Tuesday, May 01, 2007

A fatwah from Johnstown Pennsylvania. Really?


Ayaan revisited Radio Netherlands
By Perro de Jong
27-04-2007


Last week I mentioned the growing number of Dutch expats who come back because things don't work out. Someone I don't expect to join that list any time soon is Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Last year, the Somali-born former refugee and campaigner against Islam abandoned her boring life as a Dutch MP - made slightly less boring by continuous death threats - to embark on an exciting career in the United States, as a member of a leading think-tank and a rising literary star.

At least, I don't recall any other book by a Dutch national - which she still is - receiving the kind of serious attention in the US media that Ayaan's autobiography, Infidel, has had. Not that you'd guess from the lukewarm reactions here in the Netherlands. Apparently we're still suffering from that old knee-jerk reflex to play down any success abroad as a fluke, something that shouldn't be taken too seriously.

No such reservations are holding back American Muslims; it became clear this week that they are taking Ms Hirsi Ali's success very seriously indeed. Take imam Fouad ElBayly, from the Johnstown Islamic Center in Pennsylvania. He's gone on record saying there is only one way to deal with her ongoing campaign against Islam, and that is to execute her.
Hot issue
Hang on, did I really hear that right? Wasn't Ms Hirsi Ali greeted in the US as a courageous voice from 'Eurabia', from a continent where radical Islam has been allowed to fester and run amuck while American Muslims are paragons of successful integration? In fact, there's even a prestigious Translantic Forum in Brussels this weekend, discussing 'why the integration of Muslim immigrants is a Hot Issue in Europe but not in the United States'.

Well excuse me, but it sounds like a Hot Issue if they're calling for people to be killed! But maybe I'm jumping to conclusions. Surely a country as big as the US is allowed one or two fundamentalist lunatics. God knows the Netherlands isn't in a position to judge, with its planeloads of hyperconservative imams being flown in from countries like Morocco.

No newcomer
Ah, but there's the rub. Imam ElBayly isn't fresh off the plane - he left Egypt in 1976 - and neither is he known as hyperconservative or intolerant. Quite the contrary. "I will never forget the light that shone from his face as he delivered a spontaneous message to the assembled," writes social activist Arlene Goldbard in her blog. She's describing the Aleph Kalla, a meeting of the Jewish renewal movement where the imam was a surprise guest. "Most wonderful of all," she writes, "was to see [this] brave man stand before a roomful of strangers and show us what it is to face one's fears with an open heart."

Okay, let me make this absolutely clear: this 'brave man' with a heart open enough to overcome any ingrained anti-Semitism has just called for Ayaan Hirsi Ali's life to be terminated, because - and I quote - "she has been identified as one who has defamed the faith."

Well-adjusted in the US
Then again, perhaps I'm looking at this whole thing the wrong way, and perhaps imam ElBayly is actually demonstrating how well-adjusted he is. After all, championing capital punishment in a country where more than a thousand people have been executed in the last thirty years could hardly be regarded as a failure to integrate.

And at least imam ElBayly is stressing that he wants Ayaan to have a fair trial, and that if she's found to be mentally unstable, she won't be punished at all. Because, he says, Islam "[is] a very merciful religion if you try to understand it." That last point actually sounds to me like a not-so-subtle dig at the US penal system, which has been repeatedly criticized by organisations like Amnesty International for executing people whose mental faculties are in question.

And what to make of the imam's protestation that Ms Hirsi Ali mustn't be brought to justice in the US, but in an Islamic country with Shari'a Law in place? Surely he knows, too, that she's about as likely to willingly show her face there as a turkey at a Thanksgiving dinner?

No...on second thought, I don't think Ayaan Hirsi Ali needs to lose much sleep over this. The imam, on the other hand, does deserve a lesson. So come on Pennsylviania, show us 'Eurabians' how to deal with clowns like this.


5 comments:

  1. Well I guess Johnston needs another flood.

    For the sake of discussion lets allow that every charge the Democrats have made against the President is true. Let's further say we impeach him, drive him from office and elect a Democrat to the White House. How is any of that or all of that going to change the Islams from continuing to try to kill all non Muslims?

    We all know it won't. I just received POWER,FAITH and FANTASY a book on US involvement in the ME from the beginning of OUR history as a nation. I will have 'Tater read it to me.

    They keep coming. They heavily emphsize that they love death and we love life and they will win...how do you deal with that other than to kill them?

    A fatwah in Johnston, PA. Mosques in the entire Arab world preach death to all Jews and all Americans.

    I do not personally see them turning peaceful anytime soon. Killing is what they want. I think killing is what they should get. Of course coming from me that's not a new item but I see NO way to avoid it unless we just all become Muslims...well I won't so I guess I'll be one of the partisans in the mountains when we are fighting Muslims on our soil.

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  2. Professor Hans Jansen, who teaches modern Islamic ideology at the University of Utrecht, criticized the Dutch for "tolerating the excesses of multiculturalism" adding that "The Netherlands should resist using non-peaceful means" and that the "Dutch Secret Service [AIVD] should get their hands dirty if need be."

    ...

    Jansen cites a recent example in which an exhibition in an Amsterdam museum about Istanbul opened by the Queen was censored, after the Turkish government objected to the mention of its genocide against the Armenians, claiming that people complied, "even without the threat of violence."

    He cautions that instead of leading to a more open "multicultural" society Dutch tolerance and appeasement of Muslims has resulted in the loss of free speech, "What is thought, written, or exhibited in the Netherlands is to a large extent no longer made in freedom...It is not the lie but the obscure threat that reigns."


    Making Use of Radicals

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  3. There's a couple funny anecdotes about Mark Twain in that book, Habu, but I'll let tater read em to you.

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  4. GEN. PETRAEUS: Well good morning. It's good to be with you all, and nice to see some familiar faces here this morning.

    ...

    Thank you. And I look forward to your questions.

    Q You say that Iraq is now the central focus of al Qaeda's worldwide effort. Are you saying that al Qaeda in Iraq is now the sort of principal enemy of the U.S. forces stationed there?

    GEN. PETRAEUS: First of all, we do definitely see links to the greater al Qaeda network. I think you know that we have at various times intercepted messages to and from.

    ...

    Q Number of foreign fighters?

    GEN. PETRAEUS: I wouldn't hazard I guess. What I will say is that there are certainly dozens of foreign fighters who do come into the country on a monthly basis; again, sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on the state of the network.

    ...

    Q (Off mike.) What would be the -- in your assessment as a military man, what would be the consequences on the ground in Baghdad if the United States was to pull back from its security mission in the capital by the fall, withdraw its forces, say, to the forward- operating bases in the capital and maybe withdraw from Iraq by the summer of '08? I'm not asking you about congressional legislation, about timelines.

    GEN. PETRAEUS: I have, as you know, in fact tried to stay clear of the political minefields of various legislative proposals and so forth. And I think, you know, the commander on the ground's job is to understand the mission he's given, make the request for the forces that are needed to accomplish that mission and then identify the risks, if you will, when all those forces may not be provided those resources.


    News Briefing

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