But note that it can only retail the unsupported claims of a "rock star." No hangings of sharp-tongued teenagers or religiously-motivated murders of hospital patients to report here. "Muslim American: A new identity?," from the BBC, with thanks to JJohnson and RB:
Islam is one of the fastest growing religions in the US, yet one in four Americans regard Muslims living among them with suspicion. What does it mean to be both Muslim and American?Touring the US with his band Junoon, rock star and Muslim American, Salman Ahmed, wanted to find out how the aftermath of 9/11 continues to shape the lives of Muslim Americans in 2005.
"Following the attack," he says, "there were human rights abuses against Muslims, using immigration violations as a weapon. Thousands have been detained and others deported."
Better than being incinerated in your office.
Can Ahmed name any who were deported who didn't have terror ties or immigration violations? No system is perfect, but the overwhelming majority had one or the other, or both.
One month after the attacks on New York and Washington, Congress rushed the Patriot Act into law to help track down terrorists.
The great thing about the American system is that it is, to a greater extent than most governments, self-correcting. Elements of the Patriot Act that may conflict with Constitutional freedoms have been the subject of endless discussions, and the whole thing is subject to modification by future legislation.
"The Act gave the FBI the right to spy on American citizens, to look into our lives, our email, and even our library records," he says.
Better than being incinerated in your office.
But anyway, this is a common canard, and is overblown. The Act didn't really give the FBI anything it didn't already have -- and its excesses are being trimmed in any case.
Even though the hijackers who attacked the Twin Towers in September 2001 represented a militant fringe, some Americans have blamed the entire Muslim world.And the claims made by terrorists, that they acted in the name of Islam, have outraged many Muslims....
But, still, it's better than being incinerated in your office...
And anyway, about that last part, it would be nice if these Muslims who are "outraged" that the terrorists claim to act in the name of Islam would come up with a convincing version of Islam that refutes the jihadists' use of the Qur'an and Sunnah. They haven't done so yet.
Even though the hijackers who attacked the Twin Towers in September 2001 represented a militant fringe, some Americans have blamed the entire Muslim world.
In fact the vast majority of muslims were either happy, or satisfied that OBL has struck at the US.
And the claims made by terrorists, that they acted in the name of Islam, have outraged many Muslims.
Quite the contrary. Only a very small minority of muslims were so outraged.
There is a stirring in Muslim communities. A new breed of activists driven by anger and injustice against Muslims, both at home and abroad, is on the move.
So now we have a threat being delivered, having first justified the victimisation of muslims in Amerca.
The war on terror at home, the invasion of Iraq and the Abu Ghraib scandal are just some of the issues that drive them.
I dont see what Iraq or Abu Ghraib have to do with the whingeing about the fate of American muslims. If he is American then he should support his country in an external war. What this last indicates is that despite all the claims of being "American", he sees his loyalty to first to islam and the umma.
DP hits it exactly on the head; the propanganda eminating from the muslim world - and that's what it is, propaganda - employs a shifting logic that first produces muslims that murder in the name of their religion, and then switches back and expresses 'outrage' (at least, officially) at such acts being attributed to islam. Such horror is (officially) expressed again and again, yet the attacks never seem to stop and there never seems to be any attempt to interfere with the kind of 'radical' interpretations of islam that surface.
And one asks: so, given this 'outrage', how is it that such interpretations of islam exist as are used to justify terrorism? Because they seem to abound. There never seems to be any acceptance that the religion is ultimately responsible for such evils - at best, when the fact is bold-fronted to the fore, there are semi-subtle tu tuoque counter-insinuations: that muslims for example 'don't judge Christians/Christianity by the Crusades, nor the Inquisition' (both of which cost far fewer lives than islam has been responsible for in the last 1400 years), so why should Christians/Westerners judge islam by the actions of a few radical muslims? Suddenly islamic objection to Christianity/Westernism becomes essentially theological in character - which, in its' own right, fails appallingly. So where, if this 'outrage' is indeed so strenuous, are the terrorists-who-would-be-muslim-if-
islam-weren't-about-peace who have been reported by their (non) co-religionists, thus preventing the murder of kafirs - err, 'idolators' - er! 'non-believers' (kafirs) - whoops! deluded and sick fellow-worshippers of another Abrahamic faith - no, no, 'filthy Americans' - no, Jews - no...uh...Islam is a religion of peace. Of course. ( ROPMA ).
But what's not acknowledged - indeed, cannot be acknowleged in islam, for neither the slave shall question the master nor refute him - is the overawing parallel of islamic terrorism in this century (and the last thirteen) with that of the 'Prophet' himself, Mohammed. Comparing the murder of modern humans - the pesky 'Jews' that refuted the 'real' God, whatever that's supposed to mean (and which is correspondingly never explained), or the evil Christians who went their own way rather than following Allah (as they were ordered by the 'Prophet'), as if some imaginary polytheistic landscape that exists only in the mind of the criminally obtuse is real or even theologically viable - with the murder of 7th-century humans by the very 'perfect Prophet' is easy, and real. Ockham's Razor defines this interpretation as the most probable, shearing off the beard of 'peace' and 'tolerance' that islamicism grows to conceal the bare plain underneath - hide your faces, o' women! For Allah has accidentally made much plain that must be concealed! No wise tailor, he.
Islam would be fine, if only it were anything it claimed to be. But for muslims reading this - and there are, I can see you sitting there - the answer is simple: renounce violence, embrace freedom and admit that your 'logical' theological objections (so logical! and beautiful! and rabid!) to Christianity are built on the sheerest foundation of cards available. Simple, really. Embrace equality, stop thinking of other religions as 'kafirs' and stop oppressing them. Do unto others. I know this isn't in your book, not really, but think about it. Your hatred makes the Prophet Issa cry.
Geoff
DP hits it exactly on the head; the propanganda eminating from the muslim world - and that's what it is, propaganda - employs a shifting logic that first produces muslims that murder in the name of their religion, and then switches back and expresses 'outrage' (at least, officially) at such acts being attributed to islam. Such horror is (officially) expressed again and again, yet the attacks never seem to stop and there never seems to be any attempt to interfere with the kind of 'radical' interpretations of islam that surface.
And one asks: so, given this 'outrage', how is it that such interpretations of islam exist as are used to justify terrorism? Because they seem to abound. There never seems to be any acceptance that the religion is ultimately responsible for such evils - at best, when the fact is bold-fronted to the fore, there are semi-subtle tu tuoque counter-insinuations: that muslims for example 'don't judge Christians/Christianity by the Crusades, nor the Inquisition' (both of which cost far fewer lives than islam has been responsible for in the last 1400 years), so why should Christians/Westerners judge islam by the actions of a few radical muslims? Suddenly islamic objection to Christianity/Westernism becomes essentially theological in character - which, in its' own right, fails appallingly. So where, if this 'outrage' is indeed so strenuous, are the terrorists-who-would-be-muslim-if-
islam-weren't-about-peace who have been reported by their (non) co-religionists, thus preventing the murder of kafirs - err, 'idolators' - er! 'non-believers' (kafirs) - whoops! deluded and sick fellow-worshippers of another Abrahamic faith - no, no, 'filthy Americans' - no, Jews - no...uh...Islam is a religion of peace. Of course. ( ROPMA ).
But what's not acknowledged - indeed, cannot be acknowleged in islam, for neither the slave shall question the master nor refute him - is the overawing parallel of islamic terrorism in this century (and the last thirteen) with that of the 'Prophet' himself, Mohammed. Comparing the murder of modern humans - the pesky 'Jews' that refuted the 'real' God, whatever that's supposed to mean (and which is correspondingly never explained), or the evil Christians who went their own way rather than following Allah (as they were ordered by the 'Prophet'), as if some imaginary polytheistic landscape that exists only in the mind of the criminally obtuse is real or even theologically viable - with the murder of 7th-century humans by the very 'perfect Prophet' is easy, and real. Ockham's Razor defines this interpretation as the most probable, shearing off the beard of 'peace' and 'tolerance' that islamicism grows to conceal the bare plain underneath - hide your faces, o' women! For Allah has accidentally made much plain that must be concealed! No wise tailor, he.
Islam would be fine, if only it were anything it claimed to be. But for muslims reading this - and there are, I can see you sitting there - the answer is simple: renounce violence, embrace freedom and admit that your 'logical' theological objections (so logical! and beautiful! and rabid!) to Christianity are built on the sheerest foundation of cards available. Simple, really. Embrace equality, stop thinking of other religions as 'kafirs' and stop oppressing them. Do unto others. I know this isn't in your book, not really, but think about it. Your hatred makes the Prophet Issa cry.
Geoff
Oopsie. Double post day!
Geoff
"Now with Twice as much Platonic Love! Buy Now!"
The muslims are playing BAD COP GOOD COP.We have muslims going around beheading people,blowing things up and terrorising (BAD COP).We have so called moderate muslims going around saying that Islam is a peaceful and that Islam is being hijack by the terrorist,conducting taqiyya,kitman and dawa(GOOD COP).But the goal is the same to make the world a Islamic Caliphate and have Sharia the law of the land.
And what else is new from the anti-Semite, pro-Islam, and at times, pro-Jihad, BBC?
Well, from a recent photo of the corpse of the Chechen leader Maskhadov, a martry's profile of the brutalized upper torso, on display for a day, a lead story on BBC WORLD ONLINE, to today: HEADLINE: "Bush nominates hawk to run World Bank", and the photo: a close up of the beautiful semitic nose of Paul Wolfowitz.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4354839.stm
Take a look folks. The photo will probably change after a while. One of the most influential news organizations in the world cannot write a headline without evaluative commentary. What balanced, professional, reporting, worthy of British taxpayer subsidy, eh?
And what makes Wolfowitz such a hawk? Read the article and the profile and one must wonder; I suppose one must just have a nose for it.
This was actually a long program last night on BBC2.
This article appears to have all the biased excerpts from the program and none of the other side, which also included a few people from Muslims for Bush - who seemed pretty cool.
This phrase about the "fastest growing religion" is nonsense. On what basis is this statement made by the BBC? Statistics, verified, please.
And what about a comparative study of those who convert to Islam, as compared to those who leave Islam?
The first category would give us:
1) Women who five or ten years ago were smitten with some liquid-brown Muslim eyes, married the owner of those eyes, and then discovered to their horror what Islam was all about, after they had "reverted" and now are wondering what to do -- especially about their sadly brainwashed children. No woman in her right mind today would do that -- in her right mind.
2) People who, prior to 9/11, having tried this and that, in their Spiritual Search, hit upon some less representative and mostly dreamy branch of Islam -- the word "Sufi" comes to mind, and so do Whirling Dervishes, not to mention Hermann Hesse, Gautama Buddha, and the Summer of Love in Haight-Ashbury, all of which of course have nothing to do with Islam. A few of these remain Muslims, hoping against hope that it is not really what it appears to be, and that all the phony (and in some cases deliberately self-serving, by particular Muslims aiming for political office, such as Kamal Nawash) talk of "reform" without any real attempt to come to grips with passages in the Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira (in other words, still playing Infidels for fools) talk of "reform" will somehow pan out, but of course it won't.
If one's Spiritual Search began a long time ago, and Islam was just the last stop, in the roundhouse, where all passengers must alight, it may be psychologically too late, or too embarrassing, for some of these Searchers to leave Islam behind, and get back on the train, and head for some other stop -- or how about no damned spiritual search whatsover, but the pleasures of uncertainty, skepticism, and a world that is, to borrow from Browning, full of possibilities and people, and that girl standing there, all a wonder and a wild desire?
NOTE: the pool of those innocent women, and those Spiritual Searchers who stop at Islam, has dried up entirely. The only large category left, of those who convert (or "revert") to Islam is the following:
3) The economically and psychically marginal: John Walker Lindh, Adam Gadahn, Jose Padilla, Richard Reid all come to mind, and all those just like them. People who want a Community, just like those who loved those HitlerJugend tramps through the countryside, those Nuremberg rallies, those seigheilings and smartly polished boots, that clicked so nicely, in which to goosestep through the pain of existence. Nice to have something that offers a Total Explanation and Regulation of the Universe. How comforting. And when even choosing a telephone carrier becomes an endlessly complicated matter, Simplification of Life is desired. That was Tolstoy's motto -- but I don't think he had the simplification that is islam in mind. Just think--whenever you have a problem, you just ask some mufti for his fatwa, and you get your answer. Everything has been worked out. It's all there. What a relief. And the enemy -- the Infidel -- is readymade, or tailor-made, or something.
On the other hand, who converts out of Islam?
Answer: the most intelligent, the most morally aware, the most thoughtful, of all those born into Islam. Look at Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina, AYaan Hirsi Ali, your favorite ex-Muslim.
My god, what kind of trade is this? This is one where one side gives up all its best players, and in return gets all the worst ones.
But there is a problem. The more we are subject to Misrule all over the Infidel world, the more people will fall into that category of the pscyhically or economically marginal. There are always more such people than there are those of the caliber of Ibn Warraq and Hirsi Ali and Ali Sina and those who think like them. And there are those born into Islam who, though they have their grave and unarticulated doubts, cannot declare their apostasy, either out of fear (which is real) or out of some residual filial piety, a desire not to turn one's back entirely on what is called "Islam" because one has a memory, let us say, of a pious, but perfectly decent grandmother, who comes to mind whenever anyone attacks Islam, and prevents one from admitting that that grandmother's simple faith was not the whole story, not by a long shot, and should no more prevent someone from breaking out of the mental prison of Islam than the idealism, let us say, of some Old Bolshevik has prevented that Old Bolshevik's grandson from becoming the most implacable foe of Communism, Bolshevism, Marxism, that it is possible to imagine.
Plight of Muslims in America?
Immigration laws are there for a reason,and
ever since American Muslims gloated over the
weak security system that allowed the Hijacker to
be in the Country,the Government has heeded the warning and focused on Immigration infractions
that are a criminal offence that even the U.N.
agrees on.
Poor BBC,censored by death threats and bombings by peaceful Muslims at the "Finsbury" Mosque that force them to report lies and portray it as facts.
Maybe the BBC is pre-supposing that Muslims are so predisposed to violence and crime that
a special dispensation should be given to them
for this built-in desire to break the law,if it is true that Muslims need special treatment
to keep them out of our jails,then lets stop the problem at the source(the border) and avoid the
endless Police work to coddle them and protect them from themselves.
Would be interesting to know just how deep the BBC has been infiltrated by Muslims. The obvious falsehoods in their reporting, the obfuscations, headline-news as pro-Muslim opinion pieces, it's all to obvious to be ignored.
Yesterday on TV the BBC related to Van Goghs killer as the "man who allegedly committed the crime"- Now, you don't need to be a criminologist to see that there's more where that came from:
How many directors of BBC have "reverted to Islam?" Any educated guess, just the percantage of Muslims and in which positions they are, it would be helpful!
Apart from Tim Sebastian and a few others like him very little light shines on this "honorable institution..."
This one hour programme aired by the "Blatantly Biased Crap" TV channel was just the latest in a string of Blatantly Biased Crap Pro Muslim pieces that have been shoved onto the British public. I believe, in an attempt to sell Islam to the British as the ROP, and send back to sleep the people who of late have been awakening from their deep slumber, putting 2 and 2 together and not liking what they're seeing.
Last week one entire evening was taken up by 3 or 4 such programmes.
I have not watched them all, but what I have seen showed only the successful, modern westernised side of Islam, the very English speaking and in the case of the programme last night, one obscenely wealthy pro Bush family, who had contributed loads of cash to the Bush election campaign.
The bearded comedian, (that's a laugh for starters) let his mask slip at one point in his interview, when he said, Muslims (living in the west) didn't want to be friendly towards westerners, his perpetual stupid grin had at this point turned to a grimace, he could hardly contain his hatred, his eyes and face said it all.
The new pitch of PBS radio stations is to tell us how wonderful it is that they bring us the BBC. Kindly do not contribute, ever, to PBS, and also make sure that among the reasons you take the trouble to tell them are behind your decision, is that they carry the awful BBC. Camel's nose under the tent, wolf in sheep's clothing, any animal tale you wish.
And now for something not at all completely different. Tonight,for the umpteenth time, Public Television (in certain areas) will carry "Islam: Empire of Faith," an infomercial for Islam that will make strong men cry.
There is Muhammad as peacemaker, scenes of dunes and camels (one half expects Peter O'Toole to appear as one of the Companions). Little Aisha is not in evidence. The attack on the Khaybar Oasis is not there. The assassination of Asma bint Marwan is not there. The murder of the Jewish poet is not there. The mass decapitation of the Bani Qurayza tribe is not there. So what's left? Muhammad as peacemaker among the "warring tribes" of Araby. The Qur'an as the uncreated Word of God. The deep sincerity of the True Believers. Shehadah, salat, zakat, Ramadan, hajj. Shots of the pilgrims in Mecca, marching widdershins seven times around the Ka'aba (no mention of other black stones found elsewhere in Arabia, or the pre-Islamic worship of that stone). And so on, and so predictably forth.
What's not to like?