Monthly Stats

At the beginning of the month I subscribed to a free web service which provides you with statistics for your website or blog: number of visitors, their locations, etc.

So here's a round-up of this month's stats:

Race Relations had a total of 73 unique visitors this month; that's an average of about 2 1/3 a day. Of these, the vast majority of users lived in either the US (which was top) or the UK (second place), but I also had visitors from Europe, Israel, and even a couple of Muslim countries: Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. Wonder what they made of it. The assassins are probably at my doorstep as I write. Happy Halloween!

They used a number of different web browsers, but most of them were using Windows XP to run those browsers.

Perhaps most interesting of all is the Google searches that led people to discover this site. There was a lot of interest in Islam that brought people here, and one of the odder text search strings that led people to find Race Relations was "authority hegemony hanafi cairo". I wonder what they were intending to find, but in any case I imagine it would have led them to my article about Islamic law. There was another strange one that two separate people got here by searching for: "watch X2". I imagine that would have led them to "Raw Watch X2", but what on earth were they looking for in the first place? A way to watch X-Men 2 online, perhaps?

There were also four people who got here by searching for "Islamispeace". Wonder whether they got what they expected.

What is most disconcerting is the fact that four people also found me by searching for the BNP. I can remember a few instances where they have been mentioned here, but I can't help but wonder how many of those who searched for them were hoping to find support for them when they clicked the link to this site.

Oh well, it is clear enough, I think, that I do not support the BNP, and I'm just going to take this moment to say to anyone who has visited Race Relations in the past month: you are welcome to come back again, and even comment!

Migrant Heaven UK

I see that half of the new jobs which have been created since Labour came to power in 1997 have been given to foreign immigrants.

But if you are concerned about this or think it's at all symptomatic of a government that wants to destroy every vestige of Britishness here, you're a racist, I bet.

Lions And So On...

BBC Radio 2 host Sarah Kennedy is in trouble for claiming on-air that she almost ran over a black man the other night, and what saved him was the fact that he yawned which allowed her to realise he was there.

My verdict: Not racist.

She's been in trouble for racial quips before, too. In 2000 she was forced to apologise for saying that Africans were good at running because they were used to being chased by lions. I love this quip; it's hilarious!

Except not to the fascist PC brigade, obviously.

And wait a minute, what's the Mail doing publishing a story like this? I thought they were meant to be racist and hateful themselves...

Round-up

Two Loony Left opinion pieces today, both expressing the same self-aggrandising self-righteousness that we have come to expect from politically correct liberals.

1. This one goes over the whole recent "are black people less intelligent than white people" debate in the same trite, factually and intellectually bankrupt way we have come to expect from its predecessors.

2. And this one is written by a University of California student and is a straight smear piece against David Horowitz, the organiser of the recent Islamo-Fascism Awareness week in American college campuses. The author makes the same tired cliched arguments but can't quite get around to explaining why Horowitz is wrong.

Schools Told To Root Out "Institutional Racism"

Schools must root out institutional racism before they can succeed in carrying out a new legal duty to promote community cohesion, a senior adviser to the Government warned today.

Sir Keith Ajegbo, the author of a report on an inquiry into how to promote British values in schools, spoke out about the "shocking statistic" that black Afro-Caribbean boys were three times more likely to be permanently excluded from school than white youngsters.

Of course, it couldn't possibly be that more black Afro-Caribbean boys are excluded because they are simply naughtier children. To suggest such a thing is inexcusable to some. Well guess what: if I suggest such a thing, it does not mean I am a racist or that I hate black people. I am simply interested in the truth. The same goes for school headmasters who exclude black boys. The same "shocking statistics" also often show that Chinese and Japanese students do the best of all races at school. If school authorities are racist, why would this be the case? Why wouldn't white people be at the top with all other races languishing far below?

Logic has never been the PC Left's strong suit.

Round-up

1. This article says it's racism if you are against Muslim women voting while wearing the burqa. Fine. So it's misogynistic if you want them to wear the burqa. And what race is Islam again?

2. Administrators at an Iowa high school pulled copies of a student newspaper earlier this week after complaints arose about a racism survey in the paper, according to the Iowa City Press-Citizen. In a story on the paper's Web site on Wednesday, the Press-Citizen reported that City High School principal Mark Hanson removed copies of the Little Hawk newspaper's Oct. 19 edition. It included a survey finding that 13 percent of students polled viewed blacks unfavorably and two percent viewed whites unfavorably, the Press-Citizen said.

"He said there have been a growing number of black students at the school in recent years, a trend that has caused tension among some students."

Now I wonder: what are the demographics of this? Which group is causing the majority of the problems? Is it really just "whites vs. blacks"? What about Asians? Is there any tension going on between minorities? Does anyone know? Does anyone care?

Round-up

1. Uganda: Racism is Why Obama's Losing to Clinton - Yep, that's the headline of this cliched hit piece. Also check out the references to the Iraq operation as a "slaughter", "illegal war" and "state terrorism", as well as the completely unfounded assumptions about what the American public feel about Barack Obama.

2. UEFA's flagship club competition, the UEFA Champions League, this week provides a high-profile platform for the Action Week being staged by the Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE) network. At matches both last night and tonight, announcements are being made over stadium public address systems; captains are wearing Unite Against Racism armbands; Unite Against Racism logos are appearing on stadium screens; and children escorting players on to the pitch are wearing Unite Against Racism t-shirts. In addition, clubs are distributing the FARE Action Week poster, which is being made available in all stadiums. These and other activities will put over the message that everyone in football - players, fans, referees, coaches, governing bodies and media - has to take a stand against racism and join the fight.

This is all well and good. But what do they actually plan to DO to prevent racism? Because some kids wearing T-shirts isn't going to make a jot of difference to anyone.

"Racist" Party Wins Swiss Election!

"The right-wing Swiss People's Party has won the most votes ever recorded in a general election in Switzerland after mounting a virulent anti-foreigner campaign widely denounced as racist."

I guess the majority of Swiss nationals are racist, then. Oh dear.

Concern...

An anti-racism campaigner reacted with concern to a suggestion that police should increase stop-and-searches of youngsters to halt the wave of teenage murders.

Keith Jarrett, president of the National Black Police Association, says there should be increased use of the controversial policing strategy across all communities.

However, Milena Buyum, coordinator of the National Assembly Against Racism, said the tactic disproportionately affected the black community. "It risks alienating black communities further, and is not a very effective way of catching people who are likely to commit offences," she said.

I think you'll find it IS an effective way, as they are the ones committing the majority of the crime. There is no reason why black communities should be alienated. Do they want their community to be under less scrutiny? Then they should actively work to cut out the reason why anyone would be scrutinising in the first place.

Search The Ones Committing The Crime

One of Britain's leading black police officers is to demand that more people from ethnic minorities must be stopped and searched if the fight against inner-city gun and knife crime is to succeed.

Good. It is amazing that a black man has to be the first one to say this in the first place. When dealing with a crime, you deal with those who are actually committing it - in this case, black youths are responsible for most gun crime. The same goes for Islamic terrorism, as well, of course.

It's Racist To Prevent Crime

Did you read the other day that a police crackdown on cannabis factories run by Vietnamese drug barons has been scrapped after officers were warned their actions might be racist?

Amazing, isn't it? The police are no longer allowed to arrest people who are committing crime. Political correctness is the REAL crime.

The Vatican Response (Plus: Anjem Choudary Bonus Clip)

Remember that rather disingenuous letter to the Vatican by 138 Muslim scholars last week? Well, the Vatican have now replied.

The Vatican praised a "novel" Muslim call for dialogue but said real theological debate with them was difficult as they saw the Koran as the literal word of God and would not discuss it in depth.

"The fact that Muslims can build mosques in Europe while many Islamic states limit or ban church building cannot be ignored, [Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran] said."

This is due to the Islamic dhimmi laws, which specifically prohibit the building of new Christian churches in Muslim lands - among a number of other discriminations.

Of course, Reuters gets some fashionable but unfounded assumptions into the text:

"The appeal last week by 138 scholars representing a large majority of Islamic views invited Christian leaders to a dialogue based on their common belief that love of God and neighbor is the cornerstone of their religions.

It was unprecedented because Islam has no central authority to speak for all believers, especially not the silent minority that does not agree with radicals whose preaching of jihad and rejection of other faiths often dominates the headlines."

And while we are on the subject of Islam, here is a free video. It's an old one, coming from November 2006, but it's a good one nevertheless. In it, British jihadist Anjem Choudary explains on BBC television that British non-combatants are considered legitimate targets for suicide attacks because they are not Muslim, and therefore are not innocent as they have committed a "crime against God". How do "moderate" Muslims refute these claims on Islamic grounds? And for that matter, why haven't they even tried?

Everyone's A Little Bit Racist

Have you ever heard of Avenue Q? It's an award-winning Broadway musical, the stars of which are mostly puppets, operated by actors on the stage. It is essentially an imitation of Sesame Street, only it is a comedy and covers adult themes.

One of the songs in the show is called "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist". You can hear it in the video below. Ignore the silly Star Wars video which someone has edited over the top of the song, but the song itself is quite funny, and very close to the truth:

Faux Apology?

Dr James Watson, the Nobel Prize winning scientist who caused controversy recently when he suggested that blacks were genetically less intelligent than whites, has apologised for his remarks.

Why? I do not believe that Watson is sincerely in this apology. There are two ways of looking at it:

- He made the comments for absolutely no reason and with no evidence whatsoever, and now regrets them, which seems highly unlikely
- He still believes everything he said, but has decided to just throw a veil over it all by issuing an "apology" that is false, because he knows it's probably preferable to trying to press the case and being verbally abused by liberals and the media.

I suspect the latter is more true, although I will wait to see if Watson has any more to say on the matter. But I personally resent the nature of today's politically correct culture which means that no one is even considering doing some proper scientific research to see if there is any truth to the scientist's original statements. After all, as I have said before: Let's assume that Watson is right and that blacks are less intelligent on average than whites. Wouldn't it be helpful to know this, so that changes can be made in the way we deal with them and even so that we could help them?

Amis - "We are more evolved than Muslim societies"

The author Martin Amis has claimed he feels 'morally superior' to Muslim states which are not as 'evolved' as the Western world.

What follows in this article are some of Amis' statements on the subject. He comes across to me as a little confused about exactly what it is that he believes, and a little OTT, but what is fundamentally racist about pointing out the hatred and intolerance of radical Muslims - or the mainstream Islamic theology these things are drawn from?

Amis says Islamic society is the true racist, misogynistic and homophobic entity. Is it unfair of him to say this? I don't think so. As I have outlined before, Islam harbours elements of all these things:

- RACISM: While Islam isn't overtly racist, there are a few dodgy aspects, such as Muhammad's infamous "raisin-head" quote regarding black Ethiopians
- MISOGYNY: Islam certainly is misogynistic and oppressive towards women. Islamic law levies all sorts of discriminations on women - mandated by Muhammad's own words. Amis says that "the Koran recommends the beating of women". This is not untrue - it's in Qur'an 4:34.
- HOMOPHOBIA: Again, this is fact. Islamic law mandates the death penalty for homosexuality and Muhammad himself said: "Kill the one who sodomises and the one who lets it be done to him".

And what of Amis' comments about Western society being more "civilised" and "evolved" than Islamic society? It may be worded provocatively, but this is something we should all be affirming for ourselves. When one studies Islam honestly, one can see that it offers a vision of a worldview and society vastly different from our own - one that is totalitarian, oppressive, and denies freedom of thought and conscience. We should be standing up for Western values of freedom and democracy and asserting their superiority over the Islamic way of life. Not in the sense of bragging, taunting or provoking, but simply recognising the value of the Western system, so that we are prepared to defend it against an enemy that seeks to supplant it with something much worse.

Amis may be out to provoke and insult, but his points ring a lot truer than most people seem to realise.

And incidentally, the very fact that the Daily Mail is publishing this is in a disapproving tone rather destroys the idea I have been hearing too much of recently: that it is a racist, bigoted paper. As do the indignant reactions of many of the paper's readers commenting on the website, who see Amis as a hateful and repulsive person. But left-wing fantasies have always been preferable to the truth among the brain-dead.

Round-up

1. Four Indian cricket fans have been charged for allegedly racially abusing Australian cricketer Andrew Symonds by making monkey gestures, police say.

2. The Science Museum last night cancelled a talk by Nobel Prize winning scientist Dr James Watson after he was accused of making “racist” comments implying Africans were not as intelligent as whites. DNA pioneer Dr Watson, who discovered the double helix with Briton Francis Crick, has been roundly condemned for saying he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really”.

Now then - I have said this for some time now. I am not a geneticist, but I have always claimed that it is entirely feasible that Africans - being essentially more primitive forms of humanity which white people evolved from - could be on average less intelligent than other races. I do not know this to be the case, and in truth I do not really care. But if this is indeed the truth - and of course, PC bigots don't want to listen to the view of a Nobel-winning DNA expert - why not accept it instead of moaning about it? Dr Watson says later in the article that African people should not be discriminated against because of this. That is the difference. It is one thing to say that black Africans may be less intelligent than other races. That is not racist - that is a statement based on scientific evidence. If you then go on to say that Africans should be treated differently by discrimination (not the simple change in policy espoused by Dr Watson here), THEN it becomes racist.

Professor Steven Rose said of Watson's statements that "no evidence that claimed to find people of African descent were less intelligent than Europeans or other racial groups had stood up to scientific scrutiny". Well, of course they haven't. Not when the scientific community is dedicated to proving them wrong because they don't want them to be true.

Once again here: I am NOT saying that Watson's views on the matter are necessarily correct. I'm simply saying that it is not racist and, if he has a case to make, we should listen to it.

3. Yesterday I reported in my round-up that Chelsea stars Didier Drogba and Michael Essien were trying to get England players in Russia to write "skin" on their hands to protest against racism. Today I read that they are releasing a song called "Skins", during which Drogba raps.

I take it all back. Yesterday, I said somewhat sarcastically: "Yep, that'll do it." But now they're releasing a song, that's surely going to bring success in ending racism, right? Of course it is; what are you, a bigot or something?

Quote of the Day...And Possibly the Century

"You should not drink...and bake."

~ Arnold Schwarzenegger, Raw Deal (1986)

How Not To Get Your Ass Kicked

Check out this video starring American black comedian Chris Rock, in which he offers advice to the black community on how to avoid getting their asses kicked by the police.

I wondered what we were in for when I first opened it, but was surprised to find that it is actually advice that many black people (as well as criminals from other races, of course) would do well to heed. And pretty funny too.

Round-up

1. RAW Watch - Racism is Alive and Well in South Dekotan schools

Note how this one once again makes the dubious claim that "the racism may not always be obvious...it may be hidden in written tests or through the denial of access to a student's information." So it's another one of those things where you are allowed - virtually encouraged, in fact - to believe that pretty much any little grievance that comes your way is in fact to do with "subtle" racism, with no proof. POLITICAL CORRECTNESS MUST DIE.

2. Check out this piece of self-loathing vitriol by a white Democrat in Tallahassee. Whitey's just scum, ain't he? Them blacks never do anything wrong.

3. I also read today that Chelsea players Michael Essien and Didier Drogba have encouraged the England players playing in Russia today to combat racism by writing "skin" on their hands. Yep, that'll do it.

Political, Much?

Do you remember the Rock Against Racism gig, which featured such stars as Lethal Bizzle, Wiley and Jerry Dammers - who all then pulled out?

Well, those crazy "rockers" are back and endorsing a new CD with pretty much the same aim and cause. There are some new obscure musical talents to marvel over - and Pete Docherty is even on this one. So perhaps "talents" is used excessively.

And what exactly is the goal they're working towards? Yep, it's a "campaign to mobilise young people against the fascist British National Party (BNP)." So rather than being a moral crusade against racism as a whole, it is directed at a perfectly legitimate and mostly legal political party whose "fascist" views they happen to disagree with.

In the first place, I don't happen to think that a CD of sub-par music is going to go a SINGLE STEP towards ending racism. And in the wake of that, it is clear that this campaign is misrepresenting itself as moral and cultural, when in fact it is simply political.

Round-up

1. Members of a white supremacist group have clashed with anti-racism demonstrators in Calgary. They were protesting a Canadian law that lets Muslim women vote in today's municipal election wearing a burka.

OK, you should hopefully know by now that I don't support or endorse white supremacist groups. On the subject they were protesting, however, I have some sympathy. Not for the manner in which they demonstrated their annoyance, and not for the underlying motives behind the violence, which are inherently pure racism. I am happy for Muslims women - and indeed all legal citizens - to vote, even while wearing the burka. But, even so, I would like to see this symbol of Islamic misogyny and oppression banished from the West forever.

2. RAU Watch - Racism Alive and Unwell in Scotland

3. Halle Berry is whingeing about racism in the movie business.

Islamic Round-up

1. In a disgraceful act of dhimmitude, New York is going to be lighting the Empire State Building green in celebration of the Muslim festival of Eid, the end of Ramadan.

What a lovely way to encourage those who committed the worst act of terrorism in history right there in the same city.

2. More than 130 Muslim scholars have written to the Pope and other Christian leaders urging better understanding between the two faiths.

The letter identifies similarities in both religions, such as the requirements to accept only one god and live in peace with one's neighbours.

The cheek here is that Muhammad actually labelled Christians as polytheists, because he saw the association of Jesus as part of the Holy Trinity to be encouraging the worship of more than one god. Islam prides itself on being a pure monotheism, which the other religions aren't.

It also insists that Christians and Muslims worship the same god. The letter, the text of which will be released in Washington on Thursday, says Mohammed was told the same truths that had already been revealed to other prophets, Christian and Jewish, including Jesus.

They also cite the Koran as placing a duty on Muslims to treat Christians and Jews as followers of those prophets with particular friendship.

The implication of this already is that Jesus was in fact a MUSLIM Prophet, and it seems these scholars carefully leave out the fact that Muhammad went on to say that Christianity and Judaism are false religions and that their followers have cynically twisted the teachings of Allah for their own wicked ends. And they will of course have quoted abrogated early suras to show that Muhammad wanted "friendship" with other religions. In fact, he was just trying to gain their respect so they would convert to Islam. When they didn't, he turned on them and commanded that Muslims wage war on them until they submit.

Kitman in action.

It comes on the anniversary of an open letter issued to the Pope last year from 38 top Muslim clerics, after he made a controversial speech on Islam. Pope Benedict sparked an uproar in September last year by quoting a mediaeval text which linked Islam to violence.

In fact, the Pope's speech was a carefully reasoned invitation to engage in a dialogue between the two religions. The response was death threats, outrage and mass riots from the Muslim world.

I think that "understanding" between the two religions is a long way off yet.

What a Surprise! (Not!)

You will of course remember by stinging critique of Islamispeace.org.uk, a phony, taqiyya-laden website devoted to spreading misinformation about Islam in Britain.

Well, turns out that this campaign is being supported by the Muslim Association of Britain - a group with previous ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

That's the way it always goes, folks. It was clear from the blatantly deliberate misrepresentations of Islamic doctrine on their page (their biography of Muhammad misses out every single violent act he ever committed, and claims that the Quraysh "fiercely persecuted the Muslims) that they weren't a real moderate group. They're just a shill for radicals who are using this to spread a campaign of lies. After all, remember that the Qur'an says: "Let not the believers Take for friends or helpers Unbelievers rather than believers: if any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah: except by way of precaution, that ye may Guard yourselves from them." (3:28) This has led to the doctrine of taqiyya, which allows Muslims to lie about their beliefs to non-Muslims in order to make them let their guard down. And people are taking the bait.

On a related note, if you do a Google search for "islamispeace"; you will find that the third link is to my post here last week.

Round-up

1. France's most famous living philosopher, Bernard-Henri Lévy, has singled out President Nicolas Sarkozy's closest adviser and speech-writer as being the "extreme-Right" hand behind his "racist" discourse. Mr Lévy lashed out in a radio interview at Henri Guaino, Mr Sarkozy's powerful "special" adviser who has an office next to the president's in the Elysée Palace. Mr Guaino was behind a speech the president gave in Senegal in June, which outraged many. In it, Mr Sarkozy said "the tragedy of Africa is that the African has not fully entered into history," and that for the traditional African "there is no place for human adventure or for the idea of progress".

"It's he [Guaino] who wrote this ignoble speech, it's disgusting. That's Guaino, that's racism," said Mr Levy.

No it isn't. It is a shame when we get smart men, philosophers such as this man and Noam Chomsky, talking such liberal rubbish. I did like Guaino's response, though: "Who does he think he is? What's he done in his life that's so extraordinary to allow him to judge me like that? I have never met BHL. He doesn't like me, nor I him. He doesn't love France. I do. He has spit on his lips, with hatred oozing from his pores." That's cutting, to say the least.

2. The government of John Howard is being accused of engaging in racism as it faces likely defeat in the national election. Critics say it is ''playing the race card'' and using ''dog whistling'', the technique of sending a message designed to be heard by only one particular section of the community. In this case, the government appears to be pitching its message towards those Australians who are disturbed or somehow frightened by the presence of tall, black Africans.

Yes, there apparently really is such a demographic. What are they going to call this "fright"? Tallandblackophobia?

3. Fashion industry insiders have criticised modelling agencies for encouraging a culture of "blatant racism" in the business and announced an emergency summit with race campaigners and politicians to try to tackle the issue. "I can't remember being sent a model who wasn't white," said a former fashion manager. "I don't know if it's racism, or just the fashion industry languishing in the doldrums, but it needs to change. Agencies only seem interested in leggy white blonde girls."

Note how this woman's outrage is focused on the "white" part of that last statement. Apparently the fact that non-blondes and girls who aren't "leggy" are also supposedly discriminated against doesn't enter her radar.

A Couple of Rebuttals...

I was at a journalism seminar today, and there were a couple of race-related comments from participants which really got my goat, and which I feel the need to quickly respond to here. I was sorely tempted to speak up upon hearing them, but alas, I held my tongue.

The first comment came from someone who is actually a good friend of mine, but whose politics are nevertheless sometimes highly disagreeable to me. During a discussion about journalistic agendas in the media, he suddenly piped up by mentioning the anti-immigration agenda of the Daily Mail, "which borders on racism a lot of the time".

This is plain wrong. There is nothing racist about the Daily Mail. Firstly, there is a big difference between being against uncontrolled immigration - which the Mail is - and being against all immigration. And secondly, there is an even bigger difference between being opposed to uncontrolled immigration and simply hating all immigrants or foreigners - the latter being a position that the Mail has NEVER held. The myth of the "racist" Daily Mail is a long-established one, but in fact the Mail has only ever been against uncontrolled immigration and the problems that arise from it, not against immigration itself, and certainly never against immigrants as a whole. I suspect the myth of the Hateful Mail comes largely from the fact that they concentrate more pages on immigration issues that other papers, as - unlike other papers - they actually realise that it is an important issue that has lasting and significant effects on our country. And, although the liberals won't tell you this, the Mail has also several times published editorial pieces slamming the BNP as a vile, hateful, racist Party. Here is one such article. So much for the "racist" Daily Mail.

The other irksome comment came from a self-righteous liberal type, who thought he was being exceedingly clever when he pointed out the "hypocrisy" of Channel 4. During this year's Big Brother, C4 repeatedly aired feeble apologies for the fact that Emily Parr said the "N-word" (in a completely non-racist, non-threatening, copy-cat context, I might add). And yet, the commenter ranted, C4 followed Big Brother with a documentary "saying that all Muslims in the UK are closet terrorists".

I assume he was talking about the Dispatches documentary which revealed the hatred being preached in "moderate" mosques. Hatred against Jews, Christians and homosexuals, and incitements to violence against them. Imams saying that disobedient women should be beaten by their husbands. THAT is what the documentary was about. It never at any point said that all Muslims hold to these same views; its intention was simply to show the hatred that is being preached, and yet Dispatches is accused of hatred itself. Indeed, the primary purpose of such a documentary is to help moderate, peaceful Muslims, by alerting them to the spread of extremism within their ranks, so that they can weed this ideology out and work to blunt the success that hate-preaching has enjoyed in Western mosques (and of course, an examination as to just why it is that these kinds of teachings are so popular among Muslims in the first place wouldn't go amiss).

Both cases described above illustrate the liberal tendency to classify anything which might place blame or criticism on a non-Western, non-white entity as "racism" or "hatred". In their politically-correct fantasy world, it is unforgivable to suggest that people who aren't white might have done something wrong, or be responsible for their own actions, unless they are somehow the product of something WE did. It is this mindset that makes someone unwilling to consider the fact that our tolerance towards immigration shouldn't extend indefinitely. It is this mindset that makes someone unwilling to consider the fact that some supposedly moderate Muslims aren't really moderate; rather, in their minds, WE are the hateful extremists. Politically correct multiculturalism has very much taken root in this country, and it can only be to the detriment of us all.

Meanwhile, I spend ten minutes of the seminar laughing hysterically, tears streaming down my face, because someone read out a news article they had written, which was about a Chinaman called Ching Chong. Racist, me? Nah, never!

Islam 101 - Part 6

And so we reach the end. I can't be sure that anyone read any of these articles, but I hope that anyone who did so found them interesting, informative, and most of all, important. There is a problem with Islam. It may be only radical Islam which is a threat to the West, rather than Islam per se, but in order to be a threat the radical variant draws on aspects of mainstream, traditional Islamic theology and law. I have demonstrated this over the last six weeks. I hope it was worthwhile.

---------------------------

THE SILENCE OF MODERATE ISLAM

Many non-Muslims find it difficult to believe that Islam is a violent religion given the fact that so many of its adherents are not violent at all, and don't appear to agree with the jihadists' supremacist designs. But are they really moderate? Does the vast majority of the Islamic world condemn jihad in all its forms?

The answer, unfortunately, is no. For starters, numerous polls and surveys have shown that a disturbingly large number of Muslims around the world support or sympathise with terrorism and jihadist sentiments. Polls in Britain have suggested that as many as 25% of British Muslims believe the London bombings in 2005 were justified. 40% would have liked to see Islamic sharia law introduced in Britain. 13% "admire" al Qaeda, because they "fight the West". Results from other countries reveal a similar story. A Pew survey in 2006 concluded that one in seven European Muslims feel that suicide bombings can sometimes be justified, although that number has since fallen slightly. In the Middle East and North Africa, polls have revealed majority answers in support of terrorism among their Muslim populations. On the fifth anniversary of 9/11, Al-Jazeera asked its viewers, "Do you support Osama bin Laden?" 49.9% answered yes. While most of these percentages show minorities, they are still significantly large minorities to cause concern.

Indeed, jihadists and their sympathisers have won elections in Palestine and elsewhere in the last few years. None of these countries harbour a democracy akin to any found in the West. Nowhere in the Islamic world today do non-Muslims enjoy full equality of rights with Muslims, and the Coalition's mission to bring democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq has resulted in the implementation of laws and constitutions which are little different to before - including sharia rulings for the oppression of non-Muslims and the death penalty for apostasy.

Some have estimated that the number of Muslims who support jihad to some degree may be roughly one in ten. This sounds comforting, for it is indeed a small percentage - until you realise that this adds up to a hundred million people worldwide. The truth is that there is no way to tell how many Muslims are truly peaceful and believe in Western notions of pluralism and tolerance. We could take each of them at their word. But it would be suicidal to assume that the number is small without asking some difficult questions, especially in light of how much terrorist violence today is committed by Muslims.

The suspicion with which many people regard Muslims today is not assuaged by the leaders of supposedly "moderate" Muslim groups, who do little to suggest that they are truly interested in stopping fellow Muslims from becoming jihadists and coexisting peacefully with non-Muslims. Some of the biggest Muslim front groups have, however, invented "Islamophobia", which is a clever term designed to silence any criticism of Islam or examination of the elements within it that give rise to jihad violence. Groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim Council of Britain, instead of unilaterally renouncing the jihad ideology and pledging their full loyalty to their respective countries, instead spend most of their time complaining that non-Muslims aren't doing enough to accomodate them, and are "bigoted" towards them.

But in reality, both these groups have questionable backgrounds. CAIR was founded by Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmad - who at that time were working for the Islamic Association for Palestine, a front group for Hamas. Awad has in the past expressed his support for Hamas (although he claims his words were misrepresented), while CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper has said, "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the Constitution of the United States to be Islamic some time in the future". Several high-ranking CAIR officials have been arrested due to links with terrorist groups. Most recently, CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case. Their representatives have also several times refused to outright condemn Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist organisations.

The MCB, meanwhile, has affiliated itself with several highly questionable extremist and anti-Semitic groups, such as Markazi Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith, a Muslim "charity" which spends much time in its publications blaming the Jews for all the world's ills. The MCB has also in the past called for sharia rules to be introduced in Britain and for "un-Islamic" activities such as school plays to be banned.

So what is a moderate Muslim? Is it one who has never committed any violent acts of jihad? If so, that would mean that the majority of Muslims around the world are indeed moderate. But is this because they have definitively rejected Islam's violent supremacist aspects, or because they are simply ignorant of them? To a surprising degree, the latter is most true. Many Muslims around the world are largely ignorant about many aspects of their religion. This is for a variety of historical and cultural reasons, including the fact that the Qur'an must be recited in Arabic only, which many Muslims today cannot speak. Even some of the most devout Muslims only have a passing acquaintance with what the Qur'an actually says. I remember reading about a Pakistani Muslim who was immensely proud of the fact that he had managed to memorise huge sections of the Qur'an by heart. He then said that he one day planned to buy a translation so he could find out what it was actually saying.

As in all religions, there is a large spectrum of belief in Islam, from incredible dedication to casual prayer. There are some parts of the world, such as central Asia, where violence and supremacism are simply not taught to Muslims, and so they are ignorant of these principles. This is changing, however, as jihadists make inroads into peaceful communities and present their version of Islam as "pure Islam", and use citations from the Qur'an to fuel their efforts.

What should genuine moderate Muslims be doing to stem the flow of jihadists committing violence in the name of Islam? Simply put, they should be confronting the aspects of Islam, the Qur'anic quotations and so on, that jihadists are using to justify terrorism. They should then be coming up with new, non-literalist ways to interpret this material, as Christians have done for centuries with the Bible. Then they should be setting up initiatives in schools and mosques to teach against Qur'anic literalism and jihad supremacism, so that jihadists will not have a theological leg to stand on when they come to make new recruits among peaceful Muslims. They should directly assure Western non-Muslims that they have no loyalty to the Qur'an's doctrines of jihad and subjugation, and no intention, now or in the future, to replace Western laws with sharia, even by peaceful means. As things stand, most Muslim authorities are not doing these things. They do not flat-out reject jihad; they only mouth hollow platitudes about condemning "terrorism" and attacks on "innocent civilians", which - as we have seen - does not stop the jihadists from doing what they're doing. Islamic moderation cannot be taken as given until they actually show signs of being markedly different in ideology from the jihadist element.

There are, of course, some genuine reformers in the Muslim world. There are also many apostates who have renounced the religion because they could not square its traditions with their consciences. Ex-Muslims (or ex-jihadists) such as Ibn Warraq, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Walid Shoebat and Ali Sina have written books and publically called for reform, and made many of the same arguments that I have been making during the course of these articles. It is interesting that while I will invariably be called a "bigot", "anti-Islam", "hate-monger" and a bunch of other lovely terms, when Muslims or ex-Muslims make the same arguments they largely get ignored. But in fact, they are the ones we should be listening to the hardest. At present their numbers are small, but with more awareness among Muslims and non-Muslims alike this can hopefully be changed.

And what can we as non-Muslims do to help them, and to fight the war we are in? For starters, we can recognise that this war is not against "religious fundamentalism" or "terrorism" - it is against Islamic jihad. Then we can begin to call out Islamic countries on their closeness to the jihad ideology. We should base our foreign policy on this principle, and withdraw aid from any country which supports jihad and Islamic supremacism. We should work towards finding new energy sources to replace our dependency on Middle Eastern oil. We should place tighter controls on Muslims immigrating into Western nations, by establishing (as best we can) their loyalty to the jihadist agenda. We should monitor mosques for signs of extremist activity. Overall the absolute highest priority is to recognise the threat we face from militant Islam and then to formulate positive ways to deal with it.

On this, the future of Western Judeo-Christian civilisation stands.

Round-up

1. A dozen Somali families are being moved out of a troubled estate in Bristol because of racist attacks. The city council said a handful of residents on the Hillfields estate, in the east of the city, have caused abuse, violence and harassment. Incidents have included scarves being pulled off and verbal abuse.

Scarves being pulled off! Brrrrrrrrr!

Seriously, it's odd how the British people are always depicted as crazed Neanderthals in these kinds of stories, in opposition to the perfectly proper, flawless "persecuted" ethnic minorities. I'm not saying that there is anything admirable or justified about these people's behaviour, but no attempt is made to actually find out the misgivings the Brits might have about these people, apart from a brief mention of housing problems. Maybe those misgivings are legitimate and valid. Maybe the ethnics are not as rosy as they claim to be. Again, I'm not suggesting that's necessarily the case here, but how are we to know if we don't ask? We don't even know how many incidents of racism occurred here.

2. AFRICAN community leaders in Australia will complain to the Human Rights Commission over comments by Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews that African refugees are involved in crime and violence.

Mr Andrews said yesterday that he had material highlighting concerns about gangs, fights between Africans at nightclubs, family violence and an increase in crime among African youths.

He said there were reports of African males congregating in parks at night to drink, and disagreements between prominent organisations about favoured treatment in accessing community services.

Where is the racism in this? Only the Africans will be able to tell you.

3. RAICTVMIHMWFC Watch....."Racism is alive, insidious and clearly targeted at those 'visible' minorities of immigrant heritage, the majority of whom are French citizens."

OK, it doesn't slip of the tongue quite as well as RAW Watch, I admit.

Deja Vu?

Yesterday I posted a link to Islamispeace.org.uk - a pathetic (and taqiyya-laden) site devoted to telling us that Islam is a Religion of Peace and that Britain is Islamophobic - and then thoroughly debunked its claims.

Well, I just realised that I have seen this very website before - I posted about it here at Race Relations in July.

I was aware that I had seen and commented on a similar site before; however I did not bother to check to see if it was the same one. Rather than being a resurgence of the same campaign, I thought it was a new one. In any case, the actual site itself has changed its format a little, which is why I didn't recognise it, but the content remains much the same.

In future I will remember to check whether I have covered certain things before - but I still think it was a useful exercise to expose these outrageous lies in more detail than I did the first time around.

Round-up

1. The British Asian head of the National Union of Teachers, has warned that teaching British values to students could encourage racism. This is the usual rubbish we have come to expect from liberals and non-whites. Everything is racism.

2. A bunch of "Asian" anglers in Ontario are accusing local residents of racism because they have chased and threatened the anglers away from the area.

But residents of this idyllic hamlet on the shore of Big Rideau Lake, 45 minutes north of Kingston, tell a different story. Yes, there is palpable anger in town toward the "Asian" anglers, but it has nothing to do with race. Residents claim some of the many GTA anglers of Asian descent, who make repeated late-night pilgrimages to harvest crappies and rock bass, have also been caught poaching prized bass and walleye from local sanctuaries.

"This has nothing to do with racism, and everything to do with protecting the fish," says Charlie Jones, a member of a fish conservation group. "These people have been caught time and time again over the last five years either over-fishing or taking fish from the sanctuary."

Although I have to ask: what on earth are "crappies"?

3. Black people are more likely to have strokes and other health problems, apparently. The article seems to consider every possible reason for this - including attributing it to racism, believe it or not. But it doesn't seem willing to probe into whether black people simply have weaker immune systems or other biological deficiencies which could lead to higher rates of people having problems.

Islamispeace.org.uk...

Oh dear; it's ANOTHER "Islam is peaceful, really" website. This is also a campaign which is being spread on London buses.

Check out the page about "Misconceptions" about Islam. Almost everything there is wrong.

Misconception 1: Jihad means holy war

The site says jihad is really a "struggle against evil inclinations within oneself." In fact, most, if not all, of the Qur'an's mentions of jihad are militant in context. Muhammad spoke in graphic language - talk of beheading and cutting off fingers and toes - and exempted the elderly and disabled from jihad. This would make no sense if he were referring to a peaceful inner struggle. The most reliable hadith, Bukhari, contains over 200 uses of the word "jihad", and not a single one of them makes any reference to a peaceful "war against the self".

Misconception 3: Islam was spread by the sword

The site says this is a myth. Apparently it is historically inaccurate that the Muslims swept out of Arabia and took Damascus in 635, Basrah in Iraq in 636, Antioch in 637, and Jerusalem in 638. They went on to sweep west across North Africa, into Spain, and finally into France, and within 400 years had captured over half of Christendom. I laughed when, right after saying that Islam did not spread by the sword, I read: "Muslims ruled Spain for roughly 800 years." Now then...HOW did Arabian Muslims come to rule Spain?

Misconception 5: Islam oppresses women

The site gives a load of false guff here. It doesn't mention that the Qur'an says women are inferior to men and must be ruled by them (4:34), that a woman's testimony is worth half that of a man's (2:282), that it allows polygamy (4:3), and that it tells husbands to beat their disobedient wives (4:34). Muhammad also called for women to be veiled, and as a result of his own example Islamic law says that if a woman is raped, she must produce four witnesses to testify for her or else she will be punished for adultery.

Misconception 6: Muslims do not believe in Jesus

The site makes clear that Muslims DO believe Jesus is a Prophet. But they don't mention that they believe he was a MUSLIM Prophet and that Christianity is a false religion which has twisted the true teachings of Jesus (e.g. 2:87-90). The Qur'an also denies that Jesus was ever crucified (4:157).

Misconception 7: Terrorism is supported in Islam

The site quotes Qur'an 5:32 to claim that taking of innocent life is forbidden in Islam: "Whoever kills an innocent soul it is as if he killed the whole of Mankind. And whoever saves one, it is as if he saved the whole of Mankind". However, they don't mention that this verse isn't addressed to the Muslims at all, but to the Children of Israel, and is in the past tense. It comes as part of a warning to the Jews not to make war on the Muslims or they will face terrible punishment.

Misconception 8: Islam is intolerant of other religions

The site quotes Qur'an 2:62, which seems to promise a place in Paradise to Jews, Christians and Sabians, as evidence of Islam's divine pluralism. However, Muslim commentators have not rendered this as such. In fact, many take this passage to mean that Jews, Christians and Sabians can only be saved if they convert to Islam. They also do not mention that while Jews and Christians are "honoured" as the People of Book, because they received legitimate revelations from Allah, Islam denies them equality of rights with Muslims by making them dhimmis.

Also check out the website's "5 Point Plan" for making things better:

1. Fight Islamophobia
2. Create dialogue
3. Address grievances
4. Be creative
5. Create Friendships

Note that there's nothing in there about what they plan to do to prevent Muslims from becoming jihadists. No mention of teaching peaceful coexistence to Muslims, no setting up of nationwide and global initiatives to teach against the jihad ideology in mosques. Nope, it's all about what WE can do to stop being so "Islamophobic".

All in all, genuine Islamic moderation flies out of the window like a filthy swine yet again.

Round-up

1. A primary school in Louisiana is investigating an incident in which a noose was placed around a kindergarten child's neck.

The Alma J Brown Elementary School newspaper published pictures of black adults placing the noose around at least one child's neck at a mock rally on the same day as the mass anti-racism protest at Jena in September.

This sounds dreadful to begin with, but a quick examination of the article makes it clear that this was in fact an anti-racist rather than a racist statement. I'm not a fan of it, anyway, because I don't like this emotional pleading to 50-year-old trends that by-and-large are not applicable today to make a political point. It smacks of manipulation.

2. A former Los Angeles firefighter who said his co-workers were racist and even once fed him dog food was awarded 1.43 million dollars as part of a discrimination settlement, officials said Tuesday.

The Los Angeles City Council also voted to grant Tennie Pierce, a 19-year fire department veteran, 60,000 dollars in back pay, making him eligible for pension benefits.

OK, first of all I see no evidence of racism here apart from the fact that he was black. In fact, I find it equally likely that the other firemen may have picked on him because he was the "young one" - only 19.

Secondly, the amount we're talking about here - $1.43m - is clearly crazy, even if the incidents were racially motivated. No way can such an extortionate amount be justified.

And then there is this:

"But Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa vetoed the settlement when photos surfaced of Pierce participating in hazing directed at another firefighter."

You see that? Our poor "victim" has been involved in treating someone else exactly the same way. And yet he's won over a million dollars from his mistreatment. Why? Because he's black, and the other guy wasn't. Who said discrimination was a bad thing?

Islam 101 - Part 5

ISLAM VS. CHRISTIANITY - DIFFERENT TRADITIONS

Even if the Qur'an is more violent than the Bible, when you add up the amounts of violence done by both Islam and Christianity they're about the same, right? So in reality, they're just as bad as each other. Right?

Those with a proper sense of perspective can see otherwise. While both religions (and indeed all religions) have a history of religious violence, it does not inherently follow that they all had the same amount and that it was all of the same nature, or that they pose the same threat to the world today.

Islam spread by the sword. The Islamic world as we know it today was created by a series of brutal conquests of non-Muslim lands that began shortly after Muhammad's death. The Muslims swept out of Arabia and took Damascus in 635, Basrah in Iraq in 636, Antioch in 637, and Jerusalem in 638. They went on to sweep west across North Africa, into Spain, and finally into France. There they were halted at the Battle of Poitiers/Tours, not far from Paris, in 732 AD. And this was only the first wave of jihad. Much more was to come.

This sharply contrasts with Christianity, which did not spread by force. For the first three hundred years of its existence Christians were persecuted by the Romans because they were Christian. In the early days of Christianity the Church sent missionaries out to preach and win people over to their faith. These were priests and monks, not warriors. Islam, on the other hand, spread by using its armies, and attacking lands that had never threatened it, or in some cases even [I]heard[/I] of it until it arrived on the doorstep of some unfortunate future dhimmis. Even when it faced no major resistance, it continued to fight and conquer.

Nevertheless, liberal apologetics will invariably point to two historical conflicts as "proof" that Christianity's history is as bloodstained and barbaric as Islam's:

- THE CRUSADES - As far as the popular wisdom goes, the Crusades were unprovoked acts of imperialist aggression on peaceful Muslim lands. But in fact the Crusades were a late Christian response to 400 years of unprovoked attacks on them by the Muslims, an attempt by Europe to recapture the lands the Muslims had taken, which amounted to over half of Christendom in that 400-year period, and give aid to their besieged Byzantine cousins in the Holy Land. Of course, the Crusaders were not whiter-than-white, and atrocities were committed by both sides. But the idea of unprovoked imperialist Crusades is politically motivated, ahistorical propaganda. In fact, without the Crusades, Europe may well have been Islamised and we would not enjoy the freedoms we now enjoy. The Crusaders, as morally-questionable as they sometimes were, deserve our gratitude, not our scorn.

- THE INQUISITION(S) - To hear liberals tell it, during the Spanish Inquisition and its children, millions of people were killed for the crime of heresy and not conforming to Christian orthodoxy, and this proves how barbarous all of Christendom was at that time. More accurately, the Inquisitions were an aberration in the life of the Church, which historically by no means endorsed such actions. Early church fathers such as Tertullian, Origen and Lactantius all spoke out against capital punishment for heresy. Even when it began to be considered as an option by the authorities, there was no consensus. St. John Chrysostom, one of the most influential church fathers, wrote that "it is not right to put a heretic to death". Others also opposed the idea. The idea that "millions" of people were killed is pure fantasy. Historians have put the number at something like 32,000. However, more recently some have suggested that this number is massively exaggerated and that the number is more like 3,200. In either case, even the highest estimate comes to nothing like the numbers killed by Islamic jihad during the same period. In fact, jihadists kill more people every year than died during the entire Spanish Inquisition. Of course, it is despicable that the Church would ever condone such actions, so clearly against the teachings of Christ, at all. But the Inquisitions were simply not of the same magnitude as the Islamic jihad, and in any case are a matter of history, with no Christian groups trying to repeat them today.

Again grasping at the thinnest of straws, apologists will then try to tell us that there has been just as much Christian terrorism in the modern day as there has been Islamic terrorism. They will point to abortion clinic bombers to prove this point. There are several problems with this, however. Firstly, the amount of lethal attacks over the last 35 years or so is extremely small, not remotely comparable to Islamic violence, which has produced around 9500 terrorist attacks since 9/11 alone. Secondly, Christian authorities have been quick to condemn such violence on Christian grounds - namely that while they believe abortion to be murder, so also are the actions of these terrorists murder. This is contrasted to Islamic condemnations of "terrorism", in which they usually don't even specify who the terrorists are, or otherwise try to whitewash the fact that violence could have anything to do with Islam at all. When it comes to condemning jihad on Islamic grounds, their arguments are pitifully thin. In fact, they have never been inclined to apologise or show a sense of shame for Islamic violence at all. While Christians today still make groveling apologies for the Crusades and the Inquisitions, no serious Islamic authority has ever apologised for the centuries and centuries of jihad waged by its followers in the name of Islam. Are they ignorant? Or do they not care? Or do they support such violence? No one seems willing to ask.

And what of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber? Contrary to the myths that still circulate around liberal circles, McVeigh was not a Christian at all, but an agnostic. He told friends, "Science is my religion".

The Ku Klux Klan were also Christian, we're told, and no one can deny that they didn't do some pretty awful things. Rather, the KKK were a bizarre and non-mainstream offshoot of Christianity, have killed less people in the last fifty years than Islamic terrorists do every single day.

And what of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, which we are told wants to institute religious law in the country? Is this just like the jihadists trying to impose sharia? No. It is not backed by any Christian sects or clerics, and in fact there is much evidence to suggest that the group are little more than a puppet group for cynical Sudanese Muslims who use them to stir up trouble for the government of Uganda. For example, LRA leader Joseph Kony has gone on record denouncing the keeping of pigs - which sounds rather Islamic, doesn't it?

It is clear that Islam poses far more of a threat to the West today than Christianity ever has done. There are no Christian (or Jewish, or Buddhist, or any other religion, for that matter) groups committing acts of violence against unbelievers and quoting scripture to justify themselves. Islam, on the other hand, has been responsible for hundreds of thousands of violent acts on non-Muslims for 1,400 years now - and those acts were usually backed up with specific Islamic traditions and quotes from the Qur'an, and still are today. The few periods during which Islam was not waging war on the rest of the world correspond exactly to the times when it was too weak to pursue military jihad. Westerners need to learn to accept this, in the face of PC multiculturalism and "diversity", and admit that one religion is more of a problem than another, instead of pretending that all religions are equally likely to inspire violence in their followers. No one can fight an enemy effectively if they are afraid to even name that enemy.

Next week: Moderate Islam - and why it doesn't exist to any significant degree