Tarek Fatah’s most brilliant comment!!!

June 10, 2008 — xanthippa

It seems that people all over the world are observing Canada’s shame… 

This week, the British Columbia’s Human Rights Tribunal (thier Provincial flavour of the Canadian Human Rights’ Commission) held hearings of the complaint against the respected Canadian mainstream news magazine, Macleans, and one of its writers, Mark Steyn.  So, what was their crime?

An article Mr. Steyn wrote (actually, an excerpt from his book, America Alone), and Macleans magazine published, was deemed to be potentially harmful, because it quoted a Norwegian Imam who proudly boasted that ‘[Muslims] multiply like mosquitos’.  This, of course, could possibly cast Muslims in a negative light….so, REGARDLESS OF ITS VERACITY, it ‘ought’ never have been published!

According to whom?  Several extremist Islamists….and, by coincidence, 3 of them are just-graduating law students trying to make a name for themselves in the legal profession….  By the way, none of the complainants, or defendants, lives/has head office in BC – which makes this choice of jurisdiction somewhat curious, to say the least.

There are many wonderful bloggers, some of whom have been ‘live blogging’ from the hearings.  You can find some of them here.

One place through which I was attempting to follow the events of Friday, 6th of June, 2008 was the day of ‘final arguments’  (now that I think of it, it is a little funny that it fell onto D-day!) was Macleans’ own blog.  There, I came across a MOST BRILLIANT comment posted by the past president of the Muslim Canadian Congress, Mr. Tarek Fatah.

This man knows his stuff!

Just linking to the page itself, the comment might get lost among the veritable sea of outrage, common sense, and – well – human nature.  Therefore, with Mr. Fatah’s permission, I am posting the whole of his comment.  It speaks for itself!

comment by Tarek Fatah on Friday, June 6, 2008 at 1:29 pm:

Dear ‘Just Living,’

Try living a full and free life instead of hiding behind a cyber-burka and a name that tells all, viz., Just Living.

To label all people on this forum as ‘bigots,’ is not surprising as it is the only tool employed by Islamists hell-bent on upholding the jihadi doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood in Canada.

I know it is difficult, but is it possible that the only people contributing to Islamophobia in Canada are the mulla-elmasry duo?

What did these twits achieve other than to embarrass all Muslim Canadians, who appear to held hostage by the blackmail of community patriotism?

Last night one of these imams came on the Michael Coren Show to discuss polygamy and made such an ass of himself, waving the Quran at the host, mocking Christianity on a Christian TV station and then claiming there was Islamophobia in this country! When I defended my faith by explaining that polygamy was a medieval Bedouin tradition meant to take care of war widows, the Imam started reading from the Quran, screaming, “My religion allows me to marry four wives…Tarek Fatah knows nothing about Islam,” then he sneered at me with ugly facial gestures, waving hands and feminine accent, “Tarek Fatah is modern … moddderrrnnn Muslim…He is not a Muslim,” as if modernity itself was his enemy!

Dear ‘Just Living’, start living and while you are at it, if you are looking for bigots, chances are you will find them in Elmasry’s mosque or Dr. Habib’s clinic, definitely not on this Macleans forum. Sarcasm? May be. Anger? Yes and justifiably so. Islamophiobia? Not a shred of it in five days of discussion.

Dear ‘Just Living,’ the notion that the US or Canada are anti-Muslim does not withstand scrutiny. The number one selling author in both countries for over two years is a Muslim: Dr. Khalid Hossieni whose novel ‘Kite Runner’ has made so many Canucks shed tears on Go Trains and in their solitudes as they embraced the young poor boys of Kabul as their very own family. There is more.

The most sold poet in all of North America is the medieval Muslim poet Rumi. Why would Americans choose to read Maulana Rumi if they hate Muslims?

The most popular sportsman in US for decades is Muhammad Ali Clay. This mischievous boxer who titillated and entertained all of us with his sly smile and political wit. And who still stings like butterfly and floats like a bee! If Americans and the US hate Muslims, why do they love Muhammad Ali, Rumi and read the Kite Runner?

Why does CNN give Ali Velshi so much airtime prominence if it is anti-Muslim? Why, if the West hates Islam, is Farid Zakaria the editor of Newsweek magazine and why is permitted to host his own show on PBS and CNN?

Right in the heart of Vancouver where the boy-band is spewing hate against Canada and its free press, lives Senator Mobina Jaffer. Does her appointment to the senate reflect an anti-Muslim bias in the West or Canada? How doe we end up electing a young Muslim lawyer from Ottawa Centre if Canaucks are anti-Islam? And if your anger is directed at the Conservative flank of Canadian political spectrum, why them would the Reform Party, then the Alliance and later the Conservatives elect Rahim Jaffer as an MP since 1993. Or do you discount him to be a good Muslim simply because he is smart, good looking, dates a lovely MP and wears stylish suits, and heavens forbid, has sense of humour that borders impish naughtiness, a trait that would help such cry babies as Khurrum Awan and Faisal ‘Joseph’ to grow up and stop sucking on their thumbs as they utter drivel.

Dear ‘Just Living,’ please start living.

Mr. Fatah could not be more correct!

Posted in debate, freedoms, human nature, language, opression, perceptions, politics, religion, society. Tags: , , , , . 4 Comments »

A Father with Real HONOUR!

May 19, 2008 — xanthippa

Oppression comes in many forms, all of them disgusting and condemnable.  All of them have something in common:  the willingness to sacrifice the rights and well being of an individual, a specific human being, for some higher principle.  The principle itself is less imoportant – and it varies from ‘the good of the society’, or ‘religious piety’, or, paradoxically, ‘family honour’.

The opressors smugly wrap themselves in the ‘cloak of righteousness’.  They truly and honestly believe their ends justify the means…which they NEVER do.

I planned to write about something else today, when I came across this  article on ‘A Chocoholic’s Piece of Mind’ blog:  Rand Abdel-Qader, a 17-year-old student, was murdered by her father an brother for being seen speaking to a Brit soldier….  She worked as an aid worker, and spoke English…translated and became infatuated.  No affair, no clandestine meeting, just a schoolgirl crush…and translating for him, as part of the volunteer work she did with refugee families. 

I wonder what another Rand, Ayn Rand, would have to say about this…her father’s reaction (quoting the article linked above) was:

‘Death was the least she deserved,’ said Abdel-Qader. ‘I don’t regret it. I had the support of all my friends who are fathers, like me, and know what she did was unacceptable to any Muslim that honours his religion,’

…

‘I have only two boys from now on. That girl was a mistake in my life. I know God is blessing me for what I did,’ he said, his voice swelling with pride. ‘My sons are by my side, and they were men enough to help me finish the life of someone who just brought shame to ours.’

…

He said his daughter’s ‘bad genes were passed on from her mother’. Rand’s mother, 41, remains in hiding after divorcing her husband in the immediate aftermath of the killing, living in fear of retribution from his family. She also still bears the scars of the severe beating he inflicted on her, breaking her arm in the process, when she told him she was going.

…

Sources have indicated that Abdel-Qader, who works in the health department, has been asked to leave because of the bad publicity, yet he will continue to draw a salary.

And it has been alleged by one senior unnamed official in the Basra governorate that he has received financial support by a local politician to enable him to ‘disappear’ to Jordan for a few weeks, ‘until the story has been forgotten’ – the usual practice in the 30-plus cases of ‘honour’ killings that have been registered since January alone.

…

Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. ‘They are men and know what honour is,’ he said.

This is not honour, and we must stop thinking that just because people come from different parts of the world, they should not be expected to treat each other – including their daughters and wives – with respect.  Thinking these attitudes are too deeply entrenched is a very insidious and destructive form or racism, and we must all work together to show it is unacceptable!

Please, indulge me with a story about an Iranian man and HIS attitude towards his teenage daughter:

When I came to Canada as a teenager, I befriended an Iranian girl who arrived at about the same time.  They were devout Muslims.  At her apartment, my friend showed me the charcoal-gray hijab she was forced to wear in Iran – the very first one I ever saw – and I tried it on.  Her father was angry at the sight of the hijab.   What he said has made a deep impression on me, and is with me still.

He told me that the hijab was not part of Islam.  Not even a little bit.  He explained that when the Koran was written, the rights it granted women were much more than women had in that society before, and that it meant that the Prophet wanted to eventually bring full equality between men and women.  It just had to happen one step at a time.

The hijab, he went on, was a symbol of opression:  not just of women, but of all true Muslims by those who wish to have power over them.  He was very angry that they would do this, when the religion itself teaches the equality of all humans.  He was also angry that many young Mulsimas were brainwashed to think the hijab was a symbol of a proudly pious Muslima – he said teaching young women that was a crime against Islam, because it was a part of a doctorine that reduced them from humans to possessions.

He explained that in Iran, he had done well, a professional with his own business…but he left because he would not allow his daughter to be brought up in a society which would only treat her as cattle, or a piece of meat!  He wanted her to grow up a good Muslima who has confidence in herself as a person, and who is not a slave to anyone…in other words, as a real human being!

Now THERE is a FATHER WITH HONOUR!!! 

If only more men – Muslim or otherwise – would have enough honour to value their daughters as much as my friend’s father valued her!

Posted in freedoms, immigrants, opression, philosophy, politics, religion, society. Tags: , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Obama’s apostasy

May 5, 2008 — xanthippa

It is unusual for me to write about the US presidential race, because, frankly, it is a bit overdone.  We are inundated with the minutest details and the wildest speculations over and over, whether we care or not.

Yet, there is one very important speculation that I have never heard voiced.  Perhaps it is my own fault for shutting out so much of the detail, and it has been covered and dealt with.  If that is the case, then I beg your forgiveness.  But, if it has not been addressed, then I would humbly request that people give this some sober, realistic consideration.

Different people – and nation states – react very differently to identical ‘facts’.  Mundane example: I see a rabbit, I will think ‘pet’.  Another person looks at a rabbit, they may see ‘dinner’.  It would be unreasonable to expect the same reaction from both of us to being served a rabbit-burger.  The same is true of many, many things, not all of them mundane or witout deep impact.

Many supporters of Mr. Obama’s bid for the Democratic nomination, and ultimately the Presidency of the USA, say that he would be well received in the world, and enjoy much more credibililty than either Ms. Clinton or Mr. McCain.  While his lack of experience and specific policies he suggested may have come under attack, his supporters maintain that his multicultural outlook would be great assets giving him (an by extension, the USA) great credibility, especially in Africa.

But are we not overlooking one extremely important point?  Mr. Obama is an apostate to Islam – and much of the Muslim world, including in Africa, consider this to be very bad thing indeed.

This has less to do with the views of Mr. Obama himself.  It does not concern anything a preacher he’d listened to may or may not believe.  All it has to do with is the fact that as a child and young man, Mr. Obama was a Muslim, and now he is not.  He does not deny that – nor has he ever tried to.  By definition, this makes him an Apostate.

The very fact that he has converted from Islam to another faith may make it impossible for many fundamentally Islamic nation-states to accept him.  After all, rightly or wrongly, many of them do interpret The Qur’an, specifically Sura (chapter) 4, verses 89-92: “If they turn away [convert away from Islam], then sieze them and kill them wherever you find them;…”. 

Also, many Muslims use several books in addition to the Qur’an.  These are not given the central importance that Qur’an is, but because they contain the collected sayings of the Prophet Muhammad and strories of his life, these are often used as a guide according to which the Qur’an is supposed to be interpreted.  One of these is often quoted as to the proper interpretation of the above verse: ‘Bukhari’ 4.52.260 – “The Prophet said, ‘If a Muslim discards his religion, kill him.’ ”

In 2006, a man was sentenced to death in Afghanistan for having converted from Islam to Christianity.  This was well after the Taliban were out of power, but even the moderates in Afghanistan did not understand why people in ‘The West’ were upset by this.  Most of us are familiar with the case of Lina Joy, and others like her.

In fact, four of the major Sunni as well as the major Shia schools of Islam all agree that a sane, adult male who converts away from Islam deserves the death penalty. 

I offer this as an entirely pragmatic consideration:  will some people be able to see Mr. Obama, the man, or will they only see an Apostate? 

How will they react if the USA elects an ‘Apostate President’? 

Posted in atheism, debate, freedoms, human nature, politics, religion, society. Tags: , , , , . 7 Comments »

Fitna

April 7, 2008 — xanthippa

The birthplace of Islam is in Arabia.  In Arabic, this word, Fitna , is said to be difficult to translate – but Wikipedia (not the end-all for learning, but an awesome place to start) explains is as “all-encompassing word referring to schism, secession, upheaval and anarchy at once”.  It also notes that ‘First Fitna‘ and ‘Second Fitna’ are terms used to describe the first and second ‘civil wars’ within Islam itself.

Even though many people are not aware of this, the most populous Muslim country is Indonesia.  In Indonesian, the term ‘Fitnah’ means ‘defamation, slander, libel’…

Is it not fitting, then, that Geert Wilders chose this word as the name for his very controversial documentary movie?  It may be his 15 minutes of fame (that is the duration of the movie), but it has certainly created a bit of an uproar.

Even prior to the movie’s release, individual Dutch people made little videos, to put onto YouTube, apologizing to the Muslim ummah (world family) and begging them to please not kill them because of it.  Really.  But, it would not be long and others would post ‘apologies‘ that are somewhat more imbued with deeper meanings…

But that is not all – Network Solutions, the company which was going to host the movie, even before the movie came out, pulled the site.  Sorry, decied to ‘investigate it’!  And all before the movie even came out!  And when the movie finally DID come out, it was quickly pulled, because of threats of violence against the employees of Liveleak.com, the company that hosted it.

So, WHAT is so horrible about Fitna, the movie?  Don’t let anybody tell you – see it for yourselves:  Part 1, Part 2.

And what is the POINT of it, anyway?

In my never-humble-opinion, the name of the movie says it all.  There is a war of ideas WITHIN Islam.  The Umma is being torn apart by very powerful forces.  And this movie, it is meant to be an exposition for the moderate Muslims, who wish to live in harmony with the rest of us, a wake up call to them:  these violent people, who themselves believe they are following the teachings of the Qur’an, they are the ones who bear false witness to your faith!!!  And you are the only ones who can set it right.

It is not, nor do I think it was ever meant to be, an indictment of all Muslims.  Not even a little bit.  Yet, it is meant to show how some Muslims are abusing their holy book, taking verses out of context (which they do in order to justify the violence), and how they are perverting their religion.  It is no coincidence that so many violent riots happened on Friday afternoons, after some men pretending to be religious men, and acting as Imams, used their perverted version of Islam to inflame hatred in their worshippers.

That is why, at the end of the movie, the filmmaker asks all ‘real’ Muslims to please reclaim their good and peaceful religion from these violent people who consider themselves to also be Muslims! 

Christians have had the same problem, and, to a great degree, they HAVE taken their religion away from the violent people who used it to make war and oppress people.  The filmmaker made this movie to show proper Muslims what is being done in the name of THEIR religion, and to ask THEM to do them same with Islam.

Or, do you think I am really off the mark?

Posted in education, freedoms, human nature, immigrants, language, philosophy, politics, religion, society. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments »

Of Cellphones and Hijabs

March 19, 2008 — xanthippa

OK, these two do not seem too closely related. Perhaps a more accurate title would have been ‘Of Passing Laws Which Ban The Use of Cellphones While Driving And Of Passing Laws That Force The Wearing of Hijabs‘, but, somehow, that seemed a little long…

Every now and then, another spot on Earth passes a law banning the use of cellphones while driving – or flirts with passing such a law. A flurry of debates and discussions follows, weighing the pros and cons of such a law…often mistaking appeals to emotions for objective reasons, confusing symptoms with causes.

Typically, the pro-ban side (or, as I affectionately call them, the ‘bannies’) cites reams of accident statistics (real or imagined) which occurred while the driver was indeed using the cell phone. They usually present one or another variation of the following argument:

1. Talking on a cellphone can be distracting to drivers.

2. Distracted drivers do have more accidents.

Therefore, cellphones cause accidents and laws banning drivers from using them must be passed, in the interest of preventing those horrible car accidents. After all, anything less would be irresponsible!

Q.E.D.

Those opposed to the alarming increase in behaviour-engineering legislation usually put forth some silly nonsense like: “If a car is being driven badly, cops already have the right to ticket the driver, so a law specifically prohibiting cellphones is not only superfluous, it is redundant. Why pass two laws to cover one misdeed? If cops don’t apply one law they have, why give them a second one that does the same thing?”

These little arguments fall on deaf ears of the ‘bannies’. Usually, they counter with more statistics (but not those that show that even after cellphones were banned, the overall accident rates are pretty much unchanged in the long run). And if one begins to worry about the intrusiveness of the law, they invariably point out that drunk-driving is already banned, so why not cell-driving?

Perhaps it is commendable that the ‘bannies’ are looking out for us all – by banning all that is, or could potentially be, a source of harm to us. But what is not commendable is their basic mindset of attempting to legislate ‘common sense’, while they themselves fail to display an iota of it. So, I suppose it would be legislating ‘common nonsense’, n’est-ce pas? Having been in a debate with a vociferous ‘bannie’, I was unable to make her comprehend the difference between a chemically impaired judgment and a ‘distraction’…

Yet, that is not the only failure to apply logic in the ‘cellphone debate’. The real fallacy is in completely misunderstanding the nature of ‘distraction’: it is the driver’s responsibility not to become distracted by anything while driving. The cellphone is a symptom, not the cause of a driver’s distraction….only one of the many possible ways of abdicating responsibility to focus on driving. And as history has taught us, banning the symptoms never alleviates the underlying problem, it only masks it.

Which brings me to the hijab part… Please, consider this unfortunately real ‘reasoning’:

1. The sight of a beautiful woman arouses men.

2. An aroused man will want to have sex.

Therefore, the sight of a beautiful woman causes rapes and laws banning display of feminine beauty must be passed, in the interest of protecting women from those horrible rapes. After all, anything less would be irresponsible!

Q.E.D.

Yes, this is real! These are some of the reasons put forth in support of laws that require women to wear a hijab, a burka, or similarly concealing ‘modest dress’. Don’t believe it? The Mufti of Copenhagen Sahid Mehdi said in 2004 that women who do not wear the hijab are ‘asking to be raped‘. Australia’s Mufti in October 2006 was much the same thing, but in much cruder terms – comparing unveiled women to ‘uncovered meat‘….and how could you blame cats who came to eat it? And unless I am much mistaken, an Egyptian Imam said much the same thing in England (though I could not find a very good original article on this…happened too long ago).

But rape is not the only threat to women who do not don the veil: Palestinian broadcasters live under a death threat for wearing makeup and not covering their faces while on camera – I guess it is not so easy to rape a TV image, so the islamofascist ‘bannies’ content themselves with threatening to kill them a firebomb their houses instead.

The ‘reasoning’ in both cases – cellphones and hijabs – is eerily similar.

It may seem a chasm from banning the use of cellphones while driving to forcing the hijab on women, but bigger gulfs have been bridged, one little step at a time….each one facilitated by complacency and happy little ‘bannies’!

Posted in debate, freedoms, human nature, philosophy, politics, religion, society. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments »

Harry Potter and the ‘Secret Sub-culture’

February 29, 2008 — xanthippa

During a debate, someone raised the topic of ‘Harry Potter’ and how ‘unfinished’ and ‘unsatisfactory’ the last book really was.  One person said that during the series, J. K. Rowling seemed to change the fundamental roles of some of the characters.  It started me thinking…perhaps it may not have started out as such, but, by the end, WHAT was the ‘Harry Potter’ story really about?

Let’s look at it.

We have a young boy, living in an average British suburb, average British house, yet still disenfranchised from all about him.  Without knowing why, he feels different, he does not fit in.  As he grows, he learns he is a part of this very special group of people who live within the British culture, but are different, separate from the mainstream population in so many ways!

This ‘special’ group of people could, at first look, pass for Brits – but were decidedly different.  They believed in different things, behaved differently, dressed differently, yet kept their ‘differentness’ secret from the mainstream.  With their own rules (though their ‘Minister’ did have a ‘quazi-legal’ status with the ‘Muggle’ Prime Minister) and laws, their own separate legal system administered justice among them.

Most of the Brits are not even aware of their separate existence:  and many of the members of this ‘special sub-culture’ live integrated, among regular people.  Yet others live isolated, in whole communities devoted to ‘their kind’ – and it is only in these isolated communities that members of this special ‘sub-culture’ openly practiced their ‘differentness’.

Those who spent their whole lives in these communities often fail to understand even the basic principles or social customs of the greater British society surrounding them.  Not only do they think, act, and dress differently…they can not even be bothered to learn about the rest of the society that surrounded them, even as they consider them as ‘less evolved’ or ‘less special’ than themselves.  They euphemistically refer to ‘regular people’ by the patronizing term ‘muggles’, or by the downright derisive ‘dirty mud people’….

And though they may be self-isolated from the cultural mainstream – having their own beliefs and their own schools where they sent their children – they do keep in close contact with other people of their own kind, who live scattered in secret or isolated communities in other parts of the world….all of them taking care to go unnoticed by their host society.

Hmmm, any thoughts yet?

It gets better.

Within this secretive sub-culture, there was a struggle:  those who were kindly pre-disposed towards the lowly ‘muggles’, those who wanted to ‘get along while being allowed to keep their separate sub-culture’, were battling against a militant group from within.  Led by a mythical, powerful, but hard-to-define and often absent leader, this ‘evil’ sub-sect was downright hostile toward the host culture, killing ‘muggles’ without regard, just to prove their superiority, and murdering any member of their sub-culture who opposed them too loudly….

But that was not all….not only was this sub-sect hostile and militant, it sought to gain total and complete control over the whole of the ‘magical world’ sub-culture.  Nobody knew any longer whom to trust, who was on whose side, who was secretly controlled….and the subtle blackmail and mind-control by the ‘evil side’ could escalate to open intimidation!  The ‘moderates’ kept trying to identify and battle the ‘militants’, only to be infiltrated and betrayed, time after time….

Is this still sounding like the story of a boy who wakes up and realizes he is ‘magical’?

Or does the change of attitudes Ms. Rowling’s book take as the story progresses pass comment on a completely different matter altogether?  A matter we all need to pay attention to, before Voldemort (who, by the way, changes his name from the one he’s born with, when he enters this special ‘sub-culture’) gains complete control over ‘the special community’ and subjugates ‘muggles’ in all the world?

Hmmmm, change a few of the labels, and you might not be looking at a fairy-tale at all!

Posted in human nature, immigrants, philosophy, politics, religion. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 14 Comments »
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