Friday, September 21, 2012

Gatestone Update :: Daniel Greenfield: Blasphemy for Fun and Prophet, and more



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Blasphemy for Fun and Prophet

by Daniel Greenfield
September 21, 2012 at 5:00 am
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Like Hearst, the Muslim policy on blasphemy is, "You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war." One might as well call the Fourth of July a reaction to fireworks. If the Salafis hadn't come upon a properly blasphemous movie, then they would have found an offensive cartoon, book, song or cave painting. And if they couldn't find any of those, then they would have made one on their own and blamed it on the infidels.
The last time that Americans spent this much time concerning themselves with blasphemy, witches were being tried in Salem and many a settler suspected that on a dark and stormy night the devil might come wandering through the woods. But in those parts of the world where women are still put on trial for witchcraft and pilgrims to Mecca annually stone the devil, blasphemy is a matter of life and death.
Blasphemy is not however the joyless affair that the modern mind anticipates. Blasphemy in the Muslim world is what a blackout is to Chicago or Detroit, a break from the normal routine and a chance for bored teenagers to spend some time out in the fresh air throwing stones, looting stores and committing assorted crimes that would be unacceptable under normal circumstances.
It is a mistake to think of such riots as a reaction to blasphemy. One might as well call the Fourth of July a reaction to fireworks. When the weather is warm, the economy is lousy and some politician stands to benefit from shouting, "Death to America" at an embassy or a fried chicken place, then the internet cafes in Cairo and Karachi begin buzzing with bearded men eagerly searching for something properly blasphemous to outrage the sensibilities of Muslim burghers waiting around to be shocked by the decadent infidels with their cartoon-drawing, chess-playing and kite-flying ways.
The Islamist fireworks were scheduled to take place on September 11. The only questions to be asked were, how, where and why. To help answer the last question an Egyptian Salafi cable channel dug up an obscure movie that no one had ever heard of before to give their followers the needed motivation to do what they were going to do anyway.
If the Salafis hadn't come upon a properly blasphemous movie, then they would have found an offensive cartoon, book, song or cave painting. And if they couldn't find any of those, then they would have made one on their own and blamed it on the infidels.
Seven years ago the Salafis wanted to start some riots, but all they had to work with were some Danish cartoons, which despite trying hard to be provocative weren't nearly offensive enough. Western journalists may have gasped at the sight of a drawing of Mohammed with a lit fuse coming out of his turban, but in a religion where the highest attainment is martyrdom by personal bomb, it would have been unclear whether the infamous drawing was meant as compliment or condemnation. Similarly a drawing of Mohammed with a sword and two veiled wives might count as an obvious criticism in Denmark, where citizens of good character are expected to refrain from walking down the street with sword and slaves in tow, but aside from the prohibition on depicting Mohammed, swords, slaves and bombs would have been considered a good thing back in Salafiland.
To cook up a properly blasphemous scandal, the Salafis were forced to make their own cartoons to meet the high standards and good taste of their audience -- these cartoons featured Mohammed as a pig, a demon from hell and engaging in unnatural congress with a dog. It took them a few months; and while their artistic skills were lacking, the violent outbreaks of looting and killing that followed more than made up for their failure to obtain a full scholarship to The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.
Like Hearst, the Muslim policy on blasphemy is, "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war." And if the pictures are not forthcoming, then they will furnish both the pictures and the war. When a Muslim cleric in Pakistan wanted to persecute the local Christians, he framed a mentally retarded little girl for blasphemy, and he would have gotten away with it too if the whole case hadn't become an international embarrassment for the Pakistani government.
Like charges of witchcraft, charges of blasphemy are the means by which the powerful persecute the vulnerable. To view blasphemy as a matter of theology or superstition misses the entire point. It is so much less than these things in the Muslim world, and also so much more.
Nationalism in the Muslim world is a precarious affair and blasphemy charges are the means by which Muslims emphasize religion as the defining element of citizenship, rather than territorial or ethnic ties. Any Christian can be charged with blasphemy at any time and the mob reaction emphasizes that they are not equal citizens, but a troublesome and untrustworthy alien element in the body of the nation.
The blasphemy charge is an accusation of treason that empowers local Muslims to seize lands and possessions. Its defense of the Prophet is quite profitable, whether looting a Christian village in Egypt or an American consulate in Benghazi, and it is also fun for those whose sense of fun is limited to burning things down and posing for snapshots with corpses.
When the time is ripe for a riot, then how much or how little free speech there is in the West will make as much difference to the final outcome as sending apology letters to a hurricane.
Related Topics:  Daniel Greenfield

BBC Backs Down; Threats of Physical Violence

by Soeren Kern
September 21, 2012 at 4:45 am
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Islam is "a legitimate subject of historical inquiry. I think there's a degree to which Muslims, far more than Christians, have felt that the foundation myths of their religion are somehow historical fact, and it seems to me that they're clearly not." Tom Holland, author, Islam: The Untold Story, cancelled by BBC, after threats.
The British Broadcasting Corporation has cancelled the screening of a controversial documentary about the history of Islam after the presenter was threatened with physical violence.
The private screening was to take place, followed by a debate, at the BBC's headquarters in London on September 13 before an audience of historians and opinion shapers.
"Islam: The Untold Story" is a documentary by historian Tom Holland, a well-known British author, who examines the origins of Islam and argues that there is little written historical evidence to verify claims about the Muslim prophet Mohammed and the origins of Islam.
In the documentary, the Cambridge-educated historian offers a critical examination of the traditional Islamic narrative that the Muslim holy book, The Koran, was transmitted directly and "fully formed" to Mohammed in the seventh century, through the angel Gabriel.
Holland says that contrary to Muslim claims, it is far more probable that the Koran and Islamic theology developed gradually over many centuries in conjunction with the expansion of Arab empires. He also says there are many "black holes" in the historical record, and suggests that Islam is essentially a "made-up" religion. "I had expected to find contemporaneous Muslim evidence," Holland says, "but there's nothing there."
Holland also questions in the film the centrality of Mecca in the origins of Islam: "Aside from a single ambiguous mention in the Koran itself, there is no mention of [the Muslim holy city of] Mecca, not one, in any datable text for over a hundred years after Muhammad's death."
The documentary, which was previously aired on the BBC's Channel 4 on August 28, generated more than 1,000 complaints by Muslims, who accuse Holland of distorting the history of Islam.
The London-based Islamic Education and Research Academy published two papers (here and here) denouncing the program. The Academy accuses Holland of "recklessness," of making "baseless assumptions" and of engaging in "selective scholarship."
The British telecommunications regulator, Ofcom, after it received more than 100 complaints that the documentary is biased and offensive to Muslims, says it may launch an investigation.
Holland insists that Islam is "a legitimate subject of historical inquiry." The documentary follows on the heels of a growing number of scholarly and popular books (here, here, here, here, here, here and here) that challenge some of the most fundamental assumptions about the origin of Islam.
In an interview about the origins of Islam with the London-based The Spectator, Holland states: "I think there's a degree to which Muslims, far more than Christians, have felt that the foundation myths of their religion are somehow historical fact, and it seems to me that they're clearly not. There must be a bedrock of fact, but it is more 'sacred history' than it is history...." Holland also says: "There's a sense in which I think as Islam evolves and as, let's say, Muslims start to realize that they are in competition with Jews and Christians, they need to have their Prophet have a revelation from an angel...."
Holland's documentary has earned him an online flood of abusive messages. According to the British newspaper The Telegraph, one message reads: "You might be a target in the streets. You may recruit some bodyguards, for your own safety."
A spokesperson for Channel 4 said: "Having taken security advice, we have reluctantly canceled a planned screening of the program Islam: The Untold Story."
The dust-up follows a similar controversy over a new BBC comedy series called Citizen Khan, which confronts issues faced by a modern Muslim family.
The six-part series, which aired for the first time on BBC1 in August, was created by British Muslim Adil Ray, who also plays the lead role.
After its first episode, the BBC received more than 600 complaints from Muslims who claim the program is guilty of "stereotypes about Asians" and is "disrespectful to the Koran." Some of the angry reactions have been compiled here.
Muslims were particularly angered by a scene where an actress who plays Khan's glamorous daughter rushes to put on a hijab and pretends to be reading the Koran when her father comes home.
According to the Union of Muslim Organizations of UK and Ireland, a London-based Muslim umbrella organization, "a large proportion of Muslims will be un-amused by the negative stereotypes because it leads to misrepresentation." British Muslims are not, apparently, allowed to laugh at themselves.
Soeren Kern is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.
Related Topics:  United Kingdom  |  Soeren Kern

Where Are the Muslim Protests for... ?

by Khaled Abu Toameh
September 21, 2012 at 4:30 am
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They are driven by their blind hatred for the US and all non-Muslims.
Muslims who are outraged by an amateur film produced by an Egyptian Christian do not seem to be equally offended when many crimes are committed in the name of Islam.
There are only three reasons why Muslims could be speaking out against the terrorists. First, fear of retaliation. Second, indifference to what is happening. Third, identification with the goals of the terrorists.
For these radical Muslims who are rioting in Cairo, Tunis, Khartoum and Sydney, the film was just an excuse to vent their anger and hatred toward the US, Israel and the entire Western world and civilization.
What has been happening in most of the Arab and Islamic countries in the past few days is more about hating the US and Israel than defending Islam and Prophet Mohamed.
The violent protests should serve as a reminder that radical Islam, which has been hugely boosted by the "Arab Spring," remains a strategic threat to all those who believe in freedom, democracy and equality.
The anti-US protests were just another episode in the war that radical Islam has declared on the West. The US is hated mostly because of its support for Arab dictatorships as well as its support for Israel. The extremists also hate the US because they see it as an obstacle to their efforts to conquer the world and establish an Islamic caliphate.
Instead of staging demonstrations against Muslim extremists who kill innocent civilians every day, Muslims are directing all their anger against a poorly produced trashy film instead of protesting against terrorists who have hijacked Islam, committing some of the most heinous crimes.
Shouldn't Muslims be more worried about all the jihadi groups that have sprung up in the Arab and Islamic countries in recent years and whose members are imposing a reign of terror and intimidation on moderate and peaceful Muslims?
When was the last time Muslims took to the streets to protest against suicide bombings that have killed thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan?
When did Muslims ever stage demonstrations to protest against Al-Qaeda's 9/11 attacks, in which nearly 3,000 civilians were killed in the name of Islam? Perhaps because many Muslims do not believe that Muslims carried out 9/11, or because they believe it is alright to kill infidels.
Why aren't Muslims demonstrating in the streets of Cairo and Benghazi over the daily massacres that are being perpetrated in Syria by Muslim jihadis and the regime?
What happened to those Western-educated liberal Muslims who reportedly triggered the "Arab Spring" protests in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt? How come they haven't taken to the streets to demand an end to the violence and crimes that are being perpetrated every day in the name of Islam?
What are Muslims doing to protect the rights of women in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia and the Gaza Strip?
What have Muslims done to stop the phenomenon of young Syrian girls who are being sold for "pleasure marriages" to wealthy men from the Gulf?
Where are the street protests against human rights and media violations in the Arab and Islamic countries? Aren't most of these violations and abuses being committed in the name of Islam?
Most of the Muslims who have been protesting the defaming of Islam and Prophet Mohamed in the Arab and Islamic countries have most likely not even seen the film; they are driven by their blind hatred for the US and all non-Muslims.
Related Topics:  Khaled Abu Toameh

France Condemns the Holocaust and Antisemitic Atrocities of the Past

by Michael Curtis
September 21, 2012 at 4:00 am
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During those two days, July 16-17, 1942, the French police, acting on the basis of lists they themselves had drawn up, arrested 13,152 Jewish men, women and children living in Paris -- "a crime," according to French President François Hollande, "committed in France by France."
The recent french film, "Sarah's Key," released in 2010, and based on the novel by Tatiana de Rosnay, portrayed accurately the willing participation during World War II of the French Vichy State, its authorities and police in facilitating the Holocaust. The book and the film presented a harrowing picture of the single darkest chapter in the infamous treatment of Jews in France during the World War II: La Rafle (The Raid), the round up euphemistically code-named Operation Spring Breeze (Opération Vent Printanier), which took place on July 16-17, 1942. During those two days the French police, acting on the basis of lists they themselves had drawn up, arrested 13,152 Jewish men, women, and children living in Paris. Childless couples and single people were interned in Drancy, a suburb of Paris, which was equipped with watchtowers and barbed wire fences, and which served during the war as a transit point for the deportation of more than 67,000 Jews to their death.
Of the other Jews, more than 8,100 of those seized, were put in the Vélodrome d'Hiver, the bicycle stadium in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, where they suffered inhuman conditions before they were deported to extermination camps. From the Vel d'Hiv, the French gendarmerie escorted the Jews to the internment camps, Beaune-la Rolande and Pithiviers, before their final destination of the death camps Auschwitz-Birkenau. Not a single German soldier was mobilized to take part in this Vel d'Hiv event.
The Jews incarcerated in the Vel d'Hiv were part of the total of 76,000 Jews sent to those death camps. It took a considerable number of years for French officials to acknowledge this sad episode in French history. However, Jacques Chirac, then President of the French Republic, on the anniversary of Vel d'Hiv on July 16, 1965 admitted and apologized for "the dark hours which will forever tarnish our history."
Similarly, François Hollande, now President of the Republic, acknowledged, in a moving speech on July 16, 2012, that the Vel d'Hiv roundup and deportation of Jews was "a crime committed in France by France." After laying a wreath at the site of the Vélodrome, which was demolished in 1959, Hollande spoke of ""a crime against France, a betrayal of its values," "the horror of the crime," the "dark hours of collaboration" and of France's responsibility. He told his audience, "We are also here to pass on the memory of the Holocaust."
In view of a recent poll that revealed that 42% of French people today did not know of Vel d'Hiv event, nor did 60% of the youth between the ages of 18 to 24, his words should be heeded. In view of the availability of the novel Sarah's Key, and the film based on it, the forthright speeches of two French presidents, and several TV documentaries on the France during World War II, it is surprising that such a large proportion of the French population confessed to be unaware of the Vel d'hiv atrocity.
It is commendable and a sign of change in France that the Jewish victims, along with other victims, particularly gypsies, are being remembered in France in various ways. These memorials include a national Day of Commemoration, the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah, the Commission for the Compensation of Spoliation Resulting from Vichy Antisemitic Legislation, and a museum at Drancy, among other tributes.
Yet, the only true monument to the victims is the retention of the memory of the crime by present and future generations. Based on the recent polls, schools in France, as in other countries, need to instruct pupils about the unique horror of the Holocaust to a greater degree than presently exists. This should be accompanied by refutation of falsification of history -- especially the denial or minimizing of the Holocaust currently present in books, TV programs, and on college campuses. That refutation of Holocaust denial or revisionism, already attempted by the French historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet in his 1992 book, Assassins of Memory, needs to be sustained together with the confrontation of antisemitism in all its forms.
The recent death in June 2012 of Roger Garaudy -- known as an intellectual and a brave resister in World War II, but also an extreme Communist, who became a Catholic, and then a fervent Muslim — is a reminder of the need for this. He became a Holocaust denier, rejecting the avalanche of proof that gas chambers were used by the Nazis to kill Jews during the war. A similar argument was made by Pat Buchanan on March 17, 1990 in the New York Post, where he inaccurately wrote that it was impossible for Jews to have died in gas chambers of the Treblinka death camp because the Diesel engine used did not emit enough carbon monoxide to kill anyone.
It is disconcerting to read the results of a survey by the IPO in March 2012 of the degree of antisemitism in ten European countries. In response to the question if "Jews still talk too much of about happened to them in the Holocaust," the positive answer ranged from 63% in Hungary and 53% in Poland to 24% in Britain.
President Hollande has behaved commendably not only by his strong speech at the Vel d'Hiv site, but also by his action in August 2012, depriving John Galliano, formerly of the House of Dior, of the decoration as a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor that he received in 2010. Galliano had been convicted of making racist and antisemitic remarks while drunk in a Paris café.
The uniqueness of the Holocaust and the evils associated with it cannot be forgotten. One should reject the argument that "too much attention to the Holocaust would cause political problems." One should expose and refute those such as Pat Buchanan, who in his article spoke of the "so-called Holocaust survivor syndrome, group fantasies of martyrdom and heroics." François Hollande has shown the right way to deal with revisionism of this kind. This involves two things. One is to highlight the singularity of the Holocaust, the attempt to eliminate all the Jews on the European continent. The other is to seek to control the virus of antisemitism, regrettably still active in France as elsewhere, and to unmask and discredit those who manifest the intolerance and fanaticism induced by it. No future political leader fifty years from now will then have to apologize, as President Hollande has nobly done, for past acts of "blindness, stupidity, lies, and hatred."
Michael Curtis is author of Should Israel Exist? A Sovereign Nation under attack by the International Community.
Related Topics:  France  |  Michael Curtis
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