Islamophobia - for Muslims, read Jews. And be shocked

[falah]

Owen Jones: Islamophobia - for Muslims, read Jews. And be shocked

Imagine our alarm if nearly half the UK population said they believed that 'there are too many Jews'



To be a prominent Muslim means suffering a daily diet of bigotry and even outright hatred. This week, Mehdi Hasan – who, other than my colleague Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, is Britain's only prominent Muslim journalist – wrote of how, every day, he is attacked as a "jihadist" and a "terrorist". He has been described as a "dangerous Muslim shithead", a "moderate cockroach", and worse. The message from his critics is clear: Muslims have no legitimate place in public life.

Mehdi Hasan was right to speak out, but it must not be left to Muslims alone to take on this bigotry. A tide of Islamophobia has swept Europe for many years, and – shamefully – all too few have taken a stand. Even many who regard themselves as "progressives" have either remained silent or even indulged anti-Muslim prejudice. It's time for Muslims and non-Muslims alike to join forces against the most widespread – and most acceptable – form of bigotry of our times.

Think I'm exaggerating? Consider that the far-right's main target of choice is no longer Jews or black people: it's Muslims. The BNP portrays itself as a crusade against the "Islamification" of Britain; in the 2010 election, it launched a "Campaign Against Islam". Its leader, Nick Griffin, describes Islam as "wicked" and a "cancer", and has blamed Muslims for problems such as drugs and rape. The English Defence League stages frequent – and often intimidating – street rallies protesting against Muslims.

But anti-Muslim prejudice isn't simply confined to the far-right fringes. I attended a Stockport sixth form with a large Muslim student population. The reality of their lives is all but airbrushed out of existence. When they appear at all, it's generally as fanatics, extremists or a community somehow "harbouring" dangerous extremists. (When do Britain's whites face the absurdity of being called on to crack down on far-right fanatics supposedly in their ranks?) One study took a selection of newspapers in a single week: 91 per cent of reports featuring Muslims were negative.

One of my Muslim fellow students was Dr Leon Moosavi, fast becoming a national authority on Islamophobia. He battles against the widespread denial that anti-Muslim prejudice is a problem. But consider that, in one poll conducted by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, 45 per cent of Britons agreed that "there are too many Muslims" in Britain. Imagine if nearly half the population admitted to believing that "there are too many Jews" in Britain: how loud would our alarm be?

Of course, it is not just a British problem: the poison of Islamophobia has infected Europe's political mainstream. According to a Pew Research Center survey, nearly six out of 10 Europeans believe that Muslims were "fanatical", and half believed they were "violent". As here, the European far-right aims fire at Muslims above all other groups. In the Netherlands, an anti-Muslim party led by Geert Wilders is the third largest in parliament. Wilders compares the Koran to Mein Kampf, calls Islam a "Trojan Horse" in Europe and demands that the country's 850,000 Muslims be paid to leave the country. Wilders doesn't languish on the fringes: the current Dutch cabinet depended for two years on his party's support.

Or take sleepy Switzerland, where the Swiss People's Party (SVP) is the biggest party in the country's Federal Assembly. The SVP won a referendum on the banning of minarets, which the party's general secretary described as "symbols of Islamic power". During the vote, Geneva's mosque was repeatedly vandalised. Farhad Afshar, the president of the Coordination of Islamic Organisations, had no doubt what signal was sent by this vote: "that Muslims do not feel accepted as a religious community". But it gets even darker than that. In June, the Zurich-based SVP politician Alexander Müller was forced to stand down after tweeting: "Maybe we need another Kristallnacht… this time for mosques." The parallels with anti-Semitism could not be more overt.

In France – where recently 42 per cent polled for Le Monde believed that the presence of Muslims was a "threat" to their national identity – a record number voted for the anti-Muslim National Front in April's presidential elections. Denmark's third largest party is the People's Party, which rails against "Islamisation" and demands the end of all non-Western immigration. The anti-Muslim Vlaams Belang flourishes in Flemish Belgium. But those who take a stand against Islamophobia are often demanded to qualify it with a condemnation of extremism. When is this ever asked of other stands against prejudice? When we condemn anti-Semitic hate, must we criticise repressive Israeli policies in the same breath? It would be absurd – they are completely separate issues, and indeed millions of Jews across the world oppose the actions of Israel's government.

Anti-Muslim hate is a European pandemic. I'm proud to stand with Mehdi Hasan and other Muslims facing Islamophobia. But – I implore, I beg fellow non-Muslims – stand with them too, before this hatred spirals further out of control.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion...d-7939392.html

[Jayne]

Muslims can compare themselves to Jews when a nation dedicates itself to eradicating Islam and Muslims through mass murder. Not wanting you in their country is not the same thing as out and out murdering you with the full support of the public.

And no, I don't accept the "war on terror" to be equivalent to the holocaust. Not only does it not even begin to come close in numbers, the aim has never been to completely eradicate Muslims. Anyone who claims it does has a persecution complex.

Which admittedly is most of the men here.

[SammerTX]

You want to know the real genius of all this?

The US has produced a masterstroke by convincing the world that despite the fact it is the invader, the aggressor, the one shooting at innocent people - that it is the poor victim.

This War Of Terror is a brilliant way of slaughtering a lot of people "accidentally" through "collateral damage" without drawing world attention to such criminal actions. The means justify the ends. Innocent people are just in their way. We didn't mean to kill them so our intent excuses the crime.

Genius!

But even beyond that, it's clear Jewish or Anglo Saxon blood is given more importance in certain sectors of the media than the blood of non Anglo's and Muslims.

Two million (2,000,000) people were butchered in Rwanda in the 90's yet the world stood by and did nothing.

16 Afghans were recently slaughtered in cold blood by a war criminal and the media made him out to be the victim. Never mind the 16 human beings including 9 children who died not knowing what they did wrong.

It all started by demonising an entire people so their deaths don't matter anymore.

That's how it started with The Holocaust and that's the trend occurring now in certain parts against Muslims.

[Abu Coburg]

Not wanting you in their country is not the same thing as out and out murdering you with the full support of the public.

Lol, if your talk back programs are anything to go by, that is exactly the case.

The only reason your nation (and I use "nation" in a broader sense than just some geopolitical nation, but rather people of the same ideology as that of the empire) don't go out on a full on mass murdering mode is because you'd be caught out on your hypocrisy if you do; because you hate Islam and Muslims but claim to be bastions of tolerance etc, so you really are in a bit of a stalemate not being able to bring your hatred out to surface. Your empire falsely claims to have left the middle ages, the days of richard the dogheart, when you at least were honest about your emotions to yourselves, and us! Secondly, it would be a lot tougher than going at the jews, because of the shear numbers involved. Any open and large scale "crusade" would be an invitation for a global jihad!

Not only does it not even begin to come close in numbers, the aim has never been to completely eradicate Muslims.

We're sorry you don't get to see as many dead Muslims as you'd like to. Besides, we Muslims don't exaggerate on the number of our dead!

You're right, the aim has never been to eradicate Islam or Muslims, because that is simply unattainable given the numbers of Muslims and just how bloody a global war between Islam and western secular capitalism would be! It would make vietnam or even the world wars look like a walk in the park.

Rather the aim of the "war on terror" has been to suppress the flourishing of Islam as a governance system and as a political ideology. The aim is to christianise the Muslims into being just like them and keeping Islam confined to just our bookshelves, our "halal" certified kitchens, and the "workshops" and "rihlas" of tainted "scholars", and the coffers of the so called "custodians" a'la vatican; and keep it miles and miles away from all political influence and any sort of political domination on any corner of the globe.

The aim is to kill all sense of loyalty to Islam in Muslims, so much so that they even consider "the other" as the same as themselves, that they turn into 'house Muslims' who see themselves as stooges of the new world order, so much that they don't even call you kafirs the k-word but rather cook fanciful definitions of what to call you, only so as not to upset the sensibilities of the empire. They, the 'house Muslims' and uncle toms will write 1000's of pages of apologia on how Islam is really compatible with the sensibilities of the empire and its values, and give fanciful and twisted talks and lectures twisting the Islamic deen! There are some such 'house Muslims' on this forum too!

Your 'nation' has rightfully identified Islam as an opposing political ideology even a bigger threat than communism, but very sadly the vast majority of Muslims and 'house Muslims' have lost all sense of identity and walaa and baraa. Any mention of walaa and baraa, and the hypocrisy of the 'house Muslims" comes to surface that there is no such thing as 'us' and 'them' while the ignorant Muslims look dumbfounded at what that is!

Even in the cold war days some levels of identity and integrity were still alive, when people stated their ideology openly and stated that they "oppose" the other ideology, even if only "coldly"! These days opposition is only on superficial matters keeping the same creedal ideology of the empire, otherwise anything that opposes the core creed of the empire is termed as extremist or evil by the empire, or "you are misinterpreting Islam to cast an us vs them divide" by the 'house Muslims'!

Anyone who claims it does has a persecution complex.

Which admittedly is most of the men here.

Anyone who claims that the "war on terror" is not a "war on Islam", is a blind ignoramus who can't see that the greatest terrorist is his/her own 'nation' and/or a shameful and pathetic hypocrite and/or both.

Waits for the 'house Muslims' to speak up defending their comrades!

[Musa]

Jayne, we have been through much more than the Jews could imagine. We faced the Mongol hordes. We suffered under the army of the Khans who pillaged and raped like never before. Entire lands were razed and put to the sword. Our great cities were demolished. Skulls were formed into giant pyramids of death.

We faced the Crusaders who slaughtered unlike anything seen before. They not only killed man woman and child, but at times they became so depraved that they even cooked the dead Muslims and ate them.

These 2 events occurred in the same period, lasting not decades, but centuries. The stories that you hear make sitting in a chamber full of Zyklon B sound like a truly humane way to go out. The Muslims suffered in a way that no nation had ever suffered before. Sure there are parallels with the Jewish holocaust, however the only thing which makes the Jewish holocaust unique was that it was done in an age of advanced technology, where death was turned into an industry, producing large scale slaughter with low cost and minimum human effort. It was a reminder to the world that the industrial revolution would not only influence our homes and our cars, but also our wars.

What really shocks you though is that while World War II, with all of its victims reached 66 million (6 million from the Jewish holocaust) the Mongol invasions alone, 700 years before World War II produced 40 million victims. The Crusades produced up to 9 million victims. This means that this time period alone caused almost as much death as WWII alone, 7 centuries before hand, using swords, not machine guns, atomic bombs and gas chambers. And the Muslims bore the brunt of it all.

Muslims can compare themselves to Jews when a nation dedicates itself to eradicating Islam and Muslims through mass murder. Not wanting you in their country is not the same thing as out and out murdering you with the full support of the public.

So yes, we have had it before. The Mongols did try to do this to us. But you know what? I still don't want to compare us to the Jews, because we are not them and they are not us. We are not looking for sympathy from anyone.

[falah]

Not wanting you in their country is not the same thing as out and out murdering you with the full support of the public.

That is exactly how the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust began.

In Spain, Muslims and Jews were told to convert or leave. Then, when those who refused to convert had left, the Christians began to torture and kill people they suspected of not being real converts. For example, take a bath on Friday, and you should be tortured and executed for being a secret Muslim.

The Nazi began in the 1930's with only saying that they wanted to expel Jews from Germany. They did this, expelling Jews to concentration camps in Poland and elsewhere. It was not until the 1940's, a decade after the Nazis came to power in Germany, that Jews were killed by Nazis.

And no, I don't accept the "war on terror" to be equivalent to the holocaust. Not only does it not even begin to come close in numbers

Do you judge the severity of crime by numbers?

...if anyone killed a person unless it was in retaliation of murder, or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he killed all mankind, and if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all mankind...
[The Quran, al-Maa'idah, v.32]

the aim has never been to completely eradicate Muslims

The Nazis never said that they wanted to eradicate all the Jew either, but they had a good go at it.

The Crusaders, what was their goal? Supposedly to capture Jerusalem, but when they arrived in Jerusalem, the Crusaders killed every Muslim and Jew in the city. The Crusaders also destroyed many towns and villages on their way - some of them ironically were Christian villages.

The goal of the Terror War is to kill every religious Muslim. This is evident in the invasion of Afghanistan. Does not the Australian media cheer every time an innocent Taliban is killed while defending his country?

The Christians are doing their best to wreak havoc in Iraq, Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere. Do we see the Christians invading non-Muslim countries? Look at all the terrorist acts performed against the West by Jews in the last 70 years, any thoughts of invading Israel?



http://www.usslibertyveterans.org/

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition...s-later-1.4385

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/35997860

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_...st_Baron_Moyne

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...ce-934094.html

[falah]

A looney 'Muslim Brotherhood' plot betrays US xenophobia

A few weeks ago, the sensationalist politician Michele Bachmann did her best imitation of the late Senator Joseph McCarthy. She and four of her colleagues in Congress released letters they had sent to the departments of State, Justice, Defence and Homeland Security, calling on them to investigate whether "operations conducted by individuals and organisations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood ... had an impact on the federal government's national security policies".

Warning of "determined efforts by the Muslim Brotherhood to penetrate and subvert the American government as part of its 'civilisational jihad'", the representatives wanted the government to identify Muslims who were influencing US policy.

In making these charges, Ms Bachmann and her colleagues were relying on the work of a Washington-based group, the Center for Security Policy, a notorious player that has been working for several years to smear Muslim American groups. The only source cited in the letters was the Center's "training programme": The Muslim Brotherhood in America: The Enemy Within.

The "evidence" is, at best, slight. For example, Representative Louie Gohmert says "this [Obama] administration continues to bow down before groups associated with the goal of destroying western civilisation from within" - by which he meant Washington's apology to Muslims after the Quran-burning incident in Afghanistan.

Ms Bachmann also points accusingly to some Muslims who serve in the administration, including Huma Abedin, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's deputy chief of staff.

In Ms Abedin's case, the game goes from the absurd to the downright bizarre. Her parents are Muslims and her father taught at a university in Saudi Arabia, and so they must be ... fill in the blank.

In a Washington Times article inspired by the Center's work, questions were asked as to whether Ms Abedin "had been groomed to access movers and shakers to advance the cause of Islam in America". The article goes on to question whether Ms Abedin's marriage to a Jewish former member of Congress was a clever ruse designed to further this "Islamist agenda".

The evidence? Since Ms Abedin is a Muslim, why else would her family have approved of her marrying a non-Muslim? And, after all, she works for Ms Clinton, who shares the "socialist agenda, which includes domination of the US by a Muslim-ruled world".

What is so intriguing about these conspiracy-minded loonies is how the gravity of the threat grows each time they speak. In a recent interview, Ms Bachmann explained: "It appears that there has been deep penetration in the halls of our United States government by the Muslim Brotherhood."

As outrageous as this behaviour is, the charges have generated very little media attention, but that doesn't mean that they can be dismissed for two reasons: although all a bit looney, these politicians hold positions of influence on key Congressional committees; and witch hunts, if left unchecked, can ruin lives and damage reputations.

As was the case during the McCarthy era, equally troubling is the distress that campaigns of this sort can bring to those not named, but who live in fear that their religion or their ethnicity will be the reason that they will be held in suspicion. As I know from bitter personal experience, entire communities can be shunned by officials who fear being attacked for associating with a "dangerous" group. Because there is a scarcity of courageous leaders in Washington, all too often such witch hunts will persist.

It is for this reason that I am so thankful that the voters of Minnesota have sent Keith Ellison to Congress. He is smart, picking his fights carefully. Mr Ellison demonstrated his leadership this week when he directly challenged Ms Bachmann.

In a stern letter to Ms Bachmann and company, Mr Ellison asks that she provide "a full accounting of the sources you used to make the serious allegations ... If there is not credible, substantial evidence for your allegations, I sincerely hope you will publicly clear their names".

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationa...-us-xenophobia

[falah]

Her Muslim witch hunt

Michele Bachmann demands investigations into the Muslim Brotherhood's "deep penetration" into the U.S. government

The tide of Islamophobia that threatened to drown the political scene in the summer of 2010 during the debate over what critics called the “ground zero mosque” has since receded and Muslim conspiracy theories have largely vanished from the political debate. But with another election looming, the tide may be rising again, and Rep. Michele Bachmann is predictably already ahead of the crowd.

The Minnesota Republican, joined by Republican Reps. Trent Franks, Louie Gohmert, Thomas Rooney and Lynn Westmoreland, sent letters to the inspectors general of five government agencies responsible for national security to demand they investigate infiltration by the Muslim Brotherhood into the highest reaches of the federal government. In particular, Bachmann singled out Huma Abedin, the wife of former congressman Anthony Weiner and a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In case Abedin hasn’t already been through enough already, Bachmann is now questioning her loyalty to the U.S. by asserting that Abedin has three family members who are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood (Abedin is Muslim). She’s been targeted before by anti-Muslim activists, and Bachmann notes that Abedin’s position “affords her routine access to the Secretary and to policy-making.” Bachmann also claims the state has “taken actions recently that have been enormously favorable to the Muslim Brotherhood and its interests.”

Another letter targets the Department of Defense, which Bachmann et al. accuse of failing to “characterize accurately the jihadist motivations” of Maj. Nidal Hassan, the Army psychiatrist accused in the Fort Hood shooting. A third letter went to the Department of Homeland Security, alleging the department is covering up the Muslim Brotherhood threat by developing an official lexicon that obfuscates its danger. Yet another letter went to the Department of Justice inspector general warning that officials there had been meeting with Muslim groups that she accused of being “fronts” for the Brotherhood. The final letter went to the Office of Director of National Intelligence, stating, “we request that your office conduct a formal investigation or evaluation into the extent to which Muslim-Brotherhood tied individuals and entities were involved in” actions they deem improper.

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/13/bach...im_witch_hunt/

[falah]

What really shocks you though is that while World War II, with all of its victims reached 66 million (6 million from the Jewish holocaust) the Mongol invasions alone, 700 years before World War II produced 40 million victims. The Crusades produced up to 9 million victims. This means that this time period alone caused almost as much death as WWII alone, 7 centuries before hand, using swords, not machine guns, atomic bombs and gas chambers. And the Muslims bore the brunt of it all.So yes, we have had it before.

You don't have to go that far back. Muslims also faced genocide in Bosnia and Kashmir in the 1990's, in Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1970's, and in Chechnya in the 1940's and 1950's, and in Gujarat in 2002.

There is also the ethnic cleansing occurring in Palestine:

[Musa]

The Nazi began in the 1930's with only saying that they wanted to expel Jews from Germany. They did this, expelling Jews to concentration camps in Poland and elsewhere. It was not until the 1940's, a decade after the Nazis came to power in Germany, that Jews were killed by Nazis.

Its interesting to note that in the beginning all that Hitler wanted was the Jews out of Germany. For a long time he supported sending them all to Madagascar. Later on Hitler even suggested that the Jews be able to nick off out of Europe and to go to Palestine, becoming the first pro-Zionist world leader.

It is amazing how history repeats itself.. You have German leaders (one was a Swiss German politician I believe) saying things like "We need another Kristalnacht, this time starting with mosques." Yet no alarm bells ring. You have Wilders in Holland arguing that Muslims be expelled, the Qur'an be banned and Moroccan youths who commit crimes to be shot in their kneecaps. Yet its all fine.. It couldn't happen again right? Europe is too civilised now to resort to such things... Right?!?