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ISIL/DAESH in our midst

29.09.2014. “One day not very far, Europe will wake up to a nightmare”. I made this comment to friends during a 2012 visit to Europe. They swiftly dismissed it. Yet just two years later, with DAESH (Islamic State, a.k.a. ISIL) supporters demonstrating in Europe’s streets, and European citizens joining DAESH to fight in Syria and Iraq, the nightmare seems to be upon them. Thus writes Alfred Raouf in an essay for Human Rights Service (emphasis and links in original):

What is more dangerous to Europe is not the state itself but rather “the DAESH within”. Europe’s governments seem at a loss to know how to address this, how to stop it happening. Their responses are ineffective, even futile. There are no easy solutions, but Europe must tackle the main roots of the problem: finances, fanatical doctrines controlling the preaching of Islam in Europe, and European policies towards the Middle East and immigration.

These issues are complex, and the history, doctrines, and aims of DAESH, along with some of the main differences in the mindset of its Western European supporters must be grasped if the magnitude of the problem facing Europe is to be understood.

Historical Origin
The beliefs of DAESH are rooted in Wahhabism, a branch of Islam founded in the 19thcentury which has spawned several branches since then. Its founder Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, made an alliance with  Muhammad bin Saud to revolt against the Ottoman Empire and establish the first Saudi state, based on the “true” Islam: the Wahhabi doctrine. Wahhabism advocates returning to the earliest Islamic fundamentals and regards anything that came after the first three generations of Muslims as an unnecessary innovation. That is why attempts by Saudi rulers to bring modernism, and their alliance with the USA have been considered a betrayal of Wahhabi principles. This perceived betrayal produced Al-Qaeda, which later developed to DAESH.

Parallel to Wahhabism, Islamic Modernism was developing, primarily in Egypt’s Al Azhar and was pioneered by scholars such as Rifa’a Al-Tahtawi, Jamal ad-Din Al-Afghani  and Muhammad Abduh. They tried to integrate Islamic principles with European social theories and advocated critical reexamination of classical concepts of Islam and the revival of Islam through re-reading it with nineteenth century eyes.

[...]

Letting Europe be a breeding ground for DAESH endangers the very fabric of European society. Allowing a Jihadist to lead an educational institution promoting a radical interpretation of Islam like in the case of Jermaine W in the Netherlands, or hosting Jihadists as political asylum seekers, can only produce generations of European DAESH supporters and will end up backfiring on European citizens.

While tolerance of Islam can help integrating immigrants, preaching radicalized versions of Islam can have the opposite effect and should not be tolerated. In a Norwegian village, after a Mosque managed by radical sheikhs opened, the social interaction between ethnic Norwegians and Somalis decreased, the Somalis became less involved in organized sport and leisure activities. The reason was that the sheikhs asked Somalis who showed signs of integration into Norwegian society were told that they are not abiding to Islam and were excluded from the Somali community when they did not abide to the sheikhs’ demands.

While freedom of speech and religious freedoms are values Europe must not give up on, Europe also must not allow these freedoms to be abused and further used in preaching teachings that defy those liberties. One must never support the liberty of taking away liberties.

Finances, freedom of preaching radical, fanatical versions of Islam, European policies towards the Middle East, cultural differences among young radicalized European Muslims and failure to contain and integrate second and third generation immigrants are some of the main roots of the problem. Only by addressing the roots of the problem, with the help of its moderate Muslim community and Islamic Modernism, can Europe deal with “the DAESH within”.

Read the entire article at HRS.

 


Laughing at the new Inquisition

26.09.2014. Pat Condell airs his thoughts on self-righteous 'progressives' who find it self evident that the high moral ground belongs to them - and them alone. See the video made available at Snaphanen.dk (6 minutes).

 


New population projections shatter earlier estimates

23.09.2014. In a paper recently published in Science, demographers from several universities and the United Nations Population Division conclude that instead of leveling off in the second half of the 21st century, as the UN predicted less than a decade ago, the world's population will continue to grow beyond 2100. (Read "Population Seven Billion" in National Geographic magazine.) Continue reading A World With 11 Billion People? New Population Projections Shatter Earlier Estimates at NatGeo.

 


Gazans speak out

23.09.2014. While the world’s media has been blaming Israel for the death of Gazan civilians during Operation Protective Edge, this correspondent decided to speak with Gazans themselves to hear what they had to say. They spoke of Hamas atrocities and war crimes implicating Hamas in the civilian deaths of its own people. Thus writes Mudar Zahran for Gatestone Institute:

"If Hamas does not like you for any reason all they have to do now is say you are a Mossad agent and kill you." — A., a Fatah member in Gaza.

"Hamas wanted us butchered so it could win the media war against Israel showing our dead children on TV and then get money from Qatar." — T., former Hamas Ministry officer.

"They would fire rockets and then run away quickly, leaving us to face Israeli bombs for what they did." — D., Gazan journalist.

"Hamas imposed a curfew: anyone walking out in the street was shot. That way people had to stay in their homes, even if they were about to get bombed. Hamas held the whole Gazan population as a human shield." — K., graduate student

"The Israeli army allows supplies to come in and Hamas steals them. It seems even the Israelis care for us more than Hamas." — E., first-aid volunteer.

"We are under Hamas occupation, and if you ask most of us, we would rather be under Israeli occupation… We miss the days when we were able to work inside Israel and make good money. We miss the security and calm Israel provided when it was here." — S., graduate of an American university, former Hamas sympathizer.

Continue reading at Gatestone Institute. Hat tip Document.no.

 


The reason British police ignored the abuse of 1400 girls

04.09.2014. A story of rampant child abuse—ignored and abetted by the police—is emerging out of the British town of Rotherham. Until now, its scale and scope would have been inconceivable in a civilized country. Its origins, however, lie in something quite ordinary: what one Labour MP called “not wanting to rock the multicultural community boat.” Thus begins philosopher Roger Scruton his article Why Did British Police Ignore Pakistani Gangs Abusing 1,400 Rotherham Children? Political Correctness. After describing some of the events that have taken place in Rotherham, Scruton goes on to analyze what he sees as the reasons behind the scandal (links in original, emphasis added):

Sociologists convinced government that the police are racist

Fifteen years ago, when these crimes were just beginning, the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry into the conduct of the British police was made by Sir William Macpherson a High Court judge. The immediate occasion had been a murder in which the victim was black, the perpetrators white, and the behaviour of the investigating police lax and possibly prejudiced. The report accused the police – not just those involved in the case, but the entire police force of the country – of ‘institutionalised racism’. This piece of sociological newspeak was, at the time, very popular with leftist sociologists. For it made an accusation which could not be refuted by anyone who had the misfortune to be accused of it.

However well you behaved, however scrupulously you treated people of different races and without regard to their ethnic identity or the colour of their skin, you would be guilty of ‘institutionalised racism’, simply on account of the institution to which you belonged and on behalf of which you were acting. Not surprisingly, sociologists and social workers, the vast majority of whom are professionally disposed to believe that middle class society is incurably racist, latched on to the expression. MacPherson too climbed onto the bandwagon since, at the time, it was the easiest and safest way to wash your hands in public, to say that I, at least, am not guilty of the only crime that is universally recognised and everywhere in evidence.

Police more concerned with political correctness than crime

The result of this has been that police forces lean over backwards to avoid the accusation of racism, while social workers will hesitate to intervene in any case in which they could be accused of discriminating against ethnic minorities. Matters are made worse by the rise of militant Islam, which has added to the old crime of racism the new crime of ‘Islamophobia’. No social worker today will risk being accused of this crime. In Rotherham a social worker would be mad, and a police officer barely less so, to set out to investigate cases of suspected sexual abuse, when the perpetrators are Asian Muslims and the victims ethnically English. Best to sweep it under the carpet, find ways of accusing the victims or their parents or the surrounding culture of institutionalised racism, and attending to more urgent matters such as the housing needs of recent immigrants, or the traffic offences committed by those racist middle classes.

Americans too are familiar with this syndrome. Political correctness among sociologists comes from socialist convictions and the tired old theories that produce them. But among ordinary people it comes from fear. The people of Rotherham know that it is unsafe for a girl to take a taxi-ride from someone with Asian features; they know that Pakistani Muslims often do not treat white girls with the respect that they treat girls from their own community. They know, and have known over fifteen years, that there are gangs of predators on the look-out for vulnerable girls, and that the gangs are for the most part Asian young men who see English society not as the community to which they belong, but as a sexual hunting ground. But they dare not express this knowledge, in either words or deed. Still less do they dare to do so if their job is that of social worker or police officer. Let slip the mere hint that Pakistani Muslims are more likely than indigenous Englishmen to commit sexual crimes and you will be branded as a racist and an Islamophobe, to be ostracised in the workplace and put henceforth under observation.

No one will be fired

This would matter less if fear had no consequences. Unfortunately political correctness causes people not merely to disguise their beliefs but to refuse to act on them, to accuse others who confess to them, and in general to go along with policies that have been forced on the British people by minority groups of activists. The intention of the activists is to disrupt and dismantle the old forms of social order. They believe that our society is not just racist, but far too comfortable, far too unequal, far too bound up with fuddy-duddy old ways that are experienced by people at the bottom of society – the working classes, the immigrants, the homeless, the illegals – as oppressive and demeaning. They enthusiastically propagate the doctrines of political correctness as a way of taking revenge on a social order from which they feel alienated.

Ordinary people are so intimidated by this that they repeat the doctrines, like religious mantras which they hope will keep them safe in hostile territory. Hence people in Britain have accepted without resistance the huge transformations that have been inflicted on them over the last thirty years, largely by activists working through the Labour Party. They have accepted immigration policies that have filled our cities with disaffected Muslims, many of whom have now gone to fight against us in Syria and Iraq. They have accepted the growth of Islamic schools in which children are taught to prepare themselves for jihad against the surrounding social order. They have accepted the constant denigration of their country, its institutions and its inherited religion, for the simple reason that these things are theirs and therefore tainted with forbidden loyalties.

And when the truth is expressed at last, nobody is fired, no arrests are made, and the elected Police and Communities Commissioner for Rotherham, although forced to resign from the Labour Party, refuses to resign from his job. After a few weeks all will have been swept under the carpet, and the work of destruction can resume.

Read the entire article at Forbes. Hat tip Document.no.

 



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HonestThinking is dedicated and committed to the art of thinking honestly. Yet honest thinking is not the same as true thinking, for it is possible to think honestly, but be mistaken. For the same reason, honest thinking is not identical with objective thinking either. Honest thinking is striving to get things right. This involves being truthful about whatever one publishes, but just as importantly, it involves an uncompromising dedication never to suppress relevant data, even when data collides with dearly held prejudices. Such an approach may sometimes cause hurtful revisions in one’s belief system. That’s what HonestThinking is all about! Read the entire manifesto.



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The current European immigration and integration policy is profoundly disrespectful of both Muslims and Islam, because it is built on the tacit assumption that the Muslims will become like us. One claims to have respect for Islam and for Muslims, but one also expects Muslims to give up their orthodox faith when they come here. At the same time one is assuming that Islam will be reformed and modernized as soon as the Muslims become integrated and understand and appreciate how superior our Western culture is compared to their own. This is cultural shauvinism and arrogance indeed! The unspoken premise for this scenario is that Western socities are superior to Islam. Read more.

 


 

 

Human rights and democracy are under pressure. One threat comes from the Western world, in the form of lack of or dishonest thinking. There exists a peculiar Western "tolerance" which is so "tolerant" that it even tolerates totalitarian or anti-democratic ideologies. A tacit assumption underlying such an attitude is that all cultures, world views, and religions are really equally good. As a consequence of this assumption one is cut off from the possibility of critically examining the above mentioned ideologies. Read more.