*Cough* Persian *Cough*

From the BBC:

The Islamic Solidarity Games, due to be held in Iran in April, are called off because of a dispute with Arab countries over what to call the Gulf.

You can't make this sort of thing up.

White Wash Girl

I haven't had a chance to see White Girl, part of the BBC's "White Season", except in brief previews on the Web, but if the reviews in The Telegraph and Beaman's World are anything to go by, it is a drama that shows that in the eyes of the Beeb the white working class of Britain are a load of drunken, foul-mouthed, wife-beating, child-beating racists whose only salvation lies in embracing religion.

Provided, that is, the religion is Islam.

This is no reflection on Muslims qua Muslims, but from what I've been able to glean, the BBC's storyline of knuckle-dragging chavs being redeemed by blemish-less mosque-goers is as deserving of a double take as a 1943 Rank film showing how English dock workers would be so much more pleasant if they were more like those nice Germans.

Eight Out of Ten

Russell Blackford has an excellent piece on the cluelessness of a certain Australian imam on the matter of separation of church and state and why Islamophobia is nothing but a bad word that should be dispensed with:

Unfortunately, the impression has been created by many Muslim leaders that Islam seeks to control all aspects of individuals' lives and does not shrink from using secular power to achieve its aim. We are all well aware of extreme examples in recent history, such as Afghanistan under the benighted Taliban regime. Until that fear is laid to rest, it is quite rational for the rest of us to fear Islam's political ambitions - which is one reason why the word "Islamophobia" is so stupid. A phobia is an irrational fear, but secular Westerners actually have perfectly rational reasons to be at least wary of Islam.

This is excellent stuff as far as it goes, but he does fall down on one point:

The question is not about kings and popes (though it is certainly relevant to the temporal ambitions of the current pope). It is about how religionists of any stripe can reassure the rest of us that they will not use the coercive power of the state to impose their contentious (and, let's face it, usually miserable) moral doctrines, should they come to command an electoral majority.

The matter of "miserable moral doctrines" aside, this is only half true. Yes, it is a question of reassurance, but not, as any competent theologian will tell you, that the church will be dangerous if it is backed by the power of the state. It is rather theat the state will be dangerous if it is backed by the awesome power of the church in the hands of fallible human beings. Hence the reason why most Christians reject theocracy and why even in the high-water time of the Catholic church the Pope only ruled his temporal realms as an earthly prince equal with his fellows.

Indeed, G. K. Chesterton dealt with this very neatly in The Everlasting Man when he addressed the Arian Heresy and the myth of the state as dictator of faith:

Take another rationalistic explanation of the rise of Christendom. It is common enough to find another critic saying, 'Christianity did not really rise at all; that is, it did not merely rise from below; it was imposed from above. It is an example of the power of the executive, especially in despotic states. The Empire was really an Empire; that is, it was really ruled by the Emperor. One of the Emperors happened to become a Christian. He might just as well have become a Mithraist or a Jew or a Fire-Worshipper; it was common in the decline of the Empire for eminent and educated people to adopt these eccentric eastern cults. But when he adopted it it became the official religion of the Roman Empire; and when it became the official religion of the Roman Empire, it became as strong, as universal and as invincible as the Roman Empire. It has only remained in the world as a relic of that Empire; or, as many have put it, it is but the ghost of Caesar still hovering over Rome.' This also is a very ordinary line taken in the criticism of orthodoxy, to say that it was only officialdoms that ever made it orthodoxy. And here again we can call on the heretics to refute it.

The whole great history of the Arian heresy might have been invented to explode this idea. It is a very interesting history often repeated in this connection; and the upshot of it is in so far as there ever was a merely official religion, it actually died because it was merely an official religion; and what destroyed it was the real religion. Arius advanced a version of Christianity which moved, more or less vaguely, in the direction of what we should call Unitarianism; thought was not the same, for it gave to Christ a curious intermediary position between the divine and human. The point is that it seemed to many more reasonable and less fanatical; and among these were many of the educated class in a sort of reaction against the first romance of conversion. Arians were a sort of moderates and a sort of modernists. And it was felt that after the first squabbles this was the final form of rationalized, religion into which civilization might well settle down. It was accepted by Divus Caesar himself and became the official orthodoxy; the generals and military princes drawn from the new barbarian powers of the north, full of the future, supported it strongly. But the sequel is still more important. Exactly as a modern man might pass through Unitarianism to complete agnosticism, so the greatest of the Arian emperors ultimately shed the last and thinnest pretense of Christianity; he abandoned even Arius and returned to Apollo. He was a Caesar of the Caesars; a soldier, a scholar, a man of large ambitions and ideals; another of the philosopher kings. It seemed to him as if at his signal the sun rose again. The oracles began to speak like birds beginning to sing at. dawn; paganism was itself again; the gods returned. It seemed the end of that strange interlude of an alien superstition. And indeed it was the end of it, so far as there was a mere interlude of mere superstition. It was the end of it, in so far as it was the fad of an emperor or the fashion of a generation. If there really was something that began with Constantine, then it ended with Julian.

A small point, but an important one.

Jesus, ITV & Dhimmitiude

From the Guardian:

There was no manger, Christ is not the Messiah, and the crucifixion never happened. A forthcoming ITV documentary will portray Jesus as Muslims see him.

With the Koran as a main source and drawing on interviews with scholars and historians, the Muslim Jesus explores how Islam honours Christ as a prophet but not as the son of God. According to the Koran the crucifixion was a divine illusion. Instead of dying on the cross, Jesus was rescued by angels and raised to heaven.

If this was 1975, I wouldn't have any quarrel with Lord Bragg et al for putting this film out. I would merely file it away as a study in comparative religion of no more or less importance than a discussion of the Arian heresy and leave it at that. However, when it comes at a time when we are in a war for our lives with a load of suicidal Jihadists who use the Koran for their marching orders and when Her Majesty's government allows a most prominent and vocal Islamofascist to walk free and active on British soil, this comes perilously close to carrying the enemy's water for him.

A rule of thumb for the media: If the Allied press wouldn't do something that would aid the Axis cause in 1943, don't do it for the Jihadists today.

The Pope, Bears, & Islam

From the BBC:

The failed bomb attacks on London and Glasgow have damaged public perceptions of Islam, a survey has suggested.

No doubt that would be the "No #&%$, Sherlock" survey.

No Respect

The AP's Thomas Wagner puzzles over why all those doctors became involved in a terrorist plot and for all his research and pondering cannot come up with a single common denominator as to what could cause these professional men to plant car bombs in London and Glasgow. Could it be a religious motive. No, of course not. Don't be silly.

It is enough to make one show genuine sympathy for the Jihadists. I mean, here they are shouting from the rooftops that they're a load of crazed Muslim fanatics dedicated to establishing a worldwide Caliphate and have sworn war to the knife against any infidel or fellow Muslim who does not subscribe to their twisted brand of Islam and you can't even get the Western elite to give you a look in. What do you have to do to be taken seriously as a power-hungry megalomaniac around here?

A Former Jihadi Speaks Out

Hassan Butt, who was once a member of radical group Al-Muhajiroun, addresses the ostrich mentality of the West and moderate Muslims when it comes to radical Islam:

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.

Read the whole thing, as they say.

Blind Spot

The Prime Minister Mr. Tony Blair says that he would like to see university Islamic studies revamped, more imams trained in Britain, closer links between madrassas and mainstream schools and for politicians to listen harder to the "voice of moderation."

I understand what Mr. Blair is trying to accomplish, and it's a logical part of fighting the Jihadists to make sure that Islamic studies departments and local mosques aren't staffed by Islamofascists, but given the lingering poison of multiculturalism and Mr. Blair's utter refusal to treat an enemy in time of war as an enemy in time of war, I keep getting a vision of a backside getting firmly bitten.

Dutchmen Riot in Utrecht

Native Dutchmen have rioted for two days in Ondiep, a suburb of Utrecht, the Netherlands, after a 54-year old Dutchman was shot by police following an altercation with Muslim "youths."

According to the Brussels Journal,

Locals claim the police has failed to protect them for years. They say the authorities are afraid of the immigrants and tolerate their criminal behaviour. After the death of Mulder the indigenous Dutch decided they had had enough and started riots which went on for two continuous nights. The police made 130 arrests: 60 of them are Ondiep residents. According to the mainstream media the others are mainly “football hooligans” from other parts of the country. Annie Brouwer Korf, the Socialist mayor of Utrecht, has ordered to be sealed off from the rest of town to keep non-residents out. She expressed some sympathy for the frustrated Ondiep residents. “I understand that residents are sometimes upset about the nuisance around their own house and neighbourhood. That does you no good whatsoever.”

This is episode of a "reverse Parisian" riot is an foreshadowing of events to come in Europe that I find particularly ominous. Not because I share any of the belief on the Left that white Europeans are dyed in the wool racists who must be restrained at all times lest their blood lust runs rampant, but because it is an illustration of what I have been saying for years: If the governments of Europe do not address the problem of a large and growing unassimilated Islamic population squarely and honestly, and especially the role that the Jihadists among them play in the war against civilisation, then the native people and moderate Muslims will come to believe that the government is sacrificing them at the altar of multiculturalism. When that happens, the politics of appeasement and expediency in regard to recalcitrant and belligerent Muslims will be as nothing in the face of rebellious and frightened natives. Then God help us all.

It is a classic example of the longer we wait, the more we are going to find our options ever fewer and the results ever more unjust and bloodier for everyone.

On the Dhimmi Front

In Minnesota, land of "no infidels" taxis, Muslim cashiers at a Target store refuse to touch pork products. Are they being removed to a less bacon-rich position? Not quite (emphasis added):

In most cases, a cashier should be able to call over another cashier who can scan a product and the shopper shouldn't be inconvenienced, Athman noted. "If the employee is rude and gasps at the sight of pork, then it's a different situation," she said.

Different how and for whom is not elaborated on.

Meanwhile, in Colchester Connecticut, students dressed in bruqas to learn about discrimination against women Muslims under the watchful eye of CAIR-- which the newspaper story describes as a benign anti-bigotry group.

Imagine the equivalent of any of this being tolerated in 1943. If this war against the Jihadists is an ideological struggle, then we're bringing a knife to a gunfight.

First Out of the Box

It's the first post of the year and the BBC has hit the ground running. In an article on the terrible fate suffered by Muslim's in racist, Islamophobic Britain, the Beeb manages to make the whole of the local Muslim population look like passive victims of wicked infidels whose warmongering in Iraq and questioning of the veil is forcing the poor Islamic dears into strapping on bomb belts and killing innocent men, women and children.

Not quite even that. The Beeb doesn't even mention suicide bombers, preferring to make it look as if those trains and that bus just sort of exploded on their own and last year's attempt to bring down ten airliners simultaneously wasn't even mentioned. True, the Danish Cartoon War was mentioned, but not British Muslims in the streets of London calling for beheading anyone who dares to insult Mohammad nor the cravenness of the British press in refusing to publish the cartoons in question.

I particularly like the use of the weseal phrase "real fears," as if the fears may be real, but the actual threat is a matter of perspective.

"War? What war?" looks to be the BBC motto for 2007.

Somali Jihadists Routed

It's a sad day when Ethiopia has to show the West how to deal with Islamofascists.

Christmas Unveiled

The Muslim woman pegged to deliver Channel Four's "alternative" Christmas message in full veil has withdrawn (emphasis added).

In a statement, she said that it was the unexpected publicity around her decision that made her change her mind.

But a source close to the programme makers said one of the reasons was that she had been pressurised by senior members of the community who felt it was not her place to talk about Islam. It has also been said that she had received threatening letters from non-Muslims accusing her of trying to upstage the Queen.

Pass the eggnog, please.

Quote of the Day

(W)hen Muslims beat infidels, it’s just too bad for the latter; they must submit to their new overlords’ rules with all the attendant discrimination and humiliation mandated for non-Muslims. Yet when Islam is beaten, demands for apologies and concessions are expected from the infidel world at large.

Raymond Ibrahim on double standards.