C L O S E R

Protected: Niet voor Lonsdalers

Posted on March 31st, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Multiculti Issues, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Uncategorized.

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Tariq Ramadan: An International call for Moratorium on corporal punishment, stoning and the death penalty in the Islamic World

Posted on March 31st, 2005 by .
Categories: Important Publications, Internal Debates, Islam in the Netherlands.

In several European newspapers an article written by Tariq Ramadan today. In the Netherlands this article appeared in NRC Handelsblad called: Stop tijdelijk toepassing van shari’a.

Tariq Ramadan is very popular among many European young Muslims. His message to them, in short, is that they have no excuse for not behaving like and being a good Muslim in Europe. He is controversial because of, among other things, his vagueness about several items in the shari’a. This article can be seen as an attempt to clarify that position: he calls for a moratorium on applying the shari’a and for a discussion about the sources of the shari’a.

In the name of the scriptural sources, the Islamic teachings, and the contemporary Muslim conscience, statements must be made and decisions need to be taken.

[…]

we launch today a call for an immediate international moratorium on corporal punishment, stoning and the death penalty in all Muslim majority countries. Considering that the opinions of most scholars, regarding the comprehension of the texts and the application of hudûd, are neither explicit nor unanimous (indeed there is not even a clear majority), and bearing in mind that political systems and the state of the majority Muslim societies do not guarantee a just and equal treatment of individuals before the law, it is our moral obligation and religious responsibility to demand for the immediate suspension of the application of the hudûd which is inaccurately accepted as an application of “Islamic sharî’a”.
This call doubles itself with a series of basic questions addressed to the body of Islamic religious authorities of the world, whatever their tradition (sunnî or shî’î), their school of thought (hanâfî, mâlikî, ja’farî, etc.) or their tendencies (literalist, salafî, reformist, etc.)

or in Dutch:

Ik roep op tot een onmiddellijk moratorium in de islamitisch wereld in naam van de principes van de islam zelf.

Voor het Westen zijn lijfstraffen, steniging en doodstraf in naam van een religieuze verwijzing die aan een hele maatschappij wordt opgelegd niet aanvaardbaar: men moet deze praktijken zonder meer veroordelen.
De islamitische wereld geeft zeer tegenstrijdige signalen af: harde en definitieve veroordelingen komen van een kleine minderheid van intellectuelen of sociale en politieke actoren, terwijl bepaalde regeringen proberen hun `islamitische’ karakter te laten zien door de toepassing van deze repressieve praktijken.
Delen van de islamitische wereld (van Nigeria tot Maleisië) eisen strikte toepassing van de shari’a, terwijl de meeste ulema’s (islamitische schriftgeleerden – red.) verzekeren dat deze straffen `bijna nooit opgelegd kunnen worden’ (door op de vereiste voorwaarden te wijzen), maar zij vermijden zich daarover duidelijk uit te spreken (meestal om hun geloofwaardigheid bij de bevolking niet te verliezen).

(The article in the NRC is somewhat different from the original call).

On Ramadan’s website you can also find several comments already.
For the complete text in English and Dutch: (more…)

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Protected: Bevoogding werkt niet

Posted on March 31st, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Multiculti Issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

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Protected: Als de tsunami geen onderscheid maakt, waarom wij dan wel?

Posted on March 31st, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News, Religion Other.

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Protected: Moslimstudenten worstelen met evolutie

Posted on March 31st, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates, Islam in the Netherlands, Young Muslims.

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Prayer service led by women

Posted on March 30th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates.

The discussion about the prayer service led by Islamic studies professor Amina Wadud is not over. She led 80 to 100 men and women in Muslim prayer at a church in New York. Muslim clerics denounced her actions and some have suggested that it was part of a plot to corrupt Islam, which requires separate religious services for men and women. The Washington Times has a story on the “heightened state” of security at Virginia Commonwealth University. University spokeswoman Pamela Lepley said on Saturday that inflammatory comments on Internet forums discussing Miss Wadud’s actions and her views about the role of women in Islam “raise concerns.”

No specific threats have been made, but security is at a “heightened state,” Miss Lepley said. The university has consulted Virginia and federal agencies.
(more…)

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The Hunt for Zarqawi's Webmasters

Posted on March 30th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News, Religious and Political Radicalization.

MSNBC has an item taken from Newsweek on tracking down the operators of Islamic terrorist Web sites. This is like trying to locate a floating craps game: here today, gone tomorrow. During the past year, investigators in America and Europe watched as a business called 357Hosting, based near Utrecht, the Netherlands, became the officially registered Internet host for several notorious militant Islamic Web pages and bulletin boards, including sites that disseminated videos of beheadings of foreign hostages in Iraq and messages from Qaeda leader Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. The public prosecutor’s office in Utrecht tells NEWSWEEK that it has opened a criminal investigation into possible Internet hate crimes.

he says 357 would continue to host radical Web sites to promote “free speech” and to counter what the spokesman claims is excessive Jewish influence in the media.

(more…)

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The Hunt for Zarqawi’s Webmasters

Posted on March 30th, 2005 by .
Categories: Misc. News, Religious and Political Radicalization.

MSNBC has an item taken from Newsweek on tracking down the operators of Islamic terrorist Web sites. This is like trying to locate a floating craps game: here today, gone tomorrow. During the past year, investigators in America and Europe watched as a business called 357Hosting, based near Utrecht, the Netherlands, became the officially registered Internet host for several notorious militant Islamic Web pages and bulletin boards, including sites that disseminated videos of beheadings of foreign hostages in Iraq and messages from Qaeda leader Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. The public prosecutor’s office in Utrecht tells NEWSWEEK that it has opened a criminal investigation into possible Internet hate crimes.

he says 357 would continue to host radical Web sites to promote “free speech” and to counter what the spokesman claims is excessive Jewish influence in the media.

(more…)

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Protected: De grote vergissing…./3

Posted on March 28th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Islam in the Netherlands, My Research.

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Brand in de Bedirschool Uden

Posted on March 28th, 2005 by .
Categories: Misc. News, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues.

De brand in de Bedirschool in Uden was ��n van de ernstigste incidenten in de nasleep van de moord op Van Gogh. Gisteren is er in het nieuwe gebouw opnieuw brand geweest en er lijkt weer sprake van brandstichting:
Politie vindt fles in islamitische school Uden
Weer brandstichting Bedirschool Uden

2 comments.

Informed Comment: "The Schiavo Case and the Islamization of the Republican Party"

Posted on March 26th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News, Some personal considerations.

I did not expect to write about the Schiavo Case but I came across an interesting entry on Informed Comment: The Schiavo Case and the Islamization of the Republican Party

On his blog Juan Cole states:

The cynical use by the US Republican Party of the Terri Schiavo case repeats, whether deliberately or accidentally, the tactics of Muslim fundamentalists and theocrats in places like Egypt and Pakistan. These tactics involve a disturbing tendency to make private, intimate decisions matters of public interest and then to bring the courts and the legislature to bear on them. President George W. Bush and Republican congressional leaders like Tom Delay have taken us one step closer to theocracy on the Muslim Brotherhood model.

What does he mean by that? Well the following:

The Muslim fundamentalists use a provision of Islamic law called “bringing to account” (hisba). As Al-Ahram weekly notes, “Hisba signifies a case filed by an individual on behalf of society when the plaintiff feels that great harm has been done to religion.” Hisba is a medieval idea that had all but lapsed when the fundamentalists brought it back in the 1970s and 1980s.

He is using the case of Abu Zaid (who is now living with his wife in Leiden, The Netherlands, and teaching there at Leiden University.

In this practice, any individual can use the courts to intervene in the private lives of others. Among the more famous cases of such interference is that of Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid in Egypt. A respected modern scholar of Koranic studies, Abu Zaid argued that, contrary to medieval interpretations of Islamic law, women and men should receive equal inheritance shares. (Medieval Islamic law granted women only half the inheritance shares of their brothers). Abu Zaid was accused of sacrilege. Then the allegation of sacrilege was used as a basis on which the fundamentalists sought to have the courts forcibly divorce him from his wife.

Abu Zaid’s wife loved her husband. She did not want to be divorced. But the fundamentalists went before the court and said, she is a Muslim, and he is an infidel, and no Muslim woman may be married to an infidel. They represented their efforts as being on behalf of the Islamic religion, which had an interest in seeing to it that heretics like Abu Zaid could not remain married to a Muslim woman. In 1995 the hisba court actually found against them. They fled to Europe, and ultimately settled in Holland.

What does this have to do with the Schiavo Case? Cole continues:

One of the most objectionable features of this fundamentalist tactic is that persons without standing can interfere in private affairs. Perfect strangers can file a case about your marriage, because they represent themselves as defending a public interest (the upholding of religion and morality).

And:

But the most frightening thing about the entire affair is that public figures like congressmen inserted themselves into the case in order to uphold religious strictures. The lawyer arguing against the husband let the cat out of the bag, as reported by the NYT: ‘ The lawyer, David Gibbs, also said Ms. Schiavo’s religious beliefs as a Roman Catholic were being infringed because Pope John Paul II has deemed it unacceptable for Catholics to refuse food and water. “We are now in a position where a court has ordered her to disobey her church and even jeopardize her eternal soul,” Mr. Gibbs said. ‘

In other words, the United States Congress acted in part on behalf of the Roman Catholic church. Both of these public bodies interfered in the private affairs of the Schiavos, just as the fundamentalist Egyptian, Nabih El-Wahsh, tried to interfere in the marriage of Nawal El Saadawi.

Like many of his fundamentalist counterparts in the Middle East, Tom Delay [Republican congressional leader, MdK] is rather cynically using this issue to divert attention from his own corruption. Like the Muslim fundamentalist manipulators of Hisba, Delay represents himself as acting on behalf of a higher cause. He said of the case over the weekend, ‘ “This is not a political issue. This is life and death,” ‘

Needless to say that Cole is not happy about this development:

Republican Hisba will have the same effect in the United States that it does in the Middle East. It will reduce the rights of the individual in favor of the rights of religious and political elites to control individuals. Ayatollah Delay isn’t different from his counterparts in Iran.

I’m not sure wether this comparison between islamic fundamentalists and the republicans isn’t a little bit over the top. For example Cole refers to the Catholic Church and states that Congress is acting on behalf of that church. This seems a little bit strange to me because what does this actually mean? That the lawyer of Terry’s parents is appointed by the Catholic Church or that the Catholic Church has ‘hired’ Congress. Perhaps the lawyer, the church and Congress have the same opinions on this case but this does not necessarily mean that they act on behalf of eachother. And is it a problem if they have the same opinions? See also the criticism of Ex Post on this point. Another issue of course is that we have to distinguish between the courts interference and the interference of the Congress. Cole says that the Republicans have embraced the Muslim fundamentalist practice of “using the courts to intervene in the private lives of others.” The courts interference seems to be necessary in this story just like in the Netherlands there has to be some kind of control by the public prosecutor in cases of euthanasia. I don’t think the practice in the US is that much different (or is it?). What Congress has done is expanding the possibilities for the courts to intervene, not deciding what the court has to rule. This is truly different compared to the fundamentalist case in Egypt. See more on this point at PowerLine.

But then again it is remarkable how policitians intervene in this single case. It seems to me that it is remarkable how politicians can intervene in a persons private life. Unless of course, and it is more or less framed like this, the question of life and death isn’t a private issue but a public issue. Like for example among some Muslim groups the reputation of a woman is not a private matter, but a cause for concern for the whole group. The whole group, or American nation, is at stake here. But what is striking then, that these politicians have made a law based on a single case and that they intervene directly in this case. While, i could be wrong, I thought that you made laws about a general development after several cases appeared. This law cannot be attributed to those cases anymore but it can for future cases. This of course, again I could be wrong, has to do with the trias politica: Separation of powers. The idea that the powers of a sovereign government should be split between two or more strongly independent entities, preventing any one person or group from gaining too much power. This adds even more to my confusion because I was taught at school (yes a while ago) that the US was probably the strongest example of this separation of powers. So a possible weakening of the trias politica, an increasing influence of religion on politics (weakening the separation of church and state) and a private issue that is politicized and becoming a group-issue, that indeed sounds a little bit what the fundamentalists among the Muslims want. Maybe the comparison is not that bad at all.

At the same time of course there is a problem because Terry Schiavo hasn’t got anything on writing that states she refuses to live like this. Euthanasia has to be with explicit consent of the person in question and that is not the case here. So what to do?

1 comment.

Informed Comment: “The Schiavo Case and the Islamization of the Republican Party”

Posted on March 26th, 2005 by .
Categories: Misc. News, Some personal considerations.

I did not expect to write about the Schiavo Case but I came across an interesting entry on Informed Comment: The Schiavo Case and the Islamization of the Republican Party

On his blog Juan Cole states:

The cynical use by the US Republican Party of the Terri Schiavo case repeats, whether deliberately or accidentally, the tactics of Muslim fundamentalists and theocrats in places like Egypt and Pakistan. These tactics involve a disturbing tendency to make private, intimate decisions matters of public interest and then to bring the courts and the legislature to bear on them. President George W. Bush and Republican congressional leaders like Tom Delay have taken us one step closer to theocracy on the Muslim Brotherhood model.

What does he mean by that? Well the following:

The Muslim fundamentalists use a provision of Islamic law called “bringing to account” (hisba). As Al-Ahram weekly notes, “Hisba signifies a case filed by an individual on behalf of society when the plaintiff feels that great harm has been done to religion.” Hisba is a medieval idea that had all but lapsed when the fundamentalists brought it back in the 1970s and 1980s.

He is using the case of Abu Zaid (who is now living with his wife in Leiden, The Netherlands, and teaching there at Leiden University.

In this practice, any individual can use the courts to intervene in the private lives of others. Among the more famous cases of such interference is that of Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid in Egypt. A respected modern scholar of Koranic studies, Abu Zaid argued that, contrary to medieval interpretations of Islamic law, women and men should receive equal inheritance shares. (Medieval Islamic law granted women only half the inheritance shares of their brothers). Abu Zaid was accused of sacrilege. Then the allegation of sacrilege was used as a basis on which the fundamentalists sought to have the courts forcibly divorce him from his wife.

Abu Zaid’s wife loved her husband. She did not want to be divorced. But the fundamentalists went before the court and said, she is a Muslim, and he is an infidel, and no Muslim woman may be married to an infidel. They represented their efforts as being on behalf of the Islamic religion, which had an interest in seeing to it that heretics like Abu Zaid could not remain married to a Muslim woman. In 1995 the hisba court actually found against them. They fled to Europe, and ultimately settled in Holland.

What does this have to do with the Schiavo Case? Cole continues:

One of the most objectionable features of this fundamentalist tactic is that persons without standing can interfere in private affairs. Perfect strangers can file a case about your marriage, because they represent themselves as defending a public interest (the upholding of religion and morality).

And:

But the most frightening thing about the entire affair is that public figures like congressmen inserted themselves into the case in order to uphold religious strictures. The lawyer arguing against the husband let the cat out of the bag, as reported by the NYT: ‘ The lawyer, David Gibbs, also said Ms. Schiavo’s religious beliefs as a Roman Catholic were being infringed because Pope John Paul II has deemed it unacceptable for Catholics to refuse food and water. “We are now in a position where a court has ordered her to disobey her church and even jeopardize her eternal soul,” Mr. Gibbs said. ‘

In other words, the United States Congress acted in part on behalf of the Roman Catholic church. Both of these public bodies interfered in the private affairs of the Schiavos, just as the fundamentalist Egyptian, Nabih El-Wahsh, tried to interfere in the marriage of Nawal El Saadawi.

Like many of his fundamentalist counterparts in the Middle East, Tom Delay [Republican congressional leader, MdK] is rather cynically using this issue to divert attention from his own corruption. Like the Muslim fundamentalist manipulators of Hisba, Delay represents himself as acting on behalf of a higher cause. He said of the case over the weekend, ‘ “This is not a political issue. This is life and death,” ‘

Needless to say that Cole is not happy about this development:

Republican Hisba will have the same effect in the United States that it does in the Middle East. It will reduce the rights of the individual in favor of the rights of religious and political elites to control individuals. Ayatollah Delay isn’t different from his counterparts in Iran.

I’m not sure wether this comparison between islamic fundamentalists and the republicans isn’t a little bit over the top. For example Cole refers to the Catholic Church and states that Congress is acting on behalf of that church. This seems a little bit strange to me because what does this actually mean? That the lawyer of Terry’s parents is appointed by the Catholic Church or that the Catholic Church has ‘hired’ Congress. Perhaps the lawyer, the church and Congress have the same opinions on this case but this does not necessarily mean that they act on behalf of eachother. And is it a problem if they have the same opinions? See also the criticism of Ex Post on this point. Another issue of course is that we have to distinguish between the courts interference and the interference of the Congress. Cole says that the Republicans have embraced the Muslim fundamentalist practice of “using the courts to intervene in the private lives of others.” The courts interference seems to be necessary in this story just like in the Netherlands there has to be some kind of control by the public prosecutor in cases of euthanasia. I don’t think the practice in the US is that much different (or is it?). What Congress has done is expanding the possibilities for the courts to intervene, not deciding what the court has to rule. This is truly different compared to the fundamentalist case in Egypt. See more on this point at PowerLine.

But then again it is remarkable how policitians intervene in this single case. It seems to me that it is remarkable how politicians can intervene in a persons private life. Unless of course, and it is more or less framed like this, the question of life and death isn’t a private issue but a public issue. Like for example among some Muslim groups the reputation of a woman is not a private matter, but a cause for concern for the whole group. The whole group, or American nation, is at stake here. But what is striking then, that these politicians have made a law based on a single case and that they intervene directly in this case. While, i could be wrong, I thought that you made laws about a general development after several cases appeared. This law cannot be attributed to those cases anymore but it can for future cases. This of course, again I could be wrong, has to do with the trias politica: Separation of powers. The idea that the powers of a sovereign government should be split between two or more strongly independent entities, preventing any one person or group from gaining too much power. This adds even more to my confusion because I was taught at school (yes a while ago) that the US was probably the strongest example of this separation of powers. So a possible weakening of the trias politica, an increasing influence of religion on politics (weakening the separation of church and state) and a private issue that is politicized and becoming a group-issue, that indeed sounds a little bit what the fundamentalists among the Muslims want. Maybe the comparison is not that bad at all.

At the same time of course there is a problem because Terry Schiavo hasn’t got anything on writing that states she refuses to live like this. Euthanasia has to be with explicit consent of the person in question and that is not the case here. So what to do?

1 comment.

Protected: Goudsche Courant – Oosterwei is overlast jeugd beu

Posted on March 26th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Gouda Issues, Young Muslims.

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Protected: Er is leven, er is leven na de dood

Posted on March 26th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Islam in the Netherlands, Multiculti Issues, Religion Other.

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Protected: Trouw, nieuws & achtergronden – Joodse viering Poerimfeest

Posted on March 26th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Religion Other.

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Protected: Hindoestanen vieren Holi Phagua-feest – telegraaf.nl [Binnenland]

Posted on March 26th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Religion Other.

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Protected: nu.nl/algemeen | Bedreiger Geert Wilders opnieuw opgepakt

Posted on March 26th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

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Protected: nu.nl/algemeen | Bedreiger Geert Wilders opnieuw opgepakt

Posted on March 26th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

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DHC-Records.tk

Posted on March 25th, 2005 by .
Categories: Misc. News, Youth culture (as a practice).

Soms is het maar goed dat je een kleine slag om de arm houd zoals hieronder met de entry over Den Haag Connections. Ik geef toe het is een kleine slag om de arm en ik heb geen check en doublecheck toegepast.

De heren van DHC ontkennen nu dat de website DHC-Records.tk van hen is. Volkomenkut.com vertrouwd het nog niet helemaal:

Wel heel vreemd dat de nieuwste DHC raps op die site stonden. Hoe zouden ze daar aan gekomen zijn?

NOu ja dat is niet zo moeilijk denk ik. Op straatrap.tk staan ze ook immers. Of was dat later dan?

6 comments.

Protected: Kabinet wil versterking weerbaarheid tegen radicalisering

Posted on March 25th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

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Protected: Marokkaans-Nederlandse jongeren in Eindhoven

Posted on March 25th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Multiculti Issues.

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islamicate: PAMF

Posted on March 23rd, 2005 by .
Categories: Some personal considerations.

PAMF looks like one of those words in comics. One superhero hits the superbadguy and according to this textballoon the sounds goes like PAMF! or something. islamicate has an entry on Punk A$$ Mo Fo (does this need any translation into Dutch?) and he refers to my post on hoodlums. For some sort of reason ‘hoodlums’ sounds to me as if it is a word from the era of Charles Dickens. PAMF is more modern of course. In reference to my post on hoodlums Islamicate talks about counteridentity (the post was about the ‘Muslim Boys’) and states that a counteridentity is OBL’s point. It probably is for a large part. The way OBL frames the west (and Islamicate shows this quite good actually) he means he himself is the opposite without explicitly mentioning it. That is smart, this way your own identity remains self-evident. You don’t want to think too much about your own identity of course. It may lead to doubts or even worse…more or less the same is done (but in the opposite manner) by the islam-bashers.

0 comments.

Den Haag Connections

Posted on March 23rd, 2005 by .
Categories: Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

Volgens Volkomenkut.com hebben de DHC=ers vandaag hun nieuwe website gelanceerd met hun eigen DHC Gastenboek

Ze zouden op deze site opnieuw Hirsi Ali bedreigen. Ik kan de site nu even niet (meer) bereiken.
Elsevier.nl – in het artikel ‘Bedreigers Hirsi Ali blijken hardleers’ heeft het bewuste plaatje:

Eerdere logs over DHC:’
Bijdrage aan het integratiedebat of scheldkanonnade? Werkstraf voor DHC rappers �Hirsi Ali-diss��
Worker order for DHC-rappers who dissed Hirsi Ali

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Samir A. faces seven years

Posted on March 23rd, 2005 by .
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

Expatica – Living in, moving to, or working in the Netherlands, plus Dutch news in English
AMSTERDAM � An 18-year-old man accused of planning terror attacks in the Netherlands heard the public prosecutor demand a seven-year jail term in Rotterdam Court on Wednesday.

Samir A. is accused of planning attacks against the Dutch Parliament, Defence Ministry, the Borssele nuclear reactor, Schiphol Airport and the offices of security service AIVD in Leidschendam.

There are 12 suspected members of the group being held on remand. Police are working to establish if they can be linked to the November 2004 murder of Theo van Gogh. Alleged Islamic militant Mohammed B. has been arrested for the killing and detectives believe he was linked to the Hofstadgroep.

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Protected: Onderzoeksjournaliste Hind Fraihi in Het Nieuwsblad: Molenbeek als kweekvijver voor extremisme / 4

Posted on March 17th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

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