Disturbing On So Many Levels

Earlier this month I sent an email to West Midlands Police in respect of a very disturbing incident that was reported in our national newspapers (Daily Mail link here:)

I have a particular interest as this is my home town and this event was so outrageous I couldn't let it pass without comment. The questions I asked of West Midlands Police were - was it true? Were the PCSO and police officer who were involved tasked with upholding British law, or with upholding Sharia law? If the former, were they likely to be disciplined? I didn't necessarily expect an answer, but I did receive one - from Darren Miles, Chief Inspector Staff Officer to the Chief Constable, West Midlands Police. It was illuminating:

Dear Freedom Loving Infidel:

As a result of correspondence received on behalf of Mr Cunningham and Mr Abraham appealing our decision in relation to their complaint the matter is now subject of an internal review by West Midlands Police.

West Midlands Police would like to reassure all communities that there are not any 'no go' areas in the West Midlands Police area and we will defend the rights of the individual to freedom of expression and religious faiths.

Yours sincerely etc.

Now call me old Mr. Cynical, but for some reason my concerns were not immediately assuaged. This is the same West Midlands Police that pursued Channel 4 following the Dispatches documentary "Undercover Mosque." (link here.) The documentary exposed the activities of imams in a Birmingham mosque inciting the faithful to hatred and violence against Jews, Christians and homosexuals. Instead of arresting and prosecuting those imams, West Midlands Police went after Channel 4 for "breaching community cohesion."

What nobody in a position of authority seems to understand is that the problem will not go away by removing the rights of Freedom Loving Infidels like myself to practice freedom of expression, freedom of religion, including the right to proselytise to others if I so wish, and freedom of speech, including the freedom to criticise Islam if I so wish. If, through the exercise of those rights, I were to incite others to hatred and violence, then I would expect to be arrested and prosecuted, and quite rightly too. But merely putting forward one's point of view, even though it may offend others, should not be a criminal offence.

So why are Muslims feeling that they can get away with the aggressive, threatening and anti-social behaviour that they display all too often? Answer: because they can. They have been led to believe that they can do what they want. After all, the Islamic texts tell them that they are here to be dominant, and the people who should be upholding our laws are encouraging them in this belief. It will take a lot more than soothing platitudes from West Midlands Police to solve the problem.

An Islamic Dictionary for Infidels - Part 3

Another thing that has been getting my dander up lately (and let me tell you, that's not a pretty sight) is the concept promoted by Muslims that Islam is perfect, and if only the whole world were to be given over to Allah, then fairness and justice would reign, and the world would be at peace.

Again, it's down to definitions, where fairness and justice translate to anything that redounds to the good of Islam, and unfairness and injustice translate to anything that stands in the way of Islam.

Hmm. Well, in that case, please explain to me that if Islam is so bloody perfect, wherever Islam rules (in the 50-plus countries on the planet that are unfortunate enough to have Islam inflicted upon them) then these countries are at the bottom of almost every measurable scale. The economies of Islamic countries (not withstanding the ten-trillion-dollar transfer of funds due to oil exports over the last thirty years, which has mostly disappeared into the Swiss bank accounts of the Middle Eastern elites), life expectancy, infant mortality, health, education, poverty, property rights, gender discrimination, religious persecution of non-Muslim minorities, human rights, etc., etc., etc., - right at the bottom of almost every measurable scale.

Don't tell me - it's due to the influence of the miserable Jews, conspiring to bring down the great Muslim Ummah. Well, let me tell you, the Muslim Ummah is doing a great job of bringing itself down, and doesn't need the help of the Jews, even if the Jews themselves could give a toss, which they clearly don't.

So, fairness and justice join the other words and phrases in the topsy-turvy Islamic lexicon, where as Humpty Dumpty, the character in the Lewis Carroll story (Alice through the Looking-Glass) once said: " Words mean just what I want them to mean, neither more nor less."

With Rights come Responsibilities.....

The following has been paraphrased from the speech of a well-known American president, Teddy Roosevelt, speaking in 1907. Although the word "British" has been substituted for the word "American", the sentiment should hold true in this country today, one hundred and one years later:

"We should take the position that an immigrant who comes here in good faith, becomes a British citizen, fully accepts our values and assimilates himself to us, should be treated as exactly equal with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin.

But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet a British citizen, with a full acceptance of our values, and nothing but a British citizen.

There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is a British citizen, but something else also, isn't a British citizen at all. We have room for but one flag, and that is the British flag.

We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the British people."

Anybody out there who thinks different - no names, no pack drill - you have been put on notice. Death to the lickspittles of Political Correctness! Death to the running dogs of Multiculturalism!

Sorry, I got a bit carried away there with that last bit. Still, I expect you can see where I'm coming from.

An Islamic Dictionary for Infidels - Part 2

Another phrase that Muslims routinely utter when confronted with the proposition that Islam somehow condones violence and terror is that "Islam condemns the killing of innocent people."

Qu'ran 5:32:

“…if any one slew a person [...] it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.”

Well, that's all very nice and on the surface would seem to be a commendable sentiment. After all, who would condone the killing of innocent people? That would be barbaric, would it not? One forms a mental picture of innocent men, women and children, going about their daily business, without a malicious thought in their heads, when - BOOM!!! - a terrorist bomb tears the life out of them. Barbaric, yes?

Well, actually, no. As far as Islam is concerned, NO non-Muslim is innocent. By the very act of existing, non-Muslims constitute the most grave insult to Allah by their refusal to acknowledge him as the supreme deity. Therefore they must be punished. Allah himself has decreed that non-believers will roast in Hell. So by playing a part in sending them there, Muslims earn themselselves more of those brownie points that earn them a place in Paradise.

Don't take MY word for it.Devout Muslims will confirm this. Indeed, Anjem Choudary, the leader of Hizb-ut-Tahrir in the UK, has stated as much. So the next time you hear that Islam condemns the killing of innocents, remember - There is no such thing as an innocent non-Muslim.

An Islamic Dictionary for Infidels - Part 1

I never cease to be amazed with the frequency that Islamic spokespersons use the phrase "Religion of Peace" when describing Islam. A certain amount of cognitive dissonance arises in the non-Muslim mind when one considers the death, destruction and mayhem that Muslims create on a daily basis around the world in the name of Islam.

However, if one considers that the words "Religion" and "Peace" have totally different meanings in the minds of Muslims and non-Muslims, then things start to become a little more clear. For example, the non-Muslim mind may well construe "Peace" as being a state of harmony between two or more different people or groups of peoples, where tolerance of the other person or the other group allows a co-existence between those people or those groups as equals on an indefinite basis.

"Peace" to the Muslim mind, however, implies the situation that will exist only when the word of Allah reigns in every corner of the world, and all non-Muslims have been converted, subjugated to second-class status as dhimmis, or killed. All devout Muslims are obliged to work towards this goal and advance the spread of Islam in whatever way they can if they want to attain Paradise when they die.

Similarly, most non-Muslims, when they think of "Religion", visualise a benign moral concept with a framework for behaviour that encourages believers to attain enlightenment, or to improve themselves as moral human beings as they go through life, while providing solace in times of stress, grief and despair, and generally dispensing goodwill to all other human beings on the planet by following the Golden Rule of "treat others as you would be treated yourself".

However in Islam, the Golden Rule does not exist. Non-believers are to be treated at best as second-class citizens who must be subjugated in an Islamic society, if not killed outright. Islam is a political, totalitarian system, akin to Communism, Fascism and Naziism, that cloaks itself in religion in order to fool gullible non-Muslims into a false sense of security while it prepares itself, behind the scenes, for total world domination. It brooks no opposition, and those who question Islam or dare to criticise it, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, are to be punished by death.

For this reason alone it should be considered to be a cult rather than a religion, and if only the political elites in the West would take this one simple step of recognising Islam for what it is (a malignant, cancerous cult), rather than what they would like it to be (a benign, world-class religion), it would be the first step on the path that would enable us to deal with the threat that it poses to world stability and world peace.

More on Islamophobia

Not so long ago, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reportedly promised in Dakar to "fight against those who want to justify violence against the religion of Islam."

Not a word about "violence perpetrated by Muslims in the name of Islam." No, the UN Secretary-General is apparently only ready to fight violence committed against Islam.

"We will fight against those who want to justify violence against the religion of Islam and we will promote understanding among the Alliance of Civilisations. We will strengthen cooperation between the OIC (Organisation of the Islamic Conference) and the United Nations in this area (religion)," Ban said.

The OIC themselves are currently seeking to turn "insults to Islam" and "Islamophobia" into internationally recognised criminal offences, in effect creating a protected class of citizens, and thus making a mockery of the concept of equality before the law.

Again, not a word about what Muslims themselves can and should be doing about the perceived problem of "Islamophobia." If Muslims want to dispel the perfectly justified fear and suspicion that non-Muslims have about them, here's how (with thanks to Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch) :

1. Focus your indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.

2. Renounce definitively not just "terrorism", but any intention to incorporate any aspect of Sharia law into the British civil or criminal justice system, or into the constitutions of any non-Muslim state - even by peaceful means.

3. Begin open and comprehensive international programs in schools, mosques and madrassas all over the world to teach Muslims the imperative of coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis.

4. Begin open and comprehensive international programs in schools, mosques and madrassas all over the world to teach against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.

5. Actively work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.

Do these five things, and - voila! - "Islamophobia" will disappear!

Winston Churchill on Islam - in 1899

For those of you who have done a little research into the history of Islam, this quotation may be familiar. Winston Churchill was one of the greatest Britons of the twentieth century, and these words on the subject of Islam over a hundred years ago have an eerie resonance today.

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities [...] but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome."

-Sir Winston Churchill (The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).

Where is Winston Churchill when we need him today?

On Islamophobia

I have to say that I do get extremely annoyed when I hear the terms Islamophobia (and/or Islamophobe) because it implies that the person concerned somehow has an irrational fear about Islam and Muslims, who are currently portrayed in the mainstream media as innocent victims of Western bigots and racists.

However when one sees what Muslims are perpetrating daily around the globe, slaughtering dozens, if not hundreds, of other Muslims and non-Muslims daily in the name of Islam and Jihad, then it is perfectly rational to be concerned, if not actually fearful. That is not bigoted, or Islamophobic, or racist. It is the height of common sense.

That is not to say that all Muslims are terrorists, of course they are not. But most terrorist acts around the world today are committed by Muslims in the name of Islam and Jihad. And if we could tell the difference between a potentially violent jihadist who would cheerfully slaughter all Infidels, and an ordinary Muslim who simply wants to mind his own business and live a peaceful life like the rest of us, then nobody would be happier than me.

But we can’t tell. We don’t know. And therein lies the problem.

What we do know is that because of Islam and its teachings, many Muslims are predisposed to violence against Infidels and that the ultimate goal of Islam is to convert, subjugate or kill all Infidels throughout the world until the whole world comes under Islamic rule.

So why should we treat Muslims as if they were the same as the rest of us? Why on earth should we in the civilized West commit cultural suicide because of political correctness and the failed doctrine of multiculturalism?

Until such time that Muslims in the West publicly renounce their intentions to impose regressive Shari'ah laws on the rest of us, publicly denounce the Jihadists in their midst, publicly announce their intention to root out terrorism by co-operating wholeheartedly with the authorities, and publicly repudiate teaching violent jihad against the Infidel in every mosque and madrassa, we have every right to defend ourselves against Islam, which after all, has declared war on the West.

This means that in the meantime we may have to start treating Muslims in the West very differently compared to what we have been doing up to now. For a start, it has been suggested by many that we should immediately stop all Muslim immigration, review Muslim entitlement to our welfare systems, and encourage Muslims who want regressive Shari'ah laws implemented to return to Muslim lands. Given the threat of Islam to Western culture and Western civilisation, these would seem to be reasonable measures.

And to say so is not to be bigoted, is not to be Islamophobic, is not to be racist, but only common sense if we want to save Western culture and Western civilisation from being subsumed by a seventh century totalitarian ideology.

Now I don’t know about you, but I think that our Western culture and our Western civilisation IS worth saving. It may not be perfect, but in my view it’s a darn sight better than anything Islam has to offer.

That’s right: better. Better - as in morally and intellectually superior.

Islamophobia , bigotry and racism? No.

Rather, it’s common sense without the currently all-pervasive multiculturalism and political correctness.

We should not be afraid to assert the superiority of Western values

This is the text of a speech given by Ibn Warraq, the author of, amongst other things, Why I am Not A Muslim, as part of a discussion of the significance of Western values in London on 09 October 2007. He was opposed by, amongst others, Charles Glass and Tariq Ramadan, but his opening statement was outstanding, and once he had finished, the argument was all but over. The full step-by-step point and rebuttal, followed by questions from the audience, can be obtained from the Spectator website.

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We should not be afraid to assert the superiority of Western values

Ibn Warraq – October 09 2007

The great ideas of the West – rationalism, self-criticism, the disinterested search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law, equality before the law, freedom of conscience, thought and expression, human rights and liberal democracy, quite an achievement surely, for any civilisation, remain the best and perhaps the only means for all people, no matter what race or creed, to reach their full potential and live in freedom.

That is why Western values, on which its self evident economic, social, political, scientific and cultural success is based, are clearly superior to any other devised by humankind. However, when these values have been adopted by other societies, similar benefits have accrued to its citizens, as in Japan and South Korea. Liberty, the second great panel in the triptych, is also an immense human idea. It is embodied in the magnificent creation of human rights.

Human rights are, I believe, universal. They transcend local or ethnocentric values, and confer equal dignity and value to all humanity, regardless of sex, ethnicity, sexual preferences and religion. I also believe it is in the West that they are most respected; it is the West that has liberated women, racial minorities, religious minorities, gays and lesbians, to an extent unimaginable sixty years ago. It is in the West that their rights are recognised and defended. In the West we are free to think what we want, to read what we want, to practice our religion, to live lives of our own choosing. The notions of human rights and freedom were, I believe [there], the dawn of Western civilization, as ideals at least, and [they were] further developed during the Enlightenment, but are only now coming to fruition in the twenty-first century, as a result of a series of supreme acts of self-criticism. [These were] acts of self-criticism that led to greater freedom for a greater number of people.

It was the West that took steps to abolish slavery. The calls for the abolition of slavery did not resonate in black Africa, where rival African tribes took black prisoners to be sold in the West. By contrast, stoning to death someone for adultery is a clear violation of the human rights of the individuals concerned. Punishments, laws concerning inheritance, and the rights of women prescribed by the Sharia’h Islamic law also flagrantly violate the human rights of individuals. Under [Sharia’h] Islamic law, women are not free to marry whom they wish, homosexuals are killed, apostates are to be executed. The Koran is not a rights-respecting document.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, define succinctly the attractiveness and superiority of Western civilisation. We are free in the West to choose. We have real choice to pursue our own desires. We are free to set the goals and contents of our own lives. The West is made up of individuals who are free to decide what meaning to give to their lives.

In short, the glory of the West is that life is an open book, while under Islam, life is a closed book. Everything has been decided for you. God and the Holy Law set limits on the possible agenda of your life. In many non-Western countries, especially Islamic ones, we are not free to read what we want. In Saudi Arabia, Muslims are not free to convert to Christianity, and Christians are not free to practice their faith - all clear violations of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

This desire for knowledge, no matter where it leads, inherited from the Greeks, has led to another institution that is unequalled, or very rarely equalled outside the West – the University. Here the outside world recognises this superiority. It comes to the West to learn not only about sciences, developed in the West in the last five hundred years, in all departments of physics, biology and chemistry, but also of their own culture. They come to the West to learn of the Eastern civilisation and languages. Easterners come to Oxford, Cambridge, or Harvard and Yale, the Sorbonne or Heidelberg to receive their doctorates, because they confer prestige unrivalled by similar doctorates from the third world countries.

A culture that gave the world the spiritual creations of classical music, of Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner and Schubert, the paintings of Michelangelo, Raphael, Da Vinci and Rembrandt, does not need lessons from societies whose idea of spirituality is a heaven peopled with female virgins for the use of men whose idea of heaven resembles a cosmic brothel. The West has given the world […..]

To paraphrase Alan Coors, instead of the rigid, inhuman caste system of India, we have unparalleled social mobility in the West. Western society is a society of ever-richer, more varied, more productive, more self-defined, and more satisfying lives. It is a society of boundless private charity; it is a society that broke of behalf of merit the seemingly eternal chains of station by birth.

The West has given us the liberal miracle of individual rights, individual responsibility, merit and human satisfaction, in contrast to the mind-numbing certainties and rules of Islam, Western civilisation offers what Russell once called liberating doubt, which leads to the methodological principles of scientific scepticism. Politics, as much as science, proceeds by tentative steps of trial and error, open discussion, criticism and self-correction. One could characterise the difference between the West and the rest as a difference is epistemological principles. Western institutions such as universities, research institutes and libraries are at least ideally independent academies which enshrine these epistemological norms and where the pursuit of truth is conducted in a spirit of disinterested enquiry, free from political pressures.

In other words, behind the success of modern Western societies, with their science and technology and their open institutions, lies a distinct way of looking at the world, interpreting it and the recognition and rectifying of the problems besetting them. Problems are lifted out of the religious sphere and treated as empirical problems whose solutions lie in rational procedures and open to rational [inter]subjective criticism, not in appeal to revelation.

The whole edifice of modern science and its methodology is one of Western man’s greatest gifts to the world. But the West did not only give us just about every scientific discovery for the last five hundred years, from electricity to computers, but gave us, thanks to its humanitarian impulses, the Red Cross, Doctors without Frontiers or Borders, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. It is the West that provides the bulk of the aid to beleaguered Darfur. Islamic countries are conspicuous by their absence.

The West does not need lectures on the superior virtue of societies in which women are kept in subjection, endure genital mutilation, are stoned to death for alleged adultery, have acid thrown on their faces, are married off against their will at the age of nine, or where the human rights of those who are considered to belong to lower castes are denied.

The West does not need sanctimonious homilies from societies that cannot provide clean drinking water for its citizens, that cannot provide sewage systems, that cannot educate its citizens to within forty to fifty per cent literacy, that makes no provisions for the handicapped, from societies that have no sense of the common good, civic duty, civic responsibility, and civic accountability, from societies that are riddled with corruption.

Moreover, the rest of the world recognises the superiority of the West. It is to the West that refugees from theocratic, totalitarian regimes flee, appreciating the West’s tolerance and political freedom. Millions risk their lives trying to get to the West, not to Saudi Arabia, or Iran or Pakistan.

[Also], no Western politician would be able to get away with the kind of racist remarks made by [Mohammed Mahathir] the Malaysian leader. No Western politician could survive in office; there would be calls for his or her resignation from third world leaders themselves, but also Western media and other intellectuals.

Yet we tolerate Mahathir’s anti-Semitic diatribes – double standards? Yes, but also a tacit acknowledgement that we expect higher ethical standards from the West. There are no jokes in Islam, as Ayatollah Khomeini once famously said. The West is able to look at its foibles and laugh, to make fun of its fundamental principles, but there is no equivalent as yet of Monty Python’s “Life of Brian.” Can we look forward to the “Life of Mo?” or – “Half a Mo?”

Finally, when Chinese students cried and died for democracy in Tiananmen Square, they brought with them not representations of Confucius, or Buddha, but a model of the Statue of Liberty.

Thank you.

Ibn Warraq - October 09, 2007