<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Man shot in anti-terrorism raid
A 23-year-old man has been shot by police during a house raid involving 250 officers carried out early on Friday under the Terrorism Act.
The man, who was later arrested, was taken to hospital after the search in Forest Gate, east London. His injuries are not life-threatening.
A 20-year-old man is also being held at a central London police station.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5040022.stm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://www.justifythis.blogspot.com/
A MUST WATCH "Addressing Grievances of British Muslims"
The following is a clip from the Phil Hendrie radio show. After you listen to /watch the clip make sure you check the first comment [thanks to Daniel for reminding me about this video] :
http://www.justifythis.blogspot.com/
INDIA - The scale of âloss of lifeâ and âsocial upheavalâ caused by militant Islam may be worse in India than any other land, simply by virtue of the number of individuals involved. By some estimates, over 60 million have died in conflicts with Muslims over the centuries. Jihadists have destroyed all native Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist communities from five of India's provinces (including North Kashmir, now called Pakistan and Bangladesh).
Islam first came into India as a Military force in the year 715 C.E., in the Province of Sindh, but it made inroads into the country proper between 1020 and 1194 after which Mohammedan power became dominant in north India. The people of Kerala had their violent introduction to Islam in the 18th century, when Tipu Sultan, the usurper of the Mysore Principality marched into Kerala attacking the Zamorin Raja of Calicut and began âconvertingâ people to Islam. Tipu went about with a Koran in one hand and a sword in the other giving the subject people of Kerala a choice of accepting Islam or death. Doing this, he marched from Calicut up to Alwaye where he was forced to retreat because of stiff resistance. In 1669 Aurangzeb issued a general order for the destruction of Hindu temples, and it is estimated that about 3000 temples were destroyed and converted into Mosques in the 750 years of Muslim rule in India.
During the sultanate and later under Aurangzeb, many hundreds of thousands of Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam. The sentences of criminals and prisoners of war were ruthlessly executed with mercy and allowances only available to individuals embracing Islam. The Jaziya tax was both a heavy financial -burden and a badge of inferiority borne by the Hindu, which also stimulated conversions to Islam. In the 1860s a Muslim cleric in the Punjab region of India launched a murderous jihad initially against Sikhs, and then against all non-Muslim groups.
In South India in 1921, jihadists carried out massacres, the forced conversion of Hindus, and the desecration of Hindu temples. The number of casualties over the centuries are at least and order of magnitude greater than suffered by the Jews in the holocaust, and the ongoing conflicts have been key to the economic and social disadvantages of Indian society. <span style='color:red'>Although Indians are an industrious and educated people, the social, political, and economic costs of the ongoing conflicts are the cause of its poor economic performance compared to other industrialized nations.
</span>
http://www.islamundressed.com/#_Toc113793214
Friday, June 09, 2006
âMuslim women want to make free choicesâ
* Gallup survey says sex issues not a priority with most Muslim women
* Majority concerned with lack of unity, extremism and corruption in Muslim world
* Think adopting Western values wonât help Muslims
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: Muslim women interviewed in eight countries have made it clear that they should have the right to vote without influence, work outside the home and serve in the highest levels of government.
The more than 8,000 face-to-face interviews were conducted in eight predominantly Muslim countries by the Gallup Organisation.
In , 53 percent of the women said attachment to their religious beliefs was their countryâs most admirable trait. Only 68 percent of Pakistani women wanted to make their own voting decisions, the lowest number in all the countries polled. The highest percentage of women who want to make their own voting decisions was recorded at 97 percent in Lebanon.
The survey also found that women in the Muslim world did not see sex issues as a priority, finding other issues more pressing When asked what they resented most about their own societies, a majority of Muslim women said that a lack of unity among Muslim nations, violent extremism, and political and economic corruption were their main concerns, reports the New York Times.
<b>
The hijab, or head scarf, and burqa were never even mentioned in the womenâs answers to the open-ended questions, the poll analysts said. Concerning womenâs rights in general, most Muslim women polled associated sex equality with the West.
Seventy-eight percent of Moroccan women, 71 percent of Lebanese women and 48 percent of Saudi women linked legal equality with the West. Still, a majority of the respondents did not think adopting Western values would help the Muslim worldâs political and economic progress.
</b>
The most frequent response to the question, âWhat do you admire least about the West?â was the general perception of moral decay, promiscuity and pornography that pollsters called the âHollywood imageâ that is regarded as degrading to women. An overwhelming majority of the women polled in each country cited âattachment to moral and spiritual valuesâ as the best aspect of their own societies. Similarly, in , 59 percent of the women surveyed cited love of their religion as the best aspect. At 97 percent, had the highest percentage of women who said they believed they should be able to make their own voting decisions, followed by Egypt and at 95 percent.
According to the New York Times, the survey, âWhat Women Want: Listening to the Voices of Muslim Women,â is a part of The Gallup World Poll, which plans to survey 95 percent of the earthâs population over the next century.
<b>
Dalia Mogahed, the strategic analyst of Muslim studies at The Gallup World Poll, said the new data provide fresh insight into the Muslim world, where Western perceptions generally cast women as victims. âWomenâs empowerment has been identified as a key goal of US policy in the region,â</b> said Mogahed, adding that Muslim womenâs rights have generated a lot of interest without much empirical information on âwhat Muslim women want.â
Friday, June 09, 2006
Attack on Iran will create panic in the Islamic world
By Zahid Hameed
ISLAMABAD: The participants of a seminar on Thursday warned the world against the catastrophic consequences that could be set in motion if the United States opted for punitive measures against Iran to resolve the nuclear standoff.
âThe attack on Iran will set the entire Islamic Ummah in disarray. It will destabilise the Middle Eastern region and put the world at stake,â speakers said at a seminar titled âIran - US standoff: options for Pakistanâ, organised by the Institute of policy studies (IPS). The participants asked the government to adopt a pro-active foreign policy to stop the US from attacking Iran over its nuclear programme.
Speaking on the US perspective, Lieutenant General Talat Masood said that the US had placed the decision in the hands of the Iranian government after offering alternatives to Iran to put a stop to its uranium enrichment. He said that the US perceived Iran as a hegemonic regional power in the Middle East, which could turn into a global power thus challenging US authority.
He said that the possibility of the United Statesâ military action against Iran could not be ruled out. âIran failed to report the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding its plutonium enrichment, which gave rise to suspicion, in addition the Iranian presidentâs statements regarding extinguishing the state of Israel has contributed to heightened tensions between both countries,â Masood said. After 9/11 the United States has been pursuing an aggressive policy and it is applying the same against Iran in the wake of its new nuclear revelations, he said. Masood observed that there were conflicts in approaches towards solving the Iranian nuclear issue, within the key players.
Agha Murtaza Poya observed that there was no nuclear standoff between the two countries other than that of the âIslamic Bombâ, which was a disturbing factor for the US. Poya also made other observations regarding the Middle Eastâs future, claiming that there would only be a united Palestinian state and no Israel after 2008, as anti-Zionism was gaining strength in the US.
He said that Iran had never stated to have developed nuclear weapons or threatened a nuclear attack on any other nation, which both the US and Israel had done at one point or another. Regarding available Pakistani options in case the United States did attack Iran, he said, that all Pakistan could do was abide by its own foreign policy. He observed that the super power would eventually have to come to a historic comprise with the Islamic world and Pakistan will not have to make a choice between US and Iran.
Shamshad Ahmad Khan, the former secretary foreign affairs, said that Pakistan favored a peaceful resolution of the crisis since any punitive action against Iran would disturb the country due to its geo-strategic location.
He was of the view that the IAEA should address all gaps in Iranâs nuclear program and stressed that Pakistan abstain from playing any role in resolving the standoff between the two countries, as it doesnât have any clout in the international politics Senator Khurshid Ahmad said that Pakistan should adopt a pro-active foreign policy so that the US could not go to war against Iran
<b>
Khurshid was of the opinion that if the super powers did not accept the reality of their brutalities, they would be responsible for any resistance that could result from the struggle. âTerrorism is the product of asymmetry of power and weapon of the weak against the powerful,â he said.</b>
Khursheed stressed that Pakistan should act to stop US from using force against Iran even if it was mandated by the UN, saying that illegitimate decisions cannot be put at par with legitimate ones. â Any action against Iran would go against the Muslim World and the region. Iran must not be left alone,â he stressed. The speakers expressed satisfaction at the recent developments and the considerable reduction in tension between both countries. They termed US readiness to hold negotiations with Iranians on the nuclear issue, as a positive policy shift.
Old news but nonetheless relevant as it shows what Islam makes people do even if they are not Pakis.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Holland: Hindu temple under attack by Muslims
Cid Martel of Dutchdisease.com has kindly sent over this translation of a Dutch-language article. Why is it permissible in the Dutch press to say "Hindu" but not "Muslim," so that we get a story about a "Hindu" temple attacked by "Moroccan" youth? Are we supposed to believe that Moroccans as such have some animus toward Hindus? Are we to assume that this is fallout from some border dispute between Morocco and India? (You didn't know they shared a border? Of course they do. It runs just southwest of Poland China, the famous hog-breeding nation.)
A Hindu temple in The Hague, the Ram Mandir, is frequently being attacked by a group of Moroccan youth. Young Hindus are so fed up with the situation they want to take matters into their own hands.
Morrocans shove dog faeces through the mailbox and have broken into the temple twice, stolen a statue, urinated inside and stolen money from the moneybox. Mister S. Ramdhani, a Hindu priest, says: âThey spit, donât let visitors pass through, robbed two elderly ladies and then threatened them not to press charges. Our secretary was attacked with a stick.â
Ramdhani doesnât want young Hindus and Moroccans to clash. âIf groups start fighting each other we get a very bad situation. We canât have that here in Holland.â Ramdhani is very embittered about the case. Last year he was given a ribbon by the queen for his contribution to the integration of foreigners in the neighbourhood. Every year thousands of students from The Hague come to the temple to learn more about the Hindu faith; itâs also a haven for troubled teens. Since 9/11 Ramdhani has been trying to reach out to Christians and Muslims.
The trouble caused by Moroccan youth has made a dent in Ramdhaniâs idealism. Heâs thinking about no longer attending the 9/11 meetings. âI feel discriminated against. Why they have to choose our temple? There is a mosque nearby. Why donât they go over there to cause trouble? They must hate the Hindu faith. Otherwise I donât know.â
Rabin Baldewsingh, a member of the city council for the social-democrats, asked mayor Deetman for help. The police says itâs âon the agendaâ.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/ar...005061.php<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->What's worst, the aforementioned story is by no means an isolated incident. On the contrary, it is completely in line with the Dutch Government's long-standing policy of inaction with regard to the Islamofascists. In February 2005, just a few months ago, a group of young Moroccan Muslims carried out a vicious attack - which, by the way, was not the first of its kind - against the Ram Mandir Hindu temple in The Hague. According to fok.nl, the young Islamofascists have broken into the temple twice, stolen a statue, urinated inside (!) and stolen money from the moneybox.4 The newspaper goes on to offer a Hindu priest's account of Muslims preventing visitors from passing through and robbing two elderly ladies, which stirs up the fresh memories of an Islamist takeover of a church in Brussels, where they quickly created a group of 'guards' that flocked around the doorsteps, faces effusing nothing but hatred, and prevented anyone willing from entering the church.5Meanwhile, by the time fok.nl published the article, the situation around Ram Mandir had reached the point where Hindus were beginning to think of taking matters into their own hands. Despite numerous complaints from priests and community leaders, the police did nothing to arrest the ones responsible for what clearly was nothing but a hate crime.
http://www.acage.org/articles/?id=0057<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
[center]<b><span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>New documentary denigrating Islam ready for release</span></b>[/center]
WASHINGTON: A new documentary aimed at denigrating Islam and attempting to show that it is not a religion of peace but war and conflict is due to be released in three US cities on July 7.
The documentary called âIslam: what the West needs to knowâ has been produced by a company with the improbable name of Quixotic Media and will be initially released in Washington, Atlanta and Chicago.
The 98-minutes filmâs main idea, according to the producers, is that it is not correct that those who commit violence in the name of Islam misinterpret the religionâs teachings, because Islam is a âviolent, expansionary ideology that seeks the destruction or subjugation of other faiths, cultures and systems of governmentâ. The documentary consists of interviews, selected citations from Islamic texts and Islamic artwork, computer-animated maps, Islamic television broadcasts and footage featuring Western leaders. The producers claim that the filmâs tone is âsober, methodical and compellingâ.
The documentary starts with prominent Western leaders stating that Islam is a peaceful religion and those who commit violence in its name are âheterodox fanaticsâ. <b>The first part of the film will seek to make the point that Islamic violence is entirely orthodox behaviour for Muslims and stems directly from the teachings of its founder (pbuh) and the commands of the Quran. The second part will make the point that jihad does not denote âstruggleâ but war fought against non-Muslims in order to bring the rule of Islamic law to the world. Part three will try it establish that Islam did not spread through evangelism or its own natural appeal, but through âaggressive wars of conquestâ. The Crusades will be projected as largely a belated response on the part of Christian Europe to ârescueâ Christians in the Holy Land suffering under Muslim âsuppressionâ. The Muslim world of today, the movie will allege, is responsible for the vast majority of conflicts and for almost all international terrorism.
Part four of he documentary will stress that the West has failed to understand that âreligious deceptionâ is central to Islam and Muslim groups employ it in the West to create the impression that their religion is a religion of peace. Islam, the documentary will state, is more a system of government than a personal religion, as throughout its history, it has never recognised the distinction between the religious and the secular/political.
âIslamic theology,â the film will attempt to prove âdivides the world into two spheres locked in perpetual combat and it is incumbent on the sphere where Islamic law prevails to fight and conquer the one where it does not. Muslims in Western societies, the documentary alleges, are called to subvert the secular regimes in which they live. <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>As such, the âdanger posed by observant Muslims in the West remains largely unappreciatedâ.</span></b>
Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Europe carefully chooses its words on Islam and terrorism
BRUSSELS: The European Union is refining a communication strategy in an effort to help stop disenchanted Muslim youths turning to terrorism.
How is the word âIslamistâ understood in Muslim countries? What does the term âjihadâ really mean? These are just some of the questions the EU is trying to answer with its dictionary on issues sensitive among civilisations. Yet even before the row over the cartoons, first published in Denmark last year and which triggered Muslim protests, the 25-member grouping was trying to define a âcommon vocabularyâ for talking about radical Islam.
Since taking over the EUâs rotating presidency in January, Austria has hosted conferences involving experts on Islam, religion and linguistics and has drawn up a first document which it hopes will be finalised by December. âUnintended stigmatisation resulting from an ill-considered choice of words may have serious negative psychological effects and thus contribute to the process of radicalisation,â the textâs preamble says. It urges EU governments to âensure that they do not inadvertently and inappropriately impose a sense of identity solely linked to religious affiliation.â
European governments and officials are also warned not use religious language or interfere in any religious debate âas it may discredit the efforts of mainstream Muslims to curb extremist interpretations of Islam.â The common lexicon, for the moment, consists of just three terms: âIslamistâ, âfundamentalismâ and âjihadâ.
Rather than dictionary-style definitions, the lexicon tries to place the words in their cultural, historical and political context to inform users and give them a better idea of how their use could be misunderstood. So âIslamist terrorismâ should be used instead of âIslamic terrorismâ, because the -ist âlinks terrorism to a distinct political ideology, not to a religion as a whole, and might therefore be preferableâ. As for the word âfundamentalismâ: avoid it. The term refers to beliefs and convictions which do not always have immediate political repercussions and when it is coupled into âIslamic fundamentalismâ could be offensive to Muslims.
Finally, âjihadâ - commonly used in the media to mean âholy warâ - is based on contested interpretations of classical Islamic texts which legitimise the use of war against the state. âMujahideenâ is used to describe those who fight this war. But the lexicon explains that it is an intellectual, social or other kind of personal exercise - âgreat jihadâ - or to describe a war in defence of the Muslim community; âlittle jihadâ. afp
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->As Islamists Grow Confident, It's Time for the West To Stand Firm
By MOSHE YAALON
June 9, 2006
http://www.forward.com/articles/7944
I recently returned from a trip to Europe, where I observed a troubling analytical failure: the widespread refusal to consider Hamas's January electoral victory beyond the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In reality, Hamas's rise to power has global ramifications. It opens a new front for radical Islamism in its confrontation with the West and provides encouragement to Islamists worldwide. But don't just take my word for it â ask Hamas's chief.
In a February 3 speech from a Damascus mosque â an address generally regarded as Hamas's victory pronouncement â Hamas leader Khaled Mashal declared: "We say to this West, which does not act reasonably, and does not learn its lessons: By Allah, you will be defeated.... The nation of Muhammad is gaining victory in Iraq, and it will be victorious in all Arab and Muslim lands.... These fools will be defeated, the wheel of time will turn, and times of victory and glory will be upon our nation, and the West will be full of remorse, when it is too late."
Mashal's statement was significant for two reasons:<b> First, with unnerving clarity, Mashal redefined Hamas's ambitions â from the goal of destroying Israel to the much broader goal of defeating the West. Second, in brazenly challenging the West, which previous Hamas leaders â for tactical reasons â avoided doing, Mashal revealed the growing confidence of Islamists in pursuing more ambitious and previously unmentionable goals.</b>
Hamas's electoral victory is only the latest in a series of strategic successes that have given radical Islamists every reason to believe that God is on their side. This confidence was, for decades, established on the basis of Iranian achievements, including the founding of the revolutionary regime, the export of the Islamic revolution to Lebanon via Hezbollah, and the creation of a front against the West, in partnership with Syria and other radical elements. In the past decade, however, this confidence has grown exponentially on account of the successes of other Islamist actors, including international terrorist attacks carried out by Al Qaeda and its supporters in the United States, Spain and Britain; the insurgency's perceived victories against coalition forces in Iraq; Muslim Brotherhood electoral successes in Egypt, and Hezbollah's attainment of a Cabinet seat in Lebanon.
This increased confidence has inspired the Islamists' advance against Western interests throughout the Middle East. In the past half year alone, these maneuvers have been particularly bold. In January, Iran publicly cut the seals on its nuclear plants in outright violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In April, Hezbollah's Sheik Hassan Nasrallah admitted that his organization funds Palestinian terrorist organizations â in striking contrast to the group's previous denials. Last month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a bizarrely combative letter to President Bush, effectively highlighting his belief that the Iranian regime is working from a unique position of power. In recent weeks, Hamas has increasingly confronted the Western-backed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, working to replace his security forces with Hamas operatives. Moreover, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leading terrorist in Iraq, recently declared that America "is breathing its final breath," while Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas branded the United States an "enemy of Islam."
For its part, the West has failed to act effectively to stem the Islamists' growing confidence and, at times, has actually reinforced it. Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 was perceived as a victory for Hezbollah. Spain's withdrawal from Iraq after the 2004 Madrid train bombings was a clear concession to Islamist terrorism. More recently, Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was viewed as a victory for Palestinian terrorism, fueling Hamas's political aspirations.
The West's lack of determination in confronting Iran on its support for terror and pursuit of nuclear weapons has, to a large extent, convinced Tehran that it can continue using terror and nuclear development to its strategic advantage.
It is therefore imperative that the West swiftly change course and adopt a more tough-minded, united approach toward the global jihad movement. Conceptually, the West should be wary of any diplomatic, economic or military move that might serve to reinforce the Islamists' notion that they are winning. In terms of policy, this means taking direct action in those areas where the West retains the upper hand: The current Hamas-led government must be made to fail, Hezbollah should be disarmed in accordance with U.N. Resolution 1559 and the Iranian regime must be stopped in its pursuit of nuclear weapons and support for terrorist groups throughout the region. A unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank would undermine any attempt to confront the advance of the global jihad movement; to the contrary, it would encourage and energize radical Islamists worldwide.
Strengthening Western resolve vis-Ã -vis radical Islamist actors, however, will only dampen their confidence in the short run. The long-term battle requires a sustained effort to win over the hearts and minds of the Islamists' constituents. For this reason, curricula throughout the Middle East â glorifying violence, denying the Holocaust, calling for the destruction of the State of Israel and vilifying the United States â must be carefully examined and revised. Furthermore, Western powers must work to promote moderate elements within Muslim society, including Iranian reformists, Palestinian liberals and Arab democrats. Lastly, there must be efforts to increase direct interactions between Westerners and Muslims; such opportunities would undermine Islamists' ability to portray the West as satanic.
<b>Confronting the advance of radical Islamist elements requires, first and foremost, striking at the confidence that has motivated their progress. This requires uniting behind a policy that refuses further concessions to terrorism, acts aggressively against future transgressions and appropriately engages the next generation in the Muslim world.</b>
<i>Lieutenant General (ret.) Moshe Yaalon served as chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces from 2002 to 2005. He is a distinguished military fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. </i><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Jihadi Networkâs Fatal Flaw
6/15/2006 7:23:36
Almost overlooked in the celebrations surrounding the elimination of Zarqawi is a considerable body of evidence that the Lion of Anbar was seeking to dramatically extend the range of his operations.
The day before Zarqawi was at last struck down, the London Times carried a short piece reporting on an international intelligence operation that had uncovered a terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi operating in at least eight countries. The following Sunday, the New York Times published a weakly-sourced article stating that Zarqawi had recruited and trained up to 300 foreign operatives who were sent back to their own countries, mostly in the Middle East and Europe, to await orders.
These reports are much more credible than many would be willing to grant.
Zarqawi was simply following a strategy formulated by Islamismâs leading theoretician, Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, AKA Abu Musâab al-Suri. Born and raised in Syria, Nasar became involved with Islamism at an early age, joining al-Taliâa al-Muqatila (âThe Fighting Vanguardâ), a group closely associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, while still in college.
He underwent training in Cairo and Baghdad, specializing in explosives and urban guerilla warfare. He later fought the Russians in Afghanistan, where he became associated with Al-Queda. During the 90s, Nasar lived in various parts of Europe (his pale skin and red hair made it easy for him to pass as a European), including Spain, where he married an apostate Spanish woman, and the UK, where he cofounded the Algeria-based Armed Islamic Group (GIA), one of the most savage of all Islamist organizations. Returning to Afghanistan, he worked closely with the Taliban and Al Queda. He was involved in 9/11 planning, arguing in opposition to Osama bin Laden by insisting that the planes should be fitted with WMDs. <b>After the fall of the Taliban, he devoted himself, in his own words âto filling one of the Muslimsâ most important gaps"the analysis of our past experiences, drawing lessons from them, and examining the nature of the confrontations and battles that await usâ. </b>Much of this material appeared in the form of Net postings or videotapes (several of which were recently obtained by CNN). The State Department put a bounty of $5 million on Nasarâs head, placing him in the upper echelon of wanted Jihadis along with ObL and Zarqawi. Nasar denied working directly with Zarqawi, claiming he had âdifficulties in reaching Iraqâ. His name came up repeatedly in the Madrid and London bombing investigations, enough to lead some investigators to believe he was at least indirectly involved. He may in fact have founded the network the London bombers were associated with, although no precise evidence exists. <b>He was arrested in Pakistan </b>in October or November of 2005, and then disappeared into U.S. hands. Custody of this dangerous man alone justifies the existence of the rendition program.
Nasarâs major importance is as a strategist. <b>His many analyses of Jihadi strategy are widely read, quoted, and discussed on Islamist Internet sites, and have had a clear influence on recent terrorist efforts.</b> His crowning contribution appeared in late 2004, a <b>1600-page treatise titled The Call of the International Islamic Resistance. This work is not easy to find in English, though itâs said to be ubiquitous in Arabic.</b>
Islamic Resistance is a critique of Jihadi failures answered with a detailed blueprint for future strategy.
âThe enemy is strong and powerful, we are weak and poor, the war duration is going to be long⦠preparations better be deliberate, comprehensive and properly planned, taking into account past experiences and lessons.â
<b>Nasar outlined a long-term campaign of sabotage and urban guerilla operations utilizing every available weapon up to and including WMDs. The goal is the complete destruction of the West. He particularly emphasized the importance of organization, recommending a broad-based, leaderless network to carry out operations. The aim was to create a system that could not be rolled up the way Al-Queda was.</b>
If recent reports are correct, Zarqawi was attempting to create exactly this kind of network. Such a system would consist of small, distinct cells, with no direct contact between them, and no overarching hierarchal structure that could be shut down through decapitation. Separate cells would recruit, plan, and operate on their own, receiving only instructions, guidance, and technical information from overseas.
<b>This kind of structure is known as a âdistributed networkâ among fourth-generation warfare (4GW) enthusiasts.</b> (4GW is a strategic school of thought holding that the type of warfare practiced by the Jihadis is a totally new form developed to combat the 3GW " fast air-armor maneuver warfare " perfected by the West. In truth, 4GW appears to be little more than terrorism and guerilla warfare fitted out with an elaborate new vocabulary.)
Whatâs really new " and a minor justification for 4GW rhetoric " is the use of the Internet as a contact tool. The contact system is always an Achilleâs Heel of any underground organization. By identifying one member, following him until he meets up with another, then following the second member, you can soon break open an entire network. This is exactly how Zarqawi himself was at last tracked down, with his spiritual advisor Sheik Abdel Rahman unwittingly leading a Coalition drone straight to his door. Such things as dead drops and the cell system were introduced to overcome this weakness.
But suppose you had a method of contacting network members without exposing anyone at either end? Using the Net for communications raises a frightening vision of a virtual army of terrorists born and raised in the West and undetectable by conventional police techniques. Such an army could operate effectively free of surveillance, receiving instructions by e-mail or IM, getting together only to carry out operations, striking their targets and then fading back into the population while intelligence and law enforcement look on helplessly.
Something very much like this may well have happened in London and Madrid. (Itâs also worth pointing out that this might conceivably have something to do with the NSAâs program of intercepting e-mail communications.)
How concerned should we be? 4GW enthusiasts, and some of the more excitable military commentators, behave as if the concept is a magic bullet, an unbeatable strategy leveraging asymmetric assets to even the odds against the Western giant. But we heard much the same about Al Queda itself five years ago, and we know how that turned out.
Under close inspection, the giant-killer concept has enough in the way of flaws, errors, and lacunae to make it barely practicable, much less a war-winning strategy. These shortcomings appear in three major categories"experience, training, and discipline. Together they comprise a contemporary example of Clausewitzean âfrictionâ " the perversity of the universe at large that puts unforeseen obstacles in the path of even the most well-devised plan.
âIn war everything is simple,â Clausewitz admonishes us. âBut the simplest things are the most difficult.â
Many who work on the level of theory, without benefit of the winnowing effects of real-world practice, tend to give too much credit to pure information. From the point of view of the theorist (and this attitude colors the thinking of the entire IT field) information embodies all power. Whoever possesses superior information holds the upper hand.
Of course, itâs not that straightforward. You can send anything you like in an e-mail " plans, intelligence, instructions, what have you. But you canât send experience. And thatâs a fatal shortcoming.
Consider a situation where you have perfect knowledge of a particular target " plans, defenses, weak points, personnel, everything you need to know to get inside and destroy the place. Now give that information to an eight-year-old. Or a dull-normal, or a junkie, or a schizophrenic. Or the average teenager, for that matter.
This problem is insurmountable. It can be taken as given that there will be something wrong with fifth-column Jihadi volunteers. They will be either fanatics or misfits, both legendarily incapable of independent accomplishment. Itâs true that these categories include both Zarqawi, very likely a clinical psychopath, and Nasar himself, who, with his 1600-page manuscripts and endless ranting about âthe degeneracy of the Westâ is a representative obsessive-compulsive.
But fortunately, competent flakes of this type are the exception " John Walker Lindh is a more typical figure, as is the Toronto groupâs oldest member Qayyum Abdul Jamal, who at 43 is said to have never held a regular job. This is the human material that the Jihadis have to mold and as a rule, they will exhibit certain characteristics.
They will not listen. They will ignore instructions. They will overlook details. They will be overemotional. They will sulk and feud. They will create a mental narrative, romantic and wild, a Bruce Willis feature with themselves in the starring role, and act on that rather than any stodgy plan. And when things go wrong, they will panic.
Iâd hazard to guess (itâs hard to judge, considering the fog of political correctness that has been raised around the investigation) that this is what happened in Canada. And it can be depended on that, in most cases, it will happen again.
This is why there are such things as ânoncomsâ (sergeants in particular phlegmatic, no-nonsense types who have been around and know that things ainât done the way they say in the book. Every organization has the equivalent of the sergeant rank, because every organization since the dawn of time has found them necessary to shepherd the less-than-capable. What Nasarâs âvirtual networksâ are attempting to do is operate without such a cadre of experienced low-level managers. And thatâs just not possible.
As far as training goes, reading is not doing. The clearest instructions in the world wonât put across a thing to an individual who has never been involved in any comparable activity. We all recall the second London strike last summer, when the bombs failed to explode, resulting in badly-dressed mutts racing off in all directions. Zarqawiâs trainees in Iraq are unlikely to appear in any North American networks. In Canada, the only âtrainingâ the Toronto group got was running around in the woods in a kind of Jihadi paintball weekend.
A related issue is the difficulty of indoctrination. Such networks can only be recruited in already-prepared milieus, that is, Muslim communities. Itâs unlikely that renegade imams will be allowed to preach from storefront mosques with quite the same abandon as occurred in the past. (In North America, in any case. Europe, as always, is another story.) Indoctrination by Internet being a doubtful proposition, this in itself should serve to limit drastically the scope of Nasarâs technique.
The problem of discipline is highlighted by Toronto as well. We have no idea how the group was organized, or whether they were part of Zarqawiâs network. What is clear is that there was little or no adult supervision (Jamal, despite his age, really doesnât count). Those kids were chattering to people halfway across the North American continent. Word of their organization got at least as far as Georgia, prompting two would-be Jihadis to pay them a cross-border visit.
And when that pair was arrested, it did not occur to anyone to shut down operations, destroy all possible evidence, and scatter to the winds. No " they went on with their plans, utterly oblivious, until the Mounties kicked the door in.
Toronto is where Murphy caught up with Nasar. Everything that could go wrong " with experience, training, and discipline " went wrong with a vengeance. If the second wave of Jihadis were all of the caliber of the Toronto crew, weâd have nothing to worry about.
Unfortunately, thatâs not the case. London and Madrid show us that Nasar networks are far from being only a paper threat. As time goes by, the Jihadis will get better at it, particularly since they have the entire subcontinent of Europe to use as a laboratory. While it will never be a war-winning strategy, it can serve to arouse confusion and fear, which have their uses. (Itâs easy to picture an operation in which these networks soak up all security resources while a traditional Al-Queda team carries out an attack.)
So how do we handle it? The first point is that a distributed network doesnât resemble an army, a guerilla force, or even the customary terrorist organization.
What it resembles, with its wide range, clandestine approach, and ability to appear seemingly at random, in obedience to factors invisible to an onlooker, is an epidemic disease.
Fortunately, we know a lot about tracking epidemic diseases. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have been in business for decades, and have refined their techniques to a high art. You do the epidemiology, learn everything there is to know about the microorganism, its life cycle, its habits, and in particular its vectors, and concentrate on those. The pool of potential Islamist infectees is relatively small, the behavior of the infecting agent (a 4GW fan would call it a âmemeâ) well understood, the methods of prophylaxis highly effective.
<b>What is certain is that a top-heavy bureaucracy such as Homeland Defense canât meet the challenge. We need a small, self-contained unit, dedicated to handling this problem alone. A taskforce designed and staffed to deal with domestic distributed networks and nothing else. </b>
It would need to be independent of any larger organization, though reporting to higher government echelons. It would require separate financing and its own resources, including investigative units ready to move out immediately when a possible target network is identified. Fortunately, we do have successful models for such a task force (even in going so far as to suggest a possible name " we could call it Baker Danger).
<b>The Jihadis have not yet formulated a strategy, of whatever generation, capable of matching the Westâs overwhelming technological sophistication, organizational superiority, and preponderance of force. Nor, with Zarqawi dead and Nasar in custody (both, it must be added, in connection with extremely controversial efforts " the Iraq War and prisoner rendition), is there any sign that such a thing is forthcoming. Overestimating an enemy can, through paralysis and wasted effort, be as crippling as underestimating him. There is no purpose served in overestimating the Jihadis. The butcher and the strategist have been taken off the board. We will not see their like among the Islamists again soon.</b>
<i>J.R. Dunn is a frequent contributor. Among many other things, he was editor of the International Military Encyclopedia for twelve years.</i>
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles....le_id=5581
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Democracy, Dar al-Harb and Dar al-Islam</b>
Quadrant
3/1/2006
Stenhouse, Paul
THE MYRIAD FACES that Islam presents to the non-Islamic world reflect the vastly differing racial, cultural, linguistic and social origins of Muslims, and the fact that Islam is itself in a state of unprecedented flux and reappraisal.
This ethnic and cultural diversity within Islam partially explains the differing reactions among Muslims to the bloody aftermath of the return of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to Iran in 1979, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in the USA, and to the Bali bombings on October 12, 2002 and October 1, 2005. A minority of extremist Islamists or "fundamentalists"--both Sunni and Shi'i--openly rejoiced at "victory" over the "Great Satan"; while a majority of moderate Muslims less audibly deplored the violence and tried to dissociate themselves from its perpetrators.
The world, according to Islamic law, is divided between Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. The Dar al-Islam--the house, abode or country of submission--is that part of the world where Muslim governments and Islamic law prevail; and the Dar al-Harb--the house, abode or country of war--is the rest of the world. Islam's much-publicised anti-democratic face has provoked speculation among Muslims and non-Muslims concerning the role of the Shari'a in general, and the Koran in particular, in justifying terrorism and anarchy in allegedly un-Islamic Muslim countries, and in democratic countries.
Speculation has extended to the possibility of Islamic fundamentalists using democratic processes, or playing by the rules of constitutional law in unsuspecting secular Western democratic societies, in order to take over the system, and eventually to change it, and impose Shari'a, or Islamic, law.
Until the end of the First World War, Muslims in Turkey, Arabia, Yemen and the Horn of Africa lived under Islamic rulers in countries known since the seventh century as "countries of submission". In these countries, Shari'a law prevailed and non-Muslims (usually descendants of the original inhabitants) were "tolerated" minorities with minimal rights that could be withdrawn at the whim of the ruler. Migration of Muslims en masse to non-Islamic countries--Dar al-Harb or countries of war--was virtually unknown, and religiously proscribed.
Most other Muslims lived in what had formerly been Islamic countries under British, French, German, Spanish or Indonesian colonial, non-Islamic, rule. In these countries, the status of the Muslim inhabitants was much debated by Muslim jurists. These discussed whether--for example in India in 1870-71 when followers of the militaristic and heretical Wahhabi sect conspired to overthrow British rule--conditions existed for a "Crescentade", as the nineteenth-century English termed the jihad.
The answer, according to jurists, hinged on whether British India was a Dar al-Harb or a Dar al-Islam. The designation of a country as a Dar al-Harb is a logical progression from the idea of jihad ("holy war") once the Muslim 'umma (or "religious community") became a reality after the death of Muhammad. The Koran makes jihad a duty and a test of the sincerity of believing Muslims, and to be waged against unbelievers wherever they are to be found.
For purely pragmatic reasons, one suspects, the Indian Sunni, who belonged mainly to the Hanafi and the Shafi'i sects, agreed that as long as some of the prescriptions of the Shari'a were still enforced in a country, it remained a Dar al-Islam, and jihad could not be called, especially if there was no probability of victory for the armies of Islam. Actually the Hanafi and the Shafi'i were as frightened of the Wahhabis as were the British and realised that a jihad against British rule would be followed by a jihad against them.
If an Islamic country were to become a Dar al-Harb, all Muslims would, in theory, be obliged to leave it; and a wife who refused to accompany her husband in leaving would be ipso facto divorced.
A completely new situation, one never considered by classical Islamic jurists, arose after the Second World War. This saw mass and often voluntary migration by Muslims from Africa and the Magreb to the non-Islamic democracies of Europe and the United Kingdom, and from Turkey to Germany. Subsequent wars and social upheaval have resulted in significant movements of Muslims from the Middle East and Central and South-East Asia and from the Balkans to Europe, North America and to Australia.
While Islamic jurists paid minute attention to the status of non-Muslims (Dhimmis) living in a Dar al-Islam, little appears to have been written on the status of Muslims living in a Dar al-Harb. The situation hardly ever arose, apart from diplomats or merchants having to deal with non-Muslims in a Dar al-Harb for reasons of state or commerce.
The status of Muslims who live voluntarily in these non-Muslim countries is as complex as was the status of Muslims living in formerly Islamic societies under non-Islamic rule. As in the latter case, pragmatic solutions need to be found, and usually are found, when it is impossible to follow the letter of the law. Especially is this a difficulty for those Muslims who follow closely the injunctions of the Shari'a and now live in secular democratic societies.
Having permitted the participation of religious parties in democratic elections, secular democracies like Turkey find themselves confronted by the ambiguities and uncertainties of rule by Islamic minorities, with all the equivocation and challenges this presents.
Non-Islamic countries (Dar al-Harb) are similarly situated, with the added disability of having no prior experience of dealing with a minority whose religion regards secular law as blasphemous, and which requires its followers to do all they can to subvert or trivialise these laws in the name of their religion.
Democracies per se are political systems where sovereignty is claimed and held by the people who elect their rulers and hold them accountable to the ruled; where minority rights (including the right to become the majority) are protected, and political competition among individuals, parties and ideas is open and encouraged. For fundamentalist Muslims who believe God to be the sole arbiter and ruler in temporal matters, this claim of exclusive sovereignty (hakimiyya) by the people, which properly belongs to God, amounts to usurping God's role, and is blasphemy.
The status of Muslims in a Dar al-Harb (usually, but not always, a democracy) is governed, in principle, by those passages in the Koran that regulate the attitude to be adopted by Muslims towards the mushrikun (literally "polytheists"; usually a synonym for Christians and Jews), the kafirun (a generic term covering all "unbelievers") or the munafiqun ("hypocrites").
Close contact with unbelievers is forbidden to Muslims. Associating with them means becoming one of them. Believers are urged to fight against unbelievers until idolatry is no more and Allah's religion reigns supreme. Fighting is obligatory for them, much as they may dislike it. Believers should make war on the infidels who dwell around them, just as Muhammad was allegedly told by God to make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal sternly with them because hell is their home, and evil their fate. Only when one is in fear of one's life may one associate with them.
It is in this context that we usually find taqiyya ("dissimulation") and muwafaqa ("connivance") offered by some Sunni jurists as an option, and by Shi'ites as a duty, when one's life, or the good of Islam is at stake. "God gave the believers freedom of movement by takiyya [sic] therefore conceal thyself." On the subject of dissimulation a fourteenth-century commentary says: "If anyone is compelled and professes unbelief with his tongue, while his heart contradicts him, in order to escape his enemies, no blame falls on him, because God takes his servants as their hearts believe."
After the Spanish reconquest of Andalusia in the fifteenth century, the jurists of the predominant Sunni sect of Morocco and North Africa--the Maliki--insisted that all Muslims should leave Spanish territory because it was a grave sin for Muslims to live under non-Muslim rulers. Bernard Lewis quotes a Moroccan jurist, al-Wansharisi, who handed down a fatwa to a questioner on this very matter.
According to al-Wansharisi, migration from the Dar al-Harb to a Dar al-Islam is obligatory until the Day of Resurrection. For a Muslim to remain under infidel rule is as bad as eating carrion, or blood, or pork, or committing murder. The questioner then asked: "But if the Christian ruler is just and tolerant; what then?" The jurist replied that even if the Christians were just and tolerant, the Muslims must still leave.
CLEARLY THERE ARE no grounds to justify taqiyya or muwafaqa in non-Islamic democracies like the USA or Australia where Muslim refugees voluntarily seeking asylum, or skilled Muslim migrants freely seeking a fresh start, have been made welcome and offered citizenship. In freely requesting citizenship, these migrants from a Dar al-Islam have committed themselves to live in a law-abiding manner under the lawfully constituted authorities of the secular countries concerned. These newcomers to a democratic, non-Islamic society do not do so under duress from the host country, nor are they in fear of their lives from the host country. They are, on the contrary, quite free to practise their religion privately should they wish to do so.
The Kitab al-Jihad defines the ahl-al-harb or the harbi (the people who live in the Dar al-Harb) as those who refuse to be converted to Islam after having been invited to do so, and against whom "any kind of war is permissible, in keeping with the rules of sura IX".
Before the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, the Byzantine emperor (who had been invited by Muhammad to convert to Islam and declined) was designated routinely malik al-tagiya--a tyrannical king-and his empire was a Dar al-Harb--a country not (yet) subdued by Islam but destined to pass into Islamic jurisdiction either by conversion or by war. "All acts of war are permitted in the Dar al-Harb."
Ibn Warraq goes on: "Once the Dar al-Harb has been subjugated, the Harbi become prisoners of war. The imam can do what he likes to them according to the circumstances. Woe betide the city that resists and is then taken by the Islamic army by storm." In this case the inhabitants have no rights whatsoever, and as Sir Steven Runciman says in his Fall of Constantinople, 1453:
  The conquering army is allowed three days of  unrestricted pillage; and the former places of worship, with every other building, become the property of the conquering leader; he may dispose  of them as he pleases. Sultan Mehmet [after the fall  of Constantinople in 1453, allowed] his soldiers the three days of pillage to which they were entitled.  They ... slew everyone that they met in the streets, men, women and children without discrimination.  The blood ran in rivers down the steep streets ...     but soon the lust for slaughter was assuaged. The  soldiers realised that captives and precious objects  would bring them greater profits. The fundamentalist dilemma facing J observant Muslims in Western democracies has been summed up by one of the leading figures in modern Islamism, the Pakistani Abu al-A'la al-Mawdudi (1903-79): "Wherever this system [democracy] exists we do not consider Islam to exist, and wherever Islam exists there is no room for this system [democracy]." For "Islam" read "submission [to God]". Mawdudi also declared: "Nothing can claim sovereignty, be it a human being, a family, a class or group of people, or even the human race in the world as a whole. God alone is the Sovereign and His Commandments are the Law."
The Egyptian Muslim Brother, Sayyid Qutb (1906-64), saw nationalism, secularism, socialism, communism, democracy and capitalism, along with polytheists, hypocrites, Jews and Christians, as conspiring to undermine the foundations of Islam, and as being in direct opposition to its message. Qutb was put to death in 1964 for his part in a plot to assassinate President Nasser, his prime minister and a number of other officials, as well as for setting up a network of militant Islamic cells to carry out acts of terrorism to paralyse life in Egypt, and to enable the radicals to seize political power.
Mawdudi in Pakistan and Qutb in Egypt both placed jihad at the forefront of religious duty for the observant Muslim, with the aim of replacing one government with another. Qutb rejected democracy as incompatible with Islam because it was ipso facto a form of polytheism, based on the verse from the Koran, "Judgment belongs to God alone."
Mawdudi, and Qutb who drew heavily upon him, are ranked by fundamentalist Muslims in the pantheon of radical Islamists, along with Hasan al-Banna (founder of the Muslim Brothers, born 1906 and assassinated in 1949), Jamal al-Din al-Afgani (1837-97) who died, apparently from poisoning, in exile in Turkey, and Muhammad Abduh (1847-1905). The influence of their writings should not be underestimated.
Ironically, the supremacy of international law governing nations is a given in most modern democratic societies, at a time when there are calls in Islamic countries for the imposition of Shari'a law and even in some non-Islamic countries for the acceptance of Shari'a law running parallel to civil law.
At a time when many oppressed Muslims look more and more to international law (through the World Court in The Hague) and international bodies (like the UN), oppressive Islamic regimes whose credibility is tied in with the imposition of Shari'a law regard such Western constructs as civil law and international law as threatening and blasphemous.
In order to justify rejection of calls for democratisation in Islamic countries, such fundamentalist governments rely on Islamic jurists' interpretation of the Koran and Shari'a law. This has led some writers to comment, "One of the few weapons that they have at their disposal to combat the appeal of human rights and democratisation is manipulation of religious sentiment."
This "manipulating of religious sentiment" may appear to be an ineffectual "weapon" to Western governments, and Western media, accustomed to deprecating and trivialising traditional Christian values and beliefs among their own peoples. A recent example of this "manipulation of religious sentiment" is the death threat from Islamists against veteran actor Omar Sharif. Sharif (born Michel Chaloub) became a Muslim in 1950 when he married the Egyptian actress Faten Hamama, from whom he is now divorced. He joins the author of The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie, the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, Egyptian intellectual Farag Foda (shot to death in June 1992), Egyptian Nobel laureate Naghib Mahfouz and many others who have been threatened with death or murdered at the whim of Islamic fundamentalists. Sharif's "crime" was playing the part of St Peter in a recent TV series produced by the Italian company Lux Vide on the life of the saint.
THE WEST WOULD also do well to consider the recent ease of Algeria, an emerging democracy in a Muslim society. On November 3, 1988, the Algerian Constitution was amended to allow multi-party (including Islamic religious parties) elections. The Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was founded on February 18, 1989, by Abbassi Madani, and a young imam, Ali Belhadj, who made aggressively radical speeches that attracted dissatisfied lower-class youth and alarmed non-Muslims, non-Islamists and people working for social equality.
Madani sometimes expressed support for multi-party democracy, whereas Belhadj denounced it as a potential threat to Shari'a law. Among other things Belhadj proclaimed, "There is no democracy in Islam" and "If people vote against the Law of God ... this is nothing other than blasphemy. The ulama will order the death of the offenders who have substituted their authority for that of God."
On June 12, 1990, FIS swept the local elections, receiving 54 per cent of votes cast and taking 46 per cent of town assemblies. Its rapid rise alarmed the government, which moved to curtail the powers of local government. On December 26, 1991, the FIS won the first round of parliamentary elections; with 48 per cent of the overall popular vote, they won 188 of the 231 seats contested in that round, putting them far ahead of rivals. The army viewed the apparent certainty of rule by the FIS as unacceptable. On January 11, 1992, it cancelled the electoral process, forcing President Bendjedid to resign and appointing the exiled independence fighter Muhammed Boudiaf as president. Madani and Ali Belhadj were imprisoned.
Many FIS members were arrested, including FIS number three leader Abdelkader Hachani. A state of emergency was declared, and the government officially dissolved FIS on March 4. The FIS activists took this as a declaration of war. Many took to the hills and joined guerrilla groups. The country inexorably slid into a civil war which would claim more than 100,000 lives, from which it only began to emerge at the end of the 1990s.
Some Australians for their part seem unaware that there are people in their midst who, having voluntarily migrated to this country, or been born in it, describe Dar al-Harb (in this instance, Australia) as "water brought up from the bottom of a suburban sewer. If even a drop of the filthy water enters the clear water, the clarity diminishes. Likewise, it takes only a drop of the filth of disbelief to contaminate Islam in the west." Dar al-Islam--the Islamic society the author or his forebears presumably left as refugees or migrants--is, predictably, the "fresh, clear spring water".
The same author--Emir Abdullah (a nom-deplume?)--also deplores the fact that
  A major component of the education system is to  turn students into "good Australians". To be a good  Australian means to obey the laws of the land even  if they conflict with the laws of Allah. We see this  from the earliest stages of the child's education in  the form of flag-raising ceremonies each morning in which the children sing the national anthem and stand in respect as the flag of non-Muslims is raised  over their heads ...  If a Muslim associates with the Kuffar ["unbelievers", non-Muslim Australians) he will  make efforts to "fit in" with this group. In order to "fit in" we must act like Australians. Fitting in  typically consists of adjusting our Islam to a  religion more acceptable to the Kuffar we are  associating with so intimately. It is this that gives rise to what Sayyid Qutb would call an apologetic  mindset. Where Muslims feel inclined to explain  [away] every "strange behaviour" to the disbelievers: "Well, those people who blow up  busses [sic] in Israel ... they are not real Muslims." It is clear where the author stands: "real Muslims" blow up buses and kill innocent bystanders in Israel; and the teachings of the Islamist, and architect of Islamic terrorism, Sayyid Qutb, are respected in some Muslim circles in Australia.
All the above have a bearing on the appropriateness or otherwise of ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope's unauthorised publishing of the federal government's proposed new anti-terrorism laws--in a Canberra mosque. In his press release he declared, "It is time as a community we were honest about some of the issues local Muslims tell me cause the greatest anxiety and anger among those of their faith--including the West's lip-service to statehood for Palestine and the invasion of Iraq." This statement proves how necessary it is for politicians in secular societies to exercise caution before acting or speaking out on issues as complex as safeguarding our fragile democratic values.
Many Muslim Australians wanting to put down roots in democratic Australia, and to live in harmony with their fellow Australians, would find the comments by Stanhope a greater cause for anxiety, confusion and anger, than the issues he lists, having come to Australia precisely to escape the violence and terror generated by Islamic fundamentalists in their countries of origin.
To imply as Stanhope does that the scapegoating of innocent Muslims is likely to be "tolerate[d]" is gratuitous and dangerous grandstanding. He claims that the "clear association of this terrorism with Islam has left many law-abiding and peaceful Muslims feeling under siege in their own community". He is oblivious, evidently, of the fact that many Muslims are under siege in their communities from radical Islamists whom the Chief Minister would also be prudent to fear.
As I write this, Iraq's referendum on its new constitution has been completed. It has been hailed as a milestone towards democracy in that war-tom country. Serious reservations have been expressed by non-Muslim minorities in the newly "liberated" Iraq. The Catholic Patriarch of Baghdad of the Chaldeans, Emmanuel III Delly, said that while Articles 2.1 (b) and 2.2 defend freedom and religious rights, article 2.1(a) states: "No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam."
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, at the request of the Patriarch and other Christian leaders in Iraq, appealed to British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw for a last-minute intervention but to no avail. Mr Straw replied that the bishops were misinterpreting the constitution and that in its present form the document guaranteed minority religious rights.
It may be a truism, but it seems to need repeating, that, as William Zartman has written, "one of the Achilles heels of democracy is its vulnerability to challengers who would use the opportunity offered by its own rules, to annul it".
Dr Paul Stenhouse MSC is the editor of Annals Australasia.
COPYRIGHT 2006 Quadrant Magazine Company, Inc.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>The country that hates itself</b>
<i>A London writer describes the disastrous consequences of British multiculturalism - and provides a lesson for Canada</i>
Â
Melanie Phillips
National Post
Friday, June 16, 2006
LONDON - The problem of Muslim radicalization has been on the agenda of all nations since 9/11. But Canada faces a unique dilemma because the doctrine of multiculturalism is seen as intrinsic to our national identity. The recent disruption of an alleged homegrown Islamist terror plot has caused many Canadians to ask: <b>How can multiculturalism -- which preaches tolerance above all else -- be squared with a militant, intolerant creed that demonizes non-believers?</b> This week, the National Post presents a week-long series of articles examining this question. In today's instalment, London-based writer Melanie Phillips describes the damage done by <b>Britain's multicultural policies, and warns Canada not to follow her nation's example.</b>
The sense of shock in Canada following the arrest of 17 Muslims charged with plotting acts of terror against their fellow Canadians rings a horribly familiar bell in Britain.
In the wake of the London bombings last July by young British Muslims, Britons have found it hard to accept that boys who had been born in Britain, who as often as not came from middle class homes, had been to mainstream schools and university and held down good jobs, could turn into human bombs. Britain's experience has much to teach Canada. Despite some differences between the two countries -- Britain's Muslim population is larger than Canada's, for example -- there are many points of similarity.
In particular, both Canada and Britain need to face the fact that <b>multiculturalism, which for both countries is an article of faith, has brought havoc in its wake.</b> This doctrine holds that all minority cultures must enjoy equal status with the majority, and that any attempt to impose the majority culture over those of minorities is by definition racist. It has helped create a cultural vacuum into which has roared militant Islamism -- the interpretation of Islam that preaches holy war. <b>Multiculturalism not only creates the environment in which this clerical fascism can flourish but -- crucially -- also undermines our ability to defend ourselves against it.</b>
Like Canada, Britain prides itself on being a tolerant society committed to minority rights. Yet in the wake of the July bombings, the U.K. government estimated that 26% of Britain's 1.6 million Muslims felt no loyalty to Britain, 3,000 had passed through al-Qaeda camps and up to 16,000 were either actively engaged in or supported terrorist activity.
Although hundreds of thousands of British Muslims have no truck with either Islamist extremism or terror, these numbers were astounding. <b>Britain had turned into "Londonistan" -- the European hub of al-Qaeda.</b>
<b>In the wake of the London bombings, people came up with a litany of excuses -- such as the war in Iraq, poverty or Islamophobia -- to explain what had happened. There was a widespread determination to avoid discussion of the actual cause: religious fanaticism. The orthodoxy of minority rights means any criticism of minorities is deemed unsayable.</b>
Multiculturalism has exacerbated the alienation that has left so many British Muslims vulnerable to the siren song of jihad. In addition, Britain has been unravelling its identity for decades, and multiculturalism has been the outcome. Since World War Two, Britain's elite has suffered from a collective collapse of cultural nerve. Many things contributed: postwar exhaustion, the collapse of the British Empire (and therefore of national purpose), and post-colonial flagellatory guilt of the kind that white western liberals have made their specialty.
This left the British establishment vulnerable to the revolutionary ideology of the New Left, at the core of which lay a hatred of western society. <b>As a consequence, the British elite decided not only that the British nation was an embarrassment but also that the very idea of the nation was an anachronism.</b> Britain had to be unravelled <b>and a new world order constructed from principles untainted by the particulars of national culture</b>.
So schools no longer transmitted the British national story and the country's bedrock values. Immigrant children were taught instead that their culture was the community they came from, and children were left in ignorance of British history and taught that their values were whatever they wanted them to be.
Instead of principles rooted in British law, religion and history, Britain subscribed to the doctrine of universalism expressed through human rights law, and placed its faith in transnational institutions such as the UN, International Criminal Court or European Court of Justice as the major sources of legitimacy. Only the universal and the nation-busting could be innocent of prejudice.
Far from promoting equality, however, this approach fashioned minority rights into a deadly weapon. For if all values have equal status, majority values get knocked off their pedestal. So the very idea of the nation as an overarching framework of shared and binding values and obligations is undermined.
This has had a number of calamitous consequences. Remaking the nation gave rise to a collapse of immigration controls. Illegal immigrants simply vanished into British society. The chaos resulting from this loss of border controls made security impossible, since the intelligence service didn't know who was in the country.
Anyone who questioned the desirability of such trends was vilified. Mass immigration was held to be an absolute good, not least because it destroyed Britain's white character. Multiculturalism became the driving force of British life, ruthlessly policed by an army of bureaucrats enforcing a doctrine of state-mandated virtue to promote racial, ethnic and cultural balkanization.
This left many Muslims and other minorities stranded. The doctrine was a complete break from the earlier pattern of assimilating immigrants. Now, minorities could no longer be integrated because there was no longer an overarching culture for them to integrate into.
By denying the validity of a common culture, multiculturalism reinforced those dangerous tendencies toward isolationism and hostility to western values expressed within Britain's Muslim community. How could Muslims be expected to sign up to a national project the very expression of which was now considered "racist"? When British Muslim youths turned themselves into human bombs, the attractions of multiculturalism suddenly seemed rather less obvious. Nevertheless, its grip upon the British psyche remained so strong that Britain was unable to condemn the mind-twisting excuses served up by spokesmen for the British Muslim community. Instead, it actually endorsed them.
Thus, it was agreed that what caused the bombers to strike was lack of integration, Islamophobia and rage over the war in Iraq. But the broad public didn't ask why so many British Muslims refused to integrate; and while the Iraq war was undoubtedly being used to whip up Muslim anger, Britain didn't question the implication that any attempt by the west to defend itself would be turned upside down and misrepresented as aggression against the innocent.
<b>Here indeed was the multicultural rub, the mind-bending reasoning by which the doctrine locks Britain and Canada into the mother of all Catch-22s.</b>
At the heart of multiculturalism lies a radical egalitarianism by which everyone's culture and lifestyle has equal validity and moral stature. The consequence is that people are increasingly unable to make moral distinctions based on behaviour.
<b>Instead, minorities of all kinds -- ethnic, religious, sexual -- are not held responsible for their misdeeds because they are perceived as a victim class. So the majority are held responsible instead.</b>
The greatest exponents of this morally upside-down grievance culture are those Muslims for whose pathological inferiority complex it seems to be tailor-made.
They represent their own aggression against the west as defence, because of their belief that the weakness of Islam relative to the west must be the result of a western conspiracy to destroy the religion. Since they therefore think that their culture is under attack, they believe it is legitimate to restore the former global power of the Islamic empire by aggressive attacks which they reconceptualize as defence.
Everything that follows is viewed through this prism. <b>The Islamists' exaggerated notions of shame and honour mean that every slight turns into a major grievance, disadvantage morphs into paranoia and Islam itself is perceived to be under siege everywhere. The more the free world defends itself, the more the Islamists claim they are under attack. So the more atrocities there are against the west, the more the Islamists claim they are victims of Islamophobia. Truly, this is a dialogue of the demented.</b>
<b>It is impossible to overstate the importance to the global struggle against Islamist extremism of properly understanding and publicly challenging this moral, intellectual and philosophical inversion, which translates aggressor into victim and vice versa.</b>
Only by doing so will the free world realize that it is not enough to thwart actual terrorist plots, crucial as that is. What must also be addressed is the fanatical hatred in people's heads that drives them to such inhuman acts, and which is itself fuelled by paranoid fantasies and lies about a conspiracy to destroy Islam by the west and its supposed puppet-masters, the Jews. It is impossible also to exaggerate the fuel that has been poured onto the fires of Islamist terror by the dupes and malcontents of the western intelligentsia who themselves echo precisely these prejudices.
If we are to defeat this terrible thing that threatens us, we have to grasp that while grievances such as Iraq or Israel are used as recruiting sergeants for terror, they are not its cause. That lies in the Islamist doctrine of religious conquest.
<b>Canada, like all Western nations, should send a clear message that while Islam is respected like any minority faith, Muslims must play by the rules of the minority game. That means that our countries will not allow religion to be used to incite hatred and violence, and where this is taking place -- in mosques or madrassahs, in prisons, youth clubs or on campus -- it will be stopped.
But that can only happen if the shibboleth of multiculturalism is set aside. Otherwise our culture will continue sleepwalking into oblivion.</b>
<i>- Londonistan by Melanie Phillips is published by Encounter. For information about the author, please visit www.melaniephillips.com.
© National Post 2006</i><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What West will come to know and what ostrich India will choose NOT to know.. <!--emo&  --><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo& --><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>What the West Needs to Know</b>
<i>An examination of Islam, violence, and the fate of the non-Muslim world</i>.
98 mins
http://www.whatthewestneedstoknow.com/ab...roject.asp
<b>Main Idea</b>
Virtually every major Western leader has over the past several years expressed the view that Islam is a peaceful religion and that those who commit violence in its name are fanatics who misinterpret its tenets. This claim, while widely circulated, rarely attracts serious public examination. Relying primarily on Islams own sources, this documentary demonstrates that Islam is a violent, expansionary ideology that seeks the destruction or subjugation of other faiths, cultures, and systems of government.
<b>Content</b>
The documentary consists of original interviews, citations from Islamic texts, Islamic artwork, computer-animated maps, footage of Western leaders, and Islamic television broadcasts. Its tone is sober, methodical, and compelling.
Outline of the Documentary
Introduction
We hear from prominent Western leaders that Islam is peaceful and that those who commit violence in its name are heterodox fanatics.
<b>Part 1: There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet</b>
Our interviewees affirm their belief that Islamic violence is entirely orthodox behavior for Muslims and stems directly from the teachings and example of the Prophet Muhammad and the commands of the Koran. We learn that the example of Muhammad is one of a violent warlord who killed numerous people. The Koran the verbatim words of Allah prescribes violence against non-Muslims and Muhammad is the perfect example of the Koran in action.
<b>Part 2: The Struggle</b>
We learn that jihad, while literally meaning 'struggle', in fact denotes war fought against non-Muslims in order to bring the rule of Islamic law to the world. Violent death in jihad is, according to the Koran, the only assurance of salvation. One of our interviewees tells of his personal involvement in terrorism and his leaving Islam.
<b>Part 3: Expansion</b>
Following the death of Muhammad, his 'rightly-guided' successors carried his wars to three continents, fighting, enslaving, and massacring countless Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus, and others. Islam did not spread through evangelism or through its natural appeal, but through aggressive wars of conquest. The Crusades were largely a belated response on the part of Christian Europe to rescue Christians in the Holy Land suffering under Muslim oppression. The Muslim world today, while no longer the unified empire of the Caliphs, is exceptional for being responsible for the vast majority of conflicts around the world and for almost all of international terrorism.
<b>Part 4: War is Deceit</b>
A great problem with Western efforts to understand Islam is due to the Islamic principle of 'religious deception', which enjoins Muslims to deceive non-Muslims in order to advance the cause of Islam. Muslim groups today in the West employ deception and omission to give the impression that 'Islam is a religion of peace', an utter fiction.
<b>Part 5: More than a Religion</b>
The most important characteristic of Islam not understood by the West is that it is more a system of government than a personal religion. Throughout its history, Islam has never recognized a distinction between the religious and the secular/political. Islamic law governs every aspect of religious, political, and personal action, which amounts to a form of totalitarianism that is divinely enjoined to dominate the world, analogous in many ways to Communism.
<b>Part 6: The House of War</b>
Islamic theology divides the world into two spheres locked in perpetual combat, dar al-Islam (House of Islam - where Islamic law predominates), and dar al-harb (House of War - the rest of the world). It is incumbent on dar al-Islam to fight and conquer dar al-harb and permanently assimilate it. Muslims in Western nations are called to subvert the secular regimes in which they now live in accordance with Allah's command. Due to political correctness and general government and media irresponsibility, the danger posed by observant Muslims in the West remains largely unappreciated.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The New Taliban
Wall Street Journal
June 19, 2006
Pg. 14
The New Taliban
By J. Peter Pham
On June 5, an armed Islamist group, the Union of Islamic Courts, took control of Mogadishu, Somalia's largest city, after heavy fighting against "warlords" representing an ad hoc alliance apparently recently underwritten by the CIA and the Department of Defense. Since then, the Islamist forces have also seized the strategically important town of Jowhar, which controls the route to Baidoa, where Somalia's internationally recognized but utterly ineffectual "Transitional Federal Government" camps out.
Like the Taliban before them, the Union of Islamic Courts portrays itself as a popular indigenous law-and-order group emerging to provide governance and social services in the absence of any functioning state institutions since the dictator Siad Barre fled in 1990. And like their Afghan counterparts who sent the man who is now Yale's most famous student on tour, the Somali Islamists put forward a moderate face in the person of a former high school teacher, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, who assures such members of the international media as make it to Mogadishu that he is a "moderate" and that his group poses no threat to the outside world.
Alas, the truth is that the Union is made up of at least four major jihadi groups: al-Ittihad al-Islami ("Islamic Union"), a group which used to appear on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations (the folks at Foggy Bottom apparently bought at face value the group's previously self-proclaimed dissolution); <b>al-Takfir wal-Hijra ("Excommunication and Exodus"), a group so extreme that it considered Osama bin Laden too moderate and tried to kill him in Sudan in 1996; </b>al-Islah ("Reconciliation"), an Islamist group pushing for the establishment of a Islamic state in Somalia; and al-Tabligh ("Making Known"), an Islamist "missionary" group with links to the same madrassas in Pakistan which gave us the Taliban.
The forces of the Union, like those of the Taliban, are reinforced with foreign jihadis including, according to my sources in Somalia, Arabs, Afghans, <b>Pakistanis</b>, <b>Kashmiris</b>, Palestinians and Syrians. And, again like the Taliban, the Union is generously supplied by nominal U.S. allies on the Arabian peninsula -- in this case Saudi Arabia and Yemen, via daily flights from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The Taliban proved the lethality of allowing a militantly Islamist group to seize control of any country. But in contrast to isolated Afghanistan, Somalia sits astride shipping lanes vital to the global economy for the flow of oil and cargo.
After they make short shift of Somalia's shambolic government -- notwithstanding the last ditch attempt at the U.N. this week to shore it up with the appointment of a new International Contact Group -- the Union will turn its attention to destabilizing Somaliland, whose democratically elected, secular government has already been declared anathema by the Union's chief ideologist, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the al Qaeda-linked head of al-Ittihad. (This month alone, the Somaliland government has intercepted two major arms shipments destined for Union-aligned jihadis from well-wishers in Arabia.) <b>Then the Union will turn on Ethiopia and Kenya, both countries with large ethnic Somali populations with significant pockets of jihadi infiltration. If all this sounds a bit far-fetched, recall that the Taliban's Mullah Omar thought of himself as the emir of a nascent Central Asian caliphate</b>.
There has been a lot of ink -- some would even say blood -- spilled over what the Clinton and Bush administrations should have known or could have done to prevent the attacks of Sept. 11. One thing, however, is certain: As the 9/11 Commission report, among other sources, makes painfully clear, throughout the late 1990s the Taliban regime was not exactly subtle about what it and the numerous foreign groups it hosted were up to in the mountains and valleys of Afghanistan. Yet it was only after the twin towers came down that the U.S. took action -- and, by then, our best potential ally, the long-neglected Ahmad Shah Masud, leader of the Northern Alliance, lay dead at the hands of al Qaeda assassins, felled two days before 9/11.
<b>Today, it is an open secret that the same dynamic is at work in Somalia as was at work in Afghanistan a decade ago. </b>Ironically, while senior U.S. officials have had even less reaction to the fall of Mogadishu to the Union of Islamic Courts than their predecessors had to the fall of Kabul to Taliban, even the U.N. has acknowledged the existence of terrorist training camps in Somalia. One report prepared for the Security Council last year listed 17 of them by name. Yet not only are the U.S. military personnel of the Combined Joint Task Force, Horn of Africa, based in nearby Djibouti (and not allowed to take direct action against the camps), but official U.S. policy does not even make provision for shoring up Somaliland as a bulwark against the rising tide of radical Islamism in the horn.
Unfortunately for Somalia, its neighbors, and ultimately the U.S., it seems we're well on our way to proving once again the truth of Santayana's warning that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
<i>Mr. Pham is director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University and an academic fellow of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.</i>
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African muslims see Allah in scales of tuna fish
http://islamicvoice.com/June2006/TheMuslim...EmbracePolygamy
Kenyans Believe Tuna Has message from Allah
Mombasa
A tuna fish caught in the Indian Ocean last month has excited Kenyan Muslims who are flocking here by the hundreds to see a Qurâanic verse apparently embedded in its scales. Dubbed the âwonder fishâ by locals in this port city, the 2,5kg tuna has attracted so much attention that it has been placed in the custody of the National Fisheries Department for safekeeping, officials said. The otherwise ordinary fish caught the attention of a fishmonger, Omar Mohammed Awadh, who pulled it out of a catch when he noticed what seemed to be Arabic writing among the scales near its tail. Arabic scholars examined the fish at Awadhâs shop and determined that the writing was a Qurâanic verse meaning âGod is the greatest of all providersâ, said Hassan Mohamed Hassan, an education officer with the National Museums of Kenya in Mombasa. âThis has been confirmed as a verse from the holy Qurâan,â said Sheikh Mombasa Dor, the secretary-general of the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya. âIt is so clearly spelt,â he said, âthat we believe Allah is sending a message to mankind.â
06-24-2006, 02:07 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-24-2006, 02:08 AM by Bharatvarsh.)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->By contrast, the poll found that British Muslims represented a "notable exception" in Europe, with far more negative views of westerners than Islamic minorities elsewhere on the continent. A significant majority viewed western populations as selfish, arrogant, greedy and immoral. Just over half said westerners were violent. While the overwhelming majority of European Muslims said westerners were respectful of women, fewer than half British Muslims agreed. Another startling result found that only 32% of Muslims in Britain had a favourable opinion of Jews, compared with 71% of French Muslims.
Across the board, <span style='color:red'>Muslim attitudes in Britain more resembled public opinion in Islamic countries in the Middle East and Asia than elsewhere in Europe.</span>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story...78,00.html<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Pew poll found that British Muslims are far more likely than their European counterparts to harbour conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks. Only 17% believed that Arabs were involved, compared with 48% in France.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story...78,00.html<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Meanwhile Hamas says:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The following is the transcript of selections from the Hamas video:
"We will rule the nations, by Allah's will, the USA will be conquered, Israel will be conquered, Rome and Britain will be conqueredâ¦
The Jihad for Allah... is the way of Truth and the way for Salvation and the way which will lead us to crush the Jews and expel them from our country Palestine. Just as the Jews ran from Gaza, the Americans will run from Iraq and Afghanistan and the Russians will run from Chechnya, and the Indian will run from Kashmir, and our children will be released from Guantanamo. The prisoners will be released by Allah's will, not by peaceful means and not by agreements, but they will be released by the sword, they will be released by the gun".
The video identifies itself as from the "Al-Qassam Brigades Media Office." "Al-Qassam Brigades" is the name the Hamas calls its military wing.
( www.palestine-info.net) June 22 2006:
http://www.pmw.org.il/LatestBulletins.htm#b220606<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
These are the SOB's we supported so long and still do instead of nuking them out of existence.
Muslims address silence on Europe attacks
By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI, Associated Press Writer Sat Jun 24, 11:56 AM ET
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Europe's Muslims have remained largely silent in the face of terrorist attacks that have killed 254 people in Madrid, London and Amsterdam. Europeans want to know why.
Why have so few of them publicly condemned the train and bus bombings in Madrid and London? Why have so few spoken out against the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, killed because his work was considered an insult to Islam?
Talk to Europe's mainstream Muslims privately, however, and it turns out they have a lot to say.
Seek them out in the neighborhoods where they live and work â in the outdoor markets and butcher shops that sell halal meat, in the book stores that display literature on Islam and the West, in the boutiques that promote Islamic dress codes, in the Turkish restaurants and smoky Tunisian teahouses, in their schools and youth clubs â and they denounce, the vast majority unequivocally, attacks against civilians in both Europe and the United States.
"Van Gogh was a crazy man, but no one has the right to kill anyone who says bad things about the Quran," said Mohammed Azahaf, a 23-year-old student who runs a youth center in Amsterdam. "If you kill one, it's like killing the whole of mankind," he said, quoting a line from the Muslim holy book.
Why, then, the public silence?
For some of the more than five dozen Muslims interviewed for this story in Amsterdam, Paris and London, it's a sense of shame, or even guilt, that innocents have been killed in the name of Islam; they say those feelings make them seek to be "invisible." For those lucky enough to have jobs, there is little time to protest or even write letters to newspapers. For others, there is fear of being branded anti-Islam in their communities.
Dutch Muslim rapper Yassine SB wrote a song about his anger over Van Gogh's murder but scrapped plans to perform it out of fear of being ostracized by the Islamic community. He also turned down requests by a popular Amsterdam radio station to sing a song against terrorism.
"If you sing that, it's like you choose the Dutch, not Muslims," said Yassine SB â the initials stand for his surname Sahsah Bahida â who is popular among Dutch North African youths like himself for his songs against racism.
"People will say 'you are a traitor,'" said the 20-year-old musician.
In the Netherlands, Somali-born Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali â who wrote the script for Van Gogh's movie "Submission" â went into hiding after receiving death threats for her condemnations of Islam. And in the United States, Syrian-born psychologist Wafa Sultan's calls for Islamic reform also earned her death threats.
But there is another reason for the silence â one that for many overrides all others.
Why, many Muslims ask, should they have to speak out against, or apologize for, actions of radicals who do not represent them â people they do not even regard as true Muslims?
Many find the very idea of being asked or expected to denounce such acts "extremely offensive and insulting," said Khurshid Drabu, a senior member of the Muslim Council of Britain.
"I'm British," said Tuhina Ahmed, 24, a British-born Muslim in London whose family came from Gujarat in India. "I could have been blown up as well." Why, she asked, should she have to make a public statement to prove her objection to terrorism?
To many, the pressure to denounce acts of terror smacks of
President Bush's warning that 'you are either with us or against us.'
"People and politicians say where are the Muslim people, why aren't they on the streets defending themselves? They say we should go into the streets and condemn what happened so they see us as good Muslims," said Karima Ramani, a 20-year-old Dutch born to an Algerian father and Moroccan mother. "I don't feel it's my duty. I'm not responsible for the death of Van Gogh."
Many European observers of Islamic communities agree.
"If they protest as a group of Muslims against these terrorist attacks, they take on an extra responsibility which is not theirs. So I can fully understand their reasons," said Ruud Peters, professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Amsterdam.
Yet the Internet is filled with blogs â mostly from Westerners but also by some Muslims â asking why Muslims are not expressing revulsion at the attacks. They see the silence as giving the terrorists strength.
"Isn't silence, justification, fear and hesitation in condemning terrorism, a factor in the encouragement of these individuals to appear on numerous platforms and satellite channels and claim that they represent a religion in the absence of active influential groups and institutions?" asked a blog entry by Ahmed Al-Rabei, a Kuwaiti journalist who works for London-based newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.
"Isn't it a tragic crime to label the millions of European Muslims as guilty because of the rhetoric of a few professional lunatics, while the rest remain silent and wallow in self-pity? We have to admit that Islam has been hijacked particularly in European countries."
Muslim leaders say they and other Muslims have marched in a number of anti-terrorism rallies in Europe â the largest was held on the first anniversary of Madrid's 2004 bombings â and Muslims can't be expected to pour into the streets every day. They also say they have condemned the attacks in the media.
Surveys indicate a small but significant chunk of Europe's Muslim population supports the terrorists.
In a poll of British Muslims after the July 2005 suicide attacks on London's transport system, 6 percent thought the bombings were justified. Another 24 percent condemned the attacks but had some sympathy with the bombers' grievances.
Many Europeans blame the Continent's Muslim leadership, which they accuse of making ambiguous and qualified condemnations that give the impression they are making excuses for the bombers: grievances over the war in
Iraq or the West's support for
Israel.
"It's the leaders who are most responsible," said Rory Miller, senior lecturer of Mediterranean studies at King's College, London.
Europe's Muslims, who originate from 57 countries, differ in culture, language and even the strain of Islam they follow. They came at different periods and for different reasons. Some were born here and consider themselves as much French or British as they are Muslim.
Condemnations by most of the Muslims interviewed for this article had no strings attached.
Azahaf, 23, was among the thousands who marched in Amsterdam against Van Gogh's killing. "I demonstrated not for Van Gogh but for freedom to talk, to say what you want," he said.
Olivier Roy, a respected French scholar of Islam, says Muslim silence is a "classical psychology of immigrants" â wanting to be "normal" and become mainstream. "For them, integration means to be recognized as citizens. They don't want to be recognized for their specificity."
Sue Vogel, a psychologist who practices in Muslim-populated Bedford, in central England, said that after last year's bombings in London there was a great sense of guilt among some of her Muslim patients. "I had to do a lot of work to convince them that I saw them as people, rather than as Muslims," she said.
Lamia Hamdoun, 33, a teacher at a boys' school, emigrated to England from Tunisia 12 years ago. Last year's London bombings were so overwhelming for her, she says, that she prefers to remain invisible.
"When these incidents happen, I'm always scared. ... I shrink," said Hamdoun, who lives in a tiny apartment in north London with her Egyptian husband, Mohammed, and 9-month old-son, Sammy â whose name was chosen because it's common both in the Muslim world and the West.
She said she fears that her husband may be arrested in a police sweep just because of his looks or name. "I wish we could change his name so people don't know.
"I just don't want to think about it, I want to just get on with my life, deal with my personal problems. It's something I can't deal with."
Many of Europe's best-integrated Muslims say their lives are so far removed from those of the radicals that it simply has never occurred to them to protest.
Alia Kdeih, 50, came to Paris in 1977, at the height of a civil war in her native Lebanon. She got her degree from the Sorbonne, married a Lebanese and presents a cultural program on the Arabic service of French government-owned Radio Monte Carlo. Her elegant Western-decorated apartment in a middle-class Paris neighborhood has only a few flavors of Lebanon.
Kdeih said she will not go into the streets to condemn the attacks even though she's appalled by them â pointing out that her identity is not defined by Islam.
"It's not something I want to stress," she said. "I don't feel responsible for what happened even if they are Muslims."
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