McCain Spiritual Advisor: “Islam Must be Destroyed” April 8, 2008

John McCain’s controversial Hagee endorsement may soon prove itself to be small potatoes. When Pastor John Hagee endorsed McCain back in February, McCain chose to fall into silence as his reaction to his sought-after evangelical nod, being taken by surprise by the ire raised from Catholic and other groups at Hagee’s inflammatory rhetoric. Indeed, Hagee’s hardline stance on Israel, insisting on a 100% Jewish return to the West Bank and saying that giving part of Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority was tantamount to turning it over to the Taliban, moved the American Reform Jewish movement head Eric Yoffie to call him an “extremist” whose organization was harmful for Israel and whose views spelled disaster for the Holy Land.

Some Israeli politicians were quick to defend Hagee, with one prominent Israeli rabbi saying that the rapprochement between Christians and Jews was “one of the miracles of the 20th century.”

But Hagee, for all his abrasiveness, has nothing on Rod Parsley, McCain’s “spiritual guide”.

The president of the Chicago Theological Seminary, Rev. Dr. Susan Thistlethwaite, writes in the Washington Post’s On Faith that one must be extremely wary of this man, and precisely what it is that he stands for:

John McCain should immediately renounce Rod Parsley not only for his astounding hate mongering against Islam, but also for his extreme views on a range of issues including his denunciation of separation of church and state….In his writings, Parsley has called upon Christians to actively confront the “false religion” of Islam with the aim of destroying it. He urges his readers to realize that a confrontation between Christianity and Islam is unavoidable: “We find now we have no choice. The time has come.”

According to press reports, the leader of the movement - the senior pastor of a large church in suburban Columbus [Parsley] - casts the 2006 elections as an apocalyptic clash between ‘the forces of righteousness and the hordes of hell.’ The fear and loathing in his message is palpable: He denounces public schools that won’t teach creationism, require teachers to read the Bible in class, or allow children to pray. He rails against the ‘secular jihadists’ who have ‘hijacked’‘ America and prevent school kids from learning that Hitler was ‘an avid evolutionist.’

Parsley, according to the Rocky Mountain News’ Dave Kopel, believes that “one of G-d’s purposes in creating America was to fight a holy war against Islam”, and in Silent No More, says:

“I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.“

(more…)

Dutch Jewish Producer: “Geert Wilders Is A Bigot” March 24, 2008

I feel like a broken record but I had to chronicle this little piece of Jewish-Muslim unity, from the Monthly Review Foundation’s MR Zine.

Jewish TV producer Harry De Winter has blasted Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam film aspirations with a provocative advertisement on the front page of the Dutch de Volkskrant:

TV Producer Harry de Winter, President of the board of the foundation Een Ander Joods Geluid [Another Jewish Voice], today placed a remarkable advertisement on the front page of the newspaper Volkskrant. De Winter puts Geert Wilders’s criticism of Muslims in the same category as anti-Semitism…

What is your message?

[De Winter:] “We Jews know better than anyone else what this sort of discrimination can lead to. Wilders claims that the Muslims must be dealt with and that the Koran is a fascist book. That’s how the persecution of Jews once started, by generalization. Therefore, it is time for a sharper criticism from the Jewish community. If you say the same thing about the Jews or Israel, you are considered an anti-Semite and ostracized. It is good that this feeling of justice is so strong, but, for me, there is no difference between the yarmulke and the headscarf.”

The ad reads:

“If Wilders had said the same thing about Jews (and the Old Testament) as he does about Muslims (and the Koran), he would have been ostracized a long time ago and accused of anti-Semitism.”

Anti-religious prejudice — whether Islamophobia or anti-Semitism — is never OK and baruch Hashem Mr. De Winter has come out publicly to say so. He says he hopes to “get support from the whole Jewish community” — he already has mine.

Geert Wilders and Islamophobic Incitement

Geert Wilders, the Islamophobic (not, he says, to be confused with anti-Muslim, which would be wrong) right-wing Dutch MP who everyone loves to hate has decided to go full-speed ahead with releasing his anti-Islam film, Fitna — which has already begun to spark outrage throughout the European Union and the Muslim world:

Already, 15,000 people have protested in Afghanistan against the film, burning Dutch flags.

Nato commanders say that the Taliban could use it to whip up more anger and the Dutch ambassador in Malaysia said protests could lead to “dozens of deaths”. Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation, said the film would threaten peace.

In a speech to the European parliament in Strasbourg this year, the Grand Mufti of Syria warned of global consequences. “If there is unrest, bloodshed and violence after the broadcast of the Koran film, Wilders will be responsible,” he said.

The website for the film - fitnathemovie.com - was taken offline by its Internet Service Provider, Network Solutions, for the flagrant violation of its acceptable use policy which bans such inciting speech.

Of course, like minds flock together — the Czech far-right National Party has offered to step up and broadcast the movie, offering Wilders asylum and protection in the Czech Republic in an “undisclosed location” should any attempts be made on his life.

And all this for what? To continue to give a voice to this man’s racist diatribe? This is someone who has called Islamic society “retarded” and inferior, and who has called the Qur’an a “fascist text”? Where is the heter, who gave this man permission, to just patently diss 1/6 of humanity like this?

Would he honestly be able to stomach an equivalent diss against his own faith, his own background, his own culture? And the National Party will be equally responsible if they take the disastrous step of broadcasting Fitna in lieu of Network Solutions.

Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard told the Dutch De Volksrant in an exclusive interview that:

Dutch politician Geert Wilders should definitely air his anti-Quranfilm, Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard says Monday in an exclusive interview in the Dutch newspaper ‘de Volkskrant’.

Westergaard says he does not understand Dutch politicians who say that Wilders should not air his film. ‘There is not a single politician in Denmark that would state a similar thing. That would mean political suicide for him. Every Danish politician knows you should never limit the freedom of speech.’

Westergaard does not regret his caricatures of the prophet Muhammad ‘at all’. ‘It started out as and still is a matter of freedom of speech.’ Westergaard considers starting this debate as a ‘duty’ of newspapers and cartoonists. ‘Muslims are to accept that.’

Muslims are to “accept that”? Freedom of speech, as the Egyptian ambassador to Indonesia already said, is circumscribed by a sense of responsibility which must likewise never be compromised — the International Human Rights Law makes provisions for hate speech and related things.

How is Westergaard living, by the way?

Death threats have forced Westergaard to live in safe houses. He will soon be moving to a new shelter for the sixth time.

He was first criticized after he had drawn a picture of the prophet Muhammed wearing a bomb-shaped turban for the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. His caricatures were recently republished by several newspapers in Denmark. Three men plotting an attack on his life were arrested mid February….More than 200 thousand people demonstrated against the Danish cartoons and the Dutch film of Wilders in the Afghan city of Jalalabad on Sunday. ‘Death to Denmark, death to the Nederlands’, the crowd shouted.

So Wilders is willing to go through this, put Dutch troops on the frontlines in danger, cause millions of euros in losses for Dutch businesses, potentially cause hundreds of murders, and cause a worldwide furor by insulting the faith of 1/6 of humanity — for what? What could possibly be worth it?

Will McCain Reject? Will Jews Accept? March 5, 2008

The American Prospect clued me into a little piece of GOP double-talk and double standards that I didn’t know about during this primary campaign.

Howard Dean, DNC Chair, went after John McCain on CNN Late Edition this past Sunday for not having come out as saying he “rejected and denounced” the vehemently anti-Catholic pastor John Hagee after Hagee endorsed him — the way Obama was asked to do (and complied in flying colors) with the anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas was called in to defend her fellow party member, and the transcript shows just how hypocritical this really is:

BLITZER: But here’s the point that the critics are making right now, and those Catholics who are urging John McCain to reject Pastor Hagee. Louis Farrakhan has called Judaism “a gutter religion.”

Hagee has suggested, at least according to the Catholic League president — we’ve done some checking of our own – he said that Catholicism is “a great whore and a false cult system.” That sounds very, very damning, Senator.

HUTCHISON: Well, John McCain has said he doesn’t agree with that.

BLITZER: But is he ready to embrace someone who calls the Catholic religion “a great whore?”

HUTCHISON: Well, I think John McCain’s statement that he put out from the campaign, after the question was raised, speaks for itself. And I think that, many times, people who endorse someone are not in total agreement with them on every issue. That’s the case with most people. I think this is turning into a political attack, rather than anything that’s substantive.

What did this chick just say? “That’s the case with most people”?

And let’s not for a second confuse this endorsement with the wholly unsolicited and unwanted Farrakhan endorsement Obama had the unfortunate displeasure of having to deal with. As recently as this past weekend, McCain was making decisively pro-Hagee statements, saying:

I am very proud of the Pastor John Hagee’s spiritual leadership to thousands of people and I am proud of his commitment to the independence and the freedom of the state of Israel. That does not mean that I support or endorse or agree with some of the things that Pastor John Hagee might have said or positions that he may have taken on other issues.

Here’s how John Hagee introduced John McCain on his “No Surrender” tour, featured on the John McCain.com site:

Yeah, McCain totally doesn’t want Hagee’s support.  Hagee has since amended his anti-Catholic statements, which included his calling the church the “anti-Christ” (video), but the Catholic League is not buying it, saying “no amount of spin” can change “reality”. (Hagee also said that he believes that the anti-Christ will be the head of the European Union.) McCain initially said that he was “very honored”‘ by Hagee’s endorsement.Former GOP candidate Mike Huckabee also appeared, however, at Hagee’s church, so apparently McCain is not the only GOPer to seek an endorsement from the man who said:

“Adolf Hitler attended a Catholic school as a child and heard all the fiery anti-Semitic rantings from Chrysostom to Martin Luther.”

“Pope Pius XII, called by historians ‘Hitler’s Pope,’ joined Hitler in the infamous Concordat of Collaboration, which turned the youth of Germany over to Nazism, and the churches became the stage background…To those Christians who believe that Jewish hearts will be warmed by the sight of the cross, please be informed—to them it’s an electric chair…”

And let’s not forget about Hagee’s racist slurs. The Emerging Minds blog (among others) points out a San Antonio Express-News article from 1996 which mentions Hagee meeting with black ministers about running a “slave sale” fundraiser. Its advertising promised “[s]lavery in America is returning to Cornerstone”. And let’s not forget the sexism:

“Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist.”

Racist, sexist, anti-Catholic, wholly insensitive, Islamophobic and anti-Arab.

A man John McCain is “honored” to be endorsed by.  Will McCain step up and “reject and denounce” his prejudiced endorsers the way Obama did?  Or will GOP supporters just have to wonder precisely how much of Pastor Hagee’s “gospel” McCain agrees with?

“Offending the masses is not a fundamental right” January 29, 2008

Geert Wilders, Dutch parliamentarian for the very right-wing Freedom Party (one of whose slogans is “less tax and less Islam”), has been causing a stir as of late with his new anti-Islam film which has as one of its climaxes a copy of the Qur’an being burned. Wilders, who in February 2007 called upon Dutch Muslims to “tear out half the pages of the Quran and throw them away”, plans on burning (or tearing up) the Muslim holy book as evidence of his opinion that the Qur’an is a “fascist” document, calling Islam “an inspiration for murder”.

The 10-15 minute anti-Quran film, scheduled to air in March (though Wilders has yet to find a broadcaster, he pledged to release it on the Internet if he can not find a media outlet), “has already prompted the government to alert Dutch cities to prepare for possible violent reactions and warn embassies in Islamic countries”, inciting ire from Syria to Singapore.

Dutch Muslims are “appealing for calm”, trying to “neutralize” the potentially negative effects of the film, including any violence or boycotts, reminding Wilders that they, too, were Dutch citizens:

Mohamed Rabbae’s group [the Dutch National Moroccan Council], which he said represents the majority of the more than 850,000 Muslims living in this nation of 16.3 million, also plans to call on the Muslim world to react peacefully if and when the film is broadcast, and not to boycott Dutch products.

“We want to make clear that the Netherlands is not just the country of one man, but also of the Muslims who live here,” he said. “Anything that hurts the Netherlands also hurts us.”

Appeals to Geert Wilders to refrain from making the film got this statement in reply:

“That a 10-minute film that’s never been shown may lead to riots, boycotts and other bad things, says everything about the nature of Islam,” said Wilders in an open letter Thursday. “Nothing about me.”

Reading these things incites feelings much like the title of this Somalian op-ed piece from Garowe Online: offending the masses is not a fundamental right. The “Sunday Editorial” piece voices the question I’m sure many people feel when dealing with these neo-conservative extremists — when did it become so ok, so accepted, and so in vogue to offend so many hundreds of millions of people?

Although no one (or very few people) has seen this film yet, the media uproar has created a suspenseful atmosphere, with many Western publications expecting a violent response from the Islamic world, as if this is the “natural” reaction to be expected from Muslims…[Wilders] is a man who has called the Qur’an “a fascist book” and expects Muslims to abandon their religion if they wish to live in the Netherlands…

The theme of the MP Wilders’ film is to associate growing unrest and anger across the Islamic world to the Qur’an, a Divine Revelation that preaches the values of peace, justice and mercy. Of course, the vast majority of Muslims will react with anger to anyone who disrespects the Word of Allah. But that is precisely MP Wilders’ unstated goal; he understands his blasphemous rhetoric (now on film) might lead to a violent response, but therein is his primary objective. He can then point at the violence his insensitive and intolerant work has created and tell the Dutch people that the Qur’an engenders violence.

The Qur’an is such a Holy Book that Muslims are willing to fight for it and defend it. It is the foundation of a world religion, with more than 1.5 billion adherents across the globe. If MP Wilders is willing to offend 1.5 billion people in defense of the “freedom of expression,” then is there any surprise that the offended people want to defend their own belief system?

What the world needs today, perhaps more than ever, is for all groups to realize that we are all humans who must learn to coexist peacefully in this limited world of ours.

Precisely. And firmly entrenched in the camp against co-existence, we find Geert Wilders and all others of his ilk, determined to spread bigotry in the guise of self-preservation. Here you can find Wilders giving his opinions to FOXNews, speaking about what he termed “the retarded Islamic culture”:

Being this offensive and ignorant is not a fundamental right to be enjoyed and cherished. On the contrary, it is a symptom of an illness begging to be cured.

May hatred and division be replaced by coexistence and unity, speedily in our days, throughout Europe, en ook in Nederland.

In the midst of it all… October 16, 2007

While Ann Coulter is steadily proving herself to be an embarrassment and a disgrace to conservatives and the Republican Party — if not to America itself, one has to remember, in the midst of it all, that this is not only not a new development with Ms. Coulter, it’s her modus operandi, her “MO”.

One can not forget one of her most famous quotes:

Remember, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism are tightly knit first cousins. Whether or not Ms. Coulter is anti-Semitic herself is actually, at this point, beside the point. This woman considers herself licensed to inflame anyone and everyone she sees fit — debasing herself like a harlot with language so inflammatory as to make even the most callous clod wince, as the Canada Post’s Jonathan Kay notices:

Ann Coulter is an embarrassment. And the people who should be most embarrassed are self-described conservatives. Whenever liberals want to make us look like bigots and mental cases, all they have to do is trot out one of Coulter’s whoppers, and the job is done.

This is an 800-word column, so I don’t have space to rehash every appalling thing Coulter has written or said. But the highlights include her description of Al Gore (”total fag”), John Edwards (”faggot”), Muslims (”ragheads,” “camel jockeys,” “jihad monkeys”), her suggestion that said monkeys should stick to “flying carpets” instead of travelling on commercial airlines, and her next-day reaction to 9/11: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”

She also had this charming riff on four women who became activists after losing their husbands in the 9/11 attacks: “I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much? How do we know their husbands weren’t planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they’d better hurry up and appear in Playboy.”

Could the Republican party wish for a friend more disgusting and lewd?

Oh, wait a second…

Anti-Muslim Propaganda at George Wash U October 9, 2007

Thankfully, one doesn’t see things this ridiculous on a daily basis.

This was the poster many George Washington University students woke up to this morning, according to the student-run Hatchet newspaper. The posters, describing the “typical” Muslim’s features as including “venom from mouth,” “suicide vest,” and “peg-leg for smuggling children and heroin,” were signed “the Young America Foundation” and mention Islamo-Fascism Awareness week, being held by YAF beginning October 19, which features several lectures on counterterrorism.When you advertise any event dedicated to exploring “Islamo-fascism” you’re not going to end up with the most diverse-minded people in the world backing your event. The murder of innocent civilians is effectively termed “terrorism” or perhaps “fascism”: attaching “Islam” to it only serves to foment the racism already too rampant in our society against Muslims. One can not call a blatant violations of the tenets of a religion the “upholding” of that religion. There is simply nothing Islamic about fascism.Nor is there anything American about this “young American” posting up this racist propaganda.

The University is presently gearing up for Iftar, an interfaith event later this week that to celebrate Ramadan - an event which “speaks to our university’s commitment to global cultural understanding and respect” according to the University President.

Some people just can’t stand understanding and respect. And so they do things like this.

These racists should be found and penalized harshly — but they should also have to attend Iftar. Hatred like this can only be counteracted through intelligent discourse, and since these racists are so incapable of such discourse now, perhaps they can be educated and enlightened…by speaking to intelligent Muslims.

NY Salon Owner Victim of Islamophobic Attack September 18, 2007

A nail salon owner in Matinecock, Suffolk County, Long Island was the victim of a bias crime over the weekend, and police are probing “all avenues” to find the perpetrators, Newsday reported. Iranian-born Zohreh Assemi, 50, of Bayville, had her chest and neck slashed with a box cutter and was robbed of $2,000:

Nassau police continued searching yesterday for two men wanted in a Locust Valley nail salon robbery they say was motivated not only by greed, but also hate, including an attack on the Iranian-born business owner, slurs and anti-Muslim graffiti.

The high-end Givan Nail and Skin Center at The Plaza was robbed about 6:30 a.m. Saturday. The men made off with jewelry, police said, and $2,000, according to the owner, Zohreh Assemi.

Assemi, 50, of Bayville, was accosted by the two men and forced inside the shop, where they assaulted her. They slammed her head on a counter, shoved a towel in her mouth, repeatedly smashed her hand with a hammer and used a knife and box cutter to slice her face, neck, back and chest.

During the robbery, the men used “anti-Islamic language” and wrote anti-Muslim graffiti on a mirror with a marker, [Detective Lt. John] May said. “We are investigating all avenues from the robbery to the assault to the bias incident,” he said.

Assemi said she began receiving threatening phone calls last month from people calling her a terrorist and telling her to leave the shopping center, where her salon is located.

Long Island’s News 12 has video.

A more in-depth piece from Newsday tells of precisely how traumatizing this attack was for Ms. Assemi. A victim of terrorism herself who had to cross borders and come to America as an asylum-seeking refugee, she said what hurt most was the racist attackers calling her a “terrorist”:

On Sept. 11, when 19 hijackers attacked her adopted country, she decided to become a U.S. citizen. So when two men ambushed her in her Locust Valley nail salon Saturday, it was their words — not their blows — that hurt her most.

They called her a terrorist.

“When you’re a victim of terrorism and you lose everything you have to terrorism, the worst thing they can call me is a terrorist,” she explained Sunday in her Bayville home. “That hurts a lot.”

They called her a terrorist, screamed “Muslim, leave Locust Valley, leave The Plaza…go back to the place you came from”, and attacked her with boxcutters.

Kudos to Ms. Assemi for standing her ground and not letting the Islamophobes win. Kudos for saying defiantly, “I will not be homeless again.” G-d willing, she never will be — and G-d willing, her attackers will also have their own defined, heavily guarded place to live for the next 15 or 20 years.

Irrationally Terrified of Arabs September 4, 2007

While I must admit I’m drawn the title of the repost from AllHiphop.com, “Dumb Bitch Holds Up Flight Profiling Arabs”, this story from SignOnSanDiego.com just shows what happens when that sad, lamentable part of human social psychology known as “profiling” starts to present itself.

She was simply “protecting my tiny little family,” she insisted, adding that “all I could think of was 9/11.”

But yesterday, Leigh Robbins offered an apology to seven Iraqi men who were passengers on a plane scheduled to fly from San Diego to Chicago on Tuesday night. Robbins was also on the plane but was so terrified the men might be terrorists that she demanded to get off, causing a delay that prompted the airline to postpone the flight until the next morning.

The Iraqis, as it turned out, were consultants working with Marines at Camp Pendleton. They say they were humiliated when airport security, reacting to Robbins’ concerns, took them aside and questioned them. They have hired a lawyer.

“I know they’re upset, and they have every right to be,” said Robbins, 35, a Richmond, Va., homemaker. She said she was traveling with her two young sons that night and decided to err on the side of caution. “How can you overreact when it’s your children?” she said…

In an interview yesterday, Robbins said she was sitting in the back of the plane with her children, awaiting the departure from the gate, when one of the Iraqis walked by to use the restroom.

She heard him “clunking around” inside the bathroom. When he came out, he had a suspicious look on his face, she said.

“He looked so mean, the way he was looking at everyone,” Robbins said. “It was very frightening, like something out of a movie.”…Meanwhile, airport security officers questioned the seven Iraqis and determined that they posed no threat.

One of the men, David Al Watan, 30, of Dearborn, Mich., said the experience was mortifying because they were singled out for questioning based on their appearance. He and the other Iraqis are employed by an Alaska-based defense contractor that works with the U.S. military. Watan, who fled Iraq in 1991 and said his mother was killed by Saddam Hussein’s regime, wants an apology from American Airlines.

“While they sit in their air conditioning, I was out in the desert helping to save Marines’ lives,” Watan said. “I am an American. I love this country. I would die for it.”

First of all I hope these men win whatever judgment they are seeking.

No one would dispute the racism of the following, were it to be the lead paragraph of the article:

…yesterday, Leigh Robbins offered an apology to seven black men who were passengers on a plane scheduled to fly from San Diego to Chicago on Tuesday night. Robbins was also on the plane but was so terrified the men might be criminals that she demanded to get off, causing a delay…

For some reason, when it’s Arabs, it’s understandable.

It’s justifiable. It’s “what could I do?”

The reason this irritates me so is because of the course of events: untrained, inexperienced Ms. Robbins jumped to a conclusion that was proven wrong by trained personnel. Untrained, inexperienced, terrified Ms. Robbins — judging solely on ethnicity and “the way he was looking at people” — was way out of line and this can not be justified by the age of her children.

Give our airport security personnel a little credit. You think they want another 9/11? You don’t think they have some racial profiling going on in their heads? But they are trained to know what to look for and these guys didn’t have it. Whatever “it” is (because many of us have been “pulled to the side” in airport security, especially when traveling to and from Israel).

So what if their last names included “al-Watan”. Security personnel laughed at her when she first brought it up to them. These Iraqi men went through the same security lines she did, they took off their shoes, they “put it in the bin.” There was no reason to fear. The X-rays, metal detectors, and security people all agreed: these people posed no risk.

She was suffering from paranoia driven by racism, pure and simple. Ms. Robbins said:

“If people want to put me down, that’s their right.”

I don’t want to put her down, I want people to use their intellects (seichel) — and I want an end to fiascos like this so security guards don’t beat me down.

New Afghanistan? August 15, 2007

NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in an interview that the Internet is the “new Afghanistan”, the “de facto training ground” for Islamic extremists who would initiate attacks in the United States.

“The Internet is the new Afghanistan,” Kelly said, as he released a New York Police Department (NYPD) report on the home-grown threat of attacks by Islamist extremists. “It is the de facto training ground. It’s an area of concern.”

The report found that the challenge for Western authorities was to identify, pre-empt and prevent home-grown threats, which was difficult because many of those who might undertake an attack often commit no crimes along the path to extremism.

The report identified the four stages to radicalization as pre-radicalization, self-identification, indoctrination, and jihadization, and said the Internet drove and enabled the process.

Radicalization could be triggered by such things as the loss of a job, the death of a close family member, alienation, discrimination, and international conflicts involving Muslims, said the report by senior NYPD intelligence analysts.

Behold the advent of the new crime: BWA. Blogging while Arab.

While I’m sure some politicos out there, hunkering under their blankets in fear of the Al-Qaeda man in the closet, believe that “something should be done”, in actuality this statement is not being made in a vacuum.

The Save The Internet blog recently posted a story about how AT&T censored Pearl Jam in a recent broadcast of its Lollapalooza concert. As the blog says:

During the live Lollapalooza Webcast of a concert by the Seattle-based super-group, the telco giant muted lead singer Eddie Vedder just as he launched into a lyric against President George Bush. The lines — “George Bush, leave this world alone” and “George Bush find yourself another home” were somehow lost in the mix.

“What happened to us this weekend was a wake up call, and it’s about something much bigger than the censorship of a rock band,” Pearl Jam band members stated in a release following the incident.

Indeed. AT&T routinely rails against Net Neutrality as a “solution without a problem.”

Net neutrality is the principle that the Internet should be an open space, free of censorship, whether legislative or corporate. Free of “shapers”, free of barriers to the free flow of idea exchange.

Now it’s a terrorism concern. “Terrorism”, it seems, is the one buzzword that anyone can drop to make them gleefully give up any vestige of liberty or privacy.

“Why are you taking down my savings account number?”
“We need to check for terrorists.”
“OK, in that case, here’s my PIN…”

Now the word has been dropped. Now starts the groundswell of public opinion (or so the NYPD hopes). NBC/Universal are concerned because of lost money. What quantifiable benefit could there possibly be, though, to having NYPD “sniff every packet” of data?

The Patriot Act, America’s previous blatant failure at “catching the bad guys on our turf” (to use a Bush-ism), resulted in a total of 39 convictions, the median sentence for which was 11 months. They weren’t catching murderers, or anyone else doing a crime which carries a sentence longer than a misdemeanor’s maximum. Their 10% conviction rate — while, I’m sure, stellar by their standards — was supposed to be the pot of gold at the end of the wiretapping rainbow.

The Internet is the last level playing field — where only one’s knowledge of HTML and PHP (and sheer intelligence and creativity) determines one’s status: not race, not creed, not color, not religion, not sex, not financial status — and this kills these bigwigs. Here is one place that can’t be bought. Here is one place where everyone really can voice their opinions. Where there is no “unwritten boundary” that can not be overstepped.

Want to keep the nation safe? Maybe make sensitive nuclear documents NOT available in public libraries. Maybe regulate White House e-mail usage. Maybe refrain from publicizing the identities of our intelligence personnel. Analyzing every human’s email on the slight chance that maybe a terrorist cell will be broken up is a farce at best.

There is absolutely no justification for removing the last bastion of free speech in our “home of the free”. Shame on anyone who would advocate the muting of voices. Our voice is our humanity.

Click here to donate to Save the Internet, the movement for Net Neutrality.

Neo-con Hate: “Muslims Hate Us All” August 13, 2007

I never tire of reposting this idiocy when it crosses my path.

Columnist and scriptwriter Burt Prelutsky writes in his ExileStreet piece “Squaring off Against Islam” that, in a nutshell, he is fed up with us on the Left. To us liberals, “Muslims” can do no wrong.

Some people used to refer to Ronald Reagan as the Teflon president because no matter how much mud his political foes threw at him, nothing stuck. That was because he was so much wiser, more principled, charming and charismatic, than his left-wing detractors.

These days, those who seem to come equipped with Teflon are the world’s Islamics….Theirs is a religion which calls for the domination of all others, and yet the majority of Christians, Jews, atheists and agnostics, continue treating them with the utmost respect and sensitivity. Frankly, I don’t think it’s even appreciated. Instead, I believe it’s perceived as fear and cowardice.

While he begins speaking about “Islamics” — a shorthand form of any number of terms from “Islamic fundamentalists” to “Islamic terrorists” (to “Islamic architecture critics” perhaps?) — Mr. Prelutsky makes his intended subject clear. He speaks of “Islam’s intolerance of all non-Muslims” and ends his piece by decrying:

The fact remains that Muslims hate not only the West, but the five billion non-Muslims on the face of the earth. As for their liberal defenders in this country, the sad truth is that they aren’t really pro-Islam as much as they’re anti-America. Like Muslims, they regard us as the Great Satan.

This over-simplification — making Islam the sole reason any terrorist becomes so is nothing more than the stage upon which racism is set. At no point did anyone, say, blame any Christian denomination (or its theology) for violence in Northern Ireland, no one blames Kim Jong Il’s atheist philosophy of Juche for his nuclear fantasies. The villification of Islam as a religion and the identification of a religion as the reason for terrorist activity is unique to these Islamophobic talking heads.

I find it hard to believe that there is anyone on the Left who is a “defender of Islam” per se. What we on the Left do defend is the Constitutional right to religious freedom and the pluralism it precipitates. We defend the rights of all of America’s citizens to practice their religion in the non-injurious way they see fit.

This monolithic entity of “Islam”, so salient in the neo-con mind, melts away in the Islamic mindset. Islam has denominations. The Islamic world has diversity of thought. A Saudi-born Sunni family may have very little in common with their 2nd- or 3rd-generation American Shia counterpart in Iowa. Mr. Prelutsky also missed pieces like this one on IndianMuslims.info where writer Asghar Ali Engineer calls for the expansion of what he terms “Euro-Islam” which, while dedicated to Shari’a (Islamic law), would be precisely what Mr. Prelutsky thinks could not exist:

There is, similarly great need for developing concept of Euro-Islam which will respect pluralism, multi-culturalism and will be open to other faiths and would respect other faiths. It will also adjust itself to western way of life though not necessarily accept it…

…Euro-Islam will have to come to terms with role of basic freedoms in western society and shall have to develop a new fiqh fit for democratic culture. As Qur’an requires Muslims to respect other religions, it also requires them to respect other cultures, if they do not violate core Islamic morality. The Muslim intellectuals will have to play creative role in non-Muslim societies for developing its new fiqh.

In fact, the piece says, in stark contrast to Mr. Prelutsky: “The Qur’an nowhere intends that all should accept Islam. It is not practical at all.”

Islamophobes are not fighting for peace, they are fighting for a war in which the West flexes its might and regroups itself until it decimates Islam. The unity they seek is a unity of “everyone united vs. Muslims”. Far from being a pro-American viewpoint, these pundits’ points of view make America seem more like the places we invade than the place we inhabit.

There are Muslims in all countries, including America. Alienating American citizens and 1/6 of the human population of the planet provides no benefit for anyone. The doors of interfaith dialogue must remain open — and this includes realizing that “Muslim” and “terrorist” are two drastically different terms, and never are the two interchangeable.

Dutch Right-Wing MP Wants to Ban the Qur’an August 8, 2007

With a hat tip to the indefatigable Islamophobia Watch blog:

Dutch far-right Parliament Member Geert Wilders (Freedom Party) today called for a ban on the Qur’an, calling it “fascist” and likening it to Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and saying it encourages its followers to “kill…non-believers, beat and rape women, and to establish an Islamic state by force.”

Wilders, who heads the far-right Freedom Party, which holds nine of the 150 seats in parliament, argued for the ban in a letter published in the De Volkskrant newspaper.Wilders compared the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s autobiography Mein Kampf and said that it has “no place in our constitutional state.”

“I have been saying this for years: there is no such thing as a moderate Islam,” he wrote, arguing that several chapters in the Koran called on Muslims “to oppress, persecute, or kill Christians, Jews, dissidents, and non-believers, to beat and rape women, and to establish an Islamic state by force.”

Wilders wrote the letter after a weekend attack on young local politician Eshan Jami who founded a group to support people who have renounced Islam.

Jami, who was not visibly injured in the attack, is now under constant police protection like Wilders.

“Ban this wretched book like Mein Kampf is banned! Send a signal to Jami’s attackers and other Islamic radicals that the Koran cannot be used in the Netherlands as an inspiration or an excuse for violence,” Wilders said…

“I am fed up with Islam in the Netherlands: no more Muslim immigrants allowed. I am fed up with the worship of Allah and Mohammed in the Netherlands: no more mosques,” he finished his letter.

And that’s it: no more mosques. This man is fed up with the worship of All-h (blatantly ignoring the fact that, by definition, all monotheistic faiths must be worshiping the same entity, as there is, after all, only one G-d).The ban Mr. Wilders is calling for actually goes further than the ban on Mein Kampf, as Wilders would like to see possession of the Qur’an criminalized (whereas it is only illegal to sell Mein Kampf).

This is not the first time Wilders has come out against Islam: he called for a burqa ban in 2005 (and a “face-covering garment” ban — i.e., niqab AND burqas — in 2006) , which sought to make the wearing of a burqa punishable by 12 days in prison or a 3,350 euro fine. Wilders also called for a ban on Islamic banking (i.e., banking which complies with Islamic law). [Would he ban heter iska and Jewish Law-compliant banking?]

Attorney Els Lucas brought a lawsuit against the Islamophobic MP, calling his actions “very sad” and calling it “unseemly that a member of Parliament is expressing himself in this manner.” Lucas accused Wilders of “insulting a section of the community,” an offense punishable with a maximum sentence of two years in prison and a fine of up to €16,750 ($23,065). Wilders retorted, saying:

“I do not want to incite hate; I want the Koran to be banned. That is a political opinion. I am in Parliament in order to express my political opinion,” Wilders said.

Integration Minister Ella Vogelaar called banning the Qur’an “out of the question” and called his statements “damaging” to community relations. Vogelaar said recently she expects the Netherlands “to eventually adopt some of the traditions of Islam.”The original Volkskrant article (in Dutch) is here.

Things like this are beyond counter-productive, they are blatantly Islamophobic, blatantly xenophobic and bear more of a resemblance to Hitler than any text ever could. This man “was warned by the Dutch anti-terrorism chief that his anti-Islam statements had stoked anger in the Middle East, and that he was going too far” — but when prejudice is at the forefront, all else takes a backseat.

Someone needs to hand him his brown shirt. This man should not be in Parliament. To give this man any less than an official sanction — maybe the fine, maybe the prison term, maybe censure — would be very insulting to the community and would be damaging to the Dutch image of openness and understanding.

The Netherlands deserves better. Hate-mongering politicians are never assets; they are only liabilities for the nations in which they hold office.