First the Minarets, now the Burka. What next?

That's the question asked by those against banning the Burka.  First we had the banning of new Minarets in  Switzerland: clearly religious discrimination.  Then we have the French putting limits on the wearing of the burka in the public space: clearly individual discrimination, "a serious invasion of personal liberty", says Sandeep Gopalan .  Echoing the inane comments by the "revert" in the vid below, Gopalan says:

"The irony of fighting repression with a ban seems to have escaped notice".

These comments ignore the fact that Muslim and ex Muslim women who are free enough, brave enough, and un-Stockholm-syndromic enough say the following: they don't want to have to wear the burka; they didn't come to western countries only to have the baleful, archaic practices of their home countries (Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi) follow them here.  More: the Muslims calling for no-ban are males from the more fundamentalist/salafist view of the world; in other words, public policy and discussion being driven by the most retrograde of Islamic thought.

As for the "irony", there is none.  We have legislated against practices that are anti-women.  We have rape laws, we have anti-discrimination laws in which certain actions are banned.  We have laws that prohibit female genital mutilation.  Should these not be implemented because we are fighting repression with a "ban", or that it's a "serious invasion of personal liberty”?

Second, the anti-banners like Gopalan ask "... where do you draw the line?  Are turbans, yarmulkes, saris, salwars and long skirts next?".  Well, no they are not, and for the obvious reason that the ban is targetted at Islam.  There are no yarmulke or sari wearers trying to blow up our planes, whereas there are plenty who hew to the "religion of peace", as most obviously represented by the Salafist wearing of the burka.  Indeed Gopalan preemptively answers his own question in his opening paragraph:  this is about "sending a message to Muslims... French citizens and politicians feel that they need to restore "Frenchness" to their streets".

ADDED (19/6/24): Link Rot again. 

"Ajami": an Israeli-Arab film | Thoughts on Cultural Relativity and Cultural Equivalence

I used to think that "Cultural relativity" and "Cultural equivalence" were the same.  They're not.  

Relativity relates to an understanding and appreciation of other cultures.  A good attitude.  Equivalence means saying that all cultures are equal, equally valid, equally deserving of respect, and so on.  Not a good attitude.  Yet it's almost a given in certain multicultural circles and in many educational jurisdictions.

In the film "Ajami", the Jewish co-director Yaron Shani says:

"People live in bubbles unaware of each other.  Each side has its narrative, each side has its dreams and sees the other as threatening those dreams. But if you enter the other's bubble, you see his dreams, his inner world and his values.  Our idea was to make the audience experience what it meant to be the other."

That's fair enough.  It's also what we do -- experience what it means to be the other -- when we see "A Prophet", the new French flic, which I saw at its launch here in Hong Kong last Thursday. 

But to deduce from this, that because we all have our dreams, our inner lives, that they're all the same, that they're all equally valid and deserving of respect -- as alluring and intuitively "right" as that might be -- is just not correct.  We just need to do a simple thought experiment, a reductio ad absurdum: would we consider a culture that sacrifices children to a pagan god, rips out and eats their hearts as homage to their god, would we consider that equally deserving of our respect?   Of course not.  So, we draw lines; it's just where we draw them that causes problems and debates these days.

There was another Arab-Israeli co-production some years back, which I've seen, but can't track down.  I think it was UK's Channel 4 TV.  It was called something like "Moses and Mohammad".  The concept was this: two directors, one Israeli and one Palestinian were asked to do a documentary of their primary school system.  Each had to do this without seeing what the other was doing. They then edited and signed off on their piece.  Each side had, as I recall, about 45 minutes to make their part of the doco.  It was put together by Channel 4 TV people on a disinterested basis: that is, giving each side exactly the same time and format as the other.  C4 intercut the two so that over the 90 minutes we got to see how primary students are taught in each place, one Israel one Gaza. 

The contrast was startling.  In the Israeli school kids were learning maths, language, English, science, history and so forth.  In the Palestinian one, they were being taught about how awful jews and christians were, jews in particular, how they were responsible for all their woes, how it was their duty when they grew up to carry on the battle against them.

We can empathise with each, we can culturally relate to the palestinian way of teaching their kids.  But to say they're "equal" and equally deserving of "respect", that's where you leave me. 

After the revolution of 1949, millions of Chinese were kicked out of China -- unfairly, just like 700,000 Palestinians escaped from the new Israel in 1948 (though, had they stayed, they would not have been slaughtered, as were millions of "class enemies" in post-revolutionary China who did not manage to escape to Hong Kong, Taiwan or the west).  

Those Chinese lucky enough not to be executed on the spot were kicked out, their property, all their wealth, confiscated.  They set up Hong Kong.  What if they'd been taught that Communists were hateful and deserved to be killed?  What if they were told that the only way to keep the battle going was to lob rockets at Canton?  What if they were told that they should target those awful communists on the mainland, forever, that they should be the target of their enmity "forever"?  Would we now have Hong Kong?   No, we would have just another Gaza in the east.  Just another hate-filled destructive place; instead of a place putting "unfairness" behind it, getting on with building.  Building, not destroying.

Gaza could have been the Hong Kong of the middle east.  Instead of the wasteland it is now.  That was the lesson of "Moses and Mohammad".  It's a choice.  It starts in education.  And not all educations, just as not all cultures and religions, are created or become equal.  Not all are deserving of equal respect. 

The  doctrine of "Cultural non-equivalence".

"One Law for All” UK | Against Sharia and other Misogynist Laws

Below received recently, from, inter alia, Maryam Namazie who is convener of "One Law for All", which was established about a year ago in the UK, and which I wrote about here .

This group of women are certainly not backward in coming forward with an ambitious 10-point list of demands.  More power to them!

These are women, by the way, refugees from Islamic countries, who are fighting against Sharia encroachment in western countries (in this case the UK), on the grounds that that's what they ran away from; they don't want it to follow them.  Same goes for the issue of the burka, niqab, full-body-suit issue.  They point out that those who suffer most under Sharia, even in the Sharia courts in the UK (of which there are nearly 100!), are women and children.

The email from One Law for All follows:

The very existence of the Islamic regime of Iran is incompatible with freedom of women. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a misogynist state, architect of gender apartheid and perpetrator of three decades of the most odious forms of abuse, discrimination and violence against women in Iran. A society cannot be free if women are not free. Without the overthrow of the misogynist Islamic regime, women in Iran will not achieve their rights. The Islamic Republic must go! This is the message of Neda Agha Soltan, the symbol of the ongoing revolution in Iran; it is the decree of the brave women who at the front lines of people’s protest have been challenging the entire Islamic state for the past seven months.

Thirty years ago on March 8th, 1979 in Iran, we freedom-loving women and men stood up to the reactionaries who had just come to power, with shouts of No to compulsory veil! Today, with the painful and bloody experience of three decades of gender apartheid, gender slavery and nonstop suppression of women behind us, we state even more clearly and forcefully, along with the young and progressive generation of today, that the Islamic Republic, as a misogynist state, as a regime of gender apartheid must be overthrown. We say that the leaders of the Islamic Republic must be arrested and put on trial for systematic crimes against millions of women, for crimes against humanity. This is the decree of the revolution in Iran. With the overthrow of the Islamic Republic we will lend a helping hand to millions of women in Islam-stricken countries who are prisoners of terrorist Islamic states and gangs and honour-worshiping, male-chauvinistic Islamic traditions.

Today, support for the ongoing revolution in Iran can and should become a vast international movement. March 8th is International Women’s Day, which this year bears the mark of solidarity with women and people in Iran in the struggle to topple the Islamic regime. We call on women’s rights activists and organisations to express their solidarity with the women’s movement in Iran, while remembering Neda Agha Soltan as the symbol of the revolutionary movement against the Islamic Republic. March 8th this year is the day of solidarity with the movement of the people of Iran for freedom!

We issue the following Manifesto of the Liberation of Women in Iran, and call on all women’s rights’ activists and secular and progressive forces to support this Manifesto and join up in solidarity with the people of Iran in the struggle to overthrow the Islamic regime of gender apartheid:

1.  Prosecution of the leaders and officials of the Islamic Republic for crimes against humanity, including for thirty years of the vilest abuse, discrimination and violence against women in Iran

2.  Abolition of all misogynist Islamic laws and all laws that discriminate against women; complete equality of women and men in all economic, political, cultural, social and family spheres

3.  Complete separation of religion from the state, the educational system and all laws

4.  Abolition of segregation of the sexes and gender apartheid

5.  Prohibition of sighe (Islamic ‘rent-a-wife’) and polygamy; unconditional right of separation (divorce) for women and men; abolition of all laws which make women’s civil rights (such as the right to travel, social intercourse, participation in social activities, etc.) conditional on obtaining the permission of the husband, father or other male members of the family; complete equality of women’s and men’s rights and duties in the custody and care of children following separation

6.  Abolition of compulsory veil (hejab) for women; prohibition of hejab for children; full freedom of dress

7.  Abolition of all the barbaric laws of stoning, execution, retribution (qesas) and other Islamic punishments

8.  Unconditional freedom of expression, protest, strike, assembly, organisation and forming parties

9.  Immediate release of all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience

10.  Freedom of religion and atheism and freedom to criticise religion.

Mina Ahadi

Mahin Alipour

Shahla Daneshfar

Maryam Namazie

22 January 2010

Free speech under threat

A number of freedom-of-speech issues recently. Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician, was hauled before a court for the preliminary session of the "hate crime" case being brought against him.  He's asking for the right to bring experts before the court, to testify to the truth of what he says about Islam, but there seems to be doubt that he'll be able to do so: truth not being a defence, the charge being that he upset Muslims, that they are offended is enough to charge him, the truth be damned.  In Canada...

Ezra Levant has again been sued by a Muslim fellow, head of a Canadian Muslim affairs body, in a case that Levant says is SLAPP , a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.   In other words, something done in order to make it too expensive to people to speak out.

In the US, the dreadful Dalia Mogahed is whining again that people are being beastly to Muslims and that if they only understood them more they would be much nicer to them -- the message being, to those that haven't got it yet -- that you mustn't say nasty things about Muslims in the public sphere.  And there are plenty, especially but not exclusively, on the Left, who would go along with her, for they have common cause in being either anti-Christian or anti-American, or in support of "the underdog", or for other "multicultural" reasons.

Meantime, there's the ongoing gentle background buzz of the OIC, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference -- representing the 57 Muslims countries in the world -- working to proscribe the criticism of Islam -- aka “Blasphemy” -- via the United Nations, a campaign that appears to be gaining ground.

Does all matter?  Does it matter if we can't say nasty things about Islam?  Well, yes.  In the case of Nidal, the Muslim army guy who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers, the "independent" investigation into the "tragedy" as it's now called, has recently been published.  And guess what?  There's not one mention, not one, in the whole report of "Islam".  Yet Nidal made very clear what his motivation was: Powerpoint presentations he made in which he stressed the supremacy of Islam, handing out copies of the Koran to his colleagues, exchanging emails with Sheik Awlak i an extremist pro-terrorist-murder, Nidal shouting "Allahu Akbar" as he did his killing, while wearing of Afghani clothing, thus signalling a bent to Jihadism -- one indication after another, all ignored before he went on his killing spree.  And all ignored after, in the report.

How can one hope to address the problem if there is not a single mention of the single most important motivation in Nidal's murderous rampage?

And why this?  Because the chilling of free speech -- now known as "political correctness". But even the most obvious, the most un-ignorable, is nonetheless most un-seen, the most ignored.  And as it is so ignored, so not-seen, the march to Sharia is made just that little bit easier.

That's the importance of free speech.  Dalia Mogahed and the writers of the Fort Hood report are limiting it.  The likes of Wilders and Levant are fighting for it.  And thus fighting to stop the encroachment of Sharia law in the west. 

If we can't speak out about it, how can it be stopped?

"99-year-old Granny isn't the problem” | On the issue of Profiling

Question: what do the 9/11 killers, the Shoebomber, the Heathrow plotters, the Pantybomber, the London Tube bombers, the doctors who drove a flaming SUV through the concourse of Glasgow Airport and the would-be killers of Danish cartoonists all have in common?

Answer: they’re Muslim. Sometimes they’re Muslims with box cutters, sometimes they’re Muslims with flaming shoes, sometimes they’re Muslims with liquids and gels, sometimes they’re Muslims with fully loaded underwear. But the Muslim bit is a constant. What we used to call a fact. But America’s leaders cannot state that simple fact, and so the TSA is obliged to pretend that all seven billion inhabitants of this planet represent an equal threat.  (From Steyn in Mcleans)

Many calls now for some form of profiling. I say in the letter below they published on the 15th Jan, that the calls for some form of passenger profiling are bipartisan calls now, though for the moment I can't quickly find a Democratic example of that. There's Steyn above, his usual sharp, acerbic self, in the whole article here. And there's Charles Moore in recent Spectator, which I'll look for. Meantime, my comment in the letter below, to the South China Morning Post. I hope that readers can come on board on this one -- recognising that by not profiling passengers we're making more work for less result, so that we're less secure, not more. And that profiling is perfectly valid and not racist. 

Charles Moore points out that the safest airport in the world is the one that has faced the greatest threats over many decades: Tel Aviv. There they have trained security officers who look for signs in profiled passengers and if any are suspicious, they interview them in depth. None of this equal-opportunity frisking nonsense.

(click to enlarge)

Postscript: I found the piece by Charles Moore :

In the wake of the failed Christmas aeroplane bombing over Detroit, two strange arguments are being made. The first is that the bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was not radicalised by his experiences in Islamic student societies where extremists sometimes spoke, while at University College London, which he left only last year. He trained as a terrorist in Yemen, so the British context is said to be irrelevant.

But surely no such absolute disjunction exists between violent radicalisation and the ideas which legitimise it. Many paedophiles go to Thailand to get child prostitutes: it does not follow that their reading, associates and internet use over here are irrelevant to what they end up doing. The second peculiar argument is that the ‘profiling’ of terrorists is counterproductive and will create a justified grievance.

Contrary to what is said, profiling does not mean, for example, interrogating every Muslim. It means, rather, that the authorities work out risk rationally and concentrate hard on applying their knowledge. There is nothing righteous about the ‘equal’ treatment of all passengers. It is just an insulting waste of time and money.

I know of a recent case of a 94-year-old Jewish refugee from the Nazis who worked for the US government for half a century. Because a metal pin in his leg set off an alarm at an American airport, he was forced to undergo an anal investigation. Visitors to Israel, the country in the world under the greatest threat of suicide bombing, will know that no such madness applies there. Airport searches are carefully targeted: skilled people ask passengers detailed questions.

Hate crimes against Muslims down, while terrorist attacks up. Lexington article

(Link to pdf analysis of Lexington article (7 Jan 10)....)

Old friend and blog-reader and I got into discussion of Hugh Fitzgerald's recent piece on Dubai.  He claimed The Economist has "more balanced coverage, based on facts". I went looking for an article he mentioned -- a special on the Arab world --  and though I haven't found it, I did come across one by Lexington on 7th January , which I found tendentious and disingenuous, a truly "Dhimmi" piece.

Re the “special on the Arab world”: I realised that I'd read it and found it incredible that the Economist managed to "analyse" the economic problems in the region without mentioning Islam, which would be rather like analysing, say, the Crash of '29 without mentioning Banks.  

The above link is my critique of it, in pdf, for which printing out and reading at leisure is recommended, especially if you're having trouble sleeping.

I admit that one could quesion the figures on "Islamic attacks" for including attacks which might better be described as "insurgencies".  Perhaps so, but on the other side, one could equally claim that the "hate crime" stats were over reported as well, in that some were manufactured by the likes of CAIR (eg, the "flying imams" case, op.cit.).  

So there are possible arguments on each side for saying the figures are over reported.  What's important are trends in each case: and in each case the following is clear: that reported hate crimes against Muslims have gone down significantly between 2002 and 2008.  And the number of Islamic terrorist attacks have gone up significantly in the same period.   That's the opposite of what is reported  by the "Islamic victimhood" crowd, who continue to claim that there are "backlashes" against them, and "soaring" hate crimes against Muslims.  That is not supported by the data.  (and even though it might not be surprising if the hate crimes were rising...)

Exotic trees face the axe in Hong Kong

Tai Lam Country Park 1952 and 2009.  Look! It's got better!

North west Hong Kong. I've walked it several times

South China Morning Post on 14th January:

Government workers are taking the axe to thousands of trees in country parks across Hong Kong this winter -- all in the name of biodiversity.

Interesting, as I read an article in the Australian press when down there over Christmas, that said Australia should do the opposite.

That Australian natives had become both dependent on and resistant to fire, and hence encouraged bush fires.  The suggestion from the forester writing the article (I'm afraid I don't have the link) was to start planting exotics that would effectively suppress fires.  I recall Oaks being mentioned.

Here in Hong Kong, the exotics include many Australian trees, many mature: including Blue gums, box gums, Tasmanian Blue gums, paperbarks, casuarina, mannifera maculosa, callistemon viminalis (bottle brush) and some grand stands of Norfolk Island pines.  Some spectacular Blue gums on the road to the Trappist Monastery on Lantau Island are worth the trip for the arborophile.

Back to the article (if link rots, pdf here ).

Below a couple of the local trees mentioned in the article:

Camphor (cinnamommum camphora)

Myrobalan (Phyllanthus emblica)

"Eurabian Follies"

I don't normally like to give personal accounts of individuals I don't know, as it's just anecdotal, and one can't generalise from the anecdote.  But this one below gives life to something that I already know is a general issue: the increasing Islamification of nearly every country in the world with sizable Muslim populations.  There's macro evidence of this, in numerous studies, as well as the anecdotal evidence in the media.  This story is echoed by several people I've met here in Hong Kong in recent months who have escaped -- yes, "escaped" the word they used -- Indonesia and Malaysia for the same sorts of reasons given here by Rakesh Balram.....

From:

Muslims want to dominate the planet by displacing others

RAKESH BALRAM

January 9, 2010

In comments to the article "Eurabian Follies ", in Foreign Policy, Jan 10

I live in a prosperous coastal village in a southern Indian state. In 1973, when I was six years old….

... there were just a sprinkling of Muslims in my village. They were mostly fishermen. They were not poor because fishing is a very lucrative and organised industry in my village. 

Percentage-wise they comprised around 10% of the population. They were a very friendly folk.....the men would bring fish to our homes and chat with the elders. The women would occasionally visit Hindu homes and gossip with the ladies. They spoke the local language with a funny accent that was endearing.

When the Middle East oil boom took place, many people from my home state went to the various Gulf countries and found work. Muslims in large numbers went out. Every Muslim home had a migrant in the Gulf states. Soon they became a prosperous community.

Today, the Muslim population has grown to over 30% in my village. While they still fish, they have also moved into retail and business in a big way.

But they have changed. They have stopped all manner of interaction with Hindus and mingle with their own people. The young boys go to Islamic seminaries and refuse to attend modern state or private schools. They don't care for jobs in India, they only want to go the Gulf states. If they don't get the usual blue collar job, they can at least get jobs as mosque sweepers. That is their reasoning for rejecting modern education.

They have no Indian heroes. Their heroes are Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden. They vote only for the Muslim party. When India plays Pakistan in cricket, entire Muslim families jump up in unison when a Pakistani player scores.

Muslims will not sell land to a Hindu. Once a Hindu family sells land to a Hindu, it is lost to the common market. It will never be sold publicly but will be sold through the mosque network, with Islamic clerics playing middlemen. Circulars have been sent to every Muslim home to forbid any private sale to a Hindu. Any free-thinking Muslim who wants to sell land to a Hindu stands to get ostracized. The fear that if the disobey the leaders, they will find it difficult to get their sons and daughters married or get the services of a cleric for a death ceremony.

Recently, they disallowed the screening of an Indian movie in which the Hindu hero wins the woman and the Muslim co-hero lets her go. They threatened to burn down any cinema that screened the movie.

While the Hindu birth rate has fallen to 1.9 children per woman, the Muslim birth rate is 2.9 children. Overall in my state, the Muslim population now stands at 24 per cent. In 1947 (when India was divided and Pakistan was created for Muslims who did not want to live in India) their number was just 11%.

Hindus have lived with Muslim onslaughts for close to 700 years and have survived. However, now the equation is changing. With their number attaining critical mass, many Muslims now openly speak of jehad. They claim one Muslim can fight seven Hindus so if the 100 million Muslims rise in jehad, they cal kill the 900 million Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and atheists and conquer India for Islam.

And you say, Europe is not in danger.

Former special agents tell it like it is

I've been saying for some time what those who read about Islam in any detail all say: that while there are moderate and peaceable Muslims there is no moderate Islam. ...

This is made clear in the interview last week by PJ TV in the US, with two ex special agents, of the Department of Defence and the FBI.

The former agent of the DoD says, in part:

Over a long period of time I ended up collecting a large body of Islamic law, an enormous amount of it available in English, and realized that if Islamic law is the criterion by which you measure legitimacy or illegitimacy, you cannot show that the moderates have a doctrinal basis for the position they hold, and you can’t show that on the statement of the law the radicals are wrong.  I was expecting to find a competing view that had some merit, I was expecting to find that the moderate view would be the dominant view, and that we could figure out what these arguments were so that the people in the Middle East could know what it was, and could not find it.

You can see the video here (thanks to ACT! for America) and the transcript I did here .

"Darkness Falls” | Mark Steyn. A “remorseless incremental surrender” to Islamisation in the West

Darkness Falls - Mark Steyn - The Corner on National Review Online
Having praised Steyn in the immediately preceding post, came across this article, which seems germane: the Islamisation of Europe is not some far-in-the-future possibility; it's happening right now....

Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Darkness Falls   [Mark Steyn]

Those of us who think something's afoot in Europe have been much mocked by the complaceniks, including a few who should know better (such as Max Boot). Tony Blankley has a response to that in today's Washington Times. I like this aside:

My contribution to the oeuvre of radical Islamist alarmism was my 2005 book, "The West's Last Chance," which, by the way, predicted the terrorist attack in London, Muslim riots in Paris, worldwide violent Muslim reaction to blasphemous Western artistic representations and the emergence of growing acquiescence to Shariah law in the West.

Yes, it did — and quite remarkably accurately. He should have made a zillion bucks and retired off the film rights, but it never pays to be right too early. Five years on, after the pre-emptive surrender of Yale University and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, even the American Association of University Professors is beginning to sound oddly Blankley-esque in its contempt:

“We do not negotiate with terrorists. We just accede to their anticipated demands.”

Christopher Caldwell also weighs in, apropos the attempt to kill Kurt Westergaard . . . and, in a very explicit sense, intellectual freedom. Few industries congratulate themselves on their "courage" and "bravery" more incessantly than artists and journalists — at least when it comes to plays about a gay Jesus, or joining the all-star singalong for Rock Against Bush. But it's easy to be provocative with people who can't be provoked. Faced with an opportunity to demonstrate real courage, the arts and the media shrivel up like a bunch of dying pansies. As I wrote in my book:

If it were just terrorists bombing buildings and public transit, it would be easier; even the feeblest Eurowimp jurisdiction is obliged to act when the street is piled with corpses. But there's an old technique well understood by the smarter bullies. If you want to break a man, don't attack him head on, don't brutalize him; pain and torture can awaken a stubborn resistance in all but the weakest. But just make him slightly uncomfortable, disrupt his life at the margin, and he'll look for the easiest path to re-normalization. There are fellows rampaging through the streets because of some cartoons? Why, surely the most painless solution would be if we all agreed not to publish such cartoons.

We Eurabia types aren't predicting a Muslim conquest on a set date in 2025 but a remorseless, incremental surrender. And, actually, we're not predicting it, because it's already well under way.

Swimming with the right-wing fishies | Criticising Islam, without being “Far-Right”.

It seems that if you're concerned about Islamic issues, as I am, you have to share your cyberspace with people who -- for the most part -- also think the following:

They love Sarah Palin, listen to Rush Limbaugh, support(ed) the Iraq war, voted for W, are pro-gun anti-abortion global warming deniers.  

At least it seems so, and it makes me a touch uncomfortable, as I don't buy into any of those other than the issue of Islam.  They're not all like that in cyberspace, of course, but most.  I wonder why?  There is a book I've just received, which I have yet to read, which covers the interesting/frightening phenomenon of the alliance between the Left and Islamic radicalism: in brief, they share anti-Americanism, and all that flows from that; they share an "underdog" mentality, they share a .... what, I dont' know, I'll have to read it and report, but save to say that if Sharia were to be instituted in the UK or Europe, it's the lefties who would be the first for the chop, literally.  But t'were ever so, weren't it? 

Mark Steyn ticks virtually all the boxes above, and even guest hosts Limbaugh from time to time.  But I love him, first cause he's very sound on Islam.  He writes well, amusingly and trenchantly.  He fought valiantly in a case of free speech vs. the Canadian Human Rights Commission and won.  His testimony to the Canadian parliament is online and is worth an hour of so, if you're of that bent...

Considering the issue of whether the pantiebomber Abdulmutallab should have been brought before a civilian or military court he says :

... Last November, the electorate voted, in effect, to repudiate the previous eight years and seemed genuinely under the delusion that wars end when one side decides it's all a bit of a bore, and they'd rather the government spend the next eight years doing to health care and the economy what they were previously doing to jihadist camps in Waziristan.

On the other hand, if we are now at war, as Barack Obama belatedly concedes, against whom are we warring? "We are at war against al-Qaida," says the president.

Really? But what does that mean? Was the previous month's "isolated extremist," the Fort Hood killer, part of al-Qaida? When it came to spiritual advice, he turned to the same Yemeni-based American-born imam as the Pantybomber, but he didn't have a fully paid-up membership card.

Nor did young Umar Farouk, come to that. Granted the general overcredentialization of American life, the notion that it doesn't count as terrorism unless you're a member of Local 437 of the Amalgamated Union of Isolated Extremists seems perverse and reductive....

(Full article here).

Now, it turns out that I was wrong in thinking that if the pantybomber were in a military court they could have continued to question him, whereas he has "lawyered up" in the civilian court and has stopped talking about the other 20 who are apparently in training for a similar attack. Turns out that's not the case; he could have "lawyered up" in a military court as well.  What's needed is apparently new legislation on the length of time a would-be terrorist could be held without charge.  It's during this time that there could be questioning without the presumption of silence.  Apparently Obama wanted to do this last year, but backed off when challenged by the human rights lobby.  

Current Security Levels | Terrorism alerts by country

In from cyberspace.  (Or, ah well, what's wrong with a bit of fun stereotyping....)

Current security levels:

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist  threats and have raised their security level from "Miffed" to  "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been  "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all  but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorised from  "Tiresome" to a "Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a  "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was during the great fire of  1666.

The Scots raised their threat level from "Fuck Off" to  "Let's get the Fuckers" They don't have any other levels. This  is the reason they have been used on the front line in the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government  announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide". The only two higher levels in France  are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated  by a recent fire that destroyed France 's white flag factory, effectively paralysing the country's military  capability. It's not only the French who are on a heightened  level of alert.

Italy has increased the alert level  from "Shout loudly and excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations"  and "Change Sides.”

The Germans also  increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress  in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels:  "Invade a Neighbour" and "Lose”.

Belgians, on  the other hand, are all on holiday as usual, and the only threat they  are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels. 

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to  deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so  the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old  Spanish navy.

Americans meanwhile are carrying out  pre-emptive strikes on all of their allies, just in  case.

New  Zealand has also raised its security levels -  from "baaa" to "BAAAA!” Due to continuing defence cutbacks  (the air force being a squadron of spotty teenagers flying  paper aeroplanes and the navy some toy boats in the Prime Minister's  bath), New Zealand only has  one more level of escalation, which is "fuck, I hope Australia will come and  rescue us”.

Australia, meanwhile, has raised  its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be alright,  mate".

Three more escalation levels remain, "Crikey!', "I think we'll  need to cancel the barbie this weekend" and "The barbie is cancelled". So far no situation has ever warranted use of the final escalation level.

"The Tel Aviv Cluster"

David Brooks writes that Jews are a "famously accomplished group".  This contrasts (well, I contrast it, he doesn't) with the lack of accomplishments of Muslim Arabs, noted by Arabs themselves in the Arab Human Development Report, which I wrote about here .  

As long as you have a culture which shouts -- which screams -- to Jews, to Christians, to all infidels:  "we love death more than you love life" and as long as they shout this without irony or self-examination; more, as long as they scream "you love life" as a curse, as a bad thing, as long as they have that attitude, as long as that's the default attitude of their culture, they're going to be a society of destruction, not a society of construction and invention.  

How can it be otherwise?  And that world view -- of "loving death" -- comes directly, explicitly and exclusively from the Koran, from the Hadith and the Sirah of Muhammad, the blessed one.

Look a the first two paragraphs of Brooks' article...

Jews are a famously accoplished group.  They make up 0.2 percent of the world population, but 54 percent of the world chess champions, 27 percent of the Nobel physics laureates and 31 percent of the medicine laureates.

Jews make up 2 percent of the U.S. population, but 21 percent of the Ivy League student bodies, 26 percent of the Kennedy Center honorees, 37 percent of the Academy Award-winning directors, 38 percent of those on a recent Business Week list of leading philanthorpists, 41 percent of the Pulizer Prize winners for nonfiction.

Read on...  (if link rots, there's pdf here ).

"Empowering Moderate Muslims"

My Letter to International Herald Tribune (the New York Times in Asia):

Peter Alkalay and Larry Mollot call for “moderate Muslims” to stand up and forcefully condemn those who have “hijacked their faith” (Letters,  NYT, 13 Jan).  

Problem is:while there are no doubt many moderate and peaceable Muslims, there is no “moderate Islam”.  Terrorism against the infidel unbeliever is not only permitted, it is mandated in Islam. (1). 

Even suicide bombings are allowed: the influential Islamic scholar Sheikh Yusaf al-Qaradawi said that Koranic prohibitions against suicide do not apply to suicide bombers, because their intention is not to kill themselves, but to kill the enemies of Allah:  “It’s not suicide, it is martyrdom in the name of God.  Islamic theologians and jurisprudents [sic] have debated this issue…..  It is allowed to jeopardize your soul and cross the path of the enemy and be killed.” (2).  

Facing such truths may be difficult and uncomfortable.  But failure to do so means the calls such as those of Alkalay and Mollot are just whistling in the wind.

Yours, etc

References:

(1) Islam is unique among the religions of the world in having a developed doctrine, theology and legal system that mandates warfare against unbelievers

(2) BBC News, July 8 2004.

=================

Letters below:
Published: January 12, 2010

No one can quarrel with Thomas Friedman’s argument (“Father knows best,” Views, Jan. 7) that moderate Muslims need to publicly and loudly denounce suicide bombings. But it’s the “how” that’s missing from Mr. Friedman’s column.

I assume that many moderate Muslims are hopelessly frightened to express their views publicly. As far as I know, there is no current Muslim leader who has forcefully condemned suicide bombing and the slaughter of innocent people.

How do we encourage more family members and community leaders to step up? Until we answer this question the obvious conclusions drawn by Mr. Friedman are purely academic.

Peter Alkalay, Scarsdale, New York

Making airports safer is necessary but merely fights the symptoms of the disease. The cure would be for the true believers of Islam to forcefully stand up and condemn those who have hijacked their faith. Terrorists who deliberately kill innocent people, an act forbidden by the Koran, must be shamed. Fill the mosques with sermons condemning the false Muslims, organize rallies celebrating the true spirit of Islam. Let the terrorists know: There is no place in heaven for them.

Larry Mollot, Chestnut Ridge, New York

"Intelligence still the best defence against terrorism"

Kevin Rafferty, we are told, travels 240,000 miles per year, and so, one assumes, that gives him special insight into how to handle aerial terrorism .  One way is to be politically correct, not to profile passengers he says, for to do so would "...antagonise more than a billion Muslims, whose help is vital to isolate and inform on the relatively few Islamic radical terrorists”.

Hmmmm... wonder where those cooperative Muslims are, informing on their would-be-terrorist brethren?  I confess I haven't seen or read of any, apart from Abdulmutallab's father, and one wonders if such a clear-sighted gent would be turned off because we took steps to profile terrorists, given that he was, in a sense, profiling his own son....

My letter:

Kevin Rafferty decries “controversial racial and religious profiling” in the fight against terrorism ("Intelligence still the best defence against terrorism ", SCMP, 12 Jan 10)

In the next breath he says that “good intelligence is the best way to catch terrorists”.  Surely the most basic intelligence is to recognise that while not all Muslims are terrorists, all aviation-based terrorists in the last decade are Islamic.  Are Italians outraged if we look for Mafia types predominantly amongst Italian communities?  I thought not.  Just why should the “more than a billion Muslims” be antagonised by focus in the Islamic community, if --  as we are often told -- they are against terrorism and there are “relatively few Islamic terrorists”, as Rafferty assures us.

The converse is politically-correct examination of every single passenger, or random in-depth screening, which surely takes efforts away from closer scrutiny of those most at risk: young Muslim males, especially those (like Abdulmutallab) travelling one-way, with no luggage and paying in cash.

This is such basic “intelligence” that the calls in the US for passenger profiling are now bi-partisan.  About time.

Yours, etc

Muslim numbers in the US

Postscript to my post yesterday ("Massacre of the innocents"), I forgot to comment on the Muslimams' claim that there are 10 million Muslims in North America.  In fact there are some 2.4 million Muslims in North America: 1.8 in the US and nearly 600 thousand in Canada.

The Council on American Islam Relations (CAIR), the self-appointed spokes-mam for US Muslims has been bandying about a figure of seven million for some time now and this was the figure quoted by Barack Obama in his 2009 Cairo speech to the Islamic world.

The true figure is closer to 2.4 million, as attested by figures here .  These figures are from the American Religious Identification Survey, 2008 and the US Census Department, February 2009.

I assume that CAIR and the likes of the Canadian Muslimams use the higher figure because the more the number of Muslims, the greater their political clout.  As it is, they punch well above their weight....

Massacre of the innocents

"Massacre of the Innocents", 1611-12, by Peter Paul Rubens.  

This gloriously bizarre blancmange of bottoms and titties reminds me rather of the lovely Charles de Steubens painting that's the header for my blog.  And also brings to mind that if the pantie-bomber had succeeded, nearly 300 people would have perished on Flight 253 on Christmas day. But how many of them would have been "innocents"?

Elementary, my dear Meeker: all of them, right?  Right?  Well, no, not if you're certain Muslim scholars.  

I've commented before that some Muslims (those that know their scripture) say that only Muslims are innocent; the very fact of being a non-believer renders one non-innocent.

Here's another spectacular case of that view, this time from imams in Canada, the "Muslimams", I call them.  They have spoken out against terrorist attacks on Canada and the US.  Because terrorist acts like pantie-bombing planes could lead to massacre of innocents, right?  Well, not really.  They're against attacks on north America because that might inadvertently be an attack on Muslims living in the United States! How thoughtful and compassionate.

The Merry Prankster gets it right

Stewart Brand is that rare thing, a Greenie who gets it right; in other words, he agrees with me....

One of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters of "Electric Kool Aid Acid Test" fame, the founder of the Whole Earth Catalogue of 1968 --- remember that, you sixties hippies?  That great big, floppy, black and white, somewhat puzzling "book", what was it for, to sell us stuff, or to sell us concepts, communes, in any case, to sell us the sixties hippies westcoastamerica grooviness -- Stewart Brand now talks about how he and the green movement has got it all wrong about GM and nuclear power.  And promotes geoengineering.

I came across him most recently in an article, of all places, in the Financial Times . In the video below he talks at a recent TED conference about his  four "heresies" (put aside 18 minutes to check it out):

1. Urbanise
   
2. Expand Nuclear Power
   
3. Grow Genetically engineered plants
   
4. Start Geo-engineering to keep us kool...

Update: Video no longer available.

[Hmmm.... the applause at the end, seems rather polite than effusive, don't you think?  They may not be ready for the message.  Why don't they look at the science?....]

Connecting the dots. Not...(II)

More articles claim that it’s unreasonable to have expected the intel communities to have connected the dots on the pantie-bomber [yesterday's here ]. There’s so much intel out there, the view goes, that it’s virtually impossible to pinpoint one single guy as a candidate for aerial knicker-plosion. 

Connecting the dots is a lousy metaphor says Eugene Robinson and creates “unrealistic expectations”.  Nonsense.  It’s not that the info on Abdulmutallab was there, but that it was there in such profusion that means the expectation to have found him was not only not unrealistic; it was fully, completely, 100% justified:  they shoulda got him, simple as that.

Maureen Dowd is a bona fide member of the liberal MSM (aka a “leftie”), an early Obama supporter, but even she lays into Obama, for being over cool on the issue, for not leading presidentially, instead of continuing to improve his golf.  She says there was just so much evidence out there about the undie-bomber that it’s staggering that the dots were not connected. 

And I agree. 

For heavens sake, when I was Intel assessment in the mid-eighties, we had a far higher proportion of information to computer capacity than there is today.  Over half a million “terrorism-related entities” [the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE] list may seem a lot, but it’s nothing for today’s computing power.  An Amazon or a Yahoo handle that many in half a day.  Amazon’s smart relational software tells me what I bought last time and what “people like you” bought and what I might like to think of buying. 

Why can’t there be the algorithm in the government’s computers that popped up something each day, each hour, each minute on the screen of analysts saying “a person like the 9/11 or the 7/11 or Richard Reid, [or whoever], has just appeared: check him out please”.  And then the order goes out: don’t give him a visa and if he has one cancel it and if he tries to board a plane, let us know, but don’t let him”. 

Counter-terrorism Deputy Head John Brennan has said that the government has more computational power than Facebook. Think of the smart connections Facebook can make. Well then. It must only be the poor record of IT in government service, the poor record of government in coordinating, that would make smart pop-ups like that I suggest above "unrealistic”. Incompetence, indolence, in other words; not the putative “too much info there” to connect the dots. 

There may also be another factor: that of concern for litigation. In his book “Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad”, Andrew McCarthy says that the FBI had a mole in al-Qaeda before the 911 attacks. He was giving good, hard, relevant intel well before the bombing of the WTC.  But they let him go before the attack because they were concerned about the litigation there might be if it were found out that they had such a mole but had still failed to stop the attack (!!).  “Imagine the liability!” was the call.  They let the informant go, figuring better to have no asset in place and therefore no way to be blamed, rather than to have an asset in place, miss the bombing and be litigated to penury or jail….  

Sad one that and how to handle in the litigious US?.....

The twelve days after Christmas

Have just come across this bit of post Christmas cheer...

Neighbour and mate Peter Sherwood has letter in today's South China Morning Post. As an atheist of over 50 years' standing, I'm along for the ride on this, though I don't think all religions are the same, any more than all political parties are the same.

Peter likes the "End of Faith", by Sam Harris, I know, but Harris too makes a distinction:

"While my argument in this book is aimed at faith itself, the differences between faiths are as relevant as they are unmistakable.  There is reason, after all, why we must now confront Muslim, rather than Jain terrorists, in every corner of the world.    Jains do not believe anything that is remotely likely to inspire them to commit actis of suicidal violence against unbelievers.  By any measure... there are good beliefs and there are bad ones -- and it should now be obvious to everyone that Muslims have more than their fair share of the latter....

We are at war with Islam...."

-- Harris, Sam. The End of Faith,  W.W. Norton, 2004, p108-109

Criticism of religion can be a risky business

I refer to the letter by Chris Wilson ("The dark side of organised religion", January 3). There are three main large-scale drivers of man's inhumanity to man - nationalism, social engineering and religion. Religion is possibly the single greatest cause of human slaughter and tragedy throughout history and religious belief also plays a role in the death and destruction arising from the other two instigators. So many millions have died in religious conflict and yet all religions claim to be peaceful and ask for, and demand, respect. Respect for what? If one person ran around shouting the illogical, irrational, unfounded and empirically unproven beliefs held by the religious faithful he would be forced to seek psychiatric help. When a mass of people hold the same beliefs we are not allowed to criticise, and must treat these beliefs with dignity. Why should I be free to criticise anyone's beliefs and opinions about history, politics, physics and literature in the rational world, but not feel free to utter any criticism of their religious faith? When it comes to religious dogma, true freedom of expression is sidelined by common societal consent. Indeed, expressing my views on religion can get me killed. Peter Sherwood, Discovery Bay

Connecting the dots. Not... | Tracking Terrorism suspects

(Courtesy Appraise News )

Malcolm Gladwell writes in 2003 of the difficulty of connecting the dots in potential terrorism cases. 

(Hat-tip to PS for link to Gladwell)

It’s a kind of excuse a mea non culpa, if one slips through, as did anti-bomber Abdulmutallab.  In the case of Abdul though, I’d beg to differ.  I was in intelligence assessment in the eighties and we had well honed systems for bouncing up to our eyes items of importance from the vast sludge that flowed over our desks.  How much more should that capacity be decades later?  Moreover, Abdul signaled his intentions in so many different ways that there’s really no case for not having stopped him flying.

Once again: why can’t we have all the people on the much larger “persons of interest list”, one of some half million, put on the no-fly list.  Suspicion should be enough.  There’s no Allah-given right to fly.