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In this mailing:
by Samuel Westrop
• July 1, 2015 at 5:00 am
- There are
obvious shortcomings in the British government's demand that all
"beliefs" deserve "mutual respect." While it is
important in a free society to tolerate beliefs we dislike, we
should not be required to "respect" them.
- If the
government would stop funding and backing religious separatism, and
start using existing laws to prosecute preachers who incite violence
and promote terrorism, these measures would go a long way to
preventing extremists from operating with impunity. Censorship, on
the other hand, will harm everyone.
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Islamic preacher Abu Usamah at-Thahabi of
Birmingham, England: "Take that homosexual man... and throw him
off the mountain. If I were to call homosexuals perverted, dirty,
filthy dogs who should be murdered, that's my freedom of speech, isn't
it." The Racial and Religious Hatred Act and various Public Order
Acts prohibit incitement to violence, but, despite advocating murder,
Thahabi has never been charged. (Image source: Green Lane Mosque video
screenshot)
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On May 27, a few weeks after the elections, Queen Elizabeth II
addressed the British parliament with a speech that laid out a number of
important proposed bills, including changes to immigration and the
welfare system; a referendum on Britain's membership of the European
Union, and, most importantly, a series of new measures to tackle Islamic
extremism.
The "Extremism Bill," the government has announced, will
"unite our country and keep you and your family safe by tackling all
forms of extremism." It will also "combat groups and
individuals who reject our values and promote messages of hate."
by Burak Bekdil
• July 1, 2015 at 4:00 am
- Today,
instead of the free movement of labor and capital, there is, around
the border area, the free movement of bombs and bullets.
- Ankara
considers the real security threat from Syria as not the jihadists,
but the secular Kurds who fight the jihadists.
- Turkey has
worked so hard to create a "Peshawar" (Afghanistan) across
its border with Syria -- hoping instead to create a Muslim
Brotherhood zone.
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Hundred of Syrian Kurds gathered along the border
with Turkey in the hope of crossing over, as Kurdish militias battled
ISIS in nearby Tel Abyad, June 13, 2015. (Image source: Reuters video
screenshot)
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It was supposed to be Turkish gambit: Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad's days in power were numbered; the Nusayri (Alawite) man
would be toppled by Syria's Sunni majority in a popular revolt. The Sunni
majority would set up in Damascus a Muslim Brotherhood type of regime
that would be subservient to Ankara, and Turkey's southern border with
Syria would be now be a borderless Sunni "Schengen" zone; cross
border trade would flourish with the free movement of labor and capital.
Peace would prevail along the 900-km border, and Turkish and Syrian Sunni
supremacists would advance their agenda in the not-always-so-Sunni lands
of the Middle East.
Today, instead of the free movement of labor and capital, there is, around
the border area, the free movement of bombs and bullets. Turkey's
miscalculated foreign policy on Syria has led to the creation of a
neighboring Peshawar (Afghanistan) across its border.
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