Monthly Stats

Race Relations had 42 hits this month. Of these, the majority were once again from the US and UK, although this month Canada, Slovakia and Argentina get special mentions.

As always, the most interesting part of this month's stats are the searches that led people to find the site. Easily the most searched-for keyword of late has been "anjem". I'm not sure what these people were looking for, but I'd assume that in searching for this they ended up finding this post, in which I linked to a video of British jihadist Anjem Choudary justifying terrorist attacks against innocent civilians. I also continue to be amazed by the amount of people who get here by searching for Muhammad's "raisin-head" quote. I had no idea it was that well-known.

One of the more bizarre search strings was "do radical muslims killed women", and one chap even got here by searching for "islam is vile". Not sure what that led him to since I have never said that here, but whatever it was I hope he enjoyed it.

And on a related note, I'd like to once again thank everyone who has visited the site and attempted to contribute. It is appreciated. I hope you will all come back again some time.

Also, I'll be gone again until the New Year, and will begin posting again in 2008. Happy New Year for the 1st, everyone, and make yourselves a resolution not to be racist or Islamophobic...

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?

Round-up

1. A newspaper cartoon comparing Barack Obama to a violent chimpanzee which was gunned down by police has sparked a race row in the U.S.

This is NOT racist, but the paper should have known better than to run this cartoon and create an unnecessarily bad reputation for themselves. I believe they should have been allowed to publish it; however, from their own point of view, it would have been better for them not to.

2. Melanie Phillips: "Our police were never guilty of 'institutional racism' and it's time this witch-hunt ended."

3. As Geert Wilders is banned from the country, look who's already here - not only Abu Qatadah, "bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe", who "issued a 1995 fatwa or religious edict justifying the killing of converts from Islam, their wives and children in Algeria...[and] [i]n a 1999 sermon he called for the killing of Jews and praised attacks on Americans," but also Anjem Choudary, who thinks non-Muslims are not innocent people and thus can be killed with impunity, and has recently argued that people who get drunk should be flogged.

But remember, Wilders is the real dangerous extremist.

Monthly Stats

Race Relations had a total of 75 unique hits this month. That's a new record. Of these, visitors from the States and the UK lead the way, but this month I also had a few hits from Canada, Jamaica, the United Arab Emirates, and others.

The search strings that have led people here have been doubly interesting. As usual, several people have found me by searching for Muhammad's raisin-head quote, which is proving to be extremely popular. I have also, bafflingly, had several hits from people searching for "Moomie Choudhury". I'm certain this will have led them to this post, in which I linked to a Youtube video starring Anjem Choudary. But who the hell is Moomie Choudhury? Interestingly, I also just today had a visitor from Finland who found Race Relations by searching for..."Finland". I dread to think how many pages he must have had to scroll through to get here. Is this site really one of the world's most popular sites with the word "Finland" in it?