Closing the week 1 – Featuring Contested Islamization
Most popular on Closer this week
- Fitna – Analyse van de politieke propaganda
- Iraanse Rechtspraak of Hosselen
- Islamizing Europe – Muslim Demographics
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Featuring Contested Islamization
The church fights back against Islamification – Telegraph
We have had to wait decades for this moment, but it has finally happened. A leading British clergyman has said something sensible about immigration.
Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, this week signed a declaration by the Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration calling for an urgent tightening of borders to stop the British population reaching 70 million by 2029. He also gave an interview yesterday in which he called for a tougher Church. “We Christians are very often so soft that we allow other people to walk over us, and we are not as tough in what we want, in expressing our beliefs, because we do not want to upset other people,” he said.
Migration threatens the DNA of our nation | George Carey – Times Online
The sheer numbers of migrants from within Europe and elsewhere put the resources of Britain under enormous pressure, but also threaten the very ethos or DNA of our nation.
Cardinal says Christian Europe is to blame for Islamisation – Telegraph
“The Muslims definitely have many reasons to be heading here. They also have a religious one – to bring the spiritual values of faith in God to the pagan environment of Europe, to its atheistic style of life.
“Unless the Christians wake up, life may be Islamised and Christianity will not have the strength to imprint its character on the life of people, not to say society.”
Universities don’t create extremists | Sunny Hundal | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
The attempted terrorist attack on 24 December has brought out a familiar line from the previously subdued neocons: British universities are to blame. The Telegraph’s foreign editor Con Coughlin led the attack last week by thundering over the fact that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was “allowed to be elected” president of the Islamic Society at UCL
Assoluta Tranquillita: The threat of Islam: The days are short
Geert Wilders is a Dutch Member of Parliament who has been vilified for his views on the very real, insidious, threat of Islam. He was banned from Britain last year. What follows is a speech he gave a speech in the US. Some may call Wilders an alarmist, but daily reports of terrorist acts thwarted around the world strongly support his position.
Will America Be The Last Man Standing? | Bible-Religion.com
This email is being sent so that you can consider Geert Wilders’ speech and its content and become more aware of the atmosphere in Europe and the possible cost to America. As Christians we do not want to give way to fear or rash reaction, only to be alert and use our great, powerful, and spiritual weapons. These weapons include prayer, faith, a knowledge of our salvation and the word of God, and most importantly, knowing the Mighty Lord and God that we represent and serve.
The Salvation of our ‘enemies’ is the best outcome.
A look into the future? The Danish Civil War
In a pattern seen in the UK after the 7/7 bombings there, Muslim groups became more confident than ever in pressing their demands for concessions of various sorts. Insisting that, however terrible the bombings might have been, they would not stop until Muslims felt their grievances against the Danish state had been addressed, Muslim advocacy groups pushed forward with a series of initiatives designed to drive foreign and domestic policies in directions considered more amenable to Islamic mores.
In response to these challenges, the Danish government adopted a policy of granting key concessions in what can only be considered an attempt at appeasement. During this initiative, which lasted from early 2009 until July 2012, the Danish government introduced a raft of measures to try to placate Muslim opinion in Denmark.
Europe’s looming demise – Washington Times
“Islamophobia,” “discrimination” and “racism” are all terms Muslims in Europe and America use to confuse people into thinking that the perpetrators of Islamic terrorism are the real victims. And it is working: Mr. Wilders is going on trial in the Netherlands, instead of all the Islamic hate sponsors he is fighting against. It has to be this way, to increase harmony among the Muslim and non-Muslim member states of the Euro-Med Partnership.
This internationalism is already destroying what has made Europe free and great. And now Mr. Obama seems to want to do the same to America.
While Europe Sneered by Bruce Bawer, City Journal 5 January 2010
Hege suggested that if all the influential newspapers in Europe had published the Danish cartoons, “it would have been much more difficult to build up the increasingly brutal climate we see now all over Europe: the fact that people are not just the subjects of attacks, and of attempted murder, but are denied virtually all personal freedom in their daily lives, so that Westergaard cannot set foot outside his home without the police on his heels, just as Robert Redeker is living underground in the homeland of Voltaire.” And she asked: “Will Europe manage to set its foot down strongly enough . . . that there will be no doubt that the continent never will give up its founding values? Or will the commentariat and political elite continue to give way, inch by inch . . . ?” Any of us, she warned, can end up a Kurt Westergaard if we dare to speak our minds. But don’t tell that to the “experts” at Foreign Policy.
What the “Eurabia” Authors Get Wrong About Islam in Europe – By Justin Vaïsse | Foreign Policy
By 2050, Europe will be unrecognizable. Instead of romantic cafes, Paris’s Boulevard Saint-Germain will be lined with halal butcheries and hookah bars; the street signs in Berlin will be written in Turkish. School-children from Oslo to Naples will read Quranic verses in class, and women will be veiled.
At least, that’s what the authors of the strange new genre of “Eurabia” literature want you to believe. Not all books of this alarmist Europe-is-dying category, which received its most intellectually hefty treatment yet with the recent release of Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, offer such dire and colorful predictions. But they all make the case that low fertility rates among natives, massive immigration from Muslim countries, and the fateful encounter between an assertive Islamic culture and a self-effacing European one will lead to a Europe devoid of all Western identity.
Gender politics
Sex and the city of Beirut – Books – Entertainment – theage.com.au
JOUMANA Haddad, the Lebanese poet, author and critic, recently had a tattoo of a tulip imprinted on the lowest section of her back. She pulls down her waistband to indicate the area in question. ”My kids and my partner, they are not shocked that I have a tattoo, but by the fact that the guy tattooed my arse.” She roars with laughter.
Mideast Youth – Thinking Ahead » Iraqi women: A story of unjustice through decades
The Arab communities and even non-Arab Islamic had left us a legacy of customs and traditions against the female, and had subsequently generated a series of consequences of the process of discrimination between human beings on the basis of gender, ie, discrimination between women and men because of masculinity and femininity, both in pregnancy, adoption or name. The division went further to roles in jobs and to benefit from civil and political rights.
A new frontier in civil liberties — The Dawn Blog » Blog Archive
Transgender rights represent a relatively new frontier in civil liberties activism. In Pakistan, eunuchs have historically been disregarded and marginalised by mainstream issue advocates. The discriminations against eunuchs reveal our petty-bourgeois mentality that is mostly reluctant to recognise gender deviance.
AFP: French draft bill to fine burqa-wearing women
French draft bill to fine burqa-wearing women
(AFP) – 1 day ago
PARIS — Muslim women who wear the full Islamic veil in France will face a possible 750-euro (1,000-dollar) fine, according to a draft bill unveiled Thursday by the leader of the parliamentary majority.
Muslims have the right to be free and equal but what they do not have the right to do is promote practices that violate the fundamentals of good societies anywhere, not just in the West.
The use of the burka has grown like a virus across the continent. Children as young as four are now dressed in hijab. It is time for us as a continent to rethink a garment which is more a statement about the position of women and the threat of men who apparently cannot control themselves if they see a woman’s face, hair, hand or ankles, than an item of clothing. It also physically cuts women off from other citizens. Last autumn I was in Canada, a very free and equal society, and saw not a single burka.
The Mythical European Umma : Muslim Media Network
Most projections that foresee a massive increase in Europe’s Muslim population are based on certain assumptions which are hard to justify. They assume that recent immigration trends will continue indefinitely for decades to come, but this is unlikely as Europe continuously raises the immigration bar for non-EU citizens, and it is not far-fetched to expect that many European countries may call a halt to immigration or draw their future immigrants from certain more “desirable” countries. The projections also assume that European Muslims will continue to have a significantly higher fertility rate than the population at large. But evidence suggests that the fertility rates of Muslim women are gradually converging with those of the wider population. And there are signs that the fertility rate among the white population of some European countries, such as France, is recovering.
France moves to outlaw the burka and niqab citing égalité – Europe, World – The Independent
The parliamentary leader of the ruling French party is to put forward a draft law within two weeks to ban the full-body veil from French streets and all other public places.
Muslim veil will not be banned in Zurich schools. – swissinfo
Veil will not be banned in Zurich schools
Zurich cantonal authorities have decided not to ban the wearing of veils in schools during the Muslim month of Ramadan.
Hamas encourages Gaza women to follow Islamic code _English_Xinhua
Aya Rachi, a 11-year-old girl from Gaza, did not pay much attention to the female preacher’s speech. Wearing a worn-out sweater, she seems to be only interested in receiving robes and headscarf for free.
“I want to receive a veil just like all the other girls, and I will wear a Hijab (headscarf) with it,” said Rachi, one of the girls and women who get veils and robes for free under the Hamas Islamic veil project.
A Muslim woman’s battle against American bigotry – The National Newspaper
Fatima Shama worries about a rising climate of bigotry directed towards American Muslims. As New York’s commissioner for immigrant affairs, her job is to oversee the welfare of the city’s 2.9 million immigrants, but as a Muslim herself, she is particularly aware of the plight of her co-religionists.
Recent events such as the Fort Hood shootings by an American-Muslim doctor and the failed Christmas Day attempt to blow up a US airliner by a Nigerian Muslim have again shifted the focus on to Muslims. Many are concerned that the trial expected in the next year or so of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, accused of masterminding the attacks of September 11, could lead to greater persecution and hate crimes.
AFP: Egypt court upholds niqab ban
Egypt court upholds niqab ban
(AFP) – 5 days ago
CAIRO — An Egyptian court on Sunday upheld a ruling by the education ministry to ban women from wearing the full face veil in university examination halls, judicial sources said.
The ministry took the decision in October to ban the niqab, a veil covering the entire face usually worn by devout Muslims, for security reasons.
Last month, the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) , which has been called the Arab Booker, announced their short list for the 2010 award. Although the recognition of Arab literary accomplishments is of course great, you can imagine my disappointment when I learned that only one woman was shortlisted for the prestigious prize this year, and that the same has been happening since the inception of the prize in 2007. Here are the nominees (female gets the gold star asterisk for making the cut):
Muhammad Al Mansi Qindeel – A Cloudy Day on the West Side
*Mansoura Ez Eidin – Beyond Paradise
Rabee Jabir – America
Abdo Khal – She Throws Sparks
Raba’l Madhoun -The Lady From Tel Aviv
Jamal Naji – When The Wolves Grow OldThe lack of female representation on this list is surprising considering how many great, contemporary, female, Arab authors are out there. The Beirut39, for example, shortlisted 12 females during their selection of the 39 best Arab writers under the age of 39. So what’s going on, IPAF?
Anthropology
Why Do They Do It? Portrayals of Alcohol on Facebook and MySpace « Neuroanthropology
Why do they do it? Why do otherwise smart and savvy college and high school student post photos of themselves drinking and partying on Facebook and MySpace? To the right is just one. There are many more, some of them a lot more, um… revealing than this one.
Is essentialism restricted to humans, or does it also occur in other species? Obviously, the experimental procedures I just discussed all rely on language, so experimental design should be radically adapted to probe psychological essentialism in other animalleibniz3s.
In Harmonium » Real Cultural Relativism isn’t warm and fuzzy
A friend and colleague over at the SWC, Beezebubalicious (what a handle!), just posted a link to a BBC story on the rise of human sacrifice in Uganda. What sparked some of my interest was that he said he found this “hard to understand from a cultural (or a relativist) point of view.” Why?
Making Sense of Sudan » Blog Archive » “Making Sense of Sudan”
On the eve of the fifth anniversary of the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and one year before the scheduled date of the referendum on unity or secession in southern Sudan, this blog is renamed “Making Sense of Sudan.” This reflects both the way in which the center of gravity of Sudan’s problems has shifted to the CPA rather than Darfur, and the fact that the Darfur crisis was, all along, the Sudanese national crisis as manifest in Darfur.
Misc.
2009 in Review: The European Muslim Perspective
In recent times Europe has generally been seen as a successful melting pot of cultures, communities and faiths. But is this really the case in 2009?
It Hit Home: Netherlands Politics Update 2010
Politics in the Netherlands is complicated, really a world of its own. It’s when I try to write something in English about it, I realize it’s not that easy to communicate about it without losing nuance and context. Regardless, there are three important developments that may change the relative quietness as of late:
Privacy vs. Security: How to draw the line
A national Muslim civil rights group is asking the Transportation Security Administration for clarification on whether Muslim women wearing Islamic head scarves, or hijabs, will be singled out for additional security checks after a traveler said she was targeted for a “humiliating” full-body search at an airport Tuesday.
The noughties are defined by fakery | Hadley Freeman | Comment is free | The Guardian
Yet perhaps the most embarrassing, not to mention damaging, fakery has been the rise of “fake science”, which stems entirely from a fear of science and leads inexorably to no science at all.
CBC News – Canada – Attack on Canada, U.S is attack on Muslims: imams
A group of Canadian and U.S. Islamic leaders on Friday issued a fatwa, or religious edict, declaring that an attack by extremists on the two countries would constitute an attack on the 10 million Muslims living in North America.
The 20 imams associated with the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada said this marked the first fatwa by the Muslim clergy declaring attacks on Canada and the U.S. to be attacks on Muslims.
Dutch
FION-moskee in Slotervaart gefinancieerd door Qatar Foundation
FION-moskee in Slotervaart gefinancieerd door Qatar Foundation
De Qatar Foundation is de schenker van twee miljoen euro voor de bouw van een moskee in Slotervaart. Deze stichting financiert ook de leerstoel van Tariq Ramadan in Oxford. De omstreden sjeik Yusuf al Qaradawi speelt een hoofdrol in de religieuze onderwijstak van deze stichting. Moskeebouwer Yahia Bouyafa blijft desondanks ontkennen dat hij in een orthodox moslimnet zit.
Wereldjournalisten ‘Een Nederlandse islam, niet een islamitisch Nederland’
Yahia Bouyafa antwoordt op de suggestie in het Volkskrant-artikel van 21 december jl. dat hij een wolf in schaapskleren zou zijn en dat hij relaties onderhoudt met het Moslimbroederschap. Het artikel werpt de vraag op: Bouyafa lijkt zich in te zetten voor de Nederlandse moslims. Maar is dat ook zo?
Frontaal Naakt. Ongesluierde opinies, interviews & achtergronden » Zelfverdediging
Wanneer valt nou eindelijk eens het kwartje? Overal, waar Marokkanen wonen, is mot met de andere buurtbewoners. Dat komt door de opgroeiende zoons. Die krijgen door niemand een strobreed in de weg gelegd. Niet door hun ouders, niet door de buurtvaders, niet door de politie, niet door de overheid.
Wolven in schaapskleren – MSV-Blog
Het zal wel duidelijk zijn dat de zogenaamde integratie niet de belangen van de te integreren groep dient. Om maar een eufemisme te gebruiken: het is je reinste cultureel imperialisme. Het ‘integratieproces’ is vooral goed voor Nederlanders die niet kunnen verkroppen dat er andersdenkenden, -culturelen en -religieuzen in deze samenleving rondlopen.
Allochtonenweblog: Wolven in schaapskleren, een koekje van eigen deeg! (Nazima Shaikh)
Aangezien ik word weggezet als “meefeestende moslima op de Gay Parade” “ wolf in schaapskleren” en “huurlingen van de anti-Islambrigade” in ons land, hier mijn koekje van eigen deeg!
Ik houd van feestjes en als het goed is, is het elke dag een feest! Wolf in schaapskleren, ervaar ik als compliment.
De wolf kent een grote verscheidenheid aan expressies en geluiden. Het bekende huilen is vooral bedoeld om te communiceren over langere afstanden. Afhankelijk van de omstandigheden kunnen wolven het gehuil van andere wolven op afstanden van zes tot tien kilometer horen. Het afbakenen van het territorium, door middel van te urineren met een opgetilde achterpoot, is voorbehouden aan dominante dieren. De wolven begroeten anderen door onderwerping te laten zien, met neergeslagen ogen en een zacht gejank. Als wolven boos of bang zijn laten ze dat meestal zien met ontblote tanden en gegrom. Aldus Wikipedia.Prima dat jij mij bestempelt als Wolf, ik krijg meteen de associatie met Wolverine uit X-Men die het opneemt tegen het “Kwaad”. Daarnaast is acteur Hugh Jackman een lekker ding, oooh sorry dat mag ik natuurlijk niet zeggen, ik spoel mijn mond meteen!
Iemand die er ongevaarlijk uitziet, maar wel gevaarlijk is deze letterlijke vertaling laat ik aan jou en de jouwen van je clubbie! Maar bij mij is het nou net andersom, ik zie er gevaarlijk uit, maar ben ongevaarlijk….
Nu hoort u het ook eens van een moslim. En nu alsjeblieft nooit meer beweren dat moslims geen gevoel voor humor hebben. Wat is onze student toch eerlijk! Hij gaat nog even door over cultureel imperialisme en waarom de Nederlandse cultuur niet relevant is
Ik ben (g)een nieuwe Nederlander – Wij Blijven Hier!: Het schrijversplatform van moslims
Ik zal de ‘Nieuwe Nederlander’ daarom voorlopig in mijn vocabulaire opslaan, maar alleen tot we een beter alternatief hebben ontwikkeld, want ik blijf geen Nieuwe Nederlander.
nrc.nl – Buitenland – Koptische kerkleiding wil geen problemen
Kopten zijn vaak doelwit van geweld in Egypte, en bekeerlingen zijn al helemaal hun leven niet zeker. Maar de kerkleiding beschermt hen niet of nauwelijks.
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