It's Not Enough to Repeatedly Say "Stop Muslim Immigration"

Kathy Shaidle is repeatedly posting on her popular blog Five Feet of Fury "Ban Muslim immigration to Canada," or "Stop Muslim immigration to Canada today."

I sent her an email yesterday with this suggestion:

Hi Kathy,

First a belated Merry Christmas and (a timely) Happy New Year!

I am glad that you are consistently mentioning a radical approach to the Muslim issue - stopping Muslim immigration into Canada.

Most people these days will not come up directly with that approach. But your popular blog will surely give people something to think about.

If I can make a suggestion. I think most readers would like some kind of strategic approach to the problem. They might get frustrated at simply saying: stop Muslim immigration. How, when, why etc. might be their questions. It is a blanket statement like: Muslims are destroying our civilization.

I have linked on my blog to a comprehensive strategy which conservative writer Lawrence Auster has established. It not only looks at immigration, but also:

- what to do with Muslims already here. Part of many people's rationale is that Muslims are already here, they are "assimilating" and we cannot do anything about them.

- how to approach jihadi and sharia infiltration

- And even what to do with our "diversity" institutions such as multiculturalism

But, rather than re-write it, it is better that you read the whole thing yourself.

You can find more information on Auster's writings about "What to do about Islam" here.

Plus, one other suggestion, Geert Wilders already has clear policies he has set up for the Netherlands, for which he is getting incredible popular support. Perhaps you could also use examples from his strategies on how to deal with Muslims in the West.

People are eager to know what to do. Most writers and politicians are not giving them the information and background that they want.

Let me know if I can be of help.

Kidist.

Is Protecting Freedom the Ultimate Cause for our War Against Islam

In my previous post on Lars Hedegaard's ordeal in Denmark, I referred to the video of the interview which caused all the commotion. The video is worth watching, as Hedegaard presents a lucid account of Islam, based on his new book The 1400-year war.

But, I neglected to pursue the final part of the interview where the interviewer asks "how should we fight this war?" Hedegaard talks about internal measures, such as shutting down mosques which preach jihad, reducing the power of Imams, and making sure that political and violent messages aren't preached or passed on to Muslims. He doesn't once mention immigration restrictions.

As I wrote in this blog post, Denmark had reduced its immigration levels in 2004 to 20% of its 2001 levels. So, probably, immigration isn't such a big issue as it is in Canada or the US.

But, another issue I've always had with free speech and freedom of expression advocates is that they base much of Western civilization around these concepts, as does Hedegaard, when he says: "Basically our civilization is based on the notion of freedom, personal choice, free speech…"

It is interesting that the most vocal free speech/freedom of expression advocates, including Ezra Levant, reached their public position these days because of their interaction with Islam. Even the Danish Free Press Society calls Islam: "the most dangerous threat at the moment."

Islam, of course, want to silence the press and speech in general because it doesn’t want its intentions uncovered, which is that it is fighting a civilizational war against the West, and not just a war against free speech.

I will be elaborating on this narrowing down of the war against Islam based only on free speech and freedom of the press and expression, which this specialized and active group is fronting, as I come up with more coherent thoughts on the idea. But, my premise is that it is not enough to have free speech (and freedoms in general) as our main cause for which to fight against Islam. The issues are bigger, more complex and more intertwined. Freedom is important, but it isn’t the only factor.

The Danish Free Press Society Should Now Have a Renewed Resolve for the Truth

My only source of information for the outrageous distortions of Lars Hedegaard's interview that I wrote about in my last post was The Copenhagen Post. Since then, I have dug up more information, and the International Free Press Society website also posted an article Hedegaard wrote to discuss (explain is too submissive) his interview.

Hedegaard’s 30-minute interview with the website Snaphanen is here. It is an interesting and lucid commentary by Hedegaard, and is based on the new book that he co-wrote titled The 1400-year War.

The exaggerated comments that were reported on The Copenhagen Post were revised editions of comments made by blogger Lars Pilegaard, which were published at the online 180Grader by its editor-in-chief Ole Birk Olesen. Pilegaard has accused Hedegaard of "revolt, lynching and war" against Muslims and that he has defamed them by calling them rapists and liars (I've addressed these two distorted interpretations of Hedegaard's words in my previous post, and Hedegaard also addresses them in his article).

Hedegaard’s direct quotes printed in The Copenhagen Post are from the Snaphanen interview. One of them, on lying, is slightly incorrect, or incomplete. It should be:

"Whenever it's advisable for a Muslim to hide his true intentions, to lie, to [inaudible] false oaths in his own interest and in the interest of Islam, he is either advised to do so or he's ordered to do so..."

Besides three members of the Danish FPS quitting, an outside personality, the deputy chairman of Arhus integration council Yilmaz Evcil, has filed a complaint against Hedegaard to the police for his "racist comments" during the Snaphanen interview. The IFPS website calls it "charges for 'hate speech.'"

This is a serious development in the small world of counter-jihad leaders who are also fighting for freedom of the press and of speech. Clearly, criticizing Islam has its repercussions, however soundly, moderately and thoughtfully one does so. Even freedom of the press advocates, such as the three advisory board members who quit, are willing to suppress the press (and speech) if they feel that a line has been crossed when discussing Islam and Muslims. The suppression is of course based on anti-discriminatory principles, rather than reporting falsehoods.

If criticizing Muslims (and other foreigners and immigrants) is not acceptable, and gets in the way of reporting and discussing the truth of their situations, then the various FPSs have a lot of work to do. But perhaps it is good that the "bad seed" of the Danish FPS have been weeded out. This incident should give Hedegaard and his remaining team more resolve to fight the truth-squelching Muslims and their allies, and to battle on with the difficult and dangerous job of exposing the truth. And by extension, it should be a lesson to us all.

Viking Spirit at Christmas Time

The Copenhagen Post headlines the following news as an "Uproar in Free Press." It makes the event much more dramatic than it is. What happened was the President of the Danish Free Press Society (and also the International Free Press Society) merely said:

quote:

Whenever it is prudent for a Muslim to hide his true intentions by lying or making a false oath in his own or in Islam’s service, then it is ok to do it

And quote:

When a Muslim man rapes a woman, it is his right to do it

The online news story describes Hedegaard as going on

a veritable tirade against Muslims in an interview with website Snappen, accusing them of raping their own children, lying without conscience and basically having no morals whatsoever.

The direct quotes provided by The Copenhagen Post disprove this exaggerated version. Hedegaard is merely describing Taqiyya, a form of covert warfare carried out by Muslims allowing them to lie to their opponents, and the rape of women simply refers to the cultural norm in Islam where the woman is the property of the man.

Several members have quit Hedegaard's Free Press Society, and one Christian minister threatened to do so unless Hedegaard was dismissed from his post. The organization dismissed her instead.

So, on the Eve before Christmas, a Christian minister is more concerned about protecting a belligerent, aggressive, determined, anti-Christian religion, that promises to destroy Christians (and other non-Muslims), rather than pay heed to the words of one of her countrymen.

I met Lars Hedegaard during my travel in New York. I was with him and other members of the International Free Press Society on a long ride (traffic was very bad BOTH ways) to and from Princeton to participate in Kurt Westergaard's presentation at the University. Mr. Hedegaard is an educated, sophisticated man, who has no illusions about what immigration, and especially Muslims, are doing to his country.

I said to him that something of the feisty Danish Vikings, who settled in early England, must have rubbed off onto the English, who repeated this feistiness ten-fold with their own world domination (in language, science, military).

Of course, the English have long lost that spirit, as has much of Europe. But it is good to see it revived, in Westergaard and now Hedegaard. What the world needs now is more of this Viking spirit.

Merry Christmas!

How Much Influence Did Orientalism Have on Western Art?

Henri Matisse, Purple Robe and Anemones; 1937

Matisse's interior takes on a flat,
extended dimension, where the woman's
fabric, the wallpaper, the carpet and
even the patterned table blend together
to eliminate three-dimensional space.

Ibn Warraq, from The New English Review has an article about the influence of Orientalism on Western art. He does this while reviewing a biography of Mozart: Mozart The Dramatist, by Brigid Brophy.

One small quibble I have with his review (which is of course the theme of the writer who penned the biography): Western artists may have been leaning on Oriental themes to find the subjects for their works (paintings, music, literature), but the structure and composition of the works ended up being very much the creations of these artists.

I have been interested in the attraction towards exoticism that induced painters to study Arab culture, and even travel to and live in Arab lands. One such painter was Matisse. The evolution of his paintings is a complex topic, where he goes from three-dimensional depictions to two-dimensional ones so that his paintings look like layers of flat textile on canvass.

One of his interests, which stemmed from his family's textile business, was Arab interior decoration, where the homes were draped with endless carpets and textiles, hiding three-dimensional space behind a plethora of cloth. Rooms look flat and extensive. And colorful too.

Matisse used these experiences and examples to create his own two-dimensional canvasses. His development from three dimensions to two was part of Western art's questions and queries at the time, and not Eastern art edging in on those ideas. I think it was just fortuitous that Western artists traveled to the Orient and found what they were looking for; at least Matisse did. But even then, he brought it back and incorporated it into his own artistic/philosophical ideas, and never ventured to make Oriental art.

In the end, whether it is Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte or Matisses’s Purple Robe and Anemones the works are decidedly Western. I will also venture to say that any influences that occurred were superficial, like the Oriental table or the kaftan-clothed woman in Matisse's Purple Robe and Anemones. Matisse could have executed his ideas without putting either of these objects in his painting.

Keeping Our Eye on the Ball

The Human Rights Commissions (I have a special link for all my posts on the HRCs at the right hand column of this blog) are associated with the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They were, as were the other institutions, installed to dampen the effects of diversity and the conflicts that multicultural and diverse communities can incur. They predictably arrived right after the amended immigration policies of 1967, which allowed non-white immigrants to enter into Canada without any restrictions.

Recent high-profile cases have involved pastor Boissoin and his letter to his local Alberta paper on homosexuals, and Marc Lemire who was put before the Commissions for comments on the website that he monitors. But the most vocal and belligerent cases have by far been by Muslim groups trying to silence writers and commentators on Muslim issues and news.

I have written here that while the task of dismantling these HRCs should still continue, (and also the repealing of hate speech laws, although I am not sure if that is even possible), we should not ignore these most aggressive of opponents that exposing the wrongs of HRCs has unveiled for us.

One way or another, Muslims are determined to push their culture and religion into Canadian society. If kangaroo HRCs courts won't work, they will go through normal legal procedures; if overt measures are pushed back, they will continue with their ever-covert activates of taking over one square inch at a time.

One of their most effective measures is to use the current systems and institutions to further their cause. The HRCs are one, multiculturalism is another, and diversity is the way in which they can hide behind, and soften, their effects. Immigration is what adds fuel to this fire.

These battles of the last few years on the "freedom front" have actually disclosed clearly and unequivocally a hostile force. As I wrote in my previous post, it is important to straighten out these institutions, but alongside that, we have a difficult and deceptive opponent to contend with in Islam, and we shouldn't lose sight of it.

Tying together the Use of Hate Speech Laws and the HRCs with Muslims and with Immigration

I got a response from Rebekah of The Miss Marprelate Tracts to my last email about the Free Speech and Liberty Symposium in Ottawa in early December.

She writes regarding the accuracy of her liveblog (which I didn't doubt, I just wanted clarification on a few points):

My liveblog, although not a word for word transcript, is substantially accurate on all or most of the main points and solutions offered by speakers. If I didn't mention something it is probably because it was not covered or at least not covered in any substantial way.

And in response to my question about free speech as it relates to Muslim groups, this is what she had to say:

I am, however, reasonably certain that most free speechers would place the chief, and most disturbing, blame for the current situation on the system which enables and submits to radical agendas rather than on those who would themselves seek to advance such a radical agenda. The world will always have people, of varied stripes, who seek to subvert or take advantage of the justice system. It is for the justice system to ensure that they do not succeed. That is why there is a tendency to focus on legal and political challenges to hate speech laws and public education on the issue.

I responded:

You write:

The world will always have people, of varied stripes, who seek to subvert or take advantage of the justice system.

Until now, no group of people has tried so radically to take advantage of existing Canadian laws and systems in order to aggressively advance itself within the country as have done the Muslims.The very public incidents such as the Maclean's HRCs case, and the one against Ezra Levant for publishing the Mohammed cartoons, have allowed us to see what we're up against. Muslims, I believe, are now the biggest threat to freedoms of all kinds (speech, expression, of the press, etc.).

I thought that someone like Bjorn Larsen, who has been involved personally with many counter-jihad groups and individuals, would have brought this insight (or relationship) in his presentation. He did mention Muslims, but didn't tie all this together. I think that hate speech laws, in and of themselves, should be fought against, but what they have exposed in terms of Muslims (and multiculturalism, in general) should also be the focus.

Figuring Out Liberals

The quality discussion one expects from View From the Right continues on the post "The escape from uncertainty: a theory of liberalism." I chimed in just to add a detail to the discussion. But, I fully agree with commentator Kristor that "We must remember that the change [the progress] liberals desire is a change from novelty and uncertainty toward a static ideal."

Yes, and I think the liberal's project really has no constructive end point, as I wrote in this draft of an email which I didn't send to VFR:

The idea of "eliminating uncertainty" at its most common denominator really means the elimination of uncertainty through the (controlled) power of destruction. Only destruction is controllable, doable and certain.

So, liberals never build anything, they simply destroy. But each uncertainty, or as I prefer to call it "unfairness" leads to another unfair situation, which also needs to be destroyed. The final outcome, if taken to its logical conclusion, is simply annihilation.

How Bjorn Larsen Could Have Presented a Multi-Faceted Solution to Problems Facing Free Speech

Larsen focused his speech at the Free Speech and Liberty symposium on hate speech laws. His solution is that we should simply repeal them. In Canada, these laws are enforced through Section 13 of the Human Rights Act and its corresponding Human Rights Commissions, which state:

It is a discriminatory practice for a person or a group of persons acting in concert to communicate telephonically or to cause to be so communicated, repeatedly, in whole or in part by means of the facilities of a telecommunication undertaking within the legislative authority of Parliament, any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.

Or through the Criminal Code of Canada which has three sections:

- Section 318 makes it an offence to advocate or promote genocide against an identifiable group;

- Section 319(1) makes it an offense to communicate statements in a public place that will incite hatred against an identifiable group, and thereby lead to a breach of the peace; and

- Section 319(2) makes it an offense to communicate statements, other than in private conversation, which willfully promote hatred against an identifiable group.

Read about the differences between the Criminal Code and the Human Rights Act provision here.

In 2003, David Ahenakew, a First Nations politician, was charged by the Saskatchewan Justice Department (not the HRCs) with inciting hatred against Jewish groups when he justified these comments on the holocaust "That's why [Hitler] fried six million of those guys, you know. Jews would have owned the goddamned world" by saying "How else do you get rid of a disease like that, that's going to take over, that's going to dominate?" He was convicted and fined $1,000, but the charge was later overturned.

The focus may be on the HRCs for now, but there is room in the Criminal Code for belligerent and aggressive groups to use the hate speech laws to continue to silence legitimate discussions. These hate speech laws are very much present, and are not simply gathering dust in some drawer.

Larsen states in this symposium (which focused purely on free speech) that we must repeal them. I have no law background, so I have no idea how possible this is.

The other solution is to reduce, and strategically remove, the group that is now most likely to put these laws into effect, which is the Muslim group. Even in Holland, it is the Muslims that are bringing Wilders to court.

I have maintained throughout Our Changing Landscape that the high levels of minority immigrant groups, who will cry "racism" and "discrimination" at opportune moments, will also continue to be problematic when it comes to the HRCs and the hate speech laws. So the aim should be to reduce immigrations levels in general.

Thus, the problem should be viewed as a combination of aggressive Muslim groups, high levels of non-white immigrants, and toxic hate crime laws. Larsen, with his ample experience with prominent counter-jihad individuals, should have provided a multi-faceted solution to the problem that includes the reduction of Muslim immigration. Currently, free speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the press cannot be discussed separately from the Muslim problem specifically, and the immigration problem in general.

No News Might Really Mean No News

No news from Rebekah of The Miss Marprelate Tracts regarding my email to her asking about Bjorn Larsen's presentation at the recent Free Speech and Liberty symposium in Ottawa. I find that making specific recommendations of reducing Muslim immigration to solve the "free speech" problem that has escalated in the Western world often is met with silence or with resistance by bloggers and other writers (including Islam experts - see here my email interview with Robert Spencer).

I attribute this partly to the severity of the solution, and that most Islam experts are liberals at heart when it comes to discriminating against groups of people. Many excuses are presented, including the timing is wrong, and that we need to educate people more about Islam before taking drastic measures that many might disagree with.

I think it is also some kind of addictive need to keep talking about the problem, and hoping it would go away just with the rhetoric.

Anyway, since it looks like Rebekah did such a thorough job presenting the speakers' speeches to us on her blog, there is no need to think that she may have left information out. Which holds that Larsen, despite his time with prominent counter-jihad groups, and his many interactions with Geert Wilders who is one of the main proponents for the reduction of Muslim immigration into the West, did not present that solution in his speech. Dare I say that he might be a "Semi-Usual Suspect?"

Free Speech and Liberty Symposium in Ottawa

The Canadian Centre for Policy Studies recently held a symposium titled "Free Speech and Liberty." Here is the list of speakers, and the topics they presented.

The Human Rights Commissions which come under the Canadian Human Rights Act (instituted in 1977), and the Hate Speech Provisions (sec. 318-320) which were amended into the Criminal Code of Canada in 1970, were a reaction to the multicultural, multi-racial and multi-ethnic Canada that started to form after Lester Pearson removed restrictions on non-white and non-European immigrants entering Canada after the revised Immigration Act of 1967. Some of these institutions have been used against individuals, although sparingly and with minimal public awareness, prior to the Alberta Human Rights Commissions case filed against Ezra Levant for publishing the Mohammed Cartoons, and the cases filed in the B.C. Human Rights Commissions and the Federal Human Rights Commissions against Mark Steyn and MacLeans magazine for a reprint of an excerpt from Steyn's book America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It titled "The Future Belongs to Islam."

Prior to these two cases, most of the HRC complainants were homosexuals, or those protesting what appeared to be white nationalist (possibly anti-Semite) individuals. But, the public was abruptly introduced to these institutions with the vocal and aggressive Muslims, who had no qualms against taking on media giants in the name of defending their culture and religion.

My point here is that free speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of the press in our current debate are strongly intertwined with this multicultural landscape, and more specifically with the Muslim population. In fact, Muslims' incessant curtailment on speech is becoming common practice all over Europe, which has a longer history of Muslim immigration. In Canada, and in the United States, we are only beginning to see the tip of the iceberg.

I was curious to see if anyone in the Symposium mentioned the clearly strong influence Muslims have in the domain of "free speech and liberty." Blogger Rebekah, who hosts the blog The Miss Marprelate Tracts, did a great job of transcribing what she heard at the Symposium onto her blog. According to her account, only one person focused, his speech on the Muslim angle. That was Bjorn Larsen, now the President of the International Free Speech Society - Canada.

It is well and good to talk about the Muslim influence in restricting speech and liberty, but the final, and constant, question should be: "What do speakers who bring this up in their discussions suggest the solutions should be?"

I emailed Rebekah this question. I hope she answers, and will post her response when I get it:

Dear Rebekah,

Thanks for your great transcript of the symposium "Free Speech and Liberty." It was really helpful to get the viewpoints of the various speakers, and how they approach free speech and liberty.

One of the things I blog about here at Our Changing Landscape is how Muslims are now the prime influence in restraining, even restricting, free speech, freedom of expression, and consequently liberty in Canada. I discuss in various posts that one way to put a stop to this is to reduce, and even to stop, the number of Muslim immigrants into Canada as part of a multi-faceted solution.

I notice that Bjorn Larsen, now the President of the International Free Press Society – Canada, was the only one who explicitly brought up the Muslim influence in the restrictions on free speech. In your summary of his speech, you didn’t mention if he offered any solutions to this problem. Do you remember if he did say what to do about the presence of Muslims and their recurring and aggressive attempts to curtail free speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the press?

Thanks for you time and effort.

All the best,

Kidist Paulos Asrat

Respected Muslim Family Man Now in a Canadian Jail

Respected Muslim family man now in a Canadian jail

Here is an exemplary family man, community organizer, leader in his professional group, and a "modern" Muslim, who has been jailed for threatening to kill his daughter.

His whole family (minus the daughter, who has been hiding for two years now), who say that he was simply a strict father and nothing more, apparently see nothing wrong with him pressuring his daughter into an arranged marriage. Of course, threatening to kill her could simply mean that he lost his temper when his daughter disobeyed him. His fellow-workers think he's an exemplary colleague, and he even has been offered to keep his job while in jail.

Such is the fate of the "good Muslim family men" in the West. Why don't we give these people a break and simply say:

By coming into our countries, your children will change, you will have a hard time keeping your family together, and anything that you try to do to retain your culture and your religion could be misconstrued as criminal. So, just stay home, in your Islamic countries, where you will live much more peaceful lives and where you can maintain your beliefs and your families intact.

This is surely the least we can do to alleviate all this hardship and heartache.

"Abolishing The West: Immigrants Reject Assimilation"

This is the title of Sam Francis's article written in 2002. I have provided the whole article here below. I've highlighted some points I think are worth emphasising. You can substitute "Canada" or "America" for "Britain."

Here is one quote though that is apt for the current Canadian scene.

[T]he Home Office has been suggesting that maybe the "minorities speed the process of integration by adopting British 'norms of acceptability,'" and proposing that newcomers take an oath of allegiance, study British history and culture and embrace "our laws, our values, our institutions." The suggestions promptly received the British (excuse me, the African-Caribbean) equivalent of a Bronx cheer.

Jason Kenney has recently revised the citizenship test to include those very ideas, and received the Canadian equivalent of the "Bronx cheer" from the Multi-Culti Intelligentsia.

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

Abolishing The West: Immigrants Reject Assimilation

By Sam Francis

How much longer will the white majority nations of Europe, North America and Australia keep pretending they're "assimilating" non-white Third World peoples into the warm and toasty melting pot imagined by multicultural mythology?

Probably not very much longer at all, as a matter of fact. If Sept. 11 wasn't enough to disabuse some people of their delusions about immigration, the immigrants themselves will do so.

The New York Times reports that in Great Britain, where both Tory and Labor governments have long pushed multiculturalism, welcomed mass immigration from the remnants of the British empire and outlawed virtually any act, word or thought that even looks like "racism," the immigrants themselves are fed up with trying to become British. [Britain's Nonwhites Feel Un-British, Report Says, NYT April 4, 2002]

"The only times I call myself British are when I go to get a passport and when someone asks me where my accent comes from," snorts a native-born Englishwoman, Jenni I'Anson, who happens to be of Jamaican parentage.

"Otherwise I would never class myself as British. There is no sense of belonging here. I would only say that I am African-Caribbean."

Her nephew is a bit more explicit about what he is.

"British to me means white, and I don't get treated like a white person, so I don't think of myself as British."

The Times report dredges up several quotations like these from several Britons (no insult intended) who are either immigrants themselves or descended from non-white immigrants. Last summer's race riots in northern England perhaps hinted to many that the multiculturalist propaganda was all hogwash, but even without riots, terrorism and blatant anti-white and anti-Western sentiments, the evidence is pretty clear that Britain's Third World population is not behaving the way universalist ideology insists it should.

In response to the northern riots, the Home Office has been suggesting that maybe the "minorities speed the process of integration by adopting British 'norms of acceptability,'" and proposing that newcomers take an oath of allegiance, study British history and culture and embrace "our laws, our values, our institutions." The suggestions promptly received the British (excuse me, the African-Caribbean) equivalent of a Bronx cheer.

If there's any place in England where "assimilation" would seem to be able to work, it's Sheffield, the country's fourth largest city, and it's on Sheffield that the Times report focuses. The city "would seem to be a place where that project would enjoy more success than elsewhere in Britain. Race relations have been less combative here than in cities like London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Bradford and Leeds with histories of rioting. The local government has been more attentive and the police more communicative." But assimilation, integration, call it what you please, is not what the immigrants (excuse me again, the British) want. "Of course [assimilation is] the wrong thing to be asking of us," declares one Pakistani immigrant who arrived as a child and is now 46.

"What a lot of so-called English want us to want is leafy Oxfordshire. But what we want is a job, a decent place to live, safety, a chance to educate our children. We want to preserve our separate identities. And remember, we must still also maintain the economic link with our original homes. Forty years later, I am still sending money back."

What this gentleman is saying is that neither he nor other non-Western immigrants have the least intention of even trying to adopt the manners and values of the country to which they invited themselves, and that they feel insulted if the "so-called English" suggest they should.

What they expect is that the British people and the civilization they created should provide them with whatever they please — the wealth, security, freedom, education and comfort that is the creation of the white West — but that they do nothing whatsoever to sustain the civilization.

Of course, there is a school of thought that maintains that non-Western peoples are simply not capable of sustaining — or assimilating to — the civilization of the West, that "East is East and West is West," as Kipling put it, and never the twain shall meet. The responses of non-Western immigrants into Britain say nothing to contradict that view.

How long a country like Britain, which now has a population only 7.1 percent non-white but is projected to have a non-white majority by the end of the 21st century, can expect to maintain the fruits of the civilization that even the immigrants demand as their right is not clear.

But whether the immigrants cannot, will not or simply do not assimilate to the civilization of the country in which they chose to live, the fate of extinction that faces British civilization is no different from that which faces all other Western nations that continue to harbor the mythology of mass immigration.

Who are the Real Muslim Anti-Semites?

I really don't mean to focus on Ezra Levan't various attempts at deciphering the Muslim community which put his life on hold for three years when he published the Mohammed cartoons. But I don't think he understands the community. His articles mostly decry individual Muslims who attacked him. But, he has never put them together in the collective whole of Islam. It is not individual Muslims, radical Muslims, moderate Muslims, peaceful Muslims etc. ad nauseam, that are the problem, it is Islam as a religion which mandates the behaviors of all these groups and individuals.

Levant writes about Syed Soharwardy, a rabid anti-Semitic Muslim - who brought him to the Alberta Human Rights Commission for publishing the Mohammed cartoons - almost as though he is the exception to the rule. But, according to the Koran, all Jews are enemies of Islam. However odiously Soharwardy may rant against Jews, and however hate-filled is his website, he is not doing anything radically different from what the Koran mandates.

If Levant is eager to educate his Calgary Jewish Community Council about the anti-Semitism of this one man, he should be more explicit and tell them that the whole Islamic community is required to believe the worst regarding the Jews, if these Muslims are true followers of Mohammed and the Koran’s writings.

Time to Find Solutions to the Islam Problem

In a recent entry at the View from the Right, Lawrence Auster writes about a New York City presentation by outspoken Islam critic Wafa Sultan. He asked her "what Western countries should do to stop and reverse the Islamization of the West," and her answer was to treat them the same way America treated Germany and Japan.

You can read the discussion that ensued from that entry, including my comment which states that if vocal and prominent counter-jihad individuals and groups are pressed to include their views and suggestions on solutions to these problems, they might direct their energies towards these more fruitful endeavors, rather than endlessly regurgitate the horrors that Islam is doing to Western societies. Without working out the solutions, there is no point to the continuous stream of writings we have on Islam.

Coercions into Victim Status

Photo from Toronto Star article: "Near half
in Greater Toronto Area (GTA) minorities"

The favorite cop-out for all minorities, blacks, Asians, Muslims,etc., is to play the victim card. Any person that doesn't belong to the still-majority white culture, whether conservative or liberal, libertarian or neo-conservative, will at some point pull out this card. I once told someone that I have never been tempted to pull out this card, even a triple-trump one as a female, minority, immigrant (I'm sure there are more I could reel off). I don't really know why this is. It could just be a freak of nature, although I don't think so. My theory on that is long, and for another time. Partly, I think it is to do with my interest in art, and true, honest art requires excellence and discrimination. My love of art is too pure to make horrible compromises.

Recently, I have been thinking about how minority cultures are built. For example, how do blacks (both here in Canada and in the U.S.) segregate themselves as a victimized group? How do black families live collectively like that? What kinds of subtle pressures and constant nudgings convince whole groups to agree with and accept a victim status? How do people reconcile the outright lies and other more shifty paradigms with their real social conditions? Is the truth so hard to bear?

Partly, of course, it is the deep-seated fear of being shunned and ostracized. Strong group leaders, with a lot of love and compassion in mind, fascistically coerce their members to "be like them, or else." There is a lot to lose with the "or else."

But, that is the weakness of those coerced. Accepting a lie is as bad as lying. Every single individual has the opportunity to rise up to the truth. It doesn’t require an undue amount of intelligence or subtlety. It really boils down to humility before greater forces. Humility before God.

Comments from Counter-Jihad Groups on Minaret Ban Shows Thinking Processes

It is interesting to go around the American and Canadian blogosphere to see what the outspoken counter-jihad groups are saying about this latest development on the Islamic front.

My reaction, especially after reading the "European" news via Spiegel Online on the Swiss ban on minaret construction, was to think how the Canadian populace could be galvanized into making such a decision. I conclude that it shouldn't be that hard. Ordinary people are the ones who are confronted daily and viscerally with these changes. They are more than likely to vote "no" against such encroachments.

Here are some reactions from very vocal and active counter-jihad blogs.

Gates of Vienna writes: "So what happens next? What can the 'world community' do to teach Switzerland a lesson?" The focus for Gates of Vienna is not on learning from this bold and refreshing vote, but on how negative forces will conspire to punish the Swiss.

Atlas Shrugs' Pamela Geller says: "I wonder how the religion of peaceniks will react...in their usual tolerant and pacifist manner?" No extrapolation of the behavior of the Swiss onto that of Americans', as in: "Can Americans behave like the Swiss?"

Jihad Watch's Robert Spencer predicts (quoting a Times Online article): "Vengeance, boycotts, retaliation ... this clash with Islam could cost dearly." Don't resist Islamic supremacism! It might make the Islamic supremacists angry!

Why this focus on the negative sensationalism? Why not learn from this small country which took a stand for itself against many odds?

I think many of the counter-jihad groups have become so consumed by the negative stories of Islam they write about, that when something refreshingly positive such as the Swiss decision occurs, they cannot pull themselves out of their habitual pessimistic view which underlies much of their writing. This is not a good frame of mind for developing solutions to these problems.

I once thought, and I have to return to that view again, that their lives are so intertwined with Islam and its negativity, that if the definitive solution to Islam were produced, they would have nothing left to do, nothing left to write about. Sub-consciously (am I being too generous here, and is their behaviour actually much more deliberate?), they are sabotaging the counter-jihad movement for the sake of their continued activity.

The Symbolic Message of the Swiss Minarets Ban

A minaret and a church steeple in
Wangen bei Olten, Switzerland

Real Clear Politics had an article up today on the minaret ban in Switzerland, written by Mathieu von Rohr in Spiegel Online. Despite its clearly disapproving tone, reading between the lines of this piece brings out some interesting points.

Firstly, von Rohr calls this popular ban of minaret-building a "symbolic vote" by the "organizers of the campaign [who] managed to turn the dispute over minarets into a symbolic referendum on the influence of Islam," where "they did not speak much about minarets. Instead, they talked about Sharia law, burqas and the oppression of women in the Islamic world."

Von Rohr quotes Ulrich Schlüer of the Swiss People's Party (SVP):

Minarets are "symbols of power" of a foreign religion, argued politician Ulrich Schlüer, who belongs to the SVP's right wing. The ban, he said, represents a clear statement against their spread.

Well, of course, the ban of minarets is a huge symbolic message for the refusal of other Islamic influences on the country.

But, here is the real surprising bit of information. Von Rohr writes:

The debate was largely divorced from the reality of Switzerland. Although around 22 percent of the population is of foreign origin, the country has so far had relatively few problems with its roughly 400,000 Muslims. Most of them are liberally minded Bosnians, Kosovo Albanians and Turks and their approximately 160 mosques are practically invisible. Burqas are seldom seen on Swiss streets and there have never been serious calls for the introduction of Sharia law.

Switzerland, rather than wait like many other European countries for Muslims to ingrain themselves into the fabric of the society, made a decisive and symbolic move to cut off Islam as close to its bud as possible.

Actually, it is the Swiss people who made this decision. If it had been left to the elites and politicians, sacrosanct words and phrases like "tolerance" and "freedom of religious expression" would have got tangled up in the rhetoric. Instead, ordinary people, who based their vote on their real-life experiences of frightening changes taking place in their own backyards, were able to take matters into their own hands.

That is why I say that ordinary people are ready for true, unafraid leaders. They - we - are the ones that directly suffer the consequences of these changes: in our streets, our shops, our jobs and our neigborhoods. Wilders knows this, and certainly the leaders of the Swiss SVP party know this.

Ezra Levant Awarded Prize For Which He Isn't Eligible

Ezra Levant has been awarded the blogosphere honor of Best Overall Canadian Infidel Blogger. But he has never written extensively about Muslims and their collective contribution to the Mohammed Cartoons censorship, which led to his three-year ordeal with the Human Rights Commissions. (Here is one brief article where he is much more direct, but I've never come across similar articles before or after this one). Sure, he blamed individual Muslims for this disruption to his life and to freedom of the press. But his whole battle was focused on the Human Rights Commissions' censorship agenda, rather than on the Muslims' strategic moves to change Canadian society to fit their sharia-based Islamic worldview.

Making such unequivocal connections between Muslims and the Mohammed Cartoon censorship case would of course lead to a drastically different direction in his battle against censorship. It would make him question the multicultural system that allows Muslims to openly declare their religion and mode of governance within a non-Muslim country like Canada. It would also require him to at least think about what to do with these specific culprits. As I've written many times on this blog, after (if) the HRCs are shut down, then what? Muslims will still be here. They will follow their Koranic mandate to instil a Muslim-based society. They have found many ways to infiltrate Canadian culture without the aid of quasi-illegitimate agencies like the HRCs. They may have used the HRCs to dissuade Canadians from satirizing Mohammed, but they can use a myriad of other strategies, including suing people like Levant in real Canadian courts, whenever they feel their religion and culture is being diminished.

This is the future Levant can look forward to, and until he consciously and deliberately connects these dots, his fight against the HRCs will have been in vain.

Harder Citizenship Test Just Means Keep Doing More of the Same

Jason Kenney, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, has recently unveiled a new citizenship test guideline that he says will make acquiring citizenship more difficult. Kenney says that the document is to show new citizens that they "are inheriting a set of responsibilities, of obligations. "

In a recent interview at TVO with journalist Steve Paiken, Kenney says that he is not looking for assimilation of newcomers as much as their integration into Canadian society. He believes that multiculturalism and diversity are an asset to Canadian society, but that this new set of guidelines is necessary to help forge a more cohesive society in this multicultural "mosaic."

Kenney felt compelled to tighten the citizenship test in order to counter the effects of runaway Canadian multiculturalism. Yet, his government recently announced that it will not reduce the high levels of new immigrants accepted into the country. The numbers remain at 250,000/year.

So, while trying to tighten the citizenship requirements mostly as a reaction to multiculturalism’s ghettoizing effect on Canadian society, Kenney opts for more of this multiculturalism via immigration.

More Writers Talking about Leaders for the Counter-Jihad Movement

There is a long interview of Filip Dewinter, Belgium’s leading politician of Vlaams Belang party, which is equivalent to the Netherlands’s PVV led be Geert Wilders. Diana West has posted most of the interview, but the full content can be read at Gates of Vienna.

Diana West comments on this interview and on its leader Filip Dewinter:

Americans tend to shake their heads and cluck over Europe's dire struggle with Islamization as though the continent were already lost even as they complacently luxuriate in the thought that It Can't Happen Here. Well, it is happening here, as this blog repeatedly catalogues, and we have no one of the calibre and courage of Dewinter (or his political counterpart in Holland, Geert Wilders) in public office to stop it.

What a difference Dewinter makes compared to the EU lackey Herman Van Rompuy - another Belgian politician now President of the United States of Europe. Paul Belien writes about his trajectory from a conservative Catholic to the leader of a godless organization that is working towards the destruction of Europe.

Back to Diana West and her comments on the need for a counter-jihad leader in the US. I wonder if she is reading this blog, as I wondered about Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs who made the very same observation about needing a national leader a couple of weeks ago?

Perhaps it is the forces of nature (or of Islam) conjoining finally. The interesting thing about Dewinter and Wilders is that they are seasoned politicians - Dewinter has been in politics for 25 years and Wilders for about twelve.

I have suggested Tom Tancredo for the U.S., and am still short of a name for Canada, although I thought that Ezra Levant could have played that role having been in politics for many years and currently battling the government installed Human Rights Commissions. Levant doesn't cut it, so I'll have to go digging some more.

But, Tancredo now writes regularly for World Net Daily, where he's written a few articles on Islam.

Is What's Wrong With the World Able to Save its Communities and Country?

Lydia McGrew's response to my comments at What's Wrong with the World that transnational adoptions would destroy American communities (I replaced "destroy" with "change" at her adamant protest) was that how can one single child, who is to be brought up with mother's apple pie, ever harm the community?

My concise answer is that if one family thought that it was OK to bring in a Korean child, why would other families not think that was a good idea? Just like pro-immigration groups, supporters of transnational adoptees think that there is nothing wrong with bringing in people who look very different from them into their communities.

McGrew elaborates further and says that these children are brought up to be Americans. But the reality which McGrew refused to acknowledge was that these kids who are brought up saying "Mommy" and "Daddy" later on, according to a New York Times report, psychologically abandoned these very American lifestyles and parents, and went to great lenghts to find their original countries, languages and cultures.

As I wrote in one of my comments:

No era has ever performed this experiment before. And this experiment is clearly full of holes. The NYT group showcases the adults of the first wave of that experiment. To me, it proves that the experiment has failed. Our ancestors knew better.

I instinctively understood this. Why couldn't McGrew?

Good Muslims

I've written about Abul Kasem here, who was on a Frontpage Magazine symposium which also included Robert Spencer. Kasem, an ex-Muslim delineated the Islamic presence in the West very clearly, and even gave some steps to alleviate that problem. When I confronted Spencer about his lack of solutions, his only response was that he thought the public wasn't ready to see Muslims as the "bad guys."

Kasem is interviewed again by Jamie Glasov of FPM about Front Hood's jihadist Hasan. Here's what he has to say about good Muslims:

The US military says they desperately need Muslim soldiers to fight the war. They want more good Muslims to join the US army. But the Islamic terrorists are the good Muslims. Major Hasan is a good Muslim.

Why a Political Leader is Necessary for the Counter-Jihad Movement

This is very sad. Robert Spencer, while on a panel at New York University titled "The Jihad Still Threatens America," was attacked three times by members of the audience: Once by a man yelling at him, a second time by having pies thrown at him, and a third time by someone trying to physically attack him.

It is good to know that Spencer does speak out directly against Islam despite this extreme hostility. But I'm afraid he is just wearing himself out. That is why I've said that a specific political leader is required. These speeches, panels and demonstrations are not enough. They are not a concerted effort. It is all haphazard, with no decipherable goal rather than to speak against Islam. This gives Muslims and pro-Muslim groups ample chance to disrupt, discourage and diminish such efforts.

The counter-jihad movement has to think seriously about the direction of its activities, after the terrible information on the Fort Hood jihadist have now been revealed.

More Adoption Woes

I've ended my participation in the difficult debate that was going on at What's Wrong With the World. Of course, debaters think their point of view is right, but I was surprised by the adamant inability for Lydia McGrew to see the "other side." I still don't know the source of her stubbornness. I have to say, though, that it is tied in with her own adoption. But, emotionalism has never helped anyone. The lives of whole villages and towns, both in the adopted child’s original country and in his newly acquired one, are at stake because people behave emotionally.

My final, exit, post at WRWTW is:

My position is that transnational adoptions are difficult for the children being adopted, and for the community which they are being adopted into.

If people wish to alleviate the poverty of those children, I think they should start by seeing how they can help the children in their own countries.

I also think that people should investigate very carefully these adoptions situations. Who profits from them, where these children are really coming from. If there is really no other family member that can take care of them.

Finally, because of such a high demand for children from overseas, people wishing to adopt should realize that they may be changing the dynamics of those communities. That mothers and other family members who could take care of their children are tempted to put them up for adoption as an easier way out.

There's more, of course, regarding bullying in the schoolyard, disregarding the existential angst adopted children exhibit, whether two parents at any cost trump geographical and racial displacement. It is all there where I try to rebut McGrew's positions on these.

What's Wrong with Transnational Adoption? What's Wrong with the World Says "Nothing."

Lydia McGrew at What's Wrong with the World comments (rather lengthily) on Laura Woods post on transnational adoption (about which I also have some input at Laura's blog, as I wrote here).

To say the least, I am very surprised as Lydia's take on the whole thing. Better to read the discussion there, rather than me commenting about it here. I've done it all there.

How Ideology Slowly Changes the Make-Up of a Society

Here is a very important discussion about transracial adoptions at The Thinking Housewife.

I have put the link here at Our Changing Landscape even though it doesn't pertain to Muslim issues directly. But, it is the same idea of changing a country's make-up through ideological or political reasons.

Muslims are allowed into Canada and America without second thought as to how they will contribute to these countries. Yet, what thy have done is slowly change things to fit their cultures and societies.

Similarly, adopting children from faraway, culturally alien lands, changes many factors in the societies into which they are adopted. In Angelina Jolie's case, the smart and cute Zahara is made to feel, by my assessment, much more at home than the blonde and blue-eyed Shiloh. Yet it is Shiloh's home and country by ancestry and by inheritance. Zahara is the newcomer, the visitor.

There are many more issues discussed at Laura Wood's site. I strongly recommend that you visit and read what is there, including some very interesting comments.

Now that Laura has enabled me to be brave enough to tackle that kind of subject, namely immigrants from non-Western countries and the West's desire to do good by these immigrants, I will hopefully start writing more direct posts on those issues.

Who, What, Where, When and How

Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs (about whom I have posted here) has an article on American Thinker and writes about the sharia take-over of America. She says:

By and large, the conservatives have dropped the ball on Islamic jihad. This has been made painfully clear by the lack of a leader on the right who speaks to and takes up the fight against the sweeping Islamization of America. America has no Geert Wilders.

Geller, along with Robert Spencer, Andrew Bostom and Daniel Pipes is one of the more realistic of the conservatives writing on Islam. But she has never advocated before for a national leader to combat the Islamic take-over. Could she be reading this blog?

But, more to the point, these writers spend almost every day (sometimes several times a day) writing about jihad, sharia, honor killings and the myriad of horrors that Islam is bringing to the West. Geller says she's been doing this since 2005. What made her wait so long to make this recommendation? I have been writing my side-blog Our Changing Landscape since last September, and I almost immediately realized that writing about, or more precisely describing, the problem wasn't enough.

Perhaps that is the curse of writers. It takes so much energy for them to forumlate the words on paper, that they are unable to pull the meanings out and act on them in concrete ways.

Of course, in my short post a couple of days ago titled "What to do about it," I presented concrete ideas and my own humble plan of action. Geller, a seasoned writer, who should be able to come up with the who, what, where, when and how, was unable to do this.

Just words, again. Just words.

Center for Immigration Studies on Canada's Point System

Unfortunately, David North from the Center for Immigration Studies writes too glowingly about Canada's point system for accepting immigrants. Language skills (both French and English), higher education, employment history are factored in to accept a higher caliber of immigrants.

But there are many things wrong with this model. One of the obvious is that a skilled immigrant doesn’t necessarily mean that he will assimilate any easier into Canadian society. Many skilled Chinese and Indian immigrants opt to live in ghettoes in surrounding suburbs, keeping their own cultures in tact, and staying away from the mainstream culture.

Another problem is what William Gairdner identified more than two decades ago. Skilled immigrants bring a myriad of untested relatives with them. Gairdner wrote in his book The Trouble with Canada:

The 1982 report to Parliament on immigration levels said, "Family reunification has been and is one of the traditional foundations of immigration policy."...The result is that immigrants already here determine the mix of immigrants to come, 80 percent of whom enter without regard to their merit. Employment and immigration in Hull has informed me that of the up to 175,000 immigrants planned for 1990, only 24,000, or 16 percent, will actually have to qualify under our point system [of education, work experience and language fluency both in French and English]. A full 84 percent - 174,000 - just walk through the door! For all we know, they could be ignorant, illiterate, unqualified people. We don't know, because we don't ask.

Finally, even though there is a sophisticated skilled immigrants system in place (which is nonetheless full of loopholes as I show above), there is an equally strong refugee system, with a close to 100% acceptance rate.

When all this is taken into consideration, the Canadian immigration system is not as exemplary as North writes.

The Influence of Islamic Art onModern Artists' Spiritual Journeys

Matisse, Still Life with Blue Tablecloth, 1909

Here is a blog post I wrote about a year ago on the spiritual in Islamic and modern art. This is a quote from the post:

The same spirit that produced Islamic "art" - which is really a profusion of ornamentation and decoration - is the same spirit that produced, eventually, abstract and non-representational art. That spirit is the disinclination to reproduce representational art, since non-representational art is believed (by these [modern] art practitioners) to be more pure and more spiritual.

The rest is a description of the influence of textile art in these artists' non-Christian spiritual journey, and especially of Matisse's.

Muslims and Their Path to Their God

I have a post up on Camera Lucida where I try to explain the similar methods modern and Islamic art use to guide us into the worlds of their gods.

Token Canadian Moderate Muslim Says Up Is Down

In a post a few weeks ago, I wrote about Salim Mansur, an Ismaili Muslim, who has a new book out called Islam's Predicament: Perspectives of a Dissident Muslim. I titled my post: "Salim Mansur Writes a Book on Islam and Ignores Parts of the Koran He Just Doesn't Like."

Mansur was on the Michael Coren Show recently, where he spent around twenty minutes talking to Coren about his book. He doesn't budge from his National Post excerpt where he says that the true Islam was sabotaged by a violent, murdering faction of Muslims at the onset of Islam. This faction set the stage by murdering Mohammed’s family after his death. Mansur unabashedly says with that historical moment, Islam opted for violence, rather than the peaceful religion which Mohammed advocated.

Coren is once again tongue-tied. It is fantastic. He should have simply quoted passages from the Koran which advocate violence and specific killings (if really interested in the violence embedded in Islam, he would have come prepared with these quotes) and asked Mansur to interpret them for him.

Mansur may be bitter toward the Islam which has relegated his version of Islam to the side-lines, but it boggles the mind that he categorically ignores what is written in the Koran to provide his own nostalgic and bitter version.

I have called Mansur dangerous in my previous post. At this time of seething jihadi activities, where Muslims are simply answering the call of the Koran, having a respected scholar come up with such a book does unimaginable damage to ordinary Canadians who will try to find any excuse to like this alien and violence-infused religion.

Obama's Islam

Obama's Islam

Here is a devastating video which assembles together Obama's words and views on Islam of the past couple of years. The most chilling (after his bow to the Saudi King), is his visit in Istanbul's Hagia Sophia. I recommend you persevere all the way to the end, to watch Obama's exit words.

Thomas Lifson of American Thinker, who put up the video and the commentary by Richard Baehr, titles his post "Obama and Islam." I've gone a little further and called it "Obama's Islam."

What To Do About It

I've done my rounds of conservative blogs and more mainstream sites. All are shocked and disgusted by the Fort Hood massacre. Perhaps this is a time to vent feelings of outrage, and hopefully cooler thoughts will emerge soon.

Still, I haven't read any say (or even mention) what to do about it. Not just "don't allow devout Muslims who attend their mosque daily into the military" but also to think about the bigger picture.

Lawrence Auster, as far as I've read, is the only counter-Jihad writer who has written about a concrete solution in his post "The massacre." He has also formulated several step-by-step plans in previous articles about what to do with Islam and Muslims, and as far as I know is the only to do so.

Perhaps a politician is the best candidate to pull this off the ground. Geert Wilders is one such politician who has come up with concrete solutions to this immense problem. Simply put, he says stop mass immigration of Muslims into the Netherlands, and to remove any Muslim who is actively involved in sharia or jihadi type of behavior from the country.

During my participation in Westergaard's tour, my question at an informal meeting in Manhattan was to ask if anyone like Wilders has emerged in Westergaard's Denmark. People didn’t initially understand my question, which was really "what’s being done about it?"

The question begs to be asked for America. I think that Tom Tancredo would be the ideal candidate, since he does have a platform on immigration, and that is one of the pressing issues when trying to find a solution to the Muslim problem.

In Canada, I thought it could be Ezra Levant, since he got hit by the Muslim censorship contingency. He has been a "conservative political activist" according to his Wikipedia profile, and worked as an aide to Reform Party leader Preston Manning in Ottawa. He also ran for local politics in Calgary. But he never connected the dots with Muslims and immigration, or more precisely Muslims as aliens.

Britain already has its leader from the BNP, Nick Griffin.

All I can say is that the facts are out. There is no denying who Hasan was, and why he did what he did. Politicians and liberals may hide behind words, but I truly think the ordinary people - for example, those that got wounded (too late for the killed) at Fort Hood - instinctively know what's going on. That is why Wilders has such a popular following, as I described in this post.

Someone needs to get the ball rolling. And seasoned politicians should be encouraged to come forward for that purpose. I think the popular following will be great. Are a bunch of mainstream newsmen (CNN, ABC, NBC and even FOX) going to dictate how the world should be run?

"They shot me! And I'm still here in this country!"

These were the words of Pfc. Keara Bono who was wounded in the shoulder from Nidal Malik Hasan's gun shot at Fort Hood.

People have spent a lot of time lately differentiating sharia from jihad; peaceful encroachments through sharia and hijra or immigration (for total take-over - what's peaceful about that?) from violence. I wrote in a recent post that they're intertwined. Islam cannot work without jihad. However successful the "peaceful" means are, jihad - violent confrontation of the infidels - has to be part of the picture. That was what Nidal Malik Hasan was doing.

There will be death and carnage, there will be jihad. It is written in the Koran. Either way, sharia and hijra, or jihad, the final outcome is a complete take-over. The picture is not pretty, however one looks at it.

And please, no longer the victimized, poor Muslims, or the unassimilated angry Muslims who will fit in with time. This guy was born in Virginia, and he had enough money to train as a medical doctor, and later a psychiatrist.

The Elite vs. the Vox Populi

A couple of weeks ago, I viewed the YouTube recording of the question and answer period during Wilders's presentation at the Harvard Club, and meant to write about it much earlier.

Perhaps it is better that I waited some time before commenting on it, since it is in accordance with what I have been observing with the counter-Jihad movement, with its addiction to spelling out all the pros and the cons, splitting hairs on radical vs. moderate, and inadvertently (via good-willed charity activities, for example, that I talked about here) making things worse.

I have written out Wilders's complete response to a comment/question about compromise. But it is well worth listening to the response, which starts around the 4:23 point and goes to the end of the recording, to see Wilders's calm and sensible manner elucidating all the facts (and problems) for us.

Here is Wilders's response to a question/comment about not compromising:

We should not compromise too much on this most important issue…My party will not go into any government if we have to compromise too much on the issues I just spoke about.

He continues how the only solution is to gather a momentum through democratic processes, grass-roots movements and other organizations.

There is only one way, and that is the way through the democratic[al] process. You can start from the grass roots level organizations…It should be done in the democratic[al] way with parties that hare not willing to compromise too much.

Many have marveled at the popular support for Wilders's Freedom Party (PVV). A November 3, 2009 article for Europe News declares that "Wilders would be prime minister if elections were held now."

How did Wilders get it so right? Partly it is his uncompromising position. Partly it is his analysis of the problem in manageable, realistic terms. Partly it is his clear understanding of the powers of Islam, with its hold on its millions of worshipers and its desire to subjugate the whole world. But here is what he says about who sees this reality and who doesn't.

The difference between the political elite and the vox populi is enormously high [in Europe] especially on this issue. And not only because people really have read the Koran or know everything that I am talking about.

He talks about the changes this vox populi has to endure on a daily basis that makes it much more alert to the problems.

People see there are changes, and they see every day again that there are changes in their neighborhoods and their schools, when it comes to their security, when they take a bus or go on the metro. They see the changes, and they see the changes for the worse. They see the country changing and having another kind of identity. And people are fed up with that.

This is exactly why I called my blog Our Changing Landscape when I became overwhelmed at the incremental changes I kept seeing around me, which this blog has been documenting since September 2008 (and about a year before that through Camera Lucida).

Wilders asks this tough question:

The question is, will we be [on] time? Will we be [on] time to have [to react to] those kinds of changes?

But, then he knows this isn't the time to capitulate, and finishes off with:

That is why I’m saying enough is enough. We have to stand up. We have to stop being on the defens[ive]. We have to go on the offens[ive].

There is no other way.

Pamela Geller's Incessant Charity

Sometimes I think that people like Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs have a need to be running around all the time. I do not diminish her charity work, and it takes a lot of energy to perform such acts. But has Geller really thought about what she's doing with her vocal and active support of Muslim victims of honor killings?

The West is now being inundated with such honor killings, where a young girl will stray from her Muslim culture and family either through a non-approved boyfriend or her style of dress and behavior, and the father or brother (or both) will hunt her down and kill her.

There are many points to these types of stories.

* Would such a girl behave this way if she had lived in a Muslim country, where such straying into a foreign culture would have been impossible?

* Are the behaviors that some (many?) of these girls adopt - slutty clothing, heavy make-up, late nights out, and the general narcissistic behavior of many Western girls - really something we as Westerners should condone and support?

* Do these girls really become Westernized and truly Christianized, or is this just a way to escape the undeniable restraints their families put on them?

One solution is for Geller to advocate dramatic reductions in Muslim immigration to America (in her case), so that Muslim girls will be Muslim girls in their own Muslim countries, and not be tempted by some of the less desirable fruits of Western society. Even we are trying to get rid of these unpleasant temptations. That way, there will be less futile departures by these girls from their families and their ways of life, and no one will emerge dead.

Below is a photo of Aqsa Parvez who was killed by her father and brother in Mississauga, Ontario. I wonder where she got the idea for cornrows - usually done by girls who have been on a hedonistic Spring Break trip to one of the beaches in Mexico?

Aqsa Parvez

Here are some comments from her friends (via the National Post):

"She wanted to live her life the way she wanted to, not the way her parents wanted her to."

"She just wanted to be herself, honestly she just wanted to show her beauty, and not be pushed around by her parents telling her what she has to be like, what she has to do. Nobody would want to do that."

"She just wanted to dress like we do...She just wanted to look like everyone else. And I guess her dad had a problem with that."

A More Redeemable Post at Gates of Vienna - But Not Quite There Yet

After my previous posts on Dymphna's reactions to inane comments made by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, which I still think are embedded in Dymphna's psyche and something that needs working out, Baron Bodissey has a post on rounding up the various "Counter-Jihad" groups. It is clear that there are many perspectives and many proposed solutions to the problems, and the comments on that post display such an array of ideas.

I think that the time for discussion is over. The immediate problem is clear:

- How to reduce the number of Muslims that are already in our countries so they do not continue to influence the directions of our societies.

- How to eradicate (or reduce as much as possible) the Muslim stronghold that has already taken place.

I am beginning to form the opinion that writers are just all about talk. They love to discuss options, possibilities, wrong moves, right perspectives, historical precedents, prophecies on the future, the many variations of Islam, their moderate Muslim friends. But their actions seem limited to attending meetings and joining-up with their international co-bloggers and writers, and founding a society here or an association there.

It is time to propose concrete actions, clear strategies and manageable proposals, in order to remove the problems I've listed above. I think everyone agrees on at least those two scenarios. 

Why not take the example of Geert Wilders? He constructed a clear, concise and manageable proposition. And his party has mobilized a large number of ordinary Dutch people. His heroism stems from his action. It is as simple as that. If his method works, great. If it falters, then I am sure he will come up with a different strategy.

The point is to start. Not just to talk.

Non-discrimination and Egalitarianism at the Heart of Silencing (Free) Speech

Paul Belien of the Brussels Journal has written a devastating article on the European Union’s plans to implement a common hate crime legislation. As a preliminary to this, the EU approved the Equal Treatment Directive last spring. The Directive works towards:

[I]mplementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation... The directive applies to social protection and health care, social benefits, education and access to goods and services, including housing…

Under the directive, harassment – defined as conduct “with the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of a person and of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment” – is deemed a form of discrimination.

Which is exactly what the Canadian Human Rights Act implemented back in 1977. From the website MapleleafWeb.com:

The Canadian Human Rights Act was introduced by the federal government in 1977. In addition to prohibiting discrimination at the federal level, the Act also established a human rights commission system, which included the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT)…

The Act also prohibits the communication of hate messages. This includes messages that encourage discrimination, hatred of a group, or which involve comments that are demeaning to a group. Initially, this prohibition was reserved only for the communication of hate messages through the telephone. In 2001, the Act was amended to explicitly include the Internet, making it unlawful to communicate hate messages on a website or via email. The Act does not apply to communications through other mediums, such as television, radio, or print media (these mediums are, instead, covered by the Canadian Broadcasting Act).

So if one Act doesn’t cover it, another one springs up conveniently.

But, more is in the machinations. The Criminal Code of Canada has a specific “Hate Propaganda” section. This from ReligiousTolerance.org:

[T]he "Hate Propaganda" section of the Criminal Code of Canada (Section 318 & 319) prohibited the expression of hatred against -- or the advocacy of genocide of -- four "identifiable groups:" people distinguished by their "color, race, religion or ethnic origin."…
Bill C-250 added sexual orientation to the list of "identifiable groups" when it was signed into law on 2004-APR-29.

Thus, anti-discriminatory measures loom big in Canadian society as a basic "Canadian Right" and as part of the Criminal Code. And they clearly are going to become a large part of European life. Restricting free speech and freedom of expression is just one of the outcomes of these policies of non-discrimination and egalitarianism. They have become our modern worldview, our mantra, and they are changing the very nature of the Western world in profoundly unexpected ways.

I have written about it extensively in my posts on the HRCs, and especially in a long post titled: "Section 13 Is Not All About Censorship, But It’s All About Prohibiting Discrimination." I have even challenged Ezra Levant to open up his perspectives on free speech. And, it bears repeating, that the immediate problem involves Muslims, who were the complainants in the dramatic nationally and internationally covered cases involving Levant, Mark Steyn and MacLeans magazine.