Ruqaiyyah is the author of around forty books on Islam and other subjects. She gained her honours degree in Theology in 1963 and Post Graduate Teaching Certificate in 1964, with distinctions in theory and practice.
Her professional life was spent as Head of Religious Studies at various UK inner city secondary schools, until she retired in 1996, to concentrate on writing and lecturing.
Ruqaiyyah grew up a devout Christian, but converted to Islam in 1986. Already established by then as an author of books on Christian and educational topics, she has since devoted her time to writing on Islam and doing dawah work to both Christian and Muslim audiences.
Why has Sharia become a synonym for cruelty and lack of compassion?
I think through two things - ignorance of the reality of Sharia law, and much publicised cases where Muslims in positions of authority have been very poor Muslims, if not non-Muslims in Muslim disguise. For example, 100 years ago we had stories of awful Turkish sultans, and people being rushed to blocks to have their hands cut off etc. The media picks out certain cases and blows them up to make a big drama of them - they might pick on one particular murderer on death row in the USA and rouse everyone's feelings, but totally ignore all the others due to be executed that day!
A case like the Nigerian woman in danger of being stoned for adultery is a case in point. She might have been stoned by irate villagers, but on being taken into custody and judged by Sharia law she gets the opportunity to appeal and explain etc. In her case, if it is true that she was raped, she most certainly would not be sentenced to death. What interests me is who were the rotten people who brought the case against her anyway?
Incidentally the correct Islamic method of stoning according to Sharia was similar to that advised by the Pharisees at the time of Jesus - the person was held fast in a fixed position, and a stone or rock that it took two men to lift (i.e. was heavier than one man could lift alone) was to be dropped to crush the head - it was not someone tied to a post and rocks hurled at them, although this has been done in some cultures. The point was that if someone really had to be executed, it was to be done swiftly, with as little torture as possible, and usually publicly so that no vindictive person could do further nasty things behind the scenes and get away with it.
Sharia should promote gender equality. In fact, the natural Islamic tendency is to always consider women as the weaker sex in need of care and protection, and come down hard on the men who allow their womenfolk to get into difficulties.
Read further her answers to the common questions about Sharia here at BBC.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood - Addressing some common questions about Sharia
Racism in US - Then and Now
Then in 1920's.
During the 1920's, racial tensions in American society reached boiling point. New non-protestant immigrants like Jews and Catholics had been arrived in their masses from south-east Europe since early on in the century. Together with Orientals, Mexicans and the Black population these minorities suffered the most at the hands of those concerned with preserving the long established White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (W.A.S.P.) values that were an integral part of American life. Prejudice and racism reared its ugly head in many areas of society, with people showing a tolerance for racist views in the media, literature and towards organisations like the Ku Klux Klan. Also the language, living and working conditions and Government legislation that ethnic minorities were subjected to is further evidence that the twenties was an openly discriminatory decade.
During the 1920's the Federal Government did little to alleviate poverty and socio-economic disadvantage amongst its ethnic minorities. However at this time few Americans would have expected it to intervene in the way it does nowadays.The racial discrimination towards ethnic minorities during the twenties can also be seen in the job opportunities available to them. Blacks, Mexicans, and the recent immigrants clustered as the bottom of the wage scale. All were usually the last hired and the first fired and performed menially jobs. Mexicans were employed as cheap labour on Californian farms. Wherever the minorities worked the 'native' Americans saw them as a threat to their livelihood, as they normally accepted jobs that the whites did not want. Despite emancipation from slavery after the Civil War, the former slaves remained at the bottom of the social scale in the southern states, where most blacks lived. They lacked economic independence, since they largely worked in white-owned land. Many poverty stricken Blacks migrated from the south to the north during the twenties, to fill the demand for unskilled labour in the North. This however led to resentment from the white workers who saw them as competitors. To add to their problem, Blacks were subject to discrimination at work too.
Now
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Dec. 10th released a comprehensive analysis of the pervasive institutionalized, systemic and structural racism in America. The report is a response to the U.S. report to the United Nations' Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) released earlier this year. The ACLU called the U.S. report a "whitewash."
The U.S. government submitted its report in April to the CERD committee, an independent group of internationally recognized human rights experts that oversees compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, a treaty signed and ratified by the U.S. in 1994. All levels of the U.S. government are obligated to comply with the treaty's provisions.
Based on information provided by the ACLU affiliates in more than 20 states, the ACLU said, "The U.S. report failed miserably in accurately characterizing the state of race relations and intolerance in this country."
The report details the setbacks in the promotion of racial and ethnic equality, including the government's attack on affirmative action and the courts' curtailment of civil rights. The report finds that discrimination in America permeates education, employment, treatment of migrants and immigrants, law enforcement, in the justice system.
The ACLU report takes note of the U.S. government's behavior around Hurricane Katrina (a pdf file) the dramatic increase in hate crimes, police brutality, racial profiling, and the government's failure to protect immigrants and non-citizens, and particularly low-wage workers.
Relative to Asians, the ACLU is relatively weak. While it rightly emphasizes discrimination against African Americans and Latinos, it notes little of things such as hate crimes and employment abuse and discrimination against Asian Americans except in noting the targeting of South Asians post-9/11.
The ACLU report, Race & Ethnicity in America: Turning a Blind Eye to Injustice, can be found online.
According to the State of Black America 2005 issued by the National Urban League, blacks who are arrested are three times more likely to be imprisoned than whites once arrested, blacks are sentenced to death four times more often than whites, and a black person's average jail sentence is six months longer than a white's for the same crime.
Although blacks are just 12.2 percent of the American population, 41 percent of American prisoners detained for more than one year are blacks and 8.4 percent of all black men between the ages of 25 and 29 are behind bars.
According to reports issued by the Human Rights Watch and other organizations, following the Sept. 11 attacks, at least 70 people, all but one Muslim, were held as "material witnesses" under a narrow federal law that permits the arrest and brief detention of "material witnesses".
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission quoted a report as saying that the employment discrimination rate was 31 percent for Asians and 26 percent for African Americans, and the discrimination against Muslims doubled after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Further
White Americans think racial discrimination is increasing although black Americans think it's decreasing, a recent nationwide telephone survey of more than 2,000 Americans found. The findings are the first phase of a three-year study called the American Mosaic Project, which examines race and religion in the United States.
Whites: 30% Blacks: 75.5% Hispanics: 60.1%.
"Your Turn Is Next" - Gaddafi Told the Arabs.
Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan president, poured contempt on fellow Arab leaders at the annual Arab summit, which opened on Saturday that was overshadowed by the absence of several key figures. He criticised Arab countries for doing nothing while the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 and overthrew Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi president.
He said Saddam had once been an ally of Washington, "but they sold him out".
"Your turn is next," Gaddafi told the Arab officials gathered for the conference, some of whom looked stunned while others broke into laughter at his frankness.
US influence
The Saudi, Egyptian and Jordanian leaders stayed away after Washington urged its allies to think twice before attending.
But Syria trumpeted the absence of US allies as a triumph over Washington's influence.Amr Moussa, the Arab league chief, spoke of how the summit had solidified the rift between Syria and US allies in the Middle East.
He also echoed words from in his speech from last year's summit, in which he declared that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was dead.
Urging Arab foreign ministers to meet in mid-2008, Moussa asked for leaders attending the conference to reconsider their options on Israel and the current negotiations if no progress is seen in the next few weeks.
Assad also questioned how long Arab nations can keep offering Israel peace negotiations.
Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian president, repeated his request for international peacekeepers to be sent to the Gaza Strip, but Saturday marked the first time he had urged Arab countries to send troops.
Somewhere is Going to Explode
In another report, a boycott by Lebanon and major Arab powers of the Arab has dashed hopes for a last-ditch settlement of the Lebanese presidential crisis, raising fears of a descent into violence after it passes.
Ahmad Moussalli, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut, said the fractured summit marked the death of an Arab League initiative aimed at electing a president, redistributing cabinet seats and paving the way for parliamentary elections next year.
"The Arab Summit was supposed to revive the initiative and give it some energy, but now what we will be seeing is the stagnation of the Lebanese situation and this could deteriorate into further negative interaction between the two groups in Lebanon," he said.
"I think this could be the beginning of the death of the Arab League. Now we will see more the crystallization of alliances with the two major players in the region, the United States and Iran," said Moussalli.
Moussalli said the regional rift so graphically illustrated by the split over the Arab summit could blow up in Iraq, the Palestinian territories or Lebanon.
"Somewhere it's going to explode -- Lebanon seems a very likely place -- and push the players either to go to war or reach a settlement. As things seem now, there is likely to be no settlement."
Sunday, March 30, 2008
The Cult of Suicide Bomber
This is perhaps the most frightening and ghoulish legacy of George Bush's invasion of Iraq five years ago. Suicide bombers in Iraq have killed at least 13,000 men, women and children – our most conservative estimate gives a total figure of 13,132 – and wounded a minimum of 16,112 people. If we include the dead and wounded in the mass stampede at the Baghdad Tigris river bridge in the summer of 2005 – caused by fear of suicide bombers – the figures rise to 14,132 and 16,612 respectively. Again, it must be emphasised that these statistics are minimums. For 529 of the suicide bombings in Iraq, no figures for wounded are available. Where wounded have been listed in news reports as "several", we have made no addition to the figures. And the number of critically injured who later died remains unknown. Set against a possible death toll of half a million Iraqis since the March 2003 invasion, the suicide bombers' victims may appear insignificant; but the killers' ability to terrorise civilians, militiamen and Western troops and mercenaries is incalculable.
Never before has the Arab world witnessed a phenomenon of suicide-death on this scale. During Israel's occupation of Lebanon after 1982, one Hizbollah suicide-bombing a month was considered remarkable. During the Palestinian intifadas of the 1980s and 1990s, four per month was regarded as unprecedented. But suicide bombers in Iraq have been attacking at the average rate of two every three days since the 2003 Anglo-American invasion.
Over the past two years, I have compiled a database of every suicide bombing and attack around the globe from 1980 through 2003 - 315 in all. This includes every episode in which at least one terrorist killed himself or herself while trying to kill others, but excludes attacks authorized by a national government (like those by North Korean agents against South Korea). The data show that there is far less of a connection between suicide terrorism and religious fundamentalism than most people think.
The presumed connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism is misleading, and it may spur American policies that are likely to worsen the situation. The leading instigator of suicide attacks is the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a Marxist-Leninist group whose members are from Hindu families but who are adamantly opposed to religion. This group committed 76 of the 315 incidents, more than Hamas (54) or Islamic Jihad (27). Even among Muslims, secular groups like the Kurdistan Workers' Party, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Al Aksa Martyr Brigades account for more than a third of suicide attacks.
What nearly all suicide terrorist attacks actually have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the "terrorists" consider to be their homeland.
Read further here and here.
Bush Never Learn from History - Does He Fear of Islam?
Robert Fisk in Independent wrote; It is our presence, our power, our arrogance, our refusal to learn from history and our terror – yes, our terror – of Islam that is leading us into the abyss. And until we learn to leave these Muslim peoples alone, our catastrophe in the Middle East will only become graver. There is no connection between Islam and "terror". But there is a connection between our occupation of Muslim lands and "terror". It's not too complicated an equation. And we don't need a public inquiry to get it right.
He continues; "They drove the Brits out of Palestine and Aden, the French out of Algeria, the Russians out of Afghanistan, the Americans out of Somalia and Beirut, the Israelis out of Lebanon. We have started up the road to empire and over the next hill we will meet those who went before. The only lesson we learn from history is that we do not learn from history." We have dispatched our armies into the land of Islam. We have done so with the sole encouragement of Israel, whose own false intelligence over Iraq has been discreetly forgotten by our masters, while weeping crocodile tears for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died.
Five years on, and still we have not learnt. With each anniversary, the steps crumble beneath our feet, the stones ever more cracked, the sand ever finer. Five years of catastrophe in Iraq and I think of Churchill, who in the end called Palestine a "hell-disaster".
Why didn't Bush tell us this when the Iraqi insurgents began to assault the Western occupation forces? Well, they were too busy telling us that things were getting better, that the rebels were mere "dead-enders".
America's massive military prestige has been irreparably diminished. And if there are, as I now calculate, 22 times as many Western troops in the Muslim world as there were at the time of the 11th and 12th century Crusades, we must ask what we are doing. Are we there for oil? For democracy? For Israel? For fear of weapons of mass destruction? Or for fear of Islam?
A Provocation Again - 'Satanic Verses' play premieres in Germany.
BERLIN (Reuters) - A German Muslim group said on Friday protests were likely against the first ever staging of a dramatized version of Salman Rushdie's controversial book "The Satanic Verses" in Potsdam near Berlin on Sunday. Rushdie's novel, which was published in the late 1980s, caused outrage among Muslims who deemed it blasphemous.
Nurhan Soykan, spokeswoman for the central council of Muslims in Germany, told Reuters Muslims believed in a free press and freedom of opinion. "But even this has its boundaries," she said. "We're worried that provocations and insults against us have increased recently. I wouldn't want to ban (the play) but you can bet on protests from Muslim people. They can't be expected to put up with everything."
"We regret that the religious sentiments of Muslims are being treated in a provocative manner," the president of the German Islamic Council, Ali Kizilkaya, told AFP after his organization publicly complained about Sunday's scheduled performance.
Iran's late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa -- or religious decree -- in 1989 calling on Muslims to kill Rushdie for perceived insults against Islam in his novel.
Rushdie with his wife.
The play, adapted from Rushdie's 1988 book, was reworked for the stage by the manager of the Hans Otto Theatre in the eastern city of Potsdam, Uwe Eric Laufenberg, and dramatist Marcus Mislin.
Amid heavy media coverage of the upcoming premiere, the general secretary of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, Aiman Mazyek, urged followers of Islam to remain calm over the staging of the play and engage in a "critical and constructive dialogue" about the issues it raises.
But he also questioned whether the play might go too far.
"Freedom of expression and of art is important but offences against what is sacred in a religion is not something we value," he told RBB public radio.
A police spokeswoman said authorities planned to step up security around the theatre during the performance
Muhammad's (pbuh) SWORD
I’m sorry, I’m probably late with this article since it was published September last year, however since I have just stumbled across it, I would like visitors to read it, its quite interesting!
by Uri Avnery
September 27, 2006
Since the days when Roman Emperors threw Christians to the lions, the relations between the emperors and the heads of the church have undergone many changes.
Constantine the Great, who became Emperor in the year 306–exactly 1700 years ago–encouraged the practice of Christianity in the empire, which included Palestine . Centuries later, the church split into an Eastern (Orthodox) and a Western (Catholic) part. In the West, the Bishop of Rome, who acquired the title of Pope, demanded that the Emperor accept his superiority.
The struggle between the Emperors and the Popes played a central role in European history and divided the peoples. It knew ups and downs. Some Emperors dismissed or expelled a Pope, some Popes dismissed or excommunicated an Emperor. One of the Emperors, Henry IV, “walked to Canossa ,” standing for three days barefoot in the snow in front of the Pope’s castle, until the Pope deigned to annul his excommunication.
But there were times when Emperors and Popes lived in peace with each other. We are witnessing such a period today. Between the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and the present Emperor, George Bush II, there exists a wonderful harmony. Last week’s speech by the Pope, which aroused a world-wide storm, went well with Bush’s crusade against “Islamofascism,” in the context of the “Clash of Civilizations.”
IN HIS lecture at a German university, the 265th Pope described what he sees as a huge difference between Christianity and Islam: while Christianity is based on reason, Islam denies it. While Christians see the logic of God’s actions, Muslims deny that there is any such logic in the actions of Allah.
As a Jewish atheist, I do not intend to enter the fray of this debate. It is much beyond my humble abilities to understand the logic of the Pope. But I cannot overlook one passage, which concerns me too, as an Israeli living near the fault-line of this “war of civilizations.”
In order to prove the lack of reason in Islam, the Pope asserts that the prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to spread their religion by the sword. According to the Pope, that is unreasonable, because faith is born of the soul, not of the body. How can the sword influence the soul?
To support his case, the Pope quoted–of all people–a Byzantine Emperor, who belonged, of course, to the competing Eastern Church. At the end of the 14th Century, the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had–or so he said (its occurrence is in doubt)–with an unnamed Persian Muslim scholar. In the heat of the argument, the Emperor (according to himself) flung the following words at his adversary:
“Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
These words give rise to three questions: (a) Why did the Emperor say them? (b) Are they true? (c) Why did the present Pope quote them?
WHEN MANUEL II wrote his treatise, he was the head of a dying empire. He assumed power in 1391, when only a few provinces of the once illustrious empire remained. These, too, were already under Turkish threat.
At that point in time, the Ottoman Turks had reached the banks of the Danube . They had conquered Bulgaria and the north of Greece , and had twice defeated relieving armies sent by Europe to save the Eastern Empire . On May 29, 1453 , only a few years after Manuel’s death, his capital, Constantinople (the present Istanbul ) fell to the Turks, putting an end to the Empire that had lasted for more than a thousand years.
During his reign, Manuel made the rounds of the capitals of Europe in an attempt to drum up support. He promised to reunite the church. There is no doubt that he wrote his religious treatise in order to incite the Christian countries against the Turks and convince them to start a new crusade. The aim was practical, theology was serving politics.
In this sense, the quote serves exactly the requirements of the present Emperor, George Bush II. He, too, wants to unite the Christian world against the mainly Muslim “Axis of Evil.” Moreover, the Turks are again knocking on the doors of Europe , this time peacefully. It is well known that the Pope supports the forces that object to the entry of Turkey into the European Union.
IS THERE any truth in Manuel’s argument?
The pope himself threw in a word of caution. As a serious and renowned theologian, he could not afford to falsify written texts. Therefore, he admitted that the Qur’an specifically forbade the spreading of the faith by force. He quoted the second Sura, verse 256 (strangely fallible, for a pope, he meant verse 257) which says: “There must be no coercion in matters of faith.”
How can one ignore such an unequivocal statement? The Pope simply argues that this commandment was laid down by the prophet when he was at the beginning of his career, still weak and powerless, but that later on he ordered the use of the sword in the service of the faith. Such an order does not exist in the Qur’an. True, Muhammad called for the use of the sword in his war against opposing tribes–Christian, Jewish and others–in Arabia , when he was building his state. But that was a political act, not a religious one; basically a fight for territory, not for the spreading of the faith.
Jesus said: “You will recognize them by their fruits.” The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: How did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to “spread the faith by the sword”?
Well, they just did not.
For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece . Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian.True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favorites of the government and enjoy the fruits.
In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith–and they were the forefathers of most of today’s Palestinians.
THERE IS no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule the Jews of Spain enjoyed a bloom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time. Poets like Yehuda Halevy wrote in Arabic, as did the great Maimonides. In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, scientists. In Muslim Toledo, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated the ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was, indeed, the Golden Age. How would this have been possible, had the Prophet decreed the “spreading of the faith by the sword”?
What happened afterwards is even more telling. When the Catholics re-conquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave.
WHY? Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of the “peoples of the book.” In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians. They did not enjoy completely equal rights, but almost. They had to pay a special poll-tax, but were exempted from military service–a trade-off that was quite welcome to many Jews. It has been said that Muslim rulers frowned upon any attempt to convert Jews to Islam even by gentle persuasion–because it entailed the loss of taxes.
Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for 50 generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times “by the sword” to get them to abandon their faith.
THE STORY about “spreading the faith by the sword” is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims–the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna . I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.
Why did he utter these words in public? And why now?
There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of “Islamofascism” and the “Global War on Terrorism”–when “terrorism” has become a synonym for Muslims. For Bush’s handlers, this is a cynical attempt to justify the domination of the world’s oil resources. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers’ expedition becomes a Crusade. The speech of the Pope blends into this effort. Who can foretell the dire consequences?
Alert - Another Film Against Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)
Jami, born in Iran, announced that his film, The Life of Mohammed, is due for release on 20 April.
The fragment is a reference to the relationship between the prophet and the nine year old Aisha. His cartoon portrays all kinds of other perverse and violent verses, he added.
Jami set up a committee last September that aims to encourage leaving Islam and protect apostate Muslims. Shortly before the launch, he was attacked by Muslims in his home town of Leidschendam, Netherlands, where he was a local councillor for the Labour (PvdA) party. In October, PvdA terminated his party membership because his opinions were too radical for it.
The Muslims and Government Contact Body (CMO) has immediately announced it wants to bar the cartoon film via the courts. CMO is the government's official consultation partner on integration policy. CMO board member Ayhan Tonca, said on Netwerk that Jami's film will undoubtedly spark furious reactions in the Muslim world.
Tonca is a member of the Christian democratic (CDA) party. He was nominated to be a CDA MP in 2006 but resigned as a candidate because he refused to recognise the 1915-1917 genocide of Armenians by Turkey.
Source here.
The Story of Asmaa Abdol-Hamid - "Caricaturing Danish Muslims"
Asmaa Abdol-Hamid lost her bid for parliament last year after the right-wing Danish People's Party targeted her for refusing to remove her hijab or shake hands with men.
Few understand this clash of cultures as well as Asmaa Abdol-Hamid, a Danish immigrant born in the United Arab Emirates to Palestinian parents. The 26-year-old social worker from Odense (the city where writer Hans Christian Anderson was born) ran for parliament last year with the leftist Red-Green Alliance party, but came up short after the right-wing Danish People’s Party launched a smear campaign against her. The reason? Abdol-Hamid wears a hijab and she chooses not to shake hands with men—even in parliament.
The biggest challenge for Danish Muslims is to be viewed as equal citizens. What I experienced following the cartoon crisis and the worldwide reactions to them is that young Muslims in Denmark are afraid something awful will happen to them. They are just waiting for their turn, and that’s truly scary.
But Muslims in Denmark are Danish citizens. They will live here for the rest of their lives and raise their children here. We have to teach people that they are equal.
Too many people believe that you can’t be a Dane and a Muslim at the same time, especially the Danish People’s Party. But today, many Danes are connected to Islam. Their religion isn’t a barrier to them being good citizens in the Danish community. So we have to view Denmark today in a different light.
The policies promoted by the People’s Party clearly perpetuate a genuine ignorance about Muslims in Denmark. It’s a dangerous development.
I am religious. The more I learn about Islam, the easier I find it to be a citizen of Denmark, because many of the values are shared. Danish values stem from, or are inspired by, Christian values. Many of those values are universal. Freedom of expression and freedom of religion are representative of democratic societies but are also representative of Islam. They merge. I think it’s actually easier to be a Muslim in Denmark than it is to be a Muslim in other places, such as the Middle East.
I do greet men, but I do it with my hand on my heart. I do it in a manner that shows them honesty and respect.
When I met Morten Messerschmidt, an incumbent member of the Danish People’s Party, for a televised debate, he waited until we were on the air before he extended his hand toward me, saying he wanted to shake my hand, even though he knew I wouldn’t do it. I told him that I would greet him with my hand on my heart to show him honesty and respect. You do the same to me, I told him. But he just walked out the door.
What’s important is not how we greet each other, but the values we emphasize when we meet.
As to whether I’d take off my hijab, it’s my personal choice not to. It’s my freedom as a woman to wear it, and I won’t let myself be intimidated by the right-wing politicians in Denmark—or by primitive men from my own background.
I am a free woman who has the right to decide over my own body and my own clothing. I have decided to wear a hijab, and in a free democratic society, that choice ought to be respected.
When I was asked to run for a parliamentary seat by the Red-Green Alliance party, I accepted because I have many social and political ambitions for Denmark. When I campaign politically, I forget that I’m wearing a hijab. That doesn’t define who I am; it’s just a part of my clothing.
But the way I dress was met with resistance, and I was asked if I would continue to wear the hijab if I entered parliament. My answer was, “Of course I will.”
On the campaign trail I was asked about my religion and about Muslims in general. Those questions showed me what kind of situation we have in Denmark. When we question those campaigning for parliament on their religion, that reflects a dangerous polarity in a democracy. Democracy is for all people.
Suddenly, there were parliamentary officials in Denmark who wanted me to withdraw from the democratic process because I wear a hijab. That only convinced me to insist on my rights as a citizen and to continue my bid for parliament.
People’s sexual orientation is not important to me. I don’t want to enter people’s bedrooms and see whom they’re sleeping with. It’s not my right as a politician or as a Muslim. I can’t judge people. As far as I’m concerned, the only one who can judge people is God.
The ethnic minorities in Denmark now belong to the lower class. They are the new working class for the liberal parties—immigrants who we need to integrate into liberal politics. It’s our responsibility to fight for them.
I’m getting pretty tired of the cartoon case, to be honest. It’s all so unnecessary. If there were threats against Kurt Vestergaard, the primary cartoonist, then those people should see their day in court. But one shouldn’t react by punishing all Muslims.
We need to draw the line between freedom of the press and persecution. There’s no journalistic rationale for reprinting the cartoons other than a show of solidarity for Vestergaard. It’s fine to sympathize with him, but there are other ways to do it.
It’s the job of newspapers to print stories, not to teach a lesson to certain groups of people. If my little sister came home from school and said she had picked on the fat girl in class, I wouldn’t commend her for using “freedom of expression.”
I don’t think it was a good idea to republish the cartoons. It’s harmful to the Muslim community that we are acting like children in school who resort to a playground mentality.
And it’s just not smart for Denmark, given our participation in the war in Iraq and the earlier cartoon crisis.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Dutch MP Geert Wilders claims to be all about freedom of expression - but is he about to engulf Britain in a holy war?
Wilders, you see, has spoken out against the Muslim faith. He's attacked the "tsunami of Islamisation" that he says is engulfing traditional Dutch society.
He's attacked the prophet Mohammed, saying that were he alive today he should be "tarred and feathered" and deported as an extremist.
He's attacked the culture of political correctness that has seen immigrants given housing and benefits without even having to try to assimilate into Western culture.
And he's attacked the Koran, a book he likens to Hitler's Mein Kampf, describing it as the cornerstone of a "fascist ideology" that aims to destroy all who oppose it.
Wilders has also made a 15-minute movie. Called Fitna (Arabic for "strife"), it was broadcast on the internet for the first time on Thursday afternoon, prompting fears of a backlash against Dutch citizens of unprecedented proportions.
Wilders remains unrepentant. Over the past few years the Right-wing MP has received many death threats and knows his life is in danger.
Even so, he says: "If I were to moderate my voice, if I stop saying what I think, then the people who use undemocratic arguments like death threats would have won.
Read further here.
What Did Muhammad Say? O People of Mankind.
By Yusuf Estes, a Former Christian Preacher.
Muhammad, peace be upon him, taught many important principles and morals, and even set forth rules for combat setting the precedent and still exceeding the rules of war set forth by the Geneva Convention.
All innocent life was sacred and as such none could be harmed, except those who were engaged against them in active combat. Saving one life was as if one had saved the entire world, while taking an innocent life was as if one had taken the lives of the entire world.
There was to be no genocide of any tribes even up until some had committed genocide against some Muslims. He offered mutual protection and forgiveness to the all even after certain ones broke their covenants with him many times. He did not allow them to be attacked until it was clearly proven they were traitors during time of war and tried to bring down the prophet, peace be upon him, and the Muslims at any cost. Retaliation was only to those Jews who had turned traitor and not others.
Slaves were common in those days for all nations and tribes. It was Islam that encouraged freeing of the slaves and the great reward from Allah for those who did so. Prophet, peace be upon him, gave the example of this by freeing slaves and encouraging all of his followers to do the same. Examples include his own servant (who was actually considered like a son to him) Zaid ibn Al Haritha and Bilal the slave who was bought by Abu Bakr only for the purpose of freeing him.
While there were many attempts of assassination made on Muhammad, peace be upon him, (most famous was the night that Ali took his place in bed while he and Abu Bakr escaped to Madinah), he did not allow his companions to slaughter any of those who had been involved in these attempts. Proof for this is when they entered Makkah triumphantly and his first words were to command his followers not to harm such and such tribes and so and so families. This was one of the most famous of his acts of forgiveness and humbleness.
Military combat was forbidden for the first thirteen years of prophet hood. The desert Arabs did not need anyone to tell them how to fight or do combat. They were experts in this area and held feuds amongst tribes that lasted for decades. It was not until the proper method of warfare was instituted by Allah in the Quran, with proper rights and limitations according His Commandments, that any retaliation or combat was sanctioned. Orders from Allah made it clear who was to be attacked, how and when and to what extent fighting could take place.
Destruction of infrastructures is absolutely forbidden except when it is ordained by Allah in certain instances and then only according to His Commands.
Cursing and invoking evil actually came to the prophet, peace be upon him, from his enemies, while he would be praying for their guidance. Classic example is that of his journey to At-Taif where the leaders would not even hear him out nor offer so much as the normal courtesy called for and instead they set the children of the street against him, throwing rocks and stones at him until his body was bleeding so much, blood filled his sandals. He was offered revenge by the angel Gabriel, if he would give the command, Allah would cause the surrounding mountains to fall down upon them destroying them all. Instead of cursing them or asking for their destruction, he prayed for them to be guided to worship their Lord alone, without any partners.
Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, claimed every person who is born is born in a state of ISLAM (submission to God on His Terms in Peace), as a Muslim (MU-Islam means; "one who does ISLAM" i.e.; submits to God's Will and obeys His Commandments). He further stated, God has created each person in the image that is His according to His plan, and their spirit is His. Then as they grow older they begin to distort their faith according to the influence of the prevailing society and their own prejudices.
Muhammad, peace be upon him, taught his followers to believe in the God of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus, peace be upon them all, and to believe in them as true prophets, messengers and servants of Almighty Allah. He insisted on ranking all the prophets up at the highest level without any distinction between them, and ordered his followers to say the words, "Peace be upon him" after mentioning their names.
He also taught the Torah (Old Testament), Zabur (Psalms) and Enjil (Gospel or New Testament) were originally from the very same source as the Quran, from Allah to the angel Gabriel. He asked the Jews to judge according to their own Book, and they tried to cover up some of it to hide the correct judgment, knowing he, peace be upon him, could not read.
He prophesied, predicted and foretold of events to come and they happened just as he had said they would. He mentioned so many things that people of his time could not have known, yet we have seen the evidences manifest over and over throughout the centuries in science, medicine, biology, embryology, psychology, metrology, geology and many other disciplines and even space travel and wireless communications, all of which we take for granted today. He even predicted something from the past that would come true in the future, and it has..
The Quran states pharaoh was drowned in the Red Sea while chasing after Moses and Allah said He would preserve Pharaoh as a sign for the future. Dr. Maurice Bucaille in his book, "Bible, Quran and Science" makes it clear this has happened and the very person of Pharaoh has been discovered in Egypt and is now on display for all to see.
This event took place thousands of years before Muhammad, peace be upon him, and it came true in the last few decades, many centuries after his death.
Muhammad, peace be upon him, or his followers never at any time claimed that he was a son of God or the God-incarnate or a man with divinity – but he always was and is even today considered as only a Messenger chosen by God. He insisted people praise Almighty God, alone and not to celebrate him or his companions in any way. While most people do not hesitate to raise to divinity and even make 'gods' out of other individuals whose lives and missions have been lost in legend. Historically speaking, none of these legends achieved even a fraction of what Muhammad, peace be upon him, accomplished.
Uniting mankind together for the purpose of worshipping the One God of Adam and all the other prophets, peace be upon them all, was his main motivating cause and his striving was for the sole purpose having everyone to understand and follow the codes of moral excellence set forth by Allah in His Revelations.
Today after a lapse of fourteen centuries, the life and teachings of Muhammad, peace be upon him, have survived without the slightest loss, alteration or interpolation. They offer the same undying hope for treating mankind's many ills, which they did when he was alive. This is not a claim of Muhammad’s, peace be upon him, followers, but the inescapable conclusion forced upon by a critical and unbiased history.
Muhammad, peace be upon him, claimed to be a servant, messenger and prophet of the Almighty God; the same God of Adam, Abraham, Moses, David and Solomon and of Jesus, the Christ, son of Mary (peace be upon them all). He claimed he was receiving revelation from Almighty God (Allah) through the Arch Angel Gabriel, calling it the Recitation (Quran).
He ordered people to believe in God as One, without partners, and to follow the Commandments of Almighty God to the best of their abilities.
He forbade himself and his followers from evil practices and filthy habits, showing them the proper ways to eat, drink, use the toilet and proper behavior in all relationships. This he claimed was all from Allah.
The Fitna of the Film "Fitna" by Geert Wilders
A crowd protests Geert Wilders' film Saturday in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
The film concludes with scrolling messages reading in part: "The government insists that you respect Islam, but Islam has no respect for you" and "In 1945, Nazism was defeated in Europe. In 1989, communism was defeated in Europe. Now the Islamic ideology has to be defeated." The film urges Muslims to tear out "hate-filled" verses from the Koran and starts and ends with a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad with a bomb under his turban, accompanied by the sound of ticking.
The European Union on Friday condemned a new film by a Dutch lawmaker which is critical of Islam and features controversial images of the Prophet Mohammed.
The 15-minute film, titled “Fitna,” was posted on a London-based Web site Thursday. It immediately drew criticism from the Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, who said the film equates Islam with violence.“We reject this interpretation,” Balkenende said in a statement. “The vast majority of Muslims reject extremism and violence. In fact, the victims are often also Muslims.”
Slovenia, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said it supported the Dutch government’s position and believes the film does nothing to promote dialogue among religions.
“The European Union and its member states apply the principle of the freedom of speech which is part of our values and traditions. However, it should be exercised in a spirit of respect for religious and other beliefs and convictions,” the Slovenian presidency said in a statement.
“Mutual tolerance and respect are universal values we should uphold. We believe that acts, such as the above-mentioned film, serve no other purpose than inflaming hatred.”
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the film as "offensively anti-Islamic" and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said it was "hateful". In UN Press, his statement said; "I condemn, in the strongest terms, the airing of Geert Wilders’ offensively anti-Islamic film. There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence. The right of free expression is not at stake here. I acknowledge the efforts of the Government of the Netherlands to stop the broadcast of this film, and appeal for calm to those understandably offended by it. Freedom must always be accompanied by social responsibility.
Iran called the film heinous, blasphemous and anti-Islamic, and Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation and a former Dutch colony, said it was an "insult to Islam, hidden under the cover of freedom of expression".
The Saudi Arabian embassy in The Hague said the film was provocative and full of errors and incorrect allegations that could lead to hate towards Muslims, news agency ANP reported.
NATO has expressed concern the film could worsen security for foreign forces in Afghanistan, including 1,650 Dutch troops. A Belgian government spokesman said security had been stepped up at Dutch diplomatic missions in the country.
In Malaysia, former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad called upon Muslims worldwide to boycott Dutch products in protest of a film released Monday on the Internet which criticised Islam’s holy book, the Quran.The Organization of the Islamic Conference on Friday added its voice to the growing criticism of a film released by a Dutch lawmaker, which features disturbing images of terrorist acts superimposed over verses from the Quran.
A good commentary about Muhammad Prophet of Islam by Yusuf Estes, Former Christian Preacher can be viewed here.
He says
"You have read what famous writers, thinkers, poets, philosophers, clergy and humanitarians have said about Muhammad. You have seen the recordings of those who knew him and knew of him and what others have said, about Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.
So, the question now is, "What do you say about Muhammad?"
Let watch these videos about those converted to islam and its true meaning.
Scientist From Czech Republic Converts To Islam
A German Physician and His Wife Converted to Islam
Joseph Cohen - A jew converted to Islam
Jewish Convert To Islam
6 German convert to Islam - 2007
Islam belongs to Him, and He will protect it from any fitna.
Rice Concedes She Didn’t Think Iraq ‘Would Be This Tough,’ Blames Iraqis For Continued Violence
Looking back on the last five years and the war in Iraq, Rice admitted: “I thought it would be tough, but I didn’t think it would be this tough.” She added, “It’s a society that’s only now beginning to emerge.”
But just like any other good Iraq war supporter, Rice deflected blame for the “long, hard slog” in Iraq away from the Bush administration and onto other pre-war factors. Rice said the United Nations sanctions killed Iraq’s agricultural sector and the “structural problem” of Saddam Hussein’s regime is dissuading Iraqis from making political progress:
– On the continuing struggle in Iraq Rice said she thought it was more of a “structural problem.” […] The secretary warned that “authoritarian regimes are not going to create the condition for the emergence of moderate parties [in the Middle East].”
– “What we didn’t know was how truly broken the society was,” she said. Although Saddam Hussein’s regime was mostly to blame for that, she said that U.N. sanctions contributed as well, because as a result of them, “agriculture is virtually dead in Iraq.”
Friday, March 28, 2008
US Recession - The Movie
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and President Bush have long insisted that the country was not headed to a recession.
Watch a short film highlighting their rosy predictions vs. reality:
Modern US Presidents Acting Like "Thugs"
Historian Michael Parenti Charges
by Sherwood Ross, a media consultant to Massachusetts School of Law.
President George W. Bush is “the biggest thug” ever to occupy the White House, writes historian Michael Parenti, adding that most post-World War II U.S. presidents have also acted like “thugs.”
His “thug” list includes Presidents John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. Conspicuously absent from his list are Republican Dwight Eisenhower and Democrat Jimmy Carter.
What the thugs have in common, Parenti says, is their dedication “to a U.S. global interventionist policy” and support for “gargantuan, bloated, criminally wasteful military budgets” to execute those interventions.President Kennedy “undermined the democratic government in Guyana and supported a lot of the counter-insurgency dirty works that were going on in Central America,” Parenti writes in The Long Term View, a journal of informed opinion published by The Massachusetts School of Law at Andover.
President Johnson followed him, perpetrating “the first major escalation of Vietnam” and also invading the Dominican Republic “when it threatened to have a reformist left government that would take over and move in a democratic revolutionary course.”
After LBJ, “Nixon committed terrible crimes in IndoChina: massive carpet bombings of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, killing literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people,” Parenti recalled. In Laos, “Nixon went and bombed the Plain of Jars and just bombed every square inch and killed ---only God knows how many---hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed that whole society.”
Parenti holds President Reagan responsible for the invasion of Grenada, “an unoffending, small country that was trying to develop a communitarian way, and overthrew its government” and had some of its leaders killed. Reagan, he said, “brought Grenada back to where it was before: a country of high unemployment. He abolished the communal farms which it was starting, and the land was converted back into golf courses for the tourists.” Reagan also waged war “against a wonderful democratic revolution in Nicaragua, the Sandanistas, and destroyed it and bled that country,” supporting “the worst murderers and thugs” of the Contra Armies and then lying about his role in support of the war.
As for President George H.W. Bush, he “waged a war against Iraq that was totally avoidable,” pointing out, “The Iraqis were ready to negotiate a withdrawal from Kuwait” but “just wanted the slant drilling of the Ramallah oil fields to stop.” However, he adds, ”Bush used it as an excuse to bomb, to kill huge numbers of Iraqis and destroy that country’s infrastructure, and it’s because that country was self-defining, was committing the ‘sin’ of economic nationalism, and was not acting like a good obedient client state.”
Parenti further charged the senior President Bush also invaded Panama to capture its leader Noriega, and after its victory abolished “all sorts of education programs.”
As for President Clinton, he “bombed Somalia and killed thousands of people there and waged a 78-day, around-the-clock, aerial war against Yugoslavia…and was also thuggish in his determination to expand and to increase the military budget.”
Parenti, author of some 20 books including “Democracy for the Few”(Wadsworth), reserves his harshest criticism for President George W. Bush: “He has been a total thug in overthrowing a democratic government in Haiti and supporting the death squads and murderers there, and in pursuing a war of aggression in Iraq,” Parenti writes.
“He (Bush) unilaterally has announced that the U.S. will be held to none of the international treaties that it has signed, that no strictures of international law will inhibit foreign policy, and that the U.S. reserves the right to act as it will on its own accord, according to its own interests, and the limitations of its own power,” Parenti points out.
“The U.S. will,” he goes on to say, “of itself, decide unilaterally what countries it will attack, when, and for what reasons,” a policy he adds that has “caused such an alarm throughout the world that people have demonstrated massively…”
How Many Additional Dead Americans Was Saddam Worth?
On the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, ABC’s Good Morning America aired an interview with Vice President Cheney on the war. During the segment, Cheney flatly told White House correspondent Martha Raddatz that he doesn’t care about the American public’s views on the war:
CHENEY: On the security front, I think there’s a general consensus that we’ve made major progress, that the surge has worked. That’s been a major success.
RADDATZ: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.
CHENEY: So?
RADDATZ: So? You don’t care what the American people think?
CHENEY: No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.
This opposition to the war is not a “fluctuation” in public opinion. The American public has steadily turned against the war since the 2003 invasion. According to a new CNN poll, just 36 percent of the American public believes that “the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over — down from 68 percent in March 2003, when the war began.”
Even though he doesn’t care what the American public wants, Cheney still thinks he is able — and entitled — to speak for the American public. Last month, Cheney declared, “The American people will not support a policy of retreat.” If Cheney were actually listening to the “American people,” he would know that 61 percent actually supports the redeployment of U.S. troops.
Is Bush and Cheney on a "War Hunt" ?. Now they are talking about Iran.
Last week Mr Bush signalled once again his readiness to deal with Iran when he said the Iranian leadership has "declared they want a nuclear programme to destroy people". This simplistic and inaccurate statement was made on a US government radio broadcast beamed into Iran. The truth is that no one outside the small group made up of the US president, the VP and their closet confidantes really knows if this is just sabre-rattling or an attempt to prepare the public for imminent military action.
This is precisely the problem. Given their track record - manipulating intelligence to hype the threat posed by Saddam Hussein in Iraq in order to launch a war that has caused incalculable misery, destabilised the region and allowed Iran to gain much greater influence - why should this bunch be allowed to decide whether it is appropriate to begin another war, which likely would have far worse consequences for the entire world?
The US military's Joint Chiefs of Staff is probably the best qualified to make this judgement, and despite the fact that it is almost unprecedented for active military commanders to publicly disagree with their commander-in-chief, they have let it become known through media sources that they are opposed to military action against Iran, for a variety of reasons.
Other military leaders, both active and retired, have suggested that the threat posed by Iran has been vastly overblown. The recent resignation of Admiral William Fallon as chief of US Central Command overseeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is believed to have been forced, as a result of his very public view that military action against Iran would be both unnecessary and unwise.
Fact Sheet : 911 - The Coverup
We firmly believe (a pdf file) there is probable cause for such an investigation. The case for investigation is based on three pillars:
1) evidence of cover-up and a lack of serious investigation after the fact;
2) evidence of misconduct on the day of 9/11
3) evidence of foreknowledge and preparation before September 11th.
Undertaking a full-scale, truly independent investigation is imperative, not only because there must be justice for the victims, but also because of the role 9/11 has played in justifying policies of aggression supposedly justifed by 9/11 must be halted, and a shattered public trust must be repaired.
During their 2002 inquiry, the Congressional joint intelligence committees(who redacted 1/4 of their report) were scrutinized by an FBI counter-investigation, which invaded the Senate in search of an alleged leak. It was widely believed that the FBI investigation may have been intended to have a chilling effect on the conduct of the Congressional Joint Inquiry.
- The Congressional investigation failed to pursue solid evidence of a money trail to the alleged hijackers from the US-allied Pakistani intelligence agency (ISI). The ISI chief was removed from his post when strong evidence of his connection to the plot surfaced in early October 2001, but no serious punitive action was taken against him.
- Evidence was destroyed or withheld, including suppression of the discovery of black boxes from the two flights at Ground Zero and the destruction of tapes made by the air traffic controllers who handled the same flights.2
- Whistle blowers such as FBI translator Sibel Edmonds and Anthony Shaffer of “Able Danger” were disciplined or fired, even as FBI, CIA, and military officials who were blamed for failures received promotions and medals.
- The September 11th relatives who lobbied for the 9/11 Commission (after 14 months of White House resistance) submitted 400 questions that Commissioners accepted as a “roadmap.” 70 percent of the questions were fully ignored in The 9/11 Commission Report. Many of the relatives later declared the Report a whitewash.3
- 9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned in late 2003, calling the panel a whitewash and saying, “Bush is scamming America.” There was no significant response or inquiry from anyone else in government, or the major media.4
- Philip Zelikow, the 9/11 Commission executive director who over saw the panel’s activities, refused to step down after the September11th families called for his resignation due to grave conflicts of interest (close association with Condoleezza Rice, member of White House national security staff both before 9/11 and in 2002, member of Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board).
- Rice may have committed perjury in her April 2004 Commission testimony that an August 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing to Bush was only of “historical significance,” when in fact it detailed current intelligence.
- The 9/11 Commission Report claimed the financial background of the attacks was unknown, but dismissed the question as being of “little practical significance” (page 172). Since when doesn’t an investigation “follow the money”?
- Large sections of the report are based on the confessions of “enemy combatants” such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, as provided in the form of transcripts by the government. The 9/11 Commission staff was not allowed to see or interview any of these “enemy combatants.”
- Over a period of several years, NORAD, FAA, White House and military officials gave widely divergent and conflicting accounts of the air defense response to 9/11, but no one was ever held accountable for upholding falsehoods. The 9/11 Commission chairs later admitted they considered a criminal investigation of NORAD’s statements, but preferred instead to present a unanimous report.
- The focus of the Commission will be on the future. We’re not interested in trying to assess blame. We do not consider that part of the Commission’s responsibility. – Lee Hamilton, 9/11 Commission vice-chairman.
The above is only a sampling of a large body of official misconduct after the fact. What is being hidden?
Read further here ( Note : All in Pdf format)
1. Whitewash as Public Service
2. Millions of New Yorkers Question the Official Story of 9/11
3. Connecting the Dots
4. Scamming America: The Official 9/11 Coverup Guide
Other Links Top 40 Reasons to Doubt the Official Story of September 11th, 2001
Israel and Palestine Conflict - One State Solution, Will it Works?
In order to reach a sustainable resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, parties representing the two sides need to be able to negotiate as equals and to decide together which solution would best serve the ten million inhabitants of Palestine/Israel. But Israel's success in maintaining domination over the discourse has blocked any serious attempt at meaningful discussion. Israel refuses to allow any parity between itself and the Palestinians, and will not permit any serious discussion on the transformation of the racist segregation that exists today into a real democracy.
Israel has from its very founding worked relentlessly to trivialize everything that took place between the destruction of the Second Temple and the founding of the state of Israel. This effort is focused particularly on erasing the 1,400 years of Arab and Muslim presence in Palestine. As far as Israelis are concerned, that presence was nothing but an historical misfortune that was remedied upon the establishment of the Jewish state and the return of Eretz Israel to its rightful owners in 1948. This effort was hugely successful: Even with the existence of major Arab and Islamic monuments still standing, and a significant Palestinian presence, both Muslim and Christian, few Israelis know or care to know about the historical and cultural significance of the last two millennia. From an Israeli viewpoint the moral, historical and religious superiority of the Jewish claims to the land are absolute.
Since the notion of Israeli supremacy is deep rooted among Israelis and it is a major factor in Israel's position vis-a-vis the Palestinians we can see why Israel has never agreed, and it is not likely that any Zionist government will ever agree, to negotiate with the Palestinians as equals. The following example demonstrates that irrespective of political party and even among the Israeli peace camp, parity is frowned upon. On the core issue of the use of force, Israel maintains that Palestinians must refrain and refuse to use what meager military means they posses in their struggle for their rights, and has succeeded in painting the Palestinian struggle for freedom as terrorism. (Hence the absurd question repeated often by people in Israel and the West: "Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?" hinting that the problem is the Palestinians predisposition to resort to violence). Since there is no parity, and Israel maintains that it holds the moral high ground, it has the right to use military force against Palestinian "terrorism." Israelis who refuse to serve in the armed forces are not recognized by the state as conscientious objectors but treated like common criminals; and even the so-called "peace camp" does not recognize the right of those refusing to serve in the Israeli military (since Israel possesses the moral high ground there is no need for an Israeli Gandhi).
Israel's approach towards any resolution of the conflict is based on the premise that Israel will determine the nature of the solution, and the Palestinians must be resigned to accept it or suffer the consequences. Israel will permit the Palestinians a level of independence that Israel will determine based on its own perception of Palestinian compliance with Israeli interests.
The absurd situation where partition is regarded as the only viable solution to the conflict, and at the same time it is clearly not a viable solution, allows Israel to continue to impose its will on all ten million inhabitants under its rule, and it renders any struggle to end Zionist domination over Palestine useless. When the efforts to bring an end to the conflict focus on transforming the militant Zionist regime currently in place into a free and pluralistic democracy, it is likely to develop more impetus and eventually succeed, even in the face of Zionist resistance.
History has shown that as long as the effort to end Israeli domination over Palestine remains focused on the notion of partition, or the two-state solution, it is doomed to be ineffective. The two-state solution is a fig leaf that Israel uses to cover its policies of land confiscation and brutal oppression. Israel's policies of segregation are firmly linked to the chauvinistic notion that Israel should remain in control of the land and its resources. We would do well to note that the notion of partition serves only the shortsighted Zionist policies of power and domination, but does not take in to consideration the long term interests of Israelis and Palestinians.
Since Israel claims security to be its top priority, it will always claim that for security reasons it cannot give up a certain hill or valley only to secure more land for its illegal settlements in Jerusalem or the West Bank. Israel also maintains the sole right to determine who will represent the Palestinians as Israel's negotiating partner, using once again so-called "security" considerations. Israel has and in all likelihood will continue to delegitimize (not to say assassinate or at least arrest) anyone who is unwilling to accept its right to total domination of the land and the discourse. This is at the root of the why real, good faith negotiations are yet to take place.
In order to avert the possibility of losing its power, Israel has in effect placed a veto on any discussion of the transformation of the Jewish state into a secular democracy that would serve all of the people living within it. Furthermore, Israel will not engage in any discussion on the atrocities it committed during the war of 1948, nor will it engage in discussion on the reversal of the exile forced upon Palestinians in 1948. Israelis have been taught that even mentioning the refugees and the events of 1948 constitutes treason, and few are willing to discuss this, much less place the responsibility on Israel. The official line is that the "Arabs" rejected the UN partition and the "Arabs" convinced the Palestinians to leave their homes and their land and none of this has anything to do with Israel.
By ignoring the refugee issue, Israel has in fact deliberately shut the door on a solution that is both pragmatic and just. But it is hard to imagine that any resolution regarding Palestine can be reached and sustained unless the refugees are represented and unless they are part of the solution.
The oppressor-oppressed relationship between the two nations takes a heavy toll on both Israelis and Palestinians, albeit in different ways. Only once the two sides are freed from this burden will they be able to find a solution that is acceptable and has a chance to withstand the test of time. This is a tough challenge and to overcome it will require both people to defy the occupation and demand that the occupation apparatus, the Israeli "security system," be dismantled. As things stand today, Israelis are either oblivious to Palestinian suffering or they condone it. The Palestinians for their part are overwhelmed by the magnitude of the brutal force used against them.
by Miko Peled, an Israeli peace activist and writer living in the US. He is co-founder of the Elbanna Peled Foundation in memory of Smadar Elhanan and Abir Aramin. Peled is the son of the late Israeli General Matti Peled.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Pope baptised a prominent "Muslim"
VATICAN CITY (AP) - Italy's most prominent Muslim commentator, a journalist with iconoclastic views such as support for Israel, converted to Roman Catholicism Saturday when the pope baptized him at an Easter service.
As a choir sang, Pope Benedict XVI poured holy water over Magdi Allam's head and said a brief prayer in Latin.
"We no longer stand alongside or in opposition to one another," Benedict said in a homily reflecting on the meaning of baptism. "Thus faith is a force for peace and reconciliation in the world: distances between people are overcome, in the Lord we have become close."Vatican television zoomed in on Allam, who sat in the front row of the basilica along with six other candidates for baptism.
The Egyptian-born, non-practicing Muslim who is married to a Catholic, Allam often writes on Muslim and Arab affairs and has infuriated some Muslims with his criticism of extremism and support for the Jewish state. He has infuriated Muslims with his books and columns in the leading Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, where he is a deputy editor. The title of one of his books is Long Live Israel.
PROMINENT scholar Sheikh Yousuf al-Qaradawi has denounced Pope Benedict’s baptism of a Muslim-born journalist during the last Easter Mass at the Vatican as a “provocative and hostile act against Muslims”. Sheikh Qaradawi, who is the head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) and the European Council for Fatwa and Research, said the public baptism of Majdi Allam has provoked Muslims around the world.
“We do not feel regret over the conversion of that person. He has been a Catholic for more than five years. He was always attacking Islam, the Qur’an and me. It is not strange that Allam, who betrayed his country and supported Israel, left his religion. We know that he is an agent of Israel. He would not contribute to Islam if he were a Muslim.”Aref Ali Nayed, a muslim scholar involved in high-level dialogue with the Vatican has denounced the Pope's baptism on Saturday of a prominent Italian Muslim convert.
Aref Ali Nayed, the head of Jordan's Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre.Mr Nayed called the baptism of journalist Magdi Allam a deliberate and provocative act.
Mr Allam's invitation to the ceremony, which took place in St Peter's Basilica, was however kept secret by the Vatican, until just before the Easter vigil mass.
"It is sad that the intimate and personal act of a religious conversion is made into a triumphalist tool for scoring points," he said in a written statement.Mr Nayed said Pope Benedict XVI's actions came "at a most unfortunate time when sincere Muslims and Catholics are working very hard to mend ruptures between the two communities".
The Jordanian scholar has been at the forefront of an initiative gathering more than 130 Muslim scholars who recently wrote to the Pope and other Christian leaders calling for greater dialogue and good will between Muslims and Christians.
The Vatican has also been keen to repair relations with moderate Muslims, particularly after the crisis caused by a speech the Pope gave in Germany in 2006, in which he appeared to associate Islam with violence.
