It is time to dispel the myths surrounding Muslims – namely, that we are all terrorist anti-feminist teetotallers, argues Khaled Diab.
Denmark’s Little Mermaid statue draped in Muslim dress and veil
The Little Mermaid statue in Denmark’s capital was found draped in Muslim dress and a head scarf Sunday morning, police said. After receiving a telephone call, officers drove to the site and removed the garments, said Copenhagen police spokesman Jorgen Thomsen.
The Little Mermaid was created by Danish sculptor Edvard Eriksen in tribute to Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen. Sitting on a rock at the entrance of Copenhagen harbor since 1913, she draws an estimated 1 million visitors a year, and is occasionally targeted by vandals.
She has been beheaded and doused in paint several times. Four years ago, the statue was blown off its perch by vandals who used explosives. In 2004, someone put a burqa, the head-to-toe Islamic robe, on the statue along with a sign saying “Turkey in the EU?” in reference to Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.
So, pretty obviously another right-wing protest against Islam, you might think? Not according to one blogger, who reports the incident under the heading “Muslim THUGS Deface Famous Hans Christian Andersen Statue – Again“.
‘Sect hires PR firm to win support for giant mosque’
The Times revisits the “mega-mosque” scare story, providing inspiration for a far-right blogger who advises that “only the British National Party will stop this cancer spreading”.
Islamophobia doesn’t exist, claims ex-leftist
“In recent years the term Islamophobia has been frequently invoked to silence criticism of Islam. Criticisms of any aspect of Islam are looked upon as expressions of a new form of racism. In reality, critics of Islam are questioning the values associated with the religion rather than the racial status of Muslim people. Today, promoting the concept of Islamophobia is about setting up Islam as a criticism-free zone. Recent claims about an ‘epidemic of Islamophobia’ are based on very impressionistic and subjective methodology.”
Frank Furedi, formerly of the Revolutionary Communist Party, in Spiked, 21 May 2007
Perhaps Furedi should have a word with BNP führer Nick Griffin who last year recommended that the fascists should seize “a great political opportunity to surf our message into the public mind on the back of a media tsunami of ‘Islamophobia’.”
The differences between Islam and Christianity
“Alvin J. Schmidt, Ph.D., provides extensive documentation from history, the Koran, and the Bible that there are indeed chasm-wide differences between the two religions – and between the societies where they hold sway. ‘Islam is not just a different religion’, argues Professor Schmidt, ‘but interwoven with it is also a very different culture.’
“In comparison to the Christian West, he shows, Islamic nations throughout history have been culturally sterile, technologically backward, materially impoverished, prone to barbarism and cruelty, and almost perpetually at war not only with their non-Muslim neighbors but with each other.”
Human Events reviews The Great Divide: The Failure of Islam and the Triumph of the West by Alvin J. Schmidt.
Bishop suggests closer monitoring of Swiss mosques
One of the Catholic Church’s leading experts on Islam says the Swiss authorities need to keep a closer eye on the country’s mosques. Pierre Bürcher, assistant bishop of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg, tells swissinfo it is what goes on inside mosques rather than the construction of minarets that poses a greater threat to peace. His comments come just weeks after a group of rightwing politicians launched a nationwide campaign to ban the construction of minarets.
Australian Muslims slam ‘divisive’ test
Muslims are outraged that prospective citizens will have to acknowledge the Judeo-Christian tradition as the basis of Australia’s values system. Australia’s peak Muslim body said the proposed citizenship question was disturbing and potentially divisive. Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Dr Ameer Ali said the “Abrahamic tradition” or “universal values” would be less divisive ways of describing the nation’s moral base.
Dr Ali was backed by Democrats senator Lyn Allison, who said the answer to the question was highly debatable. But Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews stood firm on the merit of the question. Mr Andrews said Australia’s Judeo-Christian heritage was indisputable historical fact. But Health Minister Tony Abbott confused the issue, saying the modern Australian values system was secular, or of no particular religion.
Denmark: Proposal to ban veils
The Danish People’s Party wants a total ban on veils in Denmark, but both the opposition and the government don’t support it. Pia Kjærsgaard, leader of the Danish People’s Party, said in an interview: “I want the headscarf to be completely banned in Danish society. It is oppressive and I cannot tolerate it.” She suggested to start with schools and institutions. Kjærsgaard is not talking about Jewish skullcaps and Christian crosses, saying they’re not the same and are not religious laws. According to a survey 46% of Danes support a ban on veils in schools.
FBI agent threatened Muslim student at University of Calfornia
Nearly a year after a top FBI official said the agency does not monitor students at UCI, police are investigating an incident in which a Muslim student says he was threatened by a federal agent. The incident occurred Monday night in view of campus police and dozens of Muslim student spectators, who were helping to disassemble a large wooden representation of the wall that Israelis have built in occupied Palestine.
Mad Mel explains Islamism
“Islamism is the politicised version of Islam which mandates jihad, or holy war against the infidel and conquest of the non-Islamic world for Islam. I’m well aware of the argument that there’s no difference between Islamism and Islam: that’s a theological argument for others to have….
“The Islamist goal is to destroy the virus of freedom and modernity before it infects the Islamic world, and to replace it with Islam. That is the core of the profound threat it poses to the west, a threat mounted through the pincer movement of both terrorism and cultural takeover. This cultural takeover, or the aim to Islamise the west, was explicitly laid out in a programme of subversion for Europe by the Wahabbi [sic] Muslim Brotherhood almost 30 years ago….
“And for Islamists there is no room in a liberal society. True liberals never thought they had a duty to accommodate fascism. True liberals always fought it. So must we do with religious fascism.”