Dear Pakistan

Dear Pakistan:

We understand that a high level delegation from your country is coming to the West to request that we "amend laws regarding freedom of expression in order to prevent offensive incidents such as the printing of blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) and the production of an anti-Islam film by a Dutch legislator." We understand that you are making this plea in order to forestall Muslims reacting with justifiable homicidal mania to any perceived slight by word or picture - or in the case of Teddy Bears, naming. Indeed, you have stated that the recent suicide bombing outside the gates of the Danish Embassy was preventable if we in the West would just silence all criticism of Islam. Since you have been so kind as to take the first step and open up a dialogue on the topic, there are just a few minor things that we too find offensive and were wondering if you perhaps could do something about them.



- Do you think you could discuss your Koranic interpretations that are used to legitimize terrorism and indiscriminate murder to advance Islam. We realize that the Wahhabi, Salafi, and Deobandi sects in particular interpret the Koran to mean that they can freely murder non-Muslims or enslave them and rape them. [Update: For specific references to these doctrines being taught in a Saudi school in Virginia, read the USCIFR report here.] Perhaps you can understand why we might find that offensive. This is made all the more problematic when one realizes that those sects hold that challenging their existing Salafi Koranic interpretations are "redda (apostasy) punishable by death . . ." Thus some of us could misinterpret your reasonable request to alter our laws of free speech to criminalize the criticism of Islam as a backdoor attempt to impose your will and your religion on the West. Perhaps you can clarify that for us.



While we are on the topic of terrorism, you have allowed your country to become ever more radicalized over the past four decades by throwing open your doors to Saudi madrassas that promote incredible racism, xenephobia and violence. You knowingly allowed the A.Q. Khan network to operate as a nuclear Walmart for the most dangerous regimes around the world. You created the Taliban movement and are, today, at most doing less than nothing to combat it, and at worst, actively supporting it in its efforts to retake Afghanistan. Hopefully you will understand why we find that a trifle problematic and, in the long run, untenable. While we ponder offending you, perhaps you might ponder your role in killing us and spreading terrorism.


- Some have expressed dismay at your treatment of Muslims who decide they do not believe in Islam or that convert to another faith, such as Christianity. We take some offense at executing people for their religious beliefs. I realize that despite the threat of death, conversions to Christianity from Islam are occuring with ever greater rapidity. Are you so unsure of your religion that you can only maintain outward belief and retention by threatening death? And on a related topic, do you think you can get the Saudis to stop cutting off peoples heads for witchcraft? Not to be too judgmental, but the emphasis of your religious police on ferreting out witches and breaking spells (which accroding to the grand inquistor are to be found in the sea) seems all a trifle medieval. Perhaps it becomes understandable when one realizes that Saudi Arabia only put the flat earth theory behind them with the recent turn of the millenium. A fatwa issued by the Grand Mufti in 1993 instructed "the earth is flat. Whoever claims it is round is an atheist deserving of punishment."



- Your ideas of religious freedom seem a tad lacking to us. In your country, Pakistan, the charge of blasphemy against the Prophet is being used to steal vast tracts of land from Christians In Algeria, Christians are being jailed by kangaroo courts for practicing their religion. In Saudi Arabia, there is no freedom to practice any religion but Islam, even in the privacy of one's home. No churches can be built in Turkey. Christians are being systematically persecuted and driven from Palestinian controlled portions of the Holy Land. Christains and Jews are second class citizens in virtually all Muslim dominated countries. As long as we are discussing things that bring offense, pehaps you might consider those things.



- About this honor violence and the treatment of women thing, do you think you can work on that? It really does offend some of us in the West - though admittedly not the major feminist groups. I realize women can seem a bit threatening, but do you have to stone them to save your idea of honor? Or gang rape them? Or beat them to death? Or set them on fire? And do you really have to perform female genital mutilation?



- Most of us in the West are a might offended by pedeophilia. I realize the Prophet deflowered a nine year old girl when he was fifty-four, but times have changed over the last millenium and a half. What do you say, can you do away with arranged marriages to and sex with pre-pubescent girls in order to stop offending us?



- Some have noted that court systems applying Sharia law discriminate based on gender and religion. Is there any reason you can think of that a Muslim male's testimony should count twice that of a non-Muslim's or a woman's? We do find such systemic discrimination a bit troubling.



- Is there a reason you keep hanging gays? A substantial number of us are offended by killing or beating a person for their sexual orientation.








Lastly, there are many of us who take offense at the fact that you feel that your interpretation of your religion is above criticism - and indeed, that you act as psychopathic children at any real or imagined slight in an effort to bully the West into silence and dhimmitude. It is difficult to think of anything that would be more dangerous or counterproductive to the West than silencing criticism of Islam or freedom of speech in whatever form. Several of the major sects of your religion - Wahhabi, Salafi, Deobandi, Khomeinist - preach an interpretation of the Koran and Hadiths that are quite literally mired in the Dark Ages and aimed at imposing Muslim domination on the world by any method. They are in desperate need of their period of Enlightenment and maturation that can and will only come through critical thought and debate - or to put it in Islamic terms, ijtihad. Your request to silence free speech in the West would effectively stop that process in its tracks.

I'll tell you what, why don't you get cracking on the things that offend us, and then we'll talk some more about silencing our freedom of speech to keep you happy. Or are our concerns just more Islamophobia on our part? Well, what say you my Paki friends?

Sincerely,

GW


P.S. In countries that already have laws limiting criticism of Islam, we have seen the UK issue a warrant for the arrest of a British blogger for critizing Islam, and in Canada, Mark Steyn was charged with a human rights violation for merely quoting a Wahhabi cleric. Another blogger from Finland was recently jailed for two years for insulting Islam. What more could you ask for, really? Just remember, pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered in the West.

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Interesting News & Posts - 29 February 2008

Interesting news and posts from across the blogosphere:
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Art: A Dream of Solomon, Luca Giordano, 1693

From ABC News: The Joint Chiefs chairman has a word of warning to Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton: A rapid of withdrawal from Iraq would lead to a "chaotic situation" and would "turnaround the gains we have achieved, and struggled to achieve, and turn them around overnight.

The Captain blogs on the Obamanomics of Fear, considering an article in the Economist that says Obama’s economic plans and rhetoric sound "worryingly populist."

From Seraphic Secret: "The impossible situation whereby the Palestinians continue to fire Qassams, while receiving electricity for their Qassam workshops and fuel used by vehicles that fire Qassams, is deluxe terrorism that fits well with the dictum: ‘The master of the house has gone mad.’" I concur. The only way Israel can stop this insanity is to respond with overwhelming force.

From Jammie Wearing Fool: "Like most normal human beings, I'm forever indebted to Matt Drudge for bringing us Monica Lewinsky, among other interesting stories. Over the past ten years, he's gone where most media cowards dare not tread. But what the hell was he thinking by revealing the fact Prince Harry was stationed in Afghanistan? Did we really need to know this?" Nope. We sure didn’t.

Blonde Sagacity tells of the defense being raised in an Australian trial of 12 men on charges of terrorism. Apparently, they were merely responding to the evil of the U.S.

Bull Dog Pundit thinks that McCain passed his "Sister Souljah" moment when he repudiated the statements made by local disc jockey Bill Cunningham taking leveling low class polemics at Obama. I concur and think it will go a long way to inoculating him against charges of racism.

Confederate Yankee ponders whether we "have . . . completely breed the violence of self-preservation out of this generation?"

From the Jawa Report, with appropriate visuals: "Angelina Jolie, official hot bi-curious celebrity babe of The Jawa Report," supports the troop surge.

From Villagers With Torches: VWT is one of the most incisive bloggers out there. His post today revolves around a quote attributed to de Tocqueville : A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy.

U.S. foreign policy for moonbats, from a New Zealand blog posted by an Aussie. And leftie moonbat politics seem to be driving the Kiwis to the land down under. Meanwhile, the Velvet Hammer blogs from the U.S. about multiculturalism and gang violence in Melbourne. You gotta’ love the anglosphere.

Dinah Lord tells us that french supermodel Katoucha Niane, a victim of and activist against Female Genital Mutilation, has been found floating in the Seine.

At Brain Droppings, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is draining the swamp.

From Red Alerts, the deadly toxin ricin has been found in a Las Vegas hotel room. As many as seven people were possibly exposed. No word yet on the circumstances surrounding how the ricin got into the hotel room, though its hard to imagine that this is not connected to terrorism, and while it may make sense for the LVPD to play down the possible connection, it does not pass the smell test.

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More Relating To The Mad Archbishop of Canterbury

More things related to the mad Archbishop of Canterbury who has called for the official recognition of aspects of Sharia law in Britain.


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I have previously blogged on the Archbishop's madness here and here. And I have posted on a report about the prevelance of forced marraige, female genital mutilation, and honor violence in the UK's Muslim population - all of which have a direct or indirect relation to Islam and Sharia law - here. The report also dicusses the problems Britain faces in trying to end these scourges.

There is a case today before Senior Law Judges in the UK where the plaintiff is asking the Court to hold a "forced" marriage - which are recognized as valid under Sharia law - be held null for lack of consent under the public policy of Britain:

Three senior judges are to rule on the legality of an arranged marriage conducted in the UK under sharia law, a judgment that could have profound consequences for British Muslims.

Last week, as Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, declared it was 'inevitable' that certain parts of Islamic law would be introduced into Britain, the Court of Appeal was told how a 26-year-old British Muslim with learning difficulties was married over the telephone to a woman in Bangladesh. It was arranged by the man's father and deemed lawful under sharia law.

Lord Justice Thorpe, Lord Justice Hall and Lady Justice Hallett were asked by the man's family to reject an earlier decision that, because the groom was unable to give his consent, the marriage was unlawful. Mr Justice Wood said that the true test into the validity of the marriage was 'whether the marriage is so offensive to the conscience of the English court that it should refuse to recognise and give effect to the proper foreign law'.

The judge added that the long-standing British policy to recognise sharia marriages conducted abroad should be offset by the understanding that 'there are occasions when such a marriage cannot be recognised in England, for example where to do so would be repugnant to public policy'.

The case was brought by Westminster city council community services department after the local authority raised concerns about a marriage in which the groom could not possibly have given consent because of his learning disabilities.

The marriage took place in September 2006. Although the bridegroom stayed in London and listened to the ceremony by speakerphone, the ceremony took place in Bangladesh and was declared valid under sharia law.

Yogi Amin of the law firm Irwin Mitchell, representing Westminster council, said: 'This case highlights that the law in this country may clash with sharia law and the cultural wishes of the family.' He added: 'The High Court held that the marriage in this case ... is not valid under English law, and that any marriage entered into by this vulnerable adult whether inside or outside England will not be recognised under English law.'

Legal experts said the case would have ramifications for plans to make forced marriages - often arranged marriages involving youngsters - prohibited in the UK under case law. . . .

Read the article. It should be noted that the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has "block[ed] attempts to criminalise forced marriage."

The reaction to the Archbishop across the pond has been heartening. For example, from the Times today, Minnette Marrin writes: "Archbishop, You Have Committed Treason." Then there is this exceptional article in the Times which does an excellent job of catalouging not only the "backlash" to the Archbishop's remarks, but also gives possibly the most thorough and balanced discussion of Sharia law and its application in other countries that I have seen so far..

The Head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, has weighed in on the contreversy, saying "I don't believe in a multicultural society. When people come into this country they have to obey the laws of the land."

And Ali Eteraz writes why he is oposed to Sharia courts in the UK.

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