A convention of a group of Republicans was due to take place in Texas on Tuesday that critics and concerned Muslims have denounced as anti-Islam. The group, which calls itself Cherry Tree Republicans, charges that Muslims are bombing Israel, Jordan, England, Spain, France, and that Al Qaeda has training camps “as close as Mexico and South America”. “Our borders,” the convention literature states, “are crossed by thousands illegally every week, including illegal aliens from Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iran and Syria.”
Muslims, the group claims, either want to “convert us or kill us”. It goes on to say that “Islam teaches that Muslims must wage war to impose Islamic law on non-Muslim states”. American Muslim groups are said to be engaged in a “huge cover-up of Islamic doctrine and history”, and “today’s jihadi terrorists have the same motives and goals as the Muslims who fought the Crusaders”. The group says that Muslim persecution of Christians has continued for 13 centuries and still goes on.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke has authorised Babar Ahmad’s extradition to face terrorism charges in the US. The decision follows a long fight by the US for his removal and by Mr Ahmad and his supporters against the move. The 31-year-old computer expert from Tooting, south London, is accused of running websites supporting terrorism and urging Muslims to fight a holy war.
Juan Cole replies to a bigoted anti-Muslim article by Dennis Prager in the LA Times.
“Mr Fernando is right to say that racism has no place in the lesbian and gay community. As I wrote in the Gay & Lesbian Humanist magazine ‘… racism is the antithesis of Humanism. We are not concerned where people come from genetically or geographically, but we ought to care very much about where they are going, ideologically. Racial discrimination is abhorrent …’ In other words, no one should be discriminated against or victimised because of their race, ethnicity, or skin colour – however, we should (and I quote again from the article) ‘… hold people to account for their beliefs and the actions that arise from them’.”
“It’s time, apparently, that I woke up and smelt the cardamom, or whatever scent it is one associates with Islam. I’m wasting my time, some people reckon, stuck in a cushioned ante-room off a corridor leading away from reality while asserting – as I did last week – that the French riots were not to be explained by the religion of many of the rioters. Last Tuesday my e-mail box declared itself full after a small deluge of readers wrote in, most declaring that, although they weren’t French and hadn’t been there for a while, they knew – absolutely knew – that Islam was behind it all. And that those who thought otherwise were in a state of denial.”