now. Bruce Lawrence, Duke professor of religion, has published a book of Osama bin Laden’s speeches and writings. “If you read him in his own words, he sounds like somebody who would be a very high-minded and welcome voice in global politics,” Lawrence said. Lawrence has also claimed that Jihad means “being a better student, a better colleague, a better business partner. Above all, to control one’s anger.”

Others believe we make too much fuss about this whole Jihad business. John Mueller, Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University, in the September 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs asked whether the terrorist threat to the USA had just been made up: “A fully credible explanation for the fact that the United States has suffered no terrorist attacks since 9/11 is that the threat posed by homegrown or imported terrorists – like that presented by Japanese Americans during World War II or by American Communists after it – has been massively exaggerated.” “The massive and expensive homeland security apparatus erected since 9/11 may be persecuting some, spying on many, inconveniencing most, and taxing all to defend the United States against an enemy that scarcely exists.”

Lee Kaplan joined a conference of MESA, the Middle East Studies Association, in San Francisco: “Free copies of a glossy newsmagazine called the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs were being distributed to the academics in attendance. Most people, upon seeing the publication, might assume it was similar to Newsweek or Time.” “What most people don’t know is that the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs magazine and Web site – indeed, the entire organization behind it – are funded by Saudi Arabia, a despotic regime that has been quietly buying its way onto every campus in America, particularly through Middle East Studies centers in the U.S.”


MESA papers
“I met Nabil Al-Tikriti, a professor from the University of Chicago.” “I’d invite those academic Middle East scholars who actually support America’s war effort overseas and security needs here at home. People like Daniel Pipes or Martin Kramer.” I continued, “Why aren’t they here at the MESA Conference?” “They’d be shouted down,” replied Al-Tikriti.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald shares his worries about MESA: “As an organization, MESA has over the past two decades slowly but surely been taken over by apologists for Islam.” “The apologetics consists in hardly ever discussing Jihad, dhimmitude, or indeed even introducing the students to Qur’an, Hadith, and Sira.” “Books on the level of [Karen] Armstrong and Esposito are assigned, and feelgood nonsense like Maria Rosa Menocal’s The Ornament of the World.”

The Islamintern“No member of MESA has done as much to make available to a wide public important new work on Muhammad, on the origins of the Qur’an, and on the history of early Islam, as that lone wolf, Ibn Warraq. No one has done such work on the institution of the dhimmi as that lone louve, Bat Ye’or. It is an astounding situation, where much of the most important work is not being done in universities, because many university centers have been seized by a kind of Islamintern International.”

Hugh Fitzgerald is right. The Legacy of Jihad, one of the most important works on Jihad to appear in recent years, was written by Andrew Bostom, a medical doctor who was dissatisfied with much of the material available on the subject following the terror attacks in 2001. Bat Ye’or, perhaps the leading expert on the Islamic institution of dhimmitude, is self-taught. And Ibn Warraq has written several excellent books on the origins of the Koran and the early days of Islamic history while remaining outside of the established University system. This is all a great credit to them personally, but it is not a credit to the status of Western Universities.

It is difficult to understand why American or Western authorities still allow the Saudis to fund what is being taught about Islam to future Western leaders, years after several Saudi nationals staged the worst terror attack in Western history. The United States didn’t allow Nazi Germany to buy influence at US Universities. Although the Soviet Communists had their apologists in the West as well as paid agents, the US never allowed the Soviet Union to openly sponsor its leading colleges. So why are they allowing Saudi Arabia and other Islamic nations to do so? The Saudis are enemies, and should be banned from exerting direct influence over our Universities and major media. It is a matter of national security.

Still, although bribes and Saudi oil money represent a serious obstacle to critical Western studies of Islam, they do by no means make up all of the problems. Quite a few academics are so immersed with anti-Western ideology that they will be happy to bash the West and applaud Islam for free.

Few works have done more to corrupt critical debate of Islam in Western institutions for higher learning during the past generation than the 1979 book Orientalism by Edward Said. It spawned a veritable army of Saidists, or Third World Intellectual Terrorism as Ibn Warraq puts it. According to Ibn Warraq, “the latter work taught an entire generation of Arabs the art of self-pity – “were it not for the wicked imperialists, racists and Zionists, we would be great once more” — encouraged the Islamic fundamentalist generation of the 1980s, and bludgeoned into silence any criticism of Islam.”

“The aggressive tone of Orientalism is what I have called “intellectual terrorism,” since it does not seek to convince by arguments or historical analysis but by spraying charges of racism, imperialism, Eurocentrism” one anybody who might disagree. “One of his preferred moves is to depict the Orient as a perpetual victim of Western imperialism, dominance and aggression. The Orient is never seen as an actor, an agent with free-will, or designs or ideas of its own.”

Ibn Warraq also criticizes Said for his lack of recognition of the tradition of critical thinking in the West. Had he delved a little deeper into Greek civilization and history, and bothered to look at Herodotus’ great history, Said “would have encountered two features which were also deep characteristics of Western civilization and which Said is at pains to conceal and refuses to allow: the seeking after knowledge for its own sake.” “The Greek word, historia, from which we get our “history,” means “research” or “inquiry,” and Herodotus believed his work was the outcome of research: what he had seen, heard, and read but supplemented and verified by inquiry.”

“Intellectual inquisitiveness is one of the hallmarks of Western civilisation. As J.M. Roberts put it, “The massive indifference of some civilisations and their lack of curiosity about other worlds is a vast subject. Why, until very recently, did Islamic scholars show no wish to translate Latin or western European texts into Arabic? Why when the English poet Dryden could confidently write a play focused on the succession in Delhi after the death of the Mogul emperor Aurungzebe, is it a safe guess that no Indian writer ever thought of a play about the equally dramatic politics of the English seventeenth-century court? It is clear that an explanation of European inquisitiveness and adventurousness must lie deeper than economics, important though they may have been.”

Salman RushdieMartin Kramer points out the irony that novelist Salman Rushdie praised Said’s courage: “Professor Said periodically receives threats to his safety from the Jewish Defense League in America,” said Rushdie in 1986, “and I think it is important for us to appreciate that to be a Palestinian in New York — in many ways the Palestinian — is not the easiest of fates.” But as it happened, Said’s fate became infinitely preferable to Rushdie’s, after Khomeini called for Rushdie’s death in 1989. It was ironic that Rushdie, a postcolonial literary lion of impeccable left-wing credentials, should have been made by some Muslims into the very personification of Orientalist hostility to Islam.”

In his essay The Intellectuals and Socialism, F.A. Hayek noted already decades ago that “Socialism has never and nowhere been at first a working-class movement. It is a construction of theorists” and intellectuals, “the secondhand dealers in ideas.” “The typical intellectual need not possess special knowledge of anything in particular, nor need he even be particularly intelligent, to perform his role as intermediary in the spreading of ideas. The class does not consist of only journalists, teachers, ministers, lecturers, publicists, radio commentators, writers of fiction, cartoonists, and artists.” It also “includes many professional men and technicians, such as scientists and doctors.”

“These intellectuals are the organs which modern society has developed for spreading knowledge and ideas, and it is their convictions and opinions which operate as the sieve through which all new conceptions must pass before they can reach the masses.”

“The most brilliant and successful teachers are today more likely than not to be socialists.” According to Hayek, this is not because Socialists are more intelligent, but because “a much higher proportion of socialists among the best minds devote themselves to those intellectual pursuits which in modern society give them a decisive influence on public opinion.” “Socialist thought owes its appeal to the young largely to its visionary character.” “The intellectual, by his whole disposition, is uninterested in technical details or practical difficulties. What appeal to him are the broad visions.”

He warns that “It may be that as a free society as we have known it carries in itself the forces of its own destruction, that once freedom has been achieved it is taken for granted and ceases to be valued, and that the free growth of ideas which is the essence of a free society will bring about the destruction of the foundations on which it depends.” “Does this mean that freedom is valued only when it is lost, that the world must everywhere go through a dark phase of socialist totalitarianism before the forces of freedom can gather strength anew?” “If we are to avoid such a development, we must be able to offer a new liberal program which appeals to the imagination. We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage.”

Roger ScrutonIn his book Modern Culture, Roger Scruton explains the continued attraction of left-wing ideology in this way:

“The Marxist theory is as form of economic determinism, distinguished by the belief that fundamental changes in economic relations are invariably revolutionary, involving a violent overthrow of the old order, and a collapse of the political “super-structure” which had been built on it. The theory is almost certainly false: nevertheless, there is something about the Marxian picture which elicits, in enlightened people, the will to believe. By explaining culture as a by-product of material forces, Marx endorses the Enlightenment view, that material forces are the only forces there are. The old culture, with its gods and traditions and authorities, is made to seem like a web of illusions – ‘the opiate of the people,’ which quietens their distress.”

Hence, according to Scruton, in the wake of the Enlightenment, “there came not only the reaction typified by Burke and Herder, and embellished by the romantics, but also a countervailing cynicism towards the very idea of culture. It became normal to view culture from the outside, not as a mode of thought which defines our moral inheritance, but as an elaborate disguise, through which artificial powers represent themselves as natural rights. Thanks to Marx, debunking theories of culture have become a part of culture. And these theories have the structure pioneered by Marx: they identify power as the reality, and culture as the mask; they also foretell some future ‘liberation’ from the lies that have been spun by our oppressors.”

It is striking to notice that this is exactly the theme of author Dan Brown’s massive international hit The Da Vinci Code from 2003, thought to be one of the ten best-selling books of all time. In addition to being a straightforward thriller, the novel claims that the entire modern history of Christianity is a conspiracy of the Church to cover up the truth about Jesus and his marriage to Mary Magdalene.

Australian writer Keith Windschuttle, a former Marxist, is tired of that anti-Western slant that permeates academia: “For the past three decades and more, many of the leading opinion makers in our universities, the media and the arts have regarded Western culture as, at best, something to be ashamed of, or at worst, something to be opposed. The scientific knowledge that the West has produced is simply one of many “ways of knowing.”

“Cultural relativism claims there are no absolute standards for assessing human culture. Hence all cultures should be regarded as equal, though different.” “The plea for acceptance and open-mindedness does not extend to Western culture itself, whose history is regarded as little more than a crime against the rest of humanity. The West cannot judge other cultures but must condemn its own.”

He urges us to remember how unique some elements of our culture are: “The concepts of free enquiry and free expression and the right to criticise entrenched beliefs are things we take so much for granted they are almost part of the air we breathe. We need to recognise them as distinctly Western phenomena. They were never produced by Confucian or Hindu culture.” “But without this concept, the world would not be as it is today. There would have been no Copernicus, Galileo, Newton or Darwin.”

The re-writing of Western history has become so bad that even playwright William Shakespeare has been proclaimed a closet Muslim. “Shakespeare would have delighted in Sufism,” said the Islamic scholar Martin Lings, himself a Sufi Muslim. According to The Guardian, Lings argued that Shakespeare’s “work resembles the teachings of the Islamic Sufi sect” in the International Shakespeare Globe Fellowship Lecture at Shakespeare’s own Globe Theatre in London. Lings spoke during Islam Awareness Week.

“It’s impossible for Shakespeare to have been a Muslim,” David N. Beauregard, a Shakespeare scholar and coeditor of Shakespeare and the Culture of Christianity in Early Modern England, told. Shakespeare “maintained Roman Catholic beliefs on crucial doctrinal differences.” Beauregard notes that “this is not to say that Shakespeare was occupied with writing religious drama, but only that a specific religious tradition informs his work.”

According to Robert Spencer, “Shakespeare is just the latest paradigmatic figure of Western Christian culture to be remade in a Muslim-friendly manner.” Recently the [US] State Department asserted, without a shred of evidence, that Christopher Columbus (who in fact praised Ferdinand and Isabella for driving the Muslims out of Spain in 1492, the same year as his first visit to the Americas) was aided on his voyages by a Muslim navigator. “The state of American education is so dismal today that teachers themselves are ill-equipped to counter these historical fantasies.”

The Gates of Vienna blog quoted a report by The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) on US Universities. Their survey revealed “a remarkable uniformity of political stance and pedagogical approach. Throughout the humanities and social sciences, the same issues surface over and over, regardless of discipline. In courses on literature, philosophy, and history; sociology, anthropology, and religious studies; women’s studies, American studies, [..,] the focus is consistently on a set list of topics: race, class, gender, sexuality, and the “social construction of identity”; globalization, capitalism, and U.S. “hegemony”; the ubiquity of oppression and the destruction of the environment.”

“In class after class, the same essential message is repeated, in terms that, to an academic “outsider,” often seem virtually unintelligible.” “In short, the message is that the status quo, which is patriarchal, racist, hegemonic, and capitalist, must be “interrogated” and “critiqued” as a means of theorizing and facilitating a social transformation whose necessity and value are taken as a given.” “Differences between disciplines are beginning to disappear. Courses in such seemingly distinct fields as literature, sociology, and women’s studies, for example, have become mirror images of one another.”

Writer Charlotte Allen commented on how Harvard University President Lawrence Summers caused a storm by giving a speech speculating that innate differences between the sexes may have something to do with the fact that proportionately fewer women than men hold top positions in science. Summers in 2006 announced his intention to step down at the end of the school year, in part due to pressure caused by this speech. “Even if you’re not up on the scientific research – a paper Mr. Summers cited demonstrating that, while women overall are just as smart as men, significantly fewer women than men occupy the very highest intelligence brackets that produce scientific genius – common sense tells you that Mr. Summers has got to be right. Recently, Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences passed a vote of no confidence in Mr. Summers. Wouldn’t it be preferable to talk openly about men’s and women’s strengths and weaknesses?”

Yes, Ms. Allen, it would. Summers may have been wrong, but it’s dangerous once we embark on a road where important issues are not debated at all. One of the hallmarks of Western civilization has been our thirst for asking questions about everything. Political Correctness is thus anti-Western both in its form and in its intent. It should be noted that in this case, Feminists were in the vanguard of PC, the same ideology that has blinded our Universities to the Islamic threat.

It makes it even worse when we know that other Feminists in academia are asserting that the veil, or even the burka, represent “an alternative Feminism.” Dr. Wairimu Njambi is an Assistant Professor of “Women’s Studies” at the Florida Atlantic University. Much of her scholarship is dedicated to advancing the notion that the cruel practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) is actually a triumph for Feminism and that it is hateful to suggest otherwise. According to Njambi “anti-FGM discourse perpetuates a colonialist assumption by universalizing a particular western image of a ‘normal’ body and sexuality.”

Sigurd SkirbekkStill, there are pockets of resistance. Professor Sigurd Skirbekk at the University of Oslo questions many of the assumptions underlying Western immigration policies. One of them is the notion that rich countries have a duty to take in all people from other nations that are suffering, either from natural disasters, political repression or overpopulation. According to him, it cannot be considered moral of the cultural, political and religious elites of these countries to allow their populations to grow unrestrained and then push their excess population onto other countries.

Skirbekk points out that European countries have earlier rejected the Germans when they used the argument of lebensraum as a motivation for their foreign policy. We should do the same thing now when other countries invoke the argument that they lack space for their population. According to him, there is plenty of literature available about the ecological challenges the world will be facing in this century. Running a too liberal immigration policy while refusing to confront such unpleasant moral issues is not a sustainable alternative in the long run. We will then only push difficult dilemmas onto future generations.

In Denmark, linguist Tina Magaard concludes that Islamic texts encourage terror and fighting to a far greater degree than the original texts of other religions. She has a PhD in Textual Analysis and Intercultural Communication from the Sorbonne in Paris, and has spent three years on a research project comparing the original texts of ten religions. “The texts in Islam distinguish themselves from the texts of other religions by encouraging violence and aggression against people with other religious beliefs to a larger degree. There are also straightforward calls for terror. This has long been a taboo in the research into Islam, but it is a fact we need to deal with.”

Moreover, there are hundreds of calls in the Koran for fighting against people of other faiths. “If it is correct that many Muslims view the Koran as the literal words of God, which cannot be interpreted or rephrased, then we have a problem. It is indisputable that the texts encourage terror and violence. Consequently, it must be reasonable to ask Muslims themselves how they relate to the text, if they read it as it is,” says Magaard.

The examples of Skirbekk, Magaard and others are indeed encouraging, but not numerous enough to substantially change the overall picture of Western academics largely paralyzed by Political Correctness and anti-Western sentiments.

Mark SteynWriter Mark Steyn comments on how “out in the real world it seems the true globalization success story of the 1990s was the export of ideology from a relatively obscure part of the planet to the heart of every Western city.” “Writing about the collapse of nations such as Somalia, the Atlantic Monthly’s Robert D. Kaplan referred to the “citizens” of such “states” as “re-primitivized man.”

“When lifelong Torontonians are hot for decapitation, when Yorkshiremen born and bred and into fish ‘n’ chips and cricket and lousy English pop music self-detonate on the London Tube, it would seem that the phenomenon of “re-primitivized man” has been successfully exported around the planet. It’s reverse globalization: The pathologies of the remotest backwaters now have franchise outlets in every Western city.”

It is possible to see a connection here. While Multiculturalism is spreading ideological tribalism in our universities, it is spreading physical tribalism in our major cities. Since all cultures are equal, there is no need to preserve Western civilization, nor to uphold our laws.

It is true that we may never fully reach the ideal of objective truth, since we are all more or less limited in our understanding by our personal experiences and our prejudice. However, this does not mean that we should abandon the ideal. That’s what has happened during the past decades. Our colleges aren’t even trying to seek truth; they have decided that there is no such thing as “truth” in the first place, just different opinions and cultures, all equally valid. Except Western culture, which is inherently evil and should be broken down and “deconstructed.” Western Universities have moved from the Age of Reason to the Age of Deconstruction.

While Chinese, Indian, Korean and other Asian Universities are graduating millions of motivated engineers and scientists every year, Western Universities have been reduced to little hippie factories, teaching about the wickedness of the West and the blessings of barbarism. This represents a serious challenge to the long-term economic competitiveness of Western nations. That’s bad, but it is the least of our worries. Far worse than failing to compete with non-Muslim Asians is failing to identify the threat from Islamic nations who want to subdue us and wipe out our entire civilization. That is a failure we quite simply cannot live with. And we probably won’t, unless we manage to deal with it.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Old Nasrallah Had a Farm

Piers PlowmanWe’ve been hearing a lot about the Shebaa Farms lately. This little piece of real estate is Hizbullah’s justification for opposing an Israeli “occupation” of Lebanese territory, and for continued violence against the state of Israel.

Shebaa Farms… It makes one think of a bucolic but tragic scene, where Lebanese farmers, plowmen, and shepherds labor under the oppressive yoke of Israeli domination.

Well… Not quite.

The red rectangle is enlarged belowThe Shebaa farms are in a little salient of Syrian territory, located near the point where Israel, Syria, and Lebanon come together. It’s part of the Golan Heights, a strategic section of mountainous Syrian territory captured by Israel in the Six-Day War and held ever since, awaiting a permanent peace treaty with Syria for disposition.

Like the rest of the Golan Heights, the Shebaa area is important from a military standpoint for its elevation, and Hizbullah would love to drive the Israelis out and occupy it. But it’s not part of Lebanon, and never has been.

Shebaa FarmsAs with so many map features in the Middle East, it was created in 1923 when Ottoman territories acquired at the end of the Great War were divided between Britain and France. Syria and Lebanon were carved out and given a French Mandate, while Palestine, Trans-Jordan, and Iraq were handed over to the British. Boundaries were drawn rather arbitrarily and without much regard for local political and ethnic affiliations, so that the distinction between Syria and Lebanon was a convention imposed by the occupying powers.

But the boundary has been internationally recognized ever since, and the Shebaa Farms, for all their Lebanese affiliations, have always been a part of Syria. Lebanon never petitioned Syria, the League of Nations, or the United Nations for the “return” of the area. After 1967, while Israel occupied the Golan, there was no call from Lebanon for the Israelis to return the Shebaa Farms. And after 1976, when Lebanon effectively became a Syrian vassal, and even after the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon in the 1980s, the issue was of no importance.

Hizbullah launches rockets in the Shebaa Farms areaUntil the year 2000, that is. That’s when Israel withdrew fully from South Lebanon in accord with UN resolutions. The UN certified that the Israelis had fully complied with their obligations, and suddenly there was no more justification for referring to an Israeli “occupation” of Lebanon. But by that time the “occupation” was the entire rationale for Syria’s proxy, Hizbullah, and the basis for the group’s terrorist aggression.

In a flash the Shebaa Farms became an integral part of the Lebanese Fatherland, the territory yanked from the embrace of its fellow countrymen by the cruel actions of the Zionists. I’ll let the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin take up the story:

[Middle East envoy, Terje] Roed-Larsen was told that, in addition to the areas occupied in 1978, Israeli forces seized a piece of Lebanese territory during the 1967 Six Day War called the Shebaa Farms, a 25 square kilometer area consisting of 14 farms located south of Shebaa, a Lebanese village on the western slopes of Mount Hermon. Since Lebanon was not a participant in the Six Day War, UN representatives were understandably skeptical, pointing out that the 1923 Anglo-French demarcation and the 1949 Armistice line clearly designated the area as Syrian territory.

However, Lebanese officials insisted that Syria had officially given the territory to Lebanon in 1951 (why such a “gift” would have been made was never plausibly explained). According to the Lebanese claim, there are no international records of the boundary adjustment since Lebanese and Syrian officials decided not to register it with the UN (why such a decision would have been made has also not been explained). In fact, the officials in Beirut were unable to produce any documents concerning the transfer. One senior government source in Beirut later explained that this was because the border adjustment was “a kind of oral agreement” between the two countries and “nothing was documented specifically.”

Lebanese officials pointed to the fact that a number of residents in the area have land deeds stamped by the Lebanese government, but UN officials remained unimpressed. It is not difficult to see why. A Lebanese newspaper described the land deed of one Shebaa resident as “handwritten and signed on a yellowing piece of paper in pencil and ink.” Moreover, nearly all of the deeds date back to the 1940’s, before the alleged transfer agreement was signed, so they do not attest to Lebanese sovereignty over the area (it is quite common for Lebanese to own land in Syria and vice versa).

Both military and civilian Lebanese maps produced after 1951 locate the Shebaa Farms on the Syrian side of the border. Lebanese army maps published in 1961 and 1966 specifically pinpoint several of the Shebaa Farms, including Zebdine, Fashkoul, Mougr Shebaa and Ramta, all of which are designated as being located inside Syria. Lebanese Ministry of Tourism maps also show the Lebanese-Syrian border running west of the Shebaa Farms. Timur Goksel, a spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) told the BBC that “on all maps the UN has been able to find, the farms are seen on the Syrian side [of the border].”

On May 22, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan gently rebuffed the Syrian/Lebanese claim in his report to the UN Security Council and recommended that the line separating the areas of operation of UNFIL and the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in the Golan Heights (which would exclude the Shebaa Farms) be used for the purposes of determining Israel’s compliance with Resolution 425.

So not even ol’ Kofi was willing to grant the farms to Hizbullah. Must be a pretty flimsy case, right?

Unfortunately, the constant repetition of the “occupation” mantra, amplified by the compliant mainstream media, has given the Shebaa Farms cause a cachet that it would not otherwise have. There are even rumors that — under the weak and vacillating leadership of Ehud Olmert — Israel might concede the area to Lebanon under a “comprehensive peace settlement”.

Ehud Chamberlain or Neville OlmertSuch a deal would be a repeat of Munich in 1938, with the rocky uplands of the Golan standing in for the Sudetenland. Only a historically illiterate fool would believe that Hizbullah will be satisfied by the “return” of the Shebaa Farms, and afterwards cease their demands and their violence.

In fact, the next demand is already lined up and waiting to be rolled out. I refer, of course, to the “seven villages”, the Shia hamlets which had been part of the Palestinian Mandate since its inception, and afterwards became part of Israel. In 1949 the Muslim inhabitants of the villages fled to Lebanon to become the perpetual charges of UNRA, and Hizbullah insists, without any justification or precedent, that those villages must belong to Lebanon.

Unloading the Shebaa Farms will not give Israel even a moment’s peace. It will only display the weakness of the Jewish state and whet its enemies’ appetite for more concessions.

The “seven villages” will be the equivalent of the rump of Czechoslovakia. If they’re conceded, the Führer of Hizbullah, Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, will soon be chewing the carpet with his next series of demands.

Israel needs to learn this lesson and draw the line now, before it finds itself standing on the beach at Tel Aviv with its back to the Mediterranean.

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The Shebaa Farms territory, like everything else, has a website. It’s called the Shebaa Farms Foundation. It’s mostly an empty shell, although the “Donate” page is up and running, and it does have this mission statement under “Brief History”:

Our objective is to present the Facts which lead to UN Mediation, and land Liberation.

However, Lebanese and Syrian officials insisted that Syria had officially given the territory to Lebanon in 1951. Lebanese officials pointed to the fact that a number of residents in the area have land deeds stamped by the Lebanese government.

Lebanese army maps published in 1961 and 1966 specifically pinpoint several of the Shebaa Farms, including Zebdine, Fashkoul, Mougr Shebaa and Ramta, all of which are designated as being lebanese [sic]. Lebanese Ministry of Tourism maps also show the Lebanese-Syrian border running west of the Shebaa Farms. Syria has officially acknowledged the Farms are Lebanese.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms belong to Lebanon. Assad told a news conference in Paris before ending a state visit to France, Beirut and Damascus will demarcate their countries’ border at Shebaa Farms after Israel withdraws from the region. They will then submit a new map to the UN.

The Lebanese Resistance has vowed to keep up resistance operations in the area until Israel withdraws.

A little bit different from MEIB’s version, isn’t it?

Note the part of the text in bold, and compare it to the bold part of the MEIB quote earlier in this post. They are word-for-word the same, except that “located inside Syria” has been changed to “lebanese”. Even the statement that the border passes west of the Shebaa Farms has been left in, so that the whole makes no sense whatsoever.

Interesting.

I was curious about the Shebaa Farms Foundation, so I took a leaf from CP’s investigative handbook and started prowling through information which is publicly available on the web.

First I did a Whois lookup on the domain name, which gave me the following data:

Domain ID: D49753628-LROR
Domain Name: SHEBAAFARMS.ORG
Registrant Name: Shebaa Farms Foundation, address Post Office Box 1456, Glendale, CA. 91209-1456, email ArabElite@aol.com.

The admin name for the site is “Hatem Khreis” at the same address and email. A Google search on his name turns up almost nothing; besides the Whois listing there is only this brief listing in the Lebanese White Pages:

Hatem Khreis — Lebanese Net.com Serving Lebanese Worldwide.
Business Development, Lebanese Net.com
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Beirut — 1966 — http://www.LebaneseNet.com/ (disclaimer)

LebaneseNet.com is even more of a shell than the Shebaa Farms site; it is basically a DirectNIC holding with a list of links.

However, searching on the mailing address given for shebaafarms.org leads us to an interesting website: Middle East News & World Report. Here’s the “urgent news” from their main page:

  • Lebanon Health Ministry: Over 1179 Lebanese civilians were murdered and 3695 wounded by Israeli crimes, Jewish terrorism and aggression on Lebanon. Property damage in the billions.
  • UN envoy: IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) raid in Lebanon would constitute ‘clear violation’ of truce.
  • Hezbollah: Announces its success of killing an Israeli officer and wounding others in the failed Israeli attack on Lebanon on Saturday.
  • U.S.: As usual, U.S. refuses to condemn IDF raid in Lebanon.
  • Lebanon: To stop deploying Lebanese army soldiers across the south of the country if the UN doesn’t condemn the Israeli raid.
  • Lebanon: Hezbollah’s support across Lebanon reached new height, as 87 percent of all Lebanese now support the resistance group.

Well, I guess we know where they stand, don’t we?

The connection with the Shebaa Farms address is not obvious; you have to work your way to the “Advertising Contracts” page to find it: Post Office Box 1456, Glendale, CA. 91209-1456. Apparently it was necessary to post it so that people can send them money.

Then on the “Advertising Rates” page I found “Rami S. Khreis” listed as editor. A relative of Hatem? Or a coincidence?

Since there’s a link there to the Shebaa Farms site, my guess is that the latter is a spinoff operation of Middle East News & World Report, set up to highlight Hizbullah’s interest in the newly proclaimed Lebanon Irredenta of the Golan Heights.

The “©2001” at the bottom of the Shebaa Farms page confirms that hypothesis. Israel withdraws from Lebanon, and the Shebaa Farms suddenly assume an overwhelming importance. Up goes the website! And then the money starts to flow in.

It seems to me that this is just another channel for “charitable” donations to Hizbullah.

Some of you dedicated sleuths out there might want to dig into this a little further. If you turn over enough rocks, there’s no telling what you might find.