Are Muslims The 'Enemy Within' ???

[krsna 3]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4325225.stm

 

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[theist 1]

The article mentioned that 80% polled associate the words muslim with terrorism. I wonder how many of the 20% were lying when they said no.

 

Get out a world map sometime and take note of all the placeson the world scene have a problem with Muslim terrorism.

 

And they wonder why people link the two. Silence means agreement.

[Guest guest]

Get out a world map and see where you find a spot without Capitalist terrorism, such as the WTO. WTO equals terrorism and the muslims fight back - their constitutional right, by the way. to then accuse them of terrorism is to play the man, not the ball.

[Guest guest]

sorry, i forgot to sign my last post. VdK

[theist 1]

Yeah right. The Islamofacists are justified in their jihad. I keep forgeting that one.

[rand0M aXiS 0]

Pakistan rape sparks rally of thousands

 

KHALID TANVEER

Associated Press

 

MULTAN, Pakistan - Thousands of women rallied in eastern Pakistan on Monday to demand justice and protection for a woman who said she was gang-raped at the direction of a village council, after a court ordered the release of her alleged attackers.

 

The victim, Mukhtar Mai, also attended the rally in Multan, a major city in the eastern province of Punjab.

 

Waving signs and chanting, the demonstrators, many of them from nearby villages, joined the rally. Organizer Farzana Bari said more than 3,000 women were at the event.

 

"We will fight for justice for Mukhtar Mai," the women chanted during the rally, while others carried placards reading: "Give protection to Mukhtar Mai."

 

Some 200 policemen observed the demonstration, which ended peacefully.

 

In June 2002, Mai said she was raped by four men on the orders of a village council that wanted to punish her family.

 

Mai's brother was accused of having sex with a woman from a more prominent family, though Mai's family says the allegations were fabricated to cover up a sexual assault against the boy by several men.

 

Mai, a 33-year-old school teacher, went public about her ordeal, drawing international media attention to widespread crimes against women in ultraconservative Pakistan. The government also pledged to track down her attackers.

 

A court later sentenced six men to death for Mai's rape.

 

An appeals court overturned the convictions of five of the men last week, citing lack of evidence, and reduced the other man's sentence to life in prison.

 

The government and Mai, who has expressed fears the acquitted men might target her for revenge, have said they will appeal to the Supreme Court.

 

Bari said her group, Pattan, a charity working with women in rural communities, will stand by Mai until she gets justice.

 

"We are with every woman who is oppressed and who face injustices," said Bari.

 

[theist 1]

Undoubtly a bit too much of a feminist for me, but the courage and boldness of Irshad Manji I find inspiring and admirable.

 

She has started Project Ijtihad (means independent thinking) in which she is openly challenging present Muslims to speak out against the Islamofacists who are defaming her religion.

 

http://muslim-refusenik.com/

[theist 1]

When asked in a letter why she calls herself a refusenik she repled:

 

Irshad replies: I see “refusenik” as a positive, not a negative, word. I’ve borrowed it from the original refuseniks – Soviet Jews who championed religious and personal freedom. Communist leaders punished thousands of refuseniks through hard labour and, sometimes, through cold murder. But the refuseniks persisted. Over time, their refusal to comply with the mechanisms of mind-control and soullessness helped end a totalitarian system. You might say that these refuseniks “opened things up.”

 

Likewise, I tip my hat the newer refuseniks — Israeli soldiers who protest the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. They want to unlock the physical and geographic cages in which Palestinians find themselves. Their ultimate aim is openness.

 

In the same spirit of conscientious dissent, I’m protesting the ideological occupation of Muslim minds. Being a Muslim refusenik, therefore, doesn’t mean merely resisting the gatekeepers of knowledge. It also means giving other Muslims the permission to think for themselves. Translation: opening the gates of ijtihad, or independent thinking. When those gates are opened, I’ll ask my French publisher to rename the book, Muslim AND Free. Until then, je suis musulmane MAIS libre.

 

 

[krsna 3]

 

By Arnaud . Borchgrave

UPI Editor at Large

Published 1/14/2004 4:35 PM

View printer-friendly version

 

 

WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- This could be Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare. Expelled from a madrasa (Koranic school) when she was 14, Irshad Manji's pretty face, sans scarf, graces the cover of her new book and its title -- "The Trouble with Islam" -- is written inside a strip of duct tape placed over her mouth.

 

"The reason for our stony silence vis a vis 9/11," she says, "is because Muslims are afraid to explore rationality. We have to rediscover independent thinking, which our religion does not tolerate. Islam has to come to terms with diversity. No one can be immune from universal human rights. The ill-treatment of women, Jew-bashing and the scourge of slavery are all part of fundamentalist Islam."

 

The book, published in the United States this week (St. Martin's Press), is a Muslim woman's call for reform of her faith. Her parents were refugees from Idi Amin's Uganda. They moved to Vancouver and Manji was sent to a local madrasa at the age of 8.

 

"Women are inferior and Jews are treacherous," were the two messages "drummed into us as children." She kept asking questions and the teacher kept on repeating that this was conduct unbecoming a Muslim girl. When she was 14, she asked him, "Where is the evidence for a Jewish conspiracy against Islam?" That got her expelled from the madrasa.

 

"If the Koran is a message of peace from Allah, why did his prophet slay an entire Jewish tribe?" she asks.

 

"Through our screaming self-pity and our conspicuous silences, we Muslims are conspiring against ourselves," she explains. "We're in crisis and we're dragging the rest of the world with us. If ever there was a moment for an Islamic reformation, it's now. For the love of God, what are we doing about it?"

 

"Who is the real colonizer of Muslims -- America or Arabia?" Manji asks. It's clearly Arabia in her mind. "Why are we all being held hostage by what's happening between the Palestinians and the Israelis?" Her questions are a steady cascade that flow from her key inquiry -- what's wrong with Islam? Manji doesn't spare the rod. "What's our excuse for reading the Koran literally when it's so contradictory and ambiguous?"

 

This clarion call for a fatwa-free future urges Muslims in the West to take the lead in updating Islam for the 21st century.

 

"Questions about the Koran won't get us into trouble with Western governments so why are we afraid?" she asked. She supplied her own answer when she said she had received several death threats.

 

"We must launch a global, non-military campaign to right the wrongs of our own dogmas," said the Canadian television personality and writer-in-residence at the University of Toronto. "How much longer can we Muslims tolerate the massive human rights violations committed in the name of ummah (global Muslim community)?" she asked. "I refuse to join an army of automatons in the name of God. I can't stay quiet in front of prejudice, oppression and intimidation."

 

Manji, 35, criticized French President Jacques Chirac for the position he took against Muslim girls wearing headscarves at school, which he condemned along with Jewish skullcaps and "large" Christian crosses. She also attacked the Palestinian Authority for squandering foreign funding and said she would be disingenuous if she said Iraq had not further radicalized Islam, because "it has."

 

When asked why the Muslim world has failed to produce a Martin Luther King Jr.-like figure to lead Islam out of its current predicament, Manji said, "What we need is a Martin Luther because we need to achieve a counter reformation to those who claim to be fundamentalist reformers."

 

The diminutive angry author believes the time is at hand to give Islam a second chance, "not by sweeping negatives under the rug, but in telling it like it is. Asking questions is our birthright. Freedom to explore means everyone and everything."

 

2001-2004 United Press International

[Guest guest]

The big honest question is, "What is wrong with Islam?" For it obviously seems to attract violence and appears to cultivate aggression as it grows from moderation to extremism.

Being honest to yourself is the Truth that will set you free, you won't lose God by being sincerely inquisitive. Don't just blindly accept the behaviour of so called leaders if they don't produce compassion, humility and honor to others.

Dump 'em, if they are wolves in sheeps clothing, get yourself to a path and place where your freedom to choose your way to God is respected, and where there is a support sanga that will protect the pursecuted. Love conquers all fear just further divides all.

God may well be the only autocrat but He is a loving autocrat, not a threatening one like the old Chistians that tried to bind you to your faith or else, you'll rot in hell.

[Guest guest]

Muslims issue bin Laden fatwa

AFP ^ | March 11, 2005 | AFP

 

SPAIN'S Islamic Commission said today it was issuing a decree against al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, in the name of whose network last year's Madrid train bombings were claimed.

 

"We are going to issue a fatwa (religious decree) against bin Laden this afternoon," said Mansour Escudero, who leads the Federation of Islamic religious entities (Feeri) and is co-secretary general of the Spanish governmenmt-created commission. The commission invited Spanish-based imams (clerics) to condemn terrorism at Friday prayers, when the whole country will be remembering the 191 people who were killed in the train blasts and the 1900 injured exactly 12 months ago.

 

The attacks have been blamed on mainly Moroccan Islamic extremists loyal to bin Laden.

 

"We have called on imams to make a formal declaration condemning terrorism and for a special prayer for all the victims of terrorism," Mr Escudero said.

 

The commission has also drawn up a document designed to "thank the Spanish people and the government for their attitude towards Muslims" since last March 11, in particular for not taking "disproportionate" measures similar to those which the September 11 attacks sparked in the United States.

 

The commission called on Muslims to take part in Friday's commemorative programme being organised by Spanish authorities and community groups and to work with them to ensure terrorism was defeated.

 

According to Muslim associations, there are some 230,000 immigrant Muslims in Spain, mostly in the north-eastern region of Catalonia, in addition to some 260,000 native Spaniards who profess the faith.

 

 

 

[rand0M aXiS 0]

Above post is mine.

[krsna 3]

O'Connor: The Senior Conservative

by Dick O'Connor

 

 

What's Wrong with Islam?

 

In one word, it is a theocracy in certain Muslim nations. That means when push comes to shove (government vs. religion), you must always come down on the side of religion. We have all been there. The Catholics during the colonization of North and South America, the Protestants during the Reformation, the Jewish people during the time of David. We have been there and have discarded theocracy in favor of Nationalism and even Patriotism. Our country comes before the dictates of any Pope or Bishop or Rabbi or Mullah.

 

Not so with Islam. Witness the photo carried in many newspapers of the Muslim girl at O'Hare who is suing (with the legal help of the ACLU) because she did not want to remove her head scarf to allow implementation of the safety search to prevent another World Trade Center attack. The girl was not stupid. She is a graduate of Ohio State University at Columbus Ohio. She refused to cooperate with the screeners because she wanted to cause a disturbance. Her religion tells her that she is above the law, that she can disobey all she wants to, if she is abiding by the Koran. This is blatant defiance of Patriotism in favor of Islam.

 

As long as Patriotism is secondary to international Islam, these people will not be welcome here. If our nation did not survive, who would protect the beliefs of the Muslims? The logic of their defiance escapes me. Tolerance is not equivalent to Defiance. Where would the ACLU stand if the nation crumbles? If this nation became Islamic, would the ACLU be there to protect Christians and Jews?

 

You can see what I'm pointing our. The Mullahs (clergy) of Islam must be told in no uncertain terms that America comes first! Even their own freedom to practice the Islamic faith depends on this axiom. As Americans, we are duty bound to defend our nation. We must 'shun' the Muslims, boycott them, and refuse to go along with their customs and generally oppose them. Is this discrimination? Of course. We discriminate a thousand times a day. At the fruit market we pick the best fruit and discriminate against the poorer offerings. At the barbershop, we wait for our favorite barber. When we pick a mate, we discriminate against the ones we did not choose. Is this wrong? Or is it intelligence? The same intelligence applies here. Why should we have anything to do with a population that does not put America first?

 

There are nations that are predominately Muslim, where the Mullahs do not rule. Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan are examples. There are other Muslim nations where the mullahs rule with an iron hand. Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia come to mind. Afghanistan was the worst example with the Taliban showing the way at the bidding of Mullah Omar. All the nations of this group were Bedouins and were sheepherder tribesmen before we started buying oil from them. They are the principal bad guys in this mix. How do you deal with tribal chiefs? Their word cannot be trusted. Witness all of the broken contracts and 'escaped' Taliban fighters that we wanted to question/.

 

When people of this nature are allowed into our country at the urging of the Democrats, what would you expect? The Democrats are looking for more votes to pass their Socialist agenda and they are relaxing our immigration laws. The Muslims are an unwelcome addition to our population!

 

No one is recommending violence and cruelty to this group. But we constantly read and hear from the Media that we must learn to understand these people. In the morning paper today, there was a photo of a Muslim teacher (with a headscarf), instructing a group of elementary teachers in Muslim customs and culture. Who sets these things up? We know that the leftist Media encourages and promotes such meetings. We are supposed to accept ideas which are foreign to us. Just because of a religion? No one asked the Muslim teachers if they recited the Pledge of Allegiance in the classes they teach in their local Mosque. `Would you like to place any money on a bet that the Pledge of Allegiance is a part of the Muslim school day?

 

-------------------------

 

Permission granted to publish or broadcast this column in whole or part with attribution to WebToday.

 

©2002 WebToday

 

[theist 1]

Yes it is about time. Still not much from the Muslims in the US. It is hard not to wonder how many are in a sleeper cell of some sort as silence means agreement.

[rand0M aXiS 0]

<h3>France Says Anti-Veil Law Success, Muslims Complain</h3>

Reuters ^ | 03/15/05 | Tom Heneghan

 

Tue Mar 15, 2005 11:55 AM ET

 

By Tom Heneghan PARIS (Reuters) - A senior official declared France's law against Muslim headscarves in schools a success on Tuesday, one year after the bill was passed, while a pro-veil group said the new line had claimed what it called 806 victims.

 

Hanifa Cherifi, inspector general at the Education Ministry, said the law had eased tensions at state schools and reconfirmed the separation of church and state as an essential rule.

 

After the stormy debate over the law, France now understood its Muslim population better and was more able to distinguish between radicals and moderates, she said.

 

"In terms of the numbers, the result is quite positive," Cherifi told Radio France Internationale. "Beyond that, the general atmosphere is quite positive and satisfactory for all, both the schools and the pupils. We are quite pleased."

 

"Remember what it was like before this law. For the past 15 years, we had permanent tensions, sessions in administrative courts, headlines that gave France a terrible image."

 

The March 15 Freedom Committee, a Muslim group supporting schoolgirls who defied the law, said in a report that 806 pupils had been what it called "victims" of the new policy.

 

It said 47 had been expelled from school and 533 agreed under pressure to shed their headscarves and were now "in a deplorable psychological state," said the report cited in the daily Le Monde.

 

To continue wearing their headscarves, others had dropped out of school, switched to correspondence courses or moved to countries such as Britain, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Turkey where they are not banned in schools, it said.

 

SEPARATING RADICALS FROM MODERATES

 

France passed the law last March and applied it at the reopening of school in September to check what teachers said was the growing influence of radical Islamic groups among disaffected Muslim youths.

 

Some Islamic groups opposed the law, which includes Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses but was mainly aimed at Muslim headscarves, but kept quiet when it was applied last September as a sign of support for two French hostages in Iraq.

 

Cherifi questioned the committee's figures and cited Education Ministry statistics showing that 639 pupils -- "and not just veiled young girls," she said -- came to state schools last September wearing banned clothing.

 

Education Minister Francois Fillon said in January that 48 pupils had been banned for wearing religious symbols, including three Sikh boys who refused to remove their turbans.

 

Cherifi said reaffirming the official separation of church and state, which Muslim activists have criticized as too strict, had helped France get through the latest headscarf controversy.

 

"I have 15 years of experience with the headscarf issue and we have had tenser periods than this," she said.

 

Contrary to warnings the Muslims would revolt if headscarves were banned, most have accepted the policy, she said, adding: "We have a more realistic view of this population now. We can identify the radical currents and the moderate currents."

[theist 1]

Going way too far with this one. I finished my senior year in high school with a shaved head and sikha. I am sure they would ban that too.

 

Crosses skullcaps headscarves and Sikh tubans. These people are demons. So the girls like to be modest in public. That is now not allowed. While young girls and women are showing up looking like prostitutes with bare midrifs and jeans that fit below the pelvic bone. That's ok, but nothing that might remind someone of God.

 

This is the tolerant left in action. Tolerate anything but God.

[Guest guest]

I get a little sick to the stomach, how everyone parrots the media about muslim terrorists.

THIS IS AN OXYMORON! a muslim is by definition no terrorist and a terrorist is by definition not a muslim. they are mutually exclusive.

the patterns repeats - first dehumanise, then demonise and so the impersonal aspect takes over. being anti arab is being anti-semite, since both people are semitic, if you like bodily designations so much.

Now you all wake up to reality please and realise THE WAR ON TERROR IS A WAR AGAINST PEOPLE AND WILL ONLY BEGET MORE TERROR.

there is no fool so stupid as the one with a little brains. he is momentarily the president of the USA.

you amurrikans have allowed the bush bunch to steal the elections twice. if you don't stand up, you deserve to be ruled like that. please come away from even that physical designation and kick out that man in the white house. then you have won the war on terrorism.

VdK.

[krsna 3]

 

 

 

by Nonie Darwish

 

In Moslem culture, during the Daheyah (Sacrifice) feast, Moslems bring a lamb into the home for a ritual slaughter accompanied by the invocation 'Allahu Akbar', in the presence of the family and the children. Now we see the Daheyah of Radical Islam to be Jews such as Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl, who were beheaded with no mercy, accompanied by the same pious invocation. This is a perversion of Islam, but don't expect an apology.

 

To expect Arab and Moslem leadership to apologize for the barbaric murder of Nick Berg is a reflection of the West's naove and wrong expectations of Arab culture. In the Arab world to take responsibility and say sorry is taken as an unmanly sign of weakness that may get a person into more trouble. Those who admit guilt, even if it is accidental, are given no mercy and may end up taking all the blame and being brutally punished. It is the norm for Arabs to deny a fact (however blatant) and blame others rather than admit to the wrongdoing and apologize. Honesty is not rewarded.

 

Bush apologized for the humiliation and abuse of Iraqi prisoners. His apology was taken by the Arab media and the 'Arab Street' as an admission of guilt and a sign of weakness. It was not appreciated as taking responsibility to find out the truth behind the events that happened due to the actions of a few Americans.

 

If 19 Americans had committed a terrorist act comparable to 9/11, and belonged to a terrorist American network against any nation on earth, the reactions on all sides would have been very different than what we have seen, due to our cultural differences. Any sitting US president would apologize and take immediate action to stop the terror coming from America. Americans would be outraged. In our 'politically correct' liberal culture, the media and academia would urge all of our citizens to a collective self-psychoanalysis, to uncover the 'root causes' of how WE could have caused such evil behavior. They might find the American terrorists to be victims of the American culture that drove them to become monsters, and will blame themselves and everything American for their behavior. A cultural war will break out with each camp blaming the other for the creation of American terrorists. Money to fund studies will start pouring into college campuses and think tanks to get to the bottom of the issue.

 

This is not the case in the Arab World.

 

Terrorism is the direct result of the radical Islamist culture that is flourishing all over the Arab world and promoted by Arab media, governments, educational system and religious leaders. Terrorists are given training camps, money, power and respect for doing God's work for Jihad. Arabs' understand that they cannot win a war against the West and all they can succeed doing is to indoctrinate one generation after another for martyrdom. Their secret weapon is the anger and rage of the Arab street. It is a powerful weapon that they treasure, and they will not allow the West to unmask the lies of the daily dose of fear and anger fed to the beast on the Arab Street waiting for the next explosion. How can anyone expect them to apologize for a deep-rooted cultural and religious mission to defeat or kill infidels, especially Jews?

 

Most Arabs still blame Israel for 9/11 and even 3/11 in Spain. How can we expect these countries to sincerely cooperate with the international community to end terror and its barbaric brutality? Americans should stop judging other cultures with the American value system, and especially stop expecting Arab/Moslem culture to respond rationally according to Western standards. Arab power is derived from oil, terror and manipulative PR campaigns. They know it and we know it, so let us stop kidding each other with false expectations.

 

Most Arabs do understand America's current dilemma in Iraq and they do not want to sincerely help. They know we want to leave honorably after stabilizing the situation and a new Iraqi democratic government is in business. We set a date in June to hand over power.

 

You would think that if they sincerely want America to leave they would be at their best behavior in order for the US to have no excuse and leave, but the opposite is happening. They have increased their violence and attacks and brutality. Many say 'we want a Vietnam with America' and can't wait for an excuse to exhibit rage and violence. Arab media and the power behind it are promoting a bloody scenario. They want to see America leave humiliated even if Iraqis benefited by the removal of Saddam and even if it is at the expense of the Iraqi people and the region.

 

Above all they do not want to see America, a non-Moslem Superpower, as the cause for Iraq's wellbeing, especially when all the Arab countries stood by doing nothing to stop Saddam's brutal regime.

 

Only Arabs leaders should be heroes in the Arab world; not Bush. It is a matter of pride.

 

Arab media understand that America has no desire to occupy Iraq, but they never miss an opportunity to give the raging masses their daily dose of fear of America. "America wants to hand over the keys of Iraq to Sharon" was a recent heading in Egyptian newspapers. Arab games are exposed and our leftist media should not cover up the game.

 

There are many reasons for Arab and Moslem silence.

 

However, fear of speaking out is no longer a credible excuse. Day in and day out all we see out of the Arab world is anger, revenge and a culture out of control.

 

The Arab street is afraid of Arab leaders and Arab leaders afraid of the Arab street; and both can only get out their frustration on America, Europe, Israel and innocent victims such as Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl.

 

[Guest guest]

A good assessment of what the world is dealing with. Too bad the white house can't understand this.

Who do you think is prepared to sacrifice more lives?