"Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against The West" - Abridged Version

This twelve minute summary of "Obsession:Radical Islam's War Against the West" is provided as an introduction. Understanding the barbaric nature of fundamentalist Islam should be the first priority of westerners who wish to preserve the only enlightened civilisation on modern earth. www.ObsessionTheMovie.com

Jihad: A History (Part 4 of 4)

Conclusion of Jihad History series. Primitive muslim culture feeds into violence and jihad. The barbarians are more vital and more prolific than more intelligent but more decadent westerners. The west has grown soft and politically correct--a pushover for a more aggressive and atavistic civilisation--n'est-ce pas? There is only one weakness contained within the putsch for muslim supremacist world control. More on that later.

Jihad: A History (Part 3 of 4)

Continuing with the history of bloody mindless jihad, from the Israeli response to growing Palestinain terror in Lebanon in 1982 onward. Islam=Jihad=Barbaric Terrorism. That is the salient equation coming from mosques around the world today. Islamic supremacism via the destruction of the "infidel" world. Islamic world conquest through bomb, bullet, and rusty knife.. Paradoxically, it is the prolific muslim womb that is laying the foundation for the deaths of millions that is to come from jihad in the near future.

Jihad: A History (Part 2 of 4)

Beginning with the overthrow of the Shah, Part 2 demonstrates how a failure by a weak US administration to respond to Shia fanaticism in Iran has led to the violence that has happened since.

Jihad: A history (Part 1 of 4)

Jihad has a long history. But the main thing to understand about jihad is that it is about destruction and killing--nothing else. Muslims may claim that jihad is meant to be about "internal struggle" but honestly, who are they kidding? Themselves?

North Korea - Children of the Secret State

North Korea demonstrates communism in its truest form--strong-arm dictatorship totalitarianism. Sure, I know Marx had other ends in mind when he browbeat all the others in his circle who disagreed with him. He had the noblest ends in mind when he forced his views on his fellows. Lenin had nobler ends in mind as well. My question is: who has the courage to step in and call the experiment what it is--an abysmal failure?

The Government--Not Your Friend: Hear the Baron

Baron Bodissey at Gates of Vienna blog has laid out a manifesto for non-governmental action by private citizens against the threat of encroaching barbarism that is islamism. For those who, like me, think governments are too deeply into appeasement and political correctness to do their citizens much good in this clash of civilisations, consider what the good Baron says:

* The legacy media control the view that most of the public has of what happens in the “War on Terror”.
* They want us to lose because Republicans are in charge.
* Therefore they threw the election to the Democrats.
* Thus we will get what we voted for from our elected officials: retreat, denial, passivity, appeasement, and dhimmitude.


But that’s just the government that I’m talking about, and the government is not where the action is now. The synchronicity of the election and my involvement with the 910 Group has opened a view into a whole new way of doing things. If we wait for the government to do things, we are doomed. If we expect the government to follow the prudent course and prosecute the Counterjihad with the appropriate zeal, we are living in a fantasy world.

The government is constrained by political reality, and political reality is conditioned (if not generated) by the MSM, so we are stuck with a useless government. Eventually the new media will supplant the old, and our viewpoints will become more like the norm. At that point elections might start to reflect what the majority of people really feel about Islam, multiculturalism, and illegal immigrants (a.k.a. “undocumented Democrats”). But we’ve got at least another ten years before that happens.

In the meantime, our Western governments — with the possible exception of Denmark and Australia — are going to be more of a hindrance than a help in fighting the information war against the Jihad. As I’ve said on numerous occasions, we’re on our own.
- - - - - - - - - -
But that’s our big advantage. Getting the government to react to an info-attack from the terrorists (via their media or CAIR surrogates) is like trying to turn a battleship to avoid a torpedo. As we form our networks we create new response mechanisms which can assess and counter the enemy’s offensives at the same speed at which the enemy operates.

More over at Gates of Vienna.

The challenge at this time is devising ways that concerned westerners can participate in effective action against the barbarians without having to wait till hell freezes over for their governments to act. The Baron has ideas. So do others. If Bush accomplished just one worthwhile thing with his presidency, it may just be focusing the efforts of violent jihadi supremacists on Iraq--where they largely self-destruct--while slow witted westerners belatedly come to their senses and recognize the need to act outside their governments.

An Arab Woman Speaks from her Heart About Dysfunctional Arab Culture

Brigitte Gabriel lived through the demographic changes in Lebanon that brought Beirut and the country from being the "Paris of the middle east" to being another one of the hellholes of the middle east.

Follow this link to view a talk given by Ms. Gabriel detailing many events from her own life that led her to her current occupation as a warning voice against encroaching barbarism.

Test yourself to see if you can handle the truth. If you can hear Ms. Gabriel out, perhaps you can.

Hat tip to Gandalf at Infidel Bloggers.

Orson Scott Card Speaks! Author of Ender's Game Talks about the Next American Civil War and Other World Disasters

Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow are two of my favourite science fiction books. So when author Orson Scott Card speaks about his new book Empire, and other things that concern him, I don't mind taking the time to hear him out. Card comes to us courtesy of the Glenn and Helen Show. It's really quite good.

Read about his new book Empire here.

Nancy Pelosi is Turning Out to be Every Bit the Flake We Thought She Was

US Speaker of the House-elect Nancy Pelosi is simply not up to her job. She looks to set back the cause of women in government several decades, if she continues the way she has started.

It looks like the democrats in the US Congress should have given the republicans two more years to screw things up. Then they would have had a much better chance to win it all. As it is, the screwups who will be in charge of the next US Congress will give even hardened lifelong democrats second thoughts when they step into the voting booth.

Sharia law is primitive tribalism based on medieval bedouin mores. This would have been a defeat for western civilisation. Oh Canada! indeed. How can you flirt with such a retreat into primitivism?

Hating Whitey--Political Correctness in the Nude

Anyone who pays attention to post-modernist political correctness cannot help but notice the racist undercurrent of the leftist multicult point of view. The indefagitable Fjordman undresses the racist left, garment by garment.

....In London, an elderly driver who had a heart attack careered into a bus. Here you had a dying man, people trying to save him and police trying to clear the scene. Meanwhile, black youths at the scene just wanted to fight the cops. They shouted, ‘Who cares — it’s just a white man’.”

The incident confirmed my suspicion that some of those who keep talking about “Dead White Males,” meaning basically every great Western thinker in history, are actually lamenting the fact that not all white males are, well, dead.

Source.

Go to the link above and read more. You will never hear such rude truths spoken on the mainstream media. Not on CNN, not on Fox News, not on MSNBC, not on BBC, not on CBC.

Arabs--It's Frightening How Alien They Really Are!

Here is a fascinating account of the experience of someone who recently spent a year teaching English in Saudi Arabia. Read it and you will begin to understand the huge cultural gulf between the modern world and the arab world. Simply amazing.

Pallywood

A revealing look behind the scenes at how to fake the news. You will not look at footage from Palestine the same ever again.

We Call it the Ramadan Shuffle

For the third night in a row, Ramadan rioting has been the favoured activity of muslim immigrants in the capital of Europe, Brussels. The youths can apparently not imagine a more appropriate means of celebrating the holy month of Ramadan.

The riots centered on the Brussels Marollen quarter and the area near the Midi Train Station, where the international trains from London and Paris arrive. Youths threw stones at passing people and cars, windows of parked cars were smashed, bus shelters were demolished, cars were set ablaze, a youth club was arsoned and a shop was looted. Two molotov cocktails were thrown into St.Peter’s hospital, one of the main hospitals of central Brussels.

....The immigrant youths claim that they are upset by the death of Fayçal Chaaban, a 25-year old criminal, in a Brussels prison last Sunday.

....The authorities are especially nervous since the Belgian municipal elections are being held on Sunday October 8th. It is likely that the elections will be won by anti-immigrant, “islamophobic” parties.

Source.

Yes, I would consider it likely that anti-immigrant parties would win many elections after all this rioting, as long as the polls close before the end of that day's fast. Otherwise a massacre of the voters and burning of the polls might take place.

Will the late Oriana Fallaci's predictions of the now and future "Eurabia" (Europe as the Gaza Strip) be proven sadly true? Far more likely than a global warming catastrophe, I warrant you, but far less likely to make the news in North America.

A Partial Unveiling of Islam

Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam: Author interview. Robert Spencer answers questions about his scrupulously researched expose.

The Lighter Side of Jihadi and Leftist Lunacy

For those who cannot help but pause in amused disbelief at the latest antics of moonbats and jihadis, this website is custom made for the comic relief that helps relatively sane people maintain their sanity in a patently insane world.

With satirical features designed to highlight the humour contained within the absurdity, The People's Cube allows readers to achieve a more expansive mental state in spite of themselves. Highly recommended.

The Ant Bully: Introduction to Anthill Socialism

Now even toddlers can learn about politically correct social justice! They are never too young for indoctrination into the collective, comrade.

Role-Playing Islam in Schools--Stop Pussy-Footing And go Hard Core!

There are some public school districts inside the US that have implemented a 3-week program of Islamic role-playing, as a way of teaching american students about other cultures. But in the truest traditions of multiculturalism, they watered Islam down into an inoffensive, wimpish, unrecognizable sissy-culture that has nothing to do with the real world.

The 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco ruled that muslim role-playing exercises in tax funded schools are okay:

In a recent federal decision that got surprisingly little press, even from conservative talk radio, California's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it's OK to put public-school kids through Muslim role-playing exercises, including:

Reciting aloud Muslim prayers that begin with "In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful . . . ."

Memorizing the Muslim profession of faith: "Allah is the only true God and Muhammad is his messenger."

Chanting "Praise be to Allah" in response to teacher prompts.

Professing as "true" the Muslim belief that "The Holy Quran is God's word."

Giving up candy and TV to demonstrate Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.

Designing prayer rugs, taking an Arabic name and essentially "becoming a Muslim" for two full weeks.

Parents of seventh-graders, who after 9-11 were taught the pro-Islamic lessons as part of California's world history curriculum, sued under the First Amendment ban on religious establishment. They argued, reasonably, that the government was promoting Islam.

But a federal judge appointed by President Clinton told them in so many words to get over it, that the state was merely teaching kids about another "culture."

So the parents appealed. Unfortunately, the most left-wing court in the land got their case. The 9th Circuit, which previously ruled in favor of an atheist who filed suit against the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, upheld the lower court ruling.

The decision is a major victory for the multiculturalists and Islamic apologists in California and across the country who've never met a culture or religion they didn't like — with the exception of Western civilization and Christianity. They are legally in the clear to indoctrinate kids into the "peaceful" and "tolerant" religion of Islam, while continuing to denigrate Judeo-Christian values.

Source.

The pathetically diluted form of "Islam" presented to school children said nothing about it being okay to rape girls who do not wear the hijab. The absurdly unrealistic "role-playing" did not include honour killings or shahid suicide bombings of civilian women and children. Somehow they forgot to teach the children about going away to Iran, Syria, or Pakistan to learn terrorist tactics, or ways of betraying your fellow american citizens to a supremacist, alien culture.

Why did the public school system's particular style of role-playing choose to omit some of the most salient aspects of the most expansive forms of Islam in existence at this time? Why not role-play a "consciousness raising session" where the masses are driven to a homicidal frenzy over a few cartoons? Why not teach Sharia in its pure and undiluted form? Were they afraid that genuine exposure to a foreign culture would not fit into "multicultural ideals?"

Why not role-play a school fire where religious policemen forbid the girls from leaving the burning building because they were not properly attired for public viewing--resulting in the burning deaths of several girls? Why not role-play a child caught shoplifting candy and given a sentence of hand amputation for the crime? Why not role-play a girl's honour killing for innocently talking to a boy in public who is not a family member? Why not simulate a child walking into a pizza shop full of civilian teenage boys and girls, and blowing himself up and killing dozens and wounding dozens more? Why not role-play a thirteen year old girl being married to a much older cousin for economic reasons, and being taught to submit to her husband in all things.What is the problem with accurate depiction of a death-worshiping culture, if you are going to teach multiculturalism? Why not get real--go hard core?

What would the 9th Circuit Court say about a role-playing exercise that follows the reality of the death-loving culture much more closely? What would most school districts in the US say about such an exercise?

A Modest Proposal: A Day Under Islam

Most school children in the western world have little direct knowledge of what a life under Islam would be like. Since it is impractical to send western school children to an Islamic country such as Saudi Arabia or Iran, to experience living under Islam directly, I submit that it would be highly beneficial to these children to enact "A Day Under Islam."

Saudi Arabia and Iran are the appropriate models for Islam, being both the leading proponents for the particular sect of Islam each is known for, and also being the two nations that spend the most money to propagate their own brands of expansive Islam to other parts of the world.

Here is how "A Day Under Islam" would work:

1. Girls and boys would be separated, with a partition erected between the girls' and boys' sections of the classroom.

2. Girls would be appropriately dressed, with hijab, and instructed on proper modest behaviour expected from females under Islam. Instruction in math and sciences, as well as any instruction about the outer world, would be curtailed in favour of religious instruction into the proper behaviour of girls and young women.

3. Boys would likewise be instructed on proper allegiance to Islam above all other factors. Instruction in math and science would be curtailed, and all instruction dealing with history, social science, and other subjects, would be taught through the prism of Islamic rules and teachings.

4. Girls would be instructed that their highest goal is to submit to their husbands in everything. They would be taught to expect spousal beatings as a normal part of marriage, and not to complain.

5. Boys would be instructed in their stewardship over women and children, and the need for their families--particularly the women--to submit to them.

6. Boys would be taught that martyrdom is the ultimate service to Allah, and to Islam. The beauty of martyrdom is emphasised together with the rewards that come to the shahid (martyr).

7. Girls will be taught not to talk to boys who are not members of their close family. The penalty for fraternisation with outside males is severe, and may include death by the hand of family members.

8. Boys are taught that homosexuals should be killed, and women and girls who bring dishonour to their families should be killed.

9. Boys will be taught that the laws of civil society are not to be obeyed unless there is no conflict with the extended rules and laws of Sharia, and other customs of Islam and arab/Iranian tribal custom.

10. Girls are taught to submit to their fathers in all things, and not to speak of what their fathers or brothers may do to them, except to their father or mother--and that at the risk of bringing dishonour to their family--insuring their own deaths.

Below is a list of rules that restrict a woman's behaviour in Islam:

1- Complete ban on women's work outside the home, which also applies to female teachers, engineers and most professionals. Only a few female doctors and nurses are allowed to work in some hospitals in Kabul.

2- Complete ban on women's activity outside the home unless accompanied by a mahram (close male relative such as a father, brother or husband).

3- Ban on women dealing with male shopkeepers.

4- Ban on women being treated by male doctors.

5- Ban on women studying at schools, universities or any other educational institution. (Taliban have converted girls' schools into religious seminaries.)

6- Requirement that women wear a long veil (Burqa), which covers them from head to toe.

7- Whipping, beating and verbal abuse of women not clothed in accordance with Taliban rules, or of women unaccompanied by a mahram.

8- Whipping of women in public for having non-covered ankles.

9- Public stoning of women accused of having sex outside marriage. (A number of lovers are stoned to death under this rule).

10- Ban on the use of cosmetics. (Many women with painted nails have had fingers cut off).

11- Ban on women talking or shaking hands with non-mahram males.

12- Ban on women laughing loudly. (No stranger should hear a woman's voice).

13- Ban on women wearing high heel shoes, which would produce sound while walking. (A man must not hear a woman's footsteps.)

14- Ban on women riding in a taxi without a mahram.

15- Ban on women's presence in radio, television or public gatherings of any kind.

16- Ban on women playing sports or entering a sport center or club.

17- Ban on women riding bicycles or motorcycles, even with their mahrams.

18- Ban on women's wearing brightly colored clothes. In Taliban terms, these are "sexually attracting colors."

19- Ban on women gathering for festive occasions such as the Eids, or for any recreational purpose.

20- Ban on women washing clothes next to rivers or in a public place.

21- Modification of all place names including the word "women." For example, "women's garden" has been renamed "spring garden".

22- Ban on women appearing on the balconies of their apartments or houses.

23- Compulsory painting of all windows, so women can not be seen from outside their homes.

24- Ban on male tailors taking women's measurements or sewing women's clothes.

25- Ban on female public baths.

26- Ban on males and females traveling on the same bus. Public buses have now been designated "males only" (or "females only").

27- Ban on flared (wide) pant-legs, even under a burqa.

28- Ban on the photographing or filming of women.

29- Ban on women's pictures printed in newspapers and books, or hung on the walls of houses and shops.

Source.

Here are some divorce rules:

* The husband can divorce his wife whenever he wants, if the marriage is consumed, the divorced woman has to stay three months at the man's house before having the authorization to leave. The man has the ability to retract by having sex within these three months.
* The woman who desires to be divorced needs the consent of her husband, if he consents she has to pay back the dowry.
* Under certain circumstances (abused...), the wife may ask the judge to separate the couple.
* If a man divorces his wife three times, he can no longer marry her again unless she marries with another man and then divorces.

Source.

Here is some further information on the raising of girls within Islam:

Girls in Islamic communities are brought up in a way that they would clearly know their place in the family and in society. They must be taught from the very young age that they are inferior; that they must obey their male guardians and that they must keep their beauties hidden behind the veil until a man buys the license to use them. The most effective and visual way of doing this is by forcing young girls to wear the Islamic Hijab (veil) which is not only conveying the required message, but also hinders physical movements and naturally calms the young girl down and teaches them to behave like proper Muslim women.

....The long dresses and scarves deprive the skin and hair from the sun and air and will cause skin problems and hair damage. Alopecia and skull itch is very common among women and girls who have to wear veil for long hours. Wearing scarf is particularly uncomfortable for young girls as the scarf pulls the hair with each movement of the head and irritates the child. In the hot summer days wearing a scarf means loads of sweating and uneasiness. Children will loose their interest in playing after a wile as it is not fun running around in heavy long clothing and sweating under a scarf. Grown women under the pressure of being caged inside a moving prison day after day, will grow depressed and unnerved. In addition to the above is the fact that the Islamic teaching discourages girls and women to laugh loudly and to dance in public and listen to music and to sing. A girls giggle or laugh may arouse a man and make him commit a sin. So a proper Muslim girl is taught to laugh covering her mouth and trying hard not to be heard. Laughing and playing and music and dancing are all the elements of a happy, cheerful life and without them or with such restrictions for having them, life would be a dull,
depressing and gloomy thing. Depression is a deniable fact in the lives of many young girls, who live under such restrictions. In Iran the percentage of suicides among young girls is very high. Many teenage girls, who don’t see a way out of their prison, are burning themselves every year.

....A young girl is brought up dreading sex. They put veil on her to (in their own view) save her from rape and sexual harassment. They tell her to be careful, to cover herself and not to do anything to attract men’s attention. Sex is considered a sin and women are usually taken responsible in rape cases, if a woman dares to speak out against it. Women’s feelings in this respect are completely ignored, they are not allowed to talk about their feelings, and they are not asked if they want to have sex or not, they are not told in many cases what is sex and how a human’s sexual system works. Purity and modesty discourages young women to talk about it.

According to Islamic culture man is the one who seeks and gets pleasure from sex. Women are told by Qoran and the Islamic Hadith to obey their husbands and go to him whenever he wishes so. There are several verses in Qoran about women being only a filed for men and that they will go to hell if they did not fulfil their husband’s sexual needs. Young women, who have hardly experienced any pleasure from their sexual intercourse, do grow weary, disappointed, bitter and unhappy about it. They get frequent lower abdomen pain after none pleasurable sexual intercourse, and develop constant back problems. They will soon loos any interest in sex and try to retire from a very young age. They find excuses like, children and house work to get away with sex. One of the main reasons given by the Islamic writers in favour of men polygamy in Islam is that women grow old much sooner than men and they loose their sexual interest because of child rearing, and will not be able to provide for their husbands sexual needs.

Source.

Here is another look at the alien world behind the veil:

Of course, in a cultural environment where women are undermined, not to say considered as second rate citizens or even dangerous to the dominant male, the temptation to rape as a result to “ provocation “ is great. Female “provocation” in the Muslim society is usually a definition for the mildest behavior. Smiling, singing, talking, being alone for one minute in the same room as the rapist, having answered a question in an inappropriate way, wearing clothes which are not strictly in obedience with what is locally considered as the Muslim rules, all of these innocent behaviors are seen as a misconduct authorizing “revenge.”

In a society where sex is absolutely forbidden, taboo, and where separation between males and females is absolute, where in most cases marriages are not the result of love but of a financial arrangement between two families, the sensual or erotic aspect of any relationship between genders is, de-facto, suspicious, considered evil, and therefore an act of aggression. Sexual “revenge”, containing violence, can be naturally considered as the automatic answer to the “ provocations “ described above, and this for two reasons.

In Muslim society the male is dominant and almighty since he is made after God, when women have been created as a necessary evil to tempt males. In other words, the female body is the closest thing to the Devil, something which has to be dominated as a proof a faith. We go back to the sacrifice of Eros to Thanatos, as one of the basic sacrifices of all monotheisms, where, since the origins of the Bible, first inspiration to the Koran, women have been the carriers of the original sin.

In such a pattern, a male will not only consider any suspect behavior, including the mildest one, as an evil temptation, but he might look forward to experiencing one, as a religious challenge. Whatever will happen then won’t be the result of his own will, but he believes in having received absolution in advance for an act that, he knows, is against his own religion. During these minutes of deception and absolute power, he is not abusing a woman but fighting the Devil inside.

Of course, primitive chauvinism is the second reason. Again, since males in chauvinist societies are deprived of all natural pleasures resulting from what we consider a normal relationship between men and women, beside sexual ones, the level of frustration is very high and the fear of impotency even higher. A male tempted must react. The automatic result to frustration and fear is usually violence. In this case, sexual violence.

Source.

It should not be too difficult for educators to develop the enactment of "A Day Under Islam," using the information above. Experiencing such an alien viewpoint firsthand should be of immense benefit to both girls and boys. Too many western girls, in particular, have married muslim men--not knowing what to expect--and ended with bitter custody battles, with children kidnapped and removed to Saudi Arabia or other muslim countries under Sharia, out of reach of modern law.

If one young woman can learn the amazing reality of the treatment of females under Islam, and avoid making a foolish mistake, the entire exercise would have been well worth the time and effort.

Politically Incorrect View of Islam

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam by Robert Spencer, is a fascinating glimpse into the religion of one billion earthlings. Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch, a watchdog blog site that monitors jihadi activities in order to warn about upcoming violence from muslim terrorists.

Spencer has a video on YouTube where he is interviewed on his Politically Incorrect Guide, and presents an overview of his research into the Islamic tendency to violence--historically and in the present. Anyone who has looked at the history of Islam honestly will be tempted to agree with Spencer's assessment.

Spencer's ongoing work can be followed at Jihad Watch, and other websites. It is important that intelligent intellectuals (as opposed to indoctrinate PC pseudo-intellectuals) continue to dog the activities of the violent religious fanatics who make a comfortable home within Islam.

Muslim Death Cult

From the leader of Hezbollah:

“We have discovered how to hit the Jews [the west] where they are the most vulnerable. The Jews [the west] love(s) life, so that is what we shall take away from them. We are going to win, because they love life and we love death.”

From Tunisian intellectual Al-afif Al-akhdar:

“Why do expressions of tolerance, moderation, rationalism, compromise, and negotiation horrify us [Muslims], but [when we hear] fervent cries for vengeance, we all dance the war dance?… Why do other people love life, while we love death and violence, slaughter and suicide, and [even] call it heroism and martyrdom?”

When muslims celebrated the deaths of civilians from New York City, Madrid, London, etc. they were merely behaving according to custom--they are told to celebrate the misery, suffering, and death of infidels.

Unfortunately, Iran, Syria, the Palestinian Authority, and other muslim states are being controlled by people who have the same death cult mind glitch as Nasrallah, Arafat, and Ahmadinejad. It is a mental virus being spread wildly across the middle east, south asia, and some european ghettos.

Understanding the truth about muslims seems too much like dehumanising them, it is repellant to us. Many of us go into denial and refuse to accept the obvious. But the dehumanising is being done in the mosque and the religious schools of indoctrination. It is out of our control, as is so much of the current and future death that comes directly from this dehumanising indoctrination.

The truth is, Islam is very much like most tribal societies were during the dark ages. Islam has buried itself in a time capsule and refused to change, refused to be enlightened into the larger universe. Instead, the islamic cult of death wishes to bury the entire world inside its time capsule of barbaric primitivism.

Hat tip, Augean Stables.

The Truth? Islam Has Always Been a Religion of War--From the Beginning

An excellent review of the book Islamic Imperialism by Efraim Karsh makes it clear that Islam was always a religion of beheadings and massive blood-letting. There is nothing new about Iraqi Shia-Sunni massacres. That is how Islam has always been.

Growing lawlessness... led to the formation of citizen organizations for defense and reprisals... . Notable among these were... thugs drawn from the lower reaches of society... .

Ready to sell their services to the highest bidder, groups... competed against each other to serve the rival Shiite and Sunni camps in their incessant squabbles...

Yesterday's Financial Times on today's Iraq? No, Efraim Karsh on eighth-century Baghdad. Forgive yourself if "the more things change, the more they stay the same" comes to mind.

Muslim scholars, proud of Islam's cultural feats, often don't know what to say about its endemic violence and militarism. Even great ones fall victim to soft-pedaling the endless battles, assassinations and massacres by which Islam expanded from Arabia to become a world religion. In his Islam: Religion, History, and Civilization (2003), the distinguished Iranian philosopher S.H. Nasr embodied this tradition in a telling, self-contradictory sentence:

"In less than a century after the establishment of the first Islamic society in Medina by the Prophet, Arab armies had conquered a land stretching from the Indus River to France and brought with them Islam, which, contrary to popular Western conceptions, was not forced upon the people by the sword."

You might say that Efraim Karsh, head of the Mediterranean Studies Program at the University of London, gives the other side of the story.

In his nervy, tightly documented Islamic Imperialism, Karsh challenges scholars and Muslim leaders to refute his own picture of Islam: an imperialist seventh-century Arabic movement that forced itself on neighboring lands such as today's Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Egypt for secular colonialist payoffs - money, booty, territory.

According to Karsh, Muhammad, by claiming Allah's authority to act as both a political and religious leader, was able "to cloak his political ambitions with a religious aura" and "channel Islam's energies" into geographic expansion.

In seventh-century Arabia, Karsh argues, the peninsula teemed with people claiming divine inspiration. What Muhammad added, Karsh contends, was insistence on Allah as the sole god, a desire to unite believers equally in a Muslim umma (or "community of believers"), and a will to do so by force if persuasion failed.

On the practical side, Karsh maintains, Islam began in banditry. After going to Medina, Muhammad sought to "entice his local followers into raiding the Meccan caravans," and the multiple attacks increased their war chests. His unpopularity with Meccans stemmed not just from his new beliefs, Karsh asserts, but from his brigandage.

Medina, originally known as Yathrib, had been partly "settled by Jewish refugees fleeing Roman persecution." Karsh says Muhammad first tried to persuade Yathrib's three Jewish tribes - the Quainuqa, Nadir and Quraiza - to convert to Islam. He adopted "a number of Jewish rituals," including praying "toward Jerusalem" and not eating pork.

When the "Medina Jews" demurred, Karsh states, Muhammad turned on them, dropping Jewish rituals and changing the direction of prayer to Mecca.

Eventually, Karsh writes, Muhammad expelled the Quainuqa and Nadir and stole their goods. Then, in 627, after accusing the Quraiza of conspiring with Meccan enemies, Muhammad ordered its nearly 800 men beheaded. The Muslims sold the women and children into slavery and split the tribe's money.

Muhammad also continued his conquest of Arabia. He conducted raids throughout the peninsula and "resorted to the assassination of political rivals." In 630, he showed up at Mecca with an army, the city capitulated, and Islam's great rise began.

In Karsh's view, Muhammad has served as a model for Muslims not just as a wise man and prophet, but as a warrior.

Anyone not expert on early Islam will need a scorecard to follow the innumerable murders, impalings, decapitations and dismemberments that marked the early Islamic caliphates and Shiite/Sunni split. You think what's happening in Iraq is new? So many severed heads get sent from one leader to another in Islamic Imperialism, you wonder why "Fed Head" didn't get off the ground as a Meccan firm.

From Muhammad's farewell address in 632 ("I was ordered to fight all men until they say, 'There is no God but Allah.' "), to Saladin in 1189 ("I shall... pursue them until there remains no one... who does not acknowledge Allah"), to Osama bin Laden in 2001 ("I was ordered to fight the people until they say there is no god but Allah..."), Karsh finds Islam's outward imperialism consistent.

But internally, Karsh notes, mayhem against rival Muslims also implicated Islam's spiritual side as "a facade that concealed what was effectively a secular and increasingly absolutist rule," one by which Arab caliphs could "enjoy the material fruits of imperial expansion."

Every Islamic takeover, Karsh emphasizes, came with a demand for tribute, taxes, or both: "Arab conquerors were far less interested in the mass conversion of the vanquished peoples than in securing their tribute." Meanwhile, infighting made "a mockery" of Muhammad's ban on fighting among Muslims.

This history of Islam's internal wars forms the timely, eye-opening side of Karsh's book. By the first Abbasid caliphate in 749, Karsh summarizes, "the Islamic empire was an Arab military autocracy run by Arabs for the sole benefit of Arabs."

Source.

It is instructive to study the history of a long-lived movement, to understand where present day irrationalities originate. During the so-called "golden age of islam", it was not the barbaric arab conquerors who brought knowledge to the conquered. The result of the muslim conquest was an extended dark age settling over the muslim countries, lasting for a thousand years, and still smothering the muslim lands.

Islam is a cult of ignorance and murder. There is no refinement, no honour, no future in Islam. It has always been that way. Pity the poor muslim who does not know better.

Bloody Horsemen of Apocalypse: Islamism, Nazism, Communism

The 20th century was very big on messianic political movements. Europe was a particular hotbed of messianic utopian revolutionaries. First communism, then Nazism.

Communism promised a return to an Edenic paradise, once the evils of capitalism and the bourgeoisie were eradicated from the earth. This was to be a paradise of the proletariat, the true heirs of the earth. There are still true believers in communist/socialist paradise, lurking under dead logs, in universities, in the media, and such. Many of these true believers stand ready to join in the final revolution to place the rightful dictators on their thrones.

Nazism was supposed to be the messianic triumph of the true people--the Aryan race--over the "inferior" races of the world. There are still holdovers from that messianic movement. Many of these true believers stand ready to re-ignite the race struggle, to trigger a race war, to place the "rightful" race on top of the world.

Islamism was reignited in the 20th century by Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood. This messianic movement is based upon the ascendancy of Islam over the world of infidels. It consists of both Shia and Sunni movements which often collaborate toward a common goal, in spite of the hatred and distrust between Shia and Sunni.

Islamism aims for a world that is under the boot of Islamist leaders, although true paradise for Sunni islamists is achieved through "martyrdom"--a euphemistic term referring to a death that involves killing as many non-islamists as possible, including women and children. Paradise for Shia islamists can be achieved through martyrdom, but there is also the mystical messianic element of the twelfth imam.

Apocalyptic thinking:

"It means a belief that a cosmic transformation is imminent. The coming transformation of the world can take two forms. The first is that it will end entirely (eschatology). Alternatively, it can be the coming of the Messianic Age. This latter expectation is often called 'millennialism' (mille = 1000, anni = years) not because of the advent of a 1000-year marker like the year 2000, but because it promises a 'thousand-year messianic kingdom'.

"In moderate forms, millennialism exists everywhere since most people have the hope that the world is going to fundamentally improve. But rarely do millennial beliefs become apocalyptic, sweep up groups, movements and whole populations in a frenzied belief that the millennium is now!

"Among believers in an imminent apocalyptic transformation, two major schools exist. The more common passive one says: 'God will cause the transformation, which will lead to either the end of time or the earthly millennium.' The activists claim: 'we are God's agents and have to bring about the apocalyptic transformation.' When they believe that the apocalypse calls for cataclysmic destruction, they deem they can 'save the world by destroying it.' Often their first and most feared targets are Jews and Judaism.

"Hitler's aim for a thousand year 'Reich' - a millennial kingdom - represented the quintessence of the most negative aspects of violent, apocalyptic action. Nazism exploded from a toxic cocktail of conspiracism, rage at a perceived humiliation of the German people, and complete contempt for human life, all the while using the discourse of the salvation of the Aryan race to win over converts. It could thereby inspire 'modern' people, capable of handling sophisticated technology, to engage in the most inhumane activities with a good conscience. The Holocaust was an apocalyptic deed."

.... "According to this teaching, Muslims stand at the brink of a glorious global victory for Islam and a devastating destruction of the West, starting with Israel. Then the world can enter the peaceful millennium of the global Dar al Islam. For many Muslims, Bin Laden is a central player in a cosmic battle between the warriors for truth against Satan's agents in the world, i.e., the West and, in particular, the United States and Israel.

"These are recycled concepts from the time Islam originally spread. Then, Muslims thought that once they threw out the world's bad governments - the Roman/Byzantine and Persian empires - God's dominion would be everywhere. With this ideology, Muslims conquered and spread to half the world, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. However, modern times have treated Islam badly. In particular, from the time of Napoleon's invasion of 1798-99, they have found their political - and now, despite all their oil wealth, economic - inferiority a source of great pain.

...."Jihad operates on two major levels. The first is outright violence. Its aggression emerges in most places where Islam has a border with another culture. From Nigeria, on the Atlantic, across the sub-Saharan divide to Sudan, across Asia to the Pacific, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.

"Apocalyptic Jihad in the global era has intensified both the rhetoric and the action. It now emphasizes terrifying hadiths, in which the end marks a genocidal slaughter of Jews, when even the rocks and trees will call out 'Oh Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him!' Others include the Christians in the carnage, a theme common in the 'secular' nationalism of Arab riots in the pre-Zionist period: 'First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.'

"Lately, disturbing evidence suggests that the hadith that claims that at the end of time, every Muslim will have 'a Jew or Christian to substitute for him in hell,' has been interpreted to mean that every Muslim has a Jew - or a Christian - to kill in order to be saved. The Arab Muslim French youngster who slaughtered and mutilated a neighbor since childhood, a successful Jewish disc jockey, last winter, came up to his parents' apartment with bloodied hands and said, 'I've killed my Jew, I can go to Paradise.'

.... Landes considers that we have to watch how the apocalyptic discourse's momentum is developing. "It's common to say that Jihadism is an extremist, marginal form of Islam. In order to comprehend its potential role in current events, we need to understand it in terms of apocalyptic dynamics. Successful millennial movements, like the Nazis, spread from the fringes to the center. And in cultures that are vulnerable to apocalyptic messages - e.g., the conspiracist and disoriented Arab world - technology greatly amplifies its impact. Instead of local pockets, a critical mass of people can grow very quickly.

"Once such a mass has developed, a society's leaders use apocalyptic rhetoric, as has the Palestinian Authority. Thus, this discourse becomes predominant in public. Anybody who disagrees is on the defensive and keeps quiet."

When asked what the future will bring, Landes says: "A billion Muslims are at least attracted to an Islamic millennial scenario in which they take over the world. The vast majority is not yet apocalyptic, but it is certainly possible that both Arabs and Muslims worldwide could get swept up in a fever of apocalyptic hope and violence. Such a scenario may strike us as ridiculous. But in millennial matters, since the millennium never actually comes, unintended consequences play a major role. The more violent and active the apocalyptic scenario, the more destructive its consequences can be, no matter how unrealistic its goals.

"The West cannot afford to dismiss these fantasies because we consider them as unrealistic. We have to listen to what the Jihadists say, and especially, what they say to each other. The West needs - at the very least - to stop encouraging the apocalyptic thinkers by wrongly pretending that they are just upset about the Israeli occupation or American imperialism. Jihadis do not read our self-critical breast beating as a cause for moderation but rather to the contrary, an invitation to further violence.

Source.

These three messianic riders of the apocalypse are bloody through and through. Communism killed over a hundred million people in the 20th century, and if Fidel and Kim could work their will there would be many more millions dead in the 21st. Nazism killed ten million or so in the 20th century, and if the neo-nazis succeed in provoking race wars, millions more may follow.

Islamism is the most active bloody horseman of the apocalypse, and given its strong ties to the billion+ strong religion of Islam, it is the messianic horseman with the greatest staying power, and destructive potential.

Nuclear weapons in the hands of Putin are quite different than nuclear weapons in the hands of an Ahmadidinejad. The Iranian madman plans to eradicate entire nations and peoples--he intends radical genocide, lacking only the means, for now. Previous calculations of mutual deterrence do not apply to a messianic.

To understand messianics, a person should have once been a messianic himself. Otherwise it is difficult to think like a messianic, to understand what the radical apocalyptic is thinking and planning. That is the shortcoming of most western analysis. A further shortcoming of western analysis--particularly leftist analysis--is making the a priori assumption that western civilisation is bad, so that any civilisation opposing western civilisation must always be given the benefit of the doubt.

This undercutting of the west by so many western analysts leaves a profound vulnerability, an unpreparedness, in large sectors of the west. That bodes ill for the inevitable conflicts to come. Nevertheless, it is discussions such as this which allow second, third, and deeper level currents in the west to prepare for what is coming. To paraphrase Kyle Reese from The Terminator:

Listen! And understand! They are out there. They can't be bargained with! They can't be reasoned with! They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!

Hat tip augean stables blog.

Crime and Race--Trying to Clarify

Everyone is fascinated with crime statistics, particularly people who have been victimised by crime, or know someone who has been victimised. Take the graph above. Many people will mentally extrapolate the existing curves for each country to supply up to date rates, but is that accurate? No--for reasons of changing demographics, particularly in Europe, and in the more multicultural regions of North America, Australia, and other developed regions.

Audacious Epigone has posted an article that looks at the relationship between "race" and "crime." Using multivariate regression, he found that knowledge of the percent black and/or hispanic in a given population, gives an "r" correlation coefficient of 0.800, which is very high. When he combined the following variables together statistically, the r was only 0.689. (don't add the coefficients arithmetically, or people will laugh at you)

% of population in poverty: .399
% of population with a bahelor's degree: .289 (inverse)
State gini coefficient: .627
% of population owning at least one gun: .060 (inverse, not statistically significant)
% of population with a high school diploma: .388 (inverse)
% of population unemployed: .309

Go the Audacious Epigone's article yourself and look over his methodology. These are his statistics, which he compares to findings of others. Here is an Al Fin Potpourri article looking at a similar topic.
Another interesting variable that would be interesting to look at using the same method, is prison population. This graph shows the New York experience in the 1990s.

For all the people who check their parking spot to see if their car is still there, almost every day, crime is not a joke. For all the people who balance the enjoyment they would get out of the opera, ball game, or concert, with the chance of being mugged or worse, crime is not merely a political issue. For all the people who have their lunch money taken more often than not, crime is not an academic issue.

Arabs are a little people, a silly people - greedy, barbarous, and cruel

Lawrence was describing the arabs of the early 20th century, all the way back to antiquity. And he may as well have been describing modern arabs. The recent raids for hostages by Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel, are prototypical arab tribal raids, a throwback to prehistoric raiding cultures.

At one time, arabs in the Mecca/Medina area made progress toward civilisation, by moving away from raids and blood feuds--the tribal ethic--toward trade and laws. Then came Muhammad, who forced the return to tribal blood feuds, raids for slaves, and other primitive tribal customs. But Muhammad wanted to lead one great tribe--the Umma. He wanted to bring primitive arab barbarism to the entire world, under the banner of a religion custom-made for that purpose, Islam.

Ancient tribal societies, especially nomadic societies, which frequently came upon other societies, were warrior societies. Warfare was a part of their culture. Men wanted to be good at it for the sake of their people and to be respected.

Men exercised their skills as warriors by raiding. Raiding happened among tribal people .... Beyond raiding, battles among tribal people were fought. People have gone to war believing that sickness of disease among them was caused by a member or members of another society having cast an evil spell on them...... In the twentieth century the Yanomami of Brazil went to war believing that an evil spirit had been cast upon them - wars for retribution or punishment. Or tribal people went to war merely because tribe had come upon tribe. We have knowledge of tribe coming upon tribe in Eastern Africa, the men of each side in ranks, posturing with their weapons and making threatening gestures, with their women watching from the sidelines, cheering them on.

The nature of war changed when tribes on the move saw advantage in holding ground and exploiting those they came upon. This happened after settled people were successful enough in agriculture to have surplus enough for conquerors to tax. With this, empire was born. A local ruler, if he survived conquest, might become a tool of the conqueror, collecting taxes and controlling the locals for the conquerors.

Wars for empire were wars for wealth. Power was the instrument for wealth and also a means of protecting oneself. In the earliest age of empire -- which included the time of the Sumerians -- the idea arose that if one did not conquer he would be conquered. A competition for power had erupted. Wars were common because a would be conqueror perceived others as weaker. And warring was accepted. Civilization had arrived but the world was still fragmented. Each conqueror had his own god - the ancient Hebrews included - and a conqueror spoke of his conquests as the conquest of his god. He saw his god as more powerful than the god of rival peoples. There was no recognized political body with rules as to which power should rule where. In such a world there were many ready to go to battle to settle petty disputes. War was often chosen over negotiation and compromise. There was fear of becoming a slave or annihilation, and there was still an inclination to see those of the other side as not worthy of the kind of trust and friendship that made agreements work.

It was not an age when people of different groupings were looked upon as equal. It was not a democratic age. It was, instead, the age described in the Old Testament, an age when authority was created and demonstrated through violence.

Source.

Muhammad wanted to place the entire world under the banner of Allah, the conqueror's god. Since Islam was born of primitive arab tribal customs, these customs would eventually rule any world that Allah's fighters conquered.

It seems clear that Muhammed became the leader of the Muslim Arabs because his personal qualities and feats as a religious, military, political, legislative, and judicial leader proved to his followers that he was the charismatic leader that he claimed to be. It is very doubtful, however, that he would have been at all successful had he not respected to an absolute degree the internal structure and independence of the tribe and its leadership. Even his own personal followers, the Muhajirun, were accepted into the Medinan tribal system as members of an individual tribe responsible directly to himself. The geneological principle obviously prevailed since their being Muhajirun never meant that they ceased to be Quraysh. Also the idea generally prevailed that the successors to the Caliphate had to be Quraysh. This failure of the early community and of Muhammed himself to overcome tribal structures other than in the terms outlined gave rise to impossible problems with the subsequent conversion of great masses of people, culturally superior to the Arab clansmen, by means of clientship. This was not due to the lack of a universal religious outlook on the part of Muhammed or his followers, but rather to the inability of the Arab mind, including that of Muhammed, to think of society other than in terms of tribal structures.

Source.

So Muhammad led the arabs of Mecca and Medina from a more enlightened culture back into the primitive barbarism of arab tribal blood feud/slaving culture. Then he permanently fossilized this primitivism into the Islamic religion so that no one could be muslim without submitting to the primitive barbarism of ancient tribal raiding/slaving culture.

This is an ongoing horrific crime against over a billion people of the modern world, a crime that threatens the future of western civilisation and the human race itself. For if the civilised world can find no way to deal with an ascendant primitivism that arms itself with weapons of mass death, massive slaughter and destruction is inevitable.

In the Demography Contest, Islam is Kicking Western Butt

Demography is destiny. If the prosperous developed nations of the world decide to stop having children, the people that shaped those nations will disappear from the earth, and be replaced by other people with a, perhaps, less savoury history.

A recent Fjordman Report discusses this issue most bluntly--in the only way in which it is worth being discussed. Al Fin has posted on this issue many times, but this is the first time I have seen a well-known European blogger discuss the issue so plainly. Here is just a taste of Fjordman's excellent report:

Japan has a declining and ageing population, Yemen and Pakistan have booming populations. Does anybody seriously believe that it would be “good” for the Japanese to open their doors to millions of Muslims from Yemen? “Do you have any education?” “Yes, I know the Koran by heart and can say ‘Death to the infidels!’ in ten different ways.” “Splendid, just what we need here in Japan. Can you start tomorrow on developing a new line of plasma TV screens for SONY?”

When it comes to stagnating populations and Muslim immigration, the problems are not nearly as damaging as the cure.

Among political right-wingers, there is frequently a belief that what is good for business interests is good for the country. The problem is, this isn’t always true. There is sometimes a gap between the short-term interests of Big Business for cheap labor from Third World countries, and the long-term interests of the country as a whole. You cannot compete with cheap commodities from Third World countries unless you lower the general wages to Third World levels.

A few decades ago, Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew realized that Singapore could never win the worldwide competition to offer cheap labor. He decided instead that the country was to become a high value-added producer. To Lee, that meant wages had to be high enough to encourage Singapore’s businessmen to invest in labor-saving technology. To raise Singapore’s salaries he had to make sure that local wages wouldn’t be undercut by migrants. Yes, you could pay an unskilled Bangladeshi $400 dollars a month. But in that case you had to pay the state another $400 a month.

In Europe, the one nation that has proved to be most successful in technology, ”Nokia nation” Finland, is also perhaps the one country within the EU that has accepted the least amount of immigration. Today, this small Nordic nation boasts a thriving hi-tech economy ranked the most competitive in the world and the best educated citizenry of all the industrialized countries. Neighboring Sweden, in contrast, with the largest per capita immigration in Europe, is in serious economic decline, and the only thing growing seems to be the crime rates.

Ethnically homogeneous nations enjoy a “trust bonus” which reduces the amount of conflict. There is little evidence that any theoretical “diversity” bonus from immigration will cancel out the loss of this “trust bonus.” South Korea and Japan are among the world leaders in technology. They are both ethnically homogeneous nations. Even China, which does have significant ethnic minorities, could soon be more ethnically homogeneous than many so-called Western nations. There will be no lack of “diversity” in the 21st century, but there could be a lack of functioning, coherent nation states. Maybe the West will “celebrate diversity” until our countries fall apart, and global leadership will be transferred to East Asia.

Yes, it is true that the ability to attract ambitious and talented scientists from other countries has benefited the USA in the past, and given it an edge over Europe. However, it is not without dangers to “celebrate diversity” in a country as diverse as the US. Americans should try celebrating what binds them together instead, or they may wake up one day and discover that they don’t really have a lot in common. What then for the United States?

Anthony Browne notes that Britain “became the largest economic power in the world in the nineteenth century, in the almost complete absence of immigration to these isles. Japan became the world’s second largest economy after the second world war in the almost total absence of immigration.” “Britain can never compete on the basis of low wages with low cost countries such as China for the simple reason that the cost of living is so much higher, and it is a mistake to try. Although cheap labour immigration may have staved off the demise of those industries for a short while, it also compromised them by encouraging them to go down the cheap labour route, and discouraging them from going up the high productivity/value added route.”

The revered former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, stated in a testimony given to the U.S. Senate: “Although discovery of new technologies is to some degree a matter of luck, we know that human activities do respond to economic incentives. A relative shortage of workers should increase the incentives for developing labor-saving technologies and may actually spur technological development.”

Robert Rowthorn, academic economist, criticizes the claim, frequently repeated by Tony Blair’s Labour government since it took office in 1997, that “if we don’t have immigration, we won’t have economic growth.” According to Rowthorn, “if you repeat something often enough, you can perhaps make people believe it.” There is no evidence “that large-scale immigration generates large-scale economic benefits for the existing population as a whole. On the contrary, all the research suggests that the benefits are either close to zero, or negative” as unskilled migrants and their families often are net consumers of taxes.

“Immigration can’t solve the pensions crisis, nor solve the problem of an ageing population, as its advocates so often claim. It can, at most, delay the day of reckoning, because, of course, immigrants themselves grow old, and they need pensions.” “The injection of large numbers of unskilled workers into the economy does not benefit the bulk of the population to any great extent. It benefits the nanny-and housecleaner-using classes; it benefits employers who want to pay low wages; but it does not benefit indigenous, unskilled Britons.” “While Britain has always had immigration, the recent influx is totally without precedent in modern times. Relative to population, the scale of immigration is now much greater than during any period since the Anglo-Saxon and Danish invasions over a thousand years ago.”

Rowthorn also points out, correctly, that “refugees and others granted special leave to remain under the asylum rules account for only 10 per cent of immigration to Britain. Most permanent immigration consists of people who are economic migrants together with their dependants.” Most of them aren’t people fleeing persecution.

There is much more at the Fjordman Report, on the GatesofVienna blog.

Very slowly, the hardworking citizens of the developed nations are beginning to realise that their politicians are selling them out. Some of these politicians are susceptible to the voters, and should be removed from office. Others, within the EU bureaucracy, have insulated themselves from voters, and may have to be dragged--kicking and screaming--from their well paid sinecured positions of arbitrary power.

It is nothing less than a question of the survival of western civilisation--the most advanced and enlightened civilisation the human world has ever known. The alternatives are dismal throwbacks to more brutal and barbaric times. Wake up, western world. You have not much more time to decide.

Unelected Euro-Elites Undermine Europe

Fjordman has submitted another excellent Fjordman Report over at GatesofVienna. Fjordman is a throwback to the crusty, worldly European who is not afraid to speak his mind. This time it is multicultural europe that is on his mind, giving him mental indigestion:

Is it “xenophobia” if Norwegians, who make up less than a tenth of a percentage point of the world’s population, worry about being overwhelmed by immigration? As American writer Gore Vidal said in a lecture: “Liberal tradition requires that borders must always be open to those in search of safety or even the pursuit of happiness. But now with so many millions of people on the move, even the great-hearted are becoming edgy. Norway is large enough and empty enough to take in 40 to 50 million homeless Bengalis. If the Norwegians say that, all in all, they would rather not take them in, is this to be considered racism? I think not. It is simply self-preservation, the first law of species.”

Jonathan Friedman, an American living in Sweden, mentions that the so-called Integration Act of 1997 proclaimed that “Sweden is a Multicultural society.” Notes to the Act also stated that “Since a large group of people have their origins in another country, the Swedish population lacks a common history. The relationship to Sweden and the support given to the fundamental values of society thus carry greater significance for integration than a common historical origin.”

The Act thus implicitly states that the country of Sweden doesn’t have a history, only the various ethnic groups that live there. Native Swedes, who have shaped the country for centuries, have thus been reduced to just another ethnic group in Sweden, with no more claim to the country than the Kurds or the Somalis who arrived there last Thursday. The political authorities of the country have thus erased their own people’s history, without staging any public debate about this. I have read that Muslim immigrants in Sweden say that Sweden doesn’t have a common cultural or religious heritage; it’s just made up of different groups tied together by the use of a common language. It is thus “racist” to even talk about how “we” should integrate “them,” since there is no “we” to begin with.

Jens Orback, Democracy Minister in the Social Democratic Swedish government, is worried about “the public’s lack of faith in politicians.” Yet the same Orback said during a radio debate that: “We must be open and tolerant towards Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so towards us.” It sounded almost too crazy even for Sweden that a minister could say something like this in public, so I checked with several independent sources, and apparently, he really did say this.

This is a government that knows perfectly well that their people will become a minority in their own country, and yet, is doing nothing to stop this. On the contrary, they are actively working to achieve this result. Has this ever happened before in human history, that the leaders of a nation are working to erase their own people and their history, and present this as an act of tolerance? No wonder some Swedes say that there is a war against Swedes going on: A physical war waged by Muslim immigrants, and a cultural and legal war waged by their own political élites.

Following threats from Muslim hardliners, some of the largest companies in England were afraid to display the English national flag during the football World Cup. In Sweden, a man was attacked and nearly killed for the crime of wearing clothes with his own national flag while Sweden was participating in the World Cup. Sweden, of course, has the same Christian cross in its flag as does England, and apparently, some “Multicultural youths” found this to be an intolerable provocation. The 24-year-old man was run down by a car in the city of Malmö. According to the police, he was wearing some clothes with Swedish national symbols on them, and this “provoked some emotions.”

Much more at the Fjordman Report.

Multicultural "nutzis" are running amuk across Europe, with few countervailing forces available for restoring sanity to the continent. Fortunately, there is Fjordman and his cohorts, willing to speak up in the face of tyrannic multi-culti intimidation on the part of authorities.

Too Stupid to Know . . . .

. . . . when people are trying to kill you, part IV. Today's TSTK (too stupid to know) installment is inspired by the May-June 2006 message from Dan Simmons. The current message goes into more detail to clarify the April 2006 message from Simmons, which I posted on here. If you have not read the April message, be sure to do so before proceeding to the May-June message.

As I mentioned in TSTK part II, a lot of people reflexively reacted against the warning from Simmons' time traveler guest. Rather than thinking the issues through, they allowed their viscera to determine their instinctive response--probably without even reading the entire essay. This is typical of the denial response that one sees in people who have adopted a rigidly fixed view of the world based upon old notions learned "once upon a time." This type of person is generally not flexible enough in viewpoint to digest conflicting and contradictory information, nor can he integrate new information easily into his worldview that does not smoothly fit into pre-existing concepts.

For more open-minded individuals, Simmons' recent message is rich with references and supporting quotations:

Books commented on in this essay include—The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan, The Book of War: 25 Centuries of Great War Writing edited by John Keegan, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within by Bruce Bawer, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order by Samuel P. Huntington, Civilization and Its Enemies: The Next Stage of History by Lee Harris, The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History by Philip Bobbit, and Replay by Ken Grimwood

Go to Simmons' message, and carefully read through the logic. It is one thing to understand an argument and to possess a reasonable counter-argument. It is quite another--and very infantile--to simply stop reading in the middle and state categorically "this is bullshit", when you have not even read the entire piece, nor understood the foundations of the argument.

This is why the news media is such a poor guide to modern realities: most of the practitioners of media are incapable of incorporating real world level contradiction into a report. Journalists and columnists almost invariably simplify and dumb down their reports to match the world view and meet with the approval of their peers in the media club. The members of that club, as well as a large proportion of the public who take media club reports seriously, are too stupid to know . . . .

Honour Killing in Denmark--Murderers Receive Justice Finally

A recent "honour killing" of a young muslim woman in Denmark has received close attention around the world, to see how the Danish courts would deal with an obvious muslim family conspiracy to commit cold blooded pre-meditated murder. The Danish courts have submitted their sentencing, and they were not lenient.

Worldwide, Islam is mainly a religion of impoverished peoples from harsh tribal traditions. Women are often beaten by husbands routinely, and daughters and wives can be murdered at will for being seen in the proximity of a male stranger. In muslim countries, men have become accustomed to murdering women, and not receiving meaningful punishment for the crime.

In fact, muslims consider women to be property. This is one of the reasons for the high levels of spousal abuse and father-daughter incest in muslim communities. One can dispose of one's property as one sees fit.

In Saudi Arabia, women are not permitted to drive a vehicle, because Saudi men are worried that their women might get involved in a sexual impropriety, were the women allowed out on their own. Then the husbands would be forced to murder the wives, and all that killing and subsequent re-marriage can tend to get a bit cumbersome, you know?

To truly understand the dysfunctionality of Islamic male-female relationships, one must read books such as "The Trouble With Islam" by Irshad Manji and "Leaving Islam" by Ibn Warraq.

Women's shelters across Europe are full of abused muslim women, just as European prisons are filling with muslim males. The muslim influx is straining the social services of European countries, yet only a few European countries have moved to limit muslim immigration.

Perhaps news of the court sentences given to the family conspirators in Denmark will send a message to those still steeped in primitive and bloodthirsty tribal traditions.

Sleeping With The Enemy: Jihadis and the Left

Gates of Vienna's Baron Bodissey has posted an excellent article entitled "In Bed With Beelzebub." I quote extensively from that posting below:

At the international Islamism conference this week in Århus, the left-wing journalist Caroline Fourest pointed to the dangers of the coalition she thinks that some of the international left has entered into with Islamists.

The 30 year old French journalist who, writes for the left-wing magazine Charlie Hedbo, wonders why it is that the European left has not learned anything from what happened during the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

“Back then, a group of Marxists made a big mistake. They thought it would be possible to form a partnership with Islamists in the fight to topple the Shah,” said Caroline Fourest in her controversial presentation at the recently concluded international Islamism conference at Århus University.

Repeated Mistakes

She thinks that the left of today is about to make the exact same error as those Marxists in Iran who formed a partnership with Khomeini’s Islamist Movement only to be eliminated by their Islamic partner after the fall of the Shah.

“Today, we see coalitions and partnerships between Islamist groups and progressive leftwing movements that we would not have expected five years ago. Among these, the anti-globalization movement, the European Social Forum, at their most recent three meetings have invited Tariq Ramadan along with a number of activists from the Muslim Brotherhood to speak in the name of Islam. This is happening in a very progressive forum,” Caroline Fourest wondered and added that this meant that the forum’s secular Muslims are no longer present.

“They would just be accused of being pro-Bush, pro-Zionist, or Islamophobes”

Also, in France, Caroline Fourest points to alliances between Islamist groups and progressive groups on the left like Human Rights Watch — groups that came together in the fight against the government’s prohibition against religious symbols in French public schools.

“The worst thing about this coalition was that it attempted to accuse the feminists and secular groups of being racist or Islamophobic. In the same way, an anti-racist left-wing group wanted to sue Charlie Hedbo after it re-published the Mohammed cartoons. We still don’t know if the suit was because we were being blasphemous or racist.”

....Ms. Fourest has joined Christopher Hitchens, Norm Geras, and others in an apostasy from Leftist orthodoxy on the topic of Islam. No doubt she will soon be subject to death threats and have to go in fear of her life, due to her betrayal of her erstwhile comrades.

Fjordman has written here in “I’m a Terrorist Groupie, Hear Me Roar!” about the affinity of the Left for violent Islam, and, more recently, about the connection of Islamism with Marxism.

Expect the divide between the Left and the rest of the West to grow more extreme, as its infernal love affair with the Islamic terrorists continues to flower. Anticipate even more deranged rhetoric from the opponents of Bushitler and Global Capitalist Fascism, as the logic of the alliance with Jihad unfolds.

But one has to wonder how the Left thinks it will all end. As Elvis Costello says,

Two little Hitlers will fight it out until
One little Hitler does the other one’s will.


Assume that the Progressives and the Mujahideen, with their united front, prevail in glorious triumph over the evil West. What then? Do the likes of Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore believe they stand a chance against the throat-slitters and the suicide-bombers? Does anyone want to lay odds on the outcome?

Presumably they’ve decided not to think about that for right now…
Source.

PC multiculturalists and other leftists appear to be acting in automaton mode, in reflexive reaction against ascendant secular western civilisation. The fact that western civilisation is fueled by capitalism is regarded as a mortal sin by the nutzis of the left, who have sworn to destroy the west, whatever it takes. Certainly having taken over most universities, most news media, and most western governments, the nutzis might be excused for over-reaching a bit. The thing the PC multiculturalist nutzis fail to understand is the incredible scope of western civilisation--going far beyond their field of vision. Of course the wahabist fascists make the same error, but they can be more easily excused, given the limiting nature of their indoctrination.

Regardless, go read the Baron's work. It is worth your time.

Sweden! What Have They Done To You?

Thanks to Static Noise blog for the link to this National Interest article on the "Swedish Model" of government, and what it has done to Sweden. Sweden was once a wonderful place to live and visit. But gradually under 65 years of the Social Democratic Party, Sweden has become a failing state. Read on:

Sweden's economic success story began in the late 19th century, after a fundamental political shift towards free markets and free trade. Swedish traders could export iron, steel and timber, and entrepreneurs created innovative industrial companies that became world leaders. Between 1860 and 1910, real wages for factory workers rose by about 25 percent per decade, and public spending in Sweden didn't surpass 10 percent of GDP.

The Social Democratic Party came to power in 1932 and has governed Sweden for 65 of the last 74 years. They realized early on that a party of class struggle wouldn't be able to hold on to power in Sweden. Instead, they became a party of the middle class by creating social security systems that gave the most pension, unemployment, paternal-leave and sick-leave benefits to those with high wages.

....From 1975 to 2000, while per-capita income grew by 72 percent in the United States and 64 percent in Western Europe, Sweden's grew by no more than 43 percent. By 2000, Sweden had fallen to 14th in the OECD's ranking of per-capita income. If Sweden were a state in the United States, it would now be the fifth poorest. As the Social Democratic Finance Minister Bosse Ringholm explained in 2002, "If Sweden would have had the same growth rates as the OECD average since 1970, our common resources would have been so much bigger that it would be the equivalent of 20,000 SEK [$2,500] more per household per month."

.... The competitiveness of industry had to be propped up several times by depreciating the currency. Globalization and the new knowledge and service economy made it more important than ever to invest in human capital and individual creativity. High marginal tax rates on personal income, however, reduced individuals' incentives to take risks and to boost earning potential by investing in their education and skills, and made it extremely difficult to attract skilled workers from abroad.

Furthermore, the Swedish model was dependent on having a small number of large industrial companies. As these diminished in importance, or moved abroad, Sweden needed something to take their place. But the policies that benefited the biggest firms created a deficit of small- and medium-sized businesses. Those that did exist didn't grow, partly because of the risks and costs of highly burdensome employment rules that prevented the firing of workers. Indeed, the most important Swedish companies today are those that were born during the laissez faire period before the First World War; just one of the fifty biggest Swedish companies was founded after 1970. Meanwhile, services that could become new private growth sectors, like education and health care, were monopolized and financed by the government. As they grew in importance and size, a steadily growing part of the Swedish economy thus became protected from international market forces and investments that could have turned them into successful and productive enterprises.

....Sweden retained the world's highest taxes, generous social security systems and a heavily regulated labor market, which split the economy: Sweden is very good at producing goods, but not at producing jobs. According to a recent study of 35 developed countries, only two had jobless growth: Sweden and Finland. Economic growth in Sweden in the last 25 years has had no correlation at all with labor-market participation. (In contrast, 1 percent of growth increases the number of jobs by 0.25 percent in Denmark, 0.5 percent in the United States and 0.6 percent in Spain.) Amazingly, not a single net job has been created in the private sector in Sweden since 1950.

....Sweden has one of the developed world's biggest differences between the labor-market participation of natives and immigrants. Many immigrant families are discouraged by the lack of job prospects and end up in welfare dependency.....more than 5 percent of all precincts in Sweden had employment levels lower than 60 percent, with much higher crime rates and inferior school results than in other places. Most of these precincts are suburban, so outsiders rarely see them. The number of segregated precincts has continued to grow. In some neighborhoods, children grow up without ever seeing someone who goes to work in the morning. Pockets of unemployment and social exclusion form, especially in areas with many non-European immigrants. When Swedes see that so many immigrants live off the government, their interest in contributing to the system fades.

Like in other parts of western Europe, the segregation of immigrant areas leads to insularity, crime and, in some cases, radicalism. Last year, Nalin Pekgul, the Kurdish chairman of the National Federation of Social Democratic Women, explained that she was forced to move out of a suburb of Stockholm because of crime and the rise of Islamic radicalism. The announcement sent shock waves through the entire political system. "A bomb waiting to explode" is one of the most common metaphors used when social exclusion in Sweden is discussed.

.... Since 1995 the number of entrepreneurs in the European Union has increased by 9 percent; in Sweden it has declined by 9 percent. Almost a quarter of the population of working age does not have a job to go to in the morning, and polls show a dramatic lack of trust in the welfare system and its rules.

The system of high taxes and generous welfare benefits worked for so long because the tradition of self-reliance was so strong. But mentalities have a tendency of changing when incentives change. The growth of taxes and benefits punished hard work and encouraged absenteeism. Immigrants and younger generations of Swedes have faced distorted incentives and have not developed the work ethic that was nurtured before the effects of the welfare state began to erode them. When others cheat the system and get away with it, suddenly you are considered a fool if you get up early every morning and work late. According to polls, about half of all Swedes now think it is acceptable to call in sick for reasons other than sickness. Almost half think that they can do it when someone in the family is not feeling well, and almost as many think that they can do it if there is too much to do at work. Our ancestors worked even when they were sick. Today, we are "off sick" even when we feel fine.

The real worry is that Sweden and other welfare states have reached a point where it is impossible to convince majorities to change the system, despite the dismal results. Obviously, if you are dependent on the government, you are hesitant to reduce its size and cost. A middle class with small economic margins is dependent on social security. Read the rest at The National Interest.

When you combine a decline in economic vitality and human spirit, with increasing lawlessness and growing numbers of deadender unemployed foreign immigrants, and you have the recipe for disaster. Without serious reform, Sweden is dead--and Swedes dependent on the system, corrupt and crumbling though it is, will not tolerate reform. The spirit of Sweden has died, and anyone still in Sweden who has hopes of a better life will likely be leaving for greener pastures soon.