In this mailing:
by Bjorn Jansen
• March 19, 2015 at 5:00 am
When
Muslims themselves now understand there is an issue, politicians and key
decision makers throughout the West might do well to understand this, too
-- and seriously support them.
Another
level that will have to be addressed is how Islam is presented in
Europe's education system. The Norwegian translation of the Koran has
been abridged to take out the less charming parts. Islam is presented as
if it were already reformed. It is as if Einar Berg, the translator of
the Koran, were shocked by what he translated, and trying to package it
in a more charming light.
The
crucial question is: Will Islam now be reformed to meet the version found
in the textbooks? Or will the textbooks be altered to describe accurately
Islam's stated ideology?
This
self-censorship -- whether voluntary or the result of some implicit
threat -- is the death of enlightenment, humanism and the foundation of
all science: the spirit of free inquiry.
Possibly
more important is the pervasive, divisive focus on non-believers -- the
insistence on disparaging them and killing them -- and how this might
well condition the minds of many Muslims, especially children.
Islam
gives every child this conditioning. Imagine if those tenets were the
desired result of every Confirmation, or every Bar Mitzvah or every First
Holy Communion.
Norway
also has plans to deport at least 7,800 illegal asylum-seekers this year.
Amal Aden, at left with a police escort, has been
living with death threats from Muslims for years, including threats
from Arslan Maroof Hussain (right).
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The last few weeks have seen serious signs of interest in the Muslim
world for the reform of Islam. They started with the heroic and honorable
initiative at the end of 2014 by Egypt's President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi,
criticizing the ideology of Islam. He comments on how it is hostile to
the whole world, and calls for a "revolution" in Islam. This
was followed up by an appeal by Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb of Egypt's
al-Azhar University, with calls for radical reform of religious teaching,
although unheroically, dishonorably and not at all believably, still
trying to pin the blame on others.
An Egyptian plan to combat radical Islamism is also on the agenda
for the Arab summit in Sharm El Sheikh, on March 26th.
When Muslims themselves now understand there is an issue,
politicians and key decision makers in Norway -- and all over Europe and
the West, for that matter -- need to understand this, too, and back them
up.
by Samuel Westrop
• March 19, 2015 at 4:00 am
London
Citizens, which receives tens of thousands of pounds from the government
every year, is a coalition of faith groups that include extremist
Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood organizations. London Citizens' deputy
chairman before 2014 was Junaid Ahmed, an Islamist activist who describes
Hamas founder and leader Ahmed Yassin as a "hero" and has said
that, "Every single [Palestinian] resistance fighter is an example
for all of us to follow."
Although President of a taxpayer-funded interfaith
organization, Ibrahim Mogra refused to share a platform with a Muslim
from the Ahmadi sect. Mogra did share the same platform with Azzam
Tamimi, a "special envoy" for the terror group Hamas. (Image
source: Surrey Islamic Society video screenshot)
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In February, Britain's largest Jewish newspaper, the Jewish
Chronicle disclosed that Yitzchak Schochet, a Rabbi in North London,
was removed as patron of an interfaith charity because "the
government believed he was too extreme." It reported:
"According to a source close to the charity, the decision was
taken after the Department for Communities and Local Government
threatened to remove funding for other groups run by the charity's
head."
Rabbi Schochet has undoubtedly made some troubling comments. In
January, after the Islamist terror attacks in Paris, he stated that the
staff of Charlie Hebdo "committed a sin against
society," and that, "Any sensitive human being who cares about
the rights of another will find these cartoons abhorrent." Islamist
media outlets have condemned a tweet sent by Schochet, in which he told
an anti-Israel activist: "I have a spare Israeli flag if you want to
hang yourself on it."
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