Triumphal Mosques And "Hindu Extremists"

"Hindu extremists"?

A court in India has said that a disputed holy site in Ayodhya should be split between Hindus and Muslims, but both sides plan to appeal. In a majority verdict, judges gave control of the main disputed section, where a mosque was torn down in 1992, to Hindus. Other parts of the site will be controlled by Muslims and a Hindu sect.

The BBC is in its usual fine form in its reporting of this story. Hindu activists are described as "extremists" and "right-wing", while Muslims are treated with kid gloves. And even worse, the article refers to the fact that "The destruction of the mosque by Hindu extremists led to widespread rioting in which some 2,000 people died", as if this was the sole source of the conflict, without ever mentioning the fact that the mosque was most likely originally built on the site of a destroyed Hindu temple that had already existed there.

But would we ever expect the BBC to provide its readership with honest information about the long, documented history - including in India - of Muslims building triumphal mosques on the holy sites of defeated infidels...as is happening in New York today? Would they provide their readers with the history of the Muslim ruler Aurangzeb, who "Razed temples, built mosques on their foundations"? What about all the other temples forcefully turned into mosques? Wouldn't a responsible media outlet report these things for the sake of context?

The OIC and the Modern Caliphate

At American Thinker today, Bat Ye'or, the pioneering scholar of the historical and modern Islamisation of non-Muslim societies by the forces of Islamic supremacism, discusses the ambition of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to effectively recreate the global caliphate, or Muslim empire, and re-establish sharia law as the primary system of governance everywhere.

As she describes it, "The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is a religious and political organization. Close to the Muslim World League of the Muslim Brotherhood, it shares the Brotherhood's strategic and cultural vision: that of a universal religious community, the Ummah, based upon the Koran, the Sunna, and the canonical orthodoxy of shari'a. The OIC represents 56 countries and the Palestinian Authority (considered a state), the whole constituting the universal Ummah with a community of more than one billion three to six hundred million Muslims." It also constitutes the largest voting bloc at the UN, and has already been instrumental in enacting resolutions which may lead to the suppression of speech about Islam that it does not like, as well as initiating the biased UN Goldstone report, whose lies and smear-mongering incited hatred against Israelis and Jews worldwide.

That the OIC represents a religious and political vision totally at variance with 21st-century Western conceptions of civilisation is encapsulated by Bat Ye'or's pertinent observation:

One can note that Sudanese President Omar al Bashir, accused (according to Western criteria of justice) of genocide committed in southern Sudan and Darfur, has not been troubled by the Islamic Court of Justice [the OIC's main legal body]. His colleagues at the OIC do not consider him in any way a criminal and receive him with great respect, as does Turkish PM Erdogan.

There is also this terrifying information:

The Islamic Court of Justice has an international mandate and could try foreigners, both Muslims and non-Muslims (blasphemers, apostates, resisters to jihad) who have broken the laws of shari'a anywhere. Moreover, the claim by the OIC to be the guardian and protector of Muslim immigrants living in all countries that are not members of the OIC implies an extension of its jurisdiction and political influence over all the Muslims of Europe, North and South America, and the other non-Member States. This situation exacerbates the danger incurred by non-religious European Muslims, whether atheists, apostates, or free thinkers.

This movement to create a totalitarian religio-political empire that would challenge the very core of Western soceities and values - which ensure freedom from tyranny - should trouble the heart of everyone who cares about freedom and democratic, secular values. But as the author notes:

Faced today with this political archaism, a divided and broken West seeks refuge in denial and grasps at the demise of tiny Israel as though at a lifebelt. Taking in water from every side, this West that abandons its own identity for multilateralism and multiculturalism and ruins its citizenry by buying security has little chance of survival.

I admire Bat Ye'or very much, both as a scholar and as a character, but never in my life have I more fervently wished for someone to be wrong. Time will tell, but Bat Ye'or's insights will always remain difficult to ignore.

The Islamically Correct Indoctrination of Children

Children are being taught to like Islam and hate Christianity, according to elected officials in Texas, who say they're hellbent on stopping it.

Members of the state's Board of Education will vote on a new resolution on Friday that argues textbooks dedicate more time to teaching the Muslim faith, while offering less information about Christian history.

The information is also skewed, the resolution states, showing Islam in a positive light while demonizing Christianity.

For example, it argues, "120 student text lines" in one book were dedicated to "Christian beliefs, practices and holy writings," while more than two times as many focus on Islam, "dwelling for 27 student text lines on Crusaders' massacre of Muslims at Jerusalem in 1099 yet censoring Muslims' massacres of Christians there in 1244 and at Antioch in 1268, implying that Christian brutality and Muslim loss of life are significant but Islamic cruelty and Christian deaths are not."

This is not the first time this has happened - not by a long shot. Only a month ago, similar complaints were registered in New York. Consider the following contrasting extracts regarding Islam and Christianity from standard reference works:

The Muslim reading:

* “Wherever they went, the Moslems [sic] brought with them their love of art, beauty and learning. From about the eighth to the eleventh century, their culture was superior in many ways to that of western Christendom.

* “Some of the finest centers of Moslem life were established in Spain. In Cordova, the streets were solidly paved, while at the same time in Paris people waded ankle-deep in mud after a rain. Cordovan public lamps lighted roads for as far as ten miles; yet seven hundred years later there was still not a single public lamp in London!”

Source: Daniel Roselle, A World History: A Cultural Approach

The Christian reading:
Common Procedures used by Friars in Converting Areas in Spanish America:

* “Idols, temples and other material evidences of paganism destroyed.”

* “Christian buildings often constructed on sites of destroyed native temples in order to symbolize and emphasize the substitution of one religion by the other.”

* “Indians supplied construction labor without receiving payment.”

* “In a converted community, services and fiestas were regularly held in the church building.”

The Islamic reading is whitewashed nonsense. Muslim Spain was no paradise of multicultural tolerance. Non-Muslims were treated as dhimmis, second-class citizens denied basic rights and frequently presecuted by the Muslim masses. And while Christians certainly did the things the textbooks say, their reading is almost entirely negative, not getting the same fluffy treatment as al-Andalus.

For further background, see this 2008 PDF report by the American Textbook Council, which provides numerous examples of the pro-Islamic and anti-Christian bias in American school textbooks. Additionally, Bat Ye'or has documented in her must-read book Eurabia how these nasty habits - particularly the treacly whitewashing of the often brutal reality of medieval Muslim Spain - are commonplace in Europe, as well:

"The Muslim version of history is now being taught and accepted in Europe and America, while more accurate treatments such as historian Paul Fregosi's book Jihad in the West faced a wall of opposition. Mainstream views of jihad gloss over its fanaticism and such practises as enslavement and massacre. The responsibility for the jihad wars' atrocities is attributed to Christian resistance to Islamisation and to the iniquitous Crusades - but not to the concepts of jihad and dar al-harb, the land of war where the infidels must be subdued...There is no doubt that this chorus of tearful contrition helps to strengthen the Muslim opinion that Islamic jihad is a liberating and peaceful favour granted to the infidels." (p.195)

The reason for this biased indoctrination of our children is twofold:

1. Self-imposed dhimmitude. Western leftists despise Western civilisation, and seek to besmirch it at every turn. In the process, they must necessarily elevate other cultures to a superior position, even when they are demonstrably backward and inferior. They also in many cases fear for their reputations and safety if they dare to publish anything that presents Islam in a negative light.

2. Muslim groups such as the Council on Islamic Education personally vet many textbooks, ensuring that negative depictions of Islamic teachings or history are never printed, while other groups bully education authorities into censoring their books.

The ultimate effect of all this false information is that people of all ages are ill-prepared to understand and consequently deal with the very real threat posed to free, democratic societies and human rights by certain Islamic teachings that are incompatible with 21st century life. We continue to ignore these aspects at our own peril.

The Slide Into Sharia

Looking like a jackass while burning a wad of paper: now an arrestable offence in the UK

We saw recently how far our beloved country has sunk into full-scale appeasement and acceptance of Islamic law - against the will, and even knowledge, of the people.

That slide off the edge is demonstrated again today with the news that a gang of men have been arrested after filming themselves burning a copy of the Koran on the anniversary of 9/11 - and posting it on YouTube.

The arrest is logically stupid. The charge is apparently "suspicion of stirring racial hatred", which qualifies as unfair arrest given that Islam is not a race but a belief system, with the Qur'an as its manifesto.

I do not agree with Qur'an-burning, despite my known criticism of the book itself. I believe that the best way to deal with a book that says things you don't like is to write another book refuting it. Burning books is intolerant and childish. That said, freedom of expression is a vital cornerstone of any free society, and it is obvious that since no one, anywhere, is actually physically harmed by the burning of the book, and since the Qur'an is mass-produced in the millions around the world, this is yet another case of that freedom of expression needing to be protected.

Those who are scornful of the notion that Britain is being gradually Islamised, succumbing to Islamic law step by step, need only look at this case as their lesson. Here, plain and simple, Islamic law has been applied in Gateshead, when formerly British law - and British values which champion individual freedom of expression, even if that expression is offensive - would have seen no offence taking place.

Islam has won a small victory here. And all the while British authorities and law enforcement continue to see nothing wrong with such a flagrant contravention of the principles this once-great country was built-upon, Islam will win many more. The implications of these victories for our future, and that of the society we live in, are grave indeed.

Britain's Secret "Halalisation"

I made a conscious decision this time last month to take a whole month's break from blogging, having lost a significant chunk of inspiration for reasons I still don't fully comprehend. In that time, I glossed over a good deal of interesting subjects that I would surely have discussed had I still been in business - the anniversary of 9/11; the Qur'an-burning scandal; and the ongoing furore over the Ground Zero "Islamic Centre", to name a few.

But now I have returned, and it seems apt to return to the blogosphere by briefly discussing the stunning recent revelations by the Mail on Sunday that schools, hospitals, pubs and famous sporting venues such as Ascot and Twickenham are controversially serving up meat slaughtered in accordance with strict Islamic law to unwitting members of the public.

All the beef, chicken and lamb sold to fans at Wembley has secretly been prepared in accordance with sharia law, while Cheltenham College, which boasts of its ‘strong Christian ethos’, is one of several top public schools which also serves halal chicken to pupils without informing them. Even Britain’s biggest hotel and restaurant group Whitbread, which owns the Beefeater and Brewers Fayre chains, among many others, has admitted that more than three-quarters of its poultry is halal.

As the Mail article outlines:

Animal welfare campaigners have long called for a ban on the traditional Islamic way of preparing meat - which involves killing animals by drawing a knife across their throats, without stunning them first - saying it is cruel and causes unnecessary pain.

Sharia law expressly forbids knocking the animal out with a bolt gun, as is usual in British slaughter­houses. Instead, it must be sentient when its throat is cut, and the blood allowed to drip from the carcass while a religious phrase in praise of Allah is recited.

The animal cruelty aspect of this investigation is certainly a valid concern. I am sure that there are many people who would choose not to eat this food if they knew the truth of its origins and preparation. But perhaps the more important aspect is that this represents yet another step in the stealth Islamisation of Britain - aided and abetted by our own treacherous political leaders. Bat Ye'or has chronicled how Western policy-makers have deliberately sought to integrate Islamic laws into European societies for years - without ever consulting their largely disapproving populace.

Some may say that it is an exaggeration and even an absurdity to suggest that serving halal meat represents the first step in some kind Islamic conquest of Britain. However, one must consider that Islamic law does not lend itself to partial implementation. Indeed, according to some mainstream Muslim authorities, anyone who only implements sharia in part (for example, by limiting its application to "family law" such as marriage and divorce) is in fact no longer a Muslim at all, but a kafir: an unbeliever; while others insist that Muslims who dare to suggest that brutal sharia punishments such as stoning are barbaric and out of date in the modern world are apostates.

British authorities have already shown that they are willing to apply some aspects of sharia law in this country, even when those laws conflict with our own, and even when they cause harm and division. Once they implement some Islamic law, how do they decide when to draw the line? Indeed, once they have begun, and the sharia supremacists, encouraged by what they see, become more vocal, is it even possible for politicians to stop advancing sharia, without damaging their own support bases and making themselves look like hypocrites? That slippery slope is what has me worried.

And given that sharia principles are the primary source of human rights abuses in all Islamic countries, that should make all true British patriots - and lovers of individual freedom - worried, too.