On the death of a truly evil bastard

For anyone that has an even remotely well developed sense of right and wrong Osama Bin Laden was a truly evil bastard.


For those in the Middle East for whom attacking the 'strong horse' (in the current world that's the US) brings a sense of pride and purpose OBL was an inspiration and hero.


For those that are into cultural relativism and blame America for all of the world's ills OBL was something of an anti-hero; someone that they knew really wasn't a good guy but they cheered for anyway, partly because the enemy of my enemy is my friend.


Well, he's dead now and good riddance to bad rubbish.


A few comments and predictions on the whole thing.


1. President Obama deserves praise for not only making a tough decision but also choosing not to use a missile a few months ago when it was determined that OBL was in the compound. Mr Obama knew that people would need to have proof that he had been killed so he took a risk and waited until the SEAL team was trained and ready to go. A gutsy call. In his speech to announce the death he also made a point that America was not at war with Islam and that OBL was not a Muslim leader, he was a murderer of Muslims. It's a good line. He also paid credit to the efforts of George W Bush, which was classy.


2. While there may be a few retaliatory incidents by Al Qaeda inspired terrorist groups OBL's death marks the beginning of the end of Islamist terror. I am reasonably confident about this prediction but make the exception of those atrocities carried out by Hamas/Hezbollah, which existed prior to Al Qaeda and have their own goals. In spite of so called Islamic leaders telling us that OBL did not represent the true Islam he was a hero to the majority of the Islamic world, especially the Arabs, and inspiration to those that shared his belief that Islam could once again be the world's dominant religion with Christianity and Judaism subservient to it. There is nobody who can replace his aura and authority. Ayman al-Zawahiri is clearly an excellent strategist and organiser but does not inspire his followers in anywhere near the same way as OBL did. His death is a body blow to organised terror.


3. Peace will come to the Arab world, excluding Israel/Palestine, sooner rather than later. Another big call. Bush's strategy of taking out Saddam Hussein and bringing democracy to the Arab world is, after a fashion, starting to come together. Have you noticed all of the crowds in the Arab streets cheering at the death of OBL, the man who supposedly distorted Islam and gave all of those 'moderate' Muslims a bad name? No, me neither. That's because there is great disappointment throughout the Arab world at the demise of their idol and, being Arabs, they will go back into their shells. I think that those countries that are currently experiencing uprisings will sort themselves out and, to be somewhat heretical here, even if the Muslim Brotherhood takes over in Egypt and elsewhere (they're the ones behind the trouble in Yemen, Bahrain and Syria, as well as being the progenitor of Hamas and Al Qaeda) they will be forced to modernise quite quickly in order to meet the needs of the people. Otherwise, they'll have an uprising of their own to deal with.


4. Bring on the Wikileaks release of information on the hunt for Bin Laden. I am 100% sure that it will vindicate the position of the conservative side of the argument - and prove the wisdom of Bush's incursion into Iraq - as it has been the case in nearly every leak so far, which is a point that is being quietly ignored by the anti-Bush, anti-West, anti-decency left.


5. We now know that Osama was killed in a compound only a short distance from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, where he'd been living for quite some time apparently unbeknown to the citizens of Abbottabad. It does seem remarkably unlikely that he could have moved around in Pakistan let alone live in such circumstances without the help of sponsors and supporters in the Pakistan government, military and intelligence service. It also seems unlikely that Pakistan was given advance notice of the raid, as that would surely have allowed OBL to receive the information and escape. People are (rightly) asking questions about the support of OBL by the Pakistani authorities. In my view it would be much better if the Pakistan intelligence service, the ISI, had provided the information to the US or that he had been 'given up' by the military or politicians because it would be a signal that there has been a change of attitude in the country for the support of Islamic fundamentalism. I think it's 50-50 that Pakistan helped/did not help the operation.


6. What has happened to the moral compass of those who are complaining about the cheering of the death of Osama Bin Laden? Andrew Bolt has a few examples from the ABC that are truly shocking. After 9/11, George W Bush said that it didn't matter where OBL was and how long it took he was going to be hunted down and have justice served. Thus began a task to bring vengeance to those who had attacked the country and killed 2973 innocent people, as well as injuring thousands more. On December 7, 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour killing 2402 people and waking a sleeping giant hell bent on revenge. Correcting such injustice will always carry a euphoric aftermath when the object of the vengeance has been dealt with. On VJ Day millions of Americans (and Australians and Kiwis etc) celebrated mightily. Justice was done. There's no difference between that and celebrating the death of OBL.


7. I know it will be glossed over/ignored by the anti-Israel lobby but it really does show who they're supporting when Hamas calls the killing of Bin Laden an 'atrocity'. Hamas has a slogan "We love death more than you love life". Apparently, when it's the death of one of their own they're not so much in love with it, are they? I can translate that slogan into one that everyone can understand, "We love killing more than you love life".


8. Israel and Palestine. The recent announcement that Hamas and Fatah were working together in order to have Palestine recognised as its own state, coupled with the decision by Egypt to open the border between Gaza and the Sinai, should send shivers down the spines of anyone who can think straight and understand what's going on. At present the United Nations recognises that Israel occupies Palestinian 'territories'. That those territories were fairly won as the spoils of a war started by the Arabs doesn't seem to enter into the calculation and provides further proof, if needed, that the UN is run by despots. If Palestine is recognised as a sovereign state in its own right then all of a sudden Israel is occupying another country and the equation changes massively, especially if the UN recognises Palestine being at the 1967 borders. Egypt has decided to open the border in order to gain leverage with the world's powers, as it will allow Hamas to import a massive amount of armaments and increase the trouble for Israel. At some point Israel is going to need to wipe out Hamas completely. They'll be forced to.


I'm still cheering my arse off at the death of a truly evil bastard. Hopefully, we can get a few more soon, including Gaddafi. It's a pity he managed to escape the other day. Would have made it a real good week.


(Nothing Follows)

Fear of religion actually means fear of Islam

Australia's Human Rights Commission, an unneeded organisation if ever there was one, has released a report saying that there's a general fear of religion in the community.

By way of example they use only Islam to make their point, as outlined below in this piece from The Australian:

THERE'S a pressing need to use education to reduce ignorance and fear about religions in Australia, a new report says

It said there is a current anti-Muslim discourse that suggests entrenched hostility which is often related to overseas events.

The report, entitled Freedom of Religion in the 21st Century, was prepared for the Australian Human Rights Commission.

The researchers said some Christians fear the introduction of sharia law in Australia and believe that governments appease Muslim communities by giving Islam preferential treatment.

Some people told the researchers that evangelical Christians demonise Muslims partly because of "high levels of ignorance by churches about Islam".

It also said some Muslim children see themselves as outsiders because they see their religion vilified at every turn.

"They see how they are viewed as Muslims, which in turn affects how they view themselves," the report said.

The report's conclusion said the commission needs to "foster a discussion about the place of religious rights along side other rights".

It said the commission must allow "for the view to be heard that religious rights are absolute, and then to allow that view to be tempered by other views".

It urges religious leaders to play a key role in overcoming ignorance about religion in the community.

There are currently only three groups who have issues with religion:

1. Anyone with half a brain who understands that more than 90% of the world's terrorist attacks (excluding in Iraq and Afghanistan) are carried out in the name of one religion - Islam - in order to promote Sharia and create a new Ummah and is wary of all of those who say that it's a small minority that carry out the attacks and they don't represent the religion.

2. Secular fanatics who worship at the feet of Richard Dawkins' and Christopher Hitchens' post modern atheism that disguise their contempt for Christianity and Judeo-Christian values under the umbrella of rejecting religion completely.

3. The left and its rank anti-Semitism disguised as opposition to Israel.

When the Australian Human Rights Commission says there's a fear of religion then do they include Buddhists? Sikhs? Hindus?

Why would we be afraid of the Mormons? Are they going to be sickeningly nice to us until we're dead?

What about the Rastafarians? Afraid of reggae music and a little weed?

And why didn't they include being a Green as a religion? They're hardly any different to animists, if you ask me.

The reason that people in Australia are afraid, though 'concerned' is probably a better description, of Islam is two-fold:

1. Most terror attacks in the world are carried out in its name (as outlined above) and every, single person indicted for planning terrorist attacks in Australia has been Muslim; and

2. People understand that Sharia is a barbaric, restrictive, misogynistic, homophobic relic that controls people's lives and has no place in a modern, progressive society.

Why am I not surprised that the folk at the Australian Human Rights Commission think that genuine and legitimate concern about the practices of one group of people, Muslims, is the same as a blanket fear of religion?

(Nothing Follows)

Dear Hidden Imam...

This is hilarious.

Apparently, the Iranian chief of staff, Hassan Firouzabadi, has written a letter to the Hidden Imam, aka the Mahdi, asking him, basically, to quit with the occulation and return to earth in order to help Islam take over the world.

I have a question.

What address did he put on the envelope?

Would the Tehran post office treat it the same was as the US Postal Service treats letters addressed to Santa c/- North Pole?

Did he send it via email to hiddenimam@occulation.ir?

On July 12, 2009, the Iranian news agency ISNA published a letter written by Iranian chief of staff Hassan Firouzabadi to the Hidden Imam (the Shi'ite messiah, also called the Mahdi). In his letter, Firouzabadi depicts the post-election protests as a conspiracy against the Iranian regime by the West and the reformists in Iran. He also rejects accusations of Basij brutality, saying that the group did not act against the Iranian people in suppressing the protests, but rather tried to protect them. He concludes by urging the Hidden Imam to come speedily and launch a worldwide Islamic revolution.

Following are excerpts from the letter:

"O Lord of Time, peace be upon you... I wish to speak to you once again... [In 1979,] as the celebrations and rejoicing over the Islamic Revolution still reverberated [in the streets], America, the West, as well as the [Iranian] infidel parties on orders from their masters, [were already hastening] to turn every corner of Iran - including Kurdistan, Gonabad, Khuzestan, Amol and Tehran - into arenas of brutal psychological warfare and hotspots of secessionism, essentially striving to annihilate the Islamic Revolution and [its] regime...

"[Today] another round has begun in the cultural attack [on Iran]... In the current round, some of those involved [meaning Mousavi and his supporters] turned their backs on the glorious past of the [Islamic] Revolution, and wished to join Uncle Sam, thereby bringing shame upon the sacrifice and istishhad of our nation. They wished to launch a dialogue with those who attack the rights of the free [peoples] and condemn and assault the values of the [Islamic] Revolution, [i.e. those who attack] freedom, the Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini], the rule of the jurisprudent, and the clerics...

"Those [Iranians] who constantly spoke of tolerance towards the dissidents, chanting [pluralistic] slogans like 'long live those who oppose me,' [actually] wanted the Basij philosophy dead. The essence of the reforms that they wanted was to eliminate the Basij and its philosophy... They targeted the very foundations of the regime, viewing the Basij, and all the revolutionaries and believing [Muslims] in the nation, as an obstacle in their path. They brought about a catastrophe, harmed [the regime] and violated its sanctity, started fires, and fanned the enemy's hope. They blamed the Basij for crimes that they themselves had committed [a reference to allegations of Basij brutality during the suppression of the protests]...

"When the Arrogance [i.e. the U.S.] saw its hope of toppling the regime dwindle, it mobilized the anti-Basij front, composed of old anti-revolutionary [Iranian] forces and fragments of [groups] that had been disbanded, whose common denominator is hostility towards the Basij and its philosophy, and towards [Iran's] national awakening.

"This front began its war, orchestrated by [the West], under the guise of [participation in] the presidential elections. When it failed to win, thanks to the praiseworthy participation of 40 million voters, it became enraged, and instigated a bitter civil war. This civil war, which from the outside looked like a 'velvet revolution' but from the inside was harsh and brutal, targeted the culture and people of my homeland.

"[O Hidden Imam], you are my witness that [the members of] the armed forces and the Basij regarded all the [presidential] candidates as [honest] revolutionaries, and [some of them] voted for [these candidates]..., as did [other] Iranians, according to the dictates of their conscience. Despite this, you witnessed the curses and accusations that [these presidential candidates] hurled at us. They harmed the people's security, and when we stood up to defend the people, they called us dictators and tried to disgrace us...

"Dearest Mahdi, we have taught our children and our grandchildren to await your arrival, and to raise the banner of this holy regime until you do... O lord, please beseech God, as we do, that the Islamic Revolution take root alongside the worldwide revolution that you [will bring]...

"Awaiting your arrival,

Hassan Firouzabadi."

How does the left react when they see such stuff?

These are the same people who excoriate anyone who proclaims religion while in the service of the state in any capacity.

Why is it that nutjobs like those at the top of the Iranian heirachy do everything in the name of Islam but still receive the support of the Western left?

The world is surely upside down.

Whatever way up it is the regime in Tehran is not one that can be negotiated with in a normal manner.

(Nothing Follows)

Sarkozy is right to abhor the burqa

Good on Sarkozy for having the balls to say what too many of today's multi-culti cowards will not.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy says the Muslim burqa is a sign of subservience for women that undermines their dignity.

For clarity. This is a burqa:

And for the nitwits who think a hijab and a burqa are basically the same thing here's the difference:

Mr Sarkozy made the comments during a historic address in a special sitting of both houses of the French Parliament at the Palace of Versailles.

For more than a century, French presidents have been banned from speaking directly to Senators and MPs.

The argument has always been that parliament should preserve its independence from the president but Mr Sarkozy changed the rules.

That was controversial enough, but perhaps not as controversial as what he used the address for: stating that the burqa was an affront to women.

"The burqa is not a sign of religion. It is a sign of enslavement. It is a sign of subservience," he said.

Exactly correct. There are few greater symbols of oppression than the burqa. It's up there with the swastika, the hammer and sickle and the KKK insignia.

The French leader spoke in favour of a recent call by 65 French MPs to create a parliamentary commission to study a small but growing trend of wearing the full body religious garment in France.

"I want to say officially, it will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic," he said.

"We cannot accept in our country women imprisoned behind netting; cut off from any social life, deprived of any identity.

"This is not the idea the French republic has of a woman's dignity."

Some parliamentarians boycotted Mr Sarkozy's historic speech, dismissing the President's address as nothing more than a public relations stunt.

But Mr Sarkozy struck a chord among the French population, who voted overwhelmingly in favour of his centre right UMP party in the recent European elections.

The head of European research at the Global Policy Institute at the London Metropolitan University, Jacques Reland, is a keen observer of French politics.

"I think a lot of people in France feel really ill at ease with the burqa," he said.

I went to the local shopping mall on the weekend and there was a woman dressed in a burqa. It is a confronting sight. How it can be defended as a personal choice when it's clearly not is yet another sign of the cognitive dissonance of the left.

"I am pretty sure that a lot of French people are saying yes, [what Mr Sarkozy said] is the way it should be."

Sarah Joseph is the editor of Britain's only Muslim lifestyle magazine, emel.

She says many Muslim women use the burqa as an expression of their faith and are not forced to wear it by anyone else.

"I mean, I colour my hair. I don't wear [some forms of Islamic dress] myself but I will defend someone's right to do so or not to do so," she said.

"If you deny a woman's right to choose, that is denying them dignity and denying them their freedom, and it won't create a society of more integrated French citizens, it will create a division in France which will be very unfortunate and deny women their right to participate fully in French society."

Cognitive dissonance on full display in all its glory...

Mr Sarkozy says he is just defending a secular state.

France is home to an estimated five million Muslims. In 2004, the country passed a law forbidding any conspicuous religious symbols from state schools, including veils, which were also banned in government offices.

Charles Johnson at LGF used a very appropriate quote from Christopher Hitchens the other day, "The secular state is the guarantee of religious pluralism. This apparent paradox, again, is the simplest and most elegant of political truths."

The burqa is a symbol of a backward, unenlightened society.

If we in the modern world accept such a symbol of oppression then do we advance our society, do nothing to our society or diminish or society and values?

Paradoxically, those on the left think that accepting the burqa is an example of our advancement.

Clear thinking people have a different view.

(Nothing Follows)

Poll - 2009 Islamic Terrorist Death Toll

How many people do you think will be killed by Islamists in 2009?

I'll be using The Religion of Peace's count as the data source.



This poll will be open until 31 December at which time I'll publish the result.

(Nothing Follows)

An Interview with Muhammed

Dutch former Muslim Ehsan Jami has decided that simply being an apostate is not dangerous enough and has decided that making a movie in which he interviews Muhammed decreases his personal safety.



(Nothing Follows)

After Mumbai - Who's next?

While the mainstream media's and liberal arts world's heads spin around trying to blame the latest Islamic atrocity on some policy or other of the United States in order to shift blame from their murderous soulmates to those they see as being the root cause of all of the world's problems, those with greater wisdom are trying to work out where the next attack will take place.

For there will be another attack, make no mistake about it.

These people are in it for the long term.

New York, Washington, London, Madrid, Bali and Mumbai have all suffered from an ideology whose prime objective is the return of the Caliphate and Islamification of the world not through that most liberal of avenues, diplomacy, or through the semi-annoying, overly polite method of door knocking the world and looking to convince people to come on board in the way that the Mormons do but through violence, murder and terror.

So what next?

The world's serious people will now be assessing what the risk is to their assets and areas of responsibility.

What odds of a copycat attack at another major hotel or shopping centre?

Surely, cities with large Muslim populations from which young, radicalised ideologues can be sourced must be sleeping more nervously tonight?

The Mumbai attack must have been planned for many months and it probably started before Barack Obama had won the Democratic Party nomination and the timing can only be seen as a shot across the new administration's bow.

But there is an even bigger issue that needs to be addressed.

How will India respond to the attack when it is clear that it was carried out by Pakistani nationals trained by the Pakistan based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba?

In searching out American, British and Jewish victims the murderers ensured that they would be seen as heroes among the anti-West, anti-Zionist Middle East, as well as ensuring that the West's leftist apologists devote many column inches to blaming America.

By attacking inside India they also inflame tensions between India and Pakistan.

Thus, India is in the difficult position of having to be seen to avenge the deaths of so many people while at the same time avoiding open war with Pakistan.

All in all, they're in a bit of a political pickle.

Why don't they call on the United Nations for support?

Or have Barack Obama sit down with the terrorists and have a bit of a chat?

Actually, I think that terrorist networks around the world are in for a great, fat surprise if they attack the United States or any of its assets around the world.

Unconstrained by having the media or political elites against him, Obama's response to an attack may be much more aggressive than expected.

(Nothing Follows)

Unmitigated Cowards

This disgusting ideology is not brave and is not morally supportable.

It is nothing but destructive and evil.

These people are nothing but...

The world mourns the loss of so many innocent lives, which is as it should be.

Here's something to think about, though.

If it was a Hezbollah operation inside Israel the you can be sure that the mainstream media - CNN, the BBC, ABC, the New York Times, The Age, PBS, the Guardian, the LA Times and all of the leftist blogs - would be furiously defending Hezbollah and accusing Israel's security of using 'disproportionate' force in its response to the attack.

Such is the inversion of values in the world they inhabit.

(Nothing Follows)

Islam's lawful attack on the West

One has to wonder how people determine that being opposed to Islam, or more specifically, Islamism, is racist.

How is it that a religion has become a race?

The answer is both through the lobbying efforts by Islamic activists who are using our own liberal laws against us and via the efforts of their 'useful idiots' of the West's multicultural elites.

If you're anti-Catholic then are you a racist?

If you're anti-Hindu then are you a racist?

If you're anti-Scientology then are you a racist?

That last one shows up how ridiculous the whole proposition is that being against religion makes you racist.

So is Richard Dawkins a racist?

Christopher Hitchens?

Supna Zaidi is editor-in-chief of Muslim World Today and assistant director of Islamist Watch at the Middle East Forum. Here he discusses the threat to the West from 'lawful Islam'.

Have you seen the little old lady who passes out Jehovah's Witness literature in your neighborhood? Some people stop and show interest. Others roll their eyes, and keep walking. But, would you ever expect anyone to threaten her? Call her a racist, and try to get her arrested?

Islamists would. And that is exactly what happened to two English Christian ministers who had the nerve to proselytize on a street corner in a predominantly Muslim immigrant area in the UK in 2007.

Such freedom of speech violations won't be an anomaly if the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which has a permanent delegation to the United Nations, succeeds in passing a UN resolution against "Defamation of Religion" Noboby in a western country will be able to discuss the socio-political consequences of Muslim immigration, for fear of being labeled "Islamophobic" and slapped with a fine, or even jail time.

Islamists are increasingly using lawful Islamism, or non-violent and legal strategies to spread Sharia, (Islamic law) in the West, encroaching on non-Muslim life everyday. Other examples include:

1. Sharia Finance;
2. Islam in public schools;
3. Violations of basic hygiene policy by Muslim medical staff;
4. Workplace violations in the name of religious freedom;
5. Censorship of literature.

Under the banner of "religious freedom," Islamists attack the very fabric of democracy in favor of Islam in the public sphere. The above examples are not examples of pluralism, but a violation of the separation of church and state doctrine meant to keep people of all faiths, or no faith, equal under the law. Liberals have forgotten that secularism is not a free-for-all, but has boundaries in order to remain meaningful.

Freedom of speech has already been attacked repeatedly. Islamists tried to censor criticism of Islamist terrorism when the Muhammad cartoons were published in Jyllens-Posten in 2005. Strangely enough, the "cartoon intifada" arose 5 months after their original printing, but only weeks before the UNHCR was due to consider the OIC's resolution on "Combating Defamation of Religion."

Such a coincidence caused the National Secular Society to state in its Memorandum (Section E, point 2) to the UK Parliament that,

the Danish cartoon crisis was manufactured… to exploit sensitivities around racial discrimination and to promote (or even exaggerate) the notion of "Islamophobia" in order to restrict possibilities for open discussion or criticism of Islam….measures calling for legislation banning "defamation of religion" - …. aims to remove religion, especially Islam, from public scrutiny and public debate.

If any religion is to be integrated into the daily social, economic and political life of a nation, it must open the door for evaluation of its goals and application. Otherwise, OIC nations will be able to govern unilaterally without respect to international law. Consider the following precedent.

Saudi Arabia ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 2000, with reservations, stating, "In case of contradiction between any term of the Convention and the norms of Islamic law, the Kingdom is not under obligation to observe the contradictory terms of the Convention."

Thus, Saudi Arabia confirms that it will only offer lip service to human rights by signing documents like the CEDAW charter. It will not actually improve the status of women, because it is a theocracy, and every move a woman makes is governed by Islamic law. CEDAW can do nothing for them. Moreover, if the Defamation of Religion resolution is passed, all human rights activists will feel even greater censorship, since protests from abroad will be construed as racism.

Consider the "Qatif girl" case. A Saudi girl was gang-raped in 2005 and blamed for it, since she was in the presence of unrelated men when it happened. Her attorney lost his license for challenging the Saudi courts. Only after generating global media pressure did the situation change in her favor. The king pardoned her and the attorney got his license reinstated. In a post- Defamation of Religion world, the attorney would have been trapped, unable to help the girl and disbarred if he dared to challenge Saudi Islamic law.

Lastly, the OIC resolution must fail because it is patently hypocritical. While professing great sensitivity toward religion, OIC members ironically regularly fail to show any respect for other faiths:

- Saudi Arabia continues to use bigoted textbooks, and export them to American Islamic schools despite promises to change.
- Iran sponsored a Holocaust cartoon contest in retaliation for the Danish cartoons of Muhammad in 2005. Yet, Jews had nothing to do with the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.
- Pakistan's blasphemy laws attack Christians as a pretext for personal disputes.

The Defamation of Religion resolution is a free pass for Islamists to continue denigrating other religions and minorities through lawful Islamism. It ties the hands of any politician that questions the spread of Islamism in the West, and prevents critical evaluation of the treatment of women and minorities in Muslim societies.

Liberal and conservative citizens of the West must work together to prevent this resolution from passing in the UN.

There is a reason that the United Nations is #1 on my Top 10 Institutions That Ruin The World list.

The fact that the UN enables such arrant nonsense to even make the agenda for discussion shows how morally and intellectually bankrupt the place has become, having been hijacked by the worst elements in the world.

(Nothing Follows)

The problem with Sharia courts in Britain

The Times' recent article detailing the fact that Britain has Sharia courts that are operating not only in parallel to the official justice system but with the full support of the government and police was certainly an eye opener and yet another example of how far down the cultural toilet British society has traveled.

ISLAMIC law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.

The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.

Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court.

Previously, the rulings of sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims.

It has now emerged that sharia courts with these powers have been set up in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester with the network’s headquarters in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Two more courts are being planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, whose Muslim Arbitration Tribunal runs the courts, said he had taken advantage of a clause in the Arbitration Act 1996.

Under the act, the sharia courts are classified as arbitration tribunals. The rulings of arbitration tribunals are binding in law, provided that both parties in the dispute agree to give it the power to rule on their case.

Siddiqi said: “We realised that under the Arbitration Act we can make rulings which can be enforced by county and high courts. The act allows disputes to be resolved using alternatives like tribunals. This method is called alternative dispute resolution, which for Muslims is what the sharia courts are.”

The disclosure that Muslim courts have legal powers in Britain comes seven months after Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was pilloried for suggesting that the establishment of sharia in the future “seems unavoidable” in Britain.

In July, the head of the judiciary, the lord chief justice, Lord Phillips, further stoked controversy when he said that sharia could be used to settle marital and financial disputes.

In fact, Muslim tribunal courts started passing sharia judgments in August 2007. They have dealt with more than 100 cases that range from Muslim divorce and inheritance to nuisance neighbours.

It has also emerged that tribunal courts have settled six cases of domestic violence between married couples, working in tandem with the police investigations.

Siddiqi said he expected the courts to handle a greater number of “smaller” criminal cases in coming years as more Muslim clients approach them. “All we are doing is regulating community affairs in these cases,” said Siddiqi, chairman of the governing council of the tribunal.

Jewish Beth Din courts operate under the same provision in the Arbitration Act and resolve civil cases, ranging from divorce to business disputes. They have existed in Britain for more than 100 years, and previously operated under a precursor to the act.

Politicians and church leaders expressed concerns that this could mark the beginnings of a “parallel legal system” based on sharia for some British Muslims.

Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: “If it is true that these tribunals are passing binding decisions in the areas of family and criminal law, I would like to know which courts are enforcing them because I would consider such action unlawful. British law is absolute and must remain so.”

Douglas Murray, the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, said: “I think it’s appalling. I don’t think arbitration that is done by sharia should ever be endorsed or enforced by the British state.”

There are concerns that women who agree to go to tribunal courts are getting worse deals because Islamic law favours men.

Siddiqi said that in a recent inheritance dispute handled by the court in Nuneaton, the estate of a Midlands man was divided between three daughters and two sons.

The judges on the panel gave the sons twice as much as the daughters, in accordance with sharia. Had the family gone to a normal British court, the daughters would have got equal amounts.

In the six cases of domestic violence, Siddiqi said the judges ordered the husbands to take anger management classes and mentoring from community elders. There was no further punishment.

In each case, the women subsequently withdrew the complaints they had lodged with the police and the police stopped their investigations.

Siddiqi said that in the domestic violence cases, the advantage was that marriages were saved and couples given a second chance.

Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “The MCB supports these tribunals. If the Jewish courts are allowed to flourish, so must the sharia ones.”

To the increasing number of narcissistic, define-your-own-values Britons such an occurrence might actually be seen as living proof of cultural sensitivity.

The reality is that the comparison with the Jewish courts falls down in one very important area - Britain is a country whose ideals and values are rooted in the Judeo-Christian values system.

They don't come from Hinduism, Buddhism, Scientology, Zoroastrianism or Islam.

Jews who use the Jewish courts do not see themselves as outside of society in the same way that so many Muslims do. They do not believe that their values system is more important than obeying British rules and being part of British culture.

Allowing Sharia courts to exist can only serve to ghettoise Muslim communities, as it provides yet another plank to support their separate existence within British society.

(Nothing Follows)

Islamic court requires man to divorce 76 of his 80 wives or face the death penalty

Following on from yesterday's story about Mt Isa mayor John Maloney's suggestion that ugly women should consider moving to his town in order to address the town's chronic gender imbalance comes this story from Nigeria...

AN Islamic organisation in Nigeria has issued a death sentence on a man who married 80 women - many more than the maximum of four allowed by Islam.

The Jamatu Nasril Islam (JNI), one of Nigeria's top Islamic bodies, said in a statement that Mohammadu Bello Masaba stood condemned to death unless he divorced 76 of the women in four days, The Guardian newspaper reported.

"Unless Masaba repents within four days and take only four wives from the herd he remains condemned to death, according to Sharia law," the statement said.

"Any Muslim who married more than the approved number of wives at a time either by mistake or out of ignorance is instructed to choose but only four and ask for Allah's forgiveness."

Since the return of Nigeria to civil rule in 1999 a dozen predominantly Muslim states in the north have re-introduced a strict version of the Islamic Sharia legal system.

Sharia law is often seen as more efficient and less bureaucratic and corrupt than Nigeria's secular courts.

The northern states pride themselves on applying a mild form of Sharia, with no deaths by stoning carried out and few amputations.

One question that immediately springs to mind is whether the 76 surplus women who are obviously having trouble finding a man for themselves shouldn't emigrate to Australia and go and live in Mt Isa.

The other point to ponder is the quandary that poor old Mohammadu Bello Masaba now finds himself in.

Should he divorce the 76 women required in order to avoid being put to death and live in relative spousal paucity with just four willing bints or should he join the jihad, die in glorious circumstances and go to his heavenly reward along with 72 newly minted virgins, rivers of wine and splendid, rolling hills?

He has three more days to make this difficult decision.

(Nothing Follows)

Islam and Islamism

Mustafa Akyol, as I've pointed out before, is one of my favourite Turkish opinion columnists.

In his latest piece in the Turkish Daily News he takes on the notion that violence against innocents is an inherent part of Islam.

While I regularly take issue with some of his views it's good to know that people in the Muslim world are trying to deal with the issue of terror committed in their name.

Akyol also acknowledges that connection between Islamism and Marxism-Leninism, which I'm sure would make the vast majority of today's cultural relativists and moral equivalence crowd on the left squirm more than a little bit.

Of course, it comes as no surprise that the debate is being had in largely secular Turkey and not Syria, Saudia Arabia or Yemen.

Today’s militant Islamists violate the traditional rules of Islam to maximize their violence. Because their motivation comes from politics in the first place, not religion

Wednesday's bloody shootout at the American Consulate in Istanbul is still not totally solved. No organization claimed the attack, which left three Turkish policemen dead and two injured. But the evidence collected by the Turkish security forces so far makes it reasonable to assume that there was an Islamist motive in the mind of the attackers. Actually three of them died right on the spot, and the fourth one turned out to be a paid driver. So there is no interrogation-based information. But the police found out that one of the dead terrorists had traveled to Iran and Afghanistan. The other's father was arrested in 1999 for links with the shadowy “Turkish Hizbollah,” a Kurdish Islamist terror group. The general impression in the Turkish media is that the attackers were at least ideologically linked with al Qaeda. So, this seems to be a case of “Islamist terror.”

But is that an appropriate term at all?

Islamic versus Islamist:

I think, yes, it is. What I would object to would be an apparently similar but actually quite unalike term: “Islamic terrorism.” The difference between “Islamic” and “Islamist” is crucial, because while one refers to a religion, the other refers to an ideology. While Islam teaches the path to win God's consent by being a righteous believer, Islamism envisions a roadmap to establish a totalitarian political system. And while Islam has existed since the early seventh century, Islamism has been around only since the early 20th century.

To contrast the two — Islam and Islamism — let's see what their judgments would be on terrorism, which I define as deliberate attacks on civilian targets for political purposes.

It is true that Islam has a concept of jihad, which is sometimes translated as “holy war,” but it is not a war without rules. The Koran told Muslims to “Fight in the way of God against those who fight you,” yet it also warned them: “But do not go beyond the limits.” (2:190) These “limits” were explained by Prophet Mohammed in the orders he gave to Muslim armies. "Do not kill the very old, the infant, the child, or the woman," he reportedly said to his soldiers. Abu-Bakr, the prophet's closest companion and successor as the first caliph of Islam, is also on the record for saying: "Do not kill a young child, an old man, or a woman. Do not uproot or burn palms or cut down fruitful trees... You will meet people who have set themselves apart in hermitages; leave them to accomplish the purpose for which they have done this."

That's why Muslim jurists of the Middle Ages developed a doctrine of just war, according to which the life of non-combatants was valued and respected. In his book, “Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror,” Bernard Lewis, one of the prominent Western experts on the history of Islamic Middle East, notes the following:

“Fighters in jihad are enjoined not to kill women, children, and the aged unless they attack first, not to torture or mutilate prisoners, to give fair warning of the resumption of hostilities after a truce, and to honor agreements. The medieval jurists and theologians discuss at some length the rules of warfare, including questions such as which weapons are permitted and which are not. There is even some discussion in medieval texts of the lawfulness of missile and chemical warfare, the one relating to mangonels and catapults, the other to poison-tipped arrows and the poisoning of enemy water supplies. Some jurists permit, some restrict, some disapprove of the use of these weapons. The stated reason for concern is the indiscriminate casualties that they inflict. At no point do the basic texts of Islam enjoin terrorism and murder. At no point — as far as I am aware — do they even consider the random slaughter of uninvolved bystanders.”

But today's militant Islamists — from al Qaeda to Islamic Jihad — openly advocate and practice the random slaughter of uninvolved bystanders. Osama Bin Laden repeatedly said that his followers should “kill American and Jews,” without making any distinction between civilians and combatants. That's why al Qaeda terrorists unhesitantly hit the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. They knew they were killing civilians, but they did not care about the prophet's call for “not to kill women, children, and the aged.” And the gunmen who hit the U.S. Consulate last Wednesday would probably target the diplomatic personnel had they been able to break into the building.

But why is that? Why do today's militant Islamists violate the traditional rules of Islam to maximize their violence?

Hear what Carlos says:

They do this because their motivation comes from politics in the first place, not religion. Bin Laden tried to justify his call for indiscriminate killing by arguing, “American history does not distinguish between civilians and military, and not even women and children. They are the ones who used the bombs against Nagasaki.” This is a political argument, not a religious one. It is about the role of America in the world; not the status of non-Muslims in the Koran. A communist militant could have made the same argument.

It is no accident that there is indeed some ideological connection between Marxism-Leninism and Islamism. And no one proclaimed this as bluntly as Carlos the Jackal, who, from his prison cell, penned recently a book titled “Revolutionary Islam.” This brand of Islam, argued the veteran terrorist, "attacks the ruling classes in order to achieve a more equitable redistribution of wealth" and is the only "transnational force capable of standing up to the enslavement of nations."

This is, again, an argument about not God and salvation, but politics and revolution.

The problem is, in other words, Islamism but not Islam. Therefore the fight against terror in the name of Islam has to be focused on two goals: First one is detaching Islam from Islamism. This does not necessarily mean to separate Islam and politics all together, as secularists assume. Islam indeed can influence politics, and that's all welcome as far as this takes place within the framework of democracy. If it is possible to synthesize Islam with totalitarianism as the Islamists do, then it is possible to synthesize it with liberalism as well.

The other goal should be to solve the political problems of the Muslim world — such as the Arab-Israeli conflict — which act as engines of radicalization. The main battle cry of Islamist militants is “Islam is under attack!” And the best antidote to this is to reduce the Muslim's perception of being under attack. The next U.S. president should keep that very much in mind.

An important piece and one that should be read widely throughout the Muslim world.

Perhaps Al Jazeera should interview Akyol and get his views?

Doesn't seem likely, does it? Which just goes to show where that network stands in the grand scheme of things.

A point that is not discussed but is germane is that while it's probably true that the majority of the Muslim world reject violence against innocents it's the violent and fundamentalist aspects of the religion that are in charge.

It's true to say that many Germans rejected the violent aspects of Nazism while at the same time embracing the renewed sense of national pride that the Nazis instilled in the people after the loss in World War I, the subsequent Treaty of Versailles and then the Depression.

Similar situations existed in Soviet Russia and Communist China but that didn't stop the worst elements from taking over and inflicting awful suffering on their people, ironically, in the name of the people.

In the cases of Germany and the Soviet Union it took an external force to deal with the totalitarian, violent regimes. China is also in the process of being broken down by the external force of good old capitalism.

In none of these situations were 'the people' able to bring about change.

I don't see the situation being any different with regard to Islamic fundamentalism.

(Nothing Follows)

UK's police sniffer dogs to wear bootees in Muslim homes

The only question is - when will the UK's cultural capitulation to a backward religion end and the country rediscover its own cultural strength?

Police sniffer dogs will have to wear bootees when searching the homes of Muslims so as not to cause offence.

Guidelines being drawn up by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) urge awareness of religious sensitivities when using dogs to search for drugs and explosives. The guidelines, to be published this year, were designed to cover mosques but have been extended to include other buildings.

Where Muslims object, officers will be obliged to use sniffer dogs only in exceptional cases. Where dogs are used, they will have to wear bootees with rubber soles. “We are trying to ensure that police forces are aware of sensitivities that people can have with the dogs to make sure they are not going against any religious or cultural element within people’s homes. It is being addressed and forces are working towards doing it,” Acpo said.

Problems faced by the use of sniffer dogs were highlighted last week when Tayside police were forced to apologise for a crime prevention poster featuring a german shepherd puppy, in response to a complaint by a Muslim councillor.

Islamic injunctions warn Muslims against contact with dogs, which are regarded as “unclean”.

Police dogs at present are issued with footwear only at scenes of explosions to prevent them injuring their paws on broken glass.

Ibrahim Mogra, one of Britain’s leading imams, said the measures were unnecessary: “In Islamic law the dog is not regarded as impure, only its saliva is. Most Islamic schools of law agree on that. If security measures require to send a dog into a house, then it has to be done. I think Acpo needs to consult better and more widely.

“I know in the Muslim community there is a hang-up against dogs, but this is cultural. Also, we know the British like dogs; we Muslims should do our bit to change our attitudes.”

John Midgley, co-founder of the Campaign Against Political Correctness, said: “The police are in effect being overly sensitive to potential criminals and not being sensitive enough to the public at large who need to be protected. These sort of things have a counter-productive effect because they cause huge friction between different communities.”

Caroline Kisko, of the Kennel Club, said: “We would not condone any attempt to make search dogs wear special clothing, which could cause them distress.”

As the following map shows, Muslims are in the less than 5% of population category in the UK. How is it, then, that they wield so much power to change policies in such negative ways?



It's no wonder that the best and brightest in Europe are fleeing to the United States, Canada and Australia etc...

(Nothing Follows)

Camden Council 'racist' against 65 different ethnic groups

Camden Council last night voted unanimously to not allow an Islamic school to be built. The reasons they gave were all based on planning and development issues, thus avoiding the issue of religion after a ferocious campaign from locals who don't want to see what is effectively a Madrassa in their area.

The following article contains one of the greatest examples of muddled logic in recent history.

A Sydney council's rejection of a proposed Islamic school is a victory for racism, a Muslim community organisation says.

No surprises there. Muslims don't get their way so they seethe and call everyone racists.

Camden Council has voted unanimously to reject a proposal for a 1,200-student Islamic school, a decision that followed months of heated community meetings and the release of an adverse report by the council's planners last week.

Mayor Chris Patterson said the council's decision was based on concerns surrounding the impact on traffic flows, loss of agricultural land, highlighted in the planners report and not on religious grounds.

One does wonder whether things would have been different if it was a government school that was being proposed.

But the independent think tank FAIR (Forum on Australia's Islamic Relations) said the decision came as no surprise and was "a reflection of unwarranted fear and ignorance about Islam".

FAIR sounds like CAIR. I wonder whether they get their money from the same sources.

"The decision based on planning grounds is only a smokescreen for the real issues which were related to community tensions and potential social upheavals if the school was approved," FAIR executive director Kuranda Seyit said in a statement.

"I see this as a victory for racism.

He sees this as a victory for racism. But what does racism actually mean?

According to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the term "racial discrimination" shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.'

Here comes the logical inconsistency...

"The fact is that Muslims are diverse and come from more than 65 different ethnic groups and everybody is suffering because of the negative perceptions about Muslims.

Soooo...the decision is racist against Muslims...who come from more than 65 different ethnic groups...so the decision is racist against 65 groups?

Really?

These people are lunatics. Mind you, the non-thinking so-called elites in the media will play this for all it's worth as an issue of racism. It's clearly not. It's an issue of values and integrating with Australian society - something that Muslims do not have a spectacular track record on.

"I am not sure where people get their information from and how they form their ideas but I can bet you a dollar per resident that they have never actually met a Muslim before."

I reckon they'd lose a fair amount of money with that bet.

The development has been the subject of heated town meetings and a protest rally involving up to 1,000 people.

Tensions reached a climax in November when two pigs' heads were rammed on metal stakes with an Australian flag draped between them at the school's proposed site.

A completely stupid and counter productive incident, it must be said.

"People of Australia should speak out against this decision and try to build more understanding and mutual respect for each other," Mr Seyit said.

What he really means is - people should understand what we want and accede to our demands to live in a parallel society with our own rules.

The council's decision was likely to be contested in the Land and Environment Court, he said.

Mr Patterson said that proponents of the school were welcome to look at an alternate site for the development.

In other words, "Bugger off."

(Nothing Follows)

Europe's future - Umma or Bloodshed?

Daniel Pipes gave a speech recently in Australia for Quadrant magazine. In it he discussed the future of Europe.

As regular readers know, my view is that Europe is either going to become part of the Umma or once again going to be the scene of massive bloodshed as nationalist movements act to reassert themselves.

THE future of Europe is in play. Will it turn into "Eurabia", a part of the Muslim world? Will it remain the distinct cultural unit it has been for the past millennium? Or might there be some creative synthesis of the two?

The answer has vast importance. Europe may constitute a mere 7 per cent of the world's landmass but for 500 years, 1450-1950, for good and ill, it was the global engine of change.

How it develops in the future will affect all humanity, especially daughter countries such as Australia that still retain close and important ties to the old continent. I foresee potentially one of three paths for Europe: Muslims dominating, Muslims rejected or harmonious integration.

* Muslim domination strikes some analysts as inevitable. Oriana Fallaci found that "Europe becomes more and more a province of Islam, a colony of Islam". Mark Steyn argues that much of the Western world "will not survive the 21st century and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most European countries".

Such authors point to three factors leading to Europe's Islamisation: faith, demography and a sense of heritage.

It's not just these people who are pointing to these three factors; it's Muslim leaders themselves that are point blank telling us that it's their goal to have Europe become a Muslim continent.

The secularism that predominates in Europe, especially among its elites, leads to alienation from the Judeo-Christian tradition, empty church pews and a fascination with Islam. In complete contrast, Muslims display a religious fervour that translates into jihadi sensibility, a supremacism towards non-Muslims and an expectation that Europe is waiting for conversion to Islam.

European secularism is a huge problem, as I've written about before. In Europe, the rejection of religion has included the rejection of the Judeo-Christian values that underpinned the rise of Europe into the world's leader for so many centuries. Oriana Fallaci coined the term 'Christian Atheist', which she applied to herself, for someone that did not believe in god but adhered to Judeo-Christian values. This is the term that I use to describe myself, much to the confusion of my god-fearing friends for whom the belief in god and the values go hand in hand.

The contrast in faith also has demographic implications, with Christians having on average 1.4 children a woman, or about one-third less than the number needed to maintain their population, and Muslims enjoying a dramatically higher, if falling, fertility rate. Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in about 2015, are expected to be the first large majority-Muslim cities.

So I'll make a prediction. These cities will become the crime capitals of the Western world. They will have huge numbers of people dependent on the state, they will vote in politicians who will feed that dependency and the crime rate will soar due to a surplus of young, unemployed males with no job prospects.

Russia could become a Muslim-majority country in 2050. To employ enough workers to fund existing pension plans, Europe needs millions of immigrants, and these tend to be disproportionately Muslim due to reasons of proximity, colonial ties and the turmoil in majority-Muslim countries.

In addition, many Europeans no longer cherish their history, mores and customs. Guilt about fascism, racism and imperialism leaves many with a sense that their own culture has less value than that of immigrants.

Congratulations to the Political Correctness (aka Cultural Marxism) crowd and their supporters in universities, the media and the political left for their success in bringing Europe to its cultural knees. The Frankfurt School and its proponents of Critical Theory would be proud. The gotcha for them is that instead of ending up with a socialised Europe they're going to end up with a Muslim Europe.

Such self-disdain has direct implications for Muslim immigrants, for if Europeans shun their own ways, why should immigrants adopt them? When added to the existing Muslim hesitations over much that is Western, especially concerns about sexuality, the result is Muslim populations who strongly resist assimilation.

The logic of this first path leads to Europe ultimately becoming an extension of North Africa.

Quite correct. One can't beat bad values with no values.

* But the first path is not inevitable. Indigenous Europeans could resist it and, as they make up 95per cent of the continent's population, they can at any time reassert control should they see Muslims posing a threat to a valued way of life.

This impulse can be seen at work in the French anti-hijab legislation or in Geert Wilders's film, Fitna. Anti-immigrant parties gain in strength; a potential nativist movement is taking shape across Europe as political parties opposed to immigration focus increasingly on Islam and Muslims. These parties include the British National Party, Belgium's Vlaamse Belang, France's National Front, the Austrian Freedom Party, the Party for Freedom in The Netherlands and the Danish People's Party.

This is another point I have been making and is the reason that I have Britain and Germany ahead of the rest as the next nations to have fascist governments. The rise of national socialist governments in response to those countries' problems - which will be blamed on immigrants rather than the real culprit of left wing policies - seems inevitable.

They are likely to continue to grow as immigration surges ever higher, with mainstream parties paying and expropriating their anti-Islamic message. Should nationalist parties gain power, they will reject multiculturalism, cut back on immigration, encourage repatriation of immigrants, support Christian institutions, increase indigenous European birthrates and broadly attempt to re-establish traditional ways.

I'm not too sure that nationalist movements will embrace Christian institutions. Otherwise I agree with Pipes.

Muslim alarm is likely to follow. US author Ralph Peters sketches a scenario in which "US Navy ships are at anchor and US marines have gone ashore at Brest, Bremerhaven or Bari to guarantee the safe evacuation of Europe's Muslims".

Which would be hugely ironic, really. However, the United States is the only country in the world that is prepared to send its soldiers into harm's way in order to protect those that can't protect themselves so the idea is not that far-fetched.

Peters concludes that because of Europeans' "ineradicable viciousness", the continent's Muslims "are living on borrowed time". As Europeans have "perfected genocide and ethnic cleansing", Muslims, he predicts, "will be lucky just to be deported" rather than being killed.

Indeed, Muslims worry about just such a fate; since the 1980s they have spoken overtly about Muslims being sent to gas chambers. European violence cannot be precluded, but nationalist efforts will more likely take place less violently; if anyone is likely to initiate violence, it is the Muslims.

They have already engaged in many acts of violence and seem to be spoiling for more. Surveys indicate, for instance, that about 5 per cent of British Muslims endorse the 7/7 transport bombings. In brief, a European reassertion will likely lead to ongoing civil strife, perhaps a more lethal version of the 2005 riots in France.

I wonder whether the majority of Muslims now living in Europe understand what will happen to them should the native population go Berserker. I doubt it.

* The ideal outcome has indigenous Europeans and immigrant Muslims finding a way to live together harmoniously and create a new synthesis. A 1991 study, La France, une chance pour l'Islam (France, an Opportunity for Islam), by Jeanne-Helene Kaltenbach and Pierre Patrick Kaltenbach, promoted this idealistic approach. Despite all, this optimism remains the conventional wisdom, as suggested by an Economist leader in 2006 that dismissed, for the moment at least, the prospect of Eurabia as scaremongering. This is the view of most politicians, journalists, and academics, but it has little basis in fact.

These people are mainly of the left hand side of politics so facts are simply an inconvenience.

Yes, indigenous Europeans could yet rediscover their Christian faith, make more babies and again cherish their heritage. Yes, they could encourage non-Muslim immigration and acculturate Muslims already living in Europe. Yes, Muslim could accept historic Europe. But not only are such developments not under way, their prospects are dim. In particular, young Muslims are cultivating grievances and nursing ambitions at odds with their neighbours.

One can virtually dismiss from consideration the prospect of Muslims accepting historic Europe and integrating within it. American columnist Dennis Prager agrees: "It is difficult to imagine any other future scenario for western Europe than its becoming Islamicised or having a civil war." But which of those two remaining paths will the continent take?

Forecasting is difficult because the crisis has not yet struck. But it may not be far off. Within a decade, perhaps, the continent's evolution will become clear as the Europe-Muslim relationship takes shape.

The unprecedented nature of Europe's situation also renders a forecast exceedingly difficult. Never in history has a civilisation peaceably dissolved, nor has a people risen to reclaim its patrimony. Europe's unique circumstances make the outcome difficult to comprehend, tempting to overlook and virtually impossible to predict. With Europe, we all enter into terra incognita.

I disagree. I believe that we enter into the terra cognita of two outcomes - Umma or Bloodshed.

(Nothing Follows)

Appeasers of Islamism are betrayers and cowards

Mr. Ellian, who fled Iran in 1983, is a professor of legal philosophy at Leiden University. He has a piece in the WSJ on the recent release of Fitna that is a powerful criticism of fecklessness in the face of Islamic threats.

'Fitna" has arrived.

Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders put the 15-minute movie about the Quran on the Internet Thursday night. But for weeks before anyone saw it, the Dutch flag was burned around the Islamic world. Iran's undemocratically-elected parliament endorsed a boycott of the Netherlands, and Web sites linked to al Qaeda called for terrorist attacks.

Americans may be accustomed to images of angry bearded men setting their flag alight. The Dutch aren't. In response, the government raised the national terrorist threat level to "substantial" while Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende distanced himself from the movie. Until the last moment, he urged Mr. Wilders not to show the film.

The message of "Fitna" is that the Quran is the living inspiration for jihadists. Without the Quran's violent passages, the film suggests, Islamic terrorism would not exist. Mr. Wilders shows verses from the Quran alongside hate speeches by imams and graphic images of Islamic terrorism -- from 9/11 to the Madrid train bombings in 2004 and the London attack a year later. He uses footage from the video-taped beheading of a hostage by Islamic terrorists. He also shows the most famous of the Danish cartoons (the one with a bomb on Muhammad's head) that triggered demonstrations across the Muslim world two years ago.

The Western world long ago learned to criticize, even mock, religion. Think of such movies as "The Life of Brian" and "The Da Vinci Code" or more serious texts on Christianity by Nietzsche, whose famous phrase "God is Dead" is part of popular culture. Competition of ideas is fundamental to the Western way of life. The Islamic world isn't accustomed to such discussions.

As in other countries, the terrible attacks of 9/11 raised existential questions in the Netherlands that remain the subject of heated debate to this day. They paved the way for the political rise of Pim Fortuyn, a flamboyant, openly gay former university professor and writer. Fortuyn fulminated against the dark sides of political Islam -- terrorism, the subjugation of women and homosexuals, and anti-Semitism. His murder in 2002 by an extreme leftist was seen as an assault on Holland's democratic order.

That shock was compounded in 2004 when in Amsterdam, the capital of freedom and tolerance, a Dutch Muslim of Moroccan descent shot and nearly decapitated filmmaker Theo van Gogh. The murderer declared that Islam demanded of him to kill Van Gogh, who had made a short movie that criticized the mistreatment of women in Islam. After the murder, the filmmaker's collaborator, Somali-born parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali, was put under 24-hour police protection.

When Ms. Hirsi Ali went to live in the U.S. in 2006, Geert Wilders picked up the baton. He takes a hard stance on Islamic terrorism and calls for a stop to immigration, at least until Dutch Muslims are better integrated. Some of his arguments are pure polemic. For instance, he says the Quran is a "fascist" book. Since it is illegal in the Netherlands to publish Hitler's "Mein Kampf," he argues, so it should be illegal to publish the Quran. One can have a debate about the Quran, but to ban the book altogether is ridiculous, and he knows it.

Yet his outrageous remarks have stirred a constructive discussion about the Quran and Islam in the Netherlands that is more vigorous than in any Western or, for that matter, Muslim country. And uncomfortable as they may be for Dutch Muslims, they help them view their religion in a more critical light. Notwithstanding the growing appeal of radical Islam, the political participation of moderate Muslims is on the rise, a positive sign of integration. For the first time in Dutch history, two Muslims are in the cabinet.

Dutch Muslims have so far reacted calmly to "Fitna." There have not been any demonstrations, peaceful or violent, in the Netherlands. Perhaps this is further evidence that the hard debate has helped Dutch Muslims to understand Western values.

The issue isn't really Mr. Wilders's movie, or whether it incites hatred, which I doubt. It's whether we are capable of defending our values against the intolerance of radical Muslims. Some people wanted "Fitna" banned before seeing it. That's disconcerting. Dutch law prohibits a priori censorship.

A strand in Western society -- a combination of European nihilism, self-loathing and timidity -- favors appeasement. It is not the strength of our enemies but our weakness that might be our ruin.

Should "Fitna" lead to violence and protests against the Dutch, Europe will hopefully show more solidarity than it did with the Danes during the cartoon crisis. Any weakness in the resolve to defend our democratic legal order should be seen for what it is: Betrayal and cowardice.

That's it. If you take the side of these Muslim loons on the enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend basis then you're not only a Moral Idiot but a coward and cultural traitor, as well.

Unfortunately, there are far too many on the Left who are prepared to betray their culture.

(Nothing Follows)

Fitna - when will the moral equivalence start?

There's little doubt that Geert Wilders' new movie showing the violent side of Islam is a provocative piece.

It's interesting to note that the usual Muslim suspects were seething before the film had even been shown. Along with the seething came the usual death threats against Wilders and promises to undertake attacks in Holland.

By taking this action Muslims act in exactly the way that the film portrays them. Irony does not seem to be understood in the Ummah.

What's also interesting is that there are a lot of parallels between Communism and Islamism. It's very clear when you see what Ahmadinejad and others have to say about Islam taking over the world.

The clock is running now on when a professionally produced film comes out that does the same thing to the West or to the USA in an attempt to create a moral equivalence between the two cultures and to provide fodder for the Kos Kids, HuffPo crowd and rest of the tin foil hat community.



(Nothing Follows)

Pope to baptise prominent Italian Muslim

This has to be a spectacularly unhealthy action for a Muslim to take...

POPE Benedict XVI will baptise one of Italy's most prominent and outspoken Muslim commentators at today's Easter Vigil service, the Vatican has announced.

Magdi Allam will become a Catholic during the traditional night-time service that takes place between Good Friday and Easter Sunday at St Peter's Basilica.

Mr Allam, the deputy editor of a leading Italian newspaper, is one of Italy's leading commentators on Muslim and Arab affairs, the Associated Press reported.

He has been a long-time advocate of tolerance over extremism.

The Vatican said anyone who wishes to convert to Catholicism of their own free will has the right to be baptised.

The Pope would administer the sacrament "without making any 'difference of people,' that is, considering all equally important before the love of God and welcoming all in the community of the Church".

The Vatican announced the high-profile conversion shortly before the long Vigil service started with Benedict XVI blessing a solitary white candle.

He slowly made his way through the pews of St Peter's, lighting worhsippers' candles from his own.

The pontiff was forced to pace himself yesterday, cancelling a planned processional walk during the Way of the Cross in Rome.

The Pope had been due to carry a plain, white cross part of the way around the Colosseum, but heavy rain and a packed schedule forced Vatican officials to rethink the idea.

The 81-year-old instead touched and blessed the cross, then remained under cover.

(Nothing Follows)