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.